Palin says she would not raise debt limit

We’re going to see a lot of political posturing and maneuvering in the next few weeks as both parties position themselves for either Armageddon or the biggest fizzle since Comet Kohoutek.

It’s the debt ceiling vote and everyone is wondering what would happen if it wasn’t raised. The administration (and many others) are predicting catastrophe. Other economists say that Geithner and co. are crying wolf.

Who to believe?

It would be nice if we could have a non-partisan answer to this question. In fact, we do. Most street-wise investors are, if not unconcerned, at least they’re not panicking about the potential failure to raise the limit. In other words, people whose livelihoods depend on predicting the future do not see what Geithner and the administration are seeing.

Should this comfort us as the GOP moves reluctantly – with a few Democrats – toward a no vote for raising the debt ceiling?

Sarah Palin thinks so:

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) on Friday doubled down on her opposition to raising the nation’s debt ceiling.

“Hells no. I would not vote to increase that debt ceiling,” she said during an interview on Fox News, where she is a paid contributor.
Palin, a potential GOP presidential candidate, has long been opposed to raising the nation’s $14.3 trillion debt limit.

But she indicated Friday she is willing to go further than Republican leaders in Congress and some other GOP presidential candidates, who are demanding that spending reforms be attached to a vote to raise the debt ceiling.

“It turns my stomach to hear this assumption articulated that we have to, despite the fact that we are raking in the federal government $6 billion a day,” she said. “Take that money and service our debt first and pay down some of that debt. Make sure that we are showing the international financial markets and our lenders that we’re serious about getting our debt and our deficit problems under control.”

This view is echoed by some conservative economists:

Here’s a paper from Reason columnist and Mercatus Center economist Veronique de Rugy and her colleague Jason Fichtner that lays out some plain facts on the matter:

The United States should not consider defaulting on its debt, nor should it put itself in a position where it has to postpone payment to contractors or “manage” other non-debt obligations. Neither, however, should Congress be forced to raise the debt ceiling under false pretenses. By our calculations, the United States has enough expected cash flow (tax revenue) and assets on hand to avoid either of these unattractive options until at least the end of the current fiscal year in September, perhaps even longer….

In fact, write de Rugy and Fichtner, the U.S. has about $2.4 trillion in assets it can part with to cover any shortfalls (they give a rundown of them in the paper). Better yet would be the sorts of institutional reforms, ranging from constitutional amendments to limit spending to BRAC-style actions to cut spending. They detail those too.

In fact, what you will be hearing from Republicans over the next few weeks is that if catastrophe occurs, the fault will lie squarely with Geithner who has it within his power to act on financing our debt in the manner suggested by Palin and others. If the markets blow up, it will be Geithner’s deliberate choice that they do.

So the question is: How irresponsible is the Obama administration willing to be on the debt ceiling issue? Given that Obama is already running hard for re-election, the answer is; as irresponsible as he can get away with.

Obama *DEMANDED* McCain Had TWO American CITIZEN Parents

Obama *DEMANDED* McCain Had TWO American CITIZEN Parents.

By David Ben Moshe formerly of the www.jtf.org 

  As per the law, including a 2008 senate resolution that Obama signed, a President must meet two eligibility requirements;

1. That you are born on American soil.

2. That BOTH of your parents are American citizens.

  Obama knew this, which is why he demanded this from John McCain.  How does Obama get away with this? Is the birth certificate that the White House put out the truth? And if it is, why are his parents not held to the same standard as McCains were? No matter where Obama was born, everyone knows his father was a British citizen of Kenya. He is not eligible by the natural born law of 1790 & senate resolution of 2008.  The Senate passed this bill in 2008, with Obamas signature.

Is any official going to touch this problem? What kind of Constitutional crisis does this create? Nothing like this has happened before.  What happens to all of the laws he signed? What happens to his 78 Executive orders? What happens to his military commands? What happens to his pension? Does Biden take over and finish the term? Or does Biden take over until a special election is held? If Obama is ineligible, is his V.P. ineligible? Does the speaker of the house take over?  Would anyone touch this for fear of being called a racist? Does race TRUMP (you’ll pardon the expression) the Constitution? 

President Obama, you’re no Ronald Reagan

During the 2008 Democratic primaries, then-Sen. Barack Obama caused a stir when he said, “Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that, you know, Richard Nixon did not, and in a way that Bill Clinton did not.” Pundits speculated whether the optimistic, charismatic, Obama could move the nation’s politics to the left in a way comparable to how President Reagan had moved the country to the right. This comparison took hold early in the Obama presidency as his approval ratings nose-dived in a pattern similar to Reagan’s. The problem now for Democrats is that, though both presidents took office with a weak economy, Reagan’s pro-growth policies worked, while Obama’s big government agenda has failed miserably.

The numbers tell the story. The Commerce Department reported yesterday that the U.S. economy grew at an anemic 1.8 percent rate during the first quarter of 2011, more evidence that the Obama recovery has been tepid, at best. At a comparable point in Reagan’s presidency, the shaky economy he inherited was headed to a robust recovery, with gross domestic product surging by 5.1 percent in the first quarter of 1983. For the rest of 1983, the economy grew at a 4.5 percent rate, then leaped 7.2 percent in 1984, as Reagan won a landslide re-election. Today, the Federal Reserve Board projects GDP growth of 3.1 percent to 3.3 percent in 2011, and 3.5 percent to 4.2 percent in 2012. Note, too, that Reagan took office after a year of 13.5 percent inflation, but by 1984, it was 4.3 percent.

The contrasts between Obama and Reagan couldn’t be starker. Reagan signed the biggest tax cut in history, removed burdensome regulations on businesses, and began to release the nation from the choke hold of labor unions, as exemplified by his firing of 11,000 striking air traffic controllers. Obama has pursued the opposite course, opening with an $862 billion economic stimulus package even though similar policies proved ineffective during America’s Great Depression in the 1930s and Japan’s lost decade in the 1990s. He spent over a year pushing for his government takeover of the health care system, legislation that included $813 billion in tax increases in addition to a raft of new regulations on businesses.

Read more here.

Former Miss USA: TSA agent ‘touched my vagina’

Silly president, tricks are for kids…not Patriots.

Mr. Obama holds the highest office in the land and promotes himself as a constitutional lawyer yet views the eligibility of his elected position as “silly”. What else does he view as silly and simply not worthy of his time to consider as serious? Perhaps the Constitution itself? Perhaps even his oath of office?
When Mr. Obama came before the cameras (yet again) to make a momentous announcement, it was not that he had made headway into solving the horrific problem of our national debt. It was not to give honor to our nine citizens fallen in battle in Afghanistan or to offer condolences to the victims of multiple tornadoes. It was not even to promote his already launched second term campaign. Mr. Obama stood before the camera and the gathered press to inform them that he views the requirements of a presidential candidate as a thing not to be taken solemnly.

Webster defines “silly” in two ways: 1) as happy, guileless or inoffensive or 2) as foolish, intellectually weak, witless, simple, showing folly, unwise and stupid.

There is no doubt in which way our nation’s elected leader regards the requirements of office that were set forth by our Founding Fathers. Or does he consider them silly as well? As an educator of both children and non-English speaking adults, whenever such a phrasing style is used, it is natural for me to break it down into various perspectives as would come from my students. The remark “we do not have time for this kind of silliness…” (ie: confirming the existence and status of a president’s birth certificate) leads me to contemplate “for just what kind of silliness do we have time, Mr. Obama?”

Is there time for the foolish and intellectually weak actions of cross-country campaign jaunts or the witless and simple lecturing to world famous FaceBook employees and their young billionaire founder on how to be successful and work as a team? Really, should we make time for showing folly with regards to our national debt and its path to ruination? Why not take true quality time for unwise and stupid embracing of confirmed terrorists and threats to our very Homeland?

For many other kinds of silliness, it seems we do indeed have much time. In fact, all the time in the world to kill as the calendar turns into another month and then another. If enough time passes in our current daily mode of “moving forward” and “going forward” vocabulary, then it will be too late to attend to our “complaints” of birth location or even citizenship. Pesky problems will often settle themselves or simply go away of their own exhaustion if worn down by time. So, for other kinds of silliness there is plenty of time.

But we now must get serious to deal with the many problems of our country. No one was really serious before because they dared to be silly about such silly things…like the law of the land. At least that is the opinion of the lawyer-in-chief. So, let’s all work together and move forward and keep on moving real fast so no one notices that the clock is ticking, the calendar pages are turning, and the law no longer matters in the oval office.

Oh, and those pesky problem folks called Tax-Paying Citizens, they will have to find something else to be silly about now. I suggest the “silliness” of the 2012 presidential campaign. But let’s follow Webster’s #1 definition for a campaign that is silly with happy, guileless, inoffensive candidates and management in order to avoid a #2 silliness this time around.

Silly president, tricks are for kids…not Patriots.

Gas prices and industry earnings: A few things to think about the next time you fill up

Less than 3 percent of ExxonMobil’s earnings are from U.S. gasoline sales
ExxonMobil’s earnings are from operations in more than 100 countries around the world. The part of the business that refines and sells gasoline and diesel in the United States represents less than 3 percent – or 3 cents on the dollar – of our total earnings. For every gallon of gasoline, diesel or finished products we manufactured and sold in the United States in the last three months of 2010, we earned a little more than 2 cents per gallon. That’s not a typo. Two cents.

Oil is a commodity; prices are set in the global market
Crude oil is a commodity, and like all other commodities – such as corn, wheat or sugar – the price is determined by buyers and sellers in a global market. Buyers are paying more for oil because the global economy is strengthening, and demand for products derived from crude oil is on the rise. Political instability in some oil-producing nations is also contributing to uncertainty about future supply. Oil markets are well supplied today, but uncertainty about tomorrow’s supply is reflected in prices today. Finally, the U.S. dollar is at a three-year low against other currencies – accelerated last week after a warning by Standard & Poor’s about the country’s $14.3 trillion debt and relative economic weakness. The weaker the dollar, the less it will buy – meaning more is spent for the same amount of a commodity, whether it’s crude oil or nearly all of the commodities in the chart at right.

ExxonMobil doesn’t set oil prices
Take a look at the chart at right. ExxonMobil owns less than 1 percent of the world’s oil reserves, and it produces less than 3 percent of the world’s daily oil supply, so it’s really not credible to suggest that we are responsible for world oil prices. ExxonMobil actually buys more crude oil than we produce. Last year, we spent $198 billion on crude oil, which we used to make refined products such as gasoline.

What goes into the price of gasoline
The main component of the price at the pump is the cost of a barrel of crude oil. Another major component of the price of gas is state and federal taxes, which range from a high of 66 cents per gallon in California to a low of 26 cents per gallon in Alaska, according to January 2011 data. How are pump prices set at Exxon and Mobil stations? We don’t own 95 percent of them, and therefore we don’t set the price. Local stations are often owned by a businessman or businesswoman in your community, and they set their own prices based on local market conditions.

Read more here.

ECONOMY IS SO BAD THAT……….

I got a pre-declined
credit card in the mail.

Wives are having
sex with their husbands because they can no longer afford batteries.

CEO’s are now
playing miniature golf.

Exxon-Mobil laid off 25 Congressmen.

I saw a Mormon
with only one wife.

I bought a toaster
oven and my free gift was a bank.

Angelina Jolie
adopted a child from America .

Motel Six won’t
leave the light on anymore.

A picture is now
only worth 200 words.

They renamed Wall
Street ” Wal-Mart Street .

When Bill and
Hillary travel together, they now have to share a room.

And, finally..

I was so depressed last night thinking about the economy, wars, jobs, my savings, Social Security, retirement funds, etc., I called the Suicide Hotline. I got a call center in Pakistan ,and when I told them I was suicidal, they got all excited,and asked if I could drive a truck…

Is Obama a Natural Born Citizen?

Obama’s Birth Certificate is here

it says his father is from Kenya. A natural born citizen must have two parents who are U.S. Citizens. has Obama opened another can of worms, is he legal?

Allen West Heckled, Heckler Arrested

Trump takes up Obama’s grades and affirmative action

In an interview with AP, Donald Trump raises the issue of Barack Obama’s undergraduate grades and his admission to 2 Ivy League schools — Columbia University and Harvard Law. Trump avers that Obama wasn’t merely an OK student, he was “terrible,” and wonders how that merited admission to 2 highly competitive schools.

Trump states that he doesn’t have access to Obama’s well-hidden transcripts, and doesn’t specify the source of his knowledge that Obama was a “terrible” student (presumably at Occidental College and the elite Punahou School in Honolulu). However, given Obama’s existing biographies, it is no secret that he failed to apply himself to his studies when he was younger.

Trump does not utter the words “affirmative action,” but that is clearly the implied answer to the questions he raises. Richard Baehr comments:

Most Americans do not like affirmative action. if Trump has found some transcripts, it would explain why Obama has hidden them, and damage his halo for brilliance (though it may take more time to change David Brooks’ mind), and be pretty embarrassing and a distraction for him, raising more questions of what he has hidden.

Studies of ten of the most elite schools admissions files revealed that being black is worth an extra 330 SAT points (back when the maximum was 1600).

The interesting aspect of all of this is that the sort of families who place greatest emphasis on getting their children into elite colleges also tend to be the urban elites whose support for Obama has been strong. It is not clear to me that the revelation that Obama got a lot of help getting into Columbia and Harvard would sour them on him. But it would, as Rich writes, diminish the reputation for brilliance, which is already suffering in the face of demonstrated lack of understanding of basic economics, foreign affairs, and the effects of taxes.