(Politico) The issue of race and American politics, never far beneath the surface during Barack Obama’s historic 2008 campaign, is making a loud, overt and surprisingly early appearance in the 2012 presidential race.

And no one knows — least of all Obama himself — what impact the race card, always a wild card, will have on the president’s reelection prospects.

I’ll suggest it backfires, particularly if Team Obama and their sycophants attack Romney’s Mormonism.

In the past several months, Newt Gingrich has drawn sharp criticism for labeling Obama the “food stamp president” and for suggesting poor kids in New York’s majority-minority school system burnish their work ethic by picking up mops. First lady Michelle Obama bridled at the perception that she’s an “angry black woman.” Obama’s Chicago-based campaign has pushed back against stories that he’s more or less given up on the white vote.

Except, Newt wasn’t just talking about Black people: the majority of food stamp recipients are Caucasian. Michelle Obama is the one who brought up the angry black woman thing in order to create racial division. And Team Obama was the one who said they had given up on the white vote.

But nothing has illustrated the potentially explosive political impact of race — an issue that Obama has downplayed throughout his career — like the firestorm around the image of Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer wagging her finger at the first black president of the United States.

If there were any illusion that 2012 would be the post-racial election most Americans hoped for, it vanished with that single shake of a finger and 30 seconds of sniping lost to history in the turbine roar of Air Force One.

Got that? The duly elected Governor of Arizona, Jan Brewer, is an evil racist simply because she wagged her finger in the face of a disrespectful half-black President. By that definition, we could call Obama a sexist, since he was disrespectful to Brewer and walked away.

But, what else does Obama have to run on? He certainly can’t run on his record. He doesn’t like to talk about his signature legislation, the Stimulus and Obamacare. He can play with the economic numbers all he wants, but people are hurting, and things are not getting better. The housing industry is still a major mess. Real world prices are rising. Disposable income is very low. Consumer confidence is low. There are historic numbers of people who have given up on the job market. The recession supposedly ended in June, 2009, yet, here in 2012, nothing seems to have changed.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.

Presidente Obama es muy importante. He must be. He travels like a South American Dictator instead of a president of a democratic nation. Sacrifice is so for the little people, ya know?

Let’s take the latest of his many, many vacations. His lovely wife, Michelle, had the government fly her via helicopter and a government jet to their rented vacation estate at Martha’s Vineyard ahead of time so that she could luxuriate for a little longer. Bad enough, of course, as she could have just waited until hubby Barack was ready to go.

But el Presidente Obama upped her by taking TWO helicopters AND Air Force One to make the 500 mile journey.

But that is obviously not his only travel indulgences. This “well deserved” vacation comes right on the heels of his Midwest misery tour during which el presidente rode in a multimillion dollar motorcade in Canadian-made busses, dozens of cars and SUVs and hundreds of Secret Service and support personnel costing the taxpayers a pretty penny.

The bus Obama traveled in was a $1.1 million vehicle made in Canada. He had two of these buses with him, so the cost to the taxpayer was $2.2 million just to purchase the vehicles.

This doesn’t count the millions it cost to transport all his Secret Service and support staff, feeding and caring for them, and the many thousands of overtime man hours that was incurred by the many towns and cities Obama visited, costs all borne by the taxpayer.

Worse, this is little else but an Obama re-election campaign trip, yet the American people was forced to pick up the tab for this wasted millions.

Michelle herself is also a bottomless pit of travel expense for the American people. This latest trip where she went early cost the taxpayers thousands and last December Michelle’s expenses likely topped $100,000 for her Hawaii vacation.

But this is nothing new for el Presidente Obama. Let us recall el Heffe Obama’s nearly $200,000 “Date night” from 2009 when he “surprised” Michelle with a trip to New York’s Broadway.

In fact, this imperial president and his brood has been racking up millions in travel expenses, luxurious vacations, and overseas trips since the day he waltzed into the White House.

What happened to all that “sacrifice” he keeps talking about? It’s just another for thee and not for me Obamaism.

Since the early days of Barack Obama’s run for the presidency, you know, right after he became Senator Obama in 2006, he’s been slighting the media in ways small and large. And since 2006 the media has been complaining about his sleights. Even this week the Old Media has been found whining about getting the back of Obama’s hand. And yet, that same media, treated like an abused wife, comes back for more with love in their eyes.

Obama has ignored reporters, he’s refused to engage in friendly patter, he’s remained aloof and distant, he’s banned some, had folks in his administration ban others, he’s blocked them, he’s excluded them in favor of his own “reporters,” he’s smart-mouthed them and given them short shrift, and he’s done his level best to so control the message that the press corps ends up having less access than they have had with other presidents.

And yet, the media is so pliant and subservient to The One and family that even wife Michelle recently thanked the in-the-tank media for its constant “helping” of the Obamas.

Still, the media has complained of the treatment they’ve received at Obama’s hands. This week we see the carping emanating from Politico’s On the Media blog. As it happens, Obama stiffed the White House Press Corps once again as far as many reporters are concerned.

The journalists were annoyed that Obama gave a speech in the East Room but treated it under the accepted rules as if it were a speech emanating from the Oval Office. The reason this is a big deal is because the speeches made in the Oval Office are limited press access.

Consequently, Obama limited the press access to this particular speech and excluded many of the journalists from the full press pool for the speech. As the AP complained, “Some reporters complained that this amounted to less access and that there was little chance of distraction in the East Room, the largest room in the building. The White House refused to change the ground rules.”

So, once again we see Obama trying to limit press access as much as possible to the consternation of the press. As I said, though, this has not been the only time the press has whined about access to Obama or how he treated them.

• In Sept. of 2008, Time Magazine felt that Obama’s aloofness might not make him such a good leader (seems they were right, too).
• In August of 2008 Obama’s campaign tried to shut down a Chicago WGN radio show.
• In October of 2008, the LA Times worried that Obama was so aloof from the press during the campaign that journalists never got to know the candidate.
• By December of 2008, Obama had been so distant from the press that CNN began complaining that “we barely know” Obama.
• In Jan. 2009 the Chicago Sun-Times was shut out by President Obama.
• Also in January of 2009 the Associated Press was complaining that Obama ruled the media with an iron fist.
• In May of 2009, ABCs Jake Tapper reported that Obama shut out the press and used his own “reporters” at one time.
• Obama also slighted members of the press during his 2009 Christmas party.
• In May of 2010, the press had become annoyed that Obama was avoiding the press and not having a “real press conference” in months.
• In March of 2011, VP Biden’s staff, taking a cue from their bosses boss, locked a journalist in a closet to keep him from reporting on the doings at a dinner party.

There have been others, of course, but this will suffice to show a pattern.

Yet despite all this mistreatment, the folks in the Old Media wag their tail whenever Obama’s calls for them. Now, imagine how perpetually agitated they’d be if Obama were a Republican president treating them as Obama has? They’d be slipping in barbs and attacks in every story, of course. It would be a never ending tale of woe. Worse, the press would be extrapolating about how bad a president it would be, how un-American, how hateful of transparency and openness that such a president would be. And yet, they constantly give Obama a pass with but a little whining.

Ah, but we don’t want to ruin the slavish devotion the press has for their Obammessiah, do we?

While Rep. Michelle Bachmann, R-Minn., has forcefully denounced the Medicaid program for swelling the “welfare rolls,” the mental health clinic run by her husband has been collecting annual Medicaid payments totaling over $137,000 for the treatment of patients since 2005, according to new figures obtained by NBC News.

The previously unreported payments are on top of the $24,000 in federal and state funds that Bachmann & Associates, the clinic founded by Marcus Bachmann, a clinical therapist, received in recent years under a state grant to train its employees, state records show. The figures were provided to NBC News in response to a Freedom of Information request.

The clinic, based in Lake Elmo, Minn., describes itself on its website as offering “quality Christian counseling” for a large number of mental health problems ranging from “anger management” to addictions and eating disorders.

So, was he simply supposed to turn those patients away? Of course, this is supposed to show some sort of massive hypocrisy…essentially, the Palinization continues.

“She’s giving hypocrisy a bad name,” said Ron Pollock, executive director of Families USA, a consumer health care advocacy group, when asked about the Medicaid payments to Bachmann & Associates. “It’s clear when it feathers her nest she’s happy for Medicaid expenditures. But people that really need it — folks with disabilities and seniors — she’s turning their backs on them.”

Um, no. What Bachmann wants to do is reform the Medicaid and Medicare systems so that they can operate efficiently and without worrying about sucking down huge and ever increasing portions of the Federal budget. She also has stated that she wants to “wean people (not already in the system) off of Medicare and Medicaid.” But, she wants to take care of the people already in the system. She understands that the government has already made promises to those people.

Anyhow, I’m still waiting for the MSM to investigate candidate Obama’s wife’s position and big pay raise at the University of Chicago.

On a separate note, I’ve been loathe to put the attacks on Bachmann as linked to any sort of sexism. I’m still rather reluctant, but, consider: Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, Sharon Angle, Meg Whitman, Christine O’Donnell, Linda McMahon. These are all strong women running for positions of power, yet, all attacked beyond anything a male would be attacked on. Highly personal attacks, and not just coming from the Left. These attacks, or just plain dismissals, come from the Republican establishment and squishy Republicans. They tell us they don’t agree with them politically, yet, cannot say why, and rarely focus on actual policies, just personal attacks. They are called crazy, flakes, nuts, extremists, yet, their positions tend to be just as conservative, if not more, than many male candidates.

Personally, I’d rather have an elected lawmaker who says “I’m not a witch” or makes some harmless gaffes, may be a bit wacky, but is a competent public official who can Get Things Done, versus a lawmaker who compares our troops to Nazis or, say, someone who tries to fundamentally transform this country into Greece.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.

“A host on the Fox Business network—criticized last month for suggesting President Obama was “chugging 40’s” during his trip to Europe—is facing allegations of racism after referring to the White House as the “Hizzouse,” “Hizzy” and “The Big Crib,” and guests of the administration as “hoods.”

Eric Bolling, who hosts Fox Business’ “Follow the Money,” criticized Obama for inviting Gabon’s president Ali Bongo at the White House this week, a month after the Fox News-fueled controversy over Common’s invitation to perform at First Lady Michelle Obama’s poetry event.

“So what’s with all the hoods in the Hizzy?” Bolling asked on his show on Friday. “A month after the White House hosted the rapper Common, who glorifies violence on cops, the president opened his doors to one of Africa’s most evil dictators.”

“The Bongo family has extorted billions in oil money from his nation … meanwhile 1/3 of Gabon lives on $2 per day,” Bolling wrote on Twitter. “And I’m a racist!”

Source

I gather that “chugging 40s” refers to drinking strong liquor. How is that a racist accusation? Or are the Left saying that only blacks drink spirits? I must be a black at that rate.

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don’t forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me here

Incidentally, the 1950s picture here of Obama’s mother should remind us that his mother was no normal modest Midwestern girl of the times so his genetics are not the best either from his mother’s or his philandering father’s side. Snopes has done an unusually poor job (even for it) of saying the photo of Mrs Soetoro is in fact of someone else but have a look at the lady they think is in the photo. Most unconvincing. Genetics are a powerful determinant of behavior so, although scandalous, the suggestion about Obama’s sexuality below is not implausible

As an IRS tax examiner,one of many former federal jobs, I have seen what it appears Barry Soetoro has done, mostly by illegal aliens attempting to acquire a new identity in the U.S and/or criminals looking to acquire a new ID.

Barry, AKA Obama, was lawfully adopted by a foreign national, Lolo Soetoro, and Barry’s name was legally changed to “Barry Soetoro”. (Barry’s own admission) Barry Soetoro was also made an official legal Indonesian citizen. (again Barry’s own admission) The adoption would be noted in Barry’s vital statistics record in Hawaii on his original birth certificate…

OR Lolo Soetoro may have always been Barry’s legal birth father. The public does not know for sure at this point who Barry’s father really was and Barry himself may not know.

Barry was raised as a Muslim in Indonesia and attended a Catholic funded school that permitted all faiths to attend.

Barry’s mother dropped him as a dependant for some reason, maybe even when Barry was adopted by Lolo Soetoro. His mother’s passport records dropped Barry as a dependent indicating Barry was no longer a legal dependent of his mothers. (The passport records of his mother have been produced showing Barry was no longer a dependent when Barry was permanently residing in Indonesia.) Barry went to Hawaii to live with his alleged grand parents after Lolo Soetoro and Barry’s mother divorced.

A “certificate of live birth” can have names changed on it including a child’s birth name, and birth parent’s names. Even a modified date of birth can be on a “certificate of live birth”. This occurs frequently for adopted children where the birth parent does not want the child to know who they are. The public has no idea who Barry’s real birth father is or who Barry’s real birth mother is. (Barry could have been adopted by his mother) The original birth certificate is the only legal vital statistics record of a person’s birth parents, birth location, birth date, etc… I can get a “certificate of live birth” for a dead person; I cannot get a birth certificate of a dead person without “Deceased” on it. (I’ve tried)

There is no evidence Barry Soetoro ever lawfully changed his name to “Barrack Hussein Obama”. There is no proof Barry Soetoro was born with the name “Barrack Hussein Obama”. I’m willing to bet the name “Barrack Hussein Obama” is not present on the real birth certificate as Barry’s birth name or as Barry’s birth father. I have pictures of me with my mother and Jimmy Buffet… that doesn’t make him my father even if I start using the name Jimmy Buffet.

The public knows Barry Soetoro finished high school in Hawaii as Barry Soetoro and attended Occidental as Barry Soetoro where he did drugs and flunked out of school. After dropping out of Occidental, Barry showed up in New York, homeless and on drugs. (Barry’s own admission) Barry then hooked up with a Pakistani to live with and traveled back to Indonesia on his new boyfriend’s dime to renew his Indonesian passport and traveled to Pakistan with him.

Ask any law enforcement officer in a large city or detective and they will tell you homeless young men on drugs in large cities usually end up as male prostitutes. Barry ended up as a world traveler with a degree… (Not likely)

Barry Soetoro returned to New York from Pakistan and began using the fictitious name “Obama” for some reason. (again Barry Soetoro’s own admission) One could only suspect that a person addicted to drugs returning from Pakistan to New York, the main route for Afghan heroin into the U.S., maybe Barry had a reason to start using a new name. There are literally over 1 million open warrants on file in New York… maybe Barry is one of them?….

After spending some time in New York allegedly working under the name “Obama”, It appears Barry used the fictitious name “Barrack Hussein Obama” for the first time to file his federal taxes in Connecticut at a Post Office Box for the purpose of evading paying taxes in New York and /or to establish a new identity. (This is a felony with no statute of limitation.)

When the IRS received Barry Soetoro’s federal tax filing, the IRS could not attach the name Barrack Hussein Obama to the SSI number provided or the address provided. So the IRS assigned the fictitious name “Barrack Hussein Obama” a tax ID number for a person from Connecticut (Where Barry unlawfully filed a federal tax form using a false name). Barry Soetoro began using the tax ID number as his SSI number when using the fictitious name Barrack Obama. This is why Barry Soetoro has a Connecticut SSI number. When I worked for the IRS, I saw this occur more than once and yes, it is a felony to knowingly file a fraudulent federal tax form. Most of the politicians that cheat on their taxes claim it was an accident. That is how they get away with their tax cheat crimes. Using a fake name is no accident.

It appears Barry fled New York to Chicago using his new identity to get a job . He likely ordered a fake diploma to bolster his new identity as “Obama”. Fake Diploma’s were very big in the 80’s and diploma mills were even being used by federal workers to get promotions. There is evidence his alleged attendance at Columbia was faked (Barry never attended Columbia) and Barry lied his way into Harvard (he had no transcripts to get in)… Including telling the Saudi royal family he was fighting in Afghanistan with the Muslim Jihad against the Russians, so they would help him get into a law school.

The Saudi’s apparently loved Barry’s story of Jihad in Pakistan/Afghanistan and paid for Barry to attend Harvard under the name “Obama”. The Saudi family has admitted to paying for Obama to attend Harvard and gave Harvard a gift of $20 million dollars. Harvard in turn made their special attendy President of the law review a person that never wrote a single law review…. I guess that is what $20 million buys at Harvard.

It is unlikely Barry was a Jihadist and was most likely a drug mule if anything, maybe even a CIA street hire to haul Afghan heroin back to New York, so the Afghans could buy U.S. made stinger missiles with U.S. dollars to shoot down Russian helicopters?… I hired people over seas to do work below my pay grade all the time, even foreign nationals… I think this is the story Barry told the Saudi’s, but he was most likely really just a drug mule/dealer and probably still wanted on an outstanding warrant in New York.

Barry’s selective service registration is not normal either.

After I looked at Barry’s selective service filing I noticed it was most likely fraudulent too based on the name he used. Barry did not start using the name “Obama” until he returned from Pakistan (long after he flunked out of school in California) His selective service record (maintained in Chicago coincidentally) shows he registered at a Hawaiian post office as “Obama” in Sept 1980… Problem, Barry was getting high in California at Occidental in Sept 1980 (Barry’s own admission) and was not using the fictitious name “Obama” at that time. Barry began using the fictitious name “Obama” only after he returned from Pakistan. The selective service filing is fraudulent.

Barry returned to Chicago and attended a semi-christian radical black church with his first female love Michelle. Barry admits keeping in touch with Phil Boener, who traveled to New York from Occidental to be with Barry and was most likely Barry’s first love.

Barry still could not get a real job, because he was still a fraud, even with his Harvard degree in hand he could lie and take the Bar exam, but he could not work as a lawyer for a major law firm without a back ground investigation and he would never pass one. So, Michelle got Barry a job at her law firm. Barry never filed a case alone and never filed a motion. He wrote lots of memos according to the law firm where Barry worked. (I think they know Barry is a fraud and don’t want to be sued by previous clients) Barry rescinded his law licenses, so as not to be disbarred for fraud. The Bar knows Barry lied on his application. Michelle also had to turn over her law license for her involvement in corruption with the Chicago mayors office.

SOURCE

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don’t forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me here

President Barack Obama’s now concluding trip to India seems to have turned out to be a failed or at the very least unhelpful effort. His false starts, unhelpful comments and bad policy moves mark this visit as a bit of a mess.

Obama made multiple gaffes not only for India but for his own party back home not to mention his nation. As his political party was delivered a severe blow and his agenda was cut off at the knees on election day he was seen dancing happily all across the continent with a lavish visit paid for at the taxpayer’s expense even as those same taxpayers were enraged at wild government spending sprees. As the Indians worried over Obama’s foreign policy he refused to call those that attacked them in Mumbai, terrorists, and finally on his exit from the country he delivered yet another one of his digs at his own country saying that America is a nation in decline.

Things began going wrong for The One even as he first arrived in one of the most vibrant nations on earth. For one thing he arrived a lesser president than when he originally set up the trip. His party was delivered a stunning and historic blow as the GOP picked up over 60 seats in the federal seat of power and hundreds more in the state legislatures in the Nov. 2 election, a feat that hasn’t been repeated since WWII. So Obama arrived with his mandate splintered and his power diminished. He is a president with less power to help his Indian hosts do anything.

Obama started by losing style points. Before he even arrived India’s political class was stunned to find out that this man that supposedly has a well known reputation for being an eloquent speaker was going to use teleprompters in his speeches in their country. This was quixotic and hard for the Indians to understand as their tradition of oratory is based on memorized speeches delivered with panache and the sort of apparent extemporaneous qualities that a canned speech from a teleprompter lacks. Right off the top this fact made Obama seem a smaller man to the Indians.

His party’s losses back home and the suspicion over his capabilities at oratory in India should have been a cue for a serious and subdued visit to India. But Obama and his high-flying wife seemed to have no clue that they should have adopted a more careful demeanor on the visit. They were seen dancing across the continent as if they didn’t have a care in the world and Mrs. Obama went on another one of her epic spending shopping sprees to boot. The frivolity, though, was the least of the problems with this visit.

Another, more damaging gaffe occurred as the president visited the city of Mumbai. His address there was a failure of resolve and an insult to the victims and families that suffered at the hands of Pakistani terrorists in the 2008 attack that saw some 175 people murdered. Not only did Obama refuse to identify the attackers as Pakistani nationals — and all of them were such — but he called them “killers” instead of terrorists. This caused some consternation in India.

It caused such concern that even a young Indian teenager asked the president why he refuses to identify Pakistan as a terrorist sponsoring nation? Alarmingly, instead of giving a serious answer to her question, Obama delivered platitudes saying, “India and Pakistan can prosper and live side by side, this will not happen tomorrow but needs to be the ultimate goal. The US can be a partner but cannot impose this process. India and Pakistan have their own understanding.”

This weak answer shows a lack of spine for fighting terrorism and a refusal to even identify the enemy to civilization.

Finally he ended this gaffe filled trip by once again dealing his own nation a rhetorical slap in the face. Obama told one of his last Indian audiences that the U.S. was a nation in decline and could no longer act as the powerful force it has been for so long.

Speaking at a town hall meeting in Mumbai, he said, “I do think that one of the challenges that we are going face in the US, at a time when we are still recovering from the financial crisis is, how do we respond to some of the challenges of globalisation? The fact of the matter is that for most of my lifetime and I’ll turn 50 next year – the US was such an enormously dominant economic power, we were such a large market, our industry, our technology, our manufacturing was so significant that we always met the rest of the world economically on our terms. And now because of the incredible rise of India and China and Brazil and other countries, the US remains the largest economy and the largest market, but there is real competition.”

As bad as it all was, at least this trip was a step up from the low lights of how Obama treated India thus far in his presidency. When Obama first took office, for instance, he made a major gaffe in immediately phoning the leader of Pakistan to introduce himself as the new American president while he didn’t call the Indian Prime Minister at all. Obama followed that up by slighting India again and again. His India policy until now has been at best to ignore one of our hardest earned trading partners and at worst repeatedly slight them.

Whether Obama realizes it or not, though, India is an important ally in a part of the world dominated by China and an ally that the U.S. badly needs to counter that growing Chinese hegemony. Sadly, now that Obama may have finally realized that India is a valued partner with the U.S., his visit hardly helped cement that relationship. Only time will tell if this trip helped, hurt, or was immaterial to relations between America and India. The evidence so far is that it didn’t much help.

(Originally posted at BigGovernment.com)

Forbes has published its world’s most powerful women list and on that list, in the top slot no less, is Michelle Obama, the wife of the President of the United States of America. Along with Obama a few singers and entertainers made the list. It all goes to prove that apparently no one knows what “powerful” means anymore.

On the most powerful list – after Obama at number one — Lady Gaga comes in at seventh place, in ninth singer Beyonce Knowles appears, and bringing up the rear is entertainer Ellen DeGeneres. Oprah Winfrey makes it in as number three.

There is no reason that any of these women (well, I’ll give you Oprah) belong on a “most powerful women” list — or a most powerful anybody list, for that matter.

Michelle Obama has no power at all. She was not elected by the people to anything, she holds no office, and has no real responsibilities past tradition. She is but the wife of an elected official. Sure she has the power, such as it is, to waste millions of the taxpayer’s money on new decorations and lavish trips abroad, but that is not much to qualify for a “powerful” woman. She controls no corporation, guides no country, and has contributed nothing of great worth to mankind.

For her part, Lady Gaga doesn’t even seem to have the power to have people recognize her by her own real name, much less have any actual power to affect the world. It is likely that in a year or two no one will even remember her.

And Beyonce and DeGeneres are but simple entertainers with no redeeming, long-term value from their efforts.

As I said I’ll give you Oprah. Even though she is only an entertainer and entertainers aren’t really consequential people, Oprah could at least qualify for this list. This is because she has used her great success and extreme riches to help many people and have gone some way toward having changed people’s lives. None of the other four have done this at all. They are mere singers and dancers.

But with these four women taking up slots on a most powerful list we can see that people today seem to have lost all touch with just what power truly means. Power is not inducing people to go buy a CD or download an i-tune. Power is the ability to direct great forces, employ great wealth for benevolence or ill, or to direct the actions of nations.

Ellen DeGenerous is not a truly powerful woman. Beyonce may be able to do a nice little dance, but she is not a woman of great influence. And Lady Gaga is most certainly nothing worth notice.

Sadly, this Forbes list is a dumbing down of power for a dumbed down generation.

Taking her campaign against obesity before the Congressional Black Caucus, First Lady Michelle Obama said childhood obesity had become a national epidemic and was particularly bad in black communities.

Obama drew laughter from the black legislators in D.C. when she said, “We all need to start making some changes to how our families eat. Now, everyone loves a good Sunday dinner. Me included. And there’s nothing wrong with that. The problem is when we eat Sunday dinner Monday through Saturday.” (Her full speech text is below.)

This came

A day after Obama called on the National Restaurant Assn. for drastic changes in …

… the contents, food preparation and menus of its establishments to facilitate a radical reformation of eating habits, even if that meant less business……

Anyone think that a fancy dinner wasn’t served (though, really, they always taste similar to fancy cardboard at these types of big events)? Or how about at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute’s 33rd Annual Awards Gala at the Washington Convention Center, which the Obama’s attended on Wednesday? What kind of foods were served at the Blumenthal and DNC events PBO attended Thursday? How about at the CBC gala on Saturday, where Obama will give a speech? I wonder what the food was like during the Obama’s numerous vacations, as well as Michelle’s opulent Spain jaunt? Or all the other ritzy parties at the White House?

Let’s face it, Michelle actually does have a good idea in decreasing obesity, especially in children. Yet, she herself acts like a typical liberal hypocrite, following the “do as I say (and legislate and require), not as I do” model. Michelle is probably thrilled that chocolate milk has been banned in many schools, including at all public schools in D.C. and Virginia’s Fairfax county.

President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama have a packed social schedule this week, with two major galas and a reception for college athletes.

On Wednesday the First Couple will don black tie for the annual Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute gala, one of the more entertaining political galas of the Washington fall season.

Hopefully the Obamas get some rest Thursday or Friday, because they will be back in formalwear on Saturday night for the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s (CBCF) annual Phoenix Awards dinner. The dinner will mark the culmination of the foundation’s 40th Annual Legislative Conference.

Also mentioned in the story was a reception for collegiate athletes on Monday, which shouldn’t be a problem for anyone. But, I doubt Obama will get much rest on Thursday, as he travels to Connecticut for DNC and Richard Blumenthal campaign events. Finally, on Friday, he actually has meetings at the White House. And while all that is going on, the New York Times tells us the story of three Democrats, culminating with

The advertisements from these three vulnerable Democrats offer a window into the party’s strategy to try to keep control of the House in November at a moment when Republicans and their allies are substantially outspending Democrats and their backers.

Two years after arriving in Washington on a message of hope and change, Democratic candidates are not extolling their party’s accomplishments, but rather distancing themselves from their party’s agenda.

They furthermore do not want to be linked with President Obama, who is the proverbial broken mirror. I wonder if Democrats are wearing garlic to keep him away?

But, if you thought the Times would really stick with the subject, sorry, wrong. After the first six paragraphs, it turns into one more about Republicans outspending Dems, and how mean that is (cough Obama 2008 spending cough), leading to this humorous bit

The images of Mr. Obama and Ms. Pelosi appear with more frequency than those of any other political figures — but nearly always in Republican advertisements. They have been mentioned so many times that in their advertising some Democrats have started calling out their Republican rivals, including Representative Roy Blunt of Missouri, who is running for the Senate.

“Congressman Roy Blunt seems to think he’s running for the Senate against Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi,” says Robin Carnahan, the Democratic candidate, standing in the middle of a cow lot on her farm. “Hey Roy, you’re running against me!”

?????? Obama ran against Bush 43, who was not running, and is still campaigning against him. But, hey, you won’t find the images of Pelosi or Obama in many Carnahan’s ads. And Carnahan has actually skipped Obama visits this year. And the ad mentioned above? Carnahan fails to mention that she supports Obama’s agenda. Funny that.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach. Re-Change 2010!