How many millions did unions spend getting Democrats elected this season?  They must be livid that Democrats can’t shove the auto industry bailout through:

Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd said he knew of no Republicans who would support the Democrats’ $25 billion proposal and said he was disinclined to move a bill without bipartisan support.

“I’d want to be careful about bringing up a proposition that might fail,” given that a rescue plan would likely fare better under a President-elect Barack Obama administration, Sen. Dodd (D., Conn.) told reporters on Capitol Hill. “There’s some political considerations that need to be made over the next few days.”

What political considerations?  If it’s the right thing to do, get your Democratic majorities moving.

More from Pelosi:

A spokesman for Ms. Pelosi said Thursday that Democrats were “hopeful” they could get a package passed but that the chances hinged on support in the Senate and from President George W. Bush, who hasn’t indicated whether he would sign the legislation.

Maybe the Democrats aren’t going to get much done after all.  I suspect the days of trading safe Republican votes so Democratic Congressmen in more conservative districts can vote no on issues like illegal immigration are over.  First, the compassionate conservative is gone, so there’s nobody undermining the party from the inside trying to drag votes across the aisle.  Sure, guys like McCain will always play the sap, but he won’t drag Republicans with him like a sitting president can.  Second, as the minority party, Republicans must now clearly delineate what separates them from Democrats if they ever hope to return to power.  “I voted with the other guys” isn’t a very compelling campaign slogan when you’re asking people to make a switch.

Democrats better get their house in order if they’re going to govern.  Republicans have no incentive to rescue you guys.

Wall Street should nix their bonus programs this year.  There’s simply no way to justify them given their performance and hundreds of billions in taxpayer funded bailouts.  For example:

Citigroup, which received $25 billion from the government last month, has reported $26 billion in expenses for compensation and benefits in the first nine months of 2008, up 4 percent from the same period a year ago. The New York-based bank has reported four consecutive quarterly losses.

Compensation up 4% year over year with 4 straight quarterly loses.  Sounds like the employees and management at Citigroup are really sharing in the pain.

Sadly, nobody on Wall Street understands that bonuses should be linked to performance:

At Goldman Sachs (GS) the figure was $11.4 billion, Morgan Stanley (MS) $10.73 billion, JPMorgan (JPM) $6.53 billion and Merrill Lynch (MER) $11.7 billion. At Morgan Stanley, the amount put aside for staff compensation also grew in the last quarter to the end of August by 3% to $3.7 billion.

With the exception of JP Morgan, these firms are down huge this year.  I have no idea what makes any of them think they deserve bonuses.  They’re basically looting taxpayer money that was suppose to be used to make loans and shore up balance sheets.

Ordinarily, I adhere to free market principles, but clearly these compensation schemes have no grounding in reality.  Therefore, I hope somebody (Congress) steps in and puts a stop to it.  You simply can’t let these pigs continue feeding at the trough given the wreckage left in their wake.

I have a sinking feeling that NYC Mayor Bloomberg and President-elect Obama will be sharing similar tax plans this year:

To illustrate the problem, the mayor said a 7.5 percent increase in income taxes for a family of four earning $50,000 to $70,000 annually would mean they would pay an extra $116 a year.

That “does put in perspective what might have to change,” Bloomberg said.

Bloomberg defines the “rich” as a family of 4 making $70K a year in the world’s most expensive city.  You have got to be kidding me.  But that’s not all by a long shot.  Mayor Mike wants to eliminate property tax rebates, hike property taxes, fire 1,000 cops, raise sundry fees, and hire more meter maids to, as liberals would quaintly put it, raise more revenue.

I’m so glad the Republican Party supported the liberal Bloomberg.  He not only embarrassed the party by turning independent, but he continues to damage the Republican brand with liberal policies.  It would have been better to have a Democrat in office to push these liberal policies and let them own them.

That’s right.  If Republicans are going to rise from the ashes, they have to let liberals own their policies.  This will be especially important for Congressional Republicans.  If they follow the moderate “reach across the aisle” meme and provide a fig leaf for the failed Democratic policies soon to be pushed by Pelosi, Reid, and Obama, they’ll be slitting their own throats.

There’s nothing in Obama’s priorities that Republicans should support.  Are Republicans going to “compromise” on higher taxes?  Is muzzling talk radio via the Fairness Doctrine a good idea after the media just kicked the “moderate” McCain in the teeth?  How about adding 10s of millions to Democratic coffers by supporting card check for the unions?  Will the GOP add 20 million new Hispanic voters after they just broke 2 to 1 for Obama even though John McCain has been front and center on all their issues?

There’s nothing to do now but let the Democrats kill themselves.  They’ll overreach.  They’ll kill an already bad economy with higher taxes.  Be disciplined, take some media flack, get out of their way, and get ready to run against them when even a blind monkey could tell their policies have failed.

We keep reaching into that hotbed of unemployables, Congress, those that, with extremely few exceptions, never did meaning ful work, to find a totem to represent the country.

All the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre — the man who can most adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum. The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.” –H. L. Mencken, in the Baltimore Sun, July 26, 1920

No, not yet, we came close last time. Perhaps this time we shall reach the nadir of success.

Lotsa Luck!

Yesterday was the day wished forgotten by that misbegotten collection of pseudo-economists we elected to congress and the Presidency.

Yes, in 2003,  Bush signed the bill overwhelmingly passed by Congress.

Greenspan cut interest rates to 1% to stimulate home ownership.

Amazing! That worked so well in the past five years, we’re going to do it again.

Whorehouse Harry Reid and his House Madam, Pelosi just pimped up another massive Viagra Bill for housing and Bush, on his spavined nag, signed it, as he rides off to Crawford.

Bernanke dropped rates to 1% again.

On Tuesday, we have an avowed communist (in his own words, he redistributed candy in first grade) who doesn’t know the difference between a dividend and a doughnut and someone who wasn’t smart enough to steer clear of the S&L debacle.

Did someone forget to change the reel in this movie?

Here’s must listen audio of Barack Obama discussing the Warren Court, wealth redistribution, and the civil rights movement:

In the audio, Obama says one of the “tragedies”, his words mind you, of the civil rights movement was its focus on the courts.  The courts couldn’t “break free from the essential constraints placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution” against redistribution of wealth.  Obama goes on to say it’s just as well though since people are less accepting of court mandated change anyway.  So how does he forsee this redistributive action taking place?  Through community organizing and forming coalitions of power that can enact it through the legislative process.

Is anybody else connecting the dots out there?  Obama’s far left-wing associations (ACORN, Ayers, and Wright), which the media insists aren’t relevant, clearly aren’t accidental.  They play a vital role in the strategy that vaulted him into power.  Now he’s in position to form a coalition with Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi to do legislatively what the courts wouldn’t.  It’s no accident that congressional Democrats are discussing the seizure of private assets in 401Ks.  They know what Joe the Plumber knows–Obama is a Marxist.

There’s only one problem for Obama though–America is still a center, right nation.  Americans overwhelmingly reject wealth redistribution in favor of job creation and improving the overall economy by huge margins (84% to 13%).  I just hope people wake up in time to avert this disaster.

Update:  Here’s McCain on Barack the “Redistributor”.  Best line: “…He’s more interested in controlling wealth than creating it….in redistributing money instead of spreading opportunity…”

Did someone slip Barack Obama some Sodium Pentothol?

“Your new tax plan is going to tax me more, isn’t it?” the plumber asked, complaining that he was being taxed “more and more for fulfilling the American dream.”

“It’s not that I want to punish your success. I just want to make sure that everybody who is behind you, that they’ve got a chance for success too,” Obama responded. “My attitude is that if the economy’s good for folks from the bottom up, it’s gonna be good for everybody … I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.”

Unless this plumber secretly leads a Fortune 500 plumbing company, there go all of Obama’s fallacious claims about helping small businesses.

I’m somewhat heartened by the fact that somebody is actually paying attention out there.  The last Democrat to propose and push a tax cut through—although posthumously—was John F. Kennedy.  Yet with 44 years of contrary evidence, many people actually believe Obama will lower their taxes.  Talk about the dumbing down of America.

But even more important and frightening than his lies about tax cuts are his economic theories.  Obama thinks that you can make people successful by giving them stuff.  It’s the same theory that led Democrats to give people houses with no documents, no jobs, no down payments, and no hope for repayment.  How’d that work out for us?  It didn’t exactly make them successful now did it, but that’s OK because the taxpayers can bail them out.

The fact of the matter is that socialist economic systems don’t work because rewarding low achievers doesn’t encourage them.  It does exactly the opposite, and it stifles growth because the achievers have less and less incentive to create.  Combine Obama with his socialist counterparts in Congress, and we’re in deep trouble.

Does this ever capture the essence of Reps side of Congress.

They should just for sheer incompetence.

“Place your clothes and weapons where you can find them in the dark.”-Robert Heinlein

If you think this election will resolve the differences in this country, I doubt it. Since the 2000 election, positions have hardened; in 2004 the hubbub be came roars. The volume is only rising.

After ACORN rigged mortgages for illegals, then registered them to vote including the Dallas Cowboy Football team in Nevada, I’m not confident this election is going to be an “OH Well” on the 5^th of Nov.

The congressional GOP sold their honor for pottage. They’re toast.

[snip]
However this election turns out, there will be turmoil. If Obama wins, a large part of the country will feel angry and powerless against the will of the left leaning blue states, the news media, Hollywood and academia. (In fact, they already feel that way, I assure you.) They will believe that ACORN created enough false voter registrations to put Obama over the top. If McCain wins, the left will riot and claim, “The Diebold machines were hacked!” The blue states, the news media, Hollywood and academia will resent that the will of the “dumb hicks” in flyover country overruled that of their “betters”. And we will hear the cries of, “Racism! Racism!” ad nauseam.

I hate to sound all doom-and-gloom, but I see absolutely no solution to this. Or at least no solution in which America stays in the same form it is now. I hope I’m wrong about that. I guess we’ll see.

This started with the spoiled kids of the ’50’s whose parents didn’t want them to suffer the pain of the depression and post depression life.

And of course, as David Frum has written, the sixties were really the vanguard, the early warning detector of the looming culture war, which rages–if a “cold civil war” can be said to rage–to this day.

Guess what brats, welcome to 2008 and the great meltdown.

A generation which ignores history has no past — and no future.-Robert Heinlein

As the market continues to plummet and bad polling numbers continue to roll in it is easy to declare that all is lost and we should just give up.  Do not give in to that temptation. As The Anchoress notes, that is exactly what the democrats and their accomplices in the media want you to do.

I’m getting a sense that some people are freaking out, out there, that it’s three weeks to election and so it’s time to hyperventilate.

Of course that’s not true. Three weeks is still a huge chunk of time in an election, and things turn on a dime. The whole point of the big “landslide” story is the press helping Obama out some more; it is meant to make you despair and not go vote. It’s a game. While they’re saying “landslide,” and Charlie Gibson is acting like he’s in heat, Obama’s lost another point at Rasmussen.

The truth is, he’s not closing the deal, he can’t close the deal unless ACORN goes out there and registers 105% of voters, slashes tires and does all the stuff they have done (with little-to-no press coverage) with increasing vigor in each election.

They know that if they can depress turnout on election day, not only will Obama win, he will also have large majorities in both houses of Congress causing the country to take a sharp left turn. So whatever you do, don’t let the media determine the winner. Forget the polls and get out and vote and let the chips fall where they may!

As for the polls, take them with a grain of salt. Especially the state polls.

Even this brief examination reveals that the state opinion polls were often wrong, and often to a materially significant degree. In 2004, both Bush and Kerry’s support were commonly under-estimated, but in several groups’ work, all of Bush’s support was underestimated and Kerry’s support was much more likely to be over-estimated. The margin was also often wrong, and to a significant degree. State polls, therefore, are not proven to be a valid predictor of election results.

Update: Click here for another look at polling and Obama’s inability to close the deal.

A little bit of the pork from the Senate “sweetners” to help the bailout bill. We all can get a toot on to forget the reaming the government is giving us. There was no pork for Vaseline help in the bill. Need to ask Barney about that.

Business & Media will keep you abreast of all the shenanigans.

Here are a couple more videos that need to be circulated around the web. Please email them to all of your friends and family. If they are relying on the mainstream media for their news, they will never be able to make an informed decision on election day.

First up is a new web ad put together by someone on YouTube. The McCain campaign or the GOP should hire him. (HT: RedState)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9W_6U7GRrI

The next video comes from out of left field (literally). It features ultra liberal Alec Baldwin blaming democrats. If a dimwit like Alec Baldwin can admit this, there may be hope yet for the rest of America. You only need to watch the first few minutes. (HT: Newsbusters)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yop7ks9N3bk

Previously posted videos can be seen here and here.

Earlier this week, AP told us it is racist to question a black presidential candidate’s friendship with a domestic terrorist who is white.

Now Barney Frank says it is racist to question him about his role in the Global Financial Crisis that he helped create.

Is it any wonder that people lie to pollsters when a black candidate is involved?

Update: Wow, CNN actually ran a mostly unbiased report about Obama and Bill Ayers. They must be racists too!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvROBLortBQ

I hope Anderson Cooper doesn’t plan on going to any cocktail parties soon.

For those schooled in our public institutions, perhaps this explains the subprime mortgage mess more clearly and just who is getting the coated end of the stick.

The Brits do have a dry way of getting the point across.

Then there is this SNL skit that has been pulled which actually lays the blame where it belongs.
Go here to see this beaut. This is one they don’t want you to see!

For all of you that eschewed the formation of a third party, your position has been usurped.

Congress announced the formal conjoining, creating the “Parti de Prostituto” or in honor of all the illegals in the country, the PUTA Party. New symbols are needed to recognize the members so feel free to copy and mail them out to your elected officials.

Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi befittingly will lead this new group as they are very experienced in such matters.