Noted Democratic loudmouth dumps on middle America

It's no secret that Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) is often a hysterical douchebag in Congress. The guy obviously loves the media attention he gets from his temper tantrums, and in fact I often find him pretty amusing. But maybe it's time his handlers kept him away from Twitter:

Weiner's smear was directed at Iowa Republicans who booed him when Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-MN) mentioned his name at a conservative conference in Iowa.

A word of advice to Mr. Weiner: You're not in high school any more. You're not tweeting anonymously at night about the ruffians who doubtlessly doled out daily wedgies and swirlies to you. You represent New York's 9th fucking Congressional District in Washington and need to start acting like it. I've no doubt that with this tweet you managed to offend the 40% of your constituents who didn't vote for you in the last election, but who you still represent.

Grow the fuck up, Weiner.

The statement Obama will never make

If President Obama has any leadership qualities at all, he'd put a stop to the narrative currently running rampant that Tea Partiers, Sarah Palin and meaningless rhetoric caused Jared Lee Loughner to go on a rampage last Saturday. He might even come out with a statement something like this:

We were all shocked, horrified and deeply saddened by the events in Tucson over the weekend. In addition to the loss of six innocent lives, the life and future of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords hangs in the balance. We, as a nation, grieve for the lives lost last Saturday and offer our prayers for their families.

An attack on a member of Congress and a Federal judge is an attack on us all. It threatens the public's right to full and open access to their elected representatives, which is the lifeblood of our system of government. But just as damaging to our nation are those who would use such a tragedy to further their political ends and to silence the voices of their political opponents. That is not what we as Americans are all about and these actions only serve to divide us further.

We cannot know what drives a disturbed mind to such atrocities, but we can keep them from doing us further harm.

But Obama is first and foremost a politician and as long as the libel coming from the left serves his political purposes, he'll let it fester.

I'm not holding my breath.

Update: A version of this post was published in today's (1-11-2011) Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star editorial letters column.

On inflamed rhetoric, media hypocrisy and unhinged gunmen

These are facts and are indisputable:

Fact: Far-left bloggers like Markos Moulitsas blame Sarah Palin's "targeting" map for the 2010 midterm elections for making Jared Loughner pull a gun and shoot 19 people, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ). Rep. Giffords was one of the Congressional seats targeted for takeover on Palin's map.

Fact: Markos Moulitsas' own Daily Kos blog used a similar targeting metaphor to target Giffords in 2008, presumably for not being reliably liberal enough.

Fact: In 2009, when Major Nidal Hasan gunned down fellow service members at Ft. Hood while screaming "Alahu Akhbar", we were lectured by the media for days not to jump to conclusions about Hasan's motivations.

Fact: Before Jared Loughner's spent shell casings had time to cool, the media jumped all over the Giffords shooting as inflamed Tea Party rhetoric coming home to roost, implying Loughner was connected to the Tea Party movement.

Fact: What little information there is about Loughner's political inclinations indicate he leaned left. (@caitieparker on Twitter attended high school with Loughner and played in a band with him.)

Given these facts, how can one not conclude that there is a systematic and deliberate effort by Democrats and their collaborators in the media to use this horrific incident to smear their political opposition? If these facts don't convince you, maybe this Politico piece will:

“They need to deftly pin this on the tea partiers,” said the Democrat. “Just like the Clinton White House deftly pinned the Oklahoma City bombing on the militia and anti-government people.”

The Democrats and their allies on the far left are intellectually dishonest, morally bankrupt and undeserving of any claim to leadership of this country. Meanwhile, their media lapdogs betray their bias beyond a shadow of any doubt.

I'm done with the whole lot of them.

Update: Another fact...Loughner set his sights on Giffords in 2007, long before Palin's map came about. But don't expect any such inconvenient facts to stop the narrative.

The ugly truth about my dog

My dog sleeps about 20 hours a day. He has his food prepared for him. He can eat whenever he wants, 24/7/365. His meals are provided at no cost to him. He visits the doctor once a year for his checkup, and again during the year if any medical needs arise. For this he pays nothing, and nothing is required of him. He lives in a nice neighborhood in a house that is much larger than he needs, but he is not required to do any upkeep. If he makes a mess, someone else cleans it up. He has his choice of luxurious places to sleep. He receives these accommodations absolutely free. He is living like a king, and has absolutely no expenses whatsoever. All of his costs are picked up by others who go out and earn a living every day. I was just thinking about all this, and suddenly it hit me like a brick in the head...

My dog is a Democrat!

(Thanks to my buddy AB for e-mailing this to me. And yes, that's really my dog up there.)

Alan Grayson: Gone in 60 seconds

Last week, Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) released an ad which plumbed the depths of lying douchebaggery, in which he slanders opponent Dan Webster by claiming Webster dodged the draft during the Vietnam war. In fact, Webster duly registered for the draft and received a series of academic deferments while attending college. He was in the ROTC during his college years and upon graduation attempted to enter the armed forces but was rejected for medical reasons and ultimately ended up with a 4-F classification. FactCheck.org roundly criticized the Grayson campaign for their patent dishonesty.

Just days later, Grayson released another ad calling Webster "Taliban Dan", smearing him as a religious fanatic and repeatedly playing a video clip of Webster quoting a biblical verse, saying "she should submit to me". Hot Air provides the full context of that clip here, and suffice it to say, FactCheck.org was once again not amused:

We thought Democratic Rep. Alan Grayson of Florida reached a low point when he falsely accused his opponent of being a draft dodger during the Vietnam War, and of not loving his country. But now Grayson has lowered the bar even further. He’s using edited video to make his rival appear to be saying the opposite of what he really said.

[ ... ]

Webster’s positions on abortion and marriage, and his religious views, are certainly fair game. But Grayson crosses the line when he uses manipulated video to cast Webster’s views in a false light, just as he did when he concocted a false accusation that Webster had been a Vietnam draft dodger.

Personally, I think it's perfectly OK to go negative in a campaign ad about one's opponent. Campaigns are just as much about one's opponent as they are about a candidate's own positions. But if you're going to go negative, tell the fucking truth.

Those two ads totaling a mere 60 seconds just might sink Grayson's campaign. According to The Blaze, the backlash against the Grayson campaign has already begun, and it's probably just getting started. I half expect to see a contrite (yet totally insincere, of course) Alan Grayson call a press conference announcing the dismissal of several "over-zealous" campaign staffers who released ads without his knowledge in an attempt at damage control.

But as he himself says in both those spots, he's Alan Grayson and he approved these messages.

Update: It seems Grayson himself has closed the window of opportunity on any such press conference.

Noted lefty truther demonstrates economic skillz

The Daily Caller provides Exhibit 839 in the case against putting progressives in charge of the US economy.

...former White House “green jobs” adviser Anthony Van Jones said it was time to stop worrying about budget deficits and pressure Washington to take more money from American businesses to fund larger social and infrastructure projects.

“This is a rich country. We have plenty of money, and if you don’t believe me, ask Haliburton,” Jones told a group of progressive bloggers and activists at the Netroots Nation convention Friday. “There’s plenty of money out there; don’t fall into the trap of this whole deficit argument.”

“The only question is how to spend it,” he added.

American corporations currently face the second-highest corporate tax rate in the world, according to the Tax Foundation.

What Jones and his fellow travelers on the Left completely fail to grasp is that businesses don't pay taxes, they collect taxes. From you and me in the form of higher prices.

This is why progressives should never, ever be in control of government.

Green Lies And Ham

I got this via e-mail from my buddy AB (who furnishes me with an endless stream of blog fodder, if I only spent more time blogging). Author, unfortunately, unknown.

I do not like this Uncle Sam,

I do not like his health care scam.

I do not like these dirty crooks,

or how they lie and cook the books.

I do not like when Congress steals,

I do not like their secret deals.

I do not like this speaker, Nan ,

I do not like this 'YES WE CAN.'

I do not like this spending spree,

I'm smart, I know that nothing's free.

I do not like your smug replies,

when I complain about your lies.

I do not like this kind of hope.

I do not like it, nope, nope, nope!

Consequences

Got this in the e-mail today and had to post it. Unfortunately, I don't know who gets the credit for producing it.

Thanks again, AB!

About those Tea Party "racists"...

Ever since the Tea Party thing launched about a year ago, Democrats and their loyal media have attempted to paint the entire movement as a pack of racists. The theme has become so pervasive that casual observers have come to believe it, upholding Vladimir Lenin's theory that "a lie told often enough becomes truth".

Last Sunday during the health care debate on Capitol Hill and the attendant Tea Party demonstration there, a number of black Congressional leaders claimed to have been jeered with racial slurs, and one even claimed to having been spit upon. Not to be left out, Rep. Barney Frank claimed to have been targeted with homophobic epithets. Naturally, the media took every unsubstantiated claim, packaged them up nicely, and reported them as undisputed fact.

Now supposedly, these acts occurred repeatedly as the accusers were walking to the Capitol building from a nearby Congressional office building on the Capitol grounds. Since the underground tunnels connecting the buildings is the preferred route, their presence on the grounds was unusual enough that there were dozens of members of the media and their cameras covering their walk. And yet not one video tape of any of these alleged incidents has surfaced. Not one.

Someone given to conspiracy theories might even think that their very choice of an outdoor route among the Tea Partiers was premeditated just so that they could make such accusations.

But not me.

File under: "Told ya so"

Nearly four years ago, I wrote a post here in which I speculated on a "take no prisoners" policy forced upon us by the Left's (and the Democrats', but I repeat myself) position on Guantanamo Bay. Well, kiss my ass and call me Nostra-fucking-damus.

Without a location outside the United States for sending prisoners, the administration must resort to turning the suspects over to foreign governments, bringing them to the U.S. or even killing them.

In one case last year, U.S. special operations forces killed an Al Qaeda-linked suspect named Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan in a helicopter attack in southern Somalia rather than trying to capture him, a U.S. official said. Officials had debated trying to take him alive but decided against doing so in part because of uncertainty over where to hold him, the official added.

It's not that I'm going to shed any tears over these guys, but it'd be nice to squeeze a little intel out of them.

Barack Obama campaigned on this issue, and one of his very first acts after taking office was to issue an executive order to close Gitmo. I can't believe 53% of American voters wanted this walking disaster as President.

The wrong way to eat an elephant

There's an old expression that goes something like this: "What's the best way to eat an elephant? One bite at a time." That, of course, would be as opposed to trying to swallow the whole thing at once, which is effectively what Obama and congressional Democrats are trying to do in their comprehensive health care reform efforts.

The problems with health care (and there are problems) are a collection of separate issues, each of which can be fixed independently of the others. So why not eat this elephant one bite at a time by crafting focused, targeted, separate pieces of legislation to address each one?

Over the course of a couple of years we'd see noticeable, incremental improvements for millions of Americans. Instead, Democrats want to make history by passing sweeping, pork-laden legislation and as a result, either nothing at all will get done, or all the wrong things will get done.

This is stupidity, narcissism and hubris on display on a grand scale.

Words of caution

Scott Brown's win last night in the special election for the Massachusetts senate seat made vacant by Ted Kennedy's death was a game-changing event and warmed the cockles of my heart. If a Republican even came close in deep-blue Massachusetts, that would be a shot across the bow of the far-left Obama agenda. But let's be realistic on a couple of points:

1. A stronger candidate than Martha Coakley, running a better campaign, could have won
2. Many Baystaters are opposed to the current health care reform bill because they've already got a version of that plan statewide in Massachusetts and don't want to pay taxes for a federal one

Just the same, Massachusetts voters sent a clear message that party and incumbency matter less than the issues. The absolute worst thing Obama and the Democratic leadership can do now is stick to their guns and keep pushing their agenda. Clinton got the message loud and clear in 1994 and tacked right, ensuring his reelection in 1996. I'm not sure Obama has the humility to do the same.

Update: Ed Morrissey at Hot Air has his own cautionary notes.

Government not waiting for health care bill to pass to start messin' with you

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, a government panel that makes influential recommendations on medical care practices, is now recommending that women not get mammogram breast cancer screening until age 50, and then only every two years. The current practice is to start at age 40 and then test annually thereafter.

"We're not saying women shouldn't get screened. Screening does saves lives," said Diana B. Petitti, vice chairman of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, which released the recommendations Monday in a paper being published in Tuesday's Annals of Internal Medicine. "But we are recommending against routine screening. There are important and serious negatives or harms that need to be considered carefully."

Several patient advocacy groups and many breast cancer experts welcomed the new guidelines, saying they represent a growing recognition that more testing, exams and treatment are not always beneficial and, in fact, can harm patients. Mammograms produce false-positive results in about 10 percent of cases, causing anxiety and often prompting women to undergo unnecessary follow-up tests, sometimes-disfiguring biopsies and unneeded treatment, including surgery, radiation and chemotherapy.

Not everybody is so excited about the new guidelines. Such as people who actually know what the fuck they're talking about:

But the American Cancer Society, the American College of Radiology and other experts condemned the change, saying the benefits of routine mammography have been clearly demonstrated and play a key role in reducing the number of mastectomies and the death toll from one of the most common cancers.

"Tens of thousands of lives are being saved by mammography screening, and these idiots want to do away with it," said Daniel B. Kopans, a radiology professor at Harvard Medical School. "It's crazy -- unethical, really."

And just in case you don't think that this is the Democrats' idea of the future of health care:

The new recommendations took on added significance because under health-care reform legislation pending in Congress, the conclusions of the 16-member task force would set standards for what preventive services insurance plans would be required to cover at little or no cost.

A favorite cry of the Left in the abortion debate is "Hands off my body!", but I guess that doesn't apply here.

The death of statesmanship

Un-fucking-believable. Barney Frank demonstrates his class and statesmanship in the health care debate by mocking and insulting the intelligence of Americans protesting the health care bill.

Frank, a Massachusetts liberal, told an audience: "Some of the people (at the rally) that wanted to engage me in conversation appeared to have been the losers in the 'Are you smarter than Michele Bachmann contest?'."

Rep. Bachmann, R-Minn., had organized Thursday's rally attended by thousands of conservatives critical of the Democrats' health care plan. Her spokeswoman did not respond to requests for comment. Frank, who recently compared arguing with an angry voter to conversing with a dining room table, said this week's protest was like being trapped inside a furniture warehouse.

One thing I've learned about liberals is that they invariably believe themselves the intellectual superior of everybody else. That's fine if you're a coffee house poet or even a lefty columnist, but for a senior member of Congress to be smearing the intelligence of the 50% or so of Americans who disagree with him politically is outrageous. C'mon, Massachusetts...it's time to vote this cretin out of office.

Were elections a referendum on Obama? Kinda

A day after Virginia and (gasp!) New Jersey elected Republican governors, the Obama-loving media is eager to spin the results as being anything but a referendum on Barack Obama. Actually, they were so eager, the spin started the day before the election. CNN.com this morning has an analysis piece by Mark Preston titled "Elections not a referendum on Obama". Well, I guess that settles it. Preston does provide some polling data to support his assertion:

While the economy and jobs were the chief concern for voters in both states, 26 percent of New Jersey residents said property taxes was also a major issue, while another 20 percent mentioned corruption, according to CNN exit polling. In a similar CNN survey taken in Virginia, health care was the most important issue for 24 percent of the voters, while 15 percent named taxes and transportation was mentioned by 7 percent.

Further proof that this election was not solely focused on Obama, 56 percent of Virginians said that the president was not a factor when it came down to their vote. In New Jersey, that number increased to 60 percent of the people who went to the polls on Tuesday.

But who does Preston quote when it comes time to lay out a winning 2010 strategy for Democrats? Veteran political mastermind Former movie producer and far-left blogger Jane Hamsher.

"I would suggest that appealing to Republican interests is not the best way to turn out Democrats," Hamsher said. "It is just a fact of life. They have to turn out Democrats."

Wow, thanks for the keen insight, Jane.

I'm in no way a political strategist, but I know a thing or two about human nature. The average voter - that is to say the non-partisan who doesn't spend every waking hour consuming political news and tends to vote from the gut - isn't happy. At an emotional, adolescent level he still might be infatuated with Barack Obama, but on a less conscious (and perhaps more intellectual level) he knows Democratic policies are not improving things and may in fact be making things worse.

Young voters turned out overwhelmingly for Obama in 2008. But as Preston notes:

On Tuesday, the Obama magic did not rub off on Corzine or Deeds.

In New Jersey, while Corzine overwhelmingly won among African-Americans, only 14 percent of the vote was black; young people, age 18 to 29, made up 9 percent of the vote and 36 percent of them backed Republican Chris Christie. Meanwhile, 60 percent of independents supported Christie as well.

The numbers were worse for Deeds in Virginia. Ten percent of the electorate was age 18 to 29 and Republican Bob McDonnell captured 54 percent of this voting bloc. Deeds overwhelmingly carried the African-American vote that made up16 percent of people who turned out on Tuesday, while 66 percent of voters who identified themselves as independents backed McDonnell.

The black vote might be lost in perpetuity to the GOP, but young voters can often swing either way. In New Jersey, they simply failed to show up in enough numbers to change the outcome. In Virginia, they also failed to show up in significant numbers, but those that did voted heavily for McDonnell. That does not bode well for Virginia Democrats in 2010.

So while Obama may not have been a specific target for voter backlash, he's losing his influence over a key voting bloc...he's losing his mojo. And even if last night's elections weren't specifically a referendum on Obama, they might have been more generally a referendum on Democratic policies.

The odd outcome of this is that if the trend continues into the 2010 mid-term elections and Democrats lose the significant majority they now hold in Congress, Democratic policies will either be tabled or seriously diluted going forward. That could set the stage for another Obama win in 2012 if a more sound fiscal policy returns to Washington.

Fact-checking as it's supposed to be

CNN thoroughly beclowned itself a few weeks ago when Wolf Blitzer fact-checked a Saturday Night Live sketch poking fun of Barack Obama's near-total lack of achievement since his inauguration in January. Today the AP partially redeems the mainstream media with a pretty tough fact-checking of the left's demonization of the health insurance industry.

Quick quiz: What do these enterprises have in common? Farm and construction machinery, Tupperware, the railroads, Hershey sweets, Yum food brands and Yahoo? Answer: They're all more profitable than the health insurance industry. In the health care debate, Democrats and their allies have gone after insurance companies as rapacious profiteers making "immoral" and "obscene" returns while "the bodies pile up."

Ledgers tell a different reality. Health insurance profit margins typically run about 6 percent, give or take a point or two. That's anemic compared with other forms of insurance and a broad array of industries, even some beleaguered ones.

This is similar to the demagoguery the Democrats indulged in last year to smear Exxon-Mobil as another "rapacious profiteer" by tossing around the amount of their "obscene" quarterly profit, which was only around 8% of their revenue at the time.

The ability to turn a profit is a good thing. When companies are making healthy profits they're able to expand and employ more people. When profits are anemic or non-existent, they contract and lay people off. It's really pretty simple. Democrats are the enemy of a good business climate and a healthy economy.

Yes, Madam Speaker, the question of individual mandates IS a serious one

First, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) asserted that nobody questions the consitutional authority of Congress to impose individual mandates on citizens to purchase medical insurance. About a day later, it was House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-CA) turn to say that asking whether Congress has such constitutional authority was not a "serious question".

Set aside for a moment the supreme arrogance exhibited by our congressional Democratic leadership with these statements and consider the constitutional question: Can Congress compel citizens to purchase something they may neither want nor even need? All the Democratic health care reform proposals before Congress include individual mandates requiring citizens to carry health care insurance. Failure to do so is punishable by a hefty fine. It's not clear to me what the penalty might be if one refuses to pay the fine, but that's not important. What IS important is that this legislation would require you to purchase something you may not otherwise have purchased.

The easy argument is that it's in everyone's best interest, so it falls under the general welfare clause of Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution. If that's the case, then where does it end? It would clearly further the interests of the "general welfare" if every adult volunteered 20 hours of community service each month. Does that give Congress the Constitutional authority to compel every citizen 18 and over to spend four or five hours every week working in a homeless shelter or picking up trash on the side of the road?

Now, extend this exceptionally far-reaching Congressional authority to an America with a national health care system in which the bad habits of broad segments of the population increase the health care costs for all. Promoting the "general welfare" might then mean outright bans on tobacco and alcohol, mandatory exercise regimens...who knows what else.

Yes, Mr. Leahy and Ms. Pelosi, many people question the authority of Congress to impose individual mandates, and yes, it is a serious question.

Boxer, Kerry to introduce Senate version of cap and trade

What could go wrong?

The Boxer-Kerry bill will build in large part off H.R. 2454, legislation approved in June by the House following several marathon months of negotiations that involved lawmakers representing coastal and industry-heavy districts. Exactly what is the same in the two bills remains to be seen. As for differences, Senate Democratic aides say they expect the legislation to divert from the House bill's 17 percent emissions target for 2020 and go with an even more aggressive 20 percent limit. The bill also will stay silent on exactly how the Senate should divide up emission allowances.

The Democrats are determined not to let this steaming pile of crap die the ignominious death it deserves.

Shocker: Dems never DID support Afghan war

This was all over the righty blogs yesterday, but worth noting. The liberal blog Hullabaloo notes:

Escalation is a bad idea. The Democrats backed themselves into defending the idea of Afghanistan being The Good War because they felt they needed to prove their macho bonafides when they called for withdrawal from Iraq. Nobody asked too many questions sat [sic] the time, including me. But none of us should forget that it was a political strategy, not a serious foreign policy.

Well, duh. As if we should ever expect serious foreign policy from the Dems. As Jim Geraghty over at NRO noted:

The average Democrat doesn't like fighting wars. They don't like using military force. They don't just dislike collateral damage and civilian casualties and flag-draped coffins; they cringe at the concept of combat with citizens of another country, even when the president has declared:

Al Qaeda and its allies — the terrorists who planned and supported the 9/11 attacks — are in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Multiple intelligence estimates have warned that al Qaeda is actively planning attacks on the United States homeland from its safe haven in Pakistan. And if the Afghan government falls to the Taliban — or allows al Qaeda to go unchallenged — that country will again be a base for terrorists who want to kill as many of our people as they possibly can.

That's not the last president; that's the current president, an entire six months ago.

I wanted to make some acerbic comment on the left's duplicity, but I can do no better than Ace:

You claimed to support a war in which American soldiers were fighting and dying, leaving friends and limbs on the battlefield, as a cynical political strategy?

You... um... voiced support of a real serious-as-death war to cadge votes out of a duped public?

The OTHER problem with ACORN

As ACORN officials issue one defensive statement after another in response to the devastating revelations about their criminal enterprise, they're revealing to the public what the Right-wing Noise Machine™ has known and been trying to call attention to for a long time: that ACORN is nothing more than an extension of the Democratic party and exists mainly to serve their agenda. Take, for example, this closing paragraph from ACORN's most recent statement announcing suspension of some services:

Said Ms. Lewis: "We have all been deeply disturbed by what we've seen in some of these videos. I must say, on behalf of ACORN's Board and our Advisory Council, that we will go to whatever lengths necessary to reestablish the public trust. For nearly forty years, ACORN has given voice to communities, and gotten results. Right now, our nearly 500,000 member are working their hearts out for quality, affordable healthcare for every American and to help stop the foreclosure crisis. We must get this process right, so the good work can go forward."

Huh-what? Passing the health care reform bill the Democrats so desperately want? Stopping the mortgage crisis of the Democrats' making? When the hell did those two things become ACORN's job? Oh, right...some time around 20 January this year, I guess. I'll go out on a limb here and suggest that ACORN probably wouldn't be too excited about pushing something from the Republican agenda, no matter how good it would be for everyone. Like tort reform, let's say. Or school vouchers. Or building nuclear plants and expanding domestic oil and natural gas production.

And that's the other problem with ACORN. Not so much that they're relentless advocates for the Democrats' agenda, but that they receive taxpayer funding to be advocates for the Democrats' agenda! They have zero accountability to Congress and therefore to the taxpayers who fund them.

So here's a challenge for the two or three people who might read this...name a non-profit community organization pushing a Republican agenda receiving taxpayer funding.