Charlie Foxtrot

As Long As I Have A Job....

2009-11-24T22:07:00.004-05:00

#tcot #hhrs #rs #sgp
Instapundit says:

CHANGE: Blacks hit hard by economy’s punch: 34.5 percent of young African American men are unemployed.

Based on some speeches I have heard over the last several months, as long as one certain African American man is employed all other things in the world are secondary....

Stimulus Subterfuge

2009-11-24T21:27:00.004-05:00

#tcot #hhrs #rs #sgp
Its all a Stimulus Subterfuge, a Recovery Ruse, a GDP Gimmick.

In other words, the 'Great Obama Recovery'® that was announced earlier in October by the White House is all hogwash, a hoax, a fraud...a lie.

Sure, the economy was announced to have grown by 3.5%. However, that has now been revised down (GDP numbers are often adjusted) to 2.8%. 'What's so bad about that?' you might ask. 'Isn't any positive growth a good thing?' Normally, but as the blogprof points out, the only thing making this a positive number, is Stimulus cash....

That "robust" 3.5% GDP growth rate in Q3 that the AP heralded as the end of the recession sans actual jobs? That just got reduced. A lot. As in down to 2.8% now. Even that is deceiving as consumer spending, which comprises 70% of the economy, declined 0.5% during the same period (Positive GDP Fraud! Consumer Spending DOWN 0.5%. GDP Up Because Of MASSIVE DEBT!). So how is it that the GDP increased in the 3rd quarter after consumer spending decreased? Well, that's got everything to do with the 'G' in the GDP - gross. That includes consumer spending, government spending, in fact all spending. So if the consumer spending is down, one way to artificially inflate the GDP number is to increase government spending with money that the government doesn't, by the way, have. In essence, the GDP number is positive due to increased debt! It's purchased on a government card that has no credit limit.

So Stimulus cash, which is created out of thin air and injected into the economy to unknown effect, makes up 118% of the GDP growth....

So what this really means is that we will be seeing increasing GDP growth for many quarters to come, and thus a White House trumpeting a full-throated recovery, just in time for the 2010 elections.

Since only 22% of the Stimulus had been spent by the end of October, that means we have over $600 Billion left to be entered into that 'Government Spending' column that blogprof tells us about. Thus, unless consumer spending craters, this glut of Govt Spending spread over many quarters will prop up the GDP numbers for those quarters. And as it will most surely do, the White House will point to the string of positive quarters, and how their actions have saved the economy, despite the fact that it is really a Potemkin Village of economic figures...

The only problem will be the ever expanding unemployment roles....and the largest spike in employment will be found in GOP political campaigns.

[Hat Tip: Instapundit]

SNL Does Better Analysis than the MSM

2009-11-22T12:45:00.002-05:00

"As I listen to you, I am noticing that each of your plans to save money involves spending even more money. This does not inspire confidence...."

Classic.

Two thoughts - 1) Why does it take SNL to throw the BS flag on the administration's policies? Where is the MSM. Oh yeah, they are kissing Obama (what the whole video). 2) You can see how much cachè Obama has lost, even with the left-leaning SNL, when they have no problem crudely mocking Obama and even his wife.

2009: The First Year of Global Governance

2009-11-22T10:21:00.003-05:00

#tcot #hhrs #rs
Mark Steyn distills our future succinctly:

"'Climate change' and 'health care' are different ends of the same stick: They're both all-purpose pretexts for regulating every aspect of your life..."

But to protest this is somehow dangerous....

Offensensitivity

2009-11-21T16:00:00.003-05:00

#tcot #hhrs
And here I thought this country was now supposed to be beyond various sensitivities. But I guess not...

According to ESPN, two NBA commentators for on-air comments in which they pronounced the word Iranian as 'eye-ray-nian' instead of presumably 'Ear-ahh-nian'.

Clippers longtime play-by-play announcer Ralph Lawler and color analyst Michael Smith were suspended one game by the Fox Sports Prime Ticket cable network for their comments about Memphis center Hamed Haddadi.

Lawler and Smith made their off-the-cuff comments about the Iranian-born center during Wednesday night's telecast from Memphis. The on-air banter offended a viewer who e-mailed Fox to complain.

One measly emailer?? Talk about sensitive! Here is the stuff that apparently got the pair suspended:

Smith: "Look who's in."

Lawler: "Hamed Haddadi. Where's he from?"

Smith: "He's the first Iranian to play in the NBA." (Smith pronounced Iranian as "Eye-ranian," a pronunciation that offended the viewer who complained.)

Lawler: "There aren't any Iranian players in the NBA," repeating Smith's mispronunciation.

Smith: "He's the only one."

Granted some of their later banter is pretty juvenile, it is entirely innocent.

If all it takes is one lousy emailer to complain about the mispronounciation of a word to get a long-time professional suspended from their job, this country is indeed circling the drain. I mean it is not like he called him something mildly offensive like 'Ayatollah' or an even more derogatory epithet.

I guess I should not be surprised. I mean it actually has been like this for a long time. Take this Bloom County cartoon from the 1980s....

Perhaps hey should have called Haddadi a 'Teabagger', and then they would be OK....

Countering the Rise of an Epithet

2009-11-20T22:58:00.007-05:00

In the newest edition of National Review [subscription required], Jay Nordlinger has a good interim retrospective on the 'teabagger' imbroglio in 'Rise of an Epithet'...

"To “teabag” or not to “teabag”: That is not the most pressing question of these times, but it is a question to consider. Routinely, conservative protesters in the “tea party” movement are called “teabaggers,” and those calling them that do not mean it in a nice way. Many conservatives are mulling what to do about this term: fight it, embrace it, what?"

I say fight it....and of course you may want to fight fire with fire. Because I am in the mood, I will ignore a normal tendency not to sink to the Lefties' level. If they want the discourse to utilize crass barnyard imagery to subtly insult one's opponent, so be it.

If those in this country who oppose larger government control, gangster government, higher taxes, and the general slide towards European socialism can be labeled as "Teabaggers", then the Democrats and lefties who are running the country can suffer a similar epithet.

From now on, in any public reference, the Democratic Party and its actions in running the Executive and Legislative branches of government should be referred to as...."The Donkey Show".

Washington, Tijuana....it doesn't matter. We are all getting screwed.....

Rep. Charlie Foxtrot (R) TX-52

2009-11-20T19:45:00.005-05:00

It seems that people are now getting really snarky and declaring their candidacies for some of those non-existent Congressional districts revealed by recovery.gov to be receiving Stimulus $$.

Take Grant Bosse for example:

Republican activist and free market think-tanker Grant Bosse formally declared his candidacy today in New Hampshire’s 00th Congressional District after news that the Obama administration has attributed a majority of the state’s stimulus jobs to that non-existent district.

Good on ya Grant! But while that is all well and good, I am not sure why you are going to so much trouble to declare candidacy for an election that will never occur.

Since this is the case, I am going to simply declare myself the new Congressional Representative of the non-existent TX-52, based on the results of a non-existent election! Good folks like Grant Bosse are working way too hard at this....

So why did I pick TX-52 to be my new fiefdom? First, I am a Texas resident. And second, it received $8.9 million of Stimulus cash, and it has created "0" jobs. That sounds like the makings of a great slush fund to me!

Now where is my application for the 'Friends of Angelo' program???

[Hat Tip: Instapundit]

Shocking CIA Torture News

2009-11-18T20:51:00.002-05:00

ABC News bring us the shocking news of a CIA secret prison....

EXCLUSIVE: CIA Secret 'Torture' Prison Found at Fancy Horseback Riding Academy

The CIA built one of its secret European prisons inside an exclusive riding academy outside Vilnius, Lithuania, a current Lithuanian government official and a former U.S. intelligence official told ABC News this week.

[...]

"The activities in that prison were illegal," said human rights researcher John Sifton.

They go on to reveal the horrors that went on there...

They included eye-gouging; piercing of hands with an electric drill; suspension from a ceiling; electric shock; rape and other forms of sexual abuse; beating of the soles of feet; mock executions; extinguishing cigarettes on the body; and acid baths.

Oooops. That last quote wasn't from the ABC report, it was from an old Daily Mail report on the torture under the Saddam Hussein regime.

Here is the *torture* Mr. Sifton says happened at this alleged CIA location:

The activities in that prison were illegal," said human rights researcher John Sifton. "They included various forms of torture, including sleep deprivation, forced standing, painful stress positions."

Oh the horror!

Let us compare those two again.

- eye-gouging; piercing of hands with an electric drill; suspension from a ceiling; electric shock; rape and other forms of sexual abuse; beating of the soles of feet; mock executions; extinguishing cigarettes on the body; and acid baths

- sleep deprivation, forced standing, painful stress positions

Yeah, I can see the equivalence now.

Let be realistic. One is torture, and one is essentially severe inconvenience.

Actually, the second example sounds like most C-130 flights I had in and out of Iraq and Afghanistan....

"We have been flim-flammed"

2009-11-17T21:55:00.004-05:00

#tcot #hhrs #rs
Nothing like a Foghorn Leghorn quote to be apropos to government policy....

Unless of course Foghorn Leghorn is part of the federal government...

SEN. LEGHORN ANNOUNCES $14.7 MILLION FOR TEXAS; ‘YEE, HAW!’ HE ADDS

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE*

WASHINGTON – U.S. Sen. Foghorn J. Leghorn, D-State, announced Tuesday that he had won an extra $14.7 million in stimulating funds from the solicitous Obama Administration for the people of seven congressional districts in Texas.

“This funding will go for good,” the Senator said. “Why, son, 98 hardworking, taxpaying, aging, poor, honest, hungry, working-class, middle-class, undereducated, disadvantaged, undercounted, overlooked, underprivileged, overtaxed and uninsured constituents of my good friends and esteemed colleagues in the 52nd, 58th, 86th, 00th, 68th, 91st, and 85th Congressional Districts of Texas deserve every penny,” he added. “Yep, they can shore count on me. Vote Leghorn! Yee, haw!”

Go to Moe Lane and read the whole thing. The best satire is always rooted in the truth...

Now lets get back to Senator Leghorn...

"I'm just a loud-mouthed schnook."

Put Away Your Pink Ribbons

2009-11-17T21:09:00.004-05:00

#tcot #hhrs #rs #sgp
The United States vastly outpaces the rest of the world in Breast Cancer survival for one simple reason....screening.

Researchers discovered that it was because of breast cancer screenings that women with breast cancer have a 14 percent higher survival rate in the United States than in Europe. Breast cancer mortality is 52 percent higher in Germany than in the United States, and 88 percent higher in the United Kingdom. Breast cancer mortality is also 9 percent higher in Canada than in the US. Less than 25 percent of U.S. women die from breast cancer. In Britain, it’s 46 percent; France, 35 percent; Germany, 31 percent; Canada, 28 percent; Australia, 28 percent, and New Zealand, 46 percent.

However now a Health & Human Services panel recommends that women should reduce the number of mammograms that they get. What is the reasoning behind this recommendation? They cite "evidence that the potential harm to women having annual exams beginning at age 40 outweighs the benefit..."

One might argue that the numbers listed above would counter that line of reasoning.

And the intelligentsia cackled when some warned that ~~socialized medicine~~ Obamacare would lead to rationing with faceless bureaucrats deciding levels of treatment. Like, say, a cancer related recommendation from a panel that doesn't have one oncologist.

Of course the left will argue back that this is simply a recommendation, not law. But do we really think that when Obamacare is the law of the land that these bureaucratic pronouncements won't become policy for those who are stuck with government-run health care?

Not the Hope and Change I was expecting....

Obama Supports the Military...'If Necessary'

2009-11-13T16:10:00.005-05:00

#tcot #hhrs #rs
President Obama gave a speech at Elmendorf AFB in Alaska on his way to Japan. I am sure it was intended as a rah-rah, we support you type of speech. Unfortunately, there is some awkward phrasing that perhaps reveals a little too much of the President's real thinking toward the military and its mission.

"So as your Commander-in-Chief, here’s the commitment I make to you....I want you guys to understand I will never hesitate to use force to protect the American people or our vital interests. (Applause.) But I also make you this promise: I will not risk your lives unless it is necessary to America's vital interest. (Applause.) [...] And if it is necessary, the United States of America will have your back. We will give you the strategy and the clear mission you deserve. We will give you the equipment and support that you need to get the job done. And that includes public support back home. That is a promise that I make to you. (Applause.)"

Hmmm....lets parse that a little bit....

"We will give you the strategy and the clear mission you deserve..."

OK, that must be a promise for the second term, since it has been 10 months now, and the administration is still showing the indecisiveness of my three-year-old when it comes to choosing a strategy for our hottest and most vital engagement.

The big dollop of condescension however is contained in the sentence just prior to that.

"And if it is necessary, the United States of America will have your back."

Uhhhhhhh....we are the United States Armed Forces, and you are the President of the United States and our Commander-in Chief.....shouldn't you ALWAYS have our back?!?!?

President Bush may have ended up being a little squishy on a lot of issues I would have preferred he not be, but at least I always knew he had my back. Come hell or high water.

Now I will just have to settle for "if necessary" during this time of war. Not exactly the change I was hoping for....

Deficit Hawks -- Now Starring President Obama!

2009-11-13T11:39:00.004-05:00

Suddenly this week the Obama Administration has become deficit hawks. Someone tell them that Halloween was two weeks ago...

Politico headline:

After spending binge, White House says it will focus on deficits

Let me translate that for you....say hello to Defense cuts! Hey, it worked for Clinton....

Oh, and some silly new taxes too....

We're Getting Socks for Christmas... Thanks Grandma Pelosi!

2009-11-12T11:15:00.005-05:00

Nancy Pelosi lets the cat out of the bag and lets us know what we are going to be getting for Christmas...

Errr, thanks Grandma...just what I always wanted....

[Hat Tip: Gateway Pundit]

The Myopia of Incomprehensibility

2009-11-12T10:30:00.005-05:00

Claudia Rosett sums the President's 'incomprehensible' conclusion about FT Hood....

Obama's muddled message at Fort Hood

[...]

[President]"These Americans did not die on a foreign field of battle. They were killed here, on American soil, in the heart of this great state and the heart of this great American community. This is the fact that makes the tragedy even more painful, even more incomprehensible."

[...]

In the media, the question of the hour is how the military could have missed the warning signs of Hasan's impending attack. Such details are important, and it would be a great idea to have better mechanisms (or any mechanisms at all?) within the military to catch the warning signs and act in time. But vigilance of that kind starts at the top. Right now the biggest warning sign of all is a president who looks at a pattern of jihadi communications, recruiting and attacks on America, and tells the public that the bloodshed at Fort Hood is "incomprehensible."

Indeed

Searching for the Wrong Muslim Backlash

2009-11-09T17:36:00.005-05:00

The NRO's Corner steered me to an interesting NYT article on how many "...fear that the relationship between the military and its Muslim service members will only grow more difficult..." following MAJ Nidal Hasan's murderous rampage. In other words, as stated by the Army Chief of Staff, they are "...worried about a backlash against Muslims in the armed forces..."

The NYT devotes a lot of column inches to the standard PC meme that we troglodytes in the military will take our anger out in a "backlash" on those other Muslims in the Armed Forces. This idea is pretty funny given that the military is probably the most integrated segment of American society. But hey, what would we expect liberal CSJ grads working at the NYT to know about the military...

Anyhow, despite the fact that an article abut discrimination against Muslims makes some prejudicial assumptions that all Arab-Americans must be Muslims, it does provide us an interesting revelation....there has already been a backlash against Muslims in the military.

Just not the one you might think.

In the South Asian and Arab immigrant communities where the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are deeply unpopular, Muslim military members have often felt criticized for their service, Muslim chaplains, military members, veterans advocates and others said in interviews.

Some return exhausted and traumatized from their tours, only to hear at their local mosques that they will go to hell for “killing Muslims,” said Qaseem A. Uqdah, the executive director of the American Muslim Armed Forces and Veterans Affairs Council.

“Imagine you are 20 years old and you hear you’re going to purgatory,” Mr. Uqdah said. He argued that Muslim groups must work harder to help their veterans cope with coming home. “We are failing as a community here in America.”

So the the largest backlash against Muslims in the military is from.....other Muslims. Hmmmm...I don't think that was the meme that the NYT was trying to advance...

FT Hood MSM Meme Non-Sequitur

2009-11-09T06:50:00.002-05:00

Noah Pollack at Commentary's Contentions blog points us to the tip of the MSM's excuse iceberg on the FT Hood story. According to Time Magazine, Hasan had "Secondary Trauma"...

Gateway Pundit provides us with a good screen shot of the Time webpage of the story.

One thing I find interesting, and totally out of place, is Time's additional link in the story, 'See pictures of suicide in the recruiters ranks'.

This will take you to a Time story from April about the issue of recruiter suicide. I ,for the life of me, cannot figure out why that would be relevant to the discussion of a mass-murdering Army psychiatrist with Jihadi tendencies. Does Time not know enough about the military to think that two are somehow related? Talk about an inappropriate non-sequitur.

And as far as their search for a to excuse Hasan for his actions, pehaps they ought to consider that Hasan's "Secondary Trauma may not have come from listening to his patients, but rather from listening to the Wahhabist clerics at the mosques he liked to attend...

Tyranny of the Minority Majority

2009-11-08T08:33:00.004-05:00

#hhrs #tcot #rs
Some prescient thoughts on the results of last night...

Jennifer Rubin:

If Pelosi gets her 218 votes, it will be unprecedented. It is fair to say that never will a piece of legislation this sweeping (and damaging) have been passed over the opposition of so much of the electorate and on the votes of such a narrow ideological slice of the governing class.

'A Senate Friend':

If the only thing bipartisan is the opposition, and a party with an overwhelming majority is scrambling to get it over the first hurdle, it sure says something about the bill.

I believe that this is what might be called the 'Tyranny of the Minority Majority'...

Viva Reaganomics!

2009-11-07T07:54:00.003-05:00

Megan McArdle declares that the Dems have found the 'Worst. Talking Point. Ever.'

"All I know is that Speaker Pelosi is trying to force her members to vote for a bill that the American people have soundly rejected," added House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio).

Democrats counter that their agenda has kick-started a recovery on Wall Street, even if it hasn't trickled down to the job market yet, and that Republicans are putting what they've begun at risk.

All I can say is that it is nice to see that the Dems are finally supporting trickle down economics.

(Hat Tip: Instapundit)

House Obamacare Bill Word Cloud

2009-10-29T22:32:00.005-04:00

Below is the word cloud for the top 100 words that appear in the text of the House Health Care Bill:

Hmmmm...looks like ~~Indians~~ Native Americans get a lot of attention in this bill. And apparently, so will the secretarial pool....

The 44th White President?

2009-10-21T22:56:00.003-04:00

Mark Steyn comments on the still-birthing of "Post-Racial America":

So black liberal pundit Juan Williams defends Rush Limbaugh, and black liberal radio host Warren Ballentine tells him: "Go back to the porch."

Gotta love this post-racial presidency. At this rate, everything will be all race, all the time, 24/7 by mid-November.

By the way, the folks standing up for Rush in this clip are two black men and a gay woman. Racists!

So two black men and a gay woman walk into the Democratic party bar and Rick Sanchez tells them: "Sorry, we don't serve angry white men."

It has been quite obvious for some time that the people with the real prejudice are those on the Left still wearing their ideological blinders. Most of America (including mainstream conservatives) shed theirs a long time ago.

Steyn may be right about the "all race, all the time" thing. But the question is...Which race? Given that so much energy has been expended on the Left extolling how a bi-racial individual is the "First Black President", I wonder that if his polls sink too low the Left might distance themselves and begin to refer to Obama as the "44th White President".

10th Amendment as Guerrilla Street Art

2009-10-20T21:04:00.005-04:00

Instapundit points out some "guerrilla street art" at Gateway Pundit, where someone has dared insult the emperor down in Houston....

However, squeaking out the win with extra points for original use of the Constitution as art via vandalism, is an anonymous reprobate in Georgia...

Hat Tip: Red State tweet

The Subprime Peace Prize

2009-10-09T08:49:00.003-04:00

So President Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize, and many people are asking "For What?"

Well isn't it obvious? He won it for doing "Jack and Squat"....

YGTBFSM.....

Our General's Wisdom Quickly Falls Out Of Fashion

2009-10-05T06:56:00.003-04:00

#tcot #hhrs #rs #sgp
2007:

As Speaker Pelosi said, the President's plan will receive an up-or-down vote in both Chambers of Congress. With that vote, our hope -- our prayer -- is that this President will finally listen. Listen to the Generals.

2009:

An adviser to the administration said: "People aren't sure whether McChrystal is being naïve or an upstart. To my mind he doesn't seem ready for this Washington hard-ball and is just speaking his mind too plainly."

In London, Gen McChrystal, who heads the 68,000 US troops in Afghanistan as well as the 100,000 Nato forces, flatly rejected proposals to switch to a strategy more reliant on drone missile strikes and special forces operations against al-Qaeda.

Oh, how things change so quickly.... I wonder what the difference could be??

Chicago Needs Some Community Organizing

2009-09-29T10:45:00.003-04:00

Drudge headline:

Olympic Spirit: Video Shows Brutal Gang Murder In Chicago

What Chicago needs is some community organizing....oh, wait...

Hollywood Is Finally Free to Speak Its Mind!!

2009-09-28T22:15:00.007-04:00

Remember the bad ol' days of the Bush Administration, when artists were afraid to speak their minds, and Hollywood was forced to make pro-Iraq war movies? No? Thats probably because we weren't living in Bizarro America. However if you listen to some liberals at the time, the mere atmosphere emanating from the Bush White House crushed all dissent.

Well now that Obama is President, the morally superior artistic proletariat is free to express their rage against their most important target....Sarah Palin??

It has been just over a year since Palin was thrust onto the national scene, and has survived many a skewering by the artistic left on the perpetual motion medium that is TV. But I think we have what would be our first throw-away jab a Palin in a major Hollywood release (be sure to watch the trailer in Quicktime HD, I will explain why in a sec).

The film, staring Sarah Jessica Parker, is about an NYC yuppie couple wisked off into witness protection in Hollywood's stereotypical podunk town in Wyoming (look out for Dick Cheney and his shotgun!) There is one scene where a fine-looking brunette cowmama (Mary Steenburgen) racks a shotgun, and Parker's aghast yuppie declares, "Oh my God, It's Sarah Palin." Oh...so clever. I am guessing that line has been percolating in some writer's mind since before he was released from interment in the Ashcroft Artistic Gulags in late January.

This line is sure to elicit guffaws aplenty, and make all left-thinking patrons of this film feel superior at having laughed in the face of evil and survived! Congratulations Hollywood, you made it to safety after 8 years of purgatory. Let the smugness flow....

Now, if the left can be catty about Palin, I suppose its OK for us to be so in return as well. Thus I have one question...When did the 44 year-old Sarah Jessica Parker turn 60?!? Egads! HD is NOT kind to the SJP. Somebody call the Botox Emergency line....