No Runny Eggs

How did I miss this one? Barack Obama uttered this back on July 2:

Obama repeated his pledge to boost the size of the active military. But he also said the nation’s future and safety depends on more than just additional soldiers….

“We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we’ve set,” he said Wednesday. “We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well funded.”

Note – there is a reason why I cut the two paragraphs I did; I will return to them later in the post.

The first mention in a search of my over-bloated feed reader came from Charles Johnson over at Little Green Footballs on the 8th. Michelle Malkin put it in the Hot Air Headlines on the 13th. There were a couple of other mentions between then and today, but still somehow I missed it until Leslie Carbone and Fred picked it up today.

If one only looked at the portions of the article I quoted, it would either be exceptionally-good news or exceptionally-ugly news. Does that mean I’ll be able to get that Paladin (I still qualify as a member of the unorganized militia as defined in the United States Code)? Does it mean that Asian Badger (an ex-Navy pilot) would not only be able to mount a minigun on AB1, but replace AB1 with an F-15E Strike Eagle, complete with bunker-buster bombs (I call back seat!)? If it means that, we’re looking at something north of $400 billion in spending.

Does it mean that the military loses those and future weapons to match the inability of the populace to get automatic weapons or explosives? After all, Obama is on record as advocating unilateral nuclear disarmament and a “slowdown” of developing new conventional military weapons.

I guess it’s time to bring in the “missing” paragraphs to help explode some fantasies:

“It also depends on the teacher in East L.A., or the nurse in Appalachia, the after-school worker in New Orleans, the Peace Corps volunteer in Africa, the Foreign Service officer in Indonesia,” he said.

Obama had first outlined many of the proposals he talked about Wednesday during appearances in Iowa last December.

It sure sounds like a combination of a return to the wussification of the standing military conducted under Bill Clinton and a massive expansion of the federal nanny state. Not at all surprising, yet disappointing, from a person whose first considered reaction to 9/11 was that the college-educated leaders of Al Qaeda just didn’t have enough education and welfare opportunities.

I know, I’m way late on this, but things have been a bit hectic here at the bunker. The issue, at least for me, is not as simple as Barack Obama abandoning the scheme of a publicly-financed general campaign. I view public financing of campaigns as an abomination to the process of elections.

There is, however, the twin matters of Obama previously promising to enter that scheme and endorsing the scheme for everybody else. Sooner or later, all those flips, flops, spins, bouts of hypocrisy, and lies are going to catch up to Obama. I only hope they catch up to him before November; it will be infinitely worse for all of us if they catch up to him afterwards.

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before but Mrs. Shoe and I are proud parents of twin Shoelets.   Thing 1 and Thing 2 (the Shoelets) turned 10 this weekend and we had a great time celebrating including a viewing of Hellboy II by the Shoelets and myself (they just don’t make movies like that anymore!)   The reason I tell you this, is that working with twins hones your parenting skills early on.  

Mrs. Shoe and I quickly learned that we needed to address issues with the Shoelets  straight on.   If we let issues slide, they knew how to push the rules.   If there was a complex issue, something like why one of their school mates had 2 moms, we needed to discuss it with them giving them enough information to make sense of it with where they were at mentally, without dragging all of the adult jargon and issues along with it.     This method of not avoiding issues, but not over complicating and over explaining them is referred to by us as “talking to two year olds.”

As I posted earlier, President Bush has removed the Executive Order barring off shore drilling.   As expected, Harry Reid came out to snivel about Bush’s action.   Harry’s action plan seems to include three points

• Crack down on “Excessive speculation.” – I’m not against this.   The problem I do have is that the DOPES used to tell us that the “Big, Bad Oil Companies” were gouging us.   After numerous investigations, they have yet to show us $.01 of gouging that has occurred.   If Harry can actually show me “Excessive speculation” I’m with him, until then, this is a red herring
• The “Big, Bad Oil Companies”should drill in all the acreage they already have – What a great idea!   I wonder why those nasty companies hadn’t thought of it?   Could it be that there isn’t any oil there?   That’s non starter two!
• President Bush, tear down that SPOR! – The Dems have said that President Bush should release the oil in the strategic reserve.   The strategic reserve holds enough oil to satisfy replace our  imported oil needs for about  2 months.

Releasing oil from the SPOR has become the new line in the sand for the Dems.   They seem unable to understand why this is a bad idea and why rather than reducing prices, drawing down the reserve could actually increase prices.

And this is where I start talking to the two year olds.

Nancy, Harry –

• You only have 700M Barrels of oil in the SPOR.
• You can only offset Imported oil for 60 days
• You claim it will take 10 years to get any new drilling on line (It won’t, I’m just spinning their illogic back at them)

What are you going to do between 2 months and 10 years?   If you really believe that opening SPOR will bring down prices, what do you do when it runs out?

The problem kids, is that you have offered no solutions that increase oil production, zip, nil, nada.   If you deplete the SPOR without increasing production, you may get a momentary drop but once you run the SPOR down, prices will go back up and that may be the goods news.   With the SPOR  depleted, prices will  likely move even higher than they were before because that “threat” is off the table.

Drill here, Drill now, pay less,

(H/Ts – Allahpundit and Ed Morrissey)

CQ Politics is reporting die-hard Clintonistas want a floor vote on the nomination at the convention. Do remember that neither Hillary Clinton nor presumptive nominee Barack Obama have enough pledged delegates to win on the first ballot; Obama got his presumptive status by virtue of stealing some superdelegates who were previously supporting Clinton.

Trailortrash beat me to the Comment of the Day™ – “i (sic) think i (sic) am going to need a bigger bag of popcorn"¦”

There are very few people whom I am unable to separate their leftist views from the rest of their careers.   While Hollywood is full of the hardcore left, I still see many movies that have well known lefties in them.   Heck, I even see movies that have Tim Robbins or Alec Baldwin  associated with them….I loved them both in “Team America!”   Robert Redford has been an exception to that rule for me.

Redford seems unable to separate his hard left views from his work projects.   This has become more evident as he gets older.   Perhaps the most egregious of his insertion of  political perspective was in his acting and directing of “Lions for Lambs.”  

Now however, I may have to rethink my position on Redford. I think we may actually agree on something.

In an interview over the weekend, Redford stated that if Redford’s Messiah doesn’t win the election in November,

you can kiss the Democratic Party goodbye

The facts are these:

• The Dems should be walking away with this election
• The driving force of the Democrats has become the extreme left, think DailyKOS and Huffington Post folks.
• Contrary to what he wants people to believe since he eeked past Hillary, Obama is the poster child candidate of the extreme left.   Every position he took during the primaries (and that he still honestly holds) are unrecognizable to the vast majority of Americans, think late term abortion, gun controls, religious “clingers.”
• Obama won the nomination with support of many new, untested voters i.e. young or previously not voted.
• While taking in the new voters, Obama’s recent attempts to move center have left him “not dancin’ with the ones that brought ‘im.”

The point is that the extreme left is what the Democrat party has become and this election will be a competition about allegedly running away from Republicans and running to their ideology.   With the supposed built in “anti-R” sentiment, what message gets sent if Obama loses?   I’d say a worse message that what was supposedly sent to the Republicans in ’06.   If Obama loses, the left will have permanently alienated some portions of their core base and will never again see many of the “New Voters” who are involved simply based on emotion.

I’ll quibble with Redford in that while I think it would be a huge setback for the left’s ideology, Obama’s defeat, by itself won’t be “The End” of the Democrats.   However, if you add the gas price issue to the mix, and Nancy and Harry continue to tell Americans to “Pay more, Do less and Shut up,” I think the risk to the Dems could well be as severe as Redford paints.

Come to think of it, I may not change my position on Redford, but not because of ideology.   I can’t remember any of his films that I’ve been interested in since “The Sting.”

Thursday of last week, Michelle Obama was in Kansas City.   Her speech, made to a group of mostly women, was focused on reinforcing the empathy that her Baby’s Daddy has for women’s issues.   As part of her remarks she said:

His own mother, she said at the beginning of her remarks, was “very young and very single when she had him.” And, Obama added, he has observed his wife’s attempts to reconcile motherhood with her career aspirations.

As Michelle is wont to due, she attempted to make herself appear “one of the club” by saying:

He sees me, his wife, who struggles every day with that guilt that we all hold deep in our hearts as women,” she said. “That guilt that you don’t have the choice to stay home, and even if you do, you feel guilty

Michelle, just another victim in a campaign and party full of victims. Michelle, so full of guilt from not having a choice to be a stay at home mom.

What the hell?

In 2004, the Obamas had gross income of approximately $207K. I’ve never heard that they had financial issues so I’ll have to assume they were able to “get by” on that income. At the time, Barack was still an IL legislator and a “Constitutional Professor” and made about $85K. Michelle was a hospital administrator and made, around $122K gross. After tax, they made about $167K

In 2005, things got much better for the Obama’s. Barack’s income rose to about $154K as a US Senator, Barack’s book brought them about $1,141K, Michelle made about $361K. Their after tax income rose significantly to $910K.

Even in 2006 the Obama’s did well. Of a total gross income of $984K, Barack made $157K as a US Senator and $551K from his book. Michelle made $333K.

If $167K after tax was getting them by in 2004, they would have had $743K of excess income they could have invested from their 2005 after tax earnings and $530K from 2005. They could have had nearly $1.3M invested from those two years alone.

Barack now makes $162,500 a year as a US Senator. Let’s bake in a little inflation and say that the Obama’s gross of $207K in 2004, would now need to be about $220K. To make up the difference between Barack’s Senator salary and the  inflated gross, they would need to take, let’s call it, $60K each year from their savings to make up the delta if Michelle chose not to work.

Wow! if they had $1.3M in the bank and drew it down at the rate of $60K each year, they could do that for 20+ years and not run out of money….even without considering interest.

Yes they could, except for this one other little event of 2005. The Obama’s decided to trade up a bit. They decided they needed to trade up to a $1.65M home! The result of that one transaction increased their annual expenses for mortgage interest and real estate taxes from $18K in 2004 to $76K in 2006.

I have no doubt that Michelle feels guilty. Michelle probably even feels guilty due to her choice. However, for her to suggest that her guilt is because she doesn’t “have the choice to stay home,” is preposterous and shows her again to be nothing but a pandering elitist.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a neandrathal who thinks women should be chained to a stove. Women should make career and family choices that are the best for them and their families, whatever they and their families think that should be.

Michelle’s choice, was to buy an expensive house. Michelle’s choice could have been to be satisfied to live in the home they had, invest their gain and allow her to stay home with her children…if she had chosen to. If Michelle had chosen not to buy the big house, stay home and use savings…if they really couldn’t get by on $165K each year, the Obama’s would use about half of their savings as income supplement by the time their youngest daughter had graduated from high school.

Yes, Michelle had a choice.   However, unlike the claims of her speech, for Michelle, material goods and personal fame won out over her desire to be a stay at home mom.

Building on yesterday’s favorite elected Republicans list over at Right Wing News, Shoebox, 40 other bloggers, and I chose our least-favorite elected Republicans (they had to be current governors, Congresscritters, or Presidents, so I couldn’t throw in Trent “Cave-A-“Lott, Mike Huebsch or Jeff Wood). Like the favorites list, I decided on sending 8 John Hawkins’ way:

– Arlen Specter
– Lindsey Graham
– Chuck Hagel
– Tom Petri
– Ray LaHood
– Christopher Shays
– Ted Stevens
– Don Young

To see which ones (if any) made the top 20, as well as the full top 20, head on over to Right Wing News.

With just a few days left to file for a possible Senate run, Jesse Ventura is playing coy with the media about his true intent.

In a morning report from NPR, Jesse seemed to be providing the latest inkling that he was going to enter the race:

That’s the reason I run. Not to sell books. I run because it angers me,” Ventura says.

and

All you Minnesotans, take a good hard look at all three of us. And you decide, if you were in a dark alley, which one of the three of us would you want with you.

Of course, as Jesse is prone to do, later in the day he told people the press didn’t get his quotes right:

I gave [NPR] the reasons why I would run,” Ventura said. “But I said ultimately, it will come down to whether I want to change my lifestyle and go to that lifestyle or not.

As I’ve said before, I would really like to see Jesse run. If he actually files I won’t have any problem finding things to write about until mid November!

That said, I went back and looked at the most recent poll from Rasmussen  showing a three way Minnesota Senate race. The short take on the poll shows Coleman winning a three way race and Jesse taking more from Franken than Coleman. In fact, with Franken’s ongoing revelations of “oops I forgot,” I wouldn’t be surprised that Franken goes further down as more of his support gives up on him and moves to Jesse who is really Dem lite. The revelation in my latest look at the poll is in the favorable/unfavorable ratings for each of the candidates.

The voting percentages for each of the candidates is roughly equal to 100% of their “very favorable” percentage and about 1/2 of their somewhat favorable percentage. This obviously works in Coleman’s favor as he has a total favorable of 51%. We’ve known for a while that Franken is a very unhappy man and it appears that Minnesotans recognize that in that 50% say they have an unfavorable opinion of him. The “revelation” was in looking at Ventura’s. Ventura’s unfavorable rating is 62%! and 38% have a Very Unfavorable rating of him!

In today’s NPR report, University of Minnesota political scientist Lawrence Jacobs says Ventura could win:

He’s coming in with about a quarter of the vote, and he’s not even declared his candidacy. That is much better than where he was in 1998, where he started off in single digits and frankly was a joke candidate

Jesse may be starting from a better place but today, unlike his last run, people in Minnesota know Jesse. For Jesse to win he would need to convince a lot of people that the charicature that was Jesse as Governor is no longer the charicature that would be a Senator. That will take A LOT of convincing.

Oh, and did I mention that Jesse is a 9/11 truther? I’m sure that fact alone will help his cause significantly!

In yet another incident showing Barack Obama’s inability to hold a position, he now announces Iran to be a “Great threat,” after it test fired nine missiles. In an interview this morning  on Good Morning America, Barack said:

“Iran is a great threat. We have to make sure we are working with our allies to apply tightened pressure on Iran,

What? A great threat? Is this the same Barack Obama who just six weeks ago ridiculed John McCain for saying Iran was a great threat by saying:

I mean think about it. Iran, Cuba, Venezula, their countries are tiny compared to the Soviet Union. They don’t pose a serious threat to the US.

Maybe Barack considers a “great” threat to be less of a threat than a “serious” threat? If so, it would show Obama out of touch with the majority of America for most of America learned from “A Few Good Men” that when it comes to individual or national security/danger, there is only one kind, and it’s always grave.

In a report by the WorldNetDaily.com, a gambling expert at Focus on the Family, claims that the Obama campaign violated 37 state’s and a Federal statute prohibiting internet gambling. The concern is with Obama’s offer to provide a VIP trip to three winners chosen from people who make at least a $5 contribution to his campaign. According to Focus on the Family, the fact that a person needs to make a contribution to enter the drawing makes the drawing “gambling.” Most drawings of this type get around the “money for a prize” issue by using a “mouse typed” option that allows people to get an entry blank by sending in an entry directly or by getting an entry form by requesting one, Obama’s offer had no alternative option.

OK, in the scheme of things, this isn’t going to show on the radar screen of voter’s decisions. It is funny though that a candidate who is a lawyer, a “Constitutional Professor” and has the media agog about the mastery with which his campaign has been managed would get tripped up by such an entry level issue.

The candidate of “Hope and Change” has had a career’s worth of position changing in just the past couple of weeks: gun control, late term abortions, Iraq etc. I can only imagine that with Obama’s finance team thought flip flopping was now acceptable as a “New Politician” and they wanted to support the team by creating their own opportunity for Barack to say “Juuuuuuust kidding!”

In an interview  this week with “Relevant,” a Christian magazine, Obama said prohibitions on late-term abortions must contain “a strict, well defined exception for the health of the mother.”

Obama then added: “Now, I don’t think that ‘mental distress’ qualifies as the health of the mother. I think it has to be a serious physical issue that arises in pregnancy, where there are real, significant problems to the mother carrying that child to term.”

Wow! Barack Obama is now running limping to the center even on abortion rights!

Except he’s not.

The Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) is a bill (Senate 1173 and House 1964) that Barack Obama has said he would immediately sign if he was President. At a speech to  the Planned Parenthood Action Fund Obama said:

“The first thing I’d do as president is sign the Freedom of Choice Act,” Obama said in his July speech to abortion advocates worried about the increase of pro-life legislation at the state level.

The specific language of the bill that Obama was addressing is:

(b) Prohibition of Interference- A government may not–

(1) deny or interfere with a woman’s right to choose–
(A) to bear a child;
(B) to terminate a pregnancy prior to viability; or
(C) to terminate a pregnancy after viability where termination is necessary to protect the life or health of the woman; or

(emphasis mine)

Looking at the language and listening to Obama, it seems like he is using a reasonable interpretation of what “health” is, except his definition of “health” is not what the Supreme Court has found in prior decisions. According to: The Supreme Court on Abortion: A Survey
by Mark Tushnet, from Abortion, Medicine, and the Law, Third Edition, 1986, pp. 162

“The final stage of pregnancy under Roe v. Wade occurs after the fetus becomes viable. After viability, the state could regulate or prohibit abortions unless they were “necessary, in appropriate medical judgement”, to preserve the life or health of the woman. This standard must be read, however, in light of the Court’s decision the same day in Doe v. Bolton, that clinical judgement “may be exercised in light of all factors — physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman’s age — relevant to the well-being of the patient

(again, emphasis mine)

Obama is Co-Sponser  of the Senate version of FOCA, the bill that if unchanged and left to the Supreme Court, will likely allow partial birth abortions for a wide variety of reasons including claims of mental health impacts. Yet Obama claims mental health shouldn’t be a reason. That seems to leave me with only two conclusions about Obama’s interview comments:

1. This is another example of Obama backing off of an earlier commitment

or

2. Barack knows full well the implications of the Supreme Court’s previous decisions and his comments to a Christian magazine were nothing but deceitful pandering.

You decide.

A new poll is out showing that Ralph Nader is still polling about 6% nationally and Bob Barr is polling about 3%.

I wrote after he announced his candidacy, that I believed Nader would have an impact on the 2008 race.   Folks then and now continue to pooh pooh that thinking.   They naysayers kept saying that Nader’s vote would look more like his 2004 performance, about .4% of the total vote, rather than his 2000 total which was closer to 3%.

This latest poll gives me more reason to believe that Nader will have something that looks more like his 2000 performance, perhaps better.   The experts on the poll even now suggest that Nader will likely see his polling at about 3% as the election occurs.

I still believe that Nader could well be the spoiler in this election.

First, take a look at the first chart that I had in my original article.   Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania are states where Nader’s % of the vote in 2000 were enough to change possible slim winning margins to losses.   They are also states where current polling suggests that when asked about a Obama/McCain race, McCain to be in either a winning position or within a couple of points.   It’s hard to imagine an Obama victory if each of those 3 states are lost.

Second, I believe the Nader effect may not have seen its peak yet.   Over the past couple of weeks Obama has been making attempts to move to the center.   Obama has flipflopped on gun rights and FISA throwing his furthest left supporters into tizzies.   As Obama continues to attempt moves to convince middle America that he’s “just like them,” I would expect the Left’s margins to do a little peeling and end up in Nader’s court.   I’m not suggesting that Nader will ever be a serious contender.   All he has to do pick up fractions of, or maybe 1% additional in a couple of states and that could spell the difference in what is likely to be a close electoral race.

Yea, Bob Barr is still there and some may argue that he could impact McCain in the same way that Nader impacts Obama.   I really don’t expect that to happen.   My reasoning is that McCain is pretty much McCain.   the Right (far, near or inbetween) already know where McCain stands.   McCain started left of center (at least that’s the perspective of nearly all on the Right who didn’t initially support McCain or maybe Huckabee) so I just don’t see his moves any more annoying than what folks on the Right believe him to already be.

The Nader factor will be one to watch. I can’t imagine the newest poll is helping the Obama people sleep any better at night.

You may have missed this bit of fun between Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell. It took place last week during a discussion regarding allowing a 10% reduction in payments to medicare physicians. If you haven’t heard it, take a quick listen.

So Harry Reid thinks the Senate should just go along with his desire because the President’s approval rating is low. In Harry’s mind, a low approval rating removes any claim the person has on the ability to think critically and develop good policy.

OK, I’ll play!

The latest poll for Harry shows that his home state approval rating is down to 41%…quite amazing when you consider he’s Senate Majority leader and has represented the state for years. One would expect that on his home turf, Harry would get some sympathy, not the case.

On the other hand, Mitch McConnell’s latest approval rating from Kentucky, put him at 57%. I’d say that’s pretty comfortable for a Senator who is part of a party on the outs.

I guess if Harry’s point is “He who has the highest rating wins,” he loses. The same would be true if we were to look at Congress’s approval rating versus the President’s or any other comparison you’d like to make.

So Harry’s on the south end of approval ratings both at home and nationally…and that was before this:

Last I looked, tourism is Nevada’s largest industry. Tourism, especially Nevada’s, is dependent upon people traveling to do the touring. Harry thinks every time someone starts a car, a plane, a train or pretty much any other mode of transportation that can move you faster than 40 MPH for more than a couple hundred miles in one shot, is just “making us sick.”

I’m guessing that even with the heat wave going through Nevada, Harry could be receiving a very cool reception at any July 4th activities.