On ABC’s “This Week”, Jake Tapper, after being emotionally disturbed by Carly Fiorina’s #Demonsheep ad, asks George Will;

TAPPER: There you go, the demon sheep ads. George, aside from the — the fact that that demon sheep now haunts me at night, I’m wondering if you could comment on the fact that Republicans are now running to the right for this mantle of fiscal conservative. Certainly that’s something we see in the Tea Party movement. We’re seeing it now in California, as well.

WILL: Sure, because California has a closed primary. Republicans will vote in it. And about 15 percent of the decline to states will vote in it. That’s — Fiorina running an ad against Tom Campbell, who was running for governor until enticed back into the Senate race, I think by Meg Whitman, who’s running for governor and really doesn’t want two former Silicon Valley CEOs running in tandem on the ticket, Meg Whitman coming from eBay, Carly Fiorina from Hewlett-Packard.

That said, it’s the dog that didn’t bark there. There’s another candidate there, and he’s Chuck DeVore. He’s the conservative in the race. And I’ll make you a small wager that he is the Republican nominee, neither of those two.

An interesting side bit: Tapper goes on to ask Peggy Noonan her opinion of the #Demonsheep;

TAPPER: Do you want to get in on that action?

NOONAN: That — I’ve watched that thing three times. It is — I’m fascinated by it. It is less like a political advertisement than it is like a nervous breakdown. It is crazy. Its text doesn’t follow its art, if that’s what it would be called. It’s like — it’s like an answer to the question, what would happen if Salvador Dali made a tech (ph) commercial?

TAPPER: You don’t — you don’t like the demon sheep? You’re not a fan of the demon sheep?

NOONAN: I kind of love it.

“Kind of love it.” Kind of wishy-washy, as pretty much sums Noonan up these days for whatever reason. Maybe I’m reading too much into it.

Crossposted

Shades of Rule 12!

Rep. Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) has really been on the move lately.

A scant week after introducing “A ROADMAP FOR AMERICA’S FUTURE 2.0“, Paul Ryan flipped his cards and spoke truth to power;

“This budget presents a choice of two futures,” Ryan says. “Don’t look at the president’s rhetoric, look at his actions. His substance implies a different reality. Not only is this budget worse than the last one, but it triples our debt within ten years, features gushers of tax increases, and relies on some partisan commission to do the heavy lifting on fiscal policy after the next election. Make no mistake: This is a budget aimed to advance the administration’s philosophy and ideology. By increasing taxes and letting the country spiral into debt, this budget is a firm step toward transforming America into a collectivist society overseen by a social-welfare state.” [My emphasis]

Despite Obama’s protestations earlier that what Ryan and others were doing was “…telling [their] constituents [that], ‘This guy’s doing all kinds of crazy stuff that’s going to destroy America.’ “, he now was forced to instead concede Ryan put forth a “serious proposal” and recommended it receive a “healthy debate”.

The NYT is calling this “Paul Ryan’s Moment“, saying “…even liberals are paying attention to him”;

Across the first thirteen months of the Obama era, Wisconsin’s Paul Ryan, the ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee, has been one of the few conservative politicians offering detailed alternatives to the Democratic agenda. When Obama released his initial budget, Ryan responded by issuing a sweeping fiscal roadmap that envisioned bringing the U.S. budget back into balance across the next three decades. While many of his fellow Republicans were greeting Obama’s health care push with Medicare demagoguery, Ryan was busy co-sponsoring (with Tom Coburn, among others) the “Patients’ Choice Act,” an imperfect but impressive alternative to the Democrats’ approach. And now, with the release of Obama’s second budget, which projects deficits as far as the eye can see, Ryan has updated his fiscal roadmap as well — and suddenly, people are paying attention to him.

Read More →

Remember Combat Outpost Keating?

This seems to have precipitated a change in tactics;

The U.S. military has reprimanded an unusually large number of commanders for battlefield failures in Afghanistan in recent weeks, reflecting a new push by the top brass to hold commanders responsible for major incidents in which troops are killed or wounded, said senior military officials.

The military does not release figures on disciplinary actions taken against field commanders. But officials familiar with recent investigations said letters of reprimand or other disciplinary action have been recommended for officers involved in three ambushes in which U.S. troops battled Taliban forces in remote villages in 2008 and 2009. Such administrative actions can scuttle chances for promotion and end a career if they are made part of an officer’s permanent personnel file.

Is this a case of trying to hold small unit leaders more accountable for failure to lead? Or possibly is it more a case of making them think twice about taking risks that could get anyone hurt or killed to achieve an illusion of success in Afghanistan in advance of the November elections?

Knowing the left and they way they like to project their own foibles onto their alternate party, they may be thinking “That’s what I’d do if I were the GOP, demonize and take advantage of battlefield losses to win elections”.

Following the attack of Combat Outpost Keating where eight US, three Afghan soldiers and one Afghan policeman were killed, an investigation was launched.

Read More →

Carly Fiorina was interviewed by KFI radio hosts John and Ken in Los Angeles today, and she was asked questions about her stands on some pertinent issues such as GWOT, other stuff that I’ll get into later.

First though, there was a surprise caller.

Click to play audio

Transcript of audio [my bolding]

JOHN/KEN: There’s someone on the line that wants to talk with you too.

FIORINA: Great.

JOHN/KEN: We got, well, we’ve, he called in, and we’ve allowed him to make one offer to you. Okay?

FIORINA: Okay.

JOHN/KEN: All right. This is Orange County Assemblyman Chuck DeVore. Chuck, we gave you one offer to make to Carly Fiorina.

DEVORE: Carly Fiorina, Chuck DeVore. You’re saying a lot of good things now, but you didn’t say so in the past. How do you suppose that we should get on KFI and debate and let the voters of the state of California hear what we have to say?

FIORINA: You know, ah, Chuck, you’ve been saying for quite some time that my position on these issues is changed –

DEVORE: Then let’s debate!

FIORINA: — that’s not factually correct. And anyone who has bothered to look at my record on these issues knows it’s not factually correct. Though, I guess I would have a alternative suggestion for you. Maybe it would be good, if you want to be a U.S. Senator, to quit attacking me and start talking to the voters of California about what you would actually do.

DEVORE: So is that a yes or a no? Are we going to debate?

FIORINA: We’re certainly not gonna debate right now. I guess I would just ask you to, ah, refrain from misrepresenting my record.

DEVORE: So you didn’t back the Wall Street bailouts?

JOHN/KEN: All right, Chuck, we just said you get the one question offer here, okay? That’s all. All right, but I would, ah, you know, to follow up on that, Carly, we would love to have you, and Tom Campbell, and Chuck DeVore on, doing a debate on our program.

FIORINA: Well, we’ll see.

JOHN/KEN: Did you back the Wall Street bailout?

FIORINA: No, I did not back the Wall Street bailout. I believed that something was necessary to keep the financial system from crisis. However, at the time that that bailout was announced, I said two things, ah, on Fox television, which anyone who checks will — can see. First thing I said was that the problem that the bailout of Wall Street was purported to be solving is a lack of credit. And thus far that problem has still not been solved. Credit is not yet flowing. Second, I said that the bailout should have had conditions attached to it. That is, conditions to lend the money, conditions not simply to pad a balance sheet, and create huge outside profits for these banks. The third thing I said was that anyone who accepted taxpayer bailout money should at the same time tender their resignation and the resignation of their boards, because they had failed in their most fundamental duty, which was to protect their franchises.

JOHN/KEN: All right, Carly, we gotta go. We thank you for talking to us, and we hope to put you two together with the debate, and maybe Campbell too.

FIORINA: Thanks John and Ken, nice to be with you.

Go to KFI radio’s John and Ken page, or you can click here to download the whole interview, [opens as .mp3, fast forward to 18:20]

Now about the backing/not backing the TARP bailouts; as “point person for the McCain campaign on economic and business issues“, think maybe she had any input on McCain’s TARP planning? She could’ve left his campaign if she were fundamentally opposed to the bailout plan.

Now she’s running for the US Senate seat currently occupied by Barbara Boxer, and would’ve, could’ve, and should’ve are a tad lame if she’s going there.

Crossposted

I’d hate to see what Mr. Obama thinks is partisan

Actually, we know what this President thinks “partisan” is; anyone not of his party disagreeing with him. His “bi-partisan” is, of course, when even one member of the opposition party crosses the lines and votes Obama’s way.

Sen. Jeff Sessions was interviewed Friday by Fox’s Greta Van Susteren where the senator detailed numerous attempts by the GOP to get information from the Obama White House and express their concerns over Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab being given a civilian trial and other issues.

All attempts were ignored. As if no attempt were ever made at all.

He wrote to Atty. Gen. Eric Holder. Nada.

On December 9, 2009, Senator Sessions sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder yet again, calling on him to suspend transfers of detainees from Guantánamo Bay to the so-called “Saudi terrorist rehabilitation program.” Squat.

Sessions and GOP senators wrote the President. Ignored.

Again to Attorney General Holder. Blown off. To the President via released statement. Again to Holder by letter.

According to Sen. Sessions, all attempts were totally ignored by the Obama White House.

Elected Senators and Representatives in Congress are our presence in government. They are there to represent us; We the People. When they are ignored, we are ignored. A President can’t and shouldn’t run his administration via poll or focus group, but they should at the very least acknowledge correspondence from those we sent to DC to stand for us.

Anything less is intolerable and will be remembered. Soon.

See the whole interview here.

Crossposted

Obi-Won used it on you today

First off, when Obama said he wanted cameras and reporters in the room, you had to know something was up. [Update; apparently both sides thought it would be a good idea. My bad.]

Something was, and you’d better counter it;

“What happens is that you guys don’t have a lot of room to negotiate with me,” Obama said. “The fact of the matter is, many of you, if you voted with the administration on something, are politically vulnerable with your own base, with your own party because what you’ve been telling your constituents is, ‘This guy’s doing all kinds of crazy stuff that’s going to destroy America.’ ”

Just because what it looks like he’s trying to do is the unthinkable, doesn’t mean it can’t be happening.

I refer you to Aliksky’s rule No. 5;

5. “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. It is almost impossible to counteract ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition, which then reacts to your advantage.”

The sad fact is, what Obama and the left wants to do to “fundamentally change America” requires that they destroy America from the bottom to the top. It’s not tinfoil hat theory, that it’s sometimes taken as such is the result of the tool of ridicule they use to make it appear like crazy talk to even suggest.

They’ve had over forty years to set up the fundamental change they want for you and me.They burrowed deep into society like termites into the woodwork of a house, and the damage they’ve been doing to date has largely been ignored, or limited to a small chunk here, another small one there. It all adds up to where we find ourselves today; on the edge of a precipice.

There isn’t time to hope and pray your more centrist colleagues in Congress will do the right thing. The “Big Tent” needs to be put over the house and the house fumigated to get the burrowing worms out from their positions of power.

The NRSC and others don’t seem to be up to the fight. The reason I say this is because they seem to be blocking real conservatives like Chuck DeVore and Marco Rubio at every turn. I’m beginning to suspect that if either of those two candidates does win their respective primaries, they’ll be cut off by the NRSC from funding to favor more “centrist” campaigns.

The left has taken an all or nothing approach to legislation with the “Prefect Storm” generated by Obama’s election and the bullet-proof majority they now enjoy in Congress. The GOP needs to keep holding the line until We The People can muster up enough wins on the ground to get either a majority in the Senate or House, or at least enough to put the brakes on the machine.

When the left and their friends in the media call you “The Party of No”, you need to show them your alternate plan. Slam it on the podium in front of you and say; “Not no, but no to that and yes to this.”

Getting back to Alinsky, I refer you to Rule No. 12;

12. “The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.”

There is no excuse for you to ever be empty handed. You plans should be in hand and ready to go. You have friends on the right who will blog day and night to get your quotes out, and real grassroots people who genuinely care about this country, its Constitution, and founding principles to counteract any astroturf campaign the left can muster.

Remember one very important thing, though. We began a mighty struggle last year to get you all back in power despite all you did and didn’t do that got us into this mess. We do this not for you, but for God and our country.

If you don’t show us you’re going to stand with us and fight, we’ll be forced to waste valuable time that we don’t have and can’t afford putting the Big Tent over the GOP and fumigating you worms from there first before we can clean out our government.

Please save us that one step.

The Democrats and the left made one huge mistake thinking they would separate the Teaparty movement from the GOP. We never were about you to begin with. You just happen to be our last best hope.

At least act like it.

Fight.

We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France,
we shall fight on the seas and oceans,
we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be,
we shall fight on the beaches,
we shall fight on the landing grounds,
we shall fight in the fields and in the streets,
we shall fight in the hills;
we shall never surrender

Crossposted

When even the MSM starts to notice, you better keep it off your chin to begin with, Chrissy

I posted the video last night, and was actually in shock at what Matthews said; not that he thinks that way mind you, just that he actually said it out loud.

The case has been made quite well who the real racists are, they live in the mid to far left in America and never let anyone forget the color of their own skin, and if you succeed with OTWS (Other Than White Skin), you owe the Democrat party your allegiance or you are an IgnorantUncleTomStepNFetchItHouseBoy™.

Chris let it slip big time last night, and via The Other McCain, the rest of the world is starting to take notice;

Raina Kelley of Newsweek had the blog post title of the day. She’s not the only MSM type noticing Vanilla McTingly’s awkward SOTU moment:

• Jay Bookman, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: “I can sympathize with the risks of talking on national TV for a living, but . . . that’s disturbing. Not said with bad intent, perhaps, but strange that he thought he had to go there with so much else to be said.”
• Brian Montopoli, CBS News: “Speaking to Rachel Maddow later in the evening, Matthews clarified the comments, saying he was ‘very proud’ he made them.”

He has more links, go read ‘em.

The best though comes from Morrissey;

It’s interesting. He is post-racial, by all appearances. You know, I forgot he was black tonight for an hour. You know, he’s gone a long way to become a leader of this country, and passed so much history in just a year or two. I mean, it’s something we don’t even think about.

Except, of course, when Matthews and Olbermann accuse everyone else of being racist for opposing Obama, or deciding that a pickup truck is “racist imagery.” I can certainly tell you how this would have been interpreted coming from the mouth of Sarah Palin, Scott Brown, or any conservative or Republican talking head on a news show. They would have been pilloried for suggesting that national leadership somehow doesn’t go with an African-American background, and labeled as latent racists.

Keep up the slobbering there, Chris. Eventually everyone will see you for who you really are.

A refresher

Crossposted

Kind of like “You lie”, but kinder, gentler

via Washington Post;

Obama took issue with a ruling that overturned two of the court’s precedents and upended decades of restrictions on corporations being able to use their profits to finance campaigns for and against candidates.

It proved to be a striking State of the Union moment: With six justices seated in their black robes directly in front of him in the House chamber, Obama said: “With all due deference to separation of powers, last week the Supreme Court reversed a century of law that, I believe, will open the floodgates for special interests, including foreign corporations, to spend without limit in our elections.”

As Democrats applauded, cameras showed the justices sitting expressionless. Except Alito.

“Not true, not true,” he appeared to say, as he shook his head.

Also possible that Alito was actually disagreeing with the details as Obama laid them out;

…Justice Alito shook his head as if to rebut the president’s characterization of the Citizens United decision, and seemed to mouth the words “not true.” Indeed, Mr. Obama’s description of the holding of the case was imprecise. He said the court had “reversed a century of law.”

Either way, I’m sure Democrats will have no problem finding “evil corporations” to donate to their campaigns, no doubt in the hope that they’ll be eaten last.

Crossposted

Checchi & Company Consulting, Inc?

Must be a Halliburton subsidiary…right?

Ok, have to figure this out first;

Despite President Obama’s long history of criticizing the Bush administration for “sweetheart deals” with favored contractors, the Obama administration this month awarded a $25 million federal contract for work in Afghanistan to a company owned by a Democratic campaign contributor without entertaining competitive bids, Fox News has learned.

The contract, awarded on Jan. 4 to Checchi & Company Consulting, Inc., a Washington-based firm owned by economist and Democratic donor Vincent V. Checchi [my emphasis], will pay the firm $24,673,427 to provide “rule of law stabilization services” in war-torn Afghanistan.

Yowsa! Well, maybe this is the only company capable of performing the work required, like in Halliburton’s case?

Not exactly, via IBD;

It’s a far cry from the aid scene in Afghanistan these days. Unlike Halliburton, which does something others can’t, Checchi is just one of many aid groups that can do the vaguely defined work of democracy-building. Yet, it has the same “IQC” designation.

Shut out by a no-bid contract, rival contractors told Fox it’s a corrupted process that will only institutionalize the aid rackets of Afghanistan and delay the work of real democracy-building.

It may also lead to cost-overruns and the shutting out of qualified people — all for political reasons.

The cotract is what’s known as an IQC — indefinite quantity contract, and according to the Acquisition.gov website;

16.504 Indefinite-quantity contracts
(a) Description. An indefinite-quantity contract provides for an indefinite quantity, within stated limits, of supplies or services during a fixed period. The Government places orders for individual requirements. Quantity limits may be stated as number of units or as dollar values.

Okay, reading thru the legalese here;

16504
(C) The contracting officer must document the decision whether or not to use multiple awards in the acquisition plan or contract file. The contracting officer may determine that a class of acquisitions is not appropriate for multiple awards (see Subpart 1.7).

(D)

(1) No task or delivery order contract in an amount estimated to exceed $100 million (including all options) may be awarded to a single source unless the head of the agency determines in writing that—

(i) The task or delivery orders expected under the contract are so integrally related that only a single source can reasonably perform the work;

(ii) The contract provides only for firm-fixed price (see 16.202) task or delivery orders for—

(A) Products for which unit prices are established in the contract; or

(B) Services for which prices are established in the contract for the specific tasks to be performed;

(iii) Only one source is qualified and capable of performing the work at a reasonable price to the Government; or

(iv) It is necessary in the public interest to award the contract to a single source due to exceptional circumstances.

(2) The head of the agency must notify Congress within 30 days after any determination under paragraph (c)(1)(ii)(D)(1)(iv) of this section.

So under (B), (iii) and (iv) above, they have 30 days to notify Congress where any of the above is even necessary?

Oh, that’s Charles Rangel! Yeah, he’ll do the right thing.

Crossposted

…Chrissy Matthews doesn’t?

When Matthews wiped the floor with Grayson the other day, his argument was along the lines of following Senate rules, which Harry could give a squat about.

Well, a lot of people know more than Chris Matthews, and granted this comes from Dick Morris, but ’twas filtered through AoSHQ, so we’ll see…

Here’s what I learned top Democrats are planning to implement.

Senate Democrats will go to the House with a two-part deal.

First, the House will pass the Senate’s Obamacare bill that passed the Senate in December. The House leadership will vote on the Senate bill, and Pelosi will allow no amendments or modifications to the Senate bill.

How will Pelosi’s deal fly with rambunctious liberal members of her majority that don’t like the Senate bill, especially its failure to include a public option, put heavy fines on those who don’t get insurance and offering no income tax surcharge on the “rich”?

That’s where the second part of the Pelosi-deal comes in.

Behind closed doors Reid and Pelosi have agreed in principle that changes to the Senate bill will be made to satisfy liberal House members — but only after the Senate bill is passed and signed into law by Obama.

This deal will be secured by a pledge from Reid and the Senate’s Democratic caucus that they will make “fixes” to the Senate bill after it becomes law with Obama’s John Hancock.

But you may ask what about the fact that without Republican Scott Brown and independent Democrats like Joe Lieberman, Reid simply doesn’t have the 60 votes in the Senate to overcome a Republican filibuster that typically can stop major legislation?

According to my source, Reid will provide to Pelosi a letter signed by 52 Democratic Senators indicating they will pass the major changes, or “fixes”, the House Democrats are demanding. Again, these fixes will be approved by the Senate only after Obama signs the Senate bill into law.

Reid has also agreed to bypass Senate cloture and filibuster rules and claim that these modifications fall under “reconciliation” and don’t require 60 Senate votes.

Grayson did seem pretty cocky, and did mention their discussions in caucus have been along these lines.

Would anyone really be surprised?

Crossposted

Congratulations to the US Supreme Court

CITIZENS UNITED v. FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION

From the Opinion [.pdf, Opinion begins Pg 8];

If you’ve never waded through legalese, there is a lot of it here. That said, several blocks jumped out at me, as this one;

“Under our Constitution it is We The People who are sovereign. The people have the final say. The legislators are their spokesmen. The people determine through their votes the destiny of the nation. It is therefore important—vitally important—that all channels of communications be open to them during every election, that no point of view be restrained or barred, and that the people have access to the views of every group in the community.” Id., at 593 (opinion of Douglas, J., joined by Warren, C. J., and Black, J.).

And this;

When Government seeks to use its full power, including the criminal law, to command where a person may get his or her information or what distrusted source he or she may not hear, it uses censorship to control thought. This is unlawful. The First Amendment confirms the freedom to think for ourselves.

The rest is nicely summarized by the author of Liberty and Tyranny;

Click to open in your media player.

George Will’s piece is here;

For almost four decades now, what has been done in the name of “campaign finance reform” has constituted the most dangerous assault on freedom of speech since the Alien and Sedition Acts. This is because the government, by regulating what can be spent in order to disseminate political speech and when political speech may occur, has asserted the astonishing right to dictate the quantity, content and timing of speech about the government.

That people like John McCain of McCain-Feingold fame could somehow find argument with this Opinion would amaze me.

That Chucky Schumer would have a problem with it, not so much. Why does Schumer think the First Amendment was placed first?

Crossposted

Gives me warm and fuzzies

Of course, the title of this post can be taken two ways, and right now I’m looking at both of them.

I never got over Reid with his comment “…the war is lost…” back in 2007;

“Now I believe, myself, that the secretary of state, the secretary of defense and you have to make your own decision as to what the president knows: that this war is lost, that the surge is not accomplishing anything,” Reid, D-Nev., told reporters.

My hackles have been up with him since way before that, but that remark tore it for me. He became useless human garbage, and I wanted him gone. I remember looking at the senators whose seats were scheduled for re-election in November 2010.

“‘Till then, Harry…”

Nevada seems to finally have had it with Reid as well, with 79% responding to a Fox5 Las Vegas news poll saying they would not vote for him in November.

According to Rasmussen;

…[a]telephone survey of likely voters in Nevada finds Reid earning just 36% of the vote against his two top Republican challengers. That’s a seven-point drop from 43% a month ago.
Reid, who is seeking a fifth term, received 61% of the final vote in 2004.

I know I shouldn’t want Reid to drop out rather than face his electoral execution in November, but really I don’t care how he leaves, just that he’s gone.

You don’t have to go home, Harry, but you can’t stay here in office.

I don’t like linking to these guys, but even HuffPuff is having fun at Reid’s expense;

Facing a tough re-election fight in Nevada, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has announced that he’ll instead run for Senate from New York.

Wearing a full New York Yankees uniform, Reid announced his candidacy outside his new campaign headquarters in Times Square.

“It’s been a privilege and an honor to serve the people of Nevada,” said Reid, as he ate a Nathan’s hot dog wrapped in a slice of genuine New York pizza. “But I’ve always been a New Yorker at heart.”

Reid: a carpetbagger like Hillary? Perish the thought!

Whatever it takes, I know this; because of Harry’s history, he’s history. This I like mucho.

Will I miss him? Nope, I’ll get over him soon enough, as will most of Nevada. At least the part with brains.

Crossposted

…not much fun for us though

Janet Napolitano’s statement after the attempted bombing of an Amsterdam-Detroit airline flight Christmas Day was ludicrous at worst, and idiotic at best.

Of course, Democrats are quickly circling the wagons to protect Napolitano and themselves from criticism of one of their weakest points, that of protecting the homeland and national security.

Democrats worried about protecting the homeland in wake of the Christmas Day terror plot are also working to protect one of their own: Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.

With at least seven congressional committees investigating the failures behind the terror plot, Democrats are carefully gaming out the testimony of Napolitano to spare her from the worst of the GOP criticism.

First, they may shield her from the Senate Judiciary Committee, keeping conservative senators like Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), John Cornyn (R-Texas), Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) and others from bashing her in a major public forum. She may instead appear before the Senate Commerce Committee, where some expect her to receive gentler treatment.

Next, the White House is working on Sen. Joe Lieberman, the mercurial chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, to avoid an ugly clash in his hearings. Lieberman will grill the secretary but won’t call for Napolitano to resign, and he could reiterate his support for her remaining at the DHS post, Senate aides say.

“To some extent it’s going to be a free-for-all; we are as angry as anybody about this,” said an aide to a senior Senate Democrat. “But apart from saying the wrong thing early on, the breaches aren’t really the fault of Napolitano and DHS, so she’s not going to be the target.”

There’s more, read the whole thing and then watch it happen in real time all through the Dem’s “investigation” into “what really went wrong” *cough*GeorgeBush*cough*.

Of course, seeing all the clips on the various video sites, it began to look to me like a circus. Which reminded me of a song. Which reminded me of a photo. Which reminded me I wasn’t doing anything anyway, so I made a video.

Crossposted

Promises, promises

As Nancy Pelosi said, though;

PELOSI: There were a number of things he was for on the campaign trail.

This refers to Obama consistently promising on the campaign trail he would “…have all the negotiations around a big table. We’ll have doctors and nurses and hospital administrators. Insurance companies, drug companies — they’ll get a seat at the table, they just won’t be able to buy every chair. But what we will do is, we’ll have the negotiations televised on C-SPAN, so that people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents, and who are making arguments on behalf of the drug companies or the insurance companies. And so, that approach, I think is what is going to allow people to stay involved in this process.”

But, today the transparency Obama promised seems to be just a memory. Like a lot of other promises he made, for political expediency only. Even CBS news notices;

(CBS) President Obama wants the final negotiations on health care reform - a reconciliation of the House and Senate versions of the bill - put on a fast track, even if that means breaking an explicit campaign promise.

Whats more, C-SPAN remembered the promises made, and CEO Brian P. Lamb send a letter [opens as .pdf] addressed to Both Senate and House leadership requesting access to the closed door debates.

Reaction to the letter by Mr. Lamb can be found here, but try as I may, I can’t make much sense of the statement by Reid’s spokesman Jim Manley. Written within the misdirecting statement is actually one guffaw-eliciting gem; “The drafting of this health insurance reform bill has set new standards for transparency.’

Quite.

But as I sit here tonight, I’m trying to decide was Obama making promises he didn’t have the ability to keep, or is he just a [expletive deleted] liar?

Leaning toward the latter.

Naked Emperor News has video just to remind us all that the promises weren’t merely rumor, but they actually were made and we weren’t hearing things.

Filed under “Uh Huh”.

Crossposted

Let’s just call this thing what it is

Something may have shown up in your Facebook inbox sometime back suggesting you join a movement calling itself Not Evil Just Wrong, with a separate site promoting a documentary movie. This movie debunks the Gore movie An Inconvenient Truth by taking the “facts” he presented and slaps them down with a cold dose of reality. It tries to reach the environmentalist by explaining that he/she isn’t evil for falling for the Global Warming lies, just misguided. Just wrong.

Does that carry to the leaders of the movement? Are they “just wrong” too?

Why is it that when confronted again and again with the truth about Global Warming Climate Change being a natural, recurring event over the course of millions of years they continue to rush headlong into the drastic?

When emails are released showing not only who helped to distort the data but how the data was deliberately distorted and they are ignored or the target becomes the leaker of the emails, why? This isn’t the first time emails were leaked which damage the left’s cause, either.

The exposed emails of show the data was not only manipulated, but in some cases manufactured. In the “real” world, the powers that be would be relieved that massive destructive changes to the world’s regulatory system would really be unnecessary, unless the goal is change at any cost.

Some believe it’s all about the environment, and man’s evil intrusion in an otherwise “perfect” scheme;

The fundamental goal of environmentalism is not clean air and clean water; rather, it is the demolition of technological / industrial civilization. Environmentalism’s goal is not the advancement of human health, human happiness, and human life; rather, it is a subhuman world where “nature” is worshipped like the totem of some primitive religion.

Calling environmentalism one of the Western World’s most powerful religions, the author goes on to say it even imitates Christianity in a way;

There’s an initial Eden, a paradise, a state of grace and unity with nature, there’s a fall from grace into a state of pollution as a result of eating from the tree of knowledge, and as a result of our actions there is a judgment day coming for us all. We are all energy sinners, doomed to die, unless we seek salvation, which is now called sustainability. Sustainability is salvation in the church of the environment. Just as organic food is its communion, that pesticide-free wafer that the right people with the right beliefs, imbibe.

It would make sense, then, that such a movement could be easily led astray by someone with a different agenda.

In a three-part series, Perry Hicks takes us through the debunking of the enviro-”mental” ideology, and ties it quite nicely to communism.

Wait. Did you say “Communism”? It died, right? I thought at worst these people could be called “socialist” today?

In Perry’s third part, socialism is but a mere stepping stone;

Socialism is no better because any difference it has with communism is only one of degree. Consider this quote from John Strachey, former British Minister of War, and both a member of the British Communist Party and a high official of the Socialist-Labor Party:
“You cannot move directly from capitalism to communism. Socialism is a necessary stepping stone to communism and hence all communists should work for socialism.”

The fact is, communism didn’t die; only the Soviet experiment did. It failed because capitalism thrived.

Left alone in a vacuum, communism may have continued on oppressing the Russian people for centuries. However, direct confrontation with free market societies led to communism’s downfall; the Soviet Union collapsed of its own weight. Seeing a similar fate if it did not reform, Communist China made a lateral step to the right; today, it may be argued, the People’s Republic of China is actually a fascist state.

Today, the left is tireless working to correct that mistake, the mistake of allowing the existence of any free capitalist society to thrive and threaten their imagined utopia. How? By using religion; the religion of the extreme environmentalist to force wealthy nations to give up their prosperous ways, and at the same time to give what money they may be left with after they crash to the “innocent” developing nations.

The communists never went away; they went underground, tunneling into the system until they became the system. Their ideas were wrong; their systems fail and always will, but don’t try to tell them that, because they don’t give up trying;

Nor have the true communist believers ceded that their beliefs have been wrong all along. They never give up, but have kept on working tirelessly so that they may eventually bring down the system that has brought about the highest standard of living for the most people in all of human history.

In its place, they intentionally intend to impoverish everyone- everyone but the political elite, of course. This goal will be achieved through forced wealth redistribution and the imposition of a command economy.

The problem until the later part of the 20^th Century was what vehicle had sufficient capacity to force the kind of socioeconomic changes on America the socialists envisioned?

That vehicle has turned out to be the environmental movement as powered by a feigned crisis of man-made global warming.

There is hope in dispelling the myths; some will eventually get the picture on the climate change hoax tool, but that still leaves them with the “why”.

Why? It’s about power, the quest for it and its keeping it for the elites. Strange concepts in a nation where the people are supposed to hold the ultimate power, but the people have usurpers; the very ones we elected to represent our interests.

We see it on a now daily basis, elitism in our elected leaders with regard to healthcare; “Your plan to live by-not ours”. We see it when Algore jets around the world promoting himself, or lighting his own unoccupied home in Tennessee while his concepts and ideas will make electricity so expensive many of us will live in the dark.

Who is this “Meester Beeg” who wants to rule over us? It isn’t Al.

I think that’s going to end up being the trillion-dollar question. Myself, I think it’s going to be the Great Disillusionment of the Left as they finally figure out they were played, and the one with the most money wins, even in their world.

Crossposted

Possibly out of fear that Democratic National Committee Chairman Tim Kaine may be right when he recently said ““The tea party movement is devouring the GOP,” and that contentious primary battles within the GOP leading up to the 2010 elections may do more harm than good, Sen. Cornyn (head of the NRSC) sought to dismiss the possible negative impacts;

Cornyn conceded that “there has been a lot of talk about whether the party is going to be divided by the tea party movement,” but he dismissed any potential negative impact the movement could have on Republican primaries.

Like Kaine, Cornyn pointed to New York’s 23rd District, where he said the lack of a primary process allowed Democrats to win the upstate district for the first time in more than 100 years. The selection of Scozzafava by local leaders to be the GOP candidate sparked outrage among conservatives distrustful of her moderate record.

“We can’t let that happen, so we have to have a robust primary so that our strongest candidate becomes our nominee,” he said.

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The night of December 2, 2009 I really wanted to hear what Obama had to say about his Afghanistan “strategy”, but instead I found myself racing to return a rented car and get my own car out of the repair shop before they closed.

Not that I didn’t want to be inspired by flowery rhetoric, and reassured that my friends over there now would be reinforced, finally, as our Commander-in-Chief said they would earlier this year.

I actually did hear bits and pieces of it, interspersed with the comments of Mark Levin, but to find out what really went on, I had to turn to the interwebz.

After some searching, I found that not many seemed to be convinced that Obama did a very good job of selling his “strategy”;

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I mean, could there be anything worse?

How about identifying them publicly. By name.

It wasn’t enough that Seal team members who captured Ahmed Hashim Abed, the instigator of the massacre at Fallujah bridge, were brought up on charges of “dereliction of performance of duty for willfully failing to safeguard a detainee, making a false official statement, and assault.” and an “additional charge of impediment of an investigation.”

They had to be publicly identified, by name and rate?

To refresh our memories;

United States Central Command declined to discuss the detainee, but a legal source told FoxNews.com that the detainee was turned over to Iraqi authorities, to whom he made the abuse complaints. He was then returned to American custody. The SEAL leader reported the charge up the chain of command, and an investigation ensued.

One lawyer for a defendant;

Neal Puckett, an attorney representing [a Seal team member involved], told Fox News the SEALs are being charged for allegedly giving the detainee a “punch in the gut.”

“I don’t know how they’re going to bring this detainee to the United States and give us our constitutional right to confrontation in the courtroom,” Puckett said. “But again, we have terrorists getting their constitutional rights in New York City, but I suspect that they’re going to deny these SEALs their right to confrontation in a military courtroom in Virginia.”

Ok. So charges are filed, the team members involved declined NJP and opted instead for Court Martial. Did this anger someone somewhere enough that identifying them to the world was necessary?

Was it not enough that the Seals routinely put their own lives in danger, their families now need to be needlessly put at risk as well?

Now, instead of being lauded for bringing to justice a high-value target, three of the SEAL commandos, all enlisted, face assault charges and have retained lawyers.

I can think of nothing more demoralizing and dangerous than political idiocy against members of our armed forces.

How many times can anyone recall seeing the names of the Seal team members who who saved the life of Maersk Alabama skipper Richard Phillips lauded by name?

None. Nothing beyond the fact they may have been members of Seal Team 6.

We now see that no good deed goes unpunished with the present administration, be it CIA, or US military.

And Obama claims he can keep us safe?

If that’s not a load of cr** I don’t know what is.

Crossposted

Sorry, only Algore is allowed certain…luxuries

A group calling itself “Plainstupid.com” Planestupid.com wants you all grounded. In yet another version of “There’s just enough of us and too many of you”, they want to eventually end all domestic air travel. Except of course, Al Gore and the elites can go coast-to-coast or continent-to-continent without so much as a whimper from the left. That’s them, this is you.

They made a video, showing how airplanes are causing polar bears to fall dead, literally. From thousands of feet.

Rush found and commented on it, and seems to have had the same thought I did; falling polar bears…Thanksgiving coming…falling turkeys…

I had to do the following mashup.

The continuing GOP identity crisis

Crisis? No crisis with me.

A strong “conservative thinker”, James Carville, recently quipped;

“I have an announcement to make. Ronald Reagan’s big tent just collapsed in Upstate New York. It no longer exists,” Democratic strategist James Carville said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

This he said following Dede Scozzafava pulling the ripcord on her campaign parachute, but I suppose prior to her proving him once again an idiot by endorsing the Democrat in the race.

I beg to differ with the likes of Carville, and more recently Allahpundit in today’s piece at Hot Air he titled “Poll: 51% of Republicans would rather risk losing elections than win with RINOs”

In it he quotes a CNN Political Ticker poll which says in part;

The poll indicates that a slight majority, 51 percent, of Republicans would prefer to see the GOP in their area nominate candidates who agree with them on all the major the issues even if they have a poor chance of beating the Democratic candidate. Forty-three percent of Republicans say they would rather have candidates with whom they don’t agree on all the important issues but who can beat the Democrats.

He says it’s not a problem at the moment, “…but if/when unemployment starts to recover and the trend stabilizes, it’s a major problem.”

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