Parady Obama Song

Political Humor: Obama Releases Theme Song for 2012 Campaign From my facebook page, hat tip Daniel J. Mitchell

Worst. Logo. EVER

I spend years working as a copywriter in advertising before becoming a stay-at-home mom. I even won a couple of (minor) awards. I worked with some amazingly talented people, including many top-notch art directors. So believe me when I tell you that this is the crappiest logo I have ever seen. It sucks. This logo leads the Suckfest Parade on It Sucks Day in Sucksville USA.

It's from this article titled, Marketing America: The ‘United States of Awesome Possibilities’. Visit for the comments which point out all the details of this logo's suck-tasticness with observations such as there is no red in this logo, only white, blue and purple (as in red states don't count) and that it looks less like "diversity" and more like the USA is falling apart. The article itself is very short as if the author was too embarrassed by his obligation to say nice things about this sucky logo so he larded this brief press-release-masquerading-as-news with extensive and offensive quotes from the geniuses behind this logo such as:

The campaign also features a website that gives foreign travellers some useful tips about American life and culture. For instance, it warns: "Health care is superior in the US but it can be very expensive because there is no universal health care." The site also cautions that "some banking networks charge fees of $1-2 per transaction," for ATM withdrawals. (In fact, some charge $3.) And: "Be aware that Americans are fanatics about showering and hygiene."

The whole ghastly idea came from

"The campaign, set to launch next year, is the brainchild of the Corporation for Travel Promotion (CTP), a private-public partnership formed to encourage tourism, with a marketing budget of $200 million. The corporation calls the push "the first-ever coordinated global marketing effort dedicated to welcoming international travelers to the United States."

I think the key phrase is "private-public partnership" which to me translates into government-run advertising pretending to be a private company sort of the same good tax dollar investment as Fannie Mae. If this suckfest of a logo is any indication of the craptacularness of the ad campaign then we will not have to worry about being overrun by smelly international tourists.

Cain's Accuser Doesn't Make Sense

I'll be upfront, I hope the allegations are untrue about Herman Cain. However, I am open-minded enough to wait until I hear both sides of the story. That said, this fourth accuser has not helped her case with me by hiring Gloria Allred as her lawyer. This "lawyer" has a sad history of backing anyone sensational enough to get her publicity. But my serious concern is why did Sharon Bialek stay in the car? In all candor, I have been in similar situations where unwanted and aggressive advances were made upon me. My reaction, get the hell out of dodge. Ms. Bialek says Cain and she were in the car when he grabbed her. When she made it clear that no means no, he backed off and drove her back to the hotel. Let me get this straight. Ms. Bialek went up to DC to get help from Mr. Cain in her job search. She goes out to dinner with him and afterwards while sitting in his car near the National Restaurant Association building, Cain moves on her. Ms. Bialek says no, Cain stops, and she allows him to drive her back to the hotel. Now the NRA building is near the corner of M Street and 17th, this is a VERY active place for cabs. But Ms. Bialek doesn't get out of the car and take a cab back to the hotel, she allows Cain to drive her to the hotel? I have a problem with that. She was "embarrassed" and did not file charges because she did not work for the NRA? I have a problem with that too. Ms. Bialek's behavior does not impress me. Not with the company she keeps (Allred) nor with the details of her story. If someone tried to push my head into their crotch, I would not have remained another second in their car - especially in the center of DC where other means of getting back to the hotel are readily available. The jury is still out and if the other women wish to give details, I'm willing to hear them but Ms. Bialek does not seem entirely credible to me. Fourth accuser urges Herman Cain to ‘come clean’ about harassment Cain Accuser Speaks (Update: Cain Campaign Responds) Update: Video Added (Update: Previous Accuser Corroborates?) Why We Should Be Unfair to Herman Cain

Who Said This?

This quote is from a speech recently given by a top politician. If find it interesting because it could have come from any number of sources. Can you guess who said these words?

We sent a new class of leaders to D.C., but immediately the permanent political class tried to co-opt them – because the reality is we are governed by a permanent political class, until we change that. They talk endlessly about cutting government spending, and yet they keep spending more. They talk about massive unsustainable debt, and yet they keep incurring more. They spend, they print, they borrow, they spend more, and then they stick us with the bill. Then they pat their own backs, and they claim that they faced and “solved” the debt crisis that they got us in, but when we were humiliated in front of the world with our country’s first credit downgrade, they promptly went on vacation. No, they don’t feel the same urgency that we do. But why should they? For them business is good; business is very good. Seven of the ten wealthiest counties are suburbs of Washington, D.C. Polls there actually – and usually I say polls, eh, they’re for strippers and cross country skiers – but polls in those parts show that some people there believe that the economy has actually improved. See, there may not be a recession in Georgetown, but there is in the rest of America. Yeah, the permanent political class – they’re doing just fine. Ever notice how so many of them arrive in Washington, D.C. of modest means and then miraculously throughout the years they end up becoming very, very wealthy? Well, it’s because they derive power and their wealth from their access to our money – to taxpayer dollars. They use it to bail out their friends on Wall Street and their corporate cronies, and to reward campaign contributors, and to buy votes via earmarks. There is so much waste. And there is a name for this: It’s called corporate crony capitalism. This is not the capitalism of free men and free markets, of innovation and hard work and ethics, of sacrifice and of risk. No, this is the capitalism of connections and government bailouts and handouts, of waste and influence peddling and corporate welfare. This is the crony capitalism that destroyed Europe’s economies. It’s the collusion of big government and big business and big finance to the detriment of all the rest – to the little guys. It’s a slap in the face to our small business owners – the true entrepreneurs, the job creators accounting for 70% of the jobs in America, it’s you who own these small businesses, you’re the economic engine, but you don’t grease the wheels of government power. So, do you want to know why the permanent political class doesn’t really want to cut any spending? Do you want to know why nothing ever really gets done? It’s because there’s nothing in it for them. They’ve got a lot of mouths to feed – a lot of corporate lobbyists and a lot of special interests that are counting on them to keep the good times and the money rolling along.

Follow the link Psst! Just Asking! to see who said what. (Hat tip: Instapundit)

Our Economic Crisis Explained

With booze, because that's the best way. Indeed the only quibble I have with this explanation is that it omits the part about how Clinton Did It with his insistance that the banks give loans to bad credit risks. From my email box and a UK relative: Helga is the proprietor of a bar. She realizes that virtually all her customers are unemployed alcoholics and, as such, can no longer afford to patronize her bar. To solve this problem, she comes up with a new marketing plan that allows her customers to drink now, but pay later. Helga keeps track of the drinks consumed on a ledger (thereby granting the customers loans). Word gets around about Helga's "drink now, pay later" marketing strategy and, as a result, increasing numbers of customers flood into Helga's bar. Soon she has the largest sales volume for any bar in town . By providing her customers freedom from immediate payment demands, Helga gets no resistance when, at regular intervals, she substantially increases her prices for wine and beer, the most consumed beverages. Consequently, Helga's gross sales volume increases massively. A young and dynamic vice-president at the local bank recognizes that these customer debts constitute valuable future assets and increases Helga's borrowing limit. He sees no reason for any undue concern, since he has the debts of the unemployed alcoholics as collateral!!! At the bank's corporate headquarters, expert traders figure a way to make huge commissions, and transform these customer loans into DRINKBONDS. These "securities" then are bundled and traded on international securities markets. Naive investors don't really understand that the securities being sold to them as "AA" "Secured Bonds" really are debts of unemployed alcoholics. Nevertheless, the bond prices continuously climb!!!, and the securities soon become the hottest-selling items for some of the nation's leading brokerage houses. One day, even though the bond prices still are climbing, a risk manager at the original local bank decides that the time has come to demand payment on the debts incurred by the drinkers at Helga's bar. He so informs Helga. Helga then demands payment from her alcoholic patrons, but being unemployed alcoholics they cannot pay back their drinking debts. Since Helga cannot fulfil her loan obligations she is forced into bankruptcy. The bar closes and Helga's 11 employees lose their jobs. Overnight, DRINKBOND prices drop by 90%. The collapsed bond asset value destroys the bank's liquidity and prevents it from issuing new loans, thus freezing credit and economic activity in the community. The suppliers of Helga's bar had granted her generous payment extensions and had invested their firms' pension funds in the BOND securities. They find they are now faced with having to write off her bad debt and with losing over 90% of the presumed value of the bonds. Her wine supplier also claims bankruptcy, closing the doors on a family business that had endured for three generations, her beer supplier is taken over by a competitor, who immediately closes the local plant and lays off 150 workers. Fortunately though, the bank, the brokerage houses and their respective executives are saved and bailed out by a multibillion dollar no-strings attached cash infusion from the government. The funds required for this bailout are obtained by new taxes levied on employed, middle-class, non-drinkers who have never been in Helga's bar. Now do you understand?

Taking Credit & Taking Lives

This account of the SEAL raid on Bin Ladin's compound is fascinating on its own but the author's belief, quoted below, that Obama's rush to take credit destroyed any hope of using the intelligence gathered is crushingly dismal. Correcting the ‘fairy tale’: A SEAL’s account of how Osama bin Laden really died

President Obama stepped up to a podium in the East Room of the White House that night to announce bin Laden’s death. That rapid announcement, explained Pfarrer, posed a major threat to U.S. national security. “There was a choice that night,” Pfarrer told TheDC. “There was a choice to keep the mission secret.” America, Pfarrer explained, could have left things alone for “weeks or months … even though there was evidence left on the ground there … and use the intelligence and finish off al-Qaida.” But Obama’s announcement, he said, “rendered moot all of the intelligence that was gathered from the nexus of al-Qaida. The computer drives, the hard drives, the videocasettes, the CDs, the thumb drives, everything. Before that could even be looked through, the political decision was made to take credit for the operation.”

Damn, Dirty Hippy Round-Up (OWS) 11-06

Interestingly this critical look at the OWS movement and what they do is written by a fervant supporter of the movement who appears genuinely aghast at the direction OWS is taking both financially and organizationally. A Chill Descends On Occupy Wall Street; "The Leaders of the allegedly Leaderless Movement" Oustanding Round-Up #OccupyDC ‘What Democracy Looks Like’ I have no words for the first new listed at this site from Allahpundit that the OWS NYC site now needs a rape shelter. Thank You OccupyDC - Rampaging Occupiers Attack 78-Year-Old Woman Near the end of this video is a scene of a woman screaming at the protesters not to touch her children. She's dragged off by her husband who is carrying a child. The woman's venom is startling but understandable. Any of these thugs come near my children and it will take more than my husband to pull me off of them.

Obama's Always Been A Leftie

If this 2004 "Meet Barack Obama" video produced by the Obama Team as part of his campaign for the US Senate had been run by Hilary or McCain in 2008, Obama would not have been elected. I've blamed the media for the Obama presidency in 08 and I blame them now. Bastards. Thank goodness for the Daily Caller. At least we're seeing this now. Rediscovered 2004 Senate ad shows Obama pitching similar rhetorical themes

A rediscovered video from Barack Obama’s 2004 Senate race shows him road-testing his current rhetorical techniques, pitching far-left policies, and depicting business and the marketplace as negative forces. ...... [snip].....The 2004 video also showcases several recurring features of Obama’s speeches — his use of the passive tense to glide past controversial issues, his passive-aggressive portrayal of himself as the reasonable moderate among extremists, and his promises of benefits without costs. The video features several segments of Obama pitching himself in an African-American church, complete with a minister’s Sunday cadence. “I believe we can provide homes to the homeless, food to hungry, clothes to the naked,” he preaches while an organist backs him up. He cites his work as a “political organizer” working with several churches to ameliorate the impact of steel-industry shutdowns. But doesn’t offer any examples where his work, or entrepreneurs’ work, helped attract or create new jobs. However, he does say that his organizing work registered more people to vote for the Democratic Party.

Homes of the GOP Candidates

On one hand, I don't know if this matters very much. On the other hand, I do not remember EVER seeing an article about Democrate Presidential candidate homes. I found this article from 2008 but it only shows Hilary Clinton's house and was just a light skim. in comparison to the article below. So while this article - Homes of the GOP Candidates - may simple be a human-interest piece, it also smacks of a lame attempt at classwarfare. Lame because at least two of the homes are fairly modest and most of the homes have lost value since 2008. In the interest of balance, here are some pictures of Obama's bigass house.

ACORN Caught Again

ACORN Officials Scramble, Firing Workers and Shredding Documents, After Exposed as Players Behind Occupy Wall Street Protests Truth will out.

Occupy Crime Map - Interactive!

(Hat Tip - Instapundit) Over at Daily Caller and from the great Jim Treacher's blog comes the following headline: I don’t want to say things are getting grim in Zuccotti Park, but Bloomberg might send in Snake Plissken Scroll down to the bottom and you'll find this awesome interactive crime map.
View Mapping the #Occupy Hate and Violence in a larger map

Pelosi Gets It

From Sixty Minutes of all places.

Another Clinton Did It. Obama is doing it.

First The Housing Crisis, now Income Inequlity Income Inequality Rose Most Under President Clinton

But it turns out that the rich actually got poorer under President Bush, and the income gap has been climbing under Obama. What's more, the biggest increase in income inequality over the past three decades took place when Democrat Bill Clinton was in the White House. The wealthiest 5% of U.S. households saw incomes fall 7% after inflation in Bush's eight years in office, according to an IBD analysis of Census Bureau data. A widely used household income inequality measure, the Gini index, was essentially flat over that span. Another inequality gauge, the Theil index, showed a decline. In contrast, the Gini index rose — slightly — in Obama's first two years. Another Census measure of inequality shows it's climbed 5.7% since he took office. Meanwhile, during Clinton's eight years, the wealthiest 5% of American households saw their incomes jump 45% vs. 26% under Reagan. The Gini index shot up 6.7% under Clinton, more than any other president since 1980.

Why I Love South Park

South Park takes on the whole 99%/OWS movement and they are glorious. Full episode here. Ann Althouse has her take here and the short clip below.

1%
Get More: SOUTH
PARKEric Cartman,Wendy Testaburger,more...

Thank you Glen Reynolds (aka Instapundit)

Keep off Our Bodies!

Ever since I lived in the UK, I have been passionately AGAINST government-run healthcare. For that reason, I will not vote for Romney in the primaries. When I was younger, the battle cry (for women) was keep the government off my body. Well if that was the battle cry to protect your womb from the government, why isn't it still the battle cry for the rest of our bodies (both men and women)? Mitt Romney's Health Care Defenses Still Don't Cut It

OWS Bastards

From Another “Occupier” Raped, In Baltimore [With Update: Occupier Assaults 14-Year-Old Girl in Dallas]

Naming OWS Supporters

Over at the Zombie website (hat tip - instapundit), they are naming names. In an excellent example of research, Zombie has an evolving list of the Occupy Wall Street supporters that is truly terrifying. The 99%: Official list of Occupy Wall Street’s supporters, sponsors and sympathizers I've copied and pasted the names of these supporters below but go to the above link in order to access the research they give to back up the list. Be very wary of these Occupiers, they have some very ugly "friends". The 99%: Official list of Occupy Wall Street’s supporters, sponsors and sympathizers Communist Party USA, Sources: Communist Party USA, OWS speech, The Daily Caller American Nazi Party, Sources: Media Matters, American Nazi Party, White Honor, Sunshine State News Ayatollah Khamenei, Supreme Leader of Iran, Sources: The Guardian, Tehran Times, CBS News Barack Obama, Sources: ABC News, CBS News, ForexTV, NBC New York The government of North Korea, Sources: Korean Central News Agency (North Korean state-controlled news outlet), The Marxist-Leninist, Wall Street Journal, Times of India Louis Farrakhan, Nation of Islam, Sources: video statement (starting at 8:28), Black in America, Weasel Zippers, Philadelphia Weekly Revolutionary Communist Party, Sources: Revolutionary Communist Party, Revolution newspaper, in-person appearance David Duke, Sources: Talking Points Memo, video statement, davidduke.com Joe Biden, Sources: Talking Points Memo, video statement, Mother Jones Hugo Chavez Sources: Mother Jones, Reuters, Examiner.com Revolutionary Guards of Iran, Sources: Associated Press, FARS News Agency, UPI Black Panthers (original), Sources: in-person appearance, Occupy Oakland, Oakland Tribune Socialist Party USA, Sources: Socialist Party USA, IndyMedia, The Daily Caller US Border Guard, Sources: White Reference, www.usborderguard.com, Gateway Pundit, Just Another Day blog Industrial Workers of the World, Sources: IWW web site, iww.org, in-person appearances CAIR, Sources: in-person appearance, Washington Post, CAIR, CAIR New York Nancy Pelosi, Sources: Talking Points Memo, video statement, ABC News, The Weekly Standard Communist Party of China, Sources: People’s Daily (Communist Party organ), Reuters, chinataiwan.org, The Telegraph Hezbollah, Sources: almoqawama.org, almoqawama.org (2), almoqawama.org (3), wikipedia 9/11Truth.org, Sources: 911truth.org (1), 911truth.org (2), 911truth.org (3) International Bolshevik Tendency, Sources: bolshevik.org, Wire Magazine Anonymous, Sources: Adbusters, The Guardian, video statement White Revolution, Source: whiterevolution.com International Socialist Organization, Sources: Socialist Worker, socialistworker.org, in-person appearance PressTV (Iranian government outlet), Sources: PressTV, wikipedia Marxist Student Union, Sources: Marxist Student Union, Big Government, marxiststudentunion.blogspot.com Freedom Road Socialist Organization, Sources: FightBack News, fightbacknews.org ANSWER, Sources: ANSWER press release, ANSWER web site, Xinhua Party for Socialism and Liberation, Sources: Liberation News (1), pslweb.org, The Daily Free Press, Liberation News (2)

Clinton Did It

Smoking-Gun Document Ties Policy To Housing Crisis

The fair-lending task force's original policy paper undercuts the notion the financial crisis was all about banker "greed," though it certainly played a role after the fact. Rather, it offers compelling evidence that the crisis evolved chiefly from government mandates and threats to increase lending to applicants who could not afford them.

Strangely enough, I remember reading about the study mentioned above way back when. It's nice to have someone other than President Bush to blame. Now, how do we dismantle this group?

2 Sets of Questions About Occupy Wall Street

First and foremost, where is the demand for the collective justice? Shouldn't the first step of the OWS movement be the demand that all those "Wall Street Fat Cats and Bankers" be thrown in jail for the illegal act of putting a gun to those innocent students' collective heads and forcing them to sign up for student loans? Or is that their parents/respective universities' faults? Second, can I get a refund/rebate for the student loan my father took out for me so I could study abroad my junior year at Oxford, UK? Even though, I personally paid off the student loan completely myself by the mid-90s? I'd really like to see some of that money back if the government is handing freebies out to the loafers in Zuccotti Park?

Exposing OWS-ers and Their Very, Very Bad Behavior

Over at Powerline is this post - Occupy Wall Street Exposed - about a new website - Occupy Wall Street Exposed. Powerline writes...

I wrote yesterday that the occupiers aren’t a political movement, they are a crime wave. Until now, however, it has been hard to keep up with all of the occupiers’ misdeeds, most of which are reported, if at all, in local press outlets. Now there is a single web site, OWS Exposed, devoted exclusively to revealing the truth about the disreputable, crime-ridden, far left Occupy Wall Street movement. Check it out, for the news reporting that our major news outlets generally prefer not to do. Also, you can go here to sign a petition asking President Obama to stop fomenting class warfare. OWS Exposed is a brand new site, but it looks like the Occupy movement will be around for a while longer, so watch for content to be added daily. UPDATE: As always, the Left doesn’t like to be exposed. The people who run OWS Exposed spent much of the day yesterday dealing with denial of service attacks by enraged liberals. The site is working again today. FURTHER UPDATE: OWSExposed.com is down again this morning, due to more denial of service attacks by liberals. I find it somewhat ironic that the occupiers, who purport to be defending rights of free speech, try to shut down the web sites of those who comment on their activities.

Support the good guys and visit Occupy Wall Street Exposed Today! Oh, and Powerline!

Why Econ Modelers Are Always Wrong

Via the great Instapundit, this Scientific American Article (see link):

UNEXPECTEDLY! Why Economic Models Are Always Wrong.“If you had to readjust the constant in Newton’s law of gravity every time you got out of bed in the morning in order for it to agree with your scale, it wouldn’t be much of a law. But in finance they just keep on recalibrating and pretending that the models work.” Of course, if the models are always wrong, that’s a good argument for leaving things to markets, instead of having regulators — whose models are always wrong, remember — trying to run things.

Ayers Teaching Occupyers - UGH

Looks like Villaraigosa will be the next Democratic mayor to send cops after occupiers

A Human Observation

Why is it that we are so happy for complete strangers when we see a successful marriage proposal but we laugh at compete strangers pain when they get hit with a football in the groin a la America's Funniest Home Videos, yet reach out and help complete strangers with real suffering? I may not like my fellow drivers on the road but I think we love our fellow travelers in this world.

Greenpeace Terror

From BigGovernment.com

Good line

Via Instapundit from Ace of Spades

SEEN ON FACEBOOK: “The social contract exists so that everyone doesn’t have to squat in the dust holding a spear to protect his woman and his meat all day every day. It does not exist so that the government can take your spear, your meat, and your woman because it knows better what to do with them.”