Obama privileged to be in Las Vegas.

So.  Back in February the President went to Elkhart, Indiana and made a speech where, as Deceiver.com helpfully reminds us, he included this part:

You can’t go take a trip to Las Vegas or go down to the Super Bowl on the taxpayers’ dime. There’s got to be some accountability and some responsibility, and that’s something that I intend to impose as president of the United States.

Earlier this week, the President took a trip to Las Vegas on the taxpayers’ dime.  His privilege.  He went there to raise money for the wildly unpopular Senator Harry Reid.  Likewise, his privilege. He did this even though the current Governor is quite upset at the President for helping to lose his state about 131 million in revenue so far this year – and upset from afar, because the President didn’t meet with either him or the (Democratic) mayor of Las Vegas.  Once again, the President’s privilege – hey, do you know the etymology of the word ‘privilege?’

It’s Latin: it means ‘private law.’

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Why are we not selling military equipment to a democratic ally?

Contemplate this: you have already guessed who I am talking about.

It is, after all, not a Republican administration.

Administration blocks helicopters for Israel due to civilian casualties in Gaza

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration has blocked Israel’s request for advanced U.S.-origin attack helicopters.

Government sources said the administration has held up Israel’s request for the AH-64D Apache Longbow attack helicopter. The sources said the request was undergoing an interagency review to determine whether additional Longbow helicopters would threaten Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip.

Via AoSHQ, via The Hasmonean, who is apparently keeping track.

If this pleases you, by the way, consider that the administration doesn’t have the guts to do any of this openly. Saying one thing in public and doing another in private is a behavior pattern that most of us were supposed to discard by the time we graduated high school; I grant that this is honored more in the breach than the observance, but we expect more from our leaders. If the White House wants to disarm Israel, it should do it in public and take the heat…

Yes, I’m a blind, mad optimist. Almost dangerously so, in fact. But dammit: this isn’t right.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Quote of the Day, Supreme Court edition.

Via Hot Air Headlines: “Conservatives itching for SCOTUS fight.” Remove the snide tone (which, to be fair, is much less than usual), and this Politico article pretty much sums up the GOP base’s attitude: it’s time to go waltzing Matilda.

“The other side does not agonize about whether they are going to give a Republican Supreme Court nominee a difficult time, they just do it.” – Gary Bauer, president of American Values.

Don’t like it? Have the President nominate a real moderate, then – and by ‘moderate’ I do not mean ‘liberal who doesn’t express hatred for Republicans anywhere there might be a recording device.’ Think that you can’t wait, because our coming out swinging is going to help the liberal cause with Americans? Funny: that’s what they said about Cheney throwing down on enhanced interrogation techniques. I’d suggest that people ask Nancy Pelosi how she thinks that one worked out, except that she responds to all questions like that these days by putting her fingers in her ears and shouting ‘LALALA!’. Which would not be cute if my two-year-old did that; you can imagine how it looks on someone who is third in line for the Presidency.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

It’s like they *want* him to fail.

President Obama, that is.  Via Holy Coast:

Several dozen professors had called upon the first African-American president to forgo a Memorial Day tradition of laying a wreath at a monument to Confederate soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery, the grand hillside preserve across the Potomac River from the Capitol on the onetime estate of Gen. Robert E. Lee.

Instead, the White House sent wreathes to both the Confederate memorial at Arlington and to the African American Civil War Memorial in Washington’s historically black U Street neighborhood north of the Capitol.

Presidents traditionally visit Arlington to personally leave a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns, bearing the remains of unidentified U.S. military members who died at war. And President Barack Obama did that today, during his first Memorial Day ceremony as president. They have aides deliver wreaths to other memorials – including, today, at the mast of the USS Maine and at the Spanish American War Memorial.

Included in the ranks of said protesters is our old friend Bill Ayers, would-be mass murderer and domestic terrorist. While I’m sure that the President is grateful that he’s decided to come down on the other side of this, one wonders what personality flaws are present in Ayer’s colleagues, that they would be happy to count him as one.

Crossposted to RedState.

North Korean nuclear test successful?

Well, they’re claiming that it was, and there’s evidence that it happened in the form of an earthquake,so that’s how everyone is betting.  Japan is calling for an emergency UNSC meeting; South Korea, dealing simultaneously with this and the suddenly-more-murky suicide of its former President, is doing the same.  The White House hasn’t put up the President’s official statement on this yet, but you can read it here – it differs from the White House statement in 2006 most notably in its unconscious reliance on the UNSC to resolve this situation.  Also missing is any indication that the President has personally consulted with our allies in the region, but no doubt he’ll address that when he holds a press conference this morning on the North Korean crisis.  Note that I am merely assuming at this point that there will be one, and that it will take place before noon.

Meanwhile, John Bolton predicted that this test was going to happen last week; he also noted last week that the administration wasn’t taking the possibility of a second test all that seriously.  Compare the White House statements from today and 2006 again and ask yourself, Which one sounds like it was written by people taken by surprise? Also ask yourself, Is Bolton right when he suggests that not taking even a soft line on this will merely encourage North Korea – and Iran – to proceed?

Please also note that we are in a situation where two of the biggest current, active, and intractable threats to world peace are rogue nations simultaneously pursuing nuclear weapons and missile technology.  Successful creation of both will put at immediate risk our regional allies; allies that we have spent a lifetime cultivating; and who are genuinely alarmed at the activities of their neighbors.  And in both cases, the enemies of said rogue nations were picked for essentially irrational reasons, meaning that normal rules of deterrence may or may not work.

Meanwhile, President Obama wants to gut missile defense programs*.

Um, no.  That’s stupid.

Moe Lane

*Via FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog, via Michelle Malkin.

Crossposted to RedState.

Liz Cheney: no middle ground.

Another good bit from Liz Cheney:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Allahpundit is a little surprised that Liz’s popularity with the base has risen so quickly; I’m not. For whatever reason, a full-throat defense of Bush’s decisions on how to fight the GWOT were few and far between during the Bush administration itself, and that grated with Republicans. It grated on me, in fact, and I take the position that Bush actually didn’t have much choice in the matter. So, when Liz showed up last month and casually obliterated Norah O’Donnell… water to thirsty soil, my droogies. Like water to thirsty soil.

I will note one thing, however: while it would have been nice to have this conversation during the last campaign, it wouldn’t have happened even if Cheney had somehow been running for President. Based on the actual campaign and extrapolating, the Democrats would have instead run on a platform that equally highlighted Cheney’s age, his aim, and his lesbian daughter.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

White House staffers make five-year-olds cry.

(Via Drudge) Who do they have in charge of visitor relations for that place, anyway?

…Actually, do they have somebody in place for visitor relations?

Sobbing Kindergarteners Snubbed for Steelers?

Thursday was supposed to be the highlight of the year for more than 100 kindergarteners from Stafford County, Va. They got up early and took a chartered bus to the White House for a school field trip. But when they arrived, all the 5-year-olds got was a lesson in disappointment.
The buses from Conway Elementary arrived at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue a little later than planned, and they were locked out.

“We were going to the White House, but we couldn’t get in so I felt sad,” 5-year-old Cameron Stine said.

Parents say they were just 10 minutes late for their scheduled tour. School officials say White House staff said they needed to get ready for the president’s luncheon with the Super Bowl champion Pittsburgh Steelers, so they couldn’t come in.

Incredibly, White House staffers attempted to push back on this story, in flagrant ignorance of the elementary political truth that a politician cannot win any argument with a crying five-year-old child. I will be merciful and not reproduce their justification, although I will note that it strongly implies that the parents of a busload of crying five-year-olds are all liars.

Video after the fold.

Continue reading White House staffers make five-year-olds cry.

Senator Hagan suddenly not looking to replace George Holding after all.

Sunlight.  Disinfectant. Not that I am suggesting anything, of course.

You may remember from Sunday about how the Democrats were quietly planning to remove a somewhat… inconvenient… US Attorney from his position before he was through investigating a former North Carolina Democratic governor. Now, via Geraghty, via Kaus, we find out that nothing of the sort is going to happen.

Now.

U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan said today that the U.S. Attorney in Raleigh, George Holding, should stay on the job as top federal prosecutor until investigations of former Sen. John Edwards and former Gov. Mike Easley are completed.

Hagan said she has consulted with the White House on the process for replacing Holding — the decision on a replacement is ultimately up to President Barack Obama — and said it will go much slower.

“I don’t feel it’s in North Carolina’s best interest to replace someone who is investigating these two very high profile people,” said Hagan, a Democrat who plays a key role in the process because any replacement requires Senate confirmation. “I just think that with investigations going on, he ought to have the opportunity to complete the investigations.”

Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m happy to hear that neither the President nor Senator Hagan had any intention of shutting down a corruption investigation for crass political reasons. That’s such a relief, really.  And I’m sure that the fact that this was announced mere days after the rather pointed article in the local paper that brought this up got national attention had nothing to do with the switch in focus.  Of course not.  Complete coincidence.  Although I am curious: why did this Locke Clifford fellow leave the Governor’s replacement screening panel Tuesday? And why was he at former governor Easley’s house on the same day?

Golf game, perhaps?

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Captain Obvious, President Obama, and our unsustainable debt.

Herself of Maenianum Secundum categorizes her response to President Obama’s recent comments about our ‘unsustainable‘ debt load as ‘Captain Obvious‘:

Solution: Stop spending and then we won’t need to borrow any more money.

You’d think that it would be a Captain Obvious moment, wouldn’t you?  Alas, my own (depressing) experience has shown me that there’s a whole list of things that people should know, but don’t know, because everybody who could have told them had assumed that it was already common knowledge.  So, here goes:

Spending more money than you have is a bad idea.  You will eventually need to find a way to pay it all off, and all of the ways of doing so are deliberately designed to be not fun.

So, don’t do that.

As I said: depressing that this is necessary.

Moe Lane

PS: Honestly, if I had the money I’d send a copy of How Much Is a Million? to every freaking member of Congress and the White House. I suspect that part of the problem is that they don’t conceptualize the money being tossed around.

Crossposted to RedState.

More threats to Chrysler by White House surface.

Personally, I can’t wait to hear how anonymous revelations don’t matter when they’re not advantageous to Democrats not involving endangering American troops through the revelation of national security secrets not suitable for use in an election against a Republican …well, I’m sure the Online Left will find a suitably plausible-sounding rationalization, even if it’s only plausible to them;

New Allegations Of White House Threats Over Chrysler

Creditors to Chrysler describe negotiations with the company and the Obama administration as “a farce,” saying the administration was bent on forcing their hands using hardball tactics and threats.

Conversations with administration officials left them expecting that they would be politically targeted, two participants in the negotiations said.

Although the focus has so been on allegations that the White House threatened Perella Weinberg, sources familiar with the matter say that other firms felt they were threatened as well. None of the sources would agree to speak except on the condition of anonymity, citing fear of political repercussions.

See Ace of Spades HQ, who’s already guessing which pushback will be used against this one; and Ed Morrissey, who’s having fun with the ‘madman theory’ thing. For my part, I’m actually a little surprised. I knew that the current President is woefully inexperienced – and not a little petulant – when it comes to dealing with people who don’t already love him, but surely he must have realized that things like this always come out in the end, yes? Continue reading More threats to Chrysler by White House surface.