U.S.A.

The current President and much of the Democrat leadership appear to have an affinity for Europe. For example, they insist European healthcare be a model and justification for their meddling in US medical markets. Generally, President Klink’s rhetoric about “what we owe to each other” is founded on the same principles as Europe’s various versions of social democracy.

Unfortunately, facts tarnish the Democrats’ hopey-changey dreams. Their new New Deal socialism is too progressive by European Union standards. Former Obama cabinet nominee Judd Gregg remarked this week:

Several hundred thousand of us who wonder why Barack Obama will not reveal his original long-form birth certificate are dismissed as wacko “nirthers”. I have posted on several lawsuits challenging Obama’s citizenship and qualifications ot hold the office of President. The suits were all filed in civil courts, where procedural disputes are settled. All have been disimissed before the process required any evaluation of facts or evidence.

Now a challenger is trying a new avenue:

China has suggested the development of a new world currency. I consider this the first ring on the gong of doom, as it would make everything sold in dollar terms worth significantly less in global markets.

The current President was asked about the issue during his prime-time press conference last Tuesday (snipped for relevance):

I first heard it from a landscape architect in a meeting about land use planning in the 55418. We were discussing the projected need for parking in commercial districts. The conclusion was that auto technology would evolve so that personal autos would always be a significant and vital means of transport, no matter the price of oil. As sort of an off-hand comment about electric cars, the architect said something like, “And I hear the cars will even sell power back to the electric company.”

Both Secretary of State Clinton and Attorney General Holder have argued that the US must further restrict guns to help Mexico’s fight against drug cartels. Here’s Holder:

"As President Obama indicated during the campaign, there are just a few gun-related changes that we would like to make, and among them would be to re-institute the ban on the sale of assault weapons," Holder said. "I think that will have a positive impact in Mexico, at a minimum."

Holder said reinstating the ban would decrease the flow of guns from the U.S. into Mexico.

And Hillary:

We’ve seen a couple of weeks of rising stock market indexes. Today the DJIA  was up over six percent. The President, the media, and many pundits are talking about having reached a market bottom. They all forget that this recent rise has only brought the indices back to the lows reached before Timmy and Barry made their first set of fumbles. We’ve made it back up to an ordinary recession. Woo hoo.

I suggest the rise is significantly attributable to the continuing value created in the US economy. As I have documented, 142 million people are still at work. No factories have been destroyed, and no skills have been wiped from workers’ memory. The sky was not falling. A dynamic economy was realigning itself, finding its new best allocations of resources.

The Keystone Kongress has sneaked another one past President Klink. Two days after Barry made headlines by reversing the previous administration’s restriction on embryonic stem cell funding, he unwittingly reversed himself:

Last night CBS aired an interview with the current President. I thought Barry looked he thought he actually understood the issues he was asked about. At least one of us is convinced President Klink can distinguish his ass from a hole in the ground.

And the interviewer seemed troubled, almost reluctant, to ask questions about difficult issues. That reluctance may have been out of sympathy for his President. Or, it may have been pity, as Barry continued to demonstrate he is overmatched by his job. This exchange is an example:

I’ve never had a President. The common construction, “He’s my President,” or, “He’s our President,” doesn’t fit my perspective. The relation between citizens and government leaders is not ownership. Presidents, as the Constitution was drafted, are chief executives. They fill a role in a bureaucracy. They’re not idols.

A President is just “the President”, not much different from the local Fire Chief or the CEO down at the widget factory. That a voter has some infinitesimal influence in determining who becomes President does not create ownership. Not to me, anyway.

The language of possession reinforces the passions. Campaigners exploit this. Once people begin to perceive ownership, the candidate becomes intertwined with their identity. The portion of reason or logic guiding choice and response diminishes.

Emulating bin Laden, this week the current President released a video message to the Iranian people. It offered a customized version of the vacuous rhetoric Barry campaigned on:

In his video appeal, Obama said: "This process will not be advanced by threats. We seek instead engagement that is honest and grounded in mutual respect."

Obama’s oratorical incompetence is making headlines. He’s a stammering loon without his teleprompter. His St. Patrick’s Day debacle is good for a chuckle.

But I want to poke Barry with a different needle. After his self-congratulatory miscue, President Klink warned the assembled Irish-for-a-Day crowd:

about the free-flowing bar and warned his guests not to wear lampshades on their heads in front of the cameras.

The hurtful stereotype of the drunken Irishman is evidently still acceptable. Cultural sensitivity only matters if the victim group has been formally established in academia and sanctioned by government.

CNN has a pair of stories casting Detroit as a place of opportunity. First, Anderson Cooper reports housing has become so cheap that artists are finding they can afford to live there:

Usually, only the youthful first-timers actually believe a candidate’s campaign rhetoric. Last time it seems great swaths of the population, even graying old righties, were willing to suspend disbelief in trade for hope. Here’s the first half of the campaign speech Barry should have used if he meant to honor the faith so many placed in him:

”As we approach Election Day, the American people should not waste the crisis we find ourselves in.

Citigroup, one of the huge banks being bailed out by taxpayers, was at the top of the headlines again this week:

Citigroup Inc. Chief Executive Officer Vikram Pandit said his bank is having the best quarter since 2007, when it last posted a profit. The shares rose 38 percent and helped spur gains for finance company stocks. “I am most encouraged with the strength of our business so far in 2009,” Pandit wrote in an internal memorandum obtained today by Bloomberg. “We are profitable through the first two months of 2009 and are having our best quarter-to-date performance since the third quarter of 2007.”

Last week the pundits and news anchors quipped that Citi’s share price, which had dropped below $1, was less than an ATM fee. This week’s positive report from the Citi CEO was cited as cause for Tuesday’s major rally in the broader markets.

I’ve long been annoyed by lazy perceptions about stem cell research. Rhetoric and reporting tend to leave out important details. There are vital distinctions between embryonic cells and other stem cells. Taxpayer-funded research must be held to different standards than private research. Neo-neocon confronts the misperceptions in light of current events:

Last Friday, the New York Times asked President Klink if he was a socialist. On Sunday, the Times ran a follow-up:

On a flight from Ohio to Washington on Friday, Mr. Obama was asked whether his domestic policies suggested that he was a socialist, as some conservatives have implied.

Remember during the campaign how Sarah Palin was always referring to “the Great State of Alaska”? I think nearly everyone heard that like an air-headed cheerleader at a pep rally waving her poms and yelling, “Yay! for Alaska! It's so great! Give me an A…”.

She wasn’t being a cheerleader any more than Governor Pawlenty when he talks about Minnesota’s lakes. Or when Governor Doyle mentions Wisconsin’s fine cheese.

Libertarians may be getting a version of the smaller government they desire. Barry has failed to fill 94 percent of the top spots in his administration:

The current US government is proposing and enacting a raft of new policies. When opposition is raised, a common retort goes something like, “So, you would rather have more of the same policies that got us into this mess?!”

Well, let’s pretend the people who respond with that vacuous non-argument understand the mechanics of policies they’re complaining about. Perhaps it is not the structure of those policies that created the problem. Maybe it is the scale.

Texas Congressman and failed Republican Presidential contender, Ron Paul, heard last week’s  hubbub about radio’s top blowhard and the GOP. Paul has challenged Limbaugh to a debate, just as Rush challenged Barry: