Choices

Here's something it appears tonight's speakers, at the convention, need to learn.

Can Someone Explain to Me?

Can someone explain to me now the words "golf" and "Chicago" are racist, but this isn't?

This is offensive on so many levels.

National Empty Chair Day

It's National Empty Chair Day. Take time today to think about the empty suit that's out campaigning today (on our dime!), who gave up even trying to govern long ago.

Actually, that's probably a good thing, since his governing has meant our workers have lost more during his "recovery" than they did during the recession that preceded it.

Clint Eastwood got more answers from an empty chair than the rest of us have gotten from our excuse-in-chief.

Yes, Obama inherited a bad situation, but he and his policies have made it worse. He's simply not up to the job. And since Obama has so clearly demonstrated he can't do the job, we've got to let him go.

UPDATE: I think this one (from here) is my favorite for the day.

The Grassroots Speak

I've seen e-mails with pictures of quite a number of signs and billboards. Not signs from the campaigns, but signs made by individuals expressing their own opinions.

And I have seen another comparable sign — quiet and understated, just there. This one is just off the Interstate (I-25) in Belen, New Mexico.

Yes, it is the same on both sides. Yes, it is lighted at night.

This is the sound of the grassroots speaking.

A Fascinating Observation

I've heard time and again during this campaign about how some candidate or other has made some statement as a kind of "racial dog whistle" to his supporters. One of the most recent such claims, made by a large variety of folks on the Left, had to do with Mitt Romney's joke about his birth certificate. MSNBC described that joke as "the most despicable bigotry we can imagine."

My first thought when I saw that, was that those folks have very stunted imaginations if this was the worst they could imagine. My second was that their imaginations were pretty warped if they imagined this was bigotry.

And then a fascinating thought struck me: Isn't it interesting that the only ones that can hear and understand these "dog whistles" are Obama supporters — liberals, progressives, and other associated Lefty Democrats?

Why Voter ID Is Needed

shamelessly cribbed from The House of Eratosthenes

Highlights of the Obama Campaign

The presidential re-election campaign of President Barack Obama continues. And, since he can't run on his record, he continues to run on distraction.

And, of course, it will get worse. Indeed, I expect the worst this year.

Harry Reid Follow-Up

Senator Harry Reid (D-NV), the Senate majority leader, has become famous for making wild charges and insisting everyone accept them as if they were real. In his world, it's "guilty till proven innocent."

Then there's the issue of why Reid is doing this. And why President Barack Obama and his Whihte House and his Administration and his campaign have all refused to disavow Reid's fantasies. It makes me think they put him up to it.

These both seem to be related to Reid's fantasy charge that Romney hasn't paid any taxes in ten years. (That's a hard charge to support, given that Romney has released his 2010 return and most of his developing 2011 return — both of which show he paid taxes.)

I'm Back

My computer died. Belly up.

But now I have a new one. Got most of the software installed, too.

I'm back.

It's Not About Health Care

The horribly mis-named Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (popularly known as Obamacare) isn't about health care — it's about insurance. Or, to put it another way,

One of the harder realities is that health care reform is not about public health. That's the mistake people make. . . . Health care reform is public finance. And when you get into public finance, it's not about doing a study to guide policy; it's about creating a business plan.
      — Ralph de la Torre, CEO, Steward Health Care System,
          "health care's new maverick"

Harry Reid's Friend

Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) says presidential candidate Mitt Romney hasn't paid any taxes in ten years. He said an investor in Bain Capital told him that in a phone call.

Reid's claim, by itself, raises a few questions. One is time frame. Reid is talking about ten years, which may be the last ten years or the ten years preceding the tax returns Romney has released. That would be ten years beginning in either 2002 or 2000. But Romney was hired in 1999 as president and CEO of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee for the 2002 Winter Olympics. He was brought in there to fix the problems they were having; he wasn't at Bain Capital. When that task finished, he ran for and was elected governor of Massachusetts later that year; he wasn't at Bain Capital.

Then there is another class of questions. What would anybody at Bain Capital know about Romney's taxes beyond whatever residual income he might have gotten from Bain — even if Romney had still been at Bain full-time? And beyond that, what would a mere investor know about details of the tax returns of anyone there?

But Harry Reid insists on spreading the charges, with the blessing of the Obama campaign (and probably of Barack Obama himself). And Reid insists Romney must answer these charges, that Romney is guilty until he proves himself innocent.

In the face of all this, how can Harry Reid's friend know what Reid says he knows? One writer says the answer is clear: Imaginary people know everything.

I disagree a bit. It seems to me the answer is that Harry Reid and the rest of the national Democrat leadership are simply making stuff up, for obvious political reasons. And then others — like former governors Ed Rendel (D-PA) and Ted Strickland (D-OH) on CBS' Face the Nation this morning — wrongly put their trust in these misleaders.

Why are Reid et al. doing this? That, too, seems clear: Anything to move the discussion away from Barack Obama and his record.

UPDATE: If, indeed, Harry Reid's claim is that Mitt Romney hasn't paid any taxes "in the past 10 years", the charge disproves itself. The two years of tax returns Romney has released (2010 and 2011) show he paid taxes — a lot of taxes — in those two years, which are part of "the past 10 years."

You May Be A Liberal . . .

Yes, Mrs Critter and I went into Albuquerque yesterday (that's where our nearest Chick-Fil-A is) and got a couple of chicken sandwiches with waffle fries and soft drinks. It took a long time to get through the drive-up line, and the walk-up was no better — both came out and circled the building, and we weren't there at a peak time! But, even then, we saw reporters and news photographers there, and a TV crew setting up and starting to film. Later in the day, we saw feature reports from the Chick-Fil-A restaurants on all three networks' local news broadcasts.

Kerry's Assessment of the Global Climate Change Challenge

Senator John Kerry (D, MA), "the haughty, French-looking Massachusetts Democrat who by the way served in Vietnam", delivered this assessment of the seriousness of "climate change"

I believe that the situation we face, Mr. President, is as dangerous as any of the sort of real crises that we talk about

As dangerous as a real crisis? That sounds to me like quite an admission.

Obama on the Aurora Theater Shooting

Today's news is full of the midnight shootings at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado.

President Barack Obama had a very human reaction, thinking about what if his own children had been there. He said

My daughters go to the movies. What if Malia and Sasha had been at the theater, as so many of our kids do every day?

My immediate thought was that, if the Obama girls had been in that theater, the shooter would have been down after his first couple of shots — at most — courtesy of the Secret Service.

Obama Ad Debunks Itself

Either Barack Obama and his campaign people are incredibly stupid or they think we all are. And I don't think they're that stupid.

Here's today's proof:

The Obama campaign truly seems to be out of touch with reality. Yesterday it issued an ad that can only be describe as bizarre. Titled "Mitt Romney: Saying Anything to Get Elected," it begins with words on the screen: "Mitt Romney is launching a false attack." Then it shows a clip of Romney quoting Obama: "If you've got a business, you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen."

"The only problem?" reads the onscreen caption "That's not what he said." The ad then shows a lengthy clip of Obama in which he says exactly the words Romney attributed to him! Making the point more dramatically, someone with the YouTube account NotBarackObama.com did a shortened version of the Obama ad, cutting out a bunch of other Obama quotes. In the context of this ad, "That's not what he said" is either a brazen lie or an act of dissociation, a psychological term meaning a severe detachment from reality.

So Obama's campaign ad expects us to believe their statement ("That's not what he said.") even though they themselves provide the proof it is what he said. How stupid to they think we are?

Political Ads That Piss Me Off

The Sierra Club Political Committee is running some ads here in New Mexico that are particularly heavy-handed, and dishonest.

It is now absolutely certain that I will vote for the politician attacked in these ads.

And I am sure I am not alone.

Claims vs. Evidence

The Democrats claim to be the party of civil rights. They claim the Republicans want to go back to the days of Jim Crow.

Here is some evidence to the contrary.

Remember this when you hear more similar claims.

Does Obama Want to Damage the US Economy?

Jay Carney, White House propaganda minister, has now admitted that the "Bush tax cuts" helped the economy. Of course, now Obama wants taxes raised, and especially wants a tax increase for high income earners and small businesses. We are justified in thinking Barack Obama may want to damage the US economy.

Happy Fourth of July!

God Bless America!
And remember why we celebrate.

Homeland Security Says "Public Be Damned"

The Border Patrol is a law enforcement agency. But, to the Department of Homeland Security, Border Patrol agents are no more than convenience store clerks. DHS is instructing the agents, like the clerks, to run and hide if confronted by a gunman.

"We are now taught in an 'Active Shooter' course that if we encounter a shooter in a public place we are to 'run away' and 'hide'" union leader Brandon Judd wrote on the website of 3,300-member union local. "If we are cornered by such a shooter we are to (only as a last resort) become 'aggressive' and 'throw things' at him or her. We are then advised to 'call law enforcement' and wait for their arrival (presumably, while more innocent victims are slaughtered)." [...]

But members of Local 2544 say they are obligated to protect the public in such a situation, whether they are on duty or not. Given the instructions, some wonder if they would be disciplined for taking down a gunman in a situation like the Fort Hood shooting or the January, 2011 case in Casa[s] Adobes [a Tucson shopping center], in which a deranged gunmen shot 19 people, including Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. Six people were killed.

“It is always comforting to know that for those of us who carry a weapon when we are off-duty, if we should encounter such a situation, stop a shooter and save countless lives, we can look forward to being disciplined or fired by the Border Patrol because we should have run away to hide and then maybe thrown objects at the deranged killer instead of taking action and stopping him with a firearm,” the union local’s website says.

This is not an idle worry. Especially because it wouldn't be the first time employees were terminated for not following instructions to hide and cower.

Whoever ordered this policy should be fired. And that's true even if it's DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano herself. Or her boss.