The Downhill Path

clipped from www.businessweek.com So does this mean we should restore Glass-Steagall? No. That's a false statement people make about my position. Glass-Steagall basically said banks cannot underwrite corporate securities or deal with corporate securities. But I would let commercial banks do underwriting of corporate customers. So you could argue that what I propose is somewhat in the spirit of Glass-Steagall in making a distinction between capital-market activities and trading activities and banking activities. In interviews in the past you said that's why we needed to change the political process; that's why you thought that candidate Obama was the best choice for President. True. But has he been able to do that at this point? It doesn't look that way. I think that's unfortunate. I think people have lost confidence in government, they've lost trust in government, and it shows. This isn't a question just of this Administration. It's been kind of a steady, downhill path.

Right-O

clipped from www.moonbattery.com It's hard to believe at this point, but Comrade Obama was actually right once. During the campaign, he said it was a lousy idea to finance further federal intrusion into the healthcare industry by looting Medicare and taxing health benefits. However, ObamaCare does both:

Feeling Safer Already

clipped from www.moonbattery.com There are grown adults who thought it would be a good idea to elect this megalomaniacal moonbat clown. Already all but the most willfully obtuse have been disabused of the notion.

Disaster In One Chart

clipped from corner.nationalreview.com Goods-producing jobs — the blue line — include construction, manufacturing, mining and agriculture:

Construction-Killer

clipped from justoneminute.typepad.com The Times tells us about the construction-killer tucked into the Senate bill at the last minute to protect unionized construction workers. WASHINGTON — Early versions of the Senate’s far-reaching health care bill said that small businesses with fewer than 50 workers would not be penalized if they failed to provide insurance. That was before labor unions in the construction industry went to work and persuaded Senate leaders to insert five paragraphs. Their provision, added to the 2,074-page bill at the last minute, singles out the construction industry for special treatment, in a way that benefits union members and contractors who use union labor.

Sleeper

clipped from www.realclearpolitics.com The answer may hinge on two things: trade and entrepreneurship. Most economists see stronger exports as a substitute for weaker consumer spending. Unfortunately, that depends heavily on economic growth and trade policies abroad. By contrast, entrepreneurship is a sleeper issue that depends on what Americans do. If you doubt its importance, consider this: All net job creation from 1980 to 2005 came from firms that were five years old or less, according to a study by economists John Haltiwanger of the University of Maryland and Ron Jarmin and Javier Miranda of the Census Bureau. In any one year, that may not be true; but over time, mature firms lose more jobs than they create. "It's not small firms but young firms that count," says economist Robert Litan of the Kauffman Foundation, which sponsored the study. There's a warning here for the Obama administration: Complex regulations or high taxes may discourage startups and job creation

Fleeing

clipped from www.newsherald.com Obama intimidates, calls out executives in a populist manner and ruins people he does not like. As with AARP, the AMA and drug companies with their ObamaCare bill, his thugs either buy you off with taxpayer money or threaten you if you oppose them. Most companies cannot be bought, nor can they be intimidated, but when you combine the two, most cave. Korean automaker Hyundai registered record sales in August. Chinese telecom manufacturer Huawei might soon pass Cisco in sales. Brazil’s jet maker Embraer is, according to Cessna CEO Jack Pelton “scaring us to death.” And more IPOs are happening away from America’s overly regulated capital markets. In addition, India has heart bypass surgery outcomes equal to the U.S. at half the cost, and Singapore is willing to pay U.S. biotech research stars about $715,000 in annual salaries. Our new political class does not seem to care that innovation and capitalism are fleeing.

Not Covered

clipped from hotair.com Radio Vice Online captures this piece of advice from Tom Brokaw on health-care reform. Talking with Doris Kearns Goodwin on Meet the Press, the semi-retired newscaster says that California and the rest of the nation should take a page from Oregon’s management of “Medicare,” when Brokaw actually means Medicaid. (Medicare is run by the federal government, while Medicaid is run by the states under federal mandates.) Noting that UCLA’s medical center spends about 40% more on end-of-life care than the Oregon average, Brokaw says that health-care reform should take that form: Brokaw mixes apples and oranges in this argument anyway; UCLA is a public hospital that does research on medical treatments, hiking the cost considerably as part of the investment into finding new and more efficient treatments. One cannot compare a teaching hospital’s cost structure to that of an entire state without being a demagogue.

Microcosm

clipped from www.qando.net Not only a failure but an impediment to recovery. The Obama administration’s $75 billion program to protect homeowners from foreclosure has been widely pronounced a disappointment, and some economists and real estate experts now contend it has done more harm than good. The harm it has done is precisely the same harm that many of the larger programs have done, and something we warned about here at QandO at the time. Instead of letting the market take the hit it deserved for the bad  risk it undertook and giving it an opportunity to digest that and then begin recovering, both the Bush and Obama administration’s chose to try and manage the crash and avoid the pain. Consider this particular program a microcosm of what many experts believe we’ll see happen in the larger economy. And, as usual, while it was something done with best of intentions it has run afoul of the Law of Unintended consequences and as critics are saying, has seemingly done more harm than good.

Many

clipped from ace.mu.nu The left's narrative on Bush was that he was a prisoner of his ideological bubble, and would allow no unpleasant facts inside it, and would permit no intrusion of basic reality. He was egotistically committed to his decisions because he was The Decider. Barack Obama, on the other hand, is a supple, agile thinker always willing to revisit and remake old decisions. [A] bipartisan group of lawmakers is urging the Obama White House not to go forward with plans to send a number of Yemeni terrorists now being held in the Guantanamo Bay detention facility back to their home country. But the Obama White House insists it will continue to send those Gitmo inmates to Yemen Appearing on NBC's "Meet the Press," Brennan explained that, "Of the recent batch that we sent back, about six, many of them are in custody within the Yemeni system right now." He did not elaborate on the meaning of "many." Many.

Collapse?

clipped from www.bangkokpost.com A former high-ranking intelligence official in Iran has called for his country to form better relations with the United States and Israel and says the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is on the verge of collapse. In an exclusive interview with the Bangkok Post Sunday, Mohammad Reza Madhi, a former officer in Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards' intelligence service, described Mr Ahmadinejad as ''crazy'' and unfit to lead his country. Mr Madhi was highly critical of Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi, a spiritual adviser to a group of hard-line fundamentalists closely connected to senior leaders in the current Iranian government. ''He is a very crazy man who hates Israel and the United States especially. Unfortunately, President Ahmadinejad is one of his big fans as well.'' The former intelligence officer said that instead of imposing sanctions, western nations should look to supporting opposition groups and not recognise the Ahmadinejad government.

The California We Have Created

clipped from pajamasmedia.com WILLIE BROWN ON CALIFORNIA’S PROBLEMS: “If we as a state want to make a New Year’s resolution, I suggest taking a good look at the California we have created. From our out-of-sync tax system to our out-of-control civil service, it’s time for politicians to begin an honest dialogue about what we’ve become. . . . Talking about this is politically unpopular and potentially even career suicide for most officeholders. But at some point, someone is going to have to get honest about the fact that 80 percent of the state, county and city budget deficits are due to employee costs.”

Ending MRSA

clipped from news.yahoo.com Around the world, various medical providers have also successfully adapted Norway's program with encouraging results. A medical center in Billings, Mont., cut MRSA infections by 89 percent by increasing screening, isolating patients and making all staff — not just doctors — responsible for increasing hygiene. In Japan, with its cutting-edge technology and modern hospitals, about 17,000 people die from MRSA every year. Dr. Satoshi Hori, chief infection control doctor at Juntendo University Hospital in Tokyo, says doctors overprescribe antibiotics because they are given financial incentives to push drugs on patients. Hori now limits antibiotics only to patients who really need them and screens and isolates high-risk patients. So far his hospital has cut the number of MRSA cases by two-thirds.

The Racist Majority

clipped from www.daybydaycartoon.com

Toxic

clipped from www.moonbattery.com

Clues

clipped from www.powerlineblog.com Scott and John have already eviscerated the dreadful performance of Deputy National Security Adviser John Brennan on FOX News Sunday. Before his appearance, the Washington Post had reported that "the normally reclusive Brennan is scheduled to appear on several Sunday TV talk shows." We now have a pretty good idea of why Brennan is "normally reclusive." By departing from his norm, Brennan has shown himself to be a hack and has undermined any lingering confidence that the Obama administration has a clue about how to fight terrorism. Perhaps the statement can be amended to read: "There are no downsides or upsides to a given approach to dealing with a terrorist or with terrorism; there is only implementing and trying to defend the policy preferences of the politicians until such time as it becomes convenient to undermine them through leaks."

O The Third World

clipped from www.powerlineblog.com President Obama responded yesterday to former Vice President Cheney's claim that he doesn't consider the fight against terrorism to be a war by quoting from his inaugural address. "On that day," Obama reminded us, "I made it very clear that our naton is at war against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred, and that we will do whatever it takes to defeat them, and make no mistake that's exactly what we've been doing." So there you have it: if Obama's rhetoric has, at one time or another, employed the word "war" in connection with words having some relationship to terrorism, then he must be waging war on terrorism. Immanuel Kant posited a noumenal world and a phenomenal world -- the latter consisting of what appears to the senses; the latter consisting of "things in themselves." For Obama, there is a third a world -- call it the oratorical world -- consisting of the world as Obama has described it in speeches.

Any Further Questions?

clipped from www.moonbattery.com Not even solar power is inefficient enough for the environazis who dictate our energy policy to permit its use. Just as windmills have been suppressed in the name of put-upon ground squirrels, a massive solar panel project is being held up on the grounds it might inconvenience a handful of reptiles. On a strip of California's Mojave Desert, two dozen rare tortoises could stand in the way of a sprawling solar-energy complex in a case that highlights mounting tensions between wilderness conservation and the nation's quest for cleaner power. Oakland, Calif.-based BrightSource Energy has been pushing for more than two years for permission to erect 400,000 mirrors on the site to gather the sun's energy. It could become the first project of its kind on U.S. Bureau of Land Management property, leaving a footprint for others to follow on vast stretches of public land across the West.

Projection

clipped from www.newsweek.com But when the crops fail and the cities rot and the children's teeth decay and nothing works except the ever-enthusiastic and illiterate young lads of the morality police, who will the clerics blame? They are not allowed to blame themselves, except for being insufficiently zealous. Obviously it must be because the Jews, the Crusaders, the Freemasons have been at their customary insidious work. Thus, holy war must be waged on happier and more prosperous lands. If you think I exaggerate even slightly, consult the Web sites of the Iranian theocracy and of its Hamas and Hizbullah surrogates and proxies. These exhorting leaders are not content to inflict their doctrines only on their "own" people. A failed state that cannot allow any grown-up internal debate, or any appeal against the divine edict, will swiftly become an even more failed state and then a rogue one because its limitless paranoia and self-pity must be projected outward.

RTWT. A dagger to the heart of the problem from Hitchens.

Why have the Iranian people grown so bold in resisting the tyrants? Because they know that when the tyrants have nukes they're as good as dead anyway.

Compensation II

clipped from www.theglobeandmail.com Most of all, Mr. Obama has exploded his own credentials as the agent of (genuine) hope and change. The promise to remodel the essentially harsh nature of modern politics, to seek transformation in the tone and substance of public life, to end Washington's buying and selling, is seen now, and seen very reluctantly such was the real hope he inspired, as empty. His White House is as dagger partisan as Richard Nixon's. Almost a full year into his presidency, Mr. Obama is at a dangerous point. His ability to inspire has all but departed. The novelty of his historic ascension is over. And, late though it be, there are now questions about his effectiveness. As there are also doubts about whether that magnificently cool presence – his much-touted ability to distance himself from the turbulence and passions of those around him – springs from a fear of being overwhelmed by events rather than a confidence in mastering them. No wonder Time gave him a pass.

Compensation

clipped from www.theglobeandmail.com I think Time went to the relatively faceless functionary Bernanke mainly not to name Barack Obama. It's an uncomfortable pivot from the audacity of hope to buyer's remorse. Very uncomfortable for those in the media who played the cheerleader for Mr. Obama, who skated by controversies that would have sunk other candidates or abandoned the ruthless investigations they would have pressed on less congenial candidates. The ferocity they applied to the Republican vice-presidential candidate, Sarah Palin, in contrast with the timidity they brought to his campaign, will in time come to be seen as one of the most shameful episodes in American journalism. Not so much for what they did to Ms. Palin, but for what they neglected to do in examining the candidate for the office that really counted. In some curious way, the U.S. media's bulldogging of Ms. Palin was kind of an inverted compensation for what they weren't doing to him.

Liars

clipped from www.redstate.com It appears that Custom Official knowingly LIED and tried to DISCREDIT 2 passengers on NW flight 253 when they told the press that a second man had been placed in handcuffs. This is why WE The People DO NOT TRUST when the government says “lone” or “singular” or “not terrorist related” when discussing these TERRORIST events that seem to be on an upswing! LIARS “A federal customs and border protection official reversed himself today, admitting a passenger from Northwest Flight 253 was placed in handcuffs, searched and released after a canine alerted officers to his carry-on luggage.”

ICC Backdoor II

clipped from www.redstate.com Hillary laments US stance on ICC This is a great regret that we are not a signatory. I think we could have worked out some of the challenges that are raised concerning our membership. But that has not yet come to pass.  December 17, 2009 Back-Door Entry via INTERPOL. Barak Obama circumvents congressional and public scrutiny, R2P recommendations for legitimacy as he silently signs Executive Order 12425, days before the end of his first year in office. INTERPOL and ICC are now the mechanisms through which the UN can authoritatively execute ”right to protect” mandates within the United States, subject to its own broad interpretation [and dictates "to prevent."]   Obama has subjugated the Constitution, the sovereignty of the United States and the individual rights of all Americans to the international authority of the UN.

ICC Backdoor

clipped from www.redstate.com Creating an ICC Enforcement Mechanism          • Consider the following aspects in the development of an international framework akin to an International Marshals Service: 1) State responsibility principles to arrest and handover; 2) entities that can effect an arrest; and 3) challenges ahead (cost vs. benefits, political will, State consent, intelligence sharing, non-permissive environments and U.S. engagement).          • The recommended approach for the problem of enforcement for the ICC is a specialized international task force either standing or ad hoc, composed of military and law enforcement personnel from States, including those party to the Rome Statute and perhaps non-party States. The task force would trade expertise on arrest means and explore which State(s) might have the interest, capability, and political will to assist in effectuating arrest of particular indicted fugitives in accordance with the procedures established by the task force.

Red (Diaper Doper Baby) Flag

clipped from www.redstate.com I missed the implications of this up front and I bet you all did too, but I am hearing from members of the American intelligence community and some on the outside closely connected to those on the inside who are raising a huge red flag right now. It appears Barack Obama inexperience and amateurishness has just started bonfires on the bridges connecting him to the American intelligence community and delivered a huge, HUGE psychological win to Al Qaeda. People tell me the President’s rush to acknowledge the attack on the CIA in Afghanistan and mourn the deaths openly, publicly, and via press release is a huge no no. The CIA and greater intelligence community would prefer not to have the attention put on them.

Raptor Food

clipped from www.redstate.com What Al Qaeda is seeing is exactly what any child or adult sees when repeatedly warned and never bothered — this American President is all bark and no bite. Without his teleprompter, he is nothing. The CIA agents who work in the shadows and the troops in the field talk about Barack Obama in private moments with derision and ridicule. He is a joke to them. Al Qaeda isn’t dumb. The network of terrorists can perceive this and hear the limp wristed responses coming from an academic who grew up with Al Qaeda’s ilk and thinks because he has that common tie he knows them. Coupled with the arrogance of the ivory tower academic that prevents Obama from putting anyone in charge he perceived as smarter than himself, the fence probing from Al Qaeda’s raptors will continue.

O -sses And Undies II: The Missing Christmas Tree

clipped from hotair.com Turns out that Abdulmutallab’s mentor, jihadi cleric Anwar al-Aulaqi, posted a heavy-handed warning on his website in October about a “surprise” from Yemen that would make it “the single most important front of jihad in the world,” and that calls made to Abdulmutallab from Aulaqi’s own phone were intercepted by the NSA before Christmas. Combine that with the other leads that various arms of U.S. intelligence had and there was enough info floating around in the system to know in advance that (a) Al Qaeda in Yemen was planning an attack, quite possibly on Christmas, involving a Nigerian, and coincidentally (b) a Nigerian named Abdulmutallab who had gone missing after hooking up with jihadis in Yemen and had spent some time yakking on the phone with Yemeni AQ chieftain Aulaqi was booked to fly on Christmas Day. Nuance. Quoth former FBI agent Ali Soufan, “The system should have been lighting up like a Christmas tree.”

O -sses And Undies

clipped from hotair.com Not just underwear bombers generally, either, but underwear bombers trained in Yemen. It’s almost a shame that it didn’t happen under Bush, just because the fireworks from the media’s outrageous outrage afterwards would have been so spectacular. As it is, don’t expect more than a few sparklers this time. The briefing to Brennan was delivered at the White House by Muhammad bin Nayef, Saudi Arabia’s chief counterterrorism official. In late August, Nayef had survived an assassination attempt by an operative dispatched by the Yemeni branch of Al Qaeda who was pretending to turn himself in. The operative had tried to kill the Saudi prince by detonating a bomb on his body, but stumbled on his way into the prince’s palace and blew himself up. Saudi officials initially thought the bomb had been secreted in the operative’s anal cavity. But after investigating the matter more thoroughly, they concluded it had likely been sewn into his underwear

Reform Yourself

clipped from www.americanthinker.com A philosopher friend recently summarized this subject in the following cogent words:  "An incalculable amount of harm has been done by those who have gone fourth to reform society.  As a matter of fact, there is no way of reforming society except by making individuals better.  And no one can make individuals better except the individual himself.  If you want to be a reformer, reform yourself.  That will keep you  busy for a while and lend encouragement to others.  Then, when there are significant numbers of transformed individuals, society will be reformed, but not before."

RTWT.

COTD: Banker's Guide

clipped from www.zerohedge.com The banker's guide to owning it all Become majority lender in an economy of people with assets you want. Encourage indebtedness by loaning generously while securing on assets of interest. Loosen lending standards until the assets you seek to capture are attached. (this makes the economy debt dependent) Once debts are significant for the bulk of the population, sharply tighten lending standards. <-- Economic shock - Onset of deflation Backstop losses with public guarantees if possible. This is gravy if one can get it. (Fannie and Freddie guarantees, for example) Permit default 'without risk' on the assets you wish to sieze to maximize wealth transfer. (stall foreclosure, stay repossession orders etc) Stall the economy to maximize default positions and deplete private liquidity. <--

Misdirection

clipped from www.zerohedge.com It has become conventional wisdom, perhaps even cliche, to pin the origins of the credit crisis on the big banks or, AIG or even the practice of financial modeling.  Certainly, these actors have received the most play in the media, and have now endured the focus of populist ire for more than a year.  We now think that the analysis leading commentators to focus blame on these entities is fatally flawed. it seems almost beyond question that the policies (or policy malfeasance) of Fannie and Freddie, and not the actions of large banks or firms like AIG are the proximate cause of not just the credit crisis, but also the continuing multi-act, multi-bailout farce that continues to be passed off to the public as necessary "stimulus." It takes only a cursory examination to suspect that misdirection plays a key part in the latest act of the ongoing crisis theater of the absurd.  Misdirection to distract attention from the key complicity of GSEs in the crisis.

Hollow

clipped from online.wsj.com This Sunday, Iran's freedom movement has reached a new dimension. At demonstrations throughout the country, the brave people of Iran chanted: "Yazid will be overthrown, this will be the month of blood," referring to the caliph who killed the founder of Shiite belief, Imam Hossein. Yazid is of course a thinly-veiled code for the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. The Iranian people know that liberty has its price and they are willing to pay it to make a free and democratic Iran possible. The response of the "international community," though, has been shameful. Sure, France immediately condemned the violence against peaceful protesters and called for "a political solution." Italy called "for a dialogue with the opposition." These words sound hollow to the Iranian people.

Practice Continued

clipped from homelandsecurityus.com Answers to some of these questions might be found in the statement obtained by this investigator on behalf of Canada Free Press and the Northeast Intelligence Network from a passenger aboard the very same flight from Amsterdam to Detroit exactly one week before Christmas Day. While filling in on the Schnitt Radio Show, nationally known talk radio host Pat Campbell received a call from Howard, a passenger aboard flight 253 one week before the attempted bombing. Howard recounted the odd behavior of two passengers during the flight, one well dressed man in his mid 30’s and a female of European origin. While Howard reported the incident, there appeared to be little official interest in his observations. Through the documentation provided by Howard, this investigator verified he was indeed a passenger aboard that flight. Further, the description of one of the passengers is indeed consistent with the as-yet unidentified male witnessed at the terminal.

Practice

clipped from canadafreepress.com On August 1, 2001, Hollywood actor James Woods witnessed four men of Middle Eastern appearance engaged in suspicious behavior on a transcontinental flight from Boston to Los Angeles. Mr. Woods stated that the suspicious behavior of the four men “would have been blatantly obvious to the most casual observer.” Investigation ultimately confirmed that the actor witnessed a “practice run” for the 9/11 hijackings. Fast forward to Christmas Day 2009, when Islamic terrorist Umar Farouk Abdul-Mutallab carried PETN onto Delta-Northwest flight 253 and attempted to detonate the explosive package using a catalyst in a syringe. As some “assembly” was required, Abdul-Mutallab used the lavatory prior to his attempt at mass murder. Note carefully witness accounts glossed over by the media, downplayed or denied by officials, such as a second person allegedly taken into custody while another aboard the aircraft reportedly took video.

O Devastation

clipped from www.washingtonpost.com The CIA base attacked by a suicide bomber in Afghanistan this week was at the heart of a covert program overseeing strikes by the agency's remote-controlled aircraft along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, officials familiar with the installation said Thursday. The assailant, wearing an explosives belt under his clothes, apparently was allowed to enter the small base after offering to become an informant, according to two former agency officials briefed on the attack. The blast early Wednesday evening in the eastern province of Khost killed seven CIA officers and contractors, including the base chief, and seriously wounded six others in what intelligence officials described as a devastating blow to one of the agency's key intelligence hubs for counterterrorism operations. It was the deadliest single day for the agency since eight CIA officers were killed in the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut.

mythOlogy

clipped from techpresident.com As 2009 comes to a close, and with it, the first year of the Obama administration, one big question seems to be hanging over the man who said he had "The Audacity to Hope," and promised his supporters "Change We Can Believe In." That question can be summed up with two simple pictures. How did this... produce this? After all, the image of Barack Obama as the candidate of "change", community organizer, and "hope-monger" (his word), was sold intensively during the campaign. Even after the fact, we were told that his victory represented the empowerment of a bottom-up movement In terms of the early money that was raised by his campaign in 2007--and this is the most influential money in politics--more than one-third (36%) of his total came from the financial sector (compared to 28% for Hillary Clinton), reported campaign finance expert Thomas Ferguson. Nor, it is clear, was Obama's campaign ever really about giving control to the grassroots.

O for 0

clipped from www.edmontonjournal.com The decade with no name finally has one: The Big Zero. That's what New York Times columnist Paul Krugman dubs the past 10 years, and in my books, his label is an apt one. For Americans, at least, the decade was a giant doughnut. As in: zero job growth, zero stock market gains, zero income growth, and zero upside for homeowners. But on a point-to-point basis, the U.S. economy has gone nowhere since Y2K dawned. The tech boom cratered, the housing bubble was built on fake money, and the grossly overhyped dot.comera largely lost its fizz (OK, so now we Tweet and spill our lives on Facebook -- how revolutionary). Corporate heavies like Enron and WorldCom went kablooey, two of Detroit's Big Three carmakers got flattened, and big banks like Lehman Brothers collapsed under the weight of their own crappy assets. Quite simply, the U.S. has lost its mojo. It's not just broke. It's bankrupt of ideas.

And a Happy New Year to you too.