Friday, September 24, 2010

DC Insider Interview Part 2: "The President Needs to Grow Up"

DC Insider Interview Part 2: "The President Needs to Grow Up"

So you still wish to keep your name hidden from the public? Why? I intend to remain working in this town for a bit longer. A public disclosure might complicate that just a bit given who is in power right now. But I won’t be the last one from the current administration coming forward. After the midterms, there will be a number of us speaking about what is really going on in the Democrat Party, if for nothing else because it’s such a damn mess right now.

What do you mean “it’s a damn mess”? I mean just what I said. The Democrat Party is the most chaotic I have ever seen it – and that goes back almost 30 years.

So who is to blame? We all are. By we I mean those of us who were working within the party power structure the last ten years or so. We got so caught up in the hate Bush mentality, we let the party get hijacked by our own far left. That was disaster the moment it happened. The disaster that will be the midterm election in 2010 started in November of 2006 when Pelosi and Reid took over the Democrat Party. Those two have only brought trouble to the Democrat Party since day one of that time.

How do you mean? (A long pause…) Look, I’ve been in the Democrat Party in one way or other, be it campaigns, fundraising, lobbying, whatever…we lost our way in 2006. We put in place a Speaker of the House who is an absolute public relations train wreck. The lady is a… She’s tough. Yeah, she’s real tough. But outside of the halls of Congress, forget it. She’s a nut to the American people because America was and is a right of center country. As a Democrat I say that, because I understand it. Bill Clinton understood it. Pelosi, Reid, Obama… they don’t accept that fact."

Continue Reading Part 2 of the interview...

Shock Talk: Colbert Explains ‘Corn Packer’ to Congressman

How LOW can Congress and Colbert go...REAL REAL LOW!

Top 12 Chris Christie “Greatest Hits” Clips

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Shop on Wheels...Homegrown Da Kine

Think I need to give this a go!

NJ Gov Confronts Heckler at Meg Whitman Rally

Is the President "Losing It"?

Is the President "Losing It"?

An author named Ulsterman writes at NewsFlavor.com, publishing an interview that he says he held with a former advisor to the Obama election campaign and transition team. The insider speaks out on an administration in crisis, and a president increasingly withdrawn from the job of President. I have posted below an excerpt from this interview which is now going viral:


2008 gave America an incredibly charismatic candidate for President of the United States. Speech after speech showed a candidate with increasing momentum as primary race after primary race concluded. And then came the nomination, more speeches, culminating in an election night victory.

According to the person sitting across from me, those were incredibly exciting times, even for one who had been a participant with three previous presidential hopefuls. Barack Obama appeared to move from one city to the next effortlessly, gaining confidence and motivation with each campaign stop. He was remarkable to watch. He took the script, elevated it with his oration, left the crowds screaming for more, and then would do it all over again, time after time after time. On the campaign trail, Obama is a machine.

When I asked this insider if the media gave candidate Obama an assist throughout his campaign, it elicits a sly smile. Sure – we definitely had people in the media on our side. Absolutely. We went so far as to give them specific ideas for coverage. The ones who took that advice from the campaign were granted better access, and Obama was the biggest story in 2008, so yeah, that gave us a lot of leverage.

Could Obama have succeeded without the media’s help? Yeah, I think so. As I said, on the campaign trail he is very-very good. The opposition didn’t have near the energy, or the celebrity attraction that Obama brings. Plus, the country was burned out after eight years of Bush. We knew that going in. We knew that if we won the Democrat nomination, we were likely going to cruise our way to the White House – and that is exactly what we did.”

But after Obama was sworn in, things began to change? Almost immediately. Obama loved to campaign. He clearly didn’t like the work of being President though, and that attitude was felt by the entire White House staff within weeks after the inauguration. Obama the tireless, hard working candidate became a very tepid personality to us. And the few news stories that did come out against him were the only things he seemed to care about. He absolutely obsesses over Fox News. For being so successful, Barack Obama is incredibly thin-skinned. He takes everything very personally.

Continue reading...

Thursday, September 2, 2010

Hewitt on what the 70 percent believe

Arthur Brooks...The Battle Blog
8-3-10

In a Washington Examiner column, Hugh Hewitt takes the concept of the 70-30 Nation outlined in The Battle and builds on it:

The 70 percent is appalled by the placebo economics practiced by the president and the Congress over the past two years, shocked by its profligacy with the wealth of the republic, and sickened by the looting of the next generation’s opportunities.

The 70 percent did not want Obamacare, but it has been thrust upon them.

The 70 percent did not want federal judges to declare “game over” in the complex discussion of what marriage is and means.

The 70 percent want a fence on the border that works, and do not want their concern over unregulated immigration dismissed as nativisim.

The 70 percent are not ashamed of their belief in God, deeply resent being labeled bigots because they view ground zero as land that ought not to be exploited for “messaging” of any sort by any group, and are enraged by the scorn which they encounter everywhere in media except Fox News and talk radio.

The 70 percent believe that the federal government is remote and clueless, and that the Constitution’s principles of enumerated and limited powers and the sovereignty of the states are vibrant, important core values to the republic.

The 70 percent think Iran is in the grip of an evil, theocratic fascism, and that Israel is our true friend and ally deserving of our full-throated support.

Gunman was former Lahaina resident

Yikes...I thought I recognized him.

Discovery Channel gunman was former Lahaina resident
James J. Lee, 43, was a 1985 Lahainaluna High School graduate



Lahainaluna classmates remembered James J. Lee as a talented artist, comic-book fan and something of an outsider who was picked on in school.

Lee was identified Wednesday as the man who held two Discovery Communications employees and a security guard hostage in a four-hour standoff in Silver Springs, Md., outside Washington, D.C. Tactical officers shot and killed Lee when building security cameras showed him pulling out a handgun and pointing it at a hostage, said Montgomery County Police Chief Thomas Manger. An explosive device on the gunman's body detonated when police shot him, he said.

The tragedy was felt keenly by Patrick Ross, the Lahainaluna Class of 1985 senior class president, who remembered Lee was the victim of bullying in high school.

"I'd like it to be known that he was a victim of being picked on," Ross said. "Picking on others can have serious consequences."

A law enforcement official speaking on condition of anonymity because the investigation was ongoing told The Associated Press that authorities had identified Lee as the likely suspect.

NBC News reported that after its producers called the Discovery Channel's general number, a man identifying himself as James J. Lee got on the phone and said he had a gun and several bombs.

His MySpace page said he was 43 years old, and he listed Hawaii as his hometown.

The Maui News received calls from residents Wednesday saying that they knew the hostage-taker as a former Lahaina resident.

"When I saw his face and I saw his age, I immediately thought it was him," Ross said.

The Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported that Lee was given ownership of a 12.5 percent stake in a Lahaina residence in 2003 through a family trust, and that he sold his interest in 2007 for $90,000.

In 2008, Lee was arrested after throwing thousands of dollars into the air outside the same Discovery Channel building. At a court hearing, he said that he had sold several inherited properties on Maui to pay for the protest and had one property left, worth about $200,000, according to a 2008 report in the Gazette.Net Maryland Community Newspapers Online. The report said he was planning to give the property away in a "save the planet contest."

Information about Lee's family on Maui was sketchy. Classmates and school administrators interviewed said he had a brother and two sisters and was raised by a single mother who died about 10 years ago. Their family home on Wahikuli Road was sold shortly thereafter.

After consulting with his classmates, lawyer Walter Vierra said they believed that Lee's family used to run a sushi deli in Lahaina at a location that is now occupied by a surfing school. They later moved away from the island, he said.

Several Lahainaluna classmates contacted Wednesday said they had lost touch with Lee after high school. With only 140 students in the Lahainaluna Class of 1985, many were like Vierra, saying they "knew of him."

"I was in the band with him," Vierra recalled.

Henry Ariyoshi, who was principal at Lahainaluna during Lee's time at the school, saw him from time to time around campus.

"I didn't see (in him) anyone who was . . . weird," he said in a phone interview, noting that it has been a long time since he had seen Lee. "As far as I'm concerned, he was a good kid."

Allan Almeida, who was Lee's classmate at Kamehameha III Elementary School, said: "He was always cool.

"He wasn't, like, strange . . . or a bully."

In fact, Lee was victimized by bullies, said Ross, who is now an executive recruiter in Los Angeles.

Ross recalled an incident during freshman year in the band room when a football player threatened to beat Lee up. He ran under the band room stage, chased by the bully, who was lifting up panels that made up the stage in an effort to catch him.

"It was humiliating," Ross said.

As senior class president, Ross gave Lee - "a good artist" - the task of designing the class poster for a homecoming contest.

"It was artistic and beautiful to some eyes, but was comic-booky," he recalled.

Lee's poster bearing the theme "Luna Juggernaut" placed second - disappointing the entire senior class.

"He was so ridiculed," Ross recalled.

He didn't know why Lee was picked on but noted that "he was unusual, off-centered."

"He often spoke as if he was in a comic book," Ross continued. "But that made him an extraordinary artist."

Ross and others interviewed said that Lee showed no signs of violence as a youth. In fact, Ross is not sure that Lee would have been able to take someone's life.

"Either way, it's all messed up," said Ross. "I'm not sure he was the type that could take it to that level."

He had not seen Lee since high school and his efforts to contact him in 2005 for the class's 20-year reunion were unsuccessful.

In the Lahainaluna yearbook in 1985, in the senior scrolls section, Lee wrote:

" 'The power is mine, mine is the power, nothing can stop me now.' 'Rock' plans to become a full-time cartoonist and/or go to college. Likes: Comic books, nice people, drawing. Dislikes: Snobs, selfish and self-righteous people. Remembers: His own comic books, Spiderman, Warlock and Metamorphis Odessy comics."

* The Associated Press contributed to this story. Lee Imada can be reached at leeimada@mauinews.com.

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

There Are No Resentments

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"There are no justified resentments. To resent someone is to fall under the illusion that they are the cause of our suffering. No one can die from a snake bite. It's the poison that kills them. You may receive the poison of another’s words, or even just in a glance, but you don’t have to absorb it or allow it free passage through the veins of your consciousness. The consequence of not absorbing the poison of others is you never experience enmity towards others. And people notice when you have absolutely no enmity. It draws them close, it empowers them, it builds trust, it enables harmony to break out! It is only because the lion has no thought of killing the lamb that the lamb feels able to come so close."

~ Brahma Kumaris, Mt Abu