Fausta’s Blog

Stayed away from politics most of the weekend, so I’m totally puzzled about this fuss over Sarah Palin’s hand – the hand jive. Michelle Malkin has a screen capture of the meme,

Steven Spruiell makes a point,

I get that it’s a sort of “turnabout is fair play” from the set that must be very annoyed by now at all the prompter jokes. But it misses the point of why the prompter jokes have caught on. A prompter feeds your remarks to you word for word. The idea that you would need such a device to talk to a room full of sixth graders or a meeting of your own staff is funny.

On another level, the prompter jokes took off because they reinforce the substantive argument that Obama is in over his head, because they indicate that he can’t perform the the presidency’s basic public-speaking duties without a major safety net. I’m not sure what substantive argument Palin’s hand-notes are supposed to underline, and I suspect it’s not an argument so much as an attitude. The attitude would be that writing on your hand is dumb and low-class. On the left, where this opinion of Palin already prevails, anything which reinforces it will be picked up and cheerfully passed around. And, to the extent that anyone not on the left notices this giddy snobbery, it will play to Palin’s strengths.

For example, one might say: “Unlike the guy who needs a three thousand dollar teleprompter to get out of bed in the morning, Palin speaks from concise notes like everybody else. And, like other busy moms, she sometimes writes notes on her hand.” The comeback is so obvious that, again, I really can’t figure out why Palin’s detractors are bringing this up at all.

By the way, Palin delivered a 45-minute speech. Those seven words were her “notes”.

She’s not even an elected official now.

The Commander in Chief of the United States has a teleprompter for every word and can’t even pronounce “corpsman” correctly.

“So, how’s that hopey, changey stuff working out for you?”

Watch CBS News Videos Online

Obama: ‘She insisted she’s going to be buried in an Obama t-shirt’

At 8:25 in the video,

I got a letter — I got a note today from one of my staff — they forwarded it to me — from a woman in St. Louis who had been part of our campaign, very active, who had passed away from breast cancer. She didn’t have insurance. She couldn’t afford it, so she had put off having the kind of exams that she needed. And she had fought a tough battle for four years. All through the campaign she was fighting it, but finally she succumbed to it. And she insisted she’s going to be buried in an Obama t-shirt.

Plweeeez! I respect her decision to be buried in anything she best chose, but must Obama tell us about it? And not even bother mention her by name – Melanie Shouse?

The Lonely Conservative points out that Melanie Shouse had insurance,

She had delayed going to a doctor after she began to feel sick. She explained that she could only afford so-called “catastrophic” insurance — one that required her to pay $5,000 in deductibles before the insurance kicked in.

My heart goes out to her family, but to say she didn’t have health insurance is a lie. The article linked above went on to explain that Melanie Shouse used her savings to start a small business. Apparently, she chose the large deductible policy, and chose to invest in her business. But what better investment is there than in one’s own life? If we aren’t willing to invest in our own lives, why should we expect others to make that investment?

But the Obama ego is what matters. Another Black Conservative:

Speaking of lies, if you can stomach it, listen to the first couple of minutes where the audience is cheering his every sentence. Watch as he starts to boasts about his accomplishments how the audience’s applause diminishes to nothing, especially when he gets to the part about putting earmarks put online. Yes, he actually had the gall to count putting earmarks online as an accomplishment!

It goes well with those “millions of jobs saved or created”, too. After all, it’s coming out of the tower of Babble.

How not to make friends, but influence people all the same,
EU summit scrapped after Obama ’snub’

The European Union has scrapped a summit with the US, after President Barack Obama decided not to attend.

The event in Madrid in May was to have been the highlight of Spain’s six-month EU presidency, and the cancellation is seen as a humiliating blow.

Worse yet, he didn’t even bother tell them directly:

In fact, Spain only found out about Mr Obama’s decision through the press.

But not to worry, O knows who to keep happy.

The 2011 aid request for Latin America Analysis of the Obama administration request for foreign policy assistance, by the Center for International Policy,

The Obama administration’s foreign aid request differs significantly, if not radically, from what came before. For Latin America, the difference is notable, as this slideshow indicates.

2011 Foreign Ops

Please note there will be no Carnival of Latin America this week due to a technical problem.

Click on Bamopoly for more detail:

Gateway Pundit, via Larwyn,

This, of course, was the same day he proposed another record spending bill that will cost taxpayers $3.8 trillion and will raise the national deficit to $1.6 trillion. This is nearly 4 times the 2008 national deficit when President Bush was in office.

I don’t usually watch Glenn Beck, but today he’s done an excellent job of explaining the national debt and why it is a problem.

We’re in a sea of trouble.

The jobs numbers will continue to remain dismal,

Obama Budget Would Impose Host of Tax Increases
Obama budget plan would imposes host of tax increases on businesses, wealthy families

The budget proposal released Monday would extend Obama’s signature Making Work Pay tax credit — $400 for individuals, $800 for a couple filing jointly — through 2011. But it would also impose nearly $1 trillion in higher taxes on couples making more than $250,000 and individuals making more than $200,000 by not renewing tax cuts enacted under former President George W. Bush. Obama would extend Bush-era tax cuts for families and individuals making less.

Obama revived numerous proposals for business tax increases that didn’t fare well in Congress last year, including a scaled-down plan to increase taxes on U.S. companies with major overseas operations, and plans to increase taxes on oil and gas companies.

In all, Obama would increase taxes on some businesses and wealthy individuals by a total of about $1.4 trillion over the next decade, while cutting taxes for middle-class workers and other businesses by about $330 billion. The bottom line: Tax receipts would increase by about $1.1 trillion over the next decade.

Since I am certain we’ll be having inflation, the “middle-class” may find out that an income of $200,000 does not make you rich – as is already the case in Manhattan. But I digress.

The budget accounts for a $33 billion tax cut that Obama wants Congress to include in a new jobs bill. It would give companies a $5,000 tax credit for each new worker they hire in 2010. Businesses that increase wages or hours for their current workers in 2010 would be reimbursed for the extra Social Security payroll taxes they would pay.

If Obama was interested in businesses hiring, he would cut their taxes now, instead of giving tax credits or reimbursements whose effect is to inject more money into the government, with the government as middleman.

More and more taxes, punishing Obama’s straw men: the “rich”, the “bankers”, the oil companies, big business, and financial institutions.

Squeeze the “rich”:

—Raise the top two income tax rates for individuals, from 33 percent and 35 percent, to 36 percent and 39.6 percent, respectively. Unless Congress intervenes, those rates will rise next Jan. 1 when Bush’s tax cuts expire. That government would reap $365 billion over the next decade.

Screw the non-profits and charities, and the housing market:

—Limit the itemized tax deductions high earners can claim for charitable donations, mortgage interest and state and local taxes, raising about $210 billion for the next decade.

Hamper investments:

—Increase the top capital gains tax rate from 15 percent to 20 percent for families making more than $250,000 a year and individuals making more than $200,000. The proposal would raise about $105 billion.

Phony tax credits, instead of effective tax cuts that would encourage businesses:

—Make the research and experimentation tax credit permanent, saving businesses about $83 billion over the next decade.

—Impose a “financial crisis responsibility fee” on large financial institutions, raising $90 billion over the next decade.

—Restrict the ability of international companies to defer taxes on profits made overseas, raising about $26 billion over the next decade.

—Impose a total of about $39 billion in tax increases on oil, gas and coal companies over the next decade.

—Change the way profits made by investment fund managers are taxed, raising an additional $24 billion over the next decade.

In short, a menu of big-government bureaucratese, seasoned with class struggle, which won’t help businesses.

There will be no podcast this morning.

Typical liberal “solution” – Throw more money at a problem: Obama to Seek Sweeping Change in ‘No Child’ Law

The Obama administration is proposing a sweeping overhaul of President Bush’s signature education law, No Child Left Behind, and will call for broad changes in how schools are judged to be succeeding or failing, as well as for the elimination of the law’s 2014 deadline for bringing every American child to academic proficiency.

That gets the teacher unions off the hook. Of course, it’s poor on details,

Peter Cunningham, a Department of Education spokesman, acknowledged that the administration was planning to ask Congress for broad changes to the education law, but declined to describe the changes specifically.

He said that although the administration had developed various proposals, it would solicit input from Congressional leaders of both parties in coming weeks to create legislative language that can attract bipartisan support.

Here comes the money,

Instead, under the administration’s proposals, a new accountability system would divide schools into more categories, offering recognition to those that are succeeding and providing large new amounts of money to help improve or close failing schools.

And their unions.

In other education-related news, Pamela has the latest on Organizing for America internships, and the National Intern Organizer Curriculum.

The Beeb has put up this piece of chicanery, Why do people often vote against their own interests? which pretends to explain why us plebes don’t see the light and embrace the Obama agenda.

Leave it to the folks at Biased BBC blog to slice, dice, and chop them to smithereens,
Those crazy Republicans explained: a BBC bias masterclass. For instance, the Beeb’s political scientist says,

It might be tempting to put the whole thing down to what the historian Richard Hofstadter back in the 1960s called “the paranoid style” of American politics, in which God, guns and race get mixed into a toxic stew of resentment at anything coming out of Washington.

Biased BBC counters,

Admire the ju-jitsu with which the author gives us a pleasing whiff of paranoia by warning about that scary toxic stew of right wing paranoia which has been bubbling poisonously in the background for decades.

Go read the rest, and check out the comments, too.

China’s strident tone raises concerns among Western governments, analysts

China’s indignant reaction to the announcement of U.S. plans to sell weapons to Taiwan appears to be in keeping with a new triumphalist attitude from Beijing that is worrying governments and analysts across the globe.

From the Copenhagen climate change conference to Internet freedom to China’s border with India, China observers have noticed a tough tone emanating from its government, its representatives and influential analysts from its state-funded think tanks.

Calling in U.S. Ambassador Jon Huntsman on Saturday, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei said the United States would be responsible for “serious repercussions” if it did not reverse the decision to sell Taiwan $6.4 billion worth of helicopters, Patriot Advanced Capability-3 missiles, minesweepers and communications gear. The reaction came even though China has known for months about the planned deal, U.S. officials said.

“There has been a change in China’s attitude,” said Kenneth G. Lieberthal, a former senior National Security Council official who is currently at the Brookings Institution. “The Chinese find with startling speed that people have come to view them as a major global player. And that has fed a sense of confidence.”

Maybe so, but having a putz in the White House as Commander in Chief doesn’t help things:

And about the emerging hegemon that is mounting attacks against us each and every hour of each and every day? There was not one word on the most extensive and continuous attempt to intrude into our computers, disrupt electronic infrastructure and steal technology and information. The president had exactly two things to say about China: “There’s no reason Europe or China should have the fastest trains or the new factories that manufacture clean energy products,” followed by “Meanwhile, China is not waiting to revamp its economy.”

Actually the Chinese are not reforming, restructuring or revamping their economy, though the U.S. should make better trains. Nonetheless we needed to hear more about the country that is supposed to replace the U.S. as the global superpower in 10 years’ time, the nation his administration says is essential to the solution of every major global problem.

Maybe he thought we would not notice or would not care that he neglected China in the State of the Union. But Obama’s failure to address the challenges posed by that nation and by others sends a chilling message to America’s allies and friends. While the global community faces daunting tasks, Obama devoted almost all of his address to swaying a domestic audience and to scoring points against Republicans.

This is only the beginning, folks.

Chris Matthews Wednesday night,

The Daily Show last night,