Obama Now Below 50% in Gallup

Ben Smith says at Politico:

President Obama’s job approval numbers will dip below 50% for the first time today in Gallup’s daily tracking poll, according to a Gallup official.

“Gallup Daily tracking results just in. Obama will be below 50% for the first time when we update our numbers at 1:00 p.m.,” wrote Gallup.com managing news editor Lymari Morales on Twitter.

His approval numbers have bounced down to the 50% mark several times, driven by weaker support from independents and Republicans, but hadn’t crossed it.

Do you suppose that the judgment of the American people is Obama’s got us going the wrong direction? Couldn’t be, could it?

An outright brilliant column from Doctor Charles Krauthammer this morning:

Doctor Charles Krauthammer

For late-19th-century anarchists, terrorism was the “propaganda of the deed.” And the most successful propaganda-by-deed in history was 9/11 — not just the most destructive, but the most spectacular and telegenic.

And now its self-proclaimed architect, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, has been given by the Obama administration a civilian trial in New York. Just as the memory fades, 9/11 has been granted a second life — and KSM, a second act: “9/11, The Director’s Cut,” narration by KSM.

September 11, 2001 had to speak for itself. A decade later, the deed will be given voice. KSM has gratuitously been presented with the greatest propaganda platform imaginable — a civilian trial in the media capital of the world — from which to proclaim the glory of jihad and the criminality of infidel America.

So why is Attorney General Eric Holder doing this? Ostensibly, to demonstrate to the world the superiority of our system, where the rule of law and the fair trial reign.

Really? What happens if KSM (and his co-defendants) “do not get convicted,” asked Senate Judiciary Committee member Herb Kohl. “Failure is not an option,” replied Holder. Not an option? Doesn’t the presumption of innocence, er, presume that prosecutorial failure — acquittal, hung jury — is an option? By undermining that presumption, Holder is undermining the fairness of the trial, the demonstration of which is the alleged rationale for putting on this show in the first place.

First of all, a BBCT  to David who posted the question and answer session between Attorney General Holder and Senator Lindsey Graham.  I share David’s distaste for Senator Graham, but must admit he made a excellent showing yesterday.  Frankly,  I will express more than a little surprise , here.

I’ve been going over the transcript of that exchange, and here’s one section that pops out at me:

SEN. GRAHAM: Yeah, nor do I. But here’s my concern. Can you give me a case in United States history where a enemy combatant caught on a battlefield was tried in civilian court?

ATTY GEN. HOLDER: [ACM: LONG PAUSE] I don’t know. I’d have to look at that. I think that, you know, the determination I’ve made —

SEN. GRAHAM: We’re making history here, Mr. Attorney General. I’ll answer it for you. The answer is no.

ATTY GEN. HOLDER: Well, I think —

SEN. GRAHAM: … The Ghailani case — he was indicted for the Cole bombing before 9/11. And I didn’t object to it going into federal court. But I’m telling you right now. We’re making history and we’re making bad history.

The senator, for the first time in recent memory, is quite right.  There is no way on the planet that HThe older couldn’t know the answer to this basic question.  The only conclusion that one can draw is it was a question that he’d would rather not have been brought up in the first place.  The only conclusion to draw beyond that is that the Attorney General of the United States doesn’t give a damn about precedence. Legal, or otherwise.  He knows full well that there are no cases on the books that support his position.  None.  Nada.  Zero.  Zilch. Zippo. Naught. Remember; this administration came to office telling us all that it was going to “reshape America”.  It was going to “recreate America”.  Someone with that kind of dedication is going to ignore a lack of precedence.  At the bottom line, this decision to hold this trial in civilian court is a political decision.  it is not based on precedents. It is not based on prudence.

As Krauthammer points out, the attorney general isn’t even particularly worried about the concept of military tribunals, having sent the mastermind of the attack on the USS called, for example, to a military tribunal in the same decree as what set the Artcle three trial up in NYC for KSM.

What really has happened here is that Holder… and his boss, Obama… have opened a pandora’s box.as it stands now, no matter which way this goes, America loses.

They know very well that failure of the prosecution is in fact an option in an article three court.  For both Holder and Obama to suggest otherwise, is a vain attempt to mollify the vast majority of Americans who want to see The death penalty applied to KSM and the others responsible for the attacks on 9/11.  Doctor Krauthammer is quite correct when he says that the administration is undermining the fairness of the trial… ‘fairness’ being the original purpose of having it in an article three court in the first place.  Even assuming that convictions happen, the statements by the administration will forever taint the results, and give the  public relations savvy jihad crowd yet another weapon to use against us.

Consider, please, that terrorism is largely an effort at image creating, and at the bottom line one of , in a weird way, public relations.  What this administration has done, is to give the terrorists and opportunity in a court of law to appear to be reasonable men.  Or at least to portray themselves as the victims.  Perhaps someone can tell me how America wins with that situation in place.  I doubt it, but…

Again, we come back to the idea that this is a political decision.  The incoherent defense being put up of this decision by the attorney general tells us several things.  Probably the most important of which, is that you really doesn’t want to admit that it is a political decision.

I submit to you that what’s going on here, is the attorney general wants to use this show trial in New York City as a means of backdoor prosecution of President Bush and those in his administration.  The words, the only thing that this serves is political retribution.

Just chew on that one for a while.

Guys… the mail server got moved this monring. As a result the distribution lists are gone and so are you old mailboxes as I warned would happen, so I’m sending this in the clear. Please drop a note to my mail address from the address you want feedback and internal blog traffic to go to, and I’ll set it up.  Also, let me know what you want your address at florack.us to be and I’ll tend to that as well.

After the DNS servers figured out where we were after the change of sever, I started beating up on this new configuration. As it turns out, the Apache hosted system we’re on now is about twice as fast as the Microsoft-based system we were on…. and that’s even before adding the various speedups, involving DB cache and page cache and so on.

We’re having a few issues with the editor just now, or at least I am… it seems to be having problems with the upload/insert graphics functions, which means I’m back to coding ghrapics into pages by hand. Pain in the butt. I’m not sure what that’s about as yet. I’m looking at it.

Other than that glitch we do appear to be at 100%.

Update: The grahics uploads are now working again, for the moment. Looks like that subsystem doesn’t like one of the cache programs I threw at it. Now it’s down to which one. I’ll play with them one at a time over the next few days and we’ll see.

TMZ is reporting:

Senator John Kerry‘s daughter, Alexandra Forbes Kerry, was arrested early this morning on suspicion of DUI … law enforcement sources tell TMZ.

It went down in Hollywood at 12:40 AM. Alexandra, a 36-year-old film producer and director, was pulled over for a traffic stop, then arrested and booked at LAPD‘s Hollywood station. She was released at 5:25 AM.

OK, let’s ask the rather obvious question: Why are so few of the mainstream reporting on this?
Arguably a smaller matter that some, true enough. But imagine Dick Cheney’s daughter getting busted for DUI. Does anyone really consider they’d not be doing wall to wall on the event at CNN?

I had this one up earlier, but thing it got posted to the old server, and is lost forever in cyber never land.   Oh well. Don’t mistake me for an Lindsey Graham fan.    However Graham makes Attorney General Eric Holder look like either a dupe or a liar, video:

Hat tip and more, Moe Lane:

I know that Senator Lindsey Graham (R, SC) is not on a lot of people’s Christmas card lists, but this exchange between him and Attorney General Eric Holder was four minutes, forty seconds’ worth of pure schooling.

Ann Althouse:

Either [Holder] knows damned well what he’s doing and he’s lying or he’s outrageously unqualified for his job.

Time for Holder to resign.

Either Holder is incompetent or a liar.  In either case, he needs to resign now.

Looks like we’re on the new server, and all is well.

Speed of access seems good, too.

Posting can commence at will.

Hipp Brook Perserve, Penfield, New York

I do some hiking and more than a wit bit of trail maintenance.   Needless to say,  I have opinions on both.   The only publicly funded and maintained trails in decent repair are those ADA compliant monstrosities that got funded with federal tax dollars.     Otherwise what trail maintenance is done, save have can be done seated in tractor cab,  is done by assorted volunteers.

It seems to be that about half the structures I hike over were build as some kind of Eagle Scout project.  The other half are not labeled.    In other words, no Eagle Scout would mean a lot wetter hiking, from Jarrett Renshaw, Morning Call, Allentown, Pennsyvania:

In pursuit of an Eagle Scout badge, Kevin Anderson, 17, has toiled for more than 200 hours hours over several weeks to clear a walking path in an east Allentown park.[…]

Nick Balzano, president of the local Service Employees International Union, told Allentown City Council Tuesday that the union is considering filing a grievance against the city for allowing Anderson to clear a 1,000-foot walking and biking path at Kimmets Lock Park.

[…]

Balzano said ;;;”there’s to be no volunteers.” No one except union members may pick up a hoe or shovel, plant a flower or clear a walking path

Parks are the property of the People and not feather beds for union thugs.    The practical choice is between volunteer trail maintenance and no trail maintenance.   Leave to the likes of Balzano, and I’d need to find a new form of recreation.

For her part, Michelle hits the dim from her own angle:

Hey, you know all that high-minded talk from President Obama about calling young people to serve their country?

Well, if it conflicts with Big Labor’s interests, children, there’s a new message: Knock it off!

I’ve been doing trail work before Obama ever thought of community service.

Hat tip photo:   Genesee Land Trust

Either today or tomorrow, the 17th or the 18th of November, BitsBlog will be moving to it’s new server.  This means the system will be totally offline for the move and then only partially available thereafter as the DNS servers around the world catch up to the changed IP address.

Exactly when all this happens, I won’t know. But if you see us gone in the next day or two, you’ll understand why.

Good news, the turd Gregory Craig has been dismissed as White House counsel, from a clearly heart broken  Steve Clemons, Blogs & Stories:

Gregory Craig, White House counsel to President Obama and national security advisor to Obama during the presidential campaign, resigned his post this past Friday. But when rumors broke Thursday of his imminent departure, Craig had not written his farewell note and may not have planned to leave – yet.

Oh happy day.    Elian Gonzalez could not be reached for comment.   It would be poetic justice if Craig could arrange to have the dim one deported to country of birth, where ever that may be.

Welcome one and all to the most intense nightly read anywhere on the ‘sphere…The BitsBlog Nightly Ramble.

• STILL MAKING STUFF UP: Kudos to BitsBlog‘s DavidL for jumping on this one early. That the left is still making up stuff to throw at Sarah Palin should be a shock to nobody.  After all, made up stuff has long been the stock in trade of liberalism in this country.   Yet, you really have to hand it to Sarah, who, like David, was not all surprised.
  

  Amazingly, but not surprisingly, the AP somehow nabbed a copy of the book before it was released. They’re now erroneously reporting on the book’s contents and are repeating many of the same things they spewed during the campaign and afterwards. We’ve heard 11 writers are engaged in this opposition research, er, “fact checking” research! Imagine that – 11 AP reporters dedicating time and resources to tearing up the book, instead of using the time and resources to “fact check” what’s going on with Sheik Mohammed’s trial, Pelosi’s health care takeover costs, Hasan’s associations, etc. Amazing.

  I think she underplays this, just a little bit.  Can you imagine that kind of fact checking going on with the White House? Perhaps the Associated Press should add a few more of their staffs.  After all, even Shakespeare had an infinite number of monkeys.

  Oh, and a side note to Saint Andrew the Incontinent: Ya know, Andy, I’d think by now you’d have gotten the message or at least you’d have gotten tired of having your but kicked in public. As an example….There is a unique understanding that is apparently only present in those of us who actually read books.  The press usually gets what’s called an “advanced copy” of books to review.  Melanie Kirkpatrick  at The Wall Street Journal apparently got one… and wrote about it, too. I get advances here, frequently enough, though I’ve very seldom mentioned them.  But, I do read them. Of course then comes the question of what those fact checkers were reading…. and what they were making their judgments upon, if they werent working with advance copies.  Odd how that’s a question that never entered that thing on your neck.Maybe that’s beacuse it doesn’t mesh with your stunted worldview?

• JAPAN EXPERT TO ABC: YES< OBAMA”S BOW MADE HIM LOOK LIKE AN IDIOT: So says Allahpundit.
  

  So much of an idiot, in fact, that according to Tapper’s source, at least one Japanese paper isn’t running the photo out of embarrassment. This tool actually groveled himself into a minor international incident.

  The good news for O-bots? It wasn’t unprecedented. Nixon evidently made a modest bow to Hirohito in the early 70s. The bad news?

  “Obama’s handshake/forward lurch was so jarring and inappropriate it recalls Bush’s back-rub of Merkel.

  “Kyodo News is running his appropriate and reciprocated nod and shake with the Empress, certainly to show the president as dignified, and not in the form of a first year English teacher trying to impress with Karate Kid-level knowledge of Japanese customs.

  “The bow as he performed did not just display weakness in Red State terms, but evoked weakness in Japanese terms….The last thing the Japanese want or need is a weak looking American president and, again, in all ways, he unintentionally played that part.

  A senior White House official (read: Axelrod or Emanuel) assured Politico this morning that no Japanese observers “would say anything other than that he enhanced both the position and the status of the U.S., relative to Japan.” Consider that spin exploded, thanks to ABC.

  And as for the usual lackeys at the White House and their assertion that Obama was simply observing protocol with this “let them see the back of your neck” subservience, The Weekly Standard ponders the question of why the senior administration officials making such statements won’t put their names to them. They figure, because even the White House knows that such statements simply aren’t true.  I wonder, now, if we can officially call this nonsense part of the “official Obama Apology Tour”.

• SEIU AND VOTER FRAUD: Andy Breitbat’s Big Government details it
• IS THIS WHAT WE WANTED? I  have been asking for the last few days now a general question as regards Barack Obama… is this what we really wanted? Are our views as individuals being properly represented by the President?  Armstrong Williams looks at that question today:
• SIGN OF THE TIMES: The Democrats are about to lose Obama’s old Senate Seat. It’s a seat that’s been safe for the Democrats for a generation, if I’m not mistaken.
• WHY DOES OBAMA WANT THE FT.HOOD PROBE PUT OFF? The wires have been humming since the middle of l;ast week that Obama wants Congress to put off it’s Ft. Hood probe.  I already told you why.
• BIRTHDAY HATS: for James Joyner of Outside The Beltway I can’t imagine he’s thrilled about sharing a birthday with Oswald Mosley, the founder of the British Union of Facists.
• BITSBLOG BUMPER STICKER OF THE DAY: Found this one at Zazzle:

The following letter read on Glenn Beck’s show, is rapidly circulating around the country. Americans everywhere identify with this 53-year-old woman. She has given us a voice. Once you read this, you will want to forward it to all of your friends… or, send them here.

GLENN BECK: I got a letter from a woman in Arizona . She writes an open letter to our nation’s leadership:

“I am a home grown American citizen, 53, registered Democrat all my life. Before the last presidential election I registered as a Republican because I no longer felt the Democratic Party represents my views or works to pursue issues important to me. Now I no longer feel the Republican Party represents my views or works to pursue issues important to me. The fact is I no longer feel any political party or representative in Washington represents my views or works to pursue the issues important to me.   Instead, we are burdened with Congressional Dukes and Duchesses who think they know better than the citizens they are supposed to represent.

There must be someone. Please tell me who you are. Please stand up and tell me that you are there and that you’re willing to fight for our Constitution as it was written. Please stand up now.
You might ask yourself what my views and issues are that I would feel so horribly disenfranchised by both major political parties. What kind of nut-job am I? Well, these briefly are the views and issues for which I seek representation:

One, illegal immigration. I want you to stop coddling illegal immigrants and secure our borders.  Close the underground tunnels. Stop the violence and the trafficking in drugs and people. No amnesty, not again. Been there, done that, no resolution. P.S., I’m not a racist. This is not to be confused with legal immigration.

Two, the STIMULUS bill. I want it repealed and I want no further funding supplied to it. We told you No, but you did it anyway. I want the remaining unfunded 95% repealed. Freeze, repeal.

Three: Czars. I want the circumvention of our constitutional checks and balances stopped immediately. Fire the czars. No more czars.. Government officials answer to the process, not to the president. Stop trampling on our Constitution, and honor it.

Four, cap and trade. The debate on global warming is not over. There are many conflicting opinions and it is too soon for this radical legislation. Quit throwing our nation into politically-correct quicksand.

Five, universal healthcare. I will not be rushed into another expensive decision that will burden me, my children, and grandchildren. Don’t you dare try to pass this in the middle of the night without even reading it. Slow down!  Fix only what is broken — we have the best health care system in the world — and test any new program in one or two states first.

Six, growing government control. I want states rights and sovereignty fully restored. I want less government in my life, not more. More is not better! Shrink it down. Mind your own business.  You have enough to take care of with your real [Constitutional] obligations. Why don’t you start there.

Seven, ACORN. I do not want ACORN and its affiliates in charge of our 2010 census. I want them investigated. I also do not want mandatory escrow fees contributed to them every time on every real estate deal that closes — how did they pull that one off?  Stop the funding to ACORN and its affiliates pending impartial audits and investigations. I do not trust them with taking the census with our taxpayer money. I don’t trust them with any of our taxpayer money. Face up to the allegations against them and get it resolved before taxpayers get any more involved with them. If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, hello. Stop protecting your political buddies. You work for us, the people. Investigate.

Eight, redistribution of wealth. No, no, no. I work for my money. It is mine. I have always worked for people with more money than I have because they gave me jobs — and that is the only redistribution of wealth that I will support. I never got a job from a poor person! Why do you want me to hate my employers? And what do you have against shareholders making a profit?

Nine, charitable contributions. Although I never got a job from a poor person, I have helped many in need. Charity belongs in our local communities, where we know our needs best and can use our local talent and our local resources. Butt out, please. We want to do it ourselves.

Ten, corporate bailouts. Knock it off. Every company must sink or swim like the rest of us. If there are hard times ahead, we’ll be better off just getting into it and letting the strong survive. Quick and painful. (Have you ever ripped off a Band-Aid?) We will pull together. Great things happen in America under great hardship. Give us the chance to innovate. We cannot disappoint you more than you have disappointed us.

Eleven, transparency and accountability. How about it? No, really, how about it? Let’s have it. Let’s say we give the buzzwords a rest and have some straight honest talk. Please stop trying to manipulate and appease me with clever wording. I am not the idiot you obviously take me for. Stop sneaking around and meeting in back rooms making deals with your friends. It will only be a prelude to your criminal investigation. Stop hiding things from me.

Twelve, unprecedented quick spending. Stop it now.
Take a breath. Listen to the people. Slow down and get some input from nonpoliticians and experts on the subject. Stop making everything an emergency. Stop speed-reading our bills into law. I am not an activist. I am not a community organizer. Nor am I a terrorist, a militant or a violent person. I am a parent and a grandparent. I work. I’m busy.  I am busy, and I am tired. I thought we elected competent people to take care of the business of government so that we could work, raise our families, pay our bills, have a little recreation, complain about taxes, endure our hardships, pursue our personal goals, cut our lawn, wash our cars on the weekends and be responsible contributing members of society and teach our children to be the same all while living in the home of the free and land of the brave.

I entrusted you with upholding the Constitution. I believed in the checks and balances to keep from getting far off course. What happened? You are very far off course. Do you really think I find humor in the hiring of a speed reader to unintelligently ramble all through a bill that you signed into law without knowing what it contained? I do not.
It is a mockery of the responsibility I have entrusted to you. It is a slap in the face. I am not laughing at your arrogance. Why is it that I feel as if you would not trust me to make a single decision about my own life and how I would live it but you should expect that I should trust you with the debt that you have laid on all of us and our children. We did not want the TARP bill. We said no. We would repeal it if we could. I am sure that we still cannot. There is needless urgency and recklessness in all of your recent spending of our tax dollars.

From my perspective, it seems that all of you have gone insane. I also know that I am far from alone in these feelings. Do you honestly feel that your current pursuits have merit to patriotic Americans? We want it to stop. We want to put the brakes on everything that is being rushed by us and forced upon us. We want our voice back. You have forced us to put our lives on hold to straighten out the mess that you are making. We will have to give up our vacations, our time spent with our children, any relaxation time we may have had and money we cannot afford to spend on bringing our concerns to Washington . Our president often knows all the right buzzwords like unsustainable. Well, no kidding. How many tens of thousands of dollars did the focus group cost to come up with that word? We don’t want your overpriced words. Stop treating us like we’re morons.

We want all of you to stop focusing on your reelection and do the job we want done, not the job you want done or the job your party wants done. You work for us and at this rate I guarantee you not for long because we are coming. We will be heard and we will be represented.. You think we’re so busy with our lives that we will never come for you? We are the formerly silent majority, all of us who quietly work, pay taxes, obey the law, vote, save money, keep our noses to the grindstone… and we are now looking at you.
You have awakened us, the patriotic freedom spirit so strong and so powerful that it had been sleeping too long. You have pushed us too far. Our numbers are great. They may surprise you. For every one of us who will be there, there will be hundreds more that could not come. Unlike you, we have their trust. We will represent them honestly, rest assured. They will be at the polls on voting day to usher you out of office.
We have canceled vacations. We will use our last few dollars saved. We will find the representation among us and a grassroots campaign will flourish. We didn’t ask for this fight. But the gloves are coming off. We do not come in violence, but we are angry.. You will represent us or you will be replaced with someone who will. There are candidates among us who will rise like a Phoenix from the ashes that you have made of our constitution.

Democrat, Republican, independent, libertarian. Understand this. We don’t care. Political parties are meaningless to us Patriotic Americans are willing to do right by us and our Constitution, and that is all that matters to us now. We are going to fire all of you who abuse power and seek more. It is not your power. It is ours and we want it back. We entrusted you with it and you abused it. You are dishonorable. You are dishonest. As Americans we are ashamed of you. You have brought shame to us. If you are not representing the wants and needs of your constituency loudly and consistently, in spite of the objections of your party, you will be fired. Did you hear? We no longer care about your political parties. You need to be loyal to us, not to them.. Because we will get you fired and they will not save you.

If you do or can represent me, my issues, my views, please stand up. Make your identity known. You need to make some noise about it. Speak up. I need to know who you are. If you do not speak up, you will be herded out with the rest of the sheep and we will replace the whole damn congress if need be one by one. We are coming. Are we coming for you? Who do you represent? What do you represent? Listen. Because we are coming. We the people are coming.”

Now, I’m going to add something I posted yesterday from my Facebook page… You tell me it isn’t of a piece with the above:

Janice Kozma

“these are the times that try men’s souls.”

Steel Turman

I don’t think so.
These are times when hearts and souls are revealed and I am taking notes.

Today’s BitsBlog Snark of the Day comes to us by way of a discussion on my Facebook page:

Janice Kozma

“these are the times that try men’s souls.”

Steel Turman

I don’t think so.
These are times when hearts and souls are revealed and I am taking notes.

And today’s runner up comes from an anonymous Feedback:

Obamacare is aptly named, since it takes very good care of Obama and his politics, but Healthcare, not so much.

From Lori Montgomery at the Washintgton Post:

A plan to slash more than $500 billion from future Medicare spending — one of the biggest sources of funding for President Obama’s proposed overhaul of the nation’s health-care system — would sharply reduce benefits for some senior citizens and could jeopardize access to care for millions of others, according to a government evaluation released Saturday.

The report, requested by House Republicans, found that Medicare cuts contained in the health package approved by the House on Nov. 7 are likely to prove so costly to hospitals and nursing homes that they could stop taking Medicare altogether.

Congress could intervene to avoid such an outcome, but “so doing would likely result in significantly smaller actual savings” than is currently projected, according to the analysis by the chief actuary for the agency that administers Medicare and Medicaid. That would wipe out a big chunk of the financing for the health-care reform package, which is projected to cost $1.05 trillion over the next decade.

If you’re interested, here’s the report itself, in PDF format.

Big Government, noting the same link, says with some interest that as of the 23rd of Last Month… HHS still hadn’t published the analysis on their website, even though it was written by its own staff. We have a feeling it may never find a home there. So far they’re apparently right… it’s still not there.

The bottom line in this report is so intuitive, so obvious, that one wonders why the Democrats are trying to argue the point at all.  Government health care is going to reduce quality of care, and depth of care while raising costs.  Period. There is no way around it, in the first place, because saving money, and government, first of all, don’t mix. I would be quite happy to attain argument on this point, assuming that anyone could bring a credible argument to the table about it; government , whenever it becomes involved with any project always adds cost and inefficiency. In fact, I suggest that the case can be made that Healthcare costs of been rising specifically because government has been overly involved with it since Johnson’s Not So Great Society.

Secondly it’s particularly true if you go about this trying to “save” money.  not only do you have the additional weight of government, adding that cost and inefficiency, but then you’re going to tell us that we have an overall savings to boot?  Sorry, that doesn’t wash.  The only way that’s going to happen is if Soylant Green really is Grandma.

The fact of the matter is that just about every independent expert has been saying this since been day one. The government health care bills… any of them …. will increase costs.  Higher taxes, less health care.  Stacking that on to an already overburdened economy makes one wonder just what these morons are thinking.  Anyone worried about the financial future of this country will get up on their hind legs and start hollering at the top of their lungs:

NO!

The total experience of the world to date has been that the answer is always less government, not more.  More government is precisely what this bill is about, and what the Democrats are about.  It’s about time that we throttled both.

Sam Youngman, Hill:

Barack Obama

Even as he travels through Asia, President Barack Obama said Saturday that he has ordered a full investigation of what happened last week at Fort Hood, Texas, and he promises accountability for mistakes made that allowed the tragic shootings.

The president, in his weekly radio address, said he is aware that Congress will pursue its own inquiries, “but all of us should resist the temptation to turn this tragic event into the political theater that sometimes dominates the discussion here in Washington”

Sure Barry!    From Phillip Klien, Spectator, via Andy McCarthy, National Review:

Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, who as a judge presided over a trial stemming from the first attack on the World Trade Center, on Friday warned that the Obama administration’s decision to bring Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to New York, along with three other terrorist detainees, to stand trial in a civilian court, reflected a pre-9/11 mindset that viewed terrorism as a simple criminal matter.

Barry warns against using the pending court-martial of Major. Nidal Hasan as political theatre, while ordering the show trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and traveling to Japan to kiss Emperor Akihito’s ass.    So far all  Barry has done is to engage in political theatre.

Speaking of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.   In 2006 Barry thought, or at least opined,   KSM would get a fair trial in military tribunal,  roll the video:

In hindsight, it is now easy to see why Barry didn’t like showing up for his Senate job.

So if an Barack Obama so boldy asserted in 2006, a military trial for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed would be fair, why does Barry now want to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a civil court?