They just don't make any sense.

Even if they're supposed to be funny -- they're not, because there's no real point to them. It's unclear what he's mocking, or how these ads are intended to mock anything. They just seem to be flippantly nonsensical.

So, what is actual message here? What does he hope, tangibly, to get from these ads?
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Posted by: Ace at 01:11 PM | Comments (130)
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You might have thought, "Gee, didn't we know that?"

Not exactly; his previous word had been that he would "make his intentions clear." Candidates often pre-announce their announcements. (And re-announce sometimes too.)

That kind of silliness.

So this is news.

Posted by: Ace at 11:55 AM | Comments (564)
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Where's his transcript?

And where's his intellectual curiosity?

Take Keynesianism. I’ve always assumed that Keynesian remedies–e.g. government deficit spending–worked. Certainly deficit spending seemed to work for Ronald Reagan in the early 1980s. And Paul Krugman may well be right that the only problem with Obama’s stimulus is that it wasn’t big enough. But you can’t say that anymore with certainty, can you? The data–big stimulus,weak recovery–hardly reinforce the paradigm with anything like inarguable clarity. And there are some respected economists–Kenneth Rogoff, and Greg Mankiw, to name two–who question whether the classic Keynesian paradigm still holds in the current slump. Has Obama read them? Consulted them? No need to make a show of it like Carter. He can do it quietly. But has he?

Or is it possible that Obama is Â… what did they call his predecessor Â… intellectually incurious?

What do you call a Democrat who clings to his beliefs, despite the hard evidence of real-world tests undermining those beliefs?

A visionary; a genius; a man of highest intellect.

What do you call What do you call a Republican who clings to his beliefs, encouraged by hard evidence confirming those beliefs?

A terrorist.

Posted by: Ace at 11:41 AM | Comments (159)
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Wilson's shouted comment was in response to Obama's claim that none of the ObamaCare dollars & treatment would flow to illegal immigrants.

You'll never guess...

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced on Tuesday that it has awarded $28.8 million to 67 community health centers with funds from the Obamacare health reform law.

Of that $28.8 million, “approximately $8.5 million will be used by 25 New Access Point awardees to target services to migrant and seasonal farm workers,” Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) Spokeswoman Judy Andrews told CNSNews.com. HRSA is a part of HHS.

Andrews said that grant recipients will not check the immigration status of people seeking services.

Retraction? Clarification?

Can we at least have the imputed "boy" removed from the official Dowd transcript?

Posted by: Ace at 10:55 AM | Comments (183)
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I had though that the government didn't usually acknowledge the deaths of SEALs on missions, treating them like covert operatives, claiming their deaths were due to training mishaps and such.

Is that right? That's what I thought, at least.

But the Pentagon has released all the names.

Officials now say the SEALs were not rescuing the Rangers at all. The Rangers, they say now, were winning the fight, to the extent that the Taliban was fleeing, and this helicopter troop was called in to stop their retreat.

Okay, but this raises some difficult questions. It was highly questionable why so many men were in a single Chinook helicopter before. At least if it was a rescue mission, one could imagine exigent circumstances forcing them all aboard the only chopper that was available (I'm making this up as a plausible scenario).

But if the mission was to kill Taliban, why jam-pack so many men into a single vulnerable helicopter? In a mission like this, what would be the exigent circumstances dictating a dangerous overload of men in one aircraft?

You Know... I hate to be conspiratorial, but with the White House offering special access regarding the Obama Reelection Movie (aka The Killing bin Ladin Movie), but wishing to deny that...

Five More US Troops Die In Afghanistan: A roadside bomb kills five more heroes in southern, Pashtun, Taliban-loving bomb-bait Afghanistan.

At least 50 foreign troops have been killed so far in August.

Violence is at its worst in Afghanistan since U.S.-backed Afghan forces toppled the Taliban government in late 2001, with record civilian casualties and high levels of foreign troop deaths during the first half of 2011.

It almost seems like they've been encouraged by firm withdrawal dates and a politician broadcasting his politically-motivated desire to deliver an election-eve bugout.

Posted by: Ace at 09:34 AM | Comments (235)
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Little interesting things in here.

“The president has shown himself unwilling to just dig in on a position,” said Dee Dee Myers, who was Bill Clinton’s White House press secretary. “He’s for jobs. I’ve heard him say that. He’s for being the grown-up in the room. But beyond that, I’m not actually sure what his bottom line is.”

Again, a case of liberals demanding Obama take a harder negotiating stance while simultaneously demanding conservatives take a weaker one.

What?

Obama compromised. Isn't that what you said you wanted?

Oh, of course, you were lying. You wanted us to just give Obama everything he wanted.

Added Neera Tanden, a former Obama and Clinton administration official who is now chief operating officer at the liberal Center for American Progress: “He can take his ideas to the Republicans and use the House Republicans’ intransigence on his ideas as a foil. And by having a fight on jobs, he will communicate to the American people that he understands their challenges and he’s on their side.”

Peter Fenn, a longtime Democratic strategist, said the even-keeled president has “got to be a lot less keep-it-cool Calvin Coolidge and a lot more give-’em-hell Harry Truman.”

“There has got to be a willingness to get tough with the Republicans, especially the tea party wing,” Fenn said.

More of the same. The first woman wants Obama to engage in pure political theater with no actual end goal of doing anything about jobs or the economy; she just wants Obama to gain politically from a fight resulting in nothing.

The other two want Obama to get "tough."

Like it was demanded the Tea Party must not be.

Sorry, I mean much not be.

I'm reminded of Gandhi: "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." He might have added "then they emulate you" before the "winning" part.

This is what really pisses me off:

One reason the White House may not want to shift gears now is that doing so would “tacitly acknowledge that his first-term program didn’t deliver the prosperity his economic team promised,” said Robert J. Shapiro, who was the top economic adviser to Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign. “The truth is, everybody in the country thinks it failed. It worked to rescue us from a depression, but it didn’t work to create a strong recovery.”

Shapiro argued that Obama should, among other moves, call for cutting the employer-paid side of the payroll tax in half and propose a temporary loan program for homeowners with troubled mortgages.

A payroll tax holiday?

Why didn't I and/or lots of other people think of that?

But of course Obama couldn't do that because he couldn't give "tax breaks to business" even if a payroll tax holiday would have spurred businesses to hire millions of workers.

I'm still in favor of this... as long as the money for it is cut from other programs.

Barack Obama as Gandhi: old/dirty/b_tard offers an update for Barry O:

"First you win, then they fight you, then they laugh at you, then they ignore you, then you lose".

Posted by: Ace at 09:03 AM | Comments (232)
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Interesting interview.

There's not really what you'd call a campaign theme here, but you can see bits and pieces that will shape that. It's not very specific, but it does show his emphasis, which will be economic.

He drops bits of his biography into his answers, about Texas and his wife. Part of his burden, of course, is convincing the country that it's okay to vote for a Texas governor again.
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Posted by: Ace at 08:20 AM | Comments (350)
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Disapproval: 43%
You know, just when I think people are starting to wake up...

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Posted by: CAC at 07:47 AM | Comments (163)
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Strong content warning for language. Funny. Hard-hitting. Truthful. Dude gets really pissed.

Thanks to Ben in the sidebar. more...

Posted by: rdbrewer at 06:20 AM | Comments (147)
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Ben has this in the sidebar but it's worth a post too.

All press coverage was banned because not all the bodies could be identified and that meant individual families couldn't give consent. Before officials realized that was the case, 19 of the 30 families had already said no to media coverage.

But that didn't stop the White House from dragging along their own personal photographer and releasing an artsy shot of Obama at the ceremony.

Doug Wilson, head of public affairs at the Pentagon, said the department did not know the White House photographer was present and had no idea a photo of the event was being released until it became public. He said the photographers who routinely travel with the defense secretary and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff were not allowed to go to the event, and no official Pentagon photos were taken or released.

The Associated Press did not transmit the White House photo to its customers, in accordance with its policy of refusing government handout images of events it believes the media should have access to.

When asked about the photo Wednesday, White House spokesman Jay Carney said the picture was carefully taken so that it did not show the cases containing remains.

"The White House routinely releases photos taken by the White House photographers in specific circumstances where it would be inappropriate to include members of the media," Carney said. "In this case, the White House released the photo, in the interests of transparency, so that the American people could have as much insight as possible into this historic and sobering event."

I got into a discussion with a number of people on Twitter about whether or not Obama should have even gone. President Bush didn't attend any of the return ceremonies because he couldn't attend them all. My position was, and is, while some casualties may be more newsworthy than others, none are more important or tragic than any other. The individual casualty who came home the day before or the day after Obama went to Dover are no less worthy of the honor of having the President see them home. I don't see how you can draw a distinction between them.

Having gone to Dover, I did hope the families were able to draw some comfort from his being there.

Now I fear any good he may have done was undone by the way he violated the rules laid down by the Pentagon and the express wishes of the majority of the families. It's simply unconscionable that Obama allowed the photo to even be taken, let alone distributed. As always, Obama has to make everything about him (think of the photo from the Situation Room during the bin Laden raid). A few rules and the wishes of the families mean nothing compared to the importance of advancing his goals.

When it comes to honoring our heroes, I'd like to be able to give any President, Obama included, the benefit of the doubt that they care more about doing the right thing by the fallen and their families (even if I might disagree with their choices). Obama's decision to allow this solemn and private moment to become a political spectacle shows he simply is doesn't deserve that consideration.

January 20, 2013 can't come soon enough.

Posted by: DrewM at 05:41 AM | Comments (331)
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