Back in spite of popular demand
This may be the last Random Shots before the world ends in a few days. You know what I am talking about-the sequestration. Once that happens, America will look like this:
(Hat tip Neil Cavuto)
Not that President Obama is worried. He's been on another one of those golf vacations-this time in Florida with noted economic expert Tiger Woods-while Michelle was off to Aspen for skiing.
Now I'm not implying anything, you know (other than separate vacations means separate Air Force jets). Woods may have a reputation as a playboy, but surely if there was anything improper going on, our news media would catch it.
Except they were not allowed anywhere near Woods and the prez. I guess Tiger doesn't like cameras going off in the middle of his swing. But I just know they would have reported something had they seen it, right?
"Right!"
Meanwhile, Obama is running around the fruited plain appearing before groups of people as backdrops who would be affected by the sequestration including cops, nurses, doctors, lawyers and Indian chiefs.
Meanwhile, the President's cabinet is filling up slowly. The Defense nominee, Chuck Hagel, was so bad during his confirmation hearings, yet not one Democrat turned against him. The Republicans put up a token resistance, but now the flies are dropping (McCain, Graham and Shelby). And why not? Hagel hates Israel, hates the so-called Jewish Lobby in the US and thinks the US should disarm unilaterally. He's perfect! Outside of Sgt Bilko and Beetle Bailey, I can't think of a better choice.
Meanwhile, John Brennan (who some are saying converted to Islam while stationed in Saudi Arabia) will head up our CIA. He thinks the Muslim Brotherhood is some sort of Arab Salvation Army. He clearly doesn't understand the Arab world even though it was his specialty in the CIA and he speaks fluent Arabic. And never mind all those rumors about him directing clandestine attacks against certain groups in Libya that may have caused the attack on our consulate as retribution. What difference at this point does it make? (hat tip Hillary Clinton)
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg would have been a better choice.
Of course, John Heinz Kerry has already been confirmed and is winging his way around the world in what will certainly be one failure after another.
Wait till our allies meet this windbag. Even the French will be appalled. Hopefully, he won't take his wife, Teresa ("Isn't she terrific?") Heinz Kerry with him. She can destroy diplomatic relations in 5 languages.
"Va funculo, Fousesquawk."
But let's get to the main event. Is there a bigger crook in the history of the US Congress than Jesse Jackson Jr? He and his wife (former Chicago Alderman Sandra Jackson) have just pleaded guilty to bilking the public for some $750,000 dollars over 7 years using his campaign credit card to buy furs, vacations, a Rolex watch worth over $40,000, and all kinds of stuff. This was so brazen even Eric Holder's Justice Department couldn't ignore this one. Apparently, under the plea deal, he will only serve 4-5 years and his wife 1-2 years.
So now we know what was plaguing Jackson all these months he was out of public view and at the Mayo Clinic being treated for "exhaustion" and "bi-polar disorder". He knew the law was closing in on him and he was on his way to the slammer. I would be bi-polar too.
On a final note, we hear that our "professionals" in the TSA did the complete search on a 3-year-old girl in a stroller at some airport thinking that the stroller might be concealing a bomb. I can only hope that they subject Janet Napolitano to the full monty the next time she gets on a plane-you know, strip search, bend over and spread em, Janet.
I would like to continue, but the end of the world is getting nearer-and so is Eric Holder's Justice Department.
Speaking of sequestration, Obama recently made a statement that I believe can best be described as bizarre. He said that the reason the sequestration legislation (which involved mandatory spending cuts) was passed was to enable the Congress to work together to avoid spending cuts. SAY WHAT??? Sounds to me something like destroying a village in order to save it, no??
ReplyDeleteI guess I just don’t get it. What I believe to be accurate reporting has the idea/concept of sequestration originating with Obama/Jack Lew, et al, and then going to Harry Reid, and then being passed by both houses of Congress, and then BEING SIGNED INTO LAW IN 2011 BY OBAMA HIMSELF after actually threatening to veto it if it did not contain the cuts. Now, Obama and many Dems, at least some of whom voted in favor of the bill, are moaning and whining about the cuts they previously supported.
I am afraid I simply do not understand how sequestration could be a good idea in 2011 which morphed into a bad idea in 2013, since nothing of any significance in terms of relevance has changed in the last year-and-a-half that I know of.
Interestingly, the proposed cuts (in round numbers roughly 2% of the total annual Federal budget) are essentially equivalent to the income reduction of most if not all working Americans, commencing in 2013 due to expiration of the “payroll tax holiday”. Again, I simply do not comprehend how people can be expected tolerate a 2% income reduction, but government cannot be expected to tolerate a quite similar 2% budget/spending cut.
I seem to recall recall predictions that the sky would fall if the holiday was not extended; didn’t happen, or at least not yet. We are getting similar predictions (scare tactics) from Obama/Dems that the world will end due to sequestration; won’t happen either, particularly if cuts are appropriate and properly prioritized.
In this whole budget/economic mess, the most telling, and scary, relevant stat I heard this week (I actually had to check the math, which is accurate) involved the national debt, which of course is a function of ongoing, seemingly endless, defecit-producing spending. If we started paying down the current national debt at $1.00 per second every second, and incurred no further defecits/debt at any time in the future (which of course will not happen), it would take something in excess of 500,000 years to pay it off. YES, I SAID 500,000 YEARS!!! THAT IS HALF A MILLION YEARS!!!
That may not scare anybody else but it sure scares/disturbs me. And to think that I was previously scared only of fear itself and green Kryptonite.
Fousesquawk endorses Julius and Ethel Rosenberg for positions in the cabinet. You go, Gary!
ReplyDeleteelwood, you obviously weren't paying attention in 2011 and 2012, and are only now reading back through the history of sequestration.
1) Everyone knew substantial chances in spending and/or revenue were necessary.
2) The necessary congressional majorities or super-majorities and/or presidential signatures could not be lined up behind a comprehensive long-term program.
3) Certain decisions needed to be made immediately.
4) Sequestration offered the necessary numbers, but in such bad policy formulation that everyone assumed it would motivate congress to get its act together and agree on something better.
5) So far, that hasn't happened.
Siarlys,
ReplyDeleteIn reality, it really doesn't make any difference. We are talking about a cut in the increase of govt spending. The fed govt is going to spend 15 billion more than last year, so how is the world going to end? Our numbskull leaders in Wash are trying to scare us.
"807,000 fewer Native Americans will be able to go to the hospital???
This is all smoke and mirrors.
Gary, how does the cost of beef at your local food store compare to five years ago? OR even German beer?
ReplyDeleteSiarlys, how you talk. Something like I guess studying for a test, since I do not have a photographic memory/total recall as you apparently do, nor do I know everything about anything, let alone everything, also as you apparently do, OF COURSE I will go back and brush up/refresh (if I had notes I would consult them) a little bit on stuff that goes back a ways in order to be as accurate as is possible. If , for example, I re-visit Fast & Furious or Benghazi a year or two from now I will do the same thing, and I would highly recommend it to all of those who do not have your gifts/blessings.
ReplyDeleteThis is monkey motion to the nth degree. Congress cannot agree with itself or the Pres on legislation, so they pass legislation to motivate/compel them to pass agreeable legislation in the future?? Whatever they are going to do now could and should have been done then (same conditions now as then), sounds like a bunch of teenagers, or maybe more properly middle-schoolers, to me, particularly in the lib/Dem ranks.
At least as far as I can understand it, these so-called budget/spending cuts are not really cuts at all, but only reductions in the rate of spending increases for the next 10 years, over which Federal spending increases each and every year, with annual defecits in the vicinity of $1 trillion, in spite of sequestration. If that is accurate, and I believe it is, then the only fiscal year which might actually sustain real cuts is the current one (which runs from Oct. 1, 2012-Sept. 30, 2013). These cuts, if they occur at all, could most certainly be minimized, and this year (actually about half of it) is really the only one we have to worry about.
Siarlys appears to be somewhat ignorant of the processes involved in government budgeting/spending. In that regard, I can guarantee you that virtually each and every Federal agency has new hires, new “initiatives”/programs, etc., with the accompanying increased spending, worked into future budgets. If the money is there, fine. If not, then all that is required is to not implement the changes/increases, and to then and therefore spend at the last year’s level on already existing stuff, with perhaps a very minor bump for today’s near non-existent inflation rates, no big deal there. Problem essentially solved.
Instead, what we have is that all that libs/Dems appear to understand is additional tax increases. Barring that, what responsible executive/manager, to include the CEO of the US of A Himself would, for example, furlough current employees (FBI Special Agents would be a prime example), and then go ahead and use the money “saved” to hire new ones, who will be untrained and therefore unable to function effectively until they are trained, at whatever cost that would be, while the old employees would have done fine?? What manager would suspend tried and tested procedures/policies/programs and use the money “saved” there by implementing new, untested and possibly ineffective programs?? No savings in either instance.
Absent any other explanation, which I have not yet heard, the lib/Dem proposals that I am aware of certainly appear to be intentionally designed to maximize rather than minimize the negative impact of sequestration on the country, the budget, the economy, and the people. Figure out the motivation however you want to, in my book it is all scare tactics and partisan politics, and the devil take the rest of us.