That Old Moon Dust

Follow the Money
Considered the prime facilitator in Washington for those seeking to “monetize” their political service, Mr. Barnett negotiated a reported seven-figure book advance for Mr. Plouffe and set him up for speaking gigs. Mr. Plouffe earned $1.5 million in 2010, according to White House disclosure statements, which included management consulting work for Boeing and General Electric, and close to $500,000 for speeches around the world, including $100,000 from MTN Nigeria, an African telecommunications firm. (NYT, 2/20/2012)


In a shocking story today, it is revealed that David Plouffe who is managing the Obama re-election campaign is a millionaire! What taxes did he pay?  And where is Occupy DC when you need them?


Foregone
With the economy on its knees, many American families have had to forgo their annual holiday just to make ends meet. But barely a month after returning from a luxury Christmas break in Hawaii Michelle Obama is on holiday again - this time at the exclusive Colorado ski resort of Aspen.


The First Lady Michelle Obama is spending Presidents' Day weekend in the upmarket resort with her daughters, Sasha and Malia, and was seen hitting the slopes - albeit apprehensively - on Saturday. (Dailymail.co.uk, 2/20/2012)


Speaking of one percenters! 


Spain, Colorado, Hawaii and back to Colorado. Say what you want about Michelle Obama she is not going to be denied. George Bush stopped playing golf because he thought the optics of it - juxtaposed to American military casualties - was not right. No such concern with the Obamas when it comes to vacations and the economy. More and more Obama reminds us of the old Kremlin leadership. Issue dictates from on high, claim to support the workers and enjoy the spoils of power.

Long Before

Demanding
A gallon of gas had dropped to $1.89 when Mr. Obama took office in 2009, in large part because of the fall in oil demand caused by the financial crisis, and has almost doubled since. (NYT, 2/18/2012)


So, let's make sure we have this correct. Yes, gas has almost doubled under Obama. But that is only because it was low when he took office. And why was it so low? Because of the financial crisis. And who caused the financial crisis? Why it was George Bush! Ergo, the reason that gas is now so expensive compared to when Obama took office is...Bush's fault! Do you follow?


Act Out
An intensifying conservative legal assault on the Voting Rights Act could precipitate what many civil rights advocates regard as the nuclear option: a court ruling striking down one of the core elements of the landmark 1965 law guaranteeing African Americans and other minorities access to the ballot box.


Voting Rights Act Under Siege screams the headline. It seems that those racist Republicans want to go back to the days when blacks were denied the right to vote. How do they want to do it? The Politico article is not entirely clear, but it might be by requiring voters to show a photo ID. The bastards! Then again they might choose another approach.....


If the key provision were removed, he (Dan Tokaji, professor of election law at Ohio State) said, “I don’t think we would go back to the days of Jim Crow. We wouldn’t have literacy tests or other of the most blatant disenfranchising devices used in 1965. On the other hand, it would be easier for states to enact more subtle measures that make voting more difficult and that dilute the vote. … The impact will probably be most significant at the local level [where] a lot of things might slip by without anyone noticing it.” (Politico.com, 2/19/2012)


Oh, no! Those evil Republicans could be even more devious, using "subtle measures" that no one would notice. This is tyranny!

Why Not

Off and On
Amber Strader, 27, was in an on-and-off relationship with a clerk at Sears a few years ago when she found herself pregnant. A former nursing student who now tends bar, Ms. Strader said her boyfriend was so dependent that she had to buy his cigarettes. Marrying him never entered her mind. “It was like living with another kid,” she said. 


When a second child, with a new boyfriend, followed three years later — her birth control failed, she said — her boyfriend, a part-time house painter, was reluctant to wed. (NYT, 2/17/2012)


The Times gives us this charmer in an article on the new normal: out-of-wedlock births. What are we supposed to feel about Amber the Trainwreck?  Is it possible that she is responsible for her own life and her own mistakes? Liberals will say that this is exactly the person who society has to protect via the safety net of entitlement programs. 


Heavy D
Though Maryland is heavily Democratic, the party is sharply divided on the issue of same-sex marriage. 


Of 98 Democrats in the House, as many as 30 — mostly more-conservative Democrats known as Blue Dogs, and African-Americans from districts where churches are strong — had been undecided. (NYT, 2/17/2012)


Dems and African-Americans who oppose gay marriage are bigots, cretins, homophobes! How dare they deny gays this "basic human right." Oh, wait. It is only "conservative activists" who oppose gay marriage who are the homophobes:


Gay-rights activists accused Christie of scuttling gay marriage to curry favor with conservative activists within the GOP. (NYPost.com, 2/18/2012)


PCH
Hundreds of protesters lined Pacific Coast Highway Thursday morning to greet President Obama who was visiting Newport Beach for a campaign fundraiser. Most of the attendees awaited the arrival of the president in protest though a number of pro-Obama supporters were sprinkled throughout the crowd. (Brian Calle, Foxnews.com, 2/17/2012)


What is happening on the Left Coast? Is California trying to get back in the good graces of RedStateVT?


Long Term
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, speaking on behalf of the Obama White House, to Rep. Paul Ryan: "You are right to say we're not coming before you today to say 'we have a definitive solution to that long term problem.'  What we do know is, we don't like yours." (Guy Benson, Townhall.com, 2/17/2012)


Benson calls Geithner's comment to Paul Ryan on the deficit the "political quote of the year." It might be the Political Quote of the Millenium!

Feelings

Girl Power
"What I want to know is, where are the women?" Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) asked Issa before walking out of the hearing after the first panel. "I look at this panel, and I don't see one single individual representing the tens of millions of women across the country who want and need insurance coverage for basic preventative health care services, including family planning. Where are the women?" (Huffington Post, 2/16/2012)


Liberals are apparently so broke or so stupid that they now think that everyone should pay for their birth control. How much does a box of condoms cost these days?


Ten Years After
Pat Buchanan is out at MSNBC. The conservative pundit, who spent ten years on the air for the network, wrote in an essay that political pressure was behind his departure. (WSJ, 2/17/2012)


What is another way that Liberals are like Communists? They prefer a single, state-controlled media (think Pravda). They despise Fox, but Fox employs Beckel, Williams and Colmes among its commentators. And all have admitted at one time or another how they are quietly pressured by the Left for appearing on Fox. MSNBC would rather just not have any conservatives....makes things simpler.


Parking Wars
The Rev. Al Sharpton tried to move heaven and earth yesterday to keep his SUV from being towed at La Guardia Airport — but no amount of preaching could stop Port Authority cops from impounding the vehicle. An officer rolled up on the 2008 Lincoln Navigator at around 2 p.m. outside the Delta and US Airways terminal as the MSNBC host’s driver waited to pick him up in a clearly marked “no standing” zone, said PA Police spokesman Al Della Fave. PAPD cop Oscar Ruiz asked the driver for his paperwork and quickly discovered that the SUV had a suspended registration “due to lack of insurance,” the spokesman said. At that point, Sharpton emerged from the terminal after a flight from Washington, DC, and raised holy hell over the situation. “He begins yelling, saying the cop was just doing this because of who he was,” a source said. (Foxnews.com, 2/17/2012)


What is the Rev doing in an SUV? Shouldn't he be in a Prius? And what's with the no insurance? During the healthcare debate, Liberals said that forcing people to buy health insurance was no different than forcing them to buy car insurance. But the Rev apparently doesn't even want to buy car insurance....so where does that leave us?


On the Rise
Since the end of 2011, the national average for a gallon of regular gasoline is up more than 8% to $3.52, according to data released on Monday by the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Gas prices tend to increase during the first half of the year, but this is the earliest the average price per gallon has surpassed the $3.50 mark. Prices at the pump could break $4 later this year – typically the point where fuel costs start eroding economic growth, says IHS Global Insight economist Chris Christopher. (fortune.cnn.com, 2/16/2012)


The media is ginning up the economy to aid Obama's reelection effort. Let's see what they say about $4 gas.

Sweeter Memories

Walking It Back
Vermont's most self-absorbed and self-serving politician, Senator Bernie Sanders, is at it again! This time, Sanders has admitted that taking money from Super-Pacs is "something we would look at" if he had a well-funded opponent. (VTGOP.org, 2/15/2012)


Colonel Sanders has made the evil influence of Super-Pac money a signature issue. Like Obama, it turns out that he too is a hypocrite. 


Prohibited
If liberals like it, it's subsidized; if they don't, it's prohibited. And now they can impose their left-wing authoritarianism on the entire country by calling their mandates and prohibitions "insurance."
... 
Insurance is not supposed to be for normal expenses in the ordinary course of events, such as multivitamins, house painting or oil changes. Insurance is for unexpected catastrophes: fires, accidents, cancer.
... 
The basic idea is to spread the risk of unforeseen disasters.
...
So why is birth control covered by insurance? Birth control pills aren't that expensive -- generics are about $20 a month -- nor is the need for them a bolt out of the blue. Why not have health insurance cover manicures, back massages, carrot cake and nannies? (AnnCoulter.com, 2/16/2012)


Coulter gets it exactly right....again. Because Liberals work in government (or don't work at all) they have no conception of how capitalism works. What are those oil industry subsidies for? Why it must be payback from the evil Republicans to their buddies in the oil companies. Birth control for all?  Why simply make the insurance companies provide it for "free."


Certainty
No more certain sign exists that a nation has chosen to step off its historic upward path than the creation of wealth taxes. A nation imposes a wealth tax when it wakes up one day to conclude that it has become embarrassed, rather than proud of, its wealth, which is to say, its national success. (WSJ, 2/17/2012)


It's been said, but can always be said again. Liberals view a wealthy person and ask what crimes he committed. 

Giant Steps

Roll Call
The nation’s voter registration rolls are in disarray, according to a report released Tuesday by the Pew Center on the States. The problems have the potential to affect the outcomes of local, state and federal elections. (NYT, 2/14/2012)


Republicans want voters to show an ID, but Liberals say there is no problem with voter fraud. 


Yard Work
Liberal media watchdog group Media Matters once contemplated harassing Fox News employees with yard signs in their neighborhoods, hiring private investigators to dig into their personal lives and retaining a "major law firm" to study legal action against the network, according to a report Tuesday in the Daily Caller. (Foxnews.com, 2/14/2012)


Further proof - not that you needed it - that Liberals are absolutely without morals when it comes to the political debate. Note to loyal readers: RedStateVT will not be intimidated!


Paint By Numbers
Dick Morris has an interesting take on the whole Obama contraception controversey. Morris believes that Democrats are losing the abortion debate as an increasing number of Americans against it. Hence Obama wants to shift the discussion to contraception where they can paint Republicans as being against it. Morris points to the questions that Romney was asked by debate moderator George Stephanopoulas - questions that seemed to come out of nowhere - as proof that Dems are teeing up this issue. With social conservative Rick Santorum rising in the polls, Dems think they may have an issue. It is an interesting analysis, and one of the reasons that Morris is always worth listening to. 


Faded Glow
The luster of the Kennedy family name and the Camelot myth has increasingly lost its shine since that time.

We have learned that Joe Kennedy, Senior, had many affairs including with the actress Gloria Swanson.

That Senator Ted Kennedy, a known boozer and serial adulterer at one point in his life may have been responsible for the death of Mary Jo Kopechne at Chappaquiddick (1967).

And, that William Kennedy Smith, President Kennedy's nephew stood accused of rape although he was later acquitted. (Phyllis Chesler, Foxnews.com, 2/7/2012)

JFK - the spiritual guru to Bill Clinton - was apparently an earlier abuser of interns. Here we see only a very short list of the Kennedy family sins. So can we - for once and for all - bury the myths and move on from America's First Family of Dysfunction?

Tableau Vivant

Pointed
The point is that today’s dismal G.O.P. field — is there anyone who doesn’t consider it dismal? — is no accident. Economic conservatives played a cynical game, and now they’re facing the blowback, a party that suffers from “severe” conservatism in the worst way. And the malady may take many years to cure. (Paul Krugman, NYT, 2/13/2012)


We love it when Liberals talk about things like how conservatism has lost its way. It is as though the 2010 mid-term elections never happened and as though Mitt Romney were NOT polling even or better with Obama. Thanks, but no thanks for the advice.


Crosshairs
RedStateVT recently heard a university president briefly discuss President Obama's warning to higher education over the rising cost of a college education. The university president was tempered in his remarks, but clearly dismayed that Obama did not understand the fundamental economics of running an educational institution. As we have stated, higher education is only the latest of industries to come into Obama's crosshairs as he continues his efforts to "fundamentally transform the country." His words. 


Throwback
Chris Matthews (Sunday, 2/12/2012): Mitt Romney, is he going to have to throw a hail Mary or whatever his religion calls for in this case?


This is what the increasingly despicable Chris Matthews said about Mitt Romney on his Sunday program yesterday. Are we the only ones who are offended?


We Respond
Loyal reader Global View requests that RedStateVT write more about the Republican primaries and divulge our preferred candidate. To date our comments on the primaries have been largely to educate readers about how the Liberal media systematically sets about to smear Republican candidates. Hence we have the broadside attacks against Herman Cain and Michelle Bachmann. Why? Well they represent existential threats to the Left. Liberals believe that these two groups are the exclusive domain of Democrats. Therefore, Republican women and blacks must be marginalized and eventually destroyed. Mission accomplished for the media. Also in the media playbook is to fabricate some damning incident or situation which "proves" that the Republican is a racist. And so we had the news cycle about Rick Perry and the hunting camp. Mission accomplished. Moving on, the media will pull out its golden nuggets. The candidate is rich and that wealth may have been acquired in suspicious ways and/or the candidate has not voluntarily paid more than he should have in taxes. Again, mission accomplished. The old chestnut - the candidate either was or cavorted with lobbyists is a perennial. The Times even played that one today on Mitt Romney. So these are the things that RedStateVT has focused on in the primaries to date.


Paraphrasing Ann Coulter, the Republican candidate will always be asked to name the past three presidents of Swaziland; while the Democrat will be asked how it feels to have the great honor of his party's nomination bestowed on him.


Who do we support? We support whichever candidate stands the best chance to defeat Obama.