Topic: Scratchpad
Because of our trip to Fort Drum, I may not have too many opportunities to post over they next few days. But, as always, I shall return…
Posted by tmg110
at 6:04 AM EDT
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We heard from PFC Gregg yesterday. She was somewhere (I won't say exactly where) between the Sandbox and the World. Jackie and I are leaving this morning for Fort Drum, and we'll be there to greet our soldier and her comrades of the 511th Military Police Company when they return home. Watch this space for further updates and photos of the 511th's arrival ceremony!
Barack Obama’s progressive economic policies may not be creating jobs, but they’re generating plenty of excuses.
The President is going to performing another “hard pivot to jobs” when he addresses a joint session of Congress on September 8—and the first item on the agenda is likely to be a heartrending hard-luck story. Such a mess Barry inherited! And how gosh-darned unlucky he’s been! Gee whiz, if it hadn’t been for Bush’s stupid wars and the Gulf oil spill and the Japanese earthquake and the Arab Spring and Hurricane Irene we’d all be commuting via high-speed rail to well-paying green jobs! (Pause to allow the audience to dry their tears while contemplating what might have been.) But that’s OK! Because he’s frustrated with Congress, just like we are, and so…and so…he’s going to raise taxes on “millionaires and billionaires”! Wow! Why didn’t anyone else think of that?!
Sorry, Barry, but we’re not buying. Out here in the real world, the economy added zero net jobs in August. The official unemployment rate remains stuck at 9.1%. Consumer confidence is nonexistent. The stock market is heading south. The housing market remains moribund. Signs of a double-dip recession are multiplying. The only growth industries are the national debt and your own disapproval rating.
It’s hard to see how the President can recover from the poisonous political effects of this mess—a mess largely of his own making. He gambled that America could tax, spend, subsidize and regulate its way back to prosperity. Now we see the results. Future historians may well highlight August 2011 as the moment when Barack Obama’s presidency went into terminal decline.
In the face of abundant evidence that their guy just doesn’t pack the gear, progressives keep hoping that Barack Obama will finally get tough on those partisan, obstructive Republicans. Here’s Michael Tomasky, for example, insisting that Barry absolutely must begin to put up a fight.
It’s not that Obama lacks the instincts of a bully—on the contrary. When he was riding high in the polls, Our Beloved Teacher and Guide treated the opposition with princely disdain. But now, facing real opposition from a re-energized Republican Party, Barry’s bluster has given way to a plaintive whine. Suddenly he’s all for bipartisanship—a term of art, to be sure, that signifies no more than agreement with Barack Obama, but even so it’s not a word that the base likes to hear. People like Tomasky want red meat from their champion. Instead, they get a veggie burger and I can almost sympathize with the indigestion they experience as a result.
Gratuitous stupidity is a fascinating phenomenon. Why would a supposedly smart person do something that’s blatantly, glaringly dumb? That question lingers in my mind as I reflect on the way in which Barack Obama made an absolute ass of himself this week.
Here’s the scenario. As you no doubt know, Obama’s been planning a major speech on jobs and the economy. Better late than never, eh? And to make as big a splash as possible, he decided to perform his long-awaited “pivot to jobs” before a joint session of Congress. So far, so good. As for the date and time of his speech, the Prez proposed Wednesday, September 7, at 8 pm—which just happened to coincide with the long-scheduled Republican presidential candidates’ debate at the Reagan Library.
No doubt Obama and his West Wing cabal thought they were being devilishly clever. What better way to steal the thunder of the upstart pigmies who covet his purple? They apparently forgot something, though. Congress is a coequal branch of the government, and the president has no right to address it. He has to be invited. And in this case, Republican leaders balked at what they regarded as a transparent attempt to bigfoot the GOP presidential debate. Pick another date, House Speaker Boehner suggested. There followed some tough talk from congressional Democrats about GOP intransigence. In the end, however, Obama blinked. His speech will be delivered on Thursday, September 8—and the White House has promised that it won’t conflict with the opening game of the NFL season, due to be televised that evening.
This incident, trivial though it might seem by comparison with the great issues of the day, was very revealing of Barack Obama's true character. Superficial cleverness, frivolity, pusillanimity—that’s our Barry in three nouns plus one adjective.
Are we heading for a double-dip recession? This guy says so. And if he’s right—bye-bye Obama Administration! And while I wouldn't mind getting rid of Barry & Co., a back-to-back recessions scenario seems like doing it the hard way.
This is repulsive: White House Issues Guides on Sept. 11 Observances
Some senior administration officials involved in the discussions noted that the tone set on this Sept. 11 should be shaped by a recognition that the outpouring of worldwide support for the United States in the weeks after the attacks turned to anger at some American policies adopted in the name of fighting terror—on detention, on interrogation, and the decision to invade Iraq.
Which is to say (1) that in the eyes of the “world community,” America’s policy of energetic self-defense was tantamount to a war crime and (2) that the Obama Administration more than half agrees with the WC’s view. Point (1) confirms my long-held opinion that “the outpouring of worldwide support for the United States” in the wake of 9/11 masked feelings of malicious satisfaction. Middle-aged Belgian graduate students, degenerate French socialists, British soccer hooligans and similar specimens of Eurotrash were very free with their sympathy when America looked like a pitiful, helpless victim. Why not? They were delighted to see the reviled superpower brought down a few pegs. But when it became clear that America actually proposed to fight back against Islamofascism and its enablers—Sacré bleu! Impossible !
I don’t much care what the rest of the world thinks of America. But point (2) does get to me. The spectacle of an American president pandering to anti-Americanism, particularly in this instance, is more than a little nauseating. Assuming you still need one, this is an excellent reason to vote against our post-patriotic prez on Election Day 2012.
Here’s a prize example of Big Government in action—or perhaps I should say inaction: Labor Rules Thwarting ‘Green Jobs’ Agenda
Turns out that complex federal regulations covering labor and environmental issues are making it difficult—virtually impossible in some cases—to translate stimulus spending into those long-promised green jobs. It appears, in short, that the left hand of the Obama Administration doesn’t know what its far-left hand is doing.
Hat tip: Andrew Stiles at National Review Online.
Q: Why don’t you anti-science conservatives give Al Gore the credit he deserves? He won the Nobel Prize!
A: So did Yasser Arafat.
I'm pleased to report that PFC Gregg and the rest of the 511th Military Police Company will arrive back at Fort Drum, New York, on Monday, September 4, after their year-long deployment in Afghanistan. Needless to say, Jackie and I will be there to welcome Lexi and her comrades home. Watch this blog for further details!
