Your new-found zest for camaraderie and bipartisanship wouldn’t be timed to coincide with your crash in the polls now, would it? I mean, who doesn’t want you to fix the jobs crisis and put that health care nonsense out to pasture like the washed-up brood mare that it has become…but c’mon now-don’t you credit us with any well-earned cynicism and suspicion as you start calling the minority your friends? [emphasis mine]

“Bipartisanship depends on a willingness among both Democrats and Republicans to put aside matters of party for the good of the country,” Obama said. “I won’t hesitate to embrace a good idea from my friends in the minority party, but I also won’t hesitate to condemn what I consider to be obstinacy that’s rooted not in substantive disagreements, but in political expedience.”

Sorry, Mr. President, no sale. An overall independent voter approval of 29% means you aren’t welcome down our throats anymore, and you have a terribly small amount of time to right your ship or see it in dry dock. Good luck with that.

Stop spending OUR money on YOUR problems, and start putting it back in our pockets. You better hope the Republicans are willing to give you a second chance (that you haven’t earned) because the rest of us aren’t feeling so generous with our patience.

So sayeth White House deputy national security adviser John Brennan, at least. Funny how that never occurred to him and his fellow Democrats when George W. Bush was in the White House. Someone needs to be taken out behind the woodshed. Consider Brennan’s whining and bellyaching about being called out for sucking at his job:

Politically motivated criticism and unfounded fear-mongering only serve the goals of al-Qaeda. Terrorists are not 100-feet tall. Nor do they deserve the abject fear they seek to instill. They will, however, be dismantled and destroyed, by our military, our intelligence services and our law enforcement community. And the notion that America’s counterterrorism professionals and America’s system of justice are unable to handle these murderous miscreants is absurd.

The Democrats don’t have a very long memory, nor do they have much of an attention span. Let’s take a trip down Nancy Pelosi’s memory lane shall we?

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I know, I know…he had his run and he didn’t really give us much during the second half of his second term to set up an electoral edge for Republicans going in to the ‘08 cycle. He made some things, in fact, worse for us in several fairly big ways…but still-you gotta love seeing the Cowboy in Chief rub it in Bambi and the left’s face just a little… this story out of Wyoming, Minnesota (via Minnesota Public Radio-note-picture comes from the same link):

It was late at night and I wasn’t sure I’d seen the billboard correctly as I whizzed past it on I-35 in Wyoming last week on the way back from Wrenshall. But an e-mailer confirms I saw what I thought I saw.

Who knows if it’s a fake, or a hoax, or the figment of some poor guy’s imagination living up in Minnesota suffering from a little late-night brain freeze. And-who cares? THIS is damn funny stuff.

Consider this an open thread…

The moment in history from which our so-called “Tea Party” movement of today takes its name was a singular event; refusing to pay Parliament’s levy on tea (because doing so would be to acknowledge Britain’s authority to tax the Colonies) was the Colonists’ way of standing up against the tyranny of a King and his Parliament. It was a symbolic gesture on the part of a “handful” of people to lay claim to “control” over their own lives and destiny, and not allow a few men on the other side of the Atlantic to determine if for them. The “standing up” part is where the parallels with our modern-day Tea Party(s) can be drawn, and where the similarities end.

Today’s movement, be it of the Express variety or the Patriot one, more reflects a rejection of the Government by which we are already represented and for which our disdain has reached a point of no return. The Tea Party of today symbolizes the complete lack of trust many Americans now have in their Government and its leaders, and the collective unwillingness of its membership to sit quietly by about it any longer. This is not a Democrat or Republican truth, it is an American one, and for the moment at least, the Tea Party’s purity of intention remains intact.

This Tea Party “movement” has garnered a great deal of attention from Politicians and Media alike, and this serves its organizers and “Party” membership well-they are doing their jobs admirably. You know you’re making an impact when you are ridiculed and marginalized; especially so when aspirants and has-beens, alike, want to sit on your shoulders and lay claim to your message. And as much as I, personally, more closely align myself with the Patriot flavor of Tea, I am troubled by where the movement now finds itself in contrast with where it appeared to be headed not so many months ago.

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What a curious approach to diplomacy our President has chosen for Iran. Having promised to meet them with no preconditions back in ‘07 as a candidate, President Obama has decided to deploy a “missile shield to protect American allies in the Gulf from attack by Tehran.” How far we’ve come in our journey with Obama’s “on the job training” gig. Too bad he doesn’t care as much about our allies in Eastern Europe…but I digress:

The US is dispatching Patriot defensive missiles to four countries – Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Kuwait – and keeping two ships in the Gulf capable of shooting down Iranian missiles. Washington is also helping Saudi Arabia develop a force to protect its oil installations.

American officials said the move is aimed at deterring an attack by Iran and reassuring Gulf states fearful that Tehran might react to sanctions by striking at US allies in the region. Washington is also seeking to discourage Israel from a strike against Iran by demonstrating that the US is prepared to contain any threat.

Given Iran’s recent threat to “deliver a harsh blow to “global arrogance” on February 11″ (along with all the other kooky things they say and do) this might seem a reasonable precautionary measure.

But this is not a reasonable President.

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…is that he doesn’t seem to get it no matter how hard he keeps trying to convince us he does:

Speaking at a conference on the campus of Southern New Hampshire University yesterday, Gingrich said his former majority leader, Dick Armey, is working with Tea Party members to develop a new “Contract with America” through online suggestions for what the country’s citizens want from the federal government.
[snip]
After his speech, Gingrich said today is “a much harder and complex environment” than 1994, and suggested the new contract promise broader concepts — without specifics but with a promise of openness and transparency.

“Making it out in the open and transparent may be more important than what you do,” he said. “In 1994, we knew people did not trust politicians … so we had to be very specific.”

Really, Newt?

I think it’s great that the Tea Party folks have such a big name looking to sit on their shoulders and take credit for all their hard work (in exchange for being given a stage to re-tool a 16 year old campaign slogan). Having said that, can we please remind Newt that the willful independence and righteous indignation of the American people, while well-reflected by this Tea Party movement, is not held in a monopoly by the Tea Partiers alone?

It might also be worth mentioning here that folks are sick and (expletive removed in deference to the posting guidelines) tired of professional politicians, and for them to ask us to actually believe any of their ridiculous double-speak of nonsense and claptrap is a fool’s errand. That Gingrich thinks any of us even HEAR the words “open and transparent” anymore, let alone believe that openness and transparency are more important than what our Political Heroes actually do boggles my mind and proves he needs to STAY retired and pine for the glory days in the quiet of his own living room. We’ve been here before.

We were taught a lesson in Massachusetts that far too many of us don’t yet realize we learned: the “Big Tent” is, in fact, very big…and it’s still got room for more no MATTER how much we insist that we long-ago broke camp and set the surrounding terrain on fire. For all the screaming and wailing and gnashing of teeth after the Democrats took control of the US in 2008, and as we busied ourselves with drawing and quartering anyone that was not the most pure of Conservative-minded members of humanity, what did we do?

We got googly-eyed and wistful over a moderate Republican who is, worst of all crimes, Pro-Abortion. And we cheered. Why is that, exactly?

Our mouthpieces in the “Party” will tell you it’s because Brown is our way of telling Obama and the Democrats “no more.” I suggest it’s because we’re tired of losing by being right. Guess what? Scott Brown is a wake up call for any purist out there who is willing to crash and burn the GOP and go third party just to make a point. Especially if it means we get to stay out in the wilderness for a generation, so long as we can staunchly defend our position as the ones who cared (above all else) about defending the chastity of “Conservatism.”

“We, the People” out here in the heartland know that what the Democrats have done..and continue to try to do…does not bode well for our childrens’ futures. We know that the policies of this President and his party are wholly contrary to what we believe must be done to “save the Republic” yet we squabbled amongst ourselves for scraps from the table we let THEM have all the seats to. Why? Because we were more interested in being “pure” and “right” than we were in winning…and look what we have to show for it now.

I hate…yes, hate…much of what our squishy Rinos have done (and continue to do), and I would love nothing more than to see all of our leadership removed and replaced with far more Conservative-minded individuals. It’s not going to happen because they know something we refuse to admit to ourselves-there aren’t enough of the good ones out there. And of the few “pure” Conservatives that actually MIGHT be skilled enough to pull us, collectively, back from the edge of the cliff, very few of them have an interest in (or could survive) fighting through the ever-increasing complexities of the vetting process. I, for example, would love to go to Washington and bitch-slap a few of the morons the Left has put in office, but guess what? I would never survive the background check…I was a teenager in the 70’s.

That’s all I have to say about that.

My point is that, as with life in general, we have to take the good with the bad and have to work hard every day to make the good rise above. We just showed an incredible amount of enthusiasm (and damned fine activism at the grass roots level I might add) in the case of a man we would have cut into little pieces a year ago. But what we got out of Brown’s victory is NOT an unseating of a Democrat..and it is certainly NOT forcing an ascension of a Conservative.

No, what we got in Massachusetts is proof that the Right really CAN hit the streets and get a person elected against all odds…and that we really CAN stomach the idea of fighting for a person with whom we may disagree on many levels, SOLELY because he is better than the alternative.

I don’t like this any more than a lot of my equally hard-right friends, colleagues, and fellow members of the VRWC but it is what it is: we’re stuck with each other, and we need to figure out how to get along. I know our beliefs are right and just, but we’re outnumbered. And, as the ad campaign for the Lottery suggests - “you gotta play to win.” We’ve enthusiastically let Scott Brown onto the field, and now we have to give him some game time even though we KNOW he’s got a different set of values and opinions…some of which run counter to our most fundamental beliefs.

Our next stage of development will be to build on the energy and enthusiasm of Brown supporters, and get a whole lot better at keeping our Republican brethren’s feet to the fire making sure they represent OUR needs in the hallowed halls of Congress with greater enthusiasm than in stroking their personal vanities.

There is, it would appear now in light of Scott brown, hope for us if we stand together.

At least that’s what he seems to be saying:

The White House is about to make another big gesture demonstrating its support for Senator Harry Reid, the majority leader under fire for remarks he made about President Obama’s race.

In February, Mr. Obama will head to Nevada to appear with Mr. Reid, who is facing a tough reelection battle there, aides said today.

After all, everyone ELSE he’s campaigned for has lost-perhaps this is how he gets even with Reid for ruining his Presidency…and destroying that ever-elusive legacy all Presidents work their entire term(s) trying to establish.

What better way to get Reid gone…look like he was trying to help…and move forward with the rest of his term having some modicum of hope that he’ll get something, anything, accomplished before he’s forced into retirement. If luck has any interest in living on our side of the aisle, perhaps he’ll campaign for Pelosi as well.

We can only hope.

We’ve been telling Obama and the Democrats that we are not pleased with what they’re doing. We kicked them in the shins with NJ and VA, and then we beat them over the head with Massachusetts just to make sure we drove the point home. Obama himself JUST responded by telling us he understood, that he and Congress had “Lost Touch with American People Last Year” going on to half-way promise he would do better going forward:

“Obama said he felt he could do a better job connecting to the American people in his second year in office.

“I think that I can do a better job of that, and partly because I do believe that we’re in a stronger position now than we were a year ago,” he said.

Hallucinations about being in a stronger position now that the supermajority has been squandered notwithstanding, the rest of the Democrats even hinted that they needed to back off a bit and further sugggested that if they didn’t, they’d be screwed.

How do they breathe in the voter-inflicted aroma of bipartisanship? Why, they get a head rush, and come back with a plan to Nationalize the Student Loan industry, inflict new limits on the size and risk taken by the country’s biggest banks, AND raise the national debt…again…nearly 2 trillion dollars MORE than the amount they raised it just a month ago.

Why they chose to play the role of Cool Hand Luke during their short stint in control of the Government escapes me. These idiots REALLY just don’t get it.

Of the many things the American Revolution gave us, the weapons we would use if we ever needed to fight another one were the most significant. And, they were locked, loaded, and fired at point-blank range in Massachusetts last night: ballot boxes.

That this latest “revolutionary skirmish” was engaged where the original Revolution began is not lost on most of us…but of course, VA and NJ could also be given honorable mention. And with all the “Scott heard round the world” sloganeering the past 24 hours, one might easily forget that this war started well before the Massachusetts special election that will send a Massachusetts Republican to Washington for the first time in many many many years.

Polls everywhere have routinely (and increasingly) shown that Americans are not happy. Forget Left v. Right for a minute and focus on the overwhelming disdain BOTH sides of the electorate out here in the real world have for Washington’s shenanigans. The pundits, of course, want us to believe this (Scott Brown) was issue-based (health care, jobs, and the economy for example) but that sells the American people short; our leaders are not interested in what we’ve hired them to do for us so long as they think their reach for (or hold on) power might be at risk. THIS is unacceptable to most Americans, and (starting in VA and NJ and now MA) we’ve declared war against our modern-day aristocracy.

OK, perhaps a little dramatic, but consider Peggy Noonan for just a minute (this piece BEFORE the Brown victory):

In a way Mr. Obama made the same mistake President Bush did on immigration, producing a big, mammoth, comprehensive bill when the public mood was for small, discrete steps in what might reasonably seem the right direction.

The public in 2009 would have been happy to see a simple bill that mandated insurance companies offer coverage without respect to previous medical conditions. The administration could have had that—and the victory of it—last winter.

Instead, they were greedy for glory.

It was not worth it—not worth the town-hall uprisings and the bleeding of centrist support, not worth the rebranding of the president from center-left leader to leftist leader, not worth the proof it provided that the public’s concerns and the administration’s are not the same, not worth a wasted first year that should have been given to two things and two things only: economic matters and national security.

No, Peggy-not worth it.

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Martin Luther King Jr. was born 81 years ago last week. In his 39 short years of life, he accomplished more than most men can muster in a lifetime. That he was an African American at a time in our history where such things were unheard of (let alone even “allowed”), Dr. King showed us what an unmovable faith in God, an unstoppable determination, a deep-seated sense of commitment, and a fearless willingness to make personal sacrifices can accomplish.

He was a minister, an activist, Nobel Peace prize winner, husband and father, and he gave his life in the fight for freedom and justice. Many speeches and parades took place today across the country, and many dignitaries and politicians and VIPs took time to honor and remember his life and the the things he fought for. Perhaps most significant about this particular MLK Day is that the sitting President of the United States presiding over this years’ commemoration is himself an African American; something Dr. King knew in his heart would someday be true, though sadly not soon enough for him to see firsthand.

Dr. King’s “I have a Dream Speech”, while especially remarkable this year because of what our President represents, is used too freely I think in shaping how he is remembered. His words in Oslo when he accepted the Nobel Peace prize in December of 1964 are as good, if not better, to reflect upon today in these times and confronted with such problems. In honor and remembrance of Dr. King’s legacy today, I leave some of those words here to reflect upon:

I accept this award today with an abiding faith in America and an audacious faith in the future of mankind. I refuse to accept despair as the final response to the ambiguities of history. I refuse to accept the idea that the “isness” of man’s present nature makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal “oughtness” that forever confronts him. I refuse to accept the idea that man is mere flotsom and jetsom in the river of life, unable to influence the unfolding events which surround him. I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality.

I refuse to accept the cynical notion that nation after nation must spiral down a militaristic stairway into the hell of thermonuclear destruction. I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right temporarily defeated is stronger than evil triumphant. I believe that even amid today’s mortar bursts and whining bullets, there is still hope for a brighter tomorrow. I believe that wounded justice, lying prostrate on the blood-flowing streets of our nations, can be lifted from this dust of shame to reign supreme among the children of men. I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits. I believe that what self-centered men have torn down men other-centered can build up. I still believe that one day mankind will bow before the altars of God and be crowned triumphant over war and bloodshed, and nonviolent redemptive good will proclaim the rule of the land. “And the lion and the lamb shall lie down together and every man shall sit under his own vine and fig tree and none shall be afraid.” I still believe that We Shall overcome!

Martin Luther King, Jr: January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968. May he rest in peace.

It’s important that, before the outcome of the Coakley-Brown contest is known, we ‘take stock’ of how things are going for the Democrats since they took control of the Federal Government. Regardless the winner of Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat, Americans are beginning to understand what they actually have to show for a year’s worth of life under a Government completely controlled by the Democrat party.

They’re not impressed (via Gatewaypundit).

Democrats have made a living out of vowing to hold everyone else accountable for our troubles; from Wall Street ‘fat cats’, to black-hearted and greedy Insurance companies, to Automakers in bed with money-grubbing big oil tycoons, to Wal Mart, to Al Qaeda… and even George Bush (who has been out of office for an entire year)… Democrats have long-enjoyed that liberating feeling of pointing the finger at everyone around them for all that has gone wrong in this country…even SINCE Barack Obama came in to power. In fact, the only folks you don’t hear the Democrats actually holding accountable for any of the evils in America are Democrats themselves.

Apparently, the party that insisted they were the answer to our problems…has, in point of fact, actually become the problem. That Kennedy’s seat is even in play in Massachusetts in the dawn of our Liberal enlightenment speaks volumes about the state the Democrats find themselves in and the wounds they’re having to lick clean just now…many of them self-inflicted, including a few dogs that were never even in the hunt.

Unemployment is up, troop deployments for two unpopular wars are up, the budget deficit is up, retail prices are up, fuel prices are up, the national debt is up, trade deficits are up, foreclosures are up…everything bad is up in America even while everything good continues to go down. Not what the Democrats had in mind, I’m sure, when they begged us to give them a majority in the hallowed halls of Congress so they could do the “People’s work.”

News that the bottom has fallen out of Coakley’s campaign in Massachusetts or that Brown might actually WIN this thing outright, as the Democrats scramble to find a suitable explanation that (they hope) protects Obama from taking any of the blame for it, suggests that the Democrats are (as is the President himself) in a ‘damned if they do, damned if they don’t’ situation one year shy of the midterm elections. And, if you’re a Republican politician right now, the temptation to tie a Republican victory in Massachusetts to a larger referendum on Obama’s health care fiasco has become too great to resist. I suggest here, however, that McConnell (and all the others out there using Coakley as a one-issue whipping-post) couldn’t have it more wrong.

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[In light of news that Obama is headed to Massachusetts after all, it's only right that I update this piece:

Democratic officials disclosed the president's plans Friday on condition of anonimity because they were not authorized to pre-empt a White House announcement.

"If Scott Brown wins, it'll kill the health bill," Democrat Barney Frank, D-Mass., said, underscoring the stakes of Tuesday's special election.

Well, if this roll of the dice fails for Obama and Brown ends up winning anyway, most of us that care will scarcely be able to stop the tear-inspiring belly laugh that will surely ensue.

The rest of us need to send him more money. Good Luck Scott-give 'em hell...who needs Bambi when you have Rudy? Those other guys aren't so tough.]

Original post below the fold…

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I just love waking up to headlines like these: ‘Majority Would Vote Against Obama’:

A year into his tenure, a majority of Americans would already vote against Pres. Obama if the ‘12 elections were held today, according to a new survey.

I know, I know…I shouldn’t be surprised by this. I AM entertained though.

Just 34% say the country is moving in the right direction, down 13 points since April, and 55% say it is off on the wrong track, up 13 points over the same period.

Of course we’re on the wrong track when the jobs situation goes from bad to worse, and when more and more of those without them are losing their homes. And why should anyone be surprised that retail sales are down all OVER the place, given that no one has any money to actually buy anything?

With no jobs, and in some cases no homes, and with no financial means amongst every-day American citizens to actually engage the economy (and contribute to the IRS coffers), what does this President decide to do to raise money for his out of control spending agenda? Why, levy a big fat-cat tax on those that DO!

Genius I say…pure unmitigated genius!

And the Left STILL seems to be in shock over people like Scott Brown, and a growing number of other Republicans they can’t push around anymore, that are starting to make Democrat constituencies re-think their position on all that Hope and Change they bought last year and paid for this year.

A swear word might have otherwise found its way into the title of this post were it not for the fact that this is a “family-friendly” website. As I skimmed Drudge a short bit ago, I came across this little beauty over at Politico:”Michelle Obama: Harry Reid doesn’t owe me an apology”, and my head exploded:

First lady Michelle Obama told reporters Wednesday that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid doesn’t owe her an apology over his racial comments about her husband’s electoral chances because she knows Reid so well.

“Harry Reid has no need to apologize to me because I know Harry Reid. I measure people more so on what they do rather than the things they say,” said Obama, in a roundtable with several media outlets, including POLITICO.

Let’s say that again, to make sure we heard her right: “I measure people more so on what they do rather than the things they say.”

Really, Shelly?

So, we elect her husband because of all that he said (and none of what he actually did)..we give him a Nobel prize-again-because of all that he said, and none of what he did. And now, vis a vis white elitist Harry Reid, we forgive what he said because of all that he did?

Again-my head just exploded.

Really?

Nothing else explains this latest hallucination from Obama apologists:

The White House Tuesday argued President Barack Obama’s “steady diplomacy” had made America stronger and renewed its moral authority despite “unprecedented challenges” in his first year in office.

But the assessment, posted on the White House website, did not dwell on the lack of success garnered by one of Obama’s top priority foreign policy drives, peace moves in the Middle East, and reflected a tougher tone on Iran.

Of COURSE they didn’t dwell on their failures.

“A year later, America is stronger because of the president’s leadership,” said Ben Rhodes, deputy national security advisor for strategic communications, in a White House blog post.

“The global economy has been pulled back from the brink of catastrophe. We are responsibly winding down the war in Iraq, and increasing our focus on Afghanistan and Pakistan.”

Umm, Rhodes must have his own personal stash: pulled the economy back from the brink of disaster? 10% unemployment, hundreds of thousands that have given up looking for work, ridiculous numbers of reduced jobs out there to even apply for? And responsibly winding down the war in Iraq?

Rhodes argued Obama had quickly got to work refocusing the fight against Al-Qaeda, restoring US alliances, committing the United States to confronting climate change and nuclear proliferation.

He said Obama’s 30,000 strong troop surge in Afghanistan proved the strategy and resources were now in place “that this urgent challenge demands” and noted Obama was on track to get combat troops out of Iraq by the end of August.

Sorry, folks-there was nothing “quick” about the time Obama spent dithering (sorry-refocusing) over the McChrystal report while the numbers killed climbed well above the worst numbers under a “commmitted to win” Bush administration.

“By prohibiting torture and working to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, we are denying Al-Qaeda a recruiting tool,” said Rhodes, who has played an instrumental role in many of Obama’s biggest foreign policy speeches.

He said domestic terror plots had been disrupted and terrorists had been caught, but added in a reference to the thwarted bid to blow up a US airliner “as we learned over Christmas, more work has to be done.”

Hmm…move them to trials in NYC may sound good on paper, but suggesting he had anything to do with the brave Americans that took things into their own hands on-BOARD that plane is just over the top…no matter their drug of choice in making this claim.

When he came to office in January 2009, Obama offered a hand of dialogue to Iran but has been rebuffed and now the administration is working with international partners on a toughened sanctions regime over a nuclear showdown.

“After a year of American engagement, the international community is more united than ever before in calling on Iran to live up to its obligations, while Iran is more isolated,” he said.

I want me some of what they be trippin’ on-these people are hysterical. Could be window pane…might be mushrooms, but whatever they’re smuggling in through the looking glass, Alice is happier than she EVER was with the Queen of Hearts.

The quickly fading story of Harry Reid’s comments about Barack Obama’s “light skin” and “non-Negro dialect” offered an opportunity for the President to lead on the issue of race in America, and he passed. Back in March of 2008, given a similar opportunity to show his leadership on matters of race (in trying to justify Rev. Wright’s acid rhetoric against America and the white man), Obama at least made an attempt to move the discussion forward [emphasis mine]:

I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.

But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America - to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.

The fact is that the comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we’ve never really worked through - a part of our union that we have yet to perfect. And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American.

He squandered that opportunity back then, and actually did retreat; he went on to disavow Wright even though he had said in that very speech that “I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother.” He had a political campaign to focus on winning, you see…so much for who this man can own and disown.

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Strom Thurmond was an unapologetic segregationist. He unsuccessfully ran for President once, but for some reason South Carolina saw his talents as a Politician to be sufficiently satisfactory to put him in office as their Governor for 4 years, and in the US Senate for 48 years (both as a Democrat AND a Republican)…this, DESPITE his views on race. He never withdrew those positions, nor did he apologize for them, although he is said to have ‘moderated his tone over time.’

Strom Thurmond, segregationist or not, was also a staunch believer in the 10th amendment to the US Constitution (my personal favorite): “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people” and it was his stand on State’s rights that gained him much favor in South Carolina and around the political world.

“[We] want that federal government to keep their filthy hands off the rights of the states.”

Racist or not, he was who he had always been-open, honest, and forthright… and most importantly… these traits never cost him his job.

So when Trent Lott suggested that “we wouldn’t be in the mess we are today” back in 2002 had Thurmond been elected President 54 years earlier, the Democrats were quick to tie the segregationist element of Thurmond around Lott’s neck (rather than the State’s rights element) and summarily had Lott tarred, feathered, effigied, and FIRED from his leadership position in the US Senate. Note to class-NEVER did Lott affirm his support of segregation, and NEVER were we asked to consider Thurmond’s embrace of the 10th amendment. We were just told Thurmond’s segregationist ideology HAD to be what Lott was talking about and that he must, therefore, be run outta Dodge.

How, then, does Harry Reid get to keep his job when he sees the quality of African Americans according to their skin tone and linguistic prowess? The answer shouldn’t be looked for in Michael Steele’s paid-to-be-mad rants, nor in Republican wails against double standards. The answer needs to found in the opinion of the people he represents where it should be…not with the media, the elites and the professional pundits. It’s not hard to see that Reid, just as with Bill Clinton, sees African Americans as political tools and foregone voting bloc conclusions. Let THEM express themselves in the voting booths. Let the rest of us just sit back and watch.

Democrats clearly see African Americans as coffee-fetching errand boys and linguistically challenged “children” that need to be ‘taken care of’…and only so black as the color of their skin as opposed to the content of their character. Reid needs to keep his job long enough to be fired by those very same people…the ones we care most about-the AMERICAN Voter (African and otherwise).

Apologies notwithstanding, however many of them the Democrats make…Americans have a much longer memory than does our media cycle and the Politicians’ lives that desperately cling to it.

I’m not, and neither are 3.4 million of my fellow Americans since this President took office. Just ask the 85,000 Americans that sucked it up this Christmas season and went without…for themselves and their families and friends… in the name of President “I will save the world” Obama. If you’re still not convinced, just ask the 661,000 people that just threw up their hands and walked away from the effort altogether last month…yes-I said THOUSAND.

Our only consolation is that we don’t suffer alone-this is, after all, a global President. Ten percent of our Western brethren in Europe share our fate…misery loves company and all that. So much for Barack Obama and the global economy:

“One step forward, 85,000 steps back,” said Michael Feroli, an economist at JPMorgan. About 661,000 people stopped looking for work in the US in December. If they had not done so, the unemployment rate would have gone up to roughly 10.4 per cent.

Analysts said the US economy was still likely to start generating jobs within a few months, but it would take a long time before unemployment began to decline significantly.

The US has now lost 7.2m jobs since the start of the recession, while the eurozone has lost more than 4m, despite extraordinary measures to protect labour markets by the 16 countries that use the euro.

We Americans elected a liberal agenda because it “felt good” and now find ourselves staring at a populace that can’t feed itself or pay its mortgages. We’ve gone numb; our senses dulled by all those wonderful things that Hope and Change™ have actually brought us.

What is Obama’s answer?

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CBS News is reporting that the White House claims there was “No Xmas Day In-Flight Warning” and, further, that they refute the claims of an LA Times piece that suggested “border enforcement officials found information in a database suggesting the alleged terrorist, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, had extremist ties.” The Times piece, allegedly, goes on to suggest this:

“The people in Detroit were prepared to look at him in secondary inspection,” a senior law enforcement official told the Times. “The decision had been made. The [database] had picked up the State Department concern about this guy - that this guy may have been involved with extremist elements in Yemen.”

I say allegedly because the link appears to be “broken” now (page not found), and I can’t verify the read for myself. Couple this with the Detroit Free Press’ article that suggests (via the mysteriously missing LA Times piece):

[The] CBP learned after the flight had taken off that Abdulmutallab was on a watch list. But the administration official said all that was learned was what had been reported more than a week ago – that Abdulmutallab’s name was on the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment, or TIDE list, of some 550,000 persons of interest. Even though his father had contacted the U.S. embassy in Nigeria to warn officials that his son may have been radicalized by extremists in Yemen, Abdulmutallab’s name had not been moved to the no-fly list or the so-called selectee list requiring additional security.

“As we have indicated before,” the official said, “there were bits and pieces of information about Abdulmutallab available in a variety of areas in the system prior to Dec. 25. There was no new information when the plane was in the air. All that happened is Customs and Border Protection followed its normal procedures and checks as it prepared for arriving passengers.”

Hunh.

So…we knew he was a bad guy, but nothing NEW came up as he boarded the plane headed toward martyrdom so we just blew it off, even though (once in the air) we decided we probably wanted to have a little sit-down with him once he landed in Detroit. Have I got this right?

How bad is it when you have to decide which liar isn’t lying-the LA Times or Barack Obama?