April 18, 2013

It's been a bad first quarter of first year of the second term for President Obama.

1. It's been so bad that the media dropped their erstwhile foible of talking about everything that happens in terms of what it means for Obama. And here it is, the first lap of his new term, when there's more reason than usual to talk about how things are working out for the President.

2. Obama made gun control his big issue leading into the new term. He tried so hard to deploy his speaking skills to channel the nation's emotion after the Sandy Hook massacre, and in the end he couldn't even wrangle all of the Democrats in the Senate, and he was reduced yesterday to surrounding himself with human vessels of tragedy and "a scowling Vice President Biden" and pronounce it "all in all...  a pretty shameful day for Washington." The media offered weak support by describing him as passionately angry, but I watched the video and found it surprising dull. I couldn't motivate myself to go over to my computer to blog about it last night. Obama knew he was going to lose. The theater of sympathy and outrage had gone on far too long, the show was a flop, and the leading man was obliged to take his curtain call.

3. North Korea apparently has a nuclear weapon and the nerve to use it (or to pose as if it does), and the new Secretary of State, the exceedingly dreary John Kerry, is sojourning in the general area nattering about global warming —  "the Foreign Minister and I agreed to raise the initiative above the level that it is today" — and meanwhile, back in the United States, it's really cold.

4. Obama's efforts to get some lightweight good press over basketball failed. His bracket was busted, and a cutesy photo-op produced an embarrassing video in which he went 2 for 22. That he could play basketball was an element of his legend, and now it's that video that comes to mind when we think of Obama and basketball. Does he even have another sport? Golf? Golf, unlike basketball, never worked as an element of the Obama legend.

5. He shut off White House tours, presumably on the theory that it would spark outrage at the sequester (and those terrible Republicans), but that gesture clashed with his own fun in the White House. Ordinary kids had their field trips canceled, while Obama's daughters got Justin Timberlake to come to the White House and perform right in front of them. It was another of the many parties. Wasn't Beyonce just there? And then she and Jay-Z went to Cuba, and, when criticized, Jay-Z put out a pissy rap tune that (I think) insulted Obama.

6. George Bush is making a comeback, with some charming new elements: He's a granddad and he paints pictures of dogs. The big library is opening. And then there's the new disaster in Waco, just 45 miles from his Crawford ranch, giving Bush reason to do a low-profile but touching trip to comfort the injured and the bereaved. So now does that mean Obama has to go to Texas? He's already going to Boston for a memorial service. How can he not go to Texas? But Texas is not comfortable territory for Obama.

7. Margaret Thatcher up and died. What rotten luck! What a platform for the promoters of the ideology in opposition to his! And then idiots take to the streets with all that "Ding, Dong the Witch Is Dead" childishness and disrespect, damaging the left-wing brand. Should Obama attend the funeral? Ah, at least send the Vice President. At least send somebody! No. He sends nobody.

8. What's the legislative agenda? Immigration reform? WaPo headlines: "Obama isn’t leading on immigration, and that’s a good thing." The media's attempts to help are getting really embarrassing. He's not leading, but, see, that's a good thing. Let us explain why: "Presidential leadership is a polarizing force...." Blah blah blah. What really matters are the 2014 elections. Just hang back and wait. Nothing but weakness and failure might just be a devious strategy for winning 565 days from now.

9. What's happening with Obamacare? That was the achievement of Obama's first term. If there's one thing he ought to do with this second term, it's make sure that thing gets implemented in a way that works with some degree of smoothness, at least enough that — when people finally notice what's been in the works for so long —  we don't freak out entirely. But: "A senior Democratic senator who helped write President Barack Obama’s health care law stunned administration officials Wednesday, saying openly he thinks it’s headed for a 'train wreck' because of bumbling implementation.'"

10. The trial of Kermit Gosnell is fogging up the clarity achieved in 2012 victory in the War on Women.

263 comments:

1 – 200 of 263   Newer›   Newest»
Seeing Red said...

Benghazi might be warming up, Issa told CIA employees to get lawyers especially if the agency decides to come after them.

Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...

Our unprofessional pro-democrat local media "news" stations (both Fox 31 and Channel 2) like to report opinion as news all the time. They are insisting that 90% want gun control. Go team to!

Few in U.S. See Guns, Immigration as Nation's Top Problems

rhhardin said...

Imus deplored everything conservative and had the worst show ever, out of sympathy with whoever the victims of the day are today.

Anonymous said...

The Prez is done. Stick a fork in him.

James Pawlak said...

Just like the Mikado, I have a list:
"I have a little list
And none of them will be missed"

Seeing Red said...

...He called on Americans to build sustained pressure for enhanced background check legislation, among other gun control provisions. “Sooner or later, we are going to get this right,” Obama said....


FORWARD!

pauldar said...

You know the thing on the defeat of the gun control, and it was gun control. Obama came out and said "It was against the will of the people" I have one word for him "Obamacare" Oddly enough I didn't see him say a damn word about that being against the will of the people.

Anonymous said...

I really don't get the appeal of Obama to anyone other than the most severe red-meat liberals, outright leftists, and minority-identity types.

Aside from hanging the albatross of Obamacare around our necks, what has this man accomplished?

Seeing Red said...

If only he'd focus on making us attractive so people could work?

He's been focusing on jobs like a laser since 2008. Or was it 2007?

That was a great Drudge headline at one time.

Bob Ellison said...

Bobby Jones said of Jack Nicklaus in 1965, "Nicklaus played a game of which I am not familiar."

Obama seems that way. He's playing a strange game. I don't know what his cards, players, or motives are. It seems pretty evil, overall.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

It would be going too far, to say that the president is chained to a rock, an eagle eating his liver.

Brian Brown said...

Narrative Fail: Hispanics beat up "Arab" in retaliation for Boston Bombing:

A Bangladeshi man out for dinner at a Bronx restaurant was viciously beaten hours after the Boston Marathon bombing by thugs who called him “a f--king Arab” before pummeling him to the ground, sources said.

Abdullah Faruque, 30 — a native of the South Asian country who grew up in The Bronx — was at Applebee’s on Exterior Avenue in Melrose at about 11:30 p.m. Monday when he went outside for a smoke.

Three or four Hispanic males he’d noticed drinking at the bar followed him and angrily got in his face, he recalled yesterday.

“One of the guys asked if I was Arab. I just shook my head, said like, ‘Yeah, whatever.’ I didn’t even know that [the] Boston [bombing] happened because I had a busy day,” Faruque said.

AllenS said...

People are adapting to the misery. Ask your friends about grocery prices. You'll get a groan and an eye roll.

Brian Brown said...

Anyway, what a silly, small, and pathetic performance by Obama yesterday. I'm getting tired of basically being accused of being a murderer for my policy position on guns by a man who can't condemn a doctor who snipped the spinal cords of babies.

The moral hectoring by the partial birth abortion crowd is absurd.

Anonymous said...

He just used the opportunity to begin his campaign to get control of the House in the midterms so he can run open field for the last two years of his second term.

If America gives him the House and he holds the Senate, the damage he can do to America will be catastrophic.

bagoh20 said...

You have to assume gun rights people have a damned good way of influencing congress. They must bombard them with mail while the opposing side is not as driven about it. I'm surprised and thankful for how well they do that.

Seeing Red said...

Let's see, overturned 100 years of bankruptcy law to take from "the rich."

Took over housing, 1/6 of the economy with Obamacare, saddled us with debt our descendents will never be able to repay.

I read on another website that what we're doing to the young is immoral.

Working on breaking the backs of the middle class.

Instituted thug crony capitalism writ large.

Who needs a Congress when you have executive privilege?

Brian Brown said...

What is funny about that pathetic press conference yesterday is that the guy who started it admitted the gun bill would have done nothing to stop the Sandy Hook murders.

I also find it interesting B Peezy didn't point out that the nut who shot Gabby Giffords passed a background check.

Oh well, his silly lies aren't really worth listening to anyway.

Unknown said...

He was much more worked up about the gun bill failing than he was about the Boston bombing. We need a president who can get worked up about real disasters.

He only recognizes his own pain.

traditionalguy said...

The real Obama personality was exposed yesterday when his best laid plans and his continuous campaign of lies, lies and more lies on assault weapons and his deception based gun registry blew up in his face.

It's not nice to oppose a Tyrant's best powers and win.

JD said...

Its all about Obamacare. Any pretense of trust was completely destroyed by that fight. On both the risght and the moderate left. Obama and the progs would be better served ensuring that his "signature achievement" isnt the catastrophe its shaping up to be as its rolled out. These other skirmishes are utterly irrelevant in comparison.

rehajm said...

It's striking how we've moved from Candy-Crowley-all-on-the-same-team media worship to something else that's not quite indifference, but if one didn't know better one could say some of these folks are having a hard time living with themselves. If one didn't know better. Perhaps it's recognition the need to fluff this president had ended and the need to fluff the Democratic deities of the House of Representatives has not quite begun.

Seeing Red said...

You don't know what his motives are at this late date?

He has a 20 year record.

He's doing what he's talked about.

Bob Ellison said...

John Kerry runs State, Chuck Hagel runs Defense, and Barack Obama runs the federal government. Not a one of them knows how to run faucet.

We have not seen such an array of incompetence since before WW2.

Wince said...

"First quarter"?

Basketball metaphor.

Racist dog whistle.

- Chris Matthews

Brian Brown said...

I loved watching the left melt down on Twitter after these gun votes. The utter hysteria and ignorance is both funny and tragic.

Seeing Red said...

And Gifford's husband purchased an AR-15.

Obamacare is doing what it's designed to do, crash the system.


He told us that he want NHC even if it took 20 years.

Bob Boyd said...

To say Obama has speaking skills is kind of like saying a bird has chirping skills.
He just keeps making the same sounds over and over.

Seeing Red said...

How can the Norks have a bomb?

Drudge linked yesterday to Barry believing they didn't have one?

Unknown said...

"We have not seen such an array of incompetence since before WW2."

We've NEVER seen such an array of incompetence. But, someone is competent enough to put these people in place to destroy everything good about America. Whoever that is, that is who we need to be worried about.
Maybe the press.
Maybe the American people themselves.

MadisonMan said...

You know what I've noticed about Kerry during this? He's always clean-shaven. That wasn't the case when he was campaigning for President. The 5 o'clock shadow thing on him looks BAD.

So he has learned something since running for President.

SteveR said...

Look on the bright side, Sandra Fluke can get free birth control paid for by the middle class.

Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...

April 18th - 8:15 AM
18° F

Halp me Jon Karry


Widmerpool said...

Best per Tim Stanley in the Telegraph:

"Nobody listens to what he says anymore, nobody is interested in winning his approval and nobody much cares if he thinks they have 'let the country down'."

Nonapod said...

Maybe now finally some of his bad policies will stick to him and he'll actually be held accountable for the crumby state of things by a wide majority of citizens... nah, who am I kidding? I'm pretty sure he could eat a kitten on live TV and a ton of people would still think he was awesome.

edutcher said...

It's like the "election" never happened.

His poll numbers are lousy and he can get nothing done. Right back where we were in late October.

roesch/voltaire said...

And it was a shameful first quarter for congress, but what else is new? The right has been beating a steady drum of propaganda including this: "Claims that this legislation would create a gun registry are nothing more than shameful scare tactics," said Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on the Senate floor on Wednesday morning.

Seeing Red said...

Ohh, and I guess that $3.5 million cap on IRAs wasn't indexed.

So if we do get wealthier, the king will grab more & more upon our deaths.

Wince said...

You know what I've noticed about Kerry during this? He's always clean-shaven...So he has learned something since running for President.

Or the result of his face being bombarded by cosmetic procedures.

Brian Brown said...

"Claims that this legislation would create a gun registry are nothing more than shameful scare tactics," said Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.)

Which since it confirms your biases, is like, totally true.

Brian Brown said...

The right has been beating a steady drum of propaganda including this

Says a suppporter of a President who shamefully stands there and pretends that "background checks" would prevent school shootings.

George M. Spencer said...

Good thing the economy is roaring and we're at full unemployment.

It's great to see employers fighting over college grads.

It's been super the way Obama has put the focus on jobs for inner-city African Americans.

Seeing Red said...

Reid's lips are moving, who believes him on anything?

Interesting that he was investigated by the FBI in 2008 and the records are now sealed, isn't it?

Brian Brown said...

That he could play basketball was an element of his legend

It was "legend" to a bunch of pasty, lilly white liberal reporters, who were high school nerds.

Anyone with even a modest athletic background and who actually spent 10 minutes watching him play realized he sucked.

MayBee said...

Above all, Obama seems determined to get Americans hating each other.

Brian Brown said...

That he could play basketball was an element of his legend



Oh, and I must add the white liberals believed this only because he was black.

Racists

Seeing Red said...

Hmmm, from a 3/22 article:

...Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Thursday that a measure likely to be debated in his chamber next month will include tougher laws and stiffer sentences for gun trafficking and increased school safety grants....

Increased school safety grants?

How much and where has and where will the money go?

Read more: Reid: Background checks will be in Senate gun bill - The Denver Post

X said...

I don't know RV. you work in an industry that provides a haven for terror bombers. a child and two women were killed by their type the other day. do you feel any shame for Ayers, Dhorn, and Boudin being your colleagues?

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...



"I really don't get the appeal of Obama to anyone other than the most severe red-meat liberals, outright leftists, and minority-identity types."

Unfortunately,this is an ever-growing part of the electorate. Gun control makes fascinating political theater because it involves the ignorant making laws and trying to sell them to the equally ignorant. Even if you weren't interested in owning firearms yourself, it would be worthwhile for the political junkie to educate themselves about them just so they could properly appreciate what an incredible, cynical farce this all is.

KCFleming said...

It's been a bad first quarter of the second term for the American people.

Shit, what's he bitchin' about anyway?
He's on Easy Street.
Obama gets plenty of golf and muchos vacations, and pays a lower tax rate than me.

Thank God we didn't elect that McCain feller, huh?

Seeing Red said...

That's what a community antagonizer does, May Bee.

His job is to sell pain.

Brian Brown said...

roesch/voltaire said...
And it was a shameful first quarter for congress, but what else is new? The right has been beating a steady drum of propaganda including this:


On every defeated gun amendment, more Democrats voted on the gun-rights side than Republicans crossed to the gun-control side. Fifteen Dems voted against Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s (D-Calif.) assault weapons ban. Ten voted against an amendment to limit the size of ammunition magazines to 10 rounds.

Why, its almost as if you're a silly liar or something.

bagoh20 said...

Obamacare is working out to be the worst legislation since prohibition and probably worst ever. It's huge, overbearing, foolish, poorly thought out and implemented, noncompetitive, destructive, and ultimately deadly on a huge scale. Passed on a purely partisan vote in the dead of night, without ever being read by anyone, and fittingly named "Obamacare". A legacy of failure for an over-hyped book author imagined to be a messiah.

I can't blame him though, he only had one vote in the hiring process, and he probably wrote in "Carl Marx".

Beta Rube said...

I can't believe that a Prez hovering around 50% approval helps his cause with an angry condescending rant that demonizes anyone who isn't him or just like him. I don't remember being scolded in this way since the nuns had a go at me in grade school

Colonel Angus said...

He may have had a bad quarter but think of us who are stuck with him for the next three years and nine months.

Seeing Red said...

Wyo sis, we've never had the "incompetence" here, but we've seen it from the USSR.

This time it will be different, the right people are in place.


Anyone watch the National Geographic special on the 80s?

Minor quibbles I had, but what a walk down memory lane.

They were missing some context.

test said...

Surfed said...
The Prez is done. Stick a fork in him.


If only this mattered. The left will discard Obama as his usefulness wanes in favor of a new figurehead. Meanwhile the leftist institutions will continue to march America down the path of slow but inexorable decline.

Bob Ellison said...

roesch/Voltaire, you're gonna need someone better than Harry Reid to up-plant Obama.

Seeing Red said...

Bago, wait until Amnesty gets up and running.

More free phones and no profiling.

Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...

It's time for Obama to pivot back to golf.

Our economy is doomed, and the media will continue to give Obama a pass. The next 4 years will not be pleasant.
King Obama takes more and more of our private wealth - and wastes it.
The economic doom of Europe is not a wake up call to the socialists.

Do you see modern highway improvements? school improvements? New Rachel Maddow dams? No?

At least the cronies and donors are living large.

Cody Jarrett said...

Seeing Red said...

And Gifford's husband purchased an AR-15.


Technically, he didn't. Because...wait for it...he failed the background check.

bagoh20 said...

"And it was a shameful first quarter for congress, but what else is new?"

Yes, they are fools, so why are you always on the side of trusting them with ever more of your life, making more of your decisions, and spending more of your money?

Dust Bunny Queen said...

It would be going too far, to say that the president is chained to a rock, an eagle eating his liver.

I don't know....but it is an attractive image.

traditionalguy said...

The coal powered industry is under Obama attack using fake EPA rules.

The Keystone pipeline is Obama's war with Canadian allies.

Obama's slush funds for electric mini cars and useless windmills overflows into his cronies' pockets.


So why would any sane person trust Reid and Obama to do the right with thing with their power grab over gun ownership lists that clearly has NO OTHER PURPOSE THAN GUN CONFISCATION?

cubanbob said...

roesch/voltaire said...
And it was a shameful first quarter for congress, but what else is new? The right has been beating a steady drum of propaganda including this: "Claims that this legislation would create a gun registry are nothing more than shameful scare tactics," said Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on the Senate floor on Wednesday morning.

4/18/13, 9:19 AM

Any quarter where Harry Reid is Senate majority leader is a shameful quarter.

It looks like the wheels of this travesty of an administration are finally coming off. Not only is Benghazi coming back in to focus but now we have the curious spectacle of yet again Zero bowing to the Saudi's and the Saudi person of interest in the Boston bombing is now being rushed for deportation.

Cody Jarrett said...

roesch/voltaire said...

And it was a shameful first quarter for congress, but what else is new? The right has been beating a steady drum of propaganda including this: "Claims that this legislation would create a gun registry are nothing more than shameful scare tactics," said Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on the Senate floor on Wednesday morning.

How do you figure it's false? There's nothing in the language of the (for now anyway) failed bill that wouldn't lead to a registry.

So how do you figure they're going to now if I sell a gun to my neighbor...unless the guns themselves are registered.

edutcher said...

5 is really about making the sequester as politically unpopular as possible so he can blame that on the Republicans even though it was his idea.

Ann Althouse said...

MORE TO COME. I'm making a list.

Checking it twice, she's being so naughty about our Little Zero, it's nice.

Dave D said...

Interesting that your link to the Obama basketball video states that "this video does not exist".
El Presidente-in-chief CANNOT be made to look bad........

MayBee said...

Has there ever been a US politician who rose to prominence in a speech that was less representative of who he actually is?

I want to know if he wrote that speech thinking that's who he is, if he wrote it thinking that's what America wanted, or if Axelrod created that persona for him out of whole cloth.

Unknown said...

Obamacare is working out to be the worst legislation since prohibition and probably worst ever. It's huge, overbearing, foolish, poorly thought out and implemented, noncompetitive, destructive, and ultimately deadly on a huge scale. Passed on a purely partisan vote in the dead of night, without ever being read by anyone, and fittingly named "Obamacare".

The scary part is, this is what the Democrats came up with for "health care reform" after working on it for what, three decades?

MayBee said...

Bagoh:"
Yes, they are fools, so why are you always on the side of trusting them with ever more of your life, making more of your decisions, and spending more of your money?"

Oh, exactly!

Tim said...

Second term is always worse than the first.

Annual $1 trillion deficits as far as the eye can see.

Polarizing figure, playing to the base.

Only a moron could think a second term would, somehow, despite all evidence to the contrary, work out.

Can't fix stupid.


Doubling down on failure.

Yay, morons!

You won.

roesch/voltaire said...

Obama gave a slow,steady and reasoned response to the NRA/Republican shame, which for Althouse, who likes a show, was not enough. And to label the victims of gun violence who expressed their views as part of "theater of sympathy" is a cynical description that tries to trivialize any effort of the ordinary citizen to participate in government.
X what does you comment have to do with the topic of this blog?

Cody Jarrett said...

National Journal headline:

"At Pivotal Point in Presidency, Obama Routed on Gun Control"

That'll leave a mark.

Seeing Red said...

Interesting, I've finally starting thinking about the term "common sense."

Whose common sense?

Yours or mine?


I watch the hands, the ink, not the mouth.

Seeing Red said...

Ordinary citizens have participated.

Their elected officials did what they were supposed to do.

They will answer to the voters.

Start the recall petition RV.

MayBee said...

"h. And to label the victims of gun violence who expressed their views as part of "theater of sympathy" is a cynical description that tries to trivialize any effort of the ordinary citizen to participate in government. "

How do you feel about people who trivialize or excoriate lobbyists?

Bob Ellison said...

roesch/Voltaire, can you try to make sense? It's just a conversation out here. I try to be concise, and sometimes that makes my comments unintelligible.

But I really don't know what you're saying. What are you saying?

Seeing Red said...

Quotation: "The beauty of the Second Amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it."

T. Jefferson

Seeing Red said...

Gosnell, RV, you don't have a leg.

Bob Ellison said...

I think what you're saying is "I hate conservatives and libertarians", but your writing is complex, so I can't be sure.

Widmerpool said...

roesch/voltaire said...

And to label the victims of gun violence who expressed their views as part of "theater of sympathy" is a cynical description that tries to trivialize any effort of the ordinary citizen to participate in government.

r/v - what else would you call it when these victims are paraded around to endorse legislation that would not have prevented the act that victimized them?

ricpic said...

Abdul Rahman Ali Alharbi, the Saudi national who was briefly named a "person of interest" in the Boston Marathon bombings is being deported on Tuesday (possibly sooner).

Obama met with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud-al Faisal at the White House yesterday.

Connect the dots? Or would that be too ugly?

Robert Cook said...

As has been the case with Thatcher, and Nixon, Bush will have his reputation carefully burnished and tailored and rehabilitated such that he will be remembered as--if not a great statesman, of course--at least somehow not as purely rotten as he was.

I'd include Reagan among the above, but his minions have been at work distorting his record with sentimentalizing gauze and valorizing bunting even as he was still in office!

No doubt Obama will get the same mendacious makeover shortly following his exit from office.

Cody Jarrett said...

RV, what part of that response was slow and steady and whatever other bs you added in?


MadisonMan said...

This list is great by the way.

I think I'm about lose funding, based on the Sequester. We'll see what happens. Things could be worse, so I'm not stressing.

Seeing Red said...

The Brits shouldn't have been surprised he's getting even for his father once the Churchill bust was removed.

Æthelflæd said...

Mitchell the Bat said...
"It would be going too far, to say that the president is chained to a rock, an eagle eating his liver."

I think having to roll the Sisyphean boulder up the hill repeatedly would be better, because then he would have to work.

Seeing Red said...

Road on AF1, as well.

Tim said...

Shana said...

"I think having to roll the Sisyphean boulder up the hill repeatedly would be better, because then he would have to work."

Close.

With this president, he would be forever putting uphill...

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
MayBee said...

The BBC loves Obama, though.

Anonymous said...

How's that pivot back to Jobs coming? That ought to be on the list

The failure to wring more tax increases stung a bit. That ought to be on the list

The coming Obamacare implosion? Even the Dem Senate Author says it's FUBAR. That ought to be on the list

Henry said...

0. He was reelected.

Of course that was last quarter, so I guess it doesn't count. Still, all the bad luck starts with that.

Paddy O said...

"Aside from hanging the albatross of Obamacare around our necks..."

Obama just carried the crossbow, Roberts made sure it was hung around our necks.

Roger J. said...

as noted above, most presidents, reelected, are lame ducks. He will, I suspect, have a miserable second term.

Eric said...

There's another, unreported, element to the 2-for-22 basketball show. It took place on the day that the President chose not to throw out the first pitch of the baseball saeson.

KCFleming said...

Gee, nobody saw this clusterfuck coming.

Well, except everybody posting on this blog who warned against voting for him back in 2008.

Besides that, a total surprise.

Brew Master said...

1. Dropped the erstwhile foible of how everything relates to Obama?

It may just be me, but I'm still seeing tons of reporting of just this nature. Sure they are saying he has had a bad time, but it is still couched in terms of how it applies to Obama. You have to search long and hard for reporting that points out how his defeats are victories for either the GOP, NRA, or the rights of all Americans.

2. Obama does not understand that gun control is a losing issue. This should have been understood by the fact the previous 'assault weapons' ban was allowed to expire. A law that had been in place for 10 years. No Democrat wanted to revisit that issue, they were well aware it is what cost them congress back in the 90's. He may not have appeared 'passionately angry' to you, but he was definately more worked up about the failure of the Democrats anti-gun (per Harry Reid) legislation than he was about the Boston bombings.

3. John Kerry is going to be a disaster for American foreign policy.

4. Obama was legendary for his basketball skills? I seem to recall that most of his basketball playing was done in private, with the press not allowed in and only images from his official photographer were allowed to be published.

5. Even more so than the white house tours, the entire sequester scare tactic has been shown to be a giant lie. Anyone who bothered to inform themselves knew that it would have exactly zero effect on government services and that the closing of the tours was just a political stunt meant to gin up fear.

6. GWB has always had class, more than most of his predecessors. He will always be a boogeyman to some.

7. I cannot belive the snub of Thatcher, low class. I wonder if we sent an official representative to Chavez's funeral? I would hope not, but with this team in charge it wouldn't surprise me.



Obama is going to have a rough 2nd term without a doubt. It is extremely unlikely that the House will flip in 2014, it is more likely that the Senate will. If the latter happens, his last 2 years of his term will be very fun for political junkies, but probably not fun for the rest of the country. It will likely make him toxic to whomever the Democrats nominate in 2016.

Unknown said...

I don't agree that Thatcher's death is a problem for Obama. For many on the left, this is the flip side of how it will be when Castro dies; their opponents will see those who celebrate it as evidence of mass idiocy on the other side of the aisle.

And Obama dies what has become his MO...he finds a way to thumb his nose, and then get his supporters to agree that his detractors are nasty haters.

Is this strategy starting to wear thin and maybe not work? Yes, I think so...but the funeral itself is just a marker along the way, not itself a cause of Obama's support cratering under him.

Michael said...

Professor. You left out one. The pompous president pays 18% of his adjusted gross in tax. Think of that. This asshole has been combing the country for years demonizing the millionairesandbillionaires for not paying their fair share and then the sanctimonious ass pays 18%. This is a little factoid that can creep into the tiny brain of the lowest information voter who doubtless pays more.

Æthelflæd said...

AprilApple said...
"April 18th - 8:15 AM
18° F

Halp me Jon Karry"

LOL. I am going to have to protect my tomato plants from frost tomorrow night - one month after our average last frost date. I already lost my first planting to a late frost. This is supposed to be a record low for us.

X said...

X what does you comment have to do with the topic of this blog?

it considers the source of admonitions of shame.

MadisonMan said...

I did read that three former Sec'ys of State went to the funeral. Were they not an official delegation? I guess not.

Paddy O said...

"the NRA/Republican shame...

a cynical description that tries to trivialize..."

Irony!

Seeing Red said...

Let's see if Benghazi sees the light of day now.

Original Mike said...

"He tried so hard to deploy his speaking skills"

I think you mean reading skills.

madAsHell said...

I thought his first term sucked as well.
Stupidly, and the beer summit.
If I had a son, he would look like...
Benghazi!
Navy Corpse-man.
7.8% is the new full employment, and even that is a lie.
Food stamps for everyone.
Solyndra.
123AAA battery.
Fiskar.
The deficit.

...the list goes on.

Michael said...

Professor. You left out one. The pompous president pays 18% of his adjusted gross in tax. Think of that. This asshole has been combing the country for years demonizing the millionairesandbillionaires for not paying their fair share and then the sanctimonious ass pays 18%. This is a little factoid that can creep into the tiny brain of the lowest information voter who doubtless pays more.

edutcher said...

ricpic said...

Abdul Rahman Ali Alharbi, the Saudi national who was briefly named a "person of interest" in the Boston Marathon bombings is being deported on Tuesday (possibly sooner).

Obama met with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud-al Faisal at the White House yesterday.

Connect the dots? Or would that be too ugly?


Funny how someone thought I was jumping the gun with this piece and, of course, with this one.

And then it turns out the guy who sent ricin to Choom (and 3 Senators) is a Democrat.

9 might well be, given Barry's efforts to curry favor with the Hispanics with a new immigration bill that's quickly turning into ObamaTax II, the Marathon bombings will raise a lot of questions about whether this is the time to ease up on border security.

Cody Jarrett said...

"Congressman Gregory Meeks (D-NY) and former Congressman William Delahunt (D-MA) attended the Venezuelan autocrat's funeral. Hollywood actor Sean Penn and Reverend Jesse Jackson were also at the funeral. "We pray God today that you will heal the breach between the U.S. and Venezuela," Jackson said."


So the US did better for Thatcher than Chavez but that anyone went to Chavez's funeral....

test said...

Obama was legendary for his basketball skills?

Obama's sports interest was always a PR fiction (note how the left is fine when racist expectations work in their favor). Sports fans knew they minute Obama referred to the Nittaly Lions and Cominskey Field he was a poseur.

Rose said...

Obama's just mad because all those 'Ellie Light' fake Twitter accounts his front groups created to pressure elected officials weren't enough to win out over real people.

Look at his choice of words. It always tells you what he's up to. He condemns pressure groups and accuses them of lying to people - which of course is exactly what he has been doing. Finally, the phony orgs fail.

And he even sent nanny-Meech to go to Chicago and lament all the violence there - something they could have cared about all these years and didn't, until it had political value. Those babies, toddlers and teenagers that are daily victims of beatings, stabbings and shootings don't matter until they can be used as chips. They're #NotTrayvon.

Enough fake tears and propaganda. Let's hope the era of the 'community organizer' is over.

Bob Ellison said...

More and more lately, Obama seems to be re-doing FDR. FDR was a fantastically successful politician who shat the bed right from the get-go, and managed to convince the electorate that he was actually fighting for the right policies. Obama must surely admire that record, and in these bad times, he seems to be attempting to re-create that legacy.

Obama's goal, like FDR's, is socialism. He wants government control of industry. I don't know why he wants that; maybe he thinks it would be a good thing, or maybe he's just a jerk. But Obama is very good at seeking his goal.

I'm Full of Soup said...

Yeah, inexperienced, not very hard working, far left community organizer turns out to be inept and unqualified as POTUS. I am shocked!

Colonel Angus said...

Margaret Thatcher up and died. What rotten luck! What a platform for the promoters of the ideology in opposition to his! And then idiots take to the streets with all that "Ding, Dong the Witch Is Dead" childishness and disrespect, damaging the left-wing brand.

Damaging the brand? That IS the left wing brand.

Seeing Red said...

Via ZeroHedge:

Fresh from his humiliating defeat in the Senate to promote his pacifist gun-control agenda yesterday, in the name of the "90%" of course (who apparently need to pick their senatorial representative just a little more effectively), the Nobel Peace Prize winner has decided that guns just may be the right answer when it comes to promoting peace, or least his agenda abroad. WaPo reports that the Obama administration has ordered additional U.S. troops to Jordan for possible chemical weapons control, humanitarian response or “stability operations” in Syria. "The new troops, a headquarters element of the 1st Armored Division based at Fort Bliss, Tex., will not greatly increase the number of U.S. forces in Jordan. About 150 troops were sent last year to help train Jordanian military and Syrian opposition forces. Some of those troops will remain, and the new arrivals will increase the total to more than 200."


And:


Hardly anyone will be surprised to learn that moments ago we just got the latest disappointing economic indicator for an economy that is clearly accelerating in its deterioration. As expected, the April Philly Fed was the latest economic indicator miss, printing at 1.3, down from last month's 2.0, and below expectations of am increase to 3.0. And while the key New Orders reverted back into negative territory after one brief month positive, it was the other components of the Index that a far more pronounced deterioration, namely the Number of Employees which dumped from 2.7 to -6.8, the biggest drop since May 2012, boding ill for the upcoming April NFP number, as well as the Inventories which plunged from 0.0 to -22.2, which means downward Q1 GDP revisions will be forthcoming from every side momentarily as the Wall Street lemmings are forced to resume trimming their exuberance once more just like in 2012... and 2011... and 2010.


Boy, that stock market, heh.

bagoh20 said...

People all over the country are now being forced to face what Obamacare is. They are talking to their insurance carriers and being told what nobody has heard till now, and their jaws are dropping.

The 22,000 member roofers union who fought hard with money and effort to elect Obama and to pass Obamacare are now asking for it to be repealed! They found out what is in it. Nice work Nancy Pelosi.

People are finding out that their insurance will cost them much more and they aren't going to have much of what they like about the current system, most importantly their jobs.

Companies are learning that the cost will eat up huge chunks of their profitability, and for some, all of it. It's very important to understand that this is a variable cost. You can't grow yourself out of it's grip. The bigger your company grows the larger the cost, and ESPECIALLY WHEN YOU EMPLOY PEOPLE!

The cost at my company to keep insurance for everyone will triple. To keep it at the high level of coverage it's at now will eat up half our profit, if they expand requirement to more family members, it will put us out of business.

After doubling our number of employees over the last 2 years, I have stopped hiring despite continuing to grow at 25% annually. We are instead buying equipment that eliminates jobs, and although we try to buy American, much of it is made overseas.

This is the first time in my career, I have looked to avoid hiring people in a period of growth. My primary purpose in business is to hire, train and advance people, but now I can only try to protect the ones I have. I hate this law down to my core.

roesch/voltaire said...

Where is the outrage for the all the parading around by K street lobby folks-- oh I see that just politics as usual where as if victims show up that is a show?

Seeing Red said...

2nd 1/2 of the year will be much better, tho.

Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...

"The media's attempts to help are getting really embarrassing."

Yes. It's so bad, it's beyond a joke. Constant media bias is the news.
It's the only thing going.

KCFleming said...

We can all count on the fact that, no matter how bad things get, or how horrible Obama governs, Americans, and all those duplicate, illegal, feminist Julias, SSM über allesians, Gun haters, Obamaphone takers, Goldman-Sachs titans, and low info voters, will decide that more of the same is needed in 2014.

viator said...

Analysis from Bloomberg:

"Republicans have effectively sidelined him by insisting that future budget bills will come from “regular order” in Congress"

"his weak relationships with lawmakers in both parties and lack of interest in strengthening them."

"His voters are concentrated in major metropolitan areas. Even if the last round of gerrymandering hadn’t favored the Republicans, it would be hard to assemble a House majority from Obama’s voters."

"The Democratic majority in the Senate, meanwhile, exists only because it includes candidates elected in more conservative states that voted for Mitt Romney in the 2012 presidential election."

Maybe the last item accounts for all those senate Democrat no votes on gun control.

Levi Starks said...

stop trying to cheer me up

Iconochasm said...

Brew Master, a quick google shows he sent a delegation to Chavez's funeral.

"In addition to James Derham, who presently serves as Charge d’Affaires at the U.S. Embassy in the Venezuelan capital, the State Department said Thursday that the delegation to the socialist revolutionary’s funeral will include U.S. Rep. Gregory Meeks, New York Democrat, and former U.S. Rep. William Delahunt, Massachusetts Democrat.
Details were not forthcoming about why Mr. Meeks and Mr. Delahunt were chosen to represent the U.S. at the funeral.


Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/inside-politics/2013/mar/7/obama-sending-official-delegation-chavez-funeral/#ixzz2QpNZK7xH
Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter"

X said...

rv consider the possibility that it is your outrage meter which is malfunctioning. why do you hate people petitioning their government?

Peter said...

"We have not seen such an array of incompetence since before WW2."

Or perhaps some of the more long-ago presidents were even worse. BUT in those days the federal government was of modest size, and events on the world stage moved much more slowly. And so, a snoozer or even a bungler in the White House usually couldn't do all that much damage; whatever happened (or didn't) in Washington, DC was mostly irrelevent to practically everyone.

Today, Leviathan has become so large no one can ignore it, as it intrudes everywhere into practically everything. Which raises the question: if we're going to get incompetents (or worse) in the White House from time to time (as we probably are), is it still possible to minimize the damage they might do?

George M. Spencer said...

We near the end of a great 80something-year-long historical cycle that began with FDR.

Liberals are conservatives. They try to protect and expand the existing order. It has become baroque, encrusted with preposterous policy curlicues. It can no longer be afforded. Social unrest is deferred by larding the poor with food stamps. Meanwhile, the great liberal universities will soon be disintermediated by the internet. (Look for layoffs in the coming years at universities, thus ending the liberal reign there and tenure, the antique equivalent of the private sector's pensions.)

What comes next is as unforeseeable as the consequences of the American Revolution, the Civil War, or WWII. The big question is will this global transition period be peaceful and short or the opposite.

Those with new ideas are viewed, often, as unhinged. Who would have thought in 1970 that a slovenly war protester would be Secretary of State in 2013?

Obama is about as relevant to the future as James Buchanan or Neville Chamberlain.

bagoh20 said...

"Where is the outrage for the all the parading around by K street lobby folks"

I'd like nothing more than to put those people out of business, but when people like you make the congress more important than your own family in your life, then you can't expect people not to fight with all they have to influence them, or would you just like to let Congress do whatever they want without hearing from us?

Seeing Red said...

I thought Barry was going to limit their influence, you mean he didn't?


No fear, Insty has a solution!

few weeks back, I wrote here about taxing the revolving door that takes people back and forth between the federal government and the various industries that federal government agencies regulate. My proposal was to put a surtax -- 50%, say, or maybe 75% -- on the post-government earnings of federal officials in excess of their government salaries for the first five years: Leave a federal job paying $100,000 a year for an industry job paying $600,000 a year, and you'd pay a $250,000 surtax. After all, with folks leaving the Obama administration, as they left previous administrations, for salaries several times what they earned in the public sector, and with excessive entanglement between government and business a growing problem, why not use the power of the IRS to modify behavior


-------
NOAM SCHEIBER ON HOW OBAMA AIDES ARE CASHING IN. “It turns out the highest-profile White House grads don’t so much join consulting firms these days; they found them. A boldfaced Obama name can rake in upward of $25,000 per month from a client just by dialing into a conference call and drafting a memo from time to time. Four clients means more than a million dollars a year with virtually no overhead.”

Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...

@Bagoh The cost at my company to keep insurance for everyone will triple. To keep it at the high level of coverage it's at now will eat up half our profit, if they expand requirement to more family members, it will put us out of business.

Perhaps the democrat/socialists want to put you out of business? After all, if vast numbers of private businesses are doomed and shut their doors, the government can swoop in and restore them. Of course you will no longer own that business - the government will.

Mercy.

In order to Change and Forward - destruction must come first.

Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...

Shana- I feel for anyone in the path of the storm that sat on us over last few days.
Cover those plants.

bagoh20 said...

"We near the end of a great 80something-year-long historical cycle that began with FDR"

I don't know if there is an actual theory out there by an intellectual, but I've often made the argument that leftist centralized government can't last much more than about 70 years without collapse, which seem to be the historical evidence. They all either stop growing, collapse and turn free market, or as in China, stay nominally centralized while becoming functionally capitalist.

We are at that point now, and Europe is too. Europe is closer, because they went left harder.

MayBee said...

Wasn't the idea behind Obama's second term supposed to be a new kind of presidency, where he would travel around and convince people to petition the government?

I thought that's what ValJar told us. So yeah, this loss has to be infuriating for him.

Dust Bunny Queen said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Brew Master said...

8. What's the legislative agenda? Immigration reform?

What politician in their right mind wants to complete this planned amnesty? Let us take 11 million law breakers and grant them citizenship!

We have the lowest level of employment in 30 years and now they want to throw open the gates (border enforcement, maybe, in the future, we promise) to dump millions more into this bad economic situation they have created? Just the talk about amnesty has opened up the spigot on illegal immigration again.

With Obamacare we now have to provide them with healthcare as well. If they cannot immediately get a job with a company that provides them their own plan they will receive subsidies from the rest of the taxpayers.

Record numbers unemployed
Record numbers on foodstamps
Record numbers on SSDI
Record deficits
Money printing with no end in sight

What a freaking disaster the Democrats have made over the last few years, the full ramifications of which have yet to be realized.

Robert Langham said...

At least he still has Reggie Love.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

Companies are learning that the cost will eat up huge chunks of their profitability, and for some, all of it. It's very important to understand that this is a variable cost. You can't grow yourself out of it's grip. The bigger your company grows the larger the cost, and ESPECIALLY WHEN YOU EMPLOY PEOPLE!

Truth!!!

The water district, where I am on the Board, is considering outsourcing all of our office, billing and back office functions to an independent firm not only because insurance premiums are going to go up by as much as 50 to 100% but also because Cal-Pers is rattling their swords to have employer contributions go up by 50%. We currently are paying a total employer contribution of 19.84% on each dollar of payroll. This includes a payment to the previous unfunded liability from 2000 that was set aside as well as the current employer contribution. We expect it to rise to a total of 23% or more. THIS is in addition to the standard FICA taxes, SS, Medicare, UI etc etc etc etc. The total cost of benefits and taxes adds something like %38 to 41% to EACH DOLLAR OF PAYROLL. NO company can survive this.

Sadly, we cannot afford to keep the office employees since the alternative is to raise customer rates to unbearable levels. We will likely contract this function out. So....the consequence is that 4 people will be losing their jobs.

This may not sound like much but in our little district it represents an "almost" 50% reduction in employees. In our little town, it is a blow and a terrible decision to have to make, because we all KNOW these people as friends, as parents of children who went to school with our children.

President-Mom-Jeans said...

ricpic said...
Abdul Rahman Ali Alharbi, the Saudi national who was briefly named a "person of interest" in the Boston Marathon bombings is being deported on Tuesday (possibly sooner).

Has there been any verification of this outside of InfoWars? Particularly after yesterdays media debacle, I am leery of believing anything that is not ironclad confirmed.

However, the continued lack of any updates and the inexcusable withholding of the identity of the suspects stinks to high heaven.

sakredkow said...

1. It's been so bad that the media dropped their erstwhile foible of talking about everything that happens in terms of what it means for Obama.

Heh. Partisan propaganda. But if it makes you feel better...

AllenS said...

You don't have to cover any plants where I live. The ground is still frozen. My tree order arrives in 8 days.

Patrick said...

And to label the victims of gun violence who expressed their views as part of "theater of sympathy" is a cynical description that tries to trivialize any effort of the ordinary citizen to participate in government.

No. the cynicism was exploiting their pain in the first place, and served only as an acknowledgement that the President was entirely unable to come up with a rational case for his bill.

These were not "ordinary people participating in government." They are grieving families whose grief the President put to use for his own purposes, without any shame or consideration beyond his own desires.

Bill, Republic of Texas said...

Althouse could include a paragraph on how the fertilizer plant exploding is symbolic of Obama's presidency.

AReasonableMan said...

Has edutcher taken over writing the Althouse blog?

Dust Bunny Queen said...

@ Bill Republic of Texas

LOL. So true.

DBQ
State of Jefferson

virgil xenophon said...

@ST George/

But Chamberlain didn't stick around to run war policy when the shooting started, a guy named Winston S did. Unfortunately we have Chamberlains equivalent, now occupying the role Churchill played..

john said...

A very low class snub.

Dick Cheney, FORMER VP; Henry Kissinger, FORMER SOC, attended Thatcher's funeral.

Probably the US ambassador was there, so that counts for something, even if it was just a job requirement.

It would have been good had Bush and his wife gone. They should have; its not like they were too busy. Maybe they thought their presence at the funeral would have called attention to the absence of a White House representative, and they did not want that to overshadow the event. But trying to walk that line ends up pleasing nobody.

Anonymous said...

Althouse: Great round-up of ObamaFails.

viator said...

Thatcher's funeral -

"representing Obama will be Barbara Stephenson, chargé d'affaires at the US embassy in London, and Louis Susman, the recently departed ambassador to Britain."

“It seemed to come out of nowhere. No one knew who’d started it – perhaps it was purely instinctual. But as the hearse came into view, the crowds found themselves breaking into applause – applause that followed the hearse all the way along the route, until it drew up at the church of St Clement Danes. Then, once the coffin had been loaded on to the gun carriage, and the horses moved off, the applause started again – and followed the procession all the way to St Paul’s.

Down the roads it spread and spread, gently rippling, a long impromptu chain of respect and appreciation.

The applause wasn’t rowdy; there were no whoops or whistles. It was steady, warm, dignified. But it was also, somehow, determined. At Ludgate Circus, protesters began to boo and jeer – only to find the rest of the crowd applauding all the more loudly to drown them out.”

Finally, as the Queen looked on, the coffin was carried out of the cathedral by the bearer party.

Then, something remarkable. As the coffin was borne down the steps into the light of the day, the crowds outside gave three cheers. Like the applause that had followed the coffin on its journey to St Paul’s, the cheers were spontaneous.”
UK Telegraph

KCFleming said...

Remember that I'm sorry campaign that came out aft Bush was re-elected?

America sure could use that from the left about now.

But for the left, socialism, like love, means never having to say you're sorry.

Each failure just means you haven't done it right yet.

William said...

One hunded years later on, many Democrats are willing to admit that Woodrow Wilson was a white supremacist who tried to define the boundaries of the world while undergoing a stroke. In another fifty years, Democrats will probably be willing to admit that FDR's economic policies exacerbated the Depression and that his round up of disfavored minorities was a greater breach of civil rights than McCarthyism. You won't live to see it, but your grandchildren if they live long enough (unlikely under Obamacare) will possibly see Obama's reputation revised downwards.

Anonymous said...

Has edutcher taken over writing the Althouse blog?

UnreasonableMan: Care to support your comment or argue for Obama?

That would be the reasonable thing to do, but you're not really reasonable, are you.

Anonymous said...

Surely, this is premature, but:

He'll always have the mansion in Hawaii, the security detail, the press and sycophants hanging on his every word and time for ten new autobiographies, the lecture circuit etc.

He was the best President ever, better than Lincoln, calmer than Washington, more brilliant than Jefferson. America just wasn't ready for him.

...Barry will get back to doing what he does best: Filling people's hopes and dreams with words and his persona and his 'essence.'

'Essence of Barry' cologne will hit the stores.

Seeing Red said...

Maggie was a class act, she invited the tory who stabbed her full frontal to oust her.

virgil xenophon said...

Unfortunately chrisnavin.com, above, is totally correct..

virgil xenophon said...

I'll go further, Chris, they'll be Obama T-Shirts just like the Che ones and proudly worn by the same crowd..

Unknown said...

Chrisnavin @ 10:34...was thinking the same thing. Toward the end of his term, we'll start hearing how Obama really WAS a great, tranformative president. America, sadly, was not ready and stubbornly refused to transform.

Anonymous said...

Prez Obama is so....over. Who's next?

Seeing Red said...

I thought the Japanese had safe houses in Mexico & they were talking about bombing targets and running back across the border?

MayBee said...

John- there is no US ambassador right now.

Bill, Republic of Texas said...

@ C Stanley

no. They'll say we resisted because of racisim.

Æthelflæd said...

Thatcher's conservative Texan granddaughter sort of stole the show at the funeral. Perhaps the apple did not fall far from the tree there. One can hope.

Anonymous said...

Althouse could include a paragraph on how the fertilizer plant exploding is symbolic of Obama's presidency.

Fertilizer plants explode because of poor safety and environmental management. Considering that most of the commenters on this site see regulation as inherently evil, it should be a reminder that sometimes regulations are good.

sakredkow said...

The Prez is done. Stick a fork in him.

Yup. Won't be long now. January 2017.

Seeing Red said...

Some still lament that if only Billy could have lived up to the greatness he has in him....

viator said...

John Kerry, this can't be good news..

"One of the great policy bubbles of our times has been cap and trade for carbon emissions, and on Tuesday it may have popped for good. The European Parliament refused to save the EU’s failing program, which is the true-believer equivalent of the pope renouncing celibacy.

The Parliament in Strasbourg voted 334-315 (with 63 abstentions) against propping up the price of carbon credits in the EU Emissions Trading System."
WSJ

bagoh20 said...

"it is a blow and a terrible decision to have to make, because we all KNOW these people as friends, as parents of children who went to school with our children."

And it's all completely unnecessary. Elections have consequences, irreversible consequences, and even if it eventually swings back to sensibility someday, those people will never get the lives back they could have had, if they and their employers were just left alone.

What's additionally angering is that the benefits used to justify the stupidity will clearly never materialize, as in the case of Obamacare not really giving people any more access to care, and at the cost of many, many losing significant ground, and some losing almost everything.

The biggest stimulus in history has fizzled into little more than theft that people just walked away with, leaving the rest of us with the bill.

You stupid, stupid Obama voters.

Bruce Hayden said...

What is weird to me right now is that the Dems really thought that after essentially sliding through the last election by getting ulta-low information voters and takers to vote for them through a superb GOTV effort, that they had some sort of mandate, and could get some of their most leftist wet dreams passed into law. And, then, they thought that they could use gun control as a wedge issue to reclaim the House.

So, a lot of them are ready to string up their four Senators who voted against all of the gun nonsense. Four who are up for election in the next cycle and come from states that are, to say the least, gun friendly. Friends in Alaska don't lock their house or trucks, and this is apparently fairly common. Their reason is that everyone has an armory in their house, so home invaders are likely to get shot, but if someone else needs to get in for other reasons, such as survival, then fine. They met in college in Montana, and if you get out of the tony parts of the state, you still see a similar view on guns. You see open carry, guns in gun racks in trucks, again, guns are just a part of life. We had a bear on the porch a couple times last fall, right before hibernation, half mile out of town, and I, for one, was happy that I had something that would give it pause if it should somehow find its way indoors. Plus, a game station by the firehouse before you got into town for much of the fall. And, of course, North Dakota is due east of Montana, and maybe even more remote. Louisiana is where "Swamp People" is apparently filmed, and you see gator competitions. Hard to fathom finding four states that are more gun friendly than those. And, Obama and the Dems expected these Senators, up for reelection, to vote against the strong wishes of most of their constituents. They are somehow traitors to the cause for failing to follow the dictates and wishes of Obama and his extremist supporters on the left.

What this shows to me is the major disconnect from reality that so many of those on the left showed on this subject. Senator Feinstein, currently one of the richest Senators thanks to all the government contracts she has managed to direct to her husband and his company, was pushing legislation that would ban pretty much any long gun utilizing and/or constructed with technology less than 50 years old as "assault weapons", as well as most detachable magazines sold over the last decade or so as "high capacity". The fact that the left thought that they could use fear and sympathy to get this sort of illogical and idiotic legislation enacted is just more evidence of delusion on their part. And, the President wasting so much of his political capital pushing such is just one more indication that he really isn't that smart, or that shrewd of a politician.

ricpic said...

President Mom Jeans - For the unfolding story on the Saudi person of interest who may or may not be deported (the story is in flux) go to theblaze,com

bleh said...

The other day I heard an NPR reporter - not commentator - say something like, "Obama was clearly frustrated with Congress for refusing to pass something that enjoys overwhelming public support; this has happened before, with Congress getting in the way of popular legislation despite Obama's best efforts." It's like they don't even realize they're biased. They pretend to be so high-minded and fair.

Embarrassing, indeed.

Brew Master said...

Freder Frederson said...

Fertilizer plants explode because of poor safety and environmental management. Considering that most of the commenters on this site see regulation as inherently evil, it should be a reminder that sometimes regulations are good.


Got any facts to back this up?

I guess that in your view accidents cannot happen if only we had the proper regulations in place. If only we had enough laws, there will never be bad things in this world.

Wishing and hoping and blind to reality, and more than willing to dance on the smoking corpses absent any facts.

Bill, Republic of Texas said...

@Freder

Regulations are fine but they are at the mercy of politics. The best protection for worker safety is a strong union.

chickelit said...

Freder Frederson exploded: Fertilizer plants explode because of poor safety and environmental management. Considering that most of the commenters on this site see regulation as inherently evil, it should be a reminder that sometimes regulations are good.

By analogy, if your chosen media watchdogs had been half awake or had even been more curious, the normal oversight of the Presidency would have occurred.

Colonel Angus said...

About 150 troops were sent last year to help train Jordanian military and Syrian opposition forces.

Wonderful. So now we are going to engage in more regime change and most likely end up with yet another radical Islamist government.

President-Mom-Jeans said...

Fredo says:

"Fertilizer plants explode because of poor safety and environmental management"

You don't have one fucking clue what happened at that plant out in Texas, and politisizing it while they are still pulling bodies out of the rubble is disgusting.

You are fucking despicable. Eat shit and kill yourself.

chickelit said...

@Freder: The electioneering of Candy Crawley on national TV should have given even you pause.

Bill, Republic of Texas said...

I'm not jumping to any conclusion on the fire (either accidental or intentional).

The plant is right off a highway and it could be a terror attack. We don't know.

The plant was cited in 2006 for an ammonia leak. So regulations were in place but the plant still caught on fire.

My quetion is: why is a fertilizer plant allowed to be inside a city?

furious_a said...

It would have been good had Bush and his wife gone. They should have;

W and Mrs. W know that would have, fairly or not, been seen as grandstanding in W's part. He's got more reticence and class than that.

VP Biden should have attended, state funerals are part of VP's portfolio and he was a lousy "point man" on,gun control anyway.

viator said...

Freder Frederson,

I'm sure fertilizer companies blow their plants up on purpose, after all if it wasn't for the government the average fertilizer plant owner might not know he would blow himself up along with the plant, kill his workers, and lose all his capex and production.

In Krugmanite terms they can then build a new one and add to the GDP.

chuck said...

That he could play basketball was an element of his legend

I always thought it was transparently racist, sort of like saying he liked watermelon and chicken. You know, because he's black. The surprise was that the people who claimed not to be racist were the worst about promoting the stereotype.

Bill, Republic of Texas said...

@furious a

I think the Bush referred to was HW. He served as VP when Reagan and Thatch were close.

Baron Zemo said...

You see Barack Obama is merely recreating the Dinkins administration.

I would be worried that we would be ripe for a Crown Heights riot where law enforcement would be held back so that certain groups could "vent."

But that already happened in Benghazi.

Now we just have to wait for the Giuliani figure to come forward to fix it.

Baron Zemo said...

If Yusef Hawkins were alive he would say that it racist.

Patrick said...

Fertilizer plants explode because of poor safety and environmental management. Considering that most of the commenters on this site see regulation as inherently evil, it should be a reminder that sometimes regulations are good.

Because fertilizer plants aren't regulated at all.

more regulations! If it saves even one life...

Colonel Angus said...

Regulations can be good. I doubt even small government proponents believe all regulations are evil. For example, we have regulations on illegal immigration that conservatives want enforced but liberals abolished.

I suppose it all depends on which side of your bread you want your butter regulated.

Bruce Hayden said...

Let me add to my diatribe about gun control, that right now, I don't think that immigration is going to do all that much better. Maybe squeak by in the Senate, but DOA in the House. Why? Because that the bill from the bipartisan "Gang of Eight" is fatally flawed, and that became quickly evident almost immediately after being released. For one thing, quasi-legalization is apparently available to convicted criminals, and for another, it is applicable to "family members", without defining that term, presumably leaving it open to include aunts, uncles, and their children, as well as polygamous spouses and their children.

Again, I suspect that the Dems think that they have much more of a mandate than they actually have, and that this too is political overreach that will end up biting them in the rear end. The result is likely, I think, to reinforce the view that Obama is a lame duck, and his second term is likely to continue to deteriorate from here.

Renee said...

But people like Obama. Just as they will like, Elizabeth Warren in 2016. It is perception, not results. They care. Republicans do not.

furious_a said...

The fact that the left thought that they could use fear and sympathy to get this sort of illogical and idiotic legislation enacted is just more evidence of delusion on their part.

Not delusion at all, but a calculated use of a wedge issue, including Air Force One to ferry about Newtown parents as so many human shields, to mobilize the (D) base for 2014 and flip the House.

Sam L. said...

Benghazi Barry's much-vaunted speaking skills have never been in evidence to me. I do now understand why some people hated BUSH!!!111!!!'s speaking--BB just grates on my ears. And he speaks not to persuade, but to demand we do as he says.

bagoh20 said...

"The best protection for worker safety is a strong union."

But it's not worth the cost of having a union send your job overseas.

The last thing most workers are concerned with is safety today. It's not the 19th century anymore. They want their job, and they would like to keep more of the wealth they create.

I've employed over 1000 people over 30 years in manufacturing, and I can count the number of requests for improvements in safety on my fingers.

They want opportunity, success, accomplishment much more than a soft nest floating down the river.

Renee said...

Mitt Romney is at the interfaith service today, along with other former governors.

Scott M said...

The scary part is, this is what the Democrats came up with for "health care reform" after working on it for what, three decades?

It's worse than that. They got their butts handed to them with Hillarycare and didn't learn any meaningful lessons.

Known Unknown said...

I've employed over 1000 people over 30 years in manufacturing, and I can count the number of requests for improvements in safety on my fingers

AT LEAST YOU STILL HAVE YOUR FINGERSZ!!!!111!!!!!11!

chickelit said...

My quetion is: why is a fertilizer plant allowed to be inside a city?

It's likely that the city grew around it. People built near it out of convenience.

All the fracking in ND and the new sourcing of hydrocarbons should lead to an ammonium nitrate plant up there (if there is adequate water). ND is well situated to provide fertilizer to the Midwest

ed said...

@ Althouse

Why is any of this news to you? Anybody on the right could have told you that this is the logical outcome of electing this dweeb. Everything you are seeing now are echoes of what he has done in the past. And yet I sense some sort of outrage on your part?

Anonymous said...

lol. President Darky destroys nation, fails at everything besides actign like a tyrant, and Easy Annie A. just now notices .

You know, 5 years into the tyranny destroying this shitty nation.

When people looks back at the death of America, they will be puzzled that it took morons like Easy Annie A. 5 years to discover what a rotten man Obama was, and he was destroying the last vestiges of freedom and prosperity right in front of everyone.

Enjoy the decline, commies!

bagoh20 said...

An alternative cause to Freder's is that the fertilizer plant owners, seeing that this government was not going to let them make a profit, decided to blow it up.

At least that makes economic sense, and it makes the owners even more evil, which is awesome.

Joe Schmoe said...

It's been obvious, starting with his failure to get the Olympics for Chicago, that Nobama couldn't lead a pack of hungry wolves to meat.

The only thing, and I mean only thing, that he has proven competent at is getting enough quivery-lipped moderates to vote for him. Twice.

Bill, Republic of Texas said...

@Bagoh20

I disagree. It depends on the type of work. I'm a pipefitter and many times I work in trenchs. Safety is the number one priority.

Union pay and benefits are OK. Not that much greater than open shops. But I know the union will support us 100% if we determine there is a safety issue and we refuse to work.

CCompanies know this too. So in my 30 years, I've only seen a few instances of work stoppage.

I would much rather trust my safety to my fellow workers then to a bunch of regulators and politicians. They have different agendas.

Sam L. said...

#s 1-8 all reinforce the picture of Benghazi Barry as aloof, remote, and out-of-touch (really out of the common touch).

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