Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Obama's Keystone pipeline blunder

Michael Barone  "How misguided was Barack Obama’s decision to refuse to approve the Keystone XL pipeline?
Political Cartoons by Henry Payne


"How misguided was Custer’s decision to ride into Little Big Horn?"
....
"Perhaps only someone who has chosen to live in university neighborhoods all his adult life could have so overestimated the appeal of environmental restriction groups' arguments and failed to understand the common sense of the great majority of ordinary Americans."

An Indignant George Stephanopoulos Huffs to Santorum: 'How Can You Say' Obama Is Weak?



Newsbusters  "Santorum responded by insisting that, in the example of killing Osama bin Laden, Obama simply followed a course set by George W. Bush. Stephanopoulos sputtered, "How can you say he sided with our enemies on almost every foreign conflict?" "




The Graduate: Why Should Everyone Else Pay for Other People’s Dumb (and Hedonistic) Career Choices

Barry Rubin  "Here’s the secret: He cannot make a living because the market for people with degrees in linguistics and in Oriental philosophy is limited. He should have known that. Someone should have told him that. The calculation of practicality should have been made. It wasn’t.

"As I said, this individual does not want handouts and he has not taken student loans. Many others have. A large proportion of the Occupy Wall Street-and-other-places movement seems to consist of those who have made similar “career” (or non-career) decisions but want others to pay for their pastimes and mistakes.
"There are at least three important lessons here of the greatest importance."...More...

What is it that they want? OWS protestors disrupt Romney rally

American Thinker  "What is it that they want? Do they want Romney impoverished - taking away his wealth and punishing him for his success? Why violate his free speech rights? What does that prove?
http://townhall.com/political-cartoons/2011/12/30/95081

"It is becoming clear that as the OWS movement goes along, they don't have a clue about how to achieve any of their goals except to take from those who have more and give to those who have less. The concept of creating more for everyone escapes them as does a basic sense of propriety and good manners."

Ten most ridiculous lawsuits of 2011

marx-brothers.org
Hot Air  "While these lawsuits vary from the outrageous to the humorous, abusive litigation is hardly a laughing matter. ILR’s annual poll of ridiculous lawsuits helps to remind us that abusive lawsuits affect real people and real businesses, and can have harmful results to lives, jobs, and even our economic growth."
Source.

Brian Walsh on One Nation Under Arrest on Stossel  "Brian Walsh discusses overcriminalization and the Heritage book, One Nation Under Arrest; and John Stossel interviews some of the victims of overcriminalization from the book."

Hat tip to Overcriminalized.com

Dick Morris: Obama is running from his 
record, but he can’t hide it

The Hill  "In his “60 Minutes” interview, President Obama offered a keen insight into his 2012 reelection strategy. It takes some decoding, but his underlying strategic goals emerge. He said:
“The question next year is going to be — and then this is how a democracy is supposed to work — do they see a more compelling vision coming out from the other side? Do they think that cutting taxes further, including on the wealthy, cutting taxes on corporations, of gutting regulations — do we think that that is going to be somehow more successful? And if the American people think that that’s a recipe for success and a majority are persuaded by that, then I’m going to lose.”
"Three relevant points emerge from an analysis of his comment:"....
Morris, a former adviser to Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and President Clinton, is the author of Outrage, Fleeced, 
Catastrophe and 2010: Take Back America — A Battle Plan.
http://conservativedailynews.com/2012/01/excessive-self-regard/


George Will: Obama needn’t lose for GOP to win  "Imagine what a horror 2011 was for progressives as Americans began to comprehend their stunning abundance of fossil fuels — beyond their two centuries’ supply of coal. Progressives responded with attempts to impede development of the vast proven reserves of natural gas and oil here and in Canada. They bent the willowy Obama to delay approval of the Keystone XL pipeline to carry oil from Canadian tar sands; they raised environmental objections to new techniques for extracting gas and “tight” oil from shale formations."

Monday, January 2, 2012

Looking ahead to Iowa

Jennifer Rubin says: Romney to win, Gingrich to the discard pile  "In the last week, Iowa Republicans  have gotten serious about their presidential choices, separating the wheat from the chaff. Unfortunately for Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), Newt Gingrich, and Texas Gov. Rick Perry, Iowa voters on Tuesday night will relegate them to the discard pile. Expect Bachmann to finish last, Gingrich to take fifth and Perry to end in fourth, well behind the trio of frontrunners."
Rick Moran: Romney takes slim lead into final day of Iowa campaigning  "It's a slim lead, and if things shake out the way the most of the polls are saying, Romney will eke out a narrow win with Paul and Santorum very close behind."
Beltway Confidential: Santorum's record won't withstand post-IA scrutiny "However, too many times, especially during the Bush era, he wholeheartedly embraced big government conservatism. Among other things, he sponsored an amendment to raise the minimum wage; backed steel tariffs; sponsored a bill for milk subsidies; took earmarks; voted for the Medicare prescription drug legislation and the pork-laden 2005 highway bill; and infamously endorsed liberal Arlen Specter over conservative Pat Toomey in the hotly contested 2004 Senate primary. He has defenses of his positions, but they won't hold up to the scrutiny he'll receive if he wins Iowa."
NRO: Mitt Momentum; His electability appeals to Iowans.  "Romney in the lead at 24 percent. Even though both Ron Paul and Rick Santorum are close in the same poll, it’s conceivable that Romney could win Iowa, despite the fact that he has virtually ignored the state for the bulk of the campaign and has done little retail campaigning there, although he has quietly created a state-wide organization."

This video is from  WAKE UP BLACK AMERICA

Updated: Stay classy, Mr. Colmes.

Alan Colmes Mocks Santorum For Bringing Dead Son Home   "Once they get a hold of the crazy things he's said and done like taking his two-hour old baby who died right after childbirth home and played with it for a couple of hours so his other children would know that the child was real," Democratic commentator Alan Colmes said on FOX News today.
"That's a cheap shot, Alan. To say it's crazy, something that's that personal and hurtful as losing a child and to mock it like that is beyond the pale and beneath you," Colmes' conservative opponent Rich Lowry said after the personal attack.
“I even think some of the dastardly characters we have in the main stream media are not going to go as low as you just have Alan,” National Review editor Rick Lowry said later in the conversation.


Rick Santorum reflects on his son's death


UPDATE by Rick Moran:  Alan Colmes is a heartless monster  "Colmes apparently called the Santorums and apologized for his comment - an apology that was graciously accepted (although I don't think too many of us would have been so forgiving). But what kind of person makes a statement like that in the first place?"

Iran and the Straits of Hormuz

blocking hormuz

"Despite repeated warnings from the Pentagon, Barack Obama rejected three plans to recover or destroy the US drone that was intercepted over Iranian territory.Con Underground was the first to report on this latest national security disaster."

The US Just Stands and Watches

Süddeutsche Zeitung, Germany  "The United States supported none of the revolutionaries in the Arab Spring uprisings and today is being fearlessly challenged by them. America has lost its influence in the region because of Obama's policy of wanting both change and the status quo."
....
"A key feature of the Arab Spring is that it is playing out without assistance from the United States and that the defining, decades-old conflict between Israel and its neighbors only plays a subordinate role. This again indicates a massive loss of American influence and importance in the region — both as a classic military and economic power and as a role model for those who love freedom."  Via Watching America


Obama Enters the Twilight Zone

Peter Wehner  in Commentary Magazine   "Moreover, Obama, during the first two years of his presidency, was enormously successful in getting his agenda enacted into law. He got almost everything he wanted, which some of us believe is precisely the problem. And to the extent that we’re facing a “do-nothing” Congress today, the responsibility lies with the Democratically-controlled Senate, not the GOP House. These days the Senate (which has not passed a budget in more than 900 days) is the place legislation goes to die."
....
"We are now reaching the point in which the president is running a truly post-modern campaign, in which there is no objective truth but simply narrative. Obama’s campaign isn’t simply distorting the facts; it is inverting them. This kind of thing isn’t unusual to find in the academy. But to see a president and his campaign so thoroughly deconstruct truth in order to maintain power is quite rare. The sheer audacity of Obama’s cynicism is a wonder of the modern world."

The spectre of 1932: How a loss of faith in politicians and democracy could make 2012 the most frightening year in living memory

Barack Obama cuts a similarly
impotent, indecisive and
isolationist  figure.
UK Daily Mail And while Left-wing intellectuals were drawn to the supposedly utopian promise of the Soviet leader Josef Stalin — who turned out to be a brutal tyrant — thousands of ordinary people flocked to the banners of the British Union of Fascists, founded in the autumn of 1932 by the former Labour maverick Sir Oswald Mosley."....


"Today, American voters looking for alternatives are confronted only with a bizarre gaggle of has-beens, inadequates and weirdos, otherwise known as the Republican presidential field. And to anybody who cares about the future of the Western world, the prospect of President Ron Paul or President Newt Gingrich is frankly spine-chilling."....
"The lesson of history is that tough times often reward the desperate and dangerous, from angry demagogues to anarchists and nationalists, from seething mobs to expansionist empires.
Our world is poised on the edge of perhaps the most important 12 months for more than half a century. If our leaders provide the right leadership, then we may, perhaps, muddle through towards slow growth and gradual recovery."

American Thinker: America's Greatness Will Defeat Obama  "The only thing standing between the United States and continued exceptionalism is the dreary delirium of Barack Obama, whose dismal socialist policies have been a spectacular disaster for the nation."....
"Four more years of this President will leave the nation miserable and divided, with high unemployment, a moribund economy and a bloated bureaucracy.  With another term, Barack Obama will continue his transformation of America into a land of perpetual trillion dollar deficits and a national debt measured in the tens of trillions of dollars.  We will be weak militarily, morally and economically.  Lesser nations, like those discussed here, would not survive 8 years of hope and change, but we will not be defeated.   
"The only thing standing between America and continued preeminence is Barack Obama.  The sooner we realize that, and rid the nation of the abomination of his presidency, the better."  "
Somehow I feel more pessimistic than this. I see schools promoting Obama and socialism, history books convicting this nation and its past, TV programs almost universally ridiculing Republicans and conservatives (There are some differences, you know). Add to that the childish adoration of a celebrity president who is inept and naive as a statesman and is an economic ignoramus; a socialistic demagogue who understands little about the virtues of capitalism.
Obama and his policies may be supported by a minority, but this minority is that segment of society which is disposed to burn cities and shut down all rebutting of their ideas. These are the people who disrupt all conservative speakers on campus and ridicule any non-liberal ideas; they are in our faces at every switch of TV channels.
Center-right electorate? I doubt it, but truly hope so, but cannot see how that can still be. TD
US Communist Leader: ‘Progressive Change Is Closer than We Think’  "Tyner draws clear right/left battle lines and the communist’s commitment to Party ‘friend’ President Barack Obama and to the Democratic Party cause"....
"Tyner then goes onto outline the Communist Party’s commitment to Democratic Party victories over several decades...."