SOTU-damn stupid

I skipped the State of the Union address.  With Let's Go Brandon, it's pointless. Here are a few highlights, if you care about the drivel this man spews. I don't. Everything he has done to damage the country and the world, speaks for itself.

Clown show all around

There's not much point in speaking to the SOTU addresses clown shows these days, so let's just enjoy this mockery:

That's just rude!

Pelosi being petulant made another mistake.

President Trump's 2019 State of the Union

unfiltered by the media, here is the full 2019 presidential state of the union, which apparently had a 76% approval rating by viewers.

Good speech, beautiful speech

Last night president Trump delivered his first State of the Union speech.  It was a good speech, a beautiful speech. I'm not going to talk about the substance of it today because they  are typically mostly sales pitches (especially under president Trump's not-to-be-named predecessor).  President Trump did outline some things for going forward.  But I'm more interested in the impact of the speech.

In general, I'm not a big fan of polling because it is dependent on a lot of things and many of those things can be subjective and therefore manipulated. Fore example how a question is asked can influence the answer. Who is asked can influence the results (i.e. a non-representative sample will give biased results).  But polling can be done properly and if so, it can be informative and predictive.

I'm not saying that's the case here because I've not read the 'crosstabs' for this poll.  But it is definitely fun to share this one:

The content of the speech was good.  The reactions of the Democrats were visibly at odds with the findings in this poll and that bodes poorly for them in the midterm elections.  As a caveat however, the poll was skewed towards Republican voters compared to the general population, as most Democrat supporters likely did not watch and will continue to get their information distilled and prepackaged by Fake News outlets like CNN who no doubt are already busy spinning the speech to be dour/non-inclusive/evil. 

President Trump's first State of the Union

Tonight president Trump will deliver his first State of the Union to Congress.  He's got a lot of accomplishments to talk about and many Democrats will of course, skip the whole thing but it won't stop them from talking about it as if it were the worst thing ever.  Nevertheless, my prediction is that the speech will be polished and he will be at his most presidential he has been in his presidency.

He will stray off script, he'll use the word beautiful a little too often.  But he will be more polished than ever.  The State of the Union is a tremendous opportunity to lay out not only his accomplishment but his vision for the coming year or years.  Given that there are midterm elections this year, he has to come across as the right man for the job if he wants more Republicans in the senate for his second term. Consequently he will be substantive, mostly on script and will deliver it with a more presidential demeanor.  But he is still Donald Trump, and in his calculus, there has to be the notion that he has to be himself to connect with voters because that is what got him elected.  So I expect a bit of improvisation and some Trumpisms sprinkled in there. 

As for the content, there will be plenty of places that will speculate about it so even though I have my thoughts I won't bother to detail them except to say one thing. I don't expect a mention of the memo about the FBI and DOJ, or if there is a mention it will be brief. The mention of that will draw jeers from Democrats but far more importantly it will detract from the golden opportunity to look presidential and that should be the main goal tonight.  The only way mentioning the memo, or collusion or the congressional investigation would merit inclusion in that context is either (1) it helps speed the Mueller investigation into non-existence or (2) it advances the effort, very visibly, to the goal of draining the swamp.  I don't believe the memo, while likely to be very useful and telling, will be strong enough to accomplish either of those goals.  I could be wrong, we'll see.

A footnote to the McCabe resignation story

Andrew McCabe resigned today - a mere few weeks before his expected departure date.  Earlier today I surmised that it was because he's in trouble.  Back in December of last year it was revealed much of his testimony was inconsistent with other testimony.  That's troubling because Andrew McCabe's wife got a significant political donation from the Clinton Foundation via Terry McAuliffe.

Follow the trail of breadcrumbs (or connect the dots if you prefer).

(1) A key figure into the investigation into Hillary Clinton's email scandal and the supposed Trump-Russia collusion scandal was tied to the Clinton campaign at the hip pocketbook (read the full details there).  The got a significant campaign donation, from the Clinton's albeit in such a way as to launder the money's source. What's worse they clearly tried to cover up any connection to each other.

Image via Americans For Innovation:

Click to enlarge.

(2) Hillary Clinton gets in zero actual trouble for gross negligence, incompetence or worse, in terms of national security while she was head of the National Security Administration (the NSA).  

(3) Andrew McCabe offers worthless testimony (and worse, probably ensured that relevant evidence did not come to light) and McCabe's wife gets a generous campaign donation.  That's the very definition of pay-for-play and not only is it unethical, I'm no legal expert but that has to be illegal.

Via Fox News:

Congressional investigators tell Fox News that Tuesday’s seven-hour interrogation of Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe contained numerous conflicts with the testimony of previous witnesses, prompting the Republican majority staff of the House Intelligence Committee to decide to issue fresh subpoenas next week on Justice Department and FBI personnel.

There is a lot of circumstantial evidence that favors were exchanged, criminally.  And today, unexpectedly, Andrew McCabe is stepping down mere weeks ahead of schedule, and the day before president Trump was being urged to read the memo as part of the State of the Union address.

UPDATE: It appears I'm not alone in my thinking.  Gateway Pundit discusses the connections.

UPDATE:  I hadn't considered this Angle via HotAir;

Follow the timeline. Trump and Sessions have been leaning on Chris Wray to dump McCabe for awhile now, with Wray allegedly resisting to the point where he threatened to quit if they didn’t back off. Then, yesterday, he finally reads the Nunes memo. Now, 24 hours later, with the House set to vote on whether to release the memo, McCabe suddenly decides it’s time to end his career with the Bureau even though allegedly he had enough vacation time amassed to have done that weeks ago.

That’s a lot of coincidences. Too many, maybe...

Must be a juicy memo.

Andrew McCabe "resigns"

Don't let the door hit you...

Via CBS, Andrew McCabe has resigned:

FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe is stepping down from the FBI, CBS News' Pat Milton has confirmed. According to Milton, a source familiar with the matter confirmed that McCabe was urged to step down. However, sources at the FBI said that this was largely his decision, CBS News' Andres Triay reports. He is currently on what's known as "terminal leave," that is, McCabe had accumulated enough leave time to depart the FBI now. His official retirement is in March.

The White House had no comment on the matter, although White House press secretary told reporters Monday that "the president wasn't part of this decision-making process."

McCabe was under considerable scrutiny from Republicans, as special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian election meddling and any ties to Trump associates continued. McCabe took temporary charge of the FBI after President Trump fired FBI Director James Comey earlier this year, and some skeptics viewed McCabe as too close to his former boss.

The obvious question is why now? If he was uncomfortable with Trump as president why did he wait until the day before the State of the Union where it is rumored president Trump would reveal the contents of the #ReleaseTheMemo memo?

It's clear that there's something more to this than just bad feelings between the president and McCabe.

State of the Union - I'll pass. Iran, not so much.

I'm sticking with my earlier advice to Republicans and conservatives - the president is no longer relevant, ignore him.  Best case scenario, I watch his last State of the Union with glee that it's his last one and hope to see someone shout "LIAR!" at him. Ah, nostalgia. But even if I do that, I won't blog about it.

I'd rather blog about my prediction regarding the escalation of tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran, and Iran's attempt to drag America into the conflagration by taking American sailors hostage. President Obsequious won't bite on that though - he's too cool.  And by too cool, I mean too cowardly and too aloof to care about American servicemen (and women).

Smart move for Iran, getting some human shields in the face of a Saudi hard line on them.  Saudi hostages probably wouldn't make a difference.  The way Obama negotiated with Iran on their nuclear program, they'll probably be released in exchange for America agreeing to defend Iran against a Saudi invasion.

Obama SOTU 2014

What to expect?  President Obama will soon deliver his annual State of the Union address.  After a series of uninspiring SOTU addresses, including one in which he insulted the Supreme Court Justices, the president is in a weird position this time around.  Instead of blaming everyone else for things he hasn't done, for problems he hasn't solved, he is actually going to have to talk about something he did get 'done' - Obamacare.

While that is going to be rich - seeing him trying to say everything is going to be fine is fine - he's also being called upon by the left to start ignoring Congress and doing everything by presidential fiat (aka Executive Order) in order to get his agenda moving again.  And of course there's calls for him to blame everything on Congress, which is the only play in Obama's playbook, "blame ____________".  But the president seems like he's given up caring about the rest of his presidency.  He seems to have accepted his lame duck status.

Personally, I'm happy he's given up if that's the case.  A president who is happy to admonish the Supreme Court (an equal branch of government) and bypass Congress (another equal branch of government), serves the country better by not usurping all the power for himself.  He's Julius Caesar without any policy chops to back him up.

But that doesn't mean that president Obama will not give an impassioned speech that will enthuse his base.  He is good at giving speeches that are not conciliatory, offer little substance, but sound great to his acolytes.  He can do that sort of speech in his sleep.

What happens as a result of the SOTU speech is likely not to be evident for some time.  If he truly has accepted his lame duck status, don't expect him to do much before the midterm elections.  That would create the impression with the president that his actions would do more political harm than good for his agenda.  And even if he does, would Congress try to censure the president?  That's not likely prior to the midterms either.  Looking back, not much came from his previous SOTU speeches either, when he did have that progressive fire in his belly.  So this speech while on the surface perhaps impassioned, will not move mountains, stop the oceans from rising or accomplish much of anything.

I'm good with that.

Obama's Stealthy Mundane SOTU speech

Was there anything striking in the State of the Union speech last night? Not really.  It was ponderous to sit through and there wasn't a single thing that came in that speech that couldn't have been predicted.  The State of the Union shouldn't come as a surprise in large part.  After all, the president is supposed to be reporting to the Congress on the state of the nation.  But this was simply a re-hash of the president's own ideas and perspectives on things rolled up into a political commercial.

But as mundane as it was this is no time for conservatives to be ho-hum about the contents of that speech or the politics surrounding it because, as you'll see in my next post - the left marches on.

The speech itself started with a re-hash of the "war is over" talking points and it was quickly followed with a re-hash of "the economy is recovering" meme.  The president talked about clearing away the rubble of crisis and that the state of the Union was now stronger.  That's a pretty low bar.  Early on it was apparent there would be no substantive new ideas.  Many expected the president to go hard left towards his base and follow in the progressive liberal mold of his inauguration speech.  It was to be an effort to gin up the base to put pressure on Congress to move the country in his direction.  That, along with a few phony outreach to the right and center moments made this a purely political-goaled speech.

There was class warfare predicated on the middle class suffering - he mentioned corporate profits being at an all time high but that wages haven't budged.  That's not new. He's angling to be on the side of the vast middle class.

There was the veiled political jabs designed to fire up the liberal base.  The president mentioned that the country expects politicians to put the nation's interest before their party. What he means is the GOP.  It was clear he viewed, or wants the public to view, gridlock as solely a result of Republican foot-dragging and obstructionism.  Newt Gingrich on CNN before the speech called it exactly right - why is it obstructionist to try to stop a policy that you not only disagree with but regard as "stupid"? The GOP is in large part putting country before politics.  It'd be a lot smoother and perhaps more voter-attractive to just go along with more spending.  But  while it may not be good for getting votes to obstruct stupid ideas, it's genuinely bad for the country to go along with them.

The president threw out a lot of claims that will go largely unchallenged in order to make himself look both great and reasonable.  He claimed that they (collectively) reduced the deficit by more than $2.5 trillion.  REALLY???????? This while the national debt went up by trillions of dollars in his first four years.  The lie is so vast, it's shocking that the Congress didn't erupt in laughter at that comment.  But the president went on that it was done mostly through spending cuts.  Again, really? What counts as a spending cut in his mind outside of money he won't be spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? Not spending money that hasn't been appropriated yet doesn't count as a cut.  He doubled down on the notion as well. He said that there was some revenue included as a result of raising tax rates on the wealthiest Americans. Presumably he's talking about the expiring of the Bush Tax cuts.  But didn't that just happen? P-A-N-D-E-R.

The president admitted that the sequester - the automatic cuts that kick in, in lieu of a budget deal - was a bad option.  But again, in order to make his opposition bear an inequitable share of the blame, he threw out a straw man that "some" (again, the GOP) wanted the sequester to avoid the Department of Defense and only apply to domestic spending.  That is not only a misrepresentation, it assumes no one would think that maybe he'd be happier if it applied only to defense spending and left domestic spending intact.  That's something elsewhere in the SOTU speech he frequently opines is a good idea, euphemistically referred to as investments.

The president also used pseudo-economic concepts in his speech, mixing the idea of long term debt with deficits.  He further argued that America can't cut its way to prosperity.  Of course he completely ignores the fact that you can't spend your way to prosperity.  He has already tried that.  Furthermore, controlling spending has nothing to do with prosperity directly, it has to do with imposing fiscal sanity and thereby allowing the country the opportunity to grow and prosper outside of government.  The president still comes from the deep liberal mindset that government is the creator of prosperity.  That has never been government's role.

After that the president headed into a laundry list of re-hashed and half-baked ideas.  He touched on the Simpson-Bowles recommendations on debt reduction after years of ignoring them.  That's known as lip service. He pontificated that Obamacare is helping to slow the growth of health care costs.  A little research should prove that incorrect.  But it is eerily familiar to his unemployment arguments in 2009-2010 about jobs created or fictitiously 'saved'. 

The president argued that the country should change the way govt pays for health care.  He said that it should not be based on the number tests done or days in the hospital but on the quality of care.  Is he talking pay for performance for medical industry? It's certainly half-baked or not substantive.  It was merely pablum for voters.  On a scarier note, it seems to fit well with an amorphous blob of Obamacare that, intended or not, will result in bureaucratic over-reach.

More pablum came from the president and you could see it was all designed for 2014 and 2016 elections to help Democrats. From lectures on brinksmanship and manufactured crises (really Mr. President, you want to lecture on that?) to the the notion of full faith and credit of the American government (from the man singly most  responsible for the nation's lowered credit rating) the president was in pure political mode. He argued deficit reduction is not an economic plan [no, its an economic necessity] but rather growing the economy is what's necessary.  No one argues that point.  He implied that the GOP doesn't see it that way.  The real argument is about how to do it.

Laughably, the president said he wanted smarter government, not bigger, government.  The president cited companies like Ford, Caterpillar, and Apple on-shoring jobs.  None of those relate to anything Obama or Congress have done.

The president pushed for investment in research and development.  No one argues against innovation and discovery (well, almost no one).  But again the real question is should the government run that research or modify the tax code to encourage companies to do it themselves.  Conservatives believe the latter approach is more fruitful.  That does not make us evil, or anti-progress.  It makes us more aware of the economics.

Finally, the president went into full pandering mode.  He touched on the environmentalists' cause.  He stated that over the last 4 years carbon emissions have gone down.  That's probably just the recession, but hey, he'll take credit.  He touched on the fact that he will use executive actions to drive further environmental protection if Congress doesn't do anything (i.e Cap and Trade, and they won't).  Talking out of both sides of his mouth on energy he gloated about oil and gas production on his watch as being the at highest level in American history.  Again, you can thank Bush and Clinton for the approvals that led to that result, but hey, he'll take credit.  He did mention that he'd keep cutting red tape and speeding up oil and gas exploration. That really needs to be taken with a full mine full of salt.

Back to the pandering he next touched on how early childhood education improves graduation rates, and reduces violent crime? He failed to prove that connection, but even assuming he is correct, he is pandering to those whom he believes want paid early childhood education.

He offered platitudes and executive demand for immigration reform in the next few months.  He played up women's issues.  He demanded changes to minimum wage laws based on cost of living increases. Minimum wage laws are counter-productive.  That's a discussion for another day.  The president noted that Mitt Romney agreed with him on this one, proving conclusively, Romney was NOT our guy.  A commission that involves someone from Romney's team helping to establish that, is wrong for another reason.  The cost of living is just another value that can be manipulated by those who control  the statistics (that would be the government in case you missed it). He talked to the anti-war crowd about ending Afghanistan.  He talked to the national defense crowd about a strong military and being tough on North Korea and Iran on nuclear weapons.  Again, no specifics for them, just platitudes.  He did get a bit specific on cyber-security.  That's a good thing and of national importance but I'm not sure it merited time in the SOTU speech.  But I can give him credit for touching on it.

For the faux 99% crowd he talked about voting reform.  If ever there was a fox in the hen house it is allowing Democrats to oversee voting reform.  

In the final gauche pander of the night, he spoke on gun violence and the need for stricter gun controls.  There were victims' families present.  There were tears and even the rising crescendo of applause as he continued to offer platitudes ("they deserve a vote").  It was hardly eloquent but it didn't need to be.  He was looking for a hammer to use to smash second amendment advocates with.  He likely succeeded and the press will certainly be onside.

In the end the speech was dull.  It was not fun to watch, and it didn't even fill me with the anger previous speech of his have.  The fact is the liberal onslaught has numbed many of us to how shockingly bad these ideas are because we've seen them for so long.  The argument against them is to us clear and simple and logical. It's also become routine.  But just as the left never stops it's march towards socialism, neither can we rest - even if we need it.

What to look for in Obama's acceptance speech

What should you expect to see in Obama's acceptance speech tonight?  That is, as opposed to at Obama's acceptance speech tonight, where you will see a large number of drones with no clue about reality.  According to top aides, you'll see him tackle entitlement reforms.  I'm assuming that means with the same tremendous aplomb he tackled the deficit with in his first term.

Top campaign aides to President Obama said that in his speech on Thursday night, the president will discuss deficit reduction and entitlement reform.

Stephanie Cutter, appearing on CNN’s Starting Point on Thursday, said, “I think you will hear the president lay out his plan of balanced deficit reduction where everybody pays their fair share and we cut what we don't need and that includes entitlement reform.”

Earlier, she said: “I think you will hear him talk about the types of decisions we need to make as a country if we want to get our debt under control and do it in a way that will unleash growth and help the middle class grow.”

Ironically, the number one solution - getting rid of Obama - will not be part of the party platform.

State of the Union: Obama IV

Last night I was on Twitter, live-tweeting translations of the president's speech.  I'm not all that excited about re-hashing what was a truly mediocre speech and essentially a re-run of SOTU III...or SOTU II.  Recycled speech.

So instead, enjoy this:

SSOTU: Supposed State of the Union

Oxymoronic SOTU

A quick preview of the president's State of the Union.would be remiss if it did not include the notion that the president is going to take the opportunity to use the opportunity as a campaign speech.  Indeed, many see it as the president's kick-off of his 2012 re-election effort (aside from the myriad of fundraisers that have been going on for months).  The president's speech in that spirit will do three things.  It will argue that the country is hurting and it will require more of his efforts to fight income inequality.  Secondly, in an oxymoron destined to go mostly unchecked, it will call for more spending and lower deficits.  Finally he will work in there somewhere, a narrative that he hopes will hold is that the country is spinning its wheels because of a Do Nothing Congress.

What is that going to look like?

When to believe Obama's serious about spending cuts

As much as I'd like to say never and just leave it at that, there is a slim chance that the President was serious when he mentioned during his most recent State of the Union, practically in passing, that cutting government spending was important.  He spent most of the speech talking about investing the future (spending).  So it's hard to take the President seriously when he pays lip service to spending cuts.  A record $1.5 trillion dollar government deficit for the current fiscal year doesn't lend any credence to it either. So how, or when would it be possible to take President Obama seriously on the issue that is most serious to the country right now?

That's easy. When he starts talking out of the same side of his mouth as he did less than one year ago when he talked about PAYGO - pay as you go - for government spending.  The idea is simple - no new spending should be submitted for his signature unless it is accompanied by either a commensurate spending cut elsewhere or a tax increase so that there is no new deficit spending when something new is done.  That might work if the government were in a more revenue neutral position and not a huge deficit situation.  However, at least there was some logic to it in terms of not compounding the error of excessive government spending.  So Obama 2011 is at odds with Obama 2010 as seen here;

When should we believe President Obama is serious about curbing government spending?  Not for a long time.  He doesn't agree with dramatic cuts because in the latest state of the union address he talked about spending more (what he termed investments) and he couldn't seemingly even reconcile with his own revenue neutral rhetoric from February of last year.  If he were to pay for those new investments with cuts to entitlements it would certainly start to look like spending was on his radar. After all, that probably represents the biggest opportunity to offset net new costs.

Sorry Mr. President, I for one do not accept your words on the debt and deficit at face value.  I can't yet tell you when it might be feasible to believe Obama's serious about spending cuts, but I can safely say that now, is not the time.

SOTU III - Same old same old

The mainstream media agrees - the State of the Union speech is one great PR opportunity for any sitting President. Funny, I don't recall that take last year or the year before. Nevertheless, this year's speech offered no bold new Obama vision. It offered more of the same old same old. In fact instead of analyzing the speech, it's probably worth more to compare the year over year similarities to show that the President doesn't have much to offer that you haven't heard before.

Wake up (or shut up)

Going into tonight's State of The Union address by President Obama, one thing seems to be clear - he's going to try to portray himself as a fiscal hawk, and he will tout two things; action on jobs (to date and planned) and how this economic downturn is not his fault. Those of you still enthralled by style over substance might be prepared to swallow the Obama story whole, but my advice to you is wake up. And if you are unable or unwilling to rouse yourself from the blissful slumber that is Obama dreamland, then do the rest of us another favor instead. Rather than parroting the left's talking points, at least listen to a few facts before spouting dogmatic rhetoric. You don't really have to shut up, but just listen to a few things before you ramp up the memes again. Please.

There are two areas of contention that should be focused on at tonight's SOTU address. I'm going to put aside any reference to health care for now, because although I'm pretty sure he will mention it, discuss it or at least allude to it, I don't think it will be more than 10% of his address. I could be wrong, but I'll save that part of the analysis for the post game coverage.

The President is going to focus on two things - he's going to talk about an amalgam of the following points;

- he inherited the recession [True]
- he stopped it from being worse [False]
- he is going to focus on jobs [The question is how]
- he is going to focus on the deficit [This is outright deception]

With regard to the first point, the recession was well under way when Obama was inaugurated.  It does not reflect on him that there was a recession.  The argument that it was Democrat policies on the Community Reinvestment Act, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that caused the recession are even superfluous to an assessment of President Obama.  Those were not his decisions (whether he would have supported them or not).  The real concern here is not whether the recession was not his fault, but how did he deal with the crisis.  In that regard his response has not served the country well.

As supporters of the administration like to point out, the TARP program was started by President Bush, which is true.  What is also true is that (a) conservatives in large measure opposed both Bush and the GOP on the TARP issue prior to opposing Obama on it (b) President Obama upped the ante with the ARRA expenditures (his stimulus bill), the omnibus bill and tried to layer health care on top of it for another trillion dollars (c) In Bush's worst year for which figures are avaliable the total debt measured an outlandish 70% of GDP.  For fiscal 2009, for much of which the expenditures were compounded by Obama on top of the TARP issue, the figure is projected to be 90%.  For fiscal 2010 - all Obama now - it's projected to come it at 98%.  It's projected to peak at 101% before easing back to 100.6 for the 2012 election.  (d) Democrats also plan on taking the returned TARP money and plowing it back into the new jobs bill the President will proclaim tonight.

Did the President stop the unemployment rate at 8%? No, it's at 10% now and stuck in that neighborhood for the forseeable future.  The President's phoney 2 million thousands and thousands 1.5 million jobs created or saved doesn't stack up well against the 4 million new confirmed unemployed in 2009.  It's like saying never mind the car accident, if I hadn't acted we would have been mauled by a werewolf.  How do you disprove something so preposterous and yet not disprovable by any logical counter other than "I know you are but what am I?"

But there are other considerations about how President Obama fared in the face of the crisis.  He did refuse the banks repayment of TARP money.  He did then count it as debt reduction and he does plan to respend it.  That's only a little bit confusing.  But from an economic standpoint I'd have to say, foolish, misleading and then wrong-headed.  So he's got that going for him.

And then there's the fallout from his decision-making.  This is where I really take issue with the President.  Fiscal conservatism is my thing. Apparently, it's a lot of people's thing, and it's something the Tea Partiers and the reformed Republicans can agree upon.  That's where the President hopes to drive a wedge - GOP versus Tea Partiers. The speech is going to be pure political calculation.  So here's where I see the President taking his address tonight.  He's going to argue that he's got a new jobs program.  The GOP, the party of 'no', has no such thing (wait for the Republican pushed-well-out-of-prime-time reply to see that's a canard).  He's going to argue that his $15 billion spending freeze proves he heard America's message about spending over the summer and the last few months. For the math-challenged, $15 billion is 1% of the $1.5 trillion deficit for 2009.  The other thing to not is the freeze comes after artifical spending increases as part of the stimulus - so the freeze is at an artifically high level.  Charles Krauthammer explains here.

This does nothing to impact the debt-toGDP numbers below.  It's a farce.  It's a slap in the face and it's arrogant to think that people won't care or notice the fraud involved.

The purple bars show the mega-leap under the Democrat President, Congress and super majority Senate, based on legislation passed to date.  What is interesting is when the recessions are superimposed on the graph (excuse the "artwork"), you don't see the same type of recovery deficit-ballooning spending the way you do in the current recession.  Arguably the recovery would occur naturally, without the government over-reach.  But you'd never know that with all the hyperbole thrown at the recession by the White House and the media as cover for the President.  Worst recession since the great depression.  Is that so?  Highest unemployment?  Nope - that would be 1981-1982 at 10.8%.  Obama's peak was 10.2% so far.  Bigggest GDP drop? Nope 1945 was 12.7% (as a result of the government war spending coming to an end).  At 3.9% it certainly is high.  But 1973-1975 was 3.2% and 1958 was 3.1%. So certainly bad, but not Depresiion era - 26.7% worthy.  Duration? Now you're talking.  At 2 years (which is still not confirmed as the real number - that will take time), it is longer than the double dip recession of 1980 and 1981-1982.  Combined that was just under 2 years.

What's the point of the graph above?  Government spending does not correlate directly to recovery.  There are recessions that occur while government spending is dropping and ones that occur while spending is climbing.  Guess what, the government DOESN'T matter.  If they get out of the way they will allow recovery to occur. The Law of Unintended Consequences means that when the government tries to get involved, it distorts the economy, typically for the worse.  We see that here - more spending, more involvement, less freedom (Via CarpeDiem), and to show for it - more debt, and more unemployment.  That is just bad calculus by the Democrats:  Reality be damned - the agenda's the thing.

The President is going to blame Bush tonight  - Obama inherited the debt problem but he will fix it.  He's going to villify the banks, just like he did the GOP, Bush, the insurance companies, oil companies, mythical special interests, and countless others.  He figures blaming the banks and therefore taxing them to solve the debt problem, will play well in populist America.  He figures he can regain the popularity that has bled away from him by promising jobs, just like he and other did back in early 2009:



The American people have been "jobbed" alright. Obama will get away with this misdirection, if people don't pay close attention. Many people won't. For those of us who do pay attention, it's incumbent upon us to point out the hypocrisy and deceit on display. We need to shout about the truth. And we need to start doing it right away.

And for those of you who don't want to wake up, and don't want to listen either, you'll only have yourself to blame for your outcome.  Then again, as conservatives, we would have told you that anyway...