It's official. Obama's latest lie is a matter of record.
Last summer, the rookie Senator from Illinois promised to restrict his Presidential campaign, if he became his party's nominee, to public funds, if his opponent would agree to do so as well.
Today, Obama 'changed' his tune. And lied. He demonstrated that what he says at one point in time about something he can control, can change whenever it suits him.
Is this change you can believe in?
Or merely politically expedient change you can count on?
The latter, I think is now clear.
Obama's a liar and a conventional backroom-dealing, expedient politician.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Why The Fuss Over Tim Russert?
Okay- Tim Russert died. Big deal.
I don't understand what all the hoopla is about.
Like his Irish Liberal Democratic media colleague in the NBC/Universal world, Chris Matthews, Russert apprenticed to a well-known Irish pol- Pat Moynihan.
But Russert is no Pat Moynihan, just like Matthews is no Tip O'Neill.
Being part of the ultra-liberal NBC family of media brands, Russert never got much viewership from me. I think the most I ever saw of him was with Tom Brokaw on the election night coverage of November, 2004.
What I saw turned my stomach so badly that I never bothered to view Russert for more than a few seconds of accidentally running across his Sunday morning interview show.
Every time that Brokaw, the prototypical NBC liberally-biased news anchor, would solemnly intone some liberal opinion about Kerry's evolving loss to President Bush, as if it were fact, Russert's jowly face would nod vigorously up and down like some big, live bobble-head.
If he were smaller, he could have sat on Brokaw's lap and looked like Charlie McCarthy. As it was, he just aped whatever Brokaw said or did, grinning in that somewhat idiotic fashion he seemed to sport the few times I saw him on air.
Just because Russert grew up in a non-white collar family in Buffalo, and wrote a book about his father, people seem to feel he has some special claim on how 'America' feels.
Well, judging by his politics, he never represented my feelings. And I was not from a particularly wealthy or elite class, either.
Instead, rather than being raised in the type of blue state liberal household that blamed others for what we didn't have, I came from a Midwestern home where education and opportunity were seen as there for the taking, to do with what you would and could. Lack of performance was and is seen as a failure of the individual, not the system.
Thus, Russert's tear-jerking rise from humble origins was nothing special from where I hail.
It's not like he was, say, David Brinkley or Chet Huntley- real NBC news titans. Russert seemed to me to be just another one of those modern day, pale, third-generation talking-head descendants of the once-great, first television newsmen of the 1950s and '60s.
Perhaps that's why I find the sentiments over his death so misplaced.
I don't understand what all the hoopla is about.
Like his Irish Liberal Democratic media colleague in the NBC/Universal world, Chris Matthews, Russert apprenticed to a well-known Irish pol- Pat Moynihan.
But Russert is no Pat Moynihan, just like Matthews is no Tip O'Neill.
Being part of the ultra-liberal NBC family of media brands, Russert never got much viewership from me. I think the most I ever saw of him was with Tom Brokaw on the election night coverage of November, 2004.
What I saw turned my stomach so badly that I never bothered to view Russert for more than a few seconds of accidentally running across his Sunday morning interview show.
Every time that Brokaw, the prototypical NBC liberally-biased news anchor, would solemnly intone some liberal opinion about Kerry's evolving loss to President Bush, as if it were fact, Russert's jowly face would nod vigorously up and down like some big, live bobble-head.
If he were smaller, he could have sat on Brokaw's lap and looked like Charlie McCarthy. As it was, he just aped whatever Brokaw said or did, grinning in that somewhat idiotic fashion he seemed to sport the few times I saw him on air.
Just because Russert grew up in a non-white collar family in Buffalo, and wrote a book about his father, people seem to feel he has some special claim on how 'America' feels.
Well, judging by his politics, he never represented my feelings. And I was not from a particularly wealthy or elite class, either.
Instead, rather than being raised in the type of blue state liberal household that blamed others for what we didn't have, I came from a Midwestern home where education and opportunity were seen as there for the taking, to do with what you would and could. Lack of performance was and is seen as a failure of the individual, not the system.
Thus, Russert's tear-jerking rise from humble origins was nothing special from where I hail.
It's not like he was, say, David Brinkley or Chet Huntley- real NBC news titans. Russert seemed to me to be just another one of those modern day, pale, third-generation talking-head descendants of the once-great, first television newsmen of the 1950s and '60s.
Perhaps that's why I find the sentiments over his death so misplaced.
Monday, June 16, 2008
Liberal Energy Policy Lies
I was reading Outside magazine this weekend while on a train ride home from NYC. Being such a liberal rag, I don't find all that much of the monthly very appealing. I originally subscribed for the outdoor activity and adventure coverage, then for some of the physical conditioning articles.
However, this month's issue contained an article that really caught my eye.
Recently, as I discussed in this post, on my business blog, Boone Pickens extolled the potential of wind power in the American west. He estimated it could replace up to 20% of American electrical power generation by other fuel sources.
The Outside magazine piece alleged that number is 33% from North Dakota alone.
Now, when a capitalist like Pickens actually puts his money down on a project, I'm going to tend to believe his outlook more than a bunch of wild-eyed Geenies writing for Outside.
The difference is very important, because, by extension, the Outside piece, if accepted uncritically, sort of has you imagining that, gee whiz, maybe could replace all our electrical generating capacity with clean wind, instead of smelly, polluting coal and natural gas!
Not likely in the real world.
Then the Outside piece dismissively noted,
"Despite a few certifiably crackpot questions- for example,
'Didn't the eruption of Mount St. Helens spew more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than mankind has ever produced?' - everyone seems to be genuinely interested in finding the best solution."
While I doubt that the question's ultimately true answer is 'yes,' the question and the person who asked it raise a reasonable point.
Even the also-liberally-tilting History Channel has recently aired a few programs noting that mega-volcanoes which have reshaped our planet would simply wipe out nearly all human life if one occurred now or in the future.
So the point about volcanic eruptions is well-taken. Nature can actually quite easily offset anything man can try to do to influence the Earth's climate.
It's quite possible that a huge amount of the effects of converting human energy sources from petroleum-based to renewable could all be erased in one good blow of a volcano.
To ignore these realities seems to be a hallmark of the Green movement. Overstate, i.e., lie about, the benefits of the green movement's proposals, then catcall and discredit legitimate questions as to just how much control man really has over nature.
It seems liberals now do this all the time in the area of energy policy.
However, this month's issue contained an article that really caught my eye.
Recently, as I discussed in this post, on my business blog, Boone Pickens extolled the potential of wind power in the American west. He estimated it could replace up to 20% of American electrical power generation by other fuel sources.
The Outside magazine piece alleged that number is 33% from North Dakota alone.
Now, when a capitalist like Pickens actually puts his money down on a project, I'm going to tend to believe his outlook more than a bunch of wild-eyed Geenies writing for Outside.
The difference is very important, because, by extension, the Outside piece, if accepted uncritically, sort of has you imagining that, gee whiz, maybe could replace all our electrical generating capacity with clean wind, instead of smelly, polluting coal and natural gas!
Not likely in the real world.
Then the Outside piece dismissively noted,
"Despite a few certifiably crackpot questions- for example,
'Didn't the eruption of Mount St. Helens spew more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than mankind has ever produced?' - everyone seems to be genuinely interested in finding the best solution."
While I doubt that the question's ultimately true answer is 'yes,' the question and the person who asked it raise a reasonable point.
Even the also-liberally-tilting History Channel has recently aired a few programs noting that mega-volcanoes which have reshaped our planet would simply wipe out nearly all human life if one occurred now or in the future.
So the point about volcanic eruptions is well-taken. Nature can actually quite easily offset anything man can try to do to influence the Earth's climate.
It's quite possible that a huge amount of the effects of converting human energy sources from petroleum-based to renewable could all be erased in one good blow of a volcano.
To ignore these realities seems to be a hallmark of the Green movement. Overstate, i.e., lie about, the benefits of the green movement's proposals, then catcall and discredit legitimate questions as to just how much control man really has over nature.
It seems liberals now do this all the time in the area of energy policy.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Obama's Corrupt Inner Circle
The freshman Senator from Illinois hasn't even been the official nominee of his party for President for a month and already his campaign is beset by corruption and appallingly bad judgment.
Jim Johnson, a prominent uber-liberal and Obama's handpicked aide to screen potential VP candidates has been forced to resign from the junior Senator's campaign over undisputed evidence of the financier's conflicts of interest and corruption while an officer at Fannie Mae.
What is ironic, of course, is that, while Obama has pilloried Countrywide Mortgage for allegedly causing the housing finance situation of the past nine months, Johnson, while with Fannie Mae, accepted a sweetheart jumbo mortgage from the California mortgage giant. Moreover, the loan was personally arranged by Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozillo, raising red flags about improper behavior on Johnson's part while at the quasi-government mortgage finance institution.
Obama's now-typical excuse for such poor judgment in choosing as a close aide someone who was actually instrumental in the mortgage finance mess which the Democratic Presidential candidate so vehemently criticizes was, to paraphrase,
'How can I vet the vetters? It's not my fault. Everyone I would choose to be in my campaign has ties to someone.'
Great. The guy hasn't been an offical nominee for President for two weeks, and he's already excusing more of his bad personnel choices and inept vetting of his own staff.
Exhibiting yet another common response, Obama claims that the situation is not his fault, so it's not fair for anyone to castigate him about it.
If that were true, would Johnson have resigned? Not likely.
This latest example and evidence of Obama's not-yet-ready-for-prime-time campaign staff antics clearly show that he in now way represents 'post-partisanship' politics or any kind of clear, detailed constructive change from past partisanship.
Rather, Obama has demonstrated how well he learned Chicago-style politics-as-corruption.
Change we can believe in? Looks more like no change at all from Democratic party politics as usual. The wealthy Democrats tax other Americans, distribute the largesse to poorer Americans and call it progress, when it's just old-style pork barrel politics of the old-school variety.
Jim Johnson, a prominent uber-liberal and Obama's handpicked aide to screen potential VP candidates has been forced to resign from the junior Senator's campaign over undisputed evidence of the financier's conflicts of interest and corruption while an officer at Fannie Mae.
What is ironic, of course, is that, while Obama has pilloried Countrywide Mortgage for allegedly causing the housing finance situation of the past nine months, Johnson, while with Fannie Mae, accepted a sweetheart jumbo mortgage from the California mortgage giant. Moreover, the loan was personally arranged by Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozillo, raising red flags about improper behavior on Johnson's part while at the quasi-government mortgage finance institution.
Obama's now-typical excuse for such poor judgment in choosing as a close aide someone who was actually instrumental in the mortgage finance mess which the Democratic Presidential candidate so vehemently criticizes was, to paraphrase,
'How can I vet the vetters? It's not my fault. Everyone I would choose to be in my campaign has ties to someone.'
Great. The guy hasn't been an offical nominee for President for two weeks, and he's already excusing more of his bad personnel choices and inept vetting of his own staff.
Exhibiting yet another common response, Obama claims that the situation is not his fault, so it's not fair for anyone to castigate him about it.
If that were true, would Johnson have resigned? Not likely.
This latest example and evidence of Obama's not-yet-ready-for-prime-time campaign staff antics clearly show that he in now way represents 'post-partisanship' politics or any kind of clear, detailed constructive change from past partisanship.
Rather, Obama has demonstrated how well he learned Chicago-style politics-as-corruption.
Change we can believe in? Looks more like no change at all from Democratic party politics as usual. The wealthy Democrats tax other Americans, distribute the largesse to poorer Americans and call it progress, when it's just old-style pork barrel politics of the old-school variety.
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Congressional Pork In Green Wrapper
The Wall Street Journal's editorial in last Monday's edition, entitled "Cap and Spend," pretty thoroughly eviscerated Barbara Boxer's Senate carbon bill. It's notionally authored by Lieberman and Warner, but Boxer is said to be real driver behind it.
Perhaps the saddest aspect of the legislation is not even its grotesque misrepresentation of the bill as doing 'something' about carbon and global warming, never mind the bad science on that.
No, it's Congress creating an immense $3Trillion slush fund to use to reward some interest groups, and punish others. This is a mind-boggling sum which voters truly do not yet fully comprehend.
Since the carbon permits and capping don't have any solid basis in their origin, this, of course, invites large amounts of corruption and undue influence to favor various groups. And other taxes aren't being cut to offset this magical new tax on a heretofore simple energy/raw material business input.
One of the more hilarious Senate inclusions, which I saw lamely defended on CNBC last week, is $190B for 'green collar jobs.'
When asked if the Senate was now in the business of job creation, whichever Senator Foghorn was speaking began to sputter and insisted that these jobs were necessary to offset the ones they'd kill with this enormous tax.
Fortunately, George Bush will veto this green pork bill.
And, as much as I respect Joe Lieberman for some things, he lost a lot of that when, in reply to criticism for it being such a bad bill, he replied, to paraphrase,
'That's okay. It doesn't really take effect until 2012!'
Great. Bad legislation is okay if it's delayed sufficiently for everyone to forget what a major error it will be.
God deliver us from Congress- both parties!
Perhaps the saddest aspect of the legislation is not even its grotesque misrepresentation of the bill as doing 'something' about carbon and global warming, never mind the bad science on that.
No, it's Congress creating an immense $3Trillion slush fund to use to reward some interest groups, and punish others. This is a mind-boggling sum which voters truly do not yet fully comprehend.
Since the carbon permits and capping don't have any solid basis in their origin, this, of course, invites large amounts of corruption and undue influence to favor various groups. And other taxes aren't being cut to offset this magical new tax on a heretofore simple energy/raw material business input.
One of the more hilarious Senate inclusions, which I saw lamely defended on CNBC last week, is $190B for 'green collar jobs.'
When asked if the Senate was now in the business of job creation, whichever Senator Foghorn was speaking began to sputter and insisted that these jobs were necessary to offset the ones they'd kill with this enormous tax.
Fortunately, George Bush will veto this green pork bill.
And, as much as I respect Joe Lieberman for some things, he lost a lot of that when, in reply to criticism for it being such a bad bill, he replied, to paraphrase,
'That's okay. It doesn't really take effect until 2012!'
Great. Bad legislation is okay if it's delayed sufficiently for everyone to forget what a major error it will be.
God deliver us from Congress- both parties!
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Lies & Liars for Illinois' Freshman Senator Obama
I just watched an incredible piece of brazen lying on CNBC this morning by Illinois' rookie Senator Obama supporter Don Peebles.
Peebles is a wealthy black entrepreneur and, thus, with his liberal bent, a natural to be guest host on the morning CNBC program.
After airing a segment featuring John McCain questioning Obama's foreign policy credentials, experience and statements, one of McCain's advisors followed up with some of their campaign's talking points.
Turning to Peebles, the CNBC co-anchor elicited the guest host's declaration,
"Obama is experienced nationally and internationally."
Who is he trying to fool?
To what is Peebles privy that the rest of us have missed? Obama's been an overseas CIA operative? Or done some stealth work overseas for years while his body double worked on the South Side of Chicago and in the Illinois legislature?
This just goes from bad to worse. Now Obama has otherwise-probably honest businesspeople telling bald-faced lies about him and his imagined experience.
If this is the best the junior Illinois Senator can muster, we're in serious trouble if he becomes our next President. I can only imagine the type of fairy tales he'll require us all to believe then.
Peebles is a wealthy black entrepreneur and, thus, with his liberal bent, a natural to be guest host on the morning CNBC program.
After airing a segment featuring John McCain questioning Obama's foreign policy credentials, experience and statements, one of McCain's advisors followed up with some of their campaign's talking points.
Turning to Peebles, the CNBC co-anchor elicited the guest host's declaration,
"Obama is experienced nationally and internationally."
Who is he trying to fool?
To what is Peebles privy that the rest of us have missed? Obama's been an overseas CIA operative? Or done some stealth work overseas for years while his body double worked on the South Side of Chicago and in the Illinois legislature?
This just goes from bad to worse. Now Obama has otherwise-probably honest businesspeople telling bald-faced lies about him and his imagined experience.
If this is the best the junior Illinois Senator can muster, we're in serious trouble if he becomes our next President. I can only imagine the type of fairy tales he'll require us all to believe then.
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Obama Leaves His Church- Finally
This past weekend's announcement by the freshman Senator from Illinois that he is leaving his church of longstanding membership, Trinity, in Chicago, probably raised as many questions as it answered.
For example, along the lines of questions during the height of the outrage over Obama's pastor, Jeremiah Wright's racist and anti-American remarks, some now wonder why Obama waited so long to leave the church.
He spent a considerable amount of time and effort attempting to defend the very person and statements over which he now has left.
Further, in his statement announcing his departure, he used words to the effect that he was making no judgment on the church.
Really? That sounds awfully mealy-mouthed and tepid coming from a candidate for our nation's highest office, doesn't it?
He leaves a supposed community of his faith, but attempts to trivialize it by saying he's leaving over nothing.
Either he is separating from the congregation's and ministers' positions, or he's not. Which is it?
Is he so flighty as to leave the bastion of his faith for no particular reason? Or so cowardly that he won't condemn that with which he no longer wishes to be associated?
And, to top it all off, he informed the press that he won't be choosing another church until next year- safely after the voting in November.
As usual, Obama runs from trouble and shows no spine on even the smallest issues.
Is this who you want as President?
For example, along the lines of questions during the height of the outrage over Obama's pastor, Jeremiah Wright's racist and anti-American remarks, some now wonder why Obama waited so long to leave the church.
He spent a considerable amount of time and effort attempting to defend the very person and statements over which he now has left.
Further, in his statement announcing his departure, he used words to the effect that he was making no judgment on the church.
Really? That sounds awfully mealy-mouthed and tepid coming from a candidate for our nation's highest office, doesn't it?
He leaves a supposed community of his faith, but attempts to trivialize it by saying he's leaving over nothing.
Either he is separating from the congregation's and ministers' positions, or he's not. Which is it?
Is he so flighty as to leave the bastion of his faith for no particular reason? Or so cowardly that he won't condemn that with which he no longer wishes to be associated?
And, to top it all off, he informed the press that he won't be choosing another church until next year- safely after the voting in November.
As usual, Obama runs from trouble and shows no spine on even the smallest issues.
Is this who you want as President?
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