Did Lou jumped, or was he pushed, and now that's he's off the crooked ship CNN, what's next?
Maybe taking on his philosophical antipode, New Jersey's senator Bob Menendez (D-La Raza)? NJ.com reports on the speculation that's running rampant:
It did not take long for political observers to start speculating on former Cable TV personality Lou Dobbs' future after he quit his CNN gig. He is already being portrayed as the obvious choice to oppose the re-election of U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez, D-Hoboken, in 2012.
Dobbs is a New Jersey resident who has some definite get-tough immigration policy views, which some reports say is, among other things, what caused the rift between himself and the more liberal members of CNN. Menendez is seen as a champion of immigrants having been born to Cuban immigrant parents in New York.
While Dobbs is considered an independent, it is not hard to see the Garden State Republicans making him a candidate for Senate. Menendez has even taken the first shot, calling Dobb's exit from CNN "addition by subtraction."
Menendez (D-Illegal Immigrants) is famous in New Jersey for his moral and financial support of La Raza (literally translated as "The Race"), a radical group of Hispanic nationalists that have openly declared their desire to fight for their ethnic supremacy (with your tax dollars, provided by Menendez). Think Dodd might have something to say to the people of New Jersey about that?
Menedez has also advocated heavily for illegal immigrants, despite the fact that his home state is drowning in a sea of red ink (and blood, and more blood) due to a government that cares more for the well-being of illegals than its taxpaying citizens. Not to mention the fact that Menendez has been willing to hold up Democratic legislation over Cuba policy; which is not a bad thing, but a strange thing for Menendez to stick his neck out on, when the residents of New Jersey are in need of so much more.
And it's not as if Menendez is anywhere near popular; polling over the summer shows him suffering with all groups; unable to get over 50% with blacks and over 40% with Hispanics:
Overall Hispanic White Black Other
Approve 29% 30% 26% 46% 22%
Disapprove 40% 35% 45% 15% 38%
Not Sure 31% 35% 29% 38% 41%
Liberal orthodoxy aside, I'm surprised that Menendez cannot see that even his Hispanic constituents realize that his policies are hurting them more than helping them, as the legal immigrants are forced to pay, via Menendez's taxes, for the health and welfare of those who cheated the system.
Again - Menendez is the polar opposite of Dobbs, and with the electorate in a "throw the bums out" mode (especially in Jersey), a free-markets, secure-borders libertarian may be exactly what New Jersey is looking for, and with independents holding sway now in the state, this may be Dobbs best chance to win an election.
Lord, it wouldn't be easy. Shoot, the New Jersey media painted Chris Christie, a corruption-busting prosecutor, as less Harvey Dent and more Two-Face. Imagine what they will do with Dobbs.
But Dobbs, thanks to CNN's ideological purge, now has a cool $8 million in the bank. And that can buy him time, and breathing room, and the ability to get his message out over the media din.
Run, Lou, run. If nothing else - it would sure be fun!
Monday, November 16, 2009
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Code Pink Hits Bottom, Digs....
And you though waging an anti-war protest in front of Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., where military members who had served in Iraq were recovering from their wounds, was as low as the attention-whores of Code Pink could go....
No.
Today finds their website hawking a new pitch to President Obama:
The recent shootings at Ft. Hood and the resignation of top Foreign Service officer Matthew Hoh demonstrate how even our military officers are opposed to US strategy in Afghanistan. Our troops are overtaxed and exhausted after facing one deployment after another, and many are not receiving the mental and physical care they require.
Personally, that's an offensive a smear against our fine officers in the armed services that I've heard from the Left to date, perhaps with the exception of MoveOn's "General Betray-Us" ad campaign. And I doubt your average grunt in the field is going to like being called "overtaxed", with possible "mental" exhaustion...
Although I can see the argument having some force with Mr. Obama, who appears to loathe the idea of adding additional soldiers to the Afghanistan effort. And with the mainstream media as well, who continue to try to peddle an alternative-reality spin on the Ft. Hood massacre.
I wonder what the parents of the dead think of Code Pink's line of argument here.
Best not to ask, I suppose...
No.
Today finds their website hawking a new pitch to President Obama:
The recent shootings at Ft. Hood and the resignation of top Foreign Service officer Matthew Hoh demonstrate how even our military officers are opposed to US strategy in Afghanistan. Our troops are overtaxed and exhausted after facing one deployment after another, and many are not receiving the mental and physical care they require.
Personally, that's an offensive a smear against our fine officers in the armed services that I've heard from the Left to date, perhaps with the exception of MoveOn's "General Betray-Us" ad campaign. And I doubt your average grunt in the field is going to like being called "overtaxed", with possible "mental" exhaustion...
Although I can see the argument having some force with Mr. Obama, who appears to loathe the idea of adding additional soldiers to the Afghanistan effort. And with the mainstream media as well, who continue to try to peddle an alternative-reality spin on the Ft. Hood massacre.
I wonder what the parents of the dead think of Code Pink's line of argument here.
Best not to ask, I suppose...
Will KSM Walk Free While CIA Agents Are Indicted?
The normally nuanced Michael Goodwin goes nuts on Eric Holder in today's New York Post:
Attorney General Eric Holder's decision to ship Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four other Guantanamo Bay prisoners to Manhattan for federal trials is beyond bad judgment.
It is a radical call that puts his leftist legal theories over public safety and common sense. The war on terror is being relabeled as a crime problem, in the very shadow of Ground Zero.
But Mr. Holder feels pretty good about it, and is sure that "people" will understand and support his decision:
But I think if people will, in a neutral and detached way, look at the decision that I have made today, understand the reasons why I made those decisions, and try to do something that's rare in Washington--leave the politics out of it and focus on what's in the best interest of this country--I think the criticism will be relatively muted.
What type of people, Mr. Holder, do you expect to "understand" and "mute their criticism" of this bizarre and outlandish decision? Folks like firemen, police officers, blue-collar folks and office workers who need to travel past the 12th floor to get to their cubical? Or people most resembling the hard left-wing types that you associate with at work and mingle with socially after-hours?
Rachel Abrams, blogging at the Weekly Standard:
...The dispassion, the self-reverence, the blindness of the man, are marvelous to behold, and so perfectly reflect the president he so perfectly serves. “Neutral and detached” people shall “understand the reasons why” he made those decisions, shall see he has left “the politics out of it,” and shall recognize what’s right--something the rest of us, benighted and bellicose souls that we are, have never managed to do with respect to the disposition of those committing mass murders of Americans in their ongoing war against our civilization.
Goodwin, again:
The worst-case outcome is frightening. The beasts who helped kill nearly 3,000 Americans could walk free, while the brave agents who protected the country get locked up.
And contrary to press reports, Holder didn't commit to seeking the death penalty, saying only he expects to. He also didn't say what the charges would be.
Do you trust him? Neither do I.
And nor should you, gentle reader. Goodwin's "worst-case scenario" is actually Holder's, Obama's, and the Left's best-case scenario. Our national leadership associates with the folks who rose up in anger on 9/11 not against the terrorists who murdered 3,000 innocents that day, but against America, in belief that our policies and national character brought on this attack. Who railed in anger in the ensuing years not against Islamists who threatened our national security and killed our troops overseas, but against America, again, for daring to fight back, for daring to squeeze information from those with deadly intent, and for doing it all without shame or personal reproach.
In their eyes (more sophisticated than ours),Khalid Sheik Mohammed is a victim, of American overreach and abuse, and it is the enablers of that "overreach" - CIA interrogation agents, Dick Cheney and George W, Bush - that should be the ones on trial. KSM should be speaking at Harvard, giving diversity lectures and symposiums, and it is our agents and public officials who protected us after 9/11 should be breaking rocks in the hoosegow for the next 20 years....
Will the hard-left get its vengeance fantasies fulfilled by the liberal bordello once know as the Justice Department? Well, that will be up to a New York jury, I guess.
And while those 12 men and women may believe they are holding the fate of only one sick man in their hands, it is actually an entire nation that surely hangs in the balance...
Attorney General Eric Holder's decision to ship Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four other Guantanamo Bay prisoners to Manhattan for federal trials is beyond bad judgment.
It is a radical call that puts his leftist legal theories over public safety and common sense. The war on terror is being relabeled as a crime problem, in the very shadow of Ground Zero.
But Mr. Holder feels pretty good about it, and is sure that "people" will understand and support his decision:
But I think if people will, in a neutral and detached way, look at the decision that I have made today, understand the reasons why I made those decisions, and try to do something that's rare in Washington--leave the politics out of it and focus on what's in the best interest of this country--I think the criticism will be relatively muted.
What type of people, Mr. Holder, do you expect to "understand" and "mute their criticism" of this bizarre and outlandish decision? Folks like firemen, police officers, blue-collar folks and office workers who need to travel past the 12th floor to get to their cubical? Or people most resembling the hard left-wing types that you associate with at work and mingle with socially after-hours?
Rachel Abrams, blogging at the Weekly Standard:
...The dispassion, the self-reverence, the blindness of the man, are marvelous to behold, and so perfectly reflect the president he so perfectly serves. “Neutral and detached” people shall “understand the reasons why” he made those decisions, shall see he has left “the politics out of it,” and shall recognize what’s right--something the rest of us, benighted and bellicose souls that we are, have never managed to do with respect to the disposition of those committing mass murders of Americans in their ongoing war against our civilization.
Goodwin, again:
The worst-case outcome is frightening. The beasts who helped kill nearly 3,000 Americans could walk free, while the brave agents who protected the country get locked up.
And contrary to press reports, Holder didn't commit to seeking the death penalty, saying only he expects to. He also didn't say what the charges would be.
Do you trust him? Neither do I.
And nor should you, gentle reader. Goodwin's "worst-case scenario" is actually Holder's, Obama's, and the Left's best-case scenario. Our national leadership associates with the folks who rose up in anger on 9/11 not against the terrorists who murdered 3,000 innocents that day, but against America, in belief that our policies and national character brought on this attack. Who railed in anger in the ensuing years not against Islamists who threatened our national security and killed our troops overseas, but against America, again, for daring to fight back, for daring to squeeze information from those with deadly intent, and for doing it all without shame or personal reproach.
In their eyes (more sophisticated than ours),Khalid Sheik Mohammed is a victim, of American overreach and abuse, and it is the enablers of that "overreach" - CIA interrogation agents, Dick Cheney and George W, Bush - that should be the ones on trial. KSM should be speaking at Harvard, giving diversity lectures and symposiums, and it is our agents and public officials who protected us after 9/11 should be breaking rocks in the hoosegow for the next 20 years....
Will the hard-left get its vengeance fantasies fulfilled by the liberal bordello once know as the Justice Department? Well, that will be up to a New York jury, I guess.
And while those 12 men and women may believe they are holding the fate of only one sick man in their hands, it is actually an entire nation that surely hangs in the balance...
Saturday, November 14, 2009
New Jersey Pharmacists, and Basement Tamiflu
...And a sneak-peak into the future of American medical treatment under ObamaCare!
So - The government becomes the largest purchaser of swine flu vaccinations and medications - so that it can be distributed fairly, of course and after all, who better then the government to manage what they deem as an epidemic - and what happens?
In late October, the government released its remaining 234,000 doses of liquid Tamiflu from a national stockpile. More supplies from Roche, the manufacturer, aren’t expected until next month.
Greaaaat. You've declared a H1N1 pandemic - good for you! - but you can't even get the inventory right on the most effective medications available to treat and prevent it. Sure, you've got the capsules, but that really doesn't work too well with the young ones, does it?
So what are they doing in Jersey? Well, it's back to the mortar and pestle:
Pharmacists in New Jersey and across the country are dealing with the shortage of pre-bottled liquid Tamiflu by creating their own compound for the formula using Tamiflu capsules and sweet syrup.
To paraphrase Helen Lovejoy, I guess they just didn't think of the children:
The neighborhood pharmacy in Warren County has filled dozens of prescriptions for liquid Tamiflu in the last few weeks, including those for parents of children at an area school that registered a case of H1N1, Eberle said.
Children are at higher risk for catching H1N1 and developing serious complications. Since April, 540 children nationwide have died from the H1N1 virus, according to the CDC. Another 15 children have died from a non-specific flu virus.
On average, between 50 and 100 children die from seasonal flu each year.
So kids are dying at a rate 5x higher than during a "normal" flu season, and the government -now responsible for our children's heath - drops the ball on the meds.
But the government can fix it,too! Call in the USFDA ! They'll fight back by...suspending their own safety rules!
Because the H1N1 virus qualifies as a national health emergency, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued an emergency use authorization for Tamiflu, relaxing some of the prescription rules and allowing some expired but still effective products to be used.
Great. The government screws up the Tamiful order, kids are dying at an alarmingly high rate, and their solution is to jerry-rig a solution with expired pills.
I do trust my pharmacist - sometimes more than the doctor - and I'm sure she wouldn't create a concoction she thought was dangerous. Still, am I wrong to find this a somewhat alarming situation?
Well, I'm sure once they take over complete control of the entire health care system, the government will do a much better job...
Friday, November 13, 2009
The Madness of Great Britain
Liberal fascism has taken hold of England by the throat, and will throttle that once-great nation until it breathes its last. From Anorak News, always ready to dish the dirt from across the pond, we get a story right out of the Twilight Zone. It starts off innocently enough - a Mr. Paul Clarke finds a gun in his garden, and hands it over to the local police. That when things get...liberal:
In his original statement, Mr Clark said of his dealings with Reigate police station: "At the police station, I took the gun out of the bag and placed it on the table so it was pointing towards the wall.”
At which point Mr Paul Clarke was arrested, charged with the possession of a firearm and marched off to the cells by an officer Garnett.
Up pops prosecuting brief, Brian Stalk, to tell the jury that possession of a firearm is a “strict liability” charge. Mr Clarke is guilty. End of. No debate. Send the man down. Ruin his life. Go on.
Mr Lionel Blackman then tells one and all:
“This is a very small case with a very big principle."
Better to commit a crime with the gun and take your chances. Mr Clarke faces a minimum of five year’s imprisonment for handing in the weapon.
Paul Clarke will be sentenced on December 11. And the law is always right.
Judge Christopher Critchlow sums up:
“This is an unusual case, but in law there is no dispute that Mr Clarke has no defence to this charge. The intention of anybody possessing a firearm is irrelevant.”
"No defense". Interesting choice of words by the judge in a nation once seen as the model for rights, liberty, and a fair and free civil trial. It's the principle that must be enforced, regardless of the intention. Even if, in a case like this, the gun was clearly not owned by the defendent, and he only possessed it long enough to hand it over to law enforcement.
And did we mention Mr. Clarke is a former British soldier?
And the British establishment wonders why fascist groups are now polling at 20% or better for the upcoming elections. When you poison the population with rules that are no longer meant to protect, but to trip up and punish, the people will always fight back with whatever they have. In Britain, they still have elections, but the Left and the Right are virtually indistinguishable, and no lost freedoms will be restored by either party. So in waltzes the BNP, a whites-only, anti-immigrant, anti-Semitic party with a taste for fascism. Ugly, but with a slogan that shouts "Standing up for Great Britain", a nation that has seen its freedoms and security dismantled hears only the hope that their personal sovereignty will be returned.
Not unlike how a beaten-down and poverty-stricken Germany turned to a quirky little Austrian and his "National Socialist" party to get them out of the fix they were in....
Does extreme liberalism always beget fascism? That's unknown, as modern-day Europe is our only example of the extreme liberalism that Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi want to impose on the United States. Will we swing back to an hard-right BNP-type excess, as we are seeing done by the suffering citizens of Great Britain?
Ironically, only a Republican party that offers a clear conservative choice may be able to save us; the "me-too!" party that the media wants to see would put voters in the same position that the British are in right now...
In the meantime...we are all (potentially) Paul Clarke now!
In his original statement, Mr Clark said of his dealings with Reigate police station: "At the police station, I took the gun out of the bag and placed it on the table so it was pointing towards the wall.”
At which point Mr Paul Clarke was arrested, charged with the possession of a firearm and marched off to the cells by an officer Garnett.
Up pops prosecuting brief, Brian Stalk, to tell the jury that possession of a firearm is a “strict liability” charge. Mr Clarke is guilty. End of. No debate. Send the man down. Ruin his life. Go on.
Mr Lionel Blackman then tells one and all:
“This is a very small case with a very big principle."
Better to commit a crime with the gun and take your chances. Mr Clarke faces a minimum of five year’s imprisonment for handing in the weapon.
Paul Clarke will be sentenced on December 11. And the law is always right.
Judge Christopher Critchlow sums up:
“This is an unusual case, but in law there is no dispute that Mr Clarke has no defence to this charge. The intention of anybody possessing a firearm is irrelevant.”
"No defense". Interesting choice of words by the judge in a nation once seen as the model for rights, liberty, and a fair and free civil trial. It's the principle that must be enforced, regardless of the intention. Even if, in a case like this, the gun was clearly not owned by the defendent, and he only possessed it long enough to hand it over to law enforcement.
And did we mention Mr. Clarke is a former British soldier?
And the British establishment wonders why fascist groups are now polling at 20% or better for the upcoming elections. When you poison the population with rules that are no longer meant to protect, but to trip up and punish, the people will always fight back with whatever they have. In Britain, they still have elections, but the Left and the Right are virtually indistinguishable, and no lost freedoms will be restored by either party. So in waltzes the BNP, a whites-only, anti-immigrant, anti-Semitic party with a taste for fascism. Ugly, but with a slogan that shouts "Standing up for Great Britain", a nation that has seen its freedoms and security dismantled hears only the hope that their personal sovereignty will be returned.
Not unlike how a beaten-down and poverty-stricken Germany turned to a quirky little Austrian and his "National Socialist" party to get them out of the fix they were in....
Does extreme liberalism always beget fascism? That's unknown, as modern-day Europe is our only example of the extreme liberalism that Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi want to impose on the United States. Will we swing back to an hard-right BNP-type excess, as we are seeing done by the suffering citizens of Great Britain?
Ironically, only a Republican party that offers a clear conservative choice may be able to save us; the "me-too!" party that the media wants to see would put voters in the same position that the British are in right now...
In the meantime...we are all (potentially) Paul Clarke now!
President Obama: Our Very Own General McClellan !
According to the New York Post:
When the tall, skinny guy from Illinois was elected president a year ago, many Americans were hoping for another Honest Abe. Ironically, they seem to have gotten George McClellan -- the timorous general Lincoln had to fire for refusing to fight the Civil War.
When it came to combat, McClellan just couldn't make up his mind.
Nor, it seems, can President Obama.
It's been two-plus months and counting since Obama announced he was reconsidering his options for the war in Afghanistan.
Now those options are being rewritten yet again -- which likely will delay the president's announcement of a new Afghan strategy until well into December...
No wonder French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner has wondered aloud why Obama is leaving his ostensible NATO allies -- who may be called on to provide more troops -- completely in the dark.
"Where are the Americans?" he asked. "It begins to be a problem. We need to talk to each other as allies."
Whatever happened to strengthening our overseas alliances, a key foreign-policy campaign plank of the Obama campaign? Well, maybe Obama was talking about our new apparent alliances with Venezuela and Iran...
Jennifer Rubin notes Obama's McClellan-esque inability to move forward from theory to action:
One senses that the president is buffeted by this and that group, seemingly unwilling or unable to just decide. The helpful spinners both on and off the record assure us the president is being more “assertive” and “challenging” the advice.
How’s it working out? “The behind-the-scenes tug-of-war over policy has become increasingly bitter.” Not as bitter as I imagine those in the field and their families may become as the seminars churn, the equivocation continues over the precise numbers to be deployed (38,000 or 36, 500? or maybe just 26,750?), and both our allies and adversaries look on slack-jawed.
It is quite a spectacle...
Indeed. And by rejecting the advice of his generals one minute, and his advisers the next, and continually demanding more and more options, he has made himself into the proverbial fish in a barrel:
...now that Obama has reportedly rejected all of the plans from all of the experts in order to craft something more befitting his Olympian intellect he couldn't possibly own the war more. Now if things go (more) south he can't even say "I relied on the best guidance and advice of my generals."
Hint to President McClellan: Sometimes you reach a fork in the road; and you have to turn either left or right. Sitting behind the wheel of an idling engine interminably will not cause a magical third way - containing the magical path you have been hoping for - to appear. Instead, you will likely overheat the engine, causing the vehicle to break down and angering the passengers to quite a considerable degree. Or, you can just turn around and go home, but then of course you'll need to explain why you wasted so much time with the whole trip to begin with, again angering your passengers to quite a considerable degree.
Choose a path, Mr. President, or you will surely suffer McClellan's fate...
UPDATE: Obama steals my analogy (sorry, "spreads it's wealth"):
Am I the only one who smells Kabuki in the reports that President Obama has dramatically rejected all the Afghan war options with which he was presented, demanding to know where the "off ramps" are?
When the tall, skinny guy from Illinois was elected president a year ago, many Americans were hoping for another Honest Abe. Ironically, they seem to have gotten George McClellan -- the timorous general Lincoln had to fire for refusing to fight the Civil War.
When it came to combat, McClellan just couldn't make up his mind.
Nor, it seems, can President Obama.
It's been two-plus months and counting since Obama announced he was reconsidering his options for the war in Afghanistan.
Now those options are being rewritten yet again -- which likely will delay the president's announcement of a new Afghan strategy until well into December...
No wonder French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner has wondered aloud why Obama is leaving his ostensible NATO allies -- who may be called on to provide more troops -- completely in the dark.
"Where are the Americans?" he asked. "It begins to be a problem. We need to talk to each other as allies."
Whatever happened to strengthening our overseas alliances, a key foreign-policy campaign plank of the Obama campaign? Well, maybe Obama was talking about our new apparent alliances with Venezuela and Iran...
Jennifer Rubin notes Obama's McClellan-esque inability to move forward from theory to action:
One senses that the president is buffeted by this and that group, seemingly unwilling or unable to just decide. The helpful spinners both on and off the record assure us the president is being more “assertive” and “challenging” the advice.
How’s it working out? “The behind-the-scenes tug-of-war over policy has become increasingly bitter.” Not as bitter as I imagine those in the field and their families may become as the seminars churn, the equivocation continues over the precise numbers to be deployed (38,000 or 36, 500? or maybe just 26,750?), and both our allies and adversaries look on slack-jawed.
It is quite a spectacle...
Indeed. And by rejecting the advice of his generals one minute, and his advisers the next, and continually demanding more and more options, he has made himself into the proverbial fish in a barrel:
...now that Obama has reportedly rejected all of the plans from all of the experts in order to craft something more befitting his Olympian intellect he couldn't possibly own the war more. Now if things go (more) south he can't even say "I relied on the best guidance and advice of my generals."
Hint to President McClellan: Sometimes you reach a fork in the road; and you have to turn either left or right. Sitting behind the wheel of an idling engine interminably will not cause a magical third way - containing the magical path you have been hoping for - to appear. Instead, you will likely overheat the engine, causing the vehicle to break down and angering the passengers to quite a considerable degree. Or, you can just turn around and go home, but then of course you'll need to explain why you wasted so much time with the whole trip to begin with, again angering your passengers to quite a considerable degree.
Choose a path, Mr. President, or you will surely suffer McClellan's fate...
UPDATE: Obama steals my analogy (sorry, "spreads it's wealth"):
Am I the only one who smells Kabuki in the reports that President Obama has dramatically rejected all the Afghan war options with which he was presented, demanding to know where the "off ramps" are?
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Was Doug Hoffman Robbed?
Or did he just make a Gore-ian mistake?
Conservative Doug Hoffman conceded the race in the 23rd Congressional District last week after receiving two pieces of grim news for his campaign: He was down 5,335 votes with 93 percent of the vote counted on election night, and he had barely won his stronghold in Oswego County.
As it turns out, neither was true...
Apparently, a number of precincts reported zero total votes for Hoffman, a near impossibility:
There's something strange going on up in New York's 23rd congressional district...
Unless Conservative candidate Doug Hoffman got exactly zero votes in the town of Fenner (Owens got 157, Scozzafava got 248), and at one polling place in the town of Hamilton (Owens got 75, Scozzafava got 79), and at one polling place in the town of Sullivan (Owens got 173, Scozzafava got 251), the initial vote totals look rather hinky. By comparison, the lowest number of votes that Owens got at any polling place was 57; the lowest number the withdrawn candidate Scozzafava got was 2.
It's not impossible that no one in any of those places chose to vote for Hoffman, but it certainly seems unusual for a guy who got 45 percent district-wide.
More from the top link:
In Oswego County, where Hoffman was reported to lead by only 500 votes with 93 percent of the vote counted election night, inspectors found Hoffman actually won by 1,748 votes -- 12,748 to 11,000.
...Now a re-canvassing in the 11-county district shows that Owens’ lead has narrowed to 3,026 votes over Hoffman, 66,698 to 63,672, according to the latest unofficial results from the state Board of Elections.
Just over 10,000 absentee ballots were sent out; no exact figure has been provided on the number that were submitted (and valid), but it has been reported that Jefferson County, home of Fort Drum and the Army's 10th Mountain Division, had over 1300 ballots returned that were as yet uncounted. One can safely assume that the majority of these votes were not for Mr. Owens.
Even if 50% of the absentee ballots were returned, can Hoffman pick up the 3000+ votes required to put him over the top in a three horse race? It's doubtful, but not impossible, that he could pick up 75% of the absentee vote.
And how did the votes get so drastically "miscounted" in the early going? Perhaps the frustrated party regulars manning the polls - both Democrats and Republicans - could not countenance an upstart usurping their long-uncontested dominance in the political sphere. Hey, mistakes happen, you know?
But the sickening possibility that ObamaCare passed the House by a single vote from a fraudulent member of Congress must be investigated to the fullest. The Democrats like to brag about "every vote being counted", so let's see how much effort is put forth into making sure the residents of the 23rd got the representative they voted for....
UPDATE: RS McCain adds:
...the fact that Democrat Bill Owens was sworn in -- and voted for ObamaCare -- before the official result was certified by New York election officials, demonstrates the fundamental lawlessness of Nancy Pelosi's regime in Washington.
And another thought - who will rewrite the "Republican Party is in the midst of a civil war" meme that has become all the rage in the MSM, if Hoffman should win?
Or will they simply pull a "Van Jones", and not report it?
Conservative Doug Hoffman conceded the race in the 23rd Congressional District last week after receiving two pieces of grim news for his campaign: He was down 5,335 votes with 93 percent of the vote counted on election night, and he had barely won his stronghold in Oswego County.
As it turns out, neither was true...
Apparently, a number of precincts reported zero total votes for Hoffman, a near impossibility:
There's something strange going on up in New York's 23rd congressional district...
Unless Conservative candidate Doug Hoffman got exactly zero votes in the town of Fenner (Owens got 157, Scozzafava got 248), and at one polling place in the town of Hamilton (Owens got 75, Scozzafava got 79), and at one polling place in the town of Sullivan (Owens got 173, Scozzafava got 251), the initial vote totals look rather hinky. By comparison, the lowest number of votes that Owens got at any polling place was 57; the lowest number the withdrawn candidate Scozzafava got was 2.
It's not impossible that no one in any of those places chose to vote for Hoffman, but it certainly seems unusual for a guy who got 45 percent district-wide.
More from the top link:
In Oswego County, where Hoffman was reported to lead by only 500 votes with 93 percent of the vote counted election night, inspectors found Hoffman actually won by 1,748 votes -- 12,748 to 11,000.
...Now a re-canvassing in the 11-county district shows that Owens’ lead has narrowed to 3,026 votes over Hoffman, 66,698 to 63,672, according to the latest unofficial results from the state Board of Elections.
Just over 10,000 absentee ballots were sent out; no exact figure has been provided on the number that were submitted (and valid), but it has been reported that Jefferson County, home of Fort Drum and the Army's 10th Mountain Division, had over 1300 ballots returned that were as yet uncounted. One can safely assume that the majority of these votes were not for Mr. Owens.
Even if 50% of the absentee ballots were returned, can Hoffman pick up the 3000+ votes required to put him over the top in a three horse race? It's doubtful, but not impossible, that he could pick up 75% of the absentee vote.
And how did the votes get so drastically "miscounted" in the early going? Perhaps the frustrated party regulars manning the polls - both Democrats and Republicans - could not countenance an upstart usurping their long-uncontested dominance in the political sphere. Hey, mistakes happen, you know?
But the sickening possibility that ObamaCare passed the House by a single vote from a fraudulent member of Congress must be investigated to the fullest. The Democrats like to brag about "every vote being counted", so let's see how much effort is put forth into making sure the residents of the 23rd got the representative they voted for....
UPDATE: RS McCain adds:
...the fact that Democrat Bill Owens was sworn in -- and voted for ObamaCare -- before the official result was certified by New York election officials, demonstrates the fundamental lawlessness of Nancy Pelosi's regime in Washington.
And another thought - who will rewrite the "Republican Party is in the midst of a civil war" meme that has become all the rage in the MSM, if Hoffman should win?
Or will they simply pull a "Van Jones", and not report it?
Mayor Mike Appeases Terror
Gee, you would think, someone tries to blow up your city, maybe you would think twice before breaking bread with him...
Or, does Mike Bloomberg have Barack Obama Syndrome? As is, the history of the world started the day I ascended to power?
A controversial imam who was an "unindicted co-conspirator" in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing was among a group of Muslim leaders invited yesterday to a meeting with Mayor Bloomberg at City Hall.
Siraj Wahhaj has defended the convicted WTC bomb plotters, called the FBI and CIA the "real terrorists," and said he hopes all Americans eventually become Muslim.
He was among religious and civic leaders who met with Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly to discuss the deadly Fort Hood shooting spree.
Wahhaj was one of 170 people identified in 1995 as unindicted co-conspirators in the attack two years earlier. He has denied any involvement.
As he was leaving, a Channel 2 reporter asked the mayor if he was uncomfortable about Wahhaj's presence.
"I don't know. He's not here," the mayor responded. When told that Wahhaj was in fact in the meeting, Bloomberg reversed course.
"That one. Yes. We have to talk to everybody," he said. "That's what dialogue is all about. That's how you prevent tragedies."
Really? Did having Major Nidal Hasan as part of the Obama Adminsitration's transition team prevent him from going jihad and slaughtering over a dozen soldiers at Ft. Hood?
No? So why would Mayor Bloomberg take the same exact course with a man who was already involved in a heniuos terror attack, one that set afire the imagination of Islamists worldwide and set the groundwork for 9/11?
I don't get it. But I guess the Obami and the Bloombergians would tell me I'm just not smart enought to understand the intricacies of their machinations; and that this is a matter for the intellectual elite to handle, and not for folks like me to consider...
Or, does Mike Bloomberg have Barack Obama Syndrome? As is, the history of the world started the day I ascended to power?
A controversial imam who was an "unindicted co-conspirator" in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing was among a group of Muslim leaders invited yesterday to a meeting with Mayor Bloomberg at City Hall.
Siraj Wahhaj has defended the convicted WTC bomb plotters, called the FBI and CIA the "real terrorists," and said he hopes all Americans eventually become Muslim.
He was among religious and civic leaders who met with Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly to discuss the deadly Fort Hood shooting spree.
Wahhaj was one of 170 people identified in 1995 as unindicted co-conspirators in the attack two years earlier. He has denied any involvement.
As he was leaving, a Channel 2 reporter asked the mayor if he was uncomfortable about Wahhaj's presence.
"I don't know. He's not here," the mayor responded. When told that Wahhaj was in fact in the meeting, Bloomberg reversed course.
"That one. Yes. We have to talk to everybody," he said. "That's what dialogue is all about. That's how you prevent tragedies."
Really? Did having Major Nidal Hasan as part of the Obama Adminsitration's transition team prevent him from going jihad and slaughtering over a dozen soldiers at Ft. Hood?
No? So why would Mayor Bloomberg take the same exact course with a man who was already involved in a heniuos terror attack, one that set afire the imagination of Islamists worldwide and set the groundwork for 9/11?
I don't get it. But I guess the Obami and the Bloombergians would tell me I'm just not smart enought to understand the intricacies of their machinations; and that this is a matter for the intellectual elite to handle, and not for folks like me to consider...
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Another Civil War That Isn't, or: Upstate New York is Not Baghdad !
Was it NBC News, that, the bad days of the Iraqi war, decided to use the phrase "civil war" to describe the fighting between the jihadis and the still-birthing Republic of Iraq? Whoever coined the phrase, it was picked up by the entire mainstream media, and by Democrats in Congress who were doing everything they could to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
George W. Bush ignored the noise, and won the war. Turned out there was no civil war after all, just some foreign-armed death-loving animals that slaughtered women and children to sow terror and fear in the hopes they could force America out of Iraq and slip inside the power vacuum, and thus create another Taliban-style Islamic state.
And it would have happened, if we had listened to Barack Obama, NBC, and the New York Times...
And speaking of the Old Grey Whore - she's brought back the "civil war" meme again to discredit an undertaking she doesn't approve of - in this case, the resurgence of the Republican Party
Republicans emerged from Tuesday’s elections energized by victories in Virginia and New Jersey, but their leaders immediately began maneuvering to avoid a prolonged battle with conservative activists over what the party stands for and how to regain power.
Yet throughout the day Wednesday, Republicans grappled with the disappointing outcome of a special election for what had been a reliably Republican House seat in upstate New York. That contest became a battleground between the party establishment and a conservative insurgency demanding more ideological purity from candidates.
Just look at those buzzwords: "battleground", "insurgency", "ideological purity", "prolonged battle"! Are we in Upstate New York, or in Baghdad?
Best mocking of this wishful thinking can be found here:
Just keep one thing in mind when you read these stories from the biased liberal media:
The same people who said Iraq was in the middle of a civil war last year are saying the Republican Party is in the middle of a civil war this year. In Las Vegas, this is what’s known as doubling down when you’re holding six...
George W. Bush ignored the noise, and won the war. Turned out there was no civil war after all, just some foreign-armed death-loving animals that slaughtered women and children to sow terror and fear in the hopes they could force America out of Iraq and slip inside the power vacuum, and thus create another Taliban-style Islamic state.
And it would have happened, if we had listened to Barack Obama, NBC, and the New York Times...
And speaking of the Old Grey Whore - she's brought back the "civil war" meme again to discredit an undertaking she doesn't approve of - in this case, the resurgence of the Republican Party
Republicans emerged from Tuesday’s elections energized by victories in Virginia and New Jersey, but their leaders immediately began maneuvering to avoid a prolonged battle with conservative activists over what the party stands for and how to regain power.
Yet throughout the day Wednesday, Republicans grappled with the disappointing outcome of a special election for what had been a reliably Republican House seat in upstate New York. That contest became a battleground between the party establishment and a conservative insurgency demanding more ideological purity from candidates.
Just look at those buzzwords: "battleground", "insurgency", "ideological purity", "prolonged battle"! Are we in Upstate New York, or in Baghdad?
Best mocking of this wishful thinking can be found here:
Just keep one thing in mind when you read these stories from the biased liberal media:
The same people who said Iraq was in the middle of a civil war last year are saying the Republican Party is in the middle of a civil war this year. In Las Vegas, this is what’s known as doubling down when you’re holding six...
Senator Menendez (D-La Raza) Will Vote For ObamaCare!
Despite what his own online polls are telling him:
Do you support health insurance reform?
Yes 12.77%
No 85.55%
Not sure 1.68%
Can you help me embarrass my Senator? Click here and vote....
More on my "D-La Raza" reference here.
Do you support health insurance reform?
Yes 12.77%
No 85.55%
Not sure 1.68%
Can you help me embarrass my Senator? Click here and vote....
More on my "D-La Raza" reference here.
And this is even better, as Sen. Menendez just held a recent book signing at...the National Council of La Raza...
Democrats Redefine "Victory"
Bill Clinton yesterday, giving a pep talk to Senate Dems on the health care debate:
He said the opposition is so loud because Democrats are so close to victory....
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., said Clinton attempted to settle Democrats' fears about the boisterous opponents of health care legislation who made themselves known at town hall meetings in August and at a large weekday rally attended by 5,000 or so demonstrators and Republican Congress members at the Capitol last week.
"The reason the teabaggers are so inflamed is because we are close on health care," said Whitehouse, paraphrasing Clinton's argument.
Well, I don't want to ask Sheldon what he knows about inflamed teabags (that's a question Mr. Clinton would be more qualified to answer). By redefining victory as simply a measure of how many people are enraged with you, well, I guess in their own world the Democrats can lock arms and sing "We are the Champions" once they socialize medicine. But the rest of the nation - including the dreaded "teabaggers" -has a different idea of what composes victory for them, and they are out to achieve it as well.
Let's see what the Democrat's "victory" has achieved to date:
- The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 43% would vote for their district’s Republican congressional candidate while 37% would opt for his or her Democratic opponent. Republicans have held the lead for over four months now.
Voters not affiliated with either party continue to heavily favor Republicans, 43% to 20%.
Gallup reports virtually identical findings...
-the complete massacre of Virginia liberals, spurred on by Barack Obama and health care. Still believe all politics are local? When asked if their vote for McDonnell was a "check against the Dems/Obama", voters opted for the check and balance by a 55%-35% margin. Independents (who voted for Obama by one point in 2008 in Virginia) opted for a check and balance by an overwhelming 58%-25% margin. And on Obama’s endorsement of Creigh Deeds: “24% said they were more likely to vote for Deeds, while 32% were less likely.”
-via Campaign Spot: Next time someone tells you the Tea Partiers are an irrelevant fringe, remind them that the Tucscon branch of the Tea Partiers just mobilized to defeat a Democratic member of the city council, the first time in anyone's memory that an incumbent Democrat has been defeated; registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans 2-to-1
-and let's not forget Corzine's loss in New Jersey, where Obama stumped heavily for the incumbent, Democrats have a 600,000+ voter registration edge, and the challenger was outspent 3-1.
-and on a smaller but still significant note, the long-time Democratic leader of the Clinton's newest home town -the affluent and deep blue Westchester, New York -was tossed out on his ass as well: Spano lost to Astorino 58 percent to 42 percent, based on unofficial results from the Westchester County Board of Elections. This despite a 2-to-1 voter registration advantage for Democrats in Westchester County.
But Astorino tapped heavily into voter outrage over high taxes and a faltering economy...
"Voter outrage"? Why, that means the Democrats won! Just ask Spano! And Corzine, and Deeds...
Democratic victories like this, I can take all day long...
He said the opposition is so loud because Democrats are so close to victory....
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., said Clinton attempted to settle Democrats' fears about the boisterous opponents of health care legislation who made themselves known at town hall meetings in August and at a large weekday rally attended by 5,000 or so demonstrators and Republican Congress members at the Capitol last week.
"The reason the teabaggers are so inflamed is because we are close on health care," said Whitehouse, paraphrasing Clinton's argument.
Well, I don't want to ask Sheldon what he knows about inflamed teabags (that's a question Mr. Clinton would be more qualified to answer). By redefining victory as simply a measure of how many people are enraged with you, well, I guess in their own world the Democrats can lock arms and sing "We are the Champions" once they socialize medicine. But the rest of the nation - including the dreaded "teabaggers" -has a different idea of what composes victory for them, and they are out to achieve it as well.
Let's see what the Democrat's "victory" has achieved to date:
- The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 43% would vote for their district’s Republican congressional candidate while 37% would opt for his or her Democratic opponent. Republicans have held the lead for over four months now.
Voters not affiliated with either party continue to heavily favor Republicans, 43% to 20%.
Gallup reports virtually identical findings...
-the complete massacre of Virginia liberals, spurred on by Barack Obama and health care. Still believe all politics are local? When asked if their vote for McDonnell was a "check against the Dems/Obama", voters opted for the check and balance by a 55%-35% margin. Independents (who voted for Obama by one point in 2008 in Virginia) opted for a check and balance by an overwhelming 58%-25% margin. And on Obama’s endorsement of Creigh Deeds: “24% said they were more likely to vote for Deeds, while 32% were less likely.”
-via Campaign Spot: Next time someone tells you the Tea Partiers are an irrelevant fringe, remind them that the Tucscon branch of the Tea Partiers just mobilized to defeat a Democratic member of the city council, the first time in anyone's memory that an incumbent Democrat has been defeated; registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans 2-to-1
-and let's not forget Corzine's loss in New Jersey, where Obama stumped heavily for the incumbent, Democrats have a 600,000+ voter registration edge, and the challenger was outspent 3-1.
-and on a smaller but still significant note, the long-time Democratic leader of the Clinton's newest home town -the affluent and deep blue Westchester, New York -was tossed out on his ass as well: Spano lost to Astorino 58 percent to 42 percent, based on unofficial results from the Westchester County Board of Elections. This despite a 2-to-1 voter registration advantage for Democrats in Westchester County.
But Astorino tapped heavily into voter outrage over high taxes and a faltering economy...
"Voter outrage"? Why, that means the Democrats won! Just ask Spano! And Corzine, and Deeds...
Democratic victories like this, I can take all day long...
"Who Is...Howard Roark?"
This news story reminded me a bit of the penultimate courtroom scene in Ayn Rand's The Foutainhead, when a defiant Howard Roark explains to the jury the true meaning of intellectual property, and a sure conviction becomes an instant aquittal.
Yesterday, U.S. prosecutors failed in their first high-profile attempt to convict Wall Street characters of purported crimes related to the financial meltdown.
The feds' case against two former Bear Stearns hedge funds ended in acquittal, because the jury saw the obvious. The two defendants, Ralph Cioffi and Matthew Tannin, didn't commit willful crimes in maintaining an optimistic public face as they struggled with huge and sudden losses. Instead, they, like many others, were powerless and panicked in the face of a historic financial meltdown...
Although the cases themselves are dissimilar, Rand's fictional verdict and yesterday's are both related in that in two "politically motivated" prosecutions, a clear-headed jury saw through what smarter folks assumed they would fall for: rhetoric and sob stories as a substitute for moral authority.
What do we learn from this? That the people aren't as dumb as the media and the government try to play them for. And that, my friends, is a very good sign for the immediate future of our nation...
Yesterday, U.S. prosecutors failed in their first high-profile attempt to convict Wall Street characters of purported crimes related to the financial meltdown.
The feds' case against two former Bear Stearns hedge funds ended in acquittal, because the jury saw the obvious. The two defendants, Ralph Cioffi and Matthew Tannin, didn't commit willful crimes in maintaining an optimistic public face as they struggled with huge and sudden losses. Instead, they, like many others, were powerless and panicked in the face of a historic financial meltdown...
Although the cases themselves are dissimilar, Rand's fictional verdict and yesterday's are both related in that in two "politically motivated" prosecutions, a clear-headed jury saw through what smarter folks assumed they would fall for: rhetoric and sob stories as a substitute for moral authority.
What do we learn from this? That the people aren't as dumb as the media and the government try to play them for. And that, my friends, is a very good sign for the immediate future of our nation...
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Jerry Brown and ACORN: Perverting Justice In The Name of Power
Go to Big Government to hear the audio clips; but I recommend a strong drink first - just listening to what is being planned on the Left Coast made me jump out of my seat and pace the floor for the last ten minutes...
Short version: ACORN spokesman David Lagstein, while appearing as a special guest of the East County Democrat Club in El Cajon, commented to the fact that California Attorney General Jerry Brown's investigation of ACORN is a sham with a predetermined outcome:
Lagstein notes that the Attorney General is a “political animal.” He states that he has been in communication with Brown’s office and assures the crowd that “the fault WILL be found with the people that did the video — not ACORN.”
Brown has every intention of running for Governor in 2010; and no doubt he's looking forward to having that ACORN muscle (literally) help make that happen. But to run a sham investigation with the intent of prosecuting two kids who exposed a criminal enterprise? And for what? So that this criminal enterprise will help support your personal rise to power?
It's a game played since the days of the Romans; but still a bit unsettling to see taking place in the United States of America. Sonya Sotomayor rips the blindfold off of Justice; Jerry Brown slips a few benjamins into her palm. What was once grandly objective is now sadly subjective: The Law is now whatever is best for The Party at any particular moment.
So this is what they meant by liberal fascism....
Short version: ACORN spokesman David Lagstein, while appearing as a special guest of the East County Democrat Club in El Cajon, commented to the fact that California Attorney General Jerry Brown's investigation of ACORN is a sham with a predetermined outcome:
Lagstein notes that the Attorney General is a “political animal.” He states that he has been in communication with Brown’s office and assures the crowd that “the fault WILL be found with the people that did the video — not ACORN.”
Brown has every intention of running for Governor in 2010; and no doubt he's looking forward to having that ACORN muscle (literally) help make that happen. But to run a sham investigation with the intent of prosecuting two kids who exposed a criminal enterprise? And for what? So that this criminal enterprise will help support your personal rise to power?
It's a game played since the days of the Romans; but still a bit unsettling to see taking place in the United States of America. Sonya Sotomayor rips the blindfold off of Justice; Jerry Brown slips a few benjamins into her palm. What was once grandly objective is now sadly subjective: The Law is now whatever is best for The Party at any particular moment.
So this is what they meant by liberal fascism....
The Blind, Leading The Naked...
...well, what else can you call it when the president of the United States, in response to a jihadi assault on an American military base, parrots the media's feckless excuses for the slaughter:
Well, look, we — we have seen, in the past, rampages of this sort. And in a country of 300 million people, there are going to be acts of violence that are inexplicable. Even within the extraordinary military that we have — and I think everybody understands how outstanding the young men and women in uniform are under the most severe stress — there are going to be instances in which an individual cracks. I think the questions that we’re asking now and we don’t have yet complete answers to is, is this an individual who’s acting in this way or is it some larger set of actors? You know, what are the motivations? Those are all questions that I think we have to ask ourselves. Until we have these answers buttoned down, I’d rather not comment on it.
Now, if it were something as simple as, say, a white police officer arresting a black man, Baracky would have been all over it. But a Muslim gunman, who had made incendiary remarks about America and "non-believers", who has associated with the same radicals as the 9/11 jackals, and who opened fire on American soldiers while screaming "Alluha Akar" ? No comment from our Jedi Master-in-Chief...because first, we must divine the true "motivations" here...
No wonder the media has such a hard-on for Barack Obama. Both fancy themselves as intellectual elite well above the common rabble, and they prove it by trying to make the painfully obvious into something much more complex and meaningful than it really is. After all, to admit the obvious would take neither intellect or elitism, right? So they construct a tapestry of deceit, falsehoods, and bizarre suppositions, unsupported by truth or reality (where's the last psychiatrist that went on a killing spree, anyway?), which they then use to combat "common sense" and thus prove their own intellectual superiority. The hard part is trying to put it over on the American people as a whole. Liberals are easy marks, but that remaining pesky 70%...
Well, either Obama has swallowed this load whole or finds it a useful narrative for his see-no-evil worldview (unless they're Jews). The rest of America is not falling for this line of bullsh*t so fast, despite (or because of) the president's endorsement of this insane line of reasoning.
But the media has noticed that Obama has taken their cue, and they're going to reward him for it. The Associated Press has a story out, full of breathless anticipation, on how this tragedy can help the Obama presidency. The AP's calculation is clear: Dead soldiers = political points for Obama as the nation swoons over more flightly, empty rhetoric. Political points = health care reform and cap & trade, two bills favored by the media as a whole.
It's quite a dance that these two are having. Maybe someone ought to tell them that the music's long since stopped, and the onlookers are whispering nervously to themselves as they watch, wondering if these two lovers are just a bit off-kilter, or dangerously insane....
Well, look, we — we have seen, in the past, rampages of this sort. And in a country of 300 million people, there are going to be acts of violence that are inexplicable. Even within the extraordinary military that we have — and I think everybody understands how outstanding the young men and women in uniform are under the most severe stress — there are going to be instances in which an individual cracks. I think the questions that we’re asking now and we don’t have yet complete answers to is, is this an individual who’s acting in this way or is it some larger set of actors? You know, what are the motivations? Those are all questions that I think we have to ask ourselves. Until we have these answers buttoned down, I’d rather not comment on it.
Now, if it were something as simple as, say, a white police officer arresting a black man, Baracky would have been all over it. But a Muslim gunman, who had made incendiary remarks about America and "non-believers", who has associated with the same radicals as the 9/11 jackals, and who opened fire on American soldiers while screaming "Alluha Akar" ? No comment from our Jedi Master-in-Chief...because first, we must divine the true "motivations" here...
No wonder the media has such a hard-on for Barack Obama. Both fancy themselves as intellectual elite well above the common rabble, and they prove it by trying to make the painfully obvious into something much more complex and meaningful than it really is. After all, to admit the obvious would take neither intellect or elitism, right? So they construct a tapestry of deceit, falsehoods, and bizarre suppositions, unsupported by truth or reality (where's the last psychiatrist that went on a killing spree, anyway?), which they then use to combat "common sense" and thus prove their own intellectual superiority. The hard part is trying to put it over on the American people as a whole. Liberals are easy marks, but that remaining pesky 70%...
Well, either Obama has swallowed this load whole or finds it a useful narrative for his see-no-evil worldview (unless they're Jews). The rest of America is not falling for this line of bullsh*t so fast, despite (or because of) the president's endorsement of this insane line of reasoning.
But the media has noticed that Obama has taken their cue, and they're going to reward him for it. The Associated Press has a story out, full of breathless anticipation, on how this tragedy can help the Obama presidency. The AP's calculation is clear: Dead soldiers = political points for Obama as the nation swoons over more flightly, empty rhetoric. Political points = health care reform and cap & trade, two bills favored by the media as a whole.
It's quite a dance that these two are having. Maybe someone ought to tell them that the music's long since stopped, and the onlookers are whispering nervously to themselves as they watch, wondering if these two lovers are just a bit off-kilter, or dangerously insane....
"Dude, Who Stole My Transition Funds?"
That's gotta be the question that Governor-elect Chris Christie is asking himself today - or, as is the case, he is asking the public:
Gov.-elect Chris Christie stopped by the Jim Gearhart show on 101.5 FM radio and dropped a bomb: There are no transition funds. He told the morning radio legend: “Interestingly, the state didn’t fund the transition. They didn’t put any money in the budget for a transition so we need to talk about making sure that we get that squared away.”
Four years ago there was $250,000 for the Codey transition out of the governor’s office. And $250,000 for Corzine to transition in. Incidentally, a lot less was spent than was budgeted. So, what happened here?
"What happened here?" is a famous question in New Jersey, usually asked when unidentified bodies surface in fetid swamps, when bribed officials are feigning ignorance, or after discovering that a whole lot of taxpayer money has suddenly vanished.
So - what happened here? Was Corzine so confident in victory that he did not budget transition funds? Did he move that money into a different, glaring hole in the budget, with the intent of moving it back to himself after his re-election? Or was this a last-minute switcheroo? With late-breakers leaning Christie pre-election, did Corzine maliciously move money out of the transition fund and into someone else's pocket?
Like many of the lifeless bodies that wash up upon on these shores, we may never know the true story. I'm sure Chris Christie will manage the transition just fine, even if some private contributors or the RNC need to help finance the changeover.
Let's just hope that under the new Christie administration, such crass budget gimmickry will be a thing of the past....
Gov.-elect Chris Christie stopped by the Jim Gearhart show on 101.5 FM radio and dropped a bomb: There are no transition funds. He told the morning radio legend: “Interestingly, the state didn’t fund the transition. They didn’t put any money in the budget for a transition so we need to talk about making sure that we get that squared away.”
Four years ago there was $250,000 for the Codey transition out of the governor’s office. And $250,000 for Corzine to transition in. Incidentally, a lot less was spent than was budgeted. So, what happened here?
"What happened here?" is a famous question in New Jersey, usually asked when unidentified bodies surface in fetid swamps, when bribed officials are feigning ignorance, or after discovering that a whole lot of taxpayer money has suddenly vanished.
So - what happened here? Was Corzine so confident in victory that he did not budget transition funds? Did he move that money into a different, glaring hole in the budget, with the intent of moving it back to himself after his re-election? Or was this a last-minute switcheroo? With late-breakers leaning Christie pre-election, did Corzine maliciously move money out of the transition fund and into someone else's pocket?
Like many of the lifeless bodies that wash up upon on these shores, we may never know the true story. I'm sure Chris Christie will manage the transition just fine, even if some private contributors or the RNC need to help finance the changeover.
Let's just hope that under the new Christie administration, such crass budget gimmickry will be a thing of the past....
Monday, November 09, 2009
A Nation, Hijacked
So it turns out that perhaps that smooth-talking, cool, hip centrist Barack Obama really was the hardcore extremist that those nutters on the Right made him out to be. Together with his sidekick, the manically grinning Nancy Pelosi, they have hijacked the ship of state and are sailing us into dangerous seas - perhaps that of the European welfare state, but perhaps somewhere even further off to the left.
And the 270 million passengers, most of whom are screaming to get out? No chance, as the captain and crew are locked up on the bridge, sailing the ship where they wish it to go, willingly deaf to the pleas and suffering of those on the decks below. Their pain is not reason enough to give pause to the crew in their quest to take this ship somewhere entirely different than where the passengers had believed they were going...
It's not as if they care about unemployment:
...the administration is spinning dismal economic reports into positive news, allowing both it and Congress to ignore the economy while they pursue their ideological ends.....while the economy tops every list of public concerns, job creation is not the hot topic in Washington.
In fact, Democratic leaders, obsessed with reworking America, have proved more than willing to sacrifice precious jobs during the worst economic climate in a half-century.
Democrats are revealing that putting the country back to work is a lesser priority than passing their social agenda.
It's not as if they really care about the medical treatment being received by the nation's citizens; what they really care about is obtaining ownership over the health care system that distributes the treatment, and if it means enslaving a whole social class and generation to the government, well - that's a perk, not a bug:
The bill is instead a breathtaking display of illiberal ambition, intended to make the middle class more dependent on government through the umbilical cord of "universal health care." It creates a vast new entitlement, financed by European levels of taxation on business and individuals. The 20% corner of Medicare open to private competition is slashed, while fiscally strapped states are saddled with new Medicaid burdens....
And it looks as if our captain has a new idea of whom our "friends" are, what values we should hold dear, and which nations we should associate with....most of our passengers would have loved to show up at today's 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Especially since we sacrificed more blood and treasure than anyone else to make sure it fell, and to guarantee the spread of freedom across a continent that had previously had so little.
But the ship of state has veered away, as the passenger's values are not shared by the president. No, he is aligning us up with new compadres, and we'd better learn to like them:
President Obama chose not to go to Berlin for a reason. Once again, he is signaling that his administration is in the process of turning its back on our erstwhile allies in Europe. He has thus far persistently made it his practice to embrace our enemies and to stiff our friends. We should not for a moment underestimate the significance of this. It means that he believes our policy in the Cold War wrong-headed, and it means that he intends to line us up now with the likes of Hugo Chavez, Vladimir Putin, Fidel Castro, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
What have we learned about America's new captain and Congress? Same link:
In foreign affairs, however, presidents have a relatively free hand, and this president has ample time to do damage to a country that, there is reason to suspect, he deeply hates.
A captain (and crew) who hate their passengers will do little or nothing to provide for their health, financial well-being, or their safety. Filled with loathing and contempt for those who voted him their leader, the captain is now free to indulge in his ideological crapulence, smirking at the fear and wailing of those now-unwilling fellow travellers stuck on deck.
This is a very, very dangerous time for the passengers on the good ship America. Our captain has revealed himself as something quite different than how he was portrayed (both by himself and admiring sycophants ), and along with a loyal and quite suicidal crew, is fulfilling his long-held fantasy of piloting the ship onto the shoals; determined that it will either survive his way, or perish with all hands aboard...
And the 270 million passengers, most of whom are screaming to get out? No chance, as the captain and crew are locked up on the bridge, sailing the ship where they wish it to go, willingly deaf to the pleas and suffering of those on the decks below. Their pain is not reason enough to give pause to the crew in their quest to take this ship somewhere entirely different than where the passengers had believed they were going...
It's not as if they care about unemployment:
...the administration is spinning dismal economic reports into positive news, allowing both it and Congress to ignore the economy while they pursue their ideological ends.....while the economy tops every list of public concerns, job creation is not the hot topic in Washington.
In fact, Democratic leaders, obsessed with reworking America, have proved more than willing to sacrifice precious jobs during the worst economic climate in a half-century.
Democrats are revealing that putting the country back to work is a lesser priority than passing their social agenda.
It's not as if they really care about the medical treatment being received by the nation's citizens; what they really care about is obtaining ownership over the health care system that distributes the treatment, and if it means enslaving a whole social class and generation to the government, well - that's a perk, not a bug:
The bill is instead a breathtaking display of illiberal ambition, intended to make the middle class more dependent on government through the umbilical cord of "universal health care." It creates a vast new entitlement, financed by European levels of taxation on business and individuals. The 20% corner of Medicare open to private competition is slashed, while fiscally strapped states are saddled with new Medicaid burdens....
And it looks as if our captain has a new idea of whom our "friends" are, what values we should hold dear, and which nations we should associate with....most of our passengers would have loved to show up at today's 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Especially since we sacrificed more blood and treasure than anyone else to make sure it fell, and to guarantee the spread of freedom across a continent that had previously had so little.
But the ship of state has veered away, as the passenger's values are not shared by the president. No, he is aligning us up with new compadres, and we'd better learn to like them:
President Obama chose not to go to Berlin for a reason. Once again, he is signaling that his administration is in the process of turning its back on our erstwhile allies in Europe. He has thus far persistently made it his practice to embrace our enemies and to stiff our friends. We should not for a moment underestimate the significance of this. It means that he believes our policy in the Cold War wrong-headed, and it means that he intends to line us up now with the likes of Hugo Chavez, Vladimir Putin, Fidel Castro, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
What have we learned about America's new captain and Congress? Same link:
In foreign affairs, however, presidents have a relatively free hand, and this president has ample time to do damage to a country that, there is reason to suspect, he deeply hates.
A captain (and crew) who hate their passengers will do little or nothing to provide for their health, financial well-being, or their safety. Filled with loathing and contempt for those who voted him their leader, the captain is now free to indulge in his ideological crapulence, smirking at the fear and wailing of those now-unwilling fellow travellers stuck on deck.
This is a very, very dangerous time for the passengers on the good ship America. Our captain has revealed himself as something quite different than how he was portrayed (both by himself and admiring sycophants ), and along with a loyal and quite suicidal crew, is fulfilling his long-held fantasy of piloting the ship onto the shoals; determined that it will either survive his way, or perish with all hands aboard...
Why "Major Muslim" - I mean, Nidal Hasan - did it...
And it has nothing at all to do with the fact that he's a Muslim, or that he was involved with al-Qaeda, or that he attended the same Islamic Center as two of the 9/11 hijackers, or that he handed out Korans and said "I'm going to do good work for God" before screaming "Allah Akbar!" and gunning down over a dozen unarmed American soldiers (as per the heartbreaking Washington Post story, "The Lonely Life of Number Nine").
No, you see, all of the above are dangerous distractions for the real reasons that poor Mr. Hasan went all jihad on his comrades at Ft. Drum. Anorak has done us a service and rounded up the media's top ten excuses for Nidal Hasan's slaughter of 13 American soldiers and wounding of over 30 others:
1) Compassion Fatigue
Dr. Robin Kerner, an attending psychologist who specializes in disaster anxiety at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital in New York City, said it’s not uncommon for individuals who work with traumatized patients to suffer the effects of “compassion fatigue.”
“This guy was counseling people coming back from war and there is something called secondary traumatization, where the therapist gets traumatized from hearing all the terrible things that have happened to the people they counsel.”
2) He Had Been Beheaded
Sky News presenter: “There is word coming through that this man lost his head, literally”
3) Combat Stress Disorder
Thursday’s deadly rampage raises a red flag over the issue of combat stress.
(Major Nidal Malik Hasan never saw active service.)
4) Pre Traumatic Stress Disorder
The case of Nidal Malik Hasan, the Army psychiatrist who is the primary suspect in the Fort Hood shooting spree Thursday that killed 13 people, is pointing up the enormous need to help soldiers overwhelmed by the stress – or even the prospect – of serving in wartime.
5) Stress-Avoidance Stress Disorder
Unusually for a soldier, Hasan appeared to have little taste for violence, at least up until yesterday. His cousin, Nader Hasan, said: “He was someone who did not enjoy going to the firing range.” That may have been a consequence of the stories he had heard in the hospital wards from the returning soldiers.
6) Vicarious Stress Disorder
Those who counsel trauma victims — whether they be psychiatrists, social workers or advocates — can experience an emotional toll after intensive exposure to patients’ stories of horror. Experts call this phenomenon “vicarious trauma.”
The impact of trauma on those who help the traumatized has become a subject of discussion as investigators try to piece together why Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, 39, an Army psychiatrist at Darnall Army Medical Center, allegedly opened fire at a military processing center Thursday at Fort Hood Army Post in Texas, killing 13 people and wounding 30 others.
A second opinion:
His aunt, Noel Hasan, said her nephew had been upset by the injuries he saw at Walter Reed. “He must have snapped,” she added.
(so he created more injuries???)
7) He Came Unstuck
An apartment complex manager says the man accused of opening fire at Fort Hood, Texas recently had a religious bumper sticker torn off his car.
(“My other car’s loaded a taxi loaded with Semtex.”)
8) The Time-Bomb Bomber
Yesterday, the time-bomb exploded when Hasan killed 12 soldiers and shot 31 others in the bloodiest massacre on a US military base.
9) The Non-Suicidal Suicide
Suicides are also on the rise. Army suicides are up 37% since 2006, and the military rate is higher than the civilian rate. Since the 2003 Iraq invasion, 75 Fort Hood soldiers have killed themselves, nine this year. That prompted the base to take steps to reduce stress on soldiers, including cutting work hours and ordering them to be home in time for dinner.
(He did it to get home early and beat the traffic.)
10) Women Drove Him To It
His cousin Nader Hasan says: “He wanted a wife more religious than him,” Faizul Khan told the Daily News. “She had to pray five times a day. She had to wear the hajib. He was a young, good looking guy and a physician but he couldn’t find anybody.”
Poor, misunderstood, lonely Major Muslim Nidal Hasan. So much more deserving of sympathy than the soldiers he has killed, and so much less dangerous than those angry redneck Americans who are always on the verge of retaliating (backlash!) against those sweet, innocent followers of Islam...
No, you see, all of the above are dangerous distractions for the real reasons that poor Mr. Hasan went all jihad on his comrades at Ft. Drum. Anorak has done us a service and rounded up the media's top ten excuses for Nidal Hasan's slaughter of 13 American soldiers and wounding of over 30 others:
1) Compassion Fatigue
Dr. Robin Kerner, an attending psychologist who specializes in disaster anxiety at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital in New York City, said it’s not uncommon for individuals who work with traumatized patients to suffer the effects of “compassion fatigue.”
“This guy was counseling people coming back from war and there is something called secondary traumatization, where the therapist gets traumatized from hearing all the terrible things that have happened to the people they counsel.”
2) He Had Been Beheaded
Sky News presenter: “There is word coming through that this man lost his head, literally”
3) Combat Stress Disorder
Thursday’s deadly rampage raises a red flag over the issue of combat stress.
(Major Nidal Malik Hasan never saw active service.)
4) Pre Traumatic Stress Disorder
The case of Nidal Malik Hasan, the Army psychiatrist who is the primary suspect in the Fort Hood shooting spree Thursday that killed 13 people, is pointing up the enormous need to help soldiers overwhelmed by the stress – or even the prospect – of serving in wartime.
5) Stress-Avoidance Stress Disorder
Unusually for a soldier, Hasan appeared to have little taste for violence, at least up until yesterday. His cousin, Nader Hasan, said: “He was someone who did not enjoy going to the firing range.” That may have been a consequence of the stories he had heard in the hospital wards from the returning soldiers.
6) Vicarious Stress Disorder
Those who counsel trauma victims — whether they be psychiatrists, social workers or advocates — can experience an emotional toll after intensive exposure to patients’ stories of horror. Experts call this phenomenon “vicarious trauma.”
The impact of trauma on those who help the traumatized has become a subject of discussion as investigators try to piece together why Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, 39, an Army psychiatrist at Darnall Army Medical Center, allegedly opened fire at a military processing center Thursday at Fort Hood Army Post in Texas, killing 13 people and wounding 30 others.
A second opinion:
His aunt, Noel Hasan, said her nephew had been upset by the injuries he saw at Walter Reed. “He must have snapped,” she added.
(so he created more injuries???)
7) He Came Unstuck
An apartment complex manager says the man accused of opening fire at Fort Hood, Texas recently had a religious bumper sticker torn off his car.
(“My other car’s loaded a taxi loaded with Semtex.”)
8) The Time-Bomb Bomber
Yesterday, the time-bomb exploded when Hasan killed 12 soldiers and shot 31 others in the bloodiest massacre on a US military base.
9) The Non-Suicidal Suicide
Suicides are also on the rise. Army suicides are up 37% since 2006, and the military rate is higher than the civilian rate. Since the 2003 Iraq invasion, 75 Fort Hood soldiers have killed themselves, nine this year. That prompted the base to take steps to reduce stress on soldiers, including cutting work hours and ordering them to be home in time for dinner.
(He did it to get home early and beat the traffic.)
10) Women Drove Him To It
His cousin Nader Hasan says: “He wanted a wife more religious than him,” Faizul Khan told the Daily News. “She had to pray five times a day. She had to wear the hajib. He was a young, good looking guy and a physician but he couldn’t find anybody.”
Poor, misunderstood, lonely Major Muslim Nidal Hasan. So much more deserving of sympathy than the soldiers he has killed, and so much less dangerous than those angry redneck Americans who are always on the verge of retaliating (backlash!) against those sweet, innocent followers of Islam...
How Two Presidents Spent Their Weekend
When the heat gets hot, Barack Obama's default position is to trot out his predecessor, George W. Bush, as both a blame-blanket, punching bag, and metric for comparison (as in, "ain't I so much better than that guy? Give it up for...me!!")
Well, we'll play Barack's game today. Let's see what the president did this weekend, a few days after a massacre at Ft. Hood perpetrated by a radical Islamist who infiltrated the Army in full sight of his comrades and superiors:
President Obama’s Saturday Schedule
11:25AM THE PRESIDENT addresses the House Democratic Caucus - Cannon House Office Building
2:30PM THE PRESIDENT makes a statement to the press on Health Care - Rose Garden
2:45PM THE PRESIDENT and THE FIRST LADY depart The White House en route Camp David - South Lawn
Two crassly political maneuvers, then a chopper ride with the wife to the airport, so that they may start their vacation in style.
Let's look at how ex-president George W. Bush spent this weekend:
FORT HOOD, Texas (AP) ― Former President George W. Bush and his wife, Laura, visited wounded soldiers and their families near the site of the worst mass shooting on an Army post in the United States.
The Bushes made their private visit to Fort Hood’s Darnall Army Medical Center on Friday night. Bush spokesman David Sherzer said in an e-mail that the couple thanked Fort Hood’s military leaders and hospital staff for the “amazing care they are providing.”
Well, as Balidlocks puts it, at least a commander-in-chief bereaved the wounded and comforted the grieving after a terrorist attach on the soldiers of Fort Hood. Would be nice if their current Commander would perform his duties in the same exemplary manner, but that would involve him, you know...actually caring about the fate of American soldiers. The fact he's left our Afghanistan contingent twisting in the wind (and ducking bombs and bullets) while he tends to socializing the nation's health-care infrastructure, leads one to believe that he has very little interest in the military aspect of his job description, despite the fact that millions are depending on him, both inside America and out.
Can't wait until the moment comes, when, after busting out the name of George W. Bush as a preamble to an excuse for one or another of his own miserable failings, the crowd bursts into applause as opposed to the expected catcalls.
That's the change I'm hoping for.
Well, we'll play Barack's game today. Let's see what the president did this weekend, a few days after a massacre at Ft. Hood perpetrated by a radical Islamist who infiltrated the Army in full sight of his comrades and superiors:
President Obama’s Saturday Schedule
11:25AM THE PRESIDENT addresses the House Democratic Caucus - Cannon House Office Building
2:30PM THE PRESIDENT makes a statement to the press on Health Care - Rose Garden
2:45PM THE PRESIDENT and THE FIRST LADY depart The White House en route Camp David - South Lawn
Two crassly political maneuvers, then a chopper ride with the wife to the airport, so that they may start their vacation in style.
Let's look at how ex-president George W. Bush spent this weekend:
FORT HOOD, Texas (AP) ― Former President George W. Bush and his wife, Laura, visited wounded soldiers and their families near the site of the worst mass shooting on an Army post in the United States.
The Bushes made their private visit to Fort Hood’s Darnall Army Medical Center on Friday night. Bush spokesman David Sherzer said in an e-mail that the couple thanked Fort Hood’s military leaders and hospital staff for the “amazing care they are providing.”
Well, as Balidlocks puts it, at least a commander-in-chief bereaved the wounded and comforted the grieving after a terrorist attach on the soldiers of Fort Hood. Would be nice if their current Commander would perform his duties in the same exemplary manner, but that would involve him, you know...actually caring about the fate of American soldiers. The fact he's left our Afghanistan contingent twisting in the wind (and ducking bombs and bullets) while he tends to socializing the nation's health-care infrastructure, leads one to believe that he has very little interest in the military aspect of his job description, despite the fact that millions are depending on him, both inside America and out.
Can't wait until the moment comes, when, after busting out the name of George W. Bush as a preamble to an excuse for one or another of his own miserable failings, the crowd bursts into applause as opposed to the expected catcalls.
That's the change I'm hoping for.
Sunday, November 08, 2009
Would Be Funny Were It Not So Deadly...
Mark Steyn on how he anticipates the media to react to the case of our murderous Islamist Army Major, Nidal Hasan:
Watch the nothing-to-see-here media driveling on about pre-post-traumatic stress disorder like gibbering lunatics in a padded cell...
And Time magazine cheerfully obliges:
As an army psychiatrist treating soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, Major Nidal Malik Hasan had a front row seat on the brutal toll of war. It is too early to know exactly what may have triggered his murderous shooting rampage Thursday at Fort Hood - Hasan is accused of killing 12 people and wounding 32 others before he was wounded by a police officer - but it is not uncommon for therapists treating soldiers with Post Trumatic Stress Disorder (P.T.S.D.) to be swept up in a patient's displays of war-related paranoia, helplessness and fury....
...At Fort Hood...there was no shortage of horrific tales that could have set loose the demons in Hasan's mind.
Thank goodness the mainstream media is about as relevant these days as a Virginia Democrat...
Watch the nothing-to-see-here media driveling on about pre-post-traumatic stress disorder like gibbering lunatics in a padded cell...
And Time magazine cheerfully obliges:
As an army psychiatrist treating soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, Major Nidal Malik Hasan had a front row seat on the brutal toll of war. It is too early to know exactly what may have triggered his murderous shooting rampage Thursday at Fort Hood - Hasan is accused of killing 12 people and wounding 32 others before he was wounded by a police officer - but it is not uncommon for therapists treating soldiers with Post Trumatic Stress Disorder (P.T.S.D.) to be swept up in a patient's displays of war-related paranoia, helplessness and fury....
...At Fort Hood...there was no shortage of horrific tales that could have set loose the demons in Hasan's mind.
Thank goodness the mainstream media is about as relevant these days as a Virginia Democrat...
Rush Holt on Health Care Reform: Who Is He Kidding?
Moments after Congress seized control of the apparatus of American health care, I received a celebratory email from my feckless Congressman, Rush Holt (D-NJ12). I'm going to reprint it below with some comments; never have I seen such shameless, blatantly false propagandizing come out of the mouth of an American representative - and yes, I realize that's saying a lot:
I just now voted for the Affordable Health Care for America Act. I want you to know about this development and what the bill means for you. This bill would provide secure and stable health coverage regardless of whether you change jobs or are between jobs, ensure Americans will never be denied care if they get sick, and extend coverage to those not well served by the current system.
And what about those who are well served by the current system, who have worked their whole lives and have specifically selected jobs based on coverage? Well, as my Congressman has oft pointed out, we are the selfish ones...
The bill would strengthen and extend existing programs. For example, those who have health insurance through their employers would benefit from caps on yearly out of pocket costs. Under the legislation, Medicare would be intact, only better – recipients would benefit from free preventive care and better primary care. Click here to read more about what the bill would do for you.
So the government will cap any cost increases that my insurer might need? Won't they then need to cut back on the services they provide? Of course, and that's the point: While the poor might be moderately better off, the middle class's level of medical care will drop dramatically. Welcome to the new Democratic middle, which is really pushing almost everyone into a new bottom. All equal, under one progressive boot...
And - presto! Medicare will now become better, overnight! Why? Because Rush Holt says so! And who's gonna pay for all this?
It would do all these things without adding to the deficit, while it would hold down costs for families in the future.
Well, maybe that's partially true; as every dollar that is not added to the deficit will be extorted from us in the form of $750 billion in new taxes and fees. And even that, while in the greatest stretch, may not add to the deficit over the first ten years (since the taxes kick in before the coverage), it will blast a nuclear hole in the budget from 2019 to eternity. Well, Holt reasons, a lot of folks will be dead by then anyway and won't remember his baldfaced lying.
Anyway - this might be the worst:
This bill is the culmination of one of the most open and deliberative processes in recent memory.
Yeah, OK, Holt, you lying sack of sh*t. That's why you passed the bill late on a Saturday night, minutes before midnight, before you can get home and get an earful from your constituents. Coward.
We have held thousands of town meetings, read hundreds of thousands of letters, and met with health care experts and patients.
"We held thousands", Congressman? You held one town meeting, in which only 238 people were allowed in, many of them pre-arranged AstroTurfies. Is that what you based your decision on? No, of course not, my apologies - your mind was set on this regardless of what the voters of the 12th thought.
After carefully analyzing and reviewing this bill, I believe it will improve the quality of life and the economy of nearly all families and of the nation as a whole.
And what about my family, Mr. Holt? Will I be better served by having to wait weeks to see a doctor, at having my medical decisions made by Washington, by having my taxesincresed exponentially and by having the quality of my medical care decreased exponentially? Will I have a better quality of life 20 years down the road, when the medical profession is a wreck and the economy is still comatose, choked by taxes, deficits, and a crushing new entitlement?
Of course not. But Rush Holt's health care reform, passed while most of the nation was asleep, is not about the average American. It is about Rush Holt playing to a base this is extremely more liberal than his distinct, it is about Rush Holt wanting to say that he helped get more people who happen to be on American soil covered by health care ("yes, thank you, thank you. Let us all bask in my progressive, gentle, decent glory"), regardless of the cost to the remaining 95% of taxpayer citizens.
He excuses that, as the link above notes, by referring to us - the ones who simply want to keep what we have worked so hard to earn - as "selfish", thus setting himself up as a moral arbiter and excusing his grab of private wealth and enterprise as both necessary and correct.
Well, we selfish bastards are going to have a chance to talk back to Rush Holt in about 360 days. Holt's district covers a number of counties, but the bulk of the population falls into four: Monmouth, Middlesex, Mercer, and Hunterdon.
And how did these counties vote in the great Corzine bloodbath of 2009?
Full results here, but I'll do the math.
Christie (Republican): 280,960-
Corzine (Democrat) 205,344-
That's a huge margin and a tremendous swing away from Democrats, some of which I detailed here. Holt's got a strong opponent in 2010 in Mike Halfacre; maybe us "selfish bastards" can then take back what is rightfully ours...
I just now voted for the Affordable Health Care for America Act. I want you to know about this development and what the bill means for you. This bill would provide secure and stable health coverage regardless of whether you change jobs or are between jobs, ensure Americans will never be denied care if they get sick, and extend coverage to those not well served by the current system.
And what about those who are well served by the current system, who have worked their whole lives and have specifically selected jobs based on coverage? Well, as my Congressman has oft pointed out, we are the selfish ones...
The bill would strengthen and extend existing programs. For example, those who have health insurance through their employers would benefit from caps on yearly out of pocket costs. Under the legislation, Medicare would be intact, only better – recipients would benefit from free preventive care and better primary care. Click here to read more about what the bill would do for you.
So the government will cap any cost increases that my insurer might need? Won't they then need to cut back on the services they provide? Of course, and that's the point: While the poor might be moderately better off, the middle class's level of medical care will drop dramatically. Welcome to the new Democratic middle, which is really pushing almost everyone into a new bottom. All equal, under one progressive boot...
And - presto! Medicare will now become better, overnight! Why? Because Rush Holt says so! And who's gonna pay for all this?
It would do all these things without adding to the deficit, while it would hold down costs for families in the future.
Well, maybe that's partially true; as every dollar that is not added to the deficit will be extorted from us in the form of $750 billion in new taxes and fees. And even that, while in the greatest stretch, may not add to the deficit over the first ten years (since the taxes kick in before the coverage), it will blast a nuclear hole in the budget from 2019 to eternity. Well, Holt reasons, a lot of folks will be dead by then anyway and won't remember his baldfaced lying.
Anyway - this might be the worst:
This bill is the culmination of one of the most open and deliberative processes in recent memory.
Yeah, OK, Holt, you lying sack of sh*t. That's why you passed the bill late on a Saturday night, minutes before midnight, before you can get home and get an earful from your constituents. Coward.
We have held thousands of town meetings, read hundreds of thousands of letters, and met with health care experts and patients.
"We held thousands", Congressman? You held one town meeting, in which only 238 people were allowed in, many of them pre-arranged AstroTurfies. Is that what you based your decision on? No, of course not, my apologies - your mind was set on this regardless of what the voters of the 12th thought.
After carefully analyzing and reviewing this bill, I believe it will improve the quality of life and the economy of nearly all families and of the nation as a whole.
And what about my family, Mr. Holt? Will I be better served by having to wait weeks to see a doctor, at having my medical decisions made by Washington, by having my taxesincresed exponentially and by having the quality of my medical care decreased exponentially? Will I have a better quality of life 20 years down the road, when the medical profession is a wreck and the economy is still comatose, choked by taxes, deficits, and a crushing new entitlement?
Of course not. But Rush Holt's health care reform, passed while most of the nation was asleep, is not about the average American. It is about Rush Holt playing to a base this is extremely more liberal than his distinct, it is about Rush Holt wanting to say that he helped get more people who happen to be on American soil covered by health care ("yes, thank you, thank you. Let us all bask in my progressive, gentle, decent glory"), regardless of the cost to the remaining 95% of taxpayer citizens.
He excuses that, as the link above notes, by referring to us - the ones who simply want to keep what we have worked so hard to earn - as "selfish", thus setting himself up as a moral arbiter and excusing his grab of private wealth and enterprise as both necessary and correct.
Well, we selfish bastards are going to have a chance to talk back to Rush Holt in about 360 days. Holt's district covers a number of counties, but the bulk of the population falls into four: Monmouth, Middlesex, Mercer, and Hunterdon.
And how did these counties vote in the great Corzine bloodbath of 2009?
Full results here, but I'll do the math.
Christie (Republican): 280,960-
Corzine (Democrat) 205,344-
That's a huge margin and a tremendous swing away from Democrats, some of which I detailed here. Holt's got a strong opponent in 2010 in Mike Halfacre; maybe us "selfish bastards" can then take back what is rightfully ours...
Saturday, November 07, 2009
Barney Frank: High As a Kite!
Now we know why legislation coming out of Barney Frank's financial services committee has been meandering, incoherent, lacking in common sense, and covered with gravy stains - he's been rockin' than ganj !
Congressman Barney Frank was present during a marijuana arrest at James Ready's home in Ogunquit, Maine. Ready is well-known for his relationship with
Congressman Frank.
According to a police report, police charged Ready with marijuana possession, cultivation and use of drug paraphernalia in August of 2007. Ready admitted to civil possession and paid a fine. The remaining charges were dismissed in 2008.
Sources tell FOX25 that when Frank was questioned he told police that he did not live in the house and that he only smoked cigars.
Congressman Frank tells FOX25 that he was surprised and disappointed with what police found. He also tells us that he wouldn't recognize a marijuana plant if he saw one because he is, "not a great outdoorsman," and ,"wouldn't recognize most plants."
Yeah, I'm sure Barney Frank didn't know his boy-toy smoked weed; after all, it may be one of the most distinctive smells on the planet. His alleged "surprise" is bullsh*t; the only question is whether or not Frank was pulling bong hits with his boyfriend .
Moe Lane calls him out, as either a complete liar or a incompetent buffoon:
The part I don’t get is: if this happened in 2007, and you’re trying now to get a medical marijuana bill through Congress… surely somebody would have shown you what pot at least looks like since then, right?
Actually. this whole incident really explains a lot about what we've seen coming out of Congress in the last few years...
Congressman Barney Frank was present during a marijuana arrest at James Ready's home in Ogunquit, Maine. Ready is well-known for his relationship with
Congressman Frank.According to a police report, police charged Ready with marijuana possession, cultivation and use of drug paraphernalia in August of 2007. Ready admitted to civil possession and paid a fine. The remaining charges were dismissed in 2008.
Sources tell FOX25 that when Frank was questioned he told police that he did not live in the house and that he only smoked cigars.
Congressman Frank tells FOX25 that he was surprised and disappointed with what police found. He also tells us that he wouldn't recognize a marijuana plant if he saw one because he is, "not a great outdoorsman," and ,"wouldn't recognize most plants."
Yeah, I'm sure Barney Frank didn't know his boy-toy smoked weed; after all, it may be one of the most distinctive smells on the planet. His alleged "surprise" is bullsh*t; the only question is whether or not Frank was pulling bong hits with his boyfriend .
Moe Lane calls him out, as either a complete liar or a incompetent buffoon:
The part I don’t get is: if this happened in 2007, and you’re trying now to get a medical marijuana bill through Congress… surely somebody would have shown you what pot at least looks like since then, right?
Actually. this whole incident really explains a lot about what we've seen coming out of Congress in the last few years...
Obama Turns His Back On Israel
While Major Hasan shoots down servicemen in Ft. Hood, Barack Obama goes further and further out of his way to isolate Israel, treating them with the disdain one would show a pariah regime. Eating away at us from the inside, I suppose...
Anyway - one would think that with both Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu attending the same conference (United Jewish Congress) in the same place at the same time, they would sit for a chat, no?
Ah, no. I guess this is "smart diplomacy":
...the Jerusalem Post reports that several American Jewish leaders say their optimism about a meeting is waning as Netanyahu’s arrival approaches with no meeting announced. Haaretz has a similar report.
The Jewish leaders told the Post that “the White House wanted to be assured it would be receiving something from Netanyahu in return.”
Just the way you'd try to treat a leader who you wanted to de-legitimze before his own people. No doubt Obama would like to work with a more dovish Israeli prime minister, but if he thinks the Israeli people want to see their Prime Minister kowtow before an American president just for the sake of receiving an audience, well...I guess Obama understands the Jews as well as he understands his basic economics.
So how about some actual, you know, smart diplomacy?
Holding a meeting with the prime minister of Israel would be a useful signal to Iran, as the latter continues its rope-a-dope strategy of precondition-less meetings with Obama, that U.S. patience is waning.
Seems like Obama is trying to do the exact opposite, to strengthen the Iranian's hand by stepping away from Israel, almost to purposely make her more vulnerable. Why - I cannot even imagine. At a time like this, with a nuclear shadow hanging over their heads, Israel needs their friends more than ever.
Too bad her best one just skipped out...
Anyway - one would think that with both Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu attending the same conference (United Jewish Congress) in the same place at the same time, they would sit for a chat, no?
Ah, no. I guess this is "smart diplomacy":
...the Jerusalem Post reports that several American Jewish leaders say their optimism about a meeting is waning as Netanyahu’s arrival approaches with no meeting announced. Haaretz has a similar report.
The Jewish leaders told the Post that “the White House wanted to be assured it would be receiving something from Netanyahu in return.”
Just the way you'd try to treat a leader who you wanted to de-legitimze before his own people. No doubt Obama would like to work with a more dovish Israeli prime minister, but if he thinks the Israeli people want to see their Prime Minister kowtow before an American president just for the sake of receiving an audience, well...I guess Obama understands the Jews as well as he understands his basic economics.
So how about some actual, you know, smart diplomacy?
Holding a meeting with the prime minister of Israel would be a useful signal to Iran, as the latter continues its rope-a-dope strategy of precondition-less meetings with Obama, that U.S. patience is waning.
Seems like Obama is trying to do the exact opposite, to strengthen the Iranian's hand by stepping away from Israel, almost to purposely make her more vulnerable. Why - I cannot even imagine. At a time like this, with a nuclear shadow hanging over their heads, Israel needs their friends more than ever.
Too bad her best one just skipped out...
Friday, November 06, 2009
New Jersey Democrat Bails on ObamaCare...
....who said the New Jersey election didn't have national implications? Oh yeah, Pelosi, Axlerod, and Gibbs. Apparently, the three of them don't equal one idiot:
The decisions of the final holdouts on the House health bill are beginning to come in. Rep. John Adler, a New Jersey Democrat, said today he's voting no. He criticized the bill's $1 trillion-plus price tag over 10 years, and said it doesn't do enough to control health costs.Adler's state, of course, was the scene of a big Republican win this week when Chris Christie defeated incumbent Democrat Jon Corzine in the New Jersey gubernatorial race.
Seeking his first term in Congress last year, Adler squeaked to victory with 52% of the vote, and he's one of the many Democratic freshmen who's vulnerable to a Republican challenge in 2010.
The seat had long been held by GOP Rep. Jim Saxton who retired last year.
Adler, unlike the trio of dunces mentioned above, can do the math:
Adler's congressional district includes parts of Burlington County, Ocean County, and Cherry Hill in Camden County.
Republican Chris Christie won Burlington County Tuesday night by two percent after Corzine won it by five percentage points four years ago; Christie won 66 percent of the vote in Ocean County.
I'll be surprised if Nancy can get 218 "hands up" by tomorrow...
The decisions of the final holdouts on the House health bill are beginning to come in. Rep. John Adler, a New Jersey Democrat, said today he's voting no. He criticized the bill's $1 trillion-plus price tag over 10 years, and said it doesn't do enough to control health costs.Adler's state, of course, was the scene of a big Republican win this week when Chris Christie defeated incumbent Democrat Jon Corzine in the New Jersey gubernatorial race.
Seeking his first term in Congress last year, Adler squeaked to victory with 52% of the vote, and he's one of the many Democratic freshmen who's vulnerable to a Republican challenge in 2010.
The seat had long been held by GOP Rep. Jim Saxton who retired last year.
Adler, unlike the trio of dunces mentioned above, can do the math:
Adler's congressional district includes parts of Burlington County, Ocean County, and Cherry Hill in Camden County.
Republican Chris Christie won Burlington County Tuesday night by two percent after Corzine won it by five percentage points four years ago; Christie won 66 percent of the vote in Ocean County.
I'll be surprised if Nancy can get 218 "hands up" by tomorrow...
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