Obama's War

More Americans have died in Afghanistan since Lord Obama became Commander-in-Chief than during 2001, 2002, 2003, and 2004 combined. Does the legacy media care much about American service deaths when the president isn't a Republican? Short answer: no.

Back in 2004 Democrat strategists, concerned that their candidate for the presidency was too anti-war for the electorate, came up with a cynical idea: claim to be FOR the fight in Afghanistan but NOT FOR the fight in Iraq. Iraq War Bad/ Afghanistan War Good was the marketing scheme. Of course, they didn't believe it, they just wanted you to believe it.

By 2008 Iraq was largely won and being anti-war was less of an albatross but the Dems had a marketing problem anyway. They needed for their beautifully packaged product, Obama, to still not be too squishy on defense. They may loathe America, but they also know you can't show that and win a national election.

So Obama continued the strategy of Iraq Bad War/ Afghanistan Good War. Just one big problem with the strategy. What happens if you actually become Commander-in-Chief and have to figure out what to do in Afghanistan? Well, it's nearly October and the poor dear doesn't have a clue. He can't cut and run easily because he claimed long and loud that it was important. He can't escalate easily because the nut barges of the left will whine and cry. He even has said to a media pal that victory is something he can't quite understand.

So he sits...

and he dithers...

and he goes to Denmark where Hamlet became World Champ of dithering...

and he decides to do....???

Lordy O is lucky though. His pals in the dinosaur media have given him a free pass every step of the way. The service members? They don't count for much. Just pawns in the game.

Byron York's "Without Bush, Media Loses Interest in War Caskets" catches the hypocrisy of our "objective" press nicely.

P.T. Barnum Is Smiling

The American showman, P.T. Barnum, is credited for saying, "There's a sucker born every minute." Maybe he said it, maybe he didn't. But one thing he knew well was the gullibility of the general populace.

Apparently a bunch of folks operating under the name 3 Degrees Inc. have updated Mr. Barnum's observation for this century. They are behind an amazing little scam, The Climate Passport. Correctly surmising that self-loathing libs flying through San Francisco's airport are a target-rich environment for their moneymaking gag, they placed their first kiosk in Terminal 3 at SFO. The guilt-ridden greens passing by are able to stop, calculate the carbon footprint of the flight they are boarding, and then pay a duty to offset the environmental degradation they are going to create.

There is no underestimating the intelligence of your run-of-the-Mill Valley trust-fund hippie. They are actually going for this dopey deal.

h/t Carpe Diem

16-10. Thanks for comin' by.

Fourth-ranked Mississippi came to town for a nationally televised gridiron tiff last night against the Gamecocks.

This happened to the Ole Miss Rebels:


Jevan Snead, the Mississippi QB came in as a prospective #1 NFL draft choice and Heisman dark horse. He went up against a bigtime SEC defense and, well, this happened:

What happened? Eric Norwood happened.

As the clock ran down ESPN's Chris Fowler pointed out that some Ole Miss players had the flu a couple weeks ago. Craig James countered that the Gamecocks were one play short of beating Georgia in Athens and would be 4-0/ 2-0 if they had.

And that's the debate. Are they really a top flight team or are they the usual 7-5 team that goes to a 2nd tier bowl game if the breaks go the right way? Consider the schedule that the USC boys play this season (similar to every season): UGA, Ole Miss, 'Bama, Tennessee, Arkansas, Florida, Clemson, Kentucky, NC State...

Nobody outside the SEC plays a schedule like that. No. Bah. Dee. So, we'll just have to see how it breaks.

But, for one night at least, it was a very good night to be Cocky.

The State Is Me, Says O

Yesterday the President of the United States appeared in front of an aggregation of thieves, brigands, terror-appeasers,and dictators to give a speech. No, not the SEIU, MoveOn, Code Pink, and ACORN, this was the ultimate corrupt institution in the world, the United Nations.

He was treated as the matinee performer-- an opening act for the far grander speeches from Gaddafi and Ahmadinejad. But as loopy as the Libyan and the Iranian were they couldn't compete with the self-aggrandizement of Lord Obama. To wit:

"For those who question the character and cause of my nation, I ask you to look at the concrete actions we have taken in just nine months."

He was just getting warmed up.

As for Gaddafi, he said something in his hour and a half ramble that made me stand up and cheer:

"The UN should be moved to somewhere more comfortable (Libya for example) . . . All of you are tired, having jet lag . . . All of you are asleep.”

We heartily endorse the notion that the UN should be moved to Africa, or anywhere outside the United States. And with that move the US should no longer pay roughly a quarter of the UN's expenses but something more closely aligned with, say, ZERO.

It's About Power, Not Health

In the months following the January inauguration Democrats have taken an issue, health insurance, and made it into THE HEALTHCARE CRISIS! Of course there is no healthcare crisis in the United States. And even if you dial it back to the health insurance issue, that problem impacts only 7-10 million people. So what is all this about? Well, around our place when the question comes up about one of the various aspects of "the plan" my response is always pretty much the same, "It isn't about health, it's about government power over the citizenry."

Now a self-described Democrat, John F. Gaski, an associate professor at The University of Notre Dame fleshes out that notion in a column here.

Excerpts:

By now the realization should be taking hold that the Democrats' health care plan has been exposed as a hoax. And it was the Democrats themselves who discredited and exposed it...

...remember the Democrats' original rationale for their national health care takeover scheme? They wanted all uninsured Americans to be covered, right? Remember?
But now they concede that their mega-upheaval of a plan would still leave about 15 million without medical insurance. Yet they still advocate the plan! Why?

Another way the Democrats inadvertently reveal their own national health insurance dishonesty is through infidelity to a second objective — cost control.
Remember that one? They are hoping you don't, especially since the Congressional Budget Office has reported that the Obama-Democrat scheme would add $1 trillion to the national health tab over the next decade. Yet the Dems still want their plan. Why?

Why, indeed? It must be something else, therefore. If their own action undermines their stated aims, and still they desperately favor the action, then the Democrats' real purpose must be something different, something they will not reveal.

But what? Simple:

...The portrait coming into focus is one of either totalitarian socialism or an unholy socialist hybrid with fascism. And when you are dependent on the decision of a Democrat bureaucrat for crucial medical treatment, how much power does that give the Democrats over you? When the Democrats achieve literal death-grip power over the lives of all our people, that is when they also achieve their long-cherished dream of absolute power and a Democrat dictatorship.

... This is also not about health care, ultimately. It's about raw political power and the long-promised socialist takeover of the United States.

No public option, they now suggest? Don't believe it. They'll create a public option, soon to become the only option, by stealth — a kind of Fannie-Freddie co-op, because government control, in this case medical dictatorship, is an article of theology for the lib Dems.

Thanks, professor Ganski.

This Guy...

... can still remember when people watched CNN.

Keep an eye out for him.

Anything Big Happening?

News coverage the past couple of weeks has been focused on two main stories. First has been the ongoing saga of the Democrat's push to foist socialized medicine on our nation. The second story has been largely ignored by the legacy media-- the ACORN fraud-- although it has received huge play in the new media.

A couple of years ago the boiling hot topic of attention was illegal immigration. After much acrimony over amnesty President Bush finally backed away from legislation and the topic pretty much disappeared overnight as we moved on to some other outrage. My guess is that by the end of this year Lord Obama will have to admit he can't get anything meaningful passed through the Dem caucus which has gone from flying a triumphant banner in January to waving a tattered rag in September. He'll table it, move on to other outrages, and thus will end "healthcare" as part of the grand national debate for now. Not with a bang but a whimper. Meanwhile ACORN will disband and the same criminal activity will start up under multiple different names.


So what will be the events of this period that will have lasting effect if those two stories go down a cul-de-sac? I assert that the China tire story could be of lasting import if, heaven forbid, it drives us headlong into a worldwide trade war. The second story from this period that could end up being far bigger than "healthcare" and "ACORN" is our surrender to the Russians on missile defense locations in Poland and the Czech Republic. The obvious weakness and appeasement that this overt act reveals was noted not only in Eastern Europe but in North Korea, Syria, Venezuela, and elsewhere. Most importantly, it was noted in Iran and in Israel. Polling of the Israeli populace reveals that less than 4% believe the Obama administration supports Israel. With Lord O selling the security of the Poles and Czechs to Russia for a promise and a grin, that 4% has probably dropped to zero. Israel is alone now against Iranian nuke aggression. If they act unilaterally some will wonder if the action of last week by the O administration hastened their strike at Iran.

Will America reap the whirlwind?

Not So Fast There McClatchy

The McClatchy Company is the dominant newspaper group in the Carolinas. Among the papers they own are the one in the biggest metro area, The Charlotte Observer, and the two state capitals, The Raleigh News & Observer and The State in Columbia, SC. You would think that in South Carolina, a state that has just one Democrat holding a statewide office (he won by 500 votes), the capital city news outlet would at least be moderate. You would be wrong. The State is just another unreadable lib rag.

When the Joe Wilson story didn't go exactly the way The State hoped-- most people thought Joe was a hero not someone who should be run out of Congress-- they tried another tactic. While MoDowd and Jimmy Carter were hollerin' about race The State promoted on their "news" pages the speculation that Joe Wilson's calling out of President Obama for blatant fibbing would lead to tourism declines. You have to understand, South Carolina has a large tourism industry. It's not Florida large, but given the size of the state it's pretty important-- especially on the coast. So when a legacy media outlet says that something will hurt tourism they want to scare people.

Well, that didn't work out for the McClatchy gang either. Probably because the story itself was pretty much fact-free. They did find some underling in the state tourism office who said that they had received 147 e-mails from people who were never coming to SC because of Wilson's famous two words. Well, most of us figured that 100 of those were from the SEIU, 40 were from ACORN, and 7 were from the senators who voted to keep giving ACORN taxpayer dough. In other words, we yawned.

But today we have real news about South Carolina tourism. The Carnival Cruise Lines have announced that they will begin more than 70 cruises/ year from the port of Charleston next spring. It's hard to find much about this on The State's site this AM, but the Charleston Post & Courier has it front and center.

-- The 2,056-passenger Carnival Fantasy will embark from the end of Market Street for five-, six- and seven-day voyages to the Bahamas and Key West, Fla., beginning in May. As many as 70 calls per year will more than double the current number of cruises and, by some estimates, inject millions of dollars in direct local economic impact with each of them.
Top port and political leaders excitedly shared the news Thursday from a Waterfront Park pier while curious tourists observed from the nearby oversize swings. Onlookers gazed into Charleston Harbor and over at the freshly painted cruise terminal being prepared for a major overhaul.

A city-organized task force in 2004 found that a ship stopping in Charleston spends $1.7 million in supplies from local vendors and State Ports Authority fees, while a ship originating in Charleston spends $2.5 million.

Sold Out Again

Oppose America's interests at every turn and Lord Obama will give you a reward.

Support America's interest at every turn and Lord Obama will give you the back of his hand.

Today it's the Czech Republic and Poland.

45% of Docs Would Consider Quitting if Obamacare Passes

Lordy O and his gang in the White House like to say that the majority of physicians support his plan. Of course the next day they say that the POTUS doesn't have a plan so we can't be sure what any of this means. Add in the fact that Lord Obama says lots of things that aren't exactly so and, well, maybe it would be better to have a scientific polling firm find out what physicians think about all of this healthcare stuff swirling around in DC.

Investors Business Daily had their go-to polling firm, TIPP, do just that. Their survey of 1,376 doctors found that 65% oppose a government expansion into healthcare. 72% disagree with the White House assertion that they can cover 47 million more people and have better care for all at a lower cost. (Doctors have to take some math in college whilst, apparently, lawyers do not.)

Finally, and most ominously, 45% say they would consider leaving the practice of medicine if the federal government passes the Democrat's healthcare "reforms".

The complete story is here.

Media Moaning About Their Lost Control

Jeffrey Lord at The American Spectator has a wonderful open letter to Tom Brokaw. It seems that Tom was on Meet The Press to bemoan the current state of affairs-- the inability of the legacy media to control the daily news narrative anymore. Like all of the dinosaurs Tom longs for a return to the days where a handful of media titans in Manhattan and Georgetown decided what we should know and what we definitely should NOT know.

Mr. Lord gives him another view. It's a view from those of us who are glad to have talk radio, bloggers, citizen reporters, and almost one TV channel. The media monopoly is over and the old guard is pissed off about it to listen to Tom Brokaw.

My advice to Mr. Brokaw is simple. You're a wealthy, reasonably healthy, elderly fellow. You love fly fishing and outdoor activities with a good group of other wealthy, old guys. Enjoy your life. You're the last of a dying breed to judge from the ratings of the "Big 3" newscasts. Go fishing and leave real journalism to the new kids-- like a couple of 20 somethings with a video camera who have succeeded in bringing down ACORN's relationship with the federal government by exposing rampant fraud that your legacy media buds never bothered to explore. That ACORN/ federal government has cost the US taxpayer well over $50Million to date. And that was before their ally, the community organizer-in-chief, gets busy funneling the dough their way.

Where was NBC on this? Nowhere, man. Do yourself a favor. Get lost. Go fishin'. Let the new breed take over, pal. Moaning on MTP is just sad and makes you look as old and out of it as that guy that hosts the CBS Sunday chin wag show.

Firing The First Shot in a War

Last Friday, September 11, 2009, the Obama administration fired the first shot in a trade war against China. Clearly they were worried about taking this action since they waited until after the news deadline to announce a tariff of 35 % on Chinese tires on top of an existing 4 % duty.

There are strong populist/ protectionist winds blowing in the US. This isn't the province of just Democrats, but so far the Obama administration talks about free trade but doesn't seem to support it when their labor union pals want a payoff.

This has been treated as a minor story so far but China won't be treating it as a minor point. Trade wars have a funny habit of turning into depressions or shooting wars. This could end up being the biggest story of 2009. I hope not.

-----------

Here's the latest from the Financial Times on China's response.

09.11.2001

On To Washington

The week begins with a national holiday honoring leftist union organizers and ends with a march down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington DC to protest the expansionist federal government.

Sounds like progress of a sort.

Meanwhile, remember this helpful tip courtesy of FDR's WPA circa 1938.

Yes, taxpayer money was spent on artists making posters to tell people to brush.

But, it's really a great poster.

Kudzu Root May Lower Blood Pressure

Kudzu eating a house in Elijay, GA

For those of us living in the kudzu belt this is good news. There is hope that the kudzu root can be used for blood pressure medicine after years of giving us heartburn.

Better yet, I'm pushing for research that would find a way to convert the horrendous scourge of the South into ethanol. Then we can stop the idiocy of converting food (corn) into engine fuel.

Now can we get to work on a use for crabgrass? If it becomes valuable hordes of people will come onto my property at night and rip it out.

Kudzu eating a Honda.

Kudzu attacking a nice home in the South.

Kudzu sitting atop a businessman's scalp.

Leadership in Action

We thought when Bill Clinton used the bully pulpit of the Presidency to push for school uniforms that some of the, um, luster of the office had disappeared.

But then we saw this headline...

Obama: Sneeze into Your Sleeve, Not Your Hands

CBS News, Sept. 1, 2009

... and it's clear that the most important political office in the world is back on track!

Luster restored. Good job, Lordy O.

Another Great Reason To Homeschool

President Obama’s Address to Students Across America

September 8, 2009

Attention youngsters!

That Trick Didn't Work

Not even a $4,500 bribe could get people to buy a car from Obama's car companies.

Ford, with no government ownership, did pretty well however.

In other news... FDR ate a turkey leg.