Alternately funny, irreverent, patriotic, and inspiring. Not too shabby for a self-educated guy.
January 2009 Archives
Courtesy of MSDNC MSNBC:
President Barack Obama issued a withering critique Thursday of Wall Street corporate behavior, calling it "the height of irresponsibility" for Wall Street employees to be paid more than $18 billion in bonuses last year while their financial sector was crumbling.
"It is shameful," Obama said from the Oval Office. "And part of what we're going to need is for the folks on Wall Street who are asking for help to show some restraint, and show some discipline, and show some sense of responsibility."
If I've got this "new Obama math" right, paying out $18 billion in executive bonuses is the height of irresponsibility, but spending $1.2 trillion in government pork is a fiscally justifiable use of taxpayer funds.
Am I on track, Mr. President?
Hmmm. Big numbers are hard to grasp. Maybe if I represented each $1,000,000,000 with a fat little pig, I'd be able to get a better handle on things. Yes, that sounds good.
Ready?
You betcha, my fellow hopenchangers. Barack Obama knows who to thank for his rise to power. That's Democrat payoffs kickbacks corruption stimulus for ya!
Ronald Reagan used a metaphor to describe the coalition that swept him into the Oval Office. To him, the conservative movement of 1980 was a three-legged stool, supported equally by three groups: fiscal conservatives, social conservatives, and national defense conservatives. Mitt Romney mentioned this metaphor frequently during the '08 campaign:
Lately we conservatives haven't been represented well by the Republican Party. The Democrat machine thumped the GOP in 2006 and 2008. Republican leaders wonder why they lost, and some have said that the "Era of Reagan" is over.
Chuck Asay sums up this view humorously:
It's funny in part because it seems plausible. Are the three parts of the coalition completely splintered now, like this?
Josh Painter thinks so. Some pro-choice Republicans seem to think that dumping the social conservatives is the ticket to victory.
But could it be that the stool actually rests largely on one big leg, like this?
Time will tell, but I suspect that it's more the latter than the former.
Joe Carter sees the stool as one-legged. I didn't support his guy (Huckabee), but his general argument accurately reflects what I perceive about conservatives here in NE Ohio. We tend to be socially, fiscally, and militarily conservative all at once. We don't fragment into three warring camps. If the GOP decides to alienate social conservatives, it will lose much more than 1/3 of its support.
Do you see things the same way?
Earlier today a rumor surfaced on Politico.com about House Republican leadership encouraging the Republican members of the House to vote against Barack Obama's monster wasteful pork stimulus bill. I have confirmation from a DC source that this is no mere rumor. Rep. John Boehner and Rep. Eric Cantor urged their caucus to oppose the stimulus-a-palooza when it comes to the floor tomorrow.
Cantor led a working group that came up with a "House Republican Economic Recovery Plan", which they released on Friday in one-page summary form. I received an e-mailed copy of a two-page version of the plan.
For the last 56 years, every President has made a point of attending the Salute To Heroes Inaugural Ball, which recognizes and celebrates recipients of the Medal of Honor. A bit of background:
The American Legion sponsors the ball, which recognizes recipients of the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest military award. It started in 1953 for President Dwight D. Eisenhower's first inauguration.Event co-sponsors include 13 other veterans service organizations, among them the Military Order of the Purple Heart and the Paralyzed Veterans of America.
Every four years Eisenhower's successors followed suit: John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush.
But yesterday, Barack Obama blew off 48 living recipients of the Medal of Honor who attended yesterday's Salute To Heroes Inaugural Ball. He had more important things to do.
Jerk.
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More commentary:
BLACKFIVE
Ace of Spades
This Ain't Hell
The candidates for Chairman of the Republican National Committee have agreed to take questions from the party rank and file, via text or YouTube, through January 19th. The candidates will then respond to at least ten of the top questions using YouTube from January 20th through the start of the RNC Meeting on January 28th.
I've submitted three questions so far. Kindly vote for them at the links below.
Will you make it a top priority to ensure that by the 2012 election cycle all statewide Republican primary elections are closed to everyone except registered Republicans?
The Ron Paul problem:
Ron Paul has a very energetic and organized community of fans and followers, as is obvious if you browse the other questions submitted here. Unfortunately, his movement also attracts anti-semites, 9/11 Truthers, isolationists, and Bircherite cranks ... all of whom tarnish the Republican Party by association. Ron Paul holds some mainstream conservative positions, but he's got plenty of bad ideas too. How will you distance the GOP from the nuttier elements of the Ron Paul movement, yet still appeal to the rest of his motivated young followers?
A conservative litmus test:
In order to effectively allocate campaign funds to conservative candidates, would you support a minimal litmus test of acceptable conservatism for would-be GOP candidates? In other words, would you require a "yes" to the following question: "Do you want the state to have less control over people's lives, or more control?"
Well, not yet. But the Paulbots have certainly spammed the heck out of RNCDebate.org lately. Just look at all the lickspittle paeans mixed into the questions submitted by the Ronulans. Geez, these cranks almost make Obama worshipers look rational.
Hats off to Sword At-The-Ready for the image.
Enjoy 2009, folks. It's going to be a very interesting year.
