Liberal State Senator Dan Gibbs quotes Ronald Reagan at Memorial Day ceremony in Dillon

by Donald E. L. Johnson | 4:21 pm, May 31, 2010

Colorado State Senator Dan Gibbs (D-SD 16) surprised a Memorial Day ceremony audience of about 250 at the Dillon Cemetary by closing his comments with this quote from Ronald Reagan:
Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.
Gibbs knew his audience well and sounded more like a young Republican legislator than a young Democrat. He’s running for the Summit County board of commissioners next fall.

Joe G’s Robo-Campaign

by Al Maurer | 10:34 am, May 31, 2010

Maybe it’s because I’m a neophyte when it comes to the nuts and bolts of a political campaign; maybe it’s because Joe G is. But in either case, the more I look into it, the more I discover that his campaign is running on nothing but money–mostly his money. His campaign report for the period [...]

The Turkish flotilla: Why wouldn’t they test Israel?

by Rossputin | 8:02 am, May 31, 2010

In an early morning raid on a flotilla of boats attempting to enter the Gaza Strip, Israeli commandos killed about 10 people. It is unclear whether those people were activists, terrorists hiding among the activists, or something else, though it seems clear most of the dead are Turkish.

Israel had warned the boats, on a mission supported by Turkey, not to violate the blockaded waters to try to access Gaza directly. Israel had also offered to bring aid supplies to Gaza by truck if the boats went into a different port.

There are still a lot of details to be learned, so I can’t write a lot more about the particulars of the event.

One thing, however, bears mentioning now and repeatedly:

Barack Obama’s “apology tour” and his reprehensible treatment of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is sending a message to Arabs and other haters of Israel: The US is no longer to be relied on in supporting Israel, even from people whose stated mission is the elimination of Israel and Jews.

News reports discuss Turkey, formerly one of the most secular Muslim countries, as trying to cement a reputation as defenders of the Palestinians in order to build up their prestige in the Middle East. This is the same Turkey that has been trying for years to become a member of the European Union. Not too many years ago, Turkey would rightly have seen their anti-Israel moves as likely to damage their desired integration into the western world. But no longer, with a president as unsupportive of Israel (and supportive of its enemies) as Barack Obama, combined with the increasingly pro-Palestinian positions of European governments and, of course, the world’s leading basher of democracies, the United Nations.

Even now, each UN and European response includes words like “disproportionate” and demanding an “explanation”.

In other words, western leaders and particularly Barack Obama, have sent a clear message that anti-Israeli behavior will not cost the perpetrators anything important. It’s an invitation not only for bad behavior but for behavior which could stir up the hornets’ nest of the Middle East which has been relatively calm for many years due in large part to the implicit position of the US as a staunch defender of the Middle East’s only democracy. That defense is barely implied anymore and Israel’s enemies are responding to that not-too-subtle message.

Every time we see aggressive, provacative anti-Israeli (or pro-Palestinian) actions in coming months, we need look no further than Barack Hussein Obama to see why those actors have been so emboldened.

With his pro-Muslim apologies and his anti-Israeli behavior, Barack Obama is making the world a much more dangerous place.

Link to Original post at Rossputin.com.

Clear The Bench Colorado honors our veterans on Memorial Day weekend – parades, cookouts, and “skateboarding for CTBC”

by CTBC Director | 5:56 am, May 31, 2010

Clear The Bench Colorado Director Matt Arnold is taking a break from the normal run of Colorado Politics this Memorial Day weekend to honor those who serve (or have served) in our nation’s armed forces. As a military veteran and proud “Citizen Soldier” I strongly believe in the importance of saluting the service of all [...]

Memorial Day Reflection

by Ben DeGrow | 4:11 am, May 31, 2010

One of our pastors shared this story from the pulpit yesterday morning about the late Medal of Honor winner Captain Ed Freeman, who put himself in harm’s way to rescue many young wounded American servicemen in the Ia Drang Valley in November 1965. Dedicated to the hundreds of thousands of Americans who gave their lives [...]

Why won’t Andrew Romanoff answer questions about the job Obama offered him to get lost?

by Donald E. L. Johnson | 7:02 pm, May 30, 2010

A top official in the Obama Administration offered Democrat U.S. Senate candidate, Andrew Romanoff, a job if he would get lost and not challenge appointed Senator and Washington, DC, native, Michael Bennet, for the Democratic Party’s nomination to the U.S. Senate. Such an offer by a federal official is a crime.
Even Mike Littwin, the undeniably very liberal columnist at the Denver Post, sees an ethical problem for Romanoff because the supposedly squeaky clean senate candidate is playing by the rules of the Chicago politicians who are running Washington and the White House. That is, talk and you’ll see the bottom of the Chicago River, virtually, if not literally.
Littwin concludes:
To sum up:
Romanoff’s principal campaign issue has been that Bennet is a creature of Washington and of big money, whose demands he cannot resist. And that’s pretty much it. Romanoff, who has spent his political life touting his ability to compromise, now presents himself as someone unwilling to compromise a principle and always willing to take the tough, non-political stand on any issue.
Romanoff’s campaign is an open book — unless, I guess, that whole transparency thing just becomes too inconvenient.
I’m not even sure why it’s so inconvenient. It could be that Romanoff is simply trying to be a team player with Washington — which is what he claims he would never be. Or maybe he doesn’t want to get too deeply involved in explaining how many political jobs he has considered on the way to settling on his primary run for the U.S. Senate.
In any case, I don’t see any scandal material here, except possibly this: that someone as experienced as Romanoff doesn’t understand that this question will keep getting asked until he finally decides to answer it.
I’m not surprised that Littwin has joined the paper’s moderating editorial page (I’m told) in calling out politicians of both parties for their ethical lapses and hypocrisy.
Romanoff could become a hero and win a Senate seat by coming clean on the Obama administration’s job offer. But that could get some people jailed and create big problems for the president. Romanoff is a professional politician and a lawyer. So it’s easy to see why he won’t “rat” on the White House. He’s not as principled and anti-establishment as he’s pretending to be.
Romanoff is an Obama Democrat, just like Sen. Bennet who wants everyone in Washington to clean up their political acts, but not Romanoff or Obama.

Joe Gschwendtner turns in 17,000 petition signatures

by Donald E. L. Johnson | 6:09 pm, May 30, 2010

Ex-Pat Ex-Lawyer reports that Republican gubernatorial candidate Joe Gschwendtner has submitted 17,000 petition signatures in his campaign to get on the Republicans’ Aug. 10 primary ballot. The secretary of state will determine whether at least 10,500 of the signatures, including 1,500 from each of Colorado’s seven congressional districts, are valid by June 11. If Gschwendtner gets on the ballot, he will face Scott McInnis and Dan Maes who got on the ballot via the GOP’s state assembly on May 22.
Gschwendtner faces several obstacles.

He’s self-funded and has no time to build an organization of volunteers to get out the vote against a much better organized McInnis campaign.
Nobody knows anything about him, and he has no credible political experience. His web site doesn’t solve this problem.
Short names are best in politics. Gschwendtner is long and hard for most people to even pronounce, much less vote for.
Editorial writers probably will go for McInnis or Maes or nobody in the GOP primary.
Voters aren’t thrilled with ego trips.

LINK:
Joe Gschwendtner for Governor.

Joe Gschwendtner Submits Almost 17,000 Petition Signatures in Late Bid for GOP Governor’s Race: Joe G Would Face Maes and McInnis in Primary – UPDATED 5-31

by Laura Victoria | 4:49 pm, May 30, 2010

Joe Gschwendtner, or “Joe G” as he dubs himself, submitted just under 17,000 signatures in his petition bid for a late entry on the GOP primary ballot in the Colorado governor’s race, according to his campaign. If the petition effort is successful, Gschwendtner, a wealthy business workout specialist from Castle Rock, will face former Colorado [...]

Why “Blue Dog” John Salazar has got to go

by Kelly Maher | 4:26 pm, May 30, 2010

U.S. Rep. John Salazar of Colorado is a self-described “proud member of the fiscally conservative Democratic Blue Dog” coalition in Congress. Yet he voted for ObamaCare and for mega-billons in stimulus and bailout spending; voted with his party 97 pe…

District Attorney Carol Chambers tough on criminals; compassionate with mentally ill; helps kids

by Donald E. L. Johnson | 2:50 pm, May 30, 2010

Kevin Vaughn has a great writeup on our District Attorney, Carol Chambers. Not sure why the story is being published over the holiday weekend and when Chambers isn’t up for re-election, but it’s a good, comforting read. I like everything she’s doing.

Has Erick Erickson destroyed RedState’s credibility? I think so

by Donald E. L. Johnson | 12:36 pm, May 30, 2010

Byron York correctly asserts that conservative blogger Erick Erickson, who is backing Colorado’s Ken Buck for the GOP’s U.S. Senate nomination, has destroyed his credibility as a blogger and pundit by making up a rumor about a GOP candidate and her accuser in South Carolina.
Erickson wrote on his RedState blog that he knew who paid a blogger to charge a Republican candidate with adultry, and then he admitted that he made up the story.
York concludes:
Why write something he knew wasn’t true? “With apologies to RedState readers,” Erickson wrote, “I’ve had no hesitation in stringing the media along like Folks has done.” Apparently Erickson’s intent was to call attention to Folks’ nasty tactics and the likelihood that Folks is attacking Haley on behalf of some other player in the South Carolina political world. But sacrificing your own credibility in an effort to undermine someone else’s is not a good idea, and what Erickson has done has surely hurt both his own reputation and that of his website
I’ve never been an Erickson or Red State fan, and I never will be.

Obama Fiddles while Oil Spills

by Al Maurer | 9:42 am, May 30, 2010

I had a lot of fun with that headline but of course it isn’t serious. The idea that anyone in the government–whether it is Obama or Colorado’s own John Salazar–did anything to cause it or can do anything to fix it is pretty silly. Sure the president’s daughter may have asked him whether he fixed [...]

Finally — what the Constitution was REALLY supposed to mean (or, why I haven’t been posting much on The Cauldron recently)

by Rob Natelson | 8:59 am, May 30, 2010

One question I often get (that is, I, Rob Natelson, not Jon Caldara, although he may get the question, too) is “Can you recommend a book I that will tell me in simple language what the entire Constitution was originally supposed to mean?”
I haven’t been able to recommend one, so I wrote The Original Constitution: [...]

Lang Sias hasn’t voted since 2000, became a Republican in 2007, lives outside CD-7

by Donald E. L. Johnson | 7:15 am, May 30, 2010

Lang Sias is running for the Republicans’ nomination for Congress in Colorado’s seventh congressional district even though he doesn’t live in the district, only became a Republican in 2007 and hasn’t voted since 2000. In a way, this is old news, but Lynn Bartels’ story in the Denver Post this morning makes it news again. But Sias is out of town working as a pilot either in the National Guard or for Federal Express, and wasn’t available to comment to Bartels by phone or e-mail. So she uses his previous comments on his record in her story, and that allows him to explain himself fairly well. He also addressed some of those issues when I interviewed him in February.
Despite his residency and brief history as a Democrat, Sias won 43% of Republican activists’ votes in the house district seven GOP assembly to 49% for Aurora Councilman Ryan Frazier. He’s an attractive and smart candidate who impresses people who get a chance to talk to him and hear him at candidate forums. A lawyer who apparently isn’t in love with being a lawyer, Sias has done his homework. After working on John McCain’s campaigns, he does a good job of sounding like one of the smarter Republican candidates in the state.
The questions are:

Will he be able to raise enough money to pay for the TV ads and staff he will need to introduce himself to CD-7 voters in the expensive Denver media market before the Aug. 10 primary election?
Will Frazier use his greater resources to hammer Sias in TV and direct mail campaigns, or will he promote himself without mentioning Sias and thereby deny Sias as much name recognition as possible?
Will bloggers and the media make a big issue of Sias’ record or focus on other campaigns and issues?
Will voters in the GOP primary care about where Sias lives, that he’s John McCain’s and Bob Beauprez’s candidate and that he doesn’t vote, or will they focus on his military career and that former U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo has endorsed him and believes in his potential as a conservative member of Congress?

The winner of the GOP’s primary will face incumbent Democrat Ed Perlmutter in November. This is my 26th post on Sias, 37th on Frazier and 34th on Perlmutter. Search this site for Sias, Frazier or Perlmutter to learn more about the candidates.
LINKs:
Candidate for 7th CD a veteran, but hasn’t voted since 2000. Lynn Bartels.
Interview: Lang Sias says Republicans need to support real health reforms. The Business Word, 2.23.2010.
Lang Sias for Congress.
Ryan Frazier for Congress.
Ed Perlmutter for Congress.

British lessons for the US

by Rossputin | 5:20 am, May 30, 2010

Yesterday, Christopher S loaned me James Delingpole’s (relatively) new book, “Welcome to Obamaland; I have seen your future and it doesn’t work”. Delingpole is an extremely entertaining libertarian/conservative British blogger whom I had a chance to speak with, albeit rather briefly, at the recent Heartland Institute Conference on Climate Change. (Check out http://jamesdelingpole.com/ and http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/author/jamesdelingpole/)

Delingpole knew of my writing because he also writes for Human Events. I have to admit I thought it was pretty cool when he said he knew who I was.

Delingpole’s thesis, if you didn’t grasp it from the title of his book, is made crystal clear in the first few pages: Britain did great damage to itself by electing a handsome, grinning socialist in Tony Blair. Blair “left the British bulldog castrated, whimpering, and sick”. Barack Obama will do the same, if not worse, to America because Americans didn’t learn from the Brits’ error.

I’ll try to read the book in the next week or so and report back with a fuller review.

In any case, it was an interesting coincidence to find, on the same day that Delingpole’s book was handed to me, this fascinating American Spectator article with earlier British lessons for America, namely when Britain first became a socialist country after WWII.

The article by Andrew Wilson, a must-read for anyone interested in seeing how history repeats itself when our schools stop teaching it, is entitled “Rolling Back the Socialist Tide“. Wilson explains how Winston Churchill went from the ultra-popular war-time Prime Minister to huge political loser in just two months, how the Labour Party then destroyed the British economy with policies that sound disturbingly like ideas we hear regularly from the Obama Administration, and how it took Margaret Thatcher as almost a one woman Tea Party to undo much of the damage the leftists had done to a once-great nation.

Otto van Bismarck is reported to have said that “A fool learns from his own mistakes. A wise man learns from the mistakes of others.” Now, while I wouldn’t say that someone who learns from his own mistakes is a fool, except to the degree that he shouldn’t have made the mistake in the first place, the latter half of the Bismarck quote is apt here. America watched our closest ally be destroyed by Progressivism…and then voted for someone who, if you were paying attention, was promising to go down the exact same path. By Bismarck’s standards, we have already proven ourselves unwise. The November elections will soon show whether we’re fools as well.

Link to Original post at Rossputin.com.

Businesses want to be regulated

by Brian T. Schwartz | 10:06 am, May 29, 2010

Many people think that businesses to not like “regulations,” that is government mandates and prohibitions on how they can operate. Economist Bruce Yandle provides many counter-examples. For the curious: In 1802, Why did the owners of newly built water-powered textile plants that support child labor laws in England? Why did “American Telephone and Telegraph Company [...]

You Cut!

by Al Maurer | 8:08 am, May 29, 2010

Eric Cantor (R-VA), the Republican Whip in the House, has a novel idea. Each week, the GOP offers 5 spending cut choices on his Republican Whip website. When I first got the email about this, I didn’t quite get it. I thought it was a one-time deal. Hardly. Every week there are five different ones–each [...]

Prediction: Pentagon will not support repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

by Rossputin | 7:04 am, May 29, 2010

On Friday, the House of Representatives passed on a largely party-line vote a bill which would authorize the military to end its “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy regarding the service of openly gay men or women in the military.

It’s an interesting political fig leaf for the Obama Administration who, like most Democratic presidents and presidential candidates in recent years, has courted the votes of gays.

The measure will cause the military to undertake an assessment of the merits of changing the policy, including getting the opinion of members of the military services.

A similar measure passed a Senate committee on Thursday and will soon be voted on by the full Senate as part of a larger defense-related bill. Republicans have threatened to filibuster the measure, though I doubt they will keep enough of their own and get enough Democrats to maintain a filibuster.

So, while DADT won’t be repealed immediately, it still allows Democrats and Obama to claim they’ve “done something”, a claim that politicians are always looking to make, especially during a time when the president looks as utterly incompetent as his reaction to the Gulf oil spill is doing.

Certain military leaders and politicians oppose Congress’ move because the Pentagon is currently studying the issue. Senator Jim Webb (D-VA), for instance, voted against the measure because he wants to see the results of the Pentagon study first.

In the meantime, while Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, seems OK with ending the policy and allowing gays to serve openly, the heads of the Army, Navy, Marines, and Air Force have all sent letters to Senator John McCain opposing the move to pass repeal legislation before the Pentagon study is done with the Commandant of the Marine Corps opposing outright repeal of DADT.

My view (and the view of my mother, a retired Navy admiral) is that the military is not a place for diversity training. It’s all about the mission. And, like it or not, many members of our military are young, hardly worldly, not especially well-educated, and not necessarily broad-minded. It is far more likely that repealing DADT will lead to disruption of order on bases or ships. Indeed, I can easily imagine a litigation-minded gay soldier serving just a little too openly and perhaps taking some verbal or physical abuse in order to be able to sue the government for not protecting his “rights”. That is to say his non-existent right not to be offended (if he takes verbal abuse), or his actual right not to be beaten up – which should be mitigated if you do something which you know is likely to cause a negative reaction in those around you, especially a bunch of tense young soldiers whose definition of diversity is whether to have a Miller Lite or a Coors Lite.

Don’t ask, don’t tell is as unbiased a policy as one can have in an institution like the military. Let’s look at the converse. Do you think military officers would consider it good behavior by soldiers or sailors if those young men or women spent more than 3 seconds expressing their heterosexuality during work hours? If anything, repeal of DADT will not allow or even encourage gays to behave in a way which would not normally be permitted of non-gays. It’s just the next step in adding a super-protected victim class to another area of American society. Unfortunately, this area of society is one that is not ripe for experimentation because even a modest weakening of its ability to perform its mission could and will cost lives.

So, my prediction is that the military service members, and not just the flag officers, will push back hard against repeal. The Pentagon will release those results and then President Obama will be put in a very difficult position of having to override the clear wishes of our fighting forces in order to appeal to homosexual activists in a few blue states. I expect he would do just that since he loathes the military and doesn’t understand it. If Republicans control either house of Congress when the Pentagon study is done, and if the results are decisively against repeal of DADT, then if Obama goes ahead with repeal I would expect a measure to be brought to a vote to reinstate DADT, leaving Obama to explain why it makes more sense to use the military to “advance a liberal social agenda”, as Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) put it than to try to ensure that we have the most effective possible fighting force.

It’s no wonder Bill Clinton made this issue go away as fast as possible. He was much more of a pragmatist as compared to Obama’s radical ideological bent. My prediction is that Obama will override the wishes of the vast majority of the military’s soldiers and leaders, but it will stick yet another fork in his reelection chances. I further predict that Republicans will work to reinstate DADT.

Link to Original post at Rossputin.com.

Prediction: Don’t ask, don’t tell won’t be repealed

by Rossputin | 5:27 am, May 29, 2010

It’s an interesting political fig leaf for the Obama Administration who, like most Democratic presidents and presidential candidates in recent years, has courted the votes of gays.

The measure will cause the military to undertake an assessment of the merits of changing the policy, including getting the opinion of members of the military services.

It’s no wonder Bill Clinton made this issue go away as fast as possible. He was much more of a pragmatist as compared to Obama’s radical ideological bent. My prediction is that Obama will override the wishes of the vast majority of the military’s soldiers and leaders, sticking yet another fork in his reelection chances.

Link to Original post at Rossputin.com.

Walker Stapleton collects 27,000 signatures to get on August primary ballot for Treasurer

by Donald E. L. Johnson | 3:48 pm, May 28, 2010

Walker Stapleton, a candidate for state treasurer who skipped the GOP state assembly, reportedly has successfully collected 27,000 signatures, well over the 10,500 and 1,500 from each of the seven congressional districts in Colorado needed to get on the ballot. He will oppose the GOP establishment’s candidate for the nomination for Treasurer, J.J. Ament. Stapleton is expected to spend upwards of $600,000 on the race, well over the some $400,000 spent by each of the candidates for Treasure in 2006. The winner of the GOP primary will face incumbent Democrat Treasurer Cary Kennedy, in the November general election. Search this site for the GOP candidates’ last names to see my interviews with them. Kennedy never has responded to my invitation to do an interview.

Jane Norton’s 35,000 signatures lets her petition on ballot

by Donald E. L. Johnson | 3:41 pm, May 28, 2010

Given Jane Norton’s relatively strong ground game, it’s no surprise that she got 35,000 signatures on her petitions, twice the number she needs to get on the Aug. 10 primary ballot. This means that she’s tested her organization, and it came through for her in 60 of 64 counties. Because Scott McInnis, Dan Maes and Ken Buck went the state assembly route to the ballot, they can’t be sure that their ground team, paid and volunteer, is ready for the big time.

Interior Sec. Salazar: change (of underwear) you can believe in

by Kelly Maher | 3:30 pm, May 28, 2010

The Wall Street Journal published an item about U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar oversharing at a House committee hearing on the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Of course we had to find – AND ANNOTATE – the video…http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3…

Memorial Day Tribute

by Joss Armstrong | 2:06 pm, May 28, 2010

Other than our boys (and gals) on active duty, the people who understand most the sacrifices made by the men and women killed in service to our country are the loved ones they leave behind. For them every day is Memorial Day. For the rest of us, we can cope with spending a mere weekend [...]

Next Meet Up June 7th…

by redrocks | 1:10 pm, May 28, 2010

NO MEMORIAL DAY MEET UP!

BUT, on June 7th, we have…

Economy on the Rocks, with guest speaker economic Penn Pfiffner!

Are you “Fed” up with the economy? Do you desire to be a Free People, with Free Markets, sharing in the Principles of Liberty? If so, you will want to spend [...]

Adams 50 and SBS: Balancing the Equation with Some Parents’ Serious Concerns

by Eddie | 10:40 am, May 28, 2010

Not too long ago I wrote about my Education Policy Center friends’ visit to Adams School District 50 for the Standards-Based Education tour. Some seem to have taken the posting as an unqualified enthusiastic endorsement of the district’s SBS program, or maybe they thought I was being too one-sided and generous with praise.
The intent was [...]

Obama: Love me, hate BP

by Rossputin | 6:02 am, May 28, 2010

Barack Obama’s press conference yesterday (transcript here), his first in about 10 months (imagine the media letting George W. Bush get away with that), was little more than another excercise in Obama narcissism.

His message regarding the Gulf oil spill was repeatedly bipolar, coming across as “we’re taking credit for anything that goes right and avoiding blame for anything that doesn’t.”

Start with this:

The federal government is also directing the effort to contain and clean up the damage from the spill, which is now the largest effort of its kind in U.S. history. In this case, the federal, state and local governments have the resources and expertise to play an even more direct role in the response effort. And I will be discussing this further when I make my second trip to Louisiana tomorrow.

But so far we have about 20,000 people in the region who are working around the clock to contain and clean up this oil. We have activated about 1,400 members of the National Guard in four states. We have the Coast Guard on site. We have more than 1,300 vessels assisting in the containment and cleanup efforts.

By putting metion of the 20,000 people “working around the clock” within the discussion of what the federal government is doing and what the military is doing, it sure makes it sound as if those 20,000 people work for the government.

Later, however, the truth slips out:

In terms of shoreline protection, the way this thing has been set up, under the oil spill act of 1990 – Oil Pollution Act – is that BP has contracts with a whole bunch of contractors on file, in the event that there’s an oil spill. And as soon as the Deep Horizon (sic) well went down, then their job is to activate those and start paying them. So a big chunk of the 20,000 who are already down there are being paid by BP.

It’s a safe bet that the large majority of the 20,000 are in fact working for BP. As usual, Obama aggrandizes the government’s role.

Much the rest of his message was a strange mix of “we’re in charge” and “BP are really the experts.” Consider some of these statements:

But make no mistake: BP is operating at our direction. Every key decision and action they take must be approved by us in advance.
Now, with respect to the relationship between our government and BP, the United States government has always been in charge of making sure that the response is appropriate. BP, under the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, is considered the responsible party, which basically means they’ve got to pay for everything that’s done to both stop the leak and mitigate the damage. They do so under our supervision, and any major decision that they make has to be done under the approval of Thad Allen, the national incident coordinator.
(Y)ou’ve got the federal government directly overseeing what BP is doing, and Thad Allen is giving authorization when finally we feel comfortable that the risks of attempting a top kill, for example, are – are sufficiently reduced that it needs to be tried.
There has never been a point during this crisis in which this administration, up and down the line, in all these agencies, hasn’t, number one, understood this was my top priority – getting this stopped and then mitigating the damage – and number two, understanding that if BP wasn’t doing what our best options were, we were fully empowered to instruct them to tell them to do something different.

and then this:

What is true is that when it comes to stopping the leak down below, the federal government does not possess superior technology to BP.
(W)e had a meeting down in the Situation Room, in which I specifically asked Bob Gates and Mike Mullen, what assets do we have that could potentially help, that BP or other oil companies around the world do not have? We do not have superior technology, when it comes to dealing with this particular crisis.
BP has the best technology, along with the other oil companies, when it comes to actually capping the well down there.

In other words, the federal government is extremely busy appearing to be “helping”, at least when they’re not talking about how much they’re gonna make BP pay. (I count 6 references specifically to costs being incurred or to be incurred by BP in this one press conference.)

It was amusing to hear that Barack Obama sent Energy Secretary Steven Chu down to help. He’s the guy who said we should combat global warming by painting our rooves white. Not kidding.

Again, in a subtle “praise us, blame them” mode: “(P)art of the purpose of this press conference is to explain to the folks down in the Gulf that ultimately it is our folks down there who are responsible. If they’re not satisfied with something that’s happening, then they need to let us know, and we will immediately question BP and ask them, why isn’t XYZ happening.” Got that: We (the federal government) are responsible…except if anything happens that people aren’t happy with, in which case we’ll “question BP.”

Is anyone really buying this garbage?

On a lighter note, I was glad to see Obama slip in a Bushism: “I’m not contradictoring (sic) my prior point…”

Finally, I would note that when asked about Joe Sestak’s claim that he was offered a job to get out of the Pennsylvania Senate primary, which he subsequently won, beating Arlen Specter, Obama said that “I can assure the public that nothing improper took place. But as I said, there will be a response shortly on that issue.” If he knows that nothing improper took place, then he must know what took place. If he knows what took place, why not just answer the question at a press conference. I’d bet there are some slightly panicked White House attorneys feverishly working to Cover His Ass. After all, if Sestak were to be offered a job like Secretary of the Navy, you can bet that Obama would have been asked for his approval before the job were offered. And that would make Obama guilty of a federal crime, along with everyone else involved in making the offer to Sestak.

It’s great to finally see the media’s love affair with Barack Obama wearing thin. Perhaps, like the girl who got a little too drunk one night, they feel a little bit used and resentful as Obama is doing to the country just what was done to that girl.

When even Chrissy “the tingle” Matthews has fallen out of love, Obam should know the honeymoon is over…

Link to Original post at Rossputin.com.

Soaring ObamaCare costs break the bank

by Brian Schwartz | 1:30 am, May 28, 2010

Key points about HR 3590 from Grace-Marie Turner in Soaring ObamaCare costs break the bank:

“The Congressional Budget Office recently issued a revised estimate showing the law will cost $115 billion more than it projected the week before it was enacted.”
“A report by the Obama administration’s own actuary, issued a month after [...]

NJ Governor Chris Christie to Teachers Unions: “No Credibility”

by elpresidente | 1:28 am, May 28, 2010

Via HotAir:

Watermelon Man and the VAT Tax

by Mr. Bob | 4:05 pm, May 27, 2010

#watermelonman #tcot #teaparty #socialism #VAT

How Many Laws Did You Break this Week?

by Mike Krause | 12:50 pm, May 27, 2010

Those who claim to believe in “limited government” or “smaller government” or “Individual liberty” tend to focus on spending and government growth, entitlement programs and other forms of wealth transfer, and that’s all well and good. But all too often, the coercive power of criminal law, and criminally enforceable regulatory law is overlooked.
In the 2004 [...]

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