Yet Another Withdrawn Obama Nomination

Anyone keeping track of how many of these there have been?

EPA Statement on Jon Cannon

“Today I am voluntarily removing my name from consideration to be Deputy Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. It has come to my attention that America’s Clean Water Foundation, where I once served on the board of directors, has become the subject of scrutiny. While my service on the board of that now-dissolved organization is not the subject of the scrutiny, I believe the energy and environmental challenges facing our nation are too great to delay confirmation for this position, and I do not wish to present any distraction to the agency.”

We’re starting to get into fourth-rate people by now – is there any talent left in the Democratic party? Anyone who doesn’t labor under an ethical cloud?

Outsource Wall Street?

Interesting:

AIG guy resigns via NYT op-ed, makes a compelling case for why he’s being screwed by his bosses and the pols, when he’s innocent of everything in this horrible mess, and he’s just a regular guy from a humble background, an American Dream come true who is being shafted…

…Not to get all class warfare about it, but that guy lives on a different planet than I do. $742,006.40 after taxes sounds about like about what I made over about 15 years of 12 hour days plus getting shot at and yelled at a lot in the service of the Boston Herald, but the old man always told me I should be an accountant, and I didn’t pay any attention, so I’m not complaining…

…Any financial brainiacs out there willing to work for something less than two million bucks? Never mind Mom, Apple Pie and the American way, how about $1 million? I bet we can fly in a planeload of financial brainiacs from Bangalore at a fraction of Jake’s price. Outsourcing Wall Street to India. That’d get their attention.

Certainly the Indians couldn’t do it any worse…and if they do end up screwing the pooch, it will cost us a lot less. Heck, for some of the fine citizens of Kolkata, I bet $10,000.00 sounds like a lot of money. There’s the additional poetic justice in the fact that these corporate bosses have been exploiting India’s cheap labor for years – so why shouldn’t we, the people, do it, too?

Barack Obama: The War on Terror is Over

The War on Terror technically ended on January 20, 2009. But now, it is is officially dead.

The end of the Global War on Terror — or at least the use of that phrase — has been codified at the Pentagon. Reports that the phrase was being retired have been circulating for some time amongst senior administration officials, and this morning speechwriters and other staff were notified via this e-mail to use “Overseas Contingency Operation” instead. 

“Recently, in a LtGen [John] Bergman, USMC, statement for the 25 March [congressional] hearing, OMB required that the following change be made before going to the Hill,” Dave Riedel, of the Office of Security Review, wrote in an e-mail. 

“OMB says: ‘This Administration prefers to avoid using the term “Long War” or “Global War on Terror” [GWOT]. Please use “Overseas Contingency Operation.’”

Overseas Contingency Operation?

It is really an embarrassment that Obama is the commander-in-chief. It is insulting to our military, and a disgrace to the memory of all the lives lost in the war on terror.

Teleprompter Gives Press Conference

So, not only were Obama’s questions at last night’s press conference pre-selected, but he used his trusty teleprompter to help him deliver his responses.

I can recall Bush getting criticized for so-called “staged” press conferences, so, please, my liberal friends, pile on the criticisms of Obama for doing the same thing.

Jindal: Stand Up to Obama

Yep:

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal again found himself carrying the Republican mantle opposite a primetime appearance from President Barack Obama on Tuesday, saying Republicans must be ready to defy the president when they disagree with his policies. He also joked about his widely panned response to Obama’s address to Congress last month.

“We are now in the position of being the loyal opposition,” Jindal said at a Republican congressional fundraising dinner that only by coincidence fell on the same night as Obama’s news conference. “The right question to ask is not if we want the president to fail or succeed, but whether we want America to succeed.”

Saying “the time for talking about the past is over,” Jindal said Republicans have begun to find their voice after back-to-back elections losses—motivated by what he called historic Democratic spending excess.

Jindal is widely considered a potential 2012 GOP presidential candidate, but his televised response to Obama’s speech at the Capitol last month was widely panned. Some compared his delivery to the late children’s television host Mister Rogers and said the address could hurt Jindal’s national potential.

At Tuesday’s $2,500-per-plate dinner—which President George W. Bush headlined last year—Jindal opened his speech by poking fun of himself. He threatened to deliver a reprise of the earlier performance and then jokingly compared it to torture.

“They’re not allowed to show my speech at Gitmo anymore,” he said. “They’ve banned that.”

We have to be willing to go toe to toe with Obama – he’s trying to wreck America (he, of course, thinks he’s helping), and it is our duty as patriots – leaving aside merely being GOPers – to prevent him from doing his liberal worst.

Stupid Idea of the Year

My, goodness, Democrats are getting fearful about their chances:

With many U.S. newspapers struggling to survive, a Democratic senator on Tuesday introduced a bill to help them by allowing newspaper companies to restructure as nonprofits with a variety of tax breaks.

“This may not be the optimal choice for some major newspapers or corporate media chains but it should be an option for many newspapers that are struggling to stay afloat,” said Senator Benjamin Cardin.

A Cardin spokesman said the bill had yet to attract any co-sponsors, but had sparked plenty of interest within the media, which has seen plunging revenues and many journalist layoffs.

Cardin’s Newspaper Revitalization Act would allow newspapers to operate as nonprofits for educational purposes under the U.S. tax code, giving them a similar status to public broadcasting companies.

Under this arrangement, newspapers would still be free to report on all issues, including political campaigns. But they would be prohibited from making political endorsements.

Translation: “For crying out loud, I’ve got to save these MSMers or the New Media will allow the people to find out what a completely worthless liberal I am”.

But isn’t this also typical liberalism? I mean, here we have an industry failing because of a combination of new technology and poor product (hey, its not our fault that MSM reporting is mostly regurgitated DNC talking points), and along comes a liberal to embalm the dead…and if you don’t think that eventually taxpayer dollars will flow to these print versions of NPR, then you just don’t know how liberals operate. Eventually there will grants to the New York Times Foundation in order to disseminate “non-partisan” information on socialized medicine.

This is a big, old sh** sandwich and while our Democrats will try to make it look appetizing, I don’t think many Americans will actually want to take a bite.

Obama Press Conference

Transcript, if you missed it (as I did).

OBAMA: The first step we took was to pass a recovery plan to jump-start job creation and put money in people’s pockets. This plan’s already saved the jobs of teachers and police officers. It’s creating construction jobs to rebuild roads and bridges.

And yesterday, I met with a man whose company is reopening a factory outside of Pittsburgh that’s rehiring workers to build some of the most energy-efficient windows in the world.

Someone check that out – I’m willing to bet $5 its either an outright lie, or a half-truth.

The Obama Administration Culture of Secrecy

So much for transparency:

One government official said State and the White House have been discussing reducing the amount of information the State Department releases about the secretary’s words and meetings, which by long tradition is more expansive than what’s released by some other agencies.

Reporters who deal with the State Department wouldn’t voice their complaints on the record. Those who spoke on background said they had enjoyed what they saw as excellent access to Clinton during a previous trip to Asia.

But the Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler let some of the dissatisfaction show on his blog during the trip to Europe and the Middle East.

He reported from Sharm el-Sheikh that Clinton was the first secretary of state in seven years not to brief reporters at the beginning of a trip. “We got off the plane, wordless. This was a big deal for the press corps,” he wrote.

Of course, this could just be Obama’s way of keeping Hillary out of the spotlight…but, more likely, its a means of tightly controlling information on the slow-motion foreign policy disaster which will be Obama Administration foreign policy. After all, if you’re set to buddy up to terrorists and do all manner of things to debase America in the world, its best if the unwashed masses don’t get wind of it…

From Chavez' Mouth to Obama's Ears

Remember when in the not so distant past, an act like this was considered unconscionable in the United States of America?

Reporting from Bogota, Colombia, and Caracas, Venezuela — Amid deepening shortages of food and household supplies, President Hugo Chavez on Wednesday ordered the seizure of a Venezuelan unit of U.S. agriculture giant Cargill, the latest in a series of takeovers of foreign-owned companies.

In a speech during a ministers’ council meeting broadcast over state-run television, Chavez also threatened to seize control of privately owned Polar, the country’s largest food conglomerate and brewer. The actions came less than three weeks after Chavez won a referendum that will allow him to run for unlimited terms as president.

“If you want to take on the government, you’ll find out that this revolution is for real,” Chavez said, directing his comments to the family that owns a controlling interest in Polar.

Impossible in the United States, you say? Think again:

U.S. Seeks Expanded Power to Seize Firms

The Obama administration is considering asking Congress to give the Treasury secretary unprecedented powers to initiate the seizure of non-bank financial companies, such as large insurers, investment firms and hedge funds, whose collapse would damage the broader economy, according to an administration document.

The government at present has the authority to seize only banks.

Giving the Treasury secretary authority over a broader range of companies would mark a significant shift from the existing model of financial regulation, which relies on independent agencies that are shielded from the political process. The Treasury secretary, a member of the president’s Cabinet, would exercise the new powers in consultation with the White House, the Federal Reserve and other regulators, according to the document.

The administration plans to send legislation to Capitol Hill this week. Sources cautioned that the details, including the Treasury’s role, are still in flux.

Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner is set to argue for the new powers at a hearing today on Capitol Hill about the furor over bonuses paid to executives at American International Group, which the government has propped up with about $180 billion in federal aid. Administration officials have said that the proposed authority would have allowed them to seize AIG last fall and wind down its operations at less cost to taxpayers.

Aside from the fact that I’m having a hard time trusting a guy to run a multi-billion dollar corporation that can’t even be trusted to fill out his income taxes, never in my wildest dreams would I have thought I would live to see the day when the government of the United States of America would, as the headline suggests, be so ravenous with power as to indiscriminately seek to seize and to nationalize private-sector businesses!

When George W. Bush was president, the Left of this nation was particularly fond of utilizing the bromidic term, “fascist” when speaking of his administration; without any accompanying evidence that it was anywhere near the truth.

I wonder if they knew they were going to get the real thing when they voted for Barack Hussein Obama:

In 1933, Mussolini created the Istituto per la Ricostruzione Industriale (IRI) with the special aim of rescuing floundering companies. By 1939 the IRI controlled 20% of the Italian industry through government-linked companies (GLCs), including 75% of pig iron production and 90% of the shipbuilding industry.

Mussolini also adopted a Keynesian policy of government spending on public works to stimulate the economy. Between 1929 and 1934, public works spending tripled to overtake defense spending as the largest item of government expenditure.^[44]

And Chavez thought that he was the only fascist in the Western Hemisphere.

Sebelius vs Her Faith

Setting the record straight on just what is at issue with Sebelius’ abortion position, and what Archbishop Naumann is doing by denying her communion:

Your Excellency: As you know the Governor of Kansas, Kathleen Sebelius, is a Catholic with a long record of supporting abortion and has been nominated by President Obama to be the director of Health and Human Services.

Last year you wrote the governor a letter asking that she refrain from presenting herself to receive Holy Communion because she was not in communion with the Catholic Church and its teachings. Can you explain what prompted you to do this?

Archbishop Naumann: I had entered into a rather long dialogue with the governor over many months, trying as best as I could, to make her aware of the seriousness of her past actions as well as her present positions. Following our long conversations and additional actions on her part, such as vetoing a bill that was aimed at trying to regulate abortion clinics, I first asked her, privately in a letter, not to present herself for Communion for her own integrity and for her own spiritual welfare. My intention was not to make that public.

It was only subsequent to that when in March of the following year she presented herself for communion at one of our parishes and the pastor informed me that I wrote her again renewing my request. I informed her that I would make the request public because, in addition to my concern for her spiritual wellbeing, I was also very concerned about others being misled by her presenting herself as a faithful Catholic while holding positions that were completely contrary to our teaching on the sanctity of human life.

In many circumstances the media has tried to politicize the issue saying that you are abusing your pastoral authority to influence politics. How would you respond to that?

Archbishop Naumann: My intention and my aim have not been to influence politics at all. In fact the timing on all of this was really dictated by the governor’s own actions. It was not, for example, juxtaposed to an election. My concern was, first of all, for her spiritual welfare and then secondly, and equally important, to protect the rest of my flock from being misled by her actions.

Frequently I received letters from people who were outraged at how the governor continued to go to Communion and yet consistently over the years aggressively supported legalized abortion. I was not principally concerned with the people who were writing me letters because they understood the contradiction. My greater concern was the larger number of faithful who were not writing letters and who were subject to being confused and might be thinking that perhaps the Church did not really see this as all that serious of an issue. My motivation was primarily to protect the Church and her teaching, as well as to protect our people from being misled.

We Catholics were shocked at the number of Catholics hoodwinked into voting for Obama last year and the determination becomes ever stronger that, at least, no Catholic have the excuse of ignorance regarding such things. After Vatican II and Humanae Vitae there seeped into the Church the false belief that the Catholic Church wasn’t too concerned on matters of birth control and abortion – that, some how, Catholic teaching on such matters was officially the same, but not to be taken seriously. This false understanding was advanced with a rhetorical wink and a nudge by various liberal theologians, some of whom were (and are) ordained priests and bishops. This has led to confusion among many Catholics on these issues, and thus left the faithful open to various underhanded appeals by pro-abortion politicians seeking Catholic support.

Obama is just the strongest example of this sort of thing – a radical, pro-abortion leftist he yet managed to convince a large number of Catholics, including a substantial number of strongly practicing Catholics, that his pro-abortion position wasn’t as important as his positions on other aspects of Catholic social teaching, notably Obama’s support for programs allegedly designed to help the poor. What was missing was the complete understanding that it is morally worthless to provide welfare for the poor if you are also murdering as many of the poor as you can – might as well greedily keep all your money to yourself rather than engage in the hypocrisy of donating money to those you permit to survive the abortion gauntlet.

So, on we go – and Archbishop Naumann has laid it out: we are not concerned here, strictly, with politics but in ensuring that all those who voluntarily claim the Catholic faith for their own adhere to the teachings of that faith. No one is forced to be a Catholic, but if you are to take the label of Catholic and/or seek the support of Catholics, an honest adherence to genuine Catholic teaching is required. Naturally, this is treated on the left as an unwarranted breach of the separation of Church and State…but, of course, leftists who believe that sort of thing believe all sorts of other nonsense, and its best to not worry about what they think on such matters…staring too long into an insane abyss runs the risk of going insane, yourself, after all.

We’re here to impart the truth as we know it, not to curry favor with those who disagree with us.