Dim Sum

I'm afraid these three little dumplings I'm serving for a luncheon snack just might make you throw up........

The world is trying so very hard to awaken our partisan political leaders from their slumber. These aren't Republicans slamming the new President. These are real experts trying hard to get through the wall partisan rhetoric. Please turn off the politics long enough to listen.

1. The Wall Street Journal: The Obama Economy - "Americans have welcomed the Obama era in the same spirit of hope the President campaigned on. But after five weeks in office, it's become clear that Mr. Obama's policies are slowing, if not stopping, what would otherwise be the normal process of economic recovery. From punishing business to squandering scarce national public resources, Team Obama is creating more uncertainty and less confidence -- and thus a longer period of recession or subpar growth."

"What is new is the unveiling of Mr. Obama's agenda and his approach to governance. Every new President has a finite stock of capital -- financial and political -- to deploy, and amid recession Mr. Obama has more than most. But one negative revelation has been the way he has chosen to spend his scarce resources on income transfers rather than growth promotion. Most of his "stimulus" spending was devoted to social programs, rather than public works, and nearly all of the tax cuts were devoted to income maintenance rather than to improving incentives to work or invest."

The entire article is so very important. Click over and read it all.

2. James Cramer on CNBC: It’s Amateur Hour at Our Darkest Moment - “Until the Obama administration starts listening, until they start paying attention to what you’re watching – to the stock market, until they realize that their agenda is destroying the life savings of millions of Americans – then all I can give you is caution."



3. I spent the morning watching U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's testimony before the Senate broadcast live by both CNBC and FBN. It was riveting. Bernanke does support the Obama stimulus plan but simply couldn't warn Congress often enough that the deficit must be reigned in and quickly.

One very sad and telling moment was when a Democrat made a labored effort to place the deficit blame on President Bush. Bernanke was calm and patient and respectful, but made it very clear the Bush deficits were minor in terms of economics and in relationship to the GDP and income tax revenue. The Obama deficit is an entirely different matter.

But my point here is that after watching the testimony I switched back to MSNBC where the headline and virtually every story was the "Rush Limbaugh battles Michael Steele for the soul of the Republican Party" story worthy only of Entertainment Tonight and not a major news network. I watched for 30 minutes and the story was repeated SEVEN TIMES!!! No joke. Bernanke's testimony was never mentioned.

I couldn't believe me ears. To give some credit to MSNBC, Pat Buchanan tried to simply dismiss the "controversy" for the complete non-story it is and tried his best to spread the warning of the coming economic disaster.

But I then had to check the other two cable news networks. I dutifully watched FOX for 30 minutes and heard a great interview with Gov. Tim Kaine, the Chairman of the DNC. Kaine's honesty and candor were refreshing. The interview was intelligent and timely. And neither Michael Steele nor Rush Limbaugh were mentioned even once. And Rush was never mentioned during the entire 30 minute break.

Then I switched to CNN. CNN was covering the Bernanke testimony and the economic situation. They also covered several other news stories, most importantly a building collapse in Cologne with devastating images. But Rush Limbaugh never got a single mention.

I have often criticized FOX NEWS as being a Republican outlet. But, at its very worst, FOX has never come close to the complete journalistic sellout of MSNBC. They are doing a grave disservice to their viewers.