The posts of the day

It's so hard to choose just one. For instance, the picture above is just one of the fabulous entries in the delightful and prestigious Iowahawk Endowment for the Arts $33.18 Steel Cage Art Death Match. Be sure to swallow your coffee before clicking.

Then head on over to Ace of Spades HQ for Michelle Obama: I Know Many Will Say It Is a Sacrifice for Me and My Friend Oprah to Fly to Europe First Class and Stay in Four-Star Hotels, But I'm Willing to Do That for the Children of Chicago. As Ace so succintly puts it,

What sacrifices will the Divine Miss M sacrifice next? Hobnobbing with socially-conscious rock and roll icons? Jaunting off to Hollywood to fund-raise from beautiful and charismatic celebrities? Appearing as a goodwill ambassador at the Venice Film Festival?

What more do you demand of this woman? She's doing all she can. Who warms The Sun?

Finally, submitted for your approval over at Hot Air where Allahpundit has the latest incredibly disturbing twist in the John Edwards/Elizabeth Edwards/Rielle Hunter/Andrew Young love...trapezoid. It seems our hapless Mr. Young, he of the claimed paternity of Rielle Hunter's baby, had a rather unhealthy obsession with Breck Girl John Edwards.

The good news is that you don't have to pick just one.

Listen to Overpaid Celebrities about Health Care

The answer to that insufferable Will Ferrell PSA. Brilliant.

Via Hot Air.


And just so you can appreciate how dead-on these no name "actors" are in this PSA, witness the smarmy self importance in the original:

Protect Insurance Companies PSA from Will Ferrell

Santorum in 2012?

The mob is fickle. Rick Santorum, one of Pennsylvania's most principled conservatives, lost his Senate re-election in 2006 bid by twenty points to a cardboard cutout named Bob Casey. The people get the government they deserve, I guess.

Aside from his usual column in the Philadelphia Inquirer and his guest hosting spots on Bill Bennet's radio show, Rick Santorum is popping up a lot these days on the political radar screen and many are wondering if he is pondering a run for President in 2012.

Robert Costa on The Corner:

Santorum will visit Dubuque, Iowa, on Thursday, as part of the American Future Fund’s lecture series. Though he says it’s too early to start thinking about a run for president in 2012, he lists two reasons for seeking out the Hawkeye State as a speaking venue: “Number one, when you go to Iowa, you speak not just to Iowa, but to folks across the country. This is a very important moment in America. I can address President Obama’s power grab. Number two, I’ve been traveling around the country doing a lot of speaking and listening. I’ve been to Iowa and New Hampshire on a couple of occasions. I’ve spoken with party activists who take the business of being either the first caucus or first primary very seriously. They’ve given me many good insights and good things to contemplate, to help me reflect upon the real concerns among conservatives about what’s going on in this country. I’ve been able to talk to people who are out there in the grassroots, leading the charge and leading tea parties.”

Santorum also hopes to give a voice to Americans who support life issues. When asked whether he will address abortion in Iowa, Santorum says that he doesn’t look at the issue as “just abortion,” but hopes to address the issue as part of a broader discussion on the “importance of a respect for life.”

This "respect for life" is precisely, and ironically, what lost the election for Santorum back in 2006. Santorum was effectively demonized as a scary hard right Conservative Christian who wants to put his laws all over your body. Liberals were horrified that the government, in the form of Senator Santorum, would dare to step into the middle of a right to die issue. That Santorum was fighting on behalf of a woman who could not speak for herself was never the issue in the minds of the right-to-die folks: Terri Shiavo's wishes were never in question. Never mind that those wishes were related -- based only on hearsay -- by a decidedly biased party: Her husband who was looking to remarry. Terri Shiavo was brutally denied of basic sustenance: starved to death by the state while a complicit nation stood by and watched. It was an act so inhumane that would have caused howls of outrage had it been done to a dog or a horse.

It is a sad commentary on our society today that we place more importance on the so-called right to die than the right to live. Santorum, in his address to Iowans, will touch on this in a rather optimistic way:

Santorum adds that he “prays every day” for President Obama to better support and respect “the intrinsic value of the human person.” Attitudes, he says optimistically, can change. “If you look at young people confronted with the truth of abortion, you see attitudes changing all of the time when they open themselves up to the truth.” He admits that “many people have a political agenda and worldview different than what I believe is true — that all life is valuable and needs to be protected from assault at all stages from the government and those in complicity with the government.” Santorum says that President Obama “certainly does not embrace that view.”

I hope that he is right about this. Obama does represent the radical ideal of the pro-abortion, pro-death movement. People who may not have had an opinion on matters of life and death and the government's involvement in such are now taking notice with the Obamacare health bill front and center, specifically, using public funds for abortions and the so-called "end-of-life counselling" that's making our seniors so very nervous.

Another part of Santorum's downfall happened back in 2003: Santorum was widely trashed as a homophobe. His original quote, which was about the ramifications of a U.S. Supreme Court Case, Lawrence v. Texas which challenged a Texas sodomy law was:

If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual [gay] sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything.

I clearly remember the resulting media firestorm and my husband remarking that they, (meaning the Democrats) were "marking" Santorum. They had identified him as a threat and were now proceeding with, the now familiar, character assassination (see also: Palin, Sarah)

Again, attitudes here also seem to be changing. Witness the reaction to Carrie Prejean who stood up for marriage as one man and one woman and who did not go quietly into that good night when the media firestorm ensued. In fact, Ms. Prejean weathered that storm pretty well.

It's been said that it takes a Carter to get a Reagan, and if that's true, perhaps Santorum's steady hand and clear moral direction will be something that this country is ready for after four years in the liberal socialist blame-America-first Democratic wilderness.

America could do a lot worse than Rick Santorum as it's President. And in fact, it has.

Goldman Sachs: A Love Story

Via The Rhetorican, Futureofcapitalism.com has this interesting little revelation about the next bit of pabulum Michael Moore is about to release on his slobbering public:

The funniest moments of all in the movie, though, may just be in the opening and closing credits. We see that the movie is presented by "Paramount Vantage" in association with the Weinstein Company. Bob and Harvey Weinstein are listed as executive producers. If Mr. Moore appreciates any of the irony here he sure doesn't share it with viewers, but for those members of the audience who are in on the secret it's all kind of amusing. Paramount Vantage, after all, is controlled by Viacom, on whose board sit none other than Sumner Redstone and former Bear Stearns executive Ace Greenberg, who aren't exactly socialists. The Weinstein Company announced it was funded with a $490 million private placement in which Goldman Sachs advised. The press release announcing the deal quoted a Goldman spokesman saying, "We are very pleased to be a part of this exciting new venture and look forward to an ongoing relationship with The Weinstein Company."

Knowing that background puts the rest of the movie in a different context. Mr. Moore shows Rep. Dennis Kucinich asking rhetorically on the floor of the House of Representatives, "Is this the United States Congress or the board of directors of Goldman Sachs?" Later, Mr. Moore shows up at Goldman Sachs headquarters in Manhattan driving an armored Brinks trunk and announcing, "We're here to get the money back for the American people." Maybe Mr. Moore should look in his own pockets.

And because Mr. Moore sprinkles tiny bits of valid points amidst the laughable manipulation on film that his films typically represent, his public lap this pap up without question. Daniel Kalder, at When Falls the Coliseum, sums the Michael Moore phenomenom succinctly:

Indeed were I of a conspiratorial mindset I might argue that Moore is a secret agent of the very powers he claims he has come to dethrone. His films — filled as they are with well- documented distortions — are not really documentaries, and as he himself admits have been totally ineffective as agitprop. What we are left with then is a kind of political pornography for bien pensants in which Moore carefully orchestrates and manages his scenes and arguments to arouse a sense of anger and moral outrage in an audience which he knows desires to be thus titillated. Moore then feeds a series of stimulating scenes to the viewer, keeping that engorged muscle of angry indignation fully enflamed, until a climactic release at the end of the film. But once that climax has been reached, the world has not changed and the viewer has not participated in any meaningful form of protest, rebellion or dissent. This is ultimately an experience without real contact, without consummation, or the exchange of any bodily fluids. The energy of outrage is dissipated and fades away. The manipulated viewer simply returns to his life, most likely carrying on as a good servant of Capitalism.

America disengages

The network news talking heads are breathless about Obama's sweeping new foreign policy announced to the world at the U.N. yesterday. I'm not sure if anyone on the left is getting how dangerous Obama's words were yesterday, let alone his continuing practice of embracing our enemies and snubbing our allies, but those of us on the right, to whom this "sweeping new foreign policy" comes as no surprise, are chilled to the bone.

I first suspected this was Obama's mindset when he was running for President. I elaborated on this policy in a post on July 9.

The hints and clues that were available to us before we put this narcissist in charge could be ignored until yesterday, Now there can be no doubt: Obama intends for America to abandon it's leadership position in the world. He will weaken our defenses in a pathetic attempt to sing kumbayah with the tin pot dictators and totalitarians of the world. America was a rogue country a mere ten months ago.

For those who question the character and cause of my nation I ask you to look at the concrete actions we have taken in just nine months.

On The Corner today, Michael Ledeen speculates that perhaps Obama's foreign policy is not as incredibly naive as it seems. Perhaps Obama actually likes tyrants:

I think that he rather likes tyrants and dislikes America. I think he'd like to be more powerful, I think he is trying to get control over as much of our lives as he can, so that he can put an end to the annoying tumult of our public life.

(...)

There is nothing unusual about elitist hatred of freedom. Back in the 18th century, when book publishing really got going, British authors were infuriated that they had to submit to the judgment of a marketplace. They didn't want to be judged by people who were obviously inferior to them, and there was a great rage among the intelligentsia, including some very famous men. And in modern times, we can all name famous intellectuals who fawned all over Mussolini, Stalin, Fidel, and even Hitler.

American politics are very fractious, and always have been. Leaders are constantly frustrated, and some of them come to yearn for an end to our freedom. They think they know best, they just want to tell us what to do and have us shut up and do it. I think Obama is one of them. He's not naïve. It's different. He doesn't like the way things work here, he thinks he can do much better, and he's possessed of the belief that America has done a lot of terrible things in the world, and should be prevented from doing such things ever again. The two convictions mesh perfectly. It's The Best and the Brightest run amok.

Andy McCarthy agrees:

The Obama administration has notified Congress of the State Department's intention to contribute $400,000 to foundations run by Muammar Qaddafi's two children — $200,000 each for daughter Aisha and son Saif. Saif, you may recall, is the son who escorted the Lockerbie terrorist Abdel Baset al-Megrahi home to a hero's welcome in Libya after President Obama sternly "warned" Qaddafi that there was to be no hero's welcome.

(...)

Could somebody please tell this president that this is not just Annenberg Foundation cash he's passing out to his personal terrorist pals like Bill Ayers but American taxpayer dollars he's doling out to the terrorist tyrant behind the murder — in just that one incident — of 270 people, including 189 Americans.

Interestingly, on the other side of the pond, the Brits are wondering why Obama is snubbing Gordon Brown (five requests for meeting; five blow offs) and some are speculating that it's because Obama is miffed that Brown freed the very same Abdel Baset al-Megahi on compassionate grounds. Maybe. But no matter what the reason, the Brits are pissed:

What are we to make of this? This country has proved, through the bravery of men like Acting Sgt Lockett, America’s staunchest ally in Afghanistan. In return, the American President treats the British Prime Minister with casual contempt. The President’s graceless behaviour is unforgivable. As most members of the Cabinet would confirm, it’s not a barrel of laughs having to sit down for a chat with Gordon Brown. But that’s not the point. Mr Obama owes this country a great deal for its unflinching commitment to the American-led war in Afghanistan but seems incapable of acknowledging the fact. You might have thought that after the shambles of Mr Brown’s first visit to the Obama White House - when there was no joint press conference and the President’s “gift” to the Prime Minister was a boxed DVD set - lessons would have been learned. Apparently not. Admittedly, part of the problem was Downing Street’s over-anxiety to secure a face-to-face meeting for domestic political purposes but the White House should still have been more obliging. Mr Obama’s churlishness is fresh evidence that the US/UK special relationship is a one-way street.

I think it's probably more accurate to say that Obama wants to be a tyrant--not one of those tin pot dictators, like his BFF's Chavez or Qaddafi, but a benevolent tyrant: someone wise who could tell everyone what's best. Because he knows what's best. I think his political philosophy is in line with a familiar character's:


Except Obama thinks that "that someone wise" is he.

Health care: Crisis. Global Warming: Crisis. Afghanistan: Let me think about that

Domestically, enacting Obama;s agenda has been sold to the American people as fixes for one pressing crisis after another. Congress is so pressed by these crises, in fact, that there is simply not enough time to read the bills.

But when faced with a real crisis in Afghanistan (the "good war") well, hold on now, and let's not be hasty, little hobbits. These things must be deliberated, discussed and properly spinned in enough news cycles so as to avoid all making the tough decisions. Too bad Obama can't vote present anymore.

Here's Charles Krauthammer, via the Corner, on Fox All Stars last night. He's worth quoting at length:

Well, I think what's really important here are two dates. The first is August 30. That's when the McChrystal report was sent to Washington. That is three weeks ago. Obama has had a single meeting [on that report] since then.

He says he hasn't reached a conclusion — I suppose because he is spending all his time preparing for Letterman and speeches to schoolchildren — to focus on a war in which our soldiers are in the field getting shot at and, as the president himself is saying, without a strategy.

Now, the other date is the 27th of March, when Obama gave a speech in the White House flanked by his Secretaries of Defense and State, in which he said, and I will read you this, because it is as if it never happened, "Today I'm announcing a comprehensive new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan."

So we for six months have been living under the new Obama strategy, of which he says today we have none. And his next sentence is, again in March, "This marks the conclusion of a careful policy review" — not the beginning, the end of the policy review.

So it has been his policy, and now he tells us we don't have a cart and we don't have a horse.

What's happening here is he announced the strategy of counterinsurgency in March. He said at the time that we “cannot afford” an “Afghanistan that slides [back] into chaos.”

He said "My message to the terrorists who oppose us — We will defeat you," And now he's not sure he wants to defeat them.

On the political consequences of Obama’s indecisiveness:

I'm not sure it's a political problem. I think it's a problem of what it does to the morale of the military and of the commanders in the field.

You are in the middle of a war and you have an urgent request — this is not just a general but an urgent request. And the logic here — it is all spelled out in a sentence or two; it is not a difficult proposition — the logic is we're in a downward spiral. The enemy is gaining. We can stop them with American troops.

Once they are stopped and the spiral is reversed, as happened in Iraq as a result of the surge, then the Afghan army can, in principle, at least, take over, as happened in Iraq. That's the idea.

You either can act on that or not. It's not a complicated idea. Obama is not stalling because he's studying all this. Obama is stalling because a) he doesn't know and b) he doesn't want to go politically against his own party.

The verdict on Cash for Clunkers: Survey says....

Via the Corner, here's what the economists say:

With per vehicle environmental benefits at $596 and the costs at $2,600 per vehicle, the clunker program is a net drain on society of roughly $2,000 per vehicle. Given the approximately 700,000 vehicles in the program, we estimate the total welfare loss to be about $1.4 billion. The welfare loss would be even greater if we fine tuned our estimate of the social cost per gallon to account for the spatial mix of clunkers. Clunkers, especially the trucks that comprise a large percentage of the traded-in vehicles, may have been retired disproportionately from rural locations where the social costs of pollutants are significantly lower. Also, if the average value of clunkers exceeds our conservative figure of $1000, then cost of the program would be higher. Even if the environmental gains were double our estimate, the net drain would still be close to $1 billion. While a more rigorous analysis would no doubt adjust these figures, we doubt that the basic conclusion would change.

Awesome. Simply awesome.

Why are we still busting up terror plots?

I thought that with Obama in office that the terrorists wouldn't hate us anymore....was I wrong to believe in the hope and change?

A joint FBI-New York Police Department task force feared Zazi may have been involved in a potential plot involving hydrogen peroxide-based explosives like those cited in an intelligence warning issued Monday, according to two other law enforcement officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about the investigation.

And then there's this, from a story that CNN lists under "crime":

FBI agents included what they said was a transcript of the intercepted call in affidavits supporting the charges against Najibullah Zazi, his father Mohammed Wali Zazi and Ahmad Wais Afzali. All three face court appearances Monday in a case that the Justice Department said stretches from Colorado and New York to Pakistan.

Wait, we foiled a terror plot by tapping a potetial terrorist's phone? Why are we still doing using those "illegal Bush wire taps"? Wasn't his right to privacy invaded? I hope the ACLU is standing at the ready. Terrorists have rights too, you know.

A triumph of government run health care

An absolutely outrageous story on Philadelphia's worst "news" website:

An inspection at a Veterans Affairs nursing home in Philadelphia last year found conditions endangering the welfare of residents, a Pittsburgh newspaper reported Saturday.

Inspectors found dried blood and feeding tubes on the floors, and one patient's leg had to be amputated after maggots were seen falling from his foot, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review said, citing a report obtained through a federal Freedom of Information Act request.

The report by the Wisconsin-based Long Term Care Institute concluded that the facility, the bed count of which has been cut from 240 to 120, “failed to provide a sanitary and safe environment for their residents.” It cites substandard treatment of wound care and “multiple concerns regarding nursing
competencies.”

Here's a little glimpse of the future if the Dems have their way.

The report said no action was taken on one unnamed veteran, even though his toes had turned black, until maggots were observed “falling out of the resident's foot,'' at which point an amputation was ordered. One inspector reported seeing a nurse use the wrong medication despite a week-old order from a physician changing the prescription, the report said.

Some patients had substantial weight loss, including one veteran who lost 51 pounds for unknown reasons.

“The potential for dehydration for these residents presents immediate jeopardy,” the report said.

Just add coma-inducing pain killers and that dehydration simply becomes government-provided end-of-life counseling. After all, in the long run, aren't we all terminal?

The bill would have transformed a legitimate but rarely required pain-control technique known as “palliative sedation” from its legitimate use — putting a patient who is near death, and whose suffering cannot otherwise be controlled, into an induced coma — into a method of intentionally causing death, by, in the words of the bill, “making the patient unaware and unconscious, while artificial food and hydration are withheld, during the progression of the disease leading to the death of the patient.” It would have allowed a dying patient with months left to demand that his doctor sedate and dehydrate him to death — regardless of whether sedation was actually needed to control pain and suffering. And, again quoting the bill, if a doctor didn’t “wish to comply with his or her patient’s choice of end-of-life options,” the doctor would be required to “refer or transfer [the] patient to an alternative health care provider” who would do the deed.

(...)

It’s no coincidence that a similar provision popped up in the notorious Section 1233 of H.R. 3200, the House version of Obamacare. As part of their compensated end-of-life counseling for Medicare recipients, physicians and nurses could refer patients to expert outside groups. And guess which organization claims credit for playing a prominent part in creating Section 1233? From the Compassion & Choices website, on July 27, 2009: “Compassion & Choices and its supporters have worked tirelessly with supportive members of congress [sic] to include in proposed reform legislation a provision requiring Medicare to cover patient consultation with their doctors about end-of-life choice (section 1233 of House Bill 3200).”

FYI, "Compassion and Choices" is the new name of the old Hemlock Society. And they are right in the midst of the healthcare bills floating about congress. How many of these Vets could qualify for "end-of-life counseling" simply as a result of the piss-poor care they recieved at the VA?

This is absolutely criminal--and this is how our government takes care of those who have served it.

Imagine how they will take care of you.

Brutally appropriate

This is an ad from PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) "I'd rather go Naked than wear Fur" campaign, wherein various celebutards pose naked to show the supposed depth of their character by supporting an "important" cause. Alicia Silverstone, Pam Anderson, Cindy Crawford, Holly Madison (however did thy get HER to pose naked, I wonder?) and an assortment of other well known and not-so-well known beautiful people pose without their clothes on for this campaign. You can see them all at Philly's worst, most pathetic local "news" website here.

The woman in the picture above may not be immediately familiar to most people, but she is is the star of the first vegetarianism campaign in South America and her appearance in such only demonstrates the absolute vapidity and tragic hipness of the PETA organization. She is Lydia Guevara, the granddaughter of "Che", complete with airbrushed armpits for our American sensibilities. You may have seen a similar image of Che adorning T-Shirts of liberals and clueless wannabes who who are ignorant to the fact that he was a mass murdering communist, or worse, if they do know it, they still think it's the height of cool to wear his image on a shirt.

But for PETA to use his granddaughter for their ad campaign? I can't think of anything more appropriate to characterize that organization.

I've got a fever, and the only prescription is...

NYTimes:

Why would President Obama go on five television shows back-to-back this coming Sunday morning?

That fact in itself has made news. For the first time ever, a president is appearing on five talk shows on a single Sunday, in quick succession — on ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and Univision.

Yes why WOULD Obama go on five Sunday morning talk shows? The Times really never answers that question. I guess they are just as baffled as I am, because so far that magical oration of his hasn't been at all effective at saving his socialized medicine plan.

The healthcare plan is failing on it's merits. This is clearly evidenced by the increasing desperation of Democratic tactics to silence the dissent. So it's time. Time to roll out the only thing that Obama ever had going for him. Time to roll out the big weapon that has been right in the face of the American public non-stop since January 20, 2009. Time to roll out the ONLY qualification that recommends Barack Obama for leadership of anything: the power of his voice, his words and his rhetoric to enthrall the masses.

So has he changed tacks? No.

Has he listened to the issues raised by protestors at the town halls? No, he has dismissed them, vilified them, and called them liars, while stocking his own town halls with only the faithful.

Has he looked for compromise by incorporaating conservative ideas, specifically tort reform? No, he has shut them out.

Do Obama and the geniuses in the White House really believe that after a multitude of staged presidential town halls and prime time appearances and press conferences, numerous interviews and scolding lectures from a soapbox from which he commands the attention of the entire world, after all Obama, all the time, that the answer to their dilemma of sliding support for Obama's healthcare plan is...MORE Obama?

What is the definition of insanity again?

...and the Oscar goes to....

What's the matter Nancy? Is the "let's call half the nation racist for disagreeing with your stupid health car plan" strategy tanking?

Yeah. That's what I thought.

The original sin of the Southern White Male

It's being a racist, of course.

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It seems that a particular affliction of the southern white man is over coming the original sin of racism. Whether or not a southern white man is actually guilty of racism himself, (and I think that pious types like Carter, who see racism everywhere, must be overcompensating for some shortcoming) he must always make apologies for it, and furthermore, he never questions charges of racism when they are levelled (I have some personal experience with this). As I have said before, charges of racism are the ugliest, most disgusting charges you can level at another person. It is almost impossible to defend oneself and the label tends to stain even after it has been applied inappropriately and removed.

The over application of this label has been going on for years, but ironically gained real momentum following the election of the "first post-racial President." Indeed, since Obama's election, any opposition to his radical plans for remaking the country have been countered with overblown charges of racism. With Carter's priggish interview with Brian Williams, this trend has reached well beyond the point of ridiculousness. For examples of this, watch this clip of a debate between Frank Luntz, Republican Pollster, and professional race baiter Michael Eric Dyson, last trotted out on the Today Show to condemn the "racist" Cambridge Cops who acted "stupidly". According to Dyson, apparently Joe Wilson's "You lie!" also not only included the implied "boy" as Maureen Dowd originally projected, but "you uppity 'n'!":

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It's laughable that Dyson is outraged that Obama has been portrayed as a monkey, a chimp and Hitler, which he sees as overtly racist, when for years that was the left's favorite insult to BushChimpHitler.

For the final word on this, I defer to the unparalleled Charles Krauthammer, who nails the motivation behind these slurs:

You know, the accusation of racism is a sign of desperation by people who know they are losing the national debate, and they want to hurl the ultimate charge in American politics.

This is dealing from the bottom of the deck, and I agree that it is a disgusting tactic. It's done as a way to end debate. The minute you call somebody a racist, the debate is over. You don't continue….

Accusations of racism are the last refuge of the liberal scoundrel.

As for Maureen Dowd, imagining a word [“boy”] that wasn't said: Well, in my previous profession, I saw a lot of people who heard words that weren't said. They were called patients. Many of them were actually helped with medication.

The reason she won't be — and others who are hurling the [racism] accusation — is because it is a deliberate attempt to change the subject and discredit the opposition with an unprovable — and unproven — ad hominem.

Stimulating nothing but my rage

Is it too much to ask, that after an horrendous commute due to an accident on 422 this morning (1 hour to go 16 miles, thank you very much), an absolutely awful day at work and a long night in classes, is it too much to effing ask that I can come home at nine o'clock at effing night without sitting in an effing TRAFFIC JAM ON 422 because of some Obama MAKE WORK, effing SHOVEL READY BUSY WORK ROAD REPAIR?

IS THAT TOO MUCH TO EFFING ASK?????????

Senate votes overwhelmingly to cut off Haliburton funding

Ooops, wait. Not Haliburton, I meant ACORN. It's arguably the biggest story of the day, yet here are the stories the mainstream media are leading with:

The death of Patrick Swayze

The death of Annie Le

Wringing the last bit of sensationalism out of Kanye West story(somehow the President of the United States found the time in his busy schedule to comment on this story, calling West a "Jackass"--but this part of the story is only being reported on Politico)

The release of the new Dan Brown novel (Anti Catholic author)

Shoe throwing Iraqi journalist freed ("A hero in Iraq")

All news stories, to be sure, but certainly nothing approaching the level of the Democratic super majority of the Senate voting last night to cut off federal funding to Obama pet organization ACORN. The only "mainstream" outlets covering this story are Fox and Drudge, of course.

Check out the non-story at NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, NYTimes, WaPo.

American Journalism, rest in peace.

ACORN's roasting on an open fire......

Breitbart:

The Senate voted Monday to block the Housing and Urban Development Department from giving grants to ACORN, a community organization under fire in several voter-registration fraud cases.

Oh, and all you Pennsylvanians out there, just FYI, Bobby Casey voted to support the pimp 'n' ho helpline.

I'm going to contain my boundless glee at this development for a few seconds to point a some things out. First of all, ACORN is going down because two kids had the nerve to take a video camera down to those offices and expose this atrocity. According to James O'Keefe, he and Hannah Giles took it upon themselves to undertake this expose and O'Keefe rightly wants to know where is the Mainstream media? Why are O'Keefe and Giles the story and NOT ACORN? And O'Keefe's reaction to the fact that ACORN is making noises about suing him? Bring it on:

It's not in their interest to attack me and Hannah. If they want to equate sex trafficking of young girls with videotaping someone without their consent, that's their moral prerogative, but that just shows you how low they are.

(courtesy Hot Air):
Kind of makes you wonder what our watchdog media has been up to, no? Well about that, Ace has this to say:

John Nolte writes this is the media's Waterloo, as there is a big, interesting, important story out there the public actually now knows of, and knows damn well the "news" media isn't even mentioning it. And they know there's only one possible reason for that.

The media could have chosen to clean up their acts and to do their jobs, or to commit suicide and pretend they can still hide a story from the public. They can't, and the public now sees their agenda and unprofessionalism exposed.

The Past-Tense Media

Because keeping you ignorant is a noble mission.

Yes, that's right. It's another "Van-Jones-if-we-don't-cover-it-then-it-didn't-actually-happen" story. Except we all know that it did. Is there anyone who HASN'T seen the videos, or at least heard of them yet?

Meanwhile, in a completely unrelated matter:

A new poll by the Pew Research Center has reveled that almost two thirds of Americans do not trust the mainstream media to deliver the truth, marking a 20+ year low.

63%, the vast majority of the over 1500 respondents to the survey, stated that the news media is dominated by special interests, rendering it biased and inaccurate.

When Pew first asked the question in 1985, the figure was 34%.

Now in 2009, just 29% say they trust the media to deliver straight facts.

...and we're back. Jonah Goldberg sums up my thoughts on ACORN appropriately:

I just think it's beyond hilarious that Acorn gets their dream president, the guy who swears they'll have a seat at the table, and largely because of the heightened profile the shady group got as a result of Obama's election, the super-majority Democratic Senate just voted overwhelmingly to deny them government money. Maybe Pelosi will ensure this is just for show by killing the move in the House. But still, what an awful week for Acorn and what a great week for cosmic comeuppance.

La la la.

Patrick Swayze, R.I.P.

At the age of 57, another icon of my youth passes before his time.

"Patrick Swayze passed away peacefully today with family at his side after facing the challenges of his illness for the last 20 months," said a statement released Monday evening by his publicist, Annett Wolf. No other details were given.

Fans of the actor were saddened to learn in March 2008 that Swayze was suffering from a particularly deadly form of cancer.

He had kept working despite the diagnosis, putting together a memoir with his wife and shooting "The Beast," an A&E drama series for which he had already made the pilot. It drew a respectable 1.3 million viewers when the 13 episodes ran in 2009, but A&E said it had reluctantly decided not to renew it for a second season.

Swayze said he opted not to use painkilling drugs while making "The Beast" because they would have taken the edge off his performance. He acknowledged that time might be running out given the grim nature of the disease.

Swayze had the distinction of being both old time tough and suavely graceful at the same time. He handled his illness with class and basically flipped off the press who counted him out by starting up a new series.

My sisters and I can have entire conversations just based on dialog from "Dirty Dancing". And though he was best known for that movie and "Ghost", (can anyone ever hear "Unchained Melody" and not immediately think of him) he also made a huge mark with the under-rated "Red Dawn" and as Darry in the classic, "the Outsiders". He uttered three of the most memorable lines in movie history:

"Pain don't hurt." ("Roadhouse")

"Wolverines!" ("Red Dawn")

and the often imitated, but never duplicated,

"Nobody puts Baby in the corner."

Rest in peace, Patrick.

The love inside, you take it with you. See ya.

ACORN: Under the bus

Fox News Via Ace:

Full Quote from Brett, Courtesy of Jes' TiVo:

"The census director has now sent a letter to the national headquarters of ACORN notifying them that the Census Bureau is severing all ties with ACORN for all the work having to do with the 2010 Census, either in preparation for or the execution of the 2010 Census. ... A copy of this letter has been sent to Congress and relevant committees. ... Major Garrett is working this story."

This will be yet another story where those reading the MSM only find out about the escalating controversy after a big action has been taken.

The Past-Tense Media.

And Allah has this at Hot Air:

From a practical standpoint, this is no great shakes; ACORN didn’t have a huge role in the census plans. But from a political standpoint, the feds dumping the president’s favorite community organizers for simply being too filthy to associate with is devastating.

It may be "no great shakes" to Allah, but let us not forget that the Obama Administration's great bi-partisan reach across the aisle to Judd Gregg in heading up Commerce fell a little short when the White House decided that they, and not Commerce, should have control of the census.

It's clear that any role ACORN had in the census would be subject to suspicion. As Mark Steyn observes just before Census dropped the hammer on ACORN:

[W]hat is odd to me, if you look for example at the way Republicans are always being called on to distance themselves from their so-called lunatic fringe, the pattern here is that on the other side of the aisle, there is a lunatic mainstream. ACORN should not be a respectable group, and should not be anywhere near the United States Census. But as we saw with the Van Jones story, no matter how radical you are, on the left, it’s very easy for the most extreme radical to get right up close to the levers of power in the United States. That is where, unfortunately, that is where Obama’s lived most of his adult life, and that is where most of his associations are.

Why can't 9/11 just be a National Day of Rememberance?

Why must everything become an occasion to press the population into "service"? Here's a press release from the Pennsylvania Department of Education:

The Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) is pleased to recognize September 11, 2009, as The National Day of Service and Remembrance. On April 21, 2009, President Barack Obama signed legislation that officially established September 11th as the federally recognized National Day of Service and Remembrance.

PDE joins in support of the National Day of Service and Remembrance and celebrates this great opportunity to showcase Pennsylvania and emphasize the importance of service learning. School districts and community partners are encouraged to host an event during the week of September 7 to 11, 2009 to help focus attention on volunteerism, charitable actions and service to the community. Rekindle the remarkable spirit of unity, service and compassion shared by so many Pennsylvanians in the immediate aftermath of the attack. Join PDE and many volunteers across the Commonwealth and the Nation in building an enduring and historic legacy.

Here's the website for the 911 Day of Service website, where we are all encouraged to

post your personal plan to perform a good deed, volunteer or engage in another charitable activity in observance of the newly established September 11 National Day of Service and Remembrance. Help create a wonderful legacy that honors the victims and those who rose to service in response to the attacks on America.

Ok, I hate to always play the role of curmudgeon in the face of such touchy-feely good deed doing, but why must we have a day of Service (and, as an afterthought, Rememberance) to honor the memories of those who perished on that day eight years ago? Why can we not just honor the memories of the fallen without some AmeriCorps-type forced volunteerism? Considering that the shackles of politcal correctness prevent our government and most of our citizens from acknowledging that the War on Terror is really a War on Muslim Extremism, I think it's a little too soon to be "celebrating" anything about 9/11.

I understand the desire to make something good come of something bad (and I think that the MLK "Day of Service" is an appropriate venue for this kind of thing.) But I also think that it is not only disrespectful of the victims, but dangerous to America to gloss over what happened on that day eight years ago. That glossing over this event over seems to have been the singular intent of the media and parts of our government in the eight intervening years is disturbing, to say the least. Do the children who are participating in this "Day of Service and Remembrance" even understand fully what happened that day? If they have not learned it at home, I doubt very sincerely they are getting a true picture from our schools.

Just before it happened, the Nation was consumed with domestic issues: Prescription drugs for seniors and the Chandra Levy disappearance. And here we are not eight years later, once again consumed with domestic issues and governemnt handouts. Not two days before 9/11 this year, the President of a nation at war on two fronts called a joint session of congress to talk about health care. Following the World Apology Tour this past spring, and now the investigation into the CIA, a very clear message is going out to the world and those who wish to tear down our way of life.

Make no mistake: that we have not experienced another 9/11 is not because our enemies have not been trying. 9/11 should be about remembering that awful day and the victims, not trying to make something good come from something bad. It is too soon for that and the motivations behind the attacks remains unresolved to this day.

Just remember.

ACORN: It's just as corrupt as you always thought it was

Now, to wash the taste out of your mouth from the previous Michael Moore post, here is a real documentarian worthy of real Oscar buzz.

What's that you say? Set up? Creatively edited? Unfairly ambushed?

All tactics Michael Moore uses to win Oscars. Conservatives can use Saul Alinsky's methods, too. Didn't you know?

ACORN is toast. Watch and learn. And make sure you have something to hold up your chin because otherwise it will be on the floor.



Filmmaker James O'Keefe has this to say about the expose:

While manipulation or entrapment occurs when people are encouraged to do things they otherwise wouldn’t, the pre-set trap is their own. These tactics allow the viewer to see ACORN’s soul; their playing field and their morality, out in the open. Their system is based on conflict and change for its own sake. This system is based on totalitarian principles and class war techniques. These people understand pressure, power and self-interest. When the Baltimore employees saw we were shady dealers, their instincts clicked in, as we were prime recruits.

ACORN has ascended. They elect our politicians and receive billions in tax money. Their world is a revolutionary, socialistic, atheistic world, where all means are justifiable. And they create chaos, again, for it’s own sake. It is time for us to be studying and applying their tactics, many of which are ideologically neutral. It is time, as Hannah said as we walked out of the ACORN facility, for conservative activists to “create chaos for glory.”

This is the story that Andrew Breitbart used to launch his new website, Big Government. Big Hollywood is already one of my favorite daily reads, so I am excited about this new blog. Hit it early and often.

Capitalism really is a love story for Michael Moore

I wonder how much active contempt Michael Moore has for his audiences?

The darling of the left is poised to release another of his faux documentaries, which will, no doubt, be lapped up in much the same way his previous offerings of pabulum have been:

Capitalism is evil. That is the conclusion U.S. documentary maker Michael Moore comes to in his latest movie "Capitalism: A Love Story," which premieres at the Venice film festival Sunday.

Blending his trademark humor with tragic individual stories, archive footage and publicity stunts, the 55-year-old launches an all out attack on the capitalist system, arguing that it benefits the rich and condemns millions to poverty.

So is Michael Moore going to be showing this movie for free?

Don't bet on it.

The fat rich "documentarian" is going to get even fatter and richer by trashing the very system that brought him there. And the fact that "Capitalism: A Love Story" is made by THE Big Documentarian means it will probably garner all of the Oscar buzz this year which, in turn, means that any serious small documentarian who makes a movie, no matter how good, will be passed over for Oscar contention thus condemned to poverty and obscurity.

This is hypocrisy his addle-brained worshippers will never put together.

I have no doubts, however that a cynic like Michael Moore is very much aware of this hypocrisy, and he's laughing all the way to the bank. Suckers.

Dear Leader speaks to the little ones, Part II

Obama's speech to public school students seems to be drawing mixed reactions; there are those who find it an incredibly creepy intrusion of the State and are responding with with threats to take their children out of school and there are those who can't quite grasp what the big deal is and tend to think that those in the former camp are over-reacting. After all, if the address is not being introduced by Miley Cyrus or the Jonas Brothers, are the kids really going to pay attention anyway?

The latter view, I think, dismisses the intent behind the event in the first place. And what exactly is it that Obama wants to tell our children? In his own words (emphasis mine):

"I'm going to be making a big speech to young people all across the country about the importance of education; about the importance of staying in school; how we want to improve our education system and why it’s so important for the country. So I hope everybody tunes in."

So, it's a policy speech aimed at children? What could possibly be the point? What could possibly be the harm? Will children even pay attention?

That brings me to the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, an education foundation that Obama led from 1995-99 and brainchild of Weather Underground radical, Bill Ayers. From Stanley Kurtz's September 23, 2008 WSJ Article:

One unsettled question is how Mr. Obama, a former community organizer fresh out of law school, could vault to the top of a new foundation? In response to my questions, the Obama campaign issued a statement saying that Mr. Ayers had nothing to do with Obama's "recruitment" to the board. The statement says Deborah Leff and Patricia Albjerg Graham (presidents of other foundations) recruited him. Yet the archives show that, along with Ms. Leff and Ms. Graham, Mr. Ayers was one of a working group of five who assembled the initial board in 1994. Mr. Ayers founded CAC and was its guiding spirit. No one would have been appointed the CAC chairman without his approval.

The CAC's agenda flowed from Mr. Ayers's educational philosophy, which called for infusing students and their parents with a radical political commitment, and which downplayed achievement tests in favor of activism. In the mid-1960s, Mr. Ayers taught at a radical alternative school, and served as a community organizer in Cleveland's ghetto.

In works like "City Kids, City Teachers" and "Teaching the Personal and the Political," Mr. Ayers wrote that teachers should be community organizers dedicated to provoking resistance to American racism and oppression. His preferred alternative? "I'm a radical, Leftist, small 'c' communist," Mr. Ayers said in an interview in Ron Chepesiuk's, "Sixties Radicals," at about the same time Mr. Ayers was forming CAC.

Nope. Nothing to see here.

The Cato Institute responds:

It's one thing for a president to encourage all kids to work hard and stay in school – that's a reasonable use of the bully pulpit. It's another thing entirely, however, to have the U.S. Department of Education send detailed instructions to public schools nationwide on how to glorify the president and the presidency, and push them to drive social change. Frighteningly, this is what President Obama has done.

In anticipation of the president's planned September 8 address to students nationwide, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan sent a letter and detailed "classroom activities" to schools with all sorts of troubling buzzwords and guidance. In his letter, Duncan asserts that the work of educators is "critical to…our social progress." It's a statement that strongly suggests – as many educators have held and continue to hold – that it is the job of public schools to impose values, often collectivist, on students.

The fear that this might be the case is reinforced by classroom activities for pre-K-6 students that encourages children to make posters setting out "community and country" goals. Perhaps even more frightening is the lesson schools are pushed to teach that it is important to listen to "the President and other elected officials." Possibly most distressing of all, though, is guidance that appears explicitly designed to glorify both the presidency and President Obama himself, encouraging schools to prepare for the speech "by reading books about presidents and Barack Obama." And schools are told to ask students how president Obama will "inspire" them in his speech before he gives it, and how they were inspired after Obama has spoken.

And Jim Greer, chairman of the Republican Party of Florida, says:

"The address scheduled for September 8, 2009, does not allow for healthy debate on the President's agenda, but rather obligates the youngest children in our public school system to agree with our President's initiatives or be ostracized by their teachers and classmates."

I think I understand the motivation of teachers who believe that this is a good thing; they see first hand a lot of the effects of bad parenting. As parents abdicate more and more of their traditional roles to the public schools, teachers are called upon to step in where a parent normally would have. Though we can debate the causes and effects of an "it takes a village" mentality on the general populace, an unarguable result is that people invariably begin looking toward the government instead of themselves to solve their problems. Teachers, who bear the brunt of this phenomenom on the front lines, undoubtedly welcome a "stay in school and do your homework" speech from a man who commands cult like reverence from his supporters, particularly the youth of America whom he successfully mobilized to win the election.

We can also debate the merits of the expansion of the State's power over a public that is increasingly unwilling to accept personal responsibility, and indeed, that is a post for another time. For now, though, I don't think it is even a little bit of an over-reaction to protest Obama's speech to children, nor to opt your children out of it. I think it is nothing less than a stand for independence and freedom.

Geezer attacks reporters

This is video of "runaway mom" Bonnie Sweeten's father, the equally delightfully named William Sinner. Mr. Sinner was unprovoked when he charged the cameramen gathered outside the Bucks County Courthouse. A family friend explained that he was hostile to the reporters becuase they were parked outside his house day and night and that he was upset about his daughter possibly going to jail.

His excuse? "I just lost it."

Dear Leader to speak to the little ones on September 8

For some reason just outside the sphere of my comprehension, for the first time in the history of the United States, a sitting President will officially address public school students in grades K through 6.

Lesson plans can be found here. Here's an excerpt:

As students listen to the speech, they could think about the following:
What is the President trying to tell me?
What is the President asking me to do?
What new ideas and actions is the President challenging me to think about?

This makes me decidedly uncomfortable. I'm not sure why the President of the United States has any business directly addressing children under 12 in a formal speech, much less "asking them to do" anything or "challenging" them to think about "new ideas and actions". I keep thinking of those little Khmer Rougue kids torturing Dith Pran in "The Killing Fields". Apparently, there are many folks who agree with me; the Twitter group #PASS (Parent Approved School Skip) has been formed for the purpose of encouraging parents to take a stand against this move by the administration. Some are even organizing rallies on Facebook.

Even if this is not some Bill Ayers-style stealth move to continue the work of the NEA in indoctrinating our children into leftist thought, the very best we can hope for it is that there is no real purpose to it other than to tell kids to stay in school and do their homework. A harmless, even beneficial message, to be sure. But imagine if instead of Obama delivering it, it was George W. Bush.

But this is far too organized by the administration to be blown off as harmless and the MSM's studied gloss over of this move, suggests that the Administration wants to keep under the radar as much as possible the fact that Barack Obama is going to speak directly to our children. The Administration is either operatng under a grand illusion that Obama is truly the "great uniter" he ran as (and not the deeply polarizing figure he actuallly is)or has decided that it's time to speak directly to the next generation of voters. As a parent who has seen children come home from school to talk about the great success of "We are the World", who has seen children so effectively terrorized against smoking that they cry in despair if their parents light up, and who had seen so many been indoctrinated into unquestioning belief in the state-sponsored religion of environmentalism, the effect of presenting a message---any message--in a school setting cannot be underestimated.

It gives me the creeps. Stay away from our children, Barack.

Why does this tick me off so much?

NBC10:

State police ticketed at least 16 drivers and gave another dozen warnings on the first day of the airport parking crackdown at Philadelphia International Airport, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.

People are notorious for pulling over and parking on the shoulder of the I-95 ramp that leads right into the airport. They sit there waiting for that call from a friend or family member arriving at baggage claim. It's easier (and cheaper) than pulling into short-term parking. And the city's solution to the problem -- a free cell phone parking lot -- just hasn't worked. It's not easy to find and people complain that they get lost on the way out.

PennDot put up 33 signs along the north and southbound I-95 ramps Monday. They tell you not to stop, but to make your way over to the Park and Ride lot on Bartram Avenue.

The fines for parking along the ramp are hefty -- up to $134.

Is there any chore more frustrating than picking up someone at the airport? Since 9/11 I have had the impression that airport security, such as it is, is more about treating everybody equally, rather than actually targeting likely terrorists.

I guess I'm just tired of being inconvenienced by incompetent government officials enforcing ineffective government regulations to provide me with what we all know is only a grand illusion of safety.

The terrorists win.