analysis policy in all the world: tháng 11 2011

Thứ Tư, 30 tháng 11, 2011

Obamacare: It's all that and a bag of chips

It's a Hillbilly Christmas!

PVC and Mountain Dew: a powerful combination.

The sheer beauty of this holiday spectacle brings a tear to my eye.

Hat tip: Chris

Report: Republican Presidential Candidate Is Closeted Gay Male Who Sexually Harassed a Male Actor and Frequented a Gay Bathhouse

Did I say "Republican candidate"? Because I meant to say "Barack Obama." Kevin DuJan reports:

If the operating assumption is that anything whispered about by anonymous sources is true about Herman Cain, then I guess everything people in Chicago have talked about for years related to Barack Obama being a closeted gay man into younger Pakistani guys must be true too, right?

During the 2008 election, I campaigned for Hillary Clinton in the Democrat primaries. Repeatedly, I heard over and over here in Chicago that Barack Obama is gay and that his marriage to Michelle is one of mutual convenience. In the black community, this is called “being on the down-low”, where a closeted gay male weds an often-times gruff and demanding woman (typically without other male suitors of her own) to take public scrutiny off them both and afford the pair a successful life they’d never achieve separately.

There are, apparently, a lot of such relationships forged at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago — where Barack Obama’s pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, oversaw the coupling of down-low gay black men with sour and caustic black women.

...You need to understand how much homosexuality is despised in the black community to appreciate both the need for gay black men to stay “down-low” and the willingness of some black women to become “beards” for these men when they think they can benefit from the arrangement in some way themselves (usually because these are difficult-to-deal-with women who were unable to find anyone willing to marry them otherwise).

Oprah Winfrey and her longtime “boyfriend” Stedman Graham were for many years also members of Trinity United Church of Christ, and you can read whatever you may like into that.

In Chicago’s Boystown gay community, older guys who frequented the little dive bars that have been around forever told tales back in the 2008 primaries about Barack Obama slipping out whenever he was in Chicago for romps at the local bathhouse “Man’s Country”. The details given in these accounts of his activities were substantial... According to the gossip, Barack Obama would never reciprocate in these encounters, but enjoyed being pleasured by older white guys

...This jibes with everything Larry Sinclair said about his own sexual encounter with Barack Obama in the back of a limo many years ago. You remember Larry Sinclair, right? He’s the man the agenda-driven media worked overtime to destroy and did its level best to silence because he posed a direct threat to the narrative the Left needed to push for Barack Obama to elect him president — and needless to say, that narrative didn’t include Barack Obama receiving oral sex from another man in the back of a limo in Chicago.

You need to appreciate that when a Democrat is accused of anything, the Democrat’s accusers are crucified with remarkable zeal in the press; but when someone whispers anything obscene about a Republican, that person is lauded by the “journalists” of the Left as the bravest and most credible person who ever lived…even if that person refuses to give her name, actually state on record what she claimed happened, or provide any sort of corroborating evidence that what she’s alleging is in any way remotely true.

To the media, it’s true just because it was said about a Republican. Meanwhile, Democrats can always get away with murder. Just ask the Kennedy family about that.

...So, why can’t we all talk about Barack Obama dating Hollywood actor Kal Penn during the 2008 presidential campaign, and Obama then inventing a strange, nebulous position for the actor in the early days of the Obama administration (just so Penn could abruptly leave his hit TV show and move to Washington to be close to Obama?). Apparently, since Penn then left the White House abruptly after just a few months of work (in a position that was created solely for him) the current President and his down-low boyfriend must have broken up.

...You know full well the “journalists” on sites like Politico would have spent the last three years digging relentlessly into a Republican president’s past, repeatedly asking why not a single former girlfriend has ever stepped forward to identify herself or speak on the record about her past with the man currently in the Oval Office.

Isn’t it strange that the public’s never been introduced to A SINGLE GIRLFRIEND that Barack Obama ever had in high school, college, law school, or the days before he met ... Michelle?

Don’t you wonder why the “journalists” of the Left have never done any in-depth profiles of Barack Obama’s male friends from his years at Occidental College in California, talked about his “roommate” while at Columbia, or wondered about any of his social activities through the years?

I know there are endless mysteries centered around a man whose college transcripts, vital records, and other important paperwork were apparently sealed away from the public in an impregnable vault somewhere cloaked in riddles and enigma — never to be seen by human eyes again — but if Barack Obama was a Republican he would have been outed as gay many years ago.

If Barack Obama was a Republican, the agenda-driven media would have hounded him about the nature of his relationship with his “bodyman” Reggie Love.

If Barack Obama was a Republican, the Left would have somehow gotten ahold of his lifetime membership at Chicago gay bathhouse Man’s Country and would have plastered those records across Politico to destroy his political career.

If Barack Obama was a Republican, the press would have quickly interpreted the dearth of girlfriends in his past as evidence of a surfeit of boyfriends and no one at the New York Times would have slept a wink until every Tom, Dick, or Larry in Barack Obama’s little black book was awarded his own reality show to gush about their down-low adventures.

...Because Barack Obama is a Democrat, the agenda-driven media is as committed to promoting a heterosexual, scandal-free image for him, because this is what “journalists” are apparently trained to do for Democrats in school…and it’s expected for them to do if they wish to keep being employed as “journalists” in the Democrat public relations machine we call the media in this country.

Someday, when the Left no longer needs Barack Obama to push the Left’s agenda, this protection will be gone and you’ll spend the last few decades of your life hearing all about Larry Sinclair, Kal Penn, Reggie Love, Man’s Country, Jeremiah Wright’s Down-Low Club, and the many men Barack Obama has been with through the years. I’m sure a great many books will be written on all of this and a great deal of money will be made by the media companies selling the scandal of it all to the public.

...If you don’t see what’s really happening here and are someone who’s quick to believe the anonymous and sketchy sources the likes of Politico put forward when it comes to a Republican in the hot seat... then maybe you should spend today coming up with a valid reason for why you can’t name a single girlfriend Barack Obama had in his entire life before Michelle and why so much of Barack Obama’s past is so aggressively cloaked in perpetual and deliberate mystery.

...It’s an open secret in the political world that Barack Obama is gay, and that there are plenty of closeted gay Republicans too. But you won’t hear about any of this because members of the permanent political class on both sides of the aisle don’t want you to hear about it.

Making no judgment whatsoever on Kevin's assertions, I will observe the following:

• "Frank" in Obama's autobiography Dreams From My Father, who was young Barack's "father figure", is known to be the Communist Party organizer Frank Marshall Davis.

• Davis was also a reported pedophile: "The Telegraph UK [reports] that Davis, a close friend of Obama's mother and his maternal grandfather, published an autobiographical, pornographic book... and wrote about enjoying sex with teenagers."

• In Davis' ghost-authored book ("Black Sex Rebel") he "admits to seducing a thirteen year-old girl, voyeurism, exhibitionism, bisexuality, rape and sadomasochism. Barack, called 'Barry' as a child, was a mere ten year old when he first met the family friend who led a secret double life... Barack describes how Frank Davis had a lasting effect on him and became a father figure over the seven years they knew one another on the tropical island... Obama described being counseled by Frank often and recalled drinking whiskey with him."

In my view, these allegations deserve the full attention of the ~~hacks~~ fine reporters at Politico, who are more than willing to pillory Herman Cain using anonymous and/or scarcely credible accounts.

Compare-and-contrast the Obama agenda with Karl Marx's 10-point program of Communism

According to Karl Marx, the following ten elements were requisite conditions for "a transition from capitalism to communism."

1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes. Washington Examiner: The great Obama land grab: "White House officials have been meeting quietly with environmental groups to map out government plans for acquiring untold millions of acres of both public and private land... The federal government, as the memo boasted, is the nation's 'largest land manager.' It already owns roughly one of every three acres in the United States... This is apparently not enough."

2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax. National Taxpayer Union: The top 1% of taxpayers already pay 40% of all income taxes. The top 5% pay 61% of all income taxes. And the top 25% pay 87%. The bottom 50% pay 3% of all income taxes. And Democrats want more from entrepreneurs: "Democrats seek a new 'Millionaire's Tax'."

3. Abolition of all right of inheritance. Idaho Statesman: "Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho [is] writing an estate tax bill that would help family farms remain in family hands... Thanks, Sen. Crapo, for helping pen something that truly helps rural [Americans]."

4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants [those leaving the country] and rebels. New York Post: The President's new jobs-killer: "...President Obama explicitly targeted ... industry for two massive tax hikes. First, he'd ban oil and gas companies from using the 'Section 199' tax credit, a measure for domestic manufacturers enacted in 2004 to boost US employment... Second, he wants to end 'dual capacity' protection for US energy firms... Without this shield against double taxation on foreign revenues, American companies would be competing on an uneven global playing field... Yet, by the federal government's own economic model, these tax hikes would lead to huge, immediate job losses."

5. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly. New York Post: Democrats, Fannie Mae still issuing subprime loans, even after meltdown. Politics Daily: "Obama's Risky Plan: Government Takeover of the Student Loan Business." And New American: "$5 Debit Card Fee: Don't Blame Banks — but Durbin, Dodd, Frank, the Fed."

6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State. Tom's Hardware: "Bill Allows Obama Power to Shut Down Internet." And "Advertisers on talk radio targeted by Congressional investigations." And "In an exclusive interview with Rolling Stone Magazine, President Obama made the extraordinary claim that Fox News is 'destructive to [America's] long-term growth.'."

7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan. National Legal and Policy Center: "Obama Arranges Takeover of GM and Chrysler; Auto Workers Union Gets Huge Stake." And Discover: "New EPA Rules Clamp Down on Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining." And "Obama shuts down Keystone XL pipeline, says no to 20,000 jobs." And News 9 Oklahoma: "EPA to Crack Down on Farm Dust."

8. Equal liability of all to labour. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture. Wall Street Journal: "SEIU’s Stern Tops White House Visitor List." And The Blaze: "Obama’s OFA, Churches Join Democratic Socialists for Saturday March in Washington."

9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country, by a more equitable distribution of the population over the country. Heritage: "The Clean Water Restoration Act Means Troubled Waters For Property Owners": "...The Waxman-Markey global warming bill is far and away the most worrisome environmental measure currently working its way through Congress, but it is certainly not the only cause for concern... S. 787, the Clean Water Restoration Act (CWRA)... would do much more harm than good, especially for farmers, ranchers, developers, energy producers, and other property owners."

10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children's factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production.: New York Sun: "Obama Tells Teachers Union He Opposes Vouchers." And Big Hollywood: "[Teachers' Union] NEA: Obama’s Ministry of Propaganda."

* * * * * * * * *
No federal government has damaged the American free market more than this one. No federal government has stolen more employment, more freedom, more private property -- from this and future generations -- than this one. No government has created more regulations, more unconstitutional dictates, more -- dare I say it -- indentured servitude than this one.

Now, given all of these facts: can there be any doubt what Barack Obama meant when he twice proposed, "a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded" as our military?

The Obama-Democrat Left has mounted the first successful counter-revolution -- against the American Revolution -- in our history. Using an incessant series of attacks by a fifth column, the intent of the counter-revolution is to eradicate the effects of the American Revolution. The most magnificent society ever created hangs in the balance.

Next November represents our last chance to salvage the American experiment.

Marshal your parents, your children, your siblings, your neighbors, your coworkers -- marshal everyone you know, because the stakes could not be higher.

Update:
• The Obama Temptation by Mark R. Levin: Corner (11/3/2008)
• Barack Obama, Fabian Socialist: Forbes (11/3/2008)

Hat tip: Mark Levin.

Larwyn's Linx: Two States Denied Obamacare Waivers

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QOTD: "In the course of a typical day I usually receive at least a couple of emails from readers lamenting that America is now the Titanic. This is grossly unfair to the Titanic, a state-of-the-art ship whose problem was that it only had lifeboat space for about half its passengers. By contrast, the SS Spendaholic is a rusting hulk encrusted with barnacles, there are no lifeboats, and the ship's officers are locked in a debate about whether to use a thimble or an eggcup." --Mark Steyn

Thứ Ba, 29 tháng 11, 2011

Welcome to the post-racial presidency: Obama 2012 campaign will 'abandon the white working class'

The New York Times offers the highlights of the newly revised presidential reelection strategy:

...preparations by Democratic operatives for the 2012 election make it clear for the first time that the party will explicitly abandon the white working class...

...All pretense of trying to win a majority of the white working class has been effectively jettisoned in favor of cementing a center-left coalition made up [of a] substantial constituency of lower-income voters who are disproportionately African-American and Hispanic...

...A top priority of the less affluent wing of today’s left alliance is the strengthening of the safety net, including health care, food stamps, infant nutrition and unemployment compensation. These voters generally take the brunt of recessions and are most in need of government assistance to survive...

How very far he has fallen since his keynote address at the 2004 Democrat National Convention.

...even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us — the spin masters, the negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of “anything goes.” Well, I say to them tonight, there is not a liberal America and a conservative America — there is the United States of America. There is not a Black America and a White America and Latino America and Asian America — there’s the United States of America.

In other words, someone is preparing to divide us -- a spin master, a negative ad peddler who embraces the politics of "anything goes" -- and is willing to do anything to retain power.

Come what may.

Useful idiots hardest hit.

Justice Kagan's Fingers and Toes Are Crossed, Baby!

In early 2010, then-solicitor general of the United States, Elena Kagan wrote an email to Laurence Tribe cheering for the passage of Obamacare.

...Kagan sent [an email] to Harvard Law Prof. Larry Tribe, who was then working at the Justice Department. This email was sent on March 21, 2010, the day the health-care bill would pass the House. "In an email entitled, 'fingers and toes crossed today!', ... Ms. Kagan happily says to Professor Tribe, 'I hear they have the votes, Larry!! Simply amazing."

The Judicial Crisis Network describes the case for Kagan's recusal in no uncertain terms.

...For the reasons set forth below, we find it impossible for Justice Kagan to deny that she was directly involved in the defense of PPACA, and that she should therefore recuse herself from any consideration of PPACA’s legality before the Supreme Court.

• Kagan took early and aggressive action to involve her office in Obamacare...

• Kagan made key staffing decisions starting in January of 2010...

• Kagan was part of the deliberative process in the Obamacare defense strategy...

...mandatory recusals for the Justices are governed by federal law. Section 455(b)(3) of Title 28 addresses the specific case at hand: the recusal obligations of former government employees. It requires recusal where the judge “has served in governmental employment and in such capacity participated as counsel, adviser or material witness concerning the proceeding or expressed an opinion concerning the merits of the particular case in controversy.” 28 U.S.C. §455(b)(3)...

...Subsection (a) of Title 28 directs that “[a]ny justice, judge or magistrate of the United States shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” 28 U.S.C. § 455(a)...

...Justice Kagan is well acquainted with the recusal process. In her first term on the Supreme Court she recused herself from 29 of the 82 cases decided on the merits – over a third of the Court’s oral argument docket – because of her previous work as Solicitor General. She has recused herself from even considering at least 69 cert-stage cases so far this term. U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services v. State of Florida, et al. promises to be the most important Supreme Court decision in a century, with broad implications for the role of the federal government and the very nature of our constitutionally limited government. In order to secure the integrity of our Courts and of that decision in particular, Justice Kagan should recuse herself from ruling on the case.

When White House Press Secretary Jay Carney was asked about the obvious need for Kagan to recuse herself, he fell back to the default Obama position: spin.

Pressed about calls for Justice Elena Kagan to recuse herself from the Obamacare challenge before the U.S. Supreme Court, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney dismissed suggestions that she is biased as "political," ending the conversation when a reporter asked about newly-disclosed emails revealing her support for the health insurance law in 2009.

..."It's a mystery to me how this can be an issue a year later, and [how] they want to revisit what they just visited a year ago," he added. "It sure sounds like a political thing to try to revisit it a year later."

When a reporter reminded Carney of newly-disclosed emails from 2009 (in which Kagan expresses delight that "they have the votes" in Congress to pass Obamacare), which were not addressed during her confirmation hearing, Carney took a question from another reporter about a different topic.

Jeff observes that this is "how you know your country is over":

The White House is able to pitch the media the idea that demanding the recusal of a SCOTUS Justice who, prior to her elevation to the Court, advocated for legislation she will be asked to rule on, is a right-wing political ploy — and the media doesn’t instantly break out into hysterical laughter.

We are so over.

Let's not give up quite yet.

2012 is coming. And I am praying my Spidey-sense is right: tidal wave.

Good News: North American Electric Reliability Corporation Warns New EPA Regulations 'Threaten Stability of Power Grids'

After reading Public utility commission and FERC board slam EPA: it "ambushed" utilities, will cause "widespread and uncontrolled blackouts", Matt emailed us with more good news.

The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) released a report yesterday concluding that proposed EPA regulations “may significantly affect bulk power system reliability depending on the scope and timing of the rule implementation and the mechanisms in place to preserve reliability.”

As this Platts report notes, NERC says that these proposed rules could create “insufficient generating resources” and “threaten the stability of power grids in Texas and New England within the next decade.”

Not to mention job losses and economic ruin. Hooray!

Before this latest news, estimates of job losses caused by the EPA had topped 1.44 million.

In reality, it will be considerably more. How many companies can operate without a stable electric grid?

President Obama's mission to turn American into a third-world country continues apace.

It's official: we're in the midst of Jimmy Carter's second term

Welcome back, Carter! Does this scene look familiar?

Regarding Iran, remember when then-presidential candidate Obama's website read as follows: "Obama is the only major candidate who supports tough, direct presidential diplomacy with Iran without preconditions"?

That kind of tough talk really showed the Mullahs, eh?

In related news, I believe I've come up with an excellent proxy for the level of economic distress felt around the world thanks to our feckless Democrat leaders. I call it O-FAIL, which stands for the Obama Financial Anxiety Index Level™.

O-FAIL takes all of the world's instability, hysteria, deficit spending, money printing, fears of energy disruption, terrorism and war -- and encapsulates them into a single, easy-to-understand number.

The higher O-FAIL gets, the worse things are around the world. Check out the O-FAIL index. You can see that over the past couple of years, immediately after the election of Barack Obama, it began going parabolic.

O-FAIL is also known as the price of gold.

The last time it was this high, in inflation-adjusted terms, one James Earl Carter was President.

Carter's second term -- confirmed.

Update: SCOAMF's Gallup Job Approval Falls Below Carter's!

Larwyn's Linx: Goodbye, Barney, And Thanks for the Housing Crisis

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Nation

Goodbye, Barney, And Thanks for the Housing Crisis: Sundries
Gingrich and Immigration: Sowell
Cain Issues Statement on Alleged Affair: Ace

Bye, Bye Berwick: Asterisk of history falls on his socialist sword: Wolf
What Else Is Wrong With Obamacare?: PJM
After Request for Refund, Richmond Will Audit Tea Party Group: VS

Occupy The Plantation? Blacks Shun OWS: Mead
A Quick Look at the GOP Field: DLim
A preview of how DNC will attack Romney: Ace

Economy

Labor board broke federal law on Boeing suit: Exam
'The New Tammany Hall' : WSJ
Black Friday Boom Masks Physical Retailers’ Desperation: Gross

Cut or Tax? Are You an Adult or a Child?: Klavan
Fitch issues U.S. credit rating warning: Exam
Upcoming Rationing of Neurosurgery Services?: Hsieh

Our Spending Problem: WS
What’s $7.77 Trillion Among Friends: Mises
By Today’s Standards, JFK Was A Tax-Cutting Supply-Sider: IBD

Climate & Energy

Scientists in Revolt against Global Warming: AT
Climategate 2.0: New batch of leaked emails again shows leading scientists trying to smear opponents: WSJ
Don't let Big Green stymie boom in energy jobs: Exam

The Chevy Volt: Detroit’s Hottest Car: Huston
Study: Most Extreme, Eye-Catching "Predictions" About Global Warming Are "Implausible": Ace
The problems with emissions trading: Nature

Media

Trib Endorses Obama for President – Want a Mulligan Yet?: ILP2P
The Simpletons: David Brooks, Thomas L. Friedman, and the banal authoritarianism of punditry: Reason
Did you miss the Thanksgiving White House visitor log document dump?: Malkin

Thomas Edsall In the NYT: Obama Will Explicitly Abandon Working Class White Vote: Ace
Bloomberg reports Paulson Tipped Off Hedge Funds on Fannie Mae: Mish
AP Reporter’s Item on Israel Reads Like a Leftist Political Stump Speech: BizzyBlog

What Has Barack Obama Wrought? Some Recent Writers Contemplate the Issue: Radosh
Washington Post Blogger Asks for Dirt About Newt Gingrich on Twitter: NB
Conservative college students battle liberal academia with new website: DC

World

Who's Blowing Up Iran?: Ledeen
Stonewall: Napolitano, DHS Still Silent on Mohamed Elibiary: Poole
Silent Running – The Targeting of Americans: NoisyRm

No love in an Obama second term: Baehr
What's Next For Egypt?: BRubin
Having Solved America’s Deficit Nightmare, Obama Says U.S. Ready to Help Solve Eurozone Debt Crisis: WZ

EU CRISIS ROAD MAP: Key Milestones Ahead: Dow Jones
Chile Social Security Reform A Hot Topic In 2012 Campaign: IBD
The price for failing to call things by their proper names: Blogmocracy

Sci-Tech

MinuteKey, The Key-Cutting Vending Machine: Wired
Ex-Windows Phone manager Joe Marini finds himself at home with Google: Engadget
New Java Attack Rolled Into Exploit Kits: Krebs

Cornucopia

The Sketchbook of Susan Kare, the Artist Who Gave Computing a Human Face: NeuroTribes
The 5 Best Toys of All Time: Wired
How To Disappear Completely - Live Off The Grid: TAB

Image: Wired
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: Wisconsin Recall Election: Help Save Scott Walker

QOTD: "I have yet to be convinced that the European Council is capable of reaching such a substantive agreement given its past record. Of course, it will agree on something and sell it as a comprehensive package. It always does. But the halt-life of these fake packages has been getting shorter. After the last summit, the financial markets’ enthusiasm over the ludicrous idea of a leveraged EFSF evaporated after less than 48 hours.

Italy’s disastrous bond auction on Friday tells us time is running out. The eurozone has 10 days at most." --Wolfgang Münchau, Financial Times

Thứ Hai, 28 tháng 11, 2011

Mission Accomplished! America's Job Market Begins to Resemble Europe's

Excellent charts from the Wall Street Journal's graphics feed (@WSJgraphics):

As the U.S. tries to dodge Europe's debt crisis, the job market is starting to look a lot like Europe's.

Which is the point, I suppose.

More media myths shattered: #OWS 'income inequality' scam exposed

Democrats, the media and Marxists hardest hit. But I repeat myself. Jim Pethokoukis explains:

The core argument of the Occupy movement and its Obamacrat friends is this: The rich stole all the money. That explains why over the past four decades, the income of the broad American middle class supposedly has stagnated even as the economy expanded. Why? Did you forget already? The rich stole all the money. And now it’s time to take it back...

...From 1975-2009, real per capita GDP increased by 90 percent vs. 17 percent growth in real median household income, as measured by the Census Bureau. What happened? Again, the rich stole all the money. Yet if you make a couple simple adjustment for household size and a more accurate inflation measure, a different picture emerges, as Sanandaji illustrates:

Let’s sum up. Income inequality may have increased in recent decades, but a stagnating middle class has not been the result. And the 1 percent didn’t steal all the money.

This is but a snippet. Read the whole thing.

RED ALERT: Deputy A.G. behind 'Fast and Furious' met with President Obama four times during the height of the operation

Item 1: In March of 2011, President Obama denied knowledge of 'Operation Fast and Furious' -- the Justice Department program that sent thousands of murder weapons to Mexican drug cartels.

25 March 2011 - Under fire for an operation that allowed smuggling of U.S. weapons across the nation’s border with Mexico, President Obama said in an interview that neither he nor Attorney General Eric Holder authorized the controversial “Operation Fast and Furious.”

...Obama told Univision‘s Jorge Ramos that President Felipe Calderon wasn’t informed of the operation because he — the president of the United States — wasn’t informed either. When asked whether he knew of the weapon smuggling plan, Obama responded that it is “a pretty big government” with “a lot of moving parts.”

...President Obama said ATF (Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms enforcement) was behind "Operation Fast and Furious."

Item 2: According to documents obtained by the House Judiciary Committee, Deputy Attorney General Gary Grindler was keenly aware of all aspects of Operation Fast and Furious as early as March 2010. In a letter to A.G. Holder, Chairman Issa wrote:

Gary Grindler, the then-Deputy Attorney General and currently your Chief of Staff, received an extremely detailed briefing on Operation Fast and Furious on March 12, 2010. In this briefing, Grindler learned such minutiae as the number of times that Uriel Patino, a straw purchaser on food stamps who ultimately acquired 720 firearms, went in to a cooperating gun store and the amount of guns that he had bought. When former Acting ATF Director Ken Melson, a career federal prosecutor, learned similar information, he became sick to his stomach...

Item 3: Newly released White House Visitor Logs list Grindler as having visited the White House 40 times, but only four times with the President himself. All four meetings with the President occurred over a two-week period, between 7 May 2010 and 19 May 2010.

According to The Los Angeles Times, these dates just so happened to represent the run-up to "the height of [Operation] Fast and Furious":

In the U.S., intelligence officials consider the Sinaloa cartel the most powerful drug trafficking organization in the world. Weekly reports from U.S. intelligence authorities to the Justice Department in the summer of 2010, at the height of Fast and Furious, warned about the proliferation of guns reaching the Sinaloa cartel... Under Fast and Furious, begun in fall 2009, the ATF allowed illegal buyers to walk away with weapons in the hope that agents in Phoenix could track the guns and arrest cartel leaders.

Summary: In early 2010, Gary Grindler was intimately involved in all aspects of Operation Fast and Furious. During the height of the operation, Grindler visited the President on four separate occasions in only two weeks -- his only documented meetings with the president at the White House.

So my question is this:

What did President Obama know -- and when did he know it?

Hat tip: Michelle Malkin.

Say, Anyone Know How President Obama's Mortgage Modification and Home-Buyer Tax Incentive Programs Worked Out?

Answer: Just as well as the Stimulus, Cash-for-Clunkers, "green jobs" programs and the rest of the President's exercises in central planning. Which is to say: it's another Obama record!

Today's new annualized home sales print was 307k, below expectations of 315k (yet oddly better than last month's downward revised which moved from 313k to 303k, wink wink nudge nudge Census bureau). This is not to be confused with the actual number of houses sold which came at a whopping 25k, and the third month in a row in which under 500 homes sold in the over $750,000 category.

Yet the most notable data point was the average new house sale price which dropped to $242,300. This is the lowest price since 2003! Something tells us that an MBS LSAP [Ed: i.e., monetization of securitized mortgage debt by the Fed] is pretty much guaranteed at this point.

And I simply adore the shrill shrieks of the drones when confronted with these increasingly dire statistics after three years under the Obama regime. They follow the same general template:

"After eight years of Bush (please note the heart-wrenching affliction -- that all drones suffer -- of Bush Tourette's Syndrome, even after all these years), what d'ya expect? It would'a been worse if he hadn't a'done it!"

Really, drones?

May I then refer you to One Chart to Rule Them All? This is a joint product of The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times, which patiently explains to even the most radicalized Leftist how the mortgage crisis began. Enjoy, miscreants!

Larwyn's Linx: For 2012, Be Wary of Obama’s Ties to Corrupt Project Vote

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Nation

For 2012, Be Wary of Obama’s Ties to Corrupt Project Vote: PJM
Demand Kagan Recuse Herself From Obamacare Litigation: Morris
Along Mexican Border, US Ranchers Live in Fear: Borderland

Why Not Pay Higher Taxes?: Hanson
To Be Taken With A Grain of Galt: NoisyRm
For Republicans Newt Gingrich is the Only Choice: ZH

Entitlement, Not Tax Cuts, Widen the Wealth Gap: Barone
Republican Senate Prospects for 2012: IntelCon
Customer, armed robbers engage in shootout: Click2Houston

Economy

SS Spendaholic sailing into debt abyss: Steyn
Were Wall Street Banks Bailed Out?: Power Line
Money slated for health law gets detoured: Times

$6.7M help subsidize YMCA memberships in Cincinnati: VirtRep
Occupy Dallas Thugs Throw Fake Blood on Store Windows: WZ
The untold jobs boom: Non-green edition: Hot Air

Pay More, Get Less: Samuelson
Stringing up Gibson; tales of the American Nomenklatura: Pournelle
No Surprise Here: Study Shows Teachers Overpaid: OfficialWire

Gunrunner & Energygate

Media Silent As 3 Presidential Contenders, 51 Congressmen Demand Eric Holder’s Resignation: BigJourn
Rep. Maloney Lies about Fast and Furious: AT
ATF gun probe: Behind the fall of Operation Fast and Furious: AZ Central

Climate & Energy

Climategate II More Devastating Than Climategate I: Strata
BBC Executives Bought Off To Promote Global Warming Propaganda: WZ
Confessions of a Light Bulb Addict: Rosett

BREAKING: Canada to pull out of Kyoto Protocol: Watts
An Open Letter to Dr. Phil Jones of the UEA CRU: Watts
Westar lawsuit says meeting EPA’s emission regulation deadline will spur blackouts: KC

Media

Chicago’s New Media Outperforms Two Old Dying Papers: Illinois Pay-To-Play
The New Hampshire Union Leader Endorses...: Malkin
Eleanor Clift: What Irritates Media Most About Newt Gingrich Is 'The Fact That He Is Right': NB

It’s been four weeks since Politico broke the story of accusations against Herman Cain: LI
Occupoops Merely a Distraction: iOTW
Colon Powell Blames Media and Tea Party for Divisive Tone in Washington: NB

The Forgotten Look of Prosperity: Mead
David Frum To Leave The GOP If Either Huntsman Or Romney Isn’t Nominated?: RWN
Democrats post big fundraising numbers for 2012 House races: WaPo

World

The rapidly-decaying Pakistan situation: RS
Pakistanis burn Obama effigy, U.S. flag: IHTM
Heathrow Airport worker fired for standing up to abuse by Muslim employees: Creeping

Muslim Persecution of Christians: October, 2011: Ibrahim
Union barons behind strike that will cripple Britain enjoy gold-plated pensions: Daily Mail
Equity Futures Ripping, Bond Market Still on Deathbed; Germany Allegedly Mulls Five-Nation "Elite Bonds": Mish

Sci-Tech

LandingZone, a Clever Dock for The MacBook Air: Wired
OSHA’s $200,000 Mobile App Criticized: TPM
Michael Arrington Wants You to Work in a Digital Sweatshop: AtlWire

Cornucopia

This Week in Automotivators: RWN
Nasty Lego “Bible” Is Pulled From Sam’s Club Shelves: Spew
Arizona woman tries to rob store with toy penguin, police say: AZ Central

Image: iOwnTheWorld
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: DEMAND KAGAN RECUSE HERSELF FROM OBAMACARE LITIGATION

QOTD: "[The new batch of Climategate] emails is more damning than the first because of the whitewash by the media and pols who have no clue how to interpret the data, algorithms, graphs, nor have a clue how the scientific process works (being published in niche journals by like minded alarmists is not the scientific process). With the fiction that CRU and IPCC were vindicated having been played, the more damning second round of emails puts us in the “fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me’ state. The alarmists’ credibility is toast given the new revelations, as is their media and political cheer leaders. There is no pretending the science is sound now." --AJStrata

Chủ Nhật, 27 tháng 11, 2011

Summing up the #OWS Movement in a Single Photo

L.C. relays this gem:

Tommy Christopher hardest hit.

Escape from Washington [Biff Spackle]

By Biff Spackle:

It's been a long time since Commander Wingnut permitted me to post, so I will beg your forgiveness in advance for rusty sentence structure and participles which dangle. Long-suffering readers will recall that the Vicar of Vitriol usually relegates me to backoffice chores, among them cleaning the JihadShredder 3000™, photoshopping the President into even the most nonsensical of images, and dredging up obscure baseball statistics for his long-running email trivia war with George Will.

So I was truly surprised to learn that the Ayatollah of Irrationality had actually approved one of my story ideas. The last, if memory serves, was a 1965 rebuttal to President Johnson's "Great Society" which, in retrospect, proved eerily prescient. Given my employer's ~~penny-pinching~~ thriftiness, that post unfortunately long ago disappeared into the bit-stream diaspora when the original free blogging service -- Dave's Discount Blogspot -- filed for bankruptcy in 1971.

Ah, but that is only spilt milk. Let us return to the present and my idea. I call it "Escape From Washington".

In evaluating America's 90-year transition from a constitutional republic to a post-constitutional central government, one fact has become increasingly clear:

Too much power is centralized in Washington, D.C.

We wonder how the corporate media's blinkered worldview could be so out-of-step with mainstream America. We wonder why "conservatives" inside the Beltway are tepid milquetoasts who save their rhetorical fire for true conservatives like Michelle Bachmann, Rick Perry and Rick Santorum rather than radical progressives. We wonder how lifetime Republican politicians can't see the country sailing into the economic abyss and only oppose the liberal agenda with a vigor that can optimistically be described as halfhearted.

The answer is right in front of us: the insular collective of power, lobbyists and media inside Washington has created a fishbowl utterly disconnected from the constituents, the stakeholders and the audience they serve, respectively.

We can see the symptoms in front of us: conservatives that insist on politicians honoring the nation's highest law -- upon which they swear an oath to uphold! -- are ridiculed, pilloried and dismissed. Tea Party activists that peacefully assemble, demanding a return to the nation's first principles, are accused of racism and, that tactic having failed, fomenting violence.

It is the centralization of power that has infected politicians with greed, insulated them from their constituents, and allowed members of the media to operate in a self-perpetuating fiction bubble. It has given lobbyists a fertile hunting ground and spawned countless cases of crony capitalism and outright corruption.

An answer is forthcoming. If you'll forgive my French, it's: "Get these bastards the hell out of D.C."

And by that I mean: the Congress. And how do we keep Congress out of Washington?

• De-fund all Congressional offices and staff members except for those in each representative's home state. Ban the maintenance of said offices and employment of staffs within 100 miles of the Beltway, save those representatives whose districts reside therein.

• Slash the legislative session to no more than four days each month, except for national emergencies.

• Establish sunset provisions for all executive agencies and offices; after the first 10 years, every agency must operate on a reduced budget, year-over-year until each disappears altogether after 20 years.

• Slash the size and scope of the unelected fourth branch of government, which has grown at a phenomenal clip over the last 50 years. A good starting point would be to use the sunset provisions for all existing bureaucracies.

If we can keep these ~~S.O.B.'s~~ fine, upstanding Congressional representatives out of Washington, we'll reduce the nefarious impact of both lobbyists and corporate media. We'll bring the politicians closer to their constituents. And we'll begin eroding the centralization of power that has turned a constitutionally-authorized federal government into some amorphous, nationalized collection of Soviet-style, central planners.

Mediate's Tommy Christopher Beclowns Himself, Chapter MCMXCVI

Behold the sublime genius that is Mediaite's Tommy Christopher:

Current GOP frontrunner Newt Gingrich referenced a popular (among right-wingers) but baseless attack against President Obama this weekend during a speech in Naples, Florida. Challenging the President to a series of Lincoln-Douglas style debates, Gingrich told the crowd “If he (President Obama) wants to use a teleprompter, that would be fine with me.”

...I hate to break it to Newt Gingrich, but President Obama isn’t going to need a teleprompter to debate Newt Gingrich, he’s going to need fist-pillows so he doesn’t hurt him too badly.

Gee, Tommy, I'm sure Newt's trembling at the prospect.

That is, as long as the President isn't asked to count the number of states, pronounce the word corpsman, discuss the Intercontinental Railroad, translate sentences into Austrian, or give a eulogy for the 10,000 killed by a tornado in Kansas.

I'm actually a little miffed because now we'll have to update President Obama's Complete List of Historic Firsts to include Tommy Christopher's noteworthy accomplishment; he's the first reporter ever to have his lips surgically attached to a president's keister.

Public utility commission and FERC board slam EPA: it "ambushed" utilities, will cause "widespread and uncontrolled blackouts"

The electric grid is in grave danger thanks to the EPA's arbitrary and draconian new regulations for utilities. Oh, and that's not just according to the utilities impacted by the agency's hastily constructed rules, it's a message echoed by public utility boards and the Midwest's seven-state Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

Kansas electric utility Westar Energy contends that meeting a mid-December Environmental Protection Agency deadline on new air emission regulations will result in rolling blackouts for its customers.

“We asked the EPA for more time, but they tell us they're enforcing the Dec. 15 deadline,” said Westar Energy CEO Mark Ruelle. “So we're pushing back. KCPL, Sunflower and us have asked a court to stay the rule. It's not our style, but we've sued through the court in D.C. and the Kansas Attorney General has filed his own lawsuit... We've cut sulfur by 80 percent and NOX (nitrogen oxide) by 50 percent,” Ruelle said, from highs in the years 2002 and 2003. “We've still a ways to go, but we have a plan to get there. Then this rule came out based on emissions crossing state lines. It came out in July and it says we must comply by Jan. 1. You can't.”

...The company can meet the more stringent regulations, but not until 2018, Ruelle said... A separate study by the Southwest Power Pool agrees with Westar's assessment... [the] seven-state regional transmission organization [was] mandated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to ensure reliable supplies of power, adequate transmission infrastructure, and competitive wholesale prices of electricity for its region.

In a September letter to the EPA, which used the word concern seven times, the organization warned an initial “reliability analysis” of utility operations under the EPA timeline pointed to hundreds of potential system overloads in the region and more than a thousand cases of system voltages going too low to meet mandated levels.

The result, the letter advised, could include “the potential of cascading blackouts... or localized rolling blackouts initiated by utilities within the SPP region, to avoid more widespread and uncontrolled blackouts and to remain in compliance with reliability standards... SPP encourages the EPA to work with generation owners to develop flexible compliance schedules to ensure equipment installation is completed in a timely, safe, reliable and cost-effective manner without an arbitrary deadline..."

...Even the Citizens' Utility Ratepayer Board, which represents customers in utility rate requests, voiced sympathy to Westar's situation... “The EPA really kind of ambushed the utility, in terms of the process,” said David Springe, CURB's consumer counsel. “Clearly they're all working toward reducing emissions to the level the EPA wants. In their final order they were really radically different than the preliminary. They changed the mark they were supposed to hit and made it under a timeline that is simply not reasonable.”

Whether the EPA sticks with its deadline or works with utilities, it's ultimately the consumer that pays, Springe said... “Whether it's January or 2015, they have to retrofit the plants and rates will go up,” he said. “I don't know that I've seen a full rate estimate, but it won't be small.”

If we don't begin defunding the Environmental Protection Agency -- first by handing a pink-slip to President Obama in 2012 -- the damage to the electric grid will be catastrophic.

We can see that the eco-Marxist Left is well on its way to shredding America's energy infrastructure. 2012 may be the last chance we have to save this country from the Cloward-Piven Leftists bent on -- in President Obama's words -- "transforming this society".

What this society would ultimately be transformed into under Obama I leave as an exercise for the reader.