The best thing about all these stories about the Democrat Party and their idiocy is that it gives the chance for me to post a new bumper sticker idea I have. It’s after the jump below.
Let’s get started with the vapid chowder-heads from California:
‘We don’t look at either of these gubernatorial races . . . as something that portends a lot for our legislative efforts,” insisted White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs on Tuesday, as New Jersey and Virginia voters gave Democrats a thumping. Unfortunately for the White House, its opinion no longer counts.
First thought on Tuesday’s elections: There’s a lot of firing going on in America, and now that includes politicians. Seems only fair and will likely continue. I don’t think voters in New Jersey and Virginia were saying, “Oh the Democrats are awful, and we hate them,” nor were they saying, “Republicans are wonderful, and we love them.” The voters were being practical, and thinking policy: “Will he raise my taxes?” In Jersey, they fired the incumbent governor because they couldn’t imagine the state getting off its current trajectory (high unemployment, high taxes, high spending) with him there. And they’re certain they have to get off their current trajectory or they’re sunk.
Both states hired new governors. The good news for the GOP is that they hired Republicans. The bad news is that if the Republicans don’t make progress, they’ll fire them too.
Second, it’s too simple to say this was a vote against Obama. Yes, he went to Jersey three times and draped himself like a shawl around the Democratic incumbent. But the crowds showed and nobody booed and everyone had a good time. What happened actually is more interesting. They just didn’t listen to him. Mr. Obama told Jersey to vote for Jon Corzine, and they didn’t. They don’t hate him, they’re just not hearing him. That’s new. They’re warning him: Hey you with the health-care obsession, shape up or you’ll get shipped out!
President Obama came into office insisting that his administration would press hard and fast to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But after nine months, analysts and diplomats say, the administration’s efforts have faltered in part because of its own missteps.
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And finally we have this comment from the president regarding the crazed man who killed and injured dozens while yelling ‘ALLAHU AKBAR’ at Fort Hood yesterday:
“We don’t know all the answers yet. And I would caution against jumping to conclusions until we have all the facts,” Obama said in a Rose Garden statement otherwise devoted to the economy.
I feel so much better with this guy leading our nation.
So, in closing, remember when voting in the next few years, we can begin to fix all our nation’s problems by remembering to do the following… Keep reading →
President Obama didn’t wait long after Tuesday’s devastating elections to give critics another reason to question his leadership, but this time the subject matter was more grim than a pair of governorships.
After news broke out of the shooting at the Fort Hood Army post in Texas, the nation watched in horror as the toll of dead and injured climbed. The White House was notified immediately and by late afternoon, word went out that the president would speak about the incident prior to a previously scheduled appearance. At about 5 p.m., cable stations went to the president. The situation called for not only his trademark eloquence, but also grace and perspective.
But instead of a somber chief executive offering reassuring words and expressions of sympathy and compassion, viewers saw a wildly disconnected and inappropriately light president making introductory remarks. At the event, a Tribal Nations Conference hosted by the Department of Interior’s Bureau of Indian affairs, the president thanked various staffers and offered a “shout-out” to “Dr. Joe Medicine Crow — that Congressional Medal of Honor winner.” Three minutes in, the president spoke about the shooting, in measured and appropriate terms….
Indeed, an argument could be made that Obama should have canceled the Indian event, out of respect for people having been murdered at an Army post a few hours before. That would have prevented any sort of jarring emotional switch at the event.
Did the president’s team not realize what sort of image they were presenting to the country at this moment? The disconnect between what Americans at home knew had been going on — and the initial words coming out of their president’s mouth was jolting, if not disturbing.
The president’s words may be calculated to say one thing, but his actions since day one regarding all things military, really leads me to believe he holds them in the lowest regards as one of America’s institutions.
Even though the election is long over, Obama the candidate is still hanging around. His promise and influence might be waning fast, but we find traces of him all over the White House. More important, many voters are still assuming that he is bound to show up sooner or later and take full command.
Meanwhile, Obama the president has not really arrived…
Twelve people have been killed and 31 wounded in a shooting spree at a Texas military base by what officials believe was possibly carried out by an Army officer.
The suspected gunman was identified by ABC News as Major Malik Nadal Hasan.
The shooter was killed and two other suspects, who are also soldiers, have been apprehended, Lt. Gen. Robert W. Cone said.
The tragedy and the bloodshed impacted the President so deeply that he was only able to address the incident after he gave a few “shout outs”.
Senate Democrats have blocked a GOP attempt to require next year’s census forms to ask people whether they are a U.S. citizen.
The proposal by Louisiana Republican Sen. David Vitter was aimed at excluding immigrants from the population totals that are used to figure the number of congressional representatives for each state. Critics said Vitter’s plan would discourage immigrants from responding to the census and would be hugely expensive. They also said that it’s long been settled law that the apportionment of congressional seats is determined by the number of people living in each state, regardless of whether they are citizens. A separate survey already collects the data.
The plan fell after a 60-39 procedural vote made it ineligible for attachment to a bill funding the census.
It is pretty clear to me that you have a voting record of 60 casting a vote that violates their oath of office or at the least, encourages us not to enforce the law they swore to support and defend:
I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.
There’s a reason we call them “illegals” isn’t there?
The credibility of the Obama administration on stimulus accountability continues to crash today, this time in Wisconsin. The state’s largest newspaper calls the numbers of jobs “saved or created” not just inaccurate, but “wildly inflated.” The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel picks up the trail blazed by the Associated Press and discovers that the numbers exist only as a product of an artificial White House calculus…
AN outspoken Kiwi politician has proposed a new solution to the country’s child abuse problem – pay the “appalling underclass” not to breed.
Michael Laws – who stirred up controversy by calling the late Tongan King a “bloated brown slug” – has again hit the headlines.
“That there is a group within our society who give their children no hope nor opportunity from the moment that they are born,” the regional mayor wrote on the New Zealand radio website where he broadcasts as a talkback DJ.
Hours after urging reporters not to draw sweeping conclusions from Tuesday’s gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told POLITICO President Barack Obama wasn’t even keeping an eye on the results.
“He’s not watching returns,” Gibbs said..
UPDATE: Barack Obama watched an HBO special about himself instead.
What a shock.
I feel so much better about the direction this nation is headed.
The White House says that Republican wins in two governors’ races were not referendums on the president.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters Wednesday that voters went to the polls in Virginia and New Jersey to work through “very local issues that didn’t involve the president.” The presidential spokesman said voters were concerned about the economy.
“I don’t think the president needed an election or an exit poll to come to that conclusion,” Gibbs said.
Hundreds of tons of weaponry, ten times the size of the Karine A shipment of 2002, were seized in an overnight raid Tuesday by the Israeli navy, some 100 nautical miles west of Israel, officials said. The ship seized was sailing under an Antiguan flag.
The internet chapter of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, a secret copyright treaty whose text Obama’s administration refused to disclose due to “national security” concerns, has leaked. It’s bad. It says…
Big Hollywood has already posted a couple disturbing videos of young school children singing/speaking praises to President Obama, but when eleven more dropped in our email box it came as quite a shock. What seemed like an aberration now appears to be a troubling pattern.
“X Factor judge Simon Cowell showed his more generous side [yesterday] when he gave £100,000 [about $160,000] to help save the life of a cancer-stricken youngster,” reports London’s Daily Mail:
The pop Svengali donated the money for 18-month-old Sophie Atay–from Birtley, Gateshead–to fly to the US for pioneering treatment at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Hospital in New York.
He acted after learning the youngster’s family launched a last-ditch appeal for £500,000 to pay for the treatment last week after they were told Sophie was suffering from a rare form of neuroblastoma and needed treatment within days.
Alexandra Burke, last year’s X Factor winner, broke the news to Sophie’s mum Karine, 33, on the telephone today that Simon had now dipped into his own pocket to top up the total to the necessary amount.
Wait, we’re confused! Why does a little English girl have to come all the way to the U.S. to get medical care, and why does this Cowell fellow have to pay for it? We thought Britain had free medical care!
But wait, another Daily Mail story reports on what happens to older people who get cancer in Britain:
Alarming research is showing that elderly cancer patients are missing out on the breakthroughs in chemotherapy and surgery that have dramatically improved the outcome of younger patients.
In fact, up to 15,000 elderly people with cancer in the UK are dying prematurely every year when compared to the rest of Europe and the U.S., according to a report published by the North West Cancer Intelligence Service (NWCIS) which compiles cancer statistics. . . .
A major concern is that the NHS Cancer Plan, introduced in 2000 to improve cancer survival in the UK, has a cut-off point at 70. This results in hospitals having less interest in the elderly. “Yet half of all those diagnosed with cancer are over 70,” says Dr Tony Moran, NWCIS research director. “It’s an area that has been grossly neglected. . . .”
Yet according to former Enron adviser Paul Krugman, “In Britain, the government itself runs the hospitals and employs the doctors. We’ve all heard scare stories about how that works in practice; these stories are false.”
I knew that there is a manifest, marked distinction, which ill men with ill designs, or weak men incapable of any design, will constantly be confounding, that is, a marked distinction between change and reformation. The former alters the substance of the objects themselves; and gets rid of all their essential good, as well as of all the accidental evil, annexed to them. Change is novelty; and whether it is to operate any one of the effects of reformation at all, or whether it may not contradict the very principle upon which reformation is desired, cannot be certainly known beforehand. Reform is, not a change in the substance, or in the primary modification, of the object, but, a direct application of a remedy to the grievance complained of. So far as that is removed, all is sure. It stops there; and, if it fails, the substance which underwent the operation, at the very worst, is but where it was. – Edmund Burke
Oh yeah, that’s right, when Democrats commit electoral fraud, it’s for a noble cause. Sorry, I forgot about that.
It’s clear the Obama White House very badly wants a victory in one of the three big races tomorrow. They’re not going to get Virginia, their odds of winning in New York seem to be diminishing with each passing day and Jersey seems their best shot. But, if news of underhanded tactics keeps dripping out during the day tomorrow and after the ballot are counted, that election is going to look pretty tarnished. And the era of hope and change will turn out to be one of the failed, er, corrupt machine politics of the past, you know the politics on which Obama waged rhetorical war in his campaign last fall.
British soldiers at war are an incredible group. Courageous, competent, and committed in very difficult conditions. An email came today from London, from a BBC correspondent who has been to Afghanistan saying that Staff Sergeant Olaf Schmid had been killed.
Staff Sgt Schmid, born in Cornwall, lived in Winchester with his five-year-old stepson and wife.
Christina Schmid said: “Oz was a phenomenal husband and loving father who was cruelly murdered on his last day of a relentless five-month tour.
“The pain of losing him is overwhelming. I take comfort knowing he saved countless lives with his hard work.”
Lieutenant Colonel Robert Thomson, commanding officer of 2 Rifles Battle Group, said: “Staff Sgt Oz Schmid was simply the bravest and most courageous man I have ever met.
“No matter how difficult or lethal the task which lay in front of us, he was the man who only saw solutions.
“He saved lives in 2 Rifles time after time and for that he will retain a very special place in every heart of every rifleman in our extraordinary battle group.”
Lt Col Gareth Bex, commanding officer of the counter IED (improvised explosive devices) task force, said Staff Sgt Schmid had been a “legend”.
He added: “Staff Sgt Oz Schmid was a brilliant operator and a superb soldier. We loved him like a brother. He was a much adored member of our close knit family.
“With his tousled hair and boyish grin his effervescent presence was always good for morale and he had an infectious enthusiasm.
“His courage was not displayed in a fleeting moment of time – he stared death in the face on a daily basis.
“Many soldiers and ordinary Afghans owe their lives to Staff Sgt Schmid’s gallant actions and his sacrifice will never be forgotten.”
Since late this summer General Stanley McChrystal has been asking for more troops for Afghanistan lest we lose the war. Early last month those sentiments were expressed in a formal request for 40,000 additional troops. General Patraeus and Secretary of Defense Gates have publicly endorsed Gen. McChrystal’s request.
Since that time you have been considering whether or not to provide those troops and whether or not the use of those troops in a counter-insurgency strategy — similar to that employed in Iraq — is wise or not. If press reports are to be believed, then top members of your administration have serious doubts as to whether or not the strategy as outlined by Gen. McChrystal and endorsed by Gen. Patraeus and Sec. Gates will work.
Your inaction on this request speaks volumes and one can only draw one logical inference from it: you do not trust the judgment of Gen. Patraeus, Sec. Gates, or Gen. McChrystal.
If you trusted their expertise, then you would have immediately begun to implement their strategy.
Since it is glaringly obvious that you do not trust the judgment of your top commanders in the field or of your own Sec. of Defense, then why don’t you fire them?
If they are so wrong, then they should be fired.
Personally, I don’t think Obama has the stones in his shorts to fire anyone (his wife on the other hand…).
Obama has never had to do anything truly important that included personal responsibility and risk, that is why he is unable to make decisions.
It’s ‘Petraeus’ just in case your internal spellcheck rang.
On Friday, the Justice Department released reams of newly declassified documents on the CIA interrogation program. Among the documents is a revised, October 2009 version of the Justice Department Inspector General’s report on the FBI’s involvement in detainee interrogations.
This report proves, once and for all, that FBI interrogator Ali Soufan lied about his role in the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah.
Soufan has become the hero of the left for his public assault on the CIA interrogation program. Critics cite him as proof that we could have gotten the same information from al-Qaeda terrorists without resorting to the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques.
I was born in Texas. I have lived in both California and Texas. I will never live in California again.
The only thing good about Cali was the town in which I lived, Ventura, because it is the idealistic version of California I grew up seeing on the television. However, the idiots that live and vote in that state deserve what is happening to them. And they should be forced to stay in California to live with their choices rather than polluting my new home state of Nevada with their presence.
It is becoming clear what liberal/progressive policies do to a society and what conservative approaches and traditional American values can produce:
Texas, increasingly, is the economic and intellectual leader of the U.S. During the last 18 months before the current recession took hold, while the country as a whole was still creating jobs, more than half of those jobs were created in a single state: Texas.
Texas has usurped the leadership position that, decades ago, belonged to California. Today California is in decline, likely irreversibly so.
Earlier this month the mosque’s leaders called a meeting with Friedman at The Ace Hotel, where The Breslin is located, and asked, “Can you move the bar?” Friedman’s response makes us want to hurry over to The Breslin right now for a dram of Laphroaig to show our support (and drown out the voices):
I laughed. And the guy said, “Oh, you think that’s funny?” And I said, “Yeah, that is funny, that is really funny, because we’re not going to move the bar just because you discovered we’re serving booze.” Can you name one restaurant in New York that doesn’t serve booze? I said, “This is the United States of America and we’ll do whatever the f*ck we want.” He said the mosque had suggested it couldn’t control the behavior of “a few bad eggs”; i.e., we could get a brick through our window.
…A volunteer at the mosque says city law forbids serving liquor within 200 feet of a place of worship and that “not more than 200 feet is between the mosque and the bar.”
But Ace Hotel developer Andrew Zobler tells The Observer, “The law is clear that in order for that to apply it has to be an exclusively dedicated house of worship, and at their space they have both residences and a restaurant, so basically, because of those uses the law allowed there to be a bar within 200 feet. Everyone was aware of that when the liquor license was granted.” And Friedman adds, “They can threaten, but they can’t really stop us.” Yeah, heh, what are these devout, pissed-off Muslims gonna do?
I’m torn on this clip. Ron Paul comes close to edging into tinfoil-hat territory when he talks about the swine-flu emergency allowing the federal government to track everyone’s movements and when he questions the benefits of vaccinations in general, but for the most part makes a lot of sense in his blast at the White House for its handling of the supposed epidemic. For instance, Paul points out what most of the media has neglected to report in its breathless coverage of the H1N1 spread, which is that 1,000 deaths from H1N1 in 2009 is one-third of what the US sees in a typical month from the normal flu…
A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasure. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s great civilizations has been two hundred years. These nations have progressed through the following sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependency, from dependency back to bondage. – Alexander Tyler
I think the big mistake we made was believing that Obama believed in and supported the Constitution. The need for all the unvetted and unapproved czars Obama has surrounded himself with proves his weakness and inability to the do job he BS’d his way into.
I make Bush look like an amateur when it comes to ignoring our nation's laws.
It is my belief he studied and taught constitutional law in order to circumvent and to ignore it as he saw fit:
Last week’s announcement that “Pay Czar” Kenneth Feinberg slashed compensation for executives at seven large financial firms by an average of 50% stunned Wall Street, stoked the fires of populist resentment, and troubled economists. Will this government-mandated pay cut drive the most talented professionals away from these companies, endangering their recovery? Does it augur further politicization of economic decisions?
Lost in the arguments over economics and political theory, however, is a more basic question: Was this action constitutional?
On top of all the other obstacles facing President Obama in his quest to pass health reform is this one: Does the U.S. Constitution allow the government to require uninsured Americans to buy medical insurance or impose a tax penalty if they refuse?Congress has never before required citizens to purchase any good or service, but that is what both House and Senate health bills would mandate.
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." - The 10th Amendment of the United States Constitution
Next, let’s admire our Community-Organizer-in-Chief’s and Team Obama’s stellar work:
I was born in Texas. I have lived in both California and Texas. I will never live in California again.
