Top Headline Comments 07-20-09
— Gabriel Malor

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 03:48 AM | Add Comment
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Free the Budget!
— Slublog

Most transparent, administration EVER EVER.

WASHINGTON (AP) - The White House is being forced to acknowledge the wide gap between its once-upbeat predictions about the economy and today's bleak landscape.

The administration's annual midsummer budget update is sure to show higher deficits and unemployment and slower growth than projected in President Barack Obama's budget in February and update in May, and that could complicate his efforts to get his signature health care and global-warming proposals through Congress.

The release of the update - usually scheduled for mid-July - has been put off until the middle of next month, giving rise to speculation the White House is delaying the bad news at least until Congress leaves town on its August 7 summer recess.

The administration is pressing for votes before then on its $1 trillion health care initiative, which lawmakers are arguing over how to finance.

In other words, 'don't worry about the budget, just pass my craptastic bills.' Normally, such behavior from an administration that promised historic levels of transparency would be something of an outrage, but it's becoming par for the course these days. If the fabled Blue Dog Democrats actually exist, this would be a perfect time for them to start making noise. The White House is hiding information they need to do their jobs in a responsible fashion and they should refuse to vote on any bill that has a significant fiscal impact until the budget update is released.

Still, this does raise an interesting question. If, as Obama claims, the healthcare bill will actually save money, why hide the budget figures until after it's passed instead of presenting the plan as a strategy toward greater solvency?

Update - Moron Chew Toy poon says the fact that President Bush delayed his mid-summer budget update in 2001 makes this post "seem kinda...pointless."
I think the Bush administration, like all, should have worked to get budget information to Congress in a timely fashion. However, poon's frothing Bush-hate leads him to overlook the fact that the Obama administration is trying to push a massive health care bill with significant fiscal impact through the Congress with little regard for how bad the economy is getting. Unless I missed a rather significant development in 2001, President Bush was not.

Their haste to pass a bill before updating the Congress on the budget violates the spirit of the unprecedented transparency we were promised. What's the hurry, other than a cynical attempt to outrun his falling poll numbers? Well that, and pure ego.

So seems I was wrong. They are not "hiding" the information, they're doing something far worse: they're going forward with a budget-busting bill with inadequate information as to the current state of the budget.

Seems they're guilty of incompetence, not malice.

My mistake.

Posted by: Slublog at 03:30 AM | Comments (18)
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Overnight Open Thread – “The Troof is out There” - (genghis)
— Open Blog

With the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing upon us, CNN takes time out of their busy days to ask the important questions, such as Could Moon Landings Have Been Faked?

"(CNN) -- It captivated millions of people around the world for eight days in the summer of 1969. It brought glory to the embattled U.S. space program and inspired beliefs that anything was possible. It's arguably the greatest technological feat of the 20th century. And to some, it was all a lie. Forty years after Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin set foot on the moon, a small cult of conspiracy theorists maintains the historic event -- and the five subsequent Apollo moon landings -- were staged. These people believe NASA fabricated the landings to trump their Soviet rivals and fulfill President Kennedy's goal of ferrying humans safely to and from the moon by the end of the 1960s. "I do know the moon landings were faked," said crusading filmmaker Bart Sibrel, whose aggressive interview tactics once provoked Aldrin to punch him in the face. "I'd bet my life on it.""

The article goes on to 'splain the origins of the conspiracy theories and of course Area 51 plays into the scenario. By the way, it's well known that Area 51 is just a ruse; a head fake so we don't scrutinize where most of our government's black programs really took place: Area 52. Google it! But Sibrel, the courageous filmmaker, soldiers on, always digging for the Troof, despite the dark forces arrayed against him:

"...Sibrel believes the Apollo program was so compartmentalized that only its astronauts and a handful of high-level NASA officials knew the entire story. Sibrel spent years ambushing Apollo astronauts and insisting they swear on a Bible before his cameras that they walked on the moon. "When someone has gotten away with a crime, in my opinion, they deserve to be ambushed," Sibrel said. "I'm a journalist trying to get at the truth." In an episode made infamous on YouTube, Sibrel confronted Aldrin in 2002 and called him "a coward, a liar and a thief." Aldrin, then 72, socked the thirtysomething Sibrel in the face, knocking him backwards."

But it looks like the message is finally getting out to the public at large:

"It's been 37 years since the last Apollo moon mission, and tens of millions of younger Americans have no memories of watching the moon landings live. A 2005-2006 poll by Mary Lynne Dittmar, a space consultant based in Houston, Texas, found that more than a quarter of Americans 18 to 25 expressed some doubt that humans set foot on the moon. "As the number of people who were not yet born at the time of the Apollo program increases, the number of questions [about the moon landings] also may increase," NASA said in a statement. "Conspiracy theories are always difficult to refute because of the impossibility of proving a negative."

It's good to know that we still have a substantial number of critical thinkers here in America. Makes me feel a lot more comfortable about our prospects for the future.

Below the fold, Buzz Aldrin deals out an ass whoopinÂ’ and Maetenloch gives us this weeks commenter statistics.

more...

Posted by: Open Blog at 05:21 PM | Comments (2)
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Honduras Crisis Talks Resume In Costa Rica [Nice Deb]
— Open Blog

Talks continue today to resolve the political conflict in Honduras between the interim government and ousted president Zelaya. But they’re running into snags in the attempt to create a “reconciliation government”.

The two camps seemed to be far from a compromise, with exiled President Manuel Zelaya saying he will return to Honduras soon regardless of the outcome of the negotiations and the interim government vowing to arrest him.

Costa Rican President Oscar Arias, who won the 1987 Nobel Peace Prize for helping end Central AmericaÂ’s civil wars, is mediating the U.S.-backed talks and appealed for more flexibility.

The government of interim president Roberto Micheletti on Saturday asked for more time to study AriasÂ’ proposal for ending the standoff. It included a national unity government headed by Zelaya, a general amnesty and early elections.

While Micheletti hedges his bets, others stand firm:

When asked about the idea of having Zelaya return to Honduras as president with a reconciliation government, Assistant Foreign Minister Martha Lorena Alvarado gave a one-word response: “Impossible.”

Her comment in HondurasÂ’ capital, Tegucigalpa, was the clearest indication that the talks had deadlocked.

“The reinstatement of Zelaya, as we have maintained and now repeat, is not negotiable … there is no possibility of him returning to Honduras as president,” Alvarado said.

It takes an incredible amount of political courage to stand your ground when the UN, OAS-(what a joke), and US State Dept. is united against you. Moral certainty has a way of making one bold. The Honduran interim government knows that it made the correct decision in deposing the would be tyrant, Zelaya.

As was reported yesterday, computers owned by Zelaya were seized by Honduran authorities and were found to contain the official and certified results of the illegal constitutional referendum Zelaya wanted to conduct that never took place. Not surprisingly, the results of this fraudulent vote was tilted heavily in ZelayaÂ’s favor, allowing him to illegally change the constitution so he could remain in power for as long as he wanted. Getting rid of him was the only way to prevent this from happening.

Meanwhile, one of the good guys, Cardinal Óscar Rodríguez Maradiaga, the archbishop of Tegucigalpa, who opposes the return to power of Zelaya, gets death threats from the ousted President’s supporters on a daily basis.

The American Spectator reports:

“You must know,” Cardinal Rodríguez tells the FAZ,

that we are struggling against a very powerful, because very well-financed, campaign, which is being directed by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez — to the extent that agents of the Venezuelan secret services are active in the country and are organizing the supposed popular protests against the removal of President Manuel Zelaya. Weapons have also been brought into the country. Thank God that up to now more blood has not been shed. But not a day goes by without my receiving a death threat.

Here are some typical Zelaya supporters. Tells you everything you need to know.

See Fausta for more on the talks: Zelaya moves his “ultimatum” to July 24.

UPDATE:

The second round of talks fell flat:

Honduras' deposed President Manuel Zelaya and his rival failed to strike a deal on Sunday to solve the country's political crisis after two days of talks.

Minutes after the talks in Costa Rica collapsed, Zelaya -- who was ousted in a June 28 military coup -- told Reuters that "no one can stop me" from returning to Honduras, a move that Washington has tried to dissuade him from taking due to fears it would trigger violence.

Costa Rican President Oscar Arias, the mediator in the talks wants to keep trying, but the Honduran government is firm in their opposition to Zelaya's reinstatement:

Honduras' interim leader, Roberto Micheletti, flatly rejected Arias' proposal that Zelaya be reinstated, the major stumbling block in the mediation.

"I'm very sorry, but the proposals that you have presented are unacceptable to the constitutional government of Honduras ... in particular your proposal number one," said Carlos Lopez, head of the negotiating team for Micheletti.

Zelaya is in exile in Nicaragua and, like Micheletti, he did not attend the weekend talks in Costa Rica.

Cross posted at Nice Deb.

Worth watching:

CNN's Rick Sanchez did a decent job (I know!) interviewing former presidential adviser Otto Reich about the coup in Honduras. Kudos to him, for actually getting the whole story out there: more...

Posted by: Open Blog at 11:39 AM | Comments (2)
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India to Obama: We're Really Not All That Interested in Legally Binding Caps on Carbon Emissions
— Dave in Texas

Shocking. An industrialized democratic nation seems to think this might harm their economic growth.

Clinton is on a state visit to India meant to showcase trade and security ties and seek common ground on climate change and arms control. India has said it will reject any new treaty to limit global warming that makes it reduce emissions because that will undermine the countryÂ’s energy consumption, transportation and food security.

Yeah, it would do that, I see their point.

SecState Hillary reiterates our willingness to "lead", while at the same time mentioning the fly in the ointment.

“There is no question that developed countries like mine must lead on this issue and for our part, under President Obama, we are not only acknowledging our contributions to greenhouse gas emissions and climate change, we are taking steps to reverse its ill effects,” Clinton said. “It is essential for major developing countries like India to also lead because over 80 percent of the growth in future emissions will be from developing countries.”

Will be from? Ninja, please.

Here's an in-depth DinT analysis of these "critical" negotiations; the rest of the developing world will be quite happy to watch us purposefully screw up our economy (insofar as it benefits them competitively) and overtax our citizens in the name of the absurd lie that is manmade global warming, but they just aren't all that interested in punishing themselves for same.

I wonder what kinda deal T. Boone Pickens will make me on one of those windmills?

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 11:27 AM | Comments (1)
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Calling Curtains on the Obama Presidency
— Gabriel Malor

Last Sunday I suggested that this piece by Michael Barone was an early contender for best political column you'll read this year. It describes the chaos in Congress with clarity and just the right amount of snark.

This week, Matt Welch and Nick Gillespie bring some competition in the Washington Post. A taste:

From a lousy cap-and-trade bill awaiting death in the Senate to a health-care reform agenda already weak in the knees to the failure of the stimulus to deliver promised jobs and economic activity, what once looked like a hope-tastic juggernaut is showing all the horsepower of a Chevy Cobalt. "Give it to me!" the president egged on a Michigan audience last week, pledging to "solve problems" and not "gripe" about the economic hand he was dealt.

Despite such bravura, Obama must be furtively reviewing the history of recent Democratic administrations for some kind of road map out of his post-100-days ditch.

So far, he seems to be skipping the chapter on Bill Clinton and his generally free-market economic policies and instead flipping back to the themes and comportment of Jimmy Carter. Like the 39th president, Obama has inherited an awful economy, dizzying budget deficits and a geopolitical situation as promising as Kim Jong Il's health. Like Carter, Obama is smart, moralistic and enamored of alternative energy schemes that were nonstarters back when America's best-known peanut farmer was installing solar panels at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Like Carter, Obama faces as much effective opposition from his own party's left wing as he does from an ardent but diminished GOP.

And perhaps most important, as with Carter, his specific policies are genuinely unpopular. The auto bailout -- which, incidentally, is illegal, springing as it has from a fund specifically earmarked for financial institutions -- has been reviled from the get-go, with opposition consistently polling north of 60 percent. Majorities have said no to bank bailouts and to cap and trade if it would make electricity significantly more expensive.

Read the whole thing.

(Incidentally, it's nice to see a column on a major newspaper's website that contains links. Very bloggy.)

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 09:12 AM | Comments (1)
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RIP to WWI vet, AoS Lifestyles Trendsetter [krakatoa]
— Open Blog

Henry Allingham, in his own words, on how he lived so long.

"Cigarettes, whisky and wild, wild women."

The oldest WWI vet, one of the few remaining, and oh, by the way, the world's oldest man at 113.

There is no better remedy against the ravages of time than living one's life well.

Godspeed, Henry.

We owe our everlasting thanks to men and women like him. There are few WWI vets left -- if you know any, take the opportunity to let them know how much their sacrifice is appreciated.

Only a handful of World War I veterans remain of the estimated 68 million mobilized. There are no French veterans left alive; just one left now in Britain; and the last living American-born veteran is Frank Woodruff Buckles of Charles Town, West Virginia. The man believed to have been Germany's last surviving soldier has also died.

Posted by: Open Blog at 07:38 AM | Add Comment
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"Darkness is Cheap, and Scrooge Liked It."
— Gabriel Malor

Planning for the Christmas season started this past week in Washington state. If you recall, there was some controversy at the Capitol last year when an atheist group contributed a sign to the holiday displays in the lobby. The sign read: "Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds."

Things rapidly spun out of control:

A handful of displays had been allowed in a third-floor hallway of the Legislative Building, not far from a 30-foot noble fir sponsored by the Association of Washington Business for the holidays. A real estate agent then added a Nativity creche.

After that, the Wisconsin-based Freedom from Religion Foundation put up an atheist placard equating religion with myth, two Christian displays were added mocking atheism, and a Jewish group displayed a menorah. Fourteen applications had been filed when the department issued a moratorium on further displays.

Among the applications not considered because of the moratorium were a Festivus pole, a sign from Fred Phelps which said "Santa will take you to hell", and a Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Looking to avoid a repeat of the farce--or at least lay some ground rules before battle is joined--the state is announcing a rule-making period. The process can be monitored and comments made starting in mid-August here.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 07:32 AM | Comments (1)
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This American Soldier Is In Peril
— Dave in Texas

I pray this ends well. But in my heart I believe it will not.

I am going to push this down, because I hate to be a downer, I do. more...

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 04:33 PM | Comments (1)
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Anyone Up for a Chuckle at Chris Dodd's Expense?
— Slublog

Yeah, I thought so. (NYT link, but worth it):

This week the campaign sent out a fund-raising e-mail entitled “Those poor lobbyists!”

To tout Mr. DoddÂ’s common-man credentials, it quoted anonymous lobbyists complaining that they could not get meetings with him...

The Dodd campaign, however, neglected to remove Washington lobbyists from its e-mail fund-raising lists.

The last quote is fantastic.

Posted by: Slublog at 03:34 PM | Add Comment
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