June 2011

You know we are in a slooooooooooooooooooooooooow news cycle when the big news of the day is that MSNBC suspended commentator Mark Halperin IN-DEF-IN-ITE-LY LY ly ly ly <---(if text could echo) for calling Obama a "dick" on the show "Morning Joe."

This brings to light two burning question American's must have answered....First, WHO IS MARK HALPERIN?

Yeah I've heard of the guy, but this seriously could have gone totally unnoticed because it happened on MSNBC, a channel the even NBC has to be reminded exists, and the guy is a household name in his household only (I'm assuming).

The other burning question is, what did he do wrong?

Scarborough and Morning Joe Executive Producer Alex Korson said they were sorry for what happened.

“Certainly, [host] Mika [Brzezinski] and I also apologize to viewers,” Scarborough said. “And we hear this all the time — parents come up and say, ‘Hey, by the way, we don’t just watch the show, our kids watch the show.’”

From Politico

It's nice that Morning Joe's audience allows their kids to watch the show. Most camera crews don't take their family to work, so I could understand why they wouldn't want them to hear that Obama is any four letter word...but isn't he one?

If there was a third burning question it would have to be whether or not the word was offensive, or if MSNBC just didn't like Halperin's target.

Sometimes, I have to wonder if these things happen as stunts to help double the number of viewer <---(not a typo) they have. In the end don't think this would be news, even in a slow news cycle like this, if the president was Republican.

If you were to give Obama the same treatment Michele Bachmann has been getting over the last week and shake him like a snowglobe, how many flakes would he produce?

h/t Moonbattery

I'm looking forward to the day where an adult is president again....

“If we do not have revenues, that means there are a bunch of kids out there who do not have college scholarships,” Obama said. “[It] might compromise the National Weather Services. It means we might not be funding critical medical research. It means food inspection might be compromised. I’ve said to Republican leaders, ‘You go talk to your constituents and ask them, “Are you willing to compromise your kids’ safety so some corporate-jet owner can get a tax break?”

More at National Journal

Is it really THAT simple?!? Wow...I never thought of it in such stark terms before. The boy wonder president never ceases to amaze with his ability to communicate so clearly what the stakes are in this debt fight. As good as this is I don't think he makes it clear enough. So I rewrote the money shot a few times to really illustrate to the American taxpayer how important this is.

Are you willing to compromise my war in Libya so some corporate-jet owner can get a tax break?

Are you willing to compromise funding abortion mills so some corporate-jet owner can get a tax break?

Are you willing to compromise vote entitling entitlements so some corporate-jet owner can get a tax break?

Are you willing to compromise my family's vacations so some corporate-jet owner can get a tax break?

Are you willing to compromise my ability to donate money to the church of big tobacco so some corporate-jet owner can get a tax break?

Are you willing to compromise Joe's hair plug allowance so some corporate-jet owner can get a tax break?

Are you willing to compromise Harry Reid's ongoing male hormone therapy so some corporate-jet owner can get a tax break?

Are you willing to compromise Nancy Pelosi's R&D in clean broom technology so some corporate-jet owner can get a tax break?

Are you willing to compromise Barney Frank's hush money so some corporate-jet owner can get a tax break?

Anyone who thinks "vital services" are actually at stake in this debt fight should visit Dirty Spending Secrets.

Well look who took Churchill to heart about being a liberal at 40 (emphasis is mine)....

John Lennon was a closet Republican, who felt a little embarrassed by his former radicalism, at the time of his death - according to the tragic Beatles star's last personal assistant.

Fred Seaman worked alongside the music legend from 1979 to Lennon's death at the end of 1980 and he reveals the star was a Ronald Reagan fan who enjoyed arguing with left-wing radicals who reminded him of his former self....

"He was a very different person back in 1979 and 80 than he'd been when he wrote Imagine. By 1979 he looked back on that guy and was embarrassed by that guy's naivete."

More at The Toronto Sun

We have seen for a generation or so the product of what kind of leadership the narcissism of the 60's can produce...a lot of hippies never found their brain. Lennon's story is only shocking because of the icon he has become to the left. The saying attributed to Winston Churchill...

"If you're not a liberal at twenty you have no heart, if you're not a conservative at forty you have no brain."

...has so much traction because it's so true.

You have to wonder what the heck happened to make the guy who wrote "Imagine" lose his imagination, the most important ingredient needed to fall for liberal arguments, to say nothing of that song.

"Naivete" is the key word in all of this. Imagination covers over reason and allows you to accept whatever you want to believe, liberals proceed to act on their imagination with near reckless abandon for how the world really works.

This is why I really really REALLY wish my modest proposal to build a real life Matrix for anyone left of center shouldn't go unheeded. It wouldn't be hard to figure out who belongs there, at 18 everyone takes a test with questions like:

"What's a four-letter profanity for money"

If your answer is "what?"...CONGRATULATIONS! You answered the question correctly and get to live in the real world.

but....

If your answer is "capitalism"...CONGRATULATIONS! You answered the question correctly and get to spend a lifetime in the Matrix trying to bend "reality" to your liberal will.

I'm telling you, this is a great idea. Liberals get the control they've always wanted, and conservatives get the freedom mankind has always deserved.

You know, I've had a funny feeling for a while about this for a while, but he was killed a week before I was born. I'm not a big believer of reincarnation, but it may finally explain why I've always had the hots for Yoko Ono.

David Brooks over at the New York Times thinks Obama's presidential style has made him a great Senate majority leader. Which I guess could be a great compliment, if you're a crossing guard.

That's not a shot at Obama, because a crossing guards are technically leaders too.

The public follows crossing guards out into oncoming traffic solely on the sense of hope they provide that it's safe to cross. So they never make that call unless its safe for them to cross too.

The stop signs they carry contain a message they intend for everyone else to follow but them. If nobody wants to listen to them then they'll just get run over, and there isn't anything they can really do about it.

Basically, crossing guards are the teleprompterless, underachieving, yet more successful step-cousin of Barack Obama.

One major difference I can think of is that crossing guards have more executive experience, they assess the situation on the street, make a judgement call, and then they just go for it. They don't confer with the kids and their parents. They don't think about it for 40 days or sleep on it (whichever ends first).

If a bunch of cars pile up in the intersection they definitely don't go off and play golf to clear their head.

Does that mean a good leader has to be a dictator? No, but we are facing problems that could end America as we know it, and right now crossing guards are more decisive than the President of the United States.

For starters, I'm going to go out on a limb and say they'd probably hold that stop sign up against our debt as it approaches the limit line.

They probably don't bow to foreign cars either.

Also, for crossing guards this....

....means "stop." For Obama it means "do I need a manicure Mahmoud?"

We should start having co-presidents, one can get things done and make decisions, and the other can bask in the glow of adoration and the medias flashing cameras until epilepsy sets in.

h/t iOwnTheWorld

The best email I've seen in a while.

While hiking down along the border this morning, I saw a Muslim  extremist fall into the Rio Grande River; he was struggling to stay afloat  because of all the guns and bombs he was carrying.

Along with him was a Mexican who was also struggling to stay afloat because of the large  backpack of drugs that was strapped to his back. If they didn't get help they'd surely drown.

Being a responsible Texan, and law abiding citizen, I know I have to help those in distress.

I immediately informed the El Paso County Sheriff's Office and Homeland Security.

It is now 4 pm, both have drowned, and neither authority has responded.

I'm starting to think I wasted two stamps...

Is Chris Wallace's latest Fox News Sunday stunt the meat in a controversy sandwich that he's building?

Well is she? Did Wallace miss her debate performance in New Hampshire?

Unless she's his lab rat for some psychology thesis, what purpose does the question serve? She's not going to say yes.

While Wallace did apologize, what makes Michele Bachmann the lucky recipient of such a question when the left itself is a bunch of flakes...

Here's a snowflake (one of a kind that melts under heat).

Here's a cornflake (no explanation needed here).

and then we have...

At the time this was, somehow, supposed to be a compliment because "THEY'RE GRRRRRRRREAT!" Which is something crack addicts say about what they use to frost their flakes, so it's a good thing President Obama didn't endorse Kellogs's "kindness" in any way

....I guess it's a thing us flake-haters can't understand.

In any case, take these flakes deep fry and cheese stuff them, and you have completed your recipe for liberalism.

That's why the country falls for them so much, they look tasty enough to binge on. After a short while your ass explodes, your depth perception gets screwed up because your second chin blocks your view of the floor, your appetite for anything healthy starts to fade.

And all that comes after you burn stupendous amounts of calories fighting Michelle Obama for a taste.

Michele Bachmann isn't a flake, like any other conservative that sticks to their principles she would be more like the fat-burning workout the country needs to shed itself of its disgusting habits and feel good about itself again.

***UPDATE***

Oh geez Michele, why do you have to make the limb so wobbly? The MSM is going to bust her pretty hard for this. I sure do hope they don't ask her when Iowa became one of the 57 states, or if she owns any television sets from the 1920's. In other words, this is a much easier "mistake" to make than ones made by the frosted flakes (in fairness her campaign still contends it's not mistake and does justify that position).

But still...help a conservative brother out Michele!

It's always entertaining to watch liberals like Maureen Dowd in her latest column trip over their own brilliance. Starting off with...

HE was born this way.

Bi.

Not bisexual. Not even bipartisan. Just binary.

Our president likes to be on both sides at once.....

...and conclude with...

With each equivocation, the man in the Oval Office shields his identity and cloaks who the real Barack Obama is.

He should draw inspiration from the gay community: one thing gays have to do, after all, is declare who they are at all costs.

On some of the most important issues facing this nation, it is time for the president to come out of the closet.

Wasn't that SO clever how it wasn't about being gay.....and then it was? Is there any wonder why liberals get out of their leaders what their ideology puts into our system?

All they ever are is a confused hot mess of indecision, so of course the president they propagandize for would be too.

That's because liberalism at its core is something that doesn't sell well to most of the country. Obama's "obviously Christian" views on gay marriage are "evolving" because most of the country disagrees with his actual support for it.

He commits our military to action in Libya so he can point to at least one instance where America doesn't have a timid wilting flower of a President, and riding Bush's coattails on Afghanistan and Iraq isn't cutting it.....so he flexes this manhood while hiding behind the NATO skirt being worn by France.

He likes to lead from behind because it's not in liberalism's DNA to lead for real. Now we're stuck with President Buttsniffer. That's why his unofficial tag line when he bows before foreign leaders is "turn around."

When you think about it, it does kind of make sense that "leading from behind" is the only way to really guide gay marriage policy, or force rich people to "spread the wealth."

"Leading from behind" is actually the perfect way to nutshell liberalism's effect on America.

I guess the point is that "bi" means "gay in denial" and Obama should just join the side they're on already. So he should heed Dowd's advice and...

Trade in the blue ties for pink ones

Stimulate the economy by signaling it's time to buy stock in the company that owns Virginia Slims.

Hatch a deficit reduction scheme that includes participation in a special edition of some Home and Garden show with a "partner" as they work with a real estate agent to sell the White House. (not sell out, he's already done that)

He needs to just be himself, then the rest of the nation can finally join conservatives in realizing that we have leadership we can believe in...changing.

The key issue at this point becomes the fact that hitting the debt ceiling doesn't force an automatic default or a government shutdown. Revenue continues to come in to the federal government. There's simply a gap between how much comes in and how much the government is supposed to spend....

From Stink Progress

I never realized that government is SUPPOSED to spend the money it "budgets." Silly little me, I always thought it was choosing to overspend.

So imagine my surprise when I tried this out in the real world. I went to my unemployed neighbor and informed him that I'm supposed to be driving a car that has 4 hubcaps. So I needed him to fork over one of his. Nevermind he only had four, and if I made myself "whole" then he wouldn't be.

All I know is he better hope I don't lose one three more times....because then his ass is supposed to be grass.

What would I do without 40 watt bulbs of liberal brilliance like the one provided above by Matthew Yglesias? Every business I've ever worked for developed budgets based on the money that is available from revenue.

This must be why Obama keeps chiding the private sector to "step up" and just hire people already, because there are people out there that they're SUPPOSED to employ!

If government is SUPPOSED to spend what it budgets, guess what liberals think you're SUPPOSED to do...

Tax increases, particularly if targeted at the wealthy, show themselves again and again to be among the most popular ways to reduce the budget deficit.....

If you've gotten lost, the first thing to do is try and go back to way you came. After a decade of spending increases and tax cuts, that's what a package of spending cuts and tax increases would do. There's nothing radical about that notion, nothing that should force a halt to discussions and the sort of rhetoric we're hearing from the Republican side.

More from Ezra Klein here

Oh, is popularity a determinant factor of good policy now? How worried were liberals about popularity polls when they jammed down ObamaCare?

For a political party that prides themselves on nuance this is fantasitically two-dimensional rationale for tax hikes in a down economy. This is the end of the fiscal rope, and if debt were a foreign country that doesn't rhyme with "China," liberals would've spent stimulus money on white flags from France already.

Like I mentioned before this is more about Democrats futile effort to procure increasingly scare oxygen to keep their big government pipe dream on life support. Liberals are asking the country to accept the idea that the America we were raised with is over and done. Therefore government should, like the fat lady it is, be allowed to belt out a rendition of "Let Freedom Ring" while she sits on taxpayers.

Klein can site studies (in his column linked above) about "stabilizing" the debt (not prevention of it increasing, and definitely not reducing it...psssh!) by expiring the Bush tax cuts put out from groups funded by...........George Soros........all he wants, but no amount of liberal number dropping will hide the inescapable fact that the structure of govnerment must change, because even in the estimation of Soros's flying monkeys our debt still would've risen by trillions.

Fiddling with tax increases, even when it's in front of a backdrop of spending cuts (which was around $200 billion/year or just under 20% of the deficit, when talks stalled), is mathematically impossible to end our current deficits, much less bring down the debt.....even if the economy was rocking out like a Weiner Twitter party this would never be a feasible approach to solving the problem....

Liberals need the tax increases because they need to continue justifying their existence in American politics. Like any private sector business that can't sustain its size, government can't just cut spending, it has to shrink down to a size it can manage, period, end of story. This is government by and for the people, not by and for the ego of an increasingly defiant, arrogant and desperate liberal ideology.

Sort of...

What a difference three characters makes.

Republicans, including Sarah Palin and Rudy Giuliani, made a "strategic blunder" by making a joke of Barack Obama's work as a community organizer, Newt Gingrich says in a new book about the radical ACORN group.

It was "not helpful" for Palin and Giuliani to mock community organizing in their speeches at the 2008 Republican National Convention

More at The American Spectator

Gingrich is right. I don't KNOW that he's right, but I'm taking his word for it. If anyone knows STRATEGIC BLUNDERS it's this guy....

It was a STRATEGIC BLUNDER to go on a cruise while his campaign was still trying to find its sea legs after his other STRATEGIC BLUNDER of criticizing the only serious attempt by Paul Ryan to deal with entitlement reform.

If we really want to go there, it was also a STRATEGIC BLUNDER to leave your wife for another woman.....TWICE. Unless you're a Democrat, then it's a litmus test.

Newt is getting by on the fact he is one of the smartest Republicans out there today, but he's obviously not that smart, or this post wouldn't exist.

But what about the merit of his assertion?

"It would have been better if Republican leaders "had gotten up and said, here is what [Obama] was teaching, and they had taken the audience through the five principles of [radical organizer Saul] Alinsky."

Yes, that would've been entirely appropriate for Sarah Palin's nomination speech, to turn it into a history lesson on "commieunity" organizing.

I don't disagree that's what the McCain campaign should've done, which would've provided the air power needed to bolster conservative media hitting Obama on his past...but the presidential debates, and general election campaign speeches are better forums for that. Unfortunately for Gingrich, he wont know what it will be like to participate in either.

Sort of...

Weiner needs to master the pout, and Clinton has been there since his presidency ended, so he counts now...

Rich Lowry and many other pundits are starting to remark how the current crop of GOP presidential candidates are running from the memory Bush has burned in our national brain...

The backlash against Bush has long been brewing. Compassionate conservatism was a product of the moment when Bush began to run for president in the late 1990s. The congressional wing of the party had immolated itself in the government-shutdown fights and then the impeachment of Bill Clinton. A rebranding was in order, and Bush wanted to signal to general-election voters that they needn't fear him.

Bush-style conservatism never really took with the broader party, although it gained acquiescence.

More here

He still has throngs of fans, and he should receive a great level of appreciation (especially from Obama) for many of the efforts he made in fighting the war on terrorism. Also, until Obama came along the alternatives the Democrats offered to America made choosing Bush easy. Even then Al Gore and John Kerry weren't really the top choices for liberals to execute the Democratic party platform, but Jack Kevorkian was stuck in prison so...

Why are Republican's disowning the Bush legacy? Is it because it was an abject failure? Sort of. Bush's quest to establish a permanent GOP majority only serviced the Republican Party. What's worse was that conservatism, which is more concerned with preserving what makes this nation work so well, was thrown under the bus in order to co-opt certain issues away from the Democrats.

Republicans figured out that doing this was a great strategy if they wanted to become Democrats. Many of them were jackasses to begin with so this made sense to at least them.

Democrats thought this was a great strategy if they wanted to become full blown leftists. They knew the country would be ready for it the same way it would be ready for Barry White music, ten shots of tequila and Nancy Pelosi telling you Victoria's secret.

Thats right kids, as far as domestic policy is concerned that is the real Bush legacy....the right lurched to the left, and the left went over the cliff, but their entire philosophy is so cartoonish to begin with that as long as they didn't look down they won't actually fall.

It's working too. Their president is a golf-a-holic who has led the Democrats to jamming down the nations throat, by their own loose admission a new trillion dollar entitlement that nobody actually wanted on top of tens of trillions in unfunded liabilities. They're calling proposed cuts to the deficit by 3% "unworkable."

They - are - not - looking - down.

Bush tried to make the GOP into liberal light on domestic issues, because that is much easier than making the case for liberalism doesn't work and sends us over the cliff. When the strategy failed Democrats called it "conservativism" while conveniently leaving out the fact that their way, which is what Bush was doing, but more unbridled than Biden playing Scrabble without a dictionary, was the alternative.

Rather than putting on the brakes when they took power, liberals floored it, and things have only (and predicably) gotten worse. So why on earth would any Republican look to Bush as a model for governing success?

Unfortunately for fans of President Bush, if the GOP wants to beat Obama they'll have to put their guy's domestic legacy right where it belongs.....

...next to President Obama's.

Dozens of new designs were made, but a winner has been chosen!

All kidding aside, I mentioned last November that large labels like the one above are coming...

Beginning September 2012, FDA will require larger, more prominent cigarette health warnings on all cigarette packaging and advertisements in the United States. These warnings mark the first change in cigarette warnings in more than 25 years and are a significant advancement in communicating the dangers of smoking.

From the FDA

"These warnings mark the first change in cigarette warnings in more than 25 years." It would be frightening if boredom with the old warnings was a motivating factor making the change....it wouldn't be shocking though.

It's fairly well known by now how Jon Stewart gave a big hug to Fox News viewers with the following...

So he huffed, and he puffed, but did he blow the house down?

If the Fox News response to this (here) isn't convincing enough then today Politifact, not exactly a lapdog for the right, says........no.

They rated his claim "false," which according to their rating system, leaves no room deference to Stewart that he is even a little right.

He's a sharp guy, very sharp....like, a hot knife to Biden's brain sharp. So I'll soften how wrong he is by using Jonny's own scapegoat...he's just a comedian. That's what he says every time somenone tries to hold him accountable for the bent he takes with his own work. He's just a comedian, therefore he deserves no credibility.

As someone cut from the same cloth, but on the other side (and on a MUCH smaller scale), I say a broken shot glass holds more water than that excuse.

Humor only works if it lives in truth. So it's impossible to not give someone who is successful at making people laugh at the news credibility, because it has to be laced with opinion and commentary that lives in reality (or rather, the reality that a certain political point of view provides), and it rises in people's consciousness because it's being presented to them in a fresh way that they probably would never see it otherwise.

He thinks he gets that credibility because the news media fails to do their job and that he's being sucked up in some kind of vacuum, as opposed to it being a reflection how seldom his viewers probably consume other media. For them, when "The Daily Show" is on it's time to watch the news.

For Stewart to say he is only trying to entertain people is something that Politifact could award their lowest rating, "pants on fire."

Even though he's out now, this guy is the gift that keeps giving. With a little embellishment I provided a hint for the identity of his doppleganger...

If you're not a child of the 90's and have no clue then check out the answer at Death by 1000 Papercuts. If you still don't know you might actually be better off for it.

Except for any ethos Mitt Romney probably brings to the economic debate (being rich has that effect on people, for all I really know he knows economics like Hugh Hefner knows the dust emanating from his pores is an aphrodisiac) I've always been a bit uneasy about him. This weekend he didn't do himself any favors to assuage that uneasiness.

When it comes to abortion, Romney waffles so much Eggo should pay him for being a walking advertisement. Abortion won't, and shouldn't, be the primary issue of the next presidential election his position, or lack of one. However, this is a fantastic indicator of the McCain-esque clarity of message we could expect out of him.

It's too bad he's gone past the point of no return on this issue, I know someone he should have looked to for guidance when staking out a which side of the debate to join...

To each group we explained what contraception was; that abortion was the wrong way—no matter how early it was performed it was taking life;

- Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood

Circumcisions are barbaric, fur is murder, but abortion deserves ambiguity?

No, abortion is murder, too.

The surest sign this isn't debatable is the way liberals, and any pro-choicer, exploits man's hubris, pride, and narcissism by making the discussion about choice, or "reproductive rights." Some even have the audacity to rationalize it by saying a fetus is not a life (right, that's why groups like NARAL lose it when states want to require ultrasounds before abortions are performed).<>

The bottom line for pro-choicers abortion fan club members is it can't be about ending life, because nobody wants to be a murder...they just want laws kept off their body.

Nevermind the laws aren't dealing with their body.

As long as there are diametrically opposing views on what life is, abortion will always be a polarizing issue...but maybe we can at least put it in a way that everyone from all perspectives can agree on...