In what has been described as "the largest one-day bump in history", US debt jumped $239 billion in a single day. That’s 60% of the debt ceiling increase just passed the day before.
Again, revenue is not the issue; spending is. The federal government is showing signs of an addict acting out, and we just gave it its next fix. Brilliant.
Ah, the civil discourse of the Left.
Vice President Joe Biden joined House Democrats in lashing tea party Republicans Monday, accusing them of having “acted like terrorists” in the fight over raising the nation’s debt limit, according to several sources in the room.
Biden was agreeing with a line of argument made by Rep. Mike Doyle (D-Pa.) at a two-hour, closed-door Democratic Caucus meeting.
“We have negotiated with terrorists,” an angry Doyle said, according to sources in the room. “This small group of terrorists have made it impossible to spend any money.”
Biden, driven by his Democratic allies’ misgivings about the debt-limit deal, responded: “They have acted like terrorists.”
This is the very type of rhetoric that conservatives were accused of, supposedly leading to the shooting of Gabriel Giffords. Ironically, while Biden was describing Republicans has having a "gun to their heads", Giffords showed up for the first time since the shooting. A rather foolish turn of a phrase, especially on that day.
The Left would rather point the finger at entertainers like Rush Limbaugh and be willfully ignorant of eliminationist rhetoric at the highest levels of government, especially when it’s their guys holding those positions. Hopefully, the public will remember this the next time liberals try to portray conservatives as the sole owner of uncivil discourse.
On Sunday evening, I was following the hashtag "#compromise" on Twitter. Folks who were begging, pleading, pontificating and yelling at their elected representatives for a debt ceiling compromise used that tag on their posts. "Get it done!", some whined. "#compromise #compromise #compromise #compromise", some less articulate folks said, trying to bring the point home. Last night, after a compromise was reached, the hashtagged messaged now complained loudly about the particular deal that was worked out, some following VP Biden’s "terrorist" rhetoric. So the true colors came out. "Compromise", to the Left, means "do it my way, or you’re a terrorist!"
You may want to bookmark this link to my "Civility Watch" entries for the future. The Left has often leveled the "hate speech" charge at conservatives to blame them for some event that has happened. It’ll happen again.
In the UK, their National Health Service is their nationalized health care system. Supposedly, this has led to a better system. Tell that to these people.
A dossier compiled by major charities says desperately sick elderly people have been left screaming in pain, with others given the wrong drugs, while families were denied crucial information about the health of their loved ones.
[…]
Many relatives said elderly people were left to cry out in vain for pain relief.
Reporting a recent visit, one said: “They [staff] were rushed off their feet … People were screaming out for their drugs, you know, people with cancer, all sorts of really painful stuff going on. The nurses who should be giving out the drugs were doing breakfasts.”
Oh, and if you want to complain about treatment, you may want to think twice, because the government, given this power, tends to abuse it.
The 26 interviewees spoke to the charities on condition of anonymity. Several expressed fears that making complaints lead to “repercussions” for their relatives or friends behind closed doors.
“If you start asking awkward questions, you’re labelled a troublemaker,” said one.
There’s no need to predict what will happen under ObamaCare; there are already so many examples.
An interesting, and accurate (given history), pair of pictures describe how the welfare system starts and how it ends. Take a look for yourself, but the description says it all.
The welfare state starts with small programs targeted at a handful of genuinely needy people. But as politicians figure out the electoral benefits of expanding programs and people figure out the that they can let others work on their behalf, the ratio of producers to consumers begins to worsen.
Eventually, even though the moochers and looters should realize that it is not in their interest to over-burden the people pulling the wagon, the entire system breaks down.
There’s no doubt that the intentions are good at the start of some new program, but when you give this power to the government, it will misuse it. It’s always better, in the long run, to leave this to the people, fallible though they may be.
All that goodwill that George W. Bush squandered, especially in the Muslim world, was going to be returned under Obama. Yeah, right.
Today’s eye-opening IBOPE Zogby International poll for the Arab American Institute Foundation should be a wake-up call to the White House on its failing foreign policy. After two and a half years of bashing Israel, appeasing rogue regimes such as Iran and Syria, and promising a new era of relations with the Muslim world, Washington is now less popular in major Arab countries than it was when George W. Bush was in the White House.
The poll surveys Arab opinion in six countries: Morocco, Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, and reveals that “Arabs see the Obama Administration’s handling of most Middle East policy issues as having made no contribution to improving US-Arab relations. Only on the issue of the “no-fly zone over Libya” do a majority of Saudis and plurality of Lebanese see a positive contribution.”
I don’t think Obama ever said how it was going to be different; he merely declared it would be so. Well, it’s different, just not in the way those who voted for him expected.
Change!
I was at a client site for most of last week and on vacation the rest up until yesterday. That’s why I didn’t do much on the blog; I was busy, and then I was taking it easy.
Democrats in Congress have apparently been taking for over 2 years now, not passing a budget in all that time. Did any of you folks on the Left notice? Or care? Congressman Paul Ryan did.
Relative bias in the media vs actual bias. A new book from a UCLA political science professor demonstrate how, because the media is so generally slanted to the left, outlets like Fox appear more right-slanted, when in reality they’re far more centrist.
Rosalina Gonzales had pleaded guilty to a felony charge of injury to a child for what prosecutors had described as a "pretty simple, straightforward spanking case."
Trevor Phillips, chairman of Obama’s Equality and Human Rights Commission accused Christians, particularly evangelicals, of being more militant than Muslims in complaining about discrimination, arguing that many of the claims are motivated by a desire for greater political influence. Hmm, define "militant".
What if Charles Schultz had done cartoons of Doctor Who characters? The result would probably have looked like this.
"Smart" diplomacy; cozy up to dictators, snub our friends.
Democrats pilloried George W. Bush for "not listening to his generals" when he made decisions counter to the Pentagon. When Obama does it, not so much.
Would ID requirements for voting amount to a Jim-Crow-style poll tax on blacks? E. J. Dionne thinks so. James Taranto wonders if ID requirements for Amtrak, hotels, air travel and employment are equally as "racist"?
Nancy Pelosi said that they had to pass the bill before we could find out what’s in it. Apparently, some surprises are buried in there.
President Barack Obama’s health care law would let several million middle-class people get nearly free insurance meant for the poor, a twist government number crunchers say they discovered only after the complex bill was signed.
The change would affect early retirees: A married couple could have an annual income of about $64,000 and still get Medicaid, said officials who make long-range cost estimates for the Health and Human Services department.
Whenever there is a budget shortfall, taxes are always on the table. How about we take them off just this once?
Medicare spending is unsustainable, and the CBO itself admits that its tools for determine any consequences from Obamacare are flawed. Yeah, that should "fix" health care.
And finally, define "emergency" (click for a larger version):
ATHENS/LUXEMBOURG (Reuters) – Prime Minister George Papandreou asked Greeks on Sunday to support austerity steps and avoid a "catastrophic" default, as European finance ministers discussed extending tens of billions of euros of aid to Athens.
Addressing the Greek parliament, Papandreou appealed for the nation to accept deeply unpopular tax hikes, spending cuts and privatisation plans which international donors have demanded as a condition for the aid.
"The consequences of a violent bankruptcy or exit from the euro would be immediately catastrophic for households, the banks and the country’s credibility," Papandreou said at the start of a confidence debate on his new crisis cabinet.
Greek officials have said the country will face default in mid-July if the European Union and the International Monetary Fund do not hand over a 12 billion euro tranche of emergency loans by then.
But when that happens, the passengers insist that the train keep moving anyway.
Athenians used to stop off at Syntagma Square for the shopping, the shiny rows of upmarket boutiques. Now they arrive in their tens of thousands to protest. Swarming out of the metro station, they emerge into a village of tents, pamphleteers and a booming public address system.
Since 25 May, when demonstrators first converged here, this has become an open-air concert – only one where bands have been supplanted by speakers and music swapped for an angry politics. On this square just below the Greek parliament and ringed by flashy hotels, thousands sit through speech after speech. Old-time socialists, American economists just passing through, members of the crowd: they each get three minutes with the mic, and most of them use the time alternatively to slag off the politicians and to egg on their fellow protesters.
And Don Surber does some digging and notes that Nobel-Prize-winning, former Enron advisor Paul Krugman was all behind the taxing and spending in Europe because deficits didn’t matter. But all of a sudden, for Greece, now, they do, according to that same Krugman. But since the solution is to do precisely the opposite of what he’s told us in the past, he won’t supply his answer to the crisis. This time. He’ll just lecture the US to do the same things that Greece did that got them into this mess.
Sometimes it seems he deserved that prize in Economics as much as Obama deserved his prize in Peace.
The Dalai Lama calls himself a Marxist.
An "unexpectedly" we could do with down here. "Canada Jobless Rate Unexpectedly Declines in May to Its Lowest Since 2009" It’s down to 7.4 percent. We’re adding government jobs and they’re adding private sector jobs. Our dollar is getting weaker while theirs gets stronger. “Our economy has one of the best records in the area of job creation in comparison with other industrialized countries and this is why we will continue to keep our taxes low,” Prime Minister Stephen Harper told lawmakers on June 8. Lessons to be learned here.
Obama finally figures out, "Shovel-ready was not as shovel-ready as we expected." Which is one big reason why the stimulus didn’t stimulate.
Civility Watch: “Good afternoon brothers and sisters. Welcome to Nazi Germany….Brothers and sisters, this is not going to be an easy fight,” he shrieked. “It took World War II to get rid of the last Adolf Hitler. It is going to take World War III to get rid of Adolf Christie. Are you ready for World War III?” Union leaders are setting the example in New Jersey.
Soaking the rich won’t work the way the Left intends. Historical tax rates vs actual receipts put the lie to the idea that raising rates will necessarily bring in more revenue.
When even actor Aston Kutcher comes to the aid of Sarah Palin, you know the media has gone way too far.
And speaking of which (click for a larger version):
Medical
UK cancer survival rates are the worst in the Western world. And yet another example of Sarah Palin’s death panels, "And the elderly are routinely denied surgery or drugs to remove tumours because doctors think it is not worthwhile."
Politics
President Obama brings bi-partisanship to Washington. "Crossing party lines to deliver a stunning rebuke to the commander in chief, the vast majority of the House voted Friday for resolutions telling President Obama he has broken the constitutional chain of authority by committing U.S. troops to the international military mission in Libya.
Obama wouldn’t defend federal law in court (DOMA), wouldn’t abide by the War Powers Act, and is now ignoring a law intended to protect Medicare.
Medical & Politics
You can keep your current insurance under ObamaCare…unless your employer is one of the 30% that say they’d drop it.
Under a Republican administration, this would be considered a church/state entanglement. For a Democrat, free pass.
U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius asked black pastors and clergy members to help the administration fight what she called “mistruths” about the health care reform law President Barack Obama signed into law last year
Middle East
When 90% of folks in the Middle East hold an unfavorable opinion of Jews (Jordan 97%, Palestinians 97%, Egypt 95%, Lebanon 98%), you gotta’ wonder how possible peace is between them. You also gotta’ wonder how much is prejudice. Once you get to know those Jews, attitudes turn around. "By contrast, only 35% of Israeli Arabs expressed a negative opinion of Jews, while 56% voiced a favorable opinion."
Iran suggests that the day after their first nuclear test would be no big deal. They are floating the trial balloon. Will the world notice?
And finally, some sacrifice is shared rather unequally. (Click for a larger version.)
