Manure Meter Alert!

The Manure Meter went off scale this morning before church as I made the mistake of reading this report from the Chicago Sun-Times:

Some Chicago officials say anti-American resentment likely played a role in Chicago's Olympic bid dying in the first round Friday.

President Obama could not undo in one year the resentment against America that President Bush and others built up for years, they said.

There must be" resentment against America, the Rev. Jesse Jackson said, near the stage where he had hoped to give a victory speech in Daley Center Plaza. "The way we [refused to sign] the Kyoto Treaty, we misled the world into Iraq. The world had a very bad taste in its mouth about us. But there was such a turnaround after last November. The world now feels better about America and about Americans. That's why I thought the president's going was the deal-maker."

State Rep. Susana Mendoza (D-Chicago) said she saw firsthand the resentment against America five years ago when she was in Rio de Janeiro. "I feel in my gut that this vote today was political and mean-spirited," she said.

See what I mean?

It couldn't be that Olympic committee voters were troubled by the sweeping changes in the U.S.O.C. leadership, putting non-Olympic corporate people in charge. (Kind of like our government installing a new president for GM who had never built cars, but I digress ...)

It couldn't be that maybe Rio just had a better presentation, a more appealing venue, and that the Southern hemisphere is somewhat overdue.

It couldn't be that President Obama and the Chicago entourage were seen as political grandstanding, in a ham-handed, "this is our biographical destiny," sort of way.

Naw! It's the fault of George W. Bush and all those evil (white) presidents who came before him. The world hates us. Now it's the world that is "mean spirited." Poor Barack may need three or four presidential terms to heal this wound!

Power seems to be hastening the Left's slide into complete lunacy.

What Exactly Was Celebrated?

The Question is this: Was this to celebrate the president's 48th birthday, or the fact that he is the 44th president?

Another slice of hubris, anyone?

'Joker Obama' Poster Hits Los Angeles, Goes Viral

I don't know who's responsible for this, but it is brilliant.

I've checked several web sites today, and no one seems to know anything about the origins of the "artwork," although several writers are clearly in the Obamaphile camp, as they lament that such a thing could happen.

Lament? Not here.

This is still America where we can mock our elected leaders mercilessly if they give us reason to do so.

In fact, when our elected representatives in Congress fail to heed our voices and foist unconstitutional programs upon us in massive spending bills that they don't even bother to read, because friends of the president have put these things together, and the president himself acts as cheerleader for this reckless abandonment of common sense, then it is high time that voices are raised.

Even weird voices. Sometimes weird gets more attention than reasoned. Here at Oklahomily we try to use the reasoned approach, and are often disappointed at how few people notice.

The reason the poster is appropriate is because the joke is on the American people. President Obama has been very clear in most of his statements about what he was planning to do to this country. Transformation is one word that he used frequently.

And transformation is what we are seeing. America is being transformed from what is left of a constitutional Republic to a socialist "democracy" in which public passions are inflamed to justify new encroachments upon the powers reserved to the states, or to the people.

The Left spent much of the last eight years vilifying George W. Bush and supporting Hollywood movies that treated him as an idiot, an international criminal, a stooge of special interests; there were films that indulged themselves in assassination fiction. This was considered fair game under the First Amendment.

And it was, I suppose.

This poster is mild by comparison. But watch for the voices of repression on the Left to be raised. If they are, I hope there are 100 million of these posters plastered across America by the end of next week.

Pulled Over for Speeding!

Six days on the road, and pulled over by the government for speeding through -- cue Dr. Evil -- One Billion Dollars!

Cash for Clunkers is over.

Actually the government isn't sure whether they've spent $1 billion or $2 billion. Or less.

But they are sure that they are going to be in trouble quickly because a lot of people jumped on the Cash for Clunker voucher program.

As I said yesterday, I don't like the program, and if they add more money and start it up again there will be repercussions and consequences, to be especially felt by the poor as they won't be able to find parts for the old cars that many will keep because they can't afford a $40,000 vehicle. Or $30,000. Or $20,000. Or even $10,000.

And why will the used car parts market go sky high? Because the cars taken in by the Cash for Clunkers program are being crushed and sent off to China for meltdown. China, doing the CO2 intensive remanufacturing that Americans aren't allowed to do anymore.

I'm glad Cash for Clunkers is over, and I hope that you are paying attention. If you turn your thermostat control over to these people, or your health care, don't be too surprised when you find that they suspend some other things you were counting on.

Being Obama Means Never Having to Say 'I'm Sorry'

President Obama's motive for inserting himself into the debate over whether racism was involved in the arrest of Harvard Professor Henry Louis (Skip) Gates remains a mystery. He chose to answer a question about it at the end of his Wednesday night press conference on health care. In doing so, he first said he didn't know all the facts. Then he declared that the Cambridge, Mass., police acted "stupidly."

What was disappearing from the news suddenly took on new life as the President of the United States through the full faith and credibility of his office on the side of the aggrieved professor.

What was Obama hoping to gain here?

Today he makes an impromptu appearance before the White House press and "regrets" the media "obsession" over his Wednesday comments. He is unapologetic about those remarks which, he claims, are part of a "teachable moment" for America.

So what have we learned?

That Obama's thin skin extends beyond his own person to any issue or individual that he cares to protect.

That he will throw anyone "under the bus" to save himself. Professor Gates, he said today, obviously "overreacted."

That President Obama is an ideologue. He believes that racism is so thoroughly ingrained in American society that you can't question anyone who raises the race card, even improperly, because combatting racism is a cause too big to fail.

And that Obama won't apologize. His pride simply won't allow it.

He was wrong, as president, to weigh in on something local, and especially as he did not have all the facts. A modern president simply cannot project that kind of presence. It is not his role, and it sends a chilling message to state and local officials: make sure you don't lock horns with any of the president's friends.

This is not healthy. It doesn't advance the cause of racial unity. I'm not sure it advances the cause of anything except the president's already inflated ego. Forget, too, the idea of a Post-Racial America: with his inflexible views of race relations, we can never get beyond it.

Speaking of health care, Obama is not winning friends and influencing people with his attack on police officers who were just doing their jobs; in fact, they were protecting Gates' property, whether he chose to see it that way or not. There are many who, watching this weird story, are beginning to realize that Barack Hussein Obama doesn't like to be challenged on anything. Do you want to trust your health care plan to this man and his like-minded minions?

Thin-skinned and paranoid men have never done well as president. Not over the long haul.

A Lead Fiasco in the Obama Garden

If you have dinner at the White House, and they serve you salad, request "Unleaded."

It was meant to be a show case for healthy living, with the first lady, Michelle Obama, personally putting hand to pitch fork in a crowd of school children to dig up the first White House vegetable garden in more than 50 years.

Instead, an embarrassed White House admitted today that the plot — whose lettuce, herbs and other produce have been consumed by the first family, visiting dignitaries, local school children and a women's homeless shelter — had tested positive for elevated levels of lead.

A spokeswoman for the White House said the soil in the garden had lead concentrations of 93 parts per million of lead. Health experts say it is safe to raise leafy vegetables in soil with concentrations of 10-50 parts per million, and urban gardens typically have raised lead levels. However, it is advised for young children to be tested for exposure to lead if they play in areas where lead concentrations exceed 100 parts per million. The Environmental Protection Agency puts the threshold for dangerous lead levels at 300 parts per million.

But even though lead levels in the first garden are far below that danger zone, the disclosure is awkward for a White House which has made prominent use of the vegetable garden to define Michelle Obama's role as First Lady,and to encourage sensible eating habits in children.

Children are especially vulnerable to exposure to lead, which can cause neurological and kidney damage, and stunt their growth.

You can't make this stuff up.

The Presidential Evil Eye?

It's a look rarely seen during the '08 campaign, but now White House photographers are whispering among themselves about the increased frequency of a new President Obama visage: The Evil Eye. Drudge is all over it today. (Most Drudge flash reports are extremely short lived so if the link is busted, don't blame us!)

As the summer begins, White House watchers have spotted a new look by President Obama: The Evil Eye!

Staffers have joked about the menacing glance, which comes when the president meets with world leaders who are not aligned with his progressive view.

White House photographers have captured the "evil eye" in recent weeks, during sessions with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Colombia's Alvaro Uribev.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi got hit with the commander's malocchio last week in the Oval office.

And at least one White House reporter has been on the receiving end of the daggers during a press conference.

My wonderment is this: Does the president know he is giving out these "evil eyes"? If so, what is his purpose?

Is he trying to intimidate, or is he attempting to cast some sort of hex on his target?

If he is unaware of "the look," some close confidant should advise him to cease and desist. How can you conduct diplomacy if you wear your emotions so close to the surface? Does he not realize that the world press will carry these images to the home countries of these leaders, where people will look at them and wonder, "Who is this clown? Why is he giving our prime minister (president, whatever) the Evil Eye?

Personally, I don't give a rat's posterior how Mr. Obama grimaces in private, but he is my president and he represents me and all other Americans in his official duties. I would rather not be represented by the "Evil Eye."

In recent weeks we are increasingly seeing a president who is short-tempered, thin-skinned and who delights in acerbic responses to questions he would rather not answer -- and usually doesn't. He's not happy that his honeymoon with the press appears to be ending (one wag said that it has reached the "cigarette smoking" stage). His disdain for reporters who stay objective and ask tough questions is quite apparent. You have to wonder how staff members are getting treated.

We haven't seen this level of irritability since the days of Tricky Dick Nixon who, at least, usually kept his ire under control in public, reserving it for profanity-laced rants behind closed doors. Even so, that didn't end well, did it?

Today Rasmussen reports that Mr. Obama's Presidential Approval Index is back down to -2. Expect it to drop further if he cannot control his temper. Or his Evil Eye.

Food for Thought

Thank God for small favors that this didn't actually happen.

But does anyone not believe it could have?

Earth's New Deity Has an Amen Corner

Newsweek's Evan Thomas was on "Hardball" with Chris Matthews on Friday, which I never watch, but if I had I would have seen ass-kissing taken to a new level of, well, worship.

Newsbusters has the transcript, and a review.

Newsweek editor Evan Thomas brought adulation over President Obama’s Cairo speech to a whole new level on Friday, declaring on MSNBC: "I mean in a way Obama’s standing above the country, above – above the world, he’s sort of God."

Yeah. He really said "God."

Thomas, appearing on Hardball with Chris Matthews, was reacting to a preceding monologue in which Matthews praised Obama’s speech: "I think the President's speech yesterday was the reason we Americans elected him. It was grand. It was positive. Hopeful...But what I liked about the President's speech in Cairo was that it showed a complete humility ... The question now is whether the President we elected and spoke for us so grandly yesterday can carry out the great vision he gave us and to the world."

John Hindraker at Powerline notes that Evan Thomas is emblematic of the Newsweek drift into socialist irrelevance

Newsweek editor Jon Meacham has announced that he wants to turn the magazine into a journal of liberal opinion with a smaller circulation. I'm not sure that readers will be able to tell the difference between the Newsweek of recent years and the forthcoming "journal of liberal opinion," but to the extent they notice any change, it's a sure bet that circulation will decline.

And as for Thomas' fawning adulation of The One, Hindraker says

Yes, that's Obama all right--"standing above the world." Good Lord. Reporters are often compared to teen-age girls with crushes on Obama, but, as the father of three present, former or about-to-be teen-age girls, I object to the analogy. I personally have never seen a teen-age girl make a fool of herself over a boy the way many--most--mainstream reporters have over Barack Obama.

And here's how National Review sees the new Newsweek (a parody cover):

Aliens Are Entitled to 'Effective' Attorneys?

Deportations of illegal aliens may slow down now that Attorney General Eric Holder has reversed former AG Mukasey and will now grant illegals the right to an "effective" attorney.

Mukasey held that the Sixth Amendment right to counsel applied only in criminal matters. Immigration, unless there are crimes involved, is a civil matter. Under the Mukasey standard

Immigrants in removal cases are allowed to have counsel if they wish, but they must retain lawyers on their own, at no expense to the taxpayers.

This reversed a situation that had developed over the years where the system had bogged down. As NR's Andy McCarthy explains:

About 20 years ago, however, immigration judges (who tend to have been immigration lawyers before becoming immigration judges) fabricated a right to effective assistance of counsel for removable aliens under — you guessed it — the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment (that bottomless reservoir of "our values" which, of course, guarantees no such thing).

What was the practical effect of this? Well, the government would go through the burden of trying to remove from the country illegal aliens and criminal aliens; after losing and being ordered removed from the U.S., the aliens would then complain about the purported incompetence of their lawyers (the privately retained attorneys for whom the government and the public were in no way responsible); then, immigration judges would entertain those claims and, if persuaded that the private lawyer might have been ineffective, they would vacate the removal order, causing the government to bear the burden, and the public to bear the expense, of doing it all over again. And you wonder why no one ever gets deported?

AG Mukasey decided to end all this nonsense. He ruled (as the AG is entitled to do in immigration matters) that aliens in removal proceedings had no right to effective assistance of counsel. In so ruling, he was following a number of federal appeals court decisions which held that there is no such right.

[SNIP]

[F]or the vast majority of cases, it was absurd to penalize the American people for the alleged errors of a lawyer the removable alien had no right to have in the first place — a lawyer over whose performance the public had no control. Today, AG Holder reversed AG Mukasey's ruling, in a two-and-a-half page opinion that analyzes none of the pertinent law and does not address the constitutional issues.

Believe it or not, Holder claims his two-and-a-half pages was more thorough than Mukasey's 34-page opinion.

But the ACLU is happy.

Obama's Innocence Abroad

Headline: Obama says Iran's energy concerns legitimate

LONDON -- President Barack Obama suggested that Iran may have some right to nuclear energy _ provided it proves by the end of the year that its aspirations are peaceful.

In a BBC interview broadcast Tuesday, he also restated plans to pursue direct diplomacy with Tehran to encourage it set aside any ambitions for nuclear weapons it might harbor.

Iran is sitting on an ocean of oil and natural gas. But it needs nuclear power?

The Iranian president can surely thank Obama for this public relations victory ten days before national elections. This is the same man, by the way, who regularly calls for Israel to be wiped off the map.

Of course, for that matter, so does Ahmadinejad's "moderate" opponent in the election.

But by all means, Mr. Obama, let's give them until the end of the year to pursue those peaceful nukes.

Another Czar at the Obama White House

This time it's for "cyber-security."

I guess Cyber-Security Dictator didn't poll well.

President Obama is expected to announce late this week that he will create a "cyber czar," a senior White House official who will have broad authority to develop strategy to protect the nation's government-run and private computer networks, according to people who have been briefed on the plan.

The adviser will have the most comprehensive mandate granted to such an official to date and will probably be a member of the National Security Council but will report to the national security adviser as well as the senior White House economic adviser, said the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the deliberations are not final.

A "czar" does not need Senate confirmation, and unless Congress complains or someone takes the administration to court, all this person and his loyal minions need are a few executive orders to really get the ball rolling on who knows what.

Naturally, you are less paranoid about such things than is the Oklahomilist, and so you query, "Why can't you just trust President Obama for once, damn you?"

Because, being an American devoted to foundational principles, I believe that every man, woman and child should learn to handle their own freakin' cyber security and not depend upon an all-knowing, all-powerful central government czar to do it for them. This includes private business networks. The key word being "private."

Remember when the left used to hit us over the head with our adversion to the word "diversity." And yet now when we wish to be "diverse" and have multiple systems they tell us that we need to get with the 21st Century and fall into an orderly line for inspection?

A "one system suits all" protection grid is the easiest one to compromise, or control.

Right now I consider access to the world wide web as one of the few effective tools I have as an individual American to raise my concerns, joining millions of other like-minded (and not-so ...) voices to deliberate the big and small issues of the day. Especially now that Congress has forgotten how to read bills and debate, it seems like someone ought to. I only get to vote every couple of years, and in Oklahoma's Second District it's not that big a thrill, so the cyber universe is important.

Naturally I want it protected, but I do not want it controlled.

Making a Big Splash, Spending Lots of Cash

Is it really necessary for the President of the United States to travel with an entourage of 500 people, a huge tank-like limo and several helicopters?

President Obama's European visit this week has strained Air Force heavy-airlift capabilities and obliged the military to hire more foreign contractors to help resupply U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan, according to military sources.

The large delegation traveling with the president in Europe required moving several transports, including jumbo C-5s and C-17s, from sorties ferrying supplies to Afghanistan to European bases for the presidential visit, said two military officials familiar with the issue. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid any misunderstanding with White House officials.

The Air Mobility Command, part of the U.S. Transportation Command, was ordered to provide airlift for the president's entourage of nearly 500 people, including senior officials, staff, support personnel, news reporters and some 200 Secret Service agents for the European visit, which began Tuesday in London.

Airlift for the traveling entourage also was used to move the president's new heavy-armored limousine and several presidential helicopters used for short transits.

I guess when you are committed to spend more money than all previous 43 American presidents combined, setting new records for entourage logistics is small potatoes. Can you imagine the carbon footprint of this operation?

And is it really "smart diplomacy" to impress Europeans with such a display, especially considering our status as the world's biggest debtor?

The Obama Effect Confirmed

Yeah, we've been heavy on the economics stuff today, but I can't resist one more. From FoxNews.com:

President Obama said Tuesday that now is a good time for investors to buy stocks if they focus on the big picture.

The Dow plunged Monday to its lowest level in 12 years.

Just as the "Gore Effect" means that it snows or floods every time the former VP is scheduled to appear at a climate change conference, the "Obama Effect" seems to mean that every time he or one of his minions makes a public utterance on the economy, the stock market heads south.