Jonah Goldberg (who was quite prescient about the results of the president’s first hundred days) has gotten a letter from the DNC.
Category Archives: Political Commentary
Obama, ACORN And The SEIU
His relationship with these goons and thugs goes way back:
In Connecticut, the SEIU asked its members to attend Congressman Jim Himes’ town hall meeting and drown out the voices opposing ObamaCare:
Healthcare Town Hall Forum with Congressman Jim Himes
August 06, 2009, 5:30 PM – 7:00 PM. …
Action: Opponents of reform are organizing counter-demonstrators to speak at this and several congressional town halls on the issue to defend the status quo. It is critical that our members with real, personal stories about the need for access to quality, affordable care come out in strong numbers to drown out their voices.At a St. Louis town hall, four SEIU members surrounded and attacked ObamaCare protester Kenneth Gladney:
Yes, they surrounded me. Actually, after the first two guys got me on the ground, they surrounded me and started kicking me in the head and in the back, and the knees and stuff like that. And after it was done, I got up, kind of dazed, looking for my glasses. And the one guy actually was coming at me again, and that’s when the police came in and, you know, cordoned off everything and started, you know, started arresting people.
Why would the president of the United States have any interest in linking up with the SEIU, encouraging them to be his enforcers?
In the mid 1990s, ACORN and the SEIU partnered with other leftist groups to help form the Marxist New Party, a political coalition. In 1995, Obama sought out their nomination. He was successful in obtaining that endorsement and used a number of New Party volunteers as campaign workers.
What color shirts should we call them?
A Spending Spree
…in Huntsville.
[Update: link is fixed now]
The End Of Tinkering?
Well, it’s not gone, but it certainly has gone out of fashion compared to when I was a kid. How many kids work on their own cars these days? Though I would note that just changing a head gasket is not equivalent to rebuilding the whole engine.
I think that this is part and parcel of the whole academic bubble, which continues to inflate beyond economic reason. Particularly in today’s economy, people should realize that plumbing can’t be outsourced.
[Update about noon]
Speaking of the upcoming pop of the education bubble, some schools are now not allowing parents to see their children’s grades in college. How many parents are going to put up with that and continue to pay tuition to such an institution? The notion of “treating students as adults” works fine for students who are actually adults. But adults pay their own way. There’s a lot more to being an adult than simply surviving long enough to reach the age of majority.
Grading His First Semester
President Obama’s report card:
Subject: History Grade: F Comment: Among Barry’s weakest subjects. He experiences great difficulty identifying his centuries and has very little grasp of historical facts and events. As well, he shows a distinct aversion to diligent research. His instructor was particularly dismayed by his inability to tally the number of states in the union.
Subject: Political Science Grade: F Comment: A field of study which Barry would do well to avoid in the future. Fundamental ideas in statecraft appear alien to him. His romantic view of the world and his assumption of personal infallibility breed complacency rather than proficiency.
Subject: Economics Grade: F Comment: Barry shows no understanding of economic theory and seems incapable of mastering the complexities of the discipline. His class projects have advocated solutions to topic problems which would lead to disastrous results in the application.
Subject: Self-Esteem Grade: A++ Comment: A course only recently added to the syllabus. Barry led his cohort group by a wide margin and even exceeded the degree of instructor expertise.
Sounds like there’s room for improvement. But unfortunately, he’s the teacher’smedia’s pet.
He Should Have Had A Gun
Second-Amendment-loathing mayor attacked with a lead pipe.
But was it in the library, or the ball room? And by Colonel Mustard, or Miss Scarlett?
Getting Rid Of The “Public Option”
The Augustine Options
I have some thoughts this morning, over at Pajamas Media.
Is It Constitutional?
Obamacare, that is. Not that Obama cares. Have to break eggs to make an omelette, doncha know?
Why Mars Is Hard
Jim Oberg has a good piece today. It’s just not as easy as the Barsoomophiles want to believe. That doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be an ultimate goal, but we need to put first things first — reducing the costs of launch, developing critical technologies (particularly propellant handing and manufacturing from ISRU) and preliminary scouting to the moons before it will be practical to put people on the surface.
[Mid-afternoon update]
It’s official: NASA is a jobs program. Not that that’s news…
“…critical skills”, “industrial base”, and “workforce retention” have been frequently-mentioned items in the committee’s deliberations to date, so I suppose I should have seen this coming, but it’s still one of the starkest illustrations I’ve encountered why government programs and NASA in particular will never accomplish the goal of making humans a spacefaring species.
Fortunately, there are alternate paths.