The Law for Thee, but not for Me

White House Says Obama Fundraising Appeal Not Illegal

"President Obama appealed to supporters and donors in a videotaped message emailed by his campaign team to millions of people Monday -- a message filmed with the president inside the White House by a crew from the Democratic National Committee, according to a White House official who responded to RCP questions about the solicitation.

In the video, Obama tells supporters they can join him and Vice President Joe Biden for dinner if they win a contest offered by his campaign. "We're both really looking forward to it. Hope to see you soon," Obama says on camera. The script was written by the DNC.

The president's video is accompanied by a donor solicitation form in which supporters of the administration can check boxes donating from $5 to $700 to the Obama-Biden re-election effort."

"The Obama campaign video is a small part of an aggressive fundraising effort being undertaken by Team Obama. It also comes on the heels of criticism that the president, who campaigned to change the way Washington works, was instead participating in some of its more questionable rituals, including a March 7 meeting with Obama arranged by the DNC in the Blue Room of the White House residence. The meeting, first described in a June 24 Politico story about a list of attendees released by the White House, took place with business leaders who were former or current donors or fundraisers. White House press secretary Jay Carney told Politico the meeting was not "a fundraiser."

In the email message that accompanies Obama's Monday video, however, Obama campaign manager Jim Messina explains to supporters that a minimum $5 donation is required to enter the campaign contest: "Make a donation today and be automatically registered for a chance to have dinner with President Obama and Vice President Biden together. We'll cover your airfare and the meal -- all you need to bring is your story and your ideas.""

Buy this plane or we'll shoot you with it

This article reminds me of a famous National Lampoon magazine cover.


There are lessons here: Don't sell anything you wouldn't want shooting at you. In the international arena, there are no friends and few allies but mainly countries with temporary comity of interests. And maybe, don't trust the French.

Libya Boosts Euro Fighter Jets at Paris Air Show

LE BOURGET, France - In the war in Libya, the French Rafale fighter jet has nearly done it all: no-fly zone enforcement, air-to-ground strikes, reconnaissance, overflight missions....


In 2007, the French bungled talks with Morocco, which instead opted to buy an F-16 from Lockheed Martin Corp. The same year, Gadhafi himself began exclusive talks with France to purchase 14 Rafales - the same type of jet now hitting his military assets with laser- and GPS-guided bombs.

That sale was still pending when the Arab spring swept through Libya, prompting Gadhafi's forces to crack down on democracy-minded protesters and leading to international sanctions against his regime and an U.N. Security Council resolution authorizing a no-fly zone and measures to protect Libyan civilians.

DADT -> DJ

It has begun:

http://www.armytimes.com/news/2011/05/army-3-colonels-punished-over-skit-mocking-gays-052311w/

Don't Ask, Don't Tell -> Don't Joke

Socialist or Shill for Business? Both...and!

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20110617/BASU/106170330/Basu-No-breaks-for-Obama-a-socialist-and-a-shill-for-business-

“What's amazing is how opponents can portray Obama as both a shill for corporations and a socialist.”

Guess she never heard of Gazprom, IG Farben, etc.

“But none of his would-be opponents would name a thing Obama has done right for the economy, even in supporting business.”

They would if they could. Many of his opponents have noted things he’s done right. They just don’t get too many opportunities, and none in regards to his mishandling of the economy.

“Most Americans disapprove of Obama's handling of the economy, according to new polls.”

So, why question the integrity of his ‘would-be opponents’?

“Even the Today Show's Ann Curry accuses him of being calm rather than angry that 14 million Americans are unemployed: "People have started to wonder ... whether you really empathize with the suffering."

Et tu, Ann?”

I’m not sure a picture of a national TV “journalist” as Brutus and Obama as Caesar is what his supporters would like to be painting right now. Freudian, I suppose. Or maybe she knows her columns are only read by the minority who are totally on the Obama bus to Candy Mountain in Des Moines.

“The most important thing Obama can do for job growth is to ignore the anti-government ideologues and invest in improving America's infrastructure - making broadband accessible, rebuilding old highways, supporting renewable energy and education. He needs to grab the mike, and using the same passion he campaigned with, separate fact from fiction -- then forge ahead on innovative public works projects that employ people.”

Well, since the only way the federal government can create jobs is by hiring federal employees, paying states to hire employees or letting contracts, I suppose a run-of-the-mill statist like this would think it was a good idea.

And, in the end, there is no question that Obama is BOTH a Socialist AND a shill for business.

http://patriotpost.us/opinion/burt-prelutsky/2011/06/20/is-barack-obama-a-socialist/

In defense of the non-existent

So, Eric Cantor asked me what I thought the U.S. Congress should cut from the Federal Budget.

Actually, it was a button on the YouCut web site.

And I gave him - or his web master and most junior intern at least - my advice. It has been a burning issue with me since I saw the Distinguished Gentleman from New York, Anthony Weiner, defending CPB funding a little while back.

He intended to belittle Republican efforts to end funding for CPB. But apparently he and his fellow Statist nomenclatura are blind to how his attempt at sarcasm actually glaringly illustrates the ridiculousness of trying to defend adding to the National Debt for such frivolity.

Here is my recommendation:

Cut the subsidies to the Car Talk guys' fictitious legal advisors, Dewey, Cheetham & Howe. I know Rep Weiner has defended the government's support of their vital, albeit imaginary, contribution to civil society and the General Welfare. I know that Congress has the constitutional right to expend tax dollars, or yuan borrowed from China under the interstate commerce clause since sometimes radio waves travel across state lines. I know that their non-existent existence is a right that demands public support and that without them, yuppies across the country might have more difficulty asking why their 10 year old Volvo squeaks when it starts. I realize that listeners to NPR may have to listen to ads telling them that Click and Clack the Tappet Brothers are being brought to them by major corporations rather than donor acknowledgements that the show is being brought to them by, well, major corporations - and taxpayers like us.

I'm good with that. "

Perhaps Rep. Weiner ought to consult with the Car Talk Director of Ethics and Honesty: U Lyon Sack. I think he is already consulting with Illgott and Gaines for financial advice.

invincible idiots

It is sometime instructional to read what Leftists have to say. I appreciate the interns and junior assistants of the VRWC who cull through the chaff of the Huffington Post, etc for slave wages – so I don’t have to if I don’t want to. But still, to have even an inkling of what they Left thinks and how they come up with their loony ideas, it is necessary to read them directly.

Case in point, reliably loony Eugene Robinson:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2011/04/12/demanding_the_impossible_109517.html

“At issue is a fundamental question -- what is the nature and purpose of government”

This much is true. Sane people have observed as much. It is one of the things that is confusing Leftists. Back in the good old days of Rockefeller Republicans, the discussion was merely over how big Gov’t should be and whether Communists were fuzzy or smelly. Today, Conservatives have brought up a question Leftists thought had been answered – what is the nature and purpose of government?

Robinson, however, doesn’t know his History:

“-- that was first answered more than two centuries ago, when Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson duked it out as warring members of George Washington's first Cabinet. Hamilton's centralized government was victorious. There are those who have never forgiven him.”

It was answered over 2 centuries ago, but his answer is barely 100 years old. I am quite confident Alexander Hamilton wouldn’t feel too comfortable with the House Progressive Caucus. Robinson re-imagines Hamilton and Adams as disciples of Crowley and Wilson and Marx. Only in an alternate universe inhabited by Manhattan/Berkley Leftists.

“The far-right ideologues in the House seek to starve the federal government to the point where it can no longer fulfill its constitutional duty to promote the general welfare.”

You don’t have to be a Constitutional Scholar to know that a line in the preamble doesn’t constitute an enumerated power. Also that a particular benefit for a specific class or individual is incongruous with the general welfare, which – if words mean anything – means it the non-specific (not 'targeted') good (as in non-rivalous, ie: roads, defense, etc) (not benefice, tax shelter or direct payment) of the general population (not particular interest groups or individuals). Thus, EITC, medicare and Social security are a lot of things but not in any way promoting the general welfare.

“Their inspired tactic -- which has worked so well that they would be crazy to abandon it -- has been to take a wildly extreme position and stick to it with the obstinacy of a mule.”

Does it not strike him that the mascot of the Democrat party is in fact, the mule? Perhaps not. In any case, it seems to me that obstinately saying that the country isn’t broke, that $1T deficits won’t add to the debt, and that increasing taxes won’t decrease economic activity are wildly, crazily extreme. But then, to Eugene, I’m a far-right ideologue. I thought I was just someone who could do math.

“Ryan seeks not just to reduce the nation's long-term indebtedness but to change the essence of the relationship between citizens and their government.

“Restore” would be a better word. Obama et al have been intent on changing the relationship between citizens and their government. Read Wilson and Crowley and you will get an idea of what they have in mind.

This graph is from the Administration's case supporting the disastrous stimulus plan. I found it in an article in the Weekly Standard. We are now in Q3, FY11. The ill-conceived, poorly-executed Stimulus boondoggle was supposed to have afforded us with 6.5% unemployment. Without the effects of their Keynesian idiocy, they projected that unemployment would be about 7.6% right now. It is actually somewhere between 8.8% and 17.7% - according to the Huffington Post!

I think we can all agree that the Democrat's economic plan has had a measurable and significant effect on the economy - just not a good one.