Ann Coulter: " . . . voting for Obama a year ago was a fashion statement, much like it was once a fad to buy Beanie Babies, pet rocks and Cabbage Patch Kids."

1. Tim Geithner, the tax dodging Secretary of the Treasury, wants a public review of the Federal Reserve's "structure and governance." In June, the administration called for a comprehensive review of the Fed, yada yada yada.
   
   The Fed is balking. The Fed is not subject to the administration's demands and wishes, but was created by the Congress and is supposed to be independent.
   
   I'm really schizophrenic about this. The Fed has gotten too big for its britches, among other things refusing to say where two trillions of our dollars were spent. On the other hand, and I haven't seen this even suggested anywhere, it looks to me very much like the first step of an Obama attempt to scoop up one more major entity and put it under his authority.
   
   
2. The Media Blitz That Failed: On Sunday morning, September 20, President Obama appeared in taped interviews on five television networks. Two days later, Rasmussen reported that voter disapproval of the health care reform legislation in the works had reached a new high - 56%. (Yesterday, 54% against and 42% for.)
   
   
3. In his taped interview with George Stephanopoulos, the President absolutely insisted that the penalty (set forth in the Max Baucus proposal) for not buying health insurance if you can afford it (how do they determine that anyway?) was not - not not not - a tax.
   
   The Chief of Staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation (appointed by Democrats) was asked about it and responded "It's structured as a penalty excise tax."
   
   At the moment (September 22) that tax is the most spectacularly unpopular of the Baucus version. In addition to the financial aspect of the penalty (up to $25,000) there is the possibility of going to jail for up to a year. Obamacare would make felons of people who wish to manage their own money. Shades of Hillarycare, and people who wanted to choose their own doctors.
   
   
4. AFGHANISTAN - When Is a Strategy Not a Strategy?
   
   
   • The Candidate Obama said that the war in Afghanistan "is fundamental to the defense of our people," and called for two more brigades to be sent there because it was a war "we must win."
     
     
   • The March 2009 President Obama announced "a comprehensive new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan."
     
     
   • The June 2009 President appointed Lieutenant General Stanley McChrystal commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan (and promoted him to General), with the assignment of carrying out the new strategy.
     
     
   • The August 31, 2009 President received from his new commanding general a 66 page document calling for more troops, necessary to succeed with the new stratey.
     
     
   • The September 2009 President said in an interview with George Stephanophoulos that he wouldn't commit any more troops until there's a strategy in place.
   
   Yes, you read it correctly:
   
       March - A comprehensive new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan.
       June - A new commander to implement the new strategy.
       September - No more troops until we have a strategy.
   
   What does it all mean? My guess is that he is ready to cut and run, that he is trying to find a way to minimize the political fallout, and that one day you will turn your TV on and learn that we are in full scale retreat from Aghanistan.
   
   But one way or another, Mr. President, General McChrystal has told you he needs more troops if your "new strategy" is to work. Americans are dying over there and you need to get in or get out.
   
   
5. In his taped interviews, the President insisted that Medicare Advantage users would lose nothing under his plan. However, two days later the chief budget officer for the Congressional Budget Office told the Senate that the President's plan would cost those beneficiaries one hundred billion dollars over ten years.
   
   
6. The Holocaust denying thug, Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, addressed the United Nations on September 23rd, lighting into Israel once again, silent on Iran's nuclear weapons program, and describing his re-election as "glorious and fully democratic," not getting around to mentioning the government's murder of Iranian citizens on the streets, including the murder of a 26 year old woman, the video of of which went viral and finally nudged the moral foot-draggers into condemning the Iranian government's tactics. Israel, of course, boycotted the speech.
   
   Our Canadian neighbors ostentatiously departed before he had spoken a word. During the speech, delegates from Argentina, Australia, Britain, Costa Rica, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, New Zealand and the United States left.
   
   Kudos to Canada for leading the way.
   
   
7. The President chaired a meeting of the UN Security Council, a first for US chief executives.
   
   
8. We learned that Iran has been working for several years on underground construction for a second uranium enrichment plant. Various heads of states harrumphed and blustered. Obama was quoted as saying "Iran is breaking rules that all nations must follow. International law is not an empty promise."
   
   But of course an empty promise is *exactly* what international law is, Mr. President, because after all what are you going to do about it? Go back to the Middle East and give another speech?
   
   Update, October 1, 2009, What He Did About It: Representatives of the US and five other nations conducted talks with Iran and emerged triumphant, announcing that Iran had agreed to . . . more talks.
   
   
9. Republicans tried to make hay with the President's trip to Copenhagen to lobby on behalf of Chicago's bid for the 2016 Olympics, saying it was proof that he didn't have his priorities straight. But these days it's routine for political leaders to make a pitch for the Olympics, and as one Democrat noted, if the Olympics went elsewhere and Obama had not made the effort then Republicans would be crying that he didn't do "enough."
   
   
10. Joe Wilson's "You lie" outburst may have embarrassed the Democrats enough to cause them to announce they would at last consider amendments precluding the the proposed health care changes from applying to illegal aliens, but it didn't embarrass them enough to keep them from rejecting such an amendment on a straight party vote, 13-10, in the Senate House Finance Committee.
    
    
11. Unemployment has reached 9.8 percent.
    
    
12. In a 90-6 vote the Senate denied the administration the $80 million requested for the closing of Guantanamo. In a Senate with sixty Democrats, the President got six votes. The main issue is where to put the prisoners currently there.
    
    The day after he took office the President pledged to close Gitmo within one year, but it turns out you can't just wave a magic wand to do some things, and it says here he'll be lucky to get it done within two years, never mind one.
    
    It rather looks as if the fall guy for this will be lead White House lawyer Greg Craig.
    
    
13. The President was the subject of much lampooning from both the left and the right after he received the Nobel Peace Prize, but really, the fault was not his but the selection committee's. It turns out that three of the five members were initially opposed but eventually persuaded. Their initial objection? A fear regarding his inability "to keep his promises."
    
    
14. The Senate Finance Committee voted 14-9 in favor of health care. That's along strict party lines except for the Democrats' go to gal, RINO Olympia Snowe, who came through for them once again. Can Susan Collins be far behind?
    
    Update, October 19: Along that same happy line, the committee's bill fell victim to inflation, expanding all the way to 1,502 pages.
    
    One thousand five hundred two pages
    
    It is inconceivable that a legal document that size, cobbled together by dozens - perhaps hundreds - of people over a short period of time, entire contents unknown by any one person, won't lead to mass confusion and literally billions of dollars in litigation filings. The ambulance chasers are salivating.
    
    
15. Having tunneled two allies, Czechoslovakia and Poland, by reneging on our missile defense agreement in order to schmooze Russia, here's what the President got in return: Less than nothing.
    
    Russia has now *warned* the US about any missile defense deals with non-NATO countries, their primary concern presumably being the loss of the ability to bully Georgia and Ukraine.
    
    Secretary of State Hillary Clinton went to Moscow and came away empty handed, with the Russians not only not agreeing to sanctions against Iran but refusing even to discuss sanctions against Iran.
    
    The Secretary of Russia's Security Council announced that Russia is reevaluating its military doctrine and plans to incorporate nuclear first strike options in that doctrine.
    
    Way to go, Prez. The *only* playable card you had was the Czech/Polish missile defense, and you tossed it into a landfill for nothing.
    
    In Liberal La La Land, this is called "regaining international respect."
    
    
16. Picking a fight you can't win: After a period of whining about Fox news programs, the White House has decided to take on Fox, and this is astonishing on several levels, the primary one being that Obama's media people, both throughout his campaign and during his presidency, have demonstrated remarkable skills in dealing with the media. How could they make such a blunder? One suspects that their advice has been ignored, either by Obama or by Rahm Emanuel, perhaps because one or both overestimated the power of the bully pulpit.
    
    Watch or don't watch, agree or disagree, like or dislike, it all makes no difference. Fox has by far the most popular cable news programs in the country, and the administration has now guaranteed that those ratings will increase.

It says here that Columbus is getting a bad rap. He simply behaved according to the standards of his time, and it is unreasonable to judge him by standards in place five centuries later.

To the extent that he and his crew - and subsequent Europeans - introduced new diseases to the Americas, who is there to blame? The causes of such diseases were not known then, and it's not as if Europeans were practicing biological warfare.

BTW, some bogus claims are still being made by the uninformed and by dishonest propagandists regarding what diseases were introduced. Syphilis, for example, which existed in the Americas for centuries before the arrival of Columbus. For a long time, *everyone* thought that Europeans brought it to the Americas, but if that is the case it happened before 1492, probably four or five hundred years earlier by importation into *North* America by Vikings. Ironically, Columbus was blamed for a 1493 syphilis outbreak in London, being thought to have imported the disease from the Americas. This is now thought to be improbable, but has yet to be definitely disproved.

Enslavement of the natives was nothing unusual at that time. Slavery was common throughout Europe and Africa, as well as - and you won't read this in the grammar school history books - in the Americas. That conflicts with the politically correct judgment that the white race is evil and other races are noble.

In fact, when the pilgrims arrived in 1620, natives here were making war on each other, enslaving each other, and yes, even occasionally eating each other. The myth of the noble and peace loving savage is simply shredded by the fact that in 1620 not one American tribe had owned all its lands for a century. All had acquired at least some of their lands through warfare during the preceding hundred years.

Back across the ocean, slavery was commonplace, mostly whites enslaving blacks, but in some cases the reverse, and in Africa blacks made war on blacks, blacks enslaved blacks, and subsequently blacks collaborated in white enslavement of blacks by selling their enemies and their own slaves to Europeans.

And of all the fatuous arguments against celebrating Columbus and his discovery of the Americas, by far the worst is "How could he have discovered the Americas when they were already there?"

Really? So Marie Curie didn't discover radium because it was already there? We didn't discover ice on Mars recently because it was already there? We haven't discovered Egyptian tombs because they were already there?

It should be obvious that "discovery" is always defined from the viewpoint of the group applying the word, and Columbus "discovered" the Americas for western civilization. Yes, radium was always there, but Marie Curie "discovered" it because mankind didn't know it was there.

Here's the first definition of "discover" given by dictionary.com - by a happy coincidence it gives the discovery of America as an example:

1. to see, get knowledge of, learn of, find, or find out; gain sight or knowledge of (something previously unseen or unknown): to discover America; to discover electricity.

From http://www.ace.mu.nu/

"Ted Kennedy has now been sober for a full two weeks."

England's liberal commentator Steven Hill has written in the Guardian today that he has concerns regarding President Obama's leadership abilities. Among the more titillating bits (for those of us on the right) is the following:

"Many leaders and supporters are beginning to wonder what is causing this growing gap between the Barack Obama that many people saw on the campaign trail, and the Obama they see in the White House? Beyond Obama's oratorical skills, which excited not only American voters but people all over the world, he is mostly untested as a politician. His previous experience was only a few years in the US Senate and a few years more as a state senator. A sinking feeling is arising among many that President Obama may not be up to the task, that he may not possess the artful skills needed to accomplish even his own goals."

Surely this cannot be true. Surely people cannot think Obama was inexperienced when elected. Surely they would have noted this at the time. Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha.

I would add only that the cited previous experience of "a few years in the US Senate" is a stretch, and a very generous one. When he began running for his party's nomination he had been in the Senate for sixteen months. He's out of it now, having initiated no legislation of significance.

1. The President, who never tires of telling people he inherited a $1.3 trillion deficit, now plans to create a ten year $9 trillion deficit. Having added two trillion dollars to its earlier rather rosy estimate, the White House is at last in synch with the Congressional Budget Office.
   
   Not for long, I think. The CBO's current deficit predictions will turn out to be low by trillions of dollars.
   
   Laws and regulations require the CBO to make its projections based on a snapshot of the law "today," and the $9 trillion doesn't take into account probable events such as renewing legislation to keep from clobbering millions of middle class tax payers with the Alternate Minimum Tax, or extending some or all of the Bush tax cuts.
   
   CBO assumptions actually include a reduction in overall spending between now and 2012, which is a joke.
   
   You watch - fifteen trillion dollars or more.
   
   The administration's budget update revealed that the government will have to borrow 39.9% of its projected expenditures next year. We're dead. As we used to say at the club, "D-E-D dead."
   
   
2. Taking a page from the Clinton administration, the White House:
   
   A. Released the bad news on Friday night (August 21), when it would get minimum news exposure, and
   
   B. Released diversionary news on Monday, when it would get maximum news exposure.
   
   The bad news was that yes, as adults had been saying for some time, the White House economic forecasts were blue sky efforts. Unemployment will be higher and the deficit will be greater than had been admitted previously.
   
   The diversionary news was that the Attorney General is going to investigate some CIA/terrorist treatment matters that occurred under Bush.
   
   I think the latter will come to nothing, although millions of dollars will be spent, to be sure.
   
   But perhaps it won't "come to nothing." Remember Abd al Rahim al-Nashiri, the mastermind of the attack on the USS cole which killed 17 sailors? A document just declassified by the administration contains the horrifying detail that interrogators actually blew cigar smoke in his face.
   
   
3. Siding with the Socialist: This item took three and a half hours to research and write, and while it is not as lengthy as that might lead you to believe, it really is more than I wish to include here. If you're interested you can read it here:
   
   http://genghis-ken.livejournal.com/#entry_25259
   
   
4. Having received help, direction, and instruction from the administration, General Motors now trails Ford in market share for the first time in eighty years. WTG Prez!
   
   
5. Transparent Is a Synonym for Opaque, Part II: Once again, a refresher on this campaign quote - "We'll have the negotiations televised on C-SPAN, so that people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents, and who are making arguments on behalf of the drug companies or the insurance companies."
   
   Well, here's the first paragraph of an MSNBC news item:
   
   

   "The Obama administration says it will release names of most visitors to the White House, starting at the end of this year. Information on visitors in the first eight months of his administration will remain secret — though officials say they will consider narrow and specific requests."

   Eight months of visits to the White House are to be kept secret? Reconcile *that* with the campaign promise of transparency.
   
   I do not see how even the most ardent Obama supporter can claim that Obama did anything but tell an outright lie when he promised transparency.
   
   
6. Are you a hockey fan? I dunno how ugly this will get, but with no warning Obama's Department of Transportation has banned Air Canada charter flights between US cities. Canada's Transport Minister says Canada will soon return the favor as regards US sports team charters. Air Canada says it was not consulted by the US DOT before the action was taken.
   
   The sticking point seems to be a matter of a few cheaters - injured players, team owners, etc. - boarding the flights in the US and getting off at other cities, avoiding passenger fares on US airlines.
   
   What, they couldn't raise the issue and stop the cheating? On a very small scale this is reminiscent of this administration's heavy handed approach to health care: Don't just fix the problem, build a whole new system, taking no prisoners.
   
   I don't know whether it will affect NHL scheduled games. I can tell you this, though, if it does then hockey tickets are going to become more expensive on both sides of the border.
   
   
7. Good News for Us: The Census Bureau has given ACORN the boot. ACORN will *not* be rigging census counts this time around.
   
   Update, September 16: ACORN, the organization that fraudulently registered voters and is under indictment in a number of states for it, has been working as a "partner" with the IRS, and was to be a "partner" in the conducting of the 2010 census, has been "busted." In five different locations, ACORN people have been filmed offering advice and assistance in setting up brothels to be staffed by smuggling underage girls from El Salvador into this country, and advice regarding how to conceal money from ACORN's "partner," the IRS.
   
   The House, the Senate, and various state governors are beginning to deprive ACORN of your money and mine, program by program.
   
   
8. In his address to the Congress, the President referred to the "more than thirty million American citizens who cannot get coverage," a different number than the forty-seven million "without health insurance in our country" he had referred to several times recently. Parsing the words one can see the reason for the difference in the numbers, but why the shift in emphasis? I don't have so much as a theory about it. If anyone else has, I wouldn't mind learning about it.
   
   When Obama claimed that illegal immigrants would not be covered by the proposed health care legislation, South Carolina's Republican Congressman Joe Wilson just couldn't stand it any longer and shouted "You lie!"
   
   Now there are three things about that:
   
    · Obama and other Democrats have been hiding behind weasel words in claiming that under the various current legislative proposals illegal immigrants would not benefit and that abortions would not be funded. They have denied it, pointing to the fact that nothing in any of the language says that. But . . . the Democrats have voted down every proposed amendment that specifically forbids either of those two. They know - and count on - the fact that if the legislation is silent on the matters, and interpretation of the legislation with regard to such cases is left to Secretaries and other bureaucrats, then yes, the funds will be provided for illegal immigrants and for abortions.
   
    · Wilson's outburst has brought that little charade to the public eye, and now Democrats in both Houses are for the first time looking at and willing to consider language prohibiting such use of the legislated funds.
   
   UPDATE, September 12, 2009: MSNBC reports that ". . . for the first time as far as we know, the administration is backing a provision that would require proof of citizenship before someone could enroll in a plan selected on the exchange."
   
    · Wilson may be censured by the House of Representatives or he may suffer some lesser punishment. My personal opinion is that some punitive action should be taken.
   
   UPDATE, September 15, 2009: Wilson apologized to the President through Rahm Emanuel and the President accepted the apology. The House then passed a "resolution of disapproval of Wilson's "You lie!" outburst, 240-179. That might be a little on the overkill side, given the apology and acceptance, but it is not altogether unreasonable.
   
   And speaking of national health legislation, we have finally heard a candid voice from the left. Howard Dean, who just finished a stint as Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, says the reason tort reform is not part of the House package is that "the people who wrote it didn't want to take on the trial lawyers." Temporary insanity on Dean's part, perhaps, given that lawyers are one of the top three clients of Democrats, along with the NEA and unions,
   
   I know, I know, believe me I understand. How can you believe a conservative who says Howard Dean outed the Democrats? But here it is, all 21 seconds of it:
   
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdpVY-cONnM
   
   
9. Got an extra $1,761.00? CBS News reports that

   "The Obama administration has privately concluded that a cap and trade law would cost American taxpayers up to $200 billion a year, the equivalent of hiking personal income taxes by about 15 percent.
   
   A previously unreleased analysis prepared by the U.S. Department of Treasury says the total in new taxes would be between $100 billion to $200 billion a year. At the upper end of the administration's estimate, the cost per American household would be an extra $1,761 a year."

10. Poisoning Politics: Almost since Obama's inauguration, there have been some, originally mostly minor, people willing to cry "racism" when anyone opposed any Obama idea for any reason. Now that he is in deep trouble on health care, cap and trade, budget deficits, and nearly everything you can think of, the number of racemongers, their prominence, and the volume have increased. Maureen Dowd, Chris Matthews, some Congressmen, and even the Undead One Jimmy Carter, are now blaming racism for opposition to Obama plans.
    
    People can't oppose ten trillion dollar deficits, people can only be racist; people can't oppose national health on its merits, people can only be racist; etc.
    
    Update, September 20, 2009: The President has repudiated that line. He will appear - in taped interviews - on no fewer than *five* morning TV talk shows today, and during the CNN taping he was asked about these racism charges and said, "Are there people out there who don't like me because of race? I'm sure there are. That's not the overriding issue here." He went on to mention the passions such issues generate.
    
    It was the right thing to do and I for one am happy that he did it.
    
    An opinion: Dowd, Matthews, Carter, and others have behaved like swine.
    
    In terms of the race issue, Obama's election was the best thing to happen in this country since the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and those people are willing to set black against white, willing to give up some of the ground that has been gained for a political outcome they desire.
    
    
11. The President is reneging on the agreements with Eastern Europe regarding missile defense for protection against Iran.
    
    You heard it here first, on March 20th, 2009:

    " . . . trying to schmooze the Russians by suggesting a trade - no missile defense in Eastern Europe for help with Iran. He was rewarded with a brusque 'Not interested.'
    
    That was truly amateurish because a) you don't float that kind of offer publicly without first ascertaining how it will be received, and b) there's nothing the Russians can do about Iran anyway. They could only provide cover for his clumsy attempt to renege on our offer to Eastern Europeans. Now he has to find another way to renege."

    Oh, by the way, the new excuse? "Iran is not a threat."
    
    One can almost see and hear the puppetmaster Putin telling Medvedev at the time, "No trade. He won't give them the missile defense anyway."
    
    Russia is supplying Iran and North Korea with forbidden fruit, remaining as firmly on the anti-American side as did the Soviet Union, only a little more smoothly, and Obama has just given away the *only* - literally the *only* - bargaining chip he had with them.
    
    Putin and Medvedev have been quoted as saying how courageous Obama was to do this, that it will help improve relations between our countries, yada yada yada, but Obama will get nothing for this, nothing at all.

(Note: "Socialist" is one of those pesky words. There are two major usages - one referring to certain economic philosophies and the other as Lenin used it, meaning a transitional stage between capitalism and communism. In what follows regarding Manuel Zelaya, both apply, first the former, then the latter.)

The administration is set to cut off all aid to Honduras, a tiny nation (population 7.5 million) because Honduras prefers democracy to socialism.

A Summary of Events

On November 27, 2005, Manuel Zelaya, a member of the PLH (Partido Liberal de Honduras, or "Liberal Party"), was elected President of Honduras. The Honduran constitution calls for the President to serve one four year term, after which he is ineligible for reelection.

Zelaya has decided he is not content with one term and in 2009 set events in motion that would allow him to remain Numero Uno. Being chummy with another socialist, the thug Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, Zelaya set about following the Chavez example: amend your country's constitution and become in effect dictator for life.

The Honduran constitution provides only one way to amend the constitution: in two consecutive annual sessions of the National Congress the amendment(s) must win two thirds of the members' votes.

Zelaya had little patience for such niceties as constitutional law, and proposed to hold a national referendum regarding whether a ballot should be added to the scheduled November 2009 elections, asking whether a "Constituent National Assembly" should be convened to approve "a new political Constitution."

We can all guess what the purpose of such an assembly would be, right? Along with what change would be made regarding Presidential tenure, and what affect this would have on Zelaya.

But the Supreme Court ruled that amending or replacing the constitution in such a fashion would be unconstitutional (as we learned three paragraphs earlier), and the National Congress passed a law making it illegal to conduct referenda within 180 days of a a national election. The next such election is scheduled for November of this year.

Zelaya pursued his goal nonetheless, having ballots printed - in Venezuela - for a June 28, 2009 referendum, illegal on two counts.

In Honduras it is the army that distributes the ballots for such referenda, and Zelaya ordered the army to do so. The army refused, citing both the Supreme Court decision and the "within 180 days" law, so Zelaya fired the army's Chief of Staff.

The Supreme Court (unanimously) declared the firing illegal and issued a warrant for Zelaya's arrest. This was executed on the morning of June 28, 2009, and he was exiled to Costa Rica. Within hours the Congress endorsed the removal of Zelaya by a 124-4 vote, and installed a new President, Roberto Micheletti, a member of Zelaya's party, the PLH. Micheletti is to serve until January 27, 2010, when he will be replaced by the winner of the November election. He will not run for the Presidency.

Thats where things stand today.

Socialists around the world, the usual suspects - the UN, the EU, Castro, Chavez (who would have been puppet master), Ortega, and for all I know the ghost of Harry Pollitt, are outraged.

They are quite successful at muddying the waters, but refuse to address the underlying issues.

1. They refer to a "military coup" rather disingenuously. The arrest was ordered by civilians - the Supreme Court - and when you actually have a military coup then the military assumes direct control of the country, installing either one of its officers or a civilian puppet, but in this case the Army immediately stepped aside for the Congressionally appointed Micheletti.
   
   
2. They point out that it is illegal under the Honduran constitution to extradite a Honduran citizen. Well, yes, but he *wasn't* extradited, you see, he was exiled. He wasn't handed over to another country's judicial system for trial, he was booted out of Honduras, is free to travel about to any country that will have him, and is under no threat of trial for any crime anywhere in the world - except Honduras, which will try him if he returns.
   
   
3. They say that the army shouldn't have arrested him, the police should have. But absolutely nothing is clear regarding that, and the warrant was given by the Supreme Court to the Army, not to the police.
   
   
4. They say that he should have been tried rather than "extradited." Uh huh. Any time he wants a trial all he has to do is step across the border into Honduras, which has promised him a trial if he should do so.
   
   
5. And there are the underlying issues: Zelaya's attempt to conduct an illegal referendum, and his firing of the Army Chief of Staff who refused to participate in illegal activities on his behalf.
   
   If Zelaya is not to be deposed, then what should be done about those? Really, if your President goes rogue, ignoring the constitution, disregarding the Supreme Court, disregarding laws enacted by the Congress, and firing military people who won't assist him in his crimes, your choices are to get rid of him or prepare to spend the rest of your life with his foot on your neck.
   
   And what about the matter of the arrest and removal of Zelaya? If it were to be done some other way, then how, exactly? Just boot him out into the streets? And what do you do if he decides to walk back up the stairs into the Presidential office? No, he was treated gently, which is more than his opponents could have expected had he been successful in hijacking the country.

So, here we are. Democracy continues to rule in Honduras. Another free election will take place in November, and another democratically elected President will take office in January. Sort of reminds one of the United States, doesn't it?

But our President finds it not good enough, and is about to cut off all aid to Honduras unless the wannabe dictator is restored to power.

Get used to disappointment, Mr. President. They're not going to do it for you. You're *our* liability, not theirs.

UPDATE, September 5, 2009: It's done. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has announced it. *And* . . . one form of future "punishment" is being bandied about - if Honduras doesn't restore Zelaya first, the election might not be "considered" valid.

Imagine that. Hondurans go to the polls, cast ballots in a free and democratic election, and the US might decide to consider the election "invalid" simply because Honduras has incurred the President's royal displeasure. What happened to "not dictating" to other countries, Your Majesty Mr. President?

Thomas Sowell, writing on medical care:

"So long as my insurance company and I are paying for it, it is nobody else's business what my medical expenses are. But once the government is involved, everything is their business."

1. Transparent Is a Synonym for Opaque: On every front the President continues to violate his transparency pledge. In the case of health care, not only are we not being told who is saying what in negotiations with the public and private sector, but the White House will not even release the visitor logs so we know who the participants are, so we know who is shaping our lives.
   
   Remember the transparency promises made during the campaign? Me too. But it's worse than that. During the campaign he said "We'll have the negotiations televised on C-SPAN, so that people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents, and who are making arguments on behalf of the drug companies or the insurance companies." Now he won't even tell us who's in the meetings, never mind what's being said.
   
   Whoopsie! Here's an update, one day later. After the public interest group Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington filed suit, a list of visits by health care executives was released.
   
   Forced transparency.
   
   
2. Slipping . . . slipping: That's the Obama pledge not to raise taxes on the middle class. The latest slippage: "The one commitment that I’ve been clear about is I don’t want that final one-third of the cost of health care to be completely shouldered on the backs of middle class families who are already struggling in a difficult economy. And so, if I see a proposal that is primarily funded through taxing middle class families, I’m going to be opposed to that because I think there are better ideas to do it."
   
   Completely? Primarily? Grab your wallets. It's only a question of how big "partially" is.
   
   But wait! Previously reported here was the fact that Press Secretary, Robert Gibbs, was asked if the pledge was "still active."
   
   His response? "We are going to let the process work its way through."
   
   Today (August 3rd), because Obama's Treasury Secretary and chief economic adviser had both said on national television that such taxes could not be ruled out, Gibbs was asked again. This time he replied "in the clearest terms possible, that he is not raising taxes on those who make less than $250,000 a year."
   
   Your guess is as good as mine. Mine is that it's because the President's poll numbers are in free fall.
   
   
3. The President put his foot in it, calling the actions of a policeman who arrested a Cambridge black man "stupid," and hinting not too subtly that it might have been a racally motivated arrest. After an outcry by police everywhere and by the public, he began backtracking. A black policeman who was at the scene said the arrest was *not* racially motivated and was appropriate, and it turns out that the "stupid" cop lectures on racial profiling matters. Obama made his "stupid" comment only seconds after saying he did not know the facts
   
   Obama called the cop and "regretted" making the mark and "regretted" the uproar his remarks caused, but unicorns don't apologize.
   
   It's the sort of thing that can happen when your questions aren't prescreened.
   
   His "solution" for dealing with his own blunder was sort of clever. He invited the cop and the jailbird to the White House for a beer, to smooth things over, so to speak. Why did he get so involved? Because it was coming out that the "victim" is a racist, not the cop. Better to quiet things down than to continue to get clobbered for rendering a "stupid" opinion.
   
   
4. Still Siding with the Thugs, Part I: In support of the ousted socialist thug who ignored his country's Supreme Court and who fired his country's number one military man for not committing illegal acts on his behalf, Obama's administration has withheld $16.5 million in scheduled aid to Honduras, revoked four Honduran officials' visas, and announced that it is "reviewing the visas of all members of the current government and their dependents."
   
   
5. Still Siding with the Thugs, Part II: The administration is blocking Congressional efforts to talk to the Justice Department personnel involved in dropping the case against the Philadelphia thugs who carried weapons and intimidated voters at the polls in the 2008 election. The case had already been won via a default judgment when the Justice Department dropped it.
   
   
6. Ignorance of History, Part Umpteen: Asked on TV about victory in Afghanistan, Obama replied that it would not be like Japan, with "Hirohito coming down and signing a surrender to MacArthur." But of course Hirohito *didn't* sign the instrument of surrender. That was signed by a government minister, and Hirohito and MacArthur didn't even meet for another twenty-five days.
   
   (By the way, that meeting was a non-trivial event, as the emperor went to MacArthur, something he would have done for no other person, but he was reinforcing for the Japanese people the fact that Japan had indeed lost the war, and that MacArthur was indeed the conqueror.)
   
   
7. It is difficult to know whether the President thinks that we are *all* stupid or just the people in Raleigh, North Carolina are stupid. During a July 29 Town Hall meeting there, he said "Less than one month after taking office we enacted the most sweeping economic recovery package in history. And by the way, we did so . . . we did so without any earmarks or wasteful pork barrel projects . . . pet projects, that we've become accustomed to. Not one was in there."
   
   Talk about "the big lie." Sheesh.
   
   
8. Three months after the now infamous April 27th NYC flyover, the administration has released pictures. They can be seen at http://www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/newyorkcityflyover/Air_Force_One_flyover_photos.pdf
   
   I imagine we'll never know why the administration was so secretive about them, except for the natural tendency of bureaucrats to hoard information.
   
   
9. Much Ado About Nothing: It appears that Obama's Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, coordinated the sending of two letters from Cabinet officials to Arizona's Governer, after Arizona Senator John Kyl spoke unfavorably of the stimulus package on national TV. Now a Republican Congressman, Darrell Issa, wants Emanuel to provide all kinds of information about "his role" in the whole affair.
   
   If I were President I would tell Emanuel to do no such thing. The administration has a right to lobby governors regarding its policies, and until and unless someone demonstrates that something illegal has occurred, it's an administration matter, not a congressional matter.
   
   This is much like the uproar the Democrats tried to create over Bush eventually firing some US Attorneys late in his second term. *All* Presidents replace some or all of those Attorneys, nearly always based on politics. They are Presidential appointees and serve at the pleasure of the President. Not a word was said when Clinton dismissed *all* of them on taking office, including one who was investigating federal crimes in Arkansas, but the Democrats were "horrified" that politics might have played some role in Bush replacing them.
   
   Politics is an ugly business, not entirely due to its nature, at least partially due to the nature of the people who practice it. But in both of these cases opposition parties were/are making use of congressional power for purely political reasons, not even remotely connected to the welfare of the country. It's one thing for Democrats to go on TV and holler that "Bush is playing politics" with those attorneys, or for Republicans to go on national TV and holler "Obama is trying to bully governors," and quite another to try to put the might of a congressional body behind "requests" for information and documents.
   
   Get a life.
   
   
10. For the first time, the President's approval rating fell below fifty percent - forty-seven percent according to Rasmussen. That may be due in part to his record spending. Last year's $454.8 billion deficit set a record, but this year's will be more than four times that, weighing in at a projected $1.84 trillion. The government spent $332.2 billion in July, an all time one month record.
    
    
11. It's beginning to look as if Obama will not have the votes in the Senate for his cap-and-trade legislation. Four Democrats have come out against it (Lincoln, Nelson, Conrad, and Dorgan).
    
    
12. And he's been forced to take his first major step backward on national health, dropping the "public option" for insurance, possibly in favor of non-profit co-ops. And of course what was "essential" a couple of months ago is now just "a sliver" in terms of importance, according to Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services.
    
    Oops. One day later - Sebelius "misspoke," according to the White House, and the public option is still part of the package, although not "the most important."
    
    Why the re-reverse? Because overnight Obama learned that dropping the public option would lose a great many more votes from liberals - specifically liberals, not just "Democrats" - in the House than it would gain from Republicans.
    
    However: The health care package is losing ground every day in the House and Senate, so Democrats are considering a couple of back door options, the primary one being "reconciliation."
    
    For those who don't know, reconciliation is a means of avoiding the risk of a filibuster on a bill that requires 60 votes in the Senate, which is to say, most bills. You avoid the risk by labeling the legislation as a "budget" bill, which only requires 51 votes to pass. Democrats are now contemplating forcing the bill through the Senate by pretending that a trillion dollars in new health care legislation is only a "budget" bill. One RINO - Republican in Name Only - who seems content with this is the usual suspect Olympia Snowe, on whom Democrats can always count in a pinch.

Michelle Malkin: "But no one, not even Barack Obama, can drain a swamp by flooding it."

1. After months of being laughed at for his "jobs saved or created" hype, the Prez announced a "method" of counting them. He told stimulus package recipients that if a person's wages were coming out of that package, then that job should be counted as saved or created. Full time jobs, part time jobs, even half jobs and quarter jobs, but "no cheating." No inflating the numbers, ho ho ho.
   
   So . . . let's suppose we have a civil servant in oh, say, San Antonio, and he is a carpenter. San Antonio has a hundred carpentry jobs waiting for him, and one day he finds himself on a city job that is funded by the stimulus package. Now there are many jobs lined up and waiting for him, and neither he nor the city ever contemplated the loss of his job. Is his job counted as a job "created or saved" because for this one job his wages spring from the stimulus package? You betchum, Red Ryder.
   
   Whatta joke. What. A. Joke.
   
   "Jobs created" could be estimated, roughly. "Jobs saved" is a nebulous description, not quantifiable by any sane means, thrown out during the campaign precisely because it sounded good and could not be measured, and was therefore impervious to claims of false counting.
   
   But Obama is clever, and now, although the numbers won't really be verified, by issuing these guidelines he has found a way to get cities and states to report the numbers to him, and he can announce from Olympus that such-and-such a number of jobs have been saved or created by his stimulus package, and he can say "Look, I didn't make this up. This is what the cities and states are telling me."
   
   Bulletproof. But only when the shooters are blind.
   
   
2. Now that everyone knows the stimulus package did *not* bring the promised employment - and keep unemployment below 8%, the administration is denying its past and slowly and quietly moving the measurements of success:
   
   February: “You'll see the effects begin almost immediately.”
   
   and
   
   "Unemployment will peak at 8%." (Obama)
   
   June: "Unemployment will top 10% this year." (Obama)
   
   and
   
   “We always knew we were not going to get all that much fiscal impact during the first five to six months. The big impact starts to hit from about now onwards.”
   
   Apparently the stimulus wasn't meant to stimulate.
   
   July: The stimulus "has worked as intended."
   
   And then, and then . . . the White House said the stimulus package was not meant to be a stimulus. It was meant to "cushion the downturn" and that the "recovery act is a two year plan."
   
   Any of that sound familiar to you? Me neither. I remember "stimulus," "shovel ready," and other phrases, all signifying immediate results. You too? Good.
   
   Contrast all that with back then: "That is why I have moved quickly to work with my economic team and leaders of both parties on an American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan that will immediately jumpstart job creation and long-term growth."
   
   
3. After dragging his feet for days, after characterizing the mullahs' treatment of protesting voters in Iraq as "a healthy debate," after the appearance of a video that went viral - a video showing the murder on the streets of a 26 year old girl by Iranian government forces, Obama barely escaped being the very last leader in the free world to decide publicly that maybe such repression wasn't a good thing.
   
   Amazingly, he still thinks he can schmooze the mullahs into giving up nuclear weaponry. By the way, he has flipped back from his flop. During the campaign he said he would meet with the Iranians "with no preconditions." after taking heat from both Hillary and McCain for showing such obvious inexperience, he explained that he didn't really mean no preconditions. In his Cairo speech he returned to no preconditions. Must be due to the success of his North Korea policy.
   
   
4. White House Smoke and Mirrors: The President claimed that the "cap and trade" scheme will cost no one but polluters, who will have to pay added taxes. But *eye* know, and it would astound me if *you* didn't know, that those companies that actually have to pay additional dollars will pass those costs right down the chain, all the way to you and me.
   
   And Obama knows it too.
   
   
5. Trying to bolster his chances to force his health care agenda on us, he claimed that health care is "the primary driver of federal deficits." It is not, and in fact is not even second, although the top three are pretty close together: social security, the military, and health care, in that order. The three of them comprised 62% of spending last year.
   
   
6. Stage managing his appearances more than any President in my memory, Obama hit a new low in redefining the "town hall" in town hall meetings. Up until July 2nd, a "town hall meeting" was an appearance before the general public, with randomly chosen participants asking questions.
   
   At his July 2nd "town hall" meeting, subject health care, with every member of the audience pre-selected, the President answered seven questions:
   
   
   • Four pre-submitted and pre-screened questions, and
     
     
   • Three questions from "randomly" selected audience members, all of whom turned out to be from groups associated with his health care efforts. White House officials subsequently explained that it was a "coincidence."
   
   I believe that. Don't you?
   
   Well, even if you do, isn't it sad to see the transmogrification of town hall meetings? I mean changing the audience from public walk-ins to hand picked audience members? And going from random questioners and questions to hand picked questioners and pre-selected questions?
   
   The most ironic sentence I found in news coverage of the event was in a Washington Post article. Referring to a question that was asked, the article commented "Obama was ready for the question."
   
   Imagine my surprise.
   
   
7. Once again stepping on his professed belief that the US should not "dictate" to other nations, Obama threatened Honduras with an end to US aid.
   
   The problem? A left wing Honduran President tried to violate his country's constitution in order to push through an amendment allowing him to be reelected. The constitution prohibits such amendments within six months of a pending election, and one is scheduled for November.
   
   The Supreme Court in Honduras took up the matter and ruled that he could not do so. He nevertheless ordered his army Chief of Staff to distribute the essential materials. The Chief of Staff refused, saying it was illegal, so the President (Zelaya) fired him.
   
   The Army took Zelaya into custody and booted him out of the country, and the Honduran congress appointed an interim President, one who would serve until the election and the installation of the winner.
   
   Now here we have a socialist on the order of Hugo Chavez, trying to follow in his footsteps by doing exactly the same thing - amending the constitution - but this time illegally, versus a small country that wants to save its democracy.
   
   And our President comes down on the side of the thugs.
   
   Lookin' good, Barry.
   
   
8. With President Medvedev of Russia, the President took the first step toward a repeat of the failed cold war policy of arms limitation. That policy failed only on our side, as they cheated every step of the way. Why is it going to be different this time?
   
   
9. Barackski used his Moscow trip to float a new version of history regarding the end of the Soviet Union and the cold war. His exact words:
   
   "This change did not come from any one nation. The Cold War reached a conclusion because of the actions of many nations over many years, and because the people of Russia and Eastern Europe stood up and decided that its end would be peaceful."
   
   Whether he is deliberately lying or is simply abysmally ignorant, it makes one want to weep.
   
   
   • The "people of Russia" had absolutely nothing to do with the collapse of the Soviet Union. At the very last hour they rallied and ensured that most of the Soviet bureaucrats would not be in charge of the new Russia, but that is quite different.
     
     
   • The people of Eastern Europe had very little to do with it as well. In fact, many of those countries continued to be ruled by Soviet installed "leaders."
   
   The Soviet Union collapsed for economic reasons, and the proximate cause was the fact that every year that he was President of the US Ronald Reagan upped the cost of the Soviet potential for military opposition. Their economy groaned under the weight, and one day the economists approached Gorbachev and told him "We don't have the money.'
   
   My source? The one man on earth who would know better than any other: then General Secretary of the Communist Party and de facto leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, who said that the Soviet Union was defeated by "Ronald Reagan's single-minded insistence that he was right."
   
   
10. Transparency Still Comatose: The White House has instructed automobile industry executives to "put nothing in writing, ever" related to the secret negotiations on Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards.
    
    
11. The President told the Pope that he wanted to "reduce the number of abortions" ho ho ho. Must be why one of his first acts was to issue an Executive Order restoring funding to international providers of abortions.
    
    
12. Remember the campaign pledge - no tax hikes for those making less than $250,000? Obama's Press Secretary, Robert Gibbs, was asked if the pledge was "still active."
    
    His response? "We are going to let the process work its way through."
    
    Sounds like a "no" to me.
    
    
13. It looks as if we may finally get a Surgeon General. Five months and twenty-three days into his term in office, Obama has nominated Alabama doctor Regina Benjamin. From here, it seems to be a good pick.
    
    
14. The Prez moved another goalpost with no explanation, backing off his August "deadline" for passing a health care bill.
    
    “That is why those who are betting against this happening this year are badly mistaken. We are going to get this done. We will reform health care. It will happen this year. I’m absolutely convinced of that.”
    
    I wonder if he's as "absolutely convinced" of that as he was that it had to be done by August.
    
    
15. Obama's director of the White House National Economic Council has made the single dumbest comment in defense of any policy by any government official in my lifetime. Defending the "stimulus," he claimed that proof that it was working was offered by the fact that fewer people were googling the phrase "economic depression."
    
    You can't make this stuff up.

Today's funniest line, however inadvertent the humor, comes from Minnesota's Al Franken, who declared Supreme Court nominee Sotomayor "the most experienced Supreme Court nominee in a hundred years."

I would bet you a dollar that he doesn't know the names of the nominees over the last twenty-five years, never mind the last one hundred.

US General Stanley McChrystal, now the head of international forces in Afghanistan, has announced a policy change making the measure of military success the "number of Afghans shielded from violence," and not the number of bad guys disposed of.

In practice what this means is that if there is a confrontation between good guys and bad guys, and the bad guys are in a residence, or are somewhere where they "might" have citizens held as hostages, then the good guys are to retreat rather than fight.

Given the militants' penchant for blending in with the citizenry while attacking, can you think of a nicer gift to give them than a safe haven from which to kill our military? There is no possible outcome of such a policy that does not lead to the deaths of more of our soldiers.

Harry Truman made a terrible mistake in not allowing our military to attack enemy forces on the Chinese side of the Yalu River, and Lyndon Johnson made another in providing sanctuary for the North Vietnamese in the form of areas that we would not bomb.

Generals know better than this. It is only some Presidents who do not learn from history. I speculate that this policy originated with Obama.

If it originated with Obama, then General McChrystal has disgraced himself and his uniform by accepting that order and making it his policy.

If that is the case, then the appropriate course of action for General McChrystal is to resign, refusing to obey such an order, going public with it if necessary. There are some things you just gotta be a man about.

If it did not originate with Obama - or at least his administration - then I don't know what to think.

OBAMA'S FIFTH MONTH IN OFFICE

1. The President took a minor PR hit, unjustified in my opinion.
   
   The highlight of a school field trip for a hundred kindergarteners was supposed to be a tour of the White House, but the children arrived at the White House later than scheduled. They were to have been there at 9:30 but arrived at about 10:25, blaming heavy traffic. The White House had to be prepared for a noon luncheon for Obama and the Pittsburgh Steelers, and the administration canceled the children's tour.
   
   Organizers cried foul, saying they arrived ten minutes (or fifteen - accounts vary) late, but in fact they arrived ten or more minutes after a forty-five minute extension granted by the White House. That is, first they were forty-five minutes late and then they were ten more minutes late.
   
   This is certainly unfortunate, and you or I might have moved mountains to reschedule one thing or another to accommodate the kids, but we are not the President, whose time is tightly rationed even on days set aside for such PR activities.
   
   Incidentally, the Prez and the Steelers used their time more constructively than just schmoozing. They put together care packages for US troops.
   
   Efforts are underway to reschedule the childrens' tour.
   
   
2. Obama glided smoothly from his campaign position that closing Guantanamo would be "easy" to the position that it was actually, well, "difficult."
   
   Good thing we avoided sending to Washington people like the empty-headed, inexperienced Sarah Palin, who disagreed with Obama during the campaign and said such things would be . . . difficult.
   
   
3. Keep your eye on Obama, the Democrats, and gay issues. One of his broken campaign promises is the one about moving "immediately" on the military's "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy, and gay political leaders are quite upset. Gays voted almost three to one for Obama/Biden.
   
   Now a bill has been introduced in the House, sponsored by thirty Democrats and Republicans, which would define the word "marriage" as meaning the union of one man and one woman (within the District of Columbia).
   
   I don't see how the Democrats can afford to pass this bill, and my guess is that there will be much holier than thou talk about "interfering" with the DC Council, and that talk will serve as cover for voting against it while minimizing the damage with voters who are in favor.
   
   But if they *do* pass it, can Obama keep it at arm's length?
   
   Also fueling gay discontent is the fact that Obama's Justice Department has filed a motion to dismiss a case brought against the Defense of Marriage Act, a law Obama pledged to repeal if elected.
   
   
4. The President chose Appeals Court judge Sonia Sotomayor to replace Justice David Souter on the Supreme Court. If confirmed (and I imagine she will be quite easily) she will be the first Hispanic and third woman to become a Supreme Court Justice.
   
   Politically, it's a good move for Obama in that her being Hispanic and female lessens the chance that she won't be confirmed. For the country, not so much - sixty percent of her decisions have been overturned by the Supreme Court. She's one of those people who feel that being a woman and a member of a minority endows her with the sensitivity to see "what's right" and that her feelings should trump the Constitution.
   
   
5. Continuing to duck his transparency pledge, Obama signed more bills a day or so after they were passed. The White House is now taking the position that posting a link to a Congressional site while the bill is being considered fulfills his pledge.
   
   But it doesn't, of course. A bill in progress is seldom the same as a bill passed by the Congress. Here's the exact campaign promise:
   
   "When there's a bill that ends up on my desk as President, you the public will have five days to look online and find out what's in it before I sign it, so that you know what your government's doing,"
   
   This hasn't happened yet. Not. One. Time.
   
   
6. The President's approach to terrorist nations is to yack at them, and as reported here in March, when North Korea launched an ICBM he called on the UN to issue a resolution to replace the resolution that North Korea had ignored.
   
   That approach got spanked again as North Korea upped the ante by launching a half dozen more missiles in one week.
   
   Whaddaya think, Mr. Prez, another UN resolution?
   
   But this failed policy did not originate with Obama. The US and UN have kept their blinders on and failed with it for fifteen or twenty years. In fact, the Clinton and Bush administrations paid North Korea billions of dollars in various aid packages (five billion dollars in oil in 1994 alone) to give up their nuclear program. The sequence has been:
   
   
   
   1. "Here's the money."
      
   2. "OK, no more nuclear development."
      
   3. "You cheated!"
      
   4. "North Korea is a sovereign nation and has the right to such development."
      
   5. "Well then, take that!" (A UN resolution follows.)
      
      
   6. "Here's the money."
      
   7. "OK, no more nuclear development."
      
   8. "You cheated!"
      
   9. "North Korea is a sovereign nation and has the right to such development."
      
   10. "Well then, take that!" (A UN resolution follows.)
       
   
   Ad infinitum.
   
   Obama has yet to make his first attempt to buy their cooperation, although the funds may be buried in the fine print of the stimulus package. Ah ha ha ha ha ha.
   
   Update: The UN Security Council added sanctions to the previously impotent sanction policy. I imagine it took the usual troublemakers, Russia, China, Olympia Snowe Syria, Iran, et al., only a few seconds to begin violating them. In response North Korea has announced for the first time that it has a uranium enrichment program. Our response?
   
   June 13 (Reuters): - The United States said on Saturday that North Korea must stop its "provocative" actions and return immediately to stalled six-party talks on its nuclear program.
   
   Or what? Hmmmm?
   
   
7. There are rumblings that the administration has selected the specific dealerships to be closed by Chrysler, and that the chief criterion is whether the owners are Republican donors. In keeping with Obama's promised "transparency" policy, the White House is stonewalling requests for information regarding what criteria were used.
   
   I have *no* idea whether this will come to anything. I mention it only because interest has grown to the extent that even the mainstream news media is being forced to look into it, albeit reluctantly.
   
   In related news, three House Democrats, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and two others, are circulating a letter in the House for signatures. The letter is to President Obama, asking how closing healthy dealerships will improve the financial stability of GM and Chrysler, and questioning the fairness of the criteria used to determine which dealerships will be closed.
   
   The letter closes "We may consider legislative proposals to ensure that dealers and their employees are treated fairly, and we look forward to your timely response."
   
   
8. In the most blatant political misuse of the Justice Department in a long time, the Attorney General decided - no reasons given - to drop a seven month old case against Black Panthers who had used weapons to threaten voters and block entrance to a Philadelphia precinct's voting facilities during the 2008 elections, telling one white poll watcher "You are about to be ruled by the black man, cracker."
   
   The three accused had entered no responses to the Justice Department's suits, and so judgments had been rendered against them. This is the first time in the history of the United States that the Attorney General dismissed a case already won by default.
   
   In the meantime, the Justice Department is making sure that enemies we capture in Afghanistan are read their Miranda rights. How in Hell did *they* acquire Miranda rights?
   
   No, I didn't make that up. I. Did. Not.
   
   
9. Having corrupted the Justice Department to the maximum extent possible in such a short time, Obama has turned his attention to corrupting the Census Bureau. Remember ACORN? The organization that stole votes for Obama by registering ineligible people in a number of states? Their reward is to become an "Executive Partner" in the 2010 census process. You don't suppose they'd abuse that, do you? Nahhhh.
   
   
10. Searching for new political corruption opportunities, Obama announced the firing of AmeriCorps Inspector General Gerald Walpin, calling him "confused" and "disoriented." Since he provided no evidence of confusion or disorientation, one is left to assume the obvious: He had gotten to close to Democrats' shenanigans. He had found millions of dollars of fraud and deception in programs involving CUNY's Research Foundation and the St. HOPE Academy - run by a major Obama supporter (Kevin Johnson). And - shades of Travelgate - Michelle Obama is up to her neck in this one, selecting for appointment program overseers. Her Americorps ties go back to one of its Chicago programs in the mid-nineties and serving on the national board until 2001.
    
    
11. The President opened the kimono on one of his double standards. When a pro-abortion doctor was murdered by a lone gunman, it was only a matter of hours before Obama issued a statement condemning acts of violence, "however profound our differences."
    
    One day later, when a lone gunman murdered one soldier and critically wounded another on the streets of Little Rock, the Prez was silent. Mum. Zip-lipped.
    
    Say what you will about Bush, at least he knew that murdering one of our soldiers was an act of violence worth condemning.
    
    UPDATE: (6/4/2009) After several days of some of us wondering publicly whether he would ever acknowledge that second incident, Obama wept that he was "deeply saddened by this senseless act of violence."
    
    Did you catch that? The murder of the abortionist was committed by a right winger acting on an agenda difference, but the murder of the soldier was "senseless." It was not committed by a converted Muslim, not a matter of an agenda difference, just, you know, sh*t happens.
    
    Do you suppose this is connected? In his speech in Cairo, he said " And I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear."
    
    When, exactly, did defending Islam become a responsibility of our President? And if it *really* is, shouldn't that be true of Christianity too, among others? You know, not stereotyping Christians as abortionist killers?
    
    
12. Discovering his inner Muslim, Obama has begun not only using but *featuring* his middle name. What a difference between a running candidate and an elected candidate!
    
    It began a couple of months ago in Austria, and continued in Turkey, where he was introduced to the Turkish Parliament as Barak Hussein Obama. Now, in an interview with a French journalist, he has made the claim that there are so many Muslims in the US that we are "one of the largest Muslim countries in the world."
    
    Claims regarding the number of Muslims in America range from one to eight million, the most common being six million. But the *only* polling organization with a number, Pew, says there are one and a half million.
    
    This would make us the 48th largest, behind such powerhouses as Burkino Faso, Eritria, and Montenegro.
    
    Do you suppose Good Ol' Joe Biden is rubbing off on him?
    
    
13. While most countries that are changing corporate tax rates are decreasing them to stimulate their economies, our President is trying to increase them. As reported here in March, some energy companies have already reacted to the prospect, relocating to Switzerland. Now Microsoft has announced that it will move a large number of jobs overseas if Obama's tax increases make it through Congress.
    
    
14. The President spent the month mouthing platitudes about the US not "dictating" solutions, which, he said, it does "all too often." Then he dictated to one - and only one - country, our only ally in the Middle East, Israel. Now the US "does not accept the legitimacy" of actions negotiated in years past under Presidents Clinton and Bush, and endorsed in a Congressional resolution.
    
    On behalf of Israel, Prime Minister told the President to take a hike, although in much gentler words. It is good to know that somewhere in this diminishingly free world, one of the leaders on *our* side will stand up.
    
    Netanyahu announced that he would buy into Obama's two state agenda on two conditions:
    
    
    • "Palestinians must clearly and unambiguously recognise Israel as the state of the Jewish people."
      
      
    • "The territory under Palestinian control must be demilitarised with ironclad security provisions for Israel."
    
    He also said that a new Palestinian state must be monitored on the ground, " . . . real monitoring, and not what occurs in Gaza today."
    
    So Netanyahu has called Obama's bluff. Those conditions are eminently reasonable and neither Obama nor the UN will press them on the Palestinians.
    
    I *think* Obama is going to have to back off at least some of what passes for his "policy," as 75 US Senators have expressed concern about it. As his popularity begins to decline to terrestrial levels, he cannot afford to alienate three quarters of the Senate, which is already on his case about the amount of money he plans to spend, the tax increases he proposes, the smoke and mirrors "cap and trade" scheme, and the handling of General Motors and Chrysler.
    
    
15. Having publicly predicted for us that passing the stimulus package would prevent unemployment from reaching 8%, he and we watched it shoot up to 9.4%.
    
    Good Ol' Joe Biden tried to spread the blame, saying "We all guessed wrong." No, Joe, not all of us. Republicans voted unanimously against the stimulus package.
    
    The Prez now says unemployment will probably reach 10%, which may be conservative or may be accurate, but in any case will certainly be closer to the truth than his 8% prediction.
    
    
16. I wonder whether the President cringed at the mainstream news media report that his former spiritual mentor, the racist, anti-American Reverend Jeremiah Wright, said that he and Obama would be back in touch with each other in a few years, but right now "Them Jews aren't going to let him talk to me." Prolly not.
    
    
17. Demonstrating a hitherto concealed sense of humor, Obama said it’s "important for the U.S. to maintain fiscal discipline."

I have a question for you - all three or four of you.

At what age should a person be forced to give up his license to drive? More precisely, should there be a law requiring it, and if so what age should the law specify?

I raise this question now for two reasons: I just read yet another news report of an elderly driver causing a fatal accident - this one a woman approaching her nineties running down a four year old girl, and because I am 68 and have begun to contemplate the question on a personal level. That is, there being no law, at what age should I voluntarily stop driving?

The following information is taken from smartmotorist.com, which provides sources for its information here.

• After the age of 75, the risk of driver fatality increases sharply, because older drivers are more vulnerable to both crash-related injury and death. Three behavioral factors in particular may contribute to these statistics: poor judgement in making left-hand turns; drifting within the traffic lane; and decreased ability to change behavior in response to an unexpected or rapidly changing situation.
  
  
• In a 1997 NHTSA study, older people made up 9 percent of the population but accounted for 14 percent of all traffic fatalities and 17 percent of all pedestrian fatalities.
  
  
• On the basis of estimated annual travel, the fatality rate for drivers 85 and over is nine times as high as the rate for drivers 25 through 69 years old.

I am certain that other information, perhaps more interesting, can be found, but that will suffice to bring the appropriate flavor to the discussion.

I do not think that testing is the answer, for any number of reasons. Two that spring immediately to mind are a) as we age, many (most? all?) of us are subject to lapses caused by the misfiring of synapses - that is, although our eyes are wide open we have what amount to brief blackouts and are unaware of this, and these blackouts are randomly timed and cannot be expected to be accommodating enough to appear during testing, and b) an old person subject to loss of permission to drive will be fiercely attentive during a test, much more attentive than when driving.

A couple of anecdotes related to my father:

1. In his early eighties, after more than sixty years of driving, he received his first ever traffic ticket. He had run a red light, and when told this by the state trooper who pulled him over, his first reaction was "I did?" Not only did he not know that he had run the red light, he had no recollection of crossing the intersection.
   
   He was much agitated by this, first because he knew that he might have injured or killed someone, and second because "I always thought I'd know when it was time to stop driving."
   
   
2. A friend his age occasionally drove from New Hampshire to Boston, most of the way on I-95, which was mostly 65 mph zones. The friend "adjusted" for his age by driving in the right hand lane and not exceeding 55 mph. He told my dad "You ought to hear them honking their horns at me. Fuck 'em."
   
   Now that is funny, no doubt about it, but the rest of the truth is that he was a hazard on the highway. Other drivers were doing anywhere from 65 to 80 mph, and it's not speed that kills, it's the difference between speeds.

So where are we, then? Should there be a law? And if so, then what age should the law specify?

Now for all we know Methuselah might have been able to handle the Indy 500 the day before he died, so no matter what age limit might be set, there will be some number of people who feel unfairly discriminated against. It seems to me that there are two appropriate reactions to that:

1. Some of them will be incorrect on the matter, and
   
   
2. For society to work, some people have to make inconvenient concessions. Some feel the rich should pay taxes at a higher rate than others, some feel the alcohol levels permitted while driving are set too low, etc. If you are in a group - age or otherwise - that poses a significantly higher than normal risk to people, you'll just have to give way. Plan for it before that day arrives.

For no justifiable reason, I think the appropriate age is around 80, but I could be talked down to 75 rather easily.

75 is the age at which I tend to think I'll give up driving. That's not set in cement, but I promise you this: I won't drive past age 80.

I *really* would like your positions on this, with the reasons for the positions.

George Will: "Yet Steve Rattner and Ron Bloom, two of the president's fixers of Detroit, recently wrote in USA Today that government 'will play no role' in running GM. They were not under oath."

How have we reached the point where so many people have so little perspective?

Today's news brings the case of a senior class prank at a Pennsylvania high school. Seventeen boys scaled a high school building at night and slept in tents and sleeping bags in a "secure" courtyard.

That's it. That. Is. It.

Nothing stolen, nothing damaged, nothing needing cleanup, this was a prank less harmful than painting "Kilroy was here" on a door or wall.

But the school district has contacted police and requested that trespassing charges be filed, and is contemplating disciplinary action of its own.

And that's not the end of it. Another student, not involved in the prank itself, sent an email to the local newspaper, reporting the incident and expressing the opinion that the educational authorities are overreacting. Now that student too faces possible disciplinary action.

Why have the people of Allentown put authoritarian thugs in charge of their childrens' education?

The thing is, it's not an isolated incident. This sort of overreaction and maladministration pops up in the news from time to time.

A few years ago I lived in Virginia, so I imagine that the next couple of incidents reported here occurred there or in Maryland, or possibly D.C.

• Riding a school bus, a grammar school girl saw that another girl was having trouble breathing, to the extent that she had started turning blue. Our heroine got out her inhaler and got her friend to use it, solving the problem (in the short term, at least). School officials announced that the inhaler's owner would be disciplined. I don't recall the exact offense cited, but it was conceptually equivalent to practicing medicine without a license. For Christ's sake, in an emergency she saved her friend's life.
  
  
• Another grammar school girl grabbed the wrong brown paper lunch bag one morning, taking the lunch intended for her mom and leaving her own behind. On opening it at lunch time, she discovered a bottle of aspirin and realized what had happened. She reported the situation to her teacher, and the next thing you know she was being disciplined for bringing an "unauthorized substance" to school.
  
  So this little girl, who did the right thing, now had an incident report in her school record that made her look like a druggie.
  
  The father tried to reason with the school, got nowhere, and had to hire a lawyer to get it removed from her school record.

Really, what is wrong with these people?

THE ANOINTED ONE'S FOURTH MONTH IN OFFICE

1. Seemingly unimportant, but by far the most important item this month: For those of you too blind, too unaware, or too unwilling to recognize the Ominipotent One's desire to control everything in sight, take note of the fact that his administration has slashed the advertising budget in half for a Chrysler nine week advertising campaign.
   
   That's right, the Administration that cannot recall whether its leader has *two* hands or *three* has staked out the position that it knows better than the automobile industry how much money should be spent on advertising automobiles.
   
   
2. The Popular One:
   • Bad news - after his first one hundred days in office his adoration level had dropped by 27 points (Rasmussen).
     
   • Good news - It did rebound 3 points the following week.
     
   • Bad news - By more than three to one (64% to 21%), Americans think it is time for Obama to stop blaming Bush and start taking responsibility.
   
   
3. The Thrifty One proudly announced that he had instructed his Cabinet Secretaries to find $100 million in cuts over the next ninety days. To put this in perspective, it is 1/10,000 of a trillion dollars, which is less than his budget proposal.
   
   So if your living expenses were $40,000 a year and you wanted to make a comparable cut, you'd have to find a way to save $4.00.
   
   
4. Abandoning his pre-election pledge to "move forward" rather than look back, The Partisan One floated the possibility of prosecuting the legal advisors of the Justice Department, long gone from government, for the advice they gave regarding interrogation techniques at Gitmo.
   
   But he'd better be careful, you betchum, Red Ryder. A lot of people knew about all this *before* it happened and *while* it was happening, and that includes Democrats, particularly in Congress.
   
   
5. The Supreme Socialist of the US floated another idea, too, the idea of converting the preferred stock the US holds in banks and financial institutions to common stock. For those who don't know, the essential point here is that common stock can be voted, and this would make the US government the majority stockholder in a number of large companies. He who has the gold, rules.
   
   
6. The Cabinet Maker learned that Janet Napolitano, the woman he appointed head of Homeland Security, although she spent sixteen years "enforcing" the law along our southwest border, doesn't know that illegal immigration is . . . well, illegal.
   
   She was a busy girl, blundering as fast as she could move her lips, revealing that she believed some of the 9/11 terrorists had entered the US through Canada (none did), and *days* after releasing a report expressing concerns about returning combat veterans becoming terrorists, announcing that the report was issued "prematurely," blaming that on an analyst.
   
   Right. A lower level analyst released a report on behalf of Homeland Security without clearing it with his bosses. Who wouldn't believe that?
   
   
7. Having pledged to eliminate government programs that "don't work," and apparently unable to find any, the Efficient One killed one tiny program, a $15 million program, a program that *did* work in its tiny way, one that allowed seventeen hundred black and Hispanic schoolchildren in Washington, D.C. to flee public schools and actually get an education at private schools.
   
   You will be happy to know that Obama's children are unaffected by the cut.
   
   
8. The Surprised One found himself confronted with a World Health Organization warning that the latest outbreak of flu has the potential to become a pandemic. Somehow, this flu gathered up the nerve to rear its ugly head at a time when Obama *still* has not chosen anyone for the position of Surgeon General, and the Food and Drug Administration awaits a leader.
   
   
9. President Transparency - I: Remember the jet cruise over New York City, the one that had some New Yorkers panicked? Well, that was explained as intended to provide new pictures for the Air Force One photo portfolio. Now, however, the White House says those photos will not be made public.
   
   We paid more than $300,000 for those photos and we don't even get to see them?
   
   Best observation was made as a comment on a news item about it, speculating that perhaps all those people running for their lives spoiled the pictures.
   
   Update: Fifteen days later, one - count 'em, one - picture has been released.
   
   But this photo is so obviously the result of the efforts of an amateur photographer - probably taken as a souvenir from the cockpit of the accompanying jet fighter - that there is reflective glare in two spots. It is *not* the $300,000.00 result of professional photographers.
   
   Want to know what this picture *really* shows? Put it together with the claim that the Chirac letter was intentional - that our President really intends to work "to build a safer world" with the head of an organization that studies dead Polynesian languages, and with the alibi that Obama did not bow but bent over to use *both* his hands to grasp the hand of the King of Saudi Arabia - while news video shows that his left hand remained at his side, and what you get is proof that the Inexperienced One's cover-up staff is every bit as inept as the President himself.
   
   
10. President Transparency - II: Remember the promise of public accounting for "every dime" of the $787,000,000,000 "stimulus" package? Well, the Transparent One's pick for head of the "Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board" says, "Mmmmaybe in October." It's quite a challenge and he doesn't have enough resources. For example, "not enough storage."
    
    Whaaaat? My little $500 emachine came with a hard drive with a hundred billion bytes. That's 100,000,000,000 bytes. What are they storing their data on, an abacus?
    
    By the way, that name? That "Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board?" Well, it's a close cousin to the names of various countries first subjugated and then renamed by Communists around the world. When you see that the name of a country begins with "The People's Democratic Republic," that's a dead giveaway that it isn't.
    
    
11. President Transparency - III: Remember his "sunlight before signing" pldege? The promise to post legislation on the White House site five days before signing it?
    
    The One True Sunbeam does not remember, apparently. Not one of the eleven major bills he has signed were posted for five days before the signing, and five of them were never posted at all.
    
    In the case of the stimulus package, *we* didn't get to read it and the Senators and Representative who had to vote on it didn't get to read it, but I guess that's OK, as the Detail Oriented One didn't bother to read it either.
    
    
12. President Smoke and Mirrors proposed to save $17 billion by eliminating or cutting 121 programs. Almost under his breath he proposed an $81 billion increase in spending.
    
    For those of you who still have your blinders on, here's where this will wind up:
    1. The 121 programs will remain intact.
    2. He will spend the $81 billion.
    3. He will raise taxes. Yes, even on most of the "95%" to whom he promised a tax cut.

Neither.

Opportunist.

THE ANOINTED ONE'S THIRD MONTH IN OFFICE

1. Expressing the sentiment ""I am certain that we will be able to work together, in the coming four years, in a spirit of peace and friendship to build a safer world," he sent a nice letter to the wrong President of France.
   
   The letter was sent to former President Jacques Chirac instead of current President Nicolas Sarkozy, who replaced Chirac nearly two years ago.
   
   
2. Then . . . and then . . . he sent the same letter, word for word (allowing for translation to Italian) to the wrong Italian leader. He sent it to Italy's President, Giorgio Napolitano, instead of to Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who is the chief Executive and who effectively runs Italy's government.
   
   You can't make this stuff up.
   
   
3. After trashing Bush for "taking his eye off the ball" and declaring that we could not "afford to lose" in Afghanistan, and after saying how essential it is that we convince Afghanistan and Pakistan that we are a "reliable long term partner," the Prez announced on 60 Minutes that we "must look for a way out of the war" and that "There's got to be an exit strategy."
   
   
4. DIRECTOR OF RECOVERY: "I am designating a new Director of Recovery for Auto Communities and Workers to cut through red tape and ensure that the full resources of our federal government are leveraged to assist the workers, communities, and regions that rely on our auto industry."
   
   With the "full resources of our federal government" *helping* the auto industry, which do you think will happen?
   
   1. The industry will become more efficient, or
   2. The American auto industry will be screwed.
   
   Need a clue? The new General Motors Chairman Prez forced GM's CEO Rick Wagoner to resign because among other reasons he was responsible for having GM focus on trucks and SUV's, and not hybrids.
   
   Here's a gee whiz number for you: the hybrid market share of new vehicles sold is just over two percent.
   
   With that kind of consumer interest, any CEO who turned GM's emphasis to the hybrid market would have been fired by GM's board of directors long before Obama got to him.
   
   Now billions of your tax dollars will be spent redirecting GM's energies toward hybrids.
   
   
5. Obama watched yet another cabinet nominee confess to tax "problems." This one was Kathleen Sebelius, tapped to replace the tax dodging Tom Daschle as the nominee for Secretary of HHS. Frankly, the identified problems appear minor and forgivable to me, but wouldn't you think that after setting an all time record for tax-plagued nominees, the White House would be a little more sensitive in vetting candidates?
   
   This has created the rumor that the IRS has a new policy regarding late returns: It used to be that if April 15th was a Sunday then you could wait until Monday to mail your return. Now you don't have to file until you've been nominated for a Cabinet position.
   
   
6. Abandoning "bipartisanship" and his "new politics," in a discussion of who supported and who opposed various Obama measures, the Bipartison One told the House Democratic Caucus "Don't think we're not keeping score."
   
   
7. The Generous One conferred on Austria a language all its own: Austrian. The exact quote: "I don't know what the term is in Austrian."
   
   
8. Hours after North Korea launched its missile and demonstrated the futility of two decades of "dialogue" and UN resolutions against it, The Resolute One called for yet another tiresome UN resolution against North Korea, saying "Rules must be binding." And what, exactly, will make those rules binding on North Korea, Barry Boy? But no matter - his solution of choice failed miserably, with the UN Security Council passing no resolutions on the matter, adding no sanctions, not even saying "Naughty boy."
   
   
9. The Uninformed One became the first President in the history of this republic to bow to a foreign leader - the King of Saudi Arabia. It is absolutely astonishing how little this man knows.
   
   The White House did try to claim no bow, that Obama was so much taller than the King that Obama bent over, using both hands to clasp the King's. Alas, news videos show that Obama's left hand is hanging by his leg during the bow. Perhaps they meant to say that he used two of his three hands.
   
   
10. And he threw the United States under the bus, with Clintonesque apologies for our existence, slashing the missile defense budget - including the defense that would keep Hawaii and Alaska safe from the missiles that North Korea has now demonstrated could hit them.
    
    
11. "Restoring" our position in the world, undermined by the evil Bush administration, Obama was somewhat less than spectacular with President Sarkoczy and France.
    
    "It was rhetoric – not a speech on American security policy but an export model aimed at improving the image of the United States," said a subsequent report by Sarkoczy's diplomatic staff. Most of Obama's proposals had already been made by the Bush administration and Washington was dragging its feet on disarmament and treaties against nuclear proliferation, the report said.
    
    All in all, his European visit was an unmitigated disaster for this country.
    
    
12. The Sensitive One showed his solidarity with the working class in this time of economic woe by flying a cook in from St. Louis (860 miles) to prepare pizza for the Obamas and their staffs.
    
    
13. The Unicorn repeated last month's lie about having found two trillion dollars to cut from the budget, 1.6 trillion of it being conjured up by "not budgeting" for the surge in Iraq for the next ten years.
    
    You remember the surge, right? The one he said wouldn't work - then when it worked he said it "worked in ways we didn't anticipate?" Right, that one. Well, it's over, right? But the Frugal One is going to "save" 1.6 trillion dollars by not budgeting for ten more years of it.
    
    You watch. His nose is gonna grow.
    
    
14. Apparently missing his spiritual mentor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, and his "Goddamn America" sermons (I'm sure they grow on you over a twenty year period), the Spiritual One listened to fifty more minutes of "Goddamn America" in a speech by Venezuala's Hugo Chavez, then played kissy face with him.
    
    
15. Having been given the cold shoulder by US Marines at Camp Lejeune, and wishing (naturally enough) to avoid a repeat in Iraq, the Idolized One staged a warm reception there. Military personnel to meet him were selected entirely on the basis of whether they had voted for him, thus ensuring a photo that the White House could claim demonstrated the enthusiasm of "the troops" for his royal presence.
    
    

His first hundred days, the so-called honeymoon period, is over in ten days, and he will have broken more promises, told more lies, and committed more protocol gaffes during his first hundred days than any President in my lifetime, which began under FDR.