Senator Slur: Baucus is Bombed on Senate Floor

Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) shows he can get drunk on power...

h/t:  Drudge Report

Is Obama Losing His Black Base?

An interesting post on The Daily Beast yesterday regarding disappointment that some prominent blacks feel toward President Obama may, ultimately, hurt Dems and Obama in 2010 and 2012.

“He may be just a different face, and that face may happen to be black—and if it were Hillary Clinton, it would happen to be a woman,” says Danny Glover. “But what choices do they have within the structure?”

“I think the Obama administration has followed the same playbook, to a large extent, almost verbatim, as the Bush administration. I don’t see anything different,” the activist movie actor said of Obama’s policies in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Middle East. “On the domestic side, look here: What’s so clear is that this country from the outset is projecting the interests of wealth and property. Look at the bailout of Wall Street. Why not the bailout of Main Street?”

....

...[S]uch prominent voices as Rep. John Conyers, the powerful chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, and New York Times columnist Charles Blow have been among those taking shots at Obama over his policies, rhetoric, and political positioning.

“He called me and told me that he heard that I was demeaning him and I had to explain to him that it wasn’t anything personal, it was an honest difference on the issues,” Rep. John Conyers told The Hill. “And he said, ‘Well, let’s talk about it.’ ” But the 80-year-old Conyers informed the president that he was in no mood to chat. “I’ve been saying I don’t agree with him on Afghanistan, I think he screwed up on health-care reform, on Guantánamo and kicking Greg off,” Conyers added, referring to the forced resignation of White House counsel Gregory Craig over the Guantánamo prison issue...

“There was an expectation, particularly among African Americans, that the first African-American president would at least be vocal about feeling their pain,” [NYT's] Blow said last week on MSNBC’s Hardball. “I think that has not been the case. The president has given a couple of speeches and he has been very heavy on the stick and not very heavy with the carrot… Just in the inability for him to commiserate with that group of people, people feel a bit deflated… He said he’s not going to focus separately on African-American issues at all. That let a lot of people down.”

“A lot of people are pissed off out there,” said one well-known political player...

[Emphasis added.]

Given the anger from the Left on health care and Afghanistan, combined with African American disappointment, it appears Obama is alienating more of his base...the base that he (and Democrats) will need to rely on in 2010 and 2012 to get out and vote.

While it would be delusional to think that this base would vote for anything other than a leftist, the chances are many of them may just stay home.

In that case, Mr. President, keep alienating and disappointing your base.  The rest of the country will thank you for it.

Let There Be No Mistake: Copenhagen is a Conference to DESTROY AMERICA

Some would argue that the Copenhagen Conference on Climate Change is about saving the planet.

To those who would argue this point, you are wrong!

The Copenhagen conference is a confab designed to bring down America and American capitalism.  It is a meeting of petty dictators with an agenda to topple America and they are doing it with the full cooperation of America's political leaders.

If you doubt this fact and want to believe that the delegates have only the best interests of the planet in their hearts, then listen to Hugo Chavez (beginning around 5m 30s) and, more importantly, the applause he receives from the delegates:

President Chavez brought the house down.

When he said the process in Copenhagen was “not democratic, it is not inclusive, but isn’t that the reality of our world, the world is really and imperial dictatorship…down with imperial dictatorships” he got a rousing round of applause.

When he said there was a “silent and terrible ghost in the room” and that ghost was called capitalism, the applause was deafening.

But then he wound up to his grand conclusion – 20 minutes after his 5 minute speaking time was supposed to have ended and after quoting everyone from Karl Marx to Jesus Christ - "our revolution seeks to help all people…socialism, the other ghost that is probably wandering around this room, that’s the way to save the planet, capitalism is the road to hell....let’s fight against capitalism and make it obey us.” He won a standing ovation.

Whatever the outcome of the Copenhagen talks, you can be assured that it will be to America's detriment.

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EATING THEIR OWN: House Dems Harass Harry

As Senate Dems bent on their socialist 'progressive' principles on health care yesterday to accomodate Joe Lieberman, the fallout is causing more problems for Harry Reid.

Rolland Burris (D-IL) indicated that he would not be supporting a bill without the public option and Ben Nelson (D-NE) is still "not on the bill" due to its public funding for abortion.

This means the math is even worse for Harry Reid than it was yesterday.

Meanwhile, House Democrats are getting impatient with Harry Reid.

“I think the majority leader sometimes has to have the leadership to resolve these things,” says Pennsylvania Rep. Joe Sestak, a Democrat challenging Sen. Arlen Specter, in a direct attack on Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.). “I understand it’s politically challenging, but we have the votes — and we should be doing much better than we are. I think this place needs a change, quite frankly.”

Further demonstrating their frustration, Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is trying to quell fears of a populist backlash that is leaving her vulnerable House members feeling...well...vulnerable in 2010.

According to The HIll, Pelosi is assuring her queasy fellow Dems that the House will not take up any controversial bills unless the Senate acts first.

After a year of bruising legislative victories that some political analysts believe have done more to jeopardize her majority than to entrench it, Pelosi is shifting gears for the 2010 election.

....

“The Speaker has told members in meetings that we’ve done our jobs,” a Democratic leadership aide said. “And that next year the Senate’s going to have to prove what it can accomplish before we go sticking our necks out any further.”

Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), the president of the freshman class, said that Pelosi came to last Wednesday’s freshman breakfast to deliver that message, and that it was met with wide spread approval.

“I think freshmen, particularly, are not enamored of the idea of being asked to walk the plank on a controversial item if the Senate is not going to take any action,” Connolly said.

This means that the liberal legislative agenda which includes things like amnesty for illegals, the job-destroying Employee Free FORCED Choice Act, "Don't Ask, Don't Tell", as well as "Tax & Trade" may be doomed for the next year--until after the mid-terms (depending on the outcome then).

If this is indeed the case, the decimation of America may be forestalled for another year and perhaps Christmas has indeed come early.

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Cross-posted.

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"In any compromise between food and poison, it is only death that can win. In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit." - Ayn Rand

Copenhagen Cannibals, the Death of Kyoto & the Inconvenience of Truth

Many have known for years that there is something fishy about the Al Gore-inspired industry known as "Global Warming, Inc."  In fact, as the planet's temperatures have decreased in recent years, the global warming hysterians have had to change their whole brand identification from that of global warming to "climate change," while not changing their tactics at attempting to extort "developed nations" on behalf of developing nations.

Thanks to Al Gore, who can't let a little thing like truth get in his way of becoming the world's first environmental billionaire, the world is watching countries like the U.S. and those that make up the European Union scramble to find a way to squander their wealth, end their sovereignty and enslave their peoples to those "developing" countries deemed to be too poor in sound government, civility or the rule of law to manage themselves.

In sum, as 'Climate Gate' is only beginning to shed light on Al Gore and his pseudo-scientific, climate-controlling cronies want America to accept fraud as fact and to willingly pay for its own economic and national destruction.

Thankfully, as the Copenhagen con unfolds, bureaucrats the world over cannot seem to agree on how to destroy America...and at what price said destruction should come.  According to news reports:

China, India and other developing nations boycotted U.N. climate talks on Monday, bringing negotiations to a halt with their demand that rich countries discuss much deeper cuts in their greenhouse gas emissions.

Representatives from developing countries - a bloc of 135 nations - said they refused to participate in any formal working groups at the 192-nation summit until the issue was resolved.

Moreover...

"I don't think the talks are falling apart, but we're losing time," said Kim Carstensen, of the World Wildlife Fund. The developing countries "are making a point."

The dispute came as the conference entered its second week, and only days before over 100 world leaders including President Barack Obama were scheduled to arrive in Copenhagen.

"Nothing is happening at this moment," Zia Hoque Mukta, a delegate from Bangladesh, told The Associated Press. He said developing countries have demanded that conference president Connie Hedegaard of Denmark bring the industrial nations' emissions targets to the top of the agenda before talks can resume.

Poor countries, supported by China, say Hedegaard had raised suspicion that the conference was likely to kill the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which limited carbon emissions by wealthy countries and imposed penalties for failing to meet those targets.

Poor countries want to extend that treaty because it commits rich nations to emissions cuts and imposes penalties if they fall short. The United States withdrew from Kyoto over concerns that it would harm the U.S. economy and that China, India and other major greenhouse gas emitters were not required to take action.

"We are seeing the death of the Kyoto Protocol," said Djemouai Kamel of Algeria, the head of the 50-nation Africa group.

It was the second time the Africans have disrupted the climate talks. At the last round of negotiations in November, the African bloc forced a one-day suspension until wealthy countries agreed to spell out what steps they will take to reduce emissions.

An African delegate said developing countries decided to block the negotiations at a meeting hours before the conference was to resume. He was speaking on condition of anonymity because the meeting was held behind closed doors. He said applause broke out every time China, India or another country supported the proposal to stall the talks.

Hope may be beginning to emerge that no agreement will be reached in Copenhagen and the enviro-phonies will leave Denmark with nothing but their proverbial diatribes in their hands.  For there is something truly unholy when other nations, as well as the present and former leaders of this nation, try to bring the best nation on earth to its knees to appease the equivalent of cannibals.

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Copenhagen: Al Gore's Woodstock

As the planet watches the prostitute-laden scam of the Copenhagen Climate Conference, Politico has a puff piece on the arrival of Nobel and Oscar winner Al Gore's arrival for the conference.

As international climate talks appeared in danger of disintegrating, Al Gore arrived to a rock star’s welcome in Copenhagen today.

If Copenhagen is the enviros' Woodstock, then Gore is The Who, the Grateful Dead and Creedence Clearwater Revival as a one-man band. The former vice president drew such a big crowd that security had to shut down access, with hundreds of unhappy activists left outside.

Given the comparison to Woodstock, we felt the following montage most appropriate:

Party on, Danes!

AND THE STUPID QUOTE OF THE WEEK GOES TO...

From the New York Times on Senator Harry Reid's "breakthrough" agreement to take over the nation's health care...

Background:

'Senate Democrats said on Wednesday that they were not sure exactly what was in a deal that the majority leader said would surmount a disagreement over a proposed government-run health plan.'

"Any big agreement is progress,” said Senator Bob Casey, Democrat of Pennsylvania. “Even if we do not know any of the details.”




And the runner up is...

“The Senate made critical progress last night,” President Barack Obama said, “with a creative new framework that I believe will help pave the way for final passage and a historic achievement on behalf of the American people.”

And these are our nation's leaders?

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ATLAS SHRUGGED TO BE FEATURED ON STOSSEL'S NEW SHOW?

The Daily Beast interviewed John Stossel about his new show on Fox. As we've been admirers of both Stossel and Ayn Rand for many years, we were heartened to read the following:

Tell me a little bit about what the show is going to be.

It will be one subject. The first subject will be maybe Atlas Shrugged or global warming—Atlas Shrugged because I think 50 years ago, Ayn Rand predicted today. It sort of sums up what I’m going to be reporting about.


Ayn Rand predicted what?

Big government, nice-sounding legislation like “The Preservation of Livelihood Law,” which mandated that Hank Rearden’s production must not be bigger than any other steel mill, to make it a level playing field. It’s silly.


Is that a new law passed by this Congress?

No, but it’s what Wesley Mouch, the evil bureaucrat in the book, passed. And what Tim Geithner and what Barney Frank might like to pass.

Suffice it to say, we'll be tuning in.
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LT. COL. ALLEN WEST: A Man Worth Watching

Lt. Col. Allen West is running for Congress.  Congress is the wrong spot for him.  He should be running for Senate.

Then, he should run for president in 2012.

He would make a better Commander-in-Chief than the current CiC...and he is spot on regarding the Ft. Hood massacre: The "enemy is infiltrating our military."  And, he is even more to the point here.

Moreover, he doesn't f*ck around with terrorists either.

This video has been making its way around via e-mails and posted on various sites.

Take a look.  Allen West is a man that could use your support.



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Obama's Polls Sinking Like a Stone as Prez Pimps "Cash for Caulkers"...

While White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs--either in a show of complete arrogance or idiocy--dismissed "the meaninglessness" of Gallup's most recent job approval numbers (47%) for his boss, the Commander-of-the-Unemployed-in-Chief rolled out his "jobs" plan this morning calling for--you guessed it--more government spending (although he won't put a price tag on it...yet).

Obama touted the success of his stimulus and economic recovery efforts so far this year and endorsed a series of new ideas, including tax cuts for small business, new infrastructure spending on highways, rail and other projects, and a so-called “cash for caulkers” program that would give rebates to people who retrofit their homes to be more energy efficient.

Obama’s remarks represent a sort of political doubling down on the idea of federal stimulus spending. Indeed many of the ideas he mentioned are extensions of or additional funding for, items that were included in his $787 billion stimulus package earlier in the year.

Apparently, other than a photo op, last weeks' faux-jobs summit where it appeared only one businessman had the testicular testinal fortitude to tell the naked emperor the truth, was a big waste of time.

Meanwhile, it appears more and more Americans are catching on to the smoke and mirrors of "audacity."




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Harry Reid Has a Problem: His State Opposes Obamacare

Harry Reid has a problem.  According to a poll commissioned by the Las Vegas Review-Journal, a majority of Nevadans are opposed to the Obama-Pelosi-Reid health care nationalization effort.

President Barack Obama has lost ground in the last month in getting Nevadans to embrace his health care reform package and, for the first time, opposition is above 50 percent and support is below 40 percent, a new poll commissioned by the Las Vegas Review-Journal reveals.

The telephone poll of 625 registered voters found that 53 percent of Nevadans oppose the president's attempt to provide a remedy for problems in the nation's health care system. Support for the plan is at 39 percent....

Fueling discontent with the bill, the poll shows, is the growing belief by Nevadans that Obama's reform package will raise taxes, result in rationing of health care, and cause major cuts to Medicare programs.

"When you look at the entire poll, it's clear the voters of Nevada do not want this bill to pass," said Brad Coker, managing partner of Washington, D.C.-based Mason-Dixon Polling & Research Inc., which conducted the poll Monday through Wednesday. "When you break it all down, it appears that Nevadans would just as soon throw this bill out and start over." [Emphasis added.]

Harry, listen to your constituents: Scrap the bill!

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The SEIU & Obama's Job Summit: How Much Influence Will the Queen of Labor Have?

Behind every man, there is a woman...
Behind every king, there is a queen...
Behind SEIU boss Andy Stern, there is Anna Burger.

Who is Anna Burger?

She's the less public face of the Union of Purple People Eaters (aka the Service Employees International Union). But her less-public profile should not fool you. She is as every bit as powerful (and perhaps moreso) than her public counterpart, the Lord of Labor, Andy Stern.

When SEIU boss Andy Stern broke apart the AFL-CIO in 2005, Anna Burger's the woman that he appointed to head his new federation "Change to Whine."...er..."Win"

Make no mistake about it: Anna Burger is the Queen of Labor.

If Andy Stern is the hand in Barack Obama's puppet, Burger could easily be the rubber glove.

In addition to her bonafides in the utmost upper echelons of the union pyramid, Ms. Burger also happens to be the vice chair of George Soros' Democracy Alliance.

When people focus on Andy Stern, they lose sight of just how powerful Ms. Burger is and how integral she has been in helping orchestrate the Left’s coup d’ etat…and how she, like Andy, has the president’s ear.

On Thursday morning, President Obama is holding his overly-touted "Jobs Summit". As Politico noted over the weekend:

It’s one of the oldest tricks in the presidential playbook: when you want to focus attention on an issue, hold a meeting and call it a “summit.”

However, on Sunday, with union bosses on the exclusive invite list, we questioned whether union bosses would use the "jobs summit" to push the job-destroying and hallucinogenically-named Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA).

All evidence suggests that, not only were we correct on our assumption that EFCA would be pushed at the jobs summit, but that union bosses plan to use the jobs summit to push more government spending programs that will further add to the nation's debt.

Considering that the Queen of Labor has never created a job, we find what Ms. Burger, writes today in the Huffington Post rather fascinating:

Creating jobs isn’t rocket science. We just need the political will, courage and determination to make it happen.

Now it’s time to get to work.

1. We need to extend the safety net, including increasing unemployment insurance and expanding work sharing programs to provide unemployment benefits for reduced hours of work. and

2. We need to use TARP funds to increase credit for small businesses.

3. Federal fiscal relief to states and local governments needs to be expanded to save an anticipated 900,000 jobs and the vital services in our communities.

4. We need to target the fastest-growing sectors of human services such as child care, in-home services for the elderly and disabled, and other services our communities need through a public jobs program. This will create jobs in the public and private sectors and ensure our communities are healthy, educated, and well cared for.

5. We need to leverage private investment with public dollars through a Green Bank that will promote energy-efficiency and renewables as a major source of job creation, in both the short and the long term. The jobs we create today will lay the groundwork for the industries of tomorrow.

Expanding the home retrofitting programs begun under the Recovery Act will
create good jobs in construction and related industries. Including commercial and public buildings would increase the scope of the program, create high skilled jobs, and protect the planet by reducing demand for energy. By acting now, America can lead the way on green technology.

6. We must invest in our aging and failing infrastructure by rebuilding our schools, roads and bridges—putting millions to work. An Infrastructure Bank can foster public/private partnerships in developing regional and large scale projects critical for a 21st century economy.

7. The passage of health care reform will add tens of millions of Americans to the healthcare rolls and create more than a million new and different jobs in healthcare and related industries. We need to ensure our present healthcare workforce is prepared and we need innovative recruitment and training programs to meet this new workforce demand.

8. We must pass the Employee Free Choice Act to once again protect workers’ freedom to form unions and allow them to share in the prosperity of a new 21st century economy.

9. We need expanded worker training programs on a national scale so that young people are prepared for new industries and workers can the learn skills necessary to compete for new jobs. It’s time to coordinate across agency lines and provide flexible lifelong training for the new economy.

Paid for by whom?

Without saying 'you,' Ms. Burger's answer is as any wealth re-distributor's would be: Tax the rich bastards!

It’s time for Wall Street and the financial industry to pay back their debt to our society. Wall Street must do its part by paying a speculators tax on their obscene profits and transactions. This tax can fund the entire program over ten years.

This isn’t a hard ask. After the trillions in taxpayer investments to bail them out, the excessive profits of firms like Goldman Sachs, and the $150 billion in compensation and bonuses the top six banks plan to dole out this year, this is a small price for Wall Street to pay.

Of course, "Wall Street" is made up millions of "Main Street" investors who have their 401(k)s, their pensions, and their investments in Wall Street.

So, what Queen of Labor is essentially pushing for is a hidden tax on anyone with any kind of investment, covered in the we'll screw the rich blanket.

Given that government can only steal from, expropriate, or tax the wealth of its citizens, it cannot create jobs without killing jobs in the private sector.

In ordinary times, Ms. Burger's proposals would be laugh-out-loud funny.

However, these are not ordinary times where leaders in Washington understand basic economic principles (which is why there is a job summit to begin with) that, in order for the private sector to be able to create jobs, government needs to get the hell out of the way.

Unfortunately, these are extraordinary times. Our nation has a president whose ear is being bent by the Lord of Labor and his Queen whose only apparent know-how on meeting a payroll is through taking the hard-earned income from working Americans. And, whose only apparent growth plan is through higher taxes, bigger government, and stripping Americans of their right to vote on unionization.

Here's our prediction: If President Obama chooses to take union bosses' advice, he can be assured unemployment will reach 13% or more by 2012.

Cross-posted on LaborUnionReport.
_____________________

"I bring reason to your ears, and, in language as plain as ABC, hold up truth to your eyes." Thomas Paine, December 23, 1776

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE TERRORISTS GO FREE?

It's a bad enough insult that KSM and his terrorist buddies are being tried only a few blocks from where the Twin Towers once stood. However, to confer the rights of U.S. citizens on these enemy combatants borders on the criminally insane. Here's why:

First, it seems much of the government's case rests on confessions and "evidence" obtained overseas.

On the confessions: Once in custody, KSM apparently succumbed to 'waterboarding' and other 'enhanced interrogation techniques,' then spilled his guts.

Upon his capture, was he given his "Miranda Rights"?

If not, everything he said from the time of his capture will be thrown out, since he was not afforded his "constitutional right" to representation.

Second, the entire 'enhanced interrogation techniques' will damn the confessions to inadmissibilty.

As the Washington Post reported earlier this year:

Any plan for terrorism trials in federal courthouses would face extraordinary difficulties, lawyers say. Much of the evidence is classified, and key witnesses are reluctant to testify. Government secrets can be spilled. Litigation can be expensive and stretch for years. Security is a nightmare.

The Guantanamo detainees pose hurdles on a scale rarely seen. They were arrested mostly in Afghanistan and were interrogated there and in Cuba by soldiers and agents more focused on stopping attacks than reading the detainees their rights. Much of the evidence is expected to come from their own statements, and those will be thrown out -- along with leads derived from the interrogations -- if the detainees were coerced.

On the "evidence" obtained: Were there search warrants issued? [Whether here or abroad?] If not, then Obama and Holder have another huge problem.

Lastly, can any defendent (whether citizen or not) have a "fair" trial when the President of the United States (once the most powerful person in the world) expresses confidence that the "presumed innocent until proven guilty" defendent is going to be executed when he's found guilty?

The defendent's attorneys are going to have a field day going to trial in New York. It will be easy for them to make the case that the government's entire case should be thrown out.

When that happens, as the title of this post asks: What happens when the terrorists go free?

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Without his Teleprompter, BHO Ditches the WH Press Corps.

We're big fans of Barack Obama's Teleprompter.

In fact, were it not for TOTUS, the news coming out of of this White House might be viewed as mere propaganda if left only to people like Anita Dunn, Patrick Gaspard, or David Axelrod (et al.).

However, TOTUS brings so much balance and levity to the news coming from the White House that we just couldn't imagine life without it.

Well, apparently the President feels much the same as we do. He has a hard time working without TOTUS too. So much so, apparently, that BHO has been ditching the White House press corp of late.

It's been 19 weeks, according to the Washington Times, since BHO has had a press conference (you know, where POTUS-friendly reporters get to ask planted questions so POTUS can appear to be answering regally and...spontaneously--without TOTUS).

The president, whose job-approval ratings have been on a steady slide, hasn't held a formal news conference in 19 weeks, since July 22. That one ended badly, when Mr. Obama waded into a racial controversy by saying a white police officer "acted stupidly" when he arrested a black Harvard professor.

"It can't be a total coincidence that the last time he faced the press corps, we ended with beers in the Rose Garden with Henry Louis Gates and James Crowley, when the focus was supposed to be health care," said Julie Mason, a White House reporter for the Washington Examiner who also covered the Bush administration for the Houston Chronicle.

"It does seem like they are responding to the overexposure argument and trying to exert more control over his appearances," she said.

Veteran White House reporters have been grumbling about the lack of access to the president, who as a candidate vowed an unprecedented level of transparency. [Emphasis added.]

As the Ditherer-in-Chief preps for his big focus-group-tested speech on Afghanistan tonight, it appears the only thing transparent coming from this White House is Barack Obama's Teleprompter.

And, for its level of transparency, we are great admirers of TOTUS.

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