A victory for the hysterical Oprah Winfrey, the mad racist preacher Jeremiah Wright, the mainstream media who abandoned any sense of objectivity long ago, Europeans who despise America largely because they depend on her, comics who claim to be dangerous and fearless but would not dare attack genuinely powerful special interest groups. A victory for Obama-worshippers everywhere. A victory for the cult of the cult. A man who has done little with his life but has written about his achievements as if he had found the cure for cancer in between winning a marathon and building a nuclear reactor with his teeth. Victory for style over substance, hyperbole over history, rabble-raising over reality.
A victory for Hollywood, the most dysfunctional community in the world. Victory for Streisand, Spielberg, Soros and Sarandon. Victory for those who prefer welfare to will and interference to independence. For those who settle for group think and herd mentality rather than those who fight for individual initiative and the right to be out of step with meager political f ashion.
Victory for a man who is no friend of freedom. He and his people have already stated that media has to be controlled so as to be balanced, without realizing the extraordinary irony within that statement. Like most liberal zealots, the Obama worshippers constantly speak of Fox and Limbaugh, when the vast bulk of television stations and newspapers are drastically liberal and anti-conservative. Senior Democrat Chuck Schumer said that just as pornography should be censored, so should talk radio. In other words, one of the few free and open means of popular exp ression may well be cornered and beaten by bullies who even in triumph cannot tolerate any criticism and opposition.
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#3
Unfortunately, I doubt there really is a way to "prepare" for the circus to come. I was only snarking with the comment about bailout money going to "midnight basketball." Turns out he wants to buy new, digital TV's with it...for "the folks" of course. Anyone with an AGI in excess of $ 31,000 per year will obviously be excluded from applying. What's a fawning media without fawning listeners. Appears I wasn't too far off.
#4
The adolescents begin to get a clue of what life will be like without the saftey net of mommy and daddy to step in when needed. It is cold out on the streets.
Yes, it is all true. Our country is very sick and with Obama we are just going to get sicker. We are no longer a country ruled by the people and we are quickly moving toward becoming servants of the State. Best we can do now is pray for a miracle to turn things around.
WASHINGTON, Jan 15 (Reuters) - U.S. Homeland Security Secretary-designate Janet Napolitano promised at her confirmation hearing on Thursday to step up pressure on companies that hire illegal immigrants, and key senators said they would move to approve her nomination swiftly.
"You have to deal with illegal immigration from the demand side, as well as the supply side" by working with the Justice Department to prosecute companies that hire illegal workers, the Arizona governor said.
Napolitano, 51, was roundly praised by members of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, who said they would move to confirm her as soon as possible after Democratic President-elect Barack Obama takes office on Jan. 20. "You have shown yourself ready to take on the awesome responsibility that comes with being the secretary of Homeland Security," said committee chairman Joe Lieberman, a Connecticut independent.
If confirmed, Napolitano would oversee a sprawling agency of 200,000 employees responsible for securing the country's borders, screening airline passengers, responding to natural disasters and protecting chemical plants and other infrastructure against terrorist attacks. Cobbled together from 22 separate agencies after the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001, the department has faced widespread criticism for its disorganized response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and its sometimes-haphazard airline security measures.
The agency has also struggled to stem the flow of illegal immigrants and drugs, most recently through surveillance technology and a controversial barrier fence along one-third of the 2,000-mile (3,200-km) U.S.-Mexico border.
Napolitano, who as governor pressed the U.S. government to reimburse her state for enforcing immigration laws, said she would install more effective sensors to supplement thinly stretched border guards. But she seemed less than enthusiastic about the border fence, which has drawn opposition from property owners and environmentalists. "There is a role for some fencing, particularly around urban areas ... but these borders are so vast that the notion that a fence alone is worth the expense to go from San Diego to Brownsville (Texas), I don't think that would be giving good advice to the committee," she said.
There are an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants living and working in the United States, and the issue has long been divisive.
Members of the committee praised Napolitano's experience as a U.S. attorney, state attorney general and governor and said she was ready to take the job. They said Congress should better coordinate oversight so agency officials spend less time testifying in front of different committees.
Napolitano said her first priorities would be to fill key positions and instill a collective sense of identity in the still-fractured agency, which only in recent weeks has found a site for a central headquarters.
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A who's who of senators and House members flocked to Sen. Roland Burris on the U.S. Senate floor after his swearing-in Thursday as the chamber's newest member, ending an embarrassing episode for Democrats who vowed to block his appointment.
"I'm feeling terrifically vindicated," Mr. Burris, who was barred from the swearing-in ceremony last week over objections that his appointment was made by scandal-plagued Illinois Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich, said later outside the chamber.
On the Senate floor, a beaming Mr. Burris found himself wrapped in hugs by fellow Democrats who once locked him out, including the other Illinois senator, Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada.
Both leaders had said anyone tapped by Mr. Blagojevich would be tainted by his arrest in a federal corruption probe for trying to sell the Senate seat vacated by Mr. Obama. They backed down after Mr. Burris, 71, won a court decision supporting his appointment and amid mounting pressure from the Congressional Black Caucus for Mr. Burris to replace Mr. Obama as the nation's only black U.S. senator. By agreeing to seat Mr. Burris, a move compelled by law, the leadership also silenced an interparty quarrel that had become a drag on the ambitious agenda of Capitol Hill Democrats and the incoming Obama administration.
"It is fair to say his path to the Senate was unique, and that's an understatement," Mr. Reid said in a floor speech after Thursday's ceremony. "But our concern was never with Mr. Burris personally."
Mr. Durbin said the Blagojevich taint did not extend to Mr. Burris, a former Illinois attorney general and longtime political player in the state. "There was no negative statements about Roland Burris," Mr. Durbin told reporters Thursday. "I'm confident he will be a valuable member of the Senate and he will establish his own reputation."
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#1
Think I'd pass on the "hug" from Harry Reid thank you.
Eric Holder, President-elect Obama's pick to serve as attorney general, said he was not fully informed when he gave the green light to former President Bill Clinton to pardon fugitive financier Marc Rich.
"I knew it was a tax fraud case and I didn't know a lot of the underlying facts you described and that was a mistake," said Holder, who has previously said he erred in approving the pardon.
Holder also said that he should have consulted more closely with prosecutors involved with the case, such as Mary Jo White, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. "I made mistakes and my conduct and actions in the Rich action is where I made mistakes," said Holder, who said he learned from the experience. One would think that such a high profile attorney would not opine on ignorance, but that's just a guess on my part.
Obama arrived at the Washington Post headquarters today, as covered in priceless pool report by the New York Times Helene Cooper.
After three and a half hours at his transition office, PEOTUS obama took another 6 minute ride through washington, arriving at 157 pm at the nondescript soviet-style building at 15th and L street that houses the washington post. Around 100 people--Post reporters perhaps?--awaited PEOTUS's arrival, cheering and bobbing their coffee cups.
Pool is holding in a van outside, while Mr obama does his Washington Post interview, and will exercise enormous restraint by ending report before saying what really thinks about this turn of events. Is Cooper bitter about the Times still not getting an interview?
UPDATE: "There's no reason to think there were any reporters cheering," said a Washington Post spokesperson, adding that there are "a lot of people who work in the Post building who don't work in the Post newsroom."
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
