This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: 2012 election

  • UN/Iran warn against your Romney vote

    Yep, the folks at the UN and in Iran have decided that you shouldn’t vote for Mitt Romney. According to Breitbart, the UN Special Rapporteur on Counter-Terrorism and Human Rights says a vote for Romney is a vote for torture and that will only turn the world (and terrorists) against us – because, you know, everyone treats us so well now;

    “The re-introduction of torture under a Romney administration would significantly increase the threat levels to (Americans) at home and abroad,” Emmerson said.

    “Such a policy, if adopted, would expose the American people to risks the Obama administration is not currently exposing them to.”

    Yeah, thanks for your concern, but it seems to me, what with four Americans recently murdered in Benghazi, that we’re not all that safe from the evil in the world the way things are now, Ben.

    Iranian state-run Press TV is spreading the word throughout the world that the GOP is poised to steal the elections “like the successful ones of 2000 and 2004”. Apparently, the Iranian government likes the fact that they have nothing to fear from the Obama Administration and a Romney Administration scares the beejeesus out of them;

    Riots also may break out after Romney is declared the winner, the media outlet continued.

    Press TV quoted its “Truth Jihad Radio” guest John Hankey as saying, “African-Americans, unlike white liberals, are not a ‘bunch of pussies.’ Kill white liberal heroes JFK and RFK, or steal the presidency from white liberals Jimmy Carter, Al Gore, or John Kerry, and the white liberals are too terrified to even whimper. Kill a black hero like Martin Luther King, or even just beat up an ordinary black guy like Rodney King, and African-Americans might just get angry enough to protest in a fashion that cannot be ignored.

    In your dreams, Mahmoud.

    By the way, I’m headed for Bethesda today, so I’ll be off the net most of the day, but I fully intend to live blog the last debate tonight, since you folks live blog it yourselves when I’m not here. So, even if you don’t hear from me today, be here for the debate at 9pm.

  • Scott Brown opponents charge Stolen Valor in MA

    Ya know, I’m always down with busting some stolen valor creeps in our government, but I ran across a link last night which charges Scott Brown, the Republican Senator who sits in the Teddy Kennedy seat these days, with Stolen Valor. I tried to be outraged about it, but I just couldn’t summon the bile. But here’s the story;

    Apparently, Brown, a member of the Massachusetts National Guard, served his two-week drill this year in Afghanistan. I don’t know if he finagled the brief deployment with the state’s AG or what, it wouldn’t surprise me if he did, nor would it surprise me that he did it for purely political reasons.

    Regardless, according to this blog on Cape Cod Today, Brown is now telling constituents that he served in Afghanistan. Well, technically, he did. And he’s a JAG officer, so, ya know, they rotate in and out of war zones as they need to – it’s the nature of their job. The author of the blog is outraged that Brown never saw combat, but that Brown claims that he “served in Afghanistan”. An awful lot of people go to Afghanistan and never see combat. That’s why so many come back without the award of a Combat Action Badge.

    So, basically, this blogger and some of my friends are upset that Brown can say he “served in Afghanistan” and they charge that it’s stolen valor for him to say that. I don’t see it.

    And then in the same breath, they defend Brown’s opponent, Fauxcahontas Elizabeth Warren’s claim that she’s a Native American;

    Brown’s claim that he “served” in Afghanistan, directed to the electorate, is a far greater fraud than anything he’s tried to pin on Liz Warren for her claim to Native American ancestry.

    She in fact has a good faith basis for believing she’s part Indian, whether it is factually correct or not, because it’s something she was told by her mother as a small child.

    So, just because her mother lied to her, that makes it OK to take advantage of set-asides for real Native Americans – like phony veterans who take benefits meant for real veterans. Never mind that she could look in a mirror and see that her claim wasn’t true. But Scott Brown did actually “serve in Afghanistan”, and I’m pretty sure that his records will reflect that, no matter how hard the Democrats will wish otherwise.

    Like I said, I tried to get exercised over Brown, I even tried to get TSO to get me exercised about him, but we just couldn’t summon the outrage. Maybe the Democrats would like to define how long we have to serve some place in order to say it out loud.

    And they didn’t seem so upset when they discovered that Richard Blumenthal lied about his service in Vietnam. Blumenthal wasn’t even in Vietnam a day, but the Democrats elected him despite the fact that he was caught in a lie and refused to apologize for it. But Brown actually does go to Afghanistan, and they’re upset? Sounds like a double standard to me.

  • Where are veterans’ issues?

    OK, I’ve been sitting here for a couple of hours listening to the media tell me what was important about the debate last night. No one has mentioned that veterans and national security have been noticeably absent from all of the debates so far this year. In a link sent to us by Chief Tango, the Daily Beast notices it, too.

    Here’s why: 68 percent of Americans think the war in Afghanistan is going somewhat or very badly, and the same percentage thinks we should withdraw entirely or start drawing down troops now. Compound that with less than 1 percent of Americans serving in the active-duty military, so much of the nation feels no real stake in or connection to the war effort. That disconnect and distance helps explain how, at this time of collapsing support for the government, the press, and other institutions, three of four Americans say they’ve maintained their confidence in the military.

    The only thing we’ve heard from this administration in regards to Afghanistan was in the vice-presidential debate from Joe Biden as he gave the Taliban his personal guarantee that no matter how well, or poorly, the war is going in Afghanistan, we’re out of there by 2014.

    I did notice that last night President Obama asked the governor “How are you different from George Bush?” I think Romney missed an opportunity by not asking Obama the same question, since most of what Obama has done that could be put in the “successful” column was hold over policy from the Bush Administration – things like the hunt for bin Laden, keeping Guantanamo open, the military tribunals, and re-certifying the PATRIOT Act. The things Obama did that were to change Bush policies were failures and Obama could have listed them for Romney’s next campaign commercial.

    Obama is most vulnerable on national security and the way he’s fought the Afghanistan War. Yeah, you can continue to beat Obama over the head with the Benghazi consulate thing, but it’s really just a symptom of how disingenuous this administration have been with Americans on national security.

    The word I’m getting from folks in Afghanistan is that if this administration was forthcoming on how many attempted blue on green attacks there have been this year, Americans would be outraged. The attacks that have been reported resulted in deaths, but I’m told they’re only the tip of the iceberg compared to the number that resulted in wounds or were thwarted. By hiding these attempts from the public, the administration was able to call them “negligible” for the first eight months of this year. But the sheer volume of the attempts would have alerted us to the problem before it became a problem.

    This administration has consistently been unable to call terrorist attacks terrorist attacks. From the jihadist who murdered a soldier at a recruiting station in Little Rock to Nidal Hasan’s attack on fellow soldiers at Fort Hood. Even the underwear bomber. This administration couldn’t admit that we were under attack in our own country by terrorists. So why is everyone so surprised that they couldn’t admit the truth about Benghazi?

    And the green-on-blue attacks are a direct result of the Obama Administration’s failures in Afghanistan. They half-assed “surged” in 2009 contrary to the needs the commanders said they needed. The CIA and the generals correctly predicted that fully staffing the surge would not have a long term impact in Afghanistan and we’re seeing that prediction come to fruition now.

    And while we’re complaining about Romney, I haven’t heard a word from that campaign in regards to Obama’s promise to the 2011 American Legion Convention that he wouldn’t balance the budget on the backs of veterans while his Secretary of Defense was planning to do exactly that. Despite the fact that Congress told the DoD that they wouldn’t hike Tricare fees, DoD has hiked Tricare fees just in case.

    This president is more vulnerable on veterans’ and national security issues than anything else, including the Obamacare bill and economy because it doesn’t take charts, graphs and wonkish blather to explain how poorly they’ve performed in regards to the issues. So why is the Romney campaign so averse to the discussion?

  • Hillary falls on Benghazi sword

    Nik sends us a link to CNN which reports that Clinton fell on her sword in an interview with CNN in regards to the blame for the lack of security at the Benghazi consulate on September 11th;

    “I take responsibility” for what happened on September 11, Clinton said in an interview with CNN’s Elise Labott soon after arriving in Lima, Peru for a visit. The interview, one of a series given to U.S. television networks Monday night, were the first she has given about the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi.

    Clinton insisted President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden are not involved in security decisions, Clinton said.

    “I want to avoid some kind of political gotcha,” she added, noting that it is close to the election.

    Of course, we knew that. I’m pretty sure that the president and vice president don’t pour sweat out over staffing considerations at every single consulate in the world. But the president does appoint the people who do make those decisions. It appears to me that a lot of people in the Obama Administration take a fall for their decisions. I seem to recall some presidents who took the blame as well as the credit for their administration has done right or wrong.

    Of course, this president’s first staffing consideration was Joe Biden as if that shouldn’t have been a warning for the rest of us of the type of people he considered worthy of doing the people’s business. I could go on from Bite-Me, but I won’t.

    Clinton also sought to downplay the criticism that administration officials continued to say the attack was a spontaneous product of a protest over an anti-Muslim film, a theory that has since been discarded.

    In the wake of an attack, there is always “confusion,” Clinton said. But the information has since changed, Clinton said in the interview.

    Yeah, well, most of us could read news reports and look at the calender and be able to tell that it wasn’t a spontaneous protest. Don’t they have TVs and calenders at the State Department?

  • Romney files lawsuit in Wisconsin for military voters

    Poetrooper sent us a link to an article in the Daily Caller in regards to a lawsuit that the Romney campaign filed against the state of Wisconsin to insure that they allow military ballots to be returned since 30 of the state’s municipalities failed to mail absentee ballots in the time frame mandated by federal law.

    “Because members of the military are often stationed in remote, dangerous, frontline locations, there is a substantial likelihood that the defendants’ violations of law will prevent military voters from receiving, completing, and returning their ballots in time to have them counted,” the lawsuit filed Friday reads. “The defendants’ unlawful conduct therefore may effectively disenfranchise the very men and women who make daily sacrifices to protect our system of democratic government.”

    Please don’t bother to preach to me that this is a campaign ploy for both military votes and because Romney is fairly certain that those military votes will be for him. I know that. I’m not hard of smelling.

    But, it should be the Justice Department filing lawsuits against the state to insure that military votes are counted, because, you know the Justice Department is supposed to be defending the rights of all Americans, not just Democrat-voting Americans. According to the DC article, the Justice Department did file a lawsuit against Vermont – you know, Vermont with it’s 3 electoral votes. So they can hide behind that.

    Wisconsin says that there were only 44 ballots mailed late, but the Romney campaign says they’d fight this if it was only one ballot. Well, at least we know what a Romney Administration would do about military voting. And we know what a second Obama Administration would do.

  • Biden’s Bully Pulpit

    Reading through the blogosphere yesterday, it seemed to me that the conventional post-debate wisdom was that Joe Biden’s boorish behavior during the VP debate was intentional, at least in part, as a means of firing up the demoralized Democrat base. That the left would even admit that it is demoralized is telling when we are this close to the election, but it is the contention that Biden’s performance was aimed at re-energizing the base, much of which in the last election was made up by the 18-24 demographic, that seems rather lame to this observer.

    What do the proponents of this theory see in Biden’s browbeating that has youthful appeal other than its in-your-face-America defiance? Here we have a pompous pol with phony old guy written all over him to youthful viewers, what with his hair plugs and improbably perfect dental implants, not just imperiously talking over his serious, well-informed, youthful opponent, but condescendingly and disrespectfully wagging his bony index finger in the face of the female moderator who seemed cowed by his aggression. Somehow I have a problem seeing Old Joe’s bullying behavior as being appealing to very many young folks whose youthful status too often renders them victims to similar condescension from arrogant professors, demanding bosses and even older family members who still view them as callow children.

    Not all of the 2008 youth vote for Obama came from hard left, Occupy types; many serious young people sincerely seeking to make this a better world joined the Hope & Change campaign. How many of those, this time around, have had the blinders removed by the reality that their faith in a supposedly transformative Obama was squandered on just another glib politician? How many of those young people do you think were impressed by Biden’s buffoonery? Sure, the Occupy fools who believe urinating on a police car is a meaningful political statement would no doubt be impressed with Joe’s bluster and bullying, but how many of them do you think were actually doing anything as responsible as watching a televised political debate? As opposed to the serious students and the gainfully employed in the youth cohort?

    True, Biden’s atrocious display may have fired up a few of the faithful on the far left, especially some of the administration’s apologists in the media, like Daily Kos who sent me an email claiming Uncle Joe had brought us back from the Obama debate debacle. But I’ll wager that even many loyal, older Democrats had to experience some queasiness watching the man they want to re-elect to be a heartbeat away from the presidency, demonstrate such immaturity and poor character in front of a nationwide audience. Worse, what were the independents and the Reagan Democrats out in flyover land likely to take away from such a display of deficient judgment?

    It is highly likely that those who are praising Biden’s performance are going to be jerked back to reality when the polls reveal America’s response to his jerkish behavior. And if Biden’s boorishness was in fact intentional, as some liberals have proclaimed, the situation becomes even worse. The man was given the bully pulpit and he proceeded to use it as any bully would, a not-so-smart move in a nation where bullying is one of the serious social pathologies of our time.

    Crossposted at American Thinker

  • Joe Biden the Democrats’ head troll

    About 250 of you spent 90 minutes with us last night as we posted our reaction to the Vice Presidential debate last night. That’s why many of you couldn’t get in. I never thought that many people would want to play with us. I’ll know better next time.

    But, I predicted in the first five minutes of the debate that Bite-Me lost on style alone. Mr Hanson says he lost on content as well. But I’ve spent the morning going through the reviews of the debate and I’m really surprised at the number of people who thought Biden did a commendable job.

    But this is from a culture who thinks that trolling opinion blogs is an acceptable and successful way to change people’s minds on issues. I’m sure some of our trolls were applauding loudly at Bite-Me’s performance last night while he used their tactics to swing (and miss) at his ideological opponent.

    Of course, if Ryan had taken up some of Bite-Me’s less than civilized strategies, today they’d be calling “foul”.

    I hardly blame Biden, though. It was his parents’ fault for telling him he was smart and for not teaching him to sit and be quiet when others are speaking. It is his fault that he had nothing of substance to point to as successful in the first four years of his administration.

    The Afghanistan War was the Obama Administration’s war to lose and they did. In fact, they’ve done everything they could possible do to lose, and it’s worked so well, in that regard. And it’s all Biden – it was his idea to rely on robot ninja zombies instead of troops on the ground. Since Joe Biden has been absolutely wrong on every single foreign policy issue since he went to Congress, I don’t know why anyone is surprised that it’s worked out like that.

    Bite-Me has never known what he’s talking about. That why he had to plagiarize his work in college and make public pronouncements about how smart he is – again it’s that trollish behavior that his supporters like so much. So the Democrat Party is the party of trolls, and Joe Bite-Me lives under the best bridge in their world.

  • Ryan/Biden Debate Live Blog

    Join the party. We’ve been waiting for you. Wipe your feet first and put the beer on the table.

    Click some ads while you’re waiting if you’re early.