Thursday, June 30, 2011
"If I ever read another column by Thomas Friedman, the terrorists will have won"
James Taranto tells an eternal truth.
Labels: Liberalism, TimesLies
TSA Makes 95-Year-Old Woman Remove Adult Diaper But Allows Nigerian Immigrant Fly With Fake ID and Expired Boarding Pass.
Olajide Oluwaseun Noibi of Nigeria arrested, found with 10 other expired boarding passes
Who caught this impostor? The super sleuths who make a living feeling up young women or groping a man's "junk?"
Nah.
It was a flight attendant who noticed Noibi was sitting in a seat that was supposed to be vacant.
Federal agents have arrested a Nigerian man after he successfully flew from New York to Los Angeles, and then attempted to fly from Los Angeles to Atlanta, without having a valid boarding pass for either flight.
Who caught this impostor? The super sleuths who make a living feeling up young women or groping a man's "junk?"
Nah.
It was a flight attendant who noticed Noibi was sitting in a seat that was supposed to be vacant.
Labels: TSA
President Barack Obama's Complete List of Historic Firsts
It's impressive.
• First President to Spend a Trillion Dollars on 'Shovel-Ready' Jobs -- and Later Admit There Was No Such Thing as Shovel-Ready JobsRead the rest.
• First President to Abrogate Bankruptcy Law to Turn Over Control of Companies to His Union Supporters
Labels: Obama
Violent, urban flash mobs: the delightful product of the Democrats' unbounded welfare state and gun control
From Doug Ross @ Journal.
Read the test.
"Flash mob crimes" are a growing problem in large cities around the country. The phrase refers to a large crowd of individuals -- usually teens -- that use social networks to coordinate riots, assaults and robberies. And they occur almost exclusively in cities where the concealed carry of firearms is either banned altogether (unconstitutionally, as in Chicago) or permit holders are simply harassed to discourage them from packing.
The inevitable result: law-abiding citizens are unable to protect themselves from swarms of attackers. Consider the following sampling of incidents that have occurred in Philadelphia over the last few months.
Read the test.
Labels: crime, Liberalism, Race
Obama gets daughter's age wrong.
But check the MFM to see if this gets their attention. GOOGLE obama's daughters ages and you get 1,430,000 results, with no links to the MFM.
Here's the good news, this will be known to most of the people in the country who follow the news becaue the Internet has it, led by DRUDGE.
Here's the good news, this will be known to most of the people in the country who follow the news becaue the Internet has it, led by DRUDGE.
Durbin: Illegal Alien Could Be Future President...
If Sarah Palin or Michelle Bachmann said this we would never hear the end of it.
Of course the "living constitution" is vague on the meaning of "natural born citizen." If you don't know, just ask TIME magazine.After using illegal immigrants as props to push the DREAM Act, Sen. Durbin (D-IL) made the following statement at a Senate committee hearing:
"When I look around this room, I see America's future. Our doctors, our teachers, our nurses, our engineers, our scientists, our soldiers, our Congressman, our Senators and maybe our President."
However, Article 2, Section 1, Clause 5 of the Constitution says: "No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President."
Labels: Democrats, immigration, Law, Liberalism
If WW-2 Ended the Great Depression, is Obama Planning WW-3 to Help His Re-election Chances?
He's got three wars going nicely: Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and now Somalia.
U.S. drone targets two leaders of Somali group allied with al-Qaeda, official says.
Not that going after Islamofascists on Jihad is a bad thing, but is it really just an election strategy? With any other president, that would not be a question. With Obama you really don't know.
U.S. drone targets two leaders of Somali group allied with al-Qaeda, official says.
Not that going after Islamofascists on Jihad is a bad thing, but is it really just an election strategy? With any other president, that would not be a question. With Obama you really don't know.
Liberal Mob Attack on Glenn Beck
Ann Coutler on Glenn Beck vs. The Mob
Read the whole thing.
The Liberal hive is exactly like that, and if the hive is made up of what the MFM calls "youths" it's much more violent.Of all the details surrounding the liberal mob attack on Glenn Beck and his family in New York's Bryant Park last Monday night, one element stands out. "No, it won't be like that, Dad," his daughter said when Beck questioned the wisdom of attending a free, outdoor movie showing in a New York park.
People who have never been set upon by a mob of liberals have absolutely no idea what it's like to be a publicly recognizable conservative. Even your friends will constantly be telling you: "Oh, it will be fine. Don't worry. Nothing will happen. This place isn't like that."
Read the whole thing.
Labels: Coulter, crime, Glenn Beck, Liberalism
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Herman Cain Ad: "A Failure To Lead"
Obama' part in getting the government budget balanced ....
Tell others to "get it done."
This can't even be called leading from the rear. This is out and out abdication of responsibility with a huge dollop of finger pointing and Chutzpah.
Read that again: Obama believes he has done his part when he calls a meeting "Right after we finished dealing with the government shutdown," (WHAT? what government shutdown? Is there a government shutdown I missed?) and says "we have to get his done." Who is this "WE" kemo sabe? it sure as hell isn't Obama because we still have not had him present a budget.President Obama says he is "amused" when people say he needs to get more involved in the debt crisis talks currently being led by Vice President Joe Biden.
"If you know you have to do something, just do it. And I have to say, I am very amused when I start hearing comments about 'well the President needs to show more leadership on this.' Let me tell you something: Right after we finished dealing with the government shutdown, averting a government shutdown, I called the leaders here together. I said we have to get this done," President Obama said at a press conference this afternoon.
Obama told Congress it is up to them and "they need to do their job."
"Now's the time to go ahead and make the tough choices, that's why they're called leaders," he said.
This can't even be called leading from the rear. This is out and out abdication of responsibility with a huge dollop of finger pointing and Chutzpah.
DRUDGE headlines on Obama's speech.
Labels: Obama
Jewish Dems losing faith in Obama
It's a cultural and generational thing. The Jewish community may not be a monolithic as the black community, but it's reliably Liberal. The best the Republicans can hope for a a cooling of Jewish ardor for Obama.
Lincoln Said It Best: The Founding Fathers Opposed Slavery
Fact checking George Stephanopoulos who disagrees with Michelle Bachmann that the Founders "worked tirelessly" to end slavery. Let's bring in an expert with some greater level of knowledge than Stephanopoulos:
Here is Abraham Lincoln on slavery and the Founders:
Read more »
Here is Abraham Lincoln on slavery and the Founders:
Read more »
Labels: Liberalism, media, Race, The Press
Republicans aren't buying the shit the media is shoveling.
From Ace of Spades:
Last week, the MBM went crazy with stories about how Jon Huntsman would be an ideal candidate to run against Obama. Could it be that the full-court press on Huntsman's behalf actually backfired among Republican voters? Looks like it.
Is Sarah Palin Running for President?
I've never done this before, but I would like to invite comments from readers on this issue.
Well, there are plenty of jobs that a monkey could do. Or do as well as those doing the jobs today. Such as:
IMAO:
Advising Obama on the economy
Working as a news anchor for MSNBC
Global Warming researcher
Writing for Daily Kos
American Idol judge
Newt Gingrich campaign staffer
Green Energy Czar
Windows programmer
Dictator of Cuba
Labels: humor
The Racism Everyone Pretends Doesn't Exist
A story about the racial abuse of an Asian immigrant (read the whole thing).
In what passes for discussions on race these days, small problems are often blown up large, while real traumas are completely ignored. For instance, despite what President Clinton’s “Race Initiative” panel has said, the very rawest racial conflicts in present-day America don’t even fit into the tidy mold of white-majority-oppressing-colored-minority that activists constantly promote. Though civil rights groups and most of the media studiously ignore this fact, the nation’s most fractious racial battles are now conflicts between minority populations. Particularly horrific is the animosity directed at Asian Americans by blacks in low-income areas of urban America.
Read more »At age ten, I immigrated from China to Oakland, California, a city filled with crime, poverty, and racial tension. In elementary school, I didn’t wear name-brand clothing or speak English. My name soon became “Ching Chong,” “Chinagirl,” and “Chow Mein.” Other children laughed at my language, my culture, my ethnicity, and my race. I said nothing.
Time Mag’s Constitutional Baby Babble
People, like Time's Richard Stengel are so dangerously stupid that they should not be allowed anywhere near word processing software. Someone, somewhere has been dangerously derelict in letting him out by himself, let alone getting his idiocies published in a national magazine.
His fisking begins:
Correcting all of the irrelevancies, distortions, and errors in his essay of nearly 5000 words would take far longer than it is worth. Below is just a sample:Stengel: “Here are a few things the framers did not know about: World War II. DNA. Sexting. Airplanes. The atom. Television. Medicare. Collateralized debt obligations. The germ theory of disease. Miniskirts. The internal combustion engine. Computers. Antibiotics. Lady Gaga.”
Answer: Well, yes, but so what? What, really, is the impact of miniskirts on whether the Founders’ views are relevant today? Is Mr. Stengel saying that sexting renders James Madison irrelevant? Or consider it this way: The Montana Constitution (a favorite of “progressives”) was created in 1972, before sexting—or email—was invented. Does that render the Montana Constitution illegitimate or obsolete?
Airplanes? If they fly across state lines, Congress can regulate them under the Interstate Commerce Clause. Lady Gaga? Her performances are (largely) protected from federal interference by the First Amendment. So what really is the problem here?
Read the whole thing.
Labels: biased reporting, Constitution, Liberalism, The Press
Obamanomics is shovel-ready
Dr. Milton R. Wolf is a board-certified diagnostic radiologist and President Obama’s cousin.
Obama lying with statistics:
Here's how the real economic effects of Obamanomics worked out:
Are you better off today than when Obama took office?
Read the whole thing.
Obama lying with statistics:
Last week - before the Democratic National Committee, no less - the president made this wild claim: “Over the last 15 months, we’ve created over 2.1 million private-sector jobs.” That despite the record showing America has 1.9 million fewer jobs today than before his “stimulus.”
Here's how the real economic effects of Obamanomics worked out:
Since the Obama stimulus - a collection of “shovel-ready” projects promised to save the economy - was signed into law, America has lost 1.9 million jobs and unemployment has surpassed 9 percent. GDP growth remains anemic. Consumer confidence has tumbled. Gas prices were at $1.81 per gallon before Mr. Obama put his “boot on the neck” of suppliers, and now it’s more than doubled, to $3.81. We burn our food supply in our gas tanks, and grocery prices have skyrocketed - some staples by as much as 40 percent. Since the president signed his mortgage rescue plan, Americans have seen 3.82 million foreclosures. Most disturbingly, the majority of Americans are receiving some type of welfare.
Are you better off today than when Obama took office?
Read the whole thing.
Is Jon Stewart Racist?
Yes ... but then most Liberals are.
John Nolte:
John Nolte:
Jon Stewart is a left-wing hatchet man disguised as a satirist and that disguise is one of his most potent weapons. Below you’ll see Steven Crowder and Herman Cain do the honorable work of starting to pull that disguise off of him.
Labels: Liberalism, media
North Korean economy struggles ... "unexpectedly." University students sent to work.
North Korea is run in the way that the Left prescribes as the answer to America's problems. For some inexplicable reason, that "great, prosperous and powerful nation" status is always a year away.North Korea has shut down its universities for the next 10 months and sent students to work in factories, agriculture and the construction sector as it struggles to rebuild its economy. Pyongyang has told the North Korean people that the nation will have achieved its aim of becoming "a great, prosperous and powerful nation" in 2012, which marks the 100th anniversary of the founder of the reclusive state, Kim Il-sung.
Labels: Economy, Instapundit, Korea, Liberalism
NPR supports Greek rioters who burn people to death.
Recall that early in the series of Greek riots, the rioters set a building ablaze and burned people inside it to death?
This morning, listneing to NPR they began its report of the Greek riots by casting the blame of injuries on the Greek police.
Go HERE for images of the way Greeksriot protest.
Sample:
This morning, listneing to NPR they began its report of the Greek riots by casting the blame of injuries on the Greek police.
Go HERE for images of the way Greeks
Sample:
Why do so many journalists describe Obama's foreseeable economic failures as “unexpected”?
Glenn Reynolds has a whole series of economic headlines that describe the economic bad news as "unexpected."
Dr. Paul Hsieh
If an irresponsible teenager repeatedly crashed his car into a tree whenever he had a few beers, we would never say his accidents were “unexpected.” Rather, they would be foreseeable consequences of driving while drinking. Similarly, we shouldn’t let journalists get away with describing as “unexpected” the foreseeable negative consequences of bad government policies.
Blogger Glenn Reynolds recently highlighted numerous examples of the media’s increasingly frequent use of “unexpected” to describe bad economic news. Unemployment “unexpectedly” rose despite federal “stimulus.” Home sales “unexpectedly” fell despite taxpayer bailouts. ER visits unexpectedly rose in Massachusetts despite RomneyCare. Similarly, the Pundit Press blog has rounded-up dozens of examples of such “unexpected” developments since January 2011.
Is the answer that journalists know better but are deliberately lying?
Although some conspiracy theorists may believe this is a deliberate ploy by media and political elites to destroy America from within, the actual answer is worse. The problem is not a willful desire to destroy America but rather a willful blindness to the facts.
If your view of reality is that good intentions result in good outcomes or that government actions are beneficial while private actions are evil then you will be surprised when reality does not agree.
Labels: Economy, Liberalism, media, The Press
Chowing Down with Dumbth and Dumbther!
I would pay good money if I could make both of these bozos go away.
"Dinner just got a little more interesting: The President announced that Vice President Biden's coming, too. Make a donation today and be automatically registered for a chance to have dinner with President Obama and Vice President Biden together. We'll cover your airfare and the meal—all you need to bring is your story and your ideas."
Tom "I'm Writing As Bad As I Can" Friedman Gets His
More Details Emerge in Wisconsin’s ‘Chokegate’
What is it with Wisconsin?
By the way, Ann Althouse (who voted for Obama) is finding out what it's like to be an apostate.
By the way, Ann Althouse (who voted for Obama) is finding out what it's like to be an apostate.
Labels: blogging, crime, Law, Liberalism
The New York Times’ natural gas fiasco
Natural gas just might be the energy solution environmentalists say they want, but actually can’t stand because nothing would put them out of business faster.
Race riots in Chicago
Play the "guess the race" game:
"There's a fight breaking out on the beach because there's nothing but animals covering this beach today," Schwartz phoned into the police. "What the hell is going on?"
Schwartz said she was walking from Oak Street Beach toward North Avenue Beach on Memorial Day when she witnessed a woman being beaten by a gang of people on the beach.
"They were being rude and abusive and throwing trash around and defecating," Schwartz said. "The crowd became very animated. They were cheering on the beating and more people joined in, so I kept walking forward. I was afraid I could be next."
His Honor, the Mayor, Rahm Emanuel says that police finally closed the beach because of excess heat. Even the lies and cover-up are unbelievable.
While Chicago's "youths" were beating women, the newly appointed head of Chicago's police announced that the problem was a white woman:
What is the deal with Chicago and radical churches? Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy recently spoke, or rather ranted, to a crowd at Saint Sabina's Catholic Church, saying racism is government sponsored while implying racism plays a large role in the gun manufacturing industry, failing to point out the majority of gun crime in Chicago is black on black crime.
He's OK with black on white crime.
The people who make America work are leaving places like Chicago. It's a shame because I liked Chicago. Unfortunately, the pockets of crime have spread and like cancer are metastasizing and killing the city. Meanwhile the culture of corruption is now so ingrained that the city's leaders are actually aiding the decline, participating in the murder of this once great city.
Labels: Guns, Liberalism, Political correctness, Race
Monday, June 27, 2011
Let Obama be Obama?
Having concluded that there is no way to disguise the fact that the first two and a half years of the Obama administration are a disaster, Obama has decided to throw all the other members of his party under the bus.
The new story line is that Obama allowed his advisors and Congress to create policy while he led from behind. Now it’s time for The One to take over, let his instincts reign supreme. He’s going to let Obama be Obama.
Yaaaaarrggghhhh!
Labels: Obama
NT Times Columnist David Carr is a Crackhead, Literally!
I wonder if that was a resume enhancer at the NY Times?
Every addict is formed in the crucible of the memory of that first hit. Even as the available endorphins attenuate, the memory is right there. By 1985, I tried freebasing coke and its more prosaic sibling, crack.
Labels: media, The Press, TimesLies
Death of the lightbulb set to music by Wagner.
A day in the life of a financial planner.
Egypt: Muslim extremists 'surround church and threaten to kill priest'
The Arab spring blossoms.
Labels: Egypt, Islamofascism
Elderly woman asked to remove adult diaper during TSA search
The representative told her that personnel had followed procedures during the search.Don't you feel safer now?
Labels: TSA
Netherlands abandoning multiculturalism
I'm for it, but concerned about the fact that "the values of a Dutch society" may be hard to define after that society has been deformed by multiculturalism.A new integration bill (covering letter and 15-page action plan), which Dutch Interior Minister Piet Hein Donner presented to parliament on June 16, reads: "The government shares the social dissatisfaction over the multicultural society model and plans to shift priority to the values of the Dutch people. In the new integration system, the values of the Dutch society play a central role. With this change, the government steps away from the model of a multicultural society."
Labels: Holland, Multiculturalism
NY Times Columnist: Kansas, Missouri ‘Middle Places’ Land of ‘Low Sloping Foreheads’
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Getting the message.
Is Barack Hussein Obama a second FDR?
Which past leader does Barack Obama most closely resemble? His admirers, not all of them liberals, used to compare him with Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt.
Well, Obama announced his candidacy in Lincoln's hometown two days before Abe's birthday, and he did expand the size and scope of government. But no one seriously compares him with Lincoln or FDR any more.
Perhaps we should. The comparison to Lincoln was never there. Lincoln was not wedded to a TelePrompter. Lincoln was successful in preserving the Union – albeit at the cost of a horribly destructive civil war. Obama is presiding over an ever more splintered country; but civil war is not on the horizon.
But what is FDR remembered for?
Our memories regarding our longest sitting president are seen through a lens covered with gauze, the kind designed to make aging actors and actresses look good. That's why comparisons to FDR are considered compliments.
FDR presided over the “Great Depression.” It’s called the Great Depression for a reason, it lasted a decade, during which millions of people were unemployed, businesses failed, banks failed, people lost their jobs, their savings and their families. It left in it’s wake a population so traumatized that only death removed their fears of financial and family destruction.
During this period, FDR heaped blame on his predecessor and created program after program, project after project to get the economy moving; none were successful. Roosevelt even admitted that he did not know if any of the programs he enacted would work, he was experimenting and floundering. He was not successful in creating a robust, growing economy. Politically, FDR was much more successful. He forged a coalition whose defining characteristic was dependence on the government and its programs. This allowed him to retain office despite his failure to bring the nation out of the depression.
The “government program” that brought America out of the Depression was World War 2. A failure on the economic front, he was a big success on the war front. Winning wars does that for leaders. Death ended FDR’s hold on the presidency.
While I have taken the lipstick off the pig that was the FDR administration, my description is a fair summary of his term in office when viewed from 30,000 feet.
So is it possible that BHO could be the second coming of FDR? Like FDR, BHO never stopped blaming his predecessor. Like FDR, he's a big fan of unions. Like FDR, he believes the Constitution is seriously flawed. Like FDR he's a class warrior who pretends he's above the fray. Like FDR he believes he's the smartest guy in the room. So far the creation of program after program to jump start the economy sounds like the sort of things that FDR would do: cash for clunkers, mortgage programs for homeowners in default, tax credits to buy homes, Stimulus 1, QE2, Green Jobs, shovel-read jobs, 99 weeks of unemployment benefits, weatherizing homes, Wall Street “reform,” small business tax credits, etc. I’m surprised he’s not planning to program to build pyramids – by hand; think about the number of people that took in Egypt. Whatever the plan, you can bet there will be more as BHO works to create the coalition to get him his second term.
The only thing missing from the FDR comparison is another world war; one that will allow the government to pull out all the spending stops and get all of the unemployed into uniform. Then the comparison would be uncanny.
Keep a sharp eye on world trouble spots in the Middle East and Asia.
Labels: Economy, History, Obama
Saturday, June 25, 2011
All eight suspects in brutal Five Points beating in custody
DisturbingPolice Chief Randy Scott said the 18-year-old victim, later identified as Carter Strange, was jogging through a parking lot near the intersection of Blossom Street and Saluda Avenue just after midnight on Monday when the assault happened. "This teenager was minding his own business, trying to make his curfew when he was brutally attacked and robbed," said Scott.
Police said Henrey and the seven juveniles he was with were roaming Five Points, targeting others until they came across strange. In fact, investigators said the group tried unsuccessfully to rob or assault at least four other people.
What do atheists believe?
Ilya Somin has a thought-provoking blog A Turing Test For Religion in which he says:
UPDATE: Ilya Somin replies:
...simulating a Christian who is well-informed about the arguments for his religious views is a tougher challenge than simulating an atheist who is comparably knowledgeable about atheism.
The implication is that there is an atheist belief system corresponding a Christian belief system otherwise there would be nothing to be knowledgeable about. Simply the absence of a belief in God is not the subject of much analysis. So I added my comment and asked him:
I'm curious about the answer. Are there meetings of atheists designed to reinforce their beliefs, and do those lead to schisms among the "congregants" who then go out to form their own sects?You say “… an atheist who is comparably knowledgeable about atheism.”
This is an interesting thought and one that I first passed over without parsing it since the atheists I have encountered (mostly on the Internet) have been very strident about their position. But I found their position to be expressed primarily as an opposition to Christianity. As a Christian I tended to define atheists as people who simply do not believe in a God.
Your formulation implies that atheism has a coherent philosophy regarding the non-belief in a non-material being who is the creator of … what is. If one is to be “knowledgeable about atheism,” it must mean that there is a belief system that we can be knowledgeable about. From this thread it appears that here is some dispute about what atheists believe. Does that mean that there are sect and varieties of atheists just as there are varieties of Jews, Christians, Muslims, et. al? Perhaps as a practicing atheist you can enlighten us non-atheists about this.
UPDATE: Ilya Somin replies:
Ilya,There are in fact atheists who think that atheism is a systematic belief system that covers a wide range of issues. And some of them do hold meetings about it.
But I meant simply that, just as Christians put forward various arguments in favor of Christianity, atheists make various arguments in favor of atheism (i.e. - against the existence of God). A person who is knowledgeable about atheism would be familiar with these arguments, and be able to put them forward and defend them, much as actual athesits [sic]do.
That’s fascinating. I’m curious what forms the basis of an atheist belief system other than the absence of God. From the perspective of a Christian, I can understand what the absence of an eternal creator and judgeandimplies, but I’m curious what this implies from the perspective of someone who rejects these positions. Is there something, other than humanity or science that takes the place of the God that is at the center of a Christian ethical system? Put more simply, to an atheist, what is the difference between Mother Theresa and, say, Joe Stalin? They are both dead and from the perspective of the universe, both of them were insignificant bits of protoplasm that lasted for a few years and are in the process of being recycled. And if there is no difference, why not emulate Stalin. He had a better life than Theresa. [edited]
Labels: Religion
Blaming Al Gore
Walter Russell Mead takes Al Gore to task for failure to live the lifestyle that corresponds to the rather hysterical predictions he has made about global warming … that is caused by the Gore lifestyle. In doing so, he blames Gore for the failure of the Greens to advance their cause. In the end, we don’t know whether Mead is like the atheist who mocks the fallen evangelist or the believer who is angry that his idol has feet of clay.
But Mead is wrong in blaming the failure of the Global Warming crowd on its spokesman, Gore. Gore is simply a convenient symbol to people who never bought into the hyperbole or who had the scales removed from their eyes when opponents of the theory exposed its flaws. No thinking person took Gore, a failed theology student, for a scientific guru. He was always a front man, as politicians most often are. His language was so Manichean that it was repellent. In his Rolling Stone article he says:
“In one corner of the ring are Science and Reason. In the other corner: Poisonous Polluters and Right-wing Ideologues.”
I was waiting for some indication that this was a bit of self-effacing hyperbole, but it was not. This is actually Al Gore in his entire Green splendor: the purest good fighting the basest evil. This is not a scientist making his case: this was Billy Sunday blasting the Devil incarnate.
Mead begins his essay with:
“It must be as perplexing to his many admirers as it is frustrating to himself that a man of Vice President Gore’s many talents, great skills and strong beliefs is one of the most consistent losers in American politics.”
It doesn’t take much more than that single sentence in that Rolling Stone article to cause you to ask not why he’s such a loser but why he has so many admirers.
Labels: Environment, global warming, Gore
Inflation climbs to 3.6% in May. Palin was right!
Sarah Palin has been warning us that Ben Bernanke's policies at the Federal Reserve have been wrong. Now, thanks the QE2, inflation is taking off, just as Palin predicted.
From Commonsense and Wonder
From Commonsense and Wonder
On June 15, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released the inflation data for May. If you didn't hear about the new data, you are not alone -- the mainstream media buried the story. Why? Inflation hit 3.6% in May, even though gasoline prices actually fell that month. Inflation has been rising since November, as shown in the graph below:
Palin was right about Obama, the economy, health care, inflation and even the effects of QE2 but still the "smartest people in the room" will not listen.These rising prices were largely caused by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's rapid expansion of the U.S. money supply, known as QE2 (Quantitative Easing 2). But inflation wasn't supposed to get this high. Back in November, Bernanke told his fellow central bankers that the Federal Reserve's Open Market Committee (FOMC) was aiming for an inflation rate no higher than 2%....
Back in November, Governor Palin took on QE2 and President Obama's defense of it. Her predictions have turned out to be correct. When making her case against QE2, she argued that it could cause inflation, but would not much help U.S. net exports and business investment, the two factors needed to grow the U.S. economy.
Motive: "Elusive"
When someone makes a video in which he shouts “Allahu Akbar!” do we have a clue about his religion and his motivation? Not if you are working for the Washington Post ... or the FBI.
Pundit & Pundette quotes the Washington Post:
Pundit & Pundette quotes the Washington Post:
Federal officials said Melaku had bombmaking materials in his backpack, and they later found a self-made videotape of him shouting “Allahu Akbar!” after he fired shots at the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Prince William County in October. [. . .]The FBI:
.. he had plastic baggies with ammonium nitrate — a readily available material that can be used in explosives and was used in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing — as well as a notebook that included references to Osama bin Laden and “The Path to Jihad.” [. . .]
But a motive for the shootings — and why Melaku had possible bombmaking materials — remains elusive.
“I can’t suggest to you his motivations or intent,” said James W. McJunkin, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Washington field office. “It’s not readily apparent yet.”
Labels: crime, FBI, Islamofascism, The Press
Why this is not Jon Huntsman's time.
Rick Moran has a thought provoking article on Jon Huntsman and the Rise of the Republican Governors. He gets a lot of grief in the comments, which is to be expected because of the venue. The Conservative base is angry and most people are very, very concerned about the direction the nation is headed. A majority say that we are headed in the wrong direction.
But is there anything particularly wrong with electing a pragmatic centrist Republican governor as President? Jon Huntsman has, after all, demonstrated the ability to do a good job managing the affairs of Utah.
In ordinary times, a Jon Huntsman may be a perfectly good choice. But these are not ordinary times. The country is in the middle of an economic crisis unparalleled since the Great Depression. The country is not looking for someone who can keep the country perking along on the track it’s on. With over 9% unemployment and about 20% underemployment, the American people are not looking for a manager, but a game changer. A few years ago, gold was the exclusive province of the “Gold Bugs.” Today, ordinary people are putting gold funds in their portfolios as an inflation hedge. They are buying gold and silver coins in fear of the collapse of the currency. They are checking out the back yard to see if they have enough to grow vegetables in case things get really bad. There have been reports of ammunition shortages; does that tell you anything about the concerns ordinary people have?
Managers are the people you hire when you need to do more of what you have been doing, but doing it a little better, a little more efficiently. When the wheels have come off, as they seem to be doing in America today, people are looking for a “turnaround artist.” They are looking for someone who has a new vision and a determination to right what’s gone wrong. When, and if, the country’s back on track the people will be ready for a competent manager.
Sorry, Jon, it’s just not your time.
Labels: Economy Republicans, election, Politics, The Press
Dumb and Dumber.
I thought this response was noteworthy as a response to Libya: the straw that broke the camel's back?
It amazes me how all of a sudden the Republicans are called isolationist because some question our involvement in Libya.
Wasn't it our Commander in Chief who once said Iraq was a dumb war.
Well as wars go I'm not sure there could be a dumber one than Libya, and a dumber way to fight it than to lead from the rear.
Labels: Obama, Obama's war, War
Deadlier than the male.
Lawyer and social worker Pauline Nyiramasuhuko was formerly the Rwandan Women's Minister. As the Hutus were slaughtering the Tutsis in other provinces, the Hutus were not doing it fast enough in her home district of Butare. So she took personal charge, taking her son along to help.
She is the first woman to be convicted of genocide by an international tribunal, disproving the myth that only men can shape horrible atrocities like the Rwandan genocide.
Her son was also convicted of organizing the massacres and serving as a militia leader, where he raped women. Both claimed that they were innocent of all charges. But the court found that the son, Arsène Shalom Ntahobali, staffed a roadblock which was ”the site of numerous beatings, rapes, and killings.”
According to the tribunal, Nyiramasuhuko, who was known simply as “Pauline,” ordered and assisted massacres in her home district of Butare. She ordered women and girls to be raped and killed after they had taken refuge in a local government office.
“Hoping to find safety and security, they instead found themselves subject to abductions, rapes, and murder. The evidence…paints a clear picture of unfathomable depravity and sadism,” said the presiding judge, according to the BBC.
From the NY Times:
Butare, which had a wide mix of Hutu and Tutsi people, was the scene of much brutality. In their summary, which was streamed by video from the court, the tribunal judges cited the example of a massacre at the Mugombwa Church, which was filled with people seeking refuge from the killings.
Armed assailants attacked the church, bombarding it with grenades. “As those taking shelter escaped into the courtyard of the church, they were slaughtered. This two-day attack resulted in the death of hundreds, if not thousands, of Tutsis,” the summary said.
The government minister’s son, Arsène Shalom Ntahobali, who was in his early 20s and a student at the time, also was found guilty of helping to organize the massacres in Butare, where he had joined his mother and became a militia leader.
The court found that Mr. Ntahobali, together with militia and soldiers, had been stationed at one particular roadblock, near Hotel Ihuliro, that was “the site of numerous beatings, rapes and killings.”...The two went there “to abduct hundreds of Tutsis; many were physically assaulted, raped, abducted and taken away to various places in Butare, where they were killed,” the judge said.
“Both Nyiramasuhuko and Ntahobali ordered killings,” he said. “They also ordered rapes. Ntahobali further committed rapes, and Nyiramasuhuko aided and abetted rapes and is responsible as a superior.”
Lawyer and social worker Pauline
Friday, June 24, 2011
Supposedly a little bit of oil doesn't matter, except when it does.
How many times have you read that this or that potential oil reserve or discovery should not be tapped because of environmental concerns? The capstone on the argument is almost always: “…and this amount of oil will only supply the US for 2 months, 6 months, 2 years … (pick your time frame) and therefore will not reduce the price of oil."
Need proof that this claim is a bogus as a bad wig? Yesterday (Thursday) the US government announced that it would release 1 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve for 30 days. That’s a total of 30 million barrels for those of you with an MBA. The US consumes 18.8 million barrels of oil per day so the release represents less than 2 days worth of US oil consumption, yet the price of oil dropped about $10 per barrel - over 10% - based on this minuscule addition to the available supply.
So the next time some idiot with access to the MSM prints nonsense about the effect of increased supply on oil prices, politely tell him his wig has slipped.
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
DRUDGE headline: SHOCK POLL: ONLY 3 in 10 WILL VOTE FOR OBAMA...
A Jeremiah Wright, Obama's spiritual advisor said: the chickens are coming home to roost.
By a margin of 61 percent to 37 percent, a Bloomberg National Poll conducted June 17-20 shows Americans say they believe that Obama will have had his chance to make the economy “substantially better” by the end of 2012.
Only 30 percent of respondents said they are certain to vote for the president and 36 percent said they definitely won’t. Among likely independent voters, only 23 percent said they will back his re-election, while 36 percent said they definitely will look for another candidate.
“As far as the economy goes, I don’t see that he has delivered on the change that he promised,” said Sharon Ortiz, a 38-year-old independent voter from Hampton, Virginia, who supported Obama in 2008. “The jobs that he promised -- I haven’t seen it.”
Labels: Economy, election, Obama
As Obama talks war, Americans see economic gloom: 66% wrong track and only 23% sense any recovery
Could the Democrats be losing the MSM? The LA Times has a blogger who's stories tend to address conservative issues.
An angry Obama can't hide it any more.
Twenty-five months into what was supposed to be the economic recovery of the Obama-Biden administration, the poll finds a whopping 66% of Americans believe the country is on the wrong track. They no longer buy the oft-used inherited-big-economic-hole line.You can only blame your predecessor so long. After a while you own the economy.
Labels: Economy, election, Obama
Cook County (Chicago) $108 Billion in Debt.
At some point the chickens come home to roost. Cook taxpayers owe $108 billion, county Treasurer Pappas says
Huntsman’s the media’s kind of Republican.
Jennifer Rubin: Huntsman: Wins the media primary, has yet to show GOP support.
From the mainstream media’s standpoint, he is the McCain 1980. He’s a “good Republican” — not too conservative, not too loyal to his party and infatuated (at least he was) with cap-and-trade. And unlike McCain, he’s running to the incumbent president’s left on foreign policy. So it’s not surprising he is lavished with praise. A political reporter asked me the other day, “Don’t you think Huntsman will eat Bachmann’s lunch?” Umm. No. But the total ignorance about the conservative movement is telling and will infuse the mainstream coverage of his race.
I listened to Rush Limbaugh cover Huntsman's speech yesterday. He contrasted the thin gruel of Huntsman’s comments with the rousing contrast of Reagan’s announcement in the same location when Reagan kicked off his candidacy. Huntsman’s no Reagan; not even in the same ballpark.
It makes you wonder whether Obama, who named Huntsman as his ambassador to China, has now appointed him to be the Republican nominee. His supporters seem to think so.
To top off his bipartisan support, Huntsman got the endorsement of Harry Reid.The appetite for his candidacy has always been an open question. If the audience at his announcement was any indication, there may not be one currently in the GOP electorate. (Politico reported, “The crowd was a mix of middle-aged professionals in suits, college-age students and a handful of Obama supporters, including one man in a New Jersey for Obama T-shirt.”)
Labels: election, Limbaugh, Republicans
Libya: the straw that broke the camel's back?
We won’t review the sheer un-believability of Obama’s claim that Libya isn’t a war. What bothers us most is McCain and Lindsay Graham’s cheap shots at Republicans as isolationists for not being willing to give a blank check to this feckless president. One who has managed to unify the country in opposition to his policies.
Jonah Goldberg:
If you set out to take Vienna, Napoleon advised, take Vienna. Similarly, if you invest America's and NATO's prestige in an obstreperous North African backwater, you'd better recoup a worthwhile return on that investment....
McCain and Graham are honorable men, but they wildly overestimate their moral authority and the intellectual power of their arguments. The desire to end prematurely the mess in Libya — or even in Afghanistan — may be wrongheaded, ill-advised or shortsighted, but there's little evidence it stems from anything that could be meaningfully called isolationism or a resurgence of the "Pat Buchanan wing of the Republican Party," as McCain calls it....
If anything, it's McCain and Graham who are nurturing a rebirth of isolationism by going for the easy insult.
Labels: Obama, Obama's war, Republicans, War
Osama more popular than Obama in Egypt
A dead terrorist outpolls Obama in Egypt. Glenn Reynolds:
Remember how electing Obama was supposed to make us popular with the Arab world?
Labels: Egypt, Instapundit, Obama, Osama
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
When society breaks down ....
Using DIY Guns to Fight Rapists
But the men of Obo knew they needed more than courage and manpower. Too poor for military-grade weapons or even the kind of firearms American hunters take for granted, Obo set about building an arsenal of homemade, single-barrel shotguns loaded with hand-packed shells.
The USA now has it's first self immolation protest by Thomas J. Ball, 58, of Holden, Mass.,
If this had happened in a foreign country, this would have been all over the news. Here ... crickets.
Late last week, Thomas James Ball reached his breaking point. Driven to desperation by a system that bankrupted him and destroyed his family, Ball walked up to the main door of the Keene County, New Hampshire courthouse, doused himself with gasoline, and lit himself ablaze.
Hardly anyone seems to have noticed.
Conversely, when a 26-year old Tunisian man lit himself on fire a few months ago after police confiscated the fruits and vegetables he had been selling without a proper permit, it launched a wave of revolution across the Middle East....This is how the system’s gatekeepers have been so adroit at maintaining the status quo– by suppressing dissent, marginalizing the detractors, and distracting the populace with meaningless, irrelevant drivel.
Labels: biased reporting, Culture, Dissent, The Press
Did Obama Really Prevent A Second Great Depression?
From Investors Business Daily:
IBD reviewed records of economic forecasts made just before Obama signed the stimulus bill into law, as well as economic data and monthly stimulus spending data from around that time, and reviews of the stimulus bill itself.
The conclusion is that in claiming to have staved off a Depression, the White House and its supporters seem to be engaging in a bit of historical revisionism.
Economists weren't predicting a Depression.
White House economists forecast in January 2009 that, even without a stimulus, unemployment would top out at just 8.8% — well below the 10.8% peak during the 1981-82 recession, and nowhere near Depression-era unemployment levels.
Any bets on whether the MSM will fact-check Obama?
But was the economy in worse shape than everyone thought?
But various indicators show that the economy had pretty much hit bottom at the end of 2008 — a month before President Obama took office.
Monthly GDP, for example, stopped free-falling in December 2008, long before the stimulus kicked in, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research. (See nearby chart.) Monthly job losses bottomed out in early 2009 while the Index of Leading Economic Indicators started to rise in April.
So why is the economy in the doldrums, unemployment over 9% and the spectre of America become a larger Greece on everyone's lips?
Obama's policies are designed to stop economic recovery in its tracks. Whether be design, stupidity or ideology there is no way out except the removal of this administration. I can't wait for 2012 to get here.
Dance of the Post-Modern Veils
A woman in New South Wales accused of
making a deliberately false statement that a racist policeman tried to forcibly remove her burka has been freed on appeal.Why?
…because the person who handed in the complaint to police was wearing a burka at the time.Mark Steyn:
So, if I follow correctly, we can never establish the identity of the woman who falsely accused the police of demanding she remove her burka because to establish her identity the police would have to demand she remove her burka thereby rendering her false accusation true.Her supporters then shouted “Allahu Akbar!” and attacked a cameraman.
Labels: Islamofascism, Political correctness, Steyn
Monday, June 20, 2011
Mega-Scandal: Was ‘Gunwalker’ a PR Op for Gun Control?
I have never understood the logic behind the Obama administration's claim that the purpose of "Gunwalker" was to identify "straw buyers" or to bring down narco-terrorists.
The government agents knew who the straw buyers were. They saw them buying the guns (watching it on closed circuit TV!) and told the gun shop owners to allow the guns to be sold. Once across the border, the guns were no longer traced unless they were recovered after a crime had been committed in Mexico. At that point the only useful information was the serial number on the guns. The only useful information obtained from the serial numbers was the confirmation that these were the guns had been sold in the US. That would not stop the violence; instead, it was used to “prove” that US gun laws contributed to violence in Mexico.
Except that was not true.
Instead, it can be stated without fear of contradiction that the Obama DOJ contributed to gun violence in Mexico.
I fail to see how knowing that guns purchased in the US were being used in Mexico by the drug cartels would bring any of the cartels down. What was the DOJ going to do that was not already being done by the Mexican government? What information could the DOJ possibly provide as the result of “Gunwalker” the Mexican government that would help to combat the drug gangs? Members of the media and Democrats in government keep insisting that “Gunwalker” had a legitimate objective. I want an explanation that doesn’t involve the willing suspension of disbelief. I want an explanation that isn’t “trust us, we’re from the government.” I want an explanation that makes sense; one that doesn’t strain credulity past the breaking point.
Based on the evidence so far “Gunwalker” isn’t the usual government screw-up, it’s a crime.
The most damning revelation coming out of the hearings held by the House Oversight Committee’s investigation into Operation Fast and Furious are the unmistakable indications that the program was never designed to succeed as a law enforcement operation at all....
The obvious answer is that Gunwalker’s objective was never intended to be a “legitimate law enforcement interest.” Instead, it appears that ATF acting director Ken Melson and Department of Justice senior executives specifically created an operation that was designed from the outset to arm Mexican narco-terrorists and increase violence substantially along both sides of the Southwest border....
Considering the arming of narco-terrorist gangs, the destabilizing geopolitical effect on Mexico, the foreign policy ramifications, and the possibility of extrajudicial and criminal activity at the highest levels of the executive branch, a special prosecutor should be just one avenue of investigation. This could possibly lead to prison for senior administration officials and an indictment against President Barack Obama himself.
Labels: crime, Guns, Mexico, Obama
Roger Chesley’s Vanity Train Stops
If you want to know what’s wrong with “public broadcasting” you need read not further than Roger Chesley’s plaintive bleat about his show being cut from the local public TV station’s lineup.
I am a news junkie but I have never heard of "Another View." Based on Chesley’s description, it was another opportunity for ethnic naval gazing: "Hosted by Barbara Hamm Lee, the lively debates cover issues affecting African Americans nationally and in Hampton Roads."
Hey, Roger, the biggest issue affecting African Americans nationally and in Hampton Roads is unemployment. You're welcome.
Governor Bob McDonnell decided that there were more important things that $370,000 of the public’s money can be used for than providing a self-gratifying ego boost to underemployed columnists. "In today's free market, with hundreds of radio and television programs, government should not be subsidizing one particular group of stations." For some reason, Chesley does not agree. The rest of us do; in fact this move is long overdue.
In a truly pathetic comment, Chesley accuses the governor of acting politically. McDonnell's ax-wielding endears him to his conservative base, and it will burnish his bona fides with the Republican Party. The GOP has long claimed that public broadcasting, especially on a national level, has a liberal bias. Well, if by that Chesley – a flaming Liberal – means that cutting public funding from an organization that works diligently to undermine the Moderate/Conservative end of the political spectrum is political, I guess I’m going to have to give him that one. Of course that’s where the country is and Chesley isn’t.
It would seem that the kind of programming that puts Chesley on the air – even if no one watches – would be able to get support from the wealthy in the press, academia, the arts and Hollywood. But no, Chesley wants to have the lights go on and the cameras roll so that he and his friends can “wade… into controversial issues” have a gabfest funded by the shrinking income of the working people of the state.
One final ironic point about Chesley’s column; he inadvertently reveals that one of the key complaints by the head of the local public broadcast system is a lie. “Bert Schmidt, president and CEO of WHRO, has said there's "not one penny of PBS funding being reduced through this veto. What's being cut is services to Hampton Roads schools." What were actually cut were vanity programs that no one would voluntarily watch, unless they were assigned as homework.
Labels: biased reporting, Democrats, Liberalism, Race, Virginian Pilot
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Robots Are Stealing Our Jobs
More Frank J. @ IMAO
Read the rest.Obama has finally figured out why there are no jobs: They are being stolen by robots! Probably robots inherited from Bush!
In a recent interview, Obama blamed automation for why businesses aren’t hiring. So basically all those hundreds of billions of stimulus went straight into the pockets of robots! We thought SkyNet was going to just nuke us one day, but apparently it’s just going to steal all our jobs and starve us out. We’ll be on the streets, begging robots for change, but they won’t give us any and we’ll die.
So anyway, it wasn’t Obama not knowing what he’s doing that caused so much job loss, it’s the ATM, which didn’t exist during the Bush years. Man, are those ATMs evil. Do you know they kill twenty people a day? Someone will just be standing in front of one to get cash, and suddenly a little door on the ATM opens up and a robot hand holding a gun pops out and shoots the person. They keep trying to program the ATMs not to shoot people, but it never takes. Maybe they never should have given them guns in the first place. I don’t know the answer.
“I thought a recovering economy wouldn’t suck so much.”
Frank J. Fleming At IMAO predicts the Obama strategy for talking about the economy heading into the 2012 election:
“Yep, look at this recovering economy!”
“I thought a recovering economy wouldn’t suck so much.”
“You’re wrong. Stop talking and being so wrong and just enjoy this awesome economy. And be grateful you’ll have so much time to enjoy since you aren’t burdened with a job.”
The Reagan Haters
This is worth a read if someone tells you that Reagan was beloved by everyone and that the country rallied around him. The fact is that the country did, but the Left hated him with a burning passion.Ronald Reagan is widely regarded as the greatest American president since Franklin Roosevelt, possibly the greatest of the 20th century, and definitely one of the greatest ever. His centenary this year has elicited a cavalcade of conservative encomia. All try to distill the essence of his leadership and transmit it to a new generation. Rare, however, are those who didn’t much care for him as president but whose opinions and convictions have shifted over time. Their assessments, however, make sense: his presidency created a new voting demographic (“Reagan Democrats”) and, often overlooked, the towering Republican legend had been more than half his life a loyal Democrat. As a youngster in Manhattan in the 1980s, I myself was formed in an intensely Democratic milieu where distrust, resentment, and repulsion underwrote our attitudes toward Reagan. Any honest attempt by any of us to reckon with him must begin by admitting that, at heart, we hated Reagan.
Labels: History, Liberalism, Reagan
ATMs and Other Machines are Exempt from ObamaCare
That's why businesses are buying more equipment and not hiring more people.
Who would have guessed?
Labels: Economy, health care, Obama
A Religious Coup
American Digest is a cornucopia of thoughtful analysis and prose.
An argument for Creationism is that God designed us to need Him, to seek Him. And, ironically, it is the new church godlessness and/or the new church of Environmentalism which feels the need to snuff out Christianity to make room for their own god(s).
The reason Christianity is treated with less respect than it treated paganism is because we are witnessing a religious coup, a devolution set into motion by The Left, for The Left. Devolution of man, devolution of civilization, devolution of the very constructs of natural selection... The Left believes in man-made selection so long as they are in power....
Westernized Muslims long to see their faith brought into "modernity". Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser is one of the outspoken leaders in this weak movement, a movement that has been upstaged by The Arab Spring.
And how does the American Left react? By enabling the most violent Muslims the world has to offer. Why? To conquer Christianity, full stop.
Labels: Christianity, Religion
Walter Russell Mead asks “Can this presidency be saved?”
Walter Russell Mead asks “Can this presidency be saved?”
I can understand that question being asked by members of this administration, but it’s a peculiar question being asked by a disinterested observer. With all due respect, a more objective question would be: “Should this presidency be saved?”
A more useful analysis would have focused on whether the trajectory of this administration is good for the country and the world. Mr. Mead is writing as if the goals, philosophies and strategies of this administration were a mystery. No administration has ever been composed of automatons lacking either a vision or the will to achieve that vision. To write an article like this with the implicit assumption that the Obama presidency is capable or willing to transform itself strikes me a disconnected from reality.
Andrew Klavan's Economic Smackdown: Paul Ryan vs. Barack Obama
Limiting medical treatment will always be for your own good.
You can always tell when a Democrat administration is about to unveil a new policy. The New York Times will write a story unveiling the need for the policy. As predictably as the sun will rise tomorrow, the government will limit the number of X-rays and CT-scans that you will be allowed to have.
From the June 17th edition: Hospitals Performed Needless Double CT Scans, Records Show
Here's the money angle (and how the government is going to save billions from Medicare fraud):
Double scans expose patients to extra radiation while heaping millions of dollars in extra costs on an already overburdened Medicare program. A single CT scan of the chest is equal to about 350 standard chest X-rays, so two scans are twice that amount.
The changes will not be labelled "rationing" but "changing protocols."
By changing protocols, the percentage of double scans is now “hovering around 5 percent,” Mr. Anderson said. “What that means for us is when a physician orders a scan from a radiology department, the radiologist begins to engage in a conversation with those physicians, talking about what might be a more reasonable and acceptable approach.”
Claims consultants will tell your doctor what tests should be performed.
The federal agency plans to use other, similar measurements to rein in what it considers to be unjustified — and potentially dangerous — medical procedures.
“Modifying physician behavior is a hard thing to do,” said Dr. Pentecost, the claims consultant. “And we are doing it. This is a very powerful tool.”
What? You didn't think that this could wait, did you?
It will also have the effect of increasing the number of lawsuits for malpractice when the patient dies and the family sues the doctor for failure to diagnose the illness. But that's not a bug, it's a feature.
Labels: health care, media, Medical, TimesLies
There's Reality and Legal Truth
And if they diverge too widely, there are problems.
Balkin argues that “legal truth” can shape perceptions and sometimes lead the actual truth into becoming what the law prefers to believe for the betterment of the world. But the problem with that is misrepresenting reality by too great a margin willfully ignores real effects. It creates artificial blinkers that cause legal responses to diverge from the actual situation. Therefore the choice of a legal truth ought take into account what happens next.
The Definitive Scandal: ‘Gunwalker’ Much Worse Than ‘Iran-Contra’
Iran-Contra was about arming freedom fighters in Nicaragua. Gunwalker is about arming the drug cartels in Mexico. It had a secondary purpose: disarming the American people.
Gunwalker was part of a new strategy to persuade the public of the absolute necessity of federal gun registration…and ultimately, a tight new regime of federal gun control.
The same people in the Administration who were constantly claiming that the cartels were being supplied by American weapons – were the ones supplying them with American weapons!
Prior to this scandal coming out, we were starting to see stories everywhere in the news about how easy it was for Mexicans to get guns from the US. Little did we know that it was easy because the ATF was making it so. Notice how the Democrats and the MSM have quit talking about this issue now that the scandal has come out?
Team Obama is claiming that Gunrunner was an “attempt to develop enough gun-running evidence to bring down a cartel…” . I don't get it. If the Mexican government hasn’t been able to shut down the cartels by prosecuting them for (a) illegal drug sales; (b) kidnapping; (c) murder; (d) assault; (e) terroristic threats; (f) bribery; ... then there’s NO WAY that bringing gun-running charges against the cartels will make the job any easier.
Is this Hope, Change, smart diplomacy, or bringing narco-terrorists into the American judicial system? What?
On this one, Congress needs to bring to bear every power it has to uncover the truth and bring those responsible to justice.
Labels: corruption, Guns, Holder, Obama
Shovel ready jobs
Jazz Shaw finds that some of the jobs that Obama created were shovel ready.
... and ...Under the Obama administration you don’t pony up that level of patronage and settle for an evening’s shelter. You get a career for it. As was recently reported by Politico, donors to the 2008 Hope and Change Tour were savvy shoppers, well acquainted with the worth of a dollar and expecting a generous return on their investment.
But don't be cynical. The President's press secretary told us that these were the best people for the job ... kept a straight face while saying it ... and the White House Press Corpse did not object.Few aspiration minded donors impressed us more than one Donald H. Gips, though. As a vice president for Level 3 Communications in Colorado, Don bundled up something in excess of one-half million dollars for Team Obama. In exchange, his company received millions of dollars in taxpayer funds as part of the stimulus program. But was that enough? Perish the thought. Mr. Gips first obtained a job with the administration, not having to perform actual work on behalf of the public, but as the person assigned to line up jobs for the rest of the donors waiting to receive positions. Such a task can chafe on a man’s dedication after a time, though, so it will come as little surprise that he later traded up to become our nation’s Ambassador to South Africa.
Labels: corruption, Obama, Politics, The Press
Friday, June 17, 2011
No one left to lie to.
That was a line from the Clinton administration. Now the gays are hopping mad at Barack Obama for lying about his support of gay marriage.
First Weiner and now Barry lies to gays with a straight face.
Senior White House aide: 1996 Obama gay marriage questionnaire is a fake, even though Obama signed it
Obama spokesliar Dan Pfeiffer says this document is fake.
First Weiner and now Barry lies to gays with a straight face.
Senior White House aide: 1996 Obama gay marriage questionnaire is a fake, even though Obama signed it
Obama spokesliar Dan Pfeiffer says this document is fake.
So we've had truthers, birthers, and deathers. I guess now we have "marriagers."
Labels: homsexuality, Liberalism, Obama
Is Rush Limbaugh Unethical? Let's ask a law blog.
Jonathan Adler at Volokh brings up the burning issue of the day: when Rush Limbaugh inserts an advertisement for the Heritage Foundation into his radio show by extolling the virtues of Heritage, is he acting improperly? Here’s another question: is weaving a product pitch into a radio or TV show something uniquely Limbaugh and totally new.
For the prosecution you have Stephen Lathrop who says the following (and I quote): “Operating a media outlet without a clear-cut distinction between the paid stuff and the other stuff is not forthright. That’s a problem, because most media consumers are not moral philosophers, not scientists, not lawyers, not educated, really.”
Note the assumption: that people who listen to Rush Limbaugh are not smart enough to know that when he talks about the Heritage Foundation and asks his listeners to go to their website and become members, he’s fooling them into thinking it’s not an ad. The reason for that is that “media consumers” are not philosophers, scientists, lawyers or really educated.
There is a tendency to agree with assertions of this kind. After all, while I was able to see through the BS spouted by the Obama campaign, both in the paid ads and the way the MSM shilled for him, he did win the election. That makes you wonder about the wisdom of the general population. Certainly the members of Limbaugh’s audience also saw through the outright lies, distortions and misleading statements that the media were putting out about Obama, Biden and their opponents which is a testimony to the wisdom of Limbaugh’s audience.
But exactly who were the people who failed to see that Obama was … well, the kind of President he has turned out to be? It turns out that the educated, the professoriate, the lawyers (don’t know about the scientists) were the groups most likely to skew heavily toward Obama, to actually buy into the HopeN’Change pitch; to actually believe that a man could stand up in front of an audience and proclaim that with his election the oceans would recede and the earth would heal and not bust out laughing.
And who were the people least likely to fall for the pitch? The people who work for a living. The “Joe the Plumber” types. The people like my 80 year-old sister who has had experience with rabble rousing con-men in other countries far away and immediately identified the person in the suit with the really sharp crease in his pants. These are the people for whom patriotism isn’t a joke, people who know real from fake and understand intuitively what the “educated” have to have explained to them. Sure, they can be fooled and can be taken advantage of, but they are a great deal wiser – on the whole – than those for whom credentials have become a license to screw things up, big time.
Young Steve Lathrop must be a recent graduate unable to find a job blogging out of his parents’ basement (I kid, I kid). But product placement goes back to the earliest days of radio and TV. Here’s simply one example by the Oprah Winfrey of his day: Arthur Godfrey. So, Steve, my friend (and you are my friend) people in general are really smarter in the aggregate than you give them credit for. It’s one of the reasons that people are now overwhelmingly in agreement that the country’s headed in the wrong direction. There may be no agreement about what is to be done, but they know that what’s being done is wrong. And I suspect that the people who are least likely to think that the direction we’re headed in is wrong are the philosophers, the lawyers, the “educated” (especially those who call themselves Professor). These are the people who are most insulated from reality and, take it from me, reality is the greatest educator of all.
Labels: Academia, Culture, Law, Obama
Istook: Obama Invites Me To Dinner
I am so excited! The president has invited me to dinner - and not just as one of the crowd like at a state dinner. I can be one of four regular people chowing down with Barack Obama! When I first read my email invitation from “Barack Obama, democraticparty @democrats.org,” I was worried it might be another case of selling access to the White House. But then I looked up the attached Web link and read the rules. I don’t have to send him any money to win! I just register online at http://my.barackobama.com/dinner-with-barack-alt. ...
Read the rest.
Labels: Obama
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Too Big to Win
Mark Steyn notes that we're faking ourselves out when it comes to wars. We're so assured of our technological superiority we not longer feel the need to win. So we lose at huge cost.
In the spring of 2003, on the deserted highway between the Jordanian border and the town of Rutba, I came across my first burnt-out Iraqi tank — a charred wreck shoved over to the shoulder. I parked, walked around it, and pondered the fate of the men inside. It seemed somehow pathetic that, facing invasion by the United States, these Iraqi conscripts had even bothered to climb in and point the thing to wherever they were heading when death rained down from the stars, or Diego Garcia, or Missouri. Yet even then I remembered the words of the great strategist of armored warfare, Basil Liddell Hart: “The destruction of the enemy’s armed forces is but a means — and not necessarily an inevitable or infallible one — to the attainment of the real objective.” The object of war, wrote Liddell Hart, is not to destroy the enemy’s tanks but to destroy his will.
Instead, America has fallen for the Thomas Friedman thesis, promulgated by the New York Times’ great thinker in January 2002: “For all the talk about the vaunted Afghan fighters, this was a war between the Jetsons and the Flintstones — and the Jetsons won and the Flintstones know it.”
But they didn’t. They didn’t know they were beaten. Because they weren’t. Because we hadn’t destroyed their will — as we did to the Germans and Japanese two-thirds of a century ago, and as we surely would not do if we were fighting World War II today. That’s not an argument for nuking or carpet bombing, so much as for cool clear-sightedness. Asked how he would react if the British army invaded Germany, Bismarck said he would dispatch the local police force to arrest them: a clever Teuton sneer at the modest size of Her Britannic Majesty’s forces. But that’s the point: The British accomplished much with little; at the height of empire, an insignificant number of Anglo-Celts controlled the entire Indian subcontinent. A confident culture can dominate far larger numbers of people, as England did for much of modern history. By contrast, in an era of Massively Applied Desultoriness, we spend a fortune going to war with one hand tied behind our back. The Forty-Three Percent Global Operating Industrial Military Complex isn’t too big to fail, but it is perhaps too big to win — as our enemies understand.
