FDR+BHO = SOL

"Like FDR, President Obama inherited a nation in economic crisis. Let us not forget, however, that Roosevelt’s policies converted the crisis into a decade-long full-blown depression. Why anyone would seek to emulate that experience is beyond me." - Alan Blinder, in a letter to the Wall Street Journal

Since taking office, Barack Obama has....(insert disappointment here)

Over on Reddit, someone was shocked, SHOCKED !! to learn that Obama had appointed Michael Taylor, Monsanto's ex-VP for Public Policy, as the FDA's Deputy Commissioner for Foods.
What in the hell was surprising?
Here's what the sheltered, pampered little dunce has done since taking office, taken from the comments of the same post:

• Opposed gay marriage in 2009 and reaffirmed his position in 2010. When he finally flipped on his position in 2011 he stated that he was still "grappling" with his personal views on gay marriage.
• Signed the NDAA - an indefinite detention bill - into law.
• Gave $535,000,000 of our money to a company which he knew (or at least should) have was going to go bankrupt.
• Placed Sanctions on Iran that will likely lead to war.
• Increased the TSA’s budget and allowed the scope of their authority to increase
• Gave Blackwater a quarter of a billion dollars.
• Approved of a more draconian Patriot Act.
• Assassinated three American Citizens 1 2 3.
• Continued the Drug War. Including pushing for a five year mandated sentence for Charles C. Lynch the owner of a licensed medical marijuana dispensary.
• Wins right to deny habeas review from detainees.
• Protected Bush officials from charges relating to torture.
• Waged war on Libya without congressional approval.
• Waives health care coverage for employees of 29 companies including McDonald's.
• Deports record number of immigrants.
• Continued and escalated a covert, drone war in Yemen.
• Takes the hardest stance in American history against government whistle blowers.
• Escalated the proxy war in Somalia.
• Pushes harder for warrantless wire taps than Bush did.
• Escalated the CIA drone war in Pakistan including attacking first responders and funerals.
• And what about the Children?
• Promises more transparent government denies more FOIA request than Bush.
• Gives BP and other big oil companies exemption from EPA laws.
• Will maintain a presence in Iraq even after "ending" war.
• Sharply escalated the war in Afghanistan.
• Secretly made deal to kill health care public option while secretly meeting with health care executives and provided an exemption for abortion.
• Secretly deployed US special forces to 75 countries.
• Sold $30 billion of weapons to the dictatorship in Saudi Arabia.
• Signed an agreement for 7 military bases in Colombia
• Appoints multiple lobbyists while signing an executive order limiting this practice. This included lobbyists from Goldman Sachs , Raytheon and Monsanto.
• Continued Bush's rendition program.

If Obama had promised to do all of the above, would you have supported him or voted for him?  Now that he's done all of the above, will you still support him? 

Gary Johnson for President in 2012.  Everything else is truly a wasted vote. 

If the economy is improving....

Here's Michelle Obama, speaking to some mannequins, clothes-horses and talking heads in Hollywood:

First Lady Michelle Obama cited "remarkable progress" on the economy during a speech for a small crowd of high-profile Hollywood names in Los Angeles on Tuesday evening.

"In the last three years, we've worked hard to get out of this mess and we've made some remarkable progress," the first lady told a group of about 135 supporters at a private campaign event for her husband. She listed President Obama's accomplishments on healthcare reform, the removal of troops from Iraq and the repeal of "Don't ask, don't tell" among other items on the list of "promises kept" touted by Obama's reelection campaign.

This is from the ever-cheerful Economic Collapse Blog, via a link from Instapundit:

When they try to convince you that the economy is getting better, ask them these questions....

If the economy is getting better, then why did new home sales in the United States hit a brand new all-time record low during 2011?

If the economy is getting better, then why are there 6 million less jobs in America today than there were before the recession started?

If the economy is getting better, then why is the average duration of unemployment in this country close to an all-time record high?

If the economy is getting better, then why has the number of homeless female veterans more than doubled?

If the economy is getting better, then why has the number of Americans on food stamps increased by 3 million since this time last year and by more than 14 million since Barack Obama entered the White House?

If the economy is getting better, then why has the number of children living in poverty in America risen for four years in a row?

If the economy is getting better, then why is the percentage of Americans living in "extreme poverty" at an all-time high?

If the economy is getting better, then why is the Federal Housing Administration on the verge of a financial collapse?

If the economy is getting better, then why do only 23 percent of American companies plan to hire more employees in 2012?

If the economy is getting better, then why has the number of self-employed Americans fallen by more than 2 million since 2006?

If the economy is getting better, then why did an all-time record low percentage of U.S. teens have a job last summer?

If the economy is getting better, then why does median household income keep declining? Overall, median household income in the United States has declined by a total of 6.8% since December 2007 once you account for inflation.

If the economy is getting better, then why has the number of Americans living below the poverty line increased by 10 million since 2006?

If the economy is getting better, then why is the average age of a vehicle in America now sitting at an all-time high?

If the economy is getting better, then why are 18 percent of all homes in the state of Florida currently sitting vacant?

If the economy is getting better, then why are 19 percent of all American men between the ages of 25 and 34 living with their parents?

If the economy is getting better, then why does the number of "long-term unemployed workers" stay so high?

When Barack Obama first took office, the number of "long-term unemployed workers" in the United States was approximately 2.6 million. Today, that number is sitting at 5.6 million.

But there is some good news.

When Barack Obama first took office, an ounce of gold was going for about $850. Today, the price of an ounce of gold is over $1700.

The era of great prosperity that America has enjoyed for so long is coming to an end.

In fact, our long-term economic decline is about to accelerate.

So enjoy this "bubble of hope" while you can, because it won't last long.

Lrdy, that was depressing.  Go to the Economic collapse blog to read their recommendations for your money, your business, and your stuff.

Here's a compilation of the world's funniest dog videos. I wouldn't want to send you out of here without some kind of mood stabilizer. 



 

The 4th Best President EVER ! (Right behind Jimmy Carter, Andrew Johnson, and Millard Fillmore)

Since they are total hacks and since they wouldn't want to do anything to expose Dear Leader to ridicule, 60 Minutes didn't include this bit of Barackaganda in their recent Obama interview. 

They did screw up and include it in the transcript  Heads will roll. 

Have a terrifying glimpse into the minds behind The Teleprompter:

President Obama suggested, during his recent CBS interview, that his domestic and foreign policy achievements over his first term surpass any other United States president, “with the possible exceptions” of Presidents Lincoln, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Lyndon Johnson.

“I would put our legislative and foreign policy accomplishments in our first two years against any president — with the possible exceptions of Johnson, F.D.R., and Lincoln,” Obama told Steve Kroft, “just in terms of what we’ve gotten done in modern history.”

Here's cartoonist Michael Ramirez:

 

Somebody please tell Maureen Dowd that Maureen Dowd is the Maureen Dowd that Maureen Dowd has been waiting for

Maureen Dowd, disappointed and feeling jilted, is surprised that Barack Obama is still the same guy with the exact same faults that she wrote about here. These blurbs are from a 2007 editorial about Obama's debate performances:

But often he reverts to Obambi, tentative about commanding the stage and consistently channeling the excitement he engenders....

In the South Carolina debate, Senator Obama was — absurdly — taken by surprise when Brian Williams asked the requisite Dukakis question designed to elicit manly passion: How would he respond if Al Qaeda hit two American cities?

In the New Hampshire debate Sunday night, Mr. Obama again missed his chances. Hillary is the one he needs to unseat, but he treads gingerly around her....

Mr. Obama let the opportunity for a sharp comment pass....

He missed another chance when Hillary said at the beginning of the debate that she believed “we are safer than we were” before 9/11, even though the Democrats won Congress with the opposite argument last fall, and even though the Iraq war has clearly made the world more dangerous than ever.....

And now, to prove that leopards don't change their spots, here's M. Dowd's editorial from earlier this week:

The leader who was once a luminescent, inspirational force is now just a guy in a really bad spot....


 As James Carville acerbically noted, given a choice between watching an Obama speech and a G.O.P. debate, “I’d watch the debate, and I’m not even a Republican.”


The White House caved, of course, and moved to Thursday, because there’s nothing the Republicans say that he won’t eagerly meet halfway.

No. 2 on David Letterman’s Top Ten List of the president’s plans for Labor Day: “Pretty much whatever the Republicans tell him he can do.”


MSNBC’s Matt Miller offered “a public service” to journalists talking about Obama — a list of synonyms for cave: “Buckle, fold, concede, bend, defer, submit, give in, knuckle under, kowtow, surrender, yield, comply, capitulate.”


And it wasn’t exactly Morning in America when Obama sent out a mass e-mail to supporters Wednesday under the heading “Frustrated.”


It unfortunately echoed a November 2010 parody in The Onion with the headline, “Frustrated Obama Sends Nation Rambling 75,000-Word E-Mail.”


“Throughout,” The Onion teased, “the president expressed his aggravation on subjects as disparate as the war in Afghanistan, the sluggish economic recovery, his live-in mother-in-law, China’s undervalued currency, Boston’s Logan Airport, and tort reform.”


You know you’re in trouble when Harry Reid says you should be more aggressive.


If the languid Obama had not done his usual irritating fourth-quarter play, if he had presented a jobs plan a year ago and fought for it, he wouldn’t have needed to elevate the setting. How will he up the ante next time? A speech from the space station?


Republicans who are worried about being political props have a point. The president is using the power of the incumbency and a sacred occasion for a political speech.


Obama is still suffering from the Speech Illusion, the idea that he can come down from the mountain, read from a Teleprompter, cast a magic spell with his words and climb back up the mountain, while we scurry around and do what he proclaimed.


The days of spinning illusions in a Greek temple in a football stadium are done. The One is dancing on the edge of one term.


The White House team is flailing — reacting, regrouping, retrenching. It’s repugnant.


After pushing and shoving and caving to get on TV, the president’s advisers immediately began warning that the long-yearned-for jobs speech wasn’t going to be that awe-inspiring.


“The issue isn’t the size or the newness of the ideas,” one said. “It’s less the substance than how he says it, whether he seizes the moment.”


The arc of justice is stuck at the top of a mountain. Maybe Obama was not even the person he was waiting for.

Hey, folks, we're Americans.  We're not sheep.  We're not supposed to be waiting on anybody.  We need political "leaders" like we need testicular cancer.  You are the one you're waiting for.  I'm the one I'm waiting for.  Maureen Dowd may have been waiting on Obama to lead her to some New York Holy Timesian Promised Land, but she should be the exception.  We have a great system of government, but The Founders didn't put enough safeguards in place to save us from people who want to save us. 

 Hell, can you imagine Thomas Jefferson rolling out proposals for economic growth?  John Adams worrying about saving or creating jobs? 

Heck, Libertarians think a lot of Ron Paul, but we generally don't think refer to him as He Who The Prophets Foretold, or the One Who Will Bring Balance To The Force (except in jest).  We simply believe that he really would take a chainsaw to government.  Nothing too special about it. 

(Actual Campaign Poster)

The Libertarian Party awaits your support.  We want to march on Washington and demand nothing.  We envision a system of government so small, so inconsequential, that the major TV networks would never dream of televising our debates about Afghanistan, or our speeches on the economy.  

Afghanistan and the economy are none of our business.  Or Barack Obama's. 

On False Prophets

Harold Camping's predictions about the rapture were deeply and profoundly wrong.  As wrong as you can get.  He didn't misunderstand anything, he didn't mis-speak, and he didn't fail to nuance his position properly. 

He was just wrong.  The world didn't end yesterday. 
These things happen. 

It happens to me sometimes.  Hit the "Prophecy" label at the bottom of this post, and you'll eventually find a good collection of my hits and misses. 

But my failed predictions don't hurt anyone but me.  (Well, the bad sports bets sometime impact the family and dachshund grocery budget, but you know what I mean.)

Harold Camping's followers spent around a million bucks on their billboard campaign and End Of The World merchandise.  That's "one comma zero zero zero comma zero zero zero decimal zero zero".  That's a lot of money. 
But Harold Camping didn't show up at anyone's front door and arrest them for not contributing.  He never withheld any money from someone's paycheck.  People were willing to give Camping their money because they believed in his cause. 
I had an interesting conversation in a Starbucks with a Campion disciple a couple of days ago.  Go here for what few details I had time to write about this lady.....

When I run into her again, I intend to be nice and polite, but I'm gonna have to ask how she feels about having supported Harold Camping and FamilyRadio.com.  Wouldn't you? 

Now, speaking of ripoffs and scam artists....  In 2008, Barack Obama told us that if he gave 3/4 of a trillion dollars to his campaign contributors, our economy would recover, and that unemployment would never go above 8 percent. 
We didn't give him the money for this project.  It was taken from us by force or threat of force. 

Barack Obama spent our money like a Middle Eastern dictator showering dollars on his loyal supporters.  Most of his "stimulus projects" had been on the government wish list for quite some time.  Others were invented on the spot.  My favorite was the one where Mark Penn, Hillary's failed campaign manager, got a couple of million to publicize the switch from analog to digital TV, long after the TV technology change had already received more publicity than Harold Campion could ever dream of. 

Here's Obama's chart, with reality drawn on it in purple.  We're still not below 8 % unemployment.

Barack Obama took SEVEN HUNDRED AND EIGHTY SEVEN BILLION DOLLARS of your money, and just handed it over to his peeps.  That's "seven eight seven comma zero zero zero comma zero zero zero comma zero zero zero decimal zero zero". 

Here's a more up to date chart showing Federal Spending vs. jobs. 

Are the people who claim government spending creates jobs....a....little...bit....superstitious?  Or gullible?  Or just not very smart?  Seriously.  Those are the only explanations at this point. 

This is the biggest ripoff in history.  This Keynesian Con Artist has taken us to the cleaners.  And we're going to come up with excuses for him, and we're not going to circle the White House with protests, and we're going to find a way to rationalize the total failure of our government. 

Almost exactly like FamilyRadio.Org's followers are doing today. 

Today the media is having a field day ridiculing Harold Camping, a ridiculous Baptist Witch Doctor who probably can't wait for his 15 minutes of fame to end. 

Where's the media outrage over Chicago's failed prophet? 

Here's some dude named John, writing at Powerline.  (John's excellent post got me started on this rant, BTW.)

The Obama administration's failed prediction of job growth has significant public policy implications. The most basic division between our political parties is their relative faith, or lack thereof, in the efficacy of federal spending. We are embarking on an election cycle in which Republicans will argue for reduced government spending, and Democrats will claim, against all the evidence, that cutting back on out-of-control spending will somehow be bad for the economy. But the Democrats' theory has been tested. It flunked. It would be nice if reporters and editors would find that failed prediction as newsworthy as the latest end of the world calculation.

So who is the bigger sucker?  My friend from Starubucks in the photograph above? 

Or these folks? 

The pic of Barack Obama with his flock of gullible sheep came from The Democratic Underground. 

Thomas Sowell on Buyer's Remorse

Please stand for this month's reading from the Gospel According To Saint Thomas. 

Economist Thomas Sowell, the smartest man in the world now that Milton Friedman is dead, has written an epistle to those who are disappointed in Barack Obama:

Many people on various parts of the political spectrum are expressing a sense of disappointment with Obama. But I have not felt the least bit disappointed.

Once in office, President Obama has done exactly what his whole history would lead you to expect him to do....  Disappointing? No. Disgusting? Yes. The only disappointment is with voters who voted their hopes and ignored his realities.

When Dr. Sowell descends from the moutain to address us, we should measure his words carefully.  There isn't necessarily anything wrong with Barack Obama.  Obama is a human.  He is fallible. 
So is Ron Paul. 
So is Rand Paul. 
So is Gary Johnson, great governor from New Mexico. 
So is Senator Jim Webb, decent Democrat of Virginia. 
The candidate that I worked hardest to elect, the Libertarian Party's presidential candidate Bob Barr, is extremely human.  Way human. 

Ron Paul occasionally throws in some earmarks for his Texas district. 
Rand Paul is opposed to same-sex marriage. 
Gary Johnson has completed Iron Man Triathlons, and its all I can do to finish a 10K.  This irks me. 
Jim Webb had great ideas on gun rights and ending the Drug War.  But he was against free trade. 
Bob Barr was severely criticized for licking whipped cream off of strippers.  (Everyone knows that people of taste and refinment would have covered them with Jello Shots.)

These people shouldn't be our leaders, except in dismantling the machine that we've allowed to take over our lives.  Americans shouldn't need inspirational leaders providing their infrastructure, running the court system and defending our borders.  We need some dull, uninspiring functionaries who don't want to build empires, we need some lazy, drab, civil-service lifers who want to put in 6 hours a day for 40 years and then retire. 
Electing a president should be no more important to you than picking a new lawn service.  If the president really matters, then your government has gotten to big.   More Americans work for the government than work in construction, farming, fishing, forestry, manufacturing, mining and utilities combined.

Please stand again for a second reading from the scriptures: 

Many people on various parts of the political spectrum are expressing a sense of disappointment with Obama. But I have not felt the least bit disappointed.

Once in office, President Obama has done exactly what his whole history would lead you to expect him to do.... Disappointing? No. Disgusting? Yes. The only disappointment is with voters who voted their hopes and ignored his realities.

The man has spoken.


Thus endeth the reading from The Gospel According To Saint Thomas.
You may be seated.

"At the twilight's last reaming"

Most people secretly want their enemies to crash and burn. 
Then there's taking it too far by wanting to dance on their graves. 

That's kind of how I feel this morning.  I've been whining and griping and moaning about Jerry Jones and the City of Arlington stealing land for stadiums for a long, long time.  I'm going to say it.  I feel sorry for Jerry Jones.  Lord have mercy, what a mess. 

A few days before the Super Bowl, I posted pics of the disastrous weather, the unlikely rolling power blackouts, and all the other signs that Jerry and Arlington were sinners in the hands of an angry God. 

I suggested some purifying rituals that Jerry could undergo.  He apparently did none of them. 

Here's the Fort Worth Star-Telegram on the game day meltdowns.  Or lack of melting.  Whatever:

These weren't the text messages, phone calls and e-mails that Bill Lively had envisioned.

On Monday, the president of the Super Bowl Host Committee and his staff expected to revel in the afterglow of the region's first Super Bowl, which they had promised would be the "the biggest and best" ever. Instead, they found themselves among several entities facing a barrage of questions about what went wrong and who was to blame.

After more than 31/2 years of work and with a well-choreographed plan that was praised by National Football League officials, the Host Committee is under fire for a series of events that were out of its control during Super Bowl week.

For his part, Lively said he would essentially use the same approach, with a few refinements, when the region makes its next Super Bowl bid.

"The stadium is a great venue and it will get us another Super Bowl, whether it is 50, 51 or 53," he said.

Problems at Cowboys Stadium on Super Sunday and unexpected bad weather in the days leading up to the game have called that faith into question.

The biggest single-day event in the country once again set a record for the most-watched TV program of all time.

But a number of the 103,219 people in attendance Sunday might be wishing they had stayed home to watch. About 1,200 fans had to be moved just hours before kickoff because temporary seats in the end zone and on the main concourse were completed too late and judged unsafe.

And ice and snow on the giant domed roof prompted closure of some stadium gates, creating long delays for fans trying to enter. Six people were injured by falling ice on Friday. Even Lively felt the pain, waiting for two hours to get inside, a member of his staff said.

People waited outside for three freakin' hours to get inside of The Debt Star.  According to DFW talk radio, cops were instructed that if anyone left their place in line to go to the restroom, they had to go to the back of the line.  Half the gates were shut down because of ice overhanging the Dome Of The Wreck.  1200 people had no seats. 
The NFL offered 'em seats in the media area, out in the parking lot, in a bar someplace, merchandise, a chance to go onto the field after the game, 3 times the purchase price of their tickets, and a free ticket to next year's Super Bowl.  Yeah.  Green Bay and Pittsburgh fans are totally pumped about a chance to go see Tampa Bay and Arizona next year. 

For the sadists among you, here's some video of pissed off fans chanting "Jerry Sucks". Can you imagine flying or driving from Green Bay or Pittsburgh, having paid 3K to a scalper for a ticket, and being told "Oh, your seat isn't built yet"? It....Got....Ugly....



Bill Lively eventually offered up this classic line:
"I don't think it will be harder next time," he said, "when you consider that we were laboring under the deepest recession in 70 years."
I think Mr. Lively has seen too many of Mr. Obama's press conferences.

Here's The Startlegram on the seat problem....

Several days before the Super Bowl, the National Football League, the Dallas Cowboys and the city of Arlington knew that the installation of about 15,000 temporary seats was behind schedule, but they still believed that the seats would be finished in time.

Some of the bleacher seats were deemed dangerous and placed off limits during the game. On Monday, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said the league will not only refund affected fans $2,400 per ticket but also invite them to next year's Super Bowl in Indianapolis.

"There were some very unhappy fans, but people went home safe," said Arlington Fire Chief Don Crowson said. "That is what matters to us."

Arlington fire inspectors had been monitoring the installation of the vertical metal bleachers for at least two weeks before the game, he said, and there was a concern that their completion "was going to be close." Contractors were working on the stands, set up in the end zones and along the main concourse, through the afternoon of game day.

But time ran out.

At about 2 p.m. Sunday, Crowson said he told the NFL that about 500 bleacher seats in the west end zone were not going to open. The staircases leading up to sections 425A and 430A, at either end of the stand and about 30 feet tall, didn't have guardrails and handrails as required.

"We were hopeful work would be completed, but it was not," Crowson said. "When it became apparent the stairs were not going to be completed, we told the NFL those seats were not going to be in use."

The NFL and Cowboys owner Jerry Jones wanted to break the Super Bowl attendance mark of 103,985, set in 1980 at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif. In the end, they fell short with a crowd of 103,219.

And then there was the national anthem.....Christina Aguilera has more talent in her little finger than most of us have in our entire 210-pound selves.  She has been on stage since she got out of diapers. 

I've heard Willie Nelson and Roseanne Barr botch the anthem, but they weren't laboring under the Jerry Jones Eminent Domain curse.  Aguilera left out lines, doubled up on others, and left us with the classic line "At the twilight's last reaming". 




So, one last time before next year's football diasters start to fall on the heads of Jerry Jones, The City of Arlington, and the Dallas Cowboys....
God doesn't like it when you steal somebody's land for a football stadium. 

Robert Redford

This video pulls no punches. 
They're calling Robert Redford a hypocrite. 
I prefer the term "Whited Sepulchre" myself. 
None of us is perfect. 
"For all have sinned, and fallen short of the glory of __this___." (Romans 3:23)

But in this case, unh...well....let's just say that Redford's actions make Al Gore's seem almost primitive.  And green.  And eco-friendly. 

I hate to see this. "The Sting", "Butch Cassidy", "Out Of Africa", "JEREMIAH FREAKIN' JOHNSON", "The Way We Were" (please don't tell anybody)  and "The Great Gatsby" (please don't tell anybody) are some of my favorites. 

Oh well. 

The U.S. Government's current fixation on the color green is about collecting taxes and shakedown money from manufacturers and truckers.  It's about funneling graft and pork "investments" to supporters who are willing to pretend to invent green, renewable, sustainable Perpetual Motion machines. 

Yeah, we don't need to hurt other people.  All the rest is noise. 

Casino Jack - the worst movie ever made about a great story

I went to see the "Casino Jack" last night.  It's the new Kevin Spacey movie about the rise and fall of lobbyist Jack Abramoff. 

Jack Abramoff ?  Jack Abramoff ?  Why, I don't even know Abram....
Sorry about that.  Couldn't help it. 

I wanted to love this movie.  I wanted it to be greatness. 
Unfortunately, it's badly written, poorly edited, and horribly directed.  The director, George Hickenlooper, has done mostly documentaries up to this point.  Maybe that explains why he shovels in every tic, idiosyncrasy, and mannerism that his research uncovered. 
By the time you finish watching this thing, you'll know that Jack Abramoff worked out every day, walked around his office with dumbells, loved to quote from movies, covered his head on the Sabbath, wore a fedora the rest of the time, kept a bust of Ronald Reagan on his desk, ate kosher, and produced a couple of Dolph Lundgren movies.  But you'll have no idea what made him tick. 

Ok, enough of the minor league Roger Ebert nonsense. 

Here's what's interesting about the Jack Abramoff scandal.  This is from The Washington Post:

Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff and public relations consultant Michael Scanlon quietly worked with conservative religious activist Ralph Reed to help the state of Texas shut down an Indian tribe's casino in 2002, then the two quickly persuaded the tribe to pay $4.2 million to try to get Congress to reopen it.


Dozens of e-mails written by the three men and obtained by The Washington Post show how they built public support for then-Texas Attorney General John Cornyn's effort get the courts to close the Tigua tribe's Speaking Rock Casino in El Paso in late 2001 and early 2002. The e-mails also reveal what appears to be an effort on the part of Abramoff and Scanlon to then exploit the financial crisis they were helping to create for the tribe by securing both the multimillion-dollar fee and $300,000 in federal political contributions, which the tribe paid.

Ten days after the Tigua Indians' $60 million-a-year casino was shuttered in February 2002, Abramoff wrote a tribal representative that he would get Republicans in Congress to rectify the "gross indignity perpetuated by the Texas state authorities," assuring him that he had already lined up "a couple of Senators willing to ram this through," according to the e-mails.

What he did not reveal was that he and Scanlon had been paying Reed, an avowed foe of gambling, to encourage public support for Cornyn's effort to close two Indian casinos in Texas.

(People with a monopoly in an industry, especially a "vice" industry, have long utilized opponents of their industry to preserve their monopoly.  This is called the "Bootleggers And Baptists" phenomenon.  Bootleggers and Baptists are united in their opposition to legal alcohol sales, and both sides vote in favor of alcohol prohibition.  You can hit this link to read about illegal marijuana dealers tipping off the police about semi-legal medical marijuana dispensaries.  Bootleggers and Baptists - once you understand how it works, you'll see it everywhere.) 

Abramoff, one of Washington's powerhouse Republican lobbyists until his work came under scrutiny by law enforcement agencies this year, has long been close to Reed, former executive director of the Christian Coalition and now southern regional chairman of President Bush's reelection campaign. Both have political ties to House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), as does Scanlon, who had served as his spokesman.

Here's a summary of the movie and the scandal....An Indian casino has a race-based gambling monopoly in a certain region. There are rumors that another tribe will also be given a casino license, cutting into the profits of casino #1. 
Casino #1 hires a lobbyist to block casino #2 from opening.  The lobbyist, who is damn good at what he does, hires Ralph Reed and The Christian Coalition to protest against The Gambling Menace, The Horrors Of Gaming, and the like. 
The lobbyist then turns around and takes money from Casino #2 and spreads some more of the wealth in Congress, this time as an encouragement for the regulators to examine and support the pro-gambling side of things. 
  
So.  If you assume that it's ok for our government to prevent me or anyone else from opening a casino, or if you assume that it's ok for our government to issue race-based casino licenses and withdraw them at will, and if you assume that government has a right to regulate private behavior....

If you know that Congressmen are bought and sold like East Lancaster crack whores, and if you are willing to tolerate this kind of whoremongering from military contractors, big business, the green energy/perpetual motion machine lobby, and unions...
Then what was so bad about Jack Abramoff ? 

And why would you ever trust government to properly regulate gambling, funeral homes, pharmaceuticals, or even rural stoplights?  Much less your healthcare? 

The Thrill Is Gone

Please play this while you read.



Here's Jack Kelly writing about how The Thrill Is Gone. A brief excerpt:

The low point came when Mr. Obama professed not to know whether Elizabeth Birnbaum, the woman he appointed to head the Minerals Management Service, resigned or was fired. No one expects the president to don scuba tanks and plug the hole himself. But he at least ought to know what's going on with his own people.

"He came across as a beleaguered bureaucrat in damage control," wrote Craig Crawford of Congressional Quarterly.

Here's Maureen Dowd, a former worshipper of The Obamessiah:

It’s impossible not to feel sorry for President Obama, pummeled by the cascading disasters, at home and abroad, unleashed by two war-mongering oil men — plus scary escalations by Israel, Iran and North Korea. (Dick Cheney’s dark influence is still belching like the well. BP just brought on a new public relations executive: Anne Womack-Kolton, who served as Cheney’s campaign press secretary in 2004 and worked in W.’s White House and at the Energy Department.)

Well, actually it is possible to avoid feeling sorry for the Messianic muttonhead.  I know a lot of  people who accomplish the feat every waking hour. 
If you like, you can go here for a similar column written by Newsweek's Jonathan Alter.
IMAO, what we're dealing with is the inevitable disappointment in the leadership style of someone who has been given the toughest job in the world, but who has never even had to deal with the heavy burdens of running a Whataburger night shift. 
What kind of competence were they expecting?     
I hope you're enjoying the B.B. King/Eric Clapton jam.  (That's a much younger, less bald Phil Collins on the drums, BTW.)

I found this in the comment field of the New York Post article up at the top:

Bush has been out of office for almost 2 years and you're STILL crying about him.
Did Reagan ever blame Carter for the mess he left?
Did Carter ever blame Ford for Nixon? For ANYTHING?
Did Nixon ever blame Vietnam on Kennedy or Johnson?
Did Kennedy blame Ike or Truman for the Cold War and the Cuban Missle Crisis?
Did Truman blame FDR for WW2?
Did FDR blame Hoover for the Depression?
Or did these men focus on the issues instead of acting like a child and pointing fingers?

Well, they probably did.  But I don't have time to research it. 
It's been a year and a half, and the guy and his minions still can't speak  to the media without saying the phrase "what we inherited".  What they're doing is "more of the same". 

I hope you'll listen to King and Clapton all the way through to the end.  The last minute of that video is like listening to Zeus talk to Thor.  Great stuff.