Job Hunting In The Justice Department?

July 29, 2008 Ross

The Justice Department issued a report on its investigation on hiring practices at the Justice Department. This was the end result of an investigation into firing practices of former Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzalez and seven U.S. attorneys.

The report cites misconduct in some cases for trying to determine the political leanings of applicants. You see, it is wrong to vet applicants with political leanings or connections opposite to the administration, in order keep people from using their position to thwart the administration because of their political leanings.

2008 Election, Media, Politics, War On Terror

Obama Passes On Visiting Injured Troops, Do They Care?

July 27, 2008 Ross

Unless you’ve been incommunicado over the last two days, you know all the press being generated because the man who is running to be Commander in Chief chose not to visit injured soldiers in the largest military hospital outside of the United States. That would be the military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany. He also cancelled a trip to the Ramstein Air Base in Germany. The latter of which didn’t get as much coverage.

Obama’s behavior, and excuse for not visiting our (and his) troops there is quite upsetting to us here in the United States. Is there any curiosity to find out whether the troops in Germany care? My guess is that, on the whole, they are glad that he didn’t go.

2008 Election, Media, Politics

John Edwards Out Of VP Consideration

July 27, 2008 Ross

Under most circumstances, if you’re a married man having a ‘meeting’ with a single woman at the Beverly Hilton hotel in Los Angeles, you would have no chance for consideration to be Barack Obama’s running mate. Emphasis on ‘under most circumstances.’ For Bill Clinton, a little extramarital affair was a resume enhancement. But I don’t think that Clinton’s ‘pass’ will pass on to former senator John Edwards.

As always, you have to consider the source. OK, it is the National Enquirer. After that, you have to consider that they caught Edwards cold, down to the room numbers rented, who was in them, how both Edwards and Hunter got there, and how they left the hotel, and who drove them.

There is no evidence of what went on in the room between John Edwards and Rielle Hunter. After all, they could have been watching Keith Olbermann on TV. He could say ‘I did not have sex with that woman, Ms. Hunter,’ and everything would be OK. But he is not saying a word about it to reporters. Edwards was in the room from 9:45 p.m. Pacific time last Monday until 2:40 a.m. Tuesday.

His leaving was more like an escape than anything else. And there were plenty of witnesses that were not employees of the tabloid.

Knowing he had been caught, Edwards did not leave through the lobby. He went down a stairwell and into a bathroom, possibly to comb his hair. Or maybe to call hotel security to escort him out of there without the reporters all over him. Security did go down there and he was escorted out. Coincidence?

You haven’t seen a word about this little adventure in the mainstream media have you? It is in the undernews media and the blogosphere. And the Obama campaign is aware of it. One thing is for sure, he isn’t on Obama’s short list for Vice-President any more.

Energy, Politics

Democrats Oppose Increasing Oil Supply

July 26, 2008 Ross

To know where Democrats in Washington stand on increasing oil supply, one only needs to look at what they are doing and what they want to do.

They want to . . .

Punish the oil industry with higher taxes. This punishes everyone in the form of higher gas prices at the pump.
Control the oil industry by telling them where they must drill. They whine about the 8 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico that are not as promising, efficient, or as easy to get to than the millions of acres on land and in other places in the surrounding Gulf, the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and ANWR that they demand are off-limits. If it is harder to get to and has less capacity, it will be more expensive at the pump. Not less.
Control the auto industry by telling them what kind of cars to build and what kind of ‘performance’ they must have. Right now, GM for example, pays out more in benefits to people that no longer work for them (retirees) than their current employees. In total, they pay out more in benefits than they are making from sales. They pay more for health care for people that don’t work for them than steel for making their product.
And right now, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is refusing to send a bill (H.R. 6566) to the floor of the House for a vote that, if passed, will remove the ban on exploration and drilling in all the areas with the most potential. Why is she doing this? Because there are enough Democrats in the House that believe it is the right thing to do and will vote for it. And the last thing Pelosi wants to see is gas prices come down and the economy improve while there is a Republican in the White House. She cares more for her party and holding power than the welfare of the country and you.
Prevent development of what is potentially as much as 800 billion barrels of oil shale in Colorado. Rush Limbaugh explains this point in this video, below.

Race Relations

Citizens Fighting Crime

July 26, 2008 Ross

Nine months after a noble attempt to reverse violent crime in Philadelphia, organizers of 10,000 Men on the Street are taking another look at how to turn things around. The movement did produce 200 volunteers willing to help, but there was no enthusiasm to do Guardian Angel-type foot patrols in the worst neighborhoods.

That’s not the response organizers had hoped for after an impressive turnout at a rally last October that received lots of media attention.

Organizers now say funding and logistical problems hampered the project. They also underestimated the desire of volunteers to patrol the mean streets.

But all is not lost.

A survey of 2,000 potential volunteers said they were interested in serving as role models with troubled youth, as opposed to confronting armed and dangerous thugs on street corners.

Organizers are shifting focus from confrontation to the more conventional tack of mentoring and being role models for the kids with the goal, of course, to steer the kids in the right direction before they become a statistic. The assessment of the program so far is that some progress is better than no progress.

Mentoring the kids is half of the problem. Dissolution of the family unit, or no family at all, is the other.

related link: Philadelphia Inquirer Editorial

2008 Election, Media, Politics

Obama Speaks At Concert Venue In Berlin

July 24, 2008 Ross

Like what happened in Oregon a few months ago, which was also ignored by the media, the crowd of over 100,000 young people in Berlin today were there because of a day and night of rock concerts more than they were there to see Barack Obama. al-AP describes it this way . . .

Police estimated that more than 200,000 people came to watch the speech, according to The Associated Press.

Oddly enough, the estimates of the size of the crowd varies from between 100,000 and 200,000. I guess it depends on who you want to credit with the turnout, the concert performers or the American political performer, Barack Obama.

Wolf Blitzer’s report on the ‘Situation Room’ said that the crowd was there to see Barack. The truth is that they had no choice but to sit through Barack’s performance. Got to give his campaign credit for the image that the pictures of the crowd create, disingenuous as it is. Trouble with all that is, Barack isn’t running for German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s job.

'Dirty Harry' Is For The Movies

July 23, 2008 Ross

Sad news from Fort Walton Beach today. A police officer lost his life in what seems to be one of the shortest armed standoffs in history. An armed nutcase holed up in a vacant house shot and killed a special operations officer who, along with others in his team, went into the house to get him. They killed him, but not until after they lost one of their own.

It’s an awful price to pay. The nutcase is, of course, responsible for the murder of the deputy. When time was clearly on the side of law enforcement, who can justify sending those officers into that house after only three hours while knowing that the guy was armed and irrational? Now there are two fatalities that did not need to happen.

The incident is the first fatality of and officer in the line of duty since the police department was formed in 1924. You can’t read this story without questioning the judgement of the leader of the Special Response Team who decided to send his men in for a shootout.

link: Deputy slain, suspect also killed

2008 Election, Immigration, Judiciary, Media, Pensacola, Politics, War On Terror

Holebrooke Has It Wrong On McCain And Timetable

July 21, 2008 Ross

But that’s never stopped him before. On MSNBC’s Morning Joe show this morning, former Ambassador to the U.N. Richard Holbrooke perpetuates the media spin about Iraqi PM alMaliki and the timetable and McCain. In speaking about Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), Holebrooke portrays McCain as being at odds with both Bush and alMaliki regarding a timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq when they are all, in fact, on the same page.

The reality is that the timetable the three are in agreement with is more Table than Time, based on progress on the ground and political progress in Baghdad, not on the calendar. They next interviewed Andy Card, former Chief of Staff for Bush, who corrected Holebrooke’s spin. And much to their amusement, Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski laughed at him.

What is most amusing, or disturbing, about the hosts on the show, Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, is that they could not discern the difference between the two.

2008 Election, Media, Politics, Race Relations

Jesse Jackson Shows His True Color

July 17, 2008 Ross

Stocks tumble in the race industry. Jesse Jackson’s stock that is. Affectionately called America’s beloved race pimp, the good Rev. Jackson took issue with first-term Sen. Barack Obama’s speech to a Black audience. It was a speech that was much the same as what Bill Cosby had said years ago. Fox has not released the transcript, but did say Jackson’s comment had to do with Obama telling them ‘how to behave.’

According to Fox, Jackson was referring to the audience in using the N-word. Jackson, like any entrepreneur, is seeing a rookie threaten his market share in the race business by making him irrelevant. And when you consider that Jackson is out for Jackson, and not Blacks, something like ‘Listen to him, he’s telling those n_____s how to behave’ would be a believable statement coming from Rev. Jackson.

One can’t rule out some personal animosity where Obama is concerned either. Obama, as far as we know, has not had a love child outside of his marriage like Rev. Jackson. In that respect, Obama is head and shoulders above Jackson.

About a year ago, Jesse Jackson and the NAACP buried the N-word in a mock funeral in Detroit. Now Rev. Jackson has resurrected it. But will he get the same treatment as Don Imus, Michael Richards, or George Allen?

Fox news showed great editorial restraint in not publishing the transcript. Their rationale is they can get the news out of the recording, which is Jackson’s hypocrisy and contempt for Blacks, without having to release the recording or the transcript.

Who thinks that the New York Times would have chosen that route if the offender was a republican, white or black? My guess is that there wouldn’t be anything else on the news until the guy was driven out of his job, if not charged with a hate crime. Or both.

2008 Election, Pensacola, Politics

Mental Recession And Its Whiners

July 14, 2008 Ross

Had to come to the defense of Sen. Phil Gramm for his comments about ‘mental recession’ and ‘whiners.’ After all, John McCain didn’t. Pensacola News Journal editor Carl Wernicke misses the big picture in his Gramm hit piece entitled ‘It’s all in our heads? Take a pill, get over it.‘ And where are these whiners Gramm was talking about anyway?

The ‘mental recession’ that Gramm was talking about was the one created by nearly 8 years of running down the Bush administration at every step of the way. A direct result of the effectiveness of how the media can shape, if not create, public opinion to mirror their own. So for that, you and others in the MSM can be proud of your success. But the antidote is simple. Don’t read the papers and it will go away.

Talk jobs? The big picture is unemployment still in the 5% range. Not all that bad.

Talk recession? Two quarters of negative growth. Haven’t yet had one month of negative growth.

Talk price of gas? The media’s party, the Democrat party, is responsible for preventing any increase in supply from happening starting with Bush’s first term. No, starting with Clinton’s first term.

There’s your mental recession.

The whiners? (Enter number here) Americans don’t have (enter Democrat entitlement here). There they are.

The Lunch Counter

Monthly Archives: July 2008