During an interview a few years ago with then President George W. Bush Williams used precisely the same pointing finger jester to the President that he now takes Brewer to task for.  Posted below are the still photographs of both jesters, as well as a video of Williams lecturing President Bush.

Brian Williams’ schizophrenic behavior is typical of the mainstream media.  To these Leftist reporters, the news is no longer based on facts, but on political philosophy.  Just as bad, they treat the current president as if he was royalty instead of an employee of the People.

In announcing the decision, Obama he blamed the Republicans in Congress for demanding action too quickly.  As he so often did when an Illinois State Senator, Obama believes that voting “present” is analogous to decision-making.  How juvenile!

Blog reader John forwarded the video posted below by Canadian talk show host, Ezra Levant.  As Levant explains, Obama’s decision to halt the Keystone pipeline was purely political, designed to assuage radical environmentalists and other Leftist supporters.

Obama’s decision to halt the Keystone pipeline has significant negative implications for the United States.  First, it tells our Canadian allies that we are not a dependable buyer for their oil.  This will force the Canadians to find other buyers, mainly in Asia.  Further, it forces America to continue buying oil from unreliable suppliers who do not particularly like us, including Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela as well as Saudi Arabia.  This is yet another example of Obama rewarding America’s adversaries at the expense of our allies.  How bizarre!

As shown towards the end of the video, during his campaign for the presidency Obama promised to end America’s dependence on oil from Venezuela in the Middle East.  This broken promise is so brazen that it must be considered a “lie”, as Ezra Levant so correctly concludes.

“This was a difficult, but necessary, decision for our company.  We moved aggressively to reduce costs and shift focus when the marketplace did not evolve as quickly as anticipated.  Our business plan was impacted when demand for lithium-ion batteries slowed due to lower-than-expected adoption for electric passenger vehicles.”

This remarkable statement shows the illogic and downright idiotic business decisions taken by the Obama administration.  It once again proves that just because a government official believes the green energy is good does not make it a viable business.

In 2009, the US Department of Energy awarded Ener1 a $118 million grant as part of Obama’s Stimulus Package.  As part of the Administration’s promotion of this expenditure, Vice President Joe Biden visited Ener1′s Indiana plant a bit over a year ago for a photo-op.  This publicity stunt for another governmental boondoggle in the green energy field matches the May 2010 photo-op of President Obama visiting the Solyndra plant in California.  Solyndra, who is now the target of a federal criminal investigation, received over $530 million in loans from the Stimulus Package before going belly up.  It seems that receiving a hundred million dollars of taxpayer funds will only get you a visit from VP Biden.  To get the big guy, a company needs to take hundreds of millions of taxpayer cash.

A third green energy company, Beacon Power of Massachusetts, got a mere $43 million in Stimulus funds before filing bankruptcy protection.   Starting to see a trend?

President Obama’s green energy program is a failure on many levels.  First, green energy is not ready for prime time.  It can either produce large quantities of power, nor can it produce it economically.  The funds that this Administration dumped into green energy companies has merely enriched a few Americans at the expense of the many.  Ultimately, the markets decide what energy to use, not some government politician or bureaucrat.

What is remarkable about this President is that he is so unapologetic.  In fact, instead of apologizing to the taxpayers that funded the boondoggles, Obama has indicated that he will do more of the same.  This points to perhaps the greatest problem of Progressive governments; lack of accountability.  Everyone in the Administration from the president on down, as well of the Congress, who supported these green energy boondoggles should be fired and joined the list of the too many unemployed Americans with their programs continue to hurt.

This week in a campaign speech in Nevada, the President embellished on his voodoo economics with the following statements:

“On Tuesday at the State of the Union, I laid out my vision for how we move forward.  I laid out a blueprint for an economy that’s built to last, that has a firm foundation.  Where we’re making stuff and selling stuff and moving it around and UPS drivers are dropping things off everywhere. ……  That’s the economy we want.  An economy built on American manufacturing, with more good jobs and more products made here in the United States of America.”

The President’s gibberish is pure nonsense.  It has nothing to do with economic reality or the ability of the government to improve the economy.  As any small business owner knows, the government is the problem, not the solution.  The President’s hollow words indicates that he understands little about how the economy works.

It seems evident that the President skipped the basic economics courses while attending Harvard.

It was slightly less than a year ago that the Obama Administration backed the demonstrators in Cairo that were calling for the ouster of longtime American ally, Hosni Mubarak.  It is evident that the results of the so-called “Arab Spring” in Egypt were not as Obama and the State Department desired.  Now, a former ally has become an adversary.

When Barack Obama was running for the presidency he promised to improve America’s stature throughout the world.  One of his first actions as president was a speech in Cairo to the Muslim world.  He also went on a worldwide tour apologizing for past American actions.  These rather bizarre actions could be justified if the world became a safer or America was more respected.  With the opposite happening, the failures of Obama’s foreign policy are quickly approaching those of his economic mismanagement.

Spain is not the only European country to miss the prescribe targets.  Previously, Greece, Portugal and Italy missed their deficit targets.  It is this lack of fiscal responsibility that the has created to the ongoing European sovereign debt crisis.  For too long member countries made fiscal promises that they had no intention to keep.  However, the piper must be paid and this has worldwide economic consequences.

The conundrum for Europe is that even if the affected countries install the required austerity measures necessary to bring them into compliance with Europe’s regulations, it will be an additional drag on their economies.  Cutting government spending and raising taxes are contractive forces.  However, not meeting the debt to GDP ratio will cause the bond markets to increase the cost of borrowing for the affected countries, increasing their debt ratios even further.

In Europe, there are no good solutions, only some less painful than others.  The choices are difficult, especially in democracies that have created so many dependent citizens.  This reality has led to significant economic news during the first month of 2012 including:

• The Wall Street Journal reported that even though Spain has a huge housing glut, some of its banks are investing in building still more houses in order to avoid writing off bad loans.  This is an example of unintended consequences of government interventions and bailouts that will ultimately result in still larger financial problems down the road.

• France and eight European countries suffered ratings downgrades.

• Earlier this month Germany sold €3.9 billion (Euros) six-month bonds with a negative yield of 0.0122%.  In other words people paid German to take their money.  This bit of illogic shows the depth of the growing fears in Europe for sovereign and commercial banks debt.

• The price of gold increasing by over 7% in January.

• German Chancellor Angela Merkel stated her country’s unwillingness to spend more to bail out weaker European countries.  The end-game for Europe’s turmoil can only be temporary help up by German money.  Without it, the sovereign debt crisis in Europe will come to a head in a matter of months, if not weeks.

• The Federal Reserve announced yesterday that they will keep short-term interest rates close to zero “at least through late 2014,” longer than previously indicated.  With this announcement Fed is stating its concern for the economy into the future.

As this Blog has proffered previously, the economic problems facing many countries today is not liquidity; the problem all of the bailouts and governmental interventions attempt to address.  The real problem is one of excess debt, both in the private and public sectors.  This debt must be paid back, often referred to as deleveraging.  It will be a lengthy and painful process.  Unfortunately none of the politicians running for the White House, or the man currently occupying it, is honest enough to share this reality with the electorate.  To them the prize of the Office is just too alluring.

While man’s inhumanity to fellow men has been carried out in the name of all religions throughout history, modern Islamists with causes are matriculating to the use of violence against fellow men in ever-growing numbers.  Yet the Progressives of the world refuse to ask why.

The FHA (Federal Housing Administration) is the government arm that insures many of today’s mortgages.  It was created to help make home mortgages more affordable, part of the government’s plan to promote homeownership for Americans.  The FHA previously determined that flippers did not fit in this mission and would not insure mortgages for houses resold within 90 days.  However, the FHA waived this rule in early 2010 in an effort to prop up the housing market.  This waiver was set to expire this month, but has since been extended by the FHA.

The FHA’s meddling has not stopped the downward spiral of housing prices.  However, that has also not stopped Acting Federal Housing Administration Commissioner Carol Galante from claiming: “This extension is intended to accelerate the resale of foreclosed properties in neighborhoods struggling to overcome the possible effects of abandonment and blight.”  Typical of governmental bureaucrats; when a program fails, just do it again.

Almost every time the government intervenes in the market it has promised positive results that have not materialized.  In the housing market it has made over three years of massive interventions that failed.  In addition, these interventions are creating unintended consequences that will cause even more serious issues in the future.  It remains to be seen how long the American people will continue to allow these failed policies to be repeated by the knuckleheads in Washington.

Yes, the end of Joe Paterno’s coaching days at Penn State were tainted by the Jerry Sandusky scandal.  However, the fact that Paterno was shown not to be perfect does not detract from the significant good he brought to his University, its football players, and the greater world.

Recently, one of Joe Paterno’s over 5,000 football players that he mentored at Penn State, Mike Guman, gave an interview with his thoughts about Coach Paterno (posted below).  In a few minutes, Guman who also played in the NFL, elegantly speaks for many of us Penn State alumni as he expresses how Paterno was much more than a football coach.

Joe Paterno touched many lives and the world is a much better place because of him.  History will remember with kindness the man who many in recent years referred to as “Joe Pa”.

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