Bachmann rejects the "feminist" label

I'm liking Michele Bachmann more every day. In an interview with Kirsten Powers, Rep. Bachmann, God bless her, eschews the "feminist" label:

She is clearly a trailblazer for women, throwing her hat into the highest ring in politics. But while Michele Bachmann became the first female presidential candidate of the 2012 campaign this week, she does not, interestingly enough, view herself as a feminist.

Unlike Sarah Palin, who has brandished the feminist moniker and spoken of an “emerging conservative feminist identity,” Bachmann told me in an interview Tuesday that she wouldn’t call herself a feminist—instead, she simply described herself as “pro-woman and pro-man.” When I pressed her on the matter, the Minnesota congresswoman said she sees herself as an “empowered American.”

Bachmann seemed loath to engage in the kind of girl-power rhetoric utilized by Palin and Hillary Clinton, who both invoked the perennial—and so far unbreakable—presidential glass ceiling.

She's not only pro-woman and pro-man; she's pro-family and pro-child. So it's no wonder she'd rather not be associated with the movement that paved the way for the soul-destroying sexual revolution and its BFF, abortion on demand. Read the rest of Powers' interesting interview.

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Beating it into the ground

I have another post about Obama's press conference up at The Conservatory.

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Entitlement at home and abroad

Michelle Malkin has the bad luck to be in London on its Day of Outrage:

Good morning, readers. It’s 11:30am here in London and that massive, multi-union strike I told you about the other day is now underway. My family had planned to visit Westminster today, but it’s off the table now. I get enough of the Big Labor mob scene back in the States. No need to expose the kids to it during their vacation.

Speaking of kids, hundreds of thousands of them have been abandoned by their public union teachers who refuse to contribute a smidge more to their pensions like most every one of their private-sector counterparts: “More than half of schools in England are closed or partially closed as hundreds of thousands of public sector workers strike over pension changes. The government said information from 75% of its 21,500 state schools showed only a third would remain fully open.”

Also AWOL: 90 percent of the London police force. And airports are bracing for long delays and reduced security manpower.

BBC’s liveblog coverage is here.

Read the rest.

Meanwhile, the rioting continues as Greece prepares to pass second austerity bill.

And in the US, no rioting as of yet, but the sense of entitlement is thriving. A couple of items related to the housing crisis:

In Charlotte, NC, Housing vouchers a golden ticket to pricey suburbs:

It was clear that Liza Jackson’s luck had changed when she drove her pearl-white Dodge sedan, the one with the huge pink plastic eyelashes over the headlights, into Pinebrook, an eight-year-old subdivision where residents tend to notice cars with huge pink eyelashes.

“There goes the neighborhood,” one homeowner said when she heard that her potential new neighbor had a federal housing voucher known as a Section 8.

But Jackson could well be Pinebrook’s salvation, a means by which landlords can rent an empty, crime-magnet of a house to a tenant with a steady, government-backed check.

Read the rest. It's a bit long but quite interesting. Funny, there's no mention of who actually pays the bills. Nor are we given an explanation of why Ms. Jackson and her adult daughter are getting so much government assistance, or what will happen if they succeed in increasing their income (though they have every reason to maintain the status quo). The system that enables this is a strange one, but if you have no problem with the government fostering a dependent class and bleeding the non-dependent dry in the process, it's a win-win:

But as housing prices keep slipping and the economy remains shaky, there’s been another shift as more landlords view the approximately 2 million American families with a Section 8 voucher — which essentially subsidizes fair-market rent for people who can’t afford it — as among the best ways to fill an empty house.

“It’s guaranteed money,” said David Benham, who owns several rental properties and is a founder of the Benham REO Group, which sells bank foreclosures to investors in 35 states. “It has a great accountability program with the renters. I love Section 8. I wish every one of my properties was Section 8.”

I bet.

Moving on to Fairfax County, Virginia, where one county supervisor is taking heat for raising some touchy issues:

Resort-style swimming pools with fountains and heated spas, billiards rooms, granite counter tops, ceramic tile, indoor basketball courts, stainless steel appliances -- many Fairfax County taxpayers cannot afford such luxuries.  But they are paying for these amenities for use by low-income residents who live in subsidized housing in affluent neighborhoods.

"They're a part of our rental program where we subsidize the rents for the individuals in the units, and we end up having to pick up the condo fees," supervisor Pat Herrity told 630 WMAL News.

Herrity does not advocate putting low-income residents in "ghetto-style" housing but he takes issue with taxpayers who cannot afford such luxuries being forced to pick up the tab for people who qualify for subsidized housing.

"These are resort-style amenities that the majority of the taxpayers that are subsidizing it don't have on their own," said Herrity, adding that "luxury has no place in subsidized housing."

From Herrity's newsletter, as quoted in the Post:

Herrity said Tuesday in an edition of his newsletter that “the role of government should be to give those in need a hand up, not provide them with a place to live that provides no incentive for advancement and is better than the housing and amenities of the majority of the taxpayers that are funding it.”

Hat tip to AS.

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Almost done with the king's speech

The transcript of today's press conference is a treasure trove of Obama weirdness. I'll excerpt just a couple more bits and then try to let it go.

There's something wrong with his attitude below, as if governing the United States of America is some kind of game:

They’re in one week, they’re out one week.  And then they’re saying, Obama has got to step in.  You need to be here.  I’ve been here.  I’ve been doing Afghanistan and bin Laden and the Greek crisis.  You stay here.  Let’s get it done. 

"Doing Afghanistan"? That's a disturbingly casual way to refer to a war in which Americans are risking and losing their lives. (And what, pray tell, is he "doing" about the Greek crisis?)

The next excerpt makes me wonder whether he's ever driven a car, though I guess he has, since he's familiar with "car notes":

It’s the equivalent of you’re driving down the street and the yellow light starts flashing.  The yellow light is flashing.  Now, it hasn’t been a red light yet. 

Oookay. If I didn't already know he was the greatest orator on the planet, I'd think he was a pretty incoherent speaker.

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Obama transcript and video lowlight

I stand corrected on Obama's mentions of "corporate jet owners." There were not seven, only six:

The tax cuts I’m proposing we get rid of are tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires; tax breaks for oil companies and hedge fund managers and corporate jet owners. [. . .]

It would be nice if we could keep every tax break there is, but we’ve got to make some tough choices here if we want to reduce our deficit.  And if we choose to keep those tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires, if we choose to keep a tax break for corporate jet owners, if we choose to keep tax breaks for oil and gas companies that are making hundreds of billions of dollars, then that means we’ve got to cut some kids off from getting a college scholarship.  That means we’ve got to stop funding certain grants for medical research.  That means that food safety may be compromised.  That means that Medicare has to bear a greater part of the burden.  Those are the choices we have to make. [. . .]

And before we ask our seniors to pay more for health care, before we cut our children’s education, before we sacrifice our commitment to the research and innovation that will help create more jobs in the economy, I think it’s only fair to ask an oil company or a corporate jet owner that has done so well to give up a tax break that no other business enjoys. [. . .]

So the question is, if everybody else is willing to take on their sacred cows and do tough things in order to achieve the goal of real deficit reduction, then I think it would be hard for the Republicans to stand there and say that the tax break for corporate jets is sufficiently important that we’re not willing to come to the table and get a deal done. [. . .]


If you are a wealthy CEO or a health — hedge fund manager in America right now, your taxes are lower than they have ever been.  They’re lower than they’ve been since the 1950s.  And you can afford it.  You’ll still be able to ride on your corporate jet; you’re just going to have to pay a little more.

And if we — I just want to emphasize what I said earlier.  If we do not have revenues, that means there are a bunch of kids out there who are not getting college scholarships.  If we do not have those revenues, then the kinds of cuts that would be required might compromise the National Weather Service.  It means that we would not be funding critical medical research.  It means that food inspection might be compromised.  And I’ve said to some of the Republican leaders, you go talk to your constituents, the Republican constituents, and ask them are they willing to compromise their kids’ safety so that some corporate jet owner continues to get a tax break.  And I’m pretty sure what the answer would be.

Unreal. And then there was this gem:


(Hat tip: The Right Scoop)

More:

And last point I want to make about this.  These are bills that Congress ran up.  The money has been spent.  The obligations have been made.  So this isn’t a situation — I think the American people have to understand this — this is not a situation where Congress is going to say, okay, we won’t — we won’t buy this car or we won’t take this vacation.  They took the vacation. They bought the car. And now they’re saying maybe we don’t have to pay, or we don’t have to pay as fast as we said we were going to, or — that’s not how responsible families act.  And we’re the greatest nation on Earth, and we can’t act that way.

"They" spent money we didn't have? The president didn't sign those bills? Did the autopen go rogue?

And after alluding to the prospect of no social security checks or veterans' benefits, he says this:

THE PRESIDENT:  I think people should think of — look, I’m the President of the United States and I want to make sure that I am not engaging in scare tactics.  And I’ve tried to be responsible and somewhat restrained so that folks don’t get spooked.

Amazing. Full transcript here.

The most scathing criticism of Obama's performance comes from Prof. Victor Davis Hanson:

There is an art to populist demagoguery of the sort that Huey Long and even Ralph Nader used to excel at, but it falls flat — like millionaire John Edwards’s “two Americas” populism — when Ivy League–educated, mansion-living politicos try it without requisite preparation and study. 

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Obama press conference live; Update: Corporate jet owners ruining America

 

JOIN THE LIVE CHAT

VISIT WHITEHOUSE.GOV

And the phrase of the day is "corporate jet owners," as in

“Republican leaders need to ask their constituents if they are willing to sacrifice the safety of their children for a tax break for a corporate jet owner.”

I counted seven mentions of this deadly bane. Perhaps someone should have asked the president why a he signed this deadly scourge into law, siphoning resources away from disabled children, sick old people, bright young minds in need of tuition, and even weather services.

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Michele Bachmann puts on her dancing shoes

I love it --



Hat tips to John Hawkins and Jim Hoft.

I suppose the liberal media will fact-check her style and tell us she's doing it all wrong. (See Jim Geraghty: Bachmann Clears Throat; Critics Charge Historically Inaccurate Phlegm Displacement)

Cross-posted at Potluck.
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Obama: "Up your game"

What's worse than Obama in the Oval Office? Obama on the campaign trail, when he leaves the teleprompter behind and gets in front of an adoring crowd. The Washington Post follows the president to Iowa, where he's "hugging babies like it’s 2007":

BETTENDORF, Iowa - His aides said it wasn’t a campaign stop.
But in his first visit to the Hawkeye State since September, President Obama acted like it was 2007, stopping at a diner, hugging babies, posing for pictures and ordering an unhealthy concoction called a “Magic Mountain” -- toast, steamed hamburger, hash browns, cheddar cheese and onions.

“Iowa, you and I go way back, we have some history together,” Obama declared to the loud applause of several hundred at a factory he visited after eating at Ross’ Restaurant.

So he and Michelle aren't on the same page when it comes to mountains of greasy food. Or maybe they are. Whatever. The worst came at the Alcoa plant:

We’ve always made things here in America. It’s in our blood. This plant has been in operation for 60 years. And what you’ve learned is that if you want to beat the competition, then you’ve got to innovate. You’ve got to invest in new skills, you’ve got to invest in new processes, you’ve got to invest in new products. I was just learning that some of the equipment right behind us — this was a huge investment. How much did you guys — $90 million. Think about that. That’s what made you guys competitive, having the best workers but also having the best equipment. You had to up your game. And that’s what we’ve got to do as a country as a whole. I want the cars and planes and wind turbines of the future to bear the proud stamp that says “Made in America.” That’s what I want. (Applause.)

He's trying to justify massive, wasteful, multi-generational-bankrupting government spending by equating it with a business investing its own money in improvements. Do you think he even gets the difference between a private company "upping its game" and a bloated government throwing truckloads of taxpayers' dollars into the abyss of "stimulus"? Or does he just think we're all idiots?

Video hat tip: Hot Air

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A new venue

The duo of McCann & Collins have kindly invited me to contribute to their new endeavor, The Conservatory. Please go see my first post and take a look around at the various features of the site. There's a lot going on there, including memberships (free), listings of goods and services provided by conservatives, and lots of contributors. (If I can find a list of authors I'll post it.) Hope you enjoy it.

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Sexual identity: Another hill to die on

A little pop quiz for you (and take care -- it's trickier than it seems):

How many sexes are there?

If you answered "two" (as in male and female) you're a hopeless old fogey. The correct, up-to-date answer, according to an Oakland, CA, public elementary school, is "more than two." The abolition of childhood (Steyn's phrase) continues apace. Newsbusters' Erin R. Brown:

Redwood Heights Elementary School in Oakland, CA has joined the chorus of those wishing to mainstream “gender-bending” by enacting a program this week that, according to a press release, tells kindergarteners “there are more than two genders.”

The kindergarten through fifth grade school hosted a 2-day program for students titled, “Gender Spectrum Diversity Training,” in which single-sex Hawaiian geckos and transgender clownfish were brought in to teach children that “there are different ways to be boys. There are different ways to be girls,” according to Redwood Heights principal Sara Stone. Students received gender diversity training as they learned about “boy snakes that act ‘girly’.”

This is only the latest example of what seems to be a New-Age, gender-bending agenda pushed into the mainstream media by those who refuse to accept the traditional sex differences between men and women. A couple in Toronto, Canada has sparked outrage because they refuse to assign a specific gender to their infant “Storm,” preferring instead to believe “a child’s sex should not determine his or her place in the world.”

But knuckle-dragging parents in Oakland are fighting back:

The Pacific Justice Institute is taking action against the school, providing outraged parents with legal counsel because it believes the school’s program “does not represent the values of the majority of families in Oakland,” attorney Kevin Snider said.

And it doesn't represent reality, either, if anyone cares.

Jonah Goldberg wants to know how to buy stock in homeschooling. Amusing, but I wonder sometimes why more conservatives aren't homeschooling. No one knows how many families (another outdated concept!) have removed their children from the destructive grip of state-run "education," but it ought to be more than it is. Homeschooling, especially in the lower grades, isn't rocket science. And there's all kinds of help out there today.

RS McCain has written that traditional marriage is a hill to die on. I agree. But when the basic concept of male and female is being undermined, when children are being taught from age five (or younger) that their sexual identity is a mere construct, that hill is going to get harder to defend.

More on the campaign to brainwash, sexualize, and pervert the hearts and minds of children:

Politicaljunkie Mom: Repeat after me: gender is not a construct
 
Backyard Conservative: From a bookcase, she pulls out a story about two male giraffes who are sad to be childless — until they come across an abandoned crocodile egg 

Matthew Balan: NPR Trumpets 'Gender Neutrality' Advocates, Wonders 'Do We Really Need to Know' Gender

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Weiner won't go away

The Weiner is too much with us. From the NY Post, via JWF:

In a dazzling display of arrogance, disgraced former Congressman Anthony Weiner is trying to insert himself back into politics -- calling power brokers and would-be candidates for his old seat, hoping they'll let him play a role in choosing his own successor, The Post has learned.

Weiner, who became a national dirty joke after he was caught sexting young women, now wants to be a kingmaker.

One Democratic insider confirmed that Weiner has spoken to the Queens party chairman, Rep. Joe Crowley, about whom the Dems should pick. 

Worst-case scenario for NY Dems:

Weiner "would be loathe to see a Republican get into that seat. Loathe," another insider said.

"That would just be awful to him. Awful, awful, awful."

Enter Timothy J. Cochrane, for all appearances the anti-Weiner candidate. Unlike Weiner, he's a family man (remember that quaint phrase?) with a deep resume:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

PRLog (Press Release) – Jun 27, 2011 – The exploratory committee to elect Tim Cochrane for Congress announced today that they have completed their initial inquiries, and that Brooklyn native Timothy J. Cochrane is actively pursuing the Republican nomination for the 9th district of New York. That Congressional seat which became vacant with the recent resignation of Representative Anthony Weiner.

Mr. Cochrane, a former United States Marine and  member of the New York Stock Exchange, is currently the Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Empire Managed Properties, one of the New York area’s most innovative building management companies. He helped found and establish Empire following a 23 year career on Wall Street, the last five as a Partner at Prime Executions Inc.  He began his Wall Street career following a four year tour of duty in the United States Marine Corps, from which he received an honorable discharge in 1985.

A respected family man, civic leader and life-long member of the Republican Party, Mr. Cochrane is a trustee and Chairman of the Development Committee for Daytop Village, a former Trustee of the YMCA Expansion Board, a founding member of the Sisters of Life Advisors, and a former officer in the Cathedral Club of Brooklyn. He has served on Community Board 10, and was chairman of the Kings County Republican Party Finance Committee and Vice Chairman of the Kings County Republican Party.

Beyond that I don't know much about Mr. Cochrane. But he sure sounds interesting.


Thanks to MichelleMalkin.com for the link.
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Blagojevich found guilty on most counts

Bleepin' Blago's luck runs out:

This time the verdict was unequivocal, with the jury of 11 women and one man finding Blagojevich guilty on 17 criminal counts he faced, including charges of wire fraud, attempted extortion, bribery and conspiracy. The marquee charge in the case involved an attempt by Blagojevich in late 2008 to cash in on his power to name a replacement in theU.S. Senate for newly elected President Barack Obama.

The jury acquitted Blagojevich on one count and deadlocked on two others.

At the prosecution’s request, the judge imposed a travel restriction on Blagojevich, instructing him to not to leave the northern district of Illinois.

Blagojevich, the fourth former Illinois governor convicted of felonies since 1973, likely faces a significant prison sentence.

And those are just the governors who were tried and convicted.

But Blago, as revealed in the Feds' audio tapes, had a lot more flare than your typical corrupt Illinois governor:

"Only 13 percent of you all out there think I'm doing a good job. So [expletive] all of you," the salty-tongued Blagojevich (D), referring to poll numbers, said in a secretly taped conversation played at his federal corruption trial.

By the time Democrat Barack Obama had won the White House in 2008, the two-term governor was deeply in debt and obsessed with finding a new job that paid well. He spent as few as two hours a week in the office, sometimes hiding in the restroom to avoid his budget director.

And Illinois voters elected him to run their state twice. Very bleeping discouraging.

Cross-posted at Potluck.
Many thanks to Michelle Malkin for the link.
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Obama 2.0: More confident!

Good grief. President Obama has achieved the impossible: He has grown more confident in his own abilities, or so the spin goes:

The success of the Bin Laden raid reinforced Obama's security in his own judgments, aides said.

"I think he reached a point where he had to trust his instincts, and there was nothing left to inform his decision except to do that," said one advisor who is intimately familiar with the president's thinking on foreign policy matters and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

"And he saw that trust borne out in what happened. … To make that risky a judgment based not just on your instincts but on your experience as commander in chief, and have it succeed, does something important psychologically that's hard to quantify."

Yikes. The last thing he needs is more "security in his own judgments." Gird your loins, America. (And wasn't sending the military in to get bin Laden more or less a no-brainer for Obama?)

Ed Morrissey points out what a bunch of baloney this is:

The catalyst for this was supposedly the Osama bin Laden raid. However, according to all reports at the time, that was a consensus decision. Some rumors even had Leon Panetta insisting to a wavering Obama that the mission should proceed. As I recall, there were no indications at the time that Obama overruled his advisers to demand action in Abbottabad. Ordering the raid was certainly a decision point for Obama, and the success of the raid had to be a confidence builder, but it hardly explains a sudden aversion to consensus. [. . .]

If this spin is intended to get Obama off the hook for bad policy decisions in the first two years, it might work — once.  He can claim to have worried too much about consensus and having taken ill-advised half measures or even entirely bad decisions to gain it, and some might give Obama the benefit of the doubt for a short period of time, even though Obama assembled the team that provided that advice.  If, however, Obama’s actions that follow don’t provide some kind of immediate relief from consistently sour economic news and better progress on the war and foreign policy, then Obama owns the results entirely.  It won’t be possible to blame aides and advisers during the 2012 campaign after trying to sell the “gut instinct” change in 2011.

Read the rest. Rehabbing his record is going to be tricky, no?

Good one from Jim Geraghty:

Finally, President Obama – author of two memoirs by the age of 45, speaker of the famous argument, “I won,” the man who famously assured his party that they wouldn’t endure a 1994-style shellacking because they had him, the man who gave an iPod of his speeches to the Queen of England, the man who claimed his election would trigger the falling of oceans and the healing of the sick, the man who believed the best candidate to be his chief of staff was himself –  has overcome all of that crippling self-doubt.

Read the rest.

And while we're on the subject of implausible political maneuverings, Nancy Pelosi has a grand scheme for regaining her gavel.


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"Are you a flake?" round-up

I'm not really bothered by the question, since it gave Rep. Bachmann a chance to tout her impressive, decidedly un-flakey resume:

“I’m 55 years old. I’ve been married 33 years,” she said. “I’m not only a lawyer, I have a post-doctorate degree in federal tax law from William and Mary. I’ve worked in serious scholarship … my husband and I have raised five kids, we’ve raised 23 foster children. We’ve applied ourselves to education reform. We started a charter school for at-risk kids. I’ve also been a state senator and member of the United States Congress for five years.’”

What? No community organizing experience? Not even a single memoir? The nerve of the woman. (Seriously, with five kids and 23 foster kids, I'd say she beats Obama in the community organizing department, hands down.)
 
But Bachmann, whose opinion should count for something, found it insulting. And blogger William Jacobson thinks it may have done irreparable damage:

It’s a question to which there is no good answer because even having to respond to such a question, asked by someone of Chris Wallace’s stature, is damaging.  “I am not a flake” will be hung around Bachmann’s neck.

Elsewhere in the blogosphere opinion has been varied, with bloggers now finding fault with Bachmann's, and each other's, responses:

- Althouse: "Is it insulting to insinuate that a candidate for President is too serious. Lighten up, Michelle."

- Pirate's Cove: OMG! BACHMANN REFUSES TO ACCEPT CHRIS WALLACE’S APOLOGY!!!!!1!!!!

Jim Geraghty has more. Enjoy!

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Wheelchair-bound nonagenarian gets the full TSA treatment

Wow: Elderly woman asked to remove adult diaper during TSA search

Jean Weber of Destin filed a complaint with the Department of Homeland Security after her 95-year-old mother was detained and extensively searched last Saturday while trying to board a plane to fly to Michigan to be with family members during the final stages of her battle with leukemia.

Her mother, who was in a wheelchair, was asked to remove an adult diaper in order to complete a pat-down search.

“It’s something I couldn’t imagine happening on American soil,” Weber said Friday. “Here is my mother, 95 years old, 105 pounds, barely able to stand, and then this.”

But the bureaucrats are implacable:

Weber said she wished there were less invasive search methods for an elderly person who is unable to walk through security gates.

“I don’t understand why they have to put them through that kind of procedure,” she said.

Koshetz said the procedures are the same for everyone to ensure national security.

“TSA cannot exempt any group from screening because we know from intelligence that there are terrorists out there that would then exploit that vulnerability,” she said.

"Terrorists"? Are they allowed to use that word? Only when they're dealing with grannies and toddlers. Guys whose names appear on terrorist watch lists breeze through security with explosives in their underwear; no 45 minute invasive searches for them. That kind of treatment would be discriminatory, and is reserved for nonagenarians with advanced leukemia.

Sen. Rand Paul calls the TSA "clueless." He must have been in a generous mood.

Linked at MichelleMalkin.com -- thank you. Many thanks also to Mark Steyn for the sidebar link.

***

Steyn has written a Corner post on this (and linked here -- Welcome, Corner readers, make yourselves at home!):

There is a term for regimes that submit law-abiding wheelchair-bound dying nonagenarians to public humiliations without probable cause and it isn’t “republic of limited government”. Given everybody’s touchiness over Kathryn’s North Korean comparisons, I’ll say only this: George III wouldn’t have done this to you.

Read the rest. (Links in text above added by me. More on that later, perhaps.)

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Video: Columbo & Sinatra

Two of my favorite performers, circa 1977:



(Conservatives will find a special surprise at about 4:20.)

***
Linked at Sinatra Family Forum -- thank you!

***
6/27/11
Mark Steyn explores the Falk-Sinatra link more fully in today's Song of the Week:

I’ve no idea how Falk got the role, and even less how he got the opening number. It’s a dotty moment that raises expectations the film as a whole never quite delivers on. But it’s his song: In a film with Sinatra, Crosby, Martin and Davis, he got a solo especially written for him by Cahn & Van Heusen and handled it wonderfully. (You can watch it here.)

Read the whole thing. (And many thanks to Mark for the link.)

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Steyn on "our commitment to excess"

From this morning's Steyn column, Speechworld vs. Realworld:

According to the World Bank, the Western military/aid presence now accounts for 97 percent of Afghanistan’s GDP. The bit that’s left doesn’t function, not least because it doesn’t need to. How can, say, Helmand develop an economic base when everybody with a whit of sense is making massively inflated salaries as a translator for the Yanks or a security guard for some EU outreach project? When the 97 percent revenue tide recedes with the American withdrawal, what’s left will be the same old 3 percent ugly tribal dump Afghanistan was a decade ago. It will leave as little trace as the Obama stimulus.

The sheer waste is appalling, immoral, and deeply destructive. In Kandahar as in California, all that matters is excess: It’s not working? Then you need to spend more. More more more. What does it matter? You’re not spending anything real. America would have to find $15 trillion just to get back to having nothing in its pocket. But who cares? As long as we’re united in our commitment to excess, no CBO debt-to-GDP ratio graph is too steep for us to take to the next level, and no horizon — 2060, 2080, 2104 — is too distant to serve as a plausible estimate for significant deficit reduction.

Read the rest. Then read our genius president's latest words of wisdom on the economy:

"We can’t simply cut our way to prosperity."

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Modern parents

Sign of the times: Tapping into the self-absorbed, not-ready-for-adulthood parenting market with a malevolent little volume of "bedtime stories." Brent Bozell isn't a fan:

An ungenerous person would point out that some of these hostile bouquets of “radical honesty” sound like verbal abuse. Most parents have these selfish feelings inside their own heads. But if you heard a parent say to a small child “F---- your small bear, I’m not getting you s—,” you’d probably think they could use a parenting class or two.

The same goes for “Hell no, you can’t go to the bathroom. You know where you can go? The f— to sleep.” And: “For real, shut the f— up and sleep.” And: “I know you’re not thirsty. That’s bulls—. Stop lying. Lie the f— down, my darling, and sleep.”

I've had seven wakeful babies, so I get the whole sleep-deprived parent thing. But there's something wrong with this. Maybe it's the us-against-them vibe, or the twisted sense of entitlement on the parent's part, humorously portrayed, you may argue, but all about the parent's "needs" and dismissive, even contemptuous, of the child's. Who's the grown-up here? Maybe it would strike me as funny in a shocking sort of way if it were impossible to imagine a parent taking this attitude with a child in the middle of the night (it isn't), or if it didn't emerge from a culture that devalues and disposes of the inconvenient, as in babies and old people. 

Bozell questions whether he's taking the book too seriously, and maybe I am, too. But there are books out there that can inspire a parent to rise to the difficult task of giving unselfishly to his child, and this isn't one of them.


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Motive: "Elusive"

The Washington Post outdoes itself with this one. I've reversed the order of these excerpts but it doesn't change the story:

Federal officials said Melaku had bombmaking materials in his backpack, and they later found a self-made videotape of him shouting “Allahu Akbar!” after he fired shots at the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Prince William County in October. [. . .]

Law enforcement officials said in court documents that when Melaku was arrested last Friday morning, he had plastic baggies with ammonium nitrate — a readily available material that can be used in explosives and was used in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing — as well as a notebook that included references to Osama bin Laden and “The Path to Jihad.” [. . .]

But a motive for the shootings — and why Melaku had possible bombmaking materials — remains elusive.

Heh. The FBI fastens its thinking cap on, too, but is as flummoxed as the Post:

In each instance, the shots were fired overnight or early in the morning when few people were around, and authorities said at the time that they did not think the shooter aimed to harm anyone. They said they suspected the shooter might have a grievance against the Marine Corps.

But on Thursday, federal officials didn’t seem so sure.

“I can’t suggest to you his motivations or intent,” said James W. McJunkin, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Washington field office. “It’s not readily apparent yet.”

Another unfathomable mystery:

Law enforcement sources said that it was unclear what religion Melaku follows and that they were investigating that aspect of his life; leaders at the mosques near his home said they did not know Melaku or his family.

I'm not trained in detection, but could the suspect's videotaped "Allahu Akbar" be a clue?

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Friday various & sundry

I'm not at all confident that Obama won't be re-elected in 2012, but it's hard to see how exactly, given his obvious insouciance toward the economy. Instead of facing our dire fiscal situation, he puts Joe Biden in charge of debt ceiling negotiations with the GOP (guess how that worked out), and offers, first, a sick joke of a budget that not even one Dem Senator could support, then a [ahem] "framework" for a budget.  CBO's Elmendorf on that:

Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Elmendorf had some harsh words for President Obama during a hearing held by the House Budget Committee on Thursday to discuss the nation's long-term fiscal outlook.

Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., asked Elmendorf whether the CBO had attempted to estimate the budgetary effects of the framework Obama outlined in April, which was based on a 12-year budget window instead of the usual 10 years.

“We don’t estimate speeches," Elmendorf shot back. "We need much more specificity than was provided in that speech for us to do our analysis."

And as we approach the cliff, the president's fondest wish is to floor it. Steyn and Hewitt:

HH: He also had a curious line in the speech last night about America, it’s time to do our nation building at home. What does that mean, Mark Steyn?

MS: Well, what it means is that he reads too much Thomas Friedman, the supposed great thinker of the New York Times. Thomas Friedman is about the world’s worst prose stylist, and he uses the same six or seven phrases, like ticks of a man with columnar Tourette’s every couple of weeks, and one of them that he likes to use is nation building at home. But the fact is, we’ve had nation building at home. They dug a big hole, and they stuck trillions and trillions of dollars in it to no effect. And now they’re saying, now he’s saying forget the last two years. That’s just the warm up. The serious nation building is yet to begin. I think that’s just, I hope that’s just lame spin, because if he’s serious, that what we need is not just Obamacare speed stimulus, but double Obamacare speed stimulus, then we might as well all move to Waziristan, because the standards of living are going to be higher there by the time he’s done with us.

Read the rest.

Other items:

Christopher Orlet on the hazards of raising a daughter in this enlightened age:

Imagine being the proud parent of a 13-year-old girl who comes across all these supposedly smart and successful college women wearing Daisy Duke cut-offs and "Proud Slut" tops.

"Daddy, can I have one of those T-shirts?"

"No."

"But those college women are wearing them."

"They are making an ironic political statement…or something. The whole thing is kind of muddled and confusing. Someday you'll understand. Then you can explain it to me."

I might also tell my daughter that, despite what the SlutWalkers preach, we are judged by what we wear (and how we talk, and how we behave, even how we chew gum) and no number of skanky protests is going to change that. Just try showing up for a job interview dressed like Amy Winehouse or Courtney Love and see how far that gets you. I'm willing to bet my last dollar that these same SlutWalkers, when they interview job seekers or size up potential dates, judge people by what they wear. "Did you see her shoes? Oh…my…God!"

Read the rest.

Turns out Michelle Obama's favorite food isn't Tuscan kale after all. Byron York:

Obama mentioned Indian food, and then Mexican food, and then said: "No, if I picked one favorite, favorite food, it's French fries."  The audience began to laugh.  "Okay?  It's French fries," Obama continued.  "I can't stop eating them."  As the students laughed more, the First Lady quickly returned to her role as advocate of health eating.  "But eat your vegetables," she said, to still more laughs.  "And exercise."

That kind of humanizing hypocrisy might be almost endearing if Mrs. Obama  weren't forcing her agenda on the food industry and ham-handedly going after fat kids.

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Another Obama blunder

The smartest president ever has gotten his Medal of Honor recipients mixed up:

I had the great honor of seeing some of you because a comrade of yours, Jared Monti, was the first person who I was able to award the Medal of Honor to who actually came back and wasn’t receiving it posthumously.”

The problem is, Jared Monti was killed in action in Afghanistan, on June 21, 2006. He was awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously, September 17, 2009. President Obama handed the framed medal to his parents, Paul and Janet Monti. He and the First Lady comforted them in the Oval Office following the ceremony.

Rovin notes that the liberal media is playing the usual game:

Of course, if Bush had pulled this blunder, the liberal media and the blogosphere would be all over it, reminding us all how stupid the President is.  Even Ms. Ritter’s story is mildly titled: “Commander In Chief Misspeaks…..”.  Had Sarah Palin said anything like this to the troops it would be a major media crucifixion.  Instead, it appears the liberal media’s going to keep “the shield” up covering Obama’s memory lapses.  One has to wonder what else the President has forgotten—lately.

I remember the posthumous award very well, because of Michelle Obama's mortifyingly inappropriate costume:

I still don't understand what she was thinking.

Many thanks to Doug Ross, Michelle Malkin, Ed Driscoll, and Mark Steyn for linking.

***

Obama's blunder was even worse than I thought. Toby Harnden:

It seems that what was involved was something more than just a slip of the tongue because SFC Monti did serve in the 10th Mountain Division whereas SSG Giunta was in 173rd Airborne Brigade, V Corps. So it wasn’t the name that was wrong but the fact that SFC Monti was not alive but dead and the medal had been presented not to hi but to his parents.

Just dreadful. Read the rest. And thanks to Mr. Harnden for linking to my original wrong dress post.

***

Update: Obama apologizes to SFC Monti's parents.

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Video: Steyn defends free speech

and throws in a few bars of Kung Fu Fighting:


Mark Steyn on Free Speech at the IPA from Institute of Public Affairs on Vimeo.


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Wednesday various & sundry

- Via Patrick Archbold, Gov. Scott Walker, hero:

Walker is expected to sign a budget bill on Tuesday, making Wisconsin the fourth state to defund the abortuary. (Indiana, Kansas and North Carolina did so earlier this year.) Do you realize how much liberals hate Scott Walker right now? This trend of the states doing what the feds so miserably failed to do is awesome and it's good for the country to bring some power back to the states. The days of us waiting for Washington to do something good is over. Make the fight on our own turf.

Read the rest.

- Stacy McCain, something of an expert on the subject, talks sense on making babies:

Instapundit’s enthusiasm for all things scientific leads him to write this headline:

MORE WOMEN ARE freezing their eggs
to make babies later. Makes sense.

Well, excuse me for disagreeing. It is a preposterously stupid idea to encourage women deliberately to postpone first-time motherhood until they are middle-aged, without concern for the obvious arguments against such a decision.

Read on. Unrelated but fun: also see Mr. McCain on Jane Russell and Anna Maria Alberghetti (the latter is another reason I've always wished I was Italian. And let us not forget the gorgeous Claudia Cardinale.)

- Mark Steyn cautions that this one may make your head hurt: 

So, if I follow correctly, we can never establish the identity of the woman who falsely accused the police of demanding she remove her burka because to establish her identity the police would have to demand she remove her burka thereby rendering her false accusation true.

- If (like me) you're not up to speed on Project Gunrunner and Operation Fast and Furious, see Michelle Malkin and Nice Deb (lots of links at bottom of post). Something is very wrong here.

- Verum Serum on Weiner fangurls: Hmmmmm.

Must run. I still have a house guest I don't want to neglect. Have a great day.

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Checking in

Many thanks to Politicaljunkie Mom for posting her high-quality items here while I was busy with a very joyful family event. I'm just beginning to catch up with the news. At a glance, it doesn't look like I missed much -- In: Jon Huntsman (yawn), Rick Perry? (yes, please). Out: El Weiner (good riddance), Newt (well, almost), and Obama's creepy "safe schools czar," Kevin Jennings (about time). Outed: Middle-aged men pretending to be lesbian bloggers. (Why?) Other items:

- Obama's supporters can no longer pretend to swallow his fictional account of his presidency thus far: Even DNC Donors Break Out in Laughter When Obama Claims He Created Jobs

- I like Rick Perry's approach to social issues, which is nothing like a truce: The Left Is Never Going to Like Us So Let’s Stop Trying to Curry Favor With Them

- We'll never reach the bottom of the Obamacare abyss: 

If we do a back-of-the-envelope calculation, in which the average annual Medicaid expenditure per early retiree is $15,000 per year, the ten-year cost of this glitch is $450 billion. “It’s almost like allowing middle-class people to qualify for food stamps, [Foster] suggested"

That's some glitch. Read Daniel Foster's report on the Corner.

Shop talk:

- Joy McCann and Dan Collins have just launched The Conservatory and it's already got lots of great content. Check it out. It's more than a news-aggregation site. I hope to be added to their list of members, though I'm not sure how my husband will feel about my joining a commune.

- William Jacobson has launched a revamped Legal Insurrection and it looks great. We expect the same excellent content (or better -- he has some new contributors) at the redesigned site.

Must run. Hope to start posting more regularly in the next day or two.

***Linked at the all-new Legal Insurrection -- my absence doesn't leave even a pin-sized hole in the blogosphere, but thanks for noticing.

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Will the Feds create lightbulb checkpoints outside Texas?

**written by politicaljunkie Mom

Rick Perry, show 'em how it's done.

Via PJ Tatler, where Brian Preston notes we all wished we lived in Texas, Physorg with the news:

State lawmakers have passed a bill that allows Texans to skirt federal efforts to promote more efficient light bulbs, which ultimately pushes the swirled, compact fluorescent bulbs over the 100-watt incandescent bulbs many grew up with.

The measure, sent to Gov. Rick Perry for consideration, lets any incandescent light bulb manufactured in Texas - and sold in that state - avoid the authority of the federal government or the repeal of the 2007 energy independence act that starts phasing out some incandescent light bulbs next year.

"Let there be light," state Rep. George Lavender, R-Texarkana, wrote on Facebook after the bill passed. "It will allow the continued manufacture and sale of incandescent light bulbs in Texas, even after the federal ban goes into effect. ... It's a good day for Texas."

So this is how it's done, right? Since the sole remaining incandescent bulb factory closed last fall, will an enterprising upstart create manufacturing jobs in Texas to allow customers to choose? Will American-made incandescents win back consumers? Will black market bulb runners use existing drug networks to smuggle incandescents to the other 49? Will the disgraced ATF be in charge of lightbulb networks since they shouldn't be allowed near weapons?

I'm willing to run the border for bulbs, how 'bout you?

Cross-posted at pjM.

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Team Obama challenge: Neutralize the only job growth in the country (and Rick Perry, too)

**written by politicaljunkie Mom

We can't have private sector jobs. That leads to less welfare! Fewer bodies on the food stamp rolls! All beneficence should flow only from our liberal hands!

Texas accounts for 45% of job creation in the entire country. Just let that sink in: we can blame one big old bubba red state for nearly half of the job growth. Figures, doesn't it? Something must be done. Quickly. Before that big hair smooth talker decides to run for President. We don't want people getting any ideas.

Cross-posted at pjM.

Linked at MichelleMalkin.com -- many thanks!

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Happy Father's Day

to all you dads out there. The world needs you more than ever. My traditional Father's Day post --

Mark Twain, Old Times on the Mississippi
When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.

Nat King Cole
I felt something impossible for me to explain in words. Then, when they took her away, it hit me. I got scared all over again and began to feel giddy. Then it came to me... I was a father.


Harry S Truman
I have found the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it.

Al Unser, Jr.
Dad taught me everything I know. Unfortunately, he didn't teach me everything he knows.

Spike Milligan
My father had a profound influence on me, he was a lunatic.

Jimmy Piersal, on how to diaper a baby
Spread the diaper in the position of the diamond with you at bat. Then, fold second base down to home and set the baby on the pitcher's mound. Put first base and third together, bring up home plate and pin the three together. Of course, in case of rain, you gotta call the game and start all over again.

Laurence Sterne (Tristram Shandy)
I wish either my father or my mother, or indeed both of them, as they were in duty both equally bound to it, had minded what they were about when they begot me.

Mozart
Directly after God in heaven comes a Papa.

Chinese Proverb
If a son is uneducated, his dad is to blame.

Red Buttons
Never raise your hand to your kids. It leaves your groin unprotected.

Anonymous
Small boys become big men through the influence of big men who care about small boys.

Euripides
To a father growing old nothing is dearer than a daughter.




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Campaign to reelect Obama underway: Swing state Missouri Governor vetoes voter ID requirement

**written by politicaljunkie Mom.

Pardon me, Governor Jay Nixon, but your liberal slip is showing.

Nixon vetoed a measure passed by the Missouri legislature requiring voters to provide ID at the polls.

“This [photo ID] mandate would disproportionately impact senior citizens and persons with disabilities, among others, who are qualified to vote and have been lawfully voting since becoming eligible to do so, but are less likely to have a driver’s license or government-issued photo ID,” Nixon said in a letter explaining his veto. “Disenfranchising certain classes of persons is not acceptable.”

The bill included a mandate that the state cover the cost of obtaining a photo ID for those who are unable to do so. In addition, it exempted several groups that could have problems getting a photo ID, including anyone born before 1941 or someone with a sincerely held religious belief against obtaining these forms of identification. Those individuals would be allowed to cast a provisional ballot that would be counted only after an election official verifies their identity by comparing their signature with a signature on file.

Not included in the provisions were illegal alien voters, dead people, felons in jail or Mickey Mouse. And liberals can't exclude their favorite voting demographics!

He and other Democrats know Obama's reelection (and their own political futures) are at risk:

Nixon joins with Democratic governors Brian Schweitzer of Montana and Mark Dayton of Minnesota who vetoed photo ID bills passed earlier this year in those states.

What a sham:

In Missouri, voters are already required to provide some form of ID before casting a ballot, but the list includes some without a photo, such as a utility bill, bank statement or paycheck.

All of which can be passed out by ACORN workers to "voters" in need.

A 2009 study by the secretary of state's office estimated around 230,000 Missourians are registered to vote but lack a government-issued photo ID. A 2007 study by Washington University found that among blacks, the young and low-income residents -- historically among the most loyal Democratic voters -- about 80 percent of registered voters had access to a government-issued photo ID. This compares to around 90 percent of whites, middle class and middle-aged voters.

A coalition of groups -- including the NAACP, AARP, League of Women Voters and ACLU -- had called for Nixon to veto photo ID legislation.

Ah, no Democrat can justify "disenfranchising" his core constituents, right? The NAACP et al must have argued that the free government ID provided by the bill would have somehow debased those poor voters who didn't yet have one. Can't have that. The bill addressed real needs, while liberals spew this garbage:

Claims that a voter ID law is needed to stave off voter fraud are ridiculous, critics argued, since there have been no instances of the type of voter fraud this bill aimed to prevent ever occurring in Missouri.

None proven. Here in Colorado, over 12,000 illegals are registered to vote. 5,000 voted in the midterm. The Senate race was decided by a razor-thin margin.

Liberals around the country know what's at stake in '12. So do we.

Cross-posted at pjM.

Linked at MichelleMalkin.com--thanks!

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The end of Empire

**written by politicaljunkie Mom

Welcome to the first true Obamaville, a formerly prosperous town reduced to desert dust. Company town Empire, Nevada, will soon be no more:

This mining town of 300 people clings like a burr to the back of the Black Rock Desert. For years, it was marked on state Highway 447 by a two-story sign reading, "Welcome to Nowhere."

Empire, Nev., will transform into a ghost town. An eight-foot chain-link fence crowned with barbed wire will seal off the 136-acre plot. Even the local ZIP Code, 89405, will be discontinued.

Many towns have been scarred by the recession, but Empire will be the first to completely disappear. For only a few days more it will remain the last intact example of an American icon: the company town.

The United States Gypsum Corporation--the largest sheet rock manufacturer in the country--owned the town of Empire. Drywall sales have dropped 50% since 2006. After a desperate price hike to boost sales last fall, the company couldn't hold out for a housing recovery any longer.

The end of Empire began just before Christmas, when dozens of workers in steel-toed shoes and hard hats filed into the community hall for a mandatory 7:30 a.m. meeting. Mike Spihlman, the gypsum plant's soft-spoken manager, delivered the news to a room of stunned faces: Empire was shutting down. "I had to stand in front of 92 people and say 'Not only do you not have a job anymore, you don't have a house anymore,' " Mr. Spihlman recalled.

Read the rest. Obama's interventionist policies last summer created an artificial bump in the market rather than letting it hit bottom. The results ripple. The construction industry--and now its suppliers--continue to bleed jobs.

This strikes me:

For decades, Empire was largely insulated from the troubles of the outside world. Here, you could rent a company-owned home for $250 a month, or an apartment for as little as $110. Water, cable TV, sewer, trash, and Internet service were all provided on the company dime. Workers were awarded gold-colored construction helmets when they reached 25 years of service and wore them with pride. No one bothered to lock cars or homes. Kids had the run of the neighborhood, but were still in hollering distance come dinnertime.

The company provided everything. Not the government. Liberals would argue that this is the end result of capitalism: company provides, goes bankrupt, people are left with nothing whereas government housing is for-ev-er. But the inverse is true--capitalism created jobs, houses, a community. When government intervened, it all came crashing down.

Cross-posted at pjM.

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Misleading headline of the day

**written by politicaljunkie Mom

Heh. Liberals obfuscate truth to cover for their miserable chosen One.

Gallup headline: 2012 Voter Preferences for Obama, "Republican" Remain Close

Reality: Obama Trounced by Generic Republican in '12

Forty-four percent of registered voters say they are more likely to vote for "the Republican Party's candidate" and 39% for Barack Obama in the 2012 presidential election, according to Gallup's June update. The current five-percentage-point edge for the generic Republican is not a statistically significant lead, and neither side has held a meaningful lead at any point thus far in 2011.

It's a poll of registered voters. Translation: likely voters lean more conservative than registered.

Don Surber and Jim Geraghty break into a cautious jig.

Cross-posted at pjM.

Linked at michellemalkin.com--many thanks!

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"It's all about how different cultures view childhood"

**written by politicaljunkie Mom

So explains anthropologist Meredith F. Small in describing the difference between how we treat our 4-year-olds and "preschool" age children in other cultures. Kids need to work--not at desks--to learn what it means to be an adult. More:

How competent are 4-year-olds? They are competent enough to work. By “work,” I don’t mean on the factory line, or forced labor of any kind. Instead, I mean tasks that are, by any cultural standard, age-appropriate.

Look outside Western culture and watch children, even very small children, as they gather firewood, weed gardens, haul water, tend livestock, care for younger children and run errands. And no one complains because they are mostly outside and usually with other children.

By doing these chores, they also master life skills, like caring for a baby or how to herd goats, and with that comes proficiency and responsibility.

Agreed. I've read a few of Barbara Curtis' Montessori-method books and understand the value of work for our preschooler. She folds cloth napkins (after nuzzling the warm laundry pile). She sweeps and dusts beside me on cleaning days. She loves making dinner: washing and drying potatoes, counting each one thrown into a pot. She sings her phone number and address. She carries her clean laundry across the hall to her room and places each bundle--shirts, pants, socks, etc--into the correct drawer. She's 3. There is no need for outside-the-house preschool. She learns more daily at home. What does this "work" teach young children?

Children in these cultures are also contributors to the household economy. Karen Kramer, an anthropologist at Harvard, found that the time Mayan children spend working for the household increases with age to about 30 percent of the day, even when they attend school. Compare that with nagging an American teenager to wash the dishes (10 minutes), put the laundry into the washing machine (4 minutes) or pick up their rooms (10 minutes to 3 hours).

It’s all about how different cultures view childhood.

Exactly. More to the point: it's all about how different cultures view work ethic. We used to instill one:

In non-Western culture, parents expect children to learn about what it means to be an adult by doing adult work. When we were an agriculturally based nation, American children used to work just as hard and contribute in the same way. But now, Western children are trained intellectually, in school, where they are taught to think about things as the entree to adulthood, and few contribute anything to the household economy.

That cultural expectation is now creeping earlier and earlier as 3-year-olds go to preschool and 4–year-olds start kindergarten. Everyone sits quietly at their desks, thinking and thinking, just when they’d rather be out tending cows or weeding the garden.

Amen. Involve your preschooler. Involve your toddler. We all have something to contribute. Funny, isn't it, how we learn something along the way?

Cross-posted at pjM.

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ATMs: No wonder O doesn't understand

**written by politicaljunkie Mom

Via Jonah Goldberg:

At the dawn of the self-service banking age in 1985, for example, the United States had 60,000 automated teller machines and 485,000 bank tellers. In 2002, the United States had 352,000 ATMs – and 527,000 bank tellers.

Contrary to Obama's perception that those pesky machines drove our economy to the brink, the market need for ATMs increased, as did the number of bank tellers. Additionally, the advent of ATMs created more jobs: the machines are built and serviced by people.

Create a machine that fills a unique niche--giving consumers better access to their banked money--and create more jobs in the process. No wonder Obama doesn't get it. It's capitalism.

As for real "structural" job killing, Obama should look no further than his own policies:

Meanwhile, Obama does want to make some structural changes to the economy that will destroy very good paying jobs in the energy sector. If his clean energy-win-the-future-regulate-carbon proposals were implemented, it would throw vast numbers of people out of work in the coal, oil and gas industries. And there’s zero reason to believe that the “green jobs” he would replace them with would be better paying. And, we’d all pay more for more expensive energy, either as consumers or as taxpayers footing the bills for subsidies.

But that's ok, because the guiding hand of government knows best which jobs to permanently kill since we should all use less energy. Just ask the incandescent light bulb factory workers. Besides, who needs an ATM when there's no money to be had?

UPDATE: Ah ha! No wonder. ATMs and Other Machines are Exempt from Obamacare

Cross-posted at pjM.

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The conscience of a city

**written by politicaljunkie Mom.

An observation: driving through Boulder, Colorado, it's impossible not to notice the values of the city as a whole. Wind turbines scar the landscape just out of sight in order to soothe the liberal conscience. Bike paths mark every street. Car bumpers proudly proclaim every liberal tenet. Save the animals. Save the planet. Tolerance. Abortion on demand. It's no surprise that Boulder--the home of the University of Colorado and one of the largest 4/20 smoke-ins--voted overwhelmingly for Obama.

Leaving Boulder in a funeral procession, I noted the lush flowers dotting every corner. It really is a beautiful town--fun to stroll, too. Two motorcycle escorts darted through cars to shuffle us through red lights.

After leaving the city, we meandered through farmland, snow-capped mountains always in sight, for an hour. Cows, horses, hay bales. Cars pulled to the side of the road, pausing for our procession. Every single one. None did in Boulder.

In the town that proudly displays its liberalism, folks care about animals, "fair trade" coffee, the planet, the source of energy, and that women have the right to slaughter their own babies freely. But no one can be bothered to pay a moment of respect in the middle of a busy, busy day to a human they've never met and will never know.

Values.

Cross-posted at pjM.

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American students in state schools fail history

**written by politicaljunkieMom

It's much easier to divorce generations from their inheritance of liberty and self-governance if they have no idea of American exceptionalism in the first place.

U.S. students don't know much about American history.

Just 13 percent of high school seniors who took the 2010 National Assessment of Educational Progress, called the Nation's Report Card, showed a solid grasp of the subject. Results released Tuesday showed the two other grades didn't perform much better, with just 22 percent of fourth-grade students and 18 percent of eighth-graders demonstrating proficiency.

The test quizzed students on topics including colonization, the American Revolution and the Civil War, and the contemporary United States. For example, one question asked fourth-graders to name an important result of the U.S. building canals in the 1800s. Only 44 percent knew that it was increased trade among states.

"The history scores released today show that student performance is still too low," Education Secretary Arne Duncan said in a statement. "These results tell us that, as a country, we are failing to provide children with a high-quality, well-rounded education."

Education Secretary Arne Duncan blamed the emphasis on reading and math as a result of No Child Left Behind. Funny, that, since a student should have reading proficiency in order to read history.

Cue the dated "our failing schools need more money to thrive" track just in time for the unions to donate for the coming election.

Cross-posted at politicaljunkieMom.

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So it's unanimous

Obama: ‘There are days when I say one term is enough’ 

In his exclusive interview with TODAY’s Ann Curry, President Barack Obama admits that there are times when he questions whether he would like to seek re-election after the intensity of his inaugural term.

If Obama decided for any reason not to pursue a second term, his family would not be disappointed, he said. 

Please, don't put yourself through all this "stress" on our account.

By the way, what a dummy he is. Michelle Malkin:

Earlier today, the professor-in-chief himself opened his mouth and exposed his abject ignorance of how free markets work. Straining to explain away another Wreckovery Summer, President Obama blamed technological innovation instead of his own hapless technocrats for high unemployment. He told the Today Show:

“There are some structural issues with our economy where a lot of businesses have learned to become much more efficient with a lot fewer workers. You see it when you go to a bank and you use an ATM, you don’t go to a bank teller, or you go to the airport and you’re using a kiosk instead of checking in at the gate.”

Can he possibly be more out of touch?

Stacy McCain: Pointing Out the Obvious: They Don’t Teach Economics at Harvard Law School

Steyn's take here.


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