TMZ.COM is running a very peculiar picture:
In case it’s not too clear, that’s SUPPOSEDLY John F. Kennedy chillaxin while FOUR, count em, FOUR, babes frolicking naked. Cool huh? Well, under some circumstances it would most definitely be. However, SUPPOSEDLY, at this time, his wife was in the hospital struggling to deliver a still-born baby. The baby died August 23, 1956. This does look like summer. And, JFK did return to be with her from a yacht vacation in the Mediterranean. This rumor is not new. The pic is. How the pic wound up with TMZ is vague. But, it certainly looks sorta kinda like JFK, and the boat definitely resembles the Honey Fitz ( Manitou ).
The trim, the glass front, the framing. It fits. Given his reputation, that fits too.
I would have tucked this away on Moonagewebdream, but the ramifications of what might have been if this pic had surfaced at the time are too immense. Think about it.
For starters, JFK was not well liked within his party. He was not their chosen son. He was not their preferred presidential candidate. He was up and coming in 1959. Emboldened by being young and brash, JFK, pretty much the face for Robert Kennedy, took on the established Democrat leadership in a move they didn’t expect. Emboldened by his increasing popularity, Robert Kennedy made a gamble that probably cost him and John their lives. He offered the VP spot to Johnson.
Now, if this picture had been floating around at the time, things probably would have been a lot different. And, I do mean a LOT. Given Massachusetts’ odd penchant for adoring bad characters, he would have probably stayed in the Senate. There he would have continued to have been a junior senator throughout the 60′s.
Some things would have been a LOT different. Some people speculate that the election was stolen from Nixon and that if anyone other than Kennedy had run they would have lost to Nixon. I don’t think so. This would have predated the primaries, and therefore the primaries most likely would not have split the Democrat party as bad as it did. In the Democrat primary, Kennedy only got about 62% of the vote. In the general election, he only got 49.7%. If the Democrat party had been more unified, it would have been a wide margin. This was due in some part to Kennedy’s religion. Being a non-factor if Johnson had led the ticket, I think Johnson would have won handily. However, you would not have had the famous Kennedy-Nixon debate. Maybe Nixon would have done better without that. But, toss in 10% boost in Democrat support and I think Nixon would have been toast.
Lyndon Johnson would have been President 1960-1964. Things would have been a LOT different.
- Kennedy tried to policy-wonk Vietnam and got us into an arrangement that was unwinnable by relying on the South Vietnamese government to control our troops. I don’t think Johnson would have ever gotten himself into that predicament. My gut feeling is he would have been more compelled to fight a war to win from the start. If that’s true, 1968 would have been a hell of a lot different.
- Kennedy wasn’t the only champion of minority rights. A lot of people were. The deaths of John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, Jr. sparked riots and distrust that last a generation. This picture could have prevented all of that and allowed the process that Johnson was already supporting to continue peacefully and at a controlled pace. Instead, their deaths ignited a powder keg that no one had an answer to.
- Kennedy ignored white racism. Johnson went after it. He confronted the KKK on national television and outed them for what they were. The effect of what the Kennedys did was it pushed minorities into a position they weren’t comfortable with, and whites resented. It didn’t address the wrong attitudes of the whites or blacks. It just forced them into situations of confrontation. Johnson’s allies were addressing the attitudes of whites and blacks. I think things would have progressed a lot smoother, and more amicably if Kennedy had never been president.
- Johnson had pushed through Medicare and Social Security. Public health care was being debated when Johnson chose not to run in 1968. Health care, due to the Vietnam War, Cold War, and other issues, became a distraction to Nixon. If Johnson wasn’t so demoralized by the protests of a war that might not have been happening, we might very well have had public health coverage already.
- Following up on the previous paragraph, Nixon and Gerald Ford would never have been President.
- If Ford had never been President, Jimmy Carter would have lost.
- If Jimmy Carter had lost to a more conservative president, Ronald Reagan would never have replaced Carter in 1980. And, we would never have had the Iran Embassy takeover or the Community Reinvestment Act.
- If Ronald Reagan hadn’t been President, George HW Bush would never have been Vice-President, and therefore President.
- Bush begat Clinton due to his political ineptness. We would never have had the internet since Al Gore would never have been VP without Clinton. Additionally, I’ve argued that if a more security minded person had been president as opposed to a policy wonk and social liberal, 9/11 would never have happened along with the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Both were our “friends” until Clinton.
- Clinton begat George W. Bush due to his, well, Kennedyesque actions with women.
- And, George W. Bush begat Barack Obama because he became such a lightning rod for liberals, following his perceived efforts to emulate a Reagan that never would have occurred.
Pretty heavy stuff huh? Instead of all that happening, this pic apparently became a joke for a car dealer for 40 years.
OK.
Ohh-kayyy was right:
No sooner than TMZ ran the story, The Smoking Gun fired right back with the original, confirmed by Playboy. Most reports are quick to point out that it wasn’t JFK on the boat. He was shot in 1963, the pic in 1967. No word yet on how much TMZ paid for the crinkled up Playboy spread. I’m scouring Hustler for Ronald Reagan look-alikes tho.
More lunacy from the top. At approximately 11:10 this morning, Obama is scheduled to meet with representatives of the financial industry. Last night he had this to say about them:
“I did not run for office to be helping out a bunch of fat cat bankers on Wall Street.”…..
Now, I for one never blamed the “financial services industry” for the meltdown. I put the blame squarely where it belonged. Even people like Paul Krugman are now trying to re-write history to put it in their political agenda. My take on history is a little different than Obama’s and Krugman’s. The meltdown did not start with Lehman Brothers or Citibank or ( insert scapegoat here ). It started very overtly and obviously with the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac collapse. Now, the thing about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is, and I’ll grant it that it’s just splitting hairs, they are not members of the fiancial services industry. They are a tool created by Democrats for Jimmy Carter that compelled members of the financial services industry to make bad loans. Thirty years later, the very obvious end game came to roost. The concept of forcing banks to make bad loans led to a problem with banks being stuck with too many bad loans. Who woulda thunk it?
Definitely not Paul Krugman or Barack Obama. They got together a couple of weeks ago to discuss how to create more jobs. Their plan was to:
- Insult the banking industry publicly on 60 Minutes.
- Blame them for a problem they know they didn’t create.
- Publicly demand a solution that doesn’t address the root problem.
- Meet privately with them to encourage them to make more bad loans that got them in the shape they’re in now.
What a plan huh?
Now, as has been pointed out, most of the big players are paying back TARP as quickly as possible to get Obama out of their hair. So, the strings aren’t quite what they were a year ago. Additionally, Nancy Pelosi pushed through legislation that enabled Congress to break up large banks, scrutinize their business more closely to identify fraud, and a few other restrictions in the 1,300 page piece of legislation.
Two things you can bet it did not do is repeal the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act or use TARP money to bolster the finances of FDIC. If Obama wants to kick-start lending, he needs to quit going for the headlines and pandering to liberal politics and do what makes some sense. The FDIC is effectively bankrupt. In order to prop up their assets, they are sucking small regional banks dry. Now, small regional banks have to have a certain equity ratio to remain solvent. You take away their equity, they can’t loan money. It really is that simple. That’s exactly what the FDIC is doing right now. Infusing enough capital to get FDIC off regional banks’ backs will do more to kick-start lending and the economy than dicking around with a hand full of fat cat bankers. On main street, bankers don’t get $10 million bonuses. And, they certainly are never too big to fail. Then, as the banking industry returns to normal due to the increased volume, FDIC returns the TARP money.
But, if they’re not going to do anything about the Community Reinvestment Act, then all bets are off that any fix will last very long.
Otherwise, Obama will be dealing with fat cat lawyers next as he tries to explain to his voters why the banks he’s been attacking start failing all over the country. Stretching it? Try this:
Obama’s had more bank failures this year than Bush had the entire eight years. That’s a good reason why some aren’t lending any more. Citibank, Bank of America, etc, make for good headlines, but they don’t do business in most of rural America. It’s the small regional banks that do the lending to the small local businesses. They are the ones hurting right now. They are the ones that need help primarily by getting FDIC off their backs. Strangling them with more regulations while ignoring the cause is a recipe for disaster that we are already experiencing but could only get worse.
A lot was made of Arlen Specter’s jumping ship and declaring he was a Democrat. His logic was the Republican Party left him. A lot of people, including myself, figured a deal had been struck between Specter and the Democrat leadership, which at this time would be Obama and Reid. Sure enough, both came out declaring their support for Specter:
Obama went even further:
Specter immediately returned the favor by voting against Obama’s budget, and more curiously, endorsed Norm Coleman over Al Franken. This led to a rather goofy explanation from Harry Reid:
Paybacks were immediate. The Democrats, over the promises of both Harry Reid and Obama to allow Specter to retain is seniority, stripped him of 29 years of seniority and ranking positions on several committees, particularly the Senate Judicial Committee, of which he’ll now be the least senior, and have the last questions for the new Supreme Court Justice nominee.
More importantly, in the long run, all this gave the original Democrat favored primary candidate reason to reconsider his position. He immediately became a lot more active, and enthusiastic, about being a candidate next year. If he’s reading the rather overt signs coming out of DC, he’d probably get the idea that Obama and Reid’s, ergo the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, would be lukewarm at best, if at all. Which is kinda fun since the DSCC still touts Specter on their front page:
According to Specter, the Republicans left him. Now, it seems, the Democrats have as well. I’ll be interested to see how much Obama stumps for the man he praised last week come primary time in Pennsylvania.
As governor of Arizona, Janet Napolitano was notoriously lax on immigration. This included vetoing a LOT of bills designed to stem the flow of illegal immigrants. When she was picked as Director for the Department of Homeland Security, a lot of people questioned Obama’s intentions regarding enforcing our borders. Now, we have a definitive answer:
And yes, when we find illegal workers, yes, appropriate action, some of which is criminal, most of that is civil, because crossing the border is not a crime per se. It is civil. But anyway, going after those as well.
Per about a dozen different websites. Title 8, Section 1325 of the US Penal Code states very clearly:
Any alien who (1) enters or attempts to enter the United States at any time or place other than as designated by immigration officers, or (2) eludes examination or inspection by immigration officers, or (3) attempts to enter or obtains entry to the United States by a willfully false or misleading representation or the willful concealment of a material fact, shall, for the first commission of any such offense, be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than 6 months, or both, and, for a subsequent commission of any such offense, be fined under title 18, or imprisoned not more than 2 years, or both.
What, in that statement, allows for “per se”? There are civil charges that can be filed, but this is a federal law which makes it a felony.
And, as is par with the Obama administration, they are attacking the private business sector for something that is clearly not a private sector issue. If Napolitano is not going to enforce the law and allow immigrants to be here legally “per se”, then why should it be a crime for a business to hire some who is here “legally”?
And, if border agents are basically completely neutered in stopping anyone from crossing the border, what does that mean for national security? How does this affect the drug wars going on right now? By her interpretation of the law which she has obviously not bothered to read, drug dealers can come and go as they please. They will only be an issue when they are convicted of a crime within the US since no one will be allowed to question them on their way across the border.
I kinda like the old system better, keep the criminals out. Period. But, that’s obviously not what Obama wants.
Four years ago, the Associated Press and others in the press suggested it was in poor taste for Republicans to spend $40 million on President Bush’s inauguration. AP writer Will Lester calculated the impact that kind of money would have on armoring Humvees in Iraq, helping victims of the tsunami, or paying down the deficit. Lester thought the party should be cancelled: “The questions have come from Bush supporters and opponents: Do we need to spend this money on what seems so extravagant?”
Fast forward to 2009. The nation is still at war (two wars, in fact), and now also faces the prospect of a severe recession and federal budget deficits topping $1 trillion as far as the eye can see. With Barack Obama’s inauguration estimated to cost $45 million (not counting the millions more that government will have to pay for security), is the Associated Press once again tsk-tsking the high dollar cost?
Nope. “For inaugural balls, go for glitz, forget economy,” a Tuesday AP headline advised. The article by reporter Laurie Kellman argued for extravagance…….
According to the AP four years ago, things were so bad, Bush should feel guilty about blowing $46 million on his inauguration. Now, AP argues that Obama should have the most expensive inauguration ever. And, he’s obliging, with the cost somewhere around $160 million at this point.
Others took even further. Late 2004 also saw the awful tsunami that killed thousands of people. Some people took the opportunity to slam Bush’s inauguration in relation to that event as well:
So maybe we shouldn’t stand for it.
So I’ll open this for discussion:
- Should we try to start a groundswell (dare I say tsunami?) of popular support for scaling down the parties and sending the money to those in dire need?
- How can this be discussed and advocated free of partisan positions as something that active workers–those who really do get things done–from both Left and Right could accomplish together?
- Indeed, can it be done?
I can’t find where Paul Velleman went after Left2Right shut down, but I don’t see anything via Google where he’s shaming Obama over his inauguration.
Facts are that the economy is worse, we’re still in wars, and there are horrific humanitarian situations occurring all over the world. So, one has to ponder why AP and many others felt so compelled to shame Bush in 2005 and extol extravagance for Obama in 2009.
It’s called bias. It’s not so much of an issue to me that it exists, as it pretty much always has, but how overt and blatant it has become. Do people really feel comfortable with a one-sided media telling them what is news?
Sheez, people kept desperately trying to make Bush and Cheney into an incarnation of Big Brother. Why can’t they see the obvious? If “news” is so willing to re-write history based on their political views, you’ve got Big Brother
But, for what it’s worth, I supported Bush’s bash in 2005, and I’m all for Obama’s bash in 2009. It’s a feel-good event for the entire country whether you supported Obama or not. And, we need that as much now as we did in 2005.
14
Jan
Everyone is saying this has been a near-flawless transition:
I haven’t been quite as impressed.
- Bill Richardson had to withdraw his nomination due to pesky federal investigations. The investigation existed well before his nomination. How did they miss that?
- Eric Holder. His involvement with the Marc Rich pardon was such a deep secret that it emerged before Holder was even nominated. Now we’re finding out that Holder pushed for the FALN members commutation as well.
- The Rick Warren flap. I still don’t understand where that came from. Granted I’m sure Obama realized his personal pastor was damaged goods, but surely he personally respects others. Regardless, Warren’s history is well documented and they should have seen that he would offend a lot of people that voted for Obama.
- Leon Panetta as CIA director. Panetta’s background has been in the anti-CIA arena. His rhetoric recently has been very anti-intelligence gathering. It was obvious to me when I heard the name that this would raise eyebrows. How no one on the transition team couldn’t come to the same conclusion confounds me. My guess is they had no choice.
- Now, his pick to run the Treasury Department, Timothy Geithner, apparently had a flap with, get this, the Treasury Department, over not paying some withholding taxes for several years. He paid them once he knew he would be nominated. However, this makes his first recommendation to Barack Obama look almost silly, lower withholding taxes.
So far, I’m not terribly impressed. Most are hold-overs from the Clinton years. I have stated here in the past that the country was done wrong horribly by the Clinton cabinet. Only the cult status of Bill Clinton being protected as much as possible by the media kept his cabinet from becoming a political bloodbath. Otherwise, the policies of Janet Reno, Jamie Gorelick, and especially George Tenet created problems we are still dealing with today. Paul Rubin, Timothy Geithner’s mentor, has this financial meltdown all over him. His policies from 1997-1999 were followed IMMEDIATELY by a recession from 1999-2002. He is in the middle of the financial sector meltdown, being a board member for Citibank, which received billions in bailout funds, only to be broken up. Geithner’s ties to the meltdown and bailouts could get very contentious. Toss in the failure to pay his own taxes and it looks even worse. So, I am not at all impressed with the transition so far. Leon Panetta does not believe in torture or wire-tapping. How are we going to collect intelligence? That was the problem we had with Tenet. Eric Holder defends terrorists, just as Janet Reno demanded the protection of their civil rights. The “change” people expected is simply throwing out what we have for something even older that didn’t work in the first place.
During Obama’s campaign for the White House, he preached endlessly about bipartisanship. As with the rest of his message of “change”, people, and especially media, bought it hook, line, and sinker:
No one looked at his actions, they simply took his word and ran with it. Now, I’ve seen how DC works for years. Preaching bipartisanship is one thing, making it work another. For all his words, Obama made no effort to reign in Nancy Pelosi. The first thing she did was strip the House Fairness Rules of 1995. This Republican measure gave the minority party a voice in legislation. The minority party didn’t like that too much. It’s about as partisan as you can get. The only intent for doing this was to allow the majority party the ability to basically ram legislation through with little discussion or debate. The response to this power grab by Pelosi has been pretty much as expected. Of the most recent round of votes:
- HR. 11 – Passed 247-171, 15 not voting. 97% of Democrats supporting, 99% of Republicans opposing
- HR. 12 – Passed 256-163, 14 not voting. 98% of Democrats supporting, 95% of Republicans opposing.
- HR. 12 with instructions – Failed 178-240, 14 not voting. 99% of Republicans supporting, 97% of Democrats opposing.
These are a couple of fairly ambiguous laws that really have no serious repercussions on day to day life and are mostly symbolic. The only real symbolism that has come from these votes is that given all the bipartisan rhetoric, Obama hasn’t done squat to reach out to the other side and if anything, has hardened partisan feelings by allowing Pelosi to squelch the minority party’s right to free speech inside the House. Because of Pelosi’s power grab and blatant slap in the face of the minority party, we’re right back where we were before Obama won, if not worse. Obama and Pelosi are going to have to rely solely on their own party’s votes to get anything passed. So much for “change”.
Been reading that Obama is planning on naming Leon Panetta head of the CIA.
A while back I did a series of posts on basically what happened when the security of the United States was wonked to death by people more interested in internal policies than doing what was necessary to protect us. Basically, the root of the problem as I saw it was that lawyers ran the CIA and FBI instead of security people like the military. This wonking led to 9/11 and the Iraq War. Not to fear everyone said, Obama believes in a strong national security. That was said while Obama was signing onto legislation banning cluster bombs. Now, we get the icing on the cake, Obama is a assigning a man who once was the Director of the Office of Civil Rights. Nowhere in his resume, other than a brief stint in the military, do we see anything advocating national security. We do see him advocating civil rights 25 years after the civil rights movements of the 60′s. We do see him doing everything he can to prevent off-shore drilling. We do see him advocating more entitlement programs. I see a lot of things Leon Panetta can be great at. And, I do mean great. But, to put him in charge of the CIA sends a message I am not comfortable with at all. It’s telling me that the policies of Jamie Gorelick and Bill Clinton/Janet Reno are back.
Tell me what you think.
22
Dec
A lot has been made of Barack Obama inviting Rick Warren to give an invocation at his inauguration. A lot of people are upset. I’m not. This really isn’t much of an issue that affects my day to day life. What I have enjoyed is watching people who advocate various political policies squirm. The left is pissy about it. The right, for the most part, seems to be chuckling. Then I stumbled upon the oddest defense of Barack yet:
That was written by B. Daniel Blatt, a gay REPUBLICAN. He doesn’t think Warren’s anti-gay rants and opposing Prop 8 in California is something people should be concerned with. After all, Warren says he has a hundred gay friends. ( I sorta doubt that. )
On the Democrat side, I guess my favorite gay Democrat would have to be Barney Frank. He gives me all kinds of stuff to write about. Here’s his opinion:
That is coming from a gay DEMOCRAT.
So, we got Republicans endorsing Obama and Democrats openly opposing Obama. Granted, it can be argued Frank is a little more of a spokesperson for the Democrats than Blatt is for the Republicans. However, the problem I have with making this any more equitable is any time a Republican is associated with being gay, the media treats it as a scandal and they either resign, retire, or get voted out. If not, they are just “disgraced” forever. If a Democrat does it, no one cares and they are treated as an icon on the issue.
So, the “scandal” to me is not so much that Obama picked Rick Warren, it’s how the media is dealing with the entire issue.
But if you want my own opinion, I think Rick Warren was a bad choice simply because he’s been divisive in his ministry and we just don’t any more polarization. I would have picked someone who displays unrelenting humbleness, which is what I look for in my preachers.
This is just precious:
You just have to read it all to get just how fubar this Democrat has been. Basically, the charge that prompted this was Blagovich was selling Obama’s seat to the highest bidder. The payoff apparently was, get this, he wanted a position associated with, drum roll please, labor unions. You know, the people like SIEU who donate heavily to any Democrat while their employers are going bankrupt and their members lose their jobs. If the labor union route didn’t work, Blagovich would have settled for $250,000 a year running a non-profit. Oddly enough, an apparent central figure in the whole thing is Tony Rezko. You know, the disgraced businessman, influence peddler, and Obama supporter. Given all the charges, the Illinois governor who replaced the previous governor who wound up serving time, faces a decade or two of prison time for, roll the drum please, doing exactly what the previous governor before him did. Now, Ryan’s kinda in the news now, as Dick Durbin of all people, requested a pardon for Ryan. Blagojevich, probably sensing things to come, supported the pardon request.
What’s just as precious to me, the article I cited went 667 words without ever mentioning that Blagojevich is a Democrat. What’s kind of shocking to me is that it’s Foxnews. I guess they’re in the tank as well these days ( just kiddin! ).
Anyways, things are probably going to be fun to watch in Illinois for a while I imagine. I hear Nancy Pelosi’s flying to Springfield this afternoon to condemn Blagovich as yet another example of the Republican Culture of Corruption and deny the fact that any Democrat had anything to do with Blagovich’s scandals. Also, Keith Olbermann will be doing a piece decrying Blagovish as the worst, governor, ever.
Serious question tho, with the governor under felony indictiments regarding the appointment of a US Senator, how does that affect the process? I will assume Pat Quinn, the Lt. Governor, would assume day to day responsibilities of the governor, if he doesn’t resign ( I don’t see Blagovich’s ego allowing for that ). However, I’m not sure the law would allow for a Lt Governor to appoint a Senator. And, given the situation, I can’t really see any judge allowing the appointment to continue through the Governor’s office. This will be fun to watch.
