Watching these cartoons will make you feel like a kid again.
Get 600 Classic Cartoons on DVD for ONLY $14.99
http://pd.gophercentral.com/u/4074/c/186/a/541
------------------------------------------------------------
THE CONSERVATIVE REVIEW - April 26, 2011
Barack Hussein Hoover?
by: Pat Buchanan
Townhall.com
Is the world headed for a debt crisis to dwarf the one
that befell us in 2008, when Treasury Secretary Hank
Paulson stood aside and let Lehman Brothers crash?
No one knows for certain. As Yogi Berra said, "it's tough
to make predictions, especially about the future."
But the probability of a financial crisis increased this
week after President Obama's trashing of Rep. Paul Ryan's
deficit reduction plan as dragging us all back to the
Dickensian days of "Oliver Twist."
For the savagery of Obama's attack persuaded Standard &
Poor's to begin to move to downgrade U.S. sovereign debt
from the triple-A rating it has held since Pearl Harbor.
The British newspaper The Guardian wrote of the dramatic
news:
"With the political infighting between the Republicans and
Democrats on the deficit now so bitter that there was a
risk of the US government being shut down earlier this
month, S&P said it had taken the decision to change its
outlook because 'the path to addressing these issues is
not clear to us.'"
"We believe there is a significant risk," said S&P credit
analyst Nikola Swann, "that congressional negotiations
could result in no agreement on a medium-term fiscal
strategy until after the 2012 congressional and president-
ial elections."
Obama adviser Austan Goolsbee challenged the S&P rating
and rationale behind it. "They are saying their political
judgment is that over the next two years, they didn't see
a political agreement. ...I don't think that the S&P's
political judgment is right."
But the S&P's projection of gridlock got support this week
when two polls showed that the nation is much closer to
Obama's resistance to Ryan's plan than it is to Ryan.
A Washington Post-ABC News poll found 78 percent of
Americans oppose cutting spending on Medicare to reduce
the deficit, and 69 percent oppose cutting Medicaid.
Obama's plan to raise taxes on couples earning $250,000
a year or more wins the support of 72 percent of voters.
A McClatchy-Marist poll found 2 in 3 Americans favoring
raising taxes on those earning more than $250,000 but 4
in 5 voters opposing cutting Medicare or Medicaid.
Obama's position is in sync with three-fourths of the
nation.
Why would he retreat from this unassailable high ground
to seek a compromise with a hugely unpopular Republican
proposal? Why not pound the Ryan Republicans remorselessly
as defenders of the rich and slashers of the social safety
net if America agrees with you?
------------------------------------------------------------
YOUR VIDEO SNACK BAR
Top Viewed Videos...
1. Hunting, fishing & more of the great outdoors
http://c.gophercentral.com/TWIW
2. Blondie - Heart of Glass
http://c.gophercentral.com/4oCm
3. Insects at Night
http://c.gophercentral.com/GGN9
4. The Great John Wayne
http://c.gophercentral.com/z3CL
5. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
http://c.gophercentral.com/LD85
6. Who Knew? Amazing Elephants
http://c.gophercentral.com/s7ot
------------------------------------------------------------
Obama may have found an issue to save his presidency.
He is today upside-down in every national poll. Many more
Americans disapprove of the job he is doing than approve.
Why would a president who has lost the support of half
his country surrender a strong position that three-fourths
of his country agrees with?
Democratic allies on Capitol Hill would regard this as
madness.
What of the Republicans who appear today to be on the wrong
side of the deficit reduction debate? Will they look at
these polls and say, "We must stop trying to reform Medi-
care and Medicaid and move closer to Obama and impose
higher taxes on successful Americans"?
To ask the question is to answer it.
Should Republicans revert to their venerable role of pre-
Reagan days -- the tax collectors for the welfare state --
what would be the argument left for the existence of the
party?
Not only does S&P's grim assessment of the prospects for
U.S. deficit reduction seem sound. News from across the
pond points to a fast-approaching day of reckoning in the
financial world.
European investors are now demanding and getting 22 percent
interest on two-year Greek bonds. And with Greek debt at
150 percent of its gross domestic product -- the same
as Zimbabwe -- the question is no longer whether Athens
will default, but when, how and what will be the losses
to European citizens, banks and governments who hold Greek
paper.
Will Greece be the only domino to fall, or will Ireland
and Portugal follow and the contagion spread across Europe
and leap the Atlantic?
What makes this appear more imminent was the triumph this
week of a Euro-skeptic and ethnonationalist party, the
True Finns, which vaulted from five seats in the Helsinki
Parliament to 38 and will almost surely be in the new
government.
High on the True Finns' agenda: tougher terms for any bail-
out of Portugal and using Finland's EU veto to kill Angela
Merkel's plan for a super-bailout fund after 2013. Like
other northern Europeans and even Germans in Merkel's
party, the stolid Finns are sick of subsidizing the self-
indulgent deadbeats of Club Med.
And here is where the risk to Obama comes. Playing off
Ryan may be smart short-term politics, but if the world
financial system were to come crashing down -- in part
because of the absence of a U.S. deficit deal -- no one
would blame Paul Ryan.
The Herbert Hoover of that depression would be Barack
Obama.
------------------------------------------------------------
Follow Your Favorite GopherCentral Publications on Twitter:
http://www.gophertweets.com/ More Coming Soon!
------------------------------------------------------------