ObamaConomy Update

• Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner: Unemployment Could Go Up Before It Comes Down
• Social Security in the red for first time ever
• Food stamp use hit record 40.8 million in May
• Jobs Picture Worsens With 131,000 Job Losses; 9.5% Rate
• July jobs show odd mix of bad news | Reuters
• New claims for jobless benefits rise to 479,000
• Jobless claims raise doubts about economy
• USPS posts $3.5 billion loss as mail volume plunges
• Fannie Mae Seeks $1.5 Billion From U.S. Treasury After 12th Straight Loss

ObamaCare Update

We can get a good idea what we have to look forward to by looking at other countries who have socialist healthcare programs:

• Buying into Britain’s Debacle
• Swedish man sews up own wound after ER wait
• Canadian woman loses baby in hospital ER waiting room after 3 hour wait (on page 3 of the article, it says some other patients in the ER waiting room that day had been waiting 12-14 hours without being seen)

Other ObamaCare headlines:

• Obamacare Only Looks Worse Upon Further Review
• Obama Administration Called Out on Cooking the Books in Obamacare

By the numbers

• 36% – Number of people who approve of Obama’s handling of the war in Afghanistan (a record low)
• 41% – Obama’s current approval rating (a record low)
• 35 – Average number of weeks that a person is unemployed (highest since1950). This is double the number when he took office, and 14 weeks higher than the previous high of 20 weeks.
• $22,000,000 – Amount of US taxpayer dollars spent training IT workers… in Asia… to be hired by US companies wanting to offshore jobs. The program is run by a hand-picked Obama appointee
• $87,000 per year – Salary for Major Nidal Hasan that the US Army — and the US taxpayer — is still paying to the Ft. Hood murderer
• $30,400 – Per-plate cost at a recent Democrat party fundraiser
• $700,000 – Amount of taxpayer dollars spent to have Andy Griffith do an advertisement to reassure us that ObamaCare is good for us
• 86% – Number of Americans who believe there should be more limits on what the federal government can do
• 94% – Number of American who reject the idea that the government should be allowed to do most anything

Abandon Ship!

It has come to our attention that Christina Romer, chair of the Obama Administration’s Council of Economic Advisers, has decided to resign. Ouch.

ObamaConomy Update

• Letting Bush Tax Cuts Die Would Kill Recovery
• Congress Spent $604,000 on Bottled Water, $397,000 on Catering
• Justice Dept. parties with your tax dollars — arcade games, bowling, and skateboarding!
• Democrats Pushing for $165 Billion Union Pension Bailout
• States going deeper into debt
• Obama’s message to voters: Things could be worse
• Putting the tax in tax-and-spend
• Goldman Sachs reveals where bailout cash (and your tax dollars) went: overseas
• Congressional Budget Office – Federal Debt and the Risk of a Fiscal Crisis
• US Consumer Confidence Falls, Lowest Since February
• Home Vacancies Rise as U.S. Ownership Falls to Lowest in Decade

ObamaCare Update

Last week we reported that in the new ObamaCare-mandated electronic medical records, everyone in America will have an obesity rating. Why? Look to Germany where their rapidly bankrupting socialist healthcare system is looking at taxing obese people.

In other ObamaCare news, some insurers stop writing new coverage for kids. Didn’t ObamaCare supporters say this kind of thing wouldn’t happen if ObamaCare was passed? Didn’t they say that it was all “fear-mongering by the political right”? Why yes, yes they did.

Let’s be more like Europe. No, really

We’ve said for a long time that we should let America be America rather than try to copy Europe. Well, there are two stories from across the pond that we should pay attention to… and emulate. In England, their socialist healthcare system is beyond broken. It rations basic and common operations such as cataract surgery and orthodontic procedures, has cut services for terminally ill patients telling them to “manage your own symptoms”, closed nursing homes, and cut services to pediatric and maternity services. They’ve cut everything beyond the bone and while over here Herry Reid says “We’re going to have a public option” on the road to socialized healthcare here in America, England has finally realized the only solution to provide cost-effective quality healthcare is to decentralize their health care system.

While Obama has turned the Global War on Terror into “Overseas Contingency Operation“, and terrorism has been officially re-named “man-caused disaster”, France stopped mincing words, put on their grown-up pants, and declared war against al-Qaida.

It’s a sad day when we say “we need to be more like France,” but then again they’re starting to act more like how America used to be.

Oh really?

The spin:

• 21 August, 2009: Barack Obama’s fury as Lockerbie bomber flies home a hero

The truth:

• 26 July, 2010: White House backed release of Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi

Let’s talk

That’s the new form of diplomacy of the Obama administration. Let’s talk with our enemies. For example, they want a “change of mindset” in Afghanistan and want to open up talks with the Taliban. Obama also wants a “New Start” treaty with Russia and wants to cut our nuclear stockpile by 30-40%. And that worked out sooooo well in the past, hasn’t it? Despite Desert Storm, George H.W. Bush was another talker who was responsible for the first START treaty with the USSR in 1991. And how did our enemy respond to talking? They never adhered to the 1991 START treaty, violating it from day 1 till the end. As we said two years ago:

Barack Obama apparently is unaware that there are only two modes of diplomacy: bribes and threats.

Time and again, history has shown that bribes are ineffective; they only work for a short period of time until the terms of the bribe aren’t enough anymore. Then you have to make the decision all over again if you’re going to up the bribe, or switch to threats, which history has proven time and again do work.

Currently, we as a nation are so fiscally bankrupt that we cannot bribe people any more, so to ensure our safety, our security, our prosperity, our sovereignty, and our liberties, it is essential that we maintain the ability to make threats, and make good on those threats if necessary.

Happy Birthday Mr. President!

What’s Michelle Obama doing for Barack’s big day? She’s going to Spain and leaving Barack behind, of course. She’s rented out 30 rooms in the ritziest hotel and is taking one of their daughters. At taxpayer expense, of course. After the private mother-daughter trip, the Obamas will spend a weekend in Florida (vacation #9) before heading to Martha’s Vineyard for 10 days (vacation #10). It’s such a good thing Mr. Obama is so well rested.

And the US Citizen’s birthday present to Obama? A 48.6% disapproval rating.

On my honor…

We find it interesting that Barack Obama decided to go tape an appearance on The View rather than visit the Boy Scout Jamboree, like all three of his predecessors did. We understand. The Jamboree was all the way across the Potomac in Virginia, close to where Marine Corps One (the presidential helicopter) is based… so much further away than New York City. Oh wait, no it wasn’t. And it’s not like this Jamboree was historic or anything. Oh wait, it was the 100-year anniversary of the Boy Scouts. Well he can always catch next year’s. Oh wait… the Jamborees are only every four years. That’s okay… we don’t think he’d make a good Boy Scout anyway. There is that pesky Boy Scout Oath and all.

ObamaConomy Update

• Housing Market Stumbles
• FDIC on the Brink of Insolvency
• Bailout reaches $3.7 trillion
• White House Backs Bill to Collect Employee Pay Information from Businesses
• Obama signs sweeping financial overhaul into law
• Obama Changes Tune on Paying for Unemployment Benefits Extension
• The Tax Tsunami On The Horizon
• Gold Coin Dealers Decry New Tax Law
• Newark, NJ – Government to stop buying toilet paper
• Wall Street Fumes At White House Fin Reg Rebuke
• Why Business Hates Obama

ObamaCare Update

• The IRS’s vast new ObamaCare taxation powers
• Changing Tune, Obama Administration Admits Insurance Mandate is a Tax
• ObamaCare advocates & Obama himself said this wouldn’t happen: Insurers Push Plans That Limit Health Choices
• They also said this wouldn’t happen: Firms cancel health coverage
• Obesity Rating for Every American Must Be Included in Stimulus-Mandated Electronic Health Records, Says HHS
• Obama’s Electronic Health Records Czar: HIV Status and Abortions Need Not be Included

“Party of the Rich”

For decades, the Democrats have been roasting Republicans as “the party of the rich”. But how true is that statement today? While the Obamas are on their seventh vacation since taking office at the same time they urge government employees to travel less, while they stroll around Maine and bash Republicans as “the party of the rich”, what is the reality? According to an article in USAToday run last October, “Democrats now represent 57% of the 4.8 million households that had incomes of $200,000 or more in 2008.” And it’s been that way for a while. According to research done in 2007 by The Heritage Foundation’s Michael Franc, ”If you take the wealthiest one-third of the 435 congressional districts, we found that the Democrats represent about 58 percent of those jurisdictions.”

Speaking of parties…

The Obamas hosted another party at the White House, starring over a half-dozen broadway stars. Oh, and they’ve already planned vacation number eight. Talk about fiddling while Rome is burning…

By the numbers

• 11% - Confidence in Congress
• 36% – Confidence in the presidency