GINA COBB

Quote of the Day: "Everyone Wants Respect, But Hardly Anyone Is Willing to Pay for It"

"Upon taking office, Obama said that he wanted to listen to the world, promising respect instead of arrogance. But Obama's currency isn't as strong as he had believed. Everyone wants respect, but hardly anyone is willing to pay for it. Interests, not emotions, dominate the world of realpolitik.  The Asia trip revealed the limits of Washington's new foreign policy . . . .  (Gabor Steingart, Spiegel, Obama's Nice Guy Act Gets Him Nowhere on the World Stage)

Once Upon a Time, There Was Hope and Change

However, sadly, the hope turned out to be ill-founded and the change turned out to be for the worse.  The End.  Good night, kids!

This might have something to to with it:

  

When the president promises that unemployment will not go above 8% IF we spend almost a TRILLION dollars of taxpayer money ($1,000,000,000,000.00) on a "stimulus" plan -- one that looks suspiciously like a trillion dollars worth of pork -- and unemployment then crashes above 8%, 9% and 10% -- the American people may tend to get cranky.

Blog Quote of the Day: "Stimulus"

 “Obama, Pelosi and Reid are drafting a new stimulus bill that White House says could have twice the number of non-existent jobs as the last jobs bill.”  (Jay Leno)

From Don Surber

Blog Quote of the Day

"I can't wait to see what type of plan this reincarnation of King Solomon and George Patton comes up with."

Drew M. at Ace of Spades:  Obama's Afghanistan Decision Tonight?

Home of the Whopper

Why It Matters Where the 9/11 Mastermind is Tried

Lindsey Graham spells it out for Eric Holder.

Today's Links

 

Obama to troops: "You guys make a pretty good photo op"
Nice that the military has some purpose in Obama's mind

Housing Starts “Unexpectedly” Tumble
"Unexpected" only if you don't understand basic economics

Schumer, 2001: 9/11 Terrorists Won’t Get Courtroom Trials
And if Osama Bin Laden were captured, "it is ludicrous to suggest he should be tried in a Federal court on Center Street in Lower Manhattan"

GAO Says More Than 50,000 Jobs From Stimulus Projects That Have Spent No Money
Meanwhile, almost $1 billion has been spent on another 10,000 projects that report not creating any jobs at all (so why did they get stimulus money?) 

2007 Walter Reed Memo: Hasan is Dangerously Incompetent as a Therapist
Saw too few patients; proslytized; mistreated patients; not available for emergencies when on call . . .

That Darn Mandate
How the GOP can successfully challenge Obamacare

The Silver Lining of the Left in Power
Clarity

In N.Y. Trial, a Treasure Trove for Terrorists
The administration's decision is reckless

Tough Job for Prosecutors to Get Death Penalty for Evil 9/11 Mastermind in NY
Why did the Obama administration choose to make the trial much harder?

Worse Than Taxes: The Spending
Spending steals the value of the dollar and our freedoms, too

The $1.9 Trillion Gimmick
The Democrats' 'doc fix' for Medicare payments would shock Madoff

Kiss Your Freedoms Goodbye If Health Care Passes
Judge Andrew Napalitano

The Fast Track To Dumb
Obama and Holder didn't think it through when they decided to give more rights to terrorists who attack civilians

Recovery Chief: Yeah, I Can’t Back Up Those Numbers
It's all fake. Billions wasted

Grim Milestone: National Debt Now Tops … $12 Trillion
So Dems will: (a) stop spending (b) raise taxes or (c) raise taxes, spend even more and regulate businesses to death?

Terror-Abetting Attorney Ordered to Prison Immediately
Smuggled messages to her jailed terrorist client

Obama: Too Much Debt Could Fuel Double-Dip Recession
Brilliant. So let's recall what's left of the phony "stimulus" money, for starters

Stimulus Fraud
It's real, it's massive, and billions are being wasted

Jobs Saved or Created in Congressional Districts That Don't Exist
Besides, is "unicorn handler" really a job?

After a Year of Hope N' Change

The Latest

Budget Deficit is Sending U.S. to 'Third-Class Status as a Nation'
America was once both proud and strong

William Jefferson's Judgment Day
Richly deserved

Chavez's Policies Go From Bad to Worse
Tells people to limit selves to 3 minute "Communist shower"

Revised Govt Formula Puts Medicare Waste and Fraud at $47B, Three Times Last Year's Figure
So obviously the solution is to expand govt healthcare massively to include the entire population

We Are Very Close to No Longer Being Democrats
MSM and liberals’ apology efforts for Muslim mass-murderer Hasan at Ft. Hood may be the last straw

Iran Digs Hundreds of Missile Silos - Some for Misdirection
Let it never be said we didn't see the Iranian menace coming

Painting a Bull's Eye on New York City
Want to relive 9/11? We're on our way

The Worst Decision by a US President in History
Signaling terrorists to attack civilians, for starters

Obama's Muslim Problem: Has He Been Too Conciliatory in the Face of Violence?
Duh

Lieberman: Bringing Terror Suspects to U.S. for Trial 'Inconceivable'
Remember what preceded the 9/11 attack? Yep -- terrorists were tried on U.S. soil for the previous WTC bombing. Thanks to Obama, the U.S. will now re-enact the entire nightmare

"Obama's Swelling Ego"

  Jeff Jacoby in the Boston Globe:

PRESIDENT OBAMA was too busy to attend the celebrations in Germany this week marking the fall of the Berlin Wall 20 years ago. But he did appear by video, delivering a few brief and bloodless remarks about how the wall was “a painful barrier between family and friends’’ that symbolized “a system that denied people the freedoms that should be the right of every human being.’’ He referred to “tyranny,’’ but never identified the tyrants - he never uttered the words “Soviet Union’’ or “communism,’’ for example. He said nothing about the men and women who died trying to cross the wall. Nor did he mention Harry Truman or Ronald Reagan - or even Mikhail Gorbachev.

He did, however, talk about Barack Obama.

“Few would have foreseen,’’ declared the president, “that a united Germany would be led by a woman from [the former East German state of] Brandenburg or that their American ally would be led by a man of African descent. But human destiny is what human beings make of it.’’

As presidential rhetoric goes, this was hardly a match for “Ich bin ein Berliner,’’ still less another “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.’’ But as a specimen of presidential narcissism, it is hard to beat. Obama couldn’t be troubled to visit Berlin to commemorate a momentous milestone in the history of human liberty. But he was glad to explain to those who were there why reflections on that milestone should inspire appreciation for the self-made “destiny’’ of his own rise to power.

Was there ever a president as deeply enamored of himself as Barack Obama?

The first President Bush, taught from childhood to shun what his mother called “The Great I Am,’’ regularly instructed his speechwriters not to include too many “I’s’’ in his prepared remarks. Reagan maintained that there was no limit to what someone could achieve if he didn’t mind who got the credit. George Washington, one of the most accomplished men of his day, said with characteristic modesty on becoming president that he was “peculiarly conscious of his own deficiencies.’’

Obama, on the other hand, positively revels in The Great I Am.

“I think that I’m a better speechwriter than my speechwriters,’’ he told campaign aides when he was running for the White House. “I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I’ll tell you right now that . . . I’m a better political director than my political director.’’

More.

"The Essential Fusion" and the Little Red Hen

From Doctor Zero at HotAir:

Ed Morrissey relayed an interesting quote from Democrat representative Carol Shea-Porter of New Hampshire earlier today:

“I think when you can pay for insurance, you must,” said Shea-Porter. “For those who are blessed to have insurance through their companies, they should keep it.”

Those who are blessed to have insurance through their companies? You might have thought your health insurance was part of your compensation, following a pattern set by decades-old wage controls which obliged companies to offer benefit packages to attract skilled workers. According to Congresswoman Shea-Porter, that health insurance is actually a divine blessing, like having a good singing voice. By extension, this would make the people who don’t have insurance through their companies cursed.

This is more than just a linguistic quirk. Democrats speak often of those who “win life’s lottery,” insinuating their wealth is not their hard-earned property, to which they have an absolute right. Instead, it’s pennies from heaven, and we should spare no pity for those who would catch an umbrella full of those pennies and scurry off to indulge their greed, while others are left to suffer. Those who believe government has a duty to “spread the wealth around” find it essential to compromise the idea that wealth belongs to those who earn it. Ownership is the truth that must be buried before theft can put on its Sunday best and introduce itself as “redistribution.”

Well put.  More here.

Obviously, everything we have is a gift from our creator -- a "blessing," if you will.  And life does throw curveballs to some.  In fact, it throws curveballs to almost everyone at one point in their life or another.   But hard work and smart choices make a huge difference in outcomes in a free country like the United States.  The whole idea of a free market economy is to let individuals keep and enjoy the fruits of their labors.  It's one of the most powerful incentives on earth to further efforts that benefit everyone.

Wealth does not fall like rain in a free market.  It is earned.  People who have health insurance through their companies are "blessed" with such health insurance and the ability to pay for it in the same way that the Little Red Hen was "blessed" with fresh-baked bread from her oven.

The Latest

Same Old, Same Old at Fort Hood
It will happen again. Every few months an Islamic-inspired terrorist plot will be foiled, or a young Muslim male will shoot, run down or stab someone while invoking anger at non-Muslims

Pelosi Health Care: Drill, Baby, Drill
How is Nancy Pelosi like a bad dentist?

Political Bias Could Lead To Citadel-ABC Radio's Bankruptcy
Gratuitous rudeness to Sean Hannity for being conservative has cost company millions

Hasan on Islam
Hasan's threatening, self-revealing Powerpoint presentation

Hasan Contacted "Numerous" Jihadists
"Feel the outrage. Hasan's victims should still be alive. He was a full-fledged, overt Islamic extremist, functioning within our military, getting promoted and providing care to our soldiers"

12 Reasons Unemployment Is Going to (at Least) 12%
Because Obama and Dems in Congress can't keep their mitts off your job, your business and your wallet

Does Islam Breed Violence?
Butchery as an act of "worship"

It Isn't Political Correctness, It's Shariah
It isn't just poliitical correctness. It's adopting islamic law which forbids criticism of Islam

Barack Obama -- By The Numbers
Zero: The number of significant helpful things Obama has achieved since taking office

Dressed to Kill
The morning of the killings Hasan was wearing the "shalwar-kameez," the same attire worn by Arabs fighing alongside al-Qaeda and the Taliban

Thank You Former President George W. Bush and Former First Lady Laura Bush
Hell freezes over as Bush critics begin to come around

Cuba Orders Extreme Measures to Cut Energy Use
How odd. Yet another communist country can't provide for its own people