Friday, June 22, 2012

An Impeachable Offense

“With respect to the notion that I can just suspend deportations [of immigrants brought here illegally as children] through executive order, that’s just not the case, because there are laws on the books that Congress has passed.”

— President Obama, March 28, 2011

"Never mind."

— President Obama, June 15, 2012

Imagine: A Republican president submits to Congress a bill abolishing the capital-gains tax. Congress rejects it. The president then orders the IRS to stop collecting capital-gains taxes, and declares that anyone refusing to pay them will suffer no fine, no penalty, no sanction whatsoever. (Analogy first suggested by law professor John Yoo.)

It would be a scandal, a constitutional crisis, a cause for impeachment...

From Charles Krauthammer's column

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/303637/immigration-bombshell-naked-lawlessness-charles-krauthammer


Surely You Can't Be Serious

Ted Striker: My orders came through. My squadron ships out tomorrow. We're bombing the storage depots at Daiquiri at 1800 hours. We're coming in from the north, below their radar.

Elaine Dickinson: When will you be back?

Ted Striker: I can't tell you that. It's classified.

From the movie “Airplane”.

Obama administration: Here are details of our predator drone program, our cooperation with the Israelis to attempt to derail Iran’s nuclear development with the Stuxnet, Duqu and Flame computer viruses, intelligence captured at the bin Laden raid, including the whereabouts of al-Qaeda safe houses, operations on the Afghan border, disclosure of a Pakistani physician’s efforts to obtain bin Laden’s DNA…

American public: Who in your administration authorized the Fast and Furious program?

Obama administration: I can't tell you that. It's classified.

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

A Good Day For Wisconsin

...and the rest of us. We're not quite Greece, yet.

Much has been made of President Obama's avoidance of the Wisconsin campaign despite his presence in neighboring states (Iowa, Minnesota, Illinois) in the days leading up to the election. Most see this as an unconscionable abdication of his role as the party leader - failing to support a colleague involved in a vital electoral contest with national implications. And most explain it as a political risk Obama was unwilling to take given his questionable (to put it charitably) persuasive skills.
There is another possible explanation for Obama's no-show. That is, he needs Scott Walker to continue his successful rehabilitation of the Wisconsin economy. As Steve Hayes (Weekly Standard) explained -
"Walker turned a $3.6 billion deficit into a $154 million surplus. Unemployment is down. So are property taxes...it's hard to imagine a more successful 16 months as governor."
And it's not just Walker. Obama needs Chris Christie in New Jersey, Bob McDonnell in Virginia, John Kasich in Ohio, Bobby Jindal in Louisiana, Rick Perry in Texas, and Mitch Daniels in Indiana. (I omit Rick Snyder of Michigan from this elite group because of his leftist-like, counterproductive imposition of an income tax on private pensions). It is these (and the twenty plus other) Republican governors who are preventing the U.S. economy from collapsing under the weight of Obama's profligate spending, regulatory morass, crony capitalism, class warfare, anti-business bias, impending tax increases, looming Sibeliuscare.... The governors are, ironically, his best hope for re-election.

The best line concerning the Wisconsin recall election came from Lieutenant Governor Rebecca Kleefisch, "This is what democracy looks like." This refers to the chant of squatters protesting Walker at the state capitol building last year, which in turn was co-opted from the title of the Noam Chomsky film documenting the Seattle anti-globalization riots in 1999.

As I said. A good day.