Remember when Salon.com was unashamedly liberal? Today they list promises made by Obama that he wants you to forget (other than closing Gitmo). In short:

1. “I’ll give an annual ‘State of the World’ address to the American people in which I lay out our national security policy.”
2. “[Obama] endorses the goal of sending human missions to the Moon by 2020, as a precursor in an orderly progression to missions to more distant destinations, including Mars.”
3. “Barack Obama will double the Peace Corps to 16,000 by its 50th anniversary in 2011 and push Congress to fully fund this expansion, with a focus on Latin America and the Caribbean.”
4. “As president, Obama will not sign any non-emergency bill without giving the American public an opportunity to review and comment on the White House website for five days.” [broken in first 10 days of his administration]
5. “But what I can guarantee is that we will have in the first year an immigration bill that I strongly support and that I’m promoting.” [2 years and counting]

They left out that whole “most transparent administration in history” thing.

Obamacare, in its original form, included so-called end-of-life counseling. That is, doctors would get paid for discussing how to limit or even eliminate the possibility of applying aggressive forms of medical treatment if case the elderly patient becomes incapacitated. These discussions could be held once every five years.

Controversy ensued and the “death panels” were removed from the legislation.

Now Obama has reintroduced the policy, subsidizing annual discussions that will encourage hundreds of thousands of elderly citizens to remove the ability for families to make decisions about care of their loved ones:

While the new law does not mention advance care planning, the Obama administration has been able to achieve its policy goal through the regulation-writing process, a strategy that could become more prevalent in the next two years as the president deals with a strengthened Republican opposition in Congress.

Once again, Obama is setting aside the will of the people in order to advance his own agenda. When will it stop?

A second oil rig is reported to have exploded in the gulf and Twitter is going nuts. The best comment yet comes from Comrade Scott:

I wonder what will come up on the Obama magic 8-ball with this oil rig disaster? “Blame Bush”, “Regulate”, “Deploy SWAT”, or “Play Golf”?

It’s funny because it’s both sad and true.

Technorati Tags: Barack Hussein Obama the Dangerous Choice, Obama the Amateur in Charge

The Washington Times notes that 10 percent of Americans believed Obama to be a Muslim in April of 2008, but recent polls puts that number has swelled to 18 or possibly even 24 percent. Why?

• In Feb 2008, Obama told the NY Times that the Muslim call to prayer is “one of the prettiest sounds on Earth at sunset” and then proceeded to recite it “with a first-class [Arabic] accent.” It includes the passage, “There is no god but God and Muhammad is the prophet of God.”
• Obama was born of a Muslim father and raised by a Muslim stepfather, which makes him Muslim under Shariah law.
• In Sept 2008, Obama told ABC that “John McCain has not discussed my Muslim faith.” Truly clumsy phrasing from the amateur politician.
• In July 2008, Obama told People Magazine that he and his wife don’t give Christmas presents to their children.
• Obama took a harder line on Israel.
• Obama continues to regard Islamofascists as “violent extremists” rather than terrorists.
• In April 2009, Obama bowed to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques.

In short, more people believe Obama is a Muslim because of Obama. Or, as the Washington Times puts it:

The uncomfortable fact for the White House is the more the American people get to know Mr. Obama, the more they think he is a follower of Islam.

And the more they come to realize that he has no experience and is not equipped for the burden they have entrusted to him.

Technorati Tags: Muslim in the White House, Bankrupting America, Stimulus and Other Failed Policies, Jobless Recovery, Double Dip Recession, Rising Unemployment in America, Stagnant Economic Conditions, Barack Hussein Obama the Dangerous Choice, Obama the Amateur in Charge

Via Michelle Malkin’s Twitter stream:

Technorati Tags: Most Transparent Administration in History and Other Lies, Nancy Pelosi and Other Fascists, Harry Reid and Other Socialists, Culture of Corruption, Barack Hussein Obama the Dangerous Choice, Barack Obama the Amatuer in Charge

The biggest earmark in American history is going to a “green” initiative in Obama’s home state of Illinois.

President Obama is earmarking $1 billion in Stimulus money “to build FutureGen 2.0, a clean coal repowering program and carbon dioxide (CO2) storage network” in his home state of Illinois.  …

The Department of Energy projects 1,900 jobs as a result of $1,000,000,000 in new spending.  This works out to $526,315.79 of your tax dollars spent per job.  A half million dollars per job seems to be a bad deal for the taxpayer. Of more concern to the taxpayer, Senator Tom Coburn believes this project to be more about bringing home pork to Illinois than providing stimulus to average Americans.

Stunning, even given the vast hubris of the man that once said:

Absolutely, we need earmark reform. And when I’m president, I will go line by line to make sure that we are not spending money unwisely.

Technorati Tags: Earmarks, Another Broken Obama Promise, Ignoring Small Business, Jobless Recovery and Other Myths, Stimulus and Other Government Lies, Bankrupting America, Declining Jobs in America, Barack Hussein Obama the Dangerous Choice, Obama the Amatuer

Politics Daily gathered up the latest polls (Rasmussen Reports, whenever possible) and listed them by state. I reviewed the list and put together the chart below. Note that Alaska, Mississippi and Montana are missing — all “red states” in the 2008 election so the trends noted below in the blue states can be logically extrapolated to be similar in nature.

There are some interesting trends to be noted:

1. Of the 28 blue states from 2008, only 14 (half!) have a positive approval rating for Obama’s performance as president.
2. No 2008 red states have a positive approval rating for Obama, although he did appear to gain some ground in Alabama.
3. In the Democrat stronghold of Rhode Island (Obama by 28 points in 2008), Obama’s performance approve/disapprove ratio is deadlocked at 50/50.
4. Of the 34 states polled, only two favor keeping Obamacare — Vermont and Hawaii. The rest, including 17 “blue” states, disapprove of it or want to repeal it.
5. Of the 26 states polled, only one is opposed to Arizona-like immigration laws.
6. The only state in opposed to Arizona-like immigration laws is Hawaii, which does not exactly have illegal aliens and terrorists streaming across the state line.

The chart below has the following columns:

1. Name of the state
2. Percentage of votes for Obama and McCain respectively in 2008.
3. Percentage that disapprove and approve of Obama’s performance.
4. Percentage that favor and oppose Arizona-like immigration laws for their state.
5. Percentage that favor repealing Health Care “Reform” vs. those that oppose repeal. Note, in some cases the question was worded differently to ask if the person just opposed or supported Obamacare. This was rare and I took it to mean the same.

Technorati Tags: Political Polls, Obamacare and Other Unpopular Big Government Initiatives, Illegal Immigration, Arizona Immigration Laws and Other Popular Initiatives, Barack Hussein Obama the Dangerous Choice

Rasmussen finds that only 25 percent of likely voters think the financial bailouts were a good idea. A full 56% think they were out-and-out a bad idea. [Note: the 19% who are still undecided on the issue should have their voter registration cards taken away. How can you not have an opinion on this vital issue by now?

Unsurprisingly, political insiders don’t share this view:

There also continues to be a strong divide between the Political Class and Mainstream voters. While a strong majority of Mainstream voters are still against both of the bailouts, at least half of the Political Class think they were a good idea.

This dichotomy is supported by a recent Politico poll:

Only 27 percent believe the country is headed in the right direction, compared with 61 percent who think the nation is on the wrong track. Likewise, when asked whether the national economy is heading down the right or wrong track, just 24 percent chose the right track, compared with 65 percent for the wrong track.

Yet among the 227 Washington elites polled, more think the country is on the right track, 49 percent, than the wrong track, 45 percent. On the economy, 44 percent of elites think the country is on the right track, compared with 46 percent who believe it is not.

Politico also found that compared to mainstream Americans, the political elites were more supportive of Obama, less supportive of Palin, and tended to think of the Tea Party movement as a “fad”. And that’s just sad.

Further, a Bloomberg poll shows that 7 out of 10 Americans see even more joblessness and an increasing deficit, believing that the country is mired in recession.

Seven of 10 Americans say reducing unemployment is the priority. At the same time, the public is skeptical of the Obama administration’s stimulus program and wary of more spending, with more than half saying the deficit is “dangerously out of control.”

If Obama’s “stimulus” had actually created jobs instead of rewarding failure, the recession might be in the rear view mirror and public opinion would be much different. Instead, 70 percent think the economy is still in recession and 13 percent think we are headed for a double-dip. Meanwhile, real unemployment hovers just short of 22 percent.

Amity Shlaes compares today’s economy with that of 1932, the end of Hoover’s presidency and just when things started getting better. She notes that although there are factors that differenciate the two, there are a number of similarities. Read the whole thing, but here’s the money quote:

The takeaway from 1932? Resetting the euro’s criteria for existence and member countries’ obligations when it comes to bailing out one another should happen sooner rather than later. Democrats and the president should ignore unions and cut trade deals with Latin America. John F. Kennedy, a Democrat, supported tax cuts. Obama can too, or at least block rate increases. The president might also want to suppress his lawyer- Keynesian reflexes and reconsider policy when it comes to wages. But the 1932 crisis talk actually impedes such consideration.

If anyone believes that these can take place in today’s partisan environment just hasn’t been paying attention. Get settled folks, this recession isn’t going away any time soon.

Technorati Tags: Bankrupting America, Bailouts and Other Bad Ideas, Stimulus and Other Failures, Rising Unemployment in America, Unions and Other Drags on the Economy, Political Elites and Other Yammerheads, Barack Hussein Obama the Dangerous Choice

Defending his Wall Street “reform”, Obama attacked Republicans by saying that their ideas have been tried and failed. He did not mention that Democrats now control the House, Senate and White House and that the numbers to be released Friday will likely show a rise in unemployment (now that all his little Census workers have been released).

Meanwhile, the market fell again, extending the first quarterly drop in the S&P 500 Index in more than a year.

The S&P 500 fell 1 percent to 1,030.71 at 4 p.m. in New York. It has declined 12 percent since March 31, breaking a four-quarter winning streak that drove the benchmark index for U.S. stocks up 47 percent. The Dow decreased 96.28 points, or 1 percent, to 9,774.02 today, giving it a second-quarter decrease of 10 percent. The Nasdaq-100 Index, which gets 63 percent of its value from technology companies, slumped for an eighth straight day, the longest stretch of losses since 2006.

So just exactly what have the Democrat policies got us? Besides trillions in debt with more to come and a real unemployment rate just shy of 22 percent, I mean.

Technorati Tags: Barack Hussein Obama the Dangerous Choice, Bankrupting America, Losing the War on Terror, Liberal Terrorist-Hugging Marxists