Saturday: Stupid keeps coming

Republican Debate

The two winners in my opinion were Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney. Romney was smooth and presidential while Gingrich went to his strong suit, ideas.

Asked to address concerns that his campaign has been "a mess" that reflects badly on his leadership abilities, the former House speaker hurled the question back at moderator Chris Wallace.
"I TOOK SERIOUSLY BRET’S INJUNCTION TO PUT ASIDE THE TALKING POINTS. AND I WISH YOU WOULD PUT ASIDE THE GOTCHA QUESTIONS," Gingrich said, vowing again that he'd forge ahead with his campaign: "Like Ronald Reagan, who had 13 senior staff resign … and his new campaign manager laid off 100 people … I INTEND TO RUN ON IDEAS.”

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0811/61156.html#ixzz1UoQg4xgZ

I think Gingrich put himself back into the race with his feisty performance. Calling out Chris Wallace for “gotcha questions” was brilliant.

Will Hillary Run?
…SO WHY ARE WE UNLIKELY TO GET A HILLARY CHALLENGE TO PRESIDENT OBAMA, EVEN THOUGH IN SOME POLLS SHE IS PREFERRED OVER THE PRESIDENT AMONG DEMOCRATS RIGHT NOW? The first reason has to do with the Democratic Party's partisan use of race. Democrats believe that all blacks and women belong only in their party, voting only for their candidates. The standard joke about Democrats is that when anything bad happens in the world, their spin with the media's help is always "women and minorities hardest hit." Democrats have been able to foist this anti-historical racial entitlement on the American people, despite their own party's abysmal record on Jim Crow, lynching laws, segregation, and voting rights, and they are not about to give it up. UNDERMINING THE "FIRST BLACK PRESIDENT" WOULD ERODE THIS UNMERITED BUT FAVORABLE POSITION, SO NEITHER DEMOCRATS NOR HILLARY CLINTON WILL EVEN ATTEMPT IT, EVEN IN THE FACE OF A FAILING PRESIDENCY.

The second reason why Hillary will not challenge the president is that such an affront would dispel the fairy dust surrounding the president and FORCE OBAMA VOTERS TO ADMIT THEIR VOTES CAST FOR HIM IN 2008 WERE UNINFORMED AT BEST AND NARCISSISTIC AT WORST. Obama voters were uninformed because they refused to look at the actual man. The media wing of the Democratic Party didn't help. Obama's record, his experience, and his life-long connections went largely unexamined and unreported by the fourth estate. TO PARAPHRASE SOCRATES, "THE UNEXAMINED CANDIDATE IS NOT WORTH ELECTING" AND THERE HAS NEVER BEEN A MORE UNEXAMINED PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE THAT BARACK OBAMA.

But voter narcissism played an even greater role. Many voted for Obama not simply because he was not George Bush or because he was left-leaning or sounded smart. THEY VOTED FOR OBAMA BECAUSE OF WHAT IT SAID ABOUT THEM. OBAMA VOTERS SAW THEMSELVES AS "ENLIGHTENED," BEHOLDING IN THE OBAMA RORSCHACH-TEST THINGS NO ONE ELSE COULD SEE. Who knows -- they might even live to tell their grandchildren that they cast an "historic" vote for the first black president. Historic voters going down in history. What could be more flattering?...

http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/08/between_hillary_and_a_hard_place.html

As Ollie (Hardy) used to say to Stan (Laurel), “This is another fine mess you’ve gotten us into.”


Obama vs Obama vs Obama

….the president is discovering that BARACK OBAMA IS NOW AT WAR WITH BARACK OBAMA. It is not just that the public has fathomed that what Obama says one day will change the next. It is more troublesome than that: AMERICANS ARE CATCHING ON THAT WHAT OBAMA NOW INSISTS IS TRUE USUALLY PROVES AT ODDS WITH WHAT OBAMA ONCE ASSERTED. So the nation is insidiously tuning him out—a novel and annoying experience for the president, who heretofore had received little criticism over his habitual inconsistencies and had assumed his formidable powers of rhetoric and his own landmark heritage would trump any scrutiny from nit-picky critics.

In the recent debt discussions, OBAMA INSISTED ON "BALANCE": he was to play the role of the great compromiser in the middle who would choose the sober and judicious course between unreasonable Tea Party ideologues and fossilized Pelosi liberals. BUT HOW CAN HE SOUND CREDIBLE ABOUT THE RECKLESSNESS OF NOT AUTHORIZING A HIGHER DEBT CEILING WHEN HE HIMSELF VOTED NOT TO RAISE IT IN 2006—WHEN THE AGGREGATE DEBT WAS ROUGHLY HALF OF WHAT IT IS NOW? In 2007 and 2008, Obama did not even show up to the votes for authorizing a higher ceiling.

But more importantly still, Obama has proposed three budgets that ran up nearly $5 trillion in new debt. He submitted a record deficit budget for 2012 that no one in the Senate—Democrats included—could go on the record voting for. His critics assert, as even his supporters wince, that THE BIGGEST DEFICIT SPENDER IN THE HISTORY OF PRESIDENTIAL ADMINISTRATION CAN HARDLY TALK CREDIBLY NOW ABOUT THE NEED FOR HIGHER REVENUE AND TAXES TO PAY FOR HIS OWN PROFLIGACY. It is almost as if Obama 3.0 is saying, "Please, by no means act as President Obama 2.0 did between 2009-2011, or as Senator Obama 1.0 did from 2006-2008."…

http://www.hoover.org/publications/defining-ideas/article/88851

People aren’t listening, because he isn’t credible.

The System is Working

… The people spoke; the process worked. Yes, it was raucous and divisive, but change this fundamental should not be enacted quietly. This is not midnight basketball or school uniforms. THIS IS THE FUTURE OF GOVERNMENT-WORKER POWER AND THE SOLVENCY OF THE STATES. IT DESERVES BIG, SERIOUS, ANIMATED PUBLIC DEBATE.

Precisely of the kind Washington (exhibit B) just witnessed over its debt problem. You know: The debt-ceiling debate universally denounced as dysfunctional, if not disgraceful, hostage-taking, terrorism, gun-to-the-head blackmail.

Spare me the hysteria. WHAT HAPPENED WAS THAT THE 2010 ELECTORATE, AS REPRESENTED IN CONGRESS, FORCED WASHINGTON TO FINALLY CONFRONT THE NATIONAL DEBT. IT WAS A TRIUMPH OF DEMOCRATIC POLITICS — a powerful shift in popular will finding concrete political expression.

But only partial expression. DEBT HAWKS ARE UPSET THAT THE FINAL COMPROMISE DOESN’T DO MUCH. But it shouldn’t do much. They won only one election. They were entrusted, as of yet, with only one-half of one branch of government.

BUT THEY DID BEGIN TO TURN THE AIRCRAFT CARRIER AROUND. The process did bequeath a congressional super-committee with extraordinary powers to reduce debt. And if that fails, THE QUESTION — HOW MUCH GOVERNMENT, HOW MUCH DEBT — WILL GO TO THE NATION IN NOVEMBER 2012. WHICH IS ALSO HOW IT SHOULD BE….

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-system-works/2011/08/11/gIQAKPXc9I_story.html

Dr. Krauthammer hits the nail on the head here. What we are seeing is not a failure of governance, but a success. The people are speaking and arguing, but their voices are being heard.



BHO turning Gray: Vote for Barack!

… ABC News reported Aug.4 that on the president’s 50th birthday his WIFE SAID HER HUSBAND’S GRAYING HAIR IS “PROOF” HE’S HANDLED HIS JOB WELL AND DESERVES RE-ELECTION IN 2012. “Every day, [except when she’s gallivanting on vacation in foreign countries] I see Barack make choices he knows will affect every American family.” Such as overhauling national health care, which he wrongly promised would bring competition, choices, savings, and efficiency. Or insisting on the touted stimulus law that stimulated plenty of ridicule. Or the decision to go into Libya briefly, but which gave the U.S. a third war to soak up tax dollars

Mrs. Obama made her latest promotional statement in an e-mail blast to supporters. MAKING PRESIDENTIAL DECISIONS “IS NO SMALL TASK FOR ANYONE—AND MORE PROOF THAT HE’S EARNING EVERY LAST ONE OF THOSE GRAY HAIRS,” she said….

http://frontpagemag.com/2011/08/11/why-obama-is-really-turning-gray/

This is beyond stupid. What is MO thinking of?

Obama’s war on Jobs

Earlier today, President Obama gave yet another airy speech about the greatness of America, how we’re innovative, and how loves to see things with the stamp “Made In America” on them. I ranted about that speech as he delivered it, here. As he said that stuff about “Made In America,” his own administration is standing pat in the way of Americans making airliners, and Boeing is losing orders to its non-American competitors. OBAMA NEVER BOTHERED TO ADDRESS THAT GLARING GAP BETWEEN WHAT HE SAYS AND WHAT HE DOES.

THIS PRESIDENT IS ALL TALK, AND HE MEANS NONE OF WHAT HE SAYS. While he speaks loftily about bringing American jobs back, HIS OWN BUREAUCRACIES ARE UNLEASHED IN THE SERVICE OF KILLING AMERICAN JOBS. That’s not an opinion, it’s simply fact. And when American businesses point out that Obama’s bureaucracies are killing jobs, he ignores them.

President Barack Obama is ignoring heated concerns from within his own administration THAT NEW ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY REGULATIONS ON THE COAL INDUSTRY WILL BE ECONOMICALLY DEVASTATING.

The EPA is plowing forward with new Maximum Achievable Control Technology (MACT) mandates on the coal industry. The new regulations would force coal energy plants to install new giant scrubber-like materials in their smokestacks to capture carbon particles. Carbon captured in this way would then be made innocuous through a chemical process.

In a lengthy letter to EPA Director Lisa Jackson, OBAMA’S SMALL BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION ADVOCACY OFFICE WROTE THE EPA “MAY HAVE SIGNIFICANTLY UNDERSTATED” THE ECONOMIC “BURDEN THIS RULEMAKING WOULD IMPOSE ON SMALL ENTITIES.”

http://pajamasmedia.com/tatler/2011/08/11/obamas-epa-ignores-small-biz-concerns-that-its-coal-regulations-will-kill-jobs/

And here’s the part they aren’t talking about. The cost of this won’t just be a burden to small businesses, but to everyone. We will all pay more for our electricity to capture CO2 which is a life giving trace gas having only a dubious connection to warming the planet. And that will have the same effect that rising gas prices have leaving the consumers with less money to buy other things. This administration is the most economically illiterate one I’ve ever seen.


Select One: You find President Obama’s speeches
a) Tedious, b) Boring, c) Incredulous?

If someone looked at your face while watching President Obamamake a speech or hold a press conference, I'll bet it would reflect pain and discomfort. YOUR FACIAL EXPRESSION MIGHT BE DESCRIBED AS A GRIMACE. There are a number of reasons for that kind of reaction. It might not even matter whether you are liberal or conservative. There is much about Mr. Obama's style and content that repels rather than attracts.

For example, the man IS TIRESOMELY REPETITIVE. How many times has he used the terms "millionaires and billionaires," "shared sacrifice," and "corporate jet owners"? HE GIVES NEW MEANING TO THE TERM AD NAUSEAM. Most of what he repeats wasn't worth saying the first time. You're left wondering, "IS THAT ALL YOU'VE GOT?"

Saying the same thing over and over makes you totally predictable and uninteresting. Mr. Obama has become tedious and boring.

HOW MANY TIMES HAS HE TOLD US THAT CREATING JOBS IS GOING TO BE HIS NUMBER ONE PRIORITY? Has it ever happened? His "credibility gap" is growing wider than LBJ's.

http://spectator.org/archives/2011/08/12/why-president-obama-is-painful#

Obama’s strong suit has become his weak suit; the more we see him speaking the lower his ratings go. The latest Rasmussen Poll of likely voter has him down 22% on strongly disapprove and down 12% of at least somewhat disapprove. 

Is there Waste In Government?

SENATE DEMOCRATS ARE CHARGING TAXPAYERS FOR A TRIP TO HAWAII, The Daily Caller has learned. The entire press staff of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee is in Maui, even though a field hearing there won’t happen until next Wednesday….

….A committee staffer told TheDC that the reason the hearing will be in Maui is “MOSTLY BECAUSE IT’S HIS [COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN SEN. DANIEL AKAKA’S] HOME STATE.” It’s unclear if the field hearing will focus on any issues relating at all to Hawaii, or if the reasoning for scheduling the trip there is only because Akaka will already be in Hawaii during the congressional recess.

THE STAFFER SAID AKAKA IS THE ONLY SENATOR WHO WILL ATTEND.

The Democratic committee staffers used taxpayer funding to travel to Hawaii a full week before their committee’s hearing date.

http://dailycaller.com/2011/08/12/democratic-hill-staffers-head-to-maui-on-taxpayers-dime-for-senate-indian-affairs-committee-field-hearing/#ixzz1Upa8ok00

Hmmm, a committee meeting with only one Senator in attendance. Nothing to see here folks. Don’t look at the elephant in the room.


Bureaucratic Insanity

A NEW RULE BEING PROPOSED BY THE FEDERAL DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION WOULD REQUIRE FARMERS TO GET COMMERCIAL DRIVERS LICENSES.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, which is a part of DOT, wants to adopt standards that WOULD RECLASSIFY ALL FARM VEHICLES AND IMPLEMENTS AS COMMERCIAL MOTOR VEHICLES, officials said. Likewise, the proposal, if adopted, would require all farmers and everyone on the farm who operates any of the equipment to obtain a CDL, they added.

The proposed rule change would mean that ANYONE WHO DRIVES A TRACTOR OR OPERATES ANY PIECE OF MOTORIZED FARMING EQUIPMENT WOULD BE REQUIRED TO PASS THE SAME TESTS AND COMPLETE THE SAME DETAILED FORMS AND LOGS REQUIRED OF SEMI-TRACTOR TRAILER DRIVERS….

…If the DOT reclassifies farm vehicles and implements as commercial vehicles, the federal government will have regulatory control over the nation’s farm workers, estimated at over 800,000, by requiring them to have commercial drivers licenses.

That possibility worries county farmers and others in Halifax County interested in agriculture.
“I have a CDL, but very few farmers have one,” said Nathalie farmer Ronnie Waller. “This is just another bureaucratic hurdle for the farmer….

http://www.gazettevirginian.com/index.php/news/34-news/3739-proposed-rule-on-farms-called-absurd

This is what big government means to us. Farmers are actually truck drivers. Who’d of thunk it.

Tuesday: ABO

Politics

Anybody but Obama

Bear witness to a listless and ineffective leader who is beatable. Carter Redux.

AMERICANS HAVE GROWN WEARY OF THE FLAILING OBAMA ECONOMY. So potent is the public's displeasure, the President's support is fast eroding. Most notably, among key constituencies he will need for 2012.

With the polling sugar high of Bin Laden's death all but gone, and perpetually poor economic data to boot, even AN UNNAMED REPUBLICAN OPPONENT DEFEATS THE PRESIDENT IN TWO OF THREE SURVEYS RELEASED THIS MONTH.

FOR A GOP FIELD THAT IS ROUTINELY DERIDED AS WEAK AND UNEXCITING -- A LEFTIST NARRATIVE -- THESE POLLS, IF ANYTHING, REMIND US THAT AMERICANS ARE LOOKING FOR A COMPETENT ALTERATIVE, and that the race will be competitive.

A Republican candidate who offers a fiscally sound, pro-growth, jobs-centric agenda will provide a sharp contrast to this White House. With a clear articulation of substantive ideas, Conservatives should press their case….

http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/06/obamas_poll_wasteland.html

Certain things are written in the TEA leaves (a play on words here).  Obama not only looks beatable, he looks pathetic. 

Like Chauncey Gardiner, Obama Is Profoundly Aloof

Which past leader does Barack Obama most closely resemble? His admirers, not all of them liberals, used to compare him to Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt.

Well, Obama announced his candidacy in Lincoln's hometown two days before Abe's birthday, and he did expand the size and scope of government. But NO ONE SERIOUSLY COMPARES HIM WITH LINCOLN OR FDR ANYMORE.

CONSERVATIVE CRITICS HAVE TAKEN TO COMPARING HIM, AS YOU MIGHT IMAGINE, TO JIMMY CARTER. The more cruel among them, like The Weekly Standard's Jay Cost, say the comparison is not to Obama's advantage.

But there is another comparison I think more appropriate for a president who, according to one of his foreign-policy staffers, prefers to "lead from behind." THE MAN I HAVE IN MIND IS CHAUNCEY GARDINER, THE CHARACTER PLAYED BY PETER SELLERS IN THE 1979 MOVIE "BEING THERE."

As you may remember, GARDINER IS A CLUELESS GARDENER WHO IS MISTAKEN FOR A WASHINGTON EMINENCE AND BECOMES A PRESIDENTIAL ADVISER. Asked if you can stimulate growth through temporary incentives, Gardiner says, "As long as the roots are not severed, all is well and all will be well in the garden."


"First comes the spring and summer," he explains, "but then we have fall and winter. And then we get spring and summer again." THE PRESIDENT IS AWED AS GARDINER SUMS UP, "THERE WILL BE GROWTH IN THE SPRING…."

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2011/06/27/like_chauncey_gardiner_obama_is_profoundly_aloof_110365.html

I’m not sure anyone can explain BHO, but Barone’s article is an interesting one.  Do we have an accidental president that got elected because no one was actually paying attention?  It appears so.

What’s the Matter with Kansas?  It’s finally coming to its senses.

…. THE LABYRINTHINE ADVENTURES OF LIBERALS IN KANSAS HAVE BEEN HARD TO FOLLOW, BUT LATELY, MOST OF THEM HAVE INVOLVED A SCRAMBLE FOR WANING POWER. So when Sebelius left for Washington to take over HHS for the Obama administration, she left behind AN EXECUTIVE BRANCH COMPOSED ALMOST ENTIRELY OF APPOINTED DEMOCRATS. In addition to attorney general Six, she had already appointed Democrat Dennis McKinney to the post of state treasurer, replacing Lynn Jenkins, a Republican elected to Congress in 2008. Her own office was filled by her lieutenant-governor, Democrat Mark Parkinson, a liberal chairman of the state GOP who party-jumped to be on her reelection ticket (replacing yet another liberal state GOP chairman who had jumped to become her first lieutenant-governor). He appointed a Democrat to fill his job when he became governor, and yet another Democrat to fill a vacancy in the secretary of state’s office. BY 2010, THE ONLY ELECTED STATE OFFICIAL WAS THE INSURANCE COMMISSIONER, A LOW-PROFILE REPUBLICAN.

For years, coastal observers assumed conservatives had already “stolen the heart of America” — mostly because that was the subtitle of Thomas Frank’s What’s the Matter with Kansas?, a 2004 New York Times bestseller, and all that New Yorkers know about Kansas is what they read in the pages of the Times. FOR THEM, THE ELECTION OF 2010 MUST HAVE BEEN CONFUSING, SINCE IT SAW THE DEFEAT OF A DEMOCRAT AND THE VICTORY OF FORMER SEN. SAM BROWNBACK, THE STATE’S FIRST CONSERVATIVE GOVERNOR EVER. But it also saw the defeat of those appointed Topeka-dwelling Democrats — all endorsed by the Kansas City Star — who attempted to hold onto their jobs. VOTERS REPLACED EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM WITH CONSERVATIVES. Last year, finally, conservatives won the heart of America — BUT ONLY BECAUSE LIBERALS SO COMPLETELY LOST IT. So the literate Left has a new reason to hate Midwesterners. As the New York Times’s David Carr told viewers of Bill Maher’s TV show, Kansas is now the home of “low sloping foreheads.” Obviously, Kathleen Sebelius has left the state.

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/270528/how-liberals-lost-heart-america-denis-boyles

Obama’s policies have been a dropping of the veil that liberals used to hide what their real intentions were.  On top of that, they dropped the veil just as a truly incompetent president was taking office.  Lose/lose. 


Big government or Stupid government?

… My weekend column concluded with some thoughts on American government’s culture of excess. Big Government – more-more-more money-no-object government — will by definition be profoundly stupid government. Lean, constrained government would not only be affordable but smarter. The bloated moronic airport security regime is a particularly ugly example. In a decade of existence, it has never stopped a single terrorist, but it can successfully cow a dying woman born during the Wilson Administration into removing her diaper.

We can all sleep easier knowing that.

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/270533/tsa-obergropinfuhrer-day-mark-steyn

I posted a similar sentiment yesterday.  Mark Steyn does as well but perhaps more colorfully.

Where to put the sidewalks?

One of my favorite political fables concerns Dwight D. Eisenhower and his tenure as president of Columbia University. The campus was undergoing an expansion, and IKE WAS PRESENTED WITH TWO VERY DIFFERENT PLANS FOR LAYING OUT NEW SIDEWALKS. THE ARCHITECTS WERE IRRECONCILABLE, EACH INSISTING THAT HIS PLAN WAS THE ONLY WAY TO GO AND THAT THE OTHER GUY HAD IT ALL WRONG. Ike, sensible fellow that he was, had grass planted instead, telling the architects to WAIT A YEAR AND SEE WHERE THE STUDENTS TROD PATHS IN THE TURF, AND THEN TO PUT THE SIDEWALKS THERE. It is a story that, as they say, is true, and may even have happened.

The Eisenhower sidewalk story often is used as an example illustrating the emergence of spontaneous orders. But it also invites by analogy a second, related question: What is the job of government? Is it to tell us which paths to take, or to help smooth the way as we choose our own destinations and our own ways to get there?

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/270523/gay-marriage-where-do-we-put-sidewalks-kevin-d-williamson

I believe this is another way to speak about majority rule.  And isn’t that really a fundamental piece of democratic government? 



RFK jr. Praises Air America as more popular than right wing radio

“…So much of the media's really dependent on corporate money, so you're not going to see, like AIR AMERICA FAILED NOT BECAUSE IT WASN'T POPULAR. IN EVERY JURISDICTION WHERE IT WAS OPERATING IT WAS BEATING OUT RIGHT-WING RADIO. There was a huge appetite for it. THE PROBLEM WAS, IT COULDN'T GET ADVERTISING BECAUSE THE CORPORATIONS, THE OIL COMPANIES, THE BIGGEST ADVERTISERS, the pharmaceutical companies, which is now 70 percent of the, of the revenue for, for, news shows on TV, is pharmaceutical companies. And so it's very hard to criticize them on the news. Automobile companies, which is the other big player, and many other, these companies won't, wouldn't advertise, they all boycotted Air America.

So Air America was like, you know, relying on, like, you know, hair growth products and this kind of stuff and they were scrambling for money and they couldn't find it and it killed them.”

http://nation.foxnews.com/robert-f-kennedy-jr/2011/06/27/rfk-jr-claims-air-america-was-more-popular-conservative-radio

When you read something like this, you need to realize that the left likes to rewrite history completely changing what actually happened.  Air America did not beat right-wing radio.  In fact they didn’t beat right wing radio even in liberal bastions. 


You can read about that here:

http://politicalcalculations.blogspot.com/2006/03/air-americas-ratings-in-top-100-radio.html

Transparency

While lawmakers continue to call for a budget deal that addresses the country’s growing deficit, REPUBLICAN SENATOR JEFF SESSIONS OF ALABAMA IS TAKING IT ONE STEP FURTHER BY CALLING FOR THAT DEAL TO BE NEGOTIATED IN PUBLIC.

Sessions, who is the ranking member on the Senate Budget Committee, has been one of the most outspoken critics of the stalled budget process in the Senate. But in an interview with The Daily Caller, Sessions had a different target.

“I acknowledge that people can enter into private discussions to help them form and reach certain compromises, but WHAT WE’VE BEEN SEEING IS A PATTERN OF HUGELY IMPORTANT ISSUES BEING NEGOTIATED BY A VERY SMALL NUMBER OF PEOPLE, THEN PRODUCED TO CONGRESS FOR RAPID PASSAGE BEFORE SOME EMERGENCY EVENT OCCURS,” said Sessions.

“This is not good legislative work.”

A look back at the Obama Administration shows Sessions may have a fair point.

The STIMULUS BILL IN FEBRUARY 2009 WAS WORKED OUT  BY A BIPARTISAN GROUP OF LAWMAKERS IN CLOSED MEETINGS.

The president’s number-one agenda item upon assuming office was to pass comprehensive HEALTH CARE REFORM. THE BILL WAS NEGOTIATED BY A FEW SELECT DEMOCRAT CONGRESSMEN BEHIND CLOSED DOORS without C-SPAN cameras,, then presented to Congress.

And this past spring, the  DEAL THAT EXTENDED THE CONTINUING RESOLUTION AND AVOIDED A GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN WAS WORKED OUT IN  PRIVATE BETWEEN SENATE MAJORITY LEADER HARRY REID, HOUSE SPEAKER JOHN BOEHNER, AND PRESIDENT OBAMA. It was then “dropped into the legislative hopper with crisis providing motivation” to pass it or else…..

http://dailycaller.com/2011/06/27/in-budget-debate-one-senator-sees-pattern-of-secret-negotiations/#ixzz1QVPihbI3

So much for the more transparent administration in history. 



Desperation

Republicans aren’t Patriotic

Pelosi has been iced out of debt talks and has reportedly demanded a seat at the table … to no avail … and appeared visibly upset about it. Imitating Jack Nicholson’s famous line from “A Few Good Men,” Pelosi told Eric Cantor he “can’t handle the truth,” and then told this whopper: "All this talk about tax cuts, in the Bush years the Republicans said that tax cuts would produce jobs; they didn't. They produced a deficit."

In fact, following Bush’s 2003 tax relief, the U.S. had 52 months of uninterrupted job growth, the longest run on record. The former speaker finished off the interview by claiming Republicans were not “patriotic.”

http://nation.foxnews.com/nancy-pelosi/2011/06/27/blackballed-pelosi-stammers-through-interview-series-offensive-and-false-cla

I haven’t got a clue what the left’s definition of patriotism is.  Joe Biden said paying taxes is patriotic, but then we’ve had dozens of high profile Democrats who have done their best (legally and or illegally) to avoid paying them.  Hillary asked the question whose side the House was on when they questioned what we were doing in Libya, but the Democrats find questioning war patriotic when they do it.  There just doesn’t seem to be a solid definition of patriotism for the Left.