The TSA and You

Via Drudge:

MOTHER ARRESTED AFTER REFUSING TO ALLOW TSA TO GROPE HER DAUGHTER...

Didn't want her 'touched inappropriately or have her crotch grabbed'...

OFFICER: Mother used 'very stern voice, quite a bit of attitude'...

Gold hits new high.

Remember when "gold bugs" were nuts?  Today the nuts are the ones who believe the government will take care of them.

Washington gets $200 billion a month, Social Security costs $50 billion a month, and Obama is threatening to starve Grandma?

It's the Chicago way.

Rhode Island Cities Run Out of Other People's Money

Lesson for investors: be careful whose bonds you buy.  Bond issued by Central Falls, R.I. will soon be in default when the city declares bankruptcy.

Some Thoughts on the Debt Ceiling, Politics and Social Security.

TV’s talking heads (including my friend Charles Krauthammer) believe that Obama’s winning the PR war as Republicans and Democrats battle about how much and under what conditions the debt ceiling will be raised. And of course the rest of the MSM is reinforcing this belief.

This has given Obama and the Democrats the courage to force a showdown. If what they know of the mood of the country is what they read in the NY Times, Washington Post and catch on the TV news they are misreading what the American people who don’t work for these media outlets are really thinking.

The latest Gallup poll shows that most people don’t want the debt ceiling raised, even after Obama threatened to shut down social security payments.  (H/T Instapundit).

“Despite agreement among leaders of both sides of the political aisle in Washington that raising the U.S. debt ceiling is necessary, more Americans want their member of Congress to vote against such a bill than for it, 42% vs. 22%, while one-third are unsure. This 20-percentage-point edge in opposition to raising the debt ceiling in Gallup's July 7-10 poll is slightly less than the 28-point lead (47% vs. 19%) seen in May.”

My discussions with clients throughout the country indicate that they are worried about the effects of the government running into the debt ceiling, but their concern is how it will affect the markets. Regarding the debt itself, they are very concerned about the size of the debt and the government’s inability to control its propensity to spend.

The most amazing thing about the social security and the other “entitlement” programs is that the younger generation – the thirty-somethings - has long ago decided that Social Security will not be there for them when they retire. My generation – the baby boomers – grew up with s social security system that matured as we did. The younger generation looks at social security like they look at us: old, creaky, and destined to pass on; the only question is … when?

Who are these "those who say"?

Iowahawk has a number of Twitter questions that Obama never got around to. 

An $8 billion high speed train leaves Chicago for Iowa City at 8:15am at 40mph. Why?

Read the others.

Big Labor Has Bought the American Electorate

If they don't own it outright, it's not for lack of spending.



Did you ever wonder why Union leaders have met with Obama more than any other group?  Simply put, if they sit on their hands, the Democrats are screwed.  Big Labor is the primary fountain of big money in elections.
From Big Government

The chart above represents dollars flowing to politicians from the “Top-100” special interest donors over the last 20 years.


The blue skyscraper on the left of the chart is the money spent by Big Labor – it exceeds all other special interests combined.

Jeff G. Explains "that both the President and CBS news are, you know, lying through their fucking partisan Marxist pie holes."

In other news, the sun rose in the east.

Senate Republicans Have a Bill To Prevent Obama From Stopping Social Security Checks.

But the Senate Democrats won't pass it. 

Republican Senator Marco Rubio on Rush Limbaugh: 

SENATOR RUBIO: Senator Pat Toomey has a bill that does that, that actually directs them to pay certain things first, and I don't think Harry Reid, with all due respect, is gonna be giving it a hearing any time soon, but there is a bill out there that will direct that, and I am a cosponsor of it as are most of my Republican colleagues in the Senate.

Obama Terror Roundup Tuesday July 12, 2011

Rubio: Every Aspect Of Life In America Is Worse Since Obama Took Over

"Every aspect of life in America today is worse than it was when [President Obama] took over. Unemployment higher. Interest rates. The only thing that has gone down in America over the last two years is the value of your home. This president has mismanaged this economy. He has been incompetent in his management of this economy,"

Rush Limbaugh talks to Senator Rubio:

RUSH: We welcome to the EIB Network Senator Marco Rubio from Florida. It's great to have you on the program, sir, and welcome.

OBAMA: PASS MY DEBT CEILING OR I’LL STARVE GRANDMA.

Via Instapundit

The truth is that the income coming into the treasury is more than enough to pay the interest on the debt and send out social security checks. It just won't be able to afford its regular stipend to ACORN and the cost of sending guns to Mexican drug lords.

Worth Reading

The evils of equality: Fallacies Of Economic Equality That Promote Poverty

Jeff G. on Ann Althouse's defense of her vote for Obama: Let's face it Ann.

Top 10 Reasons Why Ann Althouse Will Vote for Obama in 2012.

Karzai’s brother shot dead by bodyguard

This is starting to sound familiar: Mother: Teenage Girl Mob Attacked My Family

Obama needs a deal that will get him past the 2012 election, and he would like to see Republicans break their "Read my lips, no new taxes" pledge ... again. Debt-ceiling talks hit brick wall as President Obama, GOP trade jabs If the Republicans fall for this one they are stupider than Charlie Brown.

Is that a metaphor or a mandate? Obama: Time to "eat our peas" and pass debt deal

Glenn Reynolds: WELL, THIS SHOULD BE A GOOD ISSUE FOR THE REPUBLICANS: Democrats To Oppose Light Bulb Ban Repeal:

Is picking a fight in a restaurant a good idea?  They will fight in the restaurants, they will fight on the front lawns ….

There is a disturbing tendency recently for liberals upset with non-liberal politicians to take the fight to places where the fight should not be taken.

A restaurant is one such place. Are we now to confront politicians with whom we disagree every time they go out to eat?...

We see this with increasing frequency, as SEIU sends protesters to the homes of politicians, immigration activists attempt to intimidate neighbors of an Attorney General, and high level Democrats threaten to punch Republican politicians. The mobs in Wisconsin were the embodiment of this “get in their face” attitude, the fulfillment of Obama’s suggestion during the 2008 that people get in their neighbors’ faces.

Picture of a drunk who gets belligerent in restaurants and yells at other customers,   

Susan Feinberg
Associate Professor of International Business
Rutgers Business School
Newark and New Brunswick
111Washington Street
Newark, NJ 07102
tel. (973) 353-5297feinberg@business.rutgers.edu

Liberalism: Out of a Job

Richard Fernandez:

... the political crisis now facing the president stems precisely from the fact that he is being held responsible for an economy that is falling in a seemingly bottomless abyss. The jobs report is likely to be only one of several pieces of forthcoming bad news: the sovereign debt crisis is spinning out of control in Europe, China’s bubble may have burst, Japan is still crippled from decades of stagnation made worse by a tsunami, the Middle East is in flames.

Not just “the Democratic Party as most of us have known it,” but the post World War II structure may abruptly be juddering to an end. We are living through the crisis of the elites, whose ranks encompass but a few of the “oligarchy” Hamsher fears. Big government, multinational institutions, giant welfare states, and large scale public sector unionism may be dying.

Liberalism is not going to go down quietly, witness what is happening in Wisconsin, a state that Ann Althouse incorrectly characterizes as "clean-cut" when it comes to politics.

What we’re seeing is what happens when the ruling class loses control. Wisconsin is Syria without the gunfire. The Liberals have been in control for so long simply won’t accept the last election. As long as Republicans accepted defeat gracefully, they were tolerated as a voiceless, powerless minority whose function was to as demonstrate that there were two parties. But the thought of them actually exercising power, and moreover exercising power in opposition to established policies … well who in the hell did they think they were?

Wisconsin’s Democrat politicians are demonstrating that they are no more clean-cut than any Chicago thug. They did not just discover the power of mob rule; they knew how to use it as soon as their hold on the state was loosened.

The battling harridans on the Wisconsin Supreme Court bench are not clean-cut jurists but gutter politicos who don’t hesitate to make sexist accusations of assault if it means that they can regain control.

Surface tranquility is always seen in one-party states. The willingness to use violence and thuggery usually keeps things quiet until the people rebel. That’s when violence breaks out and people who had no problem with the regime ask “what happened, everyone was so happy … and proud … and clean-cut.”

Andrew Klavan on Abortion

Andrew Klavan has been in favor of abortion even though Roe vs. Wade was incorrectly decided. He knew too many women who had abortions and who agonized over it to condemn them.

Nonetheless, I’ve come to see that every single argument in favor of unlimited abortion simply skips over the decisive question: is an unborn child a human being or not? You can’t say killing a human being is a private matter. You can’t say a woman has “a right to choose” whether to kill a human being. You can’t say it’s okay to kill a human being because he was the product of rape or incest. You can’t argue that protecting the life of a human being unfairly extends government power — the government already has, and must have, that power. And you surely can’t say we must kill masses of innocent humans for the greater good of society. That’s more than hitlerian. It’s satanic.

Read the whole thing, then watch this

Ann Althouse asks what heppened to Wisconsin's "clean-cut" politics?

No Ann, Wisconsin is not seeing the sudden transformation you describe: “We've gone from clean-cut to really being on the cutting edge of the new form of American politics — battle to the death, win at any cost." Revolutions and counter-revolutions, the things you’re seeing in Madison, don’t happen like that.

What we’re seeing is what happens when the ruling class loses control. Wisconsin is Syria without the gunfire. The Liberals have been in control for so long simply won’t accept the last election. As long as

Republicans accepted defeat gracefully, they were tolerated as a voiceless, powerless minority whose function was to as demonstrate that there were two parties. But the thought of them actually exercising power, and moreover exercising power in opposition to established policies … well who in the hell did they think they were?

Wisconsin’s Democrat politicians are demonstrating that they are no more clean-cut than any Chicago thug. They did not just discover the power of mob rule; they knew how to use it as soon as their hold on the state was loosened. The battling harridans on the Wisconsin Supreme Court bench are not clean-cut jurists but gutter politicos who don’t hesitate to make sexist accusations of assault if it means that they can regain control.

Surface tranquility is always seen in one-party states. The willingness to use violence and thuggery usually keeps things quiet until the people rebel. That’s when violence breaks out and people who had no problem with the regime ask “what happened, everyone was so happy … and proud … and clean-cut.”

Jeff G has a suggestion: "it’s time for the federal government to do without. It’s time for those who pay no taxes and vote themselves the money of those who do to ‘have some skin in the game.’ Call it ‘shared sacrifice’. You Marxist fuckers.”

Jeff Goldstein was always a gentle soul and only uses strong language when nothing else will do.

If the GOP can’t get the messaging out, I suppose the rest of us can get that done. And it would go something like this: “The top 10% of wage earners already pay 70% of the taxes. The top 1% already pay over 50% — and more than the bottom 95%. And it’s not as if Obama and the Democrats haven’t already tried raising all sort of taxes during their 2+ year long Recovery Summer, which — though the media keeps insisting is a recovery — has produced increased unemployment, an economy that shows negligible growth, and a withering away of the private sector.

And:

These days, when the President says that we have to “eat our peas”, I no longer know whether he’s offering a metaphor or invoking the Commerce Clause.

Like Jeff said, if the Republicans are afraid to say it, we'll say it for them.

Video: President Obama promises ‘massive job killing taxes’ if re-elected

Walter Mondale did something similar and carried his home state, losing all other 49 states.  That was in 1984 when Obama was 23 years old, the year after Obama left Columbia and several years before he went to Harvard Law School.

Educating Obama is becoming increasingly expensive.

Top 10 Reasons Why Ann Althouse Will Vote for Obama in 2012.

1. Because running off the cliff with the other lemmings is a rational decision.
2. Because the guy who screwed up is the only one who's able to fix what's wrong.
3. Because voting against the black man would make her a racist.
4. Because the rest of the faculty of UW Madison knows where she lives.
5. Because Obama won't come out in favor of gay marriage until the next election.
6. Because Obama's soooo dreamy and sends a thrill up her leg.
7. Because Palin's a Republican.
8. Because of Obama's steely nerve
9. Because of Obama's groundedness
10. Because not voting for Obama would be admitting she's a rube.

Black economic gains reversed in Great Recession

I wonder if this woman is still hoping for change?

If she's still waiting for Obama to pay for her gas and mortgage?

Doug Ross: Lenin's rhetoric and Obama's; the ideology of statists.

In 1920, Lenin promised to "electrify" Russia within three years ...

We have instructed a commission of scientists and engineers to draw up a plan for the electrification of Russia. ..., in a few years, the whole of Russia will be covered by a network of electric transmission lines, will be restored in a new way, not the old way, and how she will achieve that culture which [we] saw in Germany.

That is the way we must restore our industry, and that is the way we shall return a hundredfold the loan of grain we are taking from the peasants. We know that this cannot be done in a year or two; the minimum programme of electrification is calculated for a period of not less than three years, and the complete success of this advanced industry will require not less than ten years ... We have gained that experience in leading the masses with the help of urban workers which will carry us through all difficulties on this bloodless front of struggle against economic chaos and will lead to greater victories than those we gained in the war against international imperialism.

In 2009 Obama promised that the stimulus bill would create three million jobs.

To finally spark the creation of a clean energy economy, we will double the production of alternative energy in the next three years. We will modernize more than 75% of federal buildings and improve the energy efficiency of two million American homes, saving consumers and taxpayers billions on our energy bills. In the process, we will put Americans to work in new jobs that pay well and can’t be outsourced – jobs building solar panels and wind turbines; constructing fuel-efficient cars and buildings; and developing the new energy technologies that will lead to even more jobs, more savings, and a cleaner, safer planet in the bargain.

Doug Ross

Ideologically unable to unleash the private sector, the Statist must always paint a picture of a Utopian future hovering just a few years away. If only you can give him more more money and more authority, this Utopia can be yours!

Compare and contrast: News of the World, Altanta Public Schools and the Department of Justice.

Mark Steyn points out the News of the World is closed because it listened in on phone calls. In contrast the Atlanta Public Schools has been fudging its student’s test scores for years and the Department of Justice has been funneling weapons to Mexican drug lords, the better to kill American agents and Mexican cops.

Note that the private company is out of business while the public criminals are zipping right along.

Atlanta Public Schools system has spent the last decade systemically cheating on its tests. Not the students, but the superintendent, and the union, and 38 principals, and at least 178 teachers — whoops, pardon me, “educators” — and some 44 of the 56 school districts. Teachers held “changing parties” at their homes at which they sat around with extra supplies of erasers correcting their students’ test answers in order to improve overall scores and qualify for “No Child Left Behind” federal funding that could be sluiced into maintaining their lavish remuneration. Let’s face it, it’s easier than teaching, right?

The APS Human Resources honcho Millicent Few illegally had an early report into test-tampering destroyed. So APS not only got the federal gravy but was also held up to the nation at large as a heartwarming, inspirational example of how large urban school districts can reform themselves and improve educational opportunities for their children. And its fake test scores got its leader, Beverly Hall, garlanded with the National Superintendent of the Year Award, the Administrator of the Year Award, the Distinguished Public Service Award, the Keystone Award for Leadership in Education, the Concerned Black Clergy Education Award, the American Association of School Administrators Effie H. Jones Humanitarian Award, and a zillion other phony-baloney baubles with which the American edu-fraud cartel scratches its own back.

It seems that aiding and abetting in the murder of federal agents and Mexican citizens is not a big deal. It's a good thing that Obama's a Democrat, if he were a Republican this would be a scandal.

We’re not talking about hacking a schoolgirl’s cellphone here. Real people are dead. Yet nobody’s going to close down any wing of the vast spendaholic DEATFBI hydra-headed security-state turf-war. And while Eric Holder, the buccaneering attorney general at the center of this wilderness of mirrors, doesn’t yet have as many Distinguished Public Servant of the Year awards as Beverly Hall, judging from his cheerfully upfront obstruction of the congressional investigation, he’s not planning on going anywhere soon.

In case anyone was wondering where the press is going to be during the 2012 election, look where they are now and stop wondering.

Progressive’s Epiphany

Regretful Obama Voter

Sarah Palin: "The Sugar Daddy Has Run Out of Sugar"

Smart words from an accomplished leader:

The same “experts” who got us into this mess are now telling us that the only way out of our debt crisis is to “increase revenue,” but not by creating more jobs and therefore a larger tax base; no, they want to “increase revenue” by raising taxes on job creators who are taxed enough already! As Margaret Thatcher said, “The trouble with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.” That’s where we are now. Hard working taxpayers have been big government’s Sugar Daddy for far too long, and now we’re out of sugar. We don’t want big government, we can’t afford it, and we are unwilling to pay for it.

As Ronald Reagan said, "if not us, who; if not now, when?"  Santelli  "Now's the time. Now, now, now."

Holder Lied, People Died

"Project Gun Runner" -- also known as "Operation Fast and Furious" -- was a massive firearm smuggling program orchestrated by the Department of Justice.

We need a Special Prosecutor - and the immediate resignation of Eric Holder.

Roundup of Blogdom

Doug Ross @ Journal has a roundup of some of the best commentary around (icluding mine).

Imagine going out with your spouse to celebrate a birthday, and watching her have a conniption over the label on a bottle of wine at somebody else’s table.

From Gateway Pundit's comment section.

Kate's cheeks.

What does a princess wear under her dress?

Obie claims ‘racist’ so often, it’s a wonder his white half isn’t kicking his black half to death. Or vice versa.

From the comments section of Surber's blog post.

"Now's the time. Now, now, now."

I read that Boehner is going for a $2 trillion deal. I hope that's wrong because that will mean he's abandoning his base and may well cause a revolt ending in a third party with another term for Obama.

Possibly Drunk Rutgers Economist Susan Feinberg Whines To Susan Crabtree Who Is Hard Up For A Story

Party on, Obama.

Where was Barack Obama in 1990?

You may have noticed that Barack Obama is replacing his rhetoric about Slurpees and getting a car out of the ditch with crap about taxes on jet planes owned by rich people. I won’t point out that he’s the global leader in using the country’s largest private plane for his personal benefit.

But it’s worth remembering that Democrats used the “yacht” issue in 1990 to score political points. In 1990 the Democrats in congress decide it would be a great idea to put an added tax on yachts to raise revenue while bashing the “rich.” The result is that the rich stopped buying yachts and about 25,000 middle class boat builders lost their jobs.

Do you know where Barack Obama was in 1990? He was a school kid in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was still in school the last time the Democrats acted this stupidly. Do we really have to drag the country through this again to teach this kid a lesson that many of us learned years ago? What does it take and what does the country have to pay to educate this stellar example of the Peter Principle, this embodiment of affirmative action?

We knew that “shovel ready jobs” was bullshit. Apparently Barry just found out.

Can someone get him a Slurpee and tell him to shut up? We’ll get this car out of the ditch by ourselves. And tell him to leave the jets alone or we’ll take his away.

Why did the Obama administration deliberately allow the illegal export of guns to Mexico and Honduras?

Ann Althouse has a post ...  and a comment by Rose:

It's a very big deal - on a number of levels. It looks like three things are emerging. 1.) Funding was tucked into the Stimulus bill - who did that? 2.) It explains that odd comment Hillary made about all the guns in Mexico coming from the US, which felt at the time like a move towards gun regulation here, and 3.) similarly, it explains Obama's odd reaction to the Honduras mess.

Several interesting posts around the blogosphere: Two big developments have emerged in Gunwalker..... ATF Director Kenneth Melson has indeed spilled his guts and testified on July 4th before Congressional investigators. Gunwalker goes all the way to Eric Holder, Hillary Clinton and that walking manifestation of Incubus and Succubus, Barack Obama and Valerie Jarrett. Further, Mike Vanderboegh and David Codrea over at Sipsey Street Irregulars have broken news this morning that Holder/Clinton/Obama-Jarrett also were walking guns out of Florida into Honduras.

Here’s the money quote: “There are emails in existence where (Special Agent in Charge Virginia) O’Brien has advised those involved that Tampa does not have to report their walked guns because Tampa FD is not a part of Southwest Border or Project Gunrunner.”Barnhardt: Gunwalker – Laying It All Out

Honduras? Why would ATF walk guns to Honduras? 1. The national scope of the Gunwalker Scandal & 2. Because that's where some of the action is. sipseystreetirregulars

First, and this is important to understand: the Tampa operation proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that "Project Gunwalker" was a national strategy, not a Phoenix aberration. The "major media" has been slow to understand this. They have ignored the fact that the Houston Field Division had to have played a supervisory role in known straw buying incidents in Dallas and Columbus NM as they are in their area of operations, not Phoenix's. Original reporting on this subject from Texas has been pitiful.

Second, Honduras is where the action is.

Source claims ATF's Tampa SAC walked guns to HONDURAS! Part of Operation Castaway? Exclusive Report by David Codrea & Mike Vanderboegh. sipseystreetirregulars

And another by William Jacobson at Legal Insurrection

In Fall of 2009, the Obama Administration conceived Operation Fast and Furious, in which the ATF sold thousands of advanced weapons to Mexican drug cartels in order to track them once they were used in crimes. This policy perfectly dovetailed with Obama’s gun control arguments. First of all, by selling guns to the cartels that the ATF could definitely trace back to the US (because they were bought from the ATF), the percentage of guns used in Mexican crimes traceable to American guns would increase. ATF supervisors rejoiced at their success when they found that these guns were being used for violence in Mexico.

From the first I suspected that this program was designed to provide an excuse for more gun control in the US. It made no sense from any other perspective. We did not need this program (Fast & Furious) to identify Mexican drug cartel leaders, straw gun purchasers or their Mexican handlers. The only thing that made sense is to allow the administration to claim that US guns were the primary source of violence in Mexico.  Thanks to this government program the Obama administration became primary supplier of guns to Mexican drug cartels.

Thank goodness Obama is a Democrat.  If he were a Republican this would be a scandal.

Say Yes to Endless Campaigning: Let Obama Be Obama

Van der Leun:

Of late there’s been no end of criticism of the president for leaving his desk and his oval office to campaign. In so doing, it is said, he leaves a lot of the “important and pressing” business of the nation unaccomplished. Such criticism is, to my mind, not only unwarranted but counterproductive at best and disastrous at worst.

Wise Americans of all persuasions want to keep this president as far away from the “important and pressing” business of the nation as possible, for as long as possible. Every second, every minute, every hour, and every day Obama is kept out of his office is a net positive for the nation as a whole. Every moment he’s out there on a smile and shoeshine selling his next four years of nostrums to whatever liberal and progressive suckers he can cornhole is one less moment he can spend actively cornholing the nation at large.

My sentiments exactly.  Read the whole thing.

The UN's Plan for You: Poor, Cold and Smelly.

Via Small Dead Animals: Come Back, al-Qaeda

You missed a spot.

If you think al-Qaeda's objective of taking over and imposing a dark-age on the world in the name of Allah was a one-off, the UN's plan for you is eerily similar in the name of Climate Change. Among other things they think that living on $10,000 per year is plenty. And if that means that air conditioning and hot water for showers is out, that's exactly the objective. As for heat in winter, get out your sweaters and long johns because your energy ration won't heat your house. However, I have the funny feeling that the "energy czars" at the UN will have the resources they need (the heat, the light, the A/C, the food, limos and the private jets) to control you, because they work soooo hard for you.

James Delingpole at the UK Telegraph

What’s amazing about this stuff – and believe me, there’s plenty more where this came from – is the unblushing shamelessness with which it advocates this economic insanity. Here is the world’s most powerful intergovernmental institution essentially arguing for the destruction of the global economy, enforced rationing, Marxist wealth redistribution, greater regulation, the erosion of property rights and global governance by a new world order of technocrats and bureaucrats. And being so upfront about it they actually issue press releases, telling us what they’re planning to do and encouraging us to write about it.

This is the thing that amazed while I was researching my book Watermelons. If the global green movement is any kind of conspiracy, then it’s a conspiracy in plain sight. The people in power who are advancing its agenda – be it President Obama’s house eco-activists John Holdren and Carol Browner, Green MP Caroline Lucas, and all those faceless apparatchiks at the UN and the EU – make absolutely no bones about what it is that they want to do to save the world from the peril of “Climate Change”: the end of Industrial Civilisation.

One of the objectives of the Left (and by that I mean especially the Obama administration) is to transfer more power to the UN and other transnational organizations. The adventure in Libya is exhibit "A," a NATO effort where the US military was essentially "lent" to that organization for the purpose of aiding a revolution in that country.

But these international organizations are essentially run by an assembly of kleptocrats whose primary objective is to translate their power over their dirt-poor countries into power over the entire world.  This press release by the UN is an excellent example.

Is There Nothing That Obama Can't Do?

From Small Dead Animals regarding Obama and Fast & Furious:

He must go to bed every night and thank God he didn't run as a Republican, or this could have been a scandal.

A Question for Ann Althouse

I have a question for Ann Althouse.

She has done an outstanding job blogging about the multiple political train wrecks in Wisconsin, but she also voted for Obama, saying this today:

I voted for Obama, but I coolly observed all this emotionalism, soberly examined the 2 major party candidates, and made a rational choice.

I’ll take her at her word. Would Ann say that she voted for the policies or the results that her preferred candidate - Obama – has produced?  So many people have expressed disappointment with Obama that, to take Ann as an example, why did they think that Obama would be a different president than he is?

I began discussing Obama back in early 2008. I discussed why he was beating Hillaryand Edwards in the primary, his unsavory associations with 1960s terrorists and his pastor Jeremiah Wright, his sleazy financial dealings, the millions in untraceable campaign contributions, his creepy followers, his messianic complex, Obama as the"blank slate," the meaningless campaign slogans (HopeN'Change), and that’s just in the first few months of his campaign.

I am persuaded that a lot of people voted for Obama because of Palin. Now, that’s my opinion supported only by some anecdotal evidence, but I have some friends who have told me that and have read about a great many women who hate her because she is the polar opposite of what feminist women view as their ideal: pro-abortion, single parent, career gal with an Ivy League education. To them, Palin is a hick from the sticks with too many children, a baby they would have aborted, a graduate of “No-Name U” with a family (including her one and only husband) that’s part of her, and to top it off she’s an unabashed, un-nuanced, patriot and Christian. They made the excuse that because of McCain’s age she could have vaulted into the Presidency. But in reality, they could not imagine voting for her, so McCain lost them.

After the election, Ann (and many of the people who deluded themselves in 2008) believed that [H/T The Crack Emcee]

"The entire plan to bring Obama into office depended on the glorification of the man, whose actual experience was so bizarrely limited that it took some nerve to claim to be ready. Magic was required. The cult grew up not as he held power and needed to respond to a crisis. The cult was the campaign to bring him into power. It depended on our projecting all sorts of hopes and dreams onto him, and he knew it. Inside, he may have felt embarrassed by the whole enterprise, but he'd figured out that it could work, and he was right. Now, I think this worked because he really is a solid, normal person who remained grounded in the middle of all this craziness. And I like to think that, now that he's President, with his steely nerve, his intelligence, and his groundedness, he'll do the job that must be done. The trickery is over."

So what Ann really saw in Obama was a “solid, normal person” with “steely nerve, ... intelligence, and ... groundedness” who was lying to the rubes to get elected.

But he wasn’t. The guy who said that his election would heal the planet and cause the seas to recede was the guy we were warning Ann and all the other rubes about. Ann thought she had Obama figured out; that the guy behind the curtain was sane and smart and up to the job; the guy on stage was all an act.  As Glenn Reynolds so often asks "who's the rube," Ann?

All the evidence pointed to the contrary: his experience, his books, his associates, his statements, his lies. It takes someone who is really into self-delusion to believe that all this was fake and the “real” Obama would emerge after the election.

Intellectual Pride Makes You Stupid.  ... and denial is not a river in Egypt.

WELCOME NEW READERS.  Please enjoy the rest of the show.

Something Terrifying: The Dust Storm That Ate Phoenix on July 5th, 2011

The Phoenix Haboob of July 5th, 2011 from Mike Olbinski on Vimeo.

Via American Digest

Writer arranges for rough sex, calls it therapy for second hand rape.

You have to read this story and the comments to believe it. 

Comment from Ace of Spades

Now, this is absurd, of course. There is no "post traumatic stress disorder by proxy," that is, PTSD not from your own trauma but simply from hearing of another's. The first time I ever heard of this odd clinical diagnosis was from Doctor Chris Matthews of the Hardball Institute for Made-Up Psychoses, who postulated that the Fort Hood Murderer killed people because he, as a psychiatrist, had by traumatized by listening to veterans tell of their own traumas.

Or, maybe, because he was a jihadi. Either/or.

Now, this woman is claiming a similar PTSD by proxy syndrome. But I have an alternate diagnosis: She was already long a sexual neurotic and probably suffered from eight different dementias long before she reported on a Haiti rape victim; this was merely the trigger for doing something nutty to scratch this itch.

Is it possible that she envied a woman in Haiti who had been raped and wanted - in a rather perverted way - to experience the same thing?

Rubio: Which One of Your Taxes Will Create Jobs, Mr. President?

With all the talk about deficits and taxes, Marco Rubio zeros in on the REAL issue: JOBS!

Via Rush Limbaugh:

RUSH: Marco Rubio over in the Senate gets this. He was in Washington, Senate floor speech. We have some sound bites from Marco Rubio, Senator from Florida.

RUBIO: Let's stop talking about new taxes and start talking about creating new taxpayers, which basically means jobs. Now, here in Washington this debt is the number one issue on everyone's mind, and rightfully so. It is a major issue. But everywhere else in the real world the number one issue on people's minds are jobs. And I'll tell you every other problem facing America: a mortgage crisis, home foreclosure crisis, this debt problem, all of these issues get easier to deal with if people are gainfully employed across America. And the impact that unemployment's having across this country is devastating.

RUSH: And he wasn't finishing. He was just getting warmed up.

RUBIO: Our job here is to do everything we can to make it easier for them to find a job, not harder. And I think that's what we have to do when it comes to a balanced approach, and when we talk about revenue. We don't need new taxes. We need new taxpayers, people that are gainfully employed, making money and paying into the tax system and then we need a government that has the discipline to take that additional revenue and use it to pay down the debt and never grow it again.

RUSH: Amen. There's a Republican here that gets it. This is real simple, and this is all you say to Obama when you go into the meeting, we need taxpayers. You want to raise revenue, get some jobs out there, dummkopf. New jobs, growing economy, more taxpayers, more revenue, bingo, there it is, everybody's happy. No need to raise a damn thing here. And he kept going, folks.

RUBIO: So you look at all these taxes that are being proposed and here's what I say. I say she should analyze every single one of them through the lens of job creation, issue number one in America. I want to know which one of these taxes that they're proposing will create jobs. I want to know how many jobs are gonna be created by the plane tax. How many jobs are gonna be created by the oil company tax that I heard so much about? How many jobs are created by going after the millionaires and billionaires that the president talks about? I want to know, how many jobs do they create?

RUSH: Marco Rubio, Republican freshman Senator from Florida definitely has a future, and here he is bringing it home.

RUBIO: I traveled the state of Florida for two years campaigning. I have never met a job creator who told me that they were waiting for the next tax increase before they started growing their business. I never met a single job creator who's ever said to me, "I can't wait 'til government raises taxes again so I can go out and create a job," and curious to know if they say that in New Hampshire because they don't say that in Florida. So my view on all this is I want to know how many jobs these tax increases the president proposes will create because if they're not creating jobs and they're not creating new taxpayers, they're not solving the problem.

What a fantastic way of putting it.

Even today, the EPA has established new rules that will cost jobs in the utility industry and raise electric bills for millions of people.  The Obama administration is killing jobs with every initiative it makes.

It seems that every speech Obama makes has a reference to raising taxes on corporate jets.  Wichita Kansas is the epicenter of this and he's killing it.  People and companies who were planning to buy a new jet are pulling back, and that means that very many highly paid jobs are being lost because this  fool is demagoging the issue.  For those with short memories, we're seeing a re-run of the tax on luxury yachts that passed Congress in 1990 and devastated the people working in that industry...

The tax cost the government an estimated $24 million in unemployment benefits alone because of the lost jobs in the aircraft and boating industry. Boat Builders, a key industry in George Mitchell’s and Ted Kennedy’s home states were particularly hard-hit with yacht sales dropping 77 percent and builders laying off an estimated 25,000 people.

H/T Instapundit and  Hot Air

Democrats ask Koch Brothers for money

Letter to Senator Patty Murray, Chair Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee




Senator Patty Murray, Chair
Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee


Dear Senator Murray:


For many months now, your colleagues in the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee leadership have engaged in a series of disparagements and ad hominem attacks about us, apparently as part of a concerted political and fundraising strategy. Just recently, Senator Reid wrote in a DSCC fundraising letter that Republicans are trying to “force through their extreme agenda faster than you can say ‘Koch Brothers.’”


So you can imagine my chagrin when I got a letter from you on June 17 asking us to make five-figure contributions to the DSCC. You followed that up with a voicemail* indicating that, if we contributed heavily enough, we would garner an invitation to join you and other Democratic leaders at a retreat in Kiawah Island this September.


I’m hoping you can help me understand the intent of your request because it’s hard not to conclude that DSCC politics have become so cynical that you actually expect people whom you routinely denounce to give DSCC money.


It is troubling that private citizens taking part in the discourse have become the targets of White House and DSCC fundraising missives, and we would certainly encourage you to rethink that approach. Ultimately, I expect voters will see through that and will weigh the issues on the merits alone. But in the meantime, if you could provide me some insight on what exactly you are asking of us and why, I would be most grateful.


Sincerely,
Philip Ellender
President, Government & Public Affairs
Koch Companies Public Sector, LLC

Via Instapundit

WOLF: ‘No drama’ Obama losing his cool

From the Washington Times

Something unexpected happened along the president’s breezy cruise to re-election. “No drama” Obama is suddenly looking about as calm as Jerry Lewis in a French film, about as brave as Ted Kennedy after an evening drive through Chappaquiddick. Witness Team Obama’s recent panicky behavior.

Obamanomics anxiety. The White House is reeling as its reverse Midas touch to the economy is being exposed. Its own economists acknowledge now that each job created or “saved” by the so-called “stimulus” cost taxpayers a whopping $278,000. This is still fantasyland because there are 1.9 million fewer jobs on record now than on the day the stimulus was signed into law, but nonetheless, the quiet pre-holiday Friday night news dump of an announcement reveals the administration’s worry. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke admitted last month that he’s clueless why America’s economic malaise continues. Tax cheat and Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, who called President Obama’s budget “unsustainable,” wants to abandon ship along with the rest of the “economic dream team” escapees: Lawrence H. Summers, Christina Romer and Austan Goolsbee. Meanwhile, the president, apparently believing no news is good news, has put his fingers in his ears - “La la la, I cannot hear you” - and, at one point, canceled his daily economic briefings.

•  Obamacare waivers wild ride.
• Afghanistan retreat.
• Panic at the pump.
• Clumsy class warfare ("corporate jets" replaces "sipping a Slurpee")
• Biden boot buzz.

The 2012 election may be the most consequential of our lifetimes, and it’s obviously far too early to predict its results. But that’s the point. The White House has conceded the inevitability factor. The bloom is off the Obama rose, and Team Obama knows it.

Read the whole thing.

Via Instapundit

Milwaukee Celebrated 4th of July With Fireworks, Looting, Racial Mob Violence

From The Other McCain

Shaina Perry remembers the punch to her face, blood streaming from a cut over her eye, her backpack with her asthma inhaler, debit card and cellphone stolen, and then the laughter.

“They just said ‘Oh, white girl bleeds a lot,’?” said Perry, 22, who was attacked at Kilbourn Reservoir Park over the Fourth of July weekend.

Read the rest.
Linked from Instapundit.

Is your Congressman a member of the Congressional Pollinator Protection Caucus?

Via Pundit and Pundette: 

There was a story in the Washington Post this weekend by David A. Farenthold about the House GOP's decision to do away with votes on symbolic resolutions like this one:

“The resolution, as offered, acknowledges how vital bees and other pollinators are to our ecosystem,” said Rep. Alcee L. Hastings (D-Fla.), advocating for the resolution on National Pollinator Week last July. He spoke for three minutes and 51 seconds.


“I urge all of my colleagues to become members of the Congressional Pollinator Protection Caucus,” Hastings said.


All members of the House were summoned for a vote, which came out 412 to 0 in favor of the pollinators.

Their headline: Resolved: Congress is a joke

Racial quotas, speech codes and the thought police

Michael Barone ...

Within colleges and universities the existence of racial quotas and preferences, unacknowledged but understood by everyone, tends to make relations between blacks and whites more tense and distant. We see all-black dorms on campus, separate orientations for students of color, separate graduation ceremonies -- everything but separate drinking fountains.

In addition, the obvious unfairness of racial quotas and preferences has led to the adoption of speech codes to suppress any criticism and prohibit any statement that makes someone feel uncomfortable. Campuses that were once havens of free speech are now patrolled and regulated by thought police. Intellectual dishonesty has become a job requirement for university administrators.

...

Why are university and legal elites so determined to preserve racial quotas and preferences? One reason, I suspect, is that they can't bear to see lower percentages of blacks in the institutions they run than you find in the U.S. Army or many local police departments.

Such attitudes help explain the 6th Circuit decision and indicate that, even if it is overturned, racial quotas and preferences will remain intact, if unacknowledged and disguised, in higher education.

I suspect it's a generational and a cultural thing and it will take time for this generation to die. Until then the search for a color blind society will continue to elude us.

'That's Racist' as a Punch Line

Jonah Goldberg

But the simple fact is "that's racist" is the sort of thing those darn kids today say to make fun of their aging Gen X and baby boomer parents.

It's also a common joke among conservatives, precisely because we're used to being called racists for the weirdest things. If I write on Twitter something about how I don't like "Obamacare," some fellow right-winger will immediately respond with some variant of "that's racist!"

And that's the joke. And the people who've spent the last few decades screaming, "That's racist," not as a punch line but as a heinously unfair accusation or in an attempt to bully people, don't seem to get that the joke is on them.

Stacy McCain gives advice to a young blogger. (I have sitemeter envy, bad)

“Always drink beer in a bottle, because if a fight breaks out, you’ve got a weapon right there in your hand. Smash the bottom of the bottle against the bar, brandish the jagged shards like a knife (what they call a ‘Puerto Rican switchblade’) and loudly threaten to slice the throat of the first motherf—-r that gets in your way while you move warily toward the door.”

OTOH, if a fight breaks out you should start to wonder why you went in there in the first place.

Real Health Reform

The answer is for physicians to take on the care for the poor– for absolutely no pay. No billing, no CPT codes, no ICD-9 codes. Nothing. No physician should earn his living caring for the poor. He should earn his living in his private practice where he can expect payment for services rendered.

And like the way it was before government decided that it could provide health care in an efficient, compassionate, low-cost manner, this free care needs to be done in non-government free clinics (NGFCs)– staffed 95% by volunteer physicians, nurses and support staff and funded by genuine charitable contributions– no government grants, no money extracted from overburdened taxpayers.

...  There will be no government bureaucrats filling out forms to see if they qualify for “benefits.” Each clinic will develop its own criteria to decide who is needy and needs the free care.

These patients need to know that the free clinic is not their medical home, but rather a bump in the road on their way to financial independence. Once they are on their feet, they can go to the same doctors who cared for them in the free clinic, but now in their practices. Pay cash– but a fair cash price, not one that is trying to make up for the low fees paid by Medicare, Medicaid and HMO’s. A free market price, just like Jiffy-Lube for their cars.

I like it ... a lot.

The problem with Medicare and other government sponsored insurance program for the poor and elederly is that the reimbursement is so low that doctors turn their practices into assembly lines to make ends meet.

Read the whole thing for more on this concept.

Do-it-Yourself Health Reformers

Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit links to a growing way for primary care doctors to run their practices. In fact, in many ways, it's the old way: you pay the doctor directly.

I have been going to a primary care physician for years who does not accept insurance payments. I pay him a fixed amount each year which gives me the right to see him as many times as I wish. He gives me semi-annual physicals and provides referrals to specialists for any medical procedure requiring it. When I go to his office there is rarely anyone in his waiting room, so no time is wasted on my part. He spends an extraordinary amount of time with me each time I come to his office because he does not have to rush from patient to patient in order to make enough from insurance reimbursement to keep his practice afloat.

When he first announced his decision to change his business plan he explained that he figured that the amount of time he spent with his patients and filling out insurance claim forms on an hourly basis he was earning about as much as a good plumber. Plus he was on call at all hours day and night.

My first reaction was aggravation because I thought that I would have to find a new primary care physician who takes insurance. But after consideration for a few days I decided that I like my doctor enough to stay with him. I have never regretted it for a moment. For good doctors with an established practice I believe that this will be one of the biggest medical business models in the years ahead … especially if ObamaCare is implemented.

To save money for kids, let's have Obama fly commercial.

When Abraham Lincoln came to Washington he took a train. In fact, most of our Presidents travelled by commercial carrier or rode in their private vehicles. Only since FDR has the President travelled in taxpayer paid luxury. And the cost of that travel has become exorbitant. The cost of flying Air Force One is estimated to range between $60,000 to $181,000 dollars per hour. And that does not include the cost of the Air Force fighter jets that trail the plane, the second Air Force One that acts as a decoy, the limousines that precede the Presidential entourage and the hordes of hangers-on the accompany the President on his travels. Today, the President travels like an oriental potentate, except more expensively.

Just think of the number of college scholarships and food inspection programs this nation could fund if it had the moral courage to make the president fly first-class commercial on international long hauls, take Amtrak for shorter trips, and use Skype for critical one-on-one negotiations.

When are we going to have the first White House correspondent as Obama about the most expensive corporate jet in the universe when he goes on about the puny corporate jets that executives use? Let’s ask Obama apologist Wendell Goler.

The Feds "Heart" Illegal Aliens.

Here’s an interesting juxtaposition. On the one hand we have Dan Stein in the Washington Times inveighing against …

“Jose Antonio Vargas, a former Washington Post reporter, has come out of the closet and announced to the world that he is an illegal alien. In his tell-all confession, published in the New York Times Magazine, he outs not only himself, but others who abetted his illegal presence and employment in the United States, including The Post itself, which continued to employ him even after a member of the paper’s management learned that he had lied about his citizenship.”

What are the consequences for Senor Vargas?

Don’t anticipate any attempts to deport him. Despite claims to the contrary, the Obama administration opposes attempts by anyone to identify illegal aliens. In fact, they can get sued by the Obama/Holder Justice Department if they try to avoid hiring illegal aliens.

Ridiculous, you say? How’s this for exhibit "A"? Kerry Dougherty writing in the Virginian Pilot on June 30th

If you've ever suspected that Washington isn't exactly serious about stemming the tide of illegal immigration, get a load of the latest move by the Justice Department.

A crack legal team is going after a subsidiary of Smithfield Foods because it reportedly required more than the minimum amount of documentation from job applicants to prove that they were in the country legally.

In other words, Smithfield - a company that says it relies on immigrant labor - is in hot water for earnestly trying not to hire illegal workers.

And the corporation, which is headquartered in the Virginia town of the same name, will have to squander tractor-trailer loads of money on lawyers to get the feds off its back.

Illegal immigrants continue to pour into this country year after year, administration after administration, looking for work. Once they're here, an array of laws and regulations prevent public institutions - like schools and hospitals - from finding them.

The one place we ought to be able to identify illegal immigrants is on the job. Employers are required to make sure their workers are here legally. That's not always easy.

So what does Farmland Foods Inc., a unit of Smithfield, get for its extra diligence? It's being hounded by federal factotums apparently because it asked a Spanish-speaking applicant to provide proof that she's a naturalized citizen - after a background check showed that there was something odd about her Social Security number.

I've read the complaint. It levels the laughable charge of "document abuse" against Farmland because, in the course of a 2009 check on Dora De Paz - whose handwritten papers in the court filings are entirely in Spanish - the employer asked her to bring in copies of her naturalization papers.

Hello. It looks like the company was trying to give this woman a job. It had reason to believe there was something irregular about one of her documents so it asked for more. According to the court papers, this has happened many times. Now Farmland is beating back snarling federal "watchdogs."

So when you hear stories like Senor Vargas’ lifelong fears of being discovered, you can attribute it to fanciful rumors about the Federal government wishing to snatch him from his comfortable – if illegal - perch. The dirty little secret is that when it comes to illegal aliens, the Feds are on their side, even if they have to take employers to court if they get too nosy about the fake documents that they are being shown.    I suspect that Vargas has got this figured out, otherwise he would not have blown the whistle on himself. 

The evil of honesty.

I was intrigued by a comment that followed Yid with a Lid’s “Confessions of a Jew Basher (Eric Boehlert is Almost Right)” that mentioned the problem with people who set up one virtue to follow at all costs.

For example, if one chose to be honest, no matter what the consequences, one commits all sorts of grave errors, such as telling an axe-wielding maniac which way his screaming victim has fled. The sensible person would try to misdirect the maniac, but the honest-at-all-costs person tells the maniac the truth, puts the victim in grave danger, and walks away saying to himself, "I've been a good boy today-- how can God find fault with me for having told the truth?"

This is the kind of virtue that leads inexorably to extermination camps and genocide. After all, exterminating the evil ones is the ultimate societal good.  It’s the decision to prosecute the CIA interrogators because you can. Given the statistic that thanks to the complexity of the criminal code people commit about three felonies a day, the Javerts among us can arrest each of us and prosecute all of us and feel virtuous.

Senator Paul said on Newsmakers that he “will filibuster until we talk about the debt ceiling.”

I am a Conservative, not a Libertarian like Rand Paul, but I applaud him for promising to filibuster the Senate business until the discussions being held behind closed doors are opened to the public.

On Newsmakers, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) said he will hold up the Senate’s business next week to force a debate on the debt limit. The Senate canceled its Fourth of July break to ensure discussions on raising the debt ceiling continues, but most of the discussions are happening behind the scenes.

One of the reasons for the housing melt-down which brought on the Crash of 2008 was the back-room dealing that allowed Fannie Mae, predatory mortgage lenders and the Wall Street banks to lend trillions of dollars to people who had no hope of paying off their debts. That would not have been possible if it had not been for back-room deals that enriched a cozy coterie of well-commented Washington operators like James Johnson.

Right now Democrats and Republicans are meeting behind closed doors. While each may be making their case to their respective bases, you can be sure that the primary focus on each side will be to come to a deal that will get them re-elected. That kind of deal will probably not be the kind that solves the problems afflicting the economy, employing the unemployed, reducing the deficit (or the debt), or staving off the eventual bankruptcy of the twin pillars of the social safety net: Social Security and Medicare.

The only reason to have closed door meetings on issues as important as this is to find a face-saving solution that allows each side to claim victory. And that means the American people lose once again.

Choice only involves sex, drugs and abortion. Everything else is controlled.

Have you noticed that the Left is only protective of the sexual, drug and abortion rights?  Everything else, from your bathroom flush to the food you eat is subject to their invasive supervision.

Take your kids to a 4th of July parade to turn them into Republicans

Does this mean that Democrats really are unpatriotic?

Oikophobia -- fear and hatred of one's own culture and people.

MSNBC feeling the pressure of not being sufficiently pro-Obama, or something

Mika Brzezinski begging, BEGGING the guests on Morning Joe to tell us what Obama's doing right. Watch:

I'm Thinking of Changing the Name of This Blog to "The French Billionaire CEO"

Got the idea from The Other McCain who commented on This guy who is married to this actress   and has a child with this supermodel        

After careful consideration, I'm pretty happy where I am (except I would like to have a billion dollars and my own jet.   

An Outlaw President?

Obama Raffle Video Not Legal, Election Law Experts Say

Gallup: Obama's Approval Hits All-Time Low Among Poor, Is Highest Among Rich

Thanks to James Taranto in the WSJ, we find that Barack Obama has an approval rating under 50%.  But his approval is higher among the wealthy than the poor.

President Barack Obama’s approval has hit an all-time low among the poorest Americans, according to the Gallup poll. Meanwhile, when compared to the other income brackets reported by Gallup, Obama's approval is highest among the richest Americans.

One can speculate on the reasons for this but the one that seems most logical to me is that the richest Americans are the ones least affected by Obama’s policies. They are least likely to be the ones thrown out of work as the result of factory layoffs. They are not three out of four poor young high school or college graduates who can’t find a job. They are less likely to be one paycheck away from poverty. They spend a smaller proportion of their income on gas and food so it has less of an impact on their living standard.

When you are well off, you can still flatter yourself that supporting Obama is your contribution to affirmative action. Thanks to Republicans your taxes did not go up.  Those who are the victims of his policies are falling out of love ... fast.

The Yacht Tax Rises from the Grave; This Time It Wears Wings.

Remember the yacht tax? That was back in 1991 when the class warriors in congress decided that putting an excise tax on boats over $100,000 was an easy and painless way of taxing the rich.

Well, that’s not the way it worked out. The rich decided not to buy any new yachts. Instead of collecting taxes from the rich, the government ended up putting thousands of workers - the middle class that builds boats - at boatyards and marinas out of work.

The executive vice president of the National Marine Manufacturers Association, Frank Scalpone, said the tax had already adversely affected the nation's top boat builders. He cited companies like Pearson Yachts, O'Day Corporation, Shannon Boat Builders and Bristol Yachts as ones that have been forced out of business. "For production boat builders fighting the recession, it was the straw that broke the camel's back," Mr. Scalpone said.

How stupid do you have to be not to foresee this? Apparently you have to be as stupid as the average Democrat in government, as stupid as Barack Obama is about all the rest of the economy. Nothing, literally nothing that Obama has done about the US economy has worked out. Not the “stimulus,” not “cash for clunkers,” not support for underwater mortgages, not his “green jobs” initiatives, not his promise of “shovel ready” jobs. And now he’s suggesting a repeat of the disastrous yacht tax, but this time on aircraft.

If this passes, get ready for the destruction of the private jet industry and the 1.2 million people it employs. Like yachts, people and corporations can defer the purchase of a plane, or decide not to buy one altogether.

I don’t know if Obama knows this or if he does know, whether he cares. I suspect he sees it as a campaign talking point useful in portraying Republicans as the party of the rich but which will never be enacted into law. If the Republicans were bloody minded enough, they might be tempted to go along just to see the corporate jet business crash and burn as the result of the Obama tax and use it as an election issue. An added benefit would be to hurt GE – a huge jet engine manufacturer - whose chairman, Jeff Immelt, is a major Obama backer. It could be a win-win.

UPDATE:  The Other McCain on the jet tax. 

And Rush Limbaugh: With the Obama Myth Shattered, What's Left is a Failing Narcissist.

Well, that's all Obama's got. All he has is class warfare. You know, Obama's out there chiding the Republicans for not acting like grownups. So when's he gonna go answer questions about jobs or the economy? He just... I don't know. The White House says they're gonna host a Twitter town hall with President Obama on July 6, and that's where the president will answer questions submitted via Twitter which limits messages to 140 characters. "The town hall will focus on jobs and the economy and a video feed of Obama's answers will be streamed online." So he's gonna go answer questions about jobs and the economy on Twitter.

Limbaugh on taking Obama seriously:

How do you take this guy seriously? The only reason you take this guy seriously is because of the power he's got but you don't take him seriously because of his intellect. He can make fun of, he can mock 535 members of Congress for not showing leadership while he refuses to lead. How do you take that seriously? He can brag that his pre-teenage daughters don't wait 'til the last minute to finish their homework while he hasn't even turned in last year's budget -- and he gets their ages wrong! He doesn't even know how old his daughters are. So on the one hand you have to take it seriously; on the other hand you feel like a fool for doing so.

Nothing funny about government limits on political speech

If Lefty comedian Colbert can do it, why not everyone? Who wants to contribute to my SuperPAC?

Obama Travels to Philly… Tea Party Breaks Out (Video)

Mark Halperin Called Obama a Dick on MSNBC

“I thought he was a kind of a dick yesterday,” Halperin, who also is an editor at large for Time, said on “Morning Joe,” referring to the president’s conduct during his press conference.

When a Democrat loses TIME, he's lost his base.

Harvard: July 4th Parades Are Right-Wing

Democratic political candidates can skip this weekend's July 4th parades. A new Harvard University study finds that July 4th parades energize only Republicans, turn kids into Republicans, and help to boost the GOP turnout of adults on Election Day.

"Fourth of July celebrations in the United States shape the nation's political landscape by forming beliefs and increasing participation, primarily in favor of the Republican Party," said the report from Harvard.

Conclusion: patriotism is Republican. What does that make Democrats?

Mitt Romney uses closed Allentown shop to hit Obama

 

Rubio Blasts Obama: ‘Left-Wing Strong Man’

National Review Online

Rubio tells us that he will respond to Obama’s recent press conference, where the president reveled in class-warfare bluster. “Quite frankly, I am both disappointed for our country and shocked at some of the rhetoric,” he says. “It was rhetoric, I thought, that was more appropriate for some left-wing strong man than for the president of the United States.”

“Talking about corporate jets and oil companies,” Rubio says, missed the point. “Everybody here agrees that our tax code is broken,” he says, and he is open to discussing tax reform. “But don’t go around telling people that the reason you are not doing well is because some rich guy is in a corporate jet or some oil company is making too much money.”