Hillary refuses to meet with Jimmy Carter

I don’t wanna like her.  OK, the fact is I don’t like her.  But I gotta give the she-devil her due on this one:

Former President Jimmy Carter and former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari were hoping to visit the State Department this week to brief officials on their recent trip to North Korea, but nobody at the State Department was available to meet with them…

It’s no secret at all that the Elders’ trip to North Korea was viewed as extremely unhelpful by the governments both in Washington and Seoul. Chris Nelson reported on April 29 that Clinton reacted strongly when asked in a morning meeting if she wanted to meet with Carter. From the Nelson report:

“The performance of President Carter and his delegation in N. Korea this week was either shameful or fatuous…or both…and exemplifies why Carter had no…zero…USG support going in, and even less coming out, per an alleged eye witness account of Sec. St. Clinton at the morning meeting the other day:

“‘Do you want to meet with Carter?’ Clinton is looking at papers, and just says ‘No.’ Then she pauses, looks up and adds, ‘HELL no!!!’”

Jimmy the Dhimmi is persona non grata among national Dems.  Savor the aroma of that for a moment.  😆

Hillary: Obama didn’t need Congressional approval to attack Libya, since we had the international community on board.

Her Highness, telling us that we passed John Kerry’s “global test”:

Tapper asked Clinton, “Why not got to Congress?”

“Well, we would welcome congressional support,” the Secretary said, “but I don’t think that this kind of internationally authorized intervention where we are one of a number of countries participating to enforce a humanitarian mission is the kind of unilateral action that either I or President Obama was speaking of several years ago.”

Three things here:

1.  OK, could someone show me where the Constitution requires the president to declare war only with Congressional approval except in cases of other countries joining in the attack on another country?  I must have slept through that in history class, because I don’t see such an exception anywhere!

2.  Why is the Hilldawg talking about “unilateral” action by the U.S. in the case of Iraq, when the international coalition we had back then is twice the size of the international coalition we have in Libya right now?  The fact is that Oba-Mao authorized an attack on Libya without Congressional consultation or approval, and he has less assistance there than we had in Iraq in 2003.

3. This is quite the reversal of stances for Shrillary, which I’m guessing has nothing to do with the fact that the Commie in Chief is a fellow Democrat!

Earlier in 2007, then-Senator Hillary Clinton said in a speech on the Senate floor that, “If the administration believes that any — any — use of force against Iran is necessary, the President must come to Congress to seek that authority.

Oh, and how’s about this bit of inspiration from the administration?

“I think that this had a limited timeframe, a very clearly defined mission which we are in the process of fulfilling,” Clinton said.

“Limited”, huh?  Defense Secretary Gates doesn’t share that sentiment:

On “This Week,” ABC News’ Senior White House Correspondent Jake Tapper asked Secretary of Defense Gates how much longer we might be there.

“Some NATO officials say this could be three months, but people in the Pentagon think it could be far longer than that. Do you think we’ll be gone by the end of the year? Will the mission be over by the end of the year?” Tapper asked

“I don’t think anybody knows the answer to that,” Gates said.

Glad to see the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing.  Friggin’ wonderful.

Night and Day, “Obama and individual mandates” edition

Back in 2008, when Candidate Obama was running against Her Highness Hillary, he slammed her for her plan requiring Americans to buy health insurance.  You know, the individual mandate?  Partial transcript below (video here for full context):

“Both of us want to provide health care to all Americans. There’s a slight difference, and her plan is a good one. But, she mandates that everybody buy health care. She’d have the government force every individual to buy insurance and I don’t have such a mandate because I don’t think the problem is that people don’t want health insurance, it’s that they can’t afford it,” Obama said in a Feb. 28, 2008 appearance on Ellen DeGeneres’ television show. “So, I focus more on lowering costs. This is a modest difference. But, it’s one that she’s tried to elevate, arguing that because I don’t force people to buy health care that I’m not insuring everybody. Well, if things were that easy, I could mandate everybody to buy a house, and that would solve the problem of homelessness. It doesn’t.”

So yesterday, a federal judge ruled that Candidate Obama was correct: the feds can’t force somebody buy a product or service.  He even used Obama’s analogy from 2008 about mandating Americans buy a home:

In a ruling issued yesterday holding that the insurance mandate in Obamacare is unconstitutional, U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson pointed to a similar statement that Obama had made in a Feb. 4, 2008 interview with CNN. “Indeed,” wrote Vinson, “I note that in 2008, then-Senator Obama supported a health care reform proposal that did not include an individual mandate because he was at that time strongly opposed to the idea, stating that ‘if a mandate was the solution, we can try that to solve homelessness by mandating everybody to buy a house.’”

So how did the prez describe the judge that agreed with Candidate Obama?  Predictably:

“Today’s ruling – issued by Judge Vinson in the Northern District of Florida – is a plain case of judicial overreaching,” wrote Obama aide Stephanie Cutter on the White House web site.   ”

The judge’s decision contradicts decades of Supreme Court precedent.”

Over at the Justice Department, officials made clear they would challenge the ruling immediately.

“We strongly disagree with the court’s ruling today and continue to believe – as other federal courts have found – that the Affordable Care Act is constitutional,” said a Justice Department statement.

In a conference call with reporters, senior administration officials went even further in their attacks, labeling the ruling “odd and unconventional” and “well out of the mainstream” – predicting it would not stand the scrutiny of higher courts.

Don’t you love it when moonbats try to tell Normal America what is and isn’t “outside the mainstream”?  😆

Night and Day, “Democrats and the WWE” edition

Dems in 2008:

“Hey WWE fans, I hope you’re all enjoying the program tonight,” Obama said to wrestling fans two years ago. “For a long time now we’ve had a politics where our leaders go after each other like they’re competing to become King of the Ring instead of coming together to provide universal health care, fix our economy and solve our other problems. That’s what I’m running for president to change.”

“Do you smell what Barack is cooking?” Obama added, a reference to the famous catchphrase of former WWE personality “The Rock,” played by actor Dwayne Johnson.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton appeared as well, offering a similar message.

“Hi. I’m Hillary Clinton. Tonight in honor of the WWE, you can call me Hill-Rod,” she said. “This election is starting to feel a lot like King of the Ring. The only difference: The last man standing may just be a woman.”

Dems in 2010:

It took less than an hour after Linda McMahon’s triumph in the Connecticut Republican primary election for Senate Tuesday night for Democrats to throw her past as a pro wrestling CEO in her face, in a volley of attacks that is unlikely to cease until election day in November.

“Today the party of Bob Dole, Jack Kemp and Richard Lugar nominated a candidate who kicks men in the crotch, thinks of scenes of necrophilia as ‘entertainment,’ and runs an operation where women are forced to bark like dogs. This is what has become of the once grand old party,” said Hari Sevugan, national press secretary for the Democratic National Committee.

Full story here. 

Hypocrisy: it’s what’s for dinner.

It begins: Violence Bill Clinton warned us about has occurred

Folks, as much as it pains me to say this, I have to be honest: Bubba was right.

Yes, indeed.  Recall last week that Bubba took a break from poking portly interns to tell us that Tea Partiers are all potential Tim McVeighs.  He warned us that the angst against elected government officials could translate into actual threats of violence.  He was right, as was seen here in FL.  From the Orlando Slant-inel:

FBI agents and representatives with the Hernando County Sheriff’s Office said they arrested a Spring Hill man on a charge of threatening harm against U.S. Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite.

The Brooksville Republican’s office received a “telephonic threat” on March 25 from an unidentified male, authorities said.

Late Sunday, FBI agents and Hernando deputies arrested Erik Lawrence Pidrman, 66, in connection with the threat. The charge involves “threatening to assault or murder” a U.S. official, according to FBI Special Agent Dave Couvertier.

Pidrman’s bail was set at $20,000 on Monday, and he was ordered to wear an electronic monitoring and home-detention device.

Hernando deputies and the FBI started a joint investigation after Brown-Waite’s Brooksville office received the threat.

Brown-Waite’s district includes parts of Lake, Polk and Marion counties, as well as all of Citrus, Hernando, and Sumter counties and portions of Levy and Pasco counties.

Her office released a text of the voicemail soon after it was received March 25.

The caller stated: “Just wanna let you know I have 27 people that are going to make sure that this [expletive deleted] does not live to see her next term. Goodbye.”

Wait, what?  A threat against a Republican legislator?  Is this what BJ Clinton was talking about?

It gets better: the nutbar who threated Congresswoman Brown-Waite is a Democrat, having donated to BJ’s wife’s failed 2008 presidential bid.  Luckily, the Slant-inel pointed out the Hillary connection for us.

Of course I’m kidding!  There’s no way the Slant-inel would point that out.  That kind of deep digging and investigative journalism would have required a lot of resources…such as a Google search.  Hell, a nanocalorie might have been burned if the Slant-inel‘s reporters would have done that!  But nope, no liberal media bias!

The left’s narrative just took a big hit with this story.

Justice Hillary Clinton?

Sen. Hatch (R-UT) says he’s heard the Hilldawg’s name bandied about as a possible replacement for liberal SCOTUS Justice Stevens, who is retiring a decade short of the century mark of life.  How Hatch has any insider info on B.O.’s thinking, I dunno.  Story here.

Anywho, this may stun you fine folks, but I think I might support the choice.  Before you think I’ve been hitting the bong, please hear me out.

First of all, ObaMao isn’t going to pick a conservative or a centrist.  Period.  Secondly, the ideological makeup wouldn’t change, as you’re replacing a leftist with a leftist.

No, I think our gain would be to get this disaster out of the State Department.  She’s alienated our allies and has bungled so many foreign policy moves that it’s not even funny.  While I know that Oprompter would replace her with another leftist hack, his stock is badly damaged now, compared to when he was first sworn in.  The GOP could now mount an offense against whatever Marxist surrender-happy meat stick B.O. picks.

Additionally, there are those who think that B.O. will be so badly damaged in 2012 that either he won’t run or he’ll get a primary challenge, either of which would open the door for Her Highness.  She’d be better on the Court and not in the Oval Office.

Obviously, this is not a warm, enthusiastic endorsement for Shrillary.  It’s a backhanded “How can we be screwed the least?” endorsement.

What sayeth the commenters? 😀

Can Hillary be the Secretary of State?

Her anemic credentials notwithstanding, there may be a bigger obstacle to Hill taking the Sec State gig: the Constitution.  From Marc Ambinder:

Pete Williams of NBC raised the question on MSNBC this afternoon: Is Hillary Clinton barred by the Constitution from accepting the post of secretary of state?

Article One, Section Six of the U.S. Constitution says:

No Senator or Representative shall, during the Time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil Office under the Authority of the United States which shall have been created, or the Emoluments whereof shall have been increased during such time; and no Person holding any Office under the United States, shall be a Member of either House during his Continuance in Office.

The Constitution may be unimportant to a no-name Pittsburgh city councilwoman, but it’s oh-so-slightly more important in D.C.  Has this happened before?  Yes:

This is not the first time this Article has stood in the way of a cabinet appointment. In 1973, at the height of Watergate, President Richard Nixon nominated William Saxbe (R) to be Attorney General and the issue was raised because Saxbe was in the Senate in 1969 when the Attorney General’s pay was raised.

In that instance, Congress lowered the pay for the AG, allowing the appointment to proceed. Democratic Senators complained, however, and 10 senators actually voted against the transparent scheme on constitutional grounds. At the time, Sen. Robert C. Byrd deemed it was clearly unconstitutional saying we should not delude the American people into thinking a way can be found around the constitutional obstacle.

It will be interesting to see if Sen. Byrd (D-KKK) has any similar constitutional concerns as he did 30+ years ago.  Then again, liberals have said they want judges who are willing to ignore the Constitution if it advances the liberal agenda, so I doubt they lose any sleep over this matter.

Headline of the weekend

Dude…I feel lunch coming up!

“Obama to Tap Clinton After Thanksgiving”

Ewwwwwwwwwwww!

Notes on Gov. Sarah Palin

I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve only recently heard of her.  Considering she’s governor of our 56th state (just ask that Magellan guy running for prez on the Dem side), Barry O’s probably not that familiar with her, either.  Anywho, I listened on the radio to her bio, as well as to her speech in Ohio.  Quick notes from around the blogosphere:

• Ed Morrissey has an excellent must-read post about the differences in experience between Obama and Palin.  Read it, but here’s a great excerpt:  “However, the nature of the experience couldn’t be more different.  Palin spent her entire political career crusading against the political machine that rules Alaska — which exists in her own Republican party.  She blew the whistle on the state GOP chair, who had abused his power on the same commission to conduct party business.  Obama, in contrast, talked a great deal about reform in Chicago but never challenged the party machine, preferring to take an easy ride as a protegé of Richard Daley instead.”
• You knew this was coming, didn’t you?  The One is criticizing Palin for…I really couldn’t make this up if I tried…having too little experience!  Especially foreign policy experience.  Because as you know, taking a rock star tour of Europe, having a brother he never visits or talks to living in squalor in Kenya, going to elementary school in Indonesia for a little while, and visiting Pakistan once while in college are all awesome nuggets of foreign policy experience!  For those of you on the left, the prior sentence was sarcasm.
• McCain’s camp retorts: “Governor Palin has spent her time in office shaking up government in Alaska and actually achieving results — whether it’s taking on corruption, passing ethics reform or stopping wasteful spending and the ‘bridge to nowhere.’ Senator Obama has spent his time in office running for President.”
• Palin credits Geraldine Ferraro and the Hildebeast for “cracking the glass ceiling” for her. Heh.  Well played!  Even Ferraro’s giving McCain mad props for the pick.
• Big O’s speech from the Acropolis-thingy yesterday just had some of its media thunder stolen.  Double “heh”!
• Hillary’s campaign head Howard Wolfson thinks that O picking Greasy Joe will, in light of McCain’s pick of Palin, make women supporters of Hillary even madder than they already are.  If Her Former Highness were so supportive of Obama-Biden, then why is she allowing (instructing?) her staff to go out there and foment dissention like this?  Answer: because she’s not supportive, but she has to pretend like she is!  Hill needs Obama to lose in November, so she can try again in 2012.  Whether she can make that happen remains to be seen.
• O’s team belittles her experience in a “town of 9,000”, which pretty much keeps pace with their previously stated view of “bitter, clingy” small town America.  Ace observes thusly:
  

  Just curious: Before Obama was a junior senator for sixteen months before he decided he knew enough to be President, he was a state legislator.

  How many people did he represent? What was the size of his district?

  And note, once again, that Palin’s experience was as the executive of that small town, the leader, the top dog, the decider, the chief law enforcement officer, whereas Obama was… a backbenching nobody in a body of hundreds, none of whom had ultimate responsibility for anything they did.

  She governed that town; Obama merely represented his district in committee.

  Oh, and he was corrupt. She wasn’t.

  I do admit he has more experience dealing with terrorists first hand… but we don’t need to talk about William Ayers and his Manson-enthusiast wife Bernadette Dohrn right now.

  Ouch!

Laugher of the day, Bubba edition

BEVERAGE ALERT!  Put down your morning joe before reading this from Allahpundit:

Contrary to reports, it wasn’t the song playing while he was leaving; that was “Beautiful Day” by U2. Only after he had safely gone did they kick into [Robert Palmer’s “Addicted to Love”] … just as the camera panned to Hillary. Oy.

Exit question: One last middle finger from Team Barry? Keep Chaos alive!

Irony…it’s not just for breakfast anymore!  😆

How Obama plans to lure Hillary voters

With a moustrap laced with limburger, that’s how.  From Ed Morrissey:

Some voters may be wondering how the healing is going among Democrats. According to Jake Tapper and Kate Snow at ABC … poorly. After Sheila Jackson Lee suggested that Barack Obama needed to reach out to female voters still on edge after the narrow victory over Hillary Clinton, Obama suggested that he was too busy to do women’s work:

Sources at the meeting said that Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, a Clinton supporter, expressed the desire that Obama and his campaign would reach out the millions of women still aggrieved about what happened in the campaign and still disappointed that Clinton lost.

Obama agreed that a lot of work needs to be done to heal the Democratic Party, and that he hoped the Clinton supporters in the room would help as much as possible.

According to Rep. Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y., Obama then said, “However, I need to make a decision in the next few months as to how I manage that since I’m running against John McCain, which takes a lot of time. If women take a moment to realize that on every issue important to women, John McCain is not in their corner, that would help them get over it.”

Rep. Diane Watson, D-Calif., a longtime Clinton supporter, did not like those last three words — “Get over it.” She found them dismissive, off-putting.

“Don’t use that terminology,” Watson told Obama.

The subtext of this isn’t hard to fathom. Listen, sweetie, I’m busy with man-work. Why don’t the women-folk get together and handle this themselves? I’m sure that’ll convince women he takes them seriously. He all but told Lee and the other women at the meeting that they have nowhere else to go, so he’s not going to waste his time. …

He sure is a smooth talker, isn’t he?

Hillary delegate to support McCain

She’s not just a disenchanted Democrat.  She’s a DNC delegate!  From WI:

As an avid supporter of Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Democratic primaries, Debra Bartoshevich is not alone in her frustration over Clinton’s defeat.

She’s not alone in refusing to support Barack Obama.

And she’s not entirely alone in saying she’ll vote this fall for Republican John McCain instead.

But what makes her unusual is that she holds these views as an elected delegate to the Democratic National Convention in Denver this summer. …

Exit question, somewhat rhetorical: How many more Democrats, delegates or otherwise, will be doing the same thing?

Hillary’s assassination reference

It was clearly a slow news Memorial Day weekend, as the coverage of Her Highness’ RFK analogy proved.  Story here.  In a nutshell, the Hildebeast was explaining why she’s still in the race, given her delegate deficit, and she said that RFK’s impending primary win in 1968 was interrupted by Sirhan Sirhan’s bullet…meaning that the party must move forward until the nominee is 100% certain.  The MSM jumped on that analogy to infer that the Obamessiah could be targeted for assassination, even by the Hilldawg herself.

The analogy was first made a couple of months ago, but no one blinked.  Now that the MSM is in full pro-Obama mode, though, Her Highness must be destroyed.  While I certainly wouldn’t put anything past the Hildeb#tch (Vince Foster was unavailable for comment), I do not think she would be so stupid as to (a) want Osamabama killed and (b) tip her hand to the world.  I mean, come on.

Exit question: Isn’t this anti-Hillary media bias just chock full of delicious irony, slathered in a rich buttery karma sauce, and topped with a sweet schadenfreude cherry?

Surreal moment of the day

File this under “WTF?”, OK?  From NewsMax:

Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager Terry McAuliffe called the media’s coverage of the Democratic presidential race “the most biased” ever — and praised conservative Fox News for its “responsible” reporting.

Appearing on “Fox and Friends” on Tuesday, the former Democratic National Committee chairman was asked by host Steve Doocy “what percentage of the mainstream media is in the tank for Barack Obama?”

McAuliffe answered: “Oh, 90 percent. I mean, from day one. It is what it is. We’re not complaining. We have to deal with the hand we’re dealt…

“Every independent study has said that this is the most biased coverage they have ever seen in a presidential campaign. Clearly it has been a biased media, no question about it.”

He added: “I have said this — Fox has been one of the most responsible in this presidential campaign. I have said that all along.”

Did any of you think you would ever see the day where the Clintons and their surrogates (a) complained about media bias against them, and (b) sang the praises of Fox News?  The former makes me laugh louder than Hilldawg’s forced cackles, but the latter makes me wonder what the Clintonistas are up to.

In related news, Hell freezes over.

Obama loses every county in WV

Does anyone recall a time where a candidate who has all but locked up a nomination was squashed this badly heading into the home stretch of a campaign?  I mean, it’s bad enough that Barry O lost by 41% in WV, but to have lost every single county?

What’s funny is the narrative that the MSM is pushing to explain away the Obamessiah’s loss is “Well, those inbred hicks in WV are racist!”  They DO know that these are Democrats they’re talking about, right?  Suddenly, identity politics doesn’t seem to have the same flavor that it used to, right?

Hilldawg: Whitey thinks I’m da shiz!

It’s come to this, my friends:

“I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on,” she said in an interview with USA TODAY. As evidence, Clinton cited an Associated Press article “that found how Sen. Obama’s support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me.”…

Exit question: Anyone else feasting on the delicious irony of watching the party of identity politics being harmed by it today?

Polls, schmolls: Osamabama has it locked up

Her Highness swears she’s going to battle all the way to the convention, but it’s just a formality.  After proving the polls wrong in NC (which had shown the Obamessiah’s once-huge lead evaporated) and in IN (which had shown the Hildebeast with a 5+% lead), Barry O has the nomination all but locked up.  How so?

Well, for starters, Hilldawg needed to keep close in NC and win big in IN to show the party faithful that momentum was on her side.  That didn’t happen.  Also, with popular vote totals figured in after last night, the Hillster can’t appeal to that argument.  The party isn’t going to have its superdelegates ignore the popular vote and delegate vote leads that Snob-ama has now.

Alas, Hilarity…we hardly knew ye!  😀

“Windfall profits” tax

For those of you who aren’t economic illiterates, the following probably doesn’t tell you anything new.  For those of you on the left, however, you may want to think about this.  From WSJ:

… Mr. Obama is right to oppose the gas-tax gimmick, but his idea is even worse. Neither proposal addresses the problem of energy supply, especially the lack of domestic oil and gas thanks to decades of Congressional restrictions on U.S. production. Mr. Obama supports most of those “no drilling” rules, but that hasn’t stopped him from denouncing high gas prices on the campaign trail. He is running TV ads in North Carolina that show him walking through a gas station and declaring that he’ll slap a tax on the $40 billion in “excess profits” of Exxon Mobil.
…
You may also be wondering how a higher tax on energy will lower gas prices. Normally, when you tax something, you get less of it, but Mr. Obama seems to think he can repeal the laws of economics. We tried this windfall profits scheme in 1980. It backfired. The Congressional Research Service found in a 1990 analysis that the tax reduced domestic oil production by 3% to 6% and increased oil imports from OPEC by 8% to 16%. Mr. Obama nonetheless pledges to lessen our dependence on foreign oil, which he says “costs America $800 million a day.” Someone should tell him that oil imports would soar if his tax plan becomes law. The biggest beneficiaries would be OPEC oil ministers.

There’s another policy contradiction here. Exxon is now under attack for buying back $2 billion of its own stock rather than adding to the more than $21 billion it is likely to invest in energy research and exploration this year. But hold on. If oil companies believe their earnings from exploring for new oil will be expropriated by government – and an excise tax on profits is pure expropriation – they will surely invest less, not more. A profits tax is a sure formula to keep the future price of gas higher.
…
This tiff over gas and oil taxes only highlights the intellectual policy confusion – or perhaps we should say cynicism – of our politicians. They want lower prices but don’t want more production to increase supply. They want oil “independence” but they’ve declared off limits most of the big sources of domestic oil that could replace foreign imports. They want Americans to use less oil to reduce greenhouse gases but they protest higher oil prices that reduce demand. They want more oil company investment but they want to confiscate the profits from that investment. And these folks want to be President?

Carter tried a windfall profits tax on the oil industries, and as you can see, the results were disastrous.  Only a simpleton would truly believe that if you increase taxes on the providers of a good/service, you will get more of that good/service.  The only thing that offends me more than economic ignorance is a politician that panders to that economic ignorance.

Exit question, albeit somewhat rhetorical: Do Hilldawg and the Obamessiah really want to emulate Jimmah Freakin’ Carter’s energy policies?

“Clinton: Let Uncle Sam Determine Profits”

That is the name of the column (based on the nature of the Hildebeast’s comments) by James Pethokoukis.

Hillary Clinton was on Fox News’s The O’Reilly Factor last night and said what she would do about high gas prices:

In the short term, I do want a gas tax holiday but to pay for it by putting a windfall profits tax on the oil companies…. The oil companies have made out like bandits, and there is no basis for them to have these huge profits. They’re not inventing anything new…. You set a baseline and, above that baseline, you begin to tax their profits.

As they say on my favorite TV show, Battlestar Galactica, “All this has happened before, and all of it will happen again.” We tried a windfall profits tax in 1980, with lousy results. This from the Tax Foundation (boldface mine):

During the 1980s the federal government experimented with a new tax intended to limit the “windfall profits” of domestic oil companies. In reaction to the rise of energy prices during the late 1970s and the removal of price controls on the energy industry, President Jimmy Carter signed the Crude Oil Windfall Profits Tax Act into effect on April 2, 1980…. The windfall profits tax was forecasted to raise more than $320 billion between 1980 and 1989. However, according to the Congressional Research Service, the government collected only $80 billion in gross tax revenue ($146 billion in 2004 dollars). The net amount was actually less than this—roughly $40 billion—because the tax was deductible…CRS also found the windfall profits tax had the effect of decreasing domestic production by 3 percent to 6 percent, thereby increasing American dependence on foreign oil sources by 8 percent to 16 percent.… The 1980 windfall profits tax was also found to be highly burdensome for the industry to comply with and for the Internal Revenue Service to administer, especially in years when no revenue was raised. It seems unlikely that a new tax could be designed in a less burdensome fashion. Tax Foundation economists estimate that U.S. companies currently spend nearly $150 billion annually to comply with the federal income tax alone.

Exit question: A stunningly embarrassing display of economic ignorance by the Hildebeast, or just pandering to the great unwashed?

Gallup: Obama trails Hillary

Operation Chaos marches on!  From Gallup:

Hillary Clinton has edged ahead of Barack Obama, 49% to 45%, in the latest Gallup Poll Daily tracking update.
…
Obama has had a rough few weeks in the campaign, with his widely publicized remarks about “bitter” voters, Clinton’s decisive win in the crucial Pennsylvania primary, and renewed media attention to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the controversial former pastor of Obama’s church, with Wright speaking out publicly this past week. Obama has also come under criticism from both Clinton and John McCain for opposing a proposal to suspend the federal gasoline tax during the summer months. As a result, Obama has moved from a consistent lead over Clinton to a deficit. Obama has just a few days to reverse the tide going into next Tuesday’s Indiana and North Carolina primaries.

I love it!

Obama trailing in NC?

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: I’m skeptical of polls.  A couple of days before the PA primary, a poll showed Hillary beating Barry O by 20%, which we all knew was inflated.  But other polls showed Obama within 5% of Her Highness in PA.  As it turned out, she won PA by about 10%.

The big states remaining are NC and IN.  Polls have shown Hillary with a slight lead (within the margin of error) in IN, but the Obamessiah has kept a steady double-digit (15-20%) lead in NC all along and as recently as a couple of weeks ago.  However, a new poll by Insider Advantage shows Her Highness has surged in NC and now leads by 2% (within the margin of error, of course).

If true (a big “if”), this Rev. Wrong…er, Wright…thing has done some big-time damage to Osamabama.  What’s telling is that in PA, Her Highness only won 8% of the black vote; however, in this poll, she has more than doubled that share in NC since the Wright flap redux.

If she wins IN and does the unthinkable by winning NC, how does that change the dynamics of this race?  She still can’t catch him in the delegate count, but do the superdelegates begin reconsidering Her Highness at the convention?  If so, the black vote will be seriously diminished in November.  If not, the Hildebeast’s supporters will likely sit out this election.

Pass…the…buttered…popcorn!

Hillary posturing for 2012?

Dick Morris has a theory that has crossed many a minds: Hilldawg is trying to sabotage Obama so she can run again in 2012.  Says Morris:

… Until the last vote is counted on June 3rd, we can chalk up her persistence to determination, courage and sheer obstinacy. But if she persists in her candidacy after the last primary, we must begin to consider whether she has an ulterior motive.

Does Hillary want to beat up Obama so that he can’t win the general election in November, assuring McCain of the presidency so that she can have a clear field to run again in 2012? Obviously, if Obama beats McCain, Hillary is out of the picture until 2016, by which time, at 69 years old, she might be too old to run. But if McCain wins, she would have to be considered the presumptive front runner for the nomination, a status which she might parlay into a nomination more successfully than she has been able to do this year.

Every day that she stays in the race and punches Barack Obama, she must realize that she is decreasing his chances of getting elected in November. Each time that she waves the bloody shirt and says that only she is strong enough to fight the war on terror, she obviously raises doubts about Obama’s strength and leadership. Every time she criticizes him for not switching pastors or for saying downscale white voters are bitter, she raises issues that are very destructive to Obama should he win the nomination.

When does fighting for the nomination in 2008 end and seeking to sabotoge Obama’s chances in November to keep her options alive for 2012 begin? Doubts about Hillary’s motivation are going to keep on growing with each inconclusive primary. After she loses North Carolina and fails to carry Indiana by any significant margin (North Carolina has twice as many delegates as Indiana), people will begin to wonder out loud about why she is staying in the race. And if she remains obdurate after the last votes are cast on June 3rd, it will become an increasingly accepted presumption that she is running a campaign of sabotage against Obama. …

I’m inclined to agree.  Her Highness isn’t going to get the nomination now, regardless of how much Buyer’s Remorse the party has for going with the Obamessiah.  The more damage she can do to Obama, the better the chances are that McLame is going to win in November.  When McCain runs for re-election in 2012, he will be 76 years old.

She will have a better chance at capturing her party’s nomination in 2012, especially with those who abandoned her this year to go with the fatally flawed and failed (in this scenario) Obama.  Those Dems will feel guilty for leaving Hilldawg at the electoral altar for an empty suit that got pummeled in the general election by a geriatric, and they’ll recall how close she came in 2008 to getting the nomination.  They’ll flock to her in droves.

Of course, there are some flaws in this scenario.  For one, there is no way of knowing how the political landscape will look in 2012: the economy, the war on terror, potential scandals, etc.  A lot of assumptions are being made here by Morris and others (myself included).  However, considering that Her Highness is all but doomed this year, does anyone else see what other choices in her mind that she has?

Hillary dismisses Declaration of Independence

The same woman who told us in San Fransicko in Marxist fashion that “We’re going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good” gave us this nugget (hat tip QandO):

“We can talk all we want about freedom and opportunity, about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, but what does all that mean to a mother or father who can’t take a sick child to the doctor?” she asked.

Yeah, really…just who in the hell did this Thomas Jefferson guy think he was?

There is so much that is wrong with that statement that it could be dissected for days (and feel free to do it in the comments, if you so choose).  My two main takeaways are this: (1) She’s saying that the principles outlined in the Declaration of Independence are apparently passé; and (2) ignoring the reality that ER’s can’t turn away anyone and thus you can take your sick child to the doctor (or that doctors can and do set up payment plans for the indigent), she’s saying that those passé principles of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness can and should be traded in for government health care.  And the left, paranoid over the things like the Patriot Act and FISA searches, accuse us on the right of trading freedom for security?

Fortunately, this woman will never see the inside of the Oval Office again.

Clintonista McAuliffe lambastes Obama shill Chris Matthews

Johnny Dollar has the audio clip.  I wonder if this gave Matthews’ leg a “thrill”?

How delicious this is…a Clintonista b#tchslapping Chris Matthews!  Man, this campaign has been more fun than watching Mikie Dukakis in a tank!

Dems and the popular vote

Didn’t we hear ad nauseum from the left in 2000 that (a) Gore’s popular vote advantage should have been more important than Bush’s electoral vote advantage; and (b) voters were “disenfranchised”?

This primary season, Obama lost swing states FL and MI.  However, the DNC punished those states (some might say “disenfranchised”) for moving their primaries to an earlier date by removing their delegates.  Obama didn’t mind, since he didn’t win FL, and his name wasn’t even on the ballot in MI.

Obama has been saying that the superdelegates should vote according to the popular vote and not the delegate count.  That’s been easy for him to say, since he leads in both counts.  However, if you count both FL and MI in the popular vote total, Barry O trails the Hildebeast in the popular vote by nearly 122,000 votes!  Would he advocate counting those states and having the superdelegates reflect the popular vote accordingly, or would he advocate “disenfranchising” those key states’ voters?

And would Her Highness, the same woman who proposed a constitutional amendment banning the electoral college and establishing a national popular vote to determine the president (after the 2000 election), abandon her efforts to circumvent the delegate and popular vote system of the DNC by courting superdelegates to ignore the “will of the people” (i.e. the popular vote)?

Will the DNC eventually count FL and MI delegates?  Who knows?  But it’s funnier than a blind lesbian at a seafood market watching the left jump through rhetorical (and hypocritical) hoops about popular votes and disenfranchisement.

NYT: Hillary won, so…she should quit fighting?

How the NYT squares that circle is beyond me.  It seems like just a short three months ago that the Old Gray Hag endorsed the Hildebeast.  Wait a minute…it was just three months ago.  Anywho, get a load of this crap:

The Pennsylvania campaign, which produced yet another inconclusive result on Tuesday, was even meaner, more vacuous, more desperate, and more filled with pandering than the mean, vacuous, desperate, pander-filled contests that preceded it.

Voters are getting tired of it; it is demeaning the political process; and it does not work. It is past time for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to acknowledge that the negativity, for which she is mostly responsible, does nothing but harm to her, her opponent, her party and the 2008 election.

The Hag isn’t doing Obama any favors here.  The column is saying that Hilldawg should handle Barry O with kid gloves and stop fighting so hard.  In other words, “Just shut up and lose, will ya?”

How about this gem?  Obviously, they must have written this up before the PA primary last night, which would explain why they now look stupider than usual over at the NYT:

If nothing else, self interest should push her in that direction. Mrs. Clinton did not get the big win in Pennsylvania that she needed to challenge the calculus of the Democratic race.

Yeah, that 10% margin of victory in a big state like PA hardly constitutes a “big win”, huh?  Winning four of the last six primaries does nothing to “challenge the calculus” of the race, does it?

Idiots.

Chelsea visits gay bars for photo-op

Poor MSNBC.  They must be scraping the bottom of the barrel on a slow news weekend.  Apparently, the former first daughter was hopping from one gay bar to the next with PA Dem Gov. Rendell for a photo-op.  A lesbian copped a feel of Chels’ derriere, without incident.  If someone can tell me why this is newsworthy, I’m all ears.

And in case someone wants to know “If it’s not newsworthy, then why are you talking about it, Mr. Liberalism?”, I have three replies: (1) Please…call me “Crush”, since Mr. Liberalism is my father (his first name is “Ihave morethantwofunctioningbraincellssoIcouldneversubscribeto”…see why we call him “Mr. Liberalism”?); (2) I am notorious for taking the MSM to task for making non-stories into stories, so I’m just being me; and (3) dude, the story mentions lesbians.  ‘Nuff said.

Memo to MSM: Get. A. Life.

And a memo to the Philly gay community: Having a gay bar named Woody’s should not evoke any howls of feigned outrage when people like me make fun of you.  What, was The Manhole aready trademarked?

Left ticked off that ABC questions Obama during debate

The reactions from the left and the MSM (pardon the redundancy) over the Obamessiah’s performance (or lack thereof) during the debates with the Hildebeast the other night are hilarious.

These same people who for a decade have defended former Clinton mouthpiece and current ABC News “journalist” George Snuffalupagus are now going all “Dawn of the Dead” on him, trying to devour him alive.  Allah has details, plus makes the following observation:

To appreciate the dishonesty of their reaction, ask yourself this: If Gibson and Stephanopoulos had spent the first 45 minutes raking Hillary over the coals about Tuzla, Whitewater, Monicagate, and whatever else they could scrounge, would there be similarly high dudgeon about the dearth of “real” issues broached? Of course not. There’d be a few “gee, rough night for Hillary” reactions, a few “good, maybe this will convince her to get out” responses, the obligatory uproar from Jeralyn Merritt, Taylor Marsh, and the rest of the left’s dwindling pro-Clinton wing, and that’d be that. It’s entirely a means-ends analysis. ABC hurt the Savior, which is, and can only be, unfair.

Ace properly nails the “why the gossip, can’t we talk issues?” (kinda like jen) whining crowd:

The whole why-don’t-we-talk-about-the-issues whine is childish. Obama and Hillary have extraordinarily similar declared programs by this point. The only real surviving differences between them are what parts of their declared programs do they really intend to follow through on, and which unstated agendas will they also pursue.

Simply allowing them to blather for an hour each about nearly-indistinguishable programmatic posturings does not advance the debate whatsoever. If you want to know what crap they’re claiming they’ll push as President, check their websites.

What distinguishes them among Democrats are issues of character (Hillary’s lying, Obama’s discomforting comfort with radicals and terrorists) and the widespread belief on the left that Hillary is a “neocon” moderate who lies about her liberal leanings, whereas Obama is the general article and really believes in old school big-L Liberalism, and is in fact lying about his moderation to preserve his electability. Only by asking about issues of character and background and a candidate’s real, unexpressed political thinking can possibly shed light as to whether those readings on the candidate are true or not.
…
But when an actual debate breaks out at a presidential debate — one that is somewhat effective in exposing Obama’s character flaws and also hints at his real political agenda (not-moderate-at-all left-liberalism), he shrieks it’s all so “Rovian” and that we should talk about the “real issues.”

Right. A debate on the “real issues” where both candidates say they agree with each other for two hours, except on the point of who can better execute the exact same program.

Pass…the…popcorn!

Poll: Obama plummets in PA

You folks know how I view polls with great skepticism.  But if this one is accurate, perhaps his now-20% deficit in a state that had been narrowing is due to rural Dem Pennsylvanians being perturbed that the Obamessiah looks down his nose at their culture?

Pass…the…popcorn!  😆

Shocker! Dems think folks may see them as out of touch elitists!

Wow!  Ya think?  Barry O’s latest gaffe is funny, but just as much of a nugget of comedy gold is Hilldawg’s response.  From MSNBC:

A political tempest over Barack Obama’s comments about bitter voters in small towns has given rival Hillary Rodham Clinton a new opening to court working class Democrats 10 days before Pennsylvanians hold a primary that she must win to keep her presidential campaign alive.

Clinton, who knocked on doors Sunday in her father’s boyhood hometown of Scranton, Pa., said people want an explantion from her rival.

Obama has been on the defensive for saying economically frustrated people in small towns get bitter and “cling to guns or religion” to explain their feelings. Obama later said he regretted offending anyone.

Clinton and other Democrats have expressed concern that Obama’s comments make the party look out of touch.

Clinton was campaigning in Scranton to emphasize her middle-class roots. While there, she also planned to visit the grave of her father, Hugh Rodham.

Obama tried to quell the furor Saturday, explaining his remarks while also conceding he had chosen his words poorly.

“If I worded things in a way that made people offended, I deeply regret that,” Obama said in an interview with the Winston-Salem (N.C.) Journal.

…

At issue are comments he made privately at a fundraiser in San Francisco last Sunday. He was trying to explain his troubles winning over some working-class voters, saying they have become frustrated with economic conditions:

“It’s not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

Typical: a non-apology apology.  “If I offended you rednecks incapable of deciphering my doublespeak and nuance, then I’m sorry you’re too stupid to understand me.”  Nice.  Fellow IL Senator Dick “the troops are like Nazis and Pol Pot” Durbin would be proud.  By the way, was anyone else aware that gun ownership and religious faith were signs of bitterness?  Me neither.

No, I didn’t forget about Her Highness’ retort:

Clinton hit all those themes in lengthy comments to manufacturing workers in Indianapolis.

“The people of faith I know (all three of them – Ed.) don’t ‘cling’ to religion because they’re bitter. People embrace faith not because they are materially poor, but because they are spiritually rich,” she said.

“I also disagree with Senator Obama’s assertion that people in this country ‘cling to guns’ and have certain attitudes about immigration or trade simply out of frustration,” Clinton added.

“People don’t need a president who looks down on them,” she said. “They need a president who stands up for them.”

…

At a campaign rally in Wilson, N.C., former state Democratic Party chairman and current Clinton adviser Tom Hendrickson said rural voters don’t need “liberal elites” telling them what to believe.  (Then why is he working for The Hildebeast? – Ed.)

I actually agree with Shrillary on this point: “People don’t need a president who looks down on them.”  That’s why we don’t need Barry O or her in the Oval Office.  Pots and kettles and whatnot, Hilldawg.

Support for gay marriage, abortion-on-demand (including partial birth AND teens not notifying parents), tax increases on the producers to fund the lifestyle of lethargy chosen by the non-producers, amnesty for criminal aliens; hostility to gun rights, family values, and God;…aside from things like this, I don’t have a clue why Dems would fear they’d be perceived as elitist snobs!

Exit question: Considering his condescending remarks were given in San Fransicko, and considering that such condescension echoes sentiments made by that batty broad to whom he’s married, does it behoove the imagination that he may actually be an anti-American effete leftist that we all suspect him to be?

Courtesy of Malkin commenter Tennyson