President Obama and the Democratic Congress are so excited about the Cash for Clunkers program that they have decided to go after an even more insidious greenhouse gas producer, Volcanoes. Lost between Mark “No Future in Politics” Sanford’s presser and the All Barack Chanel infomercial was this announcement from the White House:

Click for larger image

The stunning pictures of Sarychev Peak taken by the ISS have inspired the President to ask Congress for legislation that will allow the world to trade in their old, high CO2 emitting volcanoes for newer, more eco-friendly models.

Not only will this help stem the crisis of global warming, but it will also save or create nearly 100,000 jobs. A third of those jobs will be dedicated to creating a new, greener volcano. Another third will try to figure out what to do with all the older model spewers, while the final third will go to ACORN to register democrat voters who will allow us to continue this silliness.

The basics of the program are this:

• If you have an active volcano that you want to trade you can submit your application at Kash4Krakatoa.gov
• If you purchase a volcano that emits 10% less CO2 you will receive a gift-card from Volcano Depot in the amount of $1,000,000.00
• Trading in your spewer for a model with 20% less gaseous eruptions will earn you a $2 million dollar card, and for any trade in the exceeds 30% you will get a cool (hehe, we have a sense of humor) Billion dollars.
• In addition, for any trade in you will also get a copy of An Inconvenient Truth autographed by High Priest Algore.

If this program is as successful as we anticipate we will be looking into developing a Septillion for Sunspots program that will really get to the heart of the matter while also achieving our ultimate goal of making the dollar worth about $0.00001

(h/t Mike’s America at Flopping Aces)

Michelle Malkin points to a NRO article by Fred Schwarz

[T]hink of all the hours that must have gone into devising “Overseas Contingency Operation”! Since it’s the duty of every citizen to help our president in this time of crisis, The Tank presents the Obama-Matic (TM) Content-Free Euphemism Generator (patent pending), to simplify the critically important job of governmental obfuscation.

Well, I took the idea and automated the process.

bRight & Early is proud to present the Obamemism Generator.

Other words and phrases can be added. Please submit your suggestions in the comments.

The personality cult presidency of Barack Obama starts in just a few short hours, but some celebrities just couldn’t wait to pledge their allegiance, not to the flag, but to The One™

Granted, some of the things they mention are worthy goals that deserve peoples work and effort. I don’t deride the idea of doing good things or determining to make choices that improve your life and the lives of others, instead it is the eerie devotion to the idea that now with this president we can finally shape our country the way it should be.

I was talking to a co-worker yesterday about this phenomenon. He asked me what I thought drove the idea that Barack Obama could, simply by his election, bring about all of this change. I told him that I believe that a big part of that is the fact that our soon-to-be-trained-on-the-job President is such a blank slate with no record, no history, and no demonstrable core values, that it allows every individual to project on to him the things that they hope for. His candidacy and election remind me of the UPS Whiteboard commercials — you can write or erase whatever you want to get whatever you want and to make things look the way you want.

Frances Romero writing for Time said,

Remember when we used to pledge allegiance to a flag? Not in Barack Obama’s nation. On the eve of his grandly coordinated, $150 million Inaugural, celeb power couple Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore released a video full of their Hollywood friends and colleagues pledging to Obama to “be the change” that so many want to see with his incoming administration.

And concluded with this,

Overall, there’s some good stuff in here: Smile, mentor someone, drive slower, conserve gas. Steer clear of the last 20 seconds though. Fifty celebrities pledging in unison to serve our new President from an elaborate Brady Bunch grid, is creepy. A little cult-ish even.

Ace remarks,

If you get sick of it, skip to the end, to see a cultish chant to “serve our president” from all of the various B- and C- and F- list celebrities on display.

Remember when they put out a similar video after 9/11? Nope, me neither.

Curt at Flopping Aces observes,

Check out this video of the many ignorant celebrities who have over the last 8 years done whatever they could to tear down our President, stand in his way of making any progress to protect this country and its future, and insulted him at every chance.

[...]

The whole video is embarrassing but in the final moment when the image pulls out and eveyone of these nimrods is a part of the Obama portrait…then it became downright creepy. You just can’t describe this cult of personality any other way other then creepy and scary.

Andrew Breitbart sums it up well at his new Big Hollywood digs.

Remember this video: It is a instructive relic of the era of celebrity decadence and boutique anti-Republican activism under President Bush. It is a sickening display that they want fast and easy absolution for having comported themselves like ill-behaved children for eight difficult and war-torn years.

Good luck, President Obama. The rest of you can go to hell.

Years ago (this video is from 1969) Red Skelton offered a look a what the real pledge should mean. Take a look, especially if you watched the first one.

With just a week to go, I am proud to announce that bRight & Early has obtained an advance copy of Barack Obama’s inauguration speech.

Four Two score and seven years ago our my father(s?) brought forth on this continent a new nation Messiah, conceived in Liberty Kenya, or Hawaii, or somewhere, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal, unless they’re rich or successful. And where they are not equal it is the job of the Government to make them equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war depression. Not The Great Depression, but the next closest thing. And I plan on testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated to capitalism and personal freedom, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war big open area in front of the Capitol building. We Many of you have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. your lives to The One. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground Me, anymore than you have already done. The brave men , living and dead, and women of the press who struggled here to get me elected, have consecrated it, far above our your poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say do here over the next four years, but it can never forget what they did I say here, for I am The One. It is for us the living Government, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work of total Government control which they who fought here have thus far so nobly in years past we could only partially advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion you have elected Me—that we here highly resolve that these dead ideas and ideals shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom–Where my wife, for the first time in her life, can be proud to be an American—and that government of the people Government, by the people elected who know better, for the people control of all power, shall not perish from the earth.

Something about it sounds familiar.

President-elect Barack Obama is calling for tax cuts to be a large portion of an economic stimulus plan.

Obama is asking that tax cuts make up 40 percent of a stimulus package, the people say. The measure may be worth as much as $775 billion, a Democratic aide says, meaning tax cuts may constitute more than $300 billion of the legislation.

Making tax cuts such a large part of the stimulus may help win support from congressional Republicans. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, said his party would support an immediate middle-class tax cut as part of any stimulus package.

“Republicans, by and large, think tax relief is a great way to get money to people immediately,” McConnell said yesterday on ABC’s “This Week.”

As always, the devil is in the details, and I, for one, will be curious to see what those details are. Still, tax cuts are a good thing, and part of this plan sounds very similar to Rep. Gohmert’s plan. From the Bloomberg article:

The plan would attempt to boost consumer demand by spending $140 billion on tax breaks worth $500 for individuals and $1,000 for couples, according to a House Democratic aide. The change would come by altering tax-withholding rules, rather than through a rebate check as with the previous stimulus plan enacted last year, so that workers would see an immediate increase in their take-home pay.

The $500 tax credit would apply to the first $8,100 of wages, meaning a worker who earns $24,400 a year and is paid twice a month would get about $60 extra per paycheck for four months.

The Gohmert plan calls for, “the suspension of employment and income taxes during the first two months of 2009.” (H.R. 7309)

As I said, we will have to wait and see the final plan, but including tax breaks is a good place to start.

We’re in the bell lap in this marathon that has gone on way too long already. As an aside, I believe that one of the reasons we are choosing between the two candidates we have is due to the length of the campaign this election cycle. I think it is very likely that a shorter campaign could have given us two completely different presidential candidates.

But, we get to vote for what we have, not what we could have had.

I am part of the large majority of Americans who, in spite of all the hype and headlines, has not taken advantage of early voting. As I mentioned the other day, I like going to my local polling place on election day. There is something almost “ceremonial” about casting a ballot, and despite any real or perceived inconvenience it is something that I truly look forward to doing.

If the lines aren’t too long first thing tomorrow morning the process shouldn’t take very long at all. I am not one of the undecided voters and I won’t be making up my mind with the pencil in my hand.

President/Vice President — John McCain/Sarah Palin. I have laid out my reasons for supporting John McCain already. It is, to be honest, almost as much a vote against Barack Obama as it is for McCain. Almost. I am convinced that the policies of Barack “The One™” Hussein Obama would be detrimental to our country; Even those that could benefit me personally in the short term.

That alone would not be enough to convince me to vote for John McCain. While I am sure that I will not agree 100% with a President McCain, I will agree with him and his direction for our nation most of the time.

U.S. House (Fl-D12) — Adam Putnam. I have really grown to appreciate his psotions and his leadership. He was one of the leading voices in the house to take an “all of the above” approach to energy policy.

Here’s hoping for the best tomorrow. I’ll be doing my part. That’s all I have left that I can do.

Choices, choices. What to do on a Wednesday night?

There was McCain/Obama debate III of course, but team Obamessiah had already told us how it would all turn out. Besides, my pre-debate assessment was the same as A.J. Strata’s:

To save myself time I am going to live blog the debate now and get it over with:

McCain wins most rounds, nation differs with me when polled.

Yup.

It didn’t matter that I didn’t watch, Bob Owens at Confederate Yankee summed it up well:

Senator Government: Spend, spend, spend.

Senator Blinky: You can’t spend your way into prosperity.

Now, will anyone looking for Hopeychange understand?

Instead of watching the debate I went the Good Lt. route. The Phillies are going to the World Series!

I’m not a pundit. I’ve never even played one in a movie. But, as Glenn Beck likes to say, I am a thinker.

Tony Rezko, Jeremiah Wright, Father Pfleger, Raila Odinga, and of course William Ayers. All with ties to Barack Obama and all residents of the large tract of real estate under the Obama bus. I think these associations are important and speak volumes about the Man Who Would Be Prez.

While there are many questions about how much influence this group had and has on Obama, I think there is another way to look at this. His primary spin (although there are many) seems to be “I didn’t know.” It’s been a theme he has used whenever one of these associations has gotten close enough and hot enough to burn.

But I think this presents it’s own problem and ties in with the title of this post. Simply put, when talking about these associations there are two possibilities: He is telling the truth or he is lying. If he is lying about the depth of his knowledge regarding these terrorists, racists, and America haters, he clearly does not have the temperament and character to lead our nation. On the other hand, if he is telling the truth and he didn’t know about the hatred, radicalism and illegalities of these players he would have to be the dumbest politician to ever cross the Potomac.

It is really that simple. Which is it? It really doesn’t matter. In either case Barack Obama is not a leader and should never be placed in a position the depends on his questionable leadership abilities.

Hugh Hewitt titles his post If This Is True, Obama Has A Serious Problem. Perhaps he should have said, If This Is True and TOM* Doesn’t Give Him Yet Another Pass, Obama Has A Serious Problem.

He links to this story at NewsBusters by Warner Todd Houston.

Barack Obama played the “me too” game during the Friday debates on September 26 after Senator John McCain mentioned that he was wearing a bracelet with the name of Cpl. Matthew Stanley, a resident of New Hampshire and a soldier that lost his life in Iraq in 2006. Obama said that he too had a bracelet. After fumbling and straining to remember the name, he revealed that his had the name of Sergeant Ryan David Jopek of Merrill, Wisconsin.

Shockingly, however, Madison resident Brian Jopek, the father of Ryan Jopek, the young soldier who tragically lost his life to a roadside bomb in 2006, recently said on a Wisconsin Public Radio show that his family had asked Barack Obama to stop wearing the bracelet with his son’s name on it. Yet Obama continues to do so despite the wishes of the family.

Do read the entire NB story to see the transcript of the interview with Mr. Jopek.

Houston says, “Obama’s use of this soldier that fell in the line of duty is tainted by his ambition and callousness. And the media is letting him get away with it.”

Kim Priestap writes at Wizbang, “So will we see this picked up by the mainstream media? Not a snowball’s chance in hell.”

Once again Hope and Change are revealed to mean “I Hope you won’t notice that I’ll do anything to Change my title to Mr. President”.

*TOM — The Old Media

Scott Ott notices that undecided voters are looking at the candidate most like them.

“People tend to gravitate toward the candidate who seems most like them,” said an unnamed pollster at CBS. “And we’re starting to see shift, at least a tentative one, among those who have difficulty making decisions. To the uncommitted, Obama looks like a fellow traveler.”

Before the debate even ended the McCain campaign had put this out:

Nice.

I caught Barry O’s response to John McCain on the radio as I was coming home from work yesterday. Two things struck me. Of course quite a few people caught the “if you need me, call me” comment, but the thing that struck me was something he said earlier in his remarks.

I don’t know the exact chronology on this, so let’s assume his words are as pure and golden as The One himself. Prior to the Q&A he was talking about the joint release he wanted to make with McCain. He talked about some of the specifics of the plan he would like to see implemented and remarked that Sen. McCain had “adopted his position” on some of those things. Like I said, I don’t know who said what first, but I have a hard time believing that McCain made any decision on his position based on what The Obamessiah put forth. Even if he did, it still sounded as arrogant as anything I’ve heard fall from his lips, and that’s saying something.

My thoughts on yesterday’s events are that Senator McCain is honestly focused on finding a workable solution while his opponent is focused on finding a political opportunity. Your thoughts?