Archive for November, 2012

Unions, my friends, did not cause the demise of Hostess, the company that became famous as the maker of Twinkies and other wonderfully sweet snack items. Oh no. Only the foolish and uninformed would ever believe such a naive explanation. And I know that you are much too smart to be foolish and uninformed, which is why you come here to learn about how the world really works.

No, the real explanation begins here:

Need I say more?

“But wait!” I can hear some of you say. “Are you claiming that Michelle Obama killed the Twinkie in some sort of a conspiracy?” Let’s examine the evidence, shall we:

As the noted political expert and Fox News guest Victoria Jackson explains:

“Michelle is a snake.

She is so deceptive. This whole ‘food thing’ she is innocently pushing, is slyly making the government the controller of our children’s food … out from her forked tongue slipped a buzzword, on the Jay Leno show tonight. She actually used the words, ’sustainable food, organic food.’ These …

Continue reading You want to know who REALLY killed the Twinkie? »

Glenn Beck is an entertainer who pitches his schtick at the eagerly deluded and culturally paranoid. Given that we live in a nation of some 300 million, that’s enough of an audience to make a man wealthy.

So when Beck publishes a book titled “Agenda 21,” a fictional warning of a UN takeover of the United States in which the U.S. government is abolished and its citizens are allowed only two functions, “to create clean energy and to create new human life,” it’s easily dismissed as the harmless lunacy that it clearly is.

However, when seven leading GOP members of the Georgia Senate gather in the state Capitol on state taxpayer dollars to hear a lecture on that same “Agenda 21″ preaching much the same craziness, it gets a little more troubling. When Sen. Chip Rogers of Cherokee County submits legislation attempting to further that outlandish conspiracy theory, it gets more troubling still. (It is somewhat of a comfort that Rogers was deposed yesterday in a Senate Republican …

Continue reading Agenda 21: The lunacy infiltrating state leaders »

In off-camera and apparently rather poignant conversations with Kyra Phillips of CNN and Headline News, David Petraeus has made it clear that his resignation as CIA director has everything to do with his own personal failings, and nothing whatsoever to do with the tragedy in Benghazi and its aftermath:

As Phillips recounted the conversations:

“He has said this has nothing to do with Benghazi and he wants to testify. He will testify. He has maintained to me all along this was a personal failing, Robin, which, as I said, to me was quite stunning and to many other people. He’s not the type of person that I’ve ever known to fail at anything, knowing [him] as long as I have over the years. And so he has made it very clear that this was about an extramarital affair and not over classified information or Benghazi.”

Of course, there is no expectation that such statements will quell the conspiracy theorists. The hunger to believe overwhelms rationality for some. But there it is …

Continue reading Petraeus: Resignation has nothing to do with Benghazi »

You may have read that so far, some 30,000 people have signed a petition at whitehouse.gov requesting that the federal government grant Georgia the right to secede peacefully from the union and establish itself as an independent country.

A related petition has also been filed, so far drawing more than 850 signatures. It states:

Peacefully grant the City of Atlanta leave to withdraw from the State of Georgia and remain part of the United States

The City of Atlanta continues to suffer deprivations of economic, civil, religious, and political freedoms imposed upon it by Georgians (who are hostile to Atlanta).

In the event that Georgia is successful in its effort to secede from the Union, we the people of Atlanta wish to remain in the United States. We love our country. We are dedicated to it. And we are committed to preserving its rights and liberties in accordance with the original ideas and beliefs of our founding fathers.

We would also like to annex Athens, Georgia, Decatur, …

Continue reading Secession mania reaches the City of Atlanta »

Mitt Romney tried to explain his loss Wednesday to disappointed financial backers by telling them that he would have gotten away with it without that durned 47 percent:

“The Obama campaign was following the old playbook of giving a lot of stuff to groups that they hoped they could get to vote for them and be motivated to go out to the polls, specifically the African American community, the Hispanic community and young people. In each case they were very generous in what they gave to those groups.”

“With regards to African American voters, ‘Obamacare’ was a huge plus — and was highly motivational to African American voters. You can imagine for somebody making $25—, or $30—, or $35,000 a year, being told you’re now going to get free healthcare — particularly if you don’t have it, getting free healthcare worth, what, $10,000 a family, in perpetuity, I mean this is huge. Likewise with Hispanic voters, free healthcare was a big plus….”

“With regards to Hispanic voters, …

Continue reading Mitt Romney, exit stage right. A little quicker, please … »

UPDATE at 3:05: In his press conference this afternoon, President Obama was quite forceful in his defense of Ambassador Rice:

“Let me say specifically about Susan Rice: She has done exemplary work she has represented the U.S. and our interests in the U.N. with skill and professionalism and toughness and grace. If Senator McCain and Senator Graham and others want to go after somebody, they should go after me. And I’m happy to have that discussion with them. But for them to go after the U.N. ambassador? Who had nothing to do with Benghazi? And was simply making a presentation based on intelligence that she had received? To besmirch her reputation is outrageous.”

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This is just stupid.

An increasingly petty and petulant Sen. John McCain has gone off the deep end again, announcing that if U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice is nominated to replace Hillary Clinton as secretary of State, he would attempt to filibuster her nomination.

His reason?

Because Rice, serving as a foreign policy …

Continue reading Another little temper tantrum from John McCain »

The reputations of pollsters Rasmussen and Gallup took a deserved beating in the 2012 election, but if nothing else they are still valuable when judged relative to themselves. Rasmussen, for example, now reports that President Obama’s job approval rating among likely voters is at 55 percent, his highest level in a Rasmussen poll since June 2009.

Gallup reports similar numbers:

That would seem to suggest that Republican denials notwithstanding, President Obama comes into negotiations on the so-called fiscal cliff with a considerable amount of leverage. Newly released numbers from a Washington Post/Pew Center poll confirm that assessment:

Given that reality, it’ll be interesting to see the outcome of today’s secret ballot among House Republicans, who will be asked to elect a new chairman of the House Republican Conference. As we reported Monday, House Speaker John Boehner has thrown his support behind Cathy McMorris Rodgers, who qualifies as a moderate, if only within the very …

Continue reading Obama holds upper hand in budget confrontation »

UPDATE: As the AJC’s Rosalind Bentley reports, tonight’s presentation by Peter Beinart at the Margaret Mitchell House has been sold out.

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Peter Beinart was raised in the Jewish faith, attends an Orthodox synagogue in New York City, keeps kosher and says “I love Israel and believe in the Zionist experiment.” He was also just named one of the “Forward 50” by the Jewish Daily Forward, a listing that marks him among those “who have made a significant impact on the Jewish story in the past year.”

Peter Beinart

So how does Beinart become persona non grata at the Book Festival of the Marcus Jewish Community Center of Atlanta, his invitation to speak this week suddenly withdrawn? Beinart himself is in some ways mystified, noting that “I speak to Jewish audiences all the time — at synagogues and community centers,” and had never previously been disinvited. However, he also recognizes that in his new book “The Crisis in Zionism,” he says things that have …

Continue reading Peter Beinart: Barred from Atlanta’s Jewish book festival »

From Politico:

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal on Monday called on Republicans to “stop being the stupid party” and make a concerted effort to reach a broader swath of voters with an inclusive economic message that pre-empts efforts to caricature the GOP as the party of the rich….

“We’ve got to make sure that we are not the party of big business, big banks, big Wall Street bailouts, big corporate loopholes, big anything,” Jindal told POLITICO in a 45-minute telephone interview. “We cannot be, we must not be, the party that simply protects the rich so they get to keep their toys.”

He was just as blunt on how the GOP should speak to voters, criticizing his party for offending and speaking down to much of the electorate.

“It is no secret we had a number of Republicans damage our brand this year with offensive, bizarre comments — enough of that,” Jindal said. “It’s not going to be the last time anyone says something stupid within our party, but it can’t be …

Continue reading Jindal: GOP should ’stop being the stupid party’ »

I guess if you create a culture in which generals are treated as rock stars, they eventually begin to act like, well, rock stars.

Complete with groupies.

Marine Gen. John R. Allen

As The Washington Post reports:

ABOARD A U.S. MILITARY AIRCRAFT — The FBI probe into the sex scandal that led to the resignation of CIA director David Petraeus has expanded to ensnare Gen. John R. Allen, the commander of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, the Pentagon announced early Tuesday.

According to a senior U.S. defense official, the FBI has uncovered between 20,000 and 30,000 pages of “potentially inappropriate” e-mails between Allen and Jill Kelley, a 37-year-old Tampa woman whose close friendship with Petraeus ultimately led to his downfall. Allen, a Marine, succeeded Petraeus as the top allied commander in Afghanistan in July 2011….

Jill Kelley

The latest development in the unfolding scandal has shaken President Obama’s national-security staff and upended his carefully chosen …

Continue reading Another top general ensnared in Petraeus scandal »