Hat tip: Hugh Hewitt
It is hard to see how the Democrats can win with the health care bill. At 2700 pages there must be one fiasco after another larded into this concoction. If passed, they will be exposed one at a time and the Democrats will be on the defensive until November.
Obama has bet his presidency on this bill and the Democrats in Congress know it.
Discipline or self-preservation will dictate the outcome and certainly no one who pays attention would bet on Congress doing the right thing, but given a choice I'll throw my prediction at self-preservation.
The bill stumbles.
Rufus will grieve if we don't condemn our offspring to penury and servitude.
ReplyDelete...compassionate guy that he is.
ReplyDeleteTexas Textbook MASSACRE: 'Ultraconservatives' Approve Radical Changes To State...
ReplyDelete4,358 Comments!
Sucks to be an 'Ultraconservative'
My contributions of humor to BC
ReplyDelete...As one might guess, the murderous madam was a Soprano.
ReplyDeleteBy late Thursday night, three other Democrats seemed to sense their futility and left, leaving Republicans to easily push through amendments heralding "American exceptionalism" and the U.S. free enterprise system, suggesting it thrives best absent excessive government intervention.
ReplyDelete"Some board members themselves acknowledged this morning that the process for revising curriculum standards in Texas is seriously broken, with politics and personal agendas dominating just about every decision," said Kathy Miller, president of the Texas Freedom Network, which advocates for religious freedom.
Republican Terri Leo, a member of the powerful Christian conservative voting bloc, called the standards "world class" and "exceptional."
Board members argued about the classification of historic periods (still B.C. and A.D., rather than B.C.E. and C.E.); whether students should be required to explain the origins of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and its impact on global politics (they will); and whether former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir should be required learning (she will).
In addition to learning the Bill of Rights, the board specified a reference to the Second Amendment right to bear arms in a section about citizenship in a U.S. government class.
Conservatives beat back multiple attempts to include hip-hop as an example of a significant cultural movement.
GD Ultraconservatives!
What does
ReplyDelete"B.C.E. and C.E. "
stand for?
Before Common Era
ReplyDeleteCommon Era
I am on top of the world. The sun is shining and the rest of the week, will be above normal temperatures in the 60's.
ReplyDeletewoo hoo
Is it just my imagination
" Another amendment deleted a requirement that sociology students
ReplyDelete"explain how institutional racism is evident in American society.""
Common era?
ReplyDeleteWTF???
...eliminating
ReplyDelete"Institutional Judeao-Christianity"
i guess.
Joel Rosenberg, best-selling author and former Netanyahu aide, passes on a little advice to the NRO audience:
ReplyDeleteFifth, it is critical that all Americans who love Israel and believe the Israelis are our best friends and allies in a highly volatile region show their strong support for the Jewish State at this critical moment. Conservatives who have been rock-solid supporters of strong U.S.-Israel relations would do well to speak out forcefully on the following messages:
Assert that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital and should never be divided.
Call on the Obama administration to stop pressuring Israel to make unwise and dangerous concessions.
Write letters to the White House and the State Department to criticize the administration’s heavy-handedness and call for the administration to show true solidarity with Israel.
Contact members of Congress and urge them to take actions that counter the administration’s growing hostility to Israel.
Call into radio and TV talk shows in support of Israel and keeping Jerusalem united.
Take a delegation of conservative leaders and grassroots activists to Israel, meet with senior officials there, and pray for the peace of Jerusalem.
Ever since President Obama and his team took office, they have embarked on policies and made statements that have made Israelis feel isolated and endangered. A Jerusalem Post poll found that only 4 percent of Israelis believe President Obama is on their side, compared to 88 percent of Israelis who believed President Bush was on their side. This is not how a superpower should treat its most faithful ally in a dangerous region.
Um. Hmmmm.
MIRANSHAH, Pakistan (Reuters) - A US drone aircraft fired missiles into Pakistan's North Waziristan region on Tuesday, killing 10 militants, the latest such strike on a major al Qaeda and Taliban sanctuary, officials and residents said.
ReplyDeleteAh.... Obama has his wish...
ReplyDeleteHamas declares "day of rage"
rioting of arabs in jerusalem...
thousands of bussed in arabs with rocks, simply expressing themselves in the legal manner they know.. trying to crush jew's skulls....
"A Jerusalem Post poll found that only 4 percent of Israelis believe President Obama is on their side, compared to 88 percent of Israelis who believed President Bush was on their side. This is not how a superpower should treat its most faithful ally in a dangerous region."
ReplyDelete---
Will liberal "Jews" vote GOP henceforth?
...or will Spielburg film a pro-Pali movie staring Tom Hanks, today's Jane Fonda?
How Tom Hanks Became America's Historian in Chief
ReplyDeleteIt used to be that there was much casual suspicion and distrust of the Foreign Service in DC, owing to what was regarded as a tendency to "clientitis" - or gradually subordinating host-country interests to those of one's own.
ReplyDeleteNot sure what that's called in the reverse.
"Certainly, we wanted to honor U.S. bravery in The Pacific," Hanks says.
ReplyDelete"But we also wanted to have people say, 'We didn't know our troops did that to Japanese people.' "
aw gee, the poor Japs and the evil Yanks.
(says Hanks)
The majority of American Jews have swallowed the bullshit line that Israel is at fault for everything.
ReplyDeleteIn Israel the reason there is NO left anymore (and there was a strong peace movement) is that with every gesture for peace, every land give back Israel got only more hatred and rockets....
The pattern was repeated numerous times to the point that when the Gaza was given to the Palestinians and Jews were dragged out of their homes for 4 decades the Palestinians reacted to the newly liberated lands as a 1st step in the ultimate goal... The destruction of Israel. Israel's left learned that giving land to a group of people bent on their destruction is stupid...
It' only took several thousand stabbings, several thousand attacks, ied's and about 11,000 rockets (rat calls them firecrackers)
The reason there is not a 2 state solution is easy to see if one is honest. The "palestinians" keep turning one down...
The do not want their state as much as they wish to destroy israel...
That is why Obama has a 4% approval rating (+/- 4.5%).. No one in Israel TRUSTS him..
What % of American Jews will learn that the current Democrat party is not for them?
Not a clue...
The GOP may not be my new home, by Reid, Pelsoi and Obama can kiss my ass....
Hanks says.
ReplyDelete"How could they just pick up their lives and get on with the rest of us? Back in World War II, we viewed the Japanese as 'yellow, slant-eyed dogs' that believed in different gods. They were out to kill us because our way of living was different. We, in turn, wanted to annihilate them because they were different.
Does that sound familiar, by any chance, to what's going on today?"
---
Huh?
This too shall pass.
ReplyDeleteAdministrations are not permanant. At some point, both Obama and Netanyahu will be gone.
Given the current state in the Middle East, not much is likely to change in the short run. In the short run, Israel can handle the tormoil, both political pressure and the Palistineans.
In the mid-term, it will get more complicated as more countries in and around the ME go nuclear. But Israel has the strength to survive.
However, in the long-term, a two-state option is the only alternative for Israel if they want to maintain a Jewish state. Trying to maintain a one-state, Jewish state is not a viable option.
Therefore, the current situation there is most troublesome in that it postpones for a year or years what will ultimately be required. The longer it is put off, given the settlements issue, the wall, etc. the harder it will be to unwind later.
.
I was raised amongst these post traumatic racist Jackasses.
ReplyDelete...appeared to me to be real men, compared to today's Metros.
Give the Palis their State, and Peace and Love will prvail, Quirk?
ReplyDeleteNot allowing them their Nation, on their own historic lands, has not worked out, from the peace and prosperity perspective.
ReplyDeleteAs part and parcel of the Israeli violating the Geneva accords, for over forty years, which has not secured their future, either.
"Give the Palis their State, and Peace and Love will prvail, Quirk?"
ReplyDeleteI'm not talking peace, love, and understanding Doug.
I'm talking long-term demographics and the political realities that flow from them.
The question becomes can Israel maintain a one-state, Jewish state in the long-run.
There are an awful lot of people, including me, that believe it can't.
.
Rat, your constant harping on the Geneva accords is simplistic and irrelavant.
ReplyDeleteThe Arabs never accepted Un Res 181 (I believe that was the number)that set up the two states, Israeli and Arab, initially.
.
It is not irrelevant, Quirk, it goes to the heart of the problem. The Israeli occupation and administration of the Arab lands, taken in 1967.
ReplyDeleteThat is the core political issue.
Everything else is peripheral to that. The Israeli should withdraw to the pre 1967 borders.
The Arabs are in the right.
If you think the Arabs are right, that's fine. That's your opinion.
ReplyDeleteHowever, non-binding UN resolutions aren't worth the paper they are written on.
They are merely political cat's paws used as justification for those political views.
.
The solution is coming...
ReplyDeleteJordan, which is 70% of the historic palestinian mandate, will become Palestine, with confederated areas of the west bank
gaza will rightly return to egypt.
It is not the UN that I draw the referenced authority from, Quirk.
ReplyDeleteIt is George H.W. Bush's address to that body, while the Ambassador of the United States, in 1972, that justifies my position, vis a vie the Geneva Accords and the Israeli violations there of.
Rat hates Israel
ReplyDeleteNo news here...
Rat, Hitler and Arafat...
Great minds think alike...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mTUMmJBXDw
ReplyDelete"The sun is shining..."
ReplyDeleteNot here. Another cool, gray, damp morning.
Van Halen's a minor improvement.
Foreign Policy:
ReplyDeleteThe Associated Press has a scooptastic story tonight saying that Mullah Baradar, the Taliban's erstwhile No. 2 man, was "holding secret talks" with the Afghan government when he was arrested by Pakistan with the help of U.S. intelligence officials. The talks were something the initial reporting alluded to in general terms, but the AP, citing one of Afghan President Hamid Karzai's advisers, claims to have new details of the discussions:
Karzai ''was very angry'' when he heard that the Pakistanis had picked up Baradar with an assist from U.S. intelligence, the adviser said. Besides the ongoing talks, he said Baradar had ''given a green light'' to participating in a three-day peace jirga that Karzai is hosting next month.
: )
trish wrote:
ReplyDelete"Not sure what that's called in the reverse."
I'd call the reverse "getting played". The Israelis played Dubya like a harp.
Yeah, I was shitting you about Congress not having a role in foreign policy. Traditionally the Dems have been considered more friendly to Israel than the pubs. That seems to have changed with the co-opting of conservative by religious conservatives.
WiO, that idea of the Palestinians already having a country named Jordan died long ago. Even Sharon gave up on that fantasy. So too is your hope that the US will withdraw aid from all sides and let the Israelis have their way. Nope, the risk right now for the Israelis is that the money could be choked off to only them.
Quirk, It is my opinion that an accommodation will not occur between the Israelis and the Palestinians until the US leans heavily upon the Israelis. Obama appears that he may be willing to do that, but, in deference to Trish's point, Congress does have a say.
No, it is not Israel that I hate
ReplyDeleteit is bully boys that get under my skin. Those Israeli, they exemplify bully boys, have for the last fifty years.
...so too do the American people and the meme that Israel is our bestest friend is well entrenched.
ReplyDelete"...vis a vie the Geneva Accords and the Israeli violations there of."
ReplyDeleteThe Geneva Accords are a statement of general priciples. Quote me which section of which accord (there are a number of them) your referring to and I imagine I can quickly google you arguments indicating that Israel is not in violation of it.
Likewise, I could take the other side of the argument and do the same.
.
I'm sorry, Trish.
ReplyDeleteI'll be sure to send some your way
I'd call the reverse "getting played".
ReplyDelete- Ash
Well, the AIPAC conference is, what, this weekend?
That'll provide some fun parsing.
"Quirk, It is my opinion that an accommodation will not occur between the Israelis and the Palestinians until the US leans heavily upon the Israelis."
ReplyDeleteYou might be right. However, I happen to disagree.
The latest rift regarding Biden and the settlements was clumsy diplomacy. Even the Jerusalem Post called it stupid. However, over the past year, the Obama administration has looked like a bunch of amatuers, with positions changing from month to month. First making unrealistic demands of Israel, then indicating Israel's offers on the settlements were the greatest thing since sliced bread, then getting into a huff over the latest episode.
Nothing the US does (and I doubt there will be much with elections coming up in November) is going to do much to improve the current situation.
.
The ability of the US government to do something, anything, is increasingly becoming the issue as the perpetual election cycle grinds on. I think the Israelis have made such an assessment.
ReplyDeleteMaybe the US is not a superpower anymore.
you mean these Bully Boys
ReplyDeleterambo rat. the figher of injustice and bullies.
bwaahahaah!
BTW, quirk, what "unrealistic demands" were made of the Israeli government?
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, for whatever it's worth 387 Bunker Busters are on their way to Diego Garcia - Stored in the B-2 Hangar.
ReplyDeleteBuy a Flexfuel.
If you are Russia the U.S. looks like a "Superpower."
ReplyDeleteIf you are Hamas the U.S. looks like a big, clumsey oaf.
Too kind, Melody.
ReplyDeleteI have once again taken up - being provided once again with an actual back yard - the daily subsidization of a large number of squirrels. About half of them black squirrels, which we only rarely saw further west from the District. To hear my father tell it, they've been staging their overthrow of the Gray Squirrel Empire since his days at Arlington Hall and it's only a matter of time. (Not intended in any way as a racial metaphor.)
I missed my morning squirrel-feeding ritual in South America.
Dear host doesn't like squirrels.
God only knows what else is wrong with him.
I have to agree with our dear host. Again Trish, I'm sorry.
ReplyDeleteI had to go out early this morning and when I opened my back door that leads onto a screened in porch there it was, a fucking squirrel, and my son standing with the door wide open just watching the squirrel scamper to get out. I have a fear of one of those fuckers getting in my house.
When I got home I demanded my husband to start putting windows in immediately. He just looked at me like I was nuts.
I love Fried Squirrel.
ReplyDelete"I have to agree with our dear host."
ReplyDeleteYou realize this puts you on my suspicious persons' list.
I also fear stink bugs
ReplyDeleteOr any other bug for that matter. It probably stems from a childhood camp I went to for a week and the boys would through daddy long leggers in our hair.
That's a relief, I thought I was already on it.
ReplyDeleteBut I would never kill one or even eat one. I'm a vegetarian.
ReplyDelete: )
ReplyDeleteNo, I mean the OTHER suspicious persons' list.
I have not managed yet to convert to vegetarianism.
ReplyDeleteI have given up beef and for the most part turkey - the smell of the former which now I just can't stand - but fish and chicken are still on the menu, perhaps because replacing them is not a simple matter, familiar though I am with animal protein substitutes.
"BTW, quirk, what "unrealistic demands" were made of the Israeli government?"
ReplyDeleteAfter Obama's Cairo speech, Clinton indicated that as a pre-condition for the resumption of negotiations that there should be no “organic growth” of existing settlements and no exceptions for projects under way.
.
Yeah, I think the Obama administration is learning that the Israelis don't have much interest at all in engaging in negotiations.
ReplyDeleteWell, the AIPAC conference is, what, this weekend?
ReplyDeleteThat'll provide some fun parsing.
I'll LIVE blog if you want, it's my 6th
Ash said...
ReplyDeleteYeah, I think the Obama administration is learning that the Israelis don't have much interest at all in engaging in negotiations.
Your take on history is horrible.
Define negotiations?
Why should Israel be directed to stop building a house before negotiations?
It's not like the Palestinians have been told to stop MURDERING?
Jews build homes, Palestinians knife Jews...
Yep...
Anyone who believes a word the Palis say is either naive or a fool.
ReplyDeleteAnyone who believes a word the Palis say is either naive or a fool.
Anyone who believes a word the Palis say is either naive or a fool.
Anyone who believes a word the Palis say is either naive or a fool.
Anyone who believes a word the Palis say is either naive or a fool.
The Israelis don't want to negotiate?
ReplyDeleteWhy should they?
They have negotiated and negotiated and negotiated with the death cult and to what avail? Now, a left wing US administration wants them to give more and more while letting the lying terrorist thugs get away with murder.
Screw the Obama administration.
And the horse they rode in on.
ReplyDelete"Discipline or self-preservation will dictate the outcome and certainly no one who pays attention would bet on Congress doing the right thing, but given a choice I'll throw my prediction at self-preservation.
ReplyDeleteThe bill stumbles."
E-Trade has the odds that the HC Bill will pass at 65%.
I think it's closer to 50/50, a toss-up. That being said, if I was forced to bet, I'd say it would probably pass.
.
It appears that the Dem strategy is to drag out the process for as long as it takes to bribe or blackmail the recalcitrant.
ReplyDeleteI heard on Bloomberg that over 80 Democrat Congressmen come from districts that voted for George Bush or John McCain.
ReplyDeleteI was going to ask if you're going, What Is.
ReplyDeleteI remember your comments from Obama's address to AIPAC back when he was campaigning.
And actually, your live-blogging it for the Bar would be pretty cool.
ReplyDelete"It used to be that there was much casual suspicion and distrust of the Foreign Service in DC, owing to what was regarded as a tendency to 'clientitis' - or gradually subordinating host-country interests to those of one's own."
ReplyDeleteThis somehow ended up backwards but I trust that Ash read it the correct way.
Imperialism and it's mirror image getting played.
ReplyDeleteObama promises 3000 percent reduction in insurance premiums.
ReplyDeleteRufus is signing on.
I say he did not write the book.
Whit:
ReplyDeleteBHO's threat to not campaign for those who vote no gaurantees a no vote!
What a relief not to have to host the Marxist Pinhead.
Well, we don't usually think of giving prominence of place and priority to one's own country's interests, as opposed to granting it to those of the host nation, as imperialism.
ReplyDeleteYou aren't working for the host nation.
Charming though the idea may be when the mothership seems to be circling the drain.
ReplyDeletewelllll, if you are subordinating the host nations interests to your own...
ReplyDelete...black or white, isn't that the nature of things these days?
It is nothing personal with squirrels. It is territorial. If they respect my space, I respect theirs.
ReplyDeleteThere simply are too many of them. The red fox around here are not impressive hunters, although they do play hell with ground hog pups in the spring which works out to be a good thing.
I leave the ground hogs alone, becaue they stay in the hedges and do not cause me a problem.
The deer do far more damage, but I rarely bother them anymore.
The red tail hawks are better hunters, but the numbers clearly favor the squirrels who spend most of their time defending their turf.
Back to the squirrels, I don't want them in my house. Getting on my roof or thinking about it, is a mistake.
When I kill them I leave them for the crows, fox, and possum. Dead in the afternoon, always gone the next morning.
Most of what I do not eat, I feed to the crows. I bang on a pot and they appear within a minute. Fascinating pack hunters and ritualized scavengers.
They go insane when a hawk appears.
I also have a monster blue heron that terrorizes my pond, but that is nature and life. Every fish for himself.
the conference is quite amazing usually
ReplyDeletehere is one of the classes i am signed for..
Sphere of Influence: Iranian Outreach in S. America, Asia and Beyond
From Caracas to Pyongyang, Damascus to Khartoum, Iran has actively engaged in developing its relations with regimes unfriendly with the West. Iran is also the world's leading state-sponsor of terrorism. This class delves into the threats posed by Iran globally and the challenges America and its allies face with Tehran's growing influence.
ABOUT YOUR INSTRUCTOR
Leah Odinec | Assistant Director, Policy and Government Affairs, AIPAC
Leah Odinec is a foreign policy analyst and policy strategist for AIPAC. As assistant director of AIPAC's Policy and Government Affairs Department, she focuses on Iran, the Palestinian arena and terrorism issues. During the 1990s she worked in Israel as an on-air field correspondent for Israel Television's English news program.
COURSE OVERVIEW
Iranian revolutionary Ideology "exporting the revolution"
Iran actively destabilizing the Middle East
Lebanon
Iraq
Gaza
Afghanistan
Sudan
Syria
Turkey
Iran exporting terror and forging alliances in Latin America
Argentina
Tri border area (ciudad del Este)
Venezuela
Bolivia
Nicaragua
Brazil
Iranian activity in Africa
Senegal
Zimbabwe
South Africa
One of my favorite memories from the farm is of a Horned Owl flying across the pasture trailing a snake!
ReplyDelete(hopefully not a king)
Seeing an owl on the Oak Tree above our Sunday chicken lunch picnic with one of our chickens was funny, also.
Blue Heron has an amazing range for such an unlikely looking aviator.
ReplyDeleteC'mon, Ash. I know you're not that block-headed.
ReplyDeleteAt the beginning and end of the day, every day - your own country comes first.
Because it has to.
How best to advance the position and interests of one's own country vis a vis your temporary station - that is always and everywhere subject of debate.
Hard to bet against Intrade.
ReplyDeleteObama's Midas's Touch
ReplyDeleteThe president will refuse to make fund-raising visits during November elections to any district whose representative has not backed the bill.
A one-night presidential appearance can bring in hundreds of thousands of dollars in funds which would otherwise take months to accumulate through cold-calling by campaign volunteers.
Mr Obama's threat came as the year-long debate over his signature domestic policy entered its final week.
Mr Obama is personally telephoning congressmen who are still on the fence this week, in between several personal appearances devoted toward swinging public opinion.
Too many squirrels? But they're so adorable. You can never have too much adorable. Really.
ReplyDeleteMy mother brought back for me this time from Bavaria a very nice squirrel wood-carving which presently sits on the mantel.
Crows have returned to NoVA after a years' long absence and I usually have six or seven each morning. Along with everything else that drops in for breakfast.
Rufus:
ReplyDeleteDoes anyone track Intrade's accuracy rate?
If not, why not?
If my stat skills were above elementary, I would.
Isn't that a bit much protein for breakfast, Trish?
ReplyDeleteDoug, I don know. Seems like someone would, doesn't it?
ReplyDeleteAnecdotally, it seems to me like they've been pretty accurate, though.
That was a good one, Doug! Wish I had thought of that...but it's 8:00 PM and I have been up since 4:00 AM.
ReplyDeleteExcuses, excuses.
Around here squirrels are also known as limb rats.
ReplyDeleteThey can be destructive little pests. Occasionally they develop a taste for the lead boots around the vents protruding from roofs. Last week, I saw a house where the critters had gnawed the corners off the outside shutters and also the bottom of the front door jamb.
And of course, forget about squirrel proofing your bird feeders.
Haters.
ReplyDeleteThey were my consolation the day RFK was assasinated.
ReplyDeleteDrove into KC from Olathe and watched them in a park flying from tall trees.
Weird days in the midst of Vietnam.
Sabato says almost never does a bill not make it when one party has congress and the Big House.
ReplyDelete...but also says he's NEVER seen folks this energized.
I think they are the haters since I tore down their home last September; a huge maple tree that sat in my yard not to far from my porch which that critter so invaded today. I think they are out for revenge.
ReplyDeletetrish said...
ReplyDelete"At the beginning and end of the day, every day - your own country comes first."
Of course, and if you are in a diplomatic post assigned to another country it is your job to put your country first. Still, the answer to your question as to its reverse is "being played".