The Stumblebum Suit

For years liberals wailed about George Bush being too dumb to be President. So, how's that new guy working out for you?

He's insulted long-time ally Great Britain by not even knowing how to entertain a foreign head of state and then by giving him a penny-pinching "gift" of DVDs that won't even play on UK Region 2 DVD players.

His Sec State Hillary looked like a moron delivering a "gift" of a button to Russia which was supposed to say "reset" but which actually translated into "overcharge".

He read the teleprompter lines of the Irish PM and thanked himself for inviting people over to the White House.

In his State of the Union address he claimed that America invented the car.

People laughed at Bush when he tried to leave a foreign press conference via a locked door- but Obama tried to enter the Oval Office through a window.

And now he's gone on national TV and insulted the disabled.

I guess we shouldn't be surprised by Mr 57 States.

Note - The post header comes from The Anchoress.

Next time you hear someone decry the notion that the media is incredibly biased just point them to their differing treatment of the gaffes Bush and Obama made.

The Obama Administration

Other things have taken precedence over blogging recently but this item- to be filed under "I told you so"- needs to be recorded. Having insulted the British Prime Minister and the nation he represents, the truth of the Obama administration comes out- and it's no surprise to anyone who paid the slightest attention to Obama's actual career accomplishments.

Sources close to the White House say Mr Obama and his staff have been “overwhelmed” by the economic meltdown and have voiced concerns that the new president is not getting enough rest.

British officials, meanwhile, admit that the White House and US State Department staff were utterly bemused by complaints that the Prime Minister should have been granted full-blown press conference and a formal dinner, as has been customary. They concede that Obama aides seemed unfamiliar with the expectations that surround a major visit by a British prime minister. …

Allies of Mr Obama say his weary appearance in the Oval Office with Mr Brown illustrates the strain he is now under, and the president’s surprise at the sheer volume of business that crosses his desk.

A well-connected Washington figure, who is close to members of Mr Obama’s inner circle, expressed concern that Mr Obama had failed so far to “even fake an interest in foreign policy”. …

The American source said: “Obama is overwhelmed. There is a zero sum tension between his ability to attend to the economic issues and his ability to be a proactive sculptor of the national security agenda.

“That was the gamble these guys made at the front end of this presidency and I think they’re finding it a hard thing to do everything.”

Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States.

I think Ed says it best when states, "we’re told that the Obama White House and their staff are just a bunch of incompetents who got in over their heads. Which is, of course, the point we made continuously over the last two years."

This guy's been in office for a matter of weeks and he's exhausted, overwhelmed and his team haven't the slightest clue what to do. I guess being overcome by the existing White House IT system was our first hint that they were bereft of competence.

The US is at war, the economy is crumbling and these guys are supposed to be in charge?

If it wasn't so important it would be funny.

The Ceasefire That Wasn't

The ceasefire is "strained"?

Palestinian militants in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip fired five rockets at Israel on Saturday, according to the Israeli military, further straining a fragile month-old ceasefire.. Palestinian militants have fired more than 100 rockets and mortar rounds at Israel since the fragile January 18 truce that ended Israel's massive military offensive on Gaza, which killed more than 1,300 Palestinians and 13 Israelis.

Flight of Fantasy

A little Adam Hughes for the weekend.

Quote of the Day

From Hot Air-

Which is most reassuring — Biden heading up the stimulus, Panetta learning intel on the fly as head of the CIA, or our new energy secretary needing to be told that he’s responsible for, um, energy?

And this one came a very, very close second-

How does that Hope and Change feel now, Obama voters? Anyone ready to give President Bush an overdue apology?

Bill Dodger

So Obama owes Chicago money for his election party. Turns out, he also owes Philadelphia.

BARACK OBAMA spent a record $760 million getting himself elected president. But his campaign, Obama for America, still owes Philadelphia nearly $24,000 for several pre-election events, and the cash-strapped city hasn’t given up its collection efforts.

The most expensive event was an Oct. 4 rally on the Parkway, featuring Bruce Springsteen. The city’s expenses came to $9,050, including sound systems, lighting, platforms, bleachers and clean-up costs.

There were smaller charges for a series of Obama appearances on Oct. 11, at Progress Plaza, the Mayfair Diner and Vernon Park, and $3,666 for a Joe Biden rally at Marconi Plaza the day before the election.

Answer me this- why is a city spending their taxpayers' money on partisan electioneering?

Perhaps in future US cities will know to make sure that politicans pay up front for things like this.

Gloom

It must be contagious-

I've been stuck in the house by the weather, and I've been fairly broke-ish for the last couple weeks, which has amplified my cabin fever, which is in turn reinforced by the short days and gray skies, which has caused me to write less. And the writing less has made me feel non-productive, which makes me feel more depressed. Which has in turn... Well, you see where this is going: Lather, Rinse, Repeat.

I've been staring at blank pages for the past few weeks and...nothing. Not being able to write is maddening.

The Kerry Letter

There's some controversy about a letter John Kerry received on a Mid-East trip- he was given it and asked to pass it on to Obama. And now it turns out that the letter originated with Hamas.

Kerry claims to know nothing about the sender.

U.S. officials are furious with the United Nations for its role in Hamas' attempt to enlist U.S. Sen John Kerry to transfer a letter from the Palestinian militant group to President Obama during Kerry's trip to the Middle East, an official source told FOX News.

One thing bothers me about this- why is a United States Senator acting as a mail delivery boy for the UN or Hamas or anyone really?

I mean, do Senators normally personally receive mail from one group to deliver it to another? I could maybe understand it if the UN group he was meeting with said, "oh by the way, here's a letter for the President- would you mind delivering it for us?" and then Kerry let his aides take care of it. But for him to personally accept the letter and then deliver it?

Something not quite right about that.

Iranian Nuke

Iran apparently has enough material to make one nuclear bomb. The world just got a whole lot more dangerous.

In a development that comes as the Obama administration is drawing up its policy on negotiations with Tehran over its nuclear programme, UN officials said Iran had produced more nuclear material than previously thought.

They said Iran had now accumulated more than one tonne of low enriched uranium hexafluoride at a facility in Natanz. If such a quantity were further enriched it could produce more than 20kg of fissile material – enough for a bomb…

The question now is- will anyone act to prevent them from actually producing a nuclear weapon? Because further negotiations aren't going to cut it- and anyone with half a brain cell in Obama's administration must know that.

Stimulus RAT

Wow, here comes some more "hope and change" courtesy of the Obama administration.

You’ve heard a lot about the astonishing spending in the $787 billion economic stimulus bill, signed into law this week by President Barack Obama. But you probably haven’t heard about a provision in the bill that threatens to politicize the way allegations of fraud and corruption are investigated — or not investigated — throughout the federal government.

The provision, which attracted virtually no attention in the debate over the 1,073-page stimulus bill, creates something called the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board — the RAT Board, as it’s known by the few insiders who are aware of it. The board would oversee the in-house watchdogs, known as inspectors general, whose job is to independently investigate allegations of wrongdoing at various federal agencies, without fear of interference by political appointees or the White House.

In the name of accountability and transparency, Congress has given the RAT Board the authority to ask “that an inspector general conduct or refrain from conducting an audit or investigation.” If the inspector general doesn’t want to follow the wishes of the RAT Board, he’ll have to write a report explaining his decision to the board, as well as to the head of his agency (from whom he is supposedly independent) and to Congress. In the end, a determined inspector general can probably get his way, but only after jumping through bureaucratic hoops that will inevitably make him hesitate to go forward.

Wonderful. Chicago politics meets Pelosi's "most ethical Congress ever".

UK Bailout

The US isn't the only nation which bailed out its banks. The UK did the same thing.

The staggering total of Britain's national debt was laid bare yesterday - at least £2trillion.

That represents £33,000 for every man, woman and child in the country.

Bank bailouts will send debt 'off the Richter scale' at a staggering 147 per cent of national income, the worst figure since 1954 and one of the highest in the developed world.

Super.

Official debt figures had already shown public borrowing spiralling to a new record, reaching £67.2billion between last April and January. The deepening recession also led to a £7billion fall in the amount of tax paid by individuals and businesses last month, compared to January 2008, leaving a yawning black hole in Government finances.

The shattering calculations came as the Bank of England's deputy governor said there was a 'serious risk' of a decade-long downward spiral of the kind that crippled Japan in the 1990s.

So they plunged us into incredible debt for what exactly? It seems to me we're no better off with a couple of banks propped up than we would be if we'd let them fail and not put our national debt at post-WW2 levels.

I wonder what the figure will be for the US.

Mexican Civil War

The day will come- sooner rather than later if things continue as they are- when American voters are going to start asking their representatives why they have valued illegal immigration over the security of the nation.

A shootout in a border city that leaves five alleged drug traffickers sprawled dead on the street and seven police wounded. A police chief and his bodyguards gunned down outside his house in another border city. Four bridges into the United States shut down by protesters who want the military out of their towns and who officials say are backed by narcotraffickers.

That was Mexico on Tuesday.

What is most remarkable is that it was not much different from Monday or Sunday or any day in the past few years.

Mexico, a country with a nearly 2,000-mile border with the United States, is undergoing a horrifying wave of violence that some are likening to a civil war. Drug traffickers battle fiercely with each other and Mexican authorities. The homicide rate reached a record level in 2008 and indications are that the carnage could be exceeded this year.

If Washington had any sense they would have acted to secure the border right after 9-11. If Mexico does fall into anarchy then it will be too late to act.

Pelosi Rules

You know, I could have sworn that Obama campaigned on bringing a new kind of politics to Washington. Who knew that what he meant was a tyrannical Pelosi regime. Not only has she shut Democrats out of the normal bill-crafting process- not to mention completely excluding Republicans from the Stimulus- but now comes the news that she planned on changing the normal rules of Congress to dis-allow the minority party from even proposing legislation.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi plans to re-write House rules today to ensure that the Republican minority is unable to have any influence on legislation. Pelosi’s proposals are so draconian, and will so polarize the Capitol, that any thought President-elect Obama has of bipartisan cooperation will be rendered impossible before he even takes office...

There seems to be no news of this since January. Any one know of any updates?

And anyone care to bet that had the Republicans been in charge and proposed such a rule-change that the MSM would have been so dis-interested?

When the Republicans do come back to power in Congress, I hope they very loudly proclaim that they will be following the rules initiated by Pelosi.

Twilight Zone Politics

You are now entering the Twilight Zone- otherwise known as the Obama Presidency.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has warned the US against repeating the mistakes the Soviet Union made.

"We must not revert to isolationism and unrestrained economic egotism... Excessive intervention in economic activity and blind faith in the state's omnipotence is another possible mistake. True, the state's increased role in times of crisis is a natural reaction to market setbacks. Instead of streamlining market mechanisms, some are tempted to expand state economic intervention to the greatest possible extent... In the 20th century, the Soviet Union made the state's role absolute. In the long run, this made the Soviet economy totally uncompetitive. This lesson cost us dearly. I am sure nobody wants to see it repeated."

Yep, you know that things are getting really weird when Putin is telling the US to engage in less socialism.

Nazi Zombies

Good Lord, I love this game.

Inmates Running The Asylum

In the UK a man confronts a drug dealer and flushes his stash of heroin down the toilet. He's arrested and imprisoned.

In the US, a rancher apprehends illegal aliens crossing his property. He's fined $78,000.

What the heck is going on?

Quote of the Day

Yet again, the audacity of Barack Obama's hypocrisy-

In a passage from his 2006 book, "The Audacity of Hope," [Obama] sounds like a Republican complaining about the stimulus. "Genuine bipartisanship," he wrote, "assumes an honest process of give-and-take, and that the quality of the compromise is measured by how well it serves some agreed-upon goal, whether better schools or lower deficits. This in turn assumes that the majority will be constrained — by an exacting press corps and ultimately an informed electorate — to negotiate in good faith.

"If these conditions do not hold — if nobody outside Washington is really paying attention to the substance of the bill, if the true costs . . . are buried in phony accounting and understated by a trillion dollars or so — the majority party can begin every negotiation by asking for 100% of what it wants, go on to concede 10%, and then accuse any member of the minority party who fails to support this 'compromise' of being 'obstructionist.'"

Honour Killings

Atlas Shrugged has a post up showing the pictures of Western victims of "honour" killings. It's disturbing how often "UK" shows up.

Can of Worms

Obama's decision to close Gitmo is sure to open a legal can of worms.

In a small room at Guantanamo Bay, plain white except for an American flag hung on the wall, Abdul al Rahman al Zahri sat shackled in front of three military officers at a hearing to determine whether he continued to pose a threat to the United States and its allies.

Zahri, a Yemeni captured in Afghanistan in 2001, was clear on that point. “I do pose a threat to the United States and its allies,” he said, according to a transcript of the 2006 hearing. “I admit to you it’s my honor to be an enemy of the United States. I am a Muslim jihadist, and I’m defending my family and my honor.”

And then we move on to this-

Zahri said he heard the call to jihad outside a mosque in Yemen in early 2001, and he decided to go to Afghanistan as a trainee to eventually fight Russian forces in Chechnya, according to military documents. Within a week, he met bin Laden at an al-Qaida guesthouse, one of 10 meetings that military officials allege he had with terrorist leaders.

“The detainee stated he attended a meeting prior to 11 September 2001 in which an upcoming operation was discussed,” according to military documents.

Zahri went to the front lines in Afghanistan to fight the U.S.-backed Northern Alliance, where he was wounded, captured and eventually sent to Guantanamo. But despite his statements and some potential evidence — he was captured with a bag of various currencies and passports from several countries — some legal experts say it may be difficult for the United States to bring charges against him under the law as it stood in 2001.

One thing seems certain- the "rights" of these terrorists will most likely win out over the rights of their potential victims and the security of the USA and its allies.

The White House Lawn

I wonder how many liberals are astonished that an Obama presidency hasn't resulted in America suddenly become loved by its enemies?

Following are excerpts from a speech by Kuwaiti Professor Abdallah Al-Nafisi, which aired on Al-Jazeera TV on February 2, 2009.

Abdallah Al-Nafisi: "Four pounds of anthrax - in a suitcase this big - carried by a fighter through tunnels from Mexico into the U.S., are guaranteed to kill 330,000 Americans within a single hour, if it is properly spread in population centers there.

"What a horrifying idea. 9/11 will be small change in comparison. Am I right? There is no need for airplanes, conspiracies, timings, and so on.

"One person, with the courage to carry four pounds of anthrax, will go to the White House lawn, and will spread this 'confetti' all over them, and then will do these cries of joy. It will turn into a real 'celebration.'