Obama and the Ship of State (of the Union)

Obama signals State of Union a campaign rallying call  "President Barack Obama, offering a glimpse of next week's State of the Union address, made clear on Saturday that he will deliver a starkly partisan election-year call for a "return to American values" of economic fairness."
Not a thing majestic or presidential about this man and the office as he holds it. What glowing applause lines will he use to discuss this next subject?
Destroying America by Denying Access to Energy  "It is the crime of the century that America, home to some of the world’s greatest reserves of coal, natural gas and oil, is being deliberately destroyed by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of the Interior as they do everything in their power to restrict access and drive energy producers out of business."  Alan Caruba at Warning Signs


Wilson: ‘You lie’ has been vindicated  Joe, we need you now more than ever.


From American Thinker: Look at Me Pretending to Care, Mr. President  "In his apparently endless series of speeches, Obama sounds a lot like a paramedic who arrives at the scene of an disastrous accident, looks at the injured who are lying among the wreckage and bleeding to death, and then calls a press conference to spend two hours explaining how HE didn't cause the accident, it wasn't HIS fault that there are people bleeding and dying because of the accident, and that he and Michelle will now take a vacation to Vail or Martha's Vineyard or Costa del Sol or somewhere else to relax from this trying experience."

There seems to be a theme here...

Burkha Barbies on sale at the Riyadh Toys-al-Us

Toy-maker Mattel  

Surely there is something in between Burkhas and girls dressing like hookers.

http://www.theculture.net/barbie/

"Simon Tyszko’s Suicide Bomber Barbie conflates Western commodification with Palestinian desperation. Religious and capitalist dogmas struggle within Barbie’s idealised form, in an artwork of potent incongruity. It is a work whose political stridency is tempered by a well placed humour."  

Put that on your flower beds. Liberal artists can be so full of BS.

This post began as a fun, satirical entry, but when doing an internet search on the topic, one is led to this more serious point of view:

Why Palestinian children die  "Om Mohammed helps her twelve-year-old son Abu Ali with a toy suicide bomber belt he fashioned on his own. 

" "I hope to be a Martyr...I hope when I get 14 or 15 to explode myself." His mother is proud of her son: "God gave him to me to protect and defend our homeland." "

Much here.  
Then if you enjoy children, there is this adorable schoolroom video from Palestinian Media Watch:

Now that Suicide Bomber Barbie isn't so funny, is it?  Someone once said, "Lord, help me make my enemies look ridiculous", but it can get hard to do.  Though I did enjoy these balloons at a parade in Germany:

Santorum to appear on ABC's This Week

Beltway Confidential   "Santorum might not have been the network's first choice. The Drudge Report announced yesterday that "Newt cancel[led] ABC's THIS WEEK for Sunday," according to a "network source." ABC aired an interview Thursday with Gingrich's ex-wife, who made a series of allegations about Gingrich's affair and divorce. Gingrich called the ABC's handling of the interview, and decision to release it two days before the South Carolina primary, "despicable" during the Thursday debate."


As of Saturday afternoon, ABC has nothing to say about Newt cancelling out.

That Gingrich Ethics Probe in 1997

Washington Post  Here are are some of the key Post stories on the House ethics investigation of Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.). This list begins with this one:

Use of Tax-Exempt Groups Integral to Political Strategy   January 7, 1997 Over the years Gingrich and his top advisers have tried repeatedly to use tax-deductible donations to help promote their political goals, a review of his record shows. 

 The heart of the ethics committee case against House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) involves his use of charitable organizations to subsidize his partisan political activities -- a practice he suggests he could have avoided had he consulted a lawyer and not been so "naive" about the intricacies of the tax code. 

But over the years Gingrich and his top advisers have tried repeatedly to use tax-deductible donations to help promote their political goals, a review of his record shows. Indeed, the availability of groups that could take tax-deductible donations was integral to his ultimately successful plan to wrest control of the House from the Democrats. More...

I suspect Nancy Pelosi (D-CooCoosNest) never planned to release this information; that it was enough for her to put this out there for others to pursue and who but Republicans would do it?
Now the story will become a big deal in the press, so Newt needs to get this out there. Better now than this October if Gingrich is our candidate. TD

http://www.usnews.com/cartoons/newt-gingrich-cartoons

Numerous other links at this site, but these should give you the gist of it all.
Ethics Committee Drops Last of 84 Charges Against Gingrich
Gingrich Pays Off Ethics Penalty of $300,000
House Reprimands, Penalizes Speaker
This is the final post at this page: 

IRS Clears Foundation That Aided Gingrich Course  "In its ruling, the IRS said the content of Gingrich's course "was educational and never favored or opposed a candidate for public office."" "It said the foundation "did not intervene on behalf of candidates of the Republican Party merely by promoting" themes in the course." "

NPR weighs in.  You didn't think they would? Then you didn't expect MSNBC to either, did you?

The Hill quotes Pelosi: “One of these days we’ll have a conversation about Newt Gingrich,” Pelosi said in an interview with Talking Points Memo. 
“I know a lot about him. I served on the investigative committee that investigated him, four of us locked in a room in an undisclosed location for a year. A thousand pages of his stuff," she said. 

The Hill also quoted John Sununu who said:

"What do you think you're going to find in his [Romney's] taxes? The important thing is to find things that could be an October surprise problem," Sununu said. "Newt Gingrich has a serious problem with the package that the Ethics committee had when they fined him $300,000."

"Ring(sic) out the laundry. That's more important than anything else. Nancy Pelosi was on that group. If Nancy Pelosi knows, President Obama knows. We ought to be able to know now," he added. 

We do want honorable people running this nation, but if there is only these choices I will take unethical over traitorous. 
                                                                                                                         Obama and Pelosi caricatures by donkeyhotey

It’s the economy, stupid/ Obama’s quest for a second term doomed by his own policies

Washington Times editorial  "Mr. Obama is hoping the killing of Osama bin Laden will silence his critics, but Mr. Bush had no luck resting on the laurels of his successful war against Saddam Hussein. The same Democrats who accused President George W. Bush of unfairly exploiting the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks for political gain will draw the bin Laden takedown like a gun to promote Mr. Obama. As former United Nations Ambassador John Bolton said, Mr. Obama’s taking personal credit for the bin Laden mission would be like Richard Nixon hyping his intimate role in the 1969 Moon landing “because it happened to occur during his presidency.” These were long-prepared-for events that would have been possible regardless of who was in office.

"The bin Laden killing is a slim reed on which to base an argument for another four years. Mr. Obamacan hardly promise he will do it again."

Perhaps not, but being a pessimist, I tend to see the glass as only half full. Richard Nixon was not the darling of check-stand magazines and the TV talk shows, nor was he by any stretch of the imagination thought of as a celebrity as Obama is. 
We have seen how little Bill Clinton's negatives affected his image in the media and with his Democrat  supporters. TD 

Krauthammer: The GOP’s suicide march

Charles Krauthammer  "If you can’t run on stewardship or policy, how do you win reelection?

Create an entirely new narrative. Push an entirely new issue. Change the subject from your record and your ideology, from massive debt and overreaching government, to fairness and inequality. Make the election a referendum on which party really cares about you, which party will stand up to the greedy rich who have pillaged the 99 percent and robbed the middle class of hope."

http://townhall.com/political-cartoons/2012/01/20/95625

....

This is no mainstream media conspiracy. This is the GOP maneuvering itself right onto Obama terrain.

The president is a very smart man. But if he wins in November, that won’t be the reason. It will be luck. He could not have chosen more self-destructive adversaries.

Obama’s Racial Politics

Victor Davis Hanson  "When [Obama] is ahead in the polls, has won an election, and is not campaigning, then he emphasizes the unity of the country. But when he is running for president, or campaigning for others, or sinking in the polls, he and his closest associates predictably revert to charges of racial bigotry, albeit usually coded and subtle. America is redeemed when it champions the Obamas, but retrograde when it does not.
....

http://conservativedailynews.com/2011/10/race-cards-3/

"This is going to be an ugly campaign. The Obama team will revert to race unceasingly, in cry-wolf fashion, and thus cheapen the currency with every charge. In turn, the more we will hear allegations of “racism,” the less people will pay attention to them. And so all the more frequently will such discounted slurs have to be repeated — sort of like pushing about wheelbarrows of Depression-era inflated German marks to purchase ever fewer commodities.
"There will be many legacies of Barack Obama. Racial divisiveness is proving the most disturbing."

Canadian oil going to China isn't as easy as it might seem

Bloomberg:  Obama’s Keystone Denial Prompts Canada to Look to China Sales  Via Drudge.  "Prime Minister Stephen Harper, in a telephone call yesterday, told Obama “Canada will continue to work to diversify its energy exports,” according to details provided by Harper’s office. Canadian Natural Resource Minister Joe Oliver said relying less on the U.S. would help strengthen the country’s “financial security.”

"The “decision by the Obama administration underlines the importance of diversifying and expanding our markets, including the growing Asian market,” Oliver told reporters in Ottawa." " Emphasis added.

What about that Canadian pipeline to the west coast if they sell the oil to China?  "The plan is to pump over half a million barrels a day of unrefined bitumen from the Alberta tar sands over the Rockies, through the heartland of B.C. - crossing a thousand rivers and streams in the process - to the Port of Kitimat in the Great Bear Rainforest.....

"Dubbed the Northern Gateway Pipeline, the project is of concern for three main reasons: 1. It would facilitate the expansion of the tar sands, hooking emerging Asian economies on the world's dirtiest oil; 2. the risk of leaks from the pipeline itself; 3. the danger of introducing oil supertankers for the first time to this part of the B.C. coast."  The Enbridge site.


Rick Moran in American Thinker:  Rejecting Keystone is 'insanity': Samuelson

The big winners are the Chinese. They must be celebrating their good fortune and wondering how the crazy Americans could repudiate such a huge supply of nearby energy. There's no guarantee that tar-sands oil will go to China; pipelines to the Pacific would have to be built. But it creates the possibility when the oil's natural market is the United States.

"This is the Obama we have come to know and love; piously proclaiming his priority being job creation while taking actions that directly contradict that priority. He says he wants business to thrive -- and then throws up roadblock regulations to prevent it. He says he wants the economy to grow -- and then advocates policies that stifle growth.

"And then he blames his failures on others."

Newsbusters  "ABC trotted out the "best of" Newt Gingrich slams on Thursday, finally revealing the results of an exhaustive Brian Ross interview with Marianne Gingrich, the former Speaker's ex-wife. Ross boasted that his scoop could be seen as a "January surprise" to harm Gingrich. Recycling old attacks, Ross eagerly prompted the ex-Mrs. Gingrich: "You know his secrets. You know his skeletons." "

Obama, the Keystone Kop in Kartoons

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

Newt vs. the Media

Above: Let's relive the moment.  The Hill has this.  NY Times: "ABC Worked for Months to Get Marianne Gingrich Interview."


 Gingrich Daughters: 'Open Marriage' Charge 'Simply Not True'


Gingrich daughter's letter to ABC  They really do not dispel the charges by Newt's ex-wife. Let's move on now, shall we?


Why Google should not be trusted by conservatives. I did a search with these words: "press defends bill clintons bimbo affairs" and most that came up were posts on Herman Cain.  Try it and see.


Sarah Palin: Media overplayed their hand with Gingrich "Sarah Palin is spot on, though, when she says that conservatives and independents are sick of the politics of personal destruction because it’s played so selectively. As Ed pointed out this morning, it’s maddening that the media is all too willing to revive talk of Gingrich’s past when they ignored John Edwards’ affair, which was going onas he ran for president. "


Neal Boortz: South Carolina .. now it's the voter's turn  "When the decision to be made is between capitalism and economic fascism, I’m not going to worry whether or not the president once had a perfectly legal investment account in the Cayman Islands."


Washington Times : Why use ‘despicable,’ clueless left-wing media to moderate GOP debates?  "For these left-wing networks, the last thing they want to deal with in this election is ideas, truth and fairness. It is their undying goal to make it all about style and personality, which is all President Obama has going for him. But if the election becomes about ideas and truth and fairness, the GOPwins in a landslide and the left-wing media cannot abide that."

Obama and Congress

http://terrellaftermath.com/

Obama’s EPA Opens Another Front in the War on Coal  "Indeed, while the past few months have seen tiny signs our economy might be growing despite Obama’s anti-job policies, the White House is ramping up its effort to make sure our labor force is expunged of every last coal job it can find. It’d be humorous if it wasn’t so real."
More on coal regulations here.

What's good for the goose, etc. dept:  Congress plots new moves to sidestep Obama on Keystone pipeline  

" “I’ll just say this: this is not the end of the fight,” Boehner said. “Republicans in Congress will continue to push this because it’s good for our country and it’s good for our economy and it’s good for the American people, especially for those who are looking for work.
" "President Obama is destroying tens of thousands of American jobs and shipping American energy security to the Chinese," Boehner said. "There’s no other way to put it: the president is selling out American jobs for politics." "

Harry Reid; donkeyhotey

2012: Anyone but … Harry!  "On January 24, 2012, while we focus on Barack Obama’s State of the Union Address, Harry Reid’s Senate will be celebrating their 1000th consecutive day without passing a budget. Not only is this an unprecedented dereliction of duty, it may actually be a violation of law. However, given the president’s cavalier attitude towards the legality of recess appointments and his attorney general’s reluctance to protect voters in Philadelphia from Black Panther harassment, don’t look for the feds to come down too hard on Harry and the boys."....

"I am unrepentant in my desire to make Barack Obama a one-term president but unless we devote as much time, energy, and treasure to winning the Senate as we do to regaining the White House, Republicans, conservatives, indeed anyone disaffected by the Obama presidency, will be in for a bitter disappointment. One that may last much longer than 1000 days." (emphasis added)

Fred Grandy has been a successful actor on television (The Love Boat), a four term congressman from Iowa, the CEO of Goodwill Industries, International, and until recently the host of The Grandy Group, a weekday morning news/talk radio program on WMAL in Washington, DC.