Once again: Adults.

Thanks to AHFF Geoff.

That poll is jammin'. Numbers are heck-a-slammin'. If the sample's good, let's get to rammin'. more...

Posted by: Ace at 09:11 AM | Comments (1)
Post contains 56 words, total size 1 kb.

People like cute animals. People like lightsabers.

Why wouldn't they like cute animals with lightsabers?

From the website, um, AnimalsWithLightsabers.com.

Thanks to PetitDov.

Posted by: Ace at 09:03 AM | Comments (2)
Post contains 37 words, total size 1 kb.

I'm sorry, for a moment I thought you were speaking English. Now I realize it was Gibberish.

Is it racial?

Are the protesters, tea-partiers, birthers, deathers, doomsayers and hecklers motivated, at least in part, by a distinct discomfort with the country's first black president?

There is no definitive answer, of course, since we are talking about millions of people, from Joe Wilson, the disrespectful congressman who's now raised $700,000 for his "you lie" outburst, to the woman who told Arlen Specter that Obama is trying to transform the US of A "into Russia, into a socialist country."

But I began to suspect that race was a factor for at least some critics when I heard them shouting about "the Constitution" and "taking our country back."

Um, yeah, because conservatives never cite the Constitution as our guiding document and we never speak of taking our country back. Unless there's a black guy in office. First time "the Constitution" has really come up in presidential politics, really.

Maybe Obama's health-care plan is an awful idea and his budget is way too big...

Maybe.

...but how exactly is any of this unconstitutional? Clearly, for some folks, there's a deeper rage at the man occupying the White House.

How's this for a deeper rage: It was obvious Obama was a man of the left who always intended to take the country in an unprecedented veer to the left, but for two years he ran as a "moderate" and the supposedly nonpartisan media covered for his constant transparent lies.

Maybe that accounts for the "deeper rage."

I do think we all need to be careful about tarring the critics with a broad brush....

And so I will now tar his critics with that broad brush. But carefully.

Dissent is an essential element of America's DNA. Civil rights protesters transformed the country. Protesters helped turn the country against the wars in Vietnam and Iraq. The majority of those digging in against Obama's policies sincerely believe that he is moving the country in the wrong direction.

Still, there is an ugly undercurrent out there. Yes, some on the right tried to delegitimize Bill Clinton as well -- remember the garbage linking him to drug trafficking and murder? -- but this is dark and personal in a much more unsettling way.

Dark and personal in much more unsettling way?

What?

More unsettling than accusing Bill Clinton of multiple murders?

More personal than accusing Bill and/or Hillary Clinton of murdering their friend and confidant Vince Foster?

Darker, more personal, and more unsettling than that?

Are you sure, Howie? Or are you so protective of Captain Wonderful you cry like a bitch when someone doesn't cover his mouth quickly enough when sneezing in the presence of His Worshipfulness?

What other president -- with a Hawaii birth certificate, no less -- would be subjected to conspiratorial doubts about whether he was born in this country?

He focuses on the particulars of delegitimization there. Obviously, the Birth Certificate thing is new, and, by definition, a new thing is new and hasn't been tried/theorized before.

But what he's really saying -- minus the particulars he carefully adds in to claim an unprecedented reaction -- is that no other president has been subject to such a brutal campaign of delegitimization before.

He mentions Bill Clinton.

Is there someone he maybe forgot? Maybe someone a bit more recent?

Someone, maybe, of whom it was claimed he had "stolen" not one but two elections, the first time through some kind of covert Republican operation in Florida to strike black voters from the polls and befuddle Jewish voters into voting for Pat Buchanan, the second time through rigging the voting machines in Ohio?

Really, Howie? No previous sustained efforts at delegitimization you can recall off-handedly?

Ah, well. If you can't recall previous efforts, then these efforts are unprecedented and it must all be about, as Jeneane Garafalo says, "hatin' on a black man as president." "Racism straight-up."

Just like with that schvatze George Bush and his "uppity" Vice President Dick-Jamaal Cheney.

It was entirely predictable we'd come to this pass, because the media has played the race card on Obama's behalf at every previous moment he was in political trouble.

This is the second stage of dealing with loss: Anger. First came denial, simply pretending that Obama was as beloved in the country as he was in the country's newsrooms, and of pretending the Tea Parties didn't exist.

Now they at last begin to apprehend they can't just wish the Bad Men away, and they get predictably, and puerilely, angry about it, and out comes the race card, yet again.

Speaking of delegitimization -- has anyone ever noticed that when someone challenges a liberal, the media immediately begins savagely delegitimizing that challenge? They don't rebut the opposition -- they claim the opposition is motivated by hateful motives or is crazy or ignorant/stupid and therefore their claims needn't be addressed.

We go through this every year or two. The moment the left begins to worry about its position in the country, the media wakes up and goes into a flood-the-zone 24/7 camapaign of not responding to/answering/rebutting/reporting the claims of the conservative opposition, but of delegitimzaing them as based on hatred or insanity or some other corrupt motive.

And, the motive having been fashioned from thin air and swiftly chased away (as phantasms are easily dispelled, being nonexistent), they then pretend the opposition's actual arguments and facts have been rebutted and rubbished.

Every two years, every year, every six months... depending on how much trouble a liberal is in. The media savages the right constantly, impugning motives and claiming, essentially, they have no right to say these things or think this way. First, before you will be recognized as full-fledged citizens, the media insists, you must prove to us you do not suffer from unapproved thought patterns, and as our evidentiary bar for that is very high, you can never satisfy us and thus never enter the public arena as full citizens of the United States of America.

To be sure, they always claim the right too has the right to dissent -- in a "to be sure" paragraph -- after which they straight away say, as they always say, "But not in this particular case. This particular case is a special case, and you have no right to dissent in this case."

Of course, they always feel that whatever situation we're in constitutes one of those special situations where the right cannot dissent legitimately.

In theory, we have political rights. Hypothetically, we have the right to dissent. In a perfect world, we're permitted to speak.

But in actual practice, whenever we attempt to exercise these rights, these rotten leftist bastards claim that in this particular case, we actually don't have that right.

I'm still waiting for a choad-toking bastard like Howard Kurtz to say, "Generally, of course, the right has the right to dissent, and this case is no exception."

But he never says that. They never say that. Every time we're beating the liberals -- and even when we're not beating them, but just making futile cases for ourselves -- it constitutes a Special Exceptional Case where we have no legitimate right to do so.

Pic from Ed Driscoll, who has a new Silicon Graffiti video out, on the topic Is Conservativism Dead?

PS: Whenever the Past-Tense Media wants to make the case that the Tea Party movement is racist, they start citing the signs.

As they can only find one or two signs that are even arguably of a racist nature, they never fail to start including Obama=Hitler signs as proof of "racism."

Every time. You can check and everything.

Now, Obama=Hitler violates Godwin's Law, and it can be said to be too strident, but... racist? Racist how, precisely? Hitler's white. (And Obama's half-white.) Is the claim being made that to compare Obama to a white man is racist?

Gee, that's funny. Because when we link him unfavorably to a black man, too -- such as his 20-year best friend and preacher of hate, or with his Truther Czar -- we're told that's racist, too.

Is there anyone of any race whatsoever we're allowed to link Obama to in a disparaging manner without being called racist?

How about Lenny Fuckin' Kravitz? He too is "post-racial." Is that the one guy we can link Obama too, or is that racist too, as it's too "on the nose"?

Posted by: Ace at 08:55 AM | Comments (1)
Post contains 1440 words, total size 9 kb.

This is old, old news for most of us, but it's good that The Politico is finally reporting on it.

Maybe someone else will pick up the story, since they're not the vast rightwing conspiracy and their reportage doesn't need to be boycotted.

It’s one of the most persistent — and potent — Republican arguments against health reform: that President Barack Obama and fellow Democrats want a U.S. government takeover of health care.

And what evidence do they have to back it up?

Obama said so. Just check out YouTube.

“I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer, universal health care plan,” then-U.S. Senate candidate Obama said at an AFL-CIO event in 2003, using the terms that commonly refer to a government-run health insurance system.

“Everybody in, nobody out, a single-payer health care plan, universal health care plan — that’s what I’d like to see,” he said. “But as all of you know, we may not get there immediately, because first we’ve got to take back the White House. And we got to take back the Senate, and we got to take back the House.”

...

[C]ritics of Obama-style reform have been able to exploit the mixed messages to sow doubts about Obama’s true intent in pushing a trillion-dollar overhaul of the health care system — with powerful evidence, captured on videotape, to back up their claims.

...

You donÂ’t have to go back to 2003 to find leading Democrats supporting a so-called single-payer health system. The most damaging examples are from this year.

And then they recount Barney Frank and Jan Schadowsky stating that public option would lead to single payer. ObamaCare supporters easily explain such statements -- Frank isn't telling the truth.

He's lying? Um, okay. He does have good authority on his side (unmentioned by The Politico) -- the guy who invented and then sold the public option to liberals says it's not even a Trojan Horse because it's "right there" (i.e., it's not a Trojan Horse, as its purpose isn't even hidden as the Trojan Horse's was; it's too obviously engineered to be a pathway to single-payer to be a Trojan Horse).

Hopefully, some network besides Fox will bother doing their job now and reporting on this.

Of course... They seem to have waited until Obama had all but abandoned the public option to mention it, eh?

Thanks to AHFF Geoff.

Posted by: Ace at 08:13 AM | Comments (4)
Post contains 420 words, total size 3 kb.

Jeremiah Workman's book Shadow of the Sword is officially out today. I got a review copy a few weeks back and plowed through it non-stop over a weekend. It is an odd feeling to read a book when you have heard all the stories in it first hand, but it held my attention and took me along for his rise, fall and re-rise. The subtitle of the book is "A Marine's Journey of War, Heroism and Redemption". Someone asked once why he needed redemption, well because he screwed his life up professionally, that's why. For a Marine who has been awarded the Navy Cross to get fired from Drill Instructor duty at Parris Island you have to really work at it.

Jeremiah did, and if he was unlucky this book could have been a tragedy that ended with him wrapping a rented Lamborghini around a telephone pole. But God smiled on him and he survived himself and his demons, and just last week he moved in to  brand new house with his wife and young son. That is why this book is important, because he made it, both through the Hell of Fallujah and the Hell in his head. It takes a brave man to earn a Navy Cross, but perhaps even more brave to lay out the horrors that followed for all to see.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is the normal reaction to the most abnormal situation that is combat. When Jeremiah came upon his dead comrades in Fallujah, he describes a switch flipping on and then just taking care of business. Going back into that house time and time again because his fellow Marines were in trouble and the bastards who hurt them needed to pay. But when he got back home he couldn't just flip a switch and become normal again. He couldn't make his head shut up, or get to sleep, or stop thinking about the buddies he lost.He couldn't act like everything was normal, because it sure wasn't. So he did what many do, he drank too much, he self-medicated and he took it out on everyone around him. He went on an epic bender that all too often ends at the morgue.

But it didn't and so we get to redemption. The single most difficult thing for a warrior to do is admit weakness. But the only way to get any help is to accept the truth and ask for it. When Jeremiah looked around at the wreckage he had made of his life, he did just that. His will to live was stronger than his pride and he started talking to a therapist and letting the professionals help. Even more difficult was facing his friends and fellow warriors and telling them that he had PTSD. I met him not long after he had begun doing just that and was speaking in public about both Fallujah and what happened after he came back. It has been cathartic for him to do that, but he also knows that there are plenty of others out there fighting their wars over and over in their heads and that his example may spur them to seek help.

Shadow of the Sword is a vivid example of the savagery of war, the bravery of men, the damage it does to body and mind, and the will to overcome. Jeremiah Workman survived two battles that could have taken his life, and this book shines a light on the struggle many are facing when they come home. Read it yourself and then send a copy to any warrior no matter how tough a facade they put up. They just might need to know it can happen to the baddest of the bad, and that's not a bad thing at all.

Posted by: Uncle Jimbo at 07:20 AM | Comments (1)
Post contains 642 words, total size 4 kb.

Bounce gone.

Following President ObamaÂ’s speech to Congress last week, support for his health care reform plan increased steadily to a peak of 51% yesterday. However, the bounce appears to be over. The latest daily tracking shows that support has fallen all the way back to pre-speech levels.
Forty-five percent (45%) of all voters nationwide now favor the plan while 52% are opposed. A week ago, 44% supported the proposal and 53% were opposed.

The latest figures show that 23% Strongly Favor the plan and 41% are Strongly Opposed. In late August, 23% were strongly in favor of the plan and 43% were strongly opposed.

This tracks with the ABC/WaPo poll, which found no gain for Obama. (If you're keeping track: the conservative rigged poll Rasmussen showed him with a gain, at least for a few days, while the honest unbiased straight-shooting ABCNews/WaPo poll never showed a gain at all.)

That WaPo poll finds that 39% support him on the deficit... which proves that 33% of the country are morons. (Only 33% because the WaPo poll is skewed.)

Gallup Confirms: Gallup's poll of adults, which, to be a broken record, skews strongly in favor of liberals/Democrats, shows a "steep climb" for Obama, with the country evenly divided (statistically) with 50% urging their Congressman to support the plan and 47% urging their Congressman to vote against it.

Do a small amount of mental adjustment on that adults figure and you pretty much have Rasmussen's figure for likely voters.

Oh-- and in the sidebar there, you can see his approval on health care specifically is at 43% -- even lower when you adjust for the poll's skewing sample type.

Gallup's poll of adults continues to show Obama with an unlikely 54% approval rate, but even they find disapproval now at 43% overall, a high for his presidency.

Thanks to AHFF Geoff for that.

The previous poll showing a spike in support for ObamaCare was, as they say, just a snapshot in time, now faded and lost.

Speaking of snapshots (see what I did there?), here's "Photograph" by Def Leppard... with Taylor Swift, the country singer ingenue bigfooted by the ridiculous drunken clown Kanye West.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 07:17 AM | Comments (1)
Post contains 404 words, total size 4 kb.

It is useful from time to time to recap for people who haven't been paying all that close attention. Or for people who are so focused on the little things they've lost sight of the big picture. So here we go; the Obama Presidency in handy bite-size review:

Domestic Policy: Thus far, the President's one major legislative triumph has been the spendulus. He passed it by scare-mongering that we were in for a Second Great Depression if Congress didn't spend money on Democratic priorities that had gone ignored for the past eight years. Obama blathered about "shovel-ready" projects, but the truth is that only a fraction of the thousands of programs in the spendulus have begun and there is a rising movement to cancel the rest of the spendulus as wasteful. Despite Obama's protestations that the spendulus has made things better, the economy has shed so many jobs that we haven't seen unemployment like this in a quarter-century.

Obama's other legislative goals—card check, a new financial sector regulation regime, mortgage reform/cramdown, greenhouse gas emissions control, and universal healthcare—have all stalled. Every bill that Obama bends his will to gets rejected by Democrats in Congress. Of course, Obama blames Republicans in Congress, the wealthy, corporations, and President Bush. Also racism.

Foreign Policy: Obama hasn't been any better for overseas policy, where he constitutionally wields a bit more power. He was off to a disastrous start when he insulted the leaders of Poland, Canada, and Great Britain. He offers the hand of friendship to oppressors in the Middle East, wants to sit down for a chat with our old enemy North Korea, and is trying to scuttle our close relationship with Israel. The icing on the cake is that he has sided with a dictatorial Chavezista in Honduras over that country's legitimate government. In a tragedy for constitutional democracy, Obama has directed that aid to Honduras be cut and visas for its citizens be denied.

Strategy: You would think that Obama—"the Great Campaigner"—would know a bit about reaching voters. However, it seems that was just an illusion spun by his minders and the media (but I repeat myself). Each of his primetime television appearances has been only a qualified success, and his more recent appearances have been characterized by foot-in-mouth mistakes. One thing his speeches have in common is that they all end up with Obama giving a patronizing lecture.

He does not seem to have realized that the public is waiting for President Obama to show himself, not Candidate Obama. We were tired of the never-ending election season before November 2008, but Obama has kept on campaigning. The bully pulpit is the only prerogative of executive office he uses with any skill. For example, this coming Sunday, he will be on five morning talk shows: This Week on ABC, Meet the Press on NBC, Face the Nation on CBS, and interviews on CNN and Univision. Unfortunately, his narcissism has worn thin; the public has Obama fatigue.

Polls: In the meantime, the President's numbers have dropped and dropped and dropped. It's not so much that he 's the least popular President at this point in his term. It's that he had so much further to fall. He got a small bounce from his primetime presidential address to Congress last week, but he's still at 50% approve, 50% disapprove. Even more bad news for Obama, support for his key legislative agenda—health care reform— is only up a single point since his primetime speech.

Opposition: A funny thing happened to Republicans and libertarians during Obama's first eight months: they rediscovered something worth fighting for. In January, Democrats—led by the President—were ascendant. They looked to enjoy a long and strong turn in the driver's seat. Instead, their own squabbles gave opponents a wedge to pry them out of power.

Their response to this hasn't helped. They namecalled—"rightwing extremist", "unAmerican", and (as always) "racist!"—but that has merely galvanized the opposition. Now Democrats are on the back foot; they react to us and 2010 is just around the corner.

My final word: Obama will never be as popular, have as much political capital as he did in February. He may get a bounce if the economy ever recovers, but he has burned too many bridges, dashed too many hopes, and given everyone too much reason to doubt his honesty to ever again command the respect or wield the power he did in February.

Moreover, the timing is off. Next year is an election year and few Democrats in the House are going to want to stick their necks out for the President's Far Left agenda. With all signs pointing towards substantial Democratic losses in Congress, the President isn't going to have it any easier in 2011. And then his own re-election season begins. In other words, if he doesn't get it done now, his next chance will be in 2013—assuming he is reelected.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 07:17 AM | Comments (1)
Post contains 826 words, total size 5 kb.

Another Bush administration "tell all" book, another sensational grab for attention.

This book is from former Bush speechwriter Matt Latimer. The charge? Bush wasn't really into the whole "conservative movement" thing.

The revealing moment, described in "Speechless: Tales of a White House Survivor," occurred in the Oval Office in early 2008.

Bush was preparing to give a speech to the annual meeting of the Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC. The conference is the event of the year for conservative activists; Republican politicians are required to appear and offer their praise of the conservative movement.

Latimer got the assignment to write Bush's speech. Draft in hand, he and a few other writers met with the president in the Oval Office. Bush was decidedly unenthusiastic.

"What is this movement you keep talking about in the speech?" the president asked Latimer.

Latimer explained that he meant the conservative movement -- the movement that gave rise to groups like CPAC.

Bush seemed perplexed. Latimer elaborated a bit more. Then Bush leaned forward, with a point to make.

"Let me tell you something," the president said. "I whupped Gary Bauer's ass in 2000. So take out all this movement stuff. There is no movement."

I found a lot of what Scott McClellan and Tom Ridge selling hard to believe. This? I buy it.

I'm sure we've all had the experience of dealing with liberal friends who tell us how Bush was the most evil conservative ever to walk the halls of the White House. I don't know about you but my response was always, "if only!".

You know what the first clue Bush wasn't a movement conservative was? "Compassionate Conservatism". It was pretty clear that Bush didn't think all that much of what the rest of us considered a pretty good philosophy.

The 'compassionate' modifier was given full voice when Bush proclaimed, "We have a responsibility that when somebody hurts, government has got to move." There's nothing the least bit conservative about that statement or the thinking behind it.

So no, it wouldn't shock me in the least to hear that a guy who says those things equates the conservative movement of Goldwater and Reagan with Gary Bauer. Those statements combined with out of control spending, signing McCain-Feingold and a host of other actions show Bush wasn't really 'one of us'.

Now don't get me wrong, I voted for Bush twice and wish he were still there but not because I thought he was a great or even a good conservative (had it not been for 9/11 I would have wanted to see someone run against him in '04 primaries from the right). But simply put he was better than Gore or Kerry. Life is about choices between real world alternatives, not theoretical ideals.

We can re-fight the Bush years if we want but right now I don't see the point. Thanks to the overreach of Obama and the Democrats in Congress, conservatives have found their voice again. Yes, we will have to carry the baggage of the Bush years for a good long while but hopefully we won't make the same mistakes again.

Posted by: DrewM at 07:03 AM | Comments (1)
Post contains 540 words, total size 3 kb.

Happy Tuesday.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 05:11 AM | Comments (1)
Post contains 10 words, total size 1 kb.

Two things to consider as you lie down tonight:

1. Snake with leg:

Pray that it doesn't learn to open doors. Full story here.

2. Wet weather:

Story is here.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 06:51 PM | Comments (1)
Post contains 80 words, total size 1 kb.