The fallout of Obama's gutting of the American military

Heritage explains:


China knows it.

Trump budget, delivering on what matters

I haven't seen any of president Trump's budget being sent to congress but from the sound of it, it's big on defense spending and big on cuts in other departments.  If so it will be delivered as promised.

...What matters to voters outside that bubble is substance — the actual policies, and the reality of having a president who works to keep campaign promises.

Team Trump understands that better than the media and Beltway do, at least in these first few weeks. The process stories need to get under better control to keep from presenting too much of a distraction, but the substance will overshadow process if Trump can deliver on it. That’s why CPAC turned into a love fest this past week — not because conservatives have surrendered to Trumpism, but because Trump is delivering substantively on the conservative agenda.

If Trump delivers jobs, a solid economy, and quality GDP growth it's not going to stop the protests, the media bashing or liberal opinion. But those things will matter far, far less than they already do, as fewer and fewer people listen to a militant few.

Presidential hypocrisy on steroids

The President says it's irresponsible to cut social programs to create tax relief.

President Obama on Monday said it would be "irresponsible" to cut social programs to cover the cost of payroll tax relief, as some Republicans have proposed.

That straw man argument is sickening in its misdirection (i.e. deliberate inaccuracy).  But what's worse, this is from the same president that is using a payroll tax holiday to relieve the recessionary pressures facing the nation.

To be clear, here's the hypocrisy:  the payroll tax is used to fund Social Security.  Social Security is a social program.  The president's payroll tax holiday de-funds the government revenue used to pay for Social Security,  in order to give a break to people so they'll spend money.  He's defunding a social program, to create financial relief, via a tax.

You can't make this stuff up.  But apparently, Obama can.

Democrat duplicity on the debt ceiling

Democrats didn't raise taxes with the approaching debt ceiling issue when they held both houses of Congress. With profligate spending they must have been able to forecast running out of ceiling room soon. Does that mean they ignored it on purpose to saddle the GOP with the cuts and, they hoped, tax increases to disaffect the Republican base? Or to use the tax the rich meme as a class warfare tool? It's possible, although that seems inherently evil in terms of putting politics ahead of a dire national predicament. Or were they so blind they couldn't see the train wreck coming? In that case put it down to unimaginable stupidity and gross incompetence.

And yet people vote for this insanity time an again. Apparently there are thousands of suckers born every minute.

Of Deficits, Debt and Spending

President Obama. The man who's campaign included the notion that the budget deficit should be tackled with a scalpel instead of a hatchet.

FOX NEWS: LOS ANGELES -- Sen. John McCain proposed a possible spending freeze on virtually every federal program except the Department of Defense, for veterans and entitlement programs in a presidential debate with rival Barack Obama Friday night. Obama countered that approach is too broad-based, saying it was the equivalent of "using a hatchet where you need a scalpel."

Why did he say this? Clearly even the President is smart enough to realize the debt he's accumulating is unsustainable. Perhaps during the campaign, he was unaware of the consequences of his debt-accruing future actions. But even someone who wants to nationalize at a bare minimum, health care, but potentially also the banks and the automotive industry, has to realize that the funding for all of this has to come from somewhere. The President has not lost touch with reality. He recently stated he was concerned about the unsustainability of the national debt.

May 14 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama, calling current deficit spending “unsustainable,” warned of skyrocketing interest rates for consumers if the U.S. continues to finance government by borrowing from other countries.

“We can’t keep on just borrowing from China,” Obama said at a town-hall meeting in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, outside Albuquerque. “We have to pay interest on that debt, and that means we are mortgaging our children’s future with more and more debt.”

Holders of U.S. debt will eventually “get tired” of buying it, causing interest rates on everything from auto loans to home mortgages to increase, Obama said. “It will have a dampening effect on our economy.”

Gee, do ya' think?!? This from the man who has provided a national budget that will DOUBLE the national debt accumulated by every other President in history COMBINED, and who has presided over the largest expansion over government EVER. The President's budget is $3.55 trillion. A trillion is a million sets of a million. How many Americans had heard of Barack Obama 3 years ago? Now he's set to spend over $3.5 trillion dollars America doesn't have. Good luck with that America.

But since the President has come to realize the danger that his spending has created, it's all okay now. We can all hit the snooze button on the United States' upcoming fiscal demolition, because the President is going to fix it.

Despite the empty words of the election campaign, the reality of the national debt is something that the President realizes he has to tackle. After all, he can't transfer wealth and pay for entitlements if there's no cash to support all of it.

The President has three options for handling the debt he burdened America with;

(1) Actually get out his scalpel and cut spending. Everywhere - maybe a hatchet would be good.
(2) Borrow from the Chinese and from future generations.
(3) Raise taxes.

What do you suppose the President will do? Well, it's all out in the open - he's doing all three.

(1) He's taken a scalpel to government, ordering his cabinet to cut $100 million in spending. That's not even a start though.



But it turns out, that wasn't the big hit he had planned. He decided to cut "wasteful" defense spending by 10%;

The Obama administration has asked the military's Joint Chiefs of Staff to cut the Pentagon's budget request for the fiscal year 2010 by more than 10 percent -- about $55 billion -- a senior U.S. defense official tells FOX News.

Last year's defense budget was $512 billion. Service chiefs and planners will be spending the weekend "burning the midnight oil" looking at ways to cut the budget -- looking especially at weapons programs, the defense official said.

All told it looks like the defense spending cuts (in the middle of a war) amount to $55 billion. Combined with the other savings the administration is finding, it amounts to $55.1 billion. He's taken a scalpel to everything but the military. Apparently the military was good enough to still get the hatchet.

(2) The President, despite running up a MASSIVE new debt, proclaimed the US can't just keep borrowing from China. Despite the fact that it's exactly what he's doing!

From Boston.com;

Obama said the debt situation would create greater economic problems if foreign countries like China lost their appetite for U.S. treasuries.

"What's also true is at some point they're just going to get tired of buying our debt,"
he said.

"And when that happens, we will really have to raise interest rates to be able to borrow and that will raise interest rates for everybody."

The White House estimated earlier this week the U.S. budget deficit will be $1.84
trillion for the fiscal year that ends September 30.

Obama has pledged to halve the U.S. deficit within four years despite implementing economic stimulus measures that will make it larger in the short term.

Even more ironic - after spiking the debt, he's promising to cut it in half in four years - to a level way beyond the worst annual deficit in American history. And that's supposed to be comforting? Or acceptable?

Why the press is still giving him a pass on the dooming of the nation is a mystery. Why he's claiming he can't do what he's doing is more obvious. He's setting the stage for the inflation he created so that he can - you guessed it - blame somebody else and replay his youtube clip in 2 or 4 years, saying "See, I warned you about this." Galling.

Running deficits means borrowing. Much of that borrowing is from countries like China. And it means, because of the size of the borrowing, that it will take generations to fix. That's the reason it's been called generational theft. What it also means is an increasingly nervous China that holds $767 billion in US debt (as of March 2009) and Japan holds another $686 billion. All told, $3.2 trillion is being held offshore. That is nationally dangerous. Compare it to March of last year when China held, $490 billion, Japan held $597 billion, and all told, $2.5 trillion was held offshore. In one year, China's stake in America has climbed 56%, Japan's by 15% and the world's stake has risen by 28%.

Not all of that gets laid at President Obama's feet. But let's face it, he's the guy now and he could choose to tackle the problem, ignore the problem or exacerbate the problem. He has chosen to compound the problem two-fold and over the next 10 years, three-fold. It borders on treasonous.

(3) Of course there's a third way. A Shining Path as it were. I mentioned Obama was setting everyone up for an 'I told you so' when the inflation hits. The reality is even worse. He's setting up the country for massive tax increases. Benefit now, the bill will come later. It's the only way he can get some of this stuff passed. By the time the bill comes due, he wants people to be thinking of everything as sunk costs. It has to be too late to turn back.

Tax changes are coming America. And they won't be small. Obama knows the money has to come from somewhere. He's proven he won't REALLY cut costs. He's setting up for the borrowing being an unsustainable option. So where does that leave you?

A lot of new taxes. He won't tell you to read his lips, but he's already saying it if you listen closely.

Dictator Watch - Feb 1/09

Since everyone is going to be busy watching or avoiding watching the Superbowl today, it might be prudent to put together a watch list update while we are all distracted in one way or another, gorging on guacamole and pizza and burgers etc. Here then, is a brief update of the status of a few of the more infamous dictatorial regimes that we must be ever-vigilant against, even on Superbowl Sunday.

Since you might not read to the end of this post, let me pre-state the punchline;

Don't let this one slip past you America. DON'T ALLOW OBAMA TO CUT MILITARY FUNDING BY 10% .

Russian President Vladimir Putin - It looks like the ever tighten iron grip of the former KGB apparatchik, turned leader, turned shirtless dictator has hit a bit of a snag. According to the British newspaper The Daily Mail, protests are spreading across the former Soviet gulag now simply known as Russia. The deepening economic crisis that Vlady-baby has tried to pin on the evils of America and the West, are hitting Russia harder than other countries. The nation remains a possible flash point, especially if the Cardinals win this evening.

The disparate ideological range and geographic range of protest groups is creating a tinderbox of potential problems - some of the groups are ideologically opposed and could be at odds with each other, but most (not all) are at odds with the present leadership.

A possible suggestion for a solution Mr. Putin, flash 'em a bare chest again (or not);

As an aside, President Obama, this shirtless thing is never a good idea.

Looks like you are trying too hard. And Putin looks much tougher, not good.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - Mahmoud (or 'Mammie' as his still living sycophants call him) appears to be be suffering from a Persian strain of Bush Derangement Syndrome Withdrawal. Not have Bush to figuratively spit at appeared at first to have a slight calming effect on the nerdy terrorist wannabe. But no longer. He launched a tirade against President Obama recently according to Breitbart. Apparently he feels that Obama's willingness to chat is a sign of weakness (didn't McCain mention something about that during the campaign?);

"This request means Western ideology has become passive, that capitalist thought
and the system of domination have failed," Gholam Hossein Elham was quoted as
saying by the Mehr news agency.

Further detail from Breitbart,

After nearly three decades of severed ties, Obama said shortly after taking
office this month that he is willing to extend a diplomatic hand to Tehran
if the Islamic republic is ready to "unclench its fist".

In response, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad launched a fresh tirade against the United States, demanding an apology for its "crimes" against Iran and saying he expected "deep and fundamental" change from Obama.

Oh yeah, and about that nuclear bomb thing we're working on President Obama...Hey! look over there!

Venezuelan Crackpot Hugo Chavez - well not to be outdone, Hugo has three bullet points (no pun intended) for discussion this morning.

1. Chavez is orchestrating for himself a slim lead in his national referendum on Constitutional change that would allow him to remain el Presidente forever. Having lost the last few cycles, he can tamper with this one to his heart's content and still have a victory appear reasonably legitimate. Those socialist, they're not quick studies, but they do eventually learn how to win in the sneakiest of ways and still have an above-board appearance (cough-cough-ACORN). Never mind the violence associated with the win.

2. Hugo is TELLING Obama to give Guantanamo back to Cuba (uh, no.) and URGING the return of a Cuban exile and former CIA operative that Bush refused to hand over (uh, no). The exile in question, Luis Posada Carriles, would likely suffer a fate of torture, interrogation and death. Isn't this sort of like an emboldened anti-American world being more aggressive in the face of an apparently weak foreign policy President in America? I'm just asking.

3. Lastly and most importantly, Al Jazeera is reporting that Chavez and Ahmadinejad (the Iran guy) have unveiled an anti-US fund designed to help countries 'escape US imperialism' (uh, yeah, right). Some interesting points from the report;

"This fund, my brother," Chavez said, "will become a mechanism for liberation."
Chavez said the fund "will permit us to underpin investments ... above all in those countries whose governments are making efforts to liberate themselves from the [US] imperialist yoke ... Death to US imperialism."

During a visit to Iran last September, Chavez came out in support of Iran's
nuclear programme, as well as denouncing Israeli military operations in Lebanon.

and

Ahmadinejad arrived in Nicaragua late on Saturday, where Daniel Ortega has just
returned to power. The Iranian president was met at the airport by the new
Nicaraguan president.

On Monday, Ahmadinejad will take part in the swearing-in ceremony of Ecuador's new president Rafael Correa, who has vowed to forge stronger ties with Venezuela and not to renew a lease for a US military air base on the country's Pacific coast.

The Iranian president will also hold meetings with other South American presidents including Bolivia's Evo Morales on the sidelines of the ceremony in Ecuador, before finishing his tour on Tuesday.

WOW! Look at all that fermenting socialism in Central America. It's like all of the work done by Reagan and Bush 41 to free up or reinforce resistance against countries in the Western hemisphere dominated by socialist dogma ( notably Columbia - Democrats squashed the free trade agreement with the ally, Nicaragua, Panama, Grenada) is being undone in short order. Way to go Obama.

North Korean Despot Kim Jong-il - freed up from they tyranny of the evil Bush 43 years, the peaceful nation of North Korea can now return to it's Utopian goal of annexing it's southern neighbor. That's right, North Korea is talking war.

Way to go Democrats, way to go Obama! Within two weeks of the inauguration you've achieved the grand slam of foreign policy!

1. A destabilized and nuclear armed Russia, that has been drifting towards hostility to America during the entire Putin regime.

2. A re-energized and emboldened Iran.

3. A re-energized and emboldened Venezuela.

4. A re-energized and emboldened North Korea.

Also on the plus side for ultra-libs - those countries are all of socialist orientation, if not practice. AND, you've got the 80's phenom Danny Ortega on the comeback trail. Maybe he can do a guest spot on Knight Rider, or a remake of The A-Team. All in all, Biden's 6 month test is already coming in spades. The problem is, with Obamadoration still in full swing, a lazy compliant press, and an economy in recession, it's all coming in under the radar.

Don't let this one slip past you America. DON'T ALLOW OBAMA TO CUT MILITARY FUNDING BY 10% .