Rudy to Obama: Shut Up

The Seven things we learned at the Presidential Beer Summit on Race Relations in America

Posted July 31, 2009 | Chebama.com

So, what did we learn from this teachable moment?

1. That the parties involved who may need the most teaching, are unteachable (not humble enough to admit any fault).

2. That the simple matter of neighbors looking out for neighbors has been entirely lost in this whole affair.

3. That the "post-racial" era of Obama is not so much post-racial.

4. That the chill of being called a racist may prevent honest, sincere people from looking out for their neighbors.

5. That Barack Obama is an obvious rookie who doesn't know when to just butt out. To the community organizer, there are no boundaries. Everything is game, everything can be micro-managed, be it local, county, state, federal or global. Jimmy Carter was considered a micro-manager while Reagan was maligned for his delegating style. It is doubtful that even Jimmy Carter would have stuck his nose in an alleged home invasion/burglary case that turned into a public disturbance arrest -- even if the person in question was an elite academic racist snob who happened to be white.

6. That nobody apologized at the Presidential Beer Summit on Race Relations in America (hereafter known as PBSRRA). They agreed to disagree. Did President Barack Obama and the black Harvard professor (hereafter known as Henry Louis Gates Jr.) secretly wish for an apology from the white police officer (hereafter known as Police Sgt. James Crowley)? We'll never know. Should someone have apologized at this first annual PBSRRA event? Yes. Two people:

President Barack Obama obviously needs to apologize for not inviting the reporting party (who will hereafter be known as Lucia Whalen) who has been viciously maligned as that "white bitch" who started this whole mess. Lucia Whalen (who claims she isn't white, but has olive skin and is of Portuguese descent), never mentioned that black men were breaking into the professor's house (as it has been confirmed on the 911 tapes).

President Barack Obama needs to apologize for not inviting the black police sergeant (hereafter known as Sgt. Leon Lashley) to the first annual PBSRRA summit. Sgt. Lashley says he's been maligned as an “Uncle Tom” for supporting the actions of the white arresting officer. President Obama, did you read Sgt. Lashley's letter to Mr. Gates after Sgt. Crowley handed it to you at the first annual PBSRRA summit?

President Barack Obama, for acting stupidly in commenting on a local law enforcement incident without all the facts. Mr. President, you have diminished the office of the president throughout this whole idiotic affair. Saturday Night Live made some funny skits of Sarah Palin during the campaign. Mr. President, you're writing the scripts and acting in the skits without SNL's help at all.

Henry Louis Gates Jr., for being a snob. Henry Louis Gates Jr. for showing disrespect to law enforcement. Henry Louis Gates Jr. for bringing race into a problem that had nothing to do with race. Henry Louis Gates Jr. for showing a complete lack of common sense on the night in question.

7. And lastly, that feminist lawyers will try to turn a "local cops vs. elitist black snobs" issue into a gender-hating issue. Did you hear the snarkiness coming out of Lucia Whalen's attorney?

The Gates Affair Was A Teachable Moment

Sgt. Lashley's Letter To Prof. Gates: I Am Not An Uncle Tom

Mark Steyn with Hugh Hewitt

more Hugh Hewitt podcasts here

'Cash for Clunkers' program runs out of money

These are the same people that want to run your health care
By Dana Hedgpeth | Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, July 30, 2009; 10:38 PM

The government's $1 billion "cash for clunkers" program, designed to boost stagnant auto sales, is almost out of money, putting its future in question, government officials said Thursday.

The program started only six days ago, giving vouchers to consumers who trade in their gas-guzzling cars for more fuel-efficient models. But the unexpectedly brisk response made federal transportation officials increasingly fearful Thursday that they would exhaust their allocated funds, according to sources familiar with those discussions.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood called members of Congress on Thursday night to warn them that his department would suspend the Car Allowance Rebate System at midnight Thursday because of those concerns, congressional sources said.
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‘Cordial and Productive’: Cambridge Police Sgt. Crowley Says No One Apologized

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

"I think what you had today was two gentlemen agree to disagree on a particular issue."

another disingenuous answer to a legit question

President Obama holds a town hall in Raleigh, North Carolina, focused on health care reform. July 29, 2009.

For the audience at home, here's a game: detect how many lies Obama infuses into his answer.

go here if you want to watch the video

AARP has become ACORN

Obamacare could kill AARP
By: Mark Tapscott | July 30, 2009

Marketing operations don't get any slicker than the one behind AARP. Their invitation to join arrived in my mail box even before I turned 50. I joined for one year, but never renewed because I knew the truth about this famous group.

That truth is this: Millions join AARP and in return receive a host of useful services and resources. But their money and influence are hijacked to support causes that are absolutely inimical to their best interests.

read the whole thing

Dan Rather still has no clue

Dan Rather wants Obama to help save the news. Kenneth still won't give him the frequency though. Courage Dan! Obama loves your lies.
by Andrew Travers, Aspen Daily News Staff Writer
Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Former CBS News anchor Dan Rather called on President Barack Obama to form a White House commission to help save the press Tuesday night in an impassioned speech at the Aspen Institute.

“I personally encourage the president to establish a White House commission on public media,” the legendary newsman said.

Such a commission on media reform, Rather said, ought to make recommendations on saving journalism jobs and creating new business models to keep news organizations alive.

At stake, he argued, is the very survival of American democracy.

read the pathetic rest

Miller Time

July 29 topics include Obama racism, health care, Michael Vick, and wind power.

quote

"Back in the thirties we were told we must collectivize the nation because the people were so poor. Now we are told we must collectivize the nation because the people are so rich." --American author and commentator William F. Buckley Jr. (1925-2008)

Sgt. James Crowley Speaks Out About Professor Gates

Bully boys: A brief history of White House thuggery

By Michelle Malkin • July 29, 2009 07:51 AM

Six months into the Obama administration, it should now be clear to all Americans: Hope and Change came to the White House wrapped in brass knuckles.

Ask the Congressional Budget Office. Last week, President Obama spilled the beans on the Today Show that he had met with CBO director Douglas Elmendorf – just as the number-crunchers were casting ruinous doubt on White House cost-saving claims. Yes, question the timing. The CBO is supposed to be a neutral score-keeper – not a water boy for the White House. But when the meeting failed to stop the CBO from issuing more analysis undercutting the health care savings claims, Obama’s budget director Peter Orszag played the heavy.

Orszag warned the CBO in a public letter that it risked feeding the perception that it was “exaggerating costs and underestimating savings.” Message: Leave the number-fudging to the boss. Capiche?

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when all else fails, bash Bush

By Joseph Curl | Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Facing the first real rough patch of his presidency, President Obama and his supporters are once again resorting to a tried-and-true tactic: attacking George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.

In his White House press conference last week, Mr. Obama referred to the Bush era at least nine times, three times lamenting that he "inherited" a $1.3 trillion debt that has set back his administration's efforts to fix the economy.

With the former president lying low in Dallas, largely focused on crafting his memoirs, Mr. Obama has increasingly attempted to exploit Mr. Bush when discussing the weak economy, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the difficulty closing the military prison at U.S. Naval Base Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

As he took power, Mr. Obama promised a "new era of responsibility" that would transcend partisan politics.

"For a guy who campaigned on taking responsibility and looking forward, he spends an awful lot of time pointing fingers and looking backward," said former Bush deputy press secretary Tony Fratto, who has begun defending the previous administration.

Backlash: Democratic dangers mount

By CHARLES MAHTESIAN & JOSH KRAUSHAAR | 7/29/09 4:40 AM EDT

Democrats giddy with possibilities only six months ago now confront a perilous 2010 landscape signaled by troublesome signs of President Barack Obama’s political mortality, the plunging popularity of many governors and rising disquiet among many vulnerable House Democrats.

The issue advantage has shifted as well, with Democrats facing the brunt of criticism about the pace of stimulus package spending, anxiety over rising unemployment rates and widespread uneasiness over the twin pillars of Obama’s legislative agenda: his cap-and-trade approach to climate change and the emerging health care bill.

read more

5 freedoms you'd lose in health care reform

If you read the fine print in the Congressional plans, you'll find that a lot of cherished aspects of the current system would disappear.
By Shawn Tully, editor at large | CNN Money
July 24, 2009: 10:17 AM ET

NEW YORK (Fortune) -- In promoting his health-care agenda, President Obama has repeatedly reassured Americans that they can keep their existing health plans -- and that the benefits and access they prize will be enhanced through reform.

A close reading of the two main bills, one backed by Democrats in the House and the other issued by Sen. Edward Kennedy's Health committee, contradict the President's assurances. To be sure, it isn't easy to comb through their 2,000 pages of tortured legal language. But page by page, the bills reveal a web of restrictions, fines, and mandates that would radically change your health-care coverage.

What are the five freedoms?

1. Freedom to choose what's in your plan

2. Freedom to be rewarded for healthy living, or pay your real costs

3. Freedom to choose high-deductible coverage

4. Freedom to keep your existing plan

5. Freedom to choose your doctors

What Happened to Our Postracial President?

Obama has unwittingly made his real beliefs clear.
By Victor Davis Hanson | July 27, 2009 4:00 AM

From time to time, Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, and Clarence Thomas have naturally talked about growing up African-American under far less tolerant conditions than those we take for granted today. Yet their biggest contributions to American race relations have been their admirable abilities to transcend such racial intolerance — to make being black incidental, not essential, at least in public, to their sterling characters and impressive achievements.

They all paid a price for emphasizing individuality rather than adhering to identity politics. Those on the left often criticized them as somehow inauthentic, or not fully representative of the “real” black experience. Indeed, one of weirdest paradoxes of contemporary culture has been the tendency of wealthy white liberals to adjudicate who really speaks for the so-called African-American community — based on an authenticity that is often, in ironic fashion, based on the degree of perceived hostility to whites themselves.

Then came Barack Obama, and the nation as a whole entered an even stranger racial landscape. Unlike Powell, Rice, or Thomas, Obama was not born into, but rather piggy-backed onto, the African-American experience. He came of age well after the South’s oppressive Jim Crow culture began to wane. He grew up in a multiracial Hawaii that was always somewhat more relaxed, and was exempt from the tensions inside the continental United States. Obama was of half-white ancestry, and raised by white grandparents. Finally, Obama’s father was a Kenyan national and Muslim, not a descendant of American slaves, and so he lacked an African-American pedigree altogether. In other words, as Obama himself often insisted, our new president was in a way reminiscent of Tiger Woods: postracial — black, white, a little bit of everything, but beyond divisive self-identification with any one particular group or tribe.

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there's no way to pay for Obamacare

Posted by Hugh Hewitt | July 28, 2009
A very helpful website run by the GOP on the Ways and Means Committee in the House, includes this graph from the Congressional Budget Office.
There is no way to pay for this boondoggle, and no reason to want to as it would be massive deficit financing of a broken-before-it-began "government option/public plan." As noted below, the representatives and senators need to go back to their districts and listen to the voters. With the noisy exception of Democratic activists not concerned with health care but with the political health of the president, there is no clamor for this massive expansion of government and this sea of red ink. In fact, just the opposite reaction is building as Americans consider that (1) their health insurance is pretty good and (2) their medical care, by and large, is tremendous.

If the Democratic majorities were to start over and focus on getting subsidies directed to the uninsured in order to close the coverage gap and make some improvements in portability, there would almost certainly be majorities for such reasonable measures.

But not for Obamacare.

Call both of your senators via 202-224-3121 and tell them to deal with the reality of the economy, not this unrealistic lurch towards insolvency and second-class medicine.

House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers sees no point in members reading 1,000 page health care bill

“What good is reading the bill if it’s a thousand pages and you don’t have two days and two lawyers to find out what it means after you read the bill?”

Obama Misunderestimates Why He Won the Presidency

By Clark S. Judge | Posted by: Hugh Hewitt at 10:45 AM

There are limits to what a great communicator can accomplish if he is communicating the wrong message. In the last few weeks, Barack Obama has been receiving a lesson in this truth and learning, perhaps, too, that he, in the words of his less audibly gifted predecessor, “misunderestimated” why he won the presidency.

. . . Here is the White House’s dilemma, though probably not one they have yet recognized: They are excellent communicators, so when they speak, people understand. But the people – the people who have been swinging between the two parties over the last half-decade – do not like what the White House is telling them about its plans for the nation.

All the communications in the world won’t help. Unless the President and his advisors correct their “misunderestimation” of why they are in office and of those that put them there, their troubles will continue. Who knows? We might even see a Republican House if not Senate elected in 2010.

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Cambridge Police Profiling Still A Grim Reality for Harvard Faculty Assholes

July 27, 2009 | IowaHawk

When I first learned of the arrest of my colleague Professor Henry Louis "Skip" Gates after he stood up to the fascist jackboots of a declasse, ill-educated Cambridge police officer, I was of course angered -- but scarcely shocked. L'Affaire Gates simply aired, in public, the dirty 100-thread-count table linen of an American culture where Harvard faculty assholes still face a daily struggle against profiling, abuse, and insolence.

It will come as no surprise that Skip's arrest was the talk of the Douchebag Room at the Harvard Faculty Club last Friday. I and a group of colleagues had assembled for our weekly lunch; I opted for their competently-prepared Ahi Tuna Tartare and an amusing glass of '05 Hospices de Beaune Premier Cru Cuvee Cyrot-Chaudron. I had noticed that the Franz Fanon Memorial Booth -- Skip's long-reserved lunch spot -- was uncharacteristically empty, and asked our waiter Sergio for an explanation.

"Professor Skeep, he no is come today," said Sergio. "I tink he is in the jail."

Our table exchanged knowing glances, for we knew immediately that Skip was only the latest victim of a system that singles out the Harvard faculty asshole for stigmatization and unequal justice. It is a system that all of us knew too well, and provided an opportunity for an open conversation about our shared experiences as Harvard faculty assholes in America while waiting for Sergio to bring the dessert cart.

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does Obama have real issues with race?

Glenn Beck talks with Fox News contributor and psychiatrist Dr. Keith Ablow

Pelosi says she doesn't mind being one of the most despised politicians in the country

Nancy Pelosi on being unpopular: 'I don't care'

By GLENN THRUSH | 7/27/09 5:08 AM EDT | Politico

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is one of the most despised political figures in the country.

And, frankly, she doesn’t give a damn.

“No, I don’t care,” Pelosi told POLITICO last Thursday, laughing heartily as she walked beneath the Capitol dome and plunged into a crowd of tourists.

Last week’s Public Strategies Inc./POLITICO poll brought grim news for Pelosi, revealing that only a quarter of Americans trust the San Francisco Democrat — putting her in the basement with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio).

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your local Cambridge neighborhood watch is not racist, but the neighbor is

911 Tape Reveals Caller Did Not Bring Up Race Of Gates


Cambridge Officer/Dispatch Audio: ‘He Is Not Cooperative’


When someone says "this is not about me" it's totally about them.

Sharpton ignores the third option -- that Gates acted in a disorderly manner

cutting costs by creating new government agencies? CBO says NO!

By ROBERT PEAR and JEFF ZELENY | Published: July 25, 2009

WASHINGTON — The Congressional Budget Office said Saturday that a new agency proposed by President Obama as a way to cut health costs might save only $2 billion in its first four years, and that there was a high probability that “no savings would be realized.”

. . . The budget office said the proposal did not have enough teeth to guarantee substantial savings. The draft legislation “does not explicitly direct the council to reduce” Medicare spending, “nor does it establish any target for such reductions,” said Douglas W. Elmendorf, director of the budget office.
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why the honeymoon is over with Obama

REASON TV: Matt Welch and Nick Gillespie on Why The Obama Honeymoon Is Over.

when elites in academia can't shut up

Jul 25, 8:44 PM (ET) | By RUSSELL CONTRERAS

BOSTON (AP) - Black Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. says he's ready to move on from his arrest by a white police officer, hoping to use the encounter to improve fairness in the criminal justice system and saying "in the end, this is not about me at all."

After a phone call from President Barack Obama urging calm in the aftermath of his arrest last week, Gates said he would accept Obama's invitation to the White House for a beer with him and Cambridge police Sgt. James Crowley.


read the whole thing

Rasmussen: Obama’s presser backfired

posted at 10:15 am on July 25, 2009 by Ed Morrissey

Barack Obama obviously hoped to get a swell in support after his prime-time presser, both for his health-care initiative and for his own approval ratings. Until now, the president has wrung temporary boosts in polling from his major media appearances. Not this time, though, as Rasmussen shows that negative ratings for his polling increased in the two days after Wednesday’s prime-time press conference.

see report

Mark Steyn with Hugh Hewitt

Discussing the horrible Obama press conference.

more Hugh Hewitt podcasts here

Why Obama might have just killed Obamacare

Posted by: James Pethokoukis | July 23rd, 2009

If President Obama’s prime-time speech and news conference were intended to push national healthcare reform over the political goal line, then the effort almost certainly failed. Do more Americans today better understand the still-evolving plans floating around Capitol Hill than they did yesterday? Unlikely.

. . . was the president successful in getting out his message? Here’s one bad sign: The top morning news shows led not with healthcare but with Obama’s slam against police officers that arrested his friend and college professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. With Congress stymied and public interest waning, a muddled message means a lost opportunity for Obama and healthcare reform.

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Obama acts stupidly: comments without knowing the facts

"As a black man, Barack can get shot going to the gas station."

Boehner to the White House: I Don't Believe the Economy Has Been Rescued

In a speech on the House floor this morning, House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) directly took on a report in the New York Times that the President plans to discuss how the Democrats have rescued the economy in his primetime address tonight (July 22). Citing the highest unemployment rate in 26 years and families and small businesses who are struggling across the country, Boehner took aim at the Democrats job-killing policies that will make matters worse, such as their government takeover of health care and Speaker Pelosis national energy tax, as well as the trillion-dollar stimulus that isnt working.

Miller Time

Barbara Boxer, Prince Charles, Paula Abdul and Hot Dogs
July 22, 2009

Obama's Ethics

July 23, 2009 Posted by Scott at 5:58 AM | Powerline

There was an overwhelmingly fictional quality to President Obama's press conference last night from his opening remarks on. Promoting his national health care reform plan, whatever it is, he endlessly asserts a set of talking points that would be demonstrably false if we had the text of a plan to check it against, such as the House's thousand-page monstrosity.

When he is about to unleash a whopper of special magnitude, Obama emits a tell-tale sign. He prefaces it with "let me be clear" or "understand this." Last night he achieved such "clarity" twice in his opening remarks. First:

[L]et me be clear: If we do not control these costs, we will not be able to control our deficit. If we do not reform health care, your premiums and out-of-pocket costs will continue to skyrocket. If we don't act, 14,000 Americans will continue to lose their health insurance every single day.

Translation: My plan -- whatever it is -- will of course add markedly to the record spending and related deficits we are already racking up, not to mention the tax burden that the federal government will impose on the economy.

Next:

[L]et me be clear: This isn't about me. I have great health insurance, and so does every member of Congress. This debate is about the letters I read when I sit in the Oval Office every day and the stories I hear at town hall meetings.

Translation: This is all about me. I seek to make my mark as the Democratic president who achieved the socialist dream other Democratic presidents had only dreamed of. I mean to put them in my shadow.

read the whole thing

Obama proves it's about himself: You’re going to destroy my presidency

By David M. Drucker | Roll Call Staff | July 22, 2009, 12 a.m.

. . . [Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa)] was critical of Obama’s latest round of attacks against the GOP on health care reform.

And Grassley charged that Obama isn’t limiting his attacks to just Republicans.

“I talked to a Democratic Congressman — not from Iowa — over the weekend, and the president said [to this Democrat], ‘You’re going to destroy my presidency.’ Now, this isn’t about President Obama,” Grassley said, adding: “Is this impeding our work? No, it’s not. What’s slowing the progress is how complicated these issues are.”

Does Ted Kennedy deserve his extended cancer care?

By James Lewis | July 22, 2009 | The American Thinker

Senator Ted Kennedy, who is now 76 years old and was diagnosed with brain cancer in May of last year, is telling the world that nationalized medical care is "the cause of his life." He wants to see it pass as soon as possible, before he departs this vale of tears.

The prospect of Kennedy's passing is viewed by the liberal press with anticipatory tears and mourning. But they are not asking the proper question by their own lights: That question -- which will be asked for you and me when we reach his age and state in life --- is this:

Is Senator Kennedy's life valuable enough to dedicate millions of dollars to extending it another month, another day, another year?

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Obama Auto Adviser Tells Lawmakers Not to Undo Dealer Closings

By NICK BUNKLEY | Published: July 21, 2009
The leader of President Obama’s automotive task force warned members of Congress on Tuesday that reversing or stopping the closing of thousands of General Motors and Chrysler dealerships could threaten the automakers’ turnarounds and keep them from repaying billions in government loans.

. . . Reopening dealerships would raise “enormous legal concerns, to say nothing of the substantial financial burden it would place on the companies,” Mr. Bloom told the House Judiciary Committee.

But committee members expressed outrage that profitable and longstanding dealerships in their districts had been eliminated. Mr. Bloom insisted that the government, despite having a stake in the new Chrysler and G.M., had played no role in choosing which dealerships should stay open. He rejected claims that minority dealers had been affected disproportionately or that a dealer’s political leanings had been considered.

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putting the brakes on is not "breaking" the president

destroying the village to save it

"Ready, Fire, Aim --Obamacare"
Posted by: Hugh Hewitt at 11:03 PM
From my Fair Tax Fantasy coauthor Hank Adler:
There are certain facts that are incontrovertible in today's healthcare discussion. The United States Senate has not made a proposal, the President of the United States is admittedly unfamiliar with key provisions of the House of Representatives proposal and the President and his advisors have had extensive meetings with various elements of the healthcare community, yet no one knows with precision whether any of these discussions are reflected in anything.

The President has declared that anyone against these plans is playing politics and/or "trying to put off decisions on legislation "until special interests can kill it." Wow.

When did our system of democracy erase the general idea of our representatives and the public knowing what is in key legislation before passing it? I would like to think that both of my Senators, my Congressman and my President actually understand proposed legislation before voting.

Is there no provision within any proposed or yet unproposed legislation that would cause the President to veto such a bill? Based on his rhetoric, one would think this is the set of rules he would like Congress to follow. Just vote Yes, do not read it, do not think about it, just vote Yes.

In the extreme, if there was a "perfect" healthcare bill except for a provision that made it illegal to receive an abortion in any facility accepting federal money, the President would not only oppose, he would veto such healthcare legislation. This would be a deal point to the President and his constituency. That is the opportunity I want my representatives to have. I want them to be able to read any legislation, think about it, have time to get feedback from their constituents and only vote for such legislation if there is nothing in it which to them (not anyone else, to them) is a deal point.

When I hear the President say: "The American people understand the status quo is unacceptable", all I can remember is that famous quote in Vietnam: "We needed to destroy the village to save it." We cannot allow time pressure to destroy healthcare to "save it."

Senator failure whines about Waterloo comment

The Obamas, and Directive 10-289…”Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual”…

21st July 2009, 10:11 am | Amused Cynic

You see, what is happening is that through the “economic emergency,” Obama is trying to implement Rand’s fictitious “Directive 10-289,” which is what the the combination of “stimulus package,” unsupervised TARP bailouts, “Cap and Trade,” and “Health Care Reform” equal when they are rammed down your throats without discussion (or even the reading of the details) by your supposed “representatives” in the national government.

What is Directive 10-289?

when GOVT plays god -- health care triage weeds out undesirables

Man, 22, Dies After Liver Transplant Refused
8:55am UK, Tuesday July 21, 2009
A 22-year-old alcoholic has died after being refused a life-saving liver transplant because he was too ill to leave hospital and prove he could stay sober.

Gary Reinbach, who died in hospital on Monday from a severe case of liver cirrhosis, did not qualify for a donor liver under strict NHS rules.

The alcoholic, from Dagenham, Essex, had admitted binge drinking since he was 13 but was only taken to hospital for the first time with liver problems 10 weeks ago.

He was never discharged.

His mother Madeline Hanshaw, 44, said: "These rules are really unfair."

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it's not about Health Care, it's all about GROWING GOVERNMENT

Obama Calls On Bloggers To Keep Health Care Pressure On Congress

It's amazing to hear all the lies Obama tells his hard-core followers in this audio recording of a left-wing blogger phone conference. You know he's getting desperate to keep health care rammed through congress.

First Posted: 07-20-09 05:48 PM | Huffington Post

In a reflection of a legislative strategy that has left no stone unturned, President Barack Obama on Monday called on like-minded bloggers to help his administration keep the heat on lawmakers to pass health care reform.

"It is important just to keep the pressure on members of Congress because what happens is there is a default position of inertia here in Washington," the president said during an invitation-only conference call. "And pushing against that, making sure that people feel that the desperation that ordinary families are feeling all across the country, every single day, when they are worrying about whether they can pay their premiums or not... People have to feel that in a visceral way. And you guys can help deliver that better than just about anybody."

Voters scared of Obama’s rushed ‘experiments’

By: Byron York | July 21, 2009 | The Examiner

With one word Monday, Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele helped the GOP get back in the fight over health care and the entire Obama agenda. The word was “experiment.”

“Candidate Obama promised change,” Steele said in a speech at the National Press Club. “President Obama is conducting an experiment.” Steele went on to accuse Barack Obama of carrying out dangerous experiments with the nation’s health care, with the economy, with taxpayers’ dollars.

“Experiment” didn’t come from nowhere. “The term bubbled up from a set of focus groups we did with swing voters, independents, soft Republicans and soft Democrats,” says one strategist involved in an extensive RNC research effort nationwide and in key states like Virginia, Colorado and Florida. “It’s something that a vast majority of voters believe is true, that Obama is running what amounts to an experiment with our future.”

The RNC researchers came away convinced that Americans are scared. Certainly voters expected Obama to do things. But they are frightened by the sheer scope of the president’s proposals, the fiscal dangers they present and, perhaps most of all, the astonishing speed with which the administration is trying to enact such fundamental and far-reaching changes.
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Poll: Public losing trust in President Obama

By ANDY BARR | 7/21/09 4:26 AM EDT | Politico
Trust in President Barack Obama and his Democratic allies to identify the right solutions to problems facing the country has dropped off significantly since March, according to a new Public Strategies Inc./POLITICO poll.

Just as Obama intensifies his efforts to fulfill a campaign promise and reach an agreement with Congress on health care reform, the number of Americans who say they trust the president has fallen from 66 percent to 54 percent. At the same time, the percentage of those who say they do not trust the president has jumped from 31 to 42.

The president’s party has taken a similar hit since the last Public Trust Monitor poll, with only 42 percent of respondents saying that they trust the Democratic Party, compared with 52 percent who do not. The party’s numbers are nearly the inverse of March’s survey, in which 52 percent said they trusted Democrats and 42 percent did not.

Obama . . . it's all about you. It always has been.

The Obama Agenda Bogs Down

Democrats got what they wanted in the stimulus bill. The public knows it.
By Fred Barnes | JULY 20, 2009 | Wall Street Journal

It usually doesn't happen this quickly in Washington. But President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats are finding that the old maxim that what goes around, comes around applies to them, too. Less than six months into his term, Mr. Obama's top initiatives -- health-care reform and "cap and trade" energy legislation -- are in serious jeopardy and he has himself and his congressional allies to blame.

Their high-pressure tactics in promoting and passing legislation, most notably the economic "stimulus" enacted in February, have backfired. Those tactics include unbridled partisanship, procedural short cuts, demands for swift passage of bills, and promises of quick results.

With large majorities in Congress and an obsequious press corps, Mr. Obama was smitten with the idea of emulating President Franklin Roosevelt's First 100 Days of legislative success in 1933. Like FDR, Mr. Obama tried to push as many liberal bills through Congress in as brief a time as possible.

He made a rookie mistake early on. He let congressional Democrats draft the bills. They're as partisan as any group that has ever controlled Congress, and as impatient. They have little interest in the compromises needed to attract Republican support. As a consequence, what they passed -- especially the $787 billion stimulus -- belongs to Democrats alone. They own the stimulus outright.

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people still upset about no birth certificate for Obama

Poll Shows Obama Slipping on Key Issues Approval Rating on Health Care Falls Below 50 Percent

By Dan Balz and Jon Cohen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, July 20, 2009

Heading into a critical period in the debate over health-care reform, public approval of President Obama's stewardship on the issue has dropped below the 50 percent threshold for the first time, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Obama's approval ratings on other front-burner issues, such as the economy and the federal budget deficit, have also slipped over the summer, as rising concern about spending and continuing worries about the economy combine to challenge his administration. Barely more than half approve of the way he is handling unemployment, which now tops 10 percent in 15 states and the District.

How the Dems treat their own, and how they treat the other side

Sickening sweet and Karo syrup sugary . . .


Compare to Clarence Thomas' high tech lynching

Obama at the NAALCP

talk about saying one thing and doing the other
. . . that's Obama's MO.

With the eagle wings behind his head, this started to remind me of a cross between Triumph of Will and some southern Baptist preacher. Why is he bending his head toward the mic? We can hear you!

Mark Steyn on the Hugh Hewitt Show

Topics include Barbara Boxer racism, Sotomayor, Joe Biden's comment that "we have to spend money to keep from going bankrupt", health care nationalization.

more Hugh Hewitt podcasts here

Miller Time is Back!

Dennis Miller with Bill O'Reilly, July 15, 2009.

Obama's sissy throw

The Reuters video says “the pitch barely makes the plate despite having practiced in the Rose Garden beforehand" but with the outfielder view, you can clearly see that the 1st baseman's glove is definitely in front of the plate. He had to lunge forward to catch the ball.

sharecropper politics

Obama mulls rental option for some homeowners-sources
Tue Jul 14, 2009 3:07pm EDT
NEW YORK, July 14 (Reuters) - U.S. government officials are weighing a plan that would let borrowers who have fallen behind on their mortgage payments avoid eviction by renting their homes instead, sources familiar with the administration's thinking said on Tuesday.

Under one idea being discussed, delinquent homeowners would surrender ownership of their homes but would continue to live in the property for several years, the sources told Reuters.

Officials are also considering whether the government should make mortgage payments on behalf of borrowers who cannot keep up with their home loans, tapping an unused portion of a $50 billion housing aid kitty.

As part of this plan, jobless borrowers might receive a housing stipend along with regular unemployment benefits, the sources said.

Hollywood Actor Jon Voight Talks about Barack Obama's Job Performance

Sen Lindsey Graham v Judge Sonia Sotomayor - Senate confirmation hearings

Republicans unveil chart depicting bureaucratic nightmare of Dem government-run health care

click on image for full view

Republicans don't believe Sotomayor's stories

By: Byron York, Chief Political Correspondent
07/15/09 6:24 AM EDT

Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee are convinced that Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor has not been candid with them in under-oath testimony about her speeches and legal activism. But given the assurance that majority Democrats will vote to confirm Sotomayor no matter what, the GOP effort against her is largely an attempt to convince other Republicans that Sotomayor has not earned a vote for confirmation.

Republican aides worked through the night, Tuesday into Wednesday, studying the 108-page transcript from Tuesday's hearing. They believe Sotomayor told a variety of stories, none of them entirely truthful, to explain her series of infamous "wise Latina" speeches. And they question her efforts to distance herself from the work of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, on whose board she served for twelve years in the 1980s and early 1990s.

. . . Republicans pointed out that Sotomayor gave versions of the "wise Latina" speech at least six times over the years. "Fell flat?" asked one senior GOP aide. "Well, it fell flat six times. If you said this one time, and it fell flat and you stopped using it, that would be one thing, but when you've said it repeatedly over a ten-year stretch, it's very hard to believe that it is anything other than what it appears to be. It's only fallen flat now that she's been called on it."

read the whole thing

Sotomayor on Sotomayor: Revises, extends her words

By NANCY BENAC, Associated Press Writer Nancy Benac, Associated Press Writer – Tue Jul 14, 7:00 pm ET

WASHINGTON – It's a good thing Sonia Sotomayor speaks Sotomayoran.

After week upon week in which plenty of other people on the planet interpreted Sotomayor's past comments, the Supreme Court nominee at last got a chance to deconstruct her own words Tuesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Fingers splayed, palms flat, hands bouncing up and then deliberately pressing down to the table, Sotomayor elaborated, clarified, expanded, retracted.

She drew loopy circles on her paper; she ran rhetorical circles around her past words.

"I didn't intend to suggest ..." she explained.

"What I was speaking about ..." she offered.

"As I have tried to explain ..." she parsed.

"I wasn't talking about ..." she demurred.

She was a tough critic at times.

"I was using a rhetorical flourish that fell flat," she averred.

"It was bad," she said. Of her own words.

Democrats were only too happy to take Sotomayor's rhetorical revisions at face value as she explained away the most problematic of her past remarks.

read the rest

Obama lobs a baseball at catcher to open All Star game

PJTV puts Canadian National Health Care to the test

undercover video shows what it's like

Take a number and wait in triage (two to 10 hours wait). Clinic says two to three years to wait for a family doctor.

Why anyone would think America needs this . . .

Obamacare would not be any different.

Obama puts America ON NOTICE that health care reform will pass OR ELSE

click here if you want to watch the video and see our next Surgeon General -- maybe she could tackle obesity as her main focus

Iran in mass production of long-range, solid-fuel Sejil surface missiles

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report | July 13, 2009, 9:29 AM (GMT+02:00)

Iran is slowing down the manufacture of the Shehab-3 surface missile in favor of mass production of the more accurate two-stage 2,000-kilometer range Sejil II ballistic missile powered with solid fuel, which was successfully tested on May 20, DEBKAfile's military and Iranian sources report.

More than 1,000 new Sejil IIs are projected to come off production lines in five years, at the rate of 200 a year.

Western sources say the Iranians are over-ambitious and can deliver no more than 10-15 missiles a year at present, although with a huge multi-billion dollar investment they might raise output to 30.

Liquid-fuel missiles like the Shehab take hours to prepare for firing, during which time they are exposed to oversight by US and Israel spy satellites, whereas the Sejil because it is powered by solid fuel has the huge advantage of stealth. It can only be detected by military satellites and early warning radar systems like the American FBX-T posted in the Israeli Negev after it is airborne and winging towards target.

Iran has also recruited Chinese missile experts to assist in the production of mobile launchers for the Sejil II. The combination of the solid-fuel Sejil mounted on mobile vehicles will give an Iranian missile attack the advantage of surprise, because of the difficulty of tracking and targeting them from space or the air.
read the whole thing

Budget deficit tops $1 trillion for first time

By MARTIN CRUTSINGER
The Associated Press
Monday, July 13, 2009; 9:18 PM

-- WASHINGTON - The federal deficit has topped $1 trillion for the first time ever and could grow to nearly $2 trillion by this fall, intensifying fears about higher interest rates, inflation and the strength of the dollar.

The deficit has been widened by the huge sum the government has spent to ease the recession, combined with a sharp decline in tax revenues. The cost of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan also is a major factor.

The soaring deficit is making Chinese and other foreign buyers of U.S. debt nervous, which could make them reluctant lenders down the road. It could also force the Treasury Department to pay higher interest rates to make U.S. debt attractive longer-term.

"These are mind-boggling numbers," said Sung Won Sohn, an economist at the Smith School of Business at California State University. "Our foreign investors from China and elsewhere are starting to have concerns about not only the value of the dollar but how safe their investments will be in the long run."

the most experienced Supreme Court nominee in 100 years

Franken speaks at Sotomayor hearing: no joke
Jul 13 02:40 PM US/Eastern

WASHINGTON (AP) - The newest member of the Senate, former comedian Al Franken, was as serious as his colleagues in his opening statement at the Senate confirmation hearing for Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor.

Franken said he is "truly humbled" to be on the Judiciary Committee. He also praised Chairman Patrick Leahy and ranking Republican Jeff Sessions.

Then, he was interrupted by the third protester of the hearing, speaking partly in Spanish.

Franken told Sotomayor that she was "the most experienced Supreme Court nominee in 100 years." He said her story is inspirational and one in which "all Americans should take great pride in."

when Banana Republic dictators temper tantrum against previous admins

Obama doesn't want to look back, but Attorney General Eric Holder may probe Bush-era torture anyway.
By Daniel Klaidman | NEWSWEEK
Published Jul 11, 2009
From the magazine issue dated Jul 20, 2009

Four knowledgeable sources tell NEWSWEEK that [Eric Holder, U.S. Attorney General] is now leaning toward appointing a prosecutor to investigate the Bush administration's brutal interrogation practices, something the president has been reluctant to do. While no final decision has been made, an announcement could come in a matter of weeks, say these sources, who decline to be identified discussing a sensitive law-enforcement matter. Such a decision would roil the country, would likely plunge Washington into a new round of partisan warfare, and could even imperil Obama's domestic priorities, including health care and energy reform. Holder knows all this, and he has been wrestling with the question for months. "I hope that whatever decision I make would not have a negative impact on the president's agenda," he says. "But that can't be a part of my decision."
read the whole thing


Obama could shut him down anytime. I don't buy the "I hope I don't hurt the prez."

The end of Obamania

Sunday, July 12, 2009 | The Virginian

From the LA Times. Putting the best possible spin on a failed foreign trip, declares that it was not a total disaster.

Obama avoided the rookie mistake that John F. Kennedy committed at his first summit meeting in 1961, when the new president left the Russians thinking he was young, untested and uncertain.

link to the LA Times article

Obama's a wimp, a lightweight, a fraud, and has no qualifications for ruining our country. Whoops, I meant to say "running."

Obama Grovels to Russia
By Pamela Geller | July 12, 2009

The press, true to form, is hailing Obama's trip to Russia as statesmanlike. Reality, as usual, is different.

When Obama took a pass on missile defense and agreed with Russia's Medvedev to reduce our nuclear arsenal by one-third, he accomplished worse than nothing. He sold out our Eastern European allies, dumping a desperately needed missile defense plan for Poland. As he did so, he revised history, claiming we did not win the cold war. Obama said, "We don't have to diminish other people in order to recognize our role in that history." Yes, he said that. And it gets worse.

read the whole thing

Gorby gives Obama pointers on destroying a country

Who knows what they were really talking about. One of those few times you wish you could read the transcript.

Gaia’s Right

Environmentalism seeks to return us to the age of kings
Mark Steyn | July 11, 2009 7:00 AM

According to His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, we only have 96 months left to save the planet.

I’m impressed. 96 months. Not 95. Not 97. July 2017. Put it in your diary. Usually the warm-mongers stick to the same old drone that we only have ten years left to save the planet. Nice round number. Al Gore said we only have ten years left three-and-a-half years ago, which makes him technically more of a pessimist than the Prince of Wales. Al’s betting that Armageddon kicks in sometime in January 2016 — unless he’s just peddling glib generalities. And, alas, even a prophet of the ecopalypse as precise as His Royal Highness is sometimes prone to this airy-fairy ten-year shtick: In April, Prince Charles predicted that the red squirrel would be extinct “within ten years,” which suggests that, while it may be curtains for man and all his wretched works come summer of 2017, the poor doomed red squirrel will have the best part of two years to frolic and gambol on a ruined landscape.

So, unless you’re a squirrel, don’t start any long books in 95 months’ time, because time is running out! “Time is running out to deal with climate change,” said Steven Guilbeault of Greenpeace in 2006. “Ten years ago, we thought we had a lot of time.”

Really? Ten years ago, we had a lot of time? Funny, that’s not the way I remember it. (“Time is running out for the climate,” said Chris Rose of Greenpeace in 1997.) So what’s to blame for this eternally looming rendezvous with the iceberg of apocalypse? As the British newspaper the Independent reported:

Capitalism and consumerism have brought the world to the brink of economic and environmental collapse, the Prince of Wales has warned. . . . And in a searing indictment on capitalist society, Charles said we can no longer afford consumerism and that the ‘age of convenience’ was over.

He then got in his limo and was driven to his other palace.

read the whole thing