Porkzilla from the Age of Change >>

When I was a kid, I was told as I visited the observatory on fieldtrips that people—humans—are unable to fathom the depths of space, the distance between stars, and the sheer enormity of it all. I was also told that a person could count to a billion in about 30-40 years, assuming that they had 24 hours a day to do so. Now try 1 trillion.

The recent slew of bailouts has triggered the ire of millions of Americans, and I was no exception. The auto industry, the finance and housing industry, and now the flagging New York Times, which has found its white knight in billionaire Mexican financier Carlos Slim Helu, and concretely morphed into panderer to foreign interests on immigration issues. A massive “stimulus” bill has constipated the legislature as Dear Leader has done NONE of the isle-reaching he promised, and has had 3 of his appointees step down due to corruption and tax evasion.

The rallies are done. The Greek columns have been disassembled and shelved in some Hollywood studio. “Obama Magazine” will no longer get the exclusive access it enjoyed, and must grudgingly trod back to becoming Rolling Stone henceforth. The honeymoon is over.

We have a stimulus that is crammed with pork, favors, held billions for special interests and payback for ACORN, infrastructural appropriations for roads that will be years before they ever even matriculate into the economy, getting tied up in state, county, and municipal zoning committees for years before they infuse the economy with the “swift action” Obama says that we need. I am beginning to think that like FDR’s New Deal, he is making it up as he goes along. Whatever it is, it must be swift for his approval ratings. Rahm Emanuel said it best when he stated to “never let a crisis go to waste.” Sad and certain he would not apply the rigors of that idiocy to 1 trillion taxpayer dollars. That is the entire Iraq War without firing a bullet and with the wave of a pen; Reid, Pelosi, Obama…you have really outdone yourselves. Like the Iraq War, the timetable is uncertain, and I tend to think that this legislation will bear less fruit. A stimulus package that dolls out cash to abort foreign babies in distant lands is off-target in cluster of ways, both moral and economic, and has little to do with our success as a nation. Obama cried foul on the Urribe government in Columbia for ignoring labor unions, but has no qualm about killing their unborn! EPIC FAIL!!! After 9/11, Radical Islam threatened America (and still does) and so there was legitimate austerity taken towards these threats...something that Liberal intelligensia has laughingly labeled "fear politics." Yet today, the politics of fear are alive and well. Aside from wagging his finger, the only presidential leadership Obama has exerted is to scream from the back seat that the nation will collapse if we don't work faster.

On the jobs front, I would say that infrastructure enhancements are good, but they tend to be slow in matriculating into the economy. Funds like this get tied up at the state, county, and municipal level in meetings and litigations on zoning. We will not see the infrastructure spending for 2 or 3 years into it. If we want to do this, great. But we should designate it as a different mission than improving the economy. FDR's New Deal is taught in schoolbooks as sacrosanct, but most modern economists say it protracted the depression. CCC camps. “Ok young boy. Put on this uniform and dig this hole. Now you, other young boy, put on a uniform and fill this same hole up.”

Jobs justify their value by what people are willing to pay for them, not by their artificial existence. Eventually, the weakness emerges when the feds have to turn off the spigot, and get in the business of layoffs. Government projects and jobs are great, but they should be direct to a goal, like building a battleship, raising a nuclear plant, or building an oil derrick to flow domestic oil to us. Not just to get people working for the sake of working. In Zen terminology, the Liberals are confusing motion with action, and movement with progress. Work is a means to something, not an end. Basing an economic proof off the contrary does create work, but it does not create jobs.

37% of Americans even support this stimulus/bailout in its current form, and that means a lot of swing voters, moderate democrats, and hapless undecideds are feeling a twinge of buyer’s remorse in electing a candidate that they thought was fresh, a change, and would redirect the forces of Washington, DC. Obama is a weak, corrupt, and ostentatiously partisan man who is go-along with the forces of DC directing him. Three of his appointees have stepped down due to corruption (given Obama’s damning judgment in choosing friends) and it has not even been a month! No axial force has come from the executive yet on an economic platform that he owned during the campaign, and for as hasty and assertive as he seemed about the transition, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs has been notably vague on Obama’s interface with Congress.

Recent polling on Obama:

Ordering the U.S. prison for terrorist suspects at Guantanamo Bay be closed within a year
Approve 44% Disapprove 50%

Allowing U.S. funding for overseas family planning organizations that provide abortions

Approve 35% Disapprove 58%

USA Today Gallup Poll: http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-02-02-poll-stimulus_N.htm

A recent Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey concludes that 37% favor the legislation, 43% are opposed, and 20% are not sure.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/business/economic_stimulus_package/support_for_stimulus_package_falls_to_37

Although the American people are clearly with us on this issue, and we have been given an olive branch from a public suffering from doubts on the new Democratic leadership, I fear that some loose Republicans could derail an opportunity to reprove our mettle to the American people once more. And it was that kind of Republicanism that lost us the 06 and 08 elections. And if they do so, then be they cursed and sent off in shame. Those party members need a solid purging after spending too many years cozying up to the Dems at our movement’s peril. Any public contentment with a passed legislation and perceived softened tone of compromise in DC will be attributed to Obama leadership, which is why he wants “swift” action.

This bill is a stimulus in one regard, insomuch psychologists notice that certain kinds obscenity and lewdness can be, in fact, quite stimulating. And unfortunately, all the wrong people will get off on it. >>