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Obama Administration Has No Clue How to Handle Financial Crisis
Tweet Share on Facebook February 20, 2009 Comment (12)By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog.
Why does this give me no confidence?
The following piece in today's Washington Post signals to me that nobody in the Obama administration
has figured out what to do about the current economic crisis. The markets clearly have not been calmed, sinking as they continue to do. Washington politicians call for bipartisan commissions to study problems and recommend solutions when issues are either so hot the politicians themselves don't want to touch them, or they don't know what to do about them. Listen up, changelings, you wanted change and you got it. Now we're all having to suffer through its result:
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Faith-Based Charities Hit Hard by Economic Crisis, and It's Their Own Fault
Tweet Share on Facebook February 20, 2009 Comment (10)By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog.
While my heart goes out to the people they serve, I have little sympathy for faith-based charities now hurting in the downturn. They never should have let themselves become dependent on the government largesse, because recessions are cyclical and inevitable, and relying on any funding source to continue forever, be it government or private sector, is unwise. But apparently they have and now many are having to cut back:
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Economic Crisis Is A Lose-Lose for Democrats and Republicans, Stimulus or No
Tweet Share on Facebook February 19, 2009 Comment (8)By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog.
I feel sorry for Democrats and Republicans trying to sort through the current economic crisis and pull the country through this Depression—er—recession. If they open the printing press's floodgates, they satisfy the "woe is me" types. But they also expose federal funds to all manner of corporate abuse, as we saw with the first Bush Bailout dollars, some of which were spent on lavish vacations for high-earner sales types.
If they do nothing, and the economy does not pull itself out of recession, they won't get re-elected because they failed to act.
Now Bloomberg tells us stringent rules packaged in with the president's mortgage bailout may limit its efficacy:
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Obama Could Be Great if He Can Overcome Bush Stagflation
Tweet Share on Facebook February 19, 2009 Comment (17)By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Anyone who's old enough to remember Jimmy Carter in office remembers the term stagflation. It means a stagnant economy coupled with horrendous inflation. We haven't witnessed it in some three decades, and those of us who lived through it never wanted to deal with it again. But here it comes, according to that most venerated of financial institutions, the Fed:
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Sex Kitten Feminist Sarah Palin Is a Big Media, Internet Draw, Love or Hate Her
Tweet Share on Facebook February 18, 2009 Comment (87)By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
A Washington Post blogger says himself that a front page article about Sarah Palin in the paper has energized Post readers.
The gist of the article is that Gov. Sarah Palin's return to Alaska since her vice presidential run has been anything but successful:
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Arkansas, 5 Other States, Ban Atheists from Public Service. Seriously
Tweet Share on Facebook February 17, 2009 Comment (105)By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog.
Can it be constitutional to exclude from public service or service as a witness in a state court any and all atheists? Such a practice is so throw-back in nature, that it reminds one of the Spanish Inquisition. And yet, when I read the first part of this Washington Post piece, I was flabbergasted to find that Arkansas is one of a half-dozen states that does so. Read on and be flabbergasted (or not) yourself. But know in advance that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled illegal all such laws in 1961:
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Bristol Palin Acts Like a Role Model on Sex, Abstinence and Teen Pregnancy--Bravo!
Tweet Share on Facebook February 17, 2009 Comment (74)By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog.
I'm not a fan of her mom, but I give kudos to Bristol Palin for saying on the Fox News Channel that abstinence-only education is "not realistic at all."
The teenage daughter of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin said having a child is not "glamorous," and said she wished that "everyone should just wait 10 years" to have a baby, rather than when you're young:
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Obama Poised to Reverse Bush's Taliban-Like, Big Brother Stem Cell Policy
Tweet Share on Facebook February 17, 2009 Comment (55)By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
I've certainly criticized President Obama enough since he's taken office and even more when he was a presidential candidate. But I don't hesitate to applaud him when he does something right. One of his advisers told a Sunday television talk show that the president is on the precipice of overturning yet another Bush administration policy that pushed us back. George W. Bush's stem cell policy pushed us so far back, in fact, that when the Clinton administration ended in 2000, we felt like a country moving forward. When Mr. Bush left office last month, he'd pushed the country back to the 1950s.
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Republicans Flop on Pelosi Mouse Lie, Haven't Learned Environmental Lesson
Tweet Share on Facebook February 13, 2009 Comment (28)By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Enough beating up on a poor mouse! During debate on the stimulus package in Congress this week, a Republican House Press Secretary tried to score political points by beating up on an endangered species:
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Gregg Commerce Withdrawal Demonstrates Obama Lack of Experience
Tweet Share on Facebook February 13, 2009 Comment (25)By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
President Obama, your inexperience is showing. I've been keeping quiet about this for a while, trying to give the president the benefit of the doubt. But day after day we learn about another imploded cabinet nominee and it's getting to be way too much.
