This may become a regular feature as the administration digs itself further and further into the dust bag of history. It is such a great thing that said bags can be emptied from time to time, and then we can go on about our business.
“So now, I gather, our only strategy is to hope the terrorists’ bombs keep fizzling. There’s no other line of defense. In the case of the Times Square car bomber, the Department of Homeland Security failed, the Immigration and Naturalization Service failed, the CIA failed and the TSA failed. (However, the Department of Alert T-Shirt Vendors came through with flying colors, as it always does.) Only the New York Police Department, a New York street vendor and Shahzad’s Rube Goldberg bomb (I do hope he’s not offended by how Jewish that sounds — Obama can apologize) prevented a major explosion in Times Square. Even after the NYPD de-wired the smoking car bomb, produced enough information to identify the bomb-maker, and handed it all to federal law enforcement authorities tied up in a bow, the federal government’s crack ‘no-fly’ list failed to stop Shahzad from boarding a plane to Dubai. To be fair, at Emirates Airlines, being on a ‘no-fly’ list makes you eligible for pre-boarding. Perhaps the Department of Homeland Security should consider creating a ‘Really, REALLY No-Fly’ list.” –columnist Ann Coulter
“There has been one high-profile violent incident perpetrated by a right-winger since Obama took office: the May 31, 2009 shooting of abortionist George Tiller. There have been a bevy of high-profile violent incidents by registered Democrats or liberals: the suicide airplane attack by Joseph Stack of Austin, Texas, against the IRS; the liberal who bit off the finger of an ObamaCare opponent in Thousand Oaks, Calif.; the murderous rampage by Obama-lover Amy Bishop at the University of Alabama; the beating of black man Kenneth Gladney by Service Employee International Union thugs in St. Louis; the Earth Liberation Front’s destruction of KRKO-AM’s radio towers in Seattle. None of these incidents by non-Muslim Americans were designed to create mass casualties among random Americans or members of the American military. All of the radical Muslim attacks were. Using rudimentary reasoning skills, it wouldn’t take long to hit on the hypothesis that perhaps the Times Square attempted bombing was linked to a radical Muslim. But we live in a country where rudimentary reasoning skills have been banned if they offend politically correct sensibilities. So our politicians suggest that tea partiers were behind the attempted bombing (that suggestion, not coincidentally, fits with President Obama’s attempts to label his domestic political opponents terrorists). They suggest that it could have been anybody — anybody! — behind the propane, gas and gunpowder. Meanwhile, they don’t place radical Muslim terrorists on no-fly lists. Only when the proof is indisputable do they finally confirm what everybody with half a brain suspected all along — and then they hope to get lucky.” –columnist Ben Shapiro
“Greece has cultural problems that contribute to its economic implosion. But there are similarities to the U.S. as well — and because we have elected Democrats, they are growing. By the end of 2011, Greece’s debt will be 150 percent of its GDP. According to a March report by the Congressional Budget Office, President Obama’s 2011 budget will generate nearly $10 trillion in cumulative budget deficits over the next 10 years — $1.2 trillion more than the administration projected — which will increase our debt to GDP ratio to 90 percent by 2020. One in three Greeks works for the government. Government employees enjoy higher wages, more munificent benefits, and earlier retirements than private sector employees. … Public sector unions are growing in the U.S. More than 50 percent of all union members are now public employees who have negotiated sweet deals with local, state, and federal governments. As economic historian John Steele Gordon points out, ‘Federal workers now earn, in wages and benefits, about twice what their private-sector equivalents get paid. State workers often have Cadillac health plans and retirement benefits far above the private sector average: 80 percent of public-sector workers have pension benefits, only 50 percent in the private sector. Many can retire at age 50.’ While private employers were shedding jobs during the recession, state and local governments hired 110,000 new workers. Obama’s new spending will result in a 14.5 percent increase in the number of federal employees in just two years. … And in a corrupt feedback loop that may not be so very different after all from the Greek practice, public employee unions give generously to Democratic candidates, both in cash contributions and by manning phone banks, getting out the vote, and so on. It’s no coincidence that the states with the most powerful public sector unions — New Jersey, California, and New York — are facing the most severe budget crises. Greece is in flames, but if you look around, you can smell the smoke here as well.” –columnist Mona Charen
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