Peter Foster, The Daily Telegraph’s hack-in-residence across the pond, pens a hymn of praise for Michelle Obama’s 50^th birthday that would be the envy of every ambitious scribbler in Pyongyang. In his determination to ferret out the truth he fearlessly tracks down a cross section of everyday ordinary American folks who just happen to part of the Obama circle, fixes them with a steely eye and throws them the killer question.

On a scale of ten to ten just how wonderful a person is Michelle Obama?

I used to think Mark Mardell at the BBC had cornered the market in this type of sycophantic drivel but Foster has played a blinder here. Both of the Obamas are political hacks spawned by the corrupt Daley Chicago machine. Both have an invented back story which covers up the fact that they were eased along the political food chain by patronage and influence rather than achievement. But then what can one expect from “journalists” who merely regurgitate the wishful thinking mythology of the US media/cultural elite?

But brace yourselves, folks – Mr Foster is only using this as dry run for his forthcoming puff pieces on Hillary Clinton so make certain you stock up with sick bags…

A lot of  nonsense has been written about the US Govt “shutdown” in  the UK media right across the political spectrum from the Telegraph’s extra dry Jeremy Warner to the wet lettuce BBC Obama shill Mark Mardell. Combine this with the high level of ignorance about the US political sytem here in Britain (matched only by the equally astonishing misunderstanding of “funny foreigners” by Americans) and you have as much chance of drilling down to the nitty gritty as a bricklayer trying to do some delicate brain surgery with a trowel. But the explanation of what is happening is as simple and straightforward as getting the gin out of the bottle (unscrewing the cap if your memory needs a jolt) according to the highly respected academic Thomas Sowell.

• The Republican-controlled House of Representatives voted all the money required to keep all government activities going — except for ObamaCare.
• All spending bills must originate in the House of Representatives, which means that congressmen there have a right to decide whether they want to spend money on a particular government activity.
• The money voted by the House of Representatives covered everything that the government does, except for ObamaCare.
• The Senate chose not to vote to authorize that money to be spent, because it did not include money for ObamaCare.
• Tax money keeps coming into the Treasury during the shutdown, and it vastly exceeds the interest that has to be paid on the national debt.

Read Sowell’s brief but soundly reasoned exposition here. Regard anything written about the shutdown that does not tally with those five key facts as either a malicious and deliberate lie or as a demonstration that the author’s understanding of American politics is on the same level as an earwig’s grasp of the second law of thermodynamics..

America gripped by second night of fury over not guilty verdict for neighbourhood watch man who shot black teenager armed only with a bag of Skittles

A quartet of low level  UK Daily Mail hacks who appear to get paid for cutting and pasting “human interest” stories from the US media could not resist parroting the “skittles” meme so beloved of those who portray Trayvon Martin as just some innocent kid walking along the street with a packet of sweets.

In a rather unbalanced piece which veers dangerously near to sympathising with  the “miscarriage of justice” mantra being orchestrated by both the radical left and the liberal elite there is, unsurprisingly, no reference to the longstanding  pre trial campaign mischaracterising and denigrating George Zimmerman waged by the establishment media.

Initially seized upon by the Democrats as an opportunity to kickstart Obama’s 2012 campaign it has now been hijacked not just by old time race card hustlers like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton but also by the tarnished apparatchiks of the Obama administration who see it as a useful tool to divert attention from their own lacklustre performance.

But skittles as a symbol of innocence might not be such the match winning factor that the shallow Mail scribblers obviously hoped for. We know that Martin’s high school career was not particularly trouble free and that he might well have not been unfamiliar with marijuana. It has also been suggested that the possession of skittles and fruit juice are two thirds of the recipe for something a little more streetworthy.

Not that the Mail and others would allow a burgeoning myth to be deflated by a cooler appraisal of events. After all  we all remember how that Tawana Brawley proved such a useful martyr for Al Sharpton…

Quote of the day from Hot Air comments re Sarah Palin returning to Fox

Here is my bottom line up front: Palin is right far more times than she is wrong, and is right far more times than most of the current elected GOP leadership. The fact that she has yet another platform to get her views and analysis out there is a GOOD thing.

For those folks who have a problem with her accent, her folksy humor, and her overall presentation, I humbly suggest that you turn the monitor volume down, and just be thankful that she is on the side of conservatives who want to save the country.

As a native Philadelphian raised in Upstate NY, I am good with her Alaskan twang, and would rather listen to her than to stomach one more syllable from some jack wagon in the Northeast or Left Coast who think themselves mightier than the rest of us (and thus more capable of running the country).

She’s no goddess, no saint, no single fountain of all that is good and right, but she is still more effective than so many who secretly wish they had her platform, her raw rockstar power, and her blessings.

Living and loving life, while living rent-free in the minds of statists and haters… Sarah Palin is one fortunate woman.

itzWicks on June 13, 2013 at 10:45 PM

Hot Air recently mocked Chris Matthews when he predicted a Hillary Clinton White House from 2016 until 2024. But when you consider how deeply the US media elite would be in the tank for the lady the prospect should be worrying. The fact that originally she was just the wife of a famous politician who was parachuted into a Senate seat far away from her home state and sat there for four years with a record as bland as Obama’s in the same place matters not a jot. As Secretary of State her impact on global matters was minimal. America’s rivals and enemies – Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea – were able to relax, secure in the knowledge that the Obama/Clinton regime was content to spend their time in the far corner of the school yard picking daisies while the school bullies went about their business with impunity.

Nevertheless, for some reason, Clinton is portrayed in the media as some sort of superwoman earth mother, wise beyond her years. Between them Tina Brown and Sandra Fluke and their cohorts will give Hillary the easiest of rides to the White House, buttressed, almost certainly, by Barack Obama, whose endorsement will swing the Democrat machine and the rainbow coalition foursquare behind her…..and the reason for that should be obvious. Obama has his eye on the election of 2024 – and the candidacy of Michelle Obama.

When Barack Obama leaves the White House for his post as Secretary General of the UN I guarantee that some obliging Democrat in the Senate will be appointed to Hillary’s cabinet, triggering off a special election – enter Michelle. By 2023, when the jockeying for the Democrat primaries begin, Michelle will be a shoo in. The Media will go bananas for her and once more there will be a Chicago machine hack in the Oval Office – until 2032….when Senator Chelsea Clinton will be 42 years old – which will be Malia Obama’s age in 2040…….

Fantasy or nightmare?

So all Cameron’s brown nosing of President Obama and his Chicago Machine administration produces nothing but this stinking turd….

A FRESH transatlantic row has blown up after the US said it will not recognise next month’s Falklands referendum.

But then maybe Obama and his mates think that voting in the Falklands referendum will be organised in Chicago style with people voting early – and often – and the dead arising from their graves to cast their ghostly ballot.

Time, perhaps, to swiftboat the new US Secretary of State John Kerry. This could never have been done to St Hillary, as much the idol of the media/political elite as Obama but now she has briefly returned to Mount Olympus, Mr Kerry, a rather seedy and timeworn suit, needs to be the target of some home truths IF (and it’s a massive IF) Cameron and co have the cojones to do it……

In the months since November and the Romney debacle it would appear that Hot Air has almost become zombieville if you look at the number of comments generated by each post. Maybe it’s because many became embarrassed by the shameless shilling for Romney on HA (remember Erika Johnsen claiming that everyone was so pumped for Romney? How Allah seemed to be kept away from Romney posts?). Or maybe it has just lost the spark with Ed and co just going through the motions.

But this weekend the site came alive – with a post by Allah on Sarah Palin’s reported decision to refuse to renew her contract with Fox. An assortment of the palinphobe regulars came out of the woodwork saying how irrelevant she was…..so yesterday….

Yep – so irrelevant that the post smashed through the thousand comment barrier.

That Sarah Palin – such a has been…….lol…

Fascinating thread at Legal Insurrection on the “alleged” fading of the Tea Party Movement after the high water mark of 2010

The best comment came from Midwest Rhino who gave a common sense down to earth analysis of the TP, it’s appeal and it’s fault lines…and if anything proved his/her point it was some of the other comments on the thread about abortion and Ron Paul.
It is interesting to note that, although Sarah Palin is a staunch opponent of abortion she appeared never to have brought that into any speech she made at a TP event – instead the recurring theme was fiscal sanity, small govt and the dangers of crony capitalism…..

More than anything, the decline in numbers shows the power of the left to control the message.
When Santelli first did his rant, the “Tea Party” was a big hit. As the grass roots movement developed, the left saw the threat and aimed their big guns at it to bombard it with rhetoric of racism, ignorance, and hate.
Working from the other side, the hard evangelicals saw it as an opportunity to usurp some vitality and new people (and a threat to their grip on the GOP). They infiltrated with demands on prayer and abortion. This part, I believe, was the more effective “killer” of the young movement.

I’d like to see Rasmussen break down what people think the tea party stands for. It seems many think Akin was Tea Party, just because of his hard and stupid statements on abortion.

Hopefully Cruz will learn to say abortion laws are above his pay grade, or some such thing. He may not believe in ANY abortion, but laws for other beliefs are a decision for judges in high courts. Tea partiers are about a restrained government and fiscal sanity. NOT about religion forcing less “tolerance” on “evil unbelievers”. (though the inhumanity of late term abortions might have some traction)

The Democrats and evangelicals effectively cut the tea party baby in half by dividing it on religion, and tarring everyone as racist and ignorant. Palin (yes, she’s wonderful) was used as the personification of this, and she’s still being attacked by Leno et. al., apparently to continue driving the stake in.

Divide on a contentious issue … it’s an old trick.

A few weeks ago a majority of Americans voted to put the lunatics in charge of the asylum. That is essentially what Matt Welch was saying in a rather sombre piece at Reason – an article so depressing it ought to have had a health warning attached.

If elections are up-or-down assessments of politicians’ job performance, then this was a vote in favor of trillion-dollar annual deficits, bailout economics, and failing the minimum competence test of passing an annual budget. Federal policy for four years has produced lousy short-term results for the price of long-term insolvency, and now the characters responsible for this misgovernance have been given a pat on the head.

That’s right, despite Sarah Palin’s uncannily perceptive prediction in 2008, the USA wants more Styrofoam columns…..

So, just because Milliband and Balls are being constantly mocked in many of the public prints for their infantile money grows on trees rhetoric against public spending cuts, don’t imagine that our own band of lunatics cannot possibly party their way to power here in the UK in 2015….

Time to take to the hills?

To all US Republicans – here is your statistics assignment for today

2008
Obama/Biden 69,456,897
McCain/Palin 59,934,814

20012
Obama/Biden 58,702,702
Romney/Ryan 56,455,982

Some useful information

In 2008 the Republican president was extremely unpopular, there was a financial crash, a worrying war and a media pushing two narratives – the possibility of wiping away the scars of racism by electing a black president and an orchestrated demonisation of the GOP VP candidate with lies and sexist insults.

In 2012 the economy was still broken, the worrying war was still simmering away and the Democratic administration was racked with scandals. The Republican candidates were clean cut, inoffensive and apparently competent politicians completely acceptable to the GOP establishment and the media.

( Note -you might find this extremely helpful)

Your task

Explain why the 2012 Republican ticket lost the election and got three and a half million fewer votes than the 2008 ticket
Please send your answers, accompanied with your apologies, to a certain lady in Wasilla, Alaska.

Thank you