Obama To Abridge Our Freedom of Movement?

Oh, you betcha. Here's the relevent Constitutional statures and legal interpetations:

Freedom of movement under United States law is governed primarily by the Privileges and Immunities Clause of the United States Constitution states, "The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States." As far back as the circuit court ruling in Corfield v. Coryell, 6 Fed. Cas. 546 (1823), the Supreme Court recognized freedom of movement as a fundamental Constitutional right. In Paul v. Virginia, 75 U.S. 168 (1869), the Court defined freedom of movement as "right of free ingress into other States, and egress from them."^[1]

And here how Obama's "Labor Board" (remember Ayn Rand's "Unification Board" in "Atlas Shrugged"?) is actively working to put such trivialities as freedom of movement into the dustbin of American history - along with sound medical care, reasonably-priced gasoline, and a solvent government:

In what may be the strongest signal yet of the new pro-labor orientation of the National Labor Relations Board under President Obama, the agency filed a complaint Wednesday seeking to force Boeing to bring an airplane production line back to its unionized facilities in Washington State instead of moving the work to a nonunion plant in South Carolina.

In its complaint, the labor board said that Boeing’s decision to transfer a second production line for its new 787 Dreamliner passenger plane to South Carolina was motivated by an unlawful desire to retaliate against union workers for their past strikes in Washington and to discourage future strikes. The agency’s acting general counsel, Lafe Solomon, said it was illegal for companies to take actions in retaliation against workers for exercising the right to strike.....

It is highly unusual for the federal government to seek to reverse a corporate decision as important as the location of plant.

But ever since a Democratic majority took control of the five-member board after Mr. Obama’s election, the board has signaled that it would seek to adopt a more liberal, pro-union tilt after years of pro-employer decisions under President Bush.

When even the New York Times is hinting at an unprecedented political power grab, you know there is something more than a bit amiss. If an unelected government agency can refuse to allow companies to move based on political consideration for the party in power rather than financial considerations, than the economic collapse looming on the horizon will be at our doorsteps in time for Yule.

And it will arrive far faster in the blue states, as any companies even thinking of building or expanding on liberal turf will have to take into consideration the possibility that they might not ever be allowed to move out. Much like political stability affects corporate decision- making on overseas investment, so it does within our nation as well.

But the economic ignoramuses that comprise this administration and their unelected yet insanely powerful "boards" have little grasp of much beyond the needs of their rigid ideology. And as Claire Berlinski points out, this board's most recent additions were hardcore lefties placed as recess appointments by Barack Obama, over the objections of a Congress now more protective of its legal duties. Barack Obama does not need no stinkin' Constitution, you know...

Of course, there could be an entirely different motive at play. South Carolina is a white, Southern, Republican state, one that will never go blue and is helmed by fierce Obama critic and rising (female!) star Nikki Haley. And if you think Obama is not capable of acting out of petty grievance, political calculation, and racial hatred, well...you haven't really been paying much attention, have you?

Update: Hot Air:

I’ve heard plenty of people dismiss Atlas Shrugged (the book as well as the movie) as overwrought, contrived paranoia about the regulatory state. The government can’t run companies through its regulatory system, critics scoff, no matter what a Russian ex-patriate thought more than 50 years ago. No one is marching into manufacturers in the US and telling the Hank Reardons of the world what they can build and where....

....But, you know, that Ayn Rand was a nut, or something.

Atlas Shrugged: Demand Outstripping Supply?

In which there is hope for the Republic after all:

The power of Ayn Rand devotees has impressed some Hollywood distribution executives, who took note of the hefty $5,640 per-theater average scored by “Atlas Shrugged: Part 1” during its opening weekend.

“Shocking,” one executive said about the healthy business the low-budget film has been doing, considering its “awful” marketing plan.

Awful or not, business has been brisk enough for producers Harmon Kaslow and John Aglialoro to expand from 299 theaters to 425 this weekend and to 1,000 by the end of the month. They don’t have enough film prints to fill all the orders...

....“People are hungry for what these characters are saying,” he [producer John Aglialoro] said. “They’re telling the government, ‘Don’t entitle me with your gifts and your involvement in my life, because there’s a price I’ll pay for that. Just leave me alone. Let me hang onto my life and pursue my passions and rational self-interest. That’s what will benefit society.’ ”

Merchandise, he said, is helping the cause. When Aglialoro obtained rights to the movie 18 years ago, he also got rights to sell such items as T-shirts, mugs, posters and even jewelry, though not dolls, video games and other “interesting exceptions.”

On Wednesday, the website atlasshruggedpart1.com was sold out of its most expensive item: a $159 bracelet made of “Rearden Metal,” a replica of the one heroine Dagny Taggart (Taylor Schilling) wears in the film.

“The merchandise has taken off like we couldn’t believe,” he said. “We’re shipping to every continent.”

While I'd never thought I'd live to see the day when America would elect a socialist president, in my wildest dreams I could never imagine "the rebellion" taking the form of bracelets of Rearden Metal...

Barack Obama: A Pathological Liar, Or A Compulsive Liar?

No real question here, just a choice of motivations. After his horrendous attack on Paul Ryan's budget, after his left-wing fairly tale about falling bridges in Minnesota, the president delivers another whopper:

President Barack Obama claimed that coal could create "the kinds of air pollution" that is "creating asthma for kids," in speaking at a town hall event in Annandale, Va., on Tuesday. However, the National Institutes of Health says that “the exact cause of asthma isn’t known” and that “asthma is different for each person.”

“The challenge with coal is that although it’s very cheap, it’s also dirty. And it can create the kinds of air pollution that not only is contributing to climate change but is also creating asthma for kids nearby,” Obama said in answer to a question about balancing deficit reduction with government spending on clean energy.

“You got asthma? Okay. And so sucking that stuff in is not ideal,” said Obama. “So what we’ve said is, let’s invest in clean coal technology that potentially can capture some of these particulates and some of the carbon dioxide that’s going into the atmosphere.”

Asthma, however, is not caused by coal, or the emissions from coal-fired power plants, as the president suggested. According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) the true cause of asthma is unknown, although scientists believe it is caused by a confluence of genetic and environmental factors or early viral infections.

The Left needs some sort of rationale for their redistributionist, freedom-choking, intrusive agenda, and can no longer find one amongst reality. Therefore, blatant lies are the only tool remaining to them, and the president is wielding it freely.

ObamaCare will drive the nation into bankruptcy, so Obama claims the alternatives will kill your mother. Obama wants to spend more money on "shovel-ready", union-approved infrastructure projects, so he makes up stories about bridges that fall due to shoddy upkeep (as opposed to inherent design flaws. The truth doesn't help anyone here, unless you want to control the architectural business. Hmmm...). Obama need people to believe in "climate change", since the only known solution to it just coincidentally happens to be the implementation of the entire liberal playbook, so he lies about it causing asthma in children.

So what type of liar is the president?

Pathological liars are often defined as people who lie continually to get their way, with little or no concern for other people. Although the term is not an official clinical diagnosis for a mental disorder, many researchers believe that chronic lying in adults represents an antisocial personality disorder.

Pathological liars will change their story all the time when questioned about certain details. They will begin contradicting the things they have said, because they lose track of the lies they have told. .... Because of their insecurity they will act defensively when challenged; or they will continue to lie for sympathy, giving no value to the truth.

... There are many reasons people become pathological liars. They might have a low self-esteem and feel they have to prove that they are better than everyone else. They might be depressed about their lack of accomplishments in life. Or they could be bordering on a criminal mentality, lying just to get what they want.



Let's look at the definition of a "compulsive" liar:

Mythomania, more commonly known as compulsive lying, is a disorder that affects many Americans every year. Characterized by almost constant lying, the person affected by it can be confusing to deal with.

A true compulsive liar is much like a person suffering from OCD--they feel compelled to tell their lies and may even believe them to be true themselves.

....To be considered a compulsive liar, lying should be almost a way of life for this person. They must lie as often as possible, and mix lies in with truths. Another key feature is the type of lies they tell. A compulsive liar lies because they feel they need to....

Barack Obama: pathological, or compulsive, liar? You tell me...

A Tale Of Two Pulitzers....

The sublime:

It's dangerous to read too much political meaning into a single event, but the Pulitzer Prize awarded to Joseph Rago for editorial writing could be the exception. Rago, you see, writes for The Wall Street Journal, and his unsigned pieces were devastating critiques of ObamaCare.

At a time when too many journalistic watchdogs turned ino lap dogs for President Obama's health-care takeover, Rago patiently deconstructed the sweeping law and diligently tracked how early results matched promises. In a typical passage, he concluded that "ObamaCare was sold using the language of choice and competition, but it is actually reducing both."

He correctly predicted that the mandate for individuals to purchase insurance would face serious constitutional challenges, and called threats to exclude insurers from government exchanges if they raised prices "political thuggery."

The surprise is not that Rago, whom I've never met, even though The Post and Journal are corporate siblings, won the top prize. It's that he won precisely because of what the Pulitzer board called his "well-crafted, against-the-grain editorials challenging the health-care reform advocated by President Obama."

Against-the-grain they were, if the grain is measured by the leftist tilt of most major news organizations. Bully for the Pulitzer judges who recognized that, in this case at least, the best journalism moved in the other direction.

And the stupid:

Holy guilt by association, Batman.

If a fictional character in a piece of literature from an author you admire commits some acts that would likely result in a felony conviction, does that mean you’re a proponent of felonious acts? That’s the deductive logic David Cay Johnston, the 2001 winner of the Pulitzer Prize for beat reporting, displayed on MSNBC’s “The ED Show” Monday night.

In a segment about Wisconsin Republican Rep. Paul Ryan’s proposal to reduce the deficit, which includes simplifying the tax code and eliminating deductions to lower overall rates, Johnston called in to question Ryan’s legitimacy, as he’s a fan of Ayn Rand. And according to Johnston, in Rand’s book, “The Fountainhead,” the fictional character Howard Roark blows up a building, and that means people should evaluate the possibility Ryan is a proponent of blowing up buildings.

Maybe it is the cringe-worthy, mental hopscotch logic of previous winners like Johnston - selected, like so many other Pulitzer winners and Nobel honorees, more for their liberalism and anti-Americanism than any true singular accomplishments in their field - that has led the Pulitzer committee to turn their heads slightly rightward in looking for future honorees?

If so, they have a long way to go to make up for past sins. But penance is achievable. Can we start with a Pulitzer for this lady, and perhaps her husband as well?

UPDATE: See the comments, Mr. Johnston apparently does not agree with my point of view...

P.J. O'Rourke On Ayn Rand...

...it's part of his Atlas Shrugged review (mixed, at best). But he gets to the point of Rand's continued relevance the way only P.J. O'Rourke can:

The woman is a force. But, let us not forget, she’s a force for good. Millions of people have read “Atlas Shrugged” and been brought around to common sense, never mind that the author and her characters don’t exhibit much of it. Ayn Rand, perhaps better than anyone in the 20th century, understood that the individual self-seeking we call an evil actually stands in noble contrast to the real evil of self-seeking collectives. (A rather Randian sentence.) It’s easy to make fun of Rand for being a simplistic philosopher, bombastic writer and—I’m just saying—crazy old bat. But the 20th century was no joke. A hundred years, from Bolsheviks to Al Qaeda, were spent proving Ayn Rand right.

No wonder the Left tries to ridicule her, and marginalize her. She understands them, and their ultimate aims, a bit too clearly for their comfort...

A Little Passover Music Before The Seder....

.....A Passover musical parody by The Ein Prat Fountainheads, graduates and students of Midreshet Ein Prat, Israel.

Beautifully done...and filled with beautiful Israelis, of course.

Dayenu, Coming Home:

Barack Obama Instructs The Jews On The Real Meaning Of Passover

...because even one of the world's oldest religions still has a lot they can learn from one Barack Hussein Obama. It's Passover season, and the president is here to remind us that in 2011, this sacred yet joyous Jewish holiday is all about - Muslims.

From Arytz Sheva:

Passover recalls the bondage and suffering of Jews in Egypt and the miracle of the Exodus, but U.S. President Barack Obama says its message is reflected in Muslim uprisings.

In his annual message, prior to his third straight participation in the Passover Seder, President Obama stated, “The story of Passover…instructs each generation to remember its past, while appreciating the beauty of freedom and the responsibility it entails. This year that ancient instruction is reflected in the daily headlines as we see modern stories of social transformation and liberation unfolding in the Middle East and North Africa.”

Having constructed a link between the Arab uprisings and Chosen People's experiencing the miracles of the Creator that led them out of Egypt and towards the receiving of the Ten Commandments, the President concluded, "As Jewish families gather for this joyous celebration of freedom, let us all be thankful for the gifts that have been bestowed upon us, and let us work to alleviate the suffering, poverty, injustice, and hunger of those who are not yet free.”

So I suppose today's Muslims are modern-day version of the enslaved Jews? And Obama is instructing us to work for their freedom, because.....well, why, exactly? So they are more easily able to wage war against the Jews, and Israel?

Look, I believe freedom is God's greatest gift to man. But it seems to me that lecturing Jews to work to free people who are still hell-bent on killing them is not exactly the right message to send on Passover, a holiday where we celebrate one of many escapes from murderous hordes of these same Arabs...

But who am I to lecture Barack Obama on the meaning of Passover, and what constitutes offense? Who knows the true meaning better than him?

President Obama chanced into a Seder during his presidential campaign in 2008, when the polls were not in his favor. At the end of the Seder, when Jews chanted, "Next year in Jerusalem,” Obama responded, “Next year in the White House.”

Passover: It's all about Barack Obama. What a surprise...

The Spirit Of Jared Loughner Is Alive And Well in Madison, WI.

Remember Christina-Taylor Green? Jared Loughner, in an act of insanity, or - if you believed the liberal's telling - in an act of political expediency, shot this little girl down in cold blood while killing everyone in the vicinity of Gabrielle Giffords on that fateful day in Tuscon

Remember the cries for "civility" after the Tuscon massacre? The union goons and paleo-socialists who make up the Democratic Party in Madison, Wisconsin certainly do not. They honor the spirit of Jared Loughner - a spirit they must secretly wish they could summon up in their own yellow, gutless, hate-filled hearts - as they scream obsceneties and curse out a 14 year old girl who spoke at the Tea Party rally this weekend in Wisconsin.

Here is young Tricia Willoughby, showing nerves of steel before an onslaught of hatred:

But to the left, this precocious young girl is no more than a "f*cking brat":

Of course, if she was a liberal lass, and taking abuse from some Tea Partiers, Miss Tricia Willoughby would have already been on every morning news show, and perhaps hailed as this century's Rosa Parks.

Instead, the media turns a blind eye to the hateful abuse this girl suffered, and the bravery she showed in standing her ground.

The spirit of Jared Loughner lives too in the hearts of our glorious mainstream media....

S&P Warns America Of Impending Doom. So Obama Hits The Accelerator...

....because the good president will never, ever let facts get in the way of his ideology (or his re-election). Via Contentions, we see how Obama completely, totally, 100% ignores the severity of the message the S&P is sending, and just has another drink from the Kool-Aid which is poisoning us all:

Standard & Poor’s lowered its outlook for the United States from “stable” to “negative,” and said there is a one in three chance it will downgrade the U.S.’s triple-A credit rating in the next couple of years. We’ve enjoyed that credit rating since 1917. Barack Obama can cook up entitlement schemes as much as he likes, but if America loses its ability to borrow money on favorable terms there will be no safety net big enough to catch us all.

And what is the president’s message at this defining crisis moment? The New York Times reports, “Mr. Obama implored the crowd [in a speech today] not to lose heart, declaring that the vision of America he laid out in his fiscal speech — one in which ‘we are connected to one another; that I am my brother’s keeper, I am my sister’s keeper’— would animate his campaign and drive the debate in the 2012 election.”

Socialism is the disease that is tearing our nation apart. Dr. Paul Ryan comes in and makes a well thought-out diagnosis, and offers a course of treatment that will lead us to a cure. However, our physician-in-chief is one Dr. Barack Hussein Obama, and he has a different vision: That the body politic is suffering from a case of insufficient socialism, and that only by adding more and more of the same can we cure the ills created by it in the first place.

Alas, our doctor is a quack, but there is no substitute available until 2012. The best we can do is nod politely at his insane ramblings, and check in with Dr. Ryan for some unofficial advice as often as we can...

Bob Menendez Critical of Bi-Partisan Democrats

Is it because when Democrats talk about "bi-partisanship", what they really mean is "stop arguing with me and just do what I want?"

New Jersey's Senator Bob Menendez (D-La Raza), a mediocrity if there ever was one, is now sticking his nose into local state politics, and demanding that New Jersey legislators stop coming to agreements with Governor Chris Christie:

New Jersey's leading Democrat is fed up with top party members' cozying up to Republican Gov. Chris Christie -- and he's imploring them to remember that Christie isn't their friend.

"You have to think about what you're doing," Sen. Bob Menendez told The Post, explaining his pitch to party leaders. "There is a difference between what one must do to govern and what one does politically."

Sure, there are times when Democrats and Republicans need to work together, Menendez said, but the already reeling Democratic Party in New Jersey has to right itself.

"Look, I've worked with the governor," Menendez said. "There's a difference between working with the governor on government and engaging with the governor on politics."

Is seems as if he's saying that Democrats should come to agreements with Chris Christie behind close doors on how best to govern the state, then blast him for it afterwards, rather than appear on stage to take partial credit for a bi-partisan agreement.

I guess that's how it works in Washington - after all, every time Obama makes some sort of deal with House Republicans (remember the extension of the Bush tax cuts?), he immediately makes a speech denouncing the very deal he just made, as well as the people he made it with.

Menendez (D-Illegal Immigrants) supports demagoguery over good government, I suppose. (here's an example of how he thinks it ought to be done) Well, that's his prerogative, but I'm not sure how much stock New Jersey Democrats should put in his opinion. Recent polls have shown some bizarre numbers for Menendez:

A quick glance shows 28 percent of those polled had a favorable opinion of Menendez, which would be cause for alarm until you see that 19 percent viewed him unfavorably.

What might be considered troubling is that 52 percent had no opinion of the Democrat or they have not heard of him. Let's hope that there are not many New Jersey voters who have not heard of one of the two elected U.S. senators that represents them.

Well, maybe if he actually represented New Jersey voters, instead of illegal immigrants and La Raza, folks would pay him more mind. Which would not be a good thing for Bob Menendez. While Jersey has traditionally been a blue state, it has been drifting towards the center as residents are getting crushed by some of the nation's highest taxes and are sick of seeing their hard-earned dollars wasted on union payouts and non-productive schools.

Menendez, meanwhile, is a big union fan, a huge supporter of the public education status quo, and has voted to raise taxes on a national level every chance he can. Which is not likely to go over with the voters well, once they get a chance to know him better for the 2012 election.

Smart New Jersey Democrats - as in the ones who want to keep their day job - are well advised to keep their distance...

Update: Seems as if Menendez is taking direction from Paul Krugman. Good luck with that...

Oh, Canada! Female Engineering Student Suspended For Wearing A Bikini ?

...next to a car she helped build herself ??? Wow, Canada became a Muslim theocracy so gradually that I never even noticed. How else can you explain this bit of sheer stupidity? Via Five Feet of Fury:

The University of Waterloo has temporarily shut down a team of students who are building a racing car, after one of the women on the team was photographed posing beside the car, in a bikini and high heels.

The decision means that students on the Formula SAE team will not be able to enter the car, which they designed and built themselves, in an international contest being held in Michigan in May.

The suspension is until June 1 and “results from misuse of the student design centre space for an unauthorized photo shoot involving the Formula SAE vehicle,” said the dean of engineering, Adel Sedra....

Because a women's body is beautiful, unless someone is offended by it, in which case it should be covered (by a burkah?). Because we must work to make sure a women maintains her self-esteem in our patriarchal society, but we must punish them for displaying said self-esteem. Most importantly of all, we must encourage women to work and study in the sciences, yet make sure they simultaneously subjugate their femininity to it, because feats of engineering and beautiful women do not mesh.

Isn't liberal social theory confusing?

Now in America, we love our women. We love our cars. And we love women who love being women and who love their cars - take Danika Patrick, for instance:

Or Megan Fox:

Or any of these other red, white and blue lovelies who know one equation that Canadian engineering deans have not yet figured out: Hot women + "hot rods" are potentially explosive, but never combust, they simply simmer at a high level of heat...

Of course, one must wonder if our Canadian engineering deans would deem as "unfit" RS McCain's famous theory known as Rule 5? Most likely, they would cover their eyes and shriek with horror...before opening each and every link after they are sure that their were no prying eyes to interrupt their "studies..."

Palestinian Incitement: Reaping A Bumper Crop

I'm sure a lifetime of being fed a non-stop deluge of vile hatred, wallowing in poverty, ignorance, despair, and (self?) loathing, and being ruled by bloodthirsty terrorists who start off each day extorting the population to kill Jews, take back Israel, and to die a martyr had nothing to do with the decisions these young men made:

Two Palestinian teenagers from the village of Awarta have been arrested for the murder of Udi and Ruth Fogel and three of their six children in Itamar last month.

Haaretz is reporting that the suspects, who are said to have confessed to the crime, are members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. A Shin Bet official told the newspaper that the suspects, Amjad Mahmad Awad, 19, and Hakim Mazen Awad, 18, “described what they did with self-control and did not express regret over their actions at any stage of the investigation.”

According to Ynet, Hakim Awad belongs to a terrorist family. His uncle was involved in a June 2002 terror attack in Itamar, which left five dead. He was later killed in clashes with IDF forces.

Just three weeks before the Fogels’ murder, Palestinian TV had reportedly broadcast a tribute to a terrorist involved in another deadly 2002 attack upon Itamar.

The non-stop incitement against Israel and against Jews has created a new generation who, bathed in the hate of their parents and "leaders", are will to commit mind-boggling atrocities against women and children who commit the heinous crime of...being Jews. Hamas must be so proud. The UN, too...after all, they fund much of it.

Palestinian society is most likely the most deranged on the entire planet....

As transportation minister Yisrael Katz told Army Radio, “To those Palestinians who said ‘it can’t be one of us,’ well, it turned out to be one of you.”

....and yet Barack Obama is adamant that they get their own state. Great idea, if your endgame is a second Holocaust....

Will Democrats Outlaw The iPad?

When you vote economic illiterates into office, anything can happen. Here's Jesse Jackson Jr. with a bizarre hypothesis:

"A few short weeks ago I came to the House floor after having purchased an iPad and said that I happened to believe, Mr. Speaker, that at some point in time this new device, which is now probably responsible for eliminating thousands of American jobs. Now Borders is closing stores because, why do you need to go to Borders anymore? Why do you need to go to Barnes & Noble? Buy an iPad and download your newspaper, download your book, download your magazine," Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-IL, Chicago) said on the House floor Friday afternoon...

Wasn't this theme played out in Atlas Shrugged, where Taggert Transcontinental's best engines running on their best tracks (Rearden Metal) were forced by law to slow down to 60 MPH, creating more runs and thus allowing more union employees to keep their jobs?

Being the way this administration has aped the worst characteristics of Ayn Rand's "moochers", I wouldn't put anything past them. After all, we can't let the strong have an advantage over the weak, and if that means shutting down a wildly popular technological device in favor of an inefficient, over-expanded, bloated, outdated business model, well....that would count as "economic fairness" to likes of Jesse and Baracky, right?

I'm not saying they will, I'm just saying this is a logical extension of the Democrat's ideology. Of course, a mere few weeks ago, Jackson was demanding the government buy the same iPad for every man, woman, and child in America. Is this irony, black comedy, or camp? As with every proposal that comes out of a Democrat's mouth, who can say?

Now, if only Border's employees had formed a union and contributed mightily to the Obama campaign. Then you might see the economic justice Jesse Jackson so clearly pines for...

Barack Obama vs. Paul Ryan: Like Fighting The Terminator

What in the world was Obama thinking when he gave his disaster of a budget speech earlier this week, one that showed him to be more of a petulant, churlish child than the deep-thinking Platonic superman we were told he would be?

Jeff Anderson over at the Weekly Standard is puzzled as well:

On the larger point of Obama having given a speech of this nature at all, one wonders what he was thinking. On some level, it is understandable that with no one to the right of the New York Times respecting his current budget, and with Ryan’s budget gaining substantial, if often grudging, praise from mainstream media outlets, Obama would want to be in the game. But the last thing that one should do is choose to go head-to-head on budgetary matters with the person who perhaps knows more about such matters than any other prominent elected official in America—especially when you have nothing particularly worthwhile of your own to offer. In challenging Ryan, Obama has merely highlighted his own inadequacies.

One gets the sense that, despite the clear verdict that the American people registered in 2010, Obama greatly underestimates how attuned voters are to the issue of the debt and how well aware they are that serious leadership is needed to address it. This was perhaps one irresponsible, partisan, disingenuous, misleading, and inaccurate speech too many.....

You know what, Barack? Looks like you really f*cked up this time. Still believing the lying, flattering tongues of your sycophantic lackeys, still so smug and self-assured in your belief that your can charm the pants off the American people with half your brain tied behind your back, you casually sauntered into the ring with a real intellect, and you absorbed a thorough and humiliating ass-kicking.

Aand no matter how far you run, no matter how deeply you try to hide, no matter what insults fly out of your little bitch-boy mouth, your adversary - Paul Ryan - comes after you, undaunted, relentless, focused in mind and spirit, armed with charts and facts and concern and good humor. Like the Terminator in a way - but in this case, by "terminating" your spending, your healthcare takeover, and your tax hikes, Terminator Ryan might actually save the future for humanity. Ryan should end his speeches with his hand outstretched, and the phrase, "Come with me if you want to live...'

What we see when we look at Congressman Paul Ryan....

What Barack Obama sees when he looks at Congressman Paul Ryan....

Barack should have listened to these lyrics from Marillion's Clutching at Straws, and taken them to heart:

Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the water
Those problems seem to arise the ones you never really thought of
The feeling you get is similar to something like drowning
Out of your mind, you're out of your depth, you should have taken soundings
Clutching at straws, we're clutching at straws

Actually, you can apply these lyrics to poor Barack as well:

Have we lost our balls, or do we just not care
We're terminal cases that keep talking medicine
Pretending the end isn't quite that near

We make futile gestures, act to the cameras
With our made up faces and PR smiles
And when the angel comes down, down to deliver us
We'll find out that after all, we're only men of straw

But everything is still the same
Passing the time passing the blame
We carry on in the same old way
We'll find out we left it too late one day....

Katie Couric: Exit, Stage "Left"

Andrea Peyser, a scathing old-school social critic at the New York Post, understands why Katie Couric sucked wind at the helm of CBS's flagship newscast:

The truth is that TV's Great Hope proved to be a highly abrasive, polarizing personality. She is a none-too-bright, East Coast lefty whose extreme political biases didn't hurt her much as a morning gal. But at night, she was unmasked as a dame who can't fathom that at least half the country isn't buying what the political dingbat has to sell.

...Even the usually fawning Times described Katie as "haughty" and shielded by an entourage. This is true. I met Katie twice while on stories. Twice, she treated those who were not famous or in her posse -- such as me -- like insects, waving away unappetizing folks, while sucking up to celebs.

And of course - like all limousine liberals - rather than look inwards at herself for an explanation, Katie is lashing out at everyone around her, blaming sexism, Dan Rather, and poor lead-ins for her disastrous reign at CBS. Because, of course, she can never, ever, be wrong....she's a liberal, after all.

So she was absolutely correct when she said Americans were seething with anti-Muslim hatred. She was completely fair in calling non-residents of New York "the great unwashed". It was funny when she went to Princeton to speak at "Class Day" and mocked Sarah Palin and the Republican party. And, of course, there is nothing wrong in accepting the Helen Thomas Award for Excellence in Journalism from the great anti-Semite and Israel-denier herself, and there's nothing like cracking a big grin when Thomas intones, to a standing ovation, that the best thing you ever did was spring a booby-trap on Sarah Palin and deny her the election.

No, Katie, that's all OK. None of this has anything to do with why people don't like you. It's because you're a woman, or Republicans are mean, or something like that...

So in all fairness, let's let a liberal feminist tell the world the truth about Katie Couric. Folks, I give you Camile Paglia:

...let me take this opportunity to say that of all the innumerable print and broadcast journalists who have interviewed me in the U.S. and abroad since I arrived on the scene nearly 20 years ago, Katie Couric was definitively the stupidest. As a guest on NBC’s ‘Today’ show during my 1992 book tour, I was astounded by Couric’s small, humorless, agenda-ridden mind, still registered in that pinched, tinny monotone that makes me rush across the room to change stations whenever her banal mini-editorials blare out at 5 p.m. on the CBS radio network . And of course I would never spoil my dinner by tuning into Couric’s TV evening news show. That sallow, wizened, drum-tight, cosmetic mummification look is not an appetite enhancer outside of Manhattan or L.A. There’s many a moose in Alaska with greater charm and pizazz....

Get what the problem is yet, Katie?

Proving there is no such thing as a "moderate Democrat"...

...West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, who ran as a gun-totin', old-school Democrat who promised to fight the administration, cut spending, and repeal "the bad parts of Obamacare" (video below) has yet to find anything to fight the administration on, has struggled to find any spending worth cutting, and has yet to find any "bad parts" of Obamacare, as his vote yesterday proved:

All Democrats in the U.S. Senate just voted to preserve funding for the national health care law, with the measure being rejected by a 47 to 53 vote straight party line vote.

The Obamacare defunding vote could be particularly harmful to Sen. Joe Manchin who won a special election in West Virginia last year by convincing voters that he was a conservative Democrat who would buck party leadership.

In fact, weeks before the election, Manchin said he was open to repealing the health care law entirely.

Well, it appears as if Manchin says a lot of things - unfortunately, most of them are not true. Being that the Democrats were going to win yesterday's vote anyway, Manchin could have easily voted against it symbolically, in for no other reason than to show his "independence" to the people he claims to represent.

But he didn't. Which means that he honestly believes - and always has - that Obamacare is just fine the way it is, or that he buckled to administration pressure - the same one he promised to fight - in order to show a united party front.

It seems as if Manchin believes - like most of his party - that West Virginians are too stupid to know the difference, and will believe whatever he tells them when he runs for re-election in 2012.

I don't think he'll get away with it. They won't get fooled again...

Here's the video of Manchin making all sorts of promises to West Virginia voters that he had no intentions of keeping:

Muslim Woman Sent Pig's Foot to Rep. Peter King, Call Jews "Monkeys"

Now, of course, if it were a Jew sending some bacon to someone like Keith Ellison (D-Sharia), this would be national story. But it's just another attempt at terrorism - spiced up with some anti-semitism (although King is not Jewish) and a vicious bit of holocaust mockery - by a poor, misunderstood, (American) Muslim, so I doubt this arrest will get much play:

A Muslim woman has admitted to mailing a bloody pig’s foot and a threatening letter to Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), as well as another bizarre package to a New York state senator.

The woman, Jameela Barnette, of Marietta, Ga., says she sent the package to King earlier this month to voice her dismay with the hearing he held last month on what he calls the “radicalization” of American Muslims.

“I thought the letters explain themselves,” she told the New York Post, speaking not only of the anti-Semitic note to King, but the one she says she sent to state Sen. Greg Ball, a Republican who has held his own hearings on Muslims and hosted King at the most recent hearing last week.

Just after the package to King was intercepted at a Maryland mail facility earlier this month, a congressional source told POLITICO the accompanying letter was “a rambling type” of message that referred to the congressman as a “Jew,”

The package sent to Ball included a Curious George stuffed animal with two Stars of David taped to it and a note that said, “FINAL DESTINATION: AUSCHWITZ.” Barnette told The Journal News that she sent the monkey because “I knew the Jews were behind the hearings. A monkey is a representation of who the Jews are.” The “Curious George” series of children’s books were written by Holocaust survivors.

Ironic. Doesn't Jameela Barnette's actions in fact justify both King's and Ball's hearings on the radicalization of American Muslims?

Anyway -Ssssshhhh.

Listen.

Hear the crickets...?

Will the 2012 elections hinge upon "spending reductions in the tax code"?

For those who are not familiar with the phrase, I'll let Michael Graham at the Boston Herald review its genesis for you:

I can reduce President Barack Obama’s entire speech on debt and deficits to a single phrase: “Spending reductions in the tax code.” Once you figure out what that means — once you’ve cracked the Obama Code — you’ll know everything you need to about his budget policy.

“The fourth step in our approach is to reduce spending in the tax code,” the president said. He promised “to cut about $1 trillion in spending from the tax code.”

Huh?

t turns out that “cutting spending from the tax code” is Obama’s way of saying “tax hike.” You couldn’t tell by listening, but his plan is to raise taxes by $1 trillion by taking away things like home mortgage interest deductions from some taxpayers.

In English it’s a “tax increase.” In Obama Code, it’s a “spending cut.” On planet Earth, it’s like getting arrested for DUI and telling your wife you’re “experiencing an enhanced security condition.”

More on "Obama's planet" here, but what I found interesting was the comments on this article by the lefties, who parroted this line in various different ways. While Graham mocked the concept, saying "How much of the $1.6 trillion deficit spending this year is being spent on Warren Buffet? The premise is ridiculous....", the peanut gallery replies thusly:

Can you say "Bush Tax Cuts"? Come on, say it with me: Bush - Tax - Cuts. The only thing that is ridiculous is your supposed connection to reality.

So a tax cut - which is the government taking less of your own property, in the form of your earnings - is now the same as a spending increase. In other words, in the eyes of Barack Obama and the Democrats, our money and our property is not really ours, it is strictly on loan to us until they need to take it, in order to give it to someone else, someone who might repay them for it with a vote. Therefore, by keeping what you earn, the government is then spending money - rightfully theirs, as we've seen above - on you. That thinking is....what's the word I'm looking for? Oh, yeah: Insane.

I like this one too:

Ronald Reagan's Stockman said it best...(let's call it a Patriot Tax or a Freedom Tax)15% on anyone making over a million a year for 2 years...the deficit is GONE

Yes, because moderates and conservatives are so stupid that they'll support anything that has the word "patriot" slapped on top of it. Which is why Obama included this in his speech, possibly the most offensive element of all:

This sense of responsibility – to each other and to our country – this isn’t a partisan feeling. It isn’t a Democratic or Republican idea. It’s patriotism.

Sorry, Baracky. As Michael Graham points out:

And I love getting lectured on how, as Americans, it’s our job to “take responsibility for ourselves and each other” by a guy whose half-brother lives in a shed in Kenya, and whose aunt is on the dole here in Boston.

Anyway - is this what Obama and the Democrats are going to try to run on in 2012? That tax hikes are actually spending cuts? That your money is actually their money, and since you are demanding spending cuts, they will have to keep more of it and give you (and your family) less to live on? And that to complain about it, to oppose them and their Newspeak, is unpatriotic?

Bring it. If you thought 2010 was a wave election, well...the liberals better head for the hills, because the tsunami is on the horizon...

OBAMASPEAK - To say what you want whenever you want and whatever you say at the moment you say it is the truth...

High Speed Rail: Is "The Dream" Finally Dead?

While last week's budget compromise now seems to be a nothing more than classic bipartisan political kabuki theater, there is at least one tremendous positive coming out of it: the death of Obama's wacky high-speed rail fantasies.

If anything good came out of last week’s spending agreement, it was that President Obama’s high-speed rail boondoggle is now on the ropes. There is no money budgeted for the program the rest of this year, and a portion of the money allocated last year has been clawed back. This is likely a mortal blow to what the Obama administration envisioned as a $500 billion program to give 80 percent of Americans access to high-speed rail in the next 25 years.

For those who believe that the amount of government spending is perversely large in relation to what voters would like, this is a small but symbolic victory. High-speed rail was rolled out as a futuristic makeover of an aging American infrastructure, not an in-demand reform to the main kinds of transportation we already have.

Which was one of many key problems for the rail boondoggle all along. While folks were in the streets screaming about lowering taxes, reducing spending and adhering to the constitution - and electing a new House full of Representatives who felt exactly the same way - Barack Obama was wittering away about the need to spend billions on a transportation system nobody wanted, and needing to raise taxes to pay for it.

Remind you at all about another government program the president was obsessed with? Alas, even our addled president realizes he'll never push this through a Republican-held Congress. Somebody tell Nancy Pelosi, by the way, this is the reason we hold elections...

This vehicle, according to Barack Obama, is a sensible part of a frugal budget. I suppose it could be possible...if you're a Saudi prince.

Kind of makes Florida's Rick Scott, who rejected $2B in high-speed funds from the government for an unnecessary rail line from Orlando to Tampa, look like a genius. But then again, the formula for looking smart these days isn't that complicated. Just listen to what Obama is saying, and propose the exact opposite....