The Porkulus is coming.

So here's ten questions about it

1. You assert that without your economic stimulus plan unemployment will reach double digits. If your stimulus plan passes, as expected, what do you project the unemployment rate to be in one year? Two years? Three years?

2. How many jobs will the bill create in its first year? In what sectors of the economy will the job growth occur?

3. What will the deficit be in 2009? 2010? 2011?

....

9. What’s the percentage probability that the stimulus plan will work? If you can’t give an estimate, why should we give you one trillion dollars?

10. What’s your Plan B if the economic stimulus doesn’t work? What's your exit strategy if the plan actually does harm?

And two non-stimulus bonus questions:

The tax problems of Geithner, Daschle, Killefer, and Solis are different in kind and degree. Please describe your standards for permitting some tax scofflaws to remain in your administration but not others.
You 're about to ramp up military operations in Afghanistan but Russia has pressured Kyrgyzstan to forbid the U.S. from using the Manas air base crucial to supplying our forces in Afghanistan. What have you done about that?

More questions could be. "Do you foresee the need for another such bill next year? How does the urgency of this current bill mesh with TARP II?"

Don't expect the lapdog press to ask these basic questions.

And we see how Obama handles a challenge...

By getting out of the White House and back onto the campaign trail.

Seriously, he's in Elkhart Indiana campaigning.

In a way, Obama’s escaping rather than campaigning. The problem in this bill isn’t in Elkhart, and neither is the solution. Obama let his signature issue jump off the rails when he failed to control Nancy Pelosi and force her to get Republicans involved in writing the bill. That didn’t happen in Elkhart. He could solve that problem by summoning Pelosi and Harry Reid to the Oval Office and instructing them to go back to the drawing board, this time with Republican leadership, and get a bill that would gain massive support on both sides of the aisle.

Obama doesn't want to negotiate. Not with domestic rivals, oh no, that's saved for enemy countries.

Well, I will say this. Obama has shown leadership and judgment befitting his temperament and experience.

Those were my thoughts on seeing how Obama handles the "challenges" of actually being President.

"vbspurs" has some similar thoughts.


That cool cat with the million dollar smile. The post-partisan uniter of all Americans, the guy who was going to cure our nation's ills with his wonderful speeches, and steady calm hand. Mr. Cute Puppies, Happy Rainbows and Chocolate Chip Cookies. HIM.

Because when he took his first Air Force One trip to Williamsburg, VA (9 minutes one-way from D.C.; take that carbon credits!) to address the House Democrats' retreat, he belted forth with such angry frustration at the Stimulus Package meeting resistance, that I had to blink.

...


Or do you reckon that in the 47 years of his time on earth, no one had actually, really told him "no", "you can't", "you have to wait", "hey, what's your hurry", and lastly, "settle down, you're behaving like a brat throwing a tantrum" and, "Oh my God, did you just totally give me the bird"?

Because that would explain his petulant, almost Reverend Wrightish delivery, with that strange preacher cadence he assumed on the campaign trail -- which is so very at odds with his new Office.

Alas, I'm afraid I've come to the conclusion that Barack Obama is a rather spoilt man, unused to waiting for anything he wanted, unused to real challenge after having been everyone's darling since the time he was very young.

I think that hits the nail on the head. Our President never met a situation he couldn't charm, talk, or cover his way out of. And when in doubt he could just campaign for the next highest office.

Well... Mr. President. You can't do that now. Though it will be darkly humorous to watch you try.

"When we criticized Barack Obama’s lack of executive experience, even we didn’t think it was going to be this bad."

From Ed Morrissey of Hotair.

Yet another Obama pick with tax problems...

That makes 25% of Obama’s original Hope and Change Cabinet picks comprised by tax evaders. Add that to the fourth scandal of Bill Richardson’s pay-for-play federal grand jury investigation, and we have a full-blown vetting disaster. And that doesn’t even count new Attorney General Eric Holder’s politicization of Justice ten years ago on behalf of Bill Clinton in the FALN and Marc Rich pardons, or the dozen-plus lobbyists hired by the President Who Hates Lobbyists.

And what happens when someone asks an Obama spokesman for some transparency, something that Obama is nominally all for...


Video at the link. This also shows more of Obama's stellar, stellar quality in picking staff.

Meanwhile the Speaker of the House has no idea how many people live in the US
500 million jobs lost a month.

And Glen Reynolds notes the rampant double standards.

So in a way we have found a new kind of politics. We've gone from a "culture of corruption" in which people who figured in scandals (can you say "Duke Cunningham"?) faced actual consequences, to a culture of impunity, in which it's taken for granted that the rules for big shots are different.

Don't pay your taxes? If you run a dry cleaning shop in Cincinnati, the IRS will come down on you like a ton of bricks. But if you're a congressman or a former senator or a Treasury nominee, you can just sheepishly pay up, perhaps even , as in Daschle's case, without being assessed any penalties.

Ironic given the pap that Obama fed the American populace. Feeling conned yet?

And then there's this:

Mr. President, I'm sure your life has been a whirlwind since Election Day—since the day you announced your campaign, really—but, uh, the work is just getting started. Two weeks into the job seems a bit early to be getting "tired of being in the White House."

And then there's his stance on heating the Oval Office. Nevermind how living in a greenhouse is a bit tin eared when Americans are freezing to death do to lack of power...


How does the President react to mounting criticism to a bloated pork-filled bill? One that will double the size of the US gov?

With campaign rhetoric and threats of course!

Guns in England

Via Glen Reynolds

Ban legal ownership of handguns, and crime goes up.

Eliminate self-defense and a man protecting his life will go to prison longer than the criminal that broke into his house and came after him.

British Gun owner's message to the US: It will happen to you if you let it.

Meanwhile Obama and his cronnies are eager to bring those kinds of laws here.

Via Reynols and Althouse

Being lazy today...

Basically The One is speaking out against Talk Radio and Rush.
Yeah... that won't make any Fairness Doctrine seem like petty political control...

Radio Equalizer: “Beyond the absurdity of a Democrat barking orders at his political opposition, he’s especially foolish to air his fear of Limbaugh and talk radio in a public setting.”

Anne Althouse: “I’m picturing Rush delirious with glee, pacing the cavernous rooms of his mansion, booming out monologues to his kitty cat Pumpkin, as he waits for Monday noon to finally roll around. This will be good.”


And then Reynolds talks about the odd silence coming from the Anti-War left.
Remember, Bush sending robots to kill minorities: bad. Obama sending robots to kill minorities: meh.

Anne Althouse on the Strangelove-ization of our age: You can't ask questions in here! This is the press room!

More Change!

Glen Reynolds: This is not so much a stimulus, as a massive transfer of wealth from the politically unconnected to the politically connected.

Also from the Instapundit. THAT DIDN’T TAKE LONG: News access issues concern those covering Obama.


Well, that's what happens when you have a Pres that gets annoyed by the press questioning him, while he's visiting the press.

His tendency to combine self-righteousness with lack of seriousness.

Two items to show the kind of Change our President is after.

First Guantanamo Bay

Today Barack Obama issued an entirely symbolic executive order, directing that the terrorist detainee facility at Guantanamo Bay be closed within one year. Gitmo, of course, was created in answer to the question, What are we going to do with captured terrorists? Now, with that facility slated for closure, the question arises once more.

...

So, in other words, Obama's order accomplishes nothing other than to kick the can down the road. The question of what to do with the terrorists will be "studied"--and, by the way, it's now a "very complex, very detailed question."

Second Obama and those Lobbyists.

Day One: Obama Bans Lobbyists from Serving in His Administration. Day Two: Obama Issues First Exemption from His Ban

I know all of Obama's promises will be broken... but the guy isn't even waiting a full day.