State of the Union's Laundry List

I didn't watch President Barack Obama's State of the Union address last night. Haven't read the transcript either, and don't plan to. Didn't take in either of the responses by Senators Marco Rubio and Rand Paul, either. For the record, and in interests of full disclosure, if Mitt Romney had won the presidency last November, I probably wouldn't have watched regardless. What's the point? Was the "state of the union" really given last night, or did we just get another litany of governmental expansion wishes and executive lecture to the Congress and assembled others?

As Ed Morrissey wrote this morning at Hot Air ("The laundry list event"):

No, the problem with this and nearly every SOTU is that it reads like Congress is Santa Claus, the President is the greedy kid, and all the rest of us are the elves in the workshop.  Almost without exception for every President in memory, the SOTU is a dressed-up version of a campaign platform filled with “I wants” and “you’d better bring mes,”  interrupted only by mindless applause and standing ovations for the most mundane of rhetoric.  That didn’t start with Obama (we should only have been so lucky!) and it won’t end with him either.  The result is a themeless, pointless, and unmemorable ramble through the arcane fighting points of the day, and no coherence whatsoever other than “gimme.”

Seriously, if I wanted to watch things running around in circles, being preened, and soaking up adoring applause as politicians are so apt to do - rather than actually accomplishing anything - there was a much better option for that last night! (Actually, I watched the Monday part of that off the DVR, last night will be watched tonight).

Back last September on the day President Obama addressed the United Nations, I wrote up the speech I'd give were I the President of the United States standing before that body. So, in that spirit, here's the address given by a hypothetical President Allan Bourdius, newly elected last November, on February 12, 2013 to a joint session of Congress.

Running on the Third Rail

It is past time conservatives start running their campaigns with a "third rail" issue - the supposed politically untouchable - as a centerpiece. We're all fully knowledgeable that government spending is fraught with waste, fraud, and abuse. Our spending levels on government programs that are nothing but wealth redistribution whose costs far outweigh the value received and are completely unsustainable as we saddle future generations with more and more debt.

"Wait!", I hear you say, "Aren't conservatives already fully on board with entitlement spending reform?" Of course they are, for the most part. That isn't what I'm talking about. I'm talking about defense spending.

That's right, defense spending. If conservatives are going to truly and honestly stand for fiscal sanity and to win spending arguments in the future, fiscal policy proposals and narratives are going to have to include not just touching a third-rail of conservatism, but seizing it enthusiastically.

Our nation deserves it, our children who are being saddled with more and more debt deserve it, and most importantly, the brave men and women who wear the uniform of our Armed Services deserve the best of each and every dollar we give them to defend us with.

So much for the buck stopping...

President Barack Obama's "gutsy call" in ordering the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden appears to not have been so gutsy. Furthermore, special operations veterans - Navy SEALs in particular - are criticizing the President for making their courage a political point-scorer.

The now infamous memo - clearly a CYA request from the White House to the CIA and the special operations forces who carried out the attack - shows a complete failure of leadership on the part of the New Soviet Man. Consider:

The Real Jason Altmire

Rep. Jason Altmire (D-PA-04) is my representative and is considered a "Blue Dog" or "moderate" Democrat. President Obama is in Pittsburgh today to preach his New Soviet Man Five-Year Plan. Mr. Altmire was there to gleefully welcome the President at the airport (pic linked from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette):

Mr. Altmire is third from the left. Remember that grin when he tries to run against much of Obama's agenda as a "moderate" next year.

Solyndra Cronyism in Plain Sight?

I've been following the coverage of the Solyndra scandal, particularly from Michelle Malkin and HotAir. I'd like to make one observation of the Obama administration's corrupt entanglement with this "green jobs" and taxpayer-dollar sinkhole that I don't believe I've seen anywhere else.

There have been brief mentions of Solyndra's products during the firestorm over the bankruptcy, FBI raids, and ensuing investigations. One thing that I thought I had heard about their solar cells sparked a memory of Obama regime past, so today I took a look at Solyndra's website, which is still up, to see if my recollections were correct. Turns out, they were.

The W. Mark Felt of the 21st Century

Anybody who follows political news will understand the Felt reference.

I first got pointed at the "White House Insider" (WHI, henceforth) blog series on a link from Mark Levin.

Check out the history of the material provided by this intriguing source. Then, read the latest report - the first since the election last Tuesday.

Couple the WHI with this report found on Politico dated today, and a rather bleak - no, make that frightening - picture of the occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is produced.

Some of it almost makes one start thinking about Amendment XXV....almost.

Another great one from PJTV

Again, thanks to Pajamas Media:

The Power and Danger of Iconography

With thanks to Pajamas Media:

"The Obama Card"

New video, courtesy of the Republican National Committee's YouTube Channel:

"I'd like a book on chutzpah, and I want you to pay for it."

This post's title is a caption from a Charles Addams cartoon published many years ago. I was remined of it because today, our President, New Soviet Man Barack Obama, had this to say at a town hall meeting in New Mexico:

May 14 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama, calling current deficit spending “unsustainable,” warned of skyrocketing interest rates for consumers if the U.S. continues to finance government by borrowing from other countries.

“We can’t keep on just borrowing from China,” Obama said at a town-hall meeting in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, outside Albuquerque. “We have to pay interest on that debt, and that means we are mortgaging our children’s future with more and more debt.”

Can you believe this guy? This is the President who has proposed unheard of levels of deficit spending and wants to dump our Nation into more debt than his 43 predecessors in the office - combined, and today, he now thinks it's "unsustainable"?

I continue to be amazed at the absolute gall of this man. Even if he confiscated 100% of the wages earned by Americans as taxes he couldn't finance all of his pipe-dream socialist tyrrany without borrowing more, and more, and more.

If I had the chance to talk to Mr. Obama today, I think I'd simply say: "Hello pot, let me introduce you to kettle."

The Lawless President

This column from today's The Wall Street Journal, "Chrysler and the Rule of Law" by Todd J. Zywicki, is an alarming summary of the complete disregard for our Constitution and the laws enacted under it by our President, New Soviet Man Barack Obama.

Professor Zywicki sets the stage:

Fleecing lenders to pay off politically powerful interests, or governmental
threats to reputation and business from a failure to toe a political line? We
might expect this behavior from a Hugo Chavez. But it would never happen here,
right?

Until Chrysler.

A recitation of the facts surrounding President Obama's strong-arm of the Chrysler bankruptcy and the relevant Constitutional and legal provisions follows. He succintly points out that Chrysler's secured creditors are being shafted in favor of the United Auto Workers - not conicidentally one of Mr. Obama's favored constituency groups. He continues:

By stepping over the bright line beween the rule of law and the arbitrary
behavior of men, President Obama may have created a thousand new failing
businesses. That is, businesses thay might have received financing before but
that now will not, since lenders face the potential of future government
confiscation. In other words, Mr. Obama may have helped save the jobs of
thousands of union workers whose dues, in part, engineered his election. But
what about the untold number of job losses in the future caused by trampling the
sanctity of contracts today?

The value of the rule of law is not merely a matter of economic efficiency.
It also provides a bulwark against arbitrary governmental action taken at the
behest of politically influential interests at the expense of the politically
unpopular...

And what if the next time it is a politically unpopular business...that's on
the brink? Might the government force it to surrender a patent to get the White
House's agreement to get financing for the bankruptcy plan?

A dire, dangerous question indeed. In fact, it echoes of Ayn Rand's "Directive 10-289".

At this time, I'd like to call Mr. Obama's attention to the text of Article II, Section 3 of the United States Constitution:

"He shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed."

I made the assertion around Election Day that if - and as it has turned out to be - when Barack Obama took the Oath of Office, the entire statement would be a lie.

Sadly, tragically, I was right.

Pray for our Nation.

(Hat tip: Drudge)

Look who's on our side!

Children of the Cold War will remember Pravda, the Soviet Union's mouthpiece. From those days, "Pravda" ironically is the Russian word for "truth". Pravda ceased publication in 1991.

Well, the Internet remnant of what was Pravda has better insights into the destruction of American economy and society by the Obama Administration and our Congress then our own media: "American capitalism gone with a wimper"

Ironic again, that now we get the truth from Pravda and not our own media isn't it?

Hat tip: Quinn & Rose

Complete disregard for National Security

By now, I'm sure you've seen the reports on President Obama and Vice President Biden's lunch outing to Ray's Hell Burger in Arlington, VA.

Contrived political opportunism? Of course. All politicians do that - and generally I don't criticize them for it - when they want to appear in tune with the "common man". Unless of course, the politician is a real common (wo)man (Sarah Palin, 2007 AGI of $166,080 with husband Todd), in which case they're simply a target for ridicule and destruction.

No, where I take offense to the New Soviet Man's lunch with his Plagiarist Veep is the fact that they were both in the same public place at the same time. Planned or not, unannounced or not, this showed callous disregard for security, safety, and continuity of the United States Government.

Let me be absolutely clear on one point: I am not a supporter of the Obama Administration - I hope they and their policies fail miserably - but at the same time I do not want to see any physical harm or even the risk thereof come to President Obama or Vice President Biden.

It is unconscionably reckless for the two of them to have been at the same place like that, especially in a post-9/11 world. This wasn't the White House, the Capitol Building (i.e. State of the Union Address), a military base, or some other controlled, secure environment - it was a burger joint.

Here's a scary way to look at it: at lunch time today, the United States of America was one hand grenade away from...President Pelosi.

And the Left wonders why we believe Barack Obama isn't serious about National Security...

An Obama reality check?

Candidate Obama railed repeatedly on the Bush policies that established Guantanamo and Military commissions to try our terrorist enemies for their crimes. Now, President Obama has examined all of his rhetoric and found that...Bush was right?

Who'd have ever thought that Barack Obama's beliefs had absolutely no relationship to the realities of the world? I'm shocked, shocked I say!

All will be well...

...since President Obama will fix all of our current economic woes by shoving the problems to the future and has predicted the future by telling the world when the next terrorist offensive will begin (after all, he has told us when we're withdrawing, and the enemy heard that too), and now thanks to Mrs. Obama, American women are inspired to tone up their flabby arm muscles.

Oh! What would we do without them? There would be no hope in the world, that's for sure.

The cult of personality surrounding these two is disgusting.

"Obama's Revenge"

A great column by Joan Swirsky of the Canada Free Press on our 44th President.

Hat tip: Quinn & Rose

Mark the Date

Why? Because I'm going to say that President-elect Barack Obama has done the right thing. What did he do? Decide to keep Secretary of Defense Robert Gates in his post.

A quick survey of lefty blogs indicates that the Obamatons are not pleased. Good.

Oh, whatever will become of the Obamatons?

Speaks for itself...thanks to The Onion

Attention UMWA Members: Barack Obama is NOT your ally

Forget the Mine Workers, the New Soviet Man is not a friend of the United States.

From the great folks at HotAir: a rundown of how Barack Obama wants to bankrupt (Barack Obama's own words!) the coal industry and energy industries that utilize coal. (Earlier article from HotAir also)

Our economy can not expand and flourish - much less survive - without cheap, accessible sources of energy. We need all energy sources to be developed: coal, nuclear, natural gas, geothermal, solar, wind, etc. - all of them.

A direct quote from Barack Obama: Under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.

Look at your electric bill. Now, imagine it with charges that are double, triple, or quadruple. Are you looking forward to that? What will you have to give up if your electric bill is that large? Think about it long and hard, because that is the America that Barack Obama wants. He wants an energy-starved America that can not meet the basic needs of its own citizens.

Should the American people be hoodwinked and elect this man tomorrow, the end of the United States of America's prominence will assuredly follow.

I am convinced that Barack Obama is bent on the destruction of the United States, the ruination of our economy, the subversion of our Constitution, and is anathema to every value that this great Nation has stood for over the last 232 years.

Assignment for the day - Common Sense

Thomas Paine's words contained in Common Sense of January 10, 1776 are just as applicable today as they were then. Simply substitue "Congress" or "Democrats" for "Parliament" and "Barack Obama" for "King" and you'll see what I mean. For example:

But as the same constitution which gives the commons a power to check the
king by withholding the supplies, gives afterwards the king a power to check the
commons, by empowering him to reject their other bills; it again supposes that
the king is wiser than those whom it has already supposed to be wiser than him.
A mere absurdity!

Yup, that fits the New Soviet Man's "negative liberties" belief system to a "T".

Read the whole thing.