Friday, May 30, 2014

Not a parody

From the transcript of Obama's press conference today:
In terms of responsibility, as I’ve said before, this is my administration; I always take responsibility for whatever happens, and this is an area that I have a particular concern with. This predates my presidency.
This guy, man.  He turns "The buck stops here" to "The buck stops here?"

Thursday, May 29, 2014

Quantitative easing fought the snow and the snow won

Zero Hedge: "US Economy Shrank By 1% In The First Quarter: First Contraction Since 2011"  "Bottom line: for whatever reason, in Q1 the US economy contracted not only for the first time in three years, but at the fastest pace since Q1 of 2011. It probably snowed then too."

Accidental journalism

Heard this on NPR this morning: a reporter was meeting with a community organizer in Chicago who declared "despite Englewood's reputation for crime and violence, she says this block is safe."

Then the gunshots rang out.

Tuesday, May 27, 2014

The stark Obamacare reality

It seems that the cheerleaders at reliably liberal news sources such as the NY Times can't hide it anymore: Obamacare is shaping up as a disaster for the poor.  Also, this morning, I heard this story on NPR - yes, NPR - about a family who was hoodwinked into believing they could find a doctor to accept their Obamacare Gold Plan: "Frustrated By The Affordable Care Act, One Family Opts Out."  There's more to come, folks.

The most transparent Administration ever....

...decided that you should know who is the top CIA agent in Afghanistan.  You're welcome, America.

Extra - Ace: "Whoopsadaisy!"

More - Commentary: "If the press lets Obama get away with this blunder, it will be just one more example of the refusal of the national press to hold this administration to the same standards that it judges the president’s opponents."

Hockey!

The Rangers are playing the Canadiens on NBC Sports and they're showing "Slap Shot" on the Sundance channel.  I'm flipping back and forth.

Sunday, May 25, 2014

The Globe says "basta" to Joe Kennedy

Every winter here in Massachusetts, Joe Kennedy whores himself out to Hugo Chavez for cheap oil.  Joe runs television commercials extolling his buddies in Venezuela and the socialist government gains validation for their war against the United States.  The recent crackdown by Chavez's successor against protesters in Venezuela has finally proven too much for the Boston Globe who dedicated their main Sunday editorial to the issue: "Crackdown presents challenge to Citizens Energy, Joe Kennedy II."

Saturday, May 24, 2014

I'd pay a dollar for that

The latest talk of the town is Ta-Nehisi Coates' article in the Atlantic titled: "The Case for Reparations."  Professor Jacobson has addressed the dead-end case here and here.  The Federalist also reviews the reactions to the essay.

I subscribe to the Atlantic and read the whole article today and was taken by this line:
"What is needed is a healing of the American psyche and the banishment of white guilt."
Sold!  How much will it cost to purge this terrible stain upon this country?  (You know, aside from the blood of 360,000 Union soliders killed in the Civil War.)  Because if reparations are the answer to "repair" our race problems, then let's do it once and for all.  Let's cut those checks for Oprah and LeBron.

But once we've definitively repaired the national psyche once and for all, I think it's only fair to dismantle all race-based programs.  No more affirmative action, no more race-based college admissions, no more Civil Rights division at the DOJ.  The NAACP can pack it up along with the Southern Poverty Law Center.  Criticism of the President will be just that and nothing more.  Let's do this.

The college premium

WashPost: "The ’1 Percent’ isn’t America’s biggest source of inequality. College is."

Wednesday, May 21, 2014

The Blamecaster strikes again!

Ron Fourier: "How Obama Became the Superhero of Excuses"
The launch of the Affordable Care Act and the worsening of conditions at the Veterans Affairs Department are emblematic of Obama's inattention to the hard work of governing. He is slow to fire poor-serving Cabinet members and quick to dismiss controversies as "phony scandals." To the Obama administration, transparency is a mere talking point. The great irony of his progressive presidency: Democrats privately admit that Obama has done as much to undermine the public's faith in government as his GOP predecessor. The Green Lantern Theory is an excuse for failure.
The VA has been a near-intractable problem for a series of Presidents and I'm not saying that Obama is responsible, although he sure made it an "urgent priority" when he could score points as a candidate.  What I object to is that this guy only finds his sense of urgency when his political capital is at risk and, even then, he acts like he cannot believe he has to explain himself:
Over the weekend, the president’s chief of staff assured the public that Obama was “madder than hell” about what happened at the Department of Veterans Affairs, but in person Obama didn’t seem very angry. Like VA Secretary Eric Shinseki, Obama wasn’t entirely convinced something bad had happened.
How could anything bad happen in this Administration?  Must be some kind of crazy Republican meme they're repeating on this news-transferring thing called television.

It seems like a freshman Senator who has never held a real job in his life is floundering.  Commentary: "The New Obama Narrative: Epic Incompetence"
The White House response to everything from the VA and IRS scandals to the seizure of AP phone records by the Department of Justice is that it learned about them from press reports. More and more Mr. Obama speaks as if he’s a passive actor, a bystander in his own administration, an MSNBC commentator speaking about events he has no real control over. We saw that earlier today, when the president, in trying to address the public’s growing outrage at what’s happening at the VA, insisted he “will not stand for it” and “will not tolerate” what he has stood for and tolerated for almost six years. His anger at what’s happening to our veterans seems to have coincided with the political damage it is now causing him.
That's the only tragedy Obama understands.

Extra - Now that outrage has been expressed, it's back to business:
3:25 pm || Tours the National Baseball Hall of Fame; Cooperstown, New York
Plus fundraisers.

Tuesday, May 20, 2014

Filling the space

Here's Hit and Run: "It's a Good Thing That Obama Reads the Paper Because Otherwise He'd Have No Idea What His Administration is Doing"
If Barack Obama wants to play Chauncey Gardiner and basically act as if he has no frickin' idea of what's going around in his White House, that's fine by me.
But will his erstwhile defenders at least admit that either he is a know-it-all who is full of B.S. when he pleads ignorance or that he just has no clue about what's taking place in this City on a Hill already? It's not flattering to him whichever way you want to go. But at least it'll be consistent.
That Chauncey Gardiner reference is from the film "Being There" where a simpleton is regarded as a genius because he occasionally says things that sound profound.  The main character almost literally stumbles into the Presidency.

Not to worry, America.  The President is "madder than hell" and he's going to jump right on this scandal:
2:10 pm || Honors the Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks; East Room
Or not.  Custom-made football jerseys may be exchanged.

Monday, May 19, 2014

Sgt. Schultz knows nothing about VA scandal

Hot Air: "Anyone want to guess how Obama allegedly found out about the VA scandal?"

Twitchy has the M.O. for this White House:
VA scandal: DIDN'T KNOW
Benghazi security: DIDN'T KNOW
Fast and Furious: DIDN'T KNOW
Lose your doctor: DIDN'T KNOW
Bin Laden hit: MASTERMIND
Here's an ode to Obama's only means of gathering information:



Saturday, May 17, 2014

Things I like today

1.) Carter and his banana
2.) NASCAR All-Star Race (well, last 10 laps)
3.) "Frozen".  I finally got to see the highest-grossing animated film of all time today and it was really good.  I can see why parents around the world are in a panic for movie merchandise.  I also predict that "Elsa" is going to catapult into the top 10 for girls' names.

That's enough free speech for you

Byron York: "Would Democrats amend Constitution to stop the Koch brothers?"

I believe they would cut down all the laws to do just that.

Extra - Powerline: "Sargent probably won’t lose his enthusiasm for the regulation of political speech until it touches that portion of the 1 percent who own newspapers. A proposal along those lines might help Sargent understand the relation between money and speech, but I doubt it."

Friday, May 16, 2014

Social Security contributes to the deficit

I know it's heresy to say so and writers like Michael Hiltzik of the LA Times keeps denying it, but it's true.  Timothy Geitner said so and Andrew Biggs expatiates.

Thursday, May 15, 2014

The useless keeper

Volokh Conspiracy: "More thoughts on the rules of Quidditch."  "Of course, as many people have pointed out, this makes Quidditch a really stupid game."

Wednesday, May 14, 2014

Sexist New York Times fires editor for being "pushy"


As Stefon would say, this story has everything.  Today, the indefatigable water-carrier for all things liberal, the parrot of all White House press releases, the breathless provocateur for the "War on Women", fired their first female executive editor.  The New Yorker explains:
Several weeks ago, I’m told, Abramson discovered that her pay and her pension benefits as both executive editor and, before that, as managing editor were considerably less than the pay and pension benefits of Bill Keller, the male editor whom she replaced in both jobs. “She confronted the top brass,” one close associate said, and this may have fed into the management’s narrative that she was “pushy,” a characterization that, for many, has an inescapably gendered aspect
A pushy and "brusque" woman, unequal pay for equal work, and an ignominious firing from the Old Gray Lady.  My C-cup runneth over with hypocrisy.

Extra - Jim Geraghty: "Good news: the Times can re-use a past headline."

More - Ace: "#CanBossy."

And this - Althouse: "The NYT has been hot on the "equal pay" story for years. Let it be judged by the standards it has pushed — pushily — all these years."

Monday, May 12, 2014

OMG that Putin is a h8r

Opinion Journal: "A Selfie-Taking, Hashtagging Teenage Administration - The Obama crowd too often responds to critics and to world affairs like self-absorbed adolescents."

Eight-hour gap

Marc Thiessen: "The White House eagerly shared details of the president’s whereabouts during the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, even releasing a photo of him monitoring the assault in the Situation Room in real time. So why not share the same details about his whereabouts during Benghazi?"

The feel-good ideology, redux

Daily Caller: "George Will Mocks #BringBackOurGirls: ‘An Exercise In Self-Esteem’."

Saturday, May 10, 2014

The feel-good ideology

Trial of the Century: "Global warming and progressive days of inaction."
Modern liberalism, at its core, is an ideology of talking, not doing
This reminds me of this unintentionally hilarious article in the NY Times about eco-socialites: they're all for saving the planet until the slightest bit of sacrifice is involved:
She plans to practice conservation, to a point. Energy-saving light bulbs are fine — for the utility closet, perhaps. In other rooms, “they don’t give a very pretty light,” she said.
How gauche!

Friday, May 09, 2014

Yeah, we don't talk like that in Western Massachusetts

I saw this same sign driving home from work today.  I applaud the sentiment, but we don't pahk our cah in Hahvahd Yahd.

NBC cancels "Community"

I'm convinced this "trailer" at the end of a recent episode sealed the fate of this great show:

Quote of the day

Here's Glenn Kessler: "Four Pinocchios for Obama’s claim that Republicans have ‘filibustered about 500 pieces of legislation’"
On just about every level, this claim is ridiculous.
Here's today's runner-up:
President Obama is such a glib liar that it is hard to keep up with his act.
I think that Obama has gotten so used to the media kissing his ass, he believes he can lie without consequence.  And why wouldn't he?

Thursday, May 08, 2014

Benghazi terror attack and/or movie review

Here's Rich Lowry with "The Benghazi deniers"
The administration’s apologists claim that President Obama immediately called Benghazi a terror attack in a statement in the Rose Garden on Sept. 12, the day after the assault. He did indeed refer to “acts of terror,” although vaguely. In an interview the same day with CBS, he was asked: Was Benghazi the result of a “mob action,” or was it something more serious? “I don’t want to jump the gun on this,” the president said.
He obviously wouldn’t have said he didn’t want to jump the gun if he had already jumped it. Besides, if the president of the United States was willing to say it was a terrorist attack from the very beginning, why was one of his national security officials stuffing his ambassador to the United Nations with pablum in an email just a few days later?
Blaming the video allowed the administration to put the most anodyne possible interpretation on Benghazi, while staying in its ideological comfort zone.
Candy Crowley just called to say: "Mm-hmm, that's how I remember it."

Extra - Daily Beast: "Why Democrats are so afraid of Benghazi."  As several have noted, if they didn't bury the Ben Rhodes memo, this would have long-since passed.

More - Reason Online: "The last thing his campaign managers wanted to confront in the middle of September was an al-Qaida-orchestrated attack on American property in the Middle East in which our ambassador was murdered."

Tuesday, May 06, 2014

Your free speech is limited to ink and paper

Opinion Journal takes note in "Rewriting the First Amendment" that jerkweed Senators Chuck Schumer and Tom Udall are trying to do an end run around the Citizens United decision by limiting campaign contributions.  But they'll make an exception for the media:
Mr. Udall's amendment is careful to specify that nothing "should be construed to grant Congress the power to abridge the freedom of the press." In case you don't follow campaign finance, that is supposed to protect newspapers and TV networks, most of which embrace Democratic causes and candidates.
How nice of them to let the NY Times keep their freedoms.
The real target will be the corporations Democrats have railed against since Citizens United. But why should Warren Buffett's company enjoy free speech rights because he owns a handful of newspapers along with insurance companies, while Jeffrey Immelt's is muzzled because GE makes jet turbines? For that matter, what's to stop political groups from incorporating themselves as newspapers?
Once you've opened the First Amendment for revision by politicians, and reinterpretation by judges, anything can happen. We know liberal editors tend to lose their bearings when they write about money in politics, but is the problem so great that it's worth letting, say, Senator Ted Cruz determine whether the New York Times Co. qualifies for protection under the First Amendment?
I fail to see the distinction between limiting spending on speech via political contributions, clearly designed to advance a certain viewpoint, and spending on the press which is also advancing political speech.  Can the government limit the amount of money that the NY Times spends on paper?  And if there is a difference, what's to prevent the Koch brothers from purchasing every major newspaper in America?

I wonder how committed the Liberal Left would be to a "free press" if Democrats made up only 7% of journalists.

Monday, May 05, 2014

"I don't eat competitively"

This is what happens when politicians don't have their MSM filter.  WashPost: "Martin O’Malley did a Reddit AMA. It didn’t go very well."  Ask me anything!  Well, not that.  Or that.

Sunday, May 04, 2014

NASCAR car funded by cryptocurrency

Now there's a sequence of five words never seen before:


In case you missed it, there was a car sponsored by Dogecoin in today's NASCAR race in Talladega.  I didn't know it until driver Josh Wise managed to move up to fourth place - he finished 20th which is very respectable.

Saturday, May 03, 2014

In case you missed the Friday afternoon news dump

Yeah, there was something about the GM bailout but then there was also this one which happens with such regularity, who can keep track?  "HHS effectively delays individual mandate by another month."  Yawn - just some more of that "enforcement discretion" we've come to know and love.

Update from the tolerance crowd

Shut up, they explained.  The Corner: "Rice Withdraws from Rutgers Commencement"

Meanwhile, here in the Happy Valley: "Former Attorney General John Ashcroft meets hostile crowd at UMass Amherst."

"I disapprove of what you say, so get lost." - fake Voltaire.

Why such a negative Nelly?

The New York Times: "The jobs report isn't as good as it looks."  "Rarely does a monthly report on the United States job market look so terrific on the surface while being so disappointing underneath."  Why do you have to be like that NYT H8ers?

Worst concert

Reddit has a question: "What's your worst concert experience?"

Back in 1997, I saw Ben Folds Five at Pearl Street in Northampton and it was absolutely great.  This was right after they released "Whatever and Ever Amen" but before their big hit "Brick" started climbing the charts.  The venue was kinda small and the crowd was up.  I remember that Ben Folds did a fantastic solo on "Steven's Last Night in Town."

Oh, I raved about the concert and my buddy from school came up to Massachusetts to see them when they played another Western Massachusetts concert at Amherst College.  OH MY GRAVY is was piss-awful.  It was held in a gymnasium, everybody had to stand, and the acoustics were horrendous.  And I always remember the crowd went crazy every time Ben Folds dropped the f-bomb, which was often and unnecessary.

Thursday, May 01, 2014

Obamacare's ups and downs

Goin' up!  Megan Mcardle: "Watch Obamacare Make Health-Care Costs Soar" "After all the speculation that Obamacare might be bending the cost curve, we now know that so far, it isn’t. That doesn’t mean expanding coverage was a bad idea, of course. It just hasn’t turned out to be as cheap as some were hoping."

Goin' down! Amy Ridenour: "New ObamaCare Enrollment Report Shows Death Spiral Is Likely."  "We’ve seen hints that the ObamaCare exchange risk pools are in trouble, from greater use of expensive prescription drugs, to hefty premiums increases coming for 2015.  That, along with today’s enrollment report, means the exchanges are poised for a death spiral."