Mr. Podesta Consults. Beware of Free Advice

Look, I’m not trying to be an alarmist, but this, from John Podesta, is the last thing we need around here: advice on how Big Guy can act more like a South American dictator. In his current state of mind, this is just a little too tempting.

"He needs to rise above the definition of the presidency as just being a skirmish between Republicans and you," said John D. Podesta, the president of the Center for American Progress and a former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton. "If he spends two years in the scrum with these guys, that's what they want. He's capable of doing things on his own without them."

Seriously, don’t those guys over at Center For American Progress read tea leaves? America has grown a bit weary of wandering around in the progressive forest for the time being.

Here’s a little bit that I excerpted from the Executive Summary:

The U.S. Constitution and the laws of our nation grant the president significant authority to make and
implement policy. These authorities can be used to ensure positive progress on many of the key issues
facing the country through:

• Executive orders
• Rulemaking
• Agency management
• Convening and creating public-private partnerships
• Commanding the armed forces
• Diplomacy

The ability of President Obama to accomplish important change through these powers should not be
underestimated…

The report continues to list specific ways these powers can be used. I’ve added some editorial comments, to further clarify Mr. Podesta’s recommendations to Big Guy.

• Reduce oil imports and make progress toward energy independence. ed. reduce supply of oil and replace with domestically generated “green” energy like corn, solar, windmills and mice on treadmills resulting in $10.00/gallon gas and higher inflation than we will get from “Quantitative easing” alone.

• Generate solar energy on U.S. Air Force hangar roofs. ed. See? I told you.

• Create a web portal to empower housing counselors, reduce burdens on lenders and speed up home mortgage
modifications. ed. create a portal that makes all of your private financial information available to the Federal government. This will allow a new bureaucracy of government employees to dictate the terms of loan modification to the banks who have customers in default, ensuring that you pick up the tab for those who were “twicked” into buying a home they could not afford.

• Focus on health care prevention in implementing the Affordable Care Act. ed. I think this means in order to make care affordable, the government will prevent health care treatments if it deems it non-cost-effective.

• Replace costly, inhumane immigration detention policies with equally effective measures. ed. Issue an executive order of Amnesty.

• Streamline and simplify access to federal antipoverty programs. ed. Create more victims, completely dependent on the government.

• Use new information technology for faster, more transparent freedom of information. ed. Create new systems that makes your personal information more transparent to your government.

• Collect data on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans in federal data surveys. ed. Oh great! This will come in handy when the Mooslims take over!

Oby, Rach, better run while you still can! What on earth are these Progressives thinking?

Obama Settles In to His “New Normal” World

We can’t even get bipartisan agreement on when to hold our bipartisan meeting with the R-words. Citing scheduling conflicts, Mitchy and Jon-Bon told Big Guy’s staffers they were unavailable for the big Bi-Par meeting on extending the tax cuts this week. But they aren’t fooling anyone, this is just a blow-off. And need I mention, we are not accustomed to that around here. Yet.

Big Guy still thinks he’s in charge of setting the agenda for the lame-duck session, and has identified his top priority acronyms:

START, a treaty with the Ruskies in which we agree to get rid of all of our nuclear weapons and they pretend to get rid of theirs. The R-words have already thrown a monkey wrench into this plan.  So it looks like BO is going to have to meet with Pootie-Po empty-handed in Lisbon this weekend.

Is it just my angle, or does this picture make these two look like little men with disproportionately large heads?

 

Big Guy’s second priority, the  DREAM bill will provide a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants brought to this country against their will as children. He also wants to throw in free tuition for a college education at the institution of their choice - in order to make up for the fact that they had to endure such long wait times in the crowded ER room while growing up.

Somewhere further down the list of lame-duck priorities is extending the Bush tax rates, or, as we like to say around here, giving tax “cuts” to the middle class. While sticking it to the rich. I suppose the R-words are going to object to that too. Fat Cats.

We did manage to squeeze in a Medal of Honor ceremony yesterday for one of the bravest and most selfless soldiers we’ve ever had the honor of receiving at the Big White. BO did the honors, even though “brave” and “selfless” are characteristics that he doesn’t have any up-close and personal experience with.

Brave, selfless S/Sgt Salvatore Giunta, our first living Medal of Honor winner since Vietnam, receives his medal. Nearly everyone in the room was humbled.

If he did, he would have covered it in one of his first two autobiographies. Maybe he will have the opportunity to encounter them before he writes his next one.

Lady M, having recovered from her Asian jet-lag and able to – finally – squeeze into her containment system again, came out to join the ceremony and pass out her signature hugs.

Imagine my relief when she showed up sans pink Cinderella slippers, toxic green heels or boob belts - and actually covered up the guns. I would like to take credit for this nearly respectable image but actually she forgot about the ceremony, and thought she was dressing to meet with the new assistant pastry chef. I will keep that in mind for future ceremonies.

Lady M was originally planning on going to Lisbon with Big Guy on Friday. Butt since she got all her Winter Holiday Shopping done in India, she’s decided to stay home and run the country instead.

What do you say we just get rid of the middleman, Val?

Paranoia Strikes Deep. The Obama Chronicles

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Honey, I Shrunk the Presidency!

In the D.C. world where it seems that everything else is “unexpected,” isn’t this just predictable:

At the predictably unproductive G-20 summit meeting in South Korea, the president faced demands from China and Germany that the Federal Reserve stop its policy of "quantitative easing" -- which is, given Republican obstructionism, one of the few tools available to promote U.S. economic recovery. What Mr. Obama should have said is that nations' running huge trade surpluses -- and in China's case, doing so thanks to currency manipulation on a scale unprecedented in world history -- have no business telling the United States that it can't act to help its own economy.

But what he actually said was "From everything I can see, this decision was not one designed to have an impact on the currency, on the dollar." Fighting words!

Butt wait a minute! This is friendly fire! From none other than Pauly Walnuts over at the New York Times!

His whining is becoming tiresome. Always, it’s “The sky is falling! The sky is falling!” with him anymore.

Paul Krugman, trying to figure out which way the wind is blowing

But the bitter irony goes deeper than that: the main reason Mr. Obama finds himself in this situation is that two years ago he was not, in fact, prepared to deal with the world as he was going to find it. And it seems as if he still isn’t.

Yeah, butt as Big Guy says,  "As you know, you go offshore with the world you have. Not the world you might want or wish to have at a later time."    

And then there’s this from the op-ed pages of our very own home town newspaper:

“…we believe Obama should announce immediately that he will not be a candidate for reelection in 2012.”

Boy oh boy. Leave town for 10 days and the snakes just start slithering out of every crack and crevice. Isn’t it bad enough that Big Guy has to do “hand to hand combat” with his R-word “enemies,” now we have to do battle with our so-called friends too?

What choo lookin’ at?

Honestly, Big Guy returns to the Big White after his 10 day diplomatic mission to Asia and immediately people are jumping all over his case for embarrassing America. Hey! Is it his fault that Bush drove the damn car into the ditch!

BO’s most successful stop: lickin’ a macha popsicle at the Big Buddah Shrine in Japan.

Oh dear! It looks like our incredible shrinking President just keeps getting smaller and smaller.

Well, it is autumn in Washington – maybe he’ll just head south for the winter. I hear South America is beautiful this time of year.

Meanwhile, Lady M is still recuperating from exhaustion following her most recent round of sacrifices for her country.

“ Hand on heart when National Anthem plays, hand on heart when…”

Today she’ll be recovering with the mocha caramel chocolate chip and extra crunchy Cheetos.

Shadow Currencies, Shadow Governments and Now, Shadow People

G-20 Leaders ask: “Who is that annoying little black man? And why won’t he go away?”

Well, Big Guy is winging his way back home – thankfully in the capable hands of the US Air Force, who know how to “wing it.” Unlike BO, who might have finally discovered the limits of his own ability to wing it.

The G-20 was actually dismissive of his demands, perhaps even derisive. Ditto South Korea. Ditto Russia.

 All alone and feelin’ blue

Butt I get ahead of myself. Let’s have a quick recap of the results of the O’s Great Asian Tour:

In summary, it looks like our Seoul Train went off the rails: 10 days, four countries, zero trade agreements,  zero agreement on trade imbalance, zero commitment from China to re-value the yuan, zero support from other G-20 leaders, zero nuclear agreements…

Butt the photo ops: PRICELESS!

Well, not quite priceless. $2 billion if you believe the right-wing hater blogs,  $1.2 billion if you go with more conservative estimates.

First there was India:

Shopping the Indian crafts market for cheap gifts (HT Doug Ross & Dan Friedman)

Here, Lady M did her best to boost the Indian economy through a mini-stimulus program. Even though she ran out of money, she kept deficit shopping anyway!  The haters will probably say this is a metaphor for Big Guy’s administration, but MO was just trying to pick up cheap Winter Holiday gifts. So don’t tell me we don’t know how to be frugal. Yet another sacrifice for our country.

Big Guy was more interested in the cultural riches of India, as he’s always been a huge fan of Gandhiji. We brushed up on our sitar skills,

and practiced our dance steps in case we need to revive our career with a gig on “Dancing With the Czars” later on.

Because Lady M is such a good dancer, and makes him look good on the dance floor, he’ll probably choose her as her partner. Also because he’s dead meat if he ever selects any other female partner.

 

Then we were on to Indonesia:

Here we saw the many faces of MO,

as well as a rare display of public disdain for the MOOslims. As a rule, MO doesn’t  care how they treat their women folk, but let’s be clear: those rules do NOT apply to her.

Lady M flippin’ the ladybird to you-know-who HT Cripes Suzette

I hope I haven’t offended anyone, but it’s a cultural thing. Rap, Hip Hop. You know, poetry of the oppressed.

MJ, Rihanna and Eminem practice their “art”

Then came South Korea, where the meaning of “dismissive, even derisive” came home to roost.

Hey guys! I’m just warning you. I’m packin’ - I can get George Soros on my Blackberry in a flash. If he’s takin’ my calls.

 

 Look here, Lee. Her rear end is NOT that big, you’re just inflatin’  ASSets again.

Butt we put our best face forward since that’s all that we have left.

Thank goodness for iPods. BO could relax awhile and listen to his 2008 Berlin Speech and take full advantage of the deus ex machina voice reverberation system.

Then on to Japan: who could have imagined just 2 short years ago that we would have to remind them who we were?

Secret Service member adheres the American Presidential Seal to the podium ahead of Big Guy’s APEC speech on the ' Role of US in Asia Pacific'. Crazy glue was not optional.

 

Seriously, by the time we got to Japan, we were just a shadow of our former self.

My Shadow

by Robert Louis Stevenson

I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me,

And what can be the use of him is more than I can see.

He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head;

And I see him jump before me, when I jump into my bed.

 

The funniest thing about him is the way he likes to grow—

Not at all like proper children, which is always very slow;

For he sometimes shoots up taller like an india-rubber ball,

And he sometimes gets so little that there's none of him at all.

 

He hasn't got a notion of how children ought to play,

And can only make a fool of me in every sort of way.

He stays so close beside me, he's a coward you can see;

I'd think shame to stick to nursie as that shadow sticks to me!

 

One morning, very early, before the sun was up,

I rose and found the shining dew on every buttercup;

But my lazy little shadow, like an errant sleepy-head,

Had stayed at home behind me and was fast asleep in bed.

And that can’t be a good thing.

BO introduces his shadow at APEC, who will be reading a speech with TOTUS

Damn! Stop bugging me. Go Away!

Does this Shadow make my ears look big?

I am sooo not looking forward to Thanksgiving dinner this year.