BAROCCOLI OBAMINATION

Obama to Kansas Supporters: “It’s Great to be Back in Texas!”

2011-12-06T13:54:00.000-08:00

Obama told an audience in Kansas today-
“It’s great to be back in Texas.”
The National Journal reported:

thegatewaypundit.com

Obama: Congress Shouldn’t Go Home Until Payroll Tax Cut Is Extended… (I’ll Be In Hawaii)

2011-12-06T13:50:00.001-08:00

In his Weekly Address Barack Obama told Congress they shouldn’t go home for the holidays until the payroll tax cut is extended.

Meanwhile… The Obama family announced they will be in Hawaii for 17 days this Christmas.

Leadership.

thegatewaypundit.com

Emails Show Energy Dept. Asked Solyndra to Keep Layoffs Quiet Until After 2010 Elections

2011-11-15T20:13:00.000-08:00

It’s a special Tuesday edition of a Friday night email dump, and it comes near mid-week because Democrats don’t control the House committee in question.

Energy Secretary Steven Chu is scheduled to appear before a Solyndra inquiry on Thursday, so I’m sure he’ll be asked about this:

The Obama administration urged officers of the struggling solar company Solyndra to postpone announcing planned layoffs until after the November 2010 midterm elections, newly released e-mails show.

Solyndra, the now-shuttered California company, had been a poster child of President Obama’s initiative to invest in clean energies and received the administration’s first energy loan of $535 million. But a year ago, in October 2010, the solar panel manufacturer was quickly running out of money and had warned the Energy Department it would need emergency cash to avoid having to shut down.

The new e-mails about the layoff announcement were released Tuesday morning as part of a House Energy and Commerce committee memo…

As you read content of one of the emails, keep in mind that the 2010 election was on November 2nd:

“DOE continues to be cooperative and have indicated that they will fund the November draw on our loan (app. $40 million) but have not committed to December yet,” a Solyndra investor adviser wrote Oct. 30. “They did push very hard for us to hold our announcement of the consolidation to employees and vendors to Nov. 3rd – oddly they didn’t give a reason for that date.”

This particular “investor adviser” posessed the kind of lack of inquisitiveness that probably contributed to the excitement level in the VP’s office.

As instructed, Solyndra announced the layoffs and a factory shutdown just after the elections were over. In spite of that, the DoE continued to give Solyndra installments of their taxpayer backed loan.

We all know how the 2010 elections turned out, so not disclosing the layoffs to the public until after the election didn’t exactly save Nancy Pelosi’s gavel.

Update: Rahm Emanuel still doesn’t remember anything about Solyndra… whatever that was.

Doug Powers - michellemalkin.com

The White House Christmas Tree’s Enormous Carbon Footprint

2011-11-15T20:11:00.000-08:00

This year most Americans, presuming they’re buying a new tree and not re-using last year’s fake tree, will likely pick out their Christmas tree locally and haul it back to their homes for decoration.

But the White House will have its official Christmas tree hauled all the way across the country from California on a flatbed truck. From the official USDA blog:

The 65-foot white fir from California’s Stanislaus National Forest was harvested and embarked on its journey toward the nation’s capitol on Nov. 5.

While this is the fourth time California will provide the Capitol Christmas Tree, it is the first time that the Forest Service has partnered with a local American Indian tribe to bless the tree. Prior to its harvesting on the Stanislaus, an elder from the Tuolumne Band of Me-wuk Indians blessed the splendid tree and its journey in a private ceremony.

After the blessing, local businesses and arborists teamed up to lift the tree and set it on a double flatbed truck that will eventually deliver it to Washington, D.C. on Nov. 28. But first, the tree started its in-state tour in Sonora, Calif. where it was met with various exhibits, booths and activities. Many attendees signed the tree’s “Christmas card to the nation,” a huge banner that will be hung and displayed on the flatbed truck during the 4,500-mile cross-country road trip.

After visiting communities in California, the tree will head east. During its 20-day trip, it will make a total of 23 stops in nine states, including New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Indiana, North Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Maryland.

The country is broke, the environmentalists tell us every aspect of our lives must be regulated in the name of fighting off some sort of global warming apocalypse, but the White House Christmas tree is on a 4,500 mile national tour on a flatbed truck.

How’s that for hypocrisy?

sayanythingblog.com

Obama thinks Hawaii is in Asia

2011-11-15T20:09:00.000-08:00

While promoting socialism at the APEC Summit in Hawaii, Barack Obama thinks he’s in Asia.
“Here in Asia…”

It’s OK. He’s a democrat.
Hat Tip Susan.

thegatewaypundit.com

Humorless Obama Breaks Tradition, Nixes APEX “Silly Shirts” Photo

2011-11-15T20:07:00.000-08:00

Wearing traditional ao dais, U.S. President George W. Bush, top row left, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Thai Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont, Chinese President Hu Jintao, bottom row left, and Chilean President Michelle Bachelet wave during a group photo with leaders of the APEC summit in Hanoi, Vietnam, in 2006. (LA Times)

This year Obama shelved the annual “silly shirts” tradition.
He didn’t even give his guests the traditional Hawaiian lei for the photo.
The LA Times reported:

For most of the last two decades, world leaders at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit would don exotic garb chosen by the hosts. The costumes made for a light moment at the picture-taking session — sober leaders in bomber jackets or pajama-style robes.

This year’s summit, hosted by Obama in his native Hawaii, broke with tradition. As the leaders assembled for the photo, Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard was overheard talking about grass skirts; Obama, coconut bras.

“We are ending that tradition,” Obama told his foreign counterparts.

Later in the day, Obama gave a news conference and was asked about his decision to end the “dress-up” tradition launched by President Clinton.

Given the location, a reporter asked, why no aloha shirts and grass skirts?

“I got rid of the Hawaiian shirts because I had looked at pictures of some of the previous APEC meetings and some of the garb that had appeared previously, and I thought this may be a tradition that we might want to break.”

What a stick in the mud.

thegatewaypundit.com

CNN Reporter Asks Obama If GOP Candidates Are “Uninformed, Out Of Touch, Or Irresponsible?”

2011-11-15T20:03:00.000-08:00

I caught this question earlier today on Keith Koffler’s site, but you really have to see the video to believe it:

“Last night at the Republican debate, some of the hopefuls, they hope to get your job, they defended the practice of waterboarding which is a practice you banned in 2009. Herman Cain said, quote, ‘I don’t see that as torture.’ Michele Bachmann said that it’s, quote, ‘very effective.’ So I’m wondering if you think that they’re uninformed, out of touch, or irresponsible?” CNN’s White House correspondent Dan Lothian asked President Obama in Hawaii.

I’m told the follow up question was, “Do you think you’re awesome, really awesome or super-duper awesome?”

sayanythingblog.com

Michelle Obama: Kids Need To Get Their “Palates Adjusted” To Government-Approved Diets

2011-11-15T20:01:00.001-08:00

Michelle Obama’s war on fat kids continues, this time suggesting that Americans can’t just eat what they want. We need to get their palates adjusted to what the government wants them to eat.

“Childhood obesity is one of my signature issues,” she said. “Our goal is to eliminate childhood obesity in a generation. And our view is that if we teach young people early about how to eat, and we give them a connection to the food that they eat, that they’re more excited and interesting, and interested, in what’s going on, and that in turn opens up a broader conversation about nutrition and health and movement–but also deeper issues of access and affordability, which are some of the primary causes of obesity. Because many of our communities–in underserved communities, kids aren’t growing up with vegetables because there are no grocery stores.

“People don’t have that connection,” Mrs. Obama said to her fellow panelists, who included a group of workers and student interns at the organic farm. “And we’re finding, through our contact with kids, that it is in fact working–like you guys: You now eat vegetables. You actually know what arugula is. And you eat it.”

One of the farm’s workers then told Mrs. Obama that arugula was a “favorite” of his.

“That’s right,” said Mrs. Obama. “My favorite, too. Arugula and steak. I like it a lot. That’s good stuff.”

Mrs. Obama then segued back to the importance of properly adjusting the palates of children.

“But we find the same thing is true with young kids, and if they get their palates adjusted to those very interesting flavors, they stay connected,” she said.

I think it’s interesting that Michele Obama says that the problem is a lack of access to vegetables, etc. That must be that “food deserts” thing the USDA was hyping a few months ago. Which was ridiculous. According to the USDA, I live on the edge of a food desert. And yet, I also live just two blocks from two separate, large grocery stores each of which has an excellent produce section.

To the extent that there’s a childhood obesity problem, and I don’t think it’s nearly the problem some claim it is, it’s probably because in America expenditures on food are the lowest (as a percentage of overall household expenditures) in the world:

On one hand, low food prices are not a bad thing, and the fact that they’re such a small part of expenditures speaks to just how affluent we are as Americans compared to the rest of the world. On the other hand, it’s likely a reflection of just how thoroughly ag subsidies (among other government policies) have distorted food markets.

If we want to address obesity issues, and I maintain that obesity is a personal problem not a public policy problem, then stop ag subsidies. Ending the government’s distortions of the food markets would go further to address obesity than any of the government’s efforts to force us into eating certain diets.

sayanythingblog.com

Harper Tells Obama Canada Will Sell Oil to Asia Since His Administration Delayed Pipeline (Obama Loses Another 1 Million US Jobs)

2011-11-14T12:25:00.000-08:00

The Keystone Pipeline project was expected to create up to 1,000,000 high-paying US jobs in the oil manufacturing and associated industries. The project itself would create 20,000 construction jobs.

But it was just a big pipe dream.

Obama refused to sign the Keystone agreement last week. Today Canadian Prime Minister Harper told Obama that he would look to Asia to sell its oil.
The Republic reporteed, via Free Republic:

Canada’s prime minister says he made it clear in a meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama that Canada will step up its efforts to sell oil to Asia since the Obama administration delayed a decision on an oil pipeline.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper says Canada will continue to push the U.S. to approve the $7-billion Keystone XL project.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper says Canada will continue to push the U.S. to approve the $7-billion Keystone XL project. Last week the U.S. State Department ordered that the pipeline be rerouted and subject to further environmental review, delaying a decision until 2013.

Harper says the U.S. move highlights why Canada must increase its efforts to diversify its exports to Asia. He says he communicated that clearly to Obama.

Nice work, Barack.

thegatewaypundit.com

Obama Won’t Comment on G20 Conversation Where He Blasted Israeli Leader Netanyahu

2011-11-14T12:22:00.000-08:00

Obama told reporters yesterday that he won’t comment on his private conversation with French President Nicolas Sarkozy where they ripped on Netanyahu.

The far left president’s outrageous comments hurt him with Jewish-American voters.

Weasel Zippers reported on this from News24

US President Barack Obama on Sunday refused to discuss an overheard conversation he was party to in which French President Nicolas Sarkozy called Israel’s leader Benjamin Netanyahu a “liar”.

In the chat picked up by an open microphone at this month’s G20 summit in France, Obama also appeared to show frustration with the Israeli prime minister, with whom he has had a tense relationship.

“With respect to the ‘hot mic’ in France, I’m not going to comment on conversations that I have with individual leaders,” Obama said.

thegatewaypundit.com

Obama Supporter’s Company Wins $433 Million No-Bid Contract for Experimental Smallpox Drug

2011-11-14T12:19:00.000-08:00

“I will finally end the abuse of no-bid contracts once and for all. The days of sweetheart deals for Halliburton and the like will be over when I’m in the White House.” – Senator and presidential candidate Barack Obama, October 2, 2008
*****

Hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars being given to an experimental project involving high cost, questionable necessity and a major party donor — Why does that sound so familiar?

From the Los Angeles Times:

Over the last year, the Obama administration has aggressively pushed a $433-million plan to buy an experimental smallpox drug, despite uncertainty over whether it is needed or will work.

Senior officials have taken unusual steps to secure the contract for New York-based Siga Technologies Inc., whose controlling shareholder is billionaire Ronald O. Perelman, one of the world’s richest men and a longtime Democratic Party donor.

When Siga complained that contracting specialists at the Department of Health and Human Services were resisting the company’s financial demands, senior officials replaced the government’s lead negotiator for the deal, interviews and documents show.

When Siga was in danger of losing its grip on the contract a year ago, the officials blocked other firms from competing.

Siga was awarded the final contract in May through a “sole-source” procurement in which it was the only company asked to submit a proposal. The contract calls for Siga to deliver 1.7 million doses of the drug for the nation’s biodefense stockpile. The price of approximately $255 per dose is well above what the government’s specialists had earlier said was reasonable, according to internal documents and interviews.

In addition to being a major party donor, Perelman also coughed up $50,000 to help fund Obama’s inauguration bash. But Perelman also dabbles in Republicans. The prudent billionaire always hedges his bets.

The Times goes on to point out that smallpox was eradicated globally in 1978 but the virus does exist in labs in the US and Russia. Siga’s drug isn’t a vaccine, but a pill that’s supposed to help people who have been exposed to the virus for too long of a period of time to be aided by a vaccine. The pill is on top of the smallpox vaccine stockpile the US already has on hand — and the drug has never been tested on human beings (who wants to be first in line for that one?).

One final note… guess who is on Siga’s Board of Directors? Two hints: He used to wear purple and visits the White House frequently.

Forget about smallpox — we need a vaccine against crony capitalism.

Doug Powers - michellemalkin.com

Obama Trashes Israeli Leader Netanyahu to Sarkozy: “You’re Fed Up With Him… But I Have to DEAL WITH HIM Every Day”

2011-11-08T08:00:00.000-08:00

French and American Leaders Tell Press Promise Not to Report the Story–
It took three days for it to come out!

Barack Obama and French President Nicolas Sarkozy trashed Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu this past weekend at the G20 meetings.
YNet News reported:

French President Nicolas Sarkozy reportedly told US President Barack Obama that he could not “stand” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and that he thinks the Israeli premier “is a liar.”

According to a Monday report in the French website “Arret sur Images,” after facing reporters for a G20 press conference on Thursday, the two presidents retired to a private room, to further discuss the matters of the day.

The conversation apparently began with President Obama criticizing Sarkozy for not having warned him that France would be voting in favor of the Palestinian membership bid in UNESCO despite Washington’s strong objection to the move.

The conversation then drifted to Netanyahu, at which time Sarkozy declared: “I cannot stand him. He is a liar.” According to the report, Obama replied: “You’re fed up with him, but I have to deal with him every day!”

The remark was naturally meant to be said in confidence, but the two leaders’ microphones were accidently left on, making the would-be private comment embarrassingly public.

The communication faux pas went unnoticed for several minutes, during which the conversation between the two heads of state – which quickly reverted to other matters – was all but open to members the press, who were still in possession of headsets provided by the Elysée for the sake of simultaneous translation during the G20 press conference.

“By the time the (media) services at the Elysée realize it, it was on for at least three minutes,” one journalist told the website. Still, he said that reporters “did not have a chance to take advantage of this fluke.”

The surprising lack of coverage may be explained by a report alleging that reporters present at the event were requested to sign an agreement to keep mum on the subject of the embarrassing comments.

And the press gladly went along with the cover-up.

thegatewaypundit.com

Obama Administration Refuses To Comply With Congressional Subpoenas Over Solyndra

2011-11-08T07:53:00.000-08:00

After losing half a billion in tax payer dollars on an investment in Solyndra that Obama once described as a “good bet,” Congress not surprisingly wanted to figure out just how it was that the Obama administration determined that it was a “good bet.”

To that end, they want documents from the White House. The White House has refused to divulge them, so Congress issued a subpoena. Now the White House is refusing to comply with that saying it’s motivated by “partisan politics.”

The White House counsel refused Friday to comply with a subpoena as issued by a House panel regarding the failed solar energy company Solyndra, saying that the initiative “was driven more by partisan politics than a legitimate effort to conduct a responsible investigation.”

Kathryn Ruemmler expressed her views in a letter to Reps. Fred Upton and Cliff Stearns, members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. A day earlier, one of its subcommittees requested internal documents regarding the government’s decision to issue more than half a billion dollars in federal loan guarantees in 2010 to Solyndra, which later filed for bankruptcy.

The White House counsel on Friday did not rule out disclosing additional information related to Solyndra, saying that “we remain willing to work with the committee to accommodate its legitimate oversight interests in a balanced manner.”

At the same time, Ruemmler said unequivocally that the subpoena, as written, was unacceptable.

“The committee’s extremely broad request for documents — now a subpoena — is a significant intrusion on executive branch interests,” Ruemmler wrote.

Refusing to comply with a subpoena – which can result in contempt of court charges – is a big black eye for the Obama administration. So you have to wonder what it is in the documents the Obama administration is refusing to turn over that makes this black eye preferable to complying with the subpoena.

And the charges of “partisan politics” ring a little hollow when you consider that our political system is an adversarial one on purpose. The best way to promote accountability among the weasels is to pit the weasels against one another, as far as I’m concerned. To be sure, subpoenas and investigatory power can be abused by Congress, but in this instance we’re talking a specific decision the Obama administration made that cost taxpayers a lot of money and has the stink of crony politics about it.

Are Republicans looking to score political points? Of course they are. Does that mean that the Obama administration doesn’t have to divulge the pertinent documents? Uh, no.

sayanythingblog.com

Obama Had NO REGRETS About Solyndra… In Fact He Wanted to Give It Another $469 Million

2011-10-05T19:09:00.000-07:00

Worst. President. Ever.
On May 26, 2011, the White House posted this video praising Solyndra as a Recovery Act success story. In August, Barack Obama’s gleaming example of green technology – Solyndra – filed for bankruptcy. The solar panel manufacturer squandered $535 million of stimulus money in a little over a year.

Why Solyndra?
Top Obama bundler George Kaiser made multiple visits to the White House in the months before the company was granted a $535 million loan from the government. And top Solyndra officials also made numerous visits — 20 — to the White House, according to logs and reporting by The Daily Caller. Solyndra officials in the logs included chairman and founder Christian Gronet and board members Thomas Baruch and David Prend. The company secured the $535 million loan despite the fact that it was widely known Solyndra was in deep economic trouble and had negative cash flows since its inception.

Kaiser said he did not use political influence or talk to administration officials about a massive government loan to Solyndra. However, the Solyndra investor made multiple visits to the White House in the week before the Department of Energy approved a $535 billion guaranteed loan to Solyndra on March 20, 2009

But, Barack Obama had no regrets.

In fact, Barack Obama was so impressed with the failed solar company that the administration wanted to give it another $469 million on top of the $535 million to make it an even billion dollars in taxpayer cash.
The Washington Post reported:

The Obama administration’s Department of Energy was poised last summer to give Solyndra a second major taxpayer loan of $469 million, even as the company’s financial situation was growing more dire.

The Energy Department was actively pushing to provide the second loan guarantee to the troubled solar-panel manufacturer in April and May 2010, when Solyndra’s auditors warned the company was in danger of closing due to its rapidly mounting debts and expenses, according to complete e-mails just released by a House committee investigating the original loan.

White House career staffers, who had first raised concerns in the fall of 2009 about the Department of Energy providing Solyndra with its first taxpayer-backed loan of $535 million , wrote e-mails in gallows humor in April 2010 about the prospect of giving Solyndra more money. That spring, industry analysts were publicly questioning how the Silicon Valley startup could so quickly be running out both the federal loan and $933 million in private capital.

“Apparently the loan size for Phase II is $469 million,” one Office of Management and Budget analyst wrote of DOE seeking a second loan for Solyndra. The analysts’s name was not released by the committee. “I’ve been told we should expect the see that project soon for conditional commitment.”

Another joked: “Possible to close and default on one before closing on a second??? Could be a new record.”

The agency didn’t shelve the idea for a second loan until October 2010, a Department of Energy spokesman has confirmed. That was the month that Solyndra executives and investors first warned the department that the company was facing the threat of having to liquidate without emergency cash.

thegatewaypundit.com

Michelle Obama Listed Daughters As “Senior Staffers” To Justify Expensive African Vacation And Safari

2011-10-05T19:07:00.000-07:00

The most accountable administration evah:

Judicial Watch said the U.S. Air Force provided a C-32 – a Boeing 757 modified by the military for the purpose of flying big-wigs around the world – to fly the First Lady and her entourage to and from Africa, at a cost of $424,142. Another $928.44 was listed as the cost of providing 192 meals for the 21 people who made the trip

The Obama daughters were listed on the manifest as “senior staff.”

“This trip was as much an opportunity for the Obama family to go on a safari as it was a trip to conduct government business,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “This junket wasted tax dollars and the resources of our overextended military. No wonder we had to sue to pry loose this information.”

I missed this story yesterday, but it’s worthy of our attention. The nation is suffering with the economy sputtering, the national debt soaring and Obama’s economic rescue policies not only failing but actively making things worse.

Meanwhile, the First Lady justifies an expensive trip to Africa to take a vacation and safari with her daughters by saying it’s “official business” and even going so far as to list her children as “staffers.”

The level of arrogance and dishonesty on display here is nothing short of shocking.

But, er, “hope for change” and “yes we can” or something.

sayanythingblog.com

U.S. first lady Michelle Obama stands with Karen Dudley, right, at her restaurant “The Kitchen” as she makes an unscheduled stop for lunch in Cape Town, South Africa, Thursday, June 23, 2011. Also pictured, left to right, daughters Malia and Sasha Obama, niece Leslie Robinson, nephew Avery Robinson. (AP/Charles Dharapak, Pool)

Obama Stops By School To Read Kids A Book About Himself

2011-10-05T19:03:00.000-07:00

Could this guy be more full of himself?

Before his speech Tuesday at Eastfield College in Mesquite, Texas, President Obama stopped by an early childhood education laboratory to read to children ages 3 to 5.

Among his reading selections: A book about the presidential dog Bo, including a drawing of the president himself.

After the reading the President hung around to autograph copies of “Of Thee I Sing,” written by one Barack Obama.

Which basically means this was a taxpayer-funded book signing appearance for the President.

We didn’t elect a leader. We elected a celebrity.

sayanythingblog.com

More:

This isn’t the first time he’s read to kids about himself.

In December of last year, Barack Obama read the book he ‘authored’ “Of Thee I Sing” to a group of second graders. The book includes a letter he wrote to his daughters.

thegatewaypundit.com

Voters Should Definitely Blame Barack Obama For The Economy Says…Joe Biden?

2011-09-30T08:48:00.000-07:00

“Right now, understandably — totally legitimate — this is a referendum on Obama and Biden and the nature of the state of the economy,” says Vice President Joe Biden. “Even though fifty-some percent of the American people think that the economy tanked because of the last administration, that’s not relevant.”

“What’s relevant is we’re in charge. And right now we are the ones in charge and it’s gotten better, but it hasn’t gotten good enough.”

I think Biden is exactly correct. This issue of this election isn’t what George W. Bush’s policies did and did not do to the economy. Bush isn’t on the ballot. The issue of this election is whether or not the policies Obama/Biden have put in place have worked.

And, of course, they haven’t.

sayanythingblog.com

Obama DOE Warns: We Can’t Let China Dominate Solar Industry… Then Awards $337 Million to Firm That Uses Chinese Company’s Solar Panels

2011-09-30T08:45:00.000-07:00

Obama DOE Warns: We Can’t Let China Dominate Solar Industry…
Then Immediately Awards $337 Million to Firm That Uses Chinese Solar Panels

On September 14, 2011, Jonathan Silver, Executive Director Loan Programs Office, U.S. Department of Energy warned the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations Committee on Energy and Commerce that we cannot allow China to dominate the solar industry. This came after US company Solyndra went bankrupt despite blowing $537 million in US stimulus cash.

That’s odd?
If the Department of Energy was so worried about China’s domination of the international solar industry then why did they award Chinese firm Suntech with a major US contract back in February.
The New York Times reported, via Free Republic:

Suntech, the Chinese solar giant, has won a contract to supply photovoltaic panels for a 150-megawatt project in Arizona, marking China’s entry into a lucrative United States power-plant market dominated by American companies.

The project is the first phase of a planned 700-megawatt project called Mesquite Solar to be built about 40 miles west of Phoenix and operated by Sempra Generation, a subsidiary of Sempra Energy. A California utility, Pacific Gas & Electric, will buy the electricity produced by the power plant’s first phase, called Mesquite Solar 1.

…While Chinese companies like Suntech, Yingli Green Energy and Trina Solar have grabbed a significant percentage of the American residential solar market — supplying nearly 40 percent of panels in California — they had shied away from huge utility-scale projects.

And this week the Obama Administration awarded a $337 million loan guarantee to Sempra Energy’s Mesquite Solar I project in Arizona, about 45 miles west of Phoenix.

That 150-megawatt facility will use solar panels made in Arizona by Suntech Power, which is based in China.

thegatewaypundit.com

Obama’s Commerce Secretary: We Can’t Afford Not To Subsidize Green Energy

2011-09-30T08:42:00.000-07:00

Given the millions we’re spending per job “kept or created” most reasonable people believe, rightly, that we can’t afford any more of that kind of spending.

But according to President Obama’s commerce secretary, we can’t afford not to spend that money:

(CNSNews.com) – Acting Commerce Secretary Rebecca Blank said that in a global race for green technology, the United States “can’t afford” not to spend taxpayer money on such projects, and that the price of that spending is an occasional failure. One of those failures was a $535-million federal loan guarantee to the Solyndra company that makes solar panels but which recently filed for bankruptcy.

“The U.S. can’t afford to not be a major winner in this race,” Blank said Thursday on a conference call with reporters. “That necessarily means that there’s going to be some capital investment by the U.S. government. But it is new technology and that means that there is sometimes risks.”

Blank said that because green technology can sometimes be untested, the risk of failure will always be there when government subsidizes green companies.

“Make no mistake, that when you’re in a new innovation race of the sort that we are with every other advanced country in the world you are always out there on the cutting edge,” she said, “and that involves both big returns but sometimes involves some risks [of failure] as well.”

But why should the taxpayers be subjected to that risk? Why should the government get to play investment games with our tax dollars?

The false assumption here from Blank is that these sort of investments wouldn’t happen if the government didn’t make them. Which in the case of Solyndra is true as most private sector investors, unlike the government, are smart enough to avoid bad investments like that one.

But here’s reality: Reliable, practical, cost-effective energy initiatives will get investment because those sort of investments will work. Most green energy initiatives are unworkable. They’re expensive, unreliable and often have other problems too. That’s why private investors don’t embrace them without the backing of the government.

If other countries want to squander the tax dollars of their citizens chasing these green energy boondoggles they’re welcome to it. Here in America we ought to trust the free flow of capital in a free market to guide us to our energy future.

sayanythingblog.com

Flashback: Obama Blames US Guns For Mexican Violence… Then Runs at Least 2,000 Guns to Mexico

2011-09-30T08:39:00.000-07:00

In April 2009 Barack Obama traveled to Mexico and blamed US gun sellers for “This war being waged with guns purchased not here but in the United States.” Just to be sure, a few months later the Obama Administration started running their own guns to Mexico, at least 2,000.

Barack Obama, April 16, 2009:

“This war is being waged with guns purchased not here but in the United States… more than 90 percent of the guns recovered in Mexico come from the United States, many from gun shops that lay in our shared border. So we have responsibilities as well.”

Also today… Mexican Attorney General told reporters that Obama is more involved with Operation Fast and Furious than he is admitting.
The Cypress Times reported:

President Barack Obama appears to be getting it from all sides regarding a government snafu dubbed Operation Fast and Furious. Besides both houses of the U.S. Congress and a number of public-interest groups investigating what is being characterized as a rogue federal law enforcement operation, Mexico’s attorney general is infuriated over the allegations that the U.S. was behind the smuggling of weapons into Mexico that ended up killing her countrymen.

In a statement released by Mexican Attorney General Marisela Morales, she called Operation Fast and Furious “an attack on Mexicans’ security.”

Morales told Mexican reporters that she is demanding a full and honest explanation from the United States government especially since evidence is being gathered that reveals the Obama administration was more involved in Operation Fast and Furious than top officials admitted in their sworn statements.

If what is being reported is true, U.S. Attorney General and other government officials may have committed perjury and/or obstruction of justice if it’s proven they lied when testifying before House and Senate committees.

Operation Fast and Furious was a botched Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives covert operation initiated in order to track more than 2,000 smuggled guns to Mexican drug cartels by allowing gang members to purchase them illegally from U.S. gun stores then take them back to their leaders.

However, according to Congressional reports by both Rep. Darryl Issa (R-CA) and Senator Charles Grassley (R-NE), the federal agency lost track of many of the guns. Some later were traced to murders of police and civilians in Mexico and the killing of a U.S. Border Patrol Agent, Brian Terry.

thegatewaypundit.com

Obama Mocks Texas Fires at Fundraiser But Refused to Offer Emergency Assistance Back in April

2011-09-26T08:06:00.000-07:00

Barack Obama mocked Governor Rick Perry and Texas last night in a fundraiser speech for the recent fires.

He said it was climate change.
The LA Times reported:

“You’ve got a governor whose state is on fire denying climate change. It’s true.”

Because we all know ~~global warming~~ climate change is real!

This is the same president who refused to declare a national emergency disaster zone in the Lone Star state in April despite wildfires raging across 2 million acres that month… Even after federal employees started one of the fires.

thegatewaypundit.com

Obama Mixes Up Jews With Janitors

2011-09-26T08:02:00.000-07:00

Maybe President Obama has Jews on the mind after the NY-09 special election in which Jewish voters through their support behind a Republican.

Via Andrew Malcolm, here’s an excerpt from the official White House transcript of the President’s comments before the Congressional Black Caucus.

When you start saying, at a time when the top one-tenth of 1 percent has seen their incomes go up four or five times over the last 20 years, and folks at the bottom have seen their incomes decline — and your response is that you want poor folks to pay more?

Give me a break.

If asking a billionaire to pay the same tax rate as a janitor makes me a warrior for the working class, I wear that with a badge of honor. I have no problem with that.

Now here’s video of what the President actually said, in which he said “Jews” initially instead of “janitors.”

Whoops.

Meanwhile, it doesn’t sound like President Obama made a very good impression with the CBC with Maxine Waters suggesting that the President wouldn’t have told other groups – like Jews or gays – to stop griping.

sayanythingblog.com

Governor Gary Johnson: My Neighbor’s Dogs Have Created More Shovel-Ready Jobs Than Barack Obama

2011-09-22T21:36:00.000-07:00

Best line of the night–
At the FOX News-Google GOP Debate Governor Gary Johnson says his neighbor’s two dogs have created more shovel-ready jobs than Barack Obama.
Obviously, the crowd loves it.

thegatewaypundit.com

Obama pitches jobs bill in front of bridge that won’t benefit from jobs bill

2011-09-22T21:30:00.000-07:00

Go figure. Remember, this is the same guy who was surprised to learn there’s no such thing as “shovel-ready projects” for public works after he signed a nearly $800 billion stimulus.

Although some press accounts have described Brent Spence as “crumbling,” and the White House says it’s an example of “ur gently needed” repairs, the bridge isn’t falling apart. In fact, it’s designed to last for decades more.

It is, however, “functionally obsolete,” which in this case means it’s too small to handle the daily traffic load. While designed to handle 85,000 cars and trucks, it now carries more than 150,000, leading to regular backups.

So the plan isn’t to do extensive repairs on the bridge, but to build an entirely new one right next to it and keep the old one in use.

The problem is that construction work on the $2.3 billion bridge isn’t scheduled to start for three or four years, according to the project’s official website.

That would appear to put it outside the “immediate” timetable in Obama’s jobs bill, which requires the Transportation secretary to “obligate” all the highway funds “not later than two years after enactment” of the bill.

Here’s video of him in front of the bridge today, following Maxine Waters’s advice to “fight” by stuttering his way to class-warrior glory. Speaking of things that are crumbling: His approval’s at 39/57 in Florida, which not long ago was a swing state if you can believe it, and a new Democratic poll of 60 battleground congressional districts held by Republicans finds that 50 percent support the GOP incumbent compared to 41 percent who support a Democratic challenger — a slight increase since the midterms last year. The One’s approval rating in those districts? Just 41 percent. Good luck, progressives. Exit quotation from a House Democrat who wanted to be anonymous for obvious reasons: “It didn’t have to be this way. Obama’s presidency has fizzled. It’s going to be every person for himself in 2012. There just won’t be any coattails, and any effect he does have on the ballot will hurt us.”

hotair.com

Obama Ag Secretary: Americans Must “Adjust” To What The Government Wants Them To Eat

2011-09-22T21:29:00.001-07:00

Remember, according to the Obama administration, Americans do not have a fundamental right to obtain whatever food they wish (video at the link).

(CNSNews.com) – U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told members of the National Restaurant Association on Monday that Americans need to “adjust” their tastes so that they like the kind of food the government believes they should eat—and “we have to make sure that what we do is create the appropriate transition.”

“You know, as we deal with this issue of reducing sodium and sugar, it sounds simple to do, but you all know better than I do, it’s not as simple as it sounds,” said Vilsack.

“It’s going to take time for people’s taste to adjust and they will adjust over time, but it will take some time,” he said. “So, we have to make sure that what we do is create the appropriate transition.

“At the end of the day, though, we’ve got to deal with this,” said Vilsack.

Or, we could just let people eat what they want and expect that they deal with the consequences of their lifestyle choices.

Because how can we say that we live in a free country if we have to “adjust” our food tastes to what the government wants?

sayanythingblog.com

Obama Administration Protecting Teachers Who Can’t Speak English

2011-09-15T21:31:00.000-07:00

America has no official language, but predominantly we are an English-speaking nation. Thus, it makes sense that our teachers should speak English fluently for the sake of removing any barriers to our children grasping the instruction offered.

But the Obama administration doesn’t want teachers who can’t speak English fluently to be fired, arguing that it’s discriminatory to Hispanics and other non-English speakers. Which makes me wonder, what about the students who do speak English? They don’t matter?

Public school teachers with unacceptable English pronunciation and grammar are being protected by the Obama Administration, which has forced one state to eliminate a fluency monitoring program created to comply with a 2002 federal education law.

Singling out teachers who can’t speak proper English in American schools—funded by taxpayers, no less—discriminates against Hispanics and others who are not native English speakers, according to the Department of Justice (DOJ). As a result it violates the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the teachers must remain in their current position.

Unbelievable as this may seem, it’s a true story reported this week by Arizona’s largest newspaper. Ironically, the state launched the fluency monitoring program to comply with the bipartisan-backed No Child Left Behind Act, which requires states to create standardized tests that show public school students are reaching proficiency in core subjects like English, math and science.

With only a small proportion of low-English proficiency students (reading between the lines they are referring to illegal immigrants) passing the state’s standardized reading test, Arizona education officials started to look at the teachers in those classrooms. They found a common thread in dozens of districts throughout the state; many instructors don’t speak proper English and, in fact, teach in Spanish, using Spanish-language materials. Some have “unacceptably heavy accents” that causes them to mispronounce words. Others use poor English grammar.

I’ve no particular love for No Child Left Behind. I’d argue that the one-size-fits-all federal policy is an affront to state’s rights. Education ought to be a local issue, governed by parents and school boards.

That said, one of the objectives of that policy is proficiency in the English language. How can we expect that students be proficient in English if their teachers aren’t proficient in English? The Obama administration is fighting, expending our tax dollars along the way, to saddle our kids with teachers who can’t speak properly.

Absurd, and exactly why we need school choice in this country.

sayanythingblog.com

Obama’s new Snitch Central: AttackWatch

2011-09-15T21:27:00.000-07:00

In 2009, the White House launched an effort to get people to snitch on those who expressed opposition to President Obama through a new official e-mail, flag@whitehouse.gov, and a web page on the official White House site. It didn’t quite last a fortnight, thanks to an outcry of anger over the idea that a President would be so petty and so paranoid as to need an official informant bureau in the White House. They dropped this about the same time that Obama finally dropped his war on Fox News, having lost on all fronts to control opinion.

Did they learn a lesson? Apparently not, or at least they learned the wrong lesson. The “flag” program is back, but this time it’s being run out of the Obama re-election campaign:

This is, at least, not nearly as offensive as running a Snitch Central out of the White House. It’s just as silly, though, and every bit as petty. The categories for passing along an “attack” include significant events like a TV interview or broadcast ad, but also include such trivial categories as “forwarded e-mail” and “rumor.” Presumably, the campaign would then debunk the “rumor,” which would then give it a lot more attention and oxygen than it otherwise might receive. In fact, it’s not inconceivable that people who really wanted to spread “rumors” would do so by reporting them through AttackWatch and waiting for the campaign to publicize rumors through their response.

This President and his team still haven’t learned the problems that come with punching below one’s weight. Besides, their big problems don’t come from rumors; they come from the record of abject failure that Barack Obama carries into this campaign. They’d do better to spend the money to hire better economists to consult the President than the coterie of academics that keep pushing the same Obamanomics that have flopped for the better part of three years. In the meantime, this serves as a good reminder as to just how thin-skinned and paranoid this President has been.

Update: Why wait to be reported? Send your picture to Bill Whittle and he’ll create your entry in the Gallery of Unrepentant Enemies of Dear Leader’s Glorious Worker’s Paradise.

hotair.com

A fun fact about Michelle Obama’s chummy fries police

2011-09-15T21:19:00.001-07:00

In her latest flexing of federal “Let’s Move” muscle, First Lady Michelle Obama has strong-armed several major restaurant chains into re-designing their menus to her exacting healthy standards.

Move it or lose it!

Michelle Obama said Thursday that a pledge by the Olive Garden and Red Lobster restaurants and their sister chains to serve healthier meals is a “breakthrough moment” for the industry.

Darden Restaurants Inc. is pledging to cut calories and sodium in its meals by 10 percent by 2016, and 20 percent over a decade. Among promised changes for children: no more french fries. A fruit or vegetable side will become standard with kids’ meals. One percent milk also will be served, including free refills, unless an alternative drink is ordered.

“With this new commitment, Darden is doing what no restaurant company has done before,” said the first lady, who joined executives of Orlando, Fla.-based Darden for the announcement at an Olive Garden restaurant in Hyattsville, Md., just outside Washington.

…The kids’ menu changes have begun and are to be in place by July at Darden’s 1,900 restaurants in 49 states. Its other brands are LongHorn Steakhouse, The Capital Grille, Bahama Breeze and Seasons 52. The Capital Grille and Seasons 52 do not have children’s menus. The children’s menu will also include at least one 600-calorie or less option with reduced fat and sodium.

“We want to ensure that those who dine with us find the choices that they desire,” said Clarence Otis Jr., Darden’s chief executive officer.

In a normal, free-market environment, of course, business executives take their cue from customers — not from the East Wing.

But this is no normal, free-market environment.

And, I might add, Darden Restaurants is no normal restaurant chain.

At a time when most food service providers are struggling under the weight of increased taxes, health care mandates, and regulations, Darden Restaurants just happens to be one of the few and fortunate businesses to obtain one of those coveted Obamacare waivers.

Remember? I do. Flashback November 2010:

In early October, the Obama administration announced it had granted waivers not only to McDonald’s, but also to several other firms and labor unions.

Now comes word that Torquemada HHS Secretay Kathleen Sebelius has approved a whopping 111 waivers for businesses of all sizes, along with more unions and other providers of health insurance. The escapees include employers of many low-wage and part-time workers whose health insurance plans would otherwise be dropped, including Darden Restaurants — the parent company of the Olive Garden and Red Lobster and other chains, which employ some 34,000 people.

Among the waivers recently granted were for employers like Darden Restaurants, which operates the Red Lobster and Olive Garden restaurants, for 34,000 of its workers. Federal officials have granted 111 waivers to employers, insurers and union plans, who are responsible for covering about 1.2 million people.

Darden said the waiver would allow it to offer employees access to affordable coverage as the health care law is started.

Quid pro quo: It’s what’s for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

michellemalkin.com

OBAMA MUGSHOT – Obama’s Illegal Uncle Has a Valid Driver’s License and SS Number

2011-08-29T19:18:00.000-07:00

Onyango Obama’s was arrested for driving drunk.
He is currently being held by ICE.

The Framingham Police Department in Massachusetts just released Onyango Obama’s mugshot photo to The Washington Times Water Cooler. Mr. Obama, President Obama’s uncle, was arrested by Framingham police last week and charged with a DUI. He is being held by ICE authorities, as he is an illegal immigrant from Kenya.

The Howie Carr Show told listeners today that Onyango was driving with a driver’s license and has a Social Security number.

President Barack Obama’s aunt, Zeituni Onyango, also an illegal immigrant was granted asylum last year.

thegatewaypundit.com

Obama’s Illegal Alien Uncle Onyango Nearly Hits Cop Car Drunk; Asks to Call White House

2011-08-28T12:52:00.000-07:00

Barack Obama’s illegal alien Uncle Onyango Obama was arrested in Massachusetts this past week after he nearly hit a cop car. He wanted to call the White House.
Kerry Picket at The Washington Times reported:

A number of media outlets have already reported that an illegal immigrant from Kenya by the name of Onyango Obama, 67, was arrested last week on Wednesday after he nearly rammed his SUV into a police car in Framingham, Massachusetts.

He was later charged with DUI among other violations. I spoke to Framingham Public Information Officer Lieutenant Delaney who told me that when Onyango Obama was asked at booking if he wanted to make a telephone call to arrange for bail, the Kenyan immigrant replied: “I think I will call the White House.”

The Boston Herald has more on the arrest.

thegatewaypundit.com

Obama Administration Covering Up Cost Of Michelle Obama’s African Safari

2011-08-28T12:51:00.000-07:00

With all the flak the Obama administration is getting over the cost of the first family’s vacationing, who can blame them for wanting to keep the cost of Michele Obama’s “family outing” to Africa for a safari a secret:

Judicial Watch has filed a lawsuit over the federal government’s refusal to disclose how much taxpayers spent to send Michelle Obama on a “family outing” that included a safari in Africa. …

“How much did the American people spend to send the First Lady on a family outing in Africa? That’s what we want to know,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “On the surface, the trip seems to have been totally unnecessary and was as much an excuse for the Obama family to go on a safari as it was a mission intended to advance the nation’s business in Africa.”

The organization requested information in June regarding the expenses for the trip. The request included records for the mission taskings for the June 21-27 trip to South Africa and Botswana, the transportation costs and all passenger manifests for the trip.

The government had until Aug. 3 to respond, but did not, so Judicial Watch now has followed up with a lawsuit.

“The professed purpose of Mrs. Obama’s trip was to encourage young people living in South Africa and Botswana to get involved in national affairs,” the Judicial Watch report said. “The First Lady’s remarks focused on education, health and wellness issues.

“However, accompanied by her daughters Malia and Sasha, her mother, Marian Robinson, and her niece and nephew, Leslie and Avery Robinson, the trip also included such tourist events as visits to historical landmarks and museums as well as a visit with Nelson Mandela,” the Judicial Watch report said.

“The trip ended with a private family safari at a South African game reserve before the group returned to Washington on June 27,” Judicial Watch said.

The nation is going broke, but by all means let’s fly Michelle Obama to Africa to mumble something to the kids about “getting involved” before hitting up the tourist stops and visiting celebrities.

sayanythingblog.com

Queen Michelle Obama Wore $156 T-Shirt For Bike Workout

2011-08-28T12:49:00.000-07:00

Let them eat peas.
Her Royal Highness Queen Michelle Obama was out biking this week near Martha’s Vineyard.
She wore a $156 (was $200) T-shirt for the workout.

First Lady Michelle Obama prepares to dismount her bicycle along with her daughter Sasha Obama, foreground right, following a bike ride in Manuel F. Correllus State Forest in West Tisbury, Mass., on the island of Martha’s Vineyard, Tuesday, Aug. 23, 2011. The first family, including President Barack Obama and daughter Malia Obama, both not shown, participated in the outing. (AP/Steven Senne)

She wore the same shirt painting on 9-11.

thegatewaypundit.com

Facebook Removed Jan Brewer Post Criticizing Obama’s New Immigration Policies

2011-08-20T15:33:00.000-07:00

Facebook removed Governor Jan Brewer’s post criticizing Barack Obama’s lawless new immigration policies.

Facebook did not approve of her illustration.

Barack Obama announced this week that his administration would not enforce the current immigration laws. Just last month Obama admitted he did not have the authority to make such a decision.

Jan Brewer later posted on Obama’s actions but Facebook removed the post.
KFYI reported:

Facebook said Friday it mistakenly removed a post in which Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer criticized a controversial policy decision by President Barack Obama’s administration to limit deportations of illegal immigrants.

The Republican governor had said in a post Friday that Facebook censored the item she posted Thursday because it apparently violated Facebook’s community standards.

Brewer didn’t elaborate in her post, but she said Friday in an interview that an email she received from Facebook said the post was removed because of an included illustration.

The email, which she read aloud, didn’t specify how the illustration violated standards.

“I’d like to know why it happens,” she said of the removal.

Facebook spokesman Andrew Noyes responded to a query by The Associated Press by saying in a brief email that Brewer’s post was removed in error and that Facebook was sorry.

Noyes did not provide further details, including whether the removal of the post on Thursday resulted from complaints received from other Facebook users.

Brewer reposted the item Friday, saying the original post was “censored” by Facebook. Both versions included a statement in which she criticized the Obama policy decision and the illustration, a color drawing of Brewer in a Rosie the Riveter pose.

Brewer used the drawing in her 2010 election campaign. Its headline of “doing the job the feds won’t do” refers to Brewer’s clashes with Obama’s administration on immigration and border issues.

“Something that’s been posted on there a lot of times,” Brewer said of the illustration during the interview.

thegatewaypundit.com

Despite Promise To Stop, Obama Administration Still Issuing Obamacare Waivers

2011-08-20T15:30:00.000-07:00

And why not? After all, the President clearly doesn’t feel like he’s governing a constitutional republic. He’s instituting laws now without Congress, as though he were an elected monarch, so why not pick and choose who the laws passed by Congress will apply to as well?

Of course, the Obama administration promised to stop…in September (conveniently right before Congress re-convenes) so I guess these new waivers aren’t technically a broken promise.

The Obama administration granted another 106 waivers last month from part of the healthcare reform law — the first round of three-year waivers the Health and Human Services Department has approved.

The new approvals bring the total number of waivers to 1,472, according to HHS. Those figures cover waivers granted through the end of July. HHS will stop granting new waivers after September. …

The department announced it would cut off applications after September, but let companies that received one-year exemptions extend their waivers through 2014. The 106 waivers approved in July will last three years.

Obama apologists can certainly argue that these are only temporary waivers, and that all must be in compliance with the law by 2014, but that’s hardly an excuse. The law is the law, and the President doesn’t get to pick and choose who it applies to. A temporary waiver is no more legitimate than a permanent waiver.

If Obamacare were too stringent to be followed by these companies then the law should have been modified before passing. Or not passed at all. But that’s not the attitude Democrats too. They wanted to jam it through, and fix any problems later.

sayanythingblog.com

Obama Says He Has a “Very Specific Plan” to Fix Economy… Then Goes Golfing

2011-08-20T15:28:00.000-07:00

Earlier this week Obama told an audence in Iowa that he has “a very specific plan” to fix the American economy.

But, first a round of golf or two.

President Barack Obama tees off while playing golf at the Vineyard Golf Club in Edgartown, Mass., on the island of Martha’s Vineyard, Friday, Aug. 19, 2011. Obama is vacationing on the island with his family during the last half of August 2011. (AP/Steven Senne)

More… Obama Tries to Shield Press From Golf Course but Fox News Cameras Were There

thegatewaypundit.com

Obama Administration Spent $1 Million Tax Dollars Advertising Obamacare Before 2010 Election

2011-08-20T15:26:00.000-07:00

It’s just a coincidence, I’m sure, that the Department of Health and Human Services made a big, taxpayer-funded ad buy to direct internet users to their ~~propaganda~~ information about the health care law right before the 2010 election.

On October 25, 2010, HHS New Media Communications Director Julia Eisman sent an email to Ogilvy Senior Vice President Imani Green, reading, “Given the high performance, we’re wondering if we should we consider reallocating resources from the lesser performing words and put more $$ to ‘Obamacare’ – at least for the next 7 days.” Seven days from October 25, 2010, was November 2nd, Election Day.

“There is nothing special about November 2nd other than the fact that it was Election Day,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton told The Examiner. “What possible reason could the Obama HHS have for maximizing their propaganda dollars in the seven days before Election Day other than to elect Democrats? This seems to be a blatant violation of the Hatch Act, among other laws. Congress needs to get on the ball and investigate,” he concluded.

I think it’s a little silly to advertise about government programs and policies anyway. The government should have information available about laws and policy, absolutely, but the politicians get plenty of campaign contributions to defend the laws they make. There’s no need to fleece the taxpayers this way.

sayanythingblog.com

Obama bus tour finally stimulates something: More photoshop mockery

2011-08-20T15:23:00.000-07:00

President Obama can head to Martha’s Vineyard flush with pride at the success of his jobs bus tour. It has finally stimulated something: More photoshop mockery!

Doug Powers kicked things off earlier this month with this classic:

My Twitter friend anthropocon served up these one yesterday:

And citizenbrad added this one:

Doug Ross obtained the exclusive blueprints of the Tragical Misery Tour express:

Heckuva jobs bus tour, Barry!

***

Another one from debsinger2:

michellemalkin.com

President And First Lady Take “His And Hers” Jets To Cushy Vacation In Martha’s Vineyard

2011-08-20T15:22:00.001-07:00

I haven’t got too wrapped-around-the-axle about President Obama’s vacation to Martha’s Vineyard. Is it a little tone deaf? Yeah, but all President’s go on vacation.

But how about the President and the First lady taking separate jets up to the vacation spot, within hours of one another? Now that’s some premium-grade hypocrisy:

President Barack Obama’s much-maligned holiday vacation turned into an even bigger PR nightmare today as it emerged that he and his wife took separate government jets to Martha’s Vineyard just hours apart.

Michelle Obama was revealed to have arrived at the Massachusetts retreat, only 500 miles from Washington, four hours before her husband yesterday.

She was accompanied by their daughters Malia, 13, and Sasha, 10, and landed at around 2pm – four hours earlier than the President.

It’s not just the waste of taxpayers dollars, though “his and hers” jets at a time when the nation’s debt is growing to scary levels, but it’s also the environmental hypocrisy.

At one point during his campaign for President, Obama told us that we couldn’t just set our thermostats where ever we wanted. That we must sacrifice some aspects of our lifestyles in the name of staving off climate change. But here the First Lady can’t even wait a few hours to carpool (jetpool?) with her husband.

Hypocrites.

sayanythingblog.com

Aww: Silicon Valley the latest to be disillusioned by Hope and Change

2011-08-20T15:19:00.000-07:00

Let’s see. Obama has lost Wall Street, the progressive grassroots, and even a few unions. Now it looks like another funding source for his re-election bid might fade as well — high-tech Silicon Valley. Politico reports that the innovation center once celebrated the fact that they had backed a President who uses a Blackberry, but now think he’s just another middle-aged man with some ubiquitous personal technology:

Silicon Valley is like an alternative-universe version of America — a place where businesses are making billion-dollar acquisitions, jobs are being added by the thousands, and the buzz is not over plant closings but Apple’s plans for a giant hew headquarters that looks like a spaceship.

So Barack Obama must be a hit here, right?

Wrong. …

But in Silicon Valley, they’re still trying to figure out why the first geek runs an administration that hasn’t delivered much for them other than photo ops. And they’re worried now that time is running out — that the administration is hamstrung by a divided Congress, a stagnant national economy and intense political pressure to cut government spending.

“I don’t think they feel the love,” said Gary Shapiro, chief executive of the Consumer Electronics Association. “There’s great disillusionment.”

Time is running out for some corporatist pork? Cry me a digital river, fellows. What happened to innovating your way to success on your own?

All is not lost, however, according to Politico’s Michelle Quinn. If Obama can push through immigration reform (for cheap labor) or tax reform, all may still be forgiven. Both are unlikely, although for different reasons. Obama simply doesn’t have the political capital any longer to push an amnesty-based immigration reform package, which is why he’s trying to do it through executive fiat. He had overwhelming majorities in both chambers of Congress between 2009-10, including a few Republicans in both the House and Senate who would have come along on a moderate immigration-reform package. Instead, he chose to shove a brand new entitlement program down the throats of Americans opposed to it and lost the House as a result.

Tax reform could be a different story, but Obama has already declared that he wants to maintain the “progressive” nature of the tax code. An approach that flattened the personal and corporate tax codes to broaden both tax bases and reduce or eliminate the social engineering in both as well would likely get strong bipartisan support. It would also increase revenues and close down corporate tax breaks (big wins for Democrats) while lowering rates and simplifying compliance (big wins for Republicans). Unfortunately, as with every other issue, Obama has refused to lead on this at all, even though his own deficit commission made exactly these kind of recommendations in January, giving him enough political cover to move forward.

So, when it comes time to hit up Silicon Valley for political support next year, don’t be surprised if Obama just gets back a big 404.

hotair.com

Obama Administration Halts Deportation of Illegal Aliens

2011-08-20T15:15:00.000-07:00

It’s an Obama world.
No morals. No money. No rules. No borders.

The Obama Administration will halt the deportation proceedings of illegal aliens on a case-by-case basis.
The Washington Times reported:

The Homeland Security Department said Thursday it will halt deportation proceedings on a case-by-case basis against illegal immigrants who meet certain criteria such as attending school, having family in the military or are primarily responsible for other family members’ care.

The move, announced in letters to Congress, won immediate praise from Hispanic activists and Democrats who had chided President Obama for months for the pace of deportations and had argued he had authority to exempt broad swaths of illegal immigrants from deportation.

“Today’s announcement shows that this president is willing to put muscle behind his words and to use his power to intervene when the lives of good people are being ruined by bad laws,” said Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez, Illinois Democrat.

In the letters to Congress, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said her department and the Justice Department will review all ongoing cases and see who meets the new criteria on a case-by-case basis.

“This case-by-case approach will enhance public safety,” she said. “Immigration judges will be able to more swiftly adjudicate high priority cases, such as those involving convicted felons.”

And, don’t forget… This is the same administration that is suing Arizona for wanting to enforce the national immigration laws.

thegatewaypundit.com

Rick Perry: “I Love My Country More Than I Care About Obama’s Feelings”

2011-08-20T15:13:00.000-07:00

Governor Rick Perry told an audience in New Hampshire yesterday that he would continue to be passionate and open. Perry added the rhetoric will probably get heated and as far as Obama is concerned, “I love my country and I love future generations more than I care about his feelings.”

The Boston Herald reported, via HotAir:

“The rhetoric will probably get heated. I’m going to be outspoken, I’m going to be passionate, I’m going to be calling it like I see it,” Perry told the Herald in a one-on-one interview, as he shrugged off Obama’s recent scolding that he should be “more careful” about what he says.

“And if I hurt the president’s feelings, well, with all due respect, I love my country and I love future generations more than I care about his feelings,” the 61-year-old governor added.

Perry, who embraced the Tea Party even before GOP presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann, also brushed off Democratic attempts to paint him as a marginal candidate.

“It’s the height of hypocrisy for this president to call anyone a marginal performer. If anyone is a marginal performer, it’s him. He has downgraded the good name and credit of this country,” Perry said. “Talk about someone who has marginalized America.”

thegatewaypundit.com

Illinois Farmer Confronts Obama on Burdensome Regulations: “We Would Prefer Starting Our Day in Tractor Cab Not Filling Out Forms & Permits”

2011-08-20T15:12:00.000-07:00

An Illinois farmer confronted Barack Obama today at Wyffels Hybreds in Atkinson, Illinois. The farmer was upset with the increase in the amount of burdensome rules and regulations under the Obama regime. The farmer told Obama, “Please don’t challenge us with your rules and regulations from Washington DC. We would prefer to start our day in a tractor cab or combine cab rather than filling out forms and permits to do what we like to do.”

Obama told the farmer, “Don’t always believe what you hear.”
FOX Nation reported:

From the video: During a town hall meeting at Wyffels Hybrids in Atkinson, Illinois, a farmer expressed concern to President Obama about forthcoming regulations. The man stated that people would rather be farming than “filling out forms and permits to do what we like to do.” President Obama told the farmer “don’t always believe what you hear” and blamed Washington for ginning up speculation. Obama added that, “Nobody is more interested in seeing our agricultural sector successful than I am, partly because I come from a farm state.”

Of course, Obama was not completely honest with this farmer:
Just last week it was reported that the Obama regime wants to force farmers to get commercial drivers licenses.

And, the Obama regime is also pushing dust regulations that would make it impossible for farmers out west to continue working.

thegatewaypundit.com

Oh Brother… Obama Blames Internet For Unemployment

2011-08-20T15:03:00.000-07:00

Obama blames the internet for unemployment.

FOX Nation reported:

OBAMA: One of the challenges in terms of rebuilding our economy is – businesses have gotten so efficient, that, uh, when was the last time somebody went to a bank teller? Instead of using an ATM. Or, used a travel agent instead of going online. A lot of jobs out that that used to require people now have become automated.

thegatewaypundit.com

Everyone Must Sacrifice… President Downgrade’s Vineyard Vacation Will Cost Taxpayers Millions

2011-08-14T18:14:00.000-07:00

In January 2009, before the president signed his failed $787 billion stimulus bill into law, Barack Obama lectured America saying,

“Everyone must sacrifice for the greater good… Everyone must have some skin in the game.”

Everyone but Barack and Michelle Obama or their lackeys.

A week after the Obama economy was downgraded for the first time in a century we hear this…
Barack and Michelle Obama’s vineyard vacation will cost taxpayers millions.
Via US News and World Report:

At a time when many more cash-strapped Americans are stuck at home instead of vacationing at the beach, President Obama next week will lead an entourage of several dozens to exclusive Martha’s Vineyard island at a cost of millions to taxpayers.

While technically he is paying for his estimated $50,000 a week rental of the 28-acre beachfront Blue Heron Farm in woodsy Chilmark, the dozens of U.S. Secret Service agents, communications officials, top aides, drivers, and U.S. Coast Guard personnel with him will be covered by taxpayers as with every other presidential vacation.

His 11-day stay will require the Coast Guard to keep ships floating near Obama’s farm, a presidential helicopter and jet at the ready and security agents on 24-hour duty. Armored SUVs dubbed “war wagons” have been flown in to carry the presidential family around the island. It was the same way when former President George H.W. Bush visited Kennebunkport, Maine and Bill Clinton visited Martha’s Vineyard during their presidencies.

thegatewaypundit.com

Obama Administration Introduces New Fuel Standards That Will Make Everything You Buy More Expensive

2011-08-14T18:12:00.000-07:00

For the first time in history the Obama administration will be introducing CAFE standards for heavy trucks. Why will this make everything more expensive? Because just about everything you buy on a daily basis reached the point of sale on a truck.

These standards will raise the price of trucking and, in turn, raise the price of delivering your goods. A cost that will be reflected in rising prices.

The regulations call for reductions on fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions by 2018 of 9 to 23 percent, depending on the type of vehicle. Trucks and other heavy vehicles make up only 4 percent of the domestic vehicle fleet, but given the distance they travel, the time they spend idling and their low fuel efficiency, they end up consuming about 20% of all vehicle fuel, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Experts say that a 20 percent reduction in heavy vehicle emissions would boost fuel efficiency to an average of 8 miles per gallon from 6 miles now.

That doesn’t sound like a lot, but when you consider how many miles these trucks travel it adds up.

My question is, why does the federal government feel it needs to apply fuel efficiency standards to the trucking industry? Are they under the impression that professional truckers aren’t already being as efficient as is practical? Truckers don’t enjoy using extra fuel. Fuel costs are a big part of their overhead, and any way they can cut down that overhead means they make more money.

So what does the government think it will achieve through mandate that the truckers themselves, who stand to gain the most from greater efficiency, haven’t already done?

sayanythingblog.com

Change: Obama’s job approval now at … 39%

2011-08-14T18:09:00.000-07:00

Alternate headline: “Blogger can’t believe Obama’s job approval still as high as 39%.” Entrenched economic despair, chaos on Wall Street, the S&P downgrade, and Democratic disgruntlement over the debt-ceiling deal, yet somehow only now for the first time is he in the outskirts of Bushville with sub-40% approval. The way we’re going, I half-expect the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man to show up tomorrow in Manhattan — and even that probably wouldn’t bump The One down below 35%. Even so, notes Philip Klein, “No president since Harry Truman has been reelected with approval ratings this low, this late into his first term.” Hmmmm.

There’s no partisan breakdown at Gallup but my hunch is that heart-achy Democrats are driving this. Corroborating evidence from CNN:

Seven in 10 Democrats say they’d like to see Obama as their party’s presidential nominee next year.

That figure may seem promising, but support for Obama’s re-nomination has fallen 11 percentage points since June.

Despite the decline, history is on Obama’s side. “In 1994, only 57% of Democrats wanted the party to renominate Bill Clinton, and he went on to win the nomination and a second term two years later,” said CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.

His previous low among Dems on that question was 73% right before the midterms last year. More corroborating evidence: The Times and the AP each have stories out today about Obama launching a messaging offensive against the GOP, especially on the economy, which will firm up support among his base even if it doesn’t do jack to create new jobs. Watch his weekly message below for a taste; it’s a rehash of his speech in Michigan a few days ago questioning the patriotism of certain nefarious unnamed characters in Congress who he claims are putting partisan aims ahead of the country’s welfare. Luckily for us, The One would never let electoral goals dictate hard policy choices.

Fun fact: While news of the new Gallup numbers was breaking this morning, lifelike talking-points robot Debbie Wasserman-Schultz was on CBS insisting that Obama’s in “remarkably good shape” politically. No foolin’.

hotair.com

Where is the Leader of the Free World?… Golfing?

2011-08-07T23:54:00.000-07:00

On Friday the United States lost its coveted AAA credit rating. Credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s downgraded the nation’s rating for the first time since the U.S. won the top ranking in 1917. 18 countries now have a better credit rating than the US.

So where is Barack Obama?
The president has yet to make a statement on the historic downgrade.

He went to Camp David.

Dallas Blog reported:

Obama, a Democrat, enjoys spending time on the golf course on Andrews Air Force Base, which is nearby Camp David. Regardless of circumstances, Obama loves to play golf. The U.S. stock exchanges are plunging and the S&P has just downgraded the credit rating of United States federal government debt. So, how does the President respond to recent developments of the Obama Depression? He plays golf.

thegatewaypundit.com

Another Historic First for Obama, S&P downgrades U.S. Credit Rating

2011-08-06T10:26:00.000-07:00

A credit downgrade for the first time in American history! How’s that Hope and Change working out for you?

Standard & Poor’s announced Friday night that it has downgraded the U.S. sterling credit rating for the first time…S&P decided to lower the AAA rating, held by the United States for 70 years, to AA+ after a bipartisan debt deal signed into law this week failed to assuage concerns about the nation’s growing spending.

Frankly, the country deserves a little better than merely “historic”.

sayanythingblog.com

Tennessee Democrat Demands Obama Satire Be Banned

2011-08-06T10:23:00.000-07:00

“I guess Joe Armstrong must have found this satirical box of Obama Disappoint-Mints objectionable under the “personal offense” clause of the First Amendment,” writes Ed Morrissey about a Tennessee Democrat getting a line of breath mints taking aim at President Obama pulled from a university bookstore.

Breath mints packaged in a tin can poking fun at President Barack Obama have been pulled from the shelves at the University of Tennessee bookstore after local legislator Joe Armstrong told store officials he was offended by the mints.

Armstrong, D-Knoxville, said he got a call from a student who had seen the satirical mints in the bookstore and was bothered by the depiction of the president.

The tin can reads: “This is change? Disappointmints.”

Armstrong followed up Tuesday with a visit to the bookstore, located in the basement of the University Center, where he talked to director David Kent.

“I explained to him that I felt those mints were politically specific products that had no educational value,” Armstrong said.

“If it was a book or something of that nature, fine, but that’s sort of a discretionary product they have there. It wasn’t viewpoint neutral. It was very specifically insulting to the president.”

To which I say…so? Since when does anyone have a right not to be insulted?

I guess, since we’re talking about a state-owned university, that the state can decide what is and is not sold there. But aren’t campuses supposed to be centers of free speech and expression? Is this really the message we want to sell kids? That political messages they disagree with should be driven from the public square?

Given the state of free speech on campuses, where conservatives are routinely shouted down if not assaulted by angry liberal students, I guess the kids are already getting that message loud and clear.

sayanythingblog.com

Obama: I’d Like “to Bypass Congress and Change the Rules on My Own”

2011-07-25T20:58:00.000-07:00

Yes, Barack. We know.
It’s too bad you weren’t elected president in a tinpot dictatorship. Then you wouldn’t ahve to worry about these minor legalities – like a Constitution.

After being squeezed out of the debt talks, Barack Obama told Latinos today,
“I’d Like to Bypass Congress and Change the Rules on My Own.”
Via National Journal:

thegatewaypundit.com

Obama Lies Again… Blames Bush for His Historic Debt and Deficit

2011-07-15T11:08:00.001-07:00

Obama tripled the deficit his first year with the failed Obama-Pelosi stimulus plan.
In Obama’s second year the deficit topped a trillion dollars again.
It was unprecedented.

The Obama deficit this year may reach $1.29 trillion. (The Captain’s Comments) Barack Obama and Democrats also added over One Trillion Dollars to the Federal Budget in the last 4 years.

That’s at least a 30% increase in federal spending in just 3 years. Despite this, the Whiner-in-Chief blamed Bush again today for the record debt and deficit.
Via FOX Nation:

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: It turns out we don’t have to do anything radical to solve this problem. Contrary to what some folks say, we’re not Greece, we’re not Portugal. It turns out that our problem is we cut taxes without paying for them over the last decade. We ended up instituting new programs, like a prescription drug program for seniors that was not paid for. We fought two wars, we didn’t pay for them. We had a bad recession that required a Recovery Act and stimulus spending and helping states, accumulated, and there’s interest on top of that. And to unwind that, what’s required is that we roll back those tax cuts on the wealthiest individuals. That we clean up our tax codes so we’re not giving out a bunch of tax breaks to companies that don’t need them and are not creating jobs. We cut programs that we don’t need and we invest in those things that are gonna help us grow. And every commission that’s been out there has said the same thing and basically taken then same approach within the margin of error. So my general view is that if the American people looked at this they’d say, “Boy, some of the decisions are tough, but they don’t require us to gut Medicare or Social Security. They don’t require us to stop helping young people to go to college. They don’t require us to stop helping families who have a disabled child. They don’t require us to violate our obligation to our veterans. And they don’t require us to stop, quote/unquote, ‘job-killing’ tax cuts. They require us to make some modest adjustments to get out house in order. And we should do it now.” With respect to Senator McConnell’s plan, like I said, I think it is a … it is constructed to say that if Washington operates as usual and can’t get anything done, let’s avert Armageddon.

For the record… Bush reduced the deficit from $412 billion to $162 billion in 4 years with tax cuts.

And, if Obama was really concerned about “instituting new programs that were not paid for” he never would have rammed through Obamacare.

thegatewaypundit.com

If default would be a catastrophe, why is Obama opposed to a short-term deal that would avert it?

2011-07-15T11:07:00.000-07:00

I tossed that question out on Twitter this morning and no one had an answer. Verum Serum and Ace have been thinking the same thing and they don’t have answers either. Simple question: If, as the White House insists, hitting the debt ceiling would be the economic equivalent of an asteroid hitting the Earth, and if the only way to avoid that (i.e. the only way to get something through the House) is with a scaled-down bill that would raise the ceiling only until mid-2012, why isn’t the Lightbringer okay with that? Granted, it would mean he’d have to face another asteroid next year in the middle of the campaign, but so what? How is that a reason to let this asteroid hit right now?

To put it another way, is there any policy reason why Obama won’t agree to a short-term deal or is this really as horribly cynical as it looks — that he simply refuses to do anything that might complicate his reelection campaign, even if that means a default by the United States? Jake Tapper pressed Carney about that in today’s briefing — which is worse, default or a short-term deal? — and Carney actually said, no joke, “Both are bad; I can’t choose which is worse for you.” In a sane world, that answer would shatter the White House narrative that hitting the ceiling is an avoid-at-all-costs risk since, evidently, the Perpetual Campaigner thinks another slugfest over this next year is a greater risk than defaulting now would be. The only policy rationale I can come up with for his position is that, in the middle of a brutal campaign, the two sides will be even further dug in than they are now such that there’ll be zero chance of a deal next year compared to the very, very slim chance that there is for one now. But who knows if that’s true: If the presidential race is tight at the time, which is likely, brinksmanship will be extremely risky for both sides lest a default occur and their party be blamed by the public right before the election. In fact, if the economy is still sluggish and the GOP nominee is benefiting in the polls, Republicans will have added incentive not to risk their political advantage by going to the wall on the debt ceiling. So there’s no reason to think Debt Ceiling II would necessarily be bloodier than Debt Ceiling I. The only sure thing is that it would take away time from Obama to fundraise and campaign, which, I guess, is worth gambling the full faith and credit of the U.S. government on.

Chuck Schumer, among other liberals, has innocently wondered whether the GOP is deliberately trying to tank the economy for political advantage, so let me repay the kindness here. Is Obama drawing the line on short-term deals because he thinks that, if it comes to this, he might be able to spin a default next month for electoral gain? There’s already reason to believe that voters will blame the GOP if we hit the ceiling; if that’s so, then O has a ready-made scapegoat for his biggest political liability next year. Unemployment still above nine percent come fall 2012? Why, that’s the Republicans’ fault for letting America default, the DNC will say. If only we’d reached a debt-ceiling deal, you see, then we never have had that jolt and unemployment would be below eight percent and dropping. That’s what Obama’s economists will claim. You trust his economists to tell you the truth about unemployment, don’t you?

Needless to say, the House’s next move now should be to pass a short-term debt-ceiling increase keyed to something like $1.5 trillion in spending cuts and dare Obama to veto it. That would accomplish the same thing as McConnell’s plan, basically, by putting the decision on the ceiling squarely in The One’s court. If he’s so appallingly self-centered that he’d veto an opportunity to avert default simply to avoid making his own life tougher next year, then let’s make sure everyone knows that. And if House Republicans are unhappy with such a small bill, good news: The “big” bill was kind of a joke anyway. I’ll leave you with this video of Reid dumping on Eric Cantor on the Senate floor this morning, which is the latest attempt by Democrats to confound the Republican caucus by driving a wedge between him and Boehner. That’s another example of them putting politics above policy: If getting something passed to avert a default is paramount and the House is the big stumbling block in that endeavor, all this does is slow things down further by aggravating tensions among the GOP and reducing Boehner’s “moderate” leverage. And yet, here Reid is anyway. Go figure.

hotair.com

Eric Cantor Chuckles Over Drama Queen Obama’s Wednesday Meltdown

2011-07-15T11:00:00.001-07:00

Majority Leader Eric Cantor chuckled on Thursday when he talked about Obama’s dramatic meltdown a day earlier.

Obama abruptly stormed out of a meeting with Congressional leaders after Cantor told the president that Republicans would not vote for his proposed tax hikes.

Obama picked up his toys and stormed out of the meeting.

Cantor got a kick out of it.
The National Review reproted:

For months, Cantor has been a force in high-stakes talks, from the debt-reduction discussions led by Vice President Biden to the current Cabinet Room confabs hosted by President Obama. On Wednesday night, the ongoing efforts, he says, unfortunately veered into the personal when the president criticized the Virginia lawmaker for opposing tax increases.

The president “got very agitated,” Cantor told reporters Wednesday night at the Capitol. Cantor added that Obama then told him not to “call my bluff,” and said that he would take his argument to the “American people.”

Reflecting on the episode Thursday afternoon, Cantor chuckles over how dramatically the president behaved. He chalks up the heated conversation to politics more than anything. “They’re just not serious,” he says. “Even those things identified in the Biden talks have been cast aside, only touchable if we raise taxes.”

“I was willing to compromise,” Cantor contends. “I said, Mr. President, we want to do it right. I said, I agree with you, we ought not to go beyond August 2. But because the votes are not there in the House, I asked whether he was willing to come off his statement that he will veto that. That’s what led to the blowup.”

…For all the news stories about Republican sniping, Cantor says it’s the Democrats who are in disarray. “It seems, now, that the president drew an arbitrary line at $1.7 trillion; then Reid and [House Democratic leader Nancy] Pelosi drew a line and said we’re at $1.4 trillion. Anything above that, they say, they’re going to need new revenues, new tax hikes on the table.”

Cantor shakes his head at the ever-evolving numbers in the Democrats’ offerings. Despite their inconsistent message, he says that he will continue to attend the summits, doing what he can to help broker a favorable agreement. “We need a short-term solution that meets the goals the speaker has set out,” he says.

There are rumors that relations between Boehner and Cantor are tense. The majority leader swats back that charge. “We’ve had a very productive working relationship,” he says. “We meet regularly, at least three, four times a week, maybe more. I have a very open dialogue with him. Both of us are team players. We share a philosophy of governance.” Boehner, he says, walked away from a “grand bargain” with Obama “for the same reason I walked away from the Biden talks: Democrats insisted on tax increases.”

thegatewaypundit.com

How Horrible. Obama Even Lied About His Mother On Her Deathbed

2011-07-15T10:57:00.000-07:00

This is really disturbing. What kind of a man does this?
Driven by ambition, Barack Obama used his dying mother as a prop for one of his final campaign ads.

Now we find out that it was all a lie.

Obama lied about his mother’s stuggles with insurance companies to get elected. He lied about her insurance situation to ram through Obamacare. None of it was true.
The Blaze reported:

Tuesday, The Blaze reported on President Barack Obama‘s alleged mischaracterization of his mother’s, Ann Dunham, arguments with her insurance company as she lay dying (Obama claimed the insurance company wanted to deny her coverage based on a pre-existing condition). Now, the White House is declining to challenge the charge that Obama fabricated the story in an effort to convince Americans to support his Democratic health care reform plan.

In his initial report on the story, The Blaze’s Christopher Santarelli wrote:

A new book by New York Times reporter Janny Scott sheds new light on the life of Barack Obama’s mother, Ann Dunham, including her final years. Scott found while assembling information for “A Singular Woman: The Untold Story of Barack Obama’s Mother,” that Dunham in fact did have health coverage for her ovarian cancer, based off Dunham’s own past correspondence.

If these allegations are true, Obama‘s statements about his mother’s care were based on outright lies, fabrications — or, at the least, incorrect memories regarding what had actually occurred. Throughout his 2008 presidential campaign and during the political battle over the contentious health care legislation, the president utilized his mother’s story to instill pathos in audiences. In 2010, he said:
“I do remember the last six months of her life, insurance companies threatening that they would not reimburse her for her costs.”

The New York Times explains that the president and the White House, at this juncture, are not refuting Scott’s conclusions:

The White House on Wednesday declined to challenge an account in a new book that suggests that President Obama, in his campaign to overhaul American health care, mischaracterized a central anecdote about his mother’s deathbed dispute with her insurance company.

The insurance companies didn’t take advantage of his mother. They bent over backwards to assist her during her final days.

Obama lied.
But it did buy him some sympathy votes. That’s what he was looking for.

Michelle Malkin has more on Obama’s horrific fable.

thegatewaypundit.com

Obama Administration Recognizes Libyan Rebels Same Week They Loot Shops, Torch Homes & Caught With Child Soldiers

2011-07-15T10:56:00.001-07:00

Libyan rebels were accused this week of training children as young as 7 to fight on the front lines against Gaddafi.

Crossfire: Boys help rebel fighters carry automatic weapons in Misrata, Libya, after a gun battle with Gaddafi troops. (Daily Mail)

The Libyan rebels were also accused this week of looting shops and clinics and torching homes of regime supporters.
Seattle PI reported:

Libyan rebels fighting to oust Moammar Gadhafi have looted shops and clinics and torched the homes of suspected regime supporters in some of the towns they seized in the country’s western mountains, Human Rights Watch said Wednesday.

The findings come as the rebels have enlarged the area under their control in the west and inched closer to a key supply route to Tripoli…

…In one case cited by the report, the rights group witnessed five houses on fire in the village of Qawalish, which was seized by the rebels on July 6, and gunmen loading their truck with supplies looted from a shop.

A few days later, nine more houses had been set alight.

So, it only makes sense then that the Obama Administration granted the Libyan rebel leaders full diplomatic recognition as the governing authority of Libya today.
It’s an Obama world.

thegatewaypundit.com

New rule for WH press corps: stop asking questions when you see the President

2011-07-15T10:54:00.000-07:00

Say, didn’t Jay Carney once work in journalism — you know, that profession that Speaks Truth to Power, holds government accountable, afflicts-the-comfortable-while-comforting-the-afflicted? It seems that either he has forgotten that Speaking Truth to Power requires at the very least Asking Questions to Power first, although Carney didn’t forget to play his Moral Authority Card yesterday when telling the White House press corps that they wouldn’t be allowed into the debt-ceiling meeting. They had rudely transgressed by “shouting” questions at Barack Obama:

When asked today why TV crews and print reporters were barred from the pool covering the White House meeting with congressional leaders on the deficit, Carney responded by pointing out that the administration has held two press conferences in the past two weeks and allowed TV cameras into the spray earlier this week.

“People shouted questions at him,” Carney said. He then added, “The purpose of the meeting is not to create a circus, but to negotiate, so today we’re doing stills only.”

The White House Correspondents’ Association has protested exclusion of print and TV from pools — and several reporters in the briefing room took Carney’s comment as an annoyed expression of presidential displeasure with shouted questions. …

“I used to be where you are, and I used to ask questions,” the former journalist reminded his press corps.

First Obama stomps out on the meeting yesterday because Cantor kept asking Obama questions, and now the entire White House press corps has to go into time out for the same reason. This may be the most thin-skinned President since Richard Nixon.

hotair.com

Obamacare: We Have To Pass The Bill To See What’s In The Bill

2011-07-15T10:46:00.000-07:00

In what I am sure is going to be a recurring theme, a bi-partisan group of lawmakers have introduced legislation that will repeal a section of Obamacare that is proving to be unpopular. (I know, I know…the bill in its entirety is unpopular, but I’m referring to the parts of the bill that are SO unpopular that even now as partisans duke it out, they agree on this).

It seems that a provision of the new health care law that was meant to reduce costs has instead, wait for it, RAISED costs and produced excess waste and waiting time:

Lawmakers in the House and Senate introduced bipartisan legislation Thursday to remove restrictions on tax-exempt health spending accounts, the latest provision of the healthcare reform law to come under attack by Democrats.

The bill would nix a provision that since January has required a prescription for buying over-the-counter medicines with medical savings accounts such as Flexible Spending Arrangements and Health Savings Accounts. The language was added as a way to keep the bill’s costs down because it was estimated to save $5 billion over 10 years by cutting down on unnecessary drug purchases.

Of course, those who are familiar with the thinking that incentives drive behavior would predict that requiring people to get a doctor’s note for over the counter medication to save money would increase the amount of people going to the doctor understand that this idea is a non-starter. But those who don’t understand this [liberals] are somewhat shocked at the development:

But it appears to have had the opposite effect of increasing people’s use of medical services. Indeed, many doctors complain that they’re seeing patients for the sole purpose of writing out prescriptions for over-the-counter medicines.

sayanythingblog.com

Emails Reveal That Obama Administration Tried To Exclude Fox News From White House Coverage

2011-07-15T10:45:00.001-07:00

Whatever you may think of Fox’s news coverage, I don’t think political leaders should be able to pick and choose who covers the things they do and say. But apparently Obama thinks he can:

JudicialWatch.org, a conservative, non-partisan foundation which seeks accountability in government, has obtained emails going back to the Fall of 2009, when the Obama White House was in a battle with Fox News Channel. At issue: whether the Obama White House had excluded Fox News from interviews with Obama Administration officials.

One email, dated Oct. 23, 2009 went like this:

“I’m putting some dead fish in the fox cubby — just cause.”

That was from Jennifer Psaki, Deputy White House Communications Director to Jenni LeCompte, then-Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs in the Treasury Department.

In another email the day before, from Dag Vega, Director of Broadcast Media at the White House, to LeCompte, Vega informs LeCompte that “…we’d prefer if you skip Fox please.”

This goes against the administration’s position that it did not set out to exclude Fox News from getting access to Treasury official Kenneth Feinberg. That denial followed a decision by NBC News, ABC News, CBS News and CNN to stand together and refuse an interview with Feinberg if Fox News was going to be blocked.

In other words, the Obama administration lied about this. What’s more, this isn’t the only time the Obama administration has tried to control the way the media covers it. Just yesterday White House Press Secretary Jay Carney had to answer questions about why some reporters were having their access restricted.

Carney’s answer? The President doesn’t like the way they ask questions.

So much for the most transparent administration ever.

sayanythingblog.com

The expanding catalogue of Obamacare fables

2011-07-15T10:40:00.001-07:00

Is there a health insurance horror story disseminated by the White House and its allies that ever turned out to be true? Obamacare advocates have exercised more artistic license than a convention of Photoshoppers. Now, a prominent sob story shilled by President Obama himself about his own mother is in doubt. It’s high past time to call their bluffs.

The tall-tale-teller-in-chief cited mom Stanley Ann Dunham’s deathbed fight with her insurer several times over the years to support his successful push to ban pre-existing condition exclusions by insurers. In a typical recounting, Obama shared his personalized trauma during a 2008 debate: “For my mother to die of cancer at the age of 53 and have to spend the last months of her life in the hospital room arguing with insurance companies because they’re saying that this may be a pre-existing condition and they don’t have to pay her treatment, there’s something fundamentally wrong about that.”

But there was something fundamentally wrong with Obama’s story. In a recently published biography of Obama’s mother, author and New York Times reporter Janny Scott discovered that Dunham’s health insurer had in fact reimbursed her medical expenses with nary an objection. The actual coverage dispute centered on a separate disability insurance policy.

Channeling document forger Dan Rather’s “fake, but accurate” defense, a White House spokesman insisted to the Times that the anecdote somehow still “speaks powerfully to the impact of pre-existing condition limits on insurance protection from health care costs” — even though Dunham’s primary health insurer did everything it was supposed to do and met all its contractual obligations.

No matter. Expanding government control over health care means never having to say you’re sorry for impugning private insurers. Democrats have dragged every available human shield into the contentious debate over Obama’s federal takeover of health care. Personal anecdotes of dying family members battling evil insurance execs deflect attention from the cost, constitutionality and liberty-curtailing consequences of the law. The president’s Dunham sham-ecdote is just the latest entry in an ever-expanding catalogue of Obamacare fables:

– Otto Raddatz. In 2009, Obama publicized the plight of this Illinois cancer patient, who supposedly died after he was dropped from his Fortis/Assurant Health insurance plan when his insurer discovered an unreported gallstone the patient hadn’t known about. The truth? He got the treatment he needed in 2005 and lived for nearly four more years.

– Robin Beaton. Also in 2009, Obama claimed Beaton — a breast cancer patient — lost her insurance after “she forgot to declare a case of acne.” In fact, she failed to disclose a previous heart condition and did not list her weight accurately, but had her insurance restored anyway after intense public lobbying.

– John Brodniak. A 23-year-old unemployed Oregon sawmill worker, Brodniak’s health woes were spotlighted by New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof as a textbook argument for Obamacare. Brodniak was reportedly diagnosed with cavernous hemangioma, a neurological condition, and was allegedly turned away by emergency room doctors. Kristof called the case “monstrous” and decried opponents of Democrats’ health care proposals as heartless murderers. The truth? Brodniak not only had coverage through Oregon’s Medicaid program, but was also a neurology patient at the prestigious Oregon Health and Science University in Portland (a safety-net institution that accepts all Medicaid patients). Kristof never retracted the legend.

– Marcelas Owens. An 11-year-old boy from Seattle, Owens took a coveted spot next to the president in March 2010 when Obamacare was signed into law. Owens’ 27-year-old mother, Tiffany, died of pulmonary hypertension. The family said the single mother of three lost her job as a fast-food manager and lost her insurance. She died in 2007 after receiving emergency care and treatment throughout her illness. Progressive groups (for whom Marcelas’ relatives worked) dubbed Marcelas an “insurance abuse survivor.” But there wasn’t a shred of evidence that any insurer had “abused” the boy or his mom. Further, Washington State already offered a plethora of existing government assistance programs to laid-off and unemployed workers like Marcelas’ mom. The family and its p.r. agents never explained why she didn’t enroll.

– Natoma Canfield. The White House made the Ohio cancer patient a poster child for Obamacare in 2010 after she wrote a letter complaining about skyrocketing premiums and the prospect of losing her home. After Obama gave Canfield a shout-out at a health care rally in Strongsville, Ohio, and promised to control costs, officials at the renowned Cleveland Clinic, which is treating her, made clear that they would “not put a lien on her home” and that she was eligible for a wide variety of state aid and private charity care.

Since Obamacare passed, the amount workers pay in health care premiums has soared an average of nearly 14 percent; thousands of businesses have sought waivers in search of relief from the law’s onerous mandates; medical device makers have slashed jobs and research; and the private individual health insurance market is in critical condition.

Post-Obamacare truth is bloodier than pro-Obamacare fiction.

michellemalkin.com

Obama’s Own Economic Advisers Concludes Stimulus Jobs Cost Taxpayers $278,000 Each

2011-07-06T21:56:00.000-07:00

Which, of course, prompted the Obama administration to try and throw its own Council of Economic Advisers under the bus:

The White House on Tuesday sharply disputed a report that uses data from President Obama’s economic advisers to claim that jobs created or saved by the stimulus bill cost taxpayers $278,000 each.

The report released by the president’s Council of Economic Advisers late Friday ahead of the July 4 holiday weekend estimated the Recovery Act saved or created between 2.4 million and 3.6 million jobs by the end of March 2011. Spending equaled $666 billion by that time.

“That’s a cost to taxpayers of $278,000 per job,” according to the Weekly Standard, a Washington, D.C.-based magazine. “In other words, the government could simply have cut a $100,000 check to everyone whose employment was allegedly made possible by the ’stimulus,’ and taxpayers would have come out $427 billion ahead.”

The Obama administration’s response? It’s all lies, and the stimulus bill wasn’t just about jobs anyway:

“The Recovery Act was more than a measure to create and save jobs; it was also an investment in American infrastructure, education and industries that are critical to America’s long-term success and investment in the economic future of America’s working families,” White House spokeswoman Liz Oxhorn said in a statement to FoxNews.com.

And here you thought the stimulus bill was about creating job through “investment” (read: spending) on infrastructure, education, etc. Guess it all depends on what your definition of “stimulus” is.

Regardless, this cost per job created/saved is undoubtedly law because it uses the bogus jobs created/saved metric. If you calculated the number just on new jobs which didn’t exist before the stimulus, then the number would be much higher.

Of course, the stimulus itself is a failure. We have millions fewer jobs now than when the recession started.

sayanythingblog.com

Michelle Obama’s First Lady Trip To Africa Costing The Taxpayers $500,000

2011-06-28T23:04:00.000-07:00

“Everyone must sacrifice for the greater good,” President Obama said back in 2009. “Everyone must sacrifice for the greater good.”

Apparently sacrificing for the “common good” doesn’t preclude the First Lady from making an expense trip to Africa to promote the all-important issue of “youth leadership.”

And forget the expense, think about the carbon footprint.

First Lady Michelle Obama’s trip to South Africa and Botswana last week cost taxpayers well over half a million dollars, possibly in the range of $700,000 or $800,000, according to an analysis by White House Dossier.

Many of the trip’s expenses cannot be obtained with specificity, including the cost of local transportation for the first lady, Secret Service protection, the care and feeding of staffers, and pre-trip advance work done by administration officials in South Africa.

But it is possible to estimate some of these costs and put a price tag on one of the major expenses – her transportation to and from southern Africa and her trips between cities there.

While the goals of her journey – “youth leadership, education, health and wellness” in southern Africa, according to the White House – are laudable, many may question whether such an expensive outreach overseas by the president’s wife is worthwhile given the threat of the ballooning federal debt to the economy.

Sacrifice, I guess, is for the little people.

sayanythingblog.com

Obama’s New “Green” Car Mandates Could Add $10,000 To Vehicle Prices, Eliminate 260,000 Jobs

2011-06-17T14:16:00.000-07:00

Hundreds of thousands of jobs lost. Millions of dollars in extra expenses. Less economic activity.

Yeah, it sure sounds like Obama policy.

The Detroit News’s dogged David Shepardson has unearthed a study by one of world’s most respected automotive research firms that reveals that President Obama’s radical CAFE mandate that vehicles average — average! — 62 MPG by 2025 “could force vehicle prices up by nearly $10,000, reduce sales by 5.5 million vehicles annually, and eliminate more than 260,000 jobs.”

Shepardson is quoting from the Michigan-based Center for Automotive Research and the 260,000 job loss figure (consistent with past job losses from CAFE rule hikes) is another dent in White House’s propaganda that Green creates jobs.

The CAR study also reveals that Obama’s NHTSA and EPA have been gaming the figures when it comes to the cost of their new rules. The center’s study predicts it will cost between $3,744 and $9,790 per vehicle, while the agencies have low-balled the figure at $770 to $3,500 per vehicle.

The resulting costs would shrink the new-car market, with 5.5 million potential buyers disappearing (and manufacturing jobs with them) by 2025. That assumes that the auto fleet can even be built to meet such an absurd spec. Currently, no car — much less the average — meets 62 mpg. Indeed, only a handful of small vehicles meet the 35-mpg fleet-wide standard mandated in just five years.

I’ve never quite understood why the government feels the need to mandate efficiency. As if society, by nature, didn’t want to be more efficient.

CAFE standards are predicated on the notion that, were it not for the government, fuel efficiency wouldn’t improve. But fuel efficiency does improve, to the extent that’s reasonable. And who decides what is reasonable? The market.

If I could go out tomorrow and buy an SUV that performs the same way my current SUV does but gets 70mpg I’d do it in a heartbeat, and so would everybody else in the market. We don’t like big fuel bills. But the reason why there isn’t an SUV that gets 70mpg is because the technology doesn’t exist hit that threshold without sacrificing a lot of the other things people like in their SUV’s. Like size. Ruggedness. Off-road capability. Towing capacity. Horsepower.

So we, as consumers, accept lower fuel efficiency for these other considerations. But when the government mandates fuel efficiency, we’re forced to sacrifice those considerations to meet some arbitrary goal set by the politicians.

The markets always find the right balance between value, efficiency and price. The only thing government can do is distort that balance and make things worse.

sayanythingblog.com

Obama Blames ATM’s for His Record Unemployment Rate

2011-06-14T10:51:00.000-07:00

It’s all your fault.

Barack Obama blamed ATM’s today for his record unemployment rate… Because we all know ATM’s were just introduced since he took charge of the economy.
FOX Nation reported:

President Obama explained to NBC News that the reason companies aren’t hiring is not because of his policies, it’s because the economy is so automated. … “There are some structural issues with our economy where a lot of businesses have learned to become much more efficient with a lot fewer workers. You see it when you go to a bank and you use an ATM, you don’t go to a bank teller, or you go to the airport and you’re using a kiosk instead of checking in at the gate.”

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Related… 1.9 Million Fewer America ns Have Jobs Today Than When Obama Signed Stimulus.

thegatewaypundit.com

Michelle Obama Says Her Husband Is Working Too Hard

2011-06-14T10:49:00.000-07:00

I have a hard time feeling sympathetic for Obama given how hard he campaigned for the job. Being President isn’t easy. Obama knew this, and raised hundreds of millions of dollars to get himself elected anyway.

But setting the vigors of the job aside for a moment, it’s not like Obama has exactly been shy about taking some “me” time:

I know this will be surprising to everyone, but the president has gone golfing.

This is the last chance for him to practice before next week’s smackdown with House Speaker Boehner. The foursome will also include Vice President Biden and John Kasich, Ohio’s Republican governor. Kasich, a former senior GOP House member who worked closely with Boehner for many years, was chosen personally by the Speaker to be his second in the duel.

Today makes 11 weekends in a row that Obama has gone golfing. It’s his 14th outing this year and the 72nd of his presidency.

Meanwhile, the President tells NBC that if it were up to his family he’d be a one-term President:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

It’s almost like there’s a narrative here. Like they decided to cast the President as a hard-working family man sacrificing for the nation, so they flipped a switch and that was the message.

But hey, if Obama is really feeling a bit overtaxed by the duties of his job, he could always not run for re-election.

sayanythingblog.com

Obama Heckled at Miami Fundraiser – Sells Only 900 Tickets to 2400 Capacity Arena

2011-06-14T08:15:00.000-07:00

U.S. President Barack Obama (L) greets NBA legend Bill Russell (R) after speaking at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts in Miami, Florida, June 13, 2011. (REUTERS/Larry Downing)

Barack Obama was heckled by gay activists yesterday at his Miami fundraiser at the Arsht Center for the Performing Arts. Tickets ranged from $44 to as much as $2,500. About 900 supporters were expected to attend. The arena holds at least 2,400 people.

WSVN reported:

The president was speaking to about 80 wealthy supporters Monday who paid $10,000 each to attend an event at the home of former Samsonite CEO Steve Green. Green served as President Bill Clinton’s ambassador to Singapore.
Obama also was attending a fundraiser at the Arsht Center for the Performing Arts. Tickets ranged from $44 to as much as $2,500. About 900 supporters were expected to attend.

thegatewaypundit.com

Taxpayers to Foot the Bill for Michelle Obama’s Fundraising

2011-06-14T08:11:00.000-07:00

First Lady Michelle Obama flew off to California to attend four fundraisers. She threw in two “official” appointments so we the taxpayers will most likely pick up most of her travel tab. Couldn’t she have stayed in Washington, DC to raise awareness about supporting military families? Is her appearance on iCarly really necessary official business?

Keith Koffler has the scoop:

Mrs. Obama will be in California today and tomorrow, visiting Los Angeles, Pasadena, Oakland and San Francisco. She will hold two official “first lady” events and be the star attraction at FOUR fundraisers.
Whether she would have attended the official events if she wasn’t going to troll for money is anyone’s guess. But what seems likely is the cost of flying Michelle out to the West Coast so she can soak the legions of wealthy Californian Democrats for cash is being mitigated by having the official appearances on the schedule.
The first lady’s office did not respond to a request for information about whether and how much of the trip will be paid for by the government. But with official events scheduled, it’s very safe to assume that a chunk – perhaps most – of the first lady’s travel aboard a specially equipped air force plane along with her security detail and entourage will be paid for by taxpayers.

Koffler went on to note that her appearance at the military event and the iCarly taping will be open to the press. The fundraisers will be off limits except for a small pool of print reporters. And they better not try taping her with their iPhones.

lonelyconservative.com

Obama Laughing Off Dismal Economy?

2011-06-14T08:08:00.000-07:00

Obama Hypes Green Energy Plant That’s Shifting Operations to China

2011-06-14T08:06:00.000-07:00

U.S. President Barack Obama shakes hands with employees as he tours a North Carolina manufacturing facility of energy efficient LED lights, Cree Inc., in Raleigh-Durham, June 13, 2011. From L-R are: Obama, Matthew Rose, CEO of GE Jeffrey Immelt and Chairman and CEO of Cree, Inc. Charles M. Swoboda. (REUTERS/Larry Downing)

Obama is traveling to North Carolina today to plug another green energy company. The company received $39 million in tax credits and at least $6 million in grants from the Department of Energy. Cree makes LED lighting products.
And, it’s shifting operations to China.
The Daily Caller reported:

President Barack Obama will visit the North Carolina-based Cree LED Light Company Monday to tour the plant and meet with his Council on Jobs and Competitiveness to discuss job creation and policies to spur economic growth. But Cree, a major recipient of Recovery Act funds, may be sending that money straight to China.
At the very least, its CEO, Chuck Swoboda, has a very China-centered strategy that involves building a new plant overseas, two facts that the Republican National Committee plans to highlight Monday morning prior to the president’s visit. Cree received a $39 million as an Advanced Energy Manufacturing Tax Credit from the Recovery Act.
The company began developing clean energy technology, hired a few more hundred workers, and the administration touted it as a “true American success story” on the White House Web site. Then in late 2010, the company opened its first plant in Huizhou City,China. That made Cree the first global LED company to locate a manufacturing plant in China…
“This is just another example of an administration that talks about an economy that has turned around while ignoring what is happening to American families who are struggling to find jobs, pay higher food and gas prices and are dealing with the decline of their home value,” one Republican source told The Daily Caller.

Experts say that Obama’s visit today highlights his failed economic policies.

“It’s ironic that Obama’s jobs panel is meeting at the headquarters of a company that received millions of dollars of taxpayer money. Rising unemployment is evidence that Obama’s clean energy plan did not work as he had hoped, yet the president is stubbornly adhering to his fantasy of creating a clean energy economy,” said Tom Borelli, Ph.D., director of the National Center’s Free Enterprise Project.
“The failure of Obama’s job’s panel is really not surprising since the group is packed with green energy and cap-and-trade cheerleaders such as GE CEO Jeff Immelt, green energy venture capitalist John Doerr, DuPont CEO Ellen Kullman and NextEra Energy CEO Lewis Hay,” added Tom Borelli.

thegatewaypundit.com

Figures. Obama Blames Europe & Earthquakes For His Failed Policies

2011-06-05T13:47:00.000-07:00

Evidently, George W. Bush was not availalble.

Obama blames the disastrous economy on Europe and earthquakes.

The British press noticed the latest blame game too.

The Daily Mail noticed:

The Dow Jones industrial average and the Standard & Poor’s 500 index are both headed for a fifth straight week of losses – the longest losing streak for the Dow since July 2004.
The slump follows jobs data published on Friday showing employers added only 54,000 new workers in May, the fewest in eight months and well below what analysts were expecting.
The news comes as President Barack Obama today blamed high gasoline prices, the Japanese earthquake and Europe’s financial crisis for economic ‘headwinds’ at home.
As inspiration for a broader recovery, he’s citing the American auto industry’s resurgence.
‘We’re a people who don’t give up, who do big things, who shape our own destiny,’ the president said in his weekly radio and Internet address Saturday.
Like his words to Chrysler workers, Obama’s address did not mention the bleak unemployment numbers announced Friday for the month of May. The Bureau of Labor Statistics said the economy last month created only a net 54,000 jobs and unemployment inched up to 9.1 percent.
‘We’re facing some tough headwinds,’ Obama said.
‘Lately, it’s high gas prices, the earthquake in Japan and unease about the European fiscal situation. That will happen from time to time.’

gatewaypundit.rightnetwork.com

Do As Obama Says Not As He Does

2011-06-05T13:42:00.000-07:00

Michelle Obama’s first lady issue has been declaring a War on Fatties, complete with heavy-handed new regulations of school lunches and replacing the food pyramid with the, uh, food plate.

But just a day after America got its first look at their new eating guidelines from the USDA, the President wolfed down two chili dogs (with extra chili!) and some french fries in Toledo.

I guess telling fibs is hungry work.

When his wife unveiled the USDA’s new nutritional plate yesterday, there definitely wasn’t a space for chili dogs.

But that didn’t stop Barack Obama wolfing down two in Toledo today – with fries and an extra bowl of chili on the side.

The president happily munched on the unhealthy meal before he visited the city’s Chrysler factory, and even teased one of his hosts for ordering ketchup, a faux-pas in his home town of Chicago.

To be clear, I don’t really care what Obama eats. He could subsist on a steady diet of Mellow Yellow, cheeseburgers and Camel cigarettes for all I care. I just wish he and his administration would stop trying to use the power of government to manipulate how the rest of us eat.

Obama’s supporters will probably role their eyes and demand to know why the President’s diet is worthy of criticism. My response would be that I’ll stop caring about what the President eats when he stops caring about what I eat.

sayanythingblog.com

British Press Pans Obama’s Empty TelePrompter Speech to Parliament

2011-05-25T14:30:00.001-07:00

In the end, not even the TelePrompters could win over the British press…

President Barack Obama speaks to members of British Parliment while The Lord Speaker Baroness Hayman (R) listens inside Westminster Hall in London, May 25, 2011. (REUTERS/Larry Downing)

The Brits panned Obama’s empty speech today to Parliament.
The Telegraph reported:

The pictures were better than the words…
…Perhaps Mr Obama was smothered also by his audience, which remained stubbornly unresponsive. For most of the time the President had nothing to bounce off: no applause and certainly no shouts of praise or blame as might be heard in an American church or at an American political rally.
The presidential text sounded as if it had been worked on so hard and conscientiously by a vast team of helpers that it had lost all savour, and been reduced to a series of orotund banalities, of the sort which can be heard at every tedious Anglo-American conference: “Profound challenges stretch out before us…the time for our leadership is now…Our alliance will remain indispensable.”
It did not help to hear Mr Obama assert, after only a minute or two, that “fortunately it’s been smooth sailing” between Britain and the United States “ever since” 1812, when we burned down the White House. Everyone present will have been able to think of occasions when this was not so. Suez did not seem like plain sailing.
Applause did break out when Mr Obama observed that “it’s possible for the sons and daughters of former colonies” to sit as Members of Parliament, and for “the grandson of a Kenyan who served as a cook in the British Army to stand before you as the President of the United States”.

Of course, Obama had to talk about himself… Even in front of the British Parliament.

At least, now they know firsthand what we’ve been suffering through these past three years. Empty words and far left failed policies.

gatewaypundit.rightnetwork.com

Gaffetastic… Obama Signs Wrong Date (Off by 3 Years) in Westminster Abbey Book

2011-05-24T21:13:00.000-07:00

Could you even imagine Sarah Palin or some other Republican doing this?
We’d never hear the end of it.

A message from US President Barack Obama and his wife, first lady Michelle Obama, apparently signed by the President with the wrong date of 2008 in the distinguished visitors’ book during a tour of Westminster Abbey, in central London, as part of his state visit to the United Kingdom, Tuesday May 24, 2011. (AP/John Stillwell, Pool)

gatewaypundit.rightnetwork.com

Awkward Moment During Obama Toast to Queen

2011-05-24T21:09:00.000-07:00

The president and the orchestra at Buckingham Palace this evening were a bit out of synch.

When the president toasted the Queen the orchestra misunderstood a pause and what seemed to be a cue from the president for “God Save the Queen” to begin playing.

“Ladies and gentlemen please stand with me and raise your glasses as I propose a toast,” the president said, putting down his note cards and grabbing his glass. “To her majesty the Queen.”

The president paused, the guests stood, and the orchestra prepared to play.

But the president wasn’t done speaking.

“The vitality –“ the president said before the orchestra began.

Then the familiar tune – you might know it better as “My Country ‘Tis of Thee” – started up.

The president kept going: “ -- of the special relationship between our peoples and for the words of Shakespeare to this blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,” the president said as the awkward moment played out.

The Queen looked ahead as the UK anthem played.

“To the Queen,” the president finally said.

He lifted his glass to her, she smiled a bit uncomfortably.

But because the song was playing, no one drank from his or her glass, including the president, who put his glass down on the table.

Then once the song was over, everyone raised a glass.

It almost felt like one of those moments at the Academy Awards when the speech from the recipient for Best Original Screenplay goes on too long and the orchestra tries to hustle him or her off the stage.

Kind of weird.

abcnews.com

Congress Rebukes Obama: Gives Netanyahu Standing Ovation When He Rejects 1967 Border Plan

2011-05-24T20:59:00.000-07:00

Last week Barack Obama pushed Israel to hand over half of Jerusalem, the Wailing Wall, The Temple Mount, Old Jerusalem, and the tomb of Jesus Christ to the Hamas-Fatah terrorist alliance.

Today, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected Obama’s dangerous plan.
Congress gave him a standing ovation.

The Note reported:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech before a joint meeting of Congress had all trappings of a State of the Union address by a president with sky-high approval ratings.
Speaking to a packed House chamber with Speaker Boehner and Vice President Biden over his shoulders, Netanyahu was repeatedly interrupted by applause – including more than 20 standing ovations.
One of his biggest applause lines was aimed directly at President Obama.
“Israel will not return to the indefensible boundaries of 1967,” Netanyahu said, prompting a big standing ovation.
Later he added: “Israel on the 1967 lines would be only 9 miles wide. So much for defensible borders.”

gatewaypundit.rightnetwork.com

Obama Administration Defying War Powers Law

2011-05-21T11:10:00.001-07:00

The War Powers Resolution of 1973 allows the President to wage war for 60 days without the assent of Congress during “a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces.” Using this justification to go to war in Libya, which represented no national emergency for the United States nor an attack on US territories, possessions or forces is some pretty thin gruel.

But now the Obama administration is up against the 60 day limit for waging war, and they show no signs of either disengaging US forces from Libya or asking Congress for permission to continue:

The legal license President Obama used to justify U.S. military intervention in Libya expires today, and there’s little sign the White House is working quickly to get it renewed.

Exactly two months ago, Obama notified Congress of his unilateral decision to engage in “limited military action” to help defend the Libyan people from attacks by their leader, Moammar Gadhafi.

But under federal law — the War Powers Resolution of 1973 — Obama is only allowed to keep U.S. forces engaged in hostilities for 60 days, unless Congress declares war, authorizes funding for the effort or extends the deadline.

Congress has not enacted legislation authorizing military involvement in Libya, and the White House has not made a public effort to comply with the rule.

Experts say this is the first time an American president has defied the War Powers Resolution’s deadline for participation in combat operations without any concurrent steps by Congress to fund or otherwise authorize the role.

While every administration since 1973 and some lawmakers have questioned the constitutionality of the resolution’s infringement on executive power, it has not been successfully challenged in court and remains the law of the land.

The closest any President has come to defying the War Powers Resolution was Bill Clinton’s military action in Kosovo. Congress didn’t specifically authorize that action, but the Clinton administration noted that Congress did pass an appropriations bill funding the war, and claimed that was approval enough.

Regardless, I’m not sure what case the Obama administration could possibly make for these actions being legal. The questions of the legality of the War Powers Resolution circle around its expansion of Presidential war power. Going strictly by the Constitution, the President may only go to war when the Congress says so. The resolution expanded that to allow the President to make war for 60 days without authorization under specific circumstances.

Not only is the President thumbing his nose at what was almost certainly an unconstitutional expansion of executive war-making authority, he’s thumbing his nose at the Constitution itself.

sayanythingblog.com

Rocker Gene Simmons Slams Obama on His Anti-Israel Policy: “He Has No F**king Idea What the World Is Like” (Video)

2011-05-21T11:00:00.000-07:00

In an interview with CNBC’s Jane Wells, rock n’ roll singer Gene Simmons slammed President Barack Obama on his proposal to weaken Israel in support of the Hamas-Fatah alliance.

“How about you live there and try to defend an indefensible border?… He has no f**king idea what the world is like.”
This was great–

Yesterday, Barack Obama told American ally Israel to give Old Jerusalem, including the Temple Mount and the most sacred sites of Christianity, to the Hamas-Fatah terror alliance.

gatewaypundit.rightnetwork.com

AARP gets its Obamacare waiver: As predicted

2011-05-21T10:58:00.000-07:00

Doug Powers called it on November 5, 2010:

AARP, either in blind faith or full complicity, bet on door #1 and their employees (not to mention almost everybody else) get to pay the price:

WASHINGTON – AARP’s endorsement helped secure passage of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul. Now the seniors’ lobby is telling its employees their insurance costs will rise partly as a result of the law.

In an e-mail to employees, AARP says health care premiums will increase by 8 percent to 13 percent next year because of rapidly rising medical costs.

And AARP adds that it’s changing copayments and deductibles to avoid a 40 percent tax on high-cost health plans that takes effect in 2018 under the law. Aerospace giant Boeing also has cited the tax in asking its workers to pay more. Shifting costs to employees lowers the value of a health care plan and acts like an escape hatch from the tax.

Prepare for AARP to now lobby the Obama administration for a waiver from the glorious health care law they helped shove down America’s throat.

Matthe Boyle at the Daily Caller, today:

The Daily Caller has learned that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) rate review rules, which it finalized on Thursday, exempt “Medigap” policy providers, like the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), from oversight when such providers increase payment rates for their supplemental insurance plans.

Insurance providers who aren’t exempt from Obamacare’s rate review rules are required to publicly release and explain some health care payment rate increases.

The AARP is the nation’s biggest seller of Medigap policies, or supplemental healthcare plans that add onto what Medicare won’t cover for seniors. The senior citizens interest group advocated for Obamacare to include an attack on Medigap policies’ biggest competitor, Medicare Advantage.

Though the White House and HHS dismiss allegations of political favoritism when it comes to who’s getting exceptions from the new health care regulations – such as in the recent uproar over the disproportionate number of Obamacare waivers that went to companies in House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s district — Obamacare critics say the mere appearance of the administration helping friends is disturbing.

As reported on this blog in September 2009, critics have been raising questions about AARP’s seeming kickback scheme involving its Medicare advantage program.

The stench of waivers for favors grew stronger still after AARP endorsed the controversial Obamacare bill in November 2009 despite a rising backlash from AARP members.

Dude, where’s your waiver?

michellemalkin.com

If Only Obama Were As Worried About Our National Debt As He Is About Egypt’s Debt

2011-05-21T10:56:00.001-07:00

From Obama’s remarks today about the middle east:

…we do not want a democratic Egypt to be saddled by the debts of its past. So we will relieve a democratic Egypt of up to $1 billion in debt, and work with our Egyptian partners to invest these resources to foster growth and entrepreneurship. We will help Egypt regain access to markets by guaranteeing $1 billion in borrowing that is needed to finance infrastructure and job creation. And we will help newly democratic governments recover assets that were stolen.

Gee, anyone else know of another country that is saddled by debt? Like, maybe, the United States of America?

If only President Obama were as worried about our national debt as he is about Egypt’s debt.

sayanythingblog.com

Obama Calls “Post American World” Author & TV Host Frequently For Advice

2011-05-13T12:57:00.000-07:00

Barack Obama was photographed on the tarmac by Doug Mills of the New York Times with a book in his left hand titled “The Post-American World” by Fareed Zakaria back in 2008. (Freedom Phoenix)

Barack Obama regularly seeks advice from Fareed Zakaria, the CNN host and author of Post American World.
The Blaze reported:

How would you feel if you knew the president regularly sought the advice of a magazine editor/columnist ad TV host? It’s true. According to CNN, Obama has made a habit of seeking “wisdom and advice” from host Fareed Zakaria.
In an interview with fellow CNN host Elliot Spitzer, Zakaria admitted Obama and him talk regularly about the Middle East and international policy, a point that Spitzer said makes his heart “warm:”

Here’s the video:

Of course, the fact that he takes advice from this author surprises no one.

gatewaypundit.rightnetwork.com

New Tone: Obama White House Website Says Republicans Are Racists

2011-05-11T12:48:00.000-07:00

This must be part of that new tone.
The Obama White House website wrote that audience members screamed Republicans were racists during his talk yesterday.

Too bad it never happened.
They just made it up.Here’s the video:

The Washington Examiner reported:

Yesterday, in El Paso, President Obama was interrupted early on in his speech by shouts of “We love you!” from the audience. Obama then stopped his prepared remarks and responded: “Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you.” All this is in the official transcript. As it should be.
But then much later in the speech Obama said: ” We have gone above and beyond what was requested by the very Republicans who said they supported broader reform as long as we got serious about enforcement. All the stuff they asked for, we’ve done. But even though we’ve answered these concerns, I’ve got to say I suspect there are still going to be some who are trying to move the goal posts on us one more time.” At which point the official White House transcript adds this:
AUDIENCE MEMBER: They’re racist!
But then the transcript continues without Obama ever acknowledging the “racist” statement was ever made. If Obama did not interrupt his speech to acknowledge the comment, then why is it in the official transcript? Watch the video of Obama’s speech. Not only is it impossible to hear anybody shout “you’re racist” at that point in the speech, but judging by Obama’s smooth delivery, he never even heard the statement. If the statement was not part of Obama’s prepared remarks, and Obama did not acknowledge it in any way during the speech, then why call Republicans racist on the official White House website?

Wow. Have you ever seen anything like this in your life?
These leftists are not just radical, they’re shameless.

gatewaypundit.rightnetwork.com

GAO accuses Obama WH of politics in Yucca Mountain closure

2011-05-11T12:44:00.000-07:00

Quick — which presidential candidate pledged to restore science to its “rightful place” in government policy? If you’ve forgotten, well, so has Barack Obama and his administration, according to the GAO. The watchdog agency reports that the White House rushed to shut down the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste disposal facility for political rather than scientific considerations, and that Obama’s manipulation will cost taxpayers billions of dollars and set back the nuclear industry by decades:

The Obama administration’s rushed efforts to shut down Yucca Mountain were strictly political and could set back the opening of a nuclear waste repository by more than 20 years, according to a new report by a federal watchdog.

The administration killed the repository program last year without citing technical or safety issues, and restarting the costly and time-consuming process of finding a permanent repository or an alternative solution could take decades and cost billions of additional dollars, the Government Accountability Office reported yesterday.

The Energy Department began pursuing a license for the Nevada site in 2008 but pulled support a year later when the Obama administration said it was not an attractive solution for storing nuclear waste in the United States. The administration then closed out funding for the site, eliminated jobs and contractor activities and disposed of Las Vegas properties associated with the project.

“Several DOE officials told us that they had never seen such a large program with so much pressure to close down so quickly,” the report said in reference to the repository located about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

What technical or scientific rationales did the White House use in this effort? Well … none, according to the GAO. The administration not only didn’t bother to explain why the site had to be closed so quickly, they never checked on the safety issues involved in the hasty shutdown of the facility. Instead, Energy Secretary Stephen Chu just declared that Yucca Mountain was not a “workable option” and demanded its closure.

There are even bigger problems that the GAO report uncovered, not all having to do with the Obama administration. Thanks to the hasty closure, another disposal site must be found. However, the GAO estimates that even if a decision on a new site was made today, the permit process for its use would keep it off line until … 2045. It will take 34 years to get full approval on the next waste-disposal site, and that’s if the site avoids “cost delays” and “garners public acceptance.”

This project was not popular in Nevada, and Harry Reid is perhaps its biggest opponent. It looks as though the Obama administration rushed to protect Harry Reid for his re-election campaign last year, at the risk of the nuclear-power industry and taxpayers. We need to find out exactly how this decision got made, and then we need to fix the process for dealing rationally with nuclear waste. We can’t wait 34 years to get an answer, and it’s absolutely absurd that we should have to do so.

hotair.com

A Very Important Question for President Obama on Border Security

2011-05-11T12:37:00.000-07:00

The least serious president in the history of the Republic, said recently in El Paso:

“We have gone above and beyond what was requested by the very Republicans who said they supported broader reform as long as we got serious about enforcement. Maybe (next) they’ll say we need a moat. Or alligators in the moat.”

Above and beyond, eh, Barack? Are you trying to sell the same line as DHS Secretary Janet Incompetento? “the US border has never been more secure“. Never more secure? Are you kidding me? Is it possible for someone to infiltrate the Washington Press Corps (pronounced “core”, Mr. President) and ask one simple question?

If you’ve gone above and beyond what your critics have asked for, and if the border is genuinely more secure than it has ever been, can you tell us when these signs, 80 miles north of our southern border will be coming down?

Update: For the unbelievers.

sayanythingblog.com

Good Grief. Obama Took 16 HOURS to Make Up His Mind to Get Osama Bin Laden

2011-05-03T15:35:00.000-07:00

Good grief. It took Barack Obama 16 HOURS to make up his mind to get Osama Bin Laden.

He had to think about it.

The Daily Mail reported:

Barack Obama kept military commanders hanging by declaring he would ‘sleep on it’ before taking 16 hours to give the go-ahead to raid Bin Laden’s compound.

Hit squads of specialist Navy Seals – who were not even told who they were preparing to capture – had practiced the mission at two reconstructions of the terror chiefs sprawling compound.

The mission looked set to be given the all clear last Thursday when analysts confirmed beyond doubt that Bin Laden was in busy town of Abbottabad in northern Pakistan.

But the president stunned officials when he told a national security meeting that he wanted more time to think – and disappeared out of the room.

‘I’m not going to tell you what my decision is now – I’m going to go back and think about it some more,’ said Obama, according to the New York Times. He then added ‘I’m going to make a decision soon.’

The head of the CIA and other senior intelligence officers who were keen to proceed were left tense as they waited for the president’s decision.

But the next morning after 16 hours, Obama summoned four top aides to the White House Diplomatic Room. Before they could speak, the president put his fist on the table and declared ‘It’s a go’.

gatewaypundit.rightnetwork.com

Identity Of Bin Laden’s Courier Was Provided By Al Qaeda Operative Captured In…Iraq

2011-05-03T15:33:00.000-07:00

As more and more details emerge regarding the intelligence trail which led us to Osama bin Laden’s hideout in Pakistan it comes more and more of a black eye for the Obama administration and the left.

First we learned that the first crumbs of the intelligence trail were provided by detainees at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, which Obama promised he would close as a candidate. Then we learned that further intelligence has been provided by 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed during an interrogation at a secret CIA prison Obama ordered closed in 2009.

Now we learn via Wikileaks that the identity of Osama bin Laden’s courier was provided by an al Qaeda operative US forces picked up in Iraq during a war Obama once called “dumb” suggesting it had nothing to do with the war on terror and had actually made us less safe.

The file suggests that the courier’s identity was provided to the US by another key source, the al-Qaida facilitator Hassan Ghul, who was captured in Iraq in 2004 and interrogated by the CIA. Ghul was never sent to Guantanamo but was believed to have been taken to a prison in Pakistan.

As Obama prepares to visit Ground Zero in New York City to tout his accomplishment in icing Osama bin Laden and make the requisite political hay, it becomes clear that the only reason why the terror leader is sleeping with the fishes is because our intelligence operatives followed a trail of intelligence gathered via detention facilities Obama wanted closed and provided by terror operatives picked up during a war Obama himself once called “dumb” and suggested had nothing to do with the war on terror.

Maybe, instead of beating his chest, Obama ought to be apologizing for all the ways he’d been wrong in the past.

sayanythingblog.com

Reminder to the Press: Before Publishing an Article, Ask Yourselves ‘Does This Make FLOTUS Seem Snooty?’

2011-05-03T15:16:00.000-07:00

A small, local news outlet with a name like “Pleasanton Weekly” doesn’t sound very threatening, but according to an email sent to the Daily Caller, the publication has some journalistic teeth that the White House thought needed to be filed down — specifically, the choppers that made Michelle Obama come across as snooty:

A small weekly paper in California claims that a White House official asked it to remove a sentence from a “benign” feature about Marine One because it reflected poorly on first lady Michelle Obama.
[...]
The story in question was a soft feature about Marine One titled, “Inside Marine One, President Obama’s helicopter,” that ran in the paper on April 20. Pleasanton staffer Amory Gutierrez “didn’t get to ride in ‘Marine One,’” she wrote in her story, “but I did get the VIP tour and took photographs of the otherwise unseen aircraft.”

She also wrote a sentence that the White House thought made FLOTUS look snooty.

“Basically the reporter said that the First Lady didn’t speak to the pilots but acknowledged them by making eye contact,” Allen wrote in her email.

Allen says she “complied” with the White House’s request “because it was not worth making a fuss over.”

This little band of California rabble-rousers might just be a small operation, but the White House can never be too careful in keeping them in check. One day it’s the Pleasanton Weekly, but the next thing they know it’s ballooned into the San Francisco Chronicle.

Doug Powers - michellemalkin.com

Key Intelligence In Bin Laden Operation Collected At CIA Prisons Obama Ordered Closed

2011-05-02T16:17:00.000-07:00

Last night we learned that part of the breadcrumb trail of evidence that eventually lead US forces to bin Laden started with intelligence gathered at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. This is a bit of an inconvenient truth for those championing Obama’s leadership today given that the President opposed the detention center as a Senator and promised to close it as a candidate (something he’s yet to do as President for obvious reasons).

Now comes more inconvenient truth: It turns out another break in the case came when information was given up by 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed under interrogation (like water boarding) at a secret CIA prison in eastern Europe.

In a secret CIA prison in Eastern Europe years ago, al-Qaida’s No. 3 leader, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, gave authorities the nicknames of several of bin Laden’s couriers, four former U.S. intelligence officials said. Those names were among thousands of leads the CIA was pursuing.

One man became a particular interest for the agency when another detainee, Abu Faraj al-Libi, told interrogators that when he was promoted to succeed Mohammed as al-Qaida’s operational leader he received the word through a courier. Only bin Laden would have given al-Libi that promotion, CIA officials believed.

If they could find that courier, they’d find bin Laden.

The revelation that intelligence gleaned from the CIA’s so-called black sites helped kill bin Laden was seen as vindication for many intelligence officials who have been repeatedly investigated and criticized for their involvement in a program that involved the harshest interrogation methods in U.S. history.

“We got beat up for it, but those efforts led to this great day,” said Marty Martin, a retired CIA officer who for years led the hunt for bin Laden.

It’s worth noting that President Obama signed an order to close these CIA prisons back in 2009 when he was first elected President. It was part of the order he signed to close Guantanamo Bay. The President “also said he didn’t want to have to make a ‘false choice’ between successfully waging war against terrorist organizations and hewing to U.S. human rights ideals in the process,” reported MSNBC.

Now intelligence gathered at these prisons Obama opposed has brought the President the biggest foreign policy victory of his administration.

Those applauding Obama for his leadership in getting to Osama bin Laden ought to keep in mind that it was the policies Obama opposed that won the day.

sayanythingblog.com

Obama Used Bush Doctrine In Unilateral Strike that Killed Osama Lin Laden

2011-05-02T16:13:00.000-07:00

Just a quick walk down memory lane.

Osama Bin Laden was killed by a unilateral strike in Pakistan. According to MSNBC, no countries were notified, including Pakistan. This policy was a Bush Policy; admitted by the great silver tongue Obama himself:

Also note that CBS’ Lara Logan forces Obama to concede that his oft-touted call to kill Osama bin Laden in Pakistani territory is actually current U.S. policy.

Logan: Isn’t that the case now? I mean, do you really think that if the U.S. forces had Osama bin Laden in their sights and the Pakistanis said no, that they wouldn’t fire or wouldn’t go after him?

Obama: I think actually this is current doctrine. There was some dispute when I said this last August. Both the administration and some of my opponents suggested, well, you know, you shouldn’t go around saying that. But I don’t think there’s any doubt that that should be our policy, and will continue to be our policy.

Logan: But it is the current policy.

Obama: I believe it is the current policy.

Logan: So there’s no change then.

Obama: I don’t think there is going to be a change there.

Obama does need a lot of credit. He was hammered by the far-left for taking an affirmative side with Bush. Video below:

However, I suspect that many Democrats will walk away from this as if they were never against unilateral operations in Pakistan.

Sam Foster - lonelyconservative.com

San Francisco Chronicle On White House Statement: They’re Lying

2011-04-30T08:43:00.000-07:00

The White House threatened a San Francisco reporter for filming a crummy protest song at a fundraiser in California this past week.

Obama complimented the song but was surprised by the fundraiser protest. The administration threatened the reporter who recorded the protest song but later denied it.

Today the San Francisco Chronicle said the White House is lying.
SFGate reported:

In a pants-on-fire moment, the White House press office today denied anyone there had issued threats to remove Carla Marinucci and possibly other Hearst reporters from the press pool covering the President in the Bay Area.

Chronicle editor Ward Bushee called the press office on its fib:

Sadly, we expected the White House to respond in this manner based on our experiences yesterday. It is not a truthful response. It follows a day of off-the-record exchanges with key people in the White House communications office who told us they would remove our reporter, then threatened retaliation to Chronicle and Hearst reporters if we reported on the ban, and then recanted to say our reporter might not be removed after all.

The Chronicle’s report is accurate.

If the White House has indeed decided not to ban our reporter, we would like an on-the-record notice that she will remain the San Francisco print pool reporter.

gatewaypundit.rightnetwork.com

Previously:

Obama Administration punishes reporter for using multimedia

Voting For Obama Because He Was Black Was The “Biggest Mistake Of My Life”

2011-04-30T08:36:00.000-07:00

So says National Black Chamber of Commerce CEO Harry Alfred during an interview with Laura Ingraham.

I’ve said before that I don’t think it’s right to vote for anyone based on the color of their skin, be it white or black or otherwise. We should care more about how a given candidate would lead, what policies they would implement (or roll back, as the case may be), then what color their skin is. Or what gender they are. Or how they look on television.

Sadly, that’s the kind of society we are. Obama won election not so much because of his policies but because of his marketing. He was a celebrity candidate who caught the eye of the electorate with his brilliant stagecraft and lofty speeches and they voted for him.

Now there’s a lot of buyer’s remorse.

sayanythingblog.com

Obama Administration punishes reporter for using multimedia

2011-04-28T22:51:00.000-07:00

Most open, high-tech, accessible administration….(n)ever.

Yes, it’s true. The social media-darling-in-chief has banned a San Francisco Chronicle reporter for using her cell phone to capture video of left-wing protesters at the Bay Area Obama fundraiser earlier this week.

Banned.

The White House press shop refuses to comment on the record about it — and, no surprise, other reporters have apparently been threatened for talking about the banishment.

SFChronicle’s Phil Bronstein reports:

The hip, transparent and social media-loving Obama administration is showing its analog roots. And maybe even some hypocrisy highlights.

White House officials have banished one of the best political reporters in the country from the approved pool of journalists covering presidential visits to the Bay Area for using now-standard multimedia tools to gather the news.

The Chronicle’s Carla Marinucci – who, like many contemporary reporters, has a phone with video capabilities on her at all times – pulled out a small video camera last week and shot some protesters interrupting an Obama fundraiser at the St. Regis Hotel.

She was part of a “print pool” – a limited number of journalists at an event who represent their bigger hoard colleagues – which White House press officials still refer to quaintly as “pen and pad” reporting.

But that’s a pretty Flintstones concept of journalism for an administration that presents itself as the Jetsons.

Here’s the kicker:

So what’s up with the White House? We can’t say because neither Press Secretary Jay Carney nor anyone from his staff would speak on the record.

Other sources confirmed that Carla was vanquished, including Chronicle editor Ward Bushee, who said he was “informed that Carla was removed as a pool reporter.” Which shouldn’t be a secret in any case because it’s a fact that affects the newsgathering of our largest regional paper (and sfgate)and how local citizens get their information.

What’s worse: more than a few journalists familiar with this story are aware of some implied threats from the White House of additional and wider punishment if Carla’s spanking became public. Really? That’s a heavy hand usually reserved for places other than the land of the free.

Saying it again: See, I told you so.

Maybe it’s finally time to put those drool buckets away, MSM?

michellemalkin.com

Barack Obama: “Not Spending Money Is Mortgaging America’s Future”

2011-04-28T22:42:00.001-07:00

President Obama was in New York City today addressing Democratic donors and imparting more of his liberal logic.

And more of that new math.

“Not Spending Money Is Mortgaging America’s Future.”

CNS News reported -

Deficits are not the only thing that could mortgage America’s future, President Barack Obama told Democratic donors in New York on Thursday. He stressed it would be mortgaging the country’s future if government did not spend money on certain areas.“There’s more than one way to mortgage America’s future,” Obama said at The Town Hall in New York. “We mortgage that future if we don’t get a handle on our deficit and debt, but we also mortgage it if we’re not investing in those things that will assure the promise of the American Dream for the next generation.”

Obama, in the speech, broadly defined the government expenditures needed to ensure prosperity for the next generation that should not be sacrificed for deficit and debt reduction.

Wait a minute, I thought a mortgage was borrowing. Now not borrowing is mortgaging? And they wonder why we want to see his college transcripts.

In addition, when comparing the Republican budget proposal to his proposal, the President said this:

“It’s a vision of a small America, of a shrunken America, where those of us who are lucky do great and don’t have to give anything back, and we can pull up the ladder behind us,” Obama said of the GOP plan at an earlier DNC fundraiser that same day at the Waldorf Astoria in New York.

Of his plan, he said, “We imagine a big America where we’re investing in the same kind of science that invented the Internet.”

gatewaypundit.rightnetwork.com

Obama on Birth Certificate: “We Do Not Have Time For This Kind of Silliness. I Have More Important Things to Do” …Then Flew to Chicago to Be on Oprah

2011-04-27T17:16:00.000-07:00

Barack Obama said this about his hidden birth certificate today:

“We do not have time for this kind of silliness. We have more important things to do. I have more important things to do. “

Sure you do.

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Later this morning Obama flew to Chicago to be on Oprah.

gatewaypundit.rightnetwork.com

Previously:

President Obama Finally Releases His Birth Certificate

The birther debate has been “bad for the Republican party,” the Obama administration says. So out of an abundance of concern for the welfare of the GOP, they’re naturally releasing the President’s long form birth certificate.

Washington (CNN) — The Obama administration is releasing President Barack Obama’s long-form birth certificate, White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer announced Wednesday.

Obama will discuss the decision to release the certificate Wednesday morning, the White House announced.

“This whole birther debate has been really bad for the Republican Party,” Pfeiffer said. But the discussion is “crowding out the debate” on more important issues and is a distraction, he said.

The so-called “birther” debate is “good politics” but “bad for the country,” Pfeiffer added.

Here’s the PDF of the document released by the White House:

President Obama's Long Form Birth Certificate

View more documents from White House

Does this settle the debate, or do the conspiracy mongers find some new way to expand the conspiracy? My guess is the latter.

Regardless, I guess the Obama administration felt they had milked all the political advantage they could out of refusing to release the birth certificate.

sayanythingblog.com

Also:

Obama Calls Trump a “Carnival Barker”

In his birth certificate speech this morning Barack Obama called Donald Trump a “carnival barker.”
It must be more of that new tone we were promised.

Here’s a partial transcript:

I’ve provided additional information today about the site of my birth. “Yes, I was in fact born in HI on Aug. 4, 1961.” Over the past 2 1/2 years I have watched with puzzlement this controversy. Normally I wouldn’t comment on this. But the prominent news story was about my birth certificate, not the budget. I want to make a larger point. We have enormous issues we are facing. Which will generate huge and fierce debates. We are not going to be able to come together in a bipartisan fashion if we get distracted by sideshows and carnival barkers. I have every confidence that the US will come out on top.

Just wondering… So why did you spend millions to hide this document Mr. President?

gatewaypundit.rightnetwork.com

Poll: Only 38% Of Americans Say They’re Sure Obama Was Born In The US

2011-04-26T14:07:00.000-07:00

I maintain that Obama was born in the United States, but this is why I supported Arizona’s “birther law.” Arizona’s Governor Jan Brewer vetoed that law and is now saying she finds birtherism to be “destructive” and a distraction.

I think it would be less so if the states had laws requiring the candidates to prove their constitutional eligibility, thus nipping these conspiracy theories in the bud before they get to this point.

Still, in the USA TODAY poll, only 38% of Americans say Obama definitely was born in the USA, and 18% say he probably was. Fifteen percent say he probably was born in another country, and 9% say he definitely was born elsewhere.

The impulse here is to blame the conspiracy mongers keeping this thing alive, but how much culpability does Obama have in all this? Releasing the long-form birth certificate (or whatever it is the birthers want) would be a simple enough move. By not releasing it, by essentially playing coy on the whole thing, they keep wind in the sails of the USS Conspiracy Theory.

That’s politically convenient, I think, in that it allows Obama to cast himself as a victim of silly nut jobs. But we should also be sure to give Obama his due for leading these people on.

sayanythingblog.com

Obama Rails Over $4 Billion in US Oil Subsidies… But Spent $1.6 Billion on Chinese Wind Turbines & $2 Billion on Brazil Oil

2011-04-26T14:03:00.000-07:00

(My Wind)
Obama railed against the oil companies again today. Obama said the US government gave $4 billion in subsidies to US oil companies.
The Hill reported:

President Obama lashed out at oil companies — and the tax breaks they get from the government — for a second consecutive day on Thursday and again in Saturday’s address.

“Four billion dollars of your money are going to these companies at a time when they’re making record profits and you’re paying near record prices at the pump,” the president said at a Nevada town hall. “It has to stop.”

While Obama railed against US companies he forgot to mention the billions his administration has approved for foreign energy companies.

The administration paid over one billion dollars in stimulus funds to a Chinese wind turbine manufacturers.

And just last month Barack Obama approved US investment of more than $2 billion on Brazil’s state-owned oil company

And, don’t forget democrats gave $3 billion to ACORN crooks in their failed stimulus plan.

gatewaypundit.rightnetwork.com

WH Press Secretary Carney Scoffs at Question About Obama’s Missing Easter Statement

2011-04-25T16:55:00.000-07:00

White House press secretary Jay Carney was asked today why President Obama did not give a statement on Easter.
He laughed it off.
Via Real Clear Politics:

Barack Obama released statements for the Muslims holidays of Ramadan, Eid-ul-Fitr, the Hajj, and Eid-ul-Adha last year. Just last month he released a statement for the Persian Nowruz holiday.

The Hill has more:

Carney also scoffed at media reports calling out the White House for not releasing a statement commemorating Easter on Sunday, explaining Obama and his family attended church services in Washington.

“The president went to church yesterday, it was well-covered. I’m not sure if we put out a statement or not. He obviously personally celebrated Easter with his family,” he said.

When a reporter asked how Carney could not know whether the White House issued a statement, Carney shot back, “I’m glad you are asking me these key important questions, guys.

“As a devoted Christian, he believes it is a very important holiday for him personally, his family and people all around the country,” he added.

gatewaypundit.rightnetwork.com

Obama’s crooked campaign cash-o-matic machine

2011-04-20T09:34:00.000-07:00

Ka-ching, ka-ching, ka-ching. President Obama’s perpetual campaign cash-o-matic machine kicks into high gear again this week as the celebrity-in-chief heads to Hollywood for several high-priced fundraisers. But while the Democrats’ 2012 re-election team stuffs its hands into every liberal deep pocket in sight, questions about the Obama 2008 campaign finance operation still fester.

Last week, the laggard watchdogs at the Federal Election Commission announced an audit of the Obama 2008 campaign committee — which raised a record-setting $750 million. White House flacks are downplaying the probe as a “routine review.”

But there’s nothing routine about the nearly $3 million Obama has spent on legal expenses to address federal campaign finance irregularities and inquiries. Roll Call reports that Obama’s campaign legal fees have exceeded all other House and presidential campaign committees, including members of Congress under ethics investigations.

There’s nothing routine about the whopping $6 million that Team Obama has refunded to individual donors since Obama took office.

And there’s nothing routine about the 26 warning letters to Obama for America totaling “more than 1,500 pages of questions and data that outlined compliance concerns — including the longest one ever sent to a presidential candidate,” according to Roll Call.

Among the Obama 2008 campaign committee’s shadiest transactions that have gone unpunished:

– Foreign funny money. Federal election law bans foreign nationals from contributing to American candidates. But during 2008, the Obama campaign was forced to return an illegal foreign donation worth $31,100 made by two brothers in the Gaza Strip, and even mainstream news outlets reported that candidate Obama’s money-handlers had routinely failed to verify citizenship by checking donors’ passports. As the Associated Press reported at the time: “One donor, Tom Sanderson of Canada, made clear his $500 contribution came from a foreign source. He included a note that said, ‘I am not an American citizen!’ Obama’s campaign took the money anyway…”

Another illegal foreign donor, Australian Richard Watters, contributed $1,000, “entering a fake U.S. passport number — a random jumble of numbers and letters” onto the Obama donation website. “He said he also checked a box stating that he was an American living overseas, ‘because I could see it wasn’t going anywhere if I didn’t do that.’”

Obama raked in at least $2 million in overseas donations.

– Online donor credit-card fraud. Weeks before the 2008 presidential election, investigative journalist Ken Timmerman blew the whistle on rampant phony straw contributors slipping through the Obama donation site. Just one example: “Mr. Good Will” from Austin, Texas. Mr. Good Will listed his employer as “Loving” and his profession as “You.” Timmerman’s analysis of 1.4 million individual donations to the Obama campaign discovered “1,000 separate entries for Mr. Good Will, most of them for $25. In total, Mr. Good Will gave $17,375. Following this and subsequent FEC requests, campaign records show that 330 contributions from Mr. Good Will were credited back to a credit card. But the most recent report, filed on Sept. 20, showed a net cumulative balance of $8,950 — still well over the $4,600 limit.”

Subsequent digging by conservative bloggers found that the Obama campaign’s donor website appeared to intentionally disable security protocols and facilitate illegal donations with bogus names, shell addresses and untraceable credit cards. Among Obama’s online “donors”: Bart Simpson, Family Guy, Daffy Duck, King Kong, O.J. Simpson, Mr. Doodad Pro, John Galt, Della Ware, Crazy Eight and Adolfe Hitler.

– Social justice funny money. In 2008, the Obama campaign wrote checks totaling more than $800,000 to a nonprofit offshoot of ACORN called Citizens Services Inc. The campaign claimed the money went to nonpartisan get-out-the-vote services. But receipts showed the funds paid for polling, advance work and event staging supplied by a nonprofit that supposedly does simple canvassing work on behalf of low-income people. The FEC allowed Obama to wave his magic wand and amend the records to change political expenses into non-political ones. As a Republican National Committee staffer commented at the time: “For a candidate who claims to be practicing ‘new’ politics, his FEC reports look an awful lot like the ‘old-style’ Chicago politics of yesterday.”

On a related front, ACORN whistleblower Anita MonCrief ~~filed~~ announced plans to file an FEC complaint last year over illegal coordination between ACORN and the Obama campaign. MonCrief publicly released Obama donor lists supplied to ACORN affiliate Project Vote, which were allegedly used to target maxed-out presidential donors. The scheme involved converting the expenditures by Project Vote, ACORN and ACORN-affiliated entities to illegal, excessive corporate contributions to the Obama presidential campaign, in violation of federal law.

Nothing to see here, move along? The only “routine” business as usual being conducted here is Chicago-style self-exemption business as usual: Rules are for fools. Let the crooked cash flow in.

All the president’s funny money
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2011

Obama Administration In A Rush To Dump GM Stock Before 2012 Election

2011-04-19T13:01:00.000-07:00

Despite claims to the contrary, the taxpayers are still very much the owners of General Motors, and the stock is becoming a bit of a hot potato in the hands of the Obama administration. On one hand, they don’t want to still be holding GM’s stock during the 2012 election year when it could become a campaign issue. But, if they sell it this year it mean losing billions.

At Monday’s price, and taking into account shares sold during the IPO, taxpayers would lose more than $11 billion on the rescue if the government dumped the rest of its stake now.

Government officials are willing to take the loss because the Obama administration would like to sever its last ties to the auto maker, the people familiar with the matter said. A summer sale makes it more likely Treasury could sell all of its stake in GM by year’s end, avoiding a potentially controversial sale in the 2012 presidential election year.

Keep in mind that the only reason why we bailed GM out to begin with was to keep the company from dispensing with the United Auto Workers’ extravagant labor contracts. If GM had gone into bankruptcy, those contracts could have been dispensed and entirely re-negotiated.

As it was, the taxpayers bought GM and guided it through extra-special bankruptcy during which President Obama’s friends at the UAW got extra-special treatment.

sayanythingblog.com

‘Let Me Finish My Answers’

2011-04-19T12:59:00.000-07:00

President Obama did sit-down interviews with four Texas TV stations at the White House yesterday. Beforehand, Mike Allen at Politico explained why these kinds of interviews are conducted:

The White House sees these interviews as a way to cut through Beltway chatter and give the president an opportunity to talk to Americans about his vision for the country, in a venue that’s familiar to them. Obama’s communicators choose stations from different regions of the country, with a particular emphasis on stations that have content-sharing relationships with other stations in the region. For example, today’s interview with WFAA in Dallas will also be seen by viewers in Austin, San Antonio and Houston. With the reporters invited to come see the president, the interview becomes more of an “event” and is heavily promoted as a White House interview.

In other words, it’s a good way to be seen by a lot of people in a certain region without using the national press but instead some local anchor or reporter who’s just going to be happy to have the opportunity, and as such, less likely to rock the boat and conduct a tougher interview.

Sometimes though it doesn’t work out that way, as was the case with a WFAA reporter:

After the interview, Obama pointed out that he doesn’t like an interviewer challenging his comments.

“Let me finish my answers the next time we do an interview, all right?” he said.

Of course, there’s never enough time to ask all the questions, but on one that Texas Republicans keep bringing up — that the president is somehow targeting Texas — he said clearly, he is not.

The exchange is towards the end of this short video:

If Obama heads into the 2012 campaign thinking that the media is going to wag their tails and roll over so their bellies can be scratched with Hope & Change like they did in 2008, he’s… correct to some degree. But a portion of the press will refuse to blindly swallow the Kool Aid this time around, and they are the reason we’ll probably see many more expressions of dissatisfaction like this (or worse) in the coming months. Especially if those reporters are from Texas.

Doug Powers - michellemalkin.com

King Barack Issues Signing Statement: I Can Do What I Want With My Czars

2011-04-15T21:39:00.000-07:00

King Barack believes he is above the law.
The radical far left president today issued a signing statement today indicating he won’t abide by a provision in the federal budget that just passed the House. The Chicago politician will do what he wants with his czars despite the law. Thank you very much.

Of course, Obama said he would never do this during the 2008 campaign while he was bashing Bush.
Via Breitbart:

ABC reported:

In a statement issued Friday night, President Obama took issue with some provisions in the budget bill – and in one case simply says he will not abide by it.

Last week the White House and congressional Democrats and Republicans were involved in intense negotiations over not only the size of the budget for the remainder of the FY2011 budget, and spending cuts within that budget, but also several GOP “riders,” or policy provisions attached to the bill.

One rider – Section 2262 — de-funds certain White House adviser positions – or “czars.” The president in his signing statement declares that he will not abide by it.

“The President has well-established authority to supervise and oversee the executive branch, and to obtain advice in furtherance of this supervisory authority,” he wrote. “The President also has the prerogative to obtain advice that will assist him in carrying out his constitutional responsibilities, and do so not only from executive branch officials and employees outside the White House, but also from advisers within it. Legislative efforts that significantly impede the President’s ability to exercise his supervisory and coordinating authorities or to obtain the views of the appropriate senior advisers violate the separation of powers by undermining the President’s ability to exercise his constitutional responsibilities and take care that the laws be faithfully executed.”

Therefore, the president wrote, “the executive branch will construe section 2262 not to abrogate these Presidential prerogatives.”

gatewaypundit.rightnetwork.com

Flashback Funny: Obama Says He Will Cut the Deficit in Half – “It’s Important”

2011-04-13T12:27:00.000-07:00

Well, you’re sure not going to see this replayed by the state-run media.
In February 2009 President Obama told a crowd of willing dupes that he was going to cut the deficit in half.
It was important.

Fast forward two and a half years.
Obama tripled the deficit his first year and it’s only getting worse…

The Obama deficit this year will reach $1.65 trillion. (The Captain’s Comments)

Please democrats… No more community organizers, Okay?

gatewaypundit.rightnetwork.com