Observation

I have noticed the socialists have a new favorite trick, when we tell them socialism isn't authorized under the consitution, they claim we have already scrapped the constitution when we accepted the Air Force/Social Security/subsidized housing/public schools/police, so, really, we're already too far along to get technical, because OF COURSE nobody wants to scrap the Air Force/Social Security/subsidized housing/public schools/police!!!

I always tell them, if you think those things justify socialism in America, then ditch them too. And they sputter and call me nuts.

They have forgotten or rather, disbelieve, that millions of Americans still with us were born into American communities without any of those things. Those trinkets have been promoted as useful but our county existed and thrived without them.

One problem with teaching American history to children is that adults later find it childlike.

House Passes Pelosicare

2 votes more than they needed for a bare minority.

This is war on the Constitution and on the upward mobility of the American worker. The Congress now declares the federal government has the power to dictate the consumption of for-profit goods by citizens. Regardless of income. And if they don't buy as much as Congress thinks good, the citizen owes a tax penalty.

5th, 4th, 8th and 9th Amendment violations all throughout. And after Kelo and McConnell v FEC, I won't wait for the Supreme Court to rescue us. I will not pay up.

We Have Met the Enemy, and It is Us

I am restrained only by my promise never to trust 60 Minutes to tell the truth. Yet I haven't heard McChrystal come out and denounce their editing.

The notion that the United States Army can only operate in countries we have invaded, with the consent of the governed, is so ridiculous I cannot believe it was suggested.

If after eight years, the Afghan people will fight for the Taliban, they are the enemy. The Taliban, is the enemy. Anybody cooperating economically with the Taliban, is the enemy. If Karzai's regime protects them, they are the enemy.

If we cannot and will not fight to win, then we are fighting for terms. And if we come to such a pass through our own stupidity and weakness, we will be routed.

No Death Panels??

The Obama administration's pay czar Kenneth Feinberg says he can "claw back" exec compensation
Reuters

Monday, August 17th 2009, 8:28 AM

Kenneth Feinberg, the Obama administration's pay czar, said on Sunday he has broad and "binding" authority over executive compensation, including the ability to "claw back" money already paid, and he is weighing how and whether to use that power.

Feinberg told Reuters that Citigroup Inc included the contract of energy trader Andrew Hall in submissions due Friday by seven major companies still locked in the federal government's TARP Program.

Feinberg said he hasn't looked at Hall's contract, which reports have said could pay him as much as $100 million this year.

"Whether I have jurisdiction to decide his compensation or not, we will take a look and decide over the next few weeks," Feinberg said after speaking at a public forum in Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, part of a newsmaker series hosted by the Martha's Vineyard Times newspaper.

Feinberg has been consulting with seven companies that have yet to pay back money they borrowed from the government, including Citi, American International Group Inc, Bank of America Corp, Chrysler Financial, Chrysler Group LLC, General Motors Co and GMAC Inc.

Those companies faced a deadline of Friday of submitted proposals to Feinberg for their top 25 employees.

Feinberg said on Sunday that decisions he makes will be "binding," but the law limits his power over contracts signed before February 11, 2009.

He also said he has the authority to use a "clawback" provision to go after compensation for executives from any company that received money from the U.S. Treasury's Troubled Asset Relief Progr.am (TARP).

"I have the discretion, conferred upon by Congress, to attempt to recover compensation that has already been paid to executives not only in these companies, but in any company that received federal assistance," Feinberg said during his remarks.

Asked by Reuters if he could use that ability to target a firm like Goldman Sachs Group Inc, which paid back $10 billion in bailout money, Feinberg said: "Anything is possible under the law."

"I can claw back, but we haven't focused on that at all," he said.

Feinberg said he has been advising the seven firms under his jurisdiction on a daily basis, characterizing the meetings as "very amicable."

"There have been some tough disagreements, but everyone is trying to get to an end place in compensation that makes sense in a post-TARP world," Feinberg said.

Citigroup, in particular, has concerns about pay restrictions causing its top employees to leave, Feinberg said.

"Citibank says if you don't pay us x or y, the going rate for our senior officials, they will leave," Feinberg said. "They will go to Goldman Sachs. They will go to JPMorgan Chase & Co. Worse, they'll go to UBS or the Royal Bank of Scotland, or foreign banks."

Feinberg said the law requires him to take market forces into account, but also to consider performance and past deals between a company and an employee.

"The statute provides these guideposts, but the statute ultimately says I have discretion to decide what it is that these people should make and that my determination will be final," Feinberg said.

"The officials can't run to the Secretary of Treasury. The officials can't run to the court house or a local court. My decision is final on those individuals," Feinberg added.

Feinberg told Reuters he hasn't spoken with President Obama about his role as the administration's watchdog on pay, although he has been in touch with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

This is how Congress does business: it delegates to bureaucrats who won't answer to Congress, or report to the President, just a Secretary.

If their health care commission has the same attitude towards its authority as Mr. Feinberg, you will see your treatment curtailed by a bureacrat and you will also be told you have nowhere to run.

Thoughts on Hon. Joe Wilson

If Congress can be summoned to the foot of the President at his whim,
because he would like some legislation done at a time he thinks important,
and be lied to willy-nilly as he talks over their shoulder to the camera,
repeating a position taken over months,
and the embarrassment in that is somebody calls him a liar

I'm embarrassed by Congress.

And once more the Republican party let's it be known it never meant to dig in and confront the President. So I guess if you look for a party to do that, it aint the GOP.

Supporting "the War"

I read some blurbs today from Reuters and AFP that Adm. Mike Mullen is concerned that the war in Afghanistan isn't going so well, and now 50% of Americans by one poll say it wasn't worth fighting for.

It was this Admiral Mullen who testified in front of Congress that "the war in Afghanistan will not have a military solution". This is the guy who supports limited rules of engagement to preclude bombarding too close to houses. We read about that, and we read that the US government is reaching out to the "moderate elements" in the Taliban.

If we're not fighting to wipe out the Taliban, but get them to accept a political subjugation and a cease-fire with the national government, then we're asking for something unprecedented in our history. In VietNam and Korea the goal at least was to make the bad guys leave, not stick around and lose elections.

If that's "the war in Afghanistan", I don't feel like supporting it either. I thought we were looking to win.

David Frum, You're a Bum

"Contra Rush Limbaugh, history’s actual fascists were not primarily known for their anti-smoking policies or generous social welfare programs. Fascism celebrated violence, anti-rationalism and hysterical devotion to an authoritarian leader. To date, the Obama administration has fallen rather short in these departments. Perhaps uncomfortably aware of the shortcoming, the hardliners have developed — okay, invented really — their own mythology about Obama “brownshirts.” (The popular conservative website RedState.org literally uses the term.) The complaint rests on a single case — that of conservative activist Kenneth Gladney, who got into a scuffle at a townhall in St. Louis, Missouri. The altercation was captured on video and you can watch it on YouTube. What you’ll see is a man, already on the ground, and another man stepping back in order to avoid tripping over him. The man on the ground is Gladney. Gladney walked away from the confrontation and later went to hospital, where he was treated for light injuries and released the same day. Whatever happened and whoever started it, this happily bloodless encounter bears not even the most glancing resemblance to the brutality that made Hitler’s brownshirts notorious. And yet, look up Gladney’s name online and he’s suddenly a poignant martyr.

Can we get a grip here? It is possible to express opposition to a president’s policies without preposterous name-calling — without diminishing and disparaging the unique experiences of those who did actually suffer from actual persecution by actual Nazis. After all, you know who else trafficked in hysterical exaggeration? That’s right: Hitler!"

http://www.newmajority.com/can-we-get-a-grip/comment-page-2#comment-60232

Here's the video. I think we can tell a lot more than that:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5Q3p6jClQM

You know what's more despicable than saying "Hey, I see similarities between our hostile ogliarchic unconstitutional Administration and Hitler"?

Watching a guy getting beat up and saying "What beating?"

David Frum has such a stake in seizing "conservatism" from the conservatives, he can't allow the public to be more repulsed by Obama & Co. than by Limbaugh. Even if that means ignoring Democrat crimes.

Why, why is it that "moderate" Republicans are so sleazy?