Blogs For Victory

The price of Michelle Obama’s shoes:

While volunteering Wednesday at a D.C. food bank, the First Lady sported her usual J.Crew cardigan, a pair of utilitarian capri pants and, on her feet, a sneaky splurge: trainers that go for $540.

That’s right: These sneakers – suede, with grosgrain ribbon laces and metallic pink toe caps – are made by French design house Lanvin, one of fashion’s hottest labels. They come in denim and satin versions, and have been a brisk seller all spring.

Yeah, but they’re just like us and understand exactly what the middle class is going through…

UDPATE: And as “What Media Bias? Part 147”, please note that McCain’s $520.00 shoes caused unfavorable MSM comment during the campaign.

Our Congressional GOP is just not picking up on what is happening:

After losing Arlen Specter to the Democrats, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell moved quickly to gauge the level of discontent of one of his caucus’ few remaining moderates.

McConnell sat down privately with Sen. Olympia J. Snowe of Maine on Wednesday and let her vent about what she thinks is going wrong with the Grand Old Party.

It was a one-on-one follow-up to a New York Times essay in which Snowe contended the party didn’t need to lose Specter.

After the meeting, Snowe had nothing but good things to say about McConnell, R-Ky., and focused her criticism on other wings of the party.

“My concern is that it’s hard for the leader and others who work here to try to create a more inclusive message that could well be overshadowed or neutralized by the national party,” Snowe said Thursday. “It’s been a painful lesson, but hopefully we will learn from it and build on it.”

A McConnell spokesman said the leader met often with Specter and cultivates relationships on the floor and in office meetings.

“He tends his garden,” spokesman Don Stewart said.

Maine’s two senators, Snowe and Susan Collins , are among the Republicans most likely to vote with Democrats on policies such as energy, entitlements and social issues such as support for abortion rights.

Snowe, Collins and Specter were pivotal to passage of the economic stimulus (PL 111-5), as the only three Republicans in Congress who voted in favor of the bill.

And that last bit is the important part – it wasn’t that we conservatives didn’t like the way Specter, Collins and Snowe are pro-choice but the fact that they can’t even adhere to the very basic GOP principle of low spending even when its a defining issue like Obama’s spendulus package. This wasn’t just some run-of-the-mill spending issue – this was the moment when we switched from GOP governing ideas to Democrat governing ideas. And that is fine – the Democrats won and thus they get to set the agenda…but there was no need for GOPers to join in; let the Democrats take full responsibility with no “bi-partisan” cover. Specter, Collins and Snowe just wanted to be part of the team – the team of whomever is most powerful in DC…and right now its the tax and spend liberalism set which is most powerful, and Specter, Collins and Snowe didn’t want to be uncool and lose out on a possible White House invite or two.

Let no one try to sell us on the Donk talking point that we lost Specter because we’re pro-life, or in favor of winning the war, or what have you…Specter had been with us for years while we were exactly that; he only left because he knew he was toast in the GOP and for Specter the most important thing is that Specter remain at the public trough and continue to be part of the powerful in DC. Specter just turned yellow, plain and simple – courage would have required Specter to either try to win the GOP primary, or switch to Independent and try to win a three-way contest…Specter took the chicken**** path and joined the Democrats, who really don’t care what you believe as long as you’ll vote as you’re told. Specter will now be a good servant to his new masters.

It is time for Senator Snowe to choose – she is welcome in the party just so long as she adheres to core GOP principle: limited government, low taxes, strong defense, etc. But if she feels that her personal political ambitions trump the needs of the GOP, then she must leave…and the sooner the better so we can lay the ground for a GOPer to run for her seat. Its time for Senator McConnell to start listening to the regular folks – we won’t want Snowe in the party if the cost of keeping her means allowing Democrats to gain allegedly GOP cover for their foolish, socialist plans for America. No rancor – heck, not even mild disappointment. Snowe is who she is and she’s perfectly within her right to believe and act as she wishes…but the GOP is a party of principle, and if you can’t adhere to the basics, then its better to get out.

I will disagree with the left on ideological issues regularly, and respectfully, but I cannot respect such an insane thing as what Tony Bennett said about this dumbass we have in the White House:

Grammy-award winning musician Tony Bennett told CNSNews.com he “loves everything” Barack Obama has done in his first 100 days as president and thinks every American should “give him all-out support for anything he wants to do.”

Oh yeah? Does he love his picking of tax cheats and incompetants to serve in his administration? Does he love all the promises he has broken? Does he love how Obama has divided America, or laid the groundwark to free captured terrorists?

I am sorry, I don’t care how much you support any politician, blind acceptance of one person’s actions is dangerous. I really hope our liberal readers here would be smart enough to disagree with Bennett’s statements. His kind of sad, brainless Obamaphelia is what makes Obama so dangerous — because there are so many on the left so desperate to see Obama be a success they will outright ignore his faults and failures.

Part of the reason Obama won is because Bush kept us so safe that the concerns raised by 9/11 were fading from public memory…but now that liberalism is back in the national security saddle, people are starting to get concerned, again:

Minority Leader John Boehner and Pete Hoekstra, ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, have turned out a new video. “Do you feel safer?” they ask. The message is simple: releasing the CIA interrogation memos, halting enhanced interrogation techniques, and shutting Guantanamo without a viable alternative facility for the terrorists may please the Left, but do not enhance national security.

This comes at a time when Attorney General Eric Holder is in Europe trolling for offers to take the Guantanamo terrorists off our hands. So far only Britain and France have taken any (one each), although Holder seemed sunny about the prospects that others will step forward. Even more startling, Holder did not rule out assisting European governments in their prosecution of former Bush officials, as the Washington Post reported:

Holder did not rule it out. “Obviously, we would look at any request that would come from a court in any country and see how and whether we should comply with it,” he said. “This is an administration that is determined to conduct itself by the rule of law.”

All of that was too much for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who took to the Senate floor today, declaring:

It’s clear from these remarks that the administration is putting symbolism ahead of safety. This becomes even more apparent from Attorney General Holder’s admission that closing Guantanamo will be ‘one of the most daunting challenges’ he will face. He clearly realizes what most Americans realize: closing Guantanamo is not a good option if no safe alternatives exist.

There is an amazing level of immaturity in the Obama Administration approach to foreign and defense policy – it is a sort of policy by incantation: if Obama apologizes enough and if we show ourselves willing to put our own on trial, the world will forgive us the Bush years and thus we’ll be safe. You can be sure that if terrorists kill 3,000 more of us a year or two from now that the world will be profuse in its expressions of sympathy…but that won’t help the dead, and won’t help prevent a repeat. Only aggressive action against the enemy will do anything at all…President Bush kept us safe, in large part, by going out into the world and harrying the enemy at every opportunity. President Obama makes us less safe by stating, in advance, that there are certain things we won’t do…going around begging for others to take the Gitmo detainees off our hands just adds a pathetic element to the mix.

We can only hope – and pray – that over the 8 years of Bush enough damage was done to the terrorist that they won’t be able to mount a large attack until such time as we can get a GOP replacement into the White House. In other words, we have to find a way to win the political fight before Obama loses the military fight. Already the enemy is being encouraged – easily spotting Obama for the fool that he is and presuming that he’ll add “coward” to “fool” when pressed, at least as far as our enemies are concerned.

Turns out there are rightwing extremists even in Europe:

As soon as man began considering himself the source of the highest meaning in the world and the measure of everything, the world began to lose its human dimension, and man began to lose control of it. – Vaclav Havel

Rather alarming news:

The World Health Organisation has warned that “all of humanity is under threat” from a potential swine flu pandemic and called for “global solidarity” to combat the virus.

The plea came as the WHO raised the swine flu threat awareness level to 5 out of 6, indicating that the world is on the brink of a pandemic.

Holland and Switzerland both confirmed their first cases of swine flu on Thursday, bringing the total number of countries affected around the world to 11.

Some people are wondering why we’re not closing the borders and, since were not, whether this is just a bit of panic-mongering by governments which feed on crisis? I don’t think so – in fact, I think its likely worse than is being reported. Metropolitan Mexico City is more than 20 million people, many of whom live in squalid slums where services are nearly non-existent…such people are not going to the hospital and getting counted in the official figures; and how many people are willing to go into the slums to survey the rate of infection? A recent poll of Mexico City residents found that 57% figured the government is under-reporting the number of swine flu cases – I tend to agree, though not, perhaps, for the reasons Mexicans are doubtful. They are doubtful because their hopelessly corrupt and inefficient government is nearly always lying to them – I am doubtful because I don’t think the Mexican government has the resources to really get a grip on the crisis.

As to the subject of closing the borders – the disease is already in the United States so we’re pretty much going to suffer what we’ll suffer…having one more Mexican with the flu come in won’t materially affect the outcome. Unless we want to forbid all travel within the United States, closing the borders would be worthless…and even if we wanted to forbid travel, we can’t; our cities need to be fed. No point in saving a million people from the swine flu only to have ten million die of diseases brought about by shortages in the cities. But I’m also not too concerned about us.

Why is that? Because, goes my thinking (confirmed with a bit of knowledge gleaned from the reports) the people who are dying aren’t dying of the flu but of secondary complications – a person weakened by the flu gets pneumonia and that is what kills him. Now, why is it so prevalent in Mexico? Because they have a population already pre-weakened by substandard nutrition, high levels of industrial pollution and lack of basic medical care – the disease gets in to such a population and runs wild. My worry is that this same sequence of events will repeat itself in Cairo, Karachi, Mumbai and a score of other large, Third World cities which are situated similar to Mexico City – very large metro populations including very large slums. This flu breaks into those areas of the world and we could really have tens of millions at risk of death, combined with a massive social disruption as people try to flee the disease.

We should keep in mind that such a thing as a flu pandemic doesn’t necessarily just burn through once and its over – the flu of 1918 came, went and then came back again. We’re not out of the woods by a long shot – though there is still that chance that the strain will fizzle and we’ll be spared the worst of what could happen.

Perhaps merely having a good speaking style – when exceptionally well-rehearsed and taken off a tele-prompter – isn’t quite as much as our leftwing friends thought it was?

Audience interest in Barack Obama’s news conferences seems to be falling, with Wednesday’s press event drawing the president’s smallest primetime audience since his inauguration.

The telecast to mark Obama’s 100th day in office was viewed by 28.8 million people, according to Nielsen. That’s a 29% drop from the president’s last press conference, on March 24, and a 42% fall since his first, on Feb. 9.

Ten networks carried the telecast, which is one less than last time since Fox elected to run its detective drama Lie to Me…

I didn’t watch that megalomaniac waste of time – but I’ve heard that in spite of our economic collapse, there wasn’t any actual question about the economy. Is this true? I’ll rely on my readers to set me straight on that…

In this Alice-in-Wonderland Presidency all we’ve got is the Obama razzle-dazzle and the Democrat permanent campaign. There’s really nothing to see here – and so people are tuning it out.

Now I am really sick… Obama is going get to pick a replacement. Obama… how can someone so inexperienced, unqualified, and incompetent ever be put in that position? 

NPR has learned that Supreme Court Justice David Souter is planning to retire at the end of the current court term.

The vacancy will give President Obama his first chance to name a member of the high court and begin to shape its future direction.

Uggh…

UPDATE: Interesting.

Last week, Politico highlighted “seven things the White House wants reporters to write” about Obama’s first 100 days in office…

Here’s each point, and my rebuttal.

Obama is a promise-keeper.

Now, a few bloggers, including myself, have regularly blogged about Obama’s broken promises for American Issues Project for a couple months now. There has been no lack of material for this. His broken promises range from such things as failing to recognize the Armenian genocide, despite saying he would during the campaign. Other broken promises include not taxing the poor, getting a rescue dog for his daughters, leading by principle rather than polls, cutting spending, not negotiating with Hamas, just to name a few.

And his promise for more transparency was clearly bogus as well.

This NRSC ad pretty much sums it up…

Obama is a game-changer.

Obama may be changing things, but not for the better. And clearly, his belief that reaching out to our enemies would strengthen us is beyond absurd and shows no sign of producing results. Despite original reports that Obama made significant progress with Raul Castro regarding human rights, freedom of the press, political prisoners, etc., it was revealed a few days later that Obama “misintepreted” Castro’s comments. Obama, in seeking the approval of foreign leaders, resorts to blaming and apologizing for the United States for various things, undermining our moral authority.

Obama is the decider.

If Obama is the decider, then how come he claims he was unaware of the AIG bonuses shifting blame away from himself and towards Chris Dodd. If Obama is the decider, what does that say about his poor decisions in choosing his cabinet? What does that say about his lack of immediate, decisive action with the Somali pirate hostage mess? Obama has shown zero accountability in his 100 days and probably won’t ever. 

Obama’s not in the bubble.

Obama claimed to be unaware of the tax day tea parties. Obama claimed to be unaware of the AIG bonuses, which he signed into law. He has actually claimed to unaware of a lot of things recently. So, it certainly looks like he is in a bubble.

Obama is not FDR. / Obama is FDR.

Obama’s administration is desperately trying to lower expectations, while simultaneously elevating Obama to a historical greatness he cannot possibly achieve. Obama certainly won’t be as effective as FDR. but he certainly has similiar socialist ideals as the president whose policies kept our country in the Great Depression far longer than it had to. Sadly the passage of time has given the negative impacts of FDR’s policies ample opportunity to be distorted by those who want to rewrite history. But, if greatness is what Obama is going after, his incompetence, and the incompetence of those around him are making sure he will never achieve it.

Obama is one cool cucumber.

Obama’s hesistance over the Somali pirate hostage situation stands in contrast to the notion that Obama is cool under pressure.  This swine flu deal. The government’s response to the situation has been inadequate and half-assed compared to the how they’ve characterized the problem. And of course, there have been ample stories questioning whether Obama has too much on his plate, which is pathetic because he doesn’t have a greater set of problems and issues to face as any of his predecessors. The issue isn’t whether he has too much, it is whether he is handling what he has well. And he isn’t. Not at all.

That is the number of people who attended the Tea Party events – not bad for, at the time, less than 100 days into the Obama Error. Imagine what we’ll do next April 15th! Now, as to the leftwing’s inability to comprehend this:

According to Pajamas Media, 700,873 people attended some 883 tea party protests on April 15. It was a remarkable day, a tangible expression of public outrage that I have not experienced in my 25 years of advocacy and grassroots organizing on behalf of free-market principles.

Judging from the left’s hysterical reaction, something really big must have happened. But the only way to really understand the left’s misinformed and paranoid attacks is to realize that the protests represent tangible proof that basic libertarian values continue to resonate with the American electorate. That, apparently, is a difficult thing for some to accept.

I attended the tea party in Atlanta along with 15,000 other activists, and was struck by the makeup of the crowd. This was not a typical conservative Republican rally, with local GOP activists, Ron Paul enthusiasts, and single-issue obsessives. (Those folks always show up—and they did in Atlanta.) The difference was the new people: Young hipsters, families, angry moms, and retirees alike left their normal routines and work obligations to show up in protest of government policies that they passionately believe will ruin what is unique about America.

What were the tea parties about? Reading the signs and talking to people (unlike CNN’s incredibly hostile Susan Roesgen, I actually let folks answer my questions in their own words), the “agenda” was crystal clear. Tea party activists were worried and angry about government bailouts for the irresponsible, about spending that “stimulated” record growth in government and not much else, and about government borrowing that will place unconscionable burdens on future generations of Americans. My favorite sign of the day: “Give Me Liberty, Not Debt.”

The people showed up to demand that the powerful knock their nonsense off. The left doesn’t understand genuine popular movements – they need leaders to organize and taxpayer-funded “community” groups to put it all together…and a vast sea of people who do nothing useful (layabouts, college slackers, government employees) to provide the crowds. That Americans, all on their own, will get up and get things done without someone telling them what to do (and providing hot-ticket acts to inspire people to forgo today’s addition of Judge Judy) is outside their experience…and so, it was just a tiny group of racists who don’t understand that Obama cut their taxes who showed up…yeah, whatever.

The times, they are a-changing…the people are rising up; all the Obama election has done is awakened the American people to their peril and now all of those – regardless of party label – who work for themselves and their special interests will feel the wrath of a people cheated for too long.