Posted by: DefiantOne | August 20, 2009

DONE on Hiatus. Visit Our Column at Examiner.com.

Examiner-BadgeUPDATE! DONE is temporarily on hiatus. Its senior editor, DK Jamaal (DefiantOne), now writes national political commentary and blog reports on Examiner.com. You can check it out at: http://www.examiner.com/x-19823-Progressive-Examiner.

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Posted in News, PUMA, Politics

Posted by: DefiantOne | July 31, 2009

Washington Post Compares Hillary to “Mad Bitch” Beer

No comment necessary, just watch the disgusting video itself. The sexist, hateful bigots at the Washginton Post have got to go:

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Posted by: DefiantOne | July 29, 2009

Buyer’s Remorse: Odes to Bill and Hillary All Over the News as Journalists Regret Obama Support

The same people who sunk Hillary Clinton’s historic, brave, and relentless pursuit of the Democratic nomination are now shedding tears that she and her husband are not in executive power, though they retain as much political and media clout as ever. All over news, journalists are missing the prosperity and competence of the Clinton years and lamenting that the current crop of political players — Barack Obama, Sarah Palin, and the impotent Pelosi-Reid Congeress — don’t have what it takes to get the nation on the right track.

Hillary’s masterful performance on Sunday’s Meet the Press — along with Obama’s plummeting poll numbers in the wake of his disastrous health care press conference last Wednesday — seems to have broken the dam:

In their vivid twin performances Sunday — Hillary on “Meet the Press” in Washington and Sarah at her farewell picnic in Fairbanks — two of the most celebrated and polarizing women in American political history offered a fascinating contrast.

Hillary, who so often in the past came across as aggrieved, paranoid and press-loathing, was confident and comfortable in her role as top diplomat, discussing the world with mastery and shrugging off suggestions that she has been disappeared by her former rival, the president…

Hillary’s radiant robustness, on the other hand, even with a sore elbow, makes the dictators in Iran and North Korea we’re so worried about seem like frail, little creatures.

Obama advisers say privately that the president truly respects the woman he ran against, and that they have a good relationship, so good it has even surprised Hillary…In this White House, Barack Obama is the pretty thing who is taken with Hillary’s serious, smartest-girl-at-Wellesley aura.

via Op-Ed Columnist – Sarah Grabs the Grievance Grab Bag From Hillary – NYTimes.com.

Dowd is justifiably being raked over the coals in the comments section of the Times for her role in unfairly denigrating Mrs. Clinton during last year’s primary contest. Nevertheless it’s about time she came around. Elsewhere, Bill Clinton is getting his due:

While Obama kicks back…his health-care plan is falling apart. Maybe he should invite the original triangulator, Bill Clinton, to the Hill to save the day…

Surely it’s the former president who got it wrong once who has spent the most time and lost the most sleep thinking over how he would do it again. More important, wouldn’t Bubba do a better job than the professorial Obama at sweet-talking, arm wrestling, hugging, and head locking…?

It looks like Obama would rather live on cheeseburgers than let Clinton get into the act on health care—or on anything else, for that matter. Maybe he thinks there’s no stage big enough for both these two Mount Rushmore megastars and never will be. Despite surface cordiality and self-restraint for Hillary’s sake, the former president’s wounds from the harsh charge of racism on the campaign, a falsehood on which Obama created his “post-racialism” campaign, remain deep, and they are not assuaged by the coolly minimal lip service a still mistrustful Obama pays to Bill’s presidential wisdom. “Sure, he calls me every few weeks,” the former president told a person I know. “But it feels as if, you know, he’s just checking a box.”

via Obama Needs Bubba – The Daily Beast.

Obama is much too arrogant to call in the Clinton he smeared as a “racist” for advice he should heed. And Brown is not the only one wondering when Obama is going to channel the most successful Democratic president in the past forty years:

What the Obama team failed to realize about Clinton’s setback was that details and deadlines were merely tactical setbacks rooted in a larger strategic deficiency: the failure to produce a reform package that would unite the Democratic majorities in Congress and attract some measure of Republican support. As a result, the White House is repeating Clinton’s mistake of holding fast to a plan that unites the opposition while fracturing the majority. They are presently failing coalition-building 101…

Will he, ala Bill Clinton, opt for ideological reinvention and a rapprochement with America’s broad middle? Or will he, like Jimmy Carter, believe that his moral superiority is too sacrosanct to be compromised by the exigencies of the political system that he signed on to lead? If he chooses the first route, he’ll be able to hold the Democratic Party together. If the latter … well, he should give Jimmy Carter a call.

via RealClearPolitics – Obama Threatens to Break the Democratic Coalition.

In other words: is Obama a Carter Democrat or a new and improved Clinton Democrat? I think we all know the answer to that one, but the question is why didn’t the stoopordelegates choose a real Clinton when they had the chance?

Reports are that they will have a chance to right that wrong in 2016: Hillary’s campaign machinery has not been completely dismantled. In fact, it is out of debt, fat with cast, and lying in wait according to today’s much talked-about Drudge link:

Hillary Clinton says running for office isn’t on her “radar,” but she still has an eight-person political team and sports two overflowing campaign war chests.

Her team transformed the former Democratic White House contender’s massive campaign debts into a $3 million mountain of political cash…

Clinton’s failed presidential bid is now $1 million in the black, and her old Senate campaign committee has $2.1 million in the bank…Clinton’s campaign Web site continues to accept contributions.

Democratic operatives were surprised at the size of the operation. “She’s got eight?” said one Democrat. “Can I get a job there?”

Clinton is adamant she’s not running for anything…she told ABC News on Sunday, “I’m out of politics.”

But analysts said as long as Clinton has a campaign committee with millions of dollars…she has weight in the political world…

A former Clinton senior campaign aide told the Daily News that her current job running the State Department would position her perfectly for a White House campaign redux.

“It answers the last question about her: can she run something?” the aide said. “And it’s a huge platform.”

via No political race in sight, but Hillary Clinton’s camp is election-ready.

The tongues are gossiping about this, but if Hillary decides to run in 2016, she should. After all, her approval ratings are sky-high compared to Obama’s, and that places her among the most respected and popular political figures in the country.

I’ll be happy to vote for her (again). And after the Bush-Obama messes, I’m sure everybody else will too!

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Posted by: DefiantOne | July 27, 2009

Zogby, Rasmussen: Obama Job Approval Rating Continues to Drop

Obama’s job approval has fallen below 55% in the vaunted Real Clear Politics polling average:

RCP Polling Average shows Obama losing popularity rather quickly.

RCP Polling Average shows Obama losing popularity rather quickly.

In the Rasmussen and Zogby polls, already more people disapprove than approve of the President.

These numbers show that Americans want Obama to rethink his approach to his unpopular overspending and economic incoherence. It is past time for reasonable politicians on both sides of the aisle to embrace fiscal responsibility and oppose Obama’s unfocused and destructive deficit building policies.

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Posted by: DefiantOne | July 20, 2009

Obama Down to 50% in Rasmussen, 49% Disapprove; In 2012 Matchups Obama tied with Romney, Only 6 Points Ahead of Palin; One of Lowest 6 Month Approval Ratings Ever

Obama’s polling numbers are sinking like a stone. The latest Rasmussen tracking poll has only 50% approving of the President. 49% disapprove.

Meanwhile, Obama would be in trouble if it was 2012, with the Republican frontrunners holding him below 50%:

Rasmussen (1,000 LVs, July 16-17, MoE +/- 3 percent) gives us three matchups: Obama vs. Mitt Romney and Obama vs. Sarah Palin, and a third, with Palin as an independent: Obama vs. Romney vs. Palin.

2012 General Election Matchups
Obama 45
Romney 45
Not Sure 3

Obama 48
Palin 42
Not Sure 3

via RealClearPolitics

The latest USA Today/Gallup poll also has bad news for Obama, with majorities disapproving of his handling of health care, the economy, and spending with the last ABC/Washington Post poll echoing those sentiments. Gallup’s poll also pegs as having one of the lowest approval ratings ever at six months in.

It is not too late for Obama to change course and embrace fiscal responsibility and sound Clinton-style centrist progressivism. But will he?

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Posted by: DefiantOne | July 16, 2009

Obama Deliberately Upstages Hillary, Holds “Surprise” Press Conference During Clinton Speech

The childish Teleprompter-in-Chief hogs the limelight and pushes Hillary to the background…again:

Aides to Secretary of State Clinton have been hyping her foreign policy speech today as a breakout party, where she would promote President Obama’s overseas agenda and re-assert her diplomatic bonafides.

The upbeat advance press for Clinton’s speech was breathtaking and it appeared she would be the story of the day. But then President Obama scheduled an event at the same hour in the Rose Garden, appearing with nurses to attack insurance companies over what he sees as lousy health care coverage.

Not surprisingly, the cable news networks carried Obama’s remarks live as Clinton began to speak. Fortunately for Clinton, at least one cable network eventually flashed to her, but not until after the President stopped speaking.

Naturally, the White House said it was sheer coincidence and there was no intention to play dueling speeches.

“We can walk and chew gum at the same time. We can do a speech on foreign policy and health care at the same time,” said an administration official, who insisted White House press aides had dedicated a significant amount of time urging reporters to cover Clinton’s speech.

But one veteran of the Clinton White House tells The Mouth, “In other administrations when the President was speaking no one else in the administration was allowed to speak. Alternatively, if another administration official was already scheduled to speak at an event, the White House press office made sure the President spoke either before or after and not during.”

Our source puts the blame mostly on the White House. “At the very least it’s complete non-coordination between the White House communications and press operation and Cabinet agencies — in this case a high profile department and Cabinet secretary giving a major address outlining the President’s agenda,” the source said. “It does not make sense for the President to drown out his secretary of state when she is trying to line up influential and public support for his foreign policy. Scheduling matters.”

via Hillary Loses Air War to Obama | Mouth of the Potomac – New York Daily News

Hillary has to be furious about this, although she is much to professional to say anything about it.

What does this mean? Obama clearly can’t stand anyone else being in the spotlight, especially a competent, rising rival with at 70+ approval rating in contrast to the failing fortunes of his economy, his agenda, and his falling approval rating which is now in the low 50s.

Obama’s manipulative behavior will surely continue to backfire as he reveals himself to be more and more of an Empty Suit on a daily basis. Obama would do well to let his popular Secretary of State have some air time, because the more people see of the President the less they like what they see.

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Posted by: DefiantOne | July 9, 2009

Obama’s Job Approval Continues to Tank; Only 51% Approve, 48% Disapprove (Rasmussen)

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Thursday shows that 30% of the nation’s voters now Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Thirty-eight percent (38%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of –8. The President’s Approval Index rating has fallen six points since release of a disappointing jobs report last week (see trends).

Thirty-nine percent (39%) now give the President good or excellent marks for handling the economy while 43% say he is doing a poor job. Those are by far his lowest ratings yet on the economy…

Overall, 51% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the President’s performance so far. Forty-eight percent (48%) now disapprove.

via Rasmussen Reports™: The Most Comprehensive Public Opinion Data Anywhere.

Well, well, well. How the mighty have fallen.

The Republican Party should be smelling blood. This is their cue to go in for the kill and hammer Obama’s failed policies with abandon and at every turn.

The Democrap Party meanwhile, which stupidly rejected the fiscal responsibility of the Clintonistas in last year’s party, should be ashamed and alarmed, but I doubt they will get the message and realize that Obama’s hopey dopey agenda — which implies you can spend all you want and give everybody everything they want with no consequences — is as phony as the man himself.

Americans are belatedly waking up to the fact that the woefully misnamed “stimulus” bill didn’t stimulate anything except the bank accounts of Obama’s cronies in special interest groups and on Wall Street. Voters are noticing that Obama’s overly expensive agenda including massive  energy tax hikes and health care tax hikes on the middle class masquerading as reform are — while high-minded and possibly worthy future goals — unfeasible during a time of growing unemployment and unsustainable deficits.

The reality based community, which lost the battle in the 2008 primaries and general election, is finally winning the war. The sooner a majority of voters realize that Obama and his policies simply cannot be trusted, the sooner we can replace Washington politicians with adults who can actually accomplish tangible economic results.

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Posted by: DefiantOne | July 8, 2009

Sarah, You Just Lost Your Best Friends: Palin Refuses to Take Back Hillary ‘Whiner’ Comments

Apparently, Sarah Palin doesn’t realize that it was PUMAs, not conservatives, who had her back during the Letterman affair, whose letters and complaints forced an apology from Letterman. Apparently, Sarah Palin doesn’t realize it was PUMAs who played a hand in getting her onto John McCain’s ticket. Why do I say these things? Because given a chance to take back her misguided comments that Hillary’s complaints about the misogyny she’s faced over the last eighteen years made Hillary into some kind of ‘whiner,’ Palin refused to backtrack:

I swear Sarah Palin is one of her own worst enemies…

A few days ago we were reminded of Palin’s criticism of Hillary for her perceived whining about her unfair treatment over the years.  Since that story broke, a reporter with Time had the chance to ask Palin about that comment, and Palin said this…

What I said was, it doesn’t do her or anybody else any good to whine about the criticism. And that’s why I’m trying to make it clear that the criticism, I invite that. But freedom of speech and that invitation to constructively criticize a public servant is a lot different than the allowance to lie, to continually falsely accuse a public servant when they have proven over and over again that they have not done what the accuser is saying they did. It doesn’t cost them a dime to continue to accuse. That’s a whole different situation. But that’s why when I talk about the political potshots that I take or my family takes, we can handle that. I can handle that. I expect it. But there has to be opportunity provided for truth to get out there, and truth isn’t getting out there when the political game that’s being played right now is going to continue, and it is.

So Hillary shouldn’t have tried to beat back the lies about Vince Foster’s “murder”, or Whitewater, or TravelGate or any of the other attacks that went on – relentlessly for 15 years then?  Maybe she should have ignored all of this then too…?

via Palin: My whining is valid. Hillary’s wasn’t. | Alegre’s Corner

With all due respect, Mrs. Palin, how dare you? You should have responded, “You know, at that time I had no idea all Hillary had gone through, but know having walked in her shoes, I apologize for having called her a whiner, and I understand as on she, Geraldine Ferraro, and myself can understand the withering scrutiny, lies, and unfair attacks against women who aspire to crack the highest, hardest glass ceiling.”

Instead, she parses and splits the difference, claiming that her situation is different from Hillary’s. Yeah, it’s different all right: Hillary has been under attack for 18x as long as you, and she hasn’t resigned or quit once!

Here all this time we’ve spent defending Mrs. Palin and shielding her and her family from sexist attack after sexist attack, and she rewards us with more of the old anti-Hillary right -wing conspiracy BS. I personally, will continue to blast Palin’s misogynistic, elitist, wrongheaded detractors, but if push ever comes to shove I will oppose her as a candidate. Palin is not fit to shine Hillary Rodham Clinton’s shoes — and it’s about time somebody told her.

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Posted by: DefiantOne | July 7, 2009

Obama Job Approval Tanking: 52% in Rassmussen, Below 50% in Ohio

Had enough, USA? It took a while, but Americans are finally waking up to the fact that Obama simply cannot be trusted and that his policies are a recipe for disaster. Obama’s approval is below 60% in every major recent poll for the first time, dropping to a full 52% percent in Rassmussen’s tracking.

The good people of Ohio — the state that chooses Presidents — are first among those who are sobering up from the Kool-Aid high:

President Obama’s job approval in Ohio has dropped significantly in the last two months, dipping under the 50% mark for the first time, according to a new poll by Quinnipiac University. In the last Quinnipiac poll in Ohio taken in early May, Obama enjoyed a healthy 62% job approval rating, with only 31% disapproving. Today, Obama’s job approval stands at 49%, with 44% disapproving – a twenty-five point net drop in just eight weeks.

Not surprsingly, Obama has seen a corresponding drop among voters’ approval of his handling of the economy: two months ago he had a net +21 approval (57/36), today it is -2 (46/48).

via Ohio: Obama Under 50% Approval – Real Clear Politics – TIME.com.

The people of Ohio have realized, as have many across the country, that Obama’s prescription for the economy — higher spending, fiscal irresponsbility,  higher debts and deficits, more government intervention, higher taxes for all, and higher energy costs, all the while lying to the people and telling them falsely that they can have it all with no sacrifice or risk — is a Fraud.

Ohio, where a majority no longer cares for Obama’s weak and disastrous leadership, is merely a bellweather for the rest of the nation. As unemployment continues to rise, a majority of Americans will soon follow Ohio and wonder what on earth they were smoking in 2008.

It’s okay to recognize the truth, America: Obama is not a good President. Period.

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Posted by: DefiantOne | June 24, 2009

You’ll Pay a Fine, But They Won’t: Congress Exempts Self From Health Care Mandate

Does the bill require you to have health insurance?

Yes. There is a lot of Washington double-talk in the bill – for example, it states, “No individual shall be compelled to enroll in a ‘qualified’ health plan” (sec. 3101).

But if you file a tax return and fail to attach proof of your qualifying health plan, the IRS, in coordination with the expanded federal office on electronic medical records and a new state bureaucracy called a Gateway, will find you, notify you of your default and fine you (sec. 59).

How big a fine? That’s left up to the secretary of health and human services, but it will be big enough to “. . . accomplish the goal of enhancing participation.”

Of course, people on Medicare, Medicaid and other government programs are exempt. But the outrage is that members of Congress are exempting themselves (sec. 3116).

via How health care ‘reforms’ will mess with your coverage.

Typical Congress. If the health care “reform” bill is so great, why won’t Congress subject themselves to its wonders and glories?

Another thing that makes you go, hmmm…

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Posted in Democrats, News, PUMA, Politics, Republicans

Posted by: DefiantOne | June 18, 2009

She Broke Her Arm: Send a Get Well Card (or Debt Retirement Gift) to Hillary

Poor Hillary, get well soon!

Poor Hillary, get well soon!

Hillary broke her arm on her way to the White House. Ouch!

You can sent get well cards to Hillary’s State Department office at the following address:

Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton

U.S. Department of State

2201 C Street NW

Washington, DC 20520

Or you can donate a gift to her campaign debt retirement fund by clicking here.

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Posted by: DefiantOne | June 12, 2009

The Perceived Whine Revised: Palin Finds Her Feminist Side, Decries Letterman’s Sexism

Must see teevee on the Today show this morning:

Holy moly, did you see that? Mrs. Palin just shot down Lauer’s apologia, handed Letterman his ass on a silver platter, and reinvented herself as a feminist. Hell hath no fury like an angry mother.

And what a difference a year makes.

I remember when Gov. Palin said that Hillary shouldn’t be complaining about sexism, that it didn’t do women any good, and that it was “whining”. Remember this gem from the primary season:

Now she has walked a couple hundred feet in Hillary’s shoes, and the perceived whine has just undergone a major revision! Ha! Nothing like a little first hand experience with the sexism Obamamedia to change your mind, huh, Mrs. Palin?

Glad you came around.

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Posted by: DefiantOne | June 11, 2009

Obama’s Racist Pastor Talking Again: Rev. Wright Slams “Them Jews” for Keeping Him from Obama

A reporter from the Daily-Press of Newport News, Virginia, caught up with President Obama’s former mentor and pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, story this week at the 95th annual Hampton University Ministers’ Conference.

Asked if he’s spoken to his former parishioner since he become President, Wright told David Squires, “them Jews ain’t going to let him talk to me. I told my baby daughter that he’ll talk to me in five years when he’s a lame duck, or in eight years when he’s out of office.”

via Rev. Wright Blames “Them Jews” for Keeping President From Talking to Him – Political Punch.

Our President sat in Wright’s church for twenty years, chose to be married by Wright, selected Wright as his ’spiritual advisor,’ had Wright give the invocation at the launch his Presidential campaign, and named the book that launched his Presidency after one of Wright’s sermons.

Why have we still not gotten a straight answer from Obama on why one of his closest friends is a rabid, anti-American, anti-Semitic racist?

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Posted in Barack Obama, Democrats, Election 2008, News, PUMA, Politics

Posted by: DefiantOne | June 3, 2009

Pander Alert: No Obama, the US is Not a Muslim Country

In an interview with Laura Haim on Canal Plus, a French television station, Mr. Obama noted that the United States also could be considered as “one of the largest Muslim countries in the world.”

NY Times: Obama Says U.S. Could Be Seen as a Muslim Country, Too

via RealClearPolitics – Video – Obama: US “One Of The Largest Muslim Countries In The World”.

Say what? Actually, the US cannot be considered one of the largest Muslim countries in the world considering that 99% of Americans are not Muslim by culture or by faith – less than one percent of Americans practice Islam.

Our cultural habits are Judeo-Christian — and still quite Puritanical unfortunately. As far as faith, we have no established religion and our public lives are secular.

This is the newly Muslim-and-Proud Obama pandering (uh oh, are apologies forthcoming?) and he deserves to be roundly laughed at.

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Posted by: DefiantOne | June 2, 2009

GOP Winning an Issue, Will They Pounce? Polls Show Public Sides With Cheney, Against Obama

…A large majority, 65%, say the US should not close down Guantanamo Bay. Of those, 54%…say they will be “upset” if the administration continues its plans to close down the facility…

By an even greater margin of three-to-one, respondents said they oppose the administration’s plans to move some of the detainees to prison facilities within the United States.

Lastly, the poll shows that Vice President Cheney clearly won the national security “showdown” on Guantanamo Bay with President Obama last month. Forty percent (40%) of those surveyed agreed with Cheney’s belief that the prison at Guantanamo Bay had helped make America safer. Only 18% agreed with President Obama’s assertion that the housing of detainees at Gitmo had made America less safe.

via Public Against Closing Gitmo, Sides With Cheney – Real Clear Politics – TIME.com.

The conventional wisdom (aka the Newsweek-MSNBC-New York Times talking points) is wrong. Americans don’t want terrorists cuddling with teddy bears in their homes and neighborhoods. It can lead to bad stuff.

It appears Obama’s Teleprompted talking isn’t working any more. America preferred Cheney’s consistent — if unsettling and slightly creepy *shudder* — defense of national security realpolitik to Pelosi’s lies/CIA smears and to Obama’s playing politics with selective memo release, backtracking and promise breaking, unapologetic flip-flopping, and culminating in a side-splitting straight-faced delivery of a vague speech that, in typical Obama style, muddied the issue by taking up the broadest theme possible (NATIONAL SECURITY SPEECH! RACE SPEECH! MUSLIM SPEECH!) while characteristically refusing to  address the specific question at hand (never seen that before), in this case — what the hell are you going to do with the detainees, Mr. President? We still don’t know…and neither does he.

Yet unlike the overreaction to last years overrated Obama race speech — which was supposed to answer the question of why Mr. Obama chose for two decades to attend a church led by an anti-American racist, but didn’t of course (we still don’t know) — this time nobody fell for it.

America has never needed a healthy opposition more than it does right now. Cheney did his party and the country a favor, took on a “popular” President, and won the national security debate. Take it, and run. Run, GOP, run!

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Posted by: DefiantOne | June 1, 2009

Dick Cheney Supports Gay Marriage

CHENEY: As many of you know, one of my daughters is gay and it is something we have lived with for a long time in our family. I think people ought to be free to enter into any kind of union they wish. Any kind of arrangement they wish. The question of whether or not there ought to be a federal statute to protect this, I don’t support. I do believe that the historically the way marriage has been regulated is at the state level. It has always been a state issue and I think that is the way it ought to be handled, on a state-by-state basis. But I don’t have any problem with that. People ought to get a shot at that.

via RealClearPolitics – Video – Cheney Hints He Supports Gay Marriage.

More proof that gay marriage is an idea whose time has come.

We find ourselves agreeing with Mr. Cheney more and more these days.

Cheney on gay marriage: “Freedom means freedom for everyone…people ought to be free to enter into any kind of union they wish.”

Obama on gay marriage: *crickets*.

Cheney 2, Obama 0.

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Posted by: DefiantOne | May 28, 2009

Bill Clinton, PUMA for Life: Hillary’s Husband Still Mad at Kennedys, Richardson

Bill Clinton’s campaign-year resentment of President Obama is a thing of the past, according to a lengthy profile of the former president in Sunday’s New York Times Magazine — but he hasn’t quite come to terms with the Kennedy family’s decision to back Obama over Hillary Clinton during the primary season.

Clinton reportedly has yet to make his peace with Sen. Ted Kennedy and the Massachusetts senator’s niece, Caroline, over their high-profile endorsements of Barack Obama during the primaries.

The Times, also citing unnamed sources, says Clinton harbors hard feelings toward New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who held several posts in the Clinton administration but who chose to endorse Obama instead of Hillary Clinton.

via CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time – Blogs from CNN.com.

Chill, Bill.

Hillary is more popular than Obama.

And as for the Kennedys and the Richardsons, Caroline was thoroughly defeated by New York Hillocrats and Judas is on his way to federal prison.

Things work out for the good, do they not?

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Posted by: DefiantOne | May 27, 2009

When Biden Speaks #32: Biden Slams Obama Over Teleprompter Use (CNN)

Joe Biden couldn’t help but take a dig at his boss Wednesday when one of the vice president’s teleprompter screens fell down during his commencement speech at the U.S. Air Force Academy.

“What am I gonna tell the president?” Biden said as a gust of wind knocked down his left teleprompter. “I’m gonna tell him his teleprompter is broken. What will he do then?”

The off-handed quip immediately drew laughter and some the loudest cheers of day from the graduates.

Obama has long been criticized from Republicans for at times appearing over reliant on a teleprompter, even during short and informal speeches…

via CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Blog Archive – Biden takes dig at Obama over teleprompter use « – Blogs from CNN.com.

Actually, Clinton Democrats were the first to criticize Teleprobama for his inability to sound coherent without reading a speech from a screen, and they have long protested that instead of selling the half-truth that he is an amazingly intelligent and inspiring speaker, they should have been admitting that he is a good speech reader when propped up by a Teleprompter.

But I digress.

Thanks, Joe.

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Posted by: DefiantOne | May 26, 2009

Note to GOP: Go After Sotomayor’s Lack of Empathy for Firefighter Frank Ricci

The Sotomayor pick is solid if not spectacular. She has an amazing story, and (notwithstanding the stupid, silly, insulting rumors to the contrary) she is a smart, sound and experienced jurist.

I’ve never been enamored of the bloated, meaningless SCOTUS confirmation spectacle: one of the consequences of losing a Presidential election is that the other side gets to put people on the Supreme Court. Voters know this; the Republican base who decided to sit this one out and let Obama snatch victory from McCain knew it. The GOP has no choice but to take their Supreme Court lumps and move on.

Yet if they insist on gearing up to bloody-up Sotomayor, they are already driving down the wrong boulevards and avenues. In 2005, Judge Sotomayor made an unfortunate comment that we’ll all be sick of by the end of the summer, in which she signaled support for judicial activism:

Conservatives have indicated they will pounce on this one-off and erroneous assertion that the courts are where “policy is made” to paint Sotomayor as a brusque unlikable liberal activist judge who will violate the Constitution and abuse its enshrined separation of powers.

The problem with this strategy is twofold: one, nothing in Satomayor’s actual record as a judge indicates she is in actuality a scary far-left activist judge. On top of that, she interviews well and comes across as exceedingly non-Cheney — likable, sunny, and charismatic — as well as reasonable, confident, and intelligent. Thus, all the overheated rhetoric intended to frighten the public will fall flat as voters get to see, hear, and eventually like her.

Two, and more problematic for the conservatives who seek to stop Satomayor: the public really honestly doesn’t care about judicial activism. The term “judicial activism” is — to your everday, average normal guy — baroque and non-threatening. The GOP has thus far failed miserably at selling the public on the evils of judicial activism and does not have the time — or the political capital — to properly educate the public . Their cries of “She is a liberal activist judge” will be met with a yawned “And?” by everyone else.

The public has bigger fish to fry than circumnavigating the legalese of activist judges.

Howeveer, there lurks one potentially explosive vulnerability in Sotomayor’s past and that is her jurispredence in respect to the curious case of New England firefighter Frank Ricci:

Now that Obama has picked Sonia Sotomayor to take the seat of the retiring David Souter, the summer promises to be really interesting. By the last week of June the Supreme Court will have decided Ricci v. DeStefano. This is the case alleging racial discrimination in employment on the part of New Haven, Conn. Firefighters seeking promotion took a written and oral exam the results of which the city said would be dispositive in deciding which applicants would win a limited number of promotions. But the city decided to disregard the test results because they yielded too many qualified applicants of one race (white) and not enough of another (black). Whereupon the white firefighters, joined by one Hispanic firefighter who also did well on the test, sued the city. But their challenge was dismissed by a district judge. And then the dismissal was upheld by the reviewing court, which is the one on which Sotomayor sits, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

The obvious questions for Obama and his Justice-to-be: what do they feel (since we have to put it this way) about Frank Ricci, the lead plaintiff in the New Haven case, who studied as many as 13 hours a day in preparing himself for the exam? Who spent more than $1000 on books the city designated as homework for the exam? And who, because he is dyslexic and learns better by listening, paid to have them read them onto audiotapes? Ricci got one of the highest scores and would have been promoted but for the city’s decision to throw them out because of their inconvenient results. What do Obama and Sotomayor feel about this very diligent, disadvantage-overcoming, working-class guy?

via The Weekly Standard.

Working class white guy, they mean.

If the Republicans know what’s good for them, they’ll make sure that Frank Ricci is, by the start of next week, at least as infamous as Sonia Sotomayor is about to be.

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Posted in Barack Obama, Democrats, Election 2008, John McCain, News, PUMA, Politics, Republicans | Tags: , , , , ,

Posted by: DefiantOne | May 22, 2009

Biden Speaks: Obama Clueless On Guantanamo

It seems that all a reporter has to do to find out about the pickle Barack Obama’s is really in over his promise to close the Guantanamo Bay prison is to ask the veep, who was talking to the press at Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo on the final day of his trip to the Balkans.

So will Obama fulfill his vow – announced amid great fanfare in an executive order on day two of his presidency – to close the facility by January 2010? “I think so,” Biden responded, according to Newsweek’s Holly Bailey.

So perhaps he will. Or perhaps not. We’ll see.

Biden continued: “But, look, what the president said is that this is going to be hard. It’s like opening Pandora’s Box. We don’t know what’s inside the box.”

He also said that “to the best of my knowledge” the number of prisoners “who are a real danger who are not able to returned or tried” has “not been established” by the Obama administration.

So he basically just confirmed his predecessor Dick Cheney’s analysis that the decision was taken “with little deliberation, and no plan”.

via “Out of the loop” Joe Biden says decision to shut Guantanamo was “like opening Pandora’s Box” :: Toby Harnden.

Bahahahahaha. There you have it folks, from the horse’s ass. I mean, from the horse’s mouth. Joe — can I call ya Joe? — Biden says the Obama administration doesn’t have a clue what it’s doing on the most prominent national security issue of the day. The White House has no idea where to put its inmates. The White House made a hasty decision. The White House is more confused on enhanced interrogation than Pelosi.

God Bless, ya, Joe, and Gospeed.

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Posted in Barack Obama, Democrats, News, PUMA, Politics, Republicans

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