Americans: Your (Insert Word Here)-in-Chief

How about... cheapskate?

Whoever coined the term 'to the victor goes the spoils' did not have President Barack Obama's official inauguration party in mind.

They knocked on doors for him and helped him win re-election, but when Obama supporters put on their tuxedos and ball gowns to celebrate the start of his second term in office, they feasted on pretzels, peanuts and Cheez-its.

'This is the food? I'm not too thrilled about it. It's for the birds,' said Ben Shelly, who helped mobilize support for Obama on the Navajo reservation in Arizona.

Meanwhile:

 

 

The menu for today's Inaugural lunch, with President Obama and members of Congress, has been posted:

First Course: Steamed Lobster with New England Clam Chowder Sauce
Second Course: Hickory Grilled Bison with Red Potato Horseradish Cake and Wild Huckleberry Reduction
Third Course: Hudson Valley Apple Pie with Sour Cream Ice Cream, Aged Cheese and Honey

The wines served will include: 

Tierce Finger Lakes Dry Riesling (2010)

Korbel Natural, Special Inaugural Cuvée California Champagne

Bedell Cellars Merlot (2009)

NBC reports the total calorie count per meal is 3,000...

 

This isn't the first time we have seen a shocking lack of class from the First Couple (one might remember how British former Prime Minister Gordon Brown's children were treated). It is a form of outright contempt for those who bafflingly still support them despite their voters' efforts and wishes.

Thanks for nothing.

Related: Classless-Tart-in-Chief (and I don't just mean how she treated Brown's children, either.)

 

Faker? Can't even phone it in?

Uh oh. As the news of Beyoncé’s Inauguration Day lip-syncing spreads, many Twitter users are weighing in on her “lip singing.” Yes, lip singing.

Twitter = dunce cap. AND they voted for Obama. Remember this the next time someone tells you liberals/leftists are intelligent, almost too intelligent for their own good.



Spender-in-Chief?

It is official: America is not a nation of takers.

How do we know? Because the President of the United States just said so. President Obama used the occasion of his second inaugural address to take on the question of moral hazard emanating from our burgeoning entitlement state. In his estimate, there is no such risk — or at least none worth the mention.
Here is the inaugural passage in question:

…We recognize that no matter how responsibly we live our lives, any one of us, at any time, may face a job loss, or a sudden illness, or a home swept away in a terrible storm. The commitments we make to each other – through Medicare, and Medicaid, and Social Security – these things do not sap our initiative; they strengthen us. They do not make us a nation of takers; they free us to take the risks that make this country great. [emphasis added]

With these words, the president 1) made it clear he is aware many Americans are troubled by the seemingly relentless expansion of government entitlement benefits and its impact on our way of life, and) 2 also made it clear that he totally dismisses their concerns.

Obama’s declaration is astonishing and bold–and not in a good way. This is an extremely peculiar (and, indeed, a peculiarly extreme) formulation—and posture—for a President of all the people to adopt.
Consider the following basic facts this assertion ignores:

– According to the most recent HHS figures, over 12 million working age Americans are cashing government disability benefits: A larger total than those cashing paychecks from the entire US manufacturing sector;

– Over twice as many Americans are obtaining “means tested” anti-poverty benefits from the government as are receiving old-age pension payments from Social Security;

– Only about a tenth of the increase in Americans depending on benefits from government entitlement programs can be explained by the aging of the US population per se;

– The Social Security and Medicare programs cannot cover their own outlay commitments on the basis of the contributions of the workers they “insure”: According to the actuaries for those two government trust funds, tens of trillions of dollars of future benefits have been promised in excess of expected future Social Security/Medicare funding streams.

We could go on–but you get the point.

No entitlement problem today? Really? Enormously powerful as the office he commands may be, the president is not invested with authority to make facts disappear.

We could alleviate a bit of this if Obama kicked in his "fair share". Why not put him a higher tax bracket or reduce his salary or compel him to vacation locally?


Footdragger-in-Chief?

Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman approved a new route for the Keystone XL oil pipeline on Tuesday that avoids the state's environmentally sensitive Sandhills region. 

 Heineman sent a letter to President Barack Obama confirming that he would allow the controversial, Canada-to-Texas pipeline to proceed through his state.  

Murderer-in-Chief?

Just hours before he died in a terrorist attack at the U.S. compound in Benghazi, Ambassador Chris Stevens sent a cable to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton painting a chaotic, violent portrait of the eastern Libya city and warning that local militias were threatening to pull the security they afforded U.S. officials.

Militia leaders told U.S. officials just two days before the attack that they were angered by U.S. support of a particular candidate for Libyan prime minister and warned “they would not continue to guarantee security in Benghazi, a critical function they asserted they were currently providing,” Stevens wrote in the cable the morning of Sept. 11, 2012.  He also cited several other episodes that raised questions about the reliability of local Libya security.

“Growing problems with security would discourage foreign investment and led to persistent economic stagnation in eastern Libya,” Stevens cautioned.

The Washington Guardian obtained a copy of the memo, a weekly summary of events in Libya dated just hours before a band of terrorists struck the unofficial U.S. consulate in Benghazi and a neaby annex building where the CIA operated, killing the ambassador and three other Americans.

Did Hillary Clinton hand this memo to Obama while he was in the situation room or couldn't she find him?

(With thanks)