I have had the misfortune to associate with a fair number of people who are not happy unless they are unhappy.  These people are full time subscribers to “the more you bitch the longer God lets you live” world view.  They spend their entire lives in the desperate search for something wrong that they alone know how to fix.  Usually they are just annoying and one learns to avoid them.  But unfortunately some of them get elected to congress.  The following article regarding a proposal by Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., is a classic example of this personality trait:

http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/229861-schumer-calls-for-federal-review-of-grill-brush-safety-possible-recall

During a time of record unemployment and a stagnant economy, Schumer wants the CPSC and the FDA to conduct an expensive review to see if people are getting sick because of defective grill brushes.  I can see it now.  Two federal agencies will waste a ton of money looking for a problem to solve.  There is little chance that they won’t find some level of problem.  Otherwise, what’s the point?  If these agencies can’t find things to fix, how will they justify the cost to taxpayers?  Then they will issue an urgent consumer advisory warning people about the possible dangers associated with grill brushes.  New guidelines will be developed regarding manufacturing standards for grill brushes.  Wouldn’t it be great if one of the two agencies could even support a recall?  The world will be a safer place thanks to the brilliant intervention of our federal government.

I am sure that somewhere a plaintiff’s attorney is reading the above-mentioned article and is now dreaming of a class action lawsuit.  He or she will start advertising in newspapers and on television for people who may have been injured as the result of a defective grill brush.  The average award for consumers will be about $2 in the form of a discount you can use when buying a new grill brush, but the attorneys will make millions.

Next year, when you go to buy a new grill brush, you are going to discover that it is covered with warning stickers.  It will probably include a written guide on how to determine if your grill brush is defective and will even include a telephone number for you to file a complaint. And by the way, the grill brush that sold for $5 last year is now $19.95.  Several stores will have stopped selling them because of the risk.  I can even imagine a government funded grill brush replacement program that pays people for bringing in worn out grill brushes, to be destroyed with no questions asked.  Word has already reached California where Governor Brown is already considering a special tax on grill brushes to help fund further research.

Unfortunately, this is typical reasoning for a lot of liberal Democrats.  There is no potential for reasoning with these people.  It is impossible to do mental combat with unarmed opponents.  Our only hope is to see more and more of them voted out of office. 

This explains why Democrats are so desperate to stop voter ID laws.  If we restrict voting to people who are actually capable of coherent thought, how on earth would Democrats ever get elected?  Happy Grilling!  And don’t forget to clean your grill while you can still afford a grill brush.

TDM

Both parties are pretending that this is a close Presidential election.  It isn’t.  Democrats are saying it is going to be close because they don’t want to admit that Obama is in deep trouble.  Republicans are saying it is going to be close because they want to avoid over confidence.  But the reality is that Mitt Romney is far ahead and surging. 

The real measure of a how things are trending is actual election results.  Polls don’t matter but elections matter a lot.  The next big day is in Wisconsin with the recall election against Governor Scott Walker.  Although the unions were able to organize massive protests and they have spent a fortune slamming Walker, he is actually leading in all of the polls.  In addition, his grass roots organization is incredibly strong.  There are a lot of signs that things are turning around rapidly in the cheese state.

Scott Walker was elected Governor in November of 2010.  He defeated Tom Barrett 52.29% to 46.52%.  Walker is now leading Barrett in every recent poll.  Since Walker is the incumbent and he has over 50% in almost every poll, something dramatic will be required for the recall election to succeed.  At this point it is more likely that Walker will win by a larger margin than he did in 2010 than that he will be defeated.   

Democrats know the importance of this race and I expect them to spend a fortune in a last ditch effort to turn this around.  I wouldn’t be surprised to see Obama make an appearance.  If Walker wins, this will send shockwaves across the political spectrum.  This would make it impossible for Democrats to even pretend that Obama is not in trouble.  Obama was counting on Wisconsin as being solidly in the win column.  If he starts falling behind in states like Wisconsin, it means he is falling back all across the board.

Obama’s decision to support gay marriage was a huge mistake.  He gained almost no additional support from gay activists, because he proposed nothing to actually make gay marriage legal  At the same time he made it incredibly easy for Mitt Romney to explain why all those evangelicals need to united behind him.   A recent poll in Florida showed a devastating impact for Obama.  Fully 25% of Florida voters said this made them less likely to vote for Obama, while only 11 percent says it made them more likely to vote for him:

 http://www.politico.com/politico44/2012/05/florida-poll-quarter-of-voters-less-inclined-to-back-124311.html

Now add in the Catholic Church filing 43 lawsuits against Obamacare and a perfect storm is brewing.   I suspect that the Mitt Romney campaign knows this very well.  I am also certain that this is a professionally run campaign and they aren’t about to take anything for granted.  But it is now less than six months until the election and as Yogi Berra would say:  “it’s getting late early.”

 TDM

Now that the 2012 Summer Olympics are close, I am reminded of Eddie the Eagle.  Eddie was the first athlete from Great Britain to perform in the Olympics as a ski jumper.  Keep in mind that there are no ski jump hills in Great Britain.  Eddie was actually a pretty good downhill skier, but not good enough to compete in the Olympics.  But then he saw guys from other countries competing in the ski jump and he had a brilliant idea.  Since there were no other ski jumpers from Great Britain, if Eddie tried out for the team he would be a shoe in.  He didn’t actually have to be any good, he just had to be available.  The next thing you know there is this very ordinary guy, short on funds, even shorter on athletic ability, overweight, with poor eye sight jumping off ski jumps in the Olympics.  The results were predictable. 

Eddie was just plain awful as a ski jumper, but you couldn’t take your eyes off him.  All these other athletes would fly gracefully through the air.  Eddie always looked to be on the verge of disaster.  With Eddie one was relieved when he survived the jump.  No one expected him to win or even come close to winning, but he was fun to watch.  Frankly it is a miracle he didn’t get hurt.  He finished dead last on both the 70 m and the 90m ski hills, but he also had a world-wide fan club.  The worse he performed the more people liked him.  

However, the ski jumping community was embarrassed by the whole situation.  The real ski jumpers though Eddie was making a mockery of their sport.  Plus, they were concerned that someone else would try this and get seriously injured or even killed.  So they changed to rules to make sure no more Eddies showed up at the Olympics.  That is probably for the best, particularly with a sport as dangerous as ski jumping.

Eddie is also a stark reminder that sometimes a person gets elevated to a position for which they have no qualifications.   Not that this reminds me of anyone.

TDM

Bill Clinton is a lot of things, but he is not stupid.  Yet he has done several things recently that have created serious problems for Obama.  One was the wording in the infamous Obama commercial lathering self praise on Obama for daring to order the assault on Osama bin Ladin.  While appearing to praise Obama, Clinton actually skewered him.  Perhaps this was accidental, but one has to wonder.

Then Clinton gave an interview where he said that he considered Obama to be incompetent when Obama was running for election in 2008.  More recently Clinton gave a speech criticizing the Obama tax the rich strategy.

Now we have some unknown candidate running against Obama in the Arkansas primary.   Hmmmm.  Arkansas.  What President of the United States comes from Arkansas?  I know.  Bill Clinton comes from Arkansas.  What a coincidence.  What would happen if some unknown actually beat Obama in the Arkansas primary?  It wouldn’t exactly be a strong endorsement for four more years.

A few days ago Hillary Clinton appeared in public wearing glasses and without makeup.  Since the woman is famously vain, I found this curious.  I question whether the Clintons do anything without an agenda.  I am pretty certain that this was not an innocent mistake.  So I asked myself what Hillary might do if she still harbored hopes of somehow sneaking in and taking the nomination away from Obama at the convention.  She would try to position herself as totally above the frey, just a humble and willing servant, reluctantly available as a draft candidate.  Very Clintonian.

What better way to do that then to put on such a public show of having no interest in any political office.  Hillary shrugged this off as reaching the point in her life when she is no longer influenced by political ambition.  Since it was Dick Cheney, not Hillary, who had a heart transplant, I seriously doubt she had a legitimate change of heart.

Rush Limbaugh noticed this and even commented about it.  Who knows?  What we do know is that Clinton is certainly not helping Obama’s cause and lately there have been a lot of “coincidences” that are a little too convenient.  Every time Obama tries to get back on message, something knocks him off stride.  A recent example was the “discovery” of a brochure promoting his autobiography claiming Obama was born in Kenya.  Now we have top Democrats like Newark Mayor Booker and former Governor Ed Rendel ripping Obama for criticizing Bain Capital.

At a time when Obama needs to tighten up his lies and distortions about the pathetic economy, and launch his vicious personal assault on Mitt Romney, he has to respond to damaging distractions.  At first I thought Mitt Romney made a major mistake by public promising to condemn anyone who brought up Reverend Wright.  Then I remembered that Mitt Romney is much brighter than John McCain and he has already demonstrated a willingness to play political hardball.  I think what Romney is doing is making sure the Wright interview is receiving maximum coverage by pretending to do the opposite.

Among other things, Reverend Wright said that Obama struggled with keeping his Muslim heritage while still embracing Christianity.  That may make sense to someone as naive and incompetent as Bill Maher, but it won’t impress anyone who understands the core values of Christianity.  Wright also said the Obama campaign offered him a bribe to keep his mouth shut.  That, among other things, would be a felony.

At a minimum there have been some “things” happening to Obama and they have mostly been bad.  There seem to be a few too many coincidences to dismiss off hand.  At least some of this stuff seems to have been leaked within Democratic circles.  Perhaps its just me, but it is starting to looks like the last four letters of democrats are leaving the Obama Ship of State.

TDM

I have always suspected that we were missing something big with regard to Obama’s birth controversy.  After looking at what actual evidence is available, it seem pretty obvious that Obama was born in Hawaii.  I mean his parents do not appear to have ever lived together as husband and wife anywhere, including Hawaii.  It just wouldn’t make sense for Barack Obama, Sr. to drag his new wife wife over to Kenya where he already had a wife.

But, on the other hand, there has been a clear and sustained coverup of Obama’s birth certificate.  Obama is either an arrogant egotist who feels he should not be required to produce the most fundamental of documents, or he is hiding something significant. 

Up until now, the birther’s have all assumed that Obama was hiding the fact that he was born in Kenya and is not a U.S. citizen.  I have never really bought into that, because his mother was definitely a U.S. citizen and I think he would have ultimately been ruled a natural born citizen regardless of where he was born.  The following blog is the first plausible explanation for this bizarre set of circumstances.  Someone has finally come up with a theory that at least makes sense:

http://www.bookwormroom.com/2012/05/18/is-regents-of-the-university-of-california-v-bakke-a-1978-case-rejecting-academic-racial-quotas-the-smoking-gun-behind-obamas-kenyan-identity/

Perhaps Obama didn’t want to provide proof that he was born in Hawaii because in doing so he would have been providing proof that he committed a felony.  Based on his own book, Obama was a lousy student at Punahuo High School, majoring in basketall, beer, weed and blow, when he could afford it.  Those of us around at that time remember affirmative action which “required” universities to admit a certain percentage of minority students, regardless of qualifications.  In effect, Obama probably figured out that applying while black was the ticket to a free education.  But the Bakke case changed everything.  The Supreme Court ruled that these affirmative action programs based totally on race were unconstitutional.  Suddenly, being black wasn’t enough.  Obama needed more.

Wait.  What if he was born in Kenya?  Then he could apply as a foreign student and there was the ticket to ride.  It wasn’t that much of a lie, his father was from Kenya.  Elizabeth Warren is a modern reminder of why people do things like this, she just may have got into Harvard by falsely claiming to be part Cherokee Indian.  Perhaps Obama was her inspiration in more ways than we realized.

For the first time, a story that makes sense.  Obama is thinking of running for President and he knows that the place of his birth will be an issue.  He knows this because Obama is the one who started the rumor of his birth in Kenya.  That is pretty obvious, because his literary agent put this in a brochure in 1991, long before Obama ran for any office.

 http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/05/17/The-Vetting-Barack-Obama-Literary-Agent-1991-Born-in-Kenya-Raised-Indonesia-Hawaii

I doubt that the literary agent enlisted private investigators to try and track down where Obama was born.  He almost certainly asked Obama where he was born and Obama told him Kenya. 

Obama knows he has a problem.  He doesn’t want to prove he was born in Hawaii, because that would prove that, at a minimum, he is a liar and possibly a felon.  But he also doesn’t want to say he was born in Kenya, because that would generate serious questions about his citizenship.  So Obama does what people like him always do.  He tried to balance carefully on a point in the middle of two irreconcilable choices.

The mainstream media either overlooked this brochure or they overlooked the significance of it.  The obvious questions for Obama is why were you allowing people to publish a false narrative of your birth.  Obama may deny being the source of this information, but he would have to be a complete idiot to not notice.  Would any of us allow someone to publish a biography of ourselves, for decades, without bothering to point out this type of error?

This means Obama knew exactly why there were rumors of a birth in Kenya; he started them.  He also know that this was a huge problem.  This would explain the cover-up of the birth certificate.  It would explain the refusal to release his records from Occidental, Columbia and Harvard.  Perhaps when Harvard “selected” Obama to be the first African American President of the Harvard Law Review he was the first “African – American” because they thought he was born in Kenya.  Perhaps it is just me, but it sure looks like a lot of things come into focus.  I wonder if anyone in the main stream media will notice.

TDM

The Trayvon Martin case has now reached the pinnacle of absurdity.  The following ABC News report shows that George Zimmerman received some rather significant injuries during the altercation.  This is a far cry from their previous report which claimed video showed Zimmerman had no injuries at all:

 http://abcnews.go.com/US/george-zimmerman-medical-report-sheds-light-injuries-trayvon/story?id=16353532

The autopsy report on Trayvon Martin has been released and it shows damages to his knuckles.   It also shows that he was shot at a distance from 1 to 18 inches.  According to another recent ABC News report, the police reports and the witness statements also back up George Zimmerman’s version of events:

http://abcnews.go.com/US/cops-witnesses-back-george-zimmermans-version/story?id=16371852

Oh, by the way, it turns out that Trayvon Martin tested positive for marijuana.  I guess you never know about those skittles.  But facts never get in the way of liberals.  The State Prosecutor is still planning to try him for Second Degree murder.  This is so unjustified that even Alan Dershowitz is embarrassed and outraged.  To add insult to injury, Eric Holder has the FBI investigating in the desperate search for “some” evidence of a hate crime, so he can seek the death penalty.

I know there are always two sides to every story and strongly belief that the legal system should be allowed to work.  But enough is enough.  It is increasingly clear that the liberal left tried and convicted George Zimmerman in the court of public opinion because they were absolutely desperate to find evidence of angry white people attacking innocent black children.  Now, after finally seeing some of the hard evidence, it is obvious that the media got it all wrong.  At best this was disgracefully inept reporting.  At worst it was deliberately distorting the facts in an attempt to generate racial outrage.  Sadly, this succeeded when people like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton rose to the bait and could not resist biting at the racial outrage apple. 

George Zimmerman was presumed guilty because he looked white.  Incredibly, when it turned out that Zimmerman is actually Hispanic, the media invented a new term, “white Hispanic,” to try and justify their racist opinion.  Zimmerman had to be white, otherwise who would think he was guilty?  Trayvon Martin was assumed innocent because he looked black.  Trayvon Martin wasn’t shot for “walking while black,” George Zimmerman was prosecuted for “defending himself while white.”

The media was right about one thing.  This is a racist hate crime.  It is a hate crime against George Zimmerman.  Congratulations to ABC for running this story.  CNN is also starting to report more accurately.  Of course they still had Dr. Drew on so they could “explain away the marijuana” but at least they reported it.  Both CNN and ABC botched it big time at the start, but now they are doing a much better job of reporting this fairly and accurately.  It is important to recognize it when the main stream media does get it right.

I think the backlash on the Trayvon Martin case is about to reach historic levels.  It should!  If George Zimmerman was a black man facing criminal charges because of such flimsy evidence there would be “Free George Zimmerman” signs all over the country.  Sounds about right!

TDM

I am sure most of you saw the headlines about how a CIA informant managed to stop a terror plot against a U.S. airliner.  This has the ugly odor of another story leaked by the Obama administration to try and foster the image that Obama is a great defender of liberty.  They have quickly backed off, probably because Diane Feinstein wants the person who leaked this information prosecuted.  The CIA mole story is now less popular than Fast & Furious and the administration is practicing its “Silence of the Lambs” sequel. 

If that is not bad enough, it turns out it wasn’t even our mole. 

http://news.investors.com/article/611449/201205150812/underwear-bomber-mole-was-not-a-cia-agent.htm

It was a British sting operation.  Bottom line is that the Obama administration had zero, zip, nada to do with stopping this terrorist plot, yet still managed to screw things up by leaking classified information.

Brilliant! 

TDM

Democrats have been fighting desperately against voter ID laws.  They claim there is no evidence of voter fraud.  They constantly talk about voter ID laws as intended to disenfranchise minorities.  Frankly, few people are buying this.  The last time I checked more than 70% of people in both parties support voter ID.  Now the worm has turned big time because someone figured out how to audit voting records.  When people get a drivers license in Florida they have to clarify whether or not they are a U.S. citizen.  So Florida ran a list of drivers license numbers for people who voted in Florida and then checked to see if they were actually U.S. citizens.  Seems pretty darn logical.

They didn’t find a handful of people.  The found thousands of people.  If this article is accurate, they may have found close to 200,000 people.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/F/FL_VOTERS_NON_CITIZENS_FLOL-?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=STATE&TEMPLATE=

When 200,000 people who are not citizens may have illegally voted in an election, it is hard to define that as anything other than widespread voter fraud.

I bet that starting tomorrow some clever Republicans in every state are going to take a close look at the “Florida experiment.”   Don’t be surprised to learn about similar voting record tests in a lot of other states.  Democrats will scream bloody murder, but even for liberals it is hard to generate sympathy for non-citizens voting in our elections.

Just think of the possibilities if we limit voting to one vote per legally registered voter.  Perhaps it’s just me, but it sure looks like Democrats may lose those valuable votes from dead people, illegal aliens and convicted felons.  How will they ever win another election, other than in places like Chicago.

TDM

Some people dream of the day when Republicans and Democrats will join hands across the aisle and do the right thing for America.  That actually happened, for about five minutes, after 9-11.  The sad truth is that it takes a major threat at that level before politicians in any party will drop the partisan bickering.  That also means when you do see this happen, something big is going down.  According to the Washington Post, this is exactly what is happening is Israel:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/echoes-of-67-israel-unites/2012/05/10/gIQA9tUaGU_story.html?wpisrc=nl_opinions

We should point out that Israel also called up reserves a few days ago.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/knesset-approves-call-up-of-22-idf-battalions/

I do not know what Israel is planning to do, but it looks very serious.  It also looks imminent.  It would seem obvious that if Israel was planning to attack Iran, they would take steps to secure their border with Egypt.  Of course Israel’s relationship with Egypt is also deteriorating rapidly. 

 Israel has shown a willingness to take on military risks no other nation would consider.  When they say “never again” they mean “NEVER AGAIN.”   Israel didn’t wait to get attacked in 1967.  It also didn’t wait to attack Iraq’s nuclear program and it didn’t wait to attack Syria’s nuclear facility.  The Israeli’s are not big on waiting for the U.S. to save their bacon.

If recent reports are accurate, it took President Obama nearly ten months to work up sufficient courage to order the attack on Osama bin Laden.  Obama refused to give the order until he felt the CIA could absolutely guarantee that bin Laden was really there.  Even then, he apparently gave the order only after having Leon Panetta prepare a carefully crafted CYA memo so Obama could blame someone else if things went south.  How much proof do you think Obama would require before attacking Iran? 

 Now picture yourself Prime Minister of Israel.  Consider the following report that Iraq may be getting close to having a nuclear weapon.

 http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/may/10/photo-suspicious-activity-iranian-military-site/

 Would you risk the future of Israel on Obama being ready, willing and able to do the necessary ?

Remember, this is only what has leaked to the main stream media.  They are almost certainly other intelligence reports on the subject.  Odds are, these are even more alarming.  If you were Iran, would you rather deal with President Obama or President Romney?  It sure seems like a lot of incentive to get while the getting’s good?  I don’t know what is going on, but from here  it looks like there’s a bad moon on the rise.

TDM

Tiger Woods was one of the most admired athletes in the world. We knew he was a great golfer and based on media reports, he looked like a great person. We should have known better. It is now clear that there was a major cover-up. Unfortunately, for Tiger, when his wife beat up his car after she learned about his out-of-control sex life, the protective shield around his private life was breached. All of a sudden we learned a lot about the private Tiger Woods, and it was mostly bad. He has never recovered.

 Barack Obama had media treatment very similar to Tiger Woods. He was consistently portrayed as calm, cool and collected. He was presented as a brilliant leader and a great family man. The media went to great lengths to avoid even discussing his private life. Anyone who dared criticize Obama was dismissed as a racist. That is why, in spite of pathetic job performance, his likeable ratings were still very high. Just like with Tiger Woods, most people saw only the carefully crafted imagine, they never saw the man behind the façade. That all changed with his campaign’s decision to run a commercial praising Obama for daring to authorize the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. More damage was done by Obama flying to Afghanistan to brag some more about it. Suddenly, the truth became impossible to ignore. Obama is a self-centered narcissist who simultaneously blames all problems on someone else and takes all glory for himself. This was so obvious that even Arianna Huffington noticed.

The media coverage has changed remarkably. During a recent White House briefing reporters demanded Obama take a position on gay marriage. Press Secretary Carney was beyond flustered. Obama’s protective shield has been pierced and it can never be replaced. His number one asset, personal likeability, is evaporating faster than it did for Tiger Woods. Late night comedians no longer hesitate to skewer Obama. Ed Rendell, the former democratic Governor of Pennsylvania, told Obama to “man up” on gay marriage during an MSNBC interview.

http://townhall.com/video/ed-rendell-obama-should-man-up–say-position-on-gay-marriage

Rendell is very close to the Clintons, so it is unlikely that they didn’t know about this. CNN ran very negative reports about the unemployment rate and just dismissed the Obama administration’s claim that things are improving. Now they are pummeling Obama with regard to gay marriage. Of course CNN wants Obama to “come out” in favor of gay marriage, but that would be a political disaster. The bottom line is that Obama has fallen, and he can’t get up. Instead of getting the loud sustained standing ovation he expected for making the obvious decision to off Osama bin Laden, he is under a withering assault. When the shield around Tiger Woods was finally pierced, his public image was permanently shattered. We are going to learn a lot more about Obama, and my hunch is this is going to get really ugly.

Note: Obama did come out in support of gay marriage, but equivocated by saying that while he personally believed in gay marriage, he apparently had no plans to do anything to make it legal. Basically he punted to the states.

 TDM