Get the Hell Out of Politics, Sarah

All Platitudes, No Policy — Whining About Media Bias Isn’t Improving Her Image

Sarah Palin has announced her upcoming resignation from governor of Alaska today, and I’m sure a lot of Alaskans couldn’t be happier. The Republican Party ought to be happy, too. This is a women who has gained a cult-like following within the party after just two years as governor and has damaged her reputation beyond repair during her candidacy for vice president.

When people talk about Palin, they don’t talk about how she balanced the budget or how her innovative policy ideas will fix government. They usually talk about how much charisma she has and what a great speaker she is.

If it does come down to her record, they will say she was a reformer who got rid of some corrupt Alaskan politicians. That may be true, but when she talks about national policy, the best she can do on most issues is spew platitudes and bumper sticker slogans about the free market.

For example, try to decipher if Palin actually expresses an idea in this statement about the bailout from the Couric interview:

I, like every American I’m speaking with, were ill about this position that we have been put in where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out. But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health care reform that is needed to help shore up our economy, helping the–it’s got to be all about job creation, too, shoring up our economy and putting it back on the right track. So health care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions and tax relief for Americans. And trade, we’ve got to see trade as opportunity not as a competitive, scary thing. But one in five jobs being created in the trade sector today, we’ve got to look at that as more opportunity. All those things under the umbrella of job creation. This bailout is a part of that.

She just mentions a bunch of keywords that have nothing to do with the bailout: economy, healthcare, tax breaks, trade… Ultimately she said nothing. Healthcare and free trade have nothing to do with the bailout.

Here she goes trying to say what McCain would do to “reform Wall Street”:

COURIC: You’ve said, quote, “John McCain will reform the way Wall Street does business.” Other than supporting stricter regulations of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac two years ago, can you give us any more examples of his leading the charge for more oversight?

PALIN: I think that the example that you just cited, with his warnings two years ago about Fannie and Freddie — that, that’s paramount. That’s more than a heck of a lot of other senators and representatives did for us.

COURIC: But he’s been in Congress for 26 years. He’s been chairman of the powerful Commerce Committee. And he has almost always sided with less regulation, not more.

PALIN: He’s also known as the maverick, though. Taking shots from his own party, and certainly taking shots from the other party. Trying to get people to understand what he’s been talking about — the need to reform government.

Maverick is her go-to answer when she doesn’t know anything. I can tell you right now that one of McCain’s promises was to make it easier for shareholders to vote for CEO salaries. If Palin knew anything about what her own ticket was running on, she could have talked about how shareholders who don’t vote are automatically counted as voting with management by proxy. I knew that, and I wasn’t even running for VP.

Tags: Sarah Palin

Political Lookalikes

Mitt Romney and Gavin Newsom:

Barney Frank and Henry Waxman to less of a degree:

America’s Newfound “Respect” in the World

I’m reposting this column for any new visitors who come here.

Barack Said He’d Bring the US Worldwide Respect… Here’s What We Got

Of Jon Stewart’s most popular videos this week one calls Fox News anchors “extremists” and the other makes fun of Dick Cheney.

So much for speaking truth to power.

No worries, though. You can still get all the jokes you want from the Obama administration.

They’ve had some good ones recently.

“I’m going to cut the deficit in half.”

“The stimulus has saved or created 150,000 jobs.”

Some of those jobs it has created for Georgia came when Georgia used stimulus money to lure the headquarters of NCR Corporation from Ohio.

Soon enough the administration will also be creating jobs for China when the Democrats pass a cap-and-trade bill that will, as Obama said to the San Francisco Chronicle, “skyrocket the price of energy” and “bankrupt” the clean coal industry.

Some of the administration’s best jokes came on Tim Geithner’s comedy tour through China last week. Speaking at Peking University, Geithner reassured the Chinese that “No one is more concerned about future deficits than we are,” and “Chinese assets are very safe,” literally drawing laughter from his audience.

Federal Reserve Watch: AIG Gets More Money

The Feds continue to issue more securities. There are $1.2 trillion worth of securities held outright, up $9 billion from last week, but total bank credit has declined by $9 billion. AIG has been paying back their bailout slowly, but they took out more money this week than they paid back. Their credit is up by $238 million than last week.

All the numbers:
Reserve bank credit - $1,986,952 million
Securities held outright - $1,216,327 million
Treasury securities - $656,995 million
Credit extended to AIG - $42,834 million
Currency in circulation - $907,940 million

July 2 Report

Securities Held, Past
June 25 - $1,207,055 million
June 18 - $1,176,290 million
June 11 - $1,133,524 million
June 4 - $1,114,473 million
Jan. 2 - $496,227 million

Media Alert: I Will Appear on TheBlackSphere Radio Tonight at 10:30

Clear your schedules: I’m going to be on TheBlackSphere Radio at 10:30 pm EST.

The Black Sphere is hosted by Kevin Jackson who blogs at The Black Sphere.

Here’s the show notes:

Unapologetically conservative, the radio show is based mainly on a satirical political blog of the same name authored by Kevin Jackson. The show and the blog educate people on conservative politics, and takes a mainly satirical poke at liberals, though at times we find it necessary to “pimp slap” them too! So if you like good political conversation that transcends all areas of life, then you will probably like this show.

Launching Direct Action Over Twitter

I started a new Twitter account to promote activism against the government called ActionAlert. ActionAlert will keep followers updated on what government is trying to do and send updates on actions and Congressmen to call.

The cap-and-trade bill only passed by a margin of 2 over majority, and that small margin was due in part to massive amounts of calls from constituents. Subscribe to ActionAlert to keep up the involvement and send Congress a message. Follow ActionAlert here.

Insubordination Fest 09 in Baltimore

Last weekend, I reviewed Insubordination Fest 09, a punk fest put on by Insubordination Records, featuring the Dead Milkmen, Boris the Sprinkler, and Pansy Division as the headliners.

Sunday morning I ventured around Baltimore.









Some might question if there is some over development happening there, particularly in this economic crisis:

Some sights from Baltimore:

Economic Policy Institute Points Out That Germany Has Higher Unemployment Rates Than US

The Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank, is featuring a graph on their website on how much worse the German economy is than the US economy.

Recently the US has suffered high unemployment rates, but they are nothing compared to what Germany typically faces:

America is usually around 5% while German is usually near 10%. This is due to fundamental differences in the freedom Germans are allowed in their economy.

Democrats Getting Ready to Raise Your Energy Bill While Increasing Pollution, Just So Wall Street Can Profit More

Bill Provides Wall Street With a Means for Creating Another Subprime Market

The cap-and-trade bill getting voted on today will “skyrocket the cost of energy,” as Obama said, so what will it bring good that justifies the huge costs and job losses to China?

It won’t lower pollution, that’s for sure.

Friends of the Earth, one of the leading environmental groups, is against this bill because of the fact that it won’t help the environment at all and that corporate polluters support it.

This bill is just a payoff to the Democrats’ friends at Shell, BP, and Duke Energy–a corporate payoff similar to the Democrats’ payoff of AIG, Citigroup and the rest of the Wall Street bankers. In fact some of those same Wall Street bankers are scrambling to get involved in this lucrative new business:

Wall Street sees ‘bucks to be made’ in House climate plan

NEW YORK — In the midst of a worldwide economic crisis, city officials and Wall Street executives are talking about turning the battered U.S. financial center into a global hub of green finance and environmental commodities trading.

“There are bucks to be made,” said Neal Dikeman, a founding partner of Jane Capital. “Huge playground.”

Larger Wall Street institutions had been pushing into the sector in 2007 and 2008 before the financial crash. Having pulled back sharply after Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers Holdings collapsed, many now seem to be inching back, although the banks are still focused on shoring up their shaky balance sheets.

Morgan Stanley recently announced the formation of an Environment and Social Finance Group, putting industry veteran Audrey Choi in charge. Most other financial institutions, including Merrill Lynch, Barclays Capital and JPMorgan Chase, have also established environmental finance and carbon trading desks recently.

New “green” financial products also continue to emerge.

Are you ready for another financial crisis engineered by corporate liberals?

Again, the environmental group Friends of the Earth, a group that actually cares about the environment, as opposed to Shell, Duke, and BP, the companies behind cap-and-trade, says this bill will just mean quick profit for CEOs and nothing for the environment.

The buying and selling of carbon (allowances and credits) is fundamentally derivatives trading. Currently, most carbon is sold as futures or forward contracts, a type of derivative. …
If the United States adopts carbon trading on the scale envisioned by most federal cap-and-trade bills, carbon derivatives will become what Commodities Future Trading Commissioner Bart Chilton predicted would be ‘the biggest of any derivatives product in the next four to five years.’

Call these Democrats who are on the fence and ask to speak to their legislative directors. Tell them not to vote for an energy bill that raises energy costs for the consumer simply for the profits of Wall Street traders.

Frank Kratovil (MD) - (202) 225-5311
Charles Melancon (LA) - (202) 225-4031
Tim Walz (MN) - (202) 225-2472
Mike Ross (AR) - (202) 225-3772
Zack Space (OH) - (202) 225-6265
Baron Hill (IN) - (202) 225-5315

Dial *69 before calling them so that they don’t know you’re calling from out of state.

Red State has a long list of representatives to call if you want to get more involved.

Follow ActionAlert on Twitter if you want to get more updates on making your voice heard to Congress.

Tags: Cap and Trade

Center for American Progress Makes Case for Less Health Care Regulation

The top liberal think tank, Center for American Progress, has recognized a major problem in healthcare: Because there are laws forcing consumers to buy healthcare from a provider licensed in their home state, the cost of healthcare is unnecessarily high for many consumers.

The plan to fix this problem would be to adopt reforms to let people cross state lines to purchase healthcare, lowering cost and creating competition. Let’s get behind it like CAP has! Them and their conservative ideas…

Tags: Center for American Progress