Miss Kelly

David Warren on Obama's Ship of Fools

I'm finding very little time to blog these days (the garden beckons 24-7), but will occasionally post and link to goodies such as this zinger from David Warren on Obama's Ship of Fools:

"We learned a simple thing this week: that the BP clean-up effort in the Gulf of Mexico is hampered by the Jones Act. This is a piece of 1920s protectionist legislation, that requires all vessels working in U.S. waters to be American-built, and American-crewed."

"So while, for instance, the U.S. Coast Guard can accept such help as three kilometres of containment boom from Canada, they can't accept, and therefore don't ask for, the assistance of high-tech European vessels specifically designed for the task in hand."

"....Now, an exemption can be granted even to the Jones Act: by executive order, all the way to the top. This was granted, promptly, by the Bush administration, when it was organizing the rescue arrangements that responsible local authorities had failed to provide, at the time of Hurricane Katrina. Which was, incidentally, a vastly larger environmental catastrophe than the piddling oil leak that now commands the news.

"But the Bush administration had a huge advantage over its successor. Bush had gone out of his way to find competent people, with experience of their fields, to staff his administration. Many were despised throughout the media for their known conservative tendencies, but what can you do?"

"...Bush had not, as his successor has, loaded up a ship of fools consisting of academic ideologues, under no particular direction from a captain who is himself off playing golf, and partying with America's coolest people. Which is exactly what Obama was doing for weeks after April 20, when Deepwater Horizon blew up; though to be fair we should also mention the fundraisers and commencement speeches. But there is little evidence that, away from his TelePrompTer, he does anything except appoint more fools to run the government for him."

Major zing.

BTW, I wouldn't call it a "piddling oil leak," but it can and will be largely remediated. 

"It's Not a Trojan Horse.....It's Right There!" ObamaCare

Never heard of Yale University professor Jacob Hacker before, but he's apparently the master mind behind Obamacare. I saw this at National Review Online.

Ruh roh!! Is this the sort of thing that should be reported to the Drop-a-Dime White House??

"There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care.  These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation.  Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to [email protected]."

Unbelievable!  It's been pointed out here and here that this seems to be an illegal activity on the part of the White House.  It's kind of nice to have such a clear enemy here. 

Meanwhile, here's just a few tidbits in the 1,000 plus page bill that should make you nervous:

• Page 22: Mandates audits of  all employers that self-insure!
• Page 29: Admission: your health care  will be rationed!
• Page 30: A government committee will decide what  treatments and benefits
you get (and, unlike an insurer, there will be no  appeals process)

Obama's Teleprompter Starts Own Blog

President Obama's teleprompter has his own blog, and it's very hilarious.  The teleprompter certainly gets in a lot of photos of our Dear Leader!  This is an AP photo from a Washington Times article on Obama's half-million dollar book deal he signed five days before becoming president. 

There's the ubiquitous (and loquacious) teleprompter) to the left.

A commentor at HillBuzz writes that Rush Limbaugh has withdrawn his offer to debate Obama, instead Rush wants to debate the Telepromtper (which he refers to as the TOTUS).

Top Ten Reasons Obama Health Care is Wrong

Excellent post over at Maggie's Farm: The Top Ten Reasons for ObamaCare are Based on False Information."

"The major overhaul of American health care pursued by President Obama and his supporters is based on many false premises and is excessive and likely to do more harm than good.  Tuning up and improvements already always dynamically occurs.  Instead, ObamaCare is aimed at dramatically changing one-sixth of the US economy in ways that are untested or tested and found wanting, primarily involving huge increases in government direction of health care."

The top ten false arguments:

Obamas Dissin' the Brits?

The British press appears to have fallen out of love with the Obamas.  First, Mr. Obama returned the bust of Winston Churchill that was given to President Bush after 9/11.  The treatment of Gordon Brown, England's Prime Minister who visited DC earlier this week, was rather shabby, as the British press reported:

"The morning papers and TV last night featured plenty of comment focused on the White House's very odd and, frankly, exceptionally rude treatment of a British PM. Squeezing in a meeting, denying him a full press conference with flags etc. The British press corps, left outside for an hour in the cold, can take it and their privations are of limited concern to the public."

"...We get the point, sunshine: we're just one of many allies and you want fancy new friends. Well, the next time you need something doing, something which impinges on your national security, then try calling the French, or the Japanese, or best of all the Germans. The French will be able to offer you first rate support from their catering corps but beyond that you'll be on your own."

The Obamas gave some seriously lame gifts to PM Brown and his wife.  Here's what the Browns gave to the Obamas:

Is Obama Trying to Destroy Our Country?

Sure looks that way.

Dick Morris:

"President Lyndon Johnson’s administration was known for his War on Poverty. President Obama’s will become notable for his War on Prosperity."

Removing tax deduxtions for charitable donations:

"President Obama’s tax proposals — including a limit on charitable giving deductions that could be taken by America’s wealthiest people — could cause giving by America’s wealthy to drop by several billion dollars a year, according to estimates released today by the Indiana University Center on Philanthropy."

Reagan vs Obama - Spooky!

Great video, hat tip The Anchoress:

Reagan quoted Norman Thomas, Socialist, who said this:

"The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism, but under the name of liberalism they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program until one day America will be a socialist nation without ever knowing how it happened."

"You can't end a war, you either win it or lose it."

From BlackFive, a message to our President, who keeps saying he'll "end the war in Iraq."

"My biggest fear about a President Obama was that he has a totally flawed view of what to do about our two ongoing wars. He was spectacularly clueless about what to do in Iraq and had we followed his bad advice we would have lost there. His continual demand that we 'end' that war is symptomatic of his misunderstanding of the gravity of having US troops on a battlefield."

"It is just this simple Mr. Wannabe Commander in Chief, and I say wannabe because while you hold the title you haven't earned it or the trust of the troops yet...."

"You can't end a war, you either win it or lose it."

Read (or watch) the whole thing.

AP Reporter Disputes Dear Leader's Claims

This is surprising and good to see.  Calvin Woodward, an AP reporter, covered President Obama's press conference tonight and actually challenged Obama's statements.  Good sign, journalists doing their job again instead of shamelessly promoting this unaccomplished, socialist president. 

"President Barack Obama had it both ways Monday when he promoted his stimulus plan in Indiana. He bragged about getting Congress to produce a package with no pork, yet boasted it will do good things for a Hoosier highway and a downtown overpass, just the kind of local projects lawmakers lard into big spending bills."

Impending Obama Meltdown?

Historian Victor Davis Hanon predicts an impending Obama meltdown:

"Some of us have been warning that it was not healthy for the U.S. media to have deified rather than questioned Obama, especially given that they tore apart Bush, ridiculed Palin, and caricatured Hillary. And now we can see the results of their two years of advocacy rather than scrutiny."

"We are quite literally after two weeks teetering on an Obama implosion—and with no Dick Morris to bail him out—brought on by messianic delusions of grandeur, hubris, and a strange naivete that soaring rhetoric and a multiracial profile can add requisite cover to good old-fashioned Chicago politicking."

Our New President

Spengler analyzes POTUS 44:

"Inauguration day brings to mind the reason I don't read science fiction. It's never weird enough. Today, America will place more power than any peacetime president ever has wielded into the hands of a man nobody knows. He has convinced more incompatible constituencies that he takes their side than any politician in American history. And through no fault or merit of his own, he has stumbled into more power than the White House has had since World War II."

"...I have never met the man, but I have interviewed a fair sampling of his supporters, and conclude that Obama learned the power to cloud men's minds, like the Shadow on the old radio show. Apart from ambition, there is no 'there' there. There are as many Obamas as there are interlocutors. He is a hollow man, I concluded, a Third World anthropologist studying us with engaged curiosity but complete emotional detachment. In this respect he is unpredictable."

And from Gerald Warner of the UK Telegraph:

"This will end in tears. The Obama hysteria is not merely embarrassing to witness, it is itself contributory to the scale of the disaster that is coming. What we are experiencing, in the deepening days of a global depression, is the desperate suspension of disbelief by people of intelligence - la trahison des clercs - in a pathetic effort to hypnotise themselves into the delusion that it will be all right on the night. It will not be all right."

"...It is frightening to think there is a real possibility that the entire world economy could go into complete meltdown and famine kill millions.....It is questionable whether the present political system can survive the coming crisis. Whatever the solution, teenage swooning sentimentality over a celebrity cult has no part in it. The most powerful nation on earth is confronting its worst economic crisis under the leadership of its most extremely liberal politician, who has virtually no experience of federal politics. That is not an opportunity but a catastrophe."

All is not doom and gloom for David Horowitz though, who appreciates the symbolism - if not the politics - of our new president:

"First we have to recognize and then understand that whatever happens in the Obama presidency, this Inauguration Day is a watershed moment in the history of America and a remarkable event in the history of nations, and thus a cause for all of us who love this country, conservative and liberal, Democrat and Republican, to celebrate."

Taking Pride in the Election?

Similar sentiments, two different reaction to the 2008 presidental election.  First, from writer/commentator Paul Ibrahim, who came to the U.S. as a young boy, fleeing the Lebanese civil war.  He says "I didn't need Obama to tell me that I could do anything – I was doing just fine without him."

"Apparently, to almost every member of the media, the election of a thoroughly unaccomplished man to the presidency is a definition of the American dream for the sole reason that he is half black. Even President Bush has said that Barack Obama’s election is a 'triumph of the American story.' ”

"The unfortunate truth, however, is that Obama’s election is a tremendous devaluation of the American Dream. It teaches us that the recipe for success is not achievement, but cunning. Yet somehow, everyone has fallen victim to the conventional wisdom that 'we now know we can do anything.'...Did we Americans truly need Obama’s election to finally start believing that we could be anything we wanted to be?"

"Obama’s election hasn’t told us anything we didn’t already know. It hasn’t strengthened the American dream. In fact, it trashed it....All Obama’s election has taught me is that I could develop political support through ties with felons, terrorists and radicals who will raise funds for my campaigns, that I could win those campaigns by eliminating my opponents’ names from the ballot or by relying on their sex scandals, avoid any criticism by voting “present” on important legislation, base my policy positions on polls, make good speeches, tell people what they want to hear and be thoroughly unaccomplished – and that I then could become president."

And from the hilarious blogger Iowahawk:

"Although I have not always been the most outspoken advocate of President-Elect Barack Obama, today I would like to congratulate him and add my voice to the millions of fellow citizens who are celebrating his historic and frightening election victory. I don't care whether you are a conservative or a liberal -- when you saw this inspiring young African-American rise to our nation's highest office I hope you felt the same sense of patriotic pride that I experienced, no matter how hard you were hyperventilating with deep existential dread."   

"Yes, I know there are probably other African-Americans much better qualified and prepared for the presidency. Much, much better qualified. Hundreds, easily, if not thousands, and without any troubling ties to radical lunatics and Chicago mobsters. Gary Coleman comes to mind. But let's not let that distract us from the fact that Mr. Obama's election represents a profound, positive milestone in our country's struggle to overcome its long legacy of racial divisions and bigotry. It reminds us of how far we've come, and it's something everyone in our nation should celebrate in whatever little time we now have left."

"...So for now, let's put politics aside and celebrate this historic milestone. In his famous speech at the Lincoln Memorial 45 years ago, Dr. King said 'I have a dream that one day my children will live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.' Let us now take pride that Tuesday we Americans proved that neither thing matters anymore. "

Archbihop Sean O'Malley on Obama, Abortion

Boston Globe religion reporter Michael Paulson interviewed Boston Archbishop Sean O'Malley about Obama, abortion, politics.  I found this paragraph intriguing:

"....this man (Obama) has a deplorable record when it comes to prolife issues and is possibly in the pocket of Planned Parenthood, which, in its origins, was a very racist organization to eliminate the blacks, and it's sort of ironic that he's been coopted by them. However, he is the president, and everyone wishes him well, and we will try to work with him."

O'Malley nailed that one.

Matching Suit and Tie

I've heard of mirroring, but this seems awfully blatant:

I was just reading this article describing how Mr. Obama engaged in a mass Eriksonian hypnosis, presumably using neuro-linguistic programming techniques, and I'm poop-poohing the whole idea. Please, let's not subscribe to wacky conspiracy theories like the lefties!!  But then I see this photo at Drudge Report taken from a Bloomberg News article about Mr. Obama's visit to the White House today.  Yikes, not just the matching suit and tie (Bush's trademark color) and pin, but even their hands at their sides and the slope of the shoulders and body look identical.  Weird! 

I'm trying to keep an open mind on the man won the presidential election, but it's difficult. The cult of personality leaves me ice cold.  Something is wrong here. I have never felt the Obama-mania that many of my work associates feel, I've never understood the irrational adoration for the man who has no record of achievement.

If this is mass hypnosis - and plenty of others feel this way - why are some of us immune?

"Kneecap Him at Every Opportunity"

Have to admit, I like John Hawkin's approach:

"I was on a radio show a few days ago and a liberal caller was on the line. Someone on the show asked me what I planned to do over the next few years with Obama in the White House and I said, 'Kneecap him at every opportunity.' Bipartisanship came up and I said something akin to, 'I'm not interested in bipartisanship. I want to defeat liberalism, not cooperate with it. I want to throw sand in the gears at every opportunity and if Obama wants to work with us, he's going to move to the right.' "

"...Just so everybody knows where I stand, let me be clear: I'm not interested in allowing that moronic, corrupt, anti-white, lying, socialist Obama to methodically destroy everything that's decent and good in the country in the name of bipartisanship, unity, or 'giving him a chance.' "

"...Since I love my country and believe unchecked liberalism is more capable of destroying it than any foreign invader, my conscience demands that I do nothing less."

Related to that, James Giles of the Philadelphia Bulletin, gives this advice: "Put as many long-range torpedoes into the water aimed at Senator Obama's ship of state before Republicans lose control of the Executive Branch as possible."  His excellent suggestions:

*Appoint U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois Patrick Fitzpatrick as a special prosecutor so he can pursue his investigation of Tony Rezko and his corrupt dealings with Illinois's governor and other creatures and spoilsmen of the Daley Machine. This will make it politically difficult for a President Obama to pardon Mr. Rezko and impossible for him to terminate Mr. Fitzpatrick as a federal officer come January 21 as a way of de-railing this investigation.

* Appoint a special prosecutor to investigate ACORN's voter registration methods and its dealings with the Obama campaign.

* Appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the Obama campaign's on-line fundraising operation, including its disabling of the credit card security software on its on-line donations system. File a complaint with the Federal Election Commission regarding same.

* Appoint a bipartisan (love that word!) presidential commission to review the candidates' fundraising in this election cycle and to recommend changes in federal election laws.

* File ethics complaints against Sen. Chris Dodd and Congressman Barney Frank for their relationship with Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Countrywide Mortgage.

Whatcha waitin' for?

"I Feel Like There Has Been a Mass Hypnosis"

Pointer to a blogpost over at Booker Rising, words of wisdom from the blogger's 55-year old aunt:

On Sen. Obama's election: "The sadness I feel today is equivalent to a young girl losing her virginity to some Negro who doesn't care about her. She'll never get it back. We'll never have this moment again [of having the first black president]. It will always be tainted by Obama. The first black person to be elected president of the United States has basically said whatever needed to be said to get elected. This is what politicians do, but he takes it to a new level. I feel like there has been a mass hynosis. People will wake up in January when he is inaugurated, or by summertime next year when the honeymoon has ended. People will wake up and go, 'Whoa, what did we do?' His whole persona is all style and no substance."

A statement for black Obama supporters: "My biggest thing towards my black brothers and sisters is this: I can respect you voting for Barack Obama simply because he is a black man and this was the first opportunity to get a black man in office. Just say that. But please don't insult my intelligence by saying this man is qualified. He's not. He's plastic. The first time I saw Barack Obama, in 2004 at the Democratic National Convention, I said, 'this Negro is full of crap. He is the biggest BSer that I've seen in my life.' And the condescending attitude of his immediately struck a nerve with me."

No kidding!

I Was Wrong - Now We Have President Obama

No one's more surprised than me.  I truly didn't believe that a majority of Americans would vote for a metrosexual Marxist narcissist who has no achievements to point to (beyond a half-billion dollar campaign).  This outcome saddens me.  John McCain would have been a strong and effective leader.  I do fear for our country for the next four years and beyond. I think that Mr. Obama will turn out to be as bad as John Kennedy was on international issues and as bad as Jimmy Carter was on domestic issues.  We're not going to go the way of Europe, are we? 

I never got Obamania, and I don't get it now.  Regarding the election of a person with Kenyan heritage as  president, I'm with John Derbyshire, who writes:

"It is of course a great thing that we are (it seems pretty certain) electing a black President. It's just a crying shame it had to be this shallow, empty man, who has never shown a flicker of interest in wealth creation, whose head is stuffed with all the vapid nostrums of 1980s student leftism, and who seems — putting the most charitable construction on it — not to mind the brazenly thuggish tactics of his supporters."

"I'd gladly join in the cheering and self-congratulation of our nation's first black president, if it were a person of the caliber of Margaret Thatcher. This guy is just Jimmy Carter lite."

So if conservative presidents tend to move towards lefty/liberal in office, what happens to Socialists?

On the plus side, Massachusetts will most likely lose Senator John Kerry and Governor Deval Patrick, who will likely get picked for Obama's administration.  I can hardly wait!  And I think we'll be seeing lots more of Sarah Barracuda too.  McCain took the high road in his concession speech.  He really would have been a wonderful president.