Has Obama Checked Out?

By William Teach July 19, 2014 – 9:04 am

One of the notions people have been discussing about Mr. Obama is whether or not he has checked out. Allahpundit calls him the semi-retired president. He’s been called the bystander president. Many have noted his lame duck status. Really, though, has he ever checked in as President? Here’s Jennifer Rubin

Obama plays hooky during a perilous time

Even President Obama’s supporters must acknowledge that at times he behaves bizarrely. During the attack on Sept. 11, 2012, in Benghazi, Libya, he barked out a few vague orders and then retreated to his residence, although his spinners insist that he was “briefed.” (How about leading?) The next day, he went to a fundraiser in Las Vegas.

He won’t go to the border to view the humanitarian disaster involving tens of thousands of children. Yesterday, with the downing of a passenger jet, allegedly by Russian weapons, and then the onset of a ground war in Gaza, President Obama was off — to two New York fundraisers.

That’s the best place to find him. He has done almost 400 fundraisers in six years and played 176 rounds of golf. No one thinks presidents should be barred from fundraising or playing golf, but Obama’s excessive, some would say obsessive, attention to activities unrelated to governing is disturbing, all the more so since he seems so disengaged and unpresidential when he does nominally show up for work. He has no discernible Iraq policy, he’s given up on entitlement reform, he won’t make a decision on the Keystone XL pipeline. His favorite activity (other than golf, fundraising and holding forth at dinners with pop stars and other famous people) is holding campaign-style events at which he rips opponents in nasty and unpresidential tones. He constantly learns about scandals in the press, and then hides from the media until the pressure builds to say something.

There are many high level issues going on in the country and the world right now, and what is Obama’s Weekly Address on? Equipping workers with skills needed for now and in the future. He’s pushed this on and off again many, many times. Yet, all the government programs he’s pushed through his 5+ years have failed

This week, Vice President Biden will release a report he’s been working on to reform our job training system into a job-driven training system. And I’ll visit a community college in L.A. that’s retraining workers for careers in the fast-growing health care sector. Because every worker deserves to know that if you lose your job, your country will help you train for an even better one.

In other words, creating the report was too much work for Obama. Who wants to bet that Obama has several fundraisers on tap during that L.A. trip? This is his pattern: schedule a short official event somewhere near his big money donors, that way he isn’t charged for use of Air Force 1.

At the end of the day, Obama never really checked in. Jennifer Rubin referred to him as “the guy in the office who is never in, seems to take a lot of afternoons off and is expert at avoiding work.” Someone at Ace Of Spades once wrote “Obama likes to BE president. He doesn’t like to DO president”. One of his first official acts was to sign a document to close Guantanamo Bay jihadi detention center. But, he didn’t follow that up with the hard work required to actually get it closed. He does the minimum work necessary, mostly using talking points and hyper-partisan speeches. Remember his sticky note economic plan? Four bulletin points on a sticky note, essentially telling Other People to get ‘er done. There was no follow up, not detailed plan released, no calls to Congress, not even to Democrats.

He seemed bored giving a speech yesterday, for which he was almost half an hour late, on the shooting down of a commercial airliner in the Ukraine. Perhaps he was pining to get on the road to Camp David for a well deserved weekend of continuing to avoid work.

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Hyper-Progressive Elizabeth Warren Releases Her 11 Commandments Of Nice Fascism

By William Teach July 19, 2014 – 8:38 am

Progressives, who Jonah Goldberg referred to as “nice fascists” in his book Liberal Fascism, have been gaga for Elizabeth Warren from the first. They willing ignored her blatant lies about being a Native American, because of racial politics. They excuse her fundraising from big wig 1%ers. She pushes a progressive populism, while being one of the very rich who work the system she pro-ports to despise (remember that at the end). Search “hypocrite” and you’ll find more than enough to take on her 11 Commandments. But, there is no doubt that the Nutroots, the hardcore Progressive activists, want her to run for President in 2016. Hence, here we go, per National Journal

  • “We believe that Wall Street needs stronger rules and tougher enforcement, and we’re willing to fight for it.” (Warren raises lots and lots of money from Wall Street)
  • “We believe in science, and that means that we have a responsibility to protect this Earth.” (yet, she and all these little progressives took fossil fueled travel to get to the conference)
  • “We believe that the Internet shouldn’t be rigged to benefit big corporations, and that means real net neutrality (in other words, Government should fully control it)
  • “We believe that no one should work full-time and still live in poverty, and that means raising the minimum wage.” (and putting the low wage workers on the unemployment line. Oh, say, has Liz started paying her interns yet?)
  • “We believe that fast-food workers deserve a livable wage, and that means that when they take to the picket line, we are proud to fight alongside them.” (good news: they’ll be replaced with machines, so they can work on their standing in lines skills)
  • “We believe that students are entitled to get an education without being crushed by debt.” (says the woman who charged $350,000 to teach one class)
  • “We believe that after a lifetime of work, people are entitled to retire with dignity, and that means protecting Social Security, Medicare, and pensions.” (that’s a worthy goal. It might help if she believed in freeing the marketplace so people could earn money to retire)
  • “We believe—I can’t believe I have to say this in 2014—we believe in equal pay for equal work.” (she should tell this to Obama, who pays women less than men)
  • “We believe that equal means equal, and that’s true in marriage, it’s true in the workplace, it’s true in all of America.” (equal means equal, unless you are a group that Progressives do not like, then they will work to limit your equality)
  • “We believe that immigration has made this country strong and vibrant, and that means reform.” (in other words, open borders and amnesty)
  • “And we believe that corporations are not people, that women have a right to their bodies. We will overturn Hobby Lobby and we will fight for it. We will fight for it!” (hooray, no one has to pay $9 a month for birth control pills! Screw your religious freedom)

Jim Hoft notes that this “proves once again that she knows nothing about capitalism and economics. And, her supporters are too stupid to know it.” Knowing or not knowing is never the point with the hard left: it’s all about Progressive populism designed to whip up the masses. We saw something similar in Germany in the 1930’s.

And the main tenet of conservatives’ philosophy, according to Warren? “I got mine. The rest of you are on your own.”

Says the woman who is one of those fat cats, charges $350k to teach one class, flipping homes (which was decried by Progressives), and fought against compensation for coal and asbestos workers. She supports the Ex-Im Bank. She’s made quite a bit of money working Wall Street, and, as mentioned, receives quite a bit of campaign money from Wall Street. Like any good Progressives, she’s willing to bully other people, because equality or something. She takes every tax deduction she can, but, then, she avoided another Progressive mantra about the rich paying their fair share. I wonder why? Altogeher, she is a typical Democrat hypocrite, pushing one thing while doing another. She got hers, and greedily sticks her hand out for more more more.

Red State’s Dan McLaughlin compares Warren and Ted Cruz for 2016. Now that would be a fun election cycle!

At the end of the day, Progressives will say anything, whip up a bunch of populism, regardless of the damage it does to the country, regardless of the division it creates in the country, all for more power, and to move the nation towards “nice fascism”.

Crossed at Right Wing News.

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Say, Is Global Warming Causing Jet Stream Related Cooling?

By William Teach July 18, 2014 – 1:15 pm

In Warmist World, of course it is. And by “warming”, they mean “man caused”

Is global warming causing extreme weather via jet stream waves?

A new study investigates how changes to atmospheric winds are making weather more extreme

Extreme compared to…..? Oh, right, computer models. Here’s where it gets fun

As I sit here in a northern part of the United States (Minnesota), a rare summer arctic blast barrels down from Canada on what otherwise is one of the warmest days of the year. Global warming? I could use some global warming today, people are saying.

Not only is this a teachable moment, but it coincides with a major new study on climate connections. First, let’s see the current jet stream. It is wildly undulating, first swinging up into northern Canada before curving back and plunging into the central United States.

A teachable moment?

The latest study is related to this topic but still unique. The authors don’t ask the question “are humans changing the jet stream patterns?”. Instead, they ask, “how do undulations in the jet stream affect weather?”. To be fully accurate, the study isn’t just about jet streams, it really deals with mid-latitude planetary waves but for this article, I will use the term “jet stream” as a surrogate for simplicity.

The lesson Warmist John Abraham and Dana Nuccitelli are pushing is that it is mostly/solely Mankind’s fault that the jet stream undulates, because that has never happened before, bringing cold air in summer. Might this actually be a sign of cooling? Oh, right, if that happens, Warmists will blame Mankind.

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If All You See…

By William Teach July 18, 2014 – 1:00 pm

…is extreme weather wind caused by evil use of washing machines by Other People, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Bookworm Room, which wonders about Obama’s constant, inappropriate laughter.

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Quick Review: Acer Iconia 7 B1-730

By William Teach July 18, 2014 – 11:40 am

I didn’t really need a new tablet, but I did want one. My Elocity tablet is almost 4 years old, and cannot be updated since it is rooted. Gives me little troubles like freezing. Can’t use the new Play Store. No accelerometer. Others. I decided to take some of that sweet sweet birthday cash and get a new tablet.

I also di not want to spend more than $200, not for the amount of time I really use it. I considered the Nexus tablet, but it has no memory card slot, and that’s a 100% requirement. Had to have GPS and accelerometer. I ran across the Acer on Best Buy’s website, and looked interesting.

Many of the external reviews are so so, but, really, in context of the $129 price tag, it has worked well.

Many of the complaints are about a dull screen and being slow. I’m really not seeing that. Decent processor (1.6mhz) and the screen looks great at 1280×800 (720p). Unfortunately, like so many tablets and laptops, the screen is barely viewable outside. The light sensor is so so, and I had to add an app to control it. Still, $129.

The battery is somewhat so so. It takes awhile to charge, and can only get about 6 -7, much less than my Elocity, but, then, it is doing more, and I’ll just throw it on charge. Did I mention it was $129? Have to be careful about it running stuff in the background, battery went dead overnight.

That said, I am impressed with the overall conditions and capabilities with the Acer. I was disappointed that the first one had to be exchanged immediately due to a dead spot in the screen that stretched all the way across. The replacement had to be replaced due to a noisy back. I considered replacing it a 3rd time with a different model for battery life, but unless I was willing to give up certain things and pay $50+ more, wouldn’t make a difference.

It has 1gb of ram. There’s a Dell tablet with 2gb, but a slower processor. Acer has 16gb of internal memory, but does not let me store apps to memory card (that I’ve figured out yet), but I back up every couple of months to MMC, so it is easy to reinstall. I like keeping all my music, movies, and other stuff on the MC, rather than the device. One interesting thing is that it won’t play some WMA songs, but will play others. Songs that were burned from CD in exactly the same way. Could be a difference in the Windows Media Player version I used to burn? It’s a device issue, not app player issue.

I’ve compared the speed it loads apps with that on my HTC One S, and it is quicker. Game play is excellent, sound is great, was able to link up DLNA with TV and laptop easily.

The front camera is supposedly 5mp, though I’ve seen some reviews say 3, and the persine facing camera is VGA or 2mp, depending on the review. Regardless, matters little to me, since I won’t use a tablet for photos. I have my phone, a nice Elf digital, and two nice non-digitals.

Sadly, it is running 4.2.2 Jelly Bean, no updates to Kit Kat yet. Interestingly, some have complained about it being so stock, with mostly expected apps included. Fine with me, one of the things I love with Droid is customization.

Personally, I like the charging port on top, a complaint of many reviewers. As long as not on bottom, I’m fine.

The GPS and eccelerometer have worked quite well. I actually downloaded a stand alone navigation program, and tried it on a little trip.

Altogether, I think I got more than my monies worth.

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NY Times: Raise The Gas Tax, Cause Republicans Are Mean

By William Teach July 18, 2014 – 9:53 am

Quite a bit of the “lost” revenue for the Highway Trust fund is due to Government, especially Democrats, particularly in the last 10 years. With rising gas prices and Democrats blocking exploration of our own oil reserves, blocking construction on new, more modern refineries, along with blocking retrofitting existing refineries, and pushing for higher CAFE standards, they’ve created a situation where more and more citizens are driving vehicles with better fuel economy. Which means they use less gasoline (just to be clear, I have no problem with fuel efficiency. I’m looking at a few compact SUVs that get higher MPGs myself), hence, less collected through the gas tax.

There are actually a few honest answers to this: fix the above issues. Deal with the inherent issues of government bureaucracy, which is wasteful with the money they involuntarily take from the citizens. Return much of the power for fixing roads to the States, which would know better how to fix the roads, rather than taking the money and redistributing it around the country. Let big travel states like NY, NJ, Florida, etc, deal with their own issues, rather than have The Central Government be in charge. Alas, the NY Times Editorial Board goes down the road Liberals always travel

Highways Need a Higher Gas Tax

About 10,000 motorists die each year because of inadequate road conditions, and millions of other Americans waste large portions of their lives stuck in traffic or stalled trains. The enormous cost to society of poor infrastructure grows every year, and most of the blame can be placed directly on a Congress that refuses to collect and spend enough money to fix it. (snip)

This crisis was entirely foreseeable and was brought about by the ideological refusal of Congressional Republicans to raise the gasoline tax — the traditional method of paying for road projects, because it allows those who benefit from better roads to pay for them. The gas tax has been stuck at 18.4 cents a gallon since 1993, and during those 21 years it has lost 39 percent of its value to inflation. But Republicans, afraid of violating a no-tax-increase pledge they made to an extremist group, won’t touch it. “I’ve never supported raising the gas tax,” Speaker John Boehner said last week.

Without an increase, the trust fund will continually run out of money, jeopardizing one of the most basic functions of government. If the fund were allowed to run dry next month, it would cut federal transportation financing to the states by 28 percent, and slow or stop 100,000 projects that employ about 700,000 workers at the height of the construction season. That would be fine with hard-right Republicans who want Washington to get out of the transportation business and leave the states on their own; they have overseen an unprecedented 20 percent cut in construction spending over the last five or six years.

This editorial dovetails nicely into the White House push for more infrastructure spending, a notion they pivot to every few months. If only there had be some sort of Stimulus to fix the roads and bridges since 2009.

If transportation is a basic function of government (missing that in my Constitution, but, I’ll grant that this is something that government should be doing), then let’s fix the issues as I mentioned. And spending from the Central Government is inherently wasteful. Fix it. Return the powers to the States where it should be. If a state needs more revenue, let the State raise their own gas tax.

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Team Obama Orders Companies To Notify Employees If Dropping Contraception Coverage

By William Teach July 18, 2014 – 7:24 am

I can understand their point: it’s difficult to earn $9 a month to purchase birth control pills in the Obameconomy

(Washington Times) The Obama administration ordered employers Thursday to notify their workers if they plan to cut birth-control coverage from their health plans in the wake of the Supreme Court’s “Hobby Lobby” decision.

Labor Department officials announced the policy just a day after Senate Republicans filibustered a bill that would have overturned the justices’ ruling, which said closely held corporations can refuse to insure contraceptives they object to on moral grounds.

Congressional Democrats cheered the administration’s move as an important step to give workers a chance to know what obstacles they may face in obtaining free contraception.

Therein lies the problem: Democrats are all about promising their base free stuff, without informing said low information voters that the costs are simply included in their insurance plan costs. Nor do they care a whit about infringing on religious liberties.

Sen. Richard J. Durbin, Illinois Democrat, introduced a bill to go even further and require for-profit companies to disclose their policies to job applicants, too.

“Workers should be informed if their employers are restricting the availability of coverage for contraception or any other health care service guaranteed under law,” said the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Dick Durbin, Illinois Democrat.

Good grief. People who can’t even run the country correctly are attempting to tell companies how to run their businesses.

Remember when Democrats use to say that what goes on in the bedroom is private? Now they want to get involved heavily in this. This is all for political show, just like the vote attempting to force “closely held companies” to provide abortifacients. Which would have ended up right back at the Supreme Court, and would have clearly been a direct violation of the 1st Amendment’s religious clause. “Congress shall pass no law…” is how the 1st starts out. Not that Democrats care. They have free contraception to pass out!

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Most Americans Do Not Want Illegals Dumped In Their State

By William Teach July 18, 2014 – 7:04 am

This is bipartisan

(Breitbart) According to a Rasmussen Reports poll, 57% of likely U.S. voters “disapprove of housing these illegal immigrants in their state” while only 29% approve. The poll found that 83% of Republicans and 62% of unaffiliated voters opposed, while 52% of Democrats approved.

The survey, which also found that 59% wanted the illegal immigrant children to be deported more quickly, was conducted on July 15-16 and has a margin of error of +/- 3 percentage points. It also found that 83% of Americans were paying attention to the illegal immigration issue “very closely.”

Of course, States and the citizens might not have any choice in the matter: The Central Government has complete control over immigration law, having taken the power to infringe on the sovereignty and 10th Amendment Rights of States over the years, hence, The Central Government can secretly send the illegal immigrant “children” to the states and not even tell the elected State officials, much less the Citizens of that State, where they are. Fortunately, it doesn’t cost much to house these “children”

(National Review) Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson shocked senators of both parties when he revealed that it costs $250 to $1,000 per day to house each of the immigrant children who have recently arrived at the border.

When Johnson reported that figure, “there was an audible gasp, a bipartisan gasp,” Senator Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) told National Review Online.

I can book a room at a nice Outer Banks hotel and have 3 nice meals per day and spend less than $250 a day. Senator McCain had some harsh words, in effect saying to put them all on planes back to their home countries. It’s interesting that Rubio and McCain, two big amnesty, er, pathway to citizenship fools, are trying to take tough stances. Their Gang Of 8 bill would have fast tracked illegals to citizenship while doing virtually nothing for border control nor to discourage more illegals from coming.

Crossed at Right Wing News.

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Remember How Obama’s Made The World More Tranquil?

By William Teach July 17, 2014 – 7:22 pm

How things change

https://twitter.com/WilliamTeach/status/489883146276458496

https://twitter.com/WilliamTeach/status/489885275057709056

Don’t worry, President Breezy is on the case

Of course, Obama had to make time for a hearty lunch and some schmoozing

Video: Semi-retired president interrupts burger run to issue brief statement on plane being blown up

Technically, he didn’t interrupt said lunch.

https://twitter.com/WilliamTeach/status/489881303085375489

And he’s on to two fundraisers, interesting considering he can’t run again and he doesn’t like to share with other Dems. Imagine the outrage from Dems if a President Romney had acted in this manner.

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Bummer: “Connecitcut” Will Be 10 Degrees Warmer By 2100

By William Teach July 17, 2014 – 3:30 pm

Where is this “Connecitcut”?

(SFGate) If you didn’t think this summer could get any hotter, just wait …

A while … about 85 years, to be exact.

Researchers at Climate Central have put together a handy tool which lets you see just how bad summers will get by 2100, if global warming predictions are accurate and nothing is done to stop the upward trend.

Connecitcut’s capital city of Hartford’s average summer temperature, which now stands at 81.54F, will reach a sweltering 91.22F in the next 85 years, according to the groups interactive map.

The hottest parts of the country will turn positively blistering, with cities like Las Vegas; Palm Springs. California and Phoenix all feeling more like cities in the Middle East.

Eh, I probably shouldn’t pick on The San Fransisco Chronicle’s Heather Alexander for spelling. I know I’m not perfect. Usually, my spelling mistakes are in the headlines. But, then, I’m not getting paid to do this.

Anyhow, her short article comes from this unhinged  Climate Central prognostication post

Summers in most of the U.S. are already warmer than they were in the 1970s. And climate models tell us that summers are going to keep getting hotter as greenhouse gas emissions continue. What will this warming feel like? Our new analysis of future summers illustrates just how dramatic warming is going to be by the end of this century if current emissions trends continue unabated.

Except for that part about there being no statistically significant warming in almost 18 years, in contradiction to the “climate models”.

For our Blistering Future Summers interactive we have projected summer high temperatures for the end of this century for 1,001 cities, and then showed which city in the U.S. — or elsewhere in the world, if we couldn’t find one here — is experiencing those temperatures today. We’ve highlighted several striking examples on the interactive, but make sure to explore and find how much hotter summers will likely be in your city.

They’re prognosticating a 7-10 degree Fahrenheit increase for most cities, with some even higher. For Raleigh, they say it will be 96.69F in 2100, up from 87.55. Seriously. They are attempting to put that much of a specific temp into the model. Check your own city and laugh at these loons

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