Long-standing fears that millions of U.S. students from elementary to high schools aren’t being adequately prepared for college or the workforce and that state standards vary too greatly have spurred a movement for a national core educational curriculum and the release Wednesday of draft standards for English language arts and math.

The release of the draft has been both welcomed and panned, with critics concerned that the standards could lead to a mass-assembly approach to general education or a greater reliance on standardized testing in education. The standards’ creators are now seeking public comment and they’ll probably get plenty.

Conflicted, in part, because it will put control over Public Education Standards in the hands of the Federal Government…I think…and I’m no fan of more Federal intervention in our lives. Having said that, I think our current system has failed our kids at many many levels. What escapes me is whether a “National” standard will be able to improve that situation. I have my doubts.

The cynical side of me worries that this will open the doors to so-called “indoctrination” and leave our kids at the mercy of the prevailing ideology of those in control of the Government (yeah-I went there…today it’s liberalism but at some point that will swing in the other direction). What we want is smart kids that can compete with the other kids around the globe when their time comes to go out into that great big world and motivate, innovate, create…and God forbid..PRO-create.

Here’s the link to the proposed standard. The top page of the site fairly well describes the intent. I should, however, in the interest of “fair and balanced fact sharing” point out the Texas side of this issue:

Read More →

It all started here this morning:

The Obama administration will accept no more public input for a federal strategy that could prohibit U.S. citizens from fishing the nation’s oceans, coastal areas, Great Lakes, and even inland waters.

I had to read that 3 times before it sank in…and then I did a little research. Guess what old Barack (I’ve never had a fishing rod in my hand a day in my life) Obama has been up to since last year? Plotting a Federal takeover of all our bodies of water (freshwater…saltwater…doesn’t matter), in an effort to set up MORE bureaucracies and circumvent the rights of the States to determine fair use and access rules amongst themselves based on the local interests of everyone involved.

If he was out to ban recreational fishing this piece would be easy enough to write; scream a little, stomp my feet, vow he’ll have to pry my fishing rod from my cold dead hands, etc…and be done with it. Problem is, this is much darker and more corrupt than that.

The White House plan would establish 9 regional planning bodies (bureaucracies) whose job would be to bring “Federal, State, and Tribal Partners together” to look for ways to “decrease user conflicts; improve planning and regulatory efficiencies and decrease their associated costs and delays; and preserve critical ecosystem function and services.”

It should come as no surprise that the Administration is no longer accepting comments or input from the public (though you should click through to see some of the doozies that WERE accepted), and it should come as no surprise that a member of Obama’s Administration (Jane Lubchenco, NOAA administrator) has some interesting ties with a couple private charities and goofy greenie groups whose interests will be very well served by a Federal takeover of our various bodies of water:

While she possesses impressive academic and professional credentials as a marine biologist, she also has close ties to those who produced the November document. For example, she was a trustee of the Environmental Defense Fund, and served on the Pew Oceans Commission.”

More below the “who needs jobs and successful multi-billion dollar industries anymore, anyway?” fold…

Read More →

CNN is reporting that the White House is considering a military trial for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. WOW! What an inspiration! Why didn’t we think of this before? [face in palm]:

White House advisers are considering recommending alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed be tried in a military court instead of a civilian one in New York City, a senior administration official told CNN on Friday.

It was only a few short months ago that Holder et. al. had announced plans to try KSM in New York. That was not well-received by ANYONE who lives near where the trial would take place…nor anyone else for that matter (save for the “peace at all cost” crowd).

Among the many arguments against such a terrible idea, the issue of huge costs for extra security and the overall cost of even conducting such a trial (which could potentially go on for several years before all was said and done) were the first ones to be quickly discounted by the Administration. Their defense of a public trial was that the American justice system worked just fine thankyouverymuch, and they meant to prove to our enemies that we knew how to play fair.

A lot of us out here believe this animal doesn’t deserve to enjoy the same freedoms as those he successfully plotted to kill on 9/11, and that ALONE should be enough to try him like every other enemy of the State. It would be nice to think Obama finally came around to our way of thinking on this topic. Sadly, his motivation is solely in deference to the “bottom line”:

New York police have estimated the cost to the city would exceed $200 million per year in a trial that could last years. They have said, among other things, that they would need to install more than 2,000 checkpoints in Lower Manhattan.
[snip]
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Friday the administration was evaluating its options “based on New York City logistical and security concerns.”

The WH has obviously gotten the message. We’ll fight the battle over who deserves American civil justice another day. For now, at least, Manhattan has been spared.

It’s not always easy for me to tip my hat to the left. They, by and large, have acted as if they were so wrapped up in their status as “The Majority” that they had forgotten what their jobs were; represent their Constituents on issues that matter to them…in Washington DC. Most have lost their way since taking over, but there are signs that a few of them are starting to understand the expression “a line Americans won’t cross.” And thank God for that:

A dozen House of Representatives Democrats opposed to abortion are willing to kill President Barack Obama’s healthcare reform plan unless it satisfies their demand for language barring the procedure, Representative Bart Stupak said on Thursday.

“Yes. We’re prepared to take responsibility,” Stupak said on ABC’s “Good Morning America” when asked if he and his 11 Democratic allies were willing to accept the consequences for bringing down healthcare reform over abortion.

“Let’s face it. I want to see healthcare. But we’re not going to bypass the principles of belief that we feel strongly about,” he said.

It should be enough that Americans, by huge margins, don’t want this health care nonsense to go through. So far it hasn’t been. It should be enough that Americans have had enough of those Political heroes who continue to make it clear they are more interested in saying they “got health care done” than in saying they put a stop to bad legislation we can’t afford and no one can agree on…and that the taxpayers don’t actually “want.”

It does appear that a handful of Democrats have finally decided that using Federal funds to pay for the killing of innocent human life just MAY, after all, be farther than they are willing to go in order “to get health care done.”

We’ll see.

Consider this your “are they out of their freaking minds?” lunch break open thread…

“[F]or the first time since the Great Depression, Americans took more aid from the government than they paid in taxes” so sayeth the Washington Times:

The so-called “Great Recession” has left Americans depending on the government dole like never before.

Without record levels of welfare, unemployment and other government benefits as well as tax cuts last year, the income of U.S. households would have plunged by an astonishing $723 billion — more than four times the record $167 billion drop reported last month by the Commerce Department.
[snip]
“Governmental support was critical in keeping the economy, particularly consumer spending, from completely collapsing during the crisis,” said Harm Bandholz, an economist at Unicredit Markets. He said he is concerned that so much of the economic rebound is a result of government spending rather than a revival of private income and jobs. That situation is unsustainable, he said, because the government has had to borrow massively to prop up the economy and cannot continue that binge for long.

However much energy the Obama Administration puts in to its arguments favoring expanded deficits and raising the ceiling on our National Debt, this President and his “Hope and Change” nonsense is driving us into the ground. I don’t need to be an economist to comprehend the statement “That situation is unsustainable.” While the Feds spend money they aren’t recovering in tax revenues we are heading down a path from which we can not recover in our lifetimes. Must learn Chinese…MUST learn Chinese.

We have seen enough bloat and waste and State & Federal budget collapses over the past 20 years to recognize the numbers of generations it takes to reinvigorate the Fed coffers…allowing them to keep finding new and ever-cooler ways to spend money they don’t have on things we don’t need (or can live without for a while) is going to ruin us.

No WONDER Bunning is quickly becoming an urban legend in the minds of the Left-he’s mucking up a perfectly good plan to establish the largest monopoly in American history-the Federal Government. Too bad our Political Heroes are too busy buying votes to recognize just how many they’re going to LOSE when the grown ups catch on.

Celebrating the GOP aisle-jumpers that helped prop up Harry Reid’s stature in the Senate, the Washington Post announces that Reid’s jobs bill has advanced past the filibuster stage:

Five Republicans, including new Sen. Scott P. Brown (Mass.), joined 57 Democrats in voting to break a filibuster of the jobs bill, after a suspenseful buildup in which members of both parties wondered whether Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) could cobble together enough support to clear the legislative hurdle.

The bipartisan result marked a breakthrough for Democrats, who have been frustrated since President Obama came to office by their inability to attract much Republican support for their agenda. The vote was also a vindication for Reid, who is grappling with a tough reelection race in Nevada and faced questions in Washington over whether he mishandled the jobs issue.

“I hope this is the beginning of a new day in the Senate,” Reid said after the vote.

New day or not, the bill (which replaced an 85 billion dollar bill that had broad GOP support) has very little chance of doing much to help the unemployment situation. The LA Times highlights the main elements of the bill which include “hiring” tax incentives, an extension of funding for highway programs, an expansion of the “build America” bonds program (to cover “certain school and energy projects”), and an equipment write-off option (as opposed to the standard “depreciation over time” mechanism in your garden variety business tax scheme.

This might sound good on paper, but it is highly unlikely to do much about the nearly 15 million of us that are out of work…unless, of course, we have skills to offer for helping build highways. It is also unlikely to do much about the nearly 20% of us that are under-employed, but as newly-elected Senator Scott Brown explained as he voted in favor of the bill, “This Senate jobs bill is not perfect … but I voted for it because it contains measures that will help put people back to work.”

We’ll see if “doing a thing badly is better than doing nothing at all” is a good strategy. And, time will tell just how many people will be put back to work on 15 billion dollars, most of which will go towards laying down asphalt and painting pretty white and yellow lines on it.

Every time I think I’ve heard it all, I’m reminded how terribly naive I am by assuming such a preposterous notion:

In the course of unveiling Obama’s new health reform proposal on a conference call with reporters this morning, White House advisers made it clearer than ever before: If the GOP filibusters health reform, Dems will move forward on their own and pass it via reconciliation.

The assertion, which is likely to spark an angry response from GOP leaders, ups the stakes in advance of the summit by essentially daring Republicans to try to block reform.

“The President expects and believes the American people deserve an up or down vote on health reform,” White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer said on the call.

What was I thinking? Just like the up or down votes we got on Judges back in the day under Bush, and now with Healthcare, Cap & Trade, and stimulus/bailouts…in every case we were given up or down votes…right?

You know, if we’re going to have laws forced down our throats against our will, however loudly we protest, when will we learn to just shout our mouths and wait for the memo telling us where to send the checks?

I’d like to think there is sufficient testicular fortitude within the GOP Leadership to tell the monarchy we won’t be attending the human sacrifice…and let them bleed themselves dry without our providing them the audience…but I don’t think such anatomy exists in sufficient quantities for Obama and the gang to bother listening.

It’s really that simple after all, and it pervades every aspect of the Obama worldview. Just ask Toyota . I’m a big movie buff, and a huge Fight Club fan, and this whole Toyota flap brings Tyler Durden gurgling back up in my memory like so much boiling fat and lye. Right now, Toyota must be thinking “I am Jack’s cold sweat”, and Obama-“I am Jack’s smirking revenge” [warning: follow-on quotes at these links might not be family friendly].

Consider the subpoenas from Obama’s henchmen…:

Toyota said it had received a request on Feb. 19 to voluntarily submit certain documents from the Los Angeles office of the SEC. U.S. unit Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. separately received a subpoena for related documents, including about the company’s disclosure policies.

Toyota said both companies intend to cooperate with the investigations.

Toyota executives, along with officials from the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, are due to testify in congressional hearings starting on Tuesday over a series of recalls related to unintended acceleration and braking.

…and then consider Obama’s reach in making sure the car companies he made us buy can get a free leg up over the ones that actually know how to run a successful international corporation:

Toyota Motor Corp. said Tuesday it is temporarily suspending production at assembly plants in San Antonio and Georgetown, Ky., to help bring inventory in line with demand amid a string of massive recalls.
[snip]
The intensifying investigation and the production halts at Toyota’s assembly plants are fresh signs of the ripple effect the recalls are having on the world’s No. 1 automaker — even as car owners are streaming to dealers for fixes. Toyota faces separate probes by the Obama administration and Congress as it struggles to maintain its loyal customer base and its reputation for safety and quality.

American economy: “I am Jack’s colon…I get cancer, I kill Jack”…

Read More →

CAIR wants to make sure you know that Joe Stack’s suicide mission into the IRS building in Austin Texas is different in no way than any Muslim’s flight into martyrdom-it’s nothing more than a political statement, his and theirs- and is only noteworthy because of the violent nature with which it was expressed.

Translation?

Joe Stack is a terrorist…just like the Jihadists that CAIR seeks to rationalize and defend.

I am fine with letting the media struggle to hurry up and pigeonhole this moment in history. Define it, classify it, cast it aside; “case closed, move along people-this nut’s been cracked.” Somehow we seem unwilling to look any further than for a catch-phrase so we can get back to more serious business. For the record I will even accept that, by definition, Stack’s murder/suicide mission was an act of terrorism. And…so what? Does acknowledging that change anything about the rest of the story no one seems interested in looking at in any greater detail? Does defining this somehow make it easier to just forget about so we can get back to talking about more important stuff like Barack Obama or Nancy Pelosi or healthcare or jobs? Or the Olympics perhaps?

I took the time to read (and comprehend) Joseph Stack’s Manifesto. I skimmed the headlines this morning, hoping to find enough diverse coverage to make sense of the man-not just his actions-and no such psyhchiatric counsel was available. We don’t know if he was a loving husband or a loving Father. We’re not aware of anything he did with his life or his career that would make him stand out in a crowd or draw attention to his name. We don’t know anything about the man before he converted to madman…whether he was always nuts or was driven to it at some point by external circumstances over which he had no control or to which he ultimately succumbed. What we DO know is that no one cares. Joe Stack will be remembered now as a terrorist and a nutjob. And the world moves along.

If you read his last words, slowly and with attention to detail, you might find something a little more substantive than what Anderson Cooper likes to call (over and over and over again) “a rambling diatribe.” Joe Stack was “mad as hell and wasn’t going to take it any more.” His method of expression aside, there are a great many of us that know a thing or two about being broken down, beaten, and repeatedly kicked in the teeth after we’re down. Does anyone out there not notice that this has all been lost in the race to put this behind us and move on?

Joe Stack lost in his bid to game the system. He admits he tried to game it as he acknowledges he was part of a group of people that actively discussed how to best utilize the tax Code(s) to their collective advantage. He railed against the Catholic Church (apparently because the Church is better at gaming the tax laws than he was) and he lamented the healthcare system, George Bush, GM, and a whole host of other headline-notable moments in history over the last few years.

He complained about pensions being lost to greedy and corrupt Unions and losing his own nest egg at least twice to pay the IRS for his transgressions. He mentioned a “grandmotherly” neighbor whose husband had worked a lifetime in the steel mills only to see his pension disappear to corrupt thugs and greedy mismanagement. She once told him he should be eating cat food in his poverty rather than peanut butter and bread because he “would be “healthier” eating cat food (like her).”

He expressed great cynicism at the whole idea of engaging his elected officials. He spent thousands of dollars and thousands of hours “writing, printing, and mailing to any senator, congressman, governor, or slug that might listen; none did, and they universally treated me as if I was wasting their time.” He was, of course, but he did all of this hoping to get politicians to change the tax code…the very one he sought to game but kept getting gamed by, instead. That he would keep blaming the blackjack dealers for not changing the rules so he could win a few hands at the big table speaks volumes about Joe Stack.

He worked hard, lost everything, worked harder, lost everything again. He failed in California (in marriage and career) and moved to Austin and failed again. He watched his world collapse after 9/11, lamented the airline bailout and every other bailout since…and he grew angrier. He routinely struggled to find work, and burned through his savings and retirement funds as he continued failing to find any (or enough). He screwed himself in, and got screwed by, a tax system he obviously never figured out but one that had him pegged from day one…and he grew more bitter and cynical. I am reminded of Frank Abagnale here, the character played by Christopher Walken in the movie Catch Me If You Can. Abagnale owed the IRS money, too, and like Stack spent more energy trying to avoid paying it than in just getting it over with and getting on with his life.

At some point he turned toward the idea of using his life (and his ultimate death) as an opportunity to teach us all a lesson, and send a message to “big brother” in some distorted way thinking he was not the first (and far from the last) to give his life in the fight for freedom…and that his struggle might somehow serve as a way for others to follow. None of that will happen, of course. Joe Stack will be remembered as just some “poor Joe” that lost his way (and his mind) and became just another statistic in a long line of meaningless data points that reflect what little any of us can do against overwhelming odds in a game where all the rules are stacked up against us.

Make no mistake here…I don’t believe Joe the Terrorist is a victim. The only victim here is Vernon Hunter, the lone casualty from Stack’s horrific act of senseless violence. Vernon, ironically, was just doing his job, trying to earn money to support himself and his family, and following the rules of a game none of us actually ever fully wins-and Joseph Stack killed him because of it. That is, perhaps the greater lesson Stack has taught us…that no one is safe from a person singly focused on his own problems with total disregard for the problems of those around them. Stack might be a terrorist, but he was selfish and only served his own personal “greater good”. He killed an innocent man whose only crime was being at work on the day some lunatic chose to give his pound of flesh to the Federal Government.

Stack wants us to feel sorry for him, and in many ways I do. But my sympathy is for his never realizing he was part of the reason the system was built the way it is built. He truly WAS his own worst enemy, yet he died believing he was getting even with something he helped create. There’s no victim in that…just a man that lost the argument with his own private demons. I do feel for the family, friends, and loved ones he left behind…but that’s about as far as it goes.

He closed with a quote I use quite often in my own life, and a closing thought:

I saw it written once that the definition of insanity is repeating the same process over and over and expecting the outcome to suddenly be different. I am finally ready to stop this insanity. Well, Mr. Big Brother IRS man, let’s try something different; take my pound of flesh and sleep well.

The real lesson to be learned from Joe Stack is how NOT to deal with problems…especially ones we help create of our own device. The IRS will sleep well tonight, and so will most of the rest of us. Stack could have done many things to relieve his burdens…he made his choice and he chose poorly. He does leave behind the one lesson I doubt “the MAN” will ever learn, and that is this: we each have our breaking points in life, and all we have left once that point is reached is how we choose to “break” and how far we’re willing to go to spread that pain around and make it the death and destruction of everyone else around us.

If what Joe Stack did was “terrorism” then there are a lot of terrorists out there that just haven’t reached his point of no return yet.

On Friday 19 February, it was reported that President Obama was planning to:

publish his healthcare plan as early as Sunday or Monday, combining features of the two Democratic bills passed by the Senate and House of Representatives, congressional aides and healthcare advocates said on Friday.

Yet the very same day we’re told he wants to hear from Republicans on what they have to offer:

“The Republicans say that they’ve got a better way to do it. So I want them to put it on the table. I’m not an unreasonable guy. If you show me that you can do the things we just talked about — protect people from insurance problems, make sure that the costs are controlled and people who don’t have health insurance are covered — you can do it cheaper than me, then why wouldn’t I do that? I’ll just grab your idea and say, ‘Great,’ and take all the credit. So show me what you got, but don’t let the American people go another year and another 10 years and another 20 years without health insurance.”

It’s fair to suggest that the President has become jaded by his short stint in the Oval office given his publicly stated desire for input from Republicans…so long as anything they offer aligns with the plans he already has in mind. To offer both sides of the political divide an opportunity to find common ground despite the fact that he already knows what he’s willing to hear and accept only offers Americans the one thing he says he doesn’t want: Political Theater:

“I don’t want to see this meeting turn into political theater, with each side simply reciting talking points and trying to score political points,” Obama said in his weekly address. “Instead, I ask members of both parties to seek common ground in an effort to solve a problem that’s been with us for generations. ”

Really?

Since the President has the plan, knows how this all turns out, and is merely looking at this folly of a summit as Political cover for 2010 (shouting “we got health care done in true American bipartisan fashion…re-elect Democrats far and wide please”) why don’t the Republicans just stay home rather than go for the free coffee and donuts before having to throw the fight in the middle rounds?

Obama can burn both ends of the Healthcare candle all he wants. There’s really no need for Republicans to light the match.

Have at it…

[note: I'm temporarily (for now) staying in New Hampshire and decided to nose around in her politics. This was my first issue. A long piece follows. If you're not interested in the 1200 words of minutiae on the legislative background you can stop at the bolded "below the fold" comment]

New Hampshire lawmakers have voted down an attempt to repeal the law(s) granting same sex marriage rights put forward by House Republicans. By wide margins, Democrats have successfully upheld legislation they passed last year:

Opponents of HB 1590 said it would be wrong to back-track and to deny gays and lesbians the equal rights they fought for the state to recognize.

Rep. Robert Thompson, D-Manchester, argued against the amendment.

“We already have loving, committed same-sex marriage couples in New Hampshire. There has been no detrimental impact to anyone,” he said.

Thompson, who married his gay partner on Jan. 2, asked the House, “How has my marriage impacted upon your marriage, or how has it diminished the value of your marriage?”

He said the repeal bill, “is about taking rights away, plain and simple.”

The fundamental story here is that House Republicans wanted to put a Constitutional Amendment before NH voters and let them decide whether to allow same sex marriage in their State. Democrats consider the issue moot, one actually saying during the debate that “New Hampshire is not a referendum State” and that the Legislature did what it was expected to do by deciding this issue FOR Granite Staters. [I heard this personally as I listened to the LiveStream of the floor debate]

For Rep. Thompson (a benefactor of the new law) to suggest the repeal would take away rights without mentioning that he was part of ASSIGNING them in the first place is disingenuous. Democrats enjoy a large majority in the NH Legislature and successfully granted these rights to a minority demographic without the ballot-box input of the Citizens of the State:

Sponsors tried to delay the vote on the amendment until March 17. That would have given local voters at town meetings next month time to weigh in on warrant articles that ask for a general election vote on the amendment.

“All we’re trying to do here is put this on the ballot,” said Rep. David Bates, R-Windham, arguing voters should have their say. His effort to delay a vote fell short on a 191-148 vote. The House killed the gay marriage repeal after only a half-hour of debate, voting by a 2-1 margin to adopt a Judiciary Committee recommendation.

Republicans are asking that their Legislators’ sanity be checked by the voters, and the Democrats are apparently afraid of what voters might say. It’s clear that, while a “technical term”, *Inexpedient To legislate* carries a double meaning in this case. Democrats (including Rep. Thompson) have gone too far to turn back now; political expediency goes a long way toward defining the laws the Citizenry is forced to abide by, regardless their desire to be held accountable to them..or their opinions about them before they are enacted.

Lengthy and detailed chronology of how New Hampshire got here is below the fold…

Read More →

The Mount Vernon Statement has been released. I suggest that any among you who consider yourselves “Conservatives” should go there and read it. Sign it if you agree. If you are unfamiliar with the project, here is their “About” intro:

In light of the challenges facing the country and the need for clarity in the age of Obama, The Mount Vernon Statement, modeled on the Sharon Statement issued on Sept. 11, 1960, is a defining statement of conservative beliefs, values and principles penned by a broad coalition of conservative leaders representing a wide spectrum of the movement including fiscal, social, cultural and national security conservatives.

Go there now and read it for yourself.

[quick note-Texas is getting in on the action now, as well as Virginia...stay tuned-I'll start the popcorn]

BP America, Conoco Phillips, and Caterpillar (among others) have announced their intentions to quit the Climate Action Partnership, a group whose mission is to “call on the federal government to enact legislation requiring significant reductions of greenhouse gas emissions.”

BP American says it “intends to go solo in its quest to influence the national discussion on climate change.” Conoco says it’s quitting to “focus on reducing near-term greenhouse gas emissions by developing its natural gas operations.” Caterpillar says it wants “to focus on commercializing technologies that it said would accomplish the same goals pursued by U.S. CAP.”

What they didn’t say was said for them by Myron Ebell, Director of Energy and Global Warming Policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (”a public interest group dedicated to free enterprise and limited government”):

BP America, Conoco Phillips, and Caterpillar are recognizing that cap-and-trade legislation is dead in the U. S. Congress and that global warming alarmism is collapsing rapidly. We hope that other major corporations will soon see the light and drop their support for cap-and-trade and other energy-rationing legislation.

What also wasn’t mentioned in any of the articles about BP, Conoco, and Caterpillar is that lawsuits are starting to pop up challenging the EPA’s so-called Global Warming regulations specifically because of new revelations that man-made climate change is a lie and has been uncovered as a hoax and a generation-long falsehood:

In two separate filings Tuesday, the Competitive Enterprise Institute challenged massive energy regulations forthcoming from the Environmental Protection Agency. The actions come in the wake of damaging disclosures this week by Phil Jones, head of the disgraced British Climate Research Unit, who reversed himself on several basic issues in a BBC interview.

There will be more of this; withdrawals from feel-good coalitions to save mankind from something that doesn’t exist…and the lawsuits needed to begin unraveling years of the mess our politicians and activists have made. Someday there will be legislation enacted to make things right, though Politicians with the will to see it through might not be in any hurry. It’s going to take many successful litigations from the private sector and many billions of dollars in Jury awards, but we’ll get there.

BP, Conoco, and Caterpillar…to name a few…are betting on it.

The Hill’s “Blog Briefing Room” suggests that is exactly the reality our beleaguered President finds himself staring at:

52 percent of Americans said President Barack Obama doesn’t deserve reelection in 2012, according to a new poll.

Obama faces a 44-52 deficit among both all Americans and registered voters, according to a CNN/Opinion Research poll released Tuesday. Four percent had no opinion.

The reelection numbers are slightly more sour than Obama’s approval ratings, which are basically tied. 49 percent of people told CNN that they approve of the way Obama is handling his job, while 50 percent disapprove.

The temptation to mock, while great, will be resisted. No personal fan of the man, I almost feel bad for him…almost… as I think back to the doom George W. Bush was told he faced in the run-up to his own re-election and remember how badly I hoped the experts were wrong back then. I’m sure Obama’s fans feel the same way today, so in deference I’ll back off for now.

I will add, though, that drawing comparisons between what Bush faced during his first term then and what Obama has faced during his own first term now is instructive. Bush started 2 wars with a fair amount of success (take it easy…I said fair amount) and Obama has failed to end them as he promised to. Bush inherited a decent economy (however much it was built upon a house of cards) that fairly quickly collapsed before having a full-bore stroke after 9/11. Obama inherited a struggling economy that had some potential for improvement until he chose to bail out everyone and take them over… Bush’s post-9/11 economic stroke would look good now compared to what we’re faced with today. We were afraid back then…now we’re just fiscally cynical and wholly distrustful of the Federal Government.

Like Bush, Obama now finds himself having to glad-hand his political opponents. I think (and I’m prepared to be corrected on this) that there is a fundamental difference between the two however; Bush gave in a little without having to abandon his agenda while Obama appears ready to give up all he stood for a year ago just to cling to his political life - agenda be damned.

Having even some Executive experience really does mean something when you wake up one morning and find yourself assigned the task of being President of the United States…Governor (I suggest here) offers a bit more of that than Community Organizer and hand-wringing political activist. It makes one wonder, yet again, which is the better President…or at least which of these two will be better remembered for having given the job a try.

Great news from Afghanistan: “Secret Joint Raid Captures Taliban’s Top Commander” putting aside for today the fact that the NYT leaked a secret again…something they do quite frequently.

The Taliban’s top military commander was captured several days ago in Karachi, Pakistan, in a secret joint operation by Pakistani and American intelligence forces, according to American government officials.

The commander, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, is an Afghan described by American officials as the most significant Taliban figure to be detained since the American-led war in Afghanistan started more than eight years ago. He ranks second in influence only to Mullah Muhammad Omar, the Taliban’s founder and a close associate of Osama bin Laden before the Sept. 11 attacks.

Mullah Baradar has been in Pakistani custody for several days, with American and Pakistani intelligence officials both taking part in interrogations, according to the officials.

I frankly find this news more exciting because Pakistan was in on it than I do that this animal was captured. He’ll be replaced soon enough, but here’s hoping he gets the kind of interrogation accommodations due him based on his resume. And, given it wasn’t US that took him, it’s a safe bet we won’t be seeing him in NY any time soon standing trial.

What must be done now is to award the email hacker with the next Nobel Peace Prize, revoke Al Gore’s, confiscate all the profits that have been made from furthering the lies and misdirections of the climate alarmists (including Michael Moore of course), shut down the UN’s Climate wing, and immediately dismantle and disrupt the EPA and the last 20 years of restrictions and regulations and blockades of access to American energy resources. Oh yeah-let’s burn the Cap & Trade bill and shutter the whole economy-destroying Ethanol nonsense while we’re at it.

Why you ask? Because it has finally come out that there has been no global warming since 1995 (it was much worse during Medieval times you see) and the now-shamed Professor at the heart of the original IPCC email scandal has finally been uncovered as a fraud. I can actually understand now why he once considered suicide…he knew this day of reckoning was coming.

The problem with saying “the science is settled” is that, sooner or later, someone else that truly believes in the never-ending pursuit of “science” is going to un-settle it with either new revelations or new discoveries. Unfortunately for Al Gore, we have come upon a newer, even more inconvenient truth; they lied.

Now we have to go about the business of cleaning up their mess.

[image via AP/ABC]

ABC News endeavors to help us understand why Harry Reid is stripping down the jobs bill. The article plods along like you might expect; leading us to believe it’s just as good an idea as any other right now and that it is backed by the White House. Its price tag is dramatically lower than the bipartisan proposal from Baucus and Grassley (supported by many on both sides of the political divide), so it surely must be an attempt at some modicum of fiscal responsibility. Right?

What you won’t find in this piece is the assumption on Reid’s part that none of us dolts out here in the hinterland will actually notice that an even bigger Government takeover of the private sector lies directly behind what his bill means to accomplish; paying employers to hire unemployed workers (and paying them to retain these new hires for a year) whether there is enough work to justify expanding payroll or not, serves only the Democrats in the upcoming elections. If Reid’s calculation that Republicans can’t afford to say no to this bill is accurate and it becomes law, he will have effectively increased taxes, blocked proposed tax cuts, reduced payments into the Social Security slush fund, extended the Fed’s encroachment on the private sector, and set up an inevitable future increase in taxes and/or spending to make up the difference.

I’m on record as being no fan of the larger bill, either, but it’s incredibly cynical of Mr. Reid to assume that Americans will be more captivated by the Federal government “adding jobs” than by the fact that he has no qualms about cutting 70 billion dollars from a fairly popular proposal to do so. And this at a time when we would all like to see MORE spent on jobs than on any other issue before us right now. Remember, this is the same Harry Reid that was all-in for hundreds of billions of dollars for the stimulus, health care, and cap and trade.

It’s fascinating that Mr. Reid can hand out hundreds of millions of dollars to his colleagues in the Senate in order to buy health care votes, but now finds himself a born-again tightwad on jobs creation in the name of political expediency. Quite a gamble for a man from the gambling capitol of America. Clearly he thinks he’s holding an inside straight his own constituents appear ready to bet against.

David Reilly over at Bloomberg tells us that Obama needs to “man up” if he doesn’t want to be handing Sarah Palin the keys to the White House in January 2013. While I think it’s quite presumptuous to assume Palin will be his successor, Reilly’s little rant about Obama needing to be more of a tough guy (even against his own people) made me laugh.

Obama needs to ditch his professorial, community-organizer mien and start cracking some heads. Unless, that is, he is intent on paving the way for a Palin presidency in 2013.

Supporters are crying out for Obama to pull out of his tailspin. In an article in Politico, Douglas Wilder, the nation’s first African-American governor and an early Obama supporter, urged the president to get his act together.

“The need is becoming more obvious by the day,” Wilder wrote. “Getting elected and getting things done for the people are two different jobs.”

I find it fascinating that Democrats want a tough-minded, bull-headed, strong-willed President now, when only 3 short years ago these very same Democrats (confronted with a President exhibiting these very same personality traits) did nothing but belly ache, moan, and complain:

“Americans want compromise, not a cowboy-style showdown,” said House Majority Whip James Clyburn, D-S.C.

I’ll take the cowboy approach, thank you very much. Gangstas are too well-known for killing their own…