Tag: barack obama

White House won’t say if Barack Obama gave up 5% of his salary for shutdown solidarity.

Because Barack Obama said that he would – voluntarily, mind you; it’d be illegal to dock the President’s pay – only when the Washington Free Beacon called to check, well…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4WoFaQilXk

Staff writer for the Washington Free Beacon Ellison Barber was interviewed today on Fox News about a report from the WFB’s Elizabeth Harrington calling into question whether President Obama followed through on his promise to return five percent of his salary.

Barber said by that metric President Obama owes about $20,000. The White House has so far refused to confirm whether the president has actually written a $20,000 check to the Treasury.

Five bucks says that the White House forgot, and is now scrambling to cut a check and backdate it somehow.  Mind you, that assumes that there’s somebody in this administration smart enough to realize that Presidents need to follow through on the grandiose promises that they make on various topics.  I am not entirely convinced that there is anybody that smart there.  Or that mature.

Via Legal Insurrection.

Moe Lane

PS: If we don’t call them on this stuff, they’ll just get worse.

Democratic donors discovering Obama is just marking time until 2017.

I find stories like this to be perversely fascinating:

Top Democratic donors say they are exasperated by a lack of leadership from the White House on policy and are questioning whether they should throw money into midterm elections they believe won’t change Washington.

…mostly because I invariably end up asking myself, How do ‘top Democratic donors’ manage to make money when they apparently spend all their time in deep comas? Seriously: if you’ve taken this long to figure out that Barack Obama is bored by his job, doesn’t do any part of it that he absolutely doesn’t have to, and can’t be bothered to show consideration to others… then I don’t know. Maybe you shouldn’t give money to Democrats. Instead, give money to me.





Continue reading Democratic donors discovering Obama is just marking time until 2017.

Barack Obama: Man, that Abraham Lincoln and his Intercontinental Railroad!

Part of an otherwise forgettable speech*:

“I come from the land of Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln thought infrastructure was a pretty good idea. That’s part of why we got a Intercontinental Railroad system.”

Yeah, we also had adequate schooling, once upon a time. Which is why I know that it was a Transcontinental Railroad.  And since we’re bringing up American history, I feel compelled to note that the only reason why the Pacific Railroad Acts** passed in the first place was because half of the Democratic party at the time was engaged in an armed insurrection against the legitimate government of the United States of America.

The President at the time, by the way? Abraham Lincoln. I almost didn’t add that, because I assumed everybody would know it already: but then, this article is more or less all about historical events that Barack Obama doesn’t actually know anything about. Better safe than sorry!

Moe Lane (crosspost)

Continue reading Barack Obama: Man, that Abraham Lincoln and his Intercontinental Railroad!

‘How do you solve a problem like Obama?’

Yes, it’s a The Sound of Music reference.  It’s also a real issue for any Democrat out there who is thinking of running for President in 2016.  Basically, the President is not getting any more popular – quite the opposite, really – but his base supporters still love him.  Or at least still pretend that they do.  Figuring out how to balance the two, mutually contradictory objectives is going to be a fun game for the Other Side to play for the next few years*.

Hillary Clinton apparently decided to not even try:  Continue reading ‘How do you solve a problem like Obama?’

Barack Obama: Nuke the filibuster! Me. …Don’t. Stop. Please.

This via a comment by dljessup here: as usual, Barack Obama is showing us the same keen political instincts and appreciation of long-term trends that gave us the 2010 election cycle.

President Barack Obama endorsed more changes to the filibuster rules in the Senate in a speech Wednesday, remarks that will encourage senators who want to deploy the “nuclear option” again.

At a fundraiser for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in New York, Obama specifically said Democrats need to change “how a filibuster works,” without going into specifics on what, exactly, he has in mind.

Continue reading Barack Obama: Nuke the filibuster! Me. …Don’t. Stop. Please.

Barack Obama’s good little #Benghazi minions.

If I was a progressive blogger I would be humiliated to be on this list of Carney defenders over Benghazi:

[Jay Carney] had The New Republic’s Brian Beutler dismissing Benghazi as “nonsense.” He had Slate’s David Weigel, along with The Washington Post’s Plum Line blog, debunking any claim that the new email was a “smoking gun.” Media Matters for America labeled Benghazi a “hoax.” Salon wrote that the GOP had a “demented Benghazi disease.” Daily Kos featured the headline: “Here’s Why the GOP Is Fired Up About Benghazi—and Here’s Why They’re Wrong.” The Huffington Post offered “Three Reasons Why Reviving Benghazi Is Stupid—for the GOP.”

It’s been a familiar pattern since President Obama took office in 2009: When critics attack, the White House can count on a posse of progressive writers to ride to its rescue.

Continue reading Barack Obama’s good little #Benghazi minions.

I dunno: *would* Obama have recognized Israel?

Hot Air asks the question.  Come, I will conceal nothing from you: my knee-jerk reaction was to mutter Of course Barack Obama wouldn’t have recognized Israels: too many Jews in it for his liking, you understand.  But that’s actually, well, unfair. I mean, I don’t actually know that the President is an anti-Semite. Obama may simply think that he can’t run the Democratic party without putting up with all the Jew-haters, and he might even be right.

No, I think that what would have happened is this: in Truman’s place, Barack Obama would have been very much an advocate for Israel… on the cheap. Plenty of pretty speeches and high-minded statements. And this would have continued up to the moment when Secretary of State George Marshall (with the rest of the State Department behind him) told Barack Obama to back down, or face the consequences. At that point, you have to ask yourself: does Barack Obama have Harry S Truman’s grit? – Because say what you like about Truman (God knows there’s plenty to say), but give him this: once he decided on something that was it.   Continue reading I dunno: *would* Obama have recognized Israel?

Why Barack Obama is a lame duck and it isn’t even 2015 yet.

Spoiler warning: It’s his own blessed fault.

(Via Hot Air Headlines) I’m mildly fascinated about why David Gergen apparently doesn’t get what is ridiculously obvious to probably everyone reading this:

…it has now become equally puzzling why [Barack Obama] has not become more sure-footed in foreign affairs. He is one of the brightest men ever to occupy the office, and yet his learning curve has been among the flattest.

It is has been my experience that young people who constantly get told that they are the brightest people in the room grow up into middle-aged people who unconsciously assume that they are the brightest people in the room, and thus have no particular reason to improve themselves.  Fortunately, the universe usually deals with this by placing individuals in tough situations where they quickly learn the limits of their abilities, typically with the enthusiastic application of negative reinforcement.  The trouble there, alas, is that some deeply, deeply unlucky individuals go through life continually being coddled and kept from the worst consequences of their mistakes; invariably, they eventually end up in a situation where they cannot be further protected, and the resulting meltdown is ten times worse than regular events of idiocy or incompetence. Continue reading Why Barack Obama is a lame duck and it isn’t even 2015 yet.

Quote of the Day, We’re All Just Waiting For It To Be Over edition.

Peggy Noonan, in the process of comparing Pope Saint John Paul II to Barack Obama, definitely to the detriment of the latter:

Pollsters always say a politician has to project optimism. I think what they have to project is belief, and when people see it they appreciate it and become more optimistic.

Many people (including myself) do in fact have a bit with trouble with the way Peggy looks at things sometimes, but I think that she’s right, here. And I do not think Barack Obama really believes in anything.  Which is depressing: I’d like to believe that somebody as good as Obama is at being a rotten President would at least have an evil plan*. I also wish that he hadn’t picked an absolute buffoon as Vice President; we might have convinced Obama to resign by now if only the alternative wasn’t so soul-cringingly awful. Continue reading Quote of the Day, We’re All Just Waiting For It To Be Over edition.

Why Barack Obama should be relieved that George W Bush is more popular than he is.

What’s that? Oh, yeah, funny how that happened:

No less a source than FIVE THIRTY EIGHT DOT COM reports that Greatest Living President George W. Bush is on the rebound: “Since April, Bush’s favorable rating has averaged 49.3 percent. His unfavorable rating has averaged 46.3 percent.”

As the Washington Free Beacon perhaps somewhat gleefully went on to note, that’s rather better than Obama’s current 45.8/49.8.  But it’s good news for President Obama, really. Do you know why?  Because it means that even though Barack Obama’s numbers are going to almost certainly plummet further in the next few years, the American people will almost certainly eventually forgive him, too.  Just as soon as Barack Obama leaves office.  Because that’s what the American people do.   Continue reading Why Barack Obama should be relieved that George W Bush is more popular than he is.