The Virginian

People are hurting, and badly. The official unemployment rate may have fallen, slightly, but the real unemployment rate — the number of working-age Americans who aren’t working — rose from about 12% before the 2008 crisis, to about 23%, and hasn’t come down. That includes people who have retired early because they can’t find work, spouses who used to earn a second income but have gone back to homemaking because work isn’t available, self-employed people whose businesses have collapsed, young people who live in their parents’ basement because they can’t afford tuition and can’t find work.

Labels: Economy, Obama

Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?

Sen. Paul told TheDC that he certainly felt like he was detained. “If you’re told you can’t leave, does that count as detention?” Paul asked.

“I tried to leave the cubicle to speak to one of the TSA people and I was barked at: ‘Do not leave the cubicle!’ So, that, to me sounds like I’m being asked not to leave the cubicle. It sounds a little bit like I’m being detained.”

Labels: Liberalism, Obama, Rand Paul, TSA

—“it’s already started,” he says

With a little help from him this prediction may come true.  Spooky guy.

Labels: Soros

Why would you tie up any of your precious inventory dollars in a car that doesn't sell and will catch fire?

DETROIT -- Some Chevrolet dealers are turning down Volts that General Motors wants to ship to them, a potential stumbling block as GM looks to accelerate sales of the plug-in hybrid.

For example, consider the New York City market. Last month, GM allocated 104 Volts to 14 dealerships in the area, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Dealers took just 31 of them, the lowest take rate for any Chevy model in that market last month. That group of dealers ordered more than 90 percent of the other vehicles they were eligible to take, the source said.

In Clovis, Calif., meanwhile, Brett Hedrick, dealer principal at Hedrick's Chevrolet, sold 10 Volts last year. But in December and January he turned down all six Volts allocated to him under GM's "turn-and-earn" system, which distributes vehicles based on past sales volumes and inventory levels.

Labels: Economy, electric cars

Labels: nature

Charles Blow

"Don't need Newt 2 tell me abt blk ppl, work and food stamps. Ancestors worked 4 free, nearly starved 2 death & were branded w cattle stamps!"

“ …the moral authority of parents who bury children killed in Iraq is absolute.”

Nonetheless, to those whites for whom white guilt is not rooted in experience--those, including this columnist, who are too young to remember a time when full citizenship for blacks was a cruel fiction--the culture of white guilt can seem unfair and irrational, and can be a source of irritation and anger. Why is the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People respected while a National Association for the Advancement of White People would be considered racist? Why did Obama get away with calling his grandmother "a typical white person," when a white politician who made the same statement about a black person would be pilloried?

There are reasonable answers to questions like these--answers that are obvious to those who are old enough to remember Jim Crow or who have a sufficiently deep understanding of American history. What is not a reasonable answer is a hectoring assertion of one's own moral authority, either as a black person or as an enlightened white.

One cannot go backward. White supremacy is as good as dead, and white guilt is dying along with guilty whites of older generations. Both these developments constitute progress toward racial equality. The election of a black president was the most compelling dramatization this country has seen of the death of white supremacy. In our view, it is also hastening the demise of white guilt.

"I believe every American of every background has been endowed by their Creator with the right to pursue happiness, and if that makes liberals unhappy, I'm going to continue to find ways to help poor people learn how to get a job, learn how to get a better job, and learn someday to own the job."

Labels: Gingrich, Race, TimesLies

How's that Arab Spring working out for ya?

The Salafi Al-Nour, which was initially the biggest surprise of the vote, wants to impose strict Islamic law in Egypt,...

While the Muslim Brotherhood lies about its objectives ... except the part about destroying Israel.

Labels: Arab Spring

Well, yeah ... that's why he won.  Duh!

Labels: Gingrich, media, The Press

Labels: Liberalism, Religion

According to the reported numbers, the drug-related murder rate was about 67 for every 100,000 inhabitants in Chihuahua last year, while in Afghanistan the civilian killing rate was an estimated seven for every 100,000 people living there.

There were more drug-related killings in Chihuahua than in any other Mexican state, according to the government figures. Chihuahua, the largest state in Mexico, includes Ciudad Juarez, a border city located across from El Paso, Texas. It is the deadliest city in Mexico and is considered one of the most dangerous places in the world.

Labels: crime, Mexico

Labels: corruption, crime, humor

There is a chilling undercurrent that is shaping our elections: the Democrat’s Secretary of State Project. What’s it purpose? To elect Democrats to the office of Secretaries of State in each state. Why? The Secretary of State of each state certifies the election results for that state. Other than the pay, why should anyone care about the party affiliation of the Secretary of State? The answer is simple, in close elections, especially where there are disputed ballots or recounts, the Secretary of State can make the difference between the winner and the loser.

Here is how Al Franken defeated Norm Coleman.

Then, in Minnesota’s November election for U.S. Senate, Republican incumbent Norm Coleman finished 725 votes ahead of Democratic challenger Al Franken; the thin margin of victory, however, triggered an automatic recount. With Mark Ritchie [who credited the Secretary of State Project for his win]  presiding over the recount process during the ensuing weeks, Coleman's lead gradually dwindled due to what journalist Matthew Vadum describes as a long series of “appalling irregularities” that invariably benefited Franken.


For example, during the recount process a number of ballots were found in an election judge's car; one Minnesota county suddenly discovered 100 new votes for Franken and claimed that a clerical error had caused them to previously go uncounted; another county tallied 177 more votes than it had recorded on Election Day; and yet another county reported 133 fewer votes than its voting machines had tabulated. “Almost every time new ballots materialized, or tallies were updated or corrected, Franken benefited,” writes Vadum. In addition, at least 393 convicted felons voted illegally in two particular Minnesota counties.


By the time the recount (and a court challenge by Coleman) ended in April 2009, Franken held a 312-vote lead. In June, Franken was officially declared the victor.

Loosely translated, Stalin is quoted as saying:

"I consider it completely unimportant who in the party will vote, or how; but what is extraordinarily important is this — who will count the votes, and how.”

There is now a growing body of evidence that the Democrats are going to make a concerted effort to steal as much of the upcoming election as possible. The regime’s “Justice” department under Eric Holder wants to make sure that no one will be asked for identification when voting; opening the process to fraud on a massive scale because they know that there will be no effort by the Feds to stop it. Election fraud has been given a green light.

Meanwhile the Secretary of State Project has committed a grave blunder by trying to frame the surprise Republican winner of the Iowa Secretary of State’s office.

A Des Moines man has been arrested after police say he used, or tried to use, the identity of Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz in a scheme to falsely implicate Schultz in perceived unethical behavior in office.

Remember Stalin’s maxim, the people who count the votes make the most important decisions. We are entering a lawless time where the unthinkable suddenly becomes entirely possible.

UPDATE:  Democrats try to hide the trail.  Fire Edwards.

Biographical information on Edwards found on the Link Strategies website says that Edwards worked in new media for the Obama campaign beginning in September 2007 after joining the campaign as an intern organizing in the Las Vegas area.

Jeff Link, president of Link Strategies, confirmed Saturday that Edwards no longer works for the company.

“I am greatly disturbed by the charge brought against Zach, and understand the pending legal action will run its course,” Link said.

He added that within hours “of learning of this situation, I met with Zach and notified him he was no longer employed with Link

Labels: Democrats, election, Obama, Voter fraud

Mark Levin:



I also want to know more about his relationship with Reverend Wright. I want to know about his girlfriends, and ex-girlfriends; his classmates because that will tell me about the man behind the mask. I want to know what courses he took and grades he got in college because we are told by his groupies in the press how brilliant he is. Perhaps he keeps that brilliance hidden for a reason.

We are in the middle of a new election season and there is still time for us to learn about the man behind the teleprompter. 

Labels: Obama

If only Mitt Romney had it in him to do the same thing, this election would be over. Could we have a Romney - Gingrich slate for 2012?

Labels: election, Gingrich, media, The Press

More: Drudge Screwed Up ABC's Plans for the Marianne Gingrich Interview


Even more Limbaugh: Barack Obama is the Problem

The things that I do know are that this country is precariously balanced on an edge -- and if it goes the wrong way, the country as you and I know it is finished. What I know is, as I said yesterday: Whatever Mitt Romney's tax rate is, he's not responsible for that.

Mitt Romney nor Newt Gingrich nor Rick Santorum nor Rick Perry have anything to do with the economic misery in this country. That is traceable to one man and one location: Barack Obama and the Oval Office. Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, Santorum have not played over 90 rounds of golf in three years while everybody's suffering. Gingrich, Romney, Santorum, the Republican nominees have not flown all over the world on the federal government's dime. They're not having lavish parties and concerts on the public's dime. They're not living like kings on other people's money.

Obama sends his wife on government jets four hours ahead of him to the same destination, or she decides to take the jet herself. The Republicans are not doing that.

Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich will be taking a pay cut. For Obama winning the White House was a path to wealth. For the Republican nominees all except Santorum, now, it will be a pay cut. Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Santorum. None of the Republican candidates are responsible for the 16% real unemployment in this country. They are not responsible for the increased fuel and food costs. They are not responsible for any of this. That would be Obama, who pretends to care about the middle class but lives like a king at the public trough. Mitt Romney's not the problem. Newt Gingrich is not the problem. Rick Santorum is not the problem.

We find ourselves in the mess that we are in, precariously balanced on the edge, because of Barack Obama.

Labels: Gingrich, Limbaugh, sexual politics, The Press

Via Instapundit: 

#GREENFAIL: Der Spiegel: Solar Subsidy Sinkole: Reevaluating Germany’s Blind Faith In The Sun. I’ve lived in Germany. They have faith in the sun because for most of the year it never actually appears . . . . No really. We went from November to May in Heidelberg and I think we saw the sun, like, once. So how can this possibly be a surprise?

Der Spiegel: Re-Evaluating Germany's Blind Faith in the Sun

A good place to begin the ridicule. Some ideas are so ridiculous that only a highly credentialed person would believe them.

Labels: energy, Europe, Greens; energy, Instapundit, solar

I have peeked around the corner and seen a little bit of politics as it is actually practiced, and it’s described well here.

From Sultan Knish

Politics is a profession with a practice that runs completely counter to its ideals. The best politicians believe nothing they say. Whatever commitments they make to the voters are left behind once they enter the white halls of government. Like police officers who are forced to become criminals in order to do their job right, they discover that the practice of their profession requires the comprehensive corruption of their ideals. Only by discarding their principles and commitments can they actually get the things they want to do done.

The successful politician does not believe in absolutes except when he is delivering a speech intended for the ears of the voters, what he knows to be true is that everyone has a price at which a bargain can be made. ...

"Forty billion dollars for clean energy subsidies? Ridiculous. My family will starve and my children will have to beg in the streets! Forty-two billion? Now that's more reasonable. Make it forty-three and I'll give you that cowboy poetry festival and steel tariff you wanted."

Think of Washington D.C. and every state capital and every local bunch of elected officials as a Middle Eastern bazaar and you come close to the truth. And while this system works well enough when stocks are limited, when the merchants can dispose of unlimited assets that they don't own and drive their constituents deep into debt to pay for their latest deals, then the real nightmare arrives.

The fact is that politicians operate within a consensus that is created outside of the halls of congress.

Politics is based around a consensus. The left does not operate on a consensus, it is a revolutionary movement and it works by subverting the consensus and presenting its revolutionary position as the new consensus. All that is left for the politicians then is to affirm the new consensus. This has happened over and over again in the lifetimes of even the youngest person reading this article and the process has been accelerating lately because it s a revolutionary process.

There are two types of conservative politicians. Gatekeepers and revolutionaries. The gatekeepers are consensus builders, they talk a great deal about traditional values, and are elected to keep change out. This defensive strategy is a dead end because the real changes are happening outside the direct purview of the gatekeepers, who usually lack the imagination and courage to do anything about them. When the left pushes hard enough, the gatekeepers fold and add the new order of things into their panoply of American values.

The gatekeepers will put up a vigorous show of fighting gay marriage and then ten years later they will proclaim gay marriage as the embodiment of our family values. They will make a great show of fighting Global Warming legislation, and then five years later they will say that our courage to confront climate change is the deepest sign of our values of responsibility for the world around us.

There are few things more powerful and liberating than spitting in the face of authority, tearing down the sacred symbols and violation the taboos of those in power. In a democracy political power is based on a consensus. Defying that consensus, trivializing that consensus and walking all over it gets you called an extremist, but if you do it right then you have weakened the psychological power of the establishments over the minds of men.

Defiance is the fundamental virtue of the revolutionary. The left defied the accepted norms and values of America, and that defiance paved the way for a cultural revolution. The power of the left will never be broken until the right defies their values and norms the same way. Until it publicly destroys, mocks and violates everything that they consider sacred in the spirit of revolution.

Revolutions begin as culture wars against the established order and they connect cultural defiance to political change. The fundamental message of every revolution is a defiance of authority and if the revolution succeeds then those in power are forced to give way and accede to change. It can be done. That populist spirit is out there, it is abroad in the Tea Party, it is there in blogs and social media, and even occasionally on talk radio. But all that goes to waste empowering a political establishment of gatekeepers who sometimes talk like revolutionaries, but don't act like revolutionaries.

Why is the Tea Party revolutionary while OWS was not?

The answer is transparently obvious. Because it is the left that is in power. Why bother demanding an activist and progressive government when we already have one of those? At most the left can demand a "more" activist and progressive government, but how enthusiastic can protesters be about calling for more authority and more power for the existing system? That is why OWS was basically incoherent, it was little more than a loincloth for the naked emperor already sitting on his throne and looking for the plebes to cry out for more chains.

The revolution of the left is the stratified revolution of Barack Obamas and Elizabeth Warrens, greedy political activists feeding at the watering hole of government and crying out for more. More power. More laws. More chains. Parse the rhetoric and all you get is the powerful demanding that we give them more power. This revolution of the greedy and corrupt would already be dead if it had not used the momentum of its ideological fervor to embed itself into every institution and seize control of the educational system and the cultural dialogue to program succeeding generations to give it even more power.

Rush Limbaugh keeps pointing out that the establishment Republicans tell us that we can’t be mean to the Democrats because that will scare away the all-important “moderates.”

The time is ripe for a true cultural and political revolution of the right, but that revolution has been hijacked over and over again by the gatekeepers who warn us that it's time to play nice, that we must think of the long game, that some issues have already been lost and we need to fight only for the core issues that matter to them lest we alienate people. The long march never ends in a last stand, only another tactical withdrawal on issue after issue.

Let's show some contempt and ridicule ...

Revolutions begin with an open contempt for and anger at the existing order. The left knows that. It is why it fears talk radio and populism more than it fears the latest set of dapper gatekeepers we send to the Senate. The contempt and anger are here, the more they go public, the more the power of the left is shaken.

No quarter.

Thanks for the link Glenn.

Labels: Conservative, Liberalism, Limbaugh, Politics, revolution

In other news, sun rises in the East.

DRUDGE:

Obama kills Keystone pipeline; Blames Republicans...

Says more jobs in jobless benefits...

GOP calls Hillary to testify...

More - KEYSTONE CALAMITY

Labels: energy, Obama

Labels: energy, government control, regulation

Labels: Canada, energy, Obama

Employees at Just One Paris Hospital Are Owed 2 Million Vacation Days.

Just to put 2 million days into perspective, that's 5,475 years of vacation time. There's no indication of how many employees are sharing that pool of vacation time, but if it were just one, they'd just be finishing a stint of paid time off that started in B.C. 3467, that is just around the time when the Sumerians invented writing and the Sahara started turning into a desert.

Labels: Economy, Europe