Behold: the Lightbringer

You’ll be glad to hear that Lady M will be back in circulation as of Sunday’s National Day of Service. I know you’ve all been talking and speculating about the “work” she’s had done over the summer: everything from liposuction to rhinoplasty to jaw reshaping. Let me just dispel those silly rumors once and for all.

First of all, she did not have her jaw reconstructed. Are you kidding me? That requires that you have your jaws wired shut for 3 months. No eating? No yelling? No way.

She may or may not have had her nose “freshened” up a bit - for medical reasons you understand. Nothing major, as you can clearly see for yourself:

 

Just a little subtle shaping. To help her breath easier.

 

Anyway, as of Sunday, Lady M will be ready to pay to play again. She will be following her own advice and performing community service all day long. First she and Big Guy will visit New York, Pennsylvania and the Pentagon: each of the three sites where 10 years ago to the day Muslim terrorists may or may not have piloted airplanes into a series of unscheduled hard landings.

Butt that’s not all: in the evening the Wons will attend an interfaith service and Concert for Hope at the National Cathedral where Big Guy will give an address. I’m not positive, butt I think the “interfaith service” might be a little strange since I’ve heard that no one is allowed to use the word “God” which pretty much rules out praying. Butt that’s ok, Big Guy will be delivering a speech, and that’s even better.

Butt that’s all next week. For now everyone around here is focused on the huge jobs, jobs jobs speech. The air is practically bristling with excitement. Everyone knows it’s got to be a barn burner in order to reverse these latest poll results, which seem to have lost their gyroscope:

Politico

As F. Chuck Todd explained, even Ms.NBC’s pollsters are concerned that the numbers indicate people are giving up on Big Guy. Maybe they better find some new pollsters; some who are not so biased.

I can’t of course divulge all of the finer details of Big Guy’s plan (they haven’t been written yet), butt I can tell you – per Fancy Nancy’s directive – that it will not include the word “stimulus.” Unclear why, something about negative connotations due to union payoffs or high-speed trains to nowhere, or something.

Anyway, it will include a lot of innovative ideas because that’s what people are looking for. So far there’s $300 billion for infrastructure (union) jobs and state aid to pay (union) teachers and (union) state workers (stimulus). That will all be paid for by increased involuntary contributions to the public coffers from the non-poor (tax the rich). So as you can see this is very innovative: instead of the usual tax and spend approach, we’re going to spend first and tax later. And HOPE for some positive CHANGE in the economy.

Oh, and did I mention the innovative Infrastructure Bank? It will be like Fannie and Freddie, except instead of providing resources for people who can’t really afford a mortgage, it will provide resources for construction projects that can’t make the cost/benefit cut. Like high-speed trains to nowhere. So that part’s pretty innovative. Plus, by creating yet another redundant agency in our Federal Family, Big Guy’s probably created or saved a good 250,000 jobs right there.

So it’s going to be an innovative jobs plan to put America back to work, one government job and subsidy at a time. Brilliant.

What less would you expect from the Lightbringer?

 

I’m not so sure now, maybe the electricity I’ve been feeling in the air around here is just static.

Linked By: Larwyn’s Linx on Doug Ross@Journal, and Dr Evil on HotAir, Thanks!

Experiencing Technical Difficulties

Due to technical problems, no post till later this afternoon.

Sorry!

Here’s our New Deal, and Don’t Call our Bluff

We’ve been hearing it now ever since the Big Black Bus tour: “we need to put country ahead of politics.” That means it’s our newest focus group approved theme. And it’s brilliant, because we  can use it as our mantra for any partisan position we choose to take.

So in Detroit yesterday, Big Guy began to roll out exactly how he intends to have you put country ahead of Republican politics – butt I hope you’re sitting down. Because it’s going to cost you to be this selfless. Think in terms of FDR’s New Deal, only a much, much bigger deal. Almost another “big f***ing deal.”

Time’s prescient cover, November 2008

Butt let me cut through all the Labor Day rhetoric and get to the heart of Big Guy’s New Deal. To summarize: “We’re going to create the best economy with the best jobs taxpayer’s money can buy.” And if you oppose it, you are a partisan blood-sucking racist.

Plouffe-Daddy worked right through the holiday on this meme. In order to kick start our plan for improving the economy ahead of the big Thursday speech, he got the talking points into the hands of all the people who would be appearing on the pre-game shows over the weekend.

First up we have Maxine Waters on Meet the Press telling us that   putting country ahead of politics will cost at least a trillion dollars for a jobs program. Never mind that Maxi couldn’t get within 100 of the correct number of zeros in a trillion -that’s above her paygrade. She’s the House’s senior black female shill, which means she’s bullet proof.

Put your money where my mouth is.

Then we had Jimmy Hoffa’s. (Jr., not the one buried under the Giants astroturf) take on putting country ahead of politics at the warm up for Big Guy’s Labor Day act in Detroit:

“President Obama, this is your army. We are ready to march. Let’s keep our eye on the prize. Let's take these son of a bitches out and give America back to America where we belong.”

Disregard the fact that the phrase “give America back to America where we belong” is at best a non sequitur and at worst gibberish; we all catch his drift. “Smash the Tea Party because America belongs to the unions.” Because we’re putting country ahead of politics.

Big Guy and TOTUS in Detroit under leaden skies: Government Motors headquarters in the background

Big Guy thanked Jimmy for his kind words and went on to explain exactly how he intends to smash the Tea Party and give America back to the unions - apparently just getting the yeoman’s share of GM and Chrysler wasn’t adequate to repay his debt from the last election. So BO’s going to propose we spend a lot of money (probably a trillion dollars) on shovel-ready crumbling infrastructure projects that can only be be built  by union workers. (You do recall, don’t you, that Stimulus I jobs could only be bid on by union contractors or non-union contractors who agreed to pay union wages, benefits and follow all union rules, don’t you? That adds a 30% premium to the cost of projects, butt hey! That’s just more stimulus poured into the economy!)

The pro-union crowd gathered to hear Big Guy and TOTUS went wild:

Four more years! Barack Delano Obama! Four more years!

Is that not a brilliant strategy? Putting country ahead of Republican politics while still pandering to our largest remaining group of political donors and campaign bundlers? Pats on the back are in order.

Next up, setting an example of how to put country ahead of politics is Joey B :

“Not a joke, Not an applause line. You are the only thing holding the barbarians from the gate.”

Hold on, hold on! I’ve only got 9 more points to make!

So who, exactly, are the barbarians at the gate he’s talking about? Well there are the usual Tea Party suspects: Ryan, Cantor, Bachmann, Palin et.al. as well as the new media Right Wing extremists like Drudge, Breitbart, Beck and Malkin. And of course there’s still the old guard: George W. Bush, Cheney, Rove. Don’t worry - thanks to Raj’s robust firewall, they don’t know about me yet!

Of course some – mostly partisan R-words and Tea Partiers - don’t consider any of the above to be barbarians. They finger instead, groups whose rhetoric and actions more closely meet Webster’s definition of “barbarian.” To whit:

violent looters:

arsonists:

 

anarchists (organized by cellphone – there’s irony for you):

and state Capital trashers:

 

On the upcoming 10th anniversary of the 9/11massacre, I might think we have enough real barbarians at our gate without having to create new ones by demonizing the internal opposition. Maybe we should just put country ahead of politics and focus on dealing with our real enemies.

They’re still out there.

9/11 terrorists: they may be gone butt their number is legion.

People who put ideology ahead of country – and everything else – are our true enemies. And as Big Sis keeps telling us, they can be either foreign or domestic. So if you see something, say something! It’s our patriotic responsibility.

A Labor Day Tribute to an American Labor Creator: Henry Ford

Big Guy will be speechifying in Detroit today. Complete with a parade, Labor leaders and musical headliners including Aretha Franklin who – like labor unions – is butt a shadow of her former self.

I could go on (and on) about Big Guy and Big Labor, butt it’s a holiday and I think we all deserve something a little more fun.

So I have something special for you today. I happen to know a bit about the once great Detroit metropolitan area as I spent quite a bit of time there, on special loan to the Ford Foundation, reflecting on various eras of American history at the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village complex. So today, I’m going to take you on a brief tour of some of the wonderful things that reside in Henry Ford’s visionary paean to all things Americana. 

Detroit itself, of course, has a glorious past,

Lobby of Detroit’s former Guardian Trust Building, aka the Temple of Finance

despite its ignoble present and highly questionable future.

Moon waning on Detroit’s skyline

No small part of Detroit’s glorious past was the result of one man’s vision, conviction and hard work: Henry Ford.

Founder of the Ford Motor Company and inventor of the modern assembly line, Henry Ford very nearly invented the middle class in America.

 

"If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses."  — Henry Ford, visionary. Not community organizer

I’ll leave the criticism of his methods and philosophy to others as I just want to share a bit of the wonder housed in his museum that is a sprawling collection of American industrial and cultural arcana in Dearborn, Michigan, also home to the headquarters of the Ford Motor company.

The entire experience was founded and funded by one guy in the private sector who thought free enterprise was a major part of what made America great. He may not have been perfect, but he had that part right. That might be what people are looking for in a President these days: not perfection but a sincere belief in America, as it was originally conceived.

Anyway, the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village is a force majeure of American spirit, industry and faith in the future. It may be one of the most amazing places in the country that most people have never heard of let alone visited.

Christmas time at Greenfield Village

It was founded by the Ford foundation in 1929, shortly before the last Great Depression. The complex has two distinct parts. Greenfield Village, which houses original buildings, reconstructed on site, reflecting all eras of American history from pioneering days to the early industrial era. The Henry Ford Museum houses all things American from colonial times to the present.

Here are just a few of the wonderful things you will find there:

Trains

Both outside,

and inside:

My favorite – the Dewitt Clinton Railroad

locomotives

 

Planes

Ford Tri-motor

 

DC-3 suspended from ceiling

Lindberg’s Spirit of St. Louis

Boats

The Suwanee Steamboat in the Village pond:

 

Steam engine from  a Great Lakes freighter

Tractors:

And of course, Cars:

“The Automobile in American Life” is a big section of the 12 acre museum (currently being revamped)

 

Lincoln that JFK was riding in when he was assassinated

…and things cars pull:

Airstream and Burma Shave signs

and places cars visited:

early Micky D’s

Or, if you like phones, they have some of  them too.

 

And that doesn’t even scratch the surface. Awesome!

Butt wander over to the Village and you will find the same American theme, only translated into relocated buildings that you can wander through.There is everything from a Cotswold cottage community

to a working farm:

outbuilding on the Firestone Farm

Then there’s the Wright Brothers’ original bicycle shop:

and a working early 20th century carousel for the kids,

Here’s Detroit Edison’s original generating station A:

which, like everything else in the village, you can tour and see the inner workings of an early generator up close (it’s still working):

Other early generators housed in the Henry Ford Museum

Or if that’s not your cup of tea, you can get penny candy at the general store, with a genuine wooden Indian outside (If it’s still there, that may not be politically correct any more):

Down the street is Thomas Edison’s Menlo Park laboratory where he invented the incandescent light bulb which is still one of the best inventions of all time, soon to be replaced by the curly-fry bright-white. It’s replacement is thanks to politicians rather than market pressure, so  it’s historical from several perspectives.

 Menlo Park Lab

Plus there are glass blowers and operating machine shops and blacksmiths and birthing barns and old train depots and trains and… well, you get the idea. Wear comfy shoes.

What started out as a home for Henry Ford’s private collection has grown into one of the most amazing immersions in the American experience: even PBS would be impressed.

We could use a few more Henry Fords about now.

And a few less community organizers. Detroit has nearly been community organized out of existence.

Linked by: sowsear1 on NO QUARTER, Thanks!