The repository of one hard-boiled egg from the south suburbs of Milwaukee, Wisconsin (and the occassional guest-blogger). The ramblings within may or may not offend, shock and awe you, but they are what I (or my guest-bloggers) think.
Ed Morrissey has the oh-so-delicious video of Ann Coulter filleting Matt Lauer on the “Today” show. I know it’s not Allahpundit with the video, but Ed’s the next best thing (especially since they both blog at Hot Air), so the ban is over. That won’t stop me from ridiculing NBC at every opportunity though.
On a related note, I’m now taking odds on whether Ed gets Coulter on The Ed Morrissey Show before her next NBC family appearance.
Danger, Will Robinson. It’s the first hump day of the year…
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmALL-V74Po[/youtube]
There is one good thing about an overbloated feed reader; I never run out of reading material. For that, I thank everybody I read.
Or at least adding Moxie to the oversized roll. I still have to collate the feed of bloat, the roll of bloat, and the blogs of those I follow on Twitter and Facebook into a unified mess, so I’ll get there eventually.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports that, unlike Gov. Jim Doyle (looking for $3.7 billion) and Milwaukee mayor Tom Barrett (bellying up to the teat with a $599 million “wish list”, quoting the story), Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker isn’t asking for any federal money despite some serious funding “dilemas”, including the unmentioned multi-hundred-million-dollar pension fuckup from prior years. Quoting Walker:
All we are asking for is “do no harm”. I’m not asking for any nrew projects or things to be done here.
The last thing you want to do is put money in the hands of government (in a recession).
That was in response to Doyle’s and the Wisconsin Counties Association’s request for all of Wisconsin’s 72 counties to belly up with their own wish lists. Of course, the County Board (the ones who gave us that pension fuckup) will likely send their own “wish list”, and thanks to the stupidity of the voters, the spend-and-tax-and-spend-some-more faction does have nearly a veto-proof majority.
Al-Qaeda’s second-in-command has called on Muslims to strike Western and Israeli targets around the world in response to Israel’s military offensive in the Gaza Strip. Ayman al-Zawahiri made the announcement in an audio tape posted on Islamist websites.
“This is Obama whom the American machine of lies tried to portray as the rescuer who will change the policy of America,” al-Zawahiri said, according to SITE. “He kills your brothers and sisters in Gaza mercilessly and without affection.”
Even Al-Qaeda recognizes that Obama’s words have expiration dates!
Providing the first insight about his views on fiscal responsibility, Barack Obama today told reporters that:
the nation could face “trillion-dollar deficits for years to come.”
How can that be? I mean, I knew that this year was a complete write off but “for years to come?”
The last budget forecast from the Congressional Budget Office showed that we were going to run about a $455 B deficit for FY ’08. Of course this was before the CBO understood how quickly revenues were decreasing. It was also before the CBO, or the rest of us, knew that Hank and company were going to get their hands on $700 B to spend helping their friends.
After taking into account the most recent realities, the CBO will provide new projections with an expectation that it will now be $1T. The $1T is before any of of the latest, proposed stimulus package but would include at least the initial tranche of Hank’s play money.
OK, so let’s walk this back…
The difference between the new $1T deficit and the old $455 B deficit is $555B. It’s probably safe to say that the first part of of Hanks play money, say $350B, is included in the new deficit. That leaves revenue reductions of about $200B.
If we attempted to “normalize” the new deficit to Barack’s world, we would take the $1T, back out Hank’s “one time” spending spree of $350B and back down the $300B per year of spending in Iraq that we’re doing because we should have all troops back stateside or in the cost free combat zone of Afghanistan, by the end of January. That would suggest that even if the economy never improved and we just rolled forward, Barack’s normalized annual deficit should be about $350B. Of course if the economy does come back some we could expect that other $200B and perhaps even some of the original $455B deficit to come back bringing us closer and closer to a balanced budget.
So where’s the other $650B + each year coming from to make the ongoing deficit become $1T?
It’s not taxes. Remember that Barack kept telling us throughout the campaign that while he was going to be decreasing taxes on the “middle class”, he was going to increase them on the “rich.” We’re were told that the net result would be that 95% of the people would get a “tax break” but that overall taxes would stay the same.
I guess that means that if revenue – expenses = deficit and revenue is the same or improving, the only way to increase a deficit is to increase expenses and if the $650B number is accurate, by a dramatic amount as our current federal budget is only about $3.2 T!
But wait, wasn’t Barack the candidate who told us:
Q: This year’s deficit will reach $455 billion. Won’t some programs you are proposing have to be eliminated?
OBAMA: Every dollar I’ve proposed, I’ve proposed an additional cut that it matches. To give an example, we spend $15 billion a year on subsidies to insurance companies. It doesn’t help seniors get better. It’s a giveaway. I want to go through the federal budget line by line, programs that don’t work, we cut. Programs we need, we should make them work better.
I can’t say that I really liked the tax and spend liberals much but at least they understood economics enough to know that you couldn’t borrow yourself to prosperity. The new Democrats having been educated with the new math, no longer carry any pretense of balancing a budget, they go straight to “Spend!”
It looks like President elect Obama will carry one characteristic from his campaign to his Presidency, promises with expiration dates.
This was started by Jessi Olson back when gas was over $4/gallon. Despite the fact that gas is currently under $2/gallon, I’ll continue to do this on a more-or-less regular basis until the underlying message sinks into the collective cement blocks that pass for heads amongst the members of the bipartisan Party-In-Government.
My price for gas – $1.899/gallon outside the bunker
Today, I will focus on a different aspect of oil – heating oil. As I type, heating oil is rocketing off the floor of about $1.20/gallon established last month, up to a current level of $1.64/gallon. Yes, that is below where it was this time last year (somewhere around $2.60/gallon), and well below the mid-summer spike of about $4.15/gallon, but that drop was a result of the temporary opening of places like the outer continental shelf to oil exploration. The Democrats are already sharpening their knives to slay that opening, and the current surge in oil and gas prices is proof we are still at the ragged-high edge of the demand/supply-price curve.
Worse, Ed Morrissey passes along a report that friend-to-the-Left Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez will no longer be sending his suitable-only-for-heavy-oils-like-heating-oil crude over here for “free”. The cynical side of me says that won’t return because he got what he wanted out of that “investment”; kindred spirits in charge of everything. Even if I weren’t cynical, the fact remains that CITGO isn’t in the charity business anymore at a time when costs are going up.
Do you really want to be dependent on the whims of a tyrant who can’t even keep his own country powered? If not, then I have three words for you – “Drill baby, drill!”
It’s been a while since I had some voltage…
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uh9g2PVTc_s[/youtube]
That’s right, “24” fans. Jack Bauer and gang (which will include me) will be liveblogging the season at Blogs 4 Bauer. Since Jack no longer has CTU, we’re going to be using CiL (that would be Cover It Live for those of you who don’t speak Acronym).
Be over at B4B at 7 pm Central Sunday, January 11, or Jack will be waiting around a corner for you…
(H/T – Mary, who has the back story including the marching orders from Media Matters)
The Drudge Report reports that NBC, at the last minute, pulled Ann Coulter from her scheduled appearance on tomorrow’s “Today” show in favor of Perez Hilton (he of the $1,000-to-pie-Coulter offer) and banned her “for life” from the NBC family of networks. In response, I am banning all future positive or neutral references to NBC, CNBC, MSNBC (both the website and the channel), The Weather Channel, USA, Sci-Fi, Bravo, Telemundo or any other entity NBC is involved with. They can choke on The Championship Game That Cannot Be Named™ and the Olympics. In short, FUCK THEM!
Revisions/extensions (7:04 am 1/6/2008) – With yet another tip of the hat to Mary, Politico is reporting that NBC has offered Coulter a spot on Wednesday’s edition of “Today”. I’ll believe it when Allahpundit puts up the clip.
If you haven’t seen my Gravatar, it’s a picture of Big Bad Bill Buchanan. There’s a reason for that; I’m a “24” fan. Because of that, and because of my participation in the B4B live threads, I’ve accepted a contributor’s spot over at Blogs4Bauer.
Season 7 starts Sunday at 7 pm Central on Fox (Channel 6/6.1 in Milwaukee; check your local listings for time and station) with a 2-night event. We have Zombie Tony showing up this year, but no CTU.
The 2008 Weblog Awards finalists are now being voted on, and a few of my friends are up in various categories. My recommendations are:
Best Blog – Hot Air
Best New Blog – The Black Sphere
Best Individual Blogger – Melissa Clouthier
Best Comic Strip – Day by Day (as if you couldn’t guess by looking at the top of this place)
Best Conservative Blogger (this one is VERY tough) – Right Wing Nut House (though you can’t go wrong with RedState, Ace of Spades HQ, Eject! Eject! Eject!, Michelle Malkin, American Thinker, Blue Collar Muse, Little Green Footballs or The Next Right)
Best Political Coverage – Thurber’s Thoughts (though Townhall is also in the mix; where’s The Campaign Spot, dammit?)
Best Military Blog – Blackfive (another tough one, with Michael Yon and This Ain’t Hell also in the mix)
Best Major Blog – Instapundit
Best Very Large Blog – Right Wing News
Best Large Blog – Sister Toldjah (another one that kills me because JammieWearingFool and Fausta’s Blog are also in the mix; I owe ST though)
Best Midsize Blog – Argghhh!
Best Small Blog – Nice Deb (another hard one because Pirate’s Cove and A Blog for All are also there, but I need to give the Morons something)
R&E (2:49 pm 1/6/2008) – Didn’t notice Michael Totten was up in the Best Middle East or Africa blog. Add him to the list.
You can vote once every 24 hours, and I do reserve the right to change the recommendations if the ones I’ve started voting for aren’t near the top and somebody else I like needs the push over the top.
I have to thank Mary Katharine Ham for today’s song…
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCfWmNJt4D4[/youtube]
Oh, heck with it; I may as well include the first HamNation mash-up of 2009 just because I can (and should)…
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-DPJ063Iy8[/youtube]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMUQ9QTuMY8[/youtube]
Oh well, at least it was still morning when I started this.
Is it just me ,or has the world been short of the wit and wisdom of one, Barack Obama for the past couple of weeks?
Not that anything has been going on of course. Well, unless you count the Constitutionality of seating his replacement, determining how the largest Federal Government give away, ever, will be spent, or that spat on a little spit of land on the Meditteranean Sea.
On the Burris front, what could Obama possibly have to say? It’s not like he should have any concern about whether the people of Illinois are properly represented. It is after all, Chicago and Illinois. Politics and proper, whether voting or representation, are not words that are used in any positive way in those locations. However, I do seem to remember Obama telling us that he was a Constitutional Law Professor. Wouldn’t one think that from this angle, if not from any other, the person who will soon be sworn in for the top position to uphold that Constitution, might have some insight and opinion?
On the stimulus front, Harry and Nancy have vowed to have a check with lots of zeros on it, ready for his signature immediately following his inaugural ball. Problem is, Nancy and Harry are a bit frustrated because Obama and his team can’t seem to decide how they want to use all the zeros:
Democratic leaders are increasingly concerned that they won’t be able to offer an economic stimulus package for congressional debate until late January because they haven’t received a plan from President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team.
…
One of the Democrats’ concerns is that when the Obama team does deliver a plan, it might not contain much detail. If it is a broad overview, congressional leaders will have to scramble to flesh it out into a workable piece of legislation.
Details? They are worried about details? Details from the man whose most detailed explanation of what he would do as President was something along the lines of “Hope for the change you hope for?”
As to the situation in Gaza, to be fair, Obama has been on vacation.
Also, there that whole “he’s not yet President” and I’m sure he wouldn’t want to confuse world affairs by appearing to state his policy before he is sworn in. Yeah, except he seems to invoke that right pretty inconsistently. So inconsistenly that even the international world is noticing:
While most prominent U.S. politicians have backed Israel, critics have noted that Obama joined Bush in condemning the killing of civilians in attacks in November in Mumbai, India. They would have liked him to say something about the fate of Palestinian civilians caught in the fighting.
The president-elect also has commented on the global economic crisis and his plans to try to pull the U.S. economy out of recession.
Obama was also on vacation when Russia invaded Georgia. And, wasn’t Obama still just the Democrat cadidate when after three tries, he finally got it right that Russia was the aggressor?
A former US Ambassador to Israel likely found the truth in Obama’s silence on each of these subjects:
“If I were Obama, I wouldn’t want to talk about it either. Frankly, it’s a lot more comfortable to let this one hang on the president,” said Edward Walker Jr., who served as U.S. ambassador to Israel from 1997 to 1999.
I may yet be surprised, but Obama’s choices of when and what to comment on are painting a picture of the consummate Monday morning quarterback. It appears that he’s ready and able to provide an opinion if the issue is one where he clearly will benefit or can avoid any accountability of it i.e. Russia’s invasion of Georgia and second guessing of what has been done on the US economic front. However, as we get closer to the time where his statements will be analyzed against his actions and accomplishments, suddenly he becomes mute.
Mute, not that it should come as any surprise. Wasn’t this the man who has the record for voting “present” in the Illinois Legislature?
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