Government Motors

It looks like BestView is back from the balmy Bahamas just in time to wallow in the Obama nominee for the Supreme Court and his contrived bankruptcy of GM. Since tomorrow is the day when we all expect GM to enter bankruptcy, this event is one which should be watched closely for an investment opportunity. If you own GM stock now, it will become essentially worthless after the company enters Chapter 11. However, the shell company could well be worth something to some big corporation since it has gobs of losses on the books. Here is the situation:
GM has lost about $69 per share in the last 3 years. That loss is very valuable. It may be a record for any American corporation. Someone will want that corporate shell when all the assets are stripped away. That someone will want it for the loss. For example, Microsoft could buy the GM shell for less than $500 million. The GM tax loss for the last 4 years is almost $32 billion. An analysis by Gerry Sullivan found that based on Microsoft's recent earnings and taxes, the GM tax loss would save MSFT around $9 billion in taxes.
For this reason, GM stock may be worth buying in the near future, but you would have to be out of your mind to buy one of their cars.

BestView off to the Bahamas

We will be taking a little trip with one daughter, her husband, and 2 grandkids to the Bahamas this week. Posting may be sporadic but relaxing should be continuous.

Clinton's Legacy

Just ran across this article mentioning that JFK had a sexual relationship in the White House with a 19 year old intern and she is coming out with a book (naturally) describing the affair. This should make for interesting commentary from the liberal media.

A Gitmo Solution

Scott Ott who publishes on the ScrappleFace web site strikes again. Read it here.

In an effort to shut down the U.S. Naval Detention Center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, thereby restoring America's moral standing in the world, President Barack Obama today declared some 240 enemy combatants held at Gitmo to be 'human fetuses'.

In an executive order, the president said, "Since I ordered Gitmo shut down, and people don't want us to bring the inmates here, the only way to extract them from the facility is to change their legal status to one that offers us more choices."

While accused terrorists have access to attorneys, and nearly-limitless legal appeals, a fetus has no legal standing, cannot speak for itself, and is subject to the death penalty without regard to guilt or innocence.

Civil rights advocates have pressured Obama to follow through on campaign promises to shutter Gitmo, but even Democrats in Congress have resisted bringing the inmates to U.S. soil for trials and incarceration.

"We can debate whether enemy combatants have access to protections under the U.S. Constitution," said Obama. "However, no serious person would grant such protection to an embryo or fetus. The loss of 240 fetuses wouldn't raise an eyebrow in a nation where more than 3,000 of them hit the Dumpster daily."

The president noted that America's global reputation has been devastated by U.S. treatment of terror suspects, but that "our treatment of a million fetuses each year earns us nothing but admiration, and requests for clinic-funding from those who aspire to be like us."

Sources acknowledged continuing White House debate about whether a terrorist who escapes from Gitmo alive can still be treated as a fetus.

Real men, real sport

This is a slow time for televised sports here at BestView. When they diluted baseball by putting a major league team in every city without comparable increase in major league quality players, they lost me. Not interested anymore. NBA basketball has evolved into a marathon season with 7 foot players putting the ball into a 10 foot basket---usually after having palmed the ball and taken excessive steps. Not real basketball.
That pretty much leaves me with PGA golf at this time of year, but I ran across a game of Australian rules football while channel surfing the other day and there is a game being played by real men. They dress like soccer players and the game has full contact collisions which are at least as violent as our football. I don't understand the rules, but they score a lot of points some way and the action is compelling.

Microbiology to save the world

Well, maybe that title exaggerates just a bit, but we are seeing some interesting results from a recent meeting of the American Society of Microbiology. As described in one report, my colleagues have found a way to convert biomasses into biofuel that can be used to decrease our dependence on oil. Here is a sample of the report, but the entire abstract can be read here.

Researchers are looking at alternate biomasses as food for microorganisms to ferment into ethanol. The most attractive are known as lignocellulosic biomass and include wood residues (including sawmill and paper mill discards), municipal paper waste, agricultural residues (including sugarcane bagasse), dedicated energy crops (like switchgrass) or the non-edible parts of corn like cobs, stalks or stover. The problem is, unlike corn starch, the sugars necessary for fermentation are trapped inside the lignocellulose part of this plant biomass. The key to ending the food versus fuel debate is unlocking the sugars trapped in cellulosic biomass.

To do that, some scientists have taken a page out of the playbook of the pharmaceutical industry. Pharmaceutical companies routinely use a process known as high throughput screening to rapidly test thousands of compounds for potential new drugs. Martin Keller at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the DOE bioenergy research center director, and his lab have adapted the method to rapidly test poplar tree samples for their ability to give up sugars.

Cheney's Defense

BestView is amused by the liberal reaction to Dick Cheney's speech yesterday and previous appearances on interview shows. It is obvious that they are not pleased that he is offering a defense of the Bush/Cheney defense policies, but what seems to matter the most to them is the fact that he is speaking out at all in any way. To them, he is supposed to be under a rock and let Obama do and say anything he wants.

Memo Logic

Let's see where we stand on the interrogation memos everyone is talking about. Obama released the ones which set the legal framework upon which three terrorists were convinced to chat to us about future attacks on America. Once this was done, Dick Cheney asked that the other memos which concerned the results of the little CIA talks with our detainees. Cheney says they will reveal that our persuasion techniques were helpful. Obama says he has read them and he finds them "ambiguous". So, even though BO says he is going to have an open administration and the memos in dispute will not support Cheney's claim, he is going to keep them classified. Those of us who are skeptical about all this somehow find it passing strange that Obama would hesitate to prove the former Vice-President wrong in his claim. Logic finds us on the other side of the Messiah's decision on all this and we look for him to cave as he has on so many other things.

Financial Options

BestView does not give investment advice, but if you are concerned about the U.S. debt and budget situation, certain well-established consequences will flow from the Obama administration economic policies. First, the country will need to borrow extensively to fund the budgets projected in the future. The only way they can do that is to print money and sell the bonds to someone. When you increase the supply of something, its value goes down. Ergo, the value of the dollar in the future will go down in my opinion. What can you do about this? One thing you can do is buy an Exchanged Traded Fund (etf), which trades just like any stock, that has the symbol UDN. This is a fund which goes up in value when the dollar loses value. I own this in my IRA.

Another consequence of the massive increase in the amount of dollars which will be available is commodity inflation. When the value of money goes down and more dollars start chasing things we need to support our life styles---like food and energy---the cost of those things will go up. In previous posts BestView has mentioned the virtue of owning some gold. Now there is a way to offset some of the damage that will be inflicted on future budgets in your household by owning a broad basket of commodities which will increase in value when the cost of things like oil, wheat, sugar,etc. get more expensive and thereby make food and transportation more expensive (inflation). Again, this can be done using an exchange traded basket of commodities called an ETN which trades like an ETF or any other stock on the New York Stock Exchange. The symbol is RJI. If you think that in the next few years the cost of groceries and energy is going to go up, an investment in RJI could help offset that increase. I am currently considering such an investment, but haven't bought it yet.

These are not investment recommendations, but we all need to find some way to avoid the consequences of inflation and these are two ways to investigate for your particular situation. Another hedge against inflation is real estate, but that is the subject for another day and compared to the suggestions above suffers from lack of liquidity in that you can't just wake up some morning and sell your real estate like you can a stock.

A shovel ready project now underway

Legality of "Torture"

Victoria Toensing is a legal source with superb credentials to explain the background of the current torture investigation called for by the loony left in this country. Her Op-Ed is required reading if the situation is to be put in proper context with historical support rather than political vendetta against Bush and Cheney. Read it here.

Common Ground?

President Obama delved into the charged abortion debate in a controversial Notre Dame commencement address Sunday, urging civility and a search for common ground on this most divisive issue. As usual, Obama sounds entirely reasonable but he needs to explain how to reach common ground without a dead baby.

If you weren't worried before........

The anchor closed the interview by getting the former vice president’s take on the Obama administration’s performance so far:

ROBERTS: Let me ask you about the new administration. How do you think they’re doing so far?

GORE: I think they’re doing amazingly well. I think that he is moving forward on all fronts in a very intelligent, focused and committed way -- that is exactly what the country needs. There’s room for disagreement on this policy or that policy, but overall, I think that the American people are responding the same way I am. And by the way, I think he’s done a terrific job of reaching out to his opposition.

ROBERTS: Even though he only got three Republicans in the Senate to vote for the stimulus package, and none of them voted for his budget?

GORE: Correct, and I don’t think that's to be laid at his feet. I think that the efforts that he has made and continues to make may well bear fruit later on.

ROBERTS: And are you confident that all of this money, all of these trillions of dollars are being spent wisely?

GORE: Yes. Whenever you have programs of this size, you will always find critics to pick out one or two things and spin them in a negative way. But, by in large, I think they’ve set the right priorities and that they’re doing an excellent job. Yes.

Criminal Acts

If the CIA lied to Congress about its interrogation of terrorists, it is a crime. Even though Nancy Pelosi has been Speaker for 2 years, it is certainly reasonable to look for her to push for a belated criminal prosecution of those responsible. Let the overdue trials begin.

Don't hold your breath.

Is it now the CIA's turn?

It is hard to believe that the CIA--even under Leon Panetta--is going to quietly permit Nancy Pelosi to call it a liar when there are actual documents confirming their congressional briefings and attendance at them. This is going to get good and the country can only gain if some sensible democrat challenges her to save the party from her left wing idiocy.

A History Lesson for Liberals

The leftists who are now in a tizzy because the CIA poured some water on the nose of terrorists in the aftermath of 9/11 need to read this reminder of the nation's response to Pearl Harbor by General Curtis LeMay. Here is an example:

On the night of March 9, 1945, LeMay sent 346 huge B-29 bombers loaded with napalm from the Mariana Islands (Guam, Saipan and Tinian) to Tokyo. The first planes dropped their incendiaries on the front and back of the target area -- like lighting up both ends of a football field at night. The rest of the planes filled in the middle. More than 16 square miles of Japan's capital city were gutted, two million people were left homeless, and 100,000 were dead.

Some of us think our response was too restrained after 9/11 and a more emphatic lesson on the perils of such terror attacks on the U.S. should have been made on all of Islam.

A Walk on the Left Side

Now and then BestView checks in to see what liberals are concerned about on their blogs. Since our entire government is now controlled by Dems the main problem seems to be any voice contrary to their social/big government agenda. First it was Rush Limbaugh and now the boogie man seems to be Dick Cheney who had the temerity to actually give a couple of interviews. Here is an example from the blog Talking Points Memo:

This is a guy who made an entire career as the ultimate evil puppet-master, always behind the scenes and always in control. What strikes me as so out of character is his apparent inability to keep his mouth shut when he no longer has his hands on the strings. While I despise him for what he did to our country's image and his shredding of The Constitution, I have always had a begrudging respect for what I thought was his phenomenal discipline and long term ability to keep the goal (however evil) in front of his public ego. Now I am finding him to be an ever more paranoid, disturbed, and pathetic man and I am truly shocked that those on the inside let him run the show for so long. I would ask how we let this megalomaniac do so much damage, but he wasn't actually a megalomaniac - that requires a delusion of power.

They really don't like Cheney much in loonyville.

Presidential Malfeasance

In the U.S. criminal code, specifically 8 USC 1325, it says illegal aliens "shall, for the first commission of any such offense, be fined under Title 18 or imprisoned not more than six months, or both, and, for a subsequent commission of any such offense, be fined under Title 18, or imprisoned not more than two years, or both."

President Bush did not enforce this law as he swore to do when inaugurated and Obama has not and will not either. Here is a recent comment of Obama's Secretary of Home Land Security.

During a recent interview on CNN's "State of the Union With John King," Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano was asked what she thought about the statement by Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Ariz., that the feds should prosecute all caught crossing the border illegally. She responded by blaming employers, "the human traffickers who are exploiting human misery," and said that "when we find illegal workers, yes, appropriate action, some of which is criminal, most of that is civil, because crossing the border is not a crime per se. It is civil."

So the federal government ignores the law and turns on Sheriff Arpaio who just wants to enforce that which the government put into law.

BestView has BeachView

We are spending the week at our beach home on Eddingsville Beach in South Carolina. Just returned from a 2 mile walk on our beach with temperature about 80 F, a gentle SW breeze and not another human being in sight the entire time. Just sublime. It is easy to forget about Obama and Pelosi on the beach.

Deficits Matter

The consequences of the Obama budget deficits are already becoming obvious. Liberals who once decried Bush deficits of $300-400 billion are now mostly silent when Obama's are in the trillions, but the bond market will bring all of us down to reality. All the money Obama wants to borrow comes in the form of Treasury Notes which must be put up for auction. The government sells them to bidders and the interest rate on them reflects supply and demand plus the outlook in the future. So, if you are trying to sell a 30 year bond, the buyer will want to set the price at a level which will allow him to make money over that length of time. If the supply is large, the price will be lowered and the interest due on the note will be higher. There was an auction last week and the interest demanded by the buyers of the 30 year notes went from 4.1 to 4.3%. This may not seem like much,but we have only begun to sell these things to finance Obama's budget excesses. When the interest rate on treasury notes goes up, the interest rate on everything goes up. We are in the very early stages of what could be Jimmy Carter squared.

Obama's Budget Cuts

We all remember during the seemingly endless campaign that Obama said if we elected him he would go over the budget line by line and take his pen to strike out unnecessary spending. Well, he has evidently done exactly that. Since most people lose their sense of reality when billions and trillions are used to depict government spending, BestView has found another way to see how mightily Obama's pen was wielded. The headlines this week all said Obama was proposing cuts of $17 billion from his previously announced budget. Here is the math. The budget he put forth called for spending $11,600 for each American and the cuts, which Congress won't accept, come to $55.00. How is that for "Change You Can Believe In?"

Voucher Update

BestView is still steaming at the Obama position on vouchers for black students who are demonstrably benefiting from their escape from the failing D.C. schools. Now, apparently since they are catching some flack from what is an indefensible position, they say students currently in the voucher program can be "grandfathered" and continue, but no new students can be added. This, of course, is tacit admission that the program works but the teachers union can't be challenged.

Meanwhile, other liberals are concerned with the fact that there are 4,777 black males per 100,000 in the nations federal and state prisons and local jails. The number for whites is 727 per 100,000. Blacks are 13% of the general population and 38% of the prison population. What is the liberal solution to this disparity? They want to make the use and distribution of crack cocaine the same as powder even though they know that crack has a greater effect on black communities and locking up crack pushers and users longer has to be a positive. This is evidently a better solution to the problem than giving young blacks a good education. Our prisons are not full of educated men of either race.

Just walking the dog

A not so gay marriage?

Despite promises from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) that Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.) would retain his seniority after switching parties, Specter will be put at the end of the seniority line on all his committees but one under a resolution approved on the floor late Tuesday.

Under the modified organizing resolution, Specter will not keep his committee seniority on any of the five committees that he serves on and will be the junior Democrat on all but one — the chamber’s Special Committee on Aging. On that committee, he will be next to last in seniority.

Story here

Obama's Biggest Disgrace?

The Wall Street Journal has two excellent editorials today describing the shameful, hypocritical decision of Obama to discontinue the voucher program available to a few Washington, D.C. students (99% black and Hispanic). Read them here and here. An partial description of this shameful situation is given below. Well worth reading.

The Education Department released its annual evaluation of the D.C. program last month -- tellingly, without a press release or media briefing -- and it showed that voucher recipients are reading nearly a half-grade ahead of their peers who didn't receive a scholarship. These academic benefits are compounding over time. The study revealed that the program's earliest participants are 19 months ahead of public school peers in reading after three years. Nationwide, black 12th graders as a group score lower on reading tests than white 8th graders. The D.C. voucher program is closing this achievement gap.

See if you can follow this political syllogism. President Obama and his Education Secretary have repeatedly promised to support "what works," regardless of ideology. The teachers unions adamantly oppose school vouchers, whether or not they work. Ergo, Messrs. Obama and Duncan decide to end a D.C. school voucher program that works and force poor kids back into schools where Messrs. Obama and Duncan would never send their own children. What a disgrace.

Attack on Tax Cheats

It was really fun to watch Obama make a serious announcement yesterday that he was going to ask Congress to crack down on tax cheats with a somber Sec. Geithner looking on as a human prop behind him. There was room back there for Tom Daschle, Rep. Rangle, and others, but Geithner must have drawn the short straw.

Liberal Economics at the New York Times

As has been pointed out in BestView and elsewhere newspapers are going the way of the buggy whip. The New York Times is threatening to close the Boston Globe if the unions don't give back major portions of previous agreements and is losing money daily. Now, the word is this dishonest liberal rag has decided that it can bring in more money by raising its price. So, both the weekly and Sunday additions will cost more. If you think it is smart to raise the price of something you can get free online, this is a winning idea. Otherwise, it is akin to the liberal thinking which believes raising taxes is a good way to increase revenues.

Phony Alert

WASHINGTON (AP) - One day after saying he wouldn't travel in tight quarters because of the swine flu scare, Vice President Joe Biden rode a train Friday from Washington to Delaware.

Known for speaking freely, Biden told NBC's "Today" show on Thursday that he had urged family members to avoid airplanes and subways for fear of contracting the H1N1 flu virus.

"I wouldn't go anywhere in confined places now," Biden said.

The comments infuriated the travel industry and triggered several revisions from the Obama administration, whose official advice is less severe.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano commented, "If he could say that over again, he would say if they're feeling sick, they should stay off of public transit or confined spaces."

By Friday night, Biden seemed ready for his own do-over. A longtime rider of Amtrak, he took a train from Union Station to his Delaware home, his office said.

Change the Words

In a recent BestView entry below,The Truth Commission, it is pointed out that when liberals and others in the government name something, it is often done in such a way as to disguise its true nature. The New York Times this morning has a great story which makes this point and several others commonly raised in this blog. Here are two paragraphs of the story which makes it clear that the entire climate change, global warming subject is manufactured claptrap.

The term global warming turns people off, fostering images of shaggy-haired liberals, economic sacrifice and complex scientific disputes, according to extensive polling and focus group sessions conducted by ecoAmerica, a nonprofit environmental marketing and messaging firm in Washington.

Instead of grim warnings about global warming, the firm advises, talk about “our deteriorating atmosphere.” Drop discussions of carbon dioxide and bring up “moving away from the dirty fuels of the past.” Don’t confuse people with cap and trade; use terms like “cap and cash back” or “pollution reduction refund.”

Joe Biden, M.D.

Obama is going to bankrupt the country, but fortunately he brought along Joe Biden for comic relief while we go under. With the economy teetering, unemployment still rising, and a recovery still in doubt despite massive spending, our Vice President demonstrates his vast medical training by advising that his wealthy family is not taking planes or subways. Meanwhile, those working in places like NYC with no reported cases of H1N1 influenza, who have no other way to get to work except the subway, are left as confused as they were when Obama sent his 747 flying over Ground Zero last Monday. During the campaign, the liberals warned us that if we voted for McCain we would get a moron for Vice-President. Turns out, they were right.

Obama Motor Company

Obama was just on T.V. (surprise) telling us how great it was that Chrysler was going into bankruptcy---even though he has spent billions of our money trying to avoid Chapter 11. He also says that we should go out and buy an American car. He made it clear that he considers Chrysler which is merging with a European company (Fiat) is an American company, but those cars built by Americans in the southern states do not qualify. In addition, you don't have to worry about a warranty with Chrysler since the government will honor them---since Chrysler is an Obama Motor car. Our new president will choose winners and losers in the U.S. it seems. Just amazing.

This should be good

The future model of the Detroit automobile companies is evidently going to be a marvel of entrepreneurial genius. It looks like the United Auto Workers (UAW) would own 39% of GM. The federal government would own 50%. The creditors will be shafted with just 10%. In the Chrysler plan being discussed, labor would own 55%, making it effectively a subsidiary of the UAW. BestView looks forward to the labor negotiations between the Obama administration and the union bosses. Maybe we'll just stick with Toyota products.

Miscellaneous Observations

When the teleprompter breaks down, our new president doesn't sound much more articulate than the previous one.

The Jews and Muslims have found common ground in objecting to calling the illness spreading out of Mexico "swine flu".

Matthew Stafford, the quarterback from the University of Georgia, was drafted first by the Detroit Lions and given a contract worth some $71 million. That would buy a large part of his new city.

The media are giving the Obama administration some grief over the photo-op staged by sending Air Force 1 flying low over New York City, but imagine the blow-back if it had happened on Bush's watch.

Astronomers tracking a mysterious blast of energy called a gamma ray burst said on Tuesday they had snapped a photograph of the most distant object in the universe -- a smudge 13 billion light-years away.

The Truth Commission

It is well known that politicians of both parties name legislation in such a way as to disguise its true effect and usually is completely contradictory in its implementation. We now have one of the most liberal senators, Leahy of Vermont, calling for a Truth Commission to find out why the Bush administration did what they did in its interrogations of terrorists. In fact, Leahy does not really want to know the truth about everything---such as how firmly the democrat leadership signed off on everything at the time.
As was pointed out in the Wall Street Journal this morning, the dems were in full voice against torture and passed legislation in February 2008 that would have limited the U.S. to techniques found in the Army Field Manual. This was easy since they knew Bush would veto it and the veto would be sustained. Now the dems have a large majority in both houses and a president who would sign it, but they do not want to go this route and are instead calling for a Truth Commission. The reason, of course, is if they now make waterboarding illegal, they are admitting that up until now it was legal.

China Gold

BestView has mentioned several times that the devaluation of the dollar by the Bush/Obama spending will drive an appreciation of gold.
This article in the Financial Post discusses the accumulation of gold rather than more of the dollars which will lose their value over time. Since the Chinese own so much of our debt, one might conclude that they share BestView worries about our currency.

SHANGHAI/BEIJING - China revealed on Friday that it had secretly raised its gold reserves by three-quarters since 2003, increasing its holdings to 1,054 tonnes - or a pot worth about US$30.9-billion - and confirming years of speculation it had been buying.

Hu Xiaolian, head of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, told Xinhua news agency in an interview that the country's reserves had risen by 454 tonnes from 600 tonnes since 2003, when China last adjusted its state gold reserves figure.

Royal Climate Change

If you want to even consider the possibility that "climate change" nee "global warming" is an important factor in your life, keep in mind that you will be reaching the same conclusion as this idiot:

Prince Charles is being accused of hypocrisy after it was revealed that he is chartering a luxury private jet for a five-day tour of Europe to promote environmental issues.

The Prince and the Duchess of Cornwall, plus ten Clarence House staff, will fly from London to Rome this evening. Then they will fly on to Venice and Berlin, before returning to Britain.

Clarence House aides stress that the trip is at the request of the Government to promote its climate change policies.

But instead of using scheduled flights, the Royal party has hired a private plane, thought to be an Airbus A319.

Beware Israeli Security

An Italian cruise ship with 1,500 people on board fended off a pirate attack far off the coast of Somalia when its Israeli private security forces exchanged fire with the bandits.

Six men in a small, white Zodiac-type boat approached the Msc Melody at about 1730 GMT Saturday and opened fire with automatic weapons, Msc Cruises director Domenico Pellegrino said. They retreated after the security officers returned fire and sprayed them with water hoses. The ship continued its journey with its windows darkened.

"It felt like we were in war," the ships commander, Ciro Pinto, told Italian state radio.

None of the roughly 1,000 passengers and 500 crew members was hurt, Pellegrino said. The passengers were asked to return to their cabins and the external lights on board turned off.

Pellegrino said all Msc cruise ships around the world are staffed with Israeli security agents because they are the best trained.

More Nonsense

The following statement from Dennis Blair is patent nonsense. Evidently, our interrogation techniques prevented another al Qaeda attack which one must presume saved lives, but these are less precious than our "image" abroad. Here is the quote:

The Obama administration's top intelligence officer, Dennis C. Blair, has said the information obtained through the interrogation program was of "high value." But he also concluded that those gains weren't worth the cost.

"There is no way of knowing whether the same information could have been obtained through other means," Blair said in a statement. "The bottom line is these techniques have hurt our image around the world, the damage they have done to our interests far outweighed whatever benefit they gave us and they are not essential to our national security."

New Flu Strain

There is enough different about this strain of influenza coming out of Mexico (and it will come out) to raise my concern. First, the virus is genetically different from that complex of antigens to which most in the U.S. have been vaccinated. It is being spread at a time of year which is not usual for influenza. Lastly, it is evidently striking individuals who are not usually so vulnerable. Young, healthy individuals rather than infants and the elderly are affected severely. I recommend staying out of crowds and keeping your hands clean and away from your face. This could be a bad one. A recent article is published here.

This won't be in the NY Times

A Philippine appeals court overturned Thursday the conviction of a U.S. Marine who was sentenced to 40 years in prison for raping a Filipino woman in 2005.

The court also ordered the immediate release of Lance Cpl. Daniel Smith, who is being detained inside the U.S. Embassy compound in Manila.

The acquittal came a few weeks after the victim recanted, saying the sex was consensual.

The mother of the woman said her daughter decided to change her story and left the country.

The acquittal also came amid clamor for Smith to be turned over to Philippine authorities.

A lower court sentenced Smith in December 2006 for the rape of the woman in a van at a former U.S. Navy base in Subic north of Manila.

Three other defendants -- Lance Cpls. Keith Silkwood and Dominic Duplantis and SSgt. Chad Carpentier -- were all cleared of rape.

The case has stirred strong protests from women's and left-wing groups in the Philippines and strained ties with the United States.

The rape charges sparked a strong debate on whether an existing Visiting Forces Agreement between the United States and the Philippines should continue or be abrogated.

Another bad liberal idea

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick is moving ahead with a plan for mandatory GPS devices in cars that would be read at gas pumps and automatically charge drivers for miles driven.

Global Warming Poll

Just one-out-of-three voters (34%) now believe global warming is caused by human activity, the lowest finding yet in Rasmussen Reports national surveying. However, a plurality (48%) of the Political Class believes humans are to blame.This is from a recent Rasmussen survey.

This indicates that the voters are smarter than the politicians, but BestView would still like to see some recognition of the fact that we are not in a period of global warming, haven't been for several years, and the global cooling we are experiencing is not caused by human activity either.

Save the Globe

It appears the Boston Globe, a liberal rag owned by the New York Times is in some financial difficulty and Senator John Kerry says the potential demise of this reliable leftist newspaper is unacceptable. He is going to save it. O.K. Does this mean he is going to ask his uber-wealthy wife Terresa to throw some of her money toward propping it up? Bake sales or car washes by school students? Of course not. He is going after tax payers to ante up to save the Boston Globe because there will be serious consequences for our democracy where diversity of opinion and strong debate are paramount if this paper is allowed to fail. Poppycock. Read the sad story here in a more conservative paper which is not in financial trouble.

Torture Politics

BestView knew Obama was a liberal and would appoint liberals to government positions and would, at certain times, be inclined to cater to his liberal loon supporters. This nonsense over the released CIA documents goes well beyond my worst fears. After 9/11 we capture some of the principals in the terror attack and want to know who else was involved and what other plans were in play to attack us. The CIA asks for guidance from the lawyers in the Attorney Generals office detailing what they could do and several opinions were forthcoming which green-lighted interrogation tactics which were used to gain information which even the Obama administration admits was valuable and saved lives of U.S. citizens.
Now that the loons have a pliable neophyte in the White House, they want to go back and not only second guess the legal opinions, they want to prosecute the lawyers who rendered the opinions and hopefully be able to reach up to Bush and Cheney so they can be frog-marched to prison. The only way they can do this is to call the tactics employed "torture". It is fair to say that Americans do not endorse torture, but BestView holds that what we did---waterboarding, sleep deprivation, head slapping, and talking harshly to those who killed Americans was not torture. Torture is what BestView would impose on an Al-qaeda leader with information which would prevent the death of a single U.S. citizen. Some might not agree with the tactics we would use, but at least my interrogation could, if need be, progress to a point where the loony leftists would be able to use the term "torture" appropriately.

This will go nowhere fast

On the day the new Congress convened this year, Sen. Dianne Feinstein introduced legislation to route $25 billion in taxpayer money to a government agency that had just awarded her husband’s real estate firm a lucrative contract to sell foreclosed properties at compensation rates higher than the industry norms.

Mrs. Feinstein’s intervention on behalf of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. was unusual: the California Democrat isn’t a member of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs with jurisdiction over FDIC; and the agency is supposed to operate from money it raises from bank-paid insurance payments - not direct federal dollars.

The Carbon Dioxide Threat

The EPA has now declared carbon dioxide to be a pollutant. Very few of those who aren't paying attention realize that the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere comes from numerous sources and man's activities are responsible for about 3% of this. No matter, the liberals in Washington want to control man's activities with laws and regulations so we can now look for the Obama administration to use their control of the automobile companies to impose fuel standards which can only be met with small cars which in a crash is more likely to kill more of us. When this occurs, our government will be addressing a non-problem by imposing a "solution" which will literally kill us.

Spending Cuts Obama Style

This is a great depiction of the budget cuts BO sternly demanded of his cabinet yesterday.

Generous Joe

Vice-President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill have given about 0.2% of their income to charity in each of the years between 2000 and 2008. Less than ½ of one percentage point given to persons in need, to ministries of their Catholic Church, to agencies that serve the poor and the hurting. In fact, this year they gave a total of $1885 to charity, marking the first time they had even given a sum larger than $1000 for the entire year. In every year of this decade, the Bidens' income has exceeded $200,000, and for the first time they gave away more than $1000 of their own money. The Bidens reported income of $253,866 and paid $46,952 in federal taxes in 2008.

The Tax Problem

There are many problems with the way our country taxes its citizens and spends the money raised, but none of them can really be solved when the least educated, least productive, least knowledgeable, and, yes, the least intelligent among us pay no federal income tax. Appropriate outrage will not be forthcoming and that is exactly what our craven politicians want as they continue to complicate our tax policies.

Where is the love?

The New York Times and the Washington Post have been grappling with a steep drop in print advertising revenue, steadily declining circulation and the migration of readers to free news online.

Earlier this month, the Times threatened to shut down the Boston Globe which was purchased by the Times Co. for 1.1 billion dollars in 1993, unless unions at the daily agree to pay cuts and other cost-saving measures.

Is this any way for good liberals to be treating union members? Shocking.

My sentiments exactly

From a Texas Tea Party:

Mike Smart, a 51-year-old oil field worker from West Texas, held up a white handwritten sign that said, "I'll keep my freedom, my $ and my guns. You keep the change."

"I just want the government to stay out of my way. I won't get in their way if they don't get in mine," said Smart, who described himself as conservative but not a Republican.

Obama Passes Pirate Test

It is looking like Obama avoided his Jimmy Carter moment and let the snipers do their thing as suggested by BestView. Now the sanctuary sites in Somalia need to be visited from the sky and a sufficient number sent to awaiting virgins that piracy is not considered such a great enterprise.

Pretty good analysis by Neal Boortz

The United States tells them not to do it. The useless United Nations tells them not to do it. They do it. It has been five days since North Korea launched a missile capable of reaching Hawaii. What is America's response? What is the international response? The silence is deafening. What are we showing here? Weakness or strength?

The mad man that runs Iran is bragging that they now have 7000 centrifuges up and running making enriched nuclear weapons-grade fuel. He also brags that they have developed a technology that enhances the enrichment progress. At the same time the Iranian president continues to say that Israel's days are limited. In the meantime Vice President Joe Biden warns Israel that they had better not even think about attacking Iran. No strong warning to Iran. What are we projecting here, strength or weakness?

The Islamic pirates continue to hold an American hostage off the coast of Somalia. We're talking, not acting. So far I have not heard about any search for the pirate mother ship and there's no talk of blockading Somalian ports. The pirates may well end up with millions of dollars and safe passage to Somalia where they will release their American hostage. Strength or weakness?

The American the ragtag Islamic pirates are holding tried to escape. He dove out of the boat and into the water and tried to get away. Our Navy was standing off and not close enough to help him. The Islamic pirates overtook him and took him into custody again. This man tried to escape in full view of American forces. They were either unable or unwilling to help him. Perhaps the American Captain thought that when he was out of the pirate's boat the Navy would blow them away. Didn't happen. Strength or Weakness?

America - once strong, now cowering.

Read it here.

This guy needs a new sport

Worst boxer ever? View it here.

Surrender Monkey? Shocking!

Not everyone in Europe was struck mute in the aura of our new President's visit to their continent. This snippet from a column in the Telegraph from the U.K. makes that quite clear, but read it all here and then watch to see if there is any blow-back from using the word "monkey" in a reference to our black President.

President Pantywaist is hopping mad and he has a strategy to cut Kim down to size: he is going to slice $1.4bn off America's missile defence programme, presumably on the calculation that Kim would feel it unsporting to hit a sitting duck, so that will spoil his fun.

Watch out, France and Co, there is a new surrender monkey on the block and, over the next four years, he will spectacularly sell out the interests of the West with every kind of liberal-delusionist initiative on nuclear disarmament and sitting down to negotiate with any power freak who wants to buy time to get a good ICBM fix on San Francisco, or wherever. If you thought the world was a tad unsafe with Dubya around, just wait until President Pantywaist gets into his stride.

Bad Vibes

BestView has a pit of the gut feeling that Obama is not up to facing the challenge posed by 4 pirates in a small motor boat who have taken an American hostage. This is despite the world's greatest navy at his disposal. If we get a Jimmy Carter response from this new President, it will be a disaster for our country. Get your best snipers out there, take the thugs out in one volley, get the captain back, and put an end to this nonsense. Right now Obama is acting like the dog who catches the fire truck and no idea what to do with the actual presidency now that the campaign is over.

Too idiotic for words

The president’s new science adviser said Wednesday that global warming is so dire, the Obama administration is discussing radical technologies to cool Earth’s air.

John Holdren told The Associated Press in his first interview since being confirmed last month that the idea of geoengineering the climate is being discussed. One such extreme option includes shooting pollution particles into the upper atmosphere to reflect the sun’s rays. Holdren said such an experimental measure would only be used as a last resort.

“It’s got to be looked at,” he said. “We don’t have the luxury of taking any approach off the table.”

Don't worry your pretty head about the banks

"The U.S. Treasury Department is planning to delay the release of any completed bank stress test results until after the first-quarter earnings season to avoid complicating stock market reaction, a source familiar with Treasury's discussions said on Tuesday." Read it all here.

In other words, the government does not think you are ready to learn how healthy your bank may be.

Feckless squared

Obama says if North Korea launches a rocket it must be punished so they launched and by golly Obama went to the U.N. and they said ----"Let's talk about it". Feckless doesn't even begin to describe this debacle.

Bad Transmission?

Obama says he and his government workers will stand behind the automobile warranties issued by his new auto companies. Won't it be fun waiting in a Social Security style waiting room to see a GS-5 about replacing your bad transmission?

Do I really need this?

The following is part of a pitch for a product that few men would find especially necessary.

"It will be hard for women to resist the temptation not to sleep with you."

Inflation

We are attempting to print our way to prosperity. That can't be done, any more than we could speculate our way to prosperity during the stock bubble or borrow our way to prosperity in the real-estate/credit bubble. Got gold? Get some.

Obama Priorities

President Obama’s European visit this week has strained Air Force heavy-airlift capabilities and obliged the military to hire more foreign contractors to help resupply U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan, according to military sources. The large delegation traveling with the president in Europe required moving several transports, including jumbo C-5s and C-17s, from sorties ferrying supplies to Afghanistan to European bases for the presidential visit, said two military officials familiar with the issue. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid any misunderstanding with White House officials.”

Sex and Genes

There have been articles lately that report on a study into the effect of one's genetic makeup on how early virginity is lost. See here, for example. Once you look at the data and attempt to understand what it actually revealed, you get to the following conclusion:

Some people probably have genes that make them extremely likely to lose their virginity at a young age. Some others probably have genes that make them delay sexual activity for many years. Still others have genes that leave them more malleable to the environment. We are not all equally genetically driven on each type of behavior we engage in.

In other words, the research is meaningless.

More Tax Coming In

Health and Human Services nominee Kathleen Sebelius recently corrected three years of tax returns and paid more than $7,000 in back taxes after finding "unintentional errors"—the latest tax troubles for an Obama administration nominee. The Kansas governor explained the changes to senators in a letter dated Tuesday that the administration released. She said they involved charitable contributions, the sale of a home and business expenses.

Where does Obama find all these tax cheats?

Diminishing returns

So it turns out our neighbors at the United Nations participated in "Earth Hour," Saturday's silly demonstration in which people shut off their lights for an hour to show their concern about some cause or another. Fox News phoned the world body to ask how much it would be saving on its electric bill, and the answer came back $81,000.

But it turns out the estimate was in error: "After the story appeared on FOXNews.com, a spokeswoman called back to say their estimate was incorrect and the savings was $24,000, but then called back a third time to say it was really $102."

We are waiting for the next phone call and/or the next idiotic such stunt.

Daniel Hannan

We need a plain-speaker like this here in the U.S. Everything he says applies here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94lW6Y4tBXs

A good letter to a newspaper

The following was submitted to the Odessa American by a fellow named David Johnson.

A friend of mine, a cowboy in the rancher-philosopher mold, once passed along some equine-related knowledge to me.

"The thing you have to remember about horses," he said, "is they aren't as smart as they think they are, but they're smarter than you think they are."

I reminded him I was much more city slicker than good ol' boy and didn't really run into horses that often. He assured me it was just as applicable to jackasses. I thanked him, and as with all of his advice, I've remembered it and done my best to keep it in mind through all my dealings and relations.

George Carlin, a far smarter man than I, and probably smarter even than I realize, pointed out that when you think about how dumb the average person is, the really scary thing is to realize that half the population is even dumber than that.

Lucky for us, almost everyone is smarter than average. Just ask them.

If I had a poll - heck, I will have a poll. Look over there. Compared to the average newspaper reader, how smart are you?

I can't predict how people are actually going to answer, especially after reading this, but I can practically guarantee how you want to answer: you're at least as smart as the average person and probably a little more intelligent. You know it. I feel the same way about myself, and there's no reason to have false humility about it. And we're right, all of us.

In a purely mathematical sense, we can't be. There must be a slow-witted underclass out there that some of you - not me, you people - are part of and don't realize it. Obviously, we overestimate our own intelligence relative to others. We do the same thing when asked about our sense of humor, ability to get along with people and really anything that can't be quantifiably disproved and shoved in our faces, though we'll deny it even then.

Mainly, we just make sure the criteria for our judgments about ourselves and others work in our favor.

The things we rank as important are the things we care about most.

I'm a smart guy because I will discount all the myriad areas of human understanding I have no part in and value on a weighted scale the few things I do understand. And anyone who doesn't know the same things as I do is a moron. If I don't know anything about music or cars or math, that's because they don't matter, and history or literature do. So I'm smarter than average.

Actually, I'm one of the handful of geniuses that refrains from calling myself such only because I don't want to sound rude.

Which is all tongue-in-cheek, but not much of an exaggeration, or atypical.

One of the reasons I'm terrified of government power is because I know most in government are typical people and full of themselves. They think that because they're smart enough to get elected that they're smart enough to run other people's lives better than those people. And they are gifted, in some area that they value greatly, but not in every area. And we people are dumb at running our lives, but not so dumb as they like to think.

This is what wakes me up in a cold sweat, dreaming of legislators and lobbyists and aides hem-hawing it up, convinced that they're much smarter than they actually are, solving all of our problems.

I only fall back asleep when I remember they aren't as dumb as I think they are.

They can't be.

We have a problem

The editorials from the last few issues of the New York Times have been as critical of the competence of this new administration as I am. Maureen Dowd, Paul Krugman, Frank Rich, and others find this administration and its policies lacking. If all these liberals are coming to the same conclusion of BestView, Obama has a problem.

It is all a matter of semantics

Now that the idiots (of both parties) in the House of Representative have passed an unconstitutional bill of attainder aimed at the bonuses paid to some executives at AIG, the next move by this and other companies who in some cases have been forced to accept TARP funds and now are faced with confiscatory tax rates, is to simply change the name of the money. From now on, the money being paid will be called "commissions" instead of bonuses.

The AIG mess

The question that comes to BestView, as the news that the dems in the House, Senate, and White House rushed through a stimulus package that nobody had time to read actually dictitated the bonuses they now are so outraged by, is whether all those who voted for Obama and his glib campaign rhetoric are smart enough to see through the situation and conclude how terribly serious the situation is?

Take your choice

A few weeks ago Obama's Press Secretary was being questioned about the latest 30 billion for AIG and Jake Tapper of ABC asked if the administration knew where the money was going and he was given firm assurance that Geithner did in fact know. Now Obama is jujst outraged that the money is going to pay bonuses to failed executives. There are two possibilities here:

1. The administration did know about the millions in bonuses when he doled out the latest billions to AIG, but didn’t bother to raise the matter until it became a matter of public outrage this weekend.
2. Gibbs protestations of two weeks ago notwithstanding, the administration handed out $30 billion without knowing where the money was going.

Where did the money go?

The public is rightly outraged that the bailout money at AIG went to pay for bonuses for employees who got them into the situation in the first place, but the real crime is that the money largely went to rescue politically connected investment companies like Goldman Sachs (former company of Paulsen) European banks such as Deutsche Bank, Barclays, and France's Societe Generale. We are rapidly reaching the point where everything can be blamed on Bush.

BestView says we should void the contracts of these "indispensible" employees and let them sue. The trials would be interesting.

Up in arms?

Apparently we have a dust-up in the the fashion arena. Michelle Obama's decision to go sleeveless again is stirring up a debate. For the second time in as many days the first lady bared her arms: She wore a plum Narciso Rodriguez dress when her husband addressed Congress on Tuesday night. She appears on the latest issue of People magazine in a sleeveless magenta Tracy Reese frock and also went sans sleeves on her recent Vogue cover.

BestView finds it refreshing that there are no bigger problems in Washington for some folks.

Recession not all bad

In a vivid illustration of how the global recession is battering the legal profession, Latham & Watkins, one of the largest law firms in the nation, announced yesterday that it will let go 190 lawyers and 250 paralegal and support staff.

Quote of the Day

"The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of people to tax".

Margret Thatcher

Do the math

O.K., as BestView understands it, Obama wants to cut the deficit by raising taxes on all of us who earn more than $250,000. He ran on that and he won, so passing such a tax increase seems fair--assuming the voters are smart enough to understand what is going on. That assumption is not warranted, but we can save that for later. For now, lets do the math as the Wall Street Journal did today. In 2006 if we had confiscated all of the income from everyone over $500,000 Congress would have an extra $1.3 trillion dollars which would smaller in the coming years if the recession continues, but it would pale severely to the $4 trillion Congress expects to spend in 2010 when Obama says he will have cut the budget deficit in half.
So, even if we take it all, the deficit will be gigantic and the government will come after your money if you make a lot less than $250,000. Count on it.

Economic Darkness

Most of the average adults in the U.S. are only aware that the economy is not good and assume the government is focused on trying to fix the problems which are not being well described or even understood. The thing most of us who do not follow these things all day should know is the Bush and now the Obama administration's is using the same people who were involved in causing our problems (and did not see the consequences of their action) have been given the job of fixing the situation. That is not smart and will not get us where we need to be any time soon.

As Moms Mabley once said, "If you keep on doing what you did, you will keep on gittin' what you got".

Obama's View from the Podium last night

Is everybody happy?

Don't Fall For It

In a recent speech marking Black History Month, Eric Holder, the new Attorney General, said, "Though race-related issues continue to occupy a significant portion of our political discussion, and though there remain many unresolved racial issues in this nation, we, average Americans, simply do not talk enough with each other about things racial."

Here is some good advice for whites: Don't fall for it. If you think you can all of a sudden express your views about blacks when that view is not sufficiently "correct", you are sadly mistaken. Try sitting down with a room full of blacks and express the opinion that too many of them have babies that they can't afford without husbands. After that, come out with the suggestion that the reason blacks represent so much of our prison population is because they commit so much of our crime. If you still have any hide on your bones, hint that affirmative action in college admissions is detrimental to the black student since it places him or her in an inferior, dependent position academically.

Don't fall for it.

WSJ solution to Illinois "problem"

In the previous post BestView wondered if Obama was the only honest politician in Illinois and today the Wall Street Journal seems to have found a solution to the problem:

By now it's clear enough that the problem is less Mr. Burris or Mr. Blagojevich than the entire rotten Illinois political culture. So here's a modest proposal: Every elected state official should resign at once, giving voters a chance to start over with special elections for everyone. State government couldn't get any more dysfunctional than it is now, and maybe Diogenes could find an honest man.

Just wondering

The calls--even from dems--for newly appointed Senator Burris to resign has BestView wondering whether or not we should believe Obama is the only clean and honest politician from Illinois?

Right Wing Criticism

We simply must shut down those right wing radio and television programs which are critical of the Obama administration. Control the internet sites as well. We simply can't tolerate these contrary opinions threatening the liberal, socialist government we hope to create via the massive spending and control of all economic activity. The strategy for this must be concealed. Let's call it the "Fairness Doctrine" and package it with a change in the secret ballot for organizing labor unions by calling the change "Card Check". Surely the American voter who elected Obama is too stupid to oppose something as sensible as a "Fairness Doctrine".

Comparison of lies

This story in the Chicago Tribune details the various versions of Senator Burris's memory of the events just last year about the contacts with Governor Blagojevich prior to his appointment to the U.S. Senate. Keeping in mind that much of this was given while under oath, contrast the legal outcome of his truth-telling with that of Scooter Libby who did not give an accurate account of a non-crime some 3 years previous to his conviction by a renegade special prosecutor.

More liberal nonsense revealed

Farmers across the tropics might raze forests to plant biofuel crops, according to new research by Holly Gibbs, a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford's Woods Institute for the Environment.

"If we run our cars on biofuels produced in the tropics, chances will be good that we are effectively burning rainforests in our gas tanks," she warned.

Policies favoring biofuel crop production may inadvertently contribute to, not slow, the process of climate change, Gibbs said. Such an environmental disaster could be "just around the corner without more thoughtful energy policies that consider potential ripple effects on tropical forests," she added.

Gibbs' predictions are based on her new study, in which she analyzed detailed satellite images collected between 1980 and 2000. The study is the first to do such a detailed characterization of the pathways of agricultural expansion throughout the entire tropical region. Gibbs hopes that this new knowledge will contribute to making prudent decisions about future biofuel policies and subsidies.

"If biofuels are grown in place of forests, we're actually going to end up emitting a huge amount of carbon. When trees are cut down to make room for new farmland, they are usually burned, sending their stored carbon to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. That creates what's called a carbon debt," Gibbs said. "This is because the carbon lost from deforestation is much greater than the carbon saved from using the current-generation biofuels."

Indeed, tropical forests are the world's most efficient storehouses for carbon, harboring more than 340 billion tons, according to Gibbs' research. This is equivalent to more than 40 years worth of global carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels.

Gibbs' previous findings asserted that the carbon debt incurred from cutting down a tropical forest could take several centuries or even millennia to repay through carbon savings produced from the resultant biofuels.

The Obama housing solution

Today Obama will tell us that if you took out a loan you could not afford and are now facing foreclosure on a house, the Obama administration will bail you out using tax money to be extracted from those who were responsible and did not try to get something for nothing in the past few years. It looks like this reaffirmation of the formerly discredited welfare state is a reality. This will not end well.

Obama Fearmongering

From IBD:
In his first month, President Obama has talked down the economy and engineered a huge surge in federal spending. Now the bills will come due. The pain may be just beginning.

Long ago, there was a president who said, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." Now the message from the White House can be boiled down to something like, "Be afraid. Be very afraid. And give this president what he wants."

Do we overstate the case? We'll just say this: Franklin D. Roosevelt made his share of missteps but understood the need to calm a frightened nation and restore confidence. If that meant closing the banks, so be it. Anything to stop the panic.

Barack Obama, inheriting a situation not even close to what FDR beheld, talks as if the nation isn't scared enough. He pushed a vast peacetime spending bill through Congress by warning of "catastrophe" if it failed to pass. But where boldness had been needed — with the banks — only vague work-in-progress is on offer.

With a performance like this, and Obama only a month in office, the markets are noticing. We see the Dow industrials down about 8% from the pre-inaugural close and off more than 20% from Election Day. Wall Street — and Main Street — had hoped for strong, reassuring leadership. Instead, we have a presidency "spinning the bad news story," as Cato Institute economist Steve Hanke puts it.

As details of the "stimulus" bill signed Tuesday emerge, it's also become clear that little is there to jump-start the economy. It's more like a herd of Trojan horses designed to re-institute the costly welfare state that Ronald Reagan and even Bill Clinton dismantled.

Meanwhile, the nation waits to see what the administration has in mind for ending the balance-sheet crisis at the root of the pain.

This brief track record shows the power of the politics of fear. It's the same term the Left threw at George W. Bush, as it accused him of exploiting terrorism fears to expand the security state.

Obama is now doing on the economic front what his allies have accused Bush of doing on the war front: Stoking fear to amass power. In his case, he's not trying to listen in on more phone calls. What he's seeking, and so far achieving, is bigger government with greater influence over Americans' lives and livelihoods. Fear is working.

The problem is, if you talk down the economy you get a down economy, and stocks down, too. It's worse yet when your talk is not countered by credible action to ward off the threats you claim.

The actual dollar cost of the legislation is trouble, too. Bills won't come due all at once, but new taxes and government debt that could hobble the economy for decades is looming.

People look ahead at this and don't like what they see. Their gloomy view of the future further saps their confidence in the present. More than ever, they need what candidate Obama promised: hope. It's not what they're hearing from Obama as president.

The Obama Market

The Dow is now down over 2,000 since the messiah was elected. Is this Bush's fault, too?

Another Obama Lie

During the campaign where most Americans became convinced that the Messiah had re- joined us, Obama pledged to post any new legislation on the internet and let everyone read it over a 5 day period before he would sign it. Reality? Hasn't happened. Now with the biggest spending bill in the nation's history, the dems in the House at 7 P.M. last night still had not printed and distributed the 1,400 plus pages to the Republicans in the House, but Steny Hoyer says the debate on the measure will begin today at 9:00 A.M and the President will sign it on Monday.

Imagine the cries about another Bush lie if this had occurred under his administration.

Employment

Everyday we read of job cuts at companies in every corner of the U.S. economy. This is even occurring in some states as the recession impacts budgets. BestView has an assignment for you. Watch carefully and see if you can spot a reduction of workers in any federal government program or department. Evidently every single one of our government workers is absolutely essential to our very existence.

Senator Specter Nonsense

Jonah Goldberg has a great essay on the nonsensical position of Senator Specter on the so-called stimulus boondoggle being passed with his concurrence this week. Here is a sample, but the whole thing should be read here.

“I am supporting the economic stimulus package for one simple reason,” Specter wrote in the Post. “The country cannot afford not to take action.” Such thinking is the purest nonsense. Sure, if your house is burning down, you can’t afford not to take action. That doesn’t mean any action is better than no action. Grabbing a fire hose is good. Grabbing a jerrycan of gasoline and dancing the “Macarena,” not so much.

Daschle gone and good riddance

Tom Daschle is the biggest, phoniest hypocrit in politics who has now withdrawn from consideration as Secretary of Health and Human Services even though Obama supported him as of yesterday. Now if the equally crooked Charlie Rangle will do the right thing.....

This is getting funny

Nancy Killefer says she is withdrawing her candidacy for chief performance officer because she doesn't want her tax issue to become a "distraction."

In a letter to President Barack Obama, Killefer said she understands that the duties of chief performance officer are urgent and any delays must be avoided.

She said she was reluctantly withdrawing her name from consideration.

Killefer failed for a year and a half to pay employment taxes on household help. She was the second major Obama administration nominee to withdraw and the third to have tax problems complicate their nomination after Obama announced their selection.

An example of when the same can be "change"

During the Bush administration liberals argued that rendition - whether for the purpose of torture or otherwise - violated human rights and constitutional norms. Accordingly, they demanded that the U.S. abandon the rendition program altogether and that other countries refrain from helping enforce it (e.g., by allowing CIA flights over their airspace).

Obama has announced he will continue the renditions policy and many liberals have come forward to defend the new boss. The typical liberal defense of Obama argues that rendition is not wrong in and of itself, but that removal of persons for the purpose of torturing or indefinitely detaining them violates human rights norms. Because Obama has banned the use of torture (which pre-existing statutes and treaties already prohibited) and ordered the CIA to close its long-term detention centers, all is now just swell with rendition of terrorists.

BestView is running non-stop keeping up with liberal phonies.

Reasonable Exceptions

On Jan. 21, the day after his inauguration, Obama issued an executive order barring any former lobbyists who join his administration from dealing with matters or agencies related to their lobbying work. Nor could they join agencies they had lobbied in the previous two years.

However, William J. Lynn III, his choice to become the No. 2 official at the Defense Department, recently lobbied for military contractor Raytheon. And William Corr, tapped as deputy secretary at Health and Human Services, lobbied through most of last year as an anti-tobacco advocate. Corr says he will take no part in tobacco matters in the new administration.

Daschle, a former senator tapped to head Health and Human Services, is not technically a lobbyist. But he was paid more than $5.2 million over the past two years as he advised health insurers and hospitals and worked in other industries such as energy and telecommunications.

"Even the toughest rules require reasonable exceptions," said White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs.

Smart Republicans

This title might sound like the worst oxymoron, but the Republicans in congress may be temporarily brilliant in their proposal to lower the tax rates for the lowest earning workers from 10 to 5% and for those in the next highest bracket from 15 to 10%. The dems hate the idea and can be expected to avoid this because they know that at some time in the next couple of years they will still be in the majority and in order for them to continue spending madly on their interest groups, it will be necessary to raise these rates and there is no way they can portray such a move as taxing the rich as is their usual mantra. Will be fun to watch them squirm as they shoot this idea down.

Quote of the Day

Make no mistake, tax cheaters cheat us all, and the IRS should enforce our laws to the letter. ” Sen. Tom Daschle, Congressional Record, May 7, 1998, p. S4507.

Senator Dodd Update

While Dodd has demanded that regulators get to the bottom of any crimes by Bernard Madoff, he has played a cat and mouse game in keeping the documents about his dealing with Countrywide Financial under wraps. What is known is that he got favored treatment from the subprime mortgage company in 2003 while at the head of the Banking Committee that regulates the industry.

Dodd had promised a number of times that he would provide the necessary documents and details of the loans. As of February 1, 2009, the documents are still not forthcoming. What is known is that Dodd and his wife financed two properties through Countrywide and got preferential rates and had fees waived on the loans. It was part of a VIP program that the company had for "friends of the company."
Read it all here

Good Question

Ahmadinejad, the President of Iran, says that he would be willing to consider an improvement in relations with the U.S. if Obama will apologize for America's many offenses against Iran. Actually, this demand is quite reasonable: how can Obama refuse after his own public condemnation of his country's past policies?

Change at last

Obama promised change if we elected him and by golly we are getting it. First we got the nomination of Gov. Bill Richardson for Commerce secretary but he is facing indictment for doing favors for a contributor so he withdrew his name. Next we have the new Treasury secretary who will be in charge of the IRS even though he couldn't find a way to pay his own taxes. Now we have the biggest, phoniest crook of them all nominated to be Secretary of Health and Human Services. Senator Tom Daschle just discovered he did not pay his taxes either, but once he was nominated, he corrected that small matter to the tune of some $130,000. All of this is terribly embarassing to the dems, of course, but they are responding as one might predict. The following is from the New York Times which has yet to become upset by Obama's nominees.

On Capitol Hill, Senate Democrats rallied around Mr. Daschle, a former senator from South Dakota who lost his seat in 2004 while serving as the minority leader. Mr. Daschle is a close ally of the president’s — he marshaled his staff on behalf of the Obama campaign, and at least five former Daschle aides now have top White House jobs — and Democrats vowed to go to bat for him.