Obama’s War On Religion–Updated Marco Rubio Rebels
Tuesday, January 31st, 2012
There’s some discomfort on the part of the more secular DC inhabitants both left and right with any pro-traditional values anything. Perhaps that’s why President Obama feels free to do this, as reported by Elizabeth Scalia:
There are questions as to whether HHS has authority to issue exemptions to Obamacare, although quite a few have been issued for reasons other than conscience. There appear to be no questions in the president’s mind, or in Secretary Sebelius’, that they have the authority to intrude on freedom of religion. With this ruling they insist that church-affiliated institutions either act against their own belief or so narrow the scope of their community service as to be removed from the public square; either way, the government is deliberately affecting the free exercise of religion. Considering some Catholic schools, hospitals and charities were serving their communities before the secular governments even thought to follow suit, that is a damnable, and damning, legacy for a president who once taught constitutional law.
If the culture war has seemed oblique to you or somehow irrelevant or perhaps a thing of the past, read Elizabeth’s post.
If you have wondered what Rick Perry was talking about and now, what Newt Gingrich has been decrying in Florida, read Elizabeth’s post.
If you give a crap at all about the idea of Freedom of Religion and the exercise of, even if you believe nothing, read Elizabeth’s post.
Ultimately, you serve a god–either the One who bestows inalienable rights or the state as run by the latest human flavor.
Unless you’re in the mood to serve Barack Obama and his grand vision, defend your rights to self-determination and worshiping in the way you see fit.
UPDATED:
Marco Rubio rebels against Obama’s regulations.
Bookworm calls the cultural divide a “gaping chasm”.
President Selfish: Obama Spends Christmas Golfing, Marines Can’t Be Home With Family
Monday, December 26th, 2011
President Obama might be the most selfish president ever. Instead of staying home with his family, President Obama had to go golfing on Christmas day.
Big deal, you say?
Well, the big deal is that a bunch of Marines had to work–blocking roads and doing other miscellaneous security detail–instead of being home with their families.
Here are some of the comments from the wives of these men. (I am not going to include the link to this page, nor am I going to include names, because I don’t want anyone in trouble. I do, however, have the screen shot and have copy and pasted the comments verbatim.)
“You also have to understand that, a lot of people were unable to get to their homes during Christmas Eve, Christmas and even today. That’s a major inconvenience for families trying to enjoy their holiday. Also all of those guys out there missed out on Christmas, leaving their wives and children at home alone so the President can play golf. It may not affect you, or be important to you, but to the families affected it’s a sensitive subject and frankly I feel that people are allowed to be upset by that. You are entitled to your own opinion, but you really should consider expressing your opinion in a different way. Cursing and calling people names isn’t respectable.”
“Because he’s here, I didn’t get to see my husband all weekend, on our baby girl’s first Christmas, so he can have his vacation. So when I can’t get to my house because he wants to play golf it just adds insult to injury and yeah, gets on my nerves. I agree that it’s a sensitive subject for some of us who are more effected by his being here.”
“I was so angry! They blocked off my driveway… -_-”
“It takes him forever to play too because he isn’t good at it either lol!”
“hahahahahahaha i hate when hes here. last year her and the kids where at the big park (which is across from my house) and i couldnt even turn onto mokapu! they wouldnt let you walk over either! i actually feel really bad for the kids”
There are more where this came from, but these comments captured the general mood. There were also a few “rah rah Obama” defenders such as this:
“This ish is really make’n me mad!!! U want 2 vent about the President being here just STFU!!! This is my 1st duty station and I’m happy 2 b in the prescence of a PRESIDENT!!!! So 4 all of u who don’t care do the 1′s who do care a Favor and STFU!!!! Thanks I’m Done!!! Vent That!
. BTW its ur husbands job 2 patrol and block!!! Hello, that’s what they’re paid 4 incase some of u wives 4got!!!!”
So, basically, the President ruins the Christmas of some Marines so he can play golf on the military base which causes a complete shut down around the base around Christmas.
President Obama seems to have no class and no empathy for those working around him. Unlike President Bush, who took the secret services’ needs into account, President Obama, his royal wife and the royal family go to Hawaii. This makes the lives difficult of the secret service.
And as the above demonstrates, the Marines in Hawaii and their families are deprived of Christmas, too.
President Obama is President Selfish. Shameful.
America, Waiting
Wednesday, November 30th, 2011
Chart from Jim Pethokoukis of AEI.
America faces an unprecedented debt crisis, true. What is not conventional wisdom is that America could face renewed, even unprecedented, greatness if a decent leader comes forward.
Given that the Republican party seems incapable of getting its collective crap together, that scenario seems unlikely, though.
Businesses are, at this point, forcing themselves to not grow. They are unwilling to take on more risk. They’re keeping cash on hand. They’re paying down debt. They’re waiting.
Individuals are doing the same. Part of it is that they don’t qualify for credit even if they wanted it. Part of it is that they don’t want it.
Still, this unrealized creation and growth waits for the right catalyst.
Obama, is not a catalyst. Quite the contrary, he’s an inhibitor. Hell, he antagonizes any growth potential.
Obama’s actions are so frustrating to expansion that even apathetic business people are paying attention. Usually business folks lobby hard for their interests–they win some, they lose some and they work around the bureaucracy and incorporate the rules and regulations and taxes and fees into the cost of doing business. Not so now. Everyone can thank Obama for being so persecutorial rhetorically and prosecutorial policy-wise, businesses are being put out of business. That’s attention-getting.
The business world is now in open rebellion. Screw you, Obama, we’ll just not spend any money, period. Zilch. The cozy win-win we had going on is over. Sure, we’ll throw some money at you on the outside chance you get re-elected–we don’t want to be the subject of your direct ire. Instead, we’ll do just enough to get by everywhere.
A couple things about this:
America should never be so beholden to the executive branch that one person can do so much damage to the economy. And yet, here we are, and business is mostly to blame. By lobbying tirelessly for the government’s favor and selling their souls (Walmart and the AARP’s obsequious deference on Obamacare comes to mind) to obtain that favor, business leaders find out [surprise!] that’s what’s given can be taken away. Obama has been busily taking away or threatening to do so.
Businesses can afford to lobby the government, but the individual has been marginalized. Businesses were totally fine with that so long as individuals could still afford to buy their wares. Nothing like a long, deep recession to drive home the point that poor people don’t buy stuff.
So, while the cozy relationship benefits businesses for a while, eventually, people have to be forced to buy stuff and people resist being forced to buy stuff (see also really expensive light bulbs). So they just stop buying stuff they don’t want (see also solar panels and the Chevy volt.) And those businesses, warmed by the loving embrace of government tax breaks, bailouts and inducements find themselves screwed. No one wants expensive, useless crap. It’s bad enough when it’s cheap. But the stuff the government touches gets very expensive.
So the individual revolts, too. He stops buying. And if the government creates perverse economic incentives long enough, he loses his job and can’t buy stuff.
And that’s where were at in America.
America is profoundly in debt. America is jobless. America is sitting on the capital it does have.
Obama is making everything worse.
And yet, America is primed for some success–if the GOP can muster something. A steady hand, reduced government interference, positive rhetoric, assurances that businesses aren’t going to be raked over the coals (or given an unfair advantage either), etc.
In a word: growth.
That requires political change and a person willing to articulate a sunny, hopeful message to encourage growth but willing to make some tough decisions–i.e. cut government spending.
More on why this is not likely to happen in the next post.
The Suits They Love: Jim Nelson And Jennifer Rubin Will Choose For You
Friday, October 28th, 2011
Conservative bloggers outside of the Beltway have been hopping mad at Jennifer Rubin, ostensible conservative journalist (née blogger), for what they perceive as shameless bias against conservatives and conservatism.
Politico wrote a story about her obsessive anti-Rick Perry writing (60 columns!) and apparent coziness with the Romney team.
When Redstate blogger and CNN commentator Erick Erickson noted that he didn’t think Rubin was conservative and likened her political bent to being a member of Likud, the Israeli political party, Rubinfired back:
“You want a Washington Post journalist to comment on an anti-Semitic screed by some blogger?” Rubin asked. “My arms are not long enough to punch down that far.”
This response was giggle-worthy —for a couple of reasons. The smug self-importance while throwing the victim card while, um, punching down, reinforced criticisms rather than countering them.
Erickson went on to apologize for insensitivity, saying he intended the Likud comparison as political shorthand for Rubin’s positions (meaning that she’s good on national security and terror but not much else), not as loyalty to Israel over America.
Jeff Duntz, conservative Jewish blogger at Yid With A Lid would have none of it, “Erick is not the most subtle person around. If he were to make a charge of dual loyalty, the reader would be hit over the head with it.”
He goes further, “..maybe to the readers of the very liberal Washington Post she is a conservative, but to the rest of us conservatives she is nothing more than an arrogant ‘not conservative blogger’ who is not a big fan of either conservatives or bloggers.”
And yet, many of her beltway conservative media friends closed ranks. The defense? They know her. She’s nice.
And while it’s probably true that she’s a nice person, it doesn’t quite address the central criticism: that she’s biased against the conservative cause.
But more on that in a minute.
Last night, a fuming friend presented me a hastily torn out Letter from the Editor from G.Q. Magazine. The editor, Jim Nelson, a former CNN news producer and failed screenwriter vented his overworked spleen against…you guessed it, Rick Perry.
His paragraphs were long and convoluted–the kind of writing you’d expect from someone who has trouble finding the keyboard keys because the anger-induced adrenalin surge would be better suited to outrunning a bear. In this case, Jim Nelson was afraid he couldn’t outrun alpha-male Rick Perry. He’s the bogeyman and he’s coming to get meeee! Here’s a sample:
But I imagine that, come primary time, a lot of GOP voters, hoping to extend a middle finger to Washington, will find that fat little finger in Perry’s hand. Is he crazy? Who isn’t these days? Those throw-the-bums-outers will love Perry’s brand of craziness. He’s like Ron Paul without the diapers.
There’s more where that came from. Michele Bachmann isn’t spared, nor is nearly every mainstream American, forget conservative, idea: Boy Scouting is good, repealing Obamacare is wanted, the Commerce Clause is abused, etc.
Nelson edits a male fashion and lifestyle magazine, and has decided to go down the Graydon Carter road of mistaking his audience for people who care about his leftist opinion about the Republican primary contenders. Here’s the demographics:
TOTAL AUDIENCE: 6,612,000
Median Age: 34.3
Age 18-49: 82%
Median HHI: $72,738
HHI $100,000+: 31%
Gender: Male 73%/Female 27%
Education: Attended/Graduated College+ 70%
Employment Status: Professional 50%
Marital Status: Single 63%/Married 37%Source: MRI Spring 2011
PROFILE OF AFFLUENT AUDIENCE:
Median Age: 39.9
Median HHI: $157,606
Gender: Male 82%/Female 18%
Education: Attended/Graduated College+ 83%
Employment Status: Professional 70%
Marital Status: Single 38%/Married 62%Source: MMR 2011
Any guess how this demographic votes? Yeah. It’s no wonder print media of all sorts is losing readership. If the fury I witnessed is any indication, the magazine has lost another subscriber.
Jennifer Rubin writes for the Washington Post. She replaced Dave Weigel, the self-admitted non-conservative who voted for Nader, Kerry, and Obama, in that order. Before going to the WaPo, Jennifer wrote many places but found one of her homes at Pajamas Media, where I also wrote, and sometimes write. Her writing there was fair, and more importantly, balanced.
Conservatives who read her work now wonder why a conservative writer at the WaPo is needed at all—at least a conservative like this one. Far from being a haven of conservative thought, Rubin’s columns are informed by the same fundamental worldview as her liberal compatriots at the newspaper, like Greg Sargent and Ezra Klein—the same worldview which permeates the pages of the Post every day. Call it the “big city mayor” approach to government—or even the Big Brother approach.
To summarize: Government is a benevolent force, lead by intelligent people who will find solutions for the folks who don’t know better.
Unabashedly conservative politicians—particularly those who come from rural, southern, or western backgrounds—provoke panic for people with this worldview.
Whenever pundits like Jim Nelson or Jennifer Rubin start to lose it over the rugged individualistic, common sense, rather straight-forward, red-white-and-blue American ethic espoused by someone like Rick Perry, the movie Talladega Nights comes to my mind. Nearly every stereotype of the middle American bumpkin was thrown into that movie. And yet, the movie was a smash hit. Middle Americans, as it turns out, have a sense of humor about themselves.
What Hollywood meant as scorn, the viewers embraced. The jokes on them, smirk those in the know. If numbers mean anything, and in electoral politics and movie theaters, they do, the exact opposite is true.
Unlike the media consumers, members of the Smartypants Set™ most certainly do not have a sense of humor–unless you consider unironic allusions to being the 1% like New York University professor Jay Rosen made while being taped during his journalism class humor. Well. He thought he was funny.
Sensibility saviors and cultural vanguards take their role as gatekeepers for the ignorant masses deadly seriously. And a guy like Rick Perry and all the state-college-educated, gun-toting, Air Force-flying, Bible-loving, NASCAR watching, baseness sticks in the craw of the Smartypants Set™.
They are, as candidate Obama noted, “bitter clingers.” They just won’t let go of their cherished American traditions.
The common people, “provincial” as Jennifer Rubin described Perry, embarrass them. In the end, it’s all about how they feel. And being lead by a commoner, even a highly successful one, does not suit.
So, Jim Nelson has Barack Obama—suave, urbane and best of all, he knows how to wear a suit. And Jennifer Rubin has Mitt Romney—suave, urbane, and best of all, he knows how to wear a suit.
It doesn’t matter if the suit is empty or the suit isn’t conservative. The point is, these people don’t make the cultural elites uncomfortable. They are their people. They speak a language that resonates with news editors and commentators and even Washington Post bloggers journalists.
Increasingly, and regretfully, it’s a language not spoken anywhere but in the cloisters of Higher Ed and newsrooms and Hollywood and worst of all, Congress. It’s uniform, uninformed and anything but inclusive. There’s little diversity of thought, if any, and the unifying theme is “We know better than you.”
The tenor of the language is getting increasingly shrill and hysterical.
Jim Nelson’s screed was ill-thought out and tinged with paranoia.
Jennifer Rubin’s repeated bashing has become strangely personal. In her case, the willingness to print every spurious rumor as fact as long as it maligns Rick Perry (while ignoring nearly every other Republican candidate) is neither very objective nor very journalistic–well, not in the romantic journalist-as-objective-reporter nonsense she ascribes to.
Jay Rosen and Clay Shirky New York University journalism professors, and in Shirky’s case, a consultant to the New York Times spoke of how the New York Times created Barack Obama. Together they gloated and spoke of Chardonnay and shaping the news to diminish conservatives and elevate liberals.
Here’s the real takeaway: The media is neither objective nor in touch with the culture they seek to shape. They, like Obama, believe America, and especially conservative America, is fundamentally flawed. They don’t see a distinction between your average evangelical churchgoer and a snake-handler. They seek to poison the well for any politician or person espousing conservative ideology even in the face of the abject failure of their own.
This worldview is detached, egotistic and condescending. And as long as people who ascribe to it are allowed to dictate who is an acceptable leader and who isn’t, we’ll always end up with empty suits.
Updated already:
Here’s Jennifer Rubin’s latest.
Mitt Romney’s “Green Quarterback” Gina McCarthy Killing Business At Obama’s EPA
Monday, October 24th, 2011
Mitt Romney’s connections to the Obama administration extend beyond setting the framework for Obamacare. Turns out that one of the directors of the EPA choking the life out of business right now, was Mitt Romney’s “Green Quarterback.” National Journal has more:
EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson has taken most of the fire from Republicans as her agency rolls out a slew of controversial new climate and clean air rules. But McCarthy, the EPA assistant administrator of the Office of Air and Radiation, has taken on much of the heavy lifting of writing, structuring, and implementing the rules.
“Lisa’s the coach and Gina’s the quarterback” in the work of rolling out new clean air regulations, said Daniel Weiss, an energy and climate policy expert at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank with close ties to the Obama administration. “She’s running the plays, improvising on the line.”
McCarthy is meeting behind the scenes with coal CEOs, lawmakers, and state and federal officials to lay the groundwork for the new rules and make sure they’re put in place. She’s making sure the clean air legal language is written in a way that’s robust and airtight, in order to have the biggest impact on cutting pollution, with no loopholes. She’s testifying to Congress, making the case as to why the rules should be implemented, despite a fusillade of political attacks.
The environmentalists love her job-killing policies. Former Democrat Massachusetts liberal Governor Mitt Romney loved her, too. And yet, here’s what she’s doing right now, according to AmericasPower.org :
As the U.S. House of Representatives prepares to vote on the TRAIN Act, the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, today, released a comprehensive analysis conducted by National Economic Research Associates (NERA) showing that several of EPA’s new and proposed regulations would lead to 183,000 lost jobs per year and significant increases in the price of electricity and natural gas.
“America’s coal-fueled electric industry has invested nearly $100 billion, so far, to achieve impressive reductions in air pollution. Now is the wrong time for EPA to blindly push ahead without even pausing long enough to understand how all of these rules could hurt American jobs and consumers,” said Steve Miller, president and CEO of ACCCE.
The analysis, done on behalf of ACCCE by NERA, relies on state-of-the-art modeling tools, as well as government data for almost all of its assumptions. NERA’s analysis projects that EPA’s Cross-State Air Pollution Rule and proposed Maximum Achievable Control Technology, coal combustion residuals, and cooling water intake requirements for power plants would, over the 2012-2020 period:
• Cost the power industry $21 billion per year;
• Cause an average loss of 183,000 jobs per year;
• Increase electricity costs by double digits in many regions of the U.S.;
• Cost consumers over $50 billion more for natural gas; and
• Reduce the disposable income of the average American family by $270 a year.
Does Lisa McCarthy care about jobs? Does the Obama administration? Does Mitt Romney? Evidently not:
Gina McCarthy, assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation, said the Obama administration has faced “a backlog of rulemakings” that weren’t implemented on time or were overturned by the courts.
The agency recently finalized its Cross-State Air Pollution Rule to replace a George W. Bush-era rule that a federal court struck down in 2008. And the Utility MACT rule for reducing toxic emissions from power plants has been in the works for 20 years, she said.
Ever the bureaucrat, she’s going to press on with job-killing regulations.
Here’s the thing: We expect this kind of destructive behavior from Democrats. There isn’t a regulation that they’ve met that they don’t like (oh wait, I take that back, they don’t like regulations making abortion clinics comply with minimal doctor’s office standards).
It’s disgraceful, though, how seamlessly bureaucrats from Mitt Romney’s administration mesh into Barack Obama’s administration. Barack Obama. Think about that. The most liberal, big government Democrat since Jimmy Carter and Mitt Romney’s advisors work for him.
Mitt Romney Is Not The One
Wednesday, October 12th, 2011
I’ve disagreed with voters, both GOP, Dem, and Independent a lot recently. There’s kind of an axiom that the voter, like the consumer, is always right. Give him what he wants. What the voter wanted was John McCain and then, Barack Obama. We can see how that worked out. Can we admit those voters were wrong?
Right now, a chunk of the GOP primary voters want Mitt Romney. Like John McCain, nobody really wants wants Mitt Romney, they just fear that the media is right and that he would be electable.
In 2008, I felt that John McCain was wholly unelectable, that it would be a laborious, futile, uphill slog. Many of my DC friends vehemently disagreed with me. I feel the same about Mitt Romney. Yes, even against the Carteresque Obama, Romney would be weak.
At the GOP Fox/Google debate, I had an eerily reminiscent discussion with another DC GOP friend about Mitt Romney. What’s wrong with him? Well, nothing, if you’re a DC, big-government Republican. Mitt Romney is awesome if you secretly buy all the media’s premises about Republicans: That they’re heartless, gun-crazy, Bible-thumping, science-hating, economically stupid cretins who can barely find their way out of their sad middle-class existence to get to their sad middle-class jobs doing sad middle-class tasks. Ew. I mean, like, really.
The Meghan McCain incoherent diatribes about her fellow Republicans are really repackaged versions of what Peggy Noonan, and often, Charles Krauthammer think. Those conservatives! So gauche! (Except Meghan McCain doesn’t know what the word gauche means.)
These are also the same people who couldn’t find a bad words to say about Barack Obama. The media, the left, the independents and the big government Republicans loved Barack Obama. Meanwhile, conservatives saw an incompetent. But he was clean and articulate!
So now, the people who were wrong all ways in the last election are trying to push the GOP cart in the Mitt Romney direction.
Mitt Romney neutralizes every Obama criticism. TARP? Both for it. Gun control? Both for it. Stimulus? Both for it. Obamacare? Romney’s staff helped Obama’s staff to craft the legislation based on the Massachusetts model. How, pray tell, is Mitt Romney, silver-tongued as he is, going to debate Barack Obama and not sound completely inauthentic. Remember the flaccid McCain responses to Obama? Expect those.
Ironically, I felt that Romney would have had more of a chance in 2008 than now. He would have been a better candidate against the untested Obama. Not now. The Republican party has changed. America has changed. Massachusetts and the country struggles under the weight of big government “solutions” that have done nothing so much as added debt to the next generation. When looking back and forth between Obama and Romney, it’s a matter of worse and worser.
Here’s something I find distressing, too, while we’re on the subject. Commentators on the left are clearly riding on the Obama bandwagon. They chose him over Hillary. They enthused about him. On the right, commentators try to be value neutral, as though any candidate would be great. Some seem to just want to be able to say when the Republican fails (and since they’re human they all will), “I told you so.”
We’re not in “I told you so” territory here. We’re in “America is about to go off a cliff” territory. This is no time to enjoying the sport of politics. Or is cynicism called for? Do some on my side believe we’re so far gone that it won’t matter who gets elected? They’re all so bad that the best we can do is criticize the descent?
Well, I’m not to that point which is why I won’t concede to Mitt Romney. Someone told me that Rudy Giuliani was way ahead at this point in 2008. There is still time. And that gives me hope. Because Mitt Romney is a flawed, weak candidate. The GOP can do better.
The country needs better.
Israel: America’s Friendship And Obama’s Antipathy
Tuesday, September 20th, 2011President Obama began his relationship with Israel by having President Benjamin Netanyahu walk out the back door of the White House past the trash. It got worse from there. At the AIPAC speech, President Obama told the Jewish audience that he saw an Israel with redrawn, and suicidally indefensible, lines. He liked the Israel pre-1967.
Finally, some Jews have had it.
In NY-9, a mostly conservative Jewish enclave in Brooklyn that voted reliably Democrat all the way back to the 1920s, just fell to the Republicans in a special election. Jews were eager to vote against the Democrats. And Obama.
Does this spell the demise of the left’s historical relationship with American Jews? Maybe. Please listen to Evan Pokroy go through the history of the American – Israel relationship and the changing landscape of Judaism and the conservative movement in America. I found his perspective fascinating.
This topic takes on added significance as Republican presidential hopefuls like Rick Perry sponsor events to woo Jewish voters. American conservatives are staunchly pro-Israel.
Please listen to Evan share his thoughts with me!
Link to the podcast here. Please subscribe to my weekly podcast at iTunes here.
Can We All Dispense With The Civility Sham Now? Obama Buddy Hoffa
Tuesday, September 6th, 2011
Jimmy Hoffa, Jr. lifted the Democrat rock and look what slithers out! Why, the very same liberal hacks who decried the lack of civility while accusing an innocent woman of being the cause of a congresswoman’s attempted murder. Also slithering: President Obama.
No reason to belabor the point: The Democrats want civility like they want a living wage. These words are so much sugary frosting on the dung pile of their By-Any-Means-Necessary actions. Videogame where you can kill Tea Partiers? As long as it serves the desired end.
Liberals want you to shut up. They want to shame you. They’ll call you a racist, sexist, bigoted, etc. They want conservatives to be in a speech straight-jacket.
Political correctness is all about silencing people who believe differently than leftists.
So, Hoffa said what they all believe:
“We got to keep an eye on the battle that we face: The war on workers. And you see it everywhere, it is the Tea Party. And you know, there is only one way to beat and win that war. The one thing about working people is we like a good fight. And you know what? They’ve got a war, they got a war with us and there’s only going to be one winner. It’s going to be the workers of Michigan, and America. We’re going to win that war,” Hoffa told thousands of workers gathered for the annual Labor Day rally.
“President Obama, this is your army. We are ready to march… Everybody here’s got a vote…Let’s take these sons of bitches out and give America back to an America where we belong,” he concluded.
Watch Jay Carney justify this nonsense here:
So, here’s to the new civility! May it be honest and politically incorrect!
Free speech means that Hoffa Jr. can be a screaming jerk. I say, bring on the speech. Let the world know who you are leftists. Reveal yourselves as spitting, vile thugs you are when let go.
President Obama, in his fork-tongued praise of Hoffa just lets us all know the truth: That he’s not for civility at all. He’s for silencing critics.
Remember, President Obama was a community organizer. Giving incendiary speeches, threatening folks and shaking down businesses is the Chicago way, the Teamsters’ way, the leftist way, his way.
Sorry, lefties, Americans refuse to be silent. And guess what, we look forward to the battle. Metaphorically speaking, of course.
More civility here.
Is The Health Care Fight Obscuring A Criminal Cover-Up In The Obama White House?
Thursday, March 18th, 2010Great investigative journalism by The American Spectator’s Jeffrey Lord:
Even as the drama of health care carries the headlines, beneath the surface, visible now, the iceberg of scandal ripples.
First, the timeline on the blossoming scandal upon which we will now officially fix the dreaded “gate” descriptive. Jobsgate.
• September 27, 2009 — The Denver Post reports that Obama White House Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina allegedly offered a job in the Obama administration to ex-Colorado House Speaker Andrew Romanoff if Romanoff dropped his planned primary challenge to incumbent U.S. Senator Michael Bennet. Romanoff refuses comment and runs anyway.
• February 18, 2010 — Philadelphia TV anchor Larry Kane reports that on his just taped Comcast show, he had asked Democratic Congressman Joe Sestak, who is challenging incumbent Senator Arlen Specter whether it was true that the Obama administration had offered Sestak a job if he would withdraw from his primary challenge to Specter. Sestak answers “yes,” specifically saying the offer came from someone in the White House and that he, Sestak, turned down the offer. Sestak refuses to name who it was that made the offer. Two hours later, Kane calls the White House, plays them the tape, and asks for comment. The White House never calls him back.
Lord continues…explaining why Holder’s Justice Department might not be investigating:
One former high-ranking Justice Department official, after telling me that there were indeed problems with the Department’s silence on this issue, said that in the current political climate at the Holder-run Justice Department, any Justice official who sought to go to Holder with thoughts of investigating Messina or his boss Rahm Emanuel or anyone else in the White House would have to have “brass balls.” A colorful way of saying that Justice Department officials are being intimidated from pursuing the truth, no matter where it leads. Let’s go back to Congressman Darrell Issa.
Issa has stepped up to the plate and sent his letter to White House Counsel Bauer, who now holds the job in the legal precincts of the White House one frequented by Nixon’s John Dean. Bauer, it should be noted, is the husband of now-departed Glenn Beck foil Anita Dunn, briefly the Obama White House Communications Director. Bauer and Dunn have been featured in Newsweek as one of ten “global power couples,” ranking them alongside — honest — Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, Bill and Hillary, Beyonce and Jay Z, and Nestor Kirchner and Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, Argentina’s back-to-back presidents. All of which means, according to Newsweek, the Bauer/Dunn power-combo has power, lots of it. The Congressman has formally requested an answer to his letter — from Bauer — by March 18.
And here are the implications [I hope you'll go read the whole thing. The story is damning.]
If in fact Sestak is telling the truth, if in fact the Denver Post story about Andrew Romanoff is correct — and neither Sestak nor Romanoff reported these offers to federal authorities — Specter is saying both could in fact do jail time for committing a felony.
Even more remarkable is to comprehend why Robert Gibbs may now be standing at that White House podium five different times and refusing to answer questions from Jake Tapper and Major Garrett. If Sestak has told the truth, if the Denver Post got it right — then not only is the person or persons within the White House who made these job offers in big trouble, but anybody else on the Obama White House staff who currently knows this has happened and has not reported it to the proper authorities — the FBI, just for starters — is, according to Specter, a potential prosecution target for “misprision of a felony.” For which this person or persons could also go to jail along with whomever offered the jobs in the first place.
Quite possibly, that could include Robert Gibbs, if in fact he knows these job offers occurred.
So, keep an eye on this story guys. The President and his staff could be in big trouble. This administration is laughable on transparency. What a disgusting mess.
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President Obama Again Challenged By A Citizen: Ingrid Martin Plays Joe the Plumber
Tuesday, March 16th, 2010Matt Lewis gets the exclusive story. Setting: Townhall, Somewhereville, America. Mood: Stacked crowd…except for this lady. Here’s what happened:
Martin said she opposes Obama’s health care plan for philosophical, not parochial reasons, and after his speech, she caught the president’s attention.
“I didn’t clap and I didn’t smile, and I just sort of held firm to my beliefs and held my tongue so I didn’t get into any trouble,” she recalled. “And I think that, being in the front row, he noticed that because when he came down off the stairs and started shaking hands, when he got to me, he said, ‘Thanks for coming,’ and he looked at me and said, ‘Are you okay?’ And I said, ‘Yes sir, I just don’t support your bill’.”
Ingrid Martin said she then entered into about a 2-minute-long debate reminiscent of Obama’s meeting with another Ohioan, Joe Wurzelbacher (a.k.a. “Joe the Plumber“), telling him she worries about the long-term implications of his sweeping legislation. She told the president he was focused on insurance reform, as opposed to the rising cost of health care, which she believes to be the fundamental problem. Martin stressed her view of the need for tort reform. She also noted: “He said things like, ‘Medicare is not going to be affected by this bill,’ which is not right.”
When Obama said that his bill addressed her concerns, “I just kind of shook my head and said, ‘I don’t believe it does’ — oh my gosh, I’m calling the president a liar,” she added with a nervous laugh. Obama then took Martin’s business card and promised to send her information on the bill. While she was not persuaded to change her mind and support Obama’s policy, she was impressed with him for engaging her. “He took the time to stop and listen, which I appreciated,” she said.
Matt has much more at the link.
Why is it that common citizens are the ones asking these tough questions and bringing up the obvious?
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