The Stupid Party

You have to give credit where credit is due: Obama lies like a champ and can change the subject like the best of them.  Note his insistence that there is not one bit of scandal surrounding the IRS harassment of conservative groups. 

When the Democrats in and out of the media gin up their propaganda campaign and manage to turn a traffic jam in Ft. Lee into a national scandal, Republicans and the conservative talking heads rub their chins, feign concern and join in.  The response should be "f**k you."

The Diplomad has it right.

In a criminal effort to deny Americans their second amendment right to bear arms, our government has deliberately and illegally exported arms to ruthless Mexican and Central American drug cartels, which have used them to kill hundreds of people including two US federal agents. That same government then sought to blame those weapon exports on law-abiding American gun stores and gun shows. Once neutral agencies of government, such as the IRS, the FBI, the EPA, and hordes of prosecutors target and suppress dissent and discredit opponents.

Wherever one looks in the world, our foreign policy and intelligence operations are in tatters. We have alienated life-long friends such as the UK, Canada, Australia, Japan, and Israel, and have reduced the scope, reach and credibility of American power, e.g., note the disasters underway in Latin America, Libya, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq. Our intelligence agencies are used more to spy on Americans than to counter the real threats we face from Muslim jihadis, and resurgent Chinese and Russian nationalisms. Our President lies about it all.

The political environment for the opposition is a target-rich one. The Republicans should be rejoicing at the prospect of a clean sweep in November's mid-term elections and the Presidential ones in 2016. Instead GOP leaders engage in attacks on Tea Party activists--who have been consistently right on policy issues, by the way--and let the Democrats set the agenda and tell us what is and is not open for discussion. Bengahzi, IRS, EPA Solyndra, Fast and Furious, those are all phony scandals; what we must discuss is whether Governor Christie knew about, allowed, or ordered the closing of two lanes of traffic on the George Washington Bridge to punish a political opponent in Ft. Lee, New Jersey.

The Dems have learned how to create phony scandals and the Stupid Party goes along.

 

Chris Christie's Staff Blames Bridge Closing on Anti-Islam Video

Hilarious! 

CHRIS MATTHEWS: I’m on the phone live with former Secretary of State Clinton. Thank you for calling, Madam Secretary.

HILLARY: Oh, my pleasure Chris.

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Madam Secretary, what was your initial reaction when you heard the Christie people are blaming a YouTube video for the George Washington bridge lane closings?

HILLARY: Oh gosh, Chris. Not only is it shameful to blame a harmless video that nobody has seen for the massacre on that bridge, but to hide behind a lie in order to avoid responsibility is … well, it’s unconscionable.

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Amazing isn’t it, Madam Secretary?

HILLARY: What kind of people are capable of such acts of cowardice, Chris? It’s deplorable, inexcusable and frankly, it’s un- American.

The Daily Rash via Vander Leun.

TRENTON – This afternoon staff members loyal to New Jersey Governor Chris Christie alleged that the September closing of traffic lanes leading to the George Washington bridge was the result of a spontaneous reaction to an anti-Islam YouTube video. Although Gov. Christie has apologized for “unwittingly” misleading the public, calling the bridge closing “embarrassing and humiliating,” his staffers have nevertheless filed a complaint with the justice department, calling for an FBI investigation. Christie spokesman Collin Reed read a brief statement to reporters.

“The information, the best information and the best assessment we have today is that in fact these were not preplanned, premeditated lane closings. That what happened was a spontaneous reaction to a vile and despicable film that pokes fun at the prophet Mohammad. Let me state very clearly and I hope it is obvious, that the New Jersey Governor’s office had absolutely nothing to do with this insensitive video. We absolutely reject its content and message and call for the immediate investigation of its filmmaker.”

After attending a fundraiser at Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein’s Malibu home today, President Obama was asked by reporters to comment on the latest news out of New Jersey.

obama egypt Chris Christies Staff Blames Bridge Closing on Anti Islam Video“I want to personally extend my heartfelt sympathies to the victims of the lane closings,” Obama said. “If I had family members who commuted from New Jersey to New York, some of them would look like the folks stuck on the George Washington bridge. Now, it seems highly implausible that the horrifying chaos so many of us watched unfold on that bridge was a spontaneous reaction to a silly YouTube video. And I find it even harder to believe the American people are gullible enough to accept such a ludicrous story. The American people aren’t stupid.”

And this is a pitch perfect Chris Mattews spoof:

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Thank you for calling, Madam President. I’m back with my guest, African American journalist, Eugene Robinson. (Looks at Robinson) What the heck is going on in New Jersey, my African American friend? Is this Chris Christie’s dress stain? His illegitimate love-child? His toe-tap in the airport men’s room?

EUGENE ROBINSON: Well I ….

CHRIS MATTHEWS: And my God, what about the covert racism? Are Republicans ever going to evolve from the Jim Crow era? Did you happen to notice how many times Gov. Christie said bridge during his mea culpa?

EUGENE ROBINSON: Uh, another racial code word?

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Ha! Look at you, Eugene, playing naive! Ha! Why doesn’t Christie just wear his white hood to press conferences?

EUGENE ROBINSON: I think …

CHRIS MATTHEWS: But the gall, Eugene … laying the blame for the lane closings on a video nobody’s seen? Is that the best they can do? How stupid do these white men think we are? Is it any wonder Republicans have alienated women and Hispanics? Huh? Talk to me my African American friend.

EUGENE ROBINSON: Well, what I think ….

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Hold on, Eugene. (listens to earpiece) Looks like they need to wipe the spittle off the camera lens again. Let’s take a commercial break and when we come back, MSNBC lesbian Rachel Maddow will tell us about the devastating effects Christie’s bridge closing had on the LGBT community. You’re watching Hardball!

(You do know that no one ever says anything on Hardball except Matthews. His guest could as well be cardboard cut-outs.)

Will Federal Investigators Probe Obama Administration about Christie ads?

Well, that's embarrassing!

Christie office: Obama administration approved Jersey Shore TV ads

Via DRUDGE & Daily Caller.

Hurricane Sandy ended Mitt Romney's presidential bid, now it'll end Christie's.

What about the Republicans? Christie burned a lot of bridges in that debate, and in his embrace (literally) of Obama in those final days of the 2012 election. Ironically, it's the Obama administration that is widening its probe into the use of those funds now. Don't expect too many Republicans to rush to Christie's side in this fight, except to point out that the $2.2 million difference between the two advertising campaign proposals amounts to 0.041% of the porkfest Barack Obama and Chris Christie demanded from Congress for Sandy relief.

He must have thought he was being smart. Such political ineptitude on display here by Christie. Piss off a huge number of your potential base so that when the opening salvo is launched you've got no allies. Well played.

They’re not the Fourth Estate. They’re the Praetorian Guard.

Headline courtesy of Glenn Reynolds

Government officials and political operatives working for Christie, for weird and petty reasons, chose to make traffic worse. That’s the takeaway. When they are reminded of the fact that people working on Christie’s behalf thought it was a good political game to mire tens of thousands of their fellow Americans in the nightmarish gridlock that is a daily dreaded prospect for tens of millions, they will be discomfited by that and by the politician in whose name it was done.

And yet, you know what is also something everybody would find “relatable”? Politicians who sic the tax man on others for political gain. Everybody has to deal with the IRS and fears it. Last year, we learned from the Internal Revenue Service itself that it had targeted ideological opponents of the president for special scrutiny and investigation — because they were ideological opponents.

That’s juicy, just as Bridgegate is juicy. It’s something we can all understand, it speaks to our greatest fears, and it’s the sort of thing TV newspeople could gab about for days on end without needing a fresh piece of news to keep it going.

And yet, according to Scott Whitlock of the Media Research Center, “In less than 24 hours, the three networks have devoted 17 times more coverage to a traffic scandal involving Chris Christie than they’ve allowed in the last six months to Barack Obama’s Internal Revenue Service controversy.”

Why? Oh, come on, you know why. Christie belongs to one political party. Obama belongs to the other. You know which ones they belong to. And you know which ones the people at the three networks belong to, too: In surveys going back decades, anywhere from 80% to 90% of Washington’s journalists say they vote Democratic.

Scandals are not just about themselves; they are about the media atmosphere that surrounds them. They are perpetuated and deepened by the attention of journalists, whose relentless pursuit of every angle keeps the story going. That is exactly what has been missing from the IRS scandal from its outset; Republicans in Congress have been the dogged pursuers, not the press.

From the article written by  John Podhoretz

To the journalists, the Obamans don’t look like crooks and cheats. Far from it. For them, it’s like looking in a mirror.

In September, Elspeth Reeve of The Atlantic Wire took note of 24 major journalists who have taken posts at senior levels in the Obama administration. All of them have worked for decades in various news organizations, thus creating personal ties and bonds of affection with literally hundreds of working reporters and editors.

The journalists are not covering up for their friends and their spouses. They just believe the people they know could not be responsible for behaving badly, or cravenly, or for crass political advantage —and the tone they strike when such things are discussed is often one of offense, as though it is a sign of low character to believe otherwise. It would be, well, like believing the journalists themselves were crooks.

TV gives 'Bridgegate' 17 times more coverage in 1 day than IRS scandal in 6 months

Why do they do this?  Because they are Democrats and because they can.

Chris Christie as viewed from Kansas

Gun-grabbing, Muslim-loving, Obama-embracing Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey is considered a Republican by the prevailing local standards, and his commonsensical insistence on balanced budgets and non-punitive tax rates even makes him a relatively radical right-winger in the view of the east coast press, and it is amusing to read the speculation that he might win over enough honest-to-God Republicans in the heartland to win his party’s nomination for president. Such crazy talk is unaccountable to the Kansas kind of Republican, but after just a few days back east it begins to make some sort of sense.

Via Bud Nornan

Chris Christie meet Barack Obama on eHarmony.com

What would we do without experts in leadership and disaster response

The Associated Press just gave a big, fat, sloppy, tongue down your throat kiss to the three officials that screwed up the rescue effort before and after Superstorm Sandy.

It begins:

Experts in leadership and disaster response interviewed by The Associated Press gave all three chief executives high marks for their performance so far in Superstorm Sandy, a disaster that left more than 100 people dead and presented perhaps the biggest crisis-management test yet for three Northeastern politicians who have all been rumored to hold presidential ambitions.

How do you get to be an “expert in leadership and disaster response” for the Associated Press? To start, you have to be a professor with no personal experience whatever in emergency response. For example Syracuse University political science professor Robert McClure who holds nothing back:

"Throughout the country, what the American people seek is a kind of authenticity in their public leaders, and these three guys have demonstrated that authenticity throughout this crisis,"

Competence? Foresight? Pre-planning? Making sure that emergency power was available for gas stations? Having enough bottled water pre-positioned? Making sure that power lines would not get torn down by falling trees? Apparently according to “expert in leadership and disaster response” Robert McClure what counts is being able to fake sincerity.

Chris Christie was the best, being seen photographed with Obama, hugging kids for the cameras telling them "Don't be scared."   (Good advice from an expert) Taking time out from his busy schedule of press availabilities to appear on "Saturday Night Live."

It’s a wonder that the storm had any effect at all, what with the preparations beforehand.

All three men took firm command before Sandy arrived. Cuomo closed New York City's subways and tunnels hours before there was a threat of flooding and strategically "pre-positioned resources" days before, a move the federal transportation secretary later praised. Christie struck a get-tough note in ordering people to clear out along the coast, barking, "Don't be stupid" on Twitter. Bloomberg calmly ordered an evacuation of the city's low-lying areas.

The AP is in love. Note the adjectives: "firm command,"  Coumo “pre-positions” unspecified resources, the transportation secretary "praises" ("heck of a job Brownie"), Christie “barks” and Bloomberg is “calm.” Central Casting could not have done a better job.

Some of the other lovers of authenticity and “experts in leadership and disaster response” include Douglas Brinkley of Rice University, Doug Muzzio, political science professor at New York City's Baruch College, and Princeton University politics professor Brandice Canes-Wrone. Brinkley summarized it all for these experts

"Here, all three showed stellar leadership."

Meanwhile off campus and away from the Associated Press, a few people who are actual victims of the storm are not feeling the love.

'I have three kids and we have no power, no heat, for 13 days now'...

Sandy a super test for BloombergChristieCuomo...

 
CHRISTIE CLOWNS ON 'SNL' AS RESIDENTS SUFFER

They're just party poopers. 'This Is Our Katrina': Coney Island Reels From Hurricane Sandy's Wrath.

The pre-planning apparently didn't include parking trains in areas that would not flood. 

NJ Transit investigating its preparations for Hurricane Sandy after numerous trains damaged in storm

DERAILED: NJ Transit’s Meadows Maintenance Complex in Kearny is flooded two days after Sandy.

And what about the new and improved FEMA?  FEMA's head defends the agency's post-hurricane response by saying that emergency relief is not its job. 

Really?  After Hurricane Katrina you got the impression that emergency relief IS FEMA's job.  Or maybe that's only when a Republican is president.  Because the AP couldn't bother with this while smooching CuomoChristieBloomberg.

It didn't set up its first relief center until four days after Sandy hit -- only to run out of drinking water on the same day. It couldn't put sufficient boots on the ground to protect Queens residents from roving looters. The Red Cross -- on whom FEMA depends for delivering basic goods -- left Staten Island stranded for nearly a week, prompting borough President Jim Molinaro to fume that America was not a Third World country. But FEMA's most egregious gaffe was that it arranged for 24 million gallons of free gas for Sandy's victims, but most of them couldn't lay their hands on it.

But if you think FEMA's inability to provide rapid relief subverts the core reason for its existence, think again. A few days after the Times' valentine, FEMA head W. Craig Fugate told the newspaper that the agency's rapid response role is really a fallacy. "The general public assumes we are part of the response team that will be there the first couple of days," he said. But it is really designed to deal with disasters several days after the fact.

How does FEMA do that? By indiscriminately writing checks -- a task at which it evidently excels.

Experts in leadership and disaster response were not asked to respond.

Chris Christie’s epic takedown of President Obama in Virginia

Christie to Obama: "What the hell are we paying you for?"

Abandoning Hope For Post-It Notes On The Fridge, Michael Kinsley Now Sending Coded Messages To His Tubby Wife In The Newspapers

That's just cruel.

Re-evaluating Chris Christie; Second Thoughts.

I admire Chris Christie for the aggressive posture he took in New Jersey to try to fix the fiscal mess he inherited.  But I have to admit that there are things that he has said that come across like a false note in a piece of music.  One of them is taking shots at Sarah Palin ... as if he views her as a competitor. 

Here from Riehl World View

I don't get this guy Christie. We all know, because his YouTube channel has repeatedly told us so, that he plays the tough guy on the stump - when it comes to his issues. But opponents of the ground Zero mosque - oh, they're unhinged anti-Muslims. If you support Arizona's recently passed immigration law, well, that's too much. You must be anti-Hispanic, or something. Using the term Blood Libel? Well, that's obviously going too far.

Oh, but Chris Christie, well, he's the only real tough guy in the room, or on the stump, right? Sorry, something does not add up when I view this in broad context. It's as if he thinks he's the only one allowed to call out people with whom he disagrees. If someone else does it, well, obviously they've gone too far, or don't have the judgment it takes to lead. Either he lacks self-awareness, or for some reason, he thinks he's entitled to operate under a different standard, while also being quick to judge others for actions far less in your face than some of his. What ever it is, I don't like all of what I see when I take a closer look. Whatever the reason, it sends up a red flag, even if I'm not precisely sure why, or what it means.

Christie has done a great PR job and he is a political rock star.  But there is a false note in the way he talks and the stances he takes.  I'm starting to have my doubts. 

Chris Christie at the AEI

Full video.

CHRIS CHRISTIE shows how it’s done.

Via Instapundit.

A New Poster Boy for Greed & Arrogance

‘Go Watch This Video. It’s Enlightening, It’s Enraging.’: Gov Christie Raves Over O’Keefe ‘Teachers Gone Wild’

Gov. Chris Christie comments on 'teachers unions gone wild'

Chris Christie rides again

Via Powerline:

Ladies and gentlemen, for your viewing pleasure...

Celebrating Chris Christie: "The Scourge of Trenton"

From National Review:

It was supposed to have been the biggest fight of Chris Christie’s young administration: a May showdown over what Democrats in Trenton were calling the “millionaires’ tax,” designed, like each of the 115 statewide tax increases of the last decade, to paper over a small part of a yawning structural deficit by soaking the rich, one last time. Never mind that half the filings and a third of the revenue from the tax were to come from New Jersey’s business community, already battered by a perfect storm of overtaxation, capital flight, and recession. The Democrats were loaded for bear, and had the legislative majorities in place to pass the measure, having spent all winter threatening a government shutdown should Christie use his veto pen.

Democratic senate president Stephen Sweeney had even admonished, in a turn of phrase eminently Trentonian in its sheer backwardness, that “to give up $1 billion to the wealthy during this crisis is just wrong.” He promised that the millionaires’ tax was where the Democrats would “make our stand.”

The tax passed on party-line votes in the assembly and senate on May 20. Sweeney then certified the bill and walked it across the statehouse to Christie’s office, where the governor — who had vowed to balance the budget without raising taxes, and who’d developed a bewildering habit of keeping his promises — vetoed it. The whole thing took about two minutes.

“We’ll be back, governor,” Sweeney told Christie on being dispatched with the dead letter.

“All right, we’ll see,” came the reply.

And just like that, the biggest obstacle standing between Christie and the realization of his sea-changing, fiscally conservative first-year agenda was gone.

“We have not found our footing,” Democratic state senator Loretta Weinberg later said, still reeling from the decisive defeat. “I think a lot of people underestimated Chris Christie.”

Read the whole thing.

Chris Christie: 'This Is Not About Teachers'