In the grand world of Obama PR remember that accuracy is so passe

The White House wants us to know how well their administration is working. They've released a pamphlet "100 Days, 100 Projects".

It outlines what a marvelous job they've already done in bringing us a New America...

Jake Tapper, the only reporter with courage enough to confront Press Secretary Gibbs on his daily spew of smarm and glossovers, decided to look at just the very first of the 100 projects.

Q All right. So to follow up, I looked at your "100 days, 100 projects" booklet yesterday and the very first one says, "Using $27 million of Recovery Act funding, a public housing development in D.C., the Regency House, has undergone a green retrofit. As part of this upgrade, the building installed solar panels, a 'green' roof, a rainwater collection system, energy-efficient lighting, as well as water-conserving toilets, showerheads and faucets."



But when I called the D.C. Housing Authority, they said only $59,000 was spent of stimulus money, not $27 million, and of the seven things mentioned, only two of the seven were actually --



MR. GIBBS: I think the mistake in that one as you blogged about earlier took a series of different projects in a cut and paste into one.



Q Okay, so it wasn't as clear -- it wasn't as accurate as it could have been?



MR. GIBBS: I think that's accurate to say, yes.

That was the very first project! How accurate are the rest? One would hope the accuracy rate would be better than 600 to 1.

With apologies to Glenn Reynolds (An Army of Davids)we need an Army of Jake Tappers to begin to restore some sense of jourtegrity.
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Robert Gibbs issues gag order to public

I'm pretty tired of this guy. He's condescending, arrogant, clueless and wants to end free speech in America.

"I think it is probably important for anybody involved in this debate to be exceedingly careful with the way in which they've decided to describe different aspects of this impending confirmation," Gibbs said.

Or we're gonna get ya'. After all, Obama has said "Don't think I'm not keeping score."

Obama makes a good choice for the Supreme Court

It's time that the high court had another woman and its first Hispanic. She is principled, comes from a working class background and will vote essentially the same as Souter. Nice pick, President Obama. Republicans, shut up on this one.

Memorial Day

I'm only asking for 5 minutes and 23 seconds of your time.
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Obama: Move on, nothing to see here.

One might have guessed from Obama's Apology and Appeasement Tour '09 that our new administration is taking the 3 Chimps approach to foreign affairs. Even the Washington Post is taking note of Obama's lack of concern as book buddy, Hugo Chavez, decimates what was left of democracy in Venezuela:

Mr. Chávez is following a path well worn by the likes of Juan Perón and Alberto Fujimori -- not to mention his mentor, Fidel Castro. But this may be the first time that the United States has watched the systematic destruction of a Latin American democracy in silence. As Mr. Chávez has implemented the "third phase" of his self-styled revolution, the Obama administration has persisted with the policy of quiet engagement that the president promised before taking office

Whoa, "quiet engagement" seems to be more on the quiet and less on the engagement part.

With North Korea's nuke test, Iran's missile test and warship saber rattling all this weekend we can expect more "look the other way, we got a nanny state we're busy creatin' here" attitude from the One.

We were promised a "new America" and we're definitely getting it.

A Hint at How the Media Will Spin the Cheney and Obama Terror Speeches

At Politico.com a supposed "neutral" blog about politics comes a 17 paragraph story on the two speeches about our security approaches past and future. The simple numbers: 2 paragraphs about what Cheney will say - 13 paragraphs about what Obama will say.

Got it? It fairly represents the ratio of media who promote the Obama administration's tactics versus those who elect to question them. About a 6 to 1 ratio from the media. The election past indicated about a 1.3 to 1 ratio in the general voting populace. Seems fair to me.

Pass the kool-aid and where's my stimulus check?
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Now that the Palin Wardrobe Investigation is Finally Over...

and of course, no improprieties were found.

Maybe the FEC (and the media) can turn their attention on a couple of seemingly more important election fraud issues.

1. It is estimated that the Obama campaign received over 100 million of its record breaking donations from overseas donors. Even 1 penny of foreign donations is illegal by Federal Election Laws. Now that they have stopped getting excited over Palin's lacy underwear maybe they have time to look into this?

2. ACORN. Thirteen lawsuits of voter registration fraud and the recent unearthing of the New York Times burying a story of how the Obama administration had constant contact with ACORN during the election. This is also a direct violation of Federal Election Laws.

There are others, many others, but let's start with the two above. Put away the highly scrutinized digital photos of Sarah Palin's handbags to see if they might be designer brands and do your jobs!

All the News That's Fit to Steal

Did Maureen Dowd of the New York Times plagiarize? You decide.

from Talking Points Memo

"More and more the timeline is raising the question of why, if the torture was to prevent terrorist attacks, it seemed to happen mainly during the period when we were looking for what was essentially political information to justify the invasion of Iraq."

from Maureen Dowd

"More and more the timeline is raising the question of why, if the torture was to prevent terrorist attacks, it seemed to happen mainly during the period when the Bush crowd was looking for what was essentially political information to justify the invasion of Iraq."

My guess, of course, is plagiarism.

The difference is TPM used "we" and Dowd used "the Bush crowd" otherwise - verbatim ripoff.

Maureen was only doing what all good Bush bashers do - substitute the word "Bush" for any other word in a negative comment and NYT readership goes up 60%.
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How the New York Times Killed a "Game Changer" Election Story

John Hinderaker over at PowerlineBlog.com writes this morning about a story some of us remember last fall that should have been a major voter fraud story implicating the Obama campaign and ACORN.

On Sept. 7, Moncrief wrote to Strom that she had donor lists from the campaigns of Obama and Hillary Clinton and that there had been "constant contact" between the campaigns and Project Vote, an Acorn affiliate whose tax-exempt status forbids it to engage in partisan politics. Moncrief said she had withheld that information earlier but was disclosing it now that the conservative columnist Michelle Malkin was "all over it."

"I am sorry," she wrote, "but I believe in Obama and did not want to help the Republicans."

This story should have been of the magnitude of Swift Boat or Rathergate but thanks to NY Times editors it got the "move on, nothing to see here" treatment.

Hinderaker does a fabulous job of delineating how the NY Times has managed to cover up their own dishonesty and complicity with a simple turn of a phrase by their ombudsman.
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If Palin was President and Acted Like Obama

Victor Davis Hansen is spot on here.

“What we’re getting is Wasilla chic. That’s what we’re getting. She arrives in the Oval Office, and first thing sends back Blair’s gift of the Churchill bust as if it’s a once-worn Penney’s outfit. Then she gives the Brits some unwatchable DVDs as a booby prize — as if she idled the old Yukon and ran into Target’s sale aisle. Did Sarah send Bristol into Wal-Mart back in Anchorage for that ‘engraved’ iPod for the queen? And what’s this don’t-bow-to-the-queen stuff, but curtsy for a Saudi sheik? Maybe that explains why she brags to Stephanopoulos about her ‘Muslim faith.’ So far, the best things going for herare Todd’s biceps.”

Read the whole thing. It's a riot.
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Chavez to Ax Last Remaining Opposing TV Station

The socialist's view of Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez can be seen in the very biased documentary "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised". It paints Chavez as a benevolent dictator who wants to bring his country's people out of poverty. The documentary title seems ironically accurate today.

Globovision is the remaining counterweight to state television, which airs only praise for Chavez while attacking opposition politicians on a late-night talk show called "The Razorblade."

Chavez is trying to shut the last free-speech TV station down.

US Rep William Delahunt and Joe Kennedy, both of Massachusetts - Chavez' most ardent fans in the US, always seem to overlook this major flaw in the bully's character. They were chortling sycophants of Chavez when he spent most of his time insulting and belittleing President Bush on the international stage. Great fun.

Let's see if they, or Hugo's book buddy in the White House, have anything to say about free speech.

Expect crickets.
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Which Republican Said This?

via bloomberg.com

“We can’t keep on just borrowing from China,” He said at a town-hall meeting in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, outside Albuquerque. “We have to pay interest on that debt, and that means we are mortgaging our children’s future with more and more debt.”

Holders of U.S. debt will eventually “get tired” of buying it, causing interest rates on everything from auto loans to home mortgages to increase, He said. “It will have a dampening effect on our economy.”

Somebody had fun with Obama's teleprompter I guess.

After saying this Obama went on to talk about the need for more increased entitlement spending.

Clothes. Emperor. Not wearing any.
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I Remember Thinking This Guy was a Fake

Rick Duncan, anti-war Iraq veteran. Rick Duncan, survivor of the attack on the Pentagon. Rick Duncan, just another in a long list of lefty imposter liars eventually unveiled.

via Michelle Malkin

The leader of a statewide veterans group who fought for homeless veterans in Colorado Springs was in the Denver County jail on Wednesday, unmasked as a former psychiatric patient who posed as a wounded Marine officer and 9/11
survivor.
Federal authorities are looking into whether Rick Duncan, whose real name is Richard Glen Strandlof, could have pilfered money he raised in the name of Colorado veterans, said Daniel Warvi of the Colorado Veterans Alliance (CVA), the group that Duncan founded.

The media (because it fits the agenda) somehow never questioned this guy's background during the last election when he was dragging down our efforts in Iraq.

Kinda wish you could release this guy into a tent full of grunts on a US military base in Iraq for a little "pillow party".

Read the whole thing and watch the videos at Malkin's blog. You'll find yourself a little upset.

Solving the Economy. Simply and Quickly.

I read a version of this in a comments section of a blog so I don't claim originality. However, I've modified the plan a fair amount and have added a bit of factual backup.

Sixty percent of workers over 60 are delaying their retirement. In fact, almost half of new jobs in recent years were claimed by this workforce. Let's give them an opportunity to fix the economy by letting them retire early. In fact, let's aim at the folks over 55 who make up 900,000 of the job force.

The government will offer them this deal: Here is a 1 million dollar check for you. But, you must quit your job and not seek a new job for at least two years. And with your 1 million dollars you must buy a new American built car getting over 30 miles to the gallon and trash your old one unless it's getting over 30 mpg already in which case you give it to someone in need. And you must buy a two year membership in a health club.

Nearly 1 million new jobs immediately. Unemployment rate drops to 6 percent!

Nearly 1 million new cars sold immediately. Auto industry saved. Unemployment drops to 5 percent!

Long term pollution and energy problems on their way to being solved.

Long term healthcare problem drastically improved as more fit populace stay away from hospitals.

And the cost? 1 million times 1 million = 1 trillion dollars

This will pay for itself as corporate taxes feed back into the system with healthier profits and therefore bigger corporate tax returns.

Oh, and no bailouts to anyone; banks, financial institutions and so on. Let the chips fall where they may.

This also eliminates all of the pork barrel spending by the Congress doling out the 4 trillion that was proposed for the stimulus/bailout that is predicted to cost more like 10 trillion over 10 years.

Pretty easy. Let's do it. Everything fixed in 90 days!


And remember, this is a government offer, it is not mandated. If we don't get enough takers we move down to 54 year olds.
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Time to Sniff the Air When a Politician Exclaims "And I Repeat..."

It's a sure sign they're lying. Think Nancy Pelosi now, Bill Clinton during MonicaGate.

Nancy's indignance belies the truth. She claims that she was never told that any of these enhanced interrogation procedures - otherwise known as "torture" to lefties, that were described to her in great detail were actually used on anyone.

She made sure we dunderheads knew it was true when she exclaimed "and I repeat....."

Last week the CIA released a report basically calling her a liar, and today her aide confirmed that she indeed had been briefed about Abu Zubaydah's waterboarding in 2003. Saying she knew nothing about it allowed her to excoriate the Bush Administration and to justify releasing memos about enhanced interrogation techniques that have weakened the US intelligence efforts and will cost American military lives.

Where is the goddamned media on this? Where is the goddamned media on Murtha's corruption? Where is the goddamned media on Auntie Zeituni? Where is the goddamned media on the Chrysler bankruptcy gestapo? Where is the goddamned media on Chris Dodd's illegal mortgages, Charlie Rangel's illegal rent-controlled apartments and on and on.

Where is the goddamned media anyway?
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The Obama Administration and Unemployment Projections. Oops

From Geoff at Innocent Bystander we find that the Obama Administration's projections at how unemployment levels would be with and without the Stimulus. Turns out with the trillions things aren't working out too well. We'll never know if the numbers might have actually gotten better without the Stimulus. But then I guess that's just trillions under the bridge so to speak.

Financial Fascism by the Obama Administration

You've heard how the Obama administration is running its Chrysler bankruptcy deals. The UAW, the only unsecured holder of Chrysler debt is going to own 55% of the company and the much larger debt owned by private bondholders is going to be paid at a rate 1/4 of that. Basically, all the rules of bankruptcy litigation are being thrown out so that a Democrat voting bloc gets all the goodies. With of course, the dual insult of letting the inmates run the asylum.

Please take the time to read this succinct and clarifying article by Richard Epstein at Forbes.com. It explains the fascist and quite unAmerican methods that are unfolding in this Chrysler bankruptcy.

Rahm and Obama ain't lettin' this crisis go to waste:

Upsetting this fixed hierarchy among creditors is just an illegal taking of property from one group of creditors for the benefit of another, which should be struck down on both statutory and constitutional grounds.

This Chrysler bankruptcy is telling us all we need to know about the nature of our country's future under Obama. And not enough people in the media are pulling back the curtain.
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It Was a Comedic Endeavor. Get over it.

I like Wanda Sykes. She's very funny. She's particularly funny often acting as the indignant black woman on Curb Your Enthusiasm, and it's a great schtick. Yes, it's the first joke about 9/11 that I've heard if you want to talk about the Rush Limbaugh, Oxycontin, 20th terrorist thing. And how could Obama not smile - it was funny. Rush Limbaugh dishes out an awful lot, I'm sure he can take this. He probably laughed himself.

Maybe the jokes appeared a little too true. "You all voted for me" Obama said to the press corps. They laughed and I hope felt a little embarassed by it. Yup the flyover joke might have been a little too close to home as plenty of people including me are still angered by it. But hey, Jon Favreau is edgy, he grabbed a cardboard cut out of Hilary Clinton and squeezed her corrugated boobs for the internet. The man's edgy. Obama trusts this 27 year-old frat boy to be his wit mentor the way we trust our barber to get the area around our ears just right.

Sure, we all think we learned something about Obama Saturday night and we did. Being indignant about it is pointless.

Move on, nothing to see here.

Have you ever seen Press Secretary Gibbs and Baghdad Bob in the same room?

We're supposed to believe that Obama is a budget cutter trying to save the public because he wants to trim 17 billion dollars from next years budget.

If all of the proposed cuts go through (and of course they won't with a Democratically controlled Congress) it would be a cut of 1/2 of 1% on a 4 Trillion dollar budget.

That's on a budget that is an increase of 7.7% from the prior year. The media is going along of course and have suggested Obama is quite the spending cutter. Unfortunately during yesterday's press briefing some nitwit had the gall to point this idiocy out.

Q But he's not cutting $17 billion. He's cutting programs worth $17 billion, but there are more than $17 billion worth of expansion, expanded programs, and new programs. There isn't a $17 billion cut from projected budget cuts.

MR. GIBBS: Well, there's 17 -- I'll go back and look at the transcript. You just said there are not $17 billion in cuts; there's $17 billion in cuts to programs.

Q Right.

Q It's not net.

Q It's not net, right.

Q Not net.

So McCain's proposed 18 billion dollar cuts in earmarks were laughably small to Obama during the campaign because of the minor impact they would have on a 1/2 Trillion dollar deficit. But 17 billion in cuts is meaningfull against a budget of 4Trillion and a deficit approaching 12 Trillion.

I didn't catch this part on the network news last night, did you?
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Nancy Pelosi - was for it before she was against it

Why do these people not understand that meetings are recorded. Notes are taken etc. The biggest complainers are often the biggest liars. Yup. Nancy lied and they've got the goods on her.

from ABC News.com:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was briefed on the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” on terrorist suspect Abu Zubaydah in September 2002, according to a report prepared by the Director of National Intelligence’s office and
obtained by ABC News.
At the briefing, Pelosi did not formally register objections to the interrogation techniques authorized by the Bush administration. President Obama has said he considers such techniques to be "torture."

It's laughable, except that it's really not that funny.

Barney Frank - was for it before he was against it.

A predatory lending law came out of a house committee that Barney heads, and he signed it -only he forgot that inserted in the law was a provision stating that - organizations that are in trouble for voter registration fraud can't get any money - like ACORN, the Democrat get-out-the-Democrat-vote-illegally organization that Barney and all good Democrats support.

So Barney decided to change his mind "I didn't read the legislation carefully".

via PowerlineBlog.com

My first thought was that Arlen Specter is going to fit right in with this crowd.

My Next Car Will Be A Ford

And I've never owned a Ford in my life. In fact as a kid I was a Chevy guy. Ford always meant Fix Or Repair Daily. Not anymore.

In the midst of a tough economy, where the other 2 of the big three auto makers are taking tens of billions of taxpayer dollars to stay on life support, Ford is refitting an old plant in Michigan to build electric cars. How are they doing this?

Capitalism. Free markets.

Eight years ago Ford was in deep trouble. They were near bankruptcy. They sold off 23 billion dollars of assets and convinced their unionized workers that they would need to take wage and benefit cuts to keep the company alive. It worked. Now Ford is the only company to refuse bailout money. Sure, their sales were down 43% last month but it's by far the best of the worst.

This is how free markets work. Smart, hard workers and management take a realistic view of the current economy and their situation and make changes. Some survive. Some fail. In the Obama world we prop up stupid companies with fake money and reward ineptitude. And then, of course, they ask for more taxpayer money as is happening now, putting future generations in horrific debt.

Ask the shoe store owner down the street if it felt good laying off his niece to keep the doors open, or the gas station owner who will skip his pay a few weeks to see if he can keep a worker on, or the machine shop owner who has to tell his workers that there probably won't be bonuses this year. Each of them, because there have been 4 recessions since 1980, aren't happy about the current sacrifices but they know even without the Stimulus (and probably especially without the Stimulus) that hard work, smart thinking and sacrifice will help end the recession and they can climb the hill back to normalcy and maybe good times.

Just like Ford.

Nice take from Megan McArdle on the Chrysler bailout.

Take a Back Seat to My Voting Bloc says Obama

The UAW, the organization that many believe had the biggest hand in sinking the US auto industry happens to be a huge voting block for Democrats. Favor the unions and a guaranteed voting block is yours.

In the Chrysler bankruptcy 8 billion taxpayer dollars will go to secure an amount for the UAW pension fund 4 times that of what the other creditors will get. In normal bankruptcy hearings those ratios would never hold up. Obama administration legal goons are threatening hedge fund holders and non-Tarp financial institutions with ruination if they don't accept the unfair terms. This is politics The Chicago Way and Rahm and Barack are bringing it to mainstream America.

Via PowerlineBlog.com

It is important to understand what is happening here. Many think that Obama is merely engaging in crony capitalism, favoring his political supporters (most notably the Auto Workers Union) at the expense of others. That's true, of course, but it is much worse than that: Obama has tried to bully those who have not bought his favor--Chrysler's non-TARP secured creditors--into giving up their legal rights by threatening to use the powers of the White House to damage their businesses. This sort of lawlessness is common in some of the more corrupt Third World countries, but it is brand new to the United States.

Hope, Change and outrageous dictatoresque bullying.

Heard about any of this in the Main Stream Media? No? That's how it works in Venezuela too. Obama must be reading the book Chavez gave him.

A Laugh Every 100 Seconds

It's not going to take knee slapper Al Franken to come to DC to make Washington DC a laughingstock. It already is. The daily White House press briefings with Robert Gibbs and the brown-nosing White House Press Corps are like a raucous comedy club with you paying the cover charge, of course.

Take Friday's briefing. Forty Seven minutes long and the word "(laughter)" appeared in the transcript 28 times. That's a belly buster every 100 seconds. And the humorous topics included: Supreme Court appointee possibilities, the Al Qaeda operative Al-Marri's brief jail sentencing, and the White House's pressure of a Chrysler lender to accept an unfair bankruptcy settlement.

Apparently the comedic potential for that last topic was poor, as for some reason it ended the briefing.

Jake Tapper, the only White House Press Corps attendee with a set had the nerve to ask this question.

Q And just to follow up on al-Marri, what do you say to Americans who hear that al-Marri, who has admitted being trained by al Qaeda, given a mission by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, sent to the United States to commit terrorist acts, to hear that this person has been sentenced to 15 years in prison, with or without time served. But that doesn't really seem like enough time in prison for somebody who's clearly an al Qaeda -- an admitted al Qaeda sleeper agent.

MR. GIBBS: Well, understand, Jake, that this is a victory for the rule of law because he's finally going to jail, convicted of the crime of aiding that terrorist network.

No laughter after that one, and no follow up by anyone else who might have spoken up for "Americans" on the issue. Rest assured that if it doesn't generate a good set of yucks on the first go 'round the subject is finis.

The daily White House Press Briefing under Barack Obama: It's a love fest, comic fest with little or no journalizin' going on.
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Perhaps the Bloom is Coming Off the Rose

When you've broken enough campaign promises to piss off the far left (military tribunals make sense, Iraq stay -Afghanistan ramp up, sovereign Pakistan gets invaded)but kept enough to piss off the far right (largest pork-laden bill in history by a factor of 4) and now have a middle class that is paying attention because they see the big tax hammer coming down soon - then the numbers are going to eventually start working in the wrong direction.

The question is will this affect the 2010 mid-term elections? The Main Stream Media is going to have to come to the rescue again and blaming the previous administration is starting to wear thin.

Imagine where the numbers would be if people actually reported on the facts about the new administration.

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The "Me" President

It's getting to an uncomfortable point. Obama's ego is out of control. I've been feeling this way since the Roman Coliseum backdrop and the shock and awe fireworks display. This man eats it up and the ego problem is feeding on itself.

If you want to reach a state of bliss, then go beyond your ego and the internal dialogue. Make a decision to relinquish the need to control, the need to be approved, and the need to judge. Those are the three things the ego is doing all the time. It's very important to be aware of them every time they come up.

Deepak Chopra

Yesterday, in a not-all-that-funny and way-too-telling move Obama essentially shoved Robert Gibbs out of the way to give the daily press briefing. Red-Light Obama can't resist the cameras.

What President decides to take over the networks for a speech to mark his 100th day? A day that traditionally marks a symbolic point when the media gives its assessment of a President's first 3 months in office. It's as if Obama said "Tell ya what...I'll spare you the effort, here's how great I've been over the first 100 days.."

Soon Obama's ego will need to be carried in a wheelbarrow along side him to get it in the room.

This is a man who wrote 2 books about himself before he achieved anything and they read like he conquered Everest with a piano on his back. This is a man who, when speaking of his own orating skills said to Harry Reid, "I have a gift, Harry"

Barack, you're wearing us out with the gift. And you're oversaturating yourself. Think Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears, Michael Jackson. Back-off, the campaign's over.

Maybe humility is something Barack doesn't do well. In explaining his lack of talent on the bowling alley Obama declared he was as bad as a Special Olympian. He simply hasn't had enough practice with that humility thing.

Obama starts far too many sentences with the word "I" where other Presidents started with the word "we". It is painful, embarassing to watch and eventually will become tiresome even to the most ardent Obamaniacs.
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Obamanomics 101: Here's a tax credit - now give it back.

This administration is actually getting to the point where I'm getting huge laughs every day. You can't make up the kinds of scams that are being run on the American people. Yet in grand Dickensian fashion the Obama supporters say "More, please..."

Here's your tax credit -poof- oops it's gone. In fact, send it back next year and if somehow you didn't notice that you didn't estimate your taxes enough - expect a penalty, with interest 1.5%. A six times higher rate than you get by keeping that money in a passbook savings account .

But taxpayers who calculate their withholding so they get only small refunds could face an unwelcome tax bill next April, said Jackie Perlman, an analyst with the Tax Institute at H&R Block.

"They are going to get a surprise," she said.

Not too "stimulating" an effect I would say.

The refunds and better tax rates for familiers under $190,000 stop at the end of next year anyway and then it will be time to ramp up the tax tables to pay for this Spring's Spendulus Fling.