A better name for this video might be Nativity Scene Occupies #Occupy. And as this is a left-wing movement, you better believe there were offended occupiers, (and the one obligatory whacked out of his mind occupier). But surprisingly, not all of them were hostile and/or crazy.
Brought to you by those mischievous Misfit Politics miscreants:
I love how the dude with the bandana over his face, says “the law is my Lord.” Not something you hear everyday from an anarchistic occupier.
A Nativity scene in Caracas showing the socialist president standing before the traditional crib-in-a-manger has stirred up a pre-Christmas controversy in the politically polarized country.
“It has nothing to do with the real Nativity, with religion. I don’t like it,” said passerby Arnaldo Amundaray, tutting as he took a close look at the model.
For Chavez supporters and the Nativity’s creators, it is a legitimate and innocent tribute to their man.
“The intention is to show off all the revolution’s achievements because the media silence the good things President Chavez has done,” said Maria Alejandra Mijares, a Women’s Ministry employee who helped make the Nativity.
The lovingly constructed model, which stands in a concourse of residential and business towers in central Caracas, has the traditional Christian scene at its heart. But it also politicizes the Nativity by paying tribute to some of Chavez’s most popular policies during his 13-year rule.
Weasel Zippersquips: “White House officials last seen furiously taking down notes for next year.”
Lou Dobbs interviewed psychiatrist, Dr. Keith Ablow, to get his opinion on Eric Holder’s recent use of the race card to explain away his critics. Dr. Ablow responded that Holder’s stance is either “bad or worse”. Playing the race card as a political maneuver is bad – but doing it because it’s actually what he believes, Ablow believes is even worse.
With all due respect to the good doctor – he’s naive if he believes anyone in this administration sincerely believes people dislike Obama and Holder because they’re black. Everything is a political calculation with this bunch, and Eric Holder is simply giving us a preview of a major theme for Obama’s reelection campaign strategy, which can be summed up, thus:
1. Things would be even worse if Obama wasn’t elected.
2. Everything that’s bad is Bush’s fault or the House Republicans’ fault, (or ATMs).
3. Obama needs four more years to fix things.
4. You’re a racist, ignorant, hick if you don’t appreciate him.
They won in 2008 largely due to white guilt, and the thought that it would be wonderful and historic to have a black President. They’re hoping that they can intimidate critics into silence by employing the race card this time around, counting on people to once again be guilted into voting for him.
It’s a dicey strategy because they risk turning off more voters than they reel in. But, it’s all they’ve got.
In a jaw droppingly sycophantic NYT’s piece, originally titled,“Under Partisan Fire, Holder Soldiers On”, the Obama administration’s #1 lapdog, Charlie Savage reported that a defiant Eric Holder has no intention of stepping down. Lashing out at his and Obama’s critics, Holder whipped out the all too familiar race card:
Mr. Holder contended that many of his other critics — not only elected Republicans but also a broader universe of conservative commentators and bloggers — were instead playing “Washington gotcha” games, portraying them as frequently “conflating things, conveniently leaving some stuff out, construing things to make it seem not quite what it was” to paint him and other department figures in the worst possible light.
Of that group of critics, Mr. Holder said he believed that a few — the “more extreme segment” — were motivated by animus against Mr. Obama and that he served as a stand-in for him. “This is a way to get at the president because of the way I can be identified with him,” he said, “both due to the nature of our relationship and, you know, the fact that we’re both African-American.”
This accusation of racism – levied against federal law enforcement officers, Congressional investigators, bloggers, and the media – is stunning. It is a page-one racist claim in it’s own right, deserving outrage and scrutiny. And yet, Pulitzer-winning Charlie Savage of the New York Times accepts it without challenge and merely jots down the incredible claim as if it was another item on a shopping list.
In a New York Times interview with Attorney General Eric Holder, published Sunday, author Charlie Savage made use of a factual inaccuracy in what was — in effect — a defense of Holder from his chorus of critics.
Savage wrote that there are no “documents or testimony” to support allegations that Holder knew of the “gunwalking” tactics employed in Operation Fast and Furious.
“Mr. Holder has denounced the tactics used in the operation, known as ‘gunwalking,’ but said he did not know about them or sanction their use,” Savage wrote. “No documents or testimony have shown otherwise, but Republicans have pummeled him at oversight hearings and in news media appearances.”
Savage made these statements without attribution.
Despite those assertions, Holder’s office was provided with multiple briefings and memos about Operation Fast and Furious by top Justice Department officials. The memos contained intimate details of how Holder’s DOJ allowed guns to walk.
Another place where he boldly lied:
Fast and Furious was an operation in which agents for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, investigating an arms-trafficking network working for a Mexican drug cartel, sometimes did not move quickly to arrest low-level suspected “straw buyers” and seize their guns because the agents were seeking to build a bigger case. They lost track of hundreds of weapons; two guns linked to a suspect in the case were found near the site where a Border Patrol agent was killed.
“…sometimes did not move quickly to arrest low-level suspected “straw buyers”? What the hell? How about every time. Straw buyers were purposefully permitted to cross the border into Mexico with guns. There was never any attempt to interdict them. It was quite the opposite: Fast and Furious Supervisor David Voth repeatedly stopped field agents from interdicting weapons headed to the border, according to congressional testimony.
And “They lost track of hundreds of weapons”? Uh – make thatthousands of weapons, chief.
What an unbelievable load of BS this guy is shoveling.
It’s almost too much to take according to Mary Chastain atBig Journalism, who points out the NYT’s hypocrisy in defending Holder after their relentless attacks on Bush’s Attorney General Alberto Gonzales:
Charlie Savage’s newest piece at The New York Times is, as my friend Sean Arthur on Twitter says, a shameless PR drivel and allows Mr. Holder to make ludicrous statements without challenge and pulls the race card. The New York Times and Charlie Savage are really going to do this after all the articles they published during Attorney General Alberto Gonzales scandals? Give me a break.
The hypocrisy at The New York Times is too much to take. I’ve read The New York Times articles on Mr. Gonzales over and over. I never once saw an article that was sympathetic to Mr. Gonzales. My favorite piece is an editorial titled, “Why This Scandal Matters.” What a great title! The Times covered every single detail in the Gonzales “scandal” someone had to write an editorial to justify it.
This “scandal” involved the firing of eight US Attorneys. No one died. Not a single person. Three hundred-plus Mexicans have died because of Operation Fast and Furious. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was murdered with a gun from the operation on American soil. I wonder if The New York Times and Mr. Savage could explain to me why Mr. Gonzales’s scandal mattered and Fast and Furious does not?
It’s no secret that the New York Times is the Pied Piper of Obama sycophancy. What the Obama administration is telling us through it’s #1 lapdog, Charlie Savage is that it plans to brazen it’s way through this scandal, (and all of the other scandals) Why? Because they believe they can.
Mike Vanderboeghcalls it’s a classic Catch 22 situation: “Catch-22 says they have a right to do anything we can’t stop them from doing.”
And today, the New York Times ran a Charlie Savage interview with Eric Holder entitled “A Partisan Lightning Rod Is Undeterred”. It is a piece of work. It is a declaration of war with Darrell Issa, Charles Grassley, the GOP and the American people. In the context of what has happened in the Gunwalker Scandal prior to today, it is as close as one can come to expressing Catch 22 in modern political terms. Obama, through the mouth of Eric Holder, has just declared “We can do anything you can’t stop us from doing.”
***
…the first time I read it, I said aloud, “Why the sonofabitch is declaring Catch 22.” I’m not the only one who thinks so. Readers will recall a source I occasionally refer to as “Alvin Wombat.” That nom de guerre conceals the identity of a long-time government employee, a fellow who has watched scandals large and small come and go. When he read the Savage interview with Holder, he was appalled.
After reading the Charlie Savage article in today’s New York Times in which he deifies Attorney General Holder and dismisses Fast & Furious and related issues . . . I have concluded that
(1) President Obama is either behind and/or has consented to the Fast & Furious activities, and
(2) President Obama has utterly NO intentions of changing ANYTHING. That is, what’s coming down here is President Obama directly signaling F–K YOU, and that the future is only going to get a lot worse, because that’s exactly what he wants. The New York Times is nothing but an uncritical syncophantic beacon for the Obama Administration.
It has long been clear that President Obama and Attorney General Holder understand perfectly the motivations behind and what happened regarding Fast & Furious, and the (continuing) breakdown in top ATF leadership. It isn’t though there has been any lack of information in that regard, or in their abilities to obtain whatever other information they want. To suggest otherwise is a joke. The only thing left to conclude is that President Obama WANTS this sort of disruption, and that it is only a prelude to whatever else he’s got on his agenda. Whatever that is, isn’t good.
He added,
“(This) is a political agenda, and can at this point only be interpreted to represent how things are going to (continue) to go down politically in the future. That means even further breaches of and trashing of civil liberties, and a continuation of the march down the road to liberal fascism (how’s that for being oxymoronic?). We’ll see if the Congress has the balls to intercede.”
Catch 22 indeed.
When I read Savage’s piece, yesterday, I was appalled almost to the point of nausea that these miscreants have no intention of giving an inch. They intend to stonewall and whitewash right up until the 2012 election, as the DOJ facilitates election fraud on a historically massive scale. What will happen should Obama win, as Vanderboegh’s source notes, “isn’t good”.
The White House hasn’t returned requests for comment on whether President Barack Obama agrees with his top law enforcement officer’s allegations of racial motivations.
Holder’s accusations come as resignation calls mount from a growing list of 60 congressmen, two senators, every major Republican presidential candidate and two sitting governors, spurred on by the congressional investigation into Operation Fast and Furious.
Additionally, seventy-five congressmen have signed onto a House resolution for a vote of “no confidence” in Holder as attorney general. Between the two lists, there are 86 total in the House who no longer trust Holder to head the Department of Justice.
(Daily Caller) — Florida Republican Rep. Allen West told The Daily Caller on Monday that Attorney General Eric Holder’s use of the race card as a way to attack those who are criticizing him is “reprehensible.”
“I think this is absolutely the last card in the deck, and that shows how weak their ground is,” West said in a phone interview. “But, what that means is they want to make white individuals afraid of continuing to put the pressure on Eric Holder because they don’t want to be seen as racist, and that is something that we have got to move beyond.”
According to the state run media, the people are in deep mourning, weeping hysterically over the Dear Leaders’ death.
By way of contrast, here’s a Korean immigrant in LA reacting to Dear Leader’s death, via Alex Ogle’s Twitter feed:
(Jae C. Hong/AP)
Imagine what it would be like to be so under the government’s thumb, that you feel compelled to cry at a leader’s death.
A helpless and uninformed populous totally dependent on government for their subsistence: That’s the dream of every big government progressive, isn’t it?
Everyone is saddened that President Obama has had to postpone his Hawaii vacation, but perhaps nowhere more so than in North Korea, where news of the delay provoked an outpouring of grief throughout the nation.
The President and his family are traveling separately to Hawaii because he wants resolve the payroll tax cut issue before leaving Washington – and his wife does not want to wait.
But the advanced trip and the cost that comes with it – as much as $100,000 (flight and security) – adds to an already expensive vacation for the taxpayers.
Hawaii Reporter research shows the total cost for the President’s visit for taxpayers far exceeded $1.5 million in 2010 – but is even more costly this year because he extended his vacation by three days and the cost for Air Force One travel has jumped since last assessed in 2000. In addition, Hawaii Reporter was able to obtain more specifics about the executive expenditures.
The total cost (based on what is known) for the 17-day vacation roundtrip vacation to Hawaii for the President, his family and staff has climbed to more than $4 million.
Not inconsistent with what other first families have done, Jay Carney heard mumbling to DC reporters.
It has always seemed to be part of enlisted military life; to live on a less grand scale then most American families due to military pay being typically lower than the average American household. However, even though military pay is at an all-time high, the numbers of financially strained military families is growing rapidly due to the current recession and unemployment rates for military spouses.
One would think that the men and women who serve our country and protect it would have assurance that their bills get paid and food would be on the table, but this is not necessarily the case. More and more military families are having to line up for turkeys and free groceries this holiday season, and having to depend on charities to help put food on the table and presents under the tree.
According to several nonprofit groups that provide help to military families, the strain of the economy/recession and high unemployment rates for military spouses has created a strong need for help this holiday season among some active-duty and reservist families, especially lower ranking enlisted personnel. According to the Defense Commissary Agency, $88 million in food stamp money was used at commissaries throughout the U.S. this year by military members and their families, including veterans, retirees and reservists. The amount of food stamps used by military families has tripled since the beginning of the recession.
The extravagance of 2011′s decorations, however, are striking given the widespread joblessness, pale economic growth, home foreclosures and grim outlook for 2012, not to mention the incumbent president’s historically low approval rating heading into his reelection bid.
How simple, politically astute, symbolically helpful and cost-effective it would have been for the Obamas this year to say that in sympathy with so many struggling countrymen, they were curtailing holiday decorations to match the sacrifices of others.
Mrs. Obama took another tack, however. She said the massive holiday displays in her White House are designed to make others feel better, especially military families.
Maybe that $4 million trip to Hawaii is designed to make them feel better, too!
And whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward.
- Matthew 6:16 (NRSV)
Four Occupy DC protesters have gone without food since Dec. 8 to advocate for “D.C. voting rights”. Their demands:“two senators and one representative for the 600,000 residents of the nation’s capital, along with full local control over the district’s budget and laws.”
Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., joined the cause for a whopping 24-hour hunger strike, (or what Catholics during Lent, call “Friday”.)
I was thinking when I read about this story about the small group of Occupy DC hunger strikers that I bet it’s not a “real” hunger strike in the traditional sense of the term, and sure enough, I was right:
The men are consuming only electrolyte-enhanced water and vitamins. Parsons, Mears and Jewler, all district residents, began their hunger strike at noon on Dec. 8 after a nutritious last meal of fruit smoothies and stir-fried vegetables. Gray, of Gaithersburg, Md., joined them the next morning after chowing down on an egg burrito.
***
Oh, and the sob story the Washington Post wrote about the poor suffering and weak OccupyDC hunger strikers wouldn’t be complete without the requisite photo of them in – you guessed it – wheelchairs.
About the wheelchairs, the Post writes:
They’ve walked the halls of congressional office buildings, sometimes being pushed in wheelchairs to conserve energy, and they’ve met with a few members of Congress and staffers for several others.
“[T]o conserve energy” my a**. This is all about images. Remind you of anything?
Even though Newt Gingrich isn’t ‘his guy’, Mark Levin took issue with the anti-Newt Republican pig pile, calling out Ann Coulter, NRO, and Bill O’Reilly in particular. Speaking of Coulter, he exclaimed, “She won’t even give the man credit for what he has achieved! Taking back the House from 44 years of Democrat monopoly was never thought possible and in doing so he had to defeat the Republican establishment! You can’t even give him that?”
Rudy Giuliani, appearing on Morning Joe, Thursday, also defended Newt, and slammed Mitt Romney for all his crazy flip flopping:
Ace picked up on something that also jumped out at me in Thurday’s Republican debate:
Newt Gingrich brought up the factof his 90% lifetime ACU voting record. 90%? Come on, that’s not bad. Certainly not enough to get dispirited over.
Sure, 92% would be better. And 93% better still. But… 90% is certainly livable, and not the sort of thing anyone needs to claw the skin off their face over.
In previous cycles you wouldn’t have 90% ACU rating people running because they’d be considered too “extreme” to get moderate backing. That’s partly why we nominate so many governors, as their “extremism” isn’t as well evidenced by a raw number.
Newt Gingrich is not a filthy Progressive, and anyone who says he is, is yanking your chain.. For an example of a filthy progressive – see below…
In this week’s Trifecta, Steve Green, Scott Ott, and Bill Whittle discuss; Class Warfare: Obama’s Reckless 2012 Strategy to Defeat the GOP:
First Lady Michelle Obama over the last year has spent a total of 42 days on vacation, or a little more than one out of every nine days, according to a White House Dossier analysis of her travel.
Her vacations, the cost of which are mostly borne by taxpayers, include trips to Panama City, Fla., Martha’s Vineyard, Hawaii, South Africa, Latin America, Vail, Colo., and her visit this week to her brother in Corvallis, Ore.
The total does not include a nine day sojourn in Martha’s Vineyard that the Obamas will enjoy this month. Nor does it include a trip she made to Ireland and Great Britain in May, which I’m counting as official travel.
The total vacation time would have been slightly higher had the Obamas gone as planned for an April weekend in Williamsburg, Va. The trip was cancelled due to an extended stalemate between President Obama and Congress over the budget.
There does appear to be an unhealthy sense of entitlement on the part of the First Lady, which seems in poor taste at a time when 14 million Americans are out of work, the housing market is collapsing, and the United States is facing the strong possibility of a double-dip recession. Perhaps Mrs Obama could take a few tips on austerity as well as humility from her British counterpart Samantha Cameron, who has just one assistant, in contrast to at least 17 personal staff for the First Lady, and doesn’t feel the need to travel en masse with an entourage at taxpayers’ expense.
Reporters need to keep needling the the Obamas for their extravagent lifestyles.
A couple of cute ones from Ace’s video dump:
A bear waves Bye-Bye:
Baby and Pup Meet For the First Time:
And finally, concluding today’s matinee – a Christmas offering from one of my favorite singers:
Celine Dion – O Holy Night:
ONE MORE:
Remembering Hitch, one evengelical atheist who somehow managed to delight me more often then annoy me…
A classic Christopher Hitchens appearance on Politically Incorrect:
Looks like the PC police have threatened members of the House of Representatives against wishing constituents a “Merry Christmas,” if they want to do so in a mailing paid for with tax dollars.
Members who submit official mailings for review by the congressional franking commission that reviews all congressional mail to determine if it can be “franked,” or paid for with tax dollars, are being told that no holiday greetings, including “Merry Christmas,” can be sent in official mail.
“I called the commission to ask for clarification and was told no ‘Merry Christmas.’ Also told cannot say ‘Happy New Year’ but can say ‘have a happy new year’ – referencing the time period of a new year, but not the holiday,” said a Hill staffer who requested anonymity.
Another Hill staffer told The Washington Examiner that “we were given that advice after submitting” a draft mailing.
Who are these “PC Police” who make up the Franking Commission? You may be surprised to know it’s made up of an equal number of Republicans and Democrats.
Franking Commission Members
Republicans: Aaron Schock (R-IL-18), Tom Price (R-GA-06), Bob Latta (R-OH-05)
Democrats: Susan Davis (D-CA-53), Brad Sherman (D-CA-27), Cedric Richmond (D-LA-02)
For some reason, Senators are not bound by the same limitations as House members:
“Senators may not use the frank to mail holiday cards. However, Senators may use officially related funds to mail holiday cards to constituents. Holiday cards to friends should be sent with personal funds, not using Senate facilities.
“Senators also may NOT use the frank to ac- knowledge holiday greetings that were sent to them. Senators may express holiday greetings at the commencement or conclusion of otherwise frankable mail.”
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio says a scathing U.S. Justice Department report about his office’s law enforcement tactics marks what he calls “a sad day for America as a whole.” The Justice Department on Thursday found that Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s office has committed a wide range of civil rights violations against Latinos, including a pattern of racial profiling and discrimination and carrying out heavy-handed immigration patrols based on racially charged citizen complaints.
Sheriff Joe Arpaio says he is the victim of a politically motivated attack by the Obama administration. That after the Justice Dept. issued a report saying Arpaio’s office has carried out a blatant pattern of discrimination against Latinos.
Arpaio held a press confernce, Thursday, to respond to the DOJs actions, which include the cancelation of their 287G agreement. Arpaio says that means law enforcement in AZ will no longer able to check the immigration status of criminal offenders brought to their jails.minal offenders brought to their jails.
A clearly bitter Aroaio concluded dryly: “President Obama and his band of merry men may as well erect a pink neon sign at the AZ/ Mexico border that says, “Welcome all illegals to your United States, Our home is your home.”
PJTV’s Bill Whittle employs triple doses of sarcasm here, throwing liberals’ worst accusations about conservatives right back in their faces (where they belong).
Took me pert-near all day to get here, too. (Which I hope explains the lack of posts). I should have said something.
I’m not spending Christmas down here, I’m spending the weekennd with my 11 yr old daughter who’s here to see a special doctor. I’d rather not get into the details for privacy reasons – but don’t fret - it’s not a bad thing – it’s not a life-threatening thing, at all.
So, sorry for the lack of posts. I’m working on getting something up tonight, but expect light blogging for the next couple of days.
This is being done under the pretense of encouraging left-wing merry pranksters to goof on “a Republican in their lives”. Keith Koffler of White House Dossierreported:
The Obama presidential campaign is launching an effort to collect Republican email addresses by inviting its supporters to submit information about their Republican associates to the Obama 2012 website.
***
From the Obama website:
Who inspires you to give?
This holiday season, we’re giving you a chance to have a little fun at the expense of a Republican in your life by letting them know they inspired you to make a donation to the Obama campaign.
Simply enter their name and email address below. Then, we’ll send them a message letting them know they inspired you to donate.
Thank you for supporting this campaign, and happy holidays.
Important: By making a donation today, you’ll be automatically entered for a chance to have dinner with Barack and Michelle Obama. By clicking on the “Submit” button below or otherwise participating in the promotion, you agree to be bound by these Official Rules and represent that you satisfy all of the eligibility requirements.
The effort is being supported by emails from the campaign to members of the vast Obama 2012 email list urging them to participate.
One message, from Deputy Campaign Manager Julianna Smoot, also invites donors to buy something from the Obama 2012 store for their Republican friend.
Really want to fire up your GOP friends? Buy them a gift from the 2012 store. I recommend the birther mugs — they get the message across pretty well.
Okay - what message are they trying to get across? That they’re total, classless douchebags? Not only the Obama Camp, but the drones who would, instead of taking a break from politics, take this bait, and use the holidays to make the Republicans in their lives sick to their stomachs? (Not kidding. If I got an email like that from the White House I would feel like vomiting). Who thought up this vile idea, and did the President himself, really sign off on it?
“The tin foil hat can be taken off — these email addresses are not stored.”
I’m beyond caring what the regime does with our emails. Scores of conservatives have already turned themselves in at Attackwatch. What are they going to do?
But I do care that the President of the United States thinks it’s cute to cause fellow Americans distress at Christmastime by inspiring supporters to donate to his reelection campaign in their names, putting them on the WH spam list.. It’s not cute, and it’s not funny. Family members will fight and friendships will be lost over this. What person in their right mind would do something like this to someone they like? Wouldn’t it have to be someone they don’t like? So the Obama camp is purposefully egging on their followers’ basest instincts to hurt people during the holidays?
Whatever – it’s purposely divisive and it will cause additional stress to many people who already are feeling stressed out this holiday season.
Have we ever seen anything like this at this level of politics, before?
I received an email from barackobama.com suggesting I give to the campaign and then provoke my conservative friends by telling them I gave it in their honor. Talk about goading people into anger. Does he want to deepen the division between the parties and ensure we have the same conflict in our social lives? #confusedformersupporter
Exactly what he’s doing.
I suspect this commenter is a lawyer:
Rob December 14, 2011 at 3:49 pm
It’s certainly in a very gray legal area. It’s one thing to get names off of voter rolls. It’s quite another to ask people to sign up others without their consent. Yes, people send e-cards to each other through on-line services so I suspect that would be the argument here. However, intent is commonly invoked in the interpretation of the law and the intent here is spelled out quite clearly: “[H]ave a little fun at the expense of a Republican in your life…”
They’re basically advocating harassment by signing up people to receive something they didn’t consent to. Orwellian concerns aside, this form of incitement by the administration is beyond the pale.
A few more:
Dave December 14, 2011 at 10:46 am
A dark time in America. I’ll be glad when it’s over.
***
Any of my Democrat “Friends” sign me up to get email from the Obozo and I’ll sign them up for a porn susbscription, militia subscription, (and the list will go on) in a heartbeat.
Yep. I’m keeping that in mind if it happens to me.
Why is it that everything this administration does vis-a-vis the internet always comes across as creepy and disturbing?
Actually – vis-a-vis everything this administration does creeps me out.
UPDATE:
Did we not say creepy? Yes – and a Republican congressman adds tricksy, too:
A House Republican thinks it’s a little “creepy” that President Obama’s reelection campaign is offering donors a chance to enter the email addresses of Republican friends.
Rep. Dennis Ross (R-Fla.) tweeted Wednesday: “Obama campaign asking for donors to give them GOP email addresses. Tricky, yes. Creepy, definitely.”
***
Ben LaBolt, the Obama campaign’s press secretary, tweeted later on Wednesday that “the email addresses are not stored.”
In response to the controversy, he referred to popular paranormal crime-solving TV show “The X-Files,” tweeting: “The tin foil hats can be retired, and Mulder and Scully can stand down.”
Okay everybody needs to “stand down” on this lest they be ridiculed by Obama’s press hacks. {{{{tinfoil-hat birthers}}}}
Because it’s perfectly normal for a President of the United States to turn its citizens against each other. Nothing to see here.
The Obama campaign is guarding the details of the operation like the political equivalent of nuclear secrets: “I’ll be happy to discuss what we’re doing after we do it,” said David Axelrod, Obama’s chief political strategist.
Gosh, that’s a lot like Nancy Pelosi’s, “we have to pass the bill to find out what’s in it.”
“The things we did in 2008 in many ways were prehistoric by contemporary standards,” Axelrod said at a Dec. 7 Bloomberg View lunch. “There’s a lot you can do in the way of more finely targeting voters so they’re getting information that’s useful to them.”
If this means an end to Axelrod’s insufferable astroturfers that would be a blessing.
Micro Campaign
St. Clair and his team are creating tools to connect with people properly. For example, disenchanted voters are wooed, not hit up for money. They call it microlistening.
Other hints can be gleaned from an Obama campaign job posting that Gage, now consulting for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, took note of last spring recruiting “quantitative analysts.”
“The Obama for America analytics department analyzes the campaign’s data to guide election strategy and develop quantitative, actionable insights that drive our decision- making,” it says. “We are a multidisciplinary team of statisticians, mathematicians, software developers, general analysts and organizers — all striving for a single goal: re- electing President Obama.”
All striving to fool and manipulate because that’s all he has going for him – the ignorance of the masses.
Obama was advised to scare people about Social Security, make them think Republicans are greedy, evil, moronic, “you’re on your own” extremists. The liberal media and pundits are working overtime on the same message. They are thrilled that Obama has changed the topic from the need to lower government spending to the unfairness of income inequality. Of course, Obama promises Democrats that he will raise taxes on only Other People, the undeserving millionaires and billionaires. No one has to do anything hard — the millionaires and billionaires will pay for it all. Nothing has to be cut. Nothing has to change.
I can’t help but smile as I write this. Obama’s ploy is so childish, even ridiculous — and yet it works! I heard each and every talking point coming out of my liberal friends’ mouths. This is the power of leadership. My smile doesn’t last. It hurt me to see a friend’s love for her handicapped child abused, turned into gut-wrenching fear of Republicans — and then to see her gentle face all blurry and distorted with anger, a few inches from mine, as she yells into my face that Republicans want to abandon her child because we’re not willing to pay taxes. In that moment, the potential violence of the OWS crowd became chillingly real.
We are getting toxic leadership from this White House. Obama doesn’t have the power to destroy my old friendship. But he does have the power to destroy our country. Only Democrats can stop him.
The Canadian government announced on Monday that it was formally withdrawing from the Kyoto protocol on climate change, a move it had telegraphed for weeks.
Canada’s Environment Minister Peter Kent made the announcement, just hours after returning from United Nations-sponsored climate-change talks in Durban, South Africa. At that meeting, delegates from almost 200 countries agreed to draft a new global emissions treaty by 2015.
Even before heading to Durban, the Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper had said Canada would not make a second commitment to the Kyoto treaty, under which the former Liberal government in 1997 pledged to cut greenhouse gas emissions to 6% below 1990 levels. Kent said the Kyoto pact was a relic of the past, and was futile in combating climate change because it didn’t incorporate the three major emitting countries of China, India and the U.S.
“It is now clear that Kyoto is not the path forward for a global solution to climate change. If anything, it is an impediment,” Kent told reporters at a media conference in front of the Canadian legislature. “This decision formalizes what we have said–that we would not implement the Kyoto protocol.”
Before anyone had time to get very far into this vast archive, the climate campaigners were ready with their critical review: Nothing worth seeing here. Out of context! Cherry picking! “This is just trivia, it’s a diversion,” climate researcher Joel Smith told Politico. On the other side, Anthony Watts, proprietor of the invaluable WattsUpWithThat.com skeptic website, had the kind of memorable line fit for a movie poster. With a hat tip to the famous Seinfeld episode, Watts wrote: “They’re real, and they’re spectacular!” An extended review of this massive new cache will take months and could easily require a book-length treatment. But reading even a few dozen of the newly leaked emails makes clear that Watts and other longtime critics of the climate cabal are going to be vindicated.
You have to understand – something a normal person would associate with a honest, healthy, sound government – voter integrity laws – an ethically challenged Marxist like Eric Holder views like a vampire views garlic – a gag inducing menace, to be avoided at all costs.
Tonight I spoke in Austin, Texas at a rally organized by True the Vote. It took place on the grounds of the LBJ library on the campus of the University of Texas. The rally was in response to Eric Holder’s announcement at the same place two hours later of a concerted Justice Department effort to oppose virtually every electoral integrity measure promoted by Constitutional conservatives and Republicans.
Holder’s announcement will have profound partisan results in the 2012 election because of his professed unwillingness to enforce laws to prevent voter fraud. Indeed, tonight he made clear his opposition to these laws, such as voter ID and even the requirement to register to vote in advance of an election.
Holder announced broad opposition to voter identification requirements and a ramped up effort to enforce voting registration laws in welfare agencies. He didn’t make any announcements about enforcing Section 8 of Motor Voter to ensure dead people don’t populate the roles. He also said that voter fraud “isn’t a huge problem,” perhaps marking the first time the nation’s chief law enforcement downplayed criminal behavior. Of course that is in vogue in this administration, starting with the New Black Panther dismissal and now with Fast and Furious.
In opposition to Holder, I spoke, as did a group of inspiring patriots starting with Catherine Englebrecht of True the Vote. Anita Moncrief, Reverend C. L. Bryan, George Rodriguez (head of the San Antonio Tea Party) and Adryana Boybe, National Director of VOCES Action followed. Boybe’s speech defending Texas Voter ID may be the first time I heard the policy defended in Spanish. Moncrief, though, had the line of the night – that “Al Sharpton has a platinum race card.”
Holder laid down markers which will excite his base and disturb law abiding citizens. He supported restrictions on political speech which will criminalize campaign falsehoods. He vowed hyper-scrutiny of voter integrity laws such as voter ID and vowed to run states like Texas through a nasty gauntlet on redistricting. If this doesn’t send a signal to Texas and South Carolina to pull their Voter ID laws out of Justice and go to court, nothing else will. Also in attendance was Assistant Attorney General Tom Perez, a staring character in my book Injustice.
Holder brought along his puppy, Charlie Savage of the New York Times, from whom we can expect glowing sycophantic coverage of Holder’s announcement at any minute at the New York Times website. Savage is the same reporter who covered purported politicization at the Bush Justice Department. For this he won a Pulitzer Prize.
Since his site is currently experiencing technical difficulties, I hope Mike Vanderboegh doesn’t mind me borrowing the picture he prefers to use for said pup…
John Hinderaker of Powerline has been keeping a watchful eye on the Obama administration’s recent efforts in consort with far-left organizations (including CPUSA) to demonize and frustrate the states’ efforts to protect ballot integrity by preventing voter fraud. See his posts here andhere for background.
Tonight, the Obama administration put its cards on the table when Attorney General Eric Holder delivered a speech on “voting rights” at the LBJ Library in Austin, Texas. The text of Holder’s remarks is here.
There was, of course, a certain irony in Holder’s choice of a site for his speech. Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act in 1965–Holder’s intended reference–but he is also associated with voter fraud. It is universally acknowledged, I believe, that Johnson stole his first Senate election in 1948, and voter fraud carried out under his expert guidance in 1960 helped Kennedy carry Texas. So Holder’s placing himself in the tradition of Lyndon Johnson invokes an ambiguous heritage, at best.
Continue reading his analysis of the speech.
Hinderaker concludes:
The Obama administration needs all the votes it can get, given its unpopularity with the American people. The question is, will the administration get those votes by persuading legitimate, eligible voters, or will it try to make up the deficit by enabling the casting of millions of fraudulent votes by Democratic Party activists? At the moment, it looks as though the latter is the Obama administration’s chosen course.
Some may think this assessment is too harsh. Some may say that the Democrats just want everyone under the Sun to vote; that they may be misguided, goofy liberals, but they just want everyone to participate. How do we know that this perspective is false? Because there is, in fact, one constituency whose votes have been systematically excluded in recent years. They are members of the military. And the Obama administration has actively collaborated in suppressing the military vote–even though many members of the military are minorities–because it doesn’t favor Democrats. The Obama administration, in particular its Department of Justice, is hopelessly corrupt.
Sure it sounds harsh, but everything this administration does is harsh – the sooner people understand it, the better. I hope Republicans are up for this fight.
Texas Sen. John Cornyn sent a clear message to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder this afternoon: Don’t mess with Texas’ voter identification law.
“Voter identification laws are constitutional and necessary to prevent fraud at the ballot box,” Cornyn said.
***
“Facing an election challenge next year, this administration has chosen to target efforts by the states to protect the democratic process,” Cornyn said. “They would do well instead to focus on job creation, the economy, and reducing our national debt.”
Some of us hicks out here in the countryside, in flyover country clinging to our guns and our religion, are starting to get the idea that mistakes aren’t just being made by the administration, but rather that mistakes are being manufactured- and then ignored by Congress.
At MF Golbal, at ATF, at Justice, at the Federal Reserve Bank, at Solyndra, the answer’s always the same: “Oops. We made a mistake.”
And they don’t just make one mistake; they make a series of mistakes… and then it’s time to cue up a two-week Obama vacation.
They are mistaken in their reaction when evidence first comes forward of wrongdoing; they are mistaken in their statements they make under oath; they are mistaken when they mistakenly answer a question that they mistakenly answered mistakenly in the first place in front of Congress.
They are so mistaken in what they mean and what they say they mean that everything is suddenly dependent on the legal definition of the word “is.”
Call it the Clinton defense, the best legal novelty invented since the insanity plea. But of course the Clinton defense only works for government workers. The rest of us have to face the plain, ordinary law.
And make no mistake: You know those paranoid people who think that Obama and his cronies are purposefully crashing the system from within to serve a political agenda where no crisis goes to waste?
They have a pretty darn good point now at the Department of Justice.
And the longer these “mistakes” are allowed to happen with no remission, no trial, no perp walk, the clearer the picture becomes even without the most transparent administration in the history of the Nobel Prize.
UPDATE:
Parts 1 and 3 of Holder’s speech at the LBJ Library in Austin. (part 2 is not up yet, for some reason):
Part 1
Part 3
There’s a Q and A session with moderator, Mark Updegrove, Director of LBJ Library, which you can find at YouTube if your interested in a drawn out discussion of “voter rights” since the sixties.
I’m not sure what is so complicated. If you’re a United States citizen, you have the right to vote. It’s incumbent upon every citizen who wants to participate in our democratic process, to register. When you vote, you should be able to prove you are who you say you are. And you should only be allowed to vote once. No dead people. No Mickey Mouse and Donald Ducks. You should also be smart enough to know that if someone calls you to say election day is next Thursday, they’re pulling your leg.
