All the Presidents Men (and Womyn)…”The public is too well-educated, the evidence of probable criminality too blatant and widespread. The administration’s apparent plan to use gun violence to spur support for gun control efforts has become Watergate with a body count, and no amount of media deception or spin, or party misdirection, can save them from the consequences of their actions.”-Bob Owens from Pravda Syndrome: MSM Can’t Stop Lying About ‘Gunwalker’
Quote of the Day: “Note to President Genius: If you’re bluffing, try not to let on that you’re bluffing. That’s why it’s called bluffing. Hope that helps, champ!” –Jim Treacher
Today’s Must Reads:
With the possible exception of poor, shell shocked Japan, no other major world region is quite as feckless as our Atlantic allies, but a quick glance around the world is enough to show that the future storming toward us is wilder, bigger, scarier, more complicated, more horrid and more awesome than our establishment and intellectuals for the most part are able to imagine. The Arab Spring, which has shaken regimes the establishment once assumed were eternal and which took our intelligence analysts as much as our pundits by surprise, is the kind of event we are going to see more of. History is shifting into hyperdrive and things are going to get weird.
- Is Obama losing it? (and in related news Obama’s Senior Moment: Forgets His Own Birthday )
Stock up on the popcorn. This shall be entertaining.
Chart of the Day: Tim Geithner’s Tippity-Top Secret Debt Ceiling Spreadsheet
Japan and the softly glowing world…
- BBC
- NHK in English (Live feed in upper right corner)
- Telegraph of London
- Kyodo Wire
- Japan Times
- Asahi Shimbun
- The Daily Yomuri
- Japan Today
- ImTranslator – Online Translator, Dictionary, TTS add on for Firefox (It comes in handy)
- Japanese government list of nationwide radioactivity concentration
- Japan Geigermap
- Ibaraki Prefecture Geiger Counter Readings
- US National Radiation Map (updated every minute)
- Via Soylent Green: Radiation Exposure in Daily Life
- Radiation Dose Chart
- Radiation Converter
- ZeroHedge commenter Max2205′s excellent post about radioactivity including a list of radioactive elements and their half lives.
- Donations to the American Red Cross that are being designated to Japanese Earthquake relief are already getting to the folks in Japan and are most helpful.
Mysterious Lightshow On Grounds At Fukushima Daiichi July 16
Fukushima I Nuke Plant: Water Treatment System Is in Trouble
Something is going wrong. TEPCO has started to use fresh water taken from the river to cool the reactors, because the treated water that it has been using is running low.
S.O.S. From Fukushima English translation
84 Additional Meat Cows That Ate Radioactive Hay Already Shipped to 5 Prefectures
In one case, the rice hay that the cows ate had 500,000 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium.
Professor Kosako’s “chaotic harvest season” must be now.
Radioactive Cesium from Shiitake Mushrooms Grown Indoors in Date City, Fukushima
(Update: 28 kg of Date City shiitake were sold within Fukushima. 129 kg of Motomiya City shiitake went to the fresh produce wholesale market in Tokyo, according to Asahi.)
1,770 becquerels per kilogram. That’s the first since the government started the sample testing of food items. Date City is more than 50 kilometers northwest of Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant.
An old “baseless rumor” (back in May) that no MSM mentioned (not even to refute it), although bloggers cited the passage. But as the rice grows in the rice paddies in Kanto and Tohoku and more and more cows are found radioactive because what they ate was highly radioactive (rice hay), it may be worth keeping it in mind, just in case.
As far as I’ve checked, the report has never been “proven”, but never been “disproven” either.
World News:
Earthquake Causes River to Disappear in Costa Rica
Mount Lokon volcano (Sulawesi, Indonesia) erupts again : impressive eruption pictures
Vanuatu (beautiful) Manaro Vui volcano at alert Level 1
China linked to cyber theft of 24,000 computer files from the Pentagon
The Permanent Muslim Civil War
What the misreading of the Arab Spring as a revolutionary wave of democracy, rather than an explosion of existing tensions and longstanding civil wars, points to most is how thoroughly the 21st century Middle East expert has unlearned everything that his 19th century predecessor knew about the Muslim world.
The 19th century expert understood the Muslim world as essentially unchanging, seething with revolts and dynastic struggles, but still shackled to the chains of its cultural and moral limitations. But the 21st century expert insists on a progressive version of history, in which humanity is always moving upward. Where each event, good or bad, is a phase in historical development.
A 150 years ago, a Western observer reporting on a Muslim ruler being driven out of power by an alliance of oligarchies and an angry mob would have said that it was the same sort of thing that had been going on in the region forever. His conclusion might have been cynical, even bigoted, but it would have also been realistic.
Does grinding your head into a prayer mat cause brain damage which leads to paranoid conspiracy theories? All signs point to yes.
Report: Bin Laden Was Plotting Terror Attack To Coincide With 10th Anniversary Of 9/11
And now he’s fish food.
Hillary Clinton Hopes Islam and West Can Reach Tolerance Agreement…
Ignorant and naïve beyond belief.
Poll: 53% Of Palestinians Favor Teaching Jew Hatred In Schools, 6 In 10 Reject Two-State Solution…
Partners in peace.
Obama Administration Recognizes Libyan Rebels Same Week They Loot Shops, Torch Homes & Caught With Child Soldiers
Libya: New Batch Of Shoulder-Fired Antiaircraft Missiles Go Missing From Rebel-Held Weapons Depots…
Gunmen blow up Egyptian gas pipeline to Israel
Syrian protests spread into the work week, but regime holds firm
32 killed in Syria protests, Damascus moves-activists
Syrian forces killed at least 32 civilians on Friday, including 23 in the capital Damascus, in an intensifying crackdown on protests against President Bashar al-Assad, activists said.
It was the highest death toll in the central neighborhoods of Damascus since the uprising erupted four months ago in the southern Hauran Plain near Syria’s border with Jordan.
“Tens of thousands of Damascenes took to the streets in the main districts for the first time today, that is why the regime resorted to more killings,” said one activist by telephone from Damascus. He declined to be named for fear of being arrested.
Jordan police beat nine journalists covering demo
At least 10 people, mostly journalists, were injured on Friday when police tried to stop clashes between pro-reform demonstrators and government supporters in central Amman.
Police used batons to disperse the clashes outside city hall, beating and injuring nine journalists who were wearing orange vests marked “press,” an AFP reporter at the scene witnessed.
The wounded included an AFP photographer and a female Islamist activist.
Ice to see you: Snow leopards have been discovered thriving in war-torn Afghanistan
Unreal. Obama Administration Establishes Political Mission for Taliban
Iran: Christian Pastor Sentenced To Death For Apostasy Unless He Recants His Faith…
Satellite images indicate mass graves in Sudan
UK: Muslim Group Launches Project To Turn London Borough Into An “Islamic Emirate”…
British-style “multiculturalism” at its finest.
How Sweden Profits from For-Profit Schools
Just like the Banlieues in Paris….Oslo Car Fires Highlight Threat to Norway’s Future
So here’s what we’ve got: a huge part of the national capital that is actively severing itself from the larger community and social order — and a national government that, instead of responding to this aggression with assertive policing, has chosen to steadily cut down on the strength of its police. All I can say is that if you were a government official and you wanted the Islamists to take control of large swaths of the country, this is exactly how you’d go about letting it happen.
Not that I consider Norwegian leaders to be guilty of treason, of consciously aiding and abetting the forces of sharia. No, they’re just unwitting allies — useful idiots. They’re socialist fools who believe that a low-level police presence is the sign of an advanced, peaceful society — and all of whom, not coincidentally, live in parts of Oslo that are a long way from Groruddalen.
59 Escape from Mexican Border Prison
Fifty-nine inmates escaped Friday from a prison in northern Mexico after a disturbance that left seven prisoners dead and at least five others injured, sources in the Tamaulipas state government told Efe.
The incident took place at the Cedes 2 penitentiary in Nuevo Laredo, just across the border from Laredo, Texas, the same institution from which 151 inmates fled last December.
US News:
Land of the Six Dams News and Info sources:
- KELO-Sioux Falls, SD
- KFYR-Bismarck, ND
- KCAU-Sioux City, IA
- KETV-Omaha, NE
- Say Anything
- Plains Daily
- “Land of the Six Dams” flood gage status interactive map.
‘Pray for rain’:Forecasters warn ANOTHER massive heat wave will spread across the country
Hmm… New Report Confirms Economy Not Expected to Improve Until After 2012
It’s time to give the keys back to the adults.
S&P Says It May Downgrade Credit Rating Even If Debt Limit Is Raised
Our biggest creditor — someone we should listen to, as they’ve been floating our loans for 20 years, and are now telling us they’re wary of extending further credit — are telling us to cool it on the spending. The Chinese warning was in fact almost entirely about the regular debt-service — the vig we owe them — but there’s also this:
In China, Dagong Global Credit Rating, a Chinese rating agency that downgraded its assessment of the U.S. last November, said Thursday that it had placed that rating on a negative watch list, citing the declining solvency of the U.S. government, slow economic growth and high fiscal deficits.
Simply maxing out a new credit card — the biggest one we’ve taken out yet, $2.5 trillion for just 18 months of living expenses! — will not fix this problem. The problem can only be fixed by lifestyle changes
US Treasury Burns $90 Billion In Cash In Under Two Weeks
Now granted this is mostly due to paying off maturing Bills, which Geithner can’t roll due to the debt ceiling being breached. But keep in mind that as we pointed out in T-Minus Two Months Until The $500 Billion Rolling Debt Ticking Timebomb Goes Off that there is nearly $500 billion in maturing short and long-term debt in the next month and a half which there will be no money to fund unless a debt ceiling decision is reached, but not by August 2, but July 22… or a week from today. And with Boehner refusing the Camp David dance invitation today, one can see why for the first time this afternoon we saw a coordinated sell off in bonds and stocks as the market is finally asking “what if…”
Epic Market Closing Ramp Materializes Out Of Nowhere On No Volume
The Treasury may be ceasing the incremental funding for its market manipulative efforts…. but not quite yet. Presenting the E-mini surge on absolutely no volume. According to Chicago floor traders, at least one bank bought 150 S&P contracts at very the close with one obvious purpose: ramp the stock market into the weekend. Luckily, for the observant ones this is merely another free money opportunity: the ES-RISK spread just soared and presents the latest compression opportunity.
Treasury To Stop Funding Its Market Manipulation Fund To Delay US Bankruptcy
After pillaging the G Fund and Civil Service Retirement and Disability Fund (CSRDF), aka the Government retirement funds, Tim Geithner was just forced to resort to the final debt ceiling extension measure: suspending reinvestment in the Exchange Stabilization Fund, better known as the mechanism by which the Treasury manipulates the stock, bond and FX markets, often times indirectly (thank you Brian Sack and Citadel fat pipe) and on occasion with CIA assistance. What this means is that FX vol will likely hit unseen levels in the next several weeks as the Treasury’s manipulative ways are strongly curtailed.
July Consumer Sentiment Plunges
Bloomberg: Consumer Confidence “Unexpectedly” Falls To Lowest Level In Over Two Years…
Bloomberg never ceases to push the “unexpectedly” bad nonsense when it comes to economic numbers. If it’s always “unexpected” then it should be expected.
Here is some music to listen to while reading this…Inflation making a comeback?
U.S. consumer prices fell slightly more than expected in June to post their biggest drop in a year on weak gasoline costs, but underlying inflation pressures remain elevated. …
But stripping out food and energy, core CPI rose 0.3 percent after a similar gain in May and above economists’ expectations for a 0.2 percent increase.
“We are getting a very, very sharp rebound in core inflation and much more than the Fed had bargained for. We will be at price stability and possibly through it before the end of this year,” said Eric Green, chief economist at TD Securities in New York.
The good news is that this extrapolates to 3.6% annual inflation, which isn’t exactly Carter Country. Inflation ran to more than double that in Carter’s term, with interest rates going through the roof. However, a 3.6% inflation level is easily outstripping real growth, which means that income levels are eroding even as the relative percentage of people working continues to decline.
So much for the Empire Manufacturing index being a harbinger of an economic pick up. With virtually everyone on Wall Street expecting a positive print, with the average at +5.00, the actual number of -3.76 comes as yet another confirmation of the (f)utility of Wall Street groupthink. While it was a modest bounce from the June -7.79, this first July manufacturing indication, which coming negative means the contraction is now well into its second month, and has ugly undertones for Q3 GDP, which we expect most banks will revise their expectations lower in the aftermath of yesterday’s JPM downgrade of the US economy.
“The PunchLine” Has Nothing Funny To Say About The Future Of America
Smartest. President. Evah!™ Hi, I’m Barack Obama, and I Just Make Stats Up Out of Nothing
“You have 80% of the American people who support a balanced approach. 80% of the American people support an approach that includes revenues and includes cuts. So the notion that somehow the American people aren’t sold is not the problem. The problem is members of Congress are dug in ideologically.”
“Revenues” is the key word there — that’s the newspeak for tax increases of one form or another.
Where is he getting this 80% figure? How about “out of his hind end.” Gallup doesn’t back him up. Neither does Rasmussen. Gallup gets you closest, but you have do get a little creative with the numbers and even it shows that 50% would prefer a deal with no “revenues” at all (Ras shows 55% on that side).
Obama’s just scattin’ and be-boppin’ and makin’ stuff up.
Flashback: Obama 2006: “America Has A Debt Problem And A Failure Of Leadership,” Voted AGAINST IT!
“80% want higher taxes,” he lied
Today, President Obama told a press conference on raising their taxes: “The American people are sold. The problem is members of Congress are dug in ideologically.”
No, the problem is the White House is in a bunker mentality on taxes.
President Obama’s plan all along was to raise spending so high that Republicans would have to raise taxes.
That is irresponsible and rash and the American people overwhelmingly rejected that — and him and his zany Obamacare plan — in last November’s election.
This was his third press conference in two weeks as an increasingly desperate Barry Obama now glares at ever-shrinking re-election numbers.
Obama “Leads From Behind” In Latest Press Conference
US too dumb to know O is always right
In answering a question about a poll showing that two-thirds of voters don’t want the debt ceiling raised, he blew off 70 million Americans by saying they aren’t paying attention.
There’s a novel campaign theme: Elect me because you’re too dumb to understand how smart I am.
Harry Truman ran against a “Do-Nothing” Congress. Obama is running against a “Know-Nothing” nation.
He can never be wrong. You always are, unless you agree with him.
That’s the story of his presidency. That’s who he is.
LOL! Tossing the Blame BOOOOSH!™ card is the last refuge of this scoundrel. Obama Lies Again… Blames Bush for His Historic Debt and Deficit (Video) and in related news The Obama Downgrade
On spending, it is important to recall how extraordinary the blowout of the last three years has been. We’ve seen nothing like it since World War II. Nothing close. The nearby chart tracks federal outlays as a share of GDP since 1960. The early peaks coincide with the rise of the Great Society, the recession of 1974-75, and then a high of 23.5% with the recession of 1982 and the Reagan defense buildup.
From there, spending declines, most rapidly during the 1990s as defense outlays fell to 3% of GDP in 2000 from its Reagan peak of 6.2% in 1986. The early George W. Bush years saw spending bounce up to a plateau of roughly 20% of GDP, but no more than 20.7% as recently as 2008.
Then came the Obama blowout, in league with Nancy Pelosi’s Congress. With the recession as a rationale, Democrats consciously blew up the national balance sheet, lifting federal outlays to 25% in 2009, the highest level since 1945. (Even in 1946, with millions still in the military, spending was only 24.8% of GDP. In 1947 it fell to 14.8%.) Though the recession ended in June 2009, spending in 2010 stayed high at nearly 24%, and this year it is heading back toward 25%.
This is the main reason that federal debt held by the public as a share of GDP has climbed from 40.3% in 2008, to 53.5% in 2009, 62.2% in 2010 and an estimated 72% this year, and is expected to keep rising in the future. These are heights not seen since the Korean War, and many analysts think U.S. debt will soon hit 90% or 100% of GDP.
To wit: even Jim DeMint just tweeted that Boehner has just called “Obama’s Bluff” confirming that the prevalent of the charade is nothing more than a game of cards. From Bloomberg: “The U.S. House plans a vote next week on a measure that would raise the government’s debt limit by $2.4 trillion, cut spending, cap government expenditures and propose a balanced-budget constitutional amendment, Republican Representatives Sean Duffy and Billy Long said.” Per Reuters, “House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner said on Friday that deficit reduction legislation due for a House vote next week is “a solid plan” for moving forward toward an increase in the U.S. debt limit. The legislation, favored by Tea Party-backed lawmakers, would cut and cap federal spending while calling for adoption of a balanced budget amendment. “We’re far from the time for a last-ditch effort,” Boehner told a news conference at which he criticized Democrats including President Barack Obama for producing no “real plan” with serious spending cuts.”
If nothing else, this indicates that the Cantor wing in DC continues to usurp power from Boehner, and while this is certainly nothing more than power politics at their best (or worst) the one direct impact of all of this is that the outcome of a US technical default, so dreaded by all, could be the reset switch that was so needed to be pushed after Lehman, yet was merely kicked perpetually into the future: a path that is guaranteed to have a catastrophic ending. Yes, the pain would be acute, but like Iceland, America will survive, and yes: the current status quo will be wiped out. But the country will have a literal and figurative “fresh start.”
Forty Republican Senators Demand that Democrats Follow the Law
In what may have been a historic vote, forty Republicans voted today to sustain Senator Jeff Sessions’ point of order objecting to the Democrats’ violation of the Congressional Budget Act by passing an appropriation bill when there is no federal budget in place. The Republicans voted for legal process, for transparency and for honesty in budgeting. Every Democrat voted to violate the Congressional Budget Act. Four Republicans who presumably can be counted on to vote for legality were not present.
The implication of today’s vote is that it will be hard for the Democrats to get the necessary 60 votes for cloture on any future illegal spending measures. The federal government has now been operating contrary to law for more than two years without a budget. Is it finally time to say that the Democrats’ feckless, scofflaw ways are catching up with them?
Eric Cantor Chuckles Over Drama Queen Obama’s Wednesday Meltdown
Reflecting on the episode Thursday afternoon, Cantor chuckles over how dramatically the president behaved. He chalks up the heated conversation to politics more than anything. “They’re just not serious,” he says. “Even those things identified in the Biden talks have been cast aside, only touchable if we raise taxes.”
“I was willing to compromise,” Cantor contends. “I said, Mr. President, we want to do it right. I said, I agree with you, we ought not to go beyond August 2. But because the votes are not there in the House, I asked whether he was willing to come off his statement that he will veto that. That’s what led to the blowup.”
…For all the news stories about Republican sniping, Cantor says it’s the Democrats who are in disarray. “It seems, now, that the president drew an arbitrary line at $1.7 trillion; then Reid and [House Democratic leader Nancy] Pelosi drew a line and said we’re at $1.4 trillion. Anything above that, they say, they’re going to need new revenues, new tax hikes on the table.”
Back to Their Roots… Dems Use Alinsky Tactics to Try to Isolate & Polarize Eric Cantor
Alinsky’s RULE Number 12: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.”
The frustrated democrats are running out of options. Most Americans oppose their irresponsible spending and proposed tax hikes.
Since they can’t persuade Americans to support their dangerous policies they’ve resorted to fall back on their old Alinsky tactics. In the last two days it has become obvious that there is a concerted effort on the left to isolate and demonize Majority Leader Eric Cantor.
Baby Barack can’t stand the heat so they want to remove the kitchen…Former DNC Chair Tim Kaine Wants Cantor Kicked Out Of Debt Negotiations
Cantor’s obviously doing something right.
At least he didn’t call him a “Teppichfresser”…Spring-Rice Never Met Barack Obama
One of the most famous lines about Theodore Roosevelt came from the British ambassador Cecil Spring-Rice, who, after observing TR rolling around on the floor in the Oval Office, told another diplomat: “You must remember that the president is about six.”
One suspects that Spring-Rice would place President Obama as a two-year old. Certainly his tantrums are about as immature.
The Federal Bureaucracy Is A White Elephant, Not A Sacred Cow
But let’s get real. If the entire departments of education, energy, and several others would be abolished–with their few vital functions being transferred elsewhere–would the quality of life suffer in the United States? Would the quality of education plummet? Would America be less able to produce energy it needs? Actually, energy production would almost certainly improve.
Here’s a good idea for journalists. Pick a government department that deals with domestic matters–Labor, Justice, Agriculture, Education, your choice–go through its organizational table and ask what “vital” service is carried out by any given bureau, office, branch, or section. Isn’t it amazing that nobody is doing that in all the passionate debate over government spending levels, taxes, and regulations?
The Virtues Of a Balanced Budget Amendment
But here’s what it would take to balance the books.
First, scrap government departments that overlap with functions traditionally and primarily met at the state level, and that often do more harm than good. The country’s educational performance declined after the federal government imposed its educational priorities on the states, which have the prime responsibility for education. Scrap the Department of Education, a failed Carter-era experiment that had its roots in president Dwight Eisenhower’s desire to imbue the education system with Cold War thinking, and out goes a US$77-billion annual expense. Likewise, scrap all or parts of the Department of Energy, the Small Business Administration, the Federal Transit Authority, Federal Highway Administration, Housing and Urban Development and other federal areas that intrude on state and local responsibilities. Apart from the dollar savings from eliminating duplication and cancelling perverse projects, the quality of public services is likely to rise when the former federal functions move closer to home in state or local government, or become privatized and are delivered in the private sector.
This slimming-down exercise would not only slash the US$1.1-trillion deficit expected in 2012 by one-third to one-half, it would eliminate bureaucracy that burdens business, lowering costs to the overall economy and spurring its revival, in the process taking people off the welfare rolls and making them taxpayers that further shrink the deficit. And because the deficit would have declined dramatically, the growth in the federal debt would have slowed to a crawl.
Since Harry Reid became Senate Majority Leader in 2006, more than $5 trillion has been added to the debt, and he now wants to raise the debt ceiling again. It’s quite a hole he dug along with Pelosi and Obama.
Once again, courtesy of the Examiner’s Mark Tapscott, here are the hard numbers, in monthly amounts, for anyone foolish enough to buy into Democrat scare tactics:
• Federal revenue: $200 billion per month
• Interest on the national debt: $29 billion
• Social Security: $49.2 billion
• Medicare and Medicaid: $50 billion
• Active duty military pay: $2.9 billion
• Veterans affairs programs: $2.9 billion
• Education funding: $11 billionAll of that core spending adds up to $145 billion, which means that in the event of a debt limit, the government can pay it all and still have $55 billion a month left over.
Note also that this Tweet absolutely confirms Harry Reid is a liar, rather than simply an idiot, since he has previously insisted that Social Security “is in great shape for many decades… Today it is not a problem.”
So we could furlough:
Eric Holder? The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), which is waging war on Boeing and other private sector companies? The EPA, which is trying to run an end-around on Congress with its own version of cap-and-trade? HHS, the blunt instrument of Obamacare? The Department of Education, also known as the stealth AFT and NEA funding agency? And HUD, progenitor of the Fannie Mae Housing Crisis?
Wow. Tough decision. Let me think for a minute…
Are Tax Increases More Important to Democrats Than Avoiding Default? Reid Won’t Say
Of course, the purpose of the press conference was to discuss how, in private negotiations, ideological Republicans had hijacked talks and insisted on a deal that raises the debt ceiling, cuts spending, but doesn’t raise taxes. Are Democrats just as committed to a deal that does raise taxes? It seems so, but we won’t know for sure as long as the House hasn’t passed a bill.
Reid Calls Tea Party Argument Against McConnell Plan “A Bunch Of Garbage”…
He’s really not doing McConnell any favors attacking conservatives on his behalf.
Pelosi Says She’s “Almost Too Busy” to Continue Listening to Debt Talks…
Too busy doing what? — Botox injections? — flying around D.C. on her broom?
You can always rely on Sheila Jackson-Lee to say something really, really stupid. Memo to Sheila: Tossing The Race Card™ doesn’t work anymore. All it does is to serve to highlight your own racism…
So when Obama voted against the debt ceiling in 2006 was it because George W. Bush is white?
And all this time I thought opposition to raising the debt ceiling might have something to do with the fact that Obama’s record so far on deficit spending is making even Bush look like a piker. I stand corrected.
But Jackson Lee’s frustration stems from the obvious: Democrats treated George W. Bush with great respect, always gave him the benefit of the doubt didn’t block his appointments and always supported his requests to raise the debt ceiling, so she only wants Republicans to return the favor now that Obama is president.
Five years ago, Senator Obama said “America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. America deserves better.” Now, when people agree with Obama’s statement, Sheila Jackson Lee insinuates that they’re racists?
I guess in addition to believing there are two Vietnams, Shiela believes George W. Bush two-stepped his way through 8 years with the Democrat Party on the Hill with nary a peep of insipid, infantile bitching. This is a running gag that has become almost depressing; the proliferation of elected officials who apparently have no memory of life, the universe, and everything prior to 2008. However, in the case of the voters in this vile woman’s district who continue to send her back to Congress, who seem completely oblivious to what happens outside of their field of vision, it would seem we’re going to enjoy displays of Lee’s epic ignorance for many years to come.
Dem Rep. Steve Cohen: GOP Will “Take Down” Economy To Defeat Obama….
Obama doesn’t need any help “taking down” the economy.
WOW!… Obama White House Says Voting on Debt Increase Again Next Year Is as Bad as Default (Video)
Obama Admits There’s No Social Security Trust Fund
So, in other words, just as conservatives have been telling you, the Social Security “trust fund” is nothing but an big IOU that’s paid for with incoming tax revenues and borrowed money. In other words, most people don’t have any idea how iffy those Social Security benefits they’re relying on could turn out to be in the very near future.
No Social Security checks for you, $35,800 birthday checks for President Obama
Earlier this week, President Obama refused to guarantee that Social Security checks would be mailed out on August 3 — even though there is a $2.5 TRILLION trust fund.
He apparently will refuse to pay Social Security — even as the nation collects enough taxes (including Social Security taxes) to pay this bill about 8 times over.
But while grandma may not get hers on August 3, President Obama will collect birthday presents from his fat-cat rich buddies at a party on August 3.
Aw….Obama May Have To Postpone His Birthday Party If Debt Ceiling Isn’t Raised
Today is day 806 since the nation last had a budget. The Democrats controlled both houses of Congress and the White House for much of that time, and still control the Senate and the White House. Their failure to pass a budget has led directly to where we are now. Today the Democrats will hold a press conference to try pinning the problem on the Republicans, but they own the lack of a budget and they own, entirely, the rampant and out of control spending since President Obama’s inauguration.
They also own the threat and the consequences if the president orders Treasury to withhold Social Security checks. They will be harming our most vulnerable citizens for the sake of pure politics. The Democrats have been derelict in their duties. They own that, and all of the consequences that flow from it.
At his latest in a series of pointless press conferences decrying talk over action, President Obama this morning trotted out his worn old class-warfare line about the need for millionaires, billionaires, and corporate jet owners to share in the “sacrifice.”
Whenever you hear him use that line, substitute “Obama bundlers.”
Perhaps someone can slip it into the Teleprompter of the United States one of these days.
Obama fundraising breakdowns are out today.
iWatch reports on the latest activities of Obama’s elite campaign finance bundlers. You can bet the bagman-in-chief isn’t telling them to eat their peas. Wagyu beef and caviar, maybe.
Air Farce One, the Tax-Free Personal Jet
Rich Karlgaard provides a little context for the class warfare rhetoric our Community Organizer in Chief recently used to denounce Americans who are successful enough to fly personal jets:
Barack Obama, who rails against tax breaks for corporate jets, flies in the biggest jet of all — a Boeing 747.
A normal 747 costs $320 million. Lord Obama’s comes with all sorts of special features out of a James Bond movie that probably bring the cost to around $500 million. Operation costs come to about $100 million per year.
Two Pictures that Perfectly Capture the Rise and Fall of the Welfare State’
What If An Anti-American Foreign Dictator Had Been Elected President of the U.S. In 2008?
Freeing Al Qaeda? DOJ Moves to Cut Prison Term for Muslim Brotherhood Terrorist
Just when you thought it was not possible for the Holder Justice Department to become any more hostile to the national and homeland security interests of the American people, along comes yet another travesty. This one threatens both, as it apparently would involve turning loose in America a convicted terrorist known to be a top Muslim Brotherhood (MB or Ikhwan in Arabic) operative and al Qaeda financier: Abdurahman Alamoudi.
Napolitano’s V.I.P.R. Vows to “Dominate,Intimidate and Control”the American People
But recently,another of Janet Napolitano’s handmaidens of harassment has begun to make news…albeit only on the web,of course. It is the TSA’s Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response task force–or VIPR. Organized into mobile swat teams,VIPR has executed some 8,000 highly public searches in the past 12 months.
And what meaningful operations they have been.
In a Georgia Amtrac station,VIPR personnel “patted down”all travelers,children and adults,both entering AND LEAVING the station.
In Santa Fe,New Mexico,teams of VIPR agents were assigned to conduct searches at a high school prom.
In Texas,agents thoroughly “…searched all private and commercial vehicles entering and exiting…”the port of Brownsville. EACH AND EVERY VEHICLE was searched even though the task force was not responding to any known or reported threat!
In April,VIPR staged a raid at a Tampa bus station. Once again,the teams were not responding to any particular threat. Rather,Homeland Security official Gary Milano said the purpose of the exercise was to “…invent the wheel in advance,in case we have to,if there is ever specific intelligence requiring us to be here.”
And two months later,VIPR targeted 5,000 square miles bordering West Virginia,Ohio and Kentucky. Four hundred agents representing 70 federal agencies appeared in Black Hawk helicopters,small planes and Coast Guard craft. Once again this was a “training exercise.”As usual,no threat had been suspected or reported. TSA official Michael Cleveland stated,“…the purpose of the exercise was to have a visible presence and let people know we’re out here. IT CAN BE A DETERRENT.”
But who is being deterred,intimidated and threatened by these unnecessary shows of force- certainly not terrorists.
“Uncontrolled search and seizure is one of the first and most effective weapons in the arsenal of every arbitrary government…Among deprivations of rights,none is so effective in cowing a population,crushing the spirit of the individual and putting terror in every heart”,said Justice Robert Jackson,the chief US prosecutor at Nuremberg.
Unfortunately the picture is dismal at best. Every two years Americans elect their representatives and every six, they elect their senators. However these elections are little more than a sham to allow Americans to think they still have a republic. There is virtually nothing that the executive branch and regulatory agencies can’t do anymore. In fact some liberal talkers have outright called for Obama to rule by executive order and he is heeding their call. When the Cap and Trade bill became impossible to enact, Obama directed the EPA to implement provisions similar to the core thrust of the bill anyway.
America isn’t walking into a mine field; it is already deep within the field and in mortal peril of having freedom as we know it perish from the earth. Liberty, after all, is a relatively new experiment in humanity having been around a scant 250 years of several thousand years of human history. In fact dictatorship, autocracy, and tyranny are the norm. The problem with America right now is that people are too anesthetized by the latest reality TV show, celebrity trial, or sex scandal to pay attention to the fact that their freedoms are being stripped from them one at a time. The only hope is for America to finally wake up and return to the libertarian principles that founded the nation.
And yet Obama had the nerve to scold Republican yesterday for not “behaving in the best interest of the American people.”
Health care that is so good that everyone who can get out of it wants out of it! White House Grants New Round Of ObamaCare Waivers, Total Nears 1,500…
Fantastic idea.
The expanding catalogue of Obamacare fables
No matter. Expanding government control over health care means never having to say you’re sorry for impugning private insurers. Democrats have dragged every available human shield into the contentious debate over Obama’s federal takeover of health care. Personal anecdotes of dying family members battling evil insurance execs deflect attention from the cost, constitutionality and liberty-curtailing consequences of the law. The president’s Dunham sham-ecdote is just the latest entry in an ever-expanding catalogue of Obamacare fables:
If you don’t think this is the most transparent administration ever, shut up
The political dangers of an intellectually superior attitude.
Why 2012 is shaping up as an ‘Anybody But Obama’ election
Then in a well-publicized White House confrontation with House Majority Leader Eric Cantor this week, Obama dared Republicans to call his bluff and threatened that he’s “going to the American people with this.”
A raft of new public opinion surveys suggest that Republicans should tell Obama to go for it because he is on the wrong end of the debate. Ed Morrissey at Hot Air points to eight reasons why going to the people will likely provide “a rude awakening” for Obama:
- Gallup: Americans paying attention oppose debt-ceiling increase almost 2-1
- CBS poll shows 69% opposed to a debt-ceiling increase
- Poll: Majority support a balanced budget amendment
- Poll shows more people concerned about national debt than national default
- Poll shows Americans getting more pessimistic on economy, want spending cuts
- Americans oppose raising debt ceiling by more than 2-1 in Gallup survey
- CBS poll shows Americans oppose debt-ceiling hike 2-1
- Hill poll shows 62% opposed to raising the debt ceiling
These polls are perhaps shocking in the context of Obama’s multiple news conferences in recent weeks, careful White House staging of “negotiations” with congressional GOPers designed to put Obama in the best possible light, the liberal mainstream media’s desperately unbalanced reporting of the controversy, and the parallel propagandizing by the thousands of liberal non-profits, foundations and activists groups.
Why that generic lead over Obama is big news
Let me simplify this for liberals: If Republicans nominate Mitt Romney he has a 90% chance of winning. If Republicans nominate Rick Perry he has a 90% chance of winning. If Republicans nominate Sarah Palin she has a 90% chance of winning. If Republicans nominate Michele Bachmann she has a 90% chance of winning. If Republicans nominate Ron Paul he has a 90% chance of winning.
We are a year away from knowing who the nominees will be. But Obama took a recession and turned it into a depression.
He ignored the Tea Party. He ignored the 2010 election. He is ignoring the clamor to cut $1 trillion from spending immediately!
I say nominate Sarah Palin and to hell with the partisan press. They have beat her up for 3 years. America loves underdogs. Pragmatism is for losers.
Obama Volunteers Threaten To Pull Support If Cuts To Entitlement Programs Are In Debt Deal…
I’m not buying it, at the end of the day the majority of them will suck it up and vote for him.
Every time I read something like this out of some Democrat or MSM tool it tells me just how frightened they are the sleeping giant that is “We The People” is now awake and will make it impossible for them to steal the 2012 election…. Dem Congresswoman: GOP Wants To Prevent “Poor” And “Minorities” From Voting…
Not a day goes by without a Democrat playing the worn out race card.
Or make it impossible for the Democrats to pull this kind of shite…71% of Military Ballots not counted in the 2010 election.
From my personal experience, when I went to the trouble to request an absentee ballot, I always filled it out and sent it in. I don’t know what’s going on here but forgive me if I suspect that there’s voter supression in action.
… military voters were (28% as)* likely to vote than other voting-age citizens (in the 2010 election)
*innumeracy in linked article corrected.
That doesn’t pass the smell test. Perhaps some currently or recently serving troops can enlighten me? Are you guys voting nowadays? (I have no idea how common absentee voting was back in the 1970s when I was in. We did follow the elections closely.)
The linked story also goes on to point out games states like Maryland and New York played to delay sending out ballots until it was too late to matter.
What I want to know is if he lied about how his grandmother died. It was very convenient that the only person left in the world who could confirm or deny so much of what Obama is so afraid of the American public finding out about him died THREE days before the election…How Horrible. Obama Even Lied About His Mother On Her Deathbed (Video)
Now we find out that it was all a lie.
Obama lied about his mother’s stuggles with insurance companies to get elected. He lied about her insurance situation to ram through Obamacare. None of it was true
In related news…The Opacity Of Hope
For example, there are the accounts that neither his father, mother, nor his maternal family nor even his Indonesian stepfather were just plain folks. It seems likely they were distinctly political animals with powerful beliefs and vaulting ambitions. There is the suggestion that they moved on the fringes of a CIA faction that “considered themselves family members of the domestic and international Left. They believed that America’s competition with Soviet Communism was to be waged by, for, and among the Left.”
Codevilla makes his arguments and one may believe them or not. But what is not in dispute is that Barack Obama is the least known quantity in the modern American presidency. He said of himself in his own book, or what is said to be his own book, “I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views.” Certainly his biographies show him as something very different from the image he portrayed on the hustings. Codevilla argues that far from being a hardscrabble black man made good, Obama is the product of an elite system of formation.
What the nature of that formation was is open to debate. Its elusiveness is indirect proof of the shortcomings of the gatekeeping system. Whether one cares for President Obama’s character or politics is a matter of political choice. But the choices should be as clear as the lettering in packages that we buy. That the nature of his politics and character should, in his third year of office, still be shrouded in ambiguity and remain in an unreadable script suggests a failure in the political and journalistic system to tell the public what was inside the box.
For surely the public had a right to know.
Memo to Jessie: You ain’t seen nothin’ yet!….Jesse Jackson: “Anti-Obama Mania Sweeping The Country”…
Hell yeah it is.
Articles of Impeachment Against Barack Hussein Obama
Gunwalker/Fast & Furious/Castaway
Obfuscation: Dems Push Gun Control To Hide ‘Gunwalker’ Scandal
Representatives Maloney, Cummings, and Carolyn McCarthy seem to be far less interested in holding those responsible for Gunwalker to account than they are in persecuting gun owners and hobbling the investigations into the scandal being played out in the House and Senate.
We saw this disreputable behavior from Cummings when he held a minority forum several weeks ago that was focused on blame-shifting instead of accountability, and in the 26-page political report that minimized the magnitude of the crimes perpetrated under the guise of law enforcement while building the case for gun control.
Anti-gun Democrats are pushing laws that would only affect the law-abiding, while attempting to direct attention away from what appears to be a widespread criminal conspiracy by executive branch agencies to arm narco-terrorists and then use the violence caused by those weapons to influence U.S. gun laws.
Americans don’t need more gun laws.
What we need are federal law enforcement agencies, legislators, and elected and appointed officials that aren’t willing to “break a few eggs” — or a few hundred lives — in order to take part in an illegal and murderous conspiracy.
The American People Are Fast Becoming More Furious.
We give the government our tax monies to help prevent crime. They use it pursue political vendettas against gun owners based on fantasy data. Then, when forced to give an accounting of this, they witness-tamper. Department of “Just-Us” indeed!
People know that any sort of a government shutdown resulting from a failure to raise the debt ceiling would hurt quite badly. They know just kicking it up a couple of trillion more will allow the USG to keep on doing exactly what it is currently doing. The 53% of the people who follow this stuff, and know they’ll get hammered by a government shutdown, want that shutdown explicitly because of what the government is doing.
I’ll speculate here, but without much fear of being wrong. Using the debt ceiling to shut our government down is a last and desperate way for an exploited and badly misgoverned populace to make the whole nightmare stop. The people in charge had better change things fast. The ones who pay the bills and make it all work are growing increasingly furious.
Gunwalker: Justice Department Tampering with Witnesses?
In other words: the DOJ was either trying to make sure witness stories are consistent with DOJ talking points, or they were going through the back door to make sure everyone who was testifying was on the same page. Either would likely get the average citizen slapped with an obstruction or witness tampering charge in a state or federal court.
Video: ATF Official in Mexico Says Heads of ATF and DOJ Knew About Fast and Furious
‘Fast and Furious’ not a ‘renegade operation,’ sources say
Yet there is also ample evidence that building a smoke screen is precisely what the Obama administration is doing, though not very well. Perhaps a counter-editorial in this morning’s Washington Times sums it up best:
The Justice Department’s effort to contain the Operation Fast and Furious gunrunning scandal is crumbling. Members of Congress are demanding full disclosure regarding the bizarre scheme to funnel guns to Mexican drug cartels, supposedly to help sniff out the higher-level bad guys. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. isn’t helping congressional investigators understand the rationale behind this breathtakingly dumb idea…
The botched operation provided ammunition for administration officials intent on exploiting any excuse to demand expanded gun-control measures. The White House often claimed that 90 percent of the weapons used in Mexican crimes had been traced to the United States, but the number has never been substantiated. By all appearances, Fast and Furious delivered statistics to back up the figure. Not surprisingly, the Justice Department pounced on the issue Monday. It issued a regulation requiring gun shops in Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and California to report purchases of multiple rifles made within a five-day period. The timing of the new mandate seems a little too convenient, as it’s not yet clear how much of this supposed gunrunning “problem” originates in Washington.
More ‘Gunwalker’ Emails Suggest Gun-Control Conspiracy
Congressman Darrell Issa and Senator Charles Grassley continue to unravel this plot. Along with the emails proving that the ATF was using “walked” guns to justify stricter gun laws, they sent a letter to embattled Attorney General Eric Holder asking the following:
- Is there any other evidence suggesting that ATF of DOJ officials discussed how Operation Fast and Furious could be used to justify additional regulatory authorities for the ATF? IF so, are there any such indications prior to July 14, 2010?
- Rather than collecting additional information on law-abiding gun owners, what steps have you taken to ensure that the ATF is better able to act on the information it already possesses to interdict the flow of firearms to criminals?
If most of the claims regarding this scandal are substantiated — and developing evidence certainly indicates a high likelihood of that happening — we face a watershed moment in American history.
Every component of federal law enforcement within the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security — and most likely with the knowledge of the Department of State — undertook a massive operation designed to facilitate the flow of thousands of weapons into the hands of some of the most vicious criminal organizations on Earth. These operations likely took place with the full knowledge of cabinet level officials, and possibly the White House. The weapons “walked” were used to gun down innocent men, women, and children, not to mention the brave police officers and soldiers in each nation trying to wage peace.
It demands a criminal investigation and the possible RICO prosecution of dozens of federal law enforcement officers, supervisors, senior management, political appointees, and possibly elected officials.
Our federal law enforcement apparatus became a criminal conspiracy. This was an assault on the democratic rule of law and the very essence of our republic.
They were selling guns to MS-13!!!! ATF Florida Gun Probe Earns Congressional Scrutiny in Wake of ‘Fast and Furious’
Bilirakis expressed concern about reports that the strategy “may not have been limited to weapons trafficking to Mexico.”
He asked Holder and Melson whether “similar programs included the possible trafficking of arms to dangerous criminal gangs in Honduras with the knowledge of the ATF’s Tampa Field Division” and a Justice Department office, via Castaway.
Bilirakis’ letter specifically asked whether the Tampa division participated in a “gun walking” scheme allowing guns to go to Honduras. He also asked whether ATF or DOJ know if any of the firearms ended up in the hands of the “notorious” MS-13 gang — a violent gang spread across Central America, Mexico and the United States.
As I have written before, Gunwalker was a deliberate conspiracy to subvert the Second Amendment by using the ATF to facilitate the smuggling of American civilian market firearms to the Mexican drug cartels. There was no “sting,” just supervised straw-buying and then the collection of murder statistics from Mexico to make a political point that we needed more restrictions on American firearm owners.
But by focusing on the ATF, the tool in this conspiracy, many have missed the larger point:
While the ATF, and by extension the United States government, did not formally sell (or provide) weapons to straw purchases and physically deliver these weapons across the border to criminals in a foreign sovereign nation, the ATF and the federal government was/were the intellectual author(s) of a comprehensive plan to facilitate the sale and illegal export of weapons to a foreign country. As such, the ATF and the administration are the intellectual authors of a conspiracy to illegally export weapons to a foreign country.
The war that dares not speak its name…US and Libya:
*crickets*
Both conservatives and liberals were flabbergasted by the sudden preemptive war. Conservatives who supported the messy efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq were reluctant to champion a third one in Libya without congressional authority and with no clearly stated mission or methodology. When we entered an on-again/off-again cycle of operations, Republicans charged that a weakened, fiscally insolvent America was sort of “leading from behind.”
Liberals were appalled that the president, who, as a senator, had always praised the War Powers Act, was now ordering his legal team to find ingenious ways of bypassing it. If this was to be a multilateral, un-Bush war, why then did it split NATO apart? Roughly half the members declined to participate. Both Germany and Italy soon openly opposed the effort. And now the instigator, France, seems to want to bail out.
The Left had also decried Western attacks on oil-exporting Muslim countries, but now liberal-in-chief Barack Obama was engaging in just such an attack. Indeed, the anti-war president who had promised to end the Bush Mideast wars had suddenly expanded them into a third theater. The more the war dragged on, the more the Arab world was torn between hating Qaddafi and hating Obama’s bombs.
*crickets*
Look for the Union Label/Whackademia/The Badger Rebellion:
More misleading push-calls to help Robert Wirch (D-WI)
The organizer of the Recall Wirch group is backing Jonathan Seitz. As reported by Media Trackers (via Charlie Sykes), however, the AFL-CIO is running robopolls in the District asking people to indicate who they support, including on the list Wirch, another person running in the Republican primary, and “undecided,” but leaving Seitz off the list of possibilities.
The robopoll does not indicate who was running it, but the phone number was traced back to the AFL-CIO. Writes MediaTrackers:
That’s right, the AFL-CIO is calling residents in Senate District 22 with a fake poll that omits the name of the Republican front-runner in an effort to confuse voters.
MediaTrackers further notes that while allegations of misleading robocalls by a pro-life group received widespread mainstream media coverage, the same was not true for the misleading pro-Wirch calls.
Less Academics, More Narcissism
The University of California is cutting back on many things, but not useless diversity programs.
Your Bailout Dollars (Getting Drunk and High) at Work
This kind of thing was exposed last year, and the UAW and Chrysler were so incensed that… it’s still going on
Postal Workers Union: We’re not like those other public sector unions
I just saw this advertisement on television and thought it was interesting that the American Postal Workers Union felt the need to take to the airwaves to tell people that it’s not like those other public sector unions.
I think this says a lot about public sentiment, because the postal workers obviously are feeling the heat, and want it directed elsewhere.
The option for city labor leaders: Agree to substantial changes in work rules, and most of those jobs can be saved. The window to take that option is closing fast.
The answer should be obvious. Emanuel has targeted a series of practices that serve to pad paychecks for no good reason. They unjustifiably raise the cost of city services. They rip off taxpayers. End those practices, and some jobs can be saved.
He’s asking employees to put in a 40-hour work week instead of 35 hours. He’s asking some employees to take time-and-a-half pay for overtime instead of double time. He wants city workers to get nine paid holidays a year instead of the 12 they get now.
A lot of Chicago taxpayers who work in the private sector — who put in more than 40 hours a week and don’t see overtime and get six paid holidays a year — they’re going to look at this showdown between the mayor and labor and say, whoa, it’s about time!
North St. Paul : Teacher charged with trying to prostitute student
University of California Parasite Factory to UC: “F**k You. Pay Me”
In Other News…
Pentagon to treat cyberspace as “operational domain”
No-Knock Warrants from the Department of Education?
It’s 6 AM and a groggy Ken Wright is getting ready to start the day. Thinking about jumping in the shower, getting the coffee on, and wake the kids… Suddenly noise from outside draws his attention and he looks out the window. He sees dozens of black-clad, armored men swarming on his lawn and now someone is pounding on the front door. As he starts down the stairs in his boxer shorts the front door shatters and the heavily armed men charge into the house pointing guns and shouting orders. They grab Wright, drag him from the home, throw him down in the front lawn and roughly handcuff him as the neighbors look on in horror. Wright is placed into a police cruiser and then sees the black-clad figures with their guns and body armor dragging his three children aged 3, 9, and 11 out of the house screaming and crying. They too are locked in the police cruiser where Wright can at least talk to them and try to calm them down. The search of the house goes on for six hours as Wright and the children sit helplessly in the hot police cruiser wondering what it’s all about.
Is it the FBI raiding a suspected terrorist cell? The DEA busting a major cocaine smuggling ring? A local SWAT team searching for a murdered wife? No, it’s a team of agents from the U.S. Department of Education Office of the Inspector General (EDOIG) looking for evidence of student loan fraud.
The Department of Education? With guns, armor, and battering rams?
This is not some far-fetched TV script or the delusional rantings of a kooky conspiracy theorist. These are the facts as reported by local Stockton, California media. Apparently the EDOIG agents were looking for evidence in an investigation of Wright’s estranged wife Michelle who does not currently reside in the home. It is not yet clear whether the EDOIG agents knew that Michelle Wright no longer lived there or that the children were in the home.
EPA Targets Fourth of July Fireworks
I hope you enjoyed the fireworks on the Fourth, because if the EPA has its way, it could be the last chance you’ll have:
The Environmental Protection Agency is at it again — this time eyeing smog standards so stringent it could actually force cities to choose between July 4th fireworks and hugely expensive new rules.
Draconian smog standards are already on the verge of killing fireworks displays in towns like Wichita.
That’s because the city’s 4th of July fireworks pushed its ozone levels over the EPA limit for the third day this year. One more violation and it could find itself forced to produce an EPA-approved smog-cutting plan that would, as the Wichita Eagle reported, “cost taxpayers and businesses millions of dollars.”
Ground Zero: Mosque yes, memorial that actually memorializes 9/11 – hell no
It will be up to real Americans to educate younger and future generations of the reality of 9/11. The same people that are eager to force a mosque at Ground Zero on Americans who don’t want it, are more eager to erase the history of Islamic jihad at Ground Zero. It will always be a significant date and victory in Islamic history – be sure of that.
Governors solve federal deficit
Two Republican heavyweights — Governors Rick Perry and Nikki Haley — slapped President Obama upside the head on his bungling of the federal budget, the deficit and the national debt.
From their column in the Washington Post today:
As governors of states whose residents, like all Americans, are desperate for the restoration of fiscal responsibility in Washington, we are proud to have signed the “Cut, Cap and Balance Pledge” amid the debate over once again raising the federal debt ceiling.
We oppose an increase in the federal debt limit unless three common-sense conditions are met: substantial cuts in spending; enforceable spending caps to put the country on a path to a balanced budget; and congressional passage of a balanced-budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution. That amendment should include a requirement for a congressional super-majority to approve any increases in taxes.
They pointed out that they must balance their budgets, noting this change: “In South Carolina, for the first time in history, legislators have to record their votes on every section of the budget, so that voters can see their spending habits. And a new marker has been laid down — every dollar that comes in after the budget is initially balanced should go to one of three things: tax relief, debt relief or rebates directly to taxpayers. No longer will South Carolina spend every single dollar every single year.”
Can Rick Perry pull off a Hispanic Republican revolution?
As the leader of what some might call a demographically oxymoronic state that votes overwhelmingly Republican but boasts a substantial minority population, Governor Perry has had to maintain a delicate balance. Some have criticized Perry for perceived inconsistencies on immigration reform (a hot-button issue, but certainly not the only topic of importance to Hispanics), and others point to his tepid reception at a prominent Latino convention last month.
But Perry has done a remarkable job of winning the Hispanic vote, taking a sizable 39% in 2010. “I support Governor Perry because of the traditional values he stands for,” says Geoffrey Tahuahua, a young Hispanic conservative who serves as State Chairman of the Texas Students for Rick Perry. “The values of the Republican Party are the same values that the Hispanic community holds near and dear to its heart, and I am proud to support him.” And with President Obama’s approval rating having dropped significantly among Hispanics, that number could grow in 2012, should Perry choose to run.
The fact is, Perry resonates with voters, regardless of race. If he can do nationally what he’s been doing in Texas, y’all had better get ready. This is shaping up to be one heck of a campaign season.
The only Right to Choose™ Democrats support you having is abortion. House votes to save traditional incandescent bulb for 2012
Lawmakers passed on a voice vote an amendment to energy-spending legislation for fiscal year 2012 barring the Energy Department from implementing or enforcing lighting-efficiency standards set by 2007 legislation. The law would effectively push the traditional bulbs off store shelves, starting with the 100-watt version next year.
Republicans passed the amendment over objections from Democrats, environmental groups and lighting manufacturers such as Fairfield, Connecticut-based General Electric Co., which have retooled factories and products to meet the new standards. Critics said consumers should be able to buy the cheapest bulbs on the market.
“The federal government has no right to tell me or any other citizen what type of light bulb to use at home,” said Representative Michael Burgess, a Texas Republican who sponsored the amendment, during debate yesterday. “It is our right to choose.”
Bank Of America Paying Out $410 Million For Reordering Your Transactions To Maximize Overdraft Fees
For this particular class action, you’ll get a notice in the mail if you’re a class member, which is anyone who had a Bank of America debit card between Jan 2001 and May 24, 2011, and you’ll automatically get a payment or credit.
Until banks are forced to change this deceptive practice, there are a few things you can do to protect yourself from the reordered transaction shim sham. First, don’t opt-in to overdraft protection if the bank tries to get you to. No longer can they automatically put you in but that won’t stop them from trying to get you to sign up. Second, ask to set an upper limit to only allow overdrafts at a preset negative balance amount so you can keep the damage from hemorrhaging. Make sure to read your bank policies so that you know how many overdrafts they can charge you in a day and what the fees are. And always keep an eye on your account balance and know how much you have before you swipe or write a check, you shouldn’t be spending more than is currently in your account.
UT regents call for increased hedging to protect endowment fund
Concern that Texas’ public university endowment may lose a fifth of its value from a major eurozone default or a crisis in the dollar prompted calls for more aggressive hedging Thursday.
Managers who oversee the $20.3 billion fund should beef up protection against market declines, said Gene Powell, chairman of the University of Texas Board of Regents. The regents are responsible for the fund.
“We need to do this and do it very soon,” Powell said during a meeting of the fund manager’s board. “None of us saw 2008, and this could be worse than 2008.”
Minnesota-The Land of 10,000 Taxes:
- From the Land of Sky Blue Waters comes the beer refreshing…. (I know that Hamm’s doesn’t have anything to do with the following story but if you grew up in Minnesota in the ‘50’s and ‘60’s you remember this)
- Dayton’s Shutdown – Washed Away in a Tsunami of Beer
Eric Roper’s story, “MillerCoors kicked off state shelves,” Star Tribune, July 13, 2011 reports the story.
“The problem stems from brand label registrations that brewers must renew with the state every three years, showing the label on each brand of beer. MillerCoors attempted to renew in mid-June, but, according to company officials, sent the state a check for more than the required amount. Green said the company followed up with a new check, which the state received June 27.
But on June 30, one day before the government shutdown, the company received a letter from the state that its brand licenses had expired. State employees who would typically renew those licenses have been deemed noncritical during the shutdown and laid off.”
Stassen-Berger, being a progressive/socialist, was shocked. Since prog/soc’s only drink $80 bottles of wine (and then verbally assault conservative congressmen like Rep. Paul Ryan) or handcrafted microbrewery beers aged in LEED certified bamboo barrels blessed by an acolyte of Al Gore, she was stunned that regular, ordinary Minnesotans drink Miller or Coors. Since the productive class has to earn their living through hard work and thrift, they drink ordinary, inexpensive beers. They don’t get grants from the government or George Soros so they drink something affordable.
Anyway, the people were now riled, but not in a way that benefited the Democrats. Their little ‘screw the productive class’ experiment blew up right in their faces. The absurdity that Miller products would have to be pulled from the shelves because of some idiotic licensing snafu simply confirmed what they already suspected. This was a contrived farce from the get-go. They would continue to subsidize food stamps for unwed mothers but refused to cash a simple check and return the overages to Miller. This kind of madness typified exactly what is going wrong with this country. Its impact simply washed away Dayton’s, and his Democratic handlers’, arguments. This utter mess was not caused by Republican intransigence but by governmental enormity and pettiness.
And so the next day Governor Dayton buckled like a Minnesota highway on a 102 degree day under a tsunami of frothy, thrifty beer.
Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton caved today. He has agreed with the terms of the GOP legislature to end the government shut down in the state. He wimped out. He gave up. He surrendered. He f**king LOST.
You got it right – Minnesotans will NOT see any tax hikes and that is what the Democrat Governor hitched his star to. He went out to the people (sound familiar?) and they basically told him to shove his tax increases to balance the budget.
The lesson here? If you stare the Communists down and hold your ground, they cower and back off like a bunch of sissies.
But folks, come on. This is Minnesota. Republicans have mostly won a pitched battle with a Democratic governor on spending and taxes in a liberal state. Dayton caved on his signature issue. If Republicans can make it here, they can make it anywhere.
Compared to their neighbors in Dem-controlled Illinois who are looking at a $15 billion deficit.
Detroit: A warning to others as to what NOT to do
Illegal immigrant working inside largest US nuke facility arrested
Cain Opposes Planned Tennessee Stealth Jihad Mosque…
Cain once again speaks the truth.
Forget all those scientific studies about the health effects of coffee. What about the economic impact?
Harvard Professor: Parents Of Obese Children Should Lose Custody…
Nanny state on steroids.
The Enduring Dangerous Legacy of the Sixties New Left
The truth is that today’s liberals never came to terms with the legacy of the New Left, just as many Germans for a long time failed to come to terms with the Third Reich. Voegeli is on the mark when he writes: “The radical fringe wanted to live outside the law and also inside the law. Respectable liberals wanted to let them. They lent a hand by praising the radicals with faint damns, then quickly changing the subject to the extenuating circumstances that rendered the fringe’s deeds kinda-sorta understandable, acceptable, and even admirable.”
The point is well-taken. Ayers’ years of bombing are in the past, but as his involvement with the campaign to delegitimize Israel reveals, “the political dangers of Ayers-ism remain.” To win over the network of radical Islamists who join together with unreconstructed leftists, the issue must be addressed, and the sooner the better.
MSM Circus and Celebutard Side Show:
Video: ABC’s Tapper Brilliantly Paints White House Spokesman Into Corner
Heh: NBC Employees Upset Over Cut in Psychotherapy Benefits
C’mon folks, it’s time for shared sacrifice. You would think NBC is saving a bundle now that Keith Olbermann has gone into hiding, but apparently he must have driven so many people nuts the residual effects are still ongoing.
Fox paid $4.8 billion in taxes, MSNBC $0
OK, the headline is misleading.
The parent company of Fox News — News Corp. — paid the U.S. government $4.8 billion in taxes over the last four tax years (2007-2010).
GE, which owned most of MSNBC until late last year, paid zero taxes in 2010.
In fact, GE received a $3.2 billion welfare check from Uncle Sam.
This is how a regime operates, not an administration
Video: Don’t Forget Who Was Behind the War on Fox: Dunn, Emmanuel and Axelrod
How about this, a Deputy White House Communications Director writes an email stating:
I am putting some dead fish in the Fox cubby–just cause.
This was back in the fall of 2009 when the war on Fox broke into the open and the White House began actively excluding Fox from press availabilities.
That same Deputy Communications Director, Jennifer Psaki, went on to say:
brett baier just did a stupid piece on it—but he is a lunatic.
No doubt this is the sort of thing she was hearing from her boss at the time, Mao-loving Communications Director Anita Dunn, the woman who once explained how the Obama campaign dog-trained the press to report what they were told.
But these emails, as nasty and petty as they are, shouldn’t eclipse the fact that this was a coordinated campaign from the very top of the White House on down.
Smug Ed Schultz Forced to Admit Huge Blunder About News Corp.
We’d like to make a correction. Last night we told you News Corp. received $4.8 billion in tax refunds over four years, 2007 through 2010. The information from a Reuters article by David Cay Johnson was inaccurate. News Corp. actually paid $4.8 billion in taxes over those four years. In receiving News Corp.’s annual disclosure reports, Mr. Johnson made a mistake. A tax figure in parenthesis conventionally denotes a refund but not always. The error was confirmed to Mr. Johnson by a respected tax expert. Johnson has fully apologized and explained the mistake. No excuses.
“No excuses” — how noble of you, Ed. Yet absent from both segments was any mention of General Electric, parent company of MSNBC — in other words, your boss prior to Comcast acquiring NBC Universal in January 2011 — paying no federal taxes in 2010. And by the way, $4.8 billion in taxes on $10.4 billion in profit is a tax rate of 46 percent — 11 points higher than the corporate tax rate of 35 percent. Which I’m sure is all the basis you need for yet another harangue against the wealthy as tax scofflaws.
New York Times=Völkischer Beobachter NYT editorial on debt ceiling basically indistinguishable from a White House blog post
Pwned. Sean Hannity Takes Juan Williams to Woodshed (Video)
Sean Hannity completely pwned Juan Williams last night on Hannity. Sean asked Williams to respond to Eric Cantor’s comments on raising the debt ceiling. When Juan got through trashing Cantor, Hannity told him that actually those were Obama’s comments from 2006.
Watch Juan Williams’ expression when he finds out he got totally pwned.
Chris Matthews: How Come Rich People Aren’t Committing Suicide Like During the Great Depression?
We’ve gone from “yes we can” to “jump” in just two and a half years. Come on, Chris — if all these rich Wall Streeters jump, there won’t be anybody left who can afford to go to the birthday party of the president who puts a charge in your slacks (by the way, Obama’s birthday party/fundraiser — not necessarily in that order — is scheduled for August 3rd, the day after the world is supposed to end if the debt ceiling isn’t raised, so Team Obama remains optimistic).
Yo, Tingles! Us “stay at home blogging cheerleaders” are the ones who actually pay taxes, unlike you and the rest of your tax dodging Democrat buddies…Tingles Urges Viewers: Call Congress And Tell Them To Ignore Tea Party’s “Stay-At-Home Blogging Cheerleaders”…
Ironic considering this is coming from Obama’s biggest MSM cheerleader.
NPR Poll Finds That 96% (Ninety-Six Percent!) of the Public Wants Spending Cuts
NPR Reports Poll As 75% Want Tax Increases
Global Warmening:
Green is the new Red…UN Proposes Overseeing $38 Trillion In Wealth Redistribution To Developing World To Go “Green”…
Scary shit.
Today’s Climate Hypocrite: Richard Branson
The Sock Drawer:
Salmon better than sand for Happy Feet
Feistier Happy Feet to move to saltwater pool
From Stratfor: How to Travel Safely – Tips from a Former Agent
AIYYYYY! MY EYES! Danger, wide load! Chunky biker gives motorists a cracking rear view on freeway
View to a thrill: Dazzling green glow of the Southern Lights wrapped around Earth… as seen from the International Space Station
