The Awakening Begins

Conservatives may not have trusted him from the beginning, but liberals are now turning on Obama for his failure to keep promises.  His attempt to be all things to all people has run smack dab into the reality of actually having to make choices, and cracks in the façade are beginning to show.  It’s not “Just Words” any longer.

First, this devastating commentary by Rachel Maddow (!) of MSNBC (!!!). 

 Then there’s this column by Ted Rall, who supported Obama’s election. 

THE STATE JOURNAL-REGISTER

Posted May 29, 2009 @ 12:02 AM

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MIAMI — We expected broken promises. But the gap between the soaring expectations that accompanied Barack Obama’s inauguration and his wretched performance is the broadest such chasm in recent historical memory.  [snip]

Obama is useless. Worse than that, he’s dangerous. Which is why, if he has any patriotism left after the thousands of meetings he has sat through with corporate contributors, blood-sucking lobbyists and corrupt politicians, he ought to step down now — before he drags us further into the abyss.

I refer here to Obama’s plan for “preventive detentions.” If a cop or other government official thinks you might want to commit a crime someday, you could be held in “prolonged detention.” [snip]

Preventive detention is the classic defining characteristic of a military dictatorship. Because dictatorial regimes rely on fear rather than consensus, their priority is self-preservation rather than improving their people’s lives. They worry obsessively over the one thing they can’t control, what George Orwell called “thoughtcrime” — contempt for rulers that might someday translate to direct action.  [snip]

Obama is cute. He is charming. But there is something rotten inside him. Unlike the Republicans who backed George W. Bush, I won’t follow a terrible leader just because I voted for him. Obama has revealed himself. He is a monster, and he should remove himself from power.

Again, from a liberal who voted for Obama.  You must read the whole article.

h/t:  Thomas Lifson

Media’s Not Enchanting Enough For Dear Leader

It’s hard to imagine a President with a more friendly media than Obama currently has. He sailed into office on the backs of a press that was so enamored with him they couldn’t be bothered to do their jobs and instead wrote fawning piece after fawning piece about the Historical Figure with no experience (or none that played into their narrative of The One as Messaiah). And by and large this fawning coverage has continued to this day, choosing to ask the President fluff questions like how has he been “enchanted” during his first 100 days, rather than present him even one difficult question on the economy or his takeover of the automotive industry or his foreign policy strategies. No, clearly it’s much more important to report the intimate details of the Obama’s date night.

So one has to wonder then, why this President felt compelled to establish his own white house controlled media?

…Obama White House officials decided to do their own media report on the visit, complete with cuts, interviews, and chyrons identifying who’s speaking.

Also, just like a network, they have their own little logo!

(We all know that Obama has plenty of experience creating his own logos…)

Hmmm… perhaps it’s because a few in the media are starting to wake from their enchanted sleep and realize that their idol has feet of clay after all? You know it can’t be good when a report like this shows up on MSNBC – the closest thing to Obama-run Television the private sector has.

I Hope Atlas Shrugs Soon

NEW YORK, May 19 (Reuters) – General Motors Corp’s (GM.N) plan for a bankruptcy filing involves a quick sale of the company’s healthy assets to a new company initially owned by the U.S. government, a source familiar with the situation said on Tuesday.

“Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power.” – Benito Mussolini

Get the T-shirt here.

Comparing Obama and Clinton

There’s an interesting observation on American Thinker today, comparing presidents Obama and Clinton and deciding they are very much alike.  Really!!??  A good read.

An interesting story out yesterday tells how Joe Biden disclosed the existence of a secret underground bunker, whose purpose is TO SAVE THE LIFE OF A SITTING VICE PRESIDENT IN CASE OF AN ATTACK!!  Sheesh.  Obama may call them rhetorical flourishes, but this is just plain foolish.

An Observation On Washington Leadership

Two philosophers were sitting at a restaurant, discussing whether or not there was a difference between misfortune and disaster.

“There is most certainly a difference,” said one. “If the cook suddenly died and we couldn’t have our dinner, that would be a misfortune, but certainly not a disaster. On the other hand, if a cruise ship carrying the Congress were to sink in the middle of the ocean, that would be a disaster, but by no stretch of the imagination would it be a misfortune.”

Warm My Globe, Don’t Limit My Carbon

Verifying what our heavier-than-normal jackets have been telling us, April was chillier than average.  According to the government’s National Climatic Data Center the month was almost a full degree below normal when averaged across the U.S. and compared to records going back to 1895.

To put a little perspective on these figures, carbon dioxide emissions continue to increase as the world industrializes and China puts one new coal-fired power plant on line every week, yet there has been no global warming since 1997 or 1998.  In fact, temperatures have fallen enough during the past several years to erase the warming trend of the previous decades.  Is carbon dioxide really a climate driver?

More perspective would have us look to the sun, which continues its sunspot slumber.  Some scientists are now saying this failure of sunspot cycle’s 24 start, which should have happened by 2007, is beginning to echo the Maunder Minimum of about 1645 to 1715.  Causation can be argued, but that period of almost non-existent sunspot activity coincided with the Little Ice Age, a period of extremely bitter winters in the northern hemisphere that affected Earth’s weather for hundreds of years.  There has been a gradual rise in sea levels since it ended, as ice from it still continues to melt.

Add to that the current Sea Ice Extent figures showing the largest mass of sea ice in eight years (the period covered by the graph), and a recent fly-over survey that indicates the Arctic ice is twice the thickness expected, and you find you have no need to worry about those adorable polar bears drowning.

By the way, the above photo was taken by a Canadian photographer, Carole Williams, in 2004. 

“[You] have to keep in mind that the bears aren’t in danger at all. It was, if you will, their playground for 15 minutes. You know what I mean? This is a perfect picture for climate change, in a way, because you have the impression they are in the middle of the ocean and they are going to die with a coke in their hands. But they were not that far from the coast, and it was possible for them to swim.”

Polar bears can swim up to 30 miles.

Williams took the picture as an example of wind-sculpted ice, but it was subsequently lifted and used by global warming enthusiasts, including Al Gore.  Canada has very strict copyright laws, and apparently a lawsuit is in the works.

Do you ever wonder why the mainstream media does not report information like that above, even just to get a little dialogue going?  Do you ever wonder why our political leaders are trying to cram carbon emission limits down our collective throats, while admitting they will raise the average person’s heating and transportation costs by thousands of dollars per year? 

Carbon dioxide, the naturally occuring compound that is a foundation of all of life’s plant and animal interactions.  What next - controlling oxygen?

One last thought, only becuase it is so funny.  Domino now claims their sugar is “carbon free.”  Anything that is living or has ever lived contains carbon, including plant-based sugar.  In fact, its chemical formula is C12H22O11.  If it is truly carbon free, then it must be H22O11, which when reduced down gives you H2O.  It’s now water?  And traveling through West Viriginia one sees billboards for “carbon neutral coal.”   Coal, that is more than 90% carbon, with some oxygen, nitrogen, and sulfur thrown in.  Carbon neutral?

We need to teach more science and logic in our schools to reduce the gullibility index.

“We The President”

An interesting insight from Mindy Belz at World magazine…

To understand Barack Obama at his 100-days-in-office milestone, you have to realize that he is perhaps not simply a Democrat or a liberal but an anti-populist. Consider the language of the 44th president’s major speech on the economy, delivered April 14 at Georgetown University:

“I want to talk about what we’ve done, why we’ve done it, and what we have left to do.”

“This is the situation, the downward spiral that we confronted on the day that we took office . . .”

“We will hold accountable those who are responsible, we’ll force the necessary adjustments, we’ll provide the support to clean up those bank balance sheets . . .”

If it’s not clear who “we” is, then it’s plain in a list of accomplishments—”we’ve already dramatically expanded early childhood education,” “we are investing in innovative programs”—leading up to one of the speech’s climactic moments: “We have been called to govern in extraordinary times. And that requires an extraordinary sense of responsibility—to ourselves, to the men and women who sent us here, to the many generations whose lives will be affected for good or for ill because of what we do here.”

There were bright spots, like when the president said “we have to get serious about entitlement reform.” But in the 213 uses of “we” I found in Obama’s 45-minute speech, the plural pronoun is not referring to the students and faculty at Georgetown or “the men and women who sent us here.” In almost every case, the pronoun refers to government in Washington; more precisely, this president and this Congress. They are the subject, the actor; the “us” out here in the countryside (or, say, on Wall Street or Main Street) is the object to be acted upon.

Read the full column here.

How To Win An Argument With A Liberal

Say what you will about Ann Coulter, she certainly gives as good as she gets…

(H/T townhall)

This Is Not Your Father’s Bankruptcy

So much for hopes that Chrysler’s bankruptcy filing would be a step in the direction of capitalism and free markets…

Chrysler LLC filed for an unprecedented, White House-sponsored bankruptcy Thursday, presenting a test for the nation’s economy and judicial system as the administration tries to ram a politically brokered deal through a New York bankruptcy court in 60 days.

President Obama, trying to save union jobs and benefits while promoting a new generation of “green” cars, said he was prepared to spend an additional $8 billion to try to reorganize the company in a way that leaves much of it intact but shifts control into the hands of unions, the government and Italian carmaker Fiat through a new alliance.

I’m thoroughly confused. Why was Obama so desperate to bail the auto companies out with billions of OUR dollars? What exactly were we rescuing them from? Because this “bankruptcy” looks to me to be just one huge bailout that puts Dear Leader in control of yet another industry.

Let’s see, so far Obama has fired the CEO of General Motors, and now he’s putting himself in charge of Chyrsler as well. Hmmm… it seems Obama might be taking Hugo Chavez up on his reading suggestions after all…