In answer to a question back in February as to his rationale for doing something or other, Prez Obama simply said, “We won.” No one begrudges the Anointed One the same perks in office that other presidents and their families have enjoyed, but there ought to be a line drawn somewhere, if not to concern inordinate costs of the perks, at least to not flaunt the trivial use of government properties and personnel at this time, especially, when unemployment is intensifying and people are hurting financially worse than at any time in recent memory.
The cost of operating Air Force One is $40,243 per hour of flight. Presumably, the cost of operating Air Force Two is the same, both being 747s. In the current presidency, the two planes have become “His” and “Hers.” Of course, the ancillary expenses – secret service; special vehicles; personal gofers, for instance, add to the cost of trips everywhere for Barack Obama and wife Michele. All these things have to be delivered at or ahead of time for any prez/prez-wife foray, involving the use of other planes at tens of thousands of dollars per hour. For instance, for their recent “date” in the Big Apple, the Obamas needed three smaller planes – THREE – plus all the extra people invading New York well ahead of time to guarantee their privacy/safety/convenience/whatever.
Earlier this year, Air Force One did a fly-around of New York City in a picture-taking operation. No warning was given to even the mayor, much less the department of safety, so the bejesus was scared out of the populace by the plane flying quite near the ground and the buildings. Shades of 9/11! That was a costly excursion that apparently meant nothing, and the perpetrator in the White House effected the usual resignation. Has anyone seen the results of all the picture-taking that required at least three hours or so at better than 40 thou an hour? It’s only money. AND...does anyone believe that this trip would have been taken without the express consent/direction of Obamessiah? Only money!
So...the prez and wife flew off to the G-20 summit back in April. The prez did the participation and he and wife did some show-ups here-and-there, whereupon the prez flew home on Air Force One (His), leaving wife and daughters to shop for a few days in Paris, complete with the usual retinue of cars, secret service agents, gofers, special vehicles – the whole nine yards. Then wife and daughters flew home on Air Force Two (Hers), presumably, the whole nine yards probably costing at least a couple million big ones. Just the cost of one plane, assuming about 16 hours round-trip (counting ground time), was some $644,000. So, that’s just the cost of transportation for the First Lady to visit the stores in Paris.
So...what’s new? Well, the prez and wife, presumably using both Air Force One (His) and Air Force Two(Hers), were/are off to Copenhagen. They just couldn’t go on the same plane because...well, who knows why? Counting ground time, the round-trip should take about 20 hours (4,000 miles) – or $805,000 worth just for transportation for one plane to Copenhagen and back. Since Chicago Mayor Daly and his retinue of solicitors (Chicago biggies) also chartered a plane to Copenhagen (even OPRAH [gasp] flew in) to plump for the 2016 Olympic games, there was actually no need for either Obama to make the scene (notice that Veep Biden was not important enough to stand-in in Copenhagen for the prez, who will simply walk away Thursday from the generals and others trying to solve the Afghanistan puzzle). Copenhagen is by far more important.
Figure in all the ancillary expenses connected to these boondoggles (mini-vacations) and Obama, who is off on most any day to make a speech somewhere that requires Air Force One to be up and running, and the phrase “We won” just about says it all. While his cap-and-trade (Senator Kerry has just renamed it “pollution reduction” to fool the rubes) and health-care legislation languish in Congress, Obama spends huge amounts of time just flying around. Okay...he uses the phone on the plane to twist the arms of those he needs to do his bidding, but somehow it just ain’t the same old politics. Disappointing!
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Mahmoud, Moammar & Hugo
It’s just past midnight in a spacious tent in a small village just north of New York City. Three men, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Moammar Qaddafi, and Hugo Chavez sit around a small fire. Hereinafter, they are referenced as A, Q, and C, respectively, but not respectfully.
*A: I thought that after the PanAm thing...Allah be praised, Momie...you don’t mind being called that, do you? Moammar is so...well... Sunni-sounding...that you would not be welcome...
*Q: Sunni-sounding, you north-end of a southbound camel, Mahmoud...Allah curse this fool before I give him the PanAm treatment...what do you mean...welcome...in this hole where there is not sand or even dates...and you say “Momie” one more time and the Libyan scimitar will...
*C (laughing): So, Moammar, you are not welcome. I saw the signs and...by the way, sneaking in here in the trunk of a cab driven by a kook from Pakistan was just a bit...
*A: The Pakistanis are all kooks...Sunni-kooks, that is. The Shiites will a-a-r-r-g-g-h-h-A-A-R-R-G-G-H-H-a-a-r-r-g-g-h-h-A-A-R-R-G-G-H-H...A-A-R-R-G-G-H-H On to Wisconsin...
*C (diving under a rug): Moammar, what’s with Mahmoud and this awful scream, worse that a muezzin with a herniated larynx at the evening prayer in your country?
*Q: Bah...Mahmoud has spent too much time in this miserable New York. He learned that scream from Osama’s lackey...that miserable al-Zawahiri, who learned it from watching the Howard Dean on American TV and uses it when he’s frustrated with his four or so wives...who’s counting anyway? Mahmoud uses it when the students burn cars in Tehran or when he thinks of Sunnis, whichever comes first. Anyway, the only thing Sunnis and Shiites love more than killing Americans is...oh, ha, ha...killing each other...Allah be praised for Shiite blood in the streets!
*C: These are strange customs, Moammar. In Venezuela, the Catholics and Protestants don’t kill each other...they’re too busy starving and working in the oil-fields the stupid Americans have drilled. And now I have my very own lackey in the U.S....Osama Obama, I call him...a very nice ring to that. He apologized in my very own kingd...make that my own country for the very existence of the United States. To show my appreciation, I did not call him Satan in my speech at the UN, as I did the cowboy Bush...right in front of the whole world.
*A: Shiite blood in the streets! Allah curse you for that, Moammar! When I bring in the Twelfth Mahdi I will sit upon his right side when he rules forever and sign the papers so that you will be dispatched to Paradise without benefit of a martyr’s death...meaning not even one virgin for you, not to mention seventy-two...whew...just the thought...
*Q: Bah! Let’s get down to business. I’m paying someone called “The Donald” one million big ones per hour for this wretched piece of real estate with no room service. I told him it would be a privilege to have my tent on his ground...make it sacred...and he told me I could...bleep, bleep, bleep...
*C: Oh hoo-hah...did he say that? I bet he demanded the rent up front!
*Q: Yes. I had to contact my best American friend, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, and use his credit card. He owed me anyway...that payback thing for the billion I gave his Nation of Islam in the 90s, under the table, of course, since the N of I is tax-exempt...oh, hoo-hah, a tax exempt organization...the Americans are stupid. That billion was not for picnics at the mosque.
*C: I’ve heard that Farrakhan visited you 25 years ago. Is that true?
*A: Is that true, you ask...is that true...(wild laughter)? Guess who made that trip with the one they call “Calypso Louie” to see Moammar?
*C: His wives, of course.
*A: His wives...oh, ha, ha! Take his wives into the land of the houris, the land of the dancing sirens without burkas (wild laughter)! He took the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright, Obama’s spiritual adviser...for religious reasons, of course...a sort of mini-hajj to Tripoli instead of Mecca! That was the solicitation for a billion big ones and, I’ve heard, where Wright learned that God should damn America because white people put the HIV on the blacks to waste them.
*C: Is that where Farrakhan found out about the levees, too?
*Q: Of course it was. I told him 25 years ago that the army engineers fixed the levees to dissolve and let Lake Pontchartrain flood New Orleans to get rid of black folks whenever an eligible hurricane arrived. All he knew was how to play the fiddle and do assassinations, but I knew all about the evil Americans.
*A: I thought you said we needed to get down to business, Moammar. I need to get back to Tehran as soon as possible to witness the cutting off of hands of the rioters who claimed that I stole the election a few weeks ago. Actually – a little secret here – we’re going to cut off some heads, too, but that part’s only for invited guests...at 100 million rials apiece...little campaign fundraising to pay for vo...for expenses. I learned about that angle in America.
*Q: I need to get back to Tripoli, too, so here’s the business.
*C: Oh, ha, ha. So you’re going to give us the business...like I gave it to Bush.
*Q: Well, not exactly, Hugo, my friend. Mahmoud and I figure that you can give us half your oil and thus drive up the prices everywhere. You’ll still make a profit and we’ll get something to help make our people happy.
*C: And just how do I make any profit on a deal like that?
*Q & A: Have you ever heard of an Islamic fatwa?
*C: But I have a whole well-fed army, you vultures. My oil...never! It’s building up my personal bank accounts all over the world.
*Q: You DO remember PanAm 103, don’t you, Hugo...all those women and children?
*C (agitated): Well...maybe we CAN do business.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
*A: I thought that after the PanAm thing...Allah be praised, Momie...you don’t mind being called that, do you? Moammar is so...well... Sunni-sounding...that you would not be welcome...
*Q: Sunni-sounding, you north-end of a southbound camel, Mahmoud...Allah curse this fool before I give him the PanAm treatment...what do you mean...welcome...in this hole where there is not sand or even dates...and you say “Momie” one more time and the Libyan scimitar will...
*C (laughing): So, Moammar, you are not welcome. I saw the signs and...by the way, sneaking in here in the trunk of a cab driven by a kook from Pakistan was just a bit...
*A: The Pakistanis are all kooks...Sunni-kooks, that is. The Shiites will a-a-r-r-g-g-h-h-A-A-R-R-G-G-H-H-a-a-r-r-g-g-h-h-A-A-R-R-G-G-H-H...A-A-R-R-G-G-H-H On to Wisconsin...
*C (diving under a rug): Moammar, what’s with Mahmoud and this awful scream, worse that a muezzin with a herniated larynx at the evening prayer in your country?
*Q: Bah...Mahmoud has spent too much time in this miserable New York. He learned that scream from Osama’s lackey...that miserable al-Zawahiri, who learned it from watching the Howard Dean on American TV and uses it when he’s frustrated with his four or so wives...who’s counting anyway? Mahmoud uses it when the students burn cars in Tehran or when he thinks of Sunnis, whichever comes first. Anyway, the only thing Sunnis and Shiites love more than killing Americans is...oh, ha, ha...killing each other...Allah be praised for Shiite blood in the streets!
*C: These are strange customs, Moammar. In Venezuela, the Catholics and Protestants don’t kill each other...they’re too busy starving and working in the oil-fields the stupid Americans have drilled. And now I have my very own lackey in the U.S....Osama Obama, I call him...a very nice ring to that. He apologized in my very own kingd...make that my own country for the very existence of the United States. To show my appreciation, I did not call him Satan in my speech at the UN, as I did the cowboy Bush...right in front of the whole world.
*A: Shiite blood in the streets! Allah curse you for that, Moammar! When I bring in the Twelfth Mahdi I will sit upon his right side when he rules forever and sign the papers so that you will be dispatched to Paradise without benefit of a martyr’s death...meaning not even one virgin for you, not to mention seventy-two...whew...just the thought...
*Q: Bah! Let’s get down to business. I’m paying someone called “The Donald” one million big ones per hour for this wretched piece of real estate with no room service. I told him it would be a privilege to have my tent on his ground...make it sacred...and he told me I could...bleep, bleep, bleep...
*C: Oh hoo-hah...did he say that? I bet he demanded the rent up front!
*Q: Yes. I had to contact my best American friend, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, and use his credit card. He owed me anyway...that payback thing for the billion I gave his Nation of Islam in the 90s, under the table, of course, since the N of I is tax-exempt...oh, hoo-hah, a tax exempt organization...the Americans are stupid. That billion was not for picnics at the mosque.
*C: I’ve heard that Farrakhan visited you 25 years ago. Is that true?
*A: Is that true, you ask...is that true...(wild laughter)? Guess who made that trip with the one they call “Calypso Louie” to see Moammar?
*C: His wives, of course.
*A: His wives...oh, ha, ha! Take his wives into the land of the houris, the land of the dancing sirens without burkas (wild laughter)! He took the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright, Obama’s spiritual adviser...for religious reasons, of course...a sort of mini-hajj to Tripoli instead of Mecca! That was the solicitation for a billion big ones and, I’ve heard, where Wright learned that God should damn America because white people put the HIV on the blacks to waste them.
*C: Is that where Farrakhan found out about the levees, too?
*Q: Of course it was. I told him 25 years ago that the army engineers fixed the levees to dissolve and let Lake Pontchartrain flood New Orleans to get rid of black folks whenever an eligible hurricane arrived. All he knew was how to play the fiddle and do assassinations, but I knew all about the evil Americans.
*A: I thought you said we needed to get down to business, Moammar. I need to get back to Tehran as soon as possible to witness the cutting off of hands of the rioters who claimed that I stole the election a few weeks ago. Actually – a little secret here – we’re going to cut off some heads, too, but that part’s only for invited guests...at 100 million rials apiece...little campaign fundraising to pay for vo...for expenses. I learned about that angle in America.
*Q: I need to get back to Tripoli, too, so here’s the business.
*C: Oh, ha, ha. So you’re going to give us the business...like I gave it to Bush.
*Q: Well, not exactly, Hugo, my friend. Mahmoud and I figure that you can give us half your oil and thus drive up the prices everywhere. You’ll still make a profit and we’ll get something to help make our people happy.
*C: And just how do I make any profit on a deal like that?
*Q & A: Have you ever heard of an Islamic fatwa?
*C: But I have a whole well-fed army, you vultures. My oil...never! It’s building up my personal bank accounts all over the world.
*Q: You DO remember PanAm 103, don’t you, Hugo...all those women and children?
*C (agitated): Well...maybe we CAN do business.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
UN Lunacy-Season!
The president made his grand entrance into the United Nations on the 23rd though it was not nearly so grand as his conquest of Berlin in the summer of 2008. He lectured the world for better than 41 minutes, so he may have induced about as much sleep among the band of dictators as he did in the House Chamber the other night explaining what would be in a health-care bill yet to be written. That’s penultimate smoke-and-mirrors, but then all that happens at the UN, especially during the “speech season,” is smoke-and-mirrors, so the Anointed One was right at home.
Speaking at the UN may have spared him from having to finish his task of apologizing to all the nations of the world individually for the existence of the evil U.S. Perhaps he did this by making it plain that the George Bush era was over, thus apologizing for the nation’s conduct over the past few years, during which this country made tremendous headway in showing the Muslim-world that its treachery will not stand. One supposes the imams and ayatollahs are breathing a bit more freely as a result of the entrance on the world scene of Obamessiah, characterized by Libya’s butcher, Moammar Qadaffi, as “my son” or “Africa’s son” or some other such silly appellation in his UN speech of 1.5 hours.
The prez apparently meant to show that he was stepping away from unilateral tactics, which many accused Bush of embracing. One wonders what Obama was thinking. He’s already said he would do a mano-a-mano with Ahmadinejad, and that’s about as unilateral as it gets. Bush, on the other hand, was stepping aside while Olde Europe “talked” with Ahmadinejad, who probably smirked all the way through the teleprompter production. Bush also insisted on a non-unilateral approach to North Korea (with China, Japan et al), so now one may suppose that Obama will plan a tete-a-tete with the little toad...to be non-unilateral, of course. Disgusting!
Obama has even stated publicly that he would unilaterally invade Pakistan if he thought the Pakistanis were remiss in their duty to do his bidding vis-a-vis al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Either he doesn’t check carefully with his speech-writers or his teleprompter-technicians need refresher courses. Of course, the folks at the UN listened to this double-talk and probably are still laughing, just as they laughed at his remarks at torture being absolutely ended when he took office. It had already been ended ages ago (if it ever actually existed) and the UN folks know that...so, more laughter. Most of the dictators are not bothered by “enhanced interrogation techniques” in the first place, another occasion for laughter.
Ironically, Obama was followed in the UN circus by Qadaffi, the bloodiest butcher and trainer of butchers in all North Africa. Surprise, surprise! Libya is on the current UN Security Council. The Big Q saw what happened in Iraq a few years ago, contacted Bush, and reckoned that he would turn over all his weapons of mass destruction to the U.S., which he did. The U.S. has been in charge of dismantling his WMD effort ever since. Undoubtedly, Moammar wishes now that he’d just waited a little longer for this warm-fuzzy administration to do kissy-poo and look the other way. Obama quite obviously is a one-world guy, with there being absolutely no super-powers. He made that plain at the UN. Americans need to be alarmed at this.
And then there was the climate-change stuff. Professor Mojib Latif, from the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences at Kiel University in Germany, was a lead scientist in preparing the last two UN IPCC reports that scared the bejesus out of everybody, whether they believed the Al Gore “An Inconvenient Truth” hoax or not. Latif has just publicly announced that the IPCC was wrong, that the earth is cooling, and that the cooling trend will probably continue for up to two more decades. Other scientists have proven that the cooling has been in place since 2003 and that greenhouse gases, whether manmade or not, have nothing to do with it.
So...Obamessiah showed up at a Bill Clinton climate soiree of sorts in the Big Apple on the 22nd to make serious about the terrible problem. As if that weren’t enough, he dwelled on it in the UN speech as if it actually exists. The best science concerning the slight global warming in place until about 2003 seems to point to the changing earth-sun relationship as the reason. The anthropologists and meteorologists have for a long time explained the climates through which the earth cycles. For instance, they claim the weather of the Amazon Forest once reached to the Arctic Circle eons ago obviously absent anything manmade. The knowledgeable people in the UN know this...thus, more laughter. Their probable take: the prez is either dumb as a gourd or is shilling for whatever interests are in play...perhaps notably connected to the utterly stupid cap-and-trade legislation guaranteed to profoundly tax citizens in the U.S., as well as in other industrialized nations.
Just another wild and wooly day at the UN! Apparently, the allotted time for speeches was 15 minutes, so Qadaffi spoke six times too long, while Obama about 2.5 times too long, with just about all of both efforts consisting of hot air, nothing more.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Speaking at the UN may have spared him from having to finish his task of apologizing to all the nations of the world individually for the existence of the evil U.S. Perhaps he did this by making it plain that the George Bush era was over, thus apologizing for the nation’s conduct over the past few years, during which this country made tremendous headway in showing the Muslim-world that its treachery will not stand. One supposes the imams and ayatollahs are breathing a bit more freely as a result of the entrance on the world scene of Obamessiah, characterized by Libya’s butcher, Moammar Qadaffi, as “my son” or “Africa’s son” or some other such silly appellation in his UN speech of 1.5 hours.
The prez apparently meant to show that he was stepping away from unilateral tactics, which many accused Bush of embracing. One wonders what Obama was thinking. He’s already said he would do a mano-a-mano with Ahmadinejad, and that’s about as unilateral as it gets. Bush, on the other hand, was stepping aside while Olde Europe “talked” with Ahmadinejad, who probably smirked all the way through the teleprompter production. Bush also insisted on a non-unilateral approach to North Korea (with China, Japan et al), so now one may suppose that Obama will plan a tete-a-tete with the little toad...to be non-unilateral, of course. Disgusting!
Obama has even stated publicly that he would unilaterally invade Pakistan if he thought the Pakistanis were remiss in their duty to do his bidding vis-a-vis al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Either he doesn’t check carefully with his speech-writers or his teleprompter-technicians need refresher courses. Of course, the folks at the UN listened to this double-talk and probably are still laughing, just as they laughed at his remarks at torture being absolutely ended when he took office. It had already been ended ages ago (if it ever actually existed) and the UN folks know that...so, more laughter. Most of the dictators are not bothered by “enhanced interrogation techniques” in the first place, another occasion for laughter.
Ironically, Obama was followed in the UN circus by Qadaffi, the bloodiest butcher and trainer of butchers in all North Africa. Surprise, surprise! Libya is on the current UN Security Council. The Big Q saw what happened in Iraq a few years ago, contacted Bush, and reckoned that he would turn over all his weapons of mass destruction to the U.S., which he did. The U.S. has been in charge of dismantling his WMD effort ever since. Undoubtedly, Moammar wishes now that he’d just waited a little longer for this warm-fuzzy administration to do kissy-poo and look the other way. Obama quite obviously is a one-world guy, with there being absolutely no super-powers. He made that plain at the UN. Americans need to be alarmed at this.
And then there was the climate-change stuff. Professor Mojib Latif, from the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences at Kiel University in Germany, was a lead scientist in preparing the last two UN IPCC reports that scared the bejesus out of everybody, whether they believed the Al Gore “An Inconvenient Truth” hoax or not. Latif has just publicly announced that the IPCC was wrong, that the earth is cooling, and that the cooling trend will probably continue for up to two more decades. Other scientists have proven that the cooling has been in place since 2003 and that greenhouse gases, whether manmade or not, have nothing to do with it.
So...Obamessiah showed up at a Bill Clinton climate soiree of sorts in the Big Apple on the 22nd to make serious about the terrible problem. As if that weren’t enough, he dwelled on it in the UN speech as if it actually exists. The best science concerning the slight global warming in place until about 2003 seems to point to the changing earth-sun relationship as the reason. The anthropologists and meteorologists have for a long time explained the climates through which the earth cycles. For instance, they claim the weather of the Amazon Forest once reached to the Arctic Circle eons ago obviously absent anything manmade. The knowledgeable people in the UN know this...thus, more laughter. Their probable take: the prez is either dumb as a gourd or is shilling for whatever interests are in play...perhaps notably connected to the utterly stupid cap-and-trade legislation guaranteed to profoundly tax citizens in the U.S., as well as in other industrialized nations.
Just another wild and wooly day at the UN! Apparently, the allotted time for speeches was 15 minutes, so Qadaffi spoke six times too long, while Obama about 2.5 times too long, with just about all of both efforts consisting of hot air, nothing more.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Racism in the White House?
The subject of racism has been much in the news of late. No lesser light than Jimmy Carter has heaved and strained and delivered himself of the opinion that white folk are against President Obama’s initiatives simply because they are racists. This means, course, that most Congress-people who can’t see Obama’s health-care plan (whatever it is, if anyone knows) are racists because they are mostly white folk. It means that most of the military is racist because it is made up predominately of white folk. It means that all conservatives are racists because they are mostly white folk.
Carter doesn’t include himself as a racist, of course, even though he’s white; rather, he considers himself wise enough to point out the actual racists – white folk...just those without his moral ethic, of course, probably the majority? The president has disavowed Carter’s sentiments, probably not least because he understands how un-racist the country is, having elected him over both a white woman and a white man. He probably understands, too, that Carter is immaterial to most people, thus his pronouncements are considered loony-tunes, just as his presidency was.
Whoa! If Carter’s wrong, then where are the racists these days? They’re occupying high places in government, for starters. And...surprise, surprise, they might just be black folk! One mustn’t say that, of course, because it’s so...well, politically incorrect. Just a minor example – okay, nitpicking – could have been Obama’s remark a few weeks ago that some white Massachusetts policemen acted “stupidly.” They were just doing their job, as it turns out, though the prez at the time did admit that he was a bit “biased.” Biased? Egad! Is that another name for prejudiced or (gasp) racist?
A better example involves Attorney General Eric Holder. Obama promised in the spring this year that there would be no further investigations into CIA personnel or actions regarding alleged unlawful acts in interrogating terrorists. After all, that subject had been thoroughly visited and reported on years ago. So...why would Holder, a black official, want to bring up the subject again? Could it be because the matter was connected to the administration of President George Bush, a white man? One can also be certain that the vast majority of people working in the CIA are white folk...so, is Holder exhibiting racism? If it looks, walks, and quacks like a duck, then...
Or could it be that Obama is more racist than Holder? Why would he allow Holder to break his (the president’s) promise? After all, seven former CIA directors who served in both democrat and republican administrations have just requested of the president that he forestall Holder’s actions in the interests of national security. Current CIA Director Panetta has also made it plain that no such investigations should be opened. The reasons are obvious, not least among which is the simple fact that no intelligence agency in the world will work with the CIA again, fearing that all their agents would be placed in peril and their operational methods exposed. Of course, the eight directors are all white folk...so...
About 74% of the U.S. population is made up of white folk, meaning that they form the largest ethnic group to be protected by the president from terrorists. Only a reverse-racist would think of letting that fact impinge upon his duties...right? Well...one has to wonder. The man most hated by folk of Obama’s persuasion is George Bush, a white guy, so getting revenge could be Holder’s primary motive...perhaps his only motive, but only indirectly since the direct responsibility is the president’s. Are these two men racist enough to risk the nation’s safety by leaning on the already-investigated CIA? Bush and most of the population are white, after all.
Racism is defined as: “a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race.” The social engineers always classify racism as inherently a “white” attribute. One wonders. Does the president consider himself sufficiently superior now to those of other ethnicities that he can work his will against the judgment of the eight WHITE men who have been directly responsible for decades for the protection of the citizens from those worldwide powers (and there are multitudes of them) that mean this nation harm? If so, could he be the greatest racist of them all? After all, he sat for twenty years and listened to one of the nation’s premier racists, the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright, whose message was about as anti-white as possible. But it’s like the prez said – “We won.”
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Carter doesn’t include himself as a racist, of course, even though he’s white; rather, he considers himself wise enough to point out the actual racists – white folk...just those without his moral ethic, of course, probably the majority? The president has disavowed Carter’s sentiments, probably not least because he understands how un-racist the country is, having elected him over both a white woman and a white man. He probably understands, too, that Carter is immaterial to most people, thus his pronouncements are considered loony-tunes, just as his presidency was.
Whoa! If Carter’s wrong, then where are the racists these days? They’re occupying high places in government, for starters. And...surprise, surprise, they might just be black folk! One mustn’t say that, of course, because it’s so...well, politically incorrect. Just a minor example – okay, nitpicking – could have been Obama’s remark a few weeks ago that some white Massachusetts policemen acted “stupidly.” They were just doing their job, as it turns out, though the prez at the time did admit that he was a bit “biased.” Biased? Egad! Is that another name for prejudiced or (gasp) racist?
A better example involves Attorney General Eric Holder. Obama promised in the spring this year that there would be no further investigations into CIA personnel or actions regarding alleged unlawful acts in interrogating terrorists. After all, that subject had been thoroughly visited and reported on years ago. So...why would Holder, a black official, want to bring up the subject again? Could it be because the matter was connected to the administration of President George Bush, a white man? One can also be certain that the vast majority of people working in the CIA are white folk...so, is Holder exhibiting racism? If it looks, walks, and quacks like a duck, then...
Or could it be that Obama is more racist than Holder? Why would he allow Holder to break his (the president’s) promise? After all, seven former CIA directors who served in both democrat and republican administrations have just requested of the president that he forestall Holder’s actions in the interests of national security. Current CIA Director Panetta has also made it plain that no such investigations should be opened. The reasons are obvious, not least among which is the simple fact that no intelligence agency in the world will work with the CIA again, fearing that all their agents would be placed in peril and their operational methods exposed. Of course, the eight directors are all white folk...so...
About 74% of the U.S. population is made up of white folk, meaning that they form the largest ethnic group to be protected by the president from terrorists. Only a reverse-racist would think of letting that fact impinge upon his duties...right? Well...one has to wonder. The man most hated by folk of Obama’s persuasion is George Bush, a white guy, so getting revenge could be Holder’s primary motive...perhaps his only motive, but only indirectly since the direct responsibility is the president’s. Are these two men racist enough to risk the nation’s safety by leaning on the already-investigated CIA? Bush and most of the population are white, after all.
Racism is defined as: “a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race.” The social engineers always classify racism as inherently a “white” attribute. One wonders. Does the president consider himself sufficiently superior now to those of other ethnicities that he can work his will against the judgment of the eight WHITE men who have been directly responsible for decades for the protection of the citizens from those worldwide powers (and there are multitudes of them) that mean this nation harm? If so, could he be the greatest racist of them all? After all, he sat for twenty years and listened to one of the nation’s premier racists, the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright, whose message was about as anti-white as possible. But it’s like the prez said – “We won.”
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Liar! Liar! Pants on Fire!
The keeper of this corner – giving thanks to C-Span, as usual – watched the entire proceeding on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives 15 September concerning HR #744, otherwise known as the infamous resolution to stab South Carolina’s Joe Wilson for calling out the president during the grand extravaganza in the House on 09 September, known as the joint session designed for the prexy to tell Congress off “good and proper” for not legislating his government takeover of health-care. It was the best entertainment of the day in Washington as the Congressmen gave it about an hour, not counting the 15-minute vote (240-179 against Wilson), during which only two democrats spoke, while a number of republicans suggested, among other things, that the exercise was, as Minority Leader Boehner put it, a “partisan stunt.” It was the penultimate example of a dog-and-pony show, beneath contempt.
Well...of course, it was. The nation is in free-fall financially; the unemployment rate is inching toward 10%; the fat cats on Wall Street are grinning again at having outsmarted the president; so the House naturally turned to important things like officially castigating a member for saying something at an inappropriate time (calling the prexy a liar during that earth-shaking nothing-speech on the ninth that included no details), notwithstanding that his apology to the president had already been made publicly and accepted publicly.
Majority Leader Hoyer lamely introduced HR #744, made a few unimpassioned remarks and left the distinct impression that he’d just as soon forget the whole thing. Speaker Pelosi didn’t seem to be anywhere near the action and for probably good reason. Earlier this year in a public setting (press conference), she called the entire CIA a liar, prompting CIA Director Panetta to publicly disagree. Pelosi was caught on the horns of her own dilemma since she certainly had been briefed by the CIA on the matters at hand but couldn’t bring herself to face the fact that she at least indirectly had approved of the “enhanced torture techniques” back when everyone, including her, wondered about the what, when and where concerning another 9/11-WTC/Pentagon-type terrorist attack.
Hoyer was also caught on the horns of a dilemma, manufactured by California Representative Pete Stark on 18 October 2007, when in a speech in the House he twice accused President Bush of lying. At the end of his diatribe he was admonished by the lady acting as Speaker Pro Tem concerning his perfidy, but has never apologized. Naturally, no republican or democrat introduced a “disapproval resolution.” It was just business as usual. So...what was okay in 2007 was not okay in 2009. The difference: Stark is a democrat and Wilson is a republican. Stark is still in the House and voted in favor of the resolution to backstab Wilson. That’s about as profound as hypocrisy ever gets to be.
And then there was the State of the Union Speech in 2005 during which the democrats collectively more than once managed to show the profoundness of their intelligence by booing President Bush...right there in the hallowed House Chamber! He didn’t seem too upset with the democrats of the demonstrative dissing delights and went right on. Okay...cut the democrats some slack on that one since they had just experienced the deep-sixing of the candidacy of Senator Kerry a couple or so months before and deserved to vent their spleens. The subject matter of the speech didn’t...well...matter.
BUT...now everyone knows the REAL DEAL concerning the Wilson affair. Saint Jimmy Carter implied to NBC’s Brian Williams that Wilson and other white folk are racists and that this awful affliction causes white folk to distrust black folk like Obama and Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice to run the guvmint. Shades of the 1960s...Carter’s still there, while all those white folk picked a black man over a white woman last year, but that was just an “aw shucks moment”...didn’t mean a thing...sheer accident! Of course, it doesn’t help that Obama a while back condemned a white police officer for just doing his duty but...hey...can’t we all just get along?
So...HR #744 is history, and Joe Wilson has been properly disapproved. Now, maybe the world can start turning again, or at least until somebody else exercises First Amendment rights in the august body called the House and another resolution is in order. Actually, it could be that Obama is a “reverse racist,” since he publicly disagreed with Saint Jimmy. Oh horrors...just when things were looking up!
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Well...of course, it was. The nation is in free-fall financially; the unemployment rate is inching toward 10%; the fat cats on Wall Street are grinning again at having outsmarted the president; so the House naturally turned to important things like officially castigating a member for saying something at an inappropriate time (calling the prexy a liar during that earth-shaking nothing-speech on the ninth that included no details), notwithstanding that his apology to the president had already been made publicly and accepted publicly.
Majority Leader Hoyer lamely introduced HR #744, made a few unimpassioned remarks and left the distinct impression that he’d just as soon forget the whole thing. Speaker Pelosi didn’t seem to be anywhere near the action and for probably good reason. Earlier this year in a public setting (press conference), she called the entire CIA a liar, prompting CIA Director Panetta to publicly disagree. Pelosi was caught on the horns of her own dilemma since she certainly had been briefed by the CIA on the matters at hand but couldn’t bring herself to face the fact that she at least indirectly had approved of the “enhanced torture techniques” back when everyone, including her, wondered about the what, when and where concerning another 9/11-WTC/Pentagon-type terrorist attack.
Hoyer was also caught on the horns of a dilemma, manufactured by California Representative Pete Stark on 18 October 2007, when in a speech in the House he twice accused President Bush of lying. At the end of his diatribe he was admonished by the lady acting as Speaker Pro Tem concerning his perfidy, but has never apologized. Naturally, no republican or democrat introduced a “disapproval resolution.” It was just business as usual. So...what was okay in 2007 was not okay in 2009. The difference: Stark is a democrat and Wilson is a republican. Stark is still in the House and voted in favor of the resolution to backstab Wilson. That’s about as profound as hypocrisy ever gets to be.
And then there was the State of the Union Speech in 2005 during which the democrats collectively more than once managed to show the profoundness of their intelligence by booing President Bush...right there in the hallowed House Chamber! He didn’t seem too upset with the democrats of the demonstrative dissing delights and went right on. Okay...cut the democrats some slack on that one since they had just experienced the deep-sixing of the candidacy of Senator Kerry a couple or so months before and deserved to vent their spleens. The subject matter of the speech didn’t...well...matter.
BUT...now everyone knows the REAL DEAL concerning the Wilson affair. Saint Jimmy Carter implied to NBC’s Brian Williams that Wilson and other white folk are racists and that this awful affliction causes white folk to distrust black folk like Obama and Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice to run the guvmint. Shades of the 1960s...Carter’s still there, while all those white folk picked a black man over a white woman last year, but that was just an “aw shucks moment”...didn’t mean a thing...sheer accident! Of course, it doesn’t help that Obama a while back condemned a white police officer for just doing his duty but...hey...can’t we all just get along?
So...HR #744 is history, and Joe Wilson has been properly disapproved. Now, maybe the world can start turning again, or at least until somebody else exercises First Amendment rights in the august body called the House and another resolution is in order. Actually, it could be that Obama is a “reverse racist,” since he publicly disagreed with Saint Jimmy. Oh horrors...just when things were looking up!
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Media - Disingenuous Shill?
The disingenuousness of newspapers with regard to actual facts is sometimes amazing, even considering that the mainstream media currently is agenda-driven and is primarily a shill for Obamessiah’s administration. There’s no argument with a newspaper’s editorial position on anything, but to display in the “news section,” such as it is anymore regarding the bylined opinion pieces passing as news, flagrant misrepresentations of the truth is simply intolerable.
On the front-page-above-the-fold of the Lexington Herald-Leader (Lexington, Ky., a McClatchy paper) was this headline on 11 September: Speech bolsters Democrats, while the sub-head said this: But GOP not budging on health care reform. The article bore two bylines, so it was news as interpreted by two gurus courtesy of the New York Times News Service. The article was a mixture of what was happening and why, but the sub-head is the thing that caught attention in this corner.
The sub-head was designed to make it appear that the republicans are somehow Obama’s problem with regard to getting his legislation passed in the interest of mandating that the government completely take over the nation’s health care. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Both the Senate and the House are overwhelmingly controlled by democrats, so the republicans are virtually powerless in stopping any legislation the president can convince his own party’s lawmakers to pass. The repubs can slow the process somewhat by using the “rules” of both houses that are designed to create delays (and used by either party as situations demand), but can’t actually stop the democrats from doing whatever they like.
On the same front page was a picture and an account concerning South Carolina congressman Joe Wilson, who simply told the president during the speech that the president was lying, admittedly an inappropriate time for calling out Obama. In the first section of the 12 September issue was another picture and story concerning Wilson, this time with the “outraged” democrats ready to try to make the congressman apologize in the august chamber, notwithstanding that he had already apologized to the Anointed One.
In neither of these accounts was a recounting of the charge made publicly by Senate Majority Leader Reid a while back that President George Bush was a liar. Indeed, Reid has made it a point to never have apologized and has emphasized that fact publicly. So…where does that leave either the newspaper or the democrats? In La-La-Land, of course, where they survive most of the time! The duplicity is thick enough to cut with a knife but the solons thrive on duplicity and think nothing of their collective disingenuousness, putting them in the same class as the newspaper. The elites involved in both Congress and the world of toxic type consider the hoi polloi too ignorant to catch on…and in this they err grievously. The folks out in the boonies are not that dumb.
Consider a significant news item, perhaps the most important of 11 September, to wit, the cutting off by the government as an integral part of the census-process next year of the “community-organizer” front for George Soros and the ultra-liberal wing of the Democrat party known as ACORN, the outfit President Obama once represented in his law practice. ACORN allegedly turned in 400,000 false voter registrations last year and four of its representatives have just been fired (probably for only a short time, if at all), having been caught on tape for advising on how to secure house-loans for whorehouses operated by teenage illegal immigrants and avoiding paying taxes in the process.
This should have been the stuff of editorials today (12 September) in Lexington (and everywhere else), but there were no editorials or opinion pieces…in fact, no editorial or op-ed page at all, unless a handful of political cartoons and “letters to the editor” qualify. ACORN has been granted millions of federal dollars for its “housing effort,” such as the one noted above, over the last few years but, even more egregiously, it has been handed $8.5 BILLION of the Stimulus Package, the president working his will on a bankrupt treasury to advance ACORN’s nefarious enterprises. There will be no outrage in the mainstream media concerning ACORN, and that’s why the public holds the media in such deep disdain.
The disingenuousness of the media is reflected in or reflected by the president. Already campaigning, apparently his only concept of the presidency, for the health-care plan that isn’t, he appeared in Minnesota on the twelfth to spout statistics of gloom and doom. The mainstream media follow his every move, never mind that exchanging campaigning for the hard work of running the government is folly. Air Force One hardly cools off between campaign trips. It’s almost as if he’s starting early for 2012.
Perhaps the term “disingenuous” is too mild for the term “lie,” with regard to Obama’s promise that there would be no kangaroo courts for CIA agents. He can say the new machinery for doing the opposite is Attorney General Holder’s idea (that new evidence thing, of course), but no one believes that. The effort, if not to indict since that probably would be hard to accomplish account revealing evidence too sensitive to be used as well as no “smoking gun” anyway, could bankrupt folks unable to pay the millions to defense attorneys. Revenge, in other words! Actually, Obama is so out of touch with the general public that he doesn’t realize that most folks don’t care what’s done short of injury or death to the jihad-Muslims in order to protect this country, in the first place.
The mainstream media backs him up, of course…horrors over water-boarding that neither injures nor kills. After all, it’s that disingenuous thing. The wise journalists would beat a poor jihadist to death in order to save their loved ones, but they dare not print that. Too disingenuous!
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
On the front-page-above-the-fold of the Lexington Herald-Leader (Lexington, Ky., a McClatchy paper) was this headline on 11 September: Speech bolsters Democrats, while the sub-head said this: But GOP not budging on health care reform. The article bore two bylines, so it was news as interpreted by two gurus courtesy of the New York Times News Service. The article was a mixture of what was happening and why, but the sub-head is the thing that caught attention in this corner.
The sub-head was designed to make it appear that the republicans are somehow Obama’s problem with regard to getting his legislation passed in the interest of mandating that the government completely take over the nation’s health care. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Both the Senate and the House are overwhelmingly controlled by democrats, so the republicans are virtually powerless in stopping any legislation the president can convince his own party’s lawmakers to pass. The repubs can slow the process somewhat by using the “rules” of both houses that are designed to create delays (and used by either party as situations demand), but can’t actually stop the democrats from doing whatever they like.
On the same front page was a picture and an account concerning South Carolina congressman Joe Wilson, who simply told the president during the speech that the president was lying, admittedly an inappropriate time for calling out Obama. In the first section of the 12 September issue was another picture and story concerning Wilson, this time with the “outraged” democrats ready to try to make the congressman apologize in the august chamber, notwithstanding that he had already apologized to the Anointed One.
In neither of these accounts was a recounting of the charge made publicly by Senate Majority Leader Reid a while back that President George Bush was a liar. Indeed, Reid has made it a point to never have apologized and has emphasized that fact publicly. So…where does that leave either the newspaper or the democrats? In La-La-Land, of course, where they survive most of the time! The duplicity is thick enough to cut with a knife but the solons thrive on duplicity and think nothing of their collective disingenuousness, putting them in the same class as the newspaper. The elites involved in both Congress and the world of toxic type consider the hoi polloi too ignorant to catch on…and in this they err grievously. The folks out in the boonies are not that dumb.
Consider a significant news item, perhaps the most important of 11 September, to wit, the cutting off by the government as an integral part of the census-process next year of the “community-organizer” front for George Soros and the ultra-liberal wing of the Democrat party known as ACORN, the outfit President Obama once represented in his law practice. ACORN allegedly turned in 400,000 false voter registrations last year and four of its representatives have just been fired (probably for only a short time, if at all), having been caught on tape for advising on how to secure house-loans for whorehouses operated by teenage illegal immigrants and avoiding paying taxes in the process.
This should have been the stuff of editorials today (12 September) in Lexington (and everywhere else), but there were no editorials or opinion pieces…in fact, no editorial or op-ed page at all, unless a handful of political cartoons and “letters to the editor” qualify. ACORN has been granted millions of federal dollars for its “housing effort,” such as the one noted above, over the last few years but, even more egregiously, it has been handed $8.5 BILLION of the Stimulus Package, the president working his will on a bankrupt treasury to advance ACORN’s nefarious enterprises. There will be no outrage in the mainstream media concerning ACORN, and that’s why the public holds the media in such deep disdain.
The disingenuousness of the media is reflected in or reflected by the president. Already campaigning, apparently his only concept of the presidency, for the health-care plan that isn’t, he appeared in Minnesota on the twelfth to spout statistics of gloom and doom. The mainstream media follow his every move, never mind that exchanging campaigning for the hard work of running the government is folly. Air Force One hardly cools off between campaign trips. It’s almost as if he’s starting early for 2012.
Perhaps the term “disingenuous” is too mild for the term “lie,” with regard to Obama’s promise that there would be no kangaroo courts for CIA agents. He can say the new machinery for doing the opposite is Attorney General Holder’s idea (that new evidence thing, of course), but no one believes that. The effort, if not to indict since that probably would be hard to accomplish account revealing evidence too sensitive to be used as well as no “smoking gun” anyway, could bankrupt folks unable to pay the millions to defense attorneys. Revenge, in other words! Actually, Obama is so out of touch with the general public that he doesn’t realize that most folks don’t care what’s done short of injury or death to the jihad-Muslims in order to protect this country, in the first place.
The mainstream media backs him up, of course…horrors over water-boarding that neither injures nor kills. After all, it’s that disingenuous thing. The wise journalists would beat a poor jihadist to death in order to save their loved ones, but they dare not print that. Too disingenuous!
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Too Long & Too Disingenuous
The president missed another opportunity in his health-care speech before the Congress – actually the nation, as it was designed to be – when he bloviated for what seemed an eternity on a subject that might have required 20-25 minutes. His first mistake was in turning the event into a menagerie of monarchical monkeyshines, what with all the pomp and circumstance of parading the cabinet secretaries, with probably a huge sprinkling of current “czars” (they come and go), before a supposedly admiring populace in anticipation of his grand entrance – all the kissy-poo stuff that people recognize for what it is, a huge sham by a bunch of bureaucrats who mostly hate each other. An Oval-Office straight-talk without all the ballyhoo and applause would have been much more effective.
His second mistake was in practically ORDERING the Congress to get off its derriere and do something, despite the fact that by his own admission in not even reading HR #3200 he hasn’t bothered to recognize what the House has attempted so far. He apparently hasn’t picked up on the latest Pew Research Center Overview (02 September), which indicates that only 37% of the populace has a favorable view of Congress, while 52% absolutely has an unfavorable view (a 24-year low).
So…instead of coming up with something on his own, notwithstanding his own approval rating that’s tanking right now, he decided to lecture an outfit most people wouldn’t trust to take their temperature. Public disapproval of President Obama's handling of health care has skyrocketed to 52 percent, according to the Associated Press-GfK poll, as reported by Fox News, the one primary media outlet not acting as the president’s shill.
In the speech, he made it clear that solving the health-care problem wouldn’t be “kicked down the road” any longer, then proceeded to kick it right back to Speaker Pelosi and Senate Leader Reid (details to be worked out, said he), with visions of the ever echoing mantra of bipartisanship, something his own democrats eschew with 24/7 fervor. This reminds one of the Clinton debacle of 1993, wherein, instead of kicking the problem anywhere, the president dumped it in Hillary’s lap and the rest is history. Concocted in secrecy and buried under layers of bureaucracy and red tape, her plan was DOA in Congress. According to Representative Charles Boustany’s rebuttal speech, the current House plan initiates 35 new bureaucracies.
Strangely, Obama doesn’t seem to understand that partisanship is not blocking progress. Indeed, it doesn’t even need to be considered since the democrats have the votes to pass anything they like, with not even so much as a fare-thee-well to the republicans. The hitch lies in the fact that the PEOPLE are the enemy of Obama’s – at least until now – representation of the “plan.” They see it as a government takeover of THEIR health – translated life and death – and they don’t trust the government out of their sight, especially with something as deadly serious as that.
Obama does seem to understand now that 85-90% of Americans have health insurance and that they’re satisfied with treatment, notwithstanding all the ballyhoo about other industrialized nations providing better treatment. His minions do not help his case when they affirm otherwise. So…he seemed to give up his “government option” or “single payer” positions, upon which he has been quite outspoken. He understands finally that throwing out the baby with the bath water is dumb, which is what a government-run system would entail.
He made some good points. The disadvantaged, whether victims or not of their own actions, must be covered. A good start would be the providing of either tax-relief or vouchers that would be used to purchase insurance. Obama had the good sense to not claim that 47 million Americans are not covered. His figure was some 30 million or so, but the actual figures seem to be much lower than that. He could have helped his case by insisting that everyone have access to ALL insurance companies instead of just the ones mandated in each state, thus encouraging cost-saving competition. He must be heavily indebted to insurance companies. Also, he was disingenuous when he claimed that the American Medical Association favored the House plan since a mere 17% of the nation’s doctors are members of the AMA.
When the president attempted to explain how a government plan would be funded he made much of removing “waste, fraud, and abuse” from Medicare. If this were a priority, he could have signed an executive order on 20 January for this process to be started immediately. He didn’t. What everyone knows is that this cliché-terminology actually means cutting benefits. People understand that Obama is leading the nation into bankruptcy, whether through ignorance or design, and that universal health-care – 17% of the GDP – would be the final nail in the coffin.
The big laugh and perhaps longest applause occurred regarding Obama’s mention of tort reform, anathema to the American Bar Association, one of the democrats’ biggest supporters. Congress is a constituency of lawyers. Obama and Biden are lawyers. Why the laugh? The Congress is not about to give up the cash-cow known as class-action and other suits or doctor-liability suits for everything from coffee-spilled-on-the-crotch burns to hangnails occasioned by shabby nail polish from China.
The tackiest part of the speech came near the end when Obama did another funeral for Ted Kennedy. Predictably, the cameras homed in on Kennedy’s widow, sitting between the wives of Obama and Biden. This went on and on (Obama naturally read a personal note from Kennedy) but the nadir was reached when Obama invoked the names of republican senators McCain and Hatch, both of whom have been forceful in their repudiation of the current effort. It was more than just pandering. Obama doesn’t seem to understand that “common people” easily recognized his transparent elitism in actually thinking them too dumb to see this ploy as silly and an insult to their intelligence. It definitely failed as “one for the Gipper.”
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
His second mistake was in practically ORDERING the Congress to get off its derriere and do something, despite the fact that by his own admission in not even reading HR #3200 he hasn’t bothered to recognize what the House has attempted so far. He apparently hasn’t picked up on the latest Pew Research Center Overview (02 September), which indicates that only 37% of the populace has a favorable view of Congress, while 52% absolutely has an unfavorable view (a 24-year low).
So…instead of coming up with something on his own, notwithstanding his own approval rating that’s tanking right now, he decided to lecture an outfit most people wouldn’t trust to take their temperature. Public disapproval of President Obama's handling of health care has skyrocketed to 52 percent, according to the Associated Press-GfK poll, as reported by Fox News, the one primary media outlet not acting as the president’s shill.
In the speech, he made it clear that solving the health-care problem wouldn’t be “kicked down the road” any longer, then proceeded to kick it right back to Speaker Pelosi and Senate Leader Reid (details to be worked out, said he), with visions of the ever echoing mantra of bipartisanship, something his own democrats eschew with 24/7 fervor. This reminds one of the Clinton debacle of 1993, wherein, instead of kicking the problem anywhere, the president dumped it in Hillary’s lap and the rest is history. Concocted in secrecy and buried under layers of bureaucracy and red tape, her plan was DOA in Congress. According to Representative Charles Boustany’s rebuttal speech, the current House plan initiates 35 new bureaucracies.
Strangely, Obama doesn’t seem to understand that partisanship is not blocking progress. Indeed, it doesn’t even need to be considered since the democrats have the votes to pass anything they like, with not even so much as a fare-thee-well to the republicans. The hitch lies in the fact that the PEOPLE are the enemy of Obama’s – at least until now – representation of the “plan.” They see it as a government takeover of THEIR health – translated life and death – and they don’t trust the government out of their sight, especially with something as deadly serious as that.
Obama does seem to understand now that 85-90% of Americans have health insurance and that they’re satisfied with treatment, notwithstanding all the ballyhoo about other industrialized nations providing better treatment. His minions do not help his case when they affirm otherwise. So…he seemed to give up his “government option” or “single payer” positions, upon which he has been quite outspoken. He understands finally that throwing out the baby with the bath water is dumb, which is what a government-run system would entail.
He made some good points. The disadvantaged, whether victims or not of their own actions, must be covered. A good start would be the providing of either tax-relief or vouchers that would be used to purchase insurance. Obama had the good sense to not claim that 47 million Americans are not covered. His figure was some 30 million or so, but the actual figures seem to be much lower than that. He could have helped his case by insisting that everyone have access to ALL insurance companies instead of just the ones mandated in each state, thus encouraging cost-saving competition. He must be heavily indebted to insurance companies. Also, he was disingenuous when he claimed that the American Medical Association favored the House plan since a mere 17% of the nation’s doctors are members of the AMA.
When the president attempted to explain how a government plan would be funded he made much of removing “waste, fraud, and abuse” from Medicare. If this were a priority, he could have signed an executive order on 20 January for this process to be started immediately. He didn’t. What everyone knows is that this cliché-terminology actually means cutting benefits. People understand that Obama is leading the nation into bankruptcy, whether through ignorance or design, and that universal health-care – 17% of the GDP – would be the final nail in the coffin.
The big laugh and perhaps longest applause occurred regarding Obama’s mention of tort reform, anathema to the American Bar Association, one of the democrats’ biggest supporters. Congress is a constituency of lawyers. Obama and Biden are lawyers. Why the laugh? The Congress is not about to give up the cash-cow known as class-action and other suits or doctor-liability suits for everything from coffee-spilled-on-the-crotch burns to hangnails occasioned by shabby nail polish from China.
The tackiest part of the speech came near the end when Obama did another funeral for Ted Kennedy. Predictably, the cameras homed in on Kennedy’s widow, sitting between the wives of Obama and Biden. This went on and on (Obama naturally read a personal note from Kennedy) but the nadir was reached when Obama invoked the names of republican senators McCain and Hatch, both of whom have been forceful in their repudiation of the current effort. It was more than just pandering. Obama doesn’t seem to understand that “common people” easily recognized his transparent elitism in actually thinking them too dumb to see this ploy as silly and an insult to their intelligence. It definitely failed as “one for the Gipper.”
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Sunday, September 06, 2009
Obama's Missed Opportunity
The latest shakeup in the Obama administration, the “resignation” of Van Jones from something called the “czar for green jobs,” remarks a certain sadness that is growing in intensity every day…a sadness that could have been entirely avoided but for the mindset of Obama vis-à-vis his office. He reflects the anachronistic approach of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton and the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright, i.e., the “time for reparations” use of government.
It goes even deeper than that. Jones was an admitted subversive whose aim as an adult has been to introduce “revolution,” an even stronger term than the official one of “transformation.” Not too long ago, he held the “black panther” view of doing whatever it takes to CHANGE (sound familiar?) the government, the same modus operandi of Obama mentor and friend, William Ayers of Weather Underground infamy (just blow up the suckers). Jones saw that his notions of using violence or at least violent protests were useless, so he decided to work within the system. His past followed him too well and those who pay attention outed him for the anti-American he is…in the same mold as “God damn America” Wright.
Though Jones was etched deeply on the record as a self-described communist, Obama gave him the “green” job, one that actually makes little sense, in the first place – a made-up job to bring him into the White House as a czar, meaning one with great responsibilities/influence but with no public vetting, no Advice-and-Consent of the Senate, and accountability only to the president, whose agenda it was his job to advance. And that agenda, being proven daily, amounts to the destruction of the foundations upon which the nation has been built.
So…it’s under the bus for Jones, who has made glaring and well-documented racist remarks and even signed a petition in 2004 to force an investigation to discover the Bush administration’s complicity in 9/11. No one actually believes he “resigned” without his walking papers bearing the imprimatur of the president. There, he joins Wright, Obama’s own grandmother (fearful of people of color) and tax-cheats Tom Daschle and Nancy Killefer.
Perhaps the next to go under the bus will be Mark Lloyd. Mark Lloyd in July joined the Federal Communications Commission in the newly created post of Associate General Counsel/Chief Diversity Officer (another czar, in other words, accountable only to the president). After getting past the fancy title, one understands Lloyd’s job, implied by his own statements, to be the wrecking of “talk radio” that’s critical of the administration. The method: Fine privately-owned stations out of existence. The reason: Nobody listens to stations pushing the presidential agenda. This is a direct violation of Constitutionally ordained freedom of speech, but Lloyd and the prez are hoping to do an end-around run. Lloyd has publicly made much of the fact that Venezuelan thug-President Chavez has done just that.
The actual tragedy regarding the Obama presidency, as exemplified in Jones and Lloyd, is that it’s designed to literally destroy this government and national way of life. The president, as the first black president, has had the unique opportunity to prove the competence of his race in governance, building upon an establishment primarily built by whites over centuries.
Instead, he has made it plain verbally and by the appointment of some 34 czars reporting directly to him that he intends to destroy the country and fling it first into socialism and then perhaps into communism. Obama seems to consider his opportunity as merely “payback time,” taking out his revenge for whatever reason, since he’s suffered no hardships, on a current generation and future generations of whites for imagined grievances for which they bear or will bear no responsibility.
This is the primary aim of the health-care fiasco over which Obama has presided, “using” as his tools Speaker Pelosi and Senate Majority leader Reid, both total failures to this point. Admitting to never having read the proposed legislation in the House, he has finally realized through watching the polls that the vast majority of Americans don’t like the plan, about which they seem to know more than the legislators and certainly the president. And…for good reason! Obama seeks to take over 17% of the American GDP, after already taking over the major financial institutions and taking over and bankrupting Chrysler and General Motors.
A greater worry, however, is that Obama’s plan mirrors that of numerous developed nations in which health-care is damned by doctor-shortages, long lines of people awaiting treatment, and the rationing of care. The examples of these outrageous conditions are in the media presentations on practically a daily basis. This doesn’t mean that the system in this country doesn’t need to be reformed in certain ways, merely that throwing out the whole system, as Obama proposes, is not the way to go. Surely he is smart enough to see this, so the conclusion to be drawn is that he merely wants to control this most fundamental aspect of life; therefore, he wants complete control of people, eventuating in complete control of everything, complete with a fat oligarchy and the devil take the hindmost.
The president, who has never had a plan, will address the nation this week. One wonders how he hopes to put together a plan as complex as the one that’s needed in the short time between now and then. He will make a bully-pulpit presentation but it’s unlikely to sway people already leery of his administration, thanks to folks like Jones and Lloyd.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
It goes even deeper than that. Jones was an admitted subversive whose aim as an adult has been to introduce “revolution,” an even stronger term than the official one of “transformation.” Not too long ago, he held the “black panther” view of doing whatever it takes to CHANGE (sound familiar?) the government, the same modus operandi of Obama mentor and friend, William Ayers of Weather Underground infamy (just blow up the suckers). Jones saw that his notions of using violence or at least violent protests were useless, so he decided to work within the system. His past followed him too well and those who pay attention outed him for the anti-American he is…in the same mold as “God damn America” Wright.
Though Jones was etched deeply on the record as a self-described communist, Obama gave him the “green” job, one that actually makes little sense, in the first place – a made-up job to bring him into the White House as a czar, meaning one with great responsibilities/influence but with no public vetting, no Advice-and-Consent of the Senate, and accountability only to the president, whose agenda it was his job to advance. And that agenda, being proven daily, amounts to the destruction of the foundations upon which the nation has been built.
So…it’s under the bus for Jones, who has made glaring and well-documented racist remarks and even signed a petition in 2004 to force an investigation to discover the Bush administration’s complicity in 9/11. No one actually believes he “resigned” without his walking papers bearing the imprimatur of the president. There, he joins Wright, Obama’s own grandmother (fearful of people of color) and tax-cheats Tom Daschle and Nancy Killefer.
Perhaps the next to go under the bus will be Mark Lloyd. Mark Lloyd in July joined the Federal Communications Commission in the newly created post of Associate General Counsel/Chief Diversity Officer (another czar, in other words, accountable only to the president). After getting past the fancy title, one understands Lloyd’s job, implied by his own statements, to be the wrecking of “talk radio” that’s critical of the administration. The method: Fine privately-owned stations out of existence. The reason: Nobody listens to stations pushing the presidential agenda. This is a direct violation of Constitutionally ordained freedom of speech, but Lloyd and the prez are hoping to do an end-around run. Lloyd has publicly made much of the fact that Venezuelan thug-President Chavez has done just that.
The actual tragedy regarding the Obama presidency, as exemplified in Jones and Lloyd, is that it’s designed to literally destroy this government and national way of life. The president, as the first black president, has had the unique opportunity to prove the competence of his race in governance, building upon an establishment primarily built by whites over centuries.
Instead, he has made it plain verbally and by the appointment of some 34 czars reporting directly to him that he intends to destroy the country and fling it first into socialism and then perhaps into communism. Obama seems to consider his opportunity as merely “payback time,” taking out his revenge for whatever reason, since he’s suffered no hardships, on a current generation and future generations of whites for imagined grievances for which they bear or will bear no responsibility.
This is the primary aim of the health-care fiasco over which Obama has presided, “using” as his tools Speaker Pelosi and Senate Majority leader Reid, both total failures to this point. Admitting to never having read the proposed legislation in the House, he has finally realized through watching the polls that the vast majority of Americans don’t like the plan, about which they seem to know more than the legislators and certainly the president. And…for good reason! Obama seeks to take over 17% of the American GDP, after already taking over the major financial institutions and taking over and bankrupting Chrysler and General Motors.
A greater worry, however, is that Obama’s plan mirrors that of numerous developed nations in which health-care is damned by doctor-shortages, long lines of people awaiting treatment, and the rationing of care. The examples of these outrageous conditions are in the media presentations on practically a daily basis. This doesn’t mean that the system in this country doesn’t need to be reformed in certain ways, merely that throwing out the whole system, as Obama proposes, is not the way to go. Surely he is smart enough to see this, so the conclusion to be drawn is that he merely wants to control this most fundamental aspect of life; therefore, he wants complete control of people, eventuating in complete control of everything, complete with a fat oligarchy and the devil take the hindmost.
The president, who has never had a plan, will address the nation this week. One wonders how he hopes to put together a plan as complex as the one that’s needed in the short time between now and then. He will make a bully-pulpit presentation but it’s unlikely to sway people already leery of his administration, thanks to folks like Jones and Lloyd.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Thursday, September 03, 2009
DNC Memorandum #5
From the office of Governor Tim Kaine, convener, 03 September 2009
***Sorry to be a bit late…okay, missed last month; however, things have been hectic lately, particularly because of the riff-raff that’s been upsetting the Town Hall meetings. The legislators are refusing to hold any more meetings since these scumbags have been spouting HR 3200 at them and expecting answers. The legislators haven’t read the bill…okay, a few have but they have no idea what any of it means, so they’ve been speechless (extraordinary for politicians – little joke there). One of our demonstrators bit off a guy’s finger today in California (where else?) to demonstrate that the current health-care system is so bad that there was no doctor around to sew it back on immediately. This was a magnanimous gesture but everyone is urged to think carefully before biting off fingers. Maybe a little hair-pulling is okay but be sure to use this method on only people considerably smaller than you are…and run like…
***The president will address the students next Tuesday and has requested a red/yellow/black/white-paper (diversity duly noted) on what he should say. The paper should make no allusions to the end-of-life conferences noted in HR 3200 since the kids might get upset, knowing full well that death can happen any time anyone breathes the air, now that the nasty republicans have filled it with greenhouse gasses. NOTE: The part already in the speech urging loyalty to the president has been replaced by something having to do with staying in school and not bringing in guns, pocketknives, pot, and subversive comic-books like Spiderman, since encouraging the climbing of the walls of buildings might make the parents unhappy.
***The award for the staffer who read within a week’s time the stimulus bill, energy bill, and health-care bill and then wrote a summary of their contents has been made (See Memorandum #4). None of these bills have been read by either House members or senators, though two have been passed by the House and one by the Senate. There will be a slight delay in making the award account waiting for the winner to be released from his straitjacket.
***The new Michael Moore movie entitled We Won is in the editing stage. The theme song by the same name was scheduled to be sung by the president but he failed to find the key; therefore, Barbra Streisand has volunteered to do the honors, hopefully right after her monthly money-counting activities. She may also star in the movie, disguised as a revolutionary War soldier madly driving her Humvee from LA to San Francisco to deliver the message that the Bill O’Reilly gang is coming. She will give the signal from Knob Hill and a platoon of drag-queens will form the first line of defense.
***President Obama’s Green Czar is Van Jones, a prominent member of the truthers, who insist that President Bush, Veep Cheney, and Halliburton conspired with Osama bin laden to blow away the WTC, Pentagon, and a Pennsylvania cornfield in 2001. Jones, who announced in California (where else?) a while back, that he is a communist has made it plain that the American government will not be rearranged but will actually be completely replaced, ostensibly with him as the main CZAR in charge of everything but the president’s teleprompter. Jones has said recently that he has never been a communist but just had a rough childhood and fell in with the wrong crowd on Knob Hill, and that he will not say it again. His current project is the complete banning of automobiles from sidewalks but he has made it plain that he intends soon to expand the prohibition to the streets and highways as well.
***It has been rumored but not verified that Dr. Kevorkian will become the End-of-Life Czar. The staffer who said at the bottled-water keg and non-trans-fat, non-hamburger (eating grease okay if Senator Biden does), non-hotdog, non-dairy-product-of-any-kind, non-chocolate, non-smoking (smoking okay if Obama lights up), veggie-fortified, yogurt-enhanced snack-bar and body-mass-chart, carbon-cap-graph, endangered-species-obituary-wall-chart, blue/red-state-map, and Bush-dart-board that this made people an endangered species, even the administration, has been transferred to the Everglades, where alligators are not an endangered species.
***The president will give his second state-of-the-union address this year to Congress next week. He will appreciate input from senior staffers but has advised that nothing is to be mentioned about the unemployment rate, the national debt, the hot summers in Washington, which he and Congress have avoided, or his and Michele’s date in New York a while back that cost a few hundred thousand big ones. He will present his version of health-care and has explained that the reason he didn’t read HR 3200 is simply that he figured it would be totally revised by Rahm Emanuel and Van Jones anyway, and that they would then make up his mind about a new bill. The TV stations, even cable, are urging him to make it a five-minute presentation since the recession that the stimulus hasn’t changed forces them to run more commercials than usual. Losing a whole hour to a teleprompter is hard on the bottom line, they say. Please advise everyone to watch, especially since there was a colossal dropping off to sleep through the country during his last speech.
***Finally, there are still opportunities to become a czar, and everyone is urged to fill out an application. Currently, a czar for controlling jay-walking is badly needed, as well as a czar for policing hate-talk on radio. Czars – REPEAT – czars do not have to be vetted by the FBI or any other agency, so do not be timid unless, of course, you have jay-walked in public lately. Also, the president is open to suggestions as to the next round of apologies to other nations for this country’s existence, and there will probably be named soon a czar for apologies. Be thinking about that.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
***Sorry to be a bit late…okay, missed last month; however, things have been hectic lately, particularly because of the riff-raff that’s been upsetting the Town Hall meetings. The legislators are refusing to hold any more meetings since these scumbags have been spouting HR 3200 at them and expecting answers. The legislators haven’t read the bill…okay, a few have but they have no idea what any of it means, so they’ve been speechless (extraordinary for politicians – little joke there). One of our demonstrators bit off a guy’s finger today in California (where else?) to demonstrate that the current health-care system is so bad that there was no doctor around to sew it back on immediately. This was a magnanimous gesture but everyone is urged to think carefully before biting off fingers. Maybe a little hair-pulling is okay but be sure to use this method on only people considerably smaller than you are…and run like…
***The president will address the students next Tuesday and has requested a red/yellow/black/white-paper (diversity duly noted) on what he should say. The paper should make no allusions to the end-of-life conferences noted in HR 3200 since the kids might get upset, knowing full well that death can happen any time anyone breathes the air, now that the nasty republicans have filled it with greenhouse gasses. NOTE: The part already in the speech urging loyalty to the president has been replaced by something having to do with staying in school and not bringing in guns, pocketknives, pot, and subversive comic-books like Spiderman, since encouraging the climbing of the walls of buildings might make the parents unhappy.
***The award for the staffer who read within a week’s time the stimulus bill, energy bill, and health-care bill and then wrote a summary of their contents has been made (See Memorandum #4). None of these bills have been read by either House members or senators, though two have been passed by the House and one by the Senate. There will be a slight delay in making the award account waiting for the winner to be released from his straitjacket.
***The new Michael Moore movie entitled We Won is in the editing stage. The theme song by the same name was scheduled to be sung by the president but he failed to find the key; therefore, Barbra Streisand has volunteered to do the honors, hopefully right after her monthly money-counting activities. She may also star in the movie, disguised as a revolutionary War soldier madly driving her Humvee from LA to San Francisco to deliver the message that the Bill O’Reilly gang is coming. She will give the signal from Knob Hill and a platoon of drag-queens will form the first line of defense.
***President Obama’s Green Czar is Van Jones, a prominent member of the truthers, who insist that President Bush, Veep Cheney, and Halliburton conspired with Osama bin laden to blow away the WTC, Pentagon, and a Pennsylvania cornfield in 2001. Jones, who announced in California (where else?) a while back, that he is a communist has made it plain that the American government will not be rearranged but will actually be completely replaced, ostensibly with him as the main CZAR in charge of everything but the president’s teleprompter. Jones has said recently that he has never been a communist but just had a rough childhood and fell in with the wrong crowd on Knob Hill, and that he will not say it again. His current project is the complete banning of automobiles from sidewalks but he has made it plain that he intends soon to expand the prohibition to the streets and highways as well.
***It has been rumored but not verified that Dr. Kevorkian will become the End-of-Life Czar. The staffer who said at the bottled-water keg and non-trans-fat, non-hamburger (eating grease okay if Senator Biden does), non-hotdog, non-dairy-product-of-any-kind, non-chocolate, non-smoking (smoking okay if Obama lights up), veggie-fortified, yogurt-enhanced snack-bar and body-mass-chart, carbon-cap-graph, endangered-species-obituary-wall-chart, blue/red-state-map, and Bush-dart-board that this made people an endangered species, even the administration, has been transferred to the Everglades, where alligators are not an endangered species.
***The president will give his second state-of-the-union address this year to Congress next week. He will appreciate input from senior staffers but has advised that nothing is to be mentioned about the unemployment rate, the national debt, the hot summers in Washington, which he and Congress have avoided, or his and Michele’s date in New York a while back that cost a few hundred thousand big ones. He will present his version of health-care and has explained that the reason he didn’t read HR 3200 is simply that he figured it would be totally revised by Rahm Emanuel and Van Jones anyway, and that they would then make up his mind about a new bill. The TV stations, even cable, are urging him to make it a five-minute presentation since the recession that the stimulus hasn’t changed forces them to run more commercials than usual. Losing a whole hour to a teleprompter is hard on the bottom line, they say. Please advise everyone to watch, especially since there was a colossal dropping off to sleep through the country during his last speech.
***Finally, there are still opportunities to become a czar, and everyone is urged to fill out an application. Currently, a czar for controlling jay-walking is badly needed, as well as a czar for policing hate-talk on radio. Czars – REPEAT – czars do not have to be vetted by the FBI or any other agency, so do not be timid unless, of course, you have jay-walked in public lately. Also, the president is open to suggestions as to the next round of apologies to other nations for this country’s existence, and there will probably be named soon a czar for apologies. Be thinking about that.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
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