Free kibbles

Treasury unveils toxic asset purchase program - more corporate welfare. I don't see the point of this. Why is taxpayer money being used to buy these assets when private sector money could buy them without taxpayer money? It looks to me like private buyers and sellers have just been sitting on their hands since the government got involved in this back in Sept., waiting for government to sweeten the pot with taxpayer money for both of them. Now that taxpayers are assuming the risk, the stock market is happy. That theory is born out by the sharp rise in stocks. Of course when companies get taxpayer money, their stock goes up, lifting the market. But the reality is government interference has crippled this recovery for 6 months. Obama and Congress will figure out a way to do the maximum harm to the American people with this plan like they do everything else.

If I'm not mistaken, this is exactly the plan Paulson outlined before TARP was passed. That's more of the same from Obama we can believe in.

Stocks are up 497. Wall Street loves 'em some big time corporate welfare.

Geithner explains his bank plan in a WSJ op-ed. Paul Krugman says it won't work.

Here's more newspeak from Obama. He says energy independence in his budget is not subject to wheeling and dealing. But his budget doesn't promote energy independence. It harms domestic energy development and makes us more dependent on foreign sources of energy. We get nearly half our energy from coal, and the rest from oil, nuclear and natural gas. Obama's energy plan attacks every one of those domestic sources of energy, and we'll have no choice but to rely on foreign sources because of it.

Mises blogger highlights an onerous tax law worthy of Democrats but passed in 2004 when Republicans controlled the presidency and both houses of Congress. This tax law punishes any Americans who expatriate the country. This law is a thinly disguised attempt to trap taxpayers, or at least their money, in the US for government aristocrats to use as they wish. If today's Congress considered this law right now, Republicans and conservatives would feign outrage, but 4 years ago, those same people considered it good policy.

ACORN sends stooges to AIG executive's homes to protest bonuses. But they love their partner in crime, Obama.

The Congressional Budget Office says Obama's budget will increase the deficit by $9 trillion over 10 years. But that's Obama's plan. His plan is to crush the American people under the weight of government in order to foment Marxist revolution. He knows his budget would destroy the country as we know it. We better start figuring that out, because information like this won't change his behavior, it just reinforces it. The Heritage Foundation reminds us Obama promised a net spending cut during the campaign. Anybody who bought that lie and voted for Obama should never be allowed to vote again. Obviously that's a joke, but Obama is not funny.

And congratulation to the Heritage Foundation for pointing out Obama is doubling down on Bush's failed policies. It's about time a powerful conservative voice finally took on Bush and tied Obama to him. Hope for America is growing. If more conservatives join the Heritage Foundation recognizing Obama is just following Bush's destructive lead, but bigger and faster, and are willing to criticize both, we can turn this thing around.

Great parody of the Teleprompter Messiah. I nominate this guy for poet laureate.

Even the mainstream media recognizes that America is swiftly turning on President Obama.

Pasting this logo on Obama's economic package is worse that putting lipstick on a pig.

First Paul Krugman ripped Obama's bank bailout plan, now Frank Rich thinks Obama is stuck in a Katrina moment. Obama's staunchest supporters are already turning on him.

Essay on Obama's lies about cutting taxes focuses on cap and trade but also quotes this gem of a lie from Obama,"I can make a firm pledge. Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes."

South Caroline Governor Mark Sanford makes an eloquent argument for rejecting the discretionary parts of Obama's stimulus spending.

Cato explains that the European style train systems Obama plans are used only by tourists and the elite and wasteful compared to highways.

Cato advocates the US join a mission to put a no-fly zone over Sudan. I'm sure Obama will follow whatever lead the UN tells him to. On the face of it, a no fly zone over Sudan sounds like a great, humanitarian idea, but you know that government would somehow pervert it into something bad.

No, it would not be legit for Congress to target the AIG bonuses. That's why the House legislation targets all bonuses for all time for executives of companies receiving TARP funds with a household income over $250,000. I don't know why these writers keep setting up this straw man. Congress did not just target AIG.

It should go without saying that government should stay out of the news business, can you say Pravda?, but I'm glad reason said it.

Because our government is stupid, the best and the brightest immigrants who created wealth for all of us are heading back to their native countries.

Obama is anything but a regular guy. Enjoying basketball is not what makes a regular guy. Regular guys don't spend their entire adult lives seeking out and surrounding themselves with Marxists, partnering with anti-American pastors and domestic terrorists, and trying to foment Marxist revolution in America. I wish I had archived all the articles I saw saying Obama was a regular guy so I could pull them back out later and thrash the authors.

"I voted for Barack Obama largely on the basis of his temperament, which I thought superior." Are you kidding me? That's how you chose to pick a president? This author is not a serious person, or else he's making fun of himself and I didn't get it.

When explaining how Democrats have fallen behind Republicans in the generic polls, Michael Barone writes, "I think what we are seeing is more disillusionment toward Democrats than any positive feeling toward Republicans." Tell me about it.

Obama threw Chris Dodd under the bus on the bonus legislation in Obama's stimulus boondoggle.

The alternative to pinning the blame on [Dodd] would have been to be straight from the beginning—meaning to admit that it was Geithner, presumably with Obama's blessing, who championed the provision that paved the way for the AIG bonuses. But to do that would have meant sacrificing Geithner, whose two-month tenure has already been marred by controversy and limited public confidence.
...
But at a personal level, Obama's willingness to abet the scapegoating of Dodd is as cold as cold gets.

During the campaign we learned Obama had no compassion or compunction to do the right thing (remember his Kenyan brother living on $100 per year and Obama never lifted a finger to help him even after meeting him?). Anybody who thought Obama would be honest and take a hit for the actions of his administration when he could use one of his cronies as a political shield did not do their homework on Obama. How can people be so blind to something so obvious?

"The Middle East may be on the verge of a nuclear arms race triggered by the inability of the West to stop Iran's quest for a bomb." And apparently representatives of every Middle Eastern government are visiting recently freed A.Q. Khan on Pakistan to solicit his help. How much you want to bet Hugo Chavez is talking to him too? If liberals hadn't torpedoed Bush's attempt to credibly threaten Iran with bombing its nuclear program, this most likely wouldn't have happened. Liberals' inability to either understand or acknowledge, I don't know which it is, the consequences of their policies and actions might kill us all. Obama should rally US allies, including the Arab nations, and make that credible threat ASAP, because it will soon be too late.