Where Are My Keys?

I think I have the new Leftie talking point down..

Old: "If you like your plan, you can keep it."

New: "Your old plan sucked, this one is better."

Kinda reminds me of how "Global Warming" became "Climate Change".  When the facts don't fit the narrative, change the narrative, and hope no one notices.

Would Obama use a drone strike on Trayvon?

Thought provoking:

Obama departed from his usual reluctance to talk publicly about his personal experience with racial bias, reminding viewers that African-American men -- including him, before he became a senator -- experience prejudice based only on their appearance, not their personality or behavior. He added that the African-American community was interpreting the outcome of the case through a "set of experiences and a history that doesn't go away." And he noted that, while the African-American community is not naïve about violence involving its young men -- they are "disproportionately both victims and perpetrators" -- that fact is no excuse for different treatment under the law.

It is striking to compare Obama's deliberate and thoughtful commentary about the tragic killing of Trayvon Martin with the military tactic that will forever characterize his presidency: killing people with drones. The president posits that it is wrong to profile individuals based upon their appearance, associations, or statistical propensity to violence. By extension, he believes that, just because those characteristics may seem threatening to some, the use of lethal force cannot be justified as self-defense unless there are reasonable grounds to fear imminent bodily harm. But that very kind of profiling and a broad interpretation of what constitutes a threat are the foundational principles of U.S. "signature strikes" -- the targeted killings of unidentified military-age males.

Like so much of the Obama Presidency, he says one thing, but does another.

Funny, isn't it?

When the Zimmerman/Martin case caught the National eye, the President of the United States made it all about race ("If I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon.").    In his remarks today, race was nonexistant:

The death of Trayvon Martin was a tragedy. Not just for his family, or for any one community, but for America. I know this case has elicited strong passions. And in the wake of the verdict, I know those passions may be running even higher. But we are a nation of laws, and a jury has spoken. I now ask every American to respect the call for calm reflection from two parents who lost their young son. And as we do, we should ask ourselves if we’re doing all we can to widen the circle of compassion and understanding in our own communities. We should ask ourselves if we’re doing all we can to stem the tide of gun violence that claims too many lives across this country on a daily basis. We should ask ourselves, as individuals and as a society, how we can prevent future tragedies like this. As citizens, that’s a job for all of us. That’s the way to honor Trayvon Martin.

I wonder why he chose to ingore race today.

Keep this in mind when you watch the video..

President Obama, yesterday:

OBAMA: Now, having said all that, you'll remember when I made that speech a couple of weeks ago about the need for us to shift out of a perpetual war mind-set, I specifically said that one of the things that we're going to have to discuss and debate is how are we striking this balance between the need to keep the American people safe and our concerns about privacy because there are some tradeoffs involved.

I welcome this debate and I think it's healthy for our democracy. I think it's a sign of maturity because probably five years ago, six years ago we might not have been having this debate. And I think it's interesting that there are some folks on the left but also some folks on the right who are now worried about it, who weren't very worried about it when it was a Republican president.

I think that's good that we're having this discussion but I think it's important for everybody to understand, and I think the A merican people understand that there are some tradeoffs involved. You know?

The thing you need to remember, when you watch the video (at the link)? Obama was one of "those folks" on the Left who were very worried when it was a Republican President.  Why not explain to us how you have evolved, and why something you once so vocally opposed is now not a big deal?

Also, take note of his body language/facial expressions-is it me, or does he seem happy with himself as he lectures about this?

Why do I get the feeling that somehow, the signature won't be his signature??

Seems Eric Holder signed off on the search warrant to search the FOX News reporters private emails:

Attorney General Eric Holder signed off on a controversial search warrant that identified Fox News reporter James Rosen as a “possible co-conspirator” in violations of the Espionage Act and authorized seizure of his private emails, a law enforcement official told NBC News on Thursday.

The disclosure of the attorney general’s role came as President Barack Obama, in a major speech on his counterterrorism policy, said Holder had agreed to review Justice Department guidelines governing investigations that involve journalists.

"I am troubled by the possibility that leak investigations may chill the investigative journalism that holds government accountable," Obama said. "Journalists should not be at legal risk for doing their jobs."

So "troubled" that you will do what to Holder, Mr. President?

I wonder what Senator Obama would say about an AG abusing his power?  Let's go to the videotape, shall we?

 

Why does Eric Holder still have a job?

 

Looks like someone is firing up The Bus..

Lois Lerner has been put on administrative leave, paving the way for her to quit/be fired sometime tomorrow (likely the end of the day, before a long weekend).

Lois Lerner, the director of the tax-exempt organizations division at the Internal Revenue Service, has been placed on administrative leave, sources in Congress and the administration confirm. 

Lerner was the official who revealed during a May 10 American Bar Association conference in Washington that employees in the IRS’s tax-exempt unit in Cincinnati had improperly scrutinized applications from dozens of organizations. On Wednesday, she invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination to avoid testifying before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

Of course, this won't prevent her from being called back to testify by Darrell Issa, and may open the door for her to "name names".

Funny how this happened soon after a few select Leftie bloggers/journalists got a "special meeting" at the White House, and that this latest development follows the path they called for.

It's almost as if it was all planned in advance, or something.

Notice anyone missing from the list?

Here's a ranking put together of the world's billionaires.  There is a very prominent name missing from the list, he should be in the #15-17 slotting.

I'll give you a few clues.  He's worth around $27 billion.  He's an American.  He lives in New York City.  He's in politics, and also dabbles as an entrepreneur.

Do you know who it is?

 

What should you be more terrified of, Puppies or Fracking?

Great piece on how an issue is framed.  In my role as a Sales Guy, I always want to be the guy writing the RFP, as opposed to being asked to bid on one.  The guy that writes the RFP is the one who determines in which direction the conversation must go.  In other words, if you aren't planning the dinner, you might be the meal.

I won't cut-n-paste from the linked piece, because it really needs to be read in its entirety to get the most bang for your buck.  I will include his closing, because it needs to be read and understood:

Mankind is driven to create and innovate, not sit on his or her thumbs in caves. We were not scared to go out because of dangerous animals and we were not scared to create a fire because it might suffocate us.

John F. Kennedy, in a famous speech at my alma mater, Rice University, in September 1962, said, “Why go to the moon? … Why does Rice play Texas? … Because we choose to.”

What he DIDN’T say was, “It is very dangerous and carries a lot of risks and we don’t know how. Therefore, I propose we put a complete ban on going to the moon”.

JFK made a call to action for a noble, some might say quixotic goal that could be undertaken by our government. Similarly, I don’t oppose an effort on our nation’s part to find cheap, inexhaustible energy. In fact, according to NASA, we spent roughly $150 billion on 2011 dollars (roughly $24 billion in 1969 dollars) to send a man to the Moon. According the Brookings Institute, the US will have spent roughly $150 billion between 2009 and 2014 in Green Energy programs. The projects break down as $100 billion for renewable supply, $15 billion in conservation research, $10 billion in electric cars research and subsidy, $10 billion in high speed rail research and subsidy, $6 billion in “smart grid” research and $6 billion in nuclear power research and subsidy.

The difference? The government has competition for making energy available and low cost. The people of the US oil and gas industry stood up and took on the kind of challenge that President Kennedy laid down. In the last decade, they have raised the bar for what success looks like. The benefits are myriad, although they sadly seem to be lost on musicians, entertainers and armchair epidemiologists of various stripes.

It's sad that this Country no longer embraces the Put-Politics-Aside-And-Let's-Accomplish-Something-As-A-Unified-Body mentality.  When MSNBC began running this ad, it made me laugh every time I saw it:

 

The Left in this Country today wouldn't allow a project like the Hoover Dam to move forward.  There would be protests and environmental studies on snail darters or the preble mouse, or something else that would cause delays, shutdowns, and stoppages.

Think I'm wrong?

Keystone XL, baby.

I have the solution..

Saw today via Instapundit that veterinarians are being hit with crazy student loan debt at the same time demand for their services is shrinking:

At the age of 30, she still has the sign, which is framed on her desk at the Caring Hearts Animal Clinic in Gilbert, Ariz., where she works as a vet. She also has $312,000 in student loans, courtesy of Ross University School of Veterinary Medicine, on the Caribbean island of St. Kitts. Or rather, $312,000 was what she owed the last time she could bring herself to log into the Sallie Mae account that tracks the ever-growing balance.

“It makes me sick, watching it increase,” she says. “There’s also the stress of how am I going to save for retirement when I have this bear to pay off.”

They don’t teach much at veterinary school about bears, particularly the figurative kind, although debt as large and scary as any grizzly shadows most vet school grads, usually for decades. Nor is there much in the curriculum about the prospects for graduates or the current state of the profession. Neither, say many professors and doctors, looks very promising. The problem is a boom in supply (that is, vets) and a decline in demand (namely, veterinary services). Class sizes have been rising at nearly every school, in some cases by as much as 20 percent in recent years. And the cost of vet school has far outpaced the rate of inflation. It has risen to a median of $63,000 a year for out-of-state tuition, fees and living expenses, according to the Association of American Veterinary Medical Colleges, up 35 percent in the last decade.

This would seem less alarming if vets made more money. But starting salaries have sunk by about 13 percent during the same 10-year period, in inflation-adjusted terms, to $45,575 a year, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association. America may be pet-crazed and filled with people eager to buy expensive fetch toys and heated cat beds. But the total population of pets is going down, along with the sums that owners are willing to spend on the health care of their animals, one of the lesser-known casualties of the recession.

I have the answer: train them to work as medical doctors under Obamacare.  Makes sense, as there aren't enough doctors to go around for humans, and we'll all be treated like cattle soon enough when we need treatment.

Hiring Vets to handle Medicare patients is a no brainer!

POTUS using the "It wasn't me" defense?

John Boehner writes a great Op-Ed, reminding the voters whose idea the sequester was in the first place:

During the summer of 2011, as Washington worked toward a plan to reduce the deficit to allow for an increase in the federal debt limit, President Obama and I very nearly came to a historic agreement. Unfortunately our deal fell apart at the last minute when the president demanded an extra $400 billion in new tax revenue—50% more than we had shaken hands on just days before.

It was a disappointing decision by the president, but with just days until a breach of the debt limit, a solution was still required—and fast. I immediately got together with Senate leaders Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell to forge a bipartisan congressional plan. It would be called the Budget Control Act.

The plan called for immediate caps on discretionary spending (to save $917 billion) and the creation of a special House-Senate "super committee" to find an additional $1.2 trillion in savings. The deal also included a simple but powerful mechanism to ensure that the committee met its deficit-reduction target: If it didn't, the debt limit would not be increased again in a few months.

But President Obama was determined not to face another debt-limit increase before his re-election campaign. Having just blown up one deal, the president scuttled this bipartisan, bicameral agreement. His solution? A sequester.

With the debt limit set to be hit in a matter of hours, Republicans and Democrats in Congress reluctantly accepted the president's demand for the sequester, and a revised version of the Budget Control Act was passed on a bipartisan basis.

Ultimately, the super committee failed to find an agreement, despite Republicans offering a balanced mix of spending cuts and new revenue through tax reform. As a result, the president's sequester is now imminent.

The President acting like he had no idea about the sequester, or where it came from in the first place reminds me of a hit song from the 90's: