We have a new audio clip up:  "Obama's First Month."  You can hear it here.

SATURDAY,  FEBRUARY 28,  2009

CHILLING TO THE BONE - AT 3:08 P.M. ET:

GROZNY, Russia (AP) -- The bullnecked president of Chechnya emerged from afternoon prayers at the mosque and with chilling composure explained why seven young women who had been shot in the head deserved to die.

Ramzan Kadyrov said the women, whose bodies were found dumped by the roadside, had ''loose morals'' and were rightfully shot by male relatives in honor killings.

''If a woman runs around and if a man runs around with her, both of them are killed,'' Kadyrov told journalists in the capital of this Russian republic.

COMMENT:  I'm so relieved to know that the man is also killed.  And I'd thought - probably disinformation planted by neocon agents - that Islamo-fascism was anti-female.  How wrong could I be!  They're equal opportunity murderers.

Let's see what kind of international reaction these sickening murders bring.  Can you hear the uproar?

REWRITING HISTORY - AT 2:18 P.M. ET:  From The New York Times:

WASHINGTON — President Obama described his expansive budget proposal on Saturday as “a threat to the status quo in Washington” and cast himself as a populist crusader willing to do battle with special interests to expand health care, curb pollution and improve education.

“I didn’t come here to do the same thing we’ve been doing or to take small steps forward,” Mr. Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address. “I came to provide the sweeping change that this country demanded when it went to the polls in November. That is the change this budget starts to make, and that is the change I’ll be fighting for in the weeks ahead.”

COMMENT:  Precisely when did the country demand sweeping change?  Some 46 percent of Americans voted for John McCain, and that happened even after the financial collapse in September weighted the election heavily toward the Democrats.  Had that collapse not occurred, the final result would probably have been much closer.  And the mainstream media gave us the most biased performance in its recent history.

The president is rewriting the record.  But his statements today give final proof that the so-called "stimulus" package was less about stimulus than about establishing the welfare state. 

DEMS GONE WILD

Posted at 10:31 a.m. ET

There are some strains showing in the Democratic Party, and that is good.  It's important that neither party tilt toward extremes, and the Dems have been heaving heavily to port for some time.  Joel Kotkin, in the Wall Street Journal, argues that not everyone wearing the donkey pin likes that:

Broadly speaking, there is a long-standing conflict inside the Democratic Party between gentry liberals and populists...Today the emerging fault-lines follow mostly regional, geographical and, most importantly, class differences.

Gentry liberals cluster largely in cities, wealthy suburbs and college towns. They include disproportionately those with graduate educations and people living on the coasts. Populists tend to be located more in middle- and working-class suburbs, the Great Plains and industrial Midwest.

And...

Bill Clinton revived the lunch-pail Democratic tradition; and the final stages of last year's presidential primaries represented yet another classic gentry versus populist conflict. Hillary Clinton could not match Barack Obama's appeal to the gentry. Driven to desperation, she ended up running a spirited populist campaign.

Trouble is coming:

Although peace now reigns between the Clintons and the new president, the broader gentry-populist split seems certain to fester at both the congressional and local levels -- and President Obama will be hard-pressed to negotiate this divide...

...Geography is clearly a determining factor here. Standout antifinancial bailout senators included Sens. Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, Tim Johnson of South Dakota, and Jon Tester of Montana...

...Gentry liberals, despite occasional tut-tutting, fell lockstep for the bailout. Not one Northeastern or California Democratic senator opposed it.

New issues and divisions emerge:

Energy and the environment are potentially even more explosive issues. Gentry politicians tend to favor developing only alternative fuels and oppose expanding coal, oil or nuclear energy. Populists represent areas, such as the Great Lakes region, where manufacturing still plays a critical role and remains heavily dependent on coal-based electricity.

The president has drunk the Kool-Aid:

Unlike his notably mainstream appointments in foreign policy and economics, he's tilted fairly far afield on the environment with individuals such as John Holdren, a longtime acolyte of the discredited neo-Malthusian Paul Ehrlich, and Carol Browner, who was Bill Clinton's hard-line EPA administrator.

These appointments could presage an environmental jihad throughout the regulatory apparat. Early examples could mean such things as strict restrictions on greenhouse gases, including bans on new drilling and higher prices through carbon taxes or a cap-and-trade regime.

Finally...

Priorities such as these may win plaudits in urban enclaves in New York, Boston and San Francisco -- bastions of the gentry class and of under-35, childless professionals -- but they might not be so widely appreciated in the car- and truck-driving Great Plains and the vast suburban archipelago, where half the nation's population lives.

If he wishes to enhance his power and keep the Democrats together, Mr. Obama will have to figure out how to placate both his gentry base and those Democrats who still see their party's mission in terms that Harry Truman would have understood.

I'm rooting for the Truman guys, but I'm surrounded, here in New York, by the gentry types.  Last night I parked next to a Prius with an Obama sticker.  Pretty standard. 

February 28,  2009.      Permalink          

SABRE-RATTLING - AT 9:59 A.M. ET:  From AP: 

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea accused the U.S. military of making provocative moves along the tense border on the divided Korean peninsula, warning Saturday of "unpredictable military conflicts."

The rare threat came as North Korea was apparently gearing up to test-fire a long-range missile believed capable of reaching U.S. territory. Pyongyang has also stepped up its war of rhetoric against the South over Seoul's tough stance toward its communist neighbor.

COMMENT:  Ms. Hillary was just in that neighborhood.  The trip clearly did a lot of good. The rhetoric of North Korea has not changed a bit since The One took office.

 
QUOTE OF THE DAY, THUS FAR - AT 9:32 A.M. ET:  From Fred Barnes in the Weekly Standard:

When Barack Obama met with TV anchors at a White House lunch last week, he assured them he likes being president. "And it turns out I'm very good at it," he added. Well, not exactly. What Obama is actually very good at is campaigning. He did it for two years as a presidential candidate, and it's pretty much what he's been doing in the six weeks since he was sworn in.

COMMENT:  Crunch time is coming.

IN HILLARY'S SHADOW - AT 8:57 A.M. ET:  From ABC News:

(Albany, N.Y.) - Senator Kirstin Gillibrand is under fire from conservatives for changing her positions on several major issues since being chosen by Governor Paterson to replace Hillary Clinton.

Gillibrand had earned a reputation as a moderate Democrat from upstate, but this week she frustrated the NRA by changing her mind about a bill to make it easier to trace gun purchases.

The National Rifle Association used to love Kirstin Gillibrand, but on the day she was selected to join the Senate, downstate politicians predicted she would change positions on guns.

COMMENT:  She is our new senator.  She has no principles.  She succeeded Hillary Clinton, who has no principles.  She was appointed by a governor who succeeded Eliot Spitzer, who got caught with prostitutes.  Welcome to New York.

MAKING MATTERS WORSE - AT 8:42 A.M. ET:  From The Washington Times:

President Obama has began the process of rescinding a last-minute rule by George W. Bush that strengthened legal protections for health care workers who refuse to perform abortions because of religious or moral objections.

With this latest move pleasing pro-choice advocates and angering pro-lifers, the Obama administration early next week will open a 30-day period for public comment on its intentions to reverse the policy, a Health and Human Services (HHS) senior official said Friday on the condition of anonymity because the comment period hasn't started.

COMMENT:  Rescinding the rule is not the solution.  Some mechanism must be found to provide reasonable protection for those who have moral objections to abortion, while at the same time upholding patients' rights.  A panel should be formed to study the issue and come up with creative solutions.

ET TU, SONY? - AT 8:32 A.M. ET:  From The New York Times:

TOKYO — Howard Stringer, chief executive of the Sony Corporation, will take over as president to take control of the company’s struggling electronics division, the company said Friday.

Sony, which said in January that it expected to post a $3 billion loss for the year ending March 31, said Mr. Stringer would succeed Ryoji Chubachi as president.

Sony will also streamline its sprawling electronics divisions to speed up decision-making, battle cut-throat competition and better weather the global downturn, Mr. Stringer said Friday.

COMMENT:  Remember when SONY was the electronics company, when everyone wanted a Trinitron TV, when the Walkman reigned supreme?  My, how things change.  SONY was iPodded and flatscreened, and often caught short in innovation.  The lesson:  Nothing stays the same.  Companies on top one day have to hustle to stay there.  SONY didn't hustle, nor did it develop the kind of friendly service network that customers like.  Nor did it innovate in its computer division, which is far outdistanced by Apple.  Nor did it make its stores very inviting.  SONY never had a Steve Jobs.  That's the problem.

FRIDAY,  FEBRUARY 27,  2009

AMEN INDEED - AT 11:29 P.M. ET:  From The Wall Street Journal, quoting President Obama:

"We sent our troops to Iraq to do away with Saddam Hussein's regime -- and you got the job done. We kept our troops in Iraq to help establish a sovereign government -- and you got the job done. And we will leave the Iraqi people with a hard-earned opportunity to live a better life -- that is your achievement; that is the prospect that you have made possible." Amen.

COMMENT:  It is sad that Mr. Obama does not have the graciousness to give credit to his predecessor, who made victory in Iraq possible.  Nor does he have the courage to utter the word "democracy."  Doing both things would upset the left wing of his party.  But at least the president acknowledges what he refused to during the campaign - that we have essentially won in Iraq.  With this nod, he vindicates much of what Mr. Bush did.  Let's see if any member of the mainstream media recognizes that fact. 

TOO GOOD TO IGNORE - AT 6:14 P.M. ET.  Some images are just too good to pass over.  This, of Hillary Clinton, from the Washington Times:

Yeah, I'm afraid so.

IF TRUE, GREAT - AT 4:47 P.M. ET:  From AP:

The United States has decided not to participate in a UN conference on racism in April unless the final document is changed to drop all references to Israel and the defamation of religion, a senior US official said Friday.

The conference is a follow-up to the contentious 2001 conference in the South African city of Durban which was dominated by clashes over the Middle East and the legacy of slavery. The US and Israel walked out midway through that eight-day meeting over a draft resolution that singled out Israel for criticism and likened Zionism to racism.

COMMENT:  The coming conference is the already infamous Durban II.  Besides demonizing Israel, the conference is expected to demand reparations for slavery and to pass resolutions essentially banning criticism of anything Islamic.  I am making a guarded guess that the source of this story is our UN ambassador, Susan Rice, which would be good.

DOW CLOSE - AT 4:36 P.M .ET:  The Dow closed down 119, to 7063.  It is bumping that 7000 mark.  A few weeks ago it was bumping the 8000 mark.

GM STALLED - AT 11:40 A.M. ET:  From The Detroit Free Press:

GM Chairman Rick Wagoner pressed Thursday to convince Washington to provide more aid as the company revealed a massive loss coupled with a warning that its auditors are likely to question the automaker's viability.

It was a further sign that the century-old automaker is teetering on bankruptcy, a scenario that General Motors Corp. is desperately trying to avoid.

COMMENT:  It might be inevitable.  There's a limit to what Washington and the American people will do.  Constant talk of bankruptcy, of course, is a self-fulling prophecy:  Who wants to buy a car from a company that may be going bankrupt?  How do you explain it to your neighbors?

WE ARE ALL EUROPEANS NOW?

Posted at 9:53 a.m. ET

Ah, we have suspected it.  Charles Krauthammer says what many have been thinking - that the Obamans would like to turn this country into some version of a European socialist state.

Not a great speech, but extremely consequential. If Barack Obama succeeds, his joint address to Congress will be seen as historic -- indeed as the foundational document of Obamaism. As it stands, it constitutes the boldest social democratic manifesto ever issued by a U.S. president.

Worry now.

Reagan came to office to do something: shrink government, lower taxes, rebuild American defenses. Obama made clear Tuesday night that he intends to be equally transformative. His three goals: universal health care, universal education, and a new green energy economy highly funded and regulated by government.

Not much on defense.

These revolutions in health care, education and energy are not just abstract hopes. They have already taken life in Obama's massive $787 billion stimulus package, a huge expansion of social spending constituting a down payment on Obama's plan for remaking the American social contract.

Obama sees the current economic crisis as an opportunity. He has said so openly. And now we know what opportunity he wants to seize. Just as the Depression created the political and psychological conditions for Franklin Roosevelt's transformation of America from laissez-faireism to the beginnings of the welfare state, the current crisis gives Obama the political space to move the still (relatively) modest American welfare state toward European-style social democracy.

With its mediocrity, boredom and lack of innovation.

The spread between Europe and America in government-controlled GDP has already shrunk from 14 percent to 7 percent. Two terms of Obamaism and the difference will be zero.

Conservatives take a dim view of the regulation-bound, economically sclerotic, socially stagnant, nanny state that is the European Union. Nonetheless, Obama is ascendant and has the personal mandate to take the country where he wishes. He has laid out boldly the Brussels-bound path he wants to take.

Just what the world needs - another Belgium.  It won't be long before we are spouting pacifism, and, of course, multiculturalism, and welcoming the destruction of our Constitutional freedoms in the name of social harmony.

Yuch.

February 27,  2007.       Permalink          

REQUIRED READING - AT 9:30 A.M. ET:  One of the blessings I've been given in publishing Urgent Agenda is our remarkable, informed and experienced readership.  (It's just got to be one of the best readerships on the web.)  Excellent information and insight pours in every day.

The Pentagon has now decided to permit the photographing of the coffins of dead American soldiers as they're returned to the United States.  I have no idea why this decision was made.  Are not the families entitled to some dignity and privacy?  Some shout that this is a "freedom of the press" issue.  It is not.  You can be sure that those who pressured for this change are determined to shatter American morale, as they did during Vietnam.  Some of them say that they want to show Americans "the cost of war," as if Americans don't know that men and women have been killed.  Must be a secret somewhere.

I urge you to read this message, sent by an Air Force physician to his father, who is an Urgent Agenda reader with substantial experience in government.  This says it:

I see on the news that they are going to allow the photography.  Over and over, even in death, the soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines will be used for political propaganda.  It will never be as respectful and full of honor as it was when everyone available stopped work and lined up to pay their respect with salutes and tears to each and every returning hero. No one needed a camera crew to do this. This is what we do for our fallen, out of love and respect, not for a photo op.   The ceremony, the dignity, the respect for the families of the fallen has been cheapened by this.

COMMENT:  "Cheapened" is exactly the right word.   

BAD NUMBERS - AT 9:12 A.M. ET: 

Feb. 27 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. economy shrank in the fourth quarter at a faster pace than previously estimated as consumer spending plunged, companies cut inventories and exports sank.

Gross domestic product contracted at a 6.2 percent annual pace from October through December, more than economists anticipated and the most since 1982, according to revised figures from the Commerce Department today in Washington. Consumer spending, which comprises about 70 percent of the economy, declined at the fastest pace in almost three decades.

COMMENT:  And yet, the "stimulus" package seems to address little of this, opting instead for a liberal wish list that will stimulate only New York Times editorial writers.

QUOTE OF THE DAY, THUS FAR - AT 8:45 A.M. ET:  From British writer Vanessa Neumann, in The Times of London, who grew up in Venezuela, the daughter of an oil executive:

When my blue-eyed father drove his Mercedes home to the country club through the Puente de Chapellin slum, the locals waved at him, for they knew that we provided 3,300 jobs and the Neumann Foundation funded poverty reduction programmes from vocational training for single mothers to literacy programmes to free medical and dental care. Last time I drove through the Puente de Chapellin I was surrounded by an angry mob that took a baseball bat to my car. This is Chavez’s great achievement: violence and near civil war.

COMMENT:  The image of the foreign executive in Latin America is poor, and often for good reason.  But there have been plenty of enlightened executives and companies who've made great contributions to local economies, and who have provided a way up for people who'd had no hope.  Chavez is sweeping all that away, not understanding what foreign investment and expertise can do.  Naturally, he's been cheered on by a good chunk of the Hollywood crowd, with its vast understanding of international economics.

A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO DEMOCRATIC UNITY - AT 8:02 A.M. ET:  From The Politico: 

When it comes to one of the central tax proposals in President Obama’s budget, he may have more to worry about from his fellow Democrats in Congress than from the Republicans.

In a move that reprises several pitched Washington battles, Obama is proposing to limit the federal tax deduction for state and local taxes. He would cap most itemized deductions at 28%, effectively hiking federal taxes further on families making more than roughly $250,000. Taxpayers in higher brackets, whose federal income tax rate is set to rise as high as 39.6% in 2011, would lose up to a quarter of their current deductions.

The limit would have the greatest impact in high-tax states like New York New Jersey, California and Maryland, as well as in the District of Columbia.

COMMENT:  How can we do this to all those Wall Street executives, with their Ivy League shingles, who are now among the mainstays of the Democratic Party?  Why, if this proposal isn't changed, you may see a Boston Latte Party. 

BABY, IT'S COLD OUTSIDE - BUT IT'S ONLY YOUR IMAGINATION:  AT 7:38 A.M.  Some stories are written in a way that makes extracts difficult, if we wish to maintain accuracy, but the stories remain very worthwhile.  I commend to you George Will's column today in which he relates his experience in delving into the global-warming debate.  Questioning global warming in Western countries is like questioning a mullah in Iran.  Not healthy.  Read Will for the details. 

RISKY MOVE - AT 7:27 P.M. ET:  From Fox News: 

WASHINGTON -- An accused Al Qaeda sleeper agent held for 5 1/2 years at a Navy brig in South Carolina will soon be sent to Illinois for trial in civilian court, a move the government has fought for years saying terror suspects caught in the U.S. could be held indefinitely without charges.

Two people familiar with the case of Qatar native Ali al-Marri said Thursday the government plans to transfer him to the civilian court system. One of them said he would be charged with providing support to terrorists. The two people spoke on condition of anonymity because it's a pending criminal case.

COMMENT:  A very risky move.  Civilian juries are notoriously unreliable in these cases, and can easily be swayed by ethnic arguments - the "I am a victim" defense.

THIS JUST IN - AT 7:15 A.M. ET:  We know you've been waiting for this:

OSLO (AP) -- President Barack Obama and his French counterpart Nicolas Sarkozy are believed to be among a record 205 nominations for the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize.

The secretive five-member awards committee, which released its final nominations count on Friday, keeps the names of candidates secret for 50 years. But some of the thousands of people with nominating rights do announce their nominees.

COMMENT:  Obama?  What precisely has he done?  Well, wait, Carter won the Nobel Peace Prize, and what precisely did he do?   The Nobel Peace Prize - keeping standards low.

THEY CAN'T LET GO - AT 7:13 A.M. ET:  -

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Anecdotes, news reports and even the many times ''24'' agent Jack Bauer has saved the country on TV aren't enough to convince the Senate Intelligence Committee that the CIA's harsh interrogation methods actually work.

Lawmakers are investigating the interrogation program begun during the Bush administration in an attempt to inject fact into the public debate over those methods, Senate officials said Thursday. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose details of the committee's discussions.

COMMENT:  Yes, we're absolutely sure they're trying to inject "fact" into the debate, and same "fact" this crowd injected when they chanted "Bush lied, thousands died," regularly and on schedule.  Of course we should oppose torture in all but the most exceptional circumstances, but enhanced interrogation techniques are not necessarily torture.  Sleep deprivation or playing loud music do not constitute brutality.  Thousands of lives may be lost if we fail to get the information we need.  The rights of those people count too. 

JUMPIN' NANCY, THAT'S TOO MANY! - AT 6:52 A.M. ET:  Nancy Pelosi, who spent much of the president's speech to Congress jumping up and down, clapping wildly, and otherwise acting like a cheerleader wannabe trying to make the squad, is now upset with Mr. Obama.  The reason?  His Iraq withdrawal plan leaves too many troops, an estimated 50,000, in the country after the main withdrawal is completed next year.  The troops are needed, the Pentagon believes, for stability.  But San Fran Nan, whose congressional district  regards Karl Marx as a neocon, isn't buying.  "She kicked off the public criticism on Wednesday by saying she did not understand 'the justification' for 50,000 troops," The New York Times reported.

Ironically, some of Obama's strongest support on the issue came from Republicans, especially John McCain. 

I suspect the president is secretly happy about the Dem indigestion over the issue.  Makes him look tougher.