Karl Rove Said

Rewinding to previous State Of The Union Speeches

2012-01-25T01:26:00.004-06:00

‎Before the State Of The Union Address, I thought it was relevant to look backwards at Barack's previous State Of The Union Addresses, at the statements made...

2009:

"Now is the time to jump-start job creation, re-start lending, and invest in areas like energy, health care, and education that will grow our economy, even as we make hard choices to bring our deficit down. That is what my economic agenda is designed to do, and that is what I'd like to talk to you about tonight."

2010:

"Now, if we had taken office in ordinary times, I would have liked nothing more than to start bringing down the deficit. But we took office amid a crisis. And our efforts to prevent a second depression have added another $1 trillion to our national debt. That, too, is a fact.
I'm absolutely convinced that was the right thing to do."

2011:

"We know what it takes to compete for the jobs and industries of our time. We need to out-innovate, out-educate, and out-build the rest of the world. (Applause.) We have to make America the best place on Earth to do business. We need to take responsibility for our deficit and reform our government. That’s how our people will prosper. That’s how we’ll win the future. (Applause.) And tonight, I’d like to talk about how we get there."

Obama predicting the stimulus would prevent double digit unemployment

2011-12-25T20:26:00.004-06:00

Someone recently challenged me to prove that Obama predicted a dire outcome if we reached a 10% unemployment rate.... and that the way out of it was a stimulus.

From AP:

Throughout his remarks, Obama painted a stark picture, including double-digit unemployment and $1 trillion in lost economic activity—that recalled the days of the Great Depression in the 1930s.

Huh.

But wait. Maybe AP misunderstood what Barack said at George Mason on Jan 8th, 2009?

Now, I don't believe it's too late to change course, but it will be if we don't take dramatic action as soon as possible. If nothing is done, this recession could linger for years.

The unemployment rate could reach double digits. Our economy could fall $1 trillion short of its full capacity, which translates into more than $12,000 in lost income for a family of four.

We could lose a generation of potential and promise as more young Americans are forced to forgo dreams of college or the chance to train for the jobs of the future. And our nation could lose the competitive edge that has served as a foundation for our strength and our standing in the world.

In short, a bad situation could become dramatically worse.

Hmm. I guess not.

But that was just one speech... right?

These are America’s problems, and we must come together as Americans to meet them with the urgency this moment demands. Economists from across the political spectrum agree that if we don’t act swiftly and boldly, we could see a much deeper economic downturn that could lead to double digit unemployment and the American Dream slipping further and further out of reach.

Of course, you can't trust that source. Its Change.gov.

MYTH: President Bush was never questioned by reporters on the Iraq war

2011-11-13T15:27:00.002-06:00

There is a myth that has been spread that the press never challenged Bush on the Iraq war.
This, of course, is completely goofy.
Here is just one press conference... just one... where the president was challenged. Here are some of the questions reporters asked:

" Since you made it clear just now that you don't think that Saddam has disarmed and we have a quarter million troops in the Persian Gulf and now that you've called on the world to be ready to use force as a last resort, are we just days away from the point at which you decide whether or not we go to war? And what harm would it do to give Saddam a final ultimatum, a two- or three-day deadline to disarm or face force?"

"Mr. President, you and your top advisers, notably Secretary of State Powell, have repeatedly said that we have shared with our allies all of the current, up-to-date intelligence information that proves the imminence of the threat we face from Saddam Hussein and that they have been sharing their intelligence as well. If all of these nations, all of them our normal allies, have access to the same intelligence information, why is it that they are reluctant to think that the threat is so real, so imminent that we need to move to the brink of war now?
And in relation to that, today, the British foreign minister,
Jack Straw, suggested at the U.N. that it might be time to look at amending the resolution perhaps with an eye toward a timetable, like that proposed by the Canadians some two weeks ago, that would set a firm deadline to give Saddam Hussein a little bit of time to come clean. And also, obviously, that would give you a little bit of a chance to build more support with any members of the Security Council.
Is that something that the governments should be pursuing at the U.N. right now?"

"Thank you, Mr. President. Sir, if you haven't already made the choice to go to war, can you tell us what you are waiting to hear or see before you do make that decision?
And if I may, during a recent demonstration many of the protesters suggested that the U.S. was a threat to peace, which prompted you to wonder out loud why they didn't see Saddam Hussein as a threat to peace.
I wonder why you think so many people around the world take a different view of the threat that Saddam Hussein poses than you and your allies."

"Thank you, Mr. President. Sir, how would you answer your critics who say that they think is somehow personal? As Senator Kennedy put it tonight, he said your fixation with Saddam Hussein is making the world a more dangerous place.
And as you prepare the American people for the possibility of military conflict, could you share with us any of the scenarios your advisers have shared with you about worst-case scenarios, in terms of the potential cost of American lives, the potential cost to the American economy and the potential risks of retaliatory terrorist strikes here at home?"

"Thank you, sir. May I follow up on Jim Angle's question? In the past several weeks your policy on Iraq has generated opposition from the governments of France, Russia, China, Germany, Turkey, the Arab League and many other countries, opened a rift at NATO and at the U.N. and drawn millions of ordinary citizens around the world into the streets into anti-war protests.
May I ask what went wrong that so many governments and peoples around the world now not only disagree with you very strongly, but see the U.S. under your leadership as an arrogant power?"

"Mr. President, to a lot of people it seems that war is probably inevitable, because many people doubt — most people I would guess — that Saddam Hussein will ever do what we are demanding that he do, which is disarm.
And if war is inevitable, there are a lot of people in this country — as much as half by polling standards — who agree that he should be disarmed, who listen to you say that you have the evidence, but who feel they haven't seen it, and who still wonder why blood has to be shed if he hasn't attacked us."

"Mr. President, are you worried that the United States might be viewed as defiant of the United Nations if you went ahead with military action without specific and explicit authorization from the U.N.?"

"Even though our military can certainly prevail without a northern front, isn't Turkey making it at least slightly more challenging for us, and therefore at least slightly more likely that American lives will be lost? And if they don't reverse course, would you stop backing their entry into the European Union?"

"As you know, not everyone shares your optimistic vision of how this might play out. Do you ever worry, maybe in the wee, small hours, that you might be wrong and they might be right in thinking that this could lead to more terrorism, more anti-American sentiment, more instability in the Middle East?"

"Mr. President, if you decide to go ahead with military action, there are inspectors on the ground in Baghdad. Will you give them time to leave the country, or the humanitarian workers on the ground, or the journalists? Will you be able to do that and still mount an effective attack on Iraq?"

"Mr. President, good evening. Sir, you've talked a lot about trusting the American people when it comes to making decisions about their own lives, about how to spend their own money.
When it comes to the financial costs of the war, sir, it would seem that the administration surely has costed out various scenarios. If that's the case, why not present some of them to the American people so they know what to expect, sir?"

"Mr. President, millions of Americans can recall a time when leaders from both parties set this country on a mission of regime change in Vietnam. Fifty-thousand Americans died. The regime is still there in Hanoi and it hasn't harmed or threatened a single American in 30 years since the war ended. What can you say tonight, sir, to the sons and the daughters of the Americans who served in Vietnam to assure them that you will not lead this country down a similar path in Iraq?"

Now would you feel okay saying that President Bush was never questioned on the Iraq War by the press?

Pre-publicity for Occupy Wall Street

2011-10-15T15:55:00.003-05:00

Someone recently told me that Occupy Wall Street didn't get the 'benefit' of the pre-publicity that Fox News gave to the Tea Party movement.
Which, of course, is bunk.

September 6th, CBS news:

An online group dubbed “Occupy Wall Street” is calling for 20,000 people to “flood into lower Manhattan, set up tents, kitchens, peaceful barricades and occupy Wall Street for a few months,” according to the website

Huffington Post, September 2nd:

A group of activists plans to bring 20,000 people to occupy Wall Street for months.

CNN, September 16th:

Egyptians did it for democracy. So did people in Tunisia, Yemen, Bahrain and Syria. Now, activist groups are hoping Americans will launch their own uprising -- in the form of thousands of protesters descending on Wall Street this weekend.

New York Magazine, September 16th:

Saturday at noon, a group that calls itself "Occupy Wall Street" is going to try to live up to their name for as long as they can. But first, they'll be meeting at Bowling Green Park for a program that includes yoga, a pillow fight, face-painting, small break-out groups to discuss topics like derivatives, and a lecture from an author. There's an arts and culture committee. Plus, there's yoga and a planned "Thriller" dance. It sounds a little bit like camp, or maybe one of those pre-college orientation bonding sessions. But as the group says on its website, it's actually a "leaderless resistance movement" meant to protest the concentration of wealth at the top of society — the "99 percent" standing up against the "1 percent."

Whew. All of this cutting and pasting is getting tiring.

HuffPo, again, on the 15th:

The large-scale event, originally published back in July by Adbusters, a not-for-profit magazine aimed to "topple existing power structures," was inspired by the revolutionary events that swept through the Middle East earlier this year. The group's site reveals their hopes to transform Lower Manhattan into an "American Tahrir Square."

It goes on. And I'm sure you get the idea by now.

John Stewart, on Solyndra

2011-09-26T15:08:00.004-05:00

He gives the administration a lot of leeway for "good intentions". Having said that, he also nails them to the wall on Solyndra.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Its genuinely hilarious, and refreshing to see the left make fun of the left in government. Even if he did have to throw Fox News into the mix.

"Pass This Bill"; Obama... and jobs

2011-09-16T17:24:00.002-05:00

I ran across two videos today that are worth their weight in gold; mainly for the work that went into them.

My first nod goes to the Huffington Post.
Yes, you read that right... the Huffington Post.
Some editor must have spent a week in the editing suite putting together this representation of the president telling us that he was focused on jobs... since 2009:

The second one is the president telling us to "pass this bill", 90 times in 5 speeches over 1 week.
Politico deserves a Pulitzer for this one.

Nobel winner quits Physics group over Global Warming

2011-09-15T14:59:00.003-05:00

The headline kinda says it all.

Nobel Prize-Winning Physicist Resigns Over Global Warming

What I like about Ivar Giaever's letter is that he addresses the real problem of how this issue is debated. Global Warming data is taken as incontrovertible evidence, when it is anything but.

From his letter:

Dear Ms. Kirby

Thank you for your letter inquiring about my membership. I did not renew it because I can not live with the statement below:

Emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are changing the atmosphere in ways that affect the Earth's climate. Greenhouse gases include carbon dioxide as well as methane, nitrous oxide and other gases. They are emitted from fossil fuel combustion and a range of industrial and agricultural processes.
The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring.
If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth's physical and ecological systems, social systems, security and human health are likely to occur. We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now.

In the APS it is ok to discuss whether the mass of the proton changes over time and how a multi-universe behaves, but the evidence of global warming is incontrovertible? The claim (how can you measure the average temperature of the whole earth for a whole year?) is that the temperature has changed from ~288.0 to ~288.8 degree Kelvin in about 150 years, which (if true) means to me is that the temperature has been amazingly stable, and both human health and happiness have definitely improved in this 'warming' period.

Best regards,

Ivar Giaever

Nobel Laureate 1973
PS. I included a copy to a few people in case they feel like using the information.

A Brief History of Social Security being called a Ponzi Scheme

2011-09-13T17:12:00.005-05:00

The latest talking point between the left seems to be that calling Social Security a Ponzi Scheme is a new thing.

This proves to me that the left has the shortest memory of any creature on earth.

In 2007, Krugman, quoting others:
(Chris Matthews, & Russert)

Mr. Russert: “Everyone knows Social Security, as it’s constructed, is not going to be in the same place it’s going to be for the next generation, Democrats, Republicans, liberals, conservatives.”

Mr. Matthews: “It’s a bad Ponzi scheme, at this point.”

Mr. Russert: “Yes.”

From the American Thinker Magazine, 2005:

In the past several months as the debate over Social Security reform has taken center stage in the theater of the absurd that is modern American politics, the idea has been floated that the entire pay—as—you—go structure of this system closely resembles a Ponzi scheme, albeit one that is about to collapse.

Not far enough back for you?
In 2004, the Daily Howler blamed the phrase on earlier generations:
(quoting Ed Crane)

And so it goes in the offices of the Social Security Administration, home of the world's largest Ponzi scheme. Sold originally to the American public as a program to care for the indigent elderly, then as a "national pension plan" into which we pay "insurance premiums," Social Security has always been a fraud, a pay-as-you-go slush fund for politicians to dip into...

Geez. That's back in 1994!

The Cato Institute, in 1999:

Why is Social Security often called a Ponzi scheme?

If anyone tells you that this is something new, please copy and paste. Freely.

FY 2008, the budget passed by Dems

2011-09-03T14:25:00.001-05:00

One of my favorite things to do is to examine what was said, in a prediction, in history.

For instance, let's say that you were wondering about the FY 2008 budget. Who passed it, and what was said about it?

The U.S. Congress on Thursday approved a $2.9 trillion fiscal 2008 budget that funds President George W. Bush's huge defense buildup while also adding money for Democrats' domestic priorities.

The budget, written by Democrats who control both chambers of Congress, received no backing from House Republicans, while only two moderate Republicans in the Senate supported it.

Okay... so from this, we know that the Democrats wrote the 2008 budget.
Furthermore, we can state that exactly 2 Republicans in congress, total, supported it.
Its worth reading the article if you have the time.

Let's keep going... shall we?
This was a non-binding budget. Meaning that Democrats knew that there was a possibility that their spending priorities would get cut off at the legs. Or as one other article stated it:

The move appears to set up a clash this September with Bush, who has yet to veto a single appropriations bill, but who seems eager to get started.

The budget was a result of a lot of back and forth, with Republicans saying that Democrats were being overly optimistic on what they thought their tax plans would bring in.
Furthermore, the Democrats were counting on 'reserve funds':

The House and Senate versions of the budget depend on "reserve funds" to pay for additional spending for such programs as children's healthcare and farm aid. With the reserve funds, Congress can avoid the hard choices that drawing up any budget, whether it's for a household or the federal government, usually entails.

There's only one catch: The reserve funds are empty.

If Congress wants to fill them, it will have to do what it has tried to avoid: cut from defense or domestic programs, raise taxes or borrow the money and drive up the deficit.

I'm going to continue researching this. But I wanted to share.

Oh Good. The president is going to do something about jobs. Again.

2011-08-31T16:16:00.003-05:00

If a mechanic kept promising to repair your car, and kept messing it up, would you keep paying?

In 2009, Barack promised to create jobs and reduce the deficit, in an address to congress:

Now is the time to act boldly and wisely -- to not only revive this economy, but to build a new foundation for lasting prosperity. Now is the time to jumpstart job creation, re-start lending, and invest in areas like energy, health care, and education that will grow our economy, even as we make hard choices to bring our deficit down. That is what my economic agenda is designed to do, and that is what I'd like to talk to you about tonight.

Then he promised to attack jobs in 2010.

Now, as we stabilized the financial system, we also took steps to get our economy growing again, save as many jobs as possible, and help Americans who had become unemployed.

Wait... maybe we can get him saying that he won't rest until he gets us a job?

Oh.

Look, its 2011. We don't need more promises/ plans/ from the guy who spent $787 Billion and couldn't keep unemployment under the 8%.

At some point in time, do you stop listening to the mechanic who keeps promising to fix your car?

Or are you different?

Do you give your keys to the mechanic, again, pay again, and presume that this time... he's going to get it right?

Going back in time: What Obamanomics was supposed to do

2011-08-10T12:00:00.004-05:00

I've mentioned before that sometimes I just use my blog to keep tract of links.

In this case, its because someone I know is trying to argue that Obamanomics is a term that Fox News uses.
Let me make this clear; they aren't arguing that Fox News is one of many places that uses Obamanomics. They are arguing that its mostly Fox that created the term, and uses it to bash the economic policies of Obama.

So let's go over who used the term in 2008. -And while we're at it, let's see what people predicted would happen under Obamanomics.

Of course, there was the uber-conservative Firedoglake:

Obama’s tax plan will put more of the burden on the rich, he will raise the minimum wage, make unionization easier and generally help workers. The effect won’t be large, but for the poorest workers and for unions, it will be noticeable.

In this disjointed article, the author suggests that the biggest problem with Obamanomics is that Obama wants to give money back to the people... which is... bad. The author argues that the people don't know how to spend their money right. Ooookay.

August 2008, Counterpunch uses the term. They talk about how Obama has spent time speaking about deficit (cough cough!) reduction:

Obama also embraces some elements of deficit reduction in his thinking. That’s not wrong in principle. Lower deficits can strengthen the value of the dollar, making imports less expensive. Lower federal budget deficits can make it harder to justify fiscal austerity that shrinks needed social welfare, training or public investments of various kinds. Government borrowing can crowd out private sector borrowing, making investments more costly.

Thank goodness that Barack isn't raising the deficit?

Then there was The Economist, who had to say this about the president's economics:

As the battle for the Democratic nomination reaches a climax in Texas and Ohio, the front-runner's speeches have begun to paint a world in which laid-off parents compete with their children for minimum-wage jobs while corporate fat-cats mis-sell dodgy mortgages and ship jobs off to Mexico.

To be fair, he hasn't changed that economic narrative.

Mark Green, from Air America, on the Huffington Post, referring to Krugman on Obamanomics:

Also, studies have shown that the GDP under Democratic presidents has been more than 300% higher than under Republican presidents. So whenever McCain falsely aserts that Obama will raise everyone's taxes or that he'll balance the budget by 2013 despite cutting revenues by several hundred billion annually, the affirmative answer is -- Democrats grow the economy far more than Republicans. 300% more. For the most recent example, contrast Clinton and Bush.

Whew. Then the economy is getting far better. Right. errr... right?
That's the problem with Democratic predictions. Its never their fault that things didn't turn out that way.

In These Times, on Obamanomics:

Obama would certainly shift government priorities to improving job prospects and raising living standards for American workers. He proposes raising the minimum wage to $9.50 an hour, offering refundable $4,000 tax credits for college, expanding the childcare tax credit, reforming bankruptcy laws, rebuilding infrastructure, establishing a new employee savings plan and investing in alternative energy to create “millions of new green jobs.”

Reminder; his economic policies were supposed to keep the unemployment rate under 8% too. But that's just window dressing.

Here is a completely laughable article by the economic writer for the New York Times, on what Obama is planning:

All of this raises the question of what will happen to the deficit. Obama’s aides optimistically insist he will reduce it, thanks to his tax increases on the affluent and his plan to wind down the Iraq war. Relative to McCain, whose promised spending cuts are extremely vague, Obama does indeed look like a fiscal conservative.

A fiscal conservative. Who raised the debt by $3.4 Trillion in 2 years. Here was the hint... in the same article:

“I still would have probably made a slightly different choice than Clinton did,” Obama said. “I probably wouldn’t have been as obsessed with deficit reduction.”

Uh, yeah.
Well, aren't we all glad that worked out so well?

Barack: Don't raise taxes during a recession

2011-07-13T11:30:00.002-05:00

In August of 2009, Barack was interviewed by Chuck Todd on the economy. When it came to the issue of raising taxes on the wealthy, Barack was asked by Scott Ferguson to:
Explain how raising taxes on anyone during a deep recession is going to help with the economy.
Barack answered that it would be a mistake to raise taxes at that time. He said that it would cost jobs:

Well, first of all, he is right. Normally, you don't raise taxes in a recession, which is why we haven't and why we have instead cut taxes. So I guess what I would say to Scott is his economics are right, you don't raise taxes in a recession. We haven't raised taxes in a recession. ...
...So he is absolutely right, the last thing you want to do is to raise taxes in the middle of a recession because that would just suck up — take more demand out of the economy and put businesses in a further hole.

Huh.
That was August of 2009.
What changed?

A light bulb moment, and how to save $30 million in the US budget

2011-07-13T11:19:00.003-05:00

You heard, of course, about how the government is trying to get rid of standard incandescent light bulbs. You may have also heard that the Republicans in congress are trying to squash this part of the 2007 Energy Act. Bloomberg has an incredibly slanted view of this bill, and gives the Obama administration POV almost verbatim:

The legislation, which was debated on the House floor yesterday and is scheduled for a vote later today, would cost Americans $6 billion in energy savings in 2015, the White House said in a statement yesterday.

So let's start here, with what H.R. 2417 is. H.R. 2417 would, according to the bill, repeal:

Sections 321 and 322 of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007

According to the CBO, this will save $30 allocated to the Dept. Of Energy:

to conduct research and development efforts related to lighting technologies, perform market assessments related to energy-efficient lighting products, and educate consumers about such products.

Sounds like a good way for us to save some money. Particularly at a time when we are trying to cut down on government spending.

Defence Secretary Panetta: You're in Iraq because of 9/11

2011-07-12T22:20:00.002-05:00

Hilarious.
The entire left just swallowed their collective tongues.

Remember how all during Bush's term, the left argued that Bush tried to connect 9/11 and Iraq through hidden speech? Or something like that?
Well, Panetta straight out said it:

The reason you guys are here is because of 9/11. The US got attacked and 3,000 human beings got killed because of Al-Qaeda

Now if he were a Republican, every single liberal in the US would be talking about how he was trying to distort 'the truth'. But since he's working for a guy in the WH with a D next to his name...

US government spending

2011-07-09T14:30:00.002-05:00

I just wanted to keep a list of this, handy. Spending, of the US government, in trillions, per year:
2000----1.7
2001----1.8
2002----2.0
2003----2.1
2004----2.2
2005----2.4
2006----2.6
2007----2.7
2008----2.9
2009----3.5
2010----3.4
SOURCE

Santelli gets it right... again

2011-07-09T13:50:00.002-05:00

Santelli was the guy who made the original call for a new Tea Party.
In the discussion about the debt, he gets it right yet again...

Yes, Santelli... stop spending!
A few very relevant points are made in this video. But the most important one is this, as stated:
In August, we will have $203 billion of revenue.
We will also have $362 worth of bills.

Now lets just think about that for a second. Suppose you had a company, and you were taking in $2.03 for every $3.62 spent. Wouldn't you take a serious look at your spending?
Of course you would.

Why is that so antithetical to the US government?

"Misinformed" viewers believe that Republicans were against TARP, and are correct

2011-07-09T11:42:00.005-05:00

Earlier, I wrote about how Jon Stewart can't admit that he was wrong about Fox News viewers being the most "misinformed" viewers.
I did a bunch of research on one of Fox News' rivals, and applied the same standard that Jon Stewart did. Which I thought was kinda brilliant.

Shortly after that, a number of people all started using the same argument that Politifact used (a few of) the wrong studies. That there was a thin difference between being 'misinformed' and not knowing what the facts were.
If one person had come to this conclusion, I'd chalk it up to one person splitting hairs. But it wasn't one person. It was a herd of Dems.
So I googled, and came up with the FireDogLake post that seems to be the source of it all:

...The three Pew polls measure how informed viewers are. They don’t even belong in the discussion, because they don’t go to Stewart’s point.

Let's go back to Stewart's point:

Who are the most consistently misinformed media viewers? … Fox viewers, consistently, every poll.

If we constrain our definition of "misinformed media viewers" to the FireDogLake version of what Stewart meant, then we're not talking about 'every poll'. We're talking about one polling service: PIPA.
Moreover, we're talking about what PIPA asked people, and what PIPA felt was 'misinformation.'
I ran into this study before, which is why I wanted to focus on it. A lot of the questions are subjective, but no question was more wrong in my opinion then this one:

When TARP came up for a vote most Republicans opposed it

I already addressed this one a while back. So let's go over the votes for TARP:

The first vote on the bailout was September 29th, and the final tally is as follows:

	Ayes	Noes	PRES	NV
Democratic	140	95
Republican	65	133		1
Independent
TOTALS	205	228		1

The second vote on the bailout was October 3rd, and that tally is as follows:

	Yeas	Nays	PRES	NV
Democratic	172	63
Republican	91	108
Independent
TOTALS	263	171

NOTE: the second vote, while not initially appearing to be connected to TARP, does have TARP bootstrapped onto it. Read the text.

Now keep in mind, PIPA said that Fox viewers were 'misinformed' if they believed that most of the Republicans were against TARP.
How do they form that opinion?
Wait. Let's do this. Suppose you asked viewers who supported TARP more, dems or reps?
What do you suppose the vast majority of MSNBC viewers would say? I'm going to jump into the pool and suggest that their 'misinformation' rating would go way, way, way up, along with those who listen to NPR.

I wonder if PIPA would ask that question?

Presidential gaffe: "The Internets"

2011-07-09T11:34:00.003-05:00

As Real Clear Politics points out:

When President Bush made the same mistake during his campaign for President in 2000, he was roundly criticized as unintelligent.

Yet, Barack can continue to make gaffe after gaffe, and its not a reflection on him.

To be fair, I don't consider "The Internets" to be that big of a gaffe. But then again, I wasn't the one making fun of Bush for doing the same damn thing.

$278,000 per Stimulus Job

2011-07-09T11:30:00.003-05:00

The Weekly Standard did the math, and that's what it works out to be. At least using the numbers of the White House economic advisers:

...the “stimulus” has added or saved just under 2.4 million jobs — whether private or public — at a cost (to date) of $666 billion

I think that $278,000 per job created or saved is a great bargain. Don't you? I mean, in US government terms...

Fact Checker gives Obama Two Pinocchios

2011-07-09T11:25:00.004-05:00

The Washington Post recently fact checked one of Obama's speeches on the debt, and gave him "Two Pinocchios."
A sample of what they wrote:

The president’s claim of an “unprecedented” effort to trim federal regulations is laughable. And it would be nice to hear Obama acknowledge for once that, until a few months ago, his administration was eager to do business with Gaddafi.

They also take apart his efforts to blame corporate jet companies for robbing the public coffers of taxes. Read the piece. Its pretty good.

"Where Are The Jobs?" is a skewed question

2011-07-08T13:57:00.003-05:00

At least, according to Obama. Boehner asked the question of the president in his Twitter Town Hall. But Obama, according to the CNN video on Real Clear Politics, said:

Eventually, I'm sure, the speaker will see the light

Uh huh.

Unlike Obama, she actually does have small donors

2011-06-29T21:02:00.003-05:00

Remember how Obama kept saying that most of his campaign contributions came from small donors?

Uh.
Turns out its not true.
Guess who actually is getting small donors? According to AP, Michelle Bachman.

...Bush and Obama depended more on thunderstorms of money — bundles of checks collected by big-money donors, each written for the maximum amount allowed by law. Bachmann's accounts are instead filled with small contributions sent by devoted supporters.

Cool for Michelle. Although that won't quell the liberal belief that she's being sponsored by corporations.

World's Worst Gaffe

2011-06-29T17:16:00.003-05:00

I've seen some ridiculous gaffes by Obama, but this one took the cake.

I need to start by introducing you to Medal Of Honor winner, Sergeant First Class Jared C. Monti. Jared lost his life in Afghanistan. According to the official website:

With complete disregard for his own safety, Staff Sergeant Monti twice attempted to move from behind the cover of the rocks into the face of relentless enemy fire to rescue his fallen comrade. Determined not to leave his Soldier, Staff Sergeant Monti made a third attempt to cross open terrain through intense enemy fire. On this final attempt, he was mortally wounded, sacrificing his own life in an effort to save his fellow Sohttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifldier. Staff Sergeant Monti's selfless acts of heroism inspired his patrol to fight off the larger enemy force

The president presented his parents with the Congressional Medal Of Honor, after giving this 14 minute speech on Jared.

It is a moving ceremony, one which I'm fairly certain that the parents will not forget.

Oh...
...but our president did...

While visiting Fort Dunn, the president said:

“First time I saw the 10th Mountain Division, you guys were in southern Iraq. When I went back to visit Afghanistan, you guys were the first ones there. I had the great honor of seeing some of you because a comrade of yours, Jared Monti, was the first person who I was able to award the Medal of Honor to who actually came back and wasn’t receiving it posthumously.”

This truly is the worst possible gaffe the president could have committed.
Now granted, he did call the parents to apologize. But this fits under the heading of "imagine if Bush said this...?"
Because if this were any other president, we'd still be talking about this today.

Jon Stewart can't admit he was wrong

2011-06-26T13:09:00.006-05:00

I hate, hate, hate when people can't admit when they were wrong.

No one is more problematic at this then Jon Stewart. Granted, admitting that you're wrong isn't as funny as sticking to the premise that you're right in lieu of the fact that Politifact screwed you to the wall.

So let's start here. 3 minutes in... Stewart says:

"Who are the most consistently misinformed media viewers? … Fox viewers, consistently, every poll."

This is not true.
Politifact Fact-checked the statement, and called Stewart out on it.
According to one media study they cited:

Fox actually scored better than its two direct cable-news rivals -- MSNBC, which is a liberal counterpoint to Fox, and CNN, which is considered more middle-of-the-road. Also scoring lower than Fox were local television news, the evening network news shows and the network morning shows.

Ouch.
Politifact concludes, after showing several different studies:

So we have three Pew studies that superficially rank Fox viewers low on the well-informed list, but in several of the surveys, Fox isn’t the lowest, and other general-interest media outlets -- such as network news shows, network morning shows and even the other cable news networks -- often score similarly low. Meanwhile, particular Fox shows -- such as The O’Reilly Factor and Sean Hannity’s show -- actually score consistently well, occasionally even outpacing Stewart’s own audience.

Of course, Jon Stewart admitted he was wrong, and moved on.
Oh wait.
He didn't.
Ugh. Like the rest of the left, he doubled down instead of admitting that he was wrong. Stewart went on the air to say that if he was wrong, it was because he watches Fox News... whom he still claims is consistently wrong.

To keep his claim true, Stewart quotes a number of Politifacts.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Fox News False Statements

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show Full Episodes

Political Humor & Satire Blog

The Daily Show on Facebook

Uh, but wait wait wait.

Fox was never reviewed by Politifact, as a network.

They DO review individual people who have made statements on opinion programs, and then they find the statements to be true or false. In fact, if you notice, the very first quote that Stewart refers to comes from Glenn Beck. After that, he kinda doesn't mention/refer to the fact that the statements he's quoting are from opinion makers on Fox.
However, Politifact does list them in one, handy, statement. What you'll notice is that Stewart is using statements from Beck, Palin, O'Reilly, and even Karl Rove as "Fox News" statements.

Now most people understand that if you list off a bunch of commentaries, you'll find people who have statements that aren't completely true. And if Stewart did that, he'd have to admit that the same thing happens on other networks.

Like... I dunno... lets do this with MSNBC.

Olbermann:

"Subsidies for oil and gas companies make up 88 percent of all federal subsidies. Just cutting the oil and gas subsidies out would save the U.S. government $45 billion every year."

FALSE

"Yes, this would be the same congressman (Rep. Pete Hoekstra) who last year Tweeted the whereabouts of a top-secret mission to Iraq."

FALSE

Maddow:

"Despite what you may have heard about Wisconsin’s finances, Wisconsin is on track to have a budget surplus this year."

FALSE

Fox News "said the New Black Panther Party decided the election for Barack Obama."

FALSE

"President Bush never did one interview with the New York Times during his entire presidency."

FALSE

Gov. Sarah Palin "got precisely zero support for her call for Alaska's Democratic Senator Mark Begich to resign because Ted Stevens' corruption conviction was overturned."

FALSE

Ed Schultz:

Under changes being debated, state employees in Wisconsin "who earn $30,000, $40,000, $50,000 a year might have 20 percent of their income just disappear overnight."

FALSE

With his decision on whether to fire Gen. Stanley McChrystal, President Obama "has to fix yet another problem he inherited from the Bush administration."

PANTS ON FIRE

"Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu received almost $1.8 million from BP over the last decade."

PANTS ON FIRE

(Whew... starting to get tired from all of this copy/paste)

Joe Scarborough:

The health care reform bill "is the largest tax increase in U.S. history."

FALSE

President Obama has never received a paycheck from a profitmaking business in his entire life.

FALSE

Lawrence O'Donnel:

"There are no similar clips of Newt Gingrich talking about how ineffective President Bush was in trying to control North Korea."

FALSE

Now I'm not even on the staff of Comedy Central writers, and I came up with that 'short' list, from just 4 people who appear on MSNBC. Should I presume that Stewart did the same thing as I did, when he researched Fox? That he took the time to compare it to other networks?

Of course he didn't. Because like many people on the left, he can't admit that his premise was wrong. He will continue to look for evidence that proves him right, ignoring anything to the contrary.

There is a thin difference between ignorance and arrogance.
Ignorance is not knowing.
Arrogance is the presumption that you already know.

Our real liabilities; long term US debt

2011-06-24T19:08:00.003-05:00

The biggest problem that we're going to encounter in the future is the money that the government has not allocated, for items they promised to pay for.

In a corporate environment, these are known as liabilities. Corporations have to use accrual accounting instead of cash accounting.

In cash accounting, its real easy to calculate your balance. You just indicate revenue - expenses.
So if you spent $50,000, but made $60,000, you would indicate $10,000 of profit.
Now here's where things get complicated.
Let's say that you owe $200,000 to someone who billed you for services to your business, but you didn't have to pay the bill for another 2 years.
In cash accounting, you still had $10,000 of profit. On paper, your business is making money.

Corporations can't use cash accounting for this reason. They have to indicate what their liabilities are on their balance sheet. Somewhere on their financial statement, they would have to indicate that they owe $200,000.

How does this relate to our government?
Our government does what no business would ever be allowed to do: they put off obligations (money owed), often sell bonds to cover these expenses, and then indicate a balance that doesn't reflect this debt.

If I've lost you, you can always read this USA Today report that puts it into perspective.

The $61.6 trillion in unfunded obligations amounts to $528,000 per household. That's more than five times what Americans have borrowed for everything else — mortgages, car loans and other debt. It reflects the challenge as the number of retirees soars over the next 20 years and seniors try to collect on those spending promises.

Most people are familiar with the fact that we are currently $14 trillion in debt as a country, or that we are now running deficits of over $1 Trillion a year. In this post, I explained how the current administration is now running a deficit averaging $1.7 Trillion a year. But most people aren't aware of how much we truly are in debt.

So as you listen to congress talk about cutting $10 billion, or even $50 billion from the budget, and as you hear congressmen protecting their pet projects, remember that figure: $61.6 Trillion.

Obama campaign "misleads" in video

2011-06-16T16:26:00.003-05:00

ABC News reports that Obama's 2012 campaign is trying to mislead its minions in their latest video. The video is reportedly a compilation of issues that the Republicans talked about in the latest debate. However...

...the video, which Messina calls a “highlight reel” and the DNC titled “What in the world are they talking about?” selectively uses clips from the 2-hour forum suggesting that the candidates were focused on idiotic issues, or battles from the past, when all of the topics the video hammers the Republicans for talking about were ones they were asked about at the forum.

Huh... the DNC is dishonest? When did that happen?
Here's the video, below.

If you want to compare that to what they were actually asked about... watch the CNN video. The debate actually starts 2:15 in:

My special hate for 9/11 conspiracy theorists

2011-05-19T01:34:00.003-05:00

I hate people who cannot see logic.

I'm not talking about those who have actual mental deficiencies. I understand that a child with a mental limitation or someone who has a severe and limiting disease is not capable of the thought process that we know as logic.

However, there are adult creatures known as 9/11 conspiracy theorists who actively ignore logical thought in order to come to the conclusion that a plane didn't actually fly into a building on 9/11. Or, alternately, that a burning building cannot collapse due to structural damage.

This idiot, the one who uploaded this video, is one of those tools:

Now naturally, upon seeing this video, I tried to explain to the idiot in question that elevators can fail if there is a plane that flies into a building. Because while all modern elevators have safety features, they all have limitations. They were not meant to keep an elevator from falling after the cables are cut and when tons of burning liquid kerosene are poured on top of them.

This idea was not acceptable to the idiot who posted this. He/she/it responded with:

Approximately eight 100-millionths of one percent of elevator rides resulted in an anomaly ..... that about sums it up. So right there your odds are 1 in 80,000,000,000. Now multiply those odds with all the other anomolies, like three steel buildings collapsing from fire in one event on the same, when a steel building has never collapsed from greater fires. NORAD off duty .... etc. The official story, with your fireball down shafts, is at least a billion trillion to 1, if even that

I wanted to reply to IranContraScumDid911. But not too ironically, they blocked me from posting anything else as a response. Which makes sense, because they also wrote this:

Four plane crashes disappeared in one event? What are the odds not one tail or wing would never be recovered? The black boxes disappeared?

I'm going to work backwards.
The only way that the conspiracy theorist could believe that four planes did NOT disappear in one event is if they honestly thought that the bulk of New York who SAW the planes fly into the two twin towers were all lying. They furthermore would have to believe that the people in the Pentagon, who lost friends, were also lying. Finally, they'd have to believe that the people who were working in ATC, who literally dedicate their lives to the idea of planes not running into things, were complicit in this lie. Its kinda like believing that a hospital full of doctors were all involved in killing 400 patients on the same day. But I digress.
The point is that when the writer says:

"What are the odds not one tail or wing would never be recovered?"

...They are actively denying that the four planes were witnessed hitting said items. They are denying that the video of the first plane hitting the first tower (taken by firefighters, no less) is real. They are denying that the second plane hitting the second tower (taken by scores of different news outlets) is real.
The odds of you recovering a wing of a plane that hits a building while traveling at 600mph is approximately 0.0000001%. That's a guess on my part.

100% of cases where a commercial airplane has slammed into a building has resulted in elevator failures. The fact that you cannot grasp this (or that you believe that because the odds of non-airplane-related-elevator-crashes are so great) boggles my mind.
Here's a parallel thought for you to ponder. Your chances of sitting in your office on an average day and having a plane plow into your building and immolate you in a gigantic ball of flame are 5,000,000,000,000,000 to 1.

The mere fact that someone can't believe that an elevator would fail in a building that was slammed into by an airplane hurts my brain. Its someone who believes in a perfect world.... where nothing fails, even under the most extreme circumstances.
Again, if it were an actual kid, I'd have no problem. Kids have trouble grasping simple concepts. Adults shouldn't.
Planes that smash into buildings are annihilated.
Buildings that are hit by commercial aircraft suffer severe damage.

Elevators that have a plane fly through their shaft can fail.

Guess how many waivers for the new health care law have been issued?

2011-05-15T13:16:00.002-05:00

The Obama administration approved 204 new waivers to Democrats' healthcare reform law over the past month, bringing the total to 1,372.

Neat.
Now the Hill article makes it clear that they are only temporary, and that its just for one part of the health care law. However, how shitty can a law be, when you have to issue 1,372 temporary waivers for companies affected by it?
For that matter, how fair can it be?

Daley's post mayor payday

2011-05-15T13:01:00.003-05:00

Great article by NBC.
It turns out that Mayor Daley can keep 1 million worth of campaign contributions that he never spent. So the next time you pay for parking, allow yourself to wonder out loud about that parking meter scandal... and how Daley sold the rights to parking in the city to LAZ.

Paul Krugman predicted 7.3 unemployment with the stimulus

2011-05-14T13:39:00.005-05:00

The other day, I found myself in another stupid Facebook debate with someone didn't know their facts.

I should be used to this by now. But it never fails to get to me when someone who leans to the left insists that I'm uninformed while saying something that's provably not true.

This all started when a friend posted a link to a Paul Krugman article.
I called Paul an idiot (my bad) and then stated why he was an idiot: That all of the spending he championed failed to bring down the unemployment rate.

Now I'd reprint the debate verbatim if I could. But as it happens far too often, a friend of my friend kept using insults until the original friend blocked us both from her Facebook account.
So by trying to correct the record with facts, suddenly, I'm the asshole. Even though I wasn't the one calling her other friend names.

I know. I know... I'm losing the point of why I wrote this.
Paul Krugman was for spending shitloads of money through the government. We all agree on this. He believed that it would result in a lower unemployment rate.
It is also true that Krugman was upset that only $787 BILLION dollars was being spent on the stimulus program. Krugman believed this to be small. Which makes sense.
I mean, if you're going to be a Keynesian economist, why wouldn't you believe in spending more money? Ideally, by spending 50 Trillion Dollars, we'd go into a huge economic boom that would never be matched! Right?

My friend's friend insisted that Krugman was right. That the stimulus was too small... which is why it had no effect. He said that Krugman readers would know that Paul predicted that the stimulus bill would fail to reduce the unemployment rate.
But Paul didn't say that.
In fact, Krugman said:

Unemployment is currently about 7 percent, and heading much higher; Obama himself says that absent stimulus it could go into double digits. Suppose that we’re looking at an economy that, absent stimulus, would have an average unemployment rate of 9 percent over the next two years; this plan would cut that to 7.3 percent, which would be a help but could easily be spun by critics as a failure.

Wow. A 7.3% unemployment rate would be spun into a 'failure' of Obama's $787 economic plan. Presuming, of course, that the president didn't have a fawning media that would change his every failure into rainbows and unicorns.

In case you didn't know this (or were arguing with me on Facebook), the nonfarm unemployment rate for April of 2011 was 9.0%.
I created this handy chart to show you what's the stimulus plan results have looked like, vs. the predicted results. Note that the uptick in unemployment in April has not been added.

Calling Osama Obama

2011-05-13T13:11:00.002-05:00

A lot was made when a Fox affiliate accidentally put Obama's name in the screen crawl when Osama was killed.
Keep in mind, it was an affiliate.
But more importantly, they were not the only one to do so in the news.

Crack MSNBC reporter Norah O'Donnel tweeted:
"Obama shot and killed"

Of course, the left didn't go apeshit over that comment.

A Politifact you may have missed

2011-04-16T16:30:00.002-05:00

When someone says a phrase like, "Every scientist agrees" or "All economists will tell you", it grates on my nerves.
Because economists don't agree. If they did, there would be one economic theory and we'd all follow it.
Scientists have a similar problem. The job of a scientist is to challenge conventional wisdom and question knowledge as we understand it.

Naturally, when I heard Obama say:

Economists from across the political spectrum agree that if we don't act swiftly and boldly, we could see a much deeper economic downturn that could lead to double-digit unemployment and the American dream slipping further and further out of reach...

...I laughed.
It presumed a world full of Keynesian economists, economists who believe in government intervention.
Luckily, Politifact debunks this notion:

"...But we do know that Obama is wrong when he says there is "no disagreement that we need action by our government." Clearly, there is disagreement. We rate his statement False."

The DrudgeReport post that started it all

2011-04-16T15:35:00.004-05:00

The Drudge Manifesto is not a great book. However, it has one moment in it that was well worth reading. Its the story of how Drudge found himself sitting on the political story of the decade, and how he realized that it truly was a big deal.

In the Drudge Manifesto, Matt describes the moment before he pressed the return key. He had double checked his facts, and apparently, his gut told him that the reaction that he was getting from everyone confirmed that it was real. Still... he knew that the moment he touched the return key, he was making a huge accusation.

Here's how it read on the day it happened:
Web Posted: 01/17/98 23:32:47 PST -- NEWSWEEK KILLS STORY ON WHITE HOUSE INTERN BLOCKBUSTER REPORT: 23-YEAR OLD, FORMER WHITE HOUSE INTERN, SEX RELATIONSHIP WITH PRESIDENT **World Exclusive** **Must Credit the DRUDGE REPORT** At the last minute, at 6 p.m. on Saturday evening, NEWSWEEK magazine killed a story that was destined to shake official Washington to its foundation: A White House intern carried on a sexual affair with the President of the United States!
I used to write for a college newspaper. We never had anything that big to write about. Yet, every time, before you sent a story off, you'd reread it to make sure you weren't saying anything you'd regret later. Not just because of lawsuits. (Libel is a huge issue in the newsroom) You didn't want to write anything that you would have to retract later.

So when I read that part in the Drudge Manifesto, it gave me chills. Imagine having the biggest story of the year. The political story of the decade. You don't have an editor to look over your shoulder. Its just you, and your keyboard. And your accusation is against the most powerful man in the world.

I love a lot of things about my country, but the freedom of speech is probably what I value the greatest. There is something very comforting to me that Drudge was able to break this story with minimum repercussion (barring the democrats, themselves, who first called it an outrageous lie, and then openly defended the president having an affair with a 22 year old).

As I sit here behind my own keyboard, I'm reminded of both the privilege that I have, and the responsibility that comes with it.
With that in mind, from here on, I promise to renew my commitment to make sure that what I post is not only relevant, interesting, and topical... but that I can say without hesitation that I believe it to be 100% true.

For the debt limit, before he was against it

2011-04-16T15:26:00.002-05:00

ABC news caught up to Obama, and asked him about one of his biggest flip flops since Gitmo.
When asked if it was a mistake to vote against the debt limit as a senator, the president said:

I think that it’s important to understand the vantage point of a Senator versus the vantage point of a…President. When you’re a Senator, traditionally what’s happened is this is always a lousy vote. Nobody likes to be tagged as having increased the debt limit for the United States by a trillion dollars… As President, you start realizing, "You know what? We-- we can’t play around with this stuff. This is the full faith in credit of the United States." And so that was just a example of a new Senator, you know, making what is a political vote as opposed to doing what was important for the country. And I’m the first one to acknowledge it.

That's a very long winded way of saying that as a senator, he was trying to take political advantage of a situation. But now that he's a president, he has to be an adult.

I'm glad that the president is acknowledging his mistakes. (Even if he is doing that whole "I'm better then most people" thing, while doing it)
What appalls me is that at no point does he recognize how completely craven it was for him to "play politics" with trillions of debt.

"But is he constitutionally qualified to become president?"

2011-04-16T11:13:00.003-05:00

I just wanted to remind everyone who first bought up the controversy about a presidential candidates citizenship:

"I would like to see Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) as a presidential candidate, but I heard that he was born in the Panama Canal Zone. The Constitution requires that a president be a "natural born" citizen of the United States. Is Sen. McCain barred from the presidency? – Steven R. Pruett, Falls Church, Va."

That was in 1998.
The writer wrote to a political beat reporter for the Washington Post named Ken Rubin. Ken answered, in part:

"McCain has an adoring media on his side, and a reputation as someone who will make the difficult choices. What he shouldn't have is any question about his eligibility to be president."

An adoring media on his side. Huh. That sounds familiar.
Anyway, the point is, Barack isn't the first person who's birth has been questioned, as the report points out. (There's more there... I won't belabor it. Read the article.)
The biggest difference is that this adoring media finds race to be the motivator, but when McCain's detractors were questioning his citizenship, everyone understood it to be about:
1) politics
and
2) whether or not he was a citizen

Just thought I'd point that out.

Max Keiser is trying to get you to be violent

2011-04-16T11:06:00.003-05:00

When you start suggesting that you should "hang bankers", you're just a tiny bit away from being a complete idiot.

It feels like it was just yesterday that the left was complaining about the violent rhetoric of the right.
I love how the bankers point out how inconsistent Max's arguments are.

Beck, Obama, and the Anti-Christ

2011-02-22T16:22:00.003-06:00

I've been watching a steady stream of misinformation and straight out lies about Glenn Beck lately.
No matter what you think of the man, its not cool to lie about him.

So let's start with the lie. Which, naturally, starts with Media Matters:

Beck failed to ask Hagee about controversial statements, instead asked him if Obama might be the Antichrist

Reading that, one might conclude that Glenn Beck actually thought that it was a valid question to ask Hagee if Obama was the anti-Christ. Right?
That can't POSSIBLY be taken out of context.

I mean, Huffpo carried it too!
And those sounds formed a question that sounded out across the airwaves unto disbelieving ears. That question: "Is Barack Obama the anti-Christ."

We are not making this up. Glenn Beck, serious newsman, needed to find out if Barack Obama was the Devourer of Worlds, Son of Harlots, Bearer of the Mark of the Beast. John Hagee had to be thrilled by the question: somehow, Beck managed to make Hagee look reasonable.

You'll note that on that link, it says 'video not found'.

Huh. I wonder why.

Beck has a video.

You should watch it. It pretty much proves that both Media Matters and Huffpo can. Not. Be Trusted.

More debt from 2009-2011 then from 2001-2007

2011-01-08T00:50:00.002-06:00

This is from my latest research.

US DEBT:
Jan/2001 $5.7 Trillion
Jan/2007 $8.6 Trillion

In the 6 years of Republican control, the debt was raised by 2.9 Trillion.

Jan/2009 $10.6
Jan/2011 $14.0

From 2007 to 2009, the debt rose by $2 Trillion.
2 Trillion.
In 2 years of Democrat control of congress.

Now that was NOTHING compared to the drunken spending that would ensue after a Democrat took the presidency.

By this year, this January, our debt is 14 Trillion.

In two years, the president and congress have raised the debt by 3.4 Trillion.

Now I'm watching Democrats calling Republicans hypocrites.

Democrats and Obama have raised the debt by more in two years then the Republicans and Bush did in 6 years... and democrats have the balls to call the REPUBLICANS IRRESPONSIBLE?

2010 Afghanistan Troop casualties great than 2001-2006

2010-12-04T14:08:00.006-06:00

From ICasualties:

2001 12
2002 49
2003 48
2004 52
2005 99
2006 98
2007 117
2008 155

Combining the two terms that Bush was in office, the total number of military fatalities in Afghanistan was 630.
From 2001 to 2006, the total was 358.

If you included 2007, that number would be 475. Or 7 more deaths then there currently are in 2010.

Let's put this in perspective:
2009 317
2010 468

During the 7 years of the Bush presidency, 630 of our brave soldiers died in Afghanistan.
During the past two years of the Obama presidency, 785 soldiers died in Afghanistan.

Now don't get me wrong. I want our soldiers fighting these battles. However, why is it that Barack, who complained about the deaths of American soldiers, is being given such a clear free pass on this?

Let me put it another way: What would be the response if a McCain/Palin team lost more soldiers in the first two years of their presidency then Bush did in the previous 7?

More history on the term Teabaggers

2010-11-16T00:47:00.002-06:00

Earlier, I wrote a brief history on the liberal's use of the word "Teabagger". Since the left has remained obsessed with it, I thought I'd update it.

This is, in part, what Salon wrote:

Truth be told, though, for the most part conservatives haven't actually been using the words in such a way as to lend themselves to double entendre. With one or two exceptions, almost all of it has actually been coming from the left, which seems to have adopted the joke en masse during an earlier round of these protests back in February. After many hours of investigative journalism -- the kind that makes you wish you'd just gone to law school instead -- I think I've traced the meme's birth back to February 27th, when blogs like Instaputz and Wonkette started using it independently of one another. They were inspired by a photo that the Washington Independent's David Weigel shot of one protester carrying a sign that was, if you knew that second meaning, pretty funny: "Tea bag the liberal Dems before they tea bag you !!" (sic).

Since then, the left has used it so often, that Oxford added it to their dictionary.
Here's how various lefty websites covered this event. The Huffington Post:

Keith Olbermann took credit for popularizing the word on MSNBC Tuesday night. But the word "teabagger" actually started to spread after the Washington Independent's David Weigel photographed a protester at the first D.C. Tea Party Protest in February holding the sign, "Tea Bag the Liberal Dems Before They Tea Bag You!!"

It actually wasn't Keith, but Rachel. Although you have to give Keith credit for copping to it.
What Mediaite wrote:

Their definition doesn’t touch upon any of the raunchier, more testicular connotations of the word, which Keith Olbermann and Anderson Cooper had a lot of fun with in April. Cooper can take a lot of credit for the popularization of the phrase: in response to David Gergen’s questions about the Republican Party’s abilities to organize and articulate a message, Cooper infamously quipped, “It’s hard to talk when you’re teabagging.”‘

And, just to make sure you can read the original Oxford posting, click on it for the details.

If you give a democrat a cookie

2010-10-30T03:09:00.001-05:00

If You Give a Democrat a Cookie from RightChange on Vimeo.

From our friends at Right Change.

Clarence Page: O'Donnel was right

2010-10-30T03:05:00.002-05:00

I don't want to step on Clarence's toes here:

It turns out, if you want to get technical in a way that makes late-night college dormitory arguments go on forever, O'Donnell was correct. In fact, it is a well-worn talking point on the religious right, in particular, that the phrase "separation of church and state" is not in the Constitution.

Read the whole thing.

MoveOn, SteppedOn

2010-10-29T00:33:00.002-05:00

By now, everyone has seen this video of MoveOn member Lauren Valle being taken down by Rand Paul supporters.

What you probably haven't seen is the event leading up to it:

So Lauren shoved her sign into the window of a moving car, and in response, Rand Paul supporters were keeping tabs on her.
That's why in the first video you can literally hear Rand Paul supporters calling for the police as they take down Lauren.

There are a few issues that I want to address with this. The first one being the assertion that Lauren's head was stomped on. That's just not true.
I have still frames from the video to prove it.

In the middle image, I copied the shape and size of her head from the 3rd frame, and overlapped it with center image. That's why it appears white.
So point #1 was that she had rushed his car earlier, trying to put a sign through it.
Point #2 is that she wasn't 'stomped' on the head. As this series of images show, he was stepping on her shoulder when she rotated her shoulder forward. His foot stays on her shoulder, but doesn't hit her head.

Reports from news outlets say that she received a concussion from this. I'm not sure how. But I digress.

My final point is about how members of the left have said that this is 'typical' of Tea Party behavior, and how the Tea Party is made of thugs.
Which pisses me off, considering the make up of these videos.

This one is from the Town Hall meetings on health care. You remember those? The ones where democrats felt that if you disagreed, you should be ejected from the 'open' meetings, and slapped around.
As in this case:

Then there was the guy who cold cocked a Tea Party protestor...

But by far, my worst example of violence against the Tea Party movement is this one. Please watch.

Kenneth Gladney was supposed to get his day in court with his attackers on October 27th. I can't find any news of it, anywhere... but I'll keep looking.

In the meantime, Lauren is being supported by everyone from Media Matters to Think Progress as a useless victim who just happened to be wandering through a crowd of thugs when she was attacked.
I beg of you, for the sake of context, to share the video of Lauren pushing her sign through the window of that moving car.
She's an idiot. Not a victim.

Tea Party members with Nazi signs

2010-10-08T09:32:00.003-05:00

Okay. Its not actually Tea Party members.
Its democratic operatives making fun of Palin and Beck

Via the Gateway Pundit...

MTV shopping for drones. I mean, audience for an Obama Town Hall

2010-10-07T14:40:00.002-05:00

Via Politico:

MTV, BET and CMT are casting the audience for town hall meeting with President Obama. Shooting Oct. 14, 4 p.m. in Washington, D.C.

Seeking—Audience Members: males & females, 18+.

To apply, email townhallaudience@mtvnmix.com and put “Town Hall” in the subject line. To ensure that the audience represents diverse interests and political views, include your name, phone number, hometown, school attending, your job and what issues, if any, you are interested in or passionate about. Also, provide a recent photo and short description of your political views. Submission deadline: Oct. 14. No pay.

According to Politico's report:

"We’re just trying to get the broadest, most diverse audience possible," she said, denying that either Republicans or ugly people would be screened out.

Whew. If they screened out both Republicans and the ugly people, there wouldn't be any one left.

Christopher Coates testimony on the Black Panther case

2010-10-05T02:29:00.002-05:00

This really is riveting.
I'm not kidding.
Please watch this.

Please watch it. Christopher Coates was under pressure from the DOJ not to testify. He did anyway, as someone who worked for the Voter Rights division.
Coates testimony is that there were people inside of the DOJ who felt that Voter Intimidation cases should not be pursued if the victim is white. Furthermore, when the Obama administration took over the DOJ, they promoted those people into positions of power. Coates was then told that he should only pursue 'traditional' Voter Rights intimidation cases, which he understood as being where a non-white person was the victim.

Bill Maher: "Almost all" of the opposition to Barack is racist

2010-10-01T01:54:00.005-05:00

I used to be a big Bill Maher fan. I mean a huge one.
I loved watching his show as he went on to challenge the bloated whales of the world, and poke fun at everyone with an equal amount of spite. Somewhere along the way, Bill became extremely hateful of Christians. In this interview, he says that what he likes about the president is that he doesn't seem to rely on his faith too much.
Yet, that's kinda what the president has been saying for a while, as in this example.

This leads me to why I don't like Bill Maher anymore. He's failing to question authority. In fact, he's protecting it... all the while making fun of the underdogs. In this case, the Tea Party.
In this interview, Maher actually accuses 'almost all' of the opposition to Barack to be based in racism.
Bill, you are an asshat.

I say that with all sincerity. I cannot stand people who cannot just think critically and listen. Its not like conservatives have a reason to suddenly be interested in a liberal president or his policies.
I get that Bill is a little bitter at conservative women who were on his panel, and who wouldn't sleep with him, and why he's pursuing them with all of his bitter glee. I don't like it, but I've seen guys like that before.
I get why Bill doesn't trust religious people for the same reason. Bill travels with the Playboy set, and I imagine that crosses really are one of the biggest turn-offs for him, since Christian women tend to say 'no' more often.
But I'll never get why he's fallen into playing the race card. Its a real easy way to make people like me actually disrespect him more. Its proof that he is just angry at conservatives, and can't open his mind long enough to listen to what we are saying. That's a damn shame.

Guide to Stimulus funds

2010-09-28T23:54:00.002-05:00

Let's face it: Recovery.gov is a government propaganda arm.
There is another way to track the stimulus funds, and its here, by state.

Its broken down in several ways. But this detailed list of spending is interesting.
For instance:
Comparative effectiveness research $300,000,000

That's from the Health Care bill, if I remember correctly.

Barack, and Jesus dying for his sins

2010-09-28T17:44:00.004-05:00

I'll never understand why it is that when a conservative talks about Christ, he's obviously nutters. Yet, when a Democratic president talks about Christ... well, isn't that special?
From the New York Times:

“I’m a Christian by choice,” the president said. “My family, frankly, they weren’t folks who went to church every week. My mother was one of the most spiritual people I knew but she didn’t raise me in the church, so I came to my Christian faith later in life and it was because the precepts of Jesus Christ spoke to me in terms of the kind of life that I would want to lead. Being my brothers and sisters’ keeper, treating others as they would treat me, and I think also understanding that Jesus Christ dying for my sins spoke to the humility we all have to have as human beings, that we’re sinful and we’re flawed and we make mistakes and we achieve salvation through the grace of God.”

Now don't get me wrong. I believe that everyone should be able to worship the God of their choice. I just don't get why, when a Republican talks about God, they are crazy people who believe in a fairy-tale. But when a Democrat says something about their faith? Well, you know...

Apparently, it doesn't matter because they don't actually believe it.

Brietbart confront activists at Right Nation

2010-09-27T23:05:00.000-05:00

I want to work for Andrew Brietbart.
He seems to be the only one in the US willing to stand up to anyone and just ask the right questions. I love, love, love this video:

If you have a friend who is on the left, ask them to watch this video, and get their reaction.
If they tell you that it doesn't matter, because the source of the video seems to be on the right... then ask them why they believe the videos that portray Tea Party activists as ignorant.
Thanks to Founding Bloggers for the video.

57% of New York is angry with the government's policies?

2010-09-16T15:34:00.001-05:00

Keep in mind: New York is one of the most liberal cities in the US. The state is pretty blue.

A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Voters in the state finds that 57% are angry at the government’s current policies, including 36% who are Very Angry. These findings are slightly lower than those found nationally. Thirty-eight percent (38%) are not angry at these policies.

Roughly half (52%) of voters in the state say neither party’s political leaders have a good understanding of what is needed today. Thirty-seven percent (37%) disagree, while 12% are not sure. These findings, too, are lower than those measured nationwide.

Only 28% of voters in the Empire State feel that most members of Congress care what their constituents think. Fifty-seven percent (57%) don’t believe this to be true, and another 15% are undecided.

More on the US Debt

2010-09-16T15:21:00.003-05:00

Here's some other ways of putting this into perspective.

From CNS:

In the first 19 months of the Obama administration, the federal debt held by the public increased by $2.5260 trillion, which is more than the cumulative total of the national debt held by the public that was amassed by all U.S. presidents from George Washington through Ronald Reagan.

Read the article. Its a pretty good explanation of our debt.
ABC News explains more... even though it contains our president explaining away how he's trying to cut our debt.

Over the past year alone, the amount the U.S. government owes its lenders has grown to more than half the country's entire economic output, or gross domestic product.
Even more alarming, experts say, is that those figures will climb to an unprecedented 200 percent of GDP by 2038 without a dramatic shift in course.

You don't need to wait until 2038 to panic.
In the meantime, the poverty rate is rising? AP calls the timing 'unfortunate' for the administration:

The number of people in the U.S. who are in poverty is on track for a record increase on President Barack Obama's watch, with the ranks of working-age poor approaching 1960s levels that led to the national war on poverty.

"Most Fiscally Irresponsible"

2010-09-16T15:19:00.002-05:00

US News kinda sums it up for me:

It is unnerving to wake up and learn that you have a mortgage on your home that exceeds the value of the property. Or, and too often both, you have a credit card line that you cannot repay and the issuer has you on the rack for ever bigger compound interest on the debt. The lesson has been well and truly learned that debt catches up with you. Millions understand that they are just going to have to find a way to live within their means—and then still eke out some savings to pay down debt. And there are well over 14 million Americans without a paying job, so the level of discontent is very high. Just how are they going to regain control of their lives?

Stimulus didn't work

2010-09-16T15:16:00.001-05:00

So say economists...
Of course, they also say that our economy is rebounding, so wtf do they know? From CNN Money:

The recovery is picking up steam as employers boost payrolls, but economists think the government's stimulus package and jobs bill had little to do with the rebound, according to a survey released Monday.

Christina Roemer is leaving

2010-08-06T13:54:00.004-05:00

One of the WH advisers responsible for creating this chart:

Is leaving.
About friggin time.

Missouri's vote on health care

2010-08-05T21:56:00.002-05:00

About 71 percent of Missouri voters backed a ballot measure, Proposition C, that would prohibit the government from requiring people to have health insurance or from penalizing them for not having it.

This is just the first step, but its important. It will force the federal government into a position where they will have to assert that insurance is a federal concern. Furthermore, they'll have to back laws that give the federal government a superseding right to fine you if you do not have insurance.

Debt, by state

2010-08-05T21:54:00.003-05:00

As we all know, government spending is up. Not just on the federal level, but on the state level too.
So its worth knowing what your debt is, in the state that you are in, for the state that you are in.
CNN Money has provided this handy chart.

Take a look. Be informed.

The Kagan vote tally

2010-08-05T19:53:00.002-05:00

From Real Clear Politics, the breakdown.
I had read that all but five Republicans had voted against her, and that one Democrat voted for her. So I wanted to know who those people were.

The Democrat was Nebraskan Ben Nelson, who was already targeted by the left.
The Republicans who voted against the grain of their party are:
Lugar from Indiana, Collins and Snowe from Maine, Gregg from New Hampshire, and Graham from South Carolina.

Naturally, East coast Republicans.

Old WH press seating chart

2010-08-05T19:40:00.005-05:00

From 538, who got it from the WH.
For anyone who thought that it wasn't right that Fox was chosen for one of the front seats, note that they were the only cable news station that didn't have a seat up front.
Despite being #1 in the ratings.

P2+ Total Day
FNC – 1,245,000 viewers
CNN – 357,000 viewers
MSNBC – 367,000 viewers
CNBC – 184,000 viewers
HLN – 293,000 viewers

Chart of our health care

2010-08-05T19:35:00.002-05:00

The GOP put out an updated chart of what our health care will look like.
This one is classic.

Click here to download the PDF.

Andy Griffith is pitching for Barack

2010-08-02T10:39:00.002-05:00

Yet another thing that drives me crazy is when I find out that we've paid for ads to run on television telling people how to take advantage of an entitlement.

One such case is now running on cable, using Andy Griffith as a pitchman for medicare. Of everything that I find distasteful in my government, this is among the worst. I do not want to pay taxes so that the government can buy commercials to tell me all of the great things I'm getting in return for paying taxes. In theory, my representatives can do that themselves.

White House and their criminal guest

2010-08-01T21:43:00.003-05:00

Yet another one of the White Houses' stage props have turned on them.
This time, its not a teleprompter, but Leslie Macko. The president was using her as an example of someone who kept sending out resumes, but who could not get a job.

The only problem with this?
Uhm.. it might be that she had two criminal convictions on her record. That might be why Leslie was having trouble becoming employed again.

The new "Blame the Republicans" Talking Points

2010-08-01T20:41:00.003-05:00

I debate politics. A lot.
Lately, there is one argument that keeps coming up that is about as lame as it comes. Its a variation on blaming Republicans for everything.

On any topic, from cap & trade to running unprecedented deficits, the newest spin is to suggest that Republicans wanted to do it first.

Jill Lawrence dances this theme in her post on Politics Daily.

So many Republicans have changed their ideas on so many major issues that it's hard to keep up.

Jill then plays a very dangerous game of suggesting that some Republicans represent all of them.

Some examples of how Jill is distorting the truth:

1. Financial disclosure...."Republicans are in favor of disclosure," Sen. Mitch McConnell said on NBC's "Meet the Press" in 2000. Seven years later, on the same program, House GOP leader John Boehner declared: "Sunlight is the best disinfectant."
But Boehner voted no last month on the DISCLOSE Act, which requires corporations, unions and some other groups to disclose more information about their campaign activities.

So let's see what Boehner was asked:

WALLACE: But you have indicated — in fact, at one point, you used and then took back the word "childish" to describe this idea of all these bans on gifts and travel. Do you feel, in fact, that bans make less sense than just more disclosure of what happens?

BOEHNER: I think that some of the proposals that were out there — and there have been a lot of proposals offered by members, by outside groups. And I thought some of the proposals were outright childish, treating members like kids.

I think that what we need to do is we need to deal with the underlying problems that we have today. And I believe that disclosure of the relationship between those who lobby us, whether they be paid lobbyists here in Washington, those from agencies, or others — disclosure of those relationships — and let the American people take a look at how this relationship works.

Sunlight's the best disinfectant. I think it will help.

Interesting. So Boehner didn't favor laws that "require[s] corporations, unions and some other groups to disclose more information about their campaign activities."
Rather, Boehner favored disclosure of lobbyists and who they work for.

If you google the phrase "Sunlight is the best disinfectant", you'd swear that Boehner endorsed every and any type of financial disclosure. That's how strong this narrative has become.
More on this later.

But make no mistake, Jill Lawrence is trying to muddy the waters of real debate.

Center For Automobile Research, propaganda

2010-07-31T01:26:00.004-05:00

Fox had this story about the president and the auto industry.
The president is going on a victory tour to discuss how great everything is now after he bailed them out.

While watching the video, I noted that part of the video seemed to be kinda cut in, by a guy named David Cole from the Center for Automobile Research.
Watch it, and note how David comes in to defend the auto industry.

Now I know that sometimes, special interest groups will supply television studios with pre-cut footage of them commenting on an issue. And this certainly seemed to be the case. But I googled to find out if it was.
That's how I found this, by the NYTPicker:

The center has been cited in 137 different Times stories since 2001, most of them quoting David Cole -- who has been variously identified by Times reporters as its "director," "executive director," "president," "chairman" and "head." (CAR's website give his title as "chairman.")

Clearly, its a special interest group that does a great job of feeding quotes the the NY Times.
I think they have outsourced their influence.

A very short history of the attack on Goldline

2010-07-31T00:50:00.003-05:00

Its started with Color Of Change, and then moved to Media Matters.

Go to Media Matters and punch in the search term "Goldline". You'll get 9 pages of hits.

Most of them are labeled "So, who's still advertising on Beck?"
This is one of the first pages where they did this, back in August of 2009. They've been doing it nonstop for a year.

Media Matters for America has compiled a list of companies that did run ads on Glenn Beck this evening (August 26) in the order they appeared:

Goldline, of course, was on that list.

Here's one page on Media Matters that starts the 'Glenn Beck is trying to get you to buy gold' narrative. The money quote?

Eighty advertisers have reportedly dropped their ads from Beck's Fox News program since he called President Obama a "racist" who has a "deep-seated hatred of white people." The gold companies are among the last ones that still want to be associated with Beck.
Today, they got their reward.

Never let it be said that Media Matters holds back on the greedy people narrative. To their credit, Media Matters did not say anything about Shekels.

This narrative has continued for a year now.

Another page I've found along the way is from SEIU.
SEIU is one of Beck's favorite targets. Who woulda guessed that they'd start aiming at his show too?

Let's be clear about what the attack on Goldline is really about: the far left trying to shut Beck up.
Remember what Media Matters wrote a while back:

The gold companies are among the last ones that still want to be associated with Beck.

Well. We can't have that... can we?

More 'unexpected' economic news

2010-07-31T00:45:00.002-05:00

My favorite new economic phrase is "unexpected". As in, "Unemployment was unexpectedly higher". Or, "GDP was unexpectedly down."

Now we get:

The recession was deeper than the government previously thought.
The Commerce Department, in revisions issued Friday, estimates the economy shrank 2.6 percent last year -- the steepest drop since 1946. That's worse than the 2.4 percent decline originally estimated.

uh huh.

2010-07-31T00:39:00.002-05:00

Blogger Brian Steltzer chastised Fox News for its low viewership among African Americans.
HuffPo, being HuffPo, followed suit.

This irony is clear when you find out that Brian Steltzer has the lowest readership of any media blog:

Interestingly, though, the media site where Stelter primarily blogs (New York Times' Media Decoder) suffers from the lowest percentage of African-American readers (4.6%) when compared to comparable media sites like Mediaite (5.8%), Gawker (6.4%), Mediabistro (9.2%), etc., according to Nielsen Media Research.

Congrats to Matt Lewis of Politics Daily for the catch.

Why is "Inside Islam" on America.gov?

2010-07-30T16:11:00.003-05:00

Every once in a while, this administration does something that makes paranoid conspiracy theorists look like geniuses.

I recently ran across a special on PBS called Inside Islam.
Its a pretty ham-handed attempt to portray Islam as just any other religion. One that respects women, abhors violence, but just wishes that America would never, ever, ever allow themselves to influence other cultures.

According to "Inside Islam", they do not hate us for who we are. Heck, the show spends half of the show telling us how much Islam admires the democracy of America. Its just like any other religion, it keeps telling us.
When the topic of suicide bombers comes up, the show tries to tell us that it has nothing to do with religion. They try to explain that Kamakaze pilots killed themselves too, but not in the name of religion. (Epic fail. Kamakaze pilots believed highly that they would be rewarded spiritually.)

Anyway, I decided to Google to find out more about the intention of the film. I figured out that maybe I was missing their greater point.
That's when I ran across this link.
Its America.gov.
That's us, by the way.

Okay. So why is America.gov running a promo for Inside Islam? The program was not sponsored by the US (as far as I know) and is not about the US.

Someone explain this one to me.

I forgot to mention... I also found this link:

Attention Federal Employees
Support better American – Muslim relations!

Unity Productions Foundation (UPF) is now approved and enrolled in the Combined Federal Campaign. Our CFC Code #30916! As a federal employee, your donation will be deducted directly from your paycheck and is tax deductible.

Founded by Michael Wolfe (ABC News Nightline Hajj Coverage) and Alex Kronemer (CNN Hajj Coverage), UPF produces films, Hollywood engagement and dialogue campaigns aimed to increase understanding and foster dialogue among the world’s spiritual traditions with a focus on American – Muslim relations.

The page includes the tagline:

Reminder: Campaign Season is September 1 to December 15.

The CFC is part of the Combined Federal Campaign. Its federal workers.

The mission of the CFC is to promote and support philanthropy through a program that is employee focused, cost-efficient, and effective in providing all federal employees the opportunity to improve the quality of life for all.

Once again, I'd like to ignore conspiracy theorists. I think its healthy to.
But my government is making the conspiracy theorists look rationale.

Obama on The View?

2010-07-27T00:22:00.001-05:00

Yup. That's about right.

Britain de-centralizes health care

2010-07-25T18:21:00.003-05:00

As the US goes full bore into heatlh care socialization, England is backing away from that train wreck. From the NY Times of all places:

Practical details of the plan are still sketchy. But its aim is clear: to shift control of England’s $160 billion annual health budget from a centralized bureaucracy to doctors at the local level. Under the plan, $100 billion to $125 billion a year would be meted out to general practitioners, who would use the money to buy services from hospitals and other health care providers.
Huh. I wonder why that is?

Okay, we all know why it is. Because as soon as the government becomes involved, things get dumb expensive.

Not that Harry Reid cares about this:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, seeking to console liberal activists who were disappointed by the final version of the national health care law, assured them that there would eventually be a public option.

Yep. We all knew that... right? We knew it was coming?
Look, the word Boondoggle will have to be redefined if this ever goes into full effect. Please, not for my sake. Not even for your sake. For your children's sake, stop this dumb thing.

To me, this whole argument about health care is like two people arguing over whether a house is properly painted. One person jumps to the conclusion that the house is horribly ruined, and sets a torch to it.
That's what's about to happen to our health care system.

IRS Health care powers

2010-07-25T15:34:00.002-05:00

The Wall Street Journal recently wrote an article covering the new things that the IRS can do connected with health care:

Ms. Olson also exposed a damaging provision that she estimates will hit some 30 million sole proprietorships and subchapter S corporations, two million farms and one million charities and other tax-exempt organizations. Prior to ObamaCare, businesses only had to tell the IRS the value of services they purchase. But starting in 2013 they will also have to report the value of goods they buy from a single vendor that total more than $600 annually—including office supplies and the like.

But... I thought that was debunked by the left, when they said that the IRS would not be involved...?

Black Panthers, as covered by the American Prospect

2010-07-24T12:30:00.004-05:00

Adam Serwer is a blogger on the American Prospect website. As someone who blogs about Civil Rights, Adam decided to throw himself headfirst into the whole Black Panther controversy.

Of course, instead of focusing on the Civil Rights case, the one that the Obama administration won and subsequently decided to reduce the charges on, Adam instead decided to focus on the criminal charges:

This means that the case was downgraded to a civil case 11 days before Obama was inaugurated, 26 days before Eric Holder became attorney general, and about nine months before Thomas Perez was confirmed as head of the Civil Rights Division

Go read the article. Then read the update:

So, I just wanted to clear something up: I wrote my post yesterday about the Justice Department's decision not to pursue criminal charges against the NBPP during the Bush administration because I had seen conservatives arguing that it was made by the Obama administration. It wasn't. I did not mean to suggest that the civil case, which the DoJ dropped in May of last year after receiving a preliminary injunction against the only NBPP member in Philadelphia who was walking around with a baton, was dismissed during the Bush administration. I apologize if any of my writing has been unclear on this point or any confusion has resulted because I misstated the accusation of who wanted the criminal case dismissed.

I haven't seen one conservative arguing about the criminal complaints, so I followed the links above to the Media Matter's article. Media Matters has O'Reilly talking to two legal analysts who both complain that they have no idea why criminal complaints were not pursued.

But the bulk of the story is why the civil suit was dropped after they won.

Getting back to Adam;
The comments pretty much say it all, but Adam had to 'update' his blog several times. It finally got to the point where he had to issue this blog.
Now I have to give Adam partial credit. In his original post, he does talk about the civil case.
However, its clear to me that he was trying to muddy the waters by talking about the criminal case. As I mentioned before, O'Reilly was the only one I heard talking about the criminal case, and only in that clip that Media Matters focused on.

The tagline of the American Prospect is "Liberal Intelligence". Skipping past the obvious oxymoron, I wish that the Prospect and Adam would adhere to their tagline.

Nomination: Most misrepresentation, ever

2010-07-23T11:54:00.002-05:00

Media Matters has, on previous occasions, left me dumbfounded in their dishonesty.

But today, they deserve a special award for duping their own people.

Currently, this timeline is being used by liberals to argue that Fox News was instrumental in the firing of Sherrod by airing the edited video.
There's only one problem with that. Media Matters own timeline shows that Fox did not air the video until after Sherrod resigned.

So why is their confusion? Well, its like this: Media Matters is using the FoxNation website (an electronic BBS) and making it the equivalent of Fox News coverage.

You don't have to believe me. Go visit the timeline for yourself. See what impression you are left with. Then delve into the details of it.

Life expectancy, and infant mortality

2010-07-21T11:15:00.000-05:00

Two lies came out during the health care debate that I want to make sure are addressed, regarding our health care:
1) We have a rapidly declining life expectancy
2) Our infant mortality rate is horrible compared to other countries

1) We do not have a rapidly declining life expectancy.
That was an outright lie produced during the health care debate by those who wanted universal health care. Don't believe me?
Here is a chart.

The argument has been, for a while now, that the US is 'lagging' behind other countries in life expectancy... which is party true: other countries don't kill each other as much as we do in the US. We have a much higher rate of homicide then other countries.
The irony is that we also have much more self-destructive habits then most other countries. The more prosperous a country, the more ways we come up with to kill ourselves. For instance, drugs. Cars. Not to mention skateboarding down a railing. The point is that sometimes, people become so prosperous that they actually do bad things to themselves. We're at that point.

2) Our rates of infant mortality can be found here, and the chart allows you to compare it to other countries.

Now I know you've heard (again) that we lag behind other countries... and that is also true. However, again, it doesn't tell you why:
Differing definitions of infant mortality, fertility treatments, drug use, and young women having babies.

I found this out after a long search on the web. The first problem is that not every country defines infant mortality the same. Some countries describe a child who is stillborn as an infant mortality, while others don't describe the child as being born at all.
The second problem is that it turns out that premature babies tend not to live long. That leads me to the other three reasons...
Fertility Treatments: We literally create babies that would normally not make it to term. They get born prematurely, and thus (unfortunately) have a high infant mortality rate.
Drug use: creates babies with harmed immunity systems
Young women: have premature babies at a much higher rate. See above.

I understand that these are hard things to look up. Honest, it took me a while. But I hate that there were people in charge, who knew better, who used these as arguments to why our health care was 'inferior'. It had nothing to do with our health care. Those were dishonest arguments from the start.

Debt: Bush v. Obama

2010-07-21T02:11:00.003-05:00

I just did some simple research to find out the debt, Bush vs. Obama.

When Bush came into office on 1/20/01, the debt was 5.7 Trillion.
The debt when the democrats took over congress on 1/3/2007 was 8.5 Trillion.

That makes Bush responsible for approximately 2.8 Trillion of debt.

The democratic-run congress then ballooned that debt in only 2 year's time to 10.6 Trillion on January 20th, 2009, the day Barack took over.

Bush & the Republican led congress added 2.8 trillion of debt for the 6 years that they were in power, or approximately 460 billion a year.

Congress spent 2.1 Trillion over two years, or roughly 1.05 Trillion a year with the Democrats in charge and Bush as a lame duck president.

But that's nothing to what happened once Obama took office.
On January 20th of the next year, our debt was 12.3 trillion.
In one year, the Democrat-run congress with Barack at the helm gave us 1.7 Trillion of debt in one year... more then triple what the Republican led congress was racking up under Bush.

SOURCE:
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np

Mort Zuckerman helped write Obama's speech

2010-07-20T14:06:00.001-05:00

In one of those "that explains a lot" statements, Mort Zuckerman (US News & World Report Editor in Chief) admitted that he helped write one of President Obama's speeches.

This, in itself, is pretty damning.
More damning still is the yawn it produced in the media that covers the president.

Shouldn't someone in the media be outraged to find out that one of the EIC's of a major news organization was helping write the president's speech? Presumably before his magazine covered it?

Dow Jones Index, under Democrats

2010-07-19T02:05:00.002-05:00

Democrats took over congress on Jan 5th, 2007.

On Jan 3rd, 2007, the DJI was at 12,800.18
That's when it started plunging downward.
On November 4th, 2008, the day that Barack was elected, the DJI was at:
9,625.28
The DJI was at 8,228 when Obama took office.

Freddie & Fannie, a brief history on financial regulation

2010-07-19T00:36:00.002-05:00

I've been reading a lot of praise by those on the left for the Obama administration regarding their push for financial reform.

Its ironic for me to hear them blaming George Bush for 'not doing' anything. Particularly when he was the force that tried to get something done.

The New York Times was the first one to give the Bush administration credit for trying to oversee Freddie and Fannie. They did so way back on September 11, of 2003.

The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago.
Under the plan, disclosed at a Congressional hearing today, a new agency would be created within the Treasury Department to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored companies that are the two largest players in the mortgage lending industry.

Most of us know what happened during that attempt to regulate the industry. But in case you don't, here's a short video lesson:

The Wall Street Journal was kind enough to sum up the whole sordid saga in a commentary provided by Karl Rove. Some highlights:
Because of this, the Bush administration warned in the budget it issued in April 2001 that Fannie and Freddie were too large and overleveraged. Their failure "could cause strong repercussions in financial markets, affecting federally insured entities and economic activity" well beyond housing.
I like to fact check, so I looked it up.
After all, if you're going to quote Karl Rove, someone isn't going to believe you. This is what the 2002 FY budget of George Bush said, in his first year in office [my emphasis in red, added]:

Uncertainties about the Federal Government’s liability
have increased in some areas. Consolidation has
increased bank size, and deregulation has allowed
banks to engage in many risky activities. Thus, the
loss to the deposit insurance funds can turn out to
be unusually large in some bad years. The potential
loss needs to be limited by large insurance reserves
and effective regulation. The large size of some GSEs
is also a potential problem. Financial trouble of a large
GSE could cause strong repercussions in financial markets,
affecting Federally insured entities and economic
activity.

Interesting, huh?
Its almost like... Republicans were on top of this the entire time.
Not convinced yet?
Read this quote:

There is some evidence that the mortgage industry
has seen an increase in the number of predatory loans.
Predatory loans, which carry excessive fees or other
unfair pricing structure, harm unsuspecting buyers.
Predatory loans are more prevalent in the subprime
market where conventional loans are made to higher risk
borrowers. The Government can improve mortgage market
efficiency by squeezing out predatory practices
through increased regulation and disclosure. In addition
to predatory lending, the mortgage industry also has
seen increased incidences of fraud.

Sound familiar?

Yes, the head of GM was forced out by Obama

2010-07-18T23:23:00.003-05:00

There's been a lot of rewriting of history regarding Obama's control of GM. So I thought I'd remind people what happened.

Steve Rattner was a man without any experience in the car industry. According to New York magazine, he worked as a journalist, an investment banker, and then the head of a private equity fund.
His primary qualification for becoming the car czar was that he raised a lot of money for democrats.

This is what New York magazine said of his handling of the task force:

Six months after taking the job, Rattner (who declined to comment for this story) had helped to perform a seeming magic trick, rewriting the understanding between the car companies and the unions while bending the companies’ financiers—his friends and peers—to his will. With what seemed a cool, almost arrogant confidence—his casual dismissal of GM CEO Rick Wagoner reflected this quality—he had played a large role in restructuring the American car industry, accomplishing what few had thought possible a few months earlier, and in record time.

Still not convinced?
This was Politico at the time that it happened:

The White House confirmed Wagoner was leaving at the government's behest after The Associated Press reported his immediate departure, without giving a reason.

The next time that someone challenges that the administration is in charge of the auto industry, ask them what Steve Rattner's job was.

Your health insurance penalty is finally labeled a tax

2010-07-18T23:18:00.002-05:00

Its too late to call this progress. It should have been labeled a tax before the health care bill was passed. But its more honest then it was before. From the NY Times:

When Congress required most Americans to obtain health insurance or pay a penalty, Democrats denied that they were creating a new tax. But in court, the Obama administration and its allies now defend the requirement as an exercise of the government’s “power to lay and collect taxes.”

What it comes down to is that the health care takeover is being challenged in court. Barack's administration can't defend taking money from the public unless they actually call it a tax.
Personally, I hope that when it goes to court, the plaintiffs will detail how the administration tried not to call it a tax, and how it was pitched to congress as something that was not a tax.

Providing health care tests for free?

2010-07-18T23:12:00.003-05:00

You may wonder how insurance companies are going to make money. Well, I am at least. There is an ever-widening array of things that they are supposed to provide, without raising their premiums.

Here is one example from the NY Times:

The White House on Wednesday issued new rules requiring health insurance companies to provide free coverage for dozens of screenings, laboratory tests and other types of preventive care.

Who was the person in charge of this? HHS director Katleen Sebelius.
Welcome to the new fascism where companies have no control over what they do, or what they offer. Moreover, where they can't charge for services that they are required to provide.

Germany to increase health insurance premiums?

2010-07-18T23:06:00.002-05:00

Now that we're on the path to government run insurance, stories are coming out about how its not working in other governments.
Let's talk about Germany, where they are raising taxes and cutting drug benifits to balance their health care program:

The measure is part of an overhaul of health care intended to plug an 11-billion euro ($13.8 billion) deficit in the public health-insurance system in 2011. It follows Cabinet agreement on June 29 to cuts in spending on drugs to reduce soaring costs to public health-insurance funds.

Neat.
Keep in mind, Germany was supposed to be one of the places where government run health care 'works'.

(Former) statements of Barack on Bin Laden

2010-07-18T22:49:00.003-05:00

From a transcript of the second debate between McCain & Barack. October 2008:

...I believe that part of the reason we have a difficult situation is because we made a bad judgment going into Iraq in the first place when we hadn't finished the job of hunting down bin Laden and crushing al Qaeda. So what happened was we got distracted, we diverted resources, and ultimately bin Laden escaped, set up base camps in the mountains of Pakistan in the northwest provinces there. They are now raiding our troops in Afghanistan, destabilizing the situation. They're stronger now than at any time since 2001. And that's why I think it's so important for us to reverse course, because that's the central front on terrorism. They are plotting to kill Americans right now. As Secretary Gates, the defense secretary, said, the war against terrorism began in that region and that's where it will end. So part of the reason I think it's so important for us to end the war in Iraq is to be able to get more troops into Afghanistan, put more pressure on the Afghan government to do what it needs to do, eliminate some of the drug trafficking that's funding terrorism....And if we have Osama bin Laden in our sights and the Pakistani government is unable or unwilling to take them out, then I think that we have to act and we will take them out. We will kill bin Laden; we will crush Al Qaeda. That has to be our biggest national security priority.

Uh huh. Please remember that he said that... our biggest national security priority.
He repeated that theme in November 12, of 2008:

President-elect Barack Obama wants to renew the U.S. commitment to finding al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, according to his national security advisers.

Soooo... what happened?

An old GQ article on Obama

2010-07-14T18:16:00.000-05:00

Sometimes, I find an article that I just want to bookmark for all eternity. Just 'cause I have a feeling that it will be relevant later on.

In September of 2007, GQ did a lengthy article on Barack. Although it is fawning at times:

One way to describe Obama is that underneath the inspirational leader who wants to change politics—and upon whom desperate Democrats, Independents, and not a few Republicans are projecting their hopes—is an ambitious, prickly, and occasionally ruthless politician. But underneath that guy is another one, an Obama who's keenly aware that presidential politics is about timing, and that at this extremely low moment in American political life, there is a need for someone—and he firmly believes that someone is him—to lift up the nation in a way no politician has in nearly half a century.

There are other areas of the interview that are downright damning

One of the riddles of the Obama campaign is, to what extent does a candidate who preaches a gospel of changing politics need to run a revolutionarily different kind of campaign? The question has gnawed at Obama since he entered the race. At his very first press conference as a candidate, a reporter asked Obama why he was employing a team of opposition researchers—aides who spend their days and nights digging up dirt on other candidates and often leaking that info, "anonymously," to the media.

But what I really thought was interesting is what he said about Iraq at the time:

"The fact of the matter is, I have the most specific plan in terms of how to get out of Iraq of any candidate," he lectured us.

Uh. Yeah. Right.

Democrats are raising money in Canada?

2010-07-14T18:11:00.002-05:00

The next time you read about Democrats who are upset about Republicans raising money in shady ways for their campaigns, remember this story.

The Democrats went to Canada. Why? Because if you're not actually physically in the US, you aren't constrained by US election financing laws.

Sounds ridiculous, but its true. Uber reporter Lynn Sweet has the story:

The Giannoulias Democratic Illinois Senate campaign confirmed Monday--after prodding from the National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee--that Alexi Giannoulias was in Canada on Sunday attending a fund-raiser at a trial lawyer convention in Vancouver that would benefit his Senate campaign.

It kinda makes sense that trial lawyers would figure out a way to escape restrictions on their fund raising.

Great article by Jonah Goldberg on Dem's lament

2010-07-14T18:07:00.003-05:00

I don't want to quote it too much, because I don't want to spoil it. However, this line is genius:

This misplaced griping stems not from Obama's failure to "think big" but from a misreading of the political climate: Liberals thought they'd be popular.

Exactly.
The left is still trying to figure out why, even though they took over, they still aren't popular.

The New Republic, on Palin

2010-07-14T17:39:00.003-05:00

Its pretty funny to watch the left try to figure out who Palin is. In the latest New Republic, the latest spin is that she's a media genius. Check out these two lines:

In the midst of this aggressive visibility, however, Palin keeps a tight grip on her time in the public eye.

Uh huh. She's so smart, that she keeps out of the public eye in her aggressive visibility.

The president urges patience with Iraq

2010-07-06T22:11:00.003-05:00

Every once in a while, I run across something that I need to archive.
Like this article:

In his weekly radio address today, [the president] once again framed the war in Iraq as a battle against al-Qaeda and urged the American people to give his troop surge strategy more time to be successful. The president started off this week by giving listeners a preview of his speech at the American Legion national convention this week.

I thought it was interesting to hear the president urge for more time. Especially considering that at the time the president was asking for more time, Senator Obama was criticizing the war.

You see, this was President Bush, in August of 2007.

To be fair to Obama, I have to quote him at length:

It is time to turn the page. When I am President, we will wage the war that has to be won, with a comprehensive strategy with five elements: getting out of Iraq and on to the right battlefield in Afghanistan and Pakistan; developing the capabilities and partnerships we need to take out the terrorists and the world's most deadly weapons; engaging the world to dry up support for terror and extremism; restoring our values; and securing a more resilient homeland.

The first step must be getting off the wrong battlefield in Iraq, and taking the fight to the terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

I introduced a plan in January that would have already started bringing our troops out of Iraq, with a goal of removing all combat brigades by March 31, 2008. If the President continues to veto this plan, then ending this war will be my first priority when I take office.

There is no military solution in Iraq. Only Iraq's leaders can settle the grievances at the heart of Iraq's civil war. We must apply pressure on them to act, and our best leverage is reducing our troop presence. And we must also do the hard and sustained diplomatic work in the region on behalf of peace and stability.

That's not all he said. Please read the complete speech.
Its also important to note that this was not a one time position of the president. A month later, in September 12, 2007, he said:

I opposed this war from the beginning. I opposed the war in 2002. I opposed it in 2003. I opposed it in 2004. I opposed it in 2005. I opposed it in 2006. I introduced a plan in January to remove all of our combat brigades by next March. And I am here to say that we have to begin to end this war now.

My plan for ending the war would turn the page in Iraq by removing our combat troops from Iraq's civil war; by taking a new approach to press for a new accord on reconciliation within Iraq; by talking to all of Iraq's neighbors to press for a compact in the region; and by confronting the human costs of this war.

First, we need to immediately begin the responsible removal of our troops from Iraq's civil war. Our troops have performed brilliantly. They brought Saddam Hussein to justice. They have fought for over four years to give Iraqis a chance for a better future. But they cannot - and should not - bear the responsibility for resolving the grievances at the heart of Iraq's civil war.

It is now July of 2010.
As Barack said, "...I opposed the war in 2002. I opposed it in 2003. I opposed it in 2004. I opposed it in 2005. I opposed it in 2006."
He basically opposed it until he was in office.
Now I wouldn't blame him if he actually turned around and said, "You know what? President Bush was right to stay in Iraq"
But Barack won't do that. Its not that he isn't smart enough to realize that Bush was right. Clearly, he does. Its either that his ego is too big for him to realize it, or he drowned himself in his own pronouncements that Bush was wrong that he made people believe him. And now, he can't admit it, or Bush looks smarter then he is.

There are a lot of people that I do not want as my leader. The very first category is the one who cannot admit when they were clearly wrong.

Post Office = The future of health care

2010-07-06T21:48:00.003-05:00

Whenever I speak to people about the upcoming health care takeover, I bring up the United States Post Office. I don't think that you can get a greater idea of what we're in for with government health care then the post office.

Think about it. You wait in line, usually for 15 minutes, just to send a package. The person behind the desk usually has an attitude that normally runs the gamut between indifference and incompetence. They move at a snails pace because they can never get fired.
We've all had this experience. Yet, some people defend the USPS as an example of efficiency.

CBS has an article about the current crisis in the USPS. Despite government oversight (or more likely, from it) the USPS:

Kearney said the agency is facing a $7 billion loss in 2011. The rate increase will bring in an extra $2.5 billion, meaning it still faces a $4.7 billion loss.

This is a government run agency that has the worst customer service of any organization that I've ever run into. In my opinion, its just a peek of what we should expect out of government run health care in the future.

Under fire, for dancing

2010-07-06T21:09:00.002-05:00

The way I look at it: if you are wearing Kevlar as part of your normal everyday job of representing my country, you are entitled to occasionally blow off steam.

Some of our troops in Afghanistan, performing Lady GaGa's Telephone.

The rumor is that these men are now receiving some criticism for this. I hope that isn't true.

I also hope that Lady GaGa goes over there and performs in person for them. They have a great sense of humor.
Stay safe guys.

Did Barack tell the truth?

2010-07-03T17:17:00.002-05:00

When the Blagojevich scandal broke, the White House went into full spin mode about how they were 'investigating' everything, and that they'd let us know right away what they came up with.

Of course, they never found any evidence that the WH did anything wrong. Go figure.
From Time magazine:

This all seemed rather open and shut. Since the press had no information suggesting otherwise, President Obama was allowed to move on from the scandal. But recent testimony in the Blagojevich trial suggests that Craig's report and Obama's effort at transparency failed to tell the entire story.

On Tuesday, an Illinois union leader, Thomas Balanoff, testified that he received a phone call the day before the election from President Obama to discuss Valerie Jarrett and the Senate seat. Balanoff would serve as a go-between, connecting the Obama inner circle to the Blagojevich inner circle.

Remember how there was no one at all, according to the WH, that had any knowledge of any deal? Well, that's if you don't include the president's attempt to get a friend into a senate seat.

This is typical Chicago politics. Which means that its corrupt, for those of you who are not from Chicago.

Health Care Bill makes ERs more crowded

2010-07-03T16:23:00.003-05:00

Thus, another fallacy of the health care bill falls to pieces. From USA Today:

People without insurance aren't the ones filling up the nation's emergency rooms. Far from it. The uninsured are no more likely to use ERs than people with private insurance, perhaps because they're wary of huge bills.

The big question for me is:
Why didn't any of the press say this BEFORE the health care bill was passed? This was a huge fallacy that was presented by the president to sell health care. Shouldn't someone have called bullshit on him?

No, the health care bill will not make things cheaper for everyone. In fact, we'll be putting our grandchildren in debt.
Yes, you will be taxed if you do not buy insurance. Its a government mandate.
It will not promote cost savings. Nothing that is mandatory will create savings.

This is a giant boondoggle, and the quicker its killed, the better.

Beck connects Soros to our current oil crisis

2010-07-02T12:41:00.001-05:00

I hate conspiracy theories. But this administration gives me pause. Particularly when I see things like this...

Hannity summing up Barack's unemployment incompetence

2010-07-02T12:30:00.003-05:00

With guest Newt Gingritch, the two talk about how the stimulus bill was completely ineffective.

CBS completely nails Obama on his commissions

2010-07-01T01:39:00.000-05:00

I love how many things the president criticized before he became president.
CBS caught him in this big double standard. Barack established a new financial commission in February. He did this after complaining about the many commissions during the campaign:

"Folks, we don't need a commission to spend a few years and a lot of taxpayer money to tell us what's going on in our economy," he continued. "We don't need a commission to tell us gas prices are high or that you can't pay your bills. We don't need a commission to tell us you're losing your jobs. We don't need a commission to study this crisis, we need a President who will solve it - and that's the kind of President I intend to be."

Congrats to NPR for being the first one to notice this, and CBS for picking it up. That's actual journalism, folks. Research and stuff. Holding politicians accountable for their promises.

Reminder: Obama opposed the surge, then said the impact was 'relatively modest'

2010-07-01T01:31:00.003-05:00

From a HotAir report on what Barack said back then.
Barack calling Iraq a disaster, and saying that we are not kicking ass in Iraq. He said there was a modest decline, and that it was unsustainable.

Santelli sums it all up, politely

2010-06-29T12:01:00.003-05:00

Okay, maybe not politely.
But he's saying what I've been screaming for about 2 years now, ever since a Democratic congress passed the first TARP:

Thank you, Santelli, for not being polite about it anymore. Since the dumb idiots in office won't listen anymore, maybe you can get the point through.

Barack spent $787 Billion dollars, and then said that he couldn't cut the budget. He passed a health care bill that cost roughly a trillion, and then said that he was going to be a deficit hawk.
C'mon man.
The debt is now 2.5 Trillion more then it was when he came into office.
Stop spending.

Barack's all time gaffes

2010-06-28T12:41:00.003-05:00

Recently, someone was telling me about what a lightweight they thought Sarah Palin was.
Of course, I challenged them to bring up examples, and of course, they blanked.

So I decided to give them examples of what a lightweight might say.

With that in mind, here are my favorite Obama gaffes of all time.

Number 6 - Isn't that special:
Barack, on Jay Leno, says that his bowling was like the Special Olympics.

Number 5 - Time to add some stars to that flag

"It is wonderful to be back in Oregon," Obama said. "Over the last 15 months, we’ve traveled to every corner of the United States. I’ve now been in 57 states? I think one left to go. Alaska and Hawaii, I was not allowed to go to even though I really wanted to visit, but my staff would not justify it."

Number 4 - A Tribute to the movie "Sixth Sense"

"On this Memorial Day, as our nation honors its unbroken line of fallen heroes — and I see many of them in the audience here today — our sense of patriotism is particularly strong."

Numger 3 - The tragedy that dwarfed 9/11 in Kansas
Of course, we all missed out on hearing about it, but Barack updated us:

“In case you missed it, this week, there was a tragedy in Kansas. Ten thousand people died — an entire town destroyed.”

Number 2 - The main problem with the Middle East is, eh, the Middle East?

"The Middle East Is Obviously An Issue That Has Plagued The Region For Centuries"

Number 1 - It might be a challenge, but we will bring greater inefficiency

"The reforms we seek would bring greater competition, choice, savings and inefficiencies to our health care system"

Our president now has the power to kill the internet

2010-06-28T00:52:00.003-05:00

I hate when my government outdoes anything that a conspiracy theorist can come up with.

A US Senate committee has approved a wide-ranging cybersecurity bill that some critics have suggested would give the US president the authority to shut down parts of the Internet during a cyberattack.

You can read more about it at the website for Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.

Watch a drunken whore complain about the prostitute problem

2010-06-28T00:49:00.002-05:00

Barack, telling us that "people should learn that lesson about me", that he's actually going to 'call the bluff' of people who want to reduce the deficit.

I want to play the president at Poker.