Author: COB6

According to National Review Pelosi is planning to ram this monstrous piece of steaming shit through using the “nuclear” option or the budget reconciliation plan.

Rep. Paul Ryan (R., Wis.), the ranking member of the House Budget Committee, tells NATIONAL REVIEW ONLINE that House Democrats are planning to use the budget-reconciliation process in order to pass Obamacare. “They’re meeting with each other this weekend to pursue it,” says Ryan. “I’ve spoken with many Democrats and the message is this: They’re not ready to give up. They’ve waited their entire adult lives for this moment and they aren’t ready to let 100,000 pesky votes in Massachusetts get in the way of fulfilling their destiny. They’ll look at every option and spend the next four or five days figuring it out.”

Politico is reporting the contrasting “not so fast there Scooter” story:

House Democrats are angry with the Senate for passing a bill that divided their base, angering labor unions with a tax on expensive health plans and progressives by abandoning the public option. House members are frustrated that the Senate assumes they will roll over whenever the upper chamber demands it and that they took until late December to pass a bill.

Rank-and-file Democrats would like more guidance from the White House, but some complained when rumors broke that chief of staff Rahm Emanuel was prodding lawmakers to move quickly to repackage a scaled-back bill. A White House source said Emanuel was just surveying members to see what they could accept.

Some Democrats also worried that voters would judge them out-of-touch for devoting so much energy to health care now.

I think that Pelosi and Reid could shove the reconciliation plan but only Pelosi could survive that politically and Reid knows it.

All of these recent elections are 100% a referendum on the administration regardless of who tells you different. Losing Virginia? Okay. Losing New Jersey? OMG! Losing Massachusetts? Never happen in a million years! Until it did.

Here is another 19 reasons:

Five Democrat Senators are retiring.

Christopher Dodd of Connecticut
Ted Kaufman of Delaware
Roland Burris of Illinois
Paul Kirk of Massachusetts
Byron Dorgan of North Dakota

Kirk is already gone, the Kaufman and Dorgan seats are leaning strong GOP. Illinois has a strong Republican contender and lots of buzz but with this much warning the ballots are already being cast in Cook County (early and often). Dodd’s seat will get a lot of ink but even in this environment probably a safe Democrat seat.

If the GOP picked up those three seats it would be amazing but that’s not what Democrats are worried about. Here is there real problem.

Democratic incumbents (14 seats)
Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas
Barbara Boxer of California
Michael Bennet of Colorado
Daniel Inouye of Hawaii
Evan Bayh of Indiana
Barbara Mikulski of Maryland
Harry Reid of Nevada
Kirsten Gillibrand of New York
Chuck Schumer of New York
Ron Wyden of Oregon
Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania
Patrick Leahy of Vermont
Patty Murray of Washington
Russ Feingold of Wisconsin

On this entire list I see two really safe seats Inouye and Leahy; that’s it. Just two.

Are all of these seats going to flip? No but some will and they will all be competitive.

More importantly seniority has its privileges and the (until recently) very safe seats like Boxer, Mikulski, Reid, Schumer and Feingold are going to consume huge amounts of cash from the Democrat coffers.

Here’s a military analogy to consider. Harry Reid is commanding a force of 60 men that have been ordered to attack an enemy strongpoint. Reid knows that he will lose at least 20% of his force to take the objective. Nobody likes those kinds of missions but hey it happens and the objective must still be taken.

But what if the 20% knew the names of the casualties before the attack? That’s exactly where Reid is right now and yes, his name is on the list. Think the vigor of this attack would be effected?

Bottom Line: Health Care is dead (unless these people are truly retarded which is certainly possible).

In any case this is poised to be the most entertaining mid-term election in recent memory.

Some assclown named FlameHorse over at Listverse.com decided to demonstrate an amazing level of ignorance by posting his opinion of the top ten Special Forces units in the world.

FlameHorse seems to know about as much about Special Forces as I do about rare blood disorders in aardvarks, applied quantum physics or why in the hell anyone would give a shit about what is happening with Jay Leno and Conan. These are all mysteries to me and so I avoid beclowning myself by offering my opinion about them.

Anyway, here’s the assclown’s list but more at the link.

10. Spetznaz (Russia)
9. French Naval Commandos
8. MARSOC (USA)
7. MI-6 (Great Britain)
6. Rangers (USA)
5. Green Beret (USA)
4. Delta Force (USA)
3. Shayetet 13 (Israel)
2. SEALs (USA)
1. SAS (Great Britain)

There are some obvious flaws in the list and other than Google hits, who knows what his criteria was for picking these units or putting them in this order. Most of these are legitimate Bad-Ass Units but there are a couple of indicators that Mr. FlameHorse doesn’t know jack-shit about Special Forces.

The obvious idiot pick is the Russian Spetznaz. This is without a doubt the most over rated special ops unit in the history of special ops. The French Naval Commandos are certainly well trained but their internal politics leaves them rarely utilized and thus unable to be measured. MARSOC has a similar problem in that it has only been around for a bit over three years and their biggest accomplishment so far seems to have been getting kicked out of the combat zone at least once.

The rest of these units can make a claim to being on a top ten list and given the divergence of their missions it is impossible to rank order them. Only a retard would try to do that.

If you want to arm, train and lead a tribal force to overthrow a warlord, don’t call a SEAL team. If you want to spearhead a forced insertion of enemy territory with massive violence and over whelming fire superiority you might not want MI-6 as your only option. If you don’t want your operation on the front page with a huge body count, it might not be a perfect Ranger operation.

And of course if it doesn’t include open opportunity for TDY fraud the Green Beret are probably not interested.

Aside from the obvious flaws, Mr. FlameHorse gives the following insight when he put the Rangers on the list:

But then, they lose a few points for an incident a Ranger told me about: he was the captain of a tank regiment on maneuvers in the Amazon jungle. Just an exercise, but because of the sweltering heat, they had to open their tank hatches. This captain, who shall remain nameless, heard a thump behind him, and turned to see a Goliath Bird-eating Spider crawling toward him, raising its front legs and hissing.
He admits to screaming like a girl, knifing the tarantula, jumping out of the tank and running off into the jungle for a mile and a half. His buddies still rib him about it.

Tank Regiment?
Amazon jungle?
A spider that made a thump on a tank?
Knifing a tarantula?

I don’t know about your “Ranger” buddy but do your friends rib you about being an idiot?

I would like to think that some old Ranger did tell this idiot this story and laughs at him while he’s drinking FlameHorse’s beer and ravaging his girlfriend.

“Hey Flamer, why don’t you go grab another 12-pack and some pork rinds. I’ll tell you about being a door gunner on the Space Shuttle.” Then smiling at FH’s girlfriend, “and take your time.”

The photo above is from Fort Benning, Georgia where Ranger Class 02-10 began training on January 4th. It is currently 24 degrees and feels like 14 at Fort Benning.

But that’s okay, this vacation is just getting started. In a few days these studs will be off to a mountain retreat in Dahlonega where it currently feels like 8 degrees.

Next time you’re praying, thank God these men are on our side.

PS: Here is a seriously NSFW Ranger Promo. I’m not kidding, really NSFW. If you email me saying you are offended that just means you’re an idiot who can’t read.

This is actually a bit more than mere semantics, at least in political terms.

Resignation means that you can’t possibly win a reelection but your party can so you either retire or more accurately are pushed out by the real power brokers. This is the case with Senator Dodd. His long history if scum-baggery having finally caught up with him, he realized that he was totally unelectable. That being said, the state Attorney General is a very popular Democrat and Connecticut loves to impose is liberal white guilt on the rest of us so Dodd is in the “Resign” column.

Capitulation is different in that the candidate is so far up shit creek that no other candidate of the same party can possibly save the seat. This is the case in North Dakota where Dorgan and his famed comb-over has destroyed any possibility of a Democrat saving that seat. Of course a popular Republican governor who is sitting on 4% unemployment in a big recession isn’t going to lure any viable Democrats into this futility.

The latest rumor is that Arkansas Senator Blanche Lincoln is getting ready to pop smoke as well.

Speculation on the conservative side is that Democratic Senator Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas may join Democratic senators Byron Dorgan and Christopher Dodd in retiring instead of seeking re-election this year.

A Rasmussen Poll released today showed every single Republican candidate — well, the 4 polled — ahead by 8 to 12 points as she is unable to crack 40% support.

Blame Obamaccare.

“Just 35% of Arkansas voters favor the health care plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats. Sixty percent (60%) are opposed. Those figures include 17% who Strongly Favor the plan and 51% who are Strongly Opposed. Bleak as those numbers are for advocates of the legislation, they are actually a few points better than the numbers from a month ago,” Rasmussen reported.

This is surely causing some headaches for the Democrat leadership but it’s not a panic yet.

Want to see a real panic? Watch what happens if, on the very slim chance, Scott Brown pulls out the upset over Martha Coakley in Massachusetts.

This is not very likely as Democrats outnumber Republicans in the Kennedy state by two to one but if it does happen one thing is certain…

Healthcare Reform is dead and the full speed ahead leftist train we’re on now will be slowed down considerably.

This is probably as confusing to most of you as it is to me but just why in the hell is Tim Geithner not currently somebody’s prison bitch?

This is not a scoop by any means. Here’s a story at Bloomberg, another at the Wall Street Journal and even one from the frigging UK.

They each tell a story of overt corruption on the part of Tim Geithner and a host of other scumbags. And we’re not talking minor stuff here either like sweetheart mortgages or unpaid taxes on summer homes; we are talking BILLIONS of your dollars!

Even CNN thinks this story is a bit fishy.

The common theme seems to be that government officials “don’t want to do anything to spook the public or investors,” said Peter Cohan, a management consultant in Marlborough, Mass. “Of course, then you end up with a lot of other fallout later, as we can see now.”

Emails disclosed Thursday showed that the New York Fed instructed AIG to withhold from a securities filing information on the counterparties that received taxpayer money in AIG’s bailout, including the fact that the counterparties got 100% of their investment back.
……………
“The whole line that there would be a panic if they disclosed the counterparties, that was total BS,” Cohan said. “It was just a backdoor bailout of the banks on the other side of those trades.”

So apparently everybody in the world knows of this looting of the treasury into the pockets of a well placed few and yet nobody is crying for the hangman.

How many people in America know that this scumbag channeled BILLIONS of tax dollars to a French Bank?

Well, in terms of getting a criminal scumbag out of the Senate, I suppose it is a small victory but as for advancing anything for the conservative movement, probably not.

Dodd was very vulnerable primarily because he was finally exposed as a corrupt, inside dealing, self-serving hack and would have in all likelihood lost a reelection in November.

But he’s not going to be on the ticket.

The most likely Democrat to step up is longtime Connecticut state Attorney General Richard Blumenthal who is extremely popular locally.

But what about Linda McMahon of wrestling fame, you ask?

It’s actually kind of ironic that she rose to the top on the shoulders of steroid ridden men appealing largely to blue collar folks. You see, it’s hard to argue that professional wrestling isn’t exciting. In recent years they brought back old favorites like cage matches, the signature “folding metal chair to the forehead with blood spewing everywhere” move that Dusty Rhodes made famous. And along with the “thumbs to the throat” and use of “foreign objects”, they deluged the sport with scantily clad women.

Whether your cup of tea or not, it is unquestionably exciting.

It is also fake and it appears that Ms. McMahon may not be the staunch Republican that she is now claiming:

Now, elections are about tomorrow. But as a voter vetting candidates, you have to ask — what about yesterday? What is Linda McMahon’s political past? Well, according to the public record, she was BFF with Rahm Emanuel, and a healthy donor to Democrat causes and candidates. F’regsample:

* 2008 gave $2,300 to Mark Warner
* 2008 gave $2,300 to Rahm Emanuel
* 2007 gave $5,000 to the Democrat Congressional Campaign Committee
* 2007 gave $2,500 to the Dem “Our Common Values” PAC
* 2006 gave $5,000 to the Dem “Forward Together” PAC (husband Vince also game the $5k)
* 2005 and 2004 gave Emauel a grand each year
* 2006 gave $10,000 to the DCCC

FYI, the McMahons’ 2006 PAC contributions were used to fund the campaigns of Conn. Democrats who knocked off incumbent Republican Congressmen Nancy Johnson and Rob Simmons. Thanks Linda!

I suppose she would caucus with the Republicans if elected but probably no more staunchly than her girlfriends from Maine.

I gave a similar radio call once (albeit with a different call sign) to announce that contrary to recent reports, I was, in fact, not dead. And now as then, I am happy to report that I am very much alive.

I apologize for dropping off the net but suffice it say I have been in a running gunfight; not unlike the last time folks thought I was dead.

When that event occurred many years ago, I recall feeling happy, lucky, thankful and about another 50 feelings on a list before I could find anger.

Today there are a lot of feelings as well and every damn one of them start with anger.

Nothing illegal about being angry but I doubt that this is news that is universally seen as a good thing.

Anyway, I am back and will do my best to help heard the cats around here. Seems to be significantly more cats and a few with odd spots around here than when I checked out.

PS: Thanks for all the emails asking about me. Most of you emailers understand my absence.

The Fastest Way to End a War is to Lose it.

And that appears to be the President’s strategy for dealing with Afghanistan.

Apparently Obama is not even considering a strategy for victory. He wants to find a way out. Expect the next talking point to be “Peace with honor”.

That’s what he wants to “drill down” on in what is likely to be the President’s final meeting with his war counsel today.

One close aide explained that Obama “wants to see more intellectual energy” focused on how this mission ends, saying that the President has insisted that “we’re not going to be in Afghanistan for another 8 years.”

Another said that Obama wants a clear picture of the “American bridge” out of Afghanistan. He doesn’t have it yet. He’s not satisfied with what he’s heard so far. The President will press for answers today.

So, he wants to abandon the “Good War” that he built his entire campaign declaring that he would refocus and win?

He’s already sent out the National Security Advisor to tell us all that McChrystal’s troop increase request is just nonsense.

As President Barack Obama prepares to make a final decision on Afghanistan, National Security Adviser Jim Jones dismissed and even seemed to mock a request for more troops from General Stanley McChrystal. “You could have 200,000 troops there and the country will swallow them up as it has done in the past,” Jones said.

The comments came in a little-noticed interview with Der Spiegel, a German magazine, published over the weekend. Yesterday, Jones took the unusual step of publicly denying media reports that Obama was leaning towards a decision that would send between 34,000 and 40,000 troops to Afghanistan, numbers close to those requested by McChrystal.
……………….
Later, Jones said that the United States wanted to get out of Afghanistan as soon as possible and suggested that adding troops was pointless.

SPIEGEL: Afghanistan is famously referred to as the “graveyard of empires.”

Jones: I know and that’s why I say we cannot solve the problems with only military forces. You can keep on putting troops in, and you could have 200,000 troops there and the country will swallow them up as it has done in the past. There are many empires who tried to make Afghanistan a stable and different country, and there have always been neighbors which were not interested in a stable and centralized government.

So, happy Veterans Day! Especially for those veterans of the Overseas Contingency Operation in Afghanistan.