Politics Blog

This is getting unbelievable. On every issue, President Bush sounds more and more like a Democrat:

President Bush yesterday said there is a growing “income inequality” gap between rich and poor Americans, and told companies they should rethink the giant compensation packages they offer top executives.
The markedly populist message, a divergence from the past, in which Mr. Bush has accused critics of practicing class warfare, was all the more noteworthy given his venue – a speech at Federal Hall in New York, in the middle of Wall Street, the capital of capitalism.

Barney Frank made almost the exact same point a few weeks ago.

But wait, all is not lost, President Bush thinks the answer is found with a conservative solution:

But the president called for conservative market-based answers, including demanding that Congress renew trade-promotion authority, which allows him to negotiate trade agreements then present them to Congress in a take-it-or-leave-it fashion.
Mr. Bush said he expects a bruising debate before his current trade-promotion authority expires July 1.
“Bashing trade can make for good sound bites on the evening news,” Mr. Bush said. “But walling off America from world trade would be a disaster for our economy. Congress needs to reject protectionism.”
In what was billed as his update on the state of the U.S. economy, Mr. Bush took credit for the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, promised to submit a budget next week that eliminates the deficit in 2012, and asked Congress to give him a version of line-item veto authority.

As long as it’s not ‘compassionate conservatism.’

No talent liberal hack Al Franken will run for Senate against Norm Coleman:

WASHINGTON — Comedian Al Franken has decided to run for U.S. Senate in Minnesota in 2008, a senior Democratic official from Minnesota said Wednesday.

Franken told the official, who did not want to be identified because Franken has not made an announcement, that he had decided to run in a recent conversation.

“He told me he was running,” said the official.

Andy Barr, the political director of Franken’s Midwest Values Political Action Committee, declined to comment.

The news was not unexpected. Franken has been calling members of the Minnesota congressional delegation to get their input on a run, and he announced this week that he would be leaving his show on Air America Radio on Feb. 14. He told listeners he would be making a decision on a race soon.

In a swiftly issued statement, Minnesota Republican Party Chairman Ron Carey said he was confident Minnesotans “will reject Franken’s divisive, scorched earth attacks.”

Should he win the Democratic primary in Minnesota, Franken would take on Republican Norm Coleman, a first-term senator who is among the Democrats’ top targets.

The debates should be awesome. Al Franken is known to become enraged very easily when he is losing a debate, (which is always), and it is a sight to behold.

How’s this for fiscal responsibility?

The 286-140 vote — with 57 Republicans voting in favor — was a pleasant surprise for Democrats who expected far less GOP support. The $463.5 billion spending bill had much to please the rank and file, including Republican moderates, even though it contained no pet projects for their districts. “The content is a heck of a lot better than most expected we’d come up with,” said the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, Rep. David Obey, D-Wis. He worked with his Senate counterpart, Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., to add money for initiatives popular with both Democrats and Republicans.
…
They were especially pleased with a $260 boost, to $4,310, in the maximum Pell Grant for low-income college students, and with a 40 percent increase, to $4.5 billion, for fighting AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis overseas.

And here I thought they would attempt to balance the budget given all the pre-election rhetoric about “record deficits” and such.

And I’m real happy more federal tax dollars are going to help “the children” extend their adolescence for 5 years after high-school (do people even realize that about 51% of college students graduate within five years of initial enrollment, and most others don’t graduate?). Lovely.

Powerline points out some of the earmarks.

I heart hooverville:

Know what’s really impressive about today’s boffo 3.5 percent GDP growth number for the fourth quarter? It wasn’t so long ago that Wall Street economists were wondering if the number would be a “one-handle"–meaning growth between 1.0 and 1.9 percent. And instead of a “hard or “soft” landing, investment pros are now talking about a “growth scare” where a surprisingly robust economy would push the Federal Reserve into raising interest rates.
…
Here is MKM Partners economist Michael Darda:

Our indicators suggest that the outlook for the labor market is stronger than anytime since the late 1960s, when the unemployment rate dropped below 4 percent on a sustained basis. Weakness in profits and high real interest rates undermined the tight labor market of 1999–2000, whereas profits are much stronger today while real rates are much lower. In other words, monetary policy is much more accommodative now than it was before the last recession, which put an end to the tightest labor markets in 40 years. In fact, the profit and productivity backdrop is stronger now than it was during the first 20 quarters of the 1961–1969 expansion. … We thus expect unemployment to drop below 4 percent during 2007.

I kid you not: 75,000 protest tortilla prices in Mexico

“Calderon stole the elections, and now he’s stealing the tortillas!”

I guess he has a warehouse full of them at the presidential palace…

You probably have to try pretty hard to have these continued and staggering losses:

The New York Times Co. posted a $648 million loss for the fourth quarter on Wednesday as it absorbed an $814.4 million charge to write down the value of its struggling New England properties, The Boston Globe and the Worcester Telegram & Gazette.
The company said the non-cash charge reflected declines in current and projected results at the newspapers, which have been hit hard by the consolidations of key advertisers in the New England area as well as greater competition from online media.

The company originally paid $1.1 billion for the Globe in 1993 and $296 million for the Worcester paper in 2000.

The Times reported a loss amounting to $4.50 a share for the October- December period. It earned $63.1 million, or 43 cents a share, a year ago.

Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.

{3 count to Wethal}

Much like Jimmy Carter’s speech after his win, I’m sure Al Gore will also sing an anti-american, anti-Bush tune:

OSLO, Norway (AP) – Former Vice President Al Gore was nominated for the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his wide-reaching efforts to draw the world’s attention to the dangers of global warming, a Norwegian lawmaker said Thursday.
“A prerequisite for winning the Nobel Peace Prize is making a difference, and Al Gore has made a difference,” Conservative Member of Parliament Boerge Brende, a former minister of environment and then of trade, told The Associated Press.

Brende said he joined political opponent Heidi Soerensen of the Socialist Left Party to nominate Gore as well as Canadian Inuit activist Sheila Watt-Cloutier before the nomination deadline expired Thursday.

“Al Gore, like no other, has put climate change on the agenda. Gore uses his position to get politicians to understand, while Sheila works from the ground up,” Brende said.

During eight years as Bill Clinton’s vice president, Gore pushed for climate measures, including for the Kyoto Treaty. Since leaving office in 2001 he has campaigned worldwide, including with his Oscar- nominated documentary on climate change called “An Inconvenient Truth.”

Norwegian lawmakers are among the thousands of people and groups with rights to nominate Nobel candidates. Others include members of national governments, past laureates, members of the awards committee and its staff, and many university professors.

The winner is traditionally announced in mid-October, with the prize always presented on the Dec. 10 anniversary of the death of its creator, Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel.

I just love how these liberals are more loved by foreigners, many of them our enemies, than their own country.

(CNSNews.com) - The Jan. 20 attack on U.S. forces in Karbala was coordinated, sophisticated and well-timed - and now it looks like two Iraqi generals may be behind it, Fox News reported on Thursday. A convoy of SUVs drove through an American checkpoint, the occupants wearing military uniforms in an apparent attempt to impersonate Americans. The gunmen killed five American soldiers in the provincial headquarters where U.S. and Iraqi officials were meeting to discuss security measures, press reports said.

Does anyone still doubt that Iraq should have been leveled from day one ?

This edition of the GOPUSA-NJ Conservatives with Attitude! podcast show features Lowman Henry. Lowman is the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Lincoln Institute. Mr. Henry also hosts the Lincoln Radio Journal, heard weekly on over 90 stations in the state of Pennsylvania.

Mr. Henry is also hosting a PA Leadership Conference on April 20th and April 21st, featuring Laura Ingraham, Pat Toomey & Newt Gingrich.

Click here to listen or right-click on link and choose “Save As”