Obama Picks Larry Summers to Head the National Economic Council
It is being reported that president-elect Obama will name Timothy Geithner as Treasury Secretary and Larry Summers as head of the National Economic Council tomorrow.
You may remember that Larry Summers was president of Harvard until he was forced to resign under intense pressure from woman’s groups for saying that “innate differences” between men and women might be one reason why there are not more women in high positions in the math and science fields.
He had the audacity to claim that men and women might be different and because of this he came under fire from womans groups as being misogynistic. He apologised at least three times for supposedly attacking women and finally resigned as president of Harvard.
He said something that wasn’t politically correct and for that he paid the price of losing the right to make a living. Tomorrow he will receive a post in the Obama cabinet. For this I say, good. This man unfairly came under attack for saying that men and women might be, gasp, different. He lost his job for this inane comment. He did not deserve what happened to him.
It is going to be interesting to see how the same organizations that called for his head back then are going to react now. Are they going to accept him back to the fold simply because a far left liberal is the one making the appointment under the guise that he has now paid his dues? If so they are exposing themselves as hypocrites. If the man deserved to lose his job then does he still deserve this promotion now? Or will they fight this nomination and once again deny him the ability to make a living?
If they choose the former than it just goes to show you how fickle they are. If they choose to ignore this made up controversy now just because Barack Obama made him his pick than it just proves how phony this whole controversy was. If they choose the latter than I will be the first to defend this man. He unfairly lost his job for a contrived controversy for having the gall to actually say that men and women might have some differences. Think about that for a minute, men and women might have some differences? Who would have thought it? For that comment he was ridiculed until he resigned.
He didn’t deserve it then and he doesn’t deserve it now.
Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick Calls his Cynics Stupid
This is what Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick thinks about anybody who is cynical about Massachusetts politics:
“We are awash in cynicism in the commonwealth, but the cynical are not smart; they’re just pretending to be.”
Now why would Massachusetts voters be cynical? Maybe because he promised a property tax reduction during his campaign and then immediately after taking office informed the voters that he couldn’t give them that promised tax break. Is it because he plans to hike some tolls by five dollars?
Is it because he endorsed Dianne Wilkerson for the state house as a write-in candidate after she lost her primary only to have her arrested shortly thereafter after she was photographed stuffing bribe money in her bra?
Or is it because last week a Boston city councillor, Chuck Turner, was also arrested on bribery charges? Chuck Turner once said that 90% of the politicians are taking bribes. That should give voters a warm and fuzzy feeling.He didn’t include himself in that 90% but he was.
The list of reasons for Massachusetts voters to appear cynical just goes on and on.
Could it be that one of the companies who was responsible for the tunnel collapse and the cost over runs (the reason for the toll increases) was awarded a contract with Logan airport even though they weren’t the low bidders? That sounds like was a little skid greasing to me, but I am cynical.
That the people who don’t pay either tolls or a gas tax, or even for gas, are our beloved state legislators.
That might make one cynical. It’s easy for them to raise taxes that they don’t ever have to pay. And then there is the situation with the speaker of the house.
the beleaguered and embattled Sal DiMasi. He may soon become the third House speaker in a row to resign amid a criminal investigation
There is a trend with Massachusetts house speakers, when Sal Dimasi is indicted he will be the third speaker in a row to accomplish that feat. It worked out okay for the last Massachusetts house speaker to get indited though, Tom Finneran now has a morning talk show on local Boston radio talk show giant WRKO.
This is all just scratching the surface, I haven’t even mentioned Billy and Whitey Bulger. Massachusetts and Boston in particular has a long history of corruption and there is a reason that many Massachusetts voters are cynical.
But to Governor Deval Patrick none of that matters, if you are cynical about Massachusetts politics, if you are cynical about Boston politics, and if you are cynical about Governor Deval Patrick you are not smart you are just pretending to be. That is his message, that is what he thinks of you.
Deval Patrick is the smart one, there is supposed to be no debate. Deval Patrick is always right and he thinks that you are too stupid to understand. But don’t worry, big daddy Deval is there to take care of you. While you may not realize it Deval is just doing it for your own good. You may not understand it now, but some day when you grow up you will, and you will thank him for it.
Check out Michael Graham’s blog here for a funny take on this issue.
JFK Assassinated 45 Years Ago Today
Here are a couple of the news bulletins from November 22nd 1963 when it was learned that JFK was assassinated in Dallas. It is hard to imagine, actually it is impossible to imagine, what the nation and in particular the Kennedy family was going through back then.
Today marks the 45 anniversary of one of the blackest days in American history and it is important that dates like this are never forgotten, we must always remember.
Obama Criticized From the Left, Praised by the Right
President-elect Obama is getting criticized from a group of voters and it isn’t the voters you would think. Sure there has been criticism from the right ( myself included naturally) but according to this article Barack Obama is facing his harshest criticism from the far left which is critical of several of Obama’s actions since becoming the president-elect.
Segments of Obama’s more radical supporters — mostly those who were quick to embrace the most liberal viable candidate — are not happy with his most recent political ploys. In their eyes, Lieberman betrayed the party by criticizing now President-elect Barack Obama and, even worse, by backing John McCain for president and speaking at the Republican Convention. And the possibility that Clinton will be added to the high level position of secretary of state is a far cry from Obama’s call for “Change.”
Here are some of the comments made by some of the people referenced in the article linked to above:
There is a particular feeling of betrayal, as Jane Hamsher, editor of FireDogLake, exemplifies:
The Senate Democratic caucus don’t [sic] hate Lieberman, they hate you. They hate you for having the temerity to think you could take down a sitting US Senator, or hold him accountable for his actions.
Take that, you…you…plebe.
Still, we do what we do. The number of people who want Lieberman held to account grew exponentially during the 2008 election, and those who stood up to defend him might be surprised at how much political capital they expended in doing so.
And from Chris ” I get a thrill up my leg” Matthews:
I don’t understand it. … Why would he pick her? I thought we were done with the Clintons. She’ll just use it to build her power base. It’s Machiavellian. And then we’ll have Bill Clinton, too. I thought Obama didn’t want drama. He’s already got [chief of staff Rahm] Emanuel and [transition team leader John] Podesta. He’ll have even more drama with her. She’s just a soap opera. If he doesn’t pick her, everyone will say she’s been dissed again, we’ll have to live through that again.
And here are more:
One blogger, again at DailyKos, writing under the pseudonym “fatcatnichols,” was enraged by at the prospect of Hillary Clinton joining Obama’s administration.
It’s very painful for me to watch Obama, the person I was so inspired by, transform himself from a “clean break from the 1990’s” to the Bill Clinton freak show. This is not what I voted for.
Barack Obama has been completely overshadowed by the Clinton’s over the last few days. I hardly remember Obama’s landslide victory, subsequent mandate for Change, and his potential to give us a fresh start. I’m still hoping Obama doesn’t choose Hillary, but all indications are that he will … and I am just about to throw up.
Ian Welsh at FireDogLake notes the rising anti-Clinton sentiment:
[T]here are a lot of Progressives who won’t like [Clinton as Secretary of State] much, given Clinton’s record of supporting the Iraq war and voting for the stand alone resolution making Iran’s Republican Guards a terrorist organization, which made a part of the Iranian military “terrorists.” Clinton was definitely more hawkish than Obama was during the primary season, and during her career.
The far left fears that the president-elect isn’t about to provide the change that he promised and they are on the attack. They chose the candidate who they felt was different from the others and they have watched him fill his staff with former Clinton staffers and they are not happy. Republicans seem to be much happier about the Clinton pick than the Democrats. They had feared a Bill Richardson or John Kerry pick.
Meanwhile president-elect Obama is gaining praise from an unlikely source, Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell.
McConnell expressed appreciation that Obama’s pick for White House chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, visited Capitol Hill this week to talk to Republicans ahead of the new Congress convening on January 6, two weeks before Obama is sworn in as president.
“I think the new administration is off to a good start,” the Kentucky senator said.
“They’re saying, in my view, all the right things … that they want to govern in the middle and tackle big things.”
This has got to incense the far left also, the Republican senate leader saying that president-elect Obama is off to the right start has got to justify their negative feelings of what Obama has done so far.
Barack Obama faces a tough challenge, the far left controls the Democrat party and Obama ran as a far leftist during the primary in order to secure the nomination. He was then able to hide what I believe are his true hard left policies during the general election in order to gain the support of the moderates. If he governs from the center as Mitch McConnell believes he will Obama risks losing the far left. However if Obama turns too far left he risks losing the moderates who broke for him and handed him the election.
The Republican leader claims that Obama is off to a good start, but if you ask the far left they would disagree. Somehow we have entered the bizarro world.
Investigation Concludes that Joe the Plumber’s Personal Information was Illegally Accessed
Just when you thought that you wouldn’t have to read another post about Joe the plumber it is time for one last post on good ole Joe. An investigation has concluded that Joe the plumber’s records were accessed illegally after he was thrust into the spotlight during the presidential campaign.
An agency director improperly used state computers to find personal information on “Joe the Plumber,” a government watchdog said in a report released Thursday.
There was no legitimate business purpose for the head of Ohio’s Department of Job and Family Services to order staff to look up the records, Inspector General Tom Charles said.
Yet they could find no proof that the activity was politically motivated.
“All these searches were done in the midst of a national political campaign,” the report said. “But we did not find any evidence that shows the data was accessed or information released in response to media requests in an effort to support any political activity or agenda.”
Joe the plumber asked Barack Obama a question that prompted an unusual letting down the guard of Barack Obama and in a rare show of authenticity he revealed himself as a socialist. Within hours Joe’s private records were viewed and leaked to the public. Was this just a coincidence? I don’t think so.
The media learned more about Joe the plumber’s background within hours than they uncovered about Barack Obama’s background in two years of campaigning. Of course the breech was politically motivated.
Some of the same people who claim that President Bush is spying on Americans and listening to every American’s private phone conversations are the same people who had no problem spying on Joe the plumber for his “crime” of asking Barack Obama a question.
And now even if it can’t be proved that it was politically motivated, we all know it was, it has at least been admitted that it was illegal.
Video: How Obama Got Elected
Cross posted on Grizzly Groundswell
I wrote a post about a poll that was done by Zogby in which Obama supporters were interviewed about several issues that came up during the campaign. This poll concluded that Barack Obama supporters were misinformed about the issues.
When asked about negative issues that came out against the candidates, the majority of Obama supporters didn’t know anything about William Ayers, or Barney Frank, or Joe Biden promising an attack if Obama was elected, but they did know about Sarah Palin and her pregnant daughter and about the campaign spending !50,000 on her wardrobe. A majority of Obama supporters (57%) didn’t even know which party controlled congress.
Today I give you a video of some of those being interviewed. I think the most interesting part of the video is when asked which candidate said that he campaigned in 57 states all of them replied something to the effect of, “it sounds like something Sarach Palin would say.” This is in indictment of the portrayal of Sarah Palin in the mainstream media.
Here is the video with a hat tip to Political Vindication.
Cross posted on Grizzly Groundswell
President-elect Barack Obama has tabbed Eric Holder as his Attorney General, another Clinton insider. It appears the change that Obama was referring to was just a change in which Washington insiders he appointed to his staff.
Eric Holder to me is the most troubling choice that the president-elect has made so far. And it isn’t because of the role that Holder played in Clinton’s infamous pardon of Mark Rich, tax evading fugitive from justice, after Rich’s wife made lucrative donations to the Clinton library, the Democrat party, and Hillary’s senate campaign totalling over $1.5 million, but rather Holder’s role in Clinton’s pardoning of Puerto Rican Marxist terrorists as well as his pardons of Weather Underground terrorists.
In 1999, over the objections of the FBI, the Bureau of Prisons, and prosecuting attorneys, Holder supported Clinton’s commutation of the sentences of 16 FALN conspirators. These pardons — of terrorists who even Holder has conceded had not expressed any remorse — were issued in the months after al-Qaeda’s 1998 U.S. embassy bombings.
Equally noxious were the stealthy pardons of Susan Rosenberg and Linda Evans — Weather Underground terrorists associated with Obama’s friends Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn— issued on the same day as the Rich pardon. Rosenberg and Evans had been serving decades-long sentences for bombings targeting American government facilities. With Holder again helping to circumvent the pardon process and to evade objections from prosecutors, the terrorists’ jail terms were commuted just weeks after the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole.
Does this sound like the type of person that we want as our AG? I don’t think so. President-elect Barack Obama came under fire for his naivety, or softness, when it came to terrorism, national defense, and meeting with the heads of states that sponsor terrorism. The choice of Eric Holder confirms the doubts that many of us have had about him.
This choice shows us quite a bit about the man that we you elected president. Barack Obama during the campaign, and after the campaign promised to close GITMO, and also talk without pre-conditions to countries who sponsor terrorism, and this selection shows us how he probably intends to proceed in cases of terrorism. Once again America will treat terrorist attacks as criminal acts and not attacks on our country, much as Clinton did in the pre September 11th days. We saw what that led to.
We see in this selection a man who was instrumental in getting people close to Bill Ayers pardoned. You remember Bill Ayers? Much was made about Barack Obama’s association with Ayers, at least on the internet. We were told he was just a guy in the neighborhood and now Obama has chosen a man that helped get people that Ayers associated with pardoned. I am sure it is a coincidence, at least that will be the story line if any news organizations decide to cover this.
Barack Obama’s choice of Eric Holder, a man who played an instrumental role in pardoning foreign and domestic terrorists, proves to us the fear that Barack Obama will be soft on terrorists is well founded.
Cross posted on Grizzly Groundswell
When does the right to keep and bear arms not give a person the right to keep and bear arms? When you live in Orange County California. The new sheriff of Orange County California has decided that she wants to revoke many of the concealed carry permits issued under the previous sheriff. Not because any of these people committed a crime, (on the contrary, some of these people theoretically may have prevented a crime because they chose to carry), but because she just doesn’t believe in the second amendment.
she is now encountering blowback from Orange County’s permit holders, including the 442 who have been sent letters saying that they have to justify keeping the permit they were issued by the previous sheriff
She wants them to justify why they should be able to keep their concealed carry permits but the justification is pretty evident if you just read this document. That document provides all the justification anybody needs to carry a concealed weapon. From that document:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED! That sums it up well. That is the only justification that these people need. Yet not only is she willing to infringe upon this right, she is going after law abiding citizens who have done nothing wrong other than exercising their second amendment rights.
She is also making it harder for her constituents to gain a concealed carry permit.
Hutchens’ new policy requires that to get a concealed firearm permit, applicants must prove there is a legitimate threat to their safety and agree to undergo possible psychological, polygraph, or medical testing.
By the time a person proves that there could be a threat to his safety he could wind up dead, having been unable to defend himself. In my humble opinion the county would be better served if the new sheriff decided to leave law abiding citizens who have made the decision to protect themselves by exercising their second amendment rights alone and instead focused on the criminals and illegal aliens who are breaking the law and threatening the security of those same law abiding citizens.
But that is just my opinion, a radical Republican who still believes that the second amendment applies to the people and that law breaking criminals are the ones who should be targeted and brought to justice. We shouldn’t coddle them and we shouldn’t try to “understand” them, we should punish them. I know how crazy that sounds, but I guess I am just an old fashioned guy.
Cross posted on Grizzly Groundswell
One of the first things that President Bush did upon taking office was to cut funds to organizations who either supported or participated in forced abortions. The United Nations is one such organization and because of the legislation that President Bush enacted the UN has lost $240 million dollars from the United States.
The left uses the argument that a woman has the right to choose what to do to her body, and that nobody has the right to tell a what she can and can’t do with her body. China has a one child per household policy and if a woman becomes pregnant with a second child she is forced to abort her baby, she doesn’t have the right to choose. So by President Bush denying funds to the UN hasn’t he technically protected a woman’s right to choose?
Evidently President-elect Barack Obama doesn’t think so. During the campaign he promised to restore the funding that President Bush withdrew.
during the election campaign President-elect Obama promised to restore federal funding to the UNFPA, a pledge also contained in Democratic Party’s 2008 platform.
A recent story of a woman in China who escaped a forced abortion attempt while she was six months pregnant has brought this issue back to light. Lawmakers are now urging the President-elect to keep President Bush’s policy in place.
The left isn’t neccessarily in favor of a woman’s right to choose but more accurately a woman’s right to abort. Any restrictions on abortion is seen by the left as an infringement on a woman’s right to abort. Even when that restriction would protect a woman’s right to choose to keep her baby. That is why I say that the left is pro abort and not pro choice. The far left knows this and Obama knows this and that is why he would be willing to reverse President Bush’s policy which would help a woman keep the right to choose, unfortunately for the left she would be choosing life.
Regardless of how you feel about abortion this issue is one that everyone should be in agreement on. This goes well beyond abortion, this is about human rights. We should not be funding this insidious and reprehensible policy. Scott Peterson was convicted of double murder for killing his wife and their unborn baby yet China kills unborn babies and Barack Obama want to give them money to help them.
I just hope that Barack Obama sees the light and decides to change his mind on this issue, it’s the humane thing to do.
Incoming Congress May be Against Bailing out the Automakers
I have written about my displeasure with the bailout bill at great length, and I have voiced my extreme displeasure with the bailout bill extending it’s slimy tentacles into the automakers industry so that the taxpayers can be on the hook to the UAW thugs who refuse to negotiate in good terms with the companies who are failing.
I have also voiced my concern that while the prospects of the automakers getting their hands on the bailout money has dimmed due to house Republicans that once the new congress took over the outcome would be different. It now appears that my worries may have been premature.
Several congressman-elect are opposed to bailing out the auto industry.
“I think we are at a point where we are bailing-out industries and companies that are not taking the steps to correct themselves,” Michael McMahon (D-N.Y.)
I am somewhat skeptical about the bailout, though I haven’t seen all of the details yet. The question is, ‘How much can the American people pay for these companies to hang on by their fingernails?’”
“I do not” support an auto-maker bailout, Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) told CNSNews.com. “Bailing-out the Big Three allows them to avoid making an evaluation of how to become lean and mean and provide a product the American consumer likes better. My preference would be to avoid the bailout and allow the marketplace to work.”Charlie Brown (D-Calif.), who is still in the midst of a recount battle in California, told CNSNews.com that he thinks if the Wall Street bailout begins to unfreeze credit as it was intended to do, automakers may not even need their own bailout.
“There is still the possibility that the first package works and we get the credit out there and people may start buying again,” Brown said. “Let’s not rush into another package here until we see what the first one is going to do.”
Incoming freshman Aaron Schock (R-Ill.) also told CNSNews.com that he is “cautious” about Congress interfering with private companies.
“I am very cautious of the federal government getting involved in private industry,” said Schock. “I was not very excited when the Congress decided to get involved in our financial markets. Fundamentally speaking, I am more of a free market person though I think that from time to time the government can get involved in the markets.”
There is the position of a few of the incoming members of congress, let’s just “hope” that enough of them have the same opinion and that this idea of bailing out the auto industry is dead. And let’s just “hope” that most of them once they get to congress won’t be swayed by the leadership to change their position under the threat of not being supported in their re-election bids.
