Quick Hits - March 23, 2012

While the Romney Communication Director's comments referencing an 'etch-a-sketch' reboot of the campaign from a primary focus to a general election focus if Romney is the nominee will reverberate throughout DNC and Obama Campaign adverts this fall, the real harsh blow to the efforts of the GOP to capture the White House in November came from GOP candidate Rick Santorum yesterday when he said 'if Mitt Romney is the GOP nominee voters won't have a clear enough choice and 'we might as well stay with what we have''...

While the candidate is walking back his statements, the damage is already done. 

Any possible consideration that I could give towards a Santorum campaign is over....just as it is with Newt Gingrich's scorched earth ego driven vendetta against Mitt Romney.  It's beyond asinine to think that any of the GOP candidates, with the exception of Ron Paul, would be as bad as Barack Obama when it came to leadership.  For Santorum to crankily put his own ego and arrogance before the best interests of the party provide a telling insight into his real lack of character particularly when one is trying to gain the nomination and support of that party.

What does it say about our political class when far too many of them, along with the chattering nimrods in the mainstream press, embrace a collection of traits like contempt, nihilism, narcissism, arrogance, egotism, conceit, self-absorption, haughtiness, and act supercilious while embracing an end justifies the means approach?

Here's an image for this campaign season about our President...

I personally think this one is a better fit....

Our President fits many of those traits - and reminds us of them on a nearly daily basis as he works to campaign for reelection this fall.

Remember how the mainstream media gushes over the President's rhetorical and oratory skills?  Here's a Danish program that takes a look at the President's rhetoric when he is dealing with foreign leaders - and certain recurring themes that the President leverages again, and again, and again, and again, and again....

Last weekend, during the panel discussion on Fox News Sunday, Senior Political Commentator Brit Hume made mention of one of the President's flaws when the discussion was about the Obama campaign film, 'The Road We've Traveled'...

Oops, no, sorry, not that one... this one....

“[Obama] will be judged [on] whether he finished and got us out of the ditches that we are in, in a number of ways, and I think that has to be what worries the president,” he continued. “And, of course, all the attempts to lay blame are politically foolish. They seem small, petty, weak. Winners take responsibility. Losers blame others.”

Yesterday, the President was busy pointing the finger of blame while at the campaign theatrical event in Cushing, Oklahoma and talking about his energy policies.  One was the President's attempt to spin the blame for the DoE energy loan program which has cost the taxpayer billions in lost dollars lent to now bankrupt alternative energy companies as personified by the Solyndra debacle ($537 million lost to a company owned by a major Obama campaign donor) on President Bush and Congressional Republicans and Democrats.

As the Washington Post Fact Checker noted, “We find it hard to believe that any reasonable person could interpret Obama’s remarks this week as anything but a distinct effort to put the blame for Solyndra in some one else’s pocket. The president should accept responsibility, not shirk it.”

But that is the President's standard operating procedure.  It's no different that his history of voting 'present' throughout much of his political career.  He, and his Administration, are never responsible for the problems or bad events - but they are always the one's responsible for the good events.

Question - If Solyndra was a success, is there any doubt that Obama would be taking credit for it today?

Why does the mainstream media assist the President in this manner? As Rush Limbaugh noted yesterday on his radio program...

...Headline from the Associated Press: "Obama Defends Handling of Keystone as He Puts Another Oil Pipeline on Fast Track." He's the obstacle! The American people know he's the obstacle! The media know that the people know that Obama's the obstacle.


Yet here's the AP! Folks, if I were you, I wouldn't believe a single word that I read in any AP story. I simply would regard it... I already do this. If I were you, I would regard every AP story, particularly this year, as nothing more than a propaganda piece for the reelection of Barack Obama. This is laughable: "Obama Defends Handling of Keystone as He Puts Another Oil Pipeline on Fast Track." Another! Another? When was the first one? He opposes Keystone! And what he did today -- we told you yesterday this is coming -- is already happening.


It was already in place.


He's not even authorizing anything that wasn't happening.

Self-aggrandizement?  You tell me...

President Obama claims that his Administration has 'added enough pipeline to encircle the earth and then some' in another excuse / misdirection over the battering he is taking on the feckless energy policies of his Administration.  Really?  That's the issue Mr. President?  How many miles of pipeline constructed is the measure for action to reduce our domestic energy prices?

Then we have the questions we have to ask about the electorate itself....

73% of Democrats in 2006 thought that President Bush could do something about high gas prices – only 33% of Democrats in 2012 think that President Obama can do something.


‘They’re probably right’

Can do or want to do?

Obama staffers were the one's who created the meme 'Leading from Behind' that fits the President so very well.  This morning we get another shining example of the President's leadership priorities. 

The United States has picked a public health expert of South Korean origin as its candidate for the World Bank presidency, a job emerging market economies are contesting for the first time.


President Barack Obama will nominate Jim Yong Kim, president of Dartmouth College in New Hampshire and former director of the Department of HIV/AIDS at the World Health Organization, a senior administration official said on Friday.

Yes, that's right.  He's nominated a public health expert to a role that has seen every predecessor have an economics or business background. Why? 

[Shaking head]

Two years ago today, President Obama signed into law, that big &%(*% deal known as Obamacare.

The legislation passed after being slammed through Congress without Republican support to Speaker Nancy Pelosi's promise ...

...and without 99% of the members of Congress reading the 2700 page monstrosity.  We were promised that the drastic healthcare reform that would put the healthcare industry, one sixth of our total economy, under the control of the Federal government, would create jobs, allow us to keep our current coverages if we wanted to, and not increase the national debt.

However, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office notes about Obamacare...

To recap, the CBO now predicts that Obamacare: 1) will force millions more Americans out of their current employer coverage than originally advertised; 2) will force millions more Americans onto Medicaid than originally advertised; 3) will force millions more Americans to pay fines for not obtaining health care; 4) will force businesses to pay billions more in mandate fines; and 5) will leave millions more Americans without insurance than originally advertised.

So how does the President plan to mark the anniversary of the signing of his landmark legislation effort...

President Obama has no plans to formally mark the anniversary.  His White House now is dodging claims made that the legislation would spur the economy.  His Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius also is busy trying to dodge questions about the bill now projected to cost $1.75 trillion over the next 10 years, the increasing of health premiums, the thousands of waivers given to the politically favored of the Obama Administration, and prefers to issue regulations eliminating religious freedom in this country.

On Monday the Supreme Court of the United States begins three days of oral arguments on the issue of the constitutionality of the Obamacare legislation - in particular the individual mandate aspect which requires all to purchase health insurance or pay a fine to the IRS for their failure to have health insurance coverage.  A lower court had ruled the individual mandate as unconstitutional - and unseverable from the overall legislation, which made all of Obamacare unconstitutional.

Running up to this, we have major elements of the mainstream media attempting to see us on socialism in their campaign to promote the constitutionality of Obamacare.

Now former Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, has already made her ruling on the constitutionality of Obamacare - demonstrating an unprecedented a repetitive grasp of stupidity when it comes to understanding our Constitution...

That's right - Obamacare has 'ironclad constitutionality' not because of the US Constitution which is the legal foundation for the country, but because of the reference in the Declaration of Independence regarding the 'pursuit of happiness' - and to her, this is demonstrated by having the federal government control the healthcare industry.

Pelosi actually claims that Obamacare increases our liberty. She says it removes the constraints that a lack of healthcare places on a person. But a lack of healthcare doesn’t constrain a person in the same way that a government mandate does. On the free market, a person can take steps to acquire health insurance if he doesn’t have it. Under Obamacare, we’re no longer free to not have health insurance — ever. The choice is gone.


To listen to Pelosi talk, the nation never boasted photographers, artists or small-business owners before the Affordable Care Act was passed — but that’s surely not fair to Ansel Adams, John Singer Sargent or Sam Walton. They did it without the help of the ACA and other greats could do it without Obamacare, too. Again, the Declaration doesn’t say we have a right to success in all our endeavors. Nobody has the right to make somebody else pay for their health care.

The theater around the arguments for the constitutionality of Obamacare is as high as the inanity of Pelosi's argument.  The Wall Street Journal notes...

White House strategy memo that leaked this month, revealing that senior Administration officials are coordinating with liberal advocacy groups to pressure the Court. "Frame the Supreme Court oral arguments in terms of real people and real benefits that would be lost if the law were overturned," the memo notes, rather than "the individual responsibility piece of the law and the legal precedence [sic]." Those nonpolitical details are merely what "lawyers will be talking about."


President Obama signing the health care bill at the White House on March 23, 2010.


The White House is even organizing demonstrations during the proceedings, including a "'prayerful witness' encircling the Supreme Court." The executive branch is supposed to speak to the Court through the Solicitor General, not agitprop and crowds in the streets.


The Supreme Court will not be ruling about matters of partisan conviction, or the President's re-election campaign, or even about health care at all. The lawsuit filed by 26 states and the National Federation of Independent Business is about the outer boundaries of federal power and the architecture of the U.S. political system.

For a progressive, there should be no outer boundaries of federal power.

Speaking of our Congress - I also have to make a mention of the feckless Senate Democratic majority, and in particular the Senior Senator from Illinois, Dick Durbin (D) who has announced that the Senate is undertaking an investigation of the National Football League over the New Orleans Saints football club having 'bounties' for injuring players of opposing teams.

Excuse me, Senator Durbin, but this is your priority?!!

How about passing a *(&&**$ federal budget?  It's only been about 1050 days since the Democrat controlled Senate passed a &*#&#^$ budget.  Or how about stopping the Obama Administration rewarding the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt with $1.5 billion in aid - despite their actions against US citizens, US allies, and US interests?  Or how about standing with the Senate Republicans to authorize the full Keystone XL pipeline and to force the Administration increase oil production on FEDERAL lands?

I'm going to wrap up with one more example of politically motivated moronic decision making - this one from LALA land (Los Angeles). Here the Los Angeles Police Department has announced...

...that they will be ignoring the California state law that requires the vehicles of unlicensed drivers to be impounded because the law is unfair. It's unfair because they say it limits the ability for illegals to get work in the LA area.

Isn't selective enforceability of the law unfair?

On This Day in History

1775 - Speaking before the second Virginia Convention, Patrick Henry responds to the increasingly oppressive British rule over the American colonies declaring:  'I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!'

1918 - A specialty German cannon, called the 'Paris Gun', opens fire on the city of Paris - shelling the city from a range of 74 miles.  The guns had a barrel that was 118 ft long.

1919 - Benito Mussolini breaks with the Italian Socialists and establishes the Italian Fascist party.

1965 - The United States first two person space mission was launched from Cape Canaveral - with Virgil Grissom and John Young piloting Gemini 3.

1983 - Barney Clark dies 112 days after becoming the world's first recipient of a permanent artificial heart.

1983 - During an address to the nation, President Ronald Reagan proposes that the US embarks on a program to develop antimissile technology - the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) - to make the country nearly impervious to attack by nuclear missiles.

2010 - A big effin deal took place at the White House - as noted above.