"Now, what we're doing, I want to be clear, we're not trying to push financial reform because we begrudge success that's fairly earned. I mean, I do think at a certain point you've made enough money." -- Barack Obama, April 28, 2010

"So for everybody in Washington who's busy scrambling, trying to figure out how to blame somebody else, just go ahead and talk to me, because it's my job to make sure that we fix these messes, even if I don't make them." -- Barack Obama

"You know, I have more than enough to do without having to worry about the financial system" -- President Barack Obama, S, to the New York Times.

Still don't believe us that the Global Warming movement has jumped the shark?

"Not doing it will be catastrophic. We'll be eight degrees hotter in ten, not ten but 30 or 40 years and basically none of the crops will grow. Most of the people will have died and the rest of us will be cannibals." -- Ted Turner on the dangers of not overreacting to Global Warming.

How can anyone take such a Nostradamus-like prediction seriously?

The SCOTUS began hearing Second Amendment arguments today, and the idiots were out in droves. I hope this isn't representative of what they are teaching at GW:

Pat Harvey, a 24-year-old second-year law student at George Washington University, said : "If a democratically elected city council has had a law on the books for 30 years, it's not the court's job to overturn it."

So I guess Pat Harvey thinks that landmark civil rights cases like Brown v. Board of Education, Miranda v. Arizona, and Roe v. Wade are unjust because they overturned decades of "democratically elected" law.

"Everyone knows when you have guns, bad things happen." - Rep. Norm Dicks, D-WA

Via Bitter.

"I like the idea of giving every baby born in America a $5,000 account that will grow over time. . .so when that young person turns 18 if they have finished high school they will be able to access it to go to college or maybe they will be able to put that down payment on their first home, or go into business." -- Presidential Candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton

"In one week he went from saying he's going to sit down for tea with our enemies, but then he's gonna bomb our allies. He's gone from Jane Fonda to Doctor Strangelove in one week." -- Mitt Romney, R-Mass on Democrat Barrack Hussein Obama's foreign policy strategy.

Doesn't he mean queer?

"The House has no reason to tinker with Senate rules," said Wesley Denton, DeMint's spokesman. "The only reason to want to put them in conference is because they intend to change them."

Jim Manley, [Senate Majority Leader Harry] Reid's spokesman, calls those assertions "phony as a two-dollar bill."

Liberals never give Jefferson any respect.

"I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate, John Edwards, but it turns out that you have to go into rehab if you use the word 'faggot,' so I'm - so, kind of at an impasse, can't really talk about Edwards, so I think I'll just conclude here and take your questions." -- Conservative commentator Ann Coulter

Of course the democrat shock and awe response is pretty over the top. John Edwards himself was so upset by the remarks that he could only be consoled by money.

Edwards' campaign posted the video on their Web site [to make sure everyone sees it], and asked readers to help them "raise $100,000 in 'Coulter Cash' this week to keep this campaign charging ahead and fight back against the politics of bigotry."

Faggot seems to be the n-word for gays. Its okay if they use it, but straight people aren't allowed to use it. Case in point, the recently defunct gayblogger: Faggoty-ass Faggot.

UPDATE: Heh. Ann Coulter clarified her remarks:

"C'mon, it was a joke. I would never insult gays by suggesting that they are like John Edwards. That would be mean."

"The Democrats know what needs to be done. Again, we're working trying to try push this agenda forward. The other day the oil companies reported the highest profits in the history of the world. I want to take those profits and I want to put them into a strategic energy fund that will begin to fund alternative, smart energy; alternatives and technology that will begin to actually move us toward the direction of independence." -- Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY

Related articles:
Vote early, vote often -- 08/23/2005
On Behalf of the Common Good -- 06/30/2004
Hillarycare II: Hillary's revenge -- 01/14/2004
Senator Clinton's racial joke -- 01/07/2004

As a ruthless cold hearted conservative, I cannot help but laugh at slackers like this who want the minimum wage increased just so they have more running around money. You have to see the video to believe it. And for the record, she actually makes more than minimum wage.

"When you work a job that doesn't pay a lot, you have to work a lot of hours to make a decent amount...I'm not making that much, but I'm working almost, almost 40 hours a week every week and I just look at my paycheck and I wanna cry."

Notice that its sponsored by the labor unions, whose wage negotiations are based on the minimum wage. In other words if the minimum wages increase, so do union wages.

Via Bitter

Via Taranto:

Worse Yet, He Tested Negative for Cheese

"Tour de France winner Floyd Landis denied on Thursday taking performance-enhancing drugs during the race and said he would fight to clear his name after testing positive for the male sex hormone testosterone," Reuters reports.

Only the French would consider the presence of testosterone in a man's system suspicious.

James Taranto nails it:

Republicans favor small government but embrace big government when they have the power to control it. Democrats favor big government but insist that it can work only when they have the power to control it. Politicians in both parties, then, seem to see government as a means to the same end: their own political power. Little wonder that voters are suspicious of government.

"I'd be much more impressed if I saw these students out marching on a Saturday," -- Colorado Governor Bill Owens, on area high school students march in favor of illegal immigrants. The demonstration took place on Wednesday, during the middle of the school day.

"Why do I cynically suspect he wanted a drug deal, and they saw an opportunity?" -- David Codrea, January 4, 2006, theorizing that Marion Barry's robbery was the product of illicit dealings.

"Sources said [Marion] Barry tested positive for cocaine during routine screening in connection with his guilty plea to two misdemeanor tax charges in October." -- Washington Post, January 12, 2006.

So where would be a good place to play with loaded guns?

Police in a Vancouver suburb reminded residents on Tuesday it was not a good idea to play with a loaded gun while using the bathroom, after a man accidentally shot himself.

"We've got nation building by the U.S. military, and that's not a mission for the U.S. military. I've said this over and over again: They're not good at nation building. You've given them a mission which they cannot carry out. They do the best they can, but they can't do it." -- Rep. John Murtha, Democrat (surprise!) from Pennsylvania, once again trashing the troops.

What a difference two months makes:

"There will be no gas tax hike in a Corzine administration, particularly after we've seen a $1.50 rise in the price of gasoline. I'm proposing we have a tax holiday."

That was New Jersey Democrat Jon Corzine, on the campaign trail for Governor back in October. This is today:

After vowing during his campaign that he would not raise the gas tax, Gov.-elect Jon Corzine said yesterday he will reconsider the idea now that gasoline prices have eased and the state's budget gap has ballooned to more than $5 billion.

He's not even Governor yet, and already he's thrown his campaign promise out the window. At least it took fuckface Mark "I will not raise taxes" Warner 3 years to break his campaign vow.

When they're not kidnapping Richard Dreyfuss' son, John Kerry says our troops are terrorizing women and children:

"And there is no reason, Bob, that young American soldiers need to be going into the homes of Iraqis in the dead of night, terrorizing kids and children, you know, women, breaking sort of the customs of the - of - the historical customs, religious customs," Kerry said Sunday. "Whether you like it or not ... Iraqis should be doing that."

That's an interesting take on things from the political party that gave us this:

Ask, and ye shall receive.

Rep. John Murtha, a House Democrat who called for the U.S. troops to surrender in Iraq, has gone from supporting the troops but not the mission, to not even supporting the troops any more. Murtha's insults are the most heinous since Senator Dick Durban called our soldiers Nazis and compared them to Pol Pot. Neal Boortz comments on Murtha's objectionable comments.

...yesterday, Murtha was at it again. Speaking to a group in his district in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, Murtha said that troops will leave Iraq in the next year because the Army is "broken, worn out and living hand to mouth." Such a vote of confidence!

So not only does Murtha want to admit defeat and leave the battlefield, now he wants to say that the troops will be leaving because they aren't up to the task. If you read between the lines, Congressman Al-Murtha is saying the war is lost because the troops have failed.

Consider for a moment what Murtha's comments might mean to the Islamic insurgency and Islamic terrorist factions around the world.

No, consider what Murtha's comments might mean to our troops. It has been my experience that bashing a soldier's family of service is a good way to get your ass kicked. You can tell a Marine that the Marine Corp logo looks like a buzzard sitting on a beach ball with an anchor shoved up his ass. But you'd better be prepared to defend yourself when you do it.

That Murtha is a United States Representative is a shame. Democrats should distance themselves from this loon.

"I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody." - Bill Cosby

Does this sound like someone we would have wanted running the War on Terror?

"What changed in the US with hurricane Katrina was a feeling that we have entered a period of consequences and that bitter cup will be offered to us again and again until we exert our moral authority and respond appropriately," [Former Presidential Candidate Al Gore] says. "I don't want to diminish the threat of terrorism at all, it is extremely serious, but on a long-term global basis, global warming is the most serious problem we are facing."

Via Say Uncle

Ricky asks:

Anyone seen these guys [Kerry and Edwards - Ed.] in black churches since November 2, 2004?

No time for that with all the hunting I'm sure they're doing.

Via Taranto comes this CNN transcript of anchorman Carol Lin describing the impetus for the two weeks of rioting in France:

...it's been 11 days since two African- American teenagers were killed, electrocuted during a police chase, which prompted all of this.

Quote of the week goes to he whose name shall not be spoken:

You know, this could qualify as one of those "You know you're a Gun Geek when..." statements: when your girlfriend says, "Let's do something you enjoy this weekend," and your first thoughts are about teaching her to shoot, instead of licking whipped cream off her naughty bits.

Former Education Secretary William Bennett allegedly said something stupid, reports CNN.

Bennett, who held prominent posts in the administrations of former presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush [41], told a caller to his syndicated radio talk show Wednesday: "If you wanted to reduce crime, you could -- if that were your sole purpose -- you could abort every black baby in this country and your crime rate would go down.

"That would be an impossibly ridiculous and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down," he said.

Naturally, and perhaps justifiably, the Democrats are in a tizzy. But what I don't understand, are the calls on the current Bush Administration to denounce Bennett's comments, as if Bennett works for (or ever worked for) George W. Bush [43]. Never one to turn away from a microphone, the homecoming queen enters the fracas:

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-California, called on President Bush to condemn the comments by Bennett, who was anti-drug chief in Bush's father's administration.

What would be really funny is if Bush came out and said something like, "Uh.. okay. I think Bennett's comments on abortion were reprehensible. This Administration, as well as the former Administrations of Reagan and Bush [41] have always stood against abortion."

Okay, maybe making light of the situation is a little crass. But if Bennett wants to make prejudicial remarks on the air, that's between him and his employer. Had this been the sloganmaster Jesse Jackson or Louis Farrakhan making prejudicial remarks about whites, and Bush "condemned" their comments, you'd hear charges of censorship and violated First Amendment rights. Democrats would be needling Bush for having a chilling effect on free speech.

Sometimes when someone makes an ass of themselves, the best thing for you to do is just walk away shaking your head.

UPDATE: Neal reports that Bennett's comments were in the context of an ongoing discussion where it was supposed that the decreased crime rate is due to the an increased abortion rate. [I wonder if shooting a 20 year old mugger is considered a 63rd trimester abortion.] Bennett's best come back line: "I'll not take instruction from Teddy Kennedy. A young woman likely drowned because of his negligence."

Say Uncle brings up the topic of anticipatory search warrants. Those would be warrants issued not because you've done something, but because they think you might do something.

["anticipatory" search warrants] anticipate the defendant doing something in the future . . . and essentially find that, while there is no probable cause right now, upon the defendant's doing the anticipated action, there will be probable cause in the future, so let the warrant issue now, to be executed only after the anticipated act. The minor problem is that the Fourth Amendment clearly says "no warrant shall issue but upon probable cause."

Uncle also beats me to the punch line with, "So, where's the division of future crime? I want my minority report."

"Anti-war protestors in D.C. are met today by a stronger force of Bush supporters. We'll have that story and all the day's news, coming up after the movie." -- Jennifer Ryan, WUSA TV-9 (CBS) in Washington D.C. reporting during half-time of the Steelers-Patriots game.

"You are stuck on stupid. I'm not going to answer that question." -- Lt. Gen. Russel Honore to a gaggle of reporters who insisted on asking the same stupid question over and over.

"If Sen. Mary Landrieu were as good at busing black people to safety as she was at busing them to the polls to vote, none of them would have died."

(via Wizbang)

"I am not going to level criticism at local and state officials. Mayor Nagin and most mayors in this country have a hard time getting their people to work on a sunny day, less alone getting them out of the city in front of a hurricane..." -- Senator Mary Landrieu, D-LA.

Paraphrasing the announcer during the VT-Duke game on Saturday:

Duke's only sold out twice, for Virginia Tech, and the Rolling Stones.

"He'll be remembered primarily for his votes rather than for the content or quality of his decisions. And it's consistent throughout his life. He started his career by being a kind of Republican thug who pushed and shoved to keep African-American and Hispanic voters from voting." -- Alan Dershowitz on the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist, about 3 hours after the news of Rehnquist's death had been announced.

"That bullet is a tribal mark, orientation, something we all gotta get sometimes -- just as long as we don't die, it's fine." -- Rapper Petey Pablo, after Marion "Suge" Knight was shot in the leg at a party preceding the MTV Video Music Awards.

Who said this:

"We've exhausted other efforts to stop him, and killing him certainly seems more proportionate to his crimes and discriminate in its effect than massive bombing raids that will inevitably kill innocent civilians..."

Was it Pat Robertson calling for the assassination of Hugo Chavez? No, it was none other than former Clinton aide George Snufalufagus, who apparently wrote an entire Newsweek article on why we should assassinate Saddam Hussein in 1997.

"If Clinton decides we can and should assassinate Saddam, he could call in national-security adviser Sandy Berger and sign a secret National Security Decision Directive authorizing it."

I'm sure you remember the media outrage.

"It looks like today, and this could change--as of today, it looks like women will be worse off in Iraq than they were when Saddam Hussein was president of Iraq." -- Democrat National Committee Chairman Howard Dean.

"What the propagandists on the right have done is make people afraid to say they are Democrats. We have to be out there. We have to be vocal. We have to be pushing our version of the facts because their version of the facts is very unfactual" -- DNC Chairman Howard Dean

"Clinton says lawyers must make their voices heard in Washington" -- AP Headline, August 8, 2005.

"We cannot do our duty if either Judge Roberts or the Bush administration hides elements of his professional record..." -- Senator John Kerry.

Then there's this:

The Godfather captured this exchange between Katie Couric and Chris Matthews, discussing the recess appointment of John Bolton. Katie apparently doesn't know much about the U.S. Constitution.

THE PERKY KATIE: So over the weekend the White House, Chris, seemed to indicate that President Bush is poised to use his recess appointment power and send John Bolton to the UN without a Senate confirmation vote. (exasperated) How can he do that!

MATTHEWS: Well, he can do it under the law and he can make the appointment through the end of this Congress, which means the earliest days of 2007. It's interesting because the title that he's getting is "permanent representative to the United Nations," and it won't be a permanent appointment. It will be a recess appointment, only good for one Congress. He really won't have the full authority of someone like Daniel Patrick Moynihan who spoke for the whole country, not just for the president.

As if any job is really permanent.

Businesses are made up of people, and corporations do not hold wealth. When a business earns money, it must be passed on to one or more of the following three groups of people: stockholders in the form of greater shareholder equity; employees in the form of increased wages and benefits; or customers in the form of greater value per dollar. Likewise, when businesses lose money, the cost is passed on to one or more of those same three groups of people. In a free market society, it's usually a symbiotic relationship with all three benefiting in some way or another from each other. Employees sell their labor, stockholders invest in the company, and customers buy product or services all at a mutually beneficial price the market will bear. And they are all in it for some sort of economic benefit.

But then there's this very telling statement about four union's decision to break away from the AFL-CIO, a union of labor unions.

...many union presidents, labor experts and Democratic Party leaders fear the split will weaken the movement politically and hurt unionized workers who need a united and powerful ally against business interests and global competition.

It is a foolhardy employee that is against the business interests of the company to which he sells his labor. And of course the Democrats who come calling every other November aren't too happy about the union split either.

A divided labor movement worries Democratic leaders who rely on the AFL-CIO's money and manpower on Election Day.

"Anything that sidetracks us from our goals ... is not healthy," said Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., chairman of the House campaign committee.

Yeah, but an employee's goal (union or not) is to get the most benefit they can from their labor, not to subsidize the re-election of a double-talking politician who comes around making empty promises every couple of years.

"...brilliant legal mind, a straight shooter, articulate, and he should not have trouble being confirmed by October. He's good in every way, except he's not a woman." -- Sandra Day O'Connor, commenting on John Roberts who was nominated as her replacement.

Hillary Clinton, leatherneck?

"Gee, now it was probably 19 years ago - in 1975," Mrs. Clinton recalled. "I decided that I was very interested in having some experience in serving in some capacity in the military."

"Because we all love the military so much," Mr. Clinton interjected helpfully.

Hillary resumed: "So I walked into our local recruiting office, and I think it was just my bad luck that the person who happened to be there on duty could not have been older than 21. He was in perfect physical shape."

She remembered telling the recruiter, "I wanted to explore - I didn't know whether I thought active duty would be a good idea, reserve, you know, maybe National Guard, something along those lines."

But Hillary's bid to become a leatherneck soon came unraveled.

"This young man looked at me and he said, 'How old are you?'" she recalled.

"I said, 'Well, 27' ... I had these really thick glasses on.

"He said, 'How bad's your eyesight?'

"I said, 'It's pretty bad.'

"And he said, 'How bad?'

"So I told him.

"He said, 'That's pretty bad.'

"And he finally said to me, he said: 'You're too old. You can't see. And you're a woman.' And then he went on ... this man, young man, was a Marine.

"He said, 'But maybe the dogs [Army] would take you.'"

"This is not a very encouraging conversation," Mrs. Clinton recalled thinking. "So maybe I'll look for another way to serve my country."

Heh. You know, if I had told a recruiter I've got flat feet, I'm overweight, I've got bad eyesight, and I tend to shoot my friends in the back by accident, would you say I was really trying to join the Marines?

President Bush nominated John Roberts for the Supreme Court, and some Democrats are already out making jackasses of themselves in front of the microphone. Senator Chuck Schumer even stole Joe Biden's make new law quote.

"Now that he is nominated for a position where he can overturn precedent and make law, it is even more important that he fully answers a very broad range of questions." -- Senator Chuck Schumer, D-NY.

"The burden is on a nominee to the Supreme Court to prove that he is worthy, not on the Senate to prove he is unworthy." -- Senator Chuck Schumer, D-NY.

"This is a very, very activist court. I want to know whether he's going to be like that, somebody who would eagerly and willingly overturn settled law." -- Senator Patrick Leahy, D-VT.

No word on whether or not Sen. George Voinovich, R-OH, cried or not.

Remember, just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean the Republicans aren't really out to get you. Or in the case of Democrat talking head, Paul Begala, Republicans and members of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy are out to kill him.

Mr. Begala, who was participating in a panel discussion, created a stir when he declared that Republicans had done a "poor job of defending" the United States, CNSNews.com reports.

Republicans, he added, "want to kill us."

He continued, "I was driving past the Pentagon when that plane hit" on September 11. "I had friends on that plane. This is deadly serious to me.

"They want to kill me and my children if they can. But if they just kill me and not my children, they want my children to be comforted -- that while they didn't protect me because they cut my taxes, my children won't have to pay any money on the money they inherit," Mr. Begala said.

Begala apparently thinks the 9-11 hijackers were Republicans.

Julianne Malveaux, who writes for USA Today calls President Bush a "terrorist", and the United States a "terrorist nation". Newsmax reports on her interview with radio pundit Sean Hannity.

"Terrorism in the United States is as old as we are. You want me to give you a litany of terrorism? You want me to start with what's happened to the Indian population? You want to go on to what happened in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1921?"

"C'mon now, Sean," Malveaux told Hannity. "We are terrorists."

Asked point-blank if the U.S. was a "terrorist nation," Malveaux shot back: "Oh, Absolutely."

In the next breath she added, "The chickens have come home to roost," in an apparent reference to the 9/11 attacks.

Asked if America was "a good country," Malveaux responded tersely, "We're a country." Pressed on why she omitted the adjective "good," she replied: "I can't answer that. I think we have some good and I think we have some evil."

Malveaux made her comments over public airwaves, without fear of government retaliation or retribution. Terrorist state indeed.

Is anyone else wondering if Republican Senator Arlen Spector is completely off his rocker? Senator Spector is weighing in on the issue of Supreme Court vacancies. Spector is suggested that President Bush nominate to the position of Chief Justice, a former lawyer named Sandra Day O'Connor.

"I think it would be very tempting if the president said to Justice O'Connor, 'You could help the country now,' " Mr. Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania and a pivotal player in any confirmation hearings, said in an interview on the CBS program "Face the Nation." "She has received so much adulation that a confirmation proceeding would be more like a coronation, and she might be willing to stay on for a year or so."

There are several problems with this approach. First of all, Ms. O'Connor has already announced plans to retire from the Supreme Court. Second, the position of Chief Justice isn't even vacant. It's occupied by Justice William Rehnquist.

Now, the wacky comments of a single Senator wouldn't normally be so newsworthy, except that Mr. Spector is the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. You would think that as Chairman of the Committee that examines judicial nominations, he'd at least know who's on the Supreme Court.

"[The Supreme Court] is a totally different ball game . . . A circuit court judge is bound by stare decisis. They don't get to make new law. They have to abide by [legal precedent]." -- Senator Joe Biden on Face the Nation explaining why they would filibuster Janice Rogers Brown for Supreme Court, right after confirming her for the Appeals Court.

(Hat tip to Sgt. Fluffy)