DUBOB 11- more tales from the Dark UnderBelly Of the Beast...

various links and websites | 01-31-03 | The Heavy Equipment Guy

[backhoe]

At the request of members, I am restarting those "Tales from the Dark UnderBelly Of the Beast"-- the stories and issues that the press and media either ignore, won't even talk about, or will mention once and forevermore claim "it's old news..."

Naturally, some will be stories which interest me, or things I think we all need to be aware of.

I am experimenting with a minor change in presentation- when I can, I will cut to

-GoogleNewsBeta--

with a keyword or two and see what kind of links to "mainstream" stories I can find in contrast to what we see here and on other sites.

May I remind you of a couple of points to bear in mind?
Each link usually has many other links within- follow them all to get "the rest of the story."
Don't forget the "open multiple browsers" trick with control-n -- this allows you to hold your place with one, and use the others to follow links, run searches, etc.

Rather than go back and rehash old links, I'll give you links to the original posts here:

-DUBOB 10- the *best of* the Dark Underbelly Series--

-DUBOB 9-- even *more* tales from the Dark Underbelly of the Beast..... --

DUBOB 8-- still *more* tales from the Underbelly***

DUBOB 7-- even *more* tales from the Dark Underbelly of the Beast.....

DUBOB 6-- yet *more* tales from the Dark Underbelly of the Beast.....

DUBOB 5-- even *more* tales from the Dark Underbelly of the Beast.....

DUBOB IV- yet more Tales from the Dark Underbelly of the Beast-

DUBOB III -- "Tales from the Dark Underbelly of the Beast"

DUBOB 2-- more tales from The Dark Underbelly of the Beast-- thread II

-The Dark Underbelly of the Beast- Stories the Media won't Discuss...--

[backhoe]

8 Theories For Why The Stock Market Plunged Almost 1,000 Points In A Matter Of Minutes

The "Real" Unemployment Rate Jumps To 17.1%

X2...

Greece Today – USA Tomorrow - Under Obama

Should the American Flag be Banned -- in America? Unbelievable

Local School Suspends Student for Removing MEXICAN Flag

Origins:   The above-displayed image of a Mexican national flag flown above an upside-down U.S. flag was taken on 27 March 2006 at Montebello High School (MHS) in California during a student protest over immigration reform.

 

SHAHZAD THE SLEEPER: James Jesus Angleton weighs in.

Ah, James, what about that ‘Able Danger’ stuff?
I mean did we really identify some of the 9/11 Al Qaeda crew before the towers were attacked?
And if Able Danger worked, why was it shut down and disbanded and denied.
Kinda strange don’t you think?

 

Failbotting

Seems the GOP brainstrust is ready to party (build) like it’s 1999!

Notably absent from the new GOP conspiracy – at least as described by Allen and Vogel – is evidence of an understanding that the Internet represents a paradigm shift in the essential context of national politics. There is also no evidence from the Politico piece that the Tea Party movement represents an “Army of Davids” uprising that is, frankly, fed up with establishment Republicanis,

Instead, fund-raising, organizing and advertising are described as the main priorities of the group. There’s nothing new in those priorities.

Establishment GOPers have always preferred to talk about money, organizing, and advertising rather than focusing on the substance of what the party’s office-holders and candidates propose and actually accomplish.

Put another way, it sounds like more of the same-old, same-old from the national GOP –- prescribing more money, management and marketing as the key to political success instead of standing for permanent principles, proposing programs based on those principles, and then actually reforming government according to those principles.

Wait, you mean principles might sell?

My. How very outlaw is such thinking.

Instead, we get “pragmatism” and status quo retreads: Democrat light. Compassionate conservatism. Republicans in sombreros and “Go Green!” buttons, pointing fingers at their Nazi fringe, crying “they are not like me!”

And people wonder how we wound up with fucking McCain.

Gghah.

Posted by Jeff G. @ 3:40 pm
Comments (30)

 

Comment by Curmudgeon on 5/6 @ 4:46 pm #

I don’t know how reliable Politico’s reporting is, nor how objective, and the entire Tapscott piece is based on the Politico article.

Politico sucks Democrat dick, but it does have interesting insider news.

You would think the GOP would learn to party like it’s nineteen ninety FOUR, back when principles actually defeated Demunists and crushed Commiecrats.

German newsreel about D-Day

http://www.fivefeetoffury.com/

What if Arizona was Quebec?

Michael Filozof writes:

Suppose for a moment that 15 million Americans -- the population of Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island, and Connecticut combined -- sneaked across the border into Quebec.

Suppose that these illegal immigrants refused to learn to speak French, that they applied for Canadian welfare, that they reproduced at a rate higher than Quebec's residents, and that they bankrupted Canada's socialized medical system.[Ed's note: too late, but anyhow]

Suppose that they sent their children to Canadian schools in such large numbers that Quebec's school system had to teach "French as a Second Language" courses.

Suppose that the 15 million illegal American aliens included large numbers of criminals, drug dealers from Vermont, and arms traffickers, causing Quebec's crime rate to soar; that they comprised 20% to 30% of Quebec's prison inmates...

And the best part:

Suppose that the illegals marched openly in the streets of Montreal, waving the Stars and Stripes, celebrating the Fourth of July, and demanding amnesty.

Then, from the comments...

Having lived in Quebec for more than 20 years, I suspect that most of Canada would cheer if English speaking Americans came illegally across the border and inundated that province.

The quebec leftist entitlement attitudes and dreams of secession would be put away forever. The need to legislate a dying and vulgar 16th century peasant dialect, as bad as that of the bayou, would be hung out to dry.

Canada's health care system is already on its last legs in it's present form because most of the left here act as though they were Greeks or Spaniards of modern day, entitled to everything and not wanting to contribute anything of their own, expecting the "rich" to do it for them. Filozof's idea is a cute one, but based on generalizations that simply are not accurate. We would save $100's of millions every year if we didn't have to produce government documentation and services in 2 languages. If Americans crossing over brought their guns, that too might be a good thing, with all the jump through hoops legislation Canadians have to go through just to get a sporting license that doesn't entitle you to carry.

Canadians generally don't speak of religion, and it is not a prerequisite of public life, but all the Irish Catholics could resuscitate the failing ancient churches of the province without resentment of the church in Rome, but perhaps the local priests who, like imams, were instigators of the racism and terrorism of the late 60's and early seventies. The racism remains, as it does in Belgium today. I'll even start an underground railroad for you if your first language is English, with rush orders for conservatives. Thank you. 

# Kathy Shaidle : 2010-05-06 08:04:25 EDT

Obama the Anti-American, "Post-racial" Globalist Revealed in 1995 Interview

 

 

Evidence Accumulates for Links Between Marijuana and Psychosis

Listen, lefties, real NYers love Wal-Mart

Whatever Happened to the Hole in the Ozone Layer?

Boston Globe Columnist Tells Painful Truths About Times Square Bomb Plot Denial

Eviction Agent Tells Homeowners (squatters) It’s Time to Move

Obama was top recipient of BP-related dollars in 2008

[backhoe]

Lead Story

The go-fly list for terrorists

By Michelle Malkin  •  May 7, 2010 09:04 AM

The go-fly list for terrorists
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2010

If America’s homeland security policies were subject to truth-in-advertising laws, the “no-fly” list would be known around the world by its right and proper name: the “go-fly” list. As in: Go right ahead, jihadists, and fly our planes. All aboard, evil-doers.

While grandmas and grade-schoolers and war heroes patiently pass through a gauntlet of wands, checkpoints and screening obstacles, the nation’s safety watchdogs are asleep at the wheel. They’ve mentally checked out at the check-in counter. And they’re in over their heads at federal counterterrorism centers, where “watch list” means putting the names of dangerous operatives into massive databases — then idly watching potential bombers waltz through our airports and onto our tarmacs.

The federal no-fly scheme was bypassed or breached easily by both the Christmas Day bomb plotter and the Times Square bomb plotter. In the former case, Nigerian terror operative Umar Abdulmutallab had been on the counterterrorism radar screen for his radical jihadi threats (which had been reported by his father to U.S. embassy officials in London). But the young, single, rootless Muslim extremist with suspicious travel patterns — ding, ding, ding, ding, ding! — did not meet the standards for watch-listing and didn’t even make it onto the second-tier “selectee list” of potential threats who can fly only after additional screening.

By contrast, beleaguered 8-year-old Mikey Hicks of Clifton, N.J., still can’t get off the selectee list after years of ridiculous harassment while traveling on family vacations.

In the Times Square case, Team Obama immediately pointed fingers at the airline industry — and Emirates airlines, in particular — for failing to check no-fly list updates. The hindsight cops at the White House are now touting ex post facto rules mandating that the airlines check no-fly alerts every two hours instead of every 24 hours.

But law enforcement officials themselves neglected to contact all airlines directly and red-flag the addition of would-be Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad’s name to the government no-fly list. Moreover, despite paying cash for his trip to the Middle East and being listed on the Department of Homeland Security travel lookout list since 1999, Shahzad received no extra screening from the Transportation Security Administration (confirming once again the bureaucracy’s own inside joke that TSA stands for “Thousands Standing Around”).

The tourism industry certainly shares blame for putting travel profits ahead of national security over the years. But in this case, it was only thanks to airline industry compliance with a post-9/11 procedure requiring plane officials to send passenger manifests to the Department of Homeland Security that the feds caught up with Shahzad (whom they had lost track of in Connecticut) before he jetted off to Dubai.

President Obama has had plenty of time to address the enforcement lapses, database loopholes and technological delays of his predecessor. After the Christmas Day bombing debacle, he pledged to be proactive: “We will not rest.” But to this day, TSA still doesn’t check all domestic and international airline passenger manifests against the no-fly/go-fly list.

The data are only as good as the people entrusted to collect, process and use the information to protect national security. And without the ability to share and access the information across numerous agencies, the data are useless. Nearly nine years after Sept. 11, there is still no functional interoperability among an alphabet soup of national security and criminal databases — including NAILS, TECS, CLASS, VISAS VIPER, TUSCAN, TIPPIX, IBIS, CIS, APIS, SAVE, IDENT, DACS, AFIS, ENFORCE and the NCIC. The Senate raised questions about understaffed efforts to modernize some of these databases back in March. What are we waiting for? The next jihadi bombing attempt?

The warped priorities of the Obama White House imperil us all. A command-and-control government that squanders its time and our money taking over businesses it has no business running — health insurance, auto manufacturing, banking, student loans — is a government neglecting its most fundamental mandate: providing for the common defense.

Posted in: Homeland Security, Islam

 

comments (73) 

 

More on-topic than off-topic:

http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2010/05/monster-mosque-pushes-ahead-in-shadow-of-world-trade-center-islamic-death-and-destruction.html

Un-blanking-believable.

This has to be stopped.

 

The Appalling Media Double Standard on Reporting Political Violence. “When it comes to leftist violence, the media sees no evil, hears no evil, and especially speaks no evil.”

 

JAPAN ACTIVATES the Monju Fast-Breeder Reactor. If we’d started building these in the 1970s, the world’s energy probems would be largely solved, and carbon emissions would be much lower. But environmentalists blocked them. Thanks for nothin’, guys...Mr. President Please Think of Spain — The Iberian Solar Power Bust. “Germany and France have also been pulling back on their ridiculously expensive solar subsidies. Of course, some American states and cities are just now enacting the same failed subsidies that Europe is quickly jettisoning.”

 

Only 39% Would Vote For Obama Now. 

Hope and change.

 

Yippee! Food Stamp Rolls At New Record

May 7th, 2010

From a joyous Reuters:

Use

The

Link

Dagnabbit...

Friday Open Thread: May 7th, 2010

Posted by hillbuzz under Uncategorized
[26] Comments 

What’s on your minds this Friday?

What’s happening in your part of the country?

May 7, 2010 at 2:13 pm

Here’s what’s happening in my neck of the woods. This is an incredible story from the flooding in Nashville.

http://www.wsmv.com/video/23480945/index.html

May 7, 2010 at 2:16 pm

On my mind: a very sober article by Caroline Glick, picking up where John Bolton left off in his WSJ piece last weekend:

http://www.carolineglick.com/e/2010/05/time-to-plan-for-war.php

May 7, 2010 at 2:19 pm

Sen. Shelby: Financial Reform Law Violates Privacy

by allowing the government to collect any financial information it wants from any financial institution it wants.

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/65427

Tensions High at California High School Following Flag Flap On Levin last night he played a sound bite of some kid saying "it was disrespectful, It wasn't July the forth! Cinco de Mayo is our day!"

Every day in America is July 4th - if you don't like it, have all the Cinco de Mayo celebrations you want, living over the border in Mexico.

Tennessee’s Uncovered Disaster -UPDATED  ( There are VIDEOS at the links- Use Teh Links! Read Teh Comments... )

Thursday, May 6, 2010, 12:05 PM

Elizabeth Scalia

A few days ago a reader asked me if I was going to be writing about the dramatic flooding in Nashville, and I said that I did mean to, and that it seemed to me the Nashville flooding was like the big Ice Storms that left people in some parts of Kentucky without power for nearly a month, two winters ago – a “red state” disaster that went uncovered, and had no one screaming “where are the feds; why aren’t they doing something?”

19 are dead; the damages will top a billion dollars.

It does seem like the natural disasters that occur outside of the Boston – DC corridor go unnoticed by the press. Colorado can get 60 inches of show and a 5 inch thick ice plate, and we never know about it. New York gets six inches of snow, and it leads the news. I am sorry that I did not follow through on my own instincts to cover the flooding.

So, if you have not seen what has been occurring in Tennessee, take a look. Nashville is certainly a disaster area on par with New Orleans after the levee break:

 

Got that via Newsbusters where they are rounding up relief and aid information if you would like to contribute to helping Tennessee folk get back on their feet.

If you want to make a fast donation, you can text ’REDCROSS’ to 90999 to donate $10 to disaster relief.

The Middle Tennessee Red Cross is here. I am going to be sending a check to Catholic Charities of Tennessee.

Currents covers how the churches are helping

The folk affected by this disaster seem hearty and ready to face their challenges. Let’s keep them in our prayers.

UPDATE:
Vince Gill will be headlining a livestreamed telethon tonight, from 7 to 10 PM. Vince Gill & Friends on Thursday, May 6, in prime time from 7 to 10 p.m. Scheduled to appear are Keith Urban, Alison Krauss, Naomi Judd, Amy Grant, Darius Rucker, Phil Vassar, Troy Gentry of Montgomery Gentry, Steve Wariner, Buddy Jewell and Lonestar, among others.

Another video:
 

Related:
Lifesaving lessons from the flood (via Insty)

A more personal story

Taylor Swift, puts her money where her heart is

Comments (7)

 

"The folks of middle Tennessee are the wrong sort of victim. The corporate media have a template meant not to inform the public, but rather to win elections for Democrats. If the story can’t be spun to hurt Republicans, smear conservatives, or help Democrats, where is the value in it? New Orleans had the correct type of victims and it was used to hurt Bush very badly. If the Nashville floods get heavily covered, people might wonder why Obama doesn’t seem to care. The MSM can’t have people questioning the president’s caring nature, can they? Besides, he’s gathering his team of attack dog attorneys to leap into the fray and prosecute BP. Birds and fish in the Gulf are more worthy of sympathy that dead white people in Nashville."

 

"Dear Anchoress,
Thank you for telling our story. Thank you for the prayers and donations of your readers to help us. "

 

Obama, BP, Oilmoney & the Press – UPDATED

Wednesday, May 5, 2010, 6:29 PM

Elizabeth Scalia

So, the Gulf may have to deal with as much as seeping into it, every day, for a while.

And…the Obama government exempted BP from an impact review last year.

And…President Obama, who hates big oil, big coal, big energy, was on the receiving end of more money from BP than anyone else in politics.

And…the President’s party is fundraising off of the disaster.

Listen…

Can you hear the screaming? Can you hear the righteous denunciation of the “big-oil president and his greedy donors!”

Can you hear the environmentalists weeping and gnashing their teeth shouting “where was he? Why was he yucking it up with Jay Leno while sea-life was imperiled?

Do you hear anyone sneering “you, sir, and your administration have failed in your duty,” or cries of “incompetence!” and “cronyism” and “arrogant disinterest” from the MSNBC mouths as you pass the channel?

Anyone organizing a telethon and announcing “Barack Obama hates beaches and killer whales,”?

No?

Well, what has happened to my country? Where have all the righteous gone?

They have left their guardposts. They are on break. They are no longer sure about things; what used to be evil is now an acceptable norm, not worth noticing!

Who is looking out for the little guy, and the environment?

Who is going to charge the president to put the people over the powerful, the porpoises over the profligates, and to refuse the bribery of Big-Corporate-Big-Interest campaign money?

Who is going to look out for us, now that the self-appointed guardians who were so vigilant until January of 2009 have suddenly gone silent?

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes! What are we to do, now that the guardians are no longer guarding?

It seems that they may now paraphrase St. Paul, crying out, “all that I hate, I am become!”

UPDATE: Hmmmm….how very odd.

 

Comments (10)

[backhoe]

“I Never Thought That I’d Be On National TV For Wearing An American Flag Shirt”

VIDEO: Pro-Mexican Flag Students Protesting American Flag Assail Man In Wheelchair

Your Papers, Please!

Santelli: Greek Debt Crisis and Riots America’s 'Ghost of Christmas Future'

CALIFORNIA: State revenues fell $3.6 billion short in April

 

 

Like most private entities do....

Start selling assets.

Start laying off employees.

Start cutting payroll.

It's simple when you have to pay for stuff yourself.

The Riots In Greece May Wind Up Coming To Our Shores Someday If Obama & Company Have Their Way

Robots position giant box over oil-spewing well

VIDEO: Obama's new appointee to head Medicare, Don Berwick waxing poetic on Britain's NHS

Consult this for your future:

Quebec woman with terminal cancer suing doctor

NBC Reporter To Black Republican: Are You Aligning Yourself With The "Racism" In The Tea Party?

Dissecting Obama

 FrontPage Magazine ^ | Victor Davis Hanson

Fascism, racism, Nazism in Arab-Muslim "Palestine" - historic account

Andrew Breitbart: 'The Left is, in Essence, the Media'

Nashville Flood

Wake of the Flood

Broader U-6 Unemployment Rate Increases to 17.1% in April (The REAL Unemployment Rate)

Major Revelation on Times Square Bomber Reveals Failures in Obama Anti-Terrorism

Rallies held across Canada to press for experimental MS treatment

Political rallies to beg for medical treatment?

No wonder Obama and the democrats in Washington legally exempted themselves from ObamaCare.

A Not-So-Gorgeous Night For George Galloway

I’ve been after this jackal for years & years:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/898108/posts?page=1
MP George Galloway- voice cries “peace,” hand in Saddam’s till...
various FR links | 04-22-03 | The Heavy Equipment Guy

Sea Dogs - great collection of historic photos of dogs serving in the Navy

Food-stamp tally nears 40 million, sets record

I sure “hope” you like all that “change” you wanted, Ø-Merica...

'cause you're going to keep getting it

Good & Hard...

Newsweek Offers Offensive Explanation For Why Media Ignored Nashville Flood

Because it affected mostly white people?

The same reason the MSM mostly ignored the 2009/2010 Red River North Dakaota floods..along with the currents events in Nashville. USA citizens coping and assisting each other combat the floods, the loss of lives, property.

Without fierce protests/rioting,
without looting,
without inudating food pantries/shelters,
without helplessness,
without damnation of the US/State/Local governments

50 posted on Friday, May 07, 2010 3:08:38 PM by Stand Watch Listen (It's the 'Land of Opportunity'... NOT... the 'Land of Entitlements'!!!)

Hundreds of Hispanic Students Leave School & Hold March Demanding Respect

 

'Talks doomed due to Arafat's legacy'

I covered this vermin some time ago:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1278189/posts
Blood, Deceit, and hatred- Yasser Arafat’s Dark Legacy
various FR links | 11-12-04 | The Heavy Equipment Guy

The Appalling Media Double Standard on Reporting Political Violence

FYI ... we are "keeping track" of Violence against Republicans at The Patriot's Flag. It's a list you are welcome to anytime to use as you wish. We'll keep it up for you.

The New Despotism of Bureaucracy: While the era of big government rages back, the tyranny of...

The Liberal Assault on the Poor

Illinois bill banning semi-automatics threatens jobs at area gun makers

I said this once and I will say it again. When the states entertain suing tobacco companies, the tobacco folks thought they were too big and rich to sue, and did nothing until the lawsuits spread to too many states. If the tobacco companies pulled their products from the first state that tried to sue them and let tax revenues from cigarette taxes plunge and cause social chaos as smokers freak out when cigarettes are suddenly unavailable, states may think about suing the tobacco companies. The same with gun companies. The first state that starts to screw with any of the products, ALL gun companies and ammo companies plus gunsmiths should boycott services and products to that offending states law enforcement and agencies. Imagine if IL police can not get guns, ammo, mags and gunsmith services and the criminal can get all that. Too bring the lessons home, allow only single shot weapons available for IL gov and law enforcement, and see how they like living like the under armed civilians facing criminals with higher firepower.

15 posted on Friday, May 07, 2010 11:27:01 AM by Fee

 

20 Things You Will Need To Survive When The Economy Collapses And The Next Great Depression Begins

Read more at businessinsider.com ...

Because it affected mostly white people?

The same reason the MSM mostly ignored the 2009/2010 Red River North Dakaota floods..along with the currents events in Nashville. USA citizens coping and assisting each other combat the floods, the loss of lives, property.

Without fierce protests/rioting,
without looting,
without inudating food pantries/shelters,
without helplessness,
without damnation of the US/State/Local governments

Illinois bill banning semi-automatics threatens jobs at area gun makers

I said this once and I will say it again. When the states entertain suing tobacco companies, the tobacco folks thought they were too big and rich to sue, and did nothing until the lawsuits spread to too many states. If the tobacco companies pulled their products from the first state that tried to sue them and let tax revenues from cigarette taxes plunge and cause social chaos as smokers freak out when cigarettes are suddenly unavailable, states may think about suing the tobacco companies. The same with gun companies. The first state that starts to screw with any of the products, ALL gun companies and ammo companies plus gunsmiths should boycott services and products to that offending states law enforcement and agencies. Imagine if IL police can not get guns, ammo, mags and gunsmith services and the criminal can get all that. Too bring the lessons home, allow only single shot weapons available for IL gov and law enforcement, and see how they like living like the under armed civilians facing criminals with higher firepower.

[backhoe]

Confirmed: Nashville Flood Is Biggest Disaster to Hit Middle Tennessee Since Civil War – You Can Help

Posted by Jim Hoft on Friday, May 7, 2010, 11:12 PM

The Nashville flood this past week did not get much attention from the democratic-media complex but it was the single biggest disaster to hit Middle Tennessee since the Civil War.

Flood waters cover parts of Downtown of Nashville, Tennessee after Cumberland River overflowed its bank from record rain fall May 4, 2010. Severe storms and flash floods left more than a dozen people dead in Tennessee and Kentucky over the weekend as rising river waters closed portions of interstate highways leading in and out of Nashville. (REUTERS/M. J. Masotti Jr.)

The floods in Tennessee have ravaged Nashville. Damages are estimated at $1 billion.… Make that $1.5 billion.

This video was posted yesterday at NewsBusters– The national media gave this disaster only 15 minutes this entire week:

The Opryland Hotel was just devastated.

Michelle Malkin posted this list on how to donate/pitch in…

Calling All Restaurateurs: Red Cross Could Use Your Help

Salvation Army – Nashville

Hands On Nashville

Nashville Flood relief t-shirts

Soles 4 Souls – Shoe charity comes to Nashville’s aid

Nashville Humane Society

Nashville Flood Benefit Show, May 7.

And The Nashville Examiner has more benefit concert information.

Comments (6)

 

“Has the Obama administration deemed it a disaster area yet?”

Have liberals blamed Obama for the flooding the way they blamed Bush for the flooding in New Orleans??

When Liberals Lose Their Own Money

Posted by HughS
Published: May 7, 2010 - 7:20 PM

The cause of yesterday's massive stock market plunge remains a mystery and Congress is preparing to hold hearings to find out ....something. I'm glad Congress is trying to determine what happened but, after watching the dim witted line of questioning during last week's Goldman Sachs hearings, there may not be much to get excited about. But the volatility in this nation's capital markets is something to be very concerned about and when it threatens to destroy individual wealth in a matter of minutes even liberals show concern about viable markets and private sector wealth. Yesterday's panic was a vivid illustration of Samuel Johnson's famous phrase that nothing focuses the mind like a hanging. That's probably what was on uber liberal Robert Reich's mind today. Reich, a liberal's liberal if there ever was one, said something today at the HuffPo that was spot on:

Regardless of why it happened ( the crash), it's further evidence that the nation's and the world's capital markets have become a vast out-of-control casino in which fortunes can be made or lost in an instant -- which would be fine except for the fact that most of us have put our life savings there.

What? Is Mr. Reich admitting that our economic future, our retirements and savings (and his), depend upon the profitability and the share price of Exxon? Proctor & Gamble? General Electric? Halliburton?? This was one of those rare moments when a liberal admits the vital importance of a healthy and robust private sector that is the foundation of everyone's life savings. Hopefully the New York Stock Exchange, the SEC and, more importantly, the companies whose shares are listed on these exchanges and trade publicly, will work to make sure violent price swings like this do not occur again. But the lesson to take away from Reich's statement is his admission that private sector corporations are the linchpin of the American economy (hopefully President Obama was listening). If Reich is so concerned about the safety of his life savings (savings that he admits are invested in these companies) then why does he and his fellow travelers promote policies that drain wealth from these companies? It is this enigma (or fool's hypocrisy) that has defined the debate between liberalism and conservatism for decades.

Ann Coulter was excoriated when she offered up the fact that liberal's public policy positions contradicted the way they conduct their own private financial affairs. Liberal politicians (with a few exceptions) don't routinely spend more than they earn when it comes to their family finances. So why do they promote public policy that it so at odds with their own personal financial behavior? The scenes from Greece are a vivid example of what happens when citizens finally become convinced they have been ruined financially and the promises of their government are meaningless. The U S is a long way from the problems Greece is experiencing for only two reasons: we possess the most powerful millitary in the world and our currency maintains reserve currency status. It would be much more comforting if the U S could add fiscal responsibility to that meager list of differences with the PIIGS.

Permalink | Comments (11)

 

THE TEA PARTY MENACE SPREADS TO EUROPE! Not fast enough.

 

Hundreds of Hispanic Students Leave School & Hold March Demanding Respect

Posted by Jim Hoft on Friday, May 7, 2010, 9:52 AM

What country are we in?
200 students left school and held a march today following the reports yesterday that 4 students dare wear American flag shirts on Cinco de Mayo.

Hispanic students march down Monterey Road in Morgan Hill on Thursday morning asking for respect after Live Oak High School Principal Nick Boden ignited a controversy Wednesday by sending home five students who wore American flag T-shirts on Cinco de Mayo. (Photo by: MorganHill Times Staff)

MorganHill Times reported:

About 200 Hispanic teens are marching in Morgan Hill yelling “We want respect!” and “Si se puede!” in reaction to a controversy ignited when the Live Oak High School principal effectively sent four students home for wearing T-shirts with American flags on them during Cinco de Mayo.

Mexican-American students felt the students were being disrespectful on the only day they celebrate their heritage while students sporting red, white and blue said it violated their First Amendment rights.

Six police cars and a Morgan Hill motorcycle officer have been cruising alongside the large group as it marches.

The group – mostly high school students – walked out of school this morning after the story of four students who were sent home because they wore American flag T-shirts went viral on TV and online. Many wear red, white and green and two large Mexico flags can be seen at the front of the line.

The students say they want people to know they’re proud of their heritage and they believe wearing red, white and blue on Cinco de Mayo is disrespectful.

UPDATE: One of the disciplined students told FOX News today: “I Never Thought That I’d Be On National TV For Wearing An American Flag Shirt”

Comments (127)

 

"So, when did “respect” become the all-important word? Furthermore, doesn’t respect go both ways?"

 

"Lock the doors and don’t let them back in. Anyone who regards Old Glory as an insult to their Mexican pride has no moral claim on anything that America has to offer."

 

"I’m not typically a big flag waver, but I’m getting sick and tired of hearing that displaying our own flag, the U.S. flag, Old Glory, is somehow disrespectful or racist or liable to provoke riots. These [bleep]holes want to walk into our country and take our resources from us and tell us we have no call to display our own flag on their holiday — a holiday that apparently isn’t even celebrated in Mexico..."

 

 

Brutal: Arizona governor’s ad hammers Obama on immigration (video)

 

Andrew Breitbart: “The Left Is, in Essence, The Media”

Posted by Jim Hoft on Friday, May 7, 2010, 1:48 PM

Quick: When was the last time the democratic-media complex thought that Obama’s actions were too liberal?
Exactly… Never.

Barack Obama is the most anti-capitalist, anti-American, anti-business, anti-Israel president in history and yet the media would make you believe he represents mainstream America.

Andrew Breitbart sat down for an interview recently with Life Site News, via Free Republic.
Andrew Breitbart: “The Left Is, in Essence, The Media”

The bias of the liberal media is so deeply ingrained that it is an essential part of its structure – one that conservatives must fight hard to challenge effectively, according to conservative new media guru Andrew Brietbart.

“The left, to me, in essence, is the media,” said Breitbart an interview with CBN’s Matt Brody.

Big liberal names like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, he explained, “possess limited charms.” “Their ability to get what they need to get done is because they’re carrying the water of the media,” said Breitbart. “The media is a left-of-center ecosystem, it’s a left-of-center organism. So the media can change the dynamics of what we’re talking about.”

Known for attacking liberal media bias head-on, Breitbart is a political commentator who owns his own news web site, Breitbart.com, as well as the blogs Big Hollywood, Big Government and Big Journalism. He also serves as an editor for the Drudge Report.

“I aim everything at attacking the media for its biases and holding them accountable for their biases, and the things that they report incorrectly, or the things they fail to report,” he said.

“By aiming everything at the media I’ve pretty much done the one thing they ask you not to do. ‘Please accept the premise that we’re fair, and let’s move on.’ No. I’m not going to accept that premise.

“For these people to tell me with a straight face that they don’t come to the media and their jobs from a political perspective, from a left-of-center perspective, is just a bald-faced lie.”

When facing mistreatment by the media, Breitbart urged conservatives not to play by the rules as defined by the mainstream media. “These people don’t fight fair,” he said. “The left does not fight fair, and so I’m basically saying to conservatives, you don’t have to fight fair.”

“I want to break down this politically correct paradigm. These are rules that tell conservatives: you’re not allowed to say this, you’re not allowed to think that. This type of Orwellian thought crime crap is what I’m fighting against.”

While not strongly religious himself, said Breitbart, the attack on Christians perpetrated by the mainstream media “angers me to no end.” “I consider myself to be a Judeo-Christian. … I relate to the world view that America has,” he said. “It’s a distinctly Judeo-Christian one and I think that it works.”

But Christians, he said, will only exacerbate the problem if they continue to react passively to media slander. “Christian turn-the-cheek tactics do not work agianst this crowd,” he said.

Comments (22)

 

Taking the easy way out and submitting to Fascism

by Speranza ( 90 Comments › )
Filed under Israel at May 7th, 2010 - 9:00 am

There is a strong scent of 1938 (Munich and Kristallnacht) blowing through our campuses. Pro Israeli speakers are routinely harassed and not allowed to speak, gutless college administrations cave in to a small bunch of vocal left wingers and terror supporting Muslim groups, and board of directors are pressured to divest from  companies doing business in Israel. As Caroline Glick points out – this is not just a freedom of speech issue but something much more deep.

by Caroline Glick

Moral blindness in the face of evil is depravity. But in the upside-down moral universe of our world, moral blindness has become a badge of honor. If you refuse to call evil by its name, then you are a moderate. And if you stand up to evil, you are an extremist.

The embrace of moral blindness as an emblem of sophistication is nowhere more apparent than among American Jews. Take recent events on US college campuses. This week the Washington Times reported that a large and vocal group of Brandeis University students are organizing to protest the university’s decision to invite Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren to give this year’s commencement address.

In a Facebook initiative led by a student named Jonathan Sussman, several hundred students have joined the demand to disinvite Oren. Sussman claims that by inviting him, Brandeis is siding with “a rogue state apologist, a defender of (among other things) the war crimes and human rights abuses of the war on Gaza.”

Sussman gained notoriety earlier this year when he sought to organize students to disrupt former UN ambassador Dore Gold in a debate the university hosted between him and Richard Goldstone. Sussman, a self-proclaimed communist, is a member of the anti-American Students for Democratic Society.

For their part, pro-Israel students have defended the administration’s decision to invite Oren on technical grounds. In a dedicated Facebook page, Brandeis student Nathan Mizrachi wrote that protesting Oren is a “waste of time.”

While allowing that Oren is controversial, Mizrachi argued against protesting his speech by claiming, “anyone who is consistently contributing to our worldview in a dignified, widely respected manner – instead of idiots like Michael Moore or Fox News – is someone who merits our attention.”

[...]

UNFORTUNATELY, THIS is more often than not what passes as a pro-Israel message in the US Jewish circles these days. Following the example communicated by the US Jewish leadership, supporters of Israel often act as if shouting down Israel advocates is wrong only because doing so is an assault on freedom of speech. It isn’t that Israel is in the right and the Palestinians are in the wrong. It isn’t that Israel is a just and moral society. It isn’t that the IDF fights justly and morally and only in self-defense. It isn’t that the Palestinians have taken all the lands Israel has given them and transformed them into terrorist enclaves or that they democratically elected Hamas – a genocidal terrorist organization – to lead them. It isn’t that there is not now and never was a Palestinian leadership willing to accept Israel’s right to exist.

[...]

Convenient moral blindness

Tags: Caroline Glick
90 Comments »

Why did you choose the Avatar you’ve chosen?

Posted by hillbuzz under Uncategorized | Tags: Avatars |
[2] Comments 

May 8, 2010 at 2:23 am

Yours Truly, pointing at the Van Norman Perfecto 777 boring bar that I carried all over the Southeast as a younger and much larger fella.

Interesting Idea: On May 11th, everyone demand free admittance and free food at the Arizona Suns game

Posted by hillbuzz under Uncategorized | Tags: Alinsky Methods, May 11th Free Suns Game, Use Alinsky Methods against the Left |
[9] Comments 

Here’s a very intriguing idea that just came in from a reader:

My cousin is suggesting on his facebook that on May 11th we all go to the Suns game and demand free admittance and free food. If they feel that letting illegals have free entrance and entitlements to our country than they need to open there gates and let us in free. What goes around, comes around.

My sister-in-law just sent me a picture from one of the signs at the marches that said and I quote “Give is Free Healthcare – Jobs – No Taxes – House – Food You owe us America We will shoot more police in Arizona until we get Free!”

Where is the outrage from the media

Wouldn’t that be interesting.

How would the Arizona Suns react if everyone decided to behave like illegal aliens — and demand everything from the Suns for free.

Do the Suns enforce proper admission procedures at their basketball games?

If so, then they are racists.  They’re Nazis — according to what the illegal aliens and Leftists say.

May 8, 2010 at 12:56 am

We must rub their faces in these Alinsky rules at every opportunity- especially the “live up to their own rules” entry. Oh, yes. This could be a game changer. We’re talking Magically Delicious.

May 8, 2010 at 1:04 am

Great thinking! Extrapolating…

FREE Newspapers from LA Times, NY Times, etc.
FREE Tickets for DNC rallies, events, dinners, etc.
FREE Artwork from painters/sculptors of the vocal and visual left.

“GET IN THEIR FACE.” Defending from union tactics...

JAN BREWER PUNCHES BACK TWICE AS HARD.

 9.9 Percent Unemployment, 99 Vulnerable House Democrats — I See a Connection!

Remember- 9.9% Gooberment Figgers = 19.8% in the Real World- or worse-- you always have to X2 it to get in the ballpark...

MAJOR MEDIA FAIL: Note this poll on Arizona:

The new poll finds 61 percent of voters nationally think Arizona was right to take action instead of waiting for the federal government to do something on immigration. That’s more than twice as many as the 27 percent who think securing the border is a federal responsibility and Arizona should have waited for Washington to act. . . . Significantly more voters think the Obama administration should wait and see how the new law works (64 percent) than think the administration should try to stop it (15 percent).

Forget the Arizona bill itself. What this poll says is that despite weeks of national-media coverage that was unrelentingly negative, calling the bill racist, drawing Nazi analogies, etc. — only 15 percent are really against it. Sorry guys — you’re still talking, but people aren’t listening.

UPDATE: A reader asks why I didn’t just use the favor/oppose numbers, which support the bill but in a less lopsided way. Because if the bill is really a racist, Nazi enactment, people should want to actually do something about it, not just register opposition. Right?

ANOTHER UPDATE: L.A. Times: New poll: Now, even Democrats oppose repealing Arizona’s illegal immigrant law. “By a two to one margin (52-26), Democrats said the law should be left alone to ’see how it works.’” I had missed that. It underscores the point, though. . .

Want to wreck a civil, coherent society?

This:  PERCENTAGE OF UNMARRIED MOTHERS explodes.

Is how you do it. Wise up, America- children need two parents and a family.

News of the Obvious 2 [Darleen Click]

What do Progressives really know about Economics?

Not a whole helluva lot. Looking at the .pdf listed on the right at the link, consider these bon mots:

• 67.6% of Progressives do NOT believe restrictions on housing development make housing less affordable.
• Similarly, 51.3% of Progressives do NOT believe mandatory licensing of professional services raises the cost of those services.
• And, it’s pretty eye-opening to see that 79.2% of Progressives do NOT believe rent control leads to housing shortages.

  The result, dear friends, of people who put their unicorn dreams and pink cupcake feelings ahead of reality and rationality.

  (h/t Volokh Conspiracy via Little Miss Attila)

Posted by Darleen @ 3:31 pm
Comments (44)

 

California: Worker's Paradise

Posted by Richard Aceves
Published: May 7, 2010 - 12:43 PM

Today's national unemployment data unexpectedly rose to 9.9%. Meanwhile, the "green jobs" powerhouse known as of Kaleefornia provides a glimpse into the future with 12.6% unemployment and a uncontrollable budget deficit of $20 billion dollars.

Ah, but unemployment and spending cuts are for the little people, haven't you heard? For the government worker, times have never been better.

Exhibit A: The Los Angeles Worker's Paradise known as the Department of Water and Power.

Besides making more than $100,000 per year, what can employees of the DWP expect in the way of benefits?

Trips to the liquor store on company time - check!

Drinking your booze while driving company vehicles - check!

A few lap dances to de-stress - check!

Watch the whole video, you will not be disappointed.

I especially like their denials when confronted by the reporter...and let's give some props to this reporter for doing what so many of his colleagues do not - real investigative reporting.

Oh don't worry about the employees, they haven't been terminated.

Remember, getting fired is for the little people.

Permalink | Comments (15)

 

I

Keep

Telling

You

Damn

Fool

people--

 

The Barbarians are already inside

our Gates-

 

Wake

Up

Damn

It:

 

American Academy of Pediatrics Approval of Clitorectomies

The "procedure"

Female circumcisers and their attendants waiting in an elementary-school classroom, where they do their work. New York Times Sunday Magazine spread

In what can only be construed as a complete loss of any semblance of goodness and morality in the name of multi-cultural poison, the most advanced civilization on the world is sanctioning......clitorectomies.

It will not have the effect these nudnik do-gooders imagine. It will have just the opposite effect. Islamic misogyny will be given the seal of approval by the American Academy of Pediatrics.

The have issued a policy statement suggesting that doctors in the US perform this act of sick barbarity on girls to keep their  families from sending them overseas for it. What next? Wife-beating seminars and its unintended benefits. Or a strip in Vegas for child marriages so they won't go overseas for the nuptuals.

By G-d, these are our daughters. This is our culture these clueless dhimmi buffoons are throwing away with both hands. No matter how you couch this argument, and the NY Times is the master of velvet-tongued barbarity, this is grotesque. And this is not the first time the NY Times has given clitorectomies the its tacit approval -- go here.

Group Backs Ritual ‘Nick’ as Female Circumcision Option NY Times (hat tip Davida)

In a controversial change to a longstanding policy concerning the practice of female circumcision in some African and Asian cultures, the American Academy of Pediatrics is suggesting that American doctors be given permission to perform a ceremonial pinprick or “nick” on girls from these cultures if it would keep their families from sending them overseas for the full circumcision.

The academy’s committee on bioethics, in a policy statement last week, said some pediatricians had suggested that current federal law, which “makes criminal any nonmedical procedure performed on the genitals” of a girl in the United States, has had the unintended consequence of driving some families to take their daughters to other countries to undergo mutilation.

“It might be more effective if federal and state laws enabled pediatricians to reach out to families by offering a ritual nick as a possible compromise to avoid greater harm,” the group said.

But some opponents of female genital mutilation, or F.G.M., denounced the statement.

“I am sure the academy had only good intentions, but what their recommendation has done is only create confusion about whether F.G.M. is acceptable in any form, and it is the wrong step forward on how best to protect young women and girls,” said Representative Joseph Crowley, Democrat of New York, who recently introduced a bill to toughen federal law by making it a crime to take a girl overseas to be circumcised. “F.G.M. serves no medical purpose, and it is rightfully banned in the U.S.”

Georganne Chapin, executive director of an advocacy group called Intact America, said she was “astonished that a group of intelligent people did not see the utter slippery slope that we put physicians on” with the new policy statement. “How much blood will parents be satisfied with?”

She added: “There are countries in the world that allow wife beating, slavery and child abuse, but we don’t allow people to practice those customs in this country. We don’t let people have slavery a little bit because they’re going to do it anyway, or beat their wives a little bit because they’re going to do it anyway.”

A member of the academy’s bioethics committee, Dr. Lainie Friedman Ross, associate director of the MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics at the University of Chicago, said the panel’s intent was to issue a “statement on safety in a culturally sensitive context.”

Dr. Friedman Ross said that the committee members “oppose all types of female genital cutting that impose risks or physical or psychological harm,” and consider the ritual nick “a last resort,” but that the nick is “supposed to be as benign as getting a girl’s ears pierced. It’s taking a pin and creating a drop of blood.”

She said the panel had heard anecdotes from worried doctors.

“If we just told parents, ‘No, this is wrong,’ our concern is they may take their daughters back to their home countries, where the procedure may be more extensive cutting and may even be done without anesthesia, with unsterilized knives or even glass,” she said. “A just-say-no policy may end up alienating these families, who are going to then find an alternative that will do more harm than good.”

Currently, more than 130 million women and girls worldwide have undergone female genital cutting, according to the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. It is mostly performed on girls younger than 15 in countries including Ethiopia, Sudan and Somalia. Consequences can include severe complications with pregnancy, childbirth and sexual dysfunction.

The academy’s statement acknowledged that opponents of the procedure, “including women from African countries, strongly oppose any compromise that would legitimize even the most minimal procedure.”

Dr. Friedman Ross said, “If you medicalize it and say it’s permissible, is there a possibility that some people will misunderstand it and go beyond a nick? Yes.”

The girl who was being soothed in the second photograph, after her circumcision

Posted by Pamela Geller on Friday, May 07, 2010 at 07:55 PM in Women and children | Permalink | Comments (24)

"I am speechless. Where are the feminists?"

 

[backhoe]

Meet the Unemployable Man

you

and you

and you...

WSJ: Dim Future for Men

Schlesinger: START surrenders tactical nuke advantage to Moscow

A Republic of Reason

In the "Gee, Duh!" Dept?

Changing economy poses challenges for job seekers, shifts mean new world for those seeking work

Ray Nagin Faces State Ethics Charges (Former N.O. Mayor)

 

New Study “Follows the Money” of Abortion

We’re in the final days of white life in South Africa’

American Flag Shirt Fight Heats Up

Group (of American pediatricians!) Backs Ritual ‘Nick’ as Female Circumcision Option

Do you ever feel like things are speeding up?

Obama’s first 16 months:

3 Terror attacks.
Huge oil spill.
Start ruining health care
Stock market troubles
High unemployment
Piling on Debt
Iran & DPRK still developing WMD
Abandoning Israel
Heightening social strife

No, Obama is right on schedule

Stunning 2006 Barney Frank Video Surfaces (The Tulip Tapes)

Killers Without Conscience - 2010

Euro Will Collapse Like Tower of Babel: Economist

the "Tower of Babel" EU Parliament building in Strasbourg, France

 

 

Governor Jan Brewer takes Obama to the woodshed in video clip (“adios amigos”) (video)

Obama says health care law already helps millions

“This idiot lies all the time 24/7”

Yep, that’s a pretty darn accurate assessment.

ObamaCare is a national disaster. http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/editorials/stories/2010/04/28/malpractice.html?sid=101

Hiring robust across nation; California could follow

The writer of this hopi-changi drivel must be swilling some of this stuff:

Fire Weed Water

by Bunk X ( 139 Comments › )
Filed under Healthcare, Humor at May 1st, 2010 - 11:00 pm

---

I'm sure not seeing anything like that down South.

It's "Moms To The Barricades" for Mother's Day!

Cape Wind rate shock: Electricity will cost twice as much as power plants.

Defining Dumbness Down

[backhoe]

 

Curiouser & curiouser...

Chicago Fire Chief Retiring — more to the story than is being reported

Posted by hillbuzz under Uncategorized | Tags: Chicago Fire Chief, John Brooks, murder suicide at Old Navy, What's Mayor Daley hiding now? |
[8] Comments 

This is very, very strange.

John Brooks, Chicago’s fire commissioner, is retiring…out of the blue…and the media here in Chicago says it’s because of some sexual harassment suit that’s been brought against him.

Which is weird, because Brooks is often seen at The Lucky Horseshoe in Boystown, so unless he was sexually harassing a male employee, we doubt he has anything to worry about when the charges against him are investigated. You would be surprised who turns up at the Horseshoe. The Chicago police chief is there quite a bit himself, and it’s not for license inspection or to ensure the dancers are covering up everything they are supposed to be covering.

This is such a strange town to live in sometimes, especially for people like us who try to stay as active and involved as possible, and keep our eyes and ears open. The media here never reports the actual news — it’s like they just write fiction in Bizarroworld.

Or, it often feels like episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer where the Scoobies catch a Sunnydale newscast, and the demon and vampire activities are all blamed on street gangs…and the giant hole that opened when a monster tried to belch out of the Hellmouth is chalked up to a “sinkhole caused by sewer construction”.

As someone noted in the Open Thread, there was a bizarre murder-suicide at the Old Navy store on State Street today…which happens to be the Old Navy we all shop at.  The Old Navy we were at just yesterday, in fact, the one next to Marshall Fields and across the street from Block 37 — which is one of Daley’s failed disastrous pet projects.

You’d think a murder-suicide would get some play, but checkout the Tribune site today:

As much as we love photos of hockey guys being awesome, a story about the Blackhawks should not trump a murder-suicide in broad daylight in an Old Navy on State Street.

That great street.

The street Daley is desperate to reinvigorate.

As a reader noted, it does feel like Daley’s been putting pressure on the media to clamp down on all stories about crime and violence in the city…especially near Block 37.  This is one of the biggest boondoggles in Chicago history, and a story people don’t like to talk about for fear of enraging the Mayor-Emperor.  Daley wasted close to a billion dollars on this pile of junk.  It was supposed to be the station for a pie-in-the-sky pipedream for two massive underground superspeed rail lines connecting the Loop to the two airports here in Chicago.  But, the problem is that the city is built on a marsh, below the water table.  Not only would it require use of both Chunnel-digging excavation machines to dig the tunnels, but the hydrology issues involved would cost hundreds of millions to resolve, with an unsustainable financial burden in perpetuity to keep those tunnels dry ones the trains would start running, sometime in the 2030s or so, by the time this would all be completed.

Daley is counting on federal spending at some point in the future to build the tunnels.  He’s already built the train station shell, at great tax dollar waste, and on top of that he built an eyesore of a retail complex…with few retailers at all interested in setting up shop.

The last thing Daley needs is for people to start thinking State Street is unsafe to visit…because for Block 37 to ever recoup any of its money, it needs to attract lots of visitors.  That’s not going to happen if murder-suicide stories at Old Navy are what people associate with the street.

Hence, the Tribune seemingly doing whatever it can to bury the story.

Welcome to Sunnydale.

Coroner: Metra chief's death 'appears to be a suicide'

UPDATE:Metra Director Pagano Throws Himself Front Of Train Sources Say[Feds Durbin Probe Rail Boss]

VIDEO: Suicide By Irony: Chicago Rail Boss Commits Suicide By Train

http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/obamacide/index

 

Just how stupid do these people think we are? Try tracking down the Obama’s law licenses and see

ABC News/WaPo Poll Shocker: 1 In 7 Democrats Are "Birthers"

Arizona Finds Key to Keeping Out Undesirables

Why Do We Need The United Nations?

We don't- next fool question?

Times Square bomb suspect had links to terror preacher

comments from another thread

--OK, so Faisal Shahzad was placed on our terrorist watch list by the Clinton Administration in 1999, kept on the list during the Bush years, but was taken off the list by the Obama Administration sometime in 2009?

And didn't Shahzad become a naturalized U.S. citizen in April 2009? That means that either
(i) Obama's INS allowed a Pakistani immigrant who was on Department of Homeland Security's terrorist watch list and had been on the list for 10 years to become a naturalized U.S. citizen, or
(ii) Obama got Shahzad (and likely thousands of other suspected terrorists) removed from the terrorist watch list, without careful study of the particulars of each case, within his first two months in office!

I think that this is the biggest scandal in this story.

(thanks AuH2ORepublican)

10 posted on Saturday, May 08, 2010 2:53:56 PM by opentalk

The Trojan Horse

 

 

 

Flooding Aftermath: Shelter at Capacity

We aren’t the right kind of “victims” in Nashville. By just yesterday, people had turned out by the thousands to help strangers clean out their homes, throw away ruined items, tear out sheet rock and tear up carpet. We will survive quite well without Obastard.

House Prices Are Falling Again

Canadian beavers build world's largest dam

comments from another thread

--OK, so Faisal Shahzad was placed on our terrorist watch list by the Clinton Administration in 1999, kept on the list during the Bush years, but was taken off the list by the Obama Administration sometime in 2009?

And didn't Shahzad become a naturalized U.S. citizen in April 2009? That means that either
(i) Obama's INS allowed a Pakistani immigrant who was on Department of Homeland Security's terrorist watch list and had been on the list for 10 years to become a naturalized U.S. citizen, or
(ii) Obama got Shahzad (and likely thousands of other suspected terrorists) removed from the terrorist watch list, without careful study of the particulars of each case, within his first two months in office!

I think that this is the biggest scandal in this story.

(thanks AuH2ORepublican)

[backhoe]

MOMS TO THE BARRICADES! ‘The tea parties are an extension of our need to protect the future for our children.’

Plus this: “Maybe if the president and Congress did the grocery shopping, they’d know why we’re mad.”

QUOTE OF THE YEAR: “Do we really want to live in a country where when someone busts into your house at night you’re supposed to assume they might be cops?”

I’d rather live in a country where you get a bounty for shooting people who bust into your house illegally — one that’s doubled if they’re cops. Apparently, though, I’m more likely to get the former. And to those who want to criticize my approach to illegal breakins: Why are you so soft on criminals?

UPDATE: Reader J.A. Lyons thinks a bounty is rather drastic. Well, yes. I’d be happy with stripping official immunity in no-knock raids, so that police — and, more significantly, supervising officials — would become liable for anything that goes wrong. No-knock raids should be extraordinary measures, only used when there is imminent threat of death or great bodily harm. That’s not the case in the vast, vast majority of no-knock raids. And illegal breakins are . . . illegal. They don’t become less so, somehow, when engaged in by those sworn to uphold the law.

Meanwhile, to see what I’m talking about, watch this video.

More...Curiouser & curiouser...

May 8, 2010 at 9:43 am

Interesting article on American Thinker this morning about the mess in Chicago and the role of the media in it:

http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/05/vote_for_the_crook_its_importa_1.html

Obama’s really bad, not good, terrible week. “Lost in the bluster of the panel discussion is the real problem for the White House this week, which is the loss of a sense of competence across the board. In that sense, the Gulf spill is akin to Katrina for Bush, and the botched Times Square attack adds onto the impression that this administration has become clueless. The Sunday talk shows will chew that over at length unless the White House dramatically changes the narrative — which is why we’ll probably get a SCOTUS leak today or tonight.”

WALL STREET JOURNAL: Meet The Unemployable Man.

UPDATE: On Facebook, Alex Lightman suggests that if you’re unemployed or underemployed, you take advantage of these free online business courses from MIT’s Sloan School of Management.

Meanwhile, also via Alex, here’s a list of MIT’s most popular free online courses. Alas, this won’t help those who aren’t well-enough educated to benefit from this level of course.

Confirmed: Barney Frank Played Major Role in Financial Collapse & Is Still Pushing His Dangerous Agenda on America

Posted by Jim Hoft on Saturday, May 8, 2010, 11:16 AM

Morgen Richmond from Verum Serum broke this story earlier this week at Big Government.
It’s worth repeating.

Democrat Barney Frank, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, sent a letter this week to the White House urging the President to reject the attempt by Republicans to include GSE (Fannie Mae-Freddie Mac) reform in any financial reform bill. Frank argued that had already been reformed and did not need to be included in the Senate’s financial reform bill. Frank told democratic senators, “As Fannie and Freddie operate today, going forward, there is no loss.”

Freddie and Fannie have already been reformed, to some extent, by virtue of being placed into conservatorship.

“So the argument that we have ignored the need to change the operation of Fannie and Freddie in our rush to do financial reform is of course exactly backwards,” Frank wrote. “We did Fannie and Freddie first.”

Frank also wrote that the Republican proposal to abolish Freddie and Fannie would remove an important government prop to the housing market. “It is the unanimous view of every profit and nonprofit entity concerned with the housing market in the United States that simply to abolish Fannie and Freddie, as the Republicans are proposing in the House bill, and not do anything to replace the functions they are now performing with a conservatorship, would be a disaster for housing, and therefore for the economy as a whole,” Frank said…

“This is an important point that has to be repeated – as Fannie and Freddie operate today, going forward, there is no loss,” Frank wrote.

These statements by Frank came one day before Freddie Mac requested an additional government bailout of $10.6 billion to cover losses incurred in the first quarter.

Frank became chair of the House Financial Services Committee in January 2007, after the Democrats re-took congress. While the housing market decline had already begun, it would be well over a year before the financial crisis really began to accelerate. Fannie and Freddie, in fact, were not placed under federal control until September 2008.

President Bush warned the Democratic Congress 17 times in 2008 alone about the systemic consequences of financial turmoil at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and also put forward thoughtful plans to reduce the risk that either Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac would encounter such difficulties. Unfortunately, these warnings went unheeded, as the President’s repeated attempts to reform the supervision of these entities were thwarted by the legislative maneuvering of those like Frank and Pelosi who emphatically denied there were problems.

Instead of curtailing the power of these failed mortgage giants, Frank passed legislation that limited oversight of Freddie and Fannie’s mortgage holdings.
Morgen Richmond added this on Frank’s failed record:

Let it be noted that in May 2007 Barney Frank and the Democrat-controlled House would go on to pass GSE reform legislation. Legislation which was adamantly opposed by the Treasury Dept. and the Bush Administration for limiting federal oversight of Fannie and Freddie’s mortgage holdings. Legislation which included Frank’s pet project, an “affordable housing” fund backed by tax payers.

Let it also be noted that going into 2007 Fannie and Freddie had never in history been allowed to purchase or finance sub-prime mortgages. But under pressure from Democrats in Congress (including Frank), they were granted this authority by regulators in September 2007.

Let it also be noted that in 2007 Frank aggressively pushed to increase the maximum loan limits which could be underwritten by the GSE’s. A move which would ultimately transfer tens of billions of dollars of loan liabilities from private financial institutions to tax payers.

It’s no wonder that even after the total collapse of Fannie and Freddie in 2008, at an ultimate cost to tax payers which could exceed $400B, Barney Frank is still adamantly opposed to legislation which would prevent any further federal bailouts of the GSE’s. For Democrats like Frank, continued control over Fannie and Freddie represents the effective nationalization of the entire mortgage industry. It’s a dream come true for those who wish to use the power of the federal government to implement their desired social and redistributive policies.

Barney Frank was a key figure at the center of the financial collapse in 2008. Today he’s still pushing his radical and misguided agenda on America. He never learns.
Isn’t it time Barney Frank was retired from his leadership duties?

Comments (17)

 

AZ Governor To Obama: Hey Joke Boy, Illegal Immigration Isn't Funny. Unless, You Know, You Get Get A Chuckle Out Of Violent Crime

—DrewM.

Oh yeah, I heard an unspoken "boy' in this one. Not in the racial sense but in the "you're an immature man-child who needs to grow up now that you're President" sense.

VID AT LINK

(Video via Hot Air)

I couldn't pick Jan Brewer out of a line up and I'm not ashamed to say I love her.

Obama can't take a punch. He's thin skinned and testy. I really hope Republicans look at this kind of hard hitting ad as a model of how to attack him. Yes, he, the Democrats and the MFM will cry 'racism' but they are going to do that anyway. Better to ignore them and speak directly to voters.

Speaking of voters, folks in Colorado seem to have looked at what their neighbors to the southwest have done and are saying, sign us up.

Fifty-five percent (55%) of Colorado voters favor a law like the one just adopted in Arizona that authorizes local police to stop individuals they suspect of being illegal immigrants, according to a new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey in the state. Thirty-five percent (35%) oppose such a law.

Nationally, 59% of voters favor a law like Arizona's, unchanged from a week earlier despite last weekend's protest rallies. Fifty percent (50%) have an unfavorable opinion of the protestors.

But also as is found nationally, 55% of voters in Colorado are at least somewhat concerned that this intensified effort to identify and deport illegal immigrants will end up violating the rights of some U.S. citizens. Forty-three percent (43%) do not share this concern. This includes 33% who are Very Concerned and 20% who are Not At All Concerned.

People seem more worried about actual problems than they are about media name calling. It's not guaranteed to translate to votes but it's certainly something for Republicans to build on.

Posted by DrewM. at 12:20 PM New Comments Thingy

 

87 I am 1/4 hispanic and a veteran in Texas, and to be told repeatedly by the media that hispanics are against the Arizona law is so F'd up. That claim is racist, by implying that all hispanics think alike, but then what can you expect from a media that treats Al Sharpton like he represents ALL  black people. Perhaps the media should start claiming that all white people get a tingle up their leg when Obama speaks, instead of just the white people at msnbc. The USA is a Nation, an Idea, a Dream for many, and a Reality for those of us privileged to be Americans. Too bad so many people in politics and media can't give our Nation the Respect she Deserves.

 

Mother's Day, 2010:

http://www.freedominion.com.pa/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=1490129#1490129

Johnny loves you Alice, and may we meet again, in a better place and time...

 

Take this FYI, FWIW- I like this woman's thinking.

OTOH, I see none of what she describes in my neck of the South.

So- weather eye out-- hope she's right, fear she's wrong- but she makes a good case:

 

Switching My US Forecast To Sustained Recovery

Although the employment report this morning is very good, it has nothing to do with my change. You can ignore the unemployment rate increase - that is a measure of an improving economy.

The reasons for my change are two: Number 1, I expect oil prices to be restrained by the abrupt emergence of European reality, and Number 2, the combined freight/small startups indicators have gone sharply positive. The combination of these two factors indicates a slow but healthy build in incomes which we have not seen for years.

Based on diesel consumption, I would have switched over about three weeks ago except for very deep worries about the impact of state and local fiscal emergencies and poor April FUT proceeds. So I wanted to see April tax receipts and make sure that they weren't weak enough to undercut the private sector activity.

The interesting thing is that the small startups appear to be almost wholly self-financed, so I don't see credit as being an impairing factor at all. Further, they are concentrated not in services but in goods/construction/remodeling. High-skilled labor is very cheap right now, especially your own when you don't have a job. But a significant number of the people who don't have a job do have high skills and some money of their own, and they are beginning to find their way.

There is still going to be a huge swing in total employment - it will jack up very significantly over the next few months and then probably start falling as the Census employment fades and the state and local cuts continue to dribble along. Nonetheless, there are business (mostly small business) opportunities out there and exploitation of those opportunities is on the upswing as people adapt.

Truthfully, the European crisis is not good for the US economy. And this is now a test of my theory that the 2008 crash was not a product of credit, but of energy and cost inflations inflicting an abrupt drop of global incomes. If I am wrong about that, my forecast here is wrong.

I now turn to Europe; about next Tuesday/Wednesday is an important inflection point there. By the end of next week I should have more on that. There are some counter-balancing trends in Europe. For example, the decline of the Euro will actually improve the performance of some foreign-currency loans.

The major risk involved in my forecast (which could certainly be wrong) is that US government action will crimp the turn, curb the income gains and knock us back into a cycle of stagnation, although in GDP it will show up as a seesaw. However I did include some tests as to energy consumption costs, and the growth survived.

A caveat: What I do is basically forecast incomes and disposable incomes. Now theoretically GDP is supposed to be a measure of national income, although it isn't. So while I do forecast something highly related to GDP, it will not correlate to GDP at any quarter, and it is more related to GDP a year to two years in the future.

The US economy is highly dynamic, which usually saves us. However if there is another sharp inflation in energy costs or a very severe Asian crisis, we could see another cycle of contraction next year. I hope India can hold out, because I think China has entered into the last phase of a bubble, in which bubble spending chews out the guts of the economy in the bubble.

Edit: See the latest rail weekly report, and note the increasing trajectory of YoY increases on (now) all types of traffic. Trucking is increasing too.

// posted by MaxedOutMama @ 5/07/2010 05:50:00 AM  15 Use These Comments

 

"Mark - the shift into a slow positive economic feedback cycle doesn't change the ugly reality that we have to change our governmental course.

The states and locals will be forced to adjust by the marketplace now. What's happening in Europe is no joke and is forcing a paradigm change.

The federal government now must adapt to reality. If it doesn't, of course the US economy will be dumped into a vicious cycle.

However, look at it this way: we have a chance. Lord knows, reality itself is writing the message in flaming letters across every indicator and market possible. Change or bust! No matter where you look, that is the message.

It is up to us whether we listen or not. I think it will take quite a bit to change the culture in DC."

[backhoe]

Plan for mosque near World Trade Center site moves ahead

Faisal Shahzad’s anti-Americanism (excellent read by Pakistani reporter!)

Obama Admin: "If there's a successful terrorist attack, we will have to act (within Pakistan)"

 

This:



( Yes, he actually can fly the damned thing... )

Versus this:

 

God help America, now.

Hundreds seek vacant positions at Pro's Ranch Market [Arizonians taking jobs lost by illegals]

In case you missed this on another thread, here is a zinger. This gal should run for office!

You won't see this on the networks starts at 1:10:

Legal immigrant ties into Tucson City Council

Best line from her is along the lines it is not the city's job to set political agendas.

Letters From Zimbabwe: NOT Cathy Buckle

Police Attack Video Causes Firestorm Of Controversy

Bennett Ousted at Utah G.O.P. Convention (TEA PARTY DEFEATS RINO SENATOR)

Obama to tap [LesboCommie] Kagan for Supreme Court

Manipulation, Not Error, Behind Market Plunge

An Inside Look at Obama’s Organizing for America

UCLA PROFESSOR CALLS FOR MEXICAN REVOLT IN UNITED STATES (This is why AZ shut off Mex. studies- vid)

This Revolutionary Marxist professor let the gato out of the bag. It's more like 40 million. So far.

Just some of the bile in that video:
“[The USA] is the Northern front of a revolutionary Latin American movement...our enemy is captalism”

This guy is typical. This talk, yes by professors has been going on for 15 years. Terry Anderson has been swarmed by them since 1996 in the L.A. Area. Many of us have tried to tell the naysayers and open border republicans what was really going on with their ‘peaceful migrants’.

Did anyone get the name of the speaker on the video?

Here’s a lot more of it, I don’t know if he’s in this bunch:

The Takeover of America
CD Produced by the California Coalition for Immigration Reform

http://www.ccir.net/AUDIO/TakeoverOfAmericaCD/Menu.html

[backhoe]

REPUBLICAN RANK-AND-FILE TO LEADERSHIP: Don’t Get Cocky. They don’t have a lot to be cocky about, do they?

 

MICKEY KAUS UPDATE: In California, Could a Blogger Unseat Barbara Boxer? Kaus has little name recognition, no money and no Times endorsement.  But, Boxer’s so bad–the Times’ editors generously referred to her lack of intellectual firepower”– that even a usually-reliable Democrat mouthpiece like the Times won’t endorse her.  As Glenn Reynolds puts it: “Feel the Mickey-mentum building!”

 

MEANWHILE, in Nashville.  What does it say when 11 men who perish on an exploding oil platform, or 30 poor souls who die in a 1,000-year Tennessee flood, get less coverage than two oil-soaked birds? It says news is driven from the left. "the nashville floods can't be blamed on big oil, capitalism, global warming, or george bush. hence, they have no value to the obamedia."

 

Speaking of bias and bigotry? CHARLES BLOW has written the same column, yet again.

 

SO I’M NOT AN EXPERT LIKE JOE KLEIN, BUT DOES THIS COUNT AS “SEDITIOUS SPEECH?” UCLA Professor Calls For Mexican Revolution in the United States.

UPDATE: Allahpundit says the video is from 2007. That makes it okay. It’s impossible to commit sedition when a Republican is in the White House!

DAN RIEHL ON the fallout from Utah.

UPDATE: A reader emails: “If the establishment GOP lets itself become back biting spoilers, they are done. No one lives up to deals cut with back biters and spoilers. They don’t have to. They only need them to win, not govern. The GOP old guard need to find themselves a coalition to join. There is only one that has any momentum, and that actually believes the ideals the old guard has pretended to believe, the tea parties. Bennett could have joined them himself, but he chose to brazen it out.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Jim Verdolini writes: “His base told him pretty clearly they would not stand for TARP, spending, and ‘compromise’ Health Care Schemes. Bennett, like most of or ‘leadership’ ignored them. Now he is retired. Eventually republican ‘leadership’ will understand that they work for us. Till then they will become ever more extinct.”

MORE: Utah Tea Partier David Kirkham emails: “After convention we walked up on the podium and took this picture. We took over the Utah GOP. All of our candidates were elected today without having to go to a primary (or booted in the case of Bennett). Obama has awakened a sleeping giant.”

UPDATE: Here’s a news report.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Richard Fernandez on what it means:

The game was redefined in a single place and time from “one of Republicans versus Democrats” (Romney’s reference) to that of “Small Government versus Big Government”. In isolation the Bennett defeat is insignificant, but it now raises the wider question of whether the ‘Smaller Government’ idea can catch on. If it does then it has the potential to redefine the political landscape in ways that are both a threat and opportunity to different communities.

The Tea Parties represent an asymmetric threat to political organizations optimized for party-line warfare. The threat is no longer across the aisle but outside the building.

...That new reality is driven by economics. The real problem is that Washington — and Brussels globally considered — is running out of Other People’s Money (OPM)...

"So let it be written, so let it be done.

My hope is a culling of America, part of me wants it to be violent, bloody, as to leave a lasting scar. The more rational part of me wants to do it peacefully, so the rest of the world sees how it’s REALLY done. "

"...The arrogance of politicians to stay in office seemingly forever speaks of their desire for power, not a desire to represent their constituents. My own belief is that 12 years in office is enough, period. I say throw out all incumbents and let’s start from scratch ..."

"I forgot to add this. The Republicans, once in the majority, had better not return to their pre 2006 methods, because people like me will go after them as hard as we are now going after those that now irk us."

THEG's opinion?

Damn straight- Slash and Burn, until they hear us again. I am past being tired of being ignored by Perfumed Princes in the city, Atlanta, and DC.

Soap

Ballot

Jury

Ammo

Don't make me open that Last Box, boys- I will, if you won't listen, and you are not going to like it one little bit.

"Back in 1988, archaeologist Joseph Tainter wrote “The Collapse of Complex Societies”. There have been an astonishing number of complex civilizations over the millenia, almost all of which have collapsed! To oversimplify, Tainter’s argument is that unproductive overhead grows as a civilization matures, and keeps growing until its unaffordability brings the whole society down. Sound familiar?

Clearly, modern Big Government has already run out of the ability to tax enough to pay for all the things politicians want. Big Government is now in the process of running out of the ability to keep borrowing enough to make up the difference between what those politicians want to spend and what they can actually cover with taxes. We are rapidly coming up on Peak Government.

The challenge is — what happens next? "

"Man, that La Raza guy really boils my blood. He can take his Fidel and Che and stuff it. What a bunch of fools who believe these things, and how long must we suffer them? There’s a huge problem with immigrants, all immigrants not just Hispanics. I saw this big time with the Yankees who fled the Rust Belt in the 70’s and moved in all around us in Texas. You see it all over south Florida, today, or any hapless place out West where the Californicator refugees have landed en masse. Immigrants, whether from the Mexican south or the rusting North or Kalifornia, flee their troubled lands only to set about changing their new place up, making it more like back home from whence they fled."

RELATED: We Are Out of Money: American governance won’t begin to inch forward until the political class faces basic facts.

Read the COMMENTS Here: Posted by DrewM. at 07:04 PM New Comments Thingy

Obama Goes Golfing as Nashville Suffers From Biggest Disaster Since Civil War

Posted by Jim Hoft on Saturday, May 8, 2010, 6:17 PM

Fore!

Barack Obama went golfing today as Nashville continued to suffer from the worst disaster since the Civil War.

It’s a self-help disaster.

Comments (56)

 

Thank Goodness… State-Run Media Absolves Obama For Weak Response to Gulf Oil Spill

Posted by Jim Hoft on Saturday, May 8, 2010, 9:31 PM

Thank goodness the state-run media cleared that up for us. After all, we’re not able to think for ourselves so they have to form our thoughts for us…
The AP today absolved Obama for his response to the Gulf oil spill crisis.

(FOX News)

In case you forgot about Obama’s weak response to the spill Doug Ross has the time line. That’s all you need to know. 12 days after the explosion, Barack Obama finally visited the disaster zone.

Obama was out golfing today.

Comments (8)

 

Fearless Leeder:

 

Comin' soon to aneighborhood near you in Obozo's 0-merica:

Men set up fake roadblock, attack mom and daughter (Houston, Texas)

Once again, violence in Phoenix involving criminal illegals

[backhoe]

The World Turned Upside Down

A tale of two disasters

While Tennessee struggles with flooding disaster… Obama goes golfing (shameless)

Angry Journalists Refuse to Review Anti-Obama Book

One of the worst ways that the lack of ideological diversity in America's newsrooms shows forth is in the media's treatment of sensational accusations against the current president.

Oftentimes, explosive allegations against presidents are either untrue or drastically overstated: George W. Bush deliberately lying to get the U.S. to war so he can cash in or deliberately ignoring Hurricaine Katrina due to his hatred of black people (a la Kanye West), Bill Clinton's supposed involvment in the drug trade, so on and so forth.

Journalists do the public a service by rebutting absurd conspiracy theories and wacko charges. In recent memory, though, they have taken a much greater zeal toward stamping out allegations against Democrats, particularly President Obama, a stark contrast to the kidglove or even promotional attitude they took toward books by liberal authors alleging all sorts of anti-Bush absurdities.

World Net Daily-affiliated author Aaron Klein recently discovered this when he sent his new book, "The Manchurian President," to members of the media he hoped would review it. He got some very angry responses. Here are some of the more colorful ones:

"Never, ever contact me again," wrote Time Magazine senior writer Jeffrey Kluger.

Newsweek deputy editor Rana Foroohar quipped,"This is sensational rubbish that is of no interest to any legitimate publication."

"Absolute crap," replied Evelyn Leopold, a Huffington Post contributor who served for 17 years as U.N. bureau chief for Reuters until recently.

Nancy Gibbs, editor-at-large for Newsweek, fired, "Remove me from your list."

David Knowles, AOL's political writer, responded, "seriously, get a life."

Ben Wyskida, publicity director for The Nation, claimed Klein's book is "so offensive" and "so far afield."

(Excerpt) Read more at newsbusters.org ...

Subjects covered:

Obama’s mysterious college years unearthed

*Shocking new details of Obama’s relationship with Bill Ayers and other Weathermen terrorists

*Obama’s ties to Islam and black liberation theology

*Startling facts about Obama’s eligibility to serve as president

*Obama’s membership in a socialist party probed

*How Obama’s “hope,” “change” slogans stem from communist activism

*Radical socalists involved in drafting stimulus bill, ObamaCare

*Communists, socialists and other radicals on team Obama, including an expose on Obama’s top guns in the White House

*Never-before-revealed depth of Obama’s relationship with ACORN

Julius Caesar of the Internet

 

 

Permalink | Comments (6)

Net Neutrality War Heats Up

American Jackpot: The Remaking of America by Birthright Citizenship

The State-Run Media's Spin on the Gulf Oil Spill

9.9 Percent Unemployment, 99 Vulnerable House Democrats — I See a Connection!

Conservatives throwing away allies by ZOTting gay trolls.

BANNED: The American Flag on Cinco de Mayo

Phoenix Now Kidnapping Capital of US Thanks to Mexican Drug Gangs

Well, I tried to wake people up...

For "Thunder on the Border," click the picture:

for the purpose of liberating Aztlán

First Superbugs, Now Superweeds

L.A. Teacher Calls for Mexican Revolt in the U.S.

That’s one thing I agree with him on. There are 30-40 million Illegal Immigrants in our country.

Yep.

Those 12-20 million figures are as fraudulent as... the current _Resident of our White house...

Emotional Senator Bob Bennett Talks To Reporters After Being Eliminated (Video)

Obama Date Night at Kommie Restaurant

I've said it before, and I'll say it again-- Kommander ZerØ's "_residency" is a laughable mixture of:

And "Movin' On Up!"

Unfortunately,

This is Your War on Drugs

It's called 'change'

Alan Caruba’s theory about Barack Obama

by Bob in Breckenridge ( 37 Comments › )
Filed under Barack Obama, Communism, Democratic Party, Leftists, Politics, Progressives at May 8th, 2010 - 5:17 pm

I received this email and it is absolutely spot-on! Mr. Caruba’s excellent work can be read at his blog Warning Signs.

I have this theory about Barack Obama. I think he’s led a kind of make-believe life in which money was provided and doors were opened because at some point early on somebody or some group took a look at this tall, good looking, half-white, half-black, young man with an exotic African/Muslim name and concluded he could be guided toward a life in politics where his facile speaking skills could even put him in the White House.

In a very real way, he has been a young man in a very big hurry. Who else do you know has written two memoirs before the age of 45? “Dreams of My Father” was published in 1995 when he was only 34 years old. The “Audacity of Hope” followed in 2006. If, indeed, he did write them himself. There are some who think that his mentor and friend, Bill Ayers, a man who calls himself a “communist with a small ‘c’” was the real author.

(…..)

The mainstream political media fell in love with him. It was a schoolgirl crush with febrile commentators like Chris Mathews swooning then and now over the man. The venom directed against McCain and, in particular, Palin, was extraordinary.

Read the whole piece here

Tags: Barack Obama, Leftists, Moonbats
37 Comments »

Re Alice Palmer. Man this was ugly.

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/5/29/23433/5727

"Obowmaø is just about 100% a figment of MSM’s imagination and he couldn’t have made it without them. I hope that the taxpayers will remember who to blame when the catastrophic effects of his policies begin to bite everyone in the wallet. "

Open society institute (George Soros) funds The Wikimedia Foundation (wikipedia)

Imposing Islam in Your Public School in Six Easy Steps

Check out this "instruction sheet" to Muslims on how to islamicize their public schools. There is no separation of mosque and state -- mosque is state in Islam.

If this guide shows us anything, it's what idiots they take us for. This is, of course, an outrage. None of this should be introduced into the public school. If this is what Muslim parents want, they should send their children to madrassah.

This is an Islamic site -- Sound Vision Islamic Products and Information.

(Excerpt) Read more at atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com ...

====================================================

Hundreds pack station to see vintage steam locomotive roll into San Bernardino

 

It's sex o'clock in America

THE BIG PICTURE: Vietnam, 35 years later

[backhoe]

House 2010: Nobody Is Safe.  A ONE-SENTENCE EMAIL FROM THE UTAH TEA PARTY: “Term limits began today.”

Faster & Harder, please...

THIS SEATTLE POLICE BEATING SOUNDS DREADFUL, and if it turns out that things happened as reported, heads should roll. But I’m guessing it will create less national outrage than Arizona’s immigration bill.

UPDATE: “They all get religion when they discover they’ve been caught on video.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Michael Keating writes: “If that beating had occurred in AZ, it would have been blamed on our new immigration law.” Oh, you know it.

Speaking as one who's trained a jillion LEO's ( and others... ) in the Gentle Arts of Special Weapons & Tactics? Good cops are fine men- and bad ones are Thugs, with a badge & and gun & a nightstick...

 

MAY, 1970: Remembering the Graham/Nixon protests. Some more background on that — my dad played a big role — in this story. That led to this case. Ironically, if there had been no arrests or prosecution, they’d hardly have been noticed, or remembered.

 

Why does the Obama administration find it so hard to utter the words ‘terrorism’ and ‘jihad’ and ‘Islamic extremism’?

 

High School Where Flag Flap Occurred Hides A Racist Secret. “What’s more divisive: students wearing American flag shirts or administrators sanctioning a racial supremacist group?”

Related: Roger Simon: Identity Politics is for idiot sheep and the LA Unified School District.

Alright, THEG will sound off- I post this because you ought to read it.

I would not want any girl or woman I've ever cared about to support herself this way... but... if it was her best choice of several worse ones?  If she avoided the drugs & alcohol & petty crime that usually goes with it? She's not an evil person. Grace O' God, there go I, and other stuff I've seen along life's roads and byways:

TRACY QUAN: The Secret Lives of Prostitute Moms.

Meanwhile, for you gals who are still giving "it" away for free: Lemondrop vs. Slate on whether ugly gals are better in bed. Still more on this vital issue, here.

A BEDBUG EXPLOSION IN NEW YORK CITY. Bring back DDT. “The recent citywide resurgence of bedbugs has been well documented. In 2004, the Health Department tallied 537 complaints and 82 actual violations. Last year, those numbers ballooned to 10,985 complaints and 4,084 violations (given that the problem is thought to be significantly underreported, the notion that there aren’t far more cases is daylight madness).”

Here, by the way, is a recipe for homemade DDT, though I haven’t tried it and don’t vouch for it. Perhaps some readers will know more. Given New York’s problem, I’m surprised there’s not a flood of homemade DDT. It’s happened before.

De Muchos, Uno

Posted by Jay Tea
Published: May 9, 2010 - 12:30 PM

It's been four days since May 5, and I'm still angry.

"Cinco De Mayo," the annual quasi-bacchanalia of Mexican-American pride, had some extra connotations this year. Quite a few celebrants crossed the line from pride to supremacy, and there was some blowback.

In California, a few students decided that they'd show their pride in their heritage by wearing American flag apparel to school on that day. The school's administration soon put an end to that nonsense -- they were sent home for their "disrespectful" attire.

That got me angry, and when I get angry in cases like this, I get reading -- and writing.

First up, there are almost no circumstances where a student should be disciplined for wearing an American flag. Sure, if the school has a uniform requirement or a dress code that forbids the apparel in question regardless of the flag aspect, then that's one thing -- it's not the flag being singled out here. But banning the presence of the flag itself? No way.

In some places, the Mexican flag was raised to honor the holiday. Again, fine. But proper flag etiquette demands that no flag ever be raised higher than the American flag, or in its place, on American soil.

Then I started digging (OK, not very deeply) into the whole "Cinco De Mayo" thing. And I learned quite a bit about the holiday.

First up, it's really not that big a deal in Mexico. It's not their Independence Day -- that's September 16. It commemorates victory at the Battle Of Puebla, so it's the equivalent of Bunker Hill Day here in the US.

And what was the Batle of Puebla? It was a Mexican victory over France in the middle of a long string of defeats that would have ended with Mexico losing, had not the United States offered a hand.

And really -- the FRENCH? They're proud of beating the French? That's a pretty low standard right there...

What really got me steamed, though, was the massive student walkout on Thursday. 200 Mexican-American students protested, demanding that the offending students who had dared wear American flags to an American school on American soil be disciplined further (just being sent home for the day wasn't enough to satisfy their wounded pride).

Bullshit.

We don't see this kind of reaction on St. Patrick's Day or Columbus Day (two other holidays tied to ethnic groups here in the US that get short shrift in the homeland). No, it's only on May 5th that it happens.

And that's simply unacceptable.

As I said up front, pride is not only acceptable, but commendable. However, there is a line between "pride" and "supremacy," and the reactions this last week showed us that a lot of people have crossed that line. By showing that they would not tolerate any other group asserting their own identity and pride on "their" day, they showed that their demands for "respect" are strictly a one-way street and they have no intention of showing any.

The 200 students who were "offended" and "insulted" by American citizens wearing their nation's ensign to the point where they walked out of school are the ones who should be disciplined. The administration should have simply locked the doors behind them and told them to come back when they're ready to acknowledge that non-Mexican Americans have rights, too.

At times like this, I start to worry that I sound a bit too much like Pat Buchanan and the "America First" crowd. But then I remember that the best lies have a grain of truth in them, it's simply impossible for a human being to be wrong 100% of the time (Joe Biden being a possible exception), and anyone who doesn't rankle at the thoughts of American citizens being told that wearing an American flag is "provocative" and "disrespectful" and "inappropriate" needs a serious attitude adjustment.

Permalink | Comments (24)

 

"The 5th of May has turned into nothing more than an illegal Mexican alien day in the states. An excuse to ask for more and create havoc & chaos rather than assimilation.

Just compare the illegal immigrants of today to those who went through Ellis Island or even the ones that go through the process legally.

It's a sad thing when we cannot even enforce the laws the books without be called racist by the open borders crowd, yet Mexico's own laws are even more stringent and are enforced without a peep from the MFM."

For all of those who don't know American History, Lee Ward in particular. The American Southwest was bought from the Mexican Government after the American-Mexican War in 1848 under the provisions of what was called Gadsden Purchase.

It was a perfect setup. By the treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, signed February 2, 1848, at the close of the Mexican War, the Republic of Mexico was compelled to abandon its claim to Texas and to cede to the United States the territory now comprising most of New Mexico, Arizona, California, Colorado, Utah and Nevada. The territory ceded to the United States by Mexico constituted about 200,000 square miles or two-fifths of all her territory

http://www.progress.org/gads.htm

Basically this is the area where Mexico and the United States fought over. Hell after the war with Mexico, we could have taken over the shebang and Mexico would have been part of the United States now...

"maybe liberals are just plain stupid"

Posted by Rick
Published: May 9, 2010 - 11:07 AM

I really don't want to believe that... honestly, I don't...  But it's getting harder and harder not to...

Robin of Berkeley explains:

Conservatives can mistakenly assume that liberals think like they do, in a learned and rational way. This is an exercise in futility since liberalism is not based on logic.

To become a conservative, I've had to learn a whole new language, one based on reason. If conservatives want to understand the liberal mind, they should consider becoming bilingual, too.

Liberals live in a stratosphere centered on emotions and magical thinking. If you've tried to reason with your daughter and she looks at you blankly; if your neighbor changes the subject during your compelling arguments; if your cousin says this about Obama: "I don't know why.  I just like the guy"...that's why.

After I 'fessed up last week to once being besotted with socialism, a reader had an epiphany. He wrote that maybe liberals are just plain stupid. 

I'm not going to disagree with this. There are innumerable examples from both the famous and the anonymous:

-- The most illustrious of all leftists, Noam Chomsky, still maintains that the Khmer Rouge did not slaughter millions of Cambodians.

-- Liberal luminaries Annette Bening and Naomi Wolf defend radical Islam, including the dreaded burqa.

-- After journeying to Cuba, members of the Congressional Black Caucus bragged about the stellar conditions there.

-- Michael Moore thinks that the Cuban health system is to die for.

-- Anita Dunn, a former special assistant to Obama, stated that Mao is one of the people she admired the most.

If these are the more informed liberals, what about Jane and Joe in the street?

-- During the primary, I asked my friend Gail why she was voting for Obama. Did she know anything about his voting record or background? She responded, "No, I don't." When I asked her why she was voting for him, she said, "I just am." 

-- Last week, I chatted with Shelley, a liberal pal who voted for Obama. I asked her what she thought of him now. She said that she thought he was doing fine, but she confessed that she wasn't following the news.

-- During the election, I told a friend, George, that I thought Obama was a socialist. George responded, "Well capitalism doesn't work. Why not try socialism?" Dr. George has a Ph.D.

Are these folks "stupid"? I looked up the word, and my dictionary reads, "lacking intelligence or common sense." Going by that definition, it would be hard to argue no.

I really do want to give progressives the benefit of the doubt... but to do so necessitates my own giving up of reality. 

The bottom line is that liberals, in my mind, are one of two things.  Stupid... or evil.

Neither is flattering (obviously) but the only other possibility is... both.

Are you a liberal?

Crossposted at Brutally Honest.

Permalink | Comments (17)

 

"They elected Barry, that says it all."

 

 

204

OT interesting/ depressingly funny  financial chart

http://tinyurl.com/2wgreqb

 

[backhoe]

FLAUNT THE AMERICAN FLAG DAY--Nationwide Protest Wednesday, May 12, 2010

I've always liked his books...

 

 

 

For more children, dinner is coming from Uncle Sam (Hope & Change)

Wait and see what happens when the famine hits the fan. “Oh, I’ll go to the grocery store and get my free food”.

Washington State's tea partiers organizing and politicking … But can they shift an election?

Tea party, others focus on Kentucky after Utah

Bennett’s Loss in Utah a ‘Damn Outrage,’ ‘Non-Violent Coup,’ Part of Larger Intolerant GOP...

An agenda for Novembah

 

 

Beware, Be Ready, the True Crash Appears Before Us (Gerald Celente & Alex Jones making sense)

The Welfare State's Death Spiral

Revenues in Georgia are down yet again (Ain't this recovery just grand?)

Immigration on Georgia's Mind

Why the Ground Zero Mosque Must Be Stopped

Man charged for YouTube traffic stop video

Do the cops tell those they stop for traffic violations that the dashboard cam is on and that they’re (cops) wired for sound?

That's different - that's them, not us.

Try fearing for your life and shooting an innocent person and see if you get the same complete absolution as someone who does the same thing while wearing a badge.

Do liberals really want to talk about 'racial profiling?' (How about affirmative action?)

 

U.S. and other big powers back Mideast nuclear arms ban (Obama to force Israel to disarm)

 

Taking Back America - Former Dem [], now an independent, calls for political reform

Overthrow a Sign of Tea-Party Clout

I've always liked his books...

 

 

 

[backhoe]

RED STATE UPDATE ON OBAMA AND THE NASHVILLE FLOODS.

 

Nashville Under Water

I'm starting to think that not-shooting-at-helicopters is a failed conservative policy.

Posted by Kate at 3:17 PM| Comments (20)

The Times Square bomb failed. What will we do when the next bomb works?

I dunno, maybe fire Janet Napolitano?

 

RAAACIST! MORE ON MCCLATCHY’S GRIEVOUS ERROR: Don’t leave it to Cleaver, part 16. “We believe that the congressmen’s story was a fabrication intended to defame the Tea Party movement and distract attention from the resistance to Obamacare. Not a single video corroborates it. No independent witness has stepped forward to vouch for it. Given the involvement of Rep. Clyburn in promoting the story, the fabrication extends to the Democratic congressional leadership. It is a scandal that warrants the attention of the mainstream media. In recent installments of this series, we have posted correspondence — both our own and that of our readers — with McClatchy News investigative editor James Asher. (All previous installments can be accessed here.) Readers have continued to forward their correspondence with Asher to us. This correspondence powerfully points out the deficiencies of the messages we have posted from Asher. But it is evident that Asher has no interest in examining the merits of the story.”

 

PO PO PITIFUL ME: Obama uses commencement speech to whine about blogs and talk radio. All these blogs won’t let me be — Lord have mercy on me . . . woe, woe is me.

 

I don’t think it’s going over well: “Put George W. Bush in blackface and what do you get? Evidently, Barack H. Obama.

 

SCOTUS fight: Boxing Elena

By Michelle Malkin  •  May 9, 2010 11:03 PM

Monday opens with a SCOTUS bang. NBC News reports tonight that Harvard Law School dean turned solicitor general Elena Kagan will be the White House SCOTUS nominee to replace retiring Justice John Paul Stevens. It was widely rumored she would be the pick leading into the weekend. The announcement is expected at 11 a.m. Eastern:

President Barack Obama will nominate U.S. Solicitor General Elena Kagan to serve as an associate justice on the U.S. Supreme Court, NBC News’ Pete Williams reported late Sunday night.

Kagan, 50, served as the Dean of Harvard Law School from 2003 to 2009. Obama nominated her to serve in her current post as solicitor general early in 2009, and she won Senate confirmation by a vote of 61-31. She is the first woman to serve as solicitor general of the United States.

She was widely viewed as a front-runner when Obama was considering candidates for a Supreme Court opening last year, but the president ultimately chose Sonia Sotomayor for the job.

The Beltway conventional wisdom has already cast her as a “mooooderate” and a “pragmatist.” Ed Whelan at Bench Memos has the appropriate retort to that narrative.

And here’s a reminder from my blog almost exactly a year ago when Kagan was on the short list for the SCOTUS slot that ultimately went to Sonia Sotomayor:

“Dean Kagan’s nomination to the Supreme Court would be concerning given her complete lack of judicial or appellate experience. She has never been a judge or even argued a case in a court of appeals. It is difficult to see how her experience fundraising for Harvard Law School qualifies her for a seat on the Nation’s high court.

-Dean Kagan has taken positions that are disturbingly out of the mainstream. For example, driven by her view that the “don’t ask; don’t tell” policy adopted by a Democrat Congress and President Clinton is “a profound wrong–a moral injustice of the first order,” she argued that it violates the First Amendment for the United States to withhold funds from colleges that ban the military from recruiting on campus. The Supreme Court unanimously rejected this view.

-It is also unclear that a Justice Kagan would be an adequately independent check on executive excesses. She has argued in favor of greatly enhanced presidential control over the bureaucracy, which is concerning in light of President Obama’s unprecedented centralization of power in the White House.

-Dean Kagan has argued that nominees to the Supreme Court should undergo a searching inquiry into the nominee’s substantive views of the law, and should comment particular issues. If nominated, it will be interesting to see whether Dean Kagan remains faithful to this prescription in answering the Committee’s questions.”

The nutroots aren’t happy with Kagan’s clubby academic ties or her work for Goldman Sachs. HuffPo:

While the work [Elena] Kagan did for Goldman remains largely brief or unknown, the Huffington Post was passed along two reports that the advisory council completed in 2005 and 2008. … The findings touch on the broad risks that the world economy faced and contain the type of insight expected from a largely formal panel. In terms of content, they came up a bit short, failing to mention credit bubbles in major economies (such as the U.S. housing market) as a looming problem.

Considering how many actual economists missed the housing bubble in real time, it would be difficult to hold Kagan to a higher standard — though Goldman was already betting against the housing market by the time the latter report was published.

The issue for progressives, however, isn’t her lack of long-term market salience. But rather the ties — however small — to a firm that is now a black mark on Wall Street and a pariah in Congress. … “I just don’t understand why the Administration would want to makes themselves and their nominee vulnerable to the opposition at a time when American skepticism of Wall Street is at an all time high,” said a prominent progressive strategist speaking on the condition of anonymity. “This is like handing the Republicans the mantle of populism just for trying to oppose Kagan’s confirmation.” …

Yeah. It’s going to make it a little more difficult to pull off the “compelling personal story”/SCOTUS nominee in touch with the people schtick that smoothed the path for Sotomayor.

Heckuva job, Obama optics experts…

***

Amen to what Sen. Jeff Sessions wrote in the Washington Post on Friday:

As government continues its rapid expansion, Americans are looking for judges in the mold of Chief Justice John Roberts, not Justice John Paul Stevens. They are looking for judges who will stay true to our Founders’ vision instead of imposing their own. They are looking for judges who recognize the limits on government power; who restrain themselves to the text of the Constitution; and who will defend the rights of all citizens without bias, without prejudice and without hesitation.

***

File under Curious Timing: The late Friday night resignation of top White House lawyer Daniel Meltzer, who shepherded Sotomayor through her SCOTUS nomination last year, is interesting, isn’t it?

Daniel J. Meltzer, a top White House lawyer who has played a critical behind-the-scenes role in the administration legal team, is resigning next month and will return to his tenured position as a Harvard law school professor, the White House said on Friday.

Mr. Meltzer’s last day as the principal deputy counsel to President Obama will be June 1. Since the administration took office, he has worked on nearly every major legal issue the White House has handled, a sprawling portfolio that ranged from domestic policies to national security matters.

…Among other things, Mr. Meltzer played a leading role in the administration’s efforts to close the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and related policies affecting terrorism detainees.

…In addition, Mr. Meltzer, who teaches courses on the federal courts at Harvard, helped prepare Supreme Court Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor for her confirmation hearings – a role he may reprise in his final weeks by working with Mr. Obama’s forthcoming Supreme Court nominee, which the president is expected to announce as soon as Monday.

Tom Goldstein at SCOTUSblog weighs in on where we go from here, process-wise:

Note the relationship between Monday’s announcement and the Senate calendar. There are seven weeks between Monday and June 28. Six to seven weeks is traditionally regarded as the minimum amount of time between a nomination announcement and hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee. June 28 marks the last week the Senate is in session before its July 4 recess, which runs from Saturday, July 3 to Sunday, July 11. So, tomorrow’s announcement is timed to permit hearings to be conducted prior to the recess, if (and it’s a big if) the Senate Judiciary Committee agrees.

Whether they will agree will depend on a number of factors. Kagan’s relatively short paper trail – note the contrast with the nearly two decades of decisions by Sonia Sotomayor – means there is less to review, and thus less time is required prior to the start of hearings. Kagan was also recently confirmed by the same Committee as Solicitor General.

Senate Democrats will prefer to move the process forward quickly for two reasons: so that Kagan is not “left hanging” for nine weeks before she appears before the Committee; and so that the nomination can be moved forward to make room in the calendar for legislative efforts. On the other hand, Republicans, as the opposition, will prefer delay because as more time passes there is a greater chance that something will emerge that justifies defeating (or at least undercuts) the nomination.

Also important will be the speed with which the Administration produces documents – not only the nominee’s questionnaire to the Senate but also the documents it intends to produce from Kagan’s time in the Clinton Administration. A genuine fight over materials could lead to a delay.

***

From SCOTUSReport:

Rick Garnett, professor of law and associate dean of University of Notre Dame Law School, and former law clerk for Chief Justice Rehnquist: “Elections matter, and the election of President Obama has turned out to matter a great deal for the future decisions and direction of Supreme Court. With the nomination of Solicitor General Kagan, the President has taken a significant step toward reshaping the Court and its work for generations. No one should think that this nomination is inconsequential, or that it changes little because it involves merely replacing one liberal justice with another. A conservative might someday win back the White House, but any future Republican president will be playing defense with his or her Supreme Court selections. With his second Supreme Court pick — and, to be clear, he will almost certainly have more — the President is on the way to having had more influence over the Court than any President since Reagan, and perhaps even Roosevelt. Future elections might undo some of the President’s policies, but his more liberal views about the Constitution, the powers of the national government, and the role of unelected federal judges, are now being locked in securely.”

David McIntosh, co-founder of the Federalist Society and former congressman from Indiana: I’m deeply disappointed that President Obama has chosen to nominate an individual who has demonstrated a lack of adherence to the limits of the Constitution and a desire to utilize the court system to enact her beliefs of social engineering. Solicitor General Kagan has been nominated with no judicial experience, a mere two years of private law practice, and only a year as Solicitor General of the United States. She is one of the most inexperienced nominees to the U.S. Supreme Court in recent memory.

Heh: “I love it when the most transparent administration ever picks a nominee because they don’t have much of a paper trail.”

Posted in: Supreme Court

 

comments (29)

 

CYNTHIA YOCKEY: Why Is It a Slur to Suggest Elena Kagan Is a Lesbian?

 

219 Agree with the 1st comment, Kagan, or perhaps Cass Sunstein, is about the best we can expect out of this petty, pissy, prancing, preening peacock of a President.

I think her sex life is her business.  Having seen her picture, I hope she keeps her business private.

Someone at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue needs anger management sessions

by Speranza ( 182 Comments › )
Filed under Barack Obama, Leftists, Politics, Progressives at May 9th, 2010 - 6:00 pm

Super suckup and Keith Olbermann lapdog Jonathan Alter of the soon to be defunct Newsweek Magazine, has written  a book about The One’s first year in office (an annus horribilis if there ever was one). It seems as if the  street thug in a fancy suit has a foul temper and likes to try to bully the people who are trying to actually defend this country. Of course it is easy for him to humiliate and  launch into tirades against McChrystal,  Petraeus, Netanyahu, etc. – people who actually love America, however when it comes to Chavez, Ahmadinejad, and those who are trying to destroy us he is as supine as a cheap whore.

Read the rest here: New Obama book by Newsweek senior editor Jonathan Alter airs private flares of temper

Tags: David Saltonstall
182 Comments »

Every copier made after 2002 has a hard drive that saves all the copied document

You know why the TEA Party is dangerous? [Darleen Click] UPDATED

… because it gives you bitter-clinging, Zionist, Xtianist, redneck, low-IQ, low-education, two-digit, Walmart-shopping, steak-on-the-backyard-BBQ, homeskooling, Boy-Scout-supporting, US-flag-wearing cousinfuckers the IDEA you can actually be responsible for your own life.

The President Bush who emerged after September 11 took his party and the country back to the divisive politics of earlier decades, giving us seven years of ideological recrimination. By the time of the last presidential campaign, millions were transfixed not by the wisdom or folly of Barack Obama’s policy agenda, but by absurd rumors about his birth certificate and his “socialism.” Now he has been elected president by a healthy majority and is grappling with a wounded economy and two foreign wars he inherited—and what are we talking about? A makeshift Tea Party movement whose activists rage against “government” and “the media,” while the hotheads of talk radio and cable news declare that the conservative counterrevolution has begun.

It hasn’t. [...]

A new strain of populism is metastasizing before our eyes, nourished by the same libertarian impulses that have unsettled American society for half a century now. [...] It appeals to petulant individuals convinced that they can do everything themselves if they are only left alone, and that others are conspiring to keep them from doing just that. This is the one threat that will bring Americans into the streets.

Welcome to the politics of the libertarian mob. [...]

Quite apart from the movement’s effect on the balance of party power, which should be short-lived, it has given us a new political type: the antipolitical Jacobin. The new Jacobins have two classic American traits that have grown much more pronounced in recent decades: blanket distrust of institutions and an astonishing—and unwarranted—confidence in the self. They are apocalyptic pessimists about public life and childlike optimists swaddled in self-esteem when it comes to their own powers. [...]

A million and a half students in the United States are now being taught by their parents at home, nearly double the number a decade ago, and representing about fifteen students for every public school in the country.11 There is nothing remarkable about wanting to escape unsafe schools and incompetent teachers, or to make sure your children are raised within your religious tradition. What’s remarkable is American parents’ confidence that they can do better themselves. [...]

[T]he movement’s rapid growth and popularity are unthinkable without the demagogues’ new ability to tell isolated individuals worried about their futures what they want to hear and put them in direct contact with one another, bypassing the parties and other mediating institutions our democracy depends on. When the new Jacobins turn on their televisions they do not tune in to the PBS News Hour or C-Span to hear economists and congressmen debate the effectiveness of financial regulations or health care reform. They look for shows that laud their common sense, then recite to them the libertarian credo that Fox emblazons on its home page nearly every day: YOU DECIDE.

You stupid people! How dare you challenge The Establishment!! We are the Experts! We have Degrees and Certificates! We go to the correct Cocktail Parties! We are the Taste Makers!

Not to worry though, between Obama’s FCC flipping the bird at the courts and contemplating the declaration of the Internet as a “utility”, the continued push by Congressional Dems for Orwellian-named “Fairness Doctrine” and Leftist newspapers making their Internet presence even more radically Left, this kind of silly, naive, and shall we say — SO 18th Century! — belief in individual sovereignty will be shut down one way or another.

Maybe we’ll take a page from Germany and start jailing homeschoolers for teaching without a state license as a start …

(h/t Allahpundit)

************************************************
UPDATE:

VIDEO AT LINK

 

Posted by Darleen @ 4:05 pm
Comments (141)

 

"Libertarian mob? Rampaging through the streets, aggressively leaving people alone?"

 

"A PhD in Government. Isn’t that a big surprise? While he may be an elitist c*cksucker, at least Mark Lilla isn’t trying to hide his “we know what’s good for you, you filthy peasants, and you damn well better shut up and do as you’re told” elitism."

 

"We’re back to Jeff Jarvis, who once argued that anybody can give you the facts; the job of journalists is to give you the lesson."

 

"This reminds me of the reports of Ceausescu’s demise. One minute he was giving his usual Leftist totalitarian dissertation on how capitalism was to blame for everything that was wrong with communism, and the next he was starting to hear boos from the crowd. At first he was angry, and I imagine he was contemplating giving the order to have those malefactors rounded up as soon as the speech was over.

But the crowd didn’t quiet, and the boos and catcalls spread through the crowd, and suddenly Ceausescu got a look of horror on his face. He realized that the game was up, and all the secret police in the world wouldn’t be able to save him.

Now I don’t believe that our political class is in much danger of being hung from lampposts, but they have that look in their eyes, just like Ceausescu, they know they are in trouble.

This is the time, like Nikolai on the balcony, that they try to shush the crowd. It didn’t work then, and it won’t work now. The game is up."

[backhoe]

The Welfare State’s Death Spiral. “What we’re seeing in Greece is the death spiral of the welfare state. This isn’t Greece’s problem alone, and that’s why its crisis has rattled global stock markets and threatens economic recovery. Virtually every advanced nation, including the United States, faces the same prospect.”

RELATED:

TIM CAVANAUGH: California: The American Greece. “What do Europe’s most bankrupt nation-state and America’s most bankrupt united state have in common, aside from being bankrupt? In what is undoubtedly a coincidence noticed only by free-market fundamentalists, it turns out that Greece, that sun-drenched paradise on the Aegean, and California, that sun-warmed El Dorado on the Pacific, are the worst places to do business in their respective economic zones. . . . The insidious thing about an unfriendly business climate is that it takes a long time for the effects to show up in the government’s inability to pay its bills. So long, in fact, that when the sovereign bankruptcy comes, it’s easy to draw the conclusion that tax rates are too low. Both California and Greece are going through a variety of this type of denial right now. But with the governor of California and the prime minister of Greece both promising to turn over a new leaf, this is a good time to remember that you can’t take people’s money if you prevent them from making money in the first place.”

 

Tea Parties May Be Europe’s Only Hope.  "Compare and contrast: In America, Tea Partiers peacefully march and demand their government spend less money to head off an impending crisis before it happens. In Greece, they evade taxes, wait until the economy collapses, then kill bank employees when the government is forced to cut benefits. "

 

 

JOHN HINDERAKER: Are the Feds Trying to Nationalize Your Retirement Savings? “At this point, I think the best we can say is this: the federal government is desperate for cash, and the biggest untapped source of wealth is the hundreds of billions or trillions of dollars that Americans who are now nearing retirement age have saved over their lifetimes.”

 

WHAT THE G.O.P. doesn’t get about blogs.

 

LIBERAL FASCISM: THE FONT.

 

Obama has Lost Almost Half of his US Jewish Support. And most of what remains is based on denial. . .

 

KILLING THE MESSENGER:

Barack Obama is obviously in distress and he should be. A majority of the country seem to think he is doing a poor job as president and I strongly suspect a greater number actually believe this is so and don’t want to admit it to themselves and others. . . .

Obama, unfortunately, has instead chosen to kill the messenger who brought some of the bad news. In a speech at Virginia’s Hampton University Sunday he has attacked the iPod and iPad – devices on which you can listen to Mozart and read Tolstoy – as the source of our problems.

The most damning part is Obama’s admission that he doesn’t “know how to work” an iPod. Good grief. Remember when he was going to be our hip, tech-savvy President? Now he’s coming across like Grandpa Simpson.

UPDATE: Bill Quick remembers something.

DONALD SENSING: “The floods were Nashville’s biggest disaster ever.”  And Obozo's... this will leave and indellible mark in flyover, err, throwaway, country. America won't forget this slight...

Culture of Corruption: Hilda Solis edition

By Michelle Malkin  •  May 10, 2010 04:05 PM

If you did your homework last year and read Culture of Corruption, you already know all about Labor Secretary Hilda Solis’s Big Labor corruptocracy (background here).

Here’s an unsurprising update on the reign of Hilda from Rob Bluey at Heritage:

Labor Secretary Hilda Solis rewarded six former staffers from her congressional office with political appointments and huge raises upon taking over at the Department of Labor. The appointees had significant pay increases averaging 50 percent upon changing jobs; one employee’s salary nearly doubled.

Solis, a former member of the U.S. House of Representatives from California, began hiring the employees shortly after she was confirmed by the Senate in February 2009. Political appointments are non-competitive government jobs that differ from career positions, which often involve a long hiring process.

The information was obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request by Americans for Limited Government. The pay raises stand in stark contrast to the Bush administration, which had a rule that employees shouldn’t make more than a 20 percent increase from their previous salary unless there were extraordinary circumstances. Only one Solis staffer made less than a 20 percent raise upon taking the political appointment.

Remember: It’s all about the boodle. Always about the boodle.

Posted in: Corruption, Unions

 

comments (10) 

 

I was just browsing through my little pocket edition of our Constitution and saw Article II, Section 4…”The President, Vice President and all Civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.”

Now, that seemes pretty clear, right?

"It is easy to spend other people’s money."

First Lesbian SCOTUS Justice: Elena Kagan

Posted by hillbuzz under Uncategorized | Tags: Democrats strategy, Elena Kagan, First lesbian SCOTUS Justice, identity politics, What's Democrats' real plan with Kagan? |
[99] Comments 

Drudge Report’s running the headlines that Elena Kagan will be nominated to the Supreme Court of the United States today.

Whatever anyone says about her, this nomination could have been worse.

Our pick for the SCOTUS was Ann Claire Williams — whom we hope President Palin makes her first nomination to the Court in 2013.

READ IT ALL- at the link...

May 10, 2010 at 1:32 pm

I don’t care about her sexual lifestyle. I don’t care about her appearance.

I don’t even care that she was never a judge. After all, there was talk a while back that Hillary might get nominated for the Supreme Court. None of us here would say that Hillary was not qualifed because she wasn’t a judge.

What disturbs me is Kagan’s view on the Constitution. She believes it is defective:

http://weaselzippers.us/2010/05/10/rnc-does-kagan-views-the-constitution-as-defective/

That should be questioned.

Rasmussen: Sestak Tops Specter, 47-42

—Ace

We will probably not get the thrill of retiring this nasty (perennially voted among the Senate's meanest) bastard ourselves; the Democrats will beat us to the punch.

One partisan, media-bashing point: The media will take the ouster of Bob Bennet as an indictment of conservatives. We're too ideological and/or partisan, they'll claim. (See the predictable Kathleen Parker, for example.) This take-down of one of the "good guys" (that is, someone willing to bend the Democrats way) proves that, as if it needed further proving.

First of all, one of the media's go-to Neutral Story Lines is that incumbents have too much of advantage in elections and there's not enough turn-over and fresh blood (read: drama which makes the news more fun to write) each election. Mickey Kaus often notes the media likes Neutral Story Lines, as they're easy to write, but are supposedly nonpartisan, as they usually criticize some procedural defect in both parties.

What makes the "Neutral Story Line" not neutral at all is that the media seems most interested, each cycle, in the "Neutral Story Li9ne" that hurts the Republicans more. For instance, the amount of money flowing into elections became a more and more intense problem as more and more money flowed to Republicans, putting Democrats at a disadvantage. The supposedly Neutral Story Line doesn't really seem all that Neutral when you consider that there's-too-much-money-in-politics reached its crisis stage during Bush's 2004 election, when he spent more money than anyone in history, but suddenly wasn't a problem at all when Obama topped him in 2008. This despite the fact that Bush actually had a higher percentage of small-money donors than Obama (as a percentage of total money donated), and Obama had a bigger percentage of high-dollar donors.

The media loves these story lines, because facially they appear neutral -- "money in politics is a danger" has no on-its-face, explicit partisan import -- but the timing of when to deploy a particular story line is highly partisan, and always made with the Democratic Party's best interests in mind.

Thus, when Bush refused the campaign spending limits, and spent only private money, it was nearly a constitutional crisis; when Obama did the same, it was a triumph of people-powered politics.

Are conspiracy theories bad? Well, right now, when the Republican base is vulnerable to buying into conspiracy theories about Obama's birthplace or sabotaged deep-drilling oil rigs, conspiracy theories are bad, and examples of the Paranoid Style of American Politics.

On the other hand, when former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright confessed to Mort Kondracke she feared Bush had actually captured bin Ladin and was secretly holding him only to publicize his capture on the eve of the 2004 elections, a party's trafficking in conspiracy theories wasn't even worth noting.

Certainly such conspiracy theories weren't worth noting when Bush and Cheney (and their deadly cabal) were accused of sabotaging a plane in order to murder a sitting and popular liberal US Senator.

Now, of course, in the case of Bob Bennet, the media is instructing us that we on the right are too partisan and too ideological and too inflexible and so on and so on -- the "neutral story line" they're pushing; a call for moderation is neutral, by its own terms -- and ignoring the other possible neutral story line -- that it's wonderful that an incumbent got beat, which proves that our politics can change when an electorate gets involved.

But consider the case of Sestack and Specter: The media will once again have its choice of two "neutral story lines" when that primary is resolved. It's heads the Democrats win, tails the Republicans lose, as far as the media is concerned.

If Sestack wins, the media will in fact push the "neutral story line" they could have pushed, but chose not to, in Bennet's case: That we're retiring an old warhorse in favor of a fresh face and that proves that our system works.

On the other hand, if Specter wins, they'll push the "neutral story line" that the Democrats, unlike Republicans, are welcoming of moderates. (And Specter, a moderate Republican turncoat now voting as a somewhat-less-moderate Democrat, is still pretty moderate.) So that story line does have something to it.

But we'll have no stories about "overly-partisan and inflexibly ideological Democrats driving out a true moderate and fence-crosser" if Specter should lose -- trust that. Instead we'll have the other supposedly-neutral story line, the one that once again just happens to wind up praising Democrats.

And this is how media bias works 75% of the time. Most of the time, the media is selecting between several possible "rules," many of which are arguably correct, but which are contradicted by nearly opposite rules, which are also arguably correct. The media never decides which rule is correct in the most cases; instead, they choose whichever "rule" benefits the Democrats this cycle.

Are we too interested in personal scandals which don't really have much to do with a party's governing philosophy? The answer is "No" if you mean Mark Foley or Mark Sanford; the answer is "Yes" if you mean Eric Massa or John Edwards.

Is it out of line for a former vice president to toughly criticize a new president of a different party? Well, if you're Al Gore criticizing Bush, you're just being patriotic and expressing the frustrations of millions of Americans. If you're Dick Cheney criticizing Obama, you're deliberately weakening a new president and endangering national security.

Is it patriotic, or treasonous, for a high-level national security staffer to leak to the press? Well, if you're exposing Bush's SWIFT snooping, you're a patriot, keeping a vigilant eye on the shadowy, murky world of espionage. If you're embarrassing Obama by noting that he has no Iran plan at all, you're a dirty leaking traitor giving away critical state secrets for a cheap partisan advantage.

And dissent? Is it the highest form of patriotism or the lowest form of partisanship? I think you know the answer there, and the answer is, of course, It depends on who's dissenting.

In each of these situations, a halfway decent case can be made either way -- often, both of these "rules" is kinda-sorta true and kinda-sorta false.

The way the media shapes opinion is by stating, categorically, without caveat, that one rule is true in all cases when it benefits Democrats, and then, the following election cycle (or even the following month) that its opposite rule is categorically, and without caveat, true, in all cases, when it hurts the Republicans.

Neutral story lines are only really neutral when the criteria for choosing them is neutral. When partisan and ideological considerations drive the choice of which conflicting "neutral" story line to push, it's just a partisan press covering its tracks with the thinnest pretense of objectivity. As usual.

Thanks to James.

Posted by Ace at 04:12 PM New Comments Thingy

 

================================================

 

THE SOUND OF SCIENCE: Knoxville’s Dave “Seva” Ball — a musical whiz who was a founder of AudioAnimation and Waves, and who mastered both the first album I ever produced, and Helen’s film, Six — is now working to preserve Bob Moog’s tape archive. “In January, he embarked on his most unusual assignment: to rescue the earliest recordings of one his personal heroes before they disintegrated from an onslaught of mold and decay. Under a grant from the Grammy Foundation, he’s been working with the Bob Moog Foundation in Asheville, N.C., to meticulously clean, preserve, and digitize the audible history of the synthesizer in his garage-turned-studio. Or at least as much of it as he can—the grant only covers a sixth of the tapes requiring restoration, and the clock is ticking.”

 

REVEALING THE DATA ON YOUR CREDIT CARD’S MAGSTRIPE using rust particles.

[backhoe]

Fair enough- let's extract the offending site and try again- the other information is... interesting...

Video: Schoolgirl's Drawing Of American Flag Called 'Offensive' By Teacher

Mexican Students Knock U.S. Flag to the Ground (Morgan Hill)

Pelosi: We Can’t Tell 12M Illegals ‘Go Back to Wherever You Came From or Go to Jail’(video)

No, you idiot- it's more like 30-40 million--- and if you take away their incentives they will self-deport...

We did in 1954 via operation wetback:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Wetback
from what I’ve read it worked pretty well.

A Naturalized Citizen Speaks

As House Democrats try to stall, several states are moving against illegal aliens: We’ve had enough

Oil Spill Insights from a Retired Manager of an Offshore Underwater Service Company

BP's Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill at the Oil Drum Overview - Especially for New Readers

Eyjafjallajökull Ash Wreaking Havoc Across Europe, And It Could Get Even Worse

Millington residents unleash flood of woes in storms' wake (Feds show up 10 days later)

Meet the place of Obama’s birth, according to Hawaii Governor

HOW CAN A NATURAL BORN CITIZEN'S STATUS BE "GOVERNED" BY GREAT BRITAIN?

“When Barack Obama Jr. was born on Aug. 4,1961, in Honolulu, Kenya was a British colony, still part of the United Kingdom’s dwindling empire. As a Kenyan native, Barack Obama Sr. was a British subject whose citizenship status was governed by The British Nationality Act of 1948. That same act governed the status of Obama Sr.‘s children.

http://fightthesmears.com/articles/5/birthcertificate.html

Factcheck.org goes on to say this about Obama Sr., Jr. and the British Nationality Act of 1948:

In other words, at the time of his birth, Barack Obama Jr. was both a U.S. citizen (by virtue of being born in Hawaii) and a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies (or the UKC) by virtue of being born to a father who was a citizen of the UKC.

http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/does_barack_obama_have_kenyan_citizenship.html

Even the modern day State Department rules discusses the problems associated with dual citizenship:

7 FAM 081: U.S. Policy on Dual Nationality:

(e)While recognizing the existence of dual nationality, the U.S. Government does not encourage it as a matter of policy because of the problems it may cause. Dual nationality may hamper efforts by the U.S. Government to provide diplomatic and consular protection to individuals overseas. When a U.S. citizen is in the other country of their dual nationality, that country has a predominant claim on the person.

...

the U.S. Supreme Court has stated that dual nationality is a "status long recognized in the law" and that "a person may have and exercise rights of nationality in two countries and be subject to the responsibilities of both." See Kawakita v. United States, 343 U.S. 717 (1952).

http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/86563.pdf

So, back to the question: "HOW CAN A NATURAL BORN CITIZEN'S STATUS BE "GOVERNED" BY GREAT BRITAIN?"
It can't. Of course not. Yet, right there, on his campaign web site F.T.S., it's stated that a foreign government "governed" Barry from birth and the reason it did, was that Barry inherited that foreign citizenship by way of his foreign national father (no matter where he was born), a fact backed up by Factcheck.org. Assuming, of course, that Sr. was his legal father at birth.
How, then, could he possibly be a "Natural Born Citizen" of the U.S.?
Barry Soetoro, the divided citizen at birth!

46 posted on Monday, May 10, 2010 1:01:17 PM by rxsid

Obama Warns Grads Of iPad Perils (WELCOME To The 21st Century President Obama)

No evidence gun registry works

Oppressive Government: Feds Tell GA Old Folks They Can’t Pray Before Meals

Every Dog Must Have a Soul

Unions warn of Greek-style riots in Britain against public sector cuts after court victory over....

Tax Rate On Dividends Set To Surge 164% After 2010

Obama may have surrendered to high unemployment, but the rest of us don’t have to

So where are the Republicans?

Time for Democrats to Face a People’s Court

BENNETT LOSS WAS WARNING TO GOP

Embracing Female Genital Mutilation

“When Barack Obama Jr. was born on Aug. 4,1961, in Honolulu, Kenya was a British colony, still part of the United Kingdom’s dwindling empire. As a Kenyan native, Barack Obama Sr. was a British subject whose citizenship status was governed by The British Nationality Act of 1948. That same act governed the status of Obama Sr.‘s children.

http://fightthesmears.com/articles/5/birthcertificate.html

Factcheck.org goes on to say this about Obama Sr., Jr. and the British Nationality Act of 1948:

In other words, at the time of his birth, Barack Obama Jr. was both a U.S. citizen (by virtue of being born in Hawaii) and a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies (or the UKC) by virtue of being born to a father who was a citizen of the UKC.

http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/does_barack_obama_have_kenyan_citizenship.html

Even the modern day State Department rules discusses the problems associated with dual citizenship:

7 FAM 081: U.S. Policy on Dual Nationality:

(e)While recognizing the existence of dual nationality, the U.S. Government does not encourage it as a matter of policy because of the problems it may cause. Dual nationality may hamper efforts by the U.S. Government to provide diplomatic and consular protection to individuals overseas. When a U.S. citizen is in the other country of their dual nationality, that country has a predominant claim on the person.

...

the U.S. Supreme Court has stated that dual nationality is a "status long recognized in the law" and that "a person may have and exercise rights of nationality in two countries and be subject to the responsibilities of both." See Kawakita v. United States, 343 U.S. 717 (1952).

http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/86563.pdf

So, back to the question: "HOW CAN A NATURAL BORN CITIZEN'S STATUS BE "GOVERNED" BY GREAT BRITAIN?"
It can't. Of course not. Yet, right there, on his campaign web site F.T.S., it's stated that a foreign government "governed" Barry from birth and the reason it did, was that Barry inherited that foreign citizenship by way of his foreign national father (no matter where he was born), a fact backed up by Factcheck.org. Assuming, of course, that Sr. was his legal father at birth.
How, then, could he possibly be a "Natural Born Citizen" of the U.S.?
Barry Soetoro, the divided citizen at birth!

46 posted on Monday, May 10, 2010 1:01:17 PM by rxsid

Obama Warns Grads Of iPad Perils (WELCOME To The 21st Century President Obama)

[backhoe]

Elections chief: Constitution 'important' Ineligible candidate would be 'biggest scam ever...

Some pix from the recent Tennessee flooding

 

Say it Loud

Say it Proud

The New Improved Black Jesus Hates...

Throwaway ( formerly Flyover ) Country...

It’s Not About Greece Any More (Some Scary Numbers)

Small Business hiring "Bleak"

‘Before He Was Elected He Was Selected’

Open Season, Despite Barack’s Pleas For Mercy

Obama Administration's border fence scam exposed by investigative report

Kagan: Speech is free if government decides it has more value than 'societal costs'

Kagan Thesis: The decline of U.S. socialism is “sad” for those looking to “change America”

With Obamacare Cash Comes New Abortion Supercenter for Planned Parenthood [St. Paul, MN]

Outrage: Obama Administration Targets Military for Pay Reductions

Obama planning a Dept of Truthiness?

Outdated, unwanted, US nukes hang on in Europe

 

 

A 'Duty To Die' In An Advanced Civilization?

http://www.freedominion.com.pa/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=1490959#1490959

 

You all already know what I think- the "Medical Mary-Jew-Wanna" people just want to sell and smoke dope, and are hiding behind sick folks to do it.

That said, I really don't care if sick people smoke the stinky stuff- damnation, life is too short and too full of misery to get wound up about such stuff.
But I do wish the Medical Doper Crowd would be honest about their motivations.

================================================

R.I.P. Frank Frazetta

 

[backhoe]

EU President: euro-socialism is on the verge of collapse

—Purple Avenger

Undoubtedly just a mental lapse on his part to admit this.

...EU president Van Rompuy warned that the bloc risks irrelevance and the end of its expensive welfare programs if it can't speed up economic growth, forecast to expand by just 1 percent this year.

"With 1 percent growth we can't finance our social model any more. With 1 percent structural growth we can't play a role in the world," he told the World Economic Forum in Brussels. "We need to double the economic growth potential that we now have."

Many are skeptical that can be achieved...

So just as the Europeans are clue'ing up that their shit, err, stuff, don't work, and money really doesn't grow on trees, the US is dumbing down and looking to follow their failed example.

The New Dark Ages are upon us. All we need are a bunch of Huns and Vandals sacking the joint to make it complete.

Posted by Purple Avenger at 01:09 AM New Comments Thingy

 

6 And yet people will make this an excuse to quit capitalism all together because capitalism failed to grow the economy fast enough. Expect to soon hear "arguments" that capitalism failed because we can't have everything for free.

29 Well if its vandals and huns, I am joining the vandals, because I like their uniform and that big red V on the front.  plus the chicks are hotter.

 

The Great Disentangling Has Begun: What Bob Bennett’s Defeat Means and Does Not. “It’s not about a purge. It’s about an insurrection.”  Bob Bennett... went into office promising to cut the spending and leaves office having collaborated in the fleecing of America.

 

DLTDHYOTWO: Bob Bennett gets the boot. And next…

May 10, 2010 10:54 AM by Michelle Malkin

I’ve said it before and it bears repeating even louder: Entrenched incumbency is not an argument for more entrenched incumbency.

Conservatives in Utah sent that message loud in clear this weekend in ousting entrenched GOP incumbent Sen. Bob Bennett, who begged and pleaded furiously to save his hide in the weeks leading up to the state Republican convention. All together now: Don’t Let The Door Hit You on the Way Out!89 Comments

 

"I’ll spell it out for them one more time so they don't need to waste their time trying to understand what is happening to them. There’s more of us than them, and we surround them.

We’re cleaning house in the GOP in this cycle – then we're wiping the Dems. "

 

CHANGE: ‘Tea party’-backed platform sails through Maine GOP convention.

READER CREEDE KURTZ shot this photo of the Ardmore, Oklahoma tornado: “Ardmore got lucky – many town all around us got hit hard, according to breaking reports. The storm has moved 70 miles in 90 minutes and has dropped multiple tornadoes. Local news is saying no reports of injuries or fatalities. PS – taken with an Olympus Stylus 850 SW.”

 

 

BIZARRE FACT OF THE DAY: Media Take Note: In Arizona County, Of 64 Highway Chases Last Month, Not One Perp a U.S. Citizen.

 

SOFTWARE POLICE in a petabyte age of surveillance. Hope it works out better than earlier automated-enforcement efforts.

With so much data, police are turning to software to spot suspicious activity. But is that any replacement for human eyes?

“The Welfare State’s Death Spiral”

Robert Samuelson:

What we’re seeing in Greece is the death spiral of the welfare state. This isn’t Greece’s problem alone, and that’s why its crisis has rattled global stock markets and threatens economic recovery. Virtually every advanced nation, including the United States, faces the same prospect. Aging populations have been promised huge health and retirement benefits, which countries haven’t fully covered with taxes. The reckoning has arrived in Greece, but it awaits most wealthy societies.

[...]

The welfare state’s death spiral is this: Almost anything governments might do with their budgets threatens to make matters worse by slowing the economy or triggering a recession. By allowing deficits to balloon, they risk a financial crisis as investors one day — no one knows when — doubt governments’ ability to service their debts and, as with Greece, refuse to lend except at exorbitant rates. Cutting welfare benefits or raising taxes all would, at least temporarily, weaken the economy. Perversely, that would make paying the remaining benefits harder.

Greece illustrates the bind. To gain loans from other European countries and the International Monetary Fund, it embraced budget austerity. Average pension benefits will be cut 11 percent; wages for government workers will be cut 14 percent; the basic rate for the value added tax will rise from 21 percent to 23 percent. These measures will plunge Greece into a deep recession. In 2009, unemployment was about 9 percent; some economists expect it to peak near 19 percent.

If only a few countries faced these problems, the solution would be easy. Unlucky countries would trim budgets and resume growth by exporting to healthier nations. But developed countries represent about half the world economy; most have overcommitted welfare states. They might defuse the dangers by gradually trimming future benefits in a way that reassured financial markets. In practice, they haven’t done that; indeed, President Obama’s health program expands benefits. What happens if all these countries are thrust into Greece’s situation? One answer — another worldwide economic collapse — explains why dawdling is so risky.

Sure. But that’s all so dark cloudyish. And, you know, down the road.

Meantime: FREE "stuff"!

The selfish gamble implicit in the welfare state is that, though most people know on some level that spending in excess of revenue isn’t a very fiscally responsible long-term plan on which to build a stable society, many are willing to bet that resources won’t run out in the short term — which means these types of voters believe they will still get theirs so long as they continue to “vote in their own economic interests.”

Future generations? Not their problem.

And besides. If their kids don’t like being poor, let them do what everyone does to climb out of poverty: get a government job.

(h/t sdferr)

Posted by Jeff G. @ 10:47 am
Comments (25)

 

The Complete Guide to ACORN Voter Fraud

 Link to this Comment

 

=====================================================

 

Frank Frazetta 1928-2010

by Bunk X ( 101 Comments › )
Filed under Art, Humor, Open thread at May 10th, 2010 - 11:04 pm

By MARYCLAIRE DALE (AP)

PHILADELPHIA — Pioneering fantasy artist Frank Frazetta died Monday in a Fort Myers, Fla., hospital, a manager said. He was 82.

Frazetta had been out to dinner with his daughters Sunday but suffered a stroke at his Boca Grande home later that night and was taken to Lee Memorial Hospital, manager Rob Pistella said. A hospital spokeswoman confirmed the death, as did his daughter Heidi Frazetta Grabin.

“He’s going to be remembered as the most renowned fantasy illustrator of the 20th Century,” Pistella said.

Frazetta created covers and illustrations for more than 150 books and comic books, along with album covers, movie posters and original paintings. His illustrations of Conan the Barbarian, Tarzan, Vampirella and other characters influenced many later artists.

Frazetta had many imitators, but there was only one Frazetta.

The image above was one of my favorites in the 1970s, but my girlfriend wasn’t impressed when I projected it and copied it onto my dorm room wall with magic marker, so I broke up with her. I was like that back then. With that in mind, let’s have an Overnight Open Thread.

[Image from here, news blurb from here.]► Hot Links

 

Tags: awesome, Frank Frazetta, Graphics, Illustrations, Retro
101 Comments »

[backhoe]

'From Now On, the Main Targets of Our Fidaeen [Suicide Bombers] Are American Cities'

Deep Cover at Organizing for America

Be aware of the socialists plans to corrupt future elections:

Soros Eyes Secretaries

Forget amnesty, look where Democrats now stoop for votes!

Derivatives – the new dimension of the reality

 

Sovereign Default: The Spectre That's Haunting Europe

“It would be ironic if, as the USA moves towards a more European-style healthcare system, Europe (UK included) starts to realise it can’t afford its own.”

The Framing Of The Debate (tmi3rd)

—Open Blogger

We're starting to see a coalescing of the narrative from the Left in terms of what they perceive our intentions to be. The narrative seems to be not so much a downsizing of government, but an elimination of government altogether- in short, to paint the right as anarchists.

Obviously, that isn't the case- quite the contrary, the clear story from the commenters here and at other blogs shows a deep devotion to the Constitution and the rule of law.

So what is pushing all this?

Continue reading

I'd noticed it recently from lefty postings on Facebook- the attempts to defend socialism- particularly in regards to the health care debate- by asking whether conservatives like having roads, emergency services, and so forth. That argument is, of course, comparing apples to oranges, and utterly ridiculous.

Instapundit has some links up to various blogs, talking about that very same thing. The attempt is, again, to define conservatives as anarchists. The corollary, by extension, is even more interesting- it notes the Left's absolute and unquestioning trust in their government, along with the predictable hatred and distrust of any other point of view.

It does bring up an interesting point, and not necessarily a dishonest question from the Left- what is the conservative stance on government's role?

The answer, as I believe it, is defined very specifically in the Constitution, and is something that it appears many Americans understand- to the chagrin of many in Congress, all of whom are having to reassert their allegiance to something- either the rule of law (in conservative districts) or to what makes them feel better (in statist districts).

It's going to be very important over the next few months- leading up to the midterms- and in the next two and a half years- leading up to the next presidential election- to define the conservative belief of the role of government as part of the sales pitch to get statists out of power.

What do you think? It obviously doesn't matter what I specifically think, but more about what we can define.

Have at it!

Posted by Open Blogger at 03:03 AM New Comments Thingy

Iran in the 1970s, before the Islamic Revolution

Kagan Whitewash [mainstream media ignores her actions that should disqualify her for Supreme Court]

A ‘Duty to Die’? (Will the cost of medical care force us to sacrifice the elderly?)

Michael Barone: In Britain, a Cautionary Tale for U.S. Parties - Labor’s downfall, the Lib-Dem...

Liberal Lie #8: Our Economic Woes Result from an Unregulated Free Market

884 Well this is interesting:
http://tiny.cc/7pp2d

The Obama administration also conspired with BP to fudge the extent of the oil leak, according to our federal and state sources. After the oil rig exploded and sank, the government stated that 42,000 gallons per day was gushing from the seabed chasm.  Five days later, the federal government upped the leakage to 210,000 gallons a day.

However, WMR has been informed that submersibles that are  monitoring the escaping oil from the Gulf seabed are viewing television pictures of what is a "volcanic-like" eruption of oil. Moreover, when the Army Corps of Engineers first attempted to obtain NASA imagery of the Gulf oil slick -- which is larger than that being reported by the media -- it was turned down. However, National Geographic managed to obtain the satellite imagery shots of the extent of the disaster and posted them on their web site.

There is other satellite imagery being withheld by the Obama administration that shows what lies under the gaping chasm spewing oil at an ever-alarming rate is a cavern estimated to be around the size of Mount Everest. This information has been given an almost national security-level classification to keep it from the public, according to our sources.

================================================

Thoughts on the Reading Habits (or Lack Thereof) of Males and Females

—Monty

Take a look at Amazon's Best Seller list. Or that of the New York Times, or the Washington Post. Do you notice anything? Concentrate, now. What stands out?

Women drive the publishing industry. That's my take-away, anyhow. Women readers probably outnumber men by three-to-one. Maybe even four-to-one. At least in the mainstream fiction genres and in periodicals. I see women reading all the time: on buses and trains and airplanes, in waiting rooms, on lunch breaks, everywhere. If I see a man reading, it's usually a newspaper, and it's usually the sports page. (Guys might be reading stuff on their smartphones, I guess.)

Here are some off-the-cuff observations I have about this phenomenon:

- Women read romances, mysteries, fantasy novels, and mainstream fiction.
- Men read thrillers (military and murder), hard sci-fi, and graphic novels.
- Nobody seems to read Westerns any more.
- In non-fiction, women read relationship books, personal-improvement books, "How To Be Thin" books, and "spirituality" books.
- In non-ficiton, men read about history, sports, business, finance, and science.
- Music geeks of both sexes read about music, but only guys read guitar magazines.
- For every ten women's magazines (People, US, Good Housekeeping) men have one (Guns and Ammo, Road and Track).
- Women have so pussified vampires that they no longer bear any resemblance to fearsome blood sucking ghouls like Varney and Nosferatu.
- I am the only man I know who has an e-book reader (a Kindle). I know about twenty women who have one.

What think you, Morons? Am I on or off base here? What are y'all reading?

Posted by Monty at 07:59 AM New Comments Thingy

 

Overnight Open Thread

—Maetenloch

Welcome to the Monday.

The Esquire 2010 Survey of American Women

Okay it was an internet poll of 9000 women rather than a random sample, but there are still all kinds of statistical goodness here. According to the survey most women make less than $30K a year, 31% have had plastic surgery, 84% claim to be able to parallel park, and a plurality would want to sleep with Zooey Deschanel if they were lesbians and/or had a few cocktails.

And then there's the 1,000 Things You Don't Know About Women. But a lot of the 1000 facts seem rather specific to certain women.

Continue readingPosted by Maetenloch at 09:30 PM New Comments Thingy

1 Hmm... Obama's victory is becoming clear now...

1002 Here's a tornado video in Oklahoma from today. My stomach falls watching it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWoMjkVYmP0