Universal Health Care will never have rationing

Remember when they said that?
Obama is in the process of finding a new guy to put in charge of Medicare, and CNS found an old quote of his:

'The Decision is Not Whether or Not We Will Ration Care--The Decision is Whether We Will Ration Care With Our Eyes Open'

Who didn't see this coming?

The utter double standard of the left

Picture this:

A year into his presidency, George W. Bush announces that he's expanding offshore drilling. His decision removes a ban that spans decades.
In his speech, he tells us:

Under the leadership of Secretary Salazar, we’ll employ new technologies that reduce the impact of oil exploration. We’ll protect areas that are vital to tourism, the environment, and our national security. And we’ll be guided not by political ideology, but by scientific evidence.

A couple of months later, an oil rig blows up, killing 17 people.

'Bush' avoids any press conference where questions can be asked about the rig for the first month of the impending crisis. Instead, he issues reassuring messages telling us that the government is taking care of things. On May 3rd, he says:

Your government will do whatever it takes for as long as it takes to stop this crisis

In the meantime, it is discovered that 'Bush' has received the most amount of cash from BP of any candidate in the previous election. The candidate recieving the 3rd most amount of cash is a 'Republican' senator from Louisiana.
It is then revealed that president's administration did not inspect the oil rig as it was supposed to. AP, using a Freedom of Information act, discovers that part of the inspection report on the rig seems to be "whited out" without any explanation.

Under pressure from the press, 'Bush' takes questions regarding the oil spill. During his press conference, the president denounces the 'scandalous' relationship between the agencies that regulate the oil industry, and the people who drill for oil. In response to a question about how involved he is, he tells the press that he is "briefed every day" on the progress in the gulf.
When he's asked why the government isn't more involved, he tells the press that the technology of BP is superior to what the government has.

As oil begins to wash ashore, the president goes on vacation. Right before the president leaves, he gets his photo taken with two different sports teams for photo ops. His announced vacation plans are cut short to include a 4 hour visit to the oil slicked coast. While there, he says that 'mistakes are possible...but a lack of urgency about plugging the leak and restoring the region is not'.


As a side note, the president will be skipping the tradition of the president laying a wreath in Arlington on memorial day, with two wars going on overseas.

The president I'm talking about - of course - is not president Bush. However, it begs the question:
What would the reaction be of the left if the president were not named Obama?
Why isn't the left really, really upset at the clear financial connection between the current president and BP?
-And just as importantly, why isn't the left upset that the president is going on vacation during this crisis?

The WH is finally getting blamed for the BP spill

Which only makes sense, since they were the ones who pushed for more drilling. If Barack's name was Cheney, people would be marching down Michigan Avenue with his picture on it with his hands soaked in oil.
From Nola.com:

More than month into the spill -- and with no end in sight -- this past weekend may mark the moment when anger and frustration about the spill overtopped BP and began to splash on the carpet in the Oval Office.

Outside of the really bad pun, Nola.com is very accurate. There finally is some blame being put on the administration for not 'doing enough'. Now I should start here by explaining that I'm not one of those people who blames an administration when anything goes wrong. Further, I literally don't think its the administration's problem. But since they (Barack, etc.) went around blaming Bush for that hurricane in New Orleans, its only fair to blame this administration for not responding to this disaster in a timely manner.

The president's polling is down. Again.

Its happened once again. According to Rasmussen, he president's poll numbers are down.

Overall, 42% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the president's performance. That is the lowest level of approval yet measured for this president. Fifty-six percent (56%) now disapprove of his performance.

There could be many reasons why his performance numbers continue to plummet, but this could be a big one: the president approved of more drilling just months before a major oil disaster happened in the gulf. Oooops.
Oh, and it gets worse for Mr. Obama. It seems that he was the biggest recipient of BP cash before it happened. According to Open Secrets:

During the 2008 election cycle, individuals and political action committees associated with BP -- a Center for Responsive Politics' "heavy hitter" -- contributed half a million dollars to federal candidates. About 40 percent of these donations went to Democrats. The top recipient of BP-related donations during the 2008 cycle was President Barack Obama himself, who collected $71,000.

You have to hand it to Open Secrets. They are normally associated with exposing financial connections between Republicans and corporations. But they were completely up front about who was taking in money They even give a complete break down here:

Senate	Obama, Barack	$71,051
Senate	McCain, John	$36,649
Senate	Landrieu, Mary L	$16,200
Senate	Stevens, Ted	$10,150
Senate	Begich, Mark	$8,550

Those are the top five. Note that number one is Barack. Number 3 is the representative from the state where oil is coming up on their shore.
Is it any wonder that Barack's numbers are declining? Some democratic regular voters are finally figuring Barack out. It took long enough.

Government payrolls are up

Paychecks from private business shrank to their smallest share of personal income in U.S. history during the first quarter of this year, a USA TODAY analysis of government data finds.

At the same time, government-provided benefits — from Social Security, unemployment insurance, food stamps and other programs — rose to a record high during the first three months of 2010.

There is no surer way to bankrupt a country then by spending more money on government benefits while personal income declines. Or, as an economist in the article points out:

The trend is not sustainable, says University of Michigan economist Donald Grimes. Reason: The federal government depends on private wages to generate income taxes to pay for its ever-more-expensive programs. Government-generated income is taxed at lower rates or not at all, he says. "This is really important," Grimes says.

Grimes is completely correct. As private income goes down, there is less money to fuel government programs. As government programs increase, it becomes harder to get rid of them. Once government programs swallow up more of the GDP, it simply becomes unsustainable.

If the Huffpost didn't leave out facts, they wouldn't print anything

So an acquaintance linked me to this Huffington Post article:

"If the economy produces jobs over the next eight months at the same pace as it did over the past four months, the nation will have created more jobs in 2010 alone than it did over the entire eight years of George W. Bush's presidency."

Something sounded strange about that... so I followed the link to the National Journal, where the article came from:

More jobs might be created this year than during George W. Bush's presidency.

It sounded suspicious to me. So I read the article looking for the magic words "census jobs". The article does not mention them.
That made me curious as to what the job report (listed in the article above) actually said:

Job gains occurred in manufacturing, professional and business services, health care, and leisure and hospitality. Federal government employment also rose, reflecting continued hiring
of temporary workers for Census 2010.

Hmmm. Sounds like the Census is creating a lot of that job surge. Just as I thought.
But I wasn't satisfied with that. Because my friend's friends tried to suggest that Census workers weren't included in the job numbers.
The following is from a PDF that the commerce department sent out in February of 2010:

According to Census Bureau operational plans, the number of hires for temporary 2010 Census jobs is estimated to be about 800,000 during April and May of this year. For several techincal reasons, including the very short term tenure of these jobs, the number of 2010 Census hires will not be fully reflected in either the monthly levels or changes in non-farm employment
reported by the BLS. Based on the experience in the 2000 census, the BLS figures may show the number of temporary census jobs peaking at a level closer to 635,000 in May.

Read that paragraph again. It suggest that a whole lot of jobs might be temporarily created in May. And then the level of jobs will go down again.
Now I just happened to find out recently that the Census kind of, you know, over-hired this year. Which means that they are not only done hiring, but they are trying to figure out what to do with all of their staff.
Which means that in the next two months, we might see another surge of unemployed folks out there. I presume then that the Huffington Post will notice the Census jobs.

Obama calls Tea party members Teabaggers. Gibbs demures.

From Real Clear Politics:

REPORTER: Are you able to get an answer on Fred's question about the teabagger quote, if the President is aware that people are offended?
GIBBS: Again, I have not seen the book. I can't imagine I'm going to ask the President that, but I will -- I will entertain it. I will check.

No word yet on if the reporter ever got his answer. I'm going with 'yeah... the president said it, all while denouncing the incivility of others'

KBR gets no bid contract

Just so that we're clear on this: George Bush is no longer president.

KBR Inc. was selected for a no-bid contract worth as much as $568 million through 2011 for military support services in Iraq, the Army said.

So why is KBR getting the contract?
Well, it could be one of two things:
1) KBR is the most qualified to do the job
2) The current administration, while criticizing the former one, is just as compromised.

Rev. Wright: Obama threw me under the bus

In other headlines, Obama isn't really religious. From AP:

In his strongest language to date about the administration's 2-year-old rift with the Chicago pastor, Wright told a group raising money for African relief that his pleas to release frozen funds for use in earthquake-ravaged Haiti would likely be ignored.

Really? But... its for Haiti? Why would they ignore Wright's words?
Oh yeah...

"I am 'radioactive,' Sir. When Obama threw me under the bus, he threw me under the bus literally!" he wrote. "Any advice that I offer is going to be taken as something to be avoided. Please understand that!"

Yep. Of course, it took the president a while to understand that Wright was, you know... offensive. And even then, the president pleaded with us to 'understand' why Wright said the things that he did. But since then, the president has gotten religion. Well, no, not real religion. The kind of religion that reminds you that as a politician, you shouldn't touch racist preachers. Or be seen with them. Or call them your preacher.

How do you 'mispeak' several times about your action in Vietnam?

Blumenthal is an asshat.
So is everyone who didn't call him out on this earlier. Kudos to the New York Times for doing so. It seems that Blumenthal spoke many times about his non-existent service in Vietnam:

There was one problem: Mr. Blumenthal, a Democrat now running for the United States Senate, never served in Vietnam. He obtained at least five military deferments from 1965 to 1970 and took repeated steps that enabled him to avoid going to war, according to records.

What an asshole.
What a world class asshole. I can't believe that anyone would tell crowd after crowd of veterans about serving in Vietnam when he hadn't. What kind of asshole does that?
Well, the democrat who is trying to take Chris Dodd's vacant seat. That kind of asshole.

More on the White House PR

After the oil rig disaster started, the WH went into full spin mode:

Within hours, it was cranking out a sustained barrage across the broad spectrum of modern media — statements, reports, e-mails, tweets, photos and videos — all punctuated by a high-profile presidential visit to the Gulf followed by an incendiary speech at the White House and a video recap with exclusive behind-the-scenes views of Obama in "West Wing Week," the White House's new online program at www.whitehouse.gov.

When you produce videos, yourself, showing what your politician is doing.... you may very well be the most manufactured president alive.
I wonder if Aaron Sorkin writes this one too?

Here's another article on the new video blog offered by the White House:

Organized chronologically, it's a mishmash of this and that -- the president inspecting factories and farms, talking with people in diners, meeting dignitaries in the Oval Office, making major policy speeches. The blog doesn't break any news. It also doesn't show the president as anything less than presidential in word and deed; each week's video highlights Obama's efforts to address another crisis or major policy issue, such as the government's response to the Gulf Coast oil disaster or his initiative to reform the financial sector.

ugh.
At least the press is offering a little resistance?

News photographers have also been peeved by the White House's practice of barring photojournalists from events and offering its own pictures as a substitute, said Caren Bohan, a Reuters reporter and correspondents' association board member.

It literally pains me to see the press just kind of taking this type of propaganda, and not shouting out about it more often.

What AP didn't find

Parts of the report seemed to be whited out?

In response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by AP, the agency has released copies of only three inspection reports — those conducted in January, February and April. According to the documents, inspectors spent two hours or less each time they visited the massive rig. Some information appeared to be "whited out," without explanation.

Hmmmm... that sounds suspicious.

Press "Freedom"

There are certain headlines that you can only get in the way, if you try to comment on them:

Press Freedom, Sure. But No Questions.

Kudos to Chip Reid of CBS for pointing it out. It seems that the White House was celebrating the Press Freedom's Act, which is a lot less interesting then it sounds. All it does is tell the State Department that when they issue their annual report on Human Rights, it should include a statement on the Freedom of the Press in that country.

Naturally, the press in this country wanted to use the opportunity to question our president about things like the disaster in the gulf. This isn't one of the president's bright spots. He doesn't know what the hell to say about it, since he was the biggest recipient of donations from BP.
It makes him a little camera shy when it comes to the gulf spill.

It might also be why the WH is pushing back so hard every time the oil spill comes up, and why they want to blame "Republicans" for the spill. (Note: no matter how long the president is in office, whatever happens will always be the fault of Republicans.)
But you won't see the president taking questions anytime soon.

Kagan's paper on Socialism

There are an awful lot of people in the Obama administration that seem to have socialist tendencies.
But when Obama nominated Elena Kagan, who would have guessed that she had written her thesis entitled "To the Final Conflict: Socialism in New York City 1900-1913", when she attended Princeton?

Doug Ross gives a great 'best of' highlight breakdown of her paper. It is true that there is nothing in her paper that says that socialism is awesome. However, I think that Doug's blog gives you a good idea of how her thesis makes it sound like she's a fan.

Left Coast Rebel does a good job of summarizing what she wrote in one paragraph.

I also love reading her actual editorials. You see, Kagan used to be an editor for her college newspaper. So you can get a feel for what she felt by reading her editorials from the time.
Or you can actually read this editorial that she wrote:

The real contests for Congress and the state legislatures occurred in early September, when the Democratic primary was held. And the people who won those races and who then took the November elections with some 80 per cent of the vote were real Democrats — not the closet Republicans that one sees so often these days but men and women committed to liberal principles and motivated by the ideal of an affirmative and compassionate government.

Gag. Me.
To her credit, she was a dumb college student at the time.

All Kagan, all the time

Just some background research on Elena Kagan, for people who are interested.

The Washington Post is keeping a running index on stories about Kagan, previous stories about her, and her writings.
It includes the official, White House blog video interview with Kagan, that I'm including here in the interest of fair play and propaganda.



Its always nice for the WH to present an interview with their nominee that has been scripted instead of, you know, putting them out there for an actual interview.

Of course, it wasn't that long ago that Obama said that a judicial nominee that has no judicial experience should be subject to extreme scrutiny.

One last piece of interest: John Bonifaz is a little bit of a nut. He wrote a book called "The Case For The Impeachment Of George Bush", and started "After Downing Street"; the organization which believed that the Downing Street memos implicated the Bush administration.
Anyway, Kagan donated cash to his campaign... which might give you some insight into how left leaning she is.

Kagan vs. Miers

I've become curious about how Harriet Miers was covered, as opposed to how Kagan is being covered.
With that in mind, here is my thumbnail research.

You might wonder what Think Progress said about Miers. Well, I did:

Harriet Miers, Bush’s next pick for the Supreme Court, is currently White House Counsel and once served as Bush’s personal lawyer. She has never been a judge.

Now what do you suppose they said about Kagan?

Another criticism conservatives are throwing at Kagan is over the fact that she has never been a judge. Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) said that she was "a surprising choice because she lacks judicial experience." Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) called her "the least qualified [nominee] in terms of judicial experience in 38 years." Of course, during the Bush administration, these same conservatives were saying that having experiences outside of the judicial monastery were a plus. "[R]ight now you have people who've been federal judges, circuit judges most of their lives, or academicians," said Cornyn in 2005. "And what you see is a lack of grounding in reality and common sense that I think would be very beneficial." Kagan would be in good company. Louis Brandeis, Hugo Black, Felix Frankfurter, William Rehnquist, and others all served as justices without lower federal court experience. "Of the 111 justices who have served on the Supreme Court, 41 came in without judicial experience."

Hilarious. Now, not being a judge is not a big deal... and how dare Republicans bring it up when they were suggesting that nominees didn't need to be one years ago. (Neglecting to mention that Harriet Miers nomination was shot down.)

What did HuffPo say about Miers? Well, they hated her so very much, that they compared Sarah Palin to her!

As you all probably remember, in 2005, George W. Bush nominated his White House Counsel, Harriet Miers to replace Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court despite the fact that she had no judicial experience whatsoever and seemed completely wrong for the part in every other way but her gender.

Wow! That's pretty brutal. Oh wait. Uhmmm... Kagan has no judicial experience whatsoever too. I wonder what HuffPo says about that? Let's start with this interesting primer:

For decades, Republicans have been the party of coordinated talking points and overwhelming organization with respect to judicial nominations.

Really? Huh. Well, I'm glad that the left hadn't all talked about how Miers had no judicial experience then.
Back to HuffPo:

As Darling and others sees it, the message discipline will come with time, mainly because the attacks on Kagan -- both for lacking adequate judicial experience and, more specifically, her decision as Dean of Harvard Law to bar military recruiters from the school's campus (in protest of the military's "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy) -- are natural and effective. Whether one group or several drive them is of secondary importance, so long as they are driven.

Okay... so according to HuffPo, the 'attacks' are 'natural and effective'.
Rather then, you know... true.
Here's another HuffPo article that sidesteps the issue as a Republican attack tactic:

It won't be all about Obama. Kagan's resume has particular areas that Republicans view as vulnerable. Her refusal to allow military recruiters on Harvard's campus (in protest of Don't Ask Don't Tell) is one. The dearth of judicial experience is another.

Uh huh. By the way, that article suggests that opposition to Kagan is just because Republicans hate Obama.


A lot of blogs have used the White House talking point about there being 40 Supreme Court justices that have had no bench experience. In case you were wondering, this list gives the complete run down. You'll note that Renquist was the last one nominated without bench experience, and that it was Nixon who did it in 1972, in the same year that he nominated another man without experience to the bench.
You won't find very many Democrats arguing that Obama is being Nixonian in his nomination.

The New York Times said this about Miers at the time:

Ms. Miers, 60, a longtime confidante of the president's, has never been a judge, and therefore lacks a long history of judicial rulings that could reveal ideological tendencies. Her positions on such ideologically charged issues as abortion and affirmative action are unclear.

Interesting. What did they say about Kagan? The Times starts her bio with all of her other credits:

In settling on Ms. Kagan, the president chose a well-regarded 50-year-old lawyer who served as a staff member in all three branches of government and was the first woman to be dean of Harvard Law School. If confirmed, she would be the youngest member and the third woman on the current court, but the first justice in nearly four decades without any prior judicial experience.

That lack of time on the bench may both help and hurt her confirmation prospects, allowing critics to question whether she is truly qualified while denying them a lengthy judicial paper trail filled with ammunition for attacks. As solicitor general, Ms. Kagan has represented the government before the Supreme Court for the past year, but her own views are to a large extent a matter of supposition.

To their credit, they at least mention that she was never a judge... but they say it might 'help' her nomination.

How to make bad news seem positive

Someone at AP practically went down on the administration in this article:

The economy got what it needed in April: A burst of hiring that added a net 290,000 jobs, the biggest monthly total in four years. It showed employers are gaining confidence as the recovery takes deeper root.

But people who had given up on finding jobs are gaining confidence, too, and are now looking for work. That's why the unemployment rate rose from 9.7 percent to 9.9 percent and will likely go higher.

Now in the world can you report that unemployment is going up to 9.9%, and make it sound like things are getting better?

You need to work for AP in order to do that.