"This is sickening, absolutely sickening."

This video is posted at several places today from a speech Dear Leader gave on Wednesday in Quincy, Illinois. It's no wonder that Obama's handlers don't want him going off the teleprompter: when he ad-libs, he's dangerous. And, as Ed Morrissey at HotAir says, he "reveals more about himself than he probably wants":



Obama's ad-lib: We’re not, we’re not trying to push financial reform because we begrudge success that’s fairly earned. I mean, I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money. But, you know, part of the American way is, you know, you can just keep on making it if you’re providing a good product or providing good service. We don’t want people to stop, ah, fulfilling the core responsibilities of the financial system to help grow our economy.

Vs. his prepared remarks: Now, we’re not doing this to punish these firms or begrudge success that’s fairly earned. We don’t want to stop them from fulfilling their responsibility to help grow our economy.

Reading over his remarks, even if he had stuck to the teleprompter, what in the love of God is he saying here: "We don't want to stop them from fulfilling their responsibility to help grow our economy." What? First off, Comrade Obama, it's not "your" economy. Are you kidding me? That's not the reason people start a business or work hard at a job--to fulfill Dear Leader's freakish fantasies about what "his people" owe to him. I know he never had a real job; did he ever take a class in economics when he was supposedly going to Columbia? Oh that's right--we can't know that because his transcripts are a state secret. Dear God, is it 2012 yet?

Update. When the WSJ has an opinion piece titled "Smart Aleck-in-Chief?" then maybe you need to take another look at your image. Just sayin'.

Then there's yesterday's piece at Politico, "Why reporters are down on President Obama." Are they really JUST NOW getting it?

Tea Partiers in Quincy, IL vs. Cops in Riot Gear

Our pal at Sharp Elbows has the video of this, as always. Jim Hoft from Gateway Pundit has the photos and story at Big Journalism. Barack Hussein Obama was speaking at the Convention Center in Quincy, Illinois. About 200 Tea Party members showed up to give him what-for. The Quincy police came dressed in riot gear. Seriously.

All I can say is this: if our pal Barry-O is so frightened of these Tea Party patriots in Quincy, Illinois that he needs the cops to show up in riot gear, then the guy really, really needs to stay away from places like Arizona where he might run into some angry leftists.

The commenters at HotAir are having some real fun with this.

Update: Someone pointed to me out that it's possible the Secret Service was concerned that anti-Tea Party people would show up and cause trouble. Since the Secret Service isn't prepared to handle "trouble" in the streets themselves, then they would see to it that the locals were ready. May-be.

I know, we're all sick of saying this, but this deserves just one quick chorus: "What if George Bush had done this?"

Update. "Jacked up" is the word that comes to mind viewing these photos from Quincy.

A sample of the comments from Obama supporters. They think this is fine, evidently. Wait until they come for you.

This was a semi historic event and he should have been shown the respect that his position is deserving of. These tea party lunatics live in a country that has free elections and majority rules when it comes to voting. The majority spoke and now they want a do-over or whatever it is they want. protesting and acting like fools is no way to get your point across. grow your little movement quietly and gather all the old ladies and weak minded people you want. Then at election time pick you best dressed and best speaker and then try to take over. I stand a better chance of winning the lottery than you people do ever getting a real party started.

This video is from Gatewat Pundit.

Obama-Speak

I was walking from one room to another the other day and the TV was on. There was Obama, speaking to Wall Street. I don't normally listen to the guy, because, well, I just can't stand the sound of his voice, plus every time he speaks he flips me into crazy. Sure enough, this time was no different. What I heard him saying to the Wall Street "fat cats" (did he use the term in front of them during the speech, I wonder, since it's one of his favorite rhetorical ploys, as in he "did not run for office to be helping out a bunch of fat cat bankers on Wall Street") was this: "We can and must put this kind of cynical politics aside." That's all I needed to hear, since I've heard that one from him over and over: finger-wagging Speech No. 79, where he's telling some group somewhere how he thinks they need to behave. Cynical politics? This guy is the King of Cynical Politics. OK, Barry, you go first. That's called leadership.

The Wall Street Journal had an excellent piece the other day, subtitled "Obama's ad hominem method and the politics of polarization." The gist of the article comes in the first paragraph: "While it takes two to tangle, we think the hyper-polarization owes more than a little to Mr. Obama's own rhetorical habits. More than any President in memory, Mr. Obama has a tendency [tendency?] to vilify his oponents in personal terms and assail their arguments as dishonest, illegitimate, or motivated by bad faith."

One of my favorite examples of Obama-Speak came the other day when he was asking for money in Miami from some "fat cat" Democrats and he decided to mock Tea Party Americans, saying he was "amused" by recent anti-tax Tea Party protests: "You would think they'd be sayin' thank you." Really? Well, we of the Tea Party persuasion are thinking that Obama might not be so "amused" come November. As it is, I find myself quite unamused at the way Obama regularly dismisses, demeans, mocks, and divides millions of Americans who are concerned that he is, indeed, "transforming" our country, in ways that we neither want nor asked for.

The WSJ says that most Presidents leave political attack to surrogates or Vice Presidents, but not Obama. If you're old enough to remember Vice President Spiro Agnew, Nixon's hatchet man, then you can appreciate this line from the WSJ: "Mr. Obama seems to enjoy being his own Spiro Agnew." And that's one of the most disturbing things to me about Obama-Speak: he really does seem to enjoy calling out his oponents in the most cynical, irresponsible way. It's as though President I-Won just doesn't get it--you're not campaigning anymore, Champ. You're IT now, President of all Americans. As the WSJ concludes, "his rhetorical method seems especially discordant coming from a President who still insists, in between these assaults, that he is striving mightily to change the negative tone of American politics."

Netanyahu to Obama: Pound Sand

Thank you, HotAir and Ed Morrissey for posting this. I couldn't improve on your title. Netanyahu has delivered a message to Obama, rejecting Barry's call for Israel to halt construction in East Jerusalem. From Netanyahu: "I am saying one thing. There will be no freeze in Jerusalem. There should be no  preconditions to talks."

From Ed Morrissey: Netanyahu just taught Obama a lesson, which is that a nation that has been surrounded by terrorists and other enemies for decades isn't going to be intimidated by an Ivory Tower academic, even if he sits in the Oval Office.

Commenters at HotAir chime in:

Congrats to our Boy King for losing one of our best allies in the world. Who is next? England? The Aussies?

Smart diplomacy: Appease your enemies, alienate your friends. B+

997 days to go.

Reporting on a related subject, Netanyah urged the White House to stop building in the Phoenix, Arizona area. It appears that the Navaho have a claim to some of the land and Israel fears violence may break out.

Reporting from Tea Party Rallies:
Patriots 4, Alinsky Thugs 0

Gateway Pundit and Sharp Elbows report this morning about fake Tea Partiers being driven from yesterday's Tea Party rallies in St. Louis, San Francisco, Oceanside, and Greensboro.

GP reports that the white supremist plant "scurried off" after he was confronted by several patriots including our own [fearless] Adam Sharp. Writes Gateway: "Unfortunately for the left, their Alinsky tactics backfired at the Tax Day Tea Party rallies. The radical lost on Tax Day."

Michelle Malkin has more: "The Crashers: They came, they saw, they failed.

In related news, President Barack Obama mocked the Tea Party activists Thursday night at a fund raiser in Miami. Calling himself "amused" by the anti-tax Tea Party protests, Obama said, "You would think they'd be saying thank you." Really, Champ?

Update on "Call Me Amused": Obama was again hobnobbing with the elites at the Miami DNC fundraiser where he mocked taxpayers. People paid $30,000-$40,000 to listen to Obama take potshots at the bedrock middle class--you know, those people who actually pay taxes, as opposed to the 50% of the people in the country who don't.

According to Rasmussen, a whopping 34% of the people think this country is headed in the right direction. That's compared, again acccording to Rasmussen, to 24% of the country who say they're part of the Tea Party movement. And among that group, 94% believe the government has become a special interest group that looks out primarily for its won interests, and 96% of the Tea Party group think we're overtaxed.

And as Obama mocks the Tea Party movement, the lamestream media continues its own campaign to disparage and marginalize them. When they found out that ignoring the Tea Party rallies didn't work--didn't make them disappear--then they chose to brand these "angry mobs" as people who simply couldn't deal with the reality of a black man being president. The Media Research Center has come out with their analysis: "TV's Tea Party Travesty: How ABC, CBS, and NBC Have Dismissed and Disparaged the Tea Party Movement.

Here's my favorite sign from yesterday. I don't know where it came from--it's just making the rounds.

We're Having a Tea Party!

St. Louis's Tax Day Tea Party. Hope to see you there! Thursday, April 15, Clayton, MO, 6:30 to 7:30 p.m.

A Different View of the Wikileaks "Collateral Murder" Video

Last week a group called Wikileaks put out a video that can be found on YouTube which they titled "Collateral Murder, Wikileaks, Iraq." I'll let Wikileaks describe their thoughts on the video:

WikiLeaks has released a classified US military video depicting the indiscriminate slaying of over a dozen people in the Iraqi suburb of New Baghdad -- including two Reuters news staff. Reuters has been trying to obtain the video through the Freedom of Information Act, without success since the time of the attack. The video, shot from an Apache helicopter gun-site, clearly shows the unprovoked slaying of a wounded Reuters employee and his rescuers. Two young children involved in the rescue were also seriously wounded. For further information please visit the special project website http://www.collateralmurder.com/.

This is nothing but pure leftist tripe.

Yesterday there was a post at one of my favorite websites, Missourah.com, that gives a quite different version of what was going on in that film. I'll quote the last part, but the entire post is a must-read, "A Soldier's Response."

I will conclude with an observation in response to the claims that our soldiers are callous child-murderers. At 21:44 in the video you can clearly see a soldier running, carrying one of the wounded children for medical evacuation. Apparently both of the children wounded in the attack survived thanks to the actions of the soldiers on the ground. Terrible things happen in war — but I know the heart of our soldiers fighting overseas and I know that they are good people, doing their best at an extremely difficult job. Serving in the military does not turn you into a bloodthirsty automaton. If anything the military imbues a sense of pride, honor, patriotism and selfless service and provides the opportunity to be part of something greater than yourself.

The United States military is the defender of freedom and a force for good in the world. Malicious, agenda-driven propaganda cannot change that, and we must never forget it.

The contrast between the "Wikifreak" people and our American soldiers couldn't be more stark. Frankly, I wish all these self-hating, America-hating leftist bastards would find themselves somewhere else to live--like maybe Iran. I am seriously so sick and tired of pointing out to these leftists loons that our troops are the people who put themselves on the line so that people like Wikileak (while hiding under their desks) will have the freedom to spew this kind of venom. It's true, but I'm getting tired of pointing it out.

God bless our troops and God bless America.

Bibi to Barry: Stuff It

Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu won't be attending next week when Barack Hussein Obama holds his international nuclear talent show in Washington, D.C. Netanyahu cancelled a scheduled trip to attend the 47-country (oops--46-country) nuclear security conference hosted by Obama. According to World Jewish Daily, Netanyahu decided to cancel the trip after learning that several Muslim states plan to bring up Israel's failure to sign the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Israel will instead send a deputy who oversees nuclear issues.

Next week's nuclear security summit is part of a plan being pushed by the Obama administration to "highlight the president's efforts," as the WSJ puts it, "to reduce the threat of nuclear weapons, as well as the threat from proliferation and atomic terrorism. . . . Some Muslim countries have complained of a double standard in international pressure on Iran to dismantle its nuclear program while Israel is able to maintain its reported nuclear arsenal."

Israel never signed the 1970 NPT which allows countries to develop nuclear power in exchange for forgoing weapons. Based on estimates of the plutonium production capacity of its Dimona reactor, Israel may have stockpiled 80 to 200 nuclear warheads since the late 1960s, independent experts say. Unlike ObamaTeam, which has thrown out a long-time policy of nuclear ambiguity, Israel prefers not to comment on when or how they would use nuclear weapons, or even if they have them, preferring to maintain an ambiguity policy about nuclear capability. As Ed Driscoll writes at PajamasMedia, "the cardinal rule when it comes to nuclear weapons, is keep ‘em guessing. We want our enemies to believe that we may well be crazy enough to vaporize them, given sufficient provocation; one just can’t tell. There is a reason why that ambiguity has been the American government’s policy for more than 50 years. Obama cheerfully tosses overboard the strategic consensus of two generations."

Others are more critical than Driscoll of Obama's new policy of "disambiguation." CEO of PajamasMedia, Roger Simon, wrote this article: "President Weirdo Goes Anti-Nuke." Comparing Obama to "some looney member of Code Pink," Simon says our president "is abandoning the nuclear deterrent adhered to by every American president since Truman. And he is doing it in a manner that makes absolutely no sense." In a related article, "President Weirdo," Simons says that Obama's behavior makes Nixon seem "almost normal." Ouch.

Update. The Obama administration is now denying U.S. visas to Israeli scientists who work at Israel's Dimona nuclear reactor. WTF? According to the website Joshuapundit, this is a change in a routine policy that has allowed Israeli nuclear scientists and technicians to receive such visas and to study at U.S. universities.

h/t to Joshuapundit for the image.

Along with disambiguating his nuclear policy, it would seem that the Obama regime is also bent on removing any ambiguity about its posture towards Israel. I'm no State Department expert, but it doesn't take a genius to see that Obama's policies are chipping away at relations with one of our best allies in the Middle East. What is Obama doing, and why is he doing it? President Weirdo? Signs are certainly pointing that way.

To the 78% of Jews who voted for Obama: how's that working out for you? Here's a quote at the time of the election from someone named Jeremy Ben-Ami, executive director of the J Street lobby group, purported to be a "pro-Israel" lobby (with friends like those, who needs enemies?): "Surrogates and right-wing political operatives in our community stopped at nothing in their efforts to sway Jewish voters against Obama. We can only hope that these results put to rest for good the myth that fear and smear campaigns - particularly around Israel - can be an effective political weapon in the Jewish community." Well, Jeremy? What have you got to say now, Champ? Not much, evidently. The J Street website "news" was last updated 26 March. Keep up.

Update. This comes from a post at Friday's HotAir: "Support for Obama among Jewish voters basically unchanged from last year." Really? So you gotta ask:

• do these people read the news? (or rather, do they read anything beyond the New York Times?)
• do they understand Obama's policy towards Israel?
• do secular Jews in the United States give a rip about Israel?
• what would Obama have to do to get a negative rating from these people?

Allahpundit at HotAir explains the support for Obama this way: the sample is 50% Democrat and 15% Republican. But for me that still begs the question: Why do American Jews vote with the Democrats? One of the commenters at HA says that's because Jews are liberal, and that will never change. Have they not noticed the anti-Semitism of the Obama regime? Evidently not. Another commenter says that for many secular American Jews, liberalism is their religion, that these people are completely disconnected from Israel, and the liberal idealology for them is first, second, and third in importance. In fact, support for Israel is higher among American Christian groups than it is among many American Jews.

Here's a quote from a HotAir commenter, who says his is a family of observant Jews who reject leftism "in all of its pernicious guises. . . . Just please know that not every Jew is a half-witted true believer in this absurd jackass who leads you for the moment. I guess, though, that most of the thinking Jews may be in Israel."

And another one: "I know a lot of liberal Jews who square the circle for themselves on loving Israel and Obama at the same time. I think they are deluded, but they're my deluded fellow Jews." That sounds like some sort of mind jiu-jitsu to me. Oof.

Another commenter recommended Norman Podhoretz's book, Why Are Jews Liberals?

More Amateur Hour from the White House Foreign Policy Team

Barack Hussein Obama. Those who voted for this man wanted change, and are we ever getting it--in spades. Maybe next time people will demand something less squishy and ambiguous than a slogan merely calling for "change." Cancer is also "change," but I don't think anyone would vote to have it.

So what sort of "change" has ObamaTeam been up to this week?

For starters, Obama has a "new approach to nuclear security," or at least that's how the New York Times puts it. Here's the money line from the NYT article: For the first time, the United States is explicitly committing not to use nuclear weapons against nonnuclear states that are in compliance with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, even if they attacked the United States with biological or chemical weapons or launched a crippling cyberattack. What are these people in the White House smoking? The new policy is known as the Nuclear Posture Review, and it removes all ambiguity from the conditions under which the U.S. would or would not use nuclear weapons. Who is the brilliant strategist who thought up that one?

Victor Davis Hanson, a military historian, examines Obama's "posture review" in his article, "A Noble, Bad Idea," saying that the new nuclear policy is "ill-timed and ill-conceived": Obama’s fallback position has come down to something like this: “Why get a nuke, when we won’t use one against you—no matter what you do to us? But get a nuke—and all bets are off.” He apparently views such reasoning as superior to the existing presumption that could be condensed as: “Don’t dare get a nuclear weapon, much less consider using one, since the consequences for you will be too terrible to contemplate.”

Hanson calls the Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) part of Obama's "utopian vision," nobly intended but deeply concerning since it comes, not from an old hawk like Reagan or Bush, but instead from "one who has apologized, bowed, and backpedaled abroad in courting enemies like Syria and Iran while snubbing old friends such as Britain and Israel."

Coupled with the NPR is Obama's nuclear arms control treaty with Russia, which leaves Obama pledging to cut long-range nuclear weapons by one-third. This analysis comes from the Heritage Foundation, which states that the Russians "clearly still see their nuclear weapons as the cornerstone of their defense, no matter how much President Obama wishes it were otherwise. Moscow has no interest in diminishing its own nuclear arsenal, but it is perfectly happy to allow the Obama administration to weaken the U.S. deterrent until it is on equal footing with Russia’s currently mediocre might." Dr. Utopia will not find his dream world of unicorns, rainbows, and a nuclear-free zone. Instead, says Heritage, "President Obama's nuclear weakness will only give America’s enemies every incentive to advance their own programs. The President’s arms control “road” is more likely to lead to a new arms race, rather than to “zero.”

Why is this man smiling? Because he just punked the "leader of the free world." Another article at Heritage refers to Obama's unrealistic agenda and the signing event today of the new START treaty in Prague with Medvedev as "deeply flawed" and one that merely sets the stage for the bigger show, the "theater production" on April 12-13, the non-proliferation summit in Washington. Heritage calls the whole mess "ambition enveloped in naïveté, wrapped in inexperience."

Continuing on (wow, it's been quite a week for ObamaTeam--I think I liked them better when they were bogged down with O-Care), in the "words matter" category, ObamaTeam has decided to ban words like "Islamic extremism" from the central document outlining the U.S. security strategy. Who is responsible for the change in the lexicon? Evidently someone named Pradeep Ramamurthy, head of the administration's Global Engagement Directorate, which according to Fox News is a four-person National Security Council team that Obama launched last May with little fanfare and a vague mission to use diplomacy and outreach "in pursuit of a host of national security objectives." "Do you want to think about the U.S. as the nation that fights terrorism or the nation you want to do business with?" Ramamurthy said. Are you serious?

A Google search doesn't turn up a whole heck of a lot about this important actor on ObamaTeam; I can't even find a photo of him that I can verify as being this Pradeep Ramamurthy. How old is this guy? What's his background? However, I did find this quote from Pradeep from November 2009, posted at America.gov, a statement he made during a webchat with people from places like Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Algeria, etc. This is from Pradeep: We are interested in developing a more comprehensive relationship with Muslim communities around the world and pursuing partnerships in areas of mutual interest. This is partly driven by the recognition that many of the challenges we face today can only be addressed through partnership, and we want to be a partner.

Update. I just sent an email to the tipline at Breitbart's Big Journalism, hoping someone either knows something about this guy or will do some research on him.

Update #2. Michelle Malkin's column just reminded me of a bumper sticker I once saw that made me fall down laughing:

"Just a Regular Guy": Big, big White Sox fan can't name a single player

Obama lived in Chicago for 18 years and today claims to be a big White Sox fan: "I'm a South Side kid," he told the interviewer recently after "throwing" out the first pitch in Washington, D.C. Really? Obama was asked to name ONE of his favorite White Sox players. He couldn't do it, nary a one. Instead he bobbed and weaved and dodged the question while still referring to "Kaminsky Field," wherever that is. His excuse: he grew up in Hawaii where he followed the Oakland A's. Huh? I grew up in Denver, but I've lived in St. Louis about as long as Obama lived in Chicago, and I could manage to come up with at least one favorite St. Louis player off the top of my head. Ozzie Smith. There. Had Obama been asked to name ONE baseball player--go ahead, name one--my guess is he couldn't have done it.

This guy is such a fraud. He's about as big a baseball fan as he is a constitutional scholar. Don't mess with our baseball, Champ. Stay home and eat your expensive wagyu steak; the rest of us are happy to go the park and eat hot dogs. [And how soon will those be banned by Obama's Nanny State?]

It's the Soldier

The following passage is from a sermon by John Hagee:

Close your eyes and picture in your mind the soldier at Valley Forge, as he holds his musket in his bloody hands. He stands barefoot in the snow, starved from lack of food, wounded from months of battle and emotionally scarred from the eternity away from his family surrounded by nothing but death and carnage of war. He stands though, with fire in his eyes and victory on his breath. He looks at us now in anger and disgust and tells us this...

I gave you a birthright of freedom born in the Constitution and now your children graduate too illiterate to read it.

I fought in the snow barefoot to give you the freedom to vote and you stay at home because it rains.

I left my family destitute to give you the freedom of speech and you remain silent on critical issues, because it might be bad for business.

I orphaned my children to give you a government to serve you and it has stolen democracy from the people.

It's the soldier not the reporter who gives you the freedom of the press.

It's the soldier not the poet who gives you the freedom of speech.

It's the soldier not the campus organizer who allows you to demonstrate.

It's the soldier who salutes the flag, serves the flag, whose coffin is draped with the flag that allows the protester to burn the flag.

"Lord, hold our troops in your loving hands. Protect them as they protect us. Bless them and their families for the selfless acts they perform for us in our time of need. I ask this in the name of Jesus, our Lord and Savior. Amen."

On this Easter morning, please stop for a moment and say a prayer for our U.S. ground troops in Afghanistan AND all over this world. God Bless our Troops.

Select Crowd of OBots Clap for Obama as He Mocks Half the Country

Barack Obama's idea of humor is to mock those who disagree with him. Hardy-har-har. This fits in with the narcissist theme--narcissists quite simply have no sense of humor. Their idea of "humor" is sarcastic cracks at others' expense. Here he is at a campaign rally in Maine. He mocks the Republicans because OCare hasn't instantly destroyed the American economy. He quite simply is not "my" president--no how, no way. And that's on him.

1,000 Words Not Necessary

From the Los Angeles Times, "Two Presidents Visit U.S. Troops." Frankly, the constrast makes me weep.

"Anybody have a handwipe?"

"Sorry I'm Late"

When I taught writing at the university, one of my pet peeves was students who arrived late to class. They annoyed me not only because they disrupted the other students who had made the effort to get there on time, but also because they had an attitude of such careless entitlement. What if everyone arrived late? Who are you to think the rules don't apply to you? I always told my students that being late was a bad habit that would not transfer well to a "real world" job. This video certainly hasn't done anything to change my mind.

Evidently Freshman Senator Barack Obama had more important things to do than to manage to make it to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearings on time.

Hey Kids! More "free stuff" from Uncle Obama

I''m going to try to keep this brief, because whenever I think about it, I flip into crazy.

Reporting today at the Fox News White House blog, Row 2 Seat 4: "Obama Alters Student Loan Landscape"

According to the White House, "New borrowers who assume loans after July 1, 2014, will be able to cap their student loan repayments at 10 percent of their discretionary income and, if they keep up with their payments over time, will have the balance forgiven after 20 years."

So here's what that means to me. Even though I've paid into Social Security for 40 years, I'm being told not to expect to receive that money back because Social Security is broke. And Medicare when I'm retired? Forget it. However, college students who have never paid a dime to anyone for anything will now be getting what will amount to "free money" for their education. Free money? Do the math.

Notice the designation "discretionary" income. In my world, that's what is left over to spend once all the necessary bills are paid. So a young person making a modest salary and paying back his or her school loans under this ObamaLoan scheme might pay somewhere around $50-100 a month. 50 x 12 = $600 a year. Say the first 10 years or so they average $500 a year and the second 10 years they average $1,000. That would be about $15,000 over 20 years. That would mean anything over $15,000 in this middle-class person's world would be paid by the taxpayers. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? That is some sweet deal. Here's the quote that keeps going through my head when I hear about this stuff, from Margaret Thatcher: "The problem with Socialism is that at some point you run out of other people's money to spend."

So far, I've heard exactly zero reporting or analysis about this newest ObamaEntitlement that at the last minute was stuck onto the healthcrap bill. So if the federal government is now going to be Uncle Sugar for America's sons and daughters going to college, how soon will we learn that there will be "quotas" for certain degrees or that there will be a small "volunteer" requirement in Obama's Youth Corps to be eligible for the loan? How will they figure eligibility for these loans?

If Obama wanted to take down this country by destroying us with debt, how would he behave any differently than what he's been doing since the day he was sworn into office?

Like I said, the whole thing just flips me into crazy.

P.S. I was just sitting here remembering what it was like when my husband and I were first married and we were paying off our student loans. He was in the military and I was still in school, so I guess I wasn't paying off my loan yet. Every month we were billed $30 on his student loan. That might not sound like much, but our monthly income was only $600 a month, and there was no loan forgiveness or deferment because he was in the military. So again, do the math. We were paying out 5% of our total income--not our discretionary income. And believe me, at that point in our lives, we had no discretionary income. It took us about 15 years, but we finally got those student loans (both of them) paid off in full. That was a proud and happy day, one that evidently any student signing up after 2014 will never know. That's OK, kids, Uncle Sugar will take care of you, because evidently no one expects you to be able to do it for yourselves.

Update. Oh, this is rich. Someone pointed out to me that discretionary income is what you have left over once the bills are paid and you've put some away for a rainy day. There is exactly zero incentive for anyone receiving one of these loans to pay it back--pay as little as possible, kicking the can down the road as long as possible, as long as you pay something--and wha-la, in 20 years it all goes away.

Update #2. Forbes has the details about Obama's new plan. Here's an added "plus": Former students who get jobs in the public sector will have loans forgiven after 10 years, not 20, and the forgiven balance will not be taxable. That would also be known as "selling your soul for a govenrment job." I know someone who did that--an otherwise intelligent person who worked in a government job--and he's the most vacant, uninteresting person I've ever met. He does, however, enjoy two homes that are both paid off.

According to Forbes, under the new plan a single borrower with an adjusted gross income of $30,000 who owes $40,000 in student loans would have the payment dropped from what it would currently be, $460 per month, to $115 per month, which means, in this example, that this particular borrower would pay something under $30,000 and have $10,000 of the loan forgiven. Since anyone who has looked into the cost of a college education these days knows that $40,000 is a hopelessly low figure, taxpayers can expect to be shelling out big bucks for this plan.

Update #3. In related news, from Reason TV: "3 Reasons Public Sector Employees are Killing the Economy."

Reason 1: They cost too much.
Reason 2: We can't fire them.
Reason 3: They're a permanent lobby.



h/t HotAir

Lawrence Eagleburger: Obama "Amateurish" in His Foreign Relations

Here's Lawrence Eagleburger, former Sec'y of State, responding in an interview by Neil Cavuot of Fox News. "He's playing with fire here and he's playing with dynamite and he doesn't understand it." Ouch.



h/t Gateway Pundit

Obama to Mat Lauer: "The overall architecture of it was, uh, something that was, uh, right down the middle."

Really?

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

In the same interview, Obama also mentioned the Heritage Foundation:

Obama. When you actually look at the bill itself, it incorporates all sorts of Republican ideas. . . . A lot of the ideas in terms of the exchange, just being able to pool the purchasing power of individuals, in the insurance market--that originated from the Heritage Foundation.

Whoops, not so fast, Champ. I don't think the Heritage Foundation appreciates your bald-faced lies about them. "Heritage President Ed Feulner Responds to President Obama's Claims"

Here's the first paragraph: President Obama this morning cited The Heritage Foundation’s research in an attempt to sell his health care package as a “middle of the road, centrist approach.” We take great exception to this misuse of our work and abuse of our name. This is but the latest act in a campaign to sell this big-government program as a moderate law that incorporates conservative ideas. Americans should not be fooled.

I don't know, the really frightening this is that maybe Barry believes his "right down the middle" BS. Maybe he really does think that OCare is a moderate law; maybe he's actually convinced himself that the yearlong locked door Democrat-only brainstorming sessions didn't include Republicans because they didn't want to be there. Maybe this guy is more delusional than he is dumb. That's a scary thought.

P.S. Apropos of nothing related to this post: Obama with his dark circles looks like shit. And if you consider that those bags must have been covered up by the NBC makeup department--oof. Just sayin'.

An update to a previous post about Nancy Pelosi and the Congressional perp walk through the Tea Party crowd

One of the accusations that has been made is that someone in the Tea Party crowd yelled "nigger" as many as "15 times" when John Lewis, a Georgia Congressman and "civil rights icon" walked up the steps of the Capitol Building.

Here's an article at the American Thinker: A Closer Look at the Capitol Steps Conspiracy. In his article, Jack Cashill calls the Democrats' attempt to discredit the Tea Party movement "one of the most appallingly successful media scams in recent years."

From Cashill's article: Here is what happened. Rather than use the tunnel from the Cannon Office Building to the Capitol, a contingent from the Black Caucus [as did Nancy Pelosi and her chums] chose to walk through a crowd of protesters. In none of the videos shot that day, including those by the members of the Caucus themselves, has anyone identified a single audible racial slur.

Andrew Breitbart from Big Government, etc., has asked that Lewis put up or shut up.

It’s time for the allegedly pristine character of Rep. John Lewis to put up or shut up. Therefore, I am offering $10,000 of my own money to provide hard evidence that the N- word was hurled at him not 15 times, as his colleague reported, but just once. Surely one of those two cameras wielded by members of his entourage will prove his point.

Another "What's in the Bill?" Post

As Gomer Pyle would say, "Surprise, suprise, suprise." It turns out that, yet again, Barack Obama doesn't know what was in his own health care bill. This was reported Sunday in the NYT.

Here's what Obama's been saying about children, preexisting conditions, and the insurance companies as the issue relates to his own health care reform law: Mr. Obama, speaking at a health care rally in northern Virginia on March 19, said, “Starting this year, insurance companies will be banned forever from denying coverage to children with pre-existing conditions.”

Sorry, but like a whole lot of this bill, that statement turns out to be pure BS and also just plain wrong.

Here's what the NYT is reporting: Insurers agree that if they provide insurance for a child, they must cover pre-existing conditions. But, they say, the law does not require them to write insurance for the child and it does not guarantee the “availability of coverage” for all until 2014.

It's evidently a matter of reading the "fine print," according to William G. Schiffbauer, a lawyer whose clients include employers and insurance companies. "The fine print differs from the larger political message." How many times are we going to hear that one in the coming weeks and months?

The article goes on to say that Congressional Democrats were furious when they learned that some insurers disagreed with their interpretation of the law.

Then maybe they should have taken the time to make sure the bill correctly said what they thought it did. Oh no, no, no--this was a crisis of the gravest proportions that had to be SHOVED down our throats. So good luck with that campaign soundbite in 2010, all you "furious" Democrats who voted for this crap bill.

Allahpundit at HotAir has a post about this screw-up and the shoddy drafting of the bill. Allah makes a pretty good argument that maybe this wasn't a screw-up but instead was intentional, baiting the "evil" insurance companies and heartless Republicans into a showdown over the issue of taking care of the children. Campaign against this and you instantly become a heartless hater of sick kids. Sweet.

Howevere, I disagree with Allah. I go back and forth with this all the time: is the Obama administration evil or stupid? Most of the time, as in this case, I come down on the side of stupid. I think this is a case of sheer incompetence. They were in a mad rush to pass the damned bill, any way, any how; there's no telling how many of these "drafting errors" are going to come to light in the weeks and months ahead.

Update. This is from today's Beacon Street Journal: "The fraudulent promises of Obamacare." Here's the first paragraph: Stripped bare of all its misleading minutiae, the promise of Obamacare in a nutshell is this: we’re going to insure an additional 30 million people who don’t have health insurance, yet provide everybody including those who already have health insurance with better coverage, at lower cost and to paraphrase the president, “not add one dime to the deficit.” Barack Obama spent the entire first year of his presidency communicating this childish fantasy to an unreceptive and disbelieving electorate. In the end, since nobody was buying what he was selling, Obama was forced to justify the bill’s passage by claiming it’s the “right thing to do.”

The article goes on to discuss how the Democrats had to game the system in order to create the illusion of O-Care's deficit reduction features.

What's in our future to pay for this monstrosity? A European-style value added tax, of course, known simply as "the VAT." How do the Democrats escape the quandary and fiscal recklessness of adding another massive new entitlement program on top of Social Security and Medicare’s insolvency? Look for the implementation of a Value Added Tax on the horizon.

So much for Obama's promises not to add "one dime" of taxes to people making under $250,000. How many times did we hear that during the 2008 campaign? I'm thinking he must have said that at least 10,000 times. This promise, like so many of his other promises to the American people, clearly comes with an expiration date.

"Iran will back down," says Obama aide Valerie Jarrett

Put aside for a minute that Valerie Jarrett is a Chicago slumlord. Jarrett is also a senior advisor in the Obama administration. Here's Michelle Malkin's description of her in the book, Culture of Corruption:

"The Obamas don't make a move without Jarrett. She has been dubbed 'the other side of Barack's brain' and 'Barack's Rock.' In an October 2008 interview with the Chicago Tribune, President Obama said of his relationship with Jarrett: 'I trust her completely.'" She has been named in the Obama administration "Senior Advisor for Intergovernmental Affairs and Public Liaison," which is undoubtedly meant to mean anything Obama wants it to mean.

Jarrett was born to American parents; her father was a renowned hematologist/pathologist and her mother a child development expert. Her maternal grandfather was the first black man to head the Chicago Housing Authority, and his father was the first black graduate of M.I.T. Jarrett was born in Shiraz, Iran where her father ran a hospital for children as part of a program where American doctors and agricultural experts sought to help jump-start developing countries' health and farming efforts. When she was five, the family moved to London for one year, returning to Chicago in 1963.

So that's Jarrett's Iran connection.

Jarrett appeared yesterday on the Sunday talking head show, ABC's This Week with Jake Tapper. The money line from Jarrett was this: "Iran will back down." Whew, that's a relief, now I can quit worrying about Iran blowing up half the Western world with the nuclear weapons they're busy developing.

Tapper: Still no major international cooperation of putting pressure on Iran [despite Obama's "deadline" of
December 2009]. You know a little bit about Iranian culture. Don't you think that this in some way conveys weakness, or the inability to rally international support?

Jarrett: Quite the contrary. In fact, over the last year what we've seen when the president came into office was a unified Iran. Now we're seeing a lot of divisions within the country, and we're seeing steady progress in terms of a world coalition that will put that pressure on Iran. So no, I think we have a strong force in the making, and Iran will back down.

The video of the interview is here at Real Clear Politics.