Obama vs Kim Jong Il

Who is the greater Great Leader and Teacher of the People? Frank J. reports, you decide.

Another Day, Another Corrupt Democrat

Once again Pennsylvania’s Democrat governor makes the corruption news:

State Attorneys General regularly hire private plaintiffs lawyers on a contingency-fee basis to prosecute cases. The trial bar returns the favor with campaign donations to state office holders. And despite the inherent conflicts of interest and questionable ethics of the practice, corporate defendants have rarely challenged such arrangements. Which is why a motion pending before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court is so remarkable — and deserves more public attention.

Janssen Pharmaceuticals, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, is a defendant in a lawsuit filed by the state of Pennsylvania over Janssen’s antipsychotic drug Risperdal. The state alleges that Janssen has improperly marketed the drug for off-label uses not approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Janssen denies the accusation, but the merits of the case — which hasn’t gone to trial yet — are not what’s at issue in the motion before the court.

Rather, what’s at issue is the fact that the civil action against Janssen is being prosecuted on behalf of the state by Bailey, Perrin & Bailey, a Houston law firm. And it turns out that Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell’s Office of General Counsel was negotiating this potentially lucrative no-bid contingency fee contract with Bailey Perrin at the same time that the firm’s founding partner, F. Kenneth Bailey, was making repeated campaign contributions totaling more than $90,000 to the Democratic Governor’s 2006 re-election bid.

Janssen’s motion seeks to invalidate the contingency-fee arrangement and lays out a detailed timeline of Mr. Bailey’s political contributions and the subsequent actions of the Governor’s office.

The article goes on with the time line, and its pretty damning. Rendell, of course, first gained national notoriety with his attempts to suppress the soldier vote during the 2004 campaign, as well as rather questionable vote totals in Democrat-heavy areas of Pennsylvania which moved the State to Kerry in 2004. Rendell, former mayor of Philadelphia (a city not noted for clean government), is hip deep in the disgusting, pay-for-play politics of our time, raised to the normal mode of governance when Democrats rule the roost. How does he get elected and re-elected?

For the longest time I just put it down to sheer stupidity on the part of the people – I mean, come on, corruption so obvious and so destructive that only idiocy could explain how people get away with it. Lately, however, I’ve been revising my views. Hardly anyone pays close attention to politics – there might be 5 or 10 million people in America who take a daily interest in it, another 20 million who look into it on a fairly regular basis, but all of this together is only about 10% of the population and about 25% of the electorate. Most people don’t pay that much attention – and therein lies the ability of scoundrels to prosper…not because people are stupid, but because – it seems to me – that we are hard-wired for faith and thus have a natural presumption to believe what we are told.

We’re supposed to have faith in only one thing, as it were, but being what we are and surrounded by the temptations of the world, we often place our faith in created things and people rather than in God…and thus we trust the news, trust the politician (even if we say we don’t), trust the apparent consensus of opinion. It takes something really brazen and out front for us to start doubting in any consistent manner. Unless someone like Rendell is caught robbing a church, the basic assumption of the people is that he’s relatively honest and trying to do a good job – and most of the time most of the information provided doesn’t go into arcane details of corrupt practices, as detailed in the linked article.

Its a hard thing to actually get this right – to strike a balance, that is, between our requirement to be generous in our views but also skeptical about the motivations of others. But it is something we must do – the trick must be learned, lest we become forever the playthings of people who believes rules are made to be broken, all the time and everywhere. Blessed are those who believe without seeing, but Our Lord never said “blessed are those who believe but never think about their beliefs”. The key is to think about things – to ponder just why someone wants to do a particular thing and, especially, wants us to act in a certain manner. If we think things over carefully, we are likely to come to a reasonably correct solution. And thus the normal mode of the scammers is to call everything a crisis demanding immediate action, no thinking to slow things up.

A hurricane, flood or earthquake requires immediate action – but if it isn’t about to knock your house down, action can be delayed and, indeed, must be delayed while we think through the likely effects of whatever is proposed. Rendell might not be breaking any laws in what he’s doing – but the laws he may be on the right side of are a hodge-podge of ad-hoc actions, likely enacted on the run, and tailor made for crooks to take unfair advantage. Out here in Nevada we have a rather clever provision for amending our Constitution – it must be passed on two successive elections by the vote of the people. This allows for calm reflection and for passions, if aroused, to be cooled. We need more of this sort of thing in all government actions – wait a bit, and lets think things over.

Calm reflection by a well informed electorate is the key to success in any democratic republic, like ours – we must get away from crisis-mode governance and back to a much more deliberate manner of proposing, enacting and enforcing laws. We do more of that, we’ll end up with less of Rendell, and that would be a good thing for our country.

Obama to Help GOP Secure 300 House Seats

Well, that is, if this story pans out:

While acknowledging that the recession makes the political battle more difficult, President Obama plans to begin addressing the country’s immigration system this year, including looking for a path for illegal immigrants to become legal, a senior administration official said on Wednesday.

Mr. Obama will frame the new effort — likely to rouse passions on all sides of the highly divisive issue — as “policy reform that controls immigration and makes it an orderly system,” said the official, Cecilia Muñoz, deputy assistant to the president and director of intergovernmental affairs in the White House.

Mr. Obama plans to speak publicly about the issue in May, administration officials said, and over the summer he will convene working groups, including lawmakers from both parties and a range of immigration groups, to begin discussing possible legislation for as early as this fall.

Some White House officials said that immigration would not take precedence over the health care and energy proposals that Mr. Obama has identified as priorities. But the timetable is consistent with pledges Mr. Obama made to Hispanic groups in last year’s campaign.

Keeping in mind that I was one of the 4.7 people who supported the Bush-McCain immigration reform bill…

This is political suicide – I can only figure that Obama will push it either because Obama is really, really stupid or that the hispanic groups have gained so much leverage over the Democrat party that they can’t be refused. The latter is more likely, but we can’t discount the former – Obama is showing clear signs of megalomania, so anything is possible. He might feel that he can do it and come out a winner on it.

What we learned vis a vis immigration reform is that the American people, by an overwhelming majority, want the border secured first. Only after it is clear that no more illegal immigrants are able to just waltz across the border will there start to be support for any program to legalize those illegals already in-country and start up a guest-worker program for foreigners not currently in-country. Any effort to pass a bill which can in any way, shape or form be portrayed as amnesty will become a millstone ’round the neck of any party identified with it. Obama would get less grief if he revived gun control efforts.

We shall see if this actually comes to pass – but, if it does, I’ll gladly accept the rather large number of GOP seats we’ll get out of it. I mean, if Obama is determined to pull a Clinton and spend his term making legislative Democrats politically toxic, I see no reason to stand in his way.

Obama Administration Goes Environmentalist Whacko

Geesh:

The president’s new science adviser said Wednesday that global warming is so dire, the Obama administration is discussing radical technologies to cool Earth’s air.

John Holdren told The Associated Press in his first interview since being confirmed last month that the idea of geoengineering the climate is being discussed. One such extreme option includes shooting pollution particles into the upper atmosphere to reflect the sun’s rays. Holdren said such an experimental measure would only be used as a last resort.

Holdren outlined several “tipping points” involving global warming that could be fast approaching. Once such milestones are reached, such as complete loss of summer sea ice in the Arctic, it increases chances of “really intolerable consequences,” he said.

Twice in a half-hour interview, Holdren compared global warming to being “in a car with bad brakes driving toward a cliff in the fog.”

At first, Holdren characterized the potential need to technologically tinker with the climate as just his personal view. However, he went on to say he has raised it in administration discussions.

We certainly don’t want to leave anything off the table – especially that bit about anthropogenic global warming being a hoax. But, we will – under Obamunism, we’ll officially believe that human actions – such as Al Gore talking – is making the world warm up so fast that we have to get the mad scientists busy making weather machines. Perhaps Dr. Evil will be willing to help out…

Attacking Vulnerable Democrats

Eric Cantor’s (R-VA) program:

Peril awaits any first-term lawmaker who ventures to the House floor unprepared for a duel, but Ohio Democrat Mary Jo Kilroy had a particularly rough go of it the other day.

Kilroy took the floor to support an amendment to a popular public-service bill — only to face an ambush from Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), who hit her hard for her vote on an unrelated American International Group measure.

It wasn’t an accident.

Foxx is part of a team of Republican members that House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) has put together to create embarrassing, YouTube-worthy moments for vulnerable Democratic freshmen.

Cantor’s floor staff has created a photo album to help identify the 42 most vulnerable Democrats. The aides send daily e-mails to the members of the attack team and alert lawmakers when these targeted members are speaking on the floor. They even draft quick scripts to help focus the questioning.

The tactic seems to be working.

Democrats have begun pulling their vulnerable members from the floor as soon as the attacks begin. And even if the targeted Democrat doesn’t take the bait, video of the episode inevitably finds its way to the Web as evidence of either ineptitude or cowardice.

The Foxx-Kilroy smackdown was so rough that Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) tapped Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.), a ferocious debater, to play the part of Foxx during a subsequent exercise with his freshmen on floor procedure.

First off, each GOP House member should obtain a copy of Robert’s Rules of Order. Seriously – make it part of your nature to know this, and House rules.

Now, the really cool thing about this is that it just might make the House a debating chamber rather than a rubber stamp for whomever happens to be Speaker. If we can start to get freewheeling debate where the Representative’s better know how to defend their votes, it will just make the legislation which comes out of the House much better thought out than the backroom paste-ups we get these days (such as the now infamous “Spendulus” bill). The second best thing about this is that it does nail Democrats to the wall and make them either defend the indefensible (ie, Democrat bills) or look like fools. Its a “heads I win, tails you lose” strategy for the GOP.

The House is supposed to be the tribune of the people – the place where our voices are loudest. But its not, and hasn’t been for some time now. It is the place where our voices are drowned out by special interests who grease the machine with donations and kickbacks. But this state of affairs only goes on until the light of day is brought in – and it is brought in by real debate on the floor of the House. Heck, guys and gals, we’ll even get “better” liberalism, in a sense – the Democrats still have the votes to pass whatever liberal measures they want, but if we carefully pull out the worst aspects of upcoming bills and force individual Democrats to defend it, we can force out the worst aspects of these liberal programs. We’re doing a service to the nation by not allowing Democrats to hide their votes and views.

Tony Blair, the Pope and Homosexuality

Well, nothing like stirring up a bit of controversy:

Tony Blair has challenged the “entrenched” attitudes of the Pope on homosexuality, and argued that it is time for him to “rethink” his views.

Speaking to the gay magazine Attitude, the former Prime Minister, himself now a Roman Catholic, said that he wanted to urge religious figures everywhere to reinterpret their religious texts to see them as metaphorical, not literal, and suggested that in time this would make all religious groups accept gay people as equals.

Asked about the Pope’s stance, Mr Blair blamed generational differences and said: “We need an attitude of mind where rethinking and the concept of evolving attitudes becomes part of the discipline with which you approach your religious faith.”

The Pope, who is 82, remains firmly opposed to any relaxation of the Church’s traditional stance on homosexuality, contraception or any other area of human sexuality. He has described homosexuality as a “tendency” towards an “intrinsic moral evil”.

Mr Blair, who now travels the world on behalf of the Tony Blair Faith Foundation, which aims to promote understanding of the main religions, left the Church of England for Rome soon after leaving office in 2007.

In the interview Mr Blair spoke of a “quiet revolution in thinking” and implied that he believed the Pope to be out of step with the public.

“There are many good and great things the Catholic Church does, and there are many fantastic things this Pope stands for, but I think what is interesting is that if you went into any Catholic Church, particularly a wellattended one, on any Sunday here and did a poll of the congregation, you’d be surprised at how liberal-minded people were.” The faith of ordinary Catholics is rarely found “in those types of entrenched attitudes”, he said.

Mr. Blair is a superlative politician, a good friend of the United States, and a fellow Catholic – but I do believe that Mr. Blair has stepped out of his reckoning on this issue.

First, where he gets it right – it would not be a surprise at all to find that nearly all Catholic congregations are willing to welcome open homosexuals into the fold. I don’t know this for a fact, of course, but I can’t imagine a Catholic parish which would say to gay people, “stay out”. It would all be about, “welcome, brother; sit with us and pray, as we are all sinners but we all have a Redeemer”. So, being more open, in a sense, about homosexuality in Church affairs would not cause that great a ripple in the global Catholic community.

Now, where he gets it wrong – when Benedict XVI asserts that homosexuality is a tendency towards an intrinsic moral evil, what the Holy Father is referring to is the fact that homosexual sex is inherently disordered and thus homosexuality is a tendency towards sin. But it doesn’t mean that all homosexuals are guilty of the sin particular to homosexual sex, nor does it mean that homosexuals are somehow more inherently sinful than heterosexuals. It isn’t possible for the Pope to say other than he has – it isn’t, in the end, possible for the Church to get in step with modern thinking, but for modern thinking to adhere to Church teaching. We must not create an atmosphere in the Church where our brothers and sisters who have homosexual inclinations are essentially instructed to follow such inclinations where ever they lead. This is to teach people to sin, and we can’t do that.

Some people have inclinations to greedily pile up money; some people have inclinations towards having sexual relations with multiple partners; some people have inclinations to drink to intoxication; some people have an inclination to lie…we Catholics don’t teach “be yourself” but “be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect”, as Our Lord commanded. We know that absent the workings of our Savior we won’t be perfect, but failure to obtain perfection is no excuse for deliberately seeking imperfection.

I urge my brother Tony to reconsider his views – to use the great love he has for humanity and the clear desire he has for our homosexual brothers and sisters to be accepted by all with love and respect for the greater good. Do not be captured by the World, Mr. Blair but, instead, capture the World for the Truth.

Obama Only Two Years Behind Curve on Iraq!

Woohoo! So good to have a President who is so Johnny-On-The-Spot!

He also told the troops that the next 18 months are “going to be a critical period.” He referred to an Aug. 31, 2010, deadline he has set for the withdrawal of U.S. combat brigades from Iraq as part of a plan to end the war there and pull all U.S. forces out by the end of 2011, meeting a timetable set by Iraq and the United States last year in a bilateral agreement.

“It is time for us to transition to the Iraqis,” Obama said to cheers and applause. “They need to take responsibility for their country and for their sovereignty.”

Uh, Barry, we reached this point back in 2007, remember?

I have made it clear to the Prime Minister and Iraq’s other leaders that America’s commitment is not open-ended. If the Iraqi government does not follow through on its promises, it will lose the support of the American people — and it will lose the support of the Iraqi people. Now is the time to act. The Prime Minister understands this. Here is what he told his people just last week: “The Baghdad security plan will not provide a safe haven for any outlaws, regardless of [their] sectarian or political affiliation.”

This new strategy will not yield an immediate end to suicide bombings, assassinations, or IED attacks. Our enemies in Iraq will make every effort to ensure that our television screens are filled with images of death and suffering. Yet over time, we can expect to see Iraqi troops chasing down murderers, fewer brazen acts of terror, and growing trust and cooperation from Baghdad’s residents. When this happens, daily life will improve, Iraqis will gain confidence in their leaders, and the government will have the breathing space it needs to make progress in other critical areas. Most of Iraq’s Sunni and Shia want to live together in peace — and reducing the violence in Baghdad will help make reconciliation possible.

A successful strategy for Iraq goes beyond military operations. Ordinary Iraqi citizens must see that military operations are accompanied by visible improvements in their neighborhoods and communities. So America will hold the Iraqi government to the benchmarks it has announced.

To establish its authority, the Iraqi government plans to take responsibility for security in all of Iraq’s provinces…

And what did you say to President Bush waaaay back when?

On January 17, 2007, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) announced plans to introduce a resolution calling for not only a cap in troop levels, but also a phased redeployment of U.S. forces in Iraq. He stated, “I cannot in good conscience support this plan (troop surge). As I first said two months ago, we should not be sending more U.S. troops to Iraq, we should begin redeploying them to let the Iraqis know that we will not be there forever and to pressure the Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds to finally reach a political settlement…Escalation is a failed policy opposed by generals, Democrats and Republicans, and now even the Iraqis themselves, and the fact that the President is already moving ahead with this idea is a terrible consequence of the decision to give him the broad, open-ended authority to wage this war in 2002.”

On the night of January 30, 2007, Obama sent his bill, the Iraq War De-Escalation Act of 2007 (S.433), to the Senate floor calling for complete withdrawal of troops by March 31, 2008.

So, Mr. President, it is great that you visited the troops and we do back you in the pursuit of victory in Afghanistan…but the “critical period” in Iraq came quite a while ago and it was President Bush – in direct conflict with you and other liberals – who carried the matter through with grace and determination. The victory in Iraq has only one father – President Bush. Without him, the whole thing would have been lost – and had we listened to you in 2007, it would have been lost. You should be taking this as a lesson in humility, not trying to strut about like Iraq is your baby, now that it is a success.

"Freedom of speech is an American concept, so I don't give it any value."

So says the Canadian “Human Rights Commission“:

I don’t have any problem with the government running electronic surveillance on, say, drug gangs or terror suspects — or even hatemongers, if there’s proof that they’re engaged in actual violence. But of course, that involves showing probable cause, and getting a judge to issue a warrant. HRC types have no time for that sort of due process. Nor, in fact, do they have any real legal training.

In fact, for an organization that is supposed to promote “human rights,” the HRC’s agents seem curiously oblivious to basic aspects of constitutional law. In one famous exchange during the Lemire case, Steacy was asked “What value do you give freedom of speech when you investigate?” — to which he replied “Freedom of speech is an American concept, so I don’t give it any value.” (I guess Section 2 has been excised from his copy of the Canadian Charter of Rights.)

I know that some Canadians visit this website – are you guys gonna sit still for this? Do you understand that you are falling under a fascist dictatorship, step by step, in the name of protecting “human rights”, which is actually just a cover for “stop speech liberals don’t like”? Come, on, Canadians – once upon a time you poured out your blood and treasure for human liberty! You can’t really be ok with this sort of nonsense, can you?

And, now, American liberals: this is why we fight you tooth and nail on “hate crimes” laws…not because we like crimes motivated by ethnic or other bigotry, but because once down such a path there’s no way to stop a fascist busybody from essentially trying to ban free speech under the rubric of human rights.

Hope and Change Meets Reality

Now what were you liberals saying about wiretaps?

The Obama administration is again invoking government secrecy in defending the Bush administration’s wiretapping program, this time against a lawsuit by AT&T customers who claim federal agents illegally intercepted their phone calls and gained access to their records.

Disclosure of the information sought by the customers, “which concerns how the United States seeks to detect and prevent terrorist attacks, would cause exceptionally grave harm to national security,” Justice Department lawyers said in papers filed Friday in San Francisco.

Kevin Bankston of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a lawyer for the customers, said Monday the filing was disappointing in light of the Obama presidential campaign’s “unceasing criticism of Bush-era secrecy and promise for more transparency.”

Yeah. No kidding.

Kudos to President Obama for having at least some sense of national security – but minus a million points for irresponsibly buying into the kook left talking points about signals intelligence during the campaign.

Naturally, you liberals out there are going to call for Obama’s impeachment. Right?

Even Fox News Is Making Excuses For Obama

Why is everyone, even Fox News, making excuses for Obama’s inexperience and incompetence. I nearly puked when I saw this on FoxNews.com:

For several weeks now, there has been a lot of talk by pundits about whether Barack Obama has “too much on his plate.” I am sick of it. It is silly to think that Barack Obama has any more problem to deal with as any of his predecessors. To suggest such a thing trivializes the severity of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Cuban Missile Crisis, or even 9/11. WE expect presidents to walk and chew gum at the same time, but when it comes to Barack Obama, all we get are excuses as to why he suddenly has so much more to deal with then apparently anyone else…

So, why all the excuses now? Well, obviously, Barack Obama, unlike his predecessors, is unqualified and too inexperienced for the job he has. But this is what America decided. Instead of an experience leader, known to be able to work with both parties, who had a lifetime of service for his country, a majority of voters felt some  young, inexperience part-time state senator who declared his candidacy for the presidency a mere 150 days of serving in the U.S. Senate, just because he can read a speech off of a teleprompter.

Well, this isn’t a campaign anymore. We have a real country to run with real issues. We expect a president to be ready on day one to deal with these issues. Instead, we have pundits and the media basically saying that we have a president who cannot handle the issues that most Americans would expect and demand any president to handle.

But no. We have Barack Obama, and a whole bunch of people who will continue to bake excuses for his incompetence.