Mar

16

If You Can’t Beat ‘Em, Redistrict ‘Em!

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Are you ready for some more gerrymandering, Chicago style?

You ain’t seen nothin’ yet:

The Democratic Party is poised to launch a historically expensive campaign to keep control of state legislatures in anticipation that lawmakers in those chambers will play a crucial role in redrawing the federal electoral map in 2011.

In a memo sent to Democratic leaders and activists on Monday, the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee’s Executive Director Michael Sargeant highlighted 15 key battlegrounds for the 2010 election and called for the establishment of a $20 million “Redistricting Fund” to help the party win those races.

“The DLCC is determined to run the largest democratic redistricting mobilization in history this year to ensure that our state legislative candidates have the resources needed to win against well-­heeled Republican special interests,” according to the memo, which was passed by a Democratic source to the Huffington Post.

“To ensure that the Democrat Party has a chance to survive against the will of the voters” is a better way to put it.

Mar

16

Transparency You Can Bereave In

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Now that the Associated Press has finished fact-checking Sarah Palin’s book, they have a little time to do some homework about Obama and members of his administration — something that might have been helpful had it been done in 2008.

First, for a little perspective, there’s this from the White House website:

My Administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government. We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government.

With that in mind, there’s this from the Associated Press:

The government’s use of legal exemptions to keep records secret rose during President Barack Obama’s first year in office, despite promises of increased openness, an Associated Press review found.

The review of annual Freedom of Information Act reports filed by 17 major agencies found that overall, the use of nearly every one of the open-records law’s nine exemptions to withhold information rose in fiscal year 2009, which ended last October.

Among the most frequently used exemptions: one that lets the government hold back records that detail its internal decision-making. Obama had directed agencies to stop using that exemption so frequently, but that directive appears to have been widely ignored.

Major agencies cited that exemption to refuse records at least 70,779 times during the 2009 budget year, compared with 47,395 times during President George W. Bush’s final full budget year, according to annual FOIA reports filed by federal agencies. Obama was president for nine months in the 2009 period.

There is simply no way an increasingly monstrous and power-hungry government can or will allow itself to be “transparent,” no matter how much lip service it gets — it’s a paradox.

For what Obama, Pelosi and Reid have in mind for the country, to be truly transparent would be like covering themselves in honey and walking into the bear cage at the zoo — and unfortunately they’re not that stupid. Their version of transparency is holding up a cinder block and telling everybody it’s cellophane. Some believe it, but that number is decreasing quickly.

We might not be able to see through their government, but we can see through them, and that’s what really matters. If that’s what they mean by pledging to be more transparent, then Mission Accomplished!

Update: The transparency continues.

Mar

16

Pass Health Care or the Baby Gets It!

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Nancy Pelosi had a health care photo-op with children who Michelle Malkin calls “Kiddie human shields” yesterday:

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Oh wait, wrong photo (same intended “message,” just the wrong picture).

Here’s the correct picture:

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Nancy wanted to spend some quality time with the kids she’s trying to screw over, and ended up scaring the bejeebers out of some of them when they realized they were being held by the Cryptkeeper:

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Was it too much to ask for just one of these kids to projectile vomit all over the Speaker?

The only thing surprising about this is that the kids weren’t ordered to put on little white doctor coats when they got there.

Mar

15

Obama: Pass Health Care Bill and Employer Premiums Will Decrease 3,000 Percent and You’ll Get a Raise!

Filed Under Health Care, Politics | 2 Comments

This short clip from Obama’s health care rah-rah in Ohio today demonstrates the utter desperation the White House is feeling. They have now resorted to hoping that everyone in the country has undergone a tragically botched lobotomy since the last poll on Obamacare was taken (botched lobotomies will be covered under Obamacare, by the way, and are also required in order to support this bill).

There are a couple of guffaws (“politicians agree that Obamacare is great but politics is keeping them from getting it done”?), but the biggest whopper is when Obama claims that, under his plan, employer health premiums will drop up to 3,000 percent (if this doesn’t sell, he’ll switch to a “gazillion bajillion percent”), which will then of course lead to you getting a raise.

Let’s see — if your employer is paying, say, $15,000 toward your health care premiums, and your employer’s premium drops 3,000 percent, the insurance company will have to reimburse your employer to the tune of about $450,000 (hopefully your boss shares just a little of that windfall with you).

Wow — if the government taking over 1/6 of the US economy could get us a raise like that, just imagine how much we’ll be making after Obama, Pelosi and Reid have taken over everything!

Obama has morphed into Tommy Flanagan in just a few short months.

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“And if the government borrows a few trillion dollars from your future and gives it to labor unions, you’ll get a huge raise… and your insurance premiums will drop by one… no, two… no, make that three thousand percent! Yeah, that’s the ticket!”

Mar

15

White House Expands Bribery Program

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Carefully targeted bribes weren’t getting enough votes to pass the health care sham, so now the White House has decided that the only way to be fair about it is to make the bribes available to whatever member of Congress the Obama administration deems worthy:

WASHINGTON — The White House is backing down from efforts to drop “sweetheart” deals poisoning health care legislation as House Budget Committee Democrats meet Monday to craft a “fix-it” bill that does not yet have a price tag.

In a new take on its policy, White House top strategist David Axelrod said President Obama only objects to state-specific arrangements, such as an increase in Medicaid funding for Nebraska, ridiculed as the “cornhusker kickback.”

But instead of dropping them, the concept behind those deals could be widened so that all states benefit.

Though White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs last week singled out state-specific deals as items Obama wanted removed, two powerful committee chairman, Democratic Sens. Max Baucus of Montana and Chris Dodd of Connecticut, have convinced the White House that the arguments being applied for special offers could be expanded to other states where similar circumstances arise.

That “similar circumstance” will be that it’s okay to use our money to bribe a member of Congress if he or she is still on the fence on Obamacare.

Oh, and for those of you keeping score at home, the term “bribe” has been replaced by “special offer.” Please make a note of it.

Update: CBS News’ Bob Schieffer says the White House might have to waterboard Dems to get them to pass the bill. Pelosi will deny she ever heard that.

Update II: “The Mile Bribe Club”:

The president invited Reps. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) and Martha Fudge (D-Ohio) aboard Air Force One for his flight Monday to Ohio, where the president will hold a townhall on healthcare. Kucinich represents the Cleveland suburbs where Obama will be speaking.

Both lawmakers are liberals who are upset that the bill does not go far enough to crack down on insurance companies. Kucinich has said he is a “firm no,” while Fudge is undecided. The flight will give the president an opportunity to press the Ohioans to vote for final passage.

Mar

15

Valerie Jarrett: Obama is Woman, Hear Her Teleprompter Roar

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Senior Obama advisor Valerie Jarrett: “Obama’s attitude toward leadership is really a very womanly one…”

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I can think of nothing more flattering I’d like to hear about my leadership style:

That would explain Obama’s use of terms like “wee weed up.”

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Just one of the girls

(h/t GatewayPundit)

Mar

15

Ozzie Guillen: Awesome! Totally Awesome!

Filed Under Celebrity Idiots, Politics, Sports | 1 Comment

Ozzie Guillen, the Chicago White Sox manager, has dared take issue with noted celebutard Sean Penn’s opinion of the life-partner he met on eDictator.com, Hugo Chavez:

You can add Sean Penn to the long list of people who have been called out by Ozzie Guillen.

The outspoken White Sox manager called Penn a “payaso” (clown) and “izquierdista estupido” (stupid leftist) on Twitter Friday for his praise of controversial Venezuela President Hugo Chavez.

“Oh my God, Sean Penn defended our President Hugo Chavez,” Guillen, a Venezuela native, tweeted. “That’s easy when you [don't] live in Venezuela and have money. LOL…shame on [you].”

Now Penn might demand Guillen be sent to prison for “falsely” believing that Chavez is a dictator (a trait which is in no way indiciative of dictators or those who support them).

Way to go, Ozzie! I’m a fan of yours — at least until your first game against the Tigers in May.

Mar

14

If You See Only 1 Movie Trailer This Year, Make It ‘Movie Trailer’

Filed Under Entertainment, Humor | 1 Comment

DaVinci’s Notebook was the first to brilliantly mock the predictable formula of bubble-gum, boy-band pop songs with “Title of the Song,” but now briTANick has done the same for Hollywood’s cookie-cutter plotting with the hilarious movie trailer for the film “Movie Title”:

(h/t HotAir)

Mar

14

Tom Brady Urges World to Turn Off Lights for One Hour, But Not During a Pats Night Game

Filed Under Celebrity Idiots, Science & Nature, Sports | 5 Comments

From the “What happens when athletes marry enviro-wacko supermodels” file:

Supermodel Gisele Bündchen and husband, NFL great Tom Brady have recently shown their support for WWF’s Earth Hour by filming two videos that encourage people around the world to join them in turning off their lights for Earth Hour on Saturday, March 27th at 8:30 pm.

They’re still peddling the man-made “climate change” hoax and presumably have settled on going dark as the best way to make sure nobody can see Al Gore pick-pocketing the world:

I hereby not only pledge to turn all my lights off for one hour that day, but for a full eight hours — just like I do every night.

If Tom really wants to save some energy on lights, he’ll stop worrying about the lamp in my living room and instead maybe cancel a few of those night games at Gillette Stadium:

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Or maybe if there were fewer lights on Tom’s wife, the polar ice caps could be saved:

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Mar

14

Paging Keith Olbermann: ‘Coffee Partiers’ Make ‘Tea Partiers’ Look Like the Harlem Globetrotters

Filed Under Health Care, Politics | 2 Comments

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The Coffee Party movement, if you can call it that, is the left-of-center, Obamaniacle reaction to the successful Tea Party movement.

Yesterday in America, many “Coffee Parties” were held around the country, which, judging from the photos, attracted an average of only a couple dozen attendees (can we call them “beanbaggers”?) each.

Coffee Party organizers called the event a “huge success.” Well, if their goal was to gather enough people to fill a Port-o-San, I guess it was.

The likes of Keith Olbermann, Bill Maher, Janeane Garofalo and other pasty, whiffle-brained dingbats castigate the Tea Party movement as being nothing more than an all-white racist whine-fest featuring a bunch of crackers who just can’t stand the fact that a black guy has been elected president. There are actually many minorities involved in the Tea Party movement, but why bother the left with the facts?

Go through the large photo album from yesterday’s Coffee Parties. Say what you want, libs, but there’s an awful lot of cream in that coffee.

The white people gathered in Idaho to eliminate “red state vs. blue state”:

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The white people gathered in New Jersey to demand civil conversation (which is a lot easier when you have so few people conversing):

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The white people gathered in Nebraska to demand… um… a refill on their coffee!

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The white people gathered in Kentucky to… to… figure out what to demand from the government and see what’s on TV:

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The white people gathered in Florida to demand vigilance in taxing the ecology to pay for health care, or… something like that:

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The white people gathered in Illinois to demand civility and to test the architectural integrity of the floor joists:

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Etu, California?

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Actually, I spotted a handful of non-caucasians at four or five of the 34 gatherings there are photos of, but using the same Olbermann/Garofalo sliding scale that is used to measure racism at Tea Parties, the Coffee Partiers might as well have been wearing white hoods and burning crosses.

Frankly it’s encouraging that rallies to grow the size of government drew such a small number of people who want to strap on the public trough feedbag, but still, when will Keith Olbermann make the Coffee Parties the “Worst Person in the World” for being nearly completely devoid of minorities?

On a moonbattier note, Allahpundit has many quotes from Coffee Party attendees. Here’s my personal favorite:

“‘To me, government is the answer. I’m really sort of perplexed,’ said a man named Joe who said he had been a teacher for 44 years…

A teacher? Now it’s all making sense.

Update: Thanks to Another Black Conservative for the link.