President Barack Obama on Saturday urged Americans to show patience over the economy and argued that his just-concluded Asia trip was critical for U.S. exports, countering criticism he had returned empty-handed.

With unemployment at a generation high of 10.2 percent and once-lofty popularity ratings down, Obama said a December White House forum will leave no stone unturned in the hunt for jobs.

“Even though it will take time, I can promise you this: we are moving in the right direction; that the steps we are taking are helping,” Obama said in his weekly address, amid signs that the public is getting impatient for results.

Got that, folks? He’s working his tail off, doing everything necessary. Yeah, about that, Lynn Sweet reports (and appears to be the only one doing so)

Your pooler has been informed that POTUS golfed at Andrews with trip director Marvin Nicholson, legislative affairs staffer Eugene Kang and campaign photographer David Katz.

Being president is a tough job, and everyone needs some down time, but, being president is a tough job, and a lot is required. He campaigned for the job (after lying about not running until his first term as a Senator was completed,) but he seems to want all the trappings of being president, but, not the responsibilities.

Don’t forget, he said that the Generational Theft Act needed to be passed RIGHT NOW back in February, without debate, saying things like

“I believe that legislation of this enormous magnitude, that by necessity we are moving quickly — we’re not moving quickly because we’re trying to jamb something down people’s throats.  We’re moving quickly because we’re told that if we don’t move quickly, that the economy is going keep on getting worse, and we’ll have another 2 or 3 or 4 million jobs loss this year.”

Yet, while the economy looks to be recovering, for the moment, and let’s hope we do not see a doubly dip, private sector jobs are still not there. What jobs are supposedly being created are mostly government jobs, and temporary ones, at that.

Of course, on the flip side, the more time he spends doing other things, the less time he has to damage the United States as we know it.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove

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With a 60 to 39 vote, the Senate has passed the motion to proceed to move on with the debate over Obamacare. Again, it is important to note that this is only a vote to begin the floor debate on the bill. It is not a vote to pass Obamacare.

In the Washington Examiner, Byron York has an excellent point when he asks, “why was it so hard for Democrats even to start the healthcare debate?”

The extraordinary thing about the dramatic events surrounding the health care bill in the Senate is that there is any drama in it at all. Lawmakers are simply voting to begin debate on their version of health care reform. Just begin debate — not end it, and not move on to a final vote.

If Democrats, with a 60-vote majority in the Senate, were not able to begin debate on the top Democratic policy priority in a generation — well, that would be a devastating turn of events, both for the party and for President Obama. And yet just starting debate has proved difficult, and only today did the 60th Democratic vote fall in place in favor of beginning the process.

I have made this point myself as it happens. On Nov. 19, I was writing about the sly, underhanded tricks that Reid was using to advance the Senate debate on Obamacare but why, I wondered, are these tricks even necessary? If this bill has the wide-spread support that the Democrats keep claiming it has, why all the dirty tricks, obfuscations, and rules bending?

If this bill was a legitimate bill would all of these dirty tricks be necessary? Further, if this bill had such wide acceptance and agreement among Congress and the people alike, why are Democrats afraid to let everyone see the bill?

York is essentially echoing my point and adding that this bill does not have wide support in Congress or among the voters that Reid, Pelosi, and the President are pretending it has. The fact that Reid had to work so hard to get this thing even to a stage where further debate could be had is telling.

We still have a chance to kill this bill, people. We must keep the pressure on our Congressmen.

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The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 62% believe tax cuts are a better way to create jobs and fight unemployment. Only 21% believe that additional stimulus spending is a more effective tool. Earlier this year, as the first stimulus package was being debated in Congress, 62% of voters wanted the plan to have more tax cuts and less spending.

Given a different choice today, 51% believe canceling the rest of the stimulus money would create more jobs while 32% say spending the money would be the better approach to job creation. These findings are consistent with earlier polling. Most Americans say that, generally speaking, increased government spending is bad for the economy. Earlier this year, before the unemployment rate had reached its current highs, 45% wanted to cancel the rest of the stimulus spending while just 36% disagreed.

The survey also found that most voters are skeptical about claims of government job creation. Most (58%) say it’s unlikely that the stimulus plan has saved or created more than 600,000 jobs.

They just hate that a Black man is in the White House, I’m sure. Plus, they are probably all wingnuts and fascists, maybe even Christianists and Fundies.

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Either today or later this week, Senate Democrat Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev) wants the Senate to vote on a “motion to proceed” on the Senate’s version of the healthcare bill. That wouldn’t be so bad except for the fact that it has barely been seen by anyone in the Senate. At least not as far as most Senators are concerned. Why is that? Because the bill has not been shown to them with sufficient time to study it, that’s why.

What Reid wants is for the Senate to vote to proceed on a bill that has not been seen, not read, not studied by the very Senators from whom he wants to force a vote. If this bill is so important, why isn’t it imperative that our Senators actually get to see the thing they are expected to vote on?

And that isn’t the worst of the unconscionable dirty tricks that Reid is playing with this “important” legislation. He’s also planning on a bait and switch tactic once he gets his vote to proceed.

News is that Reid wants to use a Senate procedure where a bill can be swapped out with another on the floor. He wants to bring an unassociated bill to the floor and once it gets there he wants to swap that bill out with the healthcare bill. In other words, he wants to bring a fake bill to the floor and pull a bait-and-switch act to suddenly plop before the Senate the heretofore unseen healthcare bill. Then he wants to force a quick vote.

Alarmingly, Reid is making an effort to eliminate any time for Senators to see what is in this economy killing, liberty slaying, big government leviathan before a vote is forced down their throats.

If this bill was a legitimate bill would all of these dirty tricks be necessary? Further, if this bill had such wide acceptance and agreement among Congress and the people alike, why are Democrats afraid to let everyone see the bill?

Reid isn’t a fool, though. He knows that once America gets to see what is in this mess it will become nearly impossible to pass this thing. Naturally, that is why he is trying to eliminate any possibility that anyone might get a glimpse of what is in the bill before it is passed.

The fact is, though, if Reid cannot get his 60-vote “motion to proceed” his sly maneuvers will be stymied for now. So, call your Senators and tell them where you stand on these underhanded tactics, won’t you? Tell them not to vote to proceed until they’ve at least gotten a chance to see this mysterious, invisible healthcare bill.

Lastly, one wonders why the most “transparent” president in history is allowing the Congress to continue day in and day out to press votes on legislation no one has ever seen on bills that haven’t been written? What ever happened to the hoary days of campaigning when Obama kept promising that we’d all get 5 days to see a bill before a vote?

How times change.

Note: As of today, the bill has been posted online so that we can see it. But Reid wants to vote on the motion to proceed today or tomorrow. This is hardly the 72 hours timeline that transparency advocates have pressed for, nor is it anywhere close to the five days that President Obama promised us all.

You can see the bill at http://www.scribd.com/doc/22734971/Senate-Democrats-Health-Care-Reform-Bill.

(Cross posted at BigGovernment.com.)

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An excerpt of the 1924 Republican Party Platform:

The prosperity of the American nation rests on the vigor of private initiative which has bred a spirit of independence and self-reliance. The republican party stands now, as always, against all attempts to put the government into business.

American industry should not be compelled to struggle against government competition. The right of the government to regulate, supervise and control public utilities and public interests, we believe, should be strengthened, but we are firmly opposed to the nationalization or government ownership of public utilities.

In 1924 the GOP ran Calvin “Silent Cal” Coolidge for president. And he won on this platform.

Even then Democrats were trying to turn this country into a less powerful version of Europe by emulating its socialist systems. A proud Republican Party repudiated these socialist tendencies and reiterated its pride in the American way. These principles appealed to the true American spirit and also won elections.

Unfortunately, the very next president, himself a Republican, turned toward socialist, collectivist concepts and set the stage for what later became Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal destruction of the American economic system that compounded a market correction and turned it into “The Great Depression.” And save for a brief time under Ronald Reagan, it appears that the GOP has never recovered its principles as espoused in its 1924 platform.

Where are these strong principles today? Does the GOP stand for free markets, individual responsibility, self-reliance, and the right of the citizen to be left alone by a rapacious federal government under Democrats? It is getting harder and harder to think that the GOP does want to uphold these long-held American principles, those that made this country great.

So, let’s recall the words of the 1924 GOP Party platform and let us strive to return to these first principles.

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President Barack Obama’s approval rating has fallen below 50 percent for the first time in polling by Quinnipiac University as U.S. voter discontent grows over the war in Afghanistan.
Obama’s job approval rating fell to 48 percent in the Nov. 9-16 survey of registered voters nationwide by the Hamden, Connecticut-based university, with 42 percent polled saying they disapproved of the job he is doing.
“In politics, symbols matter, and this is not a good symbol for the White House,” Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, said in a statement.
Obama’s approval rating was 59 percent in a Quinnipiac survey conducted Feb. 25 to March 2.

Here are the details:

Economy: 43/52, 47/46 in October – independents 38/58
Foreign policy: 49/42, 49/37 in October – independents 45/49
Afghanistan: 38/49, 42/40 in October – inds 30/57

He can’t make a decision on Afghanistan, he bows to Communist dictators, pushing an unpopular socialist healthcare takeover, the National debt tops $12 trillion, and he is allowing stupid decisions like the 911 conspirators get a show trial. None of this can be helping much, and he isn’t near his bottom yet. He and the Democrats are losing Independents fast. At least some Dems are recognizing it!

Mounting evidence that independent voters have soured on the Democrats is prompting a debate among party officials about what rhetorical and substantive changes are needed to halt the damage.

Following serious setbacks with independents in off-year elections earlier this month, White House officials attributed the defeats to local factors and said President Barack Obama sees no need to reposition his own image or the Democratic message.

Since then, however, a flurry of new polls makes clear that Democrats are facing deeper problems with independents—the swing voters who swung dramatically toward the party in 2006 and 2008 but who now are registering deep unease with the amount of spending and debt called for under Obama’s agenda in an era of one-party rule in Washington.

A Gallup Poll released last week offered a disturbing glimpse about the state of play: just 14 percent of independents approve of the job Congress is doing, the lowest figure all year. In just the past few days alone, surveys have shown Democratic incumbents trailing Republicans among independent voters by double-digit margins in competitive statewide contests in places as varied as Connecticut, Ohio and Iowa.

Meanwhile Sarah Palin gives Oprah her highest ratings in two years…even higher than when Obama was on! 1500 people waited in the freezing weather for her autograph! She is making an impact and making her critics sweat. The pendalum is swinging!

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On November 11, I wrote of the statements that Charlie Crist made denying that he ever supported Obama’s $787 billion stimulus bill in his role as Florida’s Governor. Unfortunately for his obfuscation, though, I noted that he and 17 other governors signed a letter in February of this year announcing support for the Stimulus. Apparently Crist had forgotten he signed this letter… conveniently. Yes, he was for the porkulus bill before he was against it.

Well now there is even more proof than that mere signature on a piece of paper showing Charlie’s support for the porkulus bill. From Ed Morrissey we find an interview that Rolling Stone hackster Tim Dickinson did with Crist back in the spring. In that piece Dickinson was celebratory that Crist was a stimulus supporter.

Dickinson then noted, “For his part, Crist is weighing a run for the Senate — where, he tells Rolling Stone, he would have given the president a fourth Republican vote on the stimulus bill.”

Due to the controversy of whether Crist did or didn’t support the Obama Administration’s bill, Dickinson recently posted a transcript of the actual exchange:

Rolling Stone: Just a final question: Had you been in the Senate, would you have voted with the other Republicans for the stimulus package?

Crist: Absolutely.

This all adds more to the story I reported on Nov. 5. As I said, Crist has lately been saying that he didn’t support the stimulus in particular, but that he did in spirit. Charlie Crist absolutely did, however, support Obama’s stimulus directly and in particular. His current spin to the contrary isn’t just a subtle re-reading of his actions. His new claim is an outright lie.

It all adds up to an outing of Charlie Crist on porkulus. Sorry Charlie, but you did support the $787 billion pork bill before you tried to claim you didn’t.

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Here’s a stimulus success story: In Arizona’s 15th congressional district, 30 jobs have been saved or created with just $761,420 in federal stimulus spending. At least that’s what the Web site set up by the Obama administration to track the $787 billion stimulus says.

There’s one problem, though: There is no 15th congressional district in Arizona; the state has only eight districts.

And ABC News has found many more entries for projects like this in places that are incorrectly identified.

Government: If you think the problems we created are bad, wait till you see our solutions.

Those fictional districts in Arizona are by no mean a small sample. Pretty much every state has entries like that. I looked up my home state of NC, and, apparently we now have a 14th, 37th, 86th, 24th, 99th, and 00 districts! We only have 13 total districts. The 37th created 2 jobs for a cost of almost $4 million dollars.

My old home state of NJ has 18 extra districts, which supposedly created 574.6 jobs with a price tag of around $24 million. What is your state looking like?

Meanwhile, the Generational Theft Act is actually creating new jobs: grifters.

And the original idiocy, the TARP plan, wasted billions on AIG.

The Federal Reserve’s initial emergency plan last fall to save then-failing American International Group was so hastily put together and poorly structured that it resulted in billions of additional taxpayer dollars spent on the insurance giant, says a new report by a Treasury Department independent watchdog.

And guess who coordinated the plan? If you guess Little Timmy Geithner, give yourself an early morning shot of Tequila.

And these are the same people who want to run our health care system and say they can actually reduce costs? Good luck with that.

And someone make sure Sheriff Joe didn’t lock himself in a jail cell again.

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Once again we see how clueless Democrats like Illinois Governor Pat Quinn and Senator Dick Durbin are on matters of national security. With Barack Hussein Obama’s decision to treat the terrorists at Guantanamo Bay as if they are common American criminals, as the president bestows all American rights upon them, and with his decision to spread these monsters out across the U.S.A, we see Quinn and Durbin idiotically asserting that terrorists equal “good paying jobs.”

These jobs might come from the sale to the federal government of the Thomson correctional facility in west central Illinois where Obama could send some 100 detainees in preparation of closing down the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba facilities. Obama is struggling to figure out what to do with these detainees after his hastily made, ill-informed decision last January to close down the terrorist detainment facility.

After the idea was announced, both Quinn and Durbin found themselves all excited to welcome these monsters into their state and both imagined that the occasion means that Illinois gets jobs. Durbin is quoted in the Wall Street Journal as saying that this is a dramatic opportunity.

“This is an opportunity to dramatically reduce unemployment, create thousands of good-paying jobs and breathe new economic life into this part of downstate Illinois,” Mr. Durbin said. “We should not let the unsupported and misplaced fears of a few stand in the way of this historic economic boost to our region.”

And the Journal reported that Quinn was lobbying Obama for just such an “opportunity.

Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn said he had a brief discussion with President Barack Obama this month about using the facility. He also wrote a letter last Thursday to Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Mr. Holder, saying the federal government would be hard-pressed to find a more secure prison.

Quinn told reporters “This is an economic opportunity that comes once in a lifetime for the people of Illinois,” and thinks that Illinois will see 3,000 jobs if the terrorists get sent to his state.

Can we review what is going on here? Quinn and Durbin are willing to give terrorists American rights, they are willing to bring terrorists among the families of their own constituents, and they are pretending that this will bring jobs.

First of all, what are these so-called jobs? Are they real jobs that contribute to the state’s and the country’s economy? No they are not. They are faux jobs born of the federal treasury, not jobs that creates any new economic activity. All these so-called jobs will do is shuffle money from other parts of the country (in taxes) and shift them to these make-work jobs in a federalized prison project.

These are not legitimate jobs. They are federal largess.

But all that pales in comparison to the fact that these folks are falling all over themselves to give terrorist enemies all the rights of a natural born American. These politicians are prepared to bestow Constitutional rights on these murderous cretins and bring some of the most dangerous people in the world into our communities.

There is another aspect of this that is absurd enough to border on the surreal. One of the things that leftists held against the Guantanamo Bay facility is the expense of maintaining the facilities. Many Democrats and leftists said it was too expensive for the American people to continue paying for. Of course the Guantanamo Bay facility is one installation, right? Now comes Obama to spread these terrorists all across the country effectively making the costs to house them many times more expensive to house these murderers because now instead of one facility, we’ll have multiple facilities to pay for!

After all this, who can deny that Democrats are not to be trusted where it concerns national security?

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