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

Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden

  • Henry Gates vs. common decency

    I actually saw the story about Skip Gates and his run in with Cambridge cops the day after it happened on July 16th in the corner of some small print headlines in the Washington Post, I think. I decided at the time that it wasn’t important enough for me to address. It was a dog-bites-man story. Black man gets arrested by a cop and cries “I din’t do nuthin’”. I see it every Saturday night on ‘Cops’.

    I get called a ‘racist’ at least once a week here in DC for doing abominable things like walking down the right side of the sidewalk, or walking up the escalator at the subway station. So I’m pretty used to it.

    The President, unsurprisingly, calls the cops stupid for arresting a 58-year-old man who won’t act his age. More than a week after the arrest. Not examining the facts – just based purely on the superficial appearance of the incident. Black man arrested by white cop – cops stupid.

    So the details get published on the front page of every paper, white cop taught other cops how to avoid racial profile. Black cop on the scene concurs with white cop. The arrest report is released on Smoking Gun. Ooops.

    Press Secretary Gibbs says the media is prolonging the issue. Obama can’t quite bring himself to apologize to the Cambridge cop. Obama says Sergeant Crowley is an outstanding officer and a good man.

    Darleen at Protein Wisdom writes that Gates is calling Sgt. Crowley a liar on Friday afternoon. And today, the Washington Post says that gates claims it’s time to move on;

    It was a marked change in tone for Gates, who in the days following his arrest gathered up his legal team and said he was contemplating a lawsuit. He even vowed to make a documentary on his arrest to tie into a larger project about racial profiling.

    In an e-mail to the Boston Globe late Friday, he said: “It is time for all of us to move on, and to assess what we can learn from this experience.”

    Allahpundit writes that Gates even offered to have a beer with the police sergeant.

    Yeah, Gates drove this whole incident from a tiny article in a dark corner of the Washington Post to a Presidential press conference. And now it’s time to move on? Probably because Gates looks like a race-baiting, pimping jerk the more information comes out.

    I even watched Juan Williams criticize Gates on Fox News Sunday today. You know you’re wrong when Juan Williams goes after you and you’re black. The Washington Times reports;

    After accepting the invitation [to the White House], the professor told the Boston Globe:

    “My entire academic career had been based on improving race relations, not exacerbating them. I am hopeful that my experience will lead to greater sensitivity to issues of racial profiling in the criminal justice system. If so, then this will be a blessing for our society. It is time for all of us to move on, and to assess what we can learn from this experience.”

    Yeah, talking about a cop’s mother is a well-known and accepted way to improve race-relations.

  • AL Cdr to Obama; Hands off Vet Health Care

    With all of this talk about altering the health care system in this country, the American Legion Commander, David Rehbein, spoke up the other day for veterans;

    The national commander of the nation’s largest veterans service organization has reacted to tonight’s urgent call by President Obama for national health care reform.

    “While The American Legion appreciates the complexity of the healthcare reform challenge facing the president and Congress,” said David K. Rehbein, “on behalf of our nation’s 26-million veterans and the nearly two million personnel now on active duty in more than 130 countries, we urge Congress to ensure that veterans’ and military health care not be part of any national health care bill. They should be exempt in the legislation.”

    Rehbein added, “Our nation must maintain its long standing tradition that veterans’ and military health care systems will remain independent and focused on our most deserving citizens.

    “The American Legion has a proud tradition of securing and preserving the earned benefits of America’s veterans,” Rehbein said. “Ensuring timely access to quality healthcare for today’s military and veterans is of paramount concern. These are the citizens who have borne our battles in previous wars as they still are in Iraq and Afghanistan. They have earned our care the hard way. We, as a nation, have an obligation to ensure that their healthcare is not compromised,” he concluded.

    This is an issue that’s near and dear to my heart. Military Health Care has been the foundation of my financial planning since I decided to reenlist back in 1977. I knew that I’d have meager paychecks for the rest of my career, but I’d tolerate that for quality, dependable health care for me and my family. A lot of folks complain about military care, but I’ve never had a problem with it and I’d hate to be thrown out of military care for some kind of social program.

    Now, I don’t hear any other VSO standing up for veterans’ health care in this way. The American Legion commander also stood up to the President on the issue of forcing disabled, service-connected veterans into the insurance pool. It seems to me that because of the whole insurance thing, this administration would love to throw veterans into the general population for our health care just to save money, irrespective of the quality of care.

    I’d like to see some sort of unified response from all of the VSOs on this issue, instead of some touting their free rides for veterans or campaigning for the end of DADT. Veteran health care has always been the first casualty of budget cuts, so I applaud the American Legion’s National Commander for leading the way and making a preemptive strike.

    Added: For the record, and in response to an email I saw passed around today, this is NOT our new logo;

    tal

  • Another Obama mistatement of history

    In today’s news is a statement from Obama on his vision of the end of the war in Afghanistan. He doesn’t like the word “victory”, apparently (Fox News link);

    “I’m always worried about using the word ‘victory,’ because, you know, it invokes this notion of Emperor Hirohito coming down and signing a surrender to MacArthur,” Obama told ABC News.

    Find me the Emperor Hirohito in this picture of the surrender of Japan to General Richard K. Sutherland;

    shigemitsu-signs-surrender
    Or in this picture of the Japanese delegation;
    surrender_of_japan_-_uss_missouri
    Yeah, Hirohito wasn’t there. Oh, and if you’re wondering what Obama wants instead of victory;

    “We’re not dealing with nation states at this point. We’re concerned with Al Qaeda and the Taliban, Al Qaeda’s allies,” he said. “So when you have a non-state actor, a shadowy operation like Al Qaeda, our goal is to make sure they can’t attack the United States.”

    More brilliance. I’m really glad that’s his goal. I was wondering about that, actually.

  • Priorities

    The real news in the country is that Obama’s health care planis floundering in Congress because no one wants to be responsible for destroying the economy and the health care system in the country. Obama and his favorability ratings are falling in the polls. But what does the Washington Post put on the front page of their fishwrap this morning?

    palin-poll

    I guess it’s hard to break old habits. While Palin was the vice presidential nominee last year, the Post and the media in general, thought it was more appropriate to compare Obama, the presidential nominee, to Palin rather than a more appropriate comparison to the Republican presidential nominee. In such a comparison, Obama fell short in experience and actual accomplishments, but against the Governor of Alaska, they thought Obama looked more competitive.

    So, while Obama’s favorability rating falls 12 percentage points, the Post finds this more newsworthy;

    Overall, the new poll found that 53 percent of Americans view Palin negatively and 40 percent see her in positive terms, her lowest level in Post-ABC polling since she first appeared on the national stage last summer as Sen. John McCain’s running mate.

    It’s clear that the Post senses an insurgency campaign from Alaska that threatens the status quo in Washington. Why else would a governor of a distant, remote state, who is leaving her office in a few days, garner more attention than a president who is losing his momentum?

  • Health care struggling

    So the President thought he could convince us to stop thinking about numbers last night. Didn’t work. JammieWearingFool recounts the conversation Senator Charles Grassley had with a Democrat colleague in which the colleague related the President telling the Blue Dog Democrats “You’re going to destroy my presidency.”

    Karl Rove, In the Wall Street Journal “ObamaCare in Trouble“;

    The polls are crumbling because of a flood of bad news about Mr. Obama’s health-care proposals. One batch of such news came from a July 17 study by the Lewin Group that was commissioned by the Heritage Foundation. It projects that if the House bill becomes law, 83.4 million people—nearly half of those with private coverage—will lose private insurance as employers drop their plans. Mr. Obama’s promise that you can keep your plan is being left on the cutting room floor with nary a peep from the president.

    Another batch of bad news came this week as Democratic governors from Colorado, Tennessee, New Mexico and Washington joined GOP colleagues at the National Governors Association summer meeting to blast the administration for plans to shift millions of families into Medicaid. That could stick states with $440 billion in new costs over the next decade.

    Even the Associated Press can’t put a happy face sticker on the White House these days;

    The sense of bipartisanship the president infused into the effort in March has been dissipated; lawmakers may never have taken it seriously. And the clear, confident message of last year’s presidential campaign has turned into confusing policy options and messy politics, a standoff on Capitol Hill over how to expand and improve health coverage — and somehow pay for it.

    It’s all recasting Obama’s image. The cool, crisp candidate who captivated voters last fall has been replaced by a president who is constantly calling for action, with little to show for it and his credibility at stake.

    Democrats are putting on a brave face, noting that in Congress a legislative standstill can quickly shift into high-gear action.

    It’s called biting off more than you can chew. George Bush knew it. he didn’t try to shove massive tax cuts down Congress’ throats, he took it slowly over five years and got everything he wanted. But Obama thought he had some kind of leverage over everyone because everyone around him told him so – that echo chamber effect.

    All of those people who took the fall for his miscalculations during the elections are about to get some more company under the Obama bus.

  • From Americans in Honduras

    The interim government of Honduras has rejected the idea that Manuel Zelayas could ever return to Honduras according to AFP;

    …crisis mediator and Costa Rican President Oscar Arias proposed that Zelaya return Friday, in an expansion of a first plan already rejected by the de facto leaders who backed the army’s expulsion of the Honduran leader on June 28.

    “The return of Mr Zelaya as president… impossible,” interim foreign minister Carlos Lopez Contreras said on CNN’s Spanish edition in Costa Rica.

    Everything else was up for negotiation, he added.

    I got an email from our friend John in David, Panama who has contact with some US ex-pats living in Honduras. John emailed the following report of their meeting with US Ambassador Llorens;

    Summary of our meeting with US Ambassador, Hugo Llorens

    There were 5 of us attending the meeting, [names removed]. We spent about 1 hour and 20 minutes with the ambassador. I think that this was an extraordinary amount of time.

    We began by introducing ourselves, establishing our credentials (between us there was about 85 years of experience in Honduras), and stating our position on the actions that led up to and have occurred since June 28. Hugo Llorens was polite and actively listened to our points. He then expressed his and the State Department’s position. This did not vary from what we’ve all read and heard. A lively debate followed the ambassador’s presentation. Neither side changed the other’s opinion on the base issues.

    Here are some key points of our discussion:

    1. The US recognizes that Mel Zelaya committed various crimes

    2. The US feels that there was time to pursue a more “normal” legal process to deal with those crimes

    3. Our position was that the Hondurans didn’t feel that there was time. They felt that the “poll” on that Sunday was the action that was going to cause the fall of their democracy. They felt that they HAD to act then.

    4. The US believes that the resolution of the crisis must come from the negotiations in Costa Rica. This includes the NEGOTIATED return of Zelaya. I add the emphasis on “negotiated” because I believe that they are backing off the “unconditional” return that has been stated by other countries

    5. During the conversation, Ambassador Llorens stated emphatically that the US would NOT allow Chavez or any other foreign power to invade Honduras. The US still sees Honduras as a friend and ally.

    6. We presented 155 signed letters opposing the US position regarding Honduras

    Of course, what the Obama Administration says and what it does are two different things, but I hope for the sake of Americans living there, they stick to their guns on this one.

  • Health care confusion

    While Democrats are betting the farm on health care, the media seems a bit a confused. The Associated Press finds a poll that says Americans are “more confident” about their access to health care. Buried in the story is the story is this quote; “Researchers call the increase significant. While they say they’re not sure what accounts for it, they say it might be due to expectations that Washington will improve the health care system.” It also might be due to expectations that Obama will fail to get his brand of economy-killing heath care enacted.

    On the other hand, Fox News reports that “[a] new poll suggests public approval of the way President Barack Obama is handling health care reform is slipping.” That might be why Obama is taking his snake oil sales pitch to prime time again, says Reuters;

    U.S. President Barack Obama will plead his case for a broad healthcare overhaul in a prime-time news conference on Wednesday, with doubts growing about the plan even among his fellow Democrats and polls showing slipping public support.

    I got a sense of the desperation yesterday when the Obama team pleaded with me to help them;

    despiration

    I heard a clip on Fox News this morning of a conference callObama had with some netroot bloggers in which he had to admit that he’s not familiar all of the health care plan. I found the audio at HuffPo – it’s at about 17:15.

    But he’s going to ram it up our collective ass anyway.

    Michelle Malkin writes about Obamacare for illegal aliens.

    Speaker Pelosi had a press conference and dragged out some victims of the current system. Here’s a link to it while it lasts. When they put up the video, I’ll drag it over here.

  • Obama; healthcare isn’t about me

    Yesterday, Obama told a crowd of supporters that Republicans are picking on the poor baby. he got all whiny when he told the story of Jim DeMint, as recounted by the AFP;

    Last week, South Carolina Republican Senator Jim DeMint predicted the Obama plan would not pass Congress, and said such a failure could be Obama’s “Waterloo,” referring to the battle that effectively ended Napoleon Bonaparte’s military career.

    “It will break him,” DeMint said,

    In response, Obama sniveled;

    “This isn’t about me. This isn’t about politics. This is about a health care system that is breaking America’s families, breaking America’s businesses, and breaking America’s economy,” Obama said on a visit to a Washington hospital.

    Well, that’s the first time it hasn’t been about Obama, then. We’ve heard how if we don’t support Obama’s candidacy or his policies we’re racists. How that not personal?

    And DeMint is trying to defeat Obama politically because Obama’s policies are damaging to our future. Isn’t that what a political party is supposed to do – protect the country politically? A national health care plan is not feasible – it has nothing to do with Obama.

    It’s funny that the Obama crowd wants to do away with our missile defense system because it doesn’t work perfectly yet, but he wants to implement a plan for health care that every expert in the country says won’t work.