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?
Tuesday, October 06, 2009
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.
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!
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!
Monday, October 05, 2009
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:
The General's bluntness?
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:
And from Jed Babbin at Human Events:
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.
---
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.
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
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.
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.
Sunday, October 04, 2009
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.
Friday, October 02, 2009
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%.
U/T: Instapundit
UPDATE 10.5 Another graph on the subject by Harvard Prof. Greg Mankiw.
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.
What does this mean? One interpretation is that the fiscal stimulus has failed to achieve what Team Obama thought it would.
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
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.
Krauthammer chimes in on the recent comments by Sarkozy, and Obama's modus operandi in his Townhall article, Obama's French Lesson.
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 themain 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:
Sept. 28:
Take a guess who Thomas Sowell is talking about in his Townhall article, The Brainy Bunch:
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.
---
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.
---
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
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.
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.
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.