Mass SNAFU

More collateral damage due to PC insanity

It is evident that not all Muslims are terrorists. It is also evident however, that all terrorists are Muslims. Why we choose to ignore this fact in our formulation of a homeland security battle plan can be directly traced back to political correctness and the progressive movement's belief that we can't hurt anyone's feelings, regardless of their intent to blow up airplanes.

In her latest column, Ann Coulter sheds some light on the stupidity of our government and how the progressive PC crowd is putting American lives at stake:

For the past eight years, approximately 2 million Americans a day have been subjected to humiliating searches at airport security checkpoints, forced to remove their shoes and jackets, to open their computers, and to remove all liquids from their carry-on bags, except minuscule amounts in marked 3-ounce containers placed in Ziploc plastic bags -- folding sandwich bags are verboten -- among other indignities.

This, allegedly, was the price we had to pay for safe airplanes. The one security precaution the government refused to consider was to require extra screening for passengers who looked like the last three-dozen terrorists to attack airplanes.

Since Muslims took down Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, every attack on a commercial airliner has been committed by foreign-born Muslim men with the same hair color, eye color and skin color. Half of them have been named Mohammed.

An alien from the planet "Not Politically Correct" would have surveyed the situation after 9/11 and said: "You are at war with an enemy without uniforms, without morals, without a country and without a leader -- but the one advantage you have is they all look alike. …"

An increased attention to Muslims at airports is an obvious answer to improving our security but would be considered politically incorrect by the progressives who honestly believe that Muslim extremists have every right to avoid increased scrutiny and blow up planes. Coulter goes on to list some of the warning signs from the failed Christmas Day terror attack that, if not hampered down by the threat of being persecuted for being unfair to Muslims, might have raised some red flags for someone along the way:

His name was Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.
He's Nigerian.
He's a Muslim.
His name was Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.
He boarded a plane in Lagos, Nigeria.
He paid nearly $3,000 in cash for his ticket.
He had no luggage.
His name was Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.
Two months ago, his father warned the U.S. that he was a radical Muslim and possibly dangerous.

And the sad thing is that no one wanted to attach their name to scrutinizing a Muslim, regardless of the warning signs, and that nearly caused the deaths of 278 innocent people. This is the same dynamic that contributed to the Fort Hood terror attack, and the progressive mindset in that incident did result in American lives lost.

As I suggested then, it's time to ditch the PC movement and start focusing on keeping the bad guys from killing innocent people, regardless of all the hurt feelings. And the first step in that process is removing Janet Napolitano as Secretary of Homeland Security and getting someone in there with a clue and a willingness to keep Americans safe.

The Baucus Happy Hour

No matter how they try to spin it, Senator Max Baucus was slurring his words and appeared to be a tad hammered during a recent speech on the Senate floor:

The Baucus camp is in full-denial mode but they fail to explain why he sounded like a barfly on the tail end of an all day bender:

A spokesman for Baucus released the following statement: "When his friend of 30 years Ted Kennedy, with whom he had fought so hard to provide health care to children, was being used as a cheap foil to oppose health care reform, Senator Baucus gave a passionate defense. Unfortunately, those who want to kill any meaningful reform, turned it into an unfounded, untrue personal smear internet rumor. This is beyond the pale and this type of gutter politics has no place in the public sphere. It is this type of slander that makes Montanans, and Americans, disgusted with the politics as usual in Washington. And what is even more sad is that such a personal attack would be given any validity at all, let alone being elevated to the status of 'news'."

For what it's worth Mr. Spokesman, the "personal attack" was given validity because no one could understand a word of what the piss drunk honorable Senator from Montana was saying.

The proverbial tip of the iceberg

Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson is starting to feel the heat for his vote on the health care package that basically no one outside of Harry Reid thinks is any good. As the latest Rasmussen poll indicates, Nebraskans are not too happy with Senator Nelson and if an election were held today, the good 'ol Senator from the Cornhusker State would be looking for work:

If Governor Dave Heineman challenges Nelson for the Senate job, a new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey shows the Republican would get 61% of the vote while Nelson would get just 30%. Nelson was reelected to a second Senate term in 2006 with 64% of the vote.

That's an embarrassing freefall but Nelson brought it on himself. As I've been saying all along, a vote for ObamaCare would prove to be a vote for a spot in the unemployment line for many of these politicians representing conservative leaning districts. Nelson basically ignored his constituents, made some backroom deals with Harry Reid, and then voted for something that an overwhelming majority of his base did not approve of:

Nelson's health care vote is clearly dragging his numbers down. Just 17% of Nebraska voters approve of the deal their senator made on Medicaid in exchange for his vote in support of the plan. Overall, 64% oppose the health care legislation, including 53% who are Strongly Opposed.

And now he's paying the price. Nelson's pathetic numbers are just the beginning though. Voters across the country will send a strong message beginning in the 2010 midterm elections, with what I predict will be a conservative tidal wave of sweeping change in both the House and Senate.

It will undoubtedly be a "teachable moment" for politicians who choose to ignore the people that got them elected.

This is definitely not PC...

This is over a year old but, as an emailer points out, it is a priceless reminder of the way things used to be handled before the plague of political correctness took over:

Click pic to watch video
 

Now, had this video been recorded under the Obama administration, that entire American military unit would have been accused of mistreatment of potential enemy combatants and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Additionally, the clueless Iraqi police would have been offered counseling and awarded reparations for that verbal "abuse." 

Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians

The investigative hawks over at Judicial Watch just released their 2009 "Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians" list and, lo and behold, look who made the cut:

7. President Barack Obama: During his presidential campaign, President Obama promised to run an ethical and transparent administration. However, in his first year in office, the President has delivered corruption and secrecy, bringing Chicago-style political corruption to the White House.

Consider just a few Obama administration "lowlights" from year one: Even before President Obama was sworn into office, he was interviewed by the FBI for a criminal investigation of former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich's scheme to sell the President's former Senate seat to the highest bidder. (Obama's Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and slumlord Valerie Jarrett, both from Chicago, are also tangled up in the Blagojevich scandal.)

Moreover, the Obama administration made the startling claim that the Privacy Act does not apply to the White House. The Obama White House believes it can violate the privacy rights of American citizens without any legal consequences or accountability. President Obama boldly proclaimed that "transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency," but his administration is addicted to secrecy, stonewalling far too many of Judicial Watch's Freedom of Information Act requests and is refusing to make public White House visitor logs as federal law requires.

The Obama administration turned the National Endowment of the Arts (as well as the agency that runs the AmeriCorps program) into propaganda machines, using tax dollars to persuade "artists" to promote the Obama agenda. According to documents uncovered by Judicial Watch, the idea emerged as a direct result of the Obama campaign and enjoyed White House approval and participation. President Obama has installed a record number of "czars" in positions of power. Too many of these individuals are leftist radicals who answer to no one but the president. And too many of the czars are not subject to Senate confirmation (which raises serious constitutional questions).

Under the President's bailout schemes, the federal government continues to appropriate or control — through fiat and threats — large sectors of the private economy, prompting conservative columnist George Will to write: "The administration's central activity — the political allocation of wealth and opportunity — is not merely susceptible to corruption, it is corruption." Government-run healthcare and car companies, White House coercion, uninvestigated ACORN corruption, debasing his office to help Chicago cronies, attacks on conservative media and the private sector, unprecedented and dangerous new rights for terrorists, perks for campaign donors – this is Obama's "ethics" record — and we haven't even gotten through the first year of his presidency.

Yet, despite all this, we hear nothing but crickets from the head-in-the-sand, main-stream media. Replace "Obama" with "Bush" in the preceding paragraphs and the collective number of heart attacks and feinting spells in news rooms across the country would collapse our emergency response systems.

Nonetheless, the list was presented in alphabetical order and also included these not-so-fine representatives of our federal government:

Chris Dodd
John Ensign
Barney Frank
Tim Geithner
Eric Holder
Rep. Jesse Jackson and Se. Roland Burris (a tie)
Nancy Pelosi
John Murtha and the PMA Seven
Charles Rangel

An accurate list no doubt, but I'm somewhat surprised that Harry Reid wasn't included, especially after all the bribery that went on to get that health care debacle passed. His actions were as corrupt as corrupt gets and are going to cost taxpayers billions.

We’re in safe hands…on second thought, no we are not.

Photoshop credit: Another Black Conservative

The failed terror plot that took place over the Christmas holiday, in which a terrorist attempted – unsuccessfully – to blow up his explosive-filled underwear on an inbound flight to Detroit proves that our security systems are not quite where they need to be. At least that's what a normal person would think after a known terrorist sneaks explosives by security and then attempts to ignite them during flight. But don't worry, that, according to Homeland Security Director Janet Napolitano on Sunday, is exactly how the system is supposed to work:

What we are focused on is making sure that the air environment remains safe, that people are confident when they travel. And one thing I'd like to point out is that the system worked.

The system worked? Put aside for a minute that a known terrorist snuck explosives by security and boarded a plane loaded with Americans headed for the US. Let's focus on how the system failed at flagging this terrorist in the first place:

According to a law enforcement source, the first failure came on Nov. 19, 2009, the very same day Abdulmutallab father's, Dr. Umaru Mutallab, a prominent banking official in Nigeria, expressed deep concern to officials at the U.S. Embassy in Abjua, Nigeria, that his 23-year-old son had fallen under the influence of "religious extremists" in Yemen.

The second failure to flag an active visa belonging to Abdulmuttalab occurred the very next day in Washington, after Mutallab's concerns were forwarded to officials there. It was only after the Christmas Day terror attack in Detroit that U.S. officials learned that Abdulmuttalab had been issued a visa by the U.S. Embassy in London valid from June 16, 2008, through June 12, 2010.

Do I blame the Obama administration for this? Absolutely. Mind you, this incident comes a few weeks after Napolitano's outfit accidentally posted the TSA's full playbook on countering terrorism at airports for all terrorists to see online. That of course, according to the increasingly naïve and incompetent Napolitano, posed no security risk whatsoever. Yeah right.

But at the foundation, this administration has adopted a laissez-faire attitude toward the threat of terrorism and to say they've reversed course and have taken it a little less serious than the previous administration would be a big understatement. Just look at AG Eric Holder's initiative to try suspected terrorists as civilians with all the rights we have, or the way they've handled the Ft. Hood terrorist attack man-made disaster senseless act of violence, as examples.

I would guess terrorism, in terms of importance on the Obama agenda, falls somewhere below amnesty for all illegals and somewhere above what Bo the family dog is eating for supper. So, yes, that's a problem.

Case in point: according to correspondence from a US Air Force pilot who asked to remain anonymous, the airport of origin of the terrorist was once red-flagged by the US but recently got the green light to allow all explosives aboard was approved for travel by the Obama administration:

Do you know that up until 30 days ago the airport that the terrorist left from originally (Lagos, I think it is called, in Nigeria) was deemed inadequate to do proper screening of passengers. Therefore, any passenger that got on a flight that was going to enter the US that originated in Lagos was going to have to get re-screened before boarding the flight for the US.

Miraculously, 30 days ago Obama and his crack staff said this airport was now deemed to have adequate screening capabilities and techniques. Within 30 days they try to blow up a plane. Now Bush may have been a little whacky with his religious views but I mean you can guarantee that this scumbag jihadist that tried to blow up the plane would not have gotten as far as he did because the Bush administration wouldn't have given the thumbs up to security clearance at some 5th rate airport in Nigeria.

Can't you just feel the Hope? And the Change? More than likely, this adjustment in status at the Nigerian airport was in exchange for some political favor, at the expense of American lives. Maybe it was for a vote in Copenhagen, the UN, etc.; back door politics at the expense of US security, but I digress.

Another issue to add to this ignorance and pacifism towards jihadists that want to slit our kid's throats, is the failure of a giant bureaucracy too big not to fail. It's what the federal government does best; it grows way too big, has too many parts, and then fails to deliver as advertised as the numerous parts fail to mesh and produce. That dynamic played a big role here. The fact is the State Department neglected to double-check the incriminating information against visas issued by our numerous embassies and that is a major problem and something Napolitano should be held accountable for.

As such, it's becoming more evident that this unqualified clown that is Janet Napolitano needs to go immediately for everyone's sake…but more importantly, their safety.

UPDATE: Someone got to Napolitano since yesterday and she has since renounced "the system worked" stance:

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano conceded Monday that airline security failed in allowing a Nigerian on a terror watch list and allegedly armed with explosives onto a Detroit-bound flight, a turnaround from her declaration a day earlier that "the system worked."

The woman just reeks of incompetence and poor leadership, and that's a stench that has to be removed from the halls of Homeland Security soon.

Those clueless amateurs are at it again...

Because nothing says Merry Christmas Happy Holidays like a Christmas Holiday ornament on the White House Christmas Holiday tree with a picture of Mao Tse Tung on it:

...and the one with Obama's face engrained into Mt. Rushmore is also a nice touch that reminds all of us that the holidays are not about selfish indulgence but rather a time for giving and sharing.  

As for the Mao ornament, so what if he caused the deaths of up to 70 million people, seasons' greetings from the White House everybody!

Hey Democrats, polls matter!

  
 

It's been a lot of fun watching the left defend President Obama's continued free fall in the polls. They kept saying things like "all presidents drop in popularity after getting elected" and later, as the free fall continued, "Obama's approval numbers are comparable to other presidents."  But then when Obama recently produced the lowest approval rating ever for any president at this point in their presidency, and the trends and his job performance suggest no end in sight, all of a sudden polls don't matter to the defenders of Hopenchange. The latest battle cry to emerge is that "stats are for losers, the final score is for winners!"

Well hold onto your granola lefties because a lot of smart people who make their living within politics disagree with that sentiment.   Even the progressive loons over at Time give 5 good reasons why the polls matter:

1. Congress cares about the polls

… In a recent public memo, Celinda Lake, of Lake Research Partners, pointed to a sobering statistic: Presidents with approval ratings below 50% have lost an average of 41 House seats in mid-term elections. (Democrats currently have an 81-seat advantage in the House, so Republicans could gain control of the chamber with a 41-seat pick-up in 2010.) To make matters worse, Republicans now win the generic Congressional ballot by two points, the first time the GOP has outstripped Democrats since January of 2002, according to the George Washington University Battleground Poll.

2. Health Care has become a burden

… The July Battleground poll found that 84% of Americans were "satisfied" with their health care. The same poll in December found 91% of Americans satisfied with their health care. By contrast, 51% of the same group of people rated their economic situation as "just fair" or "poor," a clear signal that people care far more about the economy and jobs than they do about their co-pays and deductibles. In the Battleground poll, 29% of Americans said they feel insecure about their access to health care, compared to 48% who said they feel insecure about their families' finances.

3. The Obama Movement has gone missing

The 2009 elections in New Jersey and Virginia were initially talked about by Obama allies as a test of the President's organizing power. By the time the votes were counted, however, with Republicans winning two Democratic seats, no one at the White House wanted to claim any responsibility. That's because the remarkable enthusiasm that greeted Obama's victory in 2008, with record turnout among independents, blacks and young people, had gone away, along with the minions of Obama organizers. … In fact, the enthusiasm gap bodes poorly for 2010, when Obama will be trying to minimize losses in the House and the Senate. According to the recent Battleground poll, just under two-thirds of Democrats say they are extremely likely to vote in upcoming elections, compared to 77% of Republicans and Independents.

4. Keynes doesn't play in Peoria

… In a recent focus group with independent voters who voted for Obama, Republican pollster Ed Goeas found significant concern about government spending. "There was a tipping point that occurred," he said. "The biggest thing I have seen beyond the intensity and the independents moving has been this focus, in the middle of a very bad economy, on spending." He continued, "They have moved from a maybe-we-have-to-do-this to a how-are-we going-to-pay-for-this. It's going to be our children and our grandchildren."

5. Washington has not changed

… But there are also signs that Obama is beginning to feel the taint of the long-standing anger against politics and politicians in general. The Wall Street Journal/NBC poll found in December that 61% of the country has only some confidence, or no confidence, in Obama having the right set of goals and priorities to be President. Meanwhile, America's confidence in general remains in the gutter. When asked if they trust that government will do what is right, 32% said almost never and 46% said only some of the time.

....

If Obama continues to straight up lie to the electorate and persists with all his reckless spending, back-door politics and failed economic policies, he's a one termer and will be the main reason why the House will be in Republican hands next year and the Senate more conservatively balanced.

In the meantime, we'll let the lefties keep their heads in the sand, repeating to themselves that polls don't matter.  We can then give them all a collective kick in the arse when all the real change takes place as a natural correction to the worst political mistake in the history of American politics.

Yeah, about that GDP number…

Not too long ago the Commerce Department was pimping the release of a 3^rd quarter GDP that reportedly grew at an annualized rate of 3.5%. Put aside the fact that the number was artificially inflated to begin with due to Cash for Clunkers (C for C) and the home buying tax credit. Our president was having none of that and claimed the number was an indicator that the economy was on the road back! 

A few weeks later, the number was revised 20% downward to 2.8% but the administration still claimed economic success while critics wondered how the Commerce Department could be off by twenty percent.

Well, keep wondering critics because they just revised it again:

Today, Commerce backtracked even further. The annualized growth number for Q3 turns out to have been 2.2%, a revision of over a third from its original estimate two months ago:

The U.S. economy grew at a much slower pace than initially thought in the third quarter, restrained by weak business investment and a slightly more aggressive liquidation of inventories, according to data on Tuesday.

The Commerce Department's final estimate showed gross domestic product grew at a 2.2 percent annual rate instead of the 2.8 percent pace it reported last month. Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast the report to show GDP, which measures total goods and services output within U.S. borders, unrevised at a 2.8 percent growth rate in the third quarter.

So it turns out that they were off by 37%! One has to wonder if this was a legitimate accounting error (doubtful) or the result of pressure from the top to paint a rosy economic picture (likely). So now that we're off by 37%, how much did the economy really grow sans C for C?   About 0.7%:

Motor vehicle output added 1.45 percentage points to the third-quarter change in real GDP after adding 0.19 percentage point to the second-quarter change. Final sales of computers subtracted 0.08 percentage point from the third-quarter change in real GDP after subtracting 0.04 percentage point from the second-quarter change.

That, surely doesn't paint the picture of economic bliss Obama was pushing a few months back. And since C for C didn't create new demand for autos – it simply moved future demand to the present – any hope for a "V" shaped recovery just got crushed as the true numbers were exposed after the accounting "errors" from Commerce. 

So, when we remove ourselves from the Obama economic propaganda machine, we can, in reality, expect a prolonged economic sputter at best or a double dip recession at worst.

Ending the year with a bang

Yikes...

  

That, obviously, is a new low in the Rasmussen Passion Index.  But of even more interest is in the overall approval poll where 56% of likely voters now disapprove of Obama's performance.  Also, a new low.

What's that old saying?  Something about the devil you know is better than the devil you don't...