B+ Obama unable to help Specter

Does Obama ever back the winning horse?  Specter loses, despite Obama's best efforts.

Following his party switch last spring, Specter was seen as a strong favorite in his primary fight against Sestak. President Barack Obama did quite a bit for Specter -- appearing at a rally with the incumbent and appearing in radio and television ads for him in the Philadelphia area in the final weeks of the campaign. 

These results are very familiar for "B+" Obama.  You'd think that even a blind squirrel would find a nut now and then.

Krauthammer on Obama's defense of stimulus spending

Obama defends his economic agenda, touting the April unemployment report as evidence of the effect his policies have had on job growth and the economy.

Krauthammer's reaction: 

"Look, I don't blame the president for not lowering unemployment. A president doesn't have the power to do that.  

But I do blame him for spending $1 trillion and giving the appearance of doing it [lowering unemployment] and pretending it's had any effect. It hasn't. All it has done is saddle us with $1 trillion worth of extra debt, which will be a drag on the economy in the future.  

Presidents could possibly make an effect on unemployment by one thing. If you want to use shock and awe and throw in $1 trillion, what he might have done is do a radical lowering of the payroll tax, because if you want to encourage something, you either subsidize it or lower the tax on it, and the payroll tax is a tax on employment and a tax on work. It might have helped.  

Nonetheless, it's always an exaggeration. If the Clinton administration says we created eight million jobs, that's rubbish. It was Steve Jobs who did that, it was Bill Gates, it was the Internet, a lot of other stuff. A president presides over the economy; he doesn't drive it."

'Los Suns' Protest Arizona Law

On Wednesday (Cinco de Mayo), The Phoenix Suns basketball team wore their "Los Suns" jerseys during Game 2 of the NBA Western Conference semifinals to show solidarity with Latinos protesting Arizona's new immigration law. 

Suns General Manager Steve Kerr went so far as to play the Nazi card ...

“It’s hard to imagine in this country that we have to produce papers, It rings up images of Nazi Germany.” 

Presumably, "Los Suns" allowed fans to attend the game without tickets.  After all, it would have been insensitive to request to see the tickets of any fans.  So, these "undocumented ticket-holders" must have been allowed into the game, provided with free drink, food and seats, paid for by the "documented ticket-holders".

Vacationing is a human right, EU chief says

It reads like a headline from the Onion.  Alas, it's real.

"The European Union has declared travelling a human right, and is launching a scheme to subsidize vacations with taxpayers' dollars for those too poor to afford their own trips. "

Fortunately, such European-style social policies would never happen in America ... er, wait.

Victor Davis Hanson: "How Could We Be So Stupid?..."

"... Let us count the ways."

VDH presents "seven alternative reasons ... why the present government is hell-bent on doubling the national debt in eight years."

Obama Bans terms Islam, Jihad From National Security Strategy Document

Obama is cleansing national strategy documents of any reference to terms that might offend terrorists.  Does he think that by not uttering the term Jihad, then it will cease to exist?  He's like a small child who covers his eyes and assumes he is invisible.

From dictionary.com:

Main Entry: willful blind·ness
Function: noun: deliberate failure to make a reasonable inquiry of wrongdoing ... despite suspicion or an awareness of the high probability of its existence

Bill Whittle on PJTV provides a compelling illustration of how dramatically Obama's 'willful blindness' has already impacted America's counter-terrorism strategy.

Ronald Reagan on Socialized Medicine

Ronald Reagan, circa 1961, speaks about socialized medicine.  His words, unfortunately, ring as true today as when they were spoken.

"Back in 1927 an American socialist, Norman Thomas, six times candidate for president on the Socialist Party ticket, said the American people would never vote for socialism. But he said under the name of liberalism the American people will adopt every fragment of the socialist program..."

Listen to the whole thing. 

The United States of Greece?

The "health care" bill passed by the house yesterday was in fact, not a health care bill after all.  It was, instead, the largest redistricting bill in recorded history.  I present you with, the United States of America Greece.

Update: After some backroom dealing, Nebraska negotiated itself some prime waterfront in the new plan.

Thanks Obama!

US Rep. Paul Ryan on the role of government.

US Rep. Paul Ryan reacts to the health care abomination just passed by the House, and more specifically about the role of government in the lives of the American people.  At least someone is asking the right questions.

"Do we believe that the goal of government is to promote equal opportunity for all Americans to make the most of their lives; or do we now believe that government's role is to equalize the results of people's lives?"

Paul Ryan 2012.

"... from the consent of the governed"?

March 21, 2010 - Black Sunday.

The health care bill passed.  The only question remaining is, 'Can this be undone?'...

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness."

"... from the consent of the governed?"  November, 2010 and subsequently 2012, will answer that question definitively.

"... wait until you see what it costs when it's free."

"If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free." - P.J. O'Rourke

While it appears that Obama's health care monstrosity could be on the verge of passing, it's worth looking at where America's health care system may be headed.

Dr. Paul Hsieh describes describes what the Canadian health care system really is like in this 2007 article.  Read the whole thing.

"To guarantee "free" health care, a government must force the individual to pay for everyone else's medical care and limit his freedom to pay voluntarily for his own. With bureaucrats deciding who receives what, the individual is therefore forbidden from spending his money according to his own rational judgment (and the advice of his doctors) as to what's best for his health. When a government forces people to act against their own interests, it's no surprise that the results are misery and death."

And (to borrow a phrase) ... Let me be clear, the Democrats ultimate goal is a Canada-like, government-run, single payer health care system.  Don't take my word for it, take Obama's ...

Pelosi: "We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it."

This video was linked on Drudge. 

Out of context?  Apparently not ... Here is a link to the full speech.  Below are the remarks from the speech before and after that comment. 

"You've heard about the controversies within the bill, the process about the bill, one or the other. But I don't know if you have heard that it is legislation for the future, not just about health care for America, but about a healthier America, where preventive care is not something that you have to pay a deductible for or out of pocket. Prevention, prevention, prevention -- it's about diet, not diabetes. It's going to be very, very exciting.

"But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy. Furthermore, we believe that health care reform, again I said at the beginning of my remarks, that we sent the three pillars that the President's economic stabilization and job creation initiatives were education and innovation -- innovation begins in the classroom -- clean energy and climate, addressing the climate issues in an innovative way to keep us number one and competitive in the world with the new technology, and the third, first among equals I may say, is health care, health insurance reform"

Pelosi wasn't taken out of context, she is just out of touch.

Michael Moore as White House Chief of Staff?

In an open letter to President Obama, filmmaker Michael Moore blamed Obama's Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel for the dismal outlook Democrats are facing in the 2010 elections.  Moore offered to replace Emanuel for just $1 a year.  He promised that he and Obama would be ...:

"... up at 5 in the morning, 7 days a week ... Each morning you and I will do 100 jumping jacks and you will repeat after me: : THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ELECTED ME, NOT THE REPUBLICANS, TO RUN THE COUNTRY!..."

Michael Moore? 100 jumping jacks?   I'll take the under.

Ace of Spades on Obama

In response to Obama's apparent flip-flop on the use of military tribunals to try KSM, Ace of Spades presents an itemized list of Obama failures, adding:

"Let's just stipulate that Obama is the greatest Democratic failure on the national stage since Carter. He will go down in history as a placeholder between the Bush 9/11 years and the transformative economic and foreign policies of the 45th president, a Republican."

"A good, solid B+" indeed.

Regarding KSM though, you can be sure that  Obama's change in position is a political maneuver, and does not represent any genuine policy shift.

On the constitutionality of Chicago's gun ban ...

The US Supreme Court heard arguments yesterday in a case that challenges Chicago's handgun ban as unconstitutional.  Mayor Daley and other Illinois politicians are positioned  firmly against the 2nd amendment.  U.S. Rep. Danny Davis (D-IL) on the gun problem in Chicago ...

"Many of my friends talk about the fact that they hunt in their state and I will tell them that many of the people who are hunting in Chicago are not hunting wild game -- they are hunting each other."

It's mind-boggling that Daley, Davis, et. al, actually believe that criminals who are willing to commit murder would be dissuaded by a gun ban.  Exactly who in Chicago benefits from the repeal of the 2nd amendment?

Some statistics on the effectiveness, or lack thereof, of hand gun bans in Chicago and elsewhere here ...

"What the crime data show is that gun laws primarily disarm law-abiding citizens, they do not make them safer.