In 461 AD - According to tradition…after nearly 30 years of teaching and spreading God’s Word, St. Patrick - the most commonly recognized patron Saint of Ireland - died and was buried at Downpatrick.
“I am raising the stakes right now, … If this is a poker game, I am shoving my chips right in the middle of the table. I am raising the ante. Anybody who wants out, can get out.”
It was Nov 22, 2000. The New York Giants has just lost their second straight game to the lowly Detroit Lions at the Meadowlands, the fans and media were as angry as Tony Soprano when he found out Janice took out a loan on Livia’s house.
Obama has tried to give a version of this speech, but his problem is that he does not connect with people emotionally. He just doesn’t. It’s just part of his personality. Sometimes I wonder if he is a robot as he appears to often lack any emotion at all. Look left, look right, read teleprompter, speak in clipped measure, thank everybody, leave, repeat.
The most amazing aspect of this entire episode is this…they tell me Obama is the greatest communicator ever, that nobody can give a speech like him, but he can’t sell this. Obama…can’t…sell this. He can give a prepared speech sure, but anything other than that incurs a lot of ‘umms’. Since he can’t sell it, he now has two weeks to save everything. Two weeks. That’s it. If Jesus rises and this bill hasn’t passed…its dead.
AP-via WSJ (click image for source)If it passes it will pass 216-215. I would wager any amount on this. If it fails, there is a very good chance the vote is 215-216, though anywhere between 210-215 is possible. The fact that the WH is now going after people like Kucinich shows that they really don’t have the votes as they have given up trying to convince people like Stupak. The Kucinich moves smells of desperation. The possibility exists that Pelosi will believe she has 216 votes, and then on the floor someone has a moment of consciousness and changes their vote to no. It’s possible.
That said, if I had a gun to my head right now, I would say it passes 216-215.
Justice McNamara
**Update (Russ)**
I received this from JM yesterday but, being at the Surge, I couldn’t get it posted until now. News today is that, of course, Kucinich is a yes.
Nate Beeler sums up the present ideological battlefield. Behold the vast “middle”:
Nate Beeler-Washington Examiner
The mystical “center” of American politics has been a myth as long as I’ve been alive, like unicorns and the dodo bird. It may have existed at point prior to 1977, that I can’t say for sure. But there is no center now and there most likely never will be again. We need to make ideological oppressivism (a/k/a liberal progressivism) a permanent remant of an era gone by. A dirty little mistake in American History that you tell your grandkids to scare them when they’re bad. “Don’t ever grow up to be a liberal little Johnny…or you’ll wind up serving drinks to the lawyers in Hell.”
Well done Mr. President. Let nobody ever tell me again that this man hasn’t accomplished something great. He’s managed to draw the long overdue political and ideological battle lines more starkly than anyone of his predecessors could, in only a little over a year in office.
Obama made his appeal as Democratic leaders in Congress worked on a rescue plan for sweeping changes in health care that seemed earlier in the year to be on the brink of passage. The current two-step approach calls for the House to approve a Senate-passed bill despite opposition to several of its provisions, and for both houses to follow immediately with a companion measure that makes a series of changes.
As you all well know, the problem is that we just haven’t gotten it yet. We just don’t understand how awesomely awesome Obama’s plan really is. He just hasn’t reached us yet.
I think he figured out how to do it:
President Barack Obama accused insurance companies of placing profits over people and said Republicans ignored long-festering problems when they held power as he sought to build support Monday for swift passage of health care legislation stalled in Congress.
“Let’s seize reform, the need is great,” Obama said at an appearance that had the feel of a campaign rally.
“How much higher do premiums have to rise before we do something about it?” said Obama, making the first in an expected string of out-of-town trips to pitch his plan to remake the health care system.
That’s it. There just hasn’t been enough fearmongering as of late. We don’t know who the evil-doers are yet.
This is the best part though:
Obama has long identified the insurance industry as an obstacle to changes along the lines he seeks, but the administration’s actions and rhetoric seem to have escalated in recent days.
The president’s proposal would give the government the right to limit excessive premiums increases - a provision included after one firm announced a 39 percent increase in the price of individual policies sold in California. Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, convened a White House meeting with insurance executives last week, and followed up with a letter released in advance of Obama’s speech.
It asks companies to “post on your Web sites the justification for any individual or small group rate increases you have implemented or proposed in 2010.”
How rich is that!They don’t have to a) read the bill or, b) post it online for us, but he gets to demand that insurance companies put their reasons (which, if you’ve ever actually seen an insurance company actuarial table, you know nobody will understand) for raising premiums online.
Sometimes I lament the fact that we’re no longer gonna have this guy around to laugh at after November. Sometimes.
In other great recession news, Heritage lays out exactly why this recession will never end, at least while Barack Obama keeps doing stuff:
Our economy’s job creators have been trying to send a message to the Obama administration for months: stop creating so much uncertainty in the tax and regulatory environment so that we can figure out how to invest our money and start creating jobs. Stop taking over car companies. Stop shedding financing contracts. Stop taking over 1/6th of our economy. Stop raising taxes on our energy sector. Just stop.
Our economy will eventually recover and start producing jobs again, probably very soon. But that recovery has already been delayed by an administration that saw this recession as an opportunity to fundamentally rewrite our nation’s relationship with the federal government. Unless this administration completely abandons its far reaching transformation agenda, this recovery will be a very slow one.
I gotta be honest with you, I think Heritage is being too optimistic here. I don’t think the economy is going to start producing jobs anytime soon. As long as Obama continues doing what he’s doing with health care, phony environmental issues, private sector bailouts and takeovers, etc. ad infinitum, no business owner in their right mind is going to start investing in projects, labor, materials or hardware because the consequences of Obama’s plans are so disastrous.
This is one of the fundamental reasons why central planning will never, ever work. Everytime, everytime, the government intervenes in the market it slows or halts private sector investment while the intervention is ongoing. Then when the dust settles, the market regroups and starts working around the regulation which, inevitably, will be one that hampers growth. Then another regulation comes down and the process repeats itself. This is why no regulation ever seems to be good enough and why “hybrid” socialist/capitalist markets never, ever, ever work. The two are irreconcilably antagonistic.
I for one am thus far just giddy that the Republicans have been the Party of No.
This would be an about face for the Obama administration which has consistently insisted trying Mohammed in civilian court would be a powerful symbol of U.S. rule of law.
In November 2009 Attorney General Eric Holder announced his intention to do just that. But a firestorm of criticism erupted from New York officials who did not want the trial held in Manhattan, and from Republican lawmakers who did not want a civilian trial.
White House advisers are considering recommending alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed be tried in a military court, not a civilian one in New York, a senior administration official confirmed Friday.
If the president accepts this recommendation, his administration would be reversing itself on two fronts, the location of the trial and the type of trial.
“We are evaluating based on New York City logistical and security concerns on trial in federal courts,” White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Friday.
Is this administration’s on-the-job training just too goddamn much for anyone else? Next they’ll tell us ‘hey on second thought, I don’t think we can pay for this massive health care bill’.
Actually probably not.
If you want to see some pictures from the December 5th event to protest KSM’s Manhattan trial, check it out.
“If this stunning reversal comes to pass, President Obama will deal a death blow to his own Justice Department, not to mention American values,” said Anthony Romero, executive director of the ACLU.
If the President flip-flops and retreats to the Bush military commissions, he will betray his campaign promise to restore the rule of law, demonstrate that his principles are up for grabs and lose all credibility with Americans who care about justice and the rule of law,” he said.
It’s more accurately the exact opposite of what that guy just said. But if you take your cues on “American values” from the ACLU, perhaps you should be tried in a military tribunal.
“Now is the time to make a decision about how to finally reform health care so that it works, not just for the insurance companies, but for America’s families and businesses,” Obama said at the White House, kicking off what he promised would be another full-on campaign to pass reform.
And without saying the word “reconciliation,” Obama signaled that he’ll pass reform with Democratic votes only if necessary – all but daring the Republican to get on board or watch Congress go ahead without them, using the parliamentary tactics that would require just 51 votes in the Senate.
Once again, you stinking hypocrite, what’d you have to say before today?
Want a foreshadow of the spin you’ll hear from the Left?
“No matter which approach you favor, I believe the United States Congress owes the American people a final vote on health care reform. We have debated this issue thoroughly, not just for a year, but for decades. Reform has already passed the House with a majority. It has already passed the Senate with a supermajority of sixty votes,” Obama said.
Ohhh, ok, it’s already passed so now 50+1 is all good. That about how it works?
“The American people want to know if it’s still possible for Washington to look out for their interests and their future,” Obama said. “I don’t know how this plays politically, but I know it’s right. And so I ask Congress to finish its work, and I look forward to signing this reform into law.
He just doesn’t get it does he. I’ve said before, numerous times, that I just don’t think Obama is intelligent enough to grasp the concept that no, the American People most certainly do not want to know if Washington can “look out for their interests”. The American People want Washington to get the fuck out of the way and let us live our lives.
Sorry, but throughout this entire charade, I never really thought for a heartbeat that something as tyrannical as socialized medicine could ever actually occur in the United States of America. I guess I just grew up believing that this was the land of the free.
I may have been mistaken.
Russ
Update on Wednesday, March 3, 2010 at 3:26PM by
Russ
Update on Wednesday, March 3, 2010 at 3:46PM by
Russ
Allah’s got video. Watch it if you like, but for the fourth time today, I prefer this one:
Exit question: How many times does he have to repeat this crap before the ungrateful thick-headed public “knows it’s right” too? Exit answer:Thirty-five and counting.
Update on Wednesday, March 3, 2010 at 3:58PM by
Russ
Ace has another video from Naked Emperor News with a larger cavalcade of Democratic hucksters all decrying the end of the world courtesy of reconciliation:
Sen. Tom Harkin told POLITICO that Senate Democratic leaders have decided to go the reconciliation route. The House, he said, will first pass the Senate bill after Senate leaders demonstrate to House leaders that they have the votes to pass reconciliation in the Senate.
Harkin made the comments after a meeting in Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s office including Harkin and Sens. Baucus, Dodd, Durbin, Schumer and Murray.
This game of Reconciliation badminton has been played now for weeks and I never really thought they’d have the balls to actually do it, but it looks like they may just try and shove this thing right down our throats come hell or high water.
“You know, I don’t want to concede that it’s going to pass for sure yet,” Thune said. “I still think that there’s a lot of clock left in this game.”
Republicans have fewer procedural options under reconciliation rules, which limits debate and is designed to eventually force votes on a piece of legislation. The GOP might object, though, for instance, to whether the new legislation is germane to the budget. These points are decided by the Senate parliamentarian, but could be overruled by the president of the Senate.
“I think we have to be prepared for all types of different scenarios and sort of game this out,” Thune explained. “I mean, our goal at the end is to stop a really bad bill from passing.”
“So my guess is, before this is all said and done, that if they want to pass it, they may be able to pass it, but we’re going to do everything we can on the side of the American people to try and stop a really bad bill from passing,” the South Dakota senator added.
I’m really, really gonna start looking seriously at the Senator from South Dakota.
I’m taking bets on how many times you’ll see any of these clips on either broadcast or cable news in the next month. Excepting Fox, the over/under is 3.
Any takers?
Russ
When you’ve lost Obamagirl…
Update on Wednesday, March 3, 2010 at 11:58AM by
Russ
One thing I forgot to mention in the earlier post: Did you notice the part of the speech where he said the time for talk is over? A commenter reminds me that he said the same thing … six months ago. No one’s listening, champ.
Surrendering a Boob War, drinking some “Apollo White Nights” Vodka and recognizing a human flaw in the President of the United States of America all at the same time….makes you wanna go to sleep. Makes me wanna go to sleep, anyway.
But….but.
Boob Wars will happen again, I kinda like AWK Vodka and I hate the gum…but I’m fairly certain the President of the United States of America will not recognize a goddamn thing about who he is or what is his problem. Nobody’s ever made him have to.
And as if it needed to be said…his problem is America’s problem.
For all the nonsense, for all the yap, the President of the United States of America doesn’t learn. I’ve said before, I’m not sure he can learn.
I’ll win a Boob War. I’ll quit smoking. I’ll even drink a better Vodka one of these days.
The Barack Obama you see today will be the Barack Obama you see tomorrow.
Since today’s effort in futility featured so many pointless anecdotes disguised as and as cover for intelligent policy debate, I figure I’d regale you with one of my own from college.
I can’t take credit for the idea itself-that belongs to an ex-friend of mine-but my senior year in College I took a 400-level Sociology class. I forget the exact name of the class off the top of my head. Succinctly, the class was 20 kids sitting in class doing whatever we wanted to do while the professors took notes.
Seriously. That was the whole class.
So, being the rebel (or jackass if you prefer) that I am, I wanted no part of the little social experiment that was taking place and talked about how I could best throw a monkey wrench into the gears with the aforementioned ex-friend. After bouncing around a few ideas, ex-friend suggested that I just go to every class with a baseball glove and a tennis ball, turn my desk toward the wall and bounce the ball off the wall for the entire class.
So I did. And I brought my discman (this is 1999 folks) so I couldn’t hear a word anyone was saying.
Anyway, this was academia. If I wanted to, I could have participated in meaningless talk with a bunch of holier-than-thou idiots for 40 minutes, twice a week. Or, I could have done what I did which was throw the entire class off balance by performing an act that was so odd and inappropriate for the setting that I would become the entire focus of the class.
Which is precisely what happened.
After maybe 2 or 3 classes, I started getting looks, then finger pointing, then finally a tap on the shoulder. I responded to the query ‘what are you trying to accomplish’ with a monotoned ‘nothing’, at which point I put my headphones back on and continued bouncing my ball.
Well, this was just unacceptable to the rest of the drones.
Couple weeks later, after the rest of the class literally tried everything under the sun to understand, prevent, sympathize with, ridicule, etc., what I was doing, they rose en masse one day and demanded to know what it was that I wanted.
Now, looking back on it I probably should have done something cooler. But what I did was take over the class. I was literally the king. I pretty much told everyone there that they were going to do what I told them to do or I would just return to the rather pleasant activity in which I had been engaged for the past several weeks.
For the finale, I basically just stood everyone up in a circle, brought in a stopwatch and let them each speak for a minute at which point the next person had a minute, and the next…and so on. It wasn’t particularly enlightening and it really wasn’t all that entertaining. I was just having fun being the boss.
But my point as it relates to today’s exercise in useless gladhanding is that nobody did anything even remotely out of the ordinary. I didn’t watch or listen to the whole charade but I didn’t have to. The parts I did see or hear and the parts I read about at RR or elsewhere, were exactly what the 19 other kids in that sociology class were doing…nothing. They were doing nothing. And all the while the professors, or us in today’s scenario, were simply taking notes about them doing nothing.
This is academia folks. They are there to talk and do nothing.
This is Obama foks. He’s there to talk. The problem, however, is that he wants to do something. Doesn’t matter that it will put us on the fast track to national bankruptcy. Doesn’t matter that it will turn doctors into slaves. Doesn’t matter that costs and unemployment will skyrocket. None of that matters. He is going to do something. This is the problem when anyone from academia tries to do something. It almost always ends in disaster.
But today was nothing more than a useless episode in liberal academia. If you take nothing else away from today’s show, take away the fact that this is how academia works and that this is who Barack Obama is.
I would have preferred seeing the Republicans do the congressional equivalent of turning their chairs around and bouncing a tennis ball off the wall for six hours.
If nothing else, it would have been something else.
Russ
Update on Thursday, February 25, 2010 at 6:19PM by
Russ
Yeah. The flaw in the Democrats’ bipartisan kabuki is that they’ve invested so much time in painting the GOP as brainless and feckless that the media — and public — almost can’t help but be pleasantly surprised. Yuval Levin’s also right that it’s not to Zeus’s advantage to descend from Mt. Olympus, because the lesser gods that surround him on his side of the aisle are … what’s the word? Ah yes — unappealing losers.
No matter what you call it, it was useless. Does anyone see any real political gain or loss for either side? I would hope, of course, that some fence-sitting “back-benchers”, as Levin calls ‘em, watched this and may have finally seen that Obama is as feckless a leader as you could ever hope not to have. If the polls don’t move in our favor a few percentage points though, I don’t think much anything of note actually happened.
3. Nancy Pelosi was the only Democrat – save for President Obama – who failed to stay on message with the act that was this day. She just couldn’t end the day without showing her mean face – which thanks to plastic surgery is only slightly distinguishable from her “normal” face.
8. Mitch McConnell was there so I’m told. I saw a few pictures to prove it.
19. Kathleen Sebelius is a good dresser – AND she used to be a governor…
Romney should go against Obama in 2012 and if he happens to win with an economic message that is fine…but if not…that’s fine too. It’s gonna be a shit storm for awhile and I think serious people are looking at 2016 and 2020.
Obama didn’t want this. Imagine him governing during the Clinton years with all that money and the economy going well, pre-September 11th (one can argue that the US economy has never really recovered from 9/11 and that is the more lasting damage than anything militarily, but that is for another time), he would really be able to get all his liberal programs through, so for that I am thankful. He didn’t want the economy to collapse 6 weeks before the election. And it’s not getting better anytime soon. Running in 2012 is a loser. You are walking right into it and when nothing gets better the people are going to be mad at you too. We just don’t know what the political fallout will be yet from all this. It could be ‘elect the Dems in 2008, they do nothing and vote them out, 2010 vote in Reps, they do nothing vote them out’..and just keep repeating it until someone actually does something. Americans could really turn independent and/or populist as a result of this, but we just don’t know how it will play out.
Obama is finished domestically. Health care was a disaster. Nobody wants to spend money on environmental stuff. Energy? My Con Ed bill averaged $53/month last year. You know what the actual cost of the electricity was? $15. The rest was the delivery, e.g. Con Ed infrastructure and labor costs and taxes. $15/month for energy? There is a crisis?
Jobs? The government can’t do much for jobs nor do I expect them to. They can create government jobs but that’s about it. Mortgages? Those are still going nowhere fast, just as many are defaulting yet the Government is still giving out 3% loans. And we keep adding debt. So what exactly is he going to do domestically besides raise taxes?
That leaves foreign policy. Oh, and did the United States win in Iraq? Hmmm. Guantanamo not only won’t be closed this year but he is never gonna close it. KSM trial in lower Manhattan? Not so much. Christmas day bombing? Uh, not exactly smooth, would be fair. Peace between Israel and Muslims? Don’t think so. Afghanistan is a mess that will only cause problems. Pakistan? The possibility exists that Bin Laden could be captured or killed any day, and that would be the biggest success he could have, but foreign policy looks to be problematic because, well, there is a lot of shit going on right now. Oh, did I even mention Iran?
The real consequence of Obama being re-elected is the Courts, specifically the Supreme Court. The President’s effect on the Courts in general is one of the most overlooked yet important powers he retains. Along with having the sole authority to move the military as he sees fit (Obama, if he wanted, could order a Nuclear attack on Iran tomorrow, literally, and there is not a damn thing anybody could do about it), nominating a justice for the Supreme Court may be the largest power he has. For that reason alone I would not want him to be re-elected, but any idea that Barry was bringing in some Liberal Entitlement Utopia has vanished faster than Keith Olbermann’s sanity.
Justice McNamara
Update on Wednesday, February 17, 2010 at 7:01PM by
Russ
Our blog brother from another blog mother T-Bone at RR includes the good Justice’s work in his infamous Right-Wing Extremist roundup.
While I appreciate the passion behind their efforts, I firn mly believe that as a general rule, documents such as this “Mount Vernon Statement” are absolutely ridiculous and reek of arrogance and a lack of understanding of one fundamental and glaring point… Shouldn’t our only guiding or uniting document be that which our Founding Fathers drafted at Independence Hall?
Jackpot.
Read the whole thing though because T-in typical T fashion-is far more nuanced and philosophical than yours truly who can only muster a “stupid” when looking at this story. As if it mattered, I’m not signing it.
Think about it. There’s little credible argument left that the man isn’t an inexperienced, immature, neo-Marxist ideologue who is in way over his head. Anybody who tries to argue otherwise is either stupid or lying. There is no third choice. And most of the time I don’t feel sorry for him because, as far as I know, nobody twisted his arm or put a gun to his head to make him run for President in such a precarious situation.
But the other side of that coin is that someone had to vote for him for him to win. Nearly 67 million “someone’s” did just that in 2008 and put this waif in the White House. He wouldn’t be there if they hadn’t.
And it’s for that reason that I really do feel bad for Obama sometimes. If 10 million of those people took a measly five minutes to study the candidates, perhaps he, and we, wouldn’t be in the disastrous situation in which we find ourselves. It was his conscious decision to run for President when he should have known he wasn’t up for the job. But it was the 67 million idiots who voted for him that made that fact clear to the Country and the World at large.
The other reason I occasionally feel sorry for Obama is that he’s not a learner. I don’t think he was ever a learner before he became President and it’s all too clear after a year in office that he’s not one now. Any sensible, rational person learns three things from looking at and studying the political philosophy best characterized as “collectivism” and that is that, 1) it didn’t work, 2) it will never work, and 3) most importantly, it cannot work. Barack Obama is simply an absorber and a regurgitator; he is not a learner. His comments in his early life, on the campaign and during his first year in office are literally plagiarized from any collegiate socialist textbook. There’s no learning involved. There’s no contemplation involved. There is only a desperate need to believe in something that he hadn’t found anywhere else.
I speak from experience here. Readers may have picked up on little tidbits I’ve dropped about my own unfortunate 5-year spiral into the depths of socialist thinking hell. Looking back on those days, I can honestly say that I never really felt comfortable arguing that side because fundamentally none of it made any sense. I chalk it up to my just being a natural rabble-rouser and that side most definitely did the vast majority of pot-stirring when I was in college.
But I got over it. I read a few more books, took some time to think about their positions and the answers thereto on the other side and came to the thoughtful conclusion that collectivism, in all of its forms, is wrong. Barack Obama has never done that. He has never thought for a single solitary moment that there are different and better answers to the problems-or more accurately perceived problems-he’s trying to solve. If you’ve really listened to him over this past year, you’d know that. He never bothers to refute or otherwise answer his critics points. He merely launches into his populist demagoguery of the day be it Bush, Corporations, Global Warming or Wall Street. He doesn’t answer his critics because he can’t answer his critics. He’s never learned how.
You have to feel at least a little sorry for mindless drones who know of only one position on any given issue and have utterly failed to learn how to learn about anything else. Admittedly, I only feel this way sometimes because ultimately it’s Barack Obama’s fault. But today is one of those days and I just wanted to let him know it.
Tomorrow is another day.
Russ
Update on Monday, February 15, 2010 at 10:22PM by
Russ
[The SOQOTD] is awarded to Russ, proprietor of That’s Right, for his penetrating insight into the mental attributes of that ludicrous lungwort of a man known as Barack Hussein Obama.
Bob, as any Great Man does, thinks a little differently:
I never feel sorry for this sorry excuse of a man. Any problems he has, any sadness he feels, is as a direct result of his vaulting ambition and extreme arrogance. Russ, as you can see, thinks differently, but, as you can see from the following, he is certainly not a squish.
And finally, Bob, in typical Great Man fashion, gets to the root of my once every blue-moon bouts of sorrow for Barack Obama:
Methinks his sorrow is born out of pity for the poor Golden Child.
Spot-on Bob…spot-on.
You’ll have to check out TCOTS to see the picture Bob snagged of me on Transvestite Tuesday (I didn’t even know there was a camera there…god-Damnit!)
Ladies…call me!
Thanks Bob!
In shameless theft of the Reb’s salut, because I haven’t thought of my own yet…
This is how we treat our friends:
Top ‘O the Mornin’ to ya Bob!
Update on Monday, February 15, 2010 at 11:15PM by
Russ
Our brother from the Sunshine State, the Daley Gator, quotes us as well and at the same time skewers Michael Medved who, for whatever reason, is still clinging to his “Obama the Great Intellectual” storyline…which is, in a word, retarded:
Sorry Michael, but there are several aspects to intelligence. And learning from history, from your mistakes AND the mistakes of others ia part of that. Obama obviously fails in that department. Medved also said that Obama must be intelligent, after all he did teach Constitutional law for years. Hmmm, I wonder, frankly, what the Hell he was teaching. We see first-hand his take on the Constitution. And again, with apologies to Mr. Medved, Obama either does understand the Constitution, or he just ignortes what it does mean. No man who has studied the Constitution would push Cap and Trade, the massive spending, universal health care, and the punitive taxes Obama has and does. Obama’s voting record on gun rights also is deeply disturbing. Obviously, his view of the right keep and bear arms is far from that of the Founders.
Sorry Mr.Medved, but questioning the intellect of Obama is not a bad move at all. Frankly, the folks who need to rethink this are those who keep parroting the “Obama is the smartest guy in the room” line! Obama is smart in ways certainly. But in learning from history, common sense, he fails. And compared to the Founders? Do not even go there. They were wise men, Obama? Not so much!
That’s exactly right. Quite frankly, teaching Constitutional Law almost requires a serious disrespect for any original understanding of the philosophy that undergirds the Constitution. I know this from experience. Looking back on my own Constitutional Law class, I now realize that the progressive, “living document” nonsense reigns supreme and is literally unchallenged. Our modern day Originalists-Antonin Scalia and, even moreso, Clarence Thomas-were ridiculed and “studied” only in terms of why the professor thought they were dead wrong.
I can’t imagine Obama having been any more inclusive in his own classes based on what we’ve seen of his disrespect of the document. Again, he’s an absorber and a regurgitator with a good baritone. That’s why he taught Constitutional Law. Quite frankly, he just ain’t that smart.
Thanks Gator!
This is how we treat our friends:
Cheers Gator!
Update on Tuesday, February 16, 2010 at 12:35AM by
Russ
I think many can be Gentlemen but only a very, very select few can be “James Bonds’ of the Blogosphere”…IC at the Reb is one:
Sometimes.
Sometimes.
This, is how we treat, our friends:
And while I disagree with Bob on this one (sometimes…they do make ‘em like they used to) the original is still…smokin’…
To the Reb.
Update on Wednesday, February 17, 2010 at 7:39PM by
Russ
Anytime we show up on a blog where the post immediately preceding the one in which we’re linked is a Thomas Sowell video, I consider that a huge win. Thomas Sowell is the smartest man in the universe.
Thanks HoE!
Er…I’m gonna have to come up with a better nickname. Thanks Erat!
That’s better.
Update on Thursday, February 18, 2010 at 2:05AM by
Russ
This president got rolled by the Senate over health care. His team made some boneheaded mistakes, and now they are paying for them. Continuing to play footsie with opponents will only get him into more trouble. He should set a deadline to have his folks confirmed. If not, appoint them all during the recess and go on about your business.
Obama’s critics keep blasting him for Chicago-style politics. So, fine. Channel your inner Al Capone and go gangsta against your foes. Let ‘em know that if they aren’t with you, they are against you, and will pay the price.
WOOOOOOOO! Gonna git rowdy up in this motha fucka!
Put on ya shitkickers and break out the negro dialect O-Dog…we’s goin’ gansta on these teabaggin-ass bitches!
(language warning)
“Cuz you know we ‘bout rip shit up”
Couple this with Crazy Q’s suggestion that the Left start throwing hands…it could get a whole lot more messy up in here folks.
Let’s roll.
Russ
H/T Casanova
Update on Friday, February 12, 2010 at 2:03PM by
Russ
Is Mr. Martin suggesting that this administration is capable of thuggery? His ghetto rhetoric doesn’t serve anyone well. In fact, he is channeling his inner gang-banging mentality. It’s sad how low the standards at CNN have become.
It’s good that a disclaimer appears at the bottom of his article which says the opinions in this commentary are solely those of Roland Martin. Of course, it doesn’t much matter. CNN is sinking like a stone. Mr. Martin is an idiot. There. I said it.
No. There’s a little bit of role reversal in this case, wouldn’t ya say?
On Friday, the first federal appeals court to consider the topic will hear oral arguments (PDF) in a case that could establish new standards for locating wireless devices.
In that case, the Obama administration has argued that warrantless tracking is permitted because Americans enjoy no “reasonable expectation of privacy” in their—or at least their cell phones’—whereabouts. U.S. Department of Justice lawyers say that “a customer’s Fourth Amendment rights are not violated when the phone company reveals to the government its own records” that show where a mobile device placed and received calls.
Those claims have alarmed the ACLU and other civil liberties groups, which have opposed the Justice Department’s request and plan to tell the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia that Americans’ privacy deserves more protection and judicial oversight than what the administration has proposed.
I told you before, these are strange days we’re living bros. The ACLU at odds with the Obama Administration? MASS HYSTERIA!
I’d comment on this further but I have to figure out who I can sue for the hernia I got shoveling 500 pounds of Global Warming “debris” from the street.
ManBearPig’s got deep pockets right?
Russ
H/T (for the title and link) Reverend Guido McLovin
What does one do if he can’t get anything done at his job? Why, ask for help, of course! Only, if you’re the President of the United States and the list of failures is as long as my arm, you ask for…BIPARTISANSHIP!
Obama’s had more than 12 months now. Twelve months to get the economy going in the right direction. Twelve months to get his #1 priority – Healthcare – through Congress. TWELVE MONTHS to do just about whatever he wanted as his party controlled the White House AND both Houses of Congress.
And what’s he gotten done? Nothing.
And now, he calls for bipartisan efforts to help pave the way for a stronger America.
Was he arrogant when dealing with Republicans? Yep.
Is he an enemy of the hard Right…you betcha.
But that wasn’t his real problem. It’s never been a matter of rallying Republicans to his cause – he didn’t need them. His problem is that he couldn’t even get his own party behind him! The cards have been stacked in his favor since Inauguration Day and he couldn’t win! His priorities were so out of whack that Democrats ran for the hills. His methods, so amateur, that even the most die-hard liberals rolled their eyes. If he could have just been a real leader, his agenda would have run the table. If his hand-picked advisors weren’t political hacks, Democrats wouldn’t be distancing themselves from him.
So don’t let him fool you. Don’t let the calls for Healthcare summits, televised debates with Republicans or Town Hall meetings change the facts. The fact is that he should have never needed to do any of this. The fact is, his own party won’t even support him. The fact is, it takes someone at the absolute pinnacle of political ineptitude to screw up what he had.
Welcome to Obama’s America, where failure is not an option…unless, of course, you’re the President of the United States.
Reverend Guido McLovin
Update on Wednesday, February 10, 2010 at 11:23AM by
Russ
Following up on and more or less confirming the Reverend’s take on “bipartisanship”, Tapper lets us in on Obama’s definition of the meaningless phrase: (via HotAir)
“Bipartisanship cannot mean simply that Democrats give up everything that they believe in, find the handful of things that Republicans have been advocating for, and we do those things, and then we have bipartisanship,” he said. “That’s not how it works, you know, in any other realm of life. That’s certainly not how it works in my marriage with Michelle, although I usually do give in most of the time. But the — there’s got to be some give and take, and that’s what I’m hoping can be accomplished.”
Well, what are you planning on “giving” Mr. President? Here’s an idea: scrap the shitty plan(s) we have now and start over. Even still, I highly doubt we’ll see anything resembling real interstate competition, tort reform or genuine cost reduction coming forthwith.
So Bipartisanship not only means “failure”, it means “Republicans have to give me everything I ask for and shut up with their proposals.”
Like Tapper says, we can’t even have bipartisan agreement on what bipartisanship means.
It was Nov 22, 2000. The New York Giants has just lost their second straight game to the lowly Detroit Lions at the Meadowlands, the fans and media were as angry as Tony Soprano when he found out Janice took out a loan on Livia’s house.
AP-via WSJ (click image for source)If it passes it will pass 216-215. I would wager any amount on this. If it fails, there is a very good chance the vote is 215-216, though anywhere between 210-215 is possible. The fact that the WH is now going after people like Kucinich shows that they really don’t have the votes as they have given up trying to convince people like Stupak. The Kucinich moves smells of desperation. The possibility exists that Pelosi will believe she has 216 votes, and then on the floor someone has a moment of consciousness and changes their vote to no. It’s possible.
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Russ
