Suckers United For Change

H/T Pat Dollard.

http://www.americanthinker.com
By Kyle-Anne Shiver

Now that we’re more than 100 days into the Obama presidency, the handwriting is on the wall regarding our new leader’s game plan for America. Spend other people’s money like a drunken sailor. Let every enemy on the planet know there’s a wimp in the White House. Let every ally know the wimp in the White House will do nothing to help them when push comes to shove. Let the 50 states know there’s a power coup in play that strips them of constitutionally guaranteed liberties. Let every company know that neither they nor their non-union employees are safe from Chicago-Way thugs and their mouthpieces in the media. Let the 300 million American citizens know that the rule of law, applied equally to all, is about to be replaced by special favoritism in the form of “empathy.”

All in all, one would need to be a numbskull not to see banana republic written all over the current administration and its intent.

If asked for a word to describe an Obama voter, there is only one that any sentient person could offer: SUCKER.

These are folks who buy a used car from a slick-suited, smooth-talking, salesman of the decade who laughs every step of the way to the bank. These are folks who agree to 25 medical tests to find out they have a planter’s wart. These are folks who call immediately to buy the $19.95 super deal on an under-bed storage box they could buy any old day at Wal-Mart for a buck. These are the folks who think day old bread will make you sick.

They’re the kind of voters that every crooked politician has drooling dreams about every night of the year.

So, the next time that college kid or one of his professors beams that we- were-united-for-change malarkey at you, laugh in his face. The next time that brilliant-beyond-brilliant Gen X or Y business executive gloats on his liberal-white-guilt vote, just shake your head and send him a sympathy card. The next time that giddy woman with an Obama crush fawns over The One, roll your eyes and stay clear; she has a defect you don’t want in a future mate.

Has ever a bigger lot of fools been assembled on planet earth?
Could any of these folks work his way out of a wet paper bag?

Now, the silly thing in all this is that anyone with a single grain of common sense saw right through the man with the postage-stamp sized resume the first day he announced his bid for the presidency. And as exit polling demonstrated beyond any doubt, Obama voters were so swept-off-their-feet they didn’t even know the basic facts about the candidates last year. They voted with their feelings, their fancies, and their fools’ gold blinders.

Were they just old fashioned ninnies? Or were they actually brainwashed? Now, this is a very good question.
Brainwashing and the Obama Cult

Brainwashing has a pretty sordid history and has been a stock in trade of totalitarian regimes for a century. Here is a good description from How Stuff Works:

In psychology, the study of brainwashing, often referred to as thought reform, falls into the sphere of “social influence.” (snip) For instance, the compliance method aims to produce a change in a person’s behavior and is not concerned with his attitudes or beliefs. It’s the “Just do it” approach.

Persuasion, on the other hand, aims for a change in attitude, or “Do it because it’ll make you feel good/happy/healthy/successful.” The education method (which is called the “propaganda method” when you don’t believe in what’s being taught) goes for the social-influence gold, trying to affect a change in the person’s beliefs, along the lines of “Do it because you know it’s the right thing to do.” Brainwashing is a severe form of social influence that combine­s all of these approaches to cause changes in someone’s way of thinking without that person’s consent and often against his will.

We tend to think, as Americans, that any form of brainwashing among a free people, not under the threat of physical harm, would be impossible to employ with success.

However, during this election season, we saw a generalized favoritism for the Obama campaign among influential media people, on university campuses and even in K-12 education. We saw a prolific hagiography campaign that plastered billboards and sides of buildings in major cities. We saw manufactured “news” that ogled over crowds for Obama, but failed to mention the free rock concerts that immediately preceded Obama’s best-attended speeches. We saw Hollywood celebrities in full-thrall mode for The One. We saw religious imagery hijacked for ephemeral “change,” which was never defined, yet had mesmerizing effects.

This was a classic case of the brainwashing techniques of persuasion and education models, as described above.

So, who were indeed the biggest suckers for Obama’s ubiquitous kumbayah rhetoric? Hands-down the sucker prize goes to those most prone to groupthink brainwashing techniques of persuasion: the young.

Barack Obama carried the 18-29 year olds by a whopping 66% majority. According to Pew’s analysis, this vote chunk was perhaps the biggest deciding factor in 2008. Obama also garnered 52% of the 30-44 age group. These were the only age groups that voted in majorities for Barack Obama.

This makes perfect sense, when one acknowledges that universities and public education institutions have been leftist indoctrination centers for the past 30 years. The vast majority of American Universities subject entering freshmen to Sensitivity Training seminars as part of orientation.

In 2000, Reason published an in-depth article on university brainwashing seminars, euphemistically called “sensitivity training.” The author, Alan Charles Kors, provides an in-depth look into the Orwellian programs offered at nearly every American university. It is a frightening overview, entitled “Thought Reform 101,” which notes:

Tony Tillman, in charge of a mandatory “Social Issues” orientation at Dartmouth, explained in the Journal that students needed to address “the various forms of `isms’: sexism, racism, classism,” all of which were interrelated. Oberlin “educated” its freshmen about “differences in race, ethnicity, sexuality, gender, and culture,” with separate orientations for blacks, Hispanics, gays and lesbians, and Americans of Asian descent. Columbia University sought to give its incoming students the chance “to reevaluate [and] learn things,” so that they could rid themselves of “their own social and personal beliefs that foster inequality.” Katherine Balmer, assistant dean for freshmen at Columbia, explained to the Times that “you can’t bring all these people together…without some sort of training.”

American universities are unashamedly using brainwashing techniques, and have finally produced a generation willing to vote for an “acceptable” cult leader for president.

If the words, “I’ve been had,” are not at this juncture forming in the mind of nearly every Obama voter, I would give terrific odds that he has been brainwashed and needs to reclaim his common sense before the clock strikes 12 on the United States of America.

We live in a dangerous world, where no quarter will be given those whose brains have been turned to mush. If you were an Obama Cult follower, the time to wake up and smell the coffee is right this very minute.

**Inspiration for this column from reader, Lee Hazel. My sincere thanks to him.**

Kyle-Anne Shiver is a frequent contributor to American Thinker. She welcomes your comments at commonsenseregained.com.

California as Liberalism's Laboratory

By George Will

WASHINGTON -- California's increasingly severe and largely self-inflicted economic crisis will deepen on May 19 if, as is probable and desirable, voters reject most of the ballot measures that were drafted as part of a "solution" to the state's budget deficit. They would make matters worse. National economic revival is being impeded because one-eighth of the nation's population lives in a state that is driving itself into permanent stagnation. California's perennial boast -- that it is the incubator of America's future -- now has an increasingly dark urgency.

Under Arnold Schwarzenegger, the best governor the states contiguous to California have ever had, people and businesses have been relocating in those states. For four consecutive years, more Americans have moved out of California than have moved in. California's business costs are more than 20 percent higher than the average state's. In the last decade, net out-migration of Americans has been 1.4 million. California is exporting talent while importing Mexico's poverty. The latter is not California's fault; the former is.

If, since 1990, state spending increases had been held to the inflation rate plus population growth, the state would have a $15 billion surplus instead of a $42 billion budget deficit, which is larger than the budgets of all but 10 states. Since 1990, the number of state employees has increased by more than a third. In Schwarzenegger's less than six years as governor, per capita government spending, adjusted for inflation, has increased nearly 20 percent.

Liberal orthodoxy has made the state dependent on a volatile source of revenues -- high income tax rates on the wealthy. In 2006, the top 1 percent of earners paid 48 percent of the income taxes. California's income and sales taxes are among the nation's highest, its business conditions among the worst, as measured by 16 variables directly influenced by the Legislature. Unemployment, the nation's fourth highest, is 11.2 percent.

Required by law to balance the budget, the Legislature has "solved" the problem by, among other things, increasing the income, sales, gas and vehicle taxes. This, although one rationale for the federal government's gargantuan "stimulus" was to spare states the need to raise taxes which, in California, will more than vitiate the stimulus.

Proposition 1A would create a complicated -- hence probably porous -- spending cap, and a rainy day fund. Realists, however, do not trust the Legislature to obey the law, which may be why some public employees unions cynically support 1A. Another May 19 proposition, opaquely titled the "Lottery Modernization Act," would authorize borrowing $5 billion from future hypothetical lottery receipts. The title is a measure of the political class' meretriciousness.

If voters pass 1A's hypothetical restraint on government spending, their reward will be two extra years (another $16 billion) of actual income, sales and vehicle tax increases. The increases were supposed to be for just two years. Voters are being warned that if they reject the propositions, there might have to be $14 billion in spending cuts. (Note the $15 billion number four paragraphs above.) Even teachers might be laid off.

California teachers -- the nation's highest paid, with salaries about 25 percent above the national average -- are emblematic of the grip government employees unions have on the state, where 57 percent of government workers are unionized (the national average is 37 percent).

Flinching from serious budget cutting, and from confronting public employees unions, some Californians focus on process questions. They devise candidate-selection rules designed to diminish the role of parties, thereby supposedly making more likely the election of "moderates" amenable to even more tax increases.

But what actually ails California is centrist evasions. The state's crisis has been caused by "moderation," understood as splitting the difference between extreme liberalism and hyperliberalism, a "reasonableness" that merely moderates the speed at which the ever-expanding public sector suffocates the private sector.

California has become liberalism's laboratory, in which the case for fiscal conservatism is being confirmed. The state is a slow learner and hence will remain a drag on the nation's economy. But it will be a net benefit to the nation if the federal government and other state governments profit from California's negative example, which Californians can make more vividly instructive by voting down the propositions on May 19.

Remember the story of the mule that paid attention only after being walloped by a two-by-four? The Democratic-controlled state Legislature is like that. Fortunately, it has handed voters some two-by-fours -- the initiatives. Resounding rejections of them should get Sacramento's attention.

 

georgewill@washpost.com

 

Related: Daily Policy Digest

“This Is Mind Control To Major Tom:” Leftist Propaganda Ministry Issues Pamphlet Ordering “Global Warming” Name-Change Scam

H/T Pat Dollard.

The New York Times:
 
WASHINGTON — The problem with global warming, some environmentalists believe, is “global warming.
The term turns people off, fostering images of shaggy-haired liberals, economic sacrifice and complex scientific disputes, according to extensive polling and focus group sessions conducted by ecoAmerica, a nonprofit environmental marketing and messaging firm in Washington.

Instead of grim warnings about global warming, the firm advises, talk about “our deteriorating atmosphere.” Drop discussions of carbon dioxide and bring up “moving away from the dirty fuels of the past.” Don’t confuse people with cap and trade; use terms like “cap and cash back” or “pollution reduction refund.”

EcoAmerica has been conducting research for the last several years to find new ways to frame environmental issues and so build public support for climate change legislation and other initiatives. A summary of the group’s latest findings and recommendations was accidentally sent by e-mail to a number of news organizations by someone who sat in this week on a briefing intended for government officials and environmental leaders.

Asked about the summary, ecoAmerica’s president and founder, Robert M. Perkowitz, requested that it not be reported until the formal release of the firm’s full paper later this month, but acknowledged that its wide distribution now made compliance with his request unlikely.

The research directly parallels marketing studies conducted by oil companies, utilities and coal mining concerns that are trying to “green” their images with consumers and sway public policy.

Environmental issues consistently rate near the bottom of public worry, according to many public opinion polls. A Pew Research Center poll released in January found global warming last among 20 voter concerns; it trailed issues like addressing moral decline and decreasing the influence of lobbyists. “We know why it’s lowest,” said Mr. Perkowitz, a marketer of outdoor clothing and home furnishings before he started ecoAmerica, whose activities are financed by corporations, foundations and individuals. “When someone thinks of global warming, they think of a politicized, polarized argument. When you say ‘global warming,’ a certain group of Americans think that’s a code word for progressive liberals, gay marriage and other such issues.”

The answer, Mr. Perkowitz said in his presentation at the briefing, is to reframe the issue using different language. “Energy efficiency” makes people think of shivering in the dark. Instead, it is more effective to speak of “saving money for a more prosperous future.” In fact, the group’s surveys and focus groups found, it is time to drop the term “the environment” and talk about “the air we breathe, the water our children drink.”

“Another key finding: remember to speak in TALKING POINTS aspirational language about shared American ideals, like freedom, prosperity, independence and self-sufficiency while avoiding jargon and details about policy, science, economics or technology,” said the e-mail account of the group’s study.

Mr. Perkowitz and allies in the environmental movement have been briefing officials in Congress and the administration in the hope of using the findings to change the terms of the debate now under way in Washington.

Opponents of legislation to combat global warming are engaged in a similar effort. Trying to head off a cap-and-trade system, in which government would cap the amount of heat-trapping emissions allowed and let industry trade permits to emit those gases, they are coaching Republicans to refer to any such system as a giant tax that would kill jobs. Coal companies are taking out full-page advertisements promising “clean, green coal.” The natural gas industry refers to its product as “clean fuel green fuel.” Oil companies advertise their investments in alternative energy.

Robert J. Brulle of Drexel University, an expert on environmental communications, said ecoAmerica’s campaign was a mirror image of what industry and political conservatives were doing. “The form is the same; the message is just flipped,” he said. “You want to sell toothpaste, we’ll sell it. You want to sell global warming, we’ll sell that. It’s the use of advertising techniques to manipulate public opinion.”

He said the approach was cynical and, worse, ineffective. “The right uses it, the left uses it, but it doesn’t engage people in a face-to-face manner,” he said, “and that’s the only way to achieve real, lasting social change.”

Frank Luntz, a Republican communications consultant, prepared a strikingly similar memorandum in 2002, telling his clients that they were losing the environmental debate and advising them to adjust their language. He suggested referring to themselves as “conservationists” rather than “environmentalists,” and emphasizing “common sense” over scientific argument.

And, Mr. Luntz and Mr. Perkowitz agree, “climate change” is an easier sell than “global warming.”

“Whom The Gods Would Destroy, They First Make Mad”

H/T Pat Dollard.

NY Daily News:
 
From anger to madness: A class-warfare crazed government mob is running amok

by Michael Goodwin

Everybody makes mistakes, and I made a beaut the other day. I was wrong to call members of Congress blow-hards and buffoons and declare them worse than useless.

I was too kind.

I should have said our representatives are gangsters in pinstripes and pearls. They are petty tyrants and the more power they grab, the more at risk we are. Homeland Security should flash Code Red any time this Congress is in session.

It is twilight in America now. The House vote to use the tax code to retroactively punish bonus babies was an act of sheer madness. What started as phony outrage at AIG has crossed the line into insane policy. It is stunning that the vote was lopsided and bipartisan.

The Senate is itchy to go along, and President Obama says he’s ready to tighten the thumbscrews on the banks. Is there no adult who will bring a straitjacket?

We should all be very afraid. Class warfare is mere predicate for a witch hunt that, once unleashed, will not stop with misbegotten wealth. It will punish success and stifle innovation. Dissent will invite dishonor.

That Congress is a gang of cheap connivers is not news. Chris Dodd, Charlie Rangel, Charles Grassley, Barney Frank - they have been national embarrassments for years.

But now they are dangerous, emboldened by public fear and anger. They know nothing, but have power and smell opportunity for more.

Missing in action is the Barack Obama who vowed to unite the country around common values. Lately he has been the very opposite of the man he promised. Instead of hope, many have a growing fear of the arrogant government he leads.

Obama is smart, quick and charming, and, as he showed on “The Tonight Show,” owner of a thousand-watt smile he can deploy at will. He silkily manages to make the ridiculous sound reasonable. When he insults the Special Olympics, he is forgiven.

Yet even “Tonight” host Jay Leno broke from full flattery to reveal his qualms about the meaning of the bonus tax. “Here’s something that kind of scared me,” he said. “If the government decides they don’t like a guy, all of a sudden, hey, we’re going to tax you and then, boom, and it passes.”

Obama brushed it off, part of an endless road show claim that he will bring back “common sense” to the financial system and restore “those values that built America.”

If only. In truth, there is no history for what he is doing. He is the most radical President of our times, far outside the mainstream of our political philosophy.

He is not a reformer who fixes things. He fancies himself “transformative,” a man who reshapes and reorders. It apparently begins with smashing the existing order under the pretext of managing the crisis he inherited.

During the campaign, a fellow journalist confided that “I know Obama is a Manchurian candidate, I just can’t figure out what for.”

I laughed then, but no more. Obama represents a secular religion that believes, no matter the malady, Washington is the antidote. More government is the chicken soup of his tribe.

It is an illusion of many Republicans and Democrats that Washington can successfully manage the economy and our lives. Our institutions and culture are too big, too diverse and too unruly to be run like a banana republic.

Yet the economic mess has robbed the nation of its confidence, and the vacuum is being filled by politicians bearing promises and borrowed dollars. The true cost of this “help” will come later, with back-breaking debt and a lack of growth and opportunity.

We can’t say we haven’t been warned. “Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad” is more than folklore. It predicts our fate if we follow the government mob.

Are 'hope' and 'change' still tax-deductible?

WND;

By Ann Coulter

Are you sitting down? Obama plans to pay for his $3.6 trillion spending bill by raising taxes on "the rich." I know, I know ... I was pretty shocked, too.

The bad news is, by hiking taxes in a recession, Obama will turn a disaster into a catastrophe. But there's good news, too. The "rich" include most of Obama's biggest supporters!

While liberals love being praised for their looks, their style, their brilliance and their courage, the one quality they don't want talked about is their money. To the contrary, Democrats are constantly boasting about how poor they are – as if that's a virtue in a capitalist society with no class barriers.

No matter how much money they have, liberals will be damned if they're giving up the poor's mantle of angry self-righteousness. This is especially true if their wealth came by inheritance, marriage or the taxpayer, the preferred sources of income for Liberalus Americanus.

Democrats' claims of poverty merely serve to show how out-of-touch elected Democrats are with actual incomes in America.

At the Democratic National Convention, for example, there were heartfelt tributes to the daunting self-sacrifice of both Barack and Michelle Obama for passing up lucrative jobs to work in "public service" – which apparently is now defined, such as in Michelle Obama's case, as "working as a 'diversity coordinator' at a big city hospital for $300,000 a year."

 Seriously, even with a company car, full medical benefits and six weeks' paid vacation thrown in, how do people live on that?

Meanwhile, the average salary for a lawyer with 20 years or more experience in the U.S. is a little more than $100,000. If Michelle Obama doesn't lay off all this "giving back" stuff pretty soon, she's going to find herself in Warren Buffett's tax bracket.

During the campaign, Joe Biden was also praised by the Democrats for being the poorest U.S. senator – as if that were a major accomplishment.

Howard Dean, then-chairman of the Democratic National Committee, touted Biden as "a good example of a working-class kid," adding that, to this day, Biden was "one of the least wealthy members of the U.S. Senate." Only a Democrat would list "never really made anything of myself" on his resume.

On the Huffington Post, operated by a woman who acquired her wealth by marrying a rich gay guy connected to Big Oil, liberal blogger Steven Clemons gloated that, unlike John McCain, Biden wouldn't "forget the number of houses he owns," adding that, in 2006, Biden was ranked the poorest U.S. senator.

And at his high school reunion Biden was voted "most likely to try to bum a ride off of somebody." Vote Biden!

According to tax returns for Biden and his public schoolteacher wife, in 2006, their total income was $248,459; in 2007, it was $319,853 – putting the couple in the top 1 percent of all earners in the U.S.
This, my friends, is the face of poverty in America. At least in the Democratic Party. It's located just below that row of hair plugs. The Bidens are yet another heart-rending example of America's "hidden poor" – desperately needy families hidden behind annual incomes of a quarter million dollars or more paid by the taxpayer. My fellow Americans, we can do better.

The national median household income was $48,201 in 2006 and $50,233 in 2007. Working for the government pays well.

If liberals are going to show how in touch they are with normal Americans by demanding a Marxist revolution against the rich every time they control the government, how about taking a peek at the charitable giving of these champions of the little guy?

According to their tax returns, in 2006 and 2007, the Obamas gave 5.8 percent and 6.1 percent of their income to charity. I guess Michelle Obama has to draw the line someplace with all this "giving back" stuff. The Bidens gave 0.15 percent and 0.31 percent of the income to charity.

No wonder Obama doesn't see what the big fuss is over his decision to limit tax deductions for charitable giving. At least that part of Obama's tax plan won't affect his supporters.

Meanwhile, in 1991, 1992 and 1993, George W. Bush had incomes of $179,591, $212,313 and $610,772. His charitable contributions those years were $28,236, $31,914 and $31,292. During his presidency, Bush gave away more than 10 percent of his income each year.

For purposes of comparison, in 2005, Barack Obama made $1.7 million – more than twice President Bush's 2005 income of $735,180 – but they both gave about the same amount to charity.

That same year, the heartless Halliburton employee Vice President Dick Cheney gave 77 percent of his income to charity. The following year, in 2006, Bush gave more to charity than Obama on an income one-third smaller than Obama's. Maybe when Obama talks about "change" he's referring to his charitable contributions.

Liberals have no intention of actually parting with any of their own wealth or lifting a finger to help the poor. That's for other people to do with what's left of their incomes after the government has taken its increasingly large cut.

As the great liberal intellectual Bertrand Russell explained while scoffing at the idea that he would give his money to charity: "I'm afraid you've got it wrong. (We) are socialists. We don't pretend to be Christians."

United in Hate

Front Page Magazine

By Ben R. Furman

BlackHawkPress.com | Wednesday, February 25, 2009 

United In Hate -- The Left's Romance With Tyranny and Terror is a book that examines the seamy underbelly of the radical Left which considers Western society and its values an anathema. Dr. Jamie Glazov, the Editor of FrontPage Magazine, methodically details the causational factors that have lead modern Leftists to adhere to the death and destruction mantra of tyrannical Islamic Jihadists.

The Twin Towers are destroyed, 2973 people die in the attack and the radical Left cheers; the war in Iraq is won and the Left expels a disgusted sigh; totalitarian thugs kill innocent millions that the Left justifies as a “cleansing” required to forge a utopian society; suicidal Jihadists shred shoppers in malls with nail bombs and are excused by the Left as door-matted victims striking back at their oppressors; women are vilified, stoned, mutilated and killed by radical Muslims as Leftist feminists remain silent, save here in America where they rail mightily against a country club that’s denied membership to a female executive.

What draws Leftists moth-like toward the annihilating fires of unbridled totalitarianism, or drives them to slavishly worship at the feet of dictators that kick them to the curb when they are considered no longer useful? Why does the Left cleave to a radical Islamic terrorism that vows to destroy all non-believers, including them? Dr. Glazov answers these and other “head scratching” questions in a court-ready presentation of the Left’s mindset that will make forensic psychologists proud.

The Left’s hatred and rejection of Western civilization, its freedoms and values, begins with an acute sense of alienation from it, and unable to “fit in” the Left believes radical societal change, regardless of the consequences, is necessary. After all it’s the West’s fault that the Left has no sense of purpose or direction. Although the Left vehemently argues against this premise, its words and actions prove Dr. Glazov’s case.

The ideological descendents of the communist/progressive Left that spent its capital hoping the West would lose the Cold War to the Soviet Union are today’s leftist core. Based on their hatred for the United States, the Left has forged a symbiotic relationship with radical Islam, whose hatred for America equals theirs. Both make it clear that they consider Western civilization evil and unworthy of preservation. Violent revolution is the Left’s path to change; the Jihadists’ follow the path of war and annilation.

Some might think Dr. Glazov has taken a wrong turn in his analysis of the radical Left’s agenda and beliefs. If so, they should read the scurrilous quotes of Michael Moore extolling the virtues of the “Iraqi freedom fighters,” or Ward Churchill’s and Jeremiah Wright’s crowing after 9/11 that “America’s chickens have come home to roost.” Or, they should examine the genuflexing before the world’s tyrants by the likes of Jimmy Carter, Sean Penn and Tom Hayden. Dr. Glazov’s take on the radical Left is correct and as sharp as a tightly focused laser.

Should the book cause even one radical Leftist to re-examine his or her contorted beliefs and return from the “dark side,” Dr. Glazov’s efforts will be a resounding success. A great thought provoking read!

The official release date of United in Hate is March 3. To pre-order the book on Amazon, click here.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

Ben R. Furman is the FBI's Former Counterterrorism Chief. 

He writes a blog at blackhawkpress.com/blog.

Does Obama Lie? Don't Take Our Word For It

On the heals to the very "misleading" there will be no pork in the final stimulus bill, the President continues to mislead and blatantly lie to the American people. Don't believe me? Cool. Don't want to take my word for it? Don't. Don't believe my sources that's ok, I'll use one that the liberals can't deny that leans left --- no less than ABC News.

Political Punch

Power, pop, and probings from ABC News Senior White House Correspondent Jake Tapper

D'oh! Caterpillar CEO Contradicts President on Whether Stimulus Will Allow Him to Re-Hire Laid Off Workers

February 12, 2009 6:16 PM

EAST PEORIA, ILL. -- President Obama today repeated the claim we asked about yesterday at the press briefing that Jim Owens, the CEO of Caterpillar, Inc., "said that if Congress passes our plan, this company will be able to rehire some of the folks who were just laid off."

Caterpillar announced 22,000 layoffs last month.

But after the president left the event, Owens said the exact opposite.

Asked if the stimulus package would be able to stop the 22,000 layoffs or not, Owens said, "I think realistically no. The truth is we're going to have more layoffs before we start hiring again"

"It is going to take some time before that stimulus bill" means re-hiring, he said.

Just so that the detractors will have something to blame the reason for this post on, here is more from Hot Air:

Obama: Caterpillar will re-hire people if stimulus passes; Caterpillar CEO: No, we won’t

posted at 7:18 pm on February 12, 2009 by Allahpundit
Send to a Friend | Share on Facebook | printer-friendly

Yesterday’s banner Drudge headline is today’s comedy gold. Note the reason, too, why he can’t re-hire people right away: Because the stimulus simply won’t do any stimulating fast enough.

Exit question: How soon before Tapper gets kicked off Air Force One? Click the image to watch.

The Bush Derangement Syndrome And Other Liberal Nonsense

By Dean

From a recent email;

1977: President. Jimmy Carter signs into Law the Community Reinvestment Act the foundation and cornerstone for the impending disaster.. The law pressured financial institutions to extend home loans to those who would otherwise not qualify .

The publicized premise: Home ownership would improve poor and crime-ridden communities and neighborhoods in terms of crime, investment, jobs, etc.

The Results: Statistics bear out that it did not help.

How did the government get so deeply involved in the housing market?

Answer: Bill Clinton wanted it that way.

1992: Republican representative Jim Leach (IO) warned of the danger that Fannie and Freddie were changing from being agencies of the public at large to money machines for the principals and the stock-holding few.

1993: Clinton extensively rewrote Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's rules turning the quasi-private mortgage-funding firms into semi -nationalized monopolies dispensing cash and loans to large Democratic voting blocks and handing favors, jobs and contributions to political allies . This potent mix led inevitably to corruption and now the collapse of Freddie and Fannie.

1994: Despite warnings, Clinton unveiled his National Home-Ownership Strategy, which broadened the CRA in ways congress never intended.

1995: Congress, about to change from a Democrat majority to Republican. Clinton orders Robert Rubin's Treasury Dept to rewrite the rules. Robert. Rubin's Treasury reworked rules, forcing banks to satisfy quotas for sub-prime and minority loans to get a satisfactory CRA rating. The rating was key to expansion or mergers for banks. Loans began to be made on the basis of race and little else.

1997 - 1999: Clinton, bypassing Republicans in Congress, enlisted Andrew Cuomo, then Secretary of Housing and Urban Development elopement, allowing Freddie and Fannie to get into the sub-prime market in a BIG way. Led by Rep. Barney Frank and Sen. Chris Dodd, congress doubled down on the risk by easing capital limits and allowing them to hold just 2.5% of capital to back their investments vs. 10% for banks Since they could borrow at lower rates than banks their enterprises boomed.

With incentives in place, banks poured billions in loans into poor communities, often "no doc", "no income", requiring no money down and no verification of income. Worse still was the cronyism: Fannie and Freddie became home to out-of work-politicians, mostly Clinton Democrats. 384 politicians got big campaign donations from Fannie and Freddie. Over $200 million had been spent on lobbying and political activities. During the 1990's Fannie and Freddie enjoyed a subsidy of as much as $182 Billion , most of it going to principals and shareholders, not poor borrowers as claimed.

Did it work? Minorities made up 49% of the 12.5 million new homeowners but many of those loans have gone bad and the minority home ownership rates are shrinking fast.

1999: New Treasury Secretary, Lawrence Summers, became alarmed at Fannie and Freddie's excesses. Congress held hearings the ensuing year but nothing was done because Fannie and Freddie had donated millions to key congressmen and radical groups, ensuring no meaningful changes would take place. "We manage our political risk with the same intensity that we manage our credit and interest rate risks," Fannie CEO Franklin Raines, a former Clinton official and current Barack Obama advisor, bragged to investors in 1999.

2000: Secretary Summers sent Undersecretary Gary Gensler to Congress seeking an end to the "special status". Democrats raised a ruckus as did Fannie and Freddie, headed by politically connected CEO's who knew how to reward and punish. "We think that the statements evidence a contempt for the nation's housing and mortgage markets" Freddie spokesperson Sharon McHale said. It was the last chance during the Clinton era for reform.

2001: Republicans try repeatedly to bring fiscal sanity to Fannie and Freddie but Democrats blocked any attempt at reform; especially Rep. Barney Frank and Sen.Chris Dodd who now run key banking committees and were huge beneficiaries of campaign contributions from the mortgage giants.

2003: Bush proposes what the NY Times called "the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago". Even after discovering a scheme by Fannie and Freddie to overstate earnings by $10.6 billion to boost their bonuses, the Democrats killed reform.

2005: Then Fed chairman Alan Greenspan warns Congress: "We are placing the total financial system at substantial risk". Sen. McCain, with two others, sponsored a Fannie/Freddie reform bill and said, "If congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system and the economy as a whole". Sen. Harry Reid accused the GOP ;of trying to "cripple the ability of Fannie and Freddie to carry out their mission of expanding home ownership" The bill went nowhere.

2007: By now Fannie and Freddie own or guarantee over HALF of the $12 trillion US mortgage market. The mortgage giants, whose executive suites were top-heavy with former Democratic officials, had been working with Wall St. to repackage the bad loans and sell them to investors. As the housing market fell in '07, subprime mortgage portfolios suffered major losses. The crisis was on , though it was 15 years in the making.

2008: McCain has repeatedly called for reforming the behemoths, Bush urged reform 17 times . Still the media have repeated Democrats' talking points about this being a "Republican" disaster. A few Republicans are complicit but Fannie and Freddie were created by Democrats, regulated by Democrats, largely run by Democrats and protected by Democrats. That's why taxpayers are now being asked for $700 billion!!

If you doubt any of this, just click the links below and listen to your lawmakers' own words. They are condemning!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68D9XrqyrWo&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIgqfM5C8lY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9juJr8CSY4&feature=related

Postscript: ACORN is one of the principle beneficiaries of Fannie/ Freddie's slush funds. They are currently under indictment or investigation in many states. Barack Obama served as their legal counsel, defending their activities for several years.

The financial crisis we are currently witnessing was manufactured and supported by Democrats. Fabricated by Democrats to do what? Think about it and remember my words.

Old news you say? Perhaps, but it bears repeating until this "ship of fools" we are on gets it.

A post by Lynn Stuter worth a read;

THAT DÉJÀ VU FEELING

December 2, 2008

NewsWithViews.com

An estimated 67,000,000 Americans, we are told, voted for Barack Hussein Obama on November 4, 2008. A landslide we are told; a mandate for change we are told.

The total population of the United States, according to the 2008 U.S. Census bureau estimates, is approximately 306,000,000. When we compare the number of votes for Obama to the total population, the percent who voted for Obama is 21.9%; hardly a mandate for change; certainly not a mandate for change of the type Comrade Obama has in mind.

[Note: When I wrote this article, I made an error which has been brought to my attention. While the total population is 306,000,000, this figure includes everyone, of all ages. This, of course, overstates the voting population. Using this document put out by the US Census Bureau, averaging the % increase in voting population over the past five election years, 1998 through 2006, the estimated population eligible to vote in 2008 would be approximately 226,300,000 people. This would change the percent who voted for Obama from 21.9% to 29.6%; still hardly a mandate for change.]

In total, an estimated 130,000,000 Americans voted; 42.5% of the total population; more an indication of the apathy that leads to the loss of freedom and destruction of any nation.

Barack Hussein Obama is now, at every opportunity, appearing before the cameras from behind a podium on which appears a sign, “The Office of President-Elect.”

Never heard of the Office of President-Elect before; must be something new. The truth is that this is just another ploy to make Americans believe the election is over. It is far from over.

Barack Hussein Obama does not become President-Elect Obama until the Electoral College meets and votes on December 15, 2008.

More and more Americans are becoming concerned by the fact that Barack Hussein Obama may not be eligible to the office of president. More and more articles are appearing on internet sites concerning this issue. While the mainstream media continually and erroneously refers to the fraudulent document released by the Obama camp as a “birth certificate” and tries to play down the growing concerns with fluff pieces like the one done by Pete Williams of NBC, the fact still remains that Obama has yet to prove his eligibility. Causing further concern is a Hawaiian law that allows for the issuing of birth certificates to individuals who are foreign nationals:

[§338-17.8] Certificates for children born out of State. (a) Upon application of an adult or the legal parents of a minor child, the director of health shall issue a birth certificate for such adult or minor, provided that proof has been submitted to the director of health that the legal parents of such individual while living without the Territory or State of Hawaii had declared the Territory or State of Hawaii as their legal residence for at least one year immediately preceding the birth or adoption of such child.

On October 31, 2008, Dr Chiyome Fukino, Department of Health, Hawaii, issued a press release in which she stated, in part:

Therefore, I as Director of Health for the State of Hawai‘i, along with the Registrar of Vital Statistics who has statutory authority to oversee and maintain these type of vital records, have personally seen and verified that the Hawai‘i State Department of Health has Sen. Obama’s original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures.

On October 31, 2008, the Associated Press reported the following:

Health Department Director Dr. Chiyome Fukino said Friday she and the registrar of vital statistics, Alvin Onaka, have personally verified that the health department holds Obama's original birth certificate.

Notice that neither the actual press release nor the Associated Press article state that Obama was born in Hawaii or that he is an American by birth; both items were left to the reader to assume: if there is a birth certificate on file with the State of Hawaii then Obama must be a natural born citizen. That, however, is not an assumption that should be made, considering §338-17.8 of the Hawaii Revised Statutes.

After my last article, I received a couple of responses that bear mention. One response stated the FBI has a file on Barack Obama that proves he is not an American citizen; the other stated that an individual employed by the Hawaii Department of Health came forward, after the “non-answer” press release of Dr Chiyome Fukino, and stated that there were two pieces of paper in the file holding Obama’s birth certificate; that the second piece of paper states Obama was born in Kenya. It is doubtful the FBI would be willing to turn over their file on Obama; and thus far the State of Hawaii has steadfastly refused to give audience to Obama’s vault copy Hawaii birth certificate. Thus neither claim can be substantiated.

Continue reading here

48 Liberal Lies Being Taught To Kids In American History Class