The Victorious Opposition

I’ve been enduring a massive attack of allergies in the past week.  It’s left me either too miserable to think clearly or too stoned on antihistamines to write so I’ve missed out on blogging about a few stories in as timely a manner as I would have liked.  Let’s just put them all together.

First, I noticed last week that House Republican Minority Leader John Boehner demanded that Obama fire his economic team for the obvious reason that it sucks.  Boehner obviously feels that Geithner & Co. has not demonstrated any leadership in a time of crisis and has supported spending billions of dollars to little effect.  Of course, I have many of the same complaints about Boehner and am already dreading the fact that the House GOP will still be led by him next year and that they will be the majority.

Murkowski was defeated by a Tea Party candidate in Alaska partly thanks to her support of TARP and Boehner had voted against a majority of his own party to support it as well.  I like to see these Tea Party candidates winning nominations against RINO’s but if we’re going to have the same borrow-and-spend Republican leadership in charge at the end of the day, it’s not going to matter.

Conclusion: Fuck Obama’s economic team.  Fuck John Boehner too.

The next story I missed out on while in a Sudafed haze was that the CIA has begun identifying Yemen and Somalia as the big al-Qaeda threats.  Well, I’ve mentioned before that I consider the Somali threat to be overrated.  Yemen, on the other hand, is a bona fide haven for AQ and the CIA is right to focus on it.

Allow me to take this opportunity to point out that we’re still pouring blood and treasure into Afghanistan for no apparent reason, despite knowing full well that AQ is in Pakistan and Yemen.  Realistically, the Taliban is no more and no less a threat to us than al Shabaab in Somalia.  In the countries where AQ is, we either scale back our military forces (Iraq) or we use targeted drone strikes (Yemen, Pakistan).  In those countries where AQ isn’t we send a hundred thousand troops to promote women’s suffrage and forbid them from shooting at anyone.

Conclusion: Fuck Afghanistan.

Finally, The State Department released its report on Human Rights Violations in the United States to the UN.  You know, that awesome organization for good that places countries like Libya on Human Rights committees, accepts kickbacks from Saddam’s regime in the Oil-for-Food scandal, and sends peacekeeping troops to rape hell out of every impoverished female they can get their hands on.

The Obama Administration partly based its findings on the existence of the Arizona immigration law that is extremely popular with Americans.  Notably, the DOJ did NOT sue Arizona on account of human rights violations but on a constitutional technicality.  If that state is a human rights violator, then I suppose that we should be nation-building in Arizona with a multi-national force.  Damn it, we will bomb them into modernity!

This is the kind of thing that isn’t just going to doom Obama in 2012.  It has the potential to permanently shut Democrats out of the Presidency for the remainder of our lifetimes.  Look at America right now: have we ever been this afraid for the future of our country?  I don’t mean like in the Civil War or Great Depression; I mean in your lifetimes?  Right now, our national self-esteem sucks and the last thing we need is our jackass president wriggling on a bunch of dictator’s jocks while giggling about how the US is filled to the brim with a bunch of lowlife bigots.  It’s not true.  Further, we are morally superior (not just equivalent or inferior as Obama believes) to the vast majority of nations within the UN and certainly more so than the completely hopeless UN organization itself.

After this stunt, it’s impossible to imagine that anyone will make the mistake of comparing Obama with Reagan or Lincoln ever again.  It was always bullshit, of course.  That Obama does things like this and then wonders aloud why more and more Americans think he’s different and that he has other interests in mind above those of the wellbeing of the US is probably the most amazing aspect of all.

Conclusion: Fuck Obama.  Fuck the State Department.  Fuck the UN.

You could say that I’ve been a bit disengaged from local politics, seeing as how I was told for the first time this morning that there’s a vote on this today:

Proposition C

Shall the Missouri Statutes be amended to:

• Deny the government authority to penalize citizens for refusing to purchase private health insurance or infringe upon the right to offer or accept direct payment for lawful healthcare services?
• Modify laws regarding the liquidation of certain domestic insurance companies?

It is estimated this proposal will have no immediate costs or savings to state or local governmental entities.  However, because of the uncertain interaction of the proposal with implementation of the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, future costs to state governmental entities are unknown.

After work, I’ll be heading straight to the polling place to cast a “yes” vote.  As we learned from the Virginia lawsuit against ObamaCare, these state laws are essential for states to establish “standing” to bring suits against the federal government in order to stop the enactment of the individual mandate.

Naturally, I’m torn about relying on the courts to undo bad legislation (and ObamaCare is the single worst piece of legislation ever).  The courts are a complete crapshoot when it comes to figuring out how they’ll rule on anything (remember how shocking Kelo was?) and overturning any part of ObamaCare would carry the stigma of “judicial activism” (even though I don’t really believe that to be the case).  My preference would still be for the elected branches to eventually undo it, even if it takes years to do.

However, I can’t resist the urge to support an effort by my state and others to put some fire back into the 10th Amendment.  If the individual mandate is struck down thanks to litigation brought by the states, it would be a delicious comeuppance to the Obama Administration, considering its use of the federal judiciary to block state legislation that it doesn’t like.

UPDATE:   My civic duty is done.  If you’re looking for ballot returns and results, they’re here.  Prop C is well on its way to a resounding victory and I hope it scares the crap out of Washington Democrats.  It’s unclear if this will be a referendum on Obama, but only an idiot would say that it’s going to be anything but a repudiation of ObamaCare.

How many times did we hear that tired old cliche that Bush was a cowboy, armed with blinders he never listened or wanted help from anyone else, even our allies. Shucks, we have heard that nonsense here countless times.

But it seems that our president has one upped him and decided that he knows better and can handle this mess all by himself, so those offering assistance just got eighty-sixed.

And when the federal government isn’t sapping the initiative and expertise of local governments, it has been preventing foreign governments from helping. Just three days after the Deepwater Horizon explosion, the Dutch government offered to provide ships outfitted with oil-skimming booms and proposed a plan for building sand barriers to protect sensitive marshlands. LA Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) supported the idea, but the Obama administration refused the help. All told, thirteen countries have offered to help us clean up the Gulf, and the Obama administration has turned them all down.

And who are these benefactors that just got the short shrift?

Late Wednesday evening, the State Department emailed reporters identifying the 13 entities that had offered the U.S. oil spill assistance. They were the governments of Canada, Croatia, France, Germany, Ireland, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Romania, Republic of Korea, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United Nations. 

Gee, we wouldn’t even have to use commie booms and dictator owned skimmers. Since the spill occurred on federal lands and the feds have made no bones about them being responsible for the clean up and containment (not the capping, of course) why this hoidy toidy attitude? I would accept help from the N. Koreans if I thought it would do some good, save some beach,and protect wetlands. And none of this would be important if everyone (anyone) thought he and the feds were doing a bang up job, but 50 some days later, they are still racked by indecisiveness and inaction.

According to one Dutch newspaper, European firms could complete the oil spill clean up by themselves in just four months, and three months if they work with the United States, which is much faster than the estimated nine months it would take the Obama administration to go it alone.

I doubt these experts pulled that 3 month figure out of a hat so that is properly an educated guess, although I don’t know how you can project a clean up date when oil is still being spilled,making the damage worse. But what is interesting is the opinion that with help the clean up could be accomplished in one third the time as projected by the current gun slinger.

So far, about the only guy that has looked good in this whole debacle in Gov. Jindal, and he has tried to work with all the red tape involved, but even he has lost his patience.

Eight weeks into the oil spill disaster in the Gulf of the Mexico, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal   has told the National Guard that there’s no time left to wait for BP, so they’re taking matters into their own hands.

In Fort Jackson, La., Jindal has ordered the Guard to start building barrier walls right in the middle of the ocean. The barriers, built nine miles off shore, are intended to keep the oil from reaching the coast by filling the gaps between barrier islands.

The Dept. of the Interior, the MMS, and the Army C.O.E.‘s will not like this, back doring them without the proper permits (which are still sitting on their desks). And Jindal is not the only one.

Badges? They no need no stinkin’ badges!

Florida’s Okaloosa county is telling the federal government it will no longer take orders in responding to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, a decision made in response to the county’s deep frustration with the Obama administration’s response to the spill.

I guess somebody has to do something.

It is easy for someone in California, someone not personally affected by the devastation, to not grasp the total gravity of the miseries suffered in the gulf states (although, no doubt, I will share that misery in the form of higher gas prices which is sure to come) but if I lived in the area and just found out that Obama turned away help that would of lessened the damage, I would be spitting nails.

I’m starting to think that Putin doesn’t really care about Obama’s feelings or something:

The delivery of Russian S-300 surface-to-air missile systems to Iran will not be affected by new UN sanctions against the Islamic Republic, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Thursday.

...

The United States and Israel have called on Russia not to deliver the missiles to Iran. The West is also concerned by Russia’s role in helping Iran to build its first nuclear power plant in Bushehr.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said the resolution left wide scope for economic cooperation with Iran, and said that Russia was particularly interested in the construction of light water nuclear reactors in the Islamic Republic.

As I’ve said again and again, nuclear proliferation is the single most important foreign policy issue of our time.  Far bigger than terrorism, though directly related to it.  This is why I supported the Iraq War and have come to oppose the War in Afghanistan.  We need to face the fact that Russia is not our friend, it is going to continue supporting nuclear proliferation wherever it can make a buck, Iran is going to develop nuclear weapons and destabilize the region beyond any degree we’ve ever seen before, and more nuclear weapons existing in more countries will gradually push the odds of a mushroom cloud blooming over one of our cities to 1:1 in the next few years.

Nothing the Obama Administration has done on the international scene has worked.  Russia doesn’t give a damn about “reset buttons.”  Ahmadinejad keeps his fist firmly clenched and even seems to get sadistic pleasure out of making us look stupid and powerless.  Obama releases the exact number of nuclear warheads that the US possesses as some sort of weird goodwill gesture and the rest of the world said, “Huh, that’s neat.”  The Muslim World Apology Tour has brought only more attempted attacks on our own soil.  None of Obama’s “please love me” style diplomacy has amounted to anything and sanctions won’t either. 

I understand that these surface-to-air missiles are a defensive weapon and not necessarily covered by the sanctions.  However, Iran having them is going to make enforcing the sanctions that much more difficult.  How are we going to carry out airstrikes against key sites if we absolutely have to?  It’s frustrating that we are at such an important crossroads in our foreign affairs and this Administration repeatedly insists on making the wrong choices blindly based on the stupidest high-minded notions.

Things just got worse for the Obama Administration in a bubbling controversy over the President dangling appointments in order to entice Democratic political candidates to withdraw from competitive primary races.  The latest comes from Colorado:

Democratic Senate candidate Andrew Romanoff, who is challenging incumbent Sen. Michael Bennet in Colorado, confirmed late Wednesday that deputy White House chief of staff Jim Messina said he could be given one of three high-ranking federal jobs if he gave up his candidacy.

Romanoff said he was told by Messina that two high-ranking positions at USAID and the director’s position at the U.S. Trade and Development Agency “might be available to me were I not pursuing the Senate race.”

Read more

This latest accusation seems to add credence to the theory that Pennsylvania Representative Joe Sestak was offered an appointment to withdraw from his race to unseat Senator Arlen Specter (which he did).  That story is still bubbling because of developments that the Administration employed former President Bill Clinton to offer a job on a Presidential advisory board—a position for which Sestak isn’t even eligible.  Watch “Baghdad Bob” Gibbs ignore the obvious contradiction:

Of course, it’s a pretty fair bet that the White House was competent enough to not offer any kind of quid-pro-quo and thus skirt the letter of the law.  Washington insiders will tell you that this type of thing happens all the time, that there’s really nothing new under the sun inside the Beltway.  But that’s exactly the problem!  This President was supposed to be different—he was supposed to bring change to Washington.  Wasn’t that the entire premise of his campaign and candidacy?  Instead, we have the same obfuscations, impropriety and scandal, and a failure in leadership that yes, has really made me long for the good ol’ days of President Bush.  It’s sad but true, yesterday I became a “fan” of President Bush on Facebook.  Seriously!  It drives me nuts!

So how will this all play out?  I don’t think the problem is going away, especially not with these new allegations.  It’s most definitely unwelcome in the Obama camp, as the weight of controversy continues to burden an already-overburdened Administration.

I suppose by now we shouldn’t be surprised when the President demonstrates arrogance and hypocrisy, but it’s interesting when it’s displayed in such a concise, campaign ad-worthy manner.  At his signing of the Daniel Pearl Freedom of the Press Act, and after making the statement that the legislation “sends a strong signal about our core values when it comes to the freedom of the press,” the President refused to answer questions from the press gathered in the room:

For the record, the last time the President held a press conference, it was July 22, 2009, when he said Harvard Police “acted stupidly” in arresting professor Henry Louis Gates.  Anyone think he’ll make it a year?

I got a barack-on just watching that…............if only.

A Phyrric victory for the Democrats and a defeat for, well, everyone else.

I’m not in Apocalyptic mode today.  Like many Americans, I watched these proceedings very closely and I’m disgusted by how this bill came about.  As far as I can tell, some Democrats passed this just for the sake of passing something while others were bribed with goodies to be revealed later.  It’s the foundation for what I am sure will become a huge new entitlement, it’s going to add to the deficit (the way distorted and overspun CBO report notwithstanding), and it’s going to destroy jobs at the worst possible time.  I think they voted for this bill for the wrong reasons and they did it in the wrong way.

Some conservatives are in “game over, man, game over” fits today but I’m not.  We were already pretty well screwed thanks to Social Security and Medicaid, those other entitlements that are going bankrupt.  This changes nothing and only shows me that Washington still doesn’t get it.  The voters chose to give the Democrats unchecked control of the government in 2008 and this is what we got.  In the next act, Obama and Congress will try to slip the public option back in, provide amnesty to the millions of illegal aliens living here, and so build the dependent voting bloc that will guarantee their dominance of government in the long term.  If they could pull this travesty off, the sky really is the limit between now and November.  The Administration will now be able to say: “You’re already screwed in November.  You may as well vote for amnesty/cap-and-trade/whatever and take any deal we offer.”

How stupid were the independents that believed that Obama was a post-partisan pragmatist or that electing Democratic Senators and Representatives in traditionally Republican areas in order to install far-left Democrat leadership in both houses of Congress would be a good idea?  If it’s true that they did it to punish the Republicans for Iraq, guess what?  Iraq is well on its way to becoming a prosperous, functional democracy while the Democrats here at home steamroll the opposition and dole out bribes with money the Treasury doesn’t have in order to dump a bill that a clear majority of Americans don’t want and think will harm the already crippled economy.  Great job, guys!  I don’t know if the GOP has exactly earned the right to be in the majority again, but it should now be beyond question that the Democrats are far worse when they’re in power.  Hate deficits?  Here’s more in one year than Bush could manage in eight!  Want health care reform?  Here’s something wildly unpopular that won’t reduce costs and it required Congressional arm-twisting and payola to drag across the finish line over bipartisan objections!  Hate the crappy economy?  Here’s new burdensome regulation and taxation to smother any hope of recovery!

What needs to happen is that certain elements of this bill need to die and the GOP needs to commit to strangling it in the crib.  There are lawsuits pending and I don’t know if that will work or not.  You know how I am about letting the courts be the final word on things.  I would rather not see this undone by a court, even though I wouldn’t cry about it if it did happen.  As I see, the elected branches have fucked up and it requires that the elected branches or the states unfuck it.  I want the Republicans to run on—and succeed at—reversing the worst parts of this bill before it completely goes into effect and, failing that, bring on a Constitutional Convention through the state legislatures to resolve it once and for all. 

This isn’t over, not by a long shot.

The Democrats are going to pass this scam legislation come hell or high water.

Obama actually made an attempt to kill the bargains used to buy the votes of recalcitrant Democrats in December (Nebraska and Louisiana, for example). But he backed off after the Senate insisted on keeping their bribes - to get the House to vote for the Senate bill?

In addition, the deals alienated conservative “Blue Dog” Democrats in the House. While Democrats no longer need 60 votes in the Senate (under reconciliation they only need a simple majority), they do need Blue Dog votes to pass the bill in the House. That is why President Obama pledged to eliminate the deals. But this past weekend the White House began backtracking. The reason? If the deals are cut to appease conservatives in her caucus, Pelosi may lose the votes of liberals. At least 45 House Democrats who voted for health-care legislation the first time around come from states that would reap rewards from the backroom deals. They would be in the awkward position of having to vote against provisions directly benefiting their constituents.

Now, if that’s not bad enough - the House so distrusts the Senate on the reconciliation process that they don’t want to pass the Senate bill and then do a separate reconciliation bill, because they fear the Senate will renege on any agreements made to “fix” the Senate bill. So they’ve created an entire new scam - they’re not going to vote on the Senate bill. Instead, they’ll vote on the reconciliation bill, and in the process “deem” that they passed the Senate bill:

After laying the groundwork for a decisive vote this week on the Senate’s health-care bill, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested Monday that she might attempt to pass the measure without having members vote on it.

Instead, Pelosi (D-Calif.) would rely on a procedural sleight of hand: The House would vote on a more popular package of fixes to the Senate bill; under the House rule for that vote, passage would signify that lawmakers “deem” the health-care bill to be passed.

The tactic—known as a “self-executing rule” or a “deem and pass”—has been commonly used, although never to pass legislation as momentous as the $875 billion health-care bill. It is one of three options that Pelosi said she is considering for a late-week House vote, but she added that she prefers it because it would politically protect lawmakers who are reluctant to publicly support the measure.

The one thing you have to admire about Nancy Pelosi is that she doesn’t even try to cover up being a conniving scumbag:

“It’s more insider and process-oriented than most people want to know,” the speaker said in a roundtable discussion with bloggers Monday. “But I like it,” she said, “because people don’t have to vote on the Senate bill.”

That’s a refreshing bit of candor out of Congress, isn’t it? Good god…

See, I can understand not really understanding how liability insurance works when you’re young and dumb.  The trouble is that he still doesn’t get it.  “Acme” would have paid out if Obama had rear-ended somebody else.  This is the guy who’s trying to run the health insurance portion of the economy.  Moments like these are when you go from a facepalm straight to just outright chewing on your own hand.

If Sarah Palin had said this, it would have been regarded as just more proof that she was unqualified to be Vice President (which is pretty easy, actually; according to Biden).  In the meantime, this is what we’re stuck with in the Oval Office.  Next week, the Obama Administration will attack unscrupulous bathtub manufacturers for making defective products that flood his bathroom because he keeps filling the water all the way to the top and then getting in.

H/T: Hot Air

With a title like “Putting Americans In Control Of Their Health Care”, you’d think that maybe some libertarian concepts had actually crept into the White House health care plan.

You’d be wrong.

It’s pure window dressing. Top to bottom. Not a single substantive change from the Senate bill. True, there is no “public option” and there is no single-payer model (there are still exchanges, but they’ve taken the public option out of them). There’s still an individual mandate. The system is still fundamentally employer-centric, rather than individual-centric, making the portability thing a pure fiction. They say:

Nothing in the proposal forces anyone to change the insurance they have.  Period.

Leaving out the entire “as long as you remain with the same employer and the employer doesn’t change the plan”.

There is no attempt at actual Medicare/Medicaid reform. It pretends that elimination of fraud & waste is enough. Even assuming such were possible, that’s a ludicrous concept. They even spend more on Medicare by closing the Part D “donut hole”. Let’s not forget that Medicare Part D is unfunded in the first place.

They pay lip service to including GOP ideas (there’s a “Republican Ideas” page that lists the things they’ve pulled from GOP bills). None of these are remotely substantive. Pure window-dressing.

To make things worse, the Democrats are apparently planning to go the reconciliation route after all:

Democratic officials said the president’s proposal was being written so that it could be attached to a budget bill as a way of averting a Republican filibuster in the Senate. The procedure, known as budget reconciliation, would let Democrats advance the bill with a simple majority rather than a 60-vote supermajority.

I have, of course, written to the President and my Congress-critters yet again to object to this move, as I’ve done every time it’s come up for the last year. A couple of Democrats have said they’ll oppose reconciliation. We shall see.

A month ago I asked why the GOP wasn’t taking the lead on health care. Seems to me that window has closed. The Democrats are now back on track. And the election of Scott Brown won’t amount to either diddly or squat at the end of this debate.

The most aggressive response to come from the GOP so far has been Rep. Paul Ryan’s “Roadmap For America’s Future”, which I discussed previously. Unfortunately, the GOP leadership has hung Ryan out to dry over this:

“Paul Ryan, who’s the ranking member on our budget committee, has done an awful lot of work in putting together his roadmap,” Boehner said. “But it’s his. And I know the Democrats are trying to say that it’s the Republican leadership. But they know that’s not the case.”

(emphasis in the original)

So Thursday’s “televised health care summit” will be exactly the dog-and-pony show that people are predicting. And the Democrats will ramrod some egregious form of health care “reform” through within the next month or so.

While the GOP continues to eat their young and think they can do better.

Politics as usual. Wonderful. Pelosi and Boehner need to be replaced. Maybe Ryan and Cantor can stage a coup; I’m not sure who I’d root for to stage a coup for Pelosi’s job, but pretty much anyone would be better.

As faux pas go, this is way more amusing than damaging, but as for him being a slow learner, you make the call.

Nicely done, Mr. Mayor.

It always amuses me when I hear certain politicians talk about belt tightening, I guess lavish amounts of glue was applied to all the seats in the audience to prevent mass people falling out of their chairs convulsing with laughter.

I wonder if the president thinks that any vacation, anywhere, is a frivolous luxury deserving of derision for it’s execessiveness . Since almost all parents are trying to save for their kid’s college, all leisure activity should be considered wasteful and selfish, OK.

Seriously, should the president get pilloried for this comment? small potatoes, I think, since we all get the sentiment involved.

Discovering that people actually do listen to what he says, some smoothing over was in order.

Perception and reputation are sensitive issues for Sin City as it struggles to find footing amid a two-year meltdown of foreclosures, bankruptcies and unemployment. Tourism is the Silver State’s backbone, and several lawmakers said they were shocked that Obama singled out Las Vegas again after commenting last February that bailed-out banks shouldn’t go to Las Vegas using taxpayer money.

The mayor did give the president a way out, TDS…......Teleprompter Dependency Syndrome:

“He has to step up right away and say, you know, he wasn’t thinking,” Goodman said. “Sometimes when he’s not using his monitors and reading what he says, he doesn’t think. And this is one of those times he didn’t think, and he should straighten out the record because he’s been here, he knows Las Vegas is a great place.”

He shoots, he scores.

I’m not going to shed many tears for Vegas, Sin City has always provided remedies for misery. A lap dance with Bambi or raking in the chips yelling ,“Winner, winner, chicken dinner” can make that pink slip just a passing memory.

Here are some questions that I am posing to the group: Does Obama get to kick that can down the road for as long as he is in office? Will there ever be a time when the mess is his mess? If he keeps mucking up the recovery, either through more onerous government intrusions and regulations and less actual help to the true growth engines (the private sector) and all his efforts fall short, does he merit any responsibility at all? Does Obama get to “test drive” our economy for as long as he is in office, or, is there ever a time when he owns it?

I wonder these things because I still hear apologists still blaming Bush for all of America’s ills.

I think we have established beyond all reasonable doubt that the last president erred in a number of his policies, OK, that is out of the way, but soon or later, we have to look forward and resist the urge to drive viewing only out of the rear view mirror.

We have talked about this before, how in one short year, this president has gone to the well of blame to compensate for his own inadequacies more than the last half a dozen presidents combined, and if we did not have facts that contradict this tact, it might work, for a while.

Now I know some people can’t tell the difference between 450 billion and 1.75 trillion (both are large numbers, I agree) but as a comparison, they are hardly comparable.

We can all agree that Bush owns TARP, (signed on by a Democratic run congress, so they are somewhat complicit but the president is the man). but the lion’s share of these bank loans have either been paid back entirely or in the process, with both capital and interest going back into the people’s coffers. so, some could say that it was a good deal, for everyone involved.

And the country had the same attitude with The Stimulus Bill, if it improves the economy and gets folks back to work, yes it is a lot of money that will balloon the deficit, but they were willing to give the president a chance. But not satisfied with letting it stand on its own merits, Obama tracks its failure back to what the last guy did.

We know what John Adams said about facts

As much as some would like to still place this fact back on Bush, it does not make it any more palatable.

The one thing us Californians know, pointing fingers solves nothing. We are already doing a “Thelma And Louise” off the cliff. The nation is not in as bad a shape, but it will get there in a hurry as long as people are willing to give this administration a pass on everything it does, and not hold their feet to the fire.

Watching Obama stew himself provides no one with schadenfreude, we really are all in this together.

I have little to say about the SOTU. All those talking heads that figured Obama would pivot, had no choice but to pivot, did not factor in his arrogance. He has read all those press clippings. It wasn’t that the people don’t like what he is peddling, they needed it explained to them like they were 5 year olds, after all,  the “Noblesse oblige” crowd knows what’s good for us.

We got the same old BIOB (blame it on Bush) for America’s ills, yet deference was paid when “Stay The Course” became his phrase du jour.

But the SCOTUS smack down was particularly news worthy, not just in its breach of protocol, but in his interpretation of the decision. What an ugly scene. I was surprised Chucky Schumer did not let loose with a ,“Somebody go get a rope”. Too bad Chucky, the president, and all the other mouth foamers can’t grasp the concept that the First Amendment applies to everyone, they are not the arbiter of extending this freedom. Their warped logic being: unions represent “the people” and thus are protected by the First Amendment; corporations do not represent “the people” so they can be shut out of political discourse, their political contributions banned entirely.

First it was Wall Street, then the large money center banks, and now the SCOTUS, Obama’s shit list keeps growing.

Maybe they should just forgo attending these SOTU’s, either that or hire some security. I know some Blackwater guys that would love to “unleash some muscle” on this current crew.

The Democrats have a bizarre notion of the concept of the words “savings”, as we’ve noted before. I saw a blurb on the news this morning, highlighting what’s expected from tomorrow’s State of the Union address, which made me go look to see if they had actually put this latest definition in writing. Yup, they did:

Reporting from Washington - Moving to address rising voter anger over federal deficits and the tattered shape of their own pocketbooks, President Obama will propose a freeze on non-defense-related federal spending as well as expanded aid to middle-class families in his State of the Union speech Wednesday night, White House aides said Monday.

...

The president will propose to keep the freeze in place through 2013 so that, by the middle of the decade, that component of the budget will reach its lowest percentage of gross domestic product in 50 years. The savings from the three-year freeze is expected to amount to $250 billion over the next decade, compared with the baseline set in 2008.

(emphasis added)

Yes, you heard it right. Failing to spend more money than our ludicrous current deficit spending is actually saving money. Well, in a strict, literal, dictionary definition of the word, that’s correct, and you’d think that pedants like me would appreciate the pedantic use of the language.

But here’s a suggestion, folks - how about we “save” by spending less, not just failing to spend more.

I’ll also note that $250B over a decade is purely pissing in the wind when the deficit is currently $1.35T for one year.

Now, I will certainly give Obama and the Democrats props if they actually implement paygo - that’s praise-worthy in and of itself. But to tout this as “savings”? Come on now. More like “the barest minimal requirement of something that might approach fiscal credibility”.