File This Under "Miss Me Yet?"

Blackfive:

The President addressing the 10th Mountain Division today at Fort Drum:

"First time I saw 10th Mountain Division, you guys were in southern Iraq. When I went back to visit Afghanistan, you guys were the first ones there. I had the great honor of seeing some of you because a comrade of yours, Jared Monti, was the first person who I was able to award the Medal of Honor to who actually came back and wasn’t receiving it posthumously."

As we all know, SSG Sal Giunta, of the 173rd Airborne, was the first living recipient (2011) of the MOH who fought in Iraq/Afganistan. SFC Jared Monti, 10th Mountain Division, was KIA in Afghanistan in 2006. He was posthumously awarded the MOH by Obama in 2009.

Can you imagine Dubya making such a statement?  Neither can I.  I don't like Obama, I don't like his politics, but I respect the office of the president.  That said, this gaffe offends me to my very core.  Say what you will about President Bush but the man would NEVER make an error as grievous as this.  Period.  Obama is worse than a fuckin' joke... the man is not worthy of the position he holds.

(h/t: Mean Ol' Meany)

Oh, Just STOP, Already

So I wake up at the crack o' noon, flip on my teevee and see The One's "I Shot the Sheriff Osama" tour is on its second stop, after yesterday's sooper-dooper event at Ground Zero.  Today the tour swings into Ft. Campbell, KY, home of a Special Operations Aviation Regiment and the parent unit of the guys who flew the helos into Abbottabad.  Why here?  Coz The One "wants to thank them personally, along with the members of SEAL Team Six, and Air Force personnel who provided invaluable support."  Yup... there ya go, Barry, bein' all-inclusive.  I'm sure the Coast Guard had a hand in this, too, so what about THEM?  And the Marines?  C'mon, Barry... if you're gonna be inclusive then get all-in, Baybee.

So... there's the usual huge crowd of grunts in BDUs facing a stage with a huge US flag that looks like it came off the set of "Patton," flanked by big-ass 101st Airborne patches... just waiting for The One to come bounding on-stage.  That's the last thing I saw before shutting the teevee down.  I'm just embarrassed to tears for our narcissistic president, who has neither shame nor a sense of perspective.  Just stop, already.

Update, 1330 hrs:  Gentle Reader Bec gives us the link to this in comments:



Heh.  Thanks, Bec.  That's GOOD!

Further To the Post Below

Michael Ramirez has a habit of distilling things right down to the bare essentials.  Or, to invoke another cliché, the naked truth.

No Heh Here... Just Truth

The "it's the Real Thing,"no-shit-really BEST political cartoon about Obama I've seen to date.  It'll take some doin' to beat Eric Allie's latest.

Obama's Best Moment Yet

The president hosted the Chicago Blackhawks at a White House ceremony yesterday...

Not bad, Mr. President.  You pronounced "Toews" correctly and your remarks were generally on-point, not to mention being perfectly clear.  

Not to take anything away from the current Stanley Cup champions but it's prolly gonna be a long time before the 'Hawks make a repeat appearance at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.   The 'Hawks might make the playoffs this year by the skin of their teeth, what with bein' only one point above eighth place in the West... and time growin' short.  I wouldn't take that bet.

One thing will remain the same at next year's Stanley Cup visit to the White House, though: the traditional honorary jersey presented to the president will still be red... with a BIG OL' WINGED WHEEL on it!  Apropos o' that... I wonder if the jersey will have Bertuzzi's number on it?  That would be a non-starter if MY name was Todd.  Just sayin'. 

Wherein I Say Something Good About Obama

Yeah, you read that right.  Check this out:

That would be the president holding a bottle of beer... but that's a bottle of 312 beer, brewed in Chicago (312 is the metro Chicago area code -- how clever) and gifted to David Cameron last summer.  That's not necessarily a noteworthy thing as people give other people beer all the time... even presidents and prime ministers.  Nope, what got MY attention is the fact Obama is brewing his own beer.  Supposedly.  He's doing it in the White House and will serve the fruits of his labors at White House dinners in future.   From NPR's web site:

During this year's Super Bowl, President Obama created a stir by offering guests at the White House beer that he'd brewed himself. And now the president reportedly plans to have another batch of his homebrew on hand March 17 — that's right, for St. Patrick's Day.

According to the Irish Central website, when Obama announced that this March is Irish American Heritage Month, he also pledged to serve his own White House Honey Ale — made with honey from the White House garden beehive — to help celebrate St. Patrick's Day.

Well, hell, that's no small beer.  Good on The One.  While the fact that the President brews his own beer is pretty cool (actually there's a Beer Czar in the White House kitchen that does it for him)... it's also unlikely to change my mind about Obama the president or Obama the politician.  That said, I wouldn't mind sampling a bottle of White House Honey Ale.  OTOH... "Gub'mint Beer."  The very thought makes me snicker.

I'll remind you that even a stopped clock is right twice a day, Gentle Reader.  Indications are Obama's clock stopped at Happy Hour, and that would be the best case.

―:☺:―

In other beer news.... Fox News has a good piece up on the craft beer explosion.  A few excerpts: 

In fact, while beers sales fell as a whole by almost 3 percent nationally, the sale of craft beer -- which is any beer made by breweries producing less than two million barrels a year -- has gone up.
 
In the first half of 2010, the sales of craft beer went up 9 percent by volume and 12 percent in dollars, according to the Brewers Association, a national non-profit association representing the majority of  U.S. breweries. 

While craft beers are still a small percentage of total beer sales, the totals are staggering and sobering: nine million barrels, more than $7 billion in sales, helping to fuel an estimated 100,000 full- and part-time jobs coast to coast.

Julia Herz, spokeswoman for the Brewers Association, says that breweries are on the rise in U.S. neighborhoods, with more than 1,600 breweries registered and another 500 in the planning stages.

It's no great secret that Americans' taste in beer is improving, what IS news is the proliferation of small local breweries.  The linked article claims that most Americans live within ten miles of a brewery and that is very good news.  Beer should be local, unless it isn't.  By that I mean there ain't no such thing as the Portales Brewery or "Big(ger) City Beer."  The nearest brewery to me is in Santa Fe... as far as I know... and they put out crap, unfortunately.  So we'll hang with beer from Fort Collins, CO; Shiner, TX; and Boston, among others. 

It's Another One of Those Days...

... 51 mph wind gusts ain't a whole helluva lot o' fun but at least it's warm.  I tried to capture the billowing clouds o' dust whipping by my window but wasn't successful in my photographic endeavors.  Rest assured the dust is most impressive, Gentle Reader, albeit not in a good way.  We'll have some major cleaning to do... as in wiping down ALL the horizontal surfaces in El Casa Móvil De Pennington... when it calms down later on.

But Hey!  Better than ice.

―:☺:―

And then there's this...

Not only Iran a couple o' years ago but Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, and Libya, too.  And just in case ya missed it, Hitch takes the piss out o' The One with the bitingly funny and accurate "Is Barack Obama Secretly Swiss?" in Slate.  The first couple o' grafs:

However meanly and grudgingly, even the new Republican speaker has now conceded that the president is Hawaiian-born and some kind of Christian. So let's hope that's the end of all that. A more pressing question now obtrudes itself: Is Barack Obama secretly Swiss?

Let me explain what I mean. A Middle Eastern despot now knows for sure when his time in power is well and truly up. He knows it when his bankers in Zurich or Geneva cease accepting his transfers and responding to his confidential communications and instead begin the process of "freezing" his assets and disclosing their extent and their whereabouts to investigators in his long-exploited country. And, at precisely that moment, the U.S. government also announces that it no longer recognizes the said depositor as the duly constituted head of state. Occasionally, there is a little bit of "raggedness" in the coordination. CIA Director Leon Panetta testified to Congress that Hosni Mubarak would "step down" a day before he actually did so. But the whole charm of the CIA is that its intelligence-gathering is always a few beats off when compared with widespread general knowledge. Generally, though, the White House and the State Department have their timepieces and reactions set to Swiss coordinates.

There's much more at the link and it's great good stuff, too.  When it comes to the Wisconsin brouhaha you should be reading Ann Althouse.  Her comments, observations, and videos are simply priceless.

Obama's Budget

NOone likes it.  The usual source is mostly about The One's ridiculous efforts at deficit reduction, kicking the can down the road, yadda, yadda.  Here's one such:

My favorite, tho, is this one:

The most amazing thing (to me, anyhoo) about Obama's budget is the fact he completely ignored the Simpson-Bowles recommendations.  That was HIS commission and he basically said "thanks, but no thanks."  It's hard to take Obama seriously on the subject of the deficit, even for the most Hopey-Changey among us.  Those of us on the right who never really took him seriously about any-damned-thing could just shrug our shoulders and say "Well, what did you expect?"  But the deficit is an existential crisis, the sort of "make or break" issue that threatens the very life of the republic.  I was hoping... excuse the expression... for something better than what we got.

Reading budgets ain't my cuppa and by that I mean the actual document itself.  I'll leave that to the wonks, thank ya.  But I have read a lot of reaction and analysis to/on the budget and there ain't much "there" there.  I'll put up one brief quote from the WSJ and then I'll go:

This $3.73 trillion budget does a Cee Lo Green ("Forget You," as cleaned up for the Grammys) to the voter mandate in November to control spending. It leaves every hard decision to the new House Republican majority. And it ignores almost entirely the recommendations of Mr. Obama's own deficit commission. No wonder the commission's Democratic co-chairman, Erskine Bowles, said Monday that this budget goes "nowhere near where they will have to go to resolve our fiscal nightmare." And he's an ally.

How unserious is this budget? Although the White House trumpets $2.18 trillion in deficit reduction over the next decade, those savings are so far off in the magical "out years" that you can barely see them from here. More than 95% of the savings would happen after Mr. Obama's first term in the White House is over, and almost two-thirds of the promised deficit reduction would arrive after 2016. Pretending to cut deficits by pushing all real cuts into the future is Budget Flimflam 101. 

That pretty much sums it up.  Hope 'n' Change, my ass.

Apropos o' One o' Yesterday's Posts

"Mirror, mirror on the wall... am I Carter, after all?"

From the usual source.

Why Nothing Will Be Done

Heh.  It's indeed "The New Civility" when it comes to entitlements.  Everyone wants to reduce the deficit but NO one wants their ox gored.  Mr. Asay has it right in his 'toon (note the audience appears old and angry):  the Geezer Lobby is prolly the loudest and most vociferous about their oxen... Social Security and Medicare... than anyone else.  Those oxen, however, account for 43% of the 2010 federal budget and the percentage will only grow as the Boomers retire.  This isn't news, of course.  Neither is it news that no politician has the intestinal fortitude required to make meaningful changes to these two programs.

Well, check that.  Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, the co-chairs of the president's budget commission, DID make meaningful recommendations to reduce the federal deficit, including some pretty good ideas about entitlement change.  The reaction was predictable: the left went ballistic in their opposition and the right was only somewhat more controlled in their rejection of the proposals.  Messrs. Bowles and Simpson couldn't even get a majority vote on the recommendations within their own commission, largely due to opposition from liberal House members.  It appeared the commission's work was DOA.

Ah, but wait.  There seems to be some hope, after all.  From Politico:

A bipartisan effort to resurrect the recommendations of last year’s presidential deficit-reduction commission gained steam Tuesday in the Senate, where nearly half the members turned out for early morning briefing on the debt crisis and old friends of House Speaker John Boehner are taking the lead alongside the Democratic chairman of the Senate Budget Committee.

The path ahead remains extremely difficult, but the forces coming together represent the best shot this Congress has of finding the political mass needed to bring President Barack Obama and the new House Republican majority to the table.

Flickers and glimmers... that's all the hope we have right now... but I suppose it's a start.  There are other signs of progress, as well.  I read an editorial in the Denver Post this morning that Democrat Mark Udall is in favor of a balanced budget amendment and wants to see an up-or-down vote on Simpson-Bowles.  Both of these things are good ideas; it's a wonder any Democrat endorses them.  But I believe the handwriting is on the wall and it's writ large enough that even Democrats can read it.  But reading and acting are two entirely different things, no?

EIP went on the record back in November in favor of Simpson-Bowles, for what that's worth.  I'd be willing to go a bit further to reduce the deficit: the gub'mint can cut my Social Security benefit by ten percent as part of a deficit reduction plan.  I'll do my part, assuming, of course, that something VERY much like Simpson-Bowles is enacted into law.  I wanna see everyone do their part.  Yeah, I'm crazy like that.

SOTU? STFU!

Yeah, I watched it.  I had it in my mind to limit my comments to a screen-shot of the US debt clock, but Mz. Benson beat me to it.

It was pretty much the same ol', same ol'... except for the fact The One actually came out and admitted the US is an exceptional country, in his own oblique sorta way, of course.  One good thing: Boehner is much easier on the eyes than Pop-Up Nancy With The Botox Smile.  I'm grateful for small gifts.

That said... I don't wanna hear another goddamned word about "investments" unless it's how much you cut from the budget and apply to the deficit.  Paying down our debt is the best "investment" we can make at the moment.  Nota bene, Mr. President... you need to listen to Representative Ryan.  Attentively.

Heh

From the usual source.

Apropos o' Nuthin'

I just finished watching the president sign the stealth stimulus bill (with my teevee muted) and it struck me how positively ODD it is that signing ceremonies always involve six or more pens.  I know the purpose behind this quirky practice but I'm wonderin' just how one breaks one's signature up into six discrete parts.  That must be one of those "learned" skills.

Closing shot:  Granted, this is an old, old pic.  But have you EVER seen a bigger gaggle of obnoxious, useless people than the above?  I mean... EVER?

Update 1540 hrs, in which I answer my own question:  Well, yes.  Yes, we have.

Sorry, Gentle Reader.  How quickly we forget, no?