An Embarrassment
No wonder the New York Times is going broke.
This question from NYT reporter Jeff Zeleny to The Obama at yesterday’s 100 days press conference is, well, I don’t know what to say. It’s just plain embarrassing.
Somebody from the press pool should’ve shot a spitball to the back of his head for such a suck up question.
I mean, “enchanted” for Pete’s sake. He asked if The Obama was “enchanted.” Sheese, break out the f-ing fairy dust, what kind of question is that?
Apparently, The Obama completely snubbed FoxNews at the briefing. Good thing NYT is there to ask the tough questions.
The Clueless One
For a politician who’s supposed to be so savvy, The Obama is pretty tone deaf when it comes to seeing and hearing stuff that falls outside his ideological blinders.
For instance, consider his remarks on the Tax Day Tea Party protest at today’s press conference.
From Politico:
“Those of you who are watching certain news channels on which I’m not very popular, and you see folks waving tea bags around, Obama said, “let me just remind them that I am happy to have a serious conversation about how we are going to cut our health care costs down over the long term, how we are going to stabilize Social Security.”
“But,” Obama continued, “let’s not play games and pretend that the reason [for the deficit] is because of the Recovery Act.”
It’s the president’s most direct response so far to the protests that flared up in some locations around tax day, on April 15.
In his briefing that day, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters: “I don’t know if there’s a specific response to protests..I think you saw the president today talk about as candidate Obama promising to bring a tax cut to 95 percent of working families in America, and as president delivering that tax cut.”
Uh, right.
Has nothing to do with the gazillion dollar deficit as far as the eye can see.
Nope, nothing there, move along…
CDC Swine Flu Alert
ATTENTION CITIZENS:
The U.S. Centers for Disease Controls announced procedures to avoid contracting the deadly swine flu:
DON’T DO THIS!
Full Speed Ahead!
Powerlineblog reprints a letter from Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) outlining the near-term future with Democrats firmly in control of both houses of Congress and the White House.
Thanks to Sen. Specter’s switch to the Democrats and Sen. Norm Coleman’s likely loss in Minnesota (yes, the Democrat’s effort to steal that seat is finally coming to an end with former unfunnyman Al Franken likely to be declared the winner), Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has a filibuster proof majority. And with SanFranNan in charge over in the House, it’ll be full speed ahead for the Dems.
Alas, all is not lost…
The Democrats will be able to pass their left-wing agenda completely unchecked, and if they intend to fulfill their campaign promises, the American people can look forward to higher taxes, socialized medicine, record deficits and the loss of secret ballots for our workers.
While this would unquestionably damage our country’s interests in the short-term, the complete absence of any checks and balances in Washington could have a significant impact on next year’s midterm elections.
Democrats would own everything that happens in our government. They will be unable to cast the GOP as “obstructionists” who are blocking Obama’s agenda, robbing them of one of their oft-repeated political attacks.
One of, if not THE, chief problems of having idiots like Specter in the Republican Party is that the rest of the members of the Senate had to massage his massive ego in order to get him to go along with anything they tried to do. Plus the other “moderates,” Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins could reliably be counted on, along with Specter, to throw a monkey wrench into any GOP effort to take a stand against the Democrat’s disastrous legislative initiatives.
Now, as Cornyn points out, the Republicans can take principled stands opposing the Democrats, knowing full well that they can’t stop them from inacting anything bill they want. That’s fine.
Come election day, voters will know that the higher taxes, destroyed economy and the rest of the mess the country will be in by then will be purely the result of Democrats getting what they wanted.
While Senator Specter’s decision was indeed disappointing, it did allow us to realize – perhaps sooner than we would have liked – the dangerous ramifications of unbridled, one-party rule in Washington. Come November 2010, this may ultimately be viewed as a positive development in the Republican Party’s climb back to power.
Marc Broussard ‘Home’
‘Our Way or the Highway’
The Democrats are crowing about Sen. Arlen Specter’s switch from the Republican Party to their party, and presume to lecture the GOP on the error of its ways, that is, not lurching to the far left the way they have.
Speaker of the House Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) says with Specter on their side the Dems won’t need to explain what they’re doing, they can just ram their ill-conceived and dangerous legislative agenda through Congress.
She also said the Republicans will have to do some soul searching. From The Hill:
Specter’s switch will give Democrats 60 caucus members in the Senate (assuming Al Franken wins his legal battle in Minnesota). That is enough votes to end debate on a bill and overcome Republican filibusters.
“Very exciting, very exciting for the American people, because now we can get things done without explaining process,” Pelosi told CNN’s Candy Crowley.
Specter has said that he will not be that “automatic 60th vote.”
Pelosi added that Specter’s decision should prompt some reflection on the part of Republicans.
“You know what, they’re going to have to do their own self-analysis,” she said, adding that Democrats had worked harder to be bipartisan. “Hopefully now [Republicans] will also extend the hand of friendship so they can work together in bipartisan way.”
To SanFranNan and the other moonbats on her side of the aisle, working “together in a bipartisan way” means accepting without question the Democrats’ agenda. Bipartisanship does not include the opportunity to offer amendments to bills under consideration, or even the common courtesy of being allowed to see the text of a bill under consideration. Bipartisanship means not getting an opportunity to present Republican witnesses at committee hearings.
Bipartisanship, in other words, according to the Democrats means one-party rule, “our way or the highway.”
Of course Sen. Specter has always been happy with that kind of bipartisanship. He’s always happiest when he’s sabotaging Republican efforts to slow or stall the leftward drift of Congress, and he’s always to first to step up with a “compromise,” which would ultimately turn out to be a watered-down version of whatever the Democrats wanted.
In the quote above, I don’t know which is more absurd, that Pelosi said it, or that the reporter writing the article accepted it at face value.
Kings of Leon
Four Kicks
And We’re ‘Thrilled’ to See Him Go
Don’t let the screen door hit you Senator.
From Politico:
President Obama talked to Sen. Arlen Specter at 10:32 this morning from the Oval Office, said Dems are “thrilled to have you,” according to a White House aide.
Obama was informed of Specter’s decison to switch parties at 10:25 this morning while receiving his daily economic briefing in the Oval Office, according to a White House official.
Obama was handed a note by an aide that read: “Specter is announcing he is changing parties.”
The president reached Specter, one of only three Republicans to support his stimulus package, on the phone at 10:32 and told him “you have my full support.” He added that we are “thrilled to have you.”
From Breitbart:
“I now find my political philosophy more in line with Democrats than Republicans,” Specter said in a statement posted on a Web site devoted to Pennsylvania politics and confirmed by his office. Several Senate officials said a formal announcement was expected later in the day or Wednesday.
Well, it’s too bad Specter didn’t discover his inner Democrat earlier in his 79 years on the planet, but at least he’s figured out what the rest of Pennsylvania Republicans have known for a very long time. Besides, he’s a lousy politician and a crappy campaigner who could never have survived, let alone gotten elected as a Democrat in Pennsylvania in the first place. The GOP provided an easier path to office.
[Specter] has publicly acknowledged in recent months that in order to win a sixth term, he would need the support of thousands of Pennsylvania Republicans who sided with Obama in last fall’s presidential election.
“I am unwilling to have my twenty-nine year Senate record judged by the Pennsylvania Republican primary electorate,” he said in the statement.
Asked by a reporter what he had to say to his constituents, Specter replied with a smile, “I don’t have to say anything to them. They said it to me.”
In Pennsylvania, the chairman of the state Republican Party, Rob Gleason, said that Specter should offer a refund to Republicans who have helped fatten his war chest, which totaled $5.8 million at the end of 2008. “He should give them the option,” Gleason said.
One less turd in the punch bowl. Good riddance and let’s hope the pair of RINOs from Maine join him.
Uncanny Resemblence…
Algore, prophet of planetary doom:
And Roz:
Astroturf vs Grassroots
The opinion on the left of the tax day tea party protest last week is that they are not authentic grassroots rebellion against an out-of-control government, but well organized attacks by the Republican National Committee, various conservative think tanks and FoxNews.
Just heard a caller to the Rush Limbaugh show a bit ago echo that theme. He complained that the tea parties were “astroturf” that is fake grassroots protest organized by big business, i.e. FoxNews, and the Republican party.
The funny thing is the caller like other leftist critics of the tea parties are accusing their ideological opponents of doing the very same thing they do.
Were it not for global socialist fat cats like George Soros, the sugar daddy of the left, funding the ubiquitous World Bank protests, IMF protests, pro-abortion protests, anti-war protests, etc. ad nauseum, there would be no left in the U.S. or any where.
Check out the press reports of any anti-war protest, for instance, and you’ll find the event populated by students and other out-of-work losers, who actually get a pay check for attending the protest.
Look at their signs. Have you ever noticed that at the typical anti-Israel, or pro-abortion feminist, or whatever left wacko cause, the signs are all professionally printed, all carry the same message, all are passed out by “organizers” at the beginning of the rally or march. The even have matching t-shirts.
The fact that there’s a bit of turn around time between placing the order for our preprinted protest posters and t-shirts and the arrival of those same posters and t-shirts shows that there’s a bit of organization involved in these events.
And, coordination, as in signs and posters, usually professional designed and printed, on campuses advertising the event, usually held on a weekend or school breaks.
All of which takes money. Lots of money.
The other thing is the way these events swell in size. Your average Socialist World Party group may be able to attract a dozen or so protesters. Same with a N.O.W. event. But, bring the N.O.W. gals and the socialist rable rousers from a couple dozen organizations together, and presto you’ve got yourself a decent-sized crowd.
You seldom find regular working class people at a leftist protest. That’s because those folks have jobs, families, a life. For the left, politics and political action IS there life.
All of that to say, when you look at the tea party protest you find authentic grassroots protest from people fed up with a government, whether Democrat or Republican, that ignores them and considers their earnings to be an unending font of cash for their on use.
There were very few, if any preprinted “on message” signs at the tea parties. There was hardly any organization, other than a facebook or myspace or craigslist posting announcing the date and location.
Most of the people attending the tea parties had never protested anything before. Yea the pro-lifers were their, they’re veteran marchers, so too were some pro-gun types, but most of the people there were just average folks who are sick and tired of their government taxing way to much of their income and spending way too much money.
That’s what the tea parties were all about and that’s why the left and the politicians and pundits don’t understand them.
That’s find with me, let them remain clueless while this juggernaut grows and rolls over them at the next election.
Long-time Employment
Rasmussen has a poll out today saying that less than half of all workers expect to be at the same job in five years.
Less than half the nation’s workers (44%) expect to have the same employer five years from now.
At the other extreme, a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 8% don’t expect to be working for the same company in a year. Thirty-one percent (31%) aren’t sure how long they’ll be at the same firm, but 18% anticipate a one-to-five year stay.
I’ve never worked anywhere longer than five years, at least not in the same stretch. My longest stay at any employer has been a little more than four years. The one place that I’ve put in more time, about five years total, I worked there three separate times.
I thought my last job was going to be a keeper. I’d planned on staying there for a while. Alas, the publisher had other plans and shut down our operation.
Years ago, I lived in Pittsburgh where, up until the late 1970s, the expectation was once you had a job, you had a job for life. Of course, that’s back when they made steel in the steel city. I remember relatives who used to joke working the late shift, clocking in, and then sleeping the shift away.
Those days are gone.
More Campus Thuggery
University of North Carolina Chapel Hill leftist retards attempted to shout down a speech by former Virginia congressman Virgil Goode.
Unlike the campus protest of Tom Tancredo’s speech last week, the UNC Chapel Hill security arrested some of the thugs.
From the Daily Tar Heel:
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill police arrested six people tonight (April 22) on charges of disorderly conduct during an appearance by Virgil Goode, a former Virginia Congressman, sponsored by an officially recognized student group, Youth for Western Civilization.
Goode spoke to a Frank Porter Graham Student Union audience of about 150 people and took questions from audience members for about 90 minutes. Some audience members jeered and heckled when the speech started. One small group walked out shortly after it began. Some set off personal body alarms that had to be located and turned off by police. Two others unfurled a banner with a profane statement. Goode continued speaking throughout.
Again I ask: where were the conservative students? Why do you guys just sit there like good boys and girls while the jerks on the left try to stifle your right to hear a speaker. Why don’t you confont these jerks?
Some interesting commentary about the event at Confederate Yankee.
Little Green Nutball
There’s a bit of controversy among conservative blogs over the feud, more like outright war, between the creator of LittleGreenFootballs and the bloggers at Atlas Shrugs and Jihad Watch.
You can read about the controversy at The Washington Independent, as well here, here and here.
Plus there’s a good summary of the dust up at TheOtherMcCain.
The founder of LGF says he’s the same as he’s always been. Maybe so, but the content of his blog has changed quite a bit over the past year or so. I used to read him regularly, and even had his site on my blog roll.
But over the past many months now, he’s kind of gone off the rails attacking conservative bloggers, calling people racists and neo-nazies and such. And then there’s his whole irrational anti-creationist bent.
And frankly, the whole blog has just become boring. Believe what you will about how the universe came about, but sheesh, do three-quarters of your post have to be anti-creationist screeds?
It’s like the neo-atheists who spend so much time and effort insisting there’s no God, which to me is much ado about nothing. If there isn’t a God, why worry about it? I mean, I don’t believe in the Easter Bunny either, but I don’t care whether anyone else does.
You want to be an evolutionist? Fine. Who really cares? You have no more scientific facts on your side as to how the universe came into being or life began than the creationists you scorn do, but hey, believe what you want.
Are Atlas Shrugs and Jihad Watch racists? I think not. The former can be a bit shrill, but at least both blogs understand the threat posed to civilization by Islam and I say keep up the good work exposing that evil force for what it is.
Life’s too short and there’s too many good, insightful blogs to read every day to visit a site that harps on the same thing over and over. So, I’ll just pass on LGF.
Fighting Fire With Fire
The Obama wants to prosecute Bush administration lawyers who came up with the legal rational for using “harsh” interrogation techniques on terrorists in U.S. custody.
Powerlineblog notes the tendency of liberals to want to criminalize what are essentially policy disagreements, and warns that The Obama’s political prosecutions of former administration minions will keep Republicans from seeking higher office.
The idea of prosecuting a lawyer because a wrote a legal analysis with which the current Attorney General disagrees is so outrageous that I can’t believe it would be seriously considered. Still, President Obama and his party may achieve another objective by publicly making this kind of threat: deterring Republicans from serving in public life. For many Republicans considering whether to accept an appointment to government office, the prospect that they may be subjected to criminal prosecution if the next administration is Democratic could well tip the balance in favor of remaining in private life.
That could well be true, and to me illustrates the need for some ruthless Republican politicians to take the fight to the Democrats.
If (and that’s a big if) the Republicans ever regain a majority in Congress and win back the White House, there should be ruthless prosecutions of Jack Murtha, Diane Feinstein, Charlie Rangel, Barney Frank, Chris Dodd and the whole gang of corruptocrats in the House and Senate.
The next Republican attorney general should aggressively pursue political enemies and just as aggressively and ruthlessly defend allies. Just the idea of Jack Murtha or Chris Dodd getting frog marched through the nearest federal courthouse sends shivers down my spine.
I really long for conservative politicians with the guts to wage war against the left, whether in college, the courts or Congress. Take the fight to the streets where it counts.
Political Elite Hate the Tea Parties
The Rasmussen polling company reports today that a majority of Americans have a favorable opinion of last week’s tea party tax protests, while the political class opposed them.
From Rasmussen Reports:
Fifty-one percent (51%) of Americans have a favorable view of the “tea parties” held nationwide last week, including 32% who say their view of the events is Very favorable.
Thirty-three percent (33%) hold an unfavorable opinion of the tea parties according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Fifteen percent (15%) are not sure.
While half the nation has a favorable opinion of last Wednesday’s events, the nation’s Political Class has a much dimmer view-just 13% of the political elite offered even a somewhat favorable assessment while 81% said the opposite. Among the Political Class, not a single survey respondent said they had a Very Favorable opinion of the events while 60% shared a Very Unfavorable assessment.
One-in-four adults (25%) say they personally know someone who attended a tea party protest. That figure includes just one percent (1%) of those in the Political Class.
Well, not really surprising. Politicians, editors and reporters are all pretty much out of touch with the rest of the country.
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