MARTY B HAS ISSUES

2011-08-07T21:37:00.000-04:00

Give me what you got...

2010-07-12T12:47:00.002-04:00

COMPARING CREDENTIALS

2010-07-12T12:42:00.001-04:00

General McChrystal Biography
Commander, International Security Assistance Force/
Commander, United States Forces Afghanistan
United States Army
SOURCE OF COMMISSIONED SERVICE: USMA EDUCATIONAL DEGREES
United States Military Academy - BS - No Major
United States Naval War College - MA - National Security and Strategic Studies
Salve Regina University - MS - International Relations
MILITARY SCHOOLS ATTENDED:
Infantry Officer Basic and Advanced Courses
United States Naval Command and Staff College
Senior Service College Fellowship Harvard University
FOREIGN LANGUAGES:
Spanish
PROMOTIONS DATE OF APPOINTMENT:
2LT 2 Jun 76
1LT 2 Jun 78
CPT 1 Aug 80
MAJ 1 Jul 87
LTC 1 Sep 92
COL 1 Sep 96
BG 1 Jan 01
MG 1 May 04
LTG 16 Feb 06
GEN 11 Jun 09
FROM TO ASSIGNMENT:
Nov 76 Feb 78 Weapons Platoon Leader, C Company, 1st Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82d Airborne Division, Fort Bragg , North Carolina
Feb 78 Jul 78 Rifle Platoon Leader, C Company, 1st Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82d Airborne Division, Fort Bragg , North Carolina
Jul 78 Nov 78 Executive Officer, C Company, 1st Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82d Airborne Division, Fort Bragg , North Carolina
Nov 78 Apr 79 Student, Special Forces Officer Course, Special Forces School, Fort Bragg, North Carolina
Apr 79 Jun 80 Commander, Detachment A, A Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Special Forces Group (Airborne), Fort Bragg, North Carolina
Jun 80 Feb 81 Student, Infantry Officer Advanced Course, United States Army Infantry School, Fort Benning, Georgia
Feb 81 Mar 82 S2/S3 (Intelligence/Operations), United Nations Command Support Group Joint Security Area, Korea
Mar 82 Nov 82 Training Officer, Directorate of Plans and Training, A Company, Headquarters Command, Fort Stewart, Georgia
Nov 82 Sep 84 Commander, A Company, 3d Battalion, 19th Infantry, 24th Infantry Division (Mechanized), Fort Stewart , Georgia
Sep 84 Sep 85 S3 (Operations), 3d Battalion, 19th Infantry, 24th Infantry Division (Mechanized), Fort Stewart, Georgia
Sep 85 Jan 86 Liaison Officer, 3d Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, Fort Benning, Georgia
Jan 86 May 87 Commander, A Company, 3d Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, Fort Benning, Georgia
May 87 Apr 88 Liaison Officer, 3d Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, Fort Benning, Georgia
Apr 88 Jun 89 S3 (Operations), 3d Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, Fort Benning, Georgia
Jun 89 Jun 90 Student, Command and Staff Course, United States Naval War College, Newport, Rhode Island
Jun 90 Apr 93 Army Special Operations Action Officer, J3, Joint Special Operations Command, Fort Bragg, North Carolina and OPERATIONS DESERT SHIELD/STORM, Saudi Arabia
Apr 93 Nov 94 Commander, 2d Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82d Airborne Division, Fort Bragg , North Carolina
Nov 94 Jun 96 Commander, 2d Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, Fort Lewis , Washington
Jun 96 Jun 97 Senior Service College Fellowship, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University , Cambridge , Massachusetts
Jun 97 Aug 99 Commander, 75th Ranger Regiment, Fort Benning, Georgia
Aug 99 Jun 00 Military Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations, New York, New York
Jun 00 Jun 01 Assistant Division Commander (Operations), 82d Airborne Division, Fort Bragg, North Carolina to include duty as Commander, Combined Joint Task Force Kuwait, Camp Doha, Kuwait
Jun 01 Jul 02 Chief of Staff, XVIII Airborne Corps and Fort Bragg, Fort Bragg, North Carolina to include duty as Chief of Staff, Combined Joint Task Force180, OPERATION ENDURING
FREEDOM, Afghanistan
Jul 02 Sep 03 Vice Director for Operations, J3, The Joint Staff, Washington, DC
Sep 03 Feb 06 Commanding General, Joint Special Operations Command, Fort Bragg, North Carolina
Feb 06 Jun 08 Commander, Joint Special Operations Command/Commander, Joint Special Operations Command Forward, United States Special Operations Command, Fort Bragg, North Carolina
Aug 08 Jun 09 Director, The Joint Staff, Washington , DC
Jun 09 Present Commander, International Security Assistance Force/Commander, United States Forces Afghanistan , OPERATION ENDURING FREEDOM, Afghanistan
SUMMARY OF JOINT ASSIGNMENTS:
S2/S3 (Intelligence/Operations), United Nations Command Support Group Joint Security Area , Korea (Feb 81-Mar 82, Captain)
Army Special Operations Action Officer, J3, Joint Special Operations Command, Fort Bragg, North Carolina and OPERATIONS DESERT SHIELD/STORM, Saudi Arabia Jun 90-Apr 93 Major/Lieutenant Colonel)
Chief of Staff, XVIII Airborne Corps and Fort Bragg, Fort Bragg, North Carolina to include duty as Chief of Staff, Combined Joint Task Force180, OPERATION ENDURING FREEDOM, Afghanistan (Jun 01-Jul 02, Brigadier General)
Vice Director for Operations, J3, The Joint Staff, Washington , DC (Jul 02-Sep 03, Brigadier General)
Commanding General, Joint Special Operations Command, Fort Bragg , North Carolina (Sep 03-Feb 06, Brigadier General/Major General)
Commander, Joint Special Operations Command/Commander, Joint Special Operations
Command Forward, United States Special Operations Command, Fort Bragg, North Carolina (Feb 06-Jun 08, Major General/Lieutenant General)
Director, The Joint Staff, Washington, DC (Aug 08-Jun 09, Lieutenant General)
Commander, International Security Assistance Force/Commander, United States Forces Afghanistan, OPERATION ENDURING FREEDOM, Afghanistan (Jun 09-Present, General)
SUMMARY OF OPERATIONS ASSIGNMENTS DATE GRADE
Army Special Operations Action Officer, J3, Joint Special Operations Command, OPERATIONS DESERT SHIELD/STORM, Saudi Arabia (Jun 90-Mar 91, Major)
Commander, Combined Joint Task Force Kuwait, Camp Doha, Kuwait (Apr 01-Jun 01, Brigadier General)
Chief of Staff, Combined Joint Task Force180, OPERATION ENDURING FREEDOM, Afghanistan (May 02-Jul 02, Brigadier General)
Commander, International Security Assistance Force/Commander, United States Forces Afghanistan , OPERATION ENDURING FREEDOM, Afghanistan (Jun 09- Present, General)
US DECORATIONS AND BADGES:
Defense Distinguished Service Medal
Defense Superior Service Medal (with Oak Leaf Cluster)
Legion of Merit (with 2 Oak Leaf Clusters)
Bronze Star Medal
Defense Meritorious Service Medal
Meritorious Service Medal (with 3 Oak Leaf Clusters)
Army Commendation Medal
Army Achievement Medal
Expert Infantryman Badge
Master Parachutist Badge
Ranger Tab
Special Forces Tab
Joint Chiefs of Staff Identification Badge
_________________________________________________________________

Obama Biography:
Birthplace: Location remains questionable. Proof of United States Citizenship hasn't been provided.
Education: Columbia University , Harvard Law School . Records never produced, attendance remains questionable.
Military Career: None
Business Career: None
Political Career: Community organizer, Chicago, 1983-86; civil rights attorney, Chicago, 1991-96;
University of Chicago, lecturer, early 1990s-2004; Illinois State Senator, 1996-2005; U.S. Senator, 2005-2008; President 2008-.
____________________________________________________________________
I believe the wrong guy resigned.
===========================================
"Voting FOR someone because he is black is as racist
as voting AGAINST someone because he's black"

We're back and with a new format....

2010-07-06T09:52:00.002-04:00

The Democrats

2010-02-22T00:37:00.001-05:00

Obama Care Tablets

2010-02-22T00:36:00.001-05:00

First Fatty....

2010-02-21T23:58:00.006-05:00

First Lady Michelle Obama announced her $400 million dollar initiative, "Let's Move", a program to curb obesity in children in America. She should look in the mirror (or mirrors)

Ending the week with a laugh...

2010-02-06T19:26:00.001-05:00

2010-02-06T19:23:00.001-05:00

Ronald Reagan was born 99 years ago today. Today, Washington D.C. was shut down by a blizzard. Coincidence?

the bowing President

2010-02-01T11:16:00.007-05:00

U.S. President Barack Obama bows to Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio at MacDill Air Force Base on Thursday, Jan. 28, 2010 in Tampa, Fla.
(AP Photo/Edmund Fountain, Pool)

Wonder bar tab

2010-02-01T11:12:00.003-05:00

Here is a press release that I found most interesting:

House Speaker’s Military Travel Cost the United States Air Force $2,100,744.59 over a Two-Year Period, Including $101,429 for In-Flight Expenses
Contact Information:
Press Office 202-646-5172, ext 305

Washington, DC -- January 28, 2010

Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced today that it has obtained documents from the Air Force detailing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s use of United States Air Force aircraft for Congressional Delegations (CODELs). According to the documents, obtained by Judicial Watch through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), the Speaker’s military travel cost the United States Air Force $2,100,744.59 over a two-year period — $101,429.14 of which was for in-flight expenses, including food and alcohol. The following are highlights from the recent release of about 2,000 documents:

* Speaker Pelosi used Air Force aircraft to travel back to her district at an average cost of $28,210.51 per flight. The average cost of an international CODEL is $228,563.33. Of the 103 Pelosi-led congressional delegations (CODEL), 31 trips included members of the House Speaker’s family.
* One CODEL traveling from Washington, DC, through Tel Aviv, Israel to Baghdad, Iraq May 15-20, 2008, “to discuss matters of mutual concern with government leaders” included members of Congress and their spouses and cost $17,931 per hour in aircraft alone. Purchases for the CODEL included: Johnny Walker Red scotch, Grey Goose vodka, E&J brandy, Bailey’s Irish Crème, Maker’s Mark whiskey, Courvoisier cognac, Bacardi Light rum, Jim Beam whiskey, Beefeater gin, Dewars scotch, Bombay Sapphire gin, Jack Daniels whiskey, Corona beer and several bottles of wine.
* According to a “Memo for Record” from a March 29—April 7, 2007, CODEL that involved a stop in Israel, “CODEL could only bring Kosher items into the Hotel. Kosher alcohol for mixing beverages in the Delegation room was purchased on the local economy i.e. Bourbon, Whiskey, Scotch, Vodka, Gin, Triple Sec, Tequila, etc.”
* The Department of Defense advanced a CODEL of 56 members of Congress and staff $60,000 to travel to Louisiana and Mississippi July 19-22, 2008, to “view flood relief advances from Hurricane Katrina.” The three-day trip cost the U.S. Air Force $65,505.46, exceeding authorized funding by $5,505.46.

“Speaker Pelosi has a history of wasting taxpayer funds with her boorish demands for military travel. And these documents suggest the Speaker’s congressional delegations are more about partying than anything else,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.

Judicial Watch previously obtained internal DOD email correspondence detailing attempts by DOD staff to accommodate Pelosi’s numerous requests for military escorts and military aircraft as well as the speaker’s last minute cancellations and changes.

The "I"s have it...(click here)

2010-01-28T18:57:00.000-05:00

the Teleprompter President?

2010-01-28T18:45:00.007-05:00

Red Neck special forces

2010-01-28T01:59:00.001-05:00

The Pentagon announced TODAY the formation of a new 500-man elite fighting unit called the United States Redneck Special Forces (USRSF)

These mostly Southern boys who will be dropped into Afghanistan and will be given only the following facts about the Taliban and terrorists:

1. The season opened today.
2. There is no limit.
3. They taste just like chicken.
4. They don't like beer, pickups, country music, or Jesus.
5. They are directly responsible for the death of Dale Earnhardt.

The Pentagon expects the problem in Afghanistan to be over by Friday.

Applications to be in the special unit are available at your local Wal-Mart sporting goods counter.

The real State of The Union

2010-01-28T01:54:00.002-05:00

What IS the state of the union?

Listed below are facts and figures that have changed over the past year.

Unemployment rate
2008: 7.6%
2009: 10%

Total number of people unemployed
2008: 11,400,000
2009: 15,267,000

Number of federal employees
2008: 1,900,000
2009: 2,229,000

Average federal employee salary
2008: $71,206
2009: $74,403

U.S. Median Income for a four person family
2008: $67,019
2009: $70,354

Total value of U.S. GDP
2008: $14.33 trillion
2009: $14.57 trillion

US Dollar vs. Chinese Yuan
2008 avg.: $0.15 to 1 Yuan
2009 avg.: $0.15 to 1 Yuan

US Dollar vs. Euro
2008 avg.: $1.35 to 1 euro
2009 avg.: $1.46 to 1 euro

Average spending per registered lobbyist
2008: $58,230.00
2009: $63,226.00

Cost of a barrel of oil
2008: $44.60
2009: $79.36

Average price for a gallon of gas
2008: $1.840
2009: $2.695

Guns sold in the U.S., ammo sold
2008: 12,709,023, 7-10 billion rounds
2009: 14,033,824, 12 billion rounds

Number of public-sector union members
2008: 7,832,000
2009: 7,900,000

Number of private-sector union members
2008: 8,265,000
2009: 7,431,000

Number of failed banks bailed out by FDIC
2008: 25
2009: 140

Total number of corporate bankruptcies
2008: 138
2009: 207

Number of personal bankruptcies
2008: 1,074,225
2009: 1,402,816

Average home price
2008: $292,600
2009: $268,733

Federal hate crime cases prosecuted by the Justice Dept.
2008: 23
2009: 25 (second highest ever, after 2001)

Divorce Rate
2008: 3.5 divorces per 1000 people
2009: 3.4 divorces per 1000 people

Number of movies watched, Total ticket sales
2008: 1,370,000,000 (tickets sold); 9,850,000,000 (revenue)
2009: 1,460,000,000 (tickets sold); 10,490,000,000 (revenue)

Visits to the White House

Total Visits by Banking and Finance C.E.O.’s: 31

Total Visits by Labor Union Bosses: 29

Total Visits by Energy C.E.O.’s: 15

DailyCaller.com

Kinder prompter

2010-01-28T01:50:00.001-05:00

I could not make this up. The teleprompter President struck a home run with this one..I quote the AP article..
"President Barack Obama, accompanied by Education Secretary Arne Duncan, speaks to the media after a discussion with 6th grade students at Graham Road Elementary School in Falls Church, Va., Tuesday, Jan. 19, 2010."

Happy Obamaversary

2010-01-25T22:13:00.001-05:00

The Cape Cod Times headline said it best......."Obama hope on the ropes one year in.."

America rising?

2010-01-21T22:16:00.001-05:00

See the video in the Video Lounge (to the left on this blog page)

Ted can't be happy...

2010-01-18T17:04:00.002-05:00

Here is a summary of the latest polls, as of yesterday. Incredible. Ted can't be happy. I suspect Chivas sales skyrocket!

The Obomba shuttle

2010-01-18T16:12:00.001-05:00

The "shuttle" struts along. He hits the pedal to the metal, but the metal is aluminum.

Massachusetts Miracle?

2010-01-16T13:47:00.002-05:00

"Democrat Martha Coakley is the voice of the 'little people' the way Ted Kennedy was the voice of sobriety. If Massachusetts voters want another privileged liberal who talks a good 'social justice' game while ignoring public corruption, pocketing gobs of money from Beltway fat cats and pandering to corporate special interests, Coakley's the one."--Michelle Malkin

Where is Obama?

2010-01-14T18:50:00.003-05:00

In one, if not THE one of the most important Senate races (especially to replace Ted "Chivas" Kennedy), where is the P.I.D.E. (President I Didn't Elect) Obama? (This even before the tragedy in Haiti.)

Perhaps after Democratic election losses in New Jersey and Virginia, loss of the Olympics in Chicago, the Big O is a bit shy?

Here is a bulletin...he did offer support to Martha with this statemeent... "We all need Ted Kennedy's seat to be filled by a champion for change -- and Martha Coakley is that champion," he wrote in the message. "The stakes are high. Time is short," he added. "And your role is essential."

What is your role? Where is your support for Martha? Next week should be quite interesting.

new terrorist rights?

2010-01-14T18:48:00.000-05:00

It's a new year...time to join the Church...

2010-01-13T17:33:00.001-05:00

a very interesting chart.....

2010-01-13T17:31:00.001-05:00

Nothing more to add. Any thoughts on that Mr. President?

Cartoons of the week...

2010-01-13T17:17:00.005-05:00

Kerry kicked to the curb...(again)

2010-01-05T03:10:00.003-05:00

John F(raud) Kerry's visit to Iran is on the verge of being publicly dissed by the Iranian Parliament...another kick in the balls to the Obama administration’s policy of kissing up to and trying to stroke (diplomatically to) Iran.

New TSA guidelines

2009-12-31T19:41:00.000-05:00

new job after the White House?

2009-12-31T19:39:00.000-05:00

DENVER (AP) -- A Colorado state employee could be disciplined for sending an e-mail showing President Barack Obama shining the shoes of former Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

The 73-year-old Colorado Department of Transportation worker forwarded the e-mail to at least four co-workers and others on Dec. 22 using her state e-mail account. One of the recipients outside the agency complained.

The original sender of the e-mail, who isn't a state employee, wrote "It appears he (Obama) has found his niche."

CDOT spokeswoman Mindy Crane says the worker could face discipline ranging from a written reprimand to suspension. Employment rules require that she meet with personnel officials first and have a chance to respond in writing. That meeting is scheduled for next week.

Obama is that you?

2009-12-31T19:32:00.002-05:00

Obama gets in the car after going to the movies in Kaneohe, Hawaii Thursday, Dec. 31, 2009. Getting grayer. Guess the job ain't that easy as Community Organizin' is it?
(AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Happy Holiday's from Cape Cod

2009-12-24T01:27:00.002-05:00

Lobster Peace copyright © by Andrew Newman. All rights reserved.
www.capecard.net

Why I voted Democrat?

2009-12-23T16:49:00.001-05:00

Why I Voted Democrat

I voted Democrat because I love the fact that I can now marry whatever I want. I've decided to marry my boat.

I voted Democrat because I believe oil companies' profits of 4% on a gallon of gas are obscene but the government taxing the same gallon of gas at 15% isn't.

I voted Democrat because I believe the government will do a better job of spending the money I earn than I would.

I voted Democrat because freedom of speech is fine as long as
nobody is offended by it.

I voted Democrat because when we pull out of Iraq I trust that the bad guys will stop what they're doing because they now think we’re good guys.

I voted Democrat because I'm way too irresponsible to own a gun, and I know that my local police are all I need to protect me from murderers and thieves.

I voted Democrat because I believe that people who can't tell us if it will rain on Friday can tell us that the polar ice caps will melt away in ten years if I don't start driving a Prius.

I voted Democrat because I'm not concerned about the slaughter of
millions of babies so long as we keep all death row inmates alive.

I voted Democrat because I believe that business should not be
allowed to make profits for themselves. They need to break even and give the rest away to the government for redistribution as IT sees fit.

I voted Democrat because I believe liberal judges need to rewrite The Constitution every few days to suit some fringe kooks who would never get their agendas past the voters.

I voted Democrat because my head is so firmly planted up my rear that it is unlikely that I'll ever have another point of view.

Keep in mind: "A Liberal is a person who will give away everything they don't own."

Blatantly copied from Moe Lauzier's blog.

Pork, the other tax meat

2009-12-23T16:47:00.002-05:00

My hair is great isn't it?

2009-12-23T16:46:00.002-05:00

Click here.

2009-12-12T15:10:00.002-05:00

Do you think Congress will ever get to this level? Hey...we got a "you lie."..

Cartoons of the day....

2009-12-10T02:01:00.003-05:00

Coming back empty handed...

2009-11-23T11:04:00.003-05:00

The Big O is back in town. His (first real job)approval ratings are bleak and the walls are caving in. Even a Biden goof might not save him. Perhaps if he pardoned the Thanksgiving Turkey and gave it Obama Care? Might help his popularity?

He left Washington D&C with great promise and hope. The New World Order was to take over by storm. Instead...the glitz and glamour, the bending over and kissing up left him returning with a nice briefcase full on bullcrap.
Der Spiegal put it best. "When he entered office, US President Barack Obama promised to inject US foreign policy with a new tone of respect and diplomacy. His recent trip to Asia, however, showed that it's not working. A shift to Bush-style bluntness may be coming."
Other headlines about the Big O...
Lost Some Stature
Relatively Unsuccessful
'A Lot Like Jimmy Carter'
Need I say more?

Quote of the month...(so far)

2009-11-21T22:48:00.002-05:00

Sen. Kerry’s Daughter Alexandra Arrested On Suspicion of DUI

Once again, a Kerry fails to live up to the heights that the Kennedys set! She only blew a .06?? The Kennedys role out of bed and have a higher BAC! (blood alcohol content).. quote from Chris Hogan (C) Copyright 2009

What really happened.....the Democrat version

2009-11-21T22:07:00.000-05:00

The Naivete Continues......

2009-11-14T16:15:00.002-05:00

The learning curve continues for our "Commander in Disbelief."

To deny that the Fort Hood incident is a terrorist act defies logic with given facts.
The murderer/terrorist emailed an al-Qaeda recruiter in Yemen 20 times. He yelled "Allah Akbar" (God is great) while gunning down innocent people. What more do you need? YouTube evidence?

I think you have to go back to last February when "The Big O" said "we have a battle or a war against some terrorist organizations. But that those organizations aren't representative of a broader Arab community [or] Muslim community.

"I believe we can win over moderate Muslims to recognize that destruction and nihilism ultimately leads to a dead end."

This also comes from the President who changed the term "war on terror" to "overseas contingency operations."

The head is so far up...the light of day may not be seen until 2012....

How low can he go?

2009-11-14T15:21:00.006-05:00

Ahead of the Obama Apology Tour, China has detained several dissidents and campaigners ahead of the visit of the "Big O" on Sunday during which he will urged to raise human rights with the Communist country. How much ass kissing? How much will he give away in "bribes"?

Based on the bending over, perhaps the staff will bring along an additional "negotiating" tool.

Veteran's Day 2009

2009-11-11T21:20:00.001-05:00

a bill with no where to go.....

2009-11-08T17:46:00.006-05:00

"The glow from a health care triumph faded quickly for President Barack Obama on Sunday as Democrats realized the bill they fought so hard to pass in the House has nowhere to go in the Senate." ...By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR AP News Sunday, November 08, 2009 4:57pm

The New Face of Terrorism?

2009-11-08T11:52:00.000-05:00

Tough road ahead in Senate for health care bill

2009-11-08T11:45:00.005-05:00

That headline is the understatement. The House bill passed last night was a certain victory. If there was no chance of the bill passing, Pelosi would of never allowed a vote to be taken. In reality, this bill will never see the light of day. The real battle will be in the Senate. It will (likely) never survive, particularly after Senator Lieberman vowed to filibuster. Poor Nancy. Got all dolled up in that hot red dress on a Saturday night at Midnight no less. She disappeared quickly after the presser. What do you suppose she turned into after Midnight? Was that Obama's kiss of the bill's death?

The Shout Out President.....

2009-11-07T00:41:00.005-05:00

So there was our beloved leader who decided to give a "shout out" and didn't even mention the Fort Hood massacre until almost three minutes into his speech. His insensitivity and leadership skills (or lack thereof) are now called into question more than ever. I was stunned that the eloquent teleprompter model didn't even have the stones to offer expressions of sympathy or compassion. At a time, as Commander in Chief (what a joke) when he was needed the most, he trolls on stage to give a "shout out." Obama should of canceled his speech before the Tribal Nations Conference hosted by the Department of Interior's Bureau of Indian affairs out of respect for those murdered. But no. Ego and performance beforehand. This is disturbing. He is now the Commander in Disbelief. He owes us all an apology.
The YouVideo link to this is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0hiw8iXdMM

Unemployment Mercury Rising....(as predicted, not unexpected)

2009-11-06T11:48:00.003-05:00

Obama the Rookie..

2009-11-05T20:39:00.001-05:00

"Der Spielgel Online is reporting "Obama has shelved his plans to attend festivities marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will reportedly take his place at the Nov. 9 celebrations."

Why you ask? (see above pic)

Sweeping changes in store?

2009-11-04T13:28:00.013-05:00

"Vast economic discontent marked the mood of Tuesday's off-year voters, portending potential trouble for incumbents generally and Democrats in particular in 2010." ..abcnews.go.com

Speaking of sweeping changes...look at The First Lady's booty. Must be tough for her to "change"...

Pelosi: "We won last night"

2009-11-04T13:27:00.002-05:00

"From our perspective we won last night," Pelosi told reporters during a Wednesday morning photo opportunity.

the Nobel Clearing House Sweepstakes....

2009-11-03T20:33:00.002-05:00

Yes, you can win too.....

introducing Marxi pads

2009-11-03T20:32:00.001-05:00

Obama No care...

2009-11-03T20:28:00.008-05:00

Since it appears that the Health Non-Care bill will not be happening (at least in 2009) according to ABC....I present my library of jokes and cartoons in memory of what could of been (a failure)...

I think I get it now..

2009-11-03T09:59:00.002-05:00

I THINK I GET IT
Let me see if I understand all this....

IF YOU CROSS THE NORTH KOREAN BORDER ILLEGALLY, YOU GET 12 YEARS HARD LABOR.
IF YOU CROSS THE IRANIAN BORDER ILLEGALLY, YOU ARE DETAINED INDEFINITELY.
IF YOU CROSS THE AFGHAN BORDER ILLEGALLY, YOU GET SHOT.
IF YOU CROSS THE TURKEY BORDER ILLEGALLY, YOU SPEND THE REST OF YOUR LIFE IN PRISON!
BUT, IF YOU CROSS THE U.S. BORDER ILLEGALLY, YOU GET:
· A DRIVERS LICENSE
· A SOCIAL SECURITY CARD
· WELFARE
· FOOD STAMPS
· AND, FREE HEALTH CARE?

Oh well sure. That makes perfect sense.

the photo op of the year.....

2009-11-01T13:21:00.003-05:00

Help him..he's falling and he can't get back up....

2009-11-01T13:19:00.001-05:00

H One Got None...

2009-11-01T13:18:00.000-05:00

U.S. Debt Clock Update

2009-11-01T10:37:00.004-05:00

As of 10:30am on Sunday, November 01, 2009, the U.S. Total Debt
Scary..and the spending keeps on going...

Obamakennedy

2009-11-01T10:34:00.001-05:00

Cash For Clunkers: Taxpayer Cost $24,000 each car!

2009-11-01T10:26:00.004-05:00

Cash for clunkers results in little or no appreciable sales. What was never mentioned to the consumers, the program was taxable to the car buyer! What did Hilliary say the other day..in Pakistan? "We (the United States) tax everything that moves and doesn’t move, and that’s not what we see in Pakistan,” she said. I rest my case, your Honor.

Press Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:
Jeannine Fallon/Chintan Talati
Edmunds.com Corporate Communications
www.Edmunds.com
Media Hotline: 310-309-4900
pr@edmunds.com

Edmunds.com Responds to White House Comments on Cash for Clunkers Analysis

SANTA MONICA, Calif. — October 29, 2009 — Today the Department of Transportation and White House chose to respond to an analysis Edmunds.com released Wednesday that looked at auto sales this year and what sales volumes would have been had the popular Cash for Clunkers program never existed.

At issue is one point of the analysis showing the taxpayer cost for every incremental vehicle sold was $24,000. To be clear, Edmunds.com is not disputing the government's statements regarding total voucher applications, vehicles sold or voucher values. The key question is how many of these sales would have occurred anyway.

Apparently, the $24,000 figure caught many by surprise. It shouldn't have. The truth is that consumer incentive programs are always hugely expensive when calculated by incremental sales — always in the tens of thousands of dollars. Cash for Clunkers was no exception.

The White House claims that our analysis was based on car sales on Mars and that on Earth, the marketplace is connected. We agree the marketplace is connected. In fact, that is exactly the basis of our analysis.

It is also claimed we missed the possibility that Cash for Clunkers generated excitement and consumers bought vehicles even if they didn't qualify for the program -- a claim that has been widely supported by anecdote but by little analysis. It does, after all, seem a bit odd that masses of consumers would elect to buy a vehicle because of a program for which they don't qualify -- doubly so when you add in the fact that prices shot up during Cash for Clunkers, creating a disincentive to buy.

Finally, the White House claims that the increase in fourth-quarter production reported by the car manufacturers can be attributed to Cash for Clunkers. But here is a better reason: the economy is recovering accompanied by improved car sales. No manufacturer increases production -- a decision with long-term consequences -- based on the 30-day sales blip triggered by an event like Cash for Clunkers.

With all respect to the White House, Edmunds.com thinks that instead of shooting the messenger, government officials should take heart from the core message of the analysis: the fundamentals of the auto marketplace are improving faster than the current sales numbers suggest.

Isn't this a piece of good news we can all cheer?

About Edmunds.com, Inc. (http://www.edmunds.com/help/about/index.html)
Edmunds.com, Inc. publishes four Web sites that empower, engage and educate automotive consumers and enthusiasts. Edmunds.com, the premier online resource for automotive consumer information, launched in 1995 as the first automotive information Web site. Its most popular feature, the Edmunds.com True Market Value® , is relied upon by millions of people seeking current transaction prices for new and used vehicles. Edmunds.com was named "Best Car Research Site" by Forbes ASAP, has been selected by consumers as the "Most Useful Web Site" according to every J.D. Power and Associates New Autoshopper.com Study(SM), was ranked first in the Survey of Car-Shopping Web Sites by The Wall Street Journal and was rated "#1" in Keynote's study of third-party automotive Web sites. Inside Line launched in January 2005 and is the most-read automotive enthusiast Web site. CarSpace launched in February 2006 and is an automotive social networking Web site and home to the oldest and most established automotive community. AutoObserver.com launched in 2007 and provides insightful automotive industry commentary and analysis. Edmunds Inc. is headquartered in Santa Monica, California, and maintains a satellite office in suburban Detroit.

expensive head hunters...

2009-10-31T11:09:00.002-04:00

So let me see if I get this....the U.S. spends $160 Billion in stimulus money to fund jobs growth. Jared Bernstein, chief economist and senior economic advisor to the VP Biden, called that the numbers "calculator abuse." He said the cost per job was actually $92,000 -- but finally admitted that estimate is for the whole stimulus package as of the end of 2010.
The White House (aka the House that Obama built) argued that the actual job number is actually larger than 640,000 -- more like one million jobs when you factor in stimulus jobs added in October and, more importantly, jobs created indirectly, such (as the brilliant VP babbler adds "the waitress who's still on the job." Big jobs.

Biden was also quoted as saying "We know this is not 100 percent accurate.Further updates and corrections are going to be needed." You don't say? Fuzzy math?

Hilliary pretty much sums it up...

2009-10-31T11:04:00.003-04:00

Al Qaeda leadership in Pakistan: Hillary Clinton

LAHORE: The leadership of Al Qaeda is in Pakistan, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Thursday.

“I find it hard to believe that nobody in your government knows where they are and couldn’t get them if they really wanted to,” she added.

“Maybe that’s the case; maybe they’re not gettable. I don’t know... As far as we know, they are in Pakistan,” Clinton told senior Pakistani newspaper editors in Lahore, AFP reported. “The percentage of taxes on GDP (in Pakistan) is among the lowest in the world... We (the United States) tax everything that moves and doesn’t move, and that’s not what we see in Pakistan,” she said.

times are a changin...

2009-10-28T19:35:00.001-04:00

The Public Option Out....

2009-10-28T19:33:00.002-04:00

poor CNN....

2009-10-26T20:19:00.000-04:00

The news ain't pretty at CNN. Reports are out today that they have fallen to last place in the prime time! Incredible. The numbers are below: (so of the differences are startling)

Total Day (Monday through Sunday), Total Viewers
Fox News: 1,255,000
CNN: 486,000
MSNBC: 359,000
HLN: 307,000

Total Day Viewers (Monday through Sunday), Ages 25-54
Fox News: 344,000
CNN: 142,000
HLN: 146,000
MSNBC: 131,000

Primetime Viewers (Monday through Sunday), Total Viewers
Fox News: 2,234,000
MSNBC 730,000
CNN 679,000
HLN 530,000

Primetime Viewers (Monday through Sunday), Ages 25-54
Fox News: 583,000
MSNBC: 239,000
HLN: 191,000
CNN: 190,000

7PM, Total Viewers
Fox Report with Shepard Smith: 1,989,000
Hardball: 649,000
Lou Dobbs Tonight: 631,000
Issues with Jane Velez-Mitchell: 461,000

7PM, Ages 25-54
Fox Report with Shepard Smith: 463,000
Hardball: 182,000
Issues with Jane Velez-Mitchell: 167,000
Lou Dobbs Tonight: 163,000

8PM, Total Viewers
O'Reilly Factor: 3,389,000
Countdown: 1,020,000
Nancy Grace: 830,000
Campbell Brown: 648,000

8PM, Ages 25-54
O'Reilly Factor 875,000
Countdown: 294,000
Nancy Grace: 269,000
Campbell Brown: 161,000

9PM, Total Viewers
Hannity: 2,374,000
Rachel Maddow: 880,000
Larry King Live: 842,000
Joy Behar: 535,000

9PM, Ages 25-54
Hannity: 659,000
Rachel Maddow: 246,000
Larry King Live: 224,000
Joy Behar: 183,000

10PM, Total Viewers
On the Record with Greta van Susteren: 1,958,000
Anderson Cooper 360: 689,000
Countdown (repeat): 600,000
Nancy Grace (repeat): 495,000

10PM, Ages 25-54
On the Record with Greta van Susteren: 533,000
Nancy Grace (repeat): 222,000
Countdown (repeat): 218,000
Anderson Cooper 360: 210,000

This says it all.....

2009-10-26T08:35:00.002-04:00

hula Thursday...round the Globe...

2009-10-22T22:47:00.003-04:00

The Big O's wife with the ever growing booty, hula hooped today. She managed to get in (according to U.S. Today, "142 swivels before her hula hoop hit the ground" after the torque of the hoop just could not take it anymore. It almost compares to the hula hooping in Cardiff, England. That is due to binge drinking. Michele Obama's is due to binge b.s.

Our New Secretary of State?

2009-10-21T19:09:00.003-04:00

Where is Hilliary? Kerry makes a "deal" with Karzai. Meet who I think will be our new beloved Secretary of State in 2010 after Hilliary "retires." As you can see, Kerry handles the political football well. He tried windsurfing...and flipflopping...maybe football will make him a real winner...since he was a loser in Massachusetts.

the indecisive President

2009-10-20T18:53:00.005-04:00

Seems like all the b.s that the Big O has been spewing over the past 10 months or so if finally catching up to him.

There is so much talk about the Big O inheriting the worst economy since the 30's. This came right after the Big O responded to the news story about the deficit hitting $1.4 trillion. Rewind two or three months beforehand. The Big O and his spin team sprinted across the finish line with a $787 Billion stimulus bill. They cried that it was needed now claiming that it would keep unemployment under 8%. When unemployment hit 9.5% in June, The Big O's co-spinner, Bad Mouth Biden said that "we misread how bad the economy was." I guess it how you consider was was.

Now the Big O is deflecting the economy issue with the health insurance issue. This also helps block making a decision on troop increases in Afghanistan. So what does The Big O do to help ease the pain of making a decision? He parties! Last night a huge tent was set up on the South Lawn to hear Sheila E. What will the next distraction be? I can't decide....

ratings bowling

2009-10-20T18:41:00.004-04:00

Based on the current Cable News ratings, with Fox News increasing their viewership by over 20%, I guess Fox News is not a news channel. Must be my imagination.

Fox News had another dominant quarter, claiming the top 10 cable news programs in third quarter 2009 and growing even more against their third quarter 2008 ratings, while CNN and MSNBC lost huge portions of their audience.

Fox News averaged 2.25 million total viewers in prime time for the third quarter...that's up 20% over the previous year...more than CNN (946,000, down an incredible 30%) and MSNBC (788,000, down 10%) combined. CNN losing to MSNBC.

Bill O'Reilly has led all cable news programs with an average of 3.295 million total viewers for the quarter. That is up 12% over the previous year. Sean Hannity (2.603 million, up 9%), Glenn Beck (2.403 million, up 89%), Greta van Susteren (2.150 million, up 16%), and "Special Report with Bret Baier" (1.997 million, up 20%). The top five.

At MSNBC, Keith Olbermann averaged 1.087 million total viewers, down 12% from the previous year and Rachel Maddow Show averaged 996,000 total viewers. CNN's Anderson Cooper 360 averaged 1.005 million viewers, down 17% from the previous year and Lou Dobbs averaged 658,000 total viewers, down 24%. Larry King and Campbell Brown were were both down in total viewers.

CNN is bleeding in viewer loss. In the primetime adults 25-54 demo, they dropped 39% compared to third quarter 2008, averaging just 287,000 viewers.

I guess since Fox News does not exist, the viewers are going to the Cartoon Network.

another homerun by Bolton

2009-10-18T15:03:00.003-04:00

Great piece in today's L.A. Times by former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton

latimes.com

Opinion

The danger of Obama's dithering

His foreign policy brings to mind Jimmy Carter, or perhaps Ethelred the Unready.

By John R. Bolton

October 18, 2009

Weakness in American foreign policy in one region often invites challenges elsewhere, because our adversaries carefully follow diminished American resolve. Similarly, presidential indecisiveness, whether because of uncertainty or internal political struggles, signals that the United States may not respond to international challenges in clear and coherent ways.

Taken together, weakness and indecisiveness have proved historically to be a toxic combination for America's global interests. That is exactly the combination we now see under President Obama. If anything, his receiving the Nobel Peace Prize only underlines the problem. All of Obama's campaign and inaugural talk about "extending an open hand" and "engagement," especially the multilateral variety, isn't exactly unfolding according to plan. Entirely predictably, we see more clearly every day that diplomacy is not a policy but only a technique. Absent presidential leadership, which at a minimum means clear policy direction and persistence in the face of criticism and adversity, engagement simply embodies weakness and indecision.

Obama is no Harry Truman. At best, he is reprising Jimmy Carter. At worst, the real precedent may be Ethelred the Unready, the turn-of the-first-millennium Anglo-Saxon king whose reputation for indecisiveness and his unsuccessful paying of Danegeld -- literally, "Danish tax" -- to buy off Viking raiders made him history's paradigmatic weak leader.

Beyond the disquiet (or outrage for some) prompted by the president's propensity to apologize for his country's pre-Obama history, Americans increasingly sense that his administration is drifting from one foreign policy mistake to another. Worse, the current is growing swifter, and the threats more pronounced, even as the administration tries to turn its face away from the world and toward its domestic priorities. Foreign observers, friend and foe alike, sense the same aimlessness and drift. French President Nicolas Sarkozy had to remind Obama at a Sept. 24 U.N. Security Council meeting that "we live in the real world, not a virtual one."

Examples of weakness abound, and the consequences are readily foreseeable.

Canceling the Polish and Czech missile defense bases is understood in Moscow and Eastern European capitals as backing down in the face of Russian bluster and belligerence. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev threatened the day after our 2008 election to deploy missiles targeting these assets unless they were canceled, a threat duly noted by the Russian media when Obama canceled the sites. Given candidate Obama's reaction to the 2008 Russia-Georgia war -- calling on both sides to exercise restraint -- there is little doubt that Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's project to re-extend Russian hegemony over as much of the former Soviet Union as he can will continue apace. Why should he worry about Washington?

Obama's Middle East peace process has stalled, most recently because he set a target for an end to Israeli settlement expansion, couldn't meet it and then proceeded as though he hadn't meant what he said originally. By insisting that Israel freeze settlements as a precondition to renewing Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, Obama drew a clear line. But when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu withstood Obama's pressure, Obama caved, hosting a photo-op with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas that strengthened Netanyahu and weakened Abbas just when Obama wanted to achieve exactly the opposite. However one views the substantive outcome of this vignette, Obama himself looked the weakest of all. It could well be years before his Middle East policy gets back up off the ground.

On nuclear nonproliferation, North Korea responded to the "open hand" of engagement by testing its second nuclear device, continuing an aggressive ballistic missile testing program, cooperating with other rogue states and kidnapping and holding hostage two American reporters. Obama's reaction is to press for more negotiations, which simply encourages Pyongyang to up the ante.

Iran is revealed to have been long constructing an undeclared, uninspected nuclear facility that makes a mockery of almost seven years of European Union negotiation efforts. Forced to deal publicly with this deeply worrying threat, Obama proposes the equivalent of money-laundering for nuclear threats: Iranian uranium enriched in open, unambiguous defiance of four Security Council resolutions will be enriched to higher levels in Russia, and then returned to be burned in a Tehran reactor -- ostensibly for peaceful purposes. Sarkozy again captured the growing international incredulity in his noteworthy Security Council speech: "I support America's 'extended hand.' But what have these proposals for dialogue produced for the international community? Nothing but more enriched uranium and more centrifuges."

Finally, Obama's agonizing, very public reappraisal of his own 7-month-old Afghanistan policy epitomizes indecisiveness. While there is no virtue in sustaining policy merely for continuity's sake, neither is credit due for too-quickly adopting policies without appreciating the risks entailed and then fleeing precipitously when the risks become manifest. The administration's stated reason for its policy re-evaluation was widespread fraud in Afghanistan's Aug. 20 presidential election. But this explanation is simply not credible. Did not the administration's generals and diplomats on the ground, not to mention United Nations observers, see the election mess coming? Was the Hamid Karzai administration's cupidity and corruption overlooked or ignored during Obama's original review and revision of his predecessor's policy?

The unmistakable inference is that Obama did not carefully think through his March Afghan policy, or did not have full confidence then or now in Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal or Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke, or that it is now politically inconvenient among increasingly antiwar Democrats to follow through on that policy.

None of these explanations reflect credit on the president. He is dithering. Whatever decision Obama reaches on Afghanistan, his credibility and leadership have been badly wounded by his continuing public display of indecisiveness.

Our international adversaries undoubtedly welcome all of these "resets" in U.S. foreign policy, but Americans should be appalled at how much of our posture in the world has already been given away. If Obama's first nine months indicate the direction of the next 39, we still have a long way to fall.

John R. Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the author of "Surrender Is Not an Option."

Fox News beats Obama at his own game

2009-10-18T09:05:00.003-04:00

Poor Barry. He just has not had a good week in the p.r. department. His Communications Director tried to take on Fox News...only to have it blown up in their face and give Fox a nice ratings boost.

Even the left leaning rag, New York Times agreed. The story is here:

October 18, 2009

The Media Equation

The Battle Between the White House and Fox News

By DAVID CARR

The Obama administration, which would seem to have its hands full with a two-front war in Iraq and Afghanistan, opened up a third front last week, this time with Fox News.

Until this point, the conflict had been mostly a one-sided affair, with Fox News hosts promoting tax day “tea parties” that focused protest on the new president, and more recently bringing down the presidential adviser Van Jones through rugged coverage that caught the administration, and other news organizations, off guard. During the health care debate, Fox News has put a megaphone to opponents, some of whom have advanced far-fetched theories about the impact of reform. And even farther out on the edge, the network’s most visible star of the moment, Glenn Beck, has said the president has “a deep-seated hatred for white people.”

Administration officials seemed to have decided that they had had enough.

“We’re going to treat them the way we would treat an opponent,” Anita Dunn, the White House communications director, said in an interview with The New York Times. “As they are undertaking a war against Barack Obama and the White House, we don’t need to pretend that this is the way that legitimate news organizations behave.”

Ah, but pretending has traditionally been a valuable part of the presidential playbook. Smiling and wearing beige even under the most withering news media assault is not only good manners, but also has generally been good politics. While there is undoubtedly a visceral thrill in finally setting out after your antagonists, the history of administrations that have successfully taken on the media and won is shorter than this sentence.

Not that they haven’t tried. In his second Inaugural Address, Ulysses S. Grant said he had “been the subject of abuse and slander scarcely ever equaled in political history.” President William McKinley labeled a gathering of the press a “congress of inventors,” and President Franklin D. Roosevelt assigned less favored press members to his “Dunce Club.” Sometimes the strategy worked — or caused no lasting damage. McKinley, like Grant, was elected to a second term. Roosevelt also won a third and fourth.

As Americans turned to TV for news, enmity from presidents soon followed. Vice President Spiro T. Agnew said “self-appointed analysts” at the Big Three networks exhibited undisguised “hostility” toward President Richard M. Nixon, subjecting his speeches to “instant analysis and querulous criticism.” Later, in the dispute with The Times over the Pentagon Papers, Mr. Nixon’s national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, accused the newspaper of treason.

Neither of the Bush presidents had a particularly cozy relationship with the press. George H.W. Bush finished the campaign in 1992 with a bumper sticker that suggested, “Annoy the Media. Vote Bush.” And George W. Bush, in the words of ABC’s Mark Halperin, viewed “the media as a special interest rather than as guardians of the public interest.” Bill Clinton, too, distrusted the press, as did others in his administration. When Vincent Foster, Mr. Clinton’s deputy White House counsel, committed suicide in 1993, he left behind a note accusing the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page of lying.

Even though almost all the critiques contained a kernel of truth, in each instance the folks who had the barrels of ink, and now pixels, seemed to come out ahead. So far, the only winner in this latest dispute seems to be Fox News. Ratings are up 20 percent this year, and the network basked for a week in the antagonism of a sitting president

It could all be written off as a sideshow, but it may present a genuine problem for Mr. Obama, who took great pains during the campaign to depict himself as being above the fray of over-heated partisan squabbling. In his victory speech he promised, “I will listen to you, especially when we disagree.”

Or not. Under the direction of Ms. Dunn, the administration has begun to punch back. On Sept. 20, the president visited all the Sunday talk shows save Fox News’, with Ms. Dunn explaining that Fox was not a legitimate news organization, but a “wing of the Republican Party.”

The one weapon all administrations can wield is access, and the White House, making it clear that it will use that leverage going forward, informed Fox News not to expect to bump knees with the president until 2010. But Fox News, as many have pointed out, is not in the access business. They are in the agitation business. And the administration, by deploying official resources against a troublesome media organization, seems to have brought a knife to a gunfight.

Tactics aside, something more fundamental is at risk. Even the president’s most avid critics admit he exudes a certain cool confidence. The public impression of him is that if anyone were to, say, talk trash on the basketball court with Mr. Obama, he would not find much space for rent in Mr. Obama’s head.

Mr. Obama has also shown a consistent ability to disarm or at least engage his critics. When he eventually sat for an interview with the Fox News personality Bill O’Reilly two months before the election, it made for great television. But for the time being, détente seems very far away and the gap seems to be widening.

On the official White House Web site, a blog called Reality Check provides a running tally of transgressions by Fox News. It ends with this: “For even more Fox lies, check out the latest ‘Truth-O-Meter’ feature from Politifact that debunks a false claim about a White House staffer that continues to be repeated by Glenn Beck and others on the network.”

People who work in political communications have pointed out that it is a principle of power dynamics to “punch up “ — that is, to take on bigger foes, not smaller ones. A blog on the White House Web site that uses a “truth-o-meter” against a particular cable news network would not seem to qualify. As it is, Reality Check sounds a bit like the blog of some unemployed guy living in his parents’ basement, not an official communiqué from Pennsylvania Avenue.

The American presidency was conceived as a corrective to the royals, but trading punches with cable shouters seems a bit too common. Perhaps it’s time to restore a little imperiousness to the relationship.

Obama Bucks...

2009-10-18T08:48:00.003-04:00

Take a look at the new greenback. Yes, the Dollar is almost value-less. Charmin. The U.S. Treasury department proudly announced that our total national debt is $1.42 Trillion Dollars. This is more national debt than we have for the first 200 years of the U.S. of A(mnesty) In my prior post, I mentioned how this debt may, like, rebound. Some economists are now warning that unless the government cuts spending or (gulp) raises taxes, another economic crisis could occur. No shit. So let me see here. The Treasury released numbers on Friday showing that the government paid $46.6 billion more than it took in. This put the checkbook negative $1.42 trillion. (Bad enough it was $459 billion this same time last year under Bush...bad enough...and I know even though Bush was President, the Democrats had control of the House and Senate since 2006..) it's the biggest deficit since World War II. So what if this is the worst deficit since World War II. The government's credit card has no credit limit. No re-payment plan (yet). So what if Kenneth Rogoff, a Hahhvard professor and former chief for the International Monetary Fund said "The rudderless U.S. fiscal policy is the biggest long-term risk to the U.S. economy. As we accumulate more and more debt, we leave ourselves very vulnerable."
The government paid $190 billion just in interest over the last year on Treasury securities to finance the debt. This could go up to $17.1 trillion in 2019.
One of the worst parts of this tale is that we owe China $800 Billion. Hey we can top that. The U.S. government owes the Social Security trust $4.4 Trillion. It's all about the Benjamin's baby! Not to worry, with Obama bucks..we'll be fine. ( or fined?)

that's not what I voted for....

2009-10-18T08:35:00.006-04:00

Seems to be what many of the Lord Obama's followers are saying to themselves these days. In a rather interesting move, the Obama mean team has threatened Fox News, calling them a wing of the Republican party. Not denying it...Fox does lean right..as it should. CNN is left, MSNBC is so far left the plane is ready to crash. Obama has done a rating good for Fox. Fox News is enjoying a 20 percent ratings boost. Not bad for a recession. (For those of you who think this thing is over and believe the p.r. spin in the media...don't be too panicked when unemployment continues to rise and all of those wonderful cash for clunker and home buyer programs start to fall apart. It seems a decent percentage of those folks are due to lose their jobs...resulting in loan defaults..and the financial mess/rebound continues.) We must also not forget....all these stimulus programs (which by the way...each stimulus job as been shown to cost $66,000) has to be paid back somehow. Heck even the Pillsbury Dough Boy is pissed. But don't worry...when it comes to Bling....we are all set. Plenty of Obama Bucks to go around. I hope you Republican spenders of the mid 2000's are taking notes from your past indiscretions.

behind closed doors...

2009-10-18T08:24:00.004-04:00

So the Big O is continuing to sway like the windsurfer Kerry was back in 2004. Here is an interesting "gotcha Big O" story in the Washington Post...So much for having a transparent White House....

By Perry Bacon Jr.
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, October 18, 2009

Three months before he was elected president, Barack Obama vowed not only to reform health care but also to pass the legislation in an unprecedented way.

"I'm going to have all the negotiations around a big table," he said at an appearance in Chester, Va., repeating an assertion he made many times. He said the discussions would be "televised on C-SPAN, so that people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents and who are making arguments on behalf of the drug companies or the insurance companies."

But now, as a Senate vote on health-care legislation nears, those negotiations are occurring in a setting that is anything but revolutionary in Washington: Three senators are working on the bill behind closed doors.

Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) sits at the head of a wooden table at his office as he and Sens. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) and Max Baucus (D-Mont.) work to merge two competing versions of health-care legislation into one bill. The three men will be joined by top aides as well as by members of President Obama's health-care team, led by White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. The sessions started on Wednesday and could be completed this week.

The group will make such key decisions as whether to include a government-run insurance plan designed to compete with private insurance companies. The bill passed in July by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which Dodd led while Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) was ailing, included such a provision, but the legislation passed last week by Baucus's Finance Committee did not.

The bills also differ on how much Americans who do not buy insurance should be fined as the government seeks to get everyone covered.

In the sessions, Dodd in effect represents advocates of the government-insurance option and Baucus represents those less committed to that proposal. The tie-breaking votes are likely to be Reid and, on Obama's behalf, Emanuel. Obama and Reid have said they personally back the government-insurance option but have not ruled out supporting a bill that lacks such a provision.

Although much of the writing of legislation happens in closed-door meetings, congressional Republicans have sharply criticized the ongoing process.

"This bill is being written in the dark of night," said House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), adding that "the president ought to keep his promise to the American people and open this process up."

"It's ironic that Congressman Boehner would be complaining since he has refused every step of the way to participate in the effort to reform health insurance," Reid Cherlin, a White House spokesman, said in a statement. "The House and Senate have held scores of hearings on health insurance reform -- as Congressman Boehner well knows -- and at the White House we've held an unprecedented series of webcast meetings with key health care stakeholders to gather their input in a public forum."

Baucus played down the private nature of the group's meetings. "In a real sense, all senators who want health-care reform are in the room because we'll be talking to all of them, they'll be talking to us," he said.

The three senators and Emanuel won't be the only ones playing a role in shaping the legislation. Every member of the Senate will have a chance to offer amendments to the bill the three senators write. And even though the final legislation is expected to resemble more closely the version in the Senate, where final passage would require support from more-conservative Democrats, House Democrats have been meeting for weeks on their version of the bill.

The House Democratic leadership and several key chairmen meet daily, and are regularly briefing smaller groups of lawmakers. As in the Senate, House moderates and liberals remain divided over the government-insurance option, which Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) strongly favors.

The House meetings are also not televised on C-SPAN or open to the public. But unlike the Senate negotiations, the House discussions tend to be open to more lawmakers.

"We have meetings and more meetings and gripe sessions," said Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.). "This process has been almost open to death."

But after weeks of Senate Finance Committee public hearings, the Senate negotiations are now an invitation-only affair in Reid's office. The majority leader is unlikely to expand his group, even as some senators unhappy with parts of the legislation, such as John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), have asked to be in the room.

Instead, lawmakers try to influence the three senators however they can. Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), a close Reid ally, annoyed him recently by publicly pressing the majority leader to include a government-run public insurance option. Moderate Democrats are privately prodding Baucus to defend the approach in the bill passed by his committee.

In addition to being well-versed in health-care policy, some of the negotiators gathering in Reid's office are quite health-conscious. Baucus has run 50-mile "ultramarathons" and wants to complete a 100-mile race. Reid and Emanuel do yoga, and Dodd turned the recent announcement of his prostate cancer diagnosis into a virtual public health campaign.

While fellow lawmakers seek to influence them, Dodd and Reid are dogged by low approval ratings in their home states and are facing reelection next year. As they emerged from a health-care session last week, Dodd and Reid touted the number of uninsured in their home states who would benefit from the legislation.

"All of my polling numbers are good," Reid said, even as polls show him trailing several potential challengers. On Friday, he took the highly unusual step of starting to run campaign ads more than a year before the election.

Reid, in particular, faces a balancing act. As majority leader, he is tasked with shepherding the bill and ensuring that it has the support of conservative Democrats necessary for passage. But liberal activists who could raise money and help him win next year, including the group MoveOn.org, are demanding he aggressively back the public option.

Reid, like the other members of the group, seems prepared to disappoint some people to get the broader bill finished.

"Neither I nor any other senator has the luxury of passing a perfect bill -- I wish we could -- that conforms exactly to his or her beliefs," he said. "But we must act."

watch your wallet....

2009-10-18T07:55:00.002-04:00

this is not a joke...

2009-10-14T20:00:00.002-04:00

My only concern is that will the Obama Health Care plan cover the major depression of all those who still believe in him once reality hits and the realization of his being an utter failure comes to light?

the O-bel Prize

2009-10-13T04:26:00.004-04:00

the many faces of Obama....

2009-10-13T04:06:00.011-04:00

How is that stimulus working?

2009-10-13T04:03:00.001-04:00

Since April 2009, the administration spent roughly $90 billion, or 18 percent of the total stimulus spending, on top of $62 billion in tax relief. During that time, the unemployment rate grew from 8.9 percent to 9.8 percent. And according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, job losses accelerated in September. As we see here, the current unemployment rate is already far above the 8.8 percent the administration said the rate would top out at next year without a stimulus.

How can we explain this? For starters it seems the administration misjudged the severity of potential job losses.

When the government grows by $1, the private sector shrinks by 20 cents, according to one estimate.

With respect to the stimulus, there are two theories on why unemployment keeps rising despite stimulus dollars. Some economists, including Paul Krugman, have argued that the problem with President Obama’s plan is that it doesn't spend enough. Hence, they think that a second stimulus is needed. Yet it is hard to argue that we already need another stimulus when less than a quarter of the money has been spent.

Other economists are arguing that the money is not being spent fast enough. Indeed, at this rate, the economy is likely to have recovered before most of the stimulus money has been spent.

One potential problem with the slow rate of spending is highlighted by some new Keynesians who typically teach that government spending can only grow the economy in the short run. After that, government spending actually hurts the private sector. Under the current plan, only 25 percent of the total spending will take place in 2009 (within four years all the money will be spent). That is too slow, they claim, since by the time the economy starts recovering, most of the stimulus money will remain unspent and, by then, government spending will actually hurt the economy.

It is hard to argue that we already need another stimulus when less than a quarter of the money has been spent.

So, what do the data say? There are few studies on the issue, but two have found that government spending shrinks the private sector, at least a little. Looking at war spending, Harvard University’s economist Robert Barro estimates that the multiplier of government spending is 0.8: when the government grows by $1, the private sector shrinks by 20 cents. Also, using a variable that takes into account the fact that military spending is anticipated several quarters before it actually occurs, the University of San Diego’s Valerie Ramey has shown how U.S. military spending influences GDP and estimates that the multiplier of government spending is between 0.6 (when World War II data is excluded) and 1 (when it is included). Thus both papers support the “crowding out” hypothesis.

More interestingly, in a recent Wall Street Journal piece, Barro and Charles Redlick add that while government spending during a period of average unemployment crowds out private investment, an increase in unemployment makes government intervention slightly more efficient. They write, “Our research also shows that greater weakness in the economy raises the estimated multiplier: It increases by around 0.1 for each two percentage points by which the unemployment rate exceeds its long-run median of 5.6%. Thus the estimated multiplier reaches 1.0 when the unemployment rate gets to about 12%.” In other words, it takes a lot of job losses for government spending to stop shrinking the private sector.

Putting aside the question of whether the stimulus is too small or being spent too slowly, what too many stimulus advocates overlook is that to spend money, the government needs to either borrow, tax, or print it (or combine these). Money taxed or borrowed from the private sector is money that firms cannot spend on goods or employees. The government’s slice of the pie gets bigger by making the rest of the pie smaller. This may explain in part why the stimulus has not translated into declining unemployment. from Veronique de Rugy is senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center

Obama could win Kentucky Derby, too

2009-10-11T07:12:00.003-04:00

More B.S.: President Obama could win Kentucky Derby, too
By Howie Carr | Sunday, October 11, 2009 | http://www.bostonherald.com |

Either the Red Sox [team stats] win this afternoon at Fenway or they go home for the winter. There’s only one man who can absolutely guarantee this must-win game.

Now pitching for the Red Sox: Barack Hussein Nobel Obama, the southpaw who wants to get both of his paws on your wallet.

So what if he’s 48 and has never played the game? He’ll get the “W” - that’s the lesson of this Nobel Peace Prize nonsense. He can throw the ball in the dirt in front of home plate - strike one! He can toss it over the catcher’s head - strike two! He can roll it to the plate like he’s back in that Pennsylvania bowling alley - Yer out!

It’ll be a perfect perfect game: 81 pitches, 81 strikes, at least if the home-plate umpire knows what’s good for him, if he doesn’t want to be called a . . . well, you know what Barack’s Kool-Aid-swilling cheerleaders call anybody who dares say the emperor has no clothes.

Who are these rac- I mean, who are these nattering nabobs of negativism who say Barack Obama has done nothing to earn this latest handout? Of course he’s advanced the cause of world peace. Have you forgotten the Beer Summit?

Even as we speak, the Obama administration is trying to return Manuel Zelaya to power in Honduras - you know, the dear pal of Hugo Chavez who is holed up in the Brazilian embassy down there, claiming he is being poisoned with death rays by “Israeli mercenaries.” Barack really knows how to pick ’em, doesn’t he?

Is Barack still trying to quit smoking? Let’s give him the Nobel Prize for Medicine. I heard he’s finally learned the phrase “p/e” stands for price-to-earnings ratio. Surely that merits the Nobel Prize for Economics.

The head of the IRS, Tim Geithner, is an admitted serial tax cheat. Ditto, the head of the House tax-writing committee, Charles Rangel. Do they have a Nobel Prize yet for irony. Or hypocrisy?

Wasn’t it nice of Barack to halfheartedly put on his self-deprecating hat Friday at the White House, saying, “I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures.”

More insincere words have never been spoken. What was it Winston Churchill who said of his rival Clement Atlee: “Mr. Atlee is a very modest man. But then he has much to be modest about.”

Don’t you ever dare say anything like that about Barack or they’ll call you a - well, you know they’ll call you, at least on MSNBC, where Comrade Chris and Comrade Keith both got tingles up their legs on Friday.

Barack is a guy who was born on third base and thinks he hit a triple. When are we going to see his SAT and LSAT scores? Must have been very good, considering he was admitted to Columbia and Harvard Law, right? Got to be editor of the Harvard Law Review without writing a single article - how do these things happen?

The Norwegian moonbat in charge of these latest reparations - I mean very-well-deserved honors - said the $1.4 million payoff, er, prize, is intended to “contribute a little bit to enhance what he is trying to do.” Hmmm. Around here, we call that walking-around money. You know, to “grease a few guys,” as one indictment put it, quoting a solon who received a much smaller “prize.”

Why don’t we just give Barack the Triple Crown right now? Not just the baseball Triple Crown, but the Triple Crown of horseracing too - he deserves it as much as he deserves this next trip to Scandinavia, a make-up call for losing the Olympics in Copenhagen.

Is it too early to get down a bet on the Kentucky Derby? I want Barack. Win, place AND show.

Nobel Prize for Being the Big "O"

2009-10-11T00:25:00.002-04:00

"In his 1895 will, award founder Alfred Nobel stipulated that the peace prize should go “to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations and the abolition or reduction of standing armies and the formation and spreading of peace congresses.”

And that guy is… President Barack Obama?" ...Michael Graham

"Today is a good day because it has been confirmed that Nobel Prizes are awarded on ideology, not accomplishments. Congrats Barack, you are now in the company of terrorists (Arafat), frauds (Menchu), racists (Maathi) and just plain loons (Carter) and all the other leftists that have won the award." Chris Hogan

I can't say it any better...

What happened to global warming Al?

2009-10-11T00:18:00.003-04:00

So I read that the warmest year recorded globally was not in 2008 or 2007, but in 1998!
You read this right boys and girls. No increase in global temps in 11 years. Al? Yo Al? Where art thou?

Chicago Olympics logo (if they won)

2009-10-06T15:35:00.002-04:00

Obomba's Media Malpractice

2009-10-06T13:56:00.005-04:00

So the "Big O" put on quite a show of docs yesterday. Trouble is, some of them "forgot" to wear their white coats to make for a "really big show." (kudos to Ed Sullivan. Besides having teleprompter issues of past, The "Big O" now needs a dress rehearsal...

He's beginning to morph into him

2009-10-03T14:23:00.001-04:00

Is there media bias for the "Big O"?

2009-10-03T14:21:00.000-04:00

You tell me...

The Ego has landed....

2009-10-03T13:26:00.006-04:00

Kudo's to Drudge for the headline. I could not resist copying it. So the "Big O" flew a red eye over to try to sweet the corrupt IOC into bringing the Olympics to another corrupt place, Chi-town. Sorry "Big O"...no go. Even Oprah "Win-fall" couldn't sway them. Not even Michelle and her python biceps, ever so expanding booty a/k/a the "Big O's" missile defense shield! So what if you spent, what $1,000,000.00 to try to charm your way in. Rumor has it, the IOC didn't take too kindly of your arrogance in making your speech, then taking off and not even waiting for the selection. Typical "Big O". Me thinks this is the start of a slide downhill. May be time to start writing your memoirs, version 1 of 100 for your next gig in 2012.

My favorite politician....and must be great to party with....

2009-09-28T10:52:00.004-04:00

Silvio Berlusconi calls Barack Obama tanned - again
Silvio Berlusconi, Italy's gaffe-prone prime minister, has again referred to US President Barack Obama as "suntanned", days after being snubbed by Michelle Obama at the G20 meeting in Pittsburgh.

By Nick Squires in Rome
Published: 7:29PM BST 27 Sep 2009
Previous

BERLUSCONI AND MICHELLE OBAMA: Silvio Berlusconi calls Barack Obama tanned - again
Mr Berlusconi addresses a crowd of cheering supporters in Milan on Sunday Photo: AFP/GETTY
BERLUSCONI AND MICHELLE OBAMA: Silvio Berlusconi calls Barack Obama tanned - again
Mrs Obama pointedly chose to shake Mr Berlusconi's hand rather than give him hug and a kiss Photo: AFP/GETTY

"I bring you greetings from a person who is called...a person who is sun-tanned...Barack Obama," the smiling 72-year-old politician told a crowd of cheering supporters in Milan on Sunday.

"You wouldn't believe it, but they go sunbathing at the beach together - his wife is also sun-tanned."

*
Silvio Berlusconi says he is 'paler' than Barack Obama

He said his rapport with America's first black president was "easy-going" and described Mr Obama as a "fine man" with a good sense of irony, as the crowd chanted "Silvio, Silvio" and his campaign slogan, "Thank goodness for Silvio".

At the G20 meeting last week, Mrs Obama pointedly chose to shake Mr Berlusconi's hand rather than give him hug and a kiss on the cheek, as she did to other world leaders.

Mrs Obama's reserve may have reflected White House reluctance to appear too cozy with a man who has been dogged since April by scandals over his personal life, including accusations that he "consorts with minors" and that he slept with a high-class prostitute at his private mansion in Rome.

Mr Berlusconi, famed for his year-round tan, sparked international outrage last November when he first described Mr Obama as "sun-tanned".

Later that month he reiterated the remark, saying that anyone who found it racist had no sense of humour and was an "imbecile".

At the weekend rally in Milan, Mr Berlusconi told supporters of his People of Freedom party that his government had scored a number of successes since being elected last year, claiming that he had acted swiftly to tackle the effects of the global economic crisis and ensure that Italy had a more solid banking system than many other countries.

"And we have introduced a new element into Italian politics: morality," said Mr Berlusconi, whose estranged wife, Veronica Lario, 53, has suggested that he is obsessed with chasing glamorous actresses and showgirls young enough to be his grand daughters.

throw Obama a life vest....

2009-09-21T13:22:00.002-04:00

final thoughts on Ted Kennedy.....

2009-08-27T01:34:00.005-04:00

Out of respect, I waited 24 hours after the passing of the "senior" Senator from Massachusetts.

The airwaves have been filled with the grand and glorious accolades of "good ole Ted."

What was conveniently left out were the following...

While I acknowledge the "Ted" spent his life on the public payroll and trying to spread his liberal ideology, the man who never held a real job. He did try to help the poor, immigrants and those whose vote he likely never got, as they didn't vote.

Ted was wrong in virtually every public policy. Some examples:

*He played advocate and appeased the Soviet Union and other totalitarian regimes.
*He opposed the Reagan/Thatcher/John Paul II confrontation of the Soviet Union (aka the "Evil Empire". He went so far as "to secretly reach out to the Soviet regime in 1983 with the motive of helping the Soviets defeat US policy. If Kennedy's political views had prevailed, millions of people would have remained trapped behind the Iron Curtain. Source: http://www.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=30980
*Ted supported big-government socialism of the 1960s. This have given us a bankrupt Medicare/Social Security system. President Clinton actually signed into law a welfare reform bill which undid the social and economic damage of 30 years of Ted Kennedy welfare policies.
*We can also thank Ted for today's illegal immigration disaster. His policy is traced directly to his Immigration "reform" of the 1960s. Hundreds of thousands of educated, high-value immigrants from Europe, Africa and Asia were effectively blocked from coming to the US, while low-skill, low-wage illegal immigrants have flooded across our border. Once they were here, these illegal aliens are and were sustained by tax-funded social services all advocated by, you guessed it...Ted Kennedy.
*Ted, known for his "adult beverage days", has a favorite D.C. restaurant, and the "Ted Kennedy Fun Room.." In the Summer of 1989 Kennedy and fellow Senator Chris Dodd were having lunch at famous Washington D.C. restaurant La Brasserie. Kennedy requested the attendance of waitress Carla Gaviglio. According to the Washington Times "When she put in an appearance in their private retreat - 'The Teddy Kennedy Fun Room' - the Massachusetts senator picked her up and heaved her onto a table. The crystal candlesticks and champagne glasses shattered as he grabbed her again and flung her on top of Dodd.

"Then Kennedy threw himself on top of the woman. The waitress implored Mr. Kennedy to 'Get off me!'

"Another waitress entered to find 'things all tipped over and Kennedy was on top, [the waitress] was in the middle and Dodd was on the bottom.' At that point the sandwich was disassembled." There are many more stories of this "gentleman." One of these stories came from a waitress friend of mine who somehow had his hand under her dress...
*Ted was expelled from Harvard for cheating on an exam in May 1951.
*Ted enlisted in the United States Army in June 1951. After basic training at Fort Dix, he requested assignment to Fort Holabird for Army Intelligence training, but was dropped after a few weeks without explanation.There Teddy went to Camp Gordon for training in the Military Police Corps.In June 1952, he was assigned to the honor guard at SHAPE headquarters in Paris. Good old Dad's political connections made sure that he was not deployed to Korean War. He was discharged in March 1953 as a private first class. (You can insert joke, here.)
*And, drum roll please, last but not least, Ted Kennedy was responsible for the death of a woman. Mary Jo Kopechne suffocated to death in his car, while he hid out until the next day, likely sleeping off a scotch filled nightmare. Ted lied to police. He then used his family's political power to evade all responsibility. If this had been you or I, we'd be a convicted criminal. On July 25, 1969, Teddy plead guilty to leaving the scene of an accident and was given a sentence of two months in jail, suspended.(of course) Later that night, he gave a national broadcast in which he said, "I regard as indefensible the fact that I did not report the accident to the police immediately." But, he denied driving under the influence of alcohol and denied any immoral conduct between him and Kopechne. He then asked the Massachusetts electorate whether he should stay or should he go and, much to our shock, shock, I say...he got a favorable response and stayed as the liberal lion of the Senate. In January 1970, an inquest into Kopechne's death took place in Edgartown, Massachusetts. At the request of Kennedy's lawyers (and his daddy), the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ordered the inquest be conducted in secret. The presiding judge, James A. Boyle, concluded that some aspects of Kennedy's story of that night were not true, and that "negligent driving appears to have contributed to the death of Mary Jo Kopechne." I am shocked! You don't say! A grand jury on Martha's Vineyard staged a two-day investigation in April 1970 but issued no indictment, after which Boyle made his inquest report public. (I wonder how many pay-offs were involved...) Ted made a comment that he deemed its conclusions "not justified."
There are many more tales to tell about the Camelot king. From the William Kennedy Smith rape trial in 1991 to the current fiasco of having to change Massachusetts state law, to allow U.S. Senate vacancies to be temporarily filled pending a special election. Funny how Ted had this law changed in 2004 to prevent former Republican Governor Mitt Romney from appointing a replacement for Senator John Kerry, a Democrat, in the event Kerry won the presidency. At this same time, Kennedy successfully made personal appeals to Massachusetts Democratic legislative leaders to pass the bill, which had been stalled prior to his request. The Boston Globe had reported that Ted was concerned that the people of Massachusetts would not be represented 5 months until a special election, after his passing. But he missed almost all of the Senate roll call votes this year. He did not have the stones to resign like he should of. I guess he did not really care that much, did he?

clearing out my cartoon/pic library....

2009-08-10T22:50:00.014-04:00

I have been saving some funny pics on my desktop for a while..time to post 'em....

Hugh Hewitt has some interesting questions...

2009-08-10T22:17:00.001-04:00

Hugh Hewitt: 10 August recess questions for your congressman
By: Hugh Hewitt
Examiner Columnist
August 3, 2009

Members of the House are back in their districts, and senators will join them in their states after next week. If they are doing their jobs - a big if - they will be meeting with constituents over the next month, and this is your chance to impact the debate on the radical proposals to restructure American medicine.
These proposals are now making their way towards a final debate and vote in the fall. Here are 10 questions for any meeting you might have or e-mail you might send. (And 10 answers any honest representative or senator would give you.)

1. Do you guarantee that I get to keep the plan I have and the doctor I have? ("I know you have heard the president say this repeatedly, but expert after expert has confirmed this is simply not true. Employers pick health plans, not employees, and if the new law puts forward a cheap 'government option/public plan,' employers will dump employees into it and pocket the savings as smart business people will do when given such a choice.")

2. Will the law require Members of Congress and federal employees to be enrolled in the "government option/public plan," and if not, why not? ("No, it won't. Of course not. Because the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP) is a gold-plated, great plan that Congress will never give up for the cost-driven, tin-plated "government option/public plan.")

3. Will seniors be guaranteed joint replacements, stents, and the chemotherapy they need, or will they be forced to accept less-costly and less-effective alternatives? ("Of course they aren't going to get the best, most expensive treatments. Medicare is already nearly broke and the only way we can pay for it and the massive expansion of it to the uninsured is to ration care and take away the expensive treatment options.")

4. If seniors will be allowed the expensive but most effective treatments, how will costs be controlled? ("Like I said, the days of hip and knee replacements are gone when this plan passes. Get a cane.")

5. Will seniors have to wait longer for their treatments than they do now? ("Much longer. Doctors aren't going to want to see any 'government option' patients, and especially not time-consuming geezers.")

6. Will doctors see their payment schedules drop? ("Yes,dramatically. Some specialists, like anesthesiologists and pathologists will get creamed if Medicare rates or even slightly-higher-than-Medicare rates get adopted by the 'government option/public plan.'")

7. If their payments fall and they make less money, won't there be fewer doctors practicing medicine? ("Yes, far fewer. The job is often very hard, and even very caring people can't be expected to work that hard for much less money. Many will drop out, or open 'boutique' practices.")

8. Doesn't Canada have long lines for important surgeries? ("Yes, that is widely reported.")

9. How will making our system more like Canada's not mean longer lines and longer waits here? ("It will mean longer lines and waits, and shorter visits with the doctor when you do get in.")

10. Have you read the bill well enough to be interviewed about it on the radio by a conservative talk show host? ("C'mon. Of course I haven't and of course I won't. Have you seen even one extended interview with even one Member of Congress about the specifics of the bill with even a moderately skeptical journalist?")

Let me know if any of your representatives surprise me and say yes to the interview proposed in question 10, and I'll have them on the next day. But don't expect any Democrat to agree to extended interviews on the bill, even if it is the most civil of conversations.
The versions of the bill in the House are indefensible when scrutinized, so expect more and more rhetoric and fewer and fewer answers.

If and when seniors realize that AARP has sold them out and that they are going to be put in a long, long line to second-class treatments, the real blowback will begin, so sponsors of Obamacare will be doing their best to stay away from questions for the next month.

Examiner columnist Hugh Hewitt is a law professor at Chapman University Law School and a nationally syndicated radio talk show host who blogs daily at HughHewitt.com.

Obama-care...

2009-08-10T22:14:00.000-04:00

Obama's birth certificate...

2009-08-10T22:12:00.001-04:00

THE Birth Certificate - FINALLY!
NOW IT'S OFFICIAL! After spending $950,000 on attorneys to fend off releasing ANYTHING to prove he is a citizen of USA, Obama recently released his Hawaii birth certificate... ......and I hope, once and for all the matter will be dropped and I will not have five or six emails each day from all you ultra-right-wingers with a different conspiracy angle...
He was elected as our President and we need to get over the fact we lost... !! So please stop stirring up things and trying to discredit him with all these stupid and groundless rumors.....
Attached is a copy of his birth certificate and I hope this will put the matter to rest once and for all!
(Ooops, I can't find one.)

the Ten Commandments According to Obama...

2009-08-10T22:08:00.002-04:00

Exclusive: July 16, 2009

The Ten Commandments According to Obama

By: Patriot Update

You can view the sources at this website: http://patriotupdate.com/exclusives/read/13

© 2009 The Patriot Update. Feel free to circulate this article, but please link / give credit to The Patriot Update.

After observing Obama on the campaign trail and during his first six months in office, we have concluded that our President lives and governs according to his own set of “Ten Commandments.” They’re certainly NOT the Ten Commandments you learned in Sunday School. In fact, many are the direct opposite! To prove that our conclusions are correct, you will find a link to source documentation for each commandment on the Patriot Update web site.

I. Thou shalt have no God in America, except for me. For we are no longer a Christian nation and, after all, I am the chosen One. (And like God, I do not have a birth certificate.) SOURCE

II. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, unless it is my face carved on Mt. Rushmore. SOURCE

III. Thou shalt not utter my middle name in vain (or in public). Only I can say Barack Hussein Obama. SOURCE

IV. Remember tax day, April 15th, to keep it holy. SOURCE

V. Honour thy father and thy mother until they are too old and sick to care for. They will cost our public-funded health-care system too much money. SOURCE

VI. Thou shalt not kill, unless you have an unwanted, unborn baby. For it would be an abomination to punish your daughter with a baby. SOURCE

VII. Thou shalt not commit adultery if you are conservative or a Republican. Liberals and Democrats are hereby forgiven for all of their infidelity and immorality, but the careers of conservatives will be forever destroyed. SOURCE

VIII. Thou shalt not steal, until you've been elected to public office. Only then is it acceptable to take money from hard-working, successful citizens and give it to those who do not work, illegal immigrants, or those who do not have the motivation to better their own lives. SOURCE

IX. Thou shalt not discriminate against thy neighbor unless they are conservative, Caucasian, or Christian. SOURCE

X. Thou shalt not covet because it is simply unnecessary. I will place such a heavy tax burden on those that have achieved the American Dream that, by the end of my term as President, nobody will have any wealth or material goods left for you to covet. SOURCE

Obama dreams (more like a nightmare..)

2009-08-10T22:07:00.000-04:00

another "view" of Sgt. Crowley

2009-08-10T22:04:00.002-04:00

Sergeant Crowley, the sole class act in this trio, helps the handicapped Professor Gates down the stairs, while Barack Obama, heedless of the infirmities of his friend and fellow victim of self-defined racial profiling, strides ahead on his own.

This picture becomes a metaphor for ObamaCare. The elderly are left in the back, with only the kindness of the Crowleys of the world, the stand up guys, to depend on. The government has other priorities.

This image will have genuine resonance. It captures something that older Americans in particular can relate to. The President presses ahead with a program that will tell them to take painkillers instead of getting that artificial hip.

At every stage of the entire Gates affair, Obama has provided a revealing tell. The "acted stupidly" blunder revealed that he automatically blames the police and thinks they really are stupid to begin with. It didn't trigger a single alarm bell in his mind as he figured out what to say.

Without his scripts, Obama is no longer the master performer.

from Moe Lauzier's blog...Moe, I could not of said it any better.

another view on good ole Walter

2009-07-19T10:45:00.002-04:00

Walter Cronkite: Quintessential Liberal-Progressive
By Thomas Brewton | Jul 17, 2009

Mr. Cronkite, the influential and well-liked anchorman of “CBS Evening News” from 1962 to 1981, died today at age 92.

However nice a person he may have been, Walter Cronkite was, more importantly, a model voice for liberal-progressives’ brand of socialism. His lack of understanding about the nature of the Constitution and about the founding ethos of the United States allowed him to warp the minds of millions of Americans with the historicism that characterizes liberal-progressivism.

In a syndicated opinion column dated August 10, 2003, (Siding with the powerless: Ideas from 60 years in journalism) Mr. Cronkite wrote:

We [journalists] reached our intellectual adulthood with daily close-ups of the inequality in a nation that was founded on the commitment to equality for all. So we are inclined to side with the powerless rather than the powerful. If that is what makes us liberals so be it, just as long as . . . we adhere to the first ideals of good journalism.

This is blatant misrepresentation. Neither Mr. Cronkite, nor anyone, can present a single fact to support the contention that ours was a nation that was founded on the commitment to equality for all. It’s true that the colonists carried on the English tradition that everyone is equal under the law, that ours was to be a government of laws, not men.

But the equality that Mr. Cronkite and his liberal-progressive confreres took for granted is the opposite: an economic equality compelled by government tyranny.

Mr. Cronkite’s assertion can be chalked up either to ignorance of the circumstances leading to the War of Independence, or to intentional manipulation of public opinion. Neither is a worthy thing.

Anyone consulting the most influential documents leading up to the Declaration of Independence, such as the letters of Samuel Adams to members of the committees of correspondence in all the other colonies, will see that the rights of private property were the most important single unifying element among the colonial representatives at the Continental Congress. At the initial meeting of the Continental Congress, Adams was the most famous man present, because he had set the tone for the whole debate.

You will find that Samuel Adams repeatedly cited John Locke’s Second Treatise of Civil Government, in which the justification for ousting James II was the natural law doctrine that citizens had brought into political society inalienable rights to life, liberty, and private property. Of these, noted Locke, by far the most important was the right to protection of property against the arbitrary seizure or taxation by the crown. Locke contended that James II, by infringing property rights via confiscation and imprisonment, had broken the social compact and forfeited his right to rule.

Samuel Adams, in several letters, quotes Locke extensively with regard to property rights and says that those views are precisely the case for the colonists against George III and Parliament.

This is also a key element in the case stated by Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence. Our whole justification for breaking with England was preservation of natural law rights. That is the reason for the Declaration’s reference to the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God.

Mr. Cronkite doubtless believed that his liberal-progressivism really helps the less fortunate. But even Mr. Cronkite must have tumbled to the unmitigated disaster resulting from LBJ’s Great Society and Jimmy Carter’s double-digit inflation that wiped out more than half the value of people’s life savings.

What Mr. Cronkite and his fellow mainstream media liberal-progressive-socialists advocated is no less than the doctrine underlying Lenin’s Soviet Union, Mussolini’s Italy, and Hitler’s National Socialist Germany.

Thomas E. Brewton is a staff writer for the New Media Alliance, Inc. The New Media Alliance is a non-profit (501c3) national coalition of writers, journalists and grass-roots media outlets.

His weblog is THE VIEW FROM 1776
http://www.thomasbrewton.com/

Email comments to viewfrom1776@thomasbrewton.com

imagine if....

2009-07-14T23:55:00.001-04:00

from Moe Lauzier's blog. Could not of said/asked it better..

Imagine if this was George Bush's first three nonths in office:

Presidential comparison quiz

If George W. Bush had made a joke at the expense of the Special Olympics, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had given Tony Blair a set of inexpensive and useless (to Tony Blair's UK video formatting) DVDs, when Tony Blair had given him a thoughtful and historically significant gift, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had given the Queen of England an iPod containing videos of his speeches, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had visited Austria and made reference to the non-existent "Austrian language," would you have brushed it off as a minor slip?

If George W. Bush had filled his cabinet and circle of advisers with people who cannot seem to keep current on their income taxes, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had ordered the firing of the CEO of a major corporation, even though he had no constitutional authority to do so, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had proposed to double the national debt, which had taken more than two centuries to accumulate, in one year, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had then proposed to double the debt again within 10 years, would you have approved?

So, tell me again, what is it about Obama that makes him so brilliant and impressive?

Can't think of anything? Don't worry. He did all this in three months -- so you have three and a half years to come up with an answer.
Ciao.......Moe