Grab Our Party » Shenanigans

Obama, you are done

clay — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 15:06:46 +0000

A president who has lost the confidence of the American people blamed everyone but himself for the problems of the nation. He dared lecture the Supreme Court on jurisprudence, complained about Senate procedure (which he himself operated within and benefitted from) and then pointed the finger of blame (yet again) at his predecessor. The most comedic moment was when one of the biggest spenders in American history gave the country a lecture about the dangers of spending too much. He ought to know.

None of what happened in the last year he had anything to do with. Except the stuff he liked. ‘Natch.

That this most brazen nitwit (BN) got elected is testimony to how screwed up the NeoCons made things.

It’s incredible. After the BN increased domestic spending by 24% over the last Bush budget, he now claims that he wants to control spending. Yeah. If he’s serious about reining in spending, he should cancel his $trillion health care plan, his cap-and-trade plan, and rescind his efforts to increase the debt limit. The BN won’t do any of these things because he’s not serious about any of these things.

He has two core competencies: telepromptering and complaining. And to think I really thought he had legitimate political skill. He can’t hold Clinton’s jock (unless he asked *really* nicely – we are talking about the man’s livelihood here), much leass Reagan’s. Day 373 of “America Held Hostage”

President Obama’s accomplishments worthy of the Nobel Prize for Peace?

patrick — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 15:47:50 +0000

“to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.” – Alfred Nobel

The shocking news of the Nobel Prize for Peace going to President Obama will be spinning heads across the political spectrum. The five-member committee who selects the recipient will certainly have to explain their choice, as this President simply hasn’t accomplished anything worthy of prior recipients: Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, the Red Cross organization. Even other questionable recipients: Carter, Arafat, Kissinger, have a body of accomplishments under their belts. This President has what? Aligning himself with or snubbing those who have traditionally been a US friend?

Britain: Very early in the US President’s term, the President treats Great Britain with protocol undeserving of America’s oldest ally.
Israel: There hasn’t been a step the President has made in regards to Israel, the Palestinians or the Middle East as a whole where he has spoken of Israel in relativistic terms with the terrorist-run, anti-democratic regimes who wish the small free nation dead.
Eastern Europe: Instead of overtures to these nations barely two decades free from Soviet oppression, the President’s reverses on missile defence and initiates a groveling “reset button” diplomacy with Russia.
Afghanistan: Campaigns on the need to fight the good fight; in office, he waffles on his commanders’ advice.
China: Becomes the first US President to refuse to meet with the Dalai Lama since the peaceful leader began visiting the White House.
Iran: Is scolded by French President Sarkozy over inept approach to Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

The Novel Prize for Peace is once again reduced to the level with the Mtv Video Music Awards. Arafat winning the award should have been this generation’s clue that it was no longer to be taken seriously.

Compare and contrast protests

patrick — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 00:43:27 +0000

Looking at images of the (pretty weak turnout, eh?) protests in Pittsburgh at the G20 Summit today, I noted at how different the September 12 protest in Washington really was. Today’s brouhaha looked like a watered-down retread of every anarcho hippie scum protest that’s taken place since the 1999 Seattle WTO protests. Same $hit, a decade later. Ideologically, philosophically, and tactically, these people haven’t progressed in the last ten years. Not having cable, I have no clue how this ragtag bunch of misfits is playing out on the tube.

Sometimes you feel like a nut…

patrick — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 15:59:14 +0000

Bad week for ACORN. The left-leaning quango has been the subject of voter fraud investigations in at least seven states over the past few years and now, in a three-punch combination blow, is finding itself in what might, hopefully, be a day of painful reckoning. The bad news started on the 9th with the revelation that 11 ACORN workers were being charged with voter fraud in Florida. ACORN initiated the investigation with investigators, but I wonder if they knew this was just the tip of the iceberg of reckoning?

Thursday came the video of Baltimore-area ACORN workers giving advice to an undercover filmmaker on how to evade tax charges, run a whorehouse out of the home, and house illegal underage girls as child prostitutes. Sounds like the makings of a bad foreign film, I know – but it’s the real, nasty, unscrupulous deal. When the film came to light, ACORN played it off as either a) motivated by race, b) no big deal, it was an isolated incident, or c) the filmmaker’s fault – sometimes it seemed like the response was one of all-the-above. Reality, she is a cold lover.

Friday was a double-whammy. First came the revelation that this kind of illegal advice was given out in ACORN’s Washington office as well. Then, the US Census Bureau sent a letter saying it no longer wanted ACORN’s help with the 2010 census. Sort of a bureaucratic, “Don’t call us, umm, don’t call us” letter. How much money did ACORN receive from the Porkulus bill? What’s their annual take from the taxpayers? How soon can we get that back?

ACORN got $1,628,829 from US taxpayers (PDF file) for mortgage counseling services. Huh. Like telling a pimp how to classify child hookers in America as dependents?

One head rolls at the NEA – sort of

patrick — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 15:15:02 +0000

Remember the story of the National Endowment for the Arts whoring itself out as the White House’s propaganda wing? The Washington Times reports that NEA Communications Director Yosi Sergant has been reassigned over the revelations the NEA was trying to encourage select artists to be part of a First Lady-led project called United We Serve. It’s not a firing, but it’s a start.

Waiting for mainstream “professional” news outlets to do some investigating… No, I’m not going to hold my breath, though.

More ‘Bad Behavior’ from the arts community

patrick — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 00:13:40 +0000

Patrick Courrielche has more on the NEA/White House attempt at propaganda over at Big Hollwood. He’s got audio of the NEA contradicting itself, too. Oops. Courrielche’s concluding thoughts mirror my own in an earlier GOP post: the NEA is handing its critics fresh, valid points of criticism to use against the group.

Ahem… Chain of Command?

patrick — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 17:48:03 +0000

This McClatchy story on the apparent tension in the White House over Afghanistan is interesting on many levels. What jumped out at me was this paragraph:

Obama now feels that McChrystal and his superior, Army Gen. David Petraeus , the head of the Central Command, are pressuring him to commit still more troops to Afghanistan , a senior military official said. The official said that retired Marine Gen. James Jones, Obama’s national security adviser, told McChrystal last month not to ask for more troops, but that McChrystal went ahead anyway and indicated in interviews that he may need more.

The military chain of command does not involve the National Security Adviser, something General (ret) Jones should know. Now yes, there’s no indication in this story that Jones was trying to pass on some command, but the wording could be taken as just that. Jones “told McChrystal…” That’s bad form. I’d love to hear Secretary Gates or General Petraeus comment on the matter.

Hands off my damn shower!

patrick — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 14:46:36 +0000

The Competitive Enterprise Institute issued a press release today on how Consumer Reports became a snitch. In the upcoming October issue, the magazine reviewed a British-made shower panel, the Hudson Reed Theme Thermostatic Shower Panel, and found the flow rate “seemed to good to be true, — or legal,” and they reported the manufacturer to the Feds. Not because the product was harmful, defective, or that Hudson Reed practiced false advertising, but because the flow rate exceeded the EPA regulations (which manufacturers get around anyway using multiple heads). Don’t worry, though, the EPA is looking to tighten up shower head regulations in the future.

Consumer Reports. Keeping Americans safe from things the government says is bad for you.

I’m feeling like Lewis Black is going to pop out of my skin at any minute…

National Endowment for the Propagandists

patrick — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 13:33:53 +0000

The National Endowment for the Arts is actively participating as a propagandist agency for the White House. Sound harsh? In the forty-plus years the group has been around, when was the last time you recall it shilling for issues on behalf of, or in parallel with a President? (In all seriousness. I’d love examples of it doing something like this in the past.) This month, it happened. Patrick Courrielche, former employee of the NEA Director of Communication, participated on a conference call on August 10th set up by the NEA, the White House Office of Public Engagement, and United We Serve. On the call would be, as he writes, “’a group of artists, producers, promoters, organizers, influencers, marketers, taste-makers, leaders or just plain cool people to join together and work together to promote a more civically engaged America and celebrate how the arts can be used for a positive change!’”

Artists are now being encouraged to work with The Man? Not since World War II have we seen this kind of coordination between a White House and Artists. Or, since the collapse of the Soviet Union, though I’d argue, the “real” art was anti-Kremlin. Now we have a call from on high for artists to work to further the agenda of Hope and Change.

Backed by the full weight of President Barack Obama’s call to service and the institutional weight of the NEA, the conference call was billed as an opportunity for those in the art community to inspire service in four key categories, and at the top of the list were “health care” and “energy and environment.” The service was to be attached to the President’s United We Serve campaign, a nationwide federal initiative to make service a way of life for all Americans.

It sounded, how should I phrase it…unusual, that the NEA would invite the art community to a meeting to discuss issues currently under vehement national debate. I decided to call in, and what I heard concerned me.

The people running the conference call and rallying the group to get active on these issues were Yosi Sergant, the Director of Communications for the National Endowment for the Arts; Buffy Wicks, Deputy Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement; Nell Abernathy, Director of Outreach for United We Serve; Thomas Bates, Vice President of Civic Engagement for Rock the Vote; and Michael Skolnik, Political Director for Russell Simmons.

In my lifetime there have been calls for the defunding of the National Endowment for the Arts. I’ve been on both sides of the issue. Encouragement of the arts, in and of themselves, is a good thing. Humanity is bettered by a healthy exposure of art. So some backing by the taxpayers is alright, I believe. However, this “arrangement” between the administration and the NEA is just horrible. Were I a member of the NEA in some capacity, I would scream for them to stop. The group is being co-opted by an administration for its own political purposes. Imagine Dick Cheney going to the NEA and saying they needed to get out there are whip up support for the Iraq War. How offended would arts groups be? Would Rock the Vote ever support a Republican administration’s agenda? Talk about wrong on many levels.

Rock the Vote used to be cool. Now it’s working with The Man.
Artists are inherently anti-establishment. This coupling is anything but.
Joe Biden hangin’ with MTV. Enough Said.

Worse, in the long-term, for the NEA, is the ammunition this little venture into servitude gives to opponents of the agency who have long-believed this kind of funding-by-the-taxpayers is wasteful.