Obama looses control part 3

Did the Attorney General of the United States call America a "nation of cowards?"

In the White House press briefing from earlier today, linked to in my previous post, just after the 26 minute mark, a reporter asked a question where he quoted our Attorney General.... let's say "Obama's Attorney General", as saying "on things racial, we are essentially a nation of cowards". Evidently this unbelievable comment was made several days ago.

Where is the outrage? Where is the story?? Why hasn't such an absurd comment been given air by the media. Unless of course, their job is to filter the news, and cover up loose cannons for the administration.

This guy is not a spokesperson for the president of Cuba, or Iran, or Venezuela. If he made such a hateful public statement about the country he is supposed to be Attorney General of, if his opinion of the people who pay his salary is so low that we are so despicable to him as to be cowards, then he should resign immediately.

Here is the exact quote: "Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and I believe continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards."

Where has this person been the last 45 years?? This is hate speech straight out of Jeremiah Wright's book of sermons. Probably what he really means is that he wants a different outcome in the race debate that American's have had, and that we continue to have. There are signs of bigotry in his statements, and someone who calls Americans cowards is probably very close to leveling that charge at one group of people above (or below) all others. Maybe there is one group that perhaps he feels haven't participated in the race debate to the extent that he thinks they should have. Because he's been waiting for some sort of apology. Some sort of "truth and reconcilliation".

I wonder if that commentary is frank enough for the AG.

Obama needs to tighten up this administration. The loose cannon quotient is off the scale just 1 month into his term. But the AG calling out his own country as a "country of cowards" is inexcusable. It doesn't matter what spin you come up with Mr. Obama, but Eric Holder must go. He is no longer qualified to hold any cabinet position for any American President.

Once again, Obama's top people and allies are completely out of control. Day by day, we see an underlying hatred for the rank and file people of the Untied States, and for the free market capitalist system, from Obama's top allies and cabinet members. Chris Dodd, Rahm Emanuel, and now AG Eric Holder, show us that with leaders like these, who needs enemies.

Obama looses control UPDATE

It seems a couple of hours after my last post, give or take, the administration moved to calm market fears, and mine, of a nationalization of the banking system. Not Obama directly, but White House spokesman Robert Gibbs, taking a break from attacking CNBC's Rick Santelli, said "This administration continues to strongly believe that a privately held banking system is the correct way to go, ensuring they are regulated sufficiently by this government. "

http://www.c-span.org/Watch/watch.aspx?MediaId=HP-A-15681

This statement caused large rebounds in the market before the close. The dow gained 200 points before closing back down 100. Bank of America closed about 33% higher than it's low for the day.

Markets can't be read well on an expiration day, the third Friday of each month. The real test of any statements will be next week. Does the Dow move above November's lows or not? That's the test for the market. The real test will be for Obama. He still needs to make a statement personally regarding his commitment to solving the banking problems within the confines of a private banking system. More importantly, he needs to grab Chris "Joe Biden" Dodd by the ear and muzzle him. We shouldn't hear the word "nationalization" leave Chris Dodd's lips... ever again.

Obama looses control of his party.

The market can yet crash, and Chris Dodd is doing everything possible to make it happen. Friday afternoon he makes comments on Bloomberg pushing the idea that nationalization of our nations banks is a real possibility, and big bank stocks started pushing to new lows. Remember, bank nationalization is a complete reversal of a free market economy. Haven't they learned anything from the lessons of Fannie and Freddie? If large bank stocks suddenly drop to zero, which is one of many effects of nationalization, then the American tax payers,are suddenly on hook for all they owe. We may owe money to some bank investors as well, possibly bond holders and maybe even preferred stock holders. Our accounts go from being insured by the government, to being deposits with the government.

I was always worried that congress would try to take over and nationalize the oil companies. Any nationalization is bad. Bank of America is protesting that they are profitable and have plenty of assets, and are in no danger of default. Does any of that matter to Chris Dodd? The last time there was a nationalization of an industry, and it railroads. It was such an unqualified disaster that nine months later all politicians were of a single mind when they dumped the companies back on the public. In nine months trains had gone from never running on time to never running.

The likely scenario would be nationalizing some of the larger banks but either way, until the administration says there will be no nationalization of banks, the stock market is in big trouble. If one happens, we could be looking at a drop of thousands on the Dow. This market was, in my opinion, ready to bottom, and it still could, but it will be held hostage by this controversy, and can only go down until someone like Geithner or Obama step up.

If we loose thousands of points in one day, it will have a shot of being the worst percentage down day in market history.

In the mean time, rumors that Rahm Emanual pushed through punitive measures toward wall street behind Obama's back, measure's that Obama was not entirely supportive of. Between Chris Dodd running the economy and Rahm E. running the White House, the nation may be at a precipice. It's time for Obama to take control of things. There needs to be a message this weekend that is very clear. No confusion nor vague generalizations to provide cover for an administration with several chiefs. That disqualifies Geithner as the messenger, it needs to come from Obama himself. No bank nationalizations. It must be taken completely off the table.

If that doesn't happen this weekend... watch out monday.

Earmarks to the Rescue

Now that congress has passed Obama's 800 gazillion dollar Earmark Stimulus plan, will Obama stop talking down the economy? My guess is he and the rest of the democrats have only yet begun to spend, so the answer is probably not. That's too bad. Eight years ago the media openly ridiculed Bush for speaking out loud about how bad the economy was before he took office. That was the word in DC back then.... don't say anything bad about the economy because if you scare people it only becomes worse. People stop spending, CEO's stop hiring, and the house of cards falls down.

Today that is happening, but now the media is cheering the scare mongers onward. The Great Depression 2 scare is going full steam, and the Scare Monger in Chief is Barack Obama. Between Obama's scare tactics and the mindless spending coming out of congress, well things are probably about to get worse. Amazingly, Obama has said that tax cuts didn't work to stimulate the economy. Many others in the media are echoing this line. So now the democrats and the media are pretending 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007 were all just a dream. Sadly this is a case where ignoring history will not lead to us repeating it. Too bad, because the economy was in great shape for most of this decade, thanks to tax cuts.

Before we have a depression, we need to have a really bad recession going, and that's where Obama has a problem. Right now this doesn't come close to 1982 or 1973-74. Much less the 1930's. During Hoover's term the economy dropped 35% from high to low, before it started recovering. Recovering while Hoover was still president I might add. So far, the Great Depression 2 has seen the economy drop by 1.1%. Yep... you might want to come in off that ledge. The Great Depression was 3000% worse than our current situation.

So how bad are things really. For a great comparison between now and the big bad recessions, neither of which came close to being a real depression, try this out for size: http://www.cnbc.com/id/29163654

In the mean time, sure this could be a bad recession. The last two were pretty mild, but they were fought off by real stimulus. This one is being met by the same wild out of control spending we saw when we saw our budget surplus of 1998 pop it's head out of it's mole hole, only to be whacked back to sleep by a money-drunken congress. But I digress.

When you hear a congressman say that wildly spending money will save us, that we are all Keynesian's now, well remember that Nixon was the last guy to say that and he gave us 1973-74. Also remember that Keynes insisted that the way to recovery was paying people to dig holes, and then paying people to fill the holes back in with dirt. When Nixon and Keynes are at bat, playing it play by play, maybe we'd better get back out on that ledge.

Geithner Followup

I ran across this this posting from Larry Kudlow with similar, though more diplomatic concerns about the new Treasury Chief.

I worry about posting links because they tend to disappear, so we'll see how long this lasts:

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/political_commentary/commentary_by_lawrence_kudlow/is_tim_geithner_ready_for_prime_time


In addition to questioning whether Geithner is ready for Prime Time, we get the revelation of who Geithner was really taking advice from when he watered down details from his plan. It seems the dog didn't eat his plan after all, it was his friends fom wall street.

Spiro Agnew phones it in

You may remember the former VP leaving office in 1973. You see, he pleaded guilty to not declaring $29,500 in income, and didn't pay taxes on that income. That used to be against the law, and politicians used to leave Washington when they got caught.

Today in the Obama "This time it's different" Era, politicians don't mess around with such trivial amounts of money. Tom Daschle stole, I mean "failed to pay", $120,000 in back taxes. That's not the income he failed to declare, that is the amount of taxes he has owed the American people. So Obama's new Socialized Health Care Czar decided, maybe that was a tad much. After much thinking, he decided to decline the appointment, for Obama's sake. Next stop prison?? Don't be silly, it's the new Obama Era. Daschle Obama-Friend is back doing what he was doing before, making and taking huge amounts of money as a lobbyist.

Along comes Tim Geithner. Former NY Fed chief. Now Geithner, it turns out, only owed $35,000 in back taxes. Again.... Agnew agreed to leave office because of failure to declare less than that in income. Geithner failed to pay tax bills over several years of $35,000, owed from his time at the IMF. Guess what else... the IMF payed Geitner that money so he wouldn't have to pay social security taxes out of his own pocket, but that money wasn't forwarded to the IRS.

The IMF compensated Geithner for his Social Security taxes owed to the IRS, Geithner pocketed this extra money as if it were a bonus, didn't even declare it as income, shades of Hillary, and then probably lied under oath to Congress about not realizing that he did the same things in 2001, 20002, 2003, and 2004. You know what Obama said? Geithner was too big to fail. Only Geithner can save the country from the next great depression. Geithner.... he's just sooooo smart!

Arguably one of the most corrupt presidencies in history, Richard Nixon's set ethical standards far exceeding those of Barak Obama's presidency with regard to all the president's men. Spiro Agnew resigned. Geithner, is welcomed to the fold as a hero.

Ironically, if that word applies to such a sad state of affairs, the heroic James Tiberious Geithner went on TV to tell America his little genius of a plan for saving our economy. It was such a sophomoric, generalizing speech that anyone could have given that the stock market just about crashed. Minute by minute, traders waited for the meat. The details of what the hero genius Geithner had planned. Especially after the speech had been delayed a day.... maybe the same dog that ate his tax returns also ate his recovery plan. So Geithner droned on with banal generalities, and the market crashed. Over 500 points from top to bottom. For days we had heard he would be proposing a fix to the "mark to market" accounting rules that in a very real way led to our current economic mess. Nothing.... nothing even close to that specific. In other words, there is no plan. In other words he's just guessing. He didn't finish his homework in time for class. The hero Geithner owed America a plan, and as usual Geithner didn't pay up. He phoned it in.

Note to Obama, I'd have someone double check Geithner's tax returns the next four years, cause he's still the same old fraud.

Obama accussed of failure to properly vet Richardson

Where is that headline? Can't find it? See... that headline criticizes the vetted, as well as the vettor. We did see this headline when the teenage pregnancy story broke after Sarah Palin was picked by McCain to be her running mate. The headline in that case was complete fiction, because McCain had been told about the pregnancy during vetting, and picked Palin anyway. Yet for weeks the story lines questioning John McCain's vetting process kept coming. The mythology once created, is treated as fact by news and entertainment media to this day.

In this case of course, well Bill Richardson was kind of an "odd" fit anyway. That's NBC's cover story. Evidently, according to NBC, he was just picked because he was Hispanic. Golly, I must have missed it last week when NBC was reporting that!

All of the discussion will be about Bill Richardson. This morning Obama gave a press conference with Nancy Pelosi on unrelated issues, but no questions were allowed. I didn't even hear questions shouted out to Obama. My... the press is so well mannered around him. The press may ask Obama, later today, about his vetting process. If they do, it will be only to put their own stamp of approval on it. There will be no lingering questions about Obama's vetting process.

I guess this is prediction #3 for 2009.