Quote of the Day: To quote Don Surber: ”Washington has more Drama Queens than a Barney Frank luau on Fire Island.” And Obama’s the biggest queen of them all. No more interrupting the actual news with your selfish hissy fits, Mr. President. There is nothing in the Constitution that requires Congress to ask “how high” when you say “jump.” Get off my TV!-RS McCain
Today’s Must Read- 2012: The End of the World As We Know It
Like a replicating amoeba, America is pulling apart into two separate cultures. One is strongly committed to the birth of an even more robust, pro-growth, entrepreneurial capitalism. The other thinks Che Guevara and Karl Marx had important social insights relevant to America today, and wants to follow the path of Juan Peron ‘s Argentina, if not Hugo Chavez ‘s Venezuela. This is the stark choice facing the American people in 2012.
This is also why the vast majority of the American heartland feels more cultural affinity with the people of New Zealand and Australia than with the people of San Francisco and Seattle, at least as reflected by the majority of those two benighted cities. But the replicating amoeba analogy is not apt, because amoebas split into two equal new entities. What the American people are about to demonstrate in 2012 is that the heartland’s vision of a booming economy restoring America’s traditional world-leading prosperity and superpower might is shared by far more citizens than you might think, and that the long outdated socialist vision of the “progressive” American Left, for whom that traditional American prosperity and superpower status is a moral embarrassment, is fading into oblivion.
Photo of the Day: WARNING! Looking at this photo may cause blindness. Click on this link at your own risk!
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.
Magnitude 6.4 – NEAR THE EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
Must listen to interviews with Michael Collins and Yoichi Shimatsu
Melt-Through Simulation Created by Japan’s METI Well Before Fukushima
This animation was created by the Japan Nuclear Energy Safety Organization, a government corporation under the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (which regulates the nuclear industry), to train Senior Specialists for Nuclear Emergency Preparedness on the severe accident of loss of cooling, using a Mark-1 Boiling Water Reactor.
It was created before the Fukushima I Nuke Plant accident, though there is no information as to when it was created. (The Japan Nuclear Energy Safety Organization itself was created in 2003.)
The accident sequence in the animation:Control rods are inserted, and the reactor stops.
A big pipe connected to the Reactor Pressure Vessel breaks, and all methods of cooling the reactor fails.
Water starts to leak. Water level in the RPV gets low, exposing the fuel core.
That’s exactly what happened at Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant.
They must have known all along that it was not even a meltdown but melt-through.
Radioactive Beef from Tochigi Prefecture – Discovery Follows Hayakawa Map
Prefectures surrounding Fukushima have reported the detection of radioactive cesium exceeding the provisional safety limit from the beef from the cows.
Thus Spread Radiation All Over Japan – Through Contaminated Cows
I had expected the wide spread (other than the radioactive plume from Fukushima I Nuke Plant) of radioactive materials in Japan to occur via the radioactive debris in the Tohoku region as municipalities far away from Fukushima are asked to receive debris for burning and burying to help clean Tohoku after the earthquake/tsunami (and conveniently missing is a mention of nuke accident).
That can still happen, but it is the radioactive beef from the cows that ate radioactive rice hay that have brought radiation everywhere in Japan.
Now, in the latest tally by NHK, at least 1,698 cows may have eaten the rice hay with high level of radioactive cesium, and they have been shipped and sold in every prefecture in Japan except Okinawa.
An increasing number of Japanese don’t believe it’s just about the rice hay and the cows, although the government has been trying its best to focus people’s attention to them.
World News:
Remote Alaskan volcano poised to erupt – and it’s directly under the flight path from U.S. to Asia
Today’s Drudge Ku on the Norwegian slaughter:
DEATH TOLL RISES TO 92 IN NORWAY ATTACKS...
Survivors recount how cold-blooded killer stalked them...
Suspect 32-year-old Norwegian, not Muslim...
A 'farmer,' bought 6 tons of fertilizer...
Oslo becomes Oklahoma City...
Wasn't On Police Radar...
TELEGRAPH LIVE...
GUARDIAN LIVE...
VG NORWAY...
Begging for his life: Chilling image of terrified teenager pleading for mercy from ‘neo-Nazi’ killer standing astride bodies (WARNING! Graphic images)
‘He yelled out that he was going to kill us all and that we must all die,’ says survivor shot in the back Police chief says 4 or 5 people still missing at scene camp massacre Death toll rises to 92 after discovery of another body on island Suspect bought SIX tonnes of fertiliser two months ago Witnesses describe attacks in different parts of the island 32-year-old man is charged with terror offences Suspect is member of Swedish Nazi forum which encourages attacks on government buildings Police to use mini-submarine to search island’s surrounding waters for bodies Norwegian media report Breivik set up a Twitter account a few days ago and posted: ‘One person with a belief is equal to 100,000 who have only interests’ Norway’s PM who spent many summers on island: ‘My childhood paradise that yesterday was transformed into Hell’ Names of the dead will be released once relatives have been told
RS McCain has a great round up on the Norwegian slaughter
Perpetrator IDed in Norway attacks?
80 CHILDREN SLAUGHTERED On Utoya Island Near Oslo
Dear God. This was a slaughter.
Crazed gunman Anders Behring Breivik slaughtered 80 youths on Utoya Island on Friday.Dressed as a policeman, he lured the children over, loaded his gun and shot them dead. He shot at the children while they were trying to swim away to safety. There were 500 children on the island attending camp.
The children were attending camp.
Who Added “Christian” and “Conservative” to Norway Shooter’s Facebook Page Yesterday?
Did he have two different Facebook pages, one in Norwegian and one in English, and he only identified himself as a Christian and a conservative on the English one? Or did he pause from his murder spree to add “Christian” and “conservative” to his Facebook profile? Or maybe the whole page is a fake, as has been reported here.
But in the case, who faked it, and why? Who is so anxious to portray Breivik as a Christian and conservative? And if this was faked, can we trust any of the material that is now being released about Breivik being anti-jihad?
Oslo: 91 Dead — Suddenly the shooter is a “Christian fundamentalist” with “anti-Muslim views”
Remarking the obvious: No branch of Christianity calls for violence, contra Islam. The dominant left-stream media has been itching for a Western mass-murderer since 9-11 and every attack subsequent to it. Now they have a suspect with blonde hair — it follows therefore that he must espouse Christianity, which is as stinky an argument as 6 tons of fertilizer.
Norway – The Warning Signs Were There
Former congressional candidate and nanoscientist Mike Stopa notes that the warning signs were present in Norway, as noted by a Norwegian blogger earlier this year:
No one expected the barbarians to hit Norway. No one, that is, expect the people of Norway. And among those there is one woman named Hege Storhaug who anticipated it most clearly and cruelly. Her thoughts on the subject are frighteningly prescient. Storhaug begins this piece with a bit of optimism, crediting Germany’s Merkel and France’s Sarkozy with standing up to the catastrophe of multiculturalism.
Europe is finally waking up to the threat posed by decades of policies which preached tolerance, yet bred the exact opposite: an intolerance by many immigrants, particularly Islamists, for the values of their new homelands.
She notes however that in Norway last summer, 3000 men “many of them in long coats, ankle-high baggy pants and full beards” gathered in the same place that “Nazi thug” Vidkun Quisling gathered in the 1930′s to denounce the Jews. The Islamists last summer explicitly denounced Western Civilization and threatened a new 9/11 on Norwegian soil.
Much as in Sweden, the rise of radical Islam in Norway also led to a rise in anti-Semitism and anti-Israeli sentiment, particularly among leftists who found a common cause.
I suspect that nothing will be the same in Norway.
Many facts are still unknown, but at this point it appears that a key ingredient in the tragedy was the fact that the killer had the only gun on the island. It is, really, one of the ultimate horror scenarios: hundreds of kids, accompanied by a relative handful of adults, isolated on an island with a crazed killer. The outcome might have been very different if some of those adults had been armed.
Would the same thing happen here, if, for example, there was a group of a thousand or so Boy Scouts assembled with their leaders? I am not sure. Thinking back on my native South Dakota, it is hard to imagine a mass murder being carried out over an extended period of time because there is no one nearby with a firearm.
Conquest Through Rape In Europe? Latest Victim Raped On Steps Of Parliament
As reported previously, all the stranger rapes in Oslo over the past five years — when the perpetrators could be identified — were committed by Muslim immigrants, and almost all of the victims were indigenous Norwegians. This is an example of “conquest through rape”, which is has been a feature of the Islamic hijra all over the world ever since the 7th century.
This latest rape would seem to be just another in a long series — a 20-year-old Norwegian girl raped by a 15-year-old North African asylum-seeker in downtown Oslo. Ho-hum, dog bites man, right?
Well, not entirely. This particular atrocity occurred on the steps of the Norwegian parliament, facing the Castle. To make matters even worse, as the young culture-enricher worked his will on the victim, he was being observed live via a video surveillance camera by security guards inside the parliament building — who did not leave the building to help the young woman.
UNESCO Edits The Jews Out Of History (Again)
This is not the first time that UNESCO has changed history to replace Jews with Muslims. They have been prolific in Islamicizing sites long considered to have religious and historical importance to the Jewish people. Last year, Rachel’s Tomb, traditionally considered the burial place of the Jewish matriarch Rachel, was declared by UNESCO to be a Muslim historical site called “Mosque of Bilal Ibn-Rabach,” and the Cave of the Patriarchs, where most of the other Jewish patriarchs and matriarchs and a number of important later figures are said to be buried, to be an Islamic holy site called the “Al-Haram Al-Ibrahami” (“The Mosque of Abraham”).
The West has made no effort to prevent this rewriting of history, in part because these holy sites are located in areas currently controlled by the Palestinians, and neither Obama nor the Europeans have any interest in defending Jewish historical claims to those sites. In Judaism, the greatest curse one can utter is Yemach Shemo (“May his name be blotted out”). The worst thing that can happen to a person or a people is to be not only annihilated but forgotten, not only disempowered, but so thoroughly defeated as to have no legacy, no lasting impact on the world. To be as dust to the ages.
Belgium Burqa Ban Goes Into Effect
Libya wants more talks as NATO strikes hit capital
Shootings as a million take to the streets in Syria
Syria: New Phase, How Long Will the Assad Regime Last?
There are two truly bizarre things going on: the administration’s own behavior and the American mass media’s failing to ridicule it as the worst foreign policy in living memory.
Iranian nuclear scientist killed in Tehran
UN lying over Somalia famine, say Islamists
2 Bullet Trains Collide In China, 11 Dead, 89 Injured
This is what Biden and Obama want for the US.
China is working on pulse weapons
China is working on electromagnetic pulse weapons that it could use against U.S. aircraft carriers if there is a future conflict over Taiwan. Is China itching for a fight?
According to The Washington Times, the information originates from an intelligence report made public on Thursday.
Excerpts of a National Ground Intelligence Center study on electromagnetic pulse (EMP) and high-powered microwave (HPM) weapons claim the arms are a part of Beijing’s “assassin’s mace” and “trump card” arsenal – designed to help technologically inferior China beat U.S. military forces.
EMPs imitate the gamma-ray wave caused by a nuclear blast that takes out all electronics, like computers and automobiles, over large areas.
The intelligence report provides details about China’s EMP weapons and their plans for them. Reports on China’s military in the past only made references to the sci-fi arms.
Actually, MSM, China’s an Economic Mess
In a repeat of Walter Duranty, tunnel-visioned liberals like Thomas Friedman keep ignoring China’s authoritarian-fueled chaos.
Obama Teppichfresser:
Music to read these articles by…
- Perhaps for the first time in American history, this president is [trying] to create a financial panic”
- The President’s Petulant Tantrum
- Raise Taxes Or The President Will Put A Bullet Into Uncle Sam’s Head!
What Barack Obama is essentially doing with the debt ceiling crisis is putting a gun up to America’s head and threatening to pull the trigger unless somebody else acts responsibly. That’s bad enough, but then he turns around and acts as if he’s the only adult in the room, when he’s engineering the entire crisis by acting like a child.
He wants a crisis. This is a very dangerous game he’s playing, but he’s playing to win. And if he wins, we all lose — we lose financially, and we lose at least some of our freedom. Mark my words. This is what Obama’s game is. To try to win it, he has been fibbing, faking, and fulminating. Once he wins it, he will do far worse.
- Weekly Address: President responsible for bankrupting America not satisfied with the damage he’s wrought — insists there’s still plenty left to ruin
- The Big Question Of The Weekend: Will The Markets Now Crash On Monday?
Obama didn’t have any real answers: this has to be worry.
If this is the status quo 48 hours from now, when Japan is about to open, put on your hardhats.
“It’s the President who walked away from his agreement and demanded more money. At the last minute. And the only way to get that extra revenue was to raise taxes.”
That’s basically why negotiations fell apart. Boehner said that the White House moved the goal posts by asking for another $400 Billion in revenue over 10 years on top of what they had already agreed to, and the only way to get it was in tax increases. As I’m typing this I’m listening to Levin and he points out that this just proves that these negotiations aren’t about the debt limit, but rather increasing taxes. In other words, as Levin points out, Obama sees it as another opportunity to make a big lurch to the left.
I love that Boehner points out once again the White House never put a plan on the table and that was the House that put both their plans on the table by passing their budget as well as Cut, Cap, and Balance. He also adds that the White House never got serious about cutting spending which is no big surprise to us.
It is hard to understand why Speaker Boehner would walk away from this kind of deal.
I actually think it’s quite easy. The President backtracked in private negotiations this week, demanding bigger tax increases after the Gang of Six, including three conservative Republican Senators, released a plan that raised taxes more than the President had previously demanded.
Today’s press stories treat this as a detail. It is instead the key to understanding why the talks fell apart.
I’ve watched the President give press conferences. I’ve watched the President give speeches, but I have yet to see a plan from the President. And with all due respect to my colleagues in the other party here in the Senate, I haven’t seen a plan from them either. They’re the majority party; they control this chamber. They control the Senate and I haven’t seen a plan from them.
A moment ago we heard this talk about we have to compromise. It’s really hard to compromise when the other side doesn’t have a plan. What do you compromise on? Where is your plan? You can’t compromise if only one person is offering plans. There is only one plan that has been voted on by any house to deal with this issue and it’s the one we’re on right now Cut, Cap and Balance.
Citing a growing concern that his direct line to the taxpayers’ wallet may be shut off, a petulant and narcissistic President Obama demanded that Congressional leaders show up at the crack of dawn tomorrow to bang out a deal. Or at least sometime around 11am. Let me guess: he’s got an early tee time Saturday.
Uhm, Mr. President, the Republicans have passed a plan that avoids a downgrade by the rating agencies.
Mr. President, the Republicans have passed the 2012 Ryan budget that saves the dying entitlement programs.
Hell, by a 2-to-1 margin, adult Americans support a Balanced Budget Amendment!
Democrats have proposed nothing. Nothing at all. For an inexcusable 813 days, unprecedented in American history.
Where’s the budget, Democrats?
The odds now are that the Republicans will return to their original “no increases at all” position and stay there for the foreseeable future. Obama was his own worst enemy on this deal, and the Democrats in Congress are probably happy Boehner wants to remove him from the negotiating loop, though they’d never have the balls to admit that.
At Obama’s press conference, he “summoned” leaders to the White House today. As Charles Krauthammer points out below, Congress and the Executive branch are co-equal. Obama can “summon” nobody. A leader “summoning” other members of government is banana republic stuff — and I wish Boehner would loudly point that out
“I never believed the president negotiated in good faith. If he was really serious about this, Martha, he would have been at the negotiating table six months ago. He would have presented a serious budget rather than the one he presented to us in February that would have added 12 trillion dollars to our debt and lost in the United States Senate 0 to 97.. His performance tonight showed that he certainly is not the adult in the room.”
This is the same president who proposed an absurdly irresponsible budget that would increase our debt by trillions of dollars, and whose party failed to even put forward a budget in over 800 days! This is the same president who is pushing our country to the brink because of his reckless spending on things like the nearly trillion dollar “stimulus” boondoggle. This is the same president who ignored his own debt commission’s recommendations and demonized the voices of fiscal sanity who proposed responsible plans to reform our entitlement programs and rein in our dangerous debt trajectory. This is the same president who wanted to push through an increase in the debt ceiling that didn’t include any cuts in government spending! This is the same president who wants to slam Americans with tax hikes to cover his reckless spending, but has threatened to veto a bill proposing a balanced budget amendment. This is the same president who hasn’t put forward a responsible plan himself, but has rejected reasonable proposals that would tackle our debt. This is the same president who still refuses to understand that the American electorate rejected his big government agenda last November. As I said in Madison, Wisconsin, at the Tax Day Tea Party rally, “We don’t want it. We can’t afford it. And we are unwilling to pay for it.”
Now the President is outraged because the GOP House leadership called his bluff and ended discussions with him because they deemed him an obstruction to any real solution to the debt crisis.
He has been deemed a lame duck president. And he is angry now because he is being treated as such.
- The MSM keeps on trying to pedal Obama as “the new Reagan”. Well, here is what Reagan thought about the situation Baby Barack and the Dems have created…Ronald Reagan’s View on Default
- GOP Ad Trashes Dems Claims Obama The New Reagan, Works In Bonus Tingles “Thrill Up My Leg” Line…
- Obama: “Patriotic Americans” Wants To “Share In The Sacrifice” And Pay Higher Taxes, “This Isn’t Wild-Eyed Socialism”…
His definition of patriotism seems to differ drastically from the rest of America.
The president’s retreat means he is throwing the dice that public opinion will support the White House if there is no deal.
No one still knows what kind of plan will emerge. But if Democratic insiders who have an ear into the White House are clanging alarm bells, it’s possible Obama, hoping for a second term, may have been close to securing a Grand Bargain with congressional Republicans.
But it was not to be. Apparently he believes that it is more important to secure his own base rather than continue to see the continued slide in popularity among his supporters.
In the end, the nation loses.
Boehner did not announce the collapse in talks until the stock market closed. If there is no more movement over the weekend, expect a massive sell off on Wall Street.
- If he is indeed ‘throwing the dice that public opinion will support the White House if there is no deal’ he should have read this before tossing them… Oh my: CCB bill gets 2-1 approval among adults in CNN poll
Er, yeah. In other words, a consensus exists across all political lines that the CCB (Cut, Cap, and Balance)/BBA (Balanced Budget Amendment) approach would be a good idea. When one scrolls down to the crosstab sections of the raw data, the consensus becomes very, very clear. The CCB/BBA approach wins majorities in every single demographic — including self-described liberals. Sixty-three percent of Democrats back the House bill. The least supportive age demographic is 50-64YOs at 62/37; the least supportive regional demographic is the Midwest at 61/39. Even those who express opposition to the Tea Party supports it 53/47.
In other words, it’s a clean sweep. Simply put, there is no political demographic at all where the CCB/BBA doesn’t get majority support. The BBA on its own does even better. It gets 3-1 support (74/24), and except for those Tea Party opponents (56%) and self-professed liberals (61/37), doesn’t get below 70% support in any demographic.
It might make it virtually impossible to raise taxes, which is Hoyer’s obvious concern, but he’s wrong in saying it would make it virtually impossible to raise revenue. That part isn’t hard at all. Shrink government, back off and watch the economy grow — the revenue will come. That was the Reagan philosophy, and what DC Democrat isn’t running around these days quoting Reagan?
- I guess The Jesus Card™ and The Reagan Card™ aren’t working for them as well as they had hoped so they are now busting out The Jefferson Card™…Dem Rep. Jim Moran: Thomas Jefferson Would Be “Embarrassed” To Be Associated With Cut, Cap And Balance…
- Obama ups the ante and busts out The Lincoln Card™…Obama: “If Abraham Lincoln could make some compromises [regarding freedom for some slaves] . . . then surely we can make some compromises when it comes to handling our budget”
- And The FDR Card™…Obama: FDR “Was Pretty Fiscally Conservative”…
Compared to Obama everyone except Lenin could be considered a “fiscal conservative.”
- Video: Watch 20 Democratic Senators say they support a balanced budget amendment, so why won’t they pass the Cut, Cap and Balance Act?
- Cavuto: Stop Blaming the TEA Partiers for the Debt Crisis
Some cold hard facts.
And so we arrive at the present, at the debt ceiling negotiations, after Mr. Obama has increased the national debt to 25% of GDP, exceeding the height reached during WWII. The only budget proposal Mr. Obama has submitted had only one feature: boundless spending far into the future. It was so unrealistic, so out of bounds with even the free-spending, unlimited taxation ways of Congressional democrats that not a single one voted to support it; not one. Yet Mr. Obama wants what he wants and expects that he can talk Americans into giving it to him. After all, everyone has always given him whatever he wanted in the past. They have always praised him as being beyond the understanding and abilities of mere mortals. Why should things be different today?
Things are different because, to paraphrase Margaret Thatcher’s canny observation on the ultimate problem of Socialism, we have run out of other people’s money. Margaret Thatcher, a real leader, understood such things. Mr. Obama, who leads from behind, cannot and will not.
What more should we expect of a man with no apparent past, with no experience holding down a responsible job, only one miserably failed executive experience, no legislative accomplishment, and whose only solution to any crisis is rhetoric? What can we expect of a man whose only firm principles seem to be unremitting class envy and warfare, hatred of America, reflexive appeasement of her enemies and contempt for her allies, disdain for the Constitution, and an unshakable commitment to control the lives of Americans to the maximum extent imaginable, and to raise any and every tax possible while spending more money than exists?
For such a man, there is no compromise large enough, no tax large enough, nor any expenditure large enough. One might almost be tempted to think that when Barack Obama said that he was going to “fundamentally change” America, he really meant that he intended to destroy it. That is likely the only thing a man of his experience is truly capable of doing.
President Obama’s is like the emperor’s new clothes: Not there.
But the elites all pretend to see it.
His wife says he has a mind like a steel trap.
Yet he needed a teleprompter to handle his first press conference.
After that huge whupping in November at the polls, it should have been obvious that he is clever, not smart.
Fellow Nobel laureate, Paul Krugman, finally notice today that The Won is not as smart as advertised
I swear, you just can’t make this stuff up. Responding to a question at his town-hall meeting today that expressed frustration at the slow process in the debt-ceiling negotiations, Barack Obama put the blame on voters for the divided government. If Democrats had the town all to themselves, Obama says, he’d be able to spend more time this summer with his daughters…
Say, didn’t Democrats have the town to themselves in 2010? Didn’t they have an opportunity to raise the debt ceiling at that time, and pass a budget for FY2011 as well? In fact, Democrats still control the Senate in 2011. Where is their plan to deal with the issues? For that matter, where is Obama’s?
- With Debt Negotiations Stalled And Default Looming, Obama Finds Time To See New Harry Potter Movie…
- Obama Jokes That It’s Too Hot For Golf, So He Might As Well Work On a Debt Deal
Perhaps these little tidbits help explain why Obama is looking more and more like someone who is in urgent need of psychological help…
- CNN poll: Perry in 2nd place?
- Obama 41%, Ron Paul 37%
- GOP Makes Huge Gains With White Voters – Particularly Among Young and Poor
- Majority of Young Hispanic Voters Favor Free Market, Low Taxes
- CNN Poll: Drop in liberal support pushes Obama approval rating down
- Obama’s 2008 Bundlers Flee Reelection Effort, Say New Team “Incompetent Fools” Who Are Part Of The “Political Machine”…
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.
Today’s Drudge Ku on the heatwave;
BIG BROIL: ALL-TIME RECORDS FALL ON EAST; NYC 104, PHILLY 103, BALTIMORE 106, DC 105...
RECORD: NEARLY 7" OF RAIN FALL IN CHICAGO; FLASH FLOODS FLOW...
HORRID HEAT...
TEMP MAP...
HIGH TEMPS FORCE WORKERS TO ABANDON NYC SEWAGE CLEAN-UP..
In economic terms, the drought of 2011 could end up having a huge impact on average American families.
Ultimately, American consumers are likely going to feel some significant pain from this crisis as a recent CNBC article noted….
That means grocery shoppers will feel the effects of the drought at the dinner table, where the cost of staples like meat and bread will most likely rise, said Michael J. Roberts, an associate professor of agricultural and resource economics at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, N.C. “The biggest losers are consumers,” he said.
All of this wouldn’t be so alarming if we were not already on the verge of a global food crisis. Global food prices continue to hover around record highs. Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya are experiencing the worst drought conditions that they have seen in 60 years. Tonight there are 10 million people living in the Horn of Africa that are facing severe food shortages. Hunger and starvation are spreading again in east Africa and in many other areas of the world as well.
That is one reason why so many Americans are working so hard to prepare for disaster right now. All over the United States (and around the world), “preppers” are storing up food and supplies in case things go really bad.
Just another day of the Obama presidency captured at The Drudge Report
As Rick Perry observes, President Obama is “leaving American astronauts with no alternative but to hitchhike into space.”
Just got hung up on the “why?” part, it seems. Also the “how” and the “how much” and other details. I can see the reason for taking our time – develop new engines, perfect technology, gather the money and the will. It’s not like anything’s going anywhere. But it’s not like we’re going anywhere if we’re not going anywhere, either – when nations, cultures stop exploring, it’s a bad sign. You’re ceding the future. If you have a long view that regards nation-states as quaint relics of a time in human history when maps had lines – really, you can’t see them from space! We’re all one, you know – then it doesn’t matter whether China or the US puts a flag on Mars. It’s possible a Chinese Mars expedition would commemorate the first boot on red soil with a statement that spoke for everyone on the planet, not a particular culture or nation. It’s possible. But history would remember that they chose to go, and we chose not to.
So what’s the attachment, really? Childhood attachment to Star Trek fantasies, geeky fascination with spaceships, adolescent marination in sci-fi visions of rockets and moon bases and PanAm shuttles engaged in a sun-bathed ballet with a space station revolving to the strains of Strauss, phasers and warp six and technobabble and the love of great serene machinery knifing through clouds of glowing dust? Probably. It’s not over, I know – but it’s like watching the last of Columbus’ ships return, and learning they’re cutting up the mast for firewood, and no one’s planning to go back any time soon. At first you look at the ocean and imagine what’s out there, because that’s what you’ve been doing all your life – and then you lean to stop wondering, because it reminds you of the day you saw the last ship leave.
The Space Shuttle Program’s Ignominious Conclusion
Am I the only one who finds it amusing that NASA, of all the available government organizations, has taken upon itself the task of both LGBT and Muslim outreach? It’s hard to imagine two more different constituencies.
As I wrote in reply, it’s amazing how often those two seemingly disparate branches of left-wing identity politics intertwine, isn’t it? No wonder the remarkably non-distaff non-Muslim “Gay Girl From Damascus” became such a hit with western liberals who wanted to have it all. But this trend isn’t new with NASA. Back in early 2008, I spotted a USA Today headline titled,“For NASA, ‘The Right Stuff’ Takes On A Softer Tone.”
Well, that’s one way to put it, I guess. Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff and its movie version brilliantly depict America’s first astronauts fighting against NASA bureaucrats to keep their balls — the piloting skills they earned the hard way, by surviving dangerous, experimental aircraft.
It took NASA almost 50 years, but these days, since space is no longer about actually going anywhere useful, their bureaucrats have finally won that battle.
Long before 2008, The Right Stuff had become squishy and meaningless. Today, that tone is as limp as it can be.
Mark Steyn recently wrote that “diversity is where nations go to die.” For NASA, political correctness and its accompanying cultural ennui is where it’s gone to die.
Will commercial space flight take up the slack? As Michael Ledeen likes to say, Faster, Please.
Geithner Moves the Goalposts: Treasury Says August 10th Might Be the Drop Dead Date, Not August 2nd
Geithner’s excuse, math is hard.
FAA hits partial shutdown. Nobody notices.
Since politicians were not able to come to an agreement over extending the operating authority of the FAA as of midnight tonight, about 4,000 people will be out of work and federal airline ticket tax will no longer be collected. The shutdown will not affect airline safety, but it will stop airlines from collecting about $200million per week in ticket taxes that would help to to fund FAA programs. In the short term, passengers might celebrate since they will be able to save money by not paying taxes, but this means that projects will be delayed and costs might end up being higher in the long run.
Folks, this is a disaster. Sure, the planes are still flying. And, yes, the flight controllers and safety personnel are still on the job so it should be safe. But a lot of government workers were furloughed. And they won’t be able to collect taxes! And tickets may be cheaper this week! And… and…
Layoffs, Layoffs Everywhere You Look There Are Layoffs
Sadly, there are hundreds of more examples of recent layoffs and job losses. One website that tracks these layoffs daily is Daily Job Cuts. It is pretty sad when there are entire websites that are devoted to chronicling how fast our economy is bleeding jobs.
What is worse is that it looks like the pace of layoffs is going to keep increasing.
One report that was recently released found that the number of job cuts being planned by U.S. employers increased by 11.6% in June.
That is not good news.
Things don’t look good for employees of state and local governments either.
State and local governments have eliminated approximately 142,000 jobs so far this year.
That is bad, but this is just the beginning.
UBS Investment Research is projecting that state and local governments in the U.S. will combine to slash a whopping 450,000 jobs by the end of next year.
Ouch.
In fact, policy makers seem determined to perpetuate what I’ve taken to calling the Lesser Depression, the prolonged era of high unemployment that began with the Great Recession of 2007-2009 and continues to this day, more than two years after the recession supposedly ended.
Of course, Paul Krugman has no idea what he’s talking about. This is not a lesser depression, it is a larger depression. The full scale and scope simply isn’t apparent yet.
Obama Sneaks a Draconian Tax: HR 4646..Watch for it.
Check out HR 4646. President Obama’s finance team is recommending a one percent (1%) transaction fee (TAX). Obama’s plan is to sneak it in after the November elections to keep it under the radar. This is a 1% tax on all transactions at any financial institution – banks, credit unions, savings and loans, etc. Any deposit you make, or even a transfer within your account, will have a 1% tax charged.
If your paycheck or your social security or whatever is direct deposit, it will get a 1% tax charged for the transaction. If your paycheck is $1000, then you will pay Obama $10 just for the privilege of depositing your paycheck in your bank. Even if you hand carry your paycheck or any check into your bank for a deposit, 1% tax will be charged.
You receive a $5,000 stock dividend from your broker, Obama takes $50 just to allow you to deposit that check in the bank. If you take $1,000 cash to deposit at your bank, 1% tax will be charged.
Mind you, this is from the man who promised that, if you make under $250,000 per year, you will not see one penny of new tax.
Keep your eyes and ears open, you will be amazed at what you learn about this guy’s under-the-table moves to increase the number of ways you are taxed.
Oh, and by the way, you receive a refund from the IRS next year and you have it direct deposited or you walk in to deposit that check, you guessed
it. You will pay a 1% charge of that money just for putting it in your bank.Remember, any money, cash, check or whatever, no matter where it came from, you will pay a 1% fee if you put it in the bank.
Banks Pay Back TARP Funds by. . .Borrowing From Treasury
Video of Obama: Stimulus Pulled Us From ‘Great Depression’
Looking back to 1939, Roosevelt’s own Treasury secretary, Henry Morgenthau, had realized that the New Deal economic policies had failed. Said Morgenthau,
“We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. . . . After eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started. . . . And an enormous debt to boot!”
That’s a quote that should be in everyone’s mind right now. It’s not. We haven’t learned from history and are therefore doomed to repeat it.And by ‘we’ I mean Obama specifically and the Democratic Party in general. Which brings me to this: Obama: Stimulus Pulled Us From ‘Great Depression’
$600 Billion Later: Why QE2 Did Not Stop Deflation
Many other tell-tale signs suggest that the huge stimulus injections have failed, and that deflation (not inflation) will be the dominant economic trend in the years ahead. Several such indicators are accelerating in recent weeks.
Presidential vendetta.
MI lawmakers protest new mileage standards
The lone non-signatory of the letter was Rep. John Conyers, who apparently believes that setting a fuel standard that would cause a significant decline in sales and which has been projected in a study cited by his fellow Michiganders to cost more than 200,000 jobs is somehow a “job creator.”
Sarah Palin was right when she said “Drill, Baby, Drill”….
The conventional wisdom was that a lack of demand and a sputtering economy would push prices at the pump lower over the summer. Despite the correct predictions for the conditions, prices have instead started rising. Barack Obama tried to put some additional spin on those expectations by selling off 30 million barrels out of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Not only did that do nothing for prices, the SPR will at some point need to replace that oil — which will increase demand and prices down the road.
One BofA/Merrill Lynch analyst predicted $5 per gallon gas in 2012, just in time for the elections, and offered a rather limited perspective on how to solve the problem:
“Next year, you could see $5 gas,” says Francisco Blanch, head of commodity strategy at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. “The only way the consumer can win is by reducing consumption.”
How about increasing domestic supply? Had we done that in 2008, when we had the last big spike in prices at the pump, we’d already be benefiting from the increased production.
- In related news….House Report: Obama’s Gulf Oil Slowdown Costing 230,000 Jobs!
The committee’s report found that U.S. domestic energy resources are currently the largest on earth—greater than Saudi Arabia, China and Canada combined. It also said that the recent EPA and Department of Interior regulatory actions, some in collaboration with environmental groups or outside normal scope, are having a detrimental impact on independent energy producers.
Once again it seems as if the Barack Obama’s politics has taken precedence of over the needs of the country, not just the energy needs but in this case a much-needed, no cost to the taxpayer stimulus to the economy.
National Retail Federation Calls NLRB Proposal on Union Elections ‘Backdoor Card Check’
The National Retail Federation and its chain restaurant division today voiced strong opposition to a National Labor Relations Board proposal to use administrative procedures to implement a number of provisions similar to the controversial Employee Free Choice Act that was defeated in Congress four years ago.
“This is nothing but backdoor card check, the same as we’ve been warning about for more than a year,” NRF President and CEO Matthew Shay said. “Unions weren’t able to get the Employee Free Choice Act through Congress, so they’re using administrative procedures at the NLRB to turn as much of the bill into law as possible. This misnamed bill was defeated by the people’s elected representatives in Congress. It should not be forced into law by unelected, partisan appointees.”
The NLRB today opened a two-day hearing on recently proposed regulations that would make it far easier for organized labor to win union organizing elections. Among other provisions, elections could be held as little as 10 days after a petition is filed, employers’ ability to communicate with workers about an election would be limited, new restrictions would be placed on law firms and consultants that would limit companies’ ability to receive legal counsel and other assistance, and “micro-unions” could be created allowing labor to cherry pick small units among a company’s workers to unionize.
One Solution to Stop Some of Obama’s Union Pandering Labor Board Rulings
We’ve been talking for the better part of the year about how the Obama administration is using its powers to regulate labor and business relations to attack Boeing aircraft manufacturer for attempting to open a new manufacturing plant in North Carolina. Fortunately, there is one proposed law floating around in congress that would stop some of the abuse of power that Obama is indulging at the behest of big labor unions. It is called the Secret Ballot Protection Act. We need to urge congress to pass it.
To briefly recap, Obama has been trying to punish Boeing — and by extension sending a warning to all American businesses — for having the gall to want to build a new manufacturing plant in North Carolina. Even though Boeing would be brining thousands of jobs to North Carolina, Obama wants Boeing to be prevented from doing so and he wants to punish the southern states, as well.
This may sound incongruous, an American president trying to destroy jobs and business alike, but when the reason is discovered it reveals many things, this most especially: Obama has gotten his marching orders from unions and he is misusing his powers to regulate to fulfill the desires of Big Labor.
Bug or Feature? ‘Obamacare No Prescription for Hiring’
Federal Reserve officials report that this is exactly what is happening:
Prominent among these [factors businesses report are holding back hiring] is the lack of clarity about the cost implications of the recent health care legislation. We’ve frequently heard strong comments to the effect of “my company won’t hire a single additional worker until we know what health insurance costs are going to be.”
In surveys, one third of small businesses owners say that the new health-care law poses their greatest or second greatest obstacle to hiring new workers.
But for the left, is all that a bug or a feature? Barack Obama cheerfully admits to wanting to blow up the coal industry, and both John Kerry and Claire McCaskill have praised the economic slowdown’s imagined impact on the environment. Meanwhile, at the Columbia Journalism Review (H/T SDA), they’re celebrating a newspaper going under and a thousand jobs being lost rather than working for Rupert Murdoch:
On September 17, 1982, the newspaper guild of the Buffalo Courier-Express voted to do something no other media outlet in the U.S. had done or would do: It voted to turn down an offer from Rupert Murdoch’s News America Publishing Company to buy the failing Buffalo morning daily. The vote meant that Buffalo would be left with one newspaper, The Buffalo News. And it meant that the Courier-Express’s 1,100 employees would be out of a job.
Better dead than Red State, I guess.
Another Obamacare ‘Glitch’ Will Add Billions to the Deficit
If HHS does this, the cost projections for Obamacare will be completely thrown off, as many more people would be eligible for tax subsidies in the health insurance exchanges. Burkhauser and his colleagues estimated that this change could cost taxpayers an additional $50 billion per year. Under this best-case scenario, Obamacare would no longer be deficit-neutral by 2017.
Of course, it is possible that employers will stop offering their employees health coverage altogether to avoid the “firewall” provision—due to the uncertainties surrounding its administration, the potential compliance costs, and the potential limits it places on employers’ hiring decisions. This gives further credence to the argument that the generosity of the federal tax subsidies would incentivize employers to maximize their cost savings by shifting their employees into the exchanges. If this happens, the costs of Obamacare would add more than a trillion dollars to the national debt by the end of the decade.
Entitlement Bandits — How the Ryan Plan Would Curb Medicare and Medicaid Fraud
The three most salient characteristics of Medicare and Medicaid fraud are: It’s brazen, it’s ubiquitous, and it’s other people’s money, so nobody cares.
Consider some of the fraud schemes discovered in recent years. In Brooklyn, a dentist billed taxpayers for nearly 1,000 procedures in a single day. A Houston doctor with a criminal record took her Medicare billings from zero to $11.6 million in one year; federal agents shut down her clinic but did not charge her with a crime. A high-school dropout, armed with only a laptop computer, submitted more than 140,000 bogus Medicare claims, collecting $105 million. A health plan settled a Medicaid-fraud case in Florida for $138 million. The giant hospital chain Columbia/HCA paid $1.7 billion in fines and pled guilty to more than a dozen felonies related to bribing doctors to help it tap Medicare funds and exaggerating the amount of care delivered to Medicare patients. In New York, Medicaid spending on the human-growth hormone Serostim leapt from $7 million to $50 million in 2001; but it turned out that drug traffickers were getting the drug prescribed as a treatment for AIDS wasting syndrome, then selling it to bodybuilders. And a study of ten states uncovered $27 million in Medicare payments to dead patients.
These anecdotes barely scratch the surface. Official estimates posit that Medicare and Medicaid lose at least $70 billion per year to fraudulent and otherwise improper payments, and that about 10.5 percent of Medicare spending and 8.4 percent of Medicaid spending was improper in 2009.
In 2007, then-Sen. Barack Obama began working to pass legislation providing even more money for a whole new class of claimants via “Pigford II,” which now includes Hispanic and female farmers as well as American Indians. As president, Obama rammed this $4.6 billion monstrosity through last year’s lame-duck session.
Under the original settlement, a federal judge ordered $50,000 payouts to claimants using very low levels of “proof.” As BigGovernment.com reported, the only “proof” required was a form stating the claimant had “attempted” to farm, perhaps planting tomatoes in the backyard, and to have a family member vouch for that assertion.
Presidential candidate Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., has called for a federal investigation of Pigford, saying “the numbers just don’t add up.”
“Pigford is rife with fraudulent claims,” she said, “and to settle before an investigation can take place does the American taxpayer a disservice.” Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, whose amendment to defund Pigford II was defeated, has been less subtle, calling them “slavery reparations.”
GAO Audit Reveals Fed Played Fast and Loose With Loan Rules
In other words, this is more than just a case of a bureaucracy forgetting to cross its Ts or dot its Is. It goes to the basic question of whether the Fed’s powers under the law have any real limitations. If just declaring “exigent circumstances” exist is enough, then there are no real limits. If the declaration must be backed up in a way that can be publicly examined and debated, then the prospect of having to articulate a public justification at least creates a potential limit.
The Fed’s position is apparently that its powers are not limited and do not require the articulation of a public justification. Even the Supreme Court explains its rulings, so this is quite a claim by the Fed.
Dodd-Frank: The Beltway Industry Full-Time Employment Act
Dodd-Frank, the 2,300-page financial “reform” monstrosity spearheaded by Capitol Hill corruptocrats, turned 1 this week. It made too-big banks bigger. It made too-risky incentives riskier. It made a lousy economy lousier. Billed as a “consumer protection” act, Dodd-Frank has succeeded phenomenally — in protecting and stimulating the business-stifling business of government.
Dodd-Frank is a tyrannical triumph of rule-makers, lobbyists and other non-elected spongers over taxpayers. If you don’t want an unseemly glimpse into the self-serving, sausage-making process that feeds the insatiable Beltway industry, read no further. The law’s implementation process is so far-reaching and Byzantine that every member of Congress should be suffering migraines from it.
Dodd-Frank Damage Begins to Unfold
The only difference between America under its current rulers and Greece is that we have nowhere to turn for help, once our own taxpayers have been bled dry. To sum up:
Dodd-Frank has been an expensive exercise in command and control by the federal government. It encourages crony capitalism while undermining free markets and limiting competition.
The insane law will cost businesses $27 billion over the next 10 years in various fees, assessments, et cetera. At least major Dem donors like Goldman Sachs will get their money’s worth.
Allen West invites colleagues to Capitol Hill briefing on “infiltration” of Muslim Brotherhood
Big Government Blows Hundreds of $Millions Telling Us What to Eat
The Bitter Half assures us that even a grotesquely bloated federal leviathan can be flexible in the way it imposes its will:
“And we want folks to be creative because there’s really no one-size-fits-all solution to this issue here,” she said. “Every community has different needs and challenges that call for different approaches. A fresh food section in a Walgreens might be a good solution for one community, while a farmers market or maybe even a veggie truck might be the answer in another community.”
In addition to paying for incongruous vegetable sections in drug stores, our money will presumably go toward leaning on restaurants to give us less for our money, and of course, still more government propaganda calling for still more government intervention, necessitating still more government spending
Countdown to the Democrats calling them a bunch of “Uncle Tom’s” or worse in 3….2……Black Activists Slam Rep. Wasserman Schultz’s Targeted Attack on Black Colleague
“Clearly, Representative West responded to the persistent and outrageous scare tactics issued by Representative Wasserman Schultz. Without a plan of her own to address our budget crisis, Wasserman Schultz is waging a fear-mongering war to frighten senior citizens,” said Project 21 fellow Deneen Borelli. “Wasserman Schultz is trying to fill the void left by former Representative Anthony Weiner, who would arrogantly defend the left-wing agenda. Thanks to West, she is now on notice that dealing the race and senior cards will be challenged.”
Why The GOP Should Man Up For Allen West
Pond scum…Maxine Waters’ Ethics Trial Stalls. Again.
The long-delayed ethics probe of Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) may be underway again, however Waters is now threatening to sue the House Ethics Committee.
Waters is accused of using her influence to gain special treatment for Massachusetts-based bank OneUnited, which received $12 million in bailout funds. Changing a law was required in order to get them the money. Her husband, former Ambassador Sidney Williams, owned more than $350,000 in stock in the bank, and had also been a board member.
Because of infighting following the November 2010 election, her trial had been postponed indefinitely. Waters is now seeking to have the case dismissed and is threatening legal action against the committee as well.
A veritable pillar of stability. Next stop padded room.
Gunwalker/Fast & Furious/Castaway
Here’s another theory: what if Obama, Clinton and Holder really did want to foment a civil war in Mexico? Their rationale: such a war would spark a “humanitarian crisis” and cause a mass exodus of civilians out of Mexico and into the U.S. The majority of this influx, Obama could legitimately assume, would vote Democrat.
Because when it comes to cynical, diabolical plots to weaken America, this administration appears to take a backseat to no one.
Obama, Holder Busted in Gunwalker Cover-up
“The [reason for Operation Gunrunner] fits a pattern described by then-Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel of never letting a crisis go to waste if it can advance the agenda.
The crisis was the civil war between the Mexican government and the drug cartels, with violence spilling over into American cities. Obama, Janet Napolitano , and even Hillary Clinton, blamed this border violence on the easy availability of guns in U.S. gun shops and gun shows along the border. The agenda was gun control. Gun control laws needed to be strengthened to protect the lives of innocent Mexicans and Americans.
When statistics designed to show the cartels were armed primarily from American sources were proven false, the crisis had to be goosed a little. Operation Fast and Furious became the funnel for a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
Oh Hell, Hillary: State Department Allegedly Sold Military Weapons to Zetas Cartel
If this is true, it makes Gunwalker look like child’s play, and would seem to make it very unlikely that this wasn’t part of an Administration-wide conspiracy.
Forget impeachment. This is gas chamber-worthy.
Last week we found out the Obama regime sold guns to MS-13 and now this. it seems the only people the Obama regime does not want to have guns are American citizens…Worse Than Gunwalker? State Dept. Allegedly Sold Guns to Zetas
An El Paso Times article – as of now ignored by mainstream media — went into much more shocking detail:
“They’ve found anti-aircraft weapons and hand grenades from the Vietnam War era,” Plumlee said. Other weapons found include grenade launchers, assault rifles, handguns and military gear including night-vision goggles and body armor.
“The information about the arms trafficking was provided to our U.S. authorities long before the ‘Columbus 11′ investigation began,” said Plumlee, referring to recent indictments accusing several Columbus city officials of arms trafficking in conjunction with alleged accomplices in El Paso and Chaparral, N.M.
Jesús Rejón Aguilar, the number three man in the Zeta’s hierarchy, disclosed last week that the Zetas bought weapons in the United States and transported them across the Rio Grande. Mexican federal authorities captured Rejón on July 3 in the state of Mexico, and presented him to the news media the next day. His recorded video statement was uploaded on YouTube.
Jordan agreed with Plumlee’s allegations that the Zetas are operating in the Columbus-Palomas border.
Plumlee, who has testified before U.S. congressional committees about arms and drug trafficking, said the roads in Southern New Mexico provide smugglers easy access to Mexico’s highway networks.
Insight.org provides a map of the air-smuggling route originating in Dallas at Alliance Airport and ending in Columbus, New Mexico — a small town that has also been rocked by the arrests and guilty pleas of the town mayor and other elected officials who were running guns to a cartel safehouse, and then apparently into Mexico.
There is no direct link made as of yet between the Columbus, NM, officials case and the allegations of the Dallas-to-Columbus air smuggling route, but the possible connection should raise eyebrows.
If these allegations can be verified: what on Earth was the State Department thinking supplying the direct sale of military weapons to a cartel front company? Weapons that were then smuggled out of the very airport used by the Drug Enforcement Agency charged with bringing down the cartels?
Zetas may be smuggling weapons using State Dept. program – Chaparral, Columbus & southern NM roads
We can all be assured that Bingaman’s attempt to designate a quarter of a million acres in southern NM as Wilderness won’t complicate things a bit. Can’t we?
Will Gunwalker morph into “Grenadewalker” soon?
If this pans out, there are far bigger problems bubbling up from the bowls of the agencies involved than we even suspected before. This type of pattern rises far above mere incompetence and a very thorough housecleaning is going to be required to set things back anywhere near ship shape.
Not very long ago I would have looked at this story with a jaundiced eye and wondered if there were some agents engaging in the settling of old scores. But this many rotten apples continue to make it appear as if the entire barrel could be rotten.
A misbegotten scheme to boost gun control turns deadly.
The war that dares not speak its name…US and Libya:
*crickets*
In Other News…
Madness: 39 Things That Are Driving Ordinary Americans Absolutely Crazy
Unless something very dramatic happens, we are heading for a very ugly chapter in American history.
Let us hope for the best, but let us also prepare for the worst
Famous Americans With Migraines
Governor Palin’s Record on Jobs Beats the GOP Field
Gov. Perry says NY gay marriage is fine by him because he believes in states’ rights
Texas Gov. Rick Perry, a potential Republican presidential candidate, said Friday he supports state rights so much that he’s fine with New York’s approval of gay marriage but still called himself an “unapologetic social conservative.”
Perry, who has been weighing a presidential run, said he opposes gay marriage — but that he’s also a firm believer of the 10th Amendment.
“Our friends in New York six weeks ago passed a statute that said marriage can be between two people of the same sex. And you know what? That’s New York, and that’s their business, and that’s fine with me,” he said to applause from several hundred GOP donors in Aspen, Colo. “That is their call. If you believe in the 10th Amendment, stay out of their business.”
Tea Party-1, MoveOn.org-0. Liberals can dish it out but sure can’t take it. Consider the source when reading this… Political showdown creates conflict in Roseburg park As for Karen Meier’s statement “Obviously, they don’t really know what MoveOn is and who it entails,” here is what MoveOn.org is. I will quote a bit from it…
MoveOn uses its fundraising clout to push the Democratic Party to the left. This game plan was enunciated most clearly in an e-mail that MoveOn PAC Director Eli Pariser broadcast to the group’s financial supporters on December 9, 2004. Regarding MoveOn’s role in the Democratic Party, Pariser wrote, “For years, the party has been led by elite Washington insiders who are closer to corporate lobbyists than they are to the Democratic base. But we can’t afford four more years of leadership by a consulting class of professional election losers. In the last year, grass-roots contributors like us gave more than $300 million to the Kerry campaign and the DNC, and proved that the party doesn’t need corporate cash to be competitive. Now it’s our party: we bought it, we own it, and we’re going to take it back.”
*snip*
MoveOn has received financial support from numerous leftist organizations, including the Tides Foundation (Teresa Heinz-Kerry), the Shefa Fund, the Stern Family Fund, the Steven and Michelle Kirsch Foundation, the Compton Foundation, and George Soros‘s Open Society Institute. Following a September 17, 2003 meeting between Soros and Boyd in New York, Soros and his associates gave nearly $6.2 million to MoveOn over a period of six months. The contributions included $2.5 million from George Soros personally; $2.5 million from Peter B. Lewis of Progressive Insurance; $971,427 from Stephen Bing of Shangri-La Entertainment; $100,000 from Benson & Hedges tobacco heir Lewis Cullman; and $101,000 from Soros’ 34-year-old son Jonathan Soros, an attorney and financier recently promoted to deputy manager of Soros Fund Management LLC.
Jonathan Soros has become personally involved with MoveOn.org’s activities. In December 2003, he collaborated with techno-rocker Moby to organize “Bush in 30 Seconds,” an online contest for the best 30-second anti-Bush TV ad.
Arizona Launches Website to Raise Money For Border Fence
Doing the job Obama won’t do…
Simple Rule
What cannot be paid won’t. Taxpayers have had enough. Central Falls is a small and troubled city, but this same scene is going to eventually hit Pittsburgh, Oakland, Houston, Detroit, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, and most likely every major city in the country.
Benefits are untenable. The sooner something is done, the better off everyone will be.
Things That Must Change
- Defined benefit pension plans for government workers must end
- Davis-Bacon and prevailing wage laws that drive up costs of Federal projects and clobber city and municipal governments must come to an end
- National right-to-work laws must be enacted
- Collective bargaining of public unions must end
- Existing pension benefits must be renegotiated
Unions will not like any of those but they are all going to happen.
More Municide: Oakridge Oregon the Latest City to Implode
‘South California’ secession backer seeks statewide summit
The proposed summit’s primary focus will be to discuss the “broken legislative processes of a dysfunctional state government” –- and not solely creating a new state, he said in a statement released Wednesday. Details of when and where the event will be held are pending.
The agenda, he said, would include discussion of possible statewide voter initiatives to switch the California Legislature from full time to part time, to enact a “true and legitimate” balanced budget amendment barring the state from raiding the treasuries of local governments, and to reform public-employee pensions.
Los Angeles Follows Maywood Into Anarchy
“As we reviewed our impound policies it became obvious to me that they had disparate impact on individuals based on something that was entirely out of their control,” Beck said.
If breaking the law by being in our country illegally is “entirely out of their control,” and breaking the law by driving without a license is also “entirely out of their control,” then what crime would they be capable of refraining from committing? When will the privileged special interest groups favored by our liberal rulers ever be expected to take responsibility for their behavior?
The answer: never, so long as they are serving a useful purpose, as illegal aliens do by turning the Southwest welfare-dependent and blue.
More anarchy in California: Farm Thieves Target Grapes, and Even Bees
MSM Circus and Celebutard Side Show:
Amy Winehouse, 27, found dead at her London flat
- Troubled singer had a long battle with drink and drugs
- London Ambulance Service found singer at 3.54pm but unable to revive her
- She was ‘beyond help’ according to Sky sources
- Police treated death as ‘unexplained’
MSNBC News Anchor: A Republican President Would “Extinguish” Gays…
MSDNC not afraid to fear monger on behalf of the Obama administration.
I find it fascinating that a powerful media outlet — associated with an inside-the-Beltway regular, Tucker Carlson — suddenly attacks Michele Bachmann using New York Times-style tactics (remember the fabricated McCain/lobbyist affair hit piece?). There’s only one reason for this sort of thing: Mitt Romney is feeling the heat.
And, gee, Tucker, aren’t there more important things to “investigate” if we’re going to save this Republic?
Morning Joe crew disgusted by Bachmann-migraine story
There’s no doubt that when the Morning Joe crew is actually right about something, you know you’re wrong. They took up for Bachmann this morning over the story about her having incapacitating migraines. Mika thought it was sexist and Heilemann said there’s no doubt that the story was the result of opposition research from another GOP candidate that is very worried about her growing popularity.
I wouldn’t necessarily call this sexism although I think one could make a fair argument for that. I think it’s far more likely that Heilemann is correct as I’ve seen that idea in more than one place.
I was pleased to see Mika’s disdain for the Bachmann hit piece and since we always say ‘where are the liberal women defending a conservative”, I thought I would post it.
Mainstreaming Wild-Ass Liberalism
By any definition, Al Sharpton is an extremist. He has proven himself an inveterate race baiter, a nauseating anti-Semite, a convicted libeler, a crook, and a class warfare demagogue of the first order.
I know that MSNBC was looking to hire loud, opinionated, leftists who will deliver spittle-flecked rants against the Republicans and the right, but Jeez…
BillO trashes the Tea Party again!
Obama’s Weather Underground Terrorist Friends in for Hollywood Whitewash
Here‘s what the producers have to say about The Company You Keep (which would have been more accurately named The Company Barack Hussein Obama Keeps):
“This is an edge-of-your-seat thriller about real Americans who stood for their beliefs, thinking they were patriots and defending their country’s ideals against their government.”
Before it goes down the memory hole, let’s review how these “real Americans” went about standing for their beliefs:
In March 1970 the organization issued a “Declaration of a State of War” against the United States government…
Shortly after that Declaration was made public, three members of the Weather Underground accidentally killed themselves in a Manhattan townhouse while attempting to build a powerful bomb they had intended to plant at a social dance in Fort Dix, New Jersey — an event that was to be attended by U.S. Army soldiers. Hundreds of lives could have been lost had the plot been successfully executed.
The Weather Underground went on to claim credit for some 25 bombings over the next several years, detonating explosives at the rebuilt Haymarket statue, a bathroom at the Pentagon, the Capitol barber shop, the New York City police headquarters, and a variety of other targets. …
The Weather Underground aspired to take over the U.S. government and establish re-education camps in the American southwest; the organization estimated that it would be necessary to kill some 25 million people “die-hard capitalist[s]” who could not be reformed.
Why Does Media Matters Hate The Jews And Israel?
MMFA is quick to bash anybody who uses a Hitler reference (except for George Soros), and I am not by any means saying they are a bunch of Nazis, but they do use a lot of the same themes.
Casey Anthony lawyer ‘is in New York negotiating with major TV networks for first tell-all’
Bill Maher: Palin Family Thinks “Abstinence Is Latin For No Anal”…
Time to make Maher the face of the Democratic Party.
Global Warmening:
Global Warming: Is There Nothing It Can’t Do?
Primatine Mist, which when I was a kid with asthma was a lifesaver, is being outlawed by the FDA because its aerosol delivery system is bad for the environment, Gaia, and other living things
Remember, When The Weather Is Hot, That’s Proof Of Globull Warming
One thing I really love about the Moonbats is their new found ‘reverence’ for people like Churchill and Reagan. Those who know history (real history, not the revisionist BS) know that idiots like this guy worshiped Hitler right up until the time he invaded the Soviet Union. They also forget that during the 1930’s when Churchill was warning everyone how dangerous Hitler was they called Churchill a “Drunken Imperialist Warmonger”. In fact the first time that phrase was used was by the ‘intellectual forefathers’ of idiots like Huhne when they referred to Churchill. I am waiting for them to start calling Obama the ‘new Thatcher’…UK Minister: Denying Climate (Hoax) Deal Like Denying Hitler
In a speech urging countries to keep pressing for a climate deal, Huhne evoked the memory of British wartime leader Winston Churchill and the fight against Nazi Germany led by Hitler.
“Climate change is getting less political attention now than it did two years ago. There is a vacuum, and the forces of low ambition are looking to fill it,” he said. “Giving in to the forces of low ambition would be an act of climate appeasement.
“This is our Munich moment,” he added, referring to the Munich Agreement, a 1938 pact that gave Hitler land in the former Czechoslovakia as part of a failed attempt to persuade him to abandon further territorial expansion.
First, if you have to call it climate change because you want to blame mankind for everything that happens, then your science has already lost. Second, if you refuse to practice what you preach, you shouldn’t be surprised that your pet cult is dying a painful death. Third, if you have to evoke the memory of a liberal giving Hitler what he wanted to prop up your failed cult, you should probably have a good lie down, because I have an unused slap in my pocket with your name on it. (a few British sayings I get from Simon Green books) Fourth, if you have to use fear, rather than rational, well thought out, well researched, scientific facts, you might just be part of a cult.
And there’s still nothing but supposition that mankind, as opposed to 4 billion years of empirical evidence from nature, has caused the warming which started in 1850.
The Sock Drawer:
Happy Feet set for ocean journey soon
Zoo spokeswoman Kate Baker told the Herald last night that Happy Feet could be returned to the Southern Ocean as early as next month.
“It’s looking like it will be about mid to late August. Right now we’re just figuring out how we will release him,” she said.
Speaking of Emperor Penguins….The folks at Mawson Station have gone out to the Auster Rookery to see how the Penguin dads and their brand new chicks are doing. The moms aren’t back yet but should be soon.
Is Mum here yet Dad?
PHOTOS: Inside The Cube, A Restaurant Perched On A Monument In Brussels
Mandrill adapts twig to give himself ‘pedicure’ in most complex primate behaviour ever
Jeremy Clarkson sprouts wood…2012 Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG Black Series Coupe revealed in all its splendor
The super yacht that comes with its own VOLCANO: Multi-million pound boat which is a paradise island
- Be courteous, be punctual, always say please and thank you, and be sure to hold your knife and fork properly. Others take their cue on how to treat you from your manners.
- Be kind, considerate and compassionate when others are in trouble, even if you have problems of your own. Others will admire your selflessness and will help you in due course.
- Show moral courage. Do what is right, even if that makes you unpopular. I always thought it important to be able to look at myself in the shaving mirror every morning and not feel guilt or remorse. I depart this world with a pretty clear conscience.
- Show humility. Stand your ground but pause to reflect on what the other side are saying, and back off when you know you are wrong. Never worry about losing face. That only happens when you are pig-headed.
- Learn from your mistakes. You will make plenty so use them as a learning tool. If you keep making the same mistake or run into a problem, you’re doing something wrong.
- Avoid disparaging someone to a third party; it is only you who will look bad. If you have a problem with someone, tell them face to face.
- Hold fire! If someone crosses you, don’t react immediately. Once you say something it can never be taken back, and most people deserve a second chance.
- Have fun. If this involves taking risks, so be it. If you get caught, hold your hands up.
- Give to charity and help those who are less fortunate than yourselves: it’s easy and so rewarding.
- Always look on the upside! The glass is half full, never half empty. Every adversity has a silver lining if you seek it out.
- Make it your instinct always to say ‘yes’. Look for reasons to do something, not reasons to say no. Your friends will cherish you for that.
- Be canny: you will get more of what you want if you can give someone more of what they desire. Compromise can be king.
- Always accept a party invitation. You may not want to go, but they want you there. Show them courtesy and respect.
- Never ever let a friend down. I would bury bodies for my friends, if they asked me to . . . which is why I have chosen them carefully.
- Always tip for good service. It shows respect. But never reward poor service. Poor service is insulting.
- Always treat those you meet as your social equal, whether they are above or below your station in life. For those above you, show due deference, but don’t be a sycophant.
- Always respect age, as age equals wisdom.
- Be prepared to put the interests of your sibling first.
- Be proud of who you are and where you come from, but open your mind to other cultures and languages. When you begin to travel (as I hope you will), you’ll learn that your place in the world is both vital and insignificant. Don’t get too big for your breeches.
- Be ambitious, but not nakedly so. Be prepared to back your assertions with craftsmanship and hard work.
- Live every day to its full: do something that makes you smile or laugh, and avoid procrastination.
- Give of your best at school. Some teachers forget that pupils need incentives. So if your teacher doesn’t give you one, devise your own.
- Always pay the most you can afford. Never skimp on hotels, clothing, shoes, make-up or jewelry. But always look for a deal. You get what you pay for.
- Never give up! My two little soldiers have no dad, but you are brave, big-hearted, fit and strong. You are also loved by an immensely kind and supportive team of family and friends. You make your own good fortune, my children, so battle on.
- Never feel sorry for yourself, or at least don’t do it for long. Crying doesn’t make things better.
- Look after your body and it will look after you.
- Learn a language, or at least try. Never engage a person abroad in conversation without first greeting them in their own language; by all means ask if they speak English!
- And finally, cherish your mother, and take very good care of her.
I love you both with all my heart.
Daddy x
