I picked this up over at Liberty Pundit who has the background on the case from Indiana before the Supreme Court. It’s in regard to voter IDs and here are my thoughts. (more…)
Category: Society
-
Tears of a clown
Hillary finally used her ultimate weapon yesterday. Acting like a big sissy girl, she summoned up some crocodile tears during a talk in a small cafe in New Hampshire (Washington Post link);
The trigger: a friendly question from a voter about how she stays so put-together on the campaign trail.
“My question is very personal, how do you do it?” asked Marianne Pernold Young, a freelance photographer from Portsmouth, N.H. “How do you, how do you keep upbeat and so wonderful?”
“You know, I think, well luckily, on special days I do have help,” Clinton said, initially responding in an upbeat manner. “If you see me every day and if you look on some of the web sites and listen to some of the commentators they always find me on the day I didn’t have help. It’s not easy.”
But that rare moment of sympathy — in contrast to the beating she has taken in recent days — seemed to then get to her. “It’s not easy, and I couldn’t do it if I didn’t passionately believe it was the right thing to do,” Clinton said. Her voice broke, and her eyes appeared to well up with tears. “You know, this is very personal for me. It’s not just political. It’s not just public. I see what’s happening, and we have to reverse it.”
Does anyone believe that crap? She’s had plants in her audiences that posed well-rehearsed questions to her before she responded with well-rehearsed answers. Does anyone really think that this is any different?
In the Australian Herald Sun, the female reporter chalked it up to a grueling campaign;
AN exhausted Hillary Clinton fought back tears as the pace of US presidential campaigning took its toll on the former First Lady.
Now, oddly enough some guys hold up an “Iron my shirt” sign, which gives Hillary a chance to announce that sexism isn’t dead. Michele Malkin calls “BS!” and I tend to agree. SeeDubya at Junkyard Blog has the same guy holding up the same sign (almost) five years ago. It’s just way too convenient for this sign to show up while Clinton is plummeting in the primaries and she’s suddenly victimized by the He-Man Woman Haters Club.
She’s trying to drag out the old “victimized Hillary” mask that got her through her Senate campaign in 2000 when mean old Rick Lazio charged across the stage at her.
It’s the same “victimized Hillary” that declared a vast right wing conspiracy was out to get her husband, and the same victimized Hillary that stood by her man through impeachment. I guess she’s gonna go with what muttonheads who believe that stuff want. As Pam Meister at BlogmeisterUSA wrote;
She’ll be dealing with tough and often unscrupulous men (think Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hugo Chavez, for starters) who do not have time for tears and would interpret them as weakness. We cannot afford to have a weak occupant in the White House. Remember Jimmy Carter?
Not to be outdone, though, the AP stumps for Obama by running a picture of a woman crying at an Obama speech;
Photo from Associated Press
Is this what this campaign is coming down to? It’s been about issues that really don’t matter for more than a year – and now it’s about how many cryin’-ass women each candidate can drag out for the cameras.
Do we want a president who’ll cry when she’s tired? When times get a little rough? The campaign ain’t shit, Hillary – wait’ll you have to face a crisis thousands of miles away against REAL peckerhead misogynists. You, know, the guys that do this;
Pamela Geller at Atlas Shrugs has another post up about REAL misogynists won’t stop at holding up signs, too. I guess this latest bit of theater ties into my post this morning about Bret Stephens’ Great (American) Expectations.
Do you think the mullahs are going to cave to you, Hillary, because you’re a widdle sweepy and your voice gets a little weepy?
And as for you, cryin’-ass Obamafan, that’s called emotions. Emotions have nothing to do with common sense. If you vote for Obama because he made you snivel and snork snot, you’re a bigger dumbass than Barack.
Update: Gateway Pundit writes that “Bubba Comes Unglued“
-
What needs “change”?
Yesterday I wrote about Europeans who expect us to bow to their whims when we elect our president this year. Today, in the Wall Street Journal, Bret Stephens writes about the world’s perception of Americans as a naive race in his Great (American) Expectations;
Barack Obama, still fresh from his victory in Iowa last week and confident of another in New Hampshire tonight, has as his signature campaign theme the promise to “end the division” in America. Notice the irony: The scale of his Iowa victory, in a state that’s 94% white, is perhaps the clearest indication so far that the division Mr. Obama promises to end has largely been put to rest.
Meanwhile, in Kenya last week a mob surrounded a church in which, according to an Associated Press report, “hundreds of terrified people had taken refuge.” The church was put to flame, while the mob used machetes, Hutu-style, to hack to death whoever tried to escape. The killers in this case were of the Luo tribe, their victims were of the Kikuyu, and the issue over which they are bleeding is their own presidential election.
[Barack Obama]When foreigners assail Americans for being naive, it is often on account of contrasts like these. A nation in which the poor are defined by an income level that in most countries would make them prosperous is a nation that has all but forgotten the true meaning of poverty. A nation in which obesity is largely a problem of the poor (and anorexia of the upper-middle class) does not understand the word “hunger.” A nation in which the most celebrated recent cases of racism, at Duke University or in Jena, La., are wholly or mostly contrived is not a racist nation. A nation in which our “division” is defined by the vitriol of Ann Coulter or James Carville is not a truly divided one — at least while Mr. Carville is married to Republican operative Mary Matalin and Ms. Coulter is romantically linked with New York City Democrat Andrew Stein.
Someone let me know when Ann Coulter inspires her acolytes to herd Democrats into a church. But, probably the largest point of Stephen’s piece is that during this presidential campaign, Americans are getting twisted up in knots over the plight of the “poor” who can barely afford sky-rocketing cable TV access, the disparity in wages – wages that only one-half of one percent earn, more government regulations to protect homebuyers – these are the problems of a rich nation. Stephens makes an excellent point to wards the end of his piece;
There is great virtue in the American way, which expects CEOs to perform on a quarterly basis, presidents and Congresses to reinvent politics in 100 days, generals to wipe out opponents in 100 hours without taking significant casualties, doctors to save life and limb every time, search engines to yield a million results in less than a second, and so on. There is also great virtue in the belief that what is bad can be made good, and that what is good can be made great, and that what is fractionally less than great is downright awful.
But these virtues can spawn vices. One is impatience. Another is a culture of chronic complaint. A third is the belief that every problem has a solution, that trial is possible without error, that risks must always be zero, that every inconvenience is an outrage, every setback a disaster and every mishap a plausible basis for a lawsuit.
It’s those chronic complainers that have the microphone during this election. If we don’t support Hillary Clinton, we’re misogynists. If we don’t support Barack Obama, we ‘re racists. If we don’t send our money to Ron Paul, we’re not really conservative (got news for you pauliens – a real conservative, or libertarian, wouldn’t run for political office).
The Democrats are always pointing out what’s wrong with this nation – and how they’ll fight for us and change the country. Anyone out there prepared to ask them in public what exactly needs (NEEDS) to be changed? Aside from the mind-numbing whining from the various classes of manufactured victims.
-
A World With Oil at $100
From the Wall Street Journal
At the Wall Street Journal this morning is a front page article that pronounces that oil reached $100/barrel yesterday. The article goes to illustrate how the financial markets have changed in the last ten years as oil’s price increased 10-fold;
The surging price of oil, from just over $10 a barrel a decade ago to $100 yesterday, is altering the wealth and influence of nations and industries around the world.
These power shifts will only widen if prices keep climbing, as many analysts predict. Costly oil already is forcing sweeping changes in the airline and auto sectors. It is intensifying the politics of climate change and adding urgency to the search both for fresh sources of crude and for oil alternatives once deemed fringe.
[Go to graphic.]The long oil-price boom is posing wrenching challenges for the world’s poorest nations, while enriching and emboldening producers in the Middle East, Russia and Venezuela. Their increasing muscle has a flip side: a decline of U.S. clout in many parts of the world.
Steep gasoline prices also threaten America’s long love affair with the automobile, while putting strains on many lower-income people outside big cities, who must spend an increasing share of their budgets just on fuel to get to work.
No one can say for sure whether sky-high oil — part of a price boom in a wide range of commodities, from gold to wheat — is here to stay. But most in the industry agree that a 20-year stretch in which oil was consistently cheap is long gone. The global thirst for oil shows little sign of retreating, and large new discoveries are few. Some in the industry say prices could go far higher; others suspect that speculators — or an economic slump in the U.S. or China — could send prices falling in the near term.
First of all, this “America’s long love affair with the automobile” has long ago passed – back in the 80s when Americans were paying $15,000 for what they tried to convince themselves were luxury cars – but were nothing more than Toyota crap boxes they wouldn’t have twenty-bucks for ten years earlier. America’s love affair is with gadgets in their cars – that’s what car manufacturers are selling these days – watch a car commercial tonight. It’s all about selling voice-recognition MP3 players, DVD players, talking GPS do-hickeys, little buttons that do all of things you could do yourself much easier.
In July 1979, Jimmy Carter promised that Democrats would;
From now on, every new addition to our demand for energy will be met from our own production and our own conservation. The generation-long growth in our dependence on foreign oil will be stopped dead in its tracks right now and then reversed as we move through the 1980’s, for I am tonight setting the further goal of cutting our dependence on foreign oil by one-half by the end of the next decade — a saving of over 4 1/2 million barrels of imported oil per day.
How did Carter promise this goal would be met?
To make absolutely certain that nothing stands in the way of achieving these goals, I will urge Congress to create an energy mobilization board which, like the War Production Board in World War II, will have the responsibility and authority to cut through the redtape, the delays, and the endless roadblocks to completing key energy projects.
We will protect our environment. But when this Nation critically needs a refinery or a pipeline, we will build it.
So what have Democrats done since? Not one oil refinery has been built in the United States since 1977, not one new oil field has been developed. In fact, China and Cuba are exploring and drilling off of our Florida coast. Oil reserves in Alaska remain untouched, oil off the coast of California lies fallow.
George Bush tried to develop oil fields in Alaska five years ago – that oil would be flowing towards our markets this instant, except that Democrats and weak kneed Republicans (many of whom are out of office today) blocked it to save some phantom caribou herds. When energy companies tried to build a wind farm off of Massachusetts’ coast, Jabba the Kennedy and John Kerry blocked the structures so as not to ruin the view from the mansions.
In fact, the Democrats have blocked every meaningful measure to move us away from dependence on foreign energy – except their wasteful “investment” of taxpayer dollars into useless and unproductive “alternate energy” boondoggles. Of course there is no incentive to develop “alternate” sources as long as their stream of free cash into the projects from the government – so the “search” goes on. And Democrats’ promises and posturing continues as well.
But this is an election year – things can change as long as people are willing to accept the truth about Democrats’ intentions.
Jack M at Ace of Spades has the story on the guy who drove the price up – briefly.
-
Sara Jane Moore Out on Parole
On Sept. 22, 1975, just weeks before my third birthday, she tried to shoot President Gerald R Ford from 40 feet away and was foiled when a disabled Marine veteran knocked her arm up, blowing her shot. Here is the Money quote from the article:
In recent interviews, Moore said she regretted her actions, saying she was blinded by her radical political views and convinced that the government had declared war on the left.“I was functioning, I think, purely on adrenaline and not thinking clearly. I have often said that I had put blinders on and I was only listening to what I wanted to hear,” she said a year ago in an interview
She’s the one that tried to kill Ford, the only man to serve as President without first being elected either president or vice president, two weeks after Squeaky Fromme, we remember Squeaky’s name but, poor Sara Jane gets lost for being a normal name…
At 77 she is not likely to be a threat to anyone that stays off her lawn. She was 45 when she tried to kill Ford, giving her the dubious distinction of being the oldest attempted assassin in US history.
Breitbart/AP article -
Happy New Year
A year ago, the media and the Democrats counted President Bush out. He was a lame duck and Congress was going to walk all over him. They were wrong. He kicked their asses while he was kicking al Qaeda’s ass in Iraq. He didn’t do that all by himself – he never lost hope that he was doing the right thing, and he knew a whole lot of us still had faith in his inner strength.
I hope we all learned a lesson – a lesson we’ll all take through the upcoming election season and the challenges we’ll no doubt face overseas and in our own country during 2008. I have faith in the American people to do the right thing this November, just like they’ve done the right thing over the last 200 years. I have faith in our new allies in Old Europe, I have faith in our new Iraqi allies. I have faith in those troops that sacrifice everything for us, asking so little, relatively speaking, in return.
Thank all of you for taking time out of your lives this last year to read my blog and for sending me tips. I hope I’ve lived up to your expectations and, even more, I hope you keep up your good work of keeping this blog and this nation going.
This first one is to all of you, America, and to my new friends across the world who stand with us and with whom we stand.
-
Lawyers suck
Blackfive writes about a young Marine sergeant who has been victimized by a smart-assed punk lawyer with shit-for-brains;
While saying goodbye, at about 11am, he noticed a man leaning up against his car. Mike left his friend’s apartment and caught the man keying his car on multiple sides.
After caught in the process, the man told Mike, “you think you can do whatever you want with Department of Defense license plates and tags”. (In Illinois you can purchase veteran, Marine, or medal plates. Mike has Illinois Marine Corps license plates.) During the exchange, he made additional anti-military comments.
Mike called the Chicago police and had the man arrested. A citation against the man was issued for misdemeanor criminal damage to private property.
The story all boils down to this; the scumbag piece-of-shit is a lawyer (sorry for being redundant) named jay Grodner, the Marine sergeant is deploying to Iraq in two days and the scumbag piece-of-shit lawyer plans on filing a continuance so he can avoid paying for his malfeasance.
Blue Star Chronicles has Grodner’s contact information, if you’re so led.
And, yes, I’m impugning an entire profession based on the underhanded behavior of a few – if the rest of you scumbag piece-of-shit lawyers would police your ranks the way you should, maybe I wouldn’t. Cry me a friggen river.
And this guy should have been disbarred a loooooooong time ago;
In addition to being disciplined for being involved in a scheme to forging documents, it has been reported to CLR that attorney Jay Robert Grodner has since then engaged in a conflict of interest with his clients, has abandoned his clients, has engaged in false billing, has engaged in a fraud upon his clients, provided ineffective assistance of counsel, and has engaged in a “fraud upon the court”.
Um, forging documents – isn’t that like the most heinous crime for a “man of letters”? Of course, in Chicago that resume` could get him a judgeship – maybe even mayor.
Crotchety Old Bastard is contemplating a legal fund for the Marine.
-
Burma deathly quiet
Protest in September at Myanmar Embassy, Washington, DCOther than airlines discontinuing service and India suspending arms sales to Myanmar, it seems that the world has forgotten about this summer’s “Saffron Revolution”. A dutch journalist hiding behind the letter “N” so as not to be identified and targeted says that the political situation in Burma is like a “frozen river”(Radio Netherlands Worldwide link);
September’s demonstrations were violently suppressed, but this doesn’t mean that calm has returned to Myanmar. “The present situation can be compared to a frozen river,” says N. “All sorts of things are moving below the surface. The demonstrations have given the people the feeling that it’s possible to change the situation in the country.”N thinks the people of Myanmar are very proud of the monks and the fact that they had the courage to speak out. “But of course people also wonder what has happened to the monks who were arrested. It’s a very odd situation, of course, because the monasteries and pagodas have never been so empty.”
BurmaNet News (h/t Have Coffee, Will Write) reports that the government is still cracking down on monks and their public Buddist teachings;
The Burmese military government has ordered a ban on Buddhist dhamma talks and seminars in Rangoon, according to monks in the former capital.
The monks told The Irrawaddy on Thursday that dhamma [the Buddha’s teachings] talks by four well-known monks were forced to cancel in December. The monks were named as: U Kawthala, also known as Dhamma Sedi Sayadaw; U Kawvida, also known as Mizzima Gon Yi Sayadaw; U Nadapadi, also known as Pyu Sayadaw; and U Sadila, also known as Lu Yay Chun Sayadaw.
Township authorities in Rangoon had been ordered to ban dhamma talks by the Regional Commander of Rangoon, said the sources. On Wednesday, U Kawvida, who is also a PhD in Buddhism, prepared to conduct a Buddhist tutorial in Insein Township, on the outskirts of Rangoon. However, officials arrived at the scene and ordered the dhamma talk to be stopped immediately.
Since the media decided to let the events in Burma drop from our screens, the UN is right there with the media – MIA.