Green Energy Stimulus, Aussie-Style

Doesn't matter what hemisphere of the planet you are spinning on, shit is still gonna smell like shit.  Via Tim Blair:

2008: The Rudd Government will give Toyota $35 million to produce hybrid Camry vehicles at its Altona plant in Melbourne, the Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced.

2012: Toyota has hired extra security to march 350 workers out of its Altona plant today, as it finally brings down the axe on jobs.

Green stimulus morphs to brown-shirts?  "Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU) official Charlie Marmara said the tactics employed by Toyota, including calling in security guards and transporting workers across the road in vans, were heavy-handed. "

Used be a time when aping American policy moves were a recipe for success, not a policy for disaster.  And while Rudd squandered his taxpayer cash prior to the inauguration of Barack Obama, the move was made during the pre-election heyday of The One.   It appears as if Australian liberals are ≥ their American counterparts....

Because if they really were as smart as they believe themselves to be, the federally-employed leftist intelligentsia would be getting out their resumes, stat. A look Down Under would provide them a stark vision of their future:

The federal Department of Climate Change will shed nearly half of its Canberra-based staff within the next three years as it struggles with further deep budget cuts.

 Affected employees, all of whom are based in Canberra, would be offered ‘’job application skills training to better equip them in seeking alternative employment... "


"Job skills training"? Can you imagine the protestations of our bureaucratic class, forced to face the same dehumanizing blandishments they insist are necessary for the betterment of the working class?

 Their hypocritical howls would echo down the Potomac and haunt the night in Chesapeake Bay...

Barack Obama Stars In..."Permanent Vacation"

It's bad enough that the president is seemingly unconcerned about the visuals of him golfing every weekend, and taking long, exotic vacations with his government-fed wife, while most Americans are struggling to pay for a tank of gasoline.  What's even worse,though, is that he's going around the world bragging about it:

Just two days after President Barack Obama gave a sharply edged response to news anchor Larry Conners of KMOV in St. Louis after Conners had asked the president about Americans who “get frustrated and even angered when they see the first family jetting around [to] different vacations and so forth,” Obama told a panel at the Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Colombia that part of his job there was to scout out locations for a future vacation with First Lady Michelle Obama.

Obama was speaking on a panel with Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff when he made the remarks. The panel was moderated by Chris Matthews of MSNBC.

“I want to thank President Santos and the people of Colombia for the extraordinary hospitality in the beautiful city of Cartagena,” said Obama. “We're having a wonderful time. And usually when I take these summit trips, part of my job is to scout out where I may want to bring Michelle back later for vacation. So we'll make sure to come back sometime in the near future.”

Obama, the two other presidents, and Chris Matthews were sitting in white armchairs for the panel. Obama was wearing a blue blazer, but was not wearing a tie...


Hey, no worries, Barack! Take it easy, be casual!  It's just a non-stop party on the taxpayer tit, where the ladies are dancing:

That's Hillary Clinton, dancing her ass off at the most exclusive nightclub in town, ironically named Cafe Havana (see the sign in the background?).  It's good to see she's enjoying our money so...

And the men are out whore-mongering:

So far, 11 agents have been suspended with pay for the reported debauchery at the Hotel Caribe in the Caribbean resort town. The shenanigans came to light after one of the agents allegedly refused to pay his hooker as little as $47 for their romp...

All while Barack claims to merely be a location scout for Moochelle.  Although he appears to be acting a lot more like a Hollywood talent scout looking to warm up the casting couch:

 "You know I've always had a thing for you, Shakira...."

Sigh.  As somebody else has said, the country's in the best of hands...

Innovation And Ingenuity, Thy Name Is...Canada

Sigh.  Lost greatness sucks.  This country is like an aging superstar, still with some talent and skill to spare, but slower, achy, more prone to breakdowns, and being outrun by the new up-and-comers, who once showed respect, and now do their best to hide their disdain.  If they even bother to try...

What a toll a few years of socialism can take...

I saw this coming, when a few Canadian kids blasted a Lego man into space complete with multiple video cameras to record the suborbital adventure, but to see even their government being more nimble, intuitive, and intelligent than ours?

It's time to hang 'em up, I suppose, and go off gracefully into the sunset.  I mean, really - our best and brightest couldn't have come up with this first?  From Canada's National Post:

The image of a dinosaur whose remains were discovered in Alberta’s Peace Country will be featured on our newest quarter — the first Canadian coin with a glow-in-the dark picture

The quarter, being released by the Royal Canadian Mint April 16, features Pachyrhinosaurus lakustai, a large herbivore whose bone fragments were discovered by Grande Prairie, Alta., science teacher Al Lakusta in 1974.

He plans to pick up one of the new coins for his 10-year-old grandson. “I think almost anybody who reads about it thinks, ‘We can’t wait to try this,’ ” he said Sunday from his Grande Prairie home.


Don't worry, we'll catch up to the Canadians soon enough!  After all, our government is raising taxes in order to provide free birth control for any whore who wants it...

That'll show 'em.


(Hat Tip: Bag Hag)

Ann Romney: Enemy of the State?

A stay-at-home mom explains why women who choose her life path are now under open attack from the Democratic party:

For the last many years, I have been the single most important influence on my children. Yes, they go to school (public school, yet); and yes, they both have thriving social lives; and yes, I’ve been unable to insulate them from a Leftist pop culture that his hostile to traditional norms and to conservatives generally, but I’m still the most important person. Of all the influences in their lives, I am the one who is most present, most consistent, and most trusted...

I am the counterweight to the state. Therefore, I am dangerous. I am subversive simply by existing. My love for my children is a dominant force that works its way into their psyches and that trumps the state-run schools and the state complicit media world. Some mothers, of course, are entirely in sync with schools and media. They happily reinforce the statist message. But those of us who don’t are a powerful anti-statist force and we must be challenged...


Powerful stuff.  Makes clear why the attack on Ann Romney from the Left are so visceral:  They are borne out of fear, and of hatred.

Enemy of the state...

Bookworm's thesis above also helps explain this administration's war on the Catholic Church (often described as "Mother Church") - religion, too, is a counterweight to the state, and simply by existing poses a direct challenge to the government's claim on ultimate authority.  Obama has been somewhat successful  - due to the media's willing assistance - in disguising his war on religion as a Republican war on women.  But his minions went too far too quickly in expanding the battleground to include America's moms.  After their early victories against a weakened church, the Left seemed a bit surprised by the swift counter-attack from the "mom brigade", and The Party beat a hasty, if limited, retreat.

But the threat to the state's authority posed by the stay-at-home mom has not diminished,  and the Democrats will launch another strike soon enough, as soon as their wounds heal, and the fear and hate begin to outweigh the pain again.

Ann Romney - and the rest of America's moms - had best steel themselves.  The beast will be back...

Nancy Reagan, Ann Romney, And "The War on Women"

A story about Ronald Reagan - well, kind of.  From a contributor over at Ricochet, who tells a tale of watching clips of old an Mike Wallace interview with Ronald Reagan:

Wallace asked the President why the office didn't weigh on him like it had on others and the camera cut to a rosy cheeked, vibrant and twinkle-eyed Reagan and his response was "well, maybe they didn't have a Nancy."

"Maybe they didn't have a Nancy." Here was the most powerful man on the planet and when asked why he didn't get weighed down under the pressure he answered without thinking that his wife's support was the secret to his well being, success and happiness, that they were a team. How old-fashioned, how retro, how lovely.

"Maybe they didn't have a Nancy." Think of that quote and what she withstood for him at the time it was made, Nancy Reagan was one of the most vilified First Ladies, and not for political positions she held, like Eleanor Roosevelt or Hilary Clinton, but for supporting and protecting her husband. Yet she never wavered in her devotion to him.


Which of course brings us to the "War on Women", which is really a war waged by the Left upon women who dare to find a different way of making their impact upon the world - a way which might not include having a career, or staying single as a form of empowerment, or being in a "fulfilling gay relationship" (see Hilary Rosen), or having wanton, guilt-free sex with multiple partners using government-provided contraceptives.

And while I have always focused on this war's latter-day battles, I forget that Nancy Reagan was one of the first targets of the Left, precisely because she eschewed the political and embraced the personal aspects of her womanhood.

And that choice helped provide the nation with a leader whose infectious optimism and steely resolve changed the trajectory of American history from one of impending doom to one of a new dawn.  And that's according to The Man himself...

The Left prefers their First Ladies as policy wonks in man-pants, or as Mommies-in-Chief, hectoring America about their diets (while slipping off for a few corn dogs herself).  But not as moms.  Or wives. Or individuals capable and deserving of seeking out their own paths to fulfillment.

Look, any man who says he understands women is lying.  But what I do know about them is that they are wonderful creatures, each beautiful in their own way, regardless of shape, size, or color.  Every woman I have ever been close with - romantically or platonically - has brought something unique to the table, something that has intrigued me, mystified me, amazed me, impressed me.  Each and every one of them has been worthy of great respect.  And while I don't buy into the liberal male's nervous assertion that "women are better at everything", there are certainly some things they can do that our gender cannot.  And when it comes to feeling, or loving, or nurturing, and perhaps even instincts with a child, the female gender is without par.

Sure, they can be killers in the workplace too.  But they do not have to choose the 9 to 5 drudgery in order to have a fulfilling life.  What the left refuses to acknowledge is that woman can contribute mightily to society in ways not directly measurable on a one-size-fits-all economic scale.

But on a macro scale, these choice reverberate.  Just ask the lucky kids who got to see their moms when they tumbled home from school.  Or ask Ronald Reagan.

Or ask Mitt Romney, who seems to have his own Nancy by his side in the form of the brave and lovely Ann.  Bodes well for us all, I think...

The People vs. George Zimmerman: How's It Going To End?

In a word: Badly.

Zimmerman was taken into custody on politically motivated second-degree murder charges in the death of Trayvon Martin.  At least that's what I am hearing from Alan Dershowitz:

 “This is so thin that it won’t make it past a judge on a second degree murder charge,” Dershowitz said. “There’s simply nothing in there that would justify second degree murder.” Dershowitz said that the elements that would constitute that crime are non-existent in the affidavit.

“It’s not only thin, it’s irresponsible,” said Dershowitz. Dershowitz went on to strongly criticize Corey’s decision to move forward with the case against Zimmerman.

“I think what you have here is an elected public official who made a campaign speech last night for reelection when she gave her presentation and overcharged. This case will not – if the evidence is no stronger than what appears in the probable cause affidavit – this case will result in an acquittal.”


And what will happen when the jury - unswayed by political motivations - returns a not guilty verdict?   Remember Los Angles, 1992?  I do:

And what will Barack Obama do?  Nothing, at first. The actions (or inactions) of New York's first black mayor, David Dinkins, during the Crown Heights riots of 1991 is the precedent that will be followed:

Mayor Dinkins hesitated to deploy vast numbers of police to stop the rioting because he had been elected as a peacemaker. During the Crown Heights Riot, Dinkins stood on the stairs of a police temporary headquarters vehicle and addressed the several hundred police officers who were there for roll call. He stated the reason he had not allowed the police to stop the rioters was that "the community needed to be allowed to vent". He stated that he did not want the police to intercede too quickly to avoid escalating the rioter's behavior. However, this strategy proved disastrous....


More on the Dinkins/Obama analogy:

...a point that was widely held that fall: that Dinkins would lower the crime rate because disempowered blacks would feel a sense of belonging. Instead, Dinkins' election fired the starting gun for a racial free-for-all and the four worst years, murder-wise, in the city's history. It was Latinos vs. whites in Washington Heights (1992), blacks vs. Koreans in a heated grocery-store dispute (1990) and, in Crown Heights, four nights of unchecked rioting by blacks against Hasidic Jews (1991).


Side note:  Since the Dinkins debacle, the city of New York - 67% Democrat by registration - has elected Republican mayors (or occasionally "independent", as is the case with Michael Bloomberg in 2010) for the last 20 years. For some, that might serve as a warning, but...

Well, Obama and his mob (many of whom are morally indistinguishable from their white-sheeted brethren save for the color of their skin) got what they wanted, for the moment.  But this will spiral out of control at some point, with some citizens fully aware that a man got prosecuted based upon a liberal political agenda, and others using a possible undesired outcome as an excuse to burn down the cities.

Neither will help the Obama re-election campaign.  Just ask David Dinkins...

Hilary Rosen: A General In A Different War

While Democrats such as David Axlerod and Jim Messina (head of Obama 2012) were running as far away from Hilary Rosen's incendiary comments last night ("Ann Romney has never worked a day in her life") as possible, the truth is that Hilary is tied as tightly to the Obama White House as anyone save Queen Michelle herself.

Jim Geraghty reveals that Hilary Rosen has visited the White House 35 times in the past three years.  At least five of them were with Barack himself.  (Michelle Malkin has an exhaustive breakdown here). The other 30 cover multiple visits with almost every key figure involved in White House communications.

Le'ts compare and contrast Hilary's access to other significant government officials:

: -Gen. David Petraeus, head of the war efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the current CIA director, nine times.
 -Energy Secretary Stephen/Steve Chu visited 16 times
 -Former CIA director and current Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, 12 times.
 -Joe Biden - 6 times(?!).
 -Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner has visited 40 times

Gee, and all this time we thought the Administration's priorities were dealing with the economic crisis, solving global warming, and trying to wrap up two wars.

Apparently not.  And it is no surprise that this White House has been strictly about the message - just look at the product.

But to quote Geraghty:

So the notion that Rosen is just some Democrat talking head, completely disconnected from the Obama administration and campaign is . . . not plausible.

So what is Hilary Rosen's role on Team Obama?  Since this Administration is strictly about message management, apparently she is the de facto general in the "War against Women" being waged out of the White House.  Based on her schedule of  meetings, she must have been intricately involved in crafting and drafting the "war" campaign, and was simply attempting to lead her lessers into battle last night when she shot herself in the foot.

Barack Obama is the commander-in-chief here as well, of course.  But like most of the other liberal men in his administration, they are pointing fingers at Hilary Rosen while simultaneously using her as a human shield against the political fallout from what appears to be a losing war.

Let's hope the irony is not lost on the American woman...

Hilary Rosen pictured next to her girlfriend, American Federation of Teachers honcho Randi Weingarten.  This is whom the Democrats feel best represent the state of females in America today, by the way...

Is The "Buffett Tax" Unconstitutional?

Article 1, Section 9 of that "hundred year old document" that continues to stand in the way of Hope and Change:

No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.

Just so we are clear -A Bill of Attainder, defined: A legislative act that singles out an individual or group for punishment without a trial


The classes on Article 1 seem to be the ones that Obama must have skipped while in law school, as it contains the feared and dreaded "commerce clause" that may in fact doom his signature achievement.  But Ed Morrissey wonders if Section 9 basically outlaws Obama's beloved "Buffet Tax" as well:

The real revenue opportunity comes with the wealthiest of Americans, where a surtax would confiscate much larger amounts of capital. Bloomberg’s Hans Nichaols reported this week that the Buffett Rule actually hopes to target just 400 earners in the nation. That makes this look a lot less like a normal tax policy and a lot more like an attack on specific Americans as a lever to seize their property in service to a President who has openly waged class warfare for the last eight months.

"Who cares about the nuances of Article 1, anyway? It's not something I would ever need to know in the real world..."

Morrissey channels the Founders:

 In 1788 James Madison, one of the framers of our government, warned about Congressional attempts to issue political and legal punishments. He said, "Bills of attainder, ex post facto laws, and laws impairing the obligations of contracts, are contrary to the first principles of the social compact, and to every principle of sound legislation...

 The ranting of a dead white man? Maybe. But as recently as 1965, this principle was re-asserted by the Supreme Court: "

"The Bill of Attainder Clause was intended not as a narrow, technical (and therefore soon to be outmoded) prohibition, but rather as an implementation of the separation of powers, a general safeguard against legislative exercise of the judicial function or more simply - trial by legislature." ~U.S. v. Brown, 381 U.S. 437, 440 (1965).

Guess Barack skipped that chapter in the textbook - probably spent the day occupying the dean's office or something.  But with Obamacare's fate in the hands of the Supreme Court - who appear quite likely to let the guillotine fall upon it - would he really go out on the campaign trail with a new initiative that might very well be equally unconstitutional?

Chutzpah? Sheer ignorance?  Or a drive so strong to remake the nation in his image that nothing else even matters?

You See, In New Jersey, These Are Considered "Compliments"

From a Rutgers poll released a week ago on Chris Christie:

New Jersey voters have become more likely to describe him as stubborn, arrogant and self-centered than they were six months ago, a new survey finds.

No doubt. But someone tell those Rutgers eggheads that in Jersey, those are considered positive traits.   From a poll released today:

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s approval rating reached its highest level since the first-term Republican took office in 2010, a Quinnipiac University poll shows. Registered voters approved of how the governor is doing his job 59 percent to 36 percent, according to the survey released today.


 “Whether Governor Christopher Christie is traveling the nation, campaigning for former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney or traveling to Israel to tout New Jersey business, his job-approval rating at home in Trenton continues to climb,” Maurice Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute in Hamden, Connecticut, said in a statement.


But hey - don't ever call the Left clueless! Rachel Maddow saw this coming, and posted on it yesterday:

Christie's problems worsen in New Jersey

Oh, wait - did someone pull a "Trading Places" switcheroo on Maddow, and maybe hand her the envelope with the wrong data just to make her look stupid?

No, Rachel can do it all on her own, citing a vicious NYT hit piece claiming that Christie lied about the potential cost overruns to New Jersey when he shut down the insane ARC tunnel project. Only the NYT/GAO report is full of shit, and is being called out on it everywhere (see "Smearing Chris Christie", and this)

The NYT lost their credibility in New Jersey after calling for the re-election of Jon Corzine, soon to be known as Federal Prisoner #A079426-R. As a matter of fact, the Times report may have actually helped Christie, as residents are reminded of the boondoggle from which they were spared...

Even the bad is good for Christie. Back to that nasty little Rutgers poll:

A gender gap continues in the governor’s favorability ratings, with men preferring him over women, 49 percent to 43 percent.


Mitt Romney looks on with jealousy. The Big man will be by his side most of the election season, apparently. Maybe he can teach Mitt the finer points of being "stubborn, arrogant, and self-centered..."

The HHS Mandate: "A Hard Call To Faith"

Cardinal Raymond Burke is the former Archbishop of St. Louis, and is the current Cardinal Prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura (the highest judicial authority in the Catholic Church apart from the Pope himself). And he is laying down the law on Obamacare and the HHS mandate forcing Catholic institutions to pay for (directly or indirectly) birth control and abortion:

Cardinal Raymond Burke has stated that employers who provide contraceptive coverage for their workers are guilty of both formal and material cooperation in contraception.

The cardinal said that there is “no way to justify” a health-care program that includes contraceptive coverage. He urged resistance against the Obama administration’s drive to make such coverage mandatory.

....Cardinal Burke was asked whether an employer who provided birth-control coverage as part of a health-care plan for employees would be guilty of cooperating in the sin of contraception. The cardinal replied:

It is not only a matter of what we call “material cooperation” in the sense that the employer by giving this insurance benefit is materially providing for the contraception but it is also “formal cooperation” because he is knowingly and deliberately doing this, making this available to people. There is no way to justify it. It is simply wrong.

Cardinal Burke voiced his hearty support for the US bishops who are leading the fight against the Obama administration’s contraceptive mandate. He encouraged lay Catholics “not to be deceived by any kind of false accommodations which in fact continue this same kind of agenda.


Over at Hot Air, Tina Korbe looks into Cardinal Burke's strong words and divines a tough message between the lines:

Under the mandate, do employers really have the freedom not to consent? Cardinal Burke is telling them that, yes, they do. They have the freedom, for example, to get out of whatever business it is they’re running. They have the freedom to not have employees. They have the freedom to ignore the mandate and suffer the legal consequences. Burke’s comments are a hard call to faithfulness to all those Catholic employers who have been outraged by the mandate but might have been tempted to justify their ultimate compliance with it with that perennial of excuses: “I had no choice.”

The seriousness of Burke’s words are also a warning to the Obama administration: He is saying that Catholic employers should go out of business before they comply with the mandate. Just as opponents have said from the very beginning, the mandate does, in fact, endanger the very existence of Catholic hospitals, schools and other charitable organizations. The president had better think long and hard about whether contraception coverage is more important to him than broader health care, education and help for the poor.


Sorry, Tina, but the president doesn't need to think long and hard about that.  Barack Obama started the "War Against The Church" in order to achieve that very end: To force a competitor out of business.

Every Catholic school and Catholic hospital that closes down will have to replaced by a public school or a government-ruin hospital, which will lead to the hiring of more federal employees & unionized teachers -  and will necessitate, "unfortunately",  steep tax hikes for all Americans who must "share in the burden".  With the Catholic Church de-legitimized as well, the government eliminates their key rival for obedience.  Obama and the Left know the "change" they have in store for America will offend and repulse anyone who cleaves closer to God than government, hence they must wage war upon the Throne itself in order to claim unquestioned authority over man, and begin the reign of The One.

How's that gonna work out?  Poorly for all of us, I reckon.  Just ask Bartleby and Loki...

How Does A Piss-Poor President Like Barack Obama Get To 51% In The Polls?

Why, it's easy!  Just rig the polling sample, that's all!  Then put out bold-font headlines about what a roll the president is on,  let all the news services pick it up and run with it, and wait for the actual voters to fall into line behind the narrative.

Seriously.  I'm not making this up.  Want to know how Obama took a 51% to 44% lead over Mitt Romney in the most recent Washington Post/ABC poll?    Hot Air:

In 2010′s midterms, CNN exit polls showed a 35/35/30 split...Today’s [poll] has a D/R/I of 34/23/34, adding seven points to that Democratic advantage and presenting a completely unrepresentative, absurd model for the 2012 turnout.

What happens when you switch from a D+4 to a D+11 in measuring Obama’s standing? Suddenly, his job approval goes from 46% to 50% — actually, a rather weak gain given the sampling distortion in the poll. Not coincidentally, the last time Obama hit 50% in this poll was in February, which also had a D+11 sample, after January’s D+7. Adding seven points to the Democratic advantage impacted Obama’s performance in all areas, although perhaps not as much as the editors had hoped:

Economy — Up six points from 38% to 44% 
International affairs — Down two points from January’s poll, 47% from 49% 
Right/wrong direction – Up three points from January

Now, with a D+11 and Republicans only comprising 23% of the respondents in this poll, one should be seeing huge leads for Obama in the head-to-head matchups. Instead, Obama lead Romney by only eight among general-population adults, 51/43, barely getting into majority territory...

As with all things Obama, the minute you look behind the curtain, things are way, way worse than they seem.  And the media is certainly taking a calculated risk by cooking the books here.  Obama is a man who believes what he reads about himself - as long as it is positive.  So he'll stay the course, talking about tax increases, lying about energy, and pretending the (un)employment situation is improving rather than disintegrating, all while using ever-more divisive rhetoric.  Hey, look at the polls!  It's working!


Poor bastard will never know what hits him come November....


UPDATE 5PM:  Apparently, to the Left, pointing out the statistical anomalies in this poll is racist.  No, seriously...

.

Texas engineer, whose wife sent Obama his résumé, still unemployed

Add "headhunter" to the list of jobs that Barack Hussein Obama has failed miserably at:

More than two months after President Barack Obama asked for Darin Wedel's résumé, the phone is quiet, e-mails are no longer flooding in and the long-sought-after job interviews -- which had begun to be scheduled -- have petered out. 

"Not even recruiting companies are calling anymore," said Jennifer Wedel, the Fort Worth mother of two who chatted online this year with Obama about her out-of-work husband. She says his job search has been hurt by a program to hire skilled foreign workers.

Jennifer Wedel, in a moment of false hope from a false prophet...

Obama, who said industry leaders have told him that the U.S. doesn't have enough high-tech engineers to meet its needs, ended up asking for Darin Wedel's résumé. .. "I did feel we got our hopes up a little," Jennifer Wedel said last week. "I mean, he's the POTUS. But it seems not even the leader of our country can get [Darin] a job."


Disappointed by a man who made rosy promises he couldn't keep?  A man who, despite his powers, is basically impotent when it comes to influencing events? A man who speaks eloquently and sincerely, yet turns out to be remarkably inflexible, uninteresting, and unintelligent?

Join the club, Jennifer...

Sorry about your predicament.  And sorry you wasted your time.  But going to Barack Obama for help getting a job is a bit like going to a faith healer to cure inoperable cancer.  Both will give you some hope, but once the good feelings fade away, will have proven to have given you no help whatsoever...

Doesn't He Mean, "A Country To Destroy"?

Barack Obama has adopted some hard-bitten, take-no-prisoners, divide-and-conquer tactics pretty early in the campaign season.  Normally the last weapons of a desperate man,  Peter Wehner comments on what these divisive maneuvers reveal about the president, and what it portends for his forthcoming drive for re-election:

This tactic is an important concession of sorts. Barack Obama has shown he can’t govern and won’t even try. But he does know how to campaign. It’s the one thing he seems to relish and has shown some skill at. The fact that Obama is campaigning in 2012 in precisely the opposite manner he portrayed himself in 2008 isn’t lost on anyone – including the RNC.

The president has gone from being a healer of the breach to the divider-in-chief. Hope and change has given way to slash-and-burn. On the campaign trail he’s now referring to Republicans as members of the “flat earth society” and the House GOP budget as an example of “Social Darwinism.” (If Obama is going to attack Republicans, at least he could be creatively vicious instead of banal and mean-spirited.) To have a president engage in these tactics with such relish, and to do so this early in the campaign cycle, will do significant damage to our political culture. But it’s clear to any detached observer that it doesn’t matter to Obama. After all, he has an election to win, power to keep, and an opponent to destroy.


C'mon, Peter, this man thinks bigger.  He's got a lot more than an opponent to destroy...

Obama’s Eligibility Officially Challenged In New Jersey

The funny thing is that the complaint is bi-partisan:

Two New Jersey residents, a Republican from Monmouth County and a Democrat from Ocean County, have filed an objection to Barack Obama’s name being placed on the New Jersey Democratic primary ballot and the general election ballot for the office of President of the United States, according to a story first reported on Conservative News and Views.

 Nicholas Purpura, the Republican, and Theodore Moran, the Democrat are represented by Attorney Mario Appuzzo of Jamesburg. They filed their objection to Obama’s candidacy with the New Jersey Division of Elections on April 5.

 There is a plenary hearing is scheduled before an Administrative Judge at the Office of Administrative Law in Mercerville on Tuesday April 10, 10am


A copy of the formal objection is here.  Some more reporting can be found here and here


I suppose it's nice to see that "Jersey represents", as we say, but this is not going anywhere.  The more we "birther" on, the kookier we get portrayed.  As much as I hate to say it, even if Obama is not technically a U.S. citizen, well...isn't all this like closing the proverbial barn door after the horses are out?

And in a way, it reminds me why I cringed during the impeachment of Bill Clinton.  Sure, he lied under oath, but my fear at the time was that the impeachment process would become so emotionally exhausting for the American people (and it was), that a future president, guilty of much larger crimes, would be allowed to skate by a nation that couldn't steel itself to going through the anguish again so soon, and a political party that didn't want to be tagged as "the impeachment party" for now and evermore.

And so here we are.  "Fast and Furious", Solyndra, treasonous whispers to a Russian president...the list goes on and on.  And we are relatively disarmed because we prematurely shot off our big guns at a small fry a dozen years back.

Knowing the Democrats, the ineligibility challenge may be needed again in the future.  Let's not waste our moral credibility on a lost cause.

You'll Miss Headlines Like These, When A Republican Is President

Combine the biased reporting of Reuters with Yahoo's de facto position as a homepage propaganda front for the Democratic party, and their bastard child comes off looking a bit like this:

Looking on the bright side of inflation


Yup.  That's your mainstream media in action, trying to convince you not to worry your pretty little head, those pesky little price increase everywhere are really a good thing....and asking you to please avert your eyes from that government printing press running 24/7:

In the United States, prices starting to creep upward shows the deep wounds from the credit crisis are slowly healing and the U.S. economy is well on the road to recovery


I don't have the stomach to fisk this entire article, but I'll just hit the one thing that pisses me off the most, then go home:

Consumer inflation, after stripping out volatile food and energy prices, has edged upward over the past year and now is running just above the Federal Reserve's 2 percent target. Workers' pay is nudging higher as the labor market gradually improves. Hourly earnings have grown at an average annual rate of 2 percent since last May and posted a 2.1 percent gain last month...


Unfortunately, most of us live in a world we we must...eat.  And pay for gas.  And if you work these  two "volatile" factors in (and they are not really volatile, as the prices of these two staples are going in only one direction:  up), inflation is actually 2.9%, outpacing increases in worker pay by 38%.

For Americans that are lucky enough to be working, that is.

Seems as if our genius president didn't realize that because his energy plans would mean that "electricity prices would necessarily skyrocket", the prices of everything else dependent upon electricity would also skyrocket.  Which is, pretty much, everything else.

Reuters and Yahoo! are working real hard to pop smoke before you in order to provide cover for the Barack Obama and the Democratic party.  But I simply don't believe the media can propagate Obama out of this mess, or convince people that their ever-shrinking standards of living are a harbinger of better times to come....


(more of my beefs with Yahoo! in particular here,  here and here...)

Charting Socialism In America

Even Barack Obama, the Master of the Forked Tongue, wasn't doing much bragging over the 0.1% decrease in the unemployment rate in March. Because no matter how little he thinks of our intelligence, and no matter how much water the press will carry for him, even he knows he can't sell this bag of shit as Shinola.

And maybe that's because he's finally starting to feel the rumble of discontent in the nation under his feet. It's bad out there, and maybe he knows it, after all.

But what he desperately does not want us to know that it is his policies that have brought us to such a low ebb. James Pethokoukis gives us a few stats and & charts that make it clear even to the dimmest blue bulb how wrecked the American economy is:

1. If the size of the U.S. labor force as a share of the total population was the same as it was when Barack Obama took office—65.7% then vs. 63.8% today down from last month—the U-3 unemployment rate would be 10.9%.

2. But what if you take into the account the aging of the Baby Boomers, which means the labor force participation (LFP) rate should be trending lower. Indeed, it has been doing just that since 2000. Before the Great Recession, the Congressional Budget Office predicted what the LFP would be in 2012, assuming such demographic changes. Using that number, the real unemployment rate would be 10.5%.

3. Of course, the LFP rate usually falls during recessions. Yet even if you discount for that and the aging issue, the real unemployment rate would be 9.4%.

4. Then there’s the broader, U-6 measure of unemployment which includes the discouraged plus part-timers who wish they had full time work. That unemployment rate, perhaps the truest measure of the labor market’s health, is still a sky-high 14.5%. 5. The employment-population ratio dipped to 58.5% vs. 61% in December 2008. An historically low level of the U.S. population is actually working.


Yeah, socialism tends to do that.  When the unproductive are lauded as heroes and the productive are demonized as economic vampires, it certainly makes more sense just to...quit trying.  Especially if the government promises to take care of you in perpetuity, in exchange for your vote.

Is that message getting through?  Ask the freakin' chart:

This is what happens when you employ an economic philosophy based on the infamous "From each according to their ability, to each according to his need".

You wind up, not unsurprisingly, with a lot of people who decide it's a better deal to be needy.

Welcome to Barack Obama's America...

"Bad Teacher" Explains Why Obama Will Always Over-Deliver In The Voting Booth

Although the key line isn't given to the bad teacher herself -Cameron Diaz - but to a man she is accusing (under the guise of being an "investigative reporter") of rigging standardized testing against minorities. What Diaz, as Elizabeth Halsey, really wanted was a copy of the test in advance, and knew the only way to get Carl Halabi to meet with her at a moment's notice was to make this classic liberal accusation:

Elizabeth Halsey: Look Carl, I know that you are a very busy man; so I'm just gonna get right down to it. I've been speaking to various....uh black citizens, who allege that you're test are biased toward white people and orientals.

Carl Halabi: Okay. Lemme tell you something right away. "A"... Orientals test better. "B"... every couple of years we get these cockamamie charges coming in from various parts of the state and - lemme duh-dat - You should hear the things that they call me! Racist. Faggatron. Faggy Hitler. Dick breath. Ok? But, I... am not a racist. I voted for Barack Obama. You can quote me on that.


Hollywood uncovers a few truths here.  One, is that they indeed understand the racial shakedown game.  Two, they'd rather play it themselves in order to maintain a holier-than-thou position rather than fight the extortionists.  And three, they explain how much of the Obama vote is not an endorsement of the man himself, but more of an absolution for the person casting the vote, as well as a way to give the voter protection ("I voted for Barack Obama") against the race-card racket.

Note to Republicans:  If you want to win in 2012, you better figure out a way to destroy the liberal's racial grievance industry, that wraps a rope of guilt around the naive and pulls them into the booth to vote Democratic.  And of you guys are actually awake, you may notice that the George Zimmerman case down in Florida - with every race-baiter fighting to get to the front of a lynch mob to hang a potentially innocent man - may be a good place to start...

Thanks for the lesson, Cameron...and since we've gone this far, might as well go full-on Rule 5, with Mr. McCain's approval:

Oh, why the hell not...unrelated, but...yowza:

Liberal Jews Pervert Passover

As I have said numerous times on the virtual pages of this blog, liberal American Jews have long ago substituted their worship of God with the worship of the false idols of the Democratic party.  Allegiance to whatever the liberal mores of the day may be take precedence over the millennials-old traditions of their faith.  They will sacrifice their Judaism on the altar of liberalism at a moment's notice, while claiming their Jewish blood gives them the unquestionable moral authority to do so.

Well, here they go again.  The National Jewish Democratic Council has taken one of the sweetest and significant part of the Passover Seder - the asking of the "Four Questions", by the youngest child in the room - and suggested they be replaced this year with four different  questions.

First, here are the Four Questions, as per Jewish tradition, to be read at the Seder table:

"Why is it that on all other nights during the year we eat either bread or matzoh, but on this night we eat only matzoh?"
"Why is it that on all other nights we eat all kinds of herbs, but on this night we eat only bitter herbs?"
"Why is it that on all other nights we do not dip our herbs even once, but on this night we dip them twice?" and
"Why is it that on all other nights we eat either sitting or reclining, but on this night we eat in a reclining position?"

The answer for each question describes specific events in the Passover story and the symbolic meaning of each of these events in relation to the Passover festival. The first two questions and their answers both symbolize and remind us of the burdens of slavery, and the second two questions and their answers both symbolize and remind us of the glory of freedom.

Now - what questions does the NJDC want us to ask this year? Prepare to be sickened:

1.) Why has President Obama provided record amounts of military aid to Israel—including double the amount of supplemental funding for missile defense programs, like the Iron Dome, that are saving Israeli lives today?
2.) Why has President Obama worked so hard and succeeded at uniting the world against Iran’s illicit nuclear weapons program, while voting with Israel 100% of the time at the United Nations—earning the plaudits of Israel’s leaders?
3.) Why has President Obama achieved the historic passage of “Obamacare,” which has already permitted 2.5 million young adults to remain on their parents’ health care plans—and will end discrimination for those with pre-existing conditions, ultimatelyproviding coverage to 34 million more Americans?
4.) Why has President Obama fought to strengthen Medicare and Medicaid, keeping our commitment to our seniors—and our collective commitment to help those in need through shared responsibility?

The answers to all of these questions are: President Obama cares deeply about the safety and security of the Jewish state. He has been Israel’s leading advocate from day one and has done more than any other President to meaningfully bolster its defenses and provide for its future. He also cares deeply about the welfare of all Americans, including our seniors and the needy - and our commitment to them.

For these reasons, President Obama deserves our thanks...

Thanking Obama for our "bounty" (wrecked economy, soaring prices, foreclosed homes, loss of liberty, increased danger abroad...) instead of thanking God.  Is there any greater perversion of religion, to place man over the Almighty. especially on a night where we give thanks to God for intervening and saving the Jewish people with His own outstretched arm.?

You know, there is another story told on Passover -that of the Four Sons.  A bit of it is retold here:

The Torah refers to four sons: One wise, one wicked, one simple and one who does not know how to ask a question. What does the wise son say? "What are the testimonials, statutes and laws Hashem our G-d commanded you?" You should tell him about the laws of Pesach, that one may eat no dessert after eating the Pesach offering.


What does the wicked son say? "What does this drudgery mean to you?" To you and not to him. Since he excludes himself from the community, he has denied a basic principle of Judaism. You should blunt his teeth by saying to him: "It is for the sake of this that Hashem did for me when I left Egypt. For me and not for him. If he was there he would not have been redeemed...."


Is the National Jewish Democratic Council not, in fact, "the wicked Son", he who would not be redeemed?

Perhaps they know that, and perhaps that is why they try to taint the day with their blasphemy...

Fairly warned, be ye: If any of the guests at my Seder tomorrow night try to pull this NJDC "Four Questions" crap, they can expect to find themselves tossed out my front door, with Elijah's cup firmly implanted up their ass...

Arby's Bans Conservatives

Via Twitchy:

You may recall that yesterday, Arby’s announced via Twitter that it would no longer advertise on Rush Limbaugh’s show. Conservatives were not at all happy – and they got very vocal about it.

Well, as it turns out, Arby’s has begun blocking conservatives who have tweeted complaints....Has a company Twitter account ever blocked its customers for complaining before


I'm sure Arby's must have a brilliant business model hidden in the back of the safe, if they feel they can alienate about 50% of the American people and still stay afloat.  I mean, it's not as if the American people have a choice of where to go out for a quick bite right? Not every town has a Burger King, McDonalds, Taco Bell, White Castle, Sonic, KFC, Jack in the Box, Hardees, In-N-Out, Carls Jr., Whataburger, Five Guys, Steak n' Shake, Subway, Quiznos, Pizza Hut, Papa Johns, Boston Market, Krystal...

Well, actually, my small town in Jersey has almost all of those.  And the rest are within driving distance. So why would I eat at a restaurant that tells me to sit down and STFU?

You would think that corporate ownership would see a certain trend with businesses or brands that go out of their way to insult conservatives.  How did all those anti-Bush, anti-war Hollywood movies go over?  What happened to Oprah after endorsing Obama?  Why did Rosie O'Donnell, once the "Queen of Nice", fall so far from her perch?  Why is the New York Times becoming increasingly less relevant than the Huffington Post (even on the Left)?  Why is MSNBC the least-watched news channel in the nation?  Why are even the over-hyped Jon Stewart Show and Colbert Report getting beaten the ratings by "Pawn Stars", "Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives", "Family Guy", "American Dad", and barely - barely! - eking out a win over "Robot Chicken"? (Stewart does, Colbert doesn't, BTW...)

Nothing in common there, folks.  But if I had any stock in Arby's parent company, I'd be dumping it right around now.  Just saying...


UPDATE:  The final offense:  Arby's ownership group is named "Roark Capital" (get it?), and its home page is splashed with artwork inspired by The Fountainhead.  Is "Roark" aware of what Arby's is up to?  Or is their Randian front an example of what Daniel Patrick Moynihan called "boob-bait for bubbas"?

Vice President Chris Christie Storms The Golan Heights

I'm still not sure if this is such a good idea (see here, for openers).  And Chis Christie will most likely not even deliver New Jersey for his national ticket.  But he is a former US Attorney, and when it came to fighting corruption in the Garden State, Christie's office won convictions or guilty pleas from 130 public officials, both Republican and Democratic, on the state, county and local levels without losing a single case.

This is a bare-knuckled street brawler, afraid of no one, and showing no fear when it came to pursuing men of power.  Christie has two weapons he can draw upon in the national campaign:  He can make an eloquent case against the president, and humiliate him intellectually, or he can get into the gutter with Barack Obama, and kick the living shit out of him on the president's home turf (the "Mud Bowl", redux).

It's what Romney cannot do.  So that, most likely, is why Chris Christie is in Israel today, sneering at Bashar al-Assad, while simultaneously staring down Hezbollah:

Getting a security briefing at Mount Bental, with views of Syria in the background, from Israel Defense Force liaison officer Major Jonathan Conricus

Syria as seen from the Golan Heights

Christie looks out South Lebanon from the Benayah Outpost

More pixs here