Socialist Obama Administration Makes New Power Grab To Seize Private Sector Businesses

I know there are still several libs out there who stamp their feet and whine like little children that Obama is not a socialist. Well, you can put your faux temper tantrums back into the closet for another day. All doubt about Obama's intentions of sending the United States into a socialist disaster similar to that of European nations has been erased.

The White House announced a plan for the government to come in and seize control of private sector businesses. At first, the excuse was that the government should come in and give oversight to any bank or firm that recieved TARP money. Now, they just want to go in and take over any bank, firm or business they feel like.

From the Washington Post:

Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner is set to argue for the new powers at a hearing today on Capitol Hill about the furor over bonuses paid to executives at American International Group, which the government has propped up with about $180 billion in federal aid. Administration officials have said that the proposed authority would have allowed them to seize AIG last fall and wind down its operations at less cost to taxpayers. The administration's proposal contains two pieces. First, it would empower a government agency to take on the new role of systemic risk regulator with broad oversight of any and all financial firms whose failure could disrupt the broader economy. The Federal Reserve is widely considered to be the leading candidate for this assignment. But some critics warn that this could conflict with the Fed's other responsibilities, particularly its control over monetary policy. The government also would assume the authority to seize such firms if they totter toward failure.

There are two major problems with this. First, our government is so incompetant that it is extremely doubtful that they would ever be able to accurately identify a firm that was tottering "towards failure." After all, Sarbanes-Oxley was designed to do just that and it failed to give us notice every single time another Wall Street firm went bankrupt. Apart from that, if the market dictates that is business should fail then the business should fail.

Second, this is nothing more than a socialist power grab, an attempt at seizing the means of wealth and production. Sound like a part of a plan introduced by a radical who lived back in the 1800's and wrote the Communist Manifesto? It should. It is precisely that.

Obama has also mentioned that he wants to put limits on executive compensation in all businesses, whether they recieved TARP money or not.

The Obama Administration has now removed all disguise from their policies. They are most definitely socialists and they are no longer timid about exposing it. Socialism is a disaster and had failed everywhere it has been tried. Certainly, Obama is aware of history.

But I believe that Obama has a more sinister purpose in mind here. He wants his socialist allies in Congress to grant his administration these broad powers to act against the American private sector in order to tighten the devastating stranglehold that socialism will ultimately have on us and our lives.

Is this what Chris Buckley, David Brooks and Doug Kmiec had in mind when they convinced all those people to vote for Obama?

This madness must be stopped.

Wake up America!

You can access the complete article on-line here:

U.S. Seeks Expanded Power To Seize Firms
Binyamin Appelbaum and David Cho
Washington Post
March 24, 2009

A Few "What Have I Done?" Moments

Have you ever seen the movie Bridge On The River Kwai? There is a scene where Alec Guiness (Colonel Nicholson) comes to his senses about having helped the Japanese build a railroad bridge and then asks, "What have I done?"

Such is happening today with people who supported Barack Obama during the campaign. They are now looking at the actions of the man they helped to put in office and are asking, "What have I done?"

In a column for the American Thinker, Cliff Thier looks at a few of these people.

Christopher Buckley wrote this on October 10, 2008:

I've read Obama's books, and they are first-rate. He is that rara avis, the politician who writes his own books. Imagine. He is also a lefty. I am not. I am a small-government conservative who clings tenaciously and old-fashionedly to the idea that one ought to have balanced budgets. On abortion, gay marriage, et al, I'm libertarian. I believe with my sage and epigrammatic friend P.J. O'Rourke that a government big enough to give you everything you want is also big enough to take it all away. But having a first-class temperament and a first-class intellect, President Obama will (I pray, secularly) surely understand that traditional left-politics aren't going to get us out of this pit we've dug for ourselves. If he raises taxes and throws up tariff walls and opens the coffers of the DNC to bribe-money from the special interest groups against whom he has (somewhat disingenuously) railed during the campaign trail, then he will almost certainly reap a whirlwind that will make Katrina look like a balmy summer zephyr. Obama has in him-I think, despite his sometimes airy-fairy "We are the people we have been waiting for" silly rhetoric-the potential to be a good, perhaps even great leader. He is, it seems clear enough, what the historical moment seems to be calling for.

But, on March 1, 2009, here was his "What have I done?" moment:

Hold on-there's a typo in that paragraph. "$3.6 trillion budget" can't be right. The entire national debt is-what-about $11 trillion? He can't actually be proposing to spend nearly one-third of that in one year, surely. Let me check. Hmm. He did. The Wall Street Journal notes that federal outlays in fiscal 2009 will rise to almost 30 percent of the gross national product. In language that even an innumerate English major such as myself can understand: The US government is now spending annually about one-third of what the entire US economy produces. As George Will would say, "Well."... If this is what the American people want, so be it, but they ought to have no illusions about the perils of this approach. Mr. Obama is proposing among everything else $1 trillion in new entitlements, and entitlement programs never go away, or in the oddly poetical bureaucratic jargon, "sunset." He is proposing $1.4 trillion in new taxes, an appetite for which was largely was whetted by the shameful excesses of American CEO corporate culture. And finally, he has proposed $5 trillion in new debt, one-half the total accumulated national debt in all US history. All in one fell swoop.

Clearly, not the same Barack Obama he wrote about last year.

And how about David Brooks? Here is what he wrote on October 16, 2008:

And it is easy to sketch out a scenario in which he could be a great president. He would be untroubled by self-destructive demons or indiscipline. With that cool manner, he would see reality unfiltered. He could gather - already has gathered - some of the smartest minds in public policy, and, untroubled by intellectual insecurity, he could give them free rein. Though he is young, it is easy to imagine him at the cabinet table, leading a subtle discussion of some long-term problem.

And his "What have I done?" moment from March 2, 2009:

Those of us who consider ourselves moderates - moderate-conservative, in my case - are forced to confront the reality that Barack Obama is not who we thought he was. His words are responsible; his character is inspiring. But his actions betray a transformational liberalism that should put every centrist on notice.

And how about Martin Peretz, the Publisher of The New Republic? Here is what he wrote on January 31, 2008:

Obama's points, which he has made many times, should reassure anyone who is concerned about what his presidency would mean for the security of Israel. And yet many are not reassured. They are alarmed by e-mails, saying that Obama's middle name is Hussein (true, and so what?), that he is a Muslim and not a Christian (untrue, and so what if it was?), that he took the oath of office as a Senator on the Koran rather than the Bible (utterly untrue and, once again, so what?). All these charges have been aired and negated often enough that anyone interested in hearing the truth about them has heard it. But another charge, circulating on the Internet, has not yet been sufficiently refuted. This is that he has advisers on the Middle East who despise Israel. Let's take one example. There are all kinds of spooky rumors that a man named Robert Malley is one of Obama's advisers, specifically his Middle East adviser. His name comes up mysteriously and intrusively on the web, like the ads for Viagra. Malley, who has written several deceitful articles in The New York Review of Books, is a rabid hater of Israel. No question about it. But Malley is not and has never been a Middle East adviser to Barack Obama. Obama's Middle East adviser is Dan Shapiro. Malley did, though, work for Bill Clinton. He was deeply involved in the disastrous diplomacy of 2000. Obama at the time was in the Illinois State Senate. So, yes, this is a piece of experience that Obama lacks.

And his "What have I done?" moment from February 25, 2009, writing about the appointment of Chas Freeman:

Chas Freeman is actually a new psychological type for a Democratic administration. He has never displayed a liberal instinct and wants the United States to kow-tow to authoritarians and tyrants, in some measure just because they may seem able to keep the streets quiet. And frankly, Chas brings a bitter rancor to how he looks at Israel. No Arab country and no Arab movement--basically including Hezbollah and Hamas--poses a challenge to the kind of world order we Americans want to see. He is now very big on Hamas as the key to bringing peace to Gaza, when in fact it is the key to uproar and bloodletting, not just against Israel but against the Palestinian Authority that is the only group of Palestinians that has even given lip-service (and, to be fair, a bit more) to a settlement with Israel. That Freeman would be chosen as the president's gatekeeper to national intelligence is an absurdity. It would be as if I were appointed the gatekeeper to that intelligence. But Freeman's real offense (and the president's if he were to appoint him) is that he has questioned the loyalty and patriotism of not only Zionists and other friends of Israel, the great swath of American Jews and their Christian countrymen, who believed that the protection of Zion is at the core of our religious and secular history, from the Pilgrim fathers through Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy. And how has he offended this tradition? By publishing and peddling the unabridged John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt book, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, with panegyric and hysteria. If Freeman believes that this book is the truth he can't be trusted by anyone, least of all Barack Obama. I can't believe that Obama wants to appoint someone who is quintessentially an insult to the patriotism of some many of his supporters, me included.

If only the mass media had done its job of fully vetting Barack Obama instead of being his cheerleader, these formerly "useful idiots" would not have so thoroughly humiliated themselves.

You can access the complete column on-line here:

Formerly Useful Idiots
Cliff Thier
American Thinker
March 16, 2009

Fifteen Questions For People Who Think The GOP Should Be More Moderate

Over at Town Hall, John Hawkins has fifteen questions that he poses directly to those who think the GOP should move to the Center. But before we get to those questions, let's all understand that the GOP tried moving to the Center in the last two elections and got its collective butt whipped both times. So, you have to wonder why, if that has been the proven outcome twice in a row, anyone would want to embrace such a losing strategy.

The questions:

#1) If both the GOP and the Democrats support bigger government, how does the country survive long term given the size of the debt we already have and the deficits we're running right now? In other words, how can running massive deficits possibly be sustainable over the long haul? #2) If the GOP were to officially become a big government party, wouldn't there be a real danger of having a large third party spring up that would represent the considerable number (I'd say a majority, at least in the abstract) of Americans who do want smaller government and less spending? #3) If the GOP becomes a big government party, how do you see us differentiating ourselves from the Democratic Party? Do we spend almost as much as they do, but not quite as much? Do we spend even more? Do we favor deficit spending, but just on different things? Isn't there a real danger that Democrats -- since their base tends to generally be OK with excessive spending -- could simply outbid us on anything we offered to the American people? #4) Since the majority of the GOP's core supporters don't agree with "moderate" positions like big spending or amnesty, feel very strongly about it, and feel those positions harm the party politically, how can the party continue to hew to those positions over the long term without being permanently at odds with the people who should be their strongest supporters? #5) Let's do the math on amnesty: there are roughly 12-20 million illegal immigrants, most of whom are Hispanics. Hispanics broke 70/30 for the Democrats in 2006 and 69/31 for the Dems in 2008 according to the latest exit poll data. If the split stayed at 70/30 and 12-20 million new illegals were made citizens, that would mean the Democrats would add another 4.8 to 8 million potential new voters as a result of amnesty. The top end of that scale is a larger margin than what Barack Obama won by in 2008. Additionally, even if the GOP improved our numbers with Hispanics -- which we certainly need to do -- we've never come close to getting 50% of the Hispanic vote. With all that in mind, isn't amnesty political suicide for the GOP? #6) Some people tend to assume that Hispanics vote almost entirely on the illegal immigration issue, but I would assert that there is very little objective evidence for that. George Bush and John McCain are the two biggest proponents of amnesty in the Republican Party and neither of them is particularly popular with Hispanics today. In fact, according to exit polls, against a candidate who was thought to be weak with Hispanics, John McCain only got 31% of the Hispanic vote. So, what objective evidence convinces you that Hispanics vote largely on illegal immigration and that if the GOP supports amnesty, it will get us over the 50% threshold with Hispanics? #7) Given that the mainstream media overwhelmingly supports the Democrats, it's extremely important for the GOP to have the support of conservative talk radio hosts, magazines, and the RightRoots. Since the new media is overwhelmingly comprised of conservatives, how does a moderate GOP gain their genuine support over the long haul? #8) Follow-up question to #7: If the GOP can't get the new media back enthusiastically on its side -- which is likely to be the case unless there are changes on spending and illegal immigration policies -- how does the GOP get the base fired up? In other words, if Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Malkin, Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham, etc., etc., are telling everyone who'll listen that the Republicans stink, how does the Republican Party work around that? #9) Setting aside the conservative media, obviously the conservative movement is lacking energy and passion right now. Many people, myself included, would say that this has a lot to do with the position that the GOP has been taking on immigration and spending issues. How does the GOP get conservatives supporting the GOP again, instead of just opposing the Democrats, if the party continues to pursue big government policies and amnesty? #10) If amnesty, big government, and deficit spending are winning issues for the Republican Party, why did we take such a huge beating in 2006 and 2008 despite pursuing those very policies? #11) Over the last two elections, moderate Republicans haven't quite been wiped out, but percentage wise, they've suffered much higher losses than conservative Republicans. If moderate Republicans can't even win elections in moderate districts now, why would we want to adopt that losing philosophy across our whole party when conservatives are winning at a much, much higher clip across the country? #12) As moderate columnist David Brooks has said, There is not yet an effective Republican Leadership Council to nurture modernizing conservative ideas. There is no moderate Club for Growth, supporting centrist Republicans. The Public Interest, which used to publish an array of public policy ideas, has closed. Reformist Republican donors don't seem to exist. Any publication or think tank that headed in an explicitly reformist direction would be pummeled by its financial backers. National candidates who begin with reformist records -- Giuliani, Romney or McCain -- immediately tack right to be acceptable to the power base. So, there are no moderate think tanks, no moderate donors, the new media is overwhelmingly conservative, the Republican base and activists are overwhelmingly conservative -- shouldn't that tell people something about whether the idea of a moderate GOP is workable? #13) Follow-up question to #12: If a moderate Republican Party is workable, how do you make it work without the new media, think tanks, money, or an excited base on your side? #14) John McCain was the most moderate candidate the GOP has run since Richard Nixon. In fact, he's the standard bearer of the "moderate Republican" wing of the party and yet the media trashed him, he had trouble raising money -- and other moderates, including prominent moderate Republicans like Colin Powell and Christopher Buckley, voted for Obama. In the end, McCain received almost 4 million less votes than Bush did in 2006. Doesn't that suggest that moderate Republican candidates may have trouble raising money, retaining moderates, and generating the enthusiasm from the Republican base that will be needed to win? #15) When the Democratic Party was out of power, the party moved to the left, not to the center. They obstructed the GOP at every opportunity, put hard-core left-wingers in charge of everything, and ran an extremely liberal candidate in 2008. Granted, they also had moderate Democrats that they ran in states and districts that leaned red, but those people are almost completely locked out of power and their agenda is largely ignored. Since that strategy worked so well for the Democrats, doesn't it make more sense for the GOP to pursue the same strategy instead of continuing the move to the center that has done so much damage to the party over the last two elections?

You can access the complete column on-line here:

Fifteen Questions For People Who Say The GOP Should Become More Moderate
John Hawkins
TownHall.com
November 14, 2008

An Open Memo To The Conservative Elite

Along the same lines of my last post which referenced Bob Parks, Matt Lewis over at Town Hall has a few things to say about the RINOs among us. He wrote a memo to them congratulating them on their contributions to the 2008 Presidential race. His primary recipients are Kathleen Parker, Peggy Noonan, David Brooks, David Frum and Christopher Buckley. (I'd add George Will to that list too.)

Here are a few of the highlights he hits on:

You gave the media an excuse to assert that “conservatives” hated Sarah Palin so much that they were jumping off the McCain campaign like rats off a sinking ship. Despite the fact that Palin was reinvigorating the conservative movement and drew huge crowds, you felt the irrational need to ignore the evidence and insist that Sarah was a walking blonde joke. Great job! Of course, you probably lost you any credibility you had with real conservatives…you know, the rank-and-file voters. But, hey, I’m sure it was more than worth it considering that you became overnight sensations on the Georgetown cocktail circuit (where people wouldn't have given you the time of day had you actually stuck by your beliefs).

And Matt also notes:

You’d never met Gov. Palin, you had no personal connection to her, so why not throw her under the bus? A little intellectual dishonesty never hurt anyone, and being good pseudo-conservative intellectual, you understood the benefit of behaving as a self-interested individual. Ayn Rand would be so proud of you. Unfortunately, you goofed up on just one little issue. You forgot about the long-term impacts of your decisions; you turned a blind eye to the out-and-out ideology of Barack Obama. ... High taxes, the fairness doctrine, universal healthcare, more regulation in all aspects of your life….that’s all going to be at least partially your fault. And frankly, I lied about Ayn Rand being proud of you -- she’d probably smack you in the face for allowing such a dramatic erosion of your personal freedoms.

I can only think of the Disney movie The Incredible Mr. Limpet and the one scene where a chorus of women sing in the background: "Be careful what you wish for!" right before Don Knotts gets turned into a fish.

Well, the circular firing squad will be over soon enough. We conservatives now have a better idea of who our true allies are and who the members of the fifth column among us are.

We'll work it from here.

You can access the original posting on-line here:

An Open Memo To The Conservative Elite
Matt Lewis
TownHall.com
November 5, 2008