This is rich.

“I have to say I am surprised by the controversy surrounding my statement, because I think it was a pretty straightforward commentary that you probably don’t need to handcuff a guy, a middle-aged man who uses a cane, who’s in his own home,” Obama said.”

You do, when he’s being disorderly and yelling at a man doing his job.

My favorite is a line from his original remarks:

“I don’t know, not having been there and not seeing all the facts, what role race played in that [Gates case]…”

So the President says “Hey, I don’t know what’s going on here, but I’m going to comment anyway.”

Here’s the police report.

Basically, someone called the cops on Gates who was apparently trying to force his way into his own home.  The cop responds, and Gates flips his lid.  At this point, all Gates has to do is show his ID, let the officer process it, and they can all go on with there lives.  He doesn’t do that.  Instead, Gates begins screaming at the officer because aparantly, Gates isn’t someone to be “messed with”.  He finally gives his ID, and continues berating and mocking the officer.  After being warned that he would get arrested, and continuing his conduct, Gates is arrested.

Who needed to stay cool?  Who was the one acting like a racist?  Gates immediately believes a cop is there just because he’s black, and not because of a misunderstanding.  Hell, if I tried to force open my door, I’d hope a neighbor would call the cops.  Instead of cooperating, Gates exacerbates the issue and claims it’s about race, screaming “this is what happens to a black man in America.”

Someone should tell Mr. Gates that what happened isn’t what happens to black Americans, but those who are disorderly and don’t respect authority.

But what is really sickening is how President Obama makes the issue worse.  There is no need for him to comment on this, and he even admits he doesn’t know the full story.  If you don’t know the whole story, why are you commenting on it?  Why blow the situation up?  And to say that “cooler heads should have prevailed” while your defending the man who couldn’t stay calm?  It’s lunacy.  The President is defending a man who is behaving exactly how he didn’t want, and attacking the man who did!

Wasn’t Obama supposed to be the end of racism?  Why is he making this situation worse?

And what are the chances of seeing a (sincere) apology?

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0709/25083.html

Apparantly, it doesn’t click with Mr. Summers that some people can no longer can afford the Internet, computers, electricity, etc. at the levels they could before.

No word on if Mr. Summers looked into just “economic depression” or if he took into account related terms.

This is just the most incredible thing I’ve seen.  Sen. Boxer doesn’t even care that she has been blatantly offensive to this man.  She never even apologizes after basically telling Mr. Alford that he wasn’t being black enough and should fall in line with other black groups, even if they have nothing to do with business.  Sen. Boxer doesn’t even believe he’s from California, nor that he owns land.  This is so blatant and brutal, she should be embarrassed.

If she wasn’t trying to base this off of race, all Sen. Boxer had to do was explain the misunderstanding.  She doesn’t.  Instead, she just trys to move on and says that the study is going into the record for review since she doesn’t have time to explain it.

How can she not even apologize?  Mr. Alford is clearly upset, and Sen Boxer just keeps going, ignoring the mans feelings.  Her actions here are disgusting.  Aren’t Liberals supposed to govern with their emotions?  Aren’t they supposed to care how people, especially minorities, feel?  As far as I know, Sen. Boxer has yet to apologize for her actions.

Here’s an interview with Mr. Alford from Breitbart (can’t load the video here).  He’s clearly still upset, and mentions how Sen. Boxer just left afterwards.  He goes right after her, and pulls no punches.

I hope California is embarased.

Now the world has had a chance to see what the policies of an inexperienced far-left can do to a once prosperous country.  While not 100% his fault, the policies of Barack Obama are not helping in any way.  Talk of creating a 600,000 public sector jobs means nothing when the government is eliminating countless private sector jobs, and not just in the auto industry.  Microsoft, for example, is preparing to move jobs overseas to avoid the raise in already high taxes.  You can only tax the “evil” rich and their corporations so much before they leave.

With recent elections, the Europeans, who were so in love with Obama, have proven one of 2 things – 1) the polls lied; or 2) Europe was hoping for a weaker America so there could be a power shift.  It’s as if Europe wanted to see how much of a disaster the man could be, just so long as they didn’t have to go through it themselves.

But with all the damage being done to, and by America, the Europeans are prepared to take the reigns of international power.  The European Union will be headed by the right-leaning politicians, who will have 267 seats in the European Parliament.  The left-leaning parties will be second with 159 seats – a 108 seat deficit.  Even in Lebanon, the pro-Western politicians hold an 11 seat lead over Hezbollah.

The world, the same world we tried so hard to please with the election of President Obama, is turning away from what we have given them.  They see the same things that to many in this country remain blind to – the inability of the rich to pay for everything, the failure of attempting to force the invisible hand of capitalism, the dangers of Iran and North Korea.

Apparently, it is acceptable for President Obama to tell the Iranians that they have the right to nuclear power.  Why didn’t President Obama tell the Iranians that they should join America in creating wind turbines, and searching for other forms of energy?  Nuclear power is acceptable for Iran, a vocally hostile country, but not for America?

I don’t know about you, but I’m beginning to accept the fact that President Obama is both a liar, and incapable of doing anything productive.  He is continuing to destroy the economy, and spend more money that he does not even have – a worsening of the same tactics that got us into this mess in the first place.  He has said that America, the worlds largest Christen nation, is actually a Muslim nation, while retelling stories about conversations with family members that never took place to begin with.

My only remaining question, is can we actually survive until 2012?  We have $1 trillion dollars in NEW spending with an economy that couldn’t sustain itself prior to that, and the spending is not working.  The problem remains our debts, which we refuse to payoff, and instead continue to borrow.

America became a super power by loaning money to a war torn Europe over the course of 2 World Wars, in which they were forced to lead the charge.  If the path of American self destruction continues, it will be the U.S. leading the charge in a war that involves Iran and/or North Korea (by the way, blocking shipments to North Korea is considered an act of war), and Europe will have to bail us out.  By the time this is over, we will be back to the pre World War set up of power, with Europe leading the charge, while America plays catch up.

The fact that Sonia Sotomayor has been trying cases under the belief that it is the duty of the court to create policy is upsetting, to say the least.  It is, I would have thought some what obviously, not the role of the court to create policy, but to correct it and make sure it follows the law of the land.

It is not acceptable for the court to take into consideration wage, race, age, or anything other than the law when creating an opinion.  Law is blind, fair and equal.  If someone is wronged based on the law of the land, it does not matter who is black or white, or who is rich or poor.

I don’t care about her background, or her life story.  That is not what qualifies one to be a Supreme Court Justice.  What qualifies someone for the position is understanding law, and knowing that it is blind, and doesn’t create policy.

Policy is created by the executive and legislative branches of this country, not the judicial.  It is the duty of the judicial branch to review the policy.

It is inconceivable that someone can not only do their job with such an incredibly wrong view on what the goal of the position is, but then get promoted to the highest ranking position in that field.

Although I must wonder if we should be surprised about having such a woefully under qualified nominee after electing such a woefully under qualified President.

Although Judge Wallach is currently a federal judge in the court of International Trade, he is, at least according to his Wikipedia entry, “one of the nations foremost experts on war crimes and the law of war.”  Most importantly to this posting, his quote is correct.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that waterboarding is “usually real drowning that simulates death.”  But no word in the excerpt is more important than “usually”.

The idea of waterboarding as torture goes back well before the War on Ter…I mean “Overseas Contingency Operation”, presumably getting it’s start from a similar practice during the time of the Spanish Inquisition.

Most notably, waterboarding became a known practice, and admittedly a war crime, during World War II, when the Japanese would tie people in a position similar to Da Vinci’s famous Vitruvian Man (with limbs spread apart), and pour water directly onto a towel that covered the prisoners face.  While this was happening, the interrogators would either continue to ask questions, or beat the prisoner.  This would lead to the ingestion of water, followed by a severe beating that would force most of the water to be expelled, allowing the process to continue.  This process is similar to the types of waterboarding used in the Algerian War, and other documented uses of the technique.

Undeniably, the ingestion of water, combined with long periods of pouring, give a clear definition of an act synonymous with drowning.  Judge Wallach is correct in his assessment that this is real drowning that simulates death, and is also correct in stating that this is the normal process of waterboarding.

While the history of waterboarding shows the norm, the present form shows an evolved exception.  There are two main differences in the American form of torture as compared to the previous example.  For starters, there is no physical beating, but most importantly there is no ingestion of water.  This shifts the modern day version of waterboarding away from a controlled drowning with simulated death, and towards a simulated drowning.

On the rare occasions that the CIA has used the technique, a medical expert has been on hand, with the pouring of water taking place for 20-40 seconds, and the detainee allowed to catch his breath in between.  The practice is documented in the Bybee memo, which also states that the form of waterboarding used by the government is not torture.

When broken down, I believe that the differences in the techniques is too great to leave the torture tag on the practice.

There is also the belief that when torture begins, it’s easier to continue it, leading to a “slippery slope” of worsening pain, physically and mentally.  This is not acceptable for 2 reasons:

1 – The practice of waterboarding was used on the three most valuable (information wise) detainees in American captivity.  It did not advance in severity, nor was it used on any other detainees.  This was far from an initiation to Guantanamo Bay.

2 – In the case of enhanced interrogation, there is no “slippery slope”.  It is more of a bell curve, one in which we currently sit at the peak.  From this position, we can just as easily slide forward (and put to much on the table), as we could slide backwards (and take to much off the table).  At what point does enough become to little?  Where would the removal of interrogation techniques end?  Bombarding terrorists with questions will not accomplish anything productive.

Many in this country have accepted the premise that torture should be used in a “ticking time bomb” scenario; that is, a situation in which we know a bomb will go off soon, and we have a man in custody with the information that is needed to stop it.  The waterboarding of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, which led to the break up of a plot that would have seen planes fly into buildings in Los Angeles, is as close to the ticking time bomb as we are going to get without the aid of Kiefer Sutherland.  The technique used by the CIA is also one that is used by the military in the training of personnel, specifically special ops forces.  By classifying the American version of waterboarding as torture, it would effectively state that it is the policy of the American military to torture the countries civilians.  Do we really believe that the government would torture Americans, and if so, do we want to open up that can of worms?

What the topic of torture has become, as noted in the previously posted article from Paul Begala, is a way to hit the Bush administration on national security, something our previous President built his time in office around.

With the recent revelation that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi was briefed on the enhanced interrogation techniques used, this no longer makes waterboarding a strict Bush-Cheney policy as Begala and others want it to be.  This became a bipartisan American policy.  Granted, Pelosi is saying that the CIA briefing she received did not state that waterboarding would be used, but as Sen. Kit Bond responded, the CIA doesn’t brief on the things they don’t/won’t do, and only brief with complete information on what will be done.

If the tactics were truly believed by Speaker Pelosi to be illegal and immoral, she had the power to pressure the administration into changing course or to, at the very least, go public with the information that she had.  She did neither.

You can argue over the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of the current form of waterboarding, even the morality of it, but being the stark difference in execution of the technique, the simulation of drowning as opposed the simulation of death, the line used to classify the new type of waterboarding as torture or not is, at the very least, blurred.  This isn’t the same thing we have seen in the past.

Here’s a link to a Wall Street Journal article about the great state of New York and how they are dealing with the economic crsis up north in Albany.  Before you click, can you guess what it is?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123940286075109617.html

Looking back on it, they weren’t to far off, where they?

From Marxism, came Leninism, than Stalinism.  If you continue your way down the tree of communism, you find “Obamaism”.  There is no other way I can find to describe this mans economic policies.

Anyone who has even thought about entering the stock market wishes they could find that one magic stock that makes them rich practically over night.  The hunt is always on for the “next Google” that can shoot up, seemingly out of nowhere, to become a high triple digit per share holding.  The reality of the situation is that it is practically impossible to make large sums of money in a short amount of time by any legal means.  But, unfortunately, you can lose money in a blink of an eye.

This is why the rich are so rare.  It is not easy to become them, as it takes hard work, education, and a whole lot of luck.

Now, President Obama has gone where no American President has dared to venture.  He has forced Rick Wagoner, the CEO of General Motors, to step down.  The President has asserted his power, and now anyone who steps into to Wagoner’s place will be nothing more than a puppet.

President Obama is also giving Chrysler 30 days to join forces with Fiat and become profitable.  The company has been losing money for years, and the White House expects it to become profitable in a month.  If it was that easy, don’t they think it would have already have been done?

Can we give President Obama 30 days to make Washington profitable?  Maybe just make his administration profitable?  Or even get more than 1 day of positive reaction from the market?  If he can’t, then we should stop paying taxes.

It’s been over 3 months Mr. President.  Your policies have not worked to the slightest degree.  You have waged war on the economy and you have lost.  Count your losses and give up.  Do so before you cripple more lives of the same Americans your trying to “save”.

It’s funny really.  I thought the President wanted to “spread the wealth around” and play Robin Hood.  Oddly enough, he’s not taking from the rich and giving it to the poor and middle class.  He’s taking from the poor and middle class to give to the rich that which they have already lost.

With bailout after bailout, into the same sectors of the government, the President is not only acting like an unwise investor, he is also doing it with his own fortune, or any other investors.  He is doing it with our money.

But really, should we be shocked?  The taxpayers have been bailing out Washington since it went bankrupt back under the “great” Franklin Delano Roosevelt.  Back then, the government forced us to accept a plan that gave them a credit card with no limit, for which they never have to worry about a bill.  It’s like handing your wallet to you teenager with no super vision.  It’s nothing more than legalized stealing.

One of the criticisms of GM is that they stopped making money because their cars were gas guzzlers, which were no longer right for the current market setting.  Does that sound like a company that should be kept around?  Washington has put on life support a company that is out dated, when it should have signed the DNR waiver.  All they are doing is clogging up Detroit with failed ideas, and not making room for the new ones.

The free market is alive.  Just like everything else that lives, it gets sick, it gets old, and it dies.  GM is more than a sickness.  It is an economic cancer.  There is no cure; the only option is to have it removed.  Instead, the White House has decided to try and test for a cure on a current patient.  In doing so, they are treating a now terminal illness with nothing more than bandages.

But the beauty of the free market, is that after it dies, it is reborn.  By not allowing the market to die, Washington is also not allowing it’s rebirth, a rebirth that would bring with it a stronger economy filled with new ideas.

Instead, Washington has finally crossed the line that was considered, by many conservatives and libertarians, to be the most sacred of them all – the line that divides the private sector from the public sector.  At this point, those at GM are nothing more than government employees thanks to a forced seizure of a privately owned entity.

What’s to stop this from happening again?  How long until Obama forces a change of leadership at AIG?  Is this really the path we want to follow?  Everyone can agree that Washington can’t even run itself correctly, now we’re supposed to let it run our market?

If forced public ownership of formerly privately held organizations isn’t socialism, what is it?

Marx was right.  After capitalism comes socialism.  He just expected a working class revolution.  If this keeps up, we may need that working class revolution after all, just against socialism, and for capitalism.

If only Americans were more  like Mr. Hannan, maybe we would have to worry about trillions of dollars of debt.

In the meantime, South Park last night had it’s fun with the bailout.  They made some interesting parallels throughout the whole episode, and included some rehashed jokes, but, while what they did was also a rip on religion (which they seem to enjoy more and more of late), it did also highlight how economic woes happen at different periods of time.  This isn’t the first, and it isn’t the last, and we will get out of it – but by paying off our debt, not creating new debt.

The full episode, entitled “Margartiaville” can be seen at South Park Studios.

For the economy to go back on the upswing, people need to spend.  The problem is everyone is looking at their neighbor to start spending.  Economic fear leads to less money being invested.  I’ve spoken about stuff like this in previous articles but instead of, as Mr. Hannan put it, “borrowing our way out of debt”, if people received higher tax breaks, or just got a check from the government, it would go along way to restoring market confidence and paying off the debt of the nation.

The way out isn’t to give money to states, and tell them that the money can only be used to increase spending, and not pay off debt.  That only creates a worse problem for the future.  When the states no longer have the bailout money, they will go further into debt to try and keep up with the new, increased spending.

And then what?  More borrowing?  More forced spending?  Pay off our debts, Mr. President.  Don’t make them worse.  After all, that’s what got us into this mess in the first place.

I don’t think there is a person in the country who looks at the payment of $165 Million in bonuses by a company that is in financial turmoil and thinks it’s a good idea.  But neither is blaming the company.
It’s not the most popular position, but realistically, no one at AIG actually did anything wrong.  In fact, by paying out the bonuses, they probably saved money.  Since the payouts were written into legally binding contracts, if AIG had refused to pay them, they could have been taken to court, and had to pay legal fees in a case they would have lost.

And let’s be honest, while we can be as angry as we want at those employees who took the bonuses, who would have taken the payments?  In this economy, if you work for a company that doesn’t look like it’s going to make it, are you going to give up money so the company can stick around a little bit longer, or take the money that you were already promised and shore up your own financial situation?

The man who deserves the anger of the mob, is one of the leaders – Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT).  Why?  Well, it was Senator Dodd, the Senate’s Banking Committee Chairman, who added language to the bailout bill that protected all “contractually obligated bonuses agreed to before February 11th 2009.”  This language was written into what was called “The Dodd Amendment.”  Apparently, sometime between adding the amendment and leading the charge against AIG, Dodd managed to forget this.  He would also deny it for a few days, until finally admitting to the obvious.  But even then, Dodd played pass the buck, blaming pressure from lawyers, the treasury, and anyone not named Chris Dodd.

How’s that for a leader?  Not only does Senator Dodd have zero accountability, but can be pressured into putting bad ideas into law.   It was Dodd who should have been putting on the pressure.  If AIG was so desperate for federal money, then there should have been no pressure to help those at AIG retain their bonuses.  It was Dodd who was in the negotiating drivers seat, and he handed over the keys.  Why?  Well, he did just happen to be the recipient of more AIG political donations than any other politician.  I bet that factored into his decision.

What this whole mess is proves is exactly what we all thought.  The legislators don’t read the bills that they vote on.  They don’t even read the bills they write.  I take that back.  They don’t even write the bills they write!

Instead, the legislators are busy going after private citizens for their own mistakes.  Employees at AIG have received death threats, while the company has increased security and removed their name from their own building (things that cost more money, by the way).  While that is going on, Congress is busy trying to pass laws against private citizens to punish them for acts that were legal when they took place; acts that only took place because Congress said they should.

How do they get away with this?  Instead of marching toward AIG with pitchforks and torches, it’s about time we turned the mob toward where it’s supposed to go – Washington.  If we don’t, it will only be a matter of time before Congress turns the mob on itself.