Job "Creation"

Larry Summers, Obama's chief economic adviser, consumed enough Diet Coke last week to blast him out of a slumber. Then he noticed the record-setting unemployment rate, held an interview with news media, and said it will remain "unacceptably high for a number of years."

So, in a play on Sheryl Crow and Obama lyrics, a change wouldn't do you good.

Larry, will you ever be able to explain to me how Obama can claim how he and Congress have created or saved 1 million jobs this year via the $787 billion, budget-busting, economic "stimulus" plan? The Obama administration's own numbers show 492,ooo jobs lost in July and August and 6.9 million total lost since the recession officially began. It sounds like fuzzy math and voodoo economics all over again, Larry.

Transparency and Open Government

I'm keeping President Obama's executive order regarding transparency and open government in mind as I watch the spinning, red numbers grow larger and larger here.

Each one of us--rich, poor, child, adult, man, woman, minority, majority, Democrat, Republican, left-wing radical, right-wing extremist--as of this moment own $38,187 of the national debt. Then there's $191,845 per citizen of unfunded federal liability. Tack on more than $24,000 per each man, woman and child of private debt, and each of us should subtract more than $254,000 from our net worth. If you're like me and most ordinary, working Americans President Obama is fixing stuff for, you're a couple of hundred thousand in the hole. And the hole's going deeper, perhaps clear through to China.

That's change we can believe in even before adding $1 trillion--most likely many trillions more using the sordid history of federal cost estimation failures as a guide--Obamacare is estimated to cost. If the Obama Administration truly wanted to fix stuff, it would mandate every American to pass a written economics exam before he or she walks into a polling place.

Buying groceries, gasoline, shelter, prescription drugs, and clothing with dollars that are worth less is the most cruel tax of all. This growing burden results from our exploding national debt. Inflation is this disguised, disgusting tax everyone who spends dollars pays. It has the greatest impact on the people President Obama claims to care about the most, the working poor.

No, Ed ...

I don't want to shoot President Barack Obama. I'm not a conservative, but I would say both libertarians, of which I am one, and conservatives simply want President Obama to stop shackling us with chains.

Another czar

President Obama took a break from fixing health care before the end of the year, nationalizing Chrysler and General Motors, promoting the rapid confirmation of the first Latina to join the Supremes, and taxpayer-subsidized fundraising in Nevada and California for the Democratic National Committee (aka Organizing for America or Obama 2.0) in order to fix the security of the nation's "cyberspace" or "communications and information infrastructure".

Chapter One of the presidential review team's report, "Leading from the Top," calls for "the establishment of a Presidential cybersecurity policy official and supporting structures" among other things. The status quo is no longer acceptable. Anchor leadership at the White House, they say.

Fine, President Obama. Start by ending the flood of e-mail lobbying and donation pleas from you, national poet laureate Joe Biden, Mitch Stewart and David Plouffe of Organizing for America, and others. Powered by Hope, I'm going to do as you suggest and contact the politicians resistant to change in my area. Your cult is sucking up too much vital bandwidth.

Obama's Organizing for the UK

One of Obama's changes has raised the ire of British investment managers, bankers and stockbrokers. He wants them to collect tax revenue without compensation for their efforts.

Maybe he does somewhat study history. Capital always flows out of a country following a socialist revolution. If he does bully the rest of the world in collecting taxes from U.S. citizens who have invested abroad, they'll simply become citizens of another country such as Andorra or Monaco or form some offshore, dummy corporations.

Anyhow, there are more Europeans questioning President Obama's right to regulate their governments and financial institutions. This crack in European Obamamania will grow wider as more listen less to what the President says and learn instead from his actions.

Joe's bunker blubber

Vice President Joe Biden is good for a laugh a day. While filling in for his brilliant boss, President Obama, at the Gridiron Club dinner, he gave up the "secure" and previously "undisclosed location" of the vice-presidential bunker.

Now Biden's office has released a statement saying he was only describing a former workspace upstairs at One Observatory Circle that has now been converted into a bedroom. But I guess the world knows why the neighbors were complaining about loud construction noises in 2002.

Joe, you're safe. No terrorists--even jacked-up ones--would want to take you out. It wouldn't be tactical.

Waterboarding

If Obama administration officials and Congressional investigators truly want to uncover all the details about the Bush Administration's interrogation procedures following Sept.11, 2001, they should waterboard members of Congress such as Nancy Pelosi, Jay Rockefeller, Dianne Feinstein, Carl Levin and others, who as members of House and Senate intelligence committees were briefed about waterboarding and other aspects of interrogation.

Their memories must be a bit foggy. Momma always said a splash of cold water to the face every morning would refresh me.

For those out there in the intelligence community looking for a waterboarding alternative, try forcing those enemy combatants or whatever they're currently called to watch congressional hearings via C-SPAN. Just five minutes of experiencing Rep. Henry Waxman's twitching nose hairs or hearing Rep. Barney Frank lament his weight gain should knock the secrets right out of the perps.

One step back for the Green Movement

The nearest Walgreens is about 30 miles away, so I haven't been in one for some time. Damn it, I've missed out on buying a Chia Obama pet there because it's too racist for some who can't appreciate the Prez growing a green Afro.

Chia Hillary is on the way unless it can be viewed as sexist. Or I can invest in talking, moving Obama stand-up dolls. I particularly like the one that is dash mountable of Barry wearing a flowing, white robe.

Then there's the Obama action figure Tam pointed out on View from the Porch. Power flows from the barrel of Barry's gun. His suit is a bit rumpled, however, and the accessories do not include a Blackberry or teleprompter.

"War on" replaced by "never waste a crisis" mentality

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, "Never waste a good crisis ... Don't waste it when it can have a very positive impact on climate change and energy security," during a speech to Friday in Brussels.

Rahm Emanuel, White House chief of staff, detailed this hope-filled opportunity for change Nov. 19 at the Wall Street Journal CEO Council in Washington, DC. "You never let a serious crisis go to waste. ... And what I mean by that it's an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before."

President Obama will take various "urgent and immediate" actions that aren't "shortcuts or quick fixes" to "stabilize the patient" who is "likely to get worse before it gets better." He's told us, "Full recovery will not happen immediately."

The Obamacons refrain from using the phrase, "War on" followed by whatever crisis best fits in the blank such as poverty, drugs, terror, etc., like past administrations. All of these wars were lost or not completely resolved despite trillions spent and entire executive departments formed and reorganized. We still have the wars--they're just dire crises now.

There's opportunity lurking in all these crises, President Obama said in his weekly radio address released today. He hopes to sign a bill later this year to fix the national health care crisis.

My dad used to tell a joke about applying turpentine to a dog's rear to fix a race. It worked--the dog outran a motorcyle. There's a whole lot of turpentine spreading going on in the White House.

I'm not a Barackstar.

I scored a whopping one point higher than aepilot_jim, but we'll both probably wind up in the gulag.

I'm an embarrassment to Barack!
I only scored 18 on the Obama Test

New Year's Resolutions ...

are something I don't make. I'm planning to live the way I've been accustomed, which has worked fairly well the past few years. I do plan to increase my carbon footprint this coming year by burning some gunpowder. I'm also going to upgrade my National Rifle Association membership from life to endowment next spring.

Keeping in shooting practice is still more expensive despite drastic decreases in cost for metals such as copper, lead and brass since last summer. Copper prices have dropped more than 70 percent. Aluminum is worth less, too. Unfortunately the price of ammunition, reloading components, and AR-15 receivers haven't went down.

No doubt the change.gov types, in the pursuit of their perception of "social justice", will try to thrust their ways upon individuals. These "progressives" represent little change from their 20th-century-socialist ascendants except for new names and faces. There hasn't been a body count in the millions in this country unlike elsewhere. The people haven't been completely disarmed and re-indoctrinated yet.

Keep shooting. Don't forget to take some friends. Don't let the expense or the unfriendly political climate squelch your passion and drive. Exercise those options, which Barack Obama declared as "negative liberties" in 2001, enumerated in our constitution or lose them.

"Do not separate text from historical background. If you do, you will have perverted and subverted the Constitution, which can only end in a distorted, bastardized form of illegitimate government."--James Madison, father of the U.S. Constitution

"Always Lawful"

"It kind of smells like Nixon and Watergate. But I don't care whether you tape me privately or publicly, I can tell you that whatever I say is always lawful."

--Ill. Gov. Rod Blagojevich, Dec. 8, 2008

Apparently the feds don't agree. Blagojevich and his chief of staff, John Harris, were arrested earlier today in Chicago. One may follow Operation Board Games here.

Rod is now estranged from Chicago Mayor Richard Daley and friends Rahm Emanuel, who is now Prez-elect Obama's chief of staff, and David Axelrod, Obama's senior advisor. It will be interesting to see how this will play out.

Gov. Lawful has long waged a campaign against Illinois firearms manufacturers such as Rock River Arms, Springfield Armory, Armalite and Les Baer.

Two bright spots in the economy

McDonald's same-store sales rose 8.3 percent in October, beating its own estimates. Most other restaurants reported declining sales.

Every vendor I've checked are out of stock of Magpul polymer, 20 or 30-round AR-15 magazines and 30-round mil-spec aluminum magazines. And the National Shooting Sports Foundation reports firearms sales are 10 percent higher this fall compared to the last. October sales are 15 percent higher than October 2007. Ammunition sales were up 14.2 percent in the second quarter of 2008 despite price increases caused by a global metals shortage.

Trial lawyers, one of the major blocks of the Democratic Party, have long waged wars on fatty food and guns. I don't see McDonald's and the firearms industry faring too well this time next year. Neither will find love when seeking federal bailouts unlike Detroit's no-longer-big-three automakers and AIG.

In the meantime, the Change Administration is going retro. Obama isn't a socialist--he's a monarchist. He's going to be a king, according to his spokesperson , Valerie Jarrett, who appeared on Meet the Press yesterday.



Ms. Jarrett is "the other side of" President-elect Obama's "brain", believe it or not.

9mm AR-15 Carbine update

I received an e-mail from Steve at Adco Firearms today. He finally received some complete 9mm Rock River Arms CAR A4 uppers. I ordered one through him in September. He shipped it to me Friday along with a RRA 9mm hammer.

So next week, I should be able to assemble the carbine and give it a whirl. I have a ARMS #40 rear sight to mount on the flattop. I'm going to keep it simple for now. The shelves are loaded with 9mm ammunition, and it doesn't cost near as much to replace as .223 Remington.

I'm glad I ordered the parts, top end and CProducts magazines before Nov. 4. The NRA-ILA offers this note of explanation. Of course, the original page referred by the NRA-ILA, http://change.gov/agenda/urbanpolicy, "is not available right now."

ABA names "Lawyers Who May Run America"

The 408,000-member American Bar Association plays a non-governmental and little-noticed role in the process of filling vacancies in the Supreme Court. You can read more about the ABA Standing Committee on Federal Judiciary here.

The ABA Journal cover story for November is The Lawyers Who May Run America. Today it published an article by Martha Neil, Obama Announces Transition Team; Lawyers Proliferate. The stories are filled with names of Obama's fellow Ivy-League attorneys, and the current dean of Harvard Law, Elena Kagan, will possibly be nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court during the next four years. Seth Waxman, a Yalie who 88-year-old Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens once said was the most brilliant young lawyer he's ever heard, may be nominated to replace Stevens.

Here's the members of Obama's transition team "triumvirate": Valerie Jarrett and John Podesta, old Chicago hands, and Pete Rouse, Obama's Senate chief of state and a former staff member for ex-Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle. Rouse has worked continously on Capitol Hill since 1971 and has been called the "101st Senator."

Podesta was the fourth and last chief of staff for the Clinton White House. He's the author of a book published earlier this year, The Power of Progress: How America's Progressives Can (Once Again) Save Our Economy, Our Climate, and Our Country.

Three other attorneys on the senior staff are Cassandra Q. Butts and Chris Lu, both classmates of Obama's at Harvard Law, and Michael Strautman, Obama's general counsel in the Senate.

Here's some of the faces of change, those who will restore the American Dream. They've promised to "restore our Constitution to its proper place in our government and return our Nation to our best traditions."

Attorneys will run America. We the servants should know our leaders. Lawyers are people, too, so I guess one could argue the Obama Revolution is still people powered.

Yes We Can ... be out of touch with reality

Intellectuals or Bigots? You decide.

Erica Jong thinks blood will run in the nation's streets if Sen. Obama does not ascend to the White House, something she has shared with those who speak and read Italian.

If you don't, you can read the New York Observer piece by Jason Horowitz.

Her pals, including Jane Fonda and Naomi Wolfe, can't sleep for crying or call Jong every day for moral support. Then, Jong has had to resort to Valium and acupuncture for stress relief.