…from an exercise in idiotics to another skedaddler…

First we have a little Sebeliosity, bleaching just a smidgeon more character out of our everyday lives.

Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Kathleen Sebelius said today that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is developing a new regulation that would require food manufacturers to display nutritional information on the front of packages.

This would mean that the front of a Wheaties box, for example, would display not only the smiling face of a famous athlete but also declare how many calories from fat are in each serving.

We Americans are obviously pretty dumb, if after all these years we haven’t figured out where to look on the side of a box, can or package, to read the nutrition information.

That is, if we are interested in doing so.

So, to compensate for our obtusesness, the information, courtesy of our micromanaging overseers in government, will be emblazoned across the front of the package where we can’t miss it.

Yes, I did refer to character — instead of the aisles lined by colorful packaging design, we’ll see plain white rectangles of “facts & figures” as we shop.

That’s very California-like: The politicians in California love their signs, notices and warnings, as they have more micromanagerial rules and more things they feel they must caution folks about than do most entire continents.

Of course, like our federal government these days, California is also run by far left liberals.

Meanwhile, we have another felonious Constitution-violating Kongressional kriminal heading for the tall timber with the usual rat-deserting-a-sinking-ship excuse that he wants to spend more time with his family.

Democratic Rep. Bart Stupak, targeted for defeat by Tea Party activists for his crucial role in securing House approval of the health care overhaul, said Friday he would retire from Congress this year.

The nine-term congressman told The Associated Press he could have won re-election and insisted he wasn’t being chased from the race by the Tea Party Express, which is holding rallies this week in his northern Michigan district calling for his ouster. Instead, Stupak said he was tired after 18 years in office and wanted to spend more time with his family.

It seems like an awful lot of the corrupt traitors (yes, they are, as well as stone felons: Every last one of those pieces of Kommie Krap took the oath to protect and defend the Constitution, so in my book, having both violated their oaths to G-d and the American people and shit on the Law of the Land, they should be prosecuted for felonies) who violated the Constitution in order to shackle us with the onslaught of ObamaCare have suddenly developed a shared yen to change their career tracks and spend more time with the ol’ family.

Right, of course — they’ve merely sacrificed themselves for the party, and no doubt the party will take care of them, since a bribe’s a bribe, right? These toilet cakes know they’re finished among the voters in their districts, so they’re “gracefully” bowing out.

Where are tar and feathers and the noose when we need them?

When B. Hussein Obama was first elected to the Presidency, I and my co-writers here at Hard Astarboard really did determine to give the man a chance without any pre-inaugural condemnation such as that received by George W. Bush from the fraction of a second he was elected until… actually, they’re still blaming Dubya for everything from an act of nature to the decades old shooting of J.R. (remember that?). More extreme tinfoil hatters even, to this day, sccuse him of complicity in the destruction of the Twin Towers.

But back on track — we tried, seriously tried, to cut the far left product of the Chicago Machine some slack. Neither Wolf, Chuck nor myself wanted to display disunity of American citizens in the face of the rest of the world, like that which the Democrats have displayed through three wars, their opportunistic, not-very-patriotic patrons on the Hill currying their favor by turning these wars into political circuses, resulting in prolonged conflict, boosts to enemy morale and the deaths of U.S. service personnel as a bi-product of it all.

The problem was, Mr. Obama declared, in his every word from the time he was elected, that the Constitution was irrelevant as it conflicted with his own agendas for America, which have been much, much nearer to the propogation of marxism than to the concepts upon which this great country was founded.

The programs this president has pushed from the start have been so anti-American as most of our countrymen understand that to mean that the three of us saw no option but to abandon our “wait-and see” attitude in a so-called New York minute.

The “community organizer” provides a veritable smorgasbord of targets for anyone with even a drop of patriotic blood, so…

Unlike Bubba Clinton, whom we learned had a multitude of uses for interns, the Obama Administration has few to none.

The Obama administration’s top law enforcement officer at the Labor Department, M. Patricia Smith, is targeting companies that give young people unpaid internships. She claims that internships are rife with abusive practices and that serious violations of labor law are widespread. Arguing that interns should get paid at least minimum wage, Ms. Smith and the White House risk destroying a valuable steppingstone that gives many young Americans training they need to get jobs they want in the future.

Unpaid internships are valuable for many reasons. Most simply, they help people test whether they are a good fit for a particular industry. If interns like the type of work at particular companies, internships can help them get the training and contacts they need to make their career aspirations a reality. The short time that interns spend at jobs - often just two to three months - makes it difficult for firms to both train these young people and get much work out of them. From manufacturing to nonprofits to media companies such as The Washington Times, hands-on opportunities open through internships are almost endless.

Change, indeed.

Basic economics teaches that if the price is raised, demand falls. If companies have to pay wages, they will take on fewer interns. If these youngsters were actually benefiting companies more than it costs to train them, companies would pay them. Profit-seeking companies compete against each other for employees. If untrained students were such valuable workers, firms would gladly offer money to beat out the competitor next door to get them.

Some statements by the administration suggest that their actions are not simply motivated by the welfare of the kids who get internships. The O Force worries that unpaid internships might disadvantage less-affluent students, who might not be able to afford to spend their summers at unpaid jobs. But the administration’s solution risks eliminating many internships at for-profit companies so that no one gets them.

The Obama administration, which is full of rhetoric about improving education, actually views education extremely narrowly. In the real world, people gain a lot of practical knowledge on the job. Eliminating training opportunities will only mean worse careers and lower future earnings for those President Obama’s team is claiming to protect.

Ah, sweet Utopia. These lefties are clueless about the marketplace, no matter how many times reality smacks them in the face.

“It hasn’t worked the last ninety nine times, so it should work the hundredth.”

Then again, when Obama sees the results of this one, he can always issue one of those Constitutionally unauthorized royal edicts executive orders, one to the effect that every private concern has to use X amount of interns, like it or not, and compensate them with wages and benefits, including comprehensive health insurance.

While we’re on the subject of Obama, Wesley Pruden writes:

What this country needs, in addition to the elusive nickel cigar, is a president with less presence and more absence. Not just from Barack Obama, but from whoever follows him as well. Celebrities, even presidents, can be too much among us. They, like us, suffer for it.

The jet airplane, the ubiquitous television camera and now the Internet have conspired to illustrate as nothing ever has that familiarity breeds contempt, that it’s absence that makes the heart grow fonder. Women once knew that by female instinct, until they aspired to be men, minus the body odor and whiskers. (Some of them are working on that.) The studio moguls in Hollywood understood that, too, when Hollywood was still Hollywood, populated by movie stars. Now Hollywood, like Washington, is populated only by actors, who compete to see who can look and smell most in need of a bath. Jane Russell, one of the last of the authentic movie stars, once told me how she couldn’t slip out of her house for a quick trip to the supermarket for a bottle of milk or a loaf of bread without her make-up, manicure, heels and hair perfectly in place. It was in her contract. (Meryl Streep, our only surviving movie queen, projects the old star power precisely because she remembers the formula.)

You might think that a president, being the most powerful man in the world, able to start wars on a whim, wouldn’t be so eager to get noticed. Indeed, presidents once carefully rationed their availability, even for photo-ops. FDR, Harry Truman or Dwight Eisenhower would never be available for a photo-op with Miss Drumsticks of the Ozarks, even for a cause so grand as commemorating poultry plentitude. Barack Obama has not yet descended to the chicken house, but that may be in the works. He never misses an opportunity to take his noisy community activism on the road.

Heh, heh…

Read on…

…I was watching Obama Hatchetwoman Secretary of Health & Human Services Kathleen Sebelius give her spiel on C-Span this morning and was struck by the wideness of the spectrum encompassed by Obama’s “Health” Care program.

Unsurprisingly, the thin lipped, angular featured (I don’t want to make disparaging remarks about anyone’s appearance, but she did kinda’ sorta remind me of a hatchet, come to think of it) cabinet member managed to incorporate education, “acceptable” foods, corporate salaries and a few other items in there that I simply couldn’t relate to health care, per se, but maybe that was just me.

My own impression was that she was laying the groundwork for the mega-agenda distribution of the soon-to-be voluminously increased taxes we will behold as the Obama Administration and its Pelosi led, Congressional marxist contingent do their unconstitutional best, under the blanket misnomer of “health care”, to strip us of our liberty and as much of our hard earned money as they possibly can.

“Now,” say Barack & Company, “let’s try this…”

The Obama administration is replacing an emergency order that has required extra airport screening of passengers from 14 terrorism-prone countries with a system that will vet all U.S.-bound passengers against a broader array of intelligence sources, two senior administration officials said Thursday.

Do tell.

The new system will treat all passengers flying into the USA the same way, regardless of nationality, said the officials, who were briefed on the policy. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because the policy is not being announced until today.

The policy is the Obama administration’s latest effort to tighten international aviation security since a Nigerian man, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, boarded a flight in Amsterdam allegedly carrying explosives in his underwear. Authorities said Abdulmutallab attempted to blow up the jet, which landed safely in Detroit.

Yes, but no thanks to our last set of policies.

In early January, the administration required foreign airports to give extra checkpoint scrutiny to anyone flying to the United States from one of 14 countries or who is a citizen of one of those countries.

Islamic groups such as the Muslim Public Affairs Council assailed the policy as profiling because most of the countries, such as Algeria, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia, are predominantly Muslim.

What part of “So are terrorists!” don’t they understand?

The policy being phased in this month will use intelligence snippets about terrorists whose full names are not known.

Authorities will put together information such as a terrorist’s partial name, facial features, recent travel history or home country. U.S.-bound passengers who match those descriptions will face extra checkpoint screening at foreign airports, according to one of the administration officials.

Hmmm, I can see a real quagmire coming here. They went from profiling, which apparently worked, to not only not profiling, but also going the opposite way and harrassing little old ladies and one legged deaf mutes, while (witness the case of the underwear bomber) giving the benefit of the doubt to those who were indicated as “possible” Islamic “radicals”.

Now they’ll really confuse things, KISS principle be damned. Career bureaucrats and simple common sense are like matter and anti-matter, as they just don’t mix very well.

The system is tailored toward intelligence information and possible threats, rather than stopping people of a particular nationality, the official said.

One of the officials acknowledged shortcomings of the January order, calling it a blunt tool that is not as effective as it was initially because terrorists figured out how to circumvent it.

Very good, very, very good. So a couple of guys who fit the profiles of tangos earmarked for a specific terrorist Op are put through the works and cleared, then they stop the profiling in time for the real bin-Ladenite to cruise on through.

I’m still waiting to see how many years and how many terrorist successes or near misses it will take before they finally get it right, and instead of placing know-nothing, obtuse political appointees in charge of security venues, they actually hire some real, live security professionals.

Let’s not hold our breaths.

On another note entirely, don’t the Democrats have anybody in their “employment pool who doesn’t have any baggage on the order of lies, corruption or downright felonious behavior in his background?

From Wesley Pruden today,

Celebrating Easter and the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, the most important holy day for Christians of all denominations, can be deadly in the Middle East. Reciting a Scripture or humming a hymn could cost your head in Saudi Arabia, and you could risk other highly valued body parts in the similarly benighted ninth-century neighborhoods abounding in the lands of caliphs, imams and ayatollahs.

Beheading is something of the national sport of Saudi Arabia, where the government has scheduled for Friday the gruesome ritual for a man, the father of five, accused of sorcery for “making predictions” in his native Lebanon. (Punditry can be risky there, too.)

Better to take your celebration to Israel, where the government will assist your visit. It’s the difference between Middle East and the cultural West, between the 8th and 21st centuries, between civilized and not-so-civilized. The Israeli guarantee of religious freedom, taken for granted in the nations of the West, is part of what invites hostility and belligerence from Israel’s neighbors.

Ah, yes. The sweet, sweet freedoms found in the Muslim world versus the liberty smothering, murderous, despotic aparthied of Israel. Right, Barack, Joe & Hillary?

Pilgrims proceed under protection today along the Via Dolorosa, believed to be the path that Christ took with His cross to the crucifixion at Calvary, and on to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.

Many Christians, particularly Roman Catholics, believe Christ was buried on the site three days before the Resurrection. Christians and everyone else are welcome to join the procession. Unless a suicide bomber or other evil-doer slips through security, no one will be harmed. The Israeli government guarantees it.

The Israeli Declaration of Independence, adopted in 1948, declares Israel to be a Jewish state, but further declares that the nation “will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants, irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions.” It’s a promise bereft of Jeffersonian eloquence, but it’s plain and to the point.

My emphasis there. Try and find anything like that on the “Arab street.”

Moshe Dayan, the defense minister who led the Israelis to victory in the Six-Day War, was clear about religious tolerance and protection in a radio broadcast the morning Jerusalem was captured. “This morning,” he said, “the Israel Defense Force liberated Jerusalem. We have united Jerusalem, the divided capital of Israel. We have returned the holiest of our holy places, never to part from it again. To our Arab neighbors we extend, also at this hour - and with added emphasis ‘at this hour’ - our hand in peace. And to our Christian and Muslim fellow citizens, we solemnly promise full religious freedom and rights.”

And in a column today from Carolyn Glick that is, as always, right to the point:

There is an element of irony in the current crisis of relations between the Obama administration and Israel. On the one hand, although US President Barack Obama and his advisors deny there is anything wrong with US-Israel relations today, it is easy to understand why no one believes them.

On the other hand on most issues, there is substantive continuity between Obama’s Middle East policies and those his immediate predecessor George W. Bush adopted during his second term in office.

Yet, whereas Israelis viewed Bush as Israel’s greatest friend in the White House, they view Obama as the most anti-Israel US president ever. This contradiction requires us to consider two issues. First, why are relations with the US now steeped in crisis? And second, taking a page out of Obama’s White House chief of staff Rahm Emmanuel’s playbook, how can Israel make sure not to let this crisis go to waste?

The reason relations are so bad of course is because Obama has opted to attack Israel and its supporters. In the space of the past ten days alone, Israel has been subject to three malicious blows courtesy of Obama and his advisors. First, during his visit to the White House last Tuesday, Obama treated Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu like a two-bit potentate. Rather than respectfully disagree with the elected leader of a key US ally, Obama walked out in the middle of their meeting to dine with his family and left the unfed Netanyahu to meditate on his grave offense of not agreeing to give up Israel’s capital city as a precondition for indirect, US-orchestrated negotiations with an unelected, unpopular Palestinian leadership that supports terrorism and denies Israel’s right to exist. Next, there was the somewhat anodyne — if substantively incorrect — written testimony by US Army General David Petreaus to the Senate about the impact of the Arab world’s refusal to accept Israel’s right to exist on US-Arab relations. In the event, the administration deliberately distorted Petreaus’s testimony to lend the impression that the most respected serving US military commander blames Israel for the deaths of US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. After Petreaus rejected that impression, his boss Defense Secretary Robert Gates repeated the false and insulting allegation against Israel in his own name.

Finally there is was the report this week in Politico in which nameless administration sources accused National Security Council member Denis Ross of “dual loyalties.” Ross of course has won fame for his career of pressuring successive Israeli governments into giving unreciprocated concessions to Palestinian terrorists. Still, in the view of his indignant opponents in the Obama White House, due to his insufficient hostility to the Israeli government, Ross is a traitor. If Ross wants to be treated like a real American, he needs to join Obama in his open bid to overthrow the elected government of Israel.

Read the rest here.

The differences between Islam’s definition of “civilized” and the western interpretation of same are 180 degrees apart, and when you examine these differences from the point of view of even one iota of decency, the Muslims come out looking pretty evil while the rest of us emerge looking good.

Despite the glaring obviousness of this concept, Barack Hussein and his White House junta choose to attack Israel while all but worshipping the terrorist spawning fascism of Islam. No matter how they attempt to justify it, Obama, Biden and Clinton are profoundly transparent where the reality of their positions are concerned: They are wrongly supporting our enemies against our only true ally in the Middle East because they perceive Arab dictatorships and terrorism as being more in line with their own mindsets.

After all, the submission without quarter expected of a good Muslim is the same attitude they secretly wish they could provoke towards themselves among the American people, good facists that they are.

…and I’m remembering the joke NASCAR pulled a year ago, when they announced that the Obamunists had forbidden any of the automakers whom the government had bailed out to spend the money entering racing vehicles for NASCAR events.

It was quite the joke, they definitely got over on a few right thinking columnists and other commentators, bloggers and pundits, to judge by the feedback that issued forth from even a few of the better informed and more celebrated among us (not me, simply because I was rather indisposed that day -whew!)

Later in the day, of course, they did the corporate version of grinning and told the truth, that the announcement had been an April Fool’s Day joke.

I’ve been thinking, and realize that the Obama Administration and the far left dominated Congress just might be able to redeem themselves with the American people if they announced that every single thing they’ve done since a) the Democrat majority was sworn in in January, 2009 and b) Obama was ordained sworn in a year later was an elaborate April Fool’s joke and that they really aren’t communists or jihad sympathizers, but Americans who love their country, respect the Constitution and are about to vote unanimously to retract and reverse their every official act.

This is, of course, highly unlikely as it would be too much, for the American people, like waking up from a terrible nightmare to find that all is well in the world.

Unfortunately, all is not, and that is particularly true with the lying lefty loony linx who, through profoundly pounded propaganda from the kommie media and many a shovelfull of malarkey from the politicians both in the White House and on the Hill, finally won in their battle to staff the upper echelons of the U.S. Government with enemies of the state.

The only silver lining to that particular cloud is that we’ll be well rid of Barack Hussein in November 2012, at which time we’ll also have picked up the spares among the Democrat majority — the ones we won’t get to give the bums’ rush in November of this year.

However…

I actually came here to share another great Ann Coulter column, this week’s, which I received yesterday.

On the “Today” show this Tuesday, President Obama claimed the massive government takeover of health care the Democrats passed without a single Republican vote was a “middle of the road” bill that incorporated many Republican ideas.

One Republican idea allegedly incorporated into the Democrats’ health care monstrosity is “medical malpractice reform.” Needless to say, the Democrats’ idea of malpractice reform is less than nothing. Until trial lawyers are screaming bloody murder, there has been no medical malpractice reform.

The Democrats’ “malpractice” section merely encourages the states to set up commissions to “study” tort reform, in the sense that frustrated mothers “encourage” their kids not to slouch. By “study,” the Democrats mean “ignore.”

So we get more taxpayer-funded government workers under the Democrats’ “medical malpractice reform,” but not one tittle of actual reform.

Democrats manifestly do not care about helping Americans get quality health care. If they did, they could not continue to support trial lawyers like John Edwards making $50 million by bringing junk lawsuits against doctors who are saving people’s lives. (At least Edwards has not done anything else to publicly disgrace himself since then.)

At a minimum, any health care bill that purports to improve Americans’ health, rather than trial lawyers’ bank accounts, must include a loser-pays rule and a restriction on damages to actual losses — as opposed to punitive damages, which mostly serve to enrich the John Edwardses of the world, and their mistresses.

LOL!!!!

The Democrats also lyingly claim their health care reform includes the Republican ideas of competition across state lines.

I know they’re lying because — well, first because I read the bill — but also because Democrats are genetically incapable of understanding the free market. You might say it’s a pre-existing condition with them.

The Democrats will lie to anybody about anything if they believe it will help one of their destructive agendas reach fruition.

Democrats want to turn the entire citizenry into welfare recipients.

Amen to that!

Truncating a ways…

A few weeks ago, The New York Times ran an editorial noting the amazing fact that, by the middle of this year, there will be an estimated 6.8 billion people on Earth — and 5 billion will have cell phones! (Even more astounding, at least one of them is seated directly behind me every time I go to the movies.)

How did that happen without a Democrat president and Congress using bribes, parliamentary tricks and arcane non-voting maneuvers to pass a massive, hugely expensive National Cell Phone Reform Act?

How did that happen without Barney Frank and Henry Waxman personally designing the 3-foot-long, 26-pound, ugly green $4,000 cell phone we all have to use?

How did that happen without Obama signing the National Cell Phone Reform bill, as a poor 10-year-old black kid who couldn’t afford to text-message his friends looked on?

The reason nearly everyone in the universe has a cell phone is that President Reagan did to telephones the exact opposite of what the Democrats have just done with health care.

Before Reagan came into office, we had one phone company, ridiculously expensive rates and one phone model. Reagan split up AT&T, deregulated phone service and gave America a competitive market in phones. The rest is history.

The column can be found here, in its entirety.

…with the World Government crowd.

Interestingly, it seems to begin with the two leaders showing their disdain for one another…

France may be America’s oldest ally, but the presidents of the two countries are not exactly the best of buddies.

When President Obama visited Paris in June, he declined a dinner invitation from French President Nicolas Sarkozy, even though he had no evening plans and was staying just a few doors down from the Elysee Palace.

The brushoff followed a more substantive snubbing, when the French president turned down a U.S. request to put more troops into Afghanistan. Mr. Obama responded by sending a letter to former French President Jacques Chirac expressing his desire to “work together … to build a safer world.”

The petite but fiery Sarko was reportedly livid.

So when he arrived in the U.S. on Monday, Mr. Sarkozy went not to Washington but to New York, where he delivered a speech at Columbia University.

There, he mocked Mr. Obama’s recent health care reform victory, saying “if you want me to be really honest, when we see the U.S. debate on the health care reform from Europe, it’s difficult to believe. … Excuse me, but we’ve solved this problem more than 50 years ago.”

With the supreme dismissiveness only a Frenchman can pull off, he added: “Welcome to the club of states who don’t turn their back on the sick and the poor. … If you come to France and something happens to you, you won’t be asked for your credit card before you’re rushed to the hospital.”

When Mr. Sarkozy finally came to Washington, he stopped first at the Capitol, where he met with 2004 failed presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry. There, he pledged to help enact global taxes on countries that resist steps to fight climate change.

Emphasis mine.

Did I mention the World Government crowd?

…and then making nice for the media as all diplocrites do.

With lunch finished, it was finally time to go to the White House to meet with the U.S. president. After a private meeting in the Oval Office, the two repaired to the East Room for a joint news conference, where it was all happiness and light.

Mr. Obama welcomed “my dear friend” and proceeded to call the French president by his first name eight times. “The fact that Nicolas went to Ben’s Chili Bowl for lunch, I think, shows his discriminating palate,” he said to laughter from Mr. Sarkozy. Mr. Obama, reading from notes, praised his counterpart for his “legendary energy” before ticking off a series of issues on which the two agree.

{Truncating here}

Unlike the Obamas in Paris, the Sarkozys accepted an invitation to dine in the White House, joining the first couple in the residence for a private dinner. And the two leaders, perhaps the hatchet finally buried, left the stage together, with Mr. Obama’s arm draped around the shoulder of his smiling French counterpart.

Yes, I did mention the World Government crowd.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Tuesday praised President Obama’s health care overhaul, called his push for stricter financial regulations “great news” and, standing alongside Mr. Obama at the White House, said he hopes their administrations can team up “to go even further in regulating world capitalism.”

Mr. Sarkozy, a fierce advocate for tougher rules on global financial markets, said France will use its position next year as leader of a group of the world’s top finance ministers to push for a new economic regulatory regime.

“During the French presidency of the G-20, [Treasury Secretary] Tim Geithner, [French Finance Minister] Christine Lagarde are going to be working hand-in-glove in order to go even further in regulating world capitalism, and in particular, raising the issue of a new world international monetary order,” Mr. Sarkozy told French and American reporters gathered at the White House in a brief joint appearance.

For his part, Mr. Obama said world leaders must take actions to ensure that “reckless speculation or reckless risk-taking by a few big players in the financial markets will never again threaten the global economy or burden taxpayers.”

“I will continue to work with President Sarkozy and other world leaders to coordinate our efforts, because we want to make sure that whatever steps were taking, they are occurring on both sides of the Atlantic,” Mr. Obama said.

Mr. Sarkozy also took a moment to tell his host “how glad” France is for the U.S. that Mr. Obama’s health-care legislation passed.

Of course he did, because now the United States will be joining France and other socialist shitholes in the slide to gross economic failure.

Meanwhile, the two weasels, along with others of their ilk to be found under the large portside stone known as the European Union, will work to force other countries’ leaders to “tow the line” in the true spirit of national sovereignty-hating globalists.

An example was set back in the late 1990s, spearheaded by Bubba Clinton and his EU and UN butt buddies: What happened to Slobodin Milosevic can happen to you.

When Sarkozy was first elected, it seemed like we had a real ally in the French president. It’s a comedown to realize that all we got was another feckless French socialist.

I’ll tell you, friends, having grown up in America in the 1950s and 1960s, I’m beginning to suspect that somewhere along the line I was somehow transported to another dimension…

Yeah, a second post again today.

One of the columnists in the Santa Monica Daily Press is the proverbial breath of fresh air, as while the wafer-thin paper is a liberal publication in a mega-liberal municipality, Mr. Breen’s output is two-fisted conservatism that shows no quarter but is fraught with humor at the same time (of course, so-called “progressives” are pretty easy to laugh at, when you get right down to it).

I love Breen’s columns and never miss them.

So, below, I give you a copy & paste of his column today, Too Big To Fail.

Enjoy!

Environmentalists hate people. Homo sapiens are the enemies of nature and it doesn’t matter if your family has been hereditary farmers or ranchers for generations, there is always some dirty Greenpeace hippie armed with a flatulently inflated pseudo-degree in eco-busy-body-ology that considers you a criminal if your livelihood is a danger to the existence of some mutated dung beetle.

The mentality of these enviro-weenies, who wouldn’t even know how to feed an air fern, is: “I have a college degree, still live in the basement of my parent’s house, but I am an ‘eco-expert.’ What could some yahoo farmer possibly tell me about raising free-range tofurkeys?”

Six weeks ago when I began this series on the U.S. government-induced drought of the farmlands in the San Joaquin Valley, I had a U.S. Fish and Wildlife public relations flack — Steve Martarano — respond to my initial article within six hours after it hit the newsstands. Folks, as a famous nobody I’m lucky if my local detractors harangue me within six days after I publish. Anyway, Mr. Martarano made a feeble attempt to school me on the relative merits of putting farm workers into food lines through a series of op-ed pieces which were written by global warming-friendly columnists that downplayed the importance of the people who grow our food over a near extinct minnow that has an indiscernible earthly merit.

I indulged Mr. Martarano with my customarily impolite demeanor which I reserve for unctuously lazy bureaucrats and informed him that while he was decidedly full of crap, I was also exuberantly grateful that he chose to recognize that I was obviously game to the enviro-con job which he was tasked to disseminate and that I couldn’t buy that kind of public recognition. Never forget that the grand-daddy of the “public relations” industry was Josef Goebbels who believed that the best lies are usually the biggest ones told over and over again. It’s what has made Al Gore half-a-billion dollars richer.

But, there is good news! Is it an inconvenient truth that in order to bribe two recalcitrant Democrat congressmen, Dennis Cardoza and Jim Costa, into voting for ObamaCare, the Department of Interior announced on March 16 that it was graciously increasing the Central Valley’s water ration despite a federal judge’s court order? I guess the survival of the delta smelt or obeying the law isn’t very important even if you have to hold farm workers hostage to pass an unpopular partisan healthcare bill.

One evening, over scorched red meat, cigars and single-malt scotch with my son Nathan and fellow columnist Dave Alsabery, we expounded upon the concept of “Schrodinger’s Fetish.” This “fetish” has its roots in the paradoxical thought experiment of Austrian physicist Erwin Schrodinger’s infamously imaginary “cat in a box” whereby, according to quantum mechanics applied to everyday objects, that a cat in a box might be alive or dead depending on an earlier entangling random event.

When this thought experiment is applied to the global warming fetishists of enviro-dorkdom, one could only reasonably conclude that environmentalism’s intellectual life or death is dependent on earlier entangling random events such as the leaked Climategate e-mails, the IPCC’s retreat from several of their key global warming positions and Greenpeace leader, Gerd Leipold, admitting that Greenpeace has lied and exaggerated about global warming and melting polar ice caps regardless of Milankovitch’s spank-me-Daddy solar calculations to the contrary.

Meanwhile, the Chicken Littles of environmental doom and gloom are running around and spewing stupid, not only from the lowliest clipboard cuckhold standing outside of Starbucks, but into the rarefied air of corporate America.

Ted Turner, owner of CNN (Commie News Network) and global warming Pimp-asaurus Rex claimed two years ago during a PBS interview that, “Not doing [anything] will be catastrophic. We’ll be eight degrees hotter in 10, not 10, but 30 or 40 years and basically none of the crops will grow. Most of the people will have died and the rest of us will be cannibals.”

Wow! Cannibals?

Yes, folks, you are destined to be cannibals if you don’t recycle your trash into the proper receptacles or drive a Prius. But if we’re doomed to be dinner, Michael Moore or Rosie O’donnell would be considered the main entree at any Hometown Buffet … for weeks!

Speaking of whale sushi, why is that Santa Monica’s moral relativity rears its head over a few pounds of whale meat while celebrating to sacramental levels a few pounds of locally aborted baby fetuses? It’s a simple demonstration of liberalism’s faux-rage and moral equivalency that dead whales are more important than dead babies.

Or as Ted Turner might intone, “Save the whales, be a cannibal.”

…there are so many things to criticize, at least unless one is a mega-leftist wingnut, that is, where the tragedy/travesty that is today’s presidential administration and congressional majority are concerned, that there’s a veritable smorgasbord of subject material to choose from.

For example, a great post at Red State.

Yesterday the White House went bonkers when several large corporations announced via their SEC filings that they were taking about $1.5 Billion in losses this quarter because of one provision in the health care takeover bill Obama signed into law last week. The Wall Street Journal estimates Obamacare will cost the Fortune 500 some $14 Billion in this single provision.

They trotted out the hapless Commerce Secretary, Gary Locke, to deny basic laws of economics and according to some reports White House aides were directly calling and berating company executives who were complying with federal law.

Henry Waxman took a brief hiatus from braiding his nose hair to announce that he would hold hearings to determine why these imbeciles had fraudulently declared Obamacare would cost them money when everyone knows it is the key to balancing the budget and retiring the national debt. According to him:

The new law is designed to expand coverage and bring down costs, so your assertions are a matter of concern. They also appear to conflict with independent analyses.

In fact, Waxman asserts that the losses run counter to a report prepared by the Business Roundtable predicting the health care takeover would reduce health insurance costs to businesses by $3,000 per person…

Read the entire post here.

The lies, misrepresentations, fabricated math and general duplicity employed by Obama and the Pelosified marxist Congress followed by a flabbergasted, “I don’t believe it! We’ll convene an investigation at once!” reaction when the bullshirt gives way to reality is almost laughable until one remembers that at the bottom line lies the future, or lack thereof, of our beloved republic.

Moving right along, as they (whoever they are) say, I just thought I’d paste in a copy of Article 1, Section 8 of the United States Constitution. Give it a read, then match it up against anything Barack Hussein Obama and/or the House and Senate have thusfar passed or are preparing to legislate, remembering that the following is what you might call the Employee Handbook of U.S. Governance. If something is not included in the list below, Congress can’t (without committong a felony, as far as I’m concerned) do it:

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

To borrow money on the credit of the United States;

To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;

To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;

To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;

To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;

To establish Post Offices and Post Roads;

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court;

To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offenses against the Law of Nations;

To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;

To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

To provide and maintain a Navy;

To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;

To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings; And

To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

…post today, given the following.

Bret Stephens had a must-share opinion column in Wall Street Journal Online titled Lady Gaga Versus Middle East Peace.

Pop quiz—What does more to galvanize radical anti-American sentiment in the Muslim world: (a) Israeli settlements on the West Bank; or (b) a Lady Gaga music video?

If your answer is (b) it means you probably have a grasp of the historical roots of modern jihadism. If, however, you answered (a), then congratulations: You are perfectly in synch with the new Beltway conventional wisdom, now jointly defined by Pat Buchanan and his strange bedfellows within the Obama administration.

Heh, heh. Mr. Stephens hit the nail right on the head with that one.

You have to wonder, however, if the Obama Administration really believes (a), though, or are merely using that POV as a political tool as they use everything else. As we know, veracity, morality, patriotism, ethics, loyalty to the American people or even logic are all of secondary importance to the current president and his cadre when it comes to pushing one of their very un-American agendas (then again, what other kinds of agendas do they embrace?).

The definition of a “fact” with those critters is anything they have to say to get what they want, and they most definitely entertain some profound malevolence for Israel, so with that in mind…

What is that wisdom? In a March 26 column in Human Events, Mr. Buchanan put the case with his usual subtlety:

“Each new report of settlement expansion,” he wrote, “each new seizure of Palestinian property, each new West Bank clash between Palestinians and Israeli troops inflames the Arab street, humiliates our Arab allies, exposes America as a weakling that cannot stand up to Israel, and imperils our troops and their mission in Afghanistan and Iraq.”

Mr. Buchanan was playing off a story in the Israeli press that Vice President Joe Biden had warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “what you’re doing here [in the West Bank] undermines the security of our troops.” Also in the mix was a story that Centcom commander David Petraeus had cited Arab-Israeli tensions as the key impediment to wider progress in the region. Both reports were later denied—in Mr. Biden’s case, via Rahm Emanuel; in Gen. Petraeus’s case, personally and forcefully—but the important point is how eagerly they were believed. If you’re of the view that Israel is the root cause of everything that ails the Middle East—think of it as global warming in Hebrew form—then nothing so powerfully makes the case against the Jewish state as a flag-draped American coffin.

Being me, I had to emphasize that part, LOL.

Anyone in the United States who isn’t brain dead, brain-washed by the evil, sleazy, treasonous, communist mainstream media, deaf, dumb and blind or just plain stupid knew long before Barack Hussein Obama was elected that he was going to go after Israel right out of the gate; after all, they are the sworn enemy of his people.

It must be tough, having to carry the torch for both Islamic jihadis and socialists at the same time.

Now consider Lady Gaga—or, if you prefer, Madonna, Farrah Fawcett, Marilyn Monroe, Josephine Baker or any other American woman who has, at one time or another, personified what the Egyptian Islamist writer Sayyid Qutb once called “the American Temptress.”

Qutb, for those unfamiliar with the name, is widely considered the intellectual godfather of al Qaeda; his 30-volume exegesis “In the Shade of the Quran” is canonical in jihadist circles. But Qutb, who spent time as a student in Colorado in the late 1940s, also decisively shaped jihadist views about the U.S.

In his 1951 essay “The America I Have Seen,” Qutb gave his account of the U.S. “in the scale of human values.” “I fear,” he wrote, “that a balance may not exist between America’s material greatness and the quality of her people.” Qutb was particularly exercised by what he saw as the “primitiveness” of American values, not least in matters of sex.

“The American girl,” he noted, “knows seductiveness lies in the round breasts, the full buttocks, and in the shapely thighs, sleek legs and she shows all this and does not hide it.” Nor did he approve of Jazz—”this music the savage bushmen created to satisfy their primitive desires”—or of American films, or clothes, or haircuts, or food. It was all, in his eyes, equally wretched.

Whoa!!!!

Read the rest here.