The Week That Was

Where does one start with this Administration? It's been quite a week. I guess we should start with the President. Sigh.

Harry Truman made decisions,big and small. The atomic bombs on Japan come to mind. Having sat back and watched his Administration dither on the BP oil spill, Obama in contrast says about the spill that:

"This is what I wake up to in the morning and this is what I go to bed tonight thinking about,"

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/27/AR2010052701172.html

Well great, but what most of the country is concerned about is getting the well capped and stopping the immense oil leak. Perhaps the oil-well-fixer fairies will come during the night and plug it while he sleeps! The buck definitely stops with him. (P.S. -it's Bush's fault!)

Then there's Hillary. Hillary thinks the answer to our economic doldrums is to tax the bejeepers out of the "rich" just like Brazil. After all, Brazil has some of the highest tax rates in our hemisphere and they are growing rapidly. www.thefoxnation.com/business/2010/05/28/hillary-rich-arent-paying-their-full-share Really? Brazil?

"Let's go to the CIA World Factbook for some relevant comparisons between Brazil and America (figures are from 2009, except as noted):

• GDP per capita: Brazil $10,200, U.S. $46,400
• GDP per capita, rank: Brazil 105th, U.S. 11th
• Unemployment rate: Brazil 7.4%, U.S. 9.3%
• Population below poverty line: Brazil 26% (2008), U.S. 12% (2004)
• Share of nationwide household income or consumption, lowest 10%: Brazil 1.1%, U.S. 2%
• Share of nationwide household income or consumption, highest 10%: Brazil 43%, U.S. 30%

The U.S. does better on all these measures except 2009 unemployment--and a year earlier, the U.S. rate (5.8%) was considerably better than Brazil's (7.9%). The average American is more than 4.5 times as productive as the average Brazilian, and a Brazilian is more than twice as likely to be impoverished by Brazilian standards than an American is to be impoverished by U.S. standards.

Brazil's GDP actually shrank last year, by 0.2%, though it grew 5.1% in 2008 and 6.1% in 2007. For America, the figures were a 2.4% decline in 2009, 0.4% growth in 2008 and 2.1% growth in 2007. But developed countries seldom grow at 5% or 6% a year; developing ones experience such growth because their economies are smaller to begin with. "

online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704596504575272542364164212.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_MIDDLETopOpinion

And this lady is our Secretary of State. Go figure.

How about that John Brennan, one of the President's national security advisers, and the subject of my 5/21/10 post? He's at it again.

Speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, he said:

"Nor do we describe our enemy as 'jihadists' or 'Islamists' because jihad is a holy struggle, a legitimate tenet of Islam, meaning to purify oneself or one's community, and there is nothing holy or legitimate or Islamic about murdering innocent men, women and children ..."

www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/05/27/counterterror-adviser-defends-jihad-legitimate-tenet-islam/

Yup. And the jihadists own writings make clear that one of the ways they do this is by murdering innocent men, women, and children. Sheesh. I really think he needs the Arab headdress if he is going to keep this up.

Last but not least is the State Department's Michael Posner. He preemptively brought up the new Arizona immigration law to the Chinese in a discussion of China's dismal record on human rights. www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/05/18/state-department-defends-official-expressed-regret-chinese-arizona-law/ He bragged that he "brought it up early and often." Of course, he hadn't read it, which is apparently the order of the day for Team Obama (see Attorney General Eric Holder's statement). I'm sure the Chinese were impressed.

A little background - Michael Posner ran a George Soros'-funded organization, Human Rights First, before going to the State Department. He is known as "... a fierce critic of the George W. Bush administration’s war on terror, calling on Americans to rally against enhanced interrogation techniques and supporting U.S. entrance to the International Criminal Court." That is he wants to haul folks like Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld up before this court and charge them with "war crimes" yada, yada.

www.whorunsgov.com/Profiles/Michael_Posner

All in all, quite a week for the folks in Obamaland. Did I mention that the President's approval rating is down to 42%? Keep up the good work!