Tax Tea Partys & Government Economic Outlooks

I noted with interest that one pundit suggested yesterday's simultaneous economic addresses by Wonderboy and Helicopter Ben were not accidental.

While neither has solid evidence, both held out glimmers of hope for economic 'recovery,' just in time to attempt to blunt tax day Tea Party turnouts.

It makes sense. At a time of unprecedented spending, outside of world-scale wars, how else to try to convince people that everything is really alright. Not to protest higher taxes for printing money to give to poorer Americans?

What exactly our First Rookie would know about economics is beyond me. Dick Armey, retired economics professor and former GOP House Minority Leader, explained that even Keynes would object to such large-scale deficit spending in these times. Because a deficit is already being run, and a balanced budget is nowhere in sight, Armey pointed out that these conditions are in no way compatible with Keynesian temporary stimulus spending.

And, for good measure, Armey noted that there are economists, him being one, who do disagree with the entire stimulus concept as perpetrated by Wonderboy.

I think only someone as economically clueless as our president could believe that a recovery is around the corner, and that his spending and taxes will help.

Gilding The Mad Cow

It came to light earlier this week that the newly-elected president's wife has broken new cosmetological ground. She is apparently the first First Lady to travel with her own hair stylist and makeup artist.

Do tell!

According to one website,

"Michelle Obama is the nation’s first first lady to add a full-time makeup artist to her traveling entourage, according to stylists who have worked with presidential wives over the past 16 years.

Makeup artist Ingrid Grimes-Miles, 49, helped create Obama’s signature look on her inaugural trip to Europe last week.

Grimes-Miles, who has been working with the first lady for six years, now splits her time between DC and Chicago, where she dolls up morning-news anchors for WGN TV.

"No other first ladies have consistently traveled with a makeup artist," said hairdresser Bernard Portelli, who styled Hillary Rodham Clinton’s blond mane in 1993 and tracks trends in first-lady style.

"It took Laura Bush four years to finally look good. It’s taken Michelle Obama two months. She wears fake eyelashes that are beautiful. She can’t do those herself."

Style watchers suspect that Grimes-Miles is behind Obama’s most prominent beauty reinvention: Her eyebrows. After the first lady drew criticism for looking angry, her high-arched eyebrows were reshaped with a softer arc that gave her a friendlier appearance.

Mrs. Obama can’t put on her own false eyelashes?

And why is she wearing them in the first place? We suspect she is the first First lady to ever tart herself up so."

Wow. This is going to get expensive.

But I sort of see Wondergirl's point. I've always thought she resembles a mad cow. The permanently-furrowed brows, grimaced mouth and overall angry body language.

You know, she's never been proud to be an American until her hubby's party nominated him for president.

Poor dear!

Since money is fungible, you can bet that taxpayers are going to eventually end up footing the bill for the hairstylist, makeup artist and false eyelashes that travel with the First Rookie's wife.

Why not go all the way and just have Michelle undergo plastic surgery? After all, the present value of the cash outflows to her bevy of beauticians for nearly four years would almost have to be greater than a quick nip and tuck now, wouldn't it? Or some botox?

Maybe she should do a guest spot on Greta Van Sustern, so she can get firsthand advice on the facelift thing.

Not to mention that she'd better get the facelift now, before her husband's health care rationing schemes make it prohibitively expensive, if even possible.

Yes, Wonderboy's administration certainly is proving to be post-many things.

Like common sensical and unpretentious. We now have the most primped-up, self-important First Lady in history.

Quite the accomplishment in less than 100 days.

Wonderboy, The Kennedys & The Vatican

There is good news concerning the Vatican's position on abortion and stem cell research, and those who would seek to be an ambassador to it.

Our First Rookie has further embarrassed himself, and the daughter of a previous president, Caroline Kennedy, by having the latter rejected as the US ambassador to the Vatican.

According to news sources, add the typically clueless John Kerry into the mix for dreaming up the crazy idea in the first place.

Apparently Wonderboy either didn't know, or didn't care, that the Vatican has explicitly made clear to all nations that it will not accept ambassadors who are actively for abortion and/or stem cell research. Kennedy is, of course, stridently in favor of both.

Maybe Kerry is just to stupid to realize that the Vatican has the only version of Catholicism that counts. So Kerry's idea of what should pass for sanctioned behavior is essentially moot.

As a conservative, though, you have to love how the year has begun for Caroline. First bounced out of consideration for Senator from New York, to replace Hillary Clinton. Perhaps because of her tin ear for local politics, or perhaps for the credible stories describing her affair while married.

Now she's been hung out to dry for being an unacceptable Catholic in the eyes of the Vatican.

Looks like the administration can't seem to get anything right. Not even a simple ambassadorship to one of the world's smallest countries.

Unless, of course, Wonderboy wants to flaunt his differences with those who oppose abortion.

Wonderboy On Economic Recovery

I glanced at this weekend's Wall Street Journal and noticed that the lead article was Wonderboy's comments on economic recovery.

Why would anyone think this unaccomplished lawyer knows anything significant about the US economy that is not known by more attuned professionals whose business is studying said economy?

Honestly, the last person I'd believe would be a novice president with no life accomplishments, no business background, and a track record of hating and disparaging businessman. A politician who actually believes he can print money and spend it more appropriately than the taxpayers whose money it actually is.

How much more arrogant can this guy get?

Wonderboy Redefines America's Religious Heritage

Our newly-elected First Rookie hit a new low in Turkey on his recent trip abroad.

This time, our First Innocent insulted the majority of Americans by declaring to the Turks that our nation is not Christian, nor Jewish. Rather, according to the guy who fell asleep in the pew of his South Chicago church for 20 years, we are a Muslim and any other kind of religious nation.

But not Judeo-Christian.

Several media outlets hurried out survey results noting that, during this Easter Week and Passover season, Americans remain overwhelmingly religious, primarily in Judeo-Christian denominations.

Is it simply denial, or truly ignorance on the part of Wonderboy?

Or just blatant pandering to the Islamic Turks? As if that were necessary.

This guy doesn't seem to care how much he embarrasses our nation in the eyes of foreigners and their governments. Stooping to alleging America is not Judeo-Christian, merely to score points with the Turkish PM?

Whichever, he seems to be continuing to chip away at his own popularity as he offends more interest groups throughout America with each passing week.

Politically-Correct Retention Bonuses

Glenn Beck reported a story last night regarding some $210MM in retention bonuses being paid to employees of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two GSE's which are now government-owned, having lost tens of billions of dollars through the purchase and securitization of too-risky mortgages. The GSE's were, in fact, key players, along with their Congressional patrons, in causing the financial services meltdown of last year, Wonderboy's recent exclusive blaming of private firms to the contrary.

Curious about this, as these bonuses drew very little public media attention, versus, say, the recent, smaller AIG retention bonuses, I Googled the subject.

There are several results for the search, most prominently this one in the NY Times. It reads, in part,

"Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two troubled companies at the heart of the nation’s mortgage market, are set to pay their employees “retention bonuses” totaling $210 million, despite calls from lawmakers to cancel the payments.

The bonuses, which were made public on Friday, were defended by the companies’ federal regulator, James B. Lockhart, who said he intended to let them proceed.

In a letter sent last week to Senator Charles E. Grassley, an Iowa Republican, Mr. Lockhart disclosed that 7,600 Fannie and Freddie workers were scheduled to receive payouts aimed at retaining those “employees most critical to keep and difficult to replace.” Under the plan, 213 employees will receive retention bonuses worth more than $100,000 this year, and one Freddie Mac executive will receive $1.3 million.

Mr. Lockhart’s defense of Fannie and Freddie’s bonuses has made him a lightning rod for legislative criticisms. It is also beginning to draw questions about why President Obama has not replaced the regulator, who was appointed by President Bush. The law creating Mr. Lockhart’s office, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, established him as the lead regulator until his successor is named by the president and confirmed by Congress.

By failing to name a successor, say observers, the White House is implicitly backing Mr. Lockhart’s stance on the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bonuses, which stands in stark contrast to President Obama’s criticisms of the A.I.G. payments.

“This is a de facto White House endorsement of these payments, which is a little odd considering that everyone spent days talking about how they were shocked by the bonuses given to A.I.G.,” said Karen Shaw Petrou, a managing partner at Federal Financial Analytics, a consulting firm in Washington and a longtime observer of the companies. “It’s also a tempest in a teapot. We should worry less about $210 million in bonuses, and more about the fact that these companies are sitting atop $5 trillion of risks, and if they stumble, the American economy could disappear.” "

Is this for real? It's just unbelievable, after all the media coverage the smaller AIG payments received.

After Wonderboy incited public ire and lynch mobs over the reasonable payments to employees cleaning up the AIG-FP mess, he now goes silent over Congressionally-backed GSEs paying even more to their employees. And, to my knowledge, none of the Fannie or Freddie people got fired for their mistakes. Frank Raines got a huge payout for essentially ruining Fannie and bribing Congress to let him get huge bonuses.

But Raines is ethnically similar to Wonderboy, and backed his campaign, so, you know, it's okay.

That's the way things work in our new, post-partisan political world down in Foggy Bottom.

Wonderboy- The Innocent Abroad

Karl Rove expressed it so well on Bill O'Reilly's program last night. The insightful conservative political analyst and brilliant Bush campaign manager noted that European leaders always love a weak, ineffectual US President.

Their worst nightmare is a US leader capable of and determined to unilaterally pursue America's interests.

Instead, observed Rove, the Europeans stonewalled our First Rookie on sending troops to Afghanistan and joining America in over-spending on economic stimulus.

When he wasn't getting slow-rolled by his G-2o colleagues, Wonderboy was busy apologizing for America's imagined- by him- past sins, and for almost anything his predecessor did.

The depth and breadth of this president's stupidity and bad judgement are staggering. As Rove asked, what must European leaders think of a US President who, rather than focus on his own agenda, spends most of his time reminding everyone he won the election, and that he disagrees with his predecessor's largely-successful policies?

Basically, we witnessed the American Weakness tour by the First Rookie. He coupled this with an embarrassing olive branch to the globe's worst terrorist sponsors, e.g., North Korea, by announcing a willingness to cut our nuclear arsenal deeply. One British observer commented that our president has learned nothing from the nearly-fatal inter-war disarmament of the 1920s and '30s by America, Britain and France. Only those countries interested in disarming did so. Japan and Germany did not.

Gee, do you think that's a valid example for today? Or do we expect China, Russia and North Korea to rush to the negotiating table with their own offers to disarm?

We'd better hope that Congress still has some latent, middle-of-the-road, non-partisan sense of self-preservation and defeats any of this idiot's arms control treaties.