Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Who was Cruising New York on Air Force One?

While Rahm Emmanuel and Obama’s Blue Angel wannabes would like New York Buzzgate to go away quietly, deeper background on White House scapegoat and Director of the White House Military Office, Louis Caldera, suggests the possibility that Obama donors might have been along for the ride that caused near panic and flight from Manhattan skyscrapers.
Described on the Washington Prowler as “a fixer in the classic sense of the term” http://spectator.org/archives/2009/04/29/flyover-launcher, Caldera was selected by Bill Clinton to serve as Secretary of the Army and tasked with “ identifying ‘politically friendly’ military personnel who would be helpful to the Clintons, as well as interacting with VIPs from Hollywood and the defense industry to keep them happy.”
The assumption is that Rahm Emmanuel brought Caldera on board the B.O. administration to perform similar functions.
This despite Mr. Caldera’s somewhat controversial background that curdles when brought to light:
1.) Caldera served on the board of directors at IndyMac Bank prior to the lender becoming one of the first of the major banks to go belly-up in the sub-prime mortgage debacle.
2.) Caldera appears to have been selected as President of the University of New Mexico with some questionable assistance from Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico despite “almost 80 percent of the faculty of University of New Mexico vot(ing) against the hiring of Caldera (ibid).

White House press secretary Robert Gates insists the flight was a “training mission” that turned into a “picture mission” and that only Air Force personnel were onboard. But Gates and White House staffers continue to protest too much, according to the former Obama defense transition team member serving as the Prowler’s source:

"This is a bigger deal than the White House is letting on, and there are some nervous people there, and I'm not clear why."

Could Obama be using Air Force One for joyrides just as Bill Clinton used the Lincoln Bedroom to ply Democrat donors?

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Hillary Still Solicting Donations?

It’s not in the least bit surprising to hear from Jim Geraghty at National Review Online that he is still being solicited for funds from Hillary Clinton’s campaign http://campaignspot.nationalreview.com/. The Clintons just keep on cashing in. I hope someone in the Obama administration had the good sense to nail down the furniture at Foggy Bottom http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3827/is_200202/ai_n9045376/ . Did you suppose the couple amassed $109 million http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/apr2008/clin-a08.shtml in net worth based on Hillary’s eye for beef on the hoof http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/cRosett/?id=65000476 ?
Mike Judge’s brilliant Idiocracy http://www.worstpreviews.com/trailer.php?id=8&item=0 , barely circulated by 20th Century Fox but showing this week on Comedy Central , features the American Secretary of State in 2505 openly expressing the Clinton modus operandi:
“I’m Secretary of State brought to you by Carl Jr.’s.” http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/quotes
If you close your eyes and substitute the words “The House of Saud” for “Carl Jr.’s” you would swear you could hear the rustle of a polyester pantsuit in the background.

Thursday, April 16, 2009

Pirate Gauntlet Thrown

"The French and the Americans will regret starting this killing. We do not kill, but take only ransom. We shall do something to anyone we see as French or American from now," Hussein, a pirate, told Reuters by satellite phone. http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE53A1LP20090412?sp=true
The Pirate Hussein’s statement constitutes an assault on the American and French peoples according to the legal definition of assault supplied by nolo.com http://www.nolo.com/definition.cfm/term/22542b6f-fedb-450a-889a82a49ea50ceb/alpha/a/ :
A crime that occurs when one person tries to physically harm another in a way that makes the person under attack feel immediately threatened. Actual physical contact is not necessary; threatening gestures that would alarm any reasonable person can constitute an assault.
There was no indication at the time whether Hussein the Somali Pirate and Barack Hussein Obama the Chicago Socialist Pirate were related.
Of course the right to self-defense is recognized even in the fuzzy codicils of international law. The kudos the Obama administration garners from the successful termination of the Mersk Alabama hostage crisis (and the pirates who initiated it) should provide the impetus to take pre-emptive measures of self-defense. This would include the destruction of Somali ports like Eyl http://www.nydailynews.com/news/us_world/2009/04/10/2009-04-10_piracy_boon_to_somalia_economy.html where cadres of accountants, publicists and gold-digging women have shown up in search of a cut of the pirate booty. Eliminating terrorist training camps for Al Qaeda cells and the home-grown Men-Causing-Disasters http://www.newsmax.com/kessler/napolitano_terrorism/2009/03/23/194888.html led by Aden Hashi Ayro http://www.cfr.org/publication/10781/ would be a fruitful by-product of de-nesting these water-rats.
If Obama wants to counter the feeble impression left by his first 80 days of diplomatic wobble http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/adavid/2009/04/02/the-world-and-barack-obama%E2%80%99s-weakness/ , he should take the following three words of advice when pre-empting future Somali piracy:
Shock and awe http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83Smjn9wou8 .

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Soon All Roads Will Lead to Chicago

In what must be one of the most remarkable coincidences in the history of bald-faced snatch and grab politics, the state of Illinois has already filched over $629 million from the available pool of stimulus funds allotted by the Department of Transportation “since the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act became law Feb. 17” http://www.chicagobusiness.com/cgi-bin/news.pl?id=33663&seenIt=1. This accounts for over 12% of the road and bridge projects approved so far by Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood’s (Friend of Blago-Illinois) department.
If the funds were to be equally dispersed over the entire 57 states http://michellemalkin.com/2008/05/21/barack-obama-gaffe-machine/ Barry “King of the Road” Obama’s homeboys would be tussling over 1.76% of the orange-barrel booty. While fellow Earmarking Illini on the Obama team made much of the fact that LaHood actually paid his federal income taxes, his nomination as DOT Secretary was actually delayed due to ethical questions surrounding his penchant for steering Federal cash to his home state:
“The (Washington) Post reported this morning that LaHood, a seven-term Republican Congressman from Illinois who retired last month, has close ties to a Republican power-broker indicted in the pay-to-play scandal that also led to Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich's recent arrest. The story also documented LaHood's sponsorship of $60 million in congressional earmarks last year, and how at least $9 million of them directly benefited his top campaign donors.” http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2009/01/14/lahood_confirmation_hearing_po.html
You don’t suppose any of these highway funds will find their way into Obama-LaHood donor’s pockets, do you?
If our recent trip to the Richard Daley satrapy is any indication, the highway funds will be used to provide additional toll booths on the cities highways. Apparently forcing drivers to exit once every four exits and pay tolls is providing insufficient tribute to the city to allow for the repair of crumbling interstate surfaces. Perhaps the new coin-collecting cages can be rendered as figural Obama heads, with his gaping maw gobbling up any cash left in Windy City driver’s pockets.

Friday, April 3, 2009

Are You Turned on by the WSW?

Hillary Clinton’s diplomacy gig continues to founder as the Foggiest Bottom in memory can’t seem to take the time to research the nations http://americaswatchtower.com/2009/03/06/hillary-clinton-says-americas-democracy-has-been-around-a-lot-longer-than-europes-democracy/ , cultures http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/03/hillary_who_painted_guadalupe.html , languages http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0309/19719.html or dignitaries http://digg.com/d1lpq6 it courts.
The self-proclaimed (or perhaps more accurately, staff-proclaimed) World’s Smartest Woman is certainly setting the bar low. Or perhaps it’s just the arrogance of over-confidence causing our Secretary of State to wade into each new diplomatic encounter completely unprepared. Then again, it might just be a variation of Muhammad Ali’s rope-a-dope http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rope-a-dope tactic: by leading nation’s around the world to believe that we are totally incompetent, we may be able to lull them into making strategic blunders.
In any case, the latest foozle foisted upon us by the current holder of the office first held by Thomas Jefferson involves a bit of misdirection. Reporters calling in to the State Department for briefings were surprised to find that:
Instead of hearing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and National Security Advisor Jim Jones on the other end laying out foreign policy and security threats, reporters were greeted by a recording on a phone sex line.
"Do you have any hidden desires? If you feel like getting nasty, then you came to the right place," said a suggestive-sounding woman. http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/
One can only hope this was another blunder and not a career move for Mrs. Clinton. Now if you will excuse me, I am creeped out and need to take a hot shower.

The New Hybrid Fedsels

The Ford and Honda hybrids due out this month are among dozens planned for the coming years as automakers try to meet new fuel-efficiency standards and please politicians overseeing the industry's multibillion-dollar bailout.Unfortunately for the automakers, hybrids are a tough sell these days. http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hybrid17-2009mar17,0,6682265.story

When a gallon of gasoline cost about the same as a pack of cigarettes and Americans were having their pockets remodeled to hold all the disposable income stuffed in them, buying a hybrid vehicle seemed hip, cool and smart. Now that Wahabi Regular is down around $2.00 per gallon and U.S. residents are treating quarters like they are manhole covers, buying a Prius or a Chevy Volt looks like obtuse posing or the hasty choice of an AIG exec flush with ill-gotten bonus, desperate to provide one last stimulus to his personal economy.
Despite consumer distaste for the pricey, modern-day Edsels, automakers are resigned to the continued production of unwanted, over-priced but tax subsidized http://autos.aol.com/article/green-cars/harnessing-hybrid-tax-credits/20080227172409990016 vehicles dictated by the fleet fuel-economy standards established by the marketing geniuses at the Environmental Protection Agency. Yes, the same tree-huggers sporting bad haircuts and ill-fitting pocket protectors who encourage the use of windmills and solar heating while discouraging the use of nuclear energy and drilling for our own oil are increasingly empowered to determine product development for American industries. Looks like the National Resources Defense Council has called in their chits for the $75 million in Democrat donations from the last campaign cycle and are assuming positions of influence at EPA and on important Congressional sub-committees http://spectator.org/archives/2009/03/23/its-not-about-the-money . This can only mean that fuel-economy guidelines will become increasingly disconnected from the personal tastes and finances of American consumers. The industries that have demonstrated incompetence (Auto, Banking, News Media) in the market place will come to resemble the very government bureaucracies in charge of regulating them. How do you suppose this will turn out?
"The automakers are in the situation of needing to pacify politicians that are in the position to bail them out with expensive fuel-efficient cars," said Rebecca Lindland, auto analyst with IHS Global Insight. "But shouldn't it be more about satisfying the needs of the American consumer?" (ibid)
Maybe in the real world, but Washington’s current crop of propeller-hat wearing daydreamers is racing the clock to dispose of out-dated notions like marketability and profit:
In January, President Obama called on the industry to "thrive by building the cars of tomorrow" and prepare for federal and state regulations that could push average fuel economy above 40 miles per gallon by 2020. (ibid)
Although President Obama’s college transcripts are unavailable, it appears that he majored in Soviet Factory Management with a minor in Zimbabwean Currency Stabilization http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2008/03/worlds-highest-inflation-rate-of-100000.html. PBO apparently doesn’t understand that the hybrids sitting unwanted on dealer lots today are the same cars that will be sitting there for many tomorrows. Nor does he understand the dynamnics of manufacturing and marketing automobiles. But he went ahead and fired GM CEO Rick Wagoner anyway. With Obama’s foot jammed firmly in the door, the government is re-assuring auto owners that their warranties will be honored http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/30/understanding-obamas-auto-warranty-plan/?hp . You have to sell some of these Fedsels in order to activate the warranty, however.
AutoNation in January reported a 148 day supply of the Civic hybrid with the automakers gearing up to dump more unwanted “image” hybrid cars from across the manufacturing spectrum on dealer lots. Dealers will be discounting, rebating and trying to hype a path out from under these turgid political solutions to market problems.
Marketing experts hold the Edsel up as a supreme example of corporate America’s failure to understand the nature of the American consumer. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edsel
Not only has corporate America not learned from the colossal failure of the Edsel, it has now abandoned the entire concept of a causal relationship between the proper implementation of its manufacturing capabilities and the needs, wants and desires of the end-users of its products. And the government auto-neophytes taking over the failing automakers have even fewer clues.
Do you think maybe the nouveau automotive PRO’s (Pelosi, Reid and Obama) will mandate the purchase of the cars they are mandating automakers to manufacture? When the federally owned banks are mandated to finance the mandatory purchase of autos designed by federal fiat, the lunatic loop will be complete. If the current interventionist trends continue, it won’t be long before letters like the one that follows will start to appear in taxpayer mailboxes
Greetings Citizen:
Please report to Federal Motors on Monday to accept delivery of your assigned Fedsel Hybrid. The payments will begin to be deducted from your paycheck beginning next week or you may elect to pay for it in full from what’s left of your 401k. Thanks for your hope and we know you will appreciate the change.
Rhetorically yours,
The Institutional Friends of Barry.