The Nigh Seen Creeder

This morning, I heard Steve Gill's guest host say something to the effect that America no longer has a manufacturing economy. "We now have a service-based economy," he said (I'm paraphrasing).

Now, there are a lot of folks on the left (too many to name, in fact) who like to trot out the America-don't-make-nothing-anymore canard come election time. Unfortunately, there are a lot of folks on the right (see Buchanan, Pat and Steve Gill's guest host) who like to propagate the same canard.

As you can see from this chart, America's manufacturing output today is a little more than it was in 1947 ...


So, if we're still puttin' out as much stuff as we did 60 years ago, how come we don't have as many clock-punchers? Well, it has something to do with automation and computers and advanced mathematics and a feller named Dr. Edwards Deming. (Feel free to look all that up if'n you don't know what I'm talkin' 'bout.)

Please welcome guest blogger Gene K, from Franlin, TN:

Question: Where is the integrity in politics? Answer: There is none! It's nowhere to be found! Every politician operates under the mantra of "what can I do for me today?" They're not interested in the average Joe/Jill, but they talk a good game. The reality is they primarily focus on themselves and their re-election. Witness the recent fiasco in the Tennessee House of Representatives-- Witness the ongoing fiasco of the deposed governor of Illinois -- Witness the current fiasco in the U.S. Congress and the "stimulus" bill -- Witness the tax evaders being considered for federal cabinet appointments.

Republicans, under the guise of conservatism in the Bush years, spent money like it grew on trees. The result was an explosion in our national debt. We thought that was really bad and it was. However, now we have a new administration that offered "change" and, boy, do we have change! This "change" has caused our really bad situation to move into the terrible category, heading toward catastrophe. Do we really know or care what these politicians are doing to us? 

Greed, a lack of integrity, apathy, and a "what can the government do for me" attitude have poisoned our country. When will our naive population open their eyes and see what is really happening to us? A friend once told me that people truly believe "if the six-pack is cold and reality television is playing, life is good!"  

Folks, if that's where we are now, don't be surprised if we wakeup some day and don't recognize our country. I'm already there!! 

Something that didn't get a lot of mention in all of the debate over President B. Hussein Obama's stimulus bill is ... well, I'll let the American Conservative tell you 'bout it:

The billions President Obama is seeking to rebuild American infrastructure come with a catch: whites and white collars need not apply. Obama's economic adviser Robert Reich, in testimony before the House Ways and Mean Committee, said, "I am concerned, as I'm sure many of you are, that these jobs not simply go to high-skilled people who are already professionals or to white male construction workers ..."

So who should be building our bridges? According to according to Reich, criteria can be set "so that the money does go to others, the long-term unemployed, minorities, women." In other words, the jackhammers, cement mixers, and other heavy equipment should be manned by layabouts, affirmative-action hires, and mothers.

On his personal blog, Reich noted how replaceable experienced laborers are: "People can be trained relatively quickly for these sorts of jobs, as well as many infrastructure jobs generated by the stimulus." So why aren't companies already toeing the PC line? Because, Reich says, "contractors have to be nudged both to provide the training and to do the hiring." Funny how the language of economic incentive sounds so much like bribery.

"I have nothing against white male construction workers," Reich added during his testimony--besides training and subsidizing their future competitors while discriminating against them in the largest construction projects of the next generation. Perhaps by 2012, high-skilled professionals and white males will qualify as the long-term unemployed.

We who have lobbied the federal government to build a fortified fence along the entire length of the U.S.-Mexican border have been called racists, xenophobes, nativists ... and worse.

After reading "The Perilous State of Mexico" in the Wall Street Journal, I'm even more convinced that the United States needs to build that ****in' fence. If after reading that article libs still want to call me a racist or a xenophobe or a nativist, then so be it. I'd rather be "right" than be loved by the P.C. Police, indeed.

Check this out:

Much as Pakistan is fighting for survival against Islamic radicals, Mexico is waging a do-or-die battle with the world's most powerful drug cartels. Last year, some 6,000 people died in drug-related violence here, more than twice the number killed the previous year. The dead included several dozen who were beheaded, a chilling echo of the scare tactics used by Islamic radicals. Mexican drug gangs even have an unofficial religion: They worship La Santa Muerte, a Mexican version of the Grim Reaper.

In growing parts of the country, drug gangs now extort businesses, setting up a parallel tax system that threatens the government monopoly on raising tax money. In Ciudad Juarez, just across the border from El Paso, Texas, handwritten signs pasted on schools warned teachers to hand over their Christmas bonuses or die. A General Motors distributorship at a midsize Mexican city was extorted for months at a time, according to a high-ranking Mexican official. A GM spokeswoman in Mexico had no comment.

"We are at war," says Aldo Fasci, a good-looking lawyer who is the top police official for Nuevo Leon state, where Monterrey is the capital. "The gangs have taken over the border, our highways and our cops. And now, with these protests, they are trying to take over our cities

The parallels between Pakistan and Mexico are strong enough that the U.S. military singled them out recently as the two countries where there is a risk the government could suffer a swift and catastrophic collapse, becoming a failed state.

Pakistan is the greater worry because the risk of collapse is higher and because it has nuclear weapons. But Mexico is also scary: It has 100 million people on the southern doorstep of the U.S., meaning any serious instability would flood the U.S. with refugees.

"We appreciate [Obama’s] message of hope, but sometimes it seems like we look for hope in different places. Democratic leaders in Washington, they place their hope in the federal government. [Republicans] place our hope in you, the American people."

-- Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal responding to Saint, er, President B. Hussein Obama's economic sermon, er, speech

I couldn't tell you when was the last time I heard Sen. Robert Byrd say something with which I could agree. Well, I certainly agree with this:

Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.), the longest-serving Democratic senator, is criticizing President Obama’s appointment of White House "czars" to oversee federal policy, saying these executive positions amount to a power grab by the executive branch.

In a letter to Obama on Wednesday, Byrd complained about Obama’s decision to create White House offices on health reform, urban affairs policy, and energy and climate change. Byrd said such positions "can threaten the Constitutional system of checks and balances. At the worst, White House staff have taken direction and control of programmatic areas that are the statutory responsibility of Senate-confirmed officials."

I don't know why Robert Byrd would be suprised that one of his fellow Democrats is acting extra-constitutionally. I mean, Democrats have been pissing on - er, subverting - whole clauses of the U.S. Constitution (see Takings and Commerce and Contracts) for 60+ years. If only Byrd would start writing letters 'bout that ...

A GREAT bumper sticker is now available at GOPUSA:


Speaking of great bumper stickers, don't forget to order your "Don't Blame Me, I Voted for Mcain" stickers:



Stickers are available for $3 each, or 4 for $10.

Please send checks, money orders or (well-concealed) cash to:

The Nigh Seen Creeder
2479 Murfreesboro Road, #339
Nashville, TN 37217

Unfortunately, I lost a lot of good reading time watching President B. Hussein Obama's horseshit-fest tonight.

I was redeemed, a bit, when I watched U.S. Rep. Tom Price's (R-GA) critique of our president's, well, horseshit-fest. To wit:



In a few minutes, Price makes more ****in' sense than Obama's made since ... well, since Oprah said he should run for president.

November 2010 can't get here soon enough for me!

Did know President B. Hussein Obama's holding a "Fiscal Responsibility Summit" at the White House today? Yeah, you read that right. Barely a week after he signed the biggest budget-busting bill in American history, which doubles the U.S. budget deficit, Obama has suddenly decided that it's time for the gov'ment to start spending its money wisely.

If'n that weren't surreal enough, ol' B. Hussein is now promising that he's going to cut the budget deficit in half within four years. I don't often heap praise on our president, but I have to give him props for making such a cluelessly big-balled statement, indeed.

You don't have to be a Ph.D in economics to know that the Federal deficit ain't gonna be slashed until entitlement spending - i.e., Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc. - is cut. Surely Obama -- who ain't an econ Ph.D but who sure fancies himself an expert on everything -- knows such. Is he planning on cutting entitlements? If you believe that, I have a Keebler Elf living in my basement who's available for free cookie-baking tutorials.

President Obama. Again, SO surreal ...

The state of Michigan has an economy that's even more in the tank that the nation's economy. Voters in Michigan re-elected a do-nothing Democrat governor in 2006, and they were solidly behind B. Hussein Obama in 2008. Think about those facts when you read this:

[T]he Michigan Economic Growth Authority has approved "a nearly $723,00 tax credit over seven years" for the Michigan Brewing Company to help with production of a proposed "Kid Rock beer." What exactly is a Kid Rock beer? A beer branded with Kid Rock's name, attitude and stamp of approval, of course.

The company behind the Kid Rock plan, Drinks Americas, claims that "Kid Rock is a reflection of great American rock and roll music and the American spirit, and we think we can create a beer in that same image." And with Kid Rock being a Michigan native, working with a local craft brewery seems like a positive PR move. So maybe this can work, though no other successful celebrity-branded beers come to mind. (There's probably some example out there ... Was Samuel Adams a "celebrity"?)

However, Drinks Americas aren't the ones who'll be questioned: They're just doing what they do. (These are the same guys behind Trump Vodka and Newman's Own Sparkling Juices.) The real question: Do we really need to provide tax relief to make Kid Rock-branded beers in these troubled economic times? Actually, I have no idea: I'm not an economist. And thank god, because -- wow -- too much to wrap my head around this year. I'm grabbing a beer. Preferably one approved by my favorite rap-rock crossover artist."

Public money ... for Kid Rock Beer?! If the voters in Michigan don't soon begin marching round their state's capitol building to protest such an egrigious waste of taxpayer money, we'll know Michigan is a state full o' idiots. (Hell, we pretty much already knew that to be the case when they went for Gore, Kerry, and Obama.)

The Cato Institute's Doug Bandow says:

American health care is an inefficient hybrid of public and private, costing more than it should for the care provided. The problem is too much, not too little, government intervention.

Funny, I said something similar a year and a half ago:

[I]t's been suggested that market-based reforms of the U.S. healthcare system have failed. The sad fact is that free-market solutions have been watered down or dismissed outright by statist legislators (see medical savings accounts). The U.S. system remains a patchwork of third-party arrangements and government aid.

Wanna know more about America' patchwork health care system? You need to check out Bandow's "Top Ten Myths of American Health Care: A Citizen's Guide." Check it out here.

I've been saying B. Hussein Obama ain't ready for prime time for weeks. He wasn't ready for prime time prior to be elected, and his first month in office ain't proved me wrong.

Just last week, a one of my co-workers remarked that Obama seems to be running the country "on the fly." I couldn't agree more.

Karl Rove, for all his faults (real and perceived), has always been an astute observer of American politics.

This here is pretty damn astute:

Team Obama has been living off its campaign reputation for planning and execution. That reputation is now frayed, and all the bumbling and unforced errors will have an impact. Such things don't go unnoticed on Capitol Hill or in foreign capitals.

The president, a bright and skilled politician, has plenty of time to recover. The danger is that what we have seen [i.e., Richardson, Daschle, lobbyist-wavers, Gitmo relocations, budget-busting, etc.] is not an aberration, but the early indications of his governing style. Barack Obama won the job he craved, now he must demonstrate that he and his team are up to its requirements. The signs are worrisome. The world is a dangerous place. The days of winging it need to end.

Read the rest here.

If you live to be 100, you will never - and I mean never - meat an individual who's more hot-natured than moi. When I was a kid, my mother had to threaten me with physcial violence to get me to wear a coat when I went outside. During my freshman year in high school, I never wore a coat to school ... and one of my teachers threatened to take up a collection to buy me a winter coat (to this day I don't know if he was being funny or serious).

One of the ways that I deal with my internal heat-pump, if you will, is to take cold showers ... which I do pretty much year-round. When it's really cold outside, I turn the hot water on a little; but in the middle of summer, I don't use hot water at all.

I've had folks tell me that I'm "crazy" 'cause I prefer cold showers. According to this article, I'm doin' my body good. To wit:

A friend of mine is 45 years old, has no gray hair, and very good skin for her age. I wanted to find out if there was anything in her routine that could have been a reason for such youthful looks for her age (all without any surgery by the way!). Leaving genetics out of the equation for a moment, the one interesting thing that popped up was the fact that she takes a cold shower every morning. So I did a little research about the subject and found 4 main benefits that you gain by taking cold showers.

Now when I say cold shower, I want to clarify exactly what I mean by that. Taking a full cold shower, meaning no hot or warm or lukewarm water at all, is borderline torture! Especially in the cold winter months (I am from Montreal, and it is VERY cold here!). Besides, there are many benefits to taking a warm shower, the primary one being that it feels really good! But seriously, what I mean in this context, is the practice of starting with a warm shower, and ending the last few minutes with cool to cold water. Here are the benefits that you gain by incorporating this practice into your shower routine:

1- Better Circulation
Warm water makes the blood rush to your skin, and cool water makes the blood rush to your organs. This switching between hot and cold triggers better circulation in your blood by forcing the blood to move. The ideal practice would be to switch numerous times between hot and cold water, but merely ending the shower with cold water does help with circulation. Why should you worry about having good circulation? Well, it prevents such problems as hypertension, hardening of the arteries, and the appearance of varicose veins. Good circulation improves the performance of your system and thus help looking and feeling better.

2- Better looking skin
When you shower with warm water, it opens up your pores. Then you wash and this cleans up your pores. That’s all good. When you end, it would be best to close your pores and cold water does just that. It’s good to close your pores after you are all cleaned up because it will prevent the pores from being easily clogged by dirt and oil, which causes skin imperfections such as acne for example. Another benefit is that cold water makes your blood vessels constrict which reduces swelling and the appearance of dark circles under your eyes (where skin is at its thinnest). This provides you with a young, healthy glow.

3- Healthier hair
Cold water makes your hair look healthier and shinier. As a matter of fact, cool air makes your hair shinier too (that’s why there is a cool air button on your hair dryer). What the cold water does is that it closes the cuticle which makes the hair stronger and prevents dirt from easily accumulating within your scalp. Basically, the same principle with how it closes the pores of your skin as mentioned above. Stronger hair, of course, prevents hair from being easily pulled out when you are combing, and it helps in slowing down overall hair loss.

4- Mental benefits
There are plenty of mental benefits to ending your shower with cold water. The ancient samurai warriors used to pour buckets of cold river water on their heads every morning in a Shinto practice called Misogi. This was a purification ritual on a spiritual level. They believe that it cleansed their spirit and helped start a new day & new adventure fresh. Cold water obviously helps waking you up, which is what you want in the morning. Also, it energizes you and invigorates your entire being with the essence of life. Give it a try, you will definitely feel more alive! It can also lift you up if you are feeling a little down or unmotivated.

Ending your shower with cold water clearly has its advantages. I know this is something that can be very difficult for many people to do. The key is to not torture yourself. Go about it gradually. Start with a level of cold you can deal with, and slowly make it colder after each shower. As long as you get your feet wet (no pun intended!), and begin adding this routine at the end of your showers, you will be on your way to making a habit out of it and enjoy the benefits that this practice can bring you. Who knows, maybe you can avoid gray hair altogether like my friend! Maybe the fountain of youth is made up of very cold water?!

From now on, I'm not going to refer to President B. Hussein's White House as the "Obama Administration," I'm gonna call it Obama's Follies 2009 (10, 11, 12, etc.). 'Cause o' incredibly funny shite like this:

News [recently] broke ... that Rahm Emanuel, now White House chief of staff, lived rent- free for years in the home of Rep. Rosa De Lauro (D-Conn.) - and failed to disclose the gift, as congressional ethics rules mandate. But this is only the tip of Emanuel's previously undislosed ethics problems.

One issue is the work Emanuel tossed the way of De Lauro's husband. But the bigger one goes back to Emanuel's days on the board of now-bankrupt mortgage giant Freddie Mac.

Emanuel is a multimillionaire, but lived for the last five years for free in the tony Capitol Hill townhouse owned by De Lauro and her husband, Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg.

During that time, he also served as chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee - which gave Greenberg huge polling contracts. It paid Greenberg's firm $239,996 in 2006 and $317,775 in 2008. (Emanuel's own campaign committee has also paid Greenberg more than $50,000 since 2004.)

To be fair, Greenberg had polling contracts with the DCCC before - but each new election cycle brings its own set of consultants. And Emanuel was certainly generous with his roommate.

Emanuel never declared the substantial gift of free rent on any of his financial-disclosure forms. He and De Lauro claim that it was just allowable "hospitality" between colleagues. Hospitality - for five years?

Search the Inter-Web and you'll find all kinds of pics in which President George W. Bush is depicted as some kind o' simian simpleton. Like this:


Such pics didn't get a rise out of nobody outside of the conservative blogosphere.

If'n pics emerge in which President B. Hussein Obama is depicted as a monkey, will they just be an issue in the liberal blogosphere?

If'n you believe they will, you'll believe ... well, you'll believe any-fuckin'-thing.

Here's an Israeli Air Force video of strikes on smuggling tunnels and weapons factories in Gaza:



I'm sure the knee-jerk reaction of Israel-haters is to say: "T'aint no Islamist weapons being smuggled into Gaza. Them rockets that've been crashing into southern Israel are mere firecrackers!"

I hate to tell the haters: The tunnels and weapons factories in Gaza are real, and the Israelis are really justified in bombing the crap out of 'em (see video).

Just as this cartoon sums up Israel's recent wars against Hamas and Hezbollah ...


... this cartoon 'bout Israeli agression - from 1956 - sums up, well, just see for yourself (HT: Moonbattery) ...


(Click pic for larger view)

Sen. John McCain did some truth-telling today:

Sen. John McCain says President Barack Obama failed to include Republicans in writing the big economic stimulus bill.

The Arizona Republican says the $787 billion measure will create what he calls "generational theft" — huge federal deficits for years to come.

McCain, who lost the presidential race to Obama, says the president is backtracking on promises of bipartisanship. McCain is not happy with the process that led to passage of the stimulus bill. He calls it a bad beginning to Obama's presidency.

"It was a bad beginning," McCain said of the legislative process that led to the stimulus bill. "It was a bad beginning because it wasn’t what we promised the American people, what President Obama promised the American people – that we would sit down together."

McCain offers this advice: "Let's start over now and sit down together."

I agree that President Obama should sit down with Congressional Republicans ... somewhere other than a White House Super Bowl boozefest. However, I just don't see him doin' it.

I mean, if Obama lent an ear to the GOP it would upset Moveon.org, the AFL-CIO, DailyKos, the Congressional Black Caucus, and George Soros. And B. Hussein Obama ain't gonna do nothing that could potentially upset Moveon.org, the AFL-CIO, DailyKos, the Congressional Black Caucus, and George Soros.

Indeed.

Two weeks ago, New York Times theatre critic-turned-political columnist Frank Rich said this 'bout the spending habits of American consumers in these tough economic times: "What are Americans still buying? Big Macs, Campbell's soup, Hershey's chocolate and Spam -- the four food groups of the apocalypse."

Fast on the heals of Rich's little commentary, a spied a talking head (I didn't catch his name) on CNBC last week who said "no one can make money in the market" right now. Well, that ain't exactly true.

As bad as I hate to admit that leftist nitwit Frank Rich made a prescient observation, he was right when he said that folks are eatin' up Big Macs, Campbell's soup, Hershey's chocolate and Spam. And according to the folks at BloggingStocks.com, it ain't a bad idea to have your money in the companies that make that, er, stuff. For example:

If we take a look at the chart for McDonald's shares over the past 52 weeks, we can see that it got caught up in the sharp declines of October and November.


Since falling to those October-November lows, however, the shares have managed to fight their way back. They now are trading right at both their short-term, 50-day (blue line) and long-term, 200-day (red line) moving averages -- both key technical indicators that, if breached decisively, could mean more upside for the shares.

I've been bullish on Mickey D's stock for months now. Looks like I was right.

What if Valentine's Day cards told the truth? Cracked.com has examples here.

My favorite:

The very first time I encountered a self-proclaimed libertarian was when I was in college. I and a couple of my fellow College Republicans were participating in a debate with some College Democrats when the campus Libertarian Party president started shouting that he should've been allowed to participate. Mr. Libertarian was told by the professor who was moderating the debate to leave or security would be called. He quickly turned on his heel to exit the debate hall, thus exposing the huge pot leaf patch on the back of his denim jacket.

My opinion of libertarians - politically, not personally, speaking - has not improved much since that day during Clinton's presidency. Mainly 'cause of stuff like this:

It’s no secret that libertarians are bit, well, different. As my libertarian friend and co-author John Coleman once said:

On the negative side, Libertarians are crazy. Most became libertarians because they have some social quirk that disallows them from participation in normal society --picture excessive drug use, Dungeons and Dragons play, or fascination with the word "metrosexual" for instance. They are strange. You can't take them home to your parents, unless, of course, your parents are members of some druid cult. They frighten small children.

Indeed, it turns out that toddlers (and small animals) may have reason to be wary of libertarians:

According to the study (pdf), published this Spring in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, conservatives are likely to feel more strongly about social taboos revolving around purity, authority and ingroup loyalty, while liberals feel a stronger sense of obligation around issues of harm to animals and other people. Libertarians, those rootless individualists, scored lower in every moral category.

The researchers selected over 1,500 politically committed volunteers, and subjected them to a range of questions exploring their attitudes to different taboos and trangressions. Asked about impaling a child’s hand, 78 per cent of the conservatives responded that they would refuse to do this "for any amount of money," compared with 70 per cent of liberals and just 59 per cent of libertarians.

In fact, more of the liberal respondents felt strongly about kicking a dog than about harming a child (75 per cent versus 70 per cent refusal for any amount of money), while fifty per cent of the libertarians would agree to surgery giving them a prosthetic tail if they were paid enough to do so.

Question for our libertarian readers: How much fiat currency would it require for you to punch a baby, slap a puppy, and sew on a tail?

Yesterday, New Hampshire Senator Judd Gregg removed his name from nomination to be the next Commerce Secretary. Gregg had a couple of big bones to pick with President B. Hussein Obama, one of which was the Obama Administration's decision to move direction of the upcoming census from the Commerce Department to White House Partisan in Chief, er, Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel's office.

My sources tell me that members of the Congressional Black Caucus raised a stink about a Republican running the cabinet department that oversees the census, and Obama had no choice but to promise to remove it from Judd Gregg's purview. (This whole episode proves that Obama's promises to usher in a new era of bipartisan ship was complete bunk. He's only been in office three weeks, and he's given no indication that he's not going to do exactly what the left-wing of the Democratic Party wants him to do.)

That said, I want you to pretend for a moment that John McCain was elected last November. Imagine what would happen if he announced that his chief of staff would oversee the 2010 census. Moveon.org, DailyKos, the AFL-CIO, and every other gaggle of left-wing nitwits would be howling "constitutional crisis" and "coup d’état " and God knows what else. And you know it, too.

Gary Bauer has more 'bout B'Obama's census:

Now, let me say something about the census, because it is related to Gregg’s decision not to join this administration. The media hasn’t focused on this yet, but it is a big issue you will hear a lot about in the days ahead.

One of the Commerce Department’s most important functions is to oversee the census that takes place every ten years. The census is used primarily to allocate the number of congressional representatives for each state in the House of Representatives (which determines votes in the Electoral College), and it is also used to determine the funding formulas for most federal programs that send tax dollars back to the states.

For obvious reasons, this is a highly sensitive political issue, and for that very reason this job has always been entrusted to the career civil servants in the Commerce Department. But after Gregg was announced as Commerce Secretary, the Obama team yanked the census out of the Commerce Department and decided that we should trust it to the tender mercies of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.

For those of you who may not know, Rahm Emanuel is a brass-knuckles, hyper-partisan operative from, of course, Chicago. He was one of Bill Clinton’s key "fixers," and served as chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in 2006, when many good conservatives were smeared with disgusting negative attack ads.

We were told that the census was moved from the Commerce Department because we just couldn’t trust the Republican Judd Gregg to handle it properly. Well, I don’t know anyone in Washington who questions Judd Gregg’s integrity. I think his statements above speak volumes about the man. The same cannot be said about Emanuel, and there are well-known stories about his vindictiveness that would send chills down your spine.

The decision by the Obama team to pull the census out of Commerce and give it to Rahm Emanuel is extraordinarily revealing of the hardball, partisan tactics these folks are willing to use in order to make sure our side never wins another election. If the administration does not reverse itself on the census, Republican leaders are threatening to go to court. But it’s no wonder that Judd Gregg felt like he couldn’t be a "team player" in this crowd.

I received an e-mail from some joker named "Jessup" who didn't cotton to my calling President B. Hussein Obama a "liar." I curtly reminded Mr./Ms. Jessup 'bout this:

Earlier this week, Mr. Obama gave a speech at a Caterpillar plant in which he stated that the company's CEO, Jim Owens, had made a personal promise to re-hire laid-off workers if the president's stimulus bill passed. After the president left the plant, Owens said, " The truth is we're going to have more layoffs before we start hiring again. ... It is going to take some time before that stimulus bill means [re-hiring workers]."

As Homer Simpson might say, "D'oh!" As Joltin' Django might say, "The President of the USA is full of, er, beans."

Some more facts for your consideration (from John R. Lott, Jr.):

At the very end of the presidential campaign Obama "proposed a $175 billion plan with tax-rebate checks for consumers as well as spending on school repairs, roads and bridges, aid to states, and tax credits for job creation."

The current bill is not only spending 4.7 times what he promised in November, but gone are the tax-rebate checks and tax credits for job creation. The new additional programs have nothing to do with roads and bridges. Yet, a package that Obama never hinted at a couple of months ago is now considered sacrosanct. The Associated Press described Obama’s position on the stimulus plan this way: "Stopping just short of a take-it-or-leave-it stand, Obama has mocked the notion that a stimulus bill shouldn’t include huge spending."

Take an emphatic promise that Obama made just a month ago, well after the heat of the presidential campaign had passed: "We are going to ban all earmarks — the process by which individual members insert pet projects without review." That wasn’t a new promise. During the third presidential debate on October 15, 2008 Obama bluntly promised: "they need to be eliminated."

But now take Obama’s testy defense of those same earmarks last Friday. Obama reportedly "also defended earmarks as inevitable in such a package."

During the third presidential debate Obama promised to rein in the budget deficit. When moderator Bob Schieffer asked Obama what he was going to do about the deficit Obama promised to cut the it: "But there is no doubt that we’ve been living beyond our means and we’re going to have to make some adjustments. Now, what I’ve done throughout this campaign is to propose a net spending cut."

Or take the second presidential debate on October 7, 2008. Obama noted that eliminating earmarks was "important," but even more important "I want to go line by line through every item in the federal budget and eliminate programs that don’t work and make sure that those that do work, work better and cheaper." This was his constant theme during the presidential debates to cut government.

So how do you go from campaigning to cut government spending and ban earmarks before the election on November 4 to start talking about a $500 to $700 billion stimulus plan in mid-November. What changed?

What exactly did he learn immediately after the election about the economy that caused him to go from a budget cutter to proposing the biggest increase in spending ever? Prior to the election, Obama was already regularly claiming that the economy was in the worst financial crisis since the depression. Do you cut spending when you are in the worst financial crisis since the depression, but massively increase it if you can claim that things have gotten a little worse?

Read the rest here.

Joltin' Django's been ailing as of late. Not only did I suffer one hell of a winter cold in late Jan/early Feb (my cold-weather colds usually come calling in late February), I had to have two outpatient, er, procedures, both of which left me in a non-blogging mood. I'm all - mostly all - patched up now, and I hope to be on a regular blogging schedule from here on out.

I still have one batch of "Don't Blame Me, I Voted for McCain" stickers that've yet to be mailed. If you've been patiently waiting, they're coming soon. (Oh, and please know that I've not yet deposited checks for any outstanding stickers.) In fact, I'm sending a free sticker to those sticker-buyers who've had to wait the longest to tell folks, "Don't Blame Me, I Voted for McCain" ...!

Thanks for your patience, and thanks for reading!

Joltin' Django
Nashville, Tennessee

P.S. It's not too late to order your very own "Don't Blame Me, I Voted for McCain" bumper sticker:


Stickers are available for $3 each, or 4 for $10.

Please send checks, money orders or (well-concealed) cash to:

The Nigh Seen Creeder
2479 Murfreesboro Road, #339
Nashville, TN 37217

From the Campaign for Working Families PAC:

Two new polls by respected pollster Scott Rasmussen indicate that voters are growing increasingly disgusted with the Democrats and turning more and more to the Republican Party.

The first Rasmussen poll indicates that voter support for the Democrats on economic issues has been eroded by the trillion-dollar spending bill written by Nancy Pelosi and pushed so hard by Barack Obama. According to Rasmussen, after the November election, Democrats held a 15-point advantage over the GOP on economic issues.

As Democrats began publicly to discuss their plans for the economy, their support slipped to a nine-point lead over the GOP just before Obama’s inauguration three weeks ago. Now, as the Democrat-dominated Congress stands on the verge of passing Obama’s trillion-dollar spending bill, the public’s support for the Democrats on economic issues has taken another hit, down to just five points over the GOP.

Clearly, Republicans still have some ground to make up in regaining voters’ trust. But as Obama and the Democrats have championed this trillion-dollar bailout of Big Government, support for their economic ideas has cratered, falling 10 points since the election.

And here’s more good news. If congressional elections were held today, Rasmussen found voters essentially split in their support between the two parties, with Democrats earning 40% support and Republicans attracting 39%. Just four weeks ago, Democrats held a seven-point advantage in the same poll, 42%-to-35%. Today, Democrats are down and Republicans are on the rise!

Something else that I want Creeder Readers to keep in mind:

Rep. Heath Shuler (D-North Carolina) is one of a dozen or so pro-life/pro-gun Democrats who were elected in Republican districts in 2006. Speaking at an economic forum in Raleigh over the weekend, Shuler said the stimulus bill "has to be done in a bipartisan way." Since it ain't, been done in a bipartisan way, Shuler added, "I truly feel that’s where maybe House leadership and Senate leadership have really failed."

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was quick to admonish Shuler. Quoth Reid: "Let me get this straight - this is coming from a guy who threw more than twice as many interceptions than touchdowns?"

Mr. Reid seems to have forgotten that hundreds of elected officials - from county sheriffs to U.S. Reps and U.S. Senators - switched Democrat to Republican during the two years, 1993-94, when President Bill Clinton promoted and pursued a hyper-liberal agenda. If he keeps pounding folks like Heath Shuler, especially if - nay, when - Obama's polls start making George W. Bush look like an über-popular president, folks like Shuler will have to cross the political aisle ... if'n they want to keep their jobs.

You know, Obama bumping his head boarding Marine One is a great metaphor for his first two weeks in office:



Hell, I can only hope that he got some sense knocked into his head with that, er, head-knock.

Did you see it? Did you watch President B. Hussein Obama's prime time Fear Factor, er, press conference? You know, for a guy who's supposedly the greatest American political rhetorician since Daniel Webster, he sure "ums" and "ahs" and "ers" and "koo-koos" a lot. (OK, so I made up the part about him koo-kooing.)

Some thoughts ...

Did you catch the part of the press conference when Obama said the Pelosi-Reid stimulus bill was devoid of earmarks? Either he was telling a bald-faced lie, or he hasn't actually read the bill and is thus a clueless boob. I vote for the former.

Let's recall that Obama sat in Jeremiah Wright's church for 20 years listening to his anti-American/Get Whitey sermons. When Wright's hateful nitwittery was exposed on the Internet and Fox News, Obama expressed shock. "He's not the man I once knew!" he shouted. I stated for the record back then that Obama must have pair the size of basketballs to expect any thinking, discerning individual to believe such crap.

But I digress. The stimulus bill currently on the cusp of making its way to an Obama signing ceremony includes such "stimulating" gems as $300 million for the gov'ment to purchase green golf carts, $2.8 billion goes to global warming advocacy programs, a couple-hundred million to promote programs to fight sexually transmitted diseases ... I could go on and on. Hell, Google "stimulus bill" and "pork" and you'll see dozens and dozens of budget-busting earmarks in a piece of legislation that supposed to be all about creating jobs. No earmarks, indeed!

That said, one particular comment by President Obama almost caused my right eyebrow to cock all the way over onto the back of my head when I heard it. Obama was asked to comment on the revelation that baseball superstar Alex Rodriguez was using steroids back in 2003. Obama said we should use A-Rod as an example to teach our children that taking shortcuts in life is inappropriate.

Now let me get this straight: Obama nominated several individuals to serve in his cabinet who hadn't paid all their taxes. When it came to light that Geitner, Daschle, et al. hadn't paid all their taxes, he stood by 'em 100 percent. But ain't not paying your taxes trying to take a shortcut in life?

As bad as Obama poo-pooing tax-dodging was, his issuing of "waivers" to former lobbyists to serve in high profile positions in his administration was even worse. If you recall, during his first day in office Obama made a big deal 'bout how former lobbyists would have no place in his administration, and folks who left his administration would have to wait years before they could come back to lobby his administration. Obama pissed on all that when he took a shortcut around his strict anti-lobbyist rules to place former lobbyists in important government posts. (Remember what I said about him having a pair the size of basketballs?!)

Finally, I would have given anything to hear one of the reporters at that press conference asked Obama this question:

"Hundreds of economists, including Nobel laureates and other prominent scholars, have signed a statement, which the Cato Institute has placed in major newspapers across the country, criticizing your assertion that government action, i.e., spending, is the only way to jumpstart our economy. The statement they signed said this:

"Notwithstanding reports that all economists are now Keynesians and that we all support a big increase in the burden of government, we do not believe that more government spending is a way to improve economic performance. More government spending by Hoover and Roosevelt did not pull the United States economy out of the Great Depression in the 1930s. More government spending did not solve Japan's "lost decade" in the 1990s. As such, it is a triumph of hope over experience to believe that more government spending will help the U.S. today. To improve the economy, policy makers should focus on reforms that remove impediments to work, saving, investment and production. Lower tax rates and a reduction in the burden of government are the best ways of using fiscal policy to boost growth.

"Sir, do you know something about economics that this impressive list of economists and scholars does not? If you do, would you care to elaborate?"

Here's the Cato Institute ad:

I came across a recent copy of Country Weekly magazine in my doctor's waiting room. Inside I found a short blurb -- a cheerleading short blurb -- about Tim McGraw wanting to run for governor of Tennessee. I discussed this issue back in December. It needs repeating:

Regular Creeder Readers will recall that I have absolutely no use for Tennessean columnist Gail Kerr. Remember?

Yesterday, Ms. Kerr penned a column in which she discussed how country music superstar Tim McGraw is currently thinking about throwing the cowboy hat that covers his plugs into the 2010 Tennessee gubernatorial ring (as a Democrat).

Since she didn't dismiss McGraw's delusion of political grandeur, I now state for the record that I will NEVER read another Gail Kerr column again.

Tim McGraw has apparently fancied himself a potential political figure for some many months. Back in 2006, he said he'd make a good Tennessee governor because he could "make some decisions and change some things."

Make some decisions and change some things.

That's a fountain of political wisdom right there ... that's a geyser (apologies to Carl Showalter).

BTW: In her column, Kerr equates Tim McGraw's potential run for Governor with Ronald Reagan's actual stints as governor of California and U.S. Prez. If she'd ever taken the time to read Reagan In His Own Hand, she'd know ... well, she'd know that Tim McGraw ain't no fuckin' Ronald Reagan.

Indeed.

While I'm on the subject of Tim McGraw, this is pretty funny:

"Tim McGraw, sir, you are going bald. It's OK. No one will judge you. You're famous already, you have a hot wife and you have a loyal fan base. The skull cap is unnecessary. Embrace it, Tim. Be one with your hairline. Everything will be OK. Stop fighting the inevitable."

You know, I don't know why I still subscribe to The Tennessean. The editorials in Nashville's paper of record are not knee-jerkingly liberal, they read as if they were copied and pasted from Democratic National Committee talking points. In addition, hardly a day goes by when I don't find at least a half-dozen spelling and/or grammatical errors and at least one misstatement of fact.

Today's Tennessean has an article about how former Tennessee House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh is coping now that he's no longer the boss of anyone. The article's author, Theo Emery, says this about Mr. Naifeh:

He had a quick rise. In 1977, he became the Democrats' floor leader, then majority leader in 1985, and finally speaker in 1991, after Ned McWherter was elected governor.

Ned McWherter was elected governor in 1986. Ed Murray served as Tennesse's House Speaker during McWherter's first term. Naifeh was elected to the House's top spot after McWherter was re-elected.

So there.

When I was a kid, my aunt had a friend who was nicknamed "Lefty." Lefty was a former professional baseball player, hence his nickname, who played briefly for the St. Louis Cardinals in the early 50s.

I nine-years-old when I first met Lefty, and at that age I was already a certified baseball nut. He knew that, and he gave me a small stack of baseball cards that he'd collected over the years. Included in that stack were about 15 cards of Hall of Fame slugger Harmon Killebrew, who was the most feared right handed slugger at the time of his 1975 retirement. From that day forward I endeavored to add every available Harmon Killebrew card to my collection. I didn't get 'em all, but I got darn close.

Last night, I attended the Nashville Oldtimers Baseball Association's 71st annunal banquet. The featured guest was none other than Harmon Killebrew. After dinner, I got to spend a few minutes chatting with Mr. Killebrew. He told me a couple of stories about Nashville's famed Sulphur Dell baseball park (Killebrew played there several times when he was with the Chattanooga Lookouts) and he signed a baseball for me. He then chatted up another baseball fan, and another, and another, until I think he'd personally spoken to every person in the room.

I've had the opportunity to meet several former professional athletes over the years, and some of 'em were not only surly, they had chips on their shoulders the size of car batteries. What a treat it was to meet Harmon Killebrew. With the exception of Walter Payton, whom I met on a hunting trip in the early 90s, he is the nicest former ballplayer with whom I've had the pleasure of interacting.

Last year, I took great delight pointing out that B. Hussein Obama was the most economically ignorant presidential candidate to come down the pike in a long, long time. I'd like to revise and extend those remarks to state for the record that President B. Hussein Obama is the most economically ignorant president since Jimmy Carter.

Speaking before an enthusiastic throng of Democratic elected officials yesterday, Obama criticized folks who've criticized the budget-busting spending in his stimulus bill by stating that "spending" is what "stimulus is." Jesus, Adam Smith is spinning in his grave faster than the research centrifuges at Johns Hopkins Medicine.

Obama's "stimulus" bill is nothing more than an unorganized grabastic piece of you-know-what that seeks to reward his union, Hollywood, and socially liberal supporters ... all in the name of "creating jobs." Only those who believer in left-wing miracles truly think that what Obama's trying to do will bring down America's current 7+ percent unemployment rate. If anything, Obama's scheme will increase unemployment.

With all that said, wanna really know why Obama's stimulus bill is really a bad idea? 'Cause the freakin' Communist Party USA is ALL for it. To wit:

The message to Senators: Please vote for the economic recovery bill to create millions of jobs. We need investments in the public infrastructure, roads, mass transit, schools. We need aid for the states to avoid cuts in education and health care or to prevent higher taxes. We need investments in a green economy. No more delays or watering down. Vote for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009!

Each and every time I mention firearms here I catch hell from liberals who know less about guns than they do about politics, religion, or economics (and that's saying something).

Goin' back ... my grandfather taught me how to fire a .22 (and bought me my first BB gun), my uncle taught me how to hunt deer and various game birds, and, when I was a wee lad, my dad taught me that a handgun is an effective, er, weapon with which a man can protect his possessions and, more importantly, his family.

In later years, quality university professors instructed me and my classmates that American citizens have a constitutional right to own firearms for hunting, personal protection, and to serve as a bulwark against domestic tyranny. Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court -- in its now-famous Heller decision -- said exactly the same freakin' thing, much to the chagrin of Moveon.org and folks who subscribe to The Nation.

I mention all this because it tickles me beyond repair when some leftist nutbucket gets his panties in a twist when I start talkin' 'bout guns. And I like to be tickled ... just ask my lady friend. That said, here's a pic that should cause them same nutbuckets' panties to twist like pretzels:


I've always had a thing for redheads. A good-lookin' redhead in a gun shirt ... that sure racks my shotgun!

Remember when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans? The federal government's tepid response to that disaster elicited all kinds of "President George W. Bush don't care about minorites" news stories and op-eds? Remember?

An ice storm recently hit the state of Kentucky. Some 50+ people have perished, and hundreds of thousands of Kentuckians are still without power. FEMA's on the job, right ...?! Nope:

"[M]ore than 300,000 residents remained without power Monday and some areas had yet to see aid workers nearly a week after the storm, a fact not lost on some local authorities.

The winter blast turned out to be the worst natural disaster in Kentucky’s history.

"'We haven’t seen FEMA. They haven’t been here,' said Jaime Green, a spokeswoman for the emergency operations center in Lyon County, about 95 miles northwest of Nashville, Tenn."

All that said, I have family who live in Kentucky. If you Google "Obama/FEMA Kentucky" you get stories in which Obama's "fed" is doing good work. Members of ma famille have told me -- via cell phone -- that they've been without electricity for two weeks ... and they've yet to see a member of St. Obama's Reconstructive America in their midst.

I guess when you're a Cracker who's life is, literally, cracking around you ... that don't mean much, as far as the mainstream media's concerned, these days at least, right?!

There's no other way to say it ... I'm a baseball freak. Visit my home office some time and you'll see evidence of such: signed baseballs in square cases, framed black and white photos of classic ball parks (Ebbets Field, Fenway Park, Polo Grounds), a framed Nashville Xpress jersey, a Nashville Vols poster, and other assorted baseball bric-à-brac. (Never heard of the Nashville Xpress or the Nashville Vols? Ask me 'bout 'em, and I'll delight in imparting their respective histories.)

I started playing organized baseball when I was 8-years-old. Over the next ten years, I played baseball almost year-round. I played in summer and fall leagues until I was 12; I played in summer and fall leagues, and on travel teams, until I was 14; and I was a single/double-slappin', base-stealin' second baseman for four years in high school. Oh, and I've played some sandlot ball in my post-high school years.

I hate to toot my own horn, but I know a lot about baseball fundamentals. Hell, I know a lot about baseball, period. I can't tell you how many times over the years I've been told by friends and family that I should try my hand at coaching baseball. Two years ago, I decided to do just that.

First up was Nashville's Boys & Girls Club. Now, I was a Nashville Boys Club member when I was 11-12-years old. I not only tore up the Boys Club basketball courts and baseball field, I read about 1/3 of the books in the Boys Club library. I told the Boys Club folks -- er, the Boys and Girls Club folks -- such when I volunteered my baseball-coaching skills and services, and I never heard nothing back from them.

After not hearing nothing from the Boys Club, I contacted the "commissioner" of the Dixie Youth Baseball program in Hermitage, Tennessee -- I have a friend whose son participates in said program -- to volunteer as a baseball coach. What he told me floored me, and it's something I will never forget. I was told that I wouldn't -- couldn't -- be considered for a coaching position because (a) I didn't have a child who'd be playing, and (b) I didn't have a child who'd be playing. According to the commissioner, any male who wanted to be a coach and who also did not have children was automatically pegged as a potentially child molester ... automatically, for liability purposes.

Jesus. I just wanted to impart what I know about fielding and pitching and base-stealing -- not to mention things like how to "season" a glove properly. It says a lot about the state of our society that I can't consider -- let alone do -- just that for "liability purposes."

I mention all this because I just ran across this post. 'Tis very interesting (to me, in the above-mentioned context, anyway):

Troubled children are being deprived of male mentors because many men are afraid their good intentions might be misinterpreted, two charities have warned....

NCH and Chance UK have issued an appeal for men to join their mentoring scheme for children who need special support because of behavioural problems.

The charities commissioned a survey which found that 13% of men who don't volunteer with children said it was because of fears they might be perceived as a possible paedophile. Reference

The child 'protection' industry, in collusion with the tabloid media and the radical feminist lobby, have, over the last two decades and more, manufactured a climate of such paranoia that the relationship between men and children has been seriously eroded.
Boys are being classified as having increased behavioural problems for two reasons.

Firstly, they really are exhibiting more disturbed behaviour; the social breakdown that they find themselves in the middle of is having an effect on them. Many of them will have no father in their lives, and will be living in poverty. They have no positive role-models, no discipline, boundaries or structure in their lives, and exist on nutritionally poor diets. The feminist-designed classroom is unsuitable for them, and they find themselves bored, sidelined and derided in school, so their behaviour deteriorates as a result.

Secondly, with men deserting the teaching profession in droves for fear of false allegations, the teachers are almost all female. In many cases, the female teacher is offended by what is in fact normal boyish behaviour, and tends to pathologise it. Thus the boys are more likely to be labelled as having behavioural problems, whether they do or not.

When children's charities are still sufficiently in touch with reality to recognise that there is a problem, they call for male volunteer mentors, only to be met with the same lukewarm response. Men do not want to be mentors for the same reason that they do not want to be school-teachers. A man cannot express an interest in working with children. There are, as everyone knows, devil-worshipping paedophiles lurking in every suburban street.

Although the role of the tabloid media in creating this climate of fear and mistrust cannot be ignored, their motivation is a relatively innocent one; they only want to make money. There are others whose agenda is more political and altogether more sinister, who actually seek to demonise men, to destroy marriage and the family and to separate men from children. They have been very successful at pursuing this agenda over the last two decades, largely thanks to society's naivete.

It is not only boys who are paying the price; men's lives are impoverished as well, and the whole of society will suffer in the long-term. As this generation of disturbed boys fails to receive the help it needs, and grows into a generation of disturbed men, we will see a spiral of further social decay; family breakdown, crime and fatherlessness.

The academic Left and in particular, the feminist movement, are the people responsible for this. Until we develop the political will to challenge the radical feminist lobby, the plight of boys will never improve, and the social problems we see around us will continue to worsen.

On more than one occasion during the 2008 campaign, I stated for the record that candidate B. Hussein Obama was not ready for prime time, presidentially speaking.

Ever since Obama's sainted ass was inaugurated, his administration has lurched from one awkward moment to another; and one of the most awkward of these awkward moments came when White House press secretary Robert Gibbs was asked this question: Is America engaged in a "war on terror"? Gibbs, of course, ducked the question. (Hell, he wouldn't have even been asked the question if not for a brave Fox News reporter -- that's a story in and of itself.) His "uh" and "ah" and stutter-filled response to the question, however, is just more proof that Obama was not/is not ready for prime time ... just like I said.

Now, most politically astute folks know that Obama signed an executive order to close the terrorist detention center at Guantanamo Bay (which fulfilled a promise he made to the Moveon.org crowd when he was a long-shot presidential candidate). What these same folks might not know is this: Obama has admitted, for the record, that some of thugs who could get turned loose when he closes the Guantanamo Bay prison might just engage in terrorist activities again. Jesus. That's pretty stunning.

Check this out (from cwfpac.com):

We got a stunning glimpse into President Obama’s mindset yesterday when he told NBC the following: "Can we guarantee that they’re [GITMO prisoners] not going to try to participate in another attack? No. But what I can guarantee is that if we don’t uphold our Constitution and our values … that will make us less safe. And that will be a recruitment toll for organizations like Al Qaeda." Once again the president, educated in some of America’s most elite schools, is demonstrating he has no clue about the nature of America’s jihadist enemies.

Does he really believe that the jihadists who throw acid in the faces of girls who want to go to school; who behead civilians like Daniel Pearl; who send homicide bombers into synagogues, restaurants and buses to blow up Jews; who shot Russian school children in the back in Beslan; who use civilians as human shields in Gaza; and who are right now plotting to kill a hundred thousand Americans with weapons of mass destruction – does he really think they care one iota about whether a prisoner in GITMO is given the constitutional protections afforded American citizens?

If these thugs ever defeat us, our Constitution is the first thing they would burn! They have fought us in Iraq and Afghanistan to make sure their fellow Muslims never have a chance to experience the freedom and liberty we take for granted here.

The president has no idea what we are facing, as evidenced by his "apology" to the Muslim world in his first television interview. He is signaling breathtaking weakness every day – and that is why we are less safe!

Minority Leader Gary Odom:
 
You were name-checked on my blog today: 
 
The Nigh Seen Creeder
 
I mentioned your "nuts," and that's probably inappropriate given that I didn't also mention Rep. Sherry Jones.
 
Oh, well.
 
Cordially,
 
Joltin' Django
Nashville, Tennessee

THe stick-in-the-mud Obama White House ain't where it's AT ... oh, no. Indeed:

Michael Steele is the new face of the Republican Party and, having come through local and state politics, he is exactly the right guy to rebuild the GOP county-by-county, state-by-state.

That's the good news for the GOP.

The bad news for the Democrats is Tom Daschle.

Daschle is a former Senator, former Senate Majority, current nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services.

Daschle is the second Cabinet Nominee who apparently didn't read, or lied on, that questionnaire the Obama Transition Team said everyone had to complete. For those who may have been absent the day we talked about this, Question 63 reads, in an amended form:
Please provide any other information that could be a possible source of embarrassment to you, your family, or the President Elect.

Obviously, not paying your taxes doesn't count as a source of embarrassment if you make enough money.

Remember the guy who is now our Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner? In spite of being a senior official at the International Monetary Fund and the President of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, didn't understand that if you are an independent contractor you have to pay both your share of FICA and the employer's share - because you ARE your employer.

Tom Daschle didn't pay all of his taxes, either. In fact, according to ABC News and the LA Times, Daschle failed to pay more than $128,000 in taxes starting in 2005 when he was making over $1 million a year as a consultant.

Mullpal Jenny Backus, who is acting as Daschle's spokesman in this deal, said the " tax errors were the result of simple mistakes."

Most of the thing has to do with paying taxes on a limo service that his client provided but didn't bill him for. Private use is taxable as income. Daschle also is paying about $6,000 additional taxes for charitable deductions he claimed but which - assuming he actually paid the money - were not to a tax-exempt organization.

We were told the Senate HAD to confirm Geithner because he was the only guy who understood how to help unravel the problems that the lying, cheating, bonus-paying dopes who run Wall Street had gotten us all into.

Bill Krystal said on Fox News Sunday yesterday that Geithner might have been the only person available to take over Treasury, but it is hard to see why the United States Senate should turn a blind eye on Daschle's tax dodging.

A lot of people could run HHS. Or, no one could run HHS and the United States would be none the worse for the vacancy.

This is exactly why people who live outside the 49 square miles which is Washington, DC distrust everyone who works within the District: They operate on the theory that the rules are for everyone else, not for those who are, or have been, a Member of the Club.

So, the two new faces in the news last week. One, a very good one for Republicans. The other, a tired, business-as-usual face for the Democrats.

The GOP wins the week.

Democratic U.S. Rep. Lincoln Davis has announced that he ain't interested in being Tennessee's next governor. I must admit that I was shocked to hear such.

That means the office of governor is this man's ...


... to lose.

The man in question is U.S. Rep. Zack Wamp (R-Chattanooga). Rep. Wamp proudly signed the Contract With America as a candidate in 1994, and that makes him more-than-OK as far as I'm concerned. In addition, he is a confirmed fiscal conservative who bucked the GOP at many turns prior to the Age of Pelosi. A Gov. who's fiscally conservative ... that's what Tennesseans will be pining for come 2011. (Oh, and he'll be just the Gov. to kick Gary Odom in his over-active nuts. Indeed!)

Folks, I guess what I'm trying to say -- nay, what I AM saying -- is this:

U.S. Representative Zack Wamp has my full support as he seeks to become Tennessee's 49th Governor.

So there.

Liberals delight in perpetuating the canard that conservatives are heartless folks who couldn't care less about the plight of the poor. Never mind that noted "We care, a lot!" libs like President B. Hussein Obama, John Kerry, and the Saint Clintons donate pennies on their earned dollars to charity, it's we conservatives who supposedly don't give a crap about the less fortunate.

According to Arthur C. Brooks, Conservatives have Answered Obama's Call ... and that is indeed the case. Check it:

"What is required of us now," President Barack Obama said in his inaugural address this week, "is a new era of responsibility -- a recognition on the part of every American that we have duties to ourselves, our nation and the world." It is a message that nonprofit organizations would like our nation to take to heart, as 2009 fund-raising begins.

Unfortunately, we nonprofit leaders, like our for-profit counterparts, are laying awake nights. The end of 2008 was disappointing for philanthropy, and some believe that 2009 will be difficult as well. Indiana University's Center on Philanthropy publishes the Philanthropic Giving Index (PGI), which tracks the predictions of nonprofit leaders about charitable giving. Like the more-famous Consumer Confidence Index, it shows a level of gloom not seen in years, falling from 83 to 65 (on a 0-100 scale) in just six months.

The PGI is useful, but it is a blunt tool for predicting charitable giving by individuals or to specific charities. It does not tell us that all nonprofits will experience equal pain. Nor does it tell us that all givers will lower their giving by the same amount. In fact, there is good evidence that some Americans will maintain their giving levels far more than others in spite of the recession. One beleaguered group in particular promises to hold up their charitable end in spite of the sputtering economy: political conservatives.

Over the past several years, studies have consistently shown that people on the political right outperform those on the left when it comes to charity. This pattern appears to have held -- increased, even -- in 2008.

In May of last year, the Gallup polling organization asked 1,200 American adults about their giving patterns. People who called themselves "conservative" or "very conservative" made up 42% of the population surveyed, but gave 56% of the total charitable donations. In contrast, "liberal" or "very liberal" respondents were 29% of those polled but gave just 7% of donations.

These disparities were not due to differences in income. People who said they were "very conservative" gave 4.5% of their income to charity, on average; "conservatives" gave 3.6%; "moderates" gave 3%; "liberals" gave 1.5%; and "very liberal" folks gave 1.2%.

A common explanation for this pattern is that conservatives are more religious than liberals, and are simply giving to their churches. My own research in the past showed that religion was a major reason conservatives donated so much, and that secular conservatives gave even less than secular liberals.

It appears this is no longer the case, however: The 2008 data tell us that secular conservatives are now outperforming their secular liberal counterparts. Compare two people who attend religious services less than once per year (or never) and who are also identical in terms of income, education, sex, age and family status -- but one is on the political right while the other is on the left. The secular liberal will give, on average, $1,100 less to charity per year than the secular conservative. The conservative charity edge cannot be explained away by gifts to churches.

Perhaps you suspect that the vast political contributions given to the Obama campaign -- $742 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, versus $367 million for the McCain campaign -- were crowding out charitable giving by the left. But political donations, impressive as they were this year by historical standards, were still miniscule compared to the approximately $300 billion Americans gave charitably in 2008. Adding political and charitable gifts together would not change the overall giving patterns.

But here's where the charity gap really starts to make a difference for the recession of 2009: Conservatives don't just give more; they also decrease their giving less than liberals do in response to lousy economic conditions.

Roger BateEconomists measure the "income elasticity of giving" to predict how much people change their giving in response to a particular percentage change in their income. It turns out the response in 2008 was dramatically different for left and right. For instance, a 10% decrease in family income for a conservative was associated with a 10% decrease in giving. The same income decrease for a liberal family led to a 16% giving drop. In other words, if this relationship continues to hold, the recession will almost certainly exacerbate the giving differences between left and right.

All this is good news for the health and survival of explicitly conservative organizations, of course. But folks on the political right give to all types of nonprofits -- from soup kitchens to symphony orchestras -- not just conservative groups.

Ironically, few environments are less tolerant of conservatives and their ideas than the nonprofit world. The Chronicle of Philanthropy reported in October of 2008 that employees of major charities favored Democrats over Republicans in their private political contributions by a margin of 82% to 18%. Among the employees of major foundations, the difference was an astounding 98% to 2%.

Reasonable people can disagree on politics, but the numbers on giving speak for themselves. Nonprofit executives, disproportionately politically progressive, do well to remember that many of the folks they will count on in hard times are not necessarily those who share their political views. Understanding this might make for better fund raising in a scary year -- and help us all to give credit where it is due.

America circa 2009 is a cartoon, and we're all merely players, er, animated folk ...

President Barack Obama’s trillion dollar stimulus plan, has morphed into an appropriations bill devoid of debate. The process forgoes any pretense of targeting unemployed people and resources.

For instance, the bill reads "Provided further, That not less than $140,000,000 shall be available for climate data modeling." This raises the question of how many unemployed climate modelers are out there pounding the pavement.

When presented with that question, last Friday, Pat Michaels, former president of the American Association of State Climatologists stated "I don’t know one unemployed modeler."

Whether or not another $140,000,000 for climate data modeling is a good idea, it is hard to see an immediate, economy-stimulating impact from this item.

What’s the rush? Maybe they need to get all their modeling done before another cool year highlights how bad the models are.

If they were trying to build the transcontinental railroad now, they’d be spending the first three decades on the environmental-impact study and hammering in the golden spike to celebrate the point at which the feasibility commission’s expansion up from the fifth floor met the zoning board’s expansion down from the twelfth floor. If 9/11 was (as they used to say) "the day everything changed," that seven-year hole in the ground in the heart of Lower Manhattan is a monument to how hard it is to get anything changed in today’s America. So good luck "stimulating" the economy with infrastructure. One reason Google and Apple and other American success stories started in somebody’s garage is that that’s the one place where innovation isn’t immediately buried by bureaucracy.

-- Mark Steyn