Oh sweet Christ.

School Kids Sing For Health Care Reform On Set Of CNN

The Department of Homeland Security is considering reducing the number of color-coded threat levels from five to three. Somehow, this is going to make our Homeland more Secure. The new proposed levels would be:

    * Yellow = Guarded  – “A constant state of vigilance to protect against a terrorist attack.”
    * Orange = Elevated  – “Increased protective measures based on specific threat information regarding a known or suspected terrorist plot.”
    * Red = High Alert – “Maximum protective measures to protect against an imminent or ongoing terrorist attack.”

So in other words, in the best of times, the most we can hope for is to live in constant anxiety, always wondering where the next attack is going to come from. Hope & Change!

The whole thing was a stupid idea from the start. Nobody ever defined how we were supposed to react or behave at any given threat level, and nobody ever explained in a satisfactory way why the threat level had been changed. Even if Tom Ridge was lying, that the threat levels weren’t actually being manipulated for political purposes, the potential for political manipulation was there. They’ve combined the power to affect the national level of anxiety with powerlessness of individuals to DO anything about it but look to the government for direction. That’s a nut that politicians can’t help but fantasize about busting.

Just do away with the thing.

Haha

After Congressman Joe Wilson accused President Barack Obama of lying during is national address last week, Congress has apparently been hard at work figuring out which words are OK to use. God these people are worthless.

As a guide for debate, it is permissible in debate to challenge the President on matters of policy. The difference is one between political criticism and personally offensive criticism. For example, a Member may assert in debate that an incumbent President is not worthy of re-election, but in doing so should not allude to personal misconduct. By extension, a Member may assert in debate that the House should conduct an inquiry, or that a President should not remain in office.

Under section 370 of the House Rules and Manual it has been held that a Member could:

• refer to the government as “something hated, something oppressive.”
• refer to the President as “using legislative or judicial pork.”
• refer to a Presidential message as a “disgrace to the country.”
• refer to unnamed officials as “our half-baked nitwits handling foreign affairs.”

Likewise, it has been held that a member could not:

• call the President a “liar.”
• call the President a “hypocrite.”
• describe the President’s veto of a bill as “cowardly.”
• charge that the President has been “intellectually dishonest.”
• refer to the President as “giving aid and comfort to the enemy.”
• refer to alleged “sexual misconduct on the President’s part.”

A member of Congress, therefore, can not call a president a liar, a hypocrite, or dishonest. They also would not have been allowed to discuss President Clinton’s “sexual misconduct.” How this is relevant today is curious. Do they know something about who Obama’s been rubbing up against that we don’t?

I’m not in the market for a new car this week, but unfortunately my taxes are subsidizing everybody else’s Cash for Clunkers purchases. You’re welcome.

I’m not in the market for a used car, either. Which is fortunate because every car traded in to the Cash for Clunkers program has to be destroyed, regardless of its condition. So the government is in the process of destroying the used car market in order to subsidize the new car market.

By promising up to $4500 in welfare for anybody who trades in their clunker, the government effectively makes the down payment for people. Low-income folks who would normally buy a used car when they need one are being encouraged to buy more car than they can afford. Does this sound familiar? It should. It’s the subprime auto industry.

What happens when people figure out that they can’t make the payment on their government-subsidized Prius? I guess it gets repossessed. Their credit is ruined, their car gets taken away, and there aren’t many cheap used cars left in the market because they’ve all been crushed.

Meanwhile, the resale values of the cars people already own or are making the payments on take a nosedive because of the repossessed cars that will flood the market in six months. Immediate, accelerated destruction of wealth. Yay. Furthermore, auto manufacturers have reduced their output this year. Suddenly you have a few million people with “free” money chasing after a limited number of cars. Inflationary pressure? You betcha!

The evidence points to the idea that people have been putting off their car purchases so that they could participate in this program. Similarly, they’re buying these new cars earlier than they normally would in order to partake in this deal. So we’re compressing the sales for the last four months and the next couple of years into a couple of weeks right now. After the Clunkers program ends, car sales are going to drop back down to their normal market rate, which has been significantly low due to the shitty economy. The net benefit to the economy and the industry is zero, only we’ll have spent a couple billion dollars of money the government didn’t have, and there will be a few million used cars destroyed. Woo!

All this is done in the name of saving the planet from the evil internal combustion engine, right? Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, and all that. Well, the Cash for Clunkers program increases the use of natural resources by subsidizing the energy-intensive process of manufacturing cars. We’re not going to be reusing the cars that were traded in. The government is destroying perfectly good assets that are in working condition in order to force you to buy the cars they’ve decided you need to buy. Yes, the materials will be recycled, but whatever they’re used for in the future will have to be manufactured, which requires more energy, fossil fuels, transportation, yada yada yada. In other words, there’s probably not a big net change in the amount of CO2 produced because of this debacle.

It’s all a waste, unless you happen to need a new car right now. In which case, you’re welcome. Enjoy the new cars I just helped you buy, assholes.

OK, let’s review the sequence of events.

A liberal black professor at liberal Harvard University for some reason locked himself out of his house in liberal Cambridge, MA.  While trying to break into his own house, a liberal neighbor called the liberal police department because it looked like a burglary was in progress, and a liberal cop shows up to see what’s going on.  The race-obsessed liberal black professor then causes a scene and disrupts everything and calls the liberal cop a racist and insults his parentage, etc.  So the liberal cop arrests the liberal professor for disorderly conduct.  Charges are later dropped.

The liberal President of the United States decides to comment on a local news story by calling the liberal police officer stupid and claiming that he was continuing a long pattern of racism against minorities.

This is what happens when Barack Obama goes off the teleprompter. We get to hear what he really thinks, and it turns out he’s a jackass.

Today he pulled a Plugman and attempted to “clarify” his comment. He said calling the police stupid was an “unfortunate choice of words” and that he could have “calibrated those words differently.”

Now, instead of suggesting the cop acted stupidly, Obama says the cop “overreacted.” Could be. But so did the President. On National TV. In Primetime. He never should have engaged himself in such a minor issue the way he did. It was “stupid.”

Speaking of stupid, I present Press Secretary Robert Gibbs:

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs dismissed a suggestion that the backlash from police groups could be distressing to the White House, given that Obama has enjoyed a positive relationship with the law enforcement community.

"I think the Fraternal Order of Police endorsed McCain," Gibbs fired back at reporters, referring to Obama’s Republican opponent in the 2008 election. "If I’m not mistaken."

Oh. My. God. So some reporter asks him if he thinks the issue will affect Obama’s relationship with police, and his response is to rip the fucking cops for endorsing McCain and suggesting that there is no positive relationship between the president and law enforcement.

How does this guy still have his job?

The people who hold positions of power and influence right now must be some of the weirdest, most amateurish people ever to do so.  Obama has taken what was, in the big scheme of things, a tiny, non-issue and turned it into a friggin circus sideshow because he couldn’t just let go of his racial bitterness for the last 5 minutes of his stupid press conference. Might as well bring back Jeremiah Wright, Barry. It can’t get much worse.