Category: politics

Not in Kansas anymore

So I was reading the Rott today and I stumbled across the following:

Russian Prime Minister Vladamir Putin has said the US should take a lesson from the pages of Russian history and not exercise “excessive intervention in economic activity and blind faith in the state’s omnipotence”.

“In the 20th century, the Soviet Union made the state’s role absolute,” Putin said during a speech at the opening ceremony of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “In the long run, this made the Soviet economy totally uncompetitive. This lesson cost us dearly. I am sure nobody wants to see it repeated.”

Uh, what? What kind of bizarro world is this when we have former KGB head Vladamir Putin warning us that we’re getting a little “too socialist?!” How much worse can this “Obamination” get?

Wait, don’t answer that, Mr. Obama. Please?

Help, I’ve been stimulated!

It passed cloture.

And it was more expensive than it was coming in, even though the Senate claims to have “trimmed it down” – trimmed it “down” from $820 billion to $829 billion. And that’s just immediate costs – there’s another $350 billion in planned spending that goes with it.

This brings the total number of pledged funds for bailouts and stimuli to over 9 TRILLION dollars. AWESOME.

The cloture vote was 61-36. The traitors are Specter, Collins, and Snowe it looks like. The real vote happens at noon tomorrow, but with no chance to obstruct it or filibuster it at this point, there is virtually no chance this will not pass.

I think I’m going to stop writing about politics for a while, this is just getting too depressing.

Oh, crap

This ain’t good. France has rejected an “Obama-style” stimulus plan as being too socialist. Yeah, that France.

LYON: Prime Minister François Fillon on Monday rejected demands that the French government seek to stimulate consumer spending, rather than follow his plan to stimulate corporate and infrastructure investment, to lift France out of its economic slump.

“It would be irresponsible to chose another policy, which would increase our country’s indebtedness without having more infrastructure and increased competitiveness in the end,” Fillon said in a speech in Lyon.

More than 1.1 million people took to the streets across France last Thursday, according to the Interior Ministry, with unions putting the number of protesters at 2.5 million, to call on President Nicolas Sarkozy to stop cutting government jobs, increase the minimum wage and spend more on households as the economy enters its first recession since 1993.

Opponents of the government have been calling for an “Obama-style” stimulus plan, one that puts money directly into the pockets of working people.

This is gonna be a long four years, isn’t it?

Best President Ever

I mean, in October, al Qaeda was “resurgent, stronger now than at any time since 2001.” But after only two weeks in office, it now comes out that al Qaeda is “decimated” to the point “that it is now possible to foresee a “complete al-Qaida defeat.” Man, he is so good. Why didn’t we just let him take over back in November?

Wait, the reason that al Qaeda is in disarray is due to air strikes over the past six months plus? Well, that doesn’t matter either. See, Obama’s secretly been President for months, you just didn’t know it yet.

A couple days ago the AFP reported, “US President Barack Obama has already used experts within the last few months to hold high-level but discreet talks with both Iran and Syria, organizers of the meetings told AFP.” That’s funny, because in December he was very insistent to point out that he wasn’t President yet, and there was only one President at a time…

“I will continue to insist that, when it comes to foreign affairs, it is particularly important to emphasize that there is one president at a time,” Obama said Monday. “There are delicate negotiations taking place right now and we can’t have two voices coming out of the United States when you have so much at stake.”

Man, it’s a good thing he’s soooo awesome or else this might be a little alarming, don’t you think?

(h/t: Patterico)