16
Aug
Gene Simmons, you know the guy:
He just tweeted me this:
Seems kinda sure about that.
As of this writing, Hillary Clinton is still President Obama’s Secretary of State. Also, Anthony Weiner is still a Congressman from New York.
I really get the feeling Obama’s not terribly excited by either those arrangements.
I see a simple solution to make everyone happy.
Hillary leaves to become President of the World Bank. Given the gender issues the Word Bank has, they need a woman on top.
That opens up a position for Weiner to take. Everyone’s seen how basically useless a Secretary of State under Obama is.
The Congressional seat is being eliminated most likely in 2012, so no money is wasted replacing Weiner.
Everyone’s happy.
May sound crazy at first reading, but do remember, the current Secretary of State was a very unpopular elected official from New York too.
2
May
Back in the late ’90s, a rather odd scandal came out of The White House. Accusations came flying that President Clinton, then a pretty popular President as far as Presidents go, was having an affair with an intern and a cigar. That in itself was not that big a deal. Presidents had been accused of having affairs many times before. However, because Clinton had apparently made it a habit in the past, it was coming back to haunt him legally. In a separate case, he testified that he did not have sex with the current affair. Since that wasn’t good enough, he went on tv, as the President, to announce it publicly:
He even got his wife to go on the warpath as well:
Then it became obvious he had.
Exit Hillary from the scene. Other minions immediately picked up the chorus of “It’s all about sex” responding to anyone suggesting the fact that Clinton was damaged goods.
At about the same time, the United States was prosecuting the masterminds behind the 1993 World Trade Towers attacks. In retaliation to those investigations, and prosecuting the perps behind the Embassy Bombings, a fellow rose to prominence, Osama Bin Laden. He immediately shot to the FBI Top Ten list. Clinton approved kill orders in early 1998. Several times over the next year he would supposedly have Bin Laden in his cross hairs. Only one time would he pull the trigger. The policy-wonking Clinton had put such stringent guidelines on when to pull the trigger that it became almost impossible. So, the one time they did pull the trigger, they were done from a far distance, with less than reliable cruise missiles. President Bush would use that one later. The missiles missed their mark. The problem was tactical:
They had to shoot from the Arabian Sea, several hundred miles, into terrain that looked like this:
Good luck with that.
Only months before, a movie came out that was kind of popular:
It was about a president caught up in a sex scandal that needed a distraction. So, a war was “created”. In this case, it was purely fictional. ”Wag the Dog” became a term for creating a conflict to distract from a scandal. Although a great plot, it was a common feeling that Clinton was going to do something to get everyone on his side against Kenneth Starr investigating the sex scandal.
So, by the time Clinton actually did pull the trigger on his policy-wonked attack on Bin Laden, it was pretty much destined to fail, and the politics were set that it looked exactly like he was wagging the dog. He was wide open for criticism domestically, and internationally. Militarily, Clinton was crippled from that point on. The attack on the USS Cole would be Clinton’s going-away present from Bin Laden.
Less than one year later, Bin Laden would attack again.
What if Clinton had not policy wonked national security and actually gone in and taken out Bin Laden when he had both the reason, and the political backing, to do it? What would the world be like today if 9/11 had never occurred?
Good question!
What’s that you say? I left something out? Oh yeah. How many people would have answered differently if they had known it was Sarah Palin? Be honest. So many people are so hung up on the “Sarah Palin is stupid” liberal talking point that they more often than not will react simply to the name. Quite simply, it’s the overall Obama energy policies that have us in this mess. No new nukes, attacks on the coal industry, the drilling ban in the Gulf, the drilling ban in Alaska, the moratorium off the coast of California, and his bizarre meddling in the Middle East is what has gas at the price we have now. Put it this way:
| President | Change |
| GHW Bush | -11% |
| Clinton | 31% |
| GW Bush | 15% |
| Obama | 98% |
But a lot of people won’t worry themselves about that. They’ll just tell you Sarah Palin is stupid.
Get this straight, then we’ll talk about the rest:
U.S. Secretary of State meets with Libyan rebels
OK, we have openly sided, once again, with one side in a civil war. Granted no one seems to like Kadhafi, choosing a side involves not only showing support for one side, but showing opposition to all those people that support the other side. My own person opinion is to stay out of it and show support for whoever leads the country after the fact, whether we like them or not.
IF we do decide to support one side over the other, then you better fight to win. The other side will. If you lose then you can pretty much count on that country’s resources going to oppose anything you try to do, or worse.
So, what does this president do?
What is now the one month anniversary of the uprisings, a full thirty days after Kadhafi ordered his military to attack those rebels and anything associated with them:
Hillary Clinton is meeting with the rebels while the military does nothing. And, yesterday, the United Nations Security Council met and could not come to an agreement over the no-fly policy in Libya.
In simpler terms, nothing.
In a week or two, this will be over.
Then, in Libya, Kadhafi will continue to hate us and everyone else there won’t trust us because Clinton led them on and Obama did nothing by passing the hat to an organization he knows is plodding and inept.
Which of course leads to my neverending poll:
And a little less importantly:
18
Oct
This is getting nuttier every day. In 1993, when the Democrats controlled everything in DC, they passed a piece of legislation that pretty much everyone hated. It was affectionately referred to as the “National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1994“. Now, a lot of people don’t keep track of things like they should so I’ll remind everyone how the Senate voted:
| Akaka (D-HI), Yea Baucus (D-MT), Yea Bennett (R-UT), Yea Biden (D-DE), Yea Bingaman (D-NM), Yea Bond (R-MO), Yea Boren (D-OK), Yea Boxer (D-CA), Nay Bradley (D-NJ), Yea Breaux (D-LA), Yea Brown (R-CO), Nay Bryan (D-NV), Yea Bumpers (D-AR), Yea Burns (R-MT), Yea Byrd (D-WV), Yea Campbell (D-CO), Yea Chafee (R-RI), Yea Coats (R-IN), Yea Cochran (R-MS), Yea Cohen (R-ME), Yea Conrad (D-ND), Yea Coverdell (R-GA), Nay Craig (R-ID), Yea D’Amato (R-NY), Nay Danforth (R-MO), Yea Daschle (D-SD), Yea DeConcini (D-AZ), Yea Dodd (D-CT), Yea Dole (R-KS), Nay Domenici (R-NM), Nay Dorgan (D-ND), Not Voting Durenberger (R-MN), Yea Exon (D-NE), Yea Faircloth (R-NC), Yea |
Feingold (D-WI), Nay Feinstein (D-CA), Yea Ford (D-KY), Yea Glenn (D-OH), Yea Gorton (R-WA), Nay Graham (D-FL), Yea Gramm (R-TX), Nay Grassley (R-IA), Yea Gregg (R-NH), Yea Harkin (D-IA), Yea Hatch (R-UT), Nay Hatfield (R-OR), Nay Heflin (D-AL), Yea Helms (R-NC), Nay Hollings (D-SC), Yea Hutchison (R-TX), Yea Inouye (D-HI), Yea Jeffords (R-VT), Yea Johnston (D-LA), Yea Kassebaum (R-KS), Yea Kempthorne (R-ID), Yea Kennedy (D-MA), Yea Kerrey (D-NE), Yea Kerry (D-MA), Yea Kohl (D-WI), Yea Lautenberg (D-NJ), Yea Leahy (D-VT), Yea Levin (D-MI), Yea Lieberman (D-CT), Yea Lott (R-MS), Yea Lugar (R-IN), Yea Mack (R-FL), Nay Mathews (D-TN), Yea McCain (R-AZ), Nay |
McConnell (R-KY), Yea Metzenbaum (D-OH), Nay Mikulski (D-MD), Yea Mitchell (D-ME), Yea Moseley-Braun (D-IL), Yea Moynihan (D-NY), Yea Murkowski (R-AK), Yea Murray (D-WA), Yea Nickles (R-OK), Nay Nunn (D-GA), Yea Packwood (R-OR), Nay Pell (D-RI), Yea Pressler (R-SD), Nay Pryor (D-AR), Yea Reid (D-NV), Yea Riegle (D-MI), Yea Robb (D-VA), Yea Rockefeller (D-WV), Yea Roth (R-DE), Nay Sarbanes (D-MD), Yea Sasser (D-TN), Yea Shelby (D-AL), Yea Simon (D-IL), Yea Simpson (R-WY), Yea Smith (R-NH), Yea Specter (R-PA), Nay Stevens (R-AK), Yea Thurmond (R-SC), Yea Wallop (R-WY), Nay Warner (R-VA), Yea Wellstone (D-MN), Nay Wofford (D-PA), Yea |
I hilite the “yea””s for a reason. Wannna guess what it is? OK, I’ll give one clue. Democrats passed this thing 51-12. Without one single Republican needing to vote, they passed it. The military didn’t like it, the gay community didn’t like it, no one liked it. The Democrat controlled House, the Democrat controlled Senate, and the Democrat President rammed it through anyway. According to Clinton, it wasn’t perfect, but it was a start. Media pretty much ignored “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” for a while until it became expedient. Over time, it became purely a Republican issue as the Republicans did exactly as the Democrats did years before and effectively ignored it. The media bias culminated itself this year when Lady Gaga chastised Republicans for talking about filibustering the bill that would eliminate Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell:
“I will not stop calling until I reach them to tell them to vote with Sen. Harry Reid to end John McCain’s ‘shameless filibuster,’” she said.
She then calls two Democrats who refuse to take her call. There was no filibuster, Harry Reid never sent it to the floor. The gays returned to attacking the hell out of Republicans only even though the Democrats once again had all the votes they needed to pass the legislation to end it. All the while, no one was mentioning the fact that a lawsuit was working it’s way through the legal system to undo what Bill Clinton and the Democrats did in 1993. It wasn’t filed by Lady Gaga. It wasn’t filed by any Democrat. It was filed by the Log Cabin Republicans. And then a weird thing happened. They won. Republicans, who controlled nothing in DC, did what Harry Reid refused to do. They ended “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”. The Obama administration thought about it for a couple of days. And, knowing how the gays felt about DADT, had this to offer:
You read that right. The Obama Administration is asking for a delay in the ruling so the Obama Administration can prepare an appeal to the ruling. They wanna fight it. So, even though the Democrats wrote DADT, passed DADT, have ruled over DADT for nine of the seventeen years it’s been existance, refused to vote to end DADT, and now are fighting legally to keep DADT, I bet you good money there won’t be a single liberal gay person come out and point their finger where the problem is, has been, and continues to be. If they do, I’d love to see their comments here. The reason DADT has survived all these years considering no one seems to like it is because the Democrats know they won’t be held accountable for it so no need to antagonize their moderate to conservative base, and the Republicans know that no matter what they do they won’t get any credit so they have no reason to antagonize their base either. When media and gays become less partisan and more objective then maybe they’ll get what they want.
Until then, they’ll have to keep relying on the Republicans. It’s a core issue with Republicans in a way most people don’t really think about. In expecting the government to protect a minority, the government has to do it in a way that is equitable to all people affected by the minority. Sometimes that doesn’t necessarily work to the minority’s advantage. By NOT recognizing the minority as a minority, it removes the issue of being a minority and allows the issues that affect that minority to be addressed. There is no reason to protect gays in the military. They are already protected by our Constitution. What needs to be protected are the rights gays have as US citizens. When that occurs, gays will have all the same rights as anyone else in the military and I am quite sure that would make everyone happy. Repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell therefore is kind of moot to me. What needs to happen is all references to discriminating on the basis of sexual preferance need to be eliminated. I really don’t buy the argument that it would be disruptive to the military at all. Obama may want you to believe that, but I don’t.
28
Jan
I didn’t watch the State of the Union. Never do. It was never intended to be a public soap box for the President. It was intended for the President to address Congress and appraise them of the State of the Union. Back then, that meant that status of the military, land acquisitions, and stuff like that. Now, well, it’s just fluff. Tonight apparently was no different. It seemed long to me, outlasting the ballgame I was watching. That wasn’t exactly the case, but it was close. From what I’m hearing, it came in at about 75 minutes. Now, in historical perspective, this is long. Not record setting, but close. State of the Union addresses are not mandatory to be public. So, until fairly recently, they were infrequent and sometimes written. Johnson got the ball rolling with public speaking. With the advent of television, it morphed into the Grammy Awards of politics. They just do whatever they want, it has nothing to do with reality. That, and starting in the 90′s, they got very windy. So, I quit watching them.
Some interesting notes. Here’s the top 10 windiest State of the Unions:
| President | Year | Duration | Party |
| Clinton | 2000 | 1:28:49 | Democrat |
| Clinton | 1995 | 1:24:58 | Democrat |
| Clinton | 1999 | 1:18:40 | Democrat |
| Clinton | 1998 | 1:16:43 | Democrat |
| Obama | 2010 | 1:15:00 | Democrat |
| Johnson | 1967 | 1:11:16 | Democrat |
| Clinton | 1996 | 1:06:41 | Democrat |
| Clinton | 1993 | 1:05:31 | Democrat |
| Clinton | 1997 | 1:04:21 | Democrat |
| Clinton | 1994 | 1:03:44 | Democrat |
Notice a pattern?
According to written documents, the shortest would have been George Washington’s first. It clocked in at what probably would have been about f0ur to five minutes. However, it was written. So the official time is 0.
The two shortest in my lifetime were Nixon during the height of his impeachment investigation and Jimmy Carter on his way out.
Last year Joe Wilson was reprimanded by Congress for blurting out “You lie” during an Obama speech. The people who trumped up the charges cited protocol for State of the Union addresses, which Obama’s speech was not. The only known heckling ever done during a State of the Union was by Democrats in 2005. No one got censored over that. Those doing the censoring in 2009 remember that well I’m sure.
From what I have gleaned from tonight’s speech, I didn’t miss anything that I didn’t already know.
- Obama’s going to balance the budget by borrowing trillions of dollars and reducing spending by $250 billion over ten years with his three year budget.
- A year into his presidency, it’s still all Bush’s fault. Don’t ask what, it just is.
- In a feel-good gesture to Al Qaeda and other well-meaning terrorist organizations, we’re going to tell them when it’s safe to attack so that no one has to get hurt other than the occasional mother or child.
- He’s going to immediately “save” more jobs by only cutting NASA’s budget to the point only 7,000 people lose their jobs in Florida. Since he could have cut it so that 20,000 people lost their jobs, 13,000 jobs are saved.
- Finding 10% unemployment unacceptable, he’s shooting for 12% this year.
- In an effort to stimulate more loans, Obama is planning on busting up any bank that gets big enough to loan money. If they pay dividends or bonuses, they don’t deserve to call themselves a business.
- Any other industry that pays bonuses will be dissolved as well under the too big to fail policy.
- Has fixed GM all by himself by firing the CEO. The new CEO’s first action is to pay back the loan.
- Is addressing the lack of jobs by unionizing everything.
- Not sure if he mentioned health care or not.
- Congratulated Scott Brown, relishing his opportunity to be even more bipartisan.
- Promised to have even more transparent government by sending out tweets during closed door meetings.
- Recognized Václav Klaus, the President of Czechoslovakia.
- Since the Himalayan ice caps aren’t actually melting, is converting NASA to a climate change facility where carbon will converted to something more useful like aerosols, citing the hockey stick didn’t go up until after the aerosol ban of 1978.
- Is canceling President’s Day for Mao Day.
- Will be accepting large donations to not call the next #1 team in basketball.
Actually, none of that is probably true. But then again, neither is the speech. I like what a good friend mine suggested:
The state of the union address is outdated. The country needs a Facebook. If you want to know the state of the union check its status on Facebook.
In other words, go back to the spirit of the State of the Union MESSAGE. Clever. Genius even. But, that would have deprived us of:
Now, I have to go back to work on my State of the Union speech. And I worked on it until pretty late last night. But I want to say one thing to the American people. I want you to listen to me. I’m going to say this again: I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky. I never told anybody to lie, not a single time; never. These allegations are false. And I need to go back to work for the American people. Thank you.
That’s how important these State of the Union addresses are. Really. They are.
Hassan Nemazee has been charged with all kinds of stuff of late. Basically, it’s now a charge of running a $292 million pyramid scheme. Not terribly sure how that’s different than Bernie Madoff’s ponzi scheme. But, I don’t really care. What I do care is Nancy Pelosi assuring everyone that all Republicans were corrupt, and all Democrats pure of heart. This week’s installment once again doesn’t involve just one Democrat, it involves bunches. Nemazee is charged with frauding banks for millions of dollars by faking and forging documents. He also was donating heavily to candidates. I’m guessing his assumption was they would keep the feds off his back. I really don’t think this ever works any more. But, it has implicated a lot of Democrats. So, I now expect Nancy Pelosi to demand the following candidates return the donations they received from Nemazee. I’m quite sure some have already. But, it’s nearly impossible to trace who has and who hasn’t. If they have, I apologize in advance and will welcome and corrections.
| Recipient | Total |
|---|---|
| Aydelott, Judy (D) | $1,000.00 |
| Begich, Mark (D) | $1,000.00 |
| Biden, Joseph R Jr (D) | $10,800.00 |
| Boxer, Barbara (D) | $1,000.00 |
| Brown, Sherrod (D) | $1,000.00 |
| Cantwell, Maria (D) | $1,000.00 |
| Casey, Bob (D) | $2,000.00 |
| Clinton, Hillary (D) | $19,500.00 |
| Democratic Congressional Campaign Cmte (D) | $50,000.00 |
| Democratic Senatorial Campaign Cmte (D) | $141,700.00 |
| DNC Services Corp (D) | $7,100.00 |
| Durbin, Dick (D) | $2,000.00 |
| Emanuel, Rahm (D) | $1,000.00 |
| Ford, Harold E Jr (D) | $1,000.00 |
| Franken, Al (D) | $3,300.00 |
| Gillibrand, Kirsten (D) | $11,600.00 |
| Gillibrand, Kirsten (D) | $2,000.00 |
| Hagan, Kay R (D) | $1,000.00 |
| HILLPAC (D) | $10,000.00 |
| Iranian American PAC | $35,000.00 |
| Keeping America’s Promise (D) | $10,000.00 |
| Kerry, John (D) | $9,200.00 |
| Klobuchar, Amy (D) | $1,000.00 |
| Lamont, Ned (D) | $1,000.00 |
| Lautenberg, Frank R (D) | $1,000.00 |
| Levin, Carl (D) | $1,000.00 |
| Maloney, Carolyn B (D) | $10,600.00 |
| Martin, James Francis (D) | $1,000.00 |
| McCaskill, Claire (D) | $2,000.00 |
| Meehan, Marty (D) | $2,000.00 |
| Merkley, Jeff (D) | $1,000.00 |
| Murphy, Scott (D) | $1,000.00 |
| Nelson, Bill (D) | $1,000.00 |
| Obama, Barack (D) | $13,800.00 |
| Pryor, Mark (D) | $1,000.00 |
| Reed, Jack (D) | $1,000.00 |
| Reid, Harry (D) | $9,600.00 |
| Richardson, Bill (D) | $4,600.00 |
| Rockefeller, Jay (D) | $4,600.00 |
| Schumer, Charles E (D) | $4,800.00 |
| Shaheen, Jeanne (D) | $1,000.00 |
| Shahinfar, Darius (D) | $4,600.00 |
| Shays, Christopher (R) | $500.00 |
| Tester, Jon (D) | $1,000.00 |
| Tsongas, Niki (D) | $1,000.00 |
| Udall, Mark (D) | $1,000.00 |
| Udall, Tom (D) | $1,000.00 |
| Unite Our States (D) | $6,900.00 |
| Vilsack, Thomas J (D) | $2,300.00 |
| Webb, James (D) | $2,000.00 |
| Whitehouse, Sheldon (D) | $1,000.00 |
| Yassky, David (D) | $500.00 |
I can’t wait to see how quickly Nancy demands Howard Dean send back nearly $200,000. Any takers on it happening?
Hillary Clinton gave a 35:44 speech you can watch in its entirity at MSNBC:
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Only thing about this speech is it was actually over an hour long. MSNBC cut off the last 34 minutes. That’s kind of understandable, it’s a very windy speech with very little actual content. I didn’t watch it all. Here it is if you want to:
I doubt too many people will. But, for some inexpicable reason, just watch the first minute of the second version and about ten secounds of the MSNBC version and you’ll see what everyone’s scratching their head over. MSNBC crops off the first minute of the video. That actually had the most meat of the entire speech. Here’s a transcript of what MSNBC felt wasn’t worth airing:
What’s THAT supposed to mean? I would have thought she went to The White House to be told what she should be doing and how she should think about the future. Sure, the conspiracy theorists will run wild with that statement. But, I still think it’s more telling that MSNBC felt like they should edit her speech. Then again, I haven’t trusted anything on MSNBC for several years. Not sure too many people do:
| Foxnews | 1,248,000 | 48% |
| CNN | 554,000 | 21% |
| MSNBC | 319,000 | 12% |
| CNBC | 202,000 | 8% |
| Headline News | 287,000 | 11% |
| 2,610,000 |
Now, although MSNBC obviously felt they needed to give Hillary an assist, maybe that’s why only 1 in 8 people will admit to watching their channel.
Sometimes it gets real hard to figure this country out. Sometimes it doesn’t. The Gallup Poll started tracking the abortion issue in 1995. At the time, we had a pro-choice president. From 2001 until 2009, we had a very pro-life president. Since then, we’ve had a president who very strongly pro-choice. So, go figure this data from Gallup:
During the first pro-choice president’s term, Pro-choice dropped 8%. During the pro-life president’s term, pro-choice increased 2%. During the current pro-choice president’s term, pro-choice has dropped 8% already.
Maybe there’s something else out there affecting this issue, I don’t know. I don’t really follow it all that much. I just find it interesting that even on a hot topic such as abortion, people appear to change their opinions just to reject “authority”.
The story in this is that for the first time since Gallup has been doing this poll, more people are pro-life than pro-choice. That kind of surprises me as well.
