The worst thing abut Obama is not that he has failed to improve the job market, or that the "recovery" is failing (see news on Friday revising "growth"--all government--to only 2.7% for the first quarter, which was half of the previous quarter). The worst thing about Obama, and the Democrats in Congress, is that they have spent us into bankruptcy--making a real "recovery" impossible--for NO results.


I have chronicled for months that unemployment claims (new ones, indicating lost jobs) have NOT IMPROVED for over 6 months. And the unemployment rate has not improved for the entire Obama Presidency--not even improving substantially from its WORST levels.


Now ADP (the authority in this area) has reported that private sector payrolls "grew" by 13,000 in June (an average of 260 jobs per state, and really no growth at all as the number is well within the margin of error). This was "far less" than expected. Perpetually surprised economists, according to Marketwatch, had expected a 0,000 increase. Marketwatch called this "lame data".


Yesterday, a leading authority on "consumer confidence" reported confidence in the economy dropped from 62 to 52 in June--a HUGE drop. Economists (part of the Stupidest People on Earth) had predicted that number wuld be 62 (representing an index number showing consumer sentiment).


What has all of Obama's spending got us, besides what the CBO calls an "unsustainable" deficit and debut. Come to think of it, OBAMA has called it an "unsustainable" deficit and debt. I will answer the rhetorical question. It has gotten us NOTHING--less than nothing, in that we would have been much better off doing nothing.


No jobs. 13,000 was about 1/3 of the DISAPPOINTING number for last month. Indeed, temporary Census jobs are ending, or about to end. Thus, the prediction for the Friday government job report is for a big DECLINE in total jobs in June. The Federal Government has been the only source of real job growth, and that is ending.


Now the predictions for job losses in June may be overstated, so that it can be said that the loss reported is "less than expected". Doesn't matter--keep this in mind for Friday. The ADP report shows that the results are already in. Private employment is NOT GROWING. Nothing reported on Friday can change that, and the timing of loss of Census jobs is irrelevant. The headline news could be grim on Friday. Even if it is manipulated to not appear as grim "as predicted", you already know the real story.


Obama and the Democrats have failed. They are failing again and again. No amount of "spin" is going to change that, and yesterday's consumer confidence number shows that people are not being deceived.


P.S. Want to be further depressed? House sales are falling off of a cliff, as expected after the end of the government subsidy that has distorted previous figures. One in every three house sales (today's news) is now a foreclosure sale. Government can DISTORT numbers, and make them look momentarily good, but it has been proven again and again that government cannot run/"cure" the economy. Obama has proved it again. Obama has also proven that government can make the situation much worse, and that is what he and the Democrats have done.

""It is clear that the Framers . . . counted the right to keep and bear arms among those fundamental rights necessary to our system of ordered liberty," Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote for the conservatives on the court."


The above is from a Monday story about the Supreme Court decision affirming that the Second Amendment applies to the states, and gives individual Americans the "right to bear arms". There should never have been any question that the Second Amendment was meant to LIMIT the Federal Government power to legislate on guns, since there is no other reason for the Second Amendment to exist. Only dishonest hypocrites on the left do not understand--or pretend not to understand--the latter point.


Justice Alito is obviously right, even if his statement is misleading (for reasons stated below). The "Framers" had to have considered the right to bear arms as a fundamental right that needed to be protected. There are only 8 substantive Amendments in the Bill of Rights--where the 9th and 10th Amendments were unsuccessful attempts to make sure that people understood that the Federal Government was a government of limited powers, and that listing of some specific rights did NOT mean that the Federal Government had the power to do everything else. The Second Amendment was important enough to the Framers to be put SECOND among the 8 fundamental Amendments that were required before the states would ratify the original Constitution. You have to be a brain dead leftist not to understand that the Framers regarded the right to bear arms as fundamental. How can you get more "fundamental" than being one of the 8 most important principles to protect from government interference in the Constitution?


Bit where is this misleading? It is misleading because the Bill of Rights was almost entirely a STATES' RIGHTS document. It was meant to protect people from an all-powerful FEDERAL government that people feared might evolve from the Federal government of limited powers that was supposedly being created--feared correctly. If the Federal Government truly was to have only the powers granted to it in the Constitution, there was no need for the Bill of Rights. The Federal Government supposedly did not have the right to interfere with those rights anyway, and listing SOME rights would imply that the Federal Government had unlimited powers in other areas. Hence the 9th and 10th Amendments,--to avoid that conclusion--which have been dismissed as "truisms". Unfortunately, the 9th and 10tth Amendments have turned out to be neither true nor effective, as the Federal Government has pretty much turned into a government of unlimited power (except for specific prohibitions in the Constitution). If the Federal Government can require mandatory health insurance, it is a government of unlimited power. It is true that many of us don't accept that, but our view has been pretty much ignored since FDR.


Thus, as I said in my comments on my own article over the weekend--anticipating this Supreme Court opinion and argument, in my usual foresight--in 1800 New York could both establish a STATE CHURCH and BAN GUNS without violating either the First Amendment or the Second Amendment. That was because those Amendments, and almost all of the Bill of Rights, DID NOT APPLY TO THE STATES. The Bill of Rights was truly a states' rights document intended to protect people, and states, only from the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. Sure, states had similar protections in their constitutions and laws, but they were not the business of the Supreme Court. They were the business of the people in the individual states, and of the state courts. One of the things we have lost is the FREEDOM of each individual state, and the people of that state, to determine how to INTERPRET what is meant by the "right" to free speech, religious freedom, and the right to bear arms. Why should the Supreme Court, and its nine members, be able to impose its view of these rights uniformly on the STATES, and the people in those states? The idea was that the Federal Government should not be able to impose restrictions on those rights on us ALL, but that we would retain the freedom to determine how those rights applied in each individual state. What happened?


Slavery happened (not black people, but the evil of slavery). Or, rather, it had already happened. That ultimately led to the Civil War. The Civil War, in turn, led to the vague 14th Amendment--which even its authors did not have any idea of what the vague words meant. The people who passed the 14th Amendment would have been horrified to know that they were PROHIBITING PRAYER IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS (about a 100 years later).


Nope. The 14th Amendment says nothing abut applying the Bill of Rights to the states. The First Amendment, after all, says: "CONGRESS shall make no law....." Clear that it does not apply to the states, right? The 14th Amendment does not change that. But what does the 14th Amendment mean by 'privileges and immunities"? Really, no one knows. For 70 years, the 14th Amendment had little effect on appplying the Bill of Rights to the states, although a major effect on conservative activism and "substantive due process" (see P.P.S.). Indeed, the Supreme Court concentrated on the part of the Constitution that DOES apply to the states--talking about no impairment of contracts--and on protecting the rights of BUSINESSES using the "due process" clause. If they were as clever as leftists would eventually become, they probably would have made more use of the 14th Amendment, but that was so clearly related to racial type discrimination, and so vague, that "conservative" justices did not really make much of a point of the 14th Amendment. Enter the FDR court.


For the FDR court, the vague 14th Amendment was perfect for a Supreme Court POWER GRAB: for Supreme Court justices to frame themselves as the protector of the people's rights, just like FDR himself. Even the "conservatives" on the FDR court, like Justice Harlan, were fairly open to this power grab, if not quite as open as the leftists. After all, don't Supreme Court justices regard themselves as superior to most people--especially state court judges--in every way? Why should the Bill of Rights only restrict the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT? Did not people have the "right" to have superior Supreme Court judges protect them FROM THE STATES as well as the Federal Government? The 14th Amendment was there, waiting, as a perfect, vague vehicle for this FEDERAL poer grab. yes, the Supreme Court is part of the FEDERAL government. This is the ultimate irony: that a document--the Bill of Rights--meant to restrain FEDERAL power became a vehicle of Federal power, through the 14th Amendment. This did not eve begin to happen until about 1940, and would not prohibit prayer in local public schools until after 1960.


What did the FDR Supreme Court do? It did an indefensible, nutty thing, but a thing which has now represented the law of the land for some 70 years. It said that the 14th Amendment was meant to protect people from all "state action", as to those "rights" which this country has determined to be fundamental. The right to be free to decide--state by state---whether to have prayer in the schools and how to interpret the right to free speech on a state level were obviously not rights the FDR court regarded as "fundamental". But what were thos fundamental rights supposedly meant to be protected by the 14th Amendment? Ah, there was the Bill of Rights. That must be it, right? Even though the First Amendment refers to CONGRESS and the Second Amendment seems to contemplate state regulation. Thus, the FDR court was not quite as arrogant as Obama--not quite as arrogant as to say that "fundamental" rights are what WE determine them to be, in our infinite wisdom.


Problem solved, right? The 14th Amendment, despite logical absurdities, applies the Bill of Rights to the states. Wrong, bison breath (Johny Carson, "Karnak" reference). The FDR court, in one of the most DISHONEST assertions of power in history, refused to say that (maybe because they foresaw the problem over the Second Amendment and another item or two in the Bill of Rights). What the Supreme Court did was to say that it would make a separate determination of whether each of the Amendments in the Bill of Rights is so fundamental as to be applied to the states by the 14th Amendment. However, once that determination is made, then the protection of that Amendment will apply to the states the SAME as it applies to the Federal Government, even though the Amendment may--like the Firt Amendment--SAY it only applies to Congress. Thus, the Supreme Court asserted the power to make the states comply with the Bill of Rights AS IF each state were the Federal Government--a total fiction and violation of what the Framers meant the Bill of Rights to be. It was a naked Federal power grab. And the idea that the Supreme Court could "pick and choose" which Amendments were "important" and which were not was ABSURD.


This doctrine of "selective incorporation" was developed abut 70 years ago, and has been the law of the land. The Second Amendment has never been "incorporated" before, but neither has it NOT been incorporated. Further, if you are intellectually honest, as leftist are not, you have to see that every substantive part of the Bill of Rights MUST be "Incorporated" as "fundamental", because how else can you define something important enough to be in the Bill of Rights? That is what Alito was saying, and he is right. It is what I would have decided, were I on the Supreme Court.


"But", my brother says, "you don't believe the 14th Amendment should ever have been sued to extend Federal power this way. You think STATES have the right to ban guns, because the Bill of Rights does not apply to the states. You hypocrite, you."


Not guilty. First, of course, I would STRICTLY enforce the Second Amendment, and limitation of Federal power inherent in our very system set up by the Constitution and affirmed in the 9th and 10th Amendments, beyond what the Supreme Court now does. That is one of the many evils of applying the Bill of Rights equally to the states and the Federal Government. The Federal Government, as the more dangerous entity, should be MORE restricted than the states, and it is further supposed to be an entity of LIMITED powers. That means error should be on the side of LIMITING the Federal Government. That is not true of the less powerful states.


But almost no one accepts my view on this. And I did not get the top grade in my University of Texas School of Law Constitutional Law class by asserting my view as correrct, and ignoring the way present law actually is. Nope. Alito is correct, even if he happens to agree with me about the Bill of Rights (and he probably would not say he does). There is such a thing as precedent. And if you are going to be a REVOLUTIONARY setting aside 70 years of settled Constitutional Law, you have to prepare the way in small steps.


The first step is to require INTELLECTUAL HONESTY in tis interpretation of the 14th Amendment started by the FDR court. That is what the Supreme Court rightly did in applying the 14th Amendment to all state action. If the Second Amendment is not "fundamental", then why is it the SECOND AMENDMENT. And that reference to state militia can't possibly affect that under the FDR court principle, just as the reference to "Congress" in the First Amendment was not allowed to derail the FDR court.


If the FDR court principle of how to interpret the 14th Amendment has to be basically accepted as presently established law, and it does, then it must be applied with HONESTY. That is what the Supreme Court majority did, and what I would have done. Now I might have--in "dicta"--tried to prepare the way for returning to the actual Constitution, instead of the entirely different thing created by the Supreme Court. But it is too much to expect for any present member of the court to be that revolutionary.


In context, the Supreme Court was dead right in its gun right decision,. At least the "conservatives" were dead right. The leftists on the court were dishonest hypocrites, but that is nothing new.


P.S. The title reference is, of course, to Charlton Heston's famous statement that "they" (the government) will only be able to take his gun away from him if they "pry it from my cold, dead hand". Isn't it nice that the FDR Supreme Court set in motion the application of the Second Amendment to th states, thereby saving conservative gun rights advocates, like Heston, from this fate. Sure, we can see from the leftists on the curt, who dissented, that leftists never intended to be intellectually honest in this. Still, the principle they created has ended up helping the NRA. I love it.


P.P.S. What if there were no 14th Amendment (and it never would have passed without the Civil War)? Well, you might well tink that the Supreme Court would have MADE UP another method of reading their own power--own values of the individual justices--into the Constitution (an unconstitutional act). From 1900 (and before) to 1935, there was "conservative activism" on the U.S. Supreme Court. The really is no such thing as "conservative activist" judges now, in the sense of leftist activists. There was then. Conservatives used the "due process" clause, rather than the 14th Amendment's other language, to impose their views to invalidate state laws and actions. They did this mainly to protect business and property interests. This was called "substantive due process", and was sort of discredited by liberal/FDR critics. I say "sort of", because the left has returned to the concept of substantive due process--as distinguished from procedural due process--from time to time. The criticism was that substantive due process was used to impose the policy views of the conservative justices on the nation (lol). See what hypocrites leftists are!!!! That is, of course, exactly what leftists want the Supreme Court to do--but by imposing leftist views--and it is exactly what leftist activist justices/judges are doing. You may, therefore, conclude that the Supreme Court would have found a way to make the same power grab, even without the 14th Amendment. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The Supreme Court was corrupted long ago. That does not make it right. It is an unconstitutional usurpation of power. If you are going to usurp power that way, however, you have to accept that the principles you advocate will have consequences you may not like. That is what has happened to leftists with the gun rights decision, as the conservative--sort of--majority has simply applied the FDR court principle with INTELLECTUAL HONESTY. That is exactly what they should have done.

By CHRISTOPHER S. RUGABER, AP Economics Writer Christopher S. Rugaber, Ap Economics Writer – 1 min ago

"WASHINGTON – The government lowered its estimate of how much the economy grew in the first quarter of the year, noting that consumers spent less than it previously thought."


The above is the AP "lead" from Friday's story about the downward revision of second quarter GDP numbers (the byline being left because I think the corrupt liars of the AP deserve to be identified by name). Notice how INCOMPETENT the quoted lead paragraph is. The facts are not there. Here is a more correct lead (yes, I am more competent than ANYONE in the despicable AP as a journalist): "The Commerce Department revised downward its estimate of second quarter GDP growth from 3.2% to 2.7%--a downward revision of ..15% in the economy's second quarter growth (.5 divided by 3.2)."The parenthetical is just to show you how the 15% is arrived at. It gets far worse, as the AP again showed itself to be composed of nothing but corrupt liars.


Yes, the mainstream media pretty much ignored this significant proof of a weak, and weakening, economy. The next sentence should have read: "2.7% is less than half of the 5.6% GDP growth in the previous quarter, and represents a significant slowing of the recovery." That is NOT how the AP went on, although the APO did, at least, have the shame to admit that the 2.7% number shows a weak recovery


What the lying hypocrites at the AP--who did NOT write stories this way on Bush economic numbers--did go on to say was that the 2.7% represented "healthy" growth "in normal times", although pretty weak for a recovery. This was all in thr process of DISGUISING the significant downward revision by rehashing the same story that accompanied the original--wrong--3.2% estimate (several straight quarters of growth, etc.). The significan SLOWING in growth, and in the recovery, was pretty much submerged as much as possible.


The AP reference to 2.7% as "healthy" growth, "in normal times", was an OUTRIGHT LIE. That is a consistent habit of the AP--lying outright (not a matter of opinion). Yep. I am calling the writer(s) named above liars, and they objectively are liars. Growth under 3% is NOT "healthy" growth in normal times. 3.2% might be regarded as on the low end of "healthy", but 2.7% is WEAK for normal times. The AP simply made up their lying statement. Yes, if the economy had been in danger of "overheating" (lol), 2.7% might be regarded as ACCEPTABLE (although worrisome in terms of too much deceleration)) in returning the economy to a sustainable growth rate. That is not the case here, and even the AP can't quite claim it is. If we were truly in normal times, and growing about 3.5% a quarter, 2.7% would NOT be "healthy". It would be extremely concerning--on the edge of dangerous. In a recovery, this deceleration in growth--growth totally from government spending--is truly DANGEROUS and UNACCEPTABLE.


Doubt me? Let me go back to the summer of 2008, when most people agree we were already in a recession disguised by the FAILED Democrat/Bush "stimulus" of that summer. George Bush was President, although economic policy was already being determined by the Democratic Congress's elected in 20006 (along with Bush--a Big Government guy himself--joining in their policy with Paulson, a Geitner clone). The GDP GREW for both of the first two quarters of 2008--I believe 1.1% in lthe second quarter ending June 30, 2008. Democrats, and the mainstream media, dismissed that and assserted we were in a recession anyway. For once, they were probably right, even though it did not fit the classic definition of a recession. Nor was the "recession" yet severe. That would not occur until the Bush/Democrat/Paulson PANIC in the fall of 2008. /What would have occurred without the panic bailouts to save Goldman Sachs and Wall Street will never be known, but it could hardly have been worse--especially approaching 2 years later--than what actually occurred.


You see the point here. Just how much worse is 1.1% (following a previous year of substantial growth and an ALL-TIME Dow high in October of 2007) than a "growth" of 2.7% juiced by even more government spending (on housing subsidies, "cash for clunkers", and thousands of other wasteful things)?


Nope. That 2.7% revised number was truly BAD news of FAILURE on the economy, and the corrupt agenda of the mainstream media is the only reason it was not obvious (as it still was to anyone paying attention). If Bush were still President, the headlines would have SCREAMED about how BAD the economy is. Yes, if you accept that the mainstream media represents merely a POLITICAL faction in this country regarding itself as part of the left, you can say that this kind of DECEPTION is normal POLITICS (limke Rush Limbaugh on the other side, although I don't think Limbaugh actually lies as often as the despicable AP). But these hypocrites still PRETEND to be "journalists". That is the biggest LIE of all


P.S. You may have noticed somewhat more negative--or which could be construed as negative--references on my part to Rush Limbaugh (who I still admire, and think is right much more than he is wrong). I have always been willing to disagree with Limbaugh--usually to be proven right in those disagreements. However, I blame my recent, pretty much unconscious, negativity on a sense of BETRAYAL. I am sure you are aware that Limbaugh just got married again, after PROMISING he would not do that. This is something like his fourth marriage, or is it only 3? (Dirty Harry reference). I, on the other hand, married only once. That is because I--unlike Limbaugh--realized that I am not cut out for marriage with an actual woman (nuts, all of them, and especially any who would consider marrying me, to analogize to Groucho Marx saying he would not join any club who would have him as a member). This is to be distinguished from a FANTASY WOMAN, who can be anything you want her to be.. You can see again that I am smarter than Rush Limbaugh.

"Do they (Obama Administration and government bureaucrats) really think we are that stupid?" That was John Stewart's (Comedy Central) reaction to the MMS CHANGE OF NAME (to a propaganda name similar in tone and motivation to "The People's Republic of China", and any number of other leftist attempts to lie with with meaningless, high sounding words).


You remember the MMS. That is the Federal agency whose bureaucrats were more interested in porn--according to Stewart--than in regulating offshore oil rigs--the organization in charge of regulating that BP well/oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. Although Stewart did not say so, this is "the magic wand theory of government": the idea that all you have to do is wave a magic wand--like merely changing the name--and government can "solve" any problem, in or out of government. Jon Stewart accurately asks: "How stupid do they think we are?"


Well, I will tell you how stupid I think Jon Stewart, and similar leftists, are (although Stewart shows sporadic signs of intelligence). An individual leftist, like Stewart, may choke on a specific government idiocy, but it never seems to cause them to question the overall magic wand theory of government. Regulation fails, because government bureaucrats are shown to be merely human beings without the God-like ability to magically "solve" all of our problems? Human beings LESS SMART than most of us? Doesn't matter. The reaction of leftists is MORE GOVERNMENT, more government regulation, and more government power and control over our lives.


So Joh Stewart asks: "How stupid do they think we are?" I will tell Jon Steart how stupid I think leftists are: pretty darn stupid, which is why leftist politicians think they can get away with anything. How stupid is it to keep advocating the magic wand theory of government--that government can wave a bureaucratic magic wand and "solve" all problems--when both theory and experience have shown us this is not true? It is hard to get any more stupid than that. All powerful central planning has NEVER worked, and theory tells you it cannot work (because not person, or small group of persons, has enough knowledge or God-like ability to make that kind of power work).


However, leftists keep trying. That is how stupid they think we are. Take the new "financial reform" bill. It is a 20000 page (they are ALL 2000 pages or more these days) monstrosity that basically turns our entire financial sector over to the Federal bureaucracy (as the health care bill does with our health care system). This is the magic wand theory in action. The mere creation of a massive new Federal bureaucracy and power supposedly "solves" the problems with our financial sector (as distinguished from punishing failure by letting it happen). Hogwash. There is NO indication any of these bureaucrats will be any better than those of the MMS. You will note that Geitner and the rest--including the people on Wall Street who think they are now PARTNERS with the government--utterly FAILED to see the financial crisis coming. Now--as always with leftists--they want to be rewarded for that failure with more power. That is power to fail more disastrously next time, because the failure is ever more centralized. (The converts to economic fascism on Wall Street, and CNBC--relying on that "partnership" between themselves and Big Government that is the definition of economic fascism--fully expect to CONTROL the way that the Federal bureaucrats eventually exercise the virtually unlimited power the bill gives them.)


Nope. Joh Stewart, you ARE stupid. And most leftists are more stupid than you are. Leftist politicians---inclulding establishment Republicans--count on that stupidity.

General Petraeus, Savior: Or Is He General Betray Us?

No, I have no problem with General Petraeus। The headline reference is to that full page, Moveon.org ad when General Petraeus was nominated by President Bush to take over command in Iraq (a war Petraeus would turn around after Democrats like Harry Reid were calling it "lost"). The disgraceful ad hedline was: "General Betray Us". Perhaps never has even the left been proven so wrong so conclusively.

Remember that it is not only Moveon।org and Harry Reid who TRASHED General Petraeus. The Democrats in Congress--including Barack Obama--openly questioned the competence and integrity of General Petraeus. Hillary Clinton virtually called him a liar. You will remember how Democrats basically refused to condemn the Moveon.org ad, and virtually endorsed the content of the ad (if not the disgraceful headline). Yes, I did articles at the time condemning Democrats for that trashing of General Petraeus. As usual, I have been PROVEN right, and the left PROVEN wrong.

Think how much General Petraeus must be savoring the irony. President Obama is part of the group in Congress that tried to trash him, mainly for political reasons. Now President Obama is relying upon Petraeus to SAVE his ass. Irony does not get any more delicious than that. Yes, Petraeus is also trying to again help his country, and in that I hope he succeeds---even if that could be regarded as helping President Obama politically. Believe it or not, I don't put politics above my country. I do wonder, however, how some of these hypocrites on the left--including n the media--can sleep at night. Don't they suffer from WHIPLASH at the violent and contradictory shifts in their positions for POLITICAL reasons?

Once Obama and Clinton questioned the integrity of General Petraeus, and suggested he was not being honest with them about Iraq. Now General McChrystal is bein condemned for being candid--he and his staff--about their opinions on Obama and Afghanistan, and Petraeus is being praised as the guy who can be relied upon not to undermine his Commander-in-Chief (not matter what he may privately think). You can cut the irony with a knife.
Yes, the mainstream media has called Obama "brilliant" for this move--as if he had any choice and as if the BRILLIANCE was not tat of President Bush in appointing General Petraeus to take charge in Iraq IN THE FACE OF OPPOSITION FROM OBAMA AND THE DEMOCRATS। Now the corrupt mainstream media is totally "in the tank" for Obama, and thus they are falling over themselves to try to get him out of this McChrystal mess by calling him "brilliant". Some on the left, however, have not forgotten that they OPPOSE the ear in Afghanistan, and wanted us to lose in Iraq. When not trying to rescue Obama, the mainstream media pretty much shares these positions. Thus, Rolling Stone and the left surely wanted Obama to use this as an opportunity to start GETTING OUT OF AFGHANISTAN--of beginning to end that war. After all, Petraeus was already in command in Afghanistan--just at a higher level than McChrystal and with responsibility for the entire region.

Look at what Petraeus has agreed to do--partly because he is a true patriot and partly, in my opinion, because he has to appreciate the irony। (I would guess the "patriot" in Petraeus is the primary motivation, since Petraeus is probably not as petty as I am.) It is like Eisenhower stepping down as Supreme Allied Commander and replacing Patten as head of the Third Army (perhaps because Patten slapped that soldier). Or what if Grant gave up command of all Union armies, and went back to only command of the Army of the Potomac. That is essentially what Petraeus is doing. You could almost regard it as a demotion. Hey, could Obama really be that devious? No, to start thinking in that kind of conspiracy manner is the way to becoming as mad as most leftists.

How can it be "brilliant" to put the man already in overall charge in direct charge? Ask the corrupt sycophants in the mainstream media that one. It was just the only choice Obama had, UNLESS he was going to appease the left and start the process of abandoning Afghanistan--of getting out and accepting defeat like Obama, Clinton and the Democrats wanted to do when Petraeus was given the task of turning around the Irawq war. The only person who looks really good here is Petraeus. As stated, he has to appreciate the irony, even with the assumption that he is much less petty about that than I would be.

P.S. What is really funny here is the attempt--by Obama, Democrats and the media--to bolster President Obama by getting General Petraeus to express support for the way Obama is handling Afghanistan. What is the one thing we KNOW after the General McChrystal fiasco? Right. A good general does not contradict or undermine his Commander-in-Chief in public--no matter what his private opinions. So what are General Petraeus; expressions of "support" for President Obama's policies really worth? Obviously, not much. Nope. I am not saying General Petraeus will tell direct lies. But the McChrystal fiasco shows that a good general is EXPECTED to evade and rationalize--in public--to avoid criticizing his Commander-in-Chief. I DARE any of you hypocrites on the left to exlpose your hypocirsy by telling me how wrong I am on this, when I am obviously right. Indeed, it is something like this that Clinton, Obama, Reid and the rest were accusing Petraeus of during his confirmation hearings on being appointed to command in Iraq. You simply CAN'T--unless you are a hypocritical leftist or mainstream media person--say that you expect generals to be completely candid, and then fire General McChrystal for being candid. Yes, I think General McChrystal had to go, but the fact he was forced out proves that NO presently serving general can be candid in what he says publicly.

Obama Fails, and Fails Again: On Jobs and Everything Else

You will remember that the reported (subject to revision the following week, as usual) number of new unemployment claims on June 10 was 453,000--about the same as the number in late November and December of 2009. The AVERAGE for all of December was 455,000. And the four week average reported on June 10 was HIGHER than that (as it still is). This meant that for more than six months, Obama has FAILED to bring about any improvement in the job market. There is no way to "spin" these numbers any other way. The job market has STALLED for more than six months, despite out-of-control government spending that makes a long-term recovery impossible. The "stimulus" has FAILED. We have mortgaged our future for NO gain in the present--much worse than doing nothing at all.


Well, I am back from vacation. And the usual jobless claims number came out this Thursday morning. Obama lost 457,000 jobs last week (a parody of how the CORRUPT mainstream media reports these numbers). Indeed, Obama now is giving 9.7 million people unemployment checks instead of a job (parody again), and that number of people receiving weekly checks went UP 155,000. The important point is that his number is UP from the number reported just before I went on vacation (when the weekly number was reported as 453,000). Did you notice that last week's number was BAD, without me to point it out to you? Yes, the number fell 9,0000 this week (subject to revision), but that means last week's number was a bad 466,000. I was on vacation and paid no attention. Did you? The stupid people on Wall Street did not (the Stupidest People on Earth), as the Dow remained close to 10,3000 (solidly above the 10,000 level it fell below a few weeks ago, even though the country seems to be falling apart, with no improvement in jobs, the Gulf, or the world situation). The Dow is down early today, but I have already shown you that stock market movements have nothing much to do with economic reality (something I had to explain to Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity when they were trying to say the stock market was voting "thumbs down" on Obama and the economy in March of 2009).


Yes, I am back, and the situation has not changed. The FAILURE of the Obama/Democrat/Bush "stimulus"/spending policies remains stark and undeniable. We have NOT IMPROVED in the labor market in more than six months. We have been "bumping along the bottom"--despite the outright LIES of the CORRUPT mainstream media over that entire time trying to point to each weekly improvement and dismiss each bad weekly report. 457,000 in new unemployment claims last week is exactly where we were at the beginning of last December (as shown by the averages in December). How many TRILLIONS of dollars have we WASTED over that time, and before, with the assurance that it would make things better for us to mortgage our future in that way?


Now the total number of people receiving unemployment is an AMBIGUOUS number--as I told you before I left on vacation. People leave the unemployment rolls for various reasons, and not just because they have found a job. The weekly jobless claims number is actually, over time, a better indication of where we are in the labor market. You would expect the total number of people on unemployment to drop as the labor market merely stabilizes, and that is what has happened. You would further expect that drop to not continue, unless the weekly claims number improves substantially. That appears to be what is happening, although one week does not mean much. You certainly can't see a dramatic drop in the people on unemployment without an improvement in the weekly jobless claims number, once the initial stabilization of the labor market has been fully factored in. That stabilization began last summer (before any Obama "stimulus" could have had any real effect), and was really fully accomplished by November.


Since November, we HAVE NOT IMPROVED. We are not improving in the labor market. Thus, the failure of Obama extends across the board. The Gulf of Mexico. Illegal immigration (where Obama looks upon a "secure border" as mere BLACKMAIL material to get amnesty, since he has no intention of stopping illegal immigration). Foreign policy in shambles. No respect for Obama from either our enemies or our own military. Health care "plan" tha almost nobody wants, and will not even go into real effect until 2014. Government spending totally out of control. Taxes scheduled to rise at the absolute worst time. Terrorists popping up regularly in the U.S., while Obama worries mainly abut the RIGHTS of terrorists (and about apologizing to the world for the Arizona law, as if that is more important, even as the situation in Mexico steadily gets WORSE). Afghanistan not working well, as Obama encourages our enemies with a "timetable for withdrawal" and Miranda rights for terrorists fighting us.


I could go on, but you get the idea. Failure, failure everywhere, but nary a drop to drink (drop of success, that is).

Obama and General McChrystal: The Wimp-in-Chief (a Rolling Stone Gathers Generals, as Media Shows how BAD It Is)--posted 6/23 on Newsvine

The headline refers, of course, to the statements of General McChrystal (and staff), in that Rolling Stone Magazine interview, as I heard it reported by CNN as I waited in the New York airport (LGA). There are two issues here--basically independent of one another no matter how much a corrupt mainstream media would like to link them.


The first issue is whether General McChrystal is basically RIGHT in his characterization of teh Obama Administration, whether or not he was wrong in the way he did it (as he, mimself, correctly recognized in his apology). The answer here is clear: General McChrystal was right.


Oh, he did engage in some over-the-top hyperbole (which McChrystal fully realized he was using for dramatic effect, to emphasize his frustration--and especially the frustration of officers under him, who evidently blew off steam as younger officers are wont to do when placed in a candid situation). Is the Obama Administration really the "main enemy" in Afghanistan for McChrystal? That statement is factually not correct, and you have to take it as meaning the Obama Administration is the most FRUSTRATING and unanticipated enemy of what McChrystal is trying to accomplish. To take this statement literally is to deliberately misconstrue what McChrystal was trying to say. It is no more plausible--and no less plausible--that President Obama WANTS the Taliban to defeat us in Afghanistan than that President Bush deliberately helped arrange for 9/11 to happen (a position toward which much of the left and mainstream media was surprisingly sympathetic, even while recognizing it was not true, because the WHOLE left, and the whole mainstream media, thought that badly of President Bush). Now I think many leftist Democrats put themselves in a position of WANTING our defeat in Iraq, but it is absurd to suggest that a President of the United States is aiming for our defeat in ANY war (or that any President has arranged for our enemies to kill some 3,000 of our citizens, in the case of President Bush). That is just not possible, but that does not mean that the Obama Administration has not done way too much to help our enemies.


From the very beginning, and to this very day, President Obama has continually APOLOGIZED for this country. He went over to the Middle East and did so. He did so in Europe. He basically nodded in agreement as Hugo Chavez trashed this country--or at least Obama expressed little strong disagreement. Ditto with President Ortega of Nicaragua. Obama expressed little support--and that only belatedly--for the people protesting the repressive IRAN regime, and has done basically nothing to prevent Iran getting nuclear weapons (not that Bush did much better, but Bush at least SCARED some of our enemies to the point they were nervous about how far to go with him).


President Obama ENCOURAGED the President of Mexico to trash Arizona, and really this country, when Mexico is a FAILED country. While I was on vacation, a mayor of a Mexican town (Guadalupe) was killed in Juarez--where murder is rampant to the tune of 2500 plus per year (Juarez being across the river from El Paso, and no more than five miles from where I am typing this). Yet, Obama chose to apologize for an Arizona law that--rather weakly and tamely--merely tried to HELP the Federal Government stop the spread of Mexican violence to this country. Only a wimp like Obama--who also does not really like much of this contry--could believe that the real problem here--in the face of wholesale murder along the border--is POTENTIAL "discrimination" enabled by Arizona's attempt to really deal with the horrible situation. Obama's envoy even apologized to RED CHINA for OUR human rights "viola tons" represented by the Arizona law that has not yet caused ANY "civil rights" violations, and prohibits such violations on its face. Even CNN (NYC airport again) is recognizing that there is a WAR for the future of Mexico going on, and that the drug cartels appear to be WINNING. Even CNN recognizes, when it is not doing straight leftist propaganda, that it is INEVITABLE that the Mexican problem will spread to this country unless we take STRONG action (although CNN refuses to actually connect the danger with the need for ACTION to secure the Mexican border--action such as the Arizona law, but preferably by the Federal Government).


What of Afghanistan? Well, Obama simply refuses to directly criticize Islamic extremism. He took FOREVER to actually decide on the number of extra toops requested by McChrystal in Afghanistan, and ARBITRARILY (who is Obama to decide this number?) CTU the number requested by McChrystal. Then Obama set a withdrawal DEADLINE at the same time as increasing the troops--one of the worst decisions ever made in a war. It is as if Lincoln told his generals they HAD to win by 1854, or the Union would withdraw from the South. You just can't be this much of a wimp: CUT the number of troops just to politically show you are not doing everything the generals want, and TELL the enemy that all they have to do is outlast us (whether you mean that or not).


Nope. In the general outlines of what he said, General McChrystal was dead on right. The Obama Administration has UNDERMINED this country--not only in Afghanistan, but around the world. This does make it MUCH harder for McChrystal in a military sense, but it is even more disastrous in encouraging our enemies everywhere.


The second issue is, as stated, basically unrelated to the first issue. That is the question of whether McChrystal did this thhe right way. He did not. Yes, he DID have an obligation to bring this to the attention of the American people. And if the President were Bush, the media would be saying that.


However, the right way to do this is to RESIGN at the same time you make your point. John Kerry came back from Vietnam and not only criticized our effort there, but criticized our SOLDIERS (their actions) as well. Kerry, I believe, was out of the military by then, but many in government (and even the military) criticized their "boss" (the President) as to both Vietnam and Iraq (to media acclaim). They did not always resign. Is it too much to expect for a military officer to QUIT, rather than stay and fight (even though he is fighting his "boss"? Maybe so. General MacArthur was one of the greatest generals who ever lived (including the Inchon landing that saved us in Korea), but he took on President Truman and lost. General McClellan took on Lincoln and lost. The President is the Commander-in-Chief, and he has the ultimate power.


Whether it is too much to expect of human beings or not, the correct thing to do when you can't live with your boss (especially in a military setting) is to resign, and THEN go public. Otherwise, you are breaching military discipline and setting entirely the wrong precedent (for those under YOU and ever other commander). A good military allows dissenting opinions to be heard INTERNALLY, but military personnel have no business making public fights over those decisions that are made--including with the President. It will continue to happen--sometimes with media approval when it fits their agenda--but it really can't be defended.


So McChrystal was wrong. But that does not make Obama right. McChrystal COULD have resigned and made exactly the same criticism he did--in perfect honor. In fact, I would say that is what he SHOULD have done. Thus, the criticisms are not discredited just because McChrystal was human enough not to want to leave his command (where he might justly believe he is the best leader his men have available, arrogant as that may seem). Sure, it marginally hurts the credibility of McCrhrystal to make his criticism through this kind of interview, but that is really a very minor thing in terms of whether the criticisms are correct. The people DO have a right to know when a commander thinks this way. And the commander CAN--with total honor--make his cirticriticisms There is nothing that says we should ignore what McChrystal said just because he did not choose the correct way to say it. We DO have freedom of speech in this country, even if you cannot STAY in a position in the military and fully exercise that right.


In short, McChrystal was right on substance, and wrong on method. He probably should go--should have gone by his own choice. But that does not change that Obama is, and has been, WRONG in the way he has presented this country to the world, and the way he has emphasized "rights" of our enemies over the rights of this country. Miranda rights for terrorists captured IN AFGHANISTAN is another example, as are the infamous "Rules of Engagement" which put the lives of our soldiers at risk.


Nope. I am not saying we should engage in unrestrained war--unrestrained by any morality. But there has bo be a better balance here than that of the Obama Administration.


P.S. Contrast the way General McChrystal appears to be actually "taking responsibility" for this to the SMARMY, Uriah Heep way President Obama has "taken responsibility" for the Gulf of Mexico disaster. There is a vast difference between SAYING "the buck stops here", and MEANING it. The general appears to mean it, while Obama does not. And there is a BIG problem here. Do you believe in "transparency"? Do you believe the media should really have access to the CANDID assessments of military people? Nope. Obama does NOT believe in the first, and the mainstream media is making sure that people realize the second does not happen. Yes, today's mainstream media is INCOMPETENT (as well as corrupt). When military people were criticizing President Bush and Rumsfeld on things like armor for the troops, there was no talk about "undermining" the President. But the problem here--which tends to undercut both my criticism of the General and that of others, is that General McChrystal does not appear to have set out to "undermine" the President. He and his men just got too candid, and their WORST comments were blown out of proportioin. The Rolling Stone people and the military people were evidently thrown together for a considerable length of time, and basically got into a "bull session" with the reporter (or reporters). Contrary to the mainstream media assertion that everything was "on the record", that misses the real issue entirely. The real problem with the media and this story is the way the worst comments, surely not meant literally, were SENSATIONALIZED as more important and seriously meant than they were. If the media is going to do that, WHY should anyone talk to the mainstream media in any kind of candid way. Can the media really mean that you can MANIPULATE the media by saying "off the record", but that otherwise you can expect the media to be UNFAIR to you in the way it reports? Yep. That is EXACTLY the way the modern mainstream media operates, and it is an EVIL thing. It allows people to attack others behind a mask of anonymity, while the sanctimonious mainstream media jumps on people who actually talk "on the record" in a candid way. This means that NO ONE should talk to the media "candidly"--"on the record"--unless you are deceiving them. In reality, General McChrystal is less culpable that I suggest above, because he did NOT "hide" behind being an "anonymous source" or set out to undermine the President. He, and ihs people, merely made the mistake of believing they could talk honestly to reporters without it coming back to bite them. Yes, it is hard to believe they would make that mistake, but it appears to have happened.


P.P.S. This was written before the fate of Geneal McChrystal was known. By the time you read this, that fate may be known. I think it is valuable to look at the situation before that "spin" begins.

Mexico, A Failed Country: Murder, Illegal Immigration, Arizona, and Anti-Americanism (Is President Obama Anti-American?)

This is another dispatch from your war correspondent in El Paso, across from the war zone in Juarez, Mexico.


On Saturday, the El Paso Times carried yet another story about murder in Juarez--a daily story in El Paso, although still pretty much ignored by the CORRUPT, national mainstream media. The mainstream media--idiots, as well as corrupt--were much more worried about the rather weak Arizona law trying to sTOP the spread of this violence into the United States than abut the violence itself. Thus, the mainstream media stories over the weekend were mainly abut the POLITICAL "protests" (not a "grass rots" movement like the tea party people, but an ACTIVIST attempt to politicize and misrepresent the Arizona law) in Phoenix about the Arizona law. Yes, there was mention of the people demonstrating in favor of the Arizona law, but little mention about how PERVERSE the priorities in the media are to place such emphasis on this meaningless political posturing instead of what is actually happening along the border. The PEOPLE of Arizona--and El Paso, for that matter--are fully aware that it is ridiculous to worry about "harassment" of latinos, when so many latinos are DYING in Mexico--with the danger that it will spread across the border in a major way at any time. Indeed, the Arizona law--and its popularity with the Arizona people--can be explained by the fact that the violence HAS spread across the border more in Arizona than anywhere else (yet). The violence, for example, has not spread across the border--in a major way--at El Paso, even though people from El Paso continue to DIE in Juarez (see my previous article). I digress (not really).


The Saturday El Paso Times article was about how NINE people had been murdered in Juarez (that many bodies found) in the previous day or so. The article noted that the number of murders since the beginning of the year is now above 1,000 (on track for at least 2500 or so again this year). In other words, six or more people A DAY are being murdered in Juarez. The article further noted that more than 52000 people have been murdered in Juarez in a little more than two years. Yet, the President of Mexico came here and lectured US--with the approval of President Obama--about the Arizona law. Maybe--just a thought--the President of Mexico should worry about his own FAILED country, while we do more worrying abut the contagion of that failure spreading to this country (as Arizona is doing, and a lot of the ordinary people in the country--as distinguished from the mainstream media, activists, and our political "elites").


If nine non-Americans are killed in Iraq in a day, we usually hear about it--or if it happens in Afghanistan. Yet, the mainstream media remains much more interested in the POLITICS of complaints about the Arizona law than the violence happening right next dorr to us--as close as a thousand FEET from El Paso and well within five miles from where I am typing this.


Nope. CORRUPT and incompetent are mild words for these people of the mainstream media. And "anti-American" is the proper word for most of the "activists" trying to make so much out of misrepresenting the Arizona law. Yes, I am afraid that latter word also applies to OUR PRESIDENT, as well as those people of the mainstream media (the way they think of ordinary Americans as they do their best to harm us all, including latino Americans like my two 50% Hispanic daughters, with as much stake in this country as anyone else).


P.S. Some people suggest I am too "harsh" for using a term like "anti-American". I do NOT apologize for it, and will continue to do so. If the glove fits, wear it (O.J. reference). You will remember that these are the people--the people who get hysterical when they are criticized in "harsh" terms--who call me, and basically every single person supporting the Arizona law (which means most Americans), a RACIST. You can't get any "harsher" than that, and I have nothing but contempt for these people for that tactic alone. There has to be a special circle of Dante's Hell reserved for people who play politics with race and ethnicity, to the extreme detriment of the people they profess to be trying to "help".