libertybunker.com » Porkulus

Thank You Senator Jim Bunning

omb — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 05:14:26 +0000

Senator Jim Bunning, courageously held a one man filibuster this week against the Reid-Obama machine against unfunded deficit spending. Bunning’s position was painted by the liberal press as being against funding extended unemployment benefits but, of course, his actual position would never correctly covered, which was as follows: fine, extend the benefits, but PAY FOR IT!!!!!!
Bunning pointed out that the Senate had just extended the debt ceiling and, include in that bill, a “Pay Go” provision that mandated that additional deficit spending be paid for through additional taxes or cutting existing programs. Obama beat his chest about this in front of the cameras numerous times and, actually, this is the second subsequent bill to be passed by the Senate that does not identify the funding. Bunning was attempting to hold Reid and specifically Obeyme’s feet to the deficit fire, and he should be applauded for his efforts.
For the record, let’s review some of the money that this corrupt administration and congress has ‘appropriated’ over the last year. $787B in ‘stimulus’ money, less than a third of which has been spent. Where is the rest of it? Why could not this critical funding of unemployment benefits come from the so called stimulus money? It has already been borrowed at the expense of our children. It is still apparently available, as there is no accounting of at least $400B of it having been spent. Why did we have to borrow and additional $30B last week on a ‘jobs’ bill, and now another $10B for unemployment benefits, outside of the Pay Go provision which apparently will only apply to any sort of defense spending. This is crap. If this doesn’t piss you off, nothing will.
Bunning’s effort was conspicuously devoid of fellow Republican support. Remember this in November. This is your money and at some point, you and your children will have to pay for it. Bunning’s point was not that unemployment benefits should not be extended, merely that it should be paid for with money already appropriated. He made the point that if the Senate would not stand against this deficit spending, then they would never pay for anything. This is the truth. The Senate will continue to spend money that they do not have because it is in their interest to do so. It is as simple as that.
If we do not return to the original checks and balances within Congress, as established by the Framers of our Constitution, i.e. by repealing the 17th Amendment and making Senators accountable to the States, we are done. The money will be worth nothing. Save it if you want, stash it in your 401k, but if the course is not changed soon, it will stolen by an unaccountable Congress through inflation, and that which you saved your entire life will be worthless.
It’s a huge deal, folks. Wake up, start writing everybody you can, and let your voice be heard before they silence all of us by royal decree. They are going to spend us and our children out of existence as a country. If it continues, you will see the end of the United States of America, as you have known it, within your lifetime – or at least within the next 15 to 20 years.
So, to Senator Jim Bunning, a big thank you from the Bunker. And to the rest of the Republicans who would not back him up on this – SHAME ON YOU!!!

-omb

The Stimulus Debacle

omb — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 06:38:31 +0000

Chairman Obeyme’s stimulus results are in, and the grades are bad. The graph( I think I found it on Moonbattery, but not sure) says it all. If you can’t see it, let me offer a little explanation. The light blue line is the White House predicted unemployment rate if we did nothing, i.e. spent no money. The dark blue line is the White House predicted unemployment percentage after passage of the porkulus bill. The red dots are the actual unemployment numbers after passage of Chariman Obeyme’s porkulus extravaganza, for March, April, and May ’09.
Wow, who would have thought that stealing $787B from our children, in conjunction with Obeyme’s other Marxist plans and policies, would have had a negative affect on the perception of business owner’s economic outlook and their hiring plans? Gee, obviously not our beloved Chairman. He told us, remember, he doesn’t want to run the auto companies, yet he is. He told us as well, I don’t want to run health care, yet he is pushing for immediate passage of his ‘health care reform’ plan, “I will not tolerate endless delay” he said today to the AMA. He also told us that we needed to pass the stimulus package immediately, no time to read the bill, remember? Then, Congress delivered the bill on a Friday (devoid of any Republican house support) to his office, he jetted off to Chicago for the weekend and couldn’t sign it until he returned on the following Tuesday.
As it turned out, Chairman Obeyme’s delay in signing the porkulus bill really didn’t matter – mainly because hardly any of the money gets spent this year, when it’s supposedly needed! Why then the rush to get the bill out of Congress? Because reading it would have revealed the true nature of the bill, which is to purchase votes for Democrats in the 2010 Congressional elections.
-OMB

Obama’s Overreaching Economic Policies

omb — Thu, 14 May 2009 05:01:57 +0000

On a tip from Sieberticus, this George “Baseball Is My Middle Name” Will article breaks out of his usually tepid Conservative tone to repudiate Chariman Obeyme’s incursion into the private sector, in the Washington Post.

On a related note, if you’ve never seen this SNL parody of Will’s baseball acumen, it is hilarious. “Throw the ball!” OMB

My Tea Party Rant

omb — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 17:50:22 +0000

I mentioned in my earlier post about the tea parties, leading up to April 15th, that I didn’t like the fact that members of the media and former politicians were positioning themselves to take advantage of the grass roots efforts. Newt Gingrich, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, and the two most egregious examples; Mike Huckabee and Neil Boortz of the ‘Fair Tax’ movement. It even happened at our local Boise Tea Party – politicians sticking their mugs in front of the cameras and microphones, trying to gain as much sway as they could from rallies. I don’t doubt that on most levels, they genuinely supported the purpose of the Tea Parties, but there was definitely too much of their viewpoints covered.

My problem with Beck was that he was trying to ‘shape’ the rally into something he could ‘safely’ attend so as to, I can only assume, boost his ratings. Today, I want to address Huckabee and Boortz and their ‘Fair Tax’ rally, being stuffed in front of the cameras. First of all, they offer what they consider to be a solution to what they consider to be ‘the problem’, in Borrtz’s words; the Federal tax code, and I have no problem with them putting that forward, even though I a) disagree that the tax code is the biggest problem we face, and b) that the ‘Fair Tax’ is the best solution. ( There is a good article over on mises.org about the Flat Tax and the Fair Tax, and how they distract from the real problem – out of control spending) However, the opportunistic manner in which they leveraged Huckabee’s position with Fox News to get their rally in the middle of Hannity’s coverage of the Atlanta tea party was way over the top, in my opinion.

Hannity, in my opinion, represents the lowest common denominator of commentators on the right. I think he’s a good guy with a pretty good message, but I don’t think he’s all that sharp. Huckabee, on the other hand, is a snake, in my opinion. Let me remind you, this is the guy that stayed in the campaign way past the time that it was obvious that he would not get the nomination, for the express purpose of damaging Gov. Romney in the remaining primaries. He saddled the Republicans with McCain and, in my opinion, very likely secured the defeat in November.

I, for one, think that Romney , of the remaining pre-convention Republicans would have been the best candidate to take on Obama, and would have shredded him in the debates. Huckabee saddled the Republicans with McCain, period. Romney would have been the candidate to have on the podium when it was obvious that the economy was in trouble. Now remember, with no Obama in the White House pursuing his Marxists policies, it is very unlikely that these Tea Parties would have ever occured. So, I find it particularly outrageous that Huckabee was out in front, co-opting the Tea Parties to the benefit of his ‘Fair Tax’ issue, when he in large part, contributed to the eventual election of Obama by saddling us with the inept John McCain.

Now, Huckabee has parleyed his campaign presence into some sort of Fox TV show and we can expect him to be putting his mug in front of any populist movement that he thinks he can use to further his cause – him. I should have expected him to try to co-opt the message of the tea parties to his own ends, after all, he’s a bass player, and its a scientifically proven fact that bass players suffer from extreme inferiority personality disorders.

For the tea party attendees that I know, this was their first political rally. For many of the organizers as well, this was their first as well. I hope in the future that the organizers can keep the political hacks and media personalities out of the mix and keep the movement and the message in the hands of the people. The obvious vitriol on the part of the main stream media towards the tea party protests is evidence of one thing – this scared the shit out of the left. They don’t know how to react to it because it is genuine, and largely unheard of from the working taxpayers in this country, so they attack the movement and try to make the participants look like morons for attending. This is an attempt to intimidate, reduce participation, and perhaps snuff out the movement all together. All are indications that the message is being heard loud and clear, and as long as they(the media) can’t attach a national face to this movement, it will grow and flourish. That’s why I’m against the folks I mentioned getting out in front of this thing.

-OMB

Inflationary Depression Ahead

omb — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 17:29:02 +0000

From Peter Schiff on MSNBC. Worth checking out. (found on Earthfrisk blog)

Also, here’s another recent Peter Schiff video with Judge Napolitano…

Straight Talk – Daniel Hannan, MEPMust See Update Below

omb — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 23:35:21 +0000

Saw this on American thinker. Listen how Daniel Hannan takes Prime Minister Gordon Browne to task before the EU General Assembly, for the folly of deficit spending as stimulus. He should run for Congress in the U.S., I’d vote for him. I saw the same video over on Atlas Shrugged with the comment that ‘since it’s no longer a requirement that a President be a Natural born citizen, he should run for President’. Ok, I’ll buy that – he has my vote for President, too.

Now contrast this performance with that of one of America’s finest Congressional representatives; U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown, (D-Fl). Thank God that we have such competent representation working on our current financial ‘crisis’ and spending trillions in the process. Video and text translation provided by Iowahawk

***Video is fixed***

Wow! If you weren’t confident in our Congress before, this should have alleviated all of your fears. All I can say is that at least for these 3 minutes or so, they weren’t raising my taxes. Perhaps all members should be required to do the same for all high school teams as well as college – in fact, they should probably read into the Congressional record, the names of all high school and college athletes – and non-athletes for inclusiveness.
-OMB

translation by Iowahawk

Are We A Banana Republic?

omb — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 17:47:52 +0000

One stupid bitch!

Here’s a post from Powerline on Pelosi’s outrageous attempt to ‘claw back’ the bonuses paid to AIG employees through legislative action to tax a specific group of Americans.

I’m stupefied to find that some people are defending the constitutionality of Nancy Pelosi’s discriminatory, confiscatory and retroactive tax on people who receive bonus income from companies that got TARP money. I would have considered it a bright line rule that the government can’t identify a class of unpopular people and impose a special tax on them. What’s next? A 100% income tax on registered Republicans, retroactive to last year? If Pelosi’s bill passes muster, why not? (read the rest)

Why isn’t she trying to get Frank Raines and Jamie Gorelick to return the millions in bonuses that they were paid while managing(to fill their pockets and a bunch of other Democrats as well) at Fannie Mae?

Bonuses, Bailouts, and Bullshit

omb — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 04:01:29 +0000

Gambling? I'm Shocked!

“I’m shocked! Shocked! – that gambling is taking place on the premises!” Followed by “Sir, your winnings…”. That scene from ‘Casablanca’ is the first thing that popped into my head when I heard the outcry from D.C. that AIG execs return their bonuses.

We’ve got Barney Frank, Chris Dodd and every other Democrat, some Republicans, not to mention and most of the media calling for the heads of the AIG executives because they paid out bonuses to themselves and their employees after receiving several rounds of Federal bailout money. The Pretender-in-Chief has been out there as well, doing his part.

Folks, this is a classic distraction technique. First of all, for Barney Frank and Chris Dodd to question the management abilities of anyone, given their vigorous denials that anything troublesome was amiss with Fannie and Freddie, is a joke to begin with. But I really don’t see where AIG is at fault here.

The theft is not in AIG taking $170M and handing it to its ‘greedy’ executives. The theft and mismanagement lies in the fact that something on the order of $150B taxpayer money was given to AIG in the first place, initially with Bush’s efforts, and most recently with Obeyme’s. A good deal of that money has already found its way into the coffers of foreign banks and insurance interests.

How much of your money has ended up in the hands of foreigners? Nobody knows, because the money was given to AIG with essentially, no strings attached. Still care about the .11% of the total sum of AIG dollars(note, they are no longer taxpayer dollars) were paid out in bonuses? Well, then your gripe is with Bush, Obama, Bernake, Geitner, and the U.S. Congress, not AIG.

Does it look bad? To some, but to my knowledge, bonuses can be contractual. Sometimes bonuses are granted in a year of good performance to be paid out in partial over following years. Other times employees are retained through the use of bonuses. But, even if this isn’t the case and upon receipt of the Fed money, the top execs at AIG said ‘Let’s party’, I would argue that they are still within their rights to have done so. They gave them the money so that they could continue operating, with no strings, and operate they did. That’s why these government bailouts of private industry are a bad idea.

If these grandstanding politicians were concerned about the AIG execs slathering themselves in taxpayer sponsored bonuses- and they are not concerned, they never would have bailed out AIG in the first place. We’ve all been told about how they were too big to fail and it would have brought the financial system to its knees, but I don’t buy that for a minute. The fact is they DID fail.

They did fail and they should have been put into bankruptcy and receivership. That is the only way the system can clean itself. This allows other smaller companies to fill the gaps left behind- feeding on the carcass of AIG, if you will. Take the pain, allow what is a very natural process take place, and guess what? Nobody’s getting any bonuses!

The whole notion that a company is too big to be allowed to fail is a straw man set up to frighten you into opening your wallet and letting greedy politicians to take your wealth. GM is not too big too fail. They also need to go into bankruptcy and reorganize – of course, there are those UAW contracts to consider.

I don’t care about the bonuses. It’s such a miniscule amount as compared to the vast sums that are flying out of the wallets of our descendents on a near daily basis. They will pay for this with a lower standard of living than we currently enjoy – and probably ridicule us for letting it happen, and rightly so.

This outcry over these bonuses is to distract you and get you focused on ‘greedy executives’, the objective is to vilify capitalism and get you to accept more and more government control over the economy. That is why Obeyme is out there beating this drum and for no other reason.

-OMB

Repeal The 17th Amendment

omb — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 02:53:37 +0000

George Will wrote a column in the Washington Post, within which he called on Senator Feingold to call for the repeal of the amendment, rather than a modification for situations in which a replacement Senator must be chosen by a Govenor, as was the case in the recent Blago debacle. You can read his comments here.

If you are new to the 17th amendment issue, please take a few minutes to read this earlier post, “The System Is Broken”.

I also happened across this chart of government spending as a percent of GDP since 1870. The purpose for which this chart was created was to illuminate whether incumbents were re-elected in up or down spending years, that’s what the white and black dots mean. You can ignore the title. Percentage of spending is on the y axis and years x-axis. Note the 17th amendment was introduced in 1913 and was ratified a year or so after that, as was the 16th amendment which initiated the Federal income tax.

Now one can argue that this was the impact of the income tax as established with the 16th amendment and I think that they are in part, correct. However, that actually assumes that it matters to Congress whether or not the Government can raist the money that it intends to spend. The spending, as we have seen, is the problem. And that side of the equation is more impacted by the effects of 17th amendment than by the 16th amendment.

In any case, I will draft a letter to my Senators this week and I’ll post a generic verion of it on here if any of you are interested in putting it to use.

-OMB

The Manchurian Candidate

omb — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 02:53:49 +0000

Here’s a story that is running on Bloomberg.com, presently, by Kevin Hasset. The story is not that surprising by itself. It basically is asking whether or not a plotting foreign power with designs on the destruction of the U.S. economy and 20 years to spare, could prepare a trojan horse candidate that could wreak more economic havoc than has Obama in his first 50 days. Good question. But what’s really interesting about this, is that its on Bloomberg.com (as pointed out by VanHelsing of Moonbattery).

Here is a very mainstream business and financial news outlet openly contrasting President Wonderful to a ‘Manchurian Candidate’? That’s not a good sign, folks. If a story like this is making onto Bloomberg, you have to wonder how bad the actual situation is.

From the begining of the stimulus fiasco, I’ve been of the opinion that none of this has anything to do with jobs or the economy – I think even the most ardent Obama supporters, even though they may not admit it, are pretty embarrassed about that which they have passed under the guise of economic stimulus. The bill is about redefining America in an unprecedented manner, taking us further down the road to socialism, and quite possibly the eventuality of a Marxist state, right here in the good ol’ U.S. of A.. You wanted change, you’re going to get it.

Are we there yet, no, but consider the stimulus big shove in that direction. Years ago, 1966, a couple of Columbia professors named Cloward and Piven theorized that it would be possible to hasten the downfall of free market capitalism by placing extreme and ever increasing demands for services from the public (government) sector. This theory was known as the Cloward-Piven strategy and was embraced and promoted by the likes of Saul Alinsky, who was a guru to both Barak Obama and Hillary Clinton, whom he offered a job after her graduation from Wellesley. You can read about the Cloward-Piven strategy here, and it is scary.

I think that the stock market is doing exactly what our beloved dear leader wants, at present. Once those pesky 401k’s are 101k’s, you’ll need a lot more of what Obama and company have to offer. Everything is under control.

-OMB

libertybunker.com » Porkulus

Thank You Senator Jim Bunning

The Stimulus Debacle

Obama’s Overreaching Economic Policies

My Tea Party Rant

Inflationary Depression Ahead

Straight Talk – Daniel Hannan, MEP***Must See Update Below***

Are We A Banana Republic?

Bonuses, Bailouts, and Bullshit

Repeal The 17th Amendment

The Manchurian Candidate

Straight Talk – Daniel Hannan, MEPMust See Update Below