Jim Treacher's Blog That Is on the Internet

Metal bones beneath a living shell

A New Definition of Chutzpah

You've probably heard the definition of chutzpah: A boy who's convicted of murdering his parents and begs the judge for leniency on the grounds that he's an orphan. Now we've got an example that's almost as... well, audacious.

A few months ago, President of the United States Barack Hussein Obama said this about his grandmother:

President Barack Obama said his grandmother's hip-replacement surgery during the final weeks of her life made him wonder whether expensive procedures for the terminally ill reflect a "sustainable model" for health care.

The president's grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, had a hip replaced after she was diagnosed with cancer, Obama said in an interview with the New York Times magazine that was published today. Dunham, who lived in Honolulu, died at the age of 86 on Nov. 2, 2008, two days before her grandson's election victory.

"I don’t know how much that hip replacement cost," Obama said in the interview. "I would have paid out of pocket for that hip replacement just because she's my grandmother."

Obama said "you just get into some very difficult moral issues" when considering whether "to give my grandmother, or everybody else's aging grandparents or parents, a hip replacement when they're terminally ill."

Which is why he now wants the government to take more of a hand in those decisions. Which is why, apparently, we should listen to him.

Then yesterday, during his "townhall" meeting in Colorado, Obama said this:

"I just lost my grandmother last year. I know what it's like to watch somebody you love, who's aging, deteriorate and have to struggle with that," an impassioned Obama told a crowd as he spoke of Madelyn Payne Dunham. He took issue with "the notion that somehow I ran for public office or members of Congress are in this so they can go around pulling the plug on grandma."

And thus, we have a new definition of chutzpah: A President of the United States who complains about the expense of alleviating his dying grandmother's suffering, and who then uses her death as evidence of his compassion.

You may not have run for office specifically to pull the plug on grandma, Mr. President, but you're obviously not going to let her get in your way.

P.S. Speaking of hip replacements, Biden's a pretty swingin' guy.

Rage to Help the Machine

My favorite moment from Obama's daily townhall greenhouse meeting, this one in Montana

"Hello, Mr. President. Thank you so much for taking the time to speak to us. My name is Michelle O. and I'm a lifelong resident of Butt, Montana. I... [holds finger to ear] Whoops, sorry, that's pronounced 'Byoot.'"

You did, did ya?

SMARTEST PRESIDENT EVAR

"I, I recognize, though, you make a legitimate, you raise a legitimate concern. People say, 'Well, how can a private company compete against the government?' If you, if you think about it, uh... y'know, UPS and FedEx are doin' just fine. Right? Th-the, uh... No, they are. I mean, it's, it's the Post Office that's always havin' problems."

P.S. I'm starting a new group: Combating Republican Astroturfing Progressively. Getting nervous about my sales pitch to Axelrod & Soros.

P.P.S. Previous entries in the Obama Songbook here and here.

P.P.P.S. And of course, the "Wait a minute! Wait a minute!" is provided by Arlen Specter.

Just a coupla swell guys

If you don't know who the guy on the left is, enjoy:

(I'm not sure how the brainiacs at Think Progress imagine this helps them, but hey, who's complaining?)

I refuse to call these things "townhalls" anymore

After Obama's pathetic spectacle today, I'm calling them "greenhouses." Although the real thing has fewer plants.

P.S. If Obama was an SEIU goon, he'd say, "I'm not punching you in the face" as he punched you in the face. And there's a 52.9% chance you'd believe him.

So sit down and shut up

(Image courtesy of JohnnyTechnoX)

A question I wish a reporter would ask Nancy Pelosi

Congresswoman Pelosi: In your USA Today editorial this week, before you got to the part about how the people who disagree with you are "simply un-American," you mentioned that the Democrats have been trying for universal health care since 1912. In your opinion, has medical science advanced at all in the last 97 years? Are there any, say, surgical procedures you might have undergone recently that weren't available in 1912? Why or why not?

And if you have time for a follow-up: What lies has the CIA told you lately?

If Kenneth Gladney was an Obama supporter, right now he'd be more famous than Rodney King

Al Sharpton would have a whole rack of new suits.

What better way to convince people they need the government to run their health care than to put them in the hospital?

On second thought, if Gladney was an Obama supporter, he wouldn't know what "Don't Tread on Me" means. And those SEIU guys (Smash, Endanger, Intimidate, Undermine) wouldn't have beaten him.

More info on Gladney here. And a summary of how the left is trying to make the whole thing go away, here.

Dissent is the lowest form of racism.

Dissent has always been the lowest form of racism.

Doubleplusungood.

P.S. Tonight on Law & Order: SEIU, the team leaps into action when an elderly woman says something fishy about health-care rationing to a Democrat.

For John Hawkins

Paste 'em up!

There's nothing like making a new fan!

Just knowing that people care is the important thing...

Date: Tue, 4 Aug 2009 03:19:54
From: David Mathews [dmathew1@yahoo.com]
Subject: RepubliKKKlan ?

Hello Jim Treacher:

I just visited your sewer of a blog ...

http://jimtreacher.com/

And I would like to know how such a hate filled person as yourself can sleep at night.

Your blog will serve to remind people exacly what the RepubliKKKlan party stands for and thereby guarantee the extermination of the religious fundamentalist racist party.

Sincerely,

David Mathews
http://www.flickr.com/dmathew1

***

Date: Tue, 4 Aug 2009 07:38:55
Subject: Re: RepubliKKKlan ?
To: David Mathews [dmathew1@yahoo.com]

Hello David Mathews:

Thank you for taking some time from entertaining millions with your
energetic-yet-nonthreatening music to write to me!

Yes, I'm often asked how such a hate-filled person as myself can sleep
at night. The truth is, a lot of the time I can't. My religious
fundamentalist racism makes me say the most awful things, and then I
toss and turn half the night, my fevered brain unable to rest from its
thoughts of racismness and fundamentality. But then I have a couple
beers and I'm out like a light.

Keep speaking truth to power!

Your new friend,
Jim Treacher
http://jimtreacher.com

P.S. "Ants Marching" changed my life. After hearing it for the first
time, I ditched my dead-end career as an entomologist and went into
blogging. The world has you to thank, LOL

In other news, these icons are cool. #5, 6, and 7 are based on things I've said on Twitter, and #8 is self-evidently true. I really think #7 has legs:

Tee-hee

Why So Spurious?

From the LA Weekly blog:

A new poster depicting President Obama as a version of Heath Ledger's Joker character in The Dark Knight has appeared in Los Angeles, according to rightwing sources...

The poster, which bears a very superficial resemblance to Shepard Fairey's famous Obama Hope illustration, has been pasted on freeway supports and other public surfaces. It has a bit of everything to appeal to the drunk tank of California conservatism: Obama is in white face, his mouth (like Ledger's Joker's) has been grotesquely slit wide open and the word "Socialism" appears below his face. The only thing missing is a noose.

Ah yes, we all remember that classic scene in The Dark Knight...

Oh, to be a fly on a beer mug...

There's just no pleasing some folks

Just a little tune Obama wrote for tonight's Racial Healing Beerup

Ebony and ivory
Drinkin' liquor in perfect harmony
Side by side in my photo op
Crank and cop
Now stop pickin' on me

We all know
That people hate the cops wherever you go
There is good in them
But mostly bad
When we learn to yell
We learn to tell each other how the whites all hate blacks
Regardless of facts

[Repeat until all the white folks shut up]

Obama is not a racist

He just judges people without having the facts, based on the color of their skin.

If a burglar who happened to be black had broken into Henry Gates' home and told the cops he lived there, would they be profiling him if they asked to see some ID?

If so, why?

F*** Tha Police (Oval Office Remix)

With apologies to O'Shea Jackson, Andre Young, Eric Wright, Lorenzo Patterson, and Antoine Carraby

F*** tha police, comin' straight from the podium
Young n**** got it bad 'cause I'm dumb
And not intelligent, so cops and press think
They have the priority to buck my authority

F*** that s***, 'cause I ain't the dad
For a punk Jake Tapper with a pen and a pad
To be sweatin' me 'til crack of doom
We can go toe-to-toe in the middle of the press room

F***in' with me 'cause I'm a world leader
Who's a damn good teleprompter-reader
Searchin' my words, lookin' for an error
Doin' me like Bin Laden in the "War on Terror" (sic)

You'd rather see me in the Senate
Than me as the top gun, pimpin' Air Force One
I stretch the truth all outta shape
And when I'm finished, all the facts get raped
Like Jodie Foster in The Accused
Everything's a crisis and it's gonna get used

I don't know if I'm black or white
When a thing is wrong, I say that it's right
And on the other hand, without a script I can't get none
I strike out when I wanna hit a home run
Try to ad lib and I always let the mask drop
Black president prejudgin' a white cop

Big O will swarm
On any U.S. citizen who's in uniform
Just 'cause I am the CIC
Troops and cops are afraid of me, huh

A young n**** on the warpath
And when I'm finished, there's gonna be a new math
Two plus two equals five, I say
Now all you crackas get outta my way

F*** tha police
F*** tha police
F*** tha police
F*** tha police

P.S. Why is The Man always tryin' to tell a brother what to do?

This post is inherently racist

The latest: Police unions call for apology from Obama, Deval Patrick. But don't they know that college professors who are personal friends of the President of the United States can scream at all the cops they want?

P.S. This is not a race issue. It's a class issue.
P.P.S. Obama has invited both Sgt. Crowley and Sgt. Howly to the White House. Maybe he'll buy Crowley a pack of gum and show him how to chew it.

Under Obamacare, old people will have to stop bitterly clinging to their drugs and incisions

Wasn't Obama's Health-Rationing Liefest '09 awesome? I especially liked his little podium-thumping thing at the beginning. Oooh, so forceful! Yeah, just like that other guy:

Oops!

And now, a little ditty: