Obama's View: Gulf Spill Recovery Only a Part-Time Job

I might think I was hallucinating, but I have witnesses: commenters on Potluck’s Oval Office live open thread, plus the dozens of millions of people who watched, listened to, or read Barack Obama's oval office speech of only four days ago, Tuesday, June 15. In that speech, according to The New York Times, Obama said:

Already, this oil spill is the worst environmental disaster America has ever faced. And unlike an earthquake or a hurricane, it's not a single event that does its damage in a matter of minutes or days. The millions of gallons of oil that have spilled into the Gulf of Mexico are more like an epidemic, one that we will be fighting for months and even years. 

But make no mistake: We will fight this spill with everything we've got for as long as it takes. We will make BP pay for the damage their company has caused. And we will do whatever's necessary to help the Gulf Coast and its people recover from this tragedy. 

So Obama appoints a guy to lead the Gulf recovery: a part-time guy. That's what Obama considers "everything we've got for as long as it takes." If only he had hired a part-time guy to push through his socialized health insurance fiasco. But no, for that he had to tie up the 111th Congress for an entire year and whip them into voting on Christmas Eve.

From ABC News:

President Barack Obama's point man charting a new future for the oil-poisoned Gulf Coast will do the job part-time. Some environmentalists said the job demands someone's full attention.

Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, who oversees 900,000 Navy and Marine personnel, is inheriting an amorphous second job as the Obama administration's leader of long-term environmental and economic planning. His task is no less than rebuilding a region still suffering after Hurricane Katrina and beset by decades of environmental problems.

Mabus won't resign from his Navy job. When President George W. Bush picked Donald Powell to lead the recovery after Hurricane Katrina, Powell resigned as head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

Mabus was Clinton's ambassador to Saudi Arabia for two years, after serving as governor of Mississippi.

"The president talked to the governor about this, and they both agreed that he had the ability to do both," White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Thursday after Mabus met with Obama at the White House.

That prompted quick criticism from the Defenders of Wildlife, which is working to save animals from the oil that has gushed from an offshore BP oil well for nearly two months.

"The idea that he is only going to work on this part-time is disturbing," said Robert Irvin, the group's vice president for conservation programs. "If this is the equivalent of war, as the president has been saying, it needs a full-time general."

True, the recovery will benefit from focused, strong coordination of help from the federal government. But something tells me that's not what this administration has in mind for the Gulf states.

Cross-posted at Potluck.
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New Poll: Muslim Countries Want Obama to Get Tough with Iran

(Hat tip: Carol's Closet.) 

Right on topic, an interesting observation from Investor's Business Daily:

Iran: Tehran's response to our newest sanctions? An immediate expansion of its nuclear program. Meanwhile, Muslims far and wide recognize the Iranian threat but find President Obama's response deficient.

If the president really wanted to woo the world's Muslims, then instead of giving a groveling, hyped-up speech to a bunch of big shots in Cairo a year ago he should have gone all out against the Iranian nuclear threat.

At least, that's what a new international poll suggests.

The Islamofascist regime founded by the Ayatollah Khomeini 31 years ago has answered the newest United Nations and U.S. sanctions with a promise to build four new reactors.

A poll conducted by the Pew Global Attitudes Project "found that the populations of Islamic countries are in support of getting tough with the revolutionary government in Iran."

Surveying 25,000 people in 22 countries, Pew found heavy support for harsh measures against Tehran in nations like Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon. Only Pakistan and India dissented. Interestingly, 55% of Egyptians and 53% of Jordanians were willing to consider military action to stop Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons.

[snip]

With the exception of Indonesia, where he lived as a child, Islamic countries are rapidly losing confidence in the U.S. president. In Egypt, for instance, confidence in Obama fell from 41% to 31%, and in Turkey from 33% to 23%.

The president used the Cairo speech to apologize for the CIA's role in the 1953 coup that saved Iranians from Soviet dominance, and conceded that Tehran has a "the right to access peaceful nuclear power" in spite of its obvious nuclear weapons ambitions.

Could it be that Muslims who have experienced a taste of Western-style freedom expect the leader of the free world to lead in the face of a nuclear threat from Muslim fanatics, rather than to appease that threat and fantasize about equality among nations?

Extraordinarily, in all seven countries where Pew polled Muslims separately their confidence in the president has dropped from a year ago — by as little as 4 percentage points among Nigerian Muslims to as much as 18 points among Lebanese Shiites.

This is what the world's lone superpower gets for pursuing a foreign policy based on multilateralism and talk, instead of acting as the leader, and champion of freedom, we're supposed to be.

The more Obama weakens other nations' confidence in the U.S., the more he drives them into relationships with nations that hate or distrust us. Obama's not just weakening U.S. power around the world, he's weakening his own power and does little for his own long-term political survival. He can cozy up to the dictators of the world all he wants, and style himself as a superman in his own eyes by sending his go-fers to pick on little old ladies in need of Medicare and to push around the law teams of CEOs trying to avoid socialist takeovers, but what's he going to do when he faces world-class thugs while former allies and potential friends hit the sidelines and watch?

November.


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Just How Much Can the Feds Sabotage Efforts to Save the Gulf?

First Obama rejects the offers of at least 13 nations to send oil-skimming and other equipment to keep oil from killing U.S. marshlands, wildlife, beaches, and jobs, not to mention damaging the health of human beings, and when the people of Louisiana assemble smaller barges with oil-sucking vacuums to prevent some of the damage, the Coast Guard shuts those barges down.

Folks are blaming these travesties on bureaucracy, which is an old story that keeps people feeling helpless and makes those in charge look like bumbling fools, but effective leaders are able to cut through bureaucracy, when they want to, that is. Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't golf-pro wannabe Barack Hussein Obama the Coast Guard's commander in chief? Isn't he the fellow that keeps telling the American people just what he "won't tolerate"?

He's mighty tolerant of the suffering of American people. If we suffer enough, Obama seems to think, if we feel helpless enough, if we think our local institutions are staffed by people who are just bumbling fools, we'll step right up for Cap'n Tax and that $7 a gallon gasoline he's got planned for us. Or maybe we'll be too exhausted and broken-hearted from trying to keep our lives together in a never-ending storm of disasters and assaults on our economic well-being to notice a Democrat-majority lame duck Congress passing Cap'n Tax over our objections after we vote the #@&%@!'s out of office in November.

Addendum (6/19/10) courtesy Trestin Meacham: " I just want to remind everyone that the Coast Guard is not part of the Navy. It is not even part of the Department of Defense. It fits under the umbrella of Homeland Security, so, this is Big Sis and her people."
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Obama Has Decided to Sue Arizona, Hillary Tells Ecuadorians (UPDATE: DOJ Confirms Clinton's Statement)

Another page has been written in the Obama administration's ongoing saga of You-Can't-Make-This-Stuff-Up.

On June 8, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced on Ecuadorian TV (out of Quito, Ecuador) that Obama is planning to sue Arizona over their popular illegal immigration law, which mirrors federal law and which goes into effect on July 29. According to the results of a Washington Post/ABC poll, 58% of Americans support the law. Video from The Right Scoop:



Clinton said:

President Obama has spoken out against the law because he thinks that the federal government should be determining immigration policy. And the Justice Department, under his direction, will be bringing a lawsuit against the act.

It could be that Clinton made this announcement to Ecuadorians under the assumption that all non-comatose Americans already know that Obama would have no problem suing American citizens on behalf of illegal aliens. After all, it could hardly be more obvious that Obama places higher value on the opinions of Central and South Americans than on the people of the good old U.S.A.

Or it could be that the Obama administration thinks Americans should be the last to know: less fuss that way.

There is also a possibility that Clinton was lying to the people of Ecuador and whatever neighbors of Ecuador watch Ecuadorian television.

The Justice Department isn't offering any illumination, to Americans in particular. The DOJ's view is that "the department continues to review the law." Nobody's telling Arizona what's going on either. Two weeks ago, Obama told Arizona governor Jan Brewer that he'd let her know in two weeks what the federal government was going to do to help Arizona in their plight. Tonight, Governor Brewer noted that those two weeks have expired, but she still hasn't heard from Obama.

Of course not. If she wants Obama's cooperation, Governor Brewer will have better luck if she joins La Rasa. However, if she continues to stand up for her fellow Arizonans, she'll just have to wait until word about the future of her state drifts in from Ecuador.

UPDATE via Michelle Malkin. The DOJ has admitted that it is building its case against Arizona. Obama will be hauling Arizona into court for writing a law that challenges what he regards as his right to ignore longstanding federal law legislated by Congress.

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Today's Funny

Not much time for posting today, so I'll leave you with this gem from Stilton Jarlsberg at Hope n'Change Cartoons.

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Join Potluck Tonight for Obama's Oval Address

As Pundette says, "If you can stand it, that is."

The thread will start just before 8:00 p.m. Eastern time at Potluck.

Hope to see you there. Misery likes company . . . .





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Surprise! Union Health Plans Exempt from ObamaCare

Remember the recently leaked Gov't estimate that ObamaCare regulations will force 51% of all employers, including 66% percent of small firms, to relinquish their current health care plans by Jan. 1, 2014? That report came after Obama pushed passage of his unconstitutional health insurance mandate with his promise that, under ObamaCare, Americans could keep their health insurance plans if they liked them.

Guess what? Government and other union workers won't be feeling the ObamaCare pain that other workers will. Non-government and other non-union workers will face health insurance caps, limits, and mandates, but unions will be free to shop around for good deals without the limitations faced by others. That reality changes the distribution of the people facing loss of their health insurance, meaning that up to 80% of employees of small firms will lose their insurance while gov't workers and other union workers get to keep theirs, or trade up. As Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA) points out, this stealth legislative measure will "shelter unions from any negative consequences from ObamaCare, while putting the cost and burden on everyday hard-working Americans."

According to unions, though, this is business as usual. I think that observation is correct. As Gerry Shea of the AFL-CIO says, "It's just boiler-plate stuff. . . . This is typical for any major change in federal law that affects employee benefits. Not just health care, but other ones too."
 
What a deal! No matter what crazy policies gov't workers initiate or help administer, these workers rest assured that the usual "boiler plate stuff" will protect them from personally suffering the consequences. If 70% or 80% of American employees are kicked off their health insurance plans, so what? Only the suckers suffer. Government workers and other union workers keep their plans. And those are mighty good plans, too.

Personally, I wouldn't count too much on those protections. They'll have increasingly limited usefulness as the economy continues its downward slide and the health care system and medical research as we know them unravel. A rising tide lifts all boats, but a falling tide leaves every little craft dry on the sand.

No, it's not going to be all bread and roses for government and union workers. To paraphrase the famous quote of Sir Thomas More in the film, A Man for All Seasons: "It profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world . . . but for ObamaCare?"
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PayPal Reinstates Atlas Shrugs

On Friday, PayPal notified Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs that her site promoted "hate, violence, racial intolerance, or the financial exploitation of a crime." Her readers reacted and contacted PayPal to voice their support of Pamela's site and work. Today Pamela posted:

I posted it over the weekend and received over a thousand letters of support, hundreds of ccs of paypal account cancellations........ the people spoke. Love that.


And so today, about an hour ago, a very pleasant and rather deliberately clueless executive called me from paypal to say it was all a big misunderstanding and Atlas would be reinstated (and the subsequent restriction of SIOA and FDI removed also).

[snip]

She said Atlas was mistakenly designated when "in review." I asked why was Atlas in review. Paypal has been on this website since 2005. She did not have an answer. I asked what recourse do smaller websites have? As this is my real concern. My soapbox is pretty big, but what about small blogs?

[snip]

Needless to say, I am not going back. I told her that, too. She wished I would reconsider. But, no. I am sticking with Gpal -- the G stands for guns :)

The real story is that we stood up and the weasels backed down. We will fight each battle this way.

Congratulations, Pamela.

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• Sunday Night Pushback II
• Atlas Shrugs Could Use a Hand . . .

Teleprompter Day at the White House

In observance of Flag Day, President Obama urged Americans "to fly the Star and Stripes at their homes and other suitable places."

Just who is he trying to kid?

Notice the American flags surrounding Obama at his recent press conference on the Deep Water Horizon disaster:

Some photos of other presidential press conferences that I plucked from various sources on the Internet:

Another difference between the Obama press conference and those of his predecessors: the Great Orator is the only one who answered press questions with the aid of teleprompters.

Hat tip: Retired Intelligence Officer and Stop the Leftist Propaganda Machine.

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Sunday Night Pushback II

Over the last few days, certain Internet bullies have been blatantly working to suppress the freedom of speech of others. As long as these bullies continue to silence and minimize honest, peaceful messages, I'll do my little bit to amplify and maximize those messages. I hope you will do the same.


II. PayPal Cuts Off Atlas Shrugs

Pamela Geller at Atlas Shrugs is passing on updates on the situation from her readers.

Not surprisingly, PayPal hasn't issued "hate speech" warnings to a variety of Islamic jihad Web sites (I won't post the links). Nonetheless, Pamela's honest reportage and her courageous advocacy for Muslim converts to Christianity have plenty of supporters at the PayPal community forums, where the Pam Geller/Atlas Shrugs forum is their busiest by far. Drop on by and tell PayPal what you think.

If you want to send Geller a donation for her work, you can now do it through Gpal (scroll down until you see the blue Donate Now icon). Her snail mail address is still good, too:  Pamela Geller, PO Box 121, 1040 1st Avenue, New York, NY 10022.

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Sunday Night Pushback I

I'm don't like being pushed around, and I don't like seeing other people being pushed around either. I especially don't like to see bullies attempting to silence the messages of generous people peacefully expressing their observations in creative ways. Just call me your average American.

Over the last few days, certain Internet bullies have been blatantly working to suppress the freedom of speech of others. As long as these bullies continue to silence and minimize honest, peaceful messages, I'll do my little bit to amplify and maximize those messages. I hope you will do the same.

I. We Con the World.

Somebody at Google doesn't like this pro-Israel parody and pulled it from youtube. I posted "We Con the World" before, and I will post it again, and I will keep posting it until Google gets tired of playing dhimmi.  (You might try using Bing. I think you'll like it.)

Hat tip: Backyard Conservative.
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Related post: Make This Viral for Israel and for Freedom

A Prayer for the Animals of the Gulf

That's St. Francis of Assisi in the painting, patron saint of animals and the environment.

Hear our humble prayer, O God,
for our friends, the animals,
especially for those who are suffering.
We entreat for them all
Thy mercy and pity.

Excerpted from a prayer by Dr. Albert Schweitzer, theologian and medical missionary who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1952, when it still counted for something. 

Atlas Shrugs Could Use a Hand . . .

You've heard by now, perhaps, that PayPal is cutting off service to Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs and SIOA. Her enemies don't want her to carry on her courageous work. After all, Truth is the New Hate Speech.

So there's only one thing to do at the moment. Support Pamela's work with a check or money order. This kind of oppression stops when it has an effect opposite to the one intended. And I always kind of prefer paper, don't you? Nice and crisp.

Here's the address, courtesy of The Other McCain:

Pamela Geller
PO Box 121
1040 1st Avenue
New York NY 10022

Do it now, while it's on your mind.

Oh, and by the way: Illegitimi non carborundum, folks.
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Paving the Road to Hell: Espousing Peace ≠ Creating Peace

Somewhere in Progressive Paradise, standing on a traffic island, a band of intrepid social activists are holding up a banner demanding peace. Some days, the banner proclaims a general yearning: "Honk if you want peace." Other days, the activists have actual conflicts on their minds, most recently, the one arising from Big Bad Israel's supposed maltreatment of Peaceful Little Gaza and their cuddly friend, Iran. Certainly I'm not the only one who drives by these displays wondering why the activists don't take their banners to traffic islands in the Gaza Strip or Tehran, to give others the benefit of their "war is not the answer" sentiments. But mostly, in my little corner of Progressive Paradise, these activists have strong support.

In my mind, one of the most dangerous assumptions underlying the Progressive inclination is that good intentions produce good results. The Progressives that I know intend that Gaza transform into a 21st century garden spot; that Iran recovers its dignity as Persian Empire, this time with Western technologies powered by nuclear produced electricity; and that oil rigs are shoved so far out to sea that the unsightly consequences of using petroleum products to transport Peace Now! banners to traffic islands, make Gaza into Gotham, and power Iran's central air conditioning systems need never be considered. The flaws in this assumption are far from obvious to all.

So I was happy to find an article on the subject by Walter Russell Mead, a U.S. foreign policy expert. He titled it, "Goo-Goo Genocidaires: The Blood Is Dripping From Their Hands." Here's a bit of it:

Of all the mass murderers, genocidaires and enablers of the twentieth century, one group of collaborators does not get its fair share of condemnation and moral loathing. Unfortunately Americans have never really come to terms with the terrible things they did, we have never really named and shamed them, and we have never diagnosed and exposed the bad ideas that led to some of America’s most fateful and costly blunders.  Until we do, our society is at risk of repeating these errors.

The people I have in mind are the ‘goo-goo genocidaires,’ the willfully blind reformers, civil society activists, clergy, students and others whose foolishness and ignorance was a necessary condition for tens of millions of deaths in the last hundred years.  Unreflective, self-righteous ‘activists’ thought that to espouse peace was the same thing as to create or safeguard it.  As a result, tens of millions died.  Unless this kind of thinking is exposed and repudiated, it is likely to lead to as many or more deaths in the 21st.

We all know that the road to hell is paved with good intentions; this turns out to be particularly true when it comes to the road to foreign policy hell.  Over the years good people or at least people who wanted to be good or thought they were, motivated by what seemed to them to be the highest of motives, have taken political stands and made policy proposals that helped mass murderers gain power in their own countries and launch themselves on international careers of conquest and mayhem.  At other times, fortunately, they’ve failed to change policy; still, they wasted a lot of people’s time and made life significantly more difficult for those whose plans to help the world ultimately worked.

The most notorious example is the peace movement of the 1920s and 1930s.  This movement enjoyed the enthusiastic backing of college professors, idealistic students, respected journalists, the union movement, and the mainline clergy.  If you didn’t join in, you were criticized as a warmonger, a throwback, someone lacking the broad social vision and high sense of ideals that modern times required.

Sound familiar?

The American peace and disarmament movement almost destroyed human freedom. The peace movement gave intellectual and moral respectability to the cause of isolationism: the belief that the United States could safely ignore the unraveling of the world’s fragile economic and political order as British power waned after World War I. But these idealistic professors, students, preachers and general all-around-good-guys were naive, self-righteous, and smugly sure that arms cause war.

Armed with a set of wrong headed prejudices (they called them ‘convictions’ and ‘ideals) that made it impossible for them to recognize deadly dangers staring them right in the face, they minimized the difference between imperfect friends (like then-imperialist Britain and France) and flamingly wicked mass murdering thugs (like Stalin, Hitler and the militaristic governments of Japan). Worse, they used all their considerable intelligence, power and media access to prevent Franklin Roosevelt from taking effective action to support the western democracies and China until it was far too late to prevent World War Two, and almost too late to win it. Even then, because the pathetically and self-righteously foolish and irresponsible ‘peace activists’ of the 1930s let the Axis get so far, we could only beat Hitler with Stalin’s help; the oppression of central Europe and the Cold War were the fault of the clergy, professors and civil society activists of the 1930s as well.

You'll want to read the entire piece here, I think. 

Hat tip: Brian J. Dunn at The Dignified Rant; Dr. Seuss cartoon from Dr. Seuss Went to War: A Catalog of Political Cartoons by Dr. Seuss.
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What's So Funny About the Ground Zero Mosque? This Guy Explains It

Take it from someone who knows:



As you watch this, keep in mind that, in addition to the mega-mosque planned to be built on Ground Zero, a Roman Catholic convent is being converted into a mosque on Staten Island, against strong opposition from the neighborhood.

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Extremely Important - Stop Obama's EPA From Regulating CO2 (UPDATED)

You know, that stuff that you and the rest of the animal kingdom exhale and that plants take it in order to survive (and provide the rest of us with food).

Or if that doesn't do it for you, think of what life is going to be like with the much higher electricity bills Obama has promised us if the EPA wrestles regulation of CO2 away from Congress.

Via Pundette at Potluck: "Read this post by Iain Murray and do what he tells you. It’s super easy with this 'handy-dandy message generator.'"

Spread the word, please.

Addendum: If you are worried about CO2 in the environment, remember this: CO2 levels in the atmosphere are at an historically low level.  At today's CO2 levels, the dinosaurs that once roamed the planet would die of starvation because today's CO2 levels are too low to support the rapid growth of plant life those big guys needed to survive. If CO2 levels were higher today, food would be much more plentiful.


UPDATE via Pundette at Potluck:From MIchelle Malkin:

4:30pm Eastern. The Murkowski resolution to stop the EPA power grab failed on a 47-53 vote.

The 6 Dems who voted with Rs to try and head off the eco-usurpation…

Landrieu, Lincoln, B. Nelson, M. Pryor, Bayh, Rockefeller.

Remember in November.

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Presidents Who Really Could KSA

Joaquin over at How Is That Obama Vote Working Out For You???, points out that a dude who can’t even pitch a baseball faces a credibility gap when it comes to threatening to perform an activity usually reserved for tough guys.

Joaquin has posted a list of presidents who possessed some real authority in that department. Readers might want to add their own favorites to the list.

Now, if you want to talk about Presidents that can kick ass!

George Washington--clearly
Andrew Jackson--he killed a guy in a duel. So yeah!
William Henry Harrison--yep
Zachary Taylor--for sure
Honest Abe--absolutely...if pushed
US Grant--just ask Robert E. Lee
TR--oh yeah!!
Harry Truman--bantam weight
Ike--yes sir!
JFK--maybe in his prime
LBJ--reluctantly, but yeah!
Gerald Ford--a Wolverine
Ronald Reagan--the Gipper
W--sober
Obama--*snort*

Graphic from America is an Obamanation! via Nice Deb.

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Obama Opens Nine New "Resorts" for Illegal Aliens -- Hey, We Can Afford It, Right?

Illegal aliens awaiting deportation from the U.S. are entitled to a few little necessities, don't you think? Like, say, continental breakfasts on the weekend, bingo parties, dance classes, arts and crafts, self-serve beverage and fresh veggie bars, cooking classes, tutoring, computer training, and a natural setting in which to perform aerobic exercise. Oh yes, free phone and email access, too. And every federal taxpayer is entitled to pay for these little necessities, of course.

From the Houston Chronicle (via Wyblog):

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials are preparing to roll out a series of changes at several privately owned immigration detention centers, including relaxing some security measures for low-risk detainees and offering art classes, bingo and continental breakfast on the weekends.

The changes, detailed in an internal ICE e-mail obtained by the Houston Chronicle, were welcomed by immigrant advocates who have been waiting for the Obama administration to deliver on a promise made in August to overhaul the nation's immigration detention system.

The 28 changes identified in the e-mail range from the superficial to the substantive. In addition to “softening the look of the facility” with hanging plants and offering fresh carrot sticks, ICE will allow for the “free movement” of low-risk detainees, expand visiting hours and provide unmonitored phone lines.

Don't monitor the movements or phone lines of illegal aliens being deported. But make sure to monitor the income streams of legal citizens. Don't spend the taxpayers' money on taxpayers. Spend it on non-taxpayers. Check.

ICE officials have faced pressure from immigrant advocates and some members of Congress to improve the detention conditions for the roughly 400,000 immigrants it houses annually. 

I like that. Obama seeks legal action (on the taxpayer's dime) against the state of Arizona for honoring the wishes of citizens desperate to see immigration laws enforced, but responds favorably to pressure from illegal immigration advocates. 

But the plans are prompting protests by ICE's union leaders, who say they will jeopardize the safety of agents, guards and detainees and increase the bottom line for taxpayers. Tre Rebstock, president for Local 3332, the ICE union in Houston, likened the changes to creating “an all-inclusive resort” for immigration detainees.

“Our biggest concern is that someone is going to get hurt,” he said, taking particular issue with plans to relax restrictions on the movement of low-risk detainees and efforts to reduce and eliminate pat-down searches. 

Reducing and eliminating pat-down searches could allow contraband, like weapons, into facilities. Eliminating lockdowns "will make it more difficult to protect detainees from one another." The changes are planned for nine detention centers, including a 900-bed facility in Houston.

Rebstock also questioned the cost to taxpayers for the changes.

“My grandparents would have loved to have bingo night and a dance class at the retirement home they were in when they passed away, but that was something we would have had to pay for,” he said. “And yet these guys are getting it on the taxpayers' dime.”

Maybe Rebstock's family could have afforded a nicer facility for his grandparents if they weren't paying exorbitant taxes on their incomes. But then again, who cares? Rebstock's grandparents obviously didn't belong to a preferred constituency.
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It's Official: Leftists Don't Grasp Basic Economics, Study Shows . . .

. . . but conservatives and libertarians do.

Yet another demonstration of why Americans should not let leftists anywhere near our economy comes from a study conducted by a pair of Zogby researchers who found that, when it comes to the ABC's of the economy, leftists belong in the corner with dunce caps. On the other hand, conservatives on the whole have a good grasp of economic principles. In fact, the more conservative a person is, the better understanding of economics he or she is likely to have.

In a survey of almost 5,000 American adults, those who identified themselves as very conservative or libertarian were able to correctly answer about 7 out of 8 questions on economics, but those who identified themselves as progressives or very liberal were able to correctly answer only about 3 of those 8 questions. Across the board, conservatives of every stripe understood how the economy works much better than their liberal brethren.

Color me unsurprised.

From The Wall Street Journal, courtesy PoliticalJunkie Mom via Hot Air headlines.

Who is better informed about the policy choices facing the country—liberals, conservatives or libertarians? According to a Zogby International survey that I write about in the May issue of Econ Journal Watch, the answer is unequivocal: The left flunks Econ 101.

Zogby researcher Zeljka Buturovic and I considered the 4,835 respondents' (all American adults) answers to eight survey questions about basic economics. We also asked the respondents about their political leanings: progressive/very liberal; liberal; moderate; conservative; very conservative; and libertarian.

Rather than focusing on whether respondents answered a question correctly, we instead looked at whether they answered incorrectly. A response was counted as incorrect only if it was flatly unenlightened.

Consider one of the economic propositions in the December 2008 poll: "Restrictions on housing development make housing less affordable." People were asked if they: 1) strongly agree; 2) somewhat agree; 3) somewhat disagree; 4) strongly disagree; 5) are not sure.

Basic economics acknowledges that whatever redeeming features a restriction may have, it increases the cost of production and exchange, making goods and services less affordable. There may be exceptions to the general case, but they would be atypical.

Therefore, we counted as incorrect responses of "somewhat disagree" and "strongly disagree." This treatment gives leeway for those who think the question is ambiguous or half right and half wrong. They would likely answer "not sure," which we do not count as incorrect.

In this case, percentage of conservatives answering incorrectly was 22.3%, very conservatives 17.6% and libertarians 15.7%. But the percentage of progressive/very liberals answering incorrectly was 67.6% and liberals 60.1%. The pattern was not an anomaly.

The other questions were: 1) Mandatory licensing of professional services increases the prices of those services (unenlightened answer: disagree). 2) Overall, the standard of living is higher today than it was 30 years ago (unenlightened answer: disagree). 3) Rent control leads to housing shortages (unenlightened answer: disagree). 4) A company with the largest market share is a monopoly (unenlightened answer: agree). 5) Third World workers working for American companies overseas are being exploited (unenlightened answer: agree). 6) Free trade leads to unemployment (unenlightened answer: agree). 7) Minimum wage laws raise unemployment (unenlightened answer: disagree).

How did the six ideological groups do overall? Here they are, best to worst, with an average number of incorrect responses from 0 to 8: Very conservative, 1.30; Libertarian, 1.38; Conservative, 1.67; Moderate, 3.67; Liberal, 4.69; Progressive/very liberal, 5.26.

Americans in the first three categories do reasonably well. But the left has trouble squaring economic thinking with their political psychology, morals and aesthetics.

Read the rest here.

Gulf Misery: One Hand Washes the Other, or Else?

Thought I'd pass along this insight from There's my Two Cents:

So, seeing as it’s been clear all along to the White House that we had an ecological disaster on our hands: why did the President not act in a timely fashion to try to keep the oil off of the beaches in the five Gulf of Mexico states?

State               Governor              Party          Election Year?    Note 

Alabama          Bob Riley            Republican           Yes               Open race

Florida             Charlie Crist        Independent         Yes              Former GOP

Louisiana         Bobby Jindal       Republican            No               GOP leader 

Mississippi       Haley Barbour     Republican            No               RGA head

Texas                Rick Perry          Republican           Yes               Re-election

Gee, I don’t have the slightest idea.

Obama's political bummer machine undoubtedly is in high gear working out ways to spin this Gulf disaster to their advantage, and much of their hoped-for gain will involve the so-called "green" shakedowns they've been planning since before Fannie Mae got involved in the carbon-credit racket. Environmentalists will play ball with this administration for whatever they can get, I'm thinking, but they have stopped swooning over Obama: for many, his obvious lack of any investment of the heart tells the tale.
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