Occupy the State of the Union

Happy Mardi Gras (or Shrove Tuesday) and State of the Union Day! Please pull up a plate of pancakes (or bowl of popcorn) and join me for our annual heckling of the SOTU.

Sadly, our Uppity is still ill and won’t be able to join us for this evening’s festivities. I am certain this is among her top three regrets in life. FWIW, she does give this occupation her blessing.

Salon’s complaining that the SOTU is ineffectual.

State of the Union addresses from newly reelected second-term presidents are full of grand plans that never amount to anything, like George W. Bush’s Social Security privatization and Harry Truman’s sad, doomed “Fair Deal.”
…
But whatever the president proposes, no matter how convincing his arguments, the nation’s domestic policy agenda over the next year will be set not by him but by a handful of people — some of them crazy people — in Congress. And Congress doesn’t really care what the president wants.

Mitch McConnell doesn’t sound too optimistic:

…parts of the president’s speech that have been reported seem to him to be “another litany of left-wing proposals with plenty of red meat for the president’s base.”

Since you can bring your friends to these things, Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) is bringing Newtown’s First Selectman [sic], Pat Llodra. (That would be MY First Selectman—who is a Republican that I have voted for and would vote for again and again because she is competent.) Here’s the guest list for the entire CT delegation.

To keep things fair and balanced, Rep. Steve Stockman (R-TX) is bringing Ted Nugent as his guest. Ted’s a real classy guy.

Last year, [Nugent] told National Rifle Association members that “I will be either be dead or in jail by this time next year” if the president was re-elected. He has also called Obama a “piece of shit” who should “suck on my machine gun.”

Who won’t be there? Energy Secretary Steven Chu is the designated survivor and will not attend the State of the Union.

The address begins at 9 PM EST on all the major networks, cable news channels, and CSPAN. Politico will have live streaming. The White House is offering an “enhanced version” with charts and graphs. Be warned, Anonymous plans to hack the SOTU address and keep it off the InterTubes until it’s over. The cable channels also have preempted their pre-SOTU pundit events, which I’m sure will be would have been insightful and informative. (gag) You can follow along on Twitter with #sotu.

If you make it through the whole thing, the Address will be followed by two rebuttals: one from Marco Rubio and the other from Rand Paul. (Like good cop/bad cop–you decide which is which.)

I don’t have a drink (or eat) word, so please suggest one. I’m still hoping that Scalia lifts his robe and BO throws him some beads.

Party Games

AAARRGH!!!  Where’s My Loot?!

The Preezy of the United Steezy turned 51 on Saturday, and boy is he doing it up big this year! Yo Ho Ho and a bottle of Rum Cristal! He’s not even making a pretense of running the country or trying to scare up a few jobs. He’s instead opting to host fundraisers and suck up to all of his rich donors instead.  Like he accuses Mitt Romney of doing.  But don’t take my word for it. The New York Daily News had this to say:

President Obama marked his 51st birthday Saturday with a quiet round of golf – but revealed plans to celebrate it next weekend with a big bucks fundraiser.
Obama, playing golf for the 104th time since taking office, hit the links at Andrews Air Force base before departing for a night away at Camp David.
But next Sunday he will be in Chicago, hosting dozens of donors – some contest winners – at the First Family’s longtime home in Hyde Park.  SOURCE

The article goes on to say how his loyal, long-suffering and equally selfless spouse is doing her part to make sure he fleeces all of his young (and now unemployed) 2008 lemmings donors can still stay in the game, even if  they’re not as rich as George Clooney or Anna Wintour.

Let The Games Begin!

I’ve been wondering about the party games that were planned for this festive, week long spree, and I think I might have found a few that aren’t too far off the mark.

Many donors will bring their children, if only for a great photo-op in the anticipated media blitz of sickeningly sweet photos that are sure to follow.

The “You Didn’t Build A Bear” workshop will keep them quiet while the adults are being fleeced, and the distraction will keep the meds out of their milk.

This little game can keep the kids out of your hair as well as brainwash them into believing that there’s nothing to look forward as long as they keep donating their tooth fairy money to OFA.  It is also the perfect tie-in to what looks like this elections favorite talking point, so I think its a win-win.

Ahoy, Matey!  We’re Still Broke!  Time for a BIG LIE!!

Next we have “Composite Kiss And Tell”, which also shows consistency on Preezy’s part. He’s been ‘splaining that all of his characters in his bio, speeches and entire lifetime are “composite characters” that represent the true America (i.e. his vision of America, like his lovely story “The LIfe of Julia” which I will not link for fear of a trip to the gulag).

So far, Harry Reid has kicked this one off with his lie about Mitt Romney not paying a dime in taxes for 10 years, which has breathed new life into a tired meme that nobody really gives a shit about (see: “We need to see tax returns from your first paper route”)

When Romney’s running mate is announced, you can fully expect a phony sex scandal or two (unless its Pawlenty, who nobody would ever sleep with because he just has no edge). They won’t mention him by name, of course, but will cunningly describe a “Governor of Minnesota who shall remain nameless that can bore you to death so he can take advantage of your lifeless body” or something like that.  All very carefully worded to ensure plausible deniability during the firestorm that Romney’s rapid response team is sure to deliver.

 A Party Game For All To Play!

Pin the Fail on the Donkey.  Nothing like a little bit of good, old fashioned Americana to keep the party going.  Perfect for members of either party, and short term memory loss is no obstacle.  Just blindfold yourself, listen to a pre-recorded Obama campaign speech until your head spins and pin one of the pre-printed tails on the donkey.  Choose from the following fabulous fails:

Stimulus Package
Obamacare
Gitmo
Solyndra
Fast & Furious

So come and party with Barack and Michelle this week.  You’re probably not working anyway, and it sure beats just sitting around waiting for the other shoe to drop.

When Does Hillary Clinton Get Some Credit?

The New Republic, the same publication whose literary editor once referred to Hillary Clinton as a “hellish housewife,” is at it again.  Only this time instead of sinning by degrading an accomplished woman, The New Republic is sinning by pretending she does not exist.

In Jonathan Rauch’s TNR article this week, he offers high praise for President Obama’s achievements on the world stage.  Mr. Rauch states that he “never drank the Obama Kool-Aid in 2008” but at least on matters of a “post-partisan, pragmatic, generally successful foreign policy, he now “hereby eat[s] half a crow”:

Two major surprises have marked [Obama’s] presidency, one negative, one positive. On the downside, the silver-tongued orator who inspired millions as a candidate turned out to be a mediocre communicator as president. On the upside, the greenhorn candidate who had barely any experience of, or interest in, foreign policy has proved to be an impressively adept presidential diplomat. On almost every front ­internationally, he has improved the country’s position since 2008.

An adept presidential “diplomat”?  He is no diplomat.  He is the President.  His chief diplomat has a name and her name is Hillary Clinton.  The “adept diplomat,” widely recognized by left and right alike to be a superb Secretary of State, is arguably the one improving our position around the world, if anyone is, putting out fires with a toughness that has her nicknamed “the iron fist in the velvet glove.”  And often, she is smoothing over the President’s gaffes.  Clinton is the one holding “town-terviews” in every foreign country she visits to raise awareness about the U.S., to share our values and improve our image worldwide.  She is the one tirelessly fighting for women’s rights and gay rights.  She is his Secretary of State, which is not the same as being his secretary.  She does more than run his errands.

Out of curiosity, does it strike Mr. Rauch as a coincidence that the area which has prompted him to “hereby eat half a crow” about his previous Obama skepticism is the one area where Hillary’s footprints can be found?  These are the foreign policy successes Mr. Rauch notes:

• Ending two wars.
• Stabilizing relations with Russia.
• Stabilizing relations with China.
• Isolating Iran.
• Strengthening America’s brand.
• Prosecuting the war on terror.

Whether or not you agree with Rauch’s assessment, Hillary Clinton’s name is not mentioned anywhere in his article.  While it is politics as usual that the President gets the credit for the work of the people he appoints, does anyone really believe that Mr. Rauch’s so called “greenhorn,” who racked up barely two years in the Senate before running for the Presidency, figured this all out by himself?  Or that getting Osama bin Laden didn’t have Secretary Clinton’s, Secretary Gates’ and Leon Panetta’s fingerprints all over it?  Wasn’t it Hillary who called out certain elements in Pakistan for knowing the whereabouts of bin Laden a year before the raid?  While she retracted those statements after the fact, and we can speculate as to the reasons for this, it would seem that when it counted, she was stirring the pot.

Typical that some are filled with such bitterness towards her, they cannot bring themselves to utter one kind or even acknowledging word.  This reminds me of the New York-based Hasidic newspaper that, for religious reasons, literally airbrushed Hillary Clinton out of the photo, (and out of history), where the President and senior staff were watching as Seal Team Six executed the raid on Bin Laden.

An article by Edward-Isaac Dovere in Friday’s Politico on the other hand, called Hillary Clinton President Obama’s Foreign Policy Shield: 

“For all of my life, this might be the first campaign that we’ve gone into where Democrats are ahead on foreign policy,” former Clinton political consultant James Carville said. “I was told before that it mattered when we were behind. She can take some credit for a political party that for a long time has been behind on a key element, that we’re now ahead.”

2008 McCain strategist Steve Schmidt noted:

“She provides a big shield for the president on any number of [foreign policy] issues….Any time you can lay claim to one of the most popular people in the country and one of the most admired people in the country, then it’s a benefit for you.”

Pundits who have unearthed a sudden willingness to give Secretary Clinton favorable press are arguably doing so because that too helps the President’s chances; a not so subtle hat tip to millions of her supporters who still burn from the injustice of their past coverage.  I doubt they would still be kind if she were to throw her hat back in the ring — should 2016 unfold that way.

At the moment, however, political operatives clearly see Secretary Clinton’s hard work and toughness as bolstering the argument for President Obama to win a second term.  First, this is ironic because Clinton lost votes in the 2008 primary since she was considered more hawkish than Mr. Obama, whereas she found his campaign’s foreign policy notions naïve.  Secondly, calling Secretary Clinton his shield and also, presumably, declaring that she bolsters his re-election chances is tricky since she has been unrelenting in her assertion that she will step down at the end of this year.

What kind of a message does it send that a woman is acknowledged for her achievements only to benefit the man or not at all?

Once Hillary is no longer President Obama’s shield – whether invisible to Mr. Rauch or otherwise – let’s see if he’s “eating half a crow” then.

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Anita Finlay is the author of Dirty Words on Clean Skin: Sexism and Sabotage, a Hillary Supporter’s Rude Awakening, available on Amazon in print and kindle editions.

Like Anita Finlay, Author on Facebook.

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The United States of Pravda

The fourth estate is the public press, referred to as a collective and encompassing photographers, journalists, television broadcasters, and radio announcers, among others. Many people generally agree that the fourth estate has immense political and social power, thanks to the fact that the press can be used to shape societies while imparting news of note and commentary of interest. Because the fourth estate is recognized as such an important body, many nations have laws which protect the rights of the press, ensuring that citizens have access to reporting on matters of interest and of note.

The origins of the term “the fourth estate” are best explained within the context of the medieval “estates of the realm.” In medieval society, three “estates” were formally recognized: the clergy, the nobility, and the commoners. Each estate had a very distinct social role and a certain level of power, and the idea of the estates of the realm became so entrenched in European society that it still lives on, to some extent, although society is far more egalitarian today.

In the middle of the 19th century, people began referring to the press as a fourth estate, referencing the fact that most parliaments and other houses of government had an area set aside specifically for the use of the press, and pointing out that the press was a distinct group within the larger framework of the realm.

I’ve been very distressed in recent years about the condition of our “fourth estate”.  I had been raised to think of reporters as people who objectively reported what was happening in the world.  Additionally, I thought one of their primary roles was to keep an eye on our government.  After all, the Soviet Union had a press that promulgated propaganda (catch that alliteration? lol); their job was to convince people that the party line was the truth.   The name of the Russian newspaper, Pravda, actually means “truth” in Russian, and yet that newspaper was for many years widely considered a purveyor of propaganda.  But here in America, it’s different!  The press here protects us by being willing to fact-check the government and hold it accountable, and we in turn protect them by ensuring a free press.

Then came Bush’s rush to war – and the media was right there with  him.  I’d read an article here or there that said inspections hadn’t been allowed to be finished, or that claims by government spokespeople had been shown to be inaccurate – but the main thrust of reporting was basically cheerleading Bush and not addressing these other claims.

Of course, besides rarely holding the government accountable any longer, the press also seems to have become a willing partner in the distraction of the populace with inane subject matter.

Then Obama ran for president, and we all know the media’s shameful role in that.  They didn’t do their job of vetting him, and now that he’s president, there are only now, 3.5 years into his term, a few voices starting to speak out about his inexperience and incompetence. During the election the media spent their time vilifying Hillary, taking her words and those of Bill out of context, and choosing to represent Hillary with the most unflattering photos they could find.  They had an agenda – and it was not to present objective information!

The press has certainly let us down.  We’ve come a long way from “watchdog journalism” (bolding mine):

The role of a watchdog journalist can be that of a protector or guardian. The role of a watchdog journalist as a guardian is to supply the citizens with information they must have “to prevent the abuse of power” and “warn citizens about those that are doing them harm”.  In order to conduct their role as a watchdog journalists need to have a certain distance to the powers and challenge them, as opposed to “propagandist” journalists, who are loyal to a country’s ruling powers and elites. Because of the power distance and its overseeing function, watchdog journalism often officiates as the fourth estate or is used in the context of that term. The array of topics for watchdog journalism is wide and includes “personal scandals, financial wrongdoing, political corruption, enrichment in public office, and other types of wrongdoing”.

Watchdog journalism can lead to the successful resignation of power holders. A well-known example is Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein‘s reporting on the Watergate scandal for The Washington Post and the subsequent resignation of U.S. president Richard Nixon in 1974. Another more recent example took place in the Philippines, where president Joseph Estrada was arrested and resigned in 2001. The daily newspaper Pinoy Times covered the case of Estrada till “the ouster of Estrada”.

From the bolding:  “In order to conduct their role as a watchdog, journalists need to have a certain distance to the powers and challenge them…”.  Gee, I guess that doesn’t fit in too well with governments and media sources being beholden to corporations and the agenda of those corporations!

And then we come to today.  People have different opinions on the Zimmerman/Martin situation, but I think we can all agree that the legal system is the appropriate place for this case to be decided, not in the court of public opinion.  But in this land of “innocent until proven guilty”, the media judged Zimmerman guilty as soon as the bullet went off.  And they have certainly done their job to fan the race war flames.  This is anything but responsible or ethical. As a matter of fact, I’m of the opinion that they have put many innocent people’s lives in danger.

What stands out most for me was the choice of photos they used to represent each man.  Zimmerman was portrayed by a 7-year-old photo showing him in an orange jail jumpsuit.  Martin was most commonly portrayed by a 5-year-old photo which showed the 6’3″ 17-year-old as a cherubic 12-year-old.  IMO, this was manipulation.  This was propaganda.  As I said, people have different opinions on this case, but it sure seems to me that the media have been complicit in advancing a certain storyline.  One that coincidentally benefits the current office holders in Washington in this year that is coincidentally an election year.

There are so many examples over the last decade of the media being anything but objective.  When our “fourth estate” devolves from watchdogs to Pravda, how are any of us safe?  Our “Pravda” may be getting their marching orders from Washington or they may be getting them from their corporate offices, but they’re certainly not serving US anymore….

We need a watchdog for the watchdogs.  We have to start demanding a higher standard from our media.

US Media:  All the news that’s fit to  print  slant…..

The bully in the dunce cap

Charles Krauthammer (video here) has a few choice words for our Constitutional Law Professor  part-time law lecturer in Chief:

“Here’s the president talking about respect for the law and implying there’s partisanship if the law is overturned. We all were witnesses to the oral hearings in which Obama’s case for the constitutionality of the law was utterly demolished to the point where one liberal observer called it a ‘train wreck,’” Charles Krauthammer said on FOX News’ “Special Report” this evening.

“It’s perfectly natural for a majority of the Court to side with the side that actually won the argument intellectually. That’s not partisanship, that’s logic. What is partisanship is when the four liberal justices are in such lockstep with the administration that they end up supporting the case that’s been utterly destroyed in an open argument and be humiliated,” Krauthammer said on the panel.

“Second, the president talks about the deal as unprecedented. What’s he talking about? Since 1803, our system has been one in which the Supreme Court in the end, judges, whether the law is constitutional or not. And in this case, he talked about the law passing by majority. He had a strong majority, with 75 Democrats outnumbering Republicans in the House. Obamacare passed by seven votes. It was a very narrow majority. It wasn’t a broad of a majority that he implied,” he added.

And, oh my!  Could he be wrong about MORE?

James Taranto of the Wall Street Journalnoted that Obama, facing questions from journalists, had cited the case of Lochner v. New York (1905) as the last time the Supreme Court had overturned an economic law passed by Congress:

Well, first of all, let me be very specific. Um [pause], we have not seen a court overturn [pause] a [pause] law that was passed [pause] by Congress on [pause] a [pause] economic issue, like health care, that I think most people would clearly consider commerce. A law like that has not been overturned [pause] at least since Lochner, right? So we’re going back to the ’30s, pre-New Deal.

Obama was wrong on three counts: Lochner was not decided in the 1930s; it was not the last time an economic law was overturned; and it involved a state law, not a federal one.

But Obama’s interpretation of Lochner is an interesting one, and points directly to the influence of Derrick Bell and his radical Critical Race Theory approach to constitutional jurisprudence.

And now a federal appeals court is wondering if Obama knows anything about the law or the role of SCOTUS….  (bolding mine)

In the escalating battle between the administration and the judiciary, a federal appeals court apparently is calling the president’s bluff — ordering the Justice Department to answer by Thursday whether the Obama Administration believes that the courts have the right to strike down a federal law, according to a lawyer who was in the courtroom.

The order, by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, appears to be in direct response to the president’s comments yesterday about the Supreme Court’s review of the health care law. Mr. Obama all but threw down the gauntlet with the justices, saying he was “confident” the Court would not “take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress.”

Overturning a law of course would not be unprecedented — since the Supreme Court since 1803 has asserted the power to strike down laws it interprets as unconstitutional. The three-judge appellate court appears to be asking the administration to admit that basic premise — despite the president’s remarks that implied the contrary. The panel ordered the Justice Department to submit a three-page, single-spaced letter by noon Thursday addressing whether the Executive Branch believes courts have such power, the lawyer said.

The panel is hearing a separate challenge to the health care law by physician-owned hospitals. The issue arose when a lawyer for the Justice Department began arguing before the judges. Appeals Court Judge Jerry Smith immediately interrupted, asking if DOJ agreed that the judiciary could strike down an unconstitutional law.

The DOJ lawyer, Dana Lydia Kaersvang, answered yes — and mentioned Marbury v. Madison, the landmark case that firmly established the principle of judicial review more than 200 years ago, according to the lawyer in the courtroom.

Smith then became “very stern,” the source said, suggesting it wasn’t clear whether the president believes such a right exists. The other two judges on the panel, Emilio Garza and Leslie Southwick–both Republican appointees–remained silent, the source said.

Smith, a Reagan appointee, went on to say that comments from the president and others in the Executive Branch indicate they believe judges don’t have the power to review laws and strike those that are unconstitutional, specifically referencing Mr. Obama’s comments yesterday about judges being an “unelected group of people.”

How embarrassing.  The whole world can now see that we have a president who is not just a bully, but is clueless about how the government he “leads” works.  Oh, and Mr. “I’ll Say Anything to Get Elected, Even One Thing to One Group and the Opposite to Another Group” doesn’t understand why SCOTUS members are not elected????

And now he’s being required to write a paper on the subject, to see if he can prove that he was listening in class!  Besides stipulating how many pages and that it should be single-spaced, they probably should have also mandated that he not leave the “ly” off of adverbs!  Because it is looking increasingly like our “president”, our “constitutional law professor” at the helm, went to writingcollege.com presidentingcollege.com !!!

Ready on Day One.

Pfffttt.  He shouldn’t even have been passed out of high school.