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Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Jimmy Carter 2 is now a best case scenario


Now we are in the almost unimaginable position of looking back at Jimmy Carter as an example of comparatively sure, savvy leadership. The Russians invaded Afghanistan and Carter armed the rebels. The Russians invaded Crimea and Barack Obama went on Ellen to hear the hostess gush about how much America loves Obamacare.

Monday, March 24, 2014

Th community organizer vs. the KGB agent. It's not a fair match.

Rarely on the world stage have we suffered through two such extremes as an erstwhile community organizer theorizing against a former KGB agent. If only Putin were a run-of-the-mill college president, then Obama might order a takeover of the faculty lounge. Or if Putin were a local bank president, Obama, the SEIU, and Acorn might yell on his lawn about lending more money to the inner city. Alas, even Chicago is not Russia.

Things were going so good until reality intruded.   Somehow Alinski tactics are not working on Putin, and they are the only tactics that Obama knows.

It's time to change the subject and the American media are only too glad to help.  They don't have to lie, they just have to look the other way.  LOOK FOR THE MISSING PLANE!  No time for Ukraine.

Why should Putin stop when he is already the most popular Russian strongman since Stalin, with a good decade to cement his reputation among his flock as the restorer of Greater Russia, with the clout of the Soviet Union, but now energized by oil-fed capitalism? And why should Obama do anything about those dreams when the Final Four is far more important than are either far away Crimeans or Georgians. Ellen is cooler than worrying about Kiev, and joshing with Ryan Seacrest about tight jeans beats talking to some heavily accented Ukrainian. Surely Putin’s next melodramatic theft can at least wait until the Sweet Sixteen.

The final irony? A united Western world very easily could embargo, squeeze, and make things very difficult for Putin with only a modicum of sacrifice. But then, we might not be so postmodern, so hip, so cool. In other words, for Obama, stopping the bully Putin would be a sort of a drag, boring, or a downer in a way Ellen, Ryan, and LeBron are not.

Revealed Preference


John Derbyshire @ Taki's magazine

There is a term of art in economics that I like: “revealed preference.” The root idea is: Never mind what people say they prefer, or what some pure-reason formula proves they should prefer, but what their behavior shows they actually prefer.

The revealed preference of hatewatchers is to live among white people. The aforementioned Tim Wise allegedly lives in census tract 134 west of Nashville, Tennessee: 97% white, 0% black. I can’t discover the census tract of Morris Dees, proprietor of the $PLC, but to judge from the interior of his home somewhere around Montgomery, Alabama, I’m betting it’s not tract 12 (0% white, 98% black).

... If you put it to them that population A has homicide rate x while population B has homicide rate ten times x and ask them which group they’d choose to live among, they ask: “What about Trayvon Martin?”

Concerning which group they actually do choose to live among, see previous item.

Sunday, March 23, 2014

Sunny on Obama

Judging Obama's Economy By His Own Promises

Investors Business Daily:
President Obama gave a speech recently in which he, as he almost always does, patted himself on the back for what he described as a solid record on the economy.

"We've now seen over four years of economic growth," he said. "We've seen 8.5 million new jobs created. We've seen the housing market bounce back. We've seen an auto industry that has come roaring back. We've seen manufacturing return for the first time since the 1990s."

Obamaphiles in the press typically repeat these claims, arguing that, given the mess he inherited, no one could have done any better.

But is that true? And how do you fairly measure Obama's record?

Perhaps the best metric is Obama's own promises about what his economic plan would produce. Those are contained in his first budget, which was issued in early 2009.

Above are charts comparing that budget's forecasts for key economic indicators with what actually happened.

The results are startling. The economy did far worse than Obama thought it would on every important measure.

But, his backers say, the recession was deeper than Obama expected at that point. Except that nominal gross domestic product in 2010 turned out to be exactly where Obama said it would be. It was only after then that growth fell short.

Others will say that Obama just did in his first budget what every president does: Paint a rosy picture of future economic growth. This doesn't hold water either, since Obama's projections were in line with the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office and other economic forecasters, all of whom expected a normal recovery.

Then again, the economy might have suffered from what Obama likes to call "self-inflicted wounds" imposed by Republicans — the threat of default, the sequestration, the turn to "austerity" policies, etc.

The problem here is that federal spending from 2010 to 2013 was almost exactly where Obama pegged it in his first budget, and it's much higher as a share of GDP. Deficits were also far higher than Obama expected.

From a standard Keynesian perspective, these should have provided additional stimulus to the economy — above what Obama initially forecast.

So the GOP's efforts to rein in spending can't be blamed for Obama's failure to meet his economic targets.

What can? Perhaps it's the combined effect of the massive Dodd-Frank financial regulations, ObamaCare, the hugely expensive new EPA regulations and two enormous tax hikes on investment income.

None of these policies are pro-growth.

They do help explain the abject failure of Obama's economy to perform anywhere near as well as he promised.



Saturday, March 22, 2014

Who is Tom Steyer?



We need to find out because Tom Steyer  has announced that he is going to spend $100 million dollars to promote green energy.  How is he going to do this?  By supporting Democrats.  He is often simply identified by his supporters as a billionaire and a hedge fund manager.  Is that all?  What's under the blanket?

It seems that he's not acting from altruistic motives.

“Tom Steyer, a billionaire hedge fund manager with major investments in renewable energy, is promoting a $1.1 billion tax on out of state businesses with operations in California to fund renewable energy projects.

It is Obama bundler, hedge fund manager, and Center for American Progress board member Tom Steyer’s Farallon Capital Management that is selling LightSquared’s debt to investors such as Carl Icahn. So I suppose one cannot say that LightSquared has been a total waste for Obama’s pals.

Steyer, "Is reportedly one of the backers of Greener Capital, which invests in alternative fuel companies that benefit from the anti-oil policies of the Obama administration. Steyer is also the founder and senior managing partner of Farallon Capital Management, which stands to profit from government policies that increase consumption of natural gas."

The Beacon goes on to give more interesting tidbits about Steyer being a Goldman Sachs protegé of Robert Rubin, but what caught my attention is that while Mr. Styers' alternative energy investments are quite impressive, he also "owns millions of dollars worth of shares in Big Oil companies such as BP."

In January of this year Steyer coauthored a Wall Street Journal op-ed with John Podesta, “We Don’t Need More Foreign Oil and Gas,” that supported Obama’s decision not to approve the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada and argued for extending “clean-energy programs like the Production Tax Credit” and reviving “the Manufacturing Tax Credit, which helps factories retool for the clean-tech sector.” The authors failed to disclose that Steyer helps pay Podesta’s salary and that his investments would net millions if the federal government shaped public policy to his liking—millions of dollars that then would be funneled back into institutions like CAP and Democratic campaigns like Obama’s.

Tom Steyer, a billionaire investor who has raised at least $50,000 for Obama’s reelection campaign, will speak about energy policy as it relates to the president’s vision of “an economy built to last,” which includes his plan to “double down” on taxpayer-backed green energy investments.

Such a doubling down would benefit Steyer, who is reportedly one of the backers of Greener Capital, which invests in alternative fuel companies that benefit from the anti-oil policies of the Obama administration.

Steyer is also the founder and senior managing partner of Farallon Capital Management, a $20 billion hedge fund that ranks as one of the largest of its kind in the world.

Farallon stands to profit from government policies that increase consumption of natural gas. Farallon owns nearly $14 million worth of shares of Westport Innovations, the self-described ”global leader in natural gas engines.” The Westport Carbon Project (WCP), according to its website, ”was established to monetize the carbon emission reductions associated with the Westport HD engine, the Cummins Westport ISL G and other natural gas engines developed with our OEM partners. The WCP enables customers to earn annual carbon rebate cheques for the natural gas vehicles in their fleet as of January 1, 2010.”

Farallon also owns more than $8 million worth of shares of Fuel Systems Solutions, which according to its website ”designs, manufactures and supplies proven, cost-effective alternative fuel components and systems for transportation and industrial applications. Its gaseous fuel technology for propane (LPG) and natural gas (CNG) generates savings, reduces emissions, and promotes energy independence.”

[After listing the financial interest Steyer has in making traditional energy more expensive]Steyer calling traditional energy companies “self-interested” is like the presumed morally superior pot calling the proven economically superior kettle black. Perhaps he really is a “true believer.” If so, he should remove himself from any form of financial gain he can reap from his political activism and donations.

His 2012 Wall Street Journal op-ed making the case for natural gas was coauthored with Tom Steyer, the hedge-fund billionaire who is quickly becoming one of the most powerful men in the Democratic Party. Steyer is known mainly for his opposition to the Keystone Pipeline, and for his recent pledge to raise and spend $100 million on behalf of Democrats in this year’s elections. According to Reid Wilson, liberal donors such as Steyer “aren’t going to realize a profit if their chosen candidates win.” This is not true.

Steyer pledged to remove himself from the operations of his hedge fund, Farallon Capital Management, in the waning days of 2012, when he was being considered as a possible secretary of Energy in the second Obama administration. But he remains an “outside limited partner” with the firm, and the “bulk” of his billion-dollar fortune is parked there. As of 2012, when Steyer was supporting Democrats, donating millions to Podesta’s Center for American Progress, and otherwise championing natural gas over other forms of energy, Farallon held more than $7 million in shares of gas technology company Fuel Systems Solutions. He was making plenty of money from the Obama administration’s championing of natural gas.

As of the end of 2013, Farallon also held close to $40 million in Kinder Morgan, which is building a competitor to the Keystone Pipeline. When Farallon’s position in Kinder Morgan was exposed last summer—after the Keystone debate had been raging for years—Steyer pledged to sell his share of the stock and donate the profits to charity. Last September, it was revealed that Steyer had backed a UT study on hydraulic fracturing, which showed that the process does not result in dangerous methane emissions. As far as I can determine, Steyer remains an adviser to and backer of EFW Partners, a “global investor in the basic resources critical for economic growth: energy, food, and water.” I wonder whether EFW is short or long on LNG.

In September 2012, the Washington Free Beacon documented that Steyer "is reportedly one of the backers of Greener Capital, which invests in alternative fuel companies that benefit from the anti-oil policies of the Obama administration." What's key to this Green Corruption file is that "Steyer has donated at least $1.4 million to the Center for American Progress (CAP) since 2009 through his TomKat Charitable Trust. As of 2010, he was listed as a director of the left-wing think tank."

In December 2013, The Beacon, in their piece "Keystone to the Kingdom," we find a stunning look at the relationship between Mr. Steyer and John Podesta: "Steyer is on the board of the Center for American Progress, and in the early months of 2012 he and Podesta cosigned a Wall Street Journal op-ed, “We Don’t Need More Foreign Oil and Gas,” arguing against Keystone and for tax loopholes such as the Production Tax Credit, increasing the value of the green energy companies in which Steyer invested and on whose boards Podesta sat."

Moreover, while a slew of Democrats who oppose the Keystone XL pipeline, stand to benefit from its rejection, Farallon Capital Management "has extensive holdings in fossil fuel companies — including investments that could benefit from the blocking of the Keystone pipeline," reported The Daily Caller in May 2013. One in particular stands out: "Farallon also still holds stock in BP" –– the oil giant that according to POLITICO in 2010, Obama was the biggest recipient of BP donations over the past twenty years."




Steyer is an "environmentalist" the same way Warren Buffett is a candy maker. Steyer is investing million sin Democrat politicians who will help his "green" energy firms make billions from government contracts, from government subsidies and from the government squeezing traditional energy sources. The end result of this Crony Capitalism - or to put it more simply: corruption - is that the people get poorer while the well connected get rich at your expense. Meanwhile the press, who would scream bloody murder if it were a conservative pulling off this crime, are covering up for Steyer, calling him an "environmentalist" rather than a rent-seeking crook.

You will not, for instance find this information in the NY Times or Washington Post who are writing laudatory articles about this benevolent billionaire.  What they won't tell you either is that they are literally sleeping with Steyer supporters.

So we have a contrast that couldn’t be clearer: the Washington Post published a false story about support for Keystone because it fit the Democratic Party’s agenda. It covered up a similar, but true story about opposition to the pipeline (and about “green” politics in general) because that, too, fit the Democratic Party’s agenda. I don’t think we need to look any further to connect the dots.

And yet, a still deeper level of corruption is on display here. Juliet Eilperin is a reporter for the Washington Post who covers, among other things, environmental politics. As I wrote in my prior post, she is married to Andrew Light. Light writes on climate policy for the Center for American Progress, a far-left organization that has carried on a years-long vendetta against Charles and David Koch on its web site, Think Progress. Light is also a member of the Obama administration, as Senior Adviser to the Special Envoy on Climate Change in the Department of State. The Center for American Progress is headed by John Podesta, who chaired Barack Obama’s transition team and is now listed as a “special advisor” to the Obama administration. Note that Ms. Eilperin quoted Podesta, her husband’s boss, in her puff piece on Tom Steyer.

Oh, yes–one more thing. Guess who sits on the board of the Center for American Progress? Yup. Tom Steyer.

This kind of incest is common in Washington. You can’t separate the reporters from the activists from the Obama administration officials from the billionaire cronies. Often, as in this instance, the same people wear two or more of those hats simultaneously. However bad you think the corruption and cronyism in Washington are, they are worse than you imagine. And if you think the Washington Post is part of a free and independent press, think again.

Friday, March 21, 2014

Who’s the enigma?



Churchill famously said of Russia "I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma." 

History has unwrapped the riddle.

Fast forward to today.

Putin and Obama. 

Putin believes that the collapse of the Soviet Union was a catastrophe. And he’s in charge of Russia. He believes in Russian greatness and has been telling his people that their problems, economic and geopolitical are the fault of the United States. He invades and annexes Crimea and threatens Ukraine (and other other parts of Europe that were once part of the USSR.) Putin is an open book.

The second part of this face-off is Obama. He doesn’t believe in American greatness – certainly not in American exceptionalism. He has some fundamental problems with America since he wants to fundamentally transform it. His appointees are not American cheerleaders. His Secretary of State famously accused the American military of acting like Genghis Khan.

We know what Putin wants to do in the world: recreate the Soviet Union. The real question that foreign chancelleries are asking themselves today is what Obama wants America’s role in the world to be.

As an American, that's a very uncomfortable position and not one that should be asked by people living in a democratic Republic.

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Headlines about ObamaCare you won't see in the MSM (via DRUDGE)

Obamacare leaves man owing $407,000 in doctor bills...

Pastor With Cancer: 'No Compassion in Affordable Care Act'...

Rule change lets insurance companies keep more profits, pay less for care...

Obama to Hispanics: We won't deport relatives if you enroll...

REPORT: Premiums rising faster than 8 years before Obamacare -- Combined!

Concerns about access to cancer centers under health law...

ABC's 'NIGHTLINE' Skipped ObamaCare for 123 Days...

Report: Premiums rising faster than eight years before Obamacare COMBINED


Remember the third part of Obama's three-part lie about the wonders of ObamaCare?  The one that said your premiums would god down by $2500?  Yeah, that was a lie too.

Health insurance premiums have risen more after Obamacare than the average premium increases over the eight years before it became law, according to the private health exchange eHealthInsurance.

The individual market for health insurance has seen premiums rise by 39 percent since February 2013, eHealth reports. Without a subsidy, the average individual premium is now $274 a month. Families have been hit even harder with an average increase of 56 percent over the same period — average premiums are now $663 per family, over $426 last year.

Between 2005 and 2013, average premiums for individual plans increased 37 percent and average family premiums were upped 31 percent. So they have risen faster under Obamacare than in the previous eight years.

...

Premiums are being hiked across the board for several reasons, but the biggest contributor is the Obama administration’s highly touted “essential health benefits,” services that insurers on and off exchanges must provide.

Some benefits, such as emergency and laboratory services, are uncontroversial. But others, like maternity, newborn and pediatric services, are causing headaches for huge swaths of the population that don’t need them. Anyone past childbearing age, single men, the infertile, even nuns — their premiums are rising as well, because their plans must, by law, provide more services.

Right. You grateful geezers are now covered for maternity, newborn and pediatric services. And your birth control pills are free.  Of course, your deductible will be thousands of dollars more than you can afford and you'll have to find a new doctors, one that's halfway across the state whose office is crowded with people who have been waiting for a day or two to see her.

But hey, you vote for it so you're going to get it, good and hard.


Tuesday, March 18, 2014

The Eighties Called: Do We Want Their Foreign Policy Back?



What did Reagan do?

Putin is reviving the Brezhnev Doctrine, in which the Soviet Union declared that it could invade any country that tried to escape its domination. The Brezhnev Doctrine was summed up as “once you go Communist, you never go back.” Putin’s version is a bit cruder. The Putin Doctrine is: once you become a kleptocratic dictatorship subservient to Moscow, you never go back.

So what do we do? How can we roll back Soviet—er, Russian—aggression?

The 1980s are calling. They want to know if we want their foreign policy back.

Why should we look to the 1980s? Because that was the decade when we broke the Brezhnev Doctrine. By the end of the 80s, as Eastern European countries began to throw off the Communist yoke, the Brezhnev Doctrine yielded to the Sinatra Doctrine: Russia would let the countries of Eastern Europe do it their way.

What lessons can we learn for a new age of Russian imperialism?

First, when the aggression comes, it’s too late. President Reagan was mortified, when the Soviets demanded a crackdown on the Solidarity movement in 1981, that there was so little America could do about it, given the decline of our military power in the backlash against the Vietnam War. Barack Obama finds himself in in the same situation, given the decline of American military power that he has presided over in the backlash against the Iraq War.

But Reagan found plenty to do in Poland without using our military power. We imposed sanctions against the Polish regime and the Soviet Union, and throughout the 80s we gave Solidarity everything from moral support, to money, equipment, and training.

What's Obama doing? Cutting the defense budget and the army to pre-World War 2 levels.

Robert Tracinski notes that Reagan took a number of steps, none of them having to do with community organizing.

Please note, as a lesson to anti-interventionists on both the left and the right, that all of these actions were indirect and comparatively small in scale. This is the real truth of “peace through strength”: the stronger and more vigorous our policy, the less we actually have to do.

In fact, the biggest direct military intervention of the Reagan era was a US invasion of the tiny island of Grenada. This action was small but important, putting a quick end to Cuba’s attempt to militarize the Caribbean.

If we don't act fast, the 1970s will be calling.

THE 1930S ARE CALLING


Scott Johnson at Powerline

Commentators with a cruel memory have recalled the moment from one of the 2012 presidential debates when President Obama cited Mitt Romney’s warning about the growing threat from Russia and dismissed it with a superficially sophisticated putdown: “The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back.”

When I hear President Obama threatening to impose consequences on Vladimir Putin et al., or imposing them, as he did today, I think: “The 1930s are now calling to ask for their piece of paper back.” The piece of paper would be the one Obama carries in his pocket whenever he meets with a tyrant.

Neville Chamberlain waved it upon his return to London from Munich in 1938, declaring that it represented “peace for our time.” “Our time” lasted roughly ten months.

Having sized up Obama and his Team of Nitwits, Putin won’t even give them a fig leaf. Why bother?...

Obama intensely wants to sell out to Putin, but Putin isn’t buying. He prefers to take without the patina of agreement. He views Obama with the utmost contempt, and he is proving himself a rather more perceptive student of character than his Western counterparts, Obama foremost among them.

Monday, March 17, 2014

St. Patrick's Confession

St. Patrick's Confession

I, Patrick, a sinner, a most simple countryman, the least of all the faithful and most contemptible to many, had for father the deacon Calpurnius, son of the late Potitus, a presbyter, of the settlement of Bannaven Taburniae; he had a small villa nearby where I was taken captive. I was at that time about sixteen years of age. I did not, indeed, know the true God; and I was taken into captivity in Ireland with many thousands of people, according to our deserts, for quite drawn away from God, we did not keep his precepts, nor were we obedient to our presbyters who used to remind us of our salvation. And the Lord brought down on us the fury of his being and scattered us among many nations, even to the ends of the earth, where I, in my smallness, am now to be found among foreigners.

And there the Lord opened my mind to an awareness of my unbelief, in order that, even so late, I might remember my transgressions and turn with all my heart to the Lord my God, who had regard for my insignificance and pitied my youth and ignorance. And he watched over me before I knew him, and before I learned sense or even distinguished between good and evil, and he protected me, and consoled me as a father would his son.

Therefore, indeed, I cannot keep silent, nor would it be proper, so many favours and graces has the Lord deigned to bestow on me in the land of my captivity. For after chastisement from God, and recognizing him, our way to repay him is to exalt him and confess his wonders before every nation under heaven:

Read the whole thing.

Getting the kids to sign up for ObamaCare

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Banning Bossy may not be a bad idea.

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CURL: We completely overhauled American health care — to insure 4.2 million people?

The number bounced around for years — 46 million.

President Obama said it in August 2009: “I don’t have to explain to you that nearly 46 million Americans don’t have health insurance coverage today. In the wealthiest nation on Earth, 46 million of our fellow citizens have no coverage.”

He said it dozens more times, including in June 2013: “We are not a nation that accepts nearly 46 million uninsured men, women and children.”

The Obama administration pumped the number with official reports. The White House Council of Economic Advisers said, “Perhaps the most visible sign of the need for health care reform is the 46 million Americans currently without health insurance.” The Census Bureau got in on the act, too, saying some 48 million Americans lacked health insurance.

It was official: Nearly 15 percent of America’s 313 million citizens had no coverage and were, as Mr. Obama loved to say over and over to hype the fear, “one illness away from financial ruin.”

So, he created Obamacare. The crux of the biscuit: The United States would completely change its entire health care system to make sure those 46 million got insured. Well, at least that’s what every rational American thought. If there are 46 million uninsured, and the president and Congress are overhauling the system, it must be to solve the whole problem — not just part of it.

But last week came word that with just 15 days left for people to enroll for federal coverage, just 4.2 million had. The math is simple: That’s just 9 percent of the supposedly 46 million uninsured.

“It will be a larger number than that by the end of March,” Mr. Obama promised in an interview with WebMD. “At this point, enough people are signing up that the Affordable Care Act is going to work.”

Still, the obvious question is: We changed the $2.7 trillion health care system to sign up 4.2 million people?
...
What’s surprising is how little the mainstream media cares. The White House now says it was hoping to enroll 8 million in the first year — but does anyone remember that being a big selling point as the president crisscrossed the country scaring Americans? And no one in the MSM blinked an eye when the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said that in 2023, Obamacare will still have left 31 million people without health insurance while adding more than $1.7 trillion in federal spending.

"How little the mainstream media cares."  And that's the real point. The people who have nothing to do all day but try to figure out what's happening became cheerleaders for ObamaCare. They dismissed everyone who said that this was going to be a disaster.  And it is a disaster.  And now that "you can keep your plan, you can keep your doctor, you'll save $2500 per year" has been shown to be perhaps the biggest lie of this young century, the media doesn't care. It turns out that they really don't care about those 46 million uninsured either. If they did they would be asking questions about why ObamaCare has only signed up less than 10% of the people Obama said his program was going to insure. But they don't care. They care of about increasing the power of the ruling class. They care about changing the culture. They care that they get to set the agenda for the "little people." They revel in the fact that they are part of the Ruling Class.

California gun store owner refuses to hand over customer list

The owner of a California gun parts store has refused to hand over his list of customers to federal agents.

Dimitrios Karras owns Ares Armor in Oceanside, where people can buy various gun pieces to build their own rifle.

According to Fox 5 San Diego, it is legal to build a rifle from scratch without serial numbers if the base is manufactured to specifications outlined by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

A manufacturer for Ares Armor made thousands of 80 percent receivers in plastic with indicators that show customers exactly where to drill. ATF said the receivers are illegal and demanded Mr. Karras hand over the inventory and the names of the 5,000 customers who purchased them.
He agreed to handing over the products, but not the names of his customers.

“They said either give us these 5,000 names or we are coming in and taking pretty much anything — which is a huge privacy concern and something we are not willing to do,” Mr. Karras told the station.


Saturday, March 15, 2014

Ronald Reagan's Farewell Address


When the economy is struggling, people are jobless, government programs are failing, war clouds are rising on foreign shores and the American government is widely despised and feared,  it is good to remember how we got out of the problems that Reagan's predecessor left behind.  

Ronald Reagan reminds us how he came to be so successful.




What's this address particularly prescient is that Reagan warned us against losing the culture.  Without a culture that believes in the goodness of the country, the country is lost.

More Times Lies


Old lies by the NY Times are gradually being exposede, or reality exposes them for us.  The Times' Walter Durante lied about the extermination of the Kulaks under Staln - a lie for which the Times collected a Pulitzer Prize.

The Times lied about Fidel Castro, it's reporter Herbert Matthews labeling him a "Latin American hero."  

And now it turns out that you can forget all you ever "knew" about the murder of Kitty Genovese. She was killed by a Black serial rapist. The rest was a fable, created by Abe Rosenthal who transformed her death from a crime into a profoundly disturbing - but totally fictitious - sociological trend. It was a lie from beginning to the end, manufactured by the NY Times.

Insider Timesman lunches with police bigshot, publishes version of story that lets police off the hook, does incalculable damage to national psyche. All in a day’s work. . . .
When you read your newspaper, watch the alphabet network news and listen to the "comics"  slander conservatives, keep in mind that they are simply repeating what they read in the NY Slimes.

Thursday, March 13, 2014

Putin vs. Hitler; is there a parallel between Sudetenland and Crimea?

Our local morning drive-time talk radio host, Tony Macrini, was waxing wroth over people who were critical of Obama’s handling of the crisis in Europe as Russia absorbs part of Ukraine. There are those, including Richard Cohen, a liberal columnist of the Washington Post who thought it might be time to apologize to Neville Chamberlain.

Recalling that Hitler’s excuse for taking the Sudetenland was that he wanted to protect the Germans who lived there, Cohen writes:
Putin is demanding for Crimea more or less what Hitler wanted for the Sudetenland: Russians ought to be in Russia.
Macrini won’t hear of the parallel. In fact, it’s an axiom that if you compare anything or anyone to Hitler (it even has a name: 'Argumentum Ad Hitlerum') you are assumed to automatically lose the argument. For example, Hitler was a vegetarian, but it’s ridiculous to conclude that vegetarians are little Hitlers. Hitler was an enthusiastic supporter of building the autobahn, that doesn’t make politicians who are in favor of building the interstate highways are like Hitler. Mike Godwin formulated what’s known as “Godwin’s law” which states “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.” However, if a leader starts to demand that his supporters salute him with a raised arm, or thinks that Jews should be exterminated, does Godwin’s law or a logical fallacy  -'Argumentum Ad Hitlerum' - occur?

I can understand why Liberals have been so fond of comparing conservatives to Hitler. Popular culture thinks of Hitler as a right-winger. Nothing could be further from the truth. First, Hitler headed the National Socialist German Workers Party (NAZI). He was labeled a right-winger by Stalin after he invaded Russia and thanks to the Left’s influence on culture, the label stuck. In reality, Hitler competed with the Communists in Germany for power, but it was really a civil war among members of the Left rather than a right-left battle.  In fact many Communists joined Hitler during the struggle.

That hasn't stopped the Left.  Google “Bush Hitler” and get 40 million links, Reagan gets a mere 5.4 million, Romney 13 million and Rush Limbaugh gets almost a million without even holding office. Now Hitler was a very bad man and is probably the most reviled human being most people of this century know, but he is not the record holder for people killed in the last century. Those records were held by two Communist tyrants who managed to reduce the world’s population by somewhere between 50 and 100 million – each.

I think it’s entirely appropriate to compare people to Hitler if there is a similarity. And Putin’s annexation of the Crimea is stunningly similar to Hitler’s annexation of the Sudetenland. Even the exuses are the same. In fact Putin’s move was quicker and involved less diplomatic maneuvering. Few people doubt that Putin rules Russia and that those who oppose him wind up hurt, imprisoned or dead. So far, there is no Putin salute ... yet.

Macrini reflects the opinion of lots of people in the US who are reflexively opposed to foreign intervention. Some, like Macrini, are old enough to have been traumatized by Viet Nam. Most people see the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as either wrong or badly botched. Libertarians are ideologically inclined to oppose sending military forces outside of America’s borders. Some look at our participation in World War 1 as ill advised, although World War 2 was called the "good war" because of Japan’s direct attack on our fleet at Pearl Harbor. Prior to that attack a large number of Americans wanted nothing to do with the war in Europe or Japan's wars in Asia. That feeling disappeared after “the day that will live in infamy.”  America entered the war and 418,000 American deaths later, the war was over.

What’s interesting to me is that the anti-war faction in England, before the beginning of World War 2, was probably in the majority. And why not? They had vastly more reason to be war weary than we. Europe lost an entire generation less than 20 years earlier in what they called “The Great War.” The last thing they wanted to do was to repeat that disaster; a disaster as much for the victors as the vanquished. The British and their allies had 22 million casualties while the Germans and their allies suffered over 15 million. America’s casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan total less than 60,000, mostly wounded, but that’s enough to make a large part of the American public say "enough."  Especially if the popular culture persuades the public that these wars were either wrong or – worse yet - based on a lie.

Let’s get in the Wayback Machine and see what British attitudes were to Hitler’s demands for the annexation of part of Czechoslovakia in 1938. And why Tony Macrini and Neville Chamberlain have so much in common.

. . . I want to say that the settlement of the Czechoslovak problem which has now been achieved is, in my view, only a prelude to a larger settlement in which all Europe may find peace.
-- Neville Chamberlain, 30 September 1938

There’s a little back story to the events that led up to Munich that most people are not aware of. Hitler had told his Generals that he wanted to "smash" Czechoslovakia militarily with an attack on October 1, 1938.

But the German generals knew that an attack on Czechoslovakia could bring in Britain and France, and possibly even Soviet Russia. The German Army believed it wasn’t ready for this. It only had 31 fully armed divisions while the French alone had over 100 divisions and Czechoslovakia had 45 divisions plus a heavily fortified defense line along the border with Germany.

The top leaders of the German officer corps met and plotted to arrest Hitler the moment he gave the order to invade. But the plan would only work if Britain and France made it know they would fight if Hitler moved to invade Czechoslovakia. So they sent agents to England to inform the Chamberlain government of their plan. The problem was that the British didn’t believe them. In addition, Chamberlain had his own peace agenda and preferred to negotiate, even to the extent of carving out a piece of Czechoslovakia and giving it to Hitler.

People who proposed appeasement believed that their concession was the end of Hitler’s ambitions. When that proved not to be the case, they actually enabled the war that they were anxious to avoid.

The appeasement proponents looked back to the Great War and the Treaty of Versailles as the causes of the Sudeten minority controversy. They viewed World War I as useless destruction caused by Allied fear of Germany's power. In their view, the Allies needed their combined strength to defeat Germany; then, by force, they imposed the harsh Versailles Treaty upon Germany while it was weak. They did this to permanently cripple Germany and prevent it from ever threatening the Allies or the balance of power on the Continent again. George Glasgow, writing in the Contemporary Review, viewed World War I as having no purpose because the Allies failed to achieve their objective of permanently weakening Germany. Despite defeat in 1918, Germany was again the strongest military power twenty years later. Pointing out that the effect of defeat did not last, Glasgow believed that a world war would have to be fought every twenty years to keep Germany down. He argued that there was no way to stop the inevitable German dominance since defeat in war did not. Lord Elton claimed in the Fortnightly Review that it was the Allies who caused the formation of the Nazi party because of the harsh Versailles provisions that aimed to weaken Germany. This harsh treaty, which the Allies failed to revise caused the German people to gravitate towards the ultra-nationalist Nazis. He also criticized the League of Nations for not fulfilling its promise to revise the Versailles treaty.

Like current advocates of appeasement, the advocates in 1938 believed that Germany has legitimate grievances. And they may have been right. But they were totally wrong about the extent of Hitler’s ambitions.

… Robert Parker, writing in the Fortnightly, regarded the Czechs as ruthless people bent on dominating the other nationalities under them. …

…In his editorial letter in The Times (London), Archibald Ramsay described the Czechs as vicious exploiters of the Sudeten Germans…

… An editorial in The Times argued that Czech reforms considering the Sudetens should have been carried out a long time ago and claimed that if the problem was addressed earlier, there would have been no crisis.

…J. A. Spender, writing in the Contemporary Review, saw the Czechs as victims of their own mistake of not solving the problem of the Sudeten Germans.

…Arthur Bryant, writing for the Illustrated London News, believed that the Sudetens were subjected to the rule of an alien race due to a humiliating peace treaty.

…Ramsay thought it senseless to fight to deny the democratic right of the Sudeten Germans for self-determination. A war, he believed, would cost millions of lives and would be fought so the Czechs could continue to oppress their German minority.

… Robert Parker argued that Hitler would not go to war since Czechoslovakia was completely at his mercy but contradictorily stated that the maintenance of Czechoslovakia was important as a barrier to Hitler.

… J.A. Spender proposed that the Sudeten problem be settled early by negotiation since it may have escalated beyond control.

…The Times advocating territorial revision consistently throughout the crisis, printed on 7 September 1938, an editorial that favored the partition of Czechoslovakia: . . . it might be worth while for the Czechoslovak Government to consider whether they should exclude altogether the project, which has found favour in some quarters, of making Czechoslovakia a more homogenous state by the secession of that fringe of alien populations who are contiguous to the nation with which they are united by race.

… John Fischer Williams, in his editorial letter to The Times, advocated a plebiscite to resolve the controversy.

… D.A.W. Hamilton stated his unique solution to the crisis in an editorial letter to The Times. He believed the crisis could have been solved without the transfer of territory by the exchange of populations.


With 20/20 hindsight we know how things turned out. Those who wanted to believe that Hitler had no ambitions beyond the Sudetenland were wrong.

What are Putin’s ambitions? Is he really concerned with the ethnic Russians in the Crimea? Not even Tony Macrini is that gullible. Putin is quoted as saying that the dissolution of the USSR was illegal and that it was a geopolitical catastrophe. Those are the words of a man who would like to reconstitute the Soviet Union.

So what’s to be done?
The time to stop the next major war is to make sure that those who would force the world into that catastrophe are stopped early. That does not mean we have to go to war with Russia over Crimea. What it does mean is to take steps to let Putin know that he’s crossed a line. And that means something more than denunciations in the UN and shaking our fingers at Putin. It means that we need to be willing to coordinate our military efforts with those countries that are threatened by the Russians. It means that there can be no more free land-grabs for Putin. And it means to look for people, like the German generals in 1938 who were ready to depose Hitler, who are willing to depose Putin.    Which will mean some saber rattling as well as some actual military brinkmanship to see if Putin is really ready to go to war rather than picking on defenseless victims.

UPDATE:  The Wall Street Journal today (3/14/2014) has an analysis that is exactly right.  History does not repeat itself, but, as the Bible says, there is nothing new under the sun.  We are not wiser, smarter or better people than we were before.  That's something to keep in mind as you read this:
We see Vladimir Putin as re-enacting the Cold War. He sees us as re-enacting American greatness. We see his actions as a throwback. He sees our denunciations as a strutting on the stage by a broken down, has-been actor.

Mr. Putin doesn't move because of American presidents, he moves for his own reasons. But he does move when American presidents are weak. He moved on Georgia in August 2008 when George W. Bush was reeling from unwon wars, terrible polls and a looming economic catastrophe that all but children knew was coming. (It came the next month.) Mr. Bush was no longer formidable as a leader of the free world.

Mr. Putin moved on Ukraine when Barack Obama was no longer a charismatic character but a known quantity with low polls, failing support, a weak economy. He'd taken Mr. Obama's measure during the Syria crisis and surely judged him not a shrewd international chess player but a secretly anxious professor who makes himself feel safe with the sound of his voice.

Mr. Putin didn't go into Ukraine because of Mr. Obama. He just factored him in.
"He just factored him in."   That says it all, doesn't it; because Obama is not the kind of factor that would make Putin, or even some Satrap in the Sahara pause.

Obama Visits Gap, Amazed by Credit Card Machine


Remember when the MSM ridiculed Bush for not knowing about supermarket scanners?  That story was false but the MSM didn't care, they used it as a tool to help their guy, Jimmy Carter, win.

On Tuesday, President Obama took Air Force One to New York to stop at the Gap in order to flog his case against income inequality. And there, Americans learned he had no idea how to use a credit card machine.

According to the White House press pool, Obama visited Gap because the company recently announced that it would voluntarily increase wages for employees. After telling employees that “the ladies will be impressed by my sense of style,” Obama then picked up a couple of sweaters for his girls, Sasha and Malia.

Upon checking out, however, the problems began. Obama took out his credit card and began handing it to the cashier, who told him that he could swipe his credit card in the automated machine. “Oh, wow,” Obama said, “so you can sign the machine?” He then said he was kidding: “They had these around the last time I shopped.”

From the MSM, otherwise known as Obama's Palace Guard, no a mention.

Oh, and several more things wrong with this little episode. What's "President Global Warming" doing taking Air Force One to NY City for a photo-op. He can get there on the bus for $50 or take the train for $100. Instead he uses the gas guzzling 747, at a cost to taxpayers of $228,228 per hour, for the short hop to NYC, and of course snarls traffic for hours while he "shops" at the Gap.  But hey, it's not coming out of Obama's pocket and he's not snarled in traffic while in NYC.  Worrying about money, and getting stuck in traffic is for the little people.

Tuesday, March 11, 2014

When you want to change the subject from the IRS scandals, Fast & Furious, Benghazi, Spying, NSA, Syria, Iran, Ukraine, the Economy, Jobs and RSPECT


You can only get the news away from the MSM


Via DRUDGE



Sharyl Attkisson Resigns From CBSNEWS...
White House most feared reporter...
FLASHBACK: Computer hacked...


Via PJ Tatler

Attkisson, who has been with CBS News for two decades, had grown frustrated with what she saw as the network’s liberal bias, an outsized influence by the network’s corporate partners and a lack of dedication to investigative reporting, several sources said. She increasingly felt like her work was no longer supported and that it was a struggle to get her reporting on air.

At the same time, Attkisson’s own reporting on the Obama administration, which some staffers characterized as agenda-driven, had led network executives to doubt the impartiality of her reporting. She is currently at work on a book — tentatively titled “Stonewalled: One Reporter’s Fight for Truth in Obama’s Washington” — which addresses the challenges of reporting critically on the Obama administration.

So people at See BS think she "has an agenda" because she wanted to report on activities of the administration in a way they didn't like. Once upon a time that would have been called journalism.

You know that the press is lying to you when actual reporters have to leave the MSM newsroom to tell the truth.

Sunday, March 09, 2014

Respect the office of President? Why?



Barack “Corpseman” Obama couldn't spell RESPECT, despite the fact that it’s almost impossible to misspell.  That dreadful song by Aretha Franklin is burned in my brain thanks to hearing it played endlessly for years. 

 It brought to my mind that one of the most popular refrains one hears from the media is that we should “respect the office” of the President. Like any slogan or piece of propaganda that is repeated incessantly, you nod and agree. But why?

What does “respect the office” even mean? 

 Synonyms for respect include: reverence, admiration, esteem, veneration, high opinion. But if the slogan is right, we should esteem an office even if it’s occupied by a buffoon, a poltroon, a crook, an egotistical jackass on stilts. 

Though about that way it becomes immediately clear that it’s the person holding the office that give the office respect, not the other way around. An office is not a disembodied thing that exists ex nihilo and can go marching along without an occupant. So “respect the office” is one of those empty phrases that are mainly used in political arguments by the Left as a way of shutting off criticism of Obama. It’s used as a coat to clothe the naked truth about Obama; he’s just not respectable no matter what office he happens to occupy.

Paul and the CPAC Straw Poll

The CPAC straw poll is a poor prognosticator of who will win the Presidency. In fact it’s even a poor prognosticator of who will become the Republican candidate. Since 1976 it has only chosen two Presidents (Reagan and Bush) and three candidates (Reagan, Bush and Romney).

Per Wikipedia:
Year Straw Poll Winner
1976 Ronald Reagan
1980 Ronald Reagan
1984 Ronald Reagan
1986 Jack Kemp
1987 Jack Kemp
1993 Jack Kemp
1995 Phil Gramm
1998 Steve Forbes
1999 Gary Bauer
2000 George W. Bush
2005 Rudy Giuliani
2006 George Allen
2007 Mitt Romney
2008 Mitt Romney
2009 Mitt Romney
2010 Ron Paul
2011 Ron Paul
2012 Mitt Romney
2013 Rand Paul
2014 Rand Paul

Are straw polls meaningless? Well, yes and no. Straw polls are small samples and can be rigged by loading the sample with your followers. Ron and Rand Paul, father and son, are known for this. It also may explain Romney winning the straw poll four times, standing accused of running an “intensive ground operation at CPAC, flooding the convention with college-aged campaign workers — paying many of their registration fees and even busing some of them in and paying for their hotel rooms, according to a report in The New York Times.”

But the convention itself is an opportunity for the people who want to run to show their stuff, to make their arguments and demonstrate their style. It is also an opportunity to activate the base, to recruit volunteers and to gain publicity.

It is a serious mistake on the part of Republicans, whoever the candidate is, to appeal to the base to get the nomination and then to veer sharply to the Left in a vain attempt to try to capture the middle. The “middle” are often no more than apathetic Democrats. Reagan never deviated from his Conservative message and won two overwhelming electoral victories. Yet Republican political “professionals” always, always try to pull their candidates away from their base, to blur their message, and to pander to a media that lives to eviscerate them.

Were I to run for public office, I would ignore my Democrat opponent and run against the media. The media are more hated than lawyers or used car salesmen. You can get better applause lines by exposing the lies, the bias and the arrogance of the media. Of course the media will be promoting your opponent.  So the beauty of this strategy is that you never have to denigrate your opponent or call into question those who may be inclined to vote for him. Instead, you’ll get people agreeing with you and deciding to vote for you because you think like they do. And the beauty of this strategy is that it will not only win elections but leave the corpse of the media on the election room floor.

Saturday, March 08, 2014

Is it pedophilia if there's no a priest involved?



To listen to the popular culture as disseminated by the popular press, pedophilia - or sex with minors - is exclusively a problem of the Catholic Church.  One of the most common explanations - and solutions - to the problems is the Church's insistence that its priest may not marry.  So the Liberals who are no more Catholic than Osama bin Laden, tell us that answer is married priests.

If that's the answer, should we let high school teachers marry?

If you pay attention to the news, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that America’s public schools are staffed by sex-crazed perverts, including this accused molester of teen boyflesh in Pennslyvania:
The of course there's the Boy Scouts which has been bullied into becoming inclusive of homosexuals.
Sexual abuse scandal rocks Boy Scouts of America after $18.5m payout

America's Scouting movement is fighting to keep secret thousands of "perversion files" on suspected child molesters after it was ordered to pay record damages over the sexual abuse of a former Scout.

And let's not overlook the perverts acting as swim coaches.
U.S. swim coaches have molested, groped and secretly taped numerous teenage swimmers over the past decade, according to ABC News. The network counts “36 coaches banned for life for sexual misconduct over the last 10 years” by the U.S. governing body for swimming.

But for some reason, the institutional  taint of sexual depredation only seems to apply to Catholic priests, not to the sexual predators in Hollywood.
"I can tell you that the No. 1 problem in Hollywood was and is and always will be pedophilia. That's the biggest problem for children in this industry. ... It's the big secret," Feldman said.

The "casting couch," which is the old Hollywood reference to actors being expected to offer sex for roles, applied to children, Feldman said. "Oh, yeah. Not in the same way. It's all done under the radar," he said.

"I was surrounded by [pedophiles] when I was 14 years old. … Didn't even know it. It wasn't until I was old enough to realize what they were and what they wanted … till I went, Oh, my God. They were everywhere," Feldman, 40, said.
Read more at Da Tech Guy

Friday, March 07, 2014

The Russian Invasion of Ukraine is Bush's Fault


A comment in the Wall Street Journal "Best of the Web" section today managed to blame Putin’s invasion of Ukraine on George Bush, without actually using his name. Here it in in full:

"The character of political leaders isn't the only factor determining geopolitical events."

Perhaps the wisest insight from the BOTW I've ever seen. We like to blame the politicians who happen to be nominally in charge for the changing tides of history. This is the Great Man theory of history, and it is arguably wrong, or at least not sufficiently explanatory.

Hitler, for example, did not kill a single Jew by his own hand. He had others do it for him. Could a failed artist and gassed corporal of the Great War have become so charismatic and powerful on his own that he got a great nation to do what it adamantly opposed?

Is Putin the sole reason for Russia's resurgence of nationalistic ambitions, or is he, and a Russia still smarting from its defeat in the Cold War, the beneficiary of the West's fatigue at empire management? Is Obama's vacillation the reason for Putin's boldness, or is Putin simply able to sense that the means and will for stopping him evaporated in the smoke and ash of Iraq and Afghanistan? Red lines and consequences are just words, and in international diplomacy, words mean nothing that can't be backed with force.

I don't mean to offer a defense of Obama. He is feckless because he doesn't seem to understand how limited are his options or how to maximize the effect of using those few options at his disposal. But it's not just Obama to blame for Russia or Syria or Afghanistan or the retreat in general of the US from the vanguards of its empire. It's the change in temperament in the American will, particularly after two interminably long, fecklessly prosecuted wars. The US still has the power to thwart Putin's expansionism. For now, it no longer has the will. And that's not entirely the fault of any particular American leader.

The reasoning runs like this:

The role of leaders in shaping historical events is exaggerated, so just because Obama is President, he is not necessarily to blame for what’s going on in the world. So far, I can agree. A President can be blamed or given credit for things that happen on his watch that he didn't have a lot to do with. The nearly balanced budget and economic boom under Clinton is exhibit “A.”

But then we get an analysis of the cause of the world’s problems, and guess what, it’s George Bush’s fault. Because the problems in the world can be attributed to “the West's fatigue at empire management.” It seems that America is suffering from a disease of the soul brought on by the “smoke and ash of Iraq and Afghanistan.”

It seems that the American people are not excited about foreign affairs because they have seen their sacrifice in Iran and Afghanistan squandered by an Obama administration that views foreign affairs as a backdrop to “fundamentally changing America.” The writer calls both wars “fecklessly prosecuted.” That is certainly the case in Afghanistan where Obama announced a withdrawal at the same time he was sending in more troops, giving the message to the enemy that if they stayed around long enough they would win by default. 

But our military won the war against the Iraqi army in record time.  The follow-up was poorly handled, partly as the result of the foolish political decision to disband the Iraqi army.   But thanks to the bold political move to "surge" by George Bush the war ended in victory.  It was the withdrawal by the Obama Administration that was not just feckless, but criminal incompetence.

It does something to spirit of a nation when the sacrifices of its soldiers and their families are thrown away by a feckless bunch of politicians, especially politicians that claim the ability to slow the rise of the oceans and heal the planet.

Despite the writer’s claim that “I don't mean to offer a defense of Obama” that’s exactly what he is doing. In essence he is blaming George Bush and the American people for the situation we are currently in and absolving the Obama administration. In an echo of Jimmy Carter's "malaise" speech, he’s attributing America's deteriorating geopolitical situation to its people; Obama's not to blame because the people demand withdrawal from the world.  Perhaps he forgot that America’s earlier malaise lasted only as long as Jimmy Carter was president and evaporated virtually on the day he left office.

The Great Man Theory of history is not always right, but we have experience in our lifetimes to prove that men do shape history rather than the other way around.

Vladimir Putin Nominated For Nobel Peace Prize



Why not?  Obama got one for similar reasons: he's not George Bush.

Wednesday, March 05, 2014

Liberal fool gulled by a fool.



At Neo-Neocon the author notes that a number of Liberals are saying that George Romney was right about Russia and Obama was wrong.  But they work hard to avoid coming to the conclusion that the fault is in Obama's understanding of reality.

Dave Weigel at Slate is held up as an example.

She quotes Weigel:
Romney was right. Why was Obama wrong? Because, I think, he was willfully blurring the distinction between “geopolitical” and other sorts of threats. He was playing to the cheap seats.

And explains why he's wrong.
Weigel might wonder how it was and why it was that Romney got it right and Obama wrong. Maybe Romney’s general outlook about the geopolitical world was actually more correct? Instead, Weigel assumed that Obama knew the truth but pretended he didn’t. However, if Obama was the “player of a cheap trick” in this regard, maybe that’s what he is: a bagful of cheap tricks, and a liar as well? Maybe that bag fooled Weigel and most of his illustrious colleagues? Maybe Obama’s not what he appeared to be at all?

Let's underline that part about Weigel assuming that Obama knew better but was telling people what they wanted to hear. Weigel thinks Obama was lying about what he really believes; because he desperately wants to think that Obama's not as stupid, as ideologically blind, as he appears to be. Because that would mean that he, Weigel, has been gulled by a fool.

Al Sharpton Urges Vladimir Putin To Take Obama Horseback Riding

This afternoon Russian President Vladimir Putin appeared on MSNBC with Reverend Al Sharpton to discuss the turmoil in Ukraine. Following is a transcript of that interview which airs tomorrow night on MSNBC’s, PoliticsNation.
AL SHARPTON: My guest tonight is the leader of the Soviet’s Union, Battamier Prutin. He joins us via saturnite from Russia. Welcome to my show, Mr. Leader.
VLADIMIR PUTIN: (nods)
SHARPTON: I should inform you upfront that since I’m host of my own news show on MSNBC I’m expectated to ask the tough questions. I’m also an African American man of color. Shall we proceed?
PUTIN: (nods)
SHARPTON: Mr. Leader, you are in the headlines on a daily basis. Last summer you rescued our commander of chiefs from a debarnacle in Cereal and recently you hosted the game of Olympics in your country. Now there is a Ukrainium outbreak of revolution in Clamitia and President Obama has sort of given you an ultramaiden. What say you?
PUTIN: If people in Ukraine have chlamydia it’s because they not use rubbers.
vladimir putin 300x198 Al Sharpton Urges Vladimir Putin To Take Obama Horseback RidingSHARPTON: How will you respond to President Obama’s incineration that he might draw a line in the sand pile?
PUTIN: Your president is harmless. He draws lines, he erases lines. What line mean to me?
SHARPTON: (snickers) Well, if you step on the line there could be catastrophic consequencials.
PUTIN: What consequences?
SHARPTON: Commander Obama could use the drone on you. He’s getting to be a sharp shooter with that thing.
PUTIN: If Obama use drone on Russia, we shoot down. Not afraid of drone.
Putin1 Al Sharpton Urges Vladimir Putin To Take Obama Horseback RidingSHARPTON: I notice you’re wearing a shirt for our interview.
PUTIN: Yes. I wear shirt.
SHARPTON: I mention that because I’ve seen lots of pictures of you without your shirt on.
PUTIN: If you like I send you autographed picture.
SHARPTON: (snickers) No thanks. I don’t need people thinking I’m light in my loafers, if you know what I mean.
PUTIN: I do not know what you mean.
SHARPTON: I don’t want to give the impersonation that I might be homo.
PUTIN: You do homo impersonation?
SHARPTON: (snickers) Actually, I used to do a pretty good impersonation, but here in America we are sensitive about our homos now. Unlike your country, if you don’t mind me saying.
PUTIN: (nods)
SHARPTON: Mr. Leader, how come you treat the LGBT community like senecrat citizens?
PUTIN: I do not know what you just said.
SHARPTON: You are against the gays and transmembers. You don’t let them get married or hold hands in department stores.
PUTIN: Many of your states do not allow them to marry.
SHARPTON: But they let them hold hands.
PUTIN: That is their prerogative.
putin2 Al Sharpton Urges Vladimir Putin To Take Obama Horseback RidingSHARPTON: Why don’t you have permogative in your country?
PUTIN: I do not know what you are saying.
SHARPTON: Let’s move on, Mr. Leader. On top of everything else going on, there have been pussies rioting on your continent.
PUTIN: (nods)
SHARPTON: In fact, my producers tell me that sometimes you whip the pussies. What say you?
PUTIN: (sly smile) What can I say?
SHARPTON: But the big story today is the upheaval in your Ukrainium. Last week Vice President Biden called the new Ukrainial Primister on the phone and sent tidings of great support.
PUTIN: (shifts his position and sighs) No offense, but your Joe Biden is buffoon.
SHARPTON: There are some who would conscrew that to be a racist comment.
PUTIN: What is racist about it?
SHARPTON: Cause you’re calling someone from a different race a baboon. That is a deromatory term.
PUTIN: Me and your Joe Biden are same race.
SHARPTON: Not according to him. He tells everybody he’s Irish.
PUTIN: (nods)
SHARPTON: Let’s move on. The White House says if you don’t leave the Ukrainials alone President Obama may cancel his trip to your country in June.
PUTIN: We deal with that in June.
SHARPTON: He also said he was deeply concerned.
PUTIN: We see what happens in June.
SHARPTON: (looks surprised) And that’s it?
PUTIN: (shrugs)
SHARPTON: Mr. Leader, it might be constructed if you showed President Obama some respect.
PUTIN: I show respect.
SHARPTON: Are you being mean to our leader because he’s an African American man of color?
PUTIN: I save him from humiliation in Syria. He was same color then.
SHARPTON: Have you seen our leader without his shirt on?
PUTIN: I saw photo in People magazine.
SHARPTON: He looks pretty good, huh?
PUTIN: (shifts in his seat) I don’t want to appear, as you say, light in loafers.
SHARPTON: I’ll take that as a yes. So why don’t you take our leader horseback riding with you? It would make him look stronger and you’ll get credit again for enhancing his image.
PUTIN: I don’t know if that such good idea. What if he falls off horse?
SHARPTON: He can wear his bike helmet.
PUTIN: (sighs) If your president want to ride horse, I take him on horse.
SHARPTON: (looking at smart phone) Uh, one last thing, Mr. Leader. I just got a text from my new, much younger girlfriend. She wants me to accept the autographed picture.
PUTIN: I send two. One for her, one for you. (smiles and winks)
SHARPTON: (Bashfully) Thank you, Leader Prutin.