Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Obama Extends Central-Planning Grasp?

Senate legislators approve law eroding authority of Alaskan Governor

JUNEAU, Alaska — Legislators loyal to President Barack Obama approved a new law Tuesday that erodes the authority of Alaska’s Governor by subordinating her to a federally-appointed official.

The law approved by the predominantly pro-Obama Senate gives the official, who will be appointed directly by Obama, administrative authority over Alaska’s capital.

Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin condemned the move as a new attempt by Obama to expand his power and weaken his opponents.

"The government wants to control everything, including the state and municipal offices administered by democratically elected leaders," Palin told The Association Press in a telephone interview shortly before the legislation was passed.

Palin, whose Presidential ticket was narrowly defeated by an MSM-backed Obama in November elections, plans to challenge the new law through a referendum.

Pro-Obama lawmaker Harry Reid denied the approval of the law was politically motivated, saying it would help resolve problems such as “inadequate” energy resource-redistribution because it establishes a direct link between the federal government and the state's top administrator.

But Reid conceded that it would inevitably lead to "more confrontation in the political arena."

Fewer than a dozen of the
senate’s 100 members voted against the law.


===========================================

Okay -take a breath, go back and click the link at the top... Go ahead, I'll wait.

Yes, it's another of my lightly-retouched 'Hugo Chavez stories' - the likes of which you've seen before.

But, with all that you've seen and had to accept lately from The One, his Control Cabal and his riding of the Mob-Rule wave

... Do you see how much more-lightly I had to touch it this time?


If such a story were to actually appear in the WSJ tomorrow?

Let's be honest: "Horrifying - but not Surprising"

What is our country coming to?


- MuscleDaddy

12 comments:

  1. Geez, MD, that was not nice. I know I need my cardio, but a myocardial infarction ISN'T the same!

    But yea, it wouldn't be surprising at all. Saddest part is that I see people out here (yes, even in San Francisco) who are beginning to see the light but their response is "Well, there's nothing I can do about it."

    They've given up before the fight has even begun.

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  2. Don't DO that to me! Ya nearly had me hyperventilating! Of course, I should have known when you said that less than a dozen senators voted against it. There are, thankfully, still more than that who would oppose something like that.

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  3. You know things are getting bad when you can't tell if something is real, The Onion, or a MD cut/paste job on Venezuela or Cuba.

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  4. Yeah, the saddest part is how easily it is to believe that Obama would do that - and without much opposition. I should've been suspicious when it said that Palin was narrowly defeated on the presidential ticket, but i was too busy panicking. I hope your article doesn't give the feds any fancy ideas they didn't already have.

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  5. Dammit, I wasn't planning on wearing brown today.

    Prankster.

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  6. Beth said: Yeah, the saddest part is how easily it is to believe that Obama would do that

    The saddest part, my dear Beth, is how easily the a droit crowd would believe anything, and I mean anything, that can be shoehorned into the current lefty/socialist/fascist/communist/freemasonic (well, maybe not the last), tyrant/wimp, capitulator/iron-handed grasper, culture stifler/child indoctrinator jigsaw puzzle that the right - clearly as completely unhinged as the left in its worst Bushite dystopian days - has concocted over the past ten weeks.

    The looming threats are the same - dictator, police state; the threatened responses the same - I'm leaving! So there!!; the monitors are the same - flecked with foam and reflecting the enraged and reddened eyes of the oppressed minority. What rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches towards Bethlehem to be born!?

    The world is a fascinating place.

    Adios.

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  7. Tyrone - you're missing one important difference here.

    No one has to say "Just you watch, Obama is gonna...

    - Take over banks and start firing their CEO and boards,

    - Take over the auto industry and force automakers to merge with foreign companies,

    - Ram Socialized Medicine through in an unstoppable spending Bill,

    - Lay the legislative groundwork for citizens to labor on the government collective,

    - Try to abdicate our sovereignty to some nebulous one-world government,

    - Force wounded soldiers to pay for their own care...


    Whatever you might have thought of GW, you must AT LEAST admit that the DU/Kos-borne conspiracy-theories required the insertion of the 'Freemasons' or 'Illuminati'.

    I'm blogging my black, shriveled little heart out in this place, and I use LOTS of references - so start reading!

    We're not talking about some shadowy, skull-and-bones, creeping-Zionist-Halliburton secret plot to release some genocidal disease into the African bush, here.

    Obama is DOING these things right in front of you.

    He doesn't need me to invent them - they are being legislated up around us.

    Please, save the pseudo-intellectual poo-poo-ing for people who get their news and opinions from TMZ and Jon Stewart.

    - MuscleDaddy

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  8. MD - first off, I am not singling out you nor the E cubed community. I am commenting on the frenetic and rabid tenor of the collective (hee hee) mood of the rightside blogs, television talking heads, pundit poobahs, etc.

    That being said, let's take a look at your list:

    Soldiers aren't being forced to pay for their own care. The United States has neither capitulated nor abdicated to anybody. The country is not at war with the Muslim world, nor on the verge of being subsumed by the United Nations. Exactly how many banks has Obama taken over? How many has he nationalized so far? He hasn't taken over the auto industry - an industry of smoking ruin ever since the dramatic economic downturn of September.

    What he is doing is presiding as a Democrat, which is not synonymous with the iron-fist of tyranny. It would appear that the Democrats believe they have a mandate to pursue their political objectives - it's not as if a majority of voters didn't choose to travel down that route, is it? You can debate the merits of his and his party's choices - I do. I don't like the Geithner plan. I don't like this recent expansion of governmental secrecy and the withholding of the DOJ's memos. I'm not sure I think that his plan for Afghanistan is the right one. Nevertheless, I can do these without taking disagreements to the extreme every single time. I don't have to see tyranny, gulags, Camp Brainwash, a fascistic control of corporations, nor wimpy-wimpy kowtowing as the motivation and/or end result of every single action. With you MD, old savings-and-loan pal, you take both legitimate concerns and speculative innuendo and extrapolate them into the malevolent and malignant machinations of an anti-American agenda.

    Whatever you might have thought of GW, you must AT LEAST admit that the DU/Kos-borne conspiracy-theories required the insertion of the 'Freemasons' or 'Illuminati'.

    Well, what sparked their paranoid ravings? A terrorist strike; a still unsolved anthrax episode; two wars, one of which was going poorly; disturbing photos from the latterly said war; rumors of black ops and secret camps; the disappearance of billions of dollars into the inky depths of said war; the discovery of illegal wiretapping; a devastating hurricane that did not seem properly responded to; the creation of an entirely new Department of Homeland Security....

    Yes, the Illuminati angle was clearly required. :)

    Obama is DOING these things right in front of you.

    No, he isn't - and it's quite revealing that your declaration that he is doing these things is appended to another of your well, he could have... gotcha! posts.

    The GOP has held the presidency for almost twenty-one of the past twenty-nine years. The country has moved in a free-market and neo-liberal direction for twenty-eight of those years. You've had ten weeks and every other word I hear from right-wing commentators is tyranny and socialism. Obama campaigned that he would seek Keynesian solutions and would enact a New New Deal, and that's what you are getting. The shrieks and hysteria and rage sounds to me like a massive volley of sour grapes. This recent spate of Galt-Gulch muttering is no different than the Democratic threats to flee to France and Canada. What was the right's response to those threats then?

    Please, save the pseudo-intellectual poo-poo-ing

    I'm a liberal - pseudo-intellectualizing is second nature to me.

    Adios.

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  9. Tyrone,

    "Soldiers aren't being forced to pay for their own care."

    Not for lack of Obama-effort - he tried to make it so - he baked it into his budget numbers - it was real and no-one had to invent it.

    "The United States has neither capitulated nor abdicated to anybody."

    You need to pay closer attention to the "Financial Stability Board" resulting from the G20 - then come back and tell me that isn't the first step toward precisely that.

    "The country is not at war with the Muslim world,"

    Semantics - Obama has merely expressed his intent not to fight it - which is not the same as said war not existing - see also "The List".

    "...nor on the verge of being subsumed by the United Nations."

    You honestly believe, given his choice for AG, that Obama will stand against the UN's next attempt to legislate international gun control?

    "Exactly how many banks has Obama taken over? How many has he nationalized so far?"

    How many is he dictating to? Are they required to obey? - There's your answer.

    "He hasn't taken over the auto industry - an industry of smoking ruin ever since the dramatic economic downturn of September."

    He's forcing mergers w/foreign countries, firing CEOs and dictating what kinds of cars will be made - what else do you need for a working definition of "Taken Over".

    And again - all of the GW points you make still required a level of 'paranoia' and language-parsing in order for people to see what they wanted to see.

    Budget-numbers, signed international agreements and congressional legislation are concrete and meet a certain evidenciary standard.

    "This recent spate of Galt-Gulch muttering is no different than the Democratic threats to flee to France and Canada."

    Um... no.

    Liberals were "going to flee to Canada" because they were SURE that Bush's secret black-helicopter-shock-troops were going to suddenly stop Susan Sarandon from holding her press conferences to talk about how she was afraid to speak against the gub'mint in public.

    The actual tax-paying producers of today are talking about "Going Galt" in response to Obama's stated intention to disproportionately tax them for the expressed purpose of greater wealth-redistribution.

    How are those "no different" from each other?

    And how can you convince yourself that none of this is happening?

    - MD

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  10. Ah, yes. Speaking of "Going Galt," I would like to see a poll of how many business owners have laid off people or otherwise cut their costs or even incomes in expectation of the increases in taxation.

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  11. Not for lack of Obama-effort - he tried to make it so - he baked it into his budget numbers - it was real and no-one had to invent it.

    The policy was originally proposed from the Office of Management and Budget. My understanding of it is that the plan was put forth in the errant belief that the administrative savings to VA would effectively enlarge their budget by passing the expense onto third-party insurance or Medicare (for the uninsured). To say it was ill-thought out would be an understatement, but it was not considered in malice. It was bureaucratic penny-pinching (comparable to the budgetary shortfall in the allotment to VA in the budget of 2006 IIRC); and, most importantly, it was scrapped in the face of protest.

    You need to pay closer attention to the "Financial Stability Board" resulting from the G20 - then come back and tell me that isn't the first step toward precisely that.

    This isn't the first step towards precisely that. You go look at its regulations and tell me what teeth it has, and how these fangs will force the US to capitulate - whatever that means.

    As a buddy of mine wrote the other day: it still required a level of 'paranoia'...to see what they wanted to see.

    Re Muslim War: Semantics - Obama has merely expressed his intent not to fight it

    Stating we are not at war with 22% of the world's population is semantics? Trying to shift the burden to diplomacy is semantics?. Increasing the troop levels and pursuing more of a counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan is semantics?. Just more socialistic starry-eyed hippie dreaming, I guess. You've written some corkers here MD, but that one's a particular keeper.

    As my friend put it recently: it still required a level of language-parsing...to see what they wanted to see.

    You honestly believe, given his choice for AG, that Obama will stand against the UN

    Yes. What particular blue-helmeted demands do you believe he will abdicate to? An attempt to collect small-arms? I imagine the response would be that Democrats can't wait to sell-out America and surrender all sovereignty to the global cabal, so it's as good as happened.

    How many is he dictating to? Are they required to obey?

    The only banks he's dictating to are the ones that sank themselves with insanely leveraged debt levels, whose failure was deemed to be potentially catastrophic. The banks have retained their shareholders. The current plan to re-capitalize them, while relieving them of their toxic debt (to the potential beggaring of the the taxpayer) could potentially profit the current shareholders. If a bank did not take TARP money, they do not have to abide government stipulations. If they return the TARP money, they do not have to abide the government stipulations.

    So what we're left with is more language-parsing...to see what they wanted to see

    He's forcing mergers w/foreign countries, firing CEOs and dictating what kinds of cars will be made - what else do you need for a working definition of "Taken Over".

    I'm going to state up front that I am far from being knowledgeable about the auto-industry; I'll also state up front that I don't like the idea of government arranging the abdication of CEOs, nor attempting to steer the course of corporate renovation.

    With that said, this industry's an ungodly mess. Massive numbers of jobs - and huge pension funds - are at stake. GM and Chrysler are bleeding debt payments everywhere. A large number of their workers are Democratic constituents. Even in the face of bankruptcy, the government will still have to provide guarantees for the failed company. With unemployment in some states already at 12% and rising, unleashing a new horde of unemployed onto the strained state financial structures would be ill-advised. It would be politically difficult to continue pouring money into the industry without making some demands in return. I don't particularly like it, but I don't know the best thing to do here - and, as my point has been all along, it's not being done in the name of tyranny, or the first-stages of a dictatorial power-grab. It's trying to - perhaps too rapidly - alleviate a desperate situation within the structures of the the US federal government.

    Budget-numbers, signed international agreements and congressional legislation are concrete and meet a certain evidenciary standard.

    Let's see - non events, semantic word games, could'ves, would'ves and gonna-be's...it's the evidenciary standard of a Murder, She Wrote episode if Jessica Fletcher suddenly joined the John Birch Society. :)

    How are those "no different" from each other?

    I've actually commented on other blogs about the unfairness - IMO - of not continuing the tax cuts for the $250,000 plus group. I have never liked targeting any wealth group to face increases that aren't across the board, and I don't like this one.

    With that said, Obama's tax levels will still be the lowest - other than the final year of Reagan and the two Bushes - since 1932. Even with the 5% increase in the capital gains tax, it will still be lower than every year under Reagan; and the estate tax has been lowered to 35% and the exemption raised. The tax cuts for the highest bracket have not been continued while the others have, and yet the levels are no more disparate than progressive rates in other countries.

    The primary motivating factor in both cases is rage that the other party won, and the now-I'm-taking-mine-and-leaving-now-i'll-show-them attitude. Not "I'm going to stay and fight this." Not "Well, let's make sure our party wins next time." It's the equivalent of picking up one's ball and going home. I always read about how humorless the left is, but I've got to say, I've not seen an angrier bunch over the past ten weeks than the splenetic posters to right-wing websites. Perhaps Richard Hofstadter was onto something...

    I've got to fly now MD - I'm off for Easter weekend to partake of turkey, scotch and the ol' sport of kings in between bouts of rain. Have a great Easter y'all, and try and see if you can go twenty-four hours without cursing out Obama under your breath! :)

    Adios.

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  12. Tyrone,

    To say it was ill-thought out would be an understatement, but it was not considered in malice.
    http://news.yahoo.com/s/usnw/20090316/pl_usnw/the_american_legion_strongly_opposed_to_president_s_plan_to_charge_wounded_heroes_for_treatment/print

    - from Rehbein's meeting with The One:
    ""It became apparent during our discussion today that the President intends to move forward with this unreasonable plan," said Commander David K. Rehbein of The American Legion. "He says he is looking to generate $540-million by this method, but refused to hear arguments about the moral and government-avowed obligations that would be compromised by it.""

    That he met with too much resistance to follow through - is supposed to be somehow 'redeeming' of his intentions?

    Returning Tarp funds to escape control - or not:
    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123879833094588163.html

    'Not' at war with Islam:
    ===============================
    If we were talking about a country (let's call it Muslonesia) committing these sorts of attacks against another country (with only a 'small percentage' of their military, of course), killing, burning, beheading...

    ...and the only response from either the leaders or the citizens of 'Muslonesia' was to quietly nod their heads and go about their business with no outcry, no condemnation, and no demands on their leaders to recall the soldiers committing those murders... (indeed, with some dancing-in-the-streets at any news of Western deaths)

    ...would you have to decide that 'Muslonesia' was 'at war' with you?

    ===========================
    In legal arenas, it's called 'applying a "reasonable person" standard.

    "it's not being done in the name of tyranny, or the first-stages of a dictatorial power-grab"
    http://www.e3gazette.com/2009/04/obama-lacks-authority.html

    It doesn't matter if you don't like the state of the auto companies.

    ...not continuing the tax cuts for the $250,000 plus group.

    You want to pay closer attention - that number has proven to be rather ...flexible... over time.

    Have a good Easter, Tyrone.

    - MD

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