Tag Archives: Politics

2010 Election, Immigration, Politics, Race Relations

What Is The Biggest Threat To America?

Dennis Prager answered that question at the University of Denver in this video. ‘We have not passed on what it means to be ‘American’ to this generation.’

Along that same line is the current lack of interest to crack down on illegal immigration. Both political parties are guilty of trying to find a way to exploit illegals for political advantage. Bush tried it under the label of ‘comprehensive’ immigration reform. Otherwise known as amnesty-lite.

Now, prepping the field for the 2010 election season, Democrats are doing it by trashing Arizonans for wanting to do nothing more than enforce the law. They used Mexico’s president Felipe Calderon as the bird to flip to Americans and Arizonans, in front of a joint session of congress no less. Obama echoed Calderon’s spin that the Arizona law, that neither of them have read, is racial profiling.  This president is not about uniting this country. This president is all about dividing this country for purely political purposes. The standing ovations that Calderon got from Democrats in congress is testament to their motivation and belief that illegal immigrants are noting more than undocumented Democrats.

Which brings me to the other angle of the biggest threat to America. It is about immigration. It is good that people from all over the world want to come to America to live and prosper, when done legally. Legal immigrants come here to assimilate and become Americans. Illegal immigrants come here not to assimilate and become Americans, but rather to use America. And if steps are not taken now to insure that America remains American, future generations might learn about the American dream from history books, because it will be gone. There’s nothing wrong or un-American about this country being a so-called melting pot. What’s wrong is to let the pot melt.

Immigration, Media, Politics

Reading Is Fundamental, Unless . . .

Unless it works against your spin, lying, and mis-characterization of Arizona’s illegal immigration enforcement law SB1070 and the subsequent amendment to it HB2162.

That is exactly what the president, the attorney general, the director of homeland security AND the president of Mexico have done. Oh, and let me also include Congressional Democrats who gave the standing O to Calderon when, before a joint session of Congress, he said the Arizona law was racial profiling. Quick to pass judgment, quick to demonize, quick to inflame Latinos and further divide America for purely political purposes, none of these people whose responsibility it is to know the truth, utter the truth.

Liberals like videos. It’s easier than having to read things like the stimulus bill or the health care bill, or even these 17 pages of Arizona’s illegal immigration enforcement bill.  Here’s exactly what I’m talking about.

Having perfected lying to the American people, aided and abetted by the willing accomplices in the media, I think we have reached the most dishonest and arrogant administration in American history. When you understand that we are saddled with a group-thought process where the end justifies the means, lying about what you’re doing and what you want to do is no big deal. Hell, it’s expected. Progressives and Liberals have to lie about what they want to do because what they want to do would never be approved if put to a vote.

Start anywhere you want to find a lie: health care reform will cost us less, there will be better care, the stimulus bill will create jobs, GM has paid off May I see your ID?their loan, they don’t want to take over the auto industry, no tax increases for people earning less than $250,000, we need to live within our means and pass this $195 billion dollar bill that is 30% ‘paid’ for, we now have ‘pay-go’ so we’ll no longer be spending money we don’t have,  and if you live in Arizona and you take your kids to buy an ice cream cone and walk down the street with them, you’re going to be harassed by the police.

Today’s reading assignment: Arizona’s bill SB1070, and amendment HB2162.

2010 Election, Economy, Florida, Media, Pensacola, Politics

BP’s $25 Million For Florida’s Panhandle

Gov. Charlie Crist (NPA-FL) visited the Florida Panhandle a few times since the Deepwater Horizon incident. Hearing from residents and industry leaders about how the already weak economy is worsening because of the bad publicity, BP officials agreed to support an advertising fund to help offset the economic damage with an advertising effort to promote business in the Panhandle.

So far, and according to RicksBlog . . .

State Senator Don Gaetz says that, as of Friday, May 21, BP has not given Florida the $25-million block grant for tourism advertising that BP CEO Tony Hayward promised Gov. Charlie Crist on Monday.

According to State Senator Don Gaetz . . .

state officials are still negotiating a ‘memorandum of understanding’, which must be completed prior to receiving the funds.”

Well, that’s how it started. From there it has gone to a gimme-fest by politicos all over the state. Developing a memorandum of understanding over the $25 million seems only prudent. Especially when you have people like Kendrick Meek showboating for $100 million.

Aside from all that, take a peek at how the Panhandle is going to be ‘promoted.’ No, take a long look at it, and a peek is all you’ll see. Links to the proposed ads as produced by VisitFlorida.com are here:

Link to spots: http://www.2150.tv/getpass.html

password: visitflorida (case sensitive)

There are currently 2 versions of the spot – a general Florida version and a more Northwest Florida oriented spot.

Take a look at those ads. If that’s what they call focused on the Panhandle, I think we need to look to another ad agency with a more effective message. VisitFlorida.com’s website is nothing but a glorified Yahoo travel site. You’re lucky to find beach shots with sugar-white sands, and no mention of the timeliness of the ads and the beautiful conditions that exist in this part of the Gulf of Mexico and Florida.

But you will find this . . .

Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Update

There continue to be no confirmed oil sightings associated with the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on Florida’s shores at this time.

The great majority of the hotels/motels are inland. There is no evidence there of any emphasis placed on fighting the negative impression created by the news media and environmentalists.

Considering both ads, if I had to put a percentage to it, as for how much of it is ‘focused’ on the Panhandle and how much of it is generic to Florida, I’d give the Panhandle less than ten percent. And if you don’t live in the area, like 100 percent of the target audience, you wouldn’t recognize anything to do with the Panhandle. It’s a sham.

It seems apparent that Charlie Crist and Alex Sink care more about getting the money to promote Florida than the Panhandle. The place where Florida’s economy is most severely impacted.

Give money to Crist and Sink, and you can kiss it good-bye. Especially in this political season. All the Panhandle is left with is hope. Nothing has changed.

Energy, Media, Pensacola, Politics

The Real Target In BP Class Action Is . . .

The strategy is starting to dribble in as to the so-called real cause of the Deepwater Horizon oil leak, otherwise known as an oil spill. (I hate it when the language gets abused like that.)

A local (Pensacola FL) environmental group called The Emerald Coastkeepers has taken the lead in keeping locals informed on both the progress and criticism of BP and its efforts to stop the gusher of a leak at the site of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig. Chief spokesperson for them is Chasidy Fisher Hobbs who was published in today’s paper as saying . . .

Did you know that BP’s first quarter profits for 2010 were more than $5 billion? Yet, a half-million dollar investment for an acoustic shutoff valve to protect our Gulf was not worth the investment.

In the interest of full disclosure, did you know that the President of Emerald Coastkeepers is mass tort lawyer, left-wing talk radio  co-host, and FOX News contributor representing ‘balance,’ Mike Papantonio? And did you know that the President of the Waterkeeper Alliance is Robert F. Kennedy Jr.?  Kennedy also doubles as co-host with Papantonio on the Ring of Fire radio program, formerly associated with Air America Radio. (Air America eventually went bankrupt for the last time after their listener base dwindled to relatives and employees. That, and a lack of sponsors willing to underwrite their efforts.)

Not that there’s anything wrong with any of that in and of itself. But the big omission here, and not just from Chasidy’s article but from the mainstream media overall, is the fact that both Papantonio and Kennedy are on the class action case against BP and have been from day one.

And on day three Papantonio laid out his cards to another lefty talk radio host, Mike Malloy. Papantonio has a much juicier target when it comes to this case. Bankrupting BP is just a distraction for him. He’s after something BP can’t give him, Dick Cheney and the Bush Administration.

Because you know, it’s all their fault. Cheney and Bush developed an energy policy with energy people. (Oh the nerve.) And then they didn’t make an acoustic shutoff valve mandatory, LIKE OTHER COUNTRIES have. And that’s why there’s oil coming out of the ground. It’s all their fault. That was the sum total of his case as he explained it to Malloy and his several listeners.

Papantonio did not say how he could prove that an acoustic shutoff valve would not and could not also fail.

I have my own theory for why we are seeing oil coming into the Gulf a mile deepwater_horizon_rigbelow the surface, and it has nothing to do with Dick Cheney and the Bush administration. It has to do with the Coast Guard pouring water onto the oil rig for three or four days until it sank. It wasn’t until the rig sank that the pipeline broke, putting oil into the Gulf.

It is also a testament to the failure of BP, the EPA, and the MMS, to have a plan B in the event of just such a catastrophe. It also brings to focus the consequences of environmentalists and spineless politicians seeking their favor of pushing oil and gas drilling off of land and shallow waters where it is more readily available, into deeper waters where the risks are greater.

Leaving the fire burn and surrounding the rig with sea booms, and letting smoke get in the air until a ‘fix’ can be made, sounds like a better choice to sinking the rig, putting oil in the water, and moving the workplace a mile under water.

Update 5/24/2010: And for your video amusement, Papantonio: BP – The Very Corrupt Side of Dick Cheney

2010 Election, Media, Politics

Republicans, Don’t Count Your Chickens . . .

REPUBLICANS ON TRACK TO SNATCH DEFEAT FROM JAWS OF VICTORY

Republican consultants are doing a wonderful job raising expectations sky-high for the November elections, so that now, even if Republicans do smashingly well, it will look like a defeat (and an across-the-board endorsement of Obama’s agenda). Thanks, Republicans!

That’s what happened in the 1998 congressional elections, nearly foiling Clinton’s impeachment. It’s what happened to the Conservative Party in Britain a week ago. And that’s what happened this week in the 12th Congressional District of Pennsylvania, formerly represented by Rep. John Murtha.

Note to Republicans: Whenever possible, victory parties should be held after the election, not before it.

The result of the election in Murtha’s old district on Tuesday was that the rabidly anti-ObamaCare, pro-life, pro-gun candidate won! Yippee!

But the news on Wednesday morning was that the election “dealt a blow to Republicans,” as The New York Times reported.

The reason the Times’ description was not utter madness (in violation of New York Times’ official policy) is because the anti-ObamaCare, pro-life, pro-gun candidate was a Democrat and, for the past two months, every Republican on TV has been predicting a Republican victory in Murtha’s district.

Thanks to all the happy talk, if the Republican actually had won, it would have been Page 16 news. But when the Democrat won, it seemed like an against-all-odds, come-from-behind Hoosiers victory!

Why were Republicans predicting victory in a district where Democrats outnumber Republicans 2-1? Given a choice between two candidates who both hate ObamaCare, why would lifelong Democrats not vote for the Democrat?

Republicans are playing the same raised-expectations game with the November elections. Republican House Minority Leader John Boehner is ludicrously predicting Republicans will pick up 100 seats in the House in November. Newt Gingrich puts the figure at an equally insane (and weirdly precise) 78. He also predicts the Cubs will win 132 games this season and six games will be rained out.

Keep it up, Republicans, and I’m going to keep naming names. I have Nexis.

For more than half a century, the average midterm pickup for the party out of power has been 24 seats.

Your job, Republicans, is not to go on Fox News and whisper sweet nothings in conservatives’ ears. Your job is to repeal the Obama agenda. Raising expectations so high that a 30-seat Republican pickup will seem like a loss is not helping.

Moreover, we’re not going to pick up any seats this November if Republicans keep chumming around with the Democrats’ pals on Wall Street.

Roughly since the Harding administration, Wall Street has overwhelmingly favored Democrats. According to a recent report from ABC News, for example, the five largest hedge funds gave “almost all their donations to Democrats.”

For the past year, the Democrats’ Wall Street BFFs have had lower public approval ratings than Hitler. (When I say “Hitler,” I don’t mean Dick Cheney or George W. Bush; I actually mean Adolf Hitler.) While Hitler continues to enjoy great personal popularity, there is a growing dissatisfaction with his policies.

How could Republicans possibly screw that up? We try harder.

No sooner had the news come out that Goldman Sachs (Joseph Goebbels in this metaphor) had given Obama an astronomical $1 million in campaign donations, than Republican John Boehner decided that this was the time to suck up to Wall Street! So Boehner flew to New York to meet with Wall Street bankers and ask them to be Republicans’ friends.

Boehner is like the guy who just got raped in prison and doesn’t know what happened to him. Hey — what was that? Should I have thanked the guy?

As Pat Caddell says, Democrats are whores, but they expect to be paid; Republicans’ names are scrawled on the bathroom wall: “For a good time, call the GOP!”

As depressing as it is to watch the Republican Party dive headlong off a cliff, at least we have Dick Blumenthal.

Connecticut’s attorney general, pompous, freakishly ambitious, self-righteous, hold-a-press-conference-every-day Blumenthal, was a shoo-in to take Chris Dodd’s Senate seat this fall.

After all, he was a Medal of Honor, Distinguished Service Cross, Silver Star and Purple Heart winner from his days as a four-star general in Vietnam. (And captain of the Harvard swim team to boot!)

But now we find out from a front-page article in The New York Times that, despite Blumenthal’s repeated references to serving “in Vietnam” — he was never in Vietnam. He got five draft deferments and then joined an elite unit of the Marine Reserves to avoid going to war, serving in their heroic “Toys for Tots” brigade.

He also wasn’t on the Harvard swim team. (Oddly enough, though, the story Blumenthal likes to tell about owning a necklace of human ears? That one’s actually true.)

Blumenthal may as well have shown up for a press conference in a dress. Suddenly, Connecticut is in play!

Naturally, therefore, Republicans are planning on running a World Wrestling Entertainment “impresario” against Blumenthal. Yes, in Connecticut … a state that is among the wealthiest and most highly educated in the nation … a state that isn’t Minnesota. The average Nutmegger doesn’t even know what a turnbuckle is, and that includes me.

Republicans could run Rob Simmons, a Connecticut legislator with a distinguished record of service in the House of Representatives, the CIA, and as a Yale political science professor — who actually did serve in Vietnam, winning two Bronze Stars and retiring as a colonel.

But defeat is so close! Republicans can almost taste the bitterness of yet another crushing loss!

The above lovingly snatched from Ann Coulter.com

Economy, Europe, Politics, Venezuela

aSide Order

April 28, 2010, Obama was concerned about Greece’s ‘debt problems.’ They’re monitoring it closely.

“This is something that is of great concern to the president and we’re monitoring it very closely,” Burton told reporters on Air Force One, adding that the U.S. Treasury Department and other agencies were “in close contact with folks in Europe about the issue.”

Have you heard anything from the administration since?

What has happened since is this; Obama urged Germany and the EU to go the bail-out route. Why should we be the only country in debt for generations to come? The Euro is falling, Greece is burning, the dollar is gaining at the expense of the Euro. The dollar gaining causes the bolivar to tumble, bringing Venezuela’s inflation up to 30%.

Missed in all of this is the common thread; welfare state economies are not sustainable.

Does watching it closely make it better? Maybe we could refrain from becoming like them? Do ya think?

Scientists in mainly Muslim Kazakhstan have come up with an instant test for the presence of pork in food.

Pork? Our genius politicians in Washington don’t know what it is.

Used copy machines can be a good deal in the wrong hands. Check out this video before you get rid of yours.

2010 Election, Politics

Bu-bye Arlen

Pennsylvania democrats weren’t convinced that they needed more of Sen. Arlen Spector (D-PA) after sending him packing, choosing instead U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA) as their nominee.

Dependent on the City of Brotherly Love to carry him to victory, Philly rejected him.

Tonight’s results also has Obama batting 1000 for killing the chances of people he campaigns for. Virginia, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and now Arlen Specter. Seems Obama has inherited the kiss of death from Bill Clinton and Al Gore. Or maybe it’s something more than that?

Link: Specter rejected by Pa. Dems in bid for 6th term

Media, Politics, Whiners

Gov. Chris Christy, Honest And Refreshing

2 Comments

In case you missed it, this two minute twenty-five second video is the conservative that replaced years of Democrat control and subsequent debt in New Jersey.

And the funny part is the backwash. The Newark Star Ledger is claiming copyrights to this video. Since those where Gov. Christie’s words and not those of the reporter that got an answer he didn’t expect, to claim so just shows how thin-skinned the liberal media is.

Judiciary, Politics, Supreme Court

Kagan’s Paper Trail

What Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan lacks in the way of academic writing, she (apparently) more than compensates for with her lawyerly output during her time in the Clinton White House Counsel’s Office.  Recalling that former President George W. Bush shared over 50,000 pages of material associated with now Chief Justice John Roberts’s time as a lawyer in the Reagan White House, Byron York of the Washington D.C. Examiner reports which way precedent points in divulging Kagan’s work product.

“There is now a precedent that a White House lawyer’s materials will be produced,” says Bradford Berenson, an associate counsel in the Bush White House. “I think it will be very difficult for the Obama administration, given everything they’ve said about transparency and openness, to withhold these documents.”

Before anyone starts salivating over the thought of reading thousands of legal memos, remember that the current Oval Office occupant is not inclined to share information.  Unlike President Bush, Obama can’t be bothered to take a single question from the press after signing the Freedom of the Press Act.

Constitutional controversy over executive privilege, anyone?

The above is totally lifted from the CFIF website by author Ashton Ellis.

Links: Ashton Ellis: Kagan’s White House Paper Trail |  Byron York: Will the Senate see Kagan’s long paper trail?

Media, Politics, Supreme Court

Obama’s Supreme Court Pick, Elena Kagan

Is Elena Kagan a good pick for the Supreme Court? She wouldn’t be my pick. My pick would be someone with judicial experience. Someone with experience in interpreting and deciding law. A supreme court nominee should be someone who advocates for the Constitution, not a lawyer whose experience is advocating for a client.

Having absolutely no track record to reference in terms of how she interprets law, we have to know what she thinks about the Constitution and her interpretation of it. Whether she thinks the Constitution is ‘the rule’ or ‘a guideline’ is paramount. And that will open up a lot of questions. Nothing against Elena Kagan, but considering who picked her and the track record of other Obama appointments, chances are that this choice is more political than judicial.

You don’t have to look any further than Eric Holder, Obama’s pick for Attorney General. Like Obama, Holder is in denial over the notion of who the enemy is in the war on terror. So he pics an AG with a career in defending them and who to this day, after halting the military tribunals in order to conduct the trials in the civilian court system, has not decided whether to try the Gitmo terrorists in New York City. Obama’s track record seems just as relevant in this pick as Kagan’s background and understanding of constitutional jurisprudence.

One thing getting buzz is the sexual orientation of Elena Kagan. Does it matter if she is a lesbian? As far as I’m concerned, that’s a non-issue for the position. But she will have to convince the Judiciary Committee and Congress that whatever her feelings are regarding homosexuality, that she will not let those feelings have sway in any decision before the court. Again, considering who picked her and with no judicial experience to examine, she has an uphill battle.

Is Elena Kagan the vehicle to assuage the gay community and to be used as such by the President, as ‘political’ as her pick seems to be? In all fairness and with all due respect to Ms. Kagan, the President should go against his own personal beliefs about the Constitution and pick an experienced jurist who Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WVa) would pick, an originalist.

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Links: Politico: Elena Kagan’s friends: She’s not gay |  h/t SodaHead