Poul

According to the administration’s transparency site several million dollars of stimulus funds have been spent in 28 of Ohio’s 18 Federal Congressional districts. In fact, there have been over 400 Federal Congressional districts created or saved by this site nationwide. - *

a little known congressman whipes the floor with the tqx cheat obama made the head of our treasury:

BURGESS: Secretary Geithner, you were referencing in your answer to an earlier question about when the financial catastrophe started in September, October of last year, if I understood you correctly, you said that this country did not have the tools to manage that panic. But the inference that I took from that was that there were countries overseas that did have such tools.

Now, I recall a phone call with your predecessor in late October of 2008, when it became public that the United States was pumping monies into the central bank in Europe, and other places. And I suggested that was not the correct thing to be doing. And he said, if the United States is not helping these countries, then they will collapse.
So, which is it?

Were we the savior of those countries that, according to the current president, didn't even like us that much until he took office? Were we the savior of those banks and those countries? Or were we, in fact, incapable of dealing with the problem?

And was that money, in fact, going to foreign banks at that time, in October of last year? This was widely reported in the press.

GEITHNER: Congressman, there is no country that came into this crisis with the tools to manage it effectively. And the basic failure I described here was a common failure.
One thing you saw around the world was...

BURGESS: Well, let me ask you a question. Then how did George Bush cause those countries to be unprepared for a financial crisis?

Glass-Steagall has come up this morning. If I recall, Glass- Steagall was repealed -- that bill was signed by Bill Clinton...

GEITHNER: You're right about that.

BURGESS: ... not George Bush.

GEITHNER: You're absolutely...

BURGESS: And I frankly don't understand. If that's such a good protection, this president's been in office for 10 months. Where's the signed legislation reinstating Glass-Steagall? What...

GEITHNER: Actually, I would not support reinstating Glass-Steagall. And I don't actually believe that the end of Glass-Steagall played a significant role in the cause of this crisis.

Unemployment is now higher in the U.S. than in Europe, reports the Washington Post. “The official U.S. unemployment rate, reported last Friday, now stands at 10.2 percent,” compared to “9.7 percent” in Europe. This is the highest rate in more than 26 years, and marks a huge change from the recent past, in which unemployment was double the American rate in much of Europe.- *

this one is the worst yet coming from the orks in the white house:


note this is boing-boing, not some righty rag. how is this not fascim again?

The White House is promising that new figures being released Friday will be a more accurate showing of progress in President Barack Obama's economic recovery plan. It aggressively defended an earlier, faulty count that overstated by thousands the jobs created or saved so far.
...

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs downplayed errors in job counts identified by the AP's review, telling reporters, "We're talking about 4,000, or a 5,000 error."

The AP reviewed a sample of federal contracts, not all 9,000 reported to date, and discovered errors in one in six jobs credited to the $787 billion stimulus program — or nearly 5,000 of the 30,000 jobs claimed so far.

Even in its limited review, the AP found job counts that were more than 10 times as high as the actual number of paid positions; jobs credited to the stimulus program that were counted two and sometimes more than four times; and other jobs that were credited to stimulus spending when none was produced. - AP.

American taxpayers paid a lot of cash for those clunkers: $24,000 for each new car sold, according to a study released Wednesday.

That’s a lot of money, especially when the so-called “cash for clunker” stimulus program offered only a maximum $4,500 in cash for each person who traded in an old gas-guzzler and bought a new car.

The government could have done almost as well by just giving away cars for free, instead of creating an elaborate incentive program, according to an analysis by the automotive information firm Edmunds.com in Santa Monica, Calif.

What happened?

Well, it’s in how Edmunds crunched the numbers. A valid way to evaluate the program economically, it says, is to look at how many people purchased cars that otherwise wouldn’t have been bought. The firm says that number is about 125,000 cars. By that measure, the government spent $24,000 to generate each sale of a new car.

For comparison, the average price for a new vehicle in August 2009 was $26,915, minus an average cash rebate of $1,667. - *

...the Obama administration has directed its Justice Department to file an extraordinary motion to get Log Cabin Republicans' lawsuit against the 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' law thrown out of court, despite a federal judge's ruling that it can proceed. The 11th-hour move for interlocutory appeal, which seeks to stay proceedings and block discovery, was surprisingly formulated at the same time that President Obama was reassuring LGBT activists that he still firmly opposes the 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' law.
...
The case in question, Log Cabin Republicans vs. the United States of America, is the first direct challenge to the 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' law filed in the wake of the Supreme Court's decision in Lawrence v. Texas. It is also the only contemporary legal challenge to this law to succeed at the district court level. *

etc etc.

The nation’s medical costs will keep spiraling upward even faster than they are now under Democratic legislation pending in the House, a report from government economic experts concluded Wednesday. - * 

who is surprised, honestly? of course obama lied on this one too.

“Around the world, free speech is being sacrificed on the altar of religion. Whether defined as hate speech, discrimination or simple blasphemy, governments are declaring unlimited free speech as the enemy of freedom of religion. This growing movement has reached the United Nations, where religiously conservative countries received a boost in their campaign to pass an international blasphemy law. It came from the most unlikely of places: the United States.” - *

The Obama administration said Friday the deficit for the fiscal year just ended was $1.4 trillion, the largest relative to the size of the economy since 1945, underscoring the challenge to shrink the fiscal gap even as the White House and Congress consider further steps to stimulate a slow recovery.

The final tally for fiscal 2009, which ended Sept. 30, was nearly $1 trillion greater than the $459 billion deficit for fiscal 2008. This year’s deficit translates to nearly 10 percent of the size of the economy, up from 3.2 percent of gross domestic product for last year’s deficit. - *

the stupidiest part?

The first direct stimulus reports showed that stimulus contracts saved or created just 30,083 jobs...Obama administration officials stressed that data was partial -- it represented just $16 billion out of the $339 billion awarded - *

$16 billion/30,083 jobs => more than $500 000 per job.

it costs $500 thousand dollars to these idiots in white house to create one job. i have an idea - give this money to me, i'll triple the job creation rate!

Most astounding of all is what this Congress is willing to do to struggling middle-class families. The bill would impose nearly $400 billion in new taxes and fees. Nearly 90% of that burden will be shouldered by those making $200,000 or less.
It might not appear that way at first, because the dollars are collected via a 40% tax on sales by insurers of "Cadillac" policies, fees on health insurers, drug companies and device manufacturers, and an assortment of odds and ends.
But the economics are clear. These costs will be passed on to consumers by either directly raising insurance premiums, or by fueling higher health-care costs that inevitably lead to higher premiums. Consumers will pay the excise tax on high-cost plans. The Joint Committee on Taxation indicates that 87% of the burden would fall on Americans making less than $200,000, and more than half on those earning under $100,000.
Industry fees are even worse because Democrats chose to make these fees nondeductible. This means that insurance companies will have to raise premiums significantly just to break even. American families will bear a burden even greater than the $130 billion in fees that the bill intends to collect. According to my analysis, premiums will rise by as much as $200 billion over the next 10 years—and 90% will again fall on the middle class.
Senate Democrats are also erecting new barriers to middle-class ascent. A family of four making $54,000 would pay $4,800 for health insurance, with the remainder coming from subsidies. If they work harder and raise their income to $66,000, their cost of insurance rises by $2,800. In other words, earning another $12,000 raises their bill by $2,800—a marginal tax rate of 23%. Double-digit increases in effective tax rates will have detrimental effects on the incentives of millions of Americans. - former Director of the Congressional Budget Office Douglas Holtz-Eakin.

remember that time when obama promised not to raise taxes on middle class? of course he lied!

Hondudiario quoted official UN sources as saying that a study of the Department of Political Affairs of the UN concluded that the destitution of ex-president Manuel Zelaya was constitutional and in accordance with the laws of the country. [Google translation] The report was finalized after visiting Honduras last week.

The article stated that high level UN officials had been made aware today of the report which also coincides with the conclusions US Library of Congress report. The UN site did not have any information about the report tonight. - *

WASHINGTON — President Obama yesterday rolled out the red carpet — and handed out doctors’ white coats as well, just so nobody missed his hard-sell health-care message. In a heavy-handed attempt at reviving support for health-care reform, the White House orchestrated a massive photo op to buttress its claim that front-line physicians support Obama. [...]

The physicians, all invited guests, were told to bring their white lab coats to make sure that TV cameras captured the image. But some docs apparently forgot, failing to meet the White House dress code by showing up in business suits or dresses. So the White House rustled up white coats for them and handed them to the suited physicians who had taken seats in the sun-splashed lawn area. *

Obama Appoints Ex-Lobbyist For Enron-Like Company To Top Regulator Position - *.

O'Malia... nominated to be a commissioner on the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, testified that while working for an energy firm years earlier, the "Enron debacle" had opened his eyes "to the very serious consequences of...inadequate oversight." ... What he didn't tell senators was that he'd learned all this as a lobbyist for a company engaged in Enron-like misconduct that had pushed for deregulation of energy trading.

Senate Finance Committee Democrats rejected a proposed a requirement that immigrants prove their identity with photo identification when signing up for federal healthcare programs... - *

Obama is adopting the Bush position on indefinite detention and won't vex Congress with a request for enabling legislation.
...
[Obama] said he would “work with Congress to develop an appropriate legal regime so that our efforts are consistent with our values and our Constitution.”

Officials said Wednesday that working with Congress did not mean the president would seek legislation, only that he would consult lawmakers. *

leftie heads asplode

“Congress’ chief budget officer is contradicting President Barack Obama’s oft-stated claim that seniors wouldn’t see their Medicare benefits cut under a health care overhaul. The head of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, Douglas Elmendorf, told senators Tuesday that seniors in Medicare’s managed care plans would see reduced benefits under a bill in the Finance Committee.” - *

Hassan Nemazee, a fund-raiser for Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and other Democrats, has been indicted for defrauding Bank of America, HSBC and Citigroup Inc out of more than $290 million in loan proceeds, U.S. prosecutors said on Monday... FBI said he used the proceeds of his scheme to make donations to election campaigns of federal, state and local candidates, donations to political action committees and charities - reuters

The Obama administration supports extending three key provisions of the Patriot Act that are due to expire at the end of the year, the Justice Department told Congress in a letter made public Tuesday.

Lawmakers and civil rights groups had been pressing the Democratic administration to say whether it wants to preserve the post-Sept. 11 law's authority to access business records, as well as monitor so-called "lone wolf" terrorists and conduct roving wiretaps.

The provision on business records was long criticized by rights groups as giving the government access to citizens' library records, and a coalition of liberal and conservative groups complained that the Patriot Act gives the government too much authority to snoop into Americans' private lives. - *
 

easily duped, are you not?

In its subsection on health insurance subsidies (known as "affordability credits"), HR 3200 does state, "Nothing in this subtitle shall allow Federal payments for affordability credits on behalf of individuals who are not lawfully present in the United States." That would seem to solve the problem, but it's more rhetoric than reality. The bill contains no verification requirement or enforcement process for citizenship or legal residency, as exists for other federal benefit programs. The only verification required for the subsidies pertains to family income. Beyond that, as the CRS report notes, everything is left in the hands of the Health Choices Commissioner.
House Democrats defeated all attempts in committee to add an enforcement mechanism that would require proof of citizenship or legal residency for those getting subsidies. - *