Typical Chicago Politics.....

 Triple J's Congressional Seat eyed by Appropriately Ridiculous Dude

The Mel Man

Jesse Jackson Jr. may not be long in the House of Representatives, his future now dependent only on the willingness of Congress to pay him not to do work that he’s already not doing. And given that we’re dealing with Congress, the chances are probably pretty high that decision will be made quickly and in Jesse Jackson Jr.’s favor, so that he can go back to buying Rolexes for Ukranian mistresses and being in jail and whatever else he does.

This, of course, means that his Congressional seat will be open, because, like any good Democrat, Jesse Jackson Jr., who has been under threat of indictment for months and missing for weeks, won his seat handily in the last election. Chicago has already heard from one potential candidate – the lawyer who defended Rod Blagojevich - but a possibly sketchy defense attorney, while a good try just isn’t quite the kind of oncoming political train the South Side typically looks for.

But not to fear. There’s another viable candidate with his eye on the prize........

Read the Whole Story

h/t Naked DC

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Flawed Policy, Failed People

By Rosemary

Barack Obama – a man whose instincts towards Caesarism don’t quite fit under the rug – has a bad habit of becoming triumphalist in the aftermath of electoral victory. In 2009, only a few days into his presidency, Obama told a group of Republican congressmen who were at the White House to discuss the shape of his stimulus plan that he needn't seriously consider their proposal to tilt the package more heavily towards tax cuts because “I won.” So much for there not being red states and blue states.

Less than 72 hours after winning a second term, Obama announced himself unwilling to entertain Republican alternatives to raising income tax rates on high earners, pronouncing that “this was a central question during the election” and “a majority of Americans agree with my approach.” 

Now that obstinance is extending itself to foreign affairs, where the president has become intransigent on objections to U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice succeeding Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State.

Though Rice’s widely anticipated nomination has not yet been announced, Obama was already digging in his heels on the issue at last weeks press conference in the East Room of the White House.  It was Rice who had the unenviable task of working the Sunday morning talk show circuit to peddle the White House’s official line: that the attacks were the spontaneous result of a crowd of protesters whipped into a violent frenzy by a YouTube video. With that narrative subsequently shown to have been utterly false (there wasn’t even a crowd of protesters present during the attack), the administration's credibility has suffered a huge hit – and so has Rice’s. 

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, whose image benefits from her lack of the basic incompetence that plagues much of the rest of Obama’s team, still makes her fair share of mistakes – from announcing that the U.S. would quit pressuring China on human rights violations to spending more time condemning the producer of the YouTube film supposedly responsible for the Benghazi attacks than the attackers themselves.

Even under the spotlight of congressional testimony, Attorney General Eric Holder refused to associate terrorism with radical Islam. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano prefers to avoid the word “terrorism” altogether, instead favoring the phrase “man-caused disasters.”

These are not serious people. And the figures likely to join or replace them in a second Obama term look to be more of the same. They are indictments of the judgment of the President himself, whose personnel decisions are symptomatic of a broader pathology: being consistently over matched by foreign policy.

The fish rots from the head. As long as Obama is in the Oval Office, don’t expect any improvements.

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A Petition To End The White House Petition Website

Lonely Conservative

Here’s one of the best petitions to hit the White House petition website yet.

"Shut down White House petitions, since they never get a sincere response, few read them, & they are ultimately worthless

Since the White House never actually responds to any petitions in sincerity (like letting the one man whose job it is to oppose marijuana to respond to the marijuana legalization initiative, or having the head of the TSA respond to why we can’t de-fund the TSA) we should immediately de-fund and dismantle the White House petition website.

In recent days it has become a mockery with petitions for secession from almost every state, and cities wishing to de-secede in such events.

We ask Barack Obama to admit that this is a mockery of democratic process and immediately dissolve this joke of a website."

But to the White House it’s not a joke, as William Teach pointed out.

"There are two points to the petition website: first is to tell people how super duper awesome Obama is. The second is to capture emails from liberals AND conservatives and send them thinly veiled campaign messages."

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Anderson Cooper Goes to Gaza to Report on Israel's Terrorist War on the Arab World

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I, Twinkie

By Luis Gonzalez

Many lost some, the belligerent few lost all, and all lost me.

I am a Twinkie. The classic variety of Twinkie familiar to generations of Americans with an affinity for an occasional sweet indulgence. I’m just that, a snack and not a meal, and I have never pretended otherwise; it is what I am, and I am satisfied with that.

I am writing my genealogy so that generations yet unborn may remember me. While my story lacks historical relevance, it does not lack for history or relevance. I am relevant in spite of the fact that for many years now I have been maligned and even ridiculed simply for fulfilling my purpose: satisfying an individual’s yearning for an occasional sweet indulgence.

At the surface, I appear rather dull and boring. I am not adorned by filigrees of syrups or encrusted in exotic nuts, my shape is rather uninteresting and unimaginative, and my flavor is a synonym for lacking flavor, yet I have been called upon to discharge duties worthy of pastries fit for Kings and Cardinals alike. I have provided comfort in those times when comfort can be derived from consumption; I have kept the secrets of some who wished to consume me without judgment. I have been both faithful friend and quiet co-conspirator.

I may appear simple to the eye lacking insight, and many claim to be able to imitate me, but if there is one thing that I can say with conviction it is that no one person can ever by themselves replicate me.

Perhaps you are surprised and my temerity. I am after all, just merely a Twinkie. But maybe you should not fall so fast victim to your innate sense of superiority; I am far more complex that you can possibly imagine. I don’t know that I can fully list the seemingly endless number of hands that helped shape the rather dull, uninspiring protagonist in this story, but perhaps if I mention enough of them you will see intricacy where now you just see a golden sponge cake with creamy filling.

My story begins many places, as I am born in many places......

Keep Reading.....

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Good Monday Morning

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Joe Biden to Sandy victims:

 

“And every time the rest of the country is in real trouble, New Jersey and Delaware and New York and Connecticut, et cetera, we respond, we respond. So as the president said when he was up here with the governor, we’re not going anywhere. We’re not going anywhere. And you’ve got a homeboy in the deal who gets it.” -  Washington Post

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