Wildman’s Hangout

August 23, 2010 ·

Yes, people are rejecting Barack Obama because they’re just not smart enough to understand how much he’s done for them.

For example Bloomberg’s Margaret Carlson said this week in a story headlined “Smart President Fails Quiz at Ground Zero:

How can President Barack Obama be so right about the mosque and yet get it so wrong?

Here’s how: He is so supremely confident in his intellect that he forgets, on his way to the correct decision, to slow down and pick up not-so-gifted stragglers.

He’s smart. You’re not. Case closed. Move along.

This, of course, is standard operating procedure for the liberal media. Case in point: Al Gore is smarter than you are, too, according Dana Milbank in a 2007 Washington Post story headlined “Is It Wise To Be So Smart?”

A capacity crowd of 1,500 people jammed into Lisner Auditorium at George Washington University last night for Al Gore’s speech and book-signing. But the numbers don’t matter: Even if Gore were speaking before a sellout crowd at Verizon Center, he would still be the smartest guy in the room.

And, of course, that well-known intellectual giant John Kerry was also more intelligen than you according to a 2004 Time Magazine story headlined “What Kerry Means to Say”:

“Kerry’s verbal meanderings are partly a reflection of a mind that sees complexity in almost every issue. The son of a diplomat, educated partly in boarding schools in Europe, Kerry learned to look at current affairs from multiple perspectives. Says an advisor, ‘It’s not like he’s trying to shade the truth, he just overintellectualizes his explanations.’”

Question: If these guys are so remarkably intelligent, why are they so hesitant to reveal their college transcripts?

When Gore finally revealed his, we learned that the genius had flunked out of several colleges. When Kerry finally released his, we found out that his GPA was lower than George Bush’s. And, of course, we’re still waiting to see transcripts from Obama’s time at Occidental, Columbia and Harvard.

Our guess? Obama is not only far smarter than you, he’s also far more modest and would be embarrassed to reveal his clear superiority.

But we’re probably wrong, because thinking hurts when you’re not a Democrat.

source:  http://www.ihatethemedia.com/obama-problem-is-hes-just-too-darn-smart

By Fred A. Kingery
August 18, 2010

Mark it down. At 2:15 p.m. on Tuesday, August 10, 2010, the U.S. Federal Reserve made a historic announcement. It signaled that the central bank was going to “preserve the size of its balance sheet.” The announcement didn’t sound all that dramatic, but don’t be fooled. In the two subsequent days, the stock market fell over 300 points, and the price of gold rose $20.

The Fed’s balance sheet, which historically consisted of nearly 100 percent U.S. Treasury securities, has grown in size from about $850 billion to a towering $2.3 trillion (or $2,300 billion) currently. In the middle of the financial crisis two years ago, the Fed expanded its holding of securities by purchasing lower-quality, mortgage-backed debt securities primarily from our nation’s domestic banking system. The need for this balance sheet expansion was to provide massive liquidity for our entire financial system.

The cash used to purchase the debt securities was literally created out of thin air, or in other words, the Fed simply printed the money. Two years ago, the financial emergency was deemed severe enough to require this dramatic money-printing exercise by the Fed. There was never any intent to make the vast expansion of money injected into the banking system anything other than “temporary” due to the financial emergency. There was always discussion in the financial press and among Fed policy makers of an “exit strategy.” The “exit strategy” discussion implied that the inflationary (or even “hyper-inflationary”) potential of this massive expansion of the banking system’s base reserves was being monitored closely. The financial markets took comfort that the Fed was standing at the ready, to withdraw the cash, should there be any sign that the central bank’s monetization exercise was having a negative effect on investor inflation psychology. That feeling of comfort has been dealt a blow with the Fed’s announcement on August 10. There is now no “exit strategy” being considered, and the size of the central bank’s balance sheet may very well become permanent.

Historically, the U.S. Federal Reserve has been given two primary objectives: one is the preservation of the purchasing power of the U.S. Dollar, and the other is to conduct a monetary policy that supports full employment. It is not an easy task to serve two masters. Additionally, in its role as a central bank, the Fed is to remain an independent institution that resists political influences. This, too, is not an easy task. The Fed’s track record as an independent institution that has preserved the purchasing power of our currency and maintained full employment is fully open to challenge. The central bank has not always demonstrated a firm independence from political influence, and the purchasing power of the U.S. Dollar has significantly diminished over the past 40 years.

An independent central bank, free of political influence, has always been a critical corner stone supporting confidence in whatever the currency the bank is charged with managing. Confidence is the one and only real currency of a central bank. What has just transpired here with the Fed’s announcement is that, in no uncertain terms, the central bank has explicitly stated it is prepared to “preserve the size of its balance sheet.”And I would add, what it didn’t say explicitly, but did signal to the political class in Washington, is a willingness to “further expand the balance sheet dramatically if need be.” The fancy term being used to describe its intent here is called “quantitative easing” or “QE.”

The real inflationary (or hyperinflationary) risk that the financial markets will calculate very carefully going forward is that the central bank, with this announcement, has now opened itself to being fully co-opted by the political process in Washington. Consider, why make hard political decisions on taxes and spending when the central bank has, in effect, just announced that it stands at the ready to print the money to finance any deficit of any size in order to underwrite any amount of future debt accumulation?

The political class in Washington will see the Fed’s announcement as a potential gold mine. They will no doubt attempt to mine it for all it’s worth. The significantly rising risk is that the accumulation of future government debt attended to this process will result in hyperinflation rather than a garden-variety, modest inflation.

Hyperinflation occurs when there is a total collapse of confidence in a currency. A central bank that is willing to simply print money out of thin air to finance unlimited amounts of debt will eventually undermine the confidence in the currency being managed as lenders eventually seize on the realization that they will never be paid back in anything other than worthless paper.

The road to hell is indeed paved with good intentions.

V & V

source:  http://www.visandvals.org/The_Federal_Reserve_s_Historic_Announcement.php

Posted by Ben on August 20, 2010 ·

Ben Johnson, Floyd Reports

Conservatives often see the government as an Orwellian apparatus hungrily devouring our God-given rights. Liberals in power (three of the scariest words ever written) often given them ample reason to think so. But just as often, the government is less a sleek tiger than a bloated pig gorging on everything available, reveling in filth, and unintentionally destroying everything it touches in the process. Republican Senators Tom Coburn and John McCain have revealed how Obama’s stimulus bill is at once dangerous and hapless, disconcerting and idiotic.

Yesterday, I reported that $500,000 of the  bill went toward implanting microchips in recycling bins in Dayton, Ohio, to monitor residents’ trash. The senators’ “Summertime Blues” report lists 100 boondoggles underwritten by the taxpayers as part of the $862 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). While some have unnerving undertones, most of the waste uncovered in the 74-page synopsis just shows what a broken and corrupt place Washington is.

Among the more amusing findings, the report documents how our beloved leaders gave:

• $298,543 to the Southwest Research Institute in Texas to study “atmospheric forecasting of weather and climate on other plants.” Yes, they will tell you the weather on Mars. The scientists insisted this “has great appeal.” We’re waiting with bated breath and our wallets open.
• $712,883 for Northwestern University reserchers to build a robotic comedian.  (Has Janeane Garofalo retired?)
• $89,298 to Boynton, Oklahoma, to build a sidewalk that leads to a ditch.
• $144,541 to provide cocaine for Monkeys. Scientists at Wake Forest University will study the coked-up primates to research the “Effect of Cocaine Self-Administration on Metabotropic Glutamate Systems.”
• $200,000 to Toledo, Ohio, to maintain a freighter ship it keeps on display that averages 30 visitors a day (in that tourist paradise of Toledo).
• $253,123 for museum with 44 visitors a year. The North Carolina State Insect Museum will use the money to promote itself and end its Maytag repairman-like life. The first step is a “Insect of the Week” feature on its website, followed by a line of baseball cards with “native and fascinating insects.” Good luck with that, you social butterflies.
• $1 million a year for 19 Los Angeles bus stations to purchase artwork to “enhance the customer experience.”
• $1 million for buy iPod touches for 1,600 high school students in Salt Lake City. They get to keep the devices if they graduate with their class.
• $6 million to build a boutique hotel in Buffalo, New York, “as high-end as they come.” But the local conventions bureau’s former president said they need no more hotel rooms.
• And perhaps most unforgivably — $25,000 for the International Accordion Festival in San Antonio, Texas.

Feeling fleeced yet? You will after you read the report.

Their booklet recounts page upon page of such grants. The beneficiaries’ attempts to explain  these pork projects “create jobs” is imaginative fiction, and their claims of having created, e.g., one-quarter of one job here, one-half of one job there, make one wonder how anyone could ever believe Keynesian economics again. The report makes clear, upon a careful reading, the bill destroyed as many jobs as it produced, even in projects that actually hired people. Heaven knows how many jobs this $0.84 trillion confiscation could have generated in the free market, or how much better the average taxpayer’s quality of life would have been if he had some of that money back in his pockets.

It’s funny about the Left; you have to laugh to keep from crying.

source:  http://www.impeachobamacampaign.com/100-ways-obama-is-wasting-your-money/

- August 04, 2010

The Obama administration claims it has been on top of the Gulf oil spill disaster since “day one.” Here’s a look at what the president and administration have been doing every day since the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded April 20, triggering the massive spill.

The Obama administration claims it has been on top of the Gulf oil spill disaster since “day one.” Here’s a look at what the president and administration have been doing every day since the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded April 20, triggering the massive spill. The following daily updates are based on a review of White House schedules, news releases and news coverage and do not cover every activity in the Gulf or in Washington:

Aug. 4

In the Gulf: BP claimed a key milestone Wednesday in the effort to plug its blown-out well as a government report said much of the spilled oil is gone, heartening officials who have taken heat during the tricky cleanup but leaving some Gulf Coast residents still skeptical. BP reported that mud forced down the well overnight was pushing the crude back down to its source for the first time since the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded off Louisiana on April 20, killing 11 workers.And a federal report being released Wednesday indicated that only about a quarter of the spilled oil remains in the Gulf, with the rest having been contained, cleaned up or otherwise disappeared.

At the White House: President Obama applauded the headway that has been made to stop the worst U.S. oil spill, telling union officials in Washington that the Gulf of Mexico operation is “finally close to coming to an end.” He said people’s lives “have been turned upside down” as a result of the April 20 BP oil spill, but said he was heartened by indications the spill is, at last, being brought under control.

Aug. 3

In the Gulf: Crews prepared to pump mud into the blown-out well, provided a test on the process is successful. Meanwhile, BP announced it had created a new team to accelerate compensation to Gulf businesses.

At the White House: President Obama signed a law reducing disparities between crack and cocaine prison sentences. He was hosting a meeting with “young African leaders” in the East Room of the White House Tuesday afternoon.

Aug. 2

In the Gulf: Crews prepared to test whether they could move forward with a plan to pump mud and other material into the blown-out well on the Gulf of Mexico floor. The process known as a “static kill” was being considered as BP neared completion on a pair of relief wells, long seen as the way to choke off the leak for good.

At the White House: President Obama delivered a speech in Atlanta outlining his commitment to ending the war in Iraq.

Aug. 1

In the Gulf: Congressional investigators said the Coast Guard routinely approved requests made by BP to use chemical dispersants to break up the oil slicks in the Gulf despite a federal order to use the chemicals sparingly.

At the White House: President Obama played basketball with White House staff members at Fort McNair.

July 31

In the Gulf:Tropical Storm Bonnie left crews working to plug the Gulf oil gusher a little memento that is expected to push their work back about a day. Crews found debris in the bottom of the relief well that ultimately will be used to plug the leak for good, retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen said Friday. The government’s point man on the spill said the sediment settled in the relief well last week when crews popped in a plug to keep it safe ahead of Bonnie.

At the White House: President Obama has no public events scheduled.

July 30

In the Gulf: BP’s new boss says it’s time for a “scaleback” in cleaning up the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Federal officials say there is no way the crude could reach the East Coast. And fishing areas are starting to reopen. There were several signs Friday that the era of thousands of oil-skimming boats and hazmat-suited beach crews is giving way to long-term efforts to clean up, compensate people for their losses and understand the damage wrought. Local fishermen are doubtful, however, and say oil remains a bigger problem than BP and the federal government are letting on.
Other people contend the impact of the spill has been overblown, given that little oil remains on the Gulf surface, but Bob Dudley, who heads BP’s oil spill recovery and will take over as CEO in October, rejected those claims.

At the White House:President Obama headed to the heart of the U.S. auto industry to push an important election-year claim: his administration’s unpopular auto industry bailout has turned into an economic good-news story.

July 29

In the Gulf:Even when the oily sheen starts fading from the surface of the Gulf of Mexico, it manages to become bad news for fishermen. Many of those whose fisheries were shut down by the oil spill have found work skimming oil, putting out boom or ferrying cleanup supplies through BP’s Vessels of Opportunity program. But as the crude sinks, evaporates or breaks down, they may be left with nothing to do but wait for their claim checks to arrive and for their fishing grounds to reopen.

At the White House: President Obama delivered an education reform speech Thursday morning at the National Urban League’s 100th Anniversary Convention in the nation’s capital.Later in the morning, the president met with his national security team to discuss Afghanistan and Pakistan. In the afternoon, he delivered remarks and signed the Tribal Law and Order Act in the East Room.

July 28

In the Gulf: With 100 days having passed since the April 20 explosion that triggered the massive leak, oil has mostly stopped collecting at the surface. Scientists, though, are unsure how much is left and where it all is.

At the White House: President Obama was heading to New York City for a taping of “The View” and two Democratic fundraisers.

July 27

In the Gulf: BP named its first American CEO, Robert Dudley, who is set to replace Tony Hayward on Oct. 1. The firm also announced a record $17 billion loss in the last quarter.

At the White House: President Obama spoke in the Rose Garden about the Afghanistan war, addressing the leak of thousands of sensitive documents by the online group Wikileaks.org.

July 26

In the Gulf: More details emerged about the future of embattled BP CEO Tony Hayward. Sky News reported that Hayward will step down from BP’s top post in October and take a job with TNK-BP, the company’s joint venture in Russia.

At the White House: President Obama delivered a public statement urging GOP senators to clear the way for a vote on Democrat-backed campaign finance legislation.

July 25

In the Gulf: Reports surfaced that BP CEO Tony Hayward would be replaced, likely by Managing Director Bob Dudley. The move comes after Hayward was persistently criticized for his comments on and handling of the BP spill. Meanwhile, crews working to permanently seal the Gulf of Mexico oil leak were back on the scene Sunday after evacuating ahead of Tropical Storm Bonnie. Though the storm fizzled, crews are working hard to finish a relief well before more bad weather disrupts the procedure.

At the White House: President Obama played golf at Andrews Air Force Base.

July 24

In the Gulf: Ships steamed to safer waters and coastal workers packed up oil removal operations as remnants of Tropical Storm Bonnie rolled into the Gulf of Mexico on Saturday.
By daybreak, all but a handful of the ships working at the well site were expected to be out of the way of the storm. The mechanical cap that has mostly contained the oil for eight days was left closed, and there was no worry the storm could cause any problems with the plug because it’s nearly a mile (1.6 kilometers) below the ocean’s surface.

At the White House President Obama has no public events scheduled.

July 23

In the Gulf:Ships monitoring BP’s broken oil well stood fast Friday as the remnants of Tropical Storm Bonnie blew toward the spill site, threatening to force a full evacuation that would leave engineers clueless about whether a makeshift cap on the gusher was holding. Vessels connected to deep-sea robots equipped with cameras and seismic devices would be among the last to flee and would ride out the rough weather if possible, retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen said.

At the White House:President Obama proclaimed a week of “enormous progress” in fixing economic problems and cracking down on Wall Street, prodding the Senate to do even more by passing tax credits for small businesses. Obama went before the cameras to praise a trio of matters he signed into law this week — an overhaul of financial regulations, an effort to shrink wasteful government payments, and an extension of unemployment benefits for millions of jobless people.

July 22

In the Gulf: Dozens of ships were preparing Thursday to pull out of the Gulf of Mexico as a tropical storm brewed in the Caribbean, halting deep-sea efforts to plug BP’s ruptured oil well.
Though the rough weather was hundreds of miles (kilometers) from the spill site, officials ordered technicians to suspend work Wednesday as they would need several days to clear the area. The government’s oil spill chief was waiting to see how the storm developed before deciding whether to order the ships to evacuate.

At the White House: President Obama will sign into law a bill that would require U.S. agencies to redouble their efforts to identify and recover billions of dollars lost annually to wasteful spending. He’s also meeting with Gen. Ray Odierno, the top U.S. commander in Iraq and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

July 21

In the Gulf:Tropical rainstorms moving toward the Gulf of Mexico on Wednesday threatened to shut down undersea efforts to seal BP’s ruptured well, interrupting work just as engineers get close to plugging the leak with mud and cement. A weather system brewing in the Caribbean prompted crews to temporarily cork a relief tunnel deep beneath the sea floor, BP vice president Kent Wells said Wednesday afternoon. The storm is still hundreds of miles away and may never reach the area, but the oil giant doesn’t want to risk damaging BP’s best bet at permanently sealing the well.

At the White House: President Obama signs financial overhaul bill into law. Receives oil spill briefing.

July 20

In the Gulf: The government’s oil spill chief tried to tamp down fears Tuesday that BP’s capped well is buckling under the pressure, saying that seepage detected along the sea floor less than two miles away is coming from an older well no longer in production.Retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen also said at least five leaks have been discovered around the well machinery, but he dismissed them as “very small drips” — “not unlike an oil leak you might have in your car.”

At the White House: President Obama welcomes British Prime Minister David Cameron for his first visit.

July 19

In the Gulf: After detecting possible seepage near the blown-out well on the Gulf floor, the federal government on Monday allowed BP to keep its new well cap in place for another day. Retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen said the firm is monitoring for any new leaks at the site.

At the White House: President Obama, in a morning statement to the press, urged Senate Republicans to support a jobless benefits extension coming up for a vote. He later was hosting the WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury in honor of the team’s 2009 championship.

July 18

In the Gulf: BP said it wants to keep using a new well cap to prevent any more oil from leaking into the Gulf of Mexico. However, administration pointman Thad Allen said the day before that the plan was to use the cap to continue pumping oil to the surface after testing is complete. Allen will make the final call.

At the White House: The Obama family returned to Washington after their vacation in Bar Harbor, Maine.

July 17

In the Gulf: Engineers kept vigil Saturday over the massive cap holding back oil from BP’s busted Gulf well, their eyes glued to monitors in a faraway control room that displayed pressure readings, temperature gauges and underwater images. Their round-the-clock work deciphering a puzzle of data from undersea robots and instruments at the wellhead is helping BP and the government determine whether the cap is holding tight as the end of a critical 48-hour testing window approaches. Signs so far have been promising but inconclusive.

At the White House: President Obama is on a family vacation in Maine.

July 16

In the Gulf: BP says there are no signs that its busted Gulf of Mexico well has started leaking underground more than a day after it was capped. Kent Wells, a BP PLC vice president, said on a Friday evening conference call that engineers are closely monitoring pressure as well as the temperature and sounds around the well.

At the White House:Cheered by a key victory in Congress and good news from the Gulf oil spill zone, a relaxed President  Obama began a weekend holiday Friday on a sun-dappled mountain peak overlooking the rocky Atlantic coast.

July 15

In the Gulf: BP says oil from its broken well has stopped gushing into the Gulf of Mexico for the first time since April. The announcement Thursday came after company officials said all valves had been shut on a new cap over the busted well in an experiment to stop the spill.

At the White House: President Obama delivered remarks at a groundbreaking ceremony in Michigan.

July 14

In the Gulf: As BP waited for the all-clear to resume testing of its new well cap, scientists reportedly found that the spill was beginning the affect the food chain in the Gulf by killing some organisms and triggering others to multiply in the tainted water.

At the White House: President Obama was scheduled to attend a meeting about his administration’s cybersecurity efforts. He was set to meet with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and House Democratic leaders later in the day.

July 13

In the Gulf: BP decided to delay tests on its new well cap after government officials called for more analysis. The oil firm is hoping to use the cap to be able to stop the oil flow for the first time since the April 20 explosion that triggered the leak.

At the White House: President Obama unveiled his new strategy for fighting HIV/AIDS, calling for reducing new infections by 25 percent over the next five years.

July 12

In the Gulf: BP planned to attach a new cap on Monday to the blown-out oil well on the Gulf floor. After attaching the 150,000-pound device, BP planned to test it to see whether it would be able to plug the oil.

At the White House: President Obama was hosting Dominican Republican President Leonel Fernandez at the White House.

July 11

In the Gulf: BP was in the process of replacing a leaking cap with what they claimed would be a better containment system. Until that system is in place, though, oil could be seen spewing out of the hole into the Gulf of Mexico — BP estimated it would take between three and six days to finish the operation.

At the White House: President Obama played golf at Fort Belvoir in Virginia.

July 10

In the Gulf:Undersea robots manipulated by engineers a mile above will begin work Saturday removing the containment cap over the gushing well head in the Gulf of Mexico to replace it with a tighter-fitting cap that could funnel all the oil to tankers at the surface. If all goes according to plan, the tandem of the tighter cap and the tankers could keep all the oil from polluting the fragile Gulf as soon as Monday. But it’s only a temporary solution. It won’t plug the busted well, the leak will get worse before it gets better — and it remains uncertain that it will succeed. As much as 5 million gallons could gush out between the old cap’s removal and the new cap’s installation and connection to a ship.

At the White House: President Obama has no public events scheduled.

July 9

In the Gulf: The first of two relief wells being drilled to stop the Gulf oil gusher could be done by the end of the month, BP officials say, but if that doesn’t succeed, one backup being considered is transferring the crude to non-producing underwater wells that are miles away. BP would run the flow through pipelines across the floor of the Gulf of Mexico, said retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the Obama administration’s point man on the crisis.

At the White House: President Obama is wrapping up a two-day swing through Missouri and Nevada with a speech on clean energy.

July 8

In the Gulf: A relief well being drilled deep into the seafloor of the Gulf of Mexico to shut down the gushing oil well could be completed ahead of a long-set deadline of mid-August only if conditions are ideal. National Incident Commander and retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen said Thursday that the relief well is expected to intercept and penetrate the Deepwater Horizon well pipe about 18,000 feet (5,500 meters) below sea level within seven to 10 days.

At the White House: President Obama traveled to Kansas City, Mo., to talk about the economy and delivered speeches at back-to-back fundraisers for Senate candidate Robin Carnahan before heading for Las Vegas.

July 7

In the Gulf: Oil from the ruptured well in the Gulf of Mexico is seeping into Lake Pontchartrain north of New Orleans, threatening another environmental disaster for the huge body of water that was rescued from pollution in the 1990s.

source:  http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/05/28/disaster-gulf-days-counting/