Pure Gold

Rich Lowry has a column out today about those “foreigners” backing Republican races….based on what Obama is saying.

It’s full of great quotes and worth a read.
A small sampling:

And so the White House has embraced an epistemological standard worthy of the birthers.

or then there is the conclusion:

Suffice it to say that with the prospect of a November drubbing in the offing, the Obama Democrats are doing all they can to demonstrate they deserve it.

And he doesn’t even mention the foreign money that poured into the Obama campaign. It’s as fun one folks.

D Campaign Tactic

Just make shit up.

President Obama, speaking at a rally in Philadelphia, said “the American people deserve to know who is trying to sway their elections” and raised the possibility that foreigners could be funding his opponents.

“You don’t know,” Obama said at the rally for Senate candidate Joe Sestak and other Democrats. “It could be the oil industry. It could even be foreign-owned corporations. You don’t know because they don’t have to disclose.”

He’s talking about the Chamber of Commerce. You know – the Chamber of small business – the chamber of most of the freaking jobs in this country. The Chamber says, no, they do not accept foreign aid for campaign contributions and this, this is what our President says.

His aid suggests that until they prove otherwise, he’s going to assume that the Chamber’s campaign money is from foreigners.

Let’s see now – who’s actual presidential campaign was from foreign dollar Oh yeah, I remember. Obama.

To quote Karl Rove via Gateway Pundit.

“Do these people have no shame?”

Nope.

Speaking of Gateway (Jim Hoft).….he seems to be the reliable source concerning attacks on our President.

Yes, it’s true. Our state-run media is so corrupt that they will not report that a book was hurled at Obama and barely missed hitting his head.
Only the British media had the guts to report on it.

Explain why that isn’t front page news please?

Illegal Immigration

Apparently it’s time for another post from me on illegal immigration. What with Meg Whitman’s maid and now this front page story in the Washington Post about a very sad family.

My thoughts:
Meg Whitman had an idea that her maid was illegal and chose not to delve too deeply until deciding to run for public office. It can’t be proven, it is hypocritical. It’s not worth electing Jerry Brown over.

One of the problems with illegal immigration is that with stolen identities we all have to be feds as far as reading these papers and confirming they are legitimate OR we could never hire an Hispanic.

I think we should a) work harder to protect the border b) prosecute those who are clearly and knowingly hiring illegals (yes, including farmers) and c) make it a hell of a lot easier to enter this country legally.

I disagree with Arizona’s law, not because it’s wrong or even because it’s working but it creates an underclass of people who become afraid to report crimes against themselves. Every child is taught that the police officer is your friend. How does that work out with this life?: [bold is mine]

Among its supporters, there is a sense of moral certitude, a mood championed by the county’s sheriff, Joe Arpaio, who has become a national hero to some by vowing to continue his sweeps for illegal immigrants – spectacular events in which deputies fan out into mostly Hispanic neighborhoods, at times wearing ski-type masks. Recently, Arpaio called for a citizen “enforcement posse,” a force of 500 people who will be outfitted, he said, with their own guns and helicopters.

This is why, among Hispanic families, the mood is one of nervousness verging at times on paranoia. And why adjustments are being made to hundreds of thousands of complicated lives.

It doesn’t.

After allowing for more legal immigration (and I don’t mean a “bracero” program that specifically creates an underclass of the low paid), I would look at the line and determine at that point how to allow illegals to enter slots at the end of the line.

Illegal immigration keeps wages artificially low. While I believe in free markets with laws that allow for even steven playing of business, I believe it’s only fair to do the same for labor. Currently lobbying pays well. How well would it pay if illegals were openly hired? Same can be said for nursing, and grocery store checking and firefighting.
Part of the pay is the skill, yes, but part of the pay is also who’s competing for the pay. I suspect there are firefighters in Mexico who would like a better life here but the paradigm is only to allow illegals to do low pay work and live in the shadows.

You are now up to date on my thoughts again, which haven’t changed. It’s all just in the news again.

Ugh

“Policy at its Worst” according to Bob Herbert is apparently means continuing on during an $11 billion deficit to fund a tunnel that is already being talked about as probably going over budget by $5 billion.

Why? Because apparently Americans don’t “dream big” anymore. He wrote his entire column without once mentioning the money.

enuf said.

But let’s read Steve Lopez too.
In order to get support from the police union Meg Whitman said she wouldn’t move their pensions to 401ks. That, according to Steve, makes her a whore.
Wow. Where ARE the feminists here? What does that make every male politician that ever lived? What does that make Barack Obama who is currently allowing certain companies to opt out of requirements of Obamacare?
Manwhore?

And Cohen thinks the tea party is the cause of the nation’s lack of civility. Ha.

The UN

Claudia Rosett knows of the UN

The real problem is that the opaque and diplomatically immune UN is far better at catering to itself than helping those it proposes — often unrealistically — to protect. UN peacekeeping is a gravy train for UN bureaucrats and for governments of many of the countries providing troops (the top five currently being Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, Nigeria and Egypt).
With its multibillion-dollar budget, peacekeeping has been one of the most corrupt arenas of UN activity, a locus of what UN internal investigators in 2006 labeled “a culture of impunity.”

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/raped_under_un_auspices_VXbwyWNNLMyHmm7PdblIVI#ixzz11mTO1aJ2

Letting Science into Politics

Remember when political decisions were to be based on science vs politics?

The report was one of four preliminary assessments prepared for the commission created by President Obama. Taken together, two of the reports paint a picture of a government that was as unprepared to deal with a catastrophic spill as BP. And the portrait of an administration that withheld information from the public and, more specifically, scientists, about how much oil was getting into the water, how much remained and how such estimates were calculated appeared to contradict Obama’s pledge to make government more transparent and trustworthy.

the “Rule of Law”

So I assume you read the post just before this concerning Obamacare waivers and the rule of law not actually applying equally to all concerned and how that might, you know, affect business, which, you know, affects the economy, which, you know, affect whether you have a job or not.

Well, this gave me a chuckle. It’s a serious subject about the US Judge banning a witness in the Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani trial. Why? Because the witness’s name was found during questioning of Ghailani during interrogations.

“The court has not reached this conclusion lightly,” Kaplan [the judge] wrote. “It is acutely aware of the perilous nature of the world in which we live. But the constitution is the rock upon which our nation rests. We must follow it not when it is convenient, but when fear and danger beckon in a different direction.”

…..

On that point, Kaplan said, “Abebe [the potential witness] was identified and located as a close and direct result of statements made by Ghailani while he was held by the CIA. The government has elected not to litigate the details of Ghailani’s treatment while in CIA custody. It has sought to make this unnecessary by asking the court to assume in deciding this motion that everything Ghailani said while in CIA custody was coerced.”

The judge noted that he had previously rejected defence motions to dismiss the indictment on the grounds that Ghailani was deprived of a speedy trial and that his treatment by the CIA was so outrageous as to require termination of the charges.

So somehow the constitution which is a rock upon which our nation rests must be followed in not allowing Abebe to witness, BUT it’s not such a rock that Ghailani should have a speedy trial OR that Ghailani should ever have any proceedings showing that he had harsh interrogations taken with him.

As Ed said,

Now there is no standard at all, except for whatever Kathleen Sebelius Judge Kaplan decides she he likes — and whom she he wants to favor.

Q(s)OTD

All by Ed Morrissey concerning the waivers from the White House to companies – some companies, not all companies – for Obamacare requirements.

1 –

If the marketplace had uncertainty before, the administration has made the situation much, much worse:

2-

The proper action would have been to repeal at least this portion of the law in order to give a level playing field to everyone. By granting a few dozen waivers at the outset, though, the White House has amplified the uncertainty and arbitrariness in ObamaCare even further.

3-

Now there is no standard at all, except for whatever Kathleen Sebelius decides she likes — and whom she wants to favor.

4-

From the start, ObamaCare lacked any clarity in regulation. Congress filled the bill with the phrase “The Secretary shall determine” in place of establishing rules and regulations for the massive regulatory regime Congress created. Now, the White House has added arbitrary enforcement to uncertain regulation and opaque processes. This is not the Rule of Law, but the Whim of Autocracy.

The Media’s Idea of thought

Blood pressure is up again this morning.

Starting with this bizarre anti Boehner column by Bob Herbert. Please don’t try to tell me that journolist has disappeared. It’s just gone underground and for some reason they think that painting Boehner badly is going to win this election. But listen to this:

Just this past July, Mr. Boehner called for a moratorium on new federal regulations, saying it would be “a wonderful signal to the private sector that they’re going to have some breathing room.” Talk about an invitation to a nightmare. Try imagining how the public would be treated by banks, energy companies, food processors and myriad other powerful entities if the federal government were forced by law to ignore even more of their predations.

If the government would stop trying to reinvent the world and just let things be for 10 minutes business might be able to breath and think and say….oh – I see how these regulations are going to work. It looks like I can afford x many more people to grow.

But no. Instead it’s expected of business to be in the business of hiring apparently. And in the land of journalism there is such a disconnect that they seem to think that when business hires, even at a loss and uncertainty, that unemployment will be reduced and music will once again play. Right up until the time that they realize that their pensions have been reduced because those businesses they were invested in are working at a loss in order to save the economy for the journalists!!

(Why on earth am I still reading the NYTImes?)

Add to that this column by Richard Cohen about the hatefulness of the right. Somehow he has completely forgotten all the years of hatefulness, death threats, making fun of etc etc that came from the left. Regarding Kent State:

The governor of Ohio, James Rhodes, demonized the war protesters. They were “worse than the Brownshirts and the communist element. . . . We will use whatever force necessary to drive them out of Kent.”

That was the language of that time. And now it is the language of our time. It is the language of Glenn Beck, who fetishizes about liberals and calls Barack Obama a racist. It is the language of rage that fuels too much of the Tea Party and is the sum total of gubernatorial hopeful Carl Paladino’s campaign message in New York. It is all this talk about “taking back America” (from whom?) and this inchoate fury at immigrants and, of course, this raw anger at Muslims, stoked by politicians such as Newt Gingrich and Rick Lazio, the latter having lost the GOP primary to Paladino for, among other things, not being sufficiently angry. “I’m going to take them out,” Paladino vowed at a Tea Party rally in Ithaca, N.Y.

Funny – I’ve been called a racist in about every newspaper I read these days and somehow that’s ok. And I distinctly remember the left talking about “taking back America”. The left was stoked by people such as Olberman or Maddow or Pelosi or even Obama.

How can a journalist be sooooo obtuse as to read only one side??

UPDATE: Ann Althouse covers the Cohen column.

Ecuador – Honduras?

Gag me.
Apparently the President of Ecuador was not kidnapped at all. The media picked up on it similarly to the “coup” vs the legal removal of a president in Honduras.

Now let’s see which story has legs.