Patum Peperium

Happy New Year!

 

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Have fun tonight for tomorrow we begin the impeachment process. And you boys and girls --literally-- in the White House think we jest...

 

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Merry Christmas

 

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Christmas, the Good Life way.

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Madame's Nightshirt

Mrs. Peperium

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Liar, liar, health care on fire.

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Madame's Nightishirt

Mrs. Peperium

 

 

The 3 key phrases:

President: "George, you can't just make up that language and decide that's called a tax increase."

Stephanopoulos: "So you reject the notion that it's a tax increase?"

President: "I absolutely reject that notion,"

 

How Obama and his lawyers later made up language and decided it's called a tax increase. From the WaPo:

 

It is hard to have much sympathy for the administration's alternative argument: that the mandate is justified under the congressional power to levy taxes because the penalty for noncompliance is levied on income taxes and administered by the Internal Revenue Service. Administration officials, including President Obama, initially denied that the mandate constituted a tax, and the individual mandate section of the law was changed to use the word "penalty."

From Mark Levin:

 

Today Federal District Judge Henry Hudson ruled against the Obama Administration on three essential points involving Obamacare:

1. Individuals who do not actively participate in commerce -- that is, who do not voluntarily purchase health insurance --  cannot be said to be participating in commerce under the United States Constitution's Commerce Clause, and there is no Supreme Court precedent providing otherwise;

2. The Necessary and Proper Clause of the Constitution cannot be used as a backdoor means to enforce a statute that is not otherwise constitutional under Congress's enumerated powers;

and 3. There is a difference between a tax and a penalty, there is much Supreme Court precedent in this regard, and the penalty provision in Obamacare is not a tax but a penalty and, therefore, is unconstitutional for it is applied to individuals who choose not to purchase health care.
 
Judge Hudson's ruling against the Obama Administration and for the Commonwealth of Virginia gives hope that the rule of law and the Constitution itself still having meaning.

 

 

Had health care

been framed as a tax increase,

it never would have passed Congress.

If you think I'm wrong,

why did Obama extend the hated

Bush tax cuts?

And why did the Democrats

vote to extend them?

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Justice Elena Kagan-style denied

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Madame's Nightshirt

Mrs. Peperium

 

This one if it were not so serious would be fun as it shows what a perfect judicial hack the perfectly brilliant Justice Kagan is. Warning it's long but so worth it.

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 Transcript via Politico:

Coburn: If I wanted to sponsor a bill and it said Americans you have to eat three vegetables and three fruits every day and I got it through Congress and that’s now the law of the land, got to do it, does that violate the Commerce Clause?

Kagan: Sounds like a dumb law

Coburn: Yeah, but I got one that’s real similar to it that I think is equally dumb. I’m not going to mention which it is.  [Obamacare]

Kagan: But I think that the question of whether it’s a dumb law is different from whether the question of whether it’s constitutional and I think that courts would be wrong to strike down laws that they think are senseless just because they’re senseless.

Coburn: I guess the question I’m asking you is do we have the power to tell people what they have to eat every day.

Kagan: Sen. Coburn….

Coburn: I mean what is the extent of the Commerce Clause? We have this wide embrace of the Commerce Clause, which these guys, who wrote this [holds up bound copy of Federalist Papers] never, ever fathomed that we would be so stupid to take our liberties away by expanding the Commerce Clause this way.

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Coburn: I go back to my original question to you: is it within the Constitution for me to write a bill having been duly elected by the people of Oklahoma to say and get it signed by the president that you have to eat three fruits and three vegetables every day.

Kagan: First let me say about the federalist papers quote that you read that it is absolutely the case that the judiciary’s job is to you know in Marbury v. Madison the famous phrase to say what the law is and to make sure I think I’ve talked about it as policing the constitutional boundaries making sure the Congress doesn’t go further than the Constitution says it can go, doesn’t violate individual rights and also doesn’t act outside its enumerated authorities. We live in a government in which Congress’s authorities are enumerated in Article I of the Constitution and Congress can’t act except under one of those heads of authority. Now as I talked about with Sen. Cornyn the Commerce Clause has been interpreted broadly it’s been interpreted to apply to regulation of any instruments or instrumentalities or channels of commerce, but it’s also been applied to anything that would substantially affect interstate commerce. It has not been applied to non-economic activities and that’s the teaching of Lopez and Morrison that the Congress can’t regulate non-economic activities, especially to the extent that those activities have traditionally been regulated by the states and I think that that would be the question that the court would ask with respect to any case of this kind. But I do want to sort of say again that we can come up with sort of you know just ridiculous-sounding laws and the principal protector against bad laws is the political branches themselves. And I would go back I think to Oliver Wendell Holmes on this. He was this judge who lived in the early 20th Century— hated a lot of the legislation that was being enacted during those years but insisted that if the people wanted it, it was their right to go hang themselves. Now, that‘s not always the case but there is substantial deference due to political branches—

[The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey 12/13/10 shows that 60% of Likely U.S. Voters at least somewhat favor repeal of the health care law while 34% are opposed.] 

Coburn: I’m running out of time. I want to give you another condition: what if I said that if eating three fruits and three vegetables would cut health care costs 20%? Now, we’re into commerce. And since the government pays 65% of all the health care costs why isn’t that constitutional?

Kagan: Sen. Coburn, I feel as though the principles that I’ve given you are the principles that the court should apply…

Coburn: I have a little problem with that. If we’re going to hand ourselves and as our founders, three of the critical authors of our Constitution thought the judiciary had a reason to smack us down, and as Oliver Wendell Holmes—if we wanted to be doing stupid stuff we can do stupid stuff—I disagree. And that’s not activism. That’s looking at the Constitution and saying well we’re going to ignore it even if it does expand the Commerce Clause because the Commerce Clause is what has gotten us into a place where we have a $1.6 trillion deficit that our kids’ future has been mortgaged that we may never recover from. That’s not an understatement at all. In 25 years, each of our kids are going to owe $1,113,000 they pay interest on that before they do anything for themselves or their kids. So, the fact is that we have this expansive clause and we have to have some limit on it and if the courts aren’t going to limit it within the original intent, instead of continuing to rely on precedent and this vast expansion of it, the only hope is—is that we have to throw out most of the Congress. But the point is that their original intent is that you wouldn’t ignore their original intent. What we find ourselves today on the Commerce Clause is through a period of precedent-setting decisions we have allowed the federal government to become something that it was never entitled to become. And with that a diminishment of the liberties of the people of this country both financially and in terms of their own liberty.

Kagan: Well, Sen. Coburn, I guess a few points. The first: I think there are limits on the Commerce Clause, which are the ones that are articulated by the Court that were articulated by the Court in Morrison and in Lopez. Which are primarily about non-economic activity and Congress not being able to regulate non-economic activity. I guess the second point I would make is I do think that very early in our history and especially I would look to Gibbons v. Ogden, where Chief Justice Marshall did, in the first case about these issues, essentially read that clause broadly and provide real deference to legislatures and provide real deference to Congress about the scope of that clause, not that that clause doesn’t have any limits, but that deference should be provided to Congress with respect to matters that affect interstate commerce. And I guess the third point is just to say that I think that $1.6 trillion deficit may be an enormous problem—it may be an enormous problem. But I don’t think it’s a problem for courts to solve. I think it’s a problem for the political process to solve.

Coburn: You missed my whole point...

 

Kagan used Gibbons v. Ogden to make her half-point that the court  is to yield to Congress for dumb laws as long as the people want the dumb laws. Here's a summary of G.v.O from Britannica : 

U.S. Supreme Court decision (1824) that established that states could not, by legislative enactment, interfere with the power of Congress to regulate interstate commerce. The state of New York had authorized a monopoly on steamboat operation in its waters, an action upheld by a state chancery court, but the Supreme Court ruled that competing steamboat operators were protected by the terms of a federal license to engage in trade along a coast. The decision, an important development in the interpretation of the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution, freed all navigation from monopoly control. [giant snip] Marshall spoke for the entire Court, except William Johnson, who filed a concurring opinion. Marshall plainly preferred the exclusive option. He defined commerce expansively, far beyond mere exchange of goods, to include persons and new subjects such as the steamboat. Nevertheless, he held back from deciding the case on exclusivity grounds, probably because of the possible impact such a broad reading of federal power might have on slaveholding states, nervous as they were about federal authority (see Slavery). But Justice Johnson, a South Carolinian who was a fervent nationalist on this question, adopted that option. In the actual holding, Marshall construed Gibbons's federal license to nullify the New York grant of monopoly. He saw a conflict of congressional and state statutes, thus selecting the narrowest strategy and postponing a more comprehensive ruling.  

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Earlier this week a crucial ruling came on the dumb law Senator Coburn was too polite to mention. Oh and it's a dumb law the people don't want. The ruling was a narrow one regarding Obamacare's individual mandate and the ruling declared the mandate of unconstitutional.  Liberals have consoled themselves, stupidly, by saying this is just a Republican appointed judge so the ruling doesn't really count. Yes it does as it basically kills the dumb law because the mandate is according to the dumb law's legal defenders "the lynchpin" of the law. Recalling Justice Kagan's use of Chief Justice Marshall's use of Gibbons v. Ogden to make her half-point that the court to yield to Congress for dumb laws as long as the people want the dumb laws - pay close attention to the critical use by Judge Henry E. Hudson of another of one of Chief Justice Marshall's rulings; McCulloch v. Maryland: 

University of Illinois law professor Kurt Lash via Volokh:

Critics of Judge Henry E. Hudson’s decision invalidating the health insurance mandate have accused him of failing to consider the independent effect of the Necessary and Proper Clause. The criticism is based on a single passage in which Judge Hudson states that the same reasons that render the insurance mandate beyond Congress’s Commerce powers also place it beyond the reach of the Necessary and Proper Clause. When this particular passage is viewed in the context of his larger argument, however, it is clear that Judge Hudson did not ignore the Clause or dismiss the concept of implied congressional power. Instead, he simply noted that assertions of unlimited federal power are invalid under either the Commerce Power or the Necessary and Proper Clause.

Here is the criticized passage:

“Because an individual’s personal decision to purchase–or decline to purchase–health insurance from a private provider is beyond the historical reach of the Commerce Clause, the Necessary and Proper Clause does not provide a safe sanctuary. This clause grants Congress broad authority to pass laws in furtherance of its constitutionally-enumerated powers. This authority may only be constitutionally deployed when tethered to a lawful exercise of an enumerated power. As Chief Justice Marshall noted in McCulloch, it must be within ‘the letter and spirit of the constitution.’ The Minimum Essential Coverage Provision is neither within the letter nor the spirit of the Constitution. Therefore, the Necessary and Proper Clause may not be employed to implement this affirmative duty to engage in private commerce.”

If viewed alone, this passage could be read to suggest that the Necessary and Proper Clause adds nothing to those powers expressly granted in the Constitution. This, in turn, seems to violate the standard understanding of implied federal power contained in canonical decisions like McCulloch v. Maryland. In McCulloch, Chief Justice John Marshall defended the doctrine of implied authority to use whatever means are necessary and proper to advance an enumerated end. Thus, even if one concludes that Congress has no express authority to take a particular action, it remains a separate question whether its action can be justified as an implied power under the Necessary and Proper Clause.

A closer look at Judge Hudson’s opinion, however, shows that he did not conflate the concepts of express and implied powers, nor did he deny the concept of implied federal power under the Necessary and Proper Clause. In fact, Judge Hudson clearly embraced the standard understanding of the Clause. According to Hudson, “[a]lthough the Necessary and Proper Clause vests Congress with broad authority to exercise means, which are not themselves an enumerated power, to implement legislation, it is not without limitation.”

This is a key assertion in Hudson’s opinion—one that he makes in regard to both the Commerce Clause and the Necessary and Proper Clause. If upholding the individual insurance mandate required an interpretation of federal power that removed all serious limits on federal authority, then such an interpretation could not be correct under a Constitution of limited federal power. According to Hudson, “the same reasoning,” which supported the mandate “could apply to transportation, housing, or nutritional decisions. This broad definition of the economic activity subject to congressional regulation lacks logical limitation.” Any interpretation of federal power that has no logical limit cannot be correct, regardless of the textual source of such power. As Hudson puts it, [the Necessary and Proper Clause] is not unbridled.” In support of this standard reading of the Clause, Judge Hudson quotes John Marshall's declaration in McCulloch that all claims of federal power must fall within the letter and spirit of the constitution." According to Hudson, claims of unlimited power cannot fall within the document’s “letter and spirit,” whether by way of the Commerce Clause or by way of the Necessary and Proper Clause.

In short, Judge Hudson did not ignore the Necessary and Proper Clause, nor did he reduce the Clause to a nullity. He simply concluded that assertions of unlimited power fall beyond any reasonable interpretation of congressional power, whatever its purported source.  

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Now an interview with the man who argued the case against Obamacare and a real rising Republican star, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli:

"This whole case is going to come down to the individual mandate and whether or not Congress has the power to order us to all buy a product. Realize this isn’t just about health insurance and healthcare, it’s about liberty. Because if they can order us to buy health insurance, they can order us to buy cars, they can order us to buy books, they can order us to buy guns or asparagus.

 

When this case reaches the Supreme Court it will be interesting to see if Justice Kagan recuses herself. If she doesn't, and citing the 8-0 ruling in the Solomon case, expect the final ruling on Obamacare's mandate being unconstitutional 6-2, Kagan&Sotomayer. 

 

 

What does a social disaster sound like?

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Madame's Nightshirt

Mrs. Peperium

 

Two weeks after accusations were made in the Duke Lacrosse Rape case, 88 Duke professors discovering they finally had a case that fit their lens on life placed a full page ad in a local paper headed "What Does A Social Disaster Sound Like? Not being seasoned ad professionals but seasoned campus radicals the gang of 88 did what no ad professional would've done : They rushed to judgement by convicting in print not only the accused students of the crime but the rest of the student body of similar crimes. The ad had the effect of poisoning the atmosphere at Duke while a criminal investigation ensued.  A criminal investigation that would end up, if you can believe it, completely exhonerating the accused students as well as declaring the prosecuter a "rogue prosecuter". A rogue prosecuter who ultimately, according to Wikopedia, "was ordered disbarred on June 16, 2007 after the bar's three-member disciplinary panel unanimously found him guilty of fraud, dishonesty, deceit or misrepresentation; of making false statements of material fact before a judge; of making false statements of material fact before bar investigators, and of lying about withholding exculpatory DNA evidence." Wonder what the bar's three member displinary panel would've deemed the street gang of 88's tactics?

Even after the students were cleared and the prosecuter disbarred had only one of the street gang of 88 distanced themselves from the ad. The accused but now cleared students never received an apology from the other 87 professors. The president of Duke did apologize - somewhat:

Duke University President Richard Brodhead apologized Saturday for not better supporting the men's lacrosse team and players' families after three players were falsely accused in last year's highly publicized rape scandal.

Dr. Brodhead, speaking at the university's law school, said he regretted Duke's “failure to reach out” in a “time of extraordinary peril” after a Black woman accused three White players of raping her at a March 2006 party thrown by the team.

“Given the complexities of this case, getting the communication right would never have been easy,” Brodhead said. “But the fact is that we did not get it right, causing the families to feel abandoned when they were most in need of support. This was a mistake. I take responsibility for it and I apologize for it.”

Well that was Duke this is Columbia. Columbia University has its own social disaster. Unfortunately it doesn't involve male student atheletes and hired sex workers. It involves a professor who is married to another professor yet he's sleeping with their daughter who is the age of a grad student so theres no social disaster. It seems it's all in the family. From Columbia's Student newspaper:

Political science professor David Epstein, 46, was charged Thursday with having a sexual relationship with his daughter, 24.

He was arrested Wednesday morning and charged with one count of incest in the third degree at an arraignment hearing on Thursday. According to police, the relationship appears to have been consensual.

Epstein declined to comment when reached on his cell phone Thursday evening.

His wife, Sharyn O’Halloran, chair of the executive committee of the University Senate and a tenured professor, also declined to comment when reached by phone.

According to a University spokesman, Epstein is now on administrative leave and is no longer teaching students.

His defense attorney, Matthew Galluzzo, said the public should remember that Epstein has not yet been convicted.

“David is a respected member of the Columbia University and national academic communities, and we think he deserves privacy and respect while the investigators are investigating. We are asking people to remember that these allegations are nothing more than allegations,” he said.

Galluzzo said Epstein is no longer in custody and a trial date has not yet been set.

“We’re asking his friends in the Columbia community to support him and give him the benefit of the doubt,” he said.

An update on Epstein’s Facebook account says he is no longer listed as married.

Epstein and O’Halloran have co-authored numerous publications on American politics since meeting as postdoctoral students at Stanford University in the 1980s.

Epstein is currently teaching a lecture class called “Scope and Methods,” as well as a class titled “Research Topics and Game Theory.”

Raahi Sheth, CC ’11, an economics and political science major—who had an Epstein as a major adviser—said he was surprised to hear of the allegations, since Epstein has always been helpful.

“He’d always been fairly jovial,” he said. “He seemed to be a very nice guy.”

 

Did anyone seriously think Columbia would treat this perv any different? Hells Bells look how they treated Imadinnerjacket :

 

TWO DAYS AGO, Columbia University announced that next Monday, September 24, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will speak and participate in a question and answer session with university faculty and students at Columbia. According to the university statement, "This opportunity for faculty and students to engage the President of Iran came about after Ambassador Mohammad Khazaee at the Iranian Mission to the United Nations initiated contact with Columbia through a member of the faculty, Richard Bulliet, who is a specialist on Iran."

So at the request of the Iranian government, Columbia University will host the president of a terrorist regime which is right now responsible for the deaths of American soldiers on the field of battle. Indeed, this distinguished guest, who is so honoring Columbia by his presence, will be introduced by no one less than the president of Columbia, Lee Bollinger.

But not to worry: "President Bollinger will introduce the event by challenging President Ahmadinejad on a number of his controversial statements and his government's policies." Indeed, Bollinger manfully proclaimed in the university statement: "I also wanted to be sure the Iranians understood that I would myself introduce the event with a series of sharp challenges to the President on issues including:

* the Iranian President's denial of the Holocaust;

* his public call for the destruction of the state of Israel;

* his reported support for international terrorism that targets innocent civilians and American troops;

* Iran's pursuit of nuclear ambitions in opposition to international sanction;

* his government's widely documented suppression of civil society and particularly of women's rights; and

* his government's imprisoning of journalists and scholars, including one of Columbia's own alumni, Dr. Kian Tajbakhsh."

 

Columbia's motto:

In lumine Tuo videbimus lumen

In Thy light shall we see light

Psalm 36:9

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It's well worth your effort to read the rest of it:

 

Psalm 36

New American Standard version

Transgression speaks to the ungodly within his heart;
         There is no fear of God before his eyes.
    For it flatters him in his own eyes
         Concerning the discovery of his iniquity and the hatred of it.
    The words of his mouth are wickedness and deceit;
         He has ceased to be wise and to do good.
    He plans wickedness upon his bed;
         He sets himself on a path that is not good;
         He does not despise evil.
    Your lovingkindness, O LORD, extends to the heavens,
         Your faithfulness reaches to the skies.
    Your righteousness is like the mountains of God;
         Your judgments are like a great deep
         O LORD, You preserve man and beast.
    How precious is Your lovingkindness, O God!
         And the children of men take refuge in the shadow of Your wings.
    They drink their fill of the abundance of Your house;
         And You give them to drink of the river of Your delights.
    For with You is the fountain of life;
         In Your light we see light.
    O continue Your lovingkindness to those who know You,
         And Your righteousness to the upright in heart.
    Let not the foot of pride come upon me,
         And let not the hand of the wicked drive me away.
    There the doers of iniquity have fallen;
         They have been thrust down and cannot rise.

 

 

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O for over.

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Madame's Nightshirt

Mrs. Peperium

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We have a new, I mean, old, I mean, former president.

 

This afternoon, President Barack Obama held a White House meeting with the last Democrat to hold that office, and the only Democrat to win re-election to that office since LBJ, Bill Clinton.  After the meeting, the two held a brief press conference in which Obama offered a quick introduction before turning the Q&A over to Clinton.  The subject of all this is the deal that Obama and the Republicans reached concerning the Bush tax cuts.  Clinton did a much better job of selling those cuts than Obama did during two press events earlier this week.  He noted, in his wonkishly informed way, how the deal isn’t perfect but it’s better than what Obama can reasonably expect to get after the GOP takes over the House in January.  He also noted that, overall, the tax cuts will help the economy.  And he even went into a detailed discussion of how they payroll tax cuts that are part of the deal will help us become more competitive internationally.  Clinton was in command of the facts, and did strong work selling the tax cut deal — the deal that Obama has so far failed to sell to his own party.

And then, an extraordinary thing happened.

Obama said he had kept the First Lady waiting for half an hour, and told the press they were in “good hands.” And he left the briefing. 

 

Obama went to a White House Christmas party.

 

 

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Proof, if you needed it, that Obama's head is bigger than Michelle's rear end.

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Madame's Nightshirt

Mrs. Peperium

 

Roll that beautiful butt footage:

 


Now measure that against this from Byron York:

There was an extraordinary scene at the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo Friday morning.  The prize went to imprisoned Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, who was barred by the Chinese government from attending the ceremony.  It was the first time since 1935 -- when the prize went to a winner imprisoned in one of Adolf Hitler's concentration camps -- that the Peace Prize winner or his repesentative did not appear personally to accept the award.* Liu's absence was symbolized by an empty chair on stage.

So on this notable occasion, the White House released a statement from President Obama on the awarding of the prize to Liu in absentia. And this is how Obama's statement began:

One year ago, I was humbled to receive the Nobel Peace Prize -- an award that speaks to our highest aspirations, and that has been claimed by giants of history and courageous advocates who have sacrificed for freedom and justice.

Critics have often said of Obama that "it's all about him," that he has a tendency to reference himself no matter what subject he is discussing.  Could he do any more to prove them right?  But just to show that he is, in fact, humble, the president followed his opening sentence with this:

Mr. Liu Xiaobo is far more deserving of this award than I was.

In the rest of his statement, Obama writes that "We respect China's extraordinary accomplishment in lifting millions out of poverty, and believe that human rights include the dignity that comes with freedom from want."  But of course, Liu wasn't at the Nobel ceremony in Oslo because of the Chinese government, so Obama adds, "Mr. Liu reminds us that human dignity also depends upon the advance of democracy, open society, and the rule of law. The values he espouses are universal, his struggle is peaceful, and he should be released as soon as possible."  And then, before closing, the president makes one more reference to himself:

I regret that Mr. Liu and his wife were denied the opportunity to attend the ceremony that Michelle and I attended last year.

Indeed.

*Some earlier winners, like Russian dissident Andrei Sakharov in 1975, also were not allowed to attend the ceremony, but were represented by others.

 

 

What a vulgar dumb ass.

 

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Madame's Nightshirt

Mrs. Peperium

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We have not in our lifetimes seen a president in this position. He spent his first year losing the center, which elected him, and his second losing his base, which is supposed to provide his troops.  - Peggy Noonan.

 

 

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Because Obama is not good for America...

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Madame's Nighshirt

Mrs. Peperium

 

The soon-to-be defunct President Obama has proven by his arrested development, illiberal mind, and dysfunctional desire for destructive drama at Christmas - look at what he's saying about his own supporters if you doubt me, let us ignore him and his 3000 press secretaries across the MSM and focus on what is good is for us.

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Advent.

 

 

 

I hope you are having a peaceful one.

 

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This is the way Obama ends -- Not with a bang but a whimper.

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Madame's Nightshirt

Mrs. Peperium

 

This

shall come to be known as

Death by Narrative.

 

First the narrative:

 

"You know, through this whole 20 month marathon, I think what struck me is how incredibly even he [Obama] is. And how frankly reassuring he is. It is like you’re camping, and you wake up one morning, and there is a mountain. And then the next morning, there is a mountain, and there’s the next morning, there’s a mountain. Obama is just the mountain. He is just there. He is always the same, he doesn't hurt himself. McCain can sometimes lob a cannonball at the mountain, but the mountain doesn't move, and the mountain doesn't care. And so I think his steadiness, his temperament has been the dramatic theme of this campaign, dramatic in being undramatic."

-David Brooks

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"As for Senator Obama: He has exhibited throughout a “first-class temperament,” pace Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.’s famous comment about FDR."

- Christopher Buckley

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"In the primary campaign, Obama was cool as in hip. Now Obama is cool as in collected. He has the discipline to let slow and steady carry him to victory. He has not at all distinguished himself in this economic crisis -- nor, one might add, in any other during his national career -- but detachment has served him well. He understands that this election, like the election of 1980, demands only one thing of the challenger: Make yourself acceptable. Once Ronald Reagan convinced America that he was not menacing, he won in a landslide. If Obama convinces the electorate that he is not too exotic or green or unprepared, he wins as well. [...] He's been moderate in policy and temper ever since. His one goal: Pass the Reagan '80 threshold. Be acceptable, be cool, be reassuring. [...] Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. famously said of Franklin Roosevelt that he had a "second-class intellect, but a first-class temperament." Obama has shown that he is a man of limited experience, questionable convictions, deeply troubling associations (Jeremiah Wright, William Ayers, Tony Rezko) and an alarming lack of self-definition -- do you really know who he is and what he believes? Nonetheless, he's got both a first-class intellect and a first-class temperament."

-Charles Krauthammer

 

"As the 2008 campaign closes and the U.S. finds itself battered by an economic storm, Obama's unflappable demeanor has a new name. It's called a presidential temperament.

- Margaret Carlson

 

"Mr. Obama is a man of supple intelligence, with a nuanced grasp of complex issues and evident skill at conciliation and consensus-building. [...]  He has surrounded himself with top-notch, experienced, centrist economic advisers -- perhaps the best warranty that, unlike some past presidents of modest experience, Mr. Obama will not ride into town determined to reinvent every policy wheel. Some have disparaged Mr. Obama as too cool, but his unflappability over the past few weeks -- indeed, over two years of campaigning -- strikes us as exactly what Americans might want in their president at a time of great uncertainty. [...] But Mr. Obama's temperament is unlike anything we've seen on the national stage in many years. He is deliberate but not indecisive; eloquent but a master of substance and detail; preternaturally confident but eager to hear opposing points of view. He has inspired millions of voters of diverse ages and races, no small thing in our often divided and cynical country.

- The Editors of The Washington Post

 

Now the death:

 

 

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PAUL KRUGMAN: Oh, look, I mean, there's a lot of discontent brewing. It's not the -- people are not going to -- progressives are not going to go and vote for Sarah Palin in 2012.

But there is something -- there is a fraying of trust here. And I have to say that the president going after his progressive critics in this was -- was enormously self-indulgent. What does he think he's going to accomplish by doing that?

I mean, if you want -- if this is what he thinks he needs to do, fine, but I can't see who he thinks he's going to win over to his side by going and complaining about people on the left who don't understand how hard his job is.

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Paul Krugman from August 22, 2008:

"So the Obama campaign is going all out on the issue of McCain’s multiple houses. Isn’t that kind of stupid? Yes, it is — and it was also necessary.

Two key points. [...]

Second, the Obama campaign needed to turn things around fast. Yes, the polls still show a tight race with maybe a slight edge. But a narrative was starting to emerge, of McCain as the comeback kid and Obama as the man who couldn’t live up to his own hype. And those narratives can be deadly.

 

 

About as deadly as you could get.

 IT was.It was Mr.Yup..

 

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Once again folks, Sarah Palin *is* the corrupt politician, Pt. 2

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Madame's Nightshirt

Mrs. Peperium

 

Yesterday we took a closer look at how corrupt Sarah Palin was as a politican. What was it? 14 formal ethics complaints were filed against her and she was cleared of what? Oh that's right. Cleared of all 14 of them. Now that's political corruption on a scale Americans are not accustomed to. Then we glanced into how corrupt she has become since becoming a private citizen. If you are not aware- The UKGuardian has learned Sarah Palin requests bendy straws to be placed next to her unopened bottled water on her bedside table in hotel rooms which The Guardian says indicates Palin has "a huge sense of her own entitlement" and "fears that she may not be treated with the deference she deserves."

Whoaa. Now that is a woman out of control.

I guess no one has informed The Guardian about the bendy things former President now private citizen Bill Clinton requests to be placed next to his bedside table in hotel rooms. Thanks to Paula Jones - she would be the young staffer who when Governor Clinton had escorted up to his hotel room by his State Troopers. Once the bridal suite door was shut behind Mrs. Jones, the Governor dropped his trousers and demanded Mrs. Jones -- his employee-- to kiss his Jones. During later court proceedings Mrs. Jones described Clinton's Jones as bent - hence his need for bendy things.  Then there's former Vice President Algore who is now an incredibly rich private citizen thanks to his tissue of whoppers; man-made global warming and carbon credits. The Guardian has no issue with the bendy depths Algore demanded to be plumbed by hotel masseuses. But those massuesses didn't treat Algore with the deference he deserved much less play ball, release his Chakra or even share the hotel-provided chocolates with him on the bed, much to his sex-crazed poodle frustration but I digress.  Sarah Palin is the corrupt one with a huge sense of entitlement and she has the fear she may not be treated with the deference she deserves.

As you may know, Charlie Rangel the octegenarian war hero who is also a 40 year member of the House. During those 40 years he's risen to the ranking member since 1995 and Chairman since 2007 of the committee that writes our nation's tax laws, the Ways and Means. Well Charlie Rangel has been found guilty as Hell on 11 ethics accounts involving  his failure to pay taxes on some income for 17 years, failing to report assets properly for a decade, and misusing a rent-stabilized apartment as a campaign office. He also paid his attorney’s fees by taking nearly $300,000 from his national leadership PAC. (Sarah Palin used $500,000 of her own money to pay her aattorney's. Clinton's lawyers are still waiting.) As well ethics violations from Rangel's efforts to raise funds for a City College institution that would be named after him. Rangel used his staffers to write the letters of soliticitations on official Congressional stationary which were then posted by the Congressional Post Office to corporate executives who had business before the Ways and Means committee. The House decided to not drop kick Rangel into the Hudson River but censure him. The House rules demand when censuring a member all counts of violations must be read before the entire House. Our bipolar Speaker of the House, Mrs. Pelosi, decided to read one count only and read it after 6pm last night - thereby missing the evening news cycle. Then she let the publicly humiliated Rangel address the House :

 

 

Luv the applause.

 However, afterwards, one reporter from a known newspaper with a conservative bent  failed to give the convicted on 11 ethics account and just (somewhat) publicly humiliated censured by his peers as well as the former War hero Rangel the deference he deserves:

PICKET:There's been criticism from the floor tonight essentially comparing you to the average American citizen, who, if they went through similar circumstances such as yourself that they may be punished in a worse way. What's your response to that?

REP. RANGEL: What paper are you from?

PICKET: Pardon?

REP. RANGEL: What paper are you from?

PICKET: Washington Times, sir.


REP. RANGEL: What's the question? Can you kind of make the question a little more exact? This criticism came from the floor? The floor can't speak. Who said what?

PICKET: Well basically....

REP. RANGEL: What is the question?

PICKET: I'm just asking what is your response to criticism that if the average American citizen. Someone who is not a congressman

REP. RANGEL:Please, I'm not a psychiatrist. I don't deal in average American citizens. Citizens are diverse. They are broad. I don't know what is average, and so I don't really agree... I'll come back to you when you think of a good question.

The video:

 

That's Charlie. Let's move on to Johnnie. Rep. John Conyers, Democrat -Detroit.

I don't know how much you know about John Conyers. Yes, he's the current member of the House with the wife in jail on numerous bribery charges. She was on the Detroit City Council and took bribes in return for her votes. John Conyers was in the building during her sentencing -she verbally abused the judge- but on another floor. Prior to that another one of the courts declared his wife to be indigent and unable to pay her legal fees. The average working Detroiter makes about $34,000 per anum. John Conyers makes $174,000.00 per anum and his wife made over $100,000 while on the City Council but she is indigent and the tax payers of Detroit are now paying her legal fees. This obvious poverty of the Conyers must be why their son's education at the Cranbrook Prepatory School in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan (about 25 grand) was paid  by a contractor that had business before the Detroit City council. Oh, and the inability to cough up gas money must be why John Conyers had his congressional staffers ferry the kid to and from Cranbrook to Detroit. And when they were busy, the Detroit cops.

Just before Thanksgiving weekend, John Conyers once again came to the public's attention by being filmed (by a reporter) on a public plane reading Playboy. His wife is in jail after all :

 

I like the folded arms of the passenger seated next to him. Even The UK Guardian would say it suggests uncomfortable, miffed and laughing.

That blew over quickly and just in time for Black Friday. Over the famed holiday shopping weekend John Conyers' son filed a police report. He had been driving the $75,000 loaded burgundy 2010 Cadillac Escalade rgistered to his father's Congressional district. Seriously. This is a 100% tax-payer funded Cadillac registered to not John Conyers but his office. Only authorized people are allowed to drive it. Family members do not qualify as authorized people - ask Charlie Rangel.

In the police report were details like how the son had parked the Escalade on a street in Detroit to return some time later and discover it broken into, and stripped. Last time Jesse Jackson was in town his Escalade got stripped too. Gone from Michigan's Congressional District 15th's  $75,000 Burgundy Escalade were 2 MAC laptops at about $1,100 a piece and $27,000 concert tickets. Yes, Rep. John Conyers' son was driving around with $27,000 dollars worth of concert tickets. Can you say "scalping"?

What committee  is Conyers in charge of in DC?  That's right. The House Judiciary Committee. The committe responsible for ensuring the sanctity of the federal courts, justice within federal law enforcement agencies, and for impeaching corrupt federal officials.

John Conyers statement regarding Michigan's 15th Congressional District's Escalade:

 

"I have just learned about the inappropriate use of a congressional vehicle by my son over the Thanksgiving holiday," Conyers said. "I am sorry it happened and will make sure that it does not happen again."

 

Remember folks. Sarah Palin *is* the corrput one.

Don't even get me started on the Pigford case.

If that were not about Black farmers, it would be *the* political story of next year - the Obama Administration reopened the case and added 80,000 new claimants :

 

As part of a April 14, 1999 class action case settlement, commonly known as the Pigford case, U.S. taxpayers have already provided over $1 billion in cash, non-credit awards and debt relief to almost 16,000 black farmers who claimed that they were discriminated against by USDA officials as they “farmed or attempted to farm.” In addition, USDA’s Farm Service Agency spent over $166 million on salaries and expenses on this case from 1999-2009, according to agency records.

Members of Congress may approve another $1.15 billion this week to settle cases from what some estimate may be an additional 80,000 African-Americans who have also claimed to have been discriminated against by USDA staff.

... Settling this case is clearly a priority for the White House and USDA. Secretary Vilsack described the funding agreement reached between the Administration and advocates for black farmers early this year as “an important milestone in putting these discriminatory claims behind us for good and in achieving finality for this group of farmers with longstanding grievances."

However, confronted with the skyrocketing federal deficit, more officials are taking a critical look at the billion dollars spent thus far and wondering when these discrimination cases will ever end. Already, the number of people who have been paid and are still seeking payment will likely exceed the 26,785 black farmers who were considered to even be operating back in 1997, according to USDA. That’s the year the case initially began as Pigford v. (then Agriculture Secretary) Glickman and sources predicted that, at most, 3,000 might qualify.

At least one source who is extremely familiar with the issue and who asked to remain anonymous because of potential retribution, says there are a number of legitimate cases who have long been denied their payments and will benefit from the additional funding. But many more appear to have been solicited in an attempt to “game” the Pigford system.

 

 

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Once again folks, Sarah Palin *is* the corrupt one, Pt. 1

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Madame's Nightshirt

Mrs. Peperium

 

If you've forgotten how corrupt Sarah Palin is, here's a timeline:

 

The Twelve Lies Of Sarah Palin by Andrew Sullivan September 23, 2008 :

[...] So for the record, let it be known that the candidate for vice-president for the GOP is a compulsive, repetitive, demonstrable liar. If you follow the links, here is the proof. I repeat: proof:

- She has lied about the Bridge To Nowhere. She ran for office favoring it, wore a sweatshirt defending it, and only gave it up when the federal congress, Senator McCain in particular, went ballistic. She kept the money anyway and favors funding Don Young's Way, at twice the cost of the original bridge.

- She has lied about her firing of the town librarian and police chief of Wasilla, Alaska.

- She has lied about pressure on Alaska's public safety commissioner to fire her ex-brother-in-law.

- She has lied about her previous statements on climate change.

- She has lied about Alaska's contribution to America's oil and gas production.

- She has lied about when she asked her daughters for their permission for her to run for vice-president.

- She has lied about the actual progress in constructing a natural gas pipeline from Alaska.

- She has lied about Obama's position on habeas corpus.

- She has lied about her alleged tolerance of homosexuality.

- She has lied about the use or non-use of a TelePrompter at the St Paul convention.

- She has lied about her alleged pay-cut as mayor of Wasilla.

- She has lied about what Alaska's state scientists concluded about the health of the polar bear population in Alaska.

You cannot trust a word she says. On anything.

 

From the Washington Times June 8, 2009:

The accusations made news, but with another dismissal of an ethics charge last week against Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the former Republican vice-presidential nominee has quietly been cleared of every ethics complaint filed since the torrent of allegations began in 2008. Mrs. Palin, who became a target of such complaints after being named Sen. John McCain's running mate, is 14-for-14 in fighting off the complaints. She's been cleared of 13 charges by the independent State Personnel Board and of another complaint by the Federal Election Commission (FEC).

After the latest complaint in Alaska was dismissed last week, Mrs. Palin's team said that having to fend off the pile of accusations was wasting state money.

"This complaint cost the governor personally, and the state of Alaska, thousands of dollars to address," said Thomas Van Flein, the governor's attorney. "It is regrettable that the ethics process has been diverted for partisan purposes by some, but it is also commendable that the board remains focused on the law." [...]

Even after the election was over, the stream of complaints continued. [...]

The latest complaint to be decided was filed by Anchorage resident Linda Kellen Biegel, who took issue with Mrs. Palin for wearing to a public function a jacket made by a company that sponsored the governor's husband, Todd, a snow machine racer. Ms. Biegel asked the personnel board to determine whether Mrs. Palin was abusing her position to serve her personal and financial interests.

Mrs. Palin called the complaint "asinine political grandstanding," and the board's independent investigator said there was no evidence of wrongdoing...

 

From the WaPo, July 4, 2009:

Gov. Palin Says She Will Quit, Citing Probes, Family Needs

Sarah Palin, the Republican Alaska governor who captivated the nation with a combative brand of folksy politics, announced her resignation yesterday in characteristic fashion: She stood on her back lawn in Wasilla, speaking into a single microphone, accompanied by friends and neighbors in baseball hats and polo shirts. {big snip]

Nick Ayers, executive director of the Republican Governors Association, said Palin plans to expand her role in the national party. "Part of her decision is she wants to spend more time campaigning for candidates," Ayers told Fox News.

He added that some lawmakers and activists in Alaska have been doing "everything they can to stymie her progress" and that Palin determined she could no longer "make significant change in the state."

The state of Alaska has spent almost $300,000 investigating ethics complaints against Palin and her staff, including her firing of a public safety commissioner who had refused to dismiss a state trooper involved in a messy divorce with the governor's sister.

Palin said she and her husband, Todd, have spent $500,000 "just to set the record straight." She has been the subject of 15 ethics probes, 13 of which have been resolved by the state Personnel Board with no findings of wrongdoing. The other two are pending. One of the resolved complaints led to Palin's agreement to reimburse the state $8,100 for costs associated with trips she took with her children...

From Journolist founder Ezra Klein,

Sarah Palin Resigns

Well.

That was weird.

The main thing I'd point out about Sarah Palin's dazzlingly incoherent farewell is that it's pretty clear she wrote it herself. The proof is in the punctuation. The transcript was posted to her official Web site earlier today. The style is closer to a high schooler's angry diary entry than to an official speech. I've read a lot of speech transcripts. They tend to have fewer words in all capital letters. And fewer things in quotation marks that aren't actually, you know, quotes. And I've never seen an official speech transcript, written by an actual speechwriter, that contains this:

*((Gotta put First Things First))*
And that's not even getting into the self-pitying shots at the press, the fact that she mocked those who take "the quitter's way out" in a speech dedicated to quitting, or this agonizing sports metaphor:

A good point guard drives through a full court press, protecting the ball, keeping her eye on the basket… and she knows exactly when to pass the ball so that the team can WIN. And I’m doing that – keeping our eye on the ball that represents sound priorities – smaller government, energy independence, national security, freedom! And I know when it’s time to pass the ball – for victory.
All of which suggests that today's speech wasn't the carefully vetted product of the team quietly masterminding her presidential run (What's the difference between a pitbull going for a walk and Sarah Palin? The pitbull has a plan.) I don't know if Palin is leaving office to preempt a coming scandal or simply because she's finished with the job. But this looks like the impulsive decision of an impulsive politician. It doesn't exactly scream president-in-waiting.

 

From UK's Guardian  April 16, 2010:

Sarah Palin has been corrupted by wealth and fame

We've been reading this week about the folie de grandeur that has taken hold of Sarah Palin since she resigned as governor of Alaska to embark on a new and lucrative career as an all-purpose celebrity. She now reportedly gets paid up to $100,000 for a single speech – nearly as much as she used to earn as governor in a year – and is greeted everywhere with the fawning adulation of Republican activists. When John McCain made her his running mate in 2008, she was almost unknown, but made herself an instant hit with the party faithful by posing as a straight-talking, no-nonsense "hockey mom" and a fearless crusader on behalf of ordinary, hardworking Americans. This image was slightly dented during the campaign when it was revealed that she had spent $150,000 of Republican party funds on European designer clothes and a Louis Vuitton handbag. But that was nothing by comparison with the lavish treatment she now demands as a condition for accepting a speaking engagement.

Part of a contract rescued from a dustbin by students at the California State University, where Palin is due to give a speech in June, showed she had insisted on being flown there from her home in Alaska either first-class or on a private plane ("must be a Lear 60 or larger"), on being given a suite and two single rooms in a "deluxe hotel", on being provided with "all meals and incidentals", including a "laptop computer and printer (fully stocked with paper) and high-speed internet", and – no detail being too small for her consideration – unopened water bottles with bendy straws beside them. These are not normal demands. They are the demands of a person with a huge sense of her own entitlement, of someone who fears that she may not be treated with the deference she deserves. Palin would see no contradiction between her public posture as a salt-of-the-earth "pit bull with lipstick" and her aspirations to the lifestyle of a rock star. Fame, wealth and power have corrupted her.

 

The Daily Caller, July 22, 2010:

From a remote location on an island off Alaska’s coast, former Governor Sarah Palin is blasting what she describes as the “sick puppies” in the media who immediately and ruthlessly attacked her when Sen. John McCain picked her as his running mate during the 2008 presidential campaign.

In exclusive remarks to The Daily Caller, Palin described “hordes of Obama’s opposition researchers-slash ‘reporters’” descending upon Alaska in the days after she was picked by McCain.

She said the media became a key reason she decided not to finish out her term as governor and faults, in part, the McCain campaign for failing to vigorously defend her.

Palin chose to be a public figure at the highest level, as a candidate in a presidential campaign, arguably inviting the most intense scrutiny imaginable.

Yet TheDC revealed posts from Jounolist that show liberal journalists coordinating attack lines against Palin from the moment McCain picked her, suggesting she may have had the deck stacked against her.

Palin said she sensed the vitriol coming from campaign reporters at the time.

“It was too obvious to me, my family, my administration and anyone else who knew me (and my record) that we were in a defenseless position the minute I gave my acceptance speech and the hordes of Obama’s opposition researchers-slash ‘reporters’ had descended upon Alaska,” Palin told The DC.

Palin, whose conflicts with key McCain campaign staffers are infamous, said the campaign could have stood by her more firmly.

“To not have had the McCain campaign staff defend my record was an insurmountable challenge, because once a bell is rung, it’s impossible to un-ring,” Palin said.

Regarding a television interview with Katie Couric widely seen at the time as a turning point in the public’s perception of Palin, which critics argued illustrated Palin’s inexperience, Palin said the interview was selectively edited.

“It didn’t help, either, that the hours and hours of interviews with the likes of Katie Couric resulted in a few minutes here and there of selected snippets of my annoyed answers. (I naively had not believed at the time of some of the badgering questions [for example, questioning my pro-life position] that the editing process would fulfill their biased purpose),” Palin said.

Palin says the feeding frenzy culture of the media galvanized her political opponents in Alaska. “The media incentivized political opponents to file false ethics charges and expensive, wasteful, frivolous lawsuits against me, my family and my staff, in an obvious attempt to destroy us,” Palin said.

When those lawsuits — which Palin said she won, but the media didn’t cover — caused legal costs in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, Palin had finally had it, she said.

“I said, ‘Enough. Political adversaries and their political friends in the media will not destroy my State, my administration, nor my family. Enough.’ I knew if I didn’t play their game any longer, they could not win. I would not retreat, I would instead reload, and I would fight for what is right from a different plane.”

That is Sarah the Corrupt One. Tomorrow we shall focus on the model of integrity - Rep. John Conyers - Democrat. As for Ezra Klein and his illegitimate baby, Journolist:

A letter from the Editor, Tucker Carlson

We began our series on Journolist earlier this week with the expectation that our stories would be met with a fury of criticism from the Left. A hurt dog barks, after all.

The response hasn’t been all that furious, actually, probably because there isn’t much for the exposed members of Journolist to say. We caught them. They’re ashamed. The wise ones are waiting for the tempest to pass.

There have, however, been two lines of argument that we probably ought to respond to, if only because they may harden into received wisdom if we don’t. The first is that our pieces have proved only that liberal journalists have liberal views, and that’s hardly news.

To be clear: We’re not contesting the right of anyone, journalist or not, to have political opinions. (I, for one, have made a pretty good living expressing mine.) What we object to is partisanship, which is by its nature dishonest, a species of intellectual corruption. Again and again, we discovered members of Journolist working to coordinate talking points on behalf of Democratic politicians, principally Barack Obama. That is not journalism, and those who engage in it are not journalists. They should stop pretending to be. The news organizations they work for should stop pretending, too.

The second line of attack we’ve encountered since we began the series is familiar to anyone who has ever published a piece whose subject didn’t like the finished product: “You quoted me out of context!”

The short answer is, no we didn’t. I edited the first four stories myself, and I can say that our reporter Jonathan Strong is as meticulous and fair as anyone I have worked with.

That assurance won’t stop the attacks, of course. So why don’t we publish whatever portions of the Journolist archive we have and end the debate? Because a lot of them have no obvious news value, for one thing. Gather 400 lefty reporters and academics on one listserv and it turns out you wind up with a strikingly high concentration of bitchiness. Shocking amounts, actually. So while it might be amusing to air threads theorizing about the personal and sexual shortcomings of various New Republic staffers, we’ve decided to pull back.

Plus, a lot of the material on Journolist is actually pretty banal. In addition to being partisan hacks, a lot of these guys turn out to be pedestrian thinkers. Disappointing.

We reserve the right to change our minds about this in the future, but for now there’s an easy solution to this question: Anyone on Journolist who claims we quoted him “out of context” can reveal the context himself. Every member of Journolist received new threads from the group every day, most of which are likely still sitting in Gmail accounts all over Washington and New York. So feel free to try to prove your allegations, or else stop making them.

One final note: Editing this series has been something of a depressing experience for me. I’ve been in journalism my entire adult life, and have often defended it against fellow conservatives who claim the news business is fundamentally corrupt. It’s harder to make that defense now. It will be easier when honest (and, yes, liberal) journalists denounce what happened on Journolist as wrong.

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 Ezra Klein still employed by the Washington Post on whether Journolist was corrupt or just plain old wrong:

 

[big snip]  It was ironic, in a way, that it would be the Daily Caller that published e-mails from Journolist. A few weeks ago, its editor, Tucker Carlson, asked if he could join the list. After asking other members, I said no, that the rules had worked so far to protect people, and the members weren't comfortable changing them. He tried to change my mind, and I offered, instead, to partner with Carlson to start a bipartisan list serv. That didn't interest him.

In any case, Journolist is done now. I'll delete the group soon after this post goes live. That's not because Journolist was a bad idea, or anyone on it did anything wrong. It was a wonderful, chaotic, educational discussion. I'm proud of having started it, grateful to have participated in it, and I have no doubt that someone else will re-form it, with many of the same members, and keep it going. Hopefully, it will lose some of its mystique in the process, and be understood more for what it is: One of many e-mail lists where people talk about things they're interested in. But insofar as the current version of Journolist has seen its archives become a weapon, and insofar as people's careers are now at stake, it has to die.

 

Remember folks, Sarah Palin *is* the corrupt one. As well as stupid.

 

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Once again, Sarah Palin *is* the stupid one.

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Madame's Nightshirt

Mrs. Peperium

 

The reference to "blue bloods" was made after former President George H.W. Bush and his wife Barbara said in an interview that they thought Mitt Romney was essentially the man to watch in 2012, followed by an extra zinger from the notorious straight talking former first lady Barbara Bush who said she thinks "Sarah Palin should stay in Alaska." Sarah Palin responded on the Laura Ingraham radio show saying "of course they think that, the Bush's are blue bloods."

I actually had to Google what the meaning of "blue bloods" was, although I could surmise that it was some kind of knock against education and coming from a family of some success. - Meghan McCain

 

That would be Meghan McCain, Meghan McCain class of 2007 Columbia University. As well as author of a NYTimes best-seller on what subject? Why the chauffeur of the Straight Talk Express, her dad John McCain. When Meghan is not exposing her puffed puffy bits on her facebook page she finds the time to hunt and peck a regular column for the Daily Beast (the snippet above is from her latest attempt). If that, plus her boobs weren't enough hotstuff, Meghan's mother is worth, by conservative estimates, 100 million. Yet she's not married, engaged or even doing what most girls her age and background do; dating a gay man. What's worse is Dancing with the Stars hasn't even attempted to fill Meghan's dance card.

 

 
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More proof, if you needed it, that Sarah Palin *is* the stupid one.

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Madame's Nightshirt

Mrs. Peperium

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Exhibit A -from the mouths of Democrats on open mics :

 

 

 

Exhibit B -proof of it being all rigged :

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Exhibit C -proof of Congressional Districts being totally rigged:

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 Exhibit D - the *Stupid One*:

 

In “America By Heart” folks will get a feel for some of my favorite writers and thinkers. One of them is the great economist Thomas Sowell. Some of you may recall that in “Going Rogue” I mentioned Sowell’s famous book “A Conflict of Visions” to explain the way the liberal or “progressive” world view and philosophy differs from the conservative view. Sowell’s articles are always worth reading, and his most recent column is no exception. He reminds us where our attention needs to be during this lame-duck session of Congress. He notes that the Democrats have articulated their tired class warfare argument about “tax cuts for the rich,” but conservatives have still not articulated our proven time-tested argument that tax cuts spur economic growth, which in turn helps everyone from all income levels and increases tax revenue as the economy grows. Sowell reminds us:

 

“These are not new arguments on either side. They go back more than 80 years. Over that long span of time, there have been many sharp cuts in tax rates under presidents Calvin Coolidge, John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush. So we don’t need to argue in a vacuum. There is a track record.

“What does that record say? It says, loud and clear, that cuts in tax rates do not mean cuts in tax revenues. In all four of these administrations, of both parties, so-called “tax cuts for the rich” led to increased tax revenues — with people earning high incomes paying not only a larger sum total of tax revenues, but even a higher proportion of all tax revenues.

“Most important of all, these tax-rate reductions spurred economic activity, which we definitely need today.”

 

But as Sowell later points out, having a proven time-tested policy isn’t enough if we don’t articulate it. We need to remind people that tax cuts help everyone. And we should also remind the Democrats that many of the so-called “rich” they’re dismissing are our small business owners who account for 70% of all job creation in this country. At a time when we need job growth, we should not target job creators with tax hikes. Closing our deficit gap requires us to cut spending, but we also need to spur economic growth. With that in mind, the last thing we should do is hamper our economic innovators and entrepreneurs with excessive taxes, overly burdensome regulation, and more uncertainty. This is not a difficult argument to make. It’s common sense. 

- Sarah Palin

 

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