All Obama, All the Time

Normally, I find criticism of Presidents for taking a vacation or playing a round of golf to be pretty lame (Note: Obama has played a LOT more golf than Bush did).

But I saw ANOTHER headline on ESPN today about Obama, and his opinion on whether LeBron James should stay in Cleveland. This is getting old.

Seriously, Mr. President - could you please just get back to work? We don't care to hear your opinion on matters that don't have anything to do with your job.

So Paul McCartney is a Petty Little Brat

This week, Paul McCartney was honored by the Library of Congress for some award for popular song. Super.

Apparently, the event took place at the White House, so I guess Sir Paul felt it was therefore appropriate to bash on President Bush:

After the last eight years, it's great to have a president who knows what a library is.

Seriously, - why was that necessary? What in the hell did it have to do with the award?

If you want to talk about incompetence and stupidity, you idiot, take a look at Obama's job performance to date.

Paul McCartney - a true ass.

The Racism of the Left

I read something interesting today:

They say the Constitution is not a suicide pact. Neither is consistency a suicide pact. If Bush and Obama were competing in the Olympics in the high jump, and the liberals set the bar at 9 feet for Bush, we cannot permit them to set the bar at three feet for Obama.

Nine feet is the mark. I didn't argue for that high bar for success under Bush, but, the mark having been established, I'll be damned if I'm going to let it be lowered for King Obama.

Does anyone doubt the fact that the left, be it media, academia, or politicians, hold Obama to a different standard? Is it at all surprising that they cry racism when one dares to criticize the President? They are so preoccupied with the color of this man's skin, that they cannot see him as an equal to white men.

It really is that simple. Today's left refuses to equate Barack Obama with his predecessors (all white men). It believes he should not be judged in the same manner as a normal (see: WHITE MALE) politician. They are judging him on the basis of his skin color.

Is this not racism?

The Obama/Sestak Scandal

One of the big stories in Washington DC these days is whether, back in February, the White House offered a federal job (widely believed to be the Sec. of Navy gig) to Democratic Representative Joe Sestak, who was running against White House favorite Democratic Senator Arlen Specter in the US Senate Democratic Primary for Pennsylvania.

As the story goes, because it was afraid that Specter would lose in the primary election to Sestak (which is exactly what happened), the White House offered Sestak a job to drop out. Here's the problem: such an offer would have been a federal crime.

One congressman (a Republican, to be sure) has come out and said this could be an impeachable offense.

Today, after several weeks of this being in the news, President Obama addressed the situation for the first time, saying that nothing improper was done, and that an official explanation was coming.

Why has it taken so long to formulate an official explanation if nothing was done improperly? Why has the White House been so mum on this issue for so long?

We do not know all the facts, but either the Democratic candidate for the US Senate in Pennsylvania is lying, or the White House has committed a crime in an effort to secure its political agenda. This could be a clear example of how this administration endangers our liberty and freedom. We have a ruling regime willing to break laws in order to capture power.

Biden Doesn't Want America as the Capital of the Free World

Unbelievable

This is our Vice President, folks...

Dems Run Against Obama

Remember how the media loved to point out how, in the 2006 and 2008 elections, Republicans were distancing themselves from George W. Bush?

It only took Barack Obama a year or so to have the same effect on Democrats running for office.

Kudos to the Washington Times for actually running this piece. We'll see if anyone else picks up on it.

Some Thoughts

I follow baseball, and the editor of a blog I regularly visit took the time to comment briefly on Arizona's immigration law. Of course, his comments were derogatory, calling the law "preposterous" and its authors "ignorant." Reading his obviously uninformed comments really raised my ire. Now, it was one thing to read one layperson's comments on the law. Most people know far less than they think (myself included).

However, while I can excuse this person's comments, I cannot excuse those of Attorney General Eric Holder, Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano, or President Obama. All three of these "leaders," whose opinions on this subject do matter, have made statements that make clear they have not read the law.

President Obama promised competency and hope and change and all that garbage. What we have received instead an arrogant, deceitful, incompetent administration which believes it can say or do whatever it wants, with no consequences. US officials this week brought up the Arizona law in its human rights talks with China. It had the gall to compare the efforts of an American state to enforce laws meant to protect this country (has anyone argued US immigration laws are illegal or unconstitutional?) with the very real human rights violations that are committed in China.

Disgusting. There is no need to read the law. No need to consider the plight of Arizonans whose daily lives are affected by illegal immigration. Obama the activist speaks now, and refuses to think, period. He is driven by a mindset so foreign and hostile to American ideals, that his power becomes a real danger to the future of this country.

The election of 2008 may turn out to be the greatest swindle in US history. Let's hope it isn't too late to stop that from happening.

Just You Watch...

Liberals around the country are going to use this terrible incident involving police officers in Seattle to attack the Arizona immigration law.

The racially charged videotape shows [two] officers stomping on [an] innocent detainee after they responded to several 911 calls for a report of an armed robbery in the parking lot of a night club near Lake Union.

In the video, a male officer is seen kicking the man who had been ordered to the ground while threatening him with racial slurs. Shortly after, a female officer kicked the man in the back of his leg.

I can see the narrative from the left now: "Police officers, who do wonderful things on behalf of our safety and security, nonetheless are prone to emotional outbursts that can flare up in the heat of the moment. As such, endowing police officers with the power to detain persons in Arizona and check their immigration status is a very slippery slope, indeed..."

Just you watch...

Yessss.....

Let's All Help the Greeks

Like any good socialist state, Greece is now paying for its ridiculous taxing and spending. The country is falling apart.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) recently announced a $145 billion loan to Greece. So what to do? How about use US taxpayer dollars in a likely-to-fail attempt to rescue the Greeks from their own mistakes?

We don't have our own problems here at home, do we?

This is another reason why I question US participation in international organizations such as the United Nations and the IMF, or US aid to certain foreign states, in the first place. If it does not further US interests, why waste our hard-earned money?

Al Sharpton Defines True Social Justice

I'm not going to pull any punches, here: I despise Al Sharpton. He is vile, and he perpetrates racism in our country. But today he came up with a real doozy:

Breitbart.tv » Al Sharpton: We Won’t Have True Social Justice Until Everything Is ‘Equal in Everybody’s House’

This is the liberal dream, and don't think Sharpton wasn't speaking literally. Everything equal in everybody's house. You know, kind of like how it used to be in the Soviet Union...

More on Arizona's Immigration Law

I enjoy reading Andrew McCarthy on National Review Online. Today, he offered three pieces on the constitutionality of Arizona's controversial immigration law here, here, and here.

I learned some important points about the law that make me feel better about its constitutionality. First, any communication between a police officer and an individual about immigration status can only come after the police officer lawfully stops the individual. In other words, a police officer cannot stop the individual and demand immigration papers on a hunch. It can only happen after a traffic stop, or if a search warrant is executed for another reason.

Second, the police officer may only question the individual about his immigration status if the police officer has a 'reasonable suspicion' about the individual's immigration status. This means that the officer must provide specific, articulable facts supporting his actions. A hunch will not cut it.

Third, any individual who is wrongly accused or questioned has the right to a civil action against the offending law enforcement agency.

These steps provide for greater protection to an individual that are provided under federal laws. A federal agent doesn't have to go through the steps that Arizona cops have to go through.

And finally, the law expressly prohibits any stop based on race or nationality.


There is a question about whether this law is constitutional under the Supremacy Clause, but I feel convinced that it does not violate Equal Protection laws - so long as police officers follow the mandates of the law.

Arizona's Immigration Law

Yesterday, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed into law a bill that criminalizes the failure to carry immigration documents. President Obama has come out and spoken strongly against this bill, saying it offends traditional notions of fairness.

I have to admit that I don't like the smell of this bill, for several reasons. First, although generally I am all for states taking action instead of waiting for the federal government to act, immigration may very well be an issue where the federal government has the final say. Per the Supremacy Clause, Article VI, Clause 2:

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.

In other words, federal laws made in pursuance of the Constitution are the supreme law of the land, and supercede state laws dealing with the same subject. A pretty strong argument can be made that immigration is of federal concern, and thus Arizona's immigration law could be made null and void.

Here is the rub, however - is there not federal immigration legislation on the books to supercede the Arizona law? This law appears to be one to enforce federal immigration laws, when enforcement mechanisms are obviously already present in the federal law. So is this law redundant, and if so, I'd expect lawsuits attacking the Arizona law under the Supremacy Clause.

For an argument to counter this line of thought, see Instapundit.

Second, how is this law to be enforced?

It requires police officers, “when practicable,” to detain people they reasonably suspect are in the country without authorization and to verify their status with federal officials, unless doing so would hinder an investigation or emergency medical treatment.

This is where it gets real sticky. This law empowers a police officer to (1) determine when it is appropriate to question an individual about his residency status, and (2) determine when it is "practicable" to detain someone the officer suspects of being in the country illegally.

Yikes. I have the utmost respect for our police officers, but giving them the power to question and also detain a person based on a reasonable belief about the person's residency status - especially when possibly 99 out of 100 incidents will involve Hispanics - is a risky proposition.

I would be shocked if this law is upheld as constitutional.

From a political standpoint, I think it is risky as well. For one, this law will be used relentlessly by Democrats this summer and fall to attack Republicans. Secondly, it could rally support for federal legislation that seems tame by comparison(amnesty, anyone?).

Remember November

Get ready for November.

Here Comes the VAT

Today President Obama hinted that he's be open to the Value-Added Tax.

This will be proposed not as a substitute for federal income taxes (an idea I'm cool with), but as an additional tax. It will affect manufacturers, retailers, wholesalers, and the public at large. It will do massive harm to an already fragile economy. It will destroy job growth and put more people in harm's way (economically-speaking, of course).

And Obama and the Democrat Party wouldn't have it any other way. Impose more taxes, create more economic problems. Create more economic problems, engender dependency. Engender dependency, and you've conjured up a perfect scenario to grab power.

Which is something Obama does as well as any politician since Hitler (and no, I'm not calling Obama a Nazi).

Uh oh, Protesters Arrested at White House

Today a group of people wearing military uniforms - including fatigues - and protesting President Obama's policies were arrested after handcuffing themselves to the White House fence today.

Those unhinged, fringe, right-wing felons of the Tea Party movement strike again, right?

Oops.

Park Police arrested several gay rights protestors who had handcuffed themselves to the fence in front of the White House. Capt. P.J. Beck of the Park Police said they were arrested for "failure to obey a lawful order" and that they would be taken to the Anacostia station to be processed.

According to a release from GetEQUAL, the gay rights group that organized the protest, there were six servicemembers arrested.

I wonder if we'll see the media start to slander the gay rights movement as racist...

This is Getting Surreal

Take a moment and ponder this:

• Last week, former president Bill Clinton likened the Tea Party movement to the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.
• This weekend, Time Magazine's Joe Klein accused Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck - both of whom speak much the same language as Tea Partiers - of potentially committing SEDITION (that's a crime, folks) against the US government.
• Congressional Democrats believe Tea Partiers are racist
• President Obama believes the "core group" of Tea Partiers are "Birthers"

This, to me, is staggering. Liberals across the country have resorted to vile, baseless attacks on the character of millions of Americans rather than engage in productive, intelligent debate about our nation's course.

If you are concerned about the amount of spending in Washington, and the direction that big-government politicians are taking, you might be a delusional, racist, terrorist felon.

Think about that.

Give Me That Damn Gavel

I've been hearing a lot of good things about Allen West, who is running for Congress in Florida.

"Get Government Out of the Way"

Democracy is Alive and Well

Apparently, President Obama has taken "historic steps" to improve democracy during his tenure.

I guess democracy doesn't involve heeding the will of the people.