(Updated) The response to Pres. Obama’s debt speech

Rep. Paul Ryan Reacts to Obama’s Demagoguery "The Irishman’s ire. “We need leadership.”" (Video)

Dissecting the liberal assault on the House Republican budget.."One point of a document as subversive as Paul Ryan's 2012 budget is to provoke debate, and has it ever. But amid the thoughtful musings about starving orphans and grandma in a snowbank, could his critics at least get their facts right?
"Let's unpack the distortions."

Hot Air   "The bigger picture here is that Obama would not have even formed the Bowles-Simpson commission, had it not been for the right and the Tea Party raising the political temperature on the debt. Obama did so merely to try to punt the issue past the 2010 midterms. However, creating the commission validated the debt as a serious issue in the establishment’s echo chamber. And Obama’s silence on the issue created a vacuum that was filled by the GOP and the Tea Party, first in the results of the midterms and now in Rep. Paul Ryan’s long-term budget plan."

Tobytoons Via Big Government.com

Obama Speech Today

Neal Boortz  "Remember; this is all about the 2012 elections. The Democrats want the house back. They want their chance to work even harder to increase dependency on government. They took huge steps with ObamaCare .. but it wasn’t enough. The disappearance of self-reliance and an increase of government dependency mean more power for Democrats. That’s the game plan, pure and simple."

http://townhall.com/political-cartoons/chipbok

See here for post-speech comments

How do conservatives have a chance when every voice they hear on the air is against them?

CBS Validates and Rationalizes Obama's Strategy to Defeat 'Controversial' Ryan Plan By: Brent Baker  "Indeed, Reid contended the White House saw “an irresistible opportunity to portray Republicans as callous and extreme.”"

MSNBC's Matthews Rants: Paul Ryan's Plan Will 'Kill Half the People Who Watch This Show' "Matthews, along with liberal guests Howard Fineman and Richard Wolffe of Newsweek, dismissed Ryan's reform goals. Fineman hyperventilated, "The good thing for the President is the Paul Ryan Medicare plan, because it makes people angry. And, first of all, it scares seniors." Matthews lobbied, "Yes. Well, it should."" Emphasis in the original.

Meet the Press Panel: Obama 'Above the Fray' in Budget Fight  ""I think the President appears to be a mediator, and I think he, he rightfully gets some credit for averting the show – shutdown." CNBC Mad Money host Jim Cramer declared: "I think the President came out very much above this week, above the fray." New York Times White House correspondent Helene Cooper proclaimed: "[Obama] was trying very much to appear above the – above the fray....definitely did the political calculus that he has to appear above it all, presidential.""  The liberal equation: voting present=above the fray. Isn't that also our strategy for Libya as well?

Letting Obama Claim Credit On the Budget  "Is President Obama really the Deficit-Cutter-in-Chief? After racking up massive deficits through his various Stimulus programs and facing continued losses from Obamacare, the White House is now trying to portray Obama as taking a leading role in solving the problem."
Well, Ronald Reagan once said there was no limit to what you can get done when you don't care who gets the credit.

Behar Claims Poor Whites [and] Blacks Are ‘Oppressed by the Right Wing’   "These were rich Southern men who not only oppressed black people, they oppressed poor white people who made up most of the population. And so the idea that we’re empowering the people represented today want to go back to this time where they were more oppressed is a perfect representation of the Republican Party agenda today."

http://terrellaftermath.com/

Bill Maher Tells Rachel Maddow He Hates Republicans as Much as She Does   "Bill Maher Tuesday made a statement on MSNBC that would be truly embarrassing for the so-called news network if any of its executives cared at all about being an impartial disseminator of information."

We’re There to Help/ And they’re there to kill us.



Islamic Rage Boy, professional protester


 Andrew C. McCarthy  "You’ve got to hand it to Allah: All that smiting and instilling terror works. General Petraeus is so terrified of what rampaging Afghan Muslims might do next that he could not bring himself to utter a word of criticism for their barbarity. Instead, as he offered condolences to the victims’ families, his wrath was targeted at Terry Jones.

"Jones is the pastor of an obscure Christian congregation in Gainseville, Fla., where he ceremonially burned a Koran last month. Mind you, it is standard practice to torch Bibles in Muslim countries, where apostasy from Islam is a capital offense and where proselytism of any creed other than Islam is forbidden. About that noxious practice, General Petreaus hasn’t made a peep — which goes a long way toward explaining why our military itself actually confiscated and destroyed Bibles in Afghanistan last year."

‘Coming Apart at the Seams’; America’s deepening class divide

Rich Lowry; National Review Online:  “The American Constitution is remarkable for its simplicity; but it can only suffice a people habitually correct in their actions, and would be utterly inadequate to the wants of a different nation. Change the domestic habits of the Americans, their religious devotion, and their high respect for morality, and it will not be necessary to change a single letter of the Constitution in order to vary the whole form of their government.” Quoting 19th-century observer of American life Francis Grund

Terrell's" 'O'mobile" pretty well nails it.

terrellaftermath is laughing WITH Mr. Obama, of course; not AT him

150 years ago today: Bombardment of Fort Sumter begins the American Civil War

Civil War at 150: How a Bloodless Battle Started It All  "...The Confederate government, knowing that its claims to sovereignty depended on no "foreign" power occupying any of its coastal forts, decided to act before the relief expedition arrived.

sonofthesouth

"Confederate leaders, therefore, ordered Charleston's chief military officer, Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard, a flamboyant Louisiana Creole, to demand Fort Sumter's surrender. Should that be refused, he was to open fire on the stronghold.

"James Chesnut, Jr., the former U.S. senator­ who'd pledged to drink the blood of casualties, was one of two emissaries who delivered the ultimatum to an ashen-faced Anderson at 3:25 a.m. on April 12, 1861—150 years ago Tuesday."

Sumter's measurements in 1861

Post-battle Fort Sumter photos


Sumter today Fox News

 


The impact of our War Between the States on other lands:

Australia and New Zealanders (Anzacs) in the war. "This website is a dedication to the Australian Union and Confederate Veterans of the American Civil War of 1861 – 1865."

The Irish and Meagher of the Irish Brigade (pronounced "Marr")
The Garibaldi Guards  "Three companies consisted of Germans, three of Hungarians, one of Swiss, one of Italians, one of Frenchmen, and one of Spaniards and Portuguese." Called "Lincoln's Foreign Legion". 
German-Americans in the Civil War  "...the Germans and their Dutch cousins settled and left their mark upon those regions, and came forth to serve their adopted land when hostilities erupted between North and South in 1861."

Civil War began 150 years ago today  "Though no lives were lost during this opening engagement, it would end four years later with a Citizenry liberated and an overdue 14th Amendment to our Constitution, the eventual evils of Reconstruction resulting from the assassination of thoughtful leader, and the rise of a powerful party in the South that would embody the preservation of segregation and manipulation of race politics for more than a century." (Emphasis added) That party would be the Democrat Party for those of you who know nothing about the history of this nation.

Today's Professional victims will try to connect Federalists of today with slave owners of the 1800's. Along with our honoring American history for the next four years, expect the likes of "The Reverends" Jackson, Sharpton, Wright and most leftist activists to pile on America in the months to come.

Nigeria: 1,000 Muslims attack Christian village: "Almost every home in the village was destroyed, and some elderly people were reported to have been burnt to death in their homes"

Jihad Watch  "The group is part of a larger band of 2,000 militants that has been attacking non-Muslim villages...."
Israel is surrounded by people like this, yet in the topsy-turvy world of [limosine, Hollywood, Washington] liberals, they are the oppressors and the attackers are their victims who must be shown deference and sympathy. Meanwhile on future "Law and Order" episodes, these Muslim victims will be attacked by violent, gun-toting Christians.

Obama's debt speech to reignite many budget battles

The Oval  (USA Today) " In his debt speech Wednesday, Obama is likely to once again call for an end to the Bush tax cuts for wealthy Americans, Plouffe said.
"That sets up a rerun of the debate with Republicans who say no one's taxes should be raised in uncertain economic times."

http://townhall.com/political-cartoons/michaelramirez

House GOP targets Obama regulatory policies  "And while the bills have little if any hope of becoming law, the lawmakers say they will continue to push back at what they say is an administration bent on overextending government’s power.
"“Under Republican leadership, the House is focusing on ending anti-growth government regulations,” said House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, Virginia Republican. “We will continue to pursue policies that encourage businessmen and women to innovate and expand to ensure their long-term success.”"

Assessing President Obama

Victor Davis Hanson: Did We Give Up on Libya? Don’t bet on Qaddafi stepping down. Or on America stepping up.  "...But if Qaddafi or his family survives in power after the United States simply got tired and quit, we will also be able to say that this sort of defeat is something quite new in American history."  But long overdue in the view of Obama's mentors.

Obama's conflict avoidance  "A discomfort with conflict may also be a reason Obama avoided faculty lunches at the University of Chicago Law School. I had a boss who didn't like conflict and he would get visibly uncomfortable at some of the lunch meetings at the Chicago Bar Association at which the experts would go hammer and tongs over their opinions about this issue and that pending case. I suspect the table talk at the faculty lunches takes much the same tone. "

Obama’s New Energy Policy: A Lesson in Stealth Socialism "Mr. Obama, as I’ve previously argued in these pages, is provably a socialist, but a particularly American kind: a stealth socialist. Stealth socialism is a matter of tactics. Stealth socialists, recognizing that an open Marxist agenda will never fly with the American people, adopt a patient, long-term strategy whereby they attain the same goals but through misrepresentation, misdirection, lies, and bait-and-switch. These are, coincidentally, the tactics of the con man. Having been a community organizer, Mr. Obama is particularly adept at these tactics and with the use of the primary vehicle for their implementation: rhetoric."
 Ideal tactics for a man who avoids conflict. Don't you call that "passive-agressive"?

The President Is Missing  "What have they done with President Obama? What happened to the inspirational figure his supporters thought they elected? Who is this bland, timid guy who doesn’t seem to stand for anything in particular? " By Paul Krugman.

http://townhall.com/political-cartoons/jerryholbert

Jihadi jet-setters evade the TSA.

National Review  "Under the “Screening of Passengers by Observation Techniques” plan, TSA’s designated behavior-detection officers are supposed to closely watch travelers who pose potential security risks and who exhibit any number of appearances or activities “indicative of stress, fear, or deception.” But long-entrenched, bipartisan American political correctness hampers the kind of effective, efficient national-security profiling that Israeli airline-security officials practice so well."   Michelle Malkin

whatreallyhappened.com

The Democrat Reaction to the GOP Budget

Neal Boortz "Now before we begin this discussion … let's point out that there is only one political party in Washington pushing for any spending cuts. Only one. And that is the Republican party. Obummer's budget even calls for spending increases. The only reason the Democrats are even willing to address spending cuts is because the Republicans – and the tea parties – have dragged them kicking and screaming to the issue. In Washington DC money equals power. When you take money away from politicians you take away their power. There are some politicians in Washington who will jeopardize the future of this country in order to maintain their power … and there are some who actually take their responsibilities to our children and future generations seriously. You figure out which is which."


http://townhall.com/political-cartoons/michaelramirez

   PJ Tatler   "Tax the relatively few rich; you still can’t tax them more than 100 percent, and if spending grows faster than GDP, it will eventually overwhelm whatever taxes you can levy. Tax the many poor, and you get the same result — except you’ll be voted out of office first, because there are a lot more poor people than rich people. And it still won’t matter, because you cannot make revenues grow faster than the economy forever."