"Dithering"

Dick Cheney made the following comments on October 21st:

Having announced his Afghanistan strategy last March, President Obama now seems afraid to make a decision, and unable to provide his commander on the ground with the troops he needs to complete his mission.

President Obama has said he understands the stakes for America. When he announced his new strategy he couched the need to succeed in the starkest possible terms, saying, quote, "If the Afghan government falls to the Taliban - or allows al-Qaeda to go unchallenged - that country will again be a base for terrorists who want to kill as many of our people as they possibly can." End quote.

Five months later, in August of this year, speaking at the VFW, the President made a promise to America's armed forces. "I will give you a clear mission," he said, "defined goals, and the equipment and support you need to get the job done. That's my commitment to you."

It's time for President Obama to make good on his promise. The White House must stop dithering while America's armed forces are in danger.

Make no mistake, signals of indecision out of Washington hurt our allies and embolden our adversaries. Waffling, while our troops on the ground face an emboldened enemy, endangers them and hurts our cause.

Bravo Mr. Vice President. May we say on behalf of all Americans who give a s**t about the security of this country, we miss you. Click here for the full speech.

The mothers of our soldiers chime in (4min):



Rush Limbaugh's Oct. 29 Morning Update, copied in full:

For over a year, there have been warnings that our military face deteriorating conditions in Afghanistan. Candidate Obama, remember, claimed that if elected, he would withdraw from Iraq, the so-called war of choice, and focus on Afghanistan -- which he said was the "war of necessity."

Well, despite all the promises and all the warnings (including dire pleas for additional troops from Obama's handpicked general on the ground), the military still awaits a decision from their Commander-in-Chief. This week, while they wait, multiple bomb attacks killed more American soldiers, making October the deadliest combat month since the war began after 9/11.

As terrorists become emboldened, the death toll in Pakistan and Iraq is also rising. There was even a deadly terror strike against Iran. The entire region seems to be imploding.

Democrats here upbraided Dick Cheney after he called out Obama for "dithering" in Afghanistan, yet the State-Controlled Media will not ask Obama why his decision is taking so long, or if domestic politics are a factor. Nor do they question the time he spends fundraising, campaigning, golfing (poorly, I might add), playing basketball, attending White House concerts -- while the troops wait... and die.

If you don't like the word "dithering," then come up with another word. But it is clear: neither national security, nor the war in Afghanistan, is top priority for this "young administration", but it is a top priority for our brave fighting troops -- and for the parents of those fallen, who are still waiting, in vain, for presidential leadership.

Cartoons on the topic from Townhall, with text below for those of us with reading glasses...

"It's another "Heads" Mr. President." Obama: "Flip again. We'll make it best out of 2,750."

"You'll have to wait, General... We're planning our strategy against Fox News, First."

Chess Board with all the pieces on Obama's side: "Afghanistan"

Obama: "To be or not to be." General: "Still no decision, huh?"

Soldier: "We just got word from Washington. Obama declared swine flu an emergency."

"68,000 reasons whey the President should "listen to the generals" as candidate Obama promised."


Are there still those that will argue that Democrats aren't weak on national security?

Tea Party Movement 1, RINO's 0

Dede Scozzafava (RINO-NY) has suspended her campaign for NY's 23rd district, per Politico.

This leaves Conservative party candidate Doug Hoffman and Democrat Bill Owens to fight it out.

One down, about 420 or so to go.

UPDATE 2:45pm:

Here is Scozzafava answering questions about her decision to suspend her candidacy.



It looks like the big decision took its toll on her.

May we suggest the pro-choice politician look on the bright side: At least she was given the opportunity to live.

Open Carry Coffee

The Gun Blogger at Gun Nuts Media was mugged last week. The bad guy brought a knife, the victim held a cup of coffee and had a concealed hand gun. If was the coffee that was discharged at the assailant. Click here to read his story.

While the bad guy didn't suffer a violent perforated death at the hands of the blogger/victim, what we did like about the story is some of the graphics his readers sent in.

Thursday Afternoon Cigar

The ingredients for a relaxing afternoon: A rabbit, a sexy hat, a CAO Brazilia, and our new national drink, Leninade.

Saw in the WSJ Today:

Only news to executives who think saving the company's profits for a rainy day: Page 2, Deal Reached on Bank Crackdown -

A deal between the Treasury Department and a key House Democrat would give the government sweeping new powers to police the country's largest financial companies, including the ability to seize and break up failing companies and order large firms to shrink.
---
The proposal would require financial firms with more than $10 billion of assets to pay for the unwinding of a collapsed competitor. The measure would also give the Federal Reserve the power to direct any large financial holding company to sell or transfer assets or stop certain activities if the central bank determined there could be a "threat to the safety and soundness of such company or to the financial stability of the United States."

What about those unsupervised medium-sized companies?!

What about average Americans with savings? Shouldn't they be told to share their savings for those without?

And why not let the other unions cover the costs of failed pension plans by their peers? We're starting to see the logic here....

Holman Jenkins writes about the pay czar and unintended consequences in his op-ed, Washington's Suicide Mission: The real problem is Washington's riverboat gamble on saving the economy with free money.

Members of the Obama administration have taken turns deploring the billions of dollars in year-end bonuses the finance industry is getting ready to hand out. Never mentioned is what they think firms should do with the money. Give it back to their customers? Spend it on office decorations?

Firms can't just wish away revenue sitting on their books. That's an accounting crime. More to the point, aren't surging banker bonuses amid a general downturn the proximate and necessary outcome of Washington's recovery Heimlich, which involves doling out free money to banks and artificially goosing asset prices?

Er, wasn't this the plan?

A Gun Designer's Regret

Likely a common feeling among them all, the designer of the famous AK-47 has this to say:

It is painful for me to see when criminal elements of all kinds fire from my weapon.

We have steered away from this firearm for the related reason that we associate it with evil. Kalashnikov's comment, unfortunately, only refers to the evil in the criminal elements of society. He continues:

I created this weapon primarily to safeguard our fatherland.

But like the Ushanka hat that we named this site after, we associate the AK-47 to the logical next step that Kalashnikov cannot - Communism. Kill millions. Imprison millions more. All, or at least most, at the point of his AK-47.

It is not the weapon. It is who uses it, how it is used, and if it compliments a sexy ushanka...

U/T: Say Uncle

Warning #3,445,981 From Across the Pond

Warning: Justifiable Profanity.



U/T: iOwnTheWorld

Tuesday Afternoon Cigar

We smoked a Rocky Patel Cuban Blend as we did some routine cleaning.

Sunday Afternoon Cigar

CAO Brazilia burned before the Bears-Bengals game.

Another Hammer & Sickle

Amazingly, it has been a while since we've seen a hammer and sickle cartoon. This one is from Townhall.

The music:

I bet if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao, You ain't gonna make it with anyone anyhow

Anita Dunn's thoughts:

The Beatles never met my boss

Related - Found at iOwn The World:

H1N1 Virus

Outside a clinic in Milwaulkee:

The only thing missing is the hat...

UT: Instapundit

3.5 minutes of Michael Savage

Civilian National Security Force = Marxist Revolution?

Karl's Weekend Reading

Oodles of reading for this weekend! The big story this week, FOX Sucks!

From ContraObama:

Krauthammer, Fox Wars, Townhall:

Fox News is no monopoly. It is a singular minority in a sea of liberal media. ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, NPR, CNN, MSNBC vs. Fox. The lineup is so unbalanced as to be comical -- and that doesn't even include the other commanding heights of the culture that are firmly, flagrantly liberal: Hollywood, the foundations, the universities, the elite newspapers.

Fox and its viewers (numbering more than CNN's and MSNBC's combined) need no defense. Defend Fox compared to whom? To CNN -- which recently unleashed its fact-checkers on a "Saturday Night Live" skit mildly critical of President Obama, but did no checking of a grotesquely racist remark CNN falsely attributed to Rush Limbaugh?

Ann Coulter, The Grating Communicator, Townhall:

The strangest thing about all the invective against Fox is that it is happening in a world that contains MSNBC. At least Fox News primetime hosts, and many of their guests, know something about politics. MSNBC's primetime lineup presents an array of people who sound like earnest college kids who just walked up to a Common Cause table, and the sum-total of what they know about politics is what they read in the brochures.

Kim Strassel of the WSJ writes of the Obama team's tactics in her opinion piece, The Chicago Way: The Chamber of Commerce is only the latest target of the Chicago Gang in the White House.

Fox, like MSNBC, has its share of commentators. But according to Obama Communications Director Anita Dunn, the entire network is "opinion journalism masquerading as news." Many previous White House press officers, when faced with criticism, try this thing called outreach. The Chicago crowd has boycotted Fox altogether.

What makes these efforts notable is that they are not the lashing out of a frustrated political operation. They are calculated campaigns, designed to create bogeymen, to divide the opposition, to frighten players into compliance. The White House sees a once-in-a-generation opportunity on health care and climate. It is obsessed with winning these near-term battles, and will take no prisoners. It knows that CEOs are easily intimidated and (Fox News ratings aside) it is getting some of its way. Besides, roughing up conservatives gives the liberal blogosphere something to write about besides Guantanamo.

James Taranto, Gelt Trip, WSJ:

Of course it delights us to see the president and his most unsavory supporters promote Fox as the only TV news network that isn't in the tank for the administration. Although this isn't entirely fair to the other networks--in particular, ABC News's Jake Tapper has shown a strong independent streak--it is well-deserved recognition for the work Fox has done in bringing to the fore such stories as the Van Jones and Acorn scandals, which many other news organizations ignored for as long as they could.

On the other hand, we are an American, and Barack Obama is our president too. It cracks us up when MoveOn.org cheers on the president for "fighting back" by "not appearing" and "staying off." "Yes, brave Sir Robin turned about, and gallantly he chickened out."

But it scares the hell out of us to think that this also seems to be Obama's approach to dealing with America's enemies.

Speaking of The War on Terror:

Taranto again - Karn Evil, lead paragraph:

President Obama's promise to empty the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay has run into a little obstacle: It turns out the place is full of terrorists! Like everything else, this is not Obama's fault. The terrorists are there because George W. Bush put them there, leaving poor Obama once again stuck cleaning up someone else's mess.

American Thinker author Andrew Thomas explores the hatred of the left in his article, The End Game of the Left. A great write-up that (purposely?) leaves out the words "envy" and "communism". Despite these omissions, you may detect a pattern...

In the leftist utopia of social justice, wealth is no longer created. The capitalist goose that laid the golden eggs is spread like pâté. Income and property are confiscated, housing and employment are assigned, as in Cuba and Venezuela. Scientific advancement and medical breakthroughs are ground to a halt, as in the old Soviet Union where technology was frozen in the 1950s. Entrepreneurship, personal advancement, and wealth creation are violently quashed, as in the Chinese Cultural Revolution under Mao Tse Tung. Hunger, disease, and death become familiar houseguests, as in all repressive regimes.

The end game of the leftist poweratti is to rule the nation and eventually the world by bringing us down to the lowest social common denominator through the manipulation of those who obsessively despise wealth.

And in a related American Thinker article, Joseph Ashby exposes the "permanency of decline" in When Tyranny Calls.

It's not that socialism is in decline in Europe; it's that socialism no longer has any opposition.
---
The catalyst to this permanent leftist political climate is health care.
---
If health care passes, it will not represent the beginning of the end -- the beginning took place long ago. But it may signal the end of the beginning, the end of the period in which liberty has its chance to beat back statism.

American freedom has been bent, and bent, and bent for nearly 100 hundred years. Like post World War II socialization of England, health care may prove to be America's breaking point.

Nothing to see here

Why do people draw comparisons between Obama and communism?

Take our sexy Commie Obama hat. It lowers the political discourse and distracts from those ofus you that want to solve America's problems for Americans.

Haven't we read over and over that Obama is not a socialist?!

Here is a cartoon from Richard Oliver at The American Thinker:

And here is the screen shot from today's Drudge Report:

Nothing to see here....

Wednesday Afternoon Cigar

We smoked a CAO Brazilia as we read the fiction book, Red to Black by Alex Dryden. A story in Putin's modern day Russia about British and Russian spies, and Putin's commie intentions. Hard to tell non-fiction from the fiction.

Link to Amazon.

New ACORN vid - Philly

Great job of exposing these corrupt ACORN liberals progressives communists for what they are - liars.

And by delaying, these guys exposed the MSM for the hacks that they are. The Philadelphia Enquirer wasn't too enquiring. The Washington Post? CNN? Hacks, one and all.

Some audio drops out. We know those blinded by their leftist ideology will make a case of this, but as an amateur videographer ourselves, it is clearly a hardware failure and not creative editing. Remember, when it comes to mis-quoting others or selective editing, liberals stand alone.

Hurry Up and Wait

Coming up on 80 days for our Commander in Chief to decide if he will stick to the strategy he announced six months ago, or try something different. The only option off the table is to accept the recommendations of the professional he appointed in March. Leadership can be lonely.

Today at FoxNews:

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Tuesday that the Obama administration cannot wait for the Afghan election to be resolved before making a decision on troop levels, appearing to be at odds with White House officials who have tied a decision on U.S. strategy to the resolution of the election and political stability.

Found at Doug Ross' site:

Found at Townhall:

The American Self Emulation - A Must Read

The stars aligned on Friday when Russian blogger Stanislav Mishin at Mat Rodina posted his latest article, The American Self Emulation, Truly a Sight to See.

A depressing article that we wished we wrote, it is rich with crystal-clear predictions based on a long history of suffering and death.

We'd rather post it in full, but here are some excerpts:

It can be safely said, that the last time a great nation destroyed itself through its own hubris and economic folly was the early Soviet Union (though in the end the late Soviet Union still died by the economic hand). Now we get the opportunity to watch the Americans do the exact same thing to themselves. The most amazing thing of course, is that they are just repeating the failed mistakes of the past. One would expect their fellow travelers in suicide, the British, to have spoken up by now, but unfortunately for the British, their education system is now even more of a joke than that of the Americans.

The unfortunate truth here is: the Republicans and Tories are the Menshaviks to the Democrat and Labour Bolsheviks. In other words, they are the slightly less radical fellow travellers who are to [sic] stupid to realize that once their usefulness is done, they will go the very camps they will help send the true opposition to. A more deserving lot was rarely born. Of course half of the useful idiots in the Bolshevik groupings will go to those very same camps.
---
But how will this work itself out? Very simple and the chain of events has been worked out often enough.

[Due to Cap & Trade] First, the serfs will start to scream at the cost of fueling up and the cost of all their goods. The government, ever anxious not to take responsibility, will single out the petroleum factories and oil companies for gauging the people. They will make demands for them to cut prices, which of course means working for a loss. When plants start to close down or move overseas, they will be called racketeers and saboteurs. Their facilities will be nationalized so that the government can show them how to do things properly. Shortages will follow as will show trials and that's as long as the USD holds up and foreign nations are still willing to sell oil and gasoline for other than gold, silver and other hard resources.

When food goes up, and it surely will, as the diesel the farmer uses goes up as well as his fertilizers, the government will scream that the farmers are hording, thus undermining the efforts of the enlightened. There will be confiscations of all feed crops while the farmers will get production quotas to meet or have their land nationalized again. Do not believe me? Look at the people running your governments and ask yourself: would they rather take some one's land or admit that they screwed up and ruined everything? After a point, only the corporate farms will remain, food by oligarch, just a like the factory farms. There will be plenty of dissidents to work them.

We think the only thing missing from this analysis is the fact that the US has elections every two years. Assuming the Americans wake up from, as Mishin calls it, the "non stop chant of "recovery" and hope-change-zombification", Obama and his fellow liberals progressives communists will fail to achieve their envy-driven goals. Assuming...

"That's a matter of ideology"

So spoken by Charles Krauthammer in his response to the state-controlled media's disgust with Fox News.

Blog Scan

Some posts that caught our eye this past week:

DougM at Knowledge is Power has a short write-up on his pic-o-chins.

New Zeal notes that the President of the Communist Party USA is proud of Obama's recent Nobel prize. Remember, it is about "sentiments", not results.

A friend of a friend's son was killed in Afghanistan last week. Chris Rudzinski is the son of Mike. Mike is a regular at Knowledge is Power. Our condolences. Picture is most recent of Chris and his son Ryan. Click here for post 1, and click here for post 2.

Glenn Beck has focused onto liberal progressive communist Anita Dunn like a laser. Two of our favorite bloggers have supplemented the information. Doug Ross, and Claire from Knowledge is Power.

Karl's Weekend Reading

Today's American Thinker has an incredible 3.5 page piece on the origins and aspects of Marxism. Kelly O'Connell writes, If Obama were a Marxist, what would he believe? Not a hit piece, as the title may suggest. And, differing from the 'He's Not a Socialist' articles of late, O'Connell actually starts with definitions of Marxism, Communism and Socialism, and a term new to us, Neo-Marxism. Refreshing, in a dark way.

Critics warn reborn Marxism is exceedingly dangerous since it is delivered below the radar, and represents a devious bloodless communist assault, a polar-opposite of the violently murderous Bolshevik and Mao uprisings.
---
Marxism is a violently revolutionary doctrine. Marx claimed capitalism's Armageddon was inevitable, but followers should bear arms to hasten change. Since the rich will never give up their capital voluntarily, it must be taken by force. After this, the arduous task of rebuilding society begins. Lenin's "New Man" is created by education. Those who don't adapt can be eliminated to purify the whole. But capitalism must be destroyed before healing can occur.

Charles Krauthammer writes about Obama's foreign policy mishaps - "amateurishness, wrapped in naivete, inside credulity" - at Townhall, Debacle in Moscow.

Having failed to get any movement from the Russians, Clinton herself moved -- to accommodate the Russian position! Sanctions? What sanctions? "We are not at that point yet," she averred. "That is not a conclusion we have reached ... it is our preference that Iran work with the international community."

But wait a minute. Didn't Obama say in July that Iran had to show compliance by the G-20 summit in late September? And when that deadline passed, did he not then warn Iran that it would face "sanctions that have bite" and that it would have to take "a new course or face consequences"?

Gone with the wind. It's the U.S. that's now retreating from its already flimsy position of just three weeks ago. We're not doing sanctions now, you see. We're back to engagement. Just as the Russians suggest.

Rush Limbaugh warned David Checketts that if he joined the other investors interested in buying the Rams, some of those soulless lefty liberals progressives communists would attempt to derail the acquisition. Checketts said he's stand by Limbaugh. The efforts to paint Limbaugh a racist were echoed by Washington Post's Michael Wilbon, CNN's Rich Sanchez and NFL's union leader DeMaurice Smith. Limbaugh responds in today's WSJ, The Race Card, Football and Me:

My racial views? You mean, my belief in a colorblind society where every individual is treated as a precious human being without regard to his race? Where football players should earn as much as they can and keep as much as they can, regardless of race? Those controversial racial views?
---
Having brought me into his group, Mr. Checketts now wanted a way out. He asked me to resign. I told him no way. I had done nothing wrong. I had not uttered the words these people were putting in my mouth. And I would not bow to their libels and pressure. He would have to drop me from the group. A few days later, he did.

James Taranto has a 4-page behind-the-scenes summary on the ACORN-Pimp story. How two 20-somethings not only brought down a nationwide corrupt organization, but who they went to for help and how they chose to release the story in 5 videos to expose and exacerbate the MSM bias. Taking On the 'Democrat-Media Complex'.

Central Planning - Farmer Style

From Ushanka.us fan, Chuck:

John was in the fertilized egg business. He had several hundred young layers (hens), called 'pullets,' and ten roosters to fertilize the eggs.

He kept records and any rooster not performing went into the soup pot and was replaced. This took a lot of time so he bought some tiny bells and attached them to his roosters. Each bell had a different tone so he could tell from a distance which rooster was performing. Now he could sit on the porch And fill out an efficiency report by just listening to the bells.

John's favourite rooster, old Butch, was a very fine specimen but this morning he noticed old Butch's bell hadn't rung at all! When he went to investigate, he saw the other roosters were busy chasing pullets, bells-a-ringing, but the pullets, hearing the roosters coming could run for cover. To John's amazement, old Butch had his bell in his beak so it couldn't ring. He'd sneak up on a pullet, do his job and walk on to the next one.

John was so proud of old Butch, he entered him in the Renfrew County Fair and he became an overnight sensation among the judges. The result was the judges not only awarded old Butch the No Bell Piece Prize but they also awarded him the Pulletsurprise as well. Clearly old Butch was a politician in the making. Who else but a politician could figure out how to win two of the most highly coveted awards on our planet by being the best at sneaking up on the populace and screwing them when they weren't paying attention.

Image from Contra Obama.

The Obama Zone

Nicely done:

Karl's Weekend Reading

The WSJ's Daniel Henninger reviews Michael Moore's latest movie, Capitalism: A Love Story, in his opinion article, Michael Moore's 'Socialist' President.

Of all the issues raised in the two-year campaign, Mr. Moore picks one, the famous charge that will not die: "Obama is a socialist."

Unlike the president, Mr. Moore doesn't duck. "The more they called Obama a socialist," he says, "the more he rose in the polls."
---
We live in an age of ideologically transgendered leaders.
---
The most immediate problem facing the U.S. is not that we have too much capitalism, but that we don't have enough of it.
---
The important difference between the "socialist" Barack Obama and the Republicans is he'd settle for 2% annual growth (gotta pay for the green dreams) and they might get 3%. In a world of China, India and Brazil, growing at rates between 5% and 9%, we need more. A future president who puts the U.S. back in the race with these fast runners could call himself a communist for all I care.

For those not born, too young or who weren't paying attention in the 60's, you no longer have to wonder what it looks like when a US president loses a war that could otherwise easily be won. Obama's behavior since Gen. McChrystal's request for more troops to fulfill the mission Obama hired him to do several months ago is disgraceful. It is, in our opinion, and we've never said this before... impeachable. McChrystal's critics say he is trying to dictate policy through his public statements. One such public statement was the fact that his commander in chief spoke with him exactly once in his first 70 days as the war commander. WSJ Opinion Page: Obama and the General:

Recall that in March Mr. Obama unveiled his "comprehensive new strategy . . . to reverse the Taliban's gains and promote a more capable and accountable Afghan government." The Commander in Chief pledged to properly resource this "war of necessity," which he also called during the 2008 campaign "the central front on terror." The President then sacked his war commander, who had been chosen by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, in favor of Gen. McChrystal, an expert in counterinsurgency.
---
Gen. McChrystal's liberal critics also have very short memories. In 2003, Army Chief of Staff General Eric Shinseki clashed with his superiors by saying many more troops were needed to pacify Iraq. He became a Democratic hero and is now Mr. Obama's Veterans Secretary. In this case, Gen. McChrystal has become a political target merely for taking at face value Mr. Obama's order to fight the war properly. His superiors, the Central Commander David Petraeus and Adm. Mullen, back him, but can hardly be said to question civil control of the military.

In an interview with Newsweek, Gen. McChrystal said he wouldn't resign if the President rejects his request for more troops. If he were really trying to dictate policy, he'd have given a different answer. But we don't think Gen. McChrystal should stay to implement a Biden war plan either. No commander in uniform should ask his soldiers to die for a strategy he doesn't think is winnable—or for a President who lets his advisers and party blame a general for their own lack of political nerve.

It is the General's public image that has gotten Obama off his **s on this issue. There are four scenarios: 1) Obama steps up and we win this war - real victory, 2) Obama is shamed into giving McChrystal some of the requested troops and resources and we continue to take the fight to the enemy, or 3) Obama surrenders but keeps troops there to die, or 4) Obama surrenders and pulls out of Afghanistan.

An AP story reported on Drudge today: US forces leave isolated Afghan base after attack.

KABUL (AP) - U.S. forces have withdrawn from an isolated base in eastern Afghanistan that insurgents attacked last week in one of the deadliest battles of the war for U.S. troops, the NATO-led coalition said Friday.
The pullout from the Kamdesh outpost near the Pakistani border is likely to embolden insurgent fighters in the region. The Taliban swiftly claimed "victory" for forcing the coalition to leave and said they had raised their flag above the town.

Obama's hesitation is sending a very clear signal. Even if he gives McChrystal the requested troops, McChrystal's job will be harder now than it would have been. In short, more great American soldiers will suffer.

Let 'em Wait

There are some who think the President shouldn't continue stalling and hesitating and deferring and floundering and straddling and vacillating and waffling and wavering and delaying and demurring and hedging to fill Gen. McChrystal's request for more troops to Afghanistan. But those people are obviously motivated by base partisanship and petty political gain.

Read the story behind the pic at Sigmund, Carl and Alfred.

U/T: Knowledge is Power

Obama is Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize

He is now in the company that he keeps...

U/T: Contra Obama

Sweetness & Light has a post on the award and recent recipients - here.

Mary Katherine Ham, owner of our Commie Obama Rally Cap, lists the six other nominees - here.

UPDATE 7.9: A reaction in Saturday's WSJ Opinion page, The Nobel Hope Prize:

George W. Bush may have retired from American public life, but the Europeans want the Yanks to know they never want to see his likes again. Counting Jimmy Carter in 2002 and Al Gore in 2007, this is the third Nobel Non-Bush Peace Prize.
---
Mr. Obama sees the U.S. differently, as weaker than it was and the rest of the planet as stronger, and so he calls for a humbler America, at best a first among equals, working primarily through the U.N. The world's challenges, he emphasized yesterday, "can't be met by any one leader or any one nation." What this suggests to us—and to the Norwegians—is the end of what has been called "American exceptionalism." This is the view that U.S. values have universal application and should be promoted without apology, and defended with military force when necessary.

Wednesday Afternoon Cigar

At the risk of federal charges against us for 'shilling' products on our blog by the FTC...

We can't get enough of these Rocky Patel Sun Grown cigars. Another burned as we discussed current events with Mikhail.

Media Hypocrisy?

You be the judge.

So Which Is It?

Rahm is losing control of his state controlled media.

Here are two conflicting headlines in the past two days:

CNN, John King, King: Obama Team to Hash Out Afghanistan Strategy.

AP, Anne Gearan, White House: Obama Will Make Up Own Mind on Afghan.

No rush, Dear Leader. We're still at about 50 US soldiers that have died since Gen. McChrystal's request for more troops. But who's counting?

U.S. Seeks to Restrict Gift Giving to Bloggers

The title of this post is the headline this morning on the front page of the WSJ.

The government wants to make it a little harder for bloggers to shill products online for fun and profit.

The guidelines reaffirm that making false and misleading claims about products in print, broadcast or on the Internet violate federal laws. They also clarify that advertisers and publishers can be held liable if a sponsored blogger makes false or misleading statements about a product.

Just to be clear:

Our Commie Obama Rally Cap will NOT keep you warm in the Siberian winter.

Our Commie Obama Rally Cap will NOT make your cigars taste better.

Our Commie Obama Rally Cap will NOT make your pet rabbit any cuter.

Our Commie Obama Rally Cap will NOT help you read the Black Book of Communism any faster.

Our Commie Obama Rally Cap will NOT bring the Olympics to Chicago.

And, our Commie Obama Rally Cap will NOT make your boobs any bigger.

However, YOUR Commie Obama hat will keep you smiling when you find yourself standing in line for an MRI in the near future.

Click here to visit CommieObama.com Today!

Afghanistan

Remember Afghanistan? A bit lower in priority than the Olympics.

Apparently our Dear Leader is waiting for the soldiers to step up and pay for their own health care before giving Gen. McChrystal the 40,000 additional troops requested. The reliable media, aka British media, has this to report:

Barack Obama furious at General Stanley McChrystal speech on Afghanistan
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According to sources close to the administration, Gen McChrystal shocked and angered presidential advisers with the bluntness of a speech given in London last week.

The next day he was summoned to an awkward 25-minute face-to-face meeting on board Air Force One on the tarmac in Copenhagen, where the president had arrived to tout Chicago's unsuccessful Olympic bid.

The General's bluntness?

He told the Institute of International and Strategic Studies that the formula, which is favoured by Vice-President Joe Biden, would lead to "Chaos-istan".

When asked whether he would support it, he said: "The short answer is: No."

He went on to say: "Waiting does not prolong a favorable outcome. This effort will not remain winnable indefinitely, and nor will public support."

The remarks have been seen by some in the Obama administration as a barbed reference to the slow pace of debate within the White House.

Barbed reference? Slow pace? Surely the General understands the Dear Commander in Chief has priorities.

UPDATED 5PM Found at Contra Obama:

UPDATED 8PM Gateway Pundit offers a not-so-old quote:

"His plan comes up short. There's not enough troops, not enough resources and not enough urgency. What President Bush and Senator McCain don't understand is that the central front in the War on Terror is not in Iraq and never was. The central front is in Afghanistan and Pakistan where the terrorists who hit us on 9-11 are still plotting attacks seven years later."

Senator Barack Obama, On the Bush war strategy, September 9, 2008

And from Jed Babbin at Human Events:

...it’s become clear that the White House will try to compromise McChrystal’s request for 40,000 more troops in favor of a smaller buildup or no buildup at all.

There is no course more dangerous to the lives of our troops -- and our future security -- than to do what President Obama clearly wants to do: apply Lyndon Johnson’s failed brand of indecisive warfare to Afghanistan.

Obama's Children

The Day Obama Care Died

U/T: NewZeal

Sunday Afternoon Cigar

Today's Rocky Patel Sun Grown was extra smooth and extra special. We celebrated the choice of Rio as the site of the 2016 Olympics.

You Are Here

Don Surber offers this graph to show us where we were told we'd be with, and without, the stimulus plan. Of course, we're at 9.8% un-employment today. Click here to read his post.

FoxNews has the real un-employment number of 17%.

If laid-off workers who have settled for part-time work or have given up looking for new jobs are included, the unemployment rate rose to 17 percent, the highest on records dating from 1994.

U/T: Instapundit

UPDATE 10.5 Another graph on the subject by Harvard Prof. Greg Mankiw.

When the Obama stimulus plan was proposed, the president's economic team put out a report in January 2009 that purported to show what would happen with and without the fiscal stimulus. The chart above is from page four that report, together with the actual results over the past couple months. As you can see, the actual outcome is significantly worse than the projection with the stimulus plan and is, in fact, roughly on track with what was projected without the stimulus.

What does this mean? One interpretation is that the fiscal stimulus has failed to achieve what Team Obama thought it would.

Missouri Gets It

Billboard seen in Blue Springs, MO.

U/T: Drudge

Updated 10.3 6:30PM This just in at YouTube:

Chicago Ties For The Bronze!

Racists at the Olympic Committee in Copenhagen handed our Dear Leader another defeat today by favoring Rio over Chicago.

Drudge sums it up nicely:

More images found at Michelle Malkin's site:

Our predictions:

Obama is angry. The last time he was angry, he cancelled the missile defense shield for our allies in the Czech Republic and Poland. We expect in the coming week a gloves-off approach to pushing socialized medicine through, and even less interest in our Afghanistan efforts.

Update 3:15pm: Found this on YouTube:



UPDATE 10.7

Karl's Weekend Reading

Will Israel attack Iran's nuclear facilities? If they do, what risks do they, and others face? If they will attack, when? These and other considerations are discussed in a great 4-page interview with Kenneth Levin at Frontpage Magazine, When Israel Strikes by Jamie Glazov.

Israel confronts the likelihood of being able to inflict at most only limited damage on Iran’s nuclear program, having to do so in the face of strong opposition from its main ally, almost certainly incurring fierce military and terror reprisals, and likewise having to deal with intense negative diplomatic fallout. Yet, with all the challenges and dangers, Israel does have options for an attack on Iran’s nuclear program and, given the certainty of the existential threat presented by a nuclear Iran, it will almost certainly act to set back the Iranian program whatever the risks and dangers.

Krauthammer chimes in on the recent comments by Sarkozy, and Obama's modus operandi in his Townhall article, Obama's French Lesson.

When France chides you for appeasement, you know you're scraping bottom.
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Confusing ends and means, the Obama administration strives mightily for shows of allied unity, good feeling and pious concern about Iran's nuclear program -- whereas the real objective is stopping that program. This feel-good posturing is worse than useless, because all the time spent achieving gestures is precious time granted Iran to finish its race to acquire the bomb.

But hey, this isn't criticism. Obama is in a long line of US presidents that have been called naive by their French equal...

A pattern is developing in the main stream fringe media. Some rather important stories of late haven't been given their due attention. James Taranto comments on this phenomenon regarding the NEA, ACORN and Van Jones non-stories in two of his recent Best of the Web posts.

Sept. 25:

This is the first time the paper has mentioned the [NEA] scandal, first reported 29 days earlier on Andrew Breitbart's Big Hollywood and 22 days earlier by Fox News Channel's Glenn Beck.

This follows the same pattern as the Times's coverage of the Van Jones and Acorn scandals, both of which the paper did not mention at all until the Obama administration had taken some remedial action, and then reported only in brief stories on inside pages (though in fairness, a full-length front-page story about Jones's hypovehiculation appeared on the second day).

Trying to find information about the Obama scandals in the Times can be a fun challenge, just like the "Where's Waldo?" books. But if your taste in puzzles runs more to crosswords or sudoku and you want the news delivered straight, there are plenty of better sources.

Sept. 28:

The Obama administration, as we noted Wednesday, was supposed to usher in a new era of transparency in government. Instead we find ourselves in a new era of opacity, not only in government but in the media.

Take a guess who Thomas Sowell is talking about in his Townhall article, The Brainy Bunch:

There is usually only a limited amount of damage that can be done by dull or stupid people. For creating a truly monumental disaster, you need people with high IQs.

Such people have been told all their lives how brilliant they are, until finally they feel forced to admit it, with all due modesty. But they not only tend to over-estimate their own brilliance, more fundamentally they tend to over-estimate how important brilliance itself is when dealing with real world problems.