The Pestering … er .. Organizing America canvassers over the weekend didn’t exactly wow the masses. It’s hard when your guy is the one in the White House. (h/t Kathryn Jean Lopez)
Andrew Cuomo seems to be running an extortion racket: return the bonus or we release your name. Is this what we have been reduced to? So far only a few AIG execs have resigned. It is the Unretention Bonus Plan — take away your money, threaten you with public humiliation, and subject you to an angry populist mob.
Home sales soared and prices plunged. You don’t think the two could be connected — sort of a supply and demand thing? Hmm. Maybe we should stop trying to prop up home prices and let the market operate.
Chris Buckley seems quite disappointed with the candidate whose “temperament” seemed so alluring. “In the midst of this bonfire of inanities, President Obama is pressing ahead with a $3.6 trillion budget, predicated on utterly unrealistic economic growth, even as the Congressional Budget Office is now projecting that this year’s deficit will soar past $1.8 trillion, 13 percent of the US economy. . . President Obama came to office proclaiming that he aims to solve problems, not hand them on to our children. Most presidents say that sort of thing. But now we are in very dire straits, and that being the case, he will be held to account. It’s your legacy, sir, and let’s not hear any more about ‘inheriting the crisis.’”
No, that’s not Tim Geithner’s reputation exploding over the Potomac – it’s a TV special effect.
The teleprompter gives it away: “We are being absolutely transparent in our utter lack of confidence in TATUS. Our motives are transparent, even if actions are not.” TATUS? Terrific Tim at Treasury, of course.
By 45%-34% Americans want to stop all bailouts to financial institutions. This may explain why the toxic asset plan is so convoluted and disguises the huge taxpayer subsidy.
Phil Klein explains how convoluted the Geithner toxic asset plan is. Why so complex? To disguise the amount the taxpayers are paying and subsidizing. If it wasn’t the government doing it, it would be called money laundering.
Rep. John Campbell thinks financial firms will be wary of doing business with the government. Ya think? Once Congress becomes lawless, seeking to take back what was previously guaranteed by statute (e.g. retention bonuses) there is no assurance that they won’t do the same thing in the future — no matter what the Treasury Secretary promises.
And George Will compiles a list of lawlessness that should confirm we have much to fear from a Congress and administration no longer bound by contract law and international trade obligations, and playing roulette with the nation’s financial future. While Obama was “taking politics out of science” he should have been taken it out of law and math.
61% of Americans want to end car bailouts. By the way, doesn’t Congress get to vote on anything anymore — or is “bailout” now an executive branch power?
One blogger seems amazed that “it looks as if the idea of investing taxpayer money in the financial system still isn’t palatable to Republicans, regardless of private partners sharing in the risk.” Perhaps that is because nearly all the risk is being undertaken by the taxpayers.
Chas Freeman is now reduced to writing hysterical letters to Rep. Frank Wolf accusing him of lying about the real reason Wolf opposed Freeman’s appointment. Suffice it to say Freeman has now confirmed his own crackpottery and made his supporters look like dunces.
The market was up Tuesday and didn’t tank today so today is Chas Freeman day.
Why vetted anyone? Just get all the chinese agents in-charge of NIC. Pay cheap and no need for funneling money for espionage.
I have it on good authority that Michelle Obama has great arms, though…
I would expect the Unsleeping Representatives of the Ranting Paranoid Lobby to be arriving shortly.
Jennifer is right that the press should not hide from this story and their behavior is inexcusable. However, the press corps are composed of people and they, like many other Americans, want to believe that their initial choice was correct. They are human and suffer as such.
The press, and many of our fellow citizens, cannot accept that Mr. Obama really was too inexperienced to be president. That his leadership skills, when put in to practice to govern, would come up short. That the president could somehow fail to choose the best advisers. That he would fail in anyway. Their mind is set and now it’s difficult to change.
The press, and many in the public, still want to believe that Mr. Obama will save us. I am not sure exactly how he will save us; there’s an economy to manage albeit the best in the world, even for it’s current shape, there’s Iran; now Russia is rattling its saber; North Korea; China; the list goes on. But many people don’t care, they want someone to (as child tells a parent) “make it all better.” In a sense, these people who continue to not to see the problems are like children who turn to others for their help and will not rely on themselves. If that’s the mindset, and I increasingly see it so, then those “children” will not see otherwise.
I hold out hope that two things will happen. 1) The president will learn from his many mistakes and thereby improve and 2) that people will emerge from their stupor and demand better of our government. I’m dubious of the first, given the president’s overinflated ego, but I still expect Americans to awaken soon on the second.
Still, the press should be above this. They should be adults. As it is, the press are not adults, they are still children in search of adult supervision.
Hear! Hear! #5 Couldn’t have said it better myself. CoD!
by “cover up” I assume you mean michae isikoffs fraudulent story claiming that freeman was targetted by nancy pelosi not the israel lobby
The mainstream media is covering up for B. Hussein Obama. That’s news?
It will be news if and when the media becomes serious critical of the president.
Must-reads:
Kirchick: http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_plank/archive/2009/03/11/why-freeman-got-the-boot.aspx
and Goldberg:
http://jeffreygoldberg.theatlantic.com/
JR: I think all of this goes directly to what you pointed out a few days ago: Obama’s total inability at governing. Most of the commentariat writes as if he was in charge of things and actually had a voice in the selection of appointees. They are evidently unable to accept the scale of his ineptitude.
The Chicago Machine cabal that put him in place is paying the price for their euphoric performance in assembling a snake-pit of adherents, all of hard-left bias, all signing on with h, all with personal agendas, all with expectations of early pay-off. They are asked for prompt action and eager to get their special interest secured within the Administration. They have no trouble making their choices and decisions, and throwing them at the Clown Prince, who doesn’t have a clue, is incapable of assessing the worth of the decision or the possible negative consequences, and simply rubberstamps them and reads them off his teleprompter as HIs choices.
Here we are, almost two months into his reign, and there is no evidence of a unified organization, a clear definition of purpose or management, in the White House. All is knee-jerk, self-interested, opportunistic elbowing. It is not something that is easy to bring under control. Obama obviously is not merely incapable of it, he doesn’t have the guts for it. We’re getting all this “bored”, “fatigued”, “stressed-out” crap. He’s elected to the highest office in the world by a belief in his super-human abilities, and, instead of displaying high energy and task-facing e effort. he’s already tired – and we’re asked to take it easy on him? How long can Axelrod and Plouffe cover for him?
I do concur with you Jen. We must be constantly vigilant of anti-Semites and ME regime defenders under this administration.
Not one word in the local press down here. Nada. I did my part. http://tinyurl.com/c3y5xt
When Obama exploits hard times, it is opportunistic and not a matter of preconceived strategy. A lazy man abhors unpleasantness. Unpleasantness and demanding work are virtual synonyms for him. In all likelihood, BO’s as shocked as anyone that not only are the economy, the banks, and employment tanking so remarkably AFTER he descended from Sinai bearing the Teleprompter, but the oceans, perplexingly, are STILL rising, the knife crease is gone out of the trousers quite, and the weekend is days away. As the Kenyan in BO might plead: “The ju-ju is willing but the flesh is weak.”
So now we read that the poor dear is just frazzled and needs a good lie-down. To make matters worse, someone has given away the plastic Marine One he’s accustomed to being tucked in with. Thank goodness – Arf! Arf! – he still has his yellow ball, the blankie with the presidential seal on it, and the sleepy-bye CD with looped MSM applause. (Talk about White noise!)
Lately I’ve also read that there are doubts about Obama’s so-far one real accomplishment – his first book. (His second was forgettable boilerplate for which he should be well pleased if anyone suspects it was ghosted.) Frankly, I don’t know what to think, but if it is not the labor of his brain, that would certainly sort well with the point I’m trying to get across: Obama is a lazy cuss.
When “Primary Colors” was published by Anonymous, some textual critic ran the book through a computer looking for authorial patterns, I guess you’d call them, and came up, correctly as it happened, with Joe Klein. Couldn’t the same analysis be applied to “Reams of My Father” to see if Bill Ayres or someone else is the author? Ayres has published volumes, so there are a lot of exemplars out there. Just asking.
Like Cato the Elder and the destruction of Carthage, I think I shall end every post here, regardless of the topic, with the query “Did I mention that Obama is also a lazy cuss”?
Graifying to find Mark Steyn saying the same thing over at the NRO.
Joe NS, as far as I know the analysis you refer to can only disprove who might have written something, but it cannot “prove” who did. I’m not saying this to dis agree with your post, but only to point out what seems to be the thinking on this type of analysis.
I,m thinking these people are into a hefty bag full of weasel dust.
This what happens when you have petulent children in the guise of smarter than thou Liberals trying to run the country. For some reason they can never figure out that they aren’t so smart and that maybe, one day when they actually grow up and understand that the world doesn’t revolve around their juvenile fantasies, they’ll realize that the “paranoid lobby’ isn’t so paranoid after all. Then again, Liberals spend so much time sticking their noses in everyone elses business and trying to control everyones lives, they don’t have time to ever take responsibility for all their self induced failures. Obama IS a perfect example of liberalisms constant failures.
The liberal MSM is regularly guilty of both sins of comission (deliberate distortions of the news) and sins of omission (blackouts of news that is definitely newsworthy). The sins of comission are more obvious; the sins of omission much less so. The Freeman story is an example of the latter, as was the story of John Edwards’ affair. Whether or not these stories are published are not left up to individual reporters, but are politically-motivated, editorial decisions made at the highest level of a news organization. But it is much more than that. To be effective the blackout must be coordinated across the entire spectrum of the MSM. Only when the story becomes so big that it threatens to burst out on its own will a single reporter then be allowed to mention it. This all sounds very nefarious and conspiratorial, but I believe this is what happens.
Cas, thanks for the info. Still, I’m left wondering, how did the analyst correctly identify Klein? Granting that what you wrote is true, that the technique (whatever it is) can only rule out but not affirm someone as the author, fingering Klein for “Primary Colors” was either an improbable guess or he was the only author analyzed who had not been excluded when the comparisons were finished.
J-Rub says: “made more significant by Freeman’s self-revelation as a ranting paranoid…”
That’s pretty funny coming from a ranting hysteric! To see the folks here in the last days before Freeman walked, you’d thought it was Code Pink at a military recruitment station….
Admiral Blair the Panda Hugger, stands up for a Saudi-paid stooge and we’re supposed to be surprised? Isn’t this the CINCPAC who was in command during the ridiculous overflight of USS Kitty Hawk by two Russian fighers on 17 October 2000??? The one who allowed a US aircraft carrier to carry out replenishment at sea with NO CAP???
Bonobo-Hammed just continues to demonstrate to the world that he is the last person you would EVER put in as Commander in Chief of the United States of America. He is so blitheringly ignorant of the role of the military, and of the role of our intelligence services, that he would GLADLY install an Israel-hating anti-Semite in pay to the Saudi government into the national intelligence command structure. He has already stiffed the UK with his stupid Wal-Mart official gifts and the return of the Winston Churchill bust (CLASSLESS, GHETTO TRASH ACT), he has pulled his pants down and greased it up, giving Bashar Assad and Achmadenijad that come-hither stare while sending lurid invitations to join the party to Vlad the Poisoner Putin, and he has let the Israelis know beyond a shadow of a doubt that they are LAST on his list of priorities.
Ladies and gentlemen, we had BETTER hope and pray that this drooling congenital idiot has not emboldened the North Korean leadership to make a move across the DMZ. The boy king will dither and delay while precious hours are lost, and our allies like Japan and South Korea already know that the military they both rely on to keep the NORKs at bay is in the hands of a rank amateur.
I said it before, and I say again, all before: Osamabama will end up getting more Americans killed in his four too-long years of his failed maladministration than died in all the years of the Global War on Terror to date. He is weak, and surrounds himself with weaklings and frauds.
SCREW Osama Obama and every starry-eyed racist stooge who voted him into office. Heaven help us all. The Kenyan Muslim Fraud is showing his true colors and his true allegiances, and America is going to pay and pay big for the most overt act of racism in our nation’s history, the election of an individual as president based on on the content of his character, but on the melanin content of his skin.
What’s there to say? We DON’T have a FREE PRESS. We have a Press, that’s bought and paid for. Not with money. With IDEOLOGY. They stay in the pocket of the Democrat Party, because they’re FELLOW TRAVELERS. Do you think that CHARLIE RANGEL would still be the Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, if he were a Republican? The Press would RUN HIM OUTTA TOWN. Imagine. A REPUBLICAN Chairman, of the COMMITTEE that WRITES the TAX LAWS, being investigated out the wazoo, for TAX LAW VIOLATIONS. That would be the LEAD STORY, on every Main Stream Media Outlet, EVERY DAY and NIGHT. Or, CHRIS DODD. Can you imagine, a REPUBLICAN CHAIRMAN of the SENATE BANKING COMMITTEE, taking SWEETHEART DEALS from a Mortgage Company, DURING a Mortgage MELTDOWN? THEN, writing the Legislation to BAIL THEM OUT? Can you say SPECIAL PROSECUTOR? As long as ‘The Fourth Estate’, is a Fith Column, in this Country, the CRAP, that goes on with THE LEFT, will continue. The ‘WATCHDOGS’ are still ‘Watching Out’. They’re just NOT watching out for US.
WHY STICK PEOPLE ARE EXTINCT
http://vls.easytree.org/vcd/jools/stickpeople.html
Along with the MSM, Hollywood and the Democrat Party
Buh-By
[I thought an explanation of my continued use of the term "Bonobo-Hammed" was in order to assuage the oversensitive. It is a direct slap back at the people who called President Bush "Chimpy" and not an attempt at a racial statement, as well as an intentional swipe at OsamaObama {Ted Kennedy quote there} and his lying through his buck teeth that he is not a Muslim {"My Muslim Faith" quote to George Stephie Steponallofus, and Stephie's attempted cover-up for His Messiah, notwithstanding.}]
Tender sensibilities addressed. Unclutch the pearls, Osama bin Urkel boiler room blog polluters, and resume play.
The Brain-Stem Media covers for the Kenyan Muslim Fraud intentionally, and ANYONE who claims the opposite is a despicable LIAR (hear me, “FAKE ACCENT ‘Cajun’ [sic] Carville”? Queenburg? Stephie? “Jake Leg” Matthews? “Obammy DNA All Over My Chin” Obergoon? Bobbie Gibbs?).
Obviously, the Messiah just likes to muscle the press, read from the tele-prompter, ride on Air Force One , shoot hoops. If you observe how Press Secretary Gibbs intimidates the rather timid White House Press corps and dominates the discussion, you can see this is rather direct reversal from Tony Snow and most previous Secretarys. Where is the transparency that was promised?
Oh, for goodness sakes! There was NOTHING in the public’s vetting of Obama that would lead anyone to believe he is anything except that which he is proving to be: A Maxist academic who’s never accomplished anything of note in the real world.
Sure, he’s been greaat at issuing edicts re: US funding of foreign abortions, US funding of embryonic stem cell research, US closing of Guantanamo (w/o one word of how that’s supposed to work!), etc. But as far as the intricacies of governning the most complex country the planet has ever known–and in times of great peril, there was NOTHING in this kid’s resume that should have led anyone to believe he was up for the job.
And don’t tell me he’s “a smart guy because he was editor of the Harvard Law Review.” I know a kid who made “obscenely high grades at a premier law school” and cannot figure out how to put oil in his car.
I suspect Michelle and her mother have been running the Obama household. Michelle had a paying job and probably took out the garbage too. All BO’s ever done is run for office.
If he weren’t HALF-black, he would no more than the jr. senator from Ill.,–if that. Why is anybody surpised?
It’s not that 0bama is incapable,0bama , the cipher,is doing what he was put in office to do, destroy capitalism. Soros ( who paid for 0bama’s election)is his puppet master. All 0bama is doing is following orders.
Getting back to Rubin’s original post… The Freeman story was on the front page of the Washington Post today (3/12/09). It was also the lead editorial (anti-Freeman) and there was a pro-Freeman column from David Broder, one of WaPo’s leading political columnists. Maybe those conspiracy theories about the MSM aren’t true. Will anyone admit that? Ms. Rubin?
Without a willing accomplice, the news networks, the communist manifesto could not be implemented by Obama, Soros and ilk like them. The news media has to hush it all up in order for these anti Americans to pull off their coop. What is astonishing, is the number of blind fools that do not see what is happening to their freedom and to the things they take forgranted…
I do believe a lobotomy would be nice to escape the pain of putting up with all the fools that want to be communist!!
I do not know why everyone seems to be so dismayed at the lack of action that this self-proclaimed “Messiah” has produced. I would gladly put forth that this is a prime example of our tax dollars at work…affirmative action. He didn’t have to put any effort to pay for his education–we, the taxpayers DID! And, for whatever reason, he has nothing but disdain for the very people who made that possible for him. So, yes, I do believe that he has an agenda. All through his campaign he did nothing but TALK. All we heard him speak was in general terms nothing specific. And has it changed? He acts as if he is still campaigning!! You just want to scream, “ALRIGHT ALREADY, YOU WON! NOW PROVE YOU KNOW SOMETHING!” But my guess is he was just bluffing all along. You watch him jaunt off Air Force One and it is almost as if he is just loving the perks but could care less about the actual job that it entails. After all he’s got the “Crib” everyone wants…but no black has ever gotten, except to work in, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he and Michelle showcase it on Mtv’s Show.
He didn’t know enough to buy his own house…I wonder? I guess we won’t know that one because the media didn’t check that one out! And the thing that really gets me…are the people that just blindly followed him even when he blantantly vocalized what he wanted to do once he got in office! What have we come to in this country?
Let me tell you, I live in an area where we were hit after Katrina and we had no electritricity or water for nearly a month. Nighttime was the worst because there would be groups of blacks roaming the neighborhoods (and we live in the nice part of our town) looking for homes to loot. Finally the men of the neighborhoods put up signs saying, “Looters will be shot on sight”. Let me just say, they stopped coming into our neighborhoods. I feel like that is just what Obama is doing to our country…LOOTING our homes, our savings, our future earnings, our future savings, our children’s earnings, savings and maybe college funds!!!! He is the WORST of the WORST!!! and so is CONGRESS for voting all the CRAP he is wanting to push through!! I just keep thinking, “Surely, what he is doing is unconstitutional!! and Surely, it’s going to get so bad that someone will step in and say you’ve got to GO”!! I mean at what point do Americans stop allowing his incompetence to run our country into bankruptcy that we’ll be enslaved to terrorist nations—that has to be the most TREASONIST act of all?
But, if that weren’t enough, the gifts to Great Britain’s P.M. showed his true idiocy! There is no more doubt on that point, I think we can all agree?! I’m sure that the Prime Minister was just looking for the receipt hoping he could return the darn things!
Annie, you’re right about everything. The press aided and abetted the overthrow ( a bloodless coup) of a system of government that the founders of this country worked so hard to establish. Will the people ever wake up? I would like to think so, but with the press not doing its job, I wouldn’t bet on it. We have an affirmative action/American idol/Peter Principle president. A puppet. The gifts to Brown were thought up by his staff. Nice touch , giving C.D.’s to a man that’s blind in one eye.