We're supposed to be laughing at the little Prince and his Court of Clowns.

I fully realize that everyone has already seen these articles, but I've been busy and so, in a 24/7 news cycle, that means I'm late to the party. Is everyone already drunk?

Last week Jonah Goldberg wrote in the National Review about the three-ring goat rodeo and clown circus that the launch of Obamacare has become:

But come on, people.

If you can’t take some joy, some modicum of relief and mirth, in the unprecedentedly spectacular beclowning of the president, his administration, its enablers, and, to no small degree, liberalism itself, then you need to ask yourself why you’re following politics in the first place. Because, frankly, this has been one of the most enjoyable political moments of my lifetime.

If I believed for one teeny minute that the spectacular failure of Obamacare would actually mean its demise, I would be laughing until I cried. I would be sending out postcards that read:

But I don't.

I truly believe that we've entered a time in our political history when the political class DO NOT CARE what effects their policies have on us. They care only about the increase of their own political power and they aren't even slightly worried about our reaction to that reality. Oh...there are a few Democrats who are in purple districts and might be sent home over this, but the politburo considers those comrades expendable. As long as the power is maintained by the socialists and progressives and all-round creeps, the DNC doesn't give a hoot for the personal careers of vulnerable senators or congressmen.

Ask yourself, when was the last time a government social program was scraped because it was disastrous, expensive, inefficient, immoral, unfair, and unconstitutional?

I'll wait.

Obamacare is just the beginning of the end. It is the mile marker on our hike into socialism. Next stop -- utter despair.

And the Clown Prince Obama and and his Court DO NOT CARE, and they aren't going back and they aren't giving in and they aren't going to fix anything.

So Mr. Goldberg can find joy in the enormous and unmitigated failure of all failures, as do I, but only because it is better to laugh than to cry.

Because as I always say, "Laugh and the world laughs with you. Cry and you cry alone because you look horrid and feel worse with puffy eyes, a stuffy nose, and a migraine headache."

Even though Obamacare would cover that if you could get insured, the deductibles mean you're paying for that out of pocket, sucker. Crybaby. Wimp. Loser.

Mark Steyn, sets out the new reality for us all to grasp:

On Thursday, he passed a new law at a press conference. George III never did that. But, having ordered America’s insurance companies to comply with Obamacare, the president announced that he is now ordering them not to comply with Obamacare. The legislative branch (as it’s still quaintly known) passed a law purporting to grandfather your existing health plan. The regulatory bureaucracy then interpreted the law so as to un-grandfather your health plan. So His Most Excellent Majesty has commanded that your health plan be de-un-grandfathered. That seems likely to work. The insurance industry had three years to prepare for the introduction of Obamacare. Now the King has given them six weeks to de-introduce Obamacare.

We just suffered through a government shutdown where we witnessed 90 year old WWII veterans barred from visiting their own memorial, tourists barricaded into hotel rooms for fear that they might see Old Faithful blowing off steam and -- HORRORS! -- take a picture, and death benefits being denied to soldier's families because Prince Obama wasn't having ANY of the Republicans' efforts to delay implementation of Obamacare. He wasn't going to be held hostage. Oh no...

NOW it's Prince Precious' idea and so everything is fine, except it probably -- HAHAHAHA! PROBABLY -- isn't even legal.

“I wonder if he has the legal authority to do this,” mused former Vermont governor Howard Dean.

Can I ask WHY we have men and women ELECTED TO MAKE AND UPHOLD THE LAW not knowing whether an action is LAWFUL OR NOT?  Can I ASK that???? Shit, people, this is ridiculous. "Ahh...duurrr...I just got myself elected by lying and bribing. I don't knows nothing 'bout laws and stuff."

Later that day, anxious to help him out, Congress offered to “pass” a “law” allowing people to keep their health plans. The same president who had unilaterally commanded that people be allowed to keep their health plans indignantly threatened to veto any such law to that effect: It only counts if he does it — geddit? As his court eunuchs at the Associated Press obligingly put it: “Obama Will Allow Old Plans.” It’s Barry’s world; we just live in it.

This is a Clown Prince determined to act unconstitutionally.  This is the plan, folks. Every time he is able to clearly and defiantly act outside the law and challenge the eunuchs in Congress who shuffle and mumble and whisper among themselves, "Can he even DO that?" he increases the power of the office. The presidency inches closer to dictatorship.

The reason for the benign Sovereign’s exercise of the Royal Prerogative is that millions of his subjects — or “folks,” as he prefers to call us, no fewer than 27 times during his press conference — have had their lives upended by Obamacare. Your traditional hard-core statist, surveying the mountain of human wreckage he has wrought, usually says, “Well, you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.” But Obama is the first to order that his omelet be unscrambled and the eggs put back in their original shells. Is this even doable? No. That’s the point. When it doesn’t work, he’ll be able to give another press conference blaming the insurance companies, or the state commissioners, or George W. Bush . . .

 And through it all, the god-awful, insultingly stupid, embarrassingly incompetent, outrageously illegal shenanigans, we are expected to be so compliant, so eager for his petty favors, that We The People don't even challenge shit like this:

Still, as historian Michael Beschloss pronounced the day after his election, he’s “probably the smartest guy ever to become president.” Naturally, Obama shares this assessment. As he assured us five years ago, “I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors.” Well, apart from his signature health-care policy. That’s a mystery to him. “I was not informed directly that the website would not be working,” he told us. The buck stops with something called “the executive branch,” which is apparently nothing to do with him. As evidence that he was entirely out of the loop, he offered this:

Had I been I informed, I wouldn’t be going out saying, “Boy, this is going to be great.” You know, I’m accused of a lot of things, but I don’t think I’m stupid enough to go around saying, “This is going to be like shopping on Amazon or Travelocity,” a week before the website opens, if I thought that it wasn’t going to work.

Ooooo-kay. So, if I follow correctly, the smartest president ever is not smart enough to ensure that his website works; he’s not smart enough to inquire of others as to whether his website works; he’s not smart enough to check that his website works before he goes out and tells people what a great website experience they’re in for. But he is smart enough to know that he’s not stupid enough to go around bragging about how well it works if he’d already been informed that it doesn’t work. So he’s smart enough to know that if he’d known what he didn’t know he’d know enough not to let it be known that he knew nothing. The country’s in the very best of hands. (EMPHASIS MINE!!!)

Remember, Obama didn't have a clue about the IRS scandal until he heard about it on TV, just like the "folks." And he was playing cards with Reggie Love when bin Laden was taken out. Oh, and he was packing for a weekend in Vegas when Benghazi went down.

Apparently, just because he never knows a damn thing doesn't mean he isn't really, really smart.

Michael Beschloss is right: This is what it means to be smart in a neo-monarchical America. Obama spake, and it shall be so. And, if it turns out not to be so, why pick on him? He talks a good Royal Proclamation; why get hung up on details?

All in all, I could just puke.

I'll be in my Drinking Closet. If anyone wants to join me, it's BYOB. I'm not sharing today.

I can't say it any better.

So I'm stealing -- in its entirety -- the letter from Congressman Tom McClintock explaining the recent government shutdown.

Facts are stubborn things.

Dear Friends,

This nation has gone through 18 government shutdowns in the last 37 years. Fifteen of those 18 shutdowns occurred when Democrats controlled the House. In those 15 shutdowns, the Democrats demanded increased abortion services and labor and environmental policy concessions.

Perhaps the reason we don’t remember those shutdowns as vividly is because in those days, presidents negotiated around the clock to resolve the disputes that caused them and did everything they could to minimize the public’s inconvenience and suffering.

This time was different. This time, the President refused to negotiate and took unprecedented steps to amplify the pain and suffering that the public endured.

Why would the administration do this? They told us why – because they were winning politically.  

What was the outrageous Republican demand that Democrats refused even to discuss during the 16-day shutdown while they ordered our public servants to make life as difficult as possible for people?

On September 30th, with the deadline just hours away, House Republicans had dropped all conditions to fund the entire government with one substantive exception: delay the individual mandate that forces people to buy policies against their will. Democrats summarily rejected this proposal and for 16 days refused to negotiate on this single point, while literally accusing Republicans of sedition.

Then this past Monday, the President’s Press Secretary made this stunning admission: the Obama administration may itself seek to delay the individual mandate by dropping the penalty for non-compliance.

They’ve got to be kidding.

For the 16 days of the shutdown, the only substantive dispute was the Republican plea to delay the individual mandate for the millions of Americans who couldn’t find or afford Obamacare policies.

Doing so could have ended the impasse instantly. During those 16 days, it was clear to everyone that the exchanges weren’t working. Yet the President and Congressional Democrats refused even to discuss the matter, while they turned their formidable propaganda machine to the task of winning politically.

These facts speak for themselves and need no embellishment from me. John Adams once observed that “Facts are stubborn things.” As passions cool and reason resumes its rightful place in the nation’s discourse, these facts will speak eloquently and stubbornly of what happens when politics trumps policy and propaganda trumps reality. 

Sincerely,

Tom McClintock

DAMN THE TORPEDOES!

For the children...of seals.

Democrats, liberals and the press (but I repeat myself) would like you to viscerally, emotionally and without using ONE BRAIN CELL connect the image of a pathetic seal face with the idea that cutting even one single DIME from a budget that is as bloated as a dead body after two weeks in the Hudson River will make the seals sad. Very, very sad.

 

Apparently liberals have abandoned the idea that cruel, vicious, gun-toting conservatives are swayed by images of adorable children since Sandy Hook didn't make us immediately line up and hand over all our guns. So now we're being treated to images like this. 

AAaaahhhhhh.

If we don't cave, then we'll surely be accused of this:

What sequestration really comes down to.
Republicans are heartless bastards.

If I was any good at Photoshop, I would have substituted a shotgun for the club. That'd be some sweet irony right there.

BAM!

UPDATED!!! HAHAHAHA! RG found this. It is EXACTLY what I needed but was far too lazy to create. Thanks, RG!

H/T: Breitbart

Fun to play with.

This interactive map is actually pretty informative and allows one to quickly sort the two parties into several important categories. Kinda fun.

A History Lesson to Start the New Year

It's the first day of the year that wasn't supposed to be.

So Happy 2013, kittens!

One of my New Year's resolutions is to Improve The Stupid, and that means learning something every day. Here's your first test. If you don't know the answers, just guess. A pretty good guess would be "b".

BLACK POLITICAL HISTORY: THE UNTOLD STORY
NOTE: All answers are "b."

1. What Party was founded as the anti-slavery Party and fought to free blacks from slavery?
            [ ] a. Democratic Party
            [ ] b. Republican Party

2. What was the Party of Abraham Lincoln who signed the emancipation proclamation that resulted in the Juneteenth celebrations that occur in black communities today?
            [ ] a. Democratic Party
            [ ] b. Republican Party

3. What Party passed the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the U. S. Constitution granting blacks freedom, citizenship, and the right to vote?
            [ ] a. Democratic Party
            [ ] b. Republican Party

4. What Party passed the Civil Rights Acts of 1866 and 1875 granting blacks protection from the Black Codes and prohibiting racial discrimination in public accommodations, and was the Party of most blacks prior to the 1960’s, including Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Booker T. Washington, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.?
            [ ] a. Democratic Party
            [ ] b. Republican Party

5. What was the Party of the founding fathers of the NAACP?
            [ ] a. Democratic Party
            [ ] b. Republican Party

6. What was the Party of President Dwight Eisenhower who sent U.S. troops to Arkansas to desegregate schools, established the Civil Rights Commission in 1958, and appointed Chief Justice Earl Warren to the U.S. Supreme Court which resulted in the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision ending school segregation?
            [ ] a. Democratic Party
            [ ]  b. Republican Party

7.   What Party, by the greatest percentage, passed the Civil Rights Acts of the 1950’s and 1960’s?
            [ ] a. Democratic Party
            [ ] b. Republican Party

8. What was the Party of President Richard Nixon who instituted the first Affirmative Action program in 1969 with the Philadelphia Plan that established goals and timetables?
            [ ] a. Democratic Party
            [ ] b. Republican Party

9. What is the Party of President George W. Bush who appointed more blacks to high-level positions than any president in history and who spent record money education, job training and health care to help black Americans prosper?
            [ ] a. Democratic Party
            [ ] b. Republican Party

BLACK POLITICAL HISTORY: THE UNTOLD STORY

NOTE: All answers are "b."

10. What Party fought to keep blacks in slavery and was the Party of the Ku Klux Klan?
            [ ] a. Republican Party
            [ ] b. Democratic Party

11. What Party from 1870 to 1930 used fraud, whippings, lynching, murder, intimidation, and mutilation to get the black vote, and passed the Black Codes and Jim Crow laws which legalized racial discrimination and denied blacks their rights as citizens?
            [ ] a. Republican Party
            [ ] b. Democratic Party

12. What was the Party of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and President Harry Truman who rejected anti-lynching laws and efforts to establish a permanent Civil Rights Commission?
            [ ] a. Republican Party
            [ ] b. Democratic Party

13. What was the Party of President Lyndon Johnson, who called Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. “that [N-word] preacher” because he opposed the Viet Nam War; and President John F. Kennedy who voted against the 1957 Civil Rights law as a Senator, then as president opposed the 1963 March on Washington by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. after becoming president and the FBI investigate Dr. King on suspicion of being a communist?
            [ ] a. Republican Party
            [ ] b. Democratic Party

14. What is the Party of the late Senators Robert Byrd who was a member of the Ku Klux Klan, Ernest “Fritz” Hollings who hoisted the Confederate flag over the state capitol in South Carolina while governor, and Ted Kennedy who called black judicial nominees “Neanderthals” while blocking their appointments?
            [ ] a. Republican Party
            [ ] b. Democratic Party

15. What was the Party of President Bill Clinton who failed to fight the terrorists after the first bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993, sent troops to war in Bosnia and Kosovo without Congressional approval, vetoed the Welfare Reform law twice before signing it, and refused to comply with a court order to have shipping companies develop an Affirmative Action Plan?
            [ ] a. Republican Party
            [ ] b. Democratic Party

16. What is the Party of Vice President Al Gore whose father voted against the Civil Rights Acts of the 1960’s, and who lost the 2000 election as confirmed by a second recount of Florida votes by the “Miami Herald” and a consortium of major news organizations and the ruling by the U.S. Civil Rights Commission that blacks were not denied the right to vote?
            [ ] a. Republican Party
            [ ] b. Democratic Party

17. What Party is against school vouchers, against school prayers, and takes the black vote for granted without ever acknowledging their racist past or apologizing for trying to expand slavery, lynching blacks and passing the Black Codes and Jim Crow laws that caused great harm to blacks?
            [ ] a. Republican Party
            [ ] b. Democratic Party

 From the National Black Republican Association website.

Good news...bad news...

Keep your pants on, boys.

When you're in a knife fight and someone brings a gun, it's not advantageous to have your pants down around your ankles, boys. Republicans in Congress need to grow a pair, hike their pants up and load their pistols. This is a real fight they are getting from President Dick Tator and it's not really about the money.

It's about power. Absolute power.

With the looming fiscal cliff dampening everyone's Christmas spirit, Obama's negotiating style resembles a vengeful wife in a nasty divorce who keeps refusing settlement offers and demanding ever more from a whipped soon-to-be-ex-husband. Even when Boehner caves on alimony, custody and the house, our miffed and petulant POTUS refuses the offer and demands more.

Charles Krauthammer hammers this point:

Let’s understand President Obama’s strategy in the “fiscal cliff” negotiations. It has nothing to do with economics or real fiscal reform. This is entirely about politics. It’s Phase 2 of the 2012 campaign. The election returned him to office. The fiscal cliff negotiations are designed to break the Republican opposition and grant him political supremacy, something he thinks he earned with his landslide 2.8-point victory margin on Election Day.

This is why he sent Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner to the Republicans to convey not a negotiating offer but a demand for unconditional surrender. House Speaker John Boehner had made a peace offering of $800 billion in new revenue. Geithner pocketed Boehner’s $800 billion, doubled it to $1.6 trillion, offered risible cuts that in 2013 would actually be exceeded by new stimulus spending and then demanded that Congress turn over to the president all power over the debt ceiling.

Boehner was stunned. Mitch McConnell laughed out loud. In nobler days, they’d have offered Geithner a pistol and an early-morning appointment at Weehawken. Alas, Boehner gave again, coming back a week later with spending-cut suggestions — as demanded by Geithner — only to have them dismissed with a wave of the hand.

This isn't the negotiating behavior of someone who wants to find an answer. This is the negotiating behavior of someone who wants to break his opposition. Someone who is ruthless - and ideological enough - to break his country to do it. Obama wants political dominance for his party in a country where they are effectively the Politburo. Forever.

Uncle Joe (Stalin) said, "You can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs." Apparently we have plenty of gutless egg-heads in Congress.

What’s going on here? Having taken Boehner’s sword, and then his shirt, Obama sent Geithner to demand Boehner’s trousers. Perhaps this is what Obama means by a balanced approach.

He pretends that Boehner’s offer to raise revenue by eliminating deductions rather than by raising rates is fiscally impossible.

But on July 22, 2011, Obama had said that “$1.2 trillion in additional revenues . . . could be accomplished without hiking tax rates, but could simply be accomplished by eliminating loopholes, eliminating some deductions and engaging in a tax reform process.” Which is exactly what the Republicans are offering today.

I have often said that the biggest  reason 9/11 resulted in so much tragedy when the hijackers were minimally armed and decidedly overwhelmed was that the passengers thought they were playing a different game. They had been conditioned from decades of hijackings and terrorism to believe that you followed the directives of the hijackers and let the authorities deal with their demands - that the safest thing to do was to do nothing. It wasn't until passengers on UA Flight 93 learned that the planes were being used as missiles that they realized the rules of the game had changed.

This is what Obama is doing. He has changed the game and we don't realize it. He is deliberately destroying this country. That is his intent. It isn't an unfortunate impasse with recalcitrant and intransigent Republicans that we are seeing as we race toward the fiscal cliff. This is a game for the "fundamental transformation" of this country. There are new rules.

Obama has never shown interest in genuine debt reduction. He does nothing for two years, then spends the next two ignoring his own debt-reduction commission. In less than four years, he has increased U.S. public debt by a staggering 83 percent. As a percentage of gross domestic product, the real marker of national solvency, it has spiked from 45 percent to 70 percent.

Obama has never once publicly suggested a structural cut in entitlements. On the contrary, he created an entirely new entitlement — Obamacare — that, according to the Congressional Budget Office, will increase spending by $1.7 trillion over 11 years.

The difficulty is in getting people to see the gravity and the magnitude of Obama's plans. No one wants to believe that the president wants to really shred the Constitution and assume unprecedented power. No one wants to believe that we've elected a man twice who really hates this country and the freedoms its citizens have enjoyed for over 200 hundred years. No one wants to believe that Obama is really a bad person, not just an incompetent one.

He is one or the other, though. Flat out bad. Or flat out stupid.

Pick one.

Thomas Sowell pointed out in a column a few weeks ago that the most serious problem concerning the implementation of Obamacare was all the waivers Obama had given out. What Obama has essentially done is create a law that gives him limitless power to punish and reward, according to his whim.

Among the objections to ObamaCare, one that has not gotten as much attention as it should is the president's power to waive the law for any company, union or other enterprise he chooses.

The 14th Amendment to the Constitution provides for "equal protection of the laws" for all Americans. To have a law that can cost an organization millions of dollars a year either apply or not apply, depending on the whim or political interest of the President of the United States, is to make a mockery of the rule of law.

How secure is any freedom when there is this kind of arbitrary power in the hands of one man?

What does your right of freedom of speech mean if saying something that irritates the Obama administration means that you or your business has to pay huge amounts of money and get hit with all sorts of red tape under ObamaCare that your competitor is exempted from, because your competitor either kept quiet or praised the Obama administration or donated to its reelection campaign?

And now Obama wants to be given total power over spending by removing any restrictions placed on the debt ceiling by Congress.

John Adams said, "There are two ways to conquer and enslave a country. One is by the sword. The other is by debt."

John Marshall wrote, "The power to tax is the power to destroy."

Obama wants both these powers, with no restraints.

Say goodnight, Gracie.

I know why we lost the election.

I've been pondering all the variables and unknowns and lost opportunities and failed messaging and I have finally figured out why we lost the election. Republicans were playing Fronthand/Backhand.



We've been playing it for years. We played it with McCain and we did it again with Romney.

Me and you. Me and you.

Freedom or Fairness - UPDATED! I'VE BEEN LINKED AT IMAO!

Joe Dan Gorman has been composing, singing, writing and producing great stuff for years. He now has another website, Intellectual Froglegs, where he posts pithy, pertinent, and priceless videos.

Here is his latest one:

Freedom or fairness. That is what is all comes down to, kittens. This distinction is one of the most telling differences between the liberal view of "good" and the conservative view of "good".

These two ideas are, inevitably, mutually exclusive. Freedom creates unfairness; fairness can only be achieved by destroying freedom. 

To the liberal, outcome or results are the most important things in determining whether a society is good or not. Their entire sense of morality is measured on external, material circumstances. To the liberal mind, all people should have "things." What those things are depends on the moment in history and the promises made by the men in power. To Lenin the things were bread and peace, to Hitler they were healthcare and education. Liberals waste no intellectual contemplation of the interior environment of a man, his dreams, aspirations, beliefs, motives, desires; they are too busy redistributing things. If anything, the individual dreams of men alarm and frustrate the left because they can not control them. They CAN control the distribution of things. But you need power to control things.

The left loves power. Everything they believe in can only be achieved through the exercise of political power. Everything. All of it. Because what they want doesn't exist and will never exist. So you must use power to FORCE it into existence. It reminds me of the old expression, "If it doesn't fit, get a bigger hammer."

The left is always reaching for a bigger hammer.

In contrast, the right values freedom, not social or economic "fairness."  We understand that fairness of outcome does not and can not exist among free men. We understand that the only fairness that can morally be expressed by a free society is the fairness of the just use of power. When power (justice) is "blind" and all men can expect the same treatment in the application of power within society, where power is used only to prevent injurious behavior, then men are free. When power instead becomes a tool to create "fairness", then all men are slaves, chained to the demands of others. Whether you are a slave to one master, or a slave to many, you are still a slave.

This difference between the left and the right is fundamental and irreconcilable. It springs from different moral imperatives, different values. While the left values fairness which requires the expansion of power, the right values freedom which requires the restraint of power.

We will never get along.

Here is another one of my favorite Joe Dan videos from a couple of years ago which highlights Joe Dan's composing and singing talent. Get to know him. He's good.

I will never get used to being recognized by the blogs I've been reading for years. I am such an attention whore. Someone needs to shove me back into my seat.

To Be or Not To Be

The election of the president of the United States nears and it is not too melodramatic to say the fate of the world hangs in the balance. Only two men realistically have a chance at winning this election, though a number of others are running.

Will it be Romney...or Obama?

The following video by Bill Whittle is one of his best as he tackles the question with clear-eyed, pragmatic reasoning. He focuses not on the Obama voter, who can not be persuaded, nor on the undecided voter, who frankly has made up his mind but is unwilling to say. No, he focuses on the principled voter who has decided to vote third party. His argument is particularly salient to me as I was "one of the those" until the 2004 election of George Bush. Until that presidential election, I had always voted Libertarian. Straight ticket. Period.

So perhaps, because of my history, I have a few additional insights.

I voted third party for many reasons, and none of them were really  -  or solely - about principle. Oh, principle was the "cover", the offered reason, the grounds for my stubborn commitment. But it was not truly about principle. It was about the refusal to become engaged. To participate. To get dirt on my hands.

And it was about apathy. The belief, not just that my vote didn't matter, but that the entire process didn't matter. That even if an R or D candidate won, nothing would change.

I voted Libertarian because it allowed me the moral arrogance of being "above the fray." It also allowed me to feel as if I was voting from an intelligent, principled stance without having to know a single thing about the election, the issues, or the candidates. They were both wrong, so why pay attention? By refusing to vote for either party - both of which support some aspect of the Establishment - I enjoyed a double scoop of chocolate/cherry ice cream. I got to feel smug while dressing my ignorance in party clothes.

Yeah, me! I was so freaking cool while all the numbnuts ran around voting for R's and D's and getting the same crap sandwich no matter who won.

And, secretly, I never had to address my fatalistic apathy about politics, my sense of helplessness in the face of the power structure of Washington and the Establishment. And my unwillingness to do anything about it. That wasn't pleasant. So much better to feel superior than insignificant.

Even when I voted for George Bush in 2004, I knew I was participating in a sham. It made me angry to realize that I truly did not have a voice, that the political machine in Washington had long since begun running under its own steam and didn't need my approval or disapproval as gas for the engine. The process of elections was to give people the appearance of control and participation, while in reality it was simply a ceremony every four years that essentially amounted to, "The King is dead. Long live the King!"

It wasn't until the rise of the Tea Party and the opportunity it offered for genuine citizen activism that I began to believe differently. Finally, the people were raising their voices. Finally, we had a pathway, a focus, a stated goal. Finally, we had a chance.

And that's all -- and everything -- Romney is.

A chance.

Voting for anyone else is throwing away that chance. We may never have another.

I'm going to take it.

So if you are still determined to vote third party, let me offer one more plea. Just this once, just this election, vote for Romney. I'll never ask again, because if Romney doesn't do what he has promised, then I will help to form a third party and will stand with you, though it may be too late for any party other than the Democrats, to ever regain power in this country. Think of that. Your principled vote could doom this country to a future that you DO. NOT. WANT.

A vote for Romney gives us a fighting chance.

If you take that chance and vote for Romney - JUST. THIS. ONCE. - I (and I know Bill) promise to do everything in our power to hold him to his promise to PUSH BACK against the last century of incremental progressive gains.

That is all we have. There is no third party vote that can change any of that now - at this moment.

The certainty of Obama.

Or a chance with Romney.

To be or not to be.

That is the question.

How About We Try Electing a REAL President?

We tried going with the cool kid, but that didn't work. 

—23 Million Unemployed or Underemployed
—47 Million on Food Stamps
—5.5 Million Homes in Crisis/Foreclosure
—$4500 Drop in Household Income
—$5.5 Trillion of New Debt
—$716 Billion in Medicare Cuts
—$2.6 Trillion for Obamacare
—$1.9 Trillion in New Taxes in Obama’s Budget
—100% Increase in Gas Prices 

How about we try electing a real grownup, with a lifetime of real success to be a real president? What's the worst that could happen?

One a**hole in the back row of a Romney rally

A superb rant from Charlie Martin over at The PJ Tatler:

So today’s little furor is some ass at a Romney rally who worked his way around, right in front of the press, and showed off a pretty obviously racist shirt. Now, as Stacy McCain has pointed out, there’s good reason to think the was a troll, a false-flag operation. We’ve been seeing them, organized and disorganized, since the first Tea Party demonstrations — remember “Crash the Tea Party“? 

But you know what? Forget that. I’m tired of idiots trying to make one asshole in the back row of a Romney rally the issue. You want to talk racism? Well, let’s talk about this: 

• It was Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Democrat, who founded the Ku Klux Klan.
• Woodrow Wilson segregated Federal Buildings and jobs after 50 years of integration under largely Republican administrations.
• It was the Democrat Party in the South that instituted Jim Crow Laws.
• It was the Democrat Party in the South that instituted “separate but equal”.
• It was the Democrat Party in the South that supported the Ku Klux Klan.
• It was George Wallace and the Democrat Party in the South that said “Segregation Forever”.
• It was Orval Faubus and the Democrat Party that wanted the Arkansas National Guard to enforce segregation, and Dwight Eisenhower, a Republican President, that sent the 101st Airborne to integrate the schools.
• It was Bull Connor, a member of the Democrat National Committee, who turned the hoses on the marchers in Birmingham, and it was the Republicans who made up the majority that passed the 1964 Civil Rights Act, over the filibuster of such Democrat paragons as William Fulbright and Al Gore Sr. — and Grand Kleagle Byrd.

There's more. It's all good. 

Let's just tell the truth about the difference between Republicans and Democrats, shall we?

Republicans are accused of racism because we don't believe in the soft bigotry of low expectations. We truly believe that every man IS equal before the law and among his fellow men and therefore deserves to stand on his own two feet. Of course, there are exceptions, like when some rapacious doctor cuts off both your feet for profit...

...then society must step in and provide for you. 

Democrats believe that many, many, many people (actually virtually anyone who is not a politician) are simply incapable of providing for themselves -- NO. MATTER. WHAT. -- and that to suggest otherwise is to be heartless and dispassionate and RAAAAAACIST!

Simple, really. 

But Republicans are too stupid to figure it out.

A Tale of Two Cities

When discussing a controversial story, it is frequently necessary to remember that there are two sides to consider. In the fast-paced complexity of everyday life, this "two sides" principle can remind us that things are often more complicated than they at first appear and that the truth may be somewhat elusive. However in politics, this "two sides" principle can be applied in all circumstances to instantly reduce any potentially complex issue to the straightforward simplicity of the "good side belongs to the Democrat" and the "bad side belongs to the Republican." Always.

This concept is remarkably easy to apply. Allow me to demonstrate.

A Tale of Two Cities.

Both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney came from a background of privilege. Both men enjoyed an Ivy League education and the advantages of association and opportunity these educations afforded them. Both men have made millions. But one is clearly "good"; the other clearly "bad."

Can you guess which is which?

When Obama was in his righteous youth and having difficulty paying off his student loans because of his otherworldly commitment to those without, he nevertheless found it impossible to actually LIVE in the poverty-stricken Chicago neighborhoods that he was so dedicated to fighting for, instead choosing to commute a considerable distance every day to live in the swank Chicago suburb of Hyde Park. 

This was not because he didn't care. He did. He's a Democrat.

When Mitt and Ann Romney were raising their family and building a business, they choose to live in Belmont Hills, MA., a nice neighborhood "where the residences are large and the yards spacious." So not only was Romney not fighting for the poor, he wasn't living among them! 

This was because he didn't care. At all. He's a Republican.

Do you see the difference between these two men? The difference is not where they went to school, their background, accomplishments, character or beliefs. The only difference necessary to determine whether someone is a good or bad person is whether they are a Democrat or a Republican. One dedicated a year or two of his life fighting for people he wouldn't live anywhere near in order to opportunistically launch a political career, while the other spent decades taking risks and building businesses that actually gave jobs to those lower and middle-class people. 

Clearly Romney chose not to live among the poor because he is elitist and privileged, while Obama chose not to live among the poor because he is just that wonderful. 

Now if this doesn't make any sense to you, and just trying to understand it makes you feel like this:

then you must be a Republican. And you don't care either, so I'm glad you just got hit in the head with a basketball.

Mean old Republican.

Oh, and you're obviously raaaaaaacist, too.

Republican is code for racist.

UPDATED!

Another example of how distant and unfeeling Romney is. The man simply doesn't understand real people at all.

He's not like us. He's a Republican.

Need I say more?

H/T: DOUBLEPLUSUNDEAD

A Pictorial Essay of the Vice-Presidential Debate

ALWAYS  BE  BATMAN

The Catastrophe

The Obama Debate Disaster

"The worst thing that ever happened anywhere."

Like the Arab-Israel Conflict. Yeah, that bad.
Known in Arabic as al-Nakba (Arabic: النكبة‎, "The Catastrophe") 

The doggie bites back.

Few experiences in life are more unsettling than to see your deepest beliefs shaken like a Rottie with a Beanie Baby between its teeth. Immediately one is struck by how insubstantial and vulnerable our beliefs can be: how effortlessly reduced to bits of fluff and sprinkled velour when they impact reality and are shredded as lies. The realization brings the catastrophic, crashing question: what NOW?

Yes, kittens, what now?

Watching Obama's performance on Tuesday night has understandably sent out seismic waves of shock and existential despair through the liberal community. For people who invest not just their intellectual principles, but their MORAL CHARACTER in politics, discovering that your man is truly not just an empty suit, but an empty chair, has to be one of the most epiphanous experiences possible.

So what now? There is no "what now." Sorry.

The very question, "what now?" is predicated on the notion (I love using that word. It's Obama's favorite.) that there is a possible response to the event that allows you to maintain your original assumptions. "What now?" assumes that there is still a way to save your man, your beliefs, your own moral character, your view of the world and its possible future.

There isn't.

Obama is an empty chair because his ideas are empty. Leftist ideas are not just wrong - they are false. They are lies. History has allowed it to fall to the hapless Obama to show the world just how empty and devoid of intellectual substance leftist ideas really are. Until now, the ideas of leftism -- at least in this country -- had had the bountiful good fortune of the world's most robust economy on which to parasitically posture their moral superiority. All the promises of utopian egalitarianism seemed rather harmless amid the rough and tumble vibrancy of a country that had set men free of the demands that one's uniqueness be subordinated to another's equality.

Okay. Lets. Shall we?

Not likely to be a Tea Partier.

The left loves to insist that they "celebrate diversity". It's a central tenet to their moral view of tolerance and acceptance. But the honest celebration of diversity creates something anathema to the left. Economic inequality. So the left does not celebrate TRUE diversity. The left celebrates individual deviancy. 

The left defiantly holds up a mirror to the values of the right. The right embraces moral and cultural unity to foster an environment in which individuals can pursue their individual dreams without society descending into dysfunction and dependency. The left, in contrast, defies and destroys cultural unity, allowing people to engage in behaviors that are destructive, dysfunctional, idiosyncratic, and which often result in economic and emotional dependency. 

The right celebrates cultural unity and economic diversity. The left celebrates economic unity and cultural diversity. The lefts' view of the world is not just backwards, it's upside down as well. In order to believe in leftism, one must first believe that the business of life is not business, that cultural activity and economic activity are unrelated. To the left, life is not production and creation, but indulgence and immediacy. In their world the need to produce is recrafted into servitude and slavery; the idea of PROFIT, the excess of production, becomes synonymous with greed and brutal, immoral self-interest. This belief forces one to be in conflict not only with the "business" of business, but with the business of life itself.

It is not really a surprise, then, that when faced with a man like Romney, who understands what you create is a measure of who you are, Obama looked like an empty chair. A leftist discussing economic policy with a businessman is in dangerous territory to begin with, but a leftist with no demonstrable understanding, appreciation or RESPECT for the individual diversity of free people acting in their own self-interest is reduced to posturing and petulant smirks. Obama's contempt on that stage was not just for Romney or his tax plan. It was for America and freedom. Obama's lack of answers was not because he is stupid, it was because his ideas are stupid. Obama, like all those on the left, does not believe in creation. He believes in redistribution. He does not believe in production; he believes in confiscation. This is to believe in nothing. Theft is an empty promise.

What we saw on stage Wednesday was simply the absolute truth of what leftism is. It is an empty chair.

UPDATED!

Wow. I took all this time writing this crap and Roger L. Simon said pretty much the same thing, only better.

I should just quit. I ain't getting paid anyway.  HAHA!

President Romney. Say it like you MEAN it.

President Romney.
PRESident Romney.
President ROMney.

President Romney. Sir.












But who's the putz standing next to you? Lost to history. Bwaaahahaha!

HAHAHA! Someone is getting a scolding. It's the woodshed for you, young man.

Last night was sublime. It was delightful. It was pure keen.

It was about time.

Romney finally brought everything to the table. Obama, as always, brought nothing. Not even his teleprompter. What a contrast.

Chris Matthews got a massive butthurt watching it. Let the wailing and the gnashing begin.

Chris was left begging Obama to watch HIM more. That's your only advice? No leg tingles then, I'm guessing.

This morning Jim Lehrer is getting kicked to the curb by the left as well. How COULD he allow Obama to look so BAD? What the hell was Lehrer doing just sitting there while Romney handed him his ass over and over again? Wasn't Lehrer aware that his JOB was to save President Empty Chair from getting smacked around like a lunchroom folding chair by a kid Michelle has just denied an extra dessert?

NEW YORK (AP) — Jim Lehrer may be regretting his decision to come out of semi-retirement and moderate his 12th presidential debate.

The veteran PBS anchor drew caustic social media reviews for his performance on Wednesday, with critics saying he failed to keep control of the campaign’s first direct exchange between President Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney. The candidates talked over Lehrer’s attempts to keep them to time limitations, and his open-ended questions frequently lacked sharpness.

Hell, even Obama seemed annoyed at the lack of control. Early on, he suggested that they move on to something else, obviously tired of getting bloodied. But the beating had just begun and Romney still had a lot of swing left in that right arm.

Tweets went out between campaigns and Obama's camp wrote: "Romney is a good debater. This is not a game changer, though."

Romney campaign tweeted back: "If this had been a game, the ref would have called it."

Over at Rachel Lucas's blog, Physics Geek nails it.

Tonight's Debate

Question to Governor Romney: "Why do you make so many gaffes?"

Question to President Obama: "How is it that you remain so amazing after 4 years of intense scrutiny? You're just so cool. Loved you on Letterman, by the way."


That's really all you need to know while watching.

Get yourself a tall bottle of bourbon. Or tequila.

Remember when retarded was funny?

Remember when Dear Leader thought it was haha! funny to compare his crappy bowling skills to handicapped children competing in the Special Olympics?  He was just so cool. We were all supposed to laugh at how the cool kid was poking fun at the seriously uncool kids because...well...because he was just so cool.

 \

"It was like Special Olympics or something."

Yes, Mr. President. Or something."

Now, of course, he's got an election to win and so he's not above trotting out the specials needs individual to show how kind he is and how black-hearted and evil Republicans are.

In its latest effort to slap Mitt Romney's "47 percent" comment, the Obama campaign on Monday tapped a young woman with Down syndrome to pull at the heartstrings of undecided voters.

The Obama-Biden campaign's web page featured a "letter of the week" from a 25-year-old woman who wrote that "I am one of the 47% of Americans who fall under Mitt Romney's definition of 'entitled' and 'unable to take responsibility for my life.' I have Down syndrome."

So when you compare the two Obama's - the one who carelessly jokes about the efforts of challenged kids to experience the joy of competing and sportsmanship with the one who callously uses a Down Syndrome woman to show how much he now "cares" - which one is the REAL Obama? The guy who jokes with Leno, confident in his other-worldly coolness, or the guy desperately trying to win votes?

I'm pretty sure I know which one is the real one.

Yes, Mr. President. Your entire presidency has been like the Special Olympics...or something.

The OTHER 47%

On Twitter, Obama put out this picture:

RT if this describes you: twitter.com/BarackObama/st…
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) September 21, 2012

Really?

I would say he has written off the half of America that built it by themselves.

I'm in that half. Apparently not paying my fair share.