Musings, rants, occasional whining, slapstick and snark by Doug Powers
The new building in Beijing that will house the Chi-com’s state-owned newspaper “The People’s Daily” was obviously designed by the renowned architectural firm of Harden/Peters:
If you think it’s funny now, wait until they build two bio-domes at the base and then launch fireworks from the top to celebrate Chinese New Year.
Here’s how I think it all went down: The spider jumped up on the table and criticized President Obama’s response to Hurricane Sandy, causing Governor Christie to take offense and smash the partisan arachnid for blasphemy:
Cue PETA:
But PETA wishes the Governor had taken a minute to think about the spider’s value.
“Some people put the spider outside, but spiders are often scary to people, and that can prevent them from pondering their worth,” Newkirk added.
As TPM noted, President Obama found himself in a similar situation in 2009, when he swatted at a fly during a TV interview.
“He isn’t the Buddha, he’s a human being, and human beings have a long way to go before they think before they act,” PETA responded at the time.
Yeah, why are Christie and Obama heartlessly treating innocent spiders and flies as if they were dogs and cats dropped off at PETA shelters?
Just not for Chris Stevens and not last September:
When then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made an unannounced part-of-the-day visit to Tripoli, Libya, on Oct. 18, 2011, the U.S. Defense Department pre-positioned assets off the Libyan coast in case it needed to rescue the secretary of state.
The fact that the assets were pre-positioned for Clinton’s visit was included in the annual report of the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security (BDS).
Here’s part of the page from that report (PDF):
Before her visit to Tripoli in 2011, when they asked Hillary if she wanted extra military protection just in case, do you think she answered “what difference does it make?”
The cronyism and hypocrisy to which we’ve all become accustomed rolls on:
President Obama announced Thursday that Penny Pritzker, an ex-national finance chair for the Obama campaign, will lead the Commerce Department. If confirmed, she will be the richest cabinet secretary in U.S. history. The president already skipped over her for the nod once.
The New York Times said of Pritzker in 2008, “Ms. Pritzker’s family is renowned for finding ways to avoid paying taxes on its wealth. The Pritzkers were pioneers in using tax loopholes to shelter their holdings from the internal revenue service, and many of their dealings have never been made public.”
But the Pritzker family obviously put the money they saved by finding loopholes and tax shelters to good use by… helping elect a president who thinks the rich don’t pay their fair share. Well played, Ms. Pritzker! Read Michelle Malkin’s column for more on that little game. But remember while reading the column that these are the people who sell themselves (successfully, unfortunately) as tireless advocates of the working class and poor.
And then there’s this story, featuring another shot of cronyism with a broken promise chaser:
On Wednesday, the president named another campaign bundler, Tom Wheeler to head up the Federal Communications Commission. Wheeler spent two decades as a lobbyist representing the two industry groups that represented every single cable company, and every single cellphone provider.
Obama’s “no lobbyists” promise was broken to bits years ago.
At about the 3:30 mark in the story below, Jake Tapper discusses the cronyism and hypocrisy while some Obama flack tries to gin up a defense (imagine the person being discussed is Mitt Romney and you’ll realize how forced his arguments are):
The Scouts should have instead offered a badge for bullshit spotting, but it wasn’t to be.
Via Weasel Zippers:
The “green” badge will be personally awarded by Al Gore to any Scout who can figure out how to start a fire using nothing but two sticks and a Fisker Karma.
Pluggernuts got off his leash again yesterday:
“Why do you think women who get raped, so many don’t report it? They don’t want to get raped again by the system,” Biden said. “They don’t want to be put through what they had to be put through.”
Biden then bragged about never having participated in any campaign that accepted donations from criminal defense attorneys who often take women with rape allegations and rip them to shreds on the witness stand. Wait, never mind.
Guest post written by Joyanna Adams
*****
In his second term, Obama is fearless. When the news came out that the administration had threatened the witnesses of Benghazi against testifying — hindering all requested lawyer representation — Obama immediately called a press conference, and looked down at his notes and asked himself the question he wanted asked. That question was from a loyal reporter whose worried face expressed caring and devotion to the man who had just called and congratulated a gay and black basketball player for coming out and admitting in this world of religious zealots that… he was gay. (I say, let’s reward him by sending him to Benghazi!)
The reporter wanted to know — amidst all the latest stories about the Boston Bombing — what would this do to Obama’s agenda? As if Obama’s agenda was the most important thing to happen to the world since… the birth of Obama.
And to that, Obama talked forever about how all his wonderful programs were going to come, and if we were not graced by them, it was because the Republicans were holding his greatness back.
Obama quoted Mark Twain: “The news of my demise has been exaggerated.” (To that Mark Twain would say: “Too bad.”)
Clearly, Obama and Hillary Clinton left the people in Benghazi to die. Neither one of them tried to save them. In fact, they set them up for it by not addressing the many letters sent to them saying: “We’re going to die here! HELP!”
I suggest we all stand around at Starbucks and just yell “I want a latte with a double squirt of caramel and… Benghazi!”
Or, when we go to a movie, yell in the dark right before the credits roll: “Benghazi!”
How about in the bathroom of the local Home Depot: If you are shy, while in your stall, just yell “Benghazi” until everyone leaves. It’s also important that we keep the memory alive in the general population. In fact, be brave. Go down to your local police station and yell “Benghazi!” Be sure to have your best running shoes on.
Because if we don’t, we will only see more of this:
*****
Guest post written by Joyanna Adams
Update (DP): Related to Joyanna’s post, here’s Jay Carney today saying Benghazi happened “a long time ago.” Try saying that to the faces of the family members, Jay.