Quote of the Day - Randi Rhodes Edition

"...the whining rich, they are getting on my last nerve these pinata people.  You are a pinata you freak.  You're full of candy and the rest of us are starving down here."

Randi Rhodes

Quote of the Day - Joy Behar Edition

You know, she’s only focusing on Delaware. Isn’t she running for the Senate? It’s the United States Senate, Christine, not the Delaware Senate.

Joy Behar on Christine O'Donnell's announcement that she will not be doing anymore national media interviews. 

Does this woman have any understanding of how our government works?  Apparently not. 

You Know the Truth - Chris Christie in Hollywood

I think that politicos will find if they tell us the truth Americans will make the necessary sacrifices to fix the problems.  What we want is for the problems to be solved.  We all know in our hearts of hearts that we cannot keep spending money that we don't have, and we need to cut way back.  We will do this if we really see that you are doing the hard work and making the hard choices. 

Chris Christie is doing just that.  We need many more of this man. 

N.J. Gov. Christie stops in Hollywood to campaign for GOP nominee Meg Whitman

H/T to The Right Scoop

Holder's DOJ Day of Reckoning - NBPP Testimony Due on Friday

Chris Coates, a career civil rights attorney for the DOJ, will be testifying on Friday morning in front of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission.  Mr. Coates, formerly with the ACLU, is testifying at the risk of losing his job, as he has been ordered by the DOJ to ignore the subpoena that was served to him more than ten months ago. 

I don't understand for the life of me how the JUSTICE department in this country can ask it's employees to ignore a legal  subpoena.  Shortly after receiving this Mr. Coates was transferred to another office, which was considered a demotion of sorts. 

His testimony may be the corroboration of the testimony that given several months back by J. Christian Adams, which laid in detail how the DOJ has given instructions to it's civil rights division to ignore voting cases that are filed against any minority in general and to drop the charges against the NBPP specifically. 

The administration's response to Adams testimony had to been to call him a conservative (horror of horrors) who had a ideological agenda against the administration, as he had in the past given money to republican candidates.  They somehow forget to mention that he had also given money to democrats as well.  As if that makes any sort of difference.  He is an American citizen and as such has the right to give to any candidate that he so chooses.  They will have a much harder time painting Mr. Coates in this manner.  Not too many conservatives would do work with the ACLU.  We basically view them in lets just say a not so favorable light.  Mr. Coates was hired by President Clinton and during his tenure at justice has been promoted numerous times under both democrat and republican administrations.  He also in his forty year history as a civil rights attorney has only brought two cases against minority plaintiffs.  Not exactly a record that will be easy to attack.  I am sure that they will try if he does indeed confirm the testimony told by Mr. Adams. 

Get our your popcorn folks, this is going to be must see TV.

For some background on the case go here

Mourning in America

GOP Pledge to America

The GOP will be officialing unveiling the document tomorrow at a small business in Herndon, VA; a suburb of Washington, DC. 

Here are few excerpts:

"We pledge to honor families, traditional marriage, life, and the private and faith-based organizations that form the core of our American values."

Act Immediately to Reduce Spending: There is no reason to wait to reduce wasteful and unnecessary spending. Congress should move immediately to cancel unspent "stimulus" funds, and block any attempts to extend the timeline for spending "stimulus" funds. Throwing more money at a stimulus plan that is not working only wastes taxpayer money and puts us further in debt.

Cut Congress’ Budget:

Establish a Hard Cap on New Discretionary Spending:

We must put common-sense limits on the growth of government and stop the endless increases. Only in Washington is there an expectation that whatever your budget was last year, it will be more this year and even more the next. We will set strict budget caps to limit federal spending on an annual basis. Budget caps were used in the 1990s, when a Republican Congress was able to bring the budget into balance and eventual surplus. By cutting discretionary spending from current levels and imposing a hard cap on future growth, we will save taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars.

Hold Weekly Votes on Spending Cuts:

This is a start, and if they think that they can write this out before the election and than disregard it as soon as they take office, they have another thing coming.  Earlier this year, House Republicans launched the YouCut initiative to combat the permissive culture of runaway spending in Congress. Over the course of nine weeks, YouCut produced proposals to save taxpayers more than $120 billion. We will continue to hold weekly votes on spending cuts.

This year, Congress increased its own budget by 5.8 percent at a time when families and small businesses across the country are cutting back. We will make Congress do more with less by significantly reducing its budget.
GOP Pledge to America

We Can Absord It? - Obama's Wars

"We can absorb a terrorist attack.  We'll do everything we can to prevent it, but even a 9/11, even the biggest attack ever....we absorbed it and we are stronger."

President Obama quoted in Bob Woodward's new book Obama's Wars.  This is a direct quote that White House is only not denying, but seems to be happy with the book and it's contents. 

This is truly scary.  While I fully understand that a large part of the presidency and governing in general is to look at things in a macro setting as opposed to looking at every issue on a micro level.  This is the reason that a country can't make deals with terrorists.  It only promotes more terrorism and the job of the government is to protect the country as a whole. 

With being said, WTF?  As I said, I am glad that he is looking at these issues on a macro level and I am very relieved that he says he is trying to prevent them, but this is one of the most insensitive statements a president can say.  Almost 3,000 families were shattered by the deaths of their loved ones.  A nation went into a tailspin when the realization of the dangers in the world came crashing down on that Tuesday morning.  The president would be much better served to keep these opinions to himself. 

About That Stimulus Money

National Bureau of Economic Research's Business Cycle Dating Committee has declared that the "great recession" not only has ended, but ended in June of last year.  While it certainly doesn't feel like the recession is over since our national unemployment hovers just below 10%, home foreclosures are still occurring at alarming rates, people home's are still underwater, and people in general are still hurting and are scared.

But, in economic terms the recession is over.  The question becomes why did we spend all of that stimulus money?  I am not hearing anything in the press about this, but logically it couldn't have been the stimulus money that brought the economy out of the recession. The money (some of which has yet to be spent) couldn't have gotten into the economy to make a difference to affect the numbers that ended in the second quarter of last year. The stimulus passed in towards the middle of the first quarter of 2009, and by the end of the second quarter the recession ended.  For a recession to be over it has to be two straight quarters of growth.  Which means that we had growth in the first quarter of 2009. 

This is yet more bad news for the president.  The stimulus did little or nothing to get the economy out of the recession in technical terms.  The evidence seems to show that economy would be in the same shape that it is today without the stimulus.  It is shame that media is not picking up this. 

So why exactly did we spend almost $1 billion of borrowed money again? 

Is Jesse Jackson Jr. A Race Traitor Too?

Apparently Jesse Jr. had an affair with a restaurant hostess.  Congressmen having affairs is nothing new, and not all that shocking really.  But, this woman happens to be white and Jesse Jr., as you may know, is not.  Apparently, his wife is aware of the situation and ultimately it is between the two of them. 

I am not one to say one word about these types of relationships.  Love is love, if you skin tones happen to differ, so what.  It isn't anyone else's business as far as I am concerned.  But, sadly, I do know that there are plenty of people who don't agree with that. 

Many months back I did post on some comments that I read on a blog about a statement made by Eleanor Norton Holmes about Justice Thomas.  Her implication was that he was not "black" enough for her tastes. The comments made by liberals went off about Justice Thomas' wife Ginni, who happens to be white.  They were none to thrilled about this.  The usual slurs were used.  "Oreo", "Uncle Tom", "Traitor" and on it went. 

So is this true as well for Jesse Jr.?  Because logically it should be, right?  Just Askin'. 

Quote of the Day - Debbie Halvorson Campaign Spokesperson

”Some of the protesters stopped by the Illinois Victory office after the protest to say hello and get some water,”

The Halvorson campaign has changed it's story after being shown video evidence that the protesters carrying signs depicting Gov. Palin and Glenn Beck as Hitler were in her campaign office after the protest at the conservative get together. 

Ok, I get it, they were thirsty.  Poor babies.  Harassing conservatives is very hard work after all. 

I wonder if this would work for a republican?  It certainly doesn't work when the Tea Party tries to explain that the Hitler posters are from LaRouche supporters. 

Tuesday Toons

Florida Democratic Party Apologizes to Allen West - Well Sort Of

“After making every effort to remove all of Allen West’s private information, unlike West who refuses to apologize to Florida’s taxpayers for not paying his taxes and his bills, we apologize for the oversight of not redacting this information from the public record included in the mailer. To end, while this mail piece does not explicitly identify any Social Security number, in order to stop the crazy West accusations, we will pay for identify theft monitoring for the next two years.”

This is the "apology" that the Florida Democratic Party has released after it became public knowledge that they sent out a mailer that contained his social security number. 

The state of Florida has the second highest incidents of identity theft in the country, so somehow I think paying for the monitoring for two years isn't really the issue.  The number is already out there and I could be wrong here, but I don't think that you can change your social security number, so he will need monitoring for the rest of his life.  Also, having the monitoring doesn't help with the hassle that you have to go through.  In some instances you can't write checks even if the money to cover them is in the account.  Applying for credit cards and loans become more difficult.  This is a huge inconvenience for this family. 

Seriously, they didn't know that ID number and Social Security number were the same thing?  Yeah, I believe that. 

H/T The Other McCain

The Townhall Plant - But Which Side Planted Her?

The video of the "exhausted" woman at the President's town hall has made it's way around the blogosphere.  The talk is that she was a plant.  Some conservatives are saying she was planted to make the president look sympathetic.  Marc Lamont Hill and Joy Behar, both far left progressives, say that she was planted by the tea party. 


The reality is that in a town hall setting all the questioners are "interviewed" before the president arrives.  They may not tell you what question to ask, but they certainly have an idea of what you are going to say.  Now, I live in the greater DC area.  In many ways we are isolated from the recession.  The unemployment rate is well below the national average.  It is somewhere around 6% the last time I checked. 


But, what exactly did the woman mean?  Was she only talking about economics?  I don't think that was all that she was saying.  The President campaigned on changing the way things are done in Washington.  We have certainly not seen that. 


Sestak being offered some sort of job to get out the race, being one just example.  The democratic response was that this happens "all the time".  Maybe it does, actually I am quite sure that it does happen all the time.  But, the point is that this President promised to change the status quo.  Hope and Change, Hope and Change, that is what we heard for almost two years before the election of Barack Obama.  We have not seen that. 


What we have seen is a congress that pushed through heathcare legislation that the majority of the country was against when it passed and has only grown more unpopular according to the polls.  This was done by hook or by crook.  A shining example was the executive order for tax payer funding of abortion.  Both Sestak and Obama both know full well that isn't worth the paper it is printed on.  It is a big fat lie. 


We have this president continuing the troubling trend of the executive branch consolidating power that the constitution never intended it to have.  Sadly, the congress is complicit in this reckless and dangerous disregard to our founding principles.  We have a president that has put admitted communists into high level positions in the white house.  That is simply appalling, and it should be to every American regardless of where you fall on the political spectrum.  Unless of course you are communist too. 


Was this woman a tea party plant?  Was she is far left plant?  I think that the answer she is neither.  She is a concerned American who is facing the daunting challenge of getting her two daughters a college education in an economy that is uncertain at best.  She is a CEO of a company that is facing government mandated costs that will increase the healthcare costs of that business.  She is woman who is trying to save for retirement.  She is a woman who is seeing that the "American Dream" is getting harder and harder to achieve and that scares her for her two children.  As hard as it may be for Behar and Hill to believe, some have woken up to the fact that Hope & Change was really just Smoke & Mirrors.

Quote of the Day - Jimmy Carter Edition

"I feel that my role as a former president is probably superior to that of other presidents,"

President Jimmy Carter


Really?  I think he may be becoming senile.  While I agree that he has done wonderful things with Habitat for Humanity, bad mouthing sitting presidents is shameful. 

Bristol Palin on Dancing with the Stars

She did a much better job than I was expecting her to. 

Ben Stein on Taxes

Quote of the Day - Sheryl Gay Stolberg

It was billed as “Investing In America,” a live televised conversation between President Obama and American workers, students, business people and retirees on the state of the economy, a kind of Wall Street to Main Street reality check.



But it sounded like a therapy session for disillusioned Obama supporters.

New York Times reporter on President Obama's Townhall. 

read full article here

Is Palin Becoming More Mainstream?

Rasmussen seems to think so:

Fifty-two percent (52%) of Likely U.S. Voters say their own views are closer to Sarah Palin’s than they are to President Obama’s

Just 40% say their views are closer to the president’s than to those of the former Alaska governor and Republican vice presidential candidate.


Among the Political Class, however, 68% say their views are more like Obama’s, while 63% of Mainstream voters describe their views as more like Palin’s.

 
 
Now I am not sure exactly what "Political Class" means.  But here is a snapshot of the political class:
 

A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 67% of Political Class voters believe the United States is generally heading in the right direction. However, things look a lot different to Mainstream Americans. Among these voters, 84% say the country has gotten off on the wrong track.

  
 
If 67% of them think the country is heading in the right direction they must not really be paying attention. 
 
 
Read full results here

Where's The Change? CEO Questions her loyalty

RealClearPolitics - Video - Town Hall Questioner To Obama: "I'm Exhausted Of Defending You"

Obama's Conscience of the Congress?

In a speech to the Congressional Black Congress President Obama said:

That’s why the CBC was formed – to right those wrongs; to be the conscience of the Congress

con·science 



–noun


1. the inner sense of what is right or wrong in one's conduct or motives, impelling one toward right action
 
 
The Honorable G.K. Butterfield
The Honorable Sanford D. Bishop, Jr.
The Honorable Corrine Brown
The Honorable Roland W. Burris
The Honorable Andre Carson
 The Honorable Donna M. Christensen
The Honorable Yvette Clarke
The Honorable William Lacy Clay, Jr.
The Honorable Emanuel Cleaver II 
The Honorable James E. Clyburn
The Honorable John Conyers, Jr.
 The Honorable Elijah E. Cummings
The Honorable Artur Davis
The Honorable Danny K. Davis
The Honorable Donna Edwards
The Honorable Keith Ellison
The Honorable Chaka Fattah
The Honorable Marcia L. Fudge
The Honorable Al Green
The Honorable Alcee L. Hastings
The Honorable Jesse L. Jackson, Jr.
The Honorable Sheila Jackson Lee
The Honorable Hank Johnson
The Honorable Eddie Bernice Johnson
The Honorable Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick
The Honorable Barbara Lee
The Honorable John Lewis
The Honorable Kendrick B. Meek
The Honorable Gregory W. Meeks
The Honorable Gwendolynne Moore
The Honorable Eleanor Holmes Norton
The Honorable Donald M. Payne
The Honorable Charles B. Rangel
The Honorable Laura Richardson
The Honorable Bobby L. Rush
The Honorable David Scott
The Honorable Robert C. Scott
The Honorable Bennie Thompson
The Honorable Edolphus Towns
The Honorable Maxine Waters
The Honorable Diane E. Watson
The Honorable Melvin L. Watt

Let's see here, Rangel, Burris and Waters are listed on CREW's list of most corrupt members of Congress.  Rangel and Waters are currently under investigation for ethics violations.  Waters is involved with a bank getting TARP money that it didn't really qualify for, all the while she and her husband had a financial stake in. 

Burris and Jackson Jr. are knee deep in the Blago mess in Chicago. 

Holmes Norton's voice mail message to a potential donor has recently been released. This voice mail is very damaging as she specifically uses donor information even though that is a violation of law. 

Conyers mocked people when asked about reading legislation before voting on it.  According to him you need three lawyers to understand the legislation, which is very rich indeed considering he is an attorney. 

Cleaver, Clyburn, and Lewis are knee deep in the unproven accusations against the tea party at the Health care Protest back in March.  Even the New York Times has said there is no proof that they incidents even happened.  They will not apologize for calling concerned American citizens racists. 

Eddie Bernice Johnson gives her family members and family members of her staffers CBC scholarships against the rules of the scholarships themselves.  Her grandchildren who signed the applications committed fraud due to the fact it very clearly states that you cannot be a relative of any member.  She sent a letter to scholarship administrators from her Dallas office asking that the money be sent directly to her grandsons, again a clear violation of the rules. 

These are the people who are the "conscience" of our congress?  We are in real trouble folks. 

Read full speech here