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.

A warning from an Israelii

Juval Aviv was the Israeli Agent upon whom the movie ' Munich ' was based. He was Golda Meir's bodyguard -- she appointed him to track down and bring to justice the Palestinian terrorists who took the Israeli athletes hostage and killed them during the Munich Olympic Games.

In a lecture in New York City a few weeks ago, he shared information that EVERY American needs to know -- but that our government has not yet shared with us.

He predicted the London subway bombing on the Bill O'Reilly show on Fox News stating publicly that it would happen within a week. At the time, O'Reilly laughed and mocked him saying that in a week he wanted him back on the show. But, unfortunately, within a week the terrorist attack had occurred.

Juval Aviv gave intelligence (via what he had gathered in Israel and the Middle East ) to the Bush Administration about 9/11 a month before it occurred. His report specifically said they would use planes as bombs and target high profile buildings and monuments. Congress has since hired him as a security consultant.

Now for his future predictions. He predicts the next terrorist attack on the U.S. will occur within the next few months.

Forget hijacking airplanes, because he says terrorists will NEVER try and hijack a plane again as they know the people onboard will never go down quietly again. Aviv believes our airport security is a joke -- that we have been reactionary rather than proactive in developing strategies that are truly effective.

For example:

1) Our airport technology is outdated. We look for metal, and the new explosives are made of plastic.

2) He talked about how some idiot tried to light his shoe on fire. Because of that, now everyone has to take off their shoes. A group of idiots tried to bring aboard liquid explosives. Now we can't bring liquids on board. He says he's waiting for some suicidal maniac to pour liquid explosive on his underwear; at which point, security will have us all traveling naked! Every strategy we have is 'reactionary.'

3) We only focus on security when people are heading to the gates.

Aviv says that if a terrorist attack targets airports in the future, they will target busy times on the front end of the airport when/where people are checking in. It would be easy for someone to take two suitcases of explosives, walk up to a busy check-in line, ask a person next to them to watch their bags for a minute while they run to the restroom or get a drink, and then detonate the bags BEFORE security even gets involved. In Israel , security checks bags BEFORE people can even ENTER the airport.

Aviv says the next terrorist attack here in America is imminent and will involve suicide bombers and non-suicide bombers in places where large groups of people congregate. (i. e., Disneyland, Las Vegas casinos, big cities (New York, San Francisco, Chicago, etc.) and that it will also include shopping malls, subways in rush hour, train stations, etc., as well as rural America this time (Wyoming, Montana, etc.).

The attack will be characterized by simultaneous detonations around the country (terrorists like big impact), involving at least 5-8 cities, including rural areas.

Aviv says terrorists won't need to use suicide bombers in many of the larger cities, because at places like the MGM Grand in Las Vegas , they can simply valet park a car loaded with explosives and walk away.

Aviv says all of the above is well known in intelligence circles, but that our U. S. government does not want to 'alarm American citizens' with the facts.

The world is quickly going to become 'a different place', and issues like 'global warming' and political correctness will become totally irrelevant.

On an encouraging note, he says that Americans don't have to be concerned about being nuked. Aviv says the terrorists who want to destroy America will not use sophisticated weapons. They like to use suicide as a front-line approach. It's cheap, it's easy, it's effective; and they have an infinite abundance of young militants more than willing to 'meet their destiny'.

He also says the next level of terrorists, over which America should be most concerned, will not be coming from abroad. But will be, instead, 'homegrown' -- having attended and been educated in our own schools and universities right here in the U. S. He says to look for 'students' who frequently travel back and forth to the Middle East . These young terrorists will be most dangerous because they will know our language and will fully understand the habits of Americans; but that we Americans won't know/understand a thing about them.

Aviv says that, as a people, Americans are unaware and uneducated about the terroristic threats we will, inevitably, face. America still has only have a handful of Arabic and Farsi speaking people in our intelligence networks, and Aviv says it is critical that we change that fact SOON.

So, what can America do to protect itself?

From an intelligence perspective, Aviv says the U.S. needs to stop relying on satellites and technology for intelligence. We need to, instead, follow Israel 's, Ireland 's and England 's hands-on examples of human intelligence, both from an infiltration perspective as well as to trust 'aware' citizens to help. We need to engage and educate ourselves as citizens; however, our U. S. government continues to treat us, its citizens, 'like babies'. Our government thinks we 'can't handle the truth' and are concerned that we'll panic if we understand the realities of terrorism. Aviv says this is a deadly mistake.

Aviv recently created/executed a security test for our Congress, by placing an empty briefcase in five well-traveled spots in five major cities. The results? Not one person called 911 or sought a policeman to check it out. In fact, in Chicago , someone tried to steal the briefcase!

In comparison, Aviv says that citizens of Israel are so well 'trained' that an unattended bag or package would be reported in seconds by citizen(s) who know to publicly shout, 'Unattended Bag!' The area would be quickly & calmly cleared by the citizens themselves. But, unfortunately, America hasn't been yet 'hurt enough' by terrorism for their government to fully understand the need to educate its citizens or for the government to understand that it's their citizens who are, inevitably, the best first-line of defense against terrorism.

Aviv also was concerned about the high number of children here in America who were in preschool and kindergarten after 9/11, who were 'lost' without parents being able to pick them up, and about ours schools that had no plan in place to best care for the students until parents could get there. (In New York City , this was days, in some cases!)

He stresses the importance of having a plan, that's agreed upon within your family, to respond to in the event of a terroristic emergency. He urges parents to contact their children's schools and demand that the schools, too, develop plans of actions, as they do in Israel .

Does your family know what to do if you can't contact one another by phone? Where would you gather in an emergency? He says we should all have a plan that is easy enough for even our youngest children to remember and follow.

Aviv says that the U. S. government has in force a plan that, in the event of another terrorist attack, will immediately cut-off EVERYONE's ability to use cell phones, blackberries, etc., as this is the preferred communication source used by terrorists and is often the way that their bombs are detonated.

How will you communicate with your loved ones in the event you cannot speak? You need to have a plan.

Bailout the Bailout---A Prediction

Congress is rushing to spend $1 trillion more of our money on a stimulus package that is supposed to put folks to work and at the same time improve our infrastructure by building roads, repairing bridges, etc. The congressional budget office has already determined that such projects will have very little immediate effect on unemployment and Best View predicts another very likely consequence of this approach. The money will be voted out, projects will be designated for funding, and there will be no repeal of the Davis-Bacon act which stipulates that federal money must be spent on workers as if they were unionized. This will greatly reduce the number of new hires since the wages will be so high. Next, the projects which are chosen will, as they always do, go over budget and experience "unexpected" delays. This means that the time will come when the money is spent, the project is incomplete, and the sponsors will need to come to you for more billions to finish the jobs. This request for more money will come at a time when the economy has largely recovered and the massive increase in the money supply has triggered the inevitable inflation which occurs when too much cash is chasing too few goods. As a result, the added financing will simply exacerbate the inflation and our economic problems will be just as bad as now---only different.

Start buying gold now.

Good Question about Obama

From Reason

Will Obama's erudition and elegance finally eclipse the corrosive, often deadly scourge of hip-hop culture and the ghetto mentality that gnaw away like termites beneath black America's floorboards?

U.S. wising up on global warming nonsense

Forty-four percent (44%) of U.S. voters now say long-term planetary trends are the cause of global warming, compared to 41% who blame it on human activity.

Seven percent (7%) attribute global warming to some other reason, and nine percent (9%) are unsure in a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.

Fifty-nine percent (59%) of Democrats blame global warming on human activity, compared to 21% percent of Republicans. Two-thirds of GOP voters (67%) see long-term planetary trends as the cause versus 23% of Democrats. Voters not affiliated with either party by eight points put the blame on planetary trends.

In July 2006, 46% of voters said global warming is caused primarily by human activities, while 35% said it is due to long-term planetary trends.

Good News from Obama's War

Missiles fired from a suspected U.S. spy plane killed seven people Friday on the Pakistan side of the Afghan border, a lawless region where al-Qaida militants are known to hide out, officials said.

The strike was the first on Pakistani territory since the inauguration of President Barrack Obama.

Taxes

Timothy Geithner, President-elect Barack Obama's pick to head the Treasury Department, after public revelations he failed to pay $34,000 in taxes several years ago, joins Charlie Rangle, the Chairman of the Ways and Means committee in the House of Representatives with tax problems. So, the man in charge of writing tax laws and the man heading the agency with the IRS (enforcing our tax laws) find our laws too difficult to obey. That will be no excuse if you are caught, however.

Times Change

Nortel Networks filed for bankruptcy today and the stock which was at $0.31/share yesterday is essentially worthless today. In 2000, this stock was selling for $900/share.

No Surprise Here

President-elect Barack Obama’s no-earmark mandate for the stimulus package has leading Democrats scrambling to find subtler ways to direct funding to their districts.

They may not be called earmarks, but lawmakers are looking to write legislative formulas into the package to ensure that their districts share in the wealth and won’t simply be at the mercy of Washington’s bureaucracy or the nation’s governors.

House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) is leading the effort, personally lobbying Obama, top Obama adviser David Axelrod and committee chairmen on the issue last week. Clyburn said numerous Members, particularly freshmen, are concerned that they could sign on to a massive package with nothing to show for their districts.

Clyburn said the package can be written in such a way that governors have relatively little control over the money, and the funds can flow directly to local communities.

“The pro or con on earmarks I think missed the point,” Clyburn said. “Members are very concerned about going out in their Congressional districts and trying to get elected. ... They want to be sure their votes will respond to their constituents.”

“If you’re going to go out to take the flak to significantly expand the deficit and the debt, you’ve got to be able to say ... ‘This is what happened in our community.’”

Free enterprise government style

Let's peek at what the government just did with the bailout of the automobile companies operating out of Detroit. GM and Chrysler wanted money and Ford said it didn't need any. So, we gave billions to GMAC, the finance arm of GM and they promptly used the money to finance the purchase of GM's cars at zero interest rates which, of course, put them at a competitive advantage vis a vis Ford and Chrysler. This idiocy, by the way, is a farewell present from Bush.

Climate Change

There is a definite shift in the way the loony left and other brain-washed victims of our failed school system talk about the way in which man has impacted the earth. Not long ago the word from Al Gore and his ilk held that man was causing the global warming that will doom us all with floods, hunger and all manner of devastating calamities. Furthermore the "science was in" and nobody but right wing fools could dispute it. Well, now it has become clear that for the past ten years the globe has gotten cooler so the new concern is not global warming, but"climate change" brought on by man's activities. Now the socialists who want us to cripple our economy based on a hoax must explain how previous climate changes were affected by man and when in the history of earth there was not "climate change".

Christmas will continue in Congress

Watch the upcoming stimulus bill being rushed through Congress which will obligate about 1 trillion of your kids money to our growing debt load. It will be larded with all manner of ridiculous items by the politicians constructing this Christmas tree of spending items. There will be all manner of grim warnings about how important it is to pass this quickly, but the real factor behind the call for speedy passage will be the liberals desire to keep us from learning what is in there.

About Time

There is at least some indication that Israel might at last be willing to actually enter a battle with an intention to win or at least achieve some semblance of reaching an objective before cease fires are imposed internally or from external pressures. About time.

Happy New Year in Congress

This year promises to be just delightful as we watch the dems exercise their large majoritity powers. The first act in this play is the seating of Roland Burris as the replacement for Barrack. The governor of Illinois has the full backing of the state's laws to appoint a successor and as far as anyone can tell, Mr. Burris is just as qualified to be a senator as Chris Dodd, for example, who took sweetheart mortgage deals from Country Wide while serving as Chairman of the Banking Committee. However, the dems painted themselves into this corner because they didn't want to risk an election that the Republicans might win--even though they all called for one after Blagojevich was accused of corruption. Senator Reid, who is a complete idiot, doesn't want to seat Burris, but there is only one way to legally proceed and that is to seat him and then expel the only black in the senate. That would really be fun. The law as expressed in the nation's constitution does not allow Senator Reid to block his legal acceptance of the seat. The only crime Burris is guilty of is accepting a legal appointment to serve his country. This should be fun and we can expect many more examples of dem problems with near monopoly power in Congress.

Over Reaction

It can fairly be concluded that no response by Israel to the rocket attacks by the Hamas terrorists wouldn't be considered an overeaction by the loony left both here and in Europe.

The auto bailout

There could well be something wrong with this math, but here is what it looks like at BestView. GM has a market cap of $2.4 billion. That means you can buy all the shares in the company at the present stock price for this amount. The company has 96,000 employees. If we gave each employee a tax free $1,000,000 this would cost the government $9.6 billion. So, the total cost would be $12 billion and this is close to what Bush gave as a down payment to tide them over until Obama can come in and really bail the union out.
Once this is done, the government could sell the assets of the company and give the procedes to the existing retirees at GM. I suspect he UAW would take the deal if all the workers at other plants didn't kill the deal because they weren't included.

Automobile math doesn't add up

1.GM has 96,000 employees but provides health benefits to a million people.

2. Honda and Nissan make a pretax operating profit per vehicle of around $1,600; Ford, Chrysler and GM make a loss of $500 to $1,500.

Given these numbers, who is surprised the federal government decided to invest our money in the Detroit mess?

Guess the party

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- Former Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann used his campaign account to bankroll home repairs and family vacations, according to a newspaper review of state investigative reports.

You can read the entire article here, but you won't discover he is a democrat. Must not be important. It is amusing to remember what some journalists say when asked why they are so quick to identify the GOP affiliation and so hesitant to mention that dems are involved in scandals like this. The explanation is the Republicans are hypocrits on corruption and the dems seldom make it a moral issue.

Inaugural Poetry

In the preceding post I wondered what Obama's inaugural poet was saying about her contribution to the festivities. Since then, I ran across an example of her "poetry" and I think I now know just how much she can offer.

This is a segment from an Alexander poem titled “Neonatology.”

“Is

“funky, is

“leaky, is

“a soggy, bloody crotch, is

“sharp jets of breast milk shot straight across the room,

“is gaudy, mustard-colored poop, is

“postpartum tears that soak the baby’s lovely head.

Say What?

Obama is going to have a poet at his inauguration. Her name is Elizabeth Alexander and she was recently asked what poetry added to the inaugural. Here is her answer, but don't ask me to explain what the hell she said:

"Poetry, because it is language distilled and because it is also such intensely precise language, provides us with a moment of respite and meditation, moments where we have to stop and listen very carefully to every word. We aren't listening for a message but rather listening for we don't know what exactly, but we're allowing ourselves to be stirred in some kind of way."

A sad Bush farewell message

President Bush went on TV yesterday to explain why he was taking 17.4 billion of your money and giving it to 2 failed automobile companies in Michigan. About everything he said was BS, but the most irritating thing to BestView was his assurance that if by March 31, 2009 the companies didn't have a plan to survive, they would have to give us back our money. He will be on his ranch in Texas, but if anyone wanted their money back in 2009 they would have a better chance getting it from my dog Bailey than from GM. You can go out right now and buy the entire company for less than $3 billion. Sad to see Bush completely sell us out.

The Rick Warren kerfuffle

Nothing could expose the loony left mind-set better than their reaction to Obama's decision to allow Rick Warren to offer up a prayer at his inauguration. A good summary is given here.
This snippet really sums up the situation, in all likelihood.

"I've left aside that they shouldn't really even have a religious invocation at the inaugural because it's become a tradition now. But my friend Capt. Fogg left an excellent comment that I urge to read in full. The main point being, "Religious rituals have no place at all in government. It's the law. Belief in God or gods is not part of public policy: that's the law, and if no religious test may be imposed for office, which is the law, why then are we asking a president to demonstrate his private religiosity in public, as part of his inauguration?"

A new disaster to worry about using tax money

A blue-ribbon panel of scientists is trying to determine the best way to detect and ward off any wandering space rocks that might be on a collision course with Earth.

"We're looking for the killer asteroid,'' James Heasley, of the University of Hawaii's Institute for Astronomy, last week told the committee that the National Academy of Sciences created at Congress' request.

Congress asked the academy to conduct the study after astronomers were unable to eliminate an extremely slight chance that an asteroid called Apophis will slam into Earth with devastating effect in 2036.

Apophis was discovered in 2004 about 17 million miles from Earth on a course that would overlap our planet's orbit in 2029 and return seven years later. Observers said that the asteroid — a massive boulder left over from the birth of the solar system — is about 1,000 feet wide and weighs at least 50 million tons.

After further observations, astronomers reported that the asteroid would skim by Earth harmlessly in 2029, but it has a one in 44,000 probability of slamming into our planet on Easter Sunday, April 13, 2036.

Just wondering

If the idiotic Bush outfit sees fit to defy the people, the people's representatives in Congress, and common sense to bail out the Detroit car makers, do competitive manufacturers like Toyota have the makings of a law suit for preferential use of the nation's assets? If they sue, BestView wants to be on the jury.

Liberal Solution Predictable

New York is facing a $15 billion budget deficit. Governor Paterson's solution is tax and fee increases. There is no thought of budget cuts, but there is much anguish about not being able to increase things. Other states like South Carolina are also facing budget deficits and are cutting spending rather than raising taxes in a recession. It is difficult to imagine why people in liberal states like New York, Michigan, and California don't take the fastest road out.

How did Blagojevich become Governor?

Michael Barone offers this explanation which BestView found enlightening.

How did he become Governor? Family connections: “Blagojevich is the son-in-law of 33rd Ward Democratic Committeeman Dick Mell. Ward committeemen are hugely important in Chicago politics: Dan Rostenkowski and his father had been the 32nd ward committeemen from 1935 to 1995; the ward committeemen from the 11th ward since some time in the 1940s have been Richard J. Daley, Richard M. Daley and John Daley; the 13th ward committeeman Bill Lipinski, retiring suddenly from Congress in 2004, was able to get the Democratic nomination for his son Dan Lipinski from a group of ward committeemen despite the fact that Dan Lipinski was a political science professor at the University of Tennessee and hadn’t lived in Chicago for years.”

New way to pad a bra

Federal investigators say this photo shows a Massachusetts lawmaker stuffing bribe money into her bra. The picture came from the New York Times and if you read to the last part of the article you will see that this bribe and several other on-going political scandals in the home state of Ted Kennedy and Barney Frank are all involving democrats even though the article does state that when Republicans controlled the state 100 years ago, it too was corrupt. Pretty funny.

Bad year for unions so far

A nonprofit organization founded by California’s largest union local reported spending nothing on its charitable purpose — to develop housing for low-income workers — during at least two of the four years it has been operating, federal records show.

The charity, launched by a scandal-ridden Los Angeles chapter of the Service Employees International Union, had total expenses of about $165,000 for 2005 and 2006, and all of the money went to consulting fees, insurance costs and other overhead, according to its Internal Revenue Service filings. Charity watchdogs say that nonprofits should never have zero program expenses in two successive years and that well-performing charities direct at least 70% of their annual spending to their charitable purpose. “Of the 5,000-plus charities we’ve looked at, I don’t think we’ve ever seen one that didn’t spend anything on its charitable programs,” said Sandra Miniutti, vice president of Charity Navigator, an online rating service.

Jesse Jackson, Jr. and Blagojevich

O.K., here we are. We know how much Blagojevich valued the senate nomination. Today we learn that Jesse Jackson, Jr. spent 90 minutes in the office of the good governor on Monday of this week talking about his superb qualifications to be Obama's replacement and absolutely nothing, in all that time, came up about a quid pro quo. On Tuesday, Blagojevich was arrested. Raise your hand if you believe the story ends there.

The Obama factor in Illinois politics

BestView is doubtful that the arrest of the Illinois governor for attempting to raffle off Obama's senate seat could have occurred without our President-elect knowing anything about it. It is also tempting to speculate that the arrest was made early before the good governor had the chance to appoint someone who could have been further connected to Obama. We already know Obama was tight with Rezko and his criminal enterprise, so credulity would be sorely stretched in order to conclude the President-elect was not involved to some extent. The sad part is the character of our first black President is and forever will be called into question. There is no way a completely clean politician can come out of Chicago or Illinois.

Burn Baby Burn

Evidently the public is not supporting liberal made-up crap in the Big Apple and the New York Times is in deep doo-doo. Read it here. BestView considers them guilty of treason in some of their selective publications of classified material. Here's hoping they go belly up.

Crooked Politicians

The voters were able to get rid of "Deep Freeze" Jefferson, the New Orleans Congressman who took so much bribe money he had to store some of it in his freezer where the FBI found it. Unlike the Republicans who have had to expel several crooked Congressman in the past few years, the dems hold on to theirs until the voters do their job for them. The problem is we are left with Senator Dodd of Connecticut, Charlie Rangle of New York, and Senator Reid of Nevada. In the vernacular of the current fiscal situation, they are too big to fail, it seems.

Just wondering

If ten terrorists with hand-held weapons could kill hundreds at hotels in India, what could a like number do in the U.S. on New Year's Eve on Times Square? At a football game? A concert?

Jobs Plan

The unemployment problem in the country is real. The solution is obvious, but is not likely to be used by the Obama administration. We can look for the next Congress to throw money at make-work projects which will be addressed inefficiently and most of the money will be wasted. People will be hired into jobs for which they are not qualified and in which they are largely unhappy. Since most jobs in this country are created by small businesses, it would be highly desirable for the government to cut their taxes so they could hire more people into long-lasting position which are more desirable. It is not expected that will happen.

Fascinating Question

Victor Davis Hanson in IBD has posed a fascinating question as we watch the Obama administration slowly take shape. "Will Obama decide that Bush's anti-terrorism architecture shredded the constitution and should be largely repealed or did it help keep us safe from attack for seven years?"

A Financial Review

Well, let's see where we stand. Congress is going to bail out the union-infested car manufacturers based in Michigan and as a condition for this use of tax-payer money, the geniuses in Washington who have never done anything in the private sector are going to dictate how the companies must be restructured in order to survive. This should be fascinating to watch. Barney Frank the industrialist.

How science works

Here's a fascinating little story from the Wall Street Journal.

Scars on the surface of the Moon record a hail of impacts during what is called the Late Heavy Bombardment. The Earth would have received an even more intense bombardment, and the common thinking until recently was that life could not have emerged on Earth until the bombardment eased about 3.85 billion years ago.

Norman H. Sleep, a professor of geophysics at Stanford, recalled that in 1986 he submitted a paper that calculated the probability of life surviving one of the giant, early impacts. It was summarily rejected because a reviewer said that obviously nothing could have lived then.

That is no longer thought to be true.

"We thought we knew something we didn't," said T. Mark Harrison, a professor of geochemistry at the University of California, Los Angeles. In hindsight the evidence was just not there. And new evidence has suggested a new view of the early Earth.

This, of course, is how science actually works. All scientific knowledge is tentative, subject to constant challenge by new hypotheses and new evidence.

Keep this in mind every time a global warmist claims that the "scientific consensus" about "climate change" is unchallengeable.

Just wondering

There was one terrorist captured in Mumbai last week and the Indian government is "questioning" him. Wonder if the ACLU would approve of the methods used?

Politicians know best

A recent poll by CNN shows that 61% of Americans are against the bailout of the auto makers in Detroit, but the Congress is going to do so anyway. Look for a giant dose of obfuscation to accompany the political cave to the unions. The gut feel of the public is right in this instance.

Economic Basics

The current government bailout of various failing entities can be summed up as follows:

We are going to take the money from those of you who are competent and did not create these financial problems and we are going to give it to those who are incompetent and created problems for all of us and ask them to fix the mess that they are responsible for in the first place. If they find progress is not being made in their fixing efforts, more of your money will be printed, given to the same incompetents, and put on the debt your children and grandchildren will have to pay. It is all very simple.

Watch for liberal states to come begging

The big liberal states like New York, Pennsylvania, Michigan and California which have the highest taxes and spending and the fattest union members will be the first to come squealing to Washington begging for the rest of us to bail them out. They will plead for our money like the automobile companies in the high tax, big union states in the upper Mid-west and expect those of us in the rest of the country with car plants but not unions to pay for the bailout.

It is enough to trigger another secessionist movement.

Early Obama Grade

So far, so good. At least relative to worst fears. About the best we can hope for is the liberals will be as disappointed in Obama as conservatives like BestView were in Bush.

Coming to our senses?

There is both growing public reluctance to make personal sacrifices and a distinct lack of enthusiasm for the major international efforts now underway to battle climate change, according to findings of a poll of 12,000 citizens in 11 countries, including Canada.

Less than half of those surveyed, or 47 per cent, said they were prepared to make personal lifestyle changes to reduce carbon emissions, down from 58 per cent last year.

Only 37 per cent said they were willing to spend "extra time" on the effort, an eight-point drop.

And only one in five respondents - or 20 per cent - said they'd spend extra money to reduce climate change. That's down from 28 per cent a year ago.

Read it all here.

Silent, but the pen still works

Evidently Ann Coulter recently suffered a broken jaw and now has it wired shut. This hasn't kept her thoughts from reaching those of us who revel in her way with words. Here is her latest and a sample is given below.

After being captured fighting with Taliban forces against Americans in 2001, Abdullah Massoud was sent to Guantanamo, where the one-legged terrorist was fitted with a special prosthetic leg, at a cost of $50,000-$75,000 to the U.S. taxpayer. Under the Americans With Disabilities Act, Massoud would now be able to park his car bomb in a handicapped parking space!

Upon his release in March 2004, Massoud hippity-hopped back to Afghanistan and quickly resumed his war against the U.S. Aided by his new artificial leg, just months later, in October 2004, Massoud masterminded the kidnapping of two Chinese engineers in Pakistan working on the Gomal Zam Dam project.

China has a problem

In recent weeks, a series of riots across central and southern China have flowered as disgruntled employees aired their grievances at the downturn.

Today, around 500 protesters rioted at the Kai Da toy factory in Dongguan in the Pearl River delta, flipping over a police car and trashing computers in a dispute over payoffs to 80 fired workers. Tens of thousands of factories across the region have already shut their gates.

Yin Weimin, China's Social Security minister, has revealed that employment is the Communist Party's number one concern in the downturn and said the "situation is critical". Unemployment is expected to rise from 4pc to 4.5pc by the end of the year and anecdotal reports have suggested that 3m people have already been fired in the industrial province of Zhejiang alone.

Read the whole article here.

Economic Musings

1. If you liberals think the federal government has a handle on how to fix the economic mess the federal government got us into in the first place, disappointment awaits you. They don't have a clue.

2. GM makes a profit on cars made in China, but the United Auto Workers don't operate there. The dems in Congress won't impose any hardship on the unions when they give the automobile companies money later this month.

3. If you have a mortgage on your house, you should look into refinancing in the next few months because interest rates are going to drop like a stone for those who qualify with good credit and equity in the house. Look for 4.0 to 4.5% interest rates on 30 year mortgages.

4. Inflation problems in this country will hit in 4-5 years and your money will lose as much as 50% of its current value. We should all buy some gold coins with the "free" money the government sends out in the so-called stimulus package.

5. Passive stock investors (those who buy and hold) have a really sad future before value comes back to the holdings. I suggest CDs as replacements.

6. This is going to be really a rough decade for the economy.

I am going to Texas

A Russian analyst has predicted that the U.S. will break up into six parts - the Pacific coast, with its growing Chinese population; the South, with its Hispanics; Texas, where independence movements are on the rise; the Atlantic coast, with its distinct and separate mentality; five of the poorer central states with their large Native American populations; and the northern states, where the influence from Canada is strong.If this proves to be accurate, I am going back to Texas.

The Obama Choice

From the Wall Street Journal:

The Obamas are fortunate to have the means to send their daughters to private school, and no one begrudges them that choice given that Washington's public schools are among the worst in America.

Most D.C. parents would also love to be able to choose a better school for their child, but they lack the financial means to do so. The Washington Opportunity Scholarship Program each year offers up to $7,500 to some 1,900 kids to attend private schools, but Democrats in Congress want to kill it. Average family income for kids in the voucher program is about $22,000.

Mr. Obama says he opposes such vouchers, because "although it might benefit some kids at the top, what you're going to do is leave a lot of kids at the bottom." The example of his own children refutes that: The current system offers plenty of choice to kids "at the top" while abandoning those at the bottom.

Bill O'Reilly Strangely Silent

On July 11, oil was $147 a barrel. Now, a little more than four months later, it's roughly a third of that. An OPEC emergency meeting to cut production and raise the price has had little effect.

Oil increased dramatically as global demand increased — as is now apparent, driven by an economy resting too much on a highly-leveraged financial system. With financial leveraging unwinding, the economy has fallen and so too the demand and price for oil.

Bill O'Reilly pompously intoned on his program that it was the evil speculators who were responsible--despite booking knowledgeable guests who tried to explain the concept of supply and demand over his constant interruptions.

We don't hear much from him these days. If speculation was a problem then, why is it not a problem now? If speculators were responsible for the price rise, why are they not liable for the price decline? The blowhard has fallen silent on the speculator theme.

A Blue State Problem

States have collectively racked up some $731 billion in unfunded liabilities for pensions and other retirement benefits, according to a study published last December by the Pew Charitable Trusts' Center on the States. In particular, the states have been promising their employees rich nonpension benefits -- such as retirement health and dental care -- and paying for virtually none of it. According to Pew estimates, states have put aside a mere $11 billion to fund $381 billion in future nonpension benefits. Illinois, which has the largest percentage of unfunded pension liabilities among the states, actually cut its contributions to pension funds by $2.3 billion in the flush years of 2006 and 2007 as stock market returns were rising.

Taxpayers are often erroneously told that there's plenty of money to finance new perks. In the late 1990s, to take one example, California's legislature approved a series of pension enhancements which the California Public Employees' Retirement System predicted could be funded almost entirely out of stock market gains. Today, of course, major stock market indices are lower than they were in 1999. California state and local governments are paying some $12.8 billion a year to finance public employee pensions, up from $4.8 billion in 1999, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's survey of government expenditures.

Who is going to be asking the federal government for a bailout next? The cities and states.

When will we learn?

All it takes is a little history lesson. Consider the steel industry, the airline industry, and now the automobile industry. Unions killed them all. The teachers have also used unionization to kill our education system and our federal workers have crippled our government agencies. Most of the damage is not as obvious as the industrial corpses, but the havoc is there nonetheless. Liberals still insist the unions prosper at the expense of the workers they presume to represent and an all the rest of us as well. When will we learn?

Bailout for whom?

When a GM car comes off the assembly line, the workers who drive that car to the inventory lot have an annual salary of $100,000 per year. We just must save those jobs and those who work at harder jobs for less must pay for them.

Godforsaken?

The fires in California seem to be a given at some point every year with mud slides soon to follow and then there is the occasional earthquake. This string of natural disasters is just a background for the consequences of the liberal fallout from idiotic environmental policies, excessive taxation, even more excessive spending, riots by gays, demonstrations by illegals from the South, and so on. About the only place on earth that compares with this combination of disasters is Bangladesh.

MLK family disgrace

Zealous guardians of his words and his likeness, the family of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. is demanding a share of the proceeds from the sudden wave of T-shirts, posters and other merchandise depicting the civil rights leader alongside Barack Obama.

Isaac Newton Farris Jr., King's nephew and head of the nonprofit King Center in Atlanta, said the estate is entitled to hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees - maybe even millions.

"Some of this is probably putting food on people's plates. We're not trying to stop anybody from legitimately supporting themselves," he said, "but we cannot allow our brand to be abused."

Charitable Liberals

Larry King Cardiac Foundation

The CNN talk-show host and heart-attack survivor raises funds for heart operations for poor patients. But the charity spent $2.3 million on salaries, supplies, advertising, program expenses and gala dinners in LA and Washington, DC, in 2006, much more than the industry standard of 10% for fund-raising. Meanwhile, King employs his son, Larry King Jr., as the organization's CEO at a $200,000 salary - a hefty raise from the $66,667 he was paid when first appointed in 2004. Junior's current salary blows away the standard 3% of total expenses recommended as the ceiling for a CEO salary. Family members on charity boards are also a red flag. "I'm afraid that this just doesn't pass the smell test," said Sandra Miniutti, vice president of marketing for Charity Navigator, a leading charity watchdog group. King Jr., 46, said that the charity has only three employees and that he wears many hats. "I am not your typical CEO or president," he said. "I do everything, and I agreed to take this on because I really wanted to help my father." The group didn't respond to requests for financial information from the charity division of the Better Business Bureau, which asked for it after receiving calls from potential donors who wanted more details on the organization.

New York, New York

Let's tax the rich. That is the liberal solution to all budgetary matters and certainly one espoused in New York. Here in this "progressive" state, the credit crisis will be a particular problem since the state relies on such a high proportion of its income from wall street. The financial services industry employs between 2 and 3 % of the non-government workers in the state---the same as in the 1970s. The problem, however, is this is 212,000 people making $80 billion in wages last year. The taxes paid by these workers is progressive so there is a great dependence of the state on relatively few people. One estimate has 45,000 taxpayers in New York providing 20 to 30% of total income tax receipts.
So, here we have a year when these workers are being fired, the ones working are getting no bonuses, others are leaving for lower tax states, and attempts to meet the budget shortfall through budget cuts is being resisted by public employee unions, teachers unions, etc.
One thing to look for in the coming reaction to the recession is the howls from cities and states with powerful labor unions and progressive tax codes, e.g., California, Michigan, New York, New Jersey and others.

Good Cartoon Chuck Asay

The Obama Bubble

They always end badly. Think of the dot.com bubble in the 90s when anything remotely connected to the internet went to the stock market heavens regardless of earnings or even revenue. Then there was the housing bubble when your house went up in value 10% between the time you closed and moved your furniture in. All you had to do was go see your friendly mortgage broker and he would refinance your note and even though you had no equity in the house, he would write you a big check. Now we have the Obama bubble where all of our hopes and aspirations are heaped onto his magical promise and prose. When this one breaks, it is not going to be fun and we must all pray that we survive as a nation.

Favorite Quote from Election post-mortems

"John McCain wanted to be nice and Obama wanted to be President."

Electoral Mystery

BestView has long been puzzled by the fact that our two biggest states, California and New York, continue to be miserably in debt despite rising taxes, continue to have net loss of businesses and poor and failing schools and yet, in large numbers vote for the democrats who keep doing this to them. The two most viable theories are the voters would rather pay for failing government than vote for Republicans who are anti-abortion or they are stupid. Presumably, both theories can hold at the same time.

Random Thoughts

1. If we wind up bailing out GM and other auto companies in Michigan without restructuring the auto workers union contracts, the consequences will be profound since everyone will come for their handout and high tax cities and states will lead the parade. Our dollars will soon be worth less than pesos.

2. The big election winner this month is George Bush. He gets to go home and leave the mess to others.

3. The message for Republicans in Congress and especially those whose term in Congress is coming to an end is they should leave liberal legislation to the Democrats and don't try to out spend them, for example. Think playing golf against Tiger Woods.

4. A compassionate conservative isn't one.

5. The liberals in Congress are going to be the source of great amusement in the coming months as they overreact to the election and fight amongst themselves.

Poor Palin

The Palin's released their tax returns for 2007 this past week and their income was the lowest of the four candidates for national office by a good bit. Their income was $166,000 compared with $320,000 for Joe Biden and his wife. McCain reported $852,000 in household income and Obama made $4.2 million...mostly from book sales.

It is interesting that the Palin's made about one-half as much as the Biden's and yet they managed to donate 3-times as much to charity. The Palins donated $3,325 vs. $995 which the Biden's managed to give. The phenomenon continues to play itself out when liberals charity seems to begin and mostly end with using someone else's money to help those "less fortunate".

Just the Facts

When the Democrats took over the House of Representatives and the Senate back in January of 2007, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was at an all-time high of 12,400 and gas prices hovered around $2.15 per gallon. The Republican-led Congress of the previous 4-years had left a strong-economy in the hands of Socialist Democrats.

Fast-forward two years, under Democrat-controlled Congress. Just last week the Dow Jones hit a 5-year low of 10,485 and gas prices loomed near $4 dollars a gallon.

Of course, it is all Bush's fault.

Chinese Toxicity

Fifteen more Chinese dairy companies were identified Wednesday as producing milk products contaminated with an industrial chemical (melamine), further broadening a scandal affecting products ranging from baby formula to chocolate, authorities said.

The contamination has been blamed for the deaths of four children and kidney ailments among 54,000 others. More than 13,000 children have been hospitalized and 27 people arrested in connection with the tainting.

This confirms a long held belief by BestView that the U.S. should avoid anything from China which is meant to be ingested. My favorite example is talapia, a farm-grown fish which is likely contaminated by whatever is in the water where it is farmed. The label should have the country of origin on the package and Chinese talapia is easily avoided. Unless you are convinced that all the water in China is pure, don't take the risk.

The Bailout

As of this morning the world and the markets are waiting to see if the politicians in Washington are going to adopt the Bush bailout plan. The problem seems to be that the dems have bought into the plan and conservatives (mostly Republicans) have not. So, the President with a low approval rating and the dem Congress with a lower one are in bed together and the people who vote are not willing to jump in that bed. Since there is a possibility for economic chaos if it is not passed, the dems who control Congress could pass it immediately, but they are afraid to do this unless the Republicans are in that shaky bed with them. So, we have a situation where political courage on the part of the dems is necessary to avoid a hypothetical meltdown which they have spent weeks hyping in the press. Someone will blink today or tomorrow and it will be interesting to see who it is.

This should worry you

Bloomberg.com reports FDIC insures all accounts up to $100,000 at its member banks, and it has never failed to honor a claim. The IndyMac debacle is taking a large bite out of FDIC reserves, and if scores of other banks fail in the year ahead, the fund will be depleted. Taxpayers will have to step in. The FDIC knows which banks are at risk; it has a watch list with 117 institutions. The agency won't disclose their names because doing so could cause depositors to panic and pull out all of their funds. It won't take many more failures before the FDIC itself runs out of money. The agency had $45.2 bln in its coffers as of June 30, far short of the $200 bln Whalen says it will need to pay claims by the end of next year. The U.S. Treasury will almost certainly come to the rescue. Emergency federal funding of the FDIC could swell the cost of government rescues of failed financial institutions to more than $400 bln -- not including the $700 bln general Wall Street bailout now under discussion in Congress. That number would be even higher if the government were on the hook for uninsured deposits -- which amount to $2.6 trillion, 37% of the total of $7 trillion held in the U.S. branches of all FDIC member banks... As recently as March, an internal FDIC memo estimated the cost to cover bank collapses in 2008 would be just $1 bln, dropping to $450 mln in 2009. It wasn't even close. The IndyMac failure alone, which happened four months after that memo was circulated, will cost the FDIC $8.9 bln -- and the bill for all 12 collapses will be about $11 bln, the FDIC says.

President Who?

Joe Biden's denunciation of his own campaign's ad to Katie Couric got so much attention last night that another odd note in the interview slipped by.

He was speaking about the role of the White House in a financial crisis.

"When the stock market crashed, Franklin Roosevelt got on the television and didn't just talk about the princes of greed," Biden told Couric. "He said, 'Look, here's what happened.'"

You would have needed an experimental TV set in 1929 to see some unknown named Roosevelt instead of President Hoover.

I just love Joe Biden as a counterpoint to that inexperienced Sarah Palin who liberals say is not ready to be in an office she is not running for.

Taxes versus charity, Biden style

Senator Biden says it is patriotic to step up and pay more taxes. He says the bible supports his view even though the bible usually mentions 10% in taxes and not the 39.6% that Biden favors for the "rich". His Catholic training also mentions charity as a moral virtue and this also is generally held to be around 10%. Mr. Biden and his wife recently released their tax returns, and they reported an average of $380, or 0.2% of their income, in annual charitable contributions over a 10-year period. The national average was about 2% of income. Even the phony Al Gore gave nearly $900 a year to charity.

Dubious Science

Scientists have discovered that going veggie could be bad for your brain-with those on a meat-free diet six times more likely to suffer brain shrinkage.

This is probably not a valid study, but even if it is, I think I'll risk it and continue to savor my steak and pork ribs.

Democrat Ethics

For most of the past few years, most of the ethical lapses amongst our politicians seemed to be focused on the GOP. Now we have the Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, Charles Rangle, with problems involving the use of rent controlled apartments in NY and an inability to figure out a way to pay his taxes even though Ways and Means writes our tax policy. He bought a condo in the Dominican several years ago and somewhere along the way the 10.5% interest rate on the purchase was "forgiven" and the rental income for when he wasn't using the condo was disregarded for tax purposes.

Since Charlie is a black politician from Harlem, BestView expected this to be largely overlooked even though Republicans in the House of Representatives have called for an ethics investigation and for him to step aside from his chairmanship. The surprise here is the call today by the New York Times for his stepping aside from the chairmanship while the ethics investigation proceeds. Amazing.

The Palin Factor

Sarah Palin must still be having a positive effect on the campaign. Both the New York Times and Washington Post have hit pieces on their front pages this Sunday morning. As has been the case in many of these, the headline sounds much more damning than the text which follows. It must be admitted that when a governor appoints someone he or she knows and likes to a position instead of someone who is a political enemy, the warning signs should be raised to full mast. In the Washington Post Palin was criticized for hiring an assistant to handle some of the administrative work. I am sure after learning this, the populace will arise and demand she be burned at the stake.

Grading Palin

I stole this assessment from someone named Whit Ayres, a Republican strategist. Whatever that is.

On a one to ten scale, with ten being perfect, I’d rate her a 6 on this interview (based on what we saw Thursday night), a 9 as a VP pick, and an 11 on driving the Democrats nuts.

Computer Deficiency

The Obama campaign is denigrating McCain's lack of computer use. The ad mocking him on this score is aimed at his age and ignorance of technology. It may not have been smart to make this an issue if it is made public that McCain's war injuries keep him from being able to comb his hair, tie his shoes, salute our military, or even use a keyboard. Combined with Biden's call for a man in a wheel chair to "stand up and take a bow" the expected sensitivity of these liberals seems to be lacking.

Bridge to Nowhere Facts

From National Review.

The earmark for the Bridge to Nowhere originally appeared in the now-infamous highway bill of 2005. That bill included $24 billion in pork-barrel earmarks and will end up costing taxpayers a reckless $286.5 billion over six years. It passed on a 91-4 vote in the U.S. Senate on July 29, 2005, with Sen. John McCain standing in opposition along with three other lonely voices for fiscal responsibility. Senators Barack Obama and Joe Biden both voted for the bill and its bridge of ill repute.

The Senate got another chance to stop the bridge on October 20, 2005, when it voted on an amendment offered by Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn that would have redirected the funds from the bridge to New Orleans for Hurricane Katrina relief. By then the grassroots outrage against the bridge was beginning to take hold and there was a good amount of pressure on the Senate to adopt the amendment. That pressure came from both the right and the left, with liberal Markos Moulitsas at the DailyKos stoking the flames. “Honestly,” he wrote, “there’s no reason for any Democrat to vote against this amendment.”

But Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens (presently under indictment on corruption charges) played hardball, ominously stating:

I come to warn the Senate, if you want a wounded bull on the floor of the Senate, pass this amendment. I stood here and watched Senator Allen teach the Senate lesson after lesson after something was done to Alabama that he didn’t like. I don’t threaten people; I promise people.

Unfortunately, most senators chose Ted Stevens over the taxpayers. The result was shameful: Coburn’s amendment got only 15 votes. John McCain missed that vote, although Obama and Biden both buckled to Stevens and voted against the amendment. Moulitsas commented afterward that “Those who voted against these amendments have zero credibility on issues of fiscal responsibility. Zero.”

Terror Targets

The following gives what it considers probable and possible modes of terror attacks which are certain to come. Since they predicted the use of planes on 9/11, I guess it is instructive to at least read them. Here is one of the scariest.

Attack on U.S. oil refineries

Probability: High

Impact: High

Four terrorists driving minivans approach four oil refineries: The Royal Dutch Shell installation at Port Arthur, Texas; the Valero Energy refinery at Corpus Christi, Texas; the Chalmette refinery east of New Orleans; and the Chevron refinery at Pascagoula, Miss. They crash through the gates and aim for the key catalytic units used to refine petroleum. The crashes set off more than 500 pounds of dynamite in each van. Eleven workers die in the initial attacks and six more perish in the infernos that send plumes of dark smoke miles into the sky. Even before the flames can be extinguished, the price of oil skyrockets to more than $200 a barrel. The president declares a state of emergency and dispatches National Guard units to protect key infrastructure.

Casualties: 17 dead, 34 wounded.

Consequences: In a single day, America loses 15 percent of its crude-oil processing capability for more than a year. The Federal Reserve slashes the prime rate by a full point in a desperate attempt to avert a recession, as gas prices balloon. Critics bemoan the fact that, for decades, the United States neglected development of its “dirty” oil-processing infrastructure -- and now it's too late. Total economic cost: $1.2 trillion.

Election Criteria

After a 2 month hiatus for various reasons, BestView is back in time to guide your selection in the presidential election. If you know nothing else about the nominees, keep in mind that both Obama and Biden are lawyers and neither McCain nor Palin are. Makes the choice fairly obvious in my opinion.