What's Wrong With This Picture...?

* In the midst of an economic catastrophe, the news people report the dress that the First Lady wore to last night's state dinner, for the Indian Prime Minister, required the labor of 40 people to produce. Talk about poor taste? See the next item. These people are the rich that should be taxed within an inch of their lives, not us.

* Last month, 550,000 Americans applied for unemployment benefits, and this month, another 466,000. According to our so-called leaders, this is 'good news', as the 'numbers show a slowing down of job loss', with the implication that eventually this train will come to a stop and throw itself into reverse of it's own accord (Would that be Joe Biden's beloved Amtrak train?). Three million jobs have been lost since the Porkulus Bill was rammed through Congress.

* All those 'Shovel-ready' projects in that Porkulus Bill apparently paid for non-existent Shovel-Ready projects in non-existent Congressional Districts, only proving that your government is Shovel-Ready, as if you required more proof. This government couldn't organize a gang-bang in a whorehouse, and it would waste a third of it's budget there, too.

* The Secretary of State attends the Inauguration of a Head of State (Hamid Karzai) that the State Department has all but accused of rigging an election. The diplomatic gaffes in recent months (joke 'reset' buttons, bowing before foreign monarchs, sending mixed signals to foes and allies alike) show a policy that is unsettled, unguided, and unsupported by underlying logic. We are trying to fight a war without antagonizing our enemies...somehow. We don't call Terrorism what it is (because apparently, that's mean to terrorists), instead calling it 'man-made-disaster'; which pretty much sums up this Administration. The President has dithered over a request from more troops for Ashcanistan for the last three months, after his own hand-picked general has said getting those troops within the next year is critical to the success of his mission. The President delays the decision for political reasons, and then denies the reason is political, then makes a great show of deciding to decide a date specific by which to decide.

* The dollar is tanking on fears that the U.S. Government will spend money that doesn't exist in this galaxy, the American President is lectured (repeatedly) on free-market economics by the Communist Chinese, Congress is routinely tossing the word 'trillion' about as if it were no big thing, the price of gold has shot through the roof on fears of hyper-inflation, and the President of the United States and his Party are trying to decide the best way to socialize the American health care system, and who gets band-aids and eyedrops and who doesn't when 85% of the population a) has insurance and b) is happy with it.

* The Attorney General and President of the United States declare that terrorists captured on foreign battlegrounds are entitled to a jury trial, where they may examine the evidence gathered against them, expose the methods used to gain it, the names of the people who were involved, and use the platform provided to rail against the United States and spew Al'Qeada propaganda. The Attorney General goes before Congress and cannot cite legal precedent for this, but assures everyone that a conviction is a foregone conclusion, thus handing any defense attorney worth his salt the basis for an appeal. The following day, the President, former Constitutional Lawyer and Editor of the Harvard Law Review tells the press in a television interview that the terrorists will be convicted and get the death penalty, for sure, further poisoning the potential jury pool and giving them grounds for appeal before the trial even begins. One begins to get the idea that perhaps this has been the plan all along, to create a technicality that allows these guys to skate on 3,000 counts of murder -- while the intelligence gathered and the means used to gather it, are exposed to the world. To say this smacks of the political is to understate the tragedy by an exponential factor.

* Senator Charles "Schmuck" Schumer has to go before Congress to beg for $75 million more dollars of borrowed-or-extorted-from-the-taxpayer money for the City of New York to provide security during a trial that a) should not be taking place, b) we don't want, and c) don't need -- except for the President's stupidity and ideological blindness. This is not about trying terrorists and showing the world the amazing American criminal justice system; it's about putting GWB and Dick Cheney on trial in absentia.

* The President of the United States has given Air Force One a world-class workout for no apparent reason or gain, while Congress passes Cap-and-Trade bills that if enacted, would destroy the world economy. The President has almost spent as much time out of Washington as he has within it, the worst instance being a trip to Asia to avoid having to answer questions about putting terrorists on trial and getting his picture taken before the Great Wall.

* The President of the United States uses the words "I", "Me", "Mine", "I'm" and all other variations of the personal pronoun so often that you'd think he was the only person on earth, and performs Herculean tasks while everyone else sits on their asses and watches. The narcissism on display, the preening, the peacockery, the inability to admit mistakes, the inability to give forthright answers to simple questions, the cluelessness, the aura of infallibility that surrounds the Anointed One (a facade maintained almost entirely by the Press and the White House Bubble team) are exactly some of the same sorts of behaviors George W. Bush was criticized for over an 8 year term. The difference is that Obama will never be called on it because he's a) black and b) a liberal, and the Press is still in orgasmic bliss over his 'historic' election. That they are also witnessing his historic downfall in full-view and slow-motion eludes them because anyone who bought the Obama Aura in the first place obviously had no brain. The Free Press is finally dead, a necessary pillar of a free society, and it doesn't seem to care.

* The Idea that Obama actually works on anything is belied by the amount of travel he does for no apparent reason or gain, and the fact that all the major pieces of legislation and policy initiatives of his short reign have come from the fertile imaginations of the House and Senate. So fertile are their ideas that they have bankrupted the country, and will do so for generations to come. Obama comes out of his cave to hold yet another press conference in which a lot of words are spoke, but nothing of substance is conveyed, and finishes with a de rigeur 'we have to get the deficit under control' -- and then goes back to hide in the White House, leaving Harry and Nancy to spend money like drunken sailors. If Barack Obama wants to be seen as Presidential, then Barack Obama had better wield his veto pen. Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid run this government -- Not Barack Obama. They are setting policy, while Barack Obama takes trips to nowhere, and holds endless meetings in which no decision on any subject is ever made, but a lot of really cool pictures get taken.

There's a lot to be Thankful for this week, as Americans, born in the greatest country in the solar system. There's an awful lot more to be worried about; we've elected a ruling class that is completely detached from the experiences of everyday people, and has no sense of propriety, proportion or personal responsibility. They show it more and more every day. When you sit down to give thanks for your turkey (perhaps your last one for a while given the state of the economy?), ask the Almighty to inflict a couple of strategically-placed strokes, perhaps a brain hemorrhage or two this holiday weekend, as the nation may not be able to wait until 2010 to start voting these assholes out of office.