"To what purpose are powers limited, and to what purpose is that limitation committed to writing,
if these limits may, at any time, be passed by those intended to be restrained?"
-- Chief Justice John Marshall, Marbury v. Madison, 1803

Tuesday, June 09, 2009

(This post will stay sticky for a week, please scroll down for new posts)

I thought I would take a sec to remind everyone about the server drive and explain a couple of things. Bulk of the post is below the fold to as not to clutter up the front page too much…

Thursday, July 02, 2009

CNS News:

Despite ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, ongoing violence in Iran, and an economy that Obama has described as the worst since the Great Depression, the president has golfed multiple times in the past several weeks--on April 26, May 16, May 25, May 31, June 7, June 9, June 14 and June 21.

Obama’s golf outings have generated favorable reports from the media, in contrast to his predecessor, George W. Bush.

You know where this is going.  Bush was criticized in some circles for golfing during a war (a war that is still going).  He then ended up in the catch-22 where he was pilloried for golfing, then pilloried again when he stopped golfing ( “That’s his idea of sacrifice, to give up golf?” said Robert Dallek).  But Obama....

A search of news reports on Nexis revealed that photographers, but not reporters have access to Obama when he is on the links. But his outings have been covered, including by The Washington Post on June 9, 2009, in an article with the headline “Just the Sport for A Leader Most Driven.”

“What’s the deal? Why golf?” Post staff writer Richard Leiby wrote. “The attraction seems to be simple. It’s a great escape; the game demands such attention that nothing else matters. It’s time spent with friends, an unhurried afternoon in loose clothing (shorts seem to be Obama’s preference).”

Leiby continued, “To some, Obama’s frequent outings reflect a cool self-confidence.”

Leiby even quoted a sports psychologist who said Obama seemed able to play golf despite the grim reports by the media about the wars and the economy.

I didn’t have a problem with Bush golfing and I don’t have a problem with Obama doing it either—not in the least because as long as he’s golfing, he can’t be fucking something else up.  The list of soldiers who died while Obama was golfing is needlessly dramatic, although I did find it disrespectful when he observed a moment of silence on memorial day by pausing between holes.  I like Presidents to get out of the White House once in a while because it increases the chance that may actually invest thought into their policies.  So if Obama wants to hit the links a couple of times a month, I’m down with that.

But it would be nice is if we got some ... you know ... consistency on the subject.

Wednesday, July 01, 2009

Some time ago, I noted that the big driver behind socialized medicine might be big business seeking to cripple competition while currying favor with politicians.

I hate being right all the time.  Walmart has now come out in favor of Obama’s healthcare proposals, allying itself with CAP and SEIU.  This, of course, instantly transforms Walmart in liberal minds from the Embodiment of Corporate Evil to the Best Corporation in America (they also came out in favor of Waxman-Markey).

But this move is completely unsurprising and absolutely consistent with Walmart’s pattern of behavior.

At first glance, the idea of the notoriously cheap chain favoring liberal reforms might seem like a shock. But it really isn’t a huge surprise considering that Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott partnered with the Service Employees International Union’s Andy Stern to push for universal health care more than two years ago.

Why would Wal-Mart do this? In part, because it’s a good PR move. The company has long been the target of complaints that it treats its labor force shabbily. Partnering with a big union like the SEIU and supporting universal coverage allows the company an opportunity to soften its corporate image.

But it’s also a good from a competitive standpoint. Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest employer, can afford the costs imposed by an employer mandate. Smaller competitors are likely to find it harder—and they’re not too happy about Wal-Mart’s announcement.

Michael Cannon concurs as does McArdle. Stephen Bainbridge adds:

In fact, however, Wal-Mart has been suckling at the government teat for decades, transferring costs to the tax payer whenever possible.

Indeed, Wal-Mart is heavily dependent on government subsidies. Wal-Mart routinely gets sales and property tax abatements when it opens a new store, to cite but one example. According to a 2004 study (albeit one funded by a union) the subsidies can amount to as much as 12 million dollars per store. Additional de facto subsidies come when uninsured or under-insured Wal-Mart employees get health care at government expense. Supporting government-run health care looks like a sop to the politicians who control the subsidy tap.

Read the whole thing, as he goes into detail about how Walmart has worked the system.

Look, I’m known for being ... well, not exact pro-Walmart, but very anti-anti-Walmart.  It drives me berzerk when liberals scream about how Walmart jobs suck—a job is a job, assholes.  An enormous amount of anti-Walmart sentiment is driven by condescension and arrogance.  And I do think the way it has driven down prices through the economy of scale has been of enormous benefit to the poor and middle class.

But that doesn’t mean I support the way they have frequently milked the political system for lucre.  And this is a perfect example—trying to fob their healthcare costs onto the rest of us.  A big corporation endorsing big government is a bad thing, whether you are a liberal or a conservative.  When the forces of Corporate America and the force of Big Government get together, what the hell do you guys think is going to happen to the little guy?  Stop gibbering dreamy prose about “politicians and business leaders working together for the good of us all” and use your God-damned inbuilt skepticism.  If someone told me, for example, that ACORN was endorsing Republican policy, I’d be suspicious, not giddy.

Millionaires and power-mongers do not do things like this out of the goodness of their heart.  They do it so that they can both get their turn at our asses.

Update: Sometimes, late at night, I fantasize that I can blog as effectively as Radley Balko:

….if Walmart had given, say, the Cato Institute somewhere between $500,000 and $1 million, after which Cato issued a joint letter with Walmart executives calling for the federal government to pass new policies that would hurt Walmart’s competitors, I’m pretty sure people like Matthew Yglesias would be calling Cato a bunch of corporate whores.

But this isn’t the Cato Institute we’re talking about. It’s Yglesias’ employer, the left-wing Center for the American Progress.

So you see, that means it’s all okay.

Of course it does.  Because it’s good when corporations get involved in politics—so long as it’s liberal politics.

No, this post is not about Al Franken..it’s yet another chance to take a big, fat dump all over the Obama economic policy and the media’s reporting of it.  First, from the magnificent Geoff at Innocent Bystanders:

Over the past 3 months we have found that:

The Obama economic team’s peak unemployment predictions were unrealistically optimistic,
Their estimate of the speed of relief by Stimulus spending was also unrealistically optimistic, and
Their actual “economic modeling” apparently consisted of spreadsheet-level estimates of unemployment

Geoff’s post cites a WaPo article that discusses Mark Zandi, a former McCain advisor (as if that alone wouldn’t make everything he said suspect) who has advocated for more, more, more stimulus spending.  One of the commenters calls Zandi a “Al Goreacle powerpoint ranger,” and with good reason--as Geoff shows, he doesn’t seem to know what the hell he’s talking about when it comes to his chosen subject, either:

Now this fellow also made some economic projections, and I presume that they were based on a more sophisticated analysis than the meager efforts of Obama’s team. So let’s have a look at what he predicted on January 21, 2009, back when the stimulus package was weighing in at $825 billion. And just for fun, let’s compare that to what actually has been happening:

This comes on the heels of an AP article today that reaches new lows in unpaid propoganda for the Obama administration:

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The US private sector shed 473,000 jobs in June to cope with a prolonged recession, a survey by payrolls firm ADP showed Wednesday with a warning that unemployment will rise for several more months.

The June job cuts were worse than the 395,000 expected by most analysts but lower than 485,000 in May, which was revised from the previous 532,000 figure.

Monthly employment losses in April, May, and June averaged 492,000, a notable improvement over the first three months of the year (!!!!!), when monthly losses averaged 691,000, according to the ADP National Employment Report.

Yeah, that’s right, wingnuts--an average of nearly 500,000 job losses a month over the last quarter is a “notable improvement.” This is like claiming the 150-yard 30-.06 hit to your pelvis isn’t as bad as the point-blank shotgun blast to your chest.

Did I say a couple of days ago that the Obama administration wears clown shoes 24/7?  The media is the whole fucking college where they go to learn.  And yes, it’s no coincidence that David Axelrod is a former journalist.

… To Ask a Question

In a follow up to Obama’s little staged media events, which have been mentioned on this site a few times, it looks as though the media is being a little honest here and calling bs on Obama’s staged question and answer sessions. Two reporters, Chip Reid, and Helen Thomas, who has been a White House correspondent since the Garfield administration, laid into the press secretary for some answers. Of course they didn’t get any.  So again, we see Obama is doing a similar act of what Bush was accused of doing with his town hall meetings. In fact Helen basically stated the Obama administration’s pattern is unprecedented, which would mean being worse than Bush (this current administration’s pathetic benchmark for comparison of all things good and evil) in this instance.

Let’s see now. Things we didn’t like about Republicans that Obama is doing with very little protest from the left. The same left who were so adamant about how wrong things were (and in some cases rightfully so), and their claim about how Obama was the solution to the evil ills of the GOP.

1) Staged questions at media events—Check
2) Hand picking your science in the EPA involving global warming, and silencing those who show information that doesn’t support your political agenda-- Check
3) Firing investigators who might be a risk to your friends, supporters, or don’t toe the line – Check
4) Rampant uncontrolled spending with little oversight – Check
5) Political favoritism – Check
6) Lack of transparency – Check

I would honestly love to be educated by those on the Left. Can anyone explain at all why this behavior is now acceptable? So far, as has been my thought for quite a while, it has nothing to do with making America better. It’s all about partisan hackery. Those on the right can be and have been just as guilty, but let’s cut the bullshit illusions how those on the left really want to clean things up, or bring “change”. In reality it’s more of the same, and growing more corrupt as the power of government continues to increase. The only thing good about Obama is I’m sure the next idiot in office will be even worse.  This will make Obama look good by comparison.

I’m late on this (was sick yesterday), but it is official: Al Franken is now the Senator for SEIU Minnesota.  His first priority?  Supporting unions.  Because they have been getting totally hosed in Washington lately.

Update: More here.  It looks like the Democrats managed to do in Minnesota what they tried to do in Florida back in 2000.

VA hospitals are constantly held up by the libs as the example of what our wonderful socialized healthcare systems could be.  Turns out, they may want to tone that rhetoric down a bit.  First, the VA is well know for rationing and delaying care.  This story is not atypical:

Eddie Ryan could be described as the miracle Marine. Shot in the head twice by friendly fire in Iraq, he was brought home to die. Doctors said if he survived he would have to be on life support for the duration of his life and would never recognize anyone. Talk radio hosts across the country called on people to pray for Eddie.

His family credits such prayers for the young Marine’s remarkable recovery. Despite severe brain injuries, Eddie speaks coherently and knows everybody he has ever met. While he is confined to a wheelchair, he is not paralyzed and dreams of taking up running again. Even more courageously, Eddie wants to return to active duty in the Marine Corps.

But Eddie’s family says they have had trouble getting efficient or even adequate care from the government. The VA has cut back some of the therapies he previously received. The Post Star in Glens Falls, N.Y., reports that Eddie’s parents spend about $1,200 a week on Eddie’s care. Fundraisers help some, but a lot of the money comes out of the family’s pocket.

For all the gushing prose spewed at the VA’s electronic record system (a huge expense), rationing is the primary way they have kept costs down.  They have a very strict list of approved prescriptions, they have occasionally delayed enrollments and they have been paring down mental health services.

Now maybe you want to make the case for rationing.  The argument can be made that Americans—because of the huge disconnect between who receives healthcare and who pays for it—are using to much care.  Someone has to control costs.  But if you’re going to make that argument, make that argument.  Don’t blow smoke up our asses about how our healthcare won’t change.  Admit what you’re up to.

Then there’s the accountability of the VA:

For patients with prostate cancer, it is a common surgical procedure: a doctor implants dozens of radioactive seeds to attack the disease. But when Dr. Gary D. Kao treated one patient at the veterans’ hospital in Philadelphia, his aim was more than a little off.

Most of the seeds, 40 in all, landed in the patient’s healthy bladder, not the prostate.

It was a serious mistake, and under federal rules, regulators investigated. But Dr. Kao, with their consent, made his mistake all but disappear.

He simply rewrote his surgical plan to match the number of seeds in the prostate, investigators said.

The revision may have made Dr. Kao look better, but it did nothing for the patient, who had to undergo a second implant. It failed, too, resulting in an unintended dose to the rectum. Regulators knew nothing of this second mistake because no one reported it.

Two years later, in 2005, Dr. Kao rewrote another surgical plan after putting half the seeds in the wrong organ. Once again, regulators did not object.

Of 116 cancer treatments this guy did, 92 went wrong.

Had a private hospital done this, the regulators—i.e., the hospital’s lawyers—sure as fuck would have objected.  In fact, the private sector has found that malpractice lawsuits can be severely reduced by admitting to, apologizing for and fixing mistakes, rather than covering them up.  Praising our malpractice culture makes me feel like I should be tied up in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds.  But a lawsuit culture is infinitely preferable to a socialized culture.

VA hospitals are also not cheap.  Comparisons to the private sector—which supposedly show how wonderful the VA is—are problematic.  The VA treats a different demographic with different illnesses and different priorities.  But the recent surge of veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan is stressing the system badly.  You can imagine what would happen to such a system if it were being hit by entire population getting older and older.

Actually, we don’t need to imagine.  We can see it for ourselves in other countries.  Here’s my favorite Socialized Medicine Sob Story of the Week:

Infertile women have been told they can only have IVF treatment if they are aged between 39 and a half and 40.

The ‘cruel and bizarre’ restrictions were put in place by NHS managers in North Yorkshire struggling to deal with a huge deficit at their health trust.

It could mean women with severe fertility problems to wait years for one cycle of IVF treatment.

Between the age of 35 and 40, the chance of conception for women halves - and the heart breaking delays will further reduce the chance of having a baby for dozens of women.

Reminder: Britain’s fertility rate is about 1.7, which is lower than replacement level.  They’re going to need lots of babies to pay for all this socialized nonsense so cutting fertility treatments to save money is like not driving to work to save money.  Reminder: the effectiveness of fertility treatment declines with age; so much for “evidence-based” decisions.

It’s a this point where I usually have to throw in the caveat that no system is perfect, but then say the socialized systems are worse.  But I’m actually far more worried that we’ll socialize medicine—either openly or quietly through the public option—and not ration.

Our Congress is notoriously loathe to control expenses (you may have noticed).  They are going to be extremely resistant to allow the rationing that the NHS and VA have been necessarily forced to do.  Much easier to just slash provider fees and let doctors leave the field on their own.  Or—as they seem hellbent on—let inflation take care of it.

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Well they are getting real, real bad. Revenue is way down compared to what was collected same time last year. And remember how last year, according to the MSM, we were in a horrible recession and doomed - also Bush was in the WH, and the media had a vested interest in getting a dmeocrat elected - but are we hearing anything about how much worse things are now from them? Heh, don’t bother. They would likely blame Bush for it still. But the numbers don’t lie:





And as they project these numbers for the rest of the year, it gets even worse! The government is going to come up short. Way short.

The short story is that things are getting worse. Much worse. And while I am sure the moonbats will blame Bush, the fact is this is happening because of them. Do not forget to put this revenue shortfall into perspective either. We have borrowed $4 trillion, plan to borrow as much as $10 trillion - so far, there is room for a lot more according to the left - over the next 10 years, and that doesn’t include the healthcare takeover by government. The housing market is also still heading south, despite, or perhaps exactly because of, all the government meddling and hocus pocus. Couple that with the massive new “Cap and Tax” hike, and you are now looking at horrible economic killers. The stock market is showing that. And energy prices are coming back up. Inflation is inevitable, and when it comes it will hurt. I should mention that my credit card company yesterday sent me a notice that they were moving away from a fixed annual rate to a varying monthly interest rate that would be tied to a fixed number plus prime. This is the stuff you expect to see when people are worried about rampant inflation.

Welcome to a repeat of the Carter years!

Cross posted at Wasting time with Alex

You know America is heading in the wrong direction when the Germans figure out they need tax cuts to create economic growth, the one and only indisputable proven way to do it BTW, while in America, the nanny state where the WH regulates lighting, the new spending and taxes keep on piling on and are already seen as game changers for the 2010 elections. Seriously. Our economy is imploding, government is doing its best to make it keep heading south, people are losing work left and right, and Obama’s priority, well other than having government grab control of healthcare for everyone but democrats and politicians, is lighting efficiency standards?

WASHINGTON—Aiming to keep the focus on climate change legislation, President Barack Obama put a plug in for administration efforts to make lamps and lighting equipment use less energy. “I know light bulbs may not seem sexy, but this simple action holds enormous promise because 7 percent of all the energy consumed in America is used to light our homes and businesses,” the president said, standing alongside Energy Secretary Steven Chu at the White House.

Obama said the new efficiency standards he was announcing for lamps would result in substantial savings between 2012 and 2042, saving consumers up to $4 billion annually, conserving enough energy to power every U.S. home for 10 months, reducing emissions equal to the amount produced by 166 million cars a year, and eliminating the need for as many as 14 coal-fired power plants.

Yeah, this sure makes me believe this is about stopping AGW. My bet is GE, or some other big democrat donor, has a new light bulb that nobody really wants and the WH is going to help them sell a lot of them. In return for a nice large donation, indirectly and well hidden, to the donkey’s campaign coffers, of course. This is not the first payback for services rendered, anyway. We Americans are now subsidizing “big and greedy” corporations, the ones democrats love to demonize but then cozy up with, and making them rich. All courtesy of that massive 1500 page bill, most of it still unwritten and definitely unread, that will stick US taxpayers with a $161 billion dollar annual tax hike, the largest single tax ever levied in our history, that was passed by the house, in the dark of night and by the hairs on Pelosi’s ugly mug, while the MSM had everyone focused on Michael Jackson’s freak death. Let’s hope the bill crashes and burns in the Senate. Today it’s California, a not too distant tomorrow considering where the collectivists are taking us, it will be the U.S. of A.

Cross posted at Wasting time with Alex

Monday, June 29, 2009

One of the risks of having a glorified ward heeler in charge of the country is that sometimes the left hand won’t know what the farther left hand is doing.  Such is the case with the Obama administration.  Witness this little gem from Teleprompter Obumbles:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama said on Monday the coup that ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was illegal and would set a “terrible precedent” of transition by military force unless it was reversed.

“We believe that the coup was not legal and that President Zelaya remains the president of Honduras, the democratically elected president there,” Obama told reporters after an Oval Office meeting with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe.

Why is Obama’s terminology significant?

Under U.S. law, no aid—other than for the promotion of democracy—may be provided to a country whose elected head of government has been toppled in a military coup.

And if you ACT NOW, you’ll recieve a statement from one of Obama’s cabinet members that undermines US Law, ABSOLUTELY FREE!!!! (h/t Billy Mays):

“We do think that this has evolved into a coup,” Clinton told reporters, adding the administration was withholding that determination for now.

Asked if the United States was currently considering cutting off aid, Clinton shook her head no.

The State Department said it was unable to immediately say how much assistance the United States gives Honduras.

So just like Iran, Obama is hedging his bets that somehow this will be resolved in a manner in which he doesn’t have to display the convictions expressed by his big flappy mouth, despite the fact that the military in Honduras was following a court order issued because the Zelaya was violating his own country’s laws.  He’s proved to be just as pathetic of a scholar of the Honduran constitution as he was of the American one.  Furthermore, he has stood by and hasn’t said a fucking word about Hugo the Pock-faced Howler Monkey threatening to invade Honduras, um, unilaterally.

This administration wears clown shoes 24/7.  They could pull the chimps from the Washington Zoo and the chimps would end up doing better than Obama and his three-ring circus just by sheer accident.

Among the many ways Obama is proposing to pay for his healthcare debacle is limiting the tax deductibility of some health care plans—the so-called “gold plated” plans.  Guess who, besides the politicians themselves, will be exempt from this tax.

Yup, got it in one:

The U.S. Senate proposal to impose taxes for the first time on “gold-plated” health plans may bypass generous employee benefits negotiated by unions.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, the chief congressional advocate of taxing some employer-provided benefits to help pay for an overhaul of the U.S. health system, says any change should exempt perks secured in existing collective- bargaining agreements, which can be in place for as long as five years.

The exception, which could make the proposal more politically palatable to Democrats from heavily unionized states such as Michigan, is adding controversy to an already contentious debate. It would shield the 12.4 percent of American workers who belong to unions from being taxed while exposing some other middle-income workers to the levy.

“I can’t think of any other aspect of the individual income tax that treats benefits of different people differently because of who they work for,” said Chris Edwards, director of tax policy studies at the Cato Institute, a Washington research group that often criticizes Democrats’ economic proposals. Edwards said the carve-out “smacks of political favoritism.”

Smacks?  Smacks?  This doesn’t smack of political favoritism, it’s punches in the balls.  You will hardly find a definition of political favoritism that is more precise than “we are taxing everybody except these guys”.  Those healthcare benefits, incidentally, are one of the principal factors bankrupting the automakers.

Later in the article, they defend this idea by noting that unions negotiated their healthcare benefits expecting a certain tax structure and it’s not fair to change the tax structure on them in midstream.  But that could be said of everyone.  We all negotiate our pay and benefits with certain expectations about taxes and regulations.  Many of us invest our life savings or years of work in a field expecting a certain fiscal environment. Whether this negotiation takes place collectively or individually shouldn’t make a difference.  I don’t see the Democrats getting all worked up by doctors being hurt by cuts in Medicare fees.  Or retirement funds being gutted by the Chrysler/GM bankruptcy shenanigans.

Let’s also clarify what, in the liberal mind, constitutes “gold-plated”:

The policy is aimed at so-called “gold-plated” plans such as the $40,543 in health benefits paid to Lloyd Blankfein, chief executive of New York-based Goldman Sachs Group Inc., the fifth largest U.S. bank by assets.

It can also affect companies such as Henderson, Nevada- based Zappos.com, where workers’ $11 per hour pay is supplemented by employer-paid health insurance plans worth about $7,500. Federal workers’ health benefits are worth about $4,200 for individuals and $13,000 for families.

Now think about this for a moment.  Obama’s healthcare plan—despite his claims—may make you upgrade your insurance.  If your health insurance does not meet the federal guidelines, you will have to buy a more expensive one.  And it is very likely that the mandated federal plan will be expensive.  As a State Senator, Obama voted 18 times to mandate insurance coverage of such things as laughing gas.  Massachusetts has seen healthcare costs skyrocket, in part, because they put a hard maximum of $2000 on deductibles. If Obama gets his way—with both healthcare mandates and taxes—there may be very narrow window in which you will not be taxed for your healthcare coverage.

Unless you’re a union member.

Or, I suspect, you buy into the “public option” which, as you know, is definitely not going to be subsidized by the government, no sir.

Actually, that last part make some sense.  Whatever the public option is, I expected the only “gold plating” will be on the coffins of its poor subscribers.

There is now a SCOTUS ruling on the Ricci case, and it contradicts by a 5-4 vote that ruling by Sotomayor that dismissed the complaint of the white firefighters claiming discrimination. For more details and comments check out the entry ”What Ricci says about the Supreme Court’s views of Judge Sotomayor” over on the SCOTUS Blog:

I am struck by the extent to which the majority opinion largely treats the court of appeals’ ruling as a non-event. To the contrary, Justice Kennedy almost seemingly goes out of his way not to criticize the decision below, notwithstanding that the Supreme Court takes a dramatically different view of the legal question. The Court indicates that the state of the law before today’s ruling was “a difficult inquiry,” and that its “holding today clarifies how Title VII applies.” It rejects the plaintiffs’ outright attack on the Second Circuit’s decision as “overly simplistic and too restrictive.”

Anyhow, basically the SCOTUS judges are saying that no employer can just discriminate based on race, so they can avoid lawsuits claiming racial discrimination, without real proof of said discrimination. Especially when the suits claiming racism are going to be based on flimsy accusations of racism. That’s what the city of New Haven claimed was their reason for throwing out the firefighter exams: lawsuits claiming discrimination. But what struck me as ludicrous was that while the lawyers agree, by a thin margin I guess, that Sotomayor was way off and needed to be reversed, that they did not want to hurt her feelings or come down on her stupid decision to hard? This is too much PC nonsense for me, man.

One thing I sure hope comes from this is a lot of directed questions during the Sotomayor confirmation hearing to make sure she understands what she got wrong and why. I guess that Latina woman was not as wise as she thought she was, and she needs to be reminded of that.

Cross posted at Wasting time with Alex

Sunday, June 28, 2009

While Iran’s government was cracking down on the country’s protestors for speaking out against a fraud election, Obama adopted a “watchful waiting policy.” After a week of Iran and its hired thugs murdering its citizens, Obama finally issued a milquetoast statement of “concern” that the world “would bear witness,” culminating in a disinvitation of Iranian diplomats to his July 4th weenie roast (no, that’s not where they cook Robert Gibbs and David Axelrod on a spit, more’s the pity).

Obama didn’t exactly distinguish himself as a statesman during this period, holding off on saying anything that could be construed as provocative because he didn’t want to be seen as “meddling,” while simultaneously trying promote his Cairo speech as the spark that started the protest which he refused to support.  Leftists and some conservatives praised him for this stance, saying he was “setting the right tone,” (and the number of lefties stating this on blogs was so ubiquitous it was undoubtedly issued by Axelrod’s astroturfing organizations). 

That disinclination towards meddling seems to have suddenly abandoned Obama this week, however:

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — Soldiers seized the national palace and flew President Manuel Zelaya into exile Sunday, hours before a disputed constitutional referendum. Congress appointed a successor, but Zelaya, a leftist ally of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, said he was the victim of an illegal coup....

Zelaya was arrested shortly before polls were to open in a referendum on whether to change the constitution. The Supreme Court ruled the referendum illegal and everyone from Congress to members of his own party opposed it. Critics said Zelaya wanted to remove limits to his re-election

Essentially, what happened was that the Honduran Supreme Court ruled that the referendum on whether Zelaya could extend his term was a violation of the country’s constitution, (Dan Collins explains it here in more detail)and when the general who would have been responsible for distributing the ballots was sacked, a court order was issued to detain Zelaya “for repeated violations of the constitution,” and he was subsequently kicked out of the country after resigning. (Fausta has been following this in great detail here--check the blog entry for his translations and links to other sources of information on this)

Seeing a fellow communist sympathizer ousted, Obama immediately sprang into action:

President Barack Obama said he was “deeply concerned” by Zelaya’s expulsion and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the arrest should be condemned.

“I call on all political and social actors in Honduras to respect democratic norms, the rule of law and the tenets of the Inter-American Democratic Charter,” Obama’s statement read.

Remember, folks, “meddling” is only okay when one of Obama’s left-wing buddies is removed for violating his country’s constitution.  Maybe the President had been hoping to get some pointers for future reference.

June has not been a good month for celebrities:

Spirited TV pitchman Billy Mays was found dead at his Tampa home earlier this morning, police said.

Mays, 50, lent his trademark booming voice to infomercials for products like OxiClean and Orange Glo.

Everyone, of course, knew Billy Mays for his VERY LOUD SALES DELIVERY STYLE, and he was mocked relentlessly for it.  He wasn’t above poking fun at himself, though, as his ESPN commercials proved.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled political fussing and fighting.