Obama Gives Queen Ipod

Barack Obama has a lot to learn.

He gives very cheesy gifts.

When Prime Minister Gordon Brown and his wife Sarah visited the U.S. last month, Obama presented them with a boxed set of DVDS of classic American movies. That's a crappy gift to begin with, but the fact that the DVDs were incompatible with British DVD players made the gift a complete flop.

Michelle Obama gave Mrs. Brown two cheap toy models of Marine One for her two sons.

The gifts received plenty of criticism in the British media and here at home.

After that fiasco, you'd think Obama would have learned something. You'd think he'd choose an appropriate gift to give to Queen Elizabeth and get it right this time to redeem himself.

But again, his gift sucked.

From the Telegraph:

Barack Obama met the Queen at Buckingham Palace today and gave her a gift of an iPod loaded with video footage and photographs of her 2007 United States visit to Richmond, Jamestown and Williamsburg in Virginia. In return, the Queen gave the President a silver framed signed photograph of herself and the Duke of Edinburgh - apparently a standard present for visiting dignitaries.

It is believed the Queen already has an iPod, a 6GB silver Mini version she is said to have bought in 2005 at the suggestion of Prince Andrew.

UPDATE: Pool reporter Richard Wolf of USA Today says that an Obama aide told him the President also gave the Queen a "rare songbook signed by Richard Rodgers". END UPDATE

Earlier, Mr Obama had spoken of his admiration for Her Majesty but indicated that his wife was handling the details of their royal meeting. "There's one last thing that I should mention that I love about Great Britain, and that is the Queen," he said at the end of his joint press conference with Gordon Brown.

"And so I'm very much looking forward to meeting her for the first time later this evening. And as you might imagine, Michelle has been really thinking that through -- because I think in the imagination of people throughout America, I think what the Queen stands for and her decency and her civility, what she represents, that's very important."

Mr Brown added: "Well, I know the Queen is looking forward to welcoming you and she's very much looking forward to her discussion with you."

The question: Did Obama's iPod gift make the cut?

What do you get for a woman who has everything—palaces, crown jewels, a nation at her feet? If you’re President Barack Obama, and it’s the Queen of England, a personalized iPod, of course.

The bestowing of the Royal iPod brought a cringe from one top etiquette expert, who said it confirmed that Obama hasn’t figured out presidential gift-giving. Or that they shouldn’t all come from Best Buy — Obama already took some grief for giving British Prime Minister Gordon Brown a boxed set of DVDs when he visited the White House.

“For me, the iPod only works if he has some catchy reason why he gave it as a gift,” said Anna Post of the Emily Post Institute. “Otherwise it feels like somebody at the White House pulled the lever and an iPod is what popped up. And if it was just pulled out of the blue, you run the risk of the ‘Oh, how nice,’ reaction from people which is the polite gloss of, ‘What on earth am I going to do with this?’ ”

The Obamas recovered a bit in Post’s eyes by also giving the Queen a rare songbook signed by Richard Rodgers. One of the Queen’s favorite musicals is Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma!

Post called that gift “the height of thoughtfulness.”

...The story about the gift exchange on the Telegraph newspaper site prompted hundreds of responses—with tons of Americans apologizing for the gift and expressing embarrassment and Brits seeming to take it in stride, with one writing:

“Dear 'Real Americans,'

Thanks for the apologies, but you can keep them. No reasonable person here is insulted by the gifts given to the queen - I imagine it was refreshing for her not to receive another ornamental trinket to sit in the royal garage.”

As for the Queen, she gave the Obamas a signed photo of herself and her husband in a silver frame. But she had it easier than Obama — that’s the same thing she always gives visiting dignitaries.

So because someone posts this little note on the Telegraph's website that means Obama did the right thing?

I don't think so.

Of course, people are spinning for Obama; but the bottom line is his gifts are not cool.

Why would the Queen want an iPod?

Why would Brown want DVDs that he can't even watch?

It's an embarrassment.

Here's a simple test for Obama: If you can buy it at Best Buy, then it's not a very special gift.

If he's going to continue to give stuff like iPods and DVDs, Obama should make sure to include gift receipts so the recipients can return them without too much hassle.

It's Obama's Company Now

GM, now renamed Government Motors, has a new CEO: President Barack Obama.By replacing the head of the company and demanding a restructuring of its board in return for further TARP aid, Obama has taken upon himself the responsibility for the future of the company. As Gen. Colin Powell said when Bush was considering invading Iraq and toppling the Saddam Hussein government there: "If you break it, you own it." Now it is Obama's company.This move will backfire big time! The auto giant is very, very unlikely to be saved by this current TARP infusion. Doubtless it will need more in the near term. But the resentment now focused on the management of the company will then turn to Obama. Having demanded a replacement of the management, it is he who will be held responsible for the company's future.And each time GM asks for more money, Obama will face a choice: take personal responsibility for laying off 100,000 auto workers or anteing up the additional cash. By inserting himself so deeply into the management of the company, Obama makes himself central to its future. If Obama lets the company fail, having already extended credit, he will have all of Michigan on his case. If he keeps coming up with more and more tax money, he will earn the contempt of the voters.Socialism has its price. By taking over the management of a company, you become the determinant of its fate in the public's mind.Obama does not seem to realize that government takeover is the beginning, not the end, of the problem. He should have stuck with being president and left making cars to others.And, as the new CEO of General Motors, what will his policy be on corporate compensation? Will the public tolerate his letting his new company pay salaries sufficient to attract the talent necessary to salvaging the firm? Or will he have to rely on a bunch of kids right out of school, willing to work for one or two hundred thousand a year, for the company's salvation?When it comes to the hard work of cutting retiree health benefits, reducing salaries, laying off workers and closing plants, is Obama willing to resist calls for his intervention? Is he up for taking the blame for all the "heartless" measures GM will have to take to salvage its future? He has put himself squarely in a position to pay a steep political price for his assumption of power at GM.Most troubling is the sense that Obama cannot have thought this through. He can't have planned this. President Clinton used to say at strategy meetings that we needed to think three or four moves ahead and not just "kick the can down the road." Obama is clearly not following his predecessor's advice. He realized GM needed money. He knew the public would have a fit if he gave it. So he decided that he would appease his electorate by exacting blood from the company's management and directors by using his guillotine on some of its old gray heads.But, had he thought before he acted, he would have realized that it would have been far better to have criticized GM from a distance even as he extended more money -- rather than to, in effect, take over the company.The president's protestations that the government does not want to own a car company are quite beside the point. It's his now, and he better figure out what to do with it.

Why Should I Be Proud Of Obama?

I'm reading this morning, a lot of condescending crap about how we should feel proud because America has elected its first black president.

Sorry. No pride here.

Why in the world should I be proud that America has elected it's first Marxist president?

Why in the world should I be proud that America has elected the worst liar in election history?

Why in the world should I be proud that America has elected an empty suit because he promises free goodies to parasites?

Why in the world should I be proud that America has elected a poser whose only talent is talking?

Why in the world should I be proud that America has elected a man without accomplishment?

Why in the world should I be proud that America has elected a man whose wife isn't proud of her?

Why in the world should I be proud that America has elected a man who pals around with terrorists?

Why in the world should I be proud that America has elected a man whose "spiritual mentor" is a racist?

Why in the world should I be proud that America has elected a man who won because of enormous and questionable funding?

Why in the world should I be proud that America has elected a man who won because the monolithic media refused to report the truth about him?

Why in the world should I be proud that America has elected a man who considers the Constitution an impediment to his policies and his power?

Why in the world should I be proud that America has elected a man who encourages thuggish intimidation of his critics?

Why in the world should I be proud that America has elected a man that considers voter fraud "enfranchisment"?

Why in the world should I be proud that America has elected a man that seeks to ruin regular "Joe's" who ask inconvenient questions of him?

Why in the world should I be proud that America has elected a man who dodges responsibility for everything he's ever done?

Why in the world should I be proud that America has elected a man who is content to let his own family languish in poverty?

Why in the world should I be proud that America has elected a man who believes live-born children should be left to die if their mothers' don't want them?

Why in the world should I be proud that America has elected a man who has voted at every opportunity to violate the Second Amendment to the Constitution?

Why in the world should I be proud that America has elected a man who claims to be a Christian, but embraces atheistic communism?

Why in the world should I be proud that America has elected a man against vouchers, but who sends his own children to private school?

Why in the world should I be proud that America has elected a man who has denied every position he's every taken, and every friend he's ever had in order to satisfy his ambition?

Why in the world should I be proud that America has elected a man who is praised for brilliance, but who is merely clever and deceitful?

Why in the world should I be proud that America has elected a man who wants to "fundamentally transform" her?

Why in the world should I be proud that America has elected a man who doesn't "fundamentally" approve of who she is?

Why in the world should I be proud that America has elected a man who will put our country on the road to perdition, servitude, and decline?


"If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen."


And we will not be "proud" of you, no matter what color your skin is.

So, please, just stop telling me how "historic" this election is. It's only "historic" in my lexicon, when it's good.

Obam's Worst Jobs Killer

More than anything else, business needs a predictable environment if it is to create jobs. Changes in the regulatory environment and the tax code make it almost impossible for businesses to make investments.Yet President Obama seems to ignore this reality. Each day's news brings another bold and far-reaching proposal to change the fundamentals of the US economy. And each time he indulges his personal ideology with such a pronouncement, businesses all over the world cut back on their planned investment until the dust settles.

Most incredible was the fact that he chose the middle of a deep recession to announce a major tax-code overhaul.Stressing how far-reaching the changes might be, he appointed a commission headed by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker to report back by early December on what the changes should be.Assuming Obama will need several months to figure out which of its recommendations to adopt and Congress will take several more months to enact its own version, the announcement effectively leaves business up in the air for at least 12 more months -- uncertain of the tax consequences of any potential investment. Who in their right mind is going to invest significantly in new plant, equipment, services, personnel or anything else? How can you consider doing so, when you can't know how the tax code might penalize you?And, in the same week, Obama announced that he'd seek to regulate nonbank institutions, including those he deems to be "too big to fail" lest their collapse injure the economy. Which businesses will be included? Nobody knows.We may not know even when the law is passed. As companies grow or merge or acquire one another, they may step over the invisible line and become "too big," and thus subject to Obama's regulation.How can a firm plan on expansion without knowing what increment in its size will attract regulatory scrutiny? It's hard enough to anticipate possible anti-trust complications -- and the Justice Department is at least usually willing to consult before any merger on what its attitude will be. Obama's leaving everybody guessing.Growth demands investment, and investment demands stability. So the more Obama stirs the pot with his proposals and potential changes, the more he retards exactly the investment he needs to get the economy moving again.At least Obama has toned down his rhetoric, no longer echoing JFK's comment that "all businessmen are SOBs." But his actions do more than his words ever did to hobble any recovery.So why insist on pushing these "reforms" now? Because, while it might be wiser to wait until after the economy's out of recession, it may then become politically impossible to get them through Congress.So he's determined to use the sense of panic to enact his changes now.Again, he's putting his ideological agenda ahead of the requisites of national economic recovery. We needed a pragmatic pilot; we elected an ideologue instead.

Obama In Europe: Will Continue To Bash America, Bush

Barack and Michelle Obama arrived in Great Britain today.He plans on speaking to European allies this week and bashing America and Bush.The BBC reported:
Our correspondent says President Obama will assert that the US has changed, that America is willing to listen and engage, but he will also insist that America still has the capacity to pull the world in the right direction. A White House spokesman stressed the president would "listen in London as well as lead". So, how long will Team Obama go abroad and apologize to the world for America?Team Obama is sooo embarrassed that the former president took America to War in Iraq after only 14(?) UN resolutions and a terrorist attack that killed 3,000 Americans.Of course, it was a Democratic led Congress that voted to go to War in Iraq. But, since when did facts count? And, of course, the Iraqis have a functioning democracy now instead of a genocidal dictator. But, since when did freedom count?The actions by democrats and Team Obama are shameful.But, don't expect the media to argue about it. They agree.

10 Tax Day FActs For Tea Parties

The US debt is so large that America couldn't qualify to join the EU.
President Obama expects the deficit level to be 12% of GDP this year larger than Great Britain's record 10% deficit to GDP.

According to Heritage, Obama will quadruple the deficit this year.

The media does not want to dwell on these facts but there's more...
The Institute For Policy Innovation released these facts in time for the Tax Day Tea Party Protests:


Ten Tax Facts for Tax Day Tea Parties

President Barack Obama and the U.S. Congress have gone on a spending and debt spree that the country cannot afford. As a result, a spontaneous grassroots movement is emerging from every corner of the nation with a message for Congress and the president: Stop spending us into an inevitable spiral of debt and higher taxes … now!

To that end, groups of Americans will be meeting in towns and cities across the nation on April 15 for “Tax Day Tea Parties” (think Boston Tea Party, not biscuits and fine English china). These “Ten Tax Facts” are our effort to make sure the American people are well- informed as they gather together to express their concern about the direction Washington is headed.

#1 .Under the Obama budget, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects that the national debt will double over the next five years; and it will triple over the next 10 years to $17.3 trillion.

#2. Under the Obama budget, CBO projects that the national debt will soar over the next 10 years from 40 percent of GDP today to a shocking 82.4 percent. (Ronald Reagan left office with the national debt at 42 percent of GDP).

#3. The president’s budget also states that total federal borrowing will grow by $2.7 trillion this year alone, an increase of 27 percent in one year!

#4. The budget President Obama proposes for this year increases federal spending by an incredible 34 percent over the previous year, with a total of $4 trillion in federal spending, the highest ever.

#5. The federal budget deficit (not the national debt) would reach $1.845 trillion this year, according to the CBO, the highest ever. That would be more than seven times Reagan’s largest budget deficit of $221 billion, which caused so much consternation among Reagan’s critics.

#6. The CBO estimates that this Obama budget deficit will total an astounding 13.1 percent of GDP, more than one-eighth of the entire U.S. economy, for the federal budget deficit alone! Under George Bush, the federal deficit for 2008 was 3.2 percent of GDP. The deficit for fiscal year 2007, in the last budget adopted when Congress was controlled by Republican majorities, was $162 billion, or 1.2 percent of GDP.

#7. The Obama budget also includes $1 trillion in tax increases on the upper 5 percent of income earners, mostly tax rate increases. But the top 5 percent of income earners already pays 60 percent of all income taxes.

#8. The Obama budget projects that revenues from the corporate income tax will more than double in 3 years, increasing, in fact, by more than 124 percent.

#9. Another $645 billion tax increase comes from President Obama’s anti-global warming cap and trade system, which is essentially an energy tax on the production and use of carbon energy, such as oil, natural gas, and coal.

#10. While the Obama administration claims to have cut $2 trillion from the budget over 10 years, fully $1.5 trillion of those “cuts” actually represents the troop drawdown in Iraq, which was already scheduled to occur under the Bush administration. Of the remaining $500 billion in budget “savings,” fully $311 billion is categorized as “interest savings” but is actually an additional tax increase on upper income earners.

O'Reilly On Letterman

Bill O'Reilly was David Letterman's guest on Late Night.

Letterman had a field day.

He was slamming Rush Limbaugh. He mocked Glenn Beck.

O'Reilly was dissing Limbaugh a bit, too.

Before O'Reilly left talk radio 4 weeks ago, O'Reilly and Limbaugh were competitors. O'Reilly's ego got the better of him, and he took credit for helping Limbaugh's ratings go through the roof.

I think O'Reilly is inflating his numbers more than just a little.



Letterman was so annoying. He said he wants Limbaugh to be the face of the Republican Party.

Why?

LETTERMAN: He's tubby. For a long time he had his housekeeper buying illegal drugs. And I thought, 'Well, if this is what the Republican Party needs, there ya go.'


Letterman is such a hack, such a mean, spiteful man. That was on full display when he mercilessly tormented John McCain after he cancelled as a guest.

Letterman gave Limbaugh a backhanded compliment.

Letterman said, "He's too smart to believe what he's saying."

How condescending!

Letterman was at his most offensive when talking about President Bush and Vice President Cheney. He savaged them. Letterman is deranged. He hates Bush and Cheney, positively hates them.

LETTERMAN: A year ago we had a guy on the show, a seating... sitting Democratic congressman, and during the commercial I said, 'What do you think will be George Bush's legacy?' And he said to me, 'George Bush, when he's out of office, should be arrested and tried for war crimes.' And I laughed. I thought, this guy's a kook. But now, I see that there... this is gaining some traction.

O'Reilly said that we should give Bush a break, but Letterman was having none of it.

When O'Reilly said that Bush presided over an economy that collapsed, Letterman interjected, "Presided or ignored?"

O'Reilly stood up for Bush, saying that the Dems were in power in Congress for two years. Barney Frank, Chris Dodd and the others did nothing for the economy.

I think that truth got Letterman more riled up. Speaking of how history would judge Bush, he wanted to know what would vindicate him. He brought up Iraq.

Letterman said the ONLY positive thing he's heard about the Bush administration is that Bush was a supporter of Africa. That's it.

O'Reilly added that Bush kept us protected after 9/11. O'Reilly said, "That's big."

No kidding. It's huge.

Letterman kind of dismissed that.

LETTERMAN: But now, what about, and then 500,000 Iraqis killed, 5,000 American men and women killed... for what reason? To get rid of Saddam Hussein? To turn that country into a hotbed of terrorism where it hadn't been a hotbed of terrorism before?

I'd like to know Letterman's source for his numbers on Iraqi deaths.

Anyway, O'Reilly said he wouldn't defend going into Iraq. He said it wasn't worth it, calling it "a historical mistake." He said he wouldn't justify it, but he was glad we won the war.

Letterman ranted that Bush screwed up by not focusing on Afghanistan. O'Reilly argued that it wasn't that simple.

Letterman then went off on Paul Bremer and his role in the war in Iraq. He started yapping about Bremer and Central America.

O'Reilly didn't know what Letterman was talking about, but Letterman kept attacking Bremer.

LETTERMAN: He's the one that they believe brought death squads to Iraq?

O'REILLY: I don't believe that for a second.

O'Reilly added, "Thank God for Gen. Petraeus, who got in there and turned it around."

LETTERMAN: As ignorant as I am, and there are few people more ignorant than I am, I didn't realize the deficit that this country had established for itself, or been forced into for eight years, until the previous tenant left the house.

O'REILLY: The money deficit you talking about?

LETTERMAN: The state of the United States globally... Until we got a guy in there who was actually, and who knows if he's doing the right thing but at least he's doing something, but to me the United States government was essentially closed for eight years.

Letterman was foaming at the mouth. He accused Bush of negligence. Obviously, Letterman is a big Obama fan. Apparently, he approves of Obama's unprecedented power grab, his shredding of the Constitution, and his war on the private sector.

Then, Letterman brought up Dick Cheney.

He said, "Let's talk about Cheney. Cheney's the venal one, right?"

O'Reilly said, "I don't have much use for the Vice President... He wouldn't come on my program."

LETTERMAN: It seemed to me like his idea was, 'Let's just get in, and get as much money for our rich buddies, and get out, and that'll be it.'

Letterman was dead serious when he was making these remarks. He wasn't joking in any way. He sounded just like a fringe Leftist loon.

I remember when Letterman used to be funny. That was so long ago.

SCHIP Tobaccoo Tax

On September 12, 2008, Barack Obama was in Dover, New Hampshire, on the campaign trail.He was talking taxes and he made a promise, a "firm pledge."
BARACK OBAMA: And I can make a firm pledge: under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase - not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes.Read Obama's lips: NO FAMILY MAKING LESS THAN $250,000 A YEAR WILL SEE ANY FORM OF TAX INCREASE.He lied.On February 4, 2009, the new president signed a bill expanding the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), and increasing the federal excise tax on tobacco by a massive 156 percent.It's not just the feds that are increasing taxes on tobacco products. Here in Wisconsin, Gov. Jim Doyle's proposed budget would slap an additional 75 cent per pack increase in the state cigarette tax.Remember, Doyle said: "Going forward, my mind will be open to every solution -- except one. We should not -- we must not -- and I will not -- raise taxes."Yeah, right.Obviously, Obama broke his promise about families making less than $250,000 a year not seeing ANY FORM of tax increase.Amanda Carpenter writes:
55 percent of smokers are considered "working poor" and one in four live below the poverty line. Aside from the fact that this tax disproportionately hits poorer Americans, the tax doesn't make fiscal sense.From the Wall Street Journal:
Congress is moving so fast and furious that it's impossible to keep up. But we didn't want to miss telling you about the tax increase on the poor and middle class that Congress is about to pass without a whit of media attention.We mean the tax increase on smokers that is part of the new children's health-care subsidy bill. To finance this $73 billion entitlement expansion over 10 years, the bill imposes an additional federal tax of 61 cents per cigarette pack, from 39 cents today. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, 96% of America's 25 million smokers make less than $150,000 a year. The Tax Foundation estimates that 99% of the smokers who will pay the new tax make less than $250,000, which is the income below which President Obama promised would see no tax increase....The number of smokers keeps falling, but health-care costs keep rising. So paying for the biggest new health-care expansion in years with a declining revenue source is a guarantee of future red ink that will increase pressure for higher income taxes too. Just ask the politicians in Maryland, who doubled their cigarette tax two years ago to finance a new health-care program. That has led to 25% less tobacco revenue than expected because of declining sales, so the program is already in the red after its first year. But hey, it's the thought that counts.In sum, Obama claimed to be the champion of low and middle income Americans. Obviously, the promises he made on the campaign trail were empty.Bottom line: Funding this massive health care expansion with a federal excise tax on tobacco, a declining revenue source, is guaranteed to fail.

Another Tax Cheat; Sebelius

Timothy Geithner, Ron Kirk, Tom Daschle, and Nancy Killefer.Now, there's Kathleen Sebelius. She has tax troubles, too. Amazing.
WASHINGTON -- Health and Human Services nominee Kathleen Sebelius recently corrected three years of tax returns and paid more than $7,000 in back taxes after finding "unintentional errors" _ the latest tax troubles for an Obama administration nominee. The Kansas governor explained the changes to senators in a letter dated Tuesday that the administration released. She said they involved charitable contributions, the sale of a home and business expenses. Sebelius said she filed the amended returns as soon as the errors were discovered by an accountant she hired to scrub her taxes in preparation for her confirmation hearings. She and her husband, Gary, a federal magistrate judge in Kansas, paid a total of $7,040 in back taxes and $878 in interest to amend returns from 2005-2007.Has any other U.S. president ever assembled such a team of tax cheats? It's incredible.

Tedisco And Murphy

It's another "too close to call" race.
ALBANY, N.Y. -- A race for a New York congressional seat that's become linked to President Barack Obama's economic recovery efforts won't be decided for at least two more weeks.Democrat Scott Murphy leads Republican Jim Tedisco by 65 votes out of 154,000 cast. A lawsuit filed Tuesday night requires all ballots to be impounded — not unusual in close elections.More than 10,000 absentee ballots were issued and nearly 6,000 are back. It can be a laborious process to count the paper ballots and those mailed from overseas aren't due until April 13.Here we go again.I suppose boxes of hundreds of previously uncounted ballots will magically materialize and they'll all go to the Democrat, Murphy.Lawyers will pour over the absentee ballots. The Democrats will challenge military votes and try to get them tossed out.The number of votes needed to top Republican Tedisco's count will surely turn up.And there will be court battles and appeals.We've been here before.Whatever the results, Obama can't claim victory on this one. He pushed for Murphy to be elected to fill DEMOCRAT Kirsten Gillibrand's seat. He wasn't able to seal the deal decisively.Even if Murphy eventually is named the winner, the electorate didn't give Obama and his policies a vote of confidence.