Combine the HHS Mandate w/ Obama's Gay Marriage "Stance"...

...and you have simultaneously alienated most of the persons of faith in the United States.  Not the Barack Obama seems to know very many, save the few that are ardent campaign $upporters.  It is unlikely he has any in his inner circle - or his outer rings, even.

When the New York Times throws up a caution flag, well...

The issue of religious freedom has become a delicate one for Mr. Obama, especially after the recent furor over an administration mandate that religiously affiliated organizations offer health insurance covering contraceptives. After complaints from Catholic leaders that the mandate undercut their faith, Mr. Obama offered a compromise that would maintain coverage for contraception while not requiring religious organizations to pay for it, but critics remained dissatisfied.

After the interview, Mr. Obama hit the phones. Among those he called was one of the religious leaders he considers a touchstone, the Rev. Joel C. Hunter, the pastor of a conservative megachurch in Florida.

“Some of the faith communities are going to be afraid that this is an attack against religious liberty,” Mr. Hunter remembered telling the president.

“Absolutely not,” Mr. Obama insisted. “That’s not where we’re going, and that’s not what I want.”

The Rev. Jim Wallis, another religious adviser to Mr. Obama and the president and chief executive of Sojourners, a left-leaning evangelical organization, said that he had fielded calls since the announcement from pastors across the country, including African-American and Hispanic ministers. Religious leaders, he said, are deeply divided, with some seeing it as the government forcing clergy to accept a definition of marriage that they consider anathema to their teachings.

Mr. Wallis said that it was clear to him that the president’s decision was a matter of personal conscience, not public policy. But he said that some religious leaders wanted to hear Mr. Obama say that explicitly....


Sorry, Reverend Jim, but it doesn't matter what Obama says.  You will be forced, via the rule of the "slippery slope", to perform marriage services for homosexual couples.  Look - If Barack was able to betray Cardinal Dolan of New York and not lose a moment's sleep over it, do you really thinks he gives two shits about you?

Dolan said he met with the president weeks ago in the Oval Office to talk about the law. Dolan said the president gave his promise the provision would go away, but it hasn’t.

“It seems to be at odds with very sincere assurances that he gave me, that he wanted to continue to work with the church in these endeavors and views and projects he shared a passionate interest in, so I can’t figure it out,” Dolan said.

Sources close to the Cardinal-designate tell CBS 2 that Dolan feels betrayed...

And Cardinal Dolan isn't the only one feeling they got a presidential-sized screwjob.  Out of Maryland:

When Obama announced that his position on same-sex marriage had evolved, it outraged some African-American pastors like Pastor and Del. Emmett Burns.

 “He has said to his base, African-Americans, ‘I am going against your beliefs and your thoughts,’” Burns said. 

 He’s so opposed to same-sex marriage, he told church members he will no longer support the president and now predicts Obama will lose the election because of it...


From your lips to God's ears, Pastor...

Mister, We Could Use A Man Like Johnny Carson Again...

Talk shows were a bit different back in the day.  And not that far back, as I wonder if we can detect a sea change occurring sometime around, oh, say...1992. That was the year Johnny Carson left the desk at the Tonight Show.  Since then, the late-night vacuum has been filled by pretenders to the throne, filling their couches with B-list celebrities, and every nut and slut milking their fifteen minutes of fame.

Andrea Peyser at the New York Post reminds us that it wasn't always this way, as she writes about a Carson documentary currently airing on PBS:

Back then, 20 million viewers nightly came to expect not just comedians and singers but the greatest authors, intellectuals, politicians, satirists, columnists and you-name-it of the 20th century. Somehow, every one of them kept every one of those millions of viewers enthralled, occasionally appalled and always amused.

The clips, though, are the thing that will make you sad. They are so funny and so smart that you will be cowed by the fact that now idiotic starlets pushing the merch are the standard “get” and back then, the only “get” worth getting were the smartest, funniest and fastest thinkers on two (and sometimes four) feet.

As Jerry Seinfeld says, “There never was a ‘Tonight Show.’ It was Carson. “When he left, that show never existed again.”


And nothing ever adequately replaced it.  Instead, we are buffeted by the winds of the clown princes of late night TV, all of whom lack any real intellectual curiosity while sharing an identical ideology.

Things we've seen since Carson left...note a pattern, perhaps?

Carson was a liberal too, but he never fawned over the Left wing:

He avoided explicitly mentioning his views on Tonight, however, saying "I hate to be pinned down", as that would "hurt me as an entertainer, which is what I am". As he explained in 1970, "In my living room I would argue for liberalization of abortion laws, divorce laws, and there are times when I would like to express a view on the air. I would love to have taken on Billy Graham. But I'm on TV five nights a week; I have nothing to gain by it and everything to lose."


Today's talk-show hosts, ensconced in the Hollywood bubble and separate from the masses of America in a way Carson never was, likely believe they don't have anything to lose (and perhaps much to gain) by openly mocking Republicans and lavish sycophantic praise on Democrats.

They should think twice.  Just ask Oprah Winfrey...

Metaphorically Apt: Obama To Decree The Slaughter Of the Bald Eagle

Only in an administration headed by a Democrat:

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, a division of the Interior Department, is considering loosening regulations on the killing of bald eagles, the national bird of the United States, to accommodate the development of wind energy sources.

A draft regulation first filed in April would allow businesses to apply for 30-year permits allowing them to kill bald eagles in the course of other legal activities. The length of those permits would be a six-fold increase over the five-year window allowed under current law


Obama is about to declare open game on the fearless, proud, independent hunter that was thought to burn in the heart of every American.

Well, he's done that already, of course.  But like all radicals, he understands that power of symbolism.  And he understands the message it sends when he slaughters these symbols, after once protecting them.  And by making the bald eagle, and all it represents, expendable so that windmills - the pet project, ironically, of the so-called "environmentalists" - may survive, well....

That's a message sent loud and clear as well.  It is a message he does not expect us to openly acknowledge, but to implicitly understand and absorb, with our heads held that much lower.  So much easier to dictate to the beaten, after all.

Let's surprise him...

Obama "Fops" On Gay Marriage: Follow The Money , Bitches!

Great piece in the Telegraph (and how sad is it that in order to get unbiased news on American politics, you need to go to the foreign press?  At least in the old Soviet Union, the media printed propaganda at gunpoint...) on Obama's decision to endorse gay marriage.  The title says it all:

The gay marriage endorsement was all about Hollywood's money and Obama's ego

What was the gay marriage endorsement really all about? Ignore the timelines about Joe Biden being a loudmouth and follow the money instead. On Monday, the day before the North Carolina vote, the Hollywood Reporter reported that the marriage question was hurting Obama among west coast donors. “It's safe to say that the longer Obama waits on the issue, the more frustrated the [movie] community will grow with him. Perhaps it won't cost him their votes, but it might slow the flow of cash and public rally appearances. That concern doesn't end with Hollywood … One in six of Obama's so-called bundlers – people who raise money in great stacks for the president's campaign – is gay, giving the issue great importance in his fiscal game.”

So on Monday, Obama was losing dollars on the Hollywood fundraising circuit. On Wednesday, he endorsed gay marriage. On Thursday, he flew to Hollywood for a fundraiser, where 150 donors paid $40,000 each to meet the Prez at the home of George Clooney. Coincidence?

Wait, there’s more! Within minutes of the ABC interview that broke the endorsement, the Pres Tweeted “Same-sex couples should be able to get married.” Later, he issued a photo of himself making the statement with the word (you guessed it) “history” flashed everywhere. Within 90 minutes, Obama’s re-election campaign had pulled in $1 million in donations, while it quickly rolled out a new attack ad calling Romney “backwards” on gay rights. The Hollywood Reporter again: “On June 6, the president will be at the SLS hotel in Beverly Hills for an LGBT fundraiser featuring a performance by Pink. (A sellout now is virtually guaranteed.) Obama will be at another LBGT fundraiser Monday in New York, featuring a performance by Ricky Martin.”

That’s what Barack Obama’s endorsement of gay marriage was all about – not history, not equality, but prising open George Clooney’s wallet. Note that Obama still insists that this issue should be decided at a state level and he has refused to sign a “nondiscrimination executive order.” Given the impotence of his endorsement, it really comes down to one man sharing his personal opinion about a moral matter with the rest of nation. And then making a lot of money out of it.

Of course, Obama has a very high opinion of his personal opinion and probably regards it as “priceless” in every sense....

But so do his dupes in Hollywood, and in our mainstream media.  Let's hear a little about Obama's date with George from the Washington Post, which seems a bit weak in the knees at the celebrity overload:


What would you do if you got to spend three hours at George Clooney’s house? With George Clooney?

That’s how long President Obama spent at the Hollywood star’s luxurious hillside house in Studio City Thursday evening for a $40,000-a-head fundraiser that was expected to collect anywhere from $6 million to $15 million for the president’s reelection campaign.

The setting was actually a party tent on Clooney’s basketball court. Guests included actor Tobey Maguire, who sat to the right of Clooney and his girlfriend, Stacy Kiebler. Nearby was Diane Von Furstenberg. Also spotted: actors and entertainers Jack Black, Robert Downey Jr., Salma Hayek, Barbra Streisand (at a rear table and looking serious throughout, in black beret) and husband James Brolin.

The tent had black walls and a clear roof through which the sky and trees of the wooded property could be seen. White paper lanterns of different sizes hung from the roof, celadon-green wallboards with mirrors were at the front and rear, centerpieces of blue hydrangeas graced each table and two slender, tall white urns flanked the short stage with branches of white blossoms.

DreamWorks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg said the fundraiser had raised “a record nearly $15 million,” a figure that includes both the $40,000-a-person seats in the tent, and the proceeds from the online sweepstakes for two people to join the Hollywood event.



Epilogue:

Obama flew to the fundraiser at the Clooney estate on taxpayer-financed Air Force One...

Obama landing in LA yesterday...

(first two photos via TNR, third from Can I  Just Finish My Waffle?)

Atlas Shrugged - Facebook Edition

What else needs be said?  This was once a nation were people would fight to get citizenship. A nation where success was respected, and worn as a badge of honor.

This is where Hope and Change has brought us:

Eduardo Saverin, the billionaire co- founder of Facebook Inc. (FB), renounced his U.S. citizenship before an initial public offering that values the social network at as much as $96 billion, a move that may reduce his tax bill....

Saverin, 30, joins a growing number of people giving up U.S. citizenship, a move that can trim their tax liabilities in that country. The Brazilian-born resident of Singapore is one of several people who helped Mark Zuckerberg start Facebook in a Harvard University dorm and stand to reap billions of dollars after the world’s largest social network holds its IPO...

“Eduardo recently found it more practical to become a resident of Singapore since he plans to live there for an indefinite period of time,” said Tom Goodman, a spokesman for Saverin, in an e-mailed statement...

“It’s a loss for the U.S. to have many well-educated people who actually have a great deal of affection for America make that choice,” said Richard Weisman, an attorney at Baker & McKenzie in Hong Kong. “The tax cost, complexity and the traps for the unwary are among the considerations.”

The name is Galt.  John Galt...

Of course, with a lower tax rate, Saverin would remain a US citizen, and pay some portion of his windfall to the   federal government.  Now he'll pay virtually nothing.  Nor will he be paying for the rest of his productive life.   Instead, he's off to his own virtual Galt's Gulch, while the rest of us are impoverished even further.


Francisco d'Anconia:

"Then you will see the rise of the double standard – the men who live by force, yet count on those who live by trade to create the value of their looted money – the men who are the hitchhikers of virtue. In a moral society, these are the criminals, and the statutes are written to protect you against them. But when a society establishes criminals-by-right and looters-by-law – men who use force to seize the wealth of disarmed victims – then money becomes its creators' avenger. Such looters believe it safe to rob defenseless men, once they've passed a law to disarm them. But their loot becomes the magnet for other looters, who get it from them as they got it. Then the race goes, not to the ablest at production, but to those most ruthless at brutality. When force is the standard, the murderer wins over the pickpocket. And then that society vanishes, in a spread of ruins and slaughter.


"Do you wish to know whether that day is coming? Watch money. Money is the barometer of a society's virtue. When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion – when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing – when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors – when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you – when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice – you may know that your society is doomed. Money is so noble a medium that it does not compete with guns and it does not make terms with brutality. It will not permit a country to survive as half-property, half-loot....

WaPo Hit Piece On Romney: 5,500 Words, None Of Them True

5,500 words, more or less.  That's not a story you are writing overnight, or even over a weekend.  You are presenting sourced evidencing, you are telling a tale, you are building a case, you are presenting a narrative.

5,5500 words.  The approximate length of the piece claiming Mitt Romney was involved in a nasty piece of bullying in high school.  After that amount of time, that amount of work, the piece should be virtually unassailable.

Turns out in this case, it isn't even true:

Ashley Parker of the New York Times has a statement from the family of John Lauber, the man the Washington Post claimed Mitt Romney bullied in high school. She tweets:

From John Lauber’s family, the bullied victim in WaPo story: “We are aggrieved that John would be used to further a political agenda.”

Also from John Lauber’s family: “The portrayal of John is factually incorrect,” but they would not elaborate on how it was inaccurate.

This comes after one source for the story, a man the Washington Post says has “long been bothered” by the incident, said he wasn’t even present and had no idea it had happened until the Post contacted him.


Unfortunately  - or fortunately for the Washington Post - Mr. Lauber is dead, and unable to tell us what really happened that day - if anything.  Via Breitbart, it seems as if the most damaging quotes were taken - intentionally - out of context:

The original Washington Post piece stated the following:

“I always enjoyed his pranks,” said Stu White, a popular friend of Romney’s who went on to a career as a public school teacher and has long been bothered by the Lauber incident. 

Yet in an interview with ABC News today, White disowned that characterization:

While the Post reports White as having “long been bothered” by the haircutting incident,” he told ABC News he was not present for the prank, in which Romney is said to have forcefully cut a student’s long hair and was not aware of it until this year when he was contacted by the Washington Post.


Read it all, apparently, once busted, the WaPo re-wrote this portion of their fairy tale without mentioning it had made a key correction to the piece.

To paraphrase Mary McCarthy's famous line about Lillian Hellman, every word they write is a lie, including and and the...


What's the worst part about this for the Washington Post?  Well, they've created sympathy for Mitt Romney with such a blatantly false hit-piece.  Bad enough, I suppose.  But their ham-fisted stupidity has opened the doors for Republicans to go back to Barack Obama's early years to see how he treated his mates.

Turns out, by his own admission, the president is even more a bully than the WaPo claims Romney was.  You see, Obama confesses to pushing around...little girls.  From the autobiography that everyone loved but nobody read:

Who knows, maybe the puppy he just ate for lunch upset his stomach a bit, and he took it out on poor little Coretta...

Conspiracy Theory: Obama & DHS Plotting Civil Unrest?

Doug Hagmann claims to have a contact inside the Department of Homeland Security that has spilled the beans about how Obama is going to win in 2012:  By using the DHS as jackboots, #Occupy as brownshirts, and dousing a whole can of lighter fluid on race relations.

OK, so we get a lot of these, but the fact that the charges are in character for those involved makes it worth repeating.   And yes, it may make me guilty of pushing a "false-but-true" meme: The story I am telling is false, but the facts are true, because  I hate the guy involved and I want it to be true (see Rathergate for the classic example).

But so be it.  I reprint, you decide - from The Canadian Free Press:

According to my source, there is talk among the highest levels of the uppermost echelon of the Department of Homeland Security, which he describes as effectively under the control of Barack Hussein Obama. During this call, he said that the DHS is actively preparing for massive social unrest inside the United States. He then corrected himself, stating that “a civil war” is the more appropriate term. Certain elements of the government are not only expecting and preparing for it, they are actually facilitating it,” stated my source.

“The DHS takes their marching orders from the Obama administration, from Obama himself, but mostly from his un-appointed czars. And Jarrett, especially Valerie Jarrett. Don’t think for a minute that the administration is doing anything to stabilize events in the U.S. They are revolutionaries, and revolutionaries thrive on chaos,” he added.

"The Obama administration and many of the un-elected ‘czars,’ either directly or indirectly, are engaged in covert activities with the occupy movement, various labor protests, and other subversive activities inside the U.S.,” stated my source. Using untracked campaign funds, they are paying people to infiltrate the various movements to cause physical destruction of property and disrupt commerce. That began last year, but has increased ten-fold already this year,” stated this source. He added that they are using some lower level DHS agents to make the payments under the context of tracking subversives, but they are the unwitting subversives. “It’s like Fast & Furious” but in the social realm,” he added.

“Obama is using some high profile people as pawns to foment the revolution....Farrakhan is to coordinate the Blacks and the Muslims to prepare for riots this summer, using any means necessary.”

“Mentioned at the meeting Saturday were methods to use pawns to simulate the rioting in the Arab Spring countries, but to the benefit of this administration. A controlled chaos thing,” stated my source. They envision rioting starting in the urban areas first, such as New York and other major cities, followed by a disruption of business and commerce. This will allow the DHS to mobilize their various teams into the streets of America without objection of the people,” stated my source.

“They want to restrict travel, if not through high energy prices, then by checkpoints and curfews mandated by rioting and unrest. They understand we are the most well-armed nation in the world, yet they are aware of our vulnerabilities and intend to fully exploit them,” he added. The whole purpose is to keep Obama in office for another term, no matter how unpopular he is, as he is not finished changing our country from a Constitutional Republic. This is the run-up to the 2012 elections, or perhaps causing enough chaos to delay them - indefinitely.”

"Watch for a false flag event against Obama or his family, something that will outrage ‘black America.’ It will be carefully choreographed, but executed in a manner that will evoke the ugliest of reactions and create racial chaos in this country that will make the Watts riots, 1968 and the Rodney King riots pale in comparison. That’s the third leg in this.”

2011 Great Britain Riots...no racial overtones here, though....

The Obama administration, including his czars and along with his closets Progressive supporters, are planning a manufactured insurgency against America. He is using the media to his advantage to garner both sympathy and support for his unfinished goals. He is desperately seeking a way to remain in office, even if it means the surreal prospect of an indefinite postponement of elections - if it can be pulled off. So far, he’s got the support of the majority of the DHS “brass” behind him, according to my source.

“They’re power hungry, and they want to remain in charge,” stated this source.

The “surreal” aspect of suspended elections won’t look so surreal when you see any or all of the “trigger points” take place in the not-so-distant future.

“The end-game plan for America is its destruction as a Constitutional Republic, with the assistance of the agencies under the umbrella of the DHS.”


Remember the Great Britain Riots of 2011? "Showing the rich we can do what we want"?  That's what Obama wants to emulate this Fall:






A certain caustic, corpulent commentator made this call in heyday of the #OWS unrest in the fall:

Jackie Calmes of the New York Times asked him [Obama], “Are you aware of this? Are you watching any of it?” And he expressed his solidarity, ’cause those are his foot soldiers...

This thing just didn’t bubble up out of nothing. We now find out George Soros money is behind this, and there’s no doubt in my mind that the White House is behind this. I wish I could tell you who, but a very prominent person asked me to never mention his name in this regard, but for months he has been telling me, “You watch, Rush, do not doubt me,” he said to me, “Obama is setting up riots. He is fanning the flames for riots and eventual violence. That’s all he’s got.”


Expect to see the big cities burning by autumn.  And a certain brazen narcissist claiming only he can heal the nation he so skillfully tore apart...

Millennials: Not Quite As "Green" As Originally Believed...

“I was shocked,’’ said Jean Twenge, a psychology professor at San Diego State University and one of the study’s authors. “We have the perception that we’re getting through to people. But at least compared to previous eras, we’re not.

Maybe it's the fact that your pathetic propaganda ploys are nowhere nearly as effective as you wish them to be?

Members of the century-spanning Millennial generation, who were born after 1982 and came (or will come) of age in the 21st century, grew up listening to Kermit the Frog sing his colorful lament on Sesame Street and apparently took it to heart. Despite their reputation as environmentally conscious conservationists, a new research study has found that today’s young Americans are less interested in the environment, and do less to help preserve it, than previous generations of young people.


Actually, this report - detailing how the "Millenial" generation pretty much doesn't give a shit about you, the planet, or the pathetic problems they've been told to concern themselves with -  is actually really, really bad news for the Democrats, and liberalism in general:

What the researchers discovered was that, over the last four decades, young people’s trust in other people, their interest in government, and the time they claim to spend thinking about social problems declined from generation to generation. The most dramatic change, however, was the sharp drop in their concern for the environment and their willingness to take personal action to protect it...


Seems like MSM propaganda isn't working after all.  And it doesn't appear as if young voters are going to come out on election day to help protect green energy, or to insure they pay for someone else's healthcare, or to give the high school "Class of 2013" a better deal on student loans...

It's ennui, writ large.  Wonder how much Obama's cynical and miserable tenure is to blame for the revulsion these young folks now feel with the government and its priorities...

In “Homer the Vigilante,” after an outbreak of burglaries Homer organizes a group of vigilantes, including Jimbo Jones, a teenage delinquent still in elementary school. When Homer is unable to apprehend the burglar, Jimbo angrily confront Homer:

Jimbo Jones: You let me down, man. Now I don't believe in nothing no more. I'm going to law school.


Homer:  Nooooooo! 

Will Obama Lose Wisconsin and North Carolina in 2012? Oh, You Betcha!

Some bad, bad omens last night for President Barack Obama in what was essentially a meaningless Republican primary in Wisconsin.

The night was supposed to be all about the Democrats, and their battle to take on Governor Scott Walker in the June recall election (cost to state taxpayers to usurp democracy: $16M+).  But a funny thing happened:

...there was a surprise on the Republican side, a big one. Scott Walker faced only a fringe candidate in the Republican primary, one who posed no threat to him. Indeed, Walker won with 97 percent of the vote.

But Walker’s vote total (with 94 percent of the vote counted) was 584,929. The entire Democratic field, in a hard-fought contest, garnered only 596,089 votes. In other words, an awful lot of people turned out to support the governor and his reforms in an election he was sure to win anyway.


Jeez, maybe the people of Wisconsin don't want to be slaves to public-sector unions after all.  Maybe they don't think Democratic officials fleeing their duties while mobs occupy the capitol is what "democracy looks like".   How...unexpected.

A closer look:

In an election in which Walker ran essentially unopposed, Walker garnered about 15,000 more votes than Falk and Barrett combined. Republican voters had absolutely nothing to vote for, and yet they turned out in droves to send a message.


What's going to happen in November, when they actually do have something to vote for (or even against)?

And as Barack Obama prepares to "evolve" his position on gay marriage (only Republicans "flip-flop"), he seems ready to cede the great state of North Carolina, which he won by a whisker in 2008.  Residents voted 61%-39% last night to effectively ban gay marriage, and this was the lead photo & caption  in the local dailies:

Dr. Patrick Wooden Sr. pastor of the Upper Room Church of God In Christ and his wife Pamela Wooden celebrate early returns that show strong support for Amendment One during an election night party at the N. Raleigh Hilton on Tuesday May 8, 2012.

Not quite the stupid, intolerant rednecks the Left warned you about, are they?  Oh, what to do, Barack, what to do....!

Too bad you already left a deposit on the 2012 convention in Charlotte, NC - but then again, you do have a lot of other people's money...can you move it to Madison, perhaps?

Not sure if thousands of out-of-towners in garish dress screaming "gay marriage now!" is going to warm the hearts of the people who just said no thanks, not here...in fact, they might even view it as a bit disrespectful, you know?   Might even give them extra incentive to come out to vote in November, just...not for you.

All this, while the president is humiliated in West Virginia.  The stark omens of a Carter-esque defeat are there for all to see.  Fortunately, the president is too self-involved to notice, and the media continues to flatter his majesty, keeping him blind to the rout on the horizon...

Did West Virginia's Joe Manchin (D) Vote For Keith Judd?

Or, as he has better known, inmate No. 11593-051?

Senator Manchin, who refused to say whether he voted for Obama on Tuesday, said he's grateful that most voters look at the totality of his voting record, not whether he follows the party line...


Senator Manchin may buck his party's platform, but a vote for Joe is still a vote for Harry Reid, which is a vote for the hard-left Obama agenda.  Someone ought to pound that home come November.  Because West Virginia Democrats seem awful dissatisfied with their options:

41% of West Virginia Democrats voted for this man over their party's standard bearer:

Just how unpopular is President Barack Obama in some parts of the country? Enough that a man in prison in Texas got 4 out of 10 votes in West Virginia's Democratic presidential primary.

The inmate, Keith Judd, is serving time at the Beaumont Federal Correctional Institution in Texas for making threats at the University of New Mexico in 1999. Obama received 59 percent of the vote to Judd's 41 percent. For some West Virginia Democrats, simply running against Obama is enough to get Judd votes.


But don't worry, Obama is a shoo-in for re-election.  Why?  Because the media said so...

But back on planet reality, one is reminded of how Chris Christie won New Jersey (formally known as "Blue Jersey), against an incumbent liberal with a 4-1 spending advantage and a party registration advantage of 600,000+ D.  When the time came to pull the lever, most voters, regardless of ideological stripe, simply could not stomach the thought of  four more years of  Jon Corzine.   So they held their nose and voted Republican, and now people in the Garden State sing "In New Jersey they love the governor, woo-hoo-hoo...'


(well - maybe not Bruce Springsteen...)

Which is exactly what is going to happen in the general election in November.  And who knows, maybe Joe Manchin will vote for Mitt Romney after all - he's still a better choice than inmate11593-051...

And all the Air Force One fundraising junkets in the world may not help the president who edged out a Texas troublemaker:

Sen. Richard Lugar - the longest-serving senator in Indiana history - has lost his Republican Senate primary on Tuesday to state Treasurer Richard Mourdock...Lugar's campaign, which had spent $6.7 million on the race as of April, did significantly outspend Mourdock's, which had spent $2 million as of April...

Benjamin Netanyahu: Master Of The (Political) Universe

Is Barack Obama watching this?  Probably not, he hates news that runs counter to his narrative, or to what he knows to be correct, facts be damned..

But even more so, he hates Benjamin Netanyahu.  On some three different occasions he's tried to take Bibi down a peg, and all three times the Israeli PM beat the living shit out of our leftist poseur-in-chief, making Obama his personal bitch and leaving him with just enough air to survive (albeit sullenly).

So to see Bibi call off the September elections he set in order to consolidate his power because...he was able to consolidate his power without them, would certainly be enough to drive our president mad with impotent rage.

But just in case he should cruise by this little roadside stand on the internet....here's a lesson in how a strong politician can bend a recalcitrant parliament to his will within the confines of a democratic system, and build a monster majority:

Netanyahu faced two critical issues his government couldn’t resolve in its existing composition. One was the need to pass new legislation on drafting ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students by August 1, when the Supreme Court’s invalidation of a law exempting them from service takes effect.

The other issue is the 2013 budget, which must be passed by December 31. Though Israel is still doing well by Western standards, its export-driven economy has inevitably been hurt by the global crisis, and particularly the downturn in Europe, its largest export market. It therefore faces a larger-than-expected deficit that necessitates budget cuts.

But when elections seem imminent – as they did, due to the crisis over the draft issue – it’s impossible to get Knesset members to agree to cuts; in fact, it’s usually impossible even to keep them from legislating hefty new expenditures. Hence, the only solution was new elections: A new government, with years yet to serve, could afford to make the necessary cuts.

With Kadima on board, however, both these issues become solvable. Netanyahu now has a solid majority even without Shas, enabling him to tackle the draft exemptions issue. And the government is now stable enough to survive the remaining 18 months of its term, so passing a responsible budget becomes feasible.

Yet it was only the credible threat of new elections that persuaded Kadima to join him: With polls showing it would lose almost two-thirds of its Knesset seats if elections were held today, the party desperately needed more time to rehabilitate itself. New party chairman Shaul Mofaz had hoped to do so as leader of the opposition. But by announcing new elections, Netanyahu essentially gave him an ultimatum: If you want more time, you’ll have to join my government.


Cunning, but farsighted too.  Bi-partisan while remaining transparent (especially for a back-room deal).

Four traits our current president sorely lacks. Which explains why the nation - as well as the man himself - founder in seas that grow ever more treacherous...

115,000 New Jobs In April? Bullshit...

Folks talk a lot (well, not so much Democrats) about how the unemployment rate is dropping only because participation in the labor pool is falling.  All true.  But go a bit deeper inside the numbers and see that most of the 115,000 jobs allegedly "created" in April of 2012 were really just "assumed to be created", and a large number of them only exist as figments of the Labor Department's imagination.

John Crudele, writing in the New York Post:

... that 115,000 figure was achieved only through alchemy. The Labor Department assumed that 172,000 jobs were created by nascent businesses that couldn’t actually be surveyed. Without that questionable premise — which is added to the figures before seasonal adjustments — headline growth would probably have come in under 100,000.

Look at just one of the hypotheticals and you’ll see how screwy these numbers really are.

The Labor Department guessed that 72,000 jobs were created by brand-new companies in the leisure and hospitality industry. But even with those guesstimates, the final figure adds up to only 12,000 new jobs. Without the guesstimate, there would have been a loss of jobs in the industry.

The Labor Department needed to assume that 72,000 jobs were being created by new, invisible companies just to get overall job growth in leisure and hospitality up to 12,000 in April.

Pretty bizarre, no?

There was more bad news hidden in Friday’s announcement that people didn’t catch on to. The seasonal adjustments were changed from the prior year, and this helped the April number look stronger than it really was. And in the separate household survey — from which the unemployment rate is derived — there were 169,000 fewer jobs reported in April than in March. The unemployment rate declined only because people reported leaving the workforce at a faster pace than jobs were disappearing...


Eventually, there will be 500 people left in the workplace, and only 500 jobs available, and Obama and the Democrats will proudly claim their economic program has brought us to 100% employment for the first time in history..  Of course, American society will have collapsed long before them, but the Left will dance in the ashes of their final "triumph".

And it is no wonder they feel it is inevitable.  The figures are twisted into pretzels, and the media smirks, turns away, and speaks in breathless tones about how cool our black president is...

Another Slap At The Jews: Obama Ignores The Death of Adam Yauch

Born and bred Brooklyn the USA 
They call me Adam Yauch but I'm MCA
Like a lemon to a lime a lime to a lemon
I sip the def ale with all the fly women
~Beastie Boys, "No Sleep 'Till Brooklyn"


Adam Nathaniel Yauch, a hip-hop pioneer, died last week at the tragically young age of 47. His influence, and his band's, cannot be understated. Rap may not ever have broken into the mainstream American consciousness if not for this groups of bratty, snotty, hilarious white rappers.

Mourners sending out messages (or tweets) of love and sorrow included the likes of  Snoop Dogg, Will. I. Am, B-Real, Flea, Chuck Schumer(!), Q-Tip, Marlon Wayans, Ice-T, Kevin Smith, and Moby.

It's a pretty eclectic group, right? White, black, rap, punk, political, apolitical, movie directors, movie stars....

One name is conspicuously absent from the list (which goes on and on).  You know, the guy who expressed sympathy for the death of Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, and Heavy-D.  The guys who is supposed to be the coolest, hippest guy in town.

Oh yeah, that's right.  Barack Obama.  Not a word to be said to note the passing of one of the geniuses behind one of the most popular, successful, rap trios ever to pick up the mic.

Oh.  And did we mention that Adam Yauch was Jewish?  So was the rest of the group, Mike Diamond (Mike D) and Adam Horovitz (Ad-Rock).

No doubt Obama, seething with racial and ethnic rage, sees the Beasties as usurpers of what should be an exclusively "black" form of music, despite the fact that not only didn't they ride in on the backs of other established acts, they actually blew the doors wide open for both their predecessors and their musical children

But our president is a simple man, of little intellectual nuance.  He sees "rap", "white", and "Jews" all together in a sentence, and immediately thinks "colonial imperialism"!

He should take a lesson in race relations from the people on the list above, all of whom know better than he...

And he should take some lessons in cool from the late MCA:

Now my name is M.C.A. I've got a license to kill/ I think you know what time it is it's time to get ill/ Now what do we have here an outlaw and his beer/ I run this land, you understand I make myself clear."
-Paul Revere

"Well I'm as cool as a cucumber in a bowl of hot sauce/ You've got the rhyme and reason but no cause/ Well if you're hot to trot you think you're slicker than grease/ I've got news for you crews you'll be sucking like a leech"
-So What'cha Want?

"Pass me the scalpel, I'll make an incision/ I'll cut off the part of your brain that does the bitching/ Put it in formaldehyde and put it on the shelf/ And you can show it to your friends and say that's my old self"
-Make Some Noise

“If you try to knock me you’ll get mocked / I’ll stir fry you in my wok / Your knees will start shaking and your fingers pop / Like a pinch on the neck from Mr. Spock”
-Intergalactic

When The Nanny State Attacks: $1600 Fine For A Stray Poppy Seed

A cautionary tale, of sorts.  When the government unleashes swarms of bureaucratic upon the populace in the name of "doing good", you can be sure rights are being trampled and lives are being ruined. Our "leaders" know this, of course, but they consider it acceptable collateral damage in their true quest: Creating additional revenue streams outside of "taxation" for which to fund the expansion of government. Which expands their own powers. Which weakens ours. Again, all part of the plan....

Is the government just mindless kudzu?  Or something more sinister?  Out of  Nanny Bloomberg's New York, we get this:

A Health Department inspector bizarrely slapped a Brooklyn bagel shop with $1,650 in fines — because sesame and poppy seeds fell to the floor while the bagels were being made during working hours.

The owner of B&B Empire Bagel Cafe — who appealed the violations and lost at two separate hearings — says the inspectors must have holes in their heads.

“It is impossible to clean up after each and every bagel,” declared Alex Gormakh, 59, who owns the Clinton Sreet shop. “It is impossible. It is a process.”

“Look,” explained Gormakh, “a few seeds are always going to be dropped when you are dipping the bagel in the seeds. They don’t all stick like glue.”

No mice were detected in an earlier inspection on Aug. 1, 2011, and none were found in the latest inspection on April 5, when B&B was awarded the highest cleanliness grade of “A.”


Here's the money quote:

Gormakh appears resigned to the higher cost of doing business in this city. “If you want to work you have to pay,” he concluded. “In Russia, they call it corruption. Here they call it something else. Either way, you have to pay.”


Poor Gormakh makes a fair comparison, one which should terrify us all.

Open up and take it, they said...

Now This Gives ME Hope. Or: "Don't Believe The Hype"

They even had it on the news
 Don't believe the hype...

A rap burgler, false media We don't need it do we?
 It's fake that's what it be to 'ya, dig me?
 Don't believe the hype...

Don't believe the hype - its a sequel 
As an equal, can I get this through to you?


-Public Enemy, "Don't Believe The Hype" (via "It Takes A Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back")


ABC News:

Four years after “Obamamania” swept college campuses and across the country, we will get a glimpse of what the phenomenon looks like the second time around. The Obama campaign expects overflow crowds at both OSU and VCU as part of carefully orchestrated optics. Aides want to portray the president as still highly popular among young people and still able to energize large crowds.

Organizers have been touting the level of volunteerism and voter registration on the campuses ahead of the events. They also plan to feature “innovative” integration of social media into the rallies, much as they did at Invesco Field in 2008, by broadcasting selected tweets, Facebook posts and Instagram images on the big screens to boost interactivity and participation.


We should know better, although, with the daily barrage of agitprop from the media, perhaps it's understandable that even the best of us, even the most cynical of us, can get thrown off a bit.

Don't believe the hype:

And that's during his speech, by the way.

Looks to me like the crowd you'd see at a concert, perhaps, checking out - with little curiosity - the  pre-pre-opening act...

Don't believe the hype.  It's a (bad) sequel..

Barack Obama May Be "Cool", But Is Paul Ryan...Hot?

What hath cool wrought in the last 3+ years? $5/gallon gas, economic stagnation, a dispirited workforce, mockery overseas, and the cancerous growth of a government that assumes more and more control over our lives on a daily basis.

So maybe it's time for some heat.  Me, I conceptualize that as white-hot rage against the direction our nation is heading.  But others -  also seeing the need for an increase in temperature -  appear to visualize it a bit...differently:

What the...?

The Washington Post explains:

Emily Zanotti, a self-described “freelance political communications consultant and comedian from Chicago” who also blogs for NakedDC.com, said she and her friends got the idea for the site after wondering what Ryan — who enjoys “Noodling,” or catching catfish with bare hands — might look like shirtless as he chased after catfish in a river.

“Really, we just put it together as an inside joke,” she said in an e-mail. “I’ve worked with lots of politicos (I’m a libertarian and work primarily with conservatives), and Paul Ryan is a bit of an ‘economic heartthrob’ among us, if you will. We liked the way that Paul Ryan and the meme fit together, and thought it might just appeal to people who work on the Hill or at least in the political industry. We didn’t anticipate that it would become as huge as it did.”

Indeed, the site quickly took off after first surfacing widely Tuesday...


We couldn't get a better pick for VP than Paul Ryan.  While some have already derided a possible Ryan pick as a "vanilla ticket" (no dog whistle there, right folks?), his selection would make a statement to the American people about how serious the Republican party is about righting our fiscal ship, and would provide a stark contrast to the empty-suit cool and bumbling but lovable sidekick duo as represented by Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

Even the idea of Ryan as "hot" seems to further the cultural narrative that is taking hold: Faux cool is out, and  nerdy capitalists are in.

Just ask Emily & the girls...

Is Tucker Carlson A "Bow Tie Wearin' White Boy"? You Betcha !

So sayeth Jehmu Greene, a politcal commentator and co-founder of "Define American".

Irony:

Define American seeks to elevate the conversation on immigration reform.

How's that working out, you ask? Well, here's what liberals consider "elevating the conversation": Throwing racist slurs around when the facts no longer support their case. But you knew that; it's just what they do. Watch Barack Obama on any given weekday. Or watch his spiritual protege, Jehmu Greene, try to defend Elizabeth Warren:




CARLSON: It was unfair when it happened under segregation, it’s unfair now. Indeed, it’s indefensible and that’s why she doesn’t want to talk about this, because she did gain material advantage by lying about her ethnic background. And no one should gain advantage because of his ethnic background, period.

GREENE: Tucker! Tucker! Elizabeth Warren has been very clear that she has not gained advantage…

CARLSON: No she has not been clear.

GREENE: And at the end of the day, she won the teaching award at Harvard two years in a row, she won teaching awards at the University of Pennsylvania, at the University of Michigan, at the University of Houston. To question this woman on her qualifications is going to be something that does appeal to…folks like you, voters like you, bow tie’n white boys, but at the end of the day it is going to backfire…



Somewhere, Barack Obama, Eric Holder, and Van Jones are hootin', and giving up some high-fives...

Shame on FOX News for hiring this woman.  See where attempts at "balance" with these people gets you?

Greene hasn't apologized, by the way, and I will be surprised if she does. Traitor to her race, and all that...

April Unemployment Numbers: The Media Mans The Bunkers...

...and goes into full-on spin mode.  Well, how about...full-on bullshit mode:

Gee, MSN.com morphed into a wholly owned subsidiary of The Daily Kos so gradually that I barely even noticed...

Change: Barack Obama Has Undone Ronald Reagan

A change the Left was hoping for...and if they had to burn the nation to save the nation, well...they'll just dance in the ashes, then.  It took only 4  years of Obama to wipe out 8 years of Reagan (or almost 28 years of a "Reagan effect", as seen below).  But it is much easier to destroy than to create. Just ask any barbarian.

The Labor Force Participation Rate shows what percentage of people are working, looking for a job and not looking for a job. It is a better yardstick to measure the workforce in America than is the usually cited "unemployment rate" which doesn't count people who are so frustrated they stopped looking for a job

The graph shows a huge upswing in labor participation through the Reagan years. George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush kept the numbers up in Reagan territory. Since Obama has taken over, he has wiped out the entirety of the Reagan gains.


Zero Hedge makes the case that the real unemployment rate is not a fanciful (and still miserable) 8.1%, but a sickening 11.6%:

Reason for difference: organic growth of labor force which grows alongside the broader population. ...the widely accepted definition of the labor pool, that used by the CBO and all other government forecasting agencies, assumes a 90,000 growth in the labor force every month as it has to keep in line with the growth of the US population! The implication is simple: using a real labor force participation rate long-term average of 65.8%, the real unemployment rate in April was 11.6%, based on the 5.4 million additional workers that should be counted as part of the U-3 which then means that the real number of unemployed is not 12.5 million but 17.9 million, which in turn implies a 11.6% unemployment rate in the US. This also means that the spread between the propaganda, and the real number is now 3.5%: the most it has been since the early 1980s.


I'm not sure we can take four more months of this.  Four more years....??

Barack Obama, Bullshit, and Poetry

Politico proudly proffers a bit of a young Barack Obama's musings on a piece of poetry - T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land - and declares him (Obama, not Elliot) to be a man of genius:

“Remember how I said there’s a certain kind of conservatism which I respect more than bourgeois liberalism — Eliot is of this type. Of course, the dichotomy he maintains is reactionary, but it’s due to a deep fatalism, not ignorance,” Obama wrote, musing on William Butler Yeats and Ezra Pound as he went. “You seem surprised at Eliot’s irreconcilable ambivalence; don’t you share this ambivalence yourself, Alex?


Gee, how many leftist-approved nonsense words can one actually fit onto the head of a pin? Politico pants:

One part Holden Caulfield, one part Immanuel Kant.


No, not really. It's verbal masturbation of the most immature sort, a university-approved sibling to its corporate cousin, some suit who steps into a meeting to proclaim he has an out of the box, barrier-breaking paradigm. A no-brainer right in the wheelhouse, that handles the client's needs soup-to-nuts, along with an action plan containing all the bells and whistles. Its' engaging, its empowering, and it pushes the envelope. It's a win-win, with the metrics to back it up...


 Ready to puke yet?

And yet, to some, Obama's immature buzzword-babble is a sign, in fact, that he's a real man of genius:

The amazing thing, Perelman and others point out, is how much of a window into Obama’s thinking and personality appears to shine through those few short lines. Obama’s critique reveals a sense of detachment, a focus on transcendence over religiosity, a grappling with tough ideas and both an eagerness to impress and an ability to do so.

“It kind of makes the case for him being not religious in any organized way, but in a spiritual, philosophical way,” Perelman said. He added later, “You could read this as pointing toward a strain in him that favors ambivalence. But basically it just makes him to me about four times smarter than most politicians.”


Or maybe it just makes him smart enough to bullshit his easily bamboozled professors...