BO Accomplishments

Hey, who says that BO hasn't been able to do much as President! Here is a good list of some of his top accomplishments. It is quite a list for someone that hasn't been in office very long. Just think what he might get done in a whole term!

1. Offended the Queen of England
2. Bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia
3. Praised the Marxist Daniel Ortega.
4. Kissed Socialist Hugo Chavez on the cheek.
5. Endorsed the Socialist Evo Morales of Bolivia
6. Sided with Hugo Chavez and Communist Fidel Castro against Honduras
7. Announced we would meet with Iranians with no pre-conditions while they're building their nuclear weapons.
8. Gave away billions to AIG also without pre-conditions.
9. Expanded the bailouts.
10. Insulted everyone who has ever loved a Special Olympian.
11. Doubled our national debt.
12. Announced the termination of our new missile defense system the day after North Korea launched an ICBM.
13. Released information on U.S. intelligence gathering despite urgings of his own CIA director and the prior four CIA directors.
14. Accepted without comment that five of his cabinet members cheated on their taxes and two other nominees withdrew after they couldn't take the heat.
15. Appointed a Homeland Security Chief who identified military veterans and abortion opponents as "dangers to the nation."
16. Ordered that the word "terrorism" no longer be used and instead refers to such acts as "man made disasters."
17. Circled the globe to publicly apologize for America 's world leadership.
18. Told the Mexican president that the violence in their country was because of us.
19. Politicized the census by moving it into the White House from the Department of Commerce.
20. Appointed as Attorney General the man who orchestrated the forced removal and expulsion to Cuba of a 9-year-old whose mother died trying to bring him to freedom in the United States.
21. Salutes as heroes three Navy SEALS who took down three terrorists who threatened one American life and the next day announces members of the Bush administration may stand trial for "torturing" three 9/11 terrorists by pouring water up their noses.
22.Low altitude photo shoot of Air Force One over New York City that frightened thousands of New Yorkers.
23. Sent his National Defense Advisor to Europe to assure them that the US will no longer treat Israel in a special manner and they might be on their own with the Muslims.
24. Praised Jimmy Carter's trip to Gaza where he sided with terrorist Hamas against Israel
25. Nationalized General Motors and Chrysler while turning shareholder control over to the unions and freezing out retired investors who owned their bonds. Committed unlimited taxpayer billions in the process.
26. Passed a huge energy tax in the House that will make American industry even less competitive while costing homeowners thousands per year.
27. Announced nationalized health care "reform" that will strip seniors of their Medicare, cut pay of physicians, increase taxes yet another $1 trillion, and put everyone on rationed care withgovernment bureaucrats deciding who gets care and who doesn't.

Bloomberg: Daschle says,
"Health care reform will not be pain free. Seniors should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them," while former Colorado Governor Dick Lamm says seniors have "a duty to die."

Hearings On Presidential Speech to Students

When Bush spoke to students, Democrats investigated, held hearings | Washington Examiner

Bush 41 had a nationwide hookup to students in '91. Now I really doubt that the original plan for the speech included lesson plans on kids writing down what they could do to "support the President", or videos of any famous people "pledging allegiance to Bush" (as BOs did when the plans first got out). Very few conservatives cared about the FACT of a president addressing the children, the issue was if this was a pep talk or an indoctrination talk. Generally, the MSM has failed to report what was planned and just reports on the content AFTER it was modified in response to conservative voices.

I'm guessing there won't be any investigation into the cost of the speech after the fact this time!

Why did the press ignore the Van Jones scandal? | Washington Examiner

Teddy The Traitor

Ted Kennedy's Soviet Gambit - Forbes.com

I find it absolutely incredible that this was never covered in the US.

"On 9-10 May of this year," the May 14 memorandum explained, "Sen. Edward Kennedy's close friend and trusted confidant [John] Tunney was in Moscow." (Tunney was Kennedy's law school roommate and a former Democratic senator from California.) "The senator charged Tunney to convey the following message, through confidential contacts, to the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Y. Andropov."

This is from Soviet archive information and was published in the London Times in 1991!!! My GOD!! A US Senator offering to work with Soviets to bring down an American President!

Now that bozo is buried in Arlington?? Can't we have him dug up and buried in Moscow?

We all ought to have been clear that the man had no morals, but no patriotism either? I guess once you have no values, it really means NO values!

I Pledge Allegiance to BO

Many conservatives enraged over Obama school speech - CNN.com

One can read this fine CNN article top to bottom and come to the conclusion that they would like you to "conservative opposition to BO is nuts". Maybe so, I'm not going to say that I'm unbiased, but I always like to ask myself a question that I really think CNN and their liberal buddies ought to consider.

What if it was Bush?

How would you feel then? The same? or different? Why? Would THAT be "nuts"? ... and of course I understand that many on the left are going to say that is COMPLETELY different, because BO is great, Bush was all wrong and evil to boot, and naturally anyone stupid enough to vote for Bush is BOTH stupid and nuts! That is why America is (was?) such a great country -- wildly divergent opinions got aired and people were able to compare reality to those opinions. We beleive (ed) in "principles not people".

Apparently, many classrooms intended to show the video that I embedded below. While some of the symbolsm might border on the spooky, it is mostly bubble gum grade propaganda about stupid stuff "I Pledge" ... to be nice to old ladies, shut off lights, study hard, etc ... but at the end, they "Pledge Allegiance to Barack" ... to the President". Now, go look in the mirror, and say "A YouTube Video of Bush supporters saying that they pledged allegiance to Bush that was directed at school kids by using stars that appeal to them would NOT have gotten liberals up in arms" (independent of trying to combine it with a message to school children). Look yourself in the mirror and then think about where you think the media in this country is at left or right??

"I Pledge Allegiance to George Bush" -- for kids. Think about it, and then read the CNN article. Could you pry them off the ceiling? I doubt it. Frankly, it creeps me out about 98% as much to hear "Bush" as it does "I Pledge Allegiance to Barack". Which country is this? Demi Moore and Ashton Kucher may be idiots, but they are well known idiots -- this isn't some "right wing militia" or "Marxist zombies". Frankly, I have an awfully hard time understanding how one can be American at all and not be somewhat concerned about this.

Indoor Aerial Robot

Pretty impressive. Suppose this is the most advanced thing that exists? Maybe, but I'm not sure I'd bet on it. Make this a little smaller, give it Bin Ladin recognition capability, "sleeps" by day and re-charges with solar power and hunts at night? Little C4? Little nerve toxin projectile? Audio of a BO speech? (no wait, that last one would violate the torture prohibition, I apologize)

Mass produce a couple 100 thousand and make a lot of areas of the world "less terrorist friendly". True, countermeasures might be "netting", strong fans on openings to buildings, etc -- but putting a little window breaking firepower on something seems like a potential, as well as maybe a bit of a "swarm capacity"? "Hey, I've found him, all units converge!!" ... say each one of them carry's a few oz of C4 -- 100 of them going for a building/vehicle/etc in unison should be impressive.

Yes yes, it might be tough on tall skinny guys with beards in the assumed area, but how many tall skinny guys does the planet really need?

Reality Speaks At Boston Globe?

Obama’s soak-the-rich mentality - The Boston Globe

Wow. The Boston Globe, deep in the heart of leftville. THEY are looking at things an starting to wonder??

High taxes can have unwelcome, and unintended, consequences.

Governments delude themselves when they imagine they can easily raise all the money they want by soaking the rich. The rich always have other options. When taxes grow too onerous, high earners can adjust their economic behavior. Some move to Spain to play soccer for La Liga. Others, less glamorously, cut back on their investments, forgo new business opportunities, seek out tax havens, or work fewer hours. The impact is felt not only in lower-than-expected tax revenues, but in lower rates of growth and productivity and job creation. Jobs are disproportionately created by those who have money to invest. “You can’t have employment and despise employers,’’ Massachusetts Senator Paul Tsongas used to say. “No goose, no golden eggs.’’

Holy Moly Batman! You think? Folks with more money, more skills, etc have more options? Tell me it isn't so! I thought they were stationary money cows that could be miked at will. Perhaps the Globe needs to bulk up on some frothy BO rhetoric:

“While middle-class families have been playing by the rules, living up to their responsibilities as neighbors and citizens, those at the commanding heights of our economy have not,’’ charges Obama’s 2010 budget. “There’s nothing wrong with making money, but there is something wrong when we allow the playing field to be tilted so far in the favor of so few.’’ Accordingly it vows “to restore a basic sense of fairness to the tax code’’ and to ensure “that the wealthiest pay more.’’

There you go, how can you argue with that? Well, if one was reality based (not that we will be accusing the BO administration of any of that), one might look at the following:

By any reasonable standard the rich pay far more than their fair share. According to the latest (2007) IRS data, the top 1 percent of US taxpayers earn 22.8 percent of adjusted gross income but pay 40.4 percent of all federal income taxes. By contrast, the bottom 95 percent of taxpayers, who earn 62.5 percent of the income, pay just 39.4 percent of the income tax burden. That bears repeating: The income tax burden of the top 1 percent, who comprise just 1.4 million taxpayers, now exceeds that of the bottom 134 million combined.

One doesn't have to think very long to realize why the BO Administration and the MSM tend to be very fact averse. They are such "stubborn things". You go to all the work of devising a brilliant class warfare strategy, and much like your Afghanistan strategy, the rich just don't cooperate. Go figure. Why don't your targets ever sit still?

Lion of Leinenkugel

iowahawk: "Lion of Leinenkugel" Norm Snitker, 62, Laid to Rest

Any resemblance to drunks living or dead is intentional -- forget moderation, just enjoy it!

BO Breaks A Non-Spending Record

Op-Ed Columnist - The Obama Slide - NYTimes.com

The result is the Obama slide, the most important feature of the current moment. The number of Americans who trust President Obama to make the right decisions has fallen by roughly 17 percentage points. Obama’s job approval is down to about 50 percent. All presidents fall from their honeymoon highs, but in the history of polling, no newly elected American president has fallen this far this fast.

Hey, who says BO isn't special? His popularity has fallen the farthest the fastest of any newly elected President!! Wow! It seems that from '05 to '08, falling Bush poll numbers were being trumpeted from front pages with regularity. I wonder why it is that our unbiased press feels so differently about BO?

Oh The Morality!

Cheney’s dark side - and ours - The Boston Globe

As I read through this column I'm struck by a certainty that goes well beyond the farthest reaches of the "religious right" in the US and heads directly into Islamic Fundamentalist "morality". The horrid moralizers of the religious right are only trying to work with the law to control things like infanticide in the service of convienience and to prevent the conversion of a rite that has been between a man and a woman for all of human history into "something new". Those discussions are about using a political system that was supposedly suggested for exactly what it was intended for -- what exactly is the "mechanism" that might be suggested by the columnist below to deal with Americans "not getting their polls right"?:

The rot in our national morality is evident in a June poll by the Associated Press, which found that 52 percent of Americans said torture was sometimes or often justified to obtain information from terror suspects. An April CNN poll found that even though 60 percent of Americans thought harsh techniques including waterboarding constituted torture, 50 percent approved of them. A Washington Post/ABC News Poll was almost evenly split between Americans who say we should never use torture (49 percent) and should use torture in some cases (48 percent).

Whether it is because of the politics of fear that defined the Bush-Cheney years, the recession engulfing the Obama administration, or simply an indifference to foreigners languishing in jail, Americans have displayed scant curiosity about the dark side. A May McClatchy poll found Americans to be almost evenly split on having a “bipartisan blue-chip commission’’ on interrogations, and the CNN poll found nearly two-thirds disapproving of either a congressional investigation or independent panel.

This is a level of apathy, even civic debasement that makes it no wonder Cheney can spout off despite leaving America in a disgraceful place. He feels empowered to defend the dark side, because we have yet to shine a light.

Nobody on the Christian right that I know of expects that the minds of many of those who support Gay Marriage or Abortion on Demand are somehow going to get "educated" to "get it right". The politics is about getting people who SAY one thing (like 70%+ against Gay Marriage and later term abortions) to stand up and be politically counted. We don't expect Planned Parenthood and or the folks that march in the parades in San Francisco to suddenly "see the light".

When faced with people that fly planes into buildings to kill as many civilians as possible with their minds firmly fixed on 72 virgins in paradise, many Americans suspect that prissy Boston Globe columnists might not be the final moral authority on "what's fair in love and war". If they manage to put together some inquisition that puts a bunch of CIA folks and maybe even Dick Cheney in jail, is that going to change their minds.

Maybe. The reality that puts the numbers where they are today is that while the MSM and the Democrats have told us REPEATEDLY that "The policies and methods of the Bush Administration have made us less safe", there hasn't been any obvious evidence of that, such as an attack equivalent or greater than 9-11. If what the MSM and Democrats have said had any foundation in fact, we ought to have been attacked repeatedly during the Bush administration or shortly thereafter. The old low point for the security policy environment left to an administration was 2001 as Clinton handed off to Bush. Eight months later, 9-11. I write this on Sept 1, 2009 -- while BO and the MSM were so very certain that we were made "less safe" by Bush, the Clinton administration saw the first WTC bombing, Kovar Towers, 3 African Embassies and the USS Cole, the Bush Administration saw NONE after changing security policy on 9-11-2001.

We have now changed our policies sufficiently that we ought to be able to see over the next 4 years how much safer we have become with the great and powerful BO at the helm.

Grim Fairy Tales

RealClearPolitics - End to Two Grim Fairy Tales

Short and sweet, just read it. Teddy and Michael -- without all the false sugar coating.

Parsing Change

Michael Kinsley - Health Care: Americans Want Change While Keeping Status Quo - washingtonpost.com

Kinsley is a very smart guy, but the effect of being part of the "anointed elite" is somewhere between sad and humorous. Like the fish that finally thinks it is getting a handle on being wet, Kinsley is so unable to smack himself in the head and say "oh, it's all around me!" that one feels sorry and giggly all at the same time. It is the feeling that I suspect that Christians might get at the moment of death -- "Oh Wow, it's been obvious the whole time".

The reason Americans have turned against health-care reform, after
electing President Obama in part for promising it, is simple: Despite
protestations to the contrary, Americans don't like change.

As he discusses later, "change" is abstract. People LOVE "change" when it is "whatever they are dreaming it is at the moment" -- it gets to be less positive if it is "change underwear with the guy on your right".

Why does this happen? Some people (including me) say the voters are immature. Politicians (and those talk radio fellows again) are always telling them that they are wise and those folks in Washington are fools. Pollsters seek and validate their opinions on subjects they haven't bothered to learn anything about. Politicians drown them in benefits with no thought of how the bills will be paid. No wonder that
citizens turn out like spoiled children.

But "immature" is a label, not an explanation. It's just a guess, but my own suspicion is that the raucous town hall meetings that blindsided pols and press alike reflect the voters' true feelings -- misinformed, perhaps, but sincere -- and their previous passionate demands for what they now passionately oppose -- in a word, "change" -- were empty ritual. Discontent verging on anger is almost the price of admission to our political culture these days. You're nobody if you're not furious at Congress and/or the media and/or your health care and/or the president. To believe in your country's institutions is virtually unpatriotic.

Remember how BO ran on what he was specifically going to do? Niether do I ... his platform was "Change!" ... and "Yes We Can!". It is hard to imagine a more vacuous platform than "change" and "yes we can". How about "Different" and "yes"??

"To believe in your country's institutions is virtually unpatriotic". How much ink has been used on Abu Ghraib? "lies" about WMD? the "complete botching of Katrina"? The list could go on, but I believe that we just came out of 8 years of history where the institutions of the government were assailed on a daily basis as being completely corrupt and incompetent. I fully understand that the MSM and the Democrats INTENDED all that ire at the government to suddenly go away on the day the shining BO administration walked in the door, but is that really reasonable? Even the smartest of "smart bomb sniping" is going to have SOME collateral damage. I'd argue that the level of completely ridiculous lefty "carpet bombing" is going to have fallout for years to come!

If the US government was anything at all like the horror that has been portrayed for especially the last 4 years, it would be impossible to turn it around in many years. I happen to think that it was handed over in better shape than when the the semen stained oval office was handed over in 2001 without a whole lot of the furnishings, but I know the press and the Democrats have done all they can to convince us that that things have been in a horrible mess for 8 years.

Kinsley, journalists and the chattering classes in general REALLY believe "it's all in our minds", and "reality IS what THEY think it is". To THEM, on the day that BO took office, the horrible US government was transformed from a decrepit evil broken down hag into a beautiful shining maiden. I suspect to their minds, it looks something like what happens after Belle kisses the beast in "Beauty and the Beast" -- "the spell is broken" and the castle, help and all around is transformed from evil and ugly to good and beautiful in the twinkling of an eye.

Kinsley finds the idea that not everyone shares his view of a Fairy Godmother transformation to be "immature". Now that the evil Bush has been vanquished and we have entered the sunny rule of his lordship BO, why do the common vermin not scrape and bow as is befitting of the royalty that as now deigned to rule their "misinformed" and "immature" carcasses?

How indeed one might ask?

Goodbye Harry?

SHERMAN FREDERICK: Enough is enough, Harry - Opinion - ReviewJournal.com

Seeing the oh so sanctimonious Senate Leader Tom Daschle go down in '04 was a political highlight. One would hope that nearly everyone in the nation would now agree after realizing he skimmed $5million off various groups after his boys the Democrats took control back in '06 and somehow he neglected to pay over $100K of taxes due on the loot!

Could it be that the "power and the glory" has gone to Harry Reid's head enough so that the fine folks of Nevada have had enough? One can only hope.

The Real Lincoln

The subject book by Thomas DiLorenzo brings home one point that is much worth the read. We are taught in school that "Lincoln saved the union" and he was "the great emancipator". Those two items are somewhat true, but vast oversimplifications.

The greatest insight of the book is that "the union" that was "saved" wasn't what used to be called "The United States". The cost of the civil war was that the idea of "rights moving from God to the people to the states to the federal government" was destroyed at gunpoint, and replaced with the idea that once a state, always a state, or we will deal out death until you get it right.

The right of secession is a MUST in a country where the rights come from the people! The America of our founders and of the Constitution they created would have allowed the South to secede peacefully. Lincoln could not, and in fact pushed the South to war with "The American Plan" -- 1). Central Banking 2) High Tariffs 3). Internal Improvements.

For the South, this meant that they paid all the tariffs and all the "improvements" (which were essentially payola for companies) ended up in the North.

As the author pointed out, slavery was ended peacefully all around the world, and prejudice against blacks was at least as strong and in many ways stronger in the north. Lincoln himself wanted to ship the blacks back to Africa and felt that the two races were never tended to coexist. Were the south to have seceded peacefully, it is quite likely that slavery would have been ended in a decade or two via compensation to owners or a scheme where the children of the slaves were freed on their 21st birthday. Having over 620K Americans die wasn't required to end slavery.

I was personally struck by some of the sentiment that I first experienced when we had some friends from southern Indiana that would have been just south of the Mason Dixon line. Going to public school in the north, the Civil War is cut and dried -- the North is just, the South is unjust, Lincoln is a hero, the war was the only way to end slavery, and everyone ought to be thankful that it was fought. Not so in the South. This book is a more academic look at the kinds of sentiments that many of the folks of the South still carry over 100 years since the war. Being on the losing side makes a difference.

In reading the book, one realizes how expensive the Civil War was not only in lives and treasure, but in the loss of liberty and autonomy of the states that may well have been an irrecoverable blow that will eventually completely destroy the liberty that the country was founded on.

Healthcare Protest

Went over to a health care protest in front of the local offices of Klobuchar and Walz (Senator, Representative) Friday. 50-100 folks, no chanting, very civil signs, one guy across the street doing a "counter protest". Ran into a guy I used to work with whose wife died of cancer a couple of years ago -- he has spent a good long time studying the issue / Canada / England and was what I would call "quietly passionate". He had gone over to Owatonna for a town meeting and said they had come in with a couple of union buses of folks. Folks were pretty angry that anyone that disagrees is "a nut" -- thought that seemed to be different from what the war was at this time last year, although the war seems "all better now" for some odd reason.

A few of us walked into the offices and just asked "where were the Senator/Representative, when might they be in town?" we were told that information was not being given out due to "security". No coverage at all in the local paper on Saturday -- I recall a few years back that if they could get a couple of war protesters out, it was very newsworthy.

The media powers are doing their best to make anyone that disagrees with federal takeover of health care seem somewhere between "nuts and dangerous".

How Disaster Happens

RealClearPolitics - Can Dems Rescue ObamaCare?

It is hard to say whether the BOcare debacle will be ended quite the way Krauthammer suggests here, but it will likely have similar results in any case.

(5) Promise nothing but pleasure -- for now. Make health insurance universal and permanently protected. Tear up the existing bills and write a clean one -- Obamacare 2.0 -- promulgating draconian health-insurance regulation that prohibits (a) denying coverage for pre-existing conditions, (b) dropping coverage if the client gets sick, and (c) capping insurance company reimbursement.

What's not to like? If you have insurance, you'll never lose it. Nor will your children ever be denied coverage for pre-existing conditions.

The regulated insurance companies will get two things in return. Government will impose an individual mandate that will force the purchase of health insurance on the millions of healthy young people who today forgo it. And government will subsidize all the others who are too poor to buy health insurance. The result? Two enormous new revenue streams created by government for the insurance companies.

This "plan" is WAY more detailed than "Coverage for all, cheaper, better with more choice"!! This "plan" actually has something about HOW!!! But, like all things in this world that are "only pleasure" ....

Isn't there a catch? Of course, there is. This scheme is the ultimate bait-and-switch. The pleasure comes now, the pain later. Government-subsidized universal and virtually unlimited coverage will vastly compound already out-of-control government spending on health care. The financial and budgetary consequences will be catastrophic.

However, they will not appear immediately. And when they do, the only solution will be rationing. That's when the liberals will give the FCCCER regulatory power and give you end-of-life counseling.

But by then, resistance will be feeble. Why? Because at that point the only remaining option will be to give up the benefits we will have become accustomed to. Once granted, guaranteed universal health care is not relinquished. Look at Canada. Look at Britain. They got hooked; now they ration. So will we.

Government is a lot like drugs, smoking, gambling or other vices. When you "start", it seems "all good" -- it is just after you have been in it for awhile, realize how dependent you have become, how few other choices you now have, and how much power you have given up to your addiction, that you realize "they've got me". Then, as intended in the beginning, it is too late!!