It just won't die.

President Barack Obama will present plans for immigration reform this year, Hispanic lawmakers said Wednesday after strategic talks at the White House.

Obama "was clear and eloquent and determinate to let us know that we are all together in the route of comprehensive immigration reform," Democratic lawmaker Luis Gutierrez told reporters after the discussion between the president and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC).

"We believe that we are moving forward this year, we are going to work with the president," added CHC leader Nydia Velazquez.

Obama will convene a public forum on the issue "probably in two months," according to New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez.

A couple of months ago I would have never thought Obama would be so stupid as to try and tackle this during 'the worst economy since the Great Depression' (is that today's talking point or is it the happy one?) but now I put nothing past this bunch.

Oh well, get ready to be called all sorts of names. As if we weren't already.

And just for added fun...Speaker Botox says enforcing immigration laws is "un-American".

Video below the fold. more...

Posted by: DrewM at 11:47 AM | Add Comment
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When last we saw Secretary Chu, he wasn't quite sure he was part of the administration (that whole Senate confirmation and swearing in may have been an elaborate hoax or something). Good times, good times.

Unfortunately Chu realizes he actually is part of the administration and apparently that means he's contractually obligated to say stupid things that piss other countries off.

Mr. Chu, speaking before a House science panel, said establishing a carbon tariff would help “level the playing field” if other countries haven’t imposed greenhouse-gas-reduction mandates similar to the one President Barack Obama plans to implement over the next couple of years. It is the first time the Obama administration has made public its view on the issue.

Needless to say, the Chinese government heard that and wasn't amused.

Naturally as all of this is going on, there's mounting evidence that global warming, the ostensible reason we need a carbon tax in the first place, isn't actually panning out as the fear mongers keep claiming. more...

Posted by: DrewM at 10:56 AM | Add Comment
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Catch me now I'm falling:

Obama got 52 percent of the national vote. So when his approval drops, as it has, from 65 percent on Inauguration Day to 56 percent now (according to Rasmussen), he is playing with house money. Most of those who are coming to negative conclusions about his administration didn't vote for him in the first place.

But there are ominous signs in the data.

...

Some news organizations like to compare how Obama is doing with how other presidents fared. Specifically, at this point in their presidencies, George W. Bush was at 58 percent approval while Clinton stood at 53 percent. By that measurement, Obama's 56 percent would seem in the normal range.

But Clinton won with only 42 percent of the vote in 1992, and Bush got 49 percent. Obama, of course, won 52 percent of the vote. So here's how the vote-to-popularity ratio stacks up:

• Clinton: Vote 42%; Job Approval 53%; Difference +11%

• W. Bush: Vote 49%; Job Approval 58%; Difference + 9%

• Obama: Vote 52%; Job Approval 56%; Difference + 4%

...not very good.

Other bad news: His two signature pieces of legislation (well, one was Nancy Pelosi's) aren't popular. Or the stimulus is barely popular, but majorities don't expect it to work. And the public is hostile to bank bailouts.

So what exactly is going to save Obama?

The economy? If the economy improves, then Obama should be fine. Even if we merely manage to avoid a depression, he'll get some (undeserved) credit.

But Obama is actually actively sabotaging the economy. So what good news is likely to halt his falling numbers?

Sorry... My damn keyboard sucks, especially the "l," which I have to pound on like a madman. That "pubic" typo is going to keep happening, I'm afraid.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 10:12 AM | Add Comment
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A point made a thousand times but it just never gets old, at least not for me.

I'm so glad we don't have Sarah Palin getting on-the-job training as Vice President. Instead, we have Obama getting on-the-job training as actual President. With the calm, reassuring hand of Slurpee Joe Biden there to guide him.

Now that the Obama presidency is nearing the 60-day mark, itÂ’s time to thank those fastidious scribes on the left and the right who worked so hard to warn us against Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, and the dire things that would surely occur if she ever got close to executive power.

How right they were to insist that she was unfit for high office. LetÂ’s just imagine what she might have done:

As president, she might have caused the stock market to plunge over 2,000 points in the six weeks after she assumed office...

I'll delete the litany of Obama, Biden, and Hillary miscues, which you're all too familiar with.

What a good thing that Palin, whom Christopher Buckley called “an embarrassment, and a dangerous one,” wasn’t in office to cause such debacles, and that we have Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Hillary Clinton instead.

...

Huh? While indulging in prose such as this, the Palinphobes didnÂ’t seem to understand the implications of PalinÂ’s record as governor, which they appear to never have looked at, while obsessing over her life in Alaska (too rural), her children (too many), and her exploits as a huntress (too much).

This is the flip side of their refusal to be disturbed by the fact that Obama had no record to speak of, as long as he looked like a Gap or Vogue model, and could write and could talk up a storm. A Gap or Vogue model would never disgrace you, and besides, he was there.

“You’re camping, and you wake up one morning and there is a mountain,” as David Brooks put it. “The next morning, there is a mountain...Obama is just the mountain. He is just there.”

There is, of course, more. Click through Hot Air to get it.

And add another one to the What if Bush Did It? file: Obama's make-vets-pay-for-their-own-combat-injury-treatment money-saving plan is so ghastly that even Jon Stewart asks "What the fuck are you thinking?"

But Obama's not dumb, or callow, or frighteningly ideological, or hopelessly overwhelmed and out of his shallow depths. No, it's just a brain-fart, a "What the fuck are you thinking?" moment. Such tin-eared stupidities reflected badly upon Bush and gave us great insight into the limits of his intellect; with Obama, it's just a Smart Guy Doin' Something Stupid. Again.

No big deal. He went to Harvard and he has the polished charm of a provost. We know he's brilliant, even if he behaves stupidly nearly every moment he's alive. Are you going to believe me or your own lyin' eyes?

He is, you understand, the mountain. He's just there.

BTW: I have urged Sarah Palin to reinvent herself as a policy wonk to rehabilitate her tattered pubic image.

But perhaps that will be unnecessary. Barack Obama isn't merely destroying his own unearned reputation for smarts; he's adding to Sarah Palin's day by day. The public is beginning to wonder if Obama really was as prepared and brilliant as he press swore; and if they're wondering about that, they must also be wondering about other claims the press swore to, such as the lack of preparation and weakness of mind of Sarah Palin.

Posted by: Ace at 09:38 AM | Add Comment
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I'm linking Dowd mostly as an excuse to run that awesome p-shop.

Barack Obama even needs a teleprompter to get mad.

And that's about it. More worthy your time is Tucker Carlson's beat-down of one of the men claiming there's nothing at all funny about Obama, Jon Stewart.

No one this earnest can remain an effective satirist, and at times Stewart seems like less a comedian than a courtier to the establishment. In August 2004, a week before the Republican convention, Stewart got an interview with then-candidate John Kerry. At the time, reporters covering Kerry couldnÂ’t get closer than the rope line, so the interview qualified as a booking coup.

Stewart squandered it embarrassingly. His first question (after, “How are you holding up?”) was: “Is it a difficult thing not to take it personally” when your opponents are mean?

“You know what it is, Jon?” Kerry replied. “It’s disappointing.”

Four years later, Stewart had become, if anything, even softer. Over the course of a reverential eight-and-a-half minute interview with Barack Obama six days before the election, Stewart failed to ask a single substantive question, much less venture into policy (though, as with Kerry, he did open with, “How are you holding up?”). Instead, like the cable-news morons that he often criticizes, Stewart stuck strictly to the horserace, at one point even resorting to a sports metaphor.

And he sucked up, hard. “So much of this has been about fear of you,” Stewart empathized. “Has any of this fear stuff stuck with the electorate?”

Facing puffballs like this, Obama coasted through with snippets from his stump speech. The result wasnÂ’t simply uninformative, it was boring. Obama didnÂ’t say a single interesting thing, and Stewart wasnÂ’t funny.

If you didnÂ’t actually see the show, you wouldnÂ’t know any of this, since there is a virtual ban on critical stories about Jon Stewart in the press. Nobody in memory has received a longer free ride. (CNBC stands in such awe of Stewart, the network hasnÂ’t even tried to defend itself, even against his claim that its programming might be criminal.)

The relationship between Stewart and the media is a marriage of the self-loathing and the self-loving: He insists their real news is fake, they insist his fake news is real. He doesn't take them seriously at all. They take him way too seriously. But nobody takes anybody as seriously as Jon Stewart takes himself.

Regarding the photoshop: Slublog provided the skillz, but it was DrewM.'s idea. Coolest thing is that the words on the TelePromptHead can be changed with little difficulty.

Links via Hot Air's headlines.

Another Teleprompter Gaffe: This one started first as Irish PM Cowen's gaffe, so I don't think we can nail Obama too hard on it. Except that his technical guys screwed up and gave Cowen the wrong teleprompter script.

But oh, Obama's might teleprompter-related gaffes are coming, as sure as the sun will rise and the moon will fatten.

Actually... This account makes it more embarrassing for Obama.

After only a few short weeks, the use of the Obama teleprompter is beginning to expose Obama's incapacity to function properly without one.

Just yesterday, during a St. Patrick's Day event with the Irish prime minister, Obama's guest accidentally repeated teleprompter remarks that Obama had just delivered.

Next, trying to regain control of the situation, Obama interjected - but referred to the teleprompter for his lines. By this point the words on the teleprompter were those meant to be delivered by the Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen, and as a result, President Barack Obama thanked himself for inviting everyone to the party.

Posted by: Ace at 08:57 AM | Comments (7)
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Sorry about that. A tweak to the spam filter (yes, we have one; you should see the volume of stuff that doesn't get through...) went slightly awry and the system decided that you are all evil spammers.

It also decided that I am an evil spammer, though, so I had to fix it. (Cough.)

I cleared out what looks like all the mistakenly banned IPs and URLs, but if you still have a problem, you can reach me at help@mu.nu.

What, you want numbers? Well, how about 8,769,961 blocked comments, 317,641 banned IPs, and 22,825 banned sites. Not counting the guys who are so pestiferous that I've hardcoded filter or firewall rules to just drop them immediately.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 08:55 AM | Add Comment
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Is the exchange worth it? You bet your ass it is.

Thanks to Dave at Garfield Ridge.

Posted by: Ace at 08:30 AM | Add Comment
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Last night Team USA advanced to the semi-finals in the World Baseball Classic. Then in the midst of their victory celebration they did something really important....they gave a wounded Army vet and hardcore baseball fan the thrill of a lifetime.

All Sgt. Felix Perez was hoping for was some autographs on the flag he carried through his service in Afghanistan and Iraq but he found himself invited into the team's clubhouse.

And so began the coolest 30 minutes of Felix Perez’s life. On an evening when he felt especially proud to be an American – when a group of his sporting heroes wearing his country’s name across their chests banded together to win a game they had no business winning – Perez found himself surrounded by them, doused with celebratory Miller Lites, with the American flag that was with him during the worst moment of his life passed around the room and signed by every player on the team.

“Everybody,” Perez said.

...(NY Met David) Wright was raised near Naval Station Norfolk, one of the largest military bases in the country.

“When you see those guys and get a chance to see how much it means to them, that makes it extra special,” he said. “They take a lot of pride in that red, white and blue, and to have USA across your chest and have supporters like that – that’s what this tournament means.”

Take a moment to read it all.

Thanks to TendStl in the comments for the heads up.

Posted by: DrewM at 08:19 AM | Add Comment
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Clawback?

Senator Barack Obama received a $101,332 bonus from American International Group in the form of political contributions according to Opensecrets.org. The two biggest Congressional recipients of bonuses from the A.I.G. are - Senators Chris Dodd and Senator Barack Obama.

The A.I.G. Financial Products affiliate of A.I.G. gave out $136,928, the most of any AIG affiliate, in the 2008 cycle. I would note that A.I.G.Â’s financial products division is the unit that wrote trillions of dollarsÂ’ worth of credit-default swaps and "misjudged" the risk.

Misjudged which risk? The Obama risk?

Obama got this "bonus" from the unit headed by the guy with a fondness for Che Guevera, eh? How cozy.

Of course Obama knew about the bonuses before they were paid out. He was too busy appointing culture ministers to trouble himself before the firestorm erupted, though.

Bonus Bonuses: Fannie Mae's got a similar retention bonus plan. And Fannie got bailed out more than AIG.

Where's Barney Frank on this?

Posted by: Ace at 06:53 AM | Add Comment
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That would have been the headline had this happened a few months ago.

“On March 10, after a report of an apparent mass murder in Samson, Ala., 22 military police soldiers from Fort Rucker, Ala., along with the provost marshal, were sent to the city of Samson,” Harvey Perritt, spokesman for the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) at Fort Monroe, Va., told CNSNews.com on Monday.

...Jim Stromenger, a dispatcher at the Samson Police Department, confirmed the MP’s presence in the town, telling CNSNews.com that the troops “came in to help with traffic control and to secure the crime scene”--and the department was glad for the help.

“We’ve been getting a lot of calls,” Stromenger said. “They weren’t here to police, let me make that clear. They were here to help with traffic and to control the crime scene--so people wouldn’t trample all over (it).”

Stromenger said the town needed help--calls had gone out to all police departments in the area.

“We only have a five-man police department,” he told CNSNews.com. “We had officers from all surrounding areas helping out. There were a lot of streets to be blocked off and there had to be someone physically there to block them off. That’s what these MPs were doing. I don’t think they were even armed. The troops helped keep nosy people away.”

At this point there's no word on who authorized the troops to do take part in this situation. From the report it seems clear the DoD didn't authorize it and neither local police nor the Governor made any request for Army help. It's likely a local initiative on the part of someone at Ft. Rucker.

There are a lot of good reasons for federal troops not to do get involved in a situation like this, namely it's (possibly*) in violation of several laws and long standing traditions. Laws and traditions that are in place for very sound and important reasons. Given that I can understand people saying throw the book at whoever made this happen.

On the other hand, I don't think a wanna be military tyrant is hiding in the heart of any American soldier. Likely someone saw an emergency and figured they had the means to help and that's what they did. It's a very American reaction and one to be expected from the kind of people who volunteer to serve and protect our nation.

Hopefully when all of this shakes out the powers that be will find away to make it clear to everyone this kind of thing shouldn't happen again but in a way that doesn't involve hanging someone or some group of people who were just trying to help.

*I had originally added a qualifier but it was accidentally taken out when I edited a typo. I wanted to put it back but recognize it wasn't in the post the whole time it has been up.

Posted by: DrewM at 06:52 AM | Comments (5)
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