Awkward: Obama Acknowledges Buying Off Seniors

We need more cowbell!!!!!

Because we all know that the reason Coackley got clobbered was because we didn't

Barack Obama was undoubtedly sincere in what he promised, even if his promises were within the normal range of political exaggeration. The first trouble is that his gift for inspiration aroused expectations, stoked to unprecedented heights by his own staff, that he would solve the climate crisis on Monday, the jobs crisis on Tuesday, the financial crisis on Wednesday, the education crisis on Thursday, Afghanistan on Friday, Iraq on Saturday, and rest on Sunday. His oratorical skills were highlighted by the contrast with President Bush, who mangled words so much that his incoherence became, as Tina Brown wrote, "a metaphor for incompetence." Expectations were spurred, too, by Obama's recognition that Americans yearned for a new kind of politics, a rejection, as he put it, of "politics as usual."

Perhaps the inevitable outcome was disappointment—and on this Obama has not disappointed. Alas, he has accelerated the deflation of hope with his extraordinary volume of public appearances. In his first six months, he gave three times as many interviews as George W. Bush, four times as many prime-time news conferences as Bill Clinton, and more interviews than both combined: 93 for Obama and 61 for his two immediate predecessors. He appeared on five Sunday talk shows on the same morning, followed the next day by David Letterman, the first-ever presidential appearance on a nighttime comedy show. In another week, he squeezed in addresses to the U.S. Climate Change Summit, the U.N. General Assembly, the U.N. Security Council, and a variety of press conferences.

His promiscuity on TV has made him seem as if he is still a candidate instead of president and commander in chief. He—and his advisers—have failed to appreciate that national TV speeches are best reserved for those moments when the country faces a major crisis or a war. Now he faces the iron law of diminishing novelty.

Despite this apparent accessibility, Obama's reliance on a teleprompter for flawless delivery made for boring and unemotional TV, compounding his cerebral and unemotional style. He has seemed not close but distant, not engaged but detached. Is it any wonder that the mystique of his presidency has eroded so that fewer people have listened to each successive foray? The columnist Richard Cohen wryly observed that he won the Pulitzer Prize for being the only syndicated columnist who did not have an exclusive interview with the president.

More....

Supreme court recognizes the 1st amendment

So the court ruled that most of McCain Feingold was unconstitutional.

Boy, what a relief given that everyone outside of the court already knew that. What kills me are the four dumb asses on the court who didn't seem to get that.

The break down was predictable. Five justices who believe in the constitution and four who believe in government dictate and oppression.

You can probably figure out who they are.

Who did he vote for? #33

Meet Albert Barnett. Why is Albert in the news?

A member of Cincinnati's housing authority board retaliated against a local attorney and may have violated federal law last year when he urged his staff to put low-income housing in the attorney's neighborhood, federal officials say. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development made the retaliation accusation in a complaint against the Cincinnati Metropolitan Housing Authority and board member Arnold Barnett.

The complaint, which became public Thursday, was filed in October and is the basis for a continuing federal investigation into possible discrimination at the housing authority.

The complaint is based on comments Barnett made in August after he was accused by attorney Robert Newman of creating and enforcing policies that discriminate against African-Americans.

At the time, Barnett told The Enquirer that he had asked the housing authority's staff to consider acquiring more public housing units in Hyde Park, the affluent Cincinnati neighborhood where Newman lives.

"If he likes it so much, let's give him a few," said Barnett, who was then chairman of the housing authority's board.

So in November, 2008 did Albert here pull the chain for The One or The Maverick?

Nah, I can't see any bureaucratic vengeance being played out when the feds run our health care. Right?

Read the whole story.....

Minimum wage in practice

Yesterday, I received a call from a client. Below is roughly the conversation.....

Her - Gordon, I have a couple of employees here who would like me to hire their kids for a couple of hours after school until their shift ends. They are 16. Do I have to pay minimum wage?

Me - Yes, in Ohio the minimum wage is $7.25.

Her - Are you kidding me? All they're going to do is take out the garbage and help clean up.

Me - Sorry, but that's the law.

Her - I don't really need them but I thought I'd give them a job to take some of the load off during our pick up time. I thought for $5.00/hr it would be worth it but I can't justify paying that.

Me - Welcome to the NFL.

So class, let's walk through what the minimum wage was supposed to do versus what is actually happening.

1) It was supposed to pick up the wages of workers who have families. Instead it blocks employment opportunities for young people trying to get an entry way into the job market.

2) Instead of getting money into the hands of workers, it just increased the work load for those already employed.

3) I don't now if these kids would be counted for purposes of teenage unemployment but instead of having a couple of teenagers making 40 - 50 bucks a week, they'll now get to go home and get knocked up by some other unemployed teenagers.

It's all coming to plan.

Who did he vote for? #4401

Meet unidentified prisoner in a courthouse who tries to dive through a bullet proof window.

November, 2008, did this guy pull the chain for The Messiah or The Maverick.

America Rising An Open Letter to Democrat Politicians

More on our National Security stooges

These guys should walk around with the big fat clown shoes and a spraying flower on their lapels......

There is one reason that White House should be thrilled about the Massachusetts Senate race. It crowded out news that came out of the stunning testimony of Obama administration officials Wednesday on the Christmas Day terrorist attack. Four top counterterrorism officials testified before a congressional committee that they were not consulted about how to handle the interrogation of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the al Qaeda operative who attempted to blow up Flight 253 on December 25, 2008. That group included all three senior Obama administration officials who testified before the Senate Homeland Security Committee on Wednesday: Janet Napolitano, Secretary of Homeland Security; Michael Leiter, chairman of the National Counterterrorism Center; and Dennis Blair, the Director of National Intelligence. It also included FBI Director Robert Mueller.

With surprising candor, Blair, the nation's top intelligence official, explained that these officials were not deliberately excluded from the decisionmaking process in the immediate aftermath of the attack. Rather, he told the Senate Homeland Security Committee, there was no process at all.

"I've been a part of the discussions which established this high-value interrogation unit, [HIG] which we started as part of the executive order after the decision to close Guantanamo. That unit was created for exactly this purpose -- to make a decision on whether a certain person who's detained should be treated as a case for federal prosecution or for some of the other means. We did not invoke the HIG in this case," he said. "We should have."

Read the rest of this outrage here...........

You keep believing that

Obama says Scott Brown was elected because he has been so busy "getting stuff done" instead of "speaking directly to the American people." But in his first year, according to Mark Knoller of CBS, Obama delivered "speeches, comments, and remarks" 411 times (including 52 times specifically on health care) and also gave 158 interviews. Knoller: "This is a striking number of interviews and far more than any of his recent predecessors in their first year."

So how is he going to start "speaking directly to the American people"? Do we need an Obamacam that follows him everywhere?

Yeah O. We're all dying for you to get on TV and tell us how we're supposed to love your agenda until we agree. That's communication to a liberal.

Clue phone to O. You might want to try the other side of that communication equation for a change.

But hey, just keep doing more of what your doing. That seems to be working for you.

From NRO.........

Figures. Obama Blames Bush for Martha Coakley Loss in Massachusetts

Clue phone to Obama.

Blaming your predecessor is not an effective governing strategy.

Circus clowns aka our national security team

The audacity of audacity

Form taxprof

President Obama today issued a presidential memorandum directing the Office of Management and Budget, the Treasury Department, and other federal agencies to block contractors who are delinquent on their taxes from receiving new government contracts. The memorandum also directs the IRS to review the accuracy of companies' tax delinquency claims and asks Congress to enact enforecement tools.

He's probably trying to force them into cabinet positions..........

Tea Partiers..... Can you hear us now?

Now that voter discontent has appeared in the bluest of blue states, and it's focused on the president's handling of terror, taxes, and health care, it's become much harder to marginalize Tea Party activists and other critics of the administration as:

"extremist mobs" by the Democratic National Committee, pawns of the insurance industry by Senator Dick Durbin, "un-American" by Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer, "brownshirts" by Representative Brian Baird of Washington, "manufactured" and "Astroturf" by White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, "evilmongers" by Senator Harry Reid, accused of "fear-mongering" by the president, and been deemed "political terrorists" by Representative Baron Hill of Indiana.

It was always wishful thinking to believe that town hall protesters were a tiny segment of the country— all sound and fury signifying nothing. Even when it was a smaller group, their concerns were legitimate. It was disrespectful and dumb of Democrats to smear people giving voice to their worries, evincing the exact arrogance that turned voters in Massachusetts away from Martha Coakley.

As Brown's win showed, it signified something, indeed. Perhaps Coakley's loss would not have snuck up on national Democrats and Coakley herself if they hadn't spent the last year minimizing and denigrating administration critics. It's easy to think you've got an election in the bag when you assume your only opposition is a tiny clan of noisy, redneck racists (and, how many of those could there by in Massachusetts, anyway?).

It's easy to do a mediocre job selling one's sweeping health-care overhaul when you assume anyone against it just lives to hate poor people and/or do violence to President Obama.

Democrats fooled themselves into believing the town-hall/Tea Party caricature and ignored the feelings of real Americans.

And, to their electoral detriment, the media (particularly the MSNBC crew) abetted them in this fantasy. As of last night, the media have finally started to change their tune on the Tea Party movement. I was shocked to hear Chris Matthews concede that Democrats had not learned to talk to those critical of the administration, to assuage their worries. Perhaps that was partly because their picture of those critics was painted by...Chris Matthews, who called 60-something veterans "terrorists," and compared peaceful protesters to aspiring Timothy McVeighs. Maybe that had something to do with the lack of engagement.

David Gregory took the same turn as Matthews this morning, saying of Scott Brown's message, on "Morning Joe:"

"This is about incumbency and whether government's working for you...What Scott Brown spoke to is whether government is working. That's what really cuts through all this is whether government is working for the peple. That's what's fueling the Tea Party movement."

Oh, is that what's fueling the Tea Party movement? A benign and even noble critique of government as overreaching and irresponsible, and unresponsive to the real needs of citizens while it's indulging giant, ideological power grabs? I could have sworn it was racism.

Read more Mary Katherine Ham

Democrats meet delusional

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

When a guy who gets all tingly calls you delusional, you have a problem.

The Obama terrorist circus come to NY

Watch the freak show of terrorists being tried in a courthouse near you........

The erratic terror suspect dubbed "Lady Al Qaeda" was tossed from her own trial Tuesday after a courtroom rant declaring she never plotted to blow up New York landmarks.

Aafia Siddiqui's diatribe came as a U.S. Army captain described the savage look on her face when she opened fire on a roomful of military personnel in Afghanistan.

"She was very determined, very agitated," Capt. Robert Snyder testified. "It was clear in my mind what her intent was. A vision of hatred ... shooting at us. Shooting at me."

Siddiqui, 37, interrupted Snyder to declare her innocence "since I'll never get a chance to speak."

Although she was arrested carrying a list of potential terror targets including the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building, Siddiqui insisted she was not planning any attacks.

"Give me a little credit, this is not a list of targets of New York," she said. "I was never planning to bomb it. You're lying."

The outburst, in front of a Manhattan Federal Court jury, led Judge Richard Berman to order Siddiqui's removal by court officers about 11:15 a.m.

Where's "Side Show" Eric Holder? He needs to emcee the NY Courtroom he's turned into a big top.

More.....

We've got Captain Kangaroo handling terrorists

This is truly unbelievable..........

Sessions asked again: "Who made the decision that he would be treated as if he were a criminal to be tried in civilian courts and be provided Miranda warnings? Who?"

"The decision to arrest him, put him in criminal courts," Mueller answered, "the decision was made by the agents on the ground. The ones that took him from the plane and then followed up on the arrest -- "

"So the decision was made by agents on the ground based on some protocol or some policy that they understood?" Sessions asked.

"Based on an ongoing, very fluid situation," Mueller answered, "in which they are trying to gather the facts and determine what culpability this individual had, but as important as determining the culpability of this individual, what other threats were out there that needed to be addressed?"

After the agents decided to treat Abdulmutallab as a civilian criminal, he was given a lawyer and a Miranda warning informing he had the right to remain silent. "Immediately, I assume, the lawyer advised his client not to talk," said Sessions.

"Without getting too much into the details," Mueller answered, "in this particular case the agents interviewed him for a period of time for any information relating to ongoing and other threats -- "

"Before or after a Miranda warning was given?"

"Before Miranda warnings were given."

Had this come out before the MA election, Brown would have won by 10+.

Read the rest and be outraged here.......

Williams on the global warming cult aka Branch Gorevidians

He missed any purple Nike references but he nails it none the less........

Manmade global warming, for many, is an Earth-worshipping religion. The essential feature of any religion is that its pronouncements are to be accepted on the basis of faith as opposed to hard evidence. Questioning those pronouncements makes one a sinner. No one denies that the Earth’s temperature changes. Millions of years ago, much of our planet was covered by ice, at some places up to a mile thick, a period some scientists call “Snowball Earth.” Today, the Earth is not covered by a mile of ice; a safe conclusion is that there must have been a bit of global warming. I don’t know the cause of that warming, but I’d wager everything I own that it was not caused by coal-fired electric generation plants, incandescent light bulbs and SUVs tooling up and down the highways.

The very idea that mankind can make significant parametric changes to the Earth has to be the height of arrogance. How about a few questions because temperature is just one characteristic of the Earth. The Earth’s orbit is another. If all 6.5 billion of us, all at once, started jumping up and down for a little while, do you think we’d change the Earth’s orbit or rotation? Do you think mankind could change the direction and timing of the ocean’s tides? Is there anything that mankind can do to stop or start a tsunami or hurricane? You say, “Williams, it’s stupid to suggest that mankind could change the Earth’s orbit or rotation, ocean tides or cause or stop a tsunami or hurricane!” You’re right and it’s also stupid to think that mankind’s activities can make globalized changes in the Earth’s temperature.

Nonetheless, there is much at stake in getting people to subscribe to the global warming religion. There is so much at stake that some scientists, using government grants, are fraudulently manipulating climate data and engaging in criminal activity, as revealed in what has been called “Climate gate.” One of the most dangerous features of the global warming religion is its level of intimidation of heretics or would-be heretics.

More.....

The same as it ever was

Remember the good old days when you put baseball cards in your bicycle spokes and it was the banks' fault for not loaning money to people in order to spur the economy.

Well apparently, it's not just the banks but the feds who are holding back.

It's going to be harder to get a government-backed mortgage from now on.

Looking to shore up its weakening finances, the Federal Housing Administration is set to announce stricter standards on Wednesday.

The agency, which insured nearly a third of new mortgages in 2009, will increase the premium it charges for its mortgage insurance and require those with weaker credit scores to come up with larger downpayments.

The FHA will also reduce the amount of money a seller can provide a homebuyer for closing costs, as well as tighten its enforcement of lenders.

"Striking the right balance between managing the FHA's risk, continuing to provide access to underserved communities, and supporting the nation's economic recovery is critically important," FHA Commissioner David Stevens said in a statement. "Importantly, FHA will remain the largest source of home purchase financing for underserved communities."

Thanks Jeremy for the link

The Kraut dog gets it

Sorry for my Randy Jackson there.

But Charles Krauthammer gets what seems to elude all those other intellectual elites.........

It's not about style; it's about substance. About which Obama has been admirably candid. This out-of-nowhere, least-known of presidents dropped the veil most dramatically in the single most important political event of 2009, his Feb. 24 first address to Congress. With remarkable political honesty and courage, Obama unveiled the most radical (in American terms) ideological agenda since the New Deal: the fundamental restructuring of three pillars of American society -- health care, education and energy.

Then began the descent -- when, more amazingly still, Obama devoted himself to turning these statist visions into legislative reality. First energy, with cap-and-trade, an unprecedented federal intrusion into American industry and commerce. It got through the House, with its Democratic majority and Supreme Soviet-style rules. But it will never get out of the Senate.

Then, the keystone: a health-care revolution in which the federal government will regulate in crushing detail one-sixth of the U.S. economy. By essentially abolishing medical underwriting (actuarially based risk assessment) and replacing it with government fiat, Obamacare turns the health insurance companies into utilities, their every significant move dictated by government regulators. The public option was a sideshow. As many on the right have long been arguing, and as the more astute on the left (such as The New Yorker's James Surowiecki) understand, Obamacare is government health care by proxy, single-payer through a facade of nominally "private" insurers.

At first, health-care reform was sustained politically by Obama's own popularity. But then gravity took hold, and Obamacare's profound unpopularity dragged him down with it. After 29 speeches and a fortune in squandered political capital, it still will not sell.

The health-care drive is the most important reason Obama has sunk to 46 percent. But this reflects something larger. In the end, what matters is not the persona but the agenda. In a country where politics is fought between the 40-yard lines, Obama has insisted on pushing hard for the 30. And the American people -- disorganized and unled but nonetheless agitated and mobilized -- have put up a stout defense somewhere just left of midfield.

More......

I want to believe!

David Brooks, educated idiot, on The One.........

A year ago, the country rallied behind a new president who promised to end the pendulumlike swings, who seemed likely to restore equilibrium with his moderate temper and pragmatic mind.

In many ways, Barack Obama has lived up to his promise. He has created a thoughtful, pragmatic administration marked by a culture of honest and vigorous debate. When Obama makes a decision, you can be sure that he has heard and accounted for every opposing argument. If he senses an important viewpoint is not represented at a meeting, he will stop the proceedings and demand that it gets included.

If the evidence leads him in directions he finds uncomfortable, he will still follow the evidence. He is beholden to no ideological camp, and there is no group in his political base that he has not angered at some point in his first year.

Brooks says this despite the fact that he's shown an almost 100% alignment with all things liberal.

He says this in spite of the below video post where he says he wants a capital gains tax rate increase, even if it reduces treasury receipts, due to fairness.

Hey David, does honest and vigorous debate mean giving in to union concessions on health care?

Are these guys smoking too much weed or am I in some alternative universe.......

Read the rest of this hilarity here........

Obama: Raise Taxes, Capital Gains - "For Purposes of Fairness"

Are these the words of someone who is a uniter?

A disappointed Obamunist

Mort Zuckerman's not happy..........

In the campaign, he said he would change politics as usual. He did change them. It’s now worse than it was. I’ve now seen the kind of buying off of politicians that I’ve never seen before. It’s politically corrupt and it’s starting at the top. It’s revolting.

Five states got deals on health care—one of them was Harry Reid’s. It is disgusting, just disgusting. I’ve never seen anything like it. The unions just got them to drop the tax on Cadillac plans in the health-care bill. It was pure union politics. They just went along with it. It’s a bizarre form of political corruption. It’s bribery. I suppose they could say, that’s the system. He was supposed to change it or try to change it.

Even that is not the worst part. He could have said, “I know. I promised these things, but let me try to do them one at a time.” You want to deal with health care? Fine. Issue No. 1 with health care was the cost. You know I think it was 37 percent or 33 who were worried about coverage. Fine, I wrote an editorial to this effect. Focus on cost-containment first. But he’s trying to boil the ocean, trying to do too much. This is not leadership.

Obama’s ability to connect with voters is what launched him. But what has surprised me is how he has failed to connect with the voters since he’s been in office. He’s had so much overexposure. You have to be selective. He was doing five Sunday shows. How many press conferences? And now people stop listening to him. The fact is he had 49.5 million listeners to first speech on the economy. On Medicare, he had 24 million. He’s lost his audience. He has not rallied public opinion. He has plunged in the polls more than any other political figure since we’ve been using polls. He’s done everything wrong. Well, not everything, but the major things.

I don’t consider it a triumph. I consider it a disaster.

Here's my question for these media types.

What on Obama's resume indicated that he was anything but a full blown political hack? Was it.....

His relationship with Reverand Wright?

How about his relationship with Bill Ayres and Bernadette Dohrn?

How about his work for ACORN?

Maybe it was his US senate and state senate experience, where he brought opposing forces together to accomplish.........?

The fact is these clowns like Zuckerman and David Brooks and Peggy Noonan and Kathryn Parker remind me of the poster in Fox Mulder's office on the X-files

I want to Believe!

They so wanted to believe they never did the actual investigation into his background and now they're disappointed?

And they call us here in flyover country "pedestrian".

Read the whole thing and laugh your ass off!

Obama gets run over by the truck

Some thoughts on the Massachusetts election last night...

1) Hey O, how's that truck working for you now? Any other slams you want to get over on working guys today?

2) For Rachel, Eddie, Chrissy, and Keith, that tea bag's probably a little hard to get out of your throat isn't it. By the way, when will you guys get a black man on one of your shows.

3) The way I see it, the electorate is looking for a smaller, efficient and EFFECTIVE government. The republicans lost their jobs because conservatives abandoned the party who refused to provide that. 2000 page health care bills? Now independents are abandoning democrats for the same. Do you think the Obamunists will listen?

4) Before republicans get all giddy about their fall chances, maybe they need to read the tea leaves. See #3. It once again proves that conservative values win, (even in Massachusetts) not if all you can run on is gay marriage and abortion but actually running and delivering on a SMALLER, EFFICIENT AND EFFECTIVE government (see tea parties).

5) Coakley's campaign was indicative of a party full of arrogance and tin ear listening abilities; like it was run by the Obama administration.

Have a great day.

Waterloo

I'm not an ABBA fan but this song seems to fit.

The Misogyny Party

1) The state is largely democratic. 2) They don't elect women

Hmmmmmm.

The Party of Thugs

Why is This Woman Handing Out Absentee Ballots?

The audacity of douche baggery

I wanted to wait until the election results to lay this out. But how big of a douche bag snob is Obama to bring up Scott Brown's pick up truck in his Marcia (or Martha) Coakley stump speech?

For sure, I think Brown used his truck for some imagery to connect to the "common man"; someone you might meet in fly over country. So for Obama to piss all over this imagery is a big time rookie mistake akin to the whole "clinging to guns and God" in his campaign.

His speech and the Coakley campaign as a whole, totally exemplifies the arrogance of the democratic party towards the common folk they say they represent.

You know, the ones who actually own and drive pick ups.



Thanks Jeremy for the reminder.

Why health care costs keep climbing

I'm old enough to remember that people didn't call it insurance, but hospitalization, because insurance companies didn't pay a dime until you had a major medical situation.

Doctors appointments, meds, routine procedures were paid out of pocket by the consumer of the care involved.

When third parties pick up the tab, there's less incentive for anyone to watch their consumption of medical care.

I'm no different. Ten years ago, I had an inpatient surgical procedure. I never asked one person what something was going to cost. While my situation was chronic, I would have damn well lived with the pain if my procedure would have cost me ten thousand out of my own pocket.

For you people who have this inclination to believe in the "science" of global warming, how is it that you can't grasp this concept?

Once again, let me lay out the two quasi medical procedures where there is no third party pays and what has happened to the costs.....

They are Laser eye surgery and cosmetic surgery. I recently met a guy who offered me a deal for laser eye surgery ($500.00 an eye). When you consider the advances in the technology the price of this procedure is actually going down.

In addition, boob jobs were once the domain for the rich and famous. Now? You can get a botox injection in a beauty salon. You can fund a boob job, tummy tuck, ear lobe reduction on your VISA.

But we don't want to confront the real issues surrounding health care. Instead, we want to base a solution on a non existing problem.

Just remember, there's a difference between coverage and treatment and The Obamunists are going to give us one without the other.

Sign of the day

From reader Bernie.......

We're now and always have been a conservative country

Something The Obamunists may want to remember...........

The Democratic party's problems, crystallized in the last-ditch scramble to save Ted Kennedy's Massachusetts Senate seat in a special election Tuesday, can be traced to a simple mistake: Many in the party misread voters' desire to switch parties in recent years as an ideological shift to the left.

In fact, there is little sign that Americans' ideological tendencies changed much at all, even as voters gave control of Congress to Democrats in 2006 and handed President Barack Obama and the rest of his party a massive victory in 2008. Ideologically, the country remained throughout this period what it was at the outset: a center to center-right nation.

Throughout this period of Democratic rise, America was instead a centrist nation that simply had become fed up with Republican rule, largely because of concerns about the GOP's competence and its tone deafness. Voters' response was to shift parties more than ideologies.

Tone deafness? Sounds a lot like the president and congress today.

More.....

When they eat their own

Life is good.........

As they face the growing possibility that Massachusetts Democratic Senate candidate Martha Coakley will lose the race to fill the seat formerly held by Sen. Ted Kennedy, some Democrats are settling on a new strategy to blame the defeat not only on Coakley's inept campaign but also on her personality and strained relations with both the Kennedy family and President Obama. At the same time, Democrats are working to position themselves to push Coakley aside and focus on defeating a Sen. Scott Brown, should the Republican run for a full six-year term in 2012.

"Everybody is scrambling and freaking out," says one Democratic strategist of the mood among Democrats now. Coakley's run has taught the once-triumphant party that "a lackluster, uninspiring campaign is not going to get it done, even in the bluest states." But with feelings running deep, some Democrats are blaming Coakley in a much more personal way.

"She's kind of aloof," the Democrat says. "There are people who will vote for her who don't really have a sense that they like or trust her. The Kennedys aren't really fond of her. She basically announced her campaign the day Ted died, and didn't give Vicki the opportunity to think about [running to replace her husband]. From the Kennedy side of the ledger, there's no great love for Coakley. They look at her as kind of a predatory politician."

Coakley made no secret of her desire to run for Kennedy's seat well before Kennedy died in August of last year. Kennedy nephew Stephen E. Smith later told the Boston Herald, "She set up a committee six months before my uncle died. There were people on the corner with a huge 'Coakley for Senate' sign two days after his funeral." Coakley formally announced her candidacy a week after Kennedy's death. One of Coakley's main rivals for the Democratic nomination, Rep. Michael Capuano, told the Herald, "I couldn't do it. I couldn't step over someone's grave."

More....

The Divider and Chief

Do you remember the good old days when TV was in black and white and Bush was the divider and chief?

Well apparently, The One picked up where Bush left off.....

“We have something very special here,” Obama’s top political aide Axelrod is quoted as saying. “I feel like I’ve been handed a porcelain baby.” Axelrod tells Obama — dubbed by his aides as the “Black Jesus” — that voters were looking for “a president who can bring the country together, who can reach beyond partisanship, and who’ll be tough on special interests.”

That was what we were promised. What we got instead is a president who increased the divisions in our nation, the most partisan and polarizing figure in the history of polling, one who is dogmatic and has been as generous to special interests as any we have seen. The efforts to buy votes in pursuit of the Obama agenda has added sewage to the cesspool.

This would hurt any president under any circumstances; for Barack Obama, whose allure was based almost entirely on his ability to convince the public that he embodied a “new politics,” it has been doubly damaging. It was Hillary Clinton of all people who understood Obama best when she said during the campaign, “We have to make people understand that he’s not real.”

More......

Scott Brown vs. Martha Coakley: It's All About Enthusiasm

More clown time from the Obamunists

Top administration officials are getting nervous that they may not be able to proceed with one of their most controversial national-security moves: trying Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other accused 9/11 conspirators in federal court in New York City. Last November Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. portrayed the trial as a way to showcase the American justice system to the world — and to accelerate President Obama’s stalled plans to shut down the U.S. prison at Guantánamo Bay. But because of shifting political winds in Congress, the trial is now “potentially in jeopardy,” a senior official, who did not want to be named talking about a sensitive situation, tells Newsweek. The chief concern: that Republicans will renew attempts to strip funding for the trial and, in the aftermath of the bombing attempt aboard Northwest Flight 253, pick up enough support from moderate Democrats to prevail.

Read the whole thing....

Scott Brown Worcester Rally.mpg

Life in "Progress" City

From the Golden Gate city of San Francisco, who hasn't had a conservative in city government since man created time........

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors' new sanctuary law - intended to block the city from alerting the feds to young illegal immigrant criminal suspects who haven't been convicted - has come into focus again with the arrest of an undocumented 15-year-old in a double slaying at a Mission District pizzeria.

The youth - a native of Mexico who attends John O'Connell High School - is one of three suspects in the Sept. 20 killings at Papa Potrero's Pizza on 24th Street. Police say the boy helped hold the victims down while they were shot in an apparent act of revenge for an earlier gang slaying.

He's been charged as a juvenile with murder, and now the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has slapped a hold on him - meaning someone with the city let the feds know about him.

Read more....

Modest Expectations From An Obama Supporter

We're one year into The Messiah's administration.

I wonder how things are working out for Peggy Joseph and her band of liberals?

Burning Down The House: What Caused Our Economic Crisis? Bombshell

A rewind of how we got here

From the "tolerant" folks

Oh, they're tolerant. As long as you agree with them............

Chai Feldblum, the Georgetown University law professor nominated by President Obama to serve on the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, has written that society should “not tolerate” any “private beliefs,” including religious beliefs, that may negatively affect homosexual “equality.”

Feldblum, whose nomination was advanced in a closed session of the Senate Health Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee on December 12, published an article entitled “Moral Conflict and Liberty: Gay Rights and Religion” in the Brooklyn Law Review in 2006.

“Just as we do not tolerate private racial beliefs that adversely affect African-Americans in the commercial arena, even if such beliefs are based on religious views, we should similarly not tolerate private beliefs about sexual orientation and gender identity that adversely affect LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender] people,” the Georgetown law professor argued.

Read the rest...........

Unemployment effects you

An excellent piece on how long term unemployment hurts all of us; even those of us with jobs........

Today in America, more than six people are competing for every one open job. There's a good chance your boss could fire you tomorrow and replace you with someone who'd be happy to do your job for less.

Your boss probably won't do that. It's too much trouble to train the replacement. But your annual raise (if any) will probably be less than the rate of inflation (in effect a pay cut). You might be required to take furlough days (another way to cut pay) or accept a reduction in benefits (a pay cut).

Such is the corrosive effect of a high rate of unemployment. With the supply of willing workers exceeding the demand for their labor, a downward pressure on wages and salaries is inevitable. Pay scales in entire sectors of the economy are probably too high to be sustained.

That's why unemployment isn't a problem just for the unemployed. It affects everyone who works for a paycheck. If it continues long enough, high unemployment will drive down pay across the board, and with it the American standard of living.

It might be happening already.

Read the rest here....

Union leaders rips off members. Media yawns

Maybe this falls under the "tell me something new" department.......

LIUNA Local 147 is an elite underground construction unit known as the “Sandhogs.” With roots going back well over 100 years, the heavily Irish-ethnic 1,000-member union represents the workers who dig New York City’s subway, sewer and water tunnels, often at hundreds of feet beneath the ground. It was the sandhogs who did the excavation work for such engineering marvels as the Lincoln, Holland, Queens-Midtown and Brooklyn-Battery Tunnels. Their massive ongoing main project, the Third Water Tunnel, when completed in 2020 at a projected cost of roughly $6 billion, will carry 1.3 billion gallons of water per day for 9 million area residents and ensure that water keeps running should either of the first two tunnels fails. It’s grueling and dangerous work. And the workers are paid well. They also expect to collect their full retirement benefits. But thanks to the alleged actions of Melissa King, there’s a distinct possibility they won’t.

King, 58, a resident of Irvington, N.Y., through her home-based company, King Care LLC, handled all administrative functions for Sandhog benefit funds since 1980, and at an annual official compensation that eventually reached $540,000. That’s pretty lavish even for an international union president. Apparently, it wasn’t lavish enough. Starting in 2002, prosecutors charge, King illegally transferred about $42 million from three union accounts covering pensions, vacation pay and other benefits to accounts she personally controlled. A large portion of it, to put it lightly, was unrelated to union business. Of the alleged thefts, $7.2 million went to pay off American Express bills, more than $3 million to equestrian businesses (apparently she was grooming her daughter for an equestrian career), and $713,500 to a jewelry business. The criminal complaint states she also transferred $500,000 to an E*Trade Securities account without union authorization.

More.....

Why I'm a conservative #44

Because I understand, that even in the face of failure, once they're in place, you can't get rid of them. You need to look no further than Head Start......

HHS has finally released the second installment of its series of studies on the persistence of Head Start effects. Its finding (see page xiv): virtually all academic effects disappear by the end of 1st grade. There is only one positive statistically significant finding out of eleven academic outcomes measured, the size of that effect is minuscule by recognized standards (it’s half way between zero and what most social scientists consider “small”), and the confidence in the finding is low by recognized standards. (Many authors would categorize it as “insignificant” rather than “significant” — it’s only significant at a 90% confidence interval, not the more common 95% confidence interval).

We have spent more than $100 billion on the program to date (ballpark estimate from Table 375 here) and HHS’s own research shows that its results diminish to essentially nothing by the end of the first grade.

There are other government education programs whose effects actually grow substantially over time, and that are comparatively economical. Consider the federal DC voucher program. Just a year or two after switching from public to private schools, the effect of the private schooling was not big enough to rise to the level of statistical significance. But by their third year in private schools, the evidence was clear that voucher-receiving students were reading more than two grade levels above a randomized control group that stayed in public schools. This program, as I’ve previously documented, costs 1/4 as much per pupil as DC spends on public education: about $6,600 vs. $28,000.

But Congress, and particularly Democrats, have defunded the DC voucher program while raising spending on Head Start. President Obama is at the forefront of this travesty. If you weren’t already jaded and disgusted by education politics and its domination by employee unions opposed to educational choice, start now.

More at Cato.....

Tea bagging from the woman who doesn't know her congressman

Roundtable: Obama's Report Card

Kind of funny Katrina keeps saying tea bagger since I think I know someone who's done this to her.

Obama Heckled in Boston at Coakley Rally.... Boston?

Liberal Panic! Scott Brown Win is "The End Of Change As We Know It!"

More lies from the Branch Gorevidians

A WARNING that climate change will melt most of the Himalayan glaciers by 2035 is likely to be retracted after a series of scientific blunders by the United Nations body that issued it.

Two years ago the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a benchmark report that was claimed to incorporate the latest and most detailed research into the impact of global warming. A central claim was the world's glaciers were melting so fast that those in the Himalayas could vanish by 2035.

In the past few days the scientists behind the warning have admitted that it was based on a news story in the New Scientist, a popular science journal, published eight years before the IPCC's 2007 report.

It has also emerged that the New Scientist report was itself based on a short telephone interview with Syed Hasnain, a little-known Indian scientist then based at Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi.

Analysis by the American Thinker

From the party of fair elections