… it’s a 27 point drop in 100 days.
h/t

” … $100 million here, pretty soon, even in Washington, it adds up to real money…”

Via Megan McCardle

They said that if you voted for McCain, dissenters would be targeted by the White House – and they were right!

“A group of investment firms and hedge funds decided to hold out for the prospect of an unjustified taxpayer-funded bailout. They were hoping that everybody else would make sacrifices and they would have to make none,” Obama said.
“I don’t stand with them,” Obama said. “I stand with Chrysler’s employees and their families and communities. I stand with Chrysler’s management, its dealers and its suppliers. I stand with the millions of Americans who own and want to buy Chrysler cars.”

I heard this over the car radio yesterday, so didn’t blog about it then, but my thoughts were similar to Stephen Spruiell’s;

Does that mean he doesn’t stand with the thousands of Americans who have retirement plans with Oppenheimer Funds? […] Not everyone showed this kind of backbone. I don’t know about you, but knowing that Oppenheimer’s managers were willing to stand up to immense political pressure on behalf of their investors kind of makes me want to open an account there.

Politico – “It’s clear that the White House thinks the politics of battling unnamed “speculators” works in its favor.”
Last month he sparked the Great National Rile-Up over AIG bonuses, now this.
The hopey-changy agenda becomes clearer by the day – what Bush did for terrorism, Obama will do for witches.

Wait. He who would heal the planet can’t heal Detroit?

Chrysler, one of the three pillars of the American auto industry, will file for bankruptcy today after last-minute negotiations between the government and the automaker’s creditors broke down last night, an Obama administration official said.
U.S. officials had offered Chrysler’s secured lenders $2.25 billion in cash if they would agree to writedown the $6.9 billion in secured debt that the company owed. But a small group of hedge funds refused the 11th-hour deal, forcing an imminent bankruptcy.

But not to worry. It’s just so they can get more money from us.

Margaret Wente channels SDA;

Don’t worry, people. There’s no need for panic. Swine flu has reached the phase 5 alert level, which is bad but not disastrous. Barack Obama is on top of it. He has gone on TV to reassure us we don’t need to close the schools yet, just some of them. He’s banker-in-chief and car salesman-in-chief, and now he’s the public health officer-in-chief. Is there nothing this man can’t do?

h/t Arnav

Is there nothing that Obama don’t know?

Federal officials knew that sending two fighter jets and Air Force One to buzz ground zero and Lady Liberty might set off nightmarish fears of a 9/11 replay, but they still ordered the photo-op kept secret from the public.
In a memo obtained by CBS 2 HD the Federal Aviation Administration’s James Johnston said the agency was aware of “the possibility of public concern regarding DOD (Department of Defense) aircraft flying at low altitudes” in an around New York City. But they demanded total secrecy from the NYPD, the Secret Service, the FBI and even the mayor’s office and threatened federal sanctions if the secret got out.

Bingo!

The people who populate the Obama administration really don’t believe in 9/11. They may have read about it, They may know intellectually that it happened. But they view it the same way we may view a lightning strike that hits an isolated golfer: a billion-in-one shot that “just happened.” That’s why the Obama team is renaming the attacks of 9/11 as “man-caused disasters” putting it on the same moral plane as an auto wreck. That’s why the Obama team is not really concerned about revealing what we do to interrogate prisoners with vital information. They don’t believe we haven anything to worry about. Unlike the people who evacuated their buildings during the fly-bys and who ran for their lives, believing that they were under another attack. For Team Obama, it’s always 9/10.

Plus, who was holding the camera?
h/t Drudge

Empty suit for new job at Harvard Law Review – $500
Voting “present” 130 times as state senator – $58,000 a year
Lifting security verification to receive untracable online donations – $30+ million a month
Appointing himself CEO of Mastercard – PRICELESS

And they said the days of the White House using secret CIA information to expose their political enemies to danger were over…

Rice approved CIA waterboarding.

I wonder how many Islamic terrorists man-caused disaster facilitators are fixing cross-hairs on private citizen Condoleezza Rice today?
(Of course, it was Richard Armitage who “outed” Valerie Plame, a fact that quickly resulted in a complete media disinterest in further coverage of the “scandal”.)

Who’s Politicizing Intelligence Now?

Marc Thiessen, a speechwriter for George W. Bush, had access to the full memos and read them to prepare a speech for Bush in 2006. When Thiessen looked at the redacted version released by the White House last week, he noticed something strange.
He writes: “But just as the memo begins to describe previously undisclosed details of what enhanced interrogations achieved, the page is almost entirely blacked out. The Obama administration released pages of unredacted classified information on the techniques used to question captured terrorist leaders but pulled out its black marker when it came to the details of what those interrogations achieved.”
It’s not just those memos. Former Vice President Dick Cheney says he has read other memos that describe the intelligence obtained by using coercive interrogation and that demonstrate its value. He has asked for them to be declassified and made public.
It is possible, I suppose, that a series of fortunate coincidences has resulted in the public disclosure of only that information that will be politically helpful to the Obama administration. It is also possible that Dick Cheney has taken up synchronized swimming in his retirement.

RTWT.

Is there nothing that Obama can’t do?

“Yes, Canada is not Mexico, it doesn’t have a drug war going on, it didn’t have 6,000 homicides that were drug-related last year,” she said.
“Nonetheless, to the extent that terrorists have come into our country or suspected or known terrorists have entered our country across a border, it’s been across the Canadian border. There are real issues there.”
When asked if she was referring to the 9-11 terrorists, Napolitano added: “Not just those but others as well.”

…though apparently, they did nothing illegal.

“What we have to do is target the real evil-doers in this business, the employers who consistently hire illegal labor, the human traffickers who are exploiting human misery. And yes, when we find illegal workers, yes, appropriate action, some of which is criminal, most of that is civil, because crossing the border is not a crime per se. It is civil. But anyway, going after those as well.”

Plus!

“The future is we have borders”

Sleep well in those beds, my dear American cousins.

Still voting present;

President Obama endured a 50-minute diatribe from socialist Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega that lashed out at a century of what he called terroristic U.S. aggression in Central America and included a rambling denunciation of the U.S.-imposed isolation of Cuba’s Communist government.
Obama sat mostly unmoved during the speech but at times jotted notes. The speech was part of the opening ceremonies at the fifth Summit of the Americas here.

This is the same man who “endured” twenty years of hate-America-first diatribes from his “spiritual mentor” Jeremiah Wright. Of course he took notes. You never know when you’ll need a new book title.
(Besides, it’s all Kennedy’s fault).

Is there nothing that Obama can’t apologize for?

“Too often, the United States has not pursued and sustained engagement with our neighbors,” he said. “We have been too easily distracted by other priorities and failed to see that our own progress is tied directly to progress through the Americas.”
Having never set foot south of our border nor paid much attention to the region until this week, he should speak for himself.
A critical goal of the Summit of the Americas when it was founded in 1994 by President Clinton and other democratic leaders was a great free trade zone of the Americas, enabling America and its neighbors to move from Barrow, Alaska, all the way to Tierra del Fuego, Chile, in a great free exchange of people, trade and ideas.
Today, Obama is paying only lip service to that trade goal while two finished free-trade treaties with friendly American allies Panama and Colombia sit in his desk drawer, unvoted-on in Congress.
He speaks of the U.S. being “distracted by other priorities” but in reality he’s only “distracted” by listening to Big Labor, which has tried to shut Colombia and Panama out of free trade.
In the same way, he’s distracted by the Farm Lobby’s campaign cash and won’t think of ending the senseless tariffs on Brazil’s ethanol — another major free-trade, and energy policy, issue.
He has yet to expend political capital to muscle Congress to put those tariffs and treaties to a vote. If he did, he would show leadership. It’s not going unnoticed by democratic leaders of our hemisphere, who, from Brazil to Chile to Mexico to Peru, are urging him to take action. This is the one issue he should be showing strong leadership on. But he isn’t.
Canada, by contrast, is taking the lead. Prime Minister Stephen Harper said his top priority at the Summit is to champion free trade, in line with the will of the region’s real democracies.

h/t Bourque

Is there nothing that Obama can’t do?

WAKE UP CALL: TEXAS GOV. BACK RESOLUTION AFFIRMING SOVEREIGNTY
Tue Apr 14 2009 08:44:54 ET
AUSTIN – Gov. Rick Perry joined state Rep. Brandon Creighton and sponsors of House Concurrent Resolution (HCR) 50 in support of states’ rights under the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
“I believe that our federal government has become oppressive in its size, its intrusion into the lives of our citizens, and its interference with the affairs of our state,” Gov. Perry said. “That is why I am here today to express my unwavering support for efforts all across our country to reaffirm the states’ rights affirmed by the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. I believe that returning to the letter and spirit of the U.S. Constitution and its essential 10th Amendment will free our state from undue regulations, and ultimately strengthen our Union.”
Perry continued: “Millions of Texans are tired of Washington, DC trying to come down here to tell us how to run Texas.”
A number of recent federal proposals are not within the scope of the federal government’s constitutionally designated powers and impede the states’ right to govern themselves. HCR 50 affirms that Texas claims sovereignty under the 10th Amendment over all powers not otherwise granted to the federal government.
It also designates that all compulsory federal legislation that requires states to comply under threat of civil or criminal penalties, or that requires states to pass legislation or lose federal funding, be prohibited or repealed.

It ain’t just “right wing” talk radio anymore.
More here (h/t Sounder)

Specifically, blowing billions of US tax borrowed dollars into the wild blue yonder;

[The president’s new science adviser] John Holdren told The Associated Press in his first interview since being confirmed last month that the idea of geoengineering the climate is being discussed. One such extreme option includes shooting pollution particles into the upper atmosphere to reflect the sun’s rays.

Via Drudge
Related: “Suppose the European Union president went to Cuba and insisted that the world’s sunniest concentration camp should be welcomed into NAFTA?”
Give it time.

Dan Collins;

And why shouldn’t he be naive and cynical? Obama has never been responsible for anything his entire life. He was a figurehead at the Harvard Law Review. He somehow managed to graduate from Columbia, apparently, without having to pass its language requirement, which, until proven wrong, I’m going to insist was in place at the time he was there. He wasn’t responsible for the waste of $150 million poured into radical school reform in Chicago with no positive benefit. He wasn’t responsible for the machine politics that he engaged in while an Illinois State Senator and later US Senator. He wasn’t responsible for spending 20 years sitting in the pews of race-baiting conspiracy theorist preacher Reverend Wright’s Church of Blame Whitey. He isn’t responsible for the sweet land deal that he received from Rezko. He wasn’t responsible for claiming he’d accept public financing and then changing his mind. He wasn’t responsible for the verification mechanisms being shut off at his campaign donation site. He isn’t responsible for campaigning on promises not to make lobbyists part of his administration, just as he wasn’t responsible for the hand up he received from radical liars Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn. He won’t be responsible for his campaign promises that no one making under $250k per annum would see a dime’s worth of increase in their tax burden. He certainly isn’t responsible for not having read line-by-line the Porkulus Bill, as he’d promised, and excised all of the pork. He was somehow appointed to a lucrative position at the University of Chicago School of Law, despite having no history of publication. He received a very lucrative advance on a book deal that he proceeded to blow deadlines on. He received another on entering the White House.
He has never been responsible for anything but time serving and sinecure.
So, Obama has good reason to be naive. Naive and cynical.

United States Imposes Tariffs on Softwood Lumber from Four Canadian Provinces …

Mark Steyn, guest hosting for Rush Limbaugh;

“We now know that Barack Obama, who urged us all to learn a second language, does not speak Austrian.”

WSJ;

I must be naive. I really thought the administration would welcome the return of bank bailout money. Some $340 million in TARP cash flowed back this week from four small banks in Louisiana, New York, Indiana and California. This isn’t much when we routinely talk in trillions, but clearly that money has not been wasted or otherwise sunk down Wall Street’s black hole. So why no cheering as the cash comes back?
My answer: The government wants to control the banks, just as it now controls GM and Chrysler, and will surely control the health industry in the not-too-distant future. Keeping them TARP-stuffed is the key to control. And for this intensely political president, mere influence is not enough. The White House wants to tell ’em what to do. Control. Direct. Command.
It is not for nothing that rage has been turned on those wicked financiers. The banks are at the core of the administration’s thrust: By managing the money, government can steer the whole economy even more firmly down the left fork in the road.
If the banks are forced to keep TARP cash — which was often forced on them in the first place — the Obama team can work its will on the financial system to unprecedented degree. That’s what’s happening right now.

The British – doing the job the American media won’t do. Transcript from the notoriously right-wing rag known as The Guardian;

Barack Obama: “I, I, would say that, er … pause [I HAVEN’T A CLUE] … if you look at … pause [WHO IS THIS NICK ROBINSON JERK?] … the, the sources of this crisis … pause [JUST KEEP GOING, BUDDY] … the United States certainly has some accounting to do with respect to . . . pause [I’M IN WAY TOO DEEP HERE] … a regulatory system that was inadequate to the massive changes that have taken place in the global financial system … pause, close eyes [THIS IS GOING TO GO DOWN LIKE A CROCK OF SHIT BACK HOME. HELP]. I think what is also true is that … pause [I WANT NICK ROBINSON TO DISAPPEAR] … here in Great Britain …