What’s interesting in the news today?

Open Thread, what’ve ya’ got?

Here’s a few to start.

____________________________________________________

Remember folks, this is the same people charged with enforcing the border. If the new amnesty/immigration plan goes thru, DHS will decide when the border is secure. This is their idea of secure. But of course, it’s not.

From CNSNews

“The men and women charged with enforcing federal  immigration law are being prohibited from doing so by the Obama  administration, according to Chris Crane, president of the union that  represents officers and agents employed by the Department of Homeland  Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

“I think most Americans assume that ICE agents and officers are  empowered by the government to enforce the law,” Crane said on Wednesday  at Senate Judiciary Committee meeting on immigration reform. “Nothing  could be further from the truth.”

““If an alien is arrested by local police and placed in jail, again,  ICE agents may not arrest them for illegal entry or VISA overstay,”  Crane said. “New policies require that illegal aliens have a felony  arrest or conviction or be convicted of three or more misdemeanors.”

““ICE is crumbling from within,” Crane said. “Morale is at an all time  low as criminal aliens are released to the streets and ICE instead  takes disciplinary actions against its own officers for making lawful  arrests.”

____________________________________________________

I find this one odd . Notice he’s not worried about porn and all the other garbage out there. He’s only concerned because he was personally mocked. Free speech and press is OK, as long as you leave them alone. Don’t get me wrong, I agree with him that it’s vulgar. But why limit it to just stuff that photoshops porn? Why not go after all of it?

CONTENT WARNING!!!! Adult subject matter!!!!

From FoxNews

“A Georgia state lawmaker with an unconventional grasp of the First Amendment  is backing a bill that would make lewd photoshopping a crime punishable by a  $1,000 fine.

Rep. Earnest Smith pointed, as  proof of the problem, to a picture of his head that was recently edited  onto a pornstar’s body. That image was created by a blogger who used the image  to mock Smith.

The Augusta-based legislator said he was not worried the bill would step on  First Amendment rights.”

____________________________________________________

Sorry kids. I know it’s Spring Break and all, but the President needs you at school. It’s for the good of the country photo-op. 

From TheWashingtonExaminer

“President Obama, following his call for preschool for “every child in America,” will visit a pre-kindergarten class at College Heights Early Childhood Learning Center in Decatur, Georgia, this afternoon.

Ironically, the students are on spring break this week, according to the school’s website. But parents have been invited to bring their kids to school today for the president’s visit, according to a letter to parents obtained by CNN.“

Ego and props, nothing more. 🙄

____________________________________________________

The media couldn’t find much to say about the content of Rubio’s State of the Union Rebuttal I guess. (Even Fox played along with the stupidity) Why else would they focus on something so silly?

From HotAir

“Say thanks to Jeff Poor and the Daily Caller for enduring the Ludovico-ish process needed to tally these numbers. The “200 times” figure comes with an asterisk: Turns out Rachel Maddow alone accounted for more than half the replays by putting the clip of Rubio reaching for the water on a loop, tucked into a corner of the screen, for 13 minutes while she and Steve Kornacki were hashing out the particulars of his speech. (Seeing is believing.) Jon Stewart once chided her and MSNBC for beating the “teabagger” joke into the ground, but in hindsight he should be glad she never resorted to a push-button morning-zoo-style soundboard for the T-word. She’s always been touted as a more civil, substantive alternative to Olbermann, and in fairness this episode bears that out. If Olby were still on the air, he would have run the clip for the full hour.”

“What’s interesting about the Maddow segment is that she actually does engage with the specifics of Rubio’s speech yet still felt obliged to have the water clip running over and over onscreen, which ends up distracting from the commentary. But then, why limit yourself to convincing the viewer with your argument when you can condition them to view Rubio as a ridiculous figure with visual cues too? She might as well have skipped the clip and simply delivered her commentary over a flashing banner, “DO NOT TAKE MARCO RUBIO SERIOUSLY.””

Pathetic.

____________________________________________________

And again, about that nomination………

From HotAir

“He was one vote short. Republicans Cochran, Collins, and Johanns had all already committed to voting yes so the only mystery was whether Reid could find two more GOPers to cross the aisle. He found one: As expected, Murkowski ended up erring on the side of bipartisanship. Orrin Hatch voted present, which may or may not be his way of signaling that he’ll vote for Hagel when they try this again in a few weeks but not right now. But wait — what about Rand Paul? If ever there was a SecDef nominee whom the Ron Paul paleocon fan base could sort of dig, it’s a guy known for lamenting the “Israel lobby” and opposing Iran sanctions.”

“Philip Klein, tongue in cheek, calls him today’s neocon hero. Paul’s going to catch endless crap for this from his dad’s supporters so I assume he’s a soft “no” on Hagel, not a hard “no” like Ted Cruz, and will vote yes next time once Hagel/the White House fulfills whatever condition he’s set for switching. That would be in keeping with his M.O. lately in trying to triangulate between mainstream righties and Paulworld. He’ll vote for Hagel, but only after he’s voted against him. We’ll see.”

“Update: As expected, Rand’s got some triangulatin’ to do:

That explanation wasn’t good enough for Justin Raimondo, editorial director of Antiwar.com and a strong supporter of Ron Paul. “It’s time for libertarians to treat Rand Paul like the turncoat he is: boycott,” Raimondo tweeted. “No $$, no support, & start calling him Paul the Lesser.”…

🙄

____________________________________________________

What’s interesting in the news today?

See that. I knew if we waited long enough we’d find some redeeming quality in ObamaCare.

From NBCNews, who along with their comment posters, doesn’t seem real fond of it.

“Abortion opponents have found a new way to restrict access to abortion – by using the authority states have over the new health insurance exchanges, which will be up and running in a year.

At least 21 states have legislation in place or in the works that will stop health insurance companies from paying for abortions for women. Arkansas governor Mike Beebe signed the latest piece on Monday.”

____________________________________________________

Baghdad Bob Gibbs has finally finished making the obvious transition from Minister of Propaganda to consultant for America’s Pravda.

From NewsBusters

“Moments before Tuesday’s State of the Union address, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow  made a huge announcement.

As she introduced former Barack Obama senior campaign adviser/press  secretary Robert Gibbs, she said, “I am for the first time tonight able to  introduce you as an MSNBC contributor. Congratulations on that””

____________________________________________________

Shocking news from DHS. OK, not really. From TheDailyCaller

“In a response letter to four top Republican lawmakers, the Department of Homeland  Security revealed it initiated only one case against an immigrant for becoming a “public  charge,” or being primarily dependent upon the government, in fiscal year 2012.  The case was later withdrawn.

While the department’s response to Republican Sens. Jeff Sessions, Chuck  Grassley, Orrin Hatch and Pat Roberts’ August oversight request offered an overview of the  centuries-old federal public-charge restrictions,  it noticeably avoided several of the senators’ direct questions and  demonstrated potentially significant inadequacies in record-keeping by  immigration officials, who legally should be enforcing public-charge rules for  immigrants both inside and outside of the country.”

But we don’t need to worry, the new immigration amnesty will fix this I’m sure. Not.

____________________________________________________

Now that the fact-checkers have had a chance to check the SofUAddress, here’s a few on some of the Presidents assertions. And yes, they found much of it lacking.

HotAir does a fine job, with lots of links.

“After Barack Obama’s inaugural speech only mentioned the economy once and jobs just three times in a 2100-word address, the White House pronounced themselves shocked, shocked that anyone would have assumed that neither was a priority for Obama in his second term.  The White House promised that the State of the Union would focus more on jobs and growth, and at least rhetorically, they delivered.  The speech contains 32 mentions of the word “jobs,” and six mentions of “growth,” although one of those references was a claim that ObamaCare was already “helping to slow the growth of health care costs.”

Factually, though, Obama still hasn’t improved.  Instead, he continued his same cherry-picking ways of calculating job growth during his four years in office, and the Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler was among the first to notice it.  Obama used — as he has done for more than two years now — a baseline of February 2010 to calculate jobs growth during his administration, which ignores the first 13 months of his presidency and the first 12 months of his supposed “stimulus” bill.  That led to some dishonest claims in the SOTU:”

____________________________________________________

Even the AP agrees. From Yahoo

“President Barack Obama did some cherry-picking Tuesday night in defense of his record on jobs and laid out a conditional path to citizenship for illegal immigrants that may be less onerous than he made it sound.”

“OBAMA: “We have doubled the distance our cars will go on a gallon of gas.”

THE FACTS: Not so fast.

That’s expected to happen in 12 more years.”

____________________________________________________

Townhall has 10 key quotes, and why they should be questioned.

“(1) The sequester:

We are more than halfway towards the goal of $4 trillion in deficit reduction that economists say we need to stabilize our finances. Now we need to finish the job. And the question is: How? In 2011, Congress passed a law saying that if both parties couldn’t agree on a plan to reach our deficit goal, about a trillion dollars’ worth of budget cuts would automatically go into effect this year. These sudden, harsh, arbitrary cuts would jeopardize our military readiness, they’d devastate priorities like education and energy and medical research. They would certainly slow our recovery and cost us hundreds of thousands of jobs. And that’s why Democrats, Republicans, business leaders, and economists have already said that these cuts — known here in Washington as “the sequester” — are a really bad idea.

Though he tries to drop the sequester into Congress’ lap, it is simply a fact that this package of automatic spending cuts was conceptualized and proposed by the White House.  President Obama signed it into law as part of 2011’s debt deal — and yet the spending reductions are still lingering, unrealized.  The president has been all over the map on this issue, threatening to veto any attempt to replace the cuts, then averring that the cuts “will not happen.”  Obama now insists that some of the already agreed-to cuts be replaced with additional tax increases, which is unacceptable.  He has not offered his own specific plan about how to undo the sequester.”

____________________________________________________

And HumanEvents asks a good question. I’m guessing no, he doesn’t.

“Does Obama Have Any Idea Why New Deal Failed?”

“The Great Depression dominated the 1930s, in large part because President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal programs failed to create jobs.  In May 1939, shortly after learning that unemployment stood at 20.7%, Henry Morgenthau, the secretary of the Treasury, exploded:  “We have tried spending money.  We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work.”  Morgenthau concluded, “I say after eight years of this administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started.  . . .  And an enormous debt to boot!””

“President Obama publicly admires and tries to emulate FDR.  And Obama is experiencing two of FDR’s problems: expensive new programs that don’t work, and discouraged entrepreneurs who are saddled with much of the bill for taxes and new regulations.”

____________________________________________________

What’s interesting in the news today?

I guess I’ll lead with the obvious…..

____________________________________________________

And the Winner is……….

Best In Show, Banana Joe, the affenpinscher!  🙂

I want one! 🙂

OK, not really. But he is sooooo cute!

Now that’s a man’s dog. Reminded me of my black fuzzy Pekingese. He was a good dog too.

From TheTimesDispatch

“Banana Joe is America’s top dog.

The affenpinscher with the monkeylike face and wagging tail was picked as best in show Tuesday night at the Westminster Kennel Club.

The 5-year-old earned his 86th best in show, a day before he was set to fly back to the Netherlands with his owner.”

____________________________________________________

What? You didn’t actually think I meant the State of the Union did you? Please, we’ve all seen these campaign speeches of his before. That’s about all it was, props and all. But since the President lead off with touting our supposedly rebounding economy, so will I. While this guy might be a bit too much doom and gloom, he actually makes his case for why it’s not rebounding, unlike the President who just spouts talking points.

From ZeroHedge

“As I have said so many times, the economic collapse is not a single event.  The economic collapse has been happening, it is is happening right now, and it will continue to happen.  Yes, there will be times when our decline will be punctuated by moments of great crisis, but that will be the exception rather than the rule.  A lot of people that write about “the economic collapse” hype it up as if it will be some huge “event” that will happen very rapidly and then once it is all over we will rebuild.  Unfortunately, that is not how the real world works.

We are living in the greatest debt bubble in the history of the world, and once it completely bursts there will be no going back to how things were before.  Right now, we are living in a “credit card economy”.  As long as we can keep borrowing more money, most people think that things are just fine.  But anyone that has lived on credit cards knows that eventually there comes a point when the game is over, and we are rapidly approaching that point as a nation.”

“According to Boston University economist Laurence Kotlikoff, the U.S. government is facing a “present value difference between projected future spending and revenue” of 222 trillion dollars in the years ahead.”

And also keep in mind….

From CNSNews

“Since taking office in 2009, food stamp rolls  under President Barack Obama have risen to more than 47 million people  in America, exceeding the population of Spain.”

“Furthermore, between January 2009 and November 2012 the food stamp program added approximately an average 11,269 recipients per day.”

____________________________________________________

The full text of the State of the Union Address is here, from TheWashingtonExaminer

____________________________________________________

One of the things I dislike most about the speech is the human props. They were there for photo ops and optics, so he could push his gun agenda. The mother of the singer at his Inauguration, Sandy Hook families, and other victims surviving family. I get the idea of honoring them with an invitation. I have no problem with that. But too often, once the cameras are gone and it slips in importance due to the next crisis showing up, these people get forgotten. We saw it with Sandy victims. And we see it in this case as well. This doesn’t fit his agenda. This raises too many troubling questions about his policies and leadership. So these folks got forgotten.

From ABCNews

“Three years after the White House arranged a hero’s welcome at the State of the Union address for the Fort Hood police sergeant and her partner who stopped the deadly shooting there, Kimberly Munley says President Obama broke the promise he made to her that the victims would be well taken care of.

“Betrayed is a good word,” former Sgt. Munley told ABC News in a tearful interview to be broadcast tonight on “World News with Diane Sawyer” and “Nightline.”

“Not to the least little bit have the victims been taken care of,” she said. “In fact they’ve been neglected.””

“Despite extensive evidence that Hasan was in communication with al Qaeda leader Anwar al-Awlaki prior to the attack, the military has denied the victims a Purple Heart and is treating the incident as “workplace violence” instead of “combat related” or terrorism.”

____________________________________________________

Rubio’s response is here

And Rand Paul’s Tea Party response is here

____________________________________________________

And the manhunt for Christopher Dorner has ended.

From MSNNews

” A charred body has been recovered from a burned out cabin in the mountains above Los Angeles following a gun fight between police and a suspect believed to be a fugitive ex-cop, a Los Angeles Police spokeswoman said.

San Bernardino County sheriff’s spokeswoman Jodi Miller confirmed that remains had been found, with several news organizations reporting that the body is like to be that of former 33-year-old Los Angeles police officer Christopher Dorner.”

“A warden for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife traveling down Highway 38 recognized a man who fit Dorner’s description traveling in the opposite direction. The officer pursued the vehicle and there was a shooting at 12:42 p.m. in which the wildlife vehicle was hit numerous times and the suspect escaped on foot after crashing his truck.

After holing up in the cabin, there was a second gunbattle with San Bernardino County deputies, two of whom were shot. One died and the other was expected to live after undergoing surgery.”

____________________________________________________