Quick Takes: December 23, 2010

ITEM: Vice President Biden: The US will be out of Afghanistan by 2014 come “Hell or high water.” Achmed the Taliban in a cave: “Well OK. We’ll lay in supplies until then.”

ITEM: Vice President Biden: The Republicans forced us to extend the Bush tax cuts during the lame duck session. Republicans: “Hey, didn’t the Dems have the White House and majorities in both houses?”

ITEM: Vice President Biden recently declared that failing to tax everyone into oblivion is a moral issue. Oh, I get it: Being annoyed when people like Sheriff Joe forcibly take the money I earn to distribute it to their cronies and favored victim groups makes me immoral. Of course.

ITEM: Vice President Biden: “The President and I are space aliens.” OK. I made that one up, but how many of you thought “I knew it!”?

ITEM: During the 2008 campaign, Barack Obama visited all 57 states. Now comes Janet Napolitano, director of Homeland Security who assures us that the DHS is working 24/7/364 to protect Americans. I wonder if the Jihadists know which day DHS takes off? Napolitano is apparently off every day...maybe that’s not such a bad thing...

ITEM: During an ABC TV interview with Diane Sawyer on December 20, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper admitted that he knew nothing at all about the Dec. 20 arrests in England of 12 Islamist terrorists. The DNI had no idea. The man solely responsible for knowing everything about terrorism, and, you know, intelligence, had no idea. Oh well. He probably thinks his primary job is to install foot washing stations in public schools so no Muslim will feel unclean.

ITEM: President Obama and Environmental Protection Agency chief Lisa Jackson are poised to announce new, onerous emissions regulations on power plants and refineries within the next few days as a means of bypassing Congress. When even Al Gore is admitting that the Global Warming jig is up, apparently all you have left is bureaucrats and regulations. Some in Congress are threatening to cut off EPA funding. What’s the saying? I’ll believe it when I see it? That’s the one.

ITEM: In a June speech to something called the “Network of Spiritual Progressives,” America’s only Muslim member of Congress, Keith Ellison (D; Islam)
prayed that America’s borders would become “an irrelevancy.” He also observed that military strength does not provide security. What does, you ask? Are you sure you want to hear the answer? Don’t say I didn’t warn you: Only policies of “equity, generosity and engagement,” provide security. Hmmm. Hasn’t President Obama been engaging the Muslim world senseless for the last two years? And hasn’t that hopenchangy approach been, you know, a total failure? Perhaps we just haven’t been equitable and generous enough as yet...

ITEM: In a press conference on December 22, President Obama said: “And I think we are past the crisis point in the economy, but we now have to pivot and focus on jobs and growth. And my singular focus over the next two years is not rescuing the economy from potential disaster, but rather jumpstarting the economy so that we actually start making a dent in the unemployment rate and we are equipping ourselves so that we can compete in the 21st century.”

Hmm. Let’s review, shall we class? A number of states, including Illinois and California are bankrupt, but have yet to completely collapse, businesses are afraid to invest or hire because they know that whenever Mr. Obama’s lips are moving, he’s lying. Gas prices are rising, and Mr. Obama is trying to make good on his pre-election promise to ensure that energy prices “necessarily skyrocket” by doing a regulatory end run on Congress to protect us from the global warming that virtually no one outside of UN bureaucrats actually believes is occurring. And to top it all off, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has been making very pessimistic noises about the economy while simultaneously printing money as though it grows on trees. But Mr. Obama says the crisis is over, so I guess we just wait for his pivot. Oh wait. He’s vacationing in Hawaii and will, of course, be golfing as much as humanly possible. I bet he meant “divot.”

CODA: The good news is that after the mid term elections, America now has a chance to limit, perhaps even reverse some of the damage for the next two years.
And on that positive note, MERRY CHRISTMAS!