Prepare To Be Offended

Isn’t it interesting that the democrat party is always seen as the “party of the people”, always striving to help the little guy and the republican party is always seen as the party of the rich?

Then why is it that the democrat party is so full of rich people?

Top White House economic adviser Lawrence Summers received about $5.2 million over the past year in compensation from hedge fund D.E. Shaw, and also received hundreds of thousands of dollars in speaking fees from major financial institutions.

A financial disclosure form released by the White House Friday afternoon shows that Mr. Summers made frequent appearances before Wall Street firms including J.P. Morgan, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers. He also received significant income from Harvard University and from investments, the form shows.

In total, Mr. Summers made a total of about 40 speaking appearances to financial sector firms and other places, with fees totaling about $2.77 million. Fees ranged from $10,000 for a Yale University speech to $135,000 for an appearance paid for by Goldman Sachs & Co…

Imagine that. But wait there is more!

David Axelrod, the president’s top political advisor, reported in his form that he will get $3 million over the next five years from the sale of his two media consulting firms, ASK Public Strategies, LLC and AKP&D Message and Media. In addition, Mr. Axelrod took a salary of $896,776 last year from AKP&D and reported $651,914 in partnership income from the two companies.

In total, Mr. Axelrod reported assets valued between $6.9 million and $9.5 million. Mr. Axelrod’s clients were mostly political campaigns, including those of Rep. Patrick Kennedy, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, and Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley. He also reported receiving money from large corporations such as AT&T Inc., Comcast Corp. and the nuclear energy company Exelon Corp…

…Valerie Jarrett, assistant to the president for intergovernmental affairs, lists a $300,000 salary and $550,000 in deferred compensation from The Habitat Executive Services, Inc., in Chicago.

Ms. Jarrett also disclosed payments of more than $346,000 for service on boards of directors that reflect her political ties, and work in Chicago real estate and community development.

She was paid $76,000 last year for service as a director of Navigant Consulting, Inc. a Chicago-based global consulting group with governmental clients. She received $146,600 for service on the board of USG Corporation, a building materials manufacturer, and $58,000 to serve on the board of Rreef American REIT II, a real estate investment trust based in San Francisco. The Chicago Stock Exchange, Inc., paid her $34,444 to serve on its board.

Deputy National Security Advisor Tom Donilon earned $3.9 million as a partner at the law firm of O’Melveny & Myers LLP, where his clients include Citigroup, Inc., Goldman, Sachs & Co., and Obama fundraiser and heiress Penny Pritzker.

Carol Browner, assistant to the president for energy and climate change, disclosed earnings of between $1 million and $5 million from lobbying firm Downey McGrath Group, Inc., where her husband, Thomas Downey, is a principal. She states $450,000 in “member distribution” income, plus retirement and other benefits from The Albright Group, a lobbying firm whose principals include former Secretary of State Madeline Albright.

And yet this is the party that wants to soak the rich. Perhaps they are jealous, or just want power for themselves. Who knows, but I’m tired of hearing about the democrats being for the little guy. Bull Shit.

h/t Michelle Malkin

This is truly scary and if it is true, could drastically change this country for a very long time. The following is a transcript from a Chicago democrat that was told what this stimulus package is really for. Read and weep.

“I really feel that what I’m gonna give you here is a smoking gun.

I’m a conservative Democrat and I’m from Chicago… and I, I feel that I was betrayed.

I was in a meeting after Obama got elected and I was told by the Democratic officials in that meeting that we were gonna give billions of dollars that was gonna come down the pike, our way, and what we were to do with it was we were supposed to do with it…

We are gonna build an army of Democratic patronage jobs…. gonna completely freeze up the Republicans forever and ever…

It’s a job-capturing system, the same one they have in Chicago… everyone’s asking ‘why isn’t that money being released until 2011 and 2012?’

Because it needs to be released at a time that’s close to the election, so that they don’t go blow the money and spend it. So they’re gonna hold some back and that’s where… the real bucks will be spent, right up close to the election.

…It’s not a stimulus package, it’s not pork! It’s a job patronage system… there’s gonna be more [people] working for the Democrats in a patronage system than the United States Army…

And the jobs are gonna be camouflaged in a million different ways, whether you’re workin’ for the city, or workin’ for the state, but when the election comes around, you’re gonna be obligated to go out and get that vote… …like ACORN, except the jobs will be larger scale. I just wanted to say that, because I was really depressed when they told me, because I really thought they’d be different.

If I’ve done nothing else in my life, I’ve informed what that bill really is… it’s a job patronage system.”

here is the originating video:

h/t DirectoryBlue

The Democrats really love to harp on how great the Clinton years were. The budget surplus. The prosperity. Ahh the good life.

In seeking to duplicate those great times, Obama is hiring most of Clinton’s old staff. As usual though, they seem to forget history or just choose to ignore the facts. So let’s look at how Clinton’s two terms really went.

Before Clinton took office, several innovations were in the works that were prepping the economy for lift off. For the most part, personal computing was really starting to come into its own. That lead to an enormous internet boom.

But let us back up just a minute. For the first three years of his office, the economy pretty much went nowhere. It wasn’t until the GOP took office, combined with Hillary’s failure to get her health care plan through and Greenspan’s loosening of monetary policy did the economy take off. The chart below says it all.

Source IBD.

What about that budget surplus?

As for the budget surpluses, they came as a complete surprise to Clinton economic forecasters, whose static models only predicted their tax hikes on the rich would narrow the budget gap, not get it into the black.

Their “deficit-reduction plan” didn’t create the surpluses at all. They were a direct result of a tidal wave of capital-gains revenues generated by the GOP-led stock boom.

Relieved that Washington would no longer threaten to take over 14% of the economy by socializing medicine or raise taxes even higher, the market took off like a shot at that point. And capital gains tax receipts exploded, flooding federal coffers.

Clinton’s own long-term budgets predicted no surpluses of any kind during his administration and beyond.

In 1993, Clinton made his first five-year budget projections based on the new tax and spending programs he was proposing. He forecast a budget deficit of $202 billion in fiscal year 2000. In fact, the Treasury produced a record surplus that year of $236 billion.

That’s a swing of more than $400 billion. So much for central planning.

Clinton either must admit to some of the worst forecasting in history or acknowledge that some other factors besides his record tax hike closed the budget gap. But he’s copped to neither.

So, if Obama wants to duplicate the “success” of Bill Clinton, he needs to wait until 2010 and pray that the GOP takes over congress and gets things straightened out.

I haven’t seen this sense of unity since 9/11, really, really, and 9/11 was this tragic experience that brought us all together and now we’re all brought together in the name of hope. Not since 9/11 have I experienced anything even kind of close to this.

Then Obama says this:

Let us resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long. Let us remember that it was a man from this state who first carried the banner of the Republican Party to the White House – a party founded on the values of self-reliance, individual liberty, and national unity. Those are values we all share, and while the Democratic Party has won a great victory tonight, we do so with a measure of humility and determination to heal the divides that have held back our progress. As Lincoln said to a nation far more divided than ours, We are not enemies, but friends though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. And to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn – I may not have won your vote, but I hear your voices, I need your help, and I will be your President too.

Really? All I’ve seen is uniting hatred. Dividing the country between the “rich” and the “middle class”. That isn’t exactly the kind of uniting I’m looking forward to.

More:

America, we have come so far. We have seen so much. But there is so much more to do. So tonight, let us ask ourselves – if our children should live to see the next century; if my daughters should be so lucky to live as long as Ann Nixon Cooper, what change will they see? What progress will we have made?

I’ll tell you, our children will be bankrupt with a fat government gorging itself on money from the people, denying those that want to grow themselves in order to keep them down.

7:41: Obama win Virginia. It is definitely over.

7:36: Reid and Pelosi speaking in Washington

7:34: FNC still won’t call Florida, but says it still looks really good for Obama

7:11: Iowa swings back to blue

7:04: McCain camp says “there doesn’t appear to any path”

7:03: Looks like the dems won’t get that magic number of 60 senate seats.

7:00: McCain wins Texas. No surprise.

6:50: Obama didn’t run as a liberal? Wow, that is a new one.

6:43: Obama is ahead in Nebraska. What is the world coming to?

6:18: Ohio is lost… Obama gets it. That pretty much means the country is going socialist.

6:11: Obama gets New Mexico. They must be looking forward to that $500 check!

6:09: Tom Udall takes a seat from the republicans

6:04: Bradley effect was real…

6:00: Obama gets Wisconson and New York

5:31: PA goes to Obama. Gonna be a long night…

5:26: Shaheen takes Sununu’s senate seat.

5:18: Newsmax.com has a poll about Sarah Palin.

5:13: Obama get NH.

5:09: McConnell keeps his seat. 51% to 49%. Dole loses her seat.

5:05: McCain gets TN

5:03: Biden gets to serve a 7th term as a senator. Lets hope that’s all he gets to serve as

5:00: Obama gets most of the north east, no suprise. McCain gets Oklahoma.

4:58: Florida is about to close their polls. Still waiting or the panhandle there.

4:50: McCain takes South Carolina (8EV)

4:47: Lieberman fears Democrats getting 60 seats in senate. Read Here.

4:40: Dick Morris says McCain’s win in KY isn’t good. That fact that he only won by 3 points suggests that Obama might win nationally by 6

4:33: Senate minority leader McConnell is at 51% but still TCTC

4:30: Several states still too close to call, including the all important Ohio.

4:27: McCain has West Virginia (5EV)

4:21: Seems I got a little Google loving for my Black Panthers doing what Democrats do best post. As I write this I’m 4th in results on the 1st page

4:10: McCain wins Kentucky (8EV) and Obama Vermont (3EV).

If Obama wins, you can expect the so called fairness doctrine to make a come back. Of all things, Democratic Campaign Committee Chairman Charles Schumer likens it to pornography, saying

“The very same people who don’t want the Fairness Doctrine want the FCC [Federal Communications Commission] to limit pornography on the air,” Schumer said.

The really funny thing is what he told Fox News:

I think we should all be fair and balanced, don’t you?

REALLY???? And yet it is the democrats that can’t stand Fox News for its fair and balanced reporting while saying nothing of the MSM when they blatantly support them and their candidate.

What hypocrisy.

Bill Hennessy has unlikely, although not impossible, account of a worse case scenario of an Obama presidency.

There are two primary things that could make it possible. The willingness of the MSM to ignore who he really is and what he is doing and what looks like will be a majority control of both sides of congress.

The ones that I see most plausible are:

• Obama’s minions in Congress will purge the Democrat party of moderates. Charges of “corruption” will lead to abandonment by the White House and Democrat party leaders. Joe Lieberman will high on this hit list
• Electricity rates will skyrocket, forcing the federal government to nationalize the electrical power generation and distribution industry
• Obama will announce that, due to continued economic and financial problems, the US government will permanently maintain ownership of banks
• In March 2009, the US Congress will pass a sweeping “reform” of the military, cutting military spending 25 percent, eliminating most new weapons systems in development, and forcing the retirement of most flag officers so Obama can appoint friendlier faces
• Unemployment will rise in fits and starts, eventually reaching 12 percent late in 2009
• Congress will reinstate numerous entitle programs eliminated by the Contract with America and Bill Clinton
• Congress will re-enact the “Fairness” Doctrine, making it far more onerous than the last one; Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage will retire in the face of mounting legal bills and NCSF prosecutions
• The worsening economic depression will make internet access unaffordable for most people, driving the government to nationalize the internet, regulating content and bandwidth

What if it did happen? Nothing short of a new revolution could stop it or revert it.

As reported by IBD Editorials, Iran could posses missiles capable of reaching all of Europe and perhaps the U.S. in roughly five years according to the head of the Missile Defense Agency, General Henry Obering.

That urgency, Israel Radio reported Obering as saying, was that Iran is not far from attaining the means to use missiles against all of Europe and against the U.S. in five to six years.

What is even scarier was this from Dinshaw Mistry, professor and missile proliferation expert at the University of Cincinnati.

Mistry warns that if its own missile development falls short, Iran could acquire North Korea’s Taepo Dong ICBM technology to strike at the United States. It wouldn’t have to be accurate. A single warhead detonated high over the U.S. would unleash an electromagnetic pulse that would fry our high-tech economy and send us back a century or more. Millions would die or starve from its aftereffects.

All of this while the Democrats want to cut defense spending by 25%. IBD’s lead in was exactly right:

While the U.S. scores yet another successful missile intercept, the missile defense chief warns that Iran could target all of Europe and the U.S. within five years. It’s 3 a.m., and the phone is ringing.

I originally saw this on Ace. This is the message the republicans can’t seem to get out and I just don’t know why.

“Socialism” seems to be the great new buzzword in describing Obama. I tend to agree with that ascertain. The Obama supporters however like to turn the question around and ask whether the current bailout package is socialism as well.

While they fail to answer the original question, the rebuttal is actually an intelligent question. My take on it is, well, yes. I am completely against this package and was from the beginning.

HOWEVER…

What truly scares me is not the government taking control of banks and such, but what will happen to them if Washington becomes completely controlled by democrats. The republicans by nature are for free markets and the democrats are not. Now, if the dems take control of congress and the white house, imagine what they will do with this remarkable gift that the current administration has given them.

Remember, the democrats originally wanted to have union members on the boards of companies that the government helped out. Wow, that alone would be devastating. Thankfully that got knocked down. For now.

I can see Pelosi, Franks, Dodd and perhaps Obama just foaming at the mouth about taking control over the economy in ways they could only dream about. And they have Bush to thank for it. Oh, the irony of it all.

If we are lucky, McCain will get the white house but that doesn’t mean that the dems won’t still control congress and try to take further control of the private sector. At the moment anyway the Treasury Secretary largely controls that 700 billion. Let us hope it stays that way.