For some on the left the answer is to give Obama the dictatorial powers he craves so he can “fix” our problems with his omniscient set of advisers (who have the least real-world experience of any set of presidential advisers ever). One of these was Woody Allen I admit but one was Thomas Friedman, a supposedly serious journalist with the NY Times. Yeah, great idea. Is it any wonder that we have an ongoing crisis of confidence? Or that the public approval of its legislators is at its lowest ebb? Things will turn up once confidence returns. Confidence will return once these clowns (we actually elected an actual clown to the Senate from my home state, and from my own high school) are sent packing and the ratio of those who are minimally serious and competent in Washington rises above the 10% or so it numbers currently.

Now comes the Secretary of he Interior, a cabinet official of the United States, appointed by the President. He apparently suggests in all seriousness that BP pay the salaries of those laid off because the US Government overreacts and stops all drilling?  This is so far outside what would be reasonable, so absolutely outrageous in its audacity and idiocy, that Ken Salazar should resign immediately or be fired by the President. You just cannot make this stuff up.  One more example of the horrifying lack of seriousness and gravitas of those who represent the interests of the polity in Washington.  To the right is a picture of this buffoon.

Of course what I have heard no one mention is that one of the great tragedies of this blown well is that we are losing all this oil! Jim Cramer was just on saying that his “oil people” are telling him this crude deposit is one of the greatest finds of all time. That is why the pressure is unmanageable. And it is all flowing out into the Gulf at this point. What a waste.

In a market economy, it is not the responsibility of the government to provide jobs (a statement with which nearly everyone agrees, freaks from places like moveon.org notwithstanding). It is the responsibility of the government to provide an environment in which the people of the country can go about their business, which will collaterally result in creating jobs. So the government takes care of the national defense and provides an impartial system for the adjudication of disputes, which in our country is predicated on applying the same set of rules to similarly situated people similarly (unless you are a demunist, in which case the rules get applied depending on whether you are in one of their identified support groups or not, the nub of identity politics). This is something that statists, redistributionists and collectivists like Barack Obama and his Demunistic brethren fail to understand. The more they do to create jobs, the less likely it is that we will have sustainable job growth. They are destroyers. They destroy. If they really wanted to see jobs created, the best thing they can do is get the government the hell out of the way.

President Barack Obama dared Republicans on Thursday to try to repeal his newly signed healthcare law… I don’t believe the American people are going to put the insurance industry back in the driver’s seat. We’ve been there already. We’re not going back.

Riiiggghhht.  Because all of those 85% of people who are satisfied with their current health insurance arrangement would rather have the government in the driver’s seat than their insurance company.  A sick and twisted mind it is.   He actually thinks that it is preferable to have your health care dictated by the government, against whom there is no appeal and who wields the sovereign right of extortion (it is called taxation, and is in the end backed up by force), than a private company that you can fire or sue.  Simply amazing.  My mouth just gapes open when I hear this kind of stuff.

In a related bit of news reported here,  a Harris Poll, aptly critiqued for its methodological shoddiness by James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal here, apparently finds 25% of Republicans think Obama is the AntiChrist.  I am not a Republican, though I have never voted for a Demunist in any election for any office, and I never will.  I also do not believe there is an AntiChrist.  But if there were an AntiChrist, I think Mr. Obama might just fit the bill.  Certainly he will be remembered that way once the whole house of cards comes crashing down because he threw the wet towel of state on top of it.

Instead he said that no jobs were created.  Now the average American will look at a statement like that and say to themselves, “um, obviously it did create some jobs.  This must be one of those nay-saying Republicans (like the media says) saying something demonstrably untrue that anyone can see at a glance is probably false.  So I guess we cannot trust those guys either.”  And of course the Left will run with such a statement to prove that Republicans are lying idiots.

Which brings us to Thursday’s trap setup.  Obviously Obama is trying to lay a trap to make Republicans look bad on Health Care.  If Republicans go into it with thoughtless language like Romney used at CPAC then they are going to get their hats handed to them and blunt the force they have going into the mid-terms in 8 months.  Hopefully whoever winds up going will take a page from the recent editorial by Newt Gingrich, which laid out a number of ideas for handling health care reform, and be well-prepared enough on why the Left’s ideas are dangerous not to sink the party’s fortunes this fall.

In the meantime, America’s  great medical entrepreneurs and doctors and scientists (some from outside America too) have figured out how to extend our lives to the point where we are now living not 2 – but 15, 20 or 30 years past the point where the government starts paying benefits.   So we need to either decrease life expectancies, which seems rather evil, or move the retirement age out to be in line with our ever-increasing life spans.  The blunder the government made at program inception (and one they seem to make with every program in one way or another, do they not ever learn anything?) was not to index the age at which benefits start to life expectancy.  It is just as stupid as not indexing other benefits for inflation.  The Germans have already taken steps to address this.  Are we less capable than Germany?  The obvious solution is to move the retirement age out to be more in line with increased life expectancy.  Is that so hard?  See here for a discussion of how some countries have done this.

Instead we have Demunists trying to take over health care which will have the nearly immediate effect of reducing life expectancies.  While that might help in the long run, it is not the optimal solution I would submit.  And it does not address the other driver of our entitlement crisis, the fact that health costs rise faster than economic growth.  It actually makes it worse.  The country senses this.  Is it any wonder that Commocrats will get wiped up in the fall elections?  Not that I trust the Republicans to do the right thing.   But with them any legislation will likely be only marginally destructive rather than utterly destructive as it will be under the Demunists.

To be honest, I do still watch it until 9AM Central.  The Fox Business News host in the morning is just awful.  I miss Rick Santelli and Larry Kudlow and Art Cashin, but you cannot have everything I suppose.

Why would Jeff Immelt put the screws to his business media outlet?  Well, it could have something to do with all the green energy work that GE is going to get from the government.  That will mean GE sells a lot of wind turbines.  In exchange for becoming an Obama supporter, Immelt got a seat on the Economic Recovery Advisory Board and the promise of fat government contracts for the “Smart Grid’ and green energy projects.  And GE needs it to stay afloat.  I puke when the GE commercials touting the smart grid come on, you know, the ones with the scarecrow suggesting the Wizard of Oz?  And what about the commercials where the ‘GE Employees’ sing awful 80’s movie soundtrack tunes.  My God those are painful.  Those commercials are ‘paid for’ by US tax dollars.  GE Capital was a major recipient of federal bailout funds under the ‘Stimulus Plan’ and TARP (actually the Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program).  While that probably made some sense, because the commercial paper markets were dead, it still reeks because in advertising for all this feel-good green energy work they are doing they are recycling dollars they will earn from supporting the outrageous cap-and-trade legislation which will bring our country to its knees and result in massive government intervention into the everyday lives of Americans.

Switch to Fox Business Channel and do not buy GE appliances or anything else made by GE or its subsidiaries.

The paranoid left believes the recent protests are orchestrated, when they clearly are mostly not orchestrated.  They profess to wonder why we cannot have a rational debate.  The president bemoans the fact that there is so much misleading information and gosh-darned erroneous rhetoric out there;  please just report it to us when you see it.

What you do not see in the press is any acknowledgment of WHY reasoned debate is pretty much impossible, on either side.  Talking to a member of Congress or the Administration is like talking to a brick wall.  They show up with canned and irrelevant politic-speak.  They are not really going to listen to you or take account of your views or even think, much less actually READ the history changing legislation on which they are casting votes.  They, almost without exception, speak from a talking point sheet composed by their leadership.  In other words, it is all bullshit.  And then Claire McCaskill (D-MO) asks, apparently in all seriousness, “Don’t you trust me?”  Bwah ha ha ha ha ha ha (tears rolling down cheek and falling heavily to the floor).  You have got to be kidding.

It is no wonder then that the only reasonable approach to changing the outcome is just to shout the loudest.  Just say No, No, No or some other slogan that can be chanted over, and over, and over….  Pelosi and her ilk have only themselves to blame.

Coming from the leader of the Frree Lunch party that is pretty rich.  Under Obama’s leadership, the number of taxpayers that pay no income tax will breach 50% for the first time.  Yet many of those 50% that pay no taxes whatsoever will benefit from the programs, like nationalized health care, that Obama proposes.  Is that not the quintessential definition of a free lunch?  Obama’s slickness is starting to make slick Willie look positively tacky.

These are two of the most powerful Demunists and Commocrats in Washington, Waxman, Chair of the House Energy Committe, and Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House of Representatives.  Waxman is from Beverly Hills, 90210 country, California.  Pelosi is from San Francisco.  Obviously their state is governed so well, that we should use it as a pattern for the country.  Oh, wait, their state issues IOUs to pay people that banks will not even accept.  Their state is bankrupt as a result of Demunistic and Commocratic, stars in your eyes,, blinders-on, incapable of thinking of the consequences  mismanagement.

Here is the language of Obama’s chief political advisor, David Axelrod:  “Ultimately, this is not about a process.  It’s about results.”  In other words, in words reminiscent of Stalin-era communism, “The ends justify the means.”

Or take the language of Nancy Pelosi speaking about the need to reduce carbon output on her spring 2009 trip to China.  “Every aspect of our lives must be subject to inventory.”  How do you do that?  You send jackbooted ACORN “community organizers” around to gather the GPS coordinates for your home in the process of gathering census data, so they know where you live.

Or take the Cap and Trade bill sponsored by Henry Waxman.  Before you can sell your home, you will have to prove to government auditors that you have made it energy-efficient.  What will they do if you haven’t?  Maybe fine you?  Maybe take a lien on your home?  I do not know.

I have argued that when fascism comes to America, it will come from the Left, not the Right (see Liberal Fascism).  So it is.