And Obama said to Joe...

Yes, yes, he blamed Bush again. And floated above the problem like Balloon Boy, taking zero blame. But the thrust of his sleepy speech can be boiled down to one man--Joe. Joe the Plumber. Tax the rich, spread the wealth, throw in some token cuts mainly to due with waste. A more "balanced" approach.

He's right, we do need more balance.

Right now a large segment of the country doesn't pay any net tax at all. Obama suggests that's not fair, and that they should pay even less and that doubling down on taxing the rich and ballooning the class divide is patriotic and will help America "Win the Future" (WTF).

And you know what? In a perfect world he might be right--it might be patriotic for the haves to pay far more in percentage taxes than the have-nots--combined with cuts--if we're going to save America from Bush's economic disastrophy.

But here's the problem with tax increases---they are usually spent, not saved. Not used to pay down debt. And spent unwisely. By people like the president. On liberal boondoggles. Like high speed rail and socialized health insurance.

Obama said, "we're a nation that built a railroad across the continent". In other words, the government "invested" and built a railroad. Not quite. The government issued land grants to Monopoly-like rich barons who built the railroad. One of the companies--Union Pacific--is still around today and owns all the land along its right-of-ways. There is absolutely no correlation between building the transcon railroad and anything being proposed today. But it sounds like an investment, which is now a tax, which is pure goodness. And that's what counts.

Matter of fact, taxing the rich is now called "spending reductions in the tax code" and a "debt failsafe" is an automatic tax increase if the extra revenue from the reduction in the tax code received gets spent unwisely on frivolous things like high speed rail. Oh, and the rich want to pay more taxes--just ask them! At least the patriotic ones.

Let's get to the bottom line. Obama was right--this debate is about the future. Obama's future was best described by what he told Joe the Plumber. And he's not giving up on it, no matter what rhetorical inventions, half-truths and lies he has to foist on us.

What a Deal

Anyone looking for a used space vehicle? They are free, aside from a nominal shipping and handling fee..

The space shuttle Atlantis will be displayed at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida; the Endeavour, at the California Science Center in Los Angeles; the Discovery, at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia; and the test shuttle, Enterprise, at the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum in New York, NASA Administrator Charles F. Bolden Jr. said during a ceremony at the Kennedy Center.

...of 28 million bucks. And perhaps a few winks and slaps on the back..

U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said the Johnson Space Center in Houston should have been one of the retirement homes for an orbiter, "but it is clear political favors trumped common sense and fairness in the selection of the final locations for the orbiter fleet," he said in a statement.

Well, hope Cornyn has more evidence than Trump. Then again, why would Obama want to reward either Texas or the Bush oil family with anything? There's always a political calculation for these guys, even with a dying space program.

Speaking of which, soon the world will have no operating Concorde supersonic transports or Space Shuttles. If that seems like a reverse course for western civilization and aeronautics in general, that's because it is.

BTW, doh! The Airbus A380s wingspan is so wide that many US airports cannot handle the behemoth without widening the taxiways or taking special care. Not sure it happened here but:

“Comair might not have stopped in an outrageous spot for every other airplane in the world,” though the A380’s wingspan may have erased any margin for error, Voss said.

Surprising they didn't get any passenger interviews -- that looked like it might have hurt.

Meanwhile, at the Front

Not the kinetic front, the real front in the war on terror:

The Pakistani Army firmly believes that Washington’s real aim in Pakistan is to neutralize the nation’s prized nuclear arsenal, which is now on a path to becoming the world’s fifth largest, said the Pakistani official closely involved in the decision on reducing the American presence.

On the American side, frustration has built over the Pakistani Army’s seeming inability to defeat a host of militant groups, including the Taliban and Al Qaeda, which have thrived in Pakistan’s tribal areas despite more than $1 billion in American assistance a year to the Pakistani military.

In a rare public rebuke, a White House report to Congress last week described the Pakistani efforts against the militants as disappointing.

So we had a bunch of CIA contractors and operatives roaming Pakistan; after the Davis affair they got spooked and wanted some of them out; we get mad and rebuke them for not helping us win the war we are paying them to help us win and they respond by telling us to stop the drone attacks. SSDD..

American officials believed the training program was essential to improve the capacity of the nearly 150,000 Pakistani soldiers deployed to fight the Taliban in the tribal region.

The C.I.A. quietly withdrew all contractors after Mr. Davis’s arrest, the Pakistani official said.

Why oh why are we still working with the ISI? Can this even be partially explained to the average American? Perhaps the shady real goal is to keep an eye on their nukes--know thine enemy, makes the most sense--but if so we don't appear to be winning. Add in the deaths of the UN workers over a burned Koran in Florida and it appears we don't have the hearts and minds, either.

But does anyone care? Despite a lack of media coverage our troops are still dying over there, fighting to stop terrorism while our politicians are over here trying to stop America from going bankrupt. Few would see a tie-in with the exception of bin Laden--he hasn't forgotten. Oh well, maybe Obama can explain how he's actually kicking big time ass over there in his speech Wednesday night after he scolds 'both sides' for not settling their differences.

Birthermania

Trump continues to fan the flames of the birth certificate bonfire, this time with an angry rebuttal letter to Gail Collins of the Times. Ms. Collins then bites back sanctimoniously without the slightest trace of journalistic curiosity. So go the birther wars.

Meanwhile, Jack Cashill--who has done yeoman's work in asking questions that people like Gail Collins should be answering--now has facial egg for failing to notice that a photoshopped picture of a real photo does not prove the real picture is photoshopped. Jack--dude--in the future please get one of your grandkids or some IT geek in the office to look over such things before pulling the trigger.

But back to Collins. In her re-rebuttal letter to Trump she flippantly mentions the "Ayers wrote Dreams" allegation as such:

Ayers is the former ’60s radical who became a huge Republican talking point in 2008 because he had once given a house party for Obama when he was running for state senate. It’s a pretty big jump from coffee and cookies to writing an entire book, but I guess that’s what neighbors are for.

Excuse me ma'am, but Ayers is STILL a radical, he just doesn't blow stuff up anymore. Has the Times laid off their research staff? She then tackles the granny (to her credit, the evidence granny witnessed the birth is unconvincing) and birth cert by only mentioning factcheck.org, which only proved the short form birth cert was real. America still doesn't know from which hospital Obama popped forth or the doctor who popped him forth. And yes, there's a slight significance to that. There was a time when the state of Hawaii didn't even take the state of Hawaii's word on the short form if Hawaiian heritage was being established.

Of course she's not the first mainstreamer (Fox News, too) to simply throw out opinion to rebut these claims. They are are so crazy! But from her picture (probably not recent) she appears to be no spring chicken so perhaps she remembers the old days when a REAL journalist might tackle the controversy by say, setting up a few interviews:

1) State of Hawaii, to ask why they required the long form to claim 'homelands exemption', at least until 2008,
2) Jack Cashill, to discuss his book "Deconstructing Obama",
3) Christopher Andersen, to discuss his book "Barack and Michelle" and the allegation that Ayers ghost wrote "Dreams", which is written right there on the pages (her own paper's Times Book Review didn't bother reviewing it),
4) Bill Ayers himself--perhaps to ask him if he thinks it's weird that Obama's white girlfriend was strangely just like his own,
5) and, after collecting all the info, asking for a response from the administration.

This is how journalism used to work before the reporters started getting their copy off factcheck.org and the Daily Kos.

BACK TO REALITY 4/10/11

We all know the mainstream media will probably never turn back from their thinly-veiled advocacy journalism posture, so it's a waste of time lecturing them about it. All that aside--what's Trump really up to here? The explanations of his little theater production has several possibilities... 1) he really believes it and is trying to help the GOP unseat Obama by deflating this issue ahead of time, but will not run; 2) he really believes it and is planning to run, whose status will be greatly helped by being the one who unearthed the 'truth'; 3) he's playing possum for ratings; 4) he's playing possum to help certain non-birther GOP candidates by trying to lure their on-the-fence competitors into taking a stand, thereby destroying them; 5) he's an undercover Democrat simply trying to keep the story going, just like Abercrombie.

We'll have to watch this story to see if number 4 has any merit.

NBC COMES THROUGH (SORT OF) BUT SO DOES TRUMP.. 4/10/11

It's possible Trump is getting results others could not. NBC's Mike Isikoff did what was suggested above for Ms. Collins--he called someone in the Hawaii Dept of Records and asked some questions. Actually, someone formerly in the records dept, the person who came out in 2008 and said she'd 'seen' the actual birth certificate on file and he was really, really born in Hiwayer. Chiyone Fukino went further than anyone has previously by saying the following:

Before she would do so, Fukino said, she wanted to inspect the files — and did so, taking with her the state official in charge of vital records. She found the original birth record, properly numbered, half typed and half handwritten, and signed by the doctor who delivered Obama, located in the files. She then put out a public statement asserting to the document's validity. She later put out another public statement in July 2009 — after reviewing the original birth record a second time.

Emphasis added to highlight new information heretofore unreleased. Now, here's what she said back in 2008:

“There have been numerous requests for Sen. Barack Hussein Obama’s official birth certificate. State law (Hawai‘i Revised Statutes §338-18) prohibits the release of a certified birth certificate to persons who do not have a tangible interest in the vital record. Therefore, I as Director of Health for the State of Hawai‘i, along with the Registrar of Vital Statistics who has statutory authority to oversee and maintain these type of vital records, have personally seen and verified that the Hawai‘i State Department of Health has Sen. Obama’s original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures.”

This clarified that indeed there was an original, or vault copy but there was no mention of it being impossible to obtain this same long form, and no mention of a doctor or hospital. All she did was confirm the short form was not a fake. Still, it threw most of the media dogs off the hunt along with yours truly (for a long while at least).

Now she's saying the so-called short form was the only document the records department has released since the 80s, therefore Obama could not have gotten anything else. And that's where Isikoff dropped the ball:

On June 12, 2008 the title for this abbreviated form was Certification of Live Birth. The title for the form that this family received in the first week of June 2009 is Certificate of Live Birth. I called The Dept of Health and confirmed that the title of the form had been changed. The bureaucrat that I spoke to said the change had been made “recently”, but could not or would not tell me when. Sometime between June 12, 2008 and the first week of June 2009 the Hawaiian Dept of Health changed the title of this abbreviated form from “Certification of Live Birth” to “Certificate of Live Birth“. Why?

Why indeed. If one goes to the Hawaii records website and reviews the procedure for applying for a "Home Lands exemption" they find a definite clarification between short and long forms:

Birth certificates (Certificates of Live Birth and Certifications of Live Birth) and Certificates of Hawaiian Birth are the primary documents used to determine native Hawaiian qualification.

The Department of Hawaiian Home Lands accepts both Certificates of Live Birth (original birth certificate) and Certifications of Live Birth because they are official government records documenting an individual’s birth. The Certificate of Live Birth generally has more information which is useful for genealogical purposes as compared to the Certification of Live Birth which is a computer-generated printout that provides specific details of a person’s birth. Although original birth certificates (Certificates of Live Birth) are preferred for their greater detail, the State Department of Health (DOH) no longer issues Certificates of Live Birth. When a request is made for a copy of a birth certificate, the DOH issues a Certification of Live Birth.

The problem is, back in 2007 and at least part of 2008 that same page said that applicants HAD to provide a long form to apply, the short form was simply not detailed enough. The evidence for this change has largely been wiped off the web but a few sites saved some quotes. World Nut Daily claims it was somewhere in mid 2009, but we all know their rep. So it was a question Isikoff should have asked, but didn't. Maybe he didn't want to know.

The pushback for the change was that it wasn't really a change at all, just an oversight; a rogue 'obsolete' page on the state's website they "cleaned up" somewhere around 2009. Are we to believe that obsolete page had been there with erroneous information since 2001 when Hawaii first started issuing the computerized short form? Why wouldn't Phillip Berg's initial investigation have brought it to light in mid 2008 and forced a change? Another question Isikoff needed to ask.

At any rate they now allow both short and long forms to be used on the "updated" the Home Lands web page, even though one can no longer obtain a long form. Another question Isikoff didn't ask.

But props to NBC--they actually practiced journalism by contacting someone other than MarKos. In the process they got a former official to admit that a physician attended Obama's birth, something heretofore yet confirmed. Props also to Trump for this gem, which no doubt would not have tumbled out without his making a fuss.

And it could be very useful. The admission there was a doctor present indicates that Obama may well have been playing possum with this issue all along, perhaps planning to spring it at some crucial moment next year. GOP candidates still holding any doubts about this issue would do well to heed this admission and back as far away as possible and leave Obama standing there holding that trump card all by himself.

Side Tracks

The more things change, the more they remain the same.

Back in Libya...

What the hades is going on there now other than random collateral damage? Are we still engaged in any way? Is Quedaffy dead yet or in the Hague? The Times tries to explain:

“We haven’t had a significant military operation in which the Americans have taken a back seat for quite some time,” said Malcolm Chalmers, a professor of defense at King’s College London, according to The Associated Press. “It really is unclear whether the Europeans can rise to that challenge.”

Doesn't really sound like "winning!" yet. And good golly, what's the fate of al-Megrahi? Is he still near death? So many questions, but the media seems to have abandoned the fight along with the president.

Guess we'll just have to settle for an interview with a regime rape victim. Kind of makes Pelosi's shutdown rhetoric a bit hollow, eh? More like damnable, actually.

VICTORY IS THEIRS! 4/8/11

The hell with Gaddafi, the liberals have apparently won the war on women, stopping Boehner from bombing them with abortion cuts and other unmentionables. Thank heaven.

More.. Jennifer Rubin thinks Boehner may have won this battle. The question is how the rest of the media will spin it, and what will Jon Stewart say.

Trumped

What in the world is he up to? Can anyone imagine him having the patience to not only run, but to govern? Doesn't he understand that we have a president, not a supreme leader?

He's not running. He just can't be. So it's hard to figure why he would suddenly take on the birther cause. Some say for the publicity; yes, he's a master of PR and attention, but there are much easier and less risky ways to get it than going down this bumpy road.

Perhaps it's because he knows that by taking on a taboo subject others won't touch it will make him instantly the stand out guy, with the birther stuff not really bothering most conservatives. That would make sense if he were really running. But he's not. Even still, surely he's had private conversations with GOP movers and shakers about this birther stuff and he might know a thing or two about who really thinks what. Maybe he also knows what the Obama machine and their mainstream media wing are planning to do with all of this in the upcoming election cycle.

For example, it's not hard to imagine that every single GOP candidate will be given a birther litmus test by the press. If they answer too definitively it could be seen as a slam on part of the base ("of course I'm not nuts like those people", etc). But if they answer too wafflely it gets them nutter status from the left and could even be used against them by other primary candidates. It's a tight rope!

So maybe Trump is trying to deflate this balloon before it becomes the Hindenberg. Only a birther with his status could crack the big media bubble and be given the time to challenge the narrative without being yanked off the set. They all respect his business acumen too much to go nuclear--yet. So maybe the plan is that by making this an issue now (where was he a few years ago, for instance) it could force Obama to play his own 'trump card' too early--in response to his persistence and threats--thereby removing it from play when the real war begins.

Otherwise, we're left to believe the absurd--that he's really running and is simply rich and powerful enough to get away with challenging the first black president's bona fides, which propels him to the top of the pack. In this day and age that could be called courage--unless of course he's acting for the Democrats under deep cover....