Of all the political discourse out there, Rahm Emanual’s ‘rule one‘ has received the least amount of attention, while the evidence of it abounds in spades. The synergy between the Obama administration and the social and political activist group ACORN deserves some exposure and scrutiny as well. It’s time we (the American people) had this examination and discussion.
“Never allow a crisis to go to waste, they are opportunities to do big things.” This is “rule one” as explained by President Obama’s Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel on national television last fall.
What does that mean to you? Just look at what President Obama is doing, as opposed to what he is saying.
To me it means President Obama is not going to rebuild the economy until he first transforms it into his socialist version, complete with a “youth corps” that will include ACORN.
ACORN, you will recall, is the community activist group that he represented as a Chicago lawyer to expand the toxic sub-prime mortgages that started this economic mess. All in the name of “social justice.”
It means that plans to rebuild the economy come last, not first. That is rule one. Or to put it another way, “the chickens are coming home to roost.”
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H/T to the Pensacola News Journal for taking the risk of printing my letter to the editor on this subject.
On the day that the government takeover of GM is complete, which President Obama explained as just temporarily helping out the auto industry, as ‘reluctant shareholders,’ leave it to a Russian citizen to put it all in its proper perspective. They have been there, done that.
It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American decent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed, against the back drop of a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant people.
True, the situation has been well prepared on and off for the past century, especially the past twenty years. The initial testing grounds was conducted upon our Holy Russia and a bloody test it was. But we Russians would not just roll over and give up our freedoms and our souls, no matter how much money Wall Street poured into the fists of the Marxists.
Those lessons were taken and used to properly prepare the American populace for the surrender of their freedoms and souls, to the whims of their elites and betters.
In reality, its BM, Barack Motors
This morning, the President told the auto industry that they have to make the sacrifices, so that his children and their children and grandchildren can live in a country where we still make things. He fired GM’s president, replaced the board, put his advisers on it, dictated the kind of cars they are going to make, and he also said that he doesn’t want the government to run the company. What he said was exactly this . . .
The federal government will refrain from exercising its rights as a shareholder in all but the most fundamental corporate decisions.
What? Just the most fundamental corporate decisions? Like who will be on your board of directors, what kind of car to make, and the mileage standard it must meet, the type of fuel it must run on, and where it will be made. It’s reassuring that he doesn’t want to run the company isn’t it?
And the change doesn’t stop there.
The nationalization of the auto industry, and giving ownership stake to the UAW over secured creditors.
President Obama’s Justice Department under Eric Holder, has dropped charges against some Black Panther members who were intimidating voters in Philadelphia. This, afterthe defendants failed to answer the suit, putting them in default. But instead of making arrests, the DOJ drops the charges. What was that noise about enforcing voting laws?
President Obama’s Justice Department under Eric Holder, just told the State of Georgia that they may not purge their voting rolls of dead people and illegal aliens.
Is it me or are things beginning to unravel? I can hardly wait to see what kind of cars that Obama, his auto industry advisers, and the UAW will produce. And, besides the government, who will buy them?
That this seismic shift from a free market capitalistic society to a socialist / Marxist type society is happening without comment from our media gives credence to the ”passive, hapless sheeple’ comment from the writer. If you were a frog in a pot of water, the heat has just been turned up. It’s time to get out. If you’re not a frog, then it’s time to speak up.
The hemisphere’s idiot, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, is not having a good week. According to all the government controlled media hype about Chavez’s special 10th anniversary Chavez-a-thon, the planned 4-day TV special was quietly and mysteriously cut in half.
For the second consecutive day, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has cancelled his TV show Alo Presidente. In the end, his four-day TV anniversary extravaganza was reduced to a handful of transmissions over just two days.
And on an unrelated related matter, have you noticed fewer Citgo gas stations around town? Hip Hip Horay! One can only hope that the Citgo employees are able to find employment at a real American oil company.
Hardin, Montana, A Place To Hold Guantanamo Terrorists
Never mind the mis-use of the ‘redneck‘ moniker, but you have to consider the source. The British media apparently is confused between the ‘wild west’ and rednecks. On the flip-side, would you have known of this if it weren’t for the foreign media? That aside, there is a town in America that wants to keep the detainees in their new prison, which is vacant. What?
I’d much prefer that GITMO and its residents stay right where they are. However, the idea of solving a logistical problem and providing an economic stimulus in one fell swoop does sound interesting.
Sonia Sotomayor’s life story is one thing. It’s a picture perfect American success story. That is, in the America that she grew up in.
Take away the liberal heart-string tugging of her life’s story as a qualification to the Supreme Court, and what you have is a judge whose decisions have been overturned 60% of the time. A judge that upheld racial discrimination in a case now in the Supreme Court, where it is anticipated she will be overturned again.
It is not right-wing spin to say that her version of justice is not ‘blind.’ It’s just that you won’t see it put that way in the mainstream media. An automatic dis-qualifier for anywhere in the judiciary, let alone the Supreme Court.
President Obama picked an ideological soulmate with his nomination of Sonia Sotomayor. His idea of the U.S. Constitution seems to be in line with hers. Being overturned 60% of the time turns out to be a resume enhancement for an Obama Supreme Court nominee.
Which begs the question. Will future generations of Americans have the same opportunities that she had in an Obama-remade America?
So goes the position of the United Nations, at least as far as the United States is concerned. Reacting to North Korea’s third nuclear bomb test after several missile tests including another missile test today, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice said . . .
If North Korea’s leaders continue to act provocatively, “they’re going to find that they will pay a price, because the international community is very clear: This is not acceptable. It won’t be tolerated, and they won’t be intimidated,”
Rice said the United States would pursue within the U.N. Security Council a new resolution on North Korea, “a strong resolution with teeth.”
{emphasis added}
Well, it seems we are intimidated. Does this mean that the first three nuclear bombs are free? And when Kim Jong Il does it again, then what? Meanwhile the President wants to scale back our missile defense program. Is this the part that Vice President Joe Biden was talking about after the election, that Obama would be tested soon and hey, we might make the wrong decision. But hang in there will ya? We love you man. What?
SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea warned South Korea and the United States on Wednesday that Seoul’s participation in a U.S.-led program to intercept ships suspected of carrying weapons of mass destruction is equal to a declaration of war.
Biden’s remarks made the transition from campaign promises and speeches to a bit of the real world before being sworn in. Planned or not. I don’t know about you but he didn’t do anything for me that said that either he or Obama had a clue in dealing with the world’s worst and most dangerous dictators. Take the U.S. World Apology Tour 2009 for example.
There’s two ways to look at this. Is no decision better than the wrong decision? And, how many ‘free lives’ do they get?
Nearly a month ago, April 29th, President Obama held his second televised press conference marking his first 100 days. There were thirteen questions given and answered.
What surprised me, well not really, was how challenging the press conference really was. It was anything but challenging.
One question was most penetrating ‘what has surprised, troubled, enchanted, and humbled you about the Oval Office?’
Another was about Chrysler Corporation.
Is bankruptcy the only option for Chrysler, and what about plant closings announced by GM? Obama says he’s more hopeful now than a month ago that there will be a deal that “maintains a viable Chrysler auto company.”
In less than a month, look at the difference between what he said then and what he has done to Chrysler, their secured creditors, and the UAW.
What is noteworthy about this press conference is what the President was not asked.
The country is currently in an economic upheaval. Hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars have been spent on turning the economy around. After all that ‘economic stimulus,’ why is the GDP shrinking and is it a sign that the stimulus is not working? Was Not Asked!
The fact that you inherited a national debt to the tune of $1.3 trillion dollars when you took office 100 days ago, and have made the case that that kind of debt is the wrong path for the country, how is it that increasing that debt to over $10 trillion dollars in ten years is the right path for the country? Was Not Asked!
Judging from criticisms of the previous administration for more than doubling the size of government spending and government bureaucracy, how will a budget four times that size and with 8,000 plus earmarks in it help our economic recovery? Was Not Asked!
Health care is a hot political issue and an important part of your presidential campaign platform. Beyond the list of problems of health care in general, what is your national health care plan and how does it differ from that which Secretary Clinton tried in the early 90’s? Was Not Asked!
For this being only his second press conference, with so much that has happened since his last one, do you think that the media lived up to its ‘watchdog’ status? Is the media serving you well when out of 13 questions posed, none of them included the four most obvious ones?
On May 21, 2009, former vice president Richard B. Cheney, a member of the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research and a member of their Board of Trustees, spoke at AEI on the serious and ongoing threat terrorism poses to the United States. He also answers the criticism being levied upon the country and the Bush administration by President Obama over the prosecution of the war on terror. Even to the point of criminalizing the prosecution of it.
How history repeats itself. Didn’t we see what happens when political opposition becomes a criminal offense in the last century?
I haven’t seen his speech elsewhere in the media, outside of 10 second sound bites, so here it is below.
‘It is recklessness cloaked in righteousness, and would make the American people less safe.’
‘Critics of our policies are given to lecturing on the theme of being consistent with American values. But no moral value held dear by the American people obliges public servants ever to sacrifice innocent lives to spare a captured terrorist from unpleasant things. And when an entire population is targeted by a terror network, nothing is more consistent with American values than to stop them.’
‘Some members of Congress are notorious for demanding they be briefed into the most sensitive intelligence programs. They support them in private, and then head for the hills at the first sign of controversy. As far as the interrogations are concerned, all that remains an official secret is the information we gained as a result. Some of his defenders say the unseen memos are inconclusive, which only raises the question why they won’t let the American people decide that for themselves.
I believe this information will confirm the value of interrogations–and I am not alone. President Obama’s own Director of National Intelligence, Admiral Blair, has put it this way: “High value information came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the al-Qaeda organization that was attacking this country.” End quote. Admiral Blair put that conclusion in writing, only to see it mysteriously deleted in a later version released by the administration–the missing twenty-six words that tell an inconvenient truth. But they couldn’t change the words of George Tenet, the CIA Director under Presidents Clinton and Bush, who bluntly said: “I know that this program has saved lives. I know we’ve disrupted plots. I know this program alone is worth more than the FBI, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Agency put together have been able to tell us.”
If Americans do get the chance to learn what our country was spared, it’ll do more than clarify the urgency and the rightness of enhanced interrogations in the years after 9/11. It may help us to stay focused on dangers that have not gone away. Instead of idly debating which political opponents to prosecute and punish, our attention will return to where it belongs–on the continuing threat of terrorist violence, and on stopping the men who are planning it.’
VP Cheney’s daughter, Liz Cheney, speaks to the issue as raised by President Obama. ‘He has a Sept. 10th mentality.’
Latest budget deficit total for California now is $24 billion. I don’t know how this got out, it is from AP, but it is also over 50% correct in why California is where it is today. Writer Juliet Williams says . . .
The gap has two primary causes: The state has been living beyond its means for years by spending generously on all sorts of programs that the voters, the politicians and the special interests wanted. And the recession has hammered California’s economy.
As one industry after another becomes a target for government intervention by an administration that sees nothing wrong with that, could states be far behind? But that’s beside the point. The point is, you can expect the same results nationally to the administration’s economic model as what California is facing today with theirs. Only worse.
There’s a lot of truth to the lore that as California goes, so goes the nation. I’m old enough to remember when the bikini came out in Hollywood and on California’s beaches. That was good. Liberating. Just ask any teenage boy.
As for the ‘over 50% correct’ comment. Williams errs by putting the voters first, when in reality it should be last, after politicians and special interests.
It was California voters that tried on many occasions to reign in Sacramento’s feelgood spending. And it was the 9th Circus Court of Appeals that overturned the voters time after time, in favor of politicians and special interests and against the voters. But blaming the voters, you know, those stupid voters, for not knowing whats best for them is, in this case, a deflection of guilt to the wrong party. On second thought, now I see why this article got out. Never miss an opportunity to blame the voters.
The ‘news‘ that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is making of herself over being briefed on CIA enhanced interrogation might seem to you like this is the first time you’ve heard of it. That’s because it is.
This issue came up in 2007 when the Democrats began turning up the heat on Bush and his ‘torture’ camp at Club Gitmo. And by turning up the heat, I mean politicizing the war effort. They have done the same in every area of the prosecution of the war including methods of espionage. The New York Times, the newspaper of choice for al Qaeda, took the pleasure in publishing how the NSA’s tracking of financial transactions were effective in locating and identifying terrorists.
Back then, the bullseye was Bush and Cheney. The media never mentioned the fact that Democrats in oversight positions, including Nancy Pelosi, then ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, also approved the same methods in 2002 that today she is calling torture.
Two years later, the media is giving it some notice only because Nancy Pelosi called the CIA liars. What has changed from 2007 to today? Barack Obama’s campaign was in full torture mode and running against Bush who, by the way, was not in the race. And that’s where the media put the ink. What else happened is that Obama beat out Hillary Clinton over war issues. By comparison, Hillary was a hawk. And Obama beat John McCain, Democrats’ favorite Republican.
Not on the basis of this one example, but in the cumulative, it could be argued that had the media done its job two years ago and reported on how Obama and Pelosi were politicizing the war, and did it every time he did so, we may have had ‘President Hillary Clinton’ today. Or the other democrat, McCain. But not Barack Obama.
More than one precedent was set on November 4th, 2008. The other one was the media’s successful campaign in picking the candidates for both sides and also in helping to elect Barack Obama. What happened was the media watchdog died. The media has assumed another role.
Reporting on California voters’ response to higher taxes and bigger government with a resounding NO yesterday, the arrogance of the LA Times just drips from the page. Try this for a headline.
It gets funnier, or worse, when they recount several attempts by Californians to govern themselves as ‘periodic voter revolts.’
Californians are well known for periodic voter revolts, but on Tuesday they did more than just lash out at Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Legislature over the state’s fiscal debacle.
By rejecting five budget measures, Californians also brought into stark relief the fact that they, too, share blame for the political dysfunction that has brought California to the brink of insolvency.
It is just a shame that the lack of respect for Californians that the LA Times demonstrates, and in such a politically biased way, will go unnoticed. Well, maybe except for their subscribers. They’ve noticed.
But have no fear. Or rather, maybe a little fear is healthy in the short term. The $21 billion question is, is California next on the bailout list? Should they be on the bailout list?
Belly up to the counter. Politics are on the menu and Ross is on the grill.
