The Buck Stops There

So up until now, Obama has done pretty good with the buck stops here crowd, whoever they are. That ended with the about face on trying to prosecute Bush administration officials. Now afraid to evoke the wrath of the left, he has thrown his own Attorney General under the bus, and washed his hands of responsibility.

Originally Obama says that there will be no prosecutions. Then the torture memo's are released, wildly misreported, and Obama says there will be no prosecutions. Then the angry left catches rabies, and Obama says.... well, what I meant by not prosecuting anyone is just that "I" will not prosecute. My Attorney General might though. Smile for the camera.

Wildly misreported you say? Well yes, but I cover that in the post following this one. Suffice to say three people were water boarded. The last water boarding took place in 2003. Thousands of lives in LA may have been saved.

Back to the subject at hand, allegedly, a president has never attempted prosecution of a previous president's administration. Even Nixon and Clinton's administrations were left alone, though there were plenty of prosecutions and convictions while they were both still president. This would be the first time. The question Obama needs to be asking is, will his passing of the buck open the door to many more to follow, as president after president tries to exact a share of revenge for their followers, taken out of the hide of the opposing party previously in power.

Obama's calculating enough to know this can only go so far. His public needs some red meat, so expect after a few weeks some new bone thrown to the left to get them off their current fever. Right now, according to Rasmussen, 58% of the public is unhappy with his decision to release the memo's, and you can bet that plurality is not lost on him. So the left is mad that he hasn't already started trials, and the right and center are questioning just whose side is he on. Some political acrobatics may be called for to get the left off chasing something else while at the same time putting the middle at ease that he is in fact on their side.

Add into the equation that he has, in the past, left the door open for his own administration to use harsh questioning techniques. Even though he has recast the War on Terror as a police action, Obama is not one to restrict the potential activities of his own administration. Remember that "Torture", as defined by the media, is not just water boarding. Serving bland food is also "Torture". I'm not kidding.

So chalk up two tactical errors for Obama. Letting the memos out was one. Now he has to somehow deal with the left's faux outrage, as if we just learned about water boarding for the first time, while pirouetting to assure the center that sanity will prevail. The second was turning this over to his Attorney General. So much for sanity. Many people are unaware of the Attorney General's previous statements calling Americans "cowards". Statement's he has made recently, since becoming Attorney General. The media covered that up, keeping it from blowing up in Obama's face, but this is an AG who needs to keep a low profile for awhile. Giving the AG such a high profile decision, welcomes a second chance for the AG's absurd statements to become part of the discussion.

After bending to his supporters, and then passing the buck to his AG, the next step in the ballet will be to throw a new bone to the left that doesn't offend the center so much. Then his AG will be instructed to keep mum, and see if the flames can be brought back down to a low setting. Eventually a position paper will be issued saying that water boarding is bad, but no clear violation of laws were broken, which is correct by the way, and we (they) are putting this dark period in American history behind us (ie- the saving of thousands of lives in Los Angeles).

Let the ballet begin.

No Virginia, Conservative Americans are NOT Entitled to their own opinions

What a bazaar and dishonest controversy to suddenly surface. One of the runnerup's for Miss America was given a question during the pageant about gay marriage. Her answer reflected her beliefs, which is that marriage is between a man and a woman. That's the short version. Afterward, several people involved have said that the answer "cost her the crown". Not because she stammered, added dozens of nervous words that rendered her sentences incomprehensible, or even the use of the word "uh". Nope... It cost her the crown because her answer was "wrong". One judge and former Miss USA said that she should have given a politically neutral answer rather than the offensive answer. The judge who asked the question has gone public since then denouncing her by using gender specific derogatory descriptions, which no one in the news media has noticed is blatantly sexist.

The Judge's name is Perez Hilton, a celebrity blogger. A typical close minded angry liberal who takes instant and nearly violent offense at anything another American says that he disagrees with. He has openly admitted that had she won, he would have raced out on the stage and physically removed the crown from her head. When a fascist finds his beliefs challenged, violence is always an acceptable reaction. "Any means necessary". That's one of the ways you can tell the difference between fascists, and say... the rest of us.

Of course today, who can tell what people really believe. Someone takes on Miss America, or a runnerup, and the more noise they make, the more extreme they are, the more airtime they get. All though he talks like an angry liberal, he looks like one happy cherub on the Today Show. Matt Lauer takes 2-3 minutes with Hilton, but avoids asking the obvious question... in fact the only question that should have been asked: what would Hilton's reaction have been if she had answered with the equally polarizing "I support gay marriage"? Would he have been equally offended, or would he and the rest of the judges danced around the stage singing HosanaHosana.

Okay, sorry, that's Jesus Christ Superstar reference, which recently appeared on Hulu.com.

Back to the controversy, the "B-word" and "C-word" references he has given in other diatribes on TV seemed the emotional reactions of an angry hate filled person. I think he was not being that honest later on the Today Show. Matt Lauer just accepted Hilton's new Today Show persona, without confronting him. The newly politically correct Hilton says the answer should have been neutral rather than expressing her own opinion. It should have been an "inclusive" answer, making everyone feel good. Well.... that almost sounds reasonable, but I don't believe him. If that's why they ask the contestants questions, to judge how inclusive and neutral and inoffensive their answers are, well this is the first I've heard that. I really thought judges were mainly looking for complete sentences. What do I know?

Of all networks... NBC actually pulled up a clip of Barack Obama answering the same question during a debate before the election. Guess what his answer was? The same answer Miss California gave. You see, Obama is entitled to his opinion. Of course smug liberals might assume he is just saying that to get elected. Where was the outrage? The offense? Carrie Prejean is a conservative, at least in this one subject. They are not mad at her for being a conservative. They are angry because she spoke her mind aloud and her opinion differed from theirs. That kind of speech is almost dangerous to some tolerance challenged liberals.

So we have an angry liberal response, to nothing more than an opinion voiced aloud.

Cramer v. Stewart

I posted this on hulu and decided to paste it up here. I posted this as commentary on the March 12, 2009 Daily Show featuring the face off between Jon Stewart and Jim Cramer.

Here is a link to the show if you haven't seen it:

http://www.hulu.com/watch/62203/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart-thu-mar-12-2009


This was dull, cramer was a treestump. He was exactly like this years ago on Bill Maher's show. When he gets confronted by someone he is a fan of, like maher or stewart, he backs way down.


Meanwhile, he's owned up over and over to the way the markets are and the power that big money has over the markets. The he goes on telling people to buy or sell with no more accuracy than anyone else. Big money moves markets. Period. Big money trumps news. That's what cramer is saying in these online videos. He made money by trumping the news with big money. That's the way markets have always worked. Read Richard Wyckoff circa 1910.


Cramer makes ironic statements in those videos on purpose, and stewart doesn't get it. why doesn't cnbc read ceo's minds? People make mistakes when they try to predict the future? Duh Jon, if that's the way your name is really spelled, what's on A&E right now?

Stewart does get:"We capitalize your adventure". Right. Now just like 100 years ago.
The only way to make money in the markets is to follow that money.


Cramer wimps out here. It could have been a lot more interesting. But stewart hasn't said anything that wasn't said on cnbc's own message boards over and over ever since they've had a web site. So what if there is a show called Fast Money. That's a debate point?


So again, this show was no big deal, anticlimactic, very disappointing on both sides, boring.

Is there anyone Obama knows who HAS paid their taxes?

This record is so broken. US Trade Representative nominee Ron Kirk is now in trouble for not paying taxes. No one in the media questioning Obama's vetting procedures. Ron Kirk and his friends are all smiles. Oh you caught me, guess I'll pay my taxes. There were a couple of issues, but mainly back taxes are owed on taking deductions for tickets to Dallas Mavericks games. Because, you know, that's work.

The questions here isn't so much what exactly are the rules, when one candidate withdraws for owing less than $1000 but Kirk presses on. The question isn't about whether he was trying to cheat the tax man. He deducted the cost of tickets to basketball games. Nuff said.

The real question is what would the reporting sound like right now if Kirk, Geithner and Obama were Republicans?

Obama announces the End of World War II

Well he has announced the end of the Iraqi War, and that end is due in 2011. In reality we will have withdrawn all troops from Iraq before the end of 2011. So that's when the Iraq war ends?

Based on that logic, he should pull all American troops out of Germany. Finally World War II, the seventy years of bloodshed, well mostly peace but lots of bloodshed at the beginning, will be at an end. The 50 year Korean War could finally be wound down by pulling US troops out of that country.

Evidently it's the withdrawal of troops that ends a war, not any of that "fighting battles" stuff we used to hear about. Based on Obama's latest announcements on our pullout, and the non-announcement that we are following Bush's plans to the letter, the media will be reporting that Obama plans to end the war in 2011.

The war in Iraq has been over for awhile. Granted it was declared over once before, when Baghdad fell. That was wrong. That was also then. This is now and the War has been over and it was won while Bush was calling the shots.

But why ruin fawning headlines with reality. Hey while you are at it Obama, why not get those nasty Normans off the British Isles, and bring that war to an end?! That Battle of Hastings is closing in on 950 years.

What's up with State of the Union

That's been a question for a few days. In every mention of this speech tonight, no one calls it a "State of The Union" speech. Neither did I. I've seen it called "State of the Union - like". Well I finally looked around to figure this out, and turns out the speeches we get in January of February are not always State of the Union speeches. The first speech of a presidency is not a state of the union evidently. Here's a good discussion of State of the Union speeches:

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/sou.php

The third paragraph gets you the recent history. Next year we will have a State of the Union, maybe.

For this year, Obama starts with a "we shall overcome the economy" message... and that's the right way to go. There's been quite a bit written about his Scare Monger in Chief style the last few weeks, especially here, hopefully we will now see a more proactive leadership style starting tonight.

.... and nary a negative word to be heard. Tonight was by far the most positive statements from Obama since becoming president. Trading would be a good way to judge the speech, Australia and oil are both non-reactive to the speech, but at least there's been no massive selloff. So the verdict is, cheer leading is good. Scare mongering is bad. Obama did a little cheer leading.

Details? There were a few vague references that could spell big trouble for our future. Rumor has it he wants to ax missile defense, and there was a vague statement tonight refering to that. Missile defense has been hated by democrats ever since it was a gleam in Ronald Reagen's eye. It is amazing technology that we need to protect ourselves against Iran's EMP scenario, if for no other reason. A successful EMP attack would set our economy back 100 years, and change the world overnight. The same people who ridiculed the idea of terrorist attacks against the US in the 90's today ridicule the idea of an attack from Iran.

Well, like I said there were no specifics. It was a good cheer leading speech. That's what was needed tonight.

Halloween coming early this year

Tuesday night we will have one trick or treater coming through, and since we didn't buy candy, I'm expecting a big trick. Obama plans an address to the full congress. Not unlike a State of the Union address. Or a declaration of war. It seems Obama will be dressed in his FDR costume, and I'm guessing we will be hearing some of the most dire, "depressing" statements about our economy yet.

I hope I'm wrong. The Scare Monger in Chief is getting a lot of help here, but talking down the economy works and I'm afraid everyone will be told exactly what we should think about our current economy tomorrow night. Those of us not out on a ledge, will be dragged out to one by Obama as he sets his own bar for performance to the lowest level yet. you see, he says that he inherits a 1.3 Trillion dollar deficit. Well, that's not really true. The $800 billion spent by Bush/Paulson and our TARP is not part of any annual expenditure. It was the bailout. Is he planning to do that bailout every year? It's already been matched by the so called stimulus bill, but that also is a one time thing. Obama has announced that he plans to cut the current "budget" in half. That means, believe it or not, he will be "cutting" our annual deficit back to $533 million. Really? Cutting it back to a larger budget deficit than Bush had at any time in his first seven years in office? Does anyone else get the feeling Obama plans amazing amounts of spending over the three years?

How will he talk us into spending all that money?

Here's the likely scenario for tomorrow night. Obama wants to spend huge amounts of money. To get everyone to go along, he will spend tomorrow night talking about the Great Depression II. That 's where we are headed if we don't agree to spend the money. Talk of a brighter future will apply not to next week or next month, but years from now. He will scare democrats to death, and republican Lindsey Graham who has already terrified himself talking about nationalizing banks, and this show under the big top will send the real economy further into the tank. He will have both halls of congress so that pictures reflect the proper gravitas needed to convince people, to trick people into thinking that thing's are really that bad. It's just like 1933! It will be an FDR moment, to help pass a budget to be introduced in a couple of days. I'm thinking.... a really big budget.

I hope I'm wrong, but just in case turn off the porch light on Halloween Tuesday, because here he comes. Booo!