Sarah Palin strikes back…

Sarah Palin strikes back at Journolist’s ’sick puppies’ | The Daily Caller – Breaking News, Opinion, Research, and Entertainment.

Go Sarah!

Boy… You gotta love her spunk. She lets these liberal media dummies have it right between the eyeballs.

Some of the polls show her running neck-neck with Obama, and close to the top of the pack among Republicans in 2012.

I’ll write more about this later in the weekend, but definitely, one can’t argue anymore that Palin is not a serious force to be reckoned with, regardless of whether she runs for office again, or not.

Obama team’s panic – They’re losing voters

Obama team’s panic over losing whites.

Patrick Buchanan can be rightly accused of going over the top, but in this case, I give him a bone for being right.

Obama ran on being a post-racial president. If you go down Patrick’s column you see a number of incidents where that post-racial perspective has been destroyed:

1. The brouhaha over the Cambridge Police Department’s handling of Professor Gates.  Recall Obama said the police acted “stupidly”.  It took a beer summit to smooth the feathers over that one.
2. Obama asking the USDA and Secretary Vilsack to fire Shirley Sherrod, when it was clear that the full story and tape on her speech had not yet been made public.
3. The most egregious charge against Obama’s post-racial perspective is his refusal (by not DOING anything) to hold Eric Holder accountable for dropping the case against the New Black Panthers.
4. Here’s one that Pat did NOT mention…  This came from a Department of Justice whistleblower who came out and spoke against Holder’s actions in the New Black Panther case…

In comes J. Christian Adams, the former DOJ attorney turned whistleblower saying the case was dropped because of “racial issues.” Adams also said “The [voting] section doesn’t want to protect white voters.”

“He testified that Deputy Assistant Attorney General Julie Fernandes told Voting Section management that there would be no more cases brought against black defendants vindicating the rights of white victims.  Adams personally heard Fernandes say that the division would only bring “traditional civil rights cases” (code words  for suits against white racists).  Adams also heard Fernandes say that  she had no interest in the Voting Section enforcing Section 8 of the National  Voter Registration Act (which requires purging rolls of ineligible voters to  prevent voter fraud), because Section 8 does not increase voter turnout.  Fernandes now needs to be questioned under oath, as does the head of the Civil  Rights Division, Thomas Perez, who previously testified this was not the  Justice Department’s policy and that he was unaware of such views.”

Grrrr…. Excuse me??  Our Constitution and our laws are intended to be blind to race, color, skin tone, gender, etc. All persons are treated equal and are afforded the same rights to protect their ability to vote, pursue their rights to happiness, liberty and life.  The instant we have an enforcement arm of the government that will NOT abide by this equality and due process principle, we begin to slide down a very slippery slope.

My dad is brown-skinned, Muslim by heritage, but he’s an American. He never lets anyone forget he got where he is because of his parents and his own talent. No one gave him anything.  Favoritism has NO place in our voting system, or anywhere else in public life.

After reading Patrick’s column above, I ask you to keep watch over what the President does during the summer and fall. Does he demonstrate ANY understanding that he HAS to keep white voters in his fold, otherwise his chances of retaining any political mandate go out the window?

Somehow, I’m not gonna wait with baited breath for evidence that he has learned the lesson.

Sarah Palin at Top of Game

Click for the Story

This should not surprise anyone. I believe anyone who underestimates Sarah’s reach, power, appeal and ability to bring people into her bandwagon… Well, you do so at your peril.

Alaska is littered with the bodies of politicians that she put out of commission. I’m sorry to say that many of the potential Republican candidates for 2012 thus far all fall into the same category.

It all comes down to Iowa and South Carolina in the primaries in 2012.

Assume Romney (or maybe Pawlenty) will win New Hampshire. If Palin wins Iowa and South Carolina and then manages to get a good showing in Florida, I think she’ll get the nomination.

Question for everyone now is whether Obama will be a weak candidate or not.

Obama to end social engineering in housing

Hot Air » Obama to target CRA, social engineering in housing/lending market.

This would be interesting, if it actually happened.  I’ll write more later on about the dumb things the government does in the name of juicing up home ownership…

But, ponder this… If instead of 72% of households owning a home, the percentage were closer to 60% or 65%, would we be in the financial mess we are in??

Obama hits low in Quinnipiac approval rating

Hot Air » Obama hits low in Quinnipiac approval rating.

Not surprising.  Definitely the Gallup poll from last week is now proven to be an outlier.

The question on everyone’s mind today is when the President abandons his plans so that he can save his party.  Or, does he just continue on, assume he loses the US House to the Republicans, and then see how he can position himself for 2012?

Keep an eye on independents in these polls from Quinnipiac, Rasmussen and other outlets. If they continue to break solidly against the President, his prospects for 2012 are going to start looking bleak.

Evening Update – August 13

Good afternoon to all.

Things move fast on the key issue of the day, even if Congress is not officially in session.  Maybe having Congress be forced to go back home and see/talk to their constituents is not a bad thing, eh?

First, let’s check the fact that Obama’s poll numbers continue to slide. Rasmussen, which is the only outfit that samples registered voters and pulls out only likely voters out of that, shows his approval at 47%.  It has been sinking at about 1 point every 7 days or so over the last month.  As his ratings sink further, it has several effects

1. People begin to wonder whether he has the political capital to evangelize his programs so that Congress feels motivated to pass them
2. Bipartisanship is easier for a president that the opposing party feels has the support of the public behind him.  So, Republicans may continue opposing him if they feel he isn’t bringing the public along.
3. His ability to bring together the various factions of the Democratic party also begins to falter.

For point 3 above, here is an article you might find interesting on how seniors are jumping off the bandwagon in terms of support for healthcare.. If this key pillar of the Democratic coalition falls by the wayside, it is bad news for Obama.

Meantime, if you really want to see the underpinnings of the healthcare bill, here is some more material.

• How to connect the dots on the provisions in the bill and its effects.
• Here is a set of the amendments in the bill which no one is talking about.

Now, comes late word of a poll that shows many people expect taxes to go up. Could that be because we see the debt rising?  Latest numbers from the government show the deficit will hit $1.8 Trillion this fiscal year, which is 4 times what it was last year.

Previous readers to this space will remember I said interest rates will go up?  Well, that is also in the cards.  Long-term Treasury bills show no sign of their rates stablizing.  Each time the government auctions off the debt, it has to pay more interest to the holders of the debt.

Now, having dispensed with the news, let me turn to something else.

We’ve been told for several days now by the lemmings in the mainstream media that liberals believe that dissenters at the town hall meetings are UNAMERICAN.

Well, consult Thomas Jefferson.

I hold it that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government.

So, the rebellion should continue.  I don’t favor it becoming violent, but passionate? Yes.  vociferous? Yes.

I am going to write about this in more detail tomorrow.  I’ll tell you exactly why I think Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and many people on the far left are being completely disingenuous.  They want to quash any debate on the healthcare issue, but they said several years ago that it was appropriate to question the Bush administration.

Tomorrow, I will also write about why I think some liberals have lost it completely.  Meaning they no longer understand (or care to understand) what is the “organic river of feeling” that runs through most Americans for whom the words country, freedom, liberty, and self-determination actually mean something.

I leave you with the entreaty… NEVER EVER FORGET those words:  freedom, liberty, self-determination and country.  These words should evoke emotions and make you proud to be an American.  That feeling, in turn, makes you want to defend what America is so it does not become something you don’t recognize.

It is up to all of us…

(Updated) Saturday Morning Update – June 27 2009

Good day to all…

Lots of stuff has happened in the last few days, from the death of Michael Jackson, to the dizzying fall of South Carolina governor Mark Sanford, to the House vote yesterday on the Waxman-Markey “cap and trade” bill.

Let’s begin with the fall from grace of Mark Sanford.  It turns out that he deliberately misled his staff so they didn’t know where he was, and they in turn propagated a set of lies about his location.  Since none of them could get in touch with him, the fault is his.  We also found that he had already started a trial separation from his wife several weeks ago, because she knew about the affair he was having.

I recommend continuing to follow this using the local newspaper for Columbia, South Carolina.  Here’s the link.

A few things to watch on this.

1. Does he resign, or does the legislature (or the public) push him to resign? He says he wants to remain in office, but I don’t see how he can claim to properly represent the interests of a Red State like South Carolina when he has these issues in his personal life

2. Does his wife take him back?  From accounts I have read, she was the one who helped him launch a career in politics in that state.  She really holds the cards here in terms of whether their marriage will survive

One other point is that I hope when Democrats are found to have abused and destroyed the trust of their families and the voters in the same fashion, that they are exposed with the same zeal that the national press used in going after the governor. We should not demand perfection in our elected officials, but it is proper to ask whether they’re living their lives in the same manner that most of their constituents are.

Exit point.  Is it ANY coincidence that Sanford was brought down, Palin was attacked by Letterman (and the national media), again, AND Senator Ensign of Nevada was also brought down by adultery too.  Let’s not forget that all THREE of these politicians were or are mentioned as top-liners for the 2012 Republican nomination.  So, now we are back to Sarah Palin, Mitt Romney and a handful of other “so what” Republicans.  WE NEED TO FIND principled opposition to run against Obama.

Well, that’s a nice segue into the next topic.  Maybe John Boehner is the guy to put closer to the top of the 2012 list… Why?  He came up with the precedent setting idea of doing what amounted to a filibuster on the House floor last night.  He put together a very masterful piece of political theater that was dead serious and a huge rallying cry for conservatives everywhere.

What led him to do this is the very sneaky, underhanded, devious and some would say almost criminal way the Democrats added an amendment to the Waxman-Markey climate change bill. The House was set to vote on it last night, and they put in a 300 page amendment to a bill that was already 1,200 pages long.  The amendment was dumped into the hopper at 3:09AM in the early morning on Friday.

I don’t know about you, but I doubt anyone could have been expected to read the bill, much LESS the amendment before the vote came up.  So, Boehner decided to helpfully walk the House and the American people through the 300 page amendment.  He did so, taking an hour to go through it nearly page by page.  You can watch the video here. What was really interesting is about 20 minutes or so in, Henry Waxman, the primary author of the bill, asks the Speaker Pro Tempore of the House to rule on whether Boehner can continue to speak, because he was yielded only a few minutes of time.  The Speaker rules that it is House custom to listen to whatever the Leader says. That brought the house down.

With this filibuster and the attention it got in Republican/conservative circles, I bet we need to keep an eye on this guy.  He may just have vaulted into the top tier of candidates for the Republicans in 2012.

The bill did pass the house, but ONLY because 8 Republicans decided to break ranks and vote with the Democrats.  You should know who these people are.  Michelle Malkin has a post about them on her blog.  CALL THEIR OFFICES AND MAKE SURE YOU TELL THEM YOUR FEELINGS on their vote.

The bill now goes to the Senate, but I have serious doubts about whether the Senate will ever get a corresponding bill passed.  Senator Inhofe from Oklahoma says the bill is dead and the Republicans expect to get enough Democrats to support a filibuster if anything should make it to the floor.  Here’s an article.

In terms of the Michael Jackson story, there are plenty of outlets on the Web where you can get information, but TMZ.com appears to have a lot of good inside information.  I would also check in with Greta Van Susteren at Fox News.  She’s a brilliant legal analyst and does have lots of contacts in Los Angeles since she used to live there and practiced law there years ago before she made her break reporting on the O.J. Simpson mess.

Michael Jackson was truly the kid who never grew up. He truly believed in the Peter Pan story and tried to live his life like it.  So, he surrounded himself with people, as any celebrity does.  I believe those people took full advantage of his naivete. When he wanted drugs to continue his drug habit, they provided the drugs and enabled his addiction.  The world is mourning the loss of a great talent.  But, some questions remain to be answered in the coming days.

1. Who was this cardiologist/doctor that Jackson had living with him, and did the doctor know about the injection of Demerol that Jackson was given just before he went into cardiac arrest?  Demerol is usually only given just after surgery, and in a hospital because it can bring on slowed respiration and cardiac arrest.  In a hospital counter drugs would be available along with cardiac paddles to re-start the heart. None of this appears to have been around in Jackson’s home.  I hope that the local and state prosecutors go after this doctor and anyone else around Jackson who may have been negligent or set in motion the events that led to his death.

2. Anyone who falsely got prescriptions for themselves and then gave the drugs to Jackson should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.  I wonder if the pharmacy involved may also be culpable.

3. The will and estate Jackson leaves behind will be litigated over for years to come.  This should provide a nice sideshow for the lawyers, but I think Jackson should be remembered as the icon he was. We’ll never get to see that comeback tour he had planned, but we can remember the many musical memories he left with us.

Update: I saw this article which seems to make a pretty compelling case that Obama’s poll numbers are falling to the point where he can no longer argue that his predecessor is fully responsible for the problems we have.

Also, Hot Air has a great article where it appears like the Republicans are carrying forward from Boehner’s filibuster yesterday and framing the messages to use against the liberals next year in the mid-term elections. It’s about time.

That’s all for today.  Reminder that you can follow the blog over on Facebook. The widget is on the left pane of the blog page.  If there is a story, or blog you want me to look into, send me a comment here, or to katiadog (at) gmail (dot) com.  Thanks for dropping by!

Katia’s Afternoon Update

Good day to everyone…

Here are some stories I’m watching today.

Over on the Iran front…

Hot Air has an article on the latest brutal thuggery by the Iranian military and police.  Definitely, the ability to peaceably assemble and protest is in very short supply.

What will be interesting to watch…

1. How Obama continues to try and reconcile his inconsistencies among the statements he has made during the last week. Instead of a full-throated condemnation of the Iranian government last week, he only offered tepid language.  The actual condemnation didn’t happen until yesterday’s press conference, where several members of the press did hold him to account for his lack of being in the lead among the countries speaking out on the election and brutal tactics of the government.

2. Whether his condemnation yesterday will actually change events on the ground or not.  So far, no major change that I can see. But, time will tell whether the mullahs change their tactics.

3. It also will be interesting to see whether there is an about-face on whether the Iranian diplomats can attend Fourth of July celebrations at US Embassies.  So far, no change, but that could become a different story given public outrage.

Mullahs also appear to be joining the protests, according to Hot Air.  Not sure whether these are legit mullahs, but the symbolism is definitely interesting, because if they are mullahs, it indicates that not all the religious/clerical class in Iran is with the government.

Mark Sanford, once a presumed front-runner for the Republican Presidential nomination in 2012, has found his career in pieces which can’t be picked up easily.  He was out of the country, in Argentina, seeing a mistress.  Hot Air has the article here.

I have also been watching the stories around the firing of the Inspector General for Americorps, Gerald Walpin.  You can see those links in older articles, further down the blog.

Katia’s bottom line ideas for today…

1. Events in Iran are still fluid and moving fast.  No one knows what the end result will be, but betting against the protesters in the street would be unwise.  They might not succeed in topping the regime, but they have shined a bright light on what the government in Tehran is capable of doing.  At the very least, the numbers and vociferousness of the protests should tell the world that there is a viable base to begin working from within Iran to effect change.  That, in the long run, might be what we need to head off Iran becoming a serious nuclear weapons state.

Obama did get it right in his press conference yesterday, but it should cause all Americans great concern when we have to wait for our President to take 10 days from the beginning of events to come out with what resembles anything like a full-throated condemnation of the police tactics and murderous things that the Iranian military have done.  So, I ask, why did it take the President so long?  And please, let’s dispense with the idea that Obama’s Cairo speech had anything at all to do with the events in Iran.  The two are not connected, and for him to suggest they are is beyond the realm of logic, and borders on insanity.

2. The Democratic attack machine has to be behind the effort to take down Mark Sanford.  We all know from the past how these guys operate.  They went after Sarah Palin, because she was the only bright light in an otherwise dismal McCain campaign last fall.  Now, as Sanford becomes a darling of the conservatives for 2012, he is now taken out.  Anyone who is planning to run in 2012 for the Republican nomination that looks like a threat better really gird themselves and make sure no skeletons are in the closet.  Otherwise, 2008 is going to look like a picnic compared to the level of animosity and ugliniess that will come out in the 2010 and 2012 election seasons.  The liberals are out to destroy conservatives completely and irreparably.  That is their goal.

3. The government is engaging in tactics that border on the criminal.  Inspectors General are put in place to ensure that taxpayer dollars are appropriated and spent by the receiving entity/agency in the manner which Congress wanted.  These IGs need to have autonomy and independence to objectively investigate the matters brought before them.  The law specifies that if an IG is to be let go, he/she is entitled to have the President send a letter to Congress stating the cause for termination, along with providing 30 days notice before the termination takes effect.  In the case of Inspector General Gerald Walpin who was investigating Americorps expenditure irregularities in Sacramento California, this law was not followed.  The Obama White House terminated his service as Inspector General without adhering to the law, which was written and sponsored by Senator Obama in 2008.

The sad thing is, Americorps will not be investigated now, and through a bill passed by Edward Kennedy, it got its operating budget doubled for this next fiscal year. We will never know where this money goes now.  Obama’s cronies who work at Americorps are free to do whatever they want with the money and there is zero accountability to anyone about how those dollars are spent.  Having Congress in Democratic hands also means no oversight will be forthcoming from Congress members.

I want to welcome readers today who might have found the blog through Jimmy Z’s recommendation.  Many thanks to him for recommending me.  If you have a blog (doesn’t matter what political stripe), send it to me and I’ll add it to my blog roll if it is interesting and noteworthy. I encourage you to add mine.

Thanks for dropping by.

Iran Update and Obama Superhero Cartoon

I thought I’d put these two stories up.  Things in Iran may start to get ugly, very fast.

Over at Hot Air, this afternoon, two links worth reading…

Here’s one which indicates the brutal police tactics are definitely in full force.

Here’s another one.  Seems like Mousavi has been told to be silent.  Time will tell whether that holds, but the chilling record of the Iranian government in silencing opposing political figures seems to be continuing unabated.

Finally, here’s the blog over at the Guardian which I’ve found seems to do a good job of collecting the important events in real-time.

Then, here’s the Obama Superhero cartoon that’s been making the rounds on the Web.

If you are a new reader, read the other posts on this blog. I put it up to give my perspectives on the news events of the day, and from time to time, I will post thought pieces or shine the light on other aspects of our current events that the mainstream media is not reporting.

I am open to any and all comments, and if you have a favorite blog you’d like me to link to, send me an email.  My address is katia98dog (at) gmail (dot) com

Thanks for coming and have a great weekend, and don’t forget to tell your friends about this blog!

Katia’s Evening Update – June 19 2008

Good evening to all…

There are several things I’ve been following that you might want to know about…

1. Glenn Beck read a very powerful, emotional, and heart-felt manifesto on his show the other day, which was written by an ordinary mother, grandmother and housewife in Arizona. Her name is Janet Contreras and I think the letter is an absolute MUST READ.  It brings to the forefront all of the issues, feelings, emotions and thoughts that many have expressed to me since the new Administration took over.

Here are several links for you…  First, click here to see the transcript of Glenn reading the letter on his radio show.  Then, here is his interview with her which aired the next day. If you want to sign the petition, go here.  EVERYONE who wants their voice to be heard by our elected officials should read this letter and then sign the petition.

If you want a You Tube clip, here you go… Click here for Glenn reading her letter.  It’s one of the most powerful things I have ever seen on television.  Then, here is his interview with her on his TV show.

If the conservatives, Republicans, libertarians and like minded independents cannot rally behind this manifesto and use it as a platform for 2010 and 2012 elections, then as far as I’m concerned, we deserve to lose the White House again.

2. The White House has shown an extremely disturbing trend towards getting rid of people who stand in the way of their political philosophies and also the ability of their political machine to protect liberal politicians around the country.  The latest example is the firing of Inspector General Gerald Walpin.  This story has not gotten a whole lot of press, so let me offer a link to bring you up to speed.  Then, here is a link to Glenn Beck’s commentary.  This guy, Walpin, was just doing his job and I doubt anyone could successfully character assassinate him.  But, Obama’s machine is certainly going to try… Click here for a note over at Hot Air about OTHER Inspector Generals that have been fired or let go recently.  These IGs are the watchdog that have the responsibility to check government programs for waste, fraud and mismanagement.  When Obama says he wanted to run the most transparent administration in history, something is very wrong with that statement if you put it up against the events here.

3. Politico has an interesting article today on how the dynamics of the healthcare bill are shaping up from a legislative perspective.  Clearly, there are too many cooks in the kitchen and I think Obama is not doing himself any favors in the long run by letting Congress write the bills however they want.  I’d much have preferred him to take his SIGNATURE issue during the campaign and draft the legislation so that Congress had a place to start.  Although, given the flaws in the proposals, which I’ve discussed elsewhere on this blog, maybe being forced to throw this out and start over might not be such a bad idea.

4. Update: This one just popped up on Hot Air.  Justice Sotomayor, who is up for the vacancy on the Supreme Court just said she would quit being a member of an all-female group called the Belezian Grove. I’ll let you read the article here.  This is much-ado-about-nothing.  The press has already reported on this justice’s character, intellect and temperament and I believe she is lacking in most of those areas. Being a bully, as she is well known to be in court, is not an endearing trait for the cerebral, rational thinking we want on the Supreme Court.  She will probably be confirmed anyway, but it is a great loss for all of us when Obama had the opportunity to nominate a female liberal and minority, if he wanted, and he could have chosen far, far better than this.

Reminder that you can follow the blog over on Facebook. The widget for that is in the left hand pane.  Please recommend the blog on Reddit, Technorati or other sites so we can bring more readers in.

I’ll be writing more on Sunday.  Have a great weekend, everyone!