Smack of the Day: Susanka Bersin

I’d just love to report that  Susanka Bersin is the Bitsblog German bureau chief, but alas.   So just follow the link, to see how an honorary Swamp Stomper responds.  Lucky for Hans that Suzanka does not kick.

Hat tip:   Jammie Wearing Fool.

Addendum: 

Added video:

Savor.

Nadya Suleman has no job but she has a nanny whom she pay five hundred dollars a week; Elisabeth Snead, Los Angeles Times:

Despite having no job, Nadya can afford to pay a nanny around $500 a week to look after the older kids Monday through Friday. “She works overtime and doesn’t ask for more money. She does 12-hour days,” she tells The Sun.

A five hundred dollar a week nanny but no visable means of support?

Alan Elsner:

WASHINGTON (Reuters)- President Barack Obama’s aides warned Americans on Sunday not to expect instant miracles from the $787 billion economic stimulus bill he will sign this week, but said it would help eventually.

Mr. President you said it was urgent for Congress to pass Porkulus.  Congress did its part. You need to stop partying like a frat boy, and get back to Washington and back to doing the People’s work.

Lynn Sweet at the Chicago Sun-Times, forwards notes from staffers Natasha Korecki and Dave McKinney :

State lawmakers are calling for a criminal investigation into whether U.S. Sen. Roland Burris committed perjury before a state impeachment panel, in the wake of a Sun-Times exclusive story published online today.

The development comes after the Chicago Democrat failed to initially disclose under oath to a House panel that he was hit up for campaign cash by former Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s brother.

State Rep. James Durkin (R-Western Springs) said Saturday that the Sangamon County state prosecutor‚s office will be asked to review Burris‚ Jan. 8 sworn testimony before the House panel to determine whether Burris (D-Ill.) perjured himself.
“I don’t trust anything that comes out of Roland Burris‚ mouth or from his pen,” Durkin said.

“We had a major league situation facing us. This is a United States senate seat that came under the most clouded of circumstances,” Durkin said. “This is supposed to be about the year of reform this is about ethics and about transparency.”

There’s a press conference scheduled for sometime this afternoon.  That news conference was apparently triggered after Burris released documents yesterday indicating that Blagojevich’s   brother asked Burris to host a fundraiser for the governor before Burris was appointed to the senate.

It should be pointed out, that Burris did not hold a fundraiser, saying that it would look like he was trying to win favor, not that he wasn’t. To my mind Burris has always had a credibility problem.  This situation merely exemplifies that problem.

To my mind, this also raises questions on the credibility of Harry Reid and Dick Durbin, neither one of which stuck by their initial commitment to block anything coming from Blagojevich.  You can’t make me believe that these two didn’t know that Burris was tainted.

It should also be pointed out however that this is the same environment that Barack Obama came up in.  Does anyone really think that anyone coming up in that environment could do so without getting fertilizer on themselves?

Ellen Goodman, Seattle Times:

In the winter of our economic discontent, women now hold more than 49 percent of jobs on the nation’s payrolls. If we cross the 50 percent line — hold the applause — it will be because men are losing their jobs even faster than women.

This dubious equality is in large part an ongoing tale of two economies. Men tend to work in manufacturing and construction, areas that were the hardest and first hit. Women tend to work in jobs such as health care and education that haven’t (yet) been as affected.

The idea that as women represent fifty-three perecent of the population that therefore they should constitute fifty-three percent of the work force and earn fifty-three percent the wages is simply absurd.   Goodman allows that men and women are being laid-off at different rates becuse they do in large part different jobs, largely by their choice.    There is no reason to believe that two groups working in largely seperate fields should somehow will  be employed in the same proportions and magically earn the same wages.

I find it both amusing and revealing that when women are on the short end of the statistical stick, we get screaming headlines.    When men are on the short end, we get passing asides.   Thus, I don’t respect gender feminists, because their idea of equality is entirely too selective.

Irwin Stelzer, Times(UK)

So Obama has his stimulus bill, but he has paid a very high price. He now owns the recession. He has asked to be judged by whether this bill and other measures he will propose create or “save” 3.5m-4m jobs, the number lost so far since unemployment turned up. Forget “save” – if unemployment keeps rising, voters are not likely to rally round the slogan “It would be still worse if I hadn’t spent your trillions”. What the president has done is to promise what he certainly can’t deliver in time for the congressional elections next year – a reversal of job destruction, and millions of new jobs. If the voters prove patient in 2010, they are unlikely to remain as forgiving when the presidential election rolls round in 2012.

Look at like this, Porkulus is about to become law.   So while you will gett your thirteen dollars a week, Barack Obama has bought the entire recesssion.   Karl Rove is smiling.

“So I was surprised to hear that statement. Perhaps it’s because the administration has not yet put itself together. Perhaps they have not been given the information yet. And I hope as they settle down, as they learn more, we will see better judgment.”

Hamid Karzai, President of Afghanistan, as attributed by Andrew Malcolm, Los Angeles Times, via Gateway Pundit.

Evidently Maurice Hinchey, Bew York Twenty Two, is tired of being called a moonbat:

WASHINGTON (CNN) – More and more Democrats in Congress are calling for action that Republicans warn could muzzle right-wing talk radio.

Representative Maurice Hinchey, a Democrat from New York is the latest to say he wants to bring back the “Fairness Doctrine,” a federal regulation scrapped in 1987 that would require broadcasters to present opposing views on public issues

Michelle:

In New Paltz, N.Y., the weekend anti-war festivities will be capped by a speech from Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-N.Y.) — the unhinged tin-foil hat wearer who continues to assert that White House adviser Karl Rove planted the bogus National Guard memos that Dan Rather wrapped himself in at CBS News.

And more Michelle.

Taking Rush off of broadcast radio, will still leave Hinchey two all beef patties short of  a Big Mac.

Addendum:(Bit)

Let’s see. Cheesy. Cheesy. Green.  Green.

Hmmm. I conclude that moonbats are made of green cheese.

You’re welcome.

Mary Katherine Ham writes in Weekly Standard:

The House just passed the stimulus package with no Republican support, and eight “no” votes from Democrats.
Rep. Aaron Schock, whose llinois district is home to Caterpillar, spoke on the floor about the president’s speech to his constituents and their telling response. Caterpillar has been a central part of Obama’s stimulus pitch the past couple of days, but the pitch has been bumbled, as the rest of the stimulus message has been. Obama claimed the Caterpillar CEO told him he’d be rehiring some of his 22,000 laid-off workers as soon as the stimulus bill was passed, but Owens later flatly contradicted the President’s claim.

Schock’s constituents were urged by the president himself to tell Schock to vote “yes,” but he was not approached by one constituent, Caterpillar employee or otherwise, asking him to support the stimulus

Barack Obama did not convince one of Schock’s constituients to support Porkulus. not one.

The House passed Porkulus, the Pelosi/Reid/Obama Debt Plan, New York Times:

Stimulus Bill Passes in the House With No G.O.P. Support

WASHINGTON – The House approved a $787 billion economic stimulus package Friday afternoon, with Democrats successfully promoting it as a boost for middle-class Americans and Republicans countering in vain that it will only stimulate wasteful government spending.

Let it be clear.   Barack Obama demanded immediate passage of Porkulus.   So two hundred forty-six democrat congresscritters, passed a bill which they never even read.   Porkulus is over a thousand pages long, nobody can read that fast.   The Senate is likely to pass Porkulus as well, and BO will sign the bill into law.  BO demanded immediate action and he got it.   Immediate action demands immediate results.   The moment BO signs Porkulus, Obama own the recesssion.      

I am sure that additional thirteen bucks a week will go a long way.   Howabout you?

Welcome one and all to the most intense nightly read on the ‘sphere; Bitsblog’s Nightly Ramble The ‘Politics is Theatre’ edition.

As you might imagine, a lot of my attention has been focused on the plane crash just west of here. But that has been other stuff happening today, that’s worth a mention at least, and here’s some of it:

• What’s the bottom line? In the press, at least, nobody’s been talking about the true cost of this political payoff package that’s being pushed onto the backs of the American people… and their kids… and their grandkids…  The Heritage Foundation has, though… and… ready?… The cost for this monster is at least $3.27 TRILLION.  That’s assuming we pay the bills on time and don’t defer the debt with more borrowing. And the Economists still say it’s not going to work. My own take is it won’t either. But as I remarked yesterday, the markets are on their way back, and the problem would have solved itself, particularly if the Democrats had done NOTHING. So the timing of this will work out that they’ll be able to claim it was their leadership that ended the recession… Ummmm… assuming that the recession isn’t hyper-extended by the bailouts and political payoffs. Does anyone realy consider that three trillion dollars of debt won’t have a negative effect on the economy? And as for what’s driving this thing; The lobby types had copies of the bill before those voting on it did. So much for Obama’s promise about a lobby free administration… as if that promise wasn’t revealed as a lie two months ago.
• Obama Tries to fill Commerce Sec’y role for a third time: Byron York on why Gregg backed out:
  

  After he looked into it more, he said, ‘Whoa, this was a mistake.'” Plus this: “At the very least, the Census issue would have made for a very uncomfortable confirmation hearing. Gregg’s fellow Republicans on the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee would certainly have asked him what he thought of a plan that would move control of the Census from professionals in the Commerce Department to Rahm Emanuel, the hyper-partisan White House chief of staff. What would Gregg have said? It was the stimulus problem all over again; Gregg couldn’t have said what he believed, but he probably couldn’t have brought himself to support the president, either.

  I can’t recall any president having nearly this much problem trying to fill his cabinet before. Maybe if he simply tried to fill the roles with qualified people instead of playing the political gamesmanship he’s apprently so very fond of… Ohh. and of course, it’d help if he actually picked people of integrity. On the other hand, things are improving, somewhat. After all, Gregg is the first person to withdraw from the cabinet, on something other than his own ethical problems. He’s withdrawing on Obama’s ethica problems, in the end.  Rick Moran has more on this stuff.

• It’s who does the counting: Powerline speaks to the Unconstitutional Census takeover, which I see as only part of the reason Gregg backed out.  Is there anyone who doesn’t understand that we’re going to have ACORN doing census counting? That’s why Obama unconstitutionally took it away from commerce… at the point he made that unconstitutional move, he thought he was going to have a token Republican running Commerce, and thereby running the census. Certainly, Gregg would have balked at ACORN being a part of that scene. Remember, gang, these are the same folks who manipluated voting totals.
•  That was now, this is then: I wondered yesterday what Democrats would have to say if Bush offered what Obama is, as a stimulus. Surber found the answer I was looking for.  Another massive double standard exposed.
• Eric Blair, call your office: The Obesity tax has failed here in NY.  But Patterson’s calling it all a victory. Orwell didn’t know the half of Newspeak, apparently.
• You sure you want to do this? Microsoft has apparently offered $250,000 for the arrest and conviction of the hackers who wrote a particularly troublesome worm. Seems to me calling attention to the frailties in their software is not exactly a sales pitch.

Something I found while scouring the Buffalo News sources for info on the plane crash of last evening… found in The Buffalo News:

Orchard Park police are investigating a particularly gruesome killing, the beheading of a woman, after her husband — an influential member of the local Muslim community — reported her death to police Thursday.

Police identified the victim as Aasiya Z. Hassan, 37. Detectives have charged her husband, Muzzammil Hassan, 44, with second-degree murder.

“He came to the police station at 6:20 p.m. [Thursday] and told us that she was dead,” Orchard Park Police Chief Andrew Benz said late this morning.

Muzzammil Hassan told police that his wife was at his business, Bridges TV, on Thorn Avenue in the village. Officers went to that location and discovered her body.

Muzzammil Hassan is the founder and chief executive officer of Bridges TV, which he launched in 2004, amid hopes that it would help portray Muslims in a more positive light.

Apparently, Bridges TV is among other things, a satalite TV channel, curently deployed on Galaxy 25 
(was known as Intelsat Americas 5 (IA-5)) at 97.0^oW, on 12053 Vertical frequency transponder 19. Their stated goal? Read for yourself.

I think we can register that one as an epic FAIL.  Reality rears it’s head and the religion of peace rides again.

For those who don’t know, Orchard Park is a bedroom to the south of Buffalo, and is most famous for being where the Buffalo Bills lose their games.

I suspect and suppose that this cannot help but raise further questions about the compatibility of Islam with modern civil society.

Am I being too harsh? Tough.

You tell ME… In what other religion/cultural subgrouping does beheading figure so prominently?

Edit/Add info:(Bit)

I’ve got a new post up at Pajamas Media, this morning, encompassing Obama, the Herd Mentality, and offering some serious reccomendations to Republicans for the future:

Ronald Reagan, for all that he was and did for this country, could not possibly have gotten himself elected to the presidency were it not for the towering failure of Jimmy Carter’s presidency. The facts certainly were on Reagan’s side. That point was not lost on the Republican base, which, as the candidacy of John McCain showed us, is always checking a candidate’s adherence to Republican principles. But certainly principles do not matter to those with a herd mentality.  What drove the center and even most of the left away from Jimmy Carter three years into his presidency was disappointment and resentment. In short, emotion. Those two factors — leftist disappointment and a satisfied right-wing base — are what resulted in Reagan’s landslide victory.

So, with that history in mind, here’s what our future looks like.

The left may have already started turning against Obama. Support for his stimulus bill was recently down to 37% (it has since rebounded a bit).  Obama’s approval ratings are already slipping from their post-election high. So we see that the chain of events which led to the removal of Jimmy Carter after one term may already be in motion with Barack Obama. An article in the pragmatic Financial Times asks the question: “Has Barack Obama’s presidency already failed?”

With these factors already in play, the GOP has to mind its own house.

I get into some detail on how to accomplish this. Go and read.

Word from just west of Casa de Bit:

Clarence, NY (WBEN) — 49 people died late Thursday in the crash of a Continental plane in Clarence Center. WBEN Reporters Barbara Burns and Tom Puckett were both on scene as they learned 44 passengers, four crew and one individual on the ground are among the dead.

The plane, flight 3407, crashed into a house on Long Street at approximately 10:20pm. The plane had reportedly indicated it was having mechanical difficulty and lost contact with the tower.

As you can imagine, reports here are still a bit sketchy, but we’re now getting word of a 5th crew member being on board the flight, which would bring the death total to an even 50.  Based on the chatter I’m getting from Buffalo radio stations, it appears that what’s happened is an icing incident.

As I gather it, the plane was on approach to Buffalo International  from Newark NJ at about 10:30 last night.  Eyewitnesses are saying the plane was making some rather odd noises as it went down… as if one engine was having problems.  The National Weather service was reporting light snow on the surface, but we just had a big change in the weather up here.  I’ve no idea what the temps were aloft. But, based on the plane’s radio traffic, (Linked at the news story) they’d been flying pretty low, having been ordered to ‘come up’ to 2300 feet. I know that area… and that’s pretty low for that part of the flight path.

By virtue of a quick and dirty search, this is the worst Buffalo air disaster on record… and that certainly meshes with my memory of the thing.

Amazingly, only one death on the ground… only one house hit.  Even more amazingly since the houses are packed in a fairly typical suburban density, there.

Update1:(Bit) Video, the first of which is cell phone vid, the others are commercial broadcasters. Channel 2 is local TV, and of course MSNBC you know.

Update2:(Bit) If you’re from outside the area, WBEN has a web feed, here. They’re in wall to wall mode, just now, as you can imagine.

Update3: (Bit): Others Blogging: Memeorandum, Critically Altered Thinking,  Roadwolf,  Sacred Monkeys, Blog Your Mind, Politisite,  Brick and Mortar,  Riehl World View, Blogs and Stories, The Moderate Voice  Blogs of War  Protein Wisdom  JammieWearingFool

Guy Bensen, National Review, on Juan Williams:

I have great admiration for Juan Williams. Although we rarely agree on issues, his arguments almost always strike me as thoughtful, measured, and ideologically unpredictable. Having had the pleasure of meeting Juan a few times, I can also attest that he’s a heck of a nice guy. He brings so much to the table for both media outlets, and it’s a true shame that a handful of intolerant complainers can generate a phony firestorm to discredit him.

Well stated and seconded Mr. Bensen.

Robert Stacy McCain, Real Other McCain:

Did Juan Williams ‘smear’ the First Lady?

J.P. Freire has a post about the controversy surrounding this video of a Jan. 26 appearance on “The O’Reilly Factor” where Williams calls Michelle Obama “Stokely Carmichael in a designer dress”:

Williams makes an apt analogy, see above for the supporting evidence.