POTUS PUMA

Heh. I wasn't going to actually do a post with this...but, since K-Lo liked it enough to put it on the Corner, well...

Ideas Have Consequences [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

A reader creates a POTUS PUMA:

But I have to admit. That picture kinda creeps me out.

Above Spider-Man or the Hulk

Awesome.

WALKERTOWN -- Young Matthew Armstrong knew that Saturday would be a big day, since it was the first day of the season for his Little League team.

But Matthew, 8, of Walkertown, didn't know how big the day would be until an announcer called him up to the microphone during the opening ceremony. She asked him where his dad, Frank Marques, was.

"In Iraq," he replied shyly.

And what message would he like to send to Marques?

"That I love him," Matthew said.

The youngster then got his chance to deliver that message in person.

Frank Marques, back home on a two-week leave from his tour of duty with the Army, emerged downfield and walked from first base toward home plate, where Matthew was standing.

Matthew ran out and jumped into Marques' arms, hugging him tight.

And the crowd of hundreds applauded. "He thinks his dad's a hero," said Whitney Marques, Matthew's mother.

"He puts him above Spider-Man or the Hulk."

There's more at the link above.

And video here:

TheVIOH

I have a hard enough time trying to keep TheVIMH under control -- so I would never have undertaken this task.

Nick Robinson of the Guardian asked Obama a question at a joint press conference with him and Gordon Brown. Brown passed the ball to Obama, and the Guardian's John Crace transcribes not only Obama's verbal answer, but TheVIOH as well (*Language Warning*):

Nick Robinson: "A question for you both, if I may. The prime minister has repeatedly blamed the United States of America for causing this crisis. France and Germany both blame Britain and America for causing this crisis. Who is right? And isn't the debate about that at the heart of the debate about what to do now?" Brown immediately swivels to leave Obama in pole position. There is a four-second delay before Obama starts speaking [THANKS FOR NOTHING, GORDY BABY. REMIND ME TO HANG YOU OUT TO DRY ONE DAY.] Barack Obama: "I, I, would say that, er ... pause [I HAVEN'T A CLUE] ... if you look at ... pause [WHO IS THIS NICK ROBINSON JERK?] ... the, the sources of this crisis ... pause [JUST KEEP GOING, BUDDY] ... the United States certainly has some accounting to do with respect to . . . pause [I'M IN WAY TOO DEEP HERE] ... a regulatory system that was inadequate to the massive changes that have taken place in the global financial system ... pause, close eyes [THIS IS GOING TO GO DOWN LIKE A CROCK OF SHIT BACK HOME. HELP]. I think what is also true is that ... pause [I WANT NICK ROBINSON TO DISAPPEAR] ... here in Great Britain ... pause [SHIT, GORDY'S THE HOST, DON'T LAND HIM IN IT] ... here in continental Europe ... pause [DAMN IT, BLAME EVERYONE.] ... around the world. We were seeing the same mismatch between the regulatory regimes that were in place and er ... pause [I'VE LOST MY TRAIN OF THOUGHT AGAIN] ...

Oh, there's more, click through and read it all.

[VIMH: What's with the language warning? You've never seemed to mind cursing on here before?]
Oh, it wasn't for the cursing. It's that direct exposure to Obama's words can be harmful if digested in large enough quantities.

[VIMH: Yeah but TheVIOH was spectacular!]
I figured you'd say that.

[VIMH: But why does TheVIOH get bold and all caps, and all I get is italics?]
You're not spectacular.

As He Is Prone To Do

In a February 20th Washington Post article, Charles Krauthammer declared Vice President Joe Biden a prophet:

Obama's Supine Diplomacy

The Biden prophecy has come to pass. Our wacky veep, momentarily inspired, predicted in October that "it will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama." Biden probably had in mind an eve-of-the-apocalypse drama like the Cuban missile crisis. Instead, Obama's challenges have come in smaller bites. Some are deliberate threats to U.S. interests, others mere probes to ascertain whether the new president has any spine.

Preliminary X-rays are not very encouraging. ...

With a grinning Goliath staggering about sporting a "kick me" sign on his back ...

In a meeting of G20 leaders at Buckingham Palace on April 1st, Obama confirms by his actions that it is Krauthammer who is a prophet:

Although technically it appears that Obama's act is more one of prostrating himself than assuming a supine position.

But the "kick me" sign was spot on.

Kids Say the Darndest Things

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air has a clip of a precociously exploited eight year old expounding on Afghanistan at the behest of her dad. Ed transcribes part of the video:

Dad: Well, let me ask you this. Some people think we should send a lot of soldiers there [to Afghanistan]. Do you think that would help them [the people of Afghanistan]?

Daughter: N - O.

Dad: Why would, uh, why would sending soldiers to them not help?

Daughter: Because, if you think about it, our last president, who made a big mess. I feel so bad for Obama cleaning up that mess. You know, he made a big mess, and so he has this, like, charm. So when he sends troops, he tells the people, “Oh, they’re going to go get food for them,” and all that. But they’re actually going to go and kill them.

Dad: Kill them?

Daughter: Yeah.

Dad: Jiminy Cricket, that’s terrible. So you think that’s what soldiers do?

Daughter: Um, think about it! Soldiers have very big guns, marching like this. Oh, you think they go to Army School just so they can go there? No. They go there to kill people.

Egads. But Ed stopped short of the most ignominious part, starting at 2:57:

Dad: So what kind of people ... would you want to send some kind of people to Afghanistan?

Daughter: I would bring people ... some who kind of cares ... so that we're not just air-raiding villages and killing civilians, which is causing enormous pressure over there...

Seriously, where do these people get these ideas?

Oooops. That last part wasn't this little girl or her father, nor was it actually on this video. I regret the misattribution.

It was Obama.

I guess that answers that question.

I hope he's proud of himself.

Verbal Bombs Away

Obama at a town hall in California on Wednesday:

"Here's the problem," Mr. Obama said, "It's almost like they've got -- they've got a bomb strapped to them and they've got their hand on the trigger. You don't want them to blow up. But you've got to kind of talk them, ease that finger off the trigger."

Obama on the Jay Leno show on Thursday:

When you buy a toaster, if it explodes in your face there's a law that says your toasters need to be safe. But when you get a credit card, or you get a mortgage, there's no law on the books that says if that explodes in your face financially, somehow you're going to be protected.

We're not sure what triggered this launch of weaponized discourse, but it hits one fairly concussively. I'm sure it was just an improvised explosive rhetorical devise, but Obama should probably defuse the words in his arsenal little bit.

Because we're sure he's not a verbal terrorist and doesn't want to come across that way.

Shameful Smearing

Candidate Obama, October 2, 2007:

But these last few years we've seen an unacceptable abuse of power at home. ... We get secret task forces, secret budgeting, slanted intelligence, and the shameful smearing of people who speak out against the President's policies.

President Obama's Administration, 2009:

Rush

Santelli

Cramer

Ahem. Here we go again...

We may one day tire of saying "I Told You So", but today is not that day.

You cannot spell

“OBAMA’S PROMISES TO BRING YOU HOPE AND CHANGE ARE BULLSHIT”

without

I   T-O-L-D   Y-O-U   S-O

We Cannot Afford More of the Same Failed Policies

Obama, Geithner Get Low Grades From Economists

U.S. President Barack Obama and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner received failing grades for their efforts to revive the economy from participants in the latest Wall Street Journal forecasting survey.

The economists' assessment stands in stark contrast with Mr. Obama's popularity with the public, with a recent Wall Street Journal/NBC poll giving him a 60% approval rating. A majority of the 49 economists polled said they were dissatisfied with the administration's economic policies.

On average, they gave the president a grade of 59 out of 100, and although there was a broad range of marks, 42% of respondents rated Mr. Obama below 60.

A grade of 59? Yikes.

And this MSNBC online poll (via Instapundit):

61% of those who took the poll gave Obama a D or an F? Sounds like a strong, though not scientifically accurate, consensus.

Well, that leave us with only one thought.

Paraphrasing Obama: "America cannot afford four more years of the same failed policies of the past eight years weeks!"

Oh, and one more note from the article:

...economists' main criticism of the Obama team centered on delays in enacting key parts of plans to rescue banks. "They overpromised and underdelivered," said Stephen Stanley of RBS Greenwich Capital. "Secretary Geithner scheduled a big speech and came out with just a vague blueprint. The uncertainty is hanging over everyone's head."

President OPUD

Happy Blogiversary To Me

Well would you look at that.

It was one year ago today that I started this blog.

Uh, interesting year.

President OPUD Strikes Again

From the Daily Telegraph:

So how much will President Barack Obama's budget cost us? The projected 2010 budget of $3.552 trillion can be found on page 114 of the "New Era of Responsibility" budget here.

The US Census bureau estimates that the current US population is 304,059,724. Dividing the $3.552 trillion by that gives us close to the $11,833 that Drudge came up with. ABC's Jake Tapper reports that there wil be $989 billion in new taxes over the next decade.

I'm an American taxpayer and the starkest figure is what this could cost me. The latest figure I could find for the number of US taxpayers is 138,893,908 returns in 2007 here. By my reckoning, that's $25,573.48 each.

Out goes that “net spending cut” Obama was touting. And not just by a hair, but by a mile.

And what of Obama’s promise not to raise taxes on those making less than $250,000? His budget and this promise are mutually exclusive. Something’s gotta give, and something tells us it won’t be his budget spending.

He won’t be delivering on his promises.

President OPUD strikes again. And this time it’s your pocketbook he’s aiming for.

Ahem...We may one day tire of saying "I Told You So", but today is not that day.

Next week marks the one year anniversary of this old post:

A new twist on an old joke.

A young man goes to register to vote. At the voter registration office he is told, "We do things differently now. You will be given the opportunity to attend the speech of each candidate for President. After hearing both candidates, then you will be allowed to choose the President."

Agreeing, the young man makes his way to the Barack Obama rally. The venue is a sold out basketball arena, the crowd is electric; beautiful people smiling, chanting, laughing, singing. Obama strides on stage. Listening to Obama, the young man begins thinking to himself:

Obama's finest speeches do not excite. They do not inform. They don't even really inspire. They elevate. They enmesh you in a grander moment, as if history has stopped flowing passively by, and, just for an instant, contracted around you, made you aware of its presence, and your role in it. He is not the Word made flesh, but the triumph of word over flesh, over color, over despair. The other great leaders I've heard guide us towards a better politics, but Obama is, at his best, able to call us back to our highest selves, to the place where America exists as a glittering ideal, and where we, its honored inhabitants, seem capable of achieving it, and thus of sharing in its meaning and transcendence.

He leaves the speech, confident of where his vote will be placed, but ready to give John McCain a fair hearing. He arrives at the McCain venue -- many fewer people, not quite as electric, much less laughing and zero chanting. As McCain makes his way to the podium, the young man prepares himself for the speech. Listening to McCain, the young man begins thinking to himself:

The opening of the speech shows some humility ... No one's throwing vegetables in the room ... He's doing a very good job in delivering this speech ... A few boos... [He] sounds energized ... It's one of his better speeches, and he's hitting all the right notes for the crowd.

He later returns to the voter registration office. He is asked, “Now you must make your choice. Will it be Barack Obama or John McCain for President?”

Thinking back on both speeches, he considers McCain’s speech as impressive for its substance. But then, considering Obama’s speech, he remembers how it made him feel.

The young man answers, “Barack Obama”.

The next day, as he awakes, there is a knock at the door. A man in a dark suit simply says, “I’m from the government and I need to see your wallet,” and then proceeds to take all of the young man’s money.

Bewildered, the young man heads back down to the voter registration office and asks to see the manager. The manager appears from the back of the office and politely inquires, “How can I help you?”

The young man replies, “I don’t understand. Yesterday, listening to Obama I heard a speech of hope and change and unity. And yet today, the government took all of my money. What is going on?”

“It’s quite simple,” the manager answered calmly. “Yesterday you were a voter and today you are a constituent.”

Obama Has Squandered As Much Global Goodwill As Bush

Looking at this story from the Times Online, somebody has to say it (h/t Abe Greenwald):

AFTER repeated rebuffs, America is preparing to abandon its insistence that Nato allies commit more combat troops to Afghanistan, despite fears the Taliban are gaining strength. […]

President Barack Obama’s administration announced last week that it was sending an extra 17,000 troops to join 32,000 already in Afghanistan, but European countries have yet to pitch in more than a few hundred. […]

Obama insisted on the campaign trail that he would oblige Nato to do more. “You can’t have a situation where the United States . . . and Britain are called upon to do the dirty work and nobody else wants to engage in actual firefights with the Taliban,” he said.

However, the Germans refused to accede to Gates’s request last week to deploy the Nato rapid response force to help stabilise Afghanistan ahead of the August presidential elections. […]

The series of rejections has marked the end of Obama’s honeymoon with European governments, which had braced themselves to meet the president’s demand for extra troops when he was elected last autumn.

Now that Obama’s electoral glow is fading, they have found the confidence to say no.

Well. We are the somebody we've been waiting for, so here goes:

President Obama has squandered the global goodwill generated by his historic campaign and election.

Of course, if you believed things would be different, that Obama would usher in a new era of global cooperation and commitment in the fight against Islamist terrorists, you may want to consider the idea that you were lied to when Obama said that he would exact such a commitment from NATO allies.

OK, maybe Obama didn’t lie. Maybe he really thought he could secure those commitments. Maybe this is just the umpteenth case of Obama over promising and under delivering – President OPUD strikes again.

Well, and just to make sure we make the point - we think that Obama has actually squandered the same amount of global goodwill since his election as President Bush did after 9/11.

That is, in terms of some mythical goodwill that ever had a chance of resulting in real-world, on the ground commitments, neither man squandered squat.

It didn’t exist post 9/11 and it didn’t exist before or after Obama was elected, no matter how many times liberals have tried to tell us that it did.

Unfortunately, people were told differently, believed differently, and elected Obama partly on the basis of believing him when he said it.

We’ll let Greenwald have the last word:

One of George W. Bush’s biggest failings was that he let his critics convince Americans that European ambivalence was a response to American arrogance. That hobbled our effort further by draining domestic support for the War on Terror. That Bush was succeeded by a president who’s building his foreign policy around this ahistorical delusion is frightening.

President OPUD

In a post about Obama’s plan to announce his plan to help struggling homeowners, Hugh Hewitt gives us this:

But a repeat of last week's ambiguity about the banks will add another layer of evidence to the president's growing reputation for overpromising and underdelivering.

Yes, the promise that “…my treasury secretary, Tim Geithner, will be announcing some very clear and specific plans”, quickly turned into the delivery of the skeleton of an outline to an introductory summary of a potential plan that we're just starting because we scrapped the first one.

And as for the "growing reputation", well, hopefully someone else will create the exhaustive catalogue of Obama’s Over Promise and Under Deliverance – we’ll just name a few off the top of our head…

• Order the close of Guantanamo in my first 100 days! Well, once we’ve done that, we’ll leave it open as we spend a year or so studying what to do with all those detainees.

• All combat troops out of Iraq in 16 months! Or not.

• Enhanced interrogations out! Or not.

• Renditions out! Or not.

• Secret CIA prisons out! Or not.

• No lobbyists in my administration! Or a few whole bunch.

• The most open and transparent administration evah! Or, one that’s not even as open and transparent as President Bush’s.

• My stimulus plan will create or save 4 million jobs! Or maybe 3.5 million.

• And specifically, my stimulus plan will let Caterpillar rehire recently laid of employees! Or, well, maybe not.

• Sunlight before signing: all bills will be posted on the White House website for five days so the public can read the bills before I sign them! Or a few hours. Or not at all.

• Oh, and we must pass that Stimulus bill before the world as we know it ends! What? It’s passed? Oh, good, I’ll get to it right after I have a little time off in Chicago.

And on and on and on...

Back in July, we made his observation at American Thinker about how Obama's career was a Perpetual, Never-Ending, Eternal Campaign:

Obama's entire life is centered around successfully running for office *and* running from anything and everything else that might compromise his efforts to get in or stay there.

There's only one problem.

None of that provides any evidence that he could run the country. In fact, it argues against it.

We may one day tire of saying "I Told You So", but today is not that day.

President OPUD

Over Promise and Under Deliver

MORE: From NRO, Charles Krauthammer takes up the idea of Obama as President OPUD as it relates to the homeowner bailout (emphasis mine):

But the problem I have with Obama is not the plan itself, but the way he packages and presents. He is always on the stump. He is always promising.

Look at what he said-"The program will not reward folks who bought homes that they knew from the beginning they would never be able to afford."

Now, that obviously is a statement that can't be true. How are you going to ascertain if somebody purchased a house knowing in advance he couldn't afford it? Are you going to put him before an A-Rod press conference? Are you going to have them sit before the Illinois House Impeachment Committee?

Maybe we bring them all to Guantanamo, which is going to be empty, we're told, and have good interrogations there.

He is making a promise he knows is a false one. He does it because it garners applause, as it did today, and because it's demagogic.

It's a good plan, but I wish he would stop campaigning and govern in a way that doesn't overpromise, as he is wont to do.

What's More Bipartisan than Beer?

Beer Tax Cut Could Be Middle Class Boon

Want to provide some real middle-class tax relief? Halve the taxes levied on beer, say a bipartisan group of lawmakers, along with one of the beer industry's lobbying groups.

Rep. Earl Pomeroy (D-N.D.) introduced a bill Tuesday that would cut taxes on beer to their level in 1991, half of what they are today. The legislation is supported by a coterie of members of Congress from both sides of the aisle, and has the support of the brewers' interest group.

"50 percent of the beer is consumed in households making less than $50,000 per year," said Jeff Becker, president of The Beer Institute, the industry's lobbying arm. "Given campaign rhetoric, you can tell they're trying to benefit low-income earners, who make up a lot of our consumers."

The latest version of the tax cut, which has been introduced for several consecutive Congresses now, would also roll back taxes on small and independent brewers. Pomeroy's office estimate the tax cut to cost roughly $1.5 billion dollars. The version introduced in the 110th Congress stalled after being referred to the Ways & Means Committee.

11 lawmakers from both parties signed onto the Pomeroy bill: House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and Reps. Tom Latham (R-Iowa), Sam Johnson (R-Texas), Ron Kind (D-Wisc.), Patrick Tiberi (R-Ohio), Artur Davis (D-Ala.), Charles Boustany (R-La.), Joseph Crowley (D-N.Y.), Brian Higgins (D-N.Y.), Dean Heller (R-Nev.), and Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.).

Yes. I'm for it. Get it done and I will sing your praises from the top of a thousand hills.

And yet, this story raises a very troubling question.

Why am I just hearing about this now?

In all my years of studying in high school and college, taking aptitude tests, sitting with guidance counselors, advisors, professors all in an effort to prepare me for a chosen profession, not once did anyone ever mention anything even remotely related to studying to become the President of The Beer Institute.

Because I most certainly would have altered my chosen field of study - and - I definitely would never have had to endure the endless admonitions that I was not "applying myself" and not "living up to my full potential", if I had had that position as a career goal.

Well. I guess my long and storied career as an anonymous, unpaid, volunteer beer product tester continues unabated.

Which makes it even more important that we work together to lessen the burdens placed on middle class access to beer through lowering taxes on it.

So...Maybe Experience Really Does Matter

It's been a bit of a rocky start for Obama.

Peter Kirsanow at NRO's Corner writes:

Barely two weeks into his presidency, the media is bewildered by the daily snafus coming from the White House: the galactic mismanagement of the corrupt stimulus bill, the Daschle debacle, the Geithner outrage, the Zinni circus, the Killefer embarrassment. These are hardly the products of a well-oiled machine. Then there's the utter lack of seriousness conveyed by Obama's claim that we are at war with "some" terrorist organizations and his disingenuous handling of Gitmo and rendition.

Jeff Emmanuel at RedState writes:

I can’t recall an entering executive misfiring on so many issues — from his nomination of lawbreakers to high office, to breaking his own self-imposed ethics rules, to throwing away any and all goodwill he had from House Republicans with his “I won” retort, to his having to apologize to Old Europe for having a tin ear on protectionist trade policies, to being utterly surprised that his efforts to unilaterally and without precondition meet with the leaders of Iran were publicly perceived as a sign of weakness and defeat, to his driving portions of New Europe away from America and back towards the Russians — at one time as Mr. Obama has in just sixteen days as president.

Well, here we go...

Don't blame me, I voted for the only candidate with actual executive experience in the election ... from either party ... on the top or bottom of the ticket.

Oh, and yeah, I'll say this again...

You cannot spell

“OBAMA’S  PROMISES TO BRING  YOU  HOPE  AND  CHANGE ARE  BULLSHIT”

without

I   T-O-L-D   Y-O-U   S-O

But seriously, gird your loins, Obama. This country actually does need you to do better.

You May Want Tax Simplification, But Are You Sure You Want Obama's Tax Simplification?

All joking aside pertaining to all the tax cheats Obama wants in his administration – we have heard a number of voices saying that this would be a perfect opportunity to argue for tax simplification:

But, as I’ve noted before, isn’t [Geithner’s tax problems] — together with Charlie Rangel’s problems — an argument for tax simplification? I mean, if the Chairman of Ways and Means, and the Treasury Secretary nominee — who’s head of a Federal Reserve Bank — can’t keep their taxes straight, how can the government expect the rest of us to?

Yes, I think tax simplification is the best idea that could possibly come out of this whole mess. But, uh, we should probably tread lightly with putting the idea in Obama’s head that filing taxes is too hard and something big should be done about it.

Because Obama already does have an idea to help address the problem — but it isn’t simplifying the tax code. Obama offers to have the IRS do your taxes for you:

Simplify Tax Filings for Middle Class Americans: Obama and Biden will dramatically simplify tax filings so that millions of Americans will be able to do their taxes in less than five minutes. Obama and Biden will ensure that the IRS uses the information it already gets from banks and employers to give taxpayers the option of pre-filled tax forms to verify, sign and return. Experts estimate that the Obama-Biden proposal will save Americans up to 200 million total hours of work and aggravation and up to $2 billion in tax preparer fees.

David Freddoso weighed in last March at NRO:

Starting with filers of the simplest kind of return — the 1040 EZ — the IRS would estimate their tax burdens and simply send them a bill or a refund. Unless they choose to challenge the IRS, that would be the end of it. It would work much like property taxes do in most counties and municipalities. After the EZ filers, Simple Return could quickly expand to include everyone who takes the standard deduction, and then to others with more complicated situations — perhaps even me. Goolsbee writes that it could eventually apply to as many as 40 percent of U.S. taxpayers.

There you go – with the revelations of how hard it is for the Rangels and Geithners and Daschles of the world, is it not a small step to imagine that Obama would see this as a perfect opportunity to expand his plan (Obama, try and expand government power? You don’t say!) ensnaring as many people as possible.

Go read all of Freddoso’s article.

Afterall, it really does seem like a tax crisis when so many Obama nominees are this confounded by simply trying to fulfill their patriotic tax-paying duty.

Wait. Did I say crisis? Uh oh.

"You never want a serious crisis to go to waste,"
--Rahm Emanuel, Chief of Staff to President Obama

Gird your loins! Hold onto your wallets!

Mt. Redoubt from 20,000 Feet

Perhaps you've heard the story that Mt. Redoubt is emerging as an imminent threat. A volcano up in Alaska, Mt. Redoubt is showing seismic activity that would indicate an eruption in the near future.

Here is the Alaska Volcano Observatory website, with a whole host of information about Mt. Redoubt, including maps as well as images of the last time it erupted.

And now we have a couple of aerial photographs of Mt. Redoubt from the inimitable commenter at JustOneMinute, "Daddy", a pilot who lives in Alaska.

Daddy says that at the time the photos were taken, they were approximately 100 miles out on their descent into Anchorage, approximately 20,000 feet, looking South toward Mt. Redoubt. In the first photo, just below the summit, there is a plume of smoke which is the location of the forming caldera. In the second photo, you also have Mt. Iliamna in the distance, which has its own plume of smoke barely discernible on the left side of the peak.

Fascinating. Stay safe, Daddy.

The 1040DEM

Tom Daschle, the nominee to become Obama's Secretary of Health and Human Services has been outed in what is no longer a particularly exclusive club, Democatic Tax Chiselers Nominated to Serve in the Obama Administration.

Tom Maguire writes in his latest post about the practical ramifications of Obama having set such a low bar for nominees in high places:

I am sooo looking forward to April 15 (that's tax-filing day for the Democrats out there). Instead of vexing myself with hours of tedious record-review I'll just put down any numbers that pop into my head, secure in the knowledge that a simple apology will suffice if I'm ever questioned. Well, first I have to change my party registration to "D" and mail that check to Obama...

Odd. Surely Tom is aware that within the bowels of his very own comments section, the need to make up numbers, then apologize if caught has been eliminated.

We'll let Clarice Feldman set things up with her blog post at American Thinker:

Riffing off a comment on Ann Althouse, Just One Minute's poster Ranger has his own idea for the new form 1040Dem, inspired by the Geithner and Daschle tax chiseling:

Line 1: Are you a Democrat?

Line 2: How much income [d]o you want to declare for this year?

Line 3: How much tax do you feel like paying on that income?

It wasn't our idea, and all credit goes to DaveG at Ann Althouse's and Ranger at Just One Minute. But we were able to obtain an electronic copy of the 1040DEM:

Click to enlarge and see if you can spot the differences between this and the traditional, non-partisan 1040.

Oh, and Tom, you're welcome.

h/t centralcal at JOM!

Act Locally, Impact Globally

From our local free weekly newspaper comes a very heartwarming story of local students making a difference in the lives of their fellow students . . . in Iraq:

Give Us Hope, Northwest Middle School’s donation drive to provide Iraqi children with much-needed school supplies, was inspired by a simple request.

Last fall, Dena Adams, the school’s director of choirs, asked her son Marlin what he wanted for Christmas. Infantry staff sergeant Marlin Adams, who is serving his third tour of duty in Iraq, said he wished his mother, rather than sending him gifts, would encourage her students to help the children he saw struggling on a daily basis to grow up in a war zone.

Staff Sgt. Marlin Adams (standing) and another U.S. troop with some of the Iraqi children Adams hopes to help through Northwest Middle School's Give Us Hope donation drive.

Now, students at Northwest Middle School are reaching across the world to make a difference.

On Jan. 7, Dena Adams and Bonnie Pearson, who teaches business and marketing at the school, presented a program to explain the school’s Give Us Hope donation drive to the students. The goal of the drive is to collect enough supplies and financial support to send 500 school kits, packaged in 1-gallon zip bags, for distribution to Iraqi children. Preparations began back in September as mother and son began determining what the children needed most and what would be allowed through military security inspections. [...]

Students were transfixed by a slide show of photographs of Marlin and other Marines with Iraqi children amid backdrops of bombed-out buildings and shattered window panes. Many students wiped tears from their cheeks at the program’s end.

Dena Adams shared with the students an e-mail from Marlin that emphasized the importance of helping the Iraqi people.

“The people will gravitate towards the side that provides a higher quality of life,” Marlin wrote, noting that U.S. military forces have helped with reestablishing electricity and giving out food and blankets to the poor. “Projects like this get the people on our side. By having people on our side and denying the terrorists the ability to conduct operations, it improves security and gives the Iraqi security forces a buffer within which to grow and become more professional … The second reason that I wanted to help here is simply the fact that it’s the right thing to do.”

Also in the same edition, the writer, Alicia Cosgrove pens an editorial for more background and some additional information:

I first met Marlin Adams in 2004, while interviewing him and his mother for an article about his return from his second tour in Iraq. To say I was impressed is a major understatement. Even then, this earnest, caring young man was talking about the effects of war on the children he’d seen.

While discussing his unit’s accomplishments involving reopening schools and bringing in teachers for Iraqi children, he said: “We’re giving the kids an actual chance, instead of just existing in the world.”

Giving children a chance is what the Give Us Hope donation drive is all about. (See article on Page 1.) Before writing the article, I e-mailed Marlin a list of questions about his inspiration for asking his mom to get Northwest Middle School kids involved in helping Iraqi kids. I don’t have the space to print all of his eloquent reply, so I’ve chosen what I think is the heart of his motivation.

“If the school supplies that we provide can be the difference between a kid that gets an education and benefits his society and a kid that doesn’t and slips through the cracks, we owe it as Americans to help them.”

Part of Marlin’s message explained the goal of counterinsurgency operations, but most of it had to do with giving kids a chance.

There's much more in both articles, and you should read them both fully.

Simply outstanding.

Thank you Marlin for your service and your heart. Thank you Dena for faithfully carrying out this mission here at home to impact lives all the way around the world. And thank you Alicia for bringing this story to us.

Weighing Obama's Stimulationism

If there’s one thing we know, it’s that you have been on pins and needles waiting for our take on Obama’s stimulus plans.

We aim to please, so let’s get to it.

Let’s start with this observation by Victor Davis Hanson in the Corner:

For just one week we should ban the verb "stimulate" and the noun "stimulus" — and substitute instead the more honest "borrow," or "print," or "debt"; as in "The government plans to borrow another $1 trillion for the economy," or "The administration today decided to print another $300 billion in cash." Or "Congress met to consider a $1 trillion debt program." But as it is now, the euphemisms only take us ever more distant from reality, as trillions of dollars are bandied about as if they were mere five and tens in the government wallet.

While Hanson helpfully offers the suggestion that we speak of the “stimulus” in more honest terms financially, we have a suggestion of our own, in light of that last sentence.

Before Christmas, we had this headline:

Obama team weighs up to $850 billion economic jolt

Now, we’re up to this:

Obama weighs $1T plan to jolt economy

Now speaking of being helpful – we are earnestly endeavoring to be helpful – let us aid Obama in his efforts to weigh the debt program of borrowing freshly printed cash to jolt the economy that he is considering.

Literally.

Each dollar bill, regardless of denomination, weighs one gram. One gram equals 0.0352739619 ounces.

So how much does $1,000,000,000,000.00 weigh?

Ones = 2,204,622,618.75 lbs

Fives = 440,924,523.75 lbs

Tens = 220,462,261.875 lbs

Twenties = 110,231,130.9375 lbs

Hundreds = 22,046,226.1875 lbs

The Obama euphemism: "We’re not talking about a ton of money."

Which is technically correct, it’s more like 11,023 tons, if paid in hundreds.

Now imagine the size of that wallet.

At Least He's Asking

Mickey Kaus asks:

Old lists never die: Will Obama ever stop asking me for money? Or is it all fundraising, all the way out?

Quoting from the fundraising email sent by Obama:

Donate $5 or more now. You could be part of the historic events you made possible.

Five bucks, eh?

Well. A few weeks ago, Glenn noted Starbucks’ bad quarter:

SO I GUESS THE OBAMA VICTORY WASN’T A TRIUMPH FOR LATTE LIBERALISM AFTER ALL: Starbucks 4th-quarter profit falls 97 percent.

And he posted an email we sent to him in response:

Yes, that’s obvious in hindsight. All the latte-liberals cut their Stabucks intake to send that money to Obama.

The real question is, will Obama let them go back to spending money at Starbucks — or, once in office, will he continue to ask them to donate to His Cause, never again to return to, what is, let’s face it, just the transient trappings of capitalist self-indulgence.

“Just remember that if you purchase that cup of coffee, the taste will be bitter as you consider what that money could have done to help Barack Obama change the world.”

Just don’t act surprised. Michelle already told us we would have to give up our pie.

It was only natural for coffee to be next.

Then again, it is a bit mildly surprising.

That Obama is even asking.

Michelle told us he would demand it.