Over the side Hayward goes; bad news, the Obama stays

WSJ, Hayward tossed overboard.

In private business the man at the top, regardless of who causes a mess, is tossed over - that's the rule. It heralds back to the notion that regardless of who ran the ship aground, the Captain goes down with the ship. The explosion of the Deep Water Horizon oil platform cost the lives of 11 men and billions in cleanup and retribution costs - sums that BP has willingly stepped up to pay. On the other hand, the man most, in fact entirely, responsible for what became the gulf disaster still holds his $400K a year job; still plays golf; still hobnobs with the New England elite - (don't let anyone convince you that oil or no oil on the beaches in the gulf had anything to do with the president's decision to go to New England - why would such a fat head sink to associating with the common folk of Florida) - and yet no one is calling for his resignation. As usual another corrupt leftist elitist skates. the Obama's dallying while millions of gallons of crude flowed into the gulf and began destroying the gulf state shores is criminal and at the level of High Crimes and Misdemeanors. Even Carter tried, though disastrously, to free the Iran hostages. the Obama sat on his hands and did nothing for 70+ days while a huge oil slick washed into the marshes and onto the shores of Louisiana destroying the livelihoods of those that rely on the bounty of the oceans. For the most part the liberal (State Run) media have ignored or downplayed the Obama's role in the disaster, preferring instead to blame Bush and his oil friendly policies. Sadly, given the state of the Obama's economy, most Americans are kind of in a state of shock and what goes on outside of their immediate world is not considered of much interest - after all they have to feed their own families in the Obama socialist world. Let's face it, with millions out of work and millions more expected to lose their jobs as the Obama economic policies begin to fully kick in, except for those people in the gulf region directly impacted by the spill, most Americans have enough on their plates to worry about. The oil spill in the gulf is just one of a multitude of the Obama caused disasters that Americans are having to deal with.

Brietbart takes on the leftist group Media Matters of Sharrod on Good Morning America yesterday with George Stephanopoulos on Thursday, via Power Line.

Race is an Issue for the Right

If I were a political strategist for the right the first thing I would do is to mandate that from here and now until the elections are over in November 2010 and in 2012, Race has to be central to every issue we discuss. The left has been doing that for 40+ years and have been admirably successful in doing so; the majority of the Obama's political agenda is race-based. Now, rather than taking the leftists position that the right are a bunch of racists, we take the opposite tack - how has the black community and majorities in general been hurt by the race-based programs of the left. Not one "equal opportunity" law passed by the leftist congress in 50 years has been about providing equal opportunity for minorities. Every single one has actually been about providing shortcuts for minorities to an equal outcome. The result - all have been utter failures and have led to a permanent underclass - and as you would guess - dominated by the blacks. The right thinkers need to point out that every equal opportunity law started out as quota laws, attempting to modify the work force to reflect the racial makeup of society. This led to a flood of race based hiring in the 70's through much of the 90's. The result, not a single black employee is judged on the merits of their work but on the color of their skin, whenever they advance up the ladder. Schools with the race-based entrance requirements have led to a disproportionate drop out rate of blacks from not just the "Ivy" League schools but all colleges. The reason, it takes more than skin color to succeed in college. Bush Jr. said it best, "The soft bigotry of low expectations." When the American voter, desperate for change voted for the Obama, they lowered their standards - everyone - even those on the left that put him into the White House - knew he was unqualified to be president, hell he wasn't even a good senator, but the bigotry of low expectations won over and he became president. The RESULT: probably the most disastrous presidency in American History and he is not even half way through his first term. People - the left - got caught up in the euphoria of race-based thinking, otherwise known as Groupthink, and now we have this mess in the White House. Every single the Obama initiative is tainted with his personal racial views of America. He is so entrenched in the racial pit of thought that he probably doesn't even understand that he cannot see the world any other way. Most Americans, not on the left, have been trying to move away from the issue of race for decades and just when we think we may have succeeded, along comes the Obama and his merry cadre of racists - Axel Rod, Reid and Pelosi. And here we are again - debating the same old issues over and over and over again.

So now it's time for the Right to pick up the race baton and beat the left about the head - let's make it a real issue - not this shady implied issue that the left is pushing, that the right are a bunch of racists - no, let's put it right out front, by pointing out that every single law passed by the left has, as intended, kept slavery alive and well through the welfare state, through never ending dependency on government, and by pointing out that the left doesn't think that minorities can stand and succeed on their own - "The soft bigotry of low expectations." It is time the Right stop rolling over on Race and face it head on - the data are on our side not the lefts.

It's the Thought That Counts

This Open Letter to Matt Bai points out what I have said earlier, that the accusations against the Tea Party are now defacto reality. When it comes to race once the accusation is made by the left, it sticks regardless of the massive quantity of evidence to the contrary - it is the implied racism of those outside the leftist mainstream that is in play here. Next, once the left has painted itself into the corner over this issue, we will be reading and hearing everyone talk about how it was not necessarily what the Tea Party members said, but what they were thinking that really counts and they were thinking racist thoughts.

Please, No More Government Spending!

Please, No More Government Spending!

That's NOT Proof!

On Hot Air, Breitbart hits NAACP with promised video of racism!

Update: Justice served, USDA official Shirley Sherrod fired after video surfaces!

Obamacare - One Big Pack of Lies

In the July 16th NYTimes:

When Congress required most Americans to obtain health insurance or pay a penalty, Democrats denied that they were creating a new tax. But in court, the Obama administration and its allies now defend the requirement as an exercise of the government’s “power to lay and collect taxes.”

Kagan and the Constitution

Lets face it, Kagan is not a Constitutional lawyer, anymore than the Obama is. She is just another left wing crank with a law degree - All Animals are Equal, but Some are More Equal Than Others - type of socialist. Stossel: Kagan's Exception to the First Amendment.

Race is a one way street for the left

It is one of those interesting inconsistencies that plagues the whole race debate in America: If someone on the left, ie a black person in this case, accuses someone on the right of making racial attacks regardless of the lack of evidence to support the accusation, the accusation stands; the media pick it up and run like hell with it and everyone associated with the accusation is tarred and labeled as co-racists. Of course I am talking about the accusations made against the Tea Party that they made racial slurs against John Lewis and other blacks at a DC rally last year. To date, not a single shred of evidence has been produced to support the claim of Lewis and the others. The one piece of evidence that does exist clearly disproves Lewis' claim: Video of Tea Party Rally. On the other hand, there is ample evidence of the racist diatribe by the New Black Panther Army and the NAACP and yet, that doesn't count by the left as racist. That is politically protected speech.

Next comes the beard tax

The making of a true Soviet style bureaucracy: Lost in Taxation.

Ms. Olson also exposed a damaging provision that she estimates will hit some 30 million sole proprietorships and subchapter S corporations, two million farms and one million charities and other tax-exempt organizations. Prior to ObamaCare, businesses only had to tell the IRS the value of services they purchase. But starting in 2013 they will also have to report the value of goods they buy from a single vendor that total more than $600 annually—including office supplies and the like.

This may kill a lot of small businesses that are already overburdened with reporting requirements.

The Hijacking of the Black Dream

The infamous organization the NAACP has passed a resolution calling on the Tea Party to denounce racism. The Tea Party has been called a racist organization based on unfounded accusations that some of its members made racial slurs at members of the Congressional Black Caucus during a rally in DC this past spring. No evidence that any racial remarks were made during the rally has come to light and the accusations are based on claims made by the supposed recipients of those remarks. Which side does one believe? Well, the NAACP has a long and questionable history, itself on the issue of racism among the black community and has not come forward to condemn all racist remarks made by the black community. I am still waiting for the NAACP to condemn the recent racist remarks by the leader of the Black Panther Army, King Samir Shabazz. If they have I must have missed it so someone can send me the link.

I remember the Civil Rights movement of the 1960's that started out with the noble goal of integrating blacks into mainstream America by working to ensure that their rights as Americans were guaranteed. The goal was to remove color from America's eyes, to make us color blind, when it came to the rights of our citizens. Recall the famous words of Dr. Martin Luther King, "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." Somewhere along the way that Dream was hijacked by the left and the Social Engineers and instead of an integrated, color blind society, we ended up with a segregated, hyphenated society, in which color has become a crutch for all that has gone wrong with the Black community. Blacks are as a group performing at a lower level than other minority groups save maybe Hispanics. Seventy percent of all black children born today are born to single mothers. The politically correct reason for this is still racism - whites are just racists and they are holding the blacks back. The reason is, though, the blacks themselves. The political left hijacked the Civil Rights movement and diverted it from its path toward racial equality and a color blind society and turned it into a form of indentured servitude to the state. Blacks have been educated to believe that without the continued assistance from the state they will never become equal (outcome equal) with the majority population. Most of what passes for Civil Rights legislation in the country today is nothing but race preference laws designed to keep blacks dependent on the government and to ensure their continued failure as a community. Those blacks that have wandered from this state dependence view have been labeled "Uncle Toms," and are considered outside of mainstream black thought. Hacks like Al Sharton and Jesse Jackson and groups like the NAACP continue to stoke the racial fires and through threats and intimidation have forced liberal congress members to push racial preference laws. Under the Obama we were as a nation supposed to have pushed beyond racism, but it has only gotten worse. The Attorney General Eric Holder and his Justice Department have instituted a racial preference approach. The recent dismissal of voter intimidation charges against the New Black Panther Army is a case in point.

Unfortunately with presidents like the Obama and groups like the NAACP leading the blacks around by their noses, race will remain an issue for a long time.

Buy America - just not GM or Chrysler

I agree - TOLD YOU SO. Next time the State Run Media comes out with a report about out of control foreign automobiles it might do to call the local UAW phone to see if they are behind the reports - end result of all the bad press against Toyota - they are doing nicely thank you - Toyota 1, Obamamotors 0: Big Runaway Toyota Surprise.

United States v. Arizona — How 'Bout United States v. Rhode Island?

Hat tip to El Greco for this one: United States v. Arizona — How 'Bout United States v. Rhode Island? The Corner - National Review Online:

United States v. Arizona — How 'Bout United States v. Rhode Island? [Andy McCarthy]

Well whaddya know? It turns out that Rhode Island has long been carrying out the procedures at issue in the Arizona immigration statute: As a matter of routine, RI state police check immigration status at traffic stops whenever there is reasonable suspicion to do so, and they report all illegals to the feds for deportation. Besides the usual profiling blather, critics have trotted out the now familiar saw that such procedures hamstring police because they make immigrants afraid to cooperate. But it turns out that it’s the Rhode Island police who insist on enforcing the law. As Cornell law prof William Jacobson details at Legal Insurrection, Colonel Brendan P. Doherty, the state police commander, “refuses to hide from the issue,” explaining, ”I would feel that I’m derelict in my duties to look the other way.”

If, as President Obama and Attorney General Holder claim, there is a federal preemption issue, why hasn’t the administration sued Rhode Island already? After all, Rhode Island is actually enforcing these procedures, while the Arizona law hasn’t even gone into effect yet.

Could it be because — as we’ve discussed here before — the Supreme Court in Muehler v. Mena has already held that police do not need any reason (not probable cause, not reasonable suspicion) to ask a person about his immigration status?

Could it be that just this past February, in Estrada v. Rhode Island, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit upheld the Rhode Island procedures, reasoning that, in Muehler v. Mena, the Supreme Court “held that a police officer does not need independent reasonable suspicion to question an individual about her immigration status…”?

So, we have a Justice Department that drops a case it already won against New Black Panthers who are on tape intimidating voters in blatant violation of federal law, but that sues a sovereign state for enacting a statute in support of immigration enforcement practices that have already been upheld by two of the nation’s highest courts. Perfect.

File Under: They knew he was a Snake when they let him in

One can understand businesses concerns, but it is also hard to feel sorry for them because they knew the Obama was a snake when they got into bed with him on Obamacare. the Obama basically says, every single day, don't trust me, and yet some still do. You have Apple and Google, both the Obama subsidiaries sitting on piles of cash, not hiring, and claiming it is because of the Obama induced economic uncertainty. A better reason is that they are going to get some special deal from the Obama.

Lack of jobs increasingly blamed on uncertainty created by Obama’s policies | The Daily Caller - Breaking News, Opinion, Research, and Entertainment

“Much of the language is vague and will need to be implemented through regulation; uncertainty surrounding the specifics of those regulations is inhibiting growth right now,” the letter said, estimating that the financial regulation bill will cost the U.S. economy about 100,000 jobs per year.

the Obama, Great???

There were obviously no really standards for this poll ranking the Obama 15th best president, Obama the Great:

In a Siena College poll of 238 presidential scholars, Mr. Obama emerges as the 15th most highly rated president, trailing Bill Clinton (13th place) but finishing three spots above Reagan (18th place). Mr. Obama's immediate predecessor, George W. Bush, was ranked number 39th among 42 presidents, and bested only Warren Harding in one category, intelligence.

Siena poll director Douglas Lonnstrom notes that Obama scored highest in the categories of imagination (6th), communication (7th) and intelligence (8th). His only poor rating was "background," where he placed 32nd, perhaps because of his relative inexperience before taking office.

For either Clinton or the Obama to come in ahead of Reagan is remarkable, and quite telling, and rather disturbing given that the history departments of most universities are dominated by leftists. The reality is, if you rated FDR on his terms in office before the war and were serious about it, with real standards and criteria - not feelings - then he would finish near the bottom of any list along with Carter and soon the Obama. The only saving grace for FDR was his ability to talk to the people and that gave them a sense of false hope even as the country's economy kept falling because of his economic programs. the Obama lacks even that ability - he does not talk to the people he attempts to talk over them with big sounding ideas and empty platitudes. It is hard to reassure people when you have not even taken responsibility for your failures. Likewise, to rate a president without considering traits like Leadership is mystifying to me and thus nullifies any results based on touchy-feely qualities. He got high marks in areas that he really has no skill in - imagination - what imagination, for 40+ years we have heard the same socialist drivel flow from the mouths of presidents like Johnson and Carter and to some extent Clinton - nothing new there. Intelligence - well he is intelligent but he isn't smart and being a Theorist is even worse. Communication - he never says anything - but in today's 30-second sound bite world nothing said is considered communicating.

Now contrast the Siena silliness with this assessment of the first 17 months of the Obama's administration:

"Seventeen months into office, Obama is increasingly isolated -- from his party, from American voters and from the world. Though he was sworn in amid great expectations to transcend partisan, racial, cultural and economic divisions, the country is more polarized than ever and Washington is even more a target for voter anger than it was under President Bush. Polls show majorities of Americans do not believe Obama has a clear plan for creating jobs, or to deal with the oil spill, and they oppose remaining in Afghanistan. . . . Obama is so politically toxic in battlegrounds he can't campaign for most Democratic candidates and his relationships with Democrats outside his intimate circle of mostly Chicagoan advisers fall somewhere between faint and frosty" -- A.B. Stoddard, associate editor of The Hill, a newspaper covering Congress.

McDonald - good bye Independence

Happy Independence Weekend all - and thank you NRA for destroying our basic rights - States Rights, Conceal Carry and any number of rights we had before McDonald. I believe that the right to keep and bare arms is as fundamental as the right to breath and live free and say what is on my mind - but apparently the NRA doesn't - despite their now panic cleanup mode attempt to assure American gun owners that their rights are still intact. Before McDonald, every state could decide things like Conceal-Carry - now, Congress can - and, well, since they got away with the Assault ban, it is quite likely, Conceal-Carry for all states, will be relegated to the dustbins of NRA stupidity.

Here is the essence of the whole discussion, if it is more important for you to have a handgun than live in Chicago, with its great culture and Blue bars and whatever, then move to another city or another state where guns can be owned - it is always a trade off when it comes to rights and majorities. Let's face it when it comes to self defense shot guns (which are not restricted in Chicago) are better than handguns - most people could not hit the side of a barn with a handgun when under duress - get a shot gun they hardly ever miss.

Old McDonald

Regardless of our view that the right to keep and bare arms is a fundamental unalienable right - granted to us by our Creator, the McDonald decision was not a good decision. That Chicago passed stupid laws the restricted ownership of guns is not at issue - what is at issue is the rights of States to regulate what goes on within their borders. The Constitution was originally meant to be a safeguard against the Federal Government from infringing upon our rights and the 9th and 10th Amendments left it to the individuals and various states to control what went on within their own domains. Along comes the 14th Amendment and all of the subsequent misinterpretations - including McDonald - and now we have a situation wherein Congress can now tell us, with regard to guns and quite likely Obamacare, what we can and cannot have or have to do. You may have disagreed with Chicago's handgun ban but under the Constitution's protections it was wholly within their right to prevent individuals from possessing handguns. The NRA and their stooge lawyers are now in full campaign mode trying to convince us that no state will get away with the one-gun-per-person laws or one-a-month-laws, but we know that those laws do not "infringe" by definition - and sadly, we now know that Congress can just flat out make them laws of the land, because the Second Amendment is "Incorporated." The NRA got lazy, instead of letting Chicago voters do their job, by voting out those Aldermen that supported the handgun ban, they, the NRA, trampled on the responsibilities of the electorate. It would appear that the majority of Chicagoans have not issue with the ban or they would have voted out those that passed the ban. So, here is my prediction - the NRA's favorite conceal-carry law, will be one of the first the goes when Congress wakes up to realize that they can now ban it, as they did assault weapons - because that does not qualify as an "infringement."

Now is the Time to Assurt Our Independence.

This will be our second Independence Day under Chairman Maobama and as the Kagan hearings have highlighted our Constitution and our Fundamental rights are under siege by this Socialist government. Under questioning from Senator Tom Coburn Kagan would not even affirm that we have Natural Rights outside of the Constitution, those delineated in the Declaration of Independence. Kagan responded by saying, "To be honest with you, I don't have a view of what are natural rights independent of the Constitution." Coburn pressed, asking Kagan if her response meant "you wouldn't embrace what the Declaration says, that we have certain God-given rights, and that among these are the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?" Kagan replied that "my job as a justice is to enforce the Constitution and the laws." She emphasized that she was "not saying that I do not believe there are not rights pre-existing the Constitution and laws." Kagan dodges and weaves on natural rights.

Obviously for her to admit that our rights do not derive from the Constitution and thus from will of men, would be a defeat of the Obama agenda. The goal of he and his merry band of socialists is to subsume our rights to the will of those that govern. A court that views rights not as Natural will have no problem inflicting more rights upon us - like the right to have to buy health insurance or taking away rights that they do not like or that are not popular.