Must Reads of the Day!
Thus, we’re not persuaded that these early lines of attack will prove very effective against Perry, who has never lost an election. Unless the governor fails to adapt his Texan “screw you” style of campaigning to the national level, or is revealed as a cannibal, he will prove a strong candidate.
The key thing to know about Rick Perry is that in Texas, nobody loves him very much, not even Republicans, and yet he always trounces his opponents. That translates to one thing; he has skill.
…and unlike Barack Obama, he has a Brass Pair!
- Rex Murphy: Global warming runs out of gas
For those who have a wish to hear the grating sound of a man distempered and frustrated that the cause for which he has given at least a decade of his time, the “greatest moral challenge of our time,” is lost, I recommend listening to Al Gore as he was captured during an address at an Aspen global warming conference two weeks ago. It is a revelation.
- Mark Steyn: Empathy thrown under Obama’s bus
Symbols are important. In other circumstances, the Obamas’ vacation on Martha’s Vineyard might not be terribly relevant. But this is a president who blames his dead-parrot economy on “bad luck” – specifically, the Arab Spring and the Japanese tsunami: As Harry S Truman would have said, the buck stops at that big hole in the ground that’s just opened up over in Japan. Let us take these whiny excuses at face value and accept for the sake of argument that Obama’s Recovery Summer would now be going gangbusters had not the Libyan rebels seized Benghazi and sent the economy into a tailspin. Did no one in the smartest administration in history think this might be the time for the president to share in some of the “bad luck” and forgo an ostentatious vacation in the exclusive playground of the rich? When you’re the presiding genius of the Brokest Nation in History, enjoying the lifestyle of the super-rich while allegedly in “public service” sends a strikingly Latin American message. Underlining the point, the president then decided to pass among his suffering people by touring small-town Minnesota in an armored Canadian bus accompanied by a 40-car motorcade.
In some of these one-stoplight burgs, the president’s escort had more vehicles than the municipality he was graciously blessing with his presence.
In our racial climate it would be so much easier to state the obvious if Obama were white: This administration looks more and more like one of those African cesspools run by a self-obsessed tribal leader. It runs more like a cozy group of cronies than an open and honest administration, and it’s increasingly divorced from American reality. Even Maxine Waters has noticed.
It’s one thing to take some down time at Camp David, quite another to run off at every opportunity to luxurious hotels and estates with a retinue of hundreds. This is an administration that enjoys the perks of the American Presidency in an imperial fashion at a time when it’s in bad taste, just as leaders of African cesspools don’t let the misery of the masses get in the way of their fun. It doesn’t take governance seriously, treating policy more like performance art than like a sacred trust.
The 2012 presidential election will be a referendum on democracy.
Exclusive: First Look at the Obama-Osama Movie Poster!
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.
NHK: Areva and Kurion systems grind to a halt
The Japan Times: Tepco makes little headway in decontaminating water
Rain and persistent problems with treatment systems continue to create setbacks
508 Millisievert Annual Cumulative Radiation at 3 Kilometers from Fukushima I Nuke Plant
How do you even begin to decontaminate the area like that, not to mention returning people even on a temporary basis?
Fukushima II (Not I) Nuke Plant Eyewitness Account on March 11
White smoke seen rising from Fukushima II Nuclear Power Plant in Tomioka-machi after the quake but BEFORE the tsunami.
It was related by people (husband and wife) who were in Kawauchi-mura, west of Tomioka-machi, quoting the unnamed acquaintance of theirs who works at the plant. They said they couldn’t name the person as he is higher up in the organization.
Wild Boar in Miyagi Prefecture Was Found With 2,200 Becquerels/Kg of Radioactive Cesium
It adds to the beef conundrum from yesterday’s post that the cow that wasn’t fed contaminated rice hay. This wild boar was most likely eating the farm crops, wild plant roots and fruits, and occasional maggots and insects.
Canadian gov’t now plans to start radiation testing on fish off B.C. coast
World News:
Walter Russell Mead: European Crisis Deepens
Europe is out of its depth in a raging river and without radical and almost unimaginable changes, it may not make it back to the shore. Americans cannot afford to be complacent or smug. Partly as a result of our own poor decisions and bad leadership (stretching back over many years and implicating both parties), partly because the world economy is so interconnected and Europe’s economy is so big and so open, we cannot prosper if Europe fails.
As they say in Newspeak: Double Plus Ungood.
Things That Make You Go Hmmm…. Such As A Venezuelan Dictator Bringing Down The Global Gold Cartel
Moment killer storm swept into Belgian music festival where five people died when stages collapsed
It’s been two years now since President Obama heralded a new era in U.S.-Russian relations — a “reset,” as he put it. His plan was to “cooperate more effectively in areas of common interest.” He and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev were “committed to leaving behind the suspicion and the rivalry of the past.”
Fast forward to the present. Have things improved? Considering that Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin recently called the United States a “parasite” on the global economy, and the U.S. State Department has put 64 Russian officials on a visa blacklist, it’s fair to say: Not much.
This won’t be hard to do, the US no longer has a space program… Russia teams up with European Space Agency in bid to beat US in first manned mission to Mars
MENA News Update: The Region is ON FIRE
The headlines this morning and throughout the week are stunning.
Just click on any of the headlines to read the story in full. It would appear that the world’s “September Surprise” may well be an entire region engulfed in conflict.
Geopolitical Risk Is Back As Libya And Israel Make Headlines
Suicide Bombers Strike In Two Yemen Towns
One Killed, 12 Injured After Barrage Of Hamas Rockets Slam Into Israeli Cities…
What’s Behind Israel’s Middle-Class Revolt?
Caught on Video: Syrian Soldiers Beat Detainee, Make Him Shout ‘Allah…Syria and Bashar Only’
Libya: Heavy Fighting Reported in Tripoli, Rebels Encircle City…
Colonel Qaddafi’s days as dictator of Libya are numbered, not in months but perhaps days
Tunisian News Reports: Gaddafi and Family are Fleeing to Venezuela
Iran and Saudi Arabia helped Al-Qaeda carry out 9/11 attacks, claims author
The only ones who are surprised by this are Kumbayah singing leftie idiots. These guys will not survive 8 years in an Iranian prison… American Hikers Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal Sentenced to 8 Years in Prison by Iranian Regime
Afghanistan: Taliban “Turban Bomber” Attacks Government Center…
More Obama SmartDiplomacy™ at work (anyone in the world could’ve told them this would not work, but we are not as ‘educated and intelligent as the ‘lightworkers’ in the Obama regime)…. Talking to the Taliban Has Backfired
In his June 22 troop-withdrawal speech, President Obama stressed the need for a “political settlement” in Afghanistan and added that “America will join initiatives that reconcile the Afghan people, including the Taliban.” U.S. officials were optimistic that their “confidence-building” talks with Tayeb Agha, a former bodyguard of Taliban leader Mullah Omar, will lead to a diplomatic breakthrough with the Taliban. But the talks have stalled as Tayeb Agha has disappeared. Last year, a senior Taliban leader transported in a NATO helicopter to Kabul for peace talks turned out to be an impostor — a shopkeeper from Quetta, in Pakistan.
Today’s attack indicates that the policy of appeasing the Taliban has failed. Diplomatic engagement with the Taliban will not produce any results until the terrorist group is defeated militarily. One-sided engagement policy is not an exit strategy but a recipe for failure. It bolsters insurgents’ confidence, divides and weakens the Afghan government, and gives incentives to Pakistan to continue backing the Taliban for its “strategic depth” once foreign troops leave the country.
Suicide Bomber Attacks Pakistani Mosque Killing At Least 50 Worshipers (Video)
A suicide bomber attacked a mosque attended by pro-government tribesmen during Friday prayers. At least 50 worshipers were killed.
Biden to China: Of Course We’re Good for the Money!
This must be comforting reassurance coming from the man whose economic philosophy is “spend money to keep from going bankrupt.”
Twelve killed and three escape alive as 737 goes down in Canadian Arctic
US News:
Florida on alert as forecasters warn tropical storm Irene is strengthening into a hurricane
- and those of you thinking of voting for one next year, too.
President McCain is clearly a warmonger
I sure wish we had elected that Obama guy back in 2008. If we had, we wouldn’t be looking at staying in Iraq even longer. Obama would have – at a minimum – gotten out of Iraq on the same schedule that the warmonger Bush had set up.
Of course, there’s still the matter of Afghanistan. If we had elected Barack Obama, I can assure you that he would have set up a firm plan to begin a major draw-down of our forces by this year and gotten the rest out in short order. But not President McCain! Oh, no! We just found out this weekend that he’s close to signing an agreement to keep not only training details, but special forces and air power in country until… are you ready for this? Until 2024.
And as far as the rest of the world goes, I still fondly recall candidate Obama’s spot on criticism of the way President Bush launched wars in a willy-nilly fashion, ignored the War Powers Act and ignored the powers of Congress, as well as the wishes of the American people. Why couldn’t we have elected that guy? Instead, we watched as President McCain launched an attack on yet another nation – Libya – sneering out of one side of his face that we would only be there for days. Right, Mr. President. It’s been nearly 200 of them so far.
We are going the same way Zimbabwe did. Once upon a time Rhodesia Zimbabwe was the Breadbasket of Africa. Mugabe, who is a big fan of Barack Obama Sr.’s communist policies, turned the Breadbasket of Africa into the Basketcase of Africa. Zimbabwe used to export food, now it can not feed itself because Mugabe confiscated the farmers lands and gave them to his cronies. We have something similar going on here but it is being done through stupid leftist and ‘green’ overregulation and taking thousands of acres out of production via the endangered species act-all designed to drive our farmers out of business. Like high food prices and shortages? Thank a Democrat…. A Sad Day for U.S. Wheat Producers and Their Customers
The stakes are particularly high for U.S. farmers as roughly 50 percent of U.S. wheat and 25 percent of all U.S. agricultural production is exported. In 2010/11, the United States exported more than 35 million metric tons (MT) of wheat — roughly 60 percent of last year’s production — to about 70 countries. The United States is the largest supplier of wheat to the world and these exports provide worldwide customers with a competitive wheat source while returning an economic boost to the U.S. economy.
The U.S. wheat industry has worked hard to build a reputation as a reliable supplier. While American farms are largely family-run operations, they are businesses that understand the importance of trade to their customers. The U.S. wheat industry has a long history of promoting fair and open trade and looks forward to implementing pending and future trade agreements such as the nine-country TransPacific Partnership agreement to maintain its competitiveness in world markets. We can only hope that our customers in Colombia, as well as in South Korea and Panama*, understand this situation for what it is: a domestic political struggle that accomplishes only confusion, frustration and diminished trust.
So, the GOP has a clever idea — or they’ve stolen an idea the Dems had during the Bush years, I am getting old and can’t remember — but you can send Obama Vacation Postcards to your pals.
I chose this one because it’s a twofer; it jeers at Obama, and the Boston Red Sox, so it’s kind of irresistible.
And before my friends on the left take umbrage and being wagging fickle fingers of righteousness and calling me out for being “mean” or making fun or whatever — please spare me. You don’t really want me to go digging through my harddrive and my archives to bring forth all the “lighten-up-it’s-just-good-fun” and “dissent-is-the-highest-form-of-patriotism” pictures of Bush-as-chimp, or Bush-as-Hitler, or Bush-as- Saturn Eating his Son, do you?
A couple of dispatches from ‘The Vinyard’ by MOTUS…
BTY, there were two fundraisers held for Big Guy last night butt he didn’t go to either of them. What did they expect though, they were only charging $1000 a head. What with all the pressures facing us right now, Big Guy can’t afford to show up for anything under $10,000.
Well, that will have to do for now. I’ve got to run, Lady M wants to try on some new gear that just arrived from our favorite designers, “on loan,” of course.
Big Guy will be playing a round today at Mink Meadows (don’t you just love that name?) before getting back to save the world from the pending alien invasion. No, not Islamo-terrorists, silly. And no, certainly not Mexican drug dealers or day workers “willing to do the work Americans won’t do” either. We’re talking serious aliens, like in the Matrix or something:
Bad news from NASA: If we don’t reduce carbon emissions, the aliens might come and kill us.
So don’t think that Big Guy is just “vacationing” here on the Rock. He’s busy with his newest economic advisor (Paul Krugman) planning the next World War. Because sometimes you have to destroy the economy in order to save it.
Before it had even started in earnest, the much-maligned vacation became a PR nightmare, after it emerged this morning that he and his wife took separate government jets to Martha’s Vineyard just hours apart.
Michelle Obama was revealed to have arrived at the Massachusetts retreat, only 500 miles from Washington, four hours before her husband yesterday.
She was accompanied by their daughters and landed at around 2pm – four hours earlier than the President.
Poor Michelle. Couldn’t wait those 4 whole hours. What, pray tell, was her carbon footprint for that extra jet? Speaking of carbon footprint, these ain’t no Chevy Volts in Obama’s motorcade:
Those are 7 mpg SUVs. Why 7? They are likely shielded and have a carburetor rather than fuel injection systems in case of an EMP. 7. SEVEN!
$Thousands Wasted So That Bitter Half Could Have a Couple Hours More Vacation
Even as the USA lurches toward bankruptcy as a result of excessive government spending, those who have destroyed our future continue to waste our money with astonishing insolence:
Michelle Obama and President Obama traveled to Martha’s Vineyard just hours apart, costing taxpayers thousands in additional expenses so she could have just a bit of extra vacation time.
Maybe the Bitter Half thinks she’s not getting enough vacation time from her self-appointed job of heckling Americans about our dietary habits. She has taken 42 days over the past year.
Putting Country Ahead of Vacation
Now, I’m out here for one reason: I think Washington, DC can learn something from the folks in Atkinson and Peosta and Cannon Falls. I think our country would be a whole lot better off if our elected leaders showed the same kind of discipline and integrity and responsibility that most Americans demonstrate in their lives every day.
The president exhibited his own discipline and self-restraint the following evening by taking the missus out to a restaurant where starters average $16 and entrees run around $37. Sides, which are extra, cost $8. Add in dessert, coffee, and booze, and dinner had to set Obama back at least $200 after tax and tip were factored in.
I know, I know: It’s the president’s money (one assumes), and he has a right to indulge himself. The problem, however, is not whether he is justified in spending $50,000 (!) on a vacation but how it looks at a time when the economy is flat-lining. You can’t tell the “folks,” as he did in his Saturday—whoops, Wednesday—address that “we’re going through a tough time right now” when you’re dining on twin Menemsha lobsters at $48 a pop.
The president’s words ring doubly hollow when he lectures members of Congress for putting “country ahead of party.” Even giving him the benefit of the doubt and assuming he does not mean Republicans, who is he to dispense that advice after repeatedly accusing the GOP of having driven “the country into a ditch”?
Obama Says He Has a “Very Specific Plan” to Fix Economy… Goes Golfing Instead
Krauthammer’s Take On President Obama’s Vacation on Martha’s Vineyard:
But choosing an exclusive enclave like the Vineyard after spending three days on the road railing against the rich and the wealthy and the millionaires and the billionaires and the corporate jet owners who vacation exactly in the same place — and then spending ten days in their company — speaks of a kind of dissonance or hypocrisy.
You know, the Vineyard doesn’t have any bridges to it. You either get there on a ferry in your Maserati, or on a jet or a helicopter. It’s not exactly where ordinary folks will take a vacation
Yawn: Obozo Says Some are Putting Party in Front of Country in Radio Address
This guy is a total joke. The most partisan hack we’ve ever had in the White House tries some lame nonsense about putting country first. It’s laughable.
Obama Partie$ At Home Of Wealthy Harvard Militant Marxi$t Mentor/Black Panther
Charles Ogletree was a black panther. He is also the lawyer of Henry Louis Gates, the racist Harvard professor who’s racism caused the beer summit. Ogletree’s daughter Rashida was recently hired into Holder’s Justice Department as a lawyer. Ogletree is still a militant leftist and is still called on by the Obamas for advice.
Nauseating: Slobbering Obama Zombies Gush Over Seeing Their Hero at MV Bookstore
President Barack Obama and his daughters, Malia and Sasha, arrived outside the Main Street store at about 12:30 p.m. The president waved to delighted onlookers and looked every bit like a guy on vacation, sporting an untucked polo shirt, jeans and cool sunglasses.
Cool sunglasses? Behold the sheer awesomeness!
Then he went golfing for five hours before chowing down on lobster. Way to show you’re a man of the people.
LOLOLOLOL! Breaking: President Calls for Section 8 Housing on Martha’s Vineyard
Citing a concern with diversity on the posh resort island of Martha’s Vineyard, a vacationing President Barack Obama today called for a massive local buildup of Section 8 Housing.
“To paraphrase a famous movie,” the President joked, “‘I see white people.’ In all seriousness, our national mandate for diversity demands that we integrate Martha’s Vineyard, which today is a haven for millionaires and billionaires, as well as corporate jet- and yacht-owners, almost all of whom have pasty white complexions. And just think of all of the thousands of construction jobs we’ll save or create!”
If Obama were going to listen to the people, he had plenty of opportunities after he was elected. Instead he spent three years ignoring the people, condescending to the people, lecturing the people and vacationing at expensive places and overseas destinations to get away from the people. And his convoy tour is there to impress and awe the common folk with the scale of it. Like Putin staging a fake hunt or finding a trinket that was set there for him to find, this isn’t about listening. It’s about impressing. In both senses of the word.
The Not Listening Tour is supposed to remind us of Obama’s importance, his easy manner and how photogenic he is. All qualities manufactured for him by media coverage. It’s supposed to awe us with his entourage, and his wealth, which is really our wealth. It’s not a listening tour, it’s just another royal procession at public expense. And while kings may occasionally talk to commoners. They don’t listen to them. Instead they toss some gold coins out the window, wave and drive on.
Reason #3645896078 not to use Facebook. Always remember that the founder of Facebook is one of Obama’s biggest fanbois and his company has repeatedly censored items that are critical of his messiah… Facebook Removed Jan Brewer Post Criticizing Obama’s New Immigration Policies
Barack Obama announced this week that his administration would not enforce the current immigration laws. Just last month Obama admitted he did not have the authority to make such a decision.
Jan Brewer later posted on Obama’s actions but Facebook removed the post.
Like paying those ‘skyrocketing electric bills’ and rolling black outs? Thank a Democrat!
The utility said it would see higher costs of about $32.6 million in 2012 from the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule that was finalized recently by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. That will result in rates going up by 6.8% instead of 3.4%, the utility said.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency last month finalized stronger regulations for Wisconsin and 26 other states aimed at curbing air pollution from long-distance sources.
New EPA rule could lead to rolling blackouts in Texas, PUC chairwoman says
If implementation of the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule is not delayed, “I have no doubt in my mind that this rule will result in reliability issues and rolling outages in Texas,” Donna Nelson said at the start of the commission’s meeting.
The rule, issued in early July by the Environmental Protection Agency, would require substantial reductions in emissions of nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide at power plants in 27 states.
Your ‘surprisingly unexpected’ economic news of the day:
I have never seen a political collapse like the one we are seeing consume President Obama and the Democrats right now. Even the debacle of 2010 is beginning to pale in comparison to what is happening in the headlines. When Reverend Wright said America’s chickens were coming home to roost – he was not kidding! Sadly they are all liberal chickens packing a lot of crap.
*snip*
No, it is not a joke. Liberal nonsense has been playing out in painful reality now for 3 years and the damage it has caused is mind boggling. The only hope we have is the damage can be corrected in 2013. Any left wing case who thinks these changes are permanent is crazy. With the mountain of evidence rising on how bad all these whacky ideas have turned out to be, removing them will be seen as salvation.
Now, if only the GOP can resist trying to replace them – that will be the key. We need to shrink government, not fix it.
The bottom is falling out of President Obama’s public support. Apparently it never occurred to Obama, Reid and Pelosi that their risky liberals schemes actually had to work in order to avoid destroying the Democrat party and burying liberal Keynesian economics for all time. From the left wing mortgage lending disaster (now everyone in a home is poorer), to their failed stimulus bill (lesson learned: no such thing as shovel ready, government trickle down jobs) on to Obamacare (bending our health care cost curve into bankruptcy) the results of liberal policies has been the epic fail.
“Hope and Change” by the Numbers
Just as he promised, Obama has fundamentally transformed America.
Your tax dollars at work… Hard Times For the Chevy Volt
Full steam ahead to epic failure!
If you own a GM vehicle and think that GM is going to cover the warranties you have been played for a sucker by Obama and the Democrats! Obama’s Boldface Lies About GM Service And Warranties
Obama lie #482,709 and counting…
Why just 2 years ago Obama addressed the nation (must see video below) to ‘assure’ us there was absolutely, positively nothing to worry about when purchasing a GM or Chrysler vehicle — specifically service and warranties.
Fed could launch ‘Operation Twist’ instead of QE3
But can Bernanke really get away with a speech that doesn’t present a plan? It depends. If the market insanity (inanity?) extends into next week, it may be impossible for Bernanke to ignore growing comparisons to a few years ago.
“The bar for QE3 or anything else should be a lot higher. There will need to either be a full blown market collapse or worries that a major bank has to be nationalized,” said Graham Summers, chief market strategist with Phoenix Capital Research in Charlottesville, Va. “But it is more likely that we could have a 2008-like event.”
Bernanke has time and time again shown he is willing to step in when the markets appear to be this close to falling into the abyss. So the chances seem to be growing that he will say something significant at Jackson Hole — even if he shouldn’t.
“I don’t think the Fed is going to give up,” said Paul Simon, chief investment officer of Tactical Allocation Group Birmingham, Mich. “But I do think the Fed should get out of the way.”
“In fact, if the Fed did do another Operation Twist, they can make things worse,” Simon added. “There is very little to be gained and the risk could be massive inflation.”
The Congressional Black Caucus Job Fair photo of the day
Doesn’t it strike you as mildly ironic that the CBC sponsored this job fair, considering it’s the CBC and their party leaders – including the President himself – who are the most responsible for the dismal state of this economy, which has seen people being out of work not just for a few weeks or months – but years – thanks in no small part to the left’s visceral hatred of “big business” and “the rich” and “people who fly corporate jets”?
You really can’t make this stuff up.
Update – 5:56 PM: A Twitter friend brought up the contrast of the above photo with the ones of President Obama at Martha’s Vineyard. It couldn’t be more stark.
Tales from the Obamaconomy: The Burger King was just handed a pink slip
Nothing’s quite as tragic as seeing royalty hit the skids.
Remember what the “White House Insider” said about what was coming and bear that in mind when reading this. Also remember that Bill Ayres and Bernadette Dohrn are Obama’s BFF’s and were the ones who launched his political career. Both Obama and Clinton have worked for ACORN and are BFF’s with its founders and the SEIU is basically the Democrat party’s version of the Mussolini’s Black Shirts and Hitler’s Brown Shirts…
A US Day of Rage is the title given to a day of ostensibly “non-violent” civil disobedience orchestrated by a group of radicals — that reportedly include SEIU’s Stephen Lerner and ACORN founder Wade Rathke (who, coincidentally, formerly served as president of SEIU’s local New Orleans branch) — targeting Wall Street and U.S. capitalism. It’s worth noting that the title of the movement — if its intentions are indeed non-violent in nature — appears to contradict itself slightly.
But what is perhaps even more interesting than its title is who is allegedly behind the movement.
You may recall that back in March The Blaze exposed Lerner for stating his aspirations to destroy JP Morgan Chase and cause the collapse of the entire stock market.
*snip*
But if a group of enraged activists — endorsed by the likes of Stephen Lerner — occupying Wall Street with tent cities were not enough — it actually gets worse. The term “Day of Rage” finds origin in “Days of Rage,“ a violent set of riots waged in Chicago in 1969 by the Weathermen’s Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn. The Weather Underground terrorist organized his “Rage” in an attempt to bring troops back home from Vietnam. Similarly, this most recent US Day of Rage is co-organized by a group that calls itself “The War Resistance League.”
Yet despite Ayers’ initial claim that his Day of Rage, too, would be “non-violent,” during the four day rampage that started in Chicago’s historic Lincoln Park, the Weathermen arrived in full-clad battle gear, helmets and weapons in tow, and called on activists to kill the rich and even their own parents.
During an interview with Chicago Mag, Ayers, with no regrets, summed up his riot’s intended purpose, stating, ”kill all the rich people. Break up their cars and apartments. Bring the revolution home, kill your parents—that‘s where it’s really at.”
A movement is suddenly springing up from nowhere (ah-huh) to take on the free enterprise, “capitalist” system. In America, they are especially targeting Wall Street, a place still somewhat constitutionally sovereign to the U.S.A. and not thoroughly controlled yet by authoritarian global collectivism.
That is a Wall Street which has already been damaged by the Cloward-Piven orchestrated mortgage meltdown and stemming from that was assailed by the protorevolutionary Obama-Peloisi-Reid government, which brought boa constrictor regulation — by “reform” with loopholes wide enough to fit Brinks trucks for large and coordinated hedge fund manipulators, and which shielded a Securities & Exchange Commission gone dark from the kinds of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) inquiries that uncovered Bernie Madoff. Cloward-Piven government, indeed.
Communists have always been real big fans of massive construction projects…. President Downgrade Has a Plan: He Mailed It In
So that’s it? Taking a page right out FDR’s playbook Obama’s big plan is to start a bunch of construction jobs, funded with yet more taxpayer money that the feds ran out of long ago, that will place us further in debt and are seasonal in nature. Yup sounds like a winner to me chump. Except of course you know those construction projects, like I thought you had discovered when you made your ridiculous ‘shovel ready’ proclamation that brought gales of laughter at the time, will take years to get approval because of your jobs killing EPA department. Unless just like Obamacare you plan to issue waivers of all sorts to your union friends and big contributors.
Suckers! Key Dems: Obama’s ‘green jobs’ plan a bust
“Of course, we want to be a part of the new innovation and the green jobs,” Rep. Maxine Waters said on MSNBC Thursday. “But you know, the green jobs have been about a lot of talk and not a lot has been happening on that.” A few hours later, also on MSNBC, Waters said flatly: “All of this talk about the green jobs never materialized.”
Waters is a senior member of the Congressional Black Caucus. Last month, the chairman of that group, Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, told the Huffington Post that green jobs had little meaning for his constituents. “African-Americans out there were saying, ‘What do we have in common with this new, green technology?’” Cleaver told the website.
The skepticism from Waters and Cleaver comes after a Washington Post-ABC poll, published July 26, found serious erosion in liberal Democratic support for Obama’s jobs policies. “The number of liberal Democrats who strongly support Obama’s record on jobs plunged 22 points from 53 percent last year to 31 percent,” the Post reported.
Hey Maxine! This is where the ‘green jobs’ went…. U.S. Government Loaning $500M for Solar Power Projects—In India
Walter Russell Mead: Feeding The Masses On Unicorn Ribs
The belief that green jobs would drive a new era of American prosperity was — like the large majority of green policy chat — intellectually incoherent. The goods that drive renewable energy industries, like so much else in this world, are far cheaper to construct in Asia. As the NYT piece describes, SolFocus, a widely-celebrated solar power company based, only has 90 employees at their San Jose headquarters. The solar panels are assembled in China. Whether a product is an ordinary t-shirt or an admirable piece of world saving green technology like a wind turbine has zilch, zero, nada influence on the mind of the manufacturer trying to decide where it should be made.
There are perhaps some green jobs that would be exceptions; we could eliminate all forms of welfare and food stamps and offer the unemployed minimum wage jobs pedaling stationary bicycles hooked up to electric generators, solving our budget, poverty, obesity and energy independence problems all at once — but these are not the jobs either the President or his supporters have in mind.
A billionaire’s mouth where his money isn’t
All of which invariably raises a far more fundamental issue: The size and scope and success of government. You see, to want more tax revenue implies something: that government needs and should have more money, and receive an even higher take of the sum domestic product.
Isn’t that unquestionably what Buffett is saying? Government is not large enough. Government can spend these dollars better than the taxpayers who earned them.
Many conservative politicians and pundits were quick to suggest Buffett put his own money where his mouth is:
• The Fiscal Times story headlined, “Warren Buffett: Stop Whining and Write Uncle Sam a Check.”
• Congressman John Shimkus (R-Ill.) tweeted, “Nothing is stopping Warren Buffett (or anybody) from making a donation to the Treasury if he feels he’s under-taxed.”
• “I’m a little fed up with these people who come on with their big op-eds and admonitions,” said Pat Buchanan on MSNBC’s Morning Joe. “Why doesn’t he set an example and send a check for $5 billion to the federal government? He’s got $40 billion.”Indeed, why doesn’t Buffett write a check to good ol’ Uncle Sam? I don’t ask rhetorically, but in earnest. What is stopping him from making that donation?
A contribution to the federal treasury is fully tax-deductible, so that’s not the sticking point.
*snip*
Whether one agrees with his politics or not, Buffet certainly knows investing. With his actions, with his own billions of dollars, he is declaring, loudly and clearly, that in caring for the sick, feeding the poor, educating future generations and pursuing a myriad of other worthwhile endeavors, the U.S. government is notthe best place to invest.
On that, we as a nation have reached consensus: Sell Congress short.
As for Warren Buffett, reading his op-eds will never be as informative as watching where he puts his own money.
Charles Koch Responds to Warren Buffett
In response to Warren Buffett’s op-ed urging higher taxes on the rich, fellow rich person Charles Koch makes a simple but vital point:
Much of what the government spends money on does more harm than good; this is particularly true over the past several years with the massive uncontrolled increase in government spending. I believe my business and non-profit investments are much more beneficial to societal well-being than sending more money to Washington.
Democrats Get Their Marching Orders On Tax Increases (On Other People)
Like everything else in Liberal World, it’s always about penalizing and/or punishing That Guy, making them pay. It’s never about themselves. Someone Else must be forced by government to Do Something. They never walk the talk, practice what they preach. I forget who wrote it, some book on the shelf, but, it goes something like this “when Republicans are hypocrites, they tend to hurt themselves and their families. When Democrats are hypocrites, they tend to hurt other people, and often enrich themselves.
Over at The Save Jersey Blog, we find out that Senator Frank Lautenber (D-NJ) said “we got to eliminate the rich.” I triple dog dare Frank to send his approximately $50 million dollars to the state and federal treasuries.
I also triple dog dare all you liberals who want to tax That Group to do your “patriotic” part and pay the Clinton era tax rates, including the higher capital gains rates, which are based on your income level. We can use the 2000 rates as the baseline. You, and all the uber-rich Democrat voters, can also refuse to itemize, and avoid taking advantage of all the “loopholes” in the tax law. Furthermore, instead of giving donations for political causes and elections, you should use that money to help fund the federal government.
The poor like taxing the rich less than you would think
You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy (except for the UN, of course):
As long-time readers of this blog know, I have long called for restrictions on food stamps and policing the free school meals programs (Michelle Obama wants to add free dinner to free breakfast and free lunch) as a means of reducing childhood obesity, which is most rampant among those receiving food stamps. A ban on buying snacks with food stamps is a must in a society that increasingly infringes on my rights to buy the food I want with my money. So people can imagine my reaction when I read that the Obama administration denied a request to ban the use of food stamps to buy soda.
After I cooled down, I thought, well, this is just further proof that the president’s campaign — through his wife — to “fight” childhood obesity is simply a facade for shoveling more money to people friendly to the regime, in this case Walmart and other supermarkets, which will split $400 million in building stores in ghetto areas that will fold as soon as the photo op is over. Witness all those “green jobs” that have become green layoffs once the taxpayer subsidy check cleared the bank.
EPA imposes Obama’s cap and trade regs- energy prices ‘skyrocket’
Apparently, Obama got his cap and trade plan goals out there, but he did an end run around Congress to do it.
See related stories below under ‘2012:The Fork in the Road”…
- Mark Levin – Is That The Act Of A Dictator?
- Stealing 2012 Election 1.0: Obama Breaks Law, Constitution on Amnesty For Latinos
I have been warning for two years that Obama’s vote fraud “machine” for the 2012 will be of unprecedented scale and reach. One of the many tactics will be to flood the country with “new” Americans of various designations, all of which will be “vaguely” defined legally because of the ever-changing memos and executive orders and their conflicts with Congress, immigration law and the Constitution. There will be tremendous pressure not to “alienate” or “disenfranchise” these illegal aliens who are getting Obama ‘pixie dust’ to instantly get citizenship. The Republican party and Constitutionalists everywhere need to assemble an army of attorneys to gum things up in the courts. Otherwise….Viva Obama in 2012. And if he gets away with THAT, what’s to stop him from becoming president for LIFE? He is thumbing his nose at America. Will you let this stand?
No normal American is going to support a communist who has spent the last two and a half years methodically destroying our economy and our way of life. Consequently, Obama is importing hordes of new supporters. Illegal aliens, despite committing a crime even by being here, consume massive quantities of welfare spending. To keep the free money flowing from one generation to another, they will vote for Democrats no matter how vile that party has become.
You say illegal aliens can’t vote? Sure, they can’t collect welfare either. Why do you think Democrats fight tooth and nail against any law that would make voter fraud more difficult?
To no one’s surprise, our farcical “Homeland Security Director” Crappy Nappy Napolitano says that allowing Third World criminals to colonize our country will “enhance public safety.”
This new policy strikes at a fundamental underpinning of our nation – the rule of law. It rewards illegality and lawbreakers, encourages even more aliens to enter the United States illegally, and comes at a time when President Obama has started his reelection campaign with such a low approval rating, that it is essential that he get a substantial majority of the Hispanic vote to serve a second term. It is another shameful instance of putting politics before the law.
Isn’t it interesting to hear the ruling class of the biggest, richest, most indebted country in the history of the world complain about “limited resources” for border security? They’ve got tons of resources to create “green jobs” at $2 million apiece, and send the President around the country on political junkets in million-dollar luxury buses. How many resources would be freed up if we got rid of, say, the White House Director of Intergovernmental Affairs, and most of the intergovernmental affairs she directs? How many Border Patrol agents could we hire if we scuttled Obama’s high-speed rail project?
This is how Big Government operates: limitless debt to fund its ideological preferences, but turned-out pockets filled with nothing but lint when it comes to carrying out Constitutional obligations that might displease certain useful voting blocs. Money is no object to the desires of the ruling class, but the resources to fulfill their duties are always painfully limited. It’s a long way from Martha’s Vineyard to El Paso.
THE PRESIDENT: Believe me — believe me, the idea of doing things on my own is very tempting. (Laughter.) I promise you. Not just on immigration reform. (Laughter.) But that’s not how — that’s not how our system works.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Change it!
But, that was way back in July.
Yesterday, Barack Obama took the law into his own hands and halted deportation proceedings of illegal aliens on a case by case basis.
He changed the laws on his own.
The Obama administration says its new deportation policy will focus only on the worst criminals, not college kids and maids. But that could make the jobs of law enforcement – from local cops to federal agents – much more complicated.
Ironically, the very illegals that remain in the country as a result of Obama’s shirking of his constitutional duties, will receive healthcare benefits from the unconstitutional Obamacare. Remember when Obama claimed that illegals would be barred from those benefits? Well, as Congressman Joe Wilson so presciently and succinctly declared, “YOU LIE.” I guess the real question is this: does an illegal have the authority to opt out of the individual mandate? Or can they play both sides of this lawlessness?
Not only has this president refused to uphold our immigration laws; he has thwarted the states and law enforcement agencies from doing so. He has taken the unprecedented step of siding with foreign nations and suing two of our states for upholding the laws that he refuses to recognize. This is the most profound and dangerous form of extremism in our government today, as it undermines the very core of our political system.
What if citizens would stop paying taxes, or refuse to participate in Social Security? If the executive branch can countermand a law of Congress, why can’t the voters – those who grant Congress its authority – do the same?
This administration is setting a dangerous precedent.
Surprise! HHS still granting ObamaCare waivers
We still don’t know what criteria these applicants met to get out from under ObamaCare’s rules on premiums-to-payments ratios. We still don’t know who didn’t get waivers, and why they were denied. No one has explained how unions seemed to be favored in these waivers, although we can probably guess why. And we still don’t know why these waivers can get extended for the next three years, while other plans will be locked out of waiver applications, even though they may be just as or more deserving of a free pass as those who have them now, or how HHS will decide on waiver extensions.
I’d guess that the lack of transparency means a great deal of brown-nosing is part of the process, as it always is when the Rule of Whim replaces the Rule of Law.
Another byproduct of Obamacare and massive overregulation by the Obama regime: Scrambling for cancer drugs
“This is a completely new phenomenon that’s started happening in the last, I’d say, 12 to 24 months,’’ Erban added. One of the main frustrations, doctors said, is that there is often limited information about the cause of the shortage.
Predictable: Obama HHS Caught Illegally Campaigning For Democrats
It is supposed to be illegal to use taxpayer dollars to fund political propaganda. Not for this regime!
A Politicized Justice Department Strikes Again
The Obama administration offers extensive federal support to abortion advocates and organizations, while using federal resources to target pro-lifers. It should come as no surprise that this politicized Justice Department is willing to abuse federal law to suppress anti-abortion views.
It forgets that compassionate sidewalk counselors, too, have rights — including the right to be free from government intimidation when engaging in free speech.
Obama Signs Executive Order to Trim Diversify Federal Work Force
Read the above percentages again. They’re fairly close to the breakdown of the general population — with the government actually employing a higher percentage of African-Americans than are in the population in general. The “diversity” of Federal employees does seem to reflect the makeup of the country — so what’s with the “Executive Order”? Sounds like even more mandated racism is on the way. And I’m sure it has nothing to do with warding off the Black Caucus’s impending mutiny against Obama — not at all… just a coincidence I’m sure.
Of Course! Obama Orders New Plan to ‘Diversify’ Federal Workforce – aka Whites Need Not Apply
As usual, this is being done by executive fiat via an unconstitutional executive order that directly contradicts the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment to the US Constitution.
Rep. John Dingell (D-Inosaur) Upset at Cancellation of House ‘Page Program’
Dingell hasn’t been this angry since Champ Clark crap-canned the Horse & Buggy Chauffeur Program, forcing him to have to learn how to drive his own damn carriage.
I honestly didn’t know there still was a “Page Program” in the House — haven’t heard about it since the Mark Foley incident — but that doesn’t matter, because there isn’t anymore, and Dingell isn’t happy about it
Turns Out Head Start’s as Bad as It Always Was
In other words, it is a perfect federal program — large and getting larger, entrenched, costly, and ineffective. It encroaches ever more into and absorbs the role of the nuclear family and further allows parents to relinquish their responsibilities of raising their own children.
May we take some solace in finally hoping that even hard-line leftists like Mr. Klein have belatedly seen the glaring light? Now he admits that community action programs such as Head Start are “little more than patronage troughs for local Democrat Party honchos … far more adept at dispensing make-work jobs than mastering the subtle nuances of early education.”
His remedy? Simply transfer the Head Start carcass from HHS to the Department of Education, which has distinguished itself by driving urban public education into the sewer, and Head Start will be miraculously resuscitated.
Head Start is a poster child for all that is broken with our government’s social engineering. But don’t look for the slightest change to be made in this aged remnant of the Great Society that rewards all the wrong people for all the wrong reasons.
But we have a fundamental divide in this country over which is to be the master of which, the people or the federal government.
Such divides in the past have not been bridged except by filling them up with the bodies of countless millions, of the guilty and the innocent.
May God have mercy on my country and its people and spare us the bloody agony of civil war.
I rather suspect, however, that He won’t.Not this time.
The Most Corrupt Woman in Congress addresses the Democrat party’s purple shirted army of thugs. Remember what the “White House Insider” said… Maxine Waters: ‘The tea party can go straight to hell’
“I’m not afraid of anybody,” the California congresswoman told constituents in footage that appeared on ABC affiliate KABC in Los Angeles, not backing down from comments made about President Obama earlier in the week. “This is a tough game. You can’t be intimidated. You can’t be frightened. And as far as I’m concerned — the tea party can go straight to hell.” (RELATED: House ethics committee hires outside counsel for Waters case)
That proclamation was met with cheers from the audience, including attendees adorning purple SEIU T-shirts.
A reminder that Maxine Waters is a member in good standing with this exclusive club… Socialist Party Of America Publishes Member List: Includes 70 Democrat Congressmen And Congresswomen
2012: The Fork in the Road…
So with an Obama reelection no longer priced in by the market as a more than likely event, we wonder what is next up the administration’s sleeve to pull itself by its bootstraps out of the current popularity slump: QE3 may or may not come, but by the time election 2012 rolls around, Bernanke will need to have launched QE4 and 5, in order to simply keep the market where it is. And, obviously, any short-term boost to Obama’s popularity courtesy of exterminating most wanted terrorist #1 is now in the past, without any clear public enemies on the horizon. Which leaves the next fallback plan: declare war on a country that is on the receiving end of a media propaganda onslaught.
Something Strange Afoot in the Obama Campaign (Via Hillbuzz)
Something strange is afoot in a Presidential campaign. To be specific, something odd is going on within President Barack Obama’s reelection campaign.
It’s enough to make a person wonder if — with the President’s approval numbers now at an all time low — there’s an escape plan being hatched for the 44th President.
I disagree with him about Clinton, it is too late for her to salvage any hopes for running and winning. She has slept with the Obama regime too long and is now infested with its ticks and fleas. After what we have all seen out of her State Department over the last three years her “3am phone call’ ad will be used against her, plus there is a possibility that she will be prosecuted for her role in Gunwalker/Fast and Furious… What if Obama quit?
But the decision may end up being out of his hands if the political environment doesn’t improve. Obama’s numbers are plummeting in places Democrats can hardly afford to lose. In Pennsylvania, where Obama will top a ticket that also includes Bob Casey’s bid for a second Senate term, he’s either at 43% approval (Quinnipiac) or at 35% (Muhlenberg). Wisconsin turned Republican last year and a series of elections this year confirmed it, and Herb Kohl’s seat in the Senate is up for grabs. Obama can be expected to drag down the ticket in Virginia (James Webb’s seat is open), Florida (Bill Nelson), Ohio (Sherrod Brown), Maryland (Ben Cardin), and Michigan (Debbie Stabenow). Obama is underwater in New York and New Jersey already, two normally staunch Democratic states, both with Senate races on the line as well. If Obama runs at the top of those tickets, he might eke out victories in the two states, but his presence on the ticket will depress Democratic turnout and mightendanger Kirsten Gillibrand and Robert Menendez; Democrats would almost certainly have to spend a ton of money to bolster them that they’d normally spend elsewhere.
Democrats will be looking at a massacre in the Senate, and that’s not even including already-endangered seats in Nebraska, Missouri, Montana, and New Mexico, which just elected its first Republican woman governor last year. Democrats could wind up losing enough seats to give Republicans a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate if Obama chases away the white working-class vote that he’s been alienating for the past two years on ObamaCare and now his disastrous economic performance. If unemployment starts rising and growth remains low in the next few months, Democrats may insist on Obama finding a graceful exit before the primaries.
And guess who that leaves with an open path to the Democratic nomination? Hillary Clinton.
A classic Boortz rant (clip and save)
I can understand why you would want to reject this scenario out of hand. Simply put, most Americans just can’t bring themselves to believe that the man who occupies the Oval Office could be a Marxist revolutionary dedicated to the destruction of Capitalism. There are dots here, my friends. Many dots. Just connect them. The image you will see isn’t the dollar sign. It looks more like a hammer and sickle.
The Curious Case of the Obama-Osama Movie
“There is every reason to believe that this Administration is pressuring legitimate arms of the government to assist popular culture in the making of a propaganda film.”
The MSM has spent more time digging into Sarah Palin and Rick Perry’s past then they ever have into Obama’s. What is it that the MSM and Obama are hiding? Rush Limbaugh Asks Where’s Obama’s Former Girlfriends?
Rush Limbaugh is asking, where are the people in Barack Obama’s past? Where are the girls he dated once upon a time? Where are the students who were so inspired by his professorship? I’m asking, and been asking for a long time, where are the welfare mothers whom he taught to knock on the doors of City Halls to demand more, more more? Where are the secretaries who might share a few tales of Obama’s summer days at the law firms of Sidley Austin and Hopkins and Sutter? Where are the guys he worked with as President of the Harvard Law Review? And last, but certainly not least, where are the Trinity United Church of Christ members who shared a pew with Obama and family for those long 20 years. Stories from a church dinner? Stories of Obama delivering turkeys at Thanksgiving and gifts for the poor at Christmas, as many of us do through our Sunday School classes? Stories of the beautiful family working at Vacation Bible School, or Michelle picking up the girls, or Obama finding fellowship with the TUCC mens groups?
Obama got mostly Ds and Fs all through college and law school
The media tries to convince the public that Obama is some sort of genius, but there’s no transcripts or other official records to prove that. Yet, they’re allowed to make their grand assumptions about Obama, and then foist them on us.
Shouldn’t this work the other way, too?
Obama got mostly Ds and Fs all through college and law school, and that’s the reality I will operate under until his transcripts and other official records are produced to show me otherwise. I will, of course, be glad to recant my take on this should Occidental College, Columbia University, and Harvard Law School prove to America that Obama made better grades in their institutions than the Ds or Fs his performance as president lead me to believe he earned.
Because either this incompetent, narcissistic bungler was given an Affirmative Action pass his entire life, which prevented him from being flunked out of every school he attended, or the schools themselves aren’t worth the parchment their academically unrigorously obtained diplomas are printed on.
Obama’s Support Among Hispanics Drops 36 Points
I guess the Panderer-in-Chief’s decision to stop deporting illegal aliens has nothing to do with this, right?
Only 49 percent of Hispanic Americans said last week they approve of the job Barack Obama is doing as president, according to the Gallup poll. That is down 36 points from the high of 85 percent that Obama’s approval hit among Hispanics in the Gallup poll in the spring of 2009, his first year as president.
Obama’s approval among Hispanics hit an all-time low of 45 percent in the last week of July, according to Gallup. It has rebounded modestly since then.
Call me cynical, but this sure looks like backdoor amnesty.
Gallup: Latino Approval of Obama Plunges to 49%
The survey was conducted before Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano’s announcement Thursday that the department no longer will depart illegal aliens who meet certain criteria, such as attending school, having family members in the U.S. military, or who are primarily responsible for other family members’ care.
Obama’s Amnesty for Latinos Throws Blacks Under The Bus: Blacks an Assumed Vote?
If Democrats Really Told the Truth…….
Is anybody better off than they were two years ago? Can anybody imagine how bad things will be after two additional years with Obama at the reigns? He threw billions of dollars at a problem with a private sector solutions, on the verge of a debt fiasco. Instead of leading, he played golf and left the important decisions up to other people. He is now in his 3rd year of office, and the W. excuse is running real thin. Now he is shifting the blame on the Tea Party, a group whose only sin is organizing, demonstrating, and demanding that the government stop running a deficit. To use a football analogy, Obama took a 6-10 Bush economy and turned it into a 2-14 team.
As President, Obama is about as popular as a Cows**t sandwich, and shows all the political skill of a deaf and blind amputee gearing up to play a piano concerto. He will need that same misinformed masses that came out for him 3 years ago to come out again, if he wants to keep his job.
Disillusioned Democrats for whom?
Who runs the White House? David Plouffe, whose job it is to make sure that every word, every action of the president is calculated for electoral gain rather than the country’s needs.
This seems entirely accurate. I find it hard to believe that Austan Goolsbee, Jack Lew or Gene Sperling couldn’t have come up with a credible 2012 budget or an impressive attempt at entitlement reform. They probably did. But the decision to in essence do nothing, and later to blow up the “grand bargain” talks with House Speaker John Boehner, were political decisions. The recent bus tour was undiluted politics. And we can expect that Obama’s speech in September will be more of the same.
The economy is melting down before our eyes, so what will Obama offer? Maybe another trillion-dollar “stimulus,” which as Sachs pointed out, didn’t work the first time and would, frankly, be even more ludicrous this time as the 12-member supercommittee works on cutting spending. He could urge more tax hikes, but even Plouffe might object that horrified investors and a cascading stock market would be a political downer. He could throw in all the scrap he’s been keeping in the cupboard ( e.g. infrastructure bank, patent reform). But his Lilliputian proposals are becoming a sign of his own dwarfed stature.
So what are Sachs and other disillusioned Democrats to do? Normally an ineffective president who has failed to ignite his base faces a primary challenge. That’s not happening here. The alternative would be to sit on their hands and close their wallets in 2012, focusing on trying to elect more liberal members of the House and Senate.
This is one of those little things that tells a big story. If the Democrats are afraid of losing a seat in the heart of blueness it does not bode well for 2012… Democrats Panicking Over Losing Weiner Seat
Maybe the folks in Brooklyn and Queens ought to make this a referendum on the failed Obama presidency. Considering he’s at a meager 36% approval in New York, a victory for GOP candidate Bob Turner would send shockwaves nationwide. So naturally the Dems are pulling out all stops
Obama approval rating in PA plummets to … 35%
In the beginning of this month, a Quinnipiac poll had Obama at a 43/54 approval rating and a virtual tie with … Rick Santorum. His re-elect number was slightly lower than that, at 42%, and the best Obama could do in head-to-head matchups was a 47% against Michele Bachmann in the state. It’s even worse in the Muhlenberg College poll:
If there is any silver lining in the poll for Obama, it’s that 31 percent of Pennsylvanians say their vote in November 2012 will depend on who the Republican candidate is. And Obama still slightly edges out an anonymous GOP contender 36 percent to 31 percent.
That’s not a silver lining, it’s a pair of lead electoral shoes. In politics, we have a term for incumbents who can only get 36% in re-elect polls: former officeholders. Voters already know the incumbents, which is why undecideds break heavily towards challengers. In a deep-blue state like Pennsylvania, a 36% is going to mean a blowout for Obama in all the wrong ways.
Democratic rep: I’m thinking next year Obama might lose … Oregon
If you’re wondering why Captain Civility spent most of his bus tour questioning the patriotism of congressional Republicans (without having the stones to name them, of course), this is why. It’s chum for liberals and left-leaning independents who might be temporarily disaffected by the debt-ceiling deal, even though he knows full well they’ll come around next year when the Democrats’ message team starts Palinizing the Republican nominee in earnest. Just one teensy question: Why should we believe that it’s the debt-ceiling bargain and not, oh, say, the rising threat of a new recession that has Democrats demoralized? Have a look at the graphs for Obama’s overall approval rating and his approval on the economy. He held on through the spring when economic indicators were “eh” but still conducive to the White House’s slow-but-steady-growth narrative. Within the last three months, as the numbers turned grim and alarms about a double dip began to sound, he’s spiked in all the wrong ways. Who can blame some liberals for suddenly feeling unenthused about voting for another four years of this? They need to pay their bills too, however evil those darned wingnuts are.
Despite its association with the Daily Kos, I like the Public Policy Polling polls. Maybe because the polling company lives among West Virginia’s cousins in North Carolina. Maybe because its blogger, Tom Jensen, does not spin all that much. While others are reading the entrails of the presidential job approval to divine the 2012 outcome, Public Policy Polling is looking at voter intensity. And Tom Jensen is not liking what the polls are showing. Less than half of Obama’s supporters are “very excited” about voting. As Tom Jensen reported: “It had seemed earlier in the year like Democrats had overcome the ‘enthusiasm gap’ that caused so much of their trouble in last year’s elections. But now 54% of Republicans say they’re ‘very excited’ about casting their ballots next year, indicating that the problem may be back.”
So how important is voter enthusiasm? Watch how many negative ads there are. Negative ads are not designed to change anyone’s mind, but rather to demoralize the other side. When George Bush’s DUI arrest in 1976 became public in 2000, I almost didn’t vote.
That is how it works.
Obama loses his rock star status…literally.
Anyway, I have always had great respect for Kiss’ front-man, Gene Simmons. He was born in Israel to parents who were Nazi concentration camp survivors. He not only has a college degree (in Education) but he’s a very shrewd businessman. He describes himself as a “social liberal” but has voted for conservative candidates in the past. He’s considered to be fairly influential in the Jewish community and is always welcomed with open arms when he returns to Israel for visits.
This is why people were surprised when he tweeted that Rick Perry would be the next President of the United States….
Considering Rick Perry is so socially conservative, you would think that Simmons would support someone like Mitt Romney
Republicans Face Tea Party-Style Astroturf Protests From Union Goons & Far Left Groups (Video)
Republicans are expected to face
tea party-styleastroturf protests from union goons & far left groups this Congressional break.The astroturf mobs already held a protest outside of a Boehner fundraiser in Wayzata, Minnesota this week.
Notice all of the union shirts at the rally – It makes you wonder how many of these far left protesters were on the clock, huh?Look for the democrat-media complex to call these astroturfed mobs a “grassroots” uprising against GOP policies… Just like they did earlier this year.
Pelosi Heckled for Voting for ‘Satan Sandwich with Side of Satan Fries’
Do you think Botoxi the Clown is thrilled with Obama for encouraging his dwindling minions to go express their outrage at GOP and Democrat townhalls?
It wouldn’t be a bad slogan for the Republicans. It certainly captures what we’re thinking. There is no alternative to a return to limited government and free market economics other than the stasis, socialism, insolvency, inflation, and incipient penury that are the fruit of the Obama administration at home. Abroad Obama brings us the national decline that perfectly complements his domestic ambitions and accomplishments.
Wow! Sarah Palin Releases “Iowa Passion” (Video)
Meanwhile… Sarah Palin’s September 3 event has been relocated from Waukee to Indianola to accommodate a larger crowd.
Palin rips ‘arrogance’ of Obama’s reaction to Perry, still considering 2012 run
On the Fox News Channel’s “America Live” Thursday, Palin applauded Perry and chided President Obama for ignoring the American economy.
“More power to Rick Perry for calling it like he saw it,” Palin said.
“What Rick Perry had to say is what I wrote 10 months ago about quantitative easing,” she added.
“What Rick Perry was talking about is what many of us have been talking about for many many months and that is the danger of now a QE3 program being put into place. And he used that type of rascal sort of rhetoric he uses there in Texas. And evidently the president took some issue to that. But, it’s evidence of our president’s arrogance unfortunately, to tell a presidential candidate what to say, what not to say.”
Progressives finding real-deal Perry scary
On the Nature of the Perry Attacks
So there are scores and scores of Republican consultants who have scores to settle with Rick Perry and his team. And for guys like Karl Rove, if Perry were to win the White House, Karl and a few others would see themselves shut out of White House business for at least four years.
Rick Perry may be the only guy in America to have beaten both Karl Rove and also Obama’s own consultant, David Axelrod.
So there’s a lot of score settling in a lot of the attacks. Next time you hear some Republican consultant say Rick Perry can’t win because he is too much of a cowboy, understand that it is probably a national Republican consultant fearful they will be shut out of work if Perry wins and, more importantly, understand that the same dynamics were in place in 1980 with Reagan’s “boys from California” team of consultants and the national consultants back them said the same about Reagan — he’s too much of a cowboy conservative who will alienate key voting blocks.
That’s not to say Perry is Reagan. It is to say the GOP national consultants have been pulling the same stuff since 1980.
Getting ugly in Texas – Karl Rove and the Democrats desperate to stop the Rick Perry posse
The Texas governor’s rough edges or some other factor may yet be his downfall. But the approach of the Perry posse signals not just a threat to Obama’s White House but also to the Republican ranch that Rove built for Bush. If Perry’s first week on the campaign trail is anything to go by, he’s prepared to set them both alight.
The inside the beltway/bleu state ‘cocktail party’ wing of the Republican party has their panties in a bunch. Congressional Republicans to Perry: Tone it down
C’mon. His cowboy image is half the reason the base is excited about him. And surely the dreaded GOP establishment on the Hill understands that they’re only doing him a favor with the base by trying to shush him. If you thought yesterday’s quasi-endorsement of Perry by Obama’s team was campaign gold, imagine what it’ll do for him once word gets out that those darned RINOs on the Beltway cocktail-party circuit wish he would go easy on the rhetoric. They’re throwing him in the briar patch here and they must know it.
No wonder the inside the beltway/bleu state ‘cocktail party’ wing of the Republican party wants Perry to ‘tone it down’… Perry sounds off on immigration, war
Responding to POLITICO’s report that Republicans in Congress were worried about the comments, Perry said, “You know, I’m sorry if I offended a congressman, but the fact of the matter is I’m about representing the American people out here. And the American people are really concerned and scared.
Small businessmen and women are frightened about the monetary policy or the lack thereof with this administration.”
Could President Perry carry a gun?
The Secret Service, however, could make a very serious argument that the president shouldn’t be carrying a weapon for his own protection. Remember, a spirited debate broke out in the days leading up to President Obama’s inauguration over whether he would be forced to surrender his Blackberry for security concerns. (In the end, Obama got to keep his Blackberry, but under certain conditions.) If a Blackberry’s almost off limits, you can imagine how the Secret Service might react if the president wanted to pack a Glock.
Well, President Obama’s decision to accept some restrictions on his Blackberry was his choice, presumably made after considering the advice of the Secret Service. The President is in charge of the Secret Service, and not vice versa. The Secret Service cannot “force” him to do anything. They’re not a Praetorian Guard. So when First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt refused to allow the Secret Service to drive for her, or even accompany her, as she traveled around the United States, there was nothing the Secret Service could do about it. The Secret Service did urge her to carry a concealed handgun, and learn how to use it, and she took their advice. After the assassination of President William McKinley, new President Theodore Roosevelt started carrying his own handgun for protection.
As far as we know, there is not a shred of evidence that concealed carry by either Roosevelt had any negative impact on their security. So there’s no reason to imagine that the Secret Service would have a good reason to urge President Perry not to carry a handgun. Unlike a Blackberry, a handgun does not send wireless communications which could be intercepted by foreign spies, nor does it contain a GPS device which can reveal the user’s location.
So it’s clear that not only does Duncan not know that Texas performs at the national average (whether or not one finds the national average acceptable), Duncan is apparently unaware that the school system he led is significantly worse than the national average. Let’s not forget that while Perry, as governor, has responsibility for the performance of the state government that has some responsibilities for school systems, Duncan was running the actual school system in Chicago. Despite this, and despite picking this fight himself, Duncan is entirely ignorant of the results of his own work and its comparison to Texas.
And Obama hand-picked the man who produced a 56% graduation rate result, and who started this argument without knowing the facts, as the man to run the federal government’s education bureaucracy.
And these people want to lecture Perry about education?
Duncan gets a good, solid F for this test.
Today’s Big Media Hit Piece… “7 Ways Rick Perry Wants to Change Constitution”
The slander continues…
The democrat-media complex will not rest until they destroy every viable Republican candidate for president. It doesn’t matter if they bring the country down with them, or not.
Today the media wants you to believe that Governor Rick Perry Wants to changes the US Constitution.
7 Ways.This is one of the top news stories on Yahoo.
Perry wants to protect and preserve the Constitution. He wants to save it from liberals who believe the Constitution gives them permission to force you to buy state-run health insurance.
That’s what Perry wants.
These progressive radicals have no shame.
Rick Perry Is Not the ’5th Column Candidate’
While Salon gleefully noted the criticism of Perry from the right in its inevitable follow-up, “Shariah foes seize on Perry’s ties to Muslims,” this manufactured story created an inconsequential dust-up in the blogosphere instead of the desired conservative crack-up. For the left, as well as the Muslim Brotherhood-linked groups vying to take advantage of the fallout, a large-scale manufactured fight among conservatives is tantalizing. By their calculation, the release of tension here can only follow two paths: (1) Perry brushes off the attacks against him from a small number of bloggers on the right, who continue to marginalize themselves with hyperbolic pronouncements about his “fifth column candidacy”; or (2) Perry listens to these conservative bloggers, repudiates his outreach to the Ismaili community in Texas, and leaves himself open to a vicious assault from the media, including demands he make amends — like Herman Cain did — to the most vocal and aggressive Muslim Brotherhood-linked groups like the Islamic Society of North America.
The governor, I predict, will take the first option. Fortunately, he is astute enough to stay above the fray on the issue, with a spokesperson commenting simply,
Gov. Perry took an oath to uphold the U.S. and Texas constitutions, and the principles enumerated in those documents are what guide his leadership.
And, as more respected commentators dismiss the assertions leveled against Perry by these bloggers (or, as is more likely, ignore it altogether), the left will have lost this wedge issue. Let’s hope they do.
Well, it did not take long for the liberal elitist snobs to start to toss the “I” word around, did it? Take a look at what the Ivy League infested SmartestPresidentandAdminstration Evah!™ has done to this country over the past five years (all this started when the Pelosi/Reid Democrats took the majority in the legislative branch in 2006) and what has happened in Texas during that time and then tell me who the real ‘idiots’ are. As my dad used to say “There is a difference between ‘booksmart’ and ‘streetsmart’-always go with the guy that is ‘streetsmart’ because he actually knows how to get things done.”… ‘Idiot’ jab lobbed at Perry
Chris Christie: Climate Change is Real, Humans Contribute
“I can’t claim to fully understand all of this,” he said. “Certainly not after just a few months of study. But when you have over 90 percent of the world’s scientists who have studied this stating that climate change is occurring and that humans play a contributing role it’s time to defer to the experts.”
He added that climate science is complex and “we know enough to know that we are at least part of the problem.”
Defer to the experts? No thanks.
Ann Coulter says Christie is the only Republican who can defeat President Obama next November, but if he’s going to keep talking like this, I beg to differ (I beg to differ anyway, but especially now).
Of course, there’s always a chance that Christie’s just tired of Republicans wondering if he’s going to run for president and this is his way of getting them to stop asking.
Cats are Republicans, dogs are Dems
Unlike dogs, cats have not had the ability to hunt bred out of them. I mean dogs can hunt, but only to chase their prey up a tree.
Cats finish the job. They are natural proponents of the Second Amendment. If they could get their paws around a trigger, they’d shoot to kill. Dogs are born skeet shooters – fishermen who throw their catch back in the lake.
What’s more, cats would gladly enforce the death penalty. Particularly for dogs.
Cats favor a foreign policy that is so assertive they sometimes need to be declawed. Dogs run together in a U.N.-style “dog park,” where they willingly submit to an overseeing body of owners whom they charge with keeping the peace.
Gunwalker/Fast & Furious/Castaway
ATF guns traced to 12 US crime sites
Firearms illegally trafficked under the federal government’s Fast and Furious program turned up at the scenes of at least 11 “violent crimes” in this country, in addition to being involved in the death of a U.S. Border Patrol agent in Southern Arizona last year, the Justice Department has acknowledged to Congress.
Although Justice did not provide any details about those crime scenes, it has been learned that the additional violent crimes occurred in cities such as Phoenix, where Operation Fast and Furious was managed, and as far away as El Paso, where a total of 42 Fast and Furious weapons were seized in two separate crimes.
Was Fast and Furious meant to flood the U.S. with Mexican refugees?
Thanks to Fast and Furious, the ATF shipped thousands of firearms across the border where many thousands of Mexicans were killed in drug wars, their deaths blamed on the influx of these weapons.
So as illegals stream into the US, what better way for Obama to confer refugee status than to portray the Mexican homeland as unsafe, thanks of course to weak American gun laws which permitted this dangerous flow of weapons into the country.
And the real kicker? By sheer COINCIDENCE of course, in March of this year Senator Patrick Leahy and Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren submitted their Refugee Protection Act.
Among its principle provisions:that asylum seekers no longer have to make their claim within one year of entry into the US; that claims can be filed even without proof of prosecution; that free counsel will be provided; and that refugees will receive a “settlement grant” along with cost of living increases and adjustments for inflation!
Justice Department correcting ‘Fast and Furious’ figures
Sean Hannity Tackles Operation Fast & Furious
The liberal establishment media has been playing down Obama’s Watergate to the best of its ability. Ironically, this may serve to delay the full impact of the gunrunning bombshell until closer to the election. Meanwhile Sean Hannity does the heavy lifting while the “mainstream” media ducks and evades
Dallas morning News Editorial: Details only get worse from ATF’s Fast and Furious fiasco.
Finding someone to stand up and take responsibility for the feds’ ill-advised gun-walk-to-Mexico program has been anything but fast. Only the denying, obfuscating and bus-throwing-under has been furious.
Months into a congressional investigation into Project Gunrunner and its Arizona-led wing, Operation Fast and Furious, we know only a little more. In large part, this is because Attorney General Eric Holder and his Department of Justice have expended far more energy covering up than coming clean.
The NYT files: More than 13 errors in front-page piece about Issa
Darrell Issa Sticks It to the Times
“Looking” isn’t exactly the right word; let’s say he went “trolling.” We have written a number of times about how the relatively respectable left-wing organs, like the New York Times, the Washington Post and MSNBC, rely on the far-left blogosphere for material. They monitor the crazy stuff that the Daily Kos, Democratic Underground, Think Progress, etc., spew out, and if they see something they think they can turn into a plausible story, they steal it.
That is what happened here. It started at Think Progress, where cub reporter Lee Fang wrote an article in March claiming that Congressman Issa had secured earmarks for highway construction that benefited properties he owns in his San Diego district. Lichtblau picked up Fang’s “research” and amplified it in a hit piece in the Times. Of course, as we have often noted, one of the problems with lifting stories from the fever swamp is that they generally turn out to be wrong.
Before getting to Lichtblau’s errors, however, a more basic point: his story in the Times is intended to put Issa in a bad light and to imply some sort of wrongdoing on Issa’s part. But if you read to the end of the article, the question that will occur to you is, What was the point? Where was the wrongdoing? There isn’t any alleged. Lichtblau’s article is sheer atmospherics; it attempts to portray Issa as a shady character without offering facts in support of that characterization.
The war that dares not speak its name…US and Libya:
Happy 5th Month On Your Libyan Kinetic Military Operations Adventure, Mr. Obama!
On March 19th, Obama’s Big War Of Choice, er, kinetic military operations, against Libya started. Something about protecting human rights. Peace through superior firepower. Oh, and keeping the oil flowing to Britain and France.
For some reason the Associated Press considers this news.
*crickets*
Look for the Union Label/Whackademia:
Look for the Union Label, and Look Out for Violence!
The country saw plenty of ugly union violence in Wisconsin as public sector unions fought to protect the benefits that states could no longer afford. In Michigan last week, a non-union business owner was shot outside his home, and the word “SCAB” was scratched into the side of his car. In Virginia, phone and cable lines were slashed, cutting off service to Verizon customers in dozens of neighborhoods. In the case of Verizon, striking members are land-line workers engaged in a fight over benefit payments. But Verizon is not making money from land-line customers.
Union membership is apt to decline in economic downturns. Add to that the recent failure of the Wisconsin election in spite of vast union money spent, and unions are concerned about their future. The strong-arm tactics that once scared people into agreeing to union demands, are now recorded on videos that reach everyone, and repulse workers who might consider union membership. The scenes of unionized public school teachers in Wisconsin carrying vulgar signs and screaming obscenities to protect “their union rights,”would surely make many a parent consider home schooling.
Cell phone pictures, recordings, and YouTube videos are changing public perceptions in ways that unions and politicians have yet to realize. What sounded like a good idea in the union hall may not look so attractive in a video that goes viral.
Giant Inflatable Rat Sighting! Striking Union Thugs Protest Outside Verizon Exec’s Home: “We’re Here to Fight” (Video)
Members of IBEW camp out in front of the private residence of a Verizon VP and fill the neighborhood with shouts and chants. This follows the latest trend of protesters invading the neighborhoods of their adversaries disturbing the peace of their neighbors and family members. This time, the IBEW brought a giant, inflatable rat.
The union members belonged to Local 1827 IBEW.
They must be very proud. The leftist goons do this in Cuba, too.
Role Reversal: Striking Verizon ‘Worker’ Takes a Beating on Long Island
Well, these things can happen when you run around announcing we’re here to fight. Sometimes people punch back twice as hard.
Oh well.
After weeks of threats, harassment, intimidation, cutting power lines, putting little girls in front of trucks, picketing outside people’s homes and overall thuggish behavior, one of them finally gets a punch in the mouth. Now they’ll play the sympathy card. Good luck with that. About time someone stood up to these punks.
In Other News…
Giffords is now aware of who died in massacre
For nearly seven months, U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was intentionally kept in the dark about the six people who died in the Jan. 8 shooting spree near Tucson.
Although Giffords knew that she had been shot and that six people had died, her family, staff and friends wanted to wait until she had recovered enough from her own gunshot wound to the head before revealing the horrible details to her.
Now, she finally knows the full extent of the rampage and that among the dead are her loyal aide Gabe Zimmerman; U.S. District Judge John Roll, a close friend; and 9-year-old Christina-Taylor Green. Twelve others besides Giffords were wounded in the mass shooting at a Giffords constituent event outside a grocery store.
‘Racist!’ He cried…: A Thought-Terminating Cliché in Decline
Too often Modern Liberal arguments amount to nothing more than self-anointed moral rulings that certain people don’t at all have standing on various issues, especially race. These rulings are never ideologically neutral but, rather, are the notorious political weaponry of Saul Alinsky.
Once exclusively reserved for very effective use against unarmed conservatives, Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals” is now self-defeating his radical ideological progeny. Now those are ‘chickens come home to roost’ that can benefit America!
Ridicule is, according to Alinsky, man’s most potent weapon.
Highly effective also is Andrew Breitbart’s approach of keeping the pressure on by freezing the target and making them live up to their own book of rules:
It’s time to hit back at these people — that these people keep calling you a racist… Instead of slinking into the corner and crying or saying ‘I don’t like that,’ you walk straight towards them and confront them; and they’re bullies, they’re just bullies and bullies crumble when you hit them back.
Unity is overrated… Saddle up. Let’s Roll!
Pithmaster: Quotations from Chairman Reynolds
It never ceases to amaze me what a quote machine we have in Instapundit (aka Glenn Reynolds). The man rolls out more memorable one-liners in a day than the President of the United States has managed to do in…. well, his whole life to date.
Some people think this is easy to do…. until they try it day in and day out year after year. They usually fade somewhere before noon on day one.
Giving the pith and giving the gag and whipping the quip are talents that are both God-given and self-generated through discipline and a playful habit of mind. Here’s a selection from the current page of the last two and a half days of postings.
In related news…..LOLOLOLOL! Man Pretends To Be Hank Paulson To Make Fake $353,000 Mortgage Payment To Citi, Succeeds
Perhaps the most surreal fact about the case of 35 year old Bryan Gardner who back in 2009 sent CitiMortgage a $353,000 money order “drawn on the account of the ‘Secretary of the Treasury Hank M. Paulson, Jr.” in order to satisfy the final payment for a property in Bowie, Md, is that…. he succeeded. Fox Biz has more: “CitiMortgage erroneously accepted the document and credited Gardner’s mortgage account in full,” according to a Secret Service affidavit. Within months, Gardner sold the property for $254,900 and then “distributed the proceeds to others,” according to public records and the Secret Service affidavit. Investigators believe Gardner may have initially secured the mortgage under false pretenses. Through a spokesman, an FBI agent who investigates mortgage fraud said he was surprised the scheme succeeded, and a former Justice Department official who helped lead fraud enforcement efforts in the wake of the financial meltdown agreed, calling the approval of the money order “bizarre.” Perhaps what is more bizarre is just how a plan like this, which a 3 year old could concoct, but not even a 3 year old would be dumb enough to believe it would fly, actually succeeded. Just how big is the pool of “unclaimed” cash on deposit at CitiMortgage is there was i) no actual account was debited for the full amount and ii) nobody noticed that the Treasury department was paying off a private mortgage.
Unfortunately, we are confident that by the time the entire mortgage fraud house of cards is unwound, we will learn of cases in which President Lincoln personally prepaid mortgages closing in 2010. But have no fear: this is only money that will be funded out of the general Treasury ledger, and which you, dear taxpayer, will foot the bill for. Nobody else.
It gets even funnier as our law enforcers realize that merely the tip of the iceberg in mortgage fraud land is beyond ridiculous…
Another Reason Men are Fleeing Colleges
Pressured by the Obama administration, universities abandon any pretense of due process in sexual assault cases
Bloomberg: The Best Way to Create Jobs is to Open the Borders or Something
So let’s see. We have real unemployment at around 18%, the economy is in the toilet, wherever jobs open up huge lines form, so the best solution to all this mess is to open the borders and let anyone in.
Speaking of Bloomberg… When the State Takes the Children
New York should follow California’s approach to this issue–if the state can demonstrate actual harm to children from marijuana use, then a neglect case can be brought. Reporters should ask Mayor Michael Bloomberg whether his past drug use makes him unfit to be a parent or grandparent or to be in an occupation affecting the well-being of kids.
What’s the Hardest Part About Looking for a Job? You Told Us
His reply? “Dude, my boss is just going to have to get over it if he doesn’t like my tats.” Wrong, dude! Serious misunderstanding of how things work (and actually, a pretty good reason I wouldn’t hire the guy - not so much for the tattoos, but for what it suggests about his willingness to conform to the employer’s needs in other areas). While employers can’t (and shouldn’t) legally discriminate against you for your race, handicap, etc., I can assure you that there is no “Equal Employment Rights for Dudes with Cool Tats Act” as of today.
So if you think you are going to make a statement by having visible tattoos or a nose ring or long hair or a cool t-shirt when you show up for your interview, please be prepared for a long career in coffee service management, even if you went to Oberlin and got a degree in something really cool like jazz studies. The fact that you think that it’s wrong for the Man to judge you for your body art may get you street cred, but is not likely to get you a job in a place where people don’t wear jeans to work.
The Fall of the Midwest Economic Model
The Big Three auto companies, economist John Kenneth Galbraith wrote, could create endless demand for their products through manipulative advertising and planned obsolescence. The United Auto Workers would ensure that productivity gains would be shared by workers and the assembly line would never be speeded up. In those days, 40% of Michigan voters lived in union (mostly UAW) households, the base vote of a liberal Democratic Party that pushed for ever larger governments at the local, state and federal levels. You found similar alignments in most Midwestern states.
Liberals assumed the Michigan model was the wave of the future, and that in time—once someone built big factories and unions organized them—backward states like Texas would catch up. Texas liberal writers Ronnie Dugger and Molly Ivins kept looking for the liberal coalition of blacks, poor whites and Latinos that political scientist V.O. Key predicted in his 1940s classic “Southern Politics.”
History hasn’t worked out that way. In 1970, Michigan had nine million people. In 2010, it had 10 million. In 1970, Texas had 11 million people. In 2010, it had 25 million. In 1970, Detroit was the nation’s fifth-largest metro area. Today, metro Houston and the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex are both pressing the San Francisco Bay area for the No. 4 spot, and Detroit is far behind.
Not surprisingly they all just so happen to be bleu states… States Where No One Wants To Buy A New Home
Unfortunately they do not leave their leftist liberal nanny state attitudes and voting habits at the border. They are like Locusts-their attitudes and actions have destroyed their state and now they are moving on to destroy others… Stampeding out of NY
In a way, this isn’t news: For two decades, New York has led the nation in domestic outmigration — the percentage of residents leaving for other climes.
But the numbers aren’t looking any better these days. A May survey found that 36% of New Yorkers under 30 plan to flee the state because of high taxes, the crippling cost of living and a basic lack of jobs.
Now even the roads are falling apart in Detroit… SUV sucked underwater into a giant sinkhole
Obamanomics in Action: Houses in Baltimore Selling for Less Than $10,000
One of every 10 city homes sold during the first half of the year — about 275 in all — fell in that price range [below $10,000]. Twice as many sold for under $20,000. …
More city homes sold for less than $10,000 between January and June than in all of 2009 and 2010 combined. Dozens of city neighborhoods had at least one such sale this year.
As very cheap homes change hands, average sale prices in Baltimore have plummeted. Seventy city neighborhoods saw average prices drop more than 20 percent versus a year ago.
Another Flash Mobbery: Black Girls Loot DC Store (Video)
For the second time in a week, a flash mob robbed a convenience store in our area. Could it be a new trend in the Washington region?
In the latest incident, 10 women stormed the Shop Express convenience store along Benning Road in northeast Washington at about 3:15 a.m. Thursday.
They loaded up on food, drinks and snacks at different parts of the store.
Some of the women were carrying bags to hold some of the items. Then they all rushed out of the store at the same time without paying.
Don’t expect this to make the nightly news.
Protests, Flash Mobs Spark Controversy Over Communications Crackdowns
But the debate is not limited to the United Kingdom. Last week, San Francisco’s Bay Area Transit Authority turned off cell-phone service in some train stations to head off expected protests over police-involved shootings.
Civil libertarians blasted that decision, and the Federal Communications Commission launched an investigation. The American Civil Liberties Union called the move “glaringly small-minded” and said that disrupting communications is dangerous to democracy.
Countries around the world heavily control access to communications. Massive protests earlier this year prompted governments in Egypt, Libya, and other nations to shut down or restrict access to the Internet and wireless phone networks. Now, civil libertarians say, some of those issues are coming home to the United States.
Medical insurers win big in California Supreme Court decision
Their way of ‘facing reality’ is by giving excuses, appointing a ‘jobs czar’ and failing to realize that the decades of liberal leftist Democratic party rule has killed the goose that laid California’s golden eggs. We saw the same kind of crap in Michigan over the past decade under Grantholm… California politicians facing reality on economy
McDonnell announces $544.8 million budget surplus
Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) announced Thursday that Virginia has finished its fiscal year with a surplus of $544.8 million through higher-than-expected tax revenue and savings.
Last month, McDonnell announced that the state had a surplus of $311 million on June 30, the close of the year, but Thursday told legislators his administration has been able to save an additional $234.1 million.
Virginia law calls for the bulk of the money to be put into the state’s rainy day fund and spent on K-12 education, transportation and Chesapeake Bay cleanup.
Mr Clinton’s decision could also partly be explained by a recent interview in which he told how he would love to live long enough to be a granddad.
‘I just, one day I’ll probably get to be a crotchety old grandfather and have a lot of fun on the floor playing with kids, but that’s not up to me,’ he said.
Trig Palin sees each morning as an exciting chance to start new adventures, make new friends, and revel in the gift of life he was given. He is clearly not wasting a moment of his time here on this Earth and he is having an impact far greater than 99% of the gay guys here in Boystown will ever have.
Come to think of it, that’s probably why most of these bullies hate him so much.
They are jealous of his innate goodness and his obvious decency.
MSM Circus and Celebutard Side Show:
Chris Matthews Connects 9/11 To Bush’s August 2001 Vacation
How disgusting.
“Cruising white Midwestern hamlets in his black bus, Obama tried to justify not calling lawmakers back to D.C. by saying they’d just continue to bicker. But what does he think they’ll do in September? The truth is, he doesn’t want them back in the capital any more than they want to be back. It would have screwed up his vacation and upset Michelle, who already feels trapped in the Washington bubble.
If Clinton wanted to be president 25 hours a day and W. wanted to be president four hours a day, Obama wants to be president for about 14 hours a day. And that’s fine, as long as you don’t look like you’re phoning it in when the country is dialing 911.”
As the saying kind of goes, if you lose Maureen Dowd…
Just imagine what her sense of despair will be if the double-dip does arrive, and unemployment begins edging even higher next year as the nation prepares to head to the polls.
The question for many Americans that surveys show are well ahead of the media in their disappointment with this president is just how will his supporters in the press behave if economic conditions are indeed far worse when Election Day approaches.
Will they continue to back a man with obviously failed policies simply because the alternative is a Republican?
Smacking down Progressives of Pallor
Is there anything more condescending than a porcelain-skinned Hollywood liberal who attempts to show her presumed solidarity with minorities by referring to them as “people of color”?
Yes, there is: Two porcelain-skinned liberals attempting to show their allegiance to “diversity” by attacking “people of color” who happen to disagree with their radical politics.
Such an exchange took place on a little-watched television show on Al Gore’s obscure cable network Wednesday night. I am spotlighting the diatribe for you not because the speakers involved hold any sway with the American electorate, but because paternalistic racism is so prevalent among the media-entertainment elite.
And it’s about time someone knocked these self-appointed Saviors of the Oppressed off their high horses.
MSNBC Host: Obama’s Vacation In Middle Of His Own Depression OK Because Palin Quit Or Something
It makes no sense, and comes right out of left field. It’s like my worth noting right now that Obama quit his job as a US Senator from Illinois, Hillary Clinton quit her job as a US Senator from New York, Joe Biden quit his job as US Senator from Maryland, Rahm Emanuel quit his job as US Rep from Chicago, Ken Salazaar… oh you get the point!
Al Sharpton “The Dow is down 630%”
I hereby nominate our math club president, Al Sharpton for the position of United States Secretary of the Treasury!
Al Sharpton: Rick Perry’s ‘Swiftboating Obama’
Never mind that ‘swiftboating’ was coined after the swift boat vets for truth outed the truth about John Kerry in the 2004 Presidential election
I kept waiting and waiting for Totenberg to get to the part about the liberal justices. After loads of detail about the conservatives, all we got was one sentence:
The conservative watchdog group, Judicial Watch, has also suggested that Obama Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan should recuse herself from participating in any upcoming case challenging the Obama health care law, because she had been a legal official in the Obama administration.
Ridiculous!
Saturday Night Card Game (It’s only going to get worse)
Radical Muslims launch Jihad against David Letterman
Well, on the other side of the coin, Letterman now knows what it’s like to be the target of a Jihad, since he himself launched one against Sarah Palin and her daughters (even comparing her underage daughter Willow to a hooker at one point).
Global Warmening:
When the Green Glasses are Off, The Green Subsidies Don’t Look So Good.
Major flaw found in Arctic temperature reanalysis – exaggerates warming
Carbon Fees Are A Way To Pay Back Mother Nature
We therefore ask our government to collect the carbon fee in behalf of Mother Nature to protect us from those selfish and greedy exploiters, and to place that investment in renewable energy for our own survival. Mother Nature is already coming to collect for our past greed in the potential upheaval of climate change, but the short term greed and profit of our fossil fuel appetite is not paying the price. Our children will.
I think it is safe to assume that the writer, Bob Bruninga, thinks it is just fine to assess those fees on Someone Else, but, not him.
Dead Birds Unintended Consequence of Wind Power Development
“Politics plays a huge role here,” Smallwood said. “Our leaders want this power source so they’re giving, for a time being, a pass to the wind industry. If you or I killed an eagle, we’re looking at major consequences.”
The Sock Drawer:
The ship will set sail on August 29 with Happy Feet in a travel crate designed to keep him cold and comfortable during the voyage.
He will be released four days into the voyage near Campbell Island, within the natural feeding range of juvenile emperor penguins.
Wellington Zoo chief executive Karen Fifield says Happy Feet will be missed.
“I think we will all miss him. I think the world will miss him actually, but it’s ready for him to go back and be an emperor penguin.”
FM Served Up by the Decade: Check it out. Trust me on this. CHECK. IT. OUT.
The Fastnet Race is one of the world’s classic offshore sailing races. It is also one of the most dangerous and deadly… American crew members tell the story of their rescue off West Cork coast
Tornado chasers’ truck shoots Imax from inside storms (photos)
Don’t Drink and Drop Anchor! Drunk cruise passenger faces up to 20 years in jail after admitting dropping ship’s anchor in middle of Caribbean
Bedrock brakes… MI man goes Fred Flinstone, drives car without brakes, tries to stop with feet, predictable results
How to Survive an Accidental Plunge Over Niagara Falls
How to Survive an Elevator Free Fall
Top 10 Military Robots That You Wouldn’t Want to See Near Your House
13-Year-Old Looks at Trees, Makes Solar Power Breakthrough
Then he studied tree branches more closely and found their leaves adhered to the sequence. Then he figured out that if he arranged solar panels the way an oak tree arranged its leaves, they were 20 to 50 percent more efficient than the standard straight-line solar arrays. That is why the American Museum of Natural History gave him a Young Naturalist award, and published his findings on its website. His write-up concludes:
The tree design takes up less room than flat-panel arrays and works in spots that don’t have a full southern view. It collects more sunlight in winter. Shade and bad weather like snow don’t hurt it because the panels are not flat. It even looks nicer because it looks like a tree. A design like this may work better in urban areas where space and direct sunlight can be hard to find.
Not bad for a kid who hasn’t started high school yet.
Nasa craft tracks space storm from the sun until it engulfs Earth for the first time
WARNING: Graphic images! I’m supersizing to be the world’s fattest woman, says 52st mother of two (but she’s only halfway there)
A Saudi Arabian Phenomenon Revisited [Video]
I would love to see them try this with the Sister Kittehs of DOOM!™ Hello kitties! The fashion felines who will make your hair stand on end
