Patterico's Pontifications

6/9/2009

Stay Classy, David Letterman

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 7:37 pm



Hi-larious:

What you need to understand to see the humor: the daughter Palin brought to the game was Willow Palin. Who is 14 years old.

Now do you see the humor?

Me neither.

Supreme Court Lifts Stay in Chrysler Sale

Filed under: Economics,Government,Obama — DRJ @ 6:13 pm



[Guest post by DRJ]

The Supreme Court denied the applications for a stay of the Chrysler sale. Lyle Denniston at Scotusblog links a copy of the Order here. The Order states that applicants failed to meet all 3 prongs of their burden:

1. Convincing 4 justices to agree to grant cert; and

2. Convincing 5 or more justices to agree the decision authorizing the sale was erroneous; and

3. Showing that irreparable harm will result from denial of the stay, although the Court also notes that a “stay is not a matter of right, even if irreparable injury might otherwise result.” Instead, it is a matter of judicial discretion.

The Order further states a denial of stay is not a decision on the merits.

There is no irreparable harm if money damages can make applicants whole and if there are funds available to pay them. However, the pension funds and other applicants claim that once the sale to Fiat goes through, there will be no remaining assets in Old Chrysler to satisfy their claims and the law protects the New Chrysler good faith purchasers from their claims. Thus, IMHO applicants need to show these are not good faith purchasers.

— DRJ

Joe Biden Speaks

Filed under: Government,Obama — DRJ @ 1:00 pm



[Guest post by DRJ]

Joe Biden entertains America with another clueless statement:

“Vice President Biden, on a conference call Monday with reporters, claimed that the planned Hudson River tunnel between New Jersey and Midtown Manhattan would provide a much-anticipated route for automobiles. Problem is, it’s for trains.
***
The $8.7 billion tunnel is among the largest new projects to be funded in the Obama administration’s $787 billion stimulus package.

“Look, this is designed, this totally new tunnel, is designed to provide for automobile traffic,” Biden said, according to The Record of Bergen County. “It’s something, as you know, up your way, that’s been in the works and people have been clamoring for for a long time.”

Great choice, Obama.

— DRJ

Obama, PayGo, and Higher Taxes

Filed under: Economics,Government,Obama — DRJ @ 11:54 am



[Guest post by DRJ]

Barack Obama wants Congress to “Just Say No” to deficits and adopt a pay-as-you-go approach to all future legislation:

“The president’s plan would require Congress to pay for new increases to federal benefit programs such as health care by raising taxes or coming up with budget cuts — a “pay-as-you-go” system that would have the force of law. Under the proposal, if new spending or tax reductions are not offset, there would be automatic cuts in so-called mandatory programs — although Social Security payments and some other programs would be exempt.”

Obama’s words were carefully crafted to deflect and avoid blame for the enormous deficit he created through massive spending. In addition, PAYGO means Congress must either cut spending or raise taxes, and we all know which option Democrats choose.

McCain-Palin warned this would happen but too few Americans believed them:

— DRJ

The Politico notices our Christianist-in-Chief

Filed under: General — Karl @ 9:13 am



[Posted by Karl]

Isn’t it ironic, asks The Politico’s Eamon Javers, that Barack Obama invokes Jesus more than George W. Bush?

He’s done it while talking about abortion and the Middle East, even the economy. The references serve at once as an affirmation of his faith and a rebuke against a rumor that persists for some to this day.

As president, Barack Obama has mentioned Jesus Christ in a number of high-profile public speeches — something his predecessor George W. Bush rarely did in such settings, even though Bush’s Christian faith was at the core of his political identity.

It is not ironic. To the contrary, it was entirely predictable to anyone paying attention to Obama’s political career. Javers — and the layers of editorial staff ostensibly upholding traditional journalistic values at The Politico — either know better or set out to insult the intelligence of their readers.

After all, how does a news story about Obama’s faith-based rhetoric make it to publication without a single mention of Obama’s decades of membership at the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, under the spiritual tutelage of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright?

Obama spent decades in (and donated tens of thousands of dollars to) a church founded on Black Liberation Theology, dogma which — even in its most benign, least racialist formulation — is based on dressing up left-wing nanny statism and a “blame America first” foreign policy in a robe of religious rhetoric. Obama sought to use churches as an instrument of Alinskyite community organizing. Obama used religious rhetoric — sometimes covertly, sometimes more overtly than Mike Huckabee — during his campaign. His proposal to create a new Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships would further his fusion of Leftist religion and politics.

Moreover, Obama has spoken admiringly of the Social Gospel movement of the progressive era, which Jonah Goldberg has called “far more theocratic and ‘Christianist’ than pretty much anything we’ve heard from the Christian Right in the last forty years.” Andrew Sullivan, normally an anti-Christianist crusader, has enthused that Obama can appeal to a new class of “moderate Christianists.”

There is thus ample basis for the suspicions Javers reports today:

To some, the difference between the two presidents goes beyond rhetoric. David Kuo, a former official in Bush’s faith-based office who later became disillusioned with the president he served, worries that both men have exploited religious phraseology for political gain. “From a spiritual perspective, that’s a great and grave danger,” he said. “When God becomes identified with a political agenda, God gets screwed.”

And he suspects that Obama has an even larger goal: the resurrection of the largely dormant Christian Left, a tradition that encompasses Martin Luther King’s civil rights leadership and dates back as far as Dorothy Day, the liberal activist who co-founded the Catholic Worker movement in the 1930s.

That such a project may be undertaken by a president elected with the support of a creepy devotional cult ought to be a story for outlets like The Politico. Then again, with people like Newsweek editor-at-large Evan Thomas still comparing Obama to God, perhaps actual journalism is too much to expect.

–Karl


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