WASHINGTON—In a slight shift from his campaign trail promise, President Obama announced Monday that his administration's message of "Change" has been modified to the somewhat more restrained slogan "Relatively Minor Readjustments in Certain Favorable Policy Areas." "Today, Americans face a great many challenges, and I hear your desperate calls for barely measurable and largely symbolic improvements in the status quo," said Obama, who vowed never to waver in his fight for every last infinitesimal nudge forward on the controversial issues of torture and the military ban on homosexuals. "Remember: Yes we can, if by that you mean tiptoeing around potentially unpopular decisions that could alienate a large segment of the populace." Washington insiders said that, while the new mottos are certainly in keeping with Obama's pledge of government transparency, they are significantly less catchy.

Comedians speak truth to power!  And get over a million views on YouTube!  But then Craig Morton *is* a Canadian.  So you would expect this kind of hatemongering from a foreigner.

A speed cooking contest from China.

http://www.liveleak.com/vie...

By Byron York, who you won't see in the Californian as he is genuinely conservative and not just an Obama voter who claims to be conservative like some NY Times columnists. 

It took a while for people to notice, but in the last few months, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has made 16 -- yes, 16 -- speeches on the Senate floor questioning the wisdom of Barack Obama's decision to close the U.S. terrorist detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. McConnell started January 22, the day the president issued an executive order declaring that Gitmo will be closed within a year. McConnell is still going.

"Sometimes it takes a little bit of repetition for people to get the story," one Republican Senate aide says. "People weren't asking these questions back in January."

Now they are. For the moment at least, Obama has lost the Battle of Guantanamo. What began with pressure from McConnell, whose 40-member Republican caucus in the Senate has no power to enact anything by itself, has ended with the crumbling of majority Democratic support for closing Guantanamo. And that is a major defeat for Obama.

The Democratic change of heart came in the form of the Senate's decision to cancel $80 million to fund the relocation of Guantanamo prisoners. The money was to have been part of a $91.3 billion war appropriations bill that will be passed this week. But a provision in the bill, inserted by Senate Appropriations Committee chairman Daniel Inouye and Republican Sen. James Inhofe, now says that "none of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available by this act may be used to transfer, release, or incarcerate any individual who was detained as of May 19, 2009, at Naval Station, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to or within the United States."

If passed by the Senate, the ban will be in effect until September 30, the end of the current fiscal year. That means the Obama administration can't spend any money to make provisions for relocating the prisoners -- it can't build a new facility in the United States, can't redesign some existing facility for the job, can't do much of anything -- until October 1 at the earliest. (And that is only if Congress at that point decides to give the president the money for the job.)

Remember that the executive order specified that Guantanamo "shall be closed as soon as practicable, and no later than one year from the date of this order." That would be January 22, 2010, which now means that Obama would have at most October, November and December of this year to solve a problem that has vexed the U.S. government for a long time.

Nevertheless, the White House is standing firm behind its schedule. When asked yesterday if closing Guantanamo might take longer than planned, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs answered, "There's been no change in the date from the executive order." Gibbs said the president might be willing to working with Congress on a timeline for "asking for resources," but as far as the main goal is concerned, the White House remains inflexible.

"So that's non-negotiable, that's off the table?" a reporter asked. "This thing is being shut down in a year?"

"That's what the executive order says," Gibbs answered.

Very few people outside the White House believe that is possible, at least if it is to be done in a responsible way. That doubters now include a number of influential Democrats who have no idea what should be done with the Guantanamo prisoners but say they should not come to the United States, even to be held in U.S. prisons.

The Democrat who changed the terms of the debate is Virginia Sen. Jim Webb, a decorated veteran who give the party credibility on national security issues. Last Sunday, on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos," Webb, who once supported closing Guantanamo, said that detainees "don't belong in our judicial system, and they don't belong in our jails."

"We spent hundreds of millions of dollars building an appropriate facility with all security precautions in Guantanamo to try these cases," Webb continued. "There are cases against international law. These aren't people who were in the United States committing a crime in the United States. These are people who were brought to Guantanamo for international terrorism. I do not believe they should be tried in the United States."

Other Democrats agreed with Webb, and by Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had joined them. "I think there's a general feeling…that the American people, and certainly the Senate, overwhelmingly doesn't want terrorists to be released in the United States," Reid told reporters at the Capitol. When asked if that included imprisoning Guantanamo detainees in the U.S., Reid said, "If terrorists are released in the United States, part of what we don't want is them to be put in prisons in the United States. We don't want them around the United States."

Reid's words just happen to fit the results of a new poll by Fox News, which asked, "If the Guantanamo Bay military prison is closed, do you think the prisoners should be transferred to prison facilities in the United States?" Fifty-five percent of those polled said no, while 37 percent said yes. Broken down by party, 68 percent of Republicans said no, as did 53 percent of independents and 46 percent of Democrats. (Twenty-seven percent of Republicans, 39 percent of independents, and 43 percent of Democrats say the prisoners should be transferred to the U.S.)

Why the turnaround in the politics of Guantanamo? Republican analysts believe the public never really focused on the issue until Obama made a firm commitment to close the prison by a certain date. That forced Democrats to actually confront the problem in a way that moved beyond campaign rhetoric. "The question for the public with Guantanamo was, 'Do you want these people here in the United States?'" says a GOP pollster. "I don't think people thought that was an option. We thought that we shut it down and they go back to where they came from. I don't think Americans had thought that through."

In addition, the Guantanamo decision comes at a time when some Senate Democrats, who have long chafed under their party's image of being soft on national security, watched with dismay as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi got into a high-profile dispute with the CIA over how much the spy agency told Pelosi about harsh interrogations. "Part of it could be the Pelosi thing, and Senate Democrats got worried about their stand on defense issues and security," says the pollster. "Pelosi's comments could have contributed to the idea that Democrats have to pursue a harder line on national security."

And in the end, part of it was the sheer persistence of Mitch McConnell. Guantanamo, the Minority Leader told reporters Tuesday, is "a $200 million state-of-the-art detention facility…from which no one has escaped since 9/11." That was a pretty strong argument when decision time came around, and McConnell added, "I understand our friends on the other side of the aisle are -- shall I say? -- moving in our direction rapidly on this issue."

Remember how President Obama blamed Chrysler's bankruptcy filing last month on "a small group of speculators" who turned down Treasury's $2 billion final offer for their $6.9 billion in debt? Well, it turns out that hedge funds and other short sellers weren't the only secured creditors who got a raw deal from Uncle Sam.

Indiana Treasurer Richard Mourdock revealed this week that his state's police and teacher pension funds have lost millions of dollars in the Chrysler "restructuring." Indiana's State Police Fund and Major Moves Construction Fund, which finances roads and bridges, together lost more than $1 million. And the Teacher's Retirement Fund "suffered, at a minimum, a loss of $4.6 million due to the action of the Federal government," reports Mr. Mourdock.

Far from being speculators, these funds represent retired public employees, including cops and teachers. The funds paid a premium to buy "secured" status, only to discover that they were politically outranked by the United Auto Workers in the White House hierarchy.

"In the past, to be 'secured' meant an investor was 'first in line' in the event of a bankruptcy and 'non-secured' creditors would receive value after secured-creditors were paid," Mr. Mourdock says. "In the Chrysler bankruptcy, however, secured creditors received $.29 on the dollar even as non-secured creditors received higher values and ended up with a 55% ownership of the new company, which is fundamentally wrong and a dangerous precedent to the capital markets."

We've worried that the Chrysler sandbagging would discourage bond investment. And, sure enough, Mr. Mourdock says that from now on no funds under his control will invest in the secured debt of "General Motors, other manufacturing companies, or those insurance companies who have or will be receiving bailout funds." Given the recent actions by the feds, he adds, "the risk is too great for any prudent investor to accept."

This isn't political grandstanding. Public investment officials like Mr. Mourdock have a fiduciary duty to seek maximum returns for retirees. The question for all public officials responsible for investing pension money is whether they too should conclude that investing in U.S.-aided companies now carries so much political risk that it violates their legal obligations. Such are the wages of White House disdain for legal contracts.

http://online.wsj.com/artic...

While looking at the comments posted today on a post of mine from the weekend, one comment in particular caught my attention in its referencing, negatively,  Palin family members:

"--unmarried high school drop-out daughter with child---grandparent on the fathers side on charges for drug sales/possession---"   

It reminded me of an article I read a couple weeks back.  Oh, the risk's involved in ridiculing the other side's family when your own could very well be worse.

Breaking news! It seems that Todd Palin not only has a half-sister, but he also has another half-sibling - a half-brother named Samson Palin. The First Dude’s half-sister Diana, you may recall, was recently arrested for breaking into a house in Wasilla for the second time this week to steal money. You can go to Celtic Diva’s blog and read all about it. You will find it as an update to the Levi/Bristol exploitation post under the mocking title “Palin Family Values” - with the professional Palin-hatin’ diva’s take on it:

Karma has a sense of humor, no?

Wow, just wait until she learns about this latest Palin problem! She and her posse are going to have a field day with it. Todd’s other half-sibling has been accused of something so vile… so perverse… that it spells certain doom for Gov. Palin’s political future.

As Karma would have it, Todd’s half-bro Sampson was refused entry to Britain after reportedly being accused of an attempted sex attack on a 13-year-old girl on his last visit. Samson was denied a visa by UK authorities because he had previously been arrested by the cops in Berkshire after approaching a group of young girls, including a 13 year-old, and allegedly trying to sexually assault one of them.

He then followed the girls into a cafe where he became aggressive and was asked to leave by the owner. Police were called, and Samson was arrested. He reportedly gave officers phony identification information - an apparent attempt to conceal his relationship to the governor’s husb…

Oh, wait.

I see I have made a critical error in my reading of this disturbing news. The perverted perp’s name isn’t Samson Palin. It’s Samson Obama. And Sicko Samson is not Todd Palin’s half-brother. He is Barack Obama’s half-brother. The President of the United States, leader of the Free World and Hero of the Blue Diva and her Palin-mocking crew, has a half-brother who has a thing for 13-year-old girls and can’t keep his filthy hands off of them.

So it seems that Irony, like Karma, has a sense of humor, no? Those superior souls who hang out at Diva’s Oasis, where the pool is always full of blue Kool-Aid, won’t notice. They will have their hands over their ears, shouting, “I can’t hear you!” Exploitation of teenagers for political purposes must be a leftist family value, just as burglary must be a much more heinous crime than the attempted sexual assault of a child.

So I’m terribly sorry for the mistake. My bad. Nothing to see here folks. “These aren’t the droids you’re looking for. Move along. Move along…”

He is actually pretty funny.  I would never have guessed that he could be selfdeprecating like that. 

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Thank you, everybody. Good evening. It’s good to be here. It’s been… [checks watch] …wow, over 3 hours since I last gave a speech on TV. Starting to go through withdrawal.

Great to see everybody here tonight. So many good people. We’ve got Joe Biden here. Sheriff Joe. Just look at him. Smiling and laughing like he has any idea what’s going on. There ya go, Plugs, flash those choppers. You paid enough for ‘em. “Just make sure they match the hair I bought, Doc.” Folks, I hereby declare everything from Joe’s neck up a man-caused disaster.

I kid because I love. Joe’s a good man, good family man. Lovely daughter. You know, Ashley Biden was planning to take the Amtrak down here tonight, but she got distracted at the station by all those huge rails.

But hey, who am I to talk about family problems? I’d read you the list of all my half-brothers, but it’s longer than the stimulus bill.

You guys heard about my half-brother Samson, right? Yeah, when he was heading over here for my inauguration, he ran into a… well, a bit of a problem in England. Got kicked out. Turns out they’d already met their weekly quota on child molesters. Oops!

Another big difference between George Bush and me: His brother used to run a state, and my brother was run out of a country.

And don’t even get me started on my Auntie Zeituni. I’m the first president to deal with so much hassle from an alien since Independence Day.

Speaking of the news, interesting item today: A Saudi judge has said it’s okay to slap your wife if she spends too much. [mock-dramatic pause, leans into the mic] And you still wanna know why I bow to them?

Boy oh boy, I’m in for it now. Should I look? I’m gonna look. [looks over at Michelle] Oof. Yeah, I know. I know. You gotta believe I love you, baby, but next time could you maybe wear the four-hundred-dollar shoes to the homeless shelter? You’re killin’ me out there. [to audience] Oh, man, that was not a good look. I am not looking forward to the ride home.

Well, it beats making her laugh. Every time she slaps the table, they have to bring out a new table. Know what I mean? [flexes biceps, snarls] But I tell ya, I’ve loved her from the first moment Skynet sent her back in time to kill Sarah Connor.

Anyhoo. Look at all these lovely people here tonight. Helen Thomas. I know you’re out there, hot thing. Stand up, stand up. Oh, you are. Okay. Now, I’ve got a little surprise for you, Helen. A lot of people have taken to calling tonight’s event the “Nerd Prom.” And in that spirit, I’d like to announce… Helen Thomas is Queen of the Prom! Give her a big hand, folks.

Quick, Helen, look up! Just kidding.

Andrew Sullivan, there he is. And Todd Palin, good to have you here. You know, I heard these two had a little altercation earlier. I’m a little unclear on the details, but apparently it ended with Andy getting dragged away, screaming “Who’s the real mother???”

Sorry about all that stuff during the election, Todd. You know how Axelrod can get. He’s got all his little nerds typing away on their computers, e-mailing all that stuff to, heh… to respected journalists like… [chuckles] …like Sullivan there. [laughs] And Kos! [audience laughs along for one solid minute]

Ah, heh, whew. And speaking of hilarious comedy, thank goodness for Tina Fey, huh? I cannot wait to raise her taxes. She’ll be all like… [mimes holding tax statement at arm's length, gasping in astonishment] “Wait, what? I thought we was tight, yo!”

Meghan McCain. What a doll. Isn’t she adorable, folks? Glad to see she fixed herself back up. See, earlier she was standing between Carville and Axelrod, and the glare from their scalps was melting her makeup. Anyway, I can’t wait to not read your book, honey. How to Lose Friends and Influence Nobody.

But let’s get back to me. I’m the reason you’re all here tonight. Or anywhere, any night.

Hey, have you seen that new Star Trek movie? Terrific, terrific stuff. A Star Trek for our times. I’ve even read some reviews saying I’d make a good starship captain. Yeah. Can’t you just see it? Right after I lay off 8.9% of the crew and blame it on the previous captain, I go around the galaxy apologizing to the Klingons. And the Romulans. And the Cardassians. And the Ferengi. And the Tribbles…

I wouldn’t have Air Force One, though. Or as I like to call it, Air Force 9/11. We really put a good scare into those New Yorkers, huh? Gotta keep ‘em on their toes. They’ll get over it, though. I mean, what are they gonna do, not vote for me? [biggest laugh of evening]

Yeah, all kinds of people are kicking themselves for voting for me. Any Chrysler execs in the audience tonight? Wave your top hats and monocles. Just kidding, they’re all in their panic rooms. If they want to figure out what the hell happened, I hope they stocked copies of The Communist Manifesto. It’ll change your life! [grins]

Well, it’s about time for me to clear the stage so Wanda Sykes can say things really loudly and wait for people to laugh. I hope she uses the Limbaugh jokes I sent her.

And that’s my time, folks, you’ve been great. POTUS out!

Hat tip to Jim Treacher

From Victor Davis Hanson.

IT'S THE MATH, STUPID!
“Well,” lectured Paul Krugman, again in the Times, “we were worried that they didn’t teach math at Idaho U., and now we know for sure they don’t. Is it $1.6 trillion, $1.7 trillion, or $2 trillion in red ink this year? Are we supposed to be impressed that she offers ‘fiscal sobriety’ by cutting 0.003 percent of the budget? She gives out money to those who don’t pay taxes and calls it a tax cut. And now Queen Sarah tells us that in four years she’ll ‘halve’ the deficit, as if she hasn’t borrowed another $5 trillion in the meantime. Does she think we’re morons? How many ‘Drill, baby, drill!’ oil wells can she tap into up there in Alaska to pay for the extra $11 trillion in debt she’s saddling us with?”

WORSE THAN 'NUCULAR'
ABC’s Katie Couric summed up the general disappointment with the president’s communication skills. “I tried to warn the American people in that interview a few years back what they would get if they voted for her. Let’s face it: She’s a walking embarrassment. I mean just count ’em up: The mayor of Wasilla thinks Austrians speak some lingo called ‘Austrian.’ Then she tries her hand at Spanish and comes up with some concoction, ‘Cinco de Cuatro.’ Next thing she’ll walk into the window of the Oval Office and expect it to open — oops, she’s already done that. No wonder that when her Teleprompter stalls, she shuts her mouth until it catches up. I’m surprised she managed to get sworn in. And did she think that tasteless ‘Special Olympics’ slur was funny? Or making fun of octogenarian Nancy Reagan’s séances? No wonder Wanda Sykes feels at home.”

ANCHORAGE STYLE
A “dragon lady in heels” is what President Palin is, according to the NYT’s Frank Rich. “Don’t fall for this pageant nice-girl stuff. Our former beauty queen is a ward hack. Look at her nominations. Can’t Palin find anyone who has paid his taxes — or do they simply ignore that stuff in no-tax Alaska? Does ‘No more lobbyists’ mean ‘More lobbyists than ever’? Her chief performance overseer doesn’t perform too well herself — and, like Daschle, Geithner, and the rest, skips out on her taxes. When Palin brags about fiscal sobriety, it really means record deficits. In Sarahland, not wanting to take over banks and car companies translates into, ‘She already has.’ Highest ethical standards equates to ‘There are none.’ Calling herself the VA president means she’s just told vets to use their own health insurance.”

GUTTER TRASH
“Pretty crude, pretty petty,” Sally Quinn sighed in the Washington Post. “No manners at all. Does our new mom in chief think it’s neat to laugh when her court jester at the correspondents’ dinner calls Michael Moore a traitor and a terrorist — and hopes he dies of kidney failure? Is that funny? Ask those on dialysis. Is that what Alaskan hockey moms do — scream out at every talk-show host who hurts their itty-bitty feelings? Limbaugh, Hannity — who will it will be next? Poor old Jim Cramer?”

NEOCON CON
“She’s a Bush clone,” the Times’s Maureen Dowd chimed in. “Bush is out, Palin is in — but we keep getting renditions, military tribunals, wiretaps, e-mail intercepts, Predator drone executions over Pakistan, the same in Iraq, and even more of the same in Afghanistan — all retrofitted with new ‘hope and change’ banalities. I mean, who’s putting Mommy Dearest up to this — Wolfie, Perlie, Cheney?”

TINGLE FOR HUGO?
“There is no foreign policy,” Chris Matthews said on Hardball, his voice dripping with scorn. “She just tours the world and nods, as if her good looks and serial apologies are going to win us a collective tingle abroad. I don’t think Hugo Chávez and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad care much that she’s got great legs and a nice wink. How many times can Ms. Vapid say, ‘We’re sorry’ and ‘Hit that old reset button’ and expect thugs to make nice?”

RACE, ALL THE TIME
Eugene Robinson worried in the Washington Post about Palin’s emphasis on race. “Look, she gets 95 percent of the working-class white vote. She promises next month to talk to the ‘Christian world’ from Estonia, of all places. Hello? She goes to the Summit of the Americas and immediately puts race on the table — as if we are supposed to separate those with European heritage from those without. Then she tells al Arabiyya that she hopes to heal the rift with Europe ‘because of my own shared European heritage that seems to resonate in ways I hadn’t imagined throughout the EU.’ I guess we’re learning that those ‘gaffes’ last year on the campaign trail, like her ‘typical black person’ remark and Todd’s ‘I am finally proud of my country again’ nonsense were not gaffes at all.”

WHERE IS THE PRESS?
Howard Kurtz summed up the press cynicism the best in his Washington Post column. “How long does she think she can keep picking on her right-wing plants in the audience for these softball Q-and-A sessions? I mean, there are only so many pukey ‘What has surprised you the most about this office? What has enchanted you the most about serving in this office?’ questions you can lob.”

I believe her.

(2009-05-15) — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, under scrutiny for her changing accounts of when she knew about the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques, said today that she was not informed until late 2003 that Muslim terrorists had used passenger jets to kill thousands of people in the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001.

“One of my aides mentioned in passing that she had been to a CIA briefing months earlier about these techniques,” said Rep. Pelosi. “At the time, I thought the discussion was theoretical…that this was something that could happen. It wasn’t until October 2003 that I learned that these methods had actually been used on American soil.”

Crashing hijacked planes into buildings full of non-combatant civilians is one of several “enhanced immolation techniques” forbidden under U.S. and international law.

Rep. Pelosi, clearly rattled by reporters’ questions on the subject, first said she knew nothing about the 9/11 attacks, but later acknowledged that she was “too busy helping Democrats win a majority in Congress to get involved in the details of a matter that was being handled through appropriate channels.”

More dijon, Mr. President?

Never again, can it be said that I can do nothing but bash this President.

http://blog.heritage.org/20...

Today the Obama administration’s Department of Interior announced that it would keep a Bush administration rule forbidding government scientists from considering global warming when protecting polar bears pursuant to the Endangered Species Act.

When the Bush Interior Department announced their rule, they were roundlycriticized by the enviro-left. It will be interesting to see how they react to the Obama administration taking the same position.

More interesting is how the Obama EPA justified their decision. McClatchy reports:

On Friday, the Interior Department reluctantly agreed, saying that it’s scientifically impossible to use the Endangered Species Act to regulate greenhouse gases, which are contributing to the warming of the earth and the resulting melting of bears’ habitat in Alaska. The emissions from a cement plant in Georgia, for example, can’t be tied directly to the precipitous decline in polar ice, Salazar said.

But neither can the emissions from just one car tailpipe be tied directly to global warming. So by that same logic, the EPA has no business regulating carbon emissions pursuant to the Clean Air Act. If it is “scientifically impossible to use the Endangered Species Act to regulate greenhouse gases” than it is also scientifically impossible to use the CAA to regulate greenhouse gasses.

After all, The ESA is a far more powerful law than the CAA, especially if your aim is to shut down carbon emissions. Section 7 of the ESA requires all federal agencies to consult with either the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) or the National Marine Fisheries Services (NMFS) for “any action authorized, funded, or carried out.”

In other words, every action funded by the federal government has the potential to be shut down by the ESA. All that billions of infrastructure funding in Obama’s $787 stimulus bill? It all would increase carbon emissions, so the ESA could kill it all.

No wonder Obama threw the polar bears under the bus.

Next thing you know, this administration will be using the White House press corps as a weapon against those who don't go along with its plans.  Doh!  Nevermind.