I know that I have already covered Michelle Obama's appearance on the Mike Huckabee show, but there was something more that I got out of that speech that has been playing around in my mind all week. I believe that one statement from Michelle on that show is perhaps the most crucial point to understanding who these people are and how they think. Once one understands this statement, it is easy to wrap your mind around where they are coming from.
OBAMA: But I try to stay away from, you know, news because, you know, I want to formulate my opinions based on experiences that I have.
Now I'm sure many liberals out there probably found this to be a deep and profound statement. I personally found this to be perhaps the most anti-intellectual and self absorbed statement I had heard in quite some time. In order for me to explain this, let's look at an example of this logic in action with the Obamas. Many of you will remember the controversy surrounding William Ayers. Let's look at this case using the world view of Michelle Obama vs. the views of many who watch the news.
Personal Experiences
To President and Michelle Obama, William Ayers is an education professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. His wife, Bernadine Dohrn, is a law professor at Northwestern. Their relationship with the Obama's is detailed in a Chicago Sun Times article.
In the mid-1990s, Ayers and Dohrn hosted a meet-and-greet at their house to introduce Obama to their neighbors during his first run for the Illinois Senate. In 2001, Ayers contributed $200 to Obama's campaign. Ayers also served alongside Obama between December 1999 and December 2002 on the board of the not-for-profit Woods Fund of Chicago. That board met four times a year, and members would see each other at occasional dinners the group hosted.
In addition, Ayers and Obama interacted occasionally in their roles with the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a not-for-profit group charged with spending tens of millions of dollars it obtained through its affiliation with a school-improvement foundation created by late Ambassador Walter H. Annenberg. Obama chaired the Chicago Annenberg Challenge's board of directors. Ayers served on the Chicago School Reform Collaborative, which made recommendations to the board on which organizations should get grants. The groups worked on school-reform efforts between 1995 and 2000.
Based on these personal experiences, one could paint a very nice picture of Bill Ayers. He is an educated man who is involved in charity. He teaches and writes textbooks. He has been very nice to the Obama's, donating money to Barack's campaign, and hosting a meet-and-greet to introduce Obama to politically connected individuals at the start of his political career.
But this opinion requires one to ignore the news. You see, following the news accounts of William Ayers's life paints a much different picture.
Ayers In The News
William Ayers was interviewed on September 11th, 2001 by the New York Times about his youth. Here is a part of the resulting piece.
''I don't regret setting bombs,'' Bill Ayers said. ''I feel we didn't do enough.'' Mr. Ayers, who spent the 1970's as a fugitive in the Weather Underground, was sitting in the kitchen of his big turn-of-the-19th-century stone house in the Hyde Park district of Chicago. The long curly locks in his Wanted poster are shorn, though he wears earrings. He still has tattooed on his neck the rainbow-and-lightning Weathermen logo that appeared on letters taking responsibility for bombings. And he still has the ebullient, ingratiating manner, the apparently intense interest in other people, that made him a charismatic figure in the radical student movement.
Now he has written a book, ''Fugitive Days'' (Beacon Press, September). Mr. Ayers, who is 56, calls it a memoir, somewhat coyly perhaps, since he also says some of it is fiction. He writes that he participated in the bombings of New York City Police Headquarters in 1970, of the Capitol building in 1971, the Pentagon in 1972. But Mr. Ayers also seems to want to have it both ways, taking responsibility for daring acts in his youth, then deflecting it.
That's a much different picture than the one painted by the personal experiences of Michelle Obama. I'm sure that her experiences with Ayers also exclude the following quote.
"Kill all the rich people. Break up their cars and apartments. Bring the revolution home, kill your parents, that's where it's really at"
This is a guy who lives in my neighborhood, who's a professor of English in Chicago who I know and who I have not received some official endorsement from. He's not somebody who I exchange ideas from on a regular basis. And the notion that somehow as a consequence of me knowing somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was eight years old, somehow reflects on me and my values doesn't make much sense, George.
Canada, on the other hand, decided that when it comes to entering their country, the news is a bit more important than ones personal experiences.
An American education professor, one of the founders of a radical 1960s group known as the Weather Underground, which was responsible for a number of bombings in the United States in the early 1970s, was turned back at the Canadian border last night.
Yet the fact that the terrorist activities of a man so closely linked to the first family left him denied entry into Canada should not be the real focal point here. As disturbing as it is, it pales in comparison to the more recent implications of the Obama world view.
Holder, in a letter to Grassley, admitted that nine of the agency's appointees had done some kind of work on behalf of terror suspects.
"To the best of our knowledge, during their employment prior to joining the government, only five of the lawyers who serve as political appointees in those components represented detainees," said Holder in the letter, which is dated Feb. 18.
"Four others either contributed to amicus briefs in detainee-related cases or were otherwise involved in advocacy on behalf of detainees."
Holder refused to reveal the names of any of the DOJ lawyers who worked on behalf of terrorists or their positions in the department, except for two officials whose advocacy for Gitmo detainees had already been reported.
Neal Katyal, the department's principal deputy solicitor general, was once the lawyer for Osama bin Laden's driver. Jennifer Daskal, part of Obama's Detention Policy Task Force, advocated for detainees at Human Rights Watch.
During the campaign, I made my own video ad about this situation. How on the money was that commentary? You see, it wasn't my suggestion that President Obama would try to make William Ayers the head of the Department of Homeland Security. I never suggested that the he would make Jeremiah Wright the White House Chaplain. My concern was the poor judgment shown by these associations. I must, however, admit that even I didn't imagine that this judgment was so bad as to result in the lawyer for Osama Bin Laden's driver receiving a position in the justice department. But then again, looking at the statement of the First Lady, it all makes a little sense, doesn't it?
When one's personal experiences with terrorists are family, friends, dinners, and charities, and one chooses to ignore the news accounts of crashed planes, dead bodies, and collapsing buildings, I guess the terrorists don't seem all that bad. Rather empathetic, huh? I suppose for the terrorists it is. But where is the empathy with the victims?
I understand that lawyers have to work, and even the worst members of our society need representation. That's just how it is. But there is no law stating that, especially in a time of war, the lawyers for our enemies must serve in the justice department. It is rather the failed word view of President and Michelle Obama that cause such dilemma's. Be it the 60's radical who attacked us, or the lawyer for the Islamic extremist that brought us down, it all comes back to one thing.
OBAMA: But I try to stay away from, you know, news because, you know, I want to formulate my opinions based on experiences that I have.
I didn't know that the First Lady was scheduled to appear on Mike Huckabee's show on Fox News last Sunday Night, so I was shocked to tune in on my Sirius Radio and hear her voice on the hated Conservative network. Once I got my jaw picked up off of the floor, I decided to give a listen to what she had to say. I have previously mocked her obesity initiative on the show by calling it a "Twinkie Tour" but I figured, what the heck, let's give it a fair shot. Guess what? Yea, it's even worse than I thought. You can check the entire transcript here, I will be referencing it throughout this article.
Government Takeover Or No?
My concern with this type of initiative is always that it will be an excuse for the Government to get more involved in our daily lives. This came up in the interview, and here is what Michelle had to say.
We have the solutions in our hand, but it takes a coordinated effort. It’s going to take all of us. Government, business, our coaches, our teachers, parents all working together. So, my hope is that I can be one components in helping to pull that cohort together.
So there we have it. Government is going to have to get involved and step in and kick twinkies out of fat kids mouths. Right?
Well, this is the one thing that this initiative isn’t. Because I’ve spoken to a lot of experts about this issue, and the one thing that they haven’t said is that government telling people what to do is the answer. This is not government intervention.
Okay, check that. This is a relief. No Government intervention, right?
But it's also what's going on in our schools, cause most of our kids get the majority of their calories that they eat in school. So we have an opportunity to work with the federal government and the school lunch providers to figure out how do we make those meals healthier. You know, how do we take out fat, sugar and salt and put in more fruit vegetables and whole grains.
Wait a second, so it is Government intervention? Work with me here.
So the point is, if we can do that in Philly and we can do that in Pennsylvania, cause they're implementing this all throughout the state, then perhaps this is a model that we can look at for the rest of the country. So Let's Move, a piece of that is creating a healthy food-financing initiative, investing $400 million to try and leverage some additional resources for states and communities that want to replicate that. So it's giving governors and mayors some support to figure out how do we attract more grocery stores here, how do we change the mindset, because it's really not about what our kids eat, it's also about what their communities are like. You know, you can't live in a community that doesn't have food in it, right? I mean, that's basic -- the basic foundation.
Were we on yes or no? I don't remember, so let's do this one instead. Childhood obesity isn't about what kids eat? It's about what their communities are like? So basically, I could eat right and exercise and still be fat because I live in the wrong neighborhood? Where the heck are these kids living, in ginger bread houses? Are calories literally falling off the walls and being absorbed through their pores while they are sleeping?
The Problem
Well, if what the kids weight isn't about what they eat, and it's actually the fault of the community they live in, then I guess we need a new definition of the problem. Can I get my explanation with a cute little liberal code word please? Our First Lady graciously obliged.
There are 23.5 million Americans who live in food deserts, and this isn't just in urban communities...
Food Desert? She went on...
This is areas where there are absolute -- there's no access to a grocery store. So there are places, like in the communities that we visited in Philadelphia, they hadn't had a grocery store in their community in a decade.
All right, you think about a decade of a community. So that means that if a mom in that area wanted to make a salad for their kid -- right? -- even if she was geared up to do it, that means she would have to get in a cab, take a bus, get on a train to get to a grocery store to do that. And you're just sort of -- think of families that are busy, they don't have resources, they just don't do it.
Now I don't want to call Michelle an elitist or anything, but yes you read that right. "Oh my God! Can you believe that there are people who actually have to use some type of transportation to get to some sort of a gathering place where they can get food products? They don't have people to run their errands for them? How horrible! Do they even have to cook it themselves? No full time staff to make sure their is food on their plate sitting on their table? Oh, the humanity!"
A food desert is a district with little or no access to foods needed to maintain a healthy diet but often served by plenty of fast food restaurants.
The concept of 'access' may be interpreted in three ways.
'Physical access' to shops can be difficult if the shops are distant, the shopper is elderly or infirm, the area has many hills, public transport links are poor, and the consumer has no car. Also, the shop may be across a busy road, difficult to cross with children or with underpasses that some fear to use because of a crime risk. For some, such as the disabled, the inside of the shop may be hard to access physically if there are steps up or the interior is cramped with no room for walking aids. Carrying fresh food home may also be hard for some.
'Financial access' is difficult if the consumer lacks the money to buy healthy foods (generally more expensive, calorie for calorie, than less healthy, sugary, and fatty 'junk foods') or if the shopper cannot afford the bus fare to remote shops selling fresh foods and instead uses local fast food outlets. Other forms of financial access barriers may be inability to afford storage space for food, or for the very poor, living in temporary accommodation that does not offer good cooking facilities.
Mental attitude or food knowledge of the consumer may prevent them accessing fresh vegetables. They may lack cooking knowledge or have the idea that eating a healthy diet isn't important.
Yes, a food desert is a place where people say "I would like to eat healthy, but there is a hill between here and the grocery store, so I'm eating McDonalds instead. I don't want to have to cross a busy street or anything". Oh, and let me not leave this guy out. "So you say I'm getting fat because I eat an 8 piece family meal from KFC every night, and I consider gravy to be a soft drink? I had no idea that a healthy diet was important. Here all this time I thought I was fat because I was living in a ginger bread house."
FOX News With The Tough Questions
HUCKABEE: They want to know, how do you have such wonderfully toned arms.
OBAMA: So if you want to know how I got my arms, it's because, you know, I'm in the gym.
HUCKABEE: I'm going to pass that on, because that was what they all wanted to know.
OBAMA: Right.
HUCKABEE: And I think you've made the good point, too, that it's a combination of nutrition and exercise.
OBAMA: Yes.
Damn. I had five bucks on the community she lived in giving her great arms.
Are you kidding me here? Nobody at FOX has any ideas on how one could tone their arms? Yea, make sure you pass that info along Mike. They are going to be so shocked when they hear it. By the way, did you have to promise to only throw softball questions out there, or were you being serious, Mike?
Inside Stuff
Ever wonder why the President seems to be so clueless about how bad his poll numbers drop every time he gets back on the health care wagon?
But I try to stay away from, you know, news because, you know, I want to formulate my opinions based on experiences that I have. So, you know, I'll read clips. You know, I get headlines. But I tend and I try to keep home kind of a news-free zone.
What an insight into the mind of a liberal. "I try to stay away from the news because I would hate for my opinions to be influenced by facts or information and stuff. I'd rather see the whole world through the lens of my personal experiences." Wait, isn't that supposed to be the criticism of the global warming deniers? "It snowed here, so there's no global warming". Isn't that what Obama said? It turns out it's not the other side who does that, it's his wife. She went on...
You know it's sort of like, when you work above the shop, you can't just bring work home.
With all due respect, isn't that why the Oval Office is in the White House? Isn't the President kinda supposed to be President 24 hours a day? No wonder they stayed in Hawaii for their full vacation after the Christmas Day terrorist attack. We're lucky he didn't stay in the White House for his vacation, or he wouldn't have even known it had happened over there in the "No News Zone".
You Know?
And it's a really cool country with some really great people all over the place. You know, I mean, it still brings tears to my eyes because we don't often get to do that as Americans. We don't get to campaign and have to go to Iowa and then to Montana and then over to you know, but you're forced in a very good way to do that. And when you do that, you see the true America. And it's decent, and it's kind and it's hopeful and it's critical, right, and it's demanding, but it's courageous. It's not cowardly in that way.
And that's the truth that, you know, I hold on to. And that's the truth that I teach my children, you know. It's part of dad's job, you know.
He's doing a big thing. There will be people who won't agree with him, you know, that's life, you know? People won't agree with you, you know.
So just, you know, know that, you know, I teach my kids to keep moving forward, know what's in their heart and, you know, stay true. And it's that faith, you know, that really keeps you going.
So she cries because Americans don't get to campaign very often and go to Iowa and Montana and... what, did she run out of State's there? Could she not come up with the name of one of the other 55 (it's a joke, Peggy Joseph) States?
I'm not really sure what she's trying to say there, you know? If anyone else can make sense of it, you know, feel free to explain it in my comments, you know? That would help me out, you know? For the show, you know?
I thought she was supposed to be the smarter of the two. I guess we really are screwed.
I'm assuming that over there in Liberal La La Land, you leftists just take whatever rolls down the pipe and you run with it. Perhaps at some point you people might want to use your heads for something other than a hat rack and think before you click away on the keyboard. Now I know that President Obama has criticized the Republicans for being the "Party of No" and doing nothing more than opposing every part of his agenda. Then, he turns around and calls them hypocrites for for having some ideas about what to do with the stimulus money that is being passed around at taxpayer expense. Here is one example of a writer who just runs with the talking points and never pauses to think about what he is writing.
According to this morning's exposé in the Washington Times, those very same Republican members of Congress who publicly condemned the 2009 stimulus bill--insisting to us all that it would neither stimulate the economy nor create jobs--privately believed just the opposite. These GOP representatives and senators were so sure that the stimulus bill would be effective, in fact, that they could not get to their desks fast enough to start peppering the federal government with requests for projects in their districts.
After using the Freedom of Information Act to acquire the congressional correspondence to just one federal agency--the Department of Agriculture--the Times discovered more than a dozen two-faced GOP members, including Rep. Joe "You Lie" Wilson, the South Carolina Republican who interrupted President Obama's speech to a joint session of Congress last year.
As the Times reported, Wilson voted against the stimulus but then "elbowed his way into the rush for federal stimulus cash" in a letter he sent to Agriculture Secretary Thomas Vilsack.
"We know their endeavor will provide jobs and investment," Wilson said on behalf of some hometown candidates for stimulus funds.
Now first, we would have to deal with Mr. Farrell's extremely loose definition of the term "effective". Let's assume for a second that President Obama is telling the truth, and by his largest estimates, he has created 2.5 million jobs. Most people aren't going to consider spending $787 billion to create 2.5 million jobs to be "effective". For example, most people think that professional baseball players are overpaid. Yet had the stimulus plan been used to pay baseball salaries, one could have paid the payroll of the 2008 American League Champion Tampa Bay Rays 17,959 times. That would be 718,383 jobs created. In this light, 2.5 million construction and and teachers jobs doesn't come in as quite the bargain, now does it?
Yet hat having been said, let's get to the heart of the issue here. Back during the Democrat Primaries, Joe Biden was criticized by Obama and the other Democrats (yes, that was back when he was opposed to the Iraq war) for not voting to cut off the funding for the war. Ever wonder what happened to that idea now that they control everything? Anyway, Biden defended his vote. He said that he didn't want to use the troops lives to score cheap political points by delaying funding for a war that they didn't have the votes to end.
Here, the Republicans opposed the stimulus bill when it mattered. It passed anyway. Now, they don't have the votes to fund it. So while Obama is busy trying to convince the American people that the Republicans are the party of no, excuse us if we step in and play grown up here for a minute. As you kids over there on the left give tens of thousands to Universities to study the effects of smoking pot and drinking malt liquor on college students, and give tens of millions to states to build turtle tunnels, excuse us if we might have some adult ways to spend the money. We and our kids, after all, are on the hook for the money. Why not spend it the best way possible?
That having been said, there is no good way to spend the money. It is the stupid and frivolous spending one gets when they turn the checkbook over to the kids. But a rail system that will actually salvage some jobs out of this liberal wasteland of legislation is a far better idea than a laundromat in Arkansas or a tennis court in Montana. So if I could borrow a line from President Obama, we don't mind cleaning up the mess you guys made over there, but would you mind shutting up and letting us do it? I know you had fantasies of "Free Willie" turtle style, but you're supposed to be governing here, not playing house.
I'm sure that the Press will never call President Obama on this one, but it seems to me that his Foreign Policy is leading to a couple of problems for him consistency wise here on the home front. For example, when is a W.M.D. not a W.M.D.? Let's ask Obama. First, consider the Christmas Day bomber. He is now facing several charges, one of them involving the use of a weapon of mass destruction. Yet here is what Obama had to say on October 12th of 2004.
The Bush administration could not find a connection between Saddam and Al Qaeda. WMD are not found in Iraq. And so, it is absolutely true that we have a network of terrorists, but it takes a huge leap of logic to suddenly suggest that that means that we invade Iraq. Saudi Arabia has a whole bunch of terrorists, so have Syria and Iran, and all across the globe. To mount full-scale invasions as a consequence is a bad strategy. It makes more sense for us to focus on those terrorists who are active to try to roll them up where we have evidence that in fact these countries are being used as staging grounds that would potentially cause us eminent harm, and then we go in. The US has to reserve all military options in facing such an imminent threat- but we have to do it wisely.
Let's look at this statement in the light of a reported find from May of the same year.
A senior Bush administration official told Fox News that the sarin gas shell is the second chemical weapon discovered recently.
Two weeks ago, U.S. military units discovered mustard gas that was used as part of an IED. Tests conducted by the Iraqi Survey Group — a U.S. organization searching for weapons of mass destruction — and others concluded the mustard gas was "stored improperly," which made the gas "ineffective."
They believe the mustard gas shell may have been one of 550 projectiles for which former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein failed to account when he made his weapons declaration shortly before Operation Iraqi Freedom began last year. Iraq also failed to then account for 450 aerial bombs with mustard gas. That, combined with the shells, totaled about 80 tons of unaccounted for mustard gas.
Now, let's give President Obama his due "out" here. The mustard gas was stored improperly, hence ineffective. So perhaps that would render it not to be a WMD. Yet, by that same logic, the bomb carried by the underwear bomber was attached to a defective detonator, rendering it ineffective. Hence, the same logic would disqualify it as well. Remember, he detonated the bomb. Did it cause mass destruction? Absolutely not. He was wearing the thing and he survived.
President Obama has yet to pick a new church since his highly visible split with his previous one and his radical former preacher Reverend Jeremiah Wright. But all of this is not to lead us to believe that President Obama is not a spiritual man. The explanation, it turns out, is quite the opposite. Not only is President Obama very spiritual, but he also is skipping church for a very good reason.
HONOLULU — Barack Obama has long stressed the importance of religion in his life.
But as his fellow Christians around the world attended Christmas services on Wednesday and Thursday, the president-elect and his family remained sequestered at their vacation compound on the windward coast of Oahu.
His lack of attendance at formal religious services showcased a dilemma faced by Obama, who is between churches and often expresses concern about bringing the disruption of his security detail into the lives of others.
Still, he has not attended a public church service since before being elected, a departure from the actions of his two immediate predecessors.
"The president-elect didn't want to disrupt a church community on Christmas with the burdens that come with a presidential visit," Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt said Thursday.
Now excuse me for being a bit skeptical here, but let's try to reason this one through for a minute. President Obama doesn't want to "disrupt a church with the burdens that come with a presidential visit", yet he has no problem disrupting the entire population of our largest city for a couple of years with the burdens that come with a terrorist trial in NYC? I'm not buying it.
The fact is, many United States Presidents have attended church, and while I am sure there are security concerns and inconveniences to members of the congregation, they don't generally seem to mind. Furthermore, if President Obama considers this to be a great disruption and didn't want to be the grinch on Christmas, then why did he attend the Vermont Avenue Baptist Church's Martin Luther King Jr services? What does he have against Dr. King? Why did he want to disrupt this service? Of course, he did give a speech there to push his healtcare reform, but I'm sure there is a church in Hawaii that would have allowed him to do the same.
I have some friends and family who supported President Trump from early on in the process. From time to time they will ask me when I will admit that I was wrong about him. "If Trump does x... If Trump gets y... If Trump supports a policy that results in z... will you admit that you were wrong?" My answer is always "no", because I wasn't wrong. To be clear, I could be wrong in practical application, but that isn't what an election is about. Elections are about theory and speculation and, generally speaking about judging records. Trump had no record to speak of, and his history of stances on issues was all over the map. I opposed his candidacy for several major reasons, all of which are proven valid in this single issue we now refer to as the "travel ban". Here were my reasons.
If you're not familiar with Justice with Judge Jeanine, it is a show on the FOX News Network starring Jeanine Pirro. She is known for her over-the-top rants where she serves up gobs of fresh red meat for her largely hard right wing audience. While it's not unusual for her to be a little fast and loose with the facts, she has been known to occasionally return from the break with a correction from her producers. Last night, however, there was no such correction to an outright lie she told on the show, and the matter being discussed should have (at the very least) contained a disclaimer from the host. I would cut her some slack, but as a former prosecutor and judge, she should be well aware of what proper protocol should have been here.
It's not cute anymore, Republicans. The President of the United States is completely detached from reality, and you can't fix that. You can't cover it up, you can't explain it away, and let me make this as clear as I possibly can for you. You cannot possibly undo the damage you are doing to the party brand by trying to pretend this man is anything other than completely unhinged. I'm watching Sean Hannity borrow guests from the Alex Jones show in an attempt to bolster Trump's conspiratorial claims. I'm seeing relatively mainstream conservatives make themselves look like the crazed fringes of the paranoid right wing. Don't believe me? Look at this.
