This is an open thread so you can talk about anything. And if you can’t think of anything, well … I’ll give you a topic: Obama was denied the Olympics, then he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Each is hilarious and terrible in different ways. Discuss.
Bring the funny, but keep it clean (cough speciallist cough). If you choose to post an image or photo, please properly attribute the source. I created the thread header.
When Putin announced that Russia would no longer sell its oil and natural gas in dollars, there were the normal — its OK type statements from the financial world, and it was viewed by the Western financial cognoscenti as an anomaly.
However, since the Federal Reserve is printing an estimated $600 billion a year to give to bankers and brokers, who then buy U.S. Treasury bills to finance for our over-spending Federal Government with printed dollars — the value of the dollar drops due to the massive over supply.
Then, those countries holding the U.S. dollar as reserve currency start to speak up. They plead with the President and Congress to start balancing the budget and lowering the deficit.
Instead, President Obama and Congress has not decreased the deficit, it has grown four times it was under Bush, to record numbers — $9 Trillion — under President Obama and the Democratic Congress.
And President Obama, by pushing his trillion dollar health care plan is rubbing the world’s face in their concerns about U.S. spending. He simply does not care that the dollar is dropping and that the value of these country’s dollar holdings is also dropping.
The Democrats are in full push back against conservatives who cheered Barack Obama’s defeat at the hands of the International Olympic Committee.
During the Bush era, Republicans from Karl Rove to Joe Wilson questioned — in ways both veiled and overt — the patriotism of Democrats who challenged the administration’s Iraq policy, pre-war intelligence and surveillance programs.
But the joyous reaction in some GOP quarters to the International Olympics Committee’s snub of Chicago — coupled with the party’s rapid-fire reaction to bad economic data – has some Democrats turning the tables and asking if Republicans are the ones cheering against America now.
At the 4:30 mark in this video, you can hear Texas Democrat candidate John Sharp, running for the Senate, attack RedState for cheering Obama’s defeat.
This is the most bogus crap I’ve ever witnessed. Leave it to a sympathetic media to egg it on.
For eight years we have witnessed the left cheer every defeat in war, say “screw them” about America deaths in Iraq, have elected Congressmen declare our soldiers war criminals, have an elected United States Senator compare our soldiers to Nazis, and now have the Chairman of the Democratic Party encouraging Virginia to deny our soldiers the right to vote and the President of the United States begin a systematic effort to undermine our successes in Afghanistan after embarking on a seven month long world tour to apologize for America.
That the left would call conservatives unpatriotic and un-American for cheering Obama’s defeat at the IOC means they have a bastardized idea of what patriotism means and does nothing to wash the blood of our nation’s freedoms and soldiers off their hands.
I love America, therefore I must cheer this Obama defeat — and it was an Obama defeat.
Roland Martin is a CNN Commentator and Obama sycophant. He says I, and others, are celebrating American defeat by laughing over the loss of the Olympics.
Mr. Martin is one of the leftists in this country who spent the last several years rooting against our soldiers and sailors in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is a strange set of priorities that leads a man to root against the United States on the battlefield and claim the rest of us are defeatists because of the Olympics.
To be clear, I root for America, therefore I root against Barack Obama. Mr. Martin spends his time rooting for Obama and, in the cult of personality that is the left, conflates that with rooting for the country. This will end badly for the left. The cult of personality always ends badly for the left. It’s just a shame so many suffer first.
Let me explain what happened here to President Obama with regard to the Olympic bid.
One has to make a distinction between the people of the world, and the governments of the world. The people of the world generally like the USA/Americans/the concept of America for one or more of the following reasons:
Meanwhile, most national governments do not like the USA/Americans/the concept of America for one or more of the following reasons:
So, when the President went to the IOC to get this valuable thing for his home city and country, I’m sure that he thought that he would be able to remedy the situation. But all that he did was make it clear to people who don’t like us very much - mostly for the ‘vulgar’ and ‘loud’ bits - that he and the USA could be quite gratifyingly (to them) snubbed. So they did. And they enjoyed doing it, because they know that there’s damned little that the USA can do to them about it.
Personally, I’m grateful: this is an incredibly cheap lesson in Foreign Relations 120: Why we don’t have better relations with certain countries. It is my sincere hope that the President take the hint, and stop worrying quite so much about our overseas reputation. And by ’stop worrying quite as much’ I mean ‘visibly do not care.’
Moe Lane
PS: There are quite a few governments that do not hate us, of course. Unfortunately, these days one thing that they mostly have in common is in having been snubbed by this administration. It’d be great if that stopped happening.
Crossposted to Moe Lane.
So, Chicago was eliminated in the first round of bidding for the 2016 Summer Olympics, despite (I assume despite) President Obama’s personal lobbying for the Games.
Now, as a New Yorker, I really would not want the Olympics anywhere near my city, and the Olympics don’t exactly have a grand history of making money for the host city (ask Montreal) or necessarily good press (ask Munich), but I take at face value for the moment that Chicagoans really wanted this one and felt it would be good for the city. Certainly great effort and expense was put into the bid, and many hopes seemed to be riding on it.
I’d questioned Obama’s priorities in making the trip, but now he has a much bigger problem. It’s one thing for the President to make a phone call or two to lend a subtle hand to this sort of effort; that would have been fine with me. But by the President and First Lady both making personal appearances and elevating this to the top news story of the day and a test of personal and national prestige, Obama stood a significant chance of being humiliated, and doing so for what is hard to describe as a critical national interest. Most of us on the Right assumed, whatever we thought of the trip, that Obama would never be fool enough to make it if he didn’t already have deals done to get this in the bag for Chicago. Apparently, we overestimated him.
From: Brooke Obie
Subject: Chicago
Date: October 2, 2009 11:52:35 AM EDT
To: contact@redstate.comI surely hope you and all of your loved ones are employed and are not in danger of being laid off. You are really cheering the failure of Chicago to be the site of the Olympics–something that could have been an enormous stimulus to our economy–as a GOOD thing? It is really more important that Obama’s “ego” be deflated than for good to come to the people who need it? Shame on you, Erick, and Shame on your “followers” for being so ridiculously BACKWARDS. Obama fails, YOU fail.
Never mind that the Olympics wouldn’t be coming until 2016 and, even with construction, there would be no immediate stimulus to our economy.
And never mind that many studies show public spending on the Olympics causes a long term net loss of money.
While you and I have been lounging around waiting for old folks to die needlessly because we’re against Obamacare, Michelle Obama has been doing the hard work on our behalf. She’s visiting Copenhagen.
In her speech in Copenhagen today, First Lady Michelle Obama said her trip to Denmark, along with the travel of her “dear friend” and “chit-chat buddy” Oprah Winfrey, as well as tomorrow’s visit by President Obama, is a “sacrifice” on behalf of the children of Chicago and the United States. “As much of a sacrifice as people say this is for me or Oprah or the president to come for these few days,” the first lady told a crowd of people involved in the Chicago project, “so many of you in this room have been working for years to bring this bid home.”
The first question that comes to mind is “which freakin’ people are saying that spending several days in luxurious accommodations in Copenhagen is a sacrifice?” Because you need to get the Secret Service to keep them away from the president because they are seriously psychotic.
The level of self absorption in this administration is simply mind boggling and is probably exceeded only by their sense of entitlement.
And if you stopped to wonder why the president felt this is the best use of his time, you can stop worrying.
Mrs. Obama said bringing the Olympics to Chicago is especially important right now because “athletics is becoming more of a fleeting opportunity.” “Funds dry up so it becomes harder for kids to engage in sports, to learn how to swim, to even ride a bike,” she said. In addition, with childhood obesity on the rise, “it is so important for us to raise up the platform of fitness and competition and fair play,” the first lady said.
Oh well, I’ve got to go apply for my government grant to teach my daughter to ride her bike.
If you don’t know the story, let me sum it up for you: at the end of August, 1943 the country of Denmark was finally fully taken over by Nazi Germany. This meant, among other things, that the Jewish population of Denmark (roughly 8,000) was now in deadly danger: the Danish government had been, up to that point, politely, respectfully, and absolutely inflexibly refusing to allow Nazi Germany to persecute its Jewish citizens. While the story that the King of Denmark himself wore the yellow star is not true, what is true is that no Danish Jew did - and if you think that this is a minor point, well, no, it’s not: things like the star were the tools used to isolate Jews from the larger community, thus making it possible to go on with sequestering them into ghettos, then taking them away to be murdered.
So. When the Danish government was taken out of the picture as an independent entity, the Nazis suddenly had a clear hand to take away the Danish Jews on October 1, 1943 - only a (German) diplomat got word of the planned deportation, and on September 28, 1943, tipped off the Danes. Who then proceeded to smuggle their Jewish population out of the country and to Sweden in an ad hoc, spur-of-the-moment rescue mission. The few that the Nazis swept up continued to be protected by the Danes; in marked contrast to other nations, Denmark constantly raised a stink about Danish Jews, resulting in their being transferred to a relatively safe concentration camp and allowed Red Cross supplies. It is estimated that the actions of Denmark saved roughly 95% of their Jewish population - and this, I think, says more about the stubborn decency of the Danes than anything else:
Denmark was also different and special in another way. Almost everywhere else in Europe, returning Jews found their homes had been broken into, and everything of value stolen. When the Danish Jews returned , they discovered that their homes, pets, gardens and personal belongings were cared for by their neighbors.
What with the various thiings going on in and to the USA right now, it might surprise some of you to hear that the President is actually going to Copenhagen (capital of Denmark) this week. To plead for a Chicago venue for the 2016 Olympics.
[redacted] the Olympics.
Moe Lane
Effective dunk? Check. He slammed it home with authority.
Patriotic dunk? Check. He did it in the red, white, and blue.
Mean dunk? Check. He put his hand on the head of the Australian center to vault over him, in Australia, in front of the home country crowd.
Vince Carter might have made the perfect dunk that year. Open thread.
Update: Oh yes, and he did it off of a steal, too, to give him defensive credit on the play. All the better!
