Happy December and Happy Hannukah to our Jewish friends. Today ushers in the first really cold weather. The big blast is supposed to last through the weekend. How is that Christmas shopping going? Are you all doing it on line or braving the elements and the masses?
remember making snowflakes as a kid? You can now do it with your mouse.
http://www.akidsheart.com/holidays/winter/snowflake.htm
I forgot. Happy Hannukah!
My kid’s already made out. She’s gotten a present from her mom on Day one. And she always insist on lighting the candles before we end the day.
Elena,
I have a post up at UCV that will make you smile. T’is the Season!
http://unitedconservatives.blogspot.com/2010/12/tis-season.html
what about kwanzaa?
Thanks for the Happy Hannukah wishes – same here to everyone else on here who is Jewish – such as Elena.
For some Hanukkah humor (but many people may have already seen this):
The Hanukkah song at http://www.evtv1.com/player.aspx?itemnum=6183
Also a slightly different version at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vrd9p47MPHg
Happy Hannukah, Gainesville & Elena!!
Let’s not forget the Christmas Parade is tomorrow. Our very own Cindy Brookshire will be riding in a convertable in her newest role as Woman Of The Year. Congratulations, Cindy. Tonight Santa arrives at 6pm on VRE for the tree lighting at the Manassas Musuem.
http://www2.insidenova.com/news/2010/dec/02/santa-arrives-old-town-manassas-ar-691194/
Where’s PW Taxpayer hiding these days? We haven’t seen him/her make an “appearance” lately. hmmm
Thanks Lafayette. Congrats to Cindy – hope she doesn’t get too cold riding in that convertible tomorrow!
@Lafayette
Blocked, in moderation, busy on other things and threatened by Moon directly IMHO to reduce the number of conservatives – or worse – non-Corey haters on the blog. I don’t think this will get through, but if it does, thanks for askin.
Your good wishes will keep me warm! That and a T-shirt from KK’s under the new winter coat my husband bought me :). Happy Holidays! Toda La’el!
http://www.roanoke.com/editorials/wb/269502
It is past time for Virginia to resolve our transportation funding crisis.
God forbid and Republican raise a single tax, Big Dog. It is far easier to invent new fees and permits and sneak them in that way.
I am so sick of him trying to play funny money with the liquor stores I could scream. There is no way he can make up the $250k annual profit. He needs to admit his mistake and move on.
There is no way he can do any of this until he admits we really don’t have a balanced budget. We don’t as long as the VRS is owed over 6 billion dollars. That affects so many people down the road in so many ways.
Did I misunderstand Melissa Peacore or did she say that that the last quarter of FY2010 had not been paid for PWC?
McDonnell needs to just suck it up and admit the gas tax might have to go up a few notches and do it before the deficit committee gets to us first.
CNBC had a great discussion with former Fed Chair Alan Greenspan this morning. He made many important points including that the immense Federal borrowing and deficits are crowding out private borrowing, which inhibits business growth and job creation. Also, businesses are using their cash flow (which is improving remarkably) for illiquid assets (short-term investments) rather than expanding plant and equipment, which creates jobs. The ongoing uncertainly in the economy is the main reason for this.
Greenspan added that the financial regulations are creating more burdens and uncertainly that are slowing growth. As Moonhowlings readers may recall from a few months ago, I support new financial regulations, such as reinstating Glass-Steagall and requiring the fiduciary standard for anyone offering financial services to the public. Now, brokers, insurance agents, etc. are subject to the much looser “suitability” standard. The new financial regulations did none of this.
He added that in normal recoveries, we would have seen a massive recovery by now, but under the current circumstances solid recovery is not in sight. I’ve posted links to the Greenspan segments below for anyone who wants to hear the entire interview.
The jobs report this morning supported Greenspan. Private sector job creation is still anemic and the unemployment rate rose to 9.8%.
What to do?
I support the extension of unemployment benefits because so many people honestly can’t find a job and those benefits provide one of the only true boosts to the economy of the various types of stimulus programs. Otherwise, get spending and borrowing under control!
Extend all of the Bush tax cuts. Half of business profits are now reported as S-Corporations or other vehicles that flow through to personal income taxes. Don’t take that income away from those businesses that would otherwise be creating the jobs we need. Obama and the Democrats should lose the ideology, drop the class warfare rhetoric and do what works to create jobs, as happened under both Presidents Kennedy and Reagan.
Give us meaningful financial regulatory reform as described above rather than nuisance regulations designed not to incur the ire of big insurance companies and brokerages.
Greenspan interview:
http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=1680587782&play=1
http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=1680623935&play=1
http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=1680623781&play=1
Happy Hanukah to Elena and all of my Jewish friends!
Christie Todd Whitman is calling for a radical moderate movement in her book, It’s My Party, Too: The Battle for the Heart of the GOP and the Future of America.
Polls say that 38% of people say they are conservative, 37% say they are moderate and 22% claim to be liberal.
@PWC Taxpayer
Once again, PWTp is full of crap. I have not threatened anyone. You are contentious when you come on the blog and have been extremely rude to me. That why your comments stay in moderation until Elena and I can check them out. I am not going to sit all day and baby sit the blog because you don’t have social skills.
Feel free to like and support who you want. Prepare for the laughter.
Spot on. The problem with TARP is that, while necessary to prevent (postpone) collapse, it needed to be quickly followed up by elimination of dark pools, derivative speculation when one does not own or is exposed to the underlying, elimination of too big to fail by breaking large financial institutions into smaller parts, etc. If you take deposits or can access the Fed discount window you have no business engaging in prop trading. The reason that the banksters didn’t squeal about FinReg is that it allows casino operations to continue while institutionalizing too big to fail.
In other words, Wall Street is free to continue to speculate knowing that they will always be backstopped by the taxpayer and the profits are private while the losses are socialized.
I somewhat disagree about continuing unemployment. On one hand we can rest assured that the benefit checks will be spent and thus those dollars will find their way into the economy. On the other, 99 weeks? Seriously?
@Cato the Elder
Cato – I’m not a fan of unemployment benefits either, but we have been suffering through the worst economic calamity since the Great Depression, and it was brought on largely by the same irresponsible bank practices you described above. It took over a decade to recover from the Great Depression, and our recovery this time will be prolonged and sluggish also. Note the jobs report this morning.
The Fed was created as the “lender of last resort” but the regulations that were created in the 1930s, such as Glass-Steagall, to avoid getting to the last resort, have been dismantled with bi-partisan support. Aside from unemployment benefits, I agree with everything you wrote. In fact, you identified more of the needed financial reforms that the recent legislation failed to enact.
Moreover, the sooner we can move forward from Obama’s “community organizer” and class warfare perspective on the economy to economic policies based on reality and the overwhelming evidence from the historical record as to how economies grow and private sector jobs are created, the shorter the recovery time will be.
So if we don’t have unemployment benefits, just what do 2 million people do? I see red every time I hear no unemployment. The vast majority of people are ashamed that they even have to get the checks. They look at it like a welfare check.
NTK, I dont think that community organizer snipe is a fair one. He was a attorney. I am not sure what class warfare is. I really haven’t seen the poor getting anything out of the ordinary that they haven’t been getting all along. The big difference is we now have the neo-poor rather than just generational poor. Unemployment tends to do that.
Actually, I am going to go out on a limb and say as long as this frigging political crap stays in play, our economy is not going to recover. For once, I wish all those with political fire in their belly would take a tums and look at what is good for the country rather than what is good for both of the evil political parties.
If the small business folks were going to save the economy they would have done so by now rather than sitting on their cash. I have a post on this and I don’t even think I will bother. It is like spitting in the wind.
By all means I am going to lose sleep over the millionaires. Some of them have actually stepped up to the plate and said they don’t need a tax cut. However, there is always Congress who controls it all. Half of them are millionaires. Looks like a lot of people out there are being duped.
Ok, but at what point do you decide to stop unemployment benefits? Is it when we get back to 5% unemployment? What if there’s really something structural going on with our economy and those jobs never come back?
Does unemployment become yet another permanent entitlement?
Oh, and go ask those “patriotic millionaires” if they voluntarily pay more to the IRS because they feel they’re insufficiently taxed.
http://dailycaller.com/2010/12/01/patriotic-millionaires-support-raising-taxes-but-wont-voluntarily-pay-more-to-the-govt/
@Moon-howler
My point is that the President has no understanding of how economies function. His experience is in organizing liberal interest groups at the local level. Prior to being elected President, he never held a single position (private sector, or public sector such as governor) where he could have gained any understanding of the need to create wealth, and produce goods and services, rather than stir up feelings of entitlement and calls to redistribute what others have created.
You know that I’m not a big Palin fan, but she at least served a half-term as governor of a state and had exposure to the need to nurture private business activity that creates wealth, generates income, and provides the resources for sustainable public spending. Obama has none of that sort of experience. Even his key advisors (Geitner, Summers, etc.) have experience only in academics and government, and no exposure to managing to make a profit and meet a payroll.
Regarding class warfare, Obama seems ready to sacrifice economic growth and job creation if he thinks someone who is already well off might benefit also. He adheres to the long discredited notion that the only way one person can attain wealth is by exploiting someone else. His focus is redistribution of wealth rather than creation of wealth.
With this kind of thinking and economic policy, a robust recovery is not in sight.
@Cato the Elder
I’ve also had it with the billionaires such as Gates and Buffett, as well as the rich liberals such as Kerry, who take the attitude that I’ve got mine so now I can be generous with other people’s money.
@Need to Know
Here’s an thought provoking take on the jobs report I think you’ll find interesting: http://www.valueplays.net/2010/12/02/interesting-take-on-unemployment/
@Cato the Elder
I don’t know if I can buy that thesis or not. The biggest problem with Obama’s stimulus programs has been that they have been directed at his union supporters and supporting their jobs, rather than the broad economy and everyone who needs jobs. Has union employment gone down faster than employment in general. I don’t think so but I haven’t seen any firm data.
If the administration had not targeted its stimulus and tax breaks to special interests and political supporters, and rather than making them available to everyone, they would have had much greater positive impacts.
That is not the only experience the president has. Good grief. Do you think he went out on the street and rounded up poor people and organized them after he earned his law degree? He was a civil rights attorney by trade. He taught Constitutional law at the University of Chicago.
Before he earned his law degree he was a community organizer. After passing the bar he was a lawyer. He was a university professor. He served 3 terms in the Illinois senate. He served a partial term in the US Senate before becoming president.
A president surrounds himself with people who are experts in a field. What do you think Bush or Clinton personally knew about economics? Bush knew enough to go to someone who advised him to put Hank Paulson in the Treasury real fast. What did Saint Ronnie know about economics? What does John McCain know about the economy? He was smart enough to unload his disfigured wife and take an a younger, prettier far richer wife. Perhaps he should be in charge.
Let’s have a moritorium on presidential attack. The gotcha mode is simply going to destroy this country. I didn’t do it to President Bush and I am not going to provide a forum for others to do it to this president. Criticizing the specifics of a policy is fine but I am just sick of Obama bashing.
He is the President. If the sainted Republicans had offered up someone other than an old man who sways in the wind he changes his mind so often and a bimbo perhaps you all wouldn’t have Obama.
For clarification. Not OK to challange Obama but OK to call a woman a bimbo? Or, a woman who happens to be named Sarah Palin.
BTW, I loved the back and forth between NTK and Cato. Made a great bit of lunch time reading.
I didn’t say it wasn’t ok to challenge President Obama. How about challenging policy instead of sniping.
Had the continual president bashing not been going on, Palin probably would not have been called a bimbo. She was who she was long before today and she has not been called that on this blog.
It was an attention getter and from your comment, I see that it worked. Point made.
@Moon-howler
Ok, lets take a poll. Who thinks I have been “extremely rude” to Moon?
I plead on contentious in part because I object to political correctness as public policy. America was founded on contention and competition – of ideas and capabilities.
TP, you have been rude. You can take all the polls you want. And don’t forget, there’s a lot in the ‘back room’ that never made it out to the general public. You somehow are laboring under the impression that our blog is some sort of internet common area. Do you go in someone else’s house and go in to your contentious mode or do you go by the rules of the home owner?
thank you all for my Hanukka wishes! I was asked to Hanukkah presentations today for the primary (ages 3-6) at my childs school. I told the story over and over and over, (two hours worth, 60 kids, groups of five), lit the candles said the prayer, shared the Latkes, gelt, and dreidels! Tw
Let me say this about the economy and who knows what when where why. A great president HIRES, within his circle, competent people. I trusted Clinton’s advisors, and still, to this day, LOVE Robert Reich, especially cause he is short like me 🙂
There is simply a very clear ideological difference. Republicans belielve tax cuts stimulate the economy and Dems believe that spending money to create the jobs is the best stimulus. Plenty of economists can argue both theories. Personally, I believe in a little of both. But there is not a one size fits all solution, of that I am sure. Each situation deserves individual responses.
Obama is incredibly bright and thoughtful. Taxes are not cost free people, their is plenty of research and agreement that tax cuts do not pay for themselves indefinately. Clinton raised taxes and cut taxes, sound good to me and it worked out pretty well. I really resent having to personally insult presidents over a policy difference. Let’s argue the differences and back up our thougths with credible research.
I am tired of insulting Obama for his supposed ignorance. Which is it my republican friends? The common man is good or the common man is an idiot. Having said that , Obama is incredibly bright, of that there is no question. Anyone who watched the health care summit could see that. There were differences between the parties, but Obama never responded with sound bites, he responded with thoughtful and cohesive answers.
What about the Hanukka armadillo, did they enjoy that story?
When has funding infrastructure NOT been a successful stimulus response? That is tried and true for generations. Where are the accolades for saving a milllion jobs due to bailing out GM? THAT was money well spent!
WHAT??!!! Who the heck is the armidillo? Please, share, I am waiting with baited breath 😉
The One With The Holiday Armadillo
Friends Episode 7.10
Ross has his son, Ben, for the holidays and decides to teach him about Hanukkah. Ben can’t handle the idea of no visit from Santa, so Ross tries at the last minute to find a Santa costume. The rental shop is all out so he rents an Armadillo costume instead. Things go from bad to worse but in the end he finally gets to give Ben Hanukkah and Christmas. Phoebe’s apartment in finally done being rebuilt after the fire. Worried that Rachel won’t want to move back in with her, she tries to rive a wedge between Joey and Rachel by giving Joey a drumset and a tarantula. It backfires, but Rachel wants to live with Phoebe anyway. The apartment looks great but no longer has two separate bedrooms. Phoebe likes the spaciousness, so Rachels keeps living with Joey. Chandler tries to master the art of smoothing slipping someone money during a handshake.
I just call them as I see them. In recent days on Moonhowlings I’ve written in very positive terms about Sen. Webb and thanked Supervisor Principi for honoring his pledge to protect the Rural Crescent, and voting against Avendale and the developer’s road to nowhere. Anyone who has read this blog any earlier than today knows that I am very critical of Corey Stewart and want to see him move on to something other than representing me in any elected office.
For the record, I consider Barack Obama one of the most intellectually gifted and intelligent people who have ever held the office. However, that does not mean that he has any idea of what’s he doing economically beyond the dictates of his leftwing ideology. All presidents do, as stated above, hire talent to help but you need some people with practical experience in business and the capital markets rather than just career government and academic people as President Obama has.
Before anyone says I’m sniping because of the ideology comment, consider one thing. Obama had a more leftwing voting record in the Senate than Bernie Sanders. Sanders is the independent Senator from Vermont who is a self-professed socialist. Even he is more conservative than the President.
Note that I did not say that the stimulus had no effect. I said that it would have worked much better had it been more broad-based and not targeted at special interests that support President Obama. I wish that it did have more emphasis on infrastructure development because we need that desparately.
I would first have to figure out what a liberal voting record is. Is there a place where a person can research ‘liberal?’ Who gets to decide what is liberal and what isn’t?
Is the death penalty liberal or conservative? Are reproductive rights liberal or conservative? Is book banning liberal or conservative? Is feeding the poor liberal or conservative? How about protecting the environment?
Frankly, I am so sick of labels I could scream. In all my grousing about Corey I really don’t think I have focused on liberal or conservative. I don’t care. When someone is sleezy, it just doesn’t matter.
Moderates get real sick of all the party crap and just want people to use common sense rather than ideology.
War spending stimulates the industrial defense complex which in turn provides money to many communities bordering those areas.. We can play six degrees of seperation with money and say it has a positive effect on something else but I’ll bite. What about the Gravina Island Bridge? Will you support that one? 😉 BTW, that’s a loaded question.
MH, WRT Mr. Obama people are challanging him on that. In the past when they challanged him and the administration they were called racists. Not so much now as I think even the -D’s understand that backfired and cost them a lot of indep’s. Mr. Obama IS the President but 95% of his policies suck. There, I didn’t bash him. 🙂
marin, what does WRT mean again?
No one here, to my knowledge, called anyone a racist over Obama remarks. I don’t recall that happening.
obama’s economic policies have been a total and abysmal failure. the dollar will soon not be worth the paper it’s printed on, unemployment is stuck at 10%, the deficit is exploding into the trillions, unfunded entitlement programs are liabilities that will soon be proven insolvent, obama is a genius if all the above is indeed his intent all along: burn it all down baby, and erect his socialist utopia a la castro or chavez on the ashes. I HOPE HE FAILS. sadly, it looks like he’s succeeding
@Elena
Agree , a great president does HIRE, within his circle, a wide range of competent people, with different backgrounds and challenging views. My experience was that Clinton did that-hired competent, and most often wealthy, successful, and respected business people who gave up a lot for their public service. I saw much less of that by Bush and even less by Obama – particularly at the second and third teir levels – which are largely encumbered now by political hacks for whom this is the best job they have ever had. If Bush was about personal loyalty, Obama is about party loyalty.
I also agree that there is a very clear ideological difference, but its not just about letting people make market decisons vice priming the pump through government programs. It is also about what parts of the economy to stimulate. Republicans believe that individual taxpayers should be induced to stimulate private economy job growth. Democrats – and our most recent history demonstrates this, believe in supporting public sector job growth. Since Clinton, there are now some 500,000 more Federal employees. I have no idea how many more state and local employees there are that are supported by Federal requirements and funding.
“…tax cuts do not pay for themselves.” I think the record is pretty good that they do. It is the uncontrolled spending unrelated to the increased revenue profile that is the problem. And some would say that when Republicans accepted the Butter and Bullets argument of LBJ, it all went to hell. Of course they had no choice. Democrats were buying more votes with public money than the Republicans could keep up with, while Republicans continued to buy them with their own money. They had to spend like drunken sailors on their side just to keep up.
Is Obama is incredibly bright? I have not seen the evidence of that or is it just axiomatic that all lawyers are bright? He was not seasoned, his experiance too narrow, had no executive experience – shall I go on. And no, I do not agree that he – himself – has responded to anything except in a long winded political sound bite. Still, he does do the preacher better than Bush could. Still, I think Clinton was better at that too. Thats a true southernor over a city kid.
Christmas Tree Lighting at 6pm in Old Town Manassas near the Harris Pavilion
tonight and 65th annual Manassas Parade tomorrow down Center Street
starting at 10am followed by championship OHS football at 2:30.
Come join the fun!
OHS!
Go Eagles!
“Who gets to decide what is liberal and what isn’t?”
I do, Mom, omnipotent and omnipresent arbiter of all things, CEO of “Because We Say So Corp.” and all-around malevolent being.
Sorry, WRT = With regards to OR With respect to
No one on the blog called anyone here a racist. However, the -D’s and those affiliated with the -D’s tried to call the TEA Party racist. Even Jon Stewart during his speech said that the racism angle had no traction to it.
But, the message was sent loud and clear to the independents. Disagree with the administration and we’ll label you a racist. Y’all won the hearts and minds of the center for us.
MH, the social things you ask about in #42 I don’t see as partisan. I see it as no business of the govt to be in my pocket and less so to be up in my morals. But, I will concede that because of the difference in how conservatives and liberals ‘look’ at a problem the solutions and even our idea of ‘what the problem is’ could be wildly different.
BTW, a plug for Dana Cakes @ Manassas Mall.. I’m off the diet wagon because of the Holidays and my lack of will power and had a peppermint chocolate cupcake…yummy. I soooo want to try the German Chocolate Forest one they have advertised on their interweb site. Christmas time is sooooo awesome!
I want some peppermint ice cream. Does anyone know where it is being sold this year?
Also, is anyone else getting these calls from a credit card service (unnamed) who want you to call them? They are offering a better rate. I tried to call them to tell them I am on the do not call list and they hang up on you. I got 4 calls just this morning. This has to be illegal. They are doing it from cell phones.
I hope no one is giving out any personal information. I smell crook but worse than that I smell horrible annoyance. They do not use the same number twice.
Idiot from PWC steals car in Fairfax County and OF COURSE drives it straight
to the City of Manassas – tries to steal a replacement, gets beat up, jumps back
in the original stolen car and causes a multi-car crash in Old Town. Erggg!
(Manassas N&M website).
(Kudos to the 64 year old guy who trashed the 24 year old punk who tried to steal
his vehicle)
Moon is correct that defining liberal or conservative is a subjective excercise. Organizations doing these ratings typically define a set of votes that are key in their opinion, and then measure how Senators (or other officials) vote. A couple of sources regarding Obama’s “most liberal” rating are linked below:
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-502163_162-3775451-502163.html
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474976830524
Next year, be on the lookout for ratings of the members of the Prince William County Board of Supervisors as to the degree to which they are developer stooges based on their votes on key items. You can probably guess how this one is shaping up but I don’t want to spoil it by saying more now.
@NTK
Most oganizations have their own rubric for those classifications. I am just not sure about the conservative liberal labels. As far as the developer issues in PWC, I couldn’t begin to say if that is liberal or conservative. It all depends on the context.
I personally would rather not classify liberal or conservative. I think it is wonderful that we can all get together and agree on many of these issues even if we have different political ideologies. I suppose that is part of my feelings. I am just so sick of partisanship.
My problem with Corey is all about governance and integrity. It has nothing to do with his party or the liberal/conservative label.
Following is a collection of ratings by various liberal organizations from 2006 putting Obama on top:
http://electoral-vote.com/evp2006/Info/senator-ratings.html
Note that George Allen, who was still in the Senate then, scored an overall 3 on a scale of 100, and got a rating of zero from some of these organizations. This is the Senator whom Corey is trying to portray as a too-liberal establishment guy?
Corey would say that George Wallace was a liberal if he thought it would get him a vote it sounds like. I would hardly consider George Allen too liberal.
Correction – the ratings in my post #49 are 2005 rather than 2006.
Mom/NTK-Check this out. The headline says it all. 😉
‘Tito the Builder’ may run against Stewart for chairman
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/virginiapolitics/2010/12/tito_the_builder_may_run_again.html
@Lafayette, ah the irony of it all.
Verrrrry interesting…..