The list of Obama appointees getting the ax or having to be asked to resign is getting much to long to list . . . and, it’s growing still. Soon to find tire tread marks on his back is Kevin Jennings, President Obama’s Assistant Deputy Secretary of the Office of Safe and Drug FreeSchools who serves in the Department of Education. Mark Tapscott (he likes the ol’ Okie — see upper left of page!) writes at the Washington Examiner:

Kevin Jennings, President Obama’s Assistant Deputy Secretary of the Office of Safe and Drug FreeSchools at the U.S. Department of Education, is in hot water this week for having failed to report that a 15-year-old sophomore student in his school had told him of having sex with an older man.

But failure to report what appeared to be a case of statuatory rape of a child may be the least of Jennings’ worries. Lori Roman of Regular Folks United points to statements by Jennings a decade or more ago when he praised Harry Hay of the North American Association for Man-Boy Love Association (NAMBLA), which promotes the legalization of sexual abuse of young boys by older men.

Roman provides damning details and links here. She also notes that Jennings wrote the forward “to a book called Queering Elementary Education. And another fellow you may have heard of wrote one of the endorsements on the book jacket—Bill Ayers.” Ayers, of course, is the Weather Underground bomber from the 1960s who is just an “acquaintance” of Obama.

Every presidential administration ends up with scandals inspired by controversial appointees, but typically those tend to revolve around financial improprieties, conflicts of interest, or some other form of white-collar misconduct. For Obama, the scandals seem to be developing in a pattern of disclosures revolving around radical left ideology that raises questions about their fitness for any job in government.

And that in turn raises the inevitable question: Is nobody minding the White House personnel store?

Mark has to revise his position just a tad and recognize that Hays was never a member or employee of NAMBLA, however he was a lifelong supporter of the group. Mark closes with this:

Jennings praise of Hay was not specifically in the context of the latter’s support of NAMBLA. Readers will decide for themselves whether it is appropriate for an individual who publicly praised an advocate of pedophilia to be appointed Assistant Deputy Secretary of Education for Safe and Drug-Free Schools.

I’ve decided for myself — it’s not at all appropriate for an individual who publicly praised an advocate of pedophilia to be appointed Assistant Deputy Secretary of Education for Safe and Drug-Free Schools.

It takes a village idiot to do something like that . . . just sayin’.

[H/t: Patterico]

Technorati Tags: Kevin Jennings, Queering Elementary Education, Bill Ayers, NAMBLA

I don’t expect to actually read the legislative language, because reading the legislative language is among the more confusing things I’ve ever read in my life. . . . When you get into the legislative language, Sen. Conrad actually read some of it, several pages of it, the other day, and I don’t think anybody had a clue, including people who had served on this committee for decades, what he was talking about.

My goodness. We’re doomed . . .

Elections have consequences! Next year we get a change to clean up this mess. Grab a broom and a mop — and better get the bleach ’cause mere soap ain’t a gonna cut it!

More legalistic-type insights over at Patterico’s.

Technorati Tags: legislative language, Sen. Conrad

Over at Automotive News [registration may be required] Hans Greimel reports that the newish president of Toyota isn’t seeing all sun and roses like in those Prius ads:

Toyota is ‘grasping for salvation’ as losses continue, chief says

Founder’s grandson says company is too big, distant from customers

Toyota Motor Corp. President Akio Toyoda said his money-losing automaker is “grasping for salvation” as it struggles to return to profit.

The world’s largest car company was once targeting annual sales of 10 million vehicles but now expects sales of 7.3 million this year, down from 8.97 million in 2008, Toyoda said today at a news conference here.

Citing the five stages of corporate decline outlined by Jim Collins, author of How the Mighty Fall, the Toyota chief warned that his company has slumped to stage four, which Collins calls “grasping for salvation.”

“We are grasping for salvation,” Toyoda said, adding that the company already has spiraled through the first three stages: (1) hubris born of success, (2) undisciplined pursuit of more and (3) denial of risk and peril. His self-admonitions echoed the apologies commonly made by Japanese executives who take responsibility for financial turmoil or corporate scandal.

{…}

“When you get to this level, it makes it difficult to return to profit on sales growth alone,” he said.

Toyoda repeated Toyota’s aim to return to profit at the parent level “as soon as possible,” even as it expects global sales to fall 18 percent from 2008 to 7.34 million vehicles this year. That would leave about 30 percent of the company’s production capacity unused.

My, my . . . doesn’t that look a lot like the GM of old? You’d think that the Japanese would have learned that lesson as they saw the great U.S. automotive giant slowly collapse into insolvency, but it becomes apparent that hubris, thy name is the mega-international-corporation.

Oh and BTW — This isn’t gonna help much!

Technorati Tags: Toyota, Akio Toyoda, grasping for salvation

Uh . . . apparently not.

“The shock of Chicago’s elimination was greater for the fact that it came in the first round. And greater for the fact that President Obama had taken valuable hours from his packed and tense political schedule to travel to Copenhagen. His legendary powers of persuasion will be said to have failed him, though in reality it will be Chicago’s bid that failed him. Nonetheless, this is a moment which allows the president’s detractors to allege waning prestige on the part of his presidency. And it will raise questions about the political advice that he is receiving.”

Michelle Malkin writes:

Goodbye, “Yes We Can.” Hello, “No, You Can’t.”

The Chicago cronies are not going to take this well. Gird your loins.

Allahpundit at Hot Air mea-culpas with a twist:

It’s only right that I eat crap here for having insisted that this was a done deal and that The One wouldn’t dare risk his political capital on a completely needless humiliation. You’re a bigger sucker than I thought, champ.

On Ace, Dave in Texas puts this in perspective via the beginning of nuclear negotiations with Iran:

Some additional thoughts: I was sure this thing was in the bag, mostly because I could not imagine Obama being so dumb as to actually take this risk with his credibility.

So I was wrong about that. Either he is this dumb, or he’s extremely naïve about his negotiating ability. Can’t wait to see him leverage that action with Iran.

Wow! Can’t seem to bring home the bacon . . . Gee, that’s too bad. Guess the City of Brotherly Love Beating Young Boys To Death and all of President Obama’s cronys won’t get to play loose and free with all those Olympic BILLIONS!

Cry me a river already.

[Update: Rio's got it! Carnival for everybody!!!]

[More update: Rick Moran sees much damage to Obama's presidency over this failure.]

The president’s failure in Copenhagen must be viewed in light of what else he might have been doing to address the growing unease with his presidency — his lack of apparent leadership where campaigning has become a substitute for making decisions, for instance. If the essence of leadership is the ability to decide the tough questions, the president is failing in that regard. His own party is wondering how strongly he supports the public option in health insurance reform. His commanding general in Afghanistan is wondering why he can’t get a straight answer on his request for thousands of more troops to stave off disaster.

And the American people are wondering when the president is going to address the growing unemployment figures and lack of economic activity that have everyone worried.

Technorati Tags: Chicago’s elimination, Copenhagen, Chicago’s bid, Chicago cronies

100 greatest hits of YouTube in 4 minutes:

[H/t: DrewM at Ace]

Technorati Tags: 100 greatest hits of YouTube in 4 minutes

In a post today The Anchoress is asking this question about celebrities, our elected leaders and our representatives and illustrates that thought by laundry-listing the egregious amount of energy consumption of a typical U2 concert. As one might imagine, that number is HUGE! But wait, there’s more. The other evening Nancy Pelosi and other D.C. elites had a rockin’ good time at the D.C. U2 concert. On that The Anchoress writes:

We are told that many politicians were at this concert; Nancy Pelosi was there. Undoubtedly many people who lecture us daily about the environment and are diligently working to ram the ruinous cap and trade boondoggle down our throats were enjoying the music, the lights, the pyrotechnics, the spectacle. Then they got into their waiting limos, and went home to their well-lit, well-heated and spacious homes.

You and I must turn out all of the lights, put on our sweaters, air-dry our laundry and consider biking everywhere we go, because we are energy gluttons who are killing the planet.

But for the rest of them -our betters- why the show goes on, and on, and on. A “crisis” for which you and I must change our lives, but not they theirs.

Cognitive dissonance, anyone? Some are more equal than others.

Ah, yes. Much more equal than you and me — Oh ya betcha! Patrick Gavin at Politico notes:

Bono dedicated “New Year’s Day” to Ted Kennedy and “Beautiful Day” to Eunice and Timmy Shriver.

In response Anchoress quips:

They could not be bothered to mention that Bono dedicated his showpiece number, “One” to President George W. Bush & US Congress for “AIDS, malaria relief efforts in Africa, saving millions of lives. .”

So, again, some are more equal than others. It’s a hypocritical value the media itself promotes, endlessly.

Still, rollicking in the euphoria of a quadzillion-mega-watt music concert while admonishing the rest of us to grope around in the dark and wear a couple-dozen sweaters for warmth to save Gaea pales in comparison to the hundred-plus mind-sick Hollywood elites that signed the petition to “Free Roman Polanski”. Let’s go over this again. At age 44, film-director Roman Polanski got into a jacuzzi at Jack Nicholson’s house and drugged a 13-year-old girl with Quaaludes and alcohol, then had sex with her against her will, and then for his big finish sodomized her to boot.

ROMAN POLANSKI RAPED AND SODOMIZED A THIRTEEN YEAR OLD GIRL!

He even confessed, and was going to be given a slap on the wrist by a Los Angeles judge but pathetic piece-’o-shit coward that he was/is, Polanski fled the U.S. and has been living the life of luxury in Europe for the last three decades. Now, when it’s finally time to pay the piper this 70-some-odd-year-old dirtbag is being defended by his International “peers”. Here’s the text of the petition.

We have learned the astonishing news of Roman Polanski’s arrest by the Swiss police on September 26th, upon arrival in Zurich (Switzerland) while on his way to a film festival where he was due to receive an award for his career in filmmaking.

His arrest follows an American arrest warrant dating from 1978 against the filmmaker, in a case of morals.

Filmmakers in France, in Europe, in the United States and around the world are dismayed by this decision. It seems inadmissible to them that an international cultural event, paying homage to one of the greatest contemporary filmmakers, is used by the police to apprehend him.

By their extraterritorial nature, film festivals the world over have always permitted works to be shown and for filmmakers to present them freely and safely, even when certain States opposed this.

The arrest of Roman Polanski in a neutral country, where he assumed he could travel without hindrance, undermines this tradition: it opens the way for actions of which no one can know the effects.

Roman Polanski is a French citizen, a renown and international artist now facing extradition. This extradition, if it takes place, will be heavy in consequences and will take away his freedom.

Filmmakers, actors, producers and technicians—everyone involved in international filmmaking—want him to know that he has their support and friendship.

On September 16th, 2009, Mr. Charles Rivkin, the US Ambassador to France, received French artists and intellectuals at the embassy. He presented to them the new Minister Counselor for Public Affairs at the embassy, Ms Judith Baroody. In perfect French she lauded the Franco-American friendship and recommended the development of cultural relations between our two countries.

If only in the name of this friendship between our two countries, we demand the immediate release of Roman Polanski.

Gee, bet ya didn’t know that a film festival was the equivalent of an arrest-free zone. Kinda like bein’ 12 miles off the coast or something? What kind of cankered gray-matter does it take to think up or agree with something like that? Glad you asked. Here’s the list of moral-reprobates that signed this piece of garbage. Allahpundit at Hot Air writes about them:

Most are European and unfamiliar, but among the people whose movies I’ll never watch again: Jonathan Demme, John Landis, Michael Mann, Martin Scorsese, and, bless his heart, Woody Allen, who I guess was forced to sign lest the press seize on the idea of a guy who married his almost-stepdaughter passing judgment on Polanski. Open question to any of these rape-defending turds: How far would you have let Polanski go before deciding that, hey, he probably should serve some time after all? What if he punched the kid in the face when he was raping her? Beat her with a tire iron? Seriously, how far?

How far, indeed. If it had been a Catholic priest that had done this the liberal tar & feathers would have come out decades ago. If if had been you or I, we’d be in the slammer for ever. But since it was done by an honored artiste, well heavens, we can’t have our betters locked up and not entertaining us over a little thing like RAPING AND SODOMIZING THIRTEEN YEAR OLD GIRLS!

Michael Deacon at the Telegraph.co.UK reminds us of what Polanski said about the case during an interview a year after fleeing the US:

“If I had killed somebody, it wouldn’t have had so much appeal to the press, you see? But… f—ing, you see, and the young girls. Judges want to f— young girls. Juries want to f— young girls. Everyone wants to f— young girls!”

I don’t even need to comment on that statement, it is so self-explanatory and incriminating — even without his confession, which the LA District Attorney’s office had/has. Speaking of which, LA District Attorney Patrick Frey (the blogger Patterico) has been on this story like white on risotto for the last few days and is thick in the middle of it with Washington Post writer/blogger Anne Applebaum who has been rather apologetic about Polanski and would like to see him released. Here’s just a sample of how Frey handily dismantles Applebaum’s feeble arguments:

Applebaum here concedes that she was inaccurate to claim Polanski had a “trial,” but claims the full truth would be too confusing. She essentially implies that I am being overly technical. Not at all. Here is what she originally wrote:

There is evidence of judicial misconduct in the original trial. There is evidence that Polanski did not know her real age. Polanski, who panicked and fled the U.S. during that trial . . .

This passage implies that there may be some doubt about Polanski’s guilt. If there is evidence of judicial misconduct during a “trial” — coupled with evidence that the defendant may not be guilty — then the defendant’s guilt is questionable. But that’s not what happened. Instead, Polanski pled guilty, and testified under oath that he knew the girl was 13.

I certainly can understand why Applebaum would want to withhold these facts from her readers. Telling readers these facts might muddle Applebaum’s message that Polanski is a poor put-upon old man who survived the Holocaust and may well be innocent. But it wouldn’t be confusing to tell readers the truth. It would merely detract from Applebaum’s ridiculous position.

Go read it all. The bottom line is that this big-newspaper writer believes that her readers “can’t handle the truth.” You know, like they are better than us mere-mortals readers. Circular post, I know . . .

Are They Really More Equal Than US?

Technorati Tags: Nancy Pelosi, D.C. U2 concert, Bono, ROMAN POLANSKI, RAPED AND SODOMIZED A THIRTEEN YEAR OLD GIRL, Anne Applebaum