Combs Spouts Off

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Archive for June, 2011

Another sorry presidential press conference

Posted by Richard on June 30, 2011

It's a good thing Congressman Joe Wilson wasn't in attendance at today's presidential press conference. He would have gone hoarse shouting "You lie!" so many times.

The president whose party has refused to introduce, much less pass, a budget the last two fiscal years, and who still hasn't proposed a budget for the upcoming fiscal year, chastised the Republicans for not solving our budget problems. Are you kidding me? 

The president who increased federal spending by more than 35% in two years to an astonishing 26% of GDP (a level unprecedented except during World War II) insisted that the problem is not enough revenue. Are you kidding me? 

The president who threw $800 billion of "stimulus" money largely into "infrastructure investments" to create "shovel-ready jobs" (which never materialized) says we need to invest more money into fixing our infrastructure. Are you kidding me? 

The president who included a tax break for corporate jets in his $800 billion "stimulus" bill now repeatedly inveighs against that tax break for corporate jets as part of his renewed effort to promote class warfare. Are you kidding me? 

The president whose profligacy promises to put the U.S. into a solvency crisis comparable to Greece's, possibly before his first term is up and certainly in his second (if, God forbid, he gets a second), wants to address the deficit "not just on the 10-year window but also the long term," as if ten years isn't nearly long enough to solve the problem. Are you kidding me?

I could go on, but I'm already both bored and disgusted. This poltroon is making Jimmy Carter look like a great president and Bob Dole look like a great communicator. God, I hope the inept party, a.k.a. GOP, doesn't blink on this debt ceiling issue. And I sure hope they don't nominate another McCain or Dole and snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in 2012. This country is barely going to survive four years of Obama. Eight would spell doom.

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Kansas farmer puts former crackhead NYTimes columnist in his place

Posted by Richard on June 29, 2011

If you've been cruising the interwebs, by now you know about New York Times columnist David Carr's contemptuous reference to those of us in flyover country as people with "low-sloping foreheads." You may even know, thanks to Ann Althouse, that the supercilious Carr is an admitted former crackhead.

But you may have missed, in that Althouse post, the response of Kansas farmer Bart Hall. It's a doozy, and here it is (emphasis in original):

< rant > The essence of his position is that anyone voting Republican is subhuman. It's even worse when, as I do, the cretins farm for a living, or reside anywhere you actually have to drive in order to move around.

This particular "slope" of a farmer is completely fluent in three languages, quite comfortable in three more, and able to be polite in several others. How about you Mr. Carr?

I am part of a family which has brought forth officers for the defense of this nation in every generation since 1701. How about you Mr. Carr?

One of my closest neighbors (also a farmer) has two Ph.Ds. Another worked for many years as an engineer. He could even calculate the median slope of our foreheads out here.

I can grow truckloads of vegetables from a few handfuls of seed, or design and build a house from scratch. Or, for that matter work as an analytical chemist should I choose, or explore for valuable minerals. Mr. Carr wouldn't even know a monazite if it came up and bit him in the arse.

Yet Carr and his colleagues consider themselves the "creative class". Yet what do the really create apart from putrid puddles of petulant pig piffle? < /rant >

I can assure you, the chief political goal out here in the heartland is simply to be left alone. In order to achieve it, however, we must find ways of restricting the intellectual left's political power and influence to something like the 15% of society they actually represent.

And the biggest difference of all? Mr. Carr could show up at my door next week and I'd be very polite to him, feed him well, show him around, and if he got into a serious problem … do my utmost to help him out of it.

Any of my neighbors would do the same, but I doubt it would be reciprocated should circumstances be reversed.

Bravo, Mr. Hall! Mr. Carr, you obnoxious little elitist turd, you've been pwned!

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Can legalizing pot save lives?

Posted by Richard on June 25, 2011

Instapundit linked to an article arguing that legalizing pot could save thousands of lives. I've got to run and can't check it out right now, but the first thing that occurs to me is that it would bring the death rate among pot growers and distributors down to about the rate among liquor distillers and distributors.

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A basic question of judgment

Posted by Richard on June 25, 2011

Walter Russell Meade's latest is entitled The Failure of Al Gore: Part One. Part One? Really? This calm, measured essay utterly destroys any credibility the Goracle had and leaves him a wretched, quivering mass of inconsequential protoplasm, something from which one quickly looks away. A Part Two strikes me as completely unnecessary. Although I look forward to it with pleasure; I can be somewhat mean-spirited at times, and besides, Meade's wordsmithing is simply a delight.

By all means, read the whole thing. Here's just a smidgeon to whet your appetite: 

A fawning establishment press spares the former vice president the vitriol and schadenfreude it pours over the preachers and priests whose personal conduct compromised the core tenets of their mission; Gore is not mocked as others have been.  This gentle treatment hurts both Gore and the greens; he does not know just how disabling, how crippling the gap between conduct and message truly is.  The greens do not know that his presence as the visible head of the movement helps ensure its political failure.

Consider how Gore looks to the skeptics.  The peril is imminent, he says.  It is desperate.  The hands of the clock point to twelve.  The seas rise, the coral dies, the fires burn and the great droughts have already begun.  The hounds of Hell have slipped the huntsman’s leash and even now they rush upon us, mouths agape and fangs afoam.

But grave as that danger is, Al Gore can consume more carbon than whole villages in the developing world.  He can consume more electricity than most African schools, incur more carbon debt with one trip in a private plane than most of the earth’s toiling billions will pile up in a lifetime — and he doesn’t worry.  A father of four, he can lecture the world on the perils of overpopulation.  Surely, skeptics reason, if the peril were as great as he says and he cares about it as much as he claims, Gore’s sense of civic duty would call him to set an example of conspicuous non-consumption.  This general sleeps in a mansion, and lectures the soldiers because they want tents.

Marvelous.

(HT: Instapundit)

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The President’s Afghanistan speech

Posted by Richard on June 23, 2011

Vodkapundit is drunkblogging it. Much more entertaining than watching it on TV.

UPDATE: 13 minutes. Wow. I've heard Obama take longer to answer a single question.

But he still managed to work in his favorite rhetorical device, the straw-man argument. Vodkapundit's version is more entertaining than Obama's, but essentially the same thing: 

Here it comes! “Some would retreat from Nevada… ” Others would nuke the crap out of Holland…” “But I am the sane centrist!”

Well, it was only 13 minutes. But it's 13 minutes I wish I could get back. 

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Concealed carry comes to Wisconsin

Posted by Richard on June 22, 2011

And then there was one:

Wisconsin stands on the verge of becoming the 49th state in the country to allow citizens to carry concealed guns, after the state Assembly made a bipartisan vote to legalize that practice Tuesday.

The measure passed 68-27, with 11 Democrats voting in favor of the bill along with the body's lone independent and all Republicans except Rep. Don Pridemore (R-Hartford), who had wanted stronger legislation. Rep. Jeff Stone (R-Greendale) said his vote was mistakenly not counted and he would seek to correct that.

The approval of the bill marks one more piece of long-blocked legislation that Republicans have been able to pass now that they control all of state government. The bill to allow the concealed carry of guns and other weapons such as Tasers passed the Senate on a bipartisan vote last week, so approval in the Assembly sends the bill to Gov. Scott Walker, who supports the measure.

Once the measure is signed by Gov. Walker, Illinois will be the only remaining state in the nation that completely bans concealed carry. Nine states issue concealed carry permits, but give the issuing law enforcement agent (usually sheriff or police chief) some discretion on who to approve. The other 40 are "shall issue" states — anyone who meets the statutory requirements (generally some training and no felony conviction or adjudicated mental health problem) must be issued a permit — or "no stinkin' permit required" states (Vermont and Alaska). 

And as a result, our streets are running red with blood as crazed gun nuts shoot it out over parking spaces, cutting in line at the express lane, etc. Oh, wait … they're not. Violent crime continues to decrease as gun sales and carry permits increase.

In fact, it seems almost like violent crime rates are inversely related to rates of gun ownership and carry. Just what you'd expect if (1) the vast majority of people are peaceful and non-violent; (2) violent crimes are almost exclusively committed by a very small percentage of the population who have no moral compass or impulse control and aren't deterred by laws alone; and (3) that small violent minority can be deterred to some extent (and if necessary, stopped) by members of the peaceful majority who are prepared to defend themselves and others.

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John “McCain II” Huntsman

Posted by Richard on June 22, 2011

To the delight of the mainstream media, John Huntsman threw his hat into the ring today. They've been promoting his potential candidacy for weeks now. He's the kind of soft-spoken, moderate, reach-across-the-aisle Republican that the Socialist Democrat Party's media shills like. He's the new John McCain.

Of course, if he were to get the Republican nomination, they'd turn on him in a heartbeat, just like they did McCain. 

Huntsman announced his presidential campaign at Liberty State Park, with the Statue of Liberty behind him, right where Ronald Reagan spoke on Labor Day, 1980. And Huntsman evoked Reagan early and often. Rush Limbaugh had the right response to that: "You have to forgive me here but I'm a little resentful of people who are nothing like Reagan trying to be Reagan."

Huntsman may have evoked Reagan, but he channeled McCain:

Let me say something about civility. For the sake of the younger generation it concerns me that civility, humanity, and respect are sometimes lost in our interactions as Americans. Our political debates today are corrosive and not reflective of the belief that Abe Lincoln espoused. I don't think you need to run down someone's reputation in order to run for the office of president. I respect the President of the United States. He and I have a difference of opinion on how to help a country we both love, but the question each of us wants the voters to answer is "Who will be the better president?" not who's the better American. 

As Limbaugh noted, this is the timid Republicanism that the media elites and the inside-the-beltway, ruling class Republicans want the GOP to embrace, and it's nonsense (emphasis added):

The Republican Party is still convinced that in order to secure the support of independents, that they have to be boring. They have to be serious and Milquetoast and cannot be confrontational, cannot be partisan, cannot go into attack mode. Somehow this is going to cause the independents to get nervous and send them running right back to Obama. Now, of course, that's flat-out BS, it's totally wrong. The elections of last November demonstrate that in a real world, real life example. But then there's also this. We're told — and this is a trap, by the way, the left puts this out. It's designed to get us to be boring. It's designed to get us not to contrast ourselves with the left.

They put out this notion, "These independents, these moderates, they don't mess around. They're cut above! And they start hearing this deep partisanship and they're just gonna run away from you guys. They're gonna run right back to the Democrats." Right. Now, the Democrat Party and anybody in it that you want to name today is the most vicious and mean-spirited and exemplifies the politics of personal destruction unlike I've ever seen it practiced in my lifetime.

So Huntsman stood where Reagan stood, tried to evoke Reagan, and then proceeded to talk about civility and being nice, about not running down his opponent, and about how much he likes and respects his opponent. Is that how Reagan approached his opponent?

Not exactly. At that same spot, Reagan issued a full-throated denunciation of the godawful mess Jimmy Carter's policies had made of things. Reagan called Carter out by name, called him a failure and a disaster, and eviscerated his misbegotten policies (which sound eerily familiar today). Then he spoke with optimism about the better future that lay ahead after Carter was sent packing. Listen for yourself.

Part 1 (8:49):


[YouTube link]

Part 2 (9:55): 


[YouTube link]

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Fresh snow for summer

Posted by Richard on June 20, 2011

On Friday, Arapahoe Basin Ski Area announced that they'll be open through July 4. They still have a 50" base. By Monday evening, there may be 8" of fresh snow on top of that. Most of the Colorado mountains are under a winter weather advisory from tonight through tomorrow. Trail Ridge Road through Rocky Mountain National Park is already closed.

It makes stories like these seem kind of silly, doesn't it? 

Oh, wait … I forgot … unusual cold and snow are also signs of global warming. Along with heat, drought, floods, tornados, hurricanes, the absence of hurricanes, wildfires, earthquakes, … Everything is a sign of global warming. 🙂

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An unhappy anniversary

Posted by Richard on June 18, 2011

Mark J. Perry remembered the grim historical significance of this day (emphasis in original):

This is a post to recognize the 40th anniversary of the day in 1971 that President Nixon declared that the U.S. government would start waging a "War on Drugs" war on peaceful Americans who chose to use intoxicants not approved of by the U.S. government (HT: Don B.).

Q: Which repressive country puts the most people in jail for violating government laws? 

A. Iran
B. Saudi Arabia
C. Libya
D. Egypt
E. United States of America

Well, it's not even close…………..

Read the whole thing. And read Perry's other recent posts on the subject here, here, and here.

It's widely known that in their youth, each of our last three presidents chose to use intoxicants not approved by the U.S. government. Yet each of them subsequently supported, advocated, and directed a policy of imprisoning hundreds of thousands of non-violent "drug offenders" every year, and even sanctimoniously claimed that it's for their own good.

Would Clinton, Bush, and Obama be better off today if they'd been arrested, convicted, and imprisoned for 3-5 years when they were young, destroying their careers before they got started? Would the country be better off today if they'd been … 

Um … maybe I shouldn't go there. Just weakens my argument.

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O Canada

Posted by Richard on June 16, 2011

Here's something you don't hear often: they're rioting in Canada. Apparently, some Vancouver Canucks fans aren't taking it well that their team folded like a house of cards:

Unhappy Vancouver Canucks fans are rioting in downtown Vancouver, and people are looting merchandise from major department stores.

People the mayor has described as "hooligans" smashed windows, lit innumerable cars on fire and started fist fights throughout the downtown core after the Vancouver Canucks lost Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final 4-0 against the Boston Bruins.

Canadians rioting and looting — is this a sign of the apocalypse? My world-view is shaken.

Are they at least rioting politely? Are the looters apologizing as they cart off the flat-screens? 

 

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Luddite in Chief

Posted by Richard on June 16, 2011

I guess after two and a half years, the Obama administration figures the "blame Bush" rhetoric just isn't working anymore. So now they have a new explanation for the unemployment, underemployment, and generally sucky state of this so-called recovery: blame technology and automation. It's all those infernal machines and devices that are preventing you from getting a job! The Prez explained it thusly:

“There are some structural issues with our economy where a lot of businesses have learned to become much more efficient with a lot fewer workers. You see it when you go to a bank and you use an ATM, you don’t go to a bank teller, or you go to the airport and you’re using a kiosk instead of checking in at the gate.”

Man, the economy would be going gangbusters if only we didn't have ATMs or airport kiosks. Or self-service elevators. Or long-distance phone calls that don't require an operator. Or online shopping … online bill-pay … and the whole damn job-destroying internet, actually!

Now I understand why $800 billion worth of stimulus didn't turn things around. It's all those bulldozers, graders, dump-trucks, jack-hammers, and backhoes. Think of how many "shovel-ready" jobs would be created if we just destroyed all that diesel-burning, greenhouse-gas-spouting machinery and used men with picks and shovels and wheelbarrows instead!

Socialists are basically all Luddites. 

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Darius Rucker

Posted by Richard on June 12, 2011

Darius Rucker was the lead singer for Hootie and the Blowfish before he became a country music star (2009 CMA New Artist of the Year). I liked him then, and I like him now. So I thought I'd post some Darius Rucker for your weekend entertainment. Hope you like it. 

 The first cut on his fine second album, Charleston, SC 1966, is a truly wonderful song called "This":


[YouTube link]

Here's the second cut from that album, "Come Back Song":


[YouTube link]

From the same album, here's the awesomely politically incorrect "Southern State of Mind"


[YouTube link]

From his first country album, Learn to Live, here's "History in the Making":


[YouTube link]

Here's another great one from that first album, "Forever Road":


[YouTube link]

If you don't like those songs, there's something wrong with you. If you do, visit his website. And buy his music.

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Wienergate triggers time warp

Posted by Richard on June 12, 2011

(With apologies to David Spade) 1998 called. It wants its lame justification for Democratic misbehavior back.

Before I even clicked the Instapundit link (Actress defends Weiner, says 'everyone lies about sex'), I just knew it was going to be Janeane Garofolo:

A liberal actress and comedian is strongly defending embattled Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.), saying "everyone lies about sex" and expressing hope he becomes the mayor of New York City.

During an appearance on HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher," Janeane Garofalo said, "Anthony Weiner deserves to be supported and hopefully he will be mayor of New York one day. I'm serious. He is a Democrat [who] actually fights for the things liberals and progressive and rational people care about.

"I don't know why he's being thrown under the bus. He hasn't done any — he hasn't broke any laws," she said.

What's next — the reprise of stories like this? Or maybe the MSM will offer a new, updated meme: sexting to strangers is OK sometimes, like when it's a substitute for actual infidelity (although that line may be a hard sell given the rumors about Wiener that are floating around). 

Like Glenn Reynolds, I don't recall anyone recycling the "it's just lying about sex" argument regarding Mark Foley. Or Mark Souder. Or Christopher Lee (OMG, he sent a picture of his bare chest to a woman he met on Craigslist!)? And can we ever forget all the sympathy and support Hollywood and the MSM offered to the obviously sexual-identity-conflicted Larry "wide stance" Craig

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Boeing opens South Carolina Dreamliner assembly plant

Posted by Richard on June 12, 2011

On Friday, ignoring a lawsuit brought by the Obama thugs running the National Labor Relations Board, Boeing opened its new $750 million final assembly plant in North Charleston, SC:

Under a blistering sun and facing a heated court battle, Boeing snipped the ribbon Friday on its new 787 Dreamliner assembly plant in North Charleston six months ahead of schedule.

Company officials, politicians and workers hailed the aerospace giant's $750 million production facility as the start of a new era in the Lowcountry.

"Everybody is so geared up," said Raffie King, of Summerville, who works in Boeing's emergency operations. "This is our house. That's what we call it."

To the loud roar of applause from the hundreds of workers and guests seated and standing outside the cavernous facility the size of 11 football fields, Boeing Vice President and General Manager Jack Jones said, "This building is open for business."

The building is something else. It can hold two rows of four jumbo jets. 

One thing rarely mentioned in the media coverage of the NLRB-Boeing story: the new Charleston location, like the existing Everett, Washington, assembly plant, is just where final assembly of the planes takes place. The incredible array of components that make up the plane is manufactured at Boeing and subcontractor facilities throughout the country (North Carolina, Texas, Connecticut, Kansas, Oklahoma, Iowa, Arizona, Minnesota, …) and across the globe (Canada, Japan, UK, Sweden, Italy, France, Australia, …). We live in a global economy, folks, and we're all better off because of it (per Ricardo's law of comparative advantage).  

In fact, the aft quarter of the 787's revolutionary fiber composite fuselage is built by Vought Aircraft Industries right next to the new Charleston plant:

The first pieces of the 787 wide-body jet, other than the aft and mid-body sections built next door, will arrive next month as 4,000 workers already hired begin to piece together the first completely assembled model of the airplane outside of Washington state.

"This is the first time we are actually going to send an aft and mid-body across the street instead of 3,000 miles away," Jones said. "Lots of good things are going to happen. This is history."

Boeing is still hiring in South Carolina. And in Washington, too, as this looks to be the most successful commercial jet ever, with over 800 already on order. South Carolina, Washington, the whole country — heck, the whole world — will gain from this.

Unless there's truth to the rumor that the President is going to appoint Wesley Mouch as his new Economic Opportunity Equalization Czar, and Mouch will then declare the Dreamliner "a national resource."  

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Palin derangement syndrome in the MSM

Posted by Richard on June 10, 2011

The New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times, and Huffington Post (and maybe others I've missed) have recruited readers (!) to help them go through 24,000 emails to and from Sarah Palin when she was Governor of Alaska. Michelle Malkin pointed out that they were far less interested in things like the Obamacare and stimulus bills, or Project Gunrunner. What a surprise.

CBS News, one of the organizations "investigating" the Palin emails, refused to release a tape they made of President Obama talking candidly at a fundraiser when he thought the mic was off. Heck, that might embarrass him, and CBS News will have no part of that. C'mon, guys, let's find the juicy tidbits in those Palin emails! 

IIRC, the emails were released because of an FOIA request from the NYTimes and WaPo. I don't recall any of these "media watchdogs" having the slightest interest in Barack Obama's record in the Illinois Senate, or in anything else about his background, in 2008. In fact, it was Judicial Watch, the public interest law group, that made an FOIA request for Obama's Illinois Senate records. Guess what? There aren't any. And nobody in the MSM thinks that's the slightest bit unusual. Keep checkin' those Palin emails, folks! There's some good stuff in there, you betcha! 

Bill Jacobson is keeping a list (updated from time to time) of the MSM's astonishing findings and headlines regarding the Palin emails. Check it regularly for the latest revelations. Breaking news: she once used the term "unflippinbelievable"; she got advice from her husband and Newt Gingrich; at the beginning of her term as Governor, she encouraged her staff to be open with the press; she was concerned about the media scrutiny she and her family were receiving. 

Shocking, isn't it? But that's why we have a free press — to carry water for their Socialist Democrat overlords expose the truth about scary right-wing zealots. 

UPDATE: I almost forgot. The LA Times, one of the MSM outlets assiduously searching for dirt in the Palin emails, has never released a 2008 video of Obama meeting with a group of Palestinians, Bill Ayers, and Bernadine Dohrn to toast PLO mouthpiece and Jew-hater Rashid Khalidi

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