Harry Reid Blames Republicans For Tax Increases!!!!!!!!!!

Chutzpah alert! Harry Reid says that the Senate would extend George Bush's tax cuts, if only Republicans would allow it.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Wednesday blamed Republican stalling tactics for not being able to extend tax breaks that were enacted under President George W. Bush.

"Maybe if they stop stalling everything that comes to the floor we might be able to get to that stuff," he told reporters, adding, "We'll get to that when we get through unemployment insurance, Wall Street reform, and a few other things."

Congress passed the Bush tax cuts in 2001 and 2003 when Republicans controlled both chambers. Those tax breaks, which benefit a large swath of the economy, are slated to expire in January.

Tiger Pays $20 Million Per Girlfriend

Were they worth it Tiger?

Tiger Woods is banned from letting girlfriends near his kids in a divorce deal netting his ex a record $750 million settlement, The Sun reported Wednesday.

The golfer agreed to keep single women away from daughter Sam, three, and son Charlie, one.

He can bring a new flame into their lives only if he marries her. In return, former wife Elin Nordegren ,30, gets the biggest payout ever seen in a celebrity divorce.

But she can never publicly speak out over his alleged flings with socialite Rachel Uchitel, reality star Jaimee Grubbs, porn queen Joslyn James and up to 17 others.

Pete Stark: "Our Borders Are Quite Secure"

I'll sell ladders to everyone who wants to get over the fence!

BTW, the Bracero program hasn't existed for decades.

Obama Will Get Back To You Later

Candidate Obama mocked the idea of establishing commissions. "That's Washington-speak for, we'll get back to you later." But he has established four.

President Obama's National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform is meeting today as part of its efforts to craft recommendations by December on how best to address America's red-ink problem.

Mr. Obama established the commission in February, saying debt and deficits can "hobble our economy" and "saddle every child in America with an intolerable burden."

Yet the president's decision to establish a commission to address a problem he described as potentially catastrophic seems odd in light of his earlier criticism of commissions in general. As Ari Shapiro noted on National Public Radio today, the president mocked the notion of commissions to address problems back when he was a candidate.

Here's Mr. Obama on September 18, 2008, not long after the economic collapse: "Senator McCain's first answer to this economic crisis was - get ready for it - a commission. That's Washington-speak for 'we'll get back to you later.'"

How Barack Hussein Obama Saved The World

He stopped H1N1. That doesn't quite comport with my memory. I seem to recall a great deal of fumbling and protracted shortages of vaccine until long after the "crisis" had passed and the virus was determined to be far less virulent than feared. In other words, Barack Hussein Obama is taking credit for protecting my flower garden from rampaging elephants and that's why we should trust him to run our lives.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
David Axelrod Unedited Interview Pt. 2
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

Obama Flouts Record Keeping Laws

There are laws requiring that the executive branch keep track of meetings with lobbyists and archive e-mail conversations. In fact, when the Bush Administration lost some e-mails (since restored), it was a big scandal. Meanwhile the Obama regime has been evading the laws by holding meetings with lobbyists in coffee shops and using gmail and hotmail to evade archiving laws. Does anybody care?

A top ethics watchdog group is calling for yet another investigation into the Obama White House’s ethically and legally questionable use of technology – this time for bypassing electronic archiving requirements and visitor logs in holding a hundreds of meetings with lobbyists at a coffee shop close to the White House.

Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington (CREW), which recently called for an investigation into revelations reported by The Daily Caller, told House oversight committee Chairman Edolphus Towns, New York Democrat, in a June 28 letter he should launch an investigation into these latest charges, too.

At issue are hundreds of meetings at a Caribou Coffee close to the White House between high-ranking administration officials and top K-Street lobbyists. The meetings were reported by the New York Times June 24.

CREW, in its letter to Towns, said he should investigate “whether the White House is purposefully flouting its responsibilities under both the Federal Records Act and the Presidential Records Act,” citing claims by the Times that the coffee-house lobbyist meetings were often initiated with e-mails from White House aides’ personal e-mail accounts – bypassing an archiving system – and appear geared towards hiding the meetings from disclosing them in a published list of visitors to the White House.

Meanwhile, you may want to amuse yourself by reading this sanctimonious missive on ethics and openness post on the regime's website.

From day one of his Administration, a top priority for President Obama has been changing the way Washington works by making government more open, accountable and accessible to all Americans. Today, the President took another important step toward bringing that change to Washington—and toward fulfilling his promise to have the most transparent government in history—by successfully resolving a longstanding dispute about missing White House emails dating from the previous Administration.

First a little background. The missing email problem was first identified in 2005, when the Office of Administration conducted an internal analysis suggesting that millions of emails from the Executive Office of the President ("EOP"), created between March 2003 and October 2005, might be missing. Approximately two years later, in September 2007, the National Security Archive ("NSA") and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics ("CREW") filed lawsuits against the EOP and the National Archives seeking to recover any missing emails. The litigation continued for over a year, and involved numerous motions and other courtroom fights.

Shortly after taking office, President Obama made it a priority to resolve this dispute (which concerns the previous Administration's emails only). The White House quickly began discussions with NSA and CREW, and the parties agreed to stay the litigation on March 31, 2009—a temporary pause, in the hopes of working things out.

Today, the White House is pleased to announce that the parties have reached an agreement to settle the pending lawsuits. As part of the agreement, the White House will restore millions of emails from back-up tapes related to at least 33 different days during the Bush Administration. The millions of restored emails will be transferred to the National Archives. They eventually will be made available to historians, students, and the general public under laws providing for the release of such documents from prior administrations.

The President is firmly committed to ensuring that the records of this Administration—as well as those of all previous administrations—are properly retained and preserved. We are pleased to see this matter reach an amicable resolution. We thank the EOP’s Office of the Chief Information Officer, the National Archives and Records Administration, and the Justice Department for helping us resolve this case and ensure the preservation of this Administration’s emails. Also, we especially want to thank CREW and NSA for their hard work with us in bringing the case to a successful conclusion and in promoting openness in government.

Is Obama Russia's Guy?

Late in this article about the Russian spy ring is this creepy paragraph.

“There is no way to stop the reset as long as Obama is in power,” Malashenko said. “But a scandal like this is meant to show Americans that Russians are untrustworthy and that confrontation continues.”

Considering that "reset" means that we give up a lot to the Russians, I have my doubts about Obama having America's best interests at heart here.

Obama's Political Director "Forgot" That He Was On SEIU's Payroll

How do you forget cashing a $37,000 check? Well, why not? Obama's Treasury Secretary "forgot" about all the money he earned from the International Monetary Fund. Some (including me) might call this the Steve Martin defense.

A former top official for a huge New York union who is now the White House political director failed to disclose more than $37,000 in income from the union last year, it was reported yesterday.

As the former public-affairs executive for Service Employees International Union Local 1199, Patrick Gaspard earned $37,191 in carried-over pay while on the White House payroll.

He failed to disclose the income on financial-disclosure forms, Politico reported. Where arrangements for payment by a former employer must be listed on the form, he checked a box indicating he had nothing to report.

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/obama_aide_forgot_in_union_pay_YuupaYZ4YmFujAUtRCUkkI#ixzz0sFSuzZxg

Obama And The Seven Dorks

How Big An Asshole Is Joe Biden?

This big.

"You've Got A Lot Of Golf Course Here, Don't You?"

Obama's priorities.

Everybody else is there to revive the world's economy. Obama wants to play golf.

When US President Barack Obama stepped off his helicopter in Huntsville on Friday, the first thing he said was, “You’ve got a lot of golf courses here, don’t you?” Industry Minister Tony Clement told the National Post in an exclusive interview.

We should all celebrate plugging the damn hole. After all, Obama said he would not rest until the hole was plugged.

Patty Murray And Dino Rossi Dead Level In Latest Poll

47 all.

As has been the case in every match-up between them, three-term Democratic Sen. Patty Murray is in a neck-and-neck race for re-election against Republican Dino Rossi, a former state senator and GOP gubernatorial candidate, according to a Rasmussen Reports poll conducted June 22.

Murray is tied at 47 percent with Rossi who, after playing a guessing game for a while, got into the race in late May. Three percent prefer some other candidate and 3 percent are undecided.

Fund Abortion Or This Baby Starves

Hillary Clinton laid out the Obama agenda when it comes to human life. Either fund abortion, or we'll starve the babies who do survive pregnancy.

On the agenda at the G8 summit in Canada is promoting maternal and infant health in the poorest parts of the globe. The high rates of maternal and infant mortality in many countries are an impediment to democracy and social development, to say nothing of a human tragedy for these communities. Commitments of resources from the G8 countries to address these problems should be welcomed and commended. Why, then, is the Obama delegation threatening to derail these agreements? …

Given this, one would expect there to be universal support for Canada’s leadership in taking on these problems and working to meet these critical needs. But the Obama administration is obstructing this positive consensus. Hillary Clinton, when asked about Canada’s G8 plan to address infant and maternal health in the developing world, said the following: “You cannot have maternal health without reproductive health. And reproductive health includes contraception and family planning and access to legal, safe abortion.” …

When top U.S. officials change the subject away from important global policy and development work to push for favored hot-button political issues, it gives the appearance of using American taxpayer funding to promote social engineering, bypassing public debate about the best way to achieve development worldwide and address the very real unmet needs of the developing world. Does Hillary Clinton think it is more important to promote liberal Western ideologies than to address the critical needs of the women and children of Africa and Asia?

We Have To Pass Financial Reform To Find Out What's In It

Here we go again.

Christopher Dodd: “No one will know until this is actually in place how it works."

Democrats Embrace Tinkle Down Economics

I am old enough to remember when the Democratic Party scorned “trickle-down economics.” In fact, Democrats coined the phrase “trickle-down economics” as a term of derision describing free market economics. Free market economists argued that permitting risk takers and entrepreneurs to prosper created wealth that ultimately benefited everyone. The Democrats’ scorn survived abundant evidence that trickle-down economics worked. Their ideology so blinds them that they continue to insist, as candidate Obama argued during the presidential election, that high earners must have onerous taxes imposed upon them, even when it hurts the economy, to achieve their nebulous goal of “fairness.”

But now Democrats have embraced their own form of trickle-down economics, enriching one sector of the economy on the premise that so doing will redound to the benefit of other sectors of the economy. The problem with the Democrats’ version of trickle-down is that the sector of the economy they favor creates no wealth to spread and impedes productive areas of the economy.

Barack Hussein Obama is pushing for Stimulus II, a $100 billion plus spending package that will sustain and expand government payrolls. This perpetuates a pattern of bloating bureaucracies that has accelerated dramatically since Democrats took control of Congress in 2006. Today, there are more than two million federal civilian employees. The average federal employee is compensated for his or her remora-like contributions to the economy with a net pay that surpasses the private sector by 55%.

To see how well this works, we should look at the late, great state of California. Aside from overly burdensome environmental regulations, the single greatest contributor to California’s economic collapse has been the state employee. Politicians of both parties initiated and perpetuated a system in which government employees accepted lower pay than they would get in the private sector in exchange for the promise of superior retirement benefits. That was the politically expedient means of passing responsibility down to future legislatures. Let others worry about how to pay for it. As a consequence, California’s unfunded pension liability for present and future retirees is estimated at more than half a trillion dollars.

Private sector pensions and public sector pensions follow two entirely different paths. In the private sector, pensions may be described as defined contribution pensions. In the defined contribution pension, a portion of the worker’s income is set aside and usually matched by the employer and invested in a fund that matures upon the employee’s retirement age. This nest egg is then converted into an annuity that pays the retiree a fixed income based upon an estimate of his predicted lifespan. If the retiree outlives his annuity, then that’s just tough luck. In exchange for a small, inadequate contribution toward his retirement, the government employee is promised a comfortable lifetime pension calculated as a percentage of his pay at retirement. In addition the government employee is allowed to retire at a much younger age, sometimes as young as 50 years, and cannot ever outlive his retirement.

And if that weren’t bad enough, government employee unions have now exercised their political muscle to the point that government workers now make more money than do private sector employees. The total package of pay and benefits for federal government employees is about 55% higher than private sector workers earn for the same job responsibilities.

In large part this is the result of an unholy alliance between government employee unions and the Democratic Party. In the private sector, unions and management have an adversarial relationship. In the government sector, unions and Democrats have an alliance. In exchange for campaign cash contributions and in-kind contributions in the form of independent political advocacy advertisements and volunteer labor, Democrats reward government employees with ever higher pay and their unions with a swelling enrollment. The more overpaid government employees there are out there, then the more money that government employee unions can cycle back into Democrat campaign coffers.

Nevertheless, this is the sector of the economy that has benefited the most from Democrat stimulus packages. These payoffs continue even though the money supply continues to shrink at a rate not seen since the Great Depression and economic studies finding that government spending smothers the private economy.

As such, I would like to propose a new term to summarize Democratic Party economic theories – tinkle down. We enrich federal bureaucrats, and they show their appreciation by tinkling all over us.

The Ever-Vigilant-And-Unbiased Media At Work

Dave Wiegel of the Washington Post has been exposed by his own words for the leftist operative he really is and not the objective journalist he claims to be.

Weigel's Words:

•"This would be a vastly better world to live in if Matt Drudge decided to handle his emotional problems more responsibly, and set himself on fire."

•"Follow-up to one hell of a day: Apparently, the Washington Examiner thought it would be fun to write up an item about my dancing at the wedding of Megan McArdle and Peter Suderman. Said item included the name and job of my girlfriend, who was not even there -- nor in DC at all."

•"I'd politely encourage everyone to think twice about rewarding the Examiner with any traffic or links for a while. I know the temptation is high to follow up hot hot Byron York scoops, but please resist it."

•"It's all very amusing to me. Two hundred screaming Ron Paul fanatics couldn't get their man into the Fox News New Hampshire GOP debate, but Fox News is pumping around the clock to get Paultard Tea Party people on TV."

Chicago Thugs Don't Care About No Stinking Constitution

A federal judge ruled that Obama's capricious six month moratorium on oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico was unconstitutional. No matter. The Thug-In-Chief's going forward with it anyway.

This really is disturbing. The moratorium was a poorly thought out gesture to appease the left. By overturning it, this judge gave Obama a face saving way out of the corner he had painted himself into. But Obama is just too damned stupid to recognize the gift he was given.

There is a disturbing passage in federal Judge Martin Feldman's Tuesday decision overturning President Obama's six-month moratorium on oil and natural gas drilling in all waters more than 500 feet deep. "The [Interior] Secretary's determination that a six-month moratorium on issuance of new permits and on drilling by the 33 rigs is necessary does not seem to be fact-specific and refuses to take into measure the safety records of those others in the Gulf. There is no evidence presented indicating that the Secretary balanced the concern for environmental safety with the policy of making leases available for development. There is no suggestion that the Secretary considered any alternatives. ..." Feldman wrote.

Even more disturbing is Obama's response to Feldman, which was to promise both an appeal in court and issuance of a new drilling moratorium from Interior. In other words, Obama is forging ahead with the very policy the judge just ruled unconstitutional. And the chief executive is challenging the thousands of Gulf Coast oil industry employees to try and stop him in the appeals court. This response is the latest evidence of a disconcerting pattern with this president and his cronies in the executive branch and Congress: Their "progressive" ideological agenda comes first; everything else, including the will of the people and the letter of the law, is at most an obstacle on the road to "change we can believe in."

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/Will-Obama-listen-to-anybody_-96985499.html#ixzz0rs1hRLBF

Milwaukee County Supervisor Doesn't Know That Arizona Is On The Mexican Border

If Arizona shared a border with Mexico, then it's anti-illegal immigration law would be understandable.

How Big An Asshole Is Alan Grayson?

A really, really really big asshole. He's so big an asshole that Chris Matthews can't stand him. The Daily Caller collects his greatest hits.

It’s been a tough few weeks for Rep. Alan Grayson of Florida’s 8th District. First, Daniel Webster, former speaker of the Florida statehouse, entered the race as a potential opponent. Then the FEC ruled that mycongressmanisnuts.com, a site critical of Grayson, isn’t violating any rules. Now the Democrat is coming under fire for a financial connection to the Florida Tea Party.

With his national political prospects fading, it’s a good time to recognize the man’s greatest moments in Washington and on the airwaves:

1. Cheney is a vampire

“I have trouble listening to what he says sometimes, because of the blood that drips from his teeth while he’s talking,” Grayson said on the Chris Matthews show. “But my response is this: He’s just angry because the president doesn’t shoot old men in the face. But by the way, when he was done speaking, did he just then turn into a bat and fly away?”

Matthews, not exactly a right winger, couldn’t believe his ears: “Oh, god … We’ve got to keep a level here.”

Read much, much more: http://dailycaller.com/2010/06/23/graysons-greatest-hits-as-the-congressman-comes-under-fire-again-the-dc-replays-his-chart-topping-statements/#ixzz0rmFcTQuW

Yeah, I'm On Vacation.

Limited blogging. Too much outside.

It's Official, Soccer Is Gay

Soccer Officially Announces It Is Gay

Soccer Is So Gay

Soccer Officially Announces It Is Gay

Plug The Damn Hole

What's Good For Barack Obama Is Good For The USA!

Obama "Will Not Rest Until The Leak Has Stopped"

After all, there are too many tee times, barbecues and baseball games on the calendar.

MSNBC Adds Another Leftist Wacko

And becomes "unpredictable?"

Obama Always At His Best

Like all mediocre people.

I believe it was Jean Giraudoux who first said, "Only the mediocre are always at their best." Barack Obama was supposed to be the best, the very best, and yet he is always, reliably, consistently mediocre. His speech on oil was no better or worse than his speech on race. Yet the Obammyboppers who once squealed with delight are weary of last year's boy band. At the end of the big Oval Office address, Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews and the rest of the MSNBC gang jeered the president. For a bewildered President Obama, it must have felt like his Ceausescu balcony moment. Had they caught up with him in the White House parking lot, they would have put him up against the wall and clubbed him to a pulp with Mr. Matthews' no-longer-tingling leg.

All Three Networks Beclown Themselves

Only with the mainstream news media could a golfing president get away with criticizing the BP CEO for going sailing.

As NewsBusters previously reported, America's media on Saturday had a collective hissy fit over BP CEO Tony Hayward having the nerve to participate in a yacht race on his day off.

At the same time, no such outrage was expressed concerning President Obama and Vice President Biden going golfing.

Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2010/06/20/sunday-talk-shows-all-start-bp-haywards-yachting-ignore-obamas-golfing#ixzz0rUX7LjyU

Failure Rate For "Rehabbed" Al Qaida 20%

So you want to turn them loose, huh Obama? Execution has a much lower rate of recidivism.

Twenty percent of ex-Guantanamo prisoners who graduated from Saudi Arabia's rehabilitation programme resumed contacts with Islamist militants, a senior Saudi counter-terror official said on Saturday.

Twenty-five of the 120 former detainees at the US "war-on-terror" prison returned to radical Islamist activities after graduation from Riyadh's lauded rehab centre, Abdulrahman al-Hadlaq, who has the post of director of ideological security at the interior ministry, told reporters.

"It's about a 9.5-percent relapse" for all 300 Saudi men, including militants arrested by Saudi authorities, who have passed through the "Care Centre," Hadlaq said.

"But it's more than 20 (percent) among Guantanamo guys."

Eric Holder To Wait Until After Mid Term Elections

Before deciding whether or not to do something stupid. But political expediency has nothing to do with it.

Attorney General Eric Holder said the decision over where to hold the trial for alleged 9/11 plotter Khalid Sheikh Mohammad was “weeks away” — three months ago.

Now advocates on both sides of the issue say they expect the Obama administration to punt the decision until after the November midterm elections— when the controversial plan could do less damage to the political fortunes of endangered Democrats and might face less resistance on Capitol Hill.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2010/06/20/mid-term-elections-have-nothing-to-do-with-911-trial-delay-holder-says/#ixzz0rUKy2Xrt

First Amendment For Lefists Only?

Unsurprisingly, Democrats are proving why the First Amendment should not be interpreted as managed speech. As promised, they are undermining the recent Citizens United Supreme Court decision, but are creating loopholes large enough for their own special interests to drive a union through.

Washington is shocked top Democrats gave the National Rifle Association – one of the most powerful lobbies in town – its own loophole in legislation designed to increase disclosure requirements on campaign spending following the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision.

The untold story is that Democrats assuaged organized labor’s early opposition to the bill by tailoring its provisions to eke out space for unions.

For example, restrictions on companies that received government bailouts during the financial crisis apply to businesses, but not unions: Under the DISCLOSE Act, General Motors can’t tell you who to vote for, but the United Auto Workers union can.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2010/06/21/disclose-act-shields-democrat-leaning-groups-from-disclosure-requirements/#ixzz0rUJ0j5GZ

Ideology, Not Competence On Obama's Oil Spill Panel

They don't know diddly about engineering or oil, but they can recite verbatim from the leftist catechism.

The panel appointed by President Barack Obama to investigate the Gulf of Mexico oil spill is short on technical expertise but long on talking publicly about "America's addiction to oil." One member has blogged about it regularly.

Only one of the seven commissioners, the dean of Harvard's engineering and applied sciences school, has a prominent engineering background — but it's in optics and physics. Another is an environmental scientist with expertise in coastal areas and the after-effects of oil spills. Both are praised by other scientists.

The five other commissioners are experts in policy and management.

The White House said the commission will focus on the government's "too cozy" relationship with the oil industry. A presidential spokesman said panel members will "consult the best minds and subject matter experts" as they do their work.

The commission has yet to meet, yet some panel members had made their views known.

Environmental activist Frances Beinecke on May 27 blogged: "We can blame BP for the disaster and we should. We can blame lack of adequate government oversight for the disaster and we should. But in the end, we also must place the blame where it originated: America's addiction to oil." And on June 3, May 27, May 22, May 18, May 4, she called for bans on drilling offshore and the Arctic.

"Even as questions persist, there is one thing I know for certain: the Gulf oil spill isn't just an accident. It's the result of a failed energy policy," Beinecke wrote on May 20.

Two other commissioners also have gone public to urge bans on drilling.

Rahm Emanuel Links BP To Republicans

Lemme get this straight. Nobody has collected more money from BP than Barack Hussein Obama. The Obama regime gave BP an award for safety. The Obama regime had known for months that there were big problems with that rig. And it's the Republicans will be paying the price?

Racism Jumps The Shark

Frankly, I thought it jumped the shark with the black hole episode, but this should put the cherry on top.

Obama At The Bat

Karzai Gives Japan Priority Claims To Mineral Rights

Once again, Obama's gratuitous disrespect of an ally is costing the United States dearly.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai said this week that Japan — not the U.S. — takes priority over other nations when it comes to mining his people’s vast mineral deposits.

Karzai made his proclamation during a five-day visit to Japan. Over that same time period, news reports surfaced that Afghanistan and Pakistan plotted to negotiate with U.S.-NATO enemies, the U.N. reported that insurgent violence is surging, and Reuters tried to parse the Pentagon’s diverse messages over U.S. strategy in Afghanistan.

During an appearance at Japan’s International Institute for International Affairs, Karzai focused on his people’s mineral deposits. He Keen to Japan’s status as Afghanistan’s second-largest donor, and reasoned that Japan should delight in special access to Afghan resources with estimated values that range from $1-3 trillion dollars.

“Morally, Afghanistan should give access as a priority to those countries that have helped Afghanistan massively in the past few years,” Karzai told the institute.

“What . . . we have to return with is this opportunity of mineral resources, that we must return at the goodwill of the Japanese people by giving Japan priority to come and explore and extract,” Karzai said.

Looking to the future, Karzai echoed an internal Pentagon memo and said that the mining will define Afghanistan, “While Saudi Arabia is the oil hub of the world, Afghanistan will be the lithium hub of the world…. And Japan is salutation to participate in the lithium exploration in Afghanistan.”

Pelosi Holds Two Bad Pieces Of Legislation Hostage To Each Other

Stupid. Even by Pelosi standards.

Pelosi has handed the Senate Republicans the key to a filibuster not just in the Senate but also in the House, all to demand a massive expansion of the deficit on two separate fronts. The GOP couldn’t have possibly asked for a better political position even if they had begged Pelosi not to throw them into that briar patch. And if the “doctor fix” fails to get out of the House, it won’t be Republicans who get the blame, since Pelosi can call a vote on that any time she desires.

Obama's Thug Instincts Not Helpful In The Gulf

Thuggery is not leadership. Nowhere is that more exposed than in the Gulf of Mexico.

Thuggery is unattractive. Ineffective thuggery even more so. Which may be one reason so many Americans have been reacting negatively to the response of Barack Obama and his administration to BP's Gulf oil spill.

Take Interior Secretary Ken Salazar's remark that he would keep his "boot on the neck" of BP, which brings to mind George Orwell's definition of totalitarianism as "a boot stamping on a human face -- forever." Except that Salazar's boot hasn't gotten much in the way of results yet.

Or consider Obama's undoubtedly carefully considered statement to Matt Lauer that he was consulting with experts "so I know whose ass to kick." Attacking others is a standard campaign tactic when you're in political trouble, and certainly BP, which appears to have taken unwise shortcuts in the Gulf, is an attractive target.

But you don't always win arguments that way. The Obama White House gleefully took on Dick Cheney on the issue of terrorist interrogations. It turned out that more Americans agreed with Cheney's stand, despite his low poll numbers, than Obama's.

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Obama_s-thuggery-is-useless-in-fighting-spill-96684389.html#ixzz0rOaZepw4

Obama's War On Business

Aside from incompetence, the oil spill has exposed Barack Hussein Obama's hostility toward private enterprise.

FOR over a month, Barack Obama watched the oil spill spread over the Gulf of Mexico with the same powerless horror as other Americans. Finally, lampooned by his countrymen for his impotence, he was spurred into action. He attacked the only available target—BP—and, to underline the seriousness with which he takes this problem, he gave his first Oval Office address on the subject.

The address got poor reviews; the attack on BP better ones. This week the firm bowed to pressure, and announced that it was, in effect, handing over $20 billion to the government to pay for compensation and clean-up, as well as cancelling the payment of any dividends this year and setting up a fund—of a mere $100m—to compensate unemployed oil workers.

This may do Mr Obama some good. Whether it will benefit America is more doubtful. Businessmen are already gloomy, depressed by the economy and nervous of their president’s attitude towards them. This episode will not encourage them.

Democrats Might Do Something Worthwhile

Senator Clair McCaskill says that she has the votes to end the Senate's cowardly and underhanded practice of secret holds.

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) said Saturday she's secured the votes to force a rules change ending the Senate's practice of secret holds.

McCaskill said on Twitter that she had secured the support of two more senators to give her the 67 votes necessary to change the rules in the Senate to abolish the traditional practice of being able to anonymously hold up nominees to positions requiring Senate confirmation.

Sens. Kit Bond (R-Mo.) and Sam Brownback (R-Kansas) were the last two signatories.

I suspect that even though Clair McCaskill is leading this, most of the votes will be Republican.

Does Obama Expect BP's Tony Hayward To "Suck It Up With A Straw"

While Obama enjoys a round of golf, his hit man criticizes Tony Hayward for going sailing.

Rahm Criticizes Emanuel Criticizes BP's Hayward For Sailing

While his boss plays golf. Emanuel thinks that playing golf while the oil flows is bad PR.

"This has just been part of a long line of PR gaffes and mistakes," White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said in an interview taped for ABC's "This Week" week program, referring to Hayward...

...

"Well, to quote Tony Hayward, he's got his life back, as he would say," Emanuel said, commenting on his attendance at the yacht race. "And I think we can all conclude that Tony Hayward is not going to have a second career in PR consulting."

"There's really a substance here that matters," Emanuel added. "That's clearly a PR mistake, but he's made a number of those mistakes. What's important is: are we capping the well? Are we capturing the oil? Are we containing the cleanup? Are we filing the claims? Are we also cleaning up the mess? That's what's important."

Meanwhile, on the links:

Obama and Vice President Joe Biden enjoyed a round of golf Saturday near Washington, something they’ve done on other weekends since the spill and a fact that wasn’t lost on users of social networking sites. Twitter feeds compared Obama and Biden’s golfing to Hayward’s yachting, lumping them together as diversions of privileged people who should be paying more attention to the oil gushing into the Gulf.

“Our government, the executives at BP, it looks like they decide to worry about it later,” said Capt. Dwayne Price, a charter fisherman in Grand Isle, La., who now spends his days shuttling media out to the oiled waters. “Things need to happen now. The longer this is strung out, the worse it’s going to be.”

Messages seeking comment were left for officials at the White House, who have struggled to counter criticism at home of how the administration has handled the disaster. An Associated Press-GfK poll released Tuesday showed 52 percent now disapprove of Obama’s handling of the oil spill, up significantly from last month.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2010/06/19/questions-about-whos-in-charge-of-bp-oil-response/#ixzz0rLJyKasp

The World Sees Obama As An Incompetent Amateur

According to lefty Mort Zuckerman. But the US mainstream media are still entranced.

President Obama came into office as the heir to a great foreign policy legacy enjoyed by every recent U.S. president. Why? Because the United States stands on top of the power ladder, not necessarily as the dominant power, but certainly as the leading one. As such we are the sole nation capable of exercising global leadership on a whole range of international issues from security, trade, and climate to counterterrorism. We also benefit from the fact that most countries distrust the United States far less than they distrust one another, so we uniquely have the power to build coalitions. As a result, most of the world still looks to Washington for help in their region and protection against potential regional threats.

Yet, the Iraq war lingers; Afghanistan continues to be immersed in an endless cycle of tribalism, corruption, and Islamist resurgence; Guantánamo remains open; Iran sees how North Korea toys with Obama and continues its programs to develop nuclear weapons and missiles; Cuba spurns America's offers of a greater opening; and the Palestinians and Israelis find that it is U.S. policy positions that defer serious negotiations, the direct opposite of what the Obama administration hoped for.

The reviews of Obama's performance have been disappointing. He has seemed uncomfortable in the role of leading other nations, and often seems to suggest there is nothing special about America's role in the world. The global community was puzzled over the pictures of Obama bowing to some of the world's leaders and surprised by his gratuitous criticisms of and apologies for America's foreign policy under the previous administration of George W. Bush. One Middle East authority, Fouad Ajami, pointed out that Obama seems unaware that it is bad form and even a great moral lapse to speak ill of one's own tribe while in the lands of others.

Obama Has Moral Authority The Supercedes Constitution

According to Ben Nelson (D-FL)

BP Blowout Was Months In The Making

I think we know now why Elizabeth Birnbaum, Obama's choice to head the Minerals Management Service resigned.

BP Plc was struggling to seal cracks in its Macondo well as far back as February, more than two months before an explosion killed 11 and spewed oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

It took 10 days to plug the first cracks, according to reports BP filed with the Minerals Management Service that were later delivered to congressional investigators. Cracks in the surrounding rock continued to complicate the drilling operation during the ensuing weeks. Left unsealed, they can allow explosive natural gas to rush up the shaft.

“Once they realized they had oil down there, all the decisions they made were designed to get that oil at the lowest cost,” said Peter Galvin of the Center for Biological Diversity, which has been working with congressional investigators probing the disaster. “It’s been a doomed voyage from the beginning.”

The critical information here is that the MMS knew! BP kept MMS apprised of the situation every step of the way.

Judge Finds Obama Is Above The Law

The congress passed a law protecting inspectors general from the arrogance of presidents. Obama ignored the law to protect a political ally and personal friend. And he found a judge who says that's okay with him.

Walpin: "I was removed because I was doing my job too well in investigating and reporting on wrongdoing with the taxpayers' money."

A federal judge in Washington has dismissed the wrongful-termination lawsuit filed by Gerald Walpin, the AmeriCorps inspector general who was fired last year by President Obama. And not just dismissed; if the decision by U.S. District Judge Richard Roberts stands, in the future the White House will be able fire other inspectors general as it fired Walpin without fear of legal consequences.

The law requires the president to give Congress 30 days’ notice, plus an explanation, before firing an inspector general, but Walpin was summarily dismissed by the White House without notice to Congress or explanation on June 10, 2009. At the time, Walpin was aggressively investigating misuse of AmeriCorps money by Sacramento, California mayor Kevin Johnson, a friend and political ally of President Obama. Walpin sued to get his old job back, arguing that he was unlawfully dismissed.

Judge Roberts rejected Walpin’s claim by deciding that Walpin was not summarily fired, after all. Even though Walpin was placed on immediate administrative leave on June 10, his authority removed, denied access to his office, email, etc., Roberts says Walpin was not technically fired until later, after the White House had notified Congress. Therefore, the president did not violate the law in ousting Walpin.

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/walpin-defeat-means-president-can-fire-igs-at-will-96714994.html#ixzz0rJ56Ygh6

Deep Thinking Arizona Congresswoman Asks General Petraeus About Windmills

What a dipshit!

The Community Organizer Isn't A Leader

The transition from community organizer to president has been a difficult one for Barack Obama. During the campaign, Obama could make girls faint and send tingles up Chris Matthews’ leg while saying basically nothing. He once described his campaign strategy as presenting himself as a blank slate upon which people could project whatever they wished. But the job of president requires substance.

Part of Obama’s problem is that he does not understand responsibilities, powers or limitations of his office. Obama can no more stop the oil spill than George Bush could order hurricanes away from New Orleans. But there is plenty that Obama could do that he has left undone.

Efforts to mitigate damage until the leak is sealed have been hampered by confusion about who is in charge. Is it the Environmental Protection Agency? Is it the Coast Guard? Is it BP? Is it the Department of the Interior? Is it the Department of Energy, which by the way is led by a Nobel Prize winning physicist? According to local officials, requests for specific responses to what is seen on site require days or even weeks to wind their way through the bureaucracy before they are answered, if they are ever answered at all. When oil slicks were seen approaching the coast, Ralph Mitchell, Terrebonne Parish’s public safety director said of oil boom requisitions: “You would throw it into the dark black hole and it might not ever come back.”

In other cases, requests for sand berms to protect fragile wetlands have been clogged in the EPA’s approval process for six weeks already. Surely the president of the United States could order his own EPA to pick up the pace a little bit.

What Obama could have done and has failed to do is help create a command structure with clear lines of authority so that requests don’t disappear into black holes. Instead Obama waited 58 days for a gap in his golf calendar before even speaking to BP’s president. In the interim he reverted to his ACORN persona and pointed fingers.

Instead of leadership, we get whiny petulance: “Even though I’m president of the United States, my power is not limitless. So I can’t dive down there and plug the hole. I can’t suck it up with a straw.”

Nobody expects Obama to suck up oil with a straw and I’m pretty sure that plugging “the damn hole” had already occurred to BP before he ordered it.

Other obvious solutions have been ignored. So far, the response has relied heavily on dispersants, but the amount of dispersants used has only been about 3% of what would have been required. Great Britain offered the US half of its entire dispersants inventory. But the Obama Administration chose to continue a policy of gratuitous insults toward our most loyal ally and simply turned the offer down. The Netherlands offered its oil spill response team and was told, “thanks, but no thanks.”

Obama had better not blame his predecessor for the inadequacy of the oil spill response capability he inherited. Because three months prior to the blowout, he proposed cutting the Coast Guard’s oil spill response team.

Homeland Security secretary Janet Napolitano admitted that she was unaware of her department’s oil spill response capability until long after it was too late to be of any use.

In 2009, the Obama administration accepted an oil spill response plan from BP that listed the Gulf Coast Walrus as a “sensitive biological resource.” There are no walruses in the Gulf of Mexico. This is not an aberration. Previously Obama’s Department of Energy, which by the way is led by a Nobel Prize winning physicist, awarded its coveted “Energy Star” endorsement to more than a dozen fake products including a gasoline powered alarm clock.

We could use foreign shipping resources to assist, but Obama refuses to waive the Jones Act, a law that forbids foreign flag ships from moving between US ports. This law benefits maritime unions and no one else. There are many miles of oil booms sitting in a warehouse in Maine that the Obama Administration refuses to purchase. Is it a non-union shop? Did the owners donate to Republicans?

I’m going to take Barack Hussein Obama at his word: “From the very beginning of this crisis, the federal government has been in charge of the largest environmental cleanup effort in our nation’s history.”

Obama Shows The World How Not To Do It

A wise man learns from his errors. A really wise man learns from the errors of others. And Barack Hussein Obama is providing the world with lots of learning opportunities.

The fight against the gulf oil spill is already writing lessons for future cleanups. Unfortunately for the gulf coast, outside experts say, many are lessons in what not to do.

Since the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded April 20, outsiders watching the cleanup say, the federal government and BP have made key mistakes that delayed or distracted the effort to stop the spill. Some were probably inevitable: BP engineers and government officials were forced to improvise in the face of mounting disaster.

But other missteps -- seen with the calm and clarity of hindsight -- look as if they could have been avoided.

Oil Spill Management Not Deserving Of A Full Time Attention

Barack Hussein Obama's oil cleanup up coordinator will only work part time. I am not kidding.

President Barack Obama's point man charting a new future for the oil-poisoned Gulf Coast will do the job part-time. Some environmentalists said the job demands someone's full attention.

Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, who oversees 900,000 Navy and Marine personnel, is inheriting an amorphous second job as the Obama administration's leader of long-term environmental and economic planning. His task is no less than rebuilding a region still suffering after Hurricane Katrina and beset by decades of environmental problems.

Mabus won't resign from his Navy job. When President George W. Bush picked Donald Powell to lead the recovery after Hurricane Katrina, Powell resigned as head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

Stimulus Used To Pay Off Wealthy Indians

Why would the Obama regime give $54 million in stimulus funds to an Indian casino that was earning a billion dollars a year?

With the support of Sen. Chris Dodd, D.-Conn., the federal government has awarded $54 million to Connecticut's politically well-connected Mohegan Indian tribe, which operates one of the highest grossing casinos in the U.S.

The tribe runs the sprawling Mohegan Sun casino, halfway between New York City and Boston, which earned more than $1.3 billion in gross revenues in 2009. Each tribe member receives a cut of the profits, a number a tribal official said was "less than $30,000" per capita per year. The stimulus money is a loan from a U.S. Department of Agriculture rural development program that is meant to help communities of less than 20,000 people that have been "unable to obtain other credit at reasonable rates and terms and are unable to finance the proposed project from their own resources."

Well, we know from history that Christopher Dodd is getting a piece of the action.

Obama Decides That The Individual Mandate Is A Tax

Opportunism.

In order to protect the new national health care law from legal challenges, the Obama administration has been forced to argue that the individual mandate represents a tax -- even though Obama himself argued the exact opposite while campaigning to pass the legislation.

Late last night, the Obama Department of Justice filed a motion to dismiss the Florida-based lawsuit against the health care law, arguing that the court lacks jurisdiction and that the State of Florida and fellow plaintiffs haven't presented a claim for which the court can grant relief. To bolster its case, the DOJ cited the Anti-Injunction Act, which restricts courts from interfering with the government's ability to collect taxes.

Trickle Down Economics, Democrat Style

Obama doesn't approve of bonuses in the private sector. But it's okay when he does it.

Under the Obama administration, the government is doing such a good job that it's decided to reward itself. Last year, Uncle Sam paid out $408 million in bonuses to 1.3 million federal workers, according to the Asbury Park Press, which obtained the information through a Freedom of Information Act request. That's about $80 million more than the previous year. About one in four federal workers received a bonus, and awards ranged from $25 to, in the case of one lucky State Department worker, $94,500.

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/Bonus-bonanza-for-federal-workers-96431779.html#ixzz0rD5to6iQ

Oil Drilling "Absolutely Safe?"

Obama blames his decision to permit limited oil exploration on assurances given him by other that drilling was "absolutely safe." This advice either came from an idiot or another of Obama's inexhaustible roster of straw men. No informed person would claim that anything was "absolutely safe."

"We can never be absolutely safe," adds Ken Arnold, an independent consultant to the oil and gas industry. "The only way you can be absolutely certain of being absolutely safe is to shut down all production and all drilling from offshore today."

So how did the president get the idea that new offshore drilling would be absolutely safe? Obama has often said he relies on a "green team" for advice on energy and environmental decisions. The top three members of the team are the director of the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy, Carol Browner, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Energy Secretary Steven Chu. Did Browner, or Salazar or Chu assure the president that new offshore drilling would be "absolutely safe"?

No, says a spokeswoman for Chu. "That is actually a question for the Department of the Interior," says the Energy Department's Tiffany Edwards. "The secretary of energy is not involved in that decision making."

Well, then, perhaps it was Salazar or Browner. But a spokesman for Salazar did not respond to questions. Neither did a spokesman for Browner. So at the moment, we don't know who assured the president that new offshore drilling would be absolutely safe.

That's certainly not the way experts talk about the issue.

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Who-told-Obama-drilling-is-_absolutely-safe__-96603724.html#ixzz0rD4Gynb7

If You Oppose Big Government, Then You Must Be A Racist

It's not comedy. It's science. Every bit as good as climate science I'm sure.

If you think $50,000 doesn’t buy what it used to, think again. For that rough sum, a professor at UCLA has agreed to draw up a report that proves opponents of the Democrats’ health-care bill aren’t motivated by a sense of fiscal responsibility or a general distrust of back-room deals, but by race.

The kicker? Taxpayers are funding the study.

According to the study’s abstract, provided by the National Science Foundation, a government agency under the control of the executive branch: “This research project attempts to provide further evidence for this Obama-induced racialization by pinpointing the extent that health-care opinions are influenced by racial attitudes and determining Obama’s causal role in racializing public opinion about a policy that has no manifest racial content.”

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2010/06/17/national-science-foundation-funds-report-calling-health-care-opponents-racist/#ixzz0rCtoSLQq

Obama's Incompetence

After Hurricane Katrina, the United States Coast Guard rescued over 10,000 people from rooftops. Under Obama, the United States Coast Guard obstructs oil clean up.

Eight days ago, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal ordered barges to begin vacuuming crude oil out of his state's oil-soaked waters. Today, against the governor's wishes, those barges sat idle, even as more oil flowed toward the Louisiana shore.

"It's the most frustrating thing," the Republican governor said today in Buras, La. "Literally, yesterday morning we found out that they were halting all of these barges."

Sixteen barges sat stationary today, although they were sucking up thousands of gallons of BP's oil as recently as Tuesday. Workers in hazmat suits and gas masks pumped the oil out of the Louisiana waters and into steel tanks. It was a homegrown idea that seemed to be effective at collecting the thick gunk.

"These barges work. You've seen them work. You've seen them suck oil out of the water," said Jindal.

So why stop now?

"The Coast Guard came and shut them down," Jindal said. "You got men on the barges in the oil, and they have been told by the Coast Guard, 'Cease and desist. Stop sucking up that oil.'"

Democrats Concent To Democracy

South Carolina Democrats graciously permit the winner of the primary to remain as their nominee.

The South Carolina Democratic Party's Executive Committee Thursday rejected a protest of the June 8 primary for U.S. Senate, in which Alvin Greene defeated Vic Rawl.

The decision came down about 8:20 p.m. The final vote was 38 1/2 to reject the protest, 7 1/2 in favor of it.

The committee felt there was not sufficient evidence to overturn the results, a move which, had it been approved, would have required a new primary.

Rawl had filed a challenge with the committtee earlier in the week to get his case heard before the board. Rawl's supporters believed that something was wrong with the results from Greene's win, where he captured 60 percent of the vote.

Another Great Moment In Soccer History

A Greek player throws himself on the ground and writhes in agony after a Nigerian player tries to kick him and MISSES CLEANLY! That's why soccer is the perfect sport for the rest of the world and not at all compatible with American culture - yet.

Jobless Claims Rise Unexpectedly

Again?

When will experts stop being surprised by bad economic news? Barack Obama is still president. Nancy Pelosi is still the Speaker of the House. And Harry Reid is still the Senate Majority Leader. Until they're gone, I won't expect anything else.

The number of Americans seeking jobless benefits last week unexpectedly rose to a one-month high, indicating firings are staying elevated even as the U.S. economy grows.

Initial jobless claims increased by 12,000 to 472,000 in the week ended June 12, Labor Department figures showed today in Washington. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg News projected 450,000 claims, according to the median forecast. The number of people receiving unemployment insurance rose, while those getting extended benefits dropped.

Meanwhile Obama and Biden are celebrating "Recovery Summer!" Woo Hoo!

Vice President Biden today will kick off “Recovery Summer,” a six-week-long push designed to highlight the jobs accompanying a surge in stimulus-funded projects to improve highways, parks, drinking water and other public works. Biden will present President Obama with a report laying out a spike in stimulus activity this summer, and how it will contribute to a steady climb to a total of 3.5 million Recovery Act jobs by the end of the year. Biden, Obama and other administration officials will travel to more than two dozen Recovery Act project sites in coming weeks. Tomorrow, the president will travel to Columbus, Ohio, to mark the groundbreaking of the 10,000th Recovery Act road project, around Nationwide Children’s Hospital. On Monday, Biden will travel to Midland, Mich., for the groundbreaking of the new Dow Kokam advanced battery manufacturing facility.

--David Axelrod said: “This summer will be the most active Recovery Act season yet, with thousands of highly-visible road, bridge, water and other infrastructure projects breaking ground across the country, giving the American people a first-hand look at the Recovery Act in their own backyards and making it crystal clear what the cost would have been of doing nothing. … In the face of the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression, Republicans in Congress chose to play politics with economic recovery and declared the Recovery Act a failure before it even began. They made a cynical bet that if the President fails, they win. Democrats chose to act by tackling the crisis head-on. Just over a year later, the Recovery Act is putting millions of Americans to work and helping the economy grow again. But our work is far from over.”

Proving, of course, that the real motive for the stimulus was to purchase the 2010 election with money borrowed for our children.

Alvin Greene Ideally Qualified To Represent Democrats

Criminal charges. It was good enough for Ted Kennedy.

Obama senior adviser David Axelrod said Greene was not a "legitimate" candidate and called his victory "a mysterious deal." (Yes, how could a young African-American man with strange origins, suspicious funding, shady associations, no experience, no qualifications, and no demonstrable work history come out of nowhere and win an election?)