"What prudent merchant will hazard his fortunes in any new branch of commerce when he knows not but that his plans may be rendered unlawful before they can be executed? What farmer or manufacturer will lay himself out for the encouragement given to any particular cultivation or establishment, when he can have no assurance that his preparatory labors and advances will not render him a victim to an inconstant government?"-- Federalist 62
October 11, 2010
James Madison on Obama economics
October 4, 2010
September 30, 2010
What liberal can resist a free ride?
September 29, 2010
Alan Grayson's thuggishness backfires
Such was the case on yesterday when Brewer challenged Congressman and liberal prima donna Alan Grayson over his ad denigrating Republican opponent Dan Webster as "Taliban Dan."
Grayson's ad was so dishonest that it resulted in a flood of donations pouring into Webster's coffers and Webster pulling ahead by 7 points in the latest Susquehanna poll.
September 9, 2010
August 26, 2010
Page 6: Ed Schultz goes berserk at MSNBC, threatens to 'torch this ****ing place!'
The lib radio talker and MSNBC reportedly melted down in toxic anger after learning of his absence from MSNBC promos, according to NY Post's Page 6, followed by Schultz sobbing in remorse.
At risk of stating obvious, time for Schultz to get some help.
August 16, 2010
Reid breaks with Obama, opposes Ground Zero mosque
August 11, 2010
July 19, 2010
July 7, 2010
The Times of London reports: Saudis OK Israeli use of airspace to bomb Iran
June 24, 2010
June 3, 2010
Cheap dig at Bush from McCartney
This from a man who chose to sing "I'm Down" in the Concert for NYC right after 9/11. Remember the lyrics? "I'm down, I'm really down, I'm down, down on the ground ..."
May 24, 2010
Liberal economics at work
May 5, 2010
Politician who received most campaign contributions from BP? Obama
April 28, 2010
Feds give green light for Cape Wind
Construction of Cape Wind's 130 turbines on shoal in middle of Nantucket Sound could begin by end of year, according to the company.
But first, the inevitable litigation from opponents.
April 23, 2010
Department of unintentional humor
Now up until recently, we thought Lindsey Graham, the Republican from South Carolina, was going to come to the dance with Chuck Schumer and really, you know, help get this thing across the finish line ...Not that there's anything wrong with them dancing, Ed ...
April 21, 2010
March 30, 2010
Poor Ed Schultz -- smoked again by Heritage Foundation's Ernest Istook
March 29, 2010
Headline for the ages - 'Global Warming Activist Freezes To Death in Antarctica'
March 26, 2010
March 16, 2010
David Shuster tells Ed Schultz: Democrats may miss another health bill deadline
SHUSTER: Now there's been some talk that James Clyburn, for example, who's the whip counter in the House, he suggested this could slide to Easter. I think if that does, that would be a huge problem and that may be an indication, that may be some of his sort of efforts to pressure members to make up their mind.Does this mean Obama might postpone trip to Asia a second time?
SCHULTZ: Wow. To Easter? That's another deadline that's pushed back after the White House said that it would be the law of the land this weekend. ... I think it's the right call to get a vote now. It's either going to work now or it's not. But to push it back to Easter, that's almost an admission that they're really in trouble, don't you think?
SHUSTER: I agree 100 percent.
UPDATE: The Hill reports along same lines
March 4, 2010
Report: John Edwards faces imminent indictment
And the hits just keep coming ...
Wasn't 'hate ads' that killed him
Romney book-signing in Framingham, March 4
I'm going to try and make it, but could be tough to break from work.
January 29, 2010
Jay Leno on Obama stimulus that's actually worked
h/t, The Weekly Standard's Scrapbook, Feb. 1st issue
January 21, 2010
Air America Radio 'ceases operations'
January 20, 2010
Obama Era, The
January 19, 2010
January 18, 2010
Democrats determined to set record for most asinine statements in single campaign
"Why would you hand the keys to the car back to the same guys whose policies drove the economy into the ditch and then walked away from the scene of the accident?” “For the Republicans to say vote for us and bring back the guys who got us into this mess in the first place, I don’t think it’s a winner.”
Politico: Brown surges to 9-point lead
This will less than 13 hours before the polls open tomorrow.
The not-so-fat lady could soon be crooning.
January 17, 2010
January 15, 2010
January 14, 2010
The photo that might cost Coakley the election
The reporter's offense? Daring to ask Coakley a question.
The goon in question? An Obama nominee, no less, named Michael Meehan. And the man just over Meehan's right shoulder? Coakley's predecessor as Bay State attorney general, Tom Reilly.
This coming only one day after Coakley ran an attack ad with an image of Rush Limbaugh giving what appears to be a Nazi salute -- in other words, conservatives are Nazis. Followed within 24 hours by this thuggery.
These people are beyond shame.
January 8, 2010
Infrequent example of court jester of Left making me laugh
January 7, 2010
Woodrow Wilson was Jewish?
January 1, 2010
New Year's resolution -- blog more here!
November 23, 2009
More like, the unvarnished state truth
I gotta tell ya, Ed, a lot of us have talked around here and we just say thank God for Ed Schultz. I mean that sincerely. He's getting the truth out to the American people, the unvarnished state, straight truth of what's going on around here and we're grateful for that.And we're really, really stateful, uh, grateful for that, Ed.
November 9, 2009
ABC News: Hasan sought contact with al Qaeda, according to two US officials
A story that makes me more dumbfounded by the day.U.S. intelligence agencies were aware months ago that Army Major Nidal Hasan was attempting to make contact with people associated with al Qaeda, two American officials briefed on classified material in the case told ABC News.
October 19, 2009
October 14, 2009
Is this even possible?
A Russian court ruled against Stalin's grandson in a suit alleging a newspaper damaged the dictator's honor.By what, running an accurate story about him?
October 12, 2009
Took 'em only 40 years to acknowledge this
October 7, 2009
Ed Schultz. Clueless. Again.
October 6, 2009
Doctors given white labcoats to wear for White House photo-op with Obama
A sea of 150 white-coated doctors, all enthusiastically supportive of the president and representing all 50 states, looked as if they were at a costume party as they posed in the Rose Garden before hearing Obama's pitch for the Democratic overhaul bills moving through Congress.The physicians, all invited guests, were told to bring their white lab coats to make sure that TV cameras captured the image.
But some docs apparently forgot, failing to meet the White House dress code by showing up in business suits or dresses.
So the White House rustled up white coats for them and handed them to the suited physicians who had taken seats in the sun-splashed lawn area.
All this to provide a visual counter to complaints from other doctors that pending legislation is bad news for the medical profession. ...
Heck, why stop there? How about asking the assembled doctors to wear stethoscopes, lest anyone confuse them with pharmacists? Better yet, have the dutiful doctors put on those shiny reflectors they use to wear.
October 2, 2009
Double whammy makes for Obama's worst day
September 21, 2009
Obama as Ubiquitous Leader
September 9, 2009
Gee, what a surprise
We're waiting to see what the president says tonight, the pregame show well underway, we're 7 hours and 53 minutes and 16 seconds before the speech. You know, we're the only network, MSNBC, that's giving us a countdown on exactly when the big show's gonna start.Yes, the man is easily amused.
September 2, 2009
Kennedy abandoned pursuit of presidency after '80 campaign? Not so
First, from the "People" column of Time magazine, Feb. 2, 1981, of Ted and Joan Kennedy announcing plans to divorce. Note the timing of the announcement --
With the exception of Rose Kennedy, 90, who was informed early Wednesday, and a few intimates, no one expected the announcement they were to issue 24 hours after Ronald Reagan took office. ...... Clearly with an eye toward the '84 campaign, with Kennedy wasting no time shedding what he perceived as baggage.
Even after Kennedy decided against challenging Reagan in 1984, speculation continued that he would seek the presidency a second time, in 1988, until Kennedy announced otherwise in December 1985. As reported by the Associated Press on Dec. 20 that year --
BOSTON -- Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's much heralded bid for the presidency ended before it began with the leading Democrat's surprise announcement that he will not be a candidate for the White House in 1988.
"I know that this decision means that I may never be president, but the pursuit of the presidency is not my life. Public service is," Kennedy said in an unusual, paid political announcement televised Thursday evening in his home state of Massachusetts. ...
September 1, 2009
"September 1, 1939" resonates still
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade ... "
The rest of Auden's poem here
Rest in peace, Senator Kennedy
At left, a photo I took of Kennedy in April 2003, meeting with the troops at Otis Air National Guard Base on Cape Cod a few weeks after the outbreak of war in Iraq.
It's the most won-der-ful time of the year ...
August 19, 2009
Gentlemen, you can't fight here, this is the war room!
As chairman of the party, in chairing that meeting, I made a statement at the beginning that I won't tolerate political stances.Guess this means Barney Frank remained uncharacteristically silence through the meeting.
August 6, 2009
Remember the Indianapolis
An op-ed I wrote that ran in the Providence Journal-Bulletin on Aug. 15, 2006 to coincide with V-J Day, a state holiday in Rhode Island --
Visiting the Truman Library several years ago, I bought a reprinted copy of the Aug. 15, 1945 Philadelphia Inquirer. ‘PEACE’ read the banner headline over stories of Japan surrendering to end World War II.
It was a story tucked beneath the fold that caught my eye, with this headline -- "U.S. Cruiser Sunk With Every Man Lost or Wounded."
Many veterans of World War II know the name of the ship, as will students of history. It was the USS Indianapolis.
Others are familiar with the Indianapolis from the movie "Jaws." The shark hunter Quint, played by Robert Shaw, describes the sinking of the Indianapolis during a night of drunken reverie with Amity Police Chief Martin Brody and oceanographer Matt Hooper.
"So, 1,100 men went into the water, 316 men come out, the sharks took the rest, June the 29th, 1945," Quint said, lost in the horror of his memories. "Anyway, we delivered the bomb" -- a reference to the atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
It turns the movie got the date wrong -- the Indianapolis was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine on the night of July 29 and sank in 12 minutes. Its loss came so close to the end of the war that it was not reported to the public, as by the Inquirer, until Aug. 15 -- the day after Japan surrendered.
The sinking of the Indianapolis is significant in another respect: it remains the worst loss of life for a US Navy vessel at sea -- ever.
Only one other American warship suffered heavier losses -- the battleship Arizona in Pearl Harbor, just after the start of the surprise attack by Japan in December 1941 which brought the U.S. into World War II. Most of the 1,102 men killed on the Arizona died in an instant when a bomb exploded in the ship's forward magazine.
In other words, the two worst losses in the history of the Navy came only minutes after America abruptly become a combatant in World War II -- and just weeks before the war ended. And the sinking of the Indianapolis is a prime example of just how dangerous Japan remained to the end of the war.
Revisionists claim that President Harry Truman's decision to use the atom bomb makes him no better than Islamist suicide bombers of today. Only an ethos long seeped in moral relativism could believe such an absurd proposition.
Far from inflaming conflict in the manner of jihadists, Truman's decision led to an abrupt end to conflict -- and the bloodiest war in history at that. Emperor Hirohito announced on Aug. 14 that Japan would surrender -- less than a week after Nagasaki was attacked. The second bombing, often criticized as gratuitous, showed that the destruction of Hiroshima three days earlier was not a fluke.
Truman's critics cite the horrifying death tolls in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, where casualties ran in the hundreds of thousands, and point out -- accurately -- that most of those killed were civilians.
But what these critics rarely acknowledge is how many civilians were killed as the result of the brutal, ongoing Japanese occupation of China, Korea, Manchuria, Taiwan, southeast Asia, Malaysia, Burma (now Myanmar) and the Dutch East Indies, known to us today as Indonesia.
Historian Robert Newman and others have calculated that 250,000 to 400,000 people, overwhelmingly noncombatants, were dying every month as a result of Japanese barbarity.
Revisionists also claim that Japan was ready to surrender before the atom bomb. An examination of the pattern of conflict in the Pacific leads to the opposite conclusion.
Japan was a formidable opponent from the start of the war, but never fought with more ferocity than at Saipan in the summer of 1944. Until, that is, February 1945 on Iwo Jima, when the carnage was even worse. Until that spring at Okinawa, when more than 200,000 people, combatants and civilians, were killed, wounded or never heard from again.
The pattern was clear -- the closer the Allies came to Japan, the greater the losses on both sides.
As with Islamists we fight today, the Japanese resorted to suicide bombers -- kamikaze pilots. In both cases, the fanaticism of our foes in no way validates their perverse beliefs.
While we can only wonder what might have been had Truman not used the bomb, what occurred after he did is indisputable -- the unconditional surrender of Japan in a matter of days.
Truman rarely gets credit for another aspect of his decision worth noting: atomic weapons have not been used in war since 1945. Why no other leader has pulled the nuclear trigger is fair game for speculation, but I count myself among those who believe that Hiroshima and Nagasaki demonstrated the fearsome power of these weapons, which have only grown in number and intensity. A nuclear conflict today would make the loss of two cities pale by comparison.
The decisive manner that Truman ended the war had another positive effect -- it purged Japan of the militarism which held sway in the country for more than a decade, and provided the foundation for the modern, industrious Japan we now consider an important and respected ally.
A Japan that few fear will attack them out of the blue on a quiet Sunday morning.
July 29, 2009
Possible deal in House on health reform
Update, 3:30 -- some "deal" -- the only news here is Blue Dog Dems getting House leaders to agree on holding off a vote on health reform until after the month-long August recess.
July 27, 2009
Cambridge police release Gates arrest recording
A theory making the rounds -- was the question about Gates at Obama's July 22 press conference planted with a sympathetic reporter (Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun-Times) to divert attention from Senate Majority leader Harry Reid announcing the next day -- as Obama surely knew was coming -- that the Senate would not vote on health reform before the August recess?
What better way to rile up liberals than with a timely opportunity for self-righteous indignation about racial profiling?
July 24, 2009
Report: Obama calls Cambridge cop who arrested Gates
Read the full story here.... Obama said the five-minute conversation confirmed that (Sgt. James) Crowley is a good man and that the sergeant and the professor are "two decent people," though he still believes that Crowley and Gates both overreacted. The president further said that he contributed to the "ratcheting up" of the story.
Obama said it was "unfortunate" that his word choice "maligned" the police department and Crowley.
"And I could have calibrated my words differently." ...
July 23, 2009
Cop who arrested Gates teaches racial profiling class
Cambridge police Sgt. James Crowley, the cop at the center of a firestorm over the arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., has taught a racial profiling class at the Lowell Police Academy for five years. ...Granted, the police academy isn't Harvard and, hence, one is more likely to encounter a robust exchange of ideas there. On how every arrest of a person of color isn't the result of racial profiling, for example.
This story just keeps getting better.
Alleged racist cop who arrested Henry Louis Gates
The Cambridge cop prominent Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. claims is a racist gave a dying Reggie Lewis mouth-to-mouth resuscitation in a desperate bid to save the Celtic superstar’s life 16 years ago Monday.“I wasn’t working on Reggie Lewis the basketball star. I wasn’t working on a black man. I was working on another human being,” Sgt. James Crowley, in an exclusive interview with the Herald, said of the forward’s fatal heart attack July 27, 1993, at age 27 during an off-season practice at Brandeis University, where Crowley was a campus police officer. ...
You know, as racist cops are wont to do.
July 20, 2009
Schultz sidekick Norman Goldman getting radio show
Details are still sparse but according to Goldman, who guest hosted the final hour of Schultz's radio show today (Schultz also hosts a TV show weeknights on MSNBC), told listeners that he'll be broadcasting from his adopted home of Los Angeles as of September.
July 7, 2009
Nuttiest theory yet for Palin stepping down: She may have "done something" to Michael Jackson, claims caller to Sharpton radio show
July 5, 2009
Weeks of rain and drizzle, followed by a glorious July 4th weekend. Fair enough.
This photo wasn't taken over the holiday weekend -- I took it at a 9/11 anniversary observance in Buzzards Bay a few years ago -- but it's one of my favorite photos of the flag and the weather at the time was much the way it was this morning, after the endless rain, drizzle and fog of spring and early summer.
July 1, 2009
Bill Clinton, ever the sensitive one
Roosevelt understood that in a complex and perilous situation, you have to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time, and he was masterful in doing a variety of difficult things simultaneously.
June 25, 2009
Scandal, celebrity deaths crowd Iran out of news
June 19, 2009
Internal friction at MSNBC?
June 17, 2009
Obama gets this one right
June 16, 2009
Catalyst for change in Iran? It's not Obama
Just as Reagan was the pivotal figure in bringing down Iron Curtain, even though it did not occur until after Reagan left office, the younger Bush was pivotal in bringing down Iran Curtain, if that is what we are witnessing. And to carry analogy further, Obama is reacting with much the same caution as George H.W. Bush after the collapse of the Berlin Wall.
June 14, 2009
"Iran on Fire"
Arianna Huffington on demise of newspapers: Don't blame me
A stolen election in Iran?
Came across this amazing footage at Andrew Sullivan's blog tonight, where I found the most comprehensive coverage so far of the disputed presidential election in Iran. Chillingly reminiscent of China 20 years ago.
June 8, 2009
Obama at Normandy: Self-referential as usual
I'm not the first American president to come and mark this anniversary and I likely will not be the last.How about that, gratuitous self-reference and banal. Then again, they often go together.
Here's how Reagan began his remarks 25 years earlier in the same place --
We're here to mark that day in history when the Allied armies joined in battle to reclaim this continent to liberty.Listening to Obama's speeches and their inevitable turns of compass toward Self, I'm reminded of a book review of Hemingway's posthumous novel "The Garden of Eden" in 1986 by one of Hemingway's granddaughters, who made a wager with herself that Papa couldn't go a full page without mentioning an aperitif (she lost the bet, as I recall).
June 3, 2009
George Tiller, rest in peace
Back to blogging, here
I've been blogging at NewsBusters since last October but not spent nearly as much time here as I'd like in recent months. That will change as of today, with daily quota of at least one post a day. Now that I've pledged to do it, I have no choice but to follow suit.
May 21, 2009
Report: Kennedy's cancer not in remission
U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy's office says a report that the Massachusetts Democrat's brain tumor has gone into remission and he is returning to the Senate full time next month is unfounded.
A Boston staffer who did not wish to be named for this story said the senator continues to balance a treatment regimen with work, adding that his schedule is determined on a day-to-day basis.
A Washington, D.C., publication, The Hill, reported yesterday that Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Kennedy's brain cancer is in remission and he would return to the Senate full time in early June.
May 14, 2009
The Great Recession
April 28, 2009
Report: GOP Sen. Arlen Specter Switching to Democrats
Update, 2:20 pm -- Guess this means Michael Moore won't be doing any documentaries about Specter's long-suspected role in JFK assassination ...
April 24, 2009
In new book, Wendy Kaminer describes ACLU censoring itself
As described by John Leo in his "Bookshelf" column in today's Wall Street Journal, reviewing Wendy Kaminer's new book, "Worst Instincts: Cowardice, Conformity, and the ACLU" --
In 2006, the ACLU descended into self-satire by drawing up a gag order to cover its own board members -- no public criticism of policies or personnel, because speaking out might hurt fund raising. When word got out, a storm of ridicule forced the withdrawal of the plan. But Ms. Kaminer notes that only six of the 53 ACLU affiliates protested the no-dissent policy; the ACLU apparently couldn't be bothered to defend its own right to free speech.I especially like that last sentence.
April 15, 2009
There was something in the air that night, the stars were bright ...
April 14, 2009
Matt Foley returns!
April 8, 2009
No thanks to you, Mr. President
An "extraordinary achievement" that would have been squandered had the United States done what Obama wanted and turned tail before the surge.
April 2, 2009
It's official: Ed Schultz gets show on MSNBC
Inexplicably -- though perhaps not, considering this is MSNBC -- the network will continue showing repeats at 10 and 11 p.m., of earlier shows by Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow.
Rachel Maddow, more bizarre than usual
You know, kinda like socialists are inclined to do.
March 29, 2009
A headline you never thought you'd see
OBAMA WILL FACE A DEFIANT WORLD ON FOREIGN VISIT
March 26, 2009
True lefty indeed
I'm what you'd call a true lefty and when I debate with centrist Democrat friends, I feel myself beginning to lose it at a certain point, I'm so sure I'm right.
March 22, 2009
Ed Schultz to bump David Shuster on MSNBC?
But is something more in the works at MSNBC? Possibly so, based on what Schultz told his listeners on Friday --
Somebody must have the flu over there or something. I don't know, they just wanted me to do the show and I think Shuster's going to be doing another show and so the musical chairs there for just a few days I think continue.
March 19, 2009
Report: Fannie Mae Doling Out $1 Million Bonuses
Fannie Mae plans to pay retention bonuses of at least $1 million to four key executives as part of a plan to keep hundreds of employees from leaving the government-controlled company.
Rival mortgage finance company Freddie Mac is planning similar awards, but has not yet reported on which executives will benefit.
The two companies, which together own or back more than half of the home mortgages in the country, have been hobbled by skyrocketing loan defaults. Fannie recently requested $15 billion in federal aid, while Freddie has sought a total of almost $45 billion ...
March 12, 2009
Timing is everything
March 11, 2009
Ah, thanks for clarifying that
An article on March 2 about President Obama's plan to sign a $410 spending bill that included thousands of lawmakers' pet projects misstated his campaign promise about projects of this type, known as earmarks. Mr. Obama promised to reform the earmark process, not to end it.After all, Obama was still engaged in the "process" when he made that promise.
March 10, 2009
The real purpose behind Obama's health care reform initiative
Not if you keep handing them out
MSNBC possibly grooming Ed Schultz for TV show
As reported today by The New York Observer --
Follow this link for the rest of the Observer story.On the morning of Monday, March 9th, liberal talk radio host Ed Schultz, who bills himself as the "most listened-to progressive radio talk show host in America," announced on his Web site that he would be guest-hosting MSNBC's 6 p.m. show 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue the following evening.
Word of the announcement promptly touched off a fresh set of rumors among MSNBC staffers that the network's president Phil Griffin might be grooming Mr. Schultz to join the channel on a fulltime basis ...
March 4, 2009
Limbaugh challenges Obama to debate
We're crazy, but not that crazy
"I didn't want George Bush to fail, uh, even as a Democrat."
March 2, 2009
Is Obama trying to wreck the economy?
As Newt Gingrich said at this year's CPAC gathering over the weekend, taxes won't go up for anyone earning less than $250,000 annually -- unless you use electricity. Or buy gasoline. or home heating oil ...
February 27, 2009
50,000 'residual' troops in Iraq -- for how long?
Update, Sunday March 1 -- all remaining troops to be withdrawn by end of 2011, according to Obama in his remarks at Camp Lejeune on Friday. Why the lack of clarity on this point from media coverage remains a mystery.
February 25, 2009
How much will market drop after Obama's speech to Congress?
February 23, 2009
'Slumdog Millionaire': Why Its Big Night at Oscars is Good for America
By the time Steven Spielberg announced Best Picture, "Slumdog Millionaire" had already snagged a half-dozen awards. And even though I've yet to see it (again, waiting for the DVD), it was moving to see so many people from India on stage after the film won the top award.
Why does this matter? Because India is likely to become our most important ally in this century, if it isn't already. We share a natural kinship -- another English-speaking democracy and former British colony that places great value on education, innovation and entrepreneurial spirit, situated in a most volatile part of the world. It was only a matter of time before the jihadists took notice, as they did in Mumbai last December. All the more fitting it was the setting for "Slumdog Millionaire."
Many people resent that when they call for tech support, the person on the other end is most likely in India. Not me, I'm glad. That the tide is rising there and wherever else people have languished in poverty for centuries is a good thing. And thanks to a big Oscar night for "Slumdog," millions of our brothers and sisters in India have seen once again how the West offers far more than the jihad's cult of death.
February 18, 2009
Implosion at libtalk radio Nova M
February 17, 2009
Stock market less than thrilled with stimulus plan
February 13, 2009
Revealing Freudian slip by unhinged lefty Mike Malloy
Rush Limbaugh is a bigger threat to this country than Bar-, uh, Osama bin Laden.
February 11, 2009
Great days in LWE history
February 10, 2009
Haunting "American Experience" on death of Lincoln
February 9, 2009
Winter of our discontent
February 2, 2009
Nice try, Thom
HARTMANN: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, speaking of what he saw when he became president ...What Hartmann neglects to mention is that Roosevelt made the first remarks cited above in his second inaugural in January 1937, fully four years after he took office, and not "when he became president" as Hartmann claims. That four year time span, not incidentally, dovetails with the time it took for FDR's predecessor, Herbert Hoover, to allegedly cause the Great Depression.
ROOSEVELT: I see one third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished ...
HARTMANN: ... And what he proposed to do about that, he said we have, that generation, and I would say again ...
ROOSEVELT: There is a mysterious cycle in human events. To some generations, much is given. Of other generations, much is expected. This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny.
HARTMANN: There you go.
Nor did Hartmann mention that Roosevelt's famous "Rendezvous With Destiny" speech was delivered at the Democratic National Convention in June 1936, in the last year of FDR's first term.
January 29, 2009
Get down and give me 50!
In fact, you don't have to look very far to find mandates in your own back yard, from your own local folks. Yet when it comes to health care, all of us are allowed to just take a free ride. And you know what? You look at the financial situation, the crisis that we are in globally, you look at the financial crisis that we are in trying to save our financial structure and Wall Street and the trillion dollars that's going to have to be put into infrastructure, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you can take apart the budget all you want and say, well, this is pork, that is pork. You know what? You and I are pork. Because we are unwilling to accept a mandate from the government that would order us to exercise! I'm serious about this!Starting with largely sedentary talk show hosts!
January 27, 2009
Five years blogging
First post was about ubiquity of rock n' roll theme songs in presidential campaigns and a few suggestions along those lines --
Will any of us ever again hear John Mellencamp's "Small Town" without thinking of Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards, he of the po' boy roots in South Carolina who went onward and upward to Grishamesque fame as an exceedingly well-compensated trial lawyer?
Or U2's once powerful rocker, "Beautiful Day," rendered threadbare by John Kerry's determined overuse?
Or, going back a few years, the Clinton-Gore team's branding of Fleetwood Mac's "Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow" to the point it is nearly impossible to hear the tune without conjuring up images of Al and Tipper shedding their erstwhile disdain for rock n' roll to Munster-dance across stage.
In the interest of adding diversity to campaign theme songs, some suggestions for aural alternatives. More to follow as circumstances warrant ...
For Joe Lieberman -- "Living on a Prayer," Jon Bon Jovi; "Happiness is a Warm Gun," "If I Were a Rich Man," the Beatles; soundtrack to "Fiddler on the Roof"
Howard Dean -- "We're Not Going to Take it," Twisted Sister; "Sorry Seems to be the Hardest Word," Elton John' "I Musta Got Lost," J. Geils Band; "Money for Nothing," Dire Straits; "Yesterday," Beatles.
Wesley Clark -- "Billy, Don't Be a Hero" (by one-hit wonders from early '70s who returned to much-deserved anonymity); "I Love a Man in Uniform," Gang of Four
The Rev. Al Sharpton -- "Play That Funky Music," Wild Cherry; theme from "Shaft," Isaac Hayes; "Papa Was a Rolling Stone," Temptations
John Kerry -- "The Ballad of John and Yoko," Beatles (agreed, list is top-heavy with Fab Four); "The Ballad of the Green Berets," Sgt. Barry Sandler; "Bat Out of Hell," Meatloaf
John Edwards -- "Southern Man," Neil Young; "Walking on Sunshine," Katrina and the Waves
Dennis Kucinich -- "Start Me Up," Rolling Stones; "People are Strange," the Doors; "Four Dead in Ohio," Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young; "Smells Like Teen Spirit," Nirvana
January 26, 2009
Add to that the rampant hyberbole ...
Then you have just the overall collapse or disintegration of our health care system with 46 million Americans uninsured.And is it my imagination or is that figure of 46 million marginally larger than it was in the early '90s, when the Clintons sought to nationalize health care, while our population has increased by tens of millions?
January 23, 2009
Rove giving Bush his due
Yet, as Mr. Bush left Washington, in a last angry frenzy his critics again distorted his record, maligned his character and repeated untruths about his years in the Oval Office. Nothing they wrote or said changes the essential facts.
To start with, Mr. Bush was right about Iraq. The world is safer without Saddam Hussein in power. And the former president was right to change strategy and surge more U.S. troops.
A legion of critics (including President Barack Obama) claimed it couldn't work. They were wrong. Iraq is now on the mend, the war is on the path to victory, al Qaeda has been dealt a humiliating defeat, and a democracy in the heart of the Arab world is emerging. The success of Mr. Bush's surge made it possible for President Obama to warn terrorists on Tuesday "you cannot outlast us."
January 22, 2009
Once again, Caroline has dropped out
Update, to add snarky comment -- Caroline we hardly knew ye
January 21, 2009
Take a deep breath for this one ... ACLU suing Muslims over publicly-funded madrassa
Caroline Kennedy withdraws from consideration for NY Senate seat
January 20, 2009
So much for market swoon every time Obama speaks
Among the changes to come, via President Obama
January 19, 2009
Well put, Pastor King
January 17, 2009
Congressman Keith Ellison, representing the Democrats' clown caucus
Schultz: All right, congressman, you're on the Financial Services and Judiciary committees. They're going to get a lot of attention in this next session. The incoming Obama administration, should they launch a criminal investigation into the Bush administration officials to see whether they broke the law in the name of national security. Are you for or against a Sept. 11-style commission with subpoena power?And I sincerely mean that, Ed ...
Ellison: Yes. And that's a complete sentence.
After regaining his bearings, Ellison went on to say that, yes, by all means, let's pursue show trials of Bush junta hooligans for putting the lives of American citizens ahead of the comfort of jihadists.
Schultz and Ellison also talked about proposed Treasury Secretary and tax scofflaw Timothy Geithner, with Ellison playing role of Obama's ventriloquist dummy, mouthing the president-elect's words nearly verbatim but with a vintage Ellison observation to boot --
Ellison: If our standard for being appointed is perfection, then somebody's going to be appointed. There's nobody who is not messed up, screwed up or goofed and I don't think we should have an unreasonable standard.And the "messed up, screwed up or goofed" are deserving of the most consequential jobs in our government.
Next up, discussion of alleged need for Obama economic stimulus package, seeing how previous government initiatives to print reems of currency and dump it from airplanes have met with resounding success --
Ellison: We had a couple of economists come in last week and month and (what) they said is that time really is of the essence and every day that we delay, you know, more people are going to get laid off, and if you're laid off then you don't want to spend no money 'cause you don't know if you're going to have any money and if you don't spend any money, then people, somebody else is going to get laid off because their company isn't making any money. So there's this ugly, vicious cycle.Yet despite dire situation warranting immediate attention, the specter of show trials for Bush, Cheney, et al., is impossible for Ellison to shake. Schultz points out that Obama appears lukewarm to such a spectacle.
Schultz: Is this front and center? I mean, I know that the Congress can multitask, we got a lot of things going on, but do you think this will happen in a timely fashion?Among those who want "something done" is the legal arm of al Qaeda, whose members are following developments with keen interest.
Ellison: Well, if I have anything to say about it, it will. I think that there's a number of members of, in Congress, in the Progressive Caucus, in other things like that ... As a matter of fact, earlier today, you know, we had a presentation from some professors on this issue who have studied it quite a bit who said, look, you know, if you guys let this, you know, we've had impeachments based on a president lying about sex. Now if you say that this guy doesn't have to, that there's no rebuking of what he did, we're essentially greenlighting everything he did. And so there is, there's a strong (sic) people in the community who want something done and there's a number of members of Congress who want something done. So around here, you know, things happen if you put effort behind them and I'm willing to do that.
January 14, 2009
Details, details
President-elect Barack Obama's pick for Treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner, failed to pay more than $30,000 in Social Security and Medicare taxes over a four-year period, a revelation that could damage his credibility and hurt his chances for an easy confirmation.Treasurer Geithner, meet Senator Franken. I'm sure you'll have lots to talk about.
January 12, 2009
Timeless wisdom from Edmund Burke
Let me try again to say how refreshing it's been
Schultz: Do you think that Obama is open to updating the system?
Rinaldi: Oh absolutely, I know he stands for it. His transition team has been open with us. You know, we have to continue to grow the system. So it's really been, it's been a fresh of breath air. I really, I mean, a fresh of breath air.
January 6, 2009
Harry Reid too puny to admit he was wrong about the surge
A transcript of Reid's remarks, with an accompanying video link, from the MTP website --
MR. GREGORY: Let me ask you about the war in Iraq. In April of 2007, this is what you said: "I believe myself that ... this war is lost and the surge is not accomplishing anything." Were you wrong?Reid said "this war is lost and the surge is not accomplishing anything" in April 2007. On Sunday Reid claimed when he made this statement, "they weren't talking about the surge." All except Reid, and apparently apropo of nothing. The opposite is true -- "they" sure as hell were talking about the surge, meaning just about everyone who gave a damn about the war.SEN. REID: David, I first met General David Petraeus in Iraq. He was training the Iraqi forces at that time. At that time, he knew it wasn't working. After he became the commander in Iraq, he and I sat down and talked. He said to me, and he said within the sound of everyone's voice, "The war cannot be won militarily." I said it differently than he did. But it needed a change in direction. Petraeus brought that about. He brought it about--the surge helped, of course it helped. But in addition to that, the urging of me and other people in Congress and the country dictated a change, and that took place. So...
MR. GREGORY: But you said the surge was not accomplishing anything. Even Barack Obama said last fall that it exceeded everyone's expectations and succeeded beyond our wildest dreams.
SEN. REID: Listen, at that--the time that statement was made, the surge--they weren't talking about the surge. Petraeus added to the surge some very, very interesting things that changed things. He said a lot--just simply numbers of troops is not going to do the deal. What we need to do is work with the Iraqi people, which we haven't done before. That's where the Awakening Councils came about, as a result of David Petraeus' genius. He's done--he will be written about in the history books for years to come. My original statement was in keeping what David Petraeus said; that is, the war cannot be won militarily.
MR. GREGORY: Do you believe that the war in Iraq has been lost?
SEN. REID: I don't think at this stage we can talk about that with any degree of sensibility. That has to be something that will talked about in the history books to come. We...
MR. GREGORY: So you spoke to soon in 2007?
SEN. REID: David Petraeus and Harry Reid spoke at the same time. David Petraeus said that the war cannot be won militarily, I said what I said. Who, who phrased it the best is...
MR. GREGORY: You said that the war is lost. Today, in 2009, that's no longer your view?
SEN. REID: David, listen, someone else will have to determine that as the years go on. What has the war done? It's brought about--it's destabilized the Middle East. We have a civil war going on in Israel. We have a civil war in Iraq, as indicated today, more than 50 people killed with a bomb in Iraq today. We have Lebanon, a civil war there. We have Iran thumbing their nose with every, everyone. And if that weren't bad enough, our standing in the world community is so far down as a result of this war, so--and that doesn't take into consideration the tens of thousands who have been injured...
MR. GREGORY: Mm-hmm.
SEN. REID: ...and the thousands have been killed in the war. So it's, it's--historians will have to talk about what the war in Iraq did. But I think historians today indicate, as I have, the outline that I've given.
How about this dandy -- "That's where the Awakening Councils came about, as a result of David Petraeus' genius." Correct me if I'm wrong, but haven't liberals said repeatedly that the Sunni Awakening came before the additional troops from the surge?
Nice to see Gen. Petraeus belatedly getting his due, however, seeing how he was slandered by the morons at Moveon.org -- "He will be written about in the history books for years to come. "
Then there was this -- "We have a civil war going on in Israel. We have a civil war in Iraq, as indicated today, more than 50 people killed with a bomb in Iraq today. We have Lebanon, a civil war there."
Got that? Three simultaneous civil wars in the Middle East -- when the actual figure is zero. Until you count the one looming between Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.