Thursday: Obama, spending, and the debt

Politics
Bankers Say Supporting Obama Is "Bad For Business" And Embarrassing

IT IS WELL DOCUMENTED THAT WALL STREET WAS DEEPLY OFFENDED BY OBAMA'S "FAT CAT" COMMENTS AFTER HE WAS ELECTED PRESIDENT, so much so, that longtime Democratic supporters have shifted their support to the GOP for the next election.

In fact, some Wall Streeters even alleged that at an even more basic level, Obama just doesn't like rich people.

But apparently the disdain for Bam on the Street may be mostly appearances.
According to Andrew Ross Sorkin at Dealbook,

While MANY OF THE BIGGEST NAME FINANCIERS FEEL THAT THEY CAN’T PUBLICLY SUPPORT MR. OBAMA through campaign contributions the way they did in 2008 — “it would be bad for business,” one brand-name chief executive of a major bank acknowledged — SOME STILL PLAN TO VOTE FOR HIM….

http://www.businessinsider.com/bankers-actually-do-support-obama-theyre-just-too-embarassed-to-do-it-publicly-2011-6#ixzz1QevR9Zp2

Stupidity knows no bounds. There should be a new book written, “What’s the Matter with Wall Street?”

Poll Numbers Continue Alarming Trend for Obama

As Alana wrote earlier today, according to the latest McClatchy-Marist poll:

• ONLY 37 PERCENT OF REGISTERED VOTERS APPROVE OF PRESIDENT OBAMA’S HANDLING OF THE ECONOMY, HIS LOWEST RATING EVER.

• By nearly 2-1 (61 percent v. 32 percent) voters disapprove of how he’s handling the federal budget deficit.

• Fifty-eight percent of voters disapprove of Obama’s handling of the economy, comprising 60 percent of independents, 31 percent of Democrats and 91 percent of Republicans.

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/06/28/poll-numbers-continue-alarming-trend-for-obama/

This is actually worse for Obama than it seems. Pollsters always add, but people still approve of him personally. We won’t vote for him to be a friend, but someone responsible for the economy as President. This points to a big loss next year.

Morning Examiner: Obama’s debt deal desperation

The Gang of Biden is dead. President Obama has met with one Republican leader once on the debt limit. And that meeting produced nothing. Meanwhile there are only 24 working days until financial Armageddon supposedly begins on August 2nd. THE WHITE HOUSE IS GETTING DESPERATE.

THEY APPEAR TO HAVE REALIZED THAT THE REPUBLICANS ARE 100 PERCENT SERIOUS WHEN THEY SAY THEY WILL NOT PASS ANY DEBT-LIMIT HIKE THAT INCLUDES ANY TAX HIKES. But Obama's base would be demoralized if he failed to win tax hikes. So the White House needs a game changer. Two possibilities have emerged.

From the White House, National Journal’s MARC AMBINDER REPORTS THAT OBAMA BELIEVES HE CAN GET THE REPUBLICANS TO CAVE ON TAXES IF HE FIRST LETS THE BOND MARKETS PANIC IN LATE-JULY. Obama then hopes that Wall Street and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce will force Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, to compromise, like he did on the FY 2011 budget deal earlier this year.

Outside the White House, more and more prominent Democrats are questioning whether the debt limit is even constitutional. Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., became the latest Democrat to raise the argument yesterday. IF THERE IS NO DEBT DEAL, AND BOND MARKETS DO PANIC, WHAT IS STOPPING OBAMA FROM JUST ORDERING TREASURY SECRETARY TIM GEITHNER TO ISSUE MORE DEBT? IF OBAMA CAN JUST IGNORE THE WAR POWERS ACT, WHY NOT THE DEBT LIMIT TOO?...

http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/2011/06/morning-examiner-obama-s-debt-deal-desperation#ixzz1Qfe7IWih


Obama and the Democrats are in trouble. The debt is leverage that the Republicans have over a Democrat Senate and an extremist executive. I’m looking for something that the democrats will howl at.

Team Obama nervous

IT’S BEEN A ROUGH JUNE FOR THE WHITE HOUSE. Instead of being able to run a campaign taking credit for economic improvement, President Obama will, according to the latest forecasts, be trying to win four more years amid a grim economy next year. THE PRESIDENT’S REELECTION TEAM, ONCE HOPING TO RUN ON A “MORNING IN AMERICA” THEME NOW DOESN’T HAVE THAT LUXURY. No wonder, the president’s advisers over the past month have been making moves that suggest they’re awfully concerned about his prospects:

http://nationaljournal.com/columns/against-the-grain/nerves-show-on-team-obama-20110628

This one is well worth your time to read it. It talks about the four corners of the Obama reelection strategy and the holes they are trying to fill.


Obama: Do you want the good story or the bad one?

First the good one

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA SAYS IT WOULD DEFY COMMON SENSE FOR BOEING CO. TO HAVE TO SHUT DOWN A NEW AIRCRAFT PLANT OR LAY OFF WORKERS AS A RESULT OF A LABOR DISPUTE WITH THE GOVERNMENT.

Obama says companies need to have the freedom to relocate work, though they must follow the law when doing so.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-says-us-companies-like-boeing-need-freedom-to-relocate-within-us/2011/06/29/AGwD3pqH_story.html

The left is quick to condemn companies moving jobs overseas, but here we have a case of a company wanting to keep jobs in America although in a right to work state. It would seem the NLRB should remember this before they do stupid things.

And now the bad one

Lieutenant General John Allen told the Senate Armed Services Committee today that the AFGHANISTAN DECISION PRESIDENT OBAMA ANNOUNCED LAST WEEK WAS NOT AMONG THE RANGE OF OPTIONS THE MILITARY PROVIDED TO THE COMMANDER IN CHIEF. Allen’s testimony directly contradicts claims from senior Obama administration officials from a background briefing before the president’s announcement.

In response to questioning from Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Allen testified that Obama’s decision on the pace and size of Afghanistan withdrawals was “a more aggressive option than that which was presented.”

Graham pressed him. “My question is: Was that a option?”

Allen: “It was not.”

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/general-reveals-obama-ignored-militarys-advice-afghanistan_575902.html

The question here is not whether Obama had the right to override the military’s options, but was it wise to do so. It appears this was a political decision rather than a military one.

Michele Bachmann from a liberal perspective

The Michele Bachmann surge (confirmed most recently by the latest PPP poll) suggests the question is not whether Bachmann is a legitimate contender for the Republican nomination but what it will take to stop her from winning. AS I'LL EXPLAIN, I DO THINK BACHMANN CAN BE STOPPED. BUT THE GENERAL ADVANCE OF CONSERVATISM WITHIN THE REPUBLICAN PARTY OVER THE LAST THREE DECADES HAS BEEN A REPEATED PATTERN OF THE UNTHINKABLE BECOMING THINKABLE, and the trend has sharply accelerated over the last two years. Moderation simply lacks any legitimacy within the GOP. It exists, but -- UNLIKE THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY, WHERE MODERATION IS A FREQUENT BOAST -- it's undertaken almost entirely in secret. Since Barack Obama's inauguration, virtually every quarrel within the Republican Party between moderates and maximalist partisans has been resolved in favor of the latter. Bachmann has positioned herself as a mainstream, serious figure who has also outflanked the other as-yet announced candidates. They will have a hard time attacking her without seeming to attack conservatism itself.

http://www.tnr.com/blog/jonathan-chait/90963/how-stop-bachmann

I wanted to quote this article because of the underlying assumptions. The author talks about conservatism overwhelming moderation in the Republican Party vs. the Democratic Party where it is a “frequent boast.” Moderation has absolutely no power in the Democrat Party. If it did, the Democrats wouldn’t have lost 63 seats in the House of Representatives. But from the left’s viewpoint, what is actually a moderate position seems far to the right.

Chokegate: The left responds to Ann Althouse

I want you to see the kind of thing that passes for mainstream media commentary in this town:

In one narrative, Bradley rushed Prosser with her fists up and Prosser managed to touch her neck while defending himself. It is, my colleagues in the press now say, a classic “he said/she said” controversy. No, it's not. IT IS A CONTROVERSY ONLY IF PROSSER'S HANDS WERE NOWHERE NEAR BRADLEY'S NECK. I MEAN, COME ON!

There follows a tirade about what we teach our sons about violence against women, as if, in a face to face physical encounter, the man is always wrong. SO, AS A WOMAN IN THE WORK PLACE, CAN I GET RIGHT UP IN ANY MAN'S FACE, GET AS ANGRY AS I WANT, SHAKE MY FIST RIGHT BY HIS BIG OLD GLASSES, AND THE MOMENT HE FLINCHES, IF HIS HAND TOUCHES ME, I GET TO SHOUT "VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN" and he's the one who's screwed? As a feminist, I would just love to have power like that. That's sarcasm, I hope you're not too far gone to realize….

http://althouse.blogspot.com/2011/06/local-journalist-bill-wineke-demagogues.html

It’s funny how your ideology will determine who you want to believe that will lead you to create a scenario where that person will be in the right or the other person will be in the wrong.


California passes austerity budget

The Legislature passed an austerity budget Tuesday night that would CUT FROM UNIVERSITIES, COURTS AND THE POOR, SHUTTER 70 PARKS AND THREATEN SCHOOLS BUT WOULD NOT — BY OFFICIALS' OWN ADMISSION — RESTORE CALIFORNIA'S LONG-TERM FINANCIAL HEALTH.
The UC and Cal State systems would face about a 23% funding cut, among the steepest in the proposal. Cash grants for the needy would fall, a program to help thousands of teen mothers get an education would be suspended and hundreds of millions of dollars would be siphoned from mental health programs.

The state park closures would be the first ever. Courts would face what the state's chief justice has described as crippling reductions.

In an optimistic forecast, LAWMAKERS BUILT IN AN EXTRA $4 BILLION OF REVENUE. If all that cash does not materialize, K-12 schools — which had so far survived negotiations relatively unscathed — would face a cutback equal to shortening the academic year by seven days….

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-state-budget-20110629,0,1794731.story

Eventually reality comes even to the Golden State. When will it come to Washington?

Economic Freedom and Prosperity

…. Blogger Glenn Reynolds recently highlighted numerous examples of the media’s increasingly frequent use of “unexpected” to describe bad economic news. Unemployment “unexpectedly” rose despite federal “stimulus.” Home sales “unexpectedly” fell despite taxpayer bailouts. ER visits unexpectedly rose in Massachusetts despite RomneyCare. Similarly, the Pundit Press blog has rounded-up dozens of examples of such “unexpected” developments since January 2011.
However, the fact that such GOVERNMENT INTERVENTIONS NECESSARILY STIFLE ECONOMIC PROGRESS IS NOT NEWS. Volumes have been written on this topic. The “natural laboratories” of East Germany vs. West Germany, North Korea vs. South Korea, and communist China vs. Hong Kong amply illustrated the principle that whenever government forcibly thwarted people from furthering their happiness and their lives, the result was misery and death.
The same phenomenon can be observed in the natural laboratories within the United States. ECONOMIST MARK PERRY HAS DESCRIBED HOW BUSINESSES ARE LEAVING CALIFORNIA IN “RECORD NUMBERS” FOR STATES LIKE TEXAS THAT OFFER GREATER FREEDOM FROM BURDENSOME REGULATIONS. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that 37% of all net new American jobs since the recovery began were created in Texas.
Similarly, when the Mercatus Center released its 2011 Index of Economic and Personal Freedom ranking all 50 U.S. states, THEY NOTED TWO INTERESTING FACTS. FIRST, ECONOMIC FREEDOM CORRELATED WITH INCOME GROWTH. SECOND, AMERICANS “VOTED WITH THEIR FEET” AND MOVED FROM STATES WITH LESS FREEDOM TO STATES WITH MORE FREEDOM…

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/why-the-unexpected-keeps-happening/

And which party is the party of economic freedom? Which party is the party of economic regulation? Progressivism is based on the idea that wise people running things will do better than an economy where everyone has the freedom to buy and sell as they choose.


Unions off Target

Confronted with an unwelcome intrusion, employees at A TARGET STORE IN NEW YORK REJECTED UNIONIZATION AND DEALT A BLOW TO THE GRAND PLANS OF THE UFCW.

That average Americans continue to stand against these job-killing, profit-leaching forces is most encouraging. But make no mistake, the fight is far from over.

LABOR UNIONS ARE IN DECLINE AND DESPERATE. Today, union membership is under 12% of the U.S. workforce -- it was over 20% in the 1980's. Among retail unions, like the United Food and Commercial Workers International (UFCW), membership has also undergone sizeable erosion, down over 40% nationwide since 1983….

….At the Target store in Valley Stream, NY, the UFCW's efforts to unionize workers was supposed to be a harbinger of things to come -- a national comeback if you will. BUT OVER 60% OF EMPLOYEES VOTED DOWN THE MEASURE. As one worker put it, "what do I need a union to fight for me for?" Good question….

…Predictably, and on cue, the UFCW SOUGHT TO INVALIDATE THE ELECTION RESULTS. IN FACT, THE UNION CALLED ON THEIR COMRADES AT THE NLRB TO INVESTIGATE TARGET FOR ILLEGALITY, SUPPOSEDLY FOR EMPLOYING FEAR, INTIMIDATION, AND THREATS AGAINST WORKERS. How typical of union thugs..…

http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/06/a_union_off-target.html

Unions are a dying institution in the private sector in America.
Global Warming

Al Gore, Free Speech and Climate Change

….GLOBAL WARMING IS A LOSING ISSUE. The failure of the UN’s climate conference in Bonn earlier this month shows waning appetite for the issue on an international scale. A new survey commissioned by Yale and George Mason Universities finds THAT LESS THAN HALF OF AMERICANS BELIEVE THAT HUMAN ACTIVITIES CONTRIBUTE TO PLANETARY WARMING AND JUST 39 PERCENT AGREED THAT “MOST SCIENTISTS THINK GLOBAL WARMING IS HAPPENING.” Pew’s annual “top policy priorities” poll RANKS GLOBAL WARMING 21ST OUT OF 22 ISSUES IN IMPORTANCE, BEATING OUT OBESITY but trailing such off-the-radar topics as transportation and lobbyists. When unemployment rates exceed nine percent and national debt approaches annual GDP, citizens tend to focus on concrete rather than amorphous issues. IN HARD TIMES, WE WANT THE NEWS, NOT THE WEATHER.

AL GORE BLAMES ANOTHER CULPRIT FOR HIS CAUSE’S DEMISE, NAMELY, FREE SPEECH. The Nobel Prize winner writes in Rolling Stone that “the ‘conversation of democracy’ has become so deeply dysfunctional that our ability to make intelligent collective decisions has been seriously impaired.” It’s not just that the public square has become a dangerous place for global warming, but that skeptics of anthropocentric global warming have put their money where their mouths are. “POLLUTERS AND IDEOLOGUES ARE TRAMPLING ALL OVER THE ‘RULES’ OF DEMOCRATIC DISCOURSE,” GORE COMPLAINS….

http://frontpagemag.com/2011/06/29/al-gore-in-denial/

Gore and the rest of the Progressives are dangerous to our liberty and our country. They see dissent as something that is dangerous and should not be tolerated. They know what is true and if you disagree with them you are trampling all over the “rules” of democratic discourse. Their solution is to end democratic discourse.

Science

Cancer Surges In Body Scanner Operators; TSA Launches Cover-Up

Fearful of provoking further public resistance to naked airport body scanners, THE TSA HAS BEEN CAUGHT COVERING UP A SURGE IN CASES OF TSA WORKERS DEVELOPING CANCER as a result of their close proximity to radiation-firing devices, perhaps the most shocking revelation to emerge from the LATEST FOIA DOCUMENTS OBTAINED BY THE ELECTRONIC PRIVACY INFORMATION CENTER.

After Union representatives in Boston discovered a “cancer cluster” amongst TSA workers linked with radiation from the body scanners, THE TSA SOUGHT TO DOWNPLAY THE MATTER AND REFUSED TO ISSUE EMPLOYEES WITH DOSIMETERS TO MEASURE LEVELS OF EXPOSURE.

The documents indicate how, “A large number of workers have been falling victim to cancer, strokes and heart disease.”

“The Department, rather than acting on it, or explaining its position seems to have just dismissed. I don’t think that’s the way most other agencies would have acted in a similar situation if they were confronted with that question,” EPIC’s Marc Rotenberg said….

http://www.infowars.com/cancer-surges-in-body-scanner-operators-tsa-launches-cover-up/

This sounds a bit over the top to me. Exposure to radiation normally takes much longer to cause cancer than we find here. But forewarned is forearmed and in checking out EPIC they appear to be a legitimate foundation.

Wednesday: Truth and Liberals

Politics

Another anti-TEA Party movement

….Throughout his speech, he repeated many of the same tropes of the left that we’ve heard before: THAT AMERICA IS NOT BROKE, THAT THE WEALTHY DON’T PAY THEIR FAIR SHARE, THAT UNION MEMBERSHIP IS THE FOUNDATION OF THE MIDDLE CLASS,THAT WAGES HAVE REMAINED STAGNANT, ETC.
Jones ended by questioning the patriotism of the Tea Party movement. With a nod to Vice President Joe Biden, he discussed the patriotism of paying higher taxes AND TOOK TO CALLING HIS FELLOW PROGRESSIVES THE “DEEPER PATRIOTS,” AS IF PATRIOTISM IS DETERMINED BY HOW MUCH OF OTHER PEOPLE’S MONEY YOU CAN SPEND.

But perhaps the major conceit in Jones’s address was the notion that the economy is a zero-sum game where the success of one person hinders your ability to succeed. If you’re not doing well, it’s because someone else is getting ahead at your expense. “We’re not broke,” Jones said early on in his presentation, “We’ve been robbed.”…

http://blog.heritage.org/2011/06/24/why-van-jones-anti-tea-party-will-fail/

Progressives view of economics is based upon evenly dividing up the pie, not in making the pie larger. In fact progressive policies are designed to make the pie smaller in America.

They told me if I voted for McCain, whistleblowers would be fired

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms is being accused of retaliating against an agent who helped publicize the agency’s role in allowing thousands of guns to cross the U.S. border and fall into the hands of Mexican drug gangs.

The agent, VINCE CEFALU, WHO HAS SPOKEN OUT ABOUT THE ATF'S SO-CALLED "PROJECT GUNRUNNER" SCANDAL, SAYS HE WAS SERVED WITH TERMINATION PAPERS JUST LAST WEEK, AND HE CALLS THE MOVE POLITICALLY MOTIVATED.
“Aside from Jay Dobyns, I don't know of anyone that's been more vocal about ATF mismanagement than me,” said Cefalu, a senior special agent based in Dublin, Calif. “That's why this is happening.” Dobyns, an ATF special agent based in Tucson, has appeared several times on Fox News to discuss the scandal.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/06/27/atf-to-fire-gunrunner-whistleblower/#ixzz1QZEThWMl

I kind of suspect the real crime wasn’t so much blowing the whistle, but appearing on Fox News.

House Democrats feel jilted by the president in budget, debt talks

HOUSE DEMOCRATS FEEL LIKE JILTED LOVERS.

They’re looking down Pennsylvania Avenue for some sign of affection from President Obama in the White House. But all they feel they’re getting in return is the back of his hand.

“How is it that the House Democrats played such an important role [in the majority], and all of a sudden [the White House says], ‘FORGET IT, WE’LL WORK WITH THE SENATE AND THE REPUBLICAN LEADERSHIP?’ ” asked Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), vice chairman of the Democrats’ Steering and Policy Committee….

http://thehill.com/homenews/house/168713-house-democrats-feel-jilted-by-the-president

It appears the Democrats in the House don’t realize the budget talks Democrats already have two of the three major players.

Obama: Ignorant or incompetent?

….An incomplete report card on his "accomplishments" would include the following:
• the economy worsened
• discretionary military efforts ("kinetic" if you prefer) increased
• an unpopular, flawed health care plan was forced on the public
• inflation increased, especially in critical goods like food and gasoline
• job prospects decreased
• the stimulus failed miserably
• "transparency in government" became a laugh-line for late night TV
• corruption in government accelerated to Chicago-style warp speed
• Housing worsened and shows no sign of bottoming soon
• Government debt and spending spun out of control
• Wall Street was bailed out and continues to enrich themselves
• Main Street was ignored and becomes poorer as bankruptcies and foreclosures mount
• race relations appear to have worsened

There are a plethora of other problems that could be attributed to Obama. IN SHORT, IT IS DIFFICULT TO ASCERTAIN WHAT, IF ANYTHING, HAS IMPROVED OTHER THAN THE DEMISE OF OSAMA BIN LADEN.

Two hypotheses are often cited to explain why things have gotten so much worse:

1. Obama is incompetent.
2. Obama knows what he is doing and is deliberately destroying the country …
.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/06/president_quixotes_legacy_confused_ill-educated_and_not_too_bright.html

An excellent article laying out the problems with the “intelligence” of this president and perhaps the entire left wing. Intelligence doesn’t mean much when it is subservient to ideology.

Obama and the Debt Deal

NEWS REPORTS INDICATE THAT PRESIDENT OBAMA HAS “ENGAGED” ON REACHING A DEAL TO RAISE THE DEBT CEILING. Let’s hope so, and about time! The president is the key to getting a deal in the first place, and if he chooses, it can be substantively good, but it will only happen when he chooses to make it happen.

Let’s start with the substance. IT IS CLEAR THAT JUST RAISING THE DEBT CEILING WILL PROVIDE NO REAL COMFORT TO MARKETS. RECKLESSLY RAISING THE DEBT CEILING WOULD PROVE THAT WE ARE ON TRACK TO SAIL DIRECTLY INTO THE TEETH OF A SOVEREIGN DEBT CRISIS. So any real deal has to both raise the debt ceiling and deal with the substance of the problem. Namely, that THE PROJECTED EXPLOSION IN SPENDING OUTSTRIPS ANY REASONABLE EXPECTATION THAT THE U.S. CAN GROW ITS WAY OUT FROM UNDERNEATH AN ALREADY DANGEROUS FEDERAL DEBT OVERHANG. So, a real deal would include near-term (“discretionary”) spending cuts, caps to control medium-term discretionary spending, and real changes to actual entitlement programs that would signal a commitment to controlling the spending explosion.

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/270612/obama-and-debt-deal-douglas-holtz-eakin

This is a win/win situation for the Republicans. The Democrats can only lose. They know the debt will have to be dealt with, but they are hoping to put it off until after 2012. The debt ceiling stops them from being able to do this. Their call for tax increases doesn’t really play even for Democrats who know this will be another blow to the economy. So it will have to be spending cuts which is what the TEA Party called for and most of the country agrees with.

Liberals and history

Sigh.

YOU'D THINK LIBERALS WOULD LEARN.

Of course not.

George Stephanopoulos made the mistake of going after Michele Bachmann on history -- and promptly proceeded to get his history foolishly wrong. Said George:

For example earlier this year YOU SAID THAT THE FOUNDING FATHERS WHO WROTE THE CONSTITUTION AND THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE WORKED TIRELESSLY TO END SLAVERY. NOW WITH RESPECT CONGRESSWOMAN, THAT'S JUST NOT TRUE

.

Actually, George, it is true...

http://spectator.org/blog/2011/06/28/levin-stephanopoulos-is-foolis

The article goes on to show how Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and George Mason all tried to eliminate slavery and these people are considered Founding Fathers. Just as with Sarah Palin talking about Paul Revere’s ride and how he announced to the British that they should try to take our arms (which he did after he was captured) the left seems content with grade school history not looking to go beyond that to get the full story. But what should be truly embarrassing to them is that when caught, they try to pretend that it didn’t happen or didn’t count.

More from details on Wisconsin’s Chokegate

…According to one witness, Bradley charged toward Prosser, shaking her clenched fist in his face. ANOTHER SOURCE SAYS THEY WERE “LITERALLY NOSE TO NOSE.” PROSSER THEN PUT HIS HANDS UP TO PUSH HER AWAY. As one source pointed out, if a man wants to push a woman who is facing him, he wouldn’t push her in the chest (unless he wants to face an entirely different criminal charge). Consequently, PROSSER PUT HIS HANDS ON BRADLEY’S SHOULDERS TO PUSH HER AWAY, AND IN DOING SO, MADE CONTACT WITH HER NECK.

At that moment, another justice approached Bradley from behind and pulled her away from Prosser, saying, “STOP IT, ANN, THIS ISN’T LIKE YOU.” BRADLEY THEN SHOUTED, “I WAS CHOKED!” Another justice present replied, “You were not choked.” In a statement following the incident, Bradley maintained Prosser “put his hands around my neck in anger in a chokehold.”
On Monday night, Bradley called Capitol Police Chief Charles Tubbs to talk to him about the incident. On the morning of Wednesday, June 15, Tubbs joined the justices in a closed-door meeting, where he discussed “issues relating to workplace violence.”

During the meeting, Chief Justice Abrahamson actually reenacted the incident on Chief Tubbs — no doubt an amusing sight, as the diminutive Abrahamson mimicked choking the tall, portly police chief. During her demonstration, Abrahamson emphasized that Prosser had exerted “pressure” on Bradley’s throat.

“THERE WAS NO PRESSURE,” INTERRUPTED THE JUSTICE WHO HAD INITIALLY BROKEN UP THE INCIDENT BETWEEN BRADLEY AND PROSSER. “THAT’S ONLY BECAUSE YOU BROKE US APART,” SHOT BACK BRADLEY. This exchange led several meeting attendees to believe Bradley was making up the charge, as they took her rejoinder as an admission that there was no pressure applied to her neck….

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/270679/more-details-emerge-wisconsin-s-chokegate-christian-schneider

These people are supposed to be judges. Claiming to be choked and then admitting she wasn’t “only because you broke us apart,” and then going to the press claiming to be choked seems to be cause for Bradley to resign. Women making false charges it should be held accountable for it.

Economic Freedom

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1U1Jzdghjk&feature=channel_video_title

Here is a 2 minute video that makes a great point

Tuesday: ABO

Politics

Anybody but Obama

Bear witness to a listless and ineffective leader who is beatable. Carter Redux.

AMERICANS HAVE GROWN WEARY OF THE FLAILING OBAMA ECONOMY. So potent is the public's displeasure, the President's support is fast eroding. Most notably, among key constituencies he will need for 2012.

With the polling sugar high of Bin Laden's death all but gone, and perpetually poor economic data to boot, even AN UNNAMED REPUBLICAN OPPONENT DEFEATS THE PRESIDENT IN TWO OF THREE SURVEYS RELEASED THIS MONTH.

FOR A GOP FIELD THAT IS ROUTINELY DERIDED AS WEAK AND UNEXCITING -- A LEFTIST NARRATIVE -- THESE POLLS, IF ANYTHING, REMIND US THAT AMERICANS ARE LOOKING FOR A COMPETENT ALTERATIVE, and that the race will be competitive.

A Republican candidate who offers a fiscally sound, pro-growth, jobs-centric agenda will provide a sharp contrast to this White House. With a clear articulation of substantive ideas, Conservatives should press their case….

http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/06/obamas_poll_wasteland.html

Certain things are written in the TEA leaves (a play on words here).  Obama not only looks beatable, he looks pathetic. 

Like Chauncey Gardiner, Obama Is Profoundly Aloof

Which past leader does Barack Obama most closely resemble? His admirers, not all of them liberals, used to compare him to Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt.

Well, Obama announced his candidacy in Lincoln's hometown two days before Abe's birthday, and he did expand the size and scope of government. But NO ONE SERIOUSLY COMPARES HIM WITH LINCOLN OR FDR ANYMORE.

CONSERVATIVE CRITICS HAVE TAKEN TO COMPARING HIM, AS YOU MIGHT IMAGINE, TO JIMMY CARTER. The more cruel among them, like The Weekly Standard's Jay Cost, say the comparison is not to Obama's advantage.

But there is another comparison I think more appropriate for a president who, according to one of his foreign-policy staffers, prefers to "lead from behind." THE MAN I HAVE IN MIND IS CHAUNCEY GARDINER, THE CHARACTER PLAYED BY PETER SELLERS IN THE 1979 MOVIE "BEING THERE."

As you may remember, GARDINER IS A CLUELESS GARDENER WHO IS MISTAKEN FOR A WASHINGTON EMINENCE AND BECOMES A PRESIDENTIAL ADVISER. Asked if you can stimulate growth through temporary incentives, Gardiner says, "As long as the roots are not severed, all is well and all will be well in the garden."


"First comes the spring and summer," he explains, "but then we have fall and winter. And then we get spring and summer again." THE PRESIDENT IS AWED AS GARDINER SUMS UP, "THERE WILL BE GROWTH IN THE SPRING…."

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2011/06/27/like_chauncey_gardiner_obama_is_profoundly_aloof_110365.html

I’m not sure anyone can explain BHO, but Barone’s article is an interesting one.  Do we have an accidental president that got elected because no one was actually paying attention?  It appears so.

What’s the Matter with Kansas?  It’s finally coming to its senses.

…. THE LABYRINTHINE ADVENTURES OF LIBERALS IN KANSAS HAVE BEEN HARD TO FOLLOW, BUT LATELY, MOST OF THEM HAVE INVOLVED A SCRAMBLE FOR WANING POWER. So when Sebelius left for Washington to take over HHS for the Obama administration, she left behind AN EXECUTIVE BRANCH COMPOSED ALMOST ENTIRELY OF APPOINTED DEMOCRATS. In addition to attorney general Six, she had already appointed Democrat Dennis McKinney to the post of state treasurer, replacing Lynn Jenkins, a Republican elected to Congress in 2008. Her own office was filled by her lieutenant-governor, Democrat Mark Parkinson, a liberal chairman of the state GOP who party-jumped to be on her reelection ticket (replacing yet another liberal state GOP chairman who had jumped to become her first lieutenant-governor). He appointed a Democrat to fill his job when he became governor, and yet another Democrat to fill a vacancy in the secretary of state’s office. BY 2010, THE ONLY ELECTED STATE OFFICIAL WAS THE INSURANCE COMMISSIONER, A LOW-PROFILE REPUBLICAN.

For years, coastal observers assumed conservatives had already “stolen the heart of America” — mostly because that was the subtitle of Thomas Frank’s What’s the Matter with Kansas?, a 2004 New York Times bestseller, and all that New Yorkers know about Kansas is what they read in the pages of the Times. FOR THEM, THE ELECTION OF 2010 MUST HAVE BEEN CONFUSING, SINCE IT SAW THE DEFEAT OF A DEMOCRAT AND THE VICTORY OF FORMER SEN. SAM BROWNBACK, THE STATE’S FIRST CONSERVATIVE GOVERNOR EVER. But it also saw the defeat of those appointed Topeka-dwelling Democrats — all endorsed by the Kansas City Star — who attempted to hold onto their jobs. VOTERS REPLACED EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM WITH CONSERVATIVES. Last year, finally, conservatives won the heart of America — BUT ONLY BECAUSE LIBERALS SO COMPLETELY LOST IT. So the literate Left has a new reason to hate Midwesterners. As the New York Times’s David Carr told viewers of Bill Maher’s TV show, Kansas is now the home of “low sloping foreheads.” Obviously, Kathleen Sebelius has left the state.

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/270528/how-liberals-lost-heart-america-denis-boyles

Obama’s policies have been a dropping of the veil that liberals used to hide what their real intentions were.  On top of that, they dropped the veil just as a truly incompetent president was taking office.  Lose/lose. 


Big government or Stupid government?

… My weekend column concluded with some thoughts on American government’s culture of excess. Big Government – more-more-more money-no-object government — will by definition be profoundly stupid government. Lean, constrained government would not only be affordable but smarter. The bloated moronic airport security regime is a particularly ugly example. In a decade of existence, it has never stopped a single terrorist, but it can successfully cow a dying woman born during the Wilson Administration into removing her diaper.

We can all sleep easier knowing that.

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/270533/tsa-obergropinfuhrer-day-mark-steyn

I posted a similar sentiment yesterday.  Mark Steyn does as well but perhaps more colorfully.

Where to put the sidewalks?

One of my favorite political fables concerns Dwight D. Eisenhower and his tenure as president of Columbia University. The campus was undergoing an expansion, and IKE WAS PRESENTED WITH TWO VERY DIFFERENT PLANS FOR LAYING OUT NEW SIDEWALKS. THE ARCHITECTS WERE IRRECONCILABLE, EACH INSISTING THAT HIS PLAN WAS THE ONLY WAY TO GO AND THAT THE OTHER GUY HAD IT ALL WRONG. Ike, sensible fellow that he was, had grass planted instead, telling the architects to WAIT A YEAR AND SEE WHERE THE STUDENTS TROD PATHS IN THE TURF, AND THEN TO PUT THE SIDEWALKS THERE. It is a story that, as they say, is true, and may even have happened.

The Eisenhower sidewalk story often is used as an example illustrating the emergence of spontaneous orders. But it also invites by analogy a second, related question: What is the job of government? Is it to tell us which paths to take, or to help smooth the way as we choose our own destinations and our own ways to get there?

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/270523/gay-marriage-where-do-we-put-sidewalks-kevin-d-williamson

I believe this is another way to speak about majority rule.  And isn’t that really a fundamental piece of democratic government? 



RFK jr. Praises Air America as more popular than right wing radio

“…So much of the media's really dependent on corporate money, so you're not going to see, like AIR AMERICA FAILED NOT BECAUSE IT WASN'T POPULAR. IN EVERY JURISDICTION WHERE IT WAS OPERATING IT WAS BEATING OUT RIGHT-WING RADIO. There was a huge appetite for it. THE PROBLEM WAS, IT COULDN'T GET ADVERTISING BECAUSE THE CORPORATIONS, THE OIL COMPANIES, THE BIGGEST ADVERTISERS, the pharmaceutical companies, which is now 70 percent of the, of the revenue for, for, news shows on TV, is pharmaceutical companies. And so it's very hard to criticize them on the news. Automobile companies, which is the other big player, and many other, these companies won't, wouldn't advertise, they all boycotted Air America.

So Air America was like, you know, relying on, like, you know, hair growth products and this kind of stuff and they were scrambling for money and they couldn't find it and it killed them.”

http://nation.foxnews.com/robert-f-kennedy-jr/2011/06/27/rfk-jr-claims-air-america-was-more-popular-conservative-radio

When you read something like this, you need to realize that the left likes to rewrite history completely changing what actually happened.  Air America did not beat right-wing radio.  In fact they didn’t beat right wing radio even in liberal bastions. 


You can read about that here:

http://politicalcalculations.blogspot.com/2006/03/air-americas-ratings-in-top-100-radio.html

Transparency

While lawmakers continue to call for a budget deal that addresses the country’s growing deficit, REPUBLICAN SENATOR JEFF SESSIONS OF ALABAMA IS TAKING IT ONE STEP FURTHER BY CALLING FOR THAT DEAL TO BE NEGOTIATED IN PUBLIC.

Sessions, who is the ranking member on the Senate Budget Committee, has been one of the most outspoken critics of the stalled budget process in the Senate. But in an interview with The Daily Caller, Sessions had a different target.

“I acknowledge that people can enter into private discussions to help them form and reach certain compromises, but WHAT WE’VE BEEN SEEING IS A PATTERN OF HUGELY IMPORTANT ISSUES BEING NEGOTIATED BY A VERY SMALL NUMBER OF PEOPLE, THEN PRODUCED TO CONGRESS FOR RAPID PASSAGE BEFORE SOME EMERGENCY EVENT OCCURS,” said Sessions.

“This is not good legislative work.”

A look back at the Obama Administration shows Sessions may have a fair point.

The STIMULUS BILL IN FEBRUARY 2009 WAS WORKED OUT  BY A BIPARTISAN GROUP OF LAWMAKERS IN CLOSED MEETINGS.

The president’s number-one agenda item upon assuming office was to pass comprehensive HEALTH CARE REFORM. THE BILL WAS NEGOTIATED BY A FEW SELECT DEMOCRAT CONGRESSMEN BEHIND CLOSED DOORS without C-SPAN cameras,, then presented to Congress.

And this past spring, the  DEAL THAT EXTENDED THE CONTINUING RESOLUTION AND AVOIDED A GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN WAS WORKED OUT IN  PRIVATE BETWEEN SENATE MAJORITY LEADER HARRY REID, HOUSE SPEAKER JOHN BOEHNER, AND PRESIDENT OBAMA. It was then “dropped into the legislative hopper with crisis providing motivation” to pass it or else…..

http://dailycaller.com/2011/06/27/in-budget-debate-one-senator-sees-pattern-of-secret-negotiations/#ixzz1QVPihbI3

So much for the more transparent administration in history. 



Desperation

Republicans aren’t Patriotic

Pelosi has been iced out of debt talks and has reportedly demanded a seat at the table … to no avail … and appeared visibly upset about it. Imitating Jack Nicholson’s famous line from “A Few Good Men,” Pelosi told Eric Cantor he “can’t handle the truth,” and then told this whopper: "All this talk about tax cuts, in the Bush years the Republicans said that tax cuts would produce jobs; they didn't. They produced a deficit."

In fact, following Bush’s 2003 tax relief, the U.S. had 52 months of uninterrupted job growth, the longest run on record. The former speaker finished off the interview by claiming Republicans were not “patriotic.”

http://nation.foxnews.com/nancy-pelosi/2011/06/27/blackballed-pelosi-stammers-through-interview-series-offensive-and-false-cla

I haven’t got a clue what the left’s definition of patriotism is.  Joe Biden said paying taxes is patriotic, but then we’ve had dozens of high profile Democrats who have done their best (legally and or illegally) to avoid paying them.  Hillary asked the question whose side the House was on when they questioned what we were doing in Libya, but the Democrats find questioning war patriotic when they do it.  There just doesn’t seem to be a solid definition of patriotism for the Left.

Lies, damn lies......

Politics
House Dems: Closing special tax breaks not same as raising taxes

HOUSE DEMOCRATS HAVE DEMANDED THAT A DEFICIT-REDUCTION DEAL INCLUDE MEASURES TO RAISE TAX REVENUE BUT THEY ARGUE THOSE PROPOSALS SHOULDN’T BE VIEWED AS PROPOSED TAX INCREASES.

Rep. Jim Clyburn (S.C.), the assistant House Democratic leader and a member of the debt-limit negotiating team, said Sunday that CLOSING TAX LOOPHOLES ARE NOT THE SAME AS TAX INCREASES.

The fact of the matter is, we have on the table all kinds of revenue raises that [Republicans] keep calling tax increases. How do you call closing loopholes to oil companies that are making billions of dollars in profits, closing up these loopholes that would generate $40 to $50 billion in revenue, how do you call that a tax hike?” Clyburn said on ABC News’s "This Week".

“That is no tax hike. YOU ONLY HIKE TAXES WHEN YOU RAISE RATES,” he argued.

http://thehill.com/homenews/house/168501-clyburn-closing-special-tax-breaks-not-the-same-as-raising-taxes

Do you know what the single biggest tax loophole is? It’s fringe benefits being tax free.
The Democrats are putting the camel’s nose under the tent with this argument and it is one that can hurt everyone in America.

Geithner: Oil release, not a political move

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner defended the decision by industrialized nations to release emergency oil reserves into global energy markets, saying on Friday that it was not a political move.
"It's really as simple as this: there's a war in Libya, costs between one and two million barrels a day in lost output, I think 140 million barrels off the market so far," he said in response to a question at Dartmouth College, where he spoke on a panel…..

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/24/usa-economy-geithner-idUSN1E75N11V20110624

More lies from the left.

Charges fly in Wisconsin, but no actual charges lodged

Yesterday morning, I first read the story written by Bill Lueders — of the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism — saying that "WISCONSIN SUPREME COURT JUSTICE DAVID PROSSER ALLEGEDLY GRABBED FELLOW JUSTICE ANN WALSH BRADLEY AROUND THE NECK IN AN ARGUMENT IN HER CHAMBERS EARLIER THIS MONTH……"

http://althouse.blogspot.com/2011/06/how-stupidevil-was-bill-luederss-attack.html

Interesting story. There is a similarity to the Anthony Weiner story. Ann Bradley claims Prosser put this hands around her neck, but hasn’t lodged any actual charges against him. Weiner claimed someone hacked his emails, but didn’t lodge any charges in that case either. Stand by, this will get more interesting.

Pinch Happened

IT'S BEEN A BAD MONTH FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES. The feeding frenzy it tried to stir up over Sarah Palin's e-mails left the sharks unfed. And the "investigative" story that was supposed to prove Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to be an unethical scoundrel fell flat because its theory was unsupported by the facts.

To top it all off, the Times is -- for the third time in as many years -- in an open feud with New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan for what the gentleman correctly labels anti-Catholic reporting.
But none of that will change the Times' behavior. THE TIMES IS PREPARING ITSELF FOR A HUGE PUSH TO RE-ELECT PRESIDENT OBAMA AND WILL LEAVE NO STORY UNPUBLISHED THAT COULD POSSIBLY HELP OBAMA OR HURT HIS OPPONENT, REGARDLESS OF WHO IT IS.

How did the New York Times -- the paper of Abe Rosenthal, R.W. "Johnny" Apple and Bill Safire -- become the paper of Tom Friedman, Paul Krugman and Maureen Dowd? WHAT CHANGED IT FROM THE LIBERAL PAPER THAT HAD BEEN MOST FAIR TO RONALD REAGAN TO THE HOME OF ANGRY LIBERALISM?

WHAT HAPPENED? PINCH HAPPENED….

http://spectator.org/archives/2011/06/27/pinch-happened

And Pinch has been a disaster for the NYT. Just another example of why nepotism is a bad idea.

The Mask Slips. Yet Again.

NO ONE WHO HAS LIVED THROUGH THE LAST FORTY YEARS CAN BE SURPRISED WHEN A NEW YORK TIMES REPORTER REVEALS HIS CONTEMPT FOR THOSE WHO DON'T SHARE HIS CULTURAL BIASES; especially, against those like me who live in the "middle places." But when Times reporter David Carr blurted out that "middle places" like Kansas and Missouri ARE THE LAND OF "THE LOW-SLOPING FOREHEADS," EVEN THE JADED TOOK NOTICE. Ed Driscoll has a good roundup on Pajamas Media. Carr's moment of truth occurred on Bill Maher's repellent television show; here is the video:….

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2011/06/029329.php

To paraphrase Mark Twain, I guess there are lies, damn lies and the NY Times reporters.

Everything and Nothing: Obama’s Presidency

…..DAY AFTER DAY, PRESIDENT OBAMA IS AWOL, BUSY WITH DISCONNECTED EVENTS THAT HAVE ALMOST NO RELATION TO WHAT’S GOING ON IN THE NATION, MUCH LESS THE WORLD. He has so little impact on what’s going on anywhere that he’s hardly missed when he heads to the golf course (which he has done 75 times since taking office - and if you’re keeping track, that’s like playing golf 24 hours a day for nearly two weeks).

Consider his schedule last week: Meetings in the White House on Monday and Tuesday (which culminated in a bizarre and rambling speech on Afghanistan in which he declared he was cutting and running while leaving 68,000 troops in country to “lead from behind”), a greeting with Asian-American and Pacific Islander community leaders on Wednesday, fundraising events in New York City on Thursday, and a trip Friday to Pittsburgh “to highlight the importance of manufacturing to the U.S. economy.” Seriously.

In Pittsburgh, he said: “YOU MIGHT NOT KNOW THIS, BUT ONE OF MY RESPONSIBILITIES AS COMMANDER IN CHIEF IS TO KEEP AN EYE ON ROBOTS. AND I’M PLEASED TO REPORT THAT THE ROBOTS YOU MANUFACTURE HERE SEEM PEACEFUL, AT LEAST FOR NOW…..”

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/jun/26/curl-obama-says-everything-and-nothing/

As Chris Christie said last week on the Today Show when asked what President Obama could do to overcome the problems in Washington, his comment, “First he could show up” was not only devastating, but accurate.


Elderly woman asked to remove adult diaper during TSA search

A WOMAN HAS FILED A COMPLAINT WITH FEDERAL AUTHORITIES OVER HOW HER ELDERLY MOTHER WAS TREATED AT NORTHWEST FLORIDA REGIONAL AIRPORT LAST WEEKEND.

Jean Weber of Destin filed a complaint with the Department of Homeland Security after her 95-year-old mother was detained and extensively searched last Saturday while trying to board a plane to fly to Michigan to be with family members during the final stages of her battle with leukemia.

Her mother, who was in a wheelchair, was asked to remove an adult diaper in order to complete a pat-down search.

“It’s something I couldn’t imagine happening on American soil,” Weber said Friday. “Here is my mother, 95 years old, 105 pounds, barely able to stand, and then this.”

Sari Koshetz, a spokeswoman for the Transportation Security Administration in Miami, said she could not comment on specific cases to protect the privacy of those involved.

“THE TSA WORKS WITH PASSENGERS TO RESOLVE ANY SECURITY ALARMS IN A RESPECTFUL AND SENSITIVE MANNER,” SHE SAID.

http://www.newsherald.com/news/mother-94767-search-adult.html

When someone tells you the government should be more involved because they don’t have a profit motive, read them this and tell them they don’t have a common sense motive either. Now let see, “how many suicide bombers have been 95 year old women in wheelchairs? Do you feel more secure now?

Conspiracy Nuts? Here's looking Left

Left wing conspiracy theories

Recently Chris Matthews had a show in which he excoriated the right for their “war” on science. Matthews and his guest talked about Al Gore and global warning and how Gore’s “Inconvenient Truth” was such an excellent documentary about Climate Change.

In fact, an Inconvenient Truth became required watching in British schools. When someone sued in court, a judge determined there were eleven falsehoods in the documentary which had to be identified when it was shown in schools.

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2007/10/09/court-identifies-eleven-inaccuracies-al-gore-s-inconvenient-truth

That got me thinking. What other “conspiracy theories” does the left simply accept as true? Here’s a partial list of the screwball things the left (or at least a portion on the left) believe as “gospel” truth.

 

• Aids was invented in a US laboratory and was designed to infect the AA community
• We invaded Iraq for oil.
• We invaded Afghanistan to build a pipeline across the country
• Trig Palin is not Sarah Palin's son, but her grandson (Bristol supposedly is his mother)
• George Bush stole the 2000 election and Al Gore actually won Florida
• George Bush knew about 9/11 and did nothing or actually caused 9/11 to happen.
• Bush lied when he went to congress for authorization for the Iraq War.
• The TEA Party is a racist organization
• Jared Loughner was a member of the Tea Party
• Sarah Palin was to blame for the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords
• Enright (the NY cabbie stabber) was a right wing zealot (turned out he worked for an "Interfaith" group which supports the Cordoba Mosque and was actually quite drunk).
• J. Patrick Bedell, the Pentagon shooter, was reviled in the Leftist blogosphere as a right wing teapartier. Turns out he was suffering from Bush Derangement Syndrome, and was a 9/11 Truther
• The IRS plane crasher was a TEA Party member
• The right uses "code" words to mask their racism. Some of the code words include: Arrogant, urban schools, states' rights, professor, affirmative access, birth certificate, entitlements, community organizer, competition, government schools, charter schools, vouchers, opposition to reparations, deficits, free enterprise, private ownership of property, limited govrernment, etc.
• There was a "vast right wing conspiracy" against Bill Clinton that created the Lewinsky affair. It has since been updated to include everything the right does and it is financed by the Koch brothers.
• There was no fiscal crisis in Wisconsin until Scott Walker and the Republicans cut taxes on the rich.
• Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy is the main ingredient in the deficit Obama currently has (it's actually about 5%).
• Wall Street caused the fiscal meltdown while Fannie and Freddie had nothing to do with it.
• Brietbart hacked former Representative Anthony Weiner's twitter account and sent out the lewd picture of Weiner

New book and the real culprit in the financial meltdown

Politics

Would Sarah Palin have made this mistake?

The President addressing the 10th Mountain Division today at Fort Drum:

"First time I saw 10th Mountain Division, you guys were in southern Iraq. When I went back to visit Afghanistan, you guys were the first ones there. I HAD THE GREAT HONOR OF SEEING SOME OF YOU BECAUSE A COMRADE OF YOURS, JARED MONTI, WAS THE FIRST PERSON WHO I WAS ABLE TO AWARD THE MEDAL OF HONOR TO WHO ACTUALLY CAME BACK AND WASN’T RECEIVING IT POSTHUMOUSLY."

As we all know, SSG SAL GIUNTA, OF THE 173RD AIRBORNE, WAS THE FIRST LIVING RECIPIENT (2011) of the MOH who fought in Iraq/Afganistan. SFC JARED MONTI, 10TH MOUNTAIN DIVISION, WAS KIA IN AFGHANISTAN IN 2006. HE WAS POSTHUMOUSLY AWARDED THE MOH BY OBAMA IN 2009.

How does the Commander-in-Chief mix these heroes up? He put that medal around Giunta's neck and he stood with Monti's parents as they grieved. These fallen heroes leave such a great legacy, and we should know all their names. The ironic part of the speech, and this comes after the announcement of the politically pressured drawdown of troops in Afghanistan, was Obama's closing remark, "Know that your Commander-in-Chief has your back."

http://www.blackfive.net/main/2011/06/president-obamas-terrible-mistake.html

I used this headline because the left likes to portray Palin as the stupidest person in the political world. It appears our President isn’t nearly as smart as they like to think he is.

How the Democrats Nearly Destroyed the Economy

There is history -- a chronicle of human events -- and then there is perceived history. So often, the two are wildly at odds.

In 1963, a popular Democratic president was assassinated by a Marxist named Oswald, who had actually defected to the Soviet Union and returned to the U.S. with a Soviet wife, was an active member of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, and had attempted to assassinate a right-wing general named Edwin Walker earlier in the year.

Yet those who write history found these facts inconvenient. They created a different history in which the "atmosphere of hate" in the southern city of Dallas, Texas, led to the terrible political violence. In other words, it was political conservatism that led to John F. Kennedy's assassination. This perceived history was recycled as recently as the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. ABC's Christiane Amanpour, interviewing Jean Kennedy Smith, noted that the Kennedy assassination was "eerily relevant" and asked Kennedy to evaluate the "political atmosphere" in the country today….

….IN "RECKLESS ENDANGERMENT," MORGENSON AND ROSNER OFFER CONSIDERABLE CENSURE FOR RECKLESS BANKERS, LAX RATING AGENCIES, CAPTURED REGULATORS AND UNSCRUPULOUS BUSINESSMEN. But the greatest responsibility for the collapse of the housing market and the near "Armageddon" of the American economy belongs to FANNIE MAE AND FREDDIE MAC AND TO THE POLITICIANS WHO CREATED AND PROTECTED THEM. With a couple of prominent exceptions, THE POLITICIANS WERE DEMOCRATS CLAIMING TO DO GOOD FOR THE POOR. ALONG THE WAY, THEY ENRICHED THEMSELVES AND THEIR FRIENDS, STUFFED THEIR CAMPAIGN COFFERS, and resisted all attempts to enforce market discipline. When the inevitable collapse arrived, the entire economy suffered, but no one more than the poor….

…. "Reckless Endangerment" utterly deflates the perceived history of the 2008 crash. Yes, there was greed -- when is there not? BUT IT WAS GOVERNMENT DISTORTIONS OF MARKETS -- NOT "UNREGULATED CAPITALISM" -- THAT LED THE ECONOMY TO DISASTER.

http://townhall.com/columnists/monacharen/2011/06/24/how_the_democrats_nearly_destroyed_the_economy/page/full/

There’s more here about how the left rewrites history to their liking and benefit. But as I’ve been saying for almost three years, the economic crisis is fundamentally the unintended consequences of liberal good intentions. And as we all know, the road to hell is paved….


The Aristocracy of incompetence

Today's liberal leaders have divested themselves of the responsibilities of duty and prudence, resulting in an aristocracy of incompetence. Liberal vanity and fondness for central direction, ends justifying means, unbridled experimentation, tactics and the political warfare of cracking eggs for an omelet have resulted in widespread political irresponsibility. The good concept of a duty owed to the electorate no longer underpins the Democratic Party, apparently unnecessary to its dreamy march toward technocratic monarchy. As with prior aristocratic governance, the governing liberal has quickly ditched responsibilities, the same responsibilities he adamantly requires of his subjects. Consider these double standards.

The Obama SEC plans to pursue fraud charges against Moody's and S&P for apparently incorrect debt ratings and inadequate investment research, while at the same time the President gets away with a joke about wasting billions of our tax dollars on "shovel ready" opportunities that never existed. Like the rating agencies, Mr. Obama was paid and painted a rosy picture, but assuredly did less research.
Likewise, Dodd-Frank and Sarbanes Oxley required ever higher policing of conflicts of interest by corporate directors and advisors, yet Rep. Frank appointed his boyfriend to a position with a company Frank regulated and Rep.Waters allegedly steered federal funds to a bank her husband owned.
What's wrong here is not new and should have been taught to President Obama, Barney Frank and Maxine Waters by their parents. A MILLENNIUM AGO ST. THOMAS AQUINAS EXPLAINED THAT A BAD ACTION CANNOT BE JUSTIFIED BY A GOOD INTENTION, THAT THE END DOES NOT JUSTIFY THE MEANS. Like the private sector, public actors should answer for their bad actions.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/06/an_aristocracy_of_incompetence.html

It’s worse than the end justifies the means. The intention justifies the means even if the ends are never reached.

Friday: Palin outsmarts Bernanke and Obama

Politics

Fed holds rates on inflation concerns

THE US FEDERAL RESERVE GAVE A DOWNBEAT ASSESSMENT OF THE WORLD’S LARGEST ECONOMY ON WEDNESDAY AS IT POINTED TO SLOWER THAN EXPECTED GROWTH AND HIGHER INFLATION.

In the most significant change to its policy statement, it stripped out all reference to “subdued” measures of underlying inflation and said that the economy is growing “somewhat more slowly than the Committee had expected”.

The toxic combination of disappointing growth but higher inflation combined to leave no hint that the central bank will consider further asset purchases to stimulate the economy.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9f913490-9cea-11e0-8678-00144feabdc0.html

It’s beginning to look a lot like 1979. Welcome back Carter. Is it time to get out our sweaters?

Sarah Palin predicted the effect of QE2

…..Back in November, GOVERNOR PALIN TOOK ON QE2 AND PRESIDENT OBAMA'S DEFENSE OF IT. Her predictions have turned out to be correct. WHEN MAKING HER CASE AGAINST QE2, SHE ARGUED THAT IT COULD CAUSE INFLATION, BUT WOULD NOT MUCH HELP U.S. NET EXPORTS AND BUSINESS INVESTMENT, the two factors needed to grow the U.S. economy.

Indeed, worsening net exports (exports minus imports) have been keeping the United States stuck in its current economic stagnation. When imports go up relative to exports, Americans get more debt and lose jobs, whereas when exports go up, relative to imports, Americans get more income and gain jobs. THE DECLINE IN NET EXPORTS MAY BE SLOWING OR PREVENTING THE U.S. ECONOMIC RECOVERY.

BERNANKE HOPED THAT QE2 WOULD WEAKEN THE DOLLAR WHICH WOULD TURN U.S. NET EXPORTS AROUND. BUT PALIN PREDICTED THAT ANY POSITIVE EFFECTS WOULD BE TEMPORARY. In November she wrote:

Will driving the dollar down in this way do anything to boost U.S. exports? The short answer is not really. A weaker dollar will temporarily boost exports by making our goods cheaper to sell; but inevitably other countries will respond in kind, triggering the kind of currency wars economists are warning us about.

Indeed, SO FAR PALIN HAS BEEN CORRECT. QE2'S EFFECT UPON NET EXPORTS APPEARS TO HAVE BEEN TEMPORARY. Although U.S. net exports worsened more slowly in November and December, they resumed their economy-sapping slide in February, as shown in the graph below….

http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/06/inflation_climbs_to_36_in_may_palin_was_right.html

So let me see if I have this correct. The media’s candidate for the stupidest politician ever was correct and Ben Bernanke and President Obama (the smartest politician ever) were wrong. Makes you wonder.

Obama versus Osama: guess who the Egyptians prefer?

First the good news: U.S. PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA IS MORE THAN TWICE AS POPULAR IN EGYPT AS IRANIAN PRESIDENT MAHMOUD AHMADENIJAD.

Now, the bad news: the American president's standing has never been worse in Egypt, plummeting since 2008, when he received a 25 percent favorability rating, to 12 percent in 2011.
EVEN OSAMA BIN LADEN, THE LATE AL QAEDA LEADER, WAS MORE POPULAR THIS YEAR, WITH A 21 PERCENT FAVORABILITY RANKING. The Iranian leader fared worse, dropping from 21 percent favorability rating in 2008 to a miserable 5 percent.

The findings are drawn from a public poll of Egyptian views in the aftermath of the public uprising that brought about the resignation of Egypt's fallen leader Hosni Mubarak. The poll was commissioned by the International Peace Institute, a New York-based think tank with close ties to the United Nations and Arab governments.

http://turtlebay.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/06/21/obama_versus_osama_guess_who_the_egyptians_prefer

In another poll it was found that Great White Sharks preferred Osama 97% to 3% over Obama.

Obama in Perilous Political State

According to a new Bloomberg National Poll, “AMERICANS ARE GROWING MORE DISSATISFIED WITH PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA’S HANDLING OF THE ECONOMY and say it will be hard to vote to re-elect him without seeing significant progress over the next year and a half.”

Among the data points from the poll (which has DEMOCRATS OUTNUMBERING REPUBLICANS BY 32 PERCENT V. 27 PERCENT):

• ONLY 30 PERCENT of respondents said they ARE CERTAIN TO VOTE FOR THE PRESIDENT and 36 percent said they definitely won’t.
• Among LIKELY INDEPENDENT VOTERS, ONLY 23 PERCENT SAID THEY WILL BACK HIS RE-ELECTION, while 36 percent said they are sure they will seek out another candidate.
• By a 44 PERCENT TO 34 PERCENT MARGIN, AMERICANS SAY THEY ARE WORSE OFF than they were when Obama took office.
• More than half of respondents (55 percent) say their children are destined to a lower standard of living.
• Fewer than a quarter of people (23 percent) see signs of improvement in the economy while two-thirds (66 percent) say they believe the country is on the wrong track
• Sixty-one percent either strongly agree or mostly agree that in 2012, Obama will have had his chance and if the economy isn’t substantially better by election day, it will be very hard to vote for him.
• By a margin of 61 PERCENT TO 32 PERCENT, AMERICANS DISAPPROVE OF THE JOB OBAMA IS DOING TO TACKLE THE BUDGET DEFICIT.
• Fifty-seven percent of respondents disapproved of his efforts to create jobs.
• Fifty-seven percent disapproved of his handling of the economy.

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/06/22/obama-in-perilous-political-state/

This is a devastating poll if you are a democrat.

Obama’s America in Black & White

Platitudes about the civic utopia that would spring forth from the election of Barack Obama have vanished. Thomas Friedman’s claim that “the American Civil War ended, as a black man . . . became president of the United States,” has now been replaced by PBS host TAVIS SMILEY’S PREDICTION THAT THE 2012 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION IS “GOING TO BE THE UGLIEST, THE NASTIEST, THE MOST DIVISIVE, AND THE MOST RACIST IN THE HISTORY OF THIS REPUBLIC.” E. J. Dionne’s trope that “it is time to hope again. Time to hope that the era of racial backlash and wedge politics is over,” has given way to the statement by CBS’s BOB SCHIEFFER THAT RECENT CRITICISM OF OBAMA REPRESENTS “AN UGLY STRAIN OF RACISM THAT’S RUNNING THROUGH THIS WHOLE THING.” Paul KRUGMAN, who wrote in 2008 that “Racial polarization used to be a dominating force in our politics, but we’re now a different, and better, country,” HAS TAKEN TO EQUATING THE ANTI-OBAMA TEA PARTY WITH THE KU KLUX KLAN.

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/270291/obama-s-america-black-and-white-seth-forman?page=1

Those who are equating Obama’s coming demise to racism remind me of the old joke about the man with halitosis who spent $50,000 to get rid of it to find people just didn’t like him. It isn’t racism that is causing Obama’s problems it’s his far left liberalism.

Spend Our Way Out of Debt

I am stunned that Democrats would be asking for a new stimulus. First, THIS NEW REQUEST IS AN ADMISSION THAT THE PREVIOUS STIMULUS HASN’T WORKED — if it had they wouldn’t be asking for more stimulus would they? But then, why ask for more of something that failed in the past?....

…..As my colleague ANTHONY DAVIES, ALSO AN ECONOMICS PROFESSOR AT DUQUESNE UNIVERSITY, HAS SAID, EVEN UNDER THE BEST CIRCUMSTANCES, STIMULUS DOESN’T CREATE PERMANENT JOBS; RATHER IT PLANTS THE SEEDS TO CRIPPLE THE ECONOMY. Yesterday, he explained:

As an economist, IF I WERE WORKING FOR A FOREIGN GOVERNMENT AND WERE TO DESIGN A PACKAGE OF POLICIES TO DESTROY A COUNTRY’S ECONOMY, I WOULD DESIGN A PLAN VERY SIMILAR TO WHAT WE’VE UNDERTAKEN IN THE U.S. OVER THE PAST 18 MONTHS.

If we pursue another economic stimulus of similar size to the previous one, we may as well condemn the economy to another 10-20 years of recession.

Not only will it not work, but it will significantly add to an already grave debt problem. STIMULUS IS WHAT KEEPS ENTREPRENEURS FROM CREATING NEW JOBS AND PRODUCTS. It makes them nervous, because we have to raise taxes in the future to pay for stimulus spending, and this makes for a very uncertain business environment.

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/270295/re-spend-our-way-out-debt-veronique-de-rugy

What is really unfortunate is the TEA Party folks saw this as soon as Obama did it. They went out and demonstrated against the spending, but the Democrats and the media attributed it to racism and are yet to admit the truth.


South Carolina Not Pay for Primary

South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley (R) told lawmakers there will be no room in the budget to fund the GOP’s first-in-the-South presidential primary in February.

The Republican Party states the primary will go on, even if the GOP has to pay the $1.5 million needed to fund it.

GOV. NIKKI HALEY, KNOWN FOR HER CONSERVATIVE VIEWS AND ASSOCIATION WITH THE TEA PARTY MOVEMENT, STATED TAXPAYER FUNDS SHOULD NOT BE USED FOR MINOR FUNCTIONS, INCLUDING PRIMARIES:

“Political parties have sufficient fundraising ability to offset the costs of partisan presidential preference primaries, and in a budget year like this one, it is my ask that we do not dedicate taxpayer dollars to something I believe does not rise to the level of a core function of government,” she wrote in a letter in March.

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/juliecobb/2011/06/22/south_carolina_will_not_pay_for_primary

Hooray for Nikki Haley. A governor with some common sense. The two parties plan on spending hundreds of millions on this election cycle. Let the party pay for the primaries and perhaps we won’t have bear quite so many commercials.

Interview with Ann Coulter

Ann Coulter’s new book is called Demonic: How the Liberal Mob Is Endangering America. I’ve read it, it’s outstanding, and I’d highly recommend that you read it, too. TO GIVE YOU A TASTE OF WHAT IT’S LIKE, HERE’S RWN’S SEVENTH INTERVIEW WITH ANN COULTER. ENJOY!

http://rightwingnews.com/interviews/interviewing-ann-coulter-about-her-new-book-demonic/

Coulter is quick witted and funny in this interview. And she does it without a teleprompter.

An Odd Comment about the Constitution

In a Time article on the Constitution, RICHARD STENGEL WRITES: “IF THE CONSTITUTION WAS INTENDED TO LIMIT THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT, IT SURE DOESN’T SAY SO.”

Yes, it does. THE TENTH AMENDMENT SAYS: “THE POWERS NOT DELEGATED TO THE UNITED STATES BY THE CONSTITUTION, NOR PROHIBITED BY IT TO THE STATES, ARE RESERVED TO THE STATES RESPECTIVELY, OR TO THE PEOPLE.”
Even before the adoption of the Bill of Rights, JAMES MADISON EXPLAINED THE ORIGINAL UNDERSTANDING OF THE DOCUMENT IN FEDERALIST 45: “THE POWERS DELEGATED BY THE PROPOSED CONSTITUTION TO THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT ARE FEW AND DEFINED. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite.”

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/270325/odd-comment-about-constitution-john-j-pitney-jr

What is truly scary about this is that there are many on the left that would echo Stengel’s comment, that is, the power of the Federal Government is vast and indefinite.



Obamacare and the McKinsey study

Two weeks ago, the consulting firm McKinsey & Co. released a widely reported survey that said ALMOST A THIRD OF PRIVATE-SECTOR EMPLOYERS REPORTED THEY WILL DROP THEIR EMPLOYEE HEALTH INSURANCE COVERAGE WHEN OBAMACARE'S GOVERNMENT-MANAGED INSURANCE EXCHANGES COME ONLINE IN 2014.….

….Obama and his allies reacted with fury to the McKinsey results. Obama's deputy chief of staff for policy, Nancy-Ann DeParle, CALLED THE RESULTS AN "OUTLIER" and questioned whether the survey's respondents understood the plan. Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., sent McKinsey A THREATENING LETTER DEMANDING THAT THE FIRM REVEAL ITS SURVEY METHODOLOGY. And the New York Times' Paul Krugman -- ever willing to invent scurrilous charges out of whole cloth -- accused McKinsey of having "A SKEWED SAMPLE" OR "NO REAL DATA AT ALL."

Now McKinsey is having its day and answering Obama and Obamacare apologists by POSTING ALL 29 PAGES OF THE SURVEY QUESTIONS, AS WELL AS 206 PAGES OF CROSS-TABULATIONS. It turns out that some of the unreported responses in the survey are EVEN MORE DAMAGING TO OBAMACARE THAN THE ORIGINAL MCKINSEY REPORT INDICATED….

http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/2011/06/details-mckinsey-study-expose-obamacare-flimflam#ixzz1Q7qrpfvK

Be careful what you wish for.

Perhaps they should have read the bill before they passed it. The article points out if we do see the numbers from the survey, the cost of Obamacare will skyrocket by over $1 trillion in the first 10 years.

Thursday: Obamacare problems, Obama problems

Politics

Obamacare: I guess we did need to pass the bill to find out what’s in it

The Democrats’ “historic achievement,” shocking as it seems, TURNS OUT TO BE AN EXPENSIVE, JOBS-CRIPPLING MONSTROSITY THAT IS FILLED WITH UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES. Employers are likely to dump employees into highly subsidized exchanges. It’s not going to bend the cost curve. And today, the Associated Press reports:

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA’S HEALTH CARE LAW WOULD LET SEVERAL MILLION MIDDLE-CLASS PEOPLE GET NEARLY FREE INSURANCE MEANT FOR THE POOR, a twist government number crunchers say they discovered only after the complex bill was signed.

The change would affect early retirees: A married couple could have an annual income of about $64,000 and still get Medicaid, said officials who make long-range cost estimates for the Health and Human Services department.

UP TO 3 MILLION PEOPLE COULD QUALIFY FOR MEDICAID IN 2014 AS A RESULT OF THE ANOMALY. That’s because, in a major change from today, most of their Social Security benefits would no longer be counted as income for determining eligibility.

Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s communications director e-mailed me in response to this report, “Nearly every week we find a new reason to say ‘repeal and replace.’ ”…

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/post/how-did-obamacare-get-so-screwed-up/2011/03/29/AGtI3heH_blog.html

Yet another mistake in a ill-advised bill.

Incumbents in trouble in 2012?

CALIFORNIA SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN'S POPULARITY HAS PLUNGED BY DOUBLE DIGITS FROM HER PREVIOUS RE-ELECTION RATINGS, according to a new Field Poll survey, demonstrating the toll that the anemic economy is taking on incumbent Democrats, including President Obama, heading into next year's elections.

Campaigning for a fourth full term, FEINSTEIN ENJOYS A FOUR-POINT EDGE, 43 TO 39 PERCENT, among registered California voters asked if they would vote for her - even as a strong majority, 46 to 31 percent, approves of the job she is doing. Eighteen percent of voters have no opinion on whether they'd vote for her, leaving a wide opening among swing voters for a potential challenger.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/06/21/MNOB1K09BP.DTL#ixzz1Q0PawpVC

This is not good if you are among those who are incumbents and feel as if it is your god given right to be in office.



Reid: Huntsman over Romney in GOP field

Even though he won't be able to cast a vote, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) picked his favorite Mormon candidate in the GOP presidential field on Tuesday: Jon Huntsman.

Reid, a Mormon, was asked if the country is ready for a president of his faith because there are two in the Republican primary race. Huntsman, the former U.S. ambassador to China faces Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor.

"CERTAINLY THEY'RE NOT READY FOR THE FORMER GOVERNOR OF MASSACHUSETTS. WHICH SAYS IN THAT RACE IF I HAD A CHOICE I WOULD FAVOR HUNTSMAN OVER ROMNEY," he told reporters at the Capitol.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/167649-reid-prefers-huntsman-over-romney-in-gop-field


Here’s another feather in Mitt Romney’s cap. If you are endorsed by Harry Reid, you might as well kiss your chances for the Republican nomination goodbye. Romney is obviously the tougher candidate.

Only 3 in 10 will definitely vote for Obama

Americans are growing increasingly more frustrated with President Barack Obama’s handling of the economy and ONLY 3 IN 10 SAY THEY ARE CERTAIN THEY WILL VOTE TO RE-ELECT HIM IN 2012, a new poll finds.

JUST 23 PERCENT OF THOSE SURVEYED FOR A BLOOMBERG NEWS POLL RELEASED WEDNESDAY SAY THEY ARE HOPEFUL ABOUT THE ECONOMY because they see signs of improvement, while 25 percent say they are fearful things are getting worse and 51 percent are cautious because nothing seems to be happening.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0611/57507.html#ixzz1Q0W4PDRL

Three in ten puts you pretty much just with just your base. Obama has lost the people who actually elected him in 2008. It’s the economy.

Superman and Jim Crow

Having experienced the psychological pain of Jim Crow laws first-hand, I won’t allow those who likely only read about Jim Crow in history books to trivialize it.

That’s why I’m outraged about a recent edition of TV One’s “Washington Watch” in which host ROLAND MARTIN AND REPRESENTATIVE DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ (D-FL) COMPARED STATE-LEVEL VOTER IDENTIFICATION RULES TO JIM CROW.

To the contrary, requiring valid identification in exchange for something as sacred as a ballot is a pragmatic approach to governing.  IT’S AN INSULT TO THE INTELLIGENCE AND INTEGRITY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, ESPECIALLY BLACK AMERICANS, TO PLAY THE RACE CARD WHERE RACE IS NOT AN ISSUE.

Martin mused: “We talk about [voting being] the fundamental right [of] Americans, but to put roadblocks up to… for… voting makes no sense to me.” WASSERMAN SHULTZ REPLIED, “NOW YOU HAVE THE REPUBLICANS, WHO WANT TO LITERALLY DRAG US BACK TO JIM CROW LAWS AND LITERALLY — AND VERY TRANSPARENTLY — BLOCKED ACCESS TO THE POLLS.”

We are required to have a state-issued driver’s license for many daily activities. Besides specifically verifying a person can operate a motor vehicle, it’s used for everything from access to buildings to birthday discounts.

http://dailycaller.com/2011/06/21/voter-id-is-no-jim-crow-i-would-know/#ixzz1Q0WuoPfJ

What I’m seeing here is a rerun of the old Superman TV episodes. In those episodes, the bad guys would shoot Superman until their gun was empty. They would then throw the gun at him, like the bullets didn’t hurt him, but the gun might??? This is the equivalent of throwing the gun at him.

More on Jim Crow

E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post, Baghdad Bob of the liberal left, dutifully trots out the latest propaganda line. HE CLAIMS THAT "AN ATTACK ON THE RIGHT TO VOTE IS UNDERWAY ACROSS THE COUNTRY," through, among other things, antifraud measures requiring voters to present identification before casting a ballot:

Besides Texas, states that enacted voter ID laws this year include Kansas, Wisconsin, South Carolina and Tennessee. Indiana and Georgia already had such requirements. . . .

In 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court, by 6 to 3, upheld Indiana's voter ID statute. So seeking judicial relief may be difficult. Nonetheless, THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT SHOULD VIGOROUSLY CHALLENGE THESE LAWS, PARTICULARLY IN STATES COVERED BY THE VOTING RIGHTS ACT. And the court should be asked to review the issue again in light of new evidence that these laws have a real impact in restricting the rights of particular voter groups.

"THIS REQUIREMENT IS JUST A POLL TAX BY ANOTHER NAME," STATE SEN. WENDY DAVIS declared when Texas was debating its ID law early this year. In the bad old days, poll taxes, now outlawed by the 24th Amendment, were used to keep African Americans from voting. EVEN IF THE SUPREME COURT DIDN'T SEE THINGS HER WAY, DAVIS IS RIGHT. THIS IS THE CIVIL RIGHTS ISSUE OF OUR MOMENT.

In part because of a surge of voters who had not cast ballots before, the United States elected its first African American president in 2008. Are we now going to witness a subtle return of Jim Crow voting laws?

Here Dionne parrots an assertion by the unwieldy named Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, who said earlier this month that Republicans "want to literally drag us all the way back to Jim Crow laws." (Literally? She's lucky there's no literacy test for members of Congress.) EVEN THE LEFT-LEANING SITE POLITIFACT.COM RATED THIS FALSE.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304070104576399433777333002.html?mod=djemBestOfTheWeb_h

Notice how Dionne sites many quotes, but not a fact to back up what he is saying. It’s an example how the left views facts. Quotes they agree with are the equivalent of fact to them.


Media and Politics

Is Newspaper Coverage of Economic Events Politically Biased?

Abstract:
Accusations of political bias in the media are often made by members of both political parties, yet there have been few systematic studies of such bias to date. This paper develops an econometric technique to test for political bias in news reports that controls for the underlying character of the news reported. OUR RESULTS SUGGEST THAT AMERICAN NEWSPAPERS TEND TO GIVE MORE POSITIVE NEWS COVERAGE TO THE SAME ECONOMIC NEWS WHEN DEMOCRATS ARE IN THE PRESIDENCY THAN FOR REPUBLICANS. When all types of news are pooled into a single analysis, our results are highly significant. However, the results vary greatly depending upon which economic numbers are being reported. WHEN GDP GROWTH IS REPORTED, REPUBLICANS RECEIVED BETWEEN 16 AND 24 PERCENTAGE POINT FEWER POSITIVE STORIES FOR THE SAME ECONOMIC NUMBERS THAN DEMOCRATS. For durable goods for all newspapers, Republicans received between 15 and 25 percentage points fewer positive news stories than Democrats. For unemployment, the difference was between zero and 21 percentage points. Retail sales showed no difference. AMONG THE ASSOCIATED PRESS AND THE TOP 10 PAPERS, THE WASHINGTON POST, CHICAGO TRIBUNE, ASSOCIATED PRESS, AND NEW YORK TIMES TEND TO BE THE LEAST LIKELY TO REPORT POSITIVE NEWS DURING REPUBLICAN ADMINISTRATIONS, while the Houston Chronicle slightly favors Republicans. Only one newspaper treated one Republican administration significantly more positively than the Clinton administration: the Los Angeles Times' headlines were most favorable to the Reagan administration, but it still favored Clinton over either Bush administration. We also find that the media coverage affects people's perceptions of the economy. Contrary to the typical impression that bad news sells, we find that good economic news generates more news coverage and that it is usually covered more prominently. We also present some evidence that media treats parties differently when they control both the presidency and the congress.

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=588453

Newspapers are bias toward democrats? Now that’s a non-story.


Nets Ignore Emissions Decision, Politico Carries EPA's Water

The Supreme Court on Monday unequivocally rejected the notion that courts should force power companies to curtail greenhouse gas emissions, but NONE OF THE MAJOR BROADCAST NETWORKS COVERED THE UNANIMOUS DECISION ON THEIR EVENING NEWSCASTS OR MORNING SHOWS.

The New York Times teased the ruling on the front page of Tuesday's paper, directing readers to a thorough analysis of the 8-0 decision, but ABC's "Good Morning America" and "World News," CBS's "Early Show" and "Evening News," and NBC's "Today" and "Nightly News" all skipped a decision that prevents environmentalists from using the courts to impose greenhouse gas regulations on electric utilities.

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/alex-fitzsimmons/2011/06/21/nets-ignore-emissions-decision-politico-carries-epas-water

So the networks failed to note this?  Again what else is new?  Jon Stewarts opinion of Fox News looks more and more partisan and more and more stupid.


Media Recast THE Crisis Villains

SUBPRIME SCANDAL: With the housing market crashing again, the truth is finally dawning on some media elite that Washington played a bigger role in the mortgage mess than first told.
A NEW BOOK, "RECKLESS ENDANGERMENT," ZEROES IN ON THE CORRUPT PARTNERSHIP BETWEEN FANNIE MAE AND BELTWAY INSIDERS — who used the federally chartered firm as a giant slush fund to enrich themselves while pushing liberal housing scheme….

….Refreshingly, the lead villain in Gretchen Morgenson's book isn't Lloyd Blankfein or some other "fat cat" banker. It's ex-Fannie chairman Jim Johnson, one of many Clinton cronies who helped set the stage for the financial disaster back in the 1990s.

SHE BLAMES JOHNSON AND FANNIE FOR FANNING THE EASY CREDIT FLAMES BY UNDERWRITING HOME LOANS FOR LOW-INCOME MINORITIES. But this is still only half the story.

The Clinton White House and Democrat Congress were obsessed with closing the racial mortgage gap, and they enlisted Fannie and its brother, Freddie Mac, in their reckless social crusade.
FANNIE AND FREDDIE DIDN'T CO-OPT REGULATORS, AS THE BOOK ARGUES. IT WAS THE OTHER WAY AROUND. THEIR CHIEF REGULATOR — HUD — PRESSURED THEM TO TARGET CREDIT-POOR BLACKS AND HISPANICS WITH SUBPRIME LOANS. If they didn't meet HUD's increasing quotas, they were threatened with fines and stiffer oversight.

And Johnson's successor, FRANKLIN RAINES, DID FAR MORE DAMAGE AT FANNIE'S HELM. Unlike Johnson, RAINES PUSHED FOR ZERO DOWN PAYMENTS. He also begged mortgage bankers to originate more subprime loans so Fannie could buy them and fuel even more risky lending.

Under Raines, a Clinton appointee, FANNIE LOADED UP ON SUBPRIME SECURITIES WHILE GUTTING THE UNDERWRITING STANDARDS IT SET FOR THE ENTIRE MORTGAGE INDUSTRY. It was under his leadership — 1999-2005 — that the bubble of making loans to people who would have a tough time paying them off got supersized.

"We have to push products and opportunities to people who have lesser credit quality," Raines exhorted mortgage bankers gathered in San Francisco in 2004.

As Clinton's old budget director, as well as an African-American, Raines agreed with his goal of putting more blacks in homes through subprime mortgages. Home ownership was "unevenly distributed in society," Raines complained, and he was fully on board government efforts to redistribute housing credit through private lenders.

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=576075&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+EditorialRss+%28Editorial+RSS%29

Fannie and Freddie appear to be the Typhoid Mary’s of the Economic crisis. This viewpoint is vigorously denied by the left (it spoils their blaming the Republicans, deregulation, and the Wall Street fat cats) but facts are facts. HUD, Fannie and Freddie, and Barney Frank and Chris Dodd are prime suspects in what is going on in America today. All the others are people who took advantage of the policies these groups foisted on the American Financial System.


Congress

Issa Lays Down the Law to DOJ: "We Are Investigating You"

The following video is from the House Oversight Committee hearing last week about Operation Fast and Furious and is worth watching.

The hearing opened up a slew of questions about Operation Fast and Furious and Issa is just getting started in his gathering of information about the lethal project, however, Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich couldn't answer one simply question: Who in Washington authorized Operation Fast and Furious?

In his opening statement, Weich said that the Justice Department had complied and cooperated with the Oversight Committee, adding the DOJ had provided information requested through subpoenas from Issa in his investigation. As you will see, Issa strongly disagreed, making it clear there has been no cooperation from the Obama Justice Department in this case.

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2011/06/20/issa_lays_down_the_law_to_doj_we_are_investigating_you

This is something the democrats didn’t have to worry about when they controlled the congress. Expect to see a lot more of this and a slew of Democrat scandals and unseemly actions.

Mean while Rand Paul strikes a chord for basic common sense

Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul told the Transportation Security Administration today that IT SHOULD END WHAT HE CALLED THE “UNIVERSALITY OF INSULT” OF RANDOM PAT-DOWNS OF PASSENGERS.

In a meeting of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Paul grilled TSA Administrator John Pistole over the recent pat-down of a six-year-old Kentucky girl, a video of which went viral over the Internet.

“IT MAKES ME THINK YOU’RE CLUELESS, IF YOU THINK SHE’S GOING TO ATTACK OUR COUNTRY AND YOU’RE NOT DOING YOUR RESEARCH ON THE PEOPLE WHO WANT TO ATTACK OUR COUNTRY,” Paul said. “It absolutely must involve a risk assessment of those who are traveling. And the fact that she’s being patted down and I don’t feel comfortable really with your response that we are no longer doing random pat-downs. I think you ought to get rid of the random pat-downs. The American public is unhappy with them, they’re unhappy with the invasiveness of them. The Internet is full of jokes about the invasiveness of the pat-down searches and we ought to just consider, is this what we’re willing to do.”

http://dailycaller.com/2011/06/22/video-sen-rand-paul-tells-tsa-to-end-random-pat-downs/#ixzz1Q1zxtlJd

Random pat downs are worthless for making us safer. We have limited resources at airports and we should be behaviorally profiling individuals and using these resources on people who are the most likely ones to be terrorists. This is just common sense, but the problem we have with Homeland Security is that common sense is not very common.

SCOTUS

Olson and Elwood on Wal-Mart v. Dukes

Walter Olson comments on the implications of Wal-Mart v. Dukes in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Here’s his conclusion:

This week’s decision will make it harder, though not impossible, to apply class actions to employment-discrimination cases in which cash damages are the main point. (As the court noted, though, class treatment is still more liberally available for injunctive relief, such as in a suit asking that a company be ordered to change a discriminatory personnel policy.)

That does not mean, as one veteran Supreme Court reporter wrote this week, that future aggrieved employees will all have to “file their own lawsuits,” or that large companies can operate with impunity. The court did not rule out lawsuits on behalf of groups of employees affected by the actions of some identifiable corporate policy, for example, or by particular managers or supervisors or offices. And even suits by individual employees against big companies regularly demand, and sometimes get, million-dollar damages.

The message of this ruling is simple: Employees have to prove that they have been legally wronged, not just cash in because somebody else was.

http://volokh.com/2011/06/22/olson-and-elwood-on-wal-mart-v-dukes/

Volokh is always interesting. You can read this and be sure to read the comments if you want to understand more about what this means. What the Court said was that with 8000+ stores worldwide, the actions of a few managers, contrary to written policy of the company is not grounds for a class action by every women in every location in the company.

10 cases of Liberal Hypocrisy

Hypocrisy: Carbon Footprint the Size of…Some Really Big Thing—Al Gore
Hypocrisy: No Guns For You, But My Guy Packs Heat—Rosie O’Donnell
Hypocrisy: War Investments, Non-Union Labor, Calling for the End of the American Dream While Living It -- Michael Moore
Hypocrisy: Getting Married After Condemning Marriage As Pointless –Gloria Steinem
Hypocrisy: Accepting Union Awards But Not Using Union Labor—Nancy Pelosi
Hypocrisy: Coastline Protection Lawsuit—Barbara Streisand
Hypocrisy: Opposing Wind Power While Proposing Alternative Fuels Elsewhere—Ted Kennedy
Hypocrisy: Counseling on Adultery While Committing Adultery—Jesse Jackson
Hypocrisy: Protesting Animal Testing While Benefiting from Animal Testing—Mary Beth Sweetland
Hypocrisy: Using Non-Union Labor to Strike for Higher Union Wages—US Labor Unions

http://listverse.com/2009/05/02/10-cases-of-liberal-hypocrisy/

Some of these are really hypocrisy while others are simply being human (look at Gloria Steinem, and Mary Beth Sweetland.

Here’s an 11th

Things got a little testy this weekend when a Republican online conference and conservative online publisher Andrew Breitbart showed up in Minneapolis at the same time as Netroots Nation, a gathering of liberal operatives, bloggers and activists.

So in an effort to prevent similar blogger battles next year WHEN NETROOTS HEADS TO PROVIDENCE, R.I., NEXT JUNE, EVENT ORGANIZERS ARE TRYING TO BAN OTHER GATHERINGS FROM USING THE CITY’S CONVENTION CENTER AND TWO OF ITS HOTELS DURING NETROOTS WEEKEND. IT IS INSISTING ON A NONCOMPETE CLAUSE IN EVERY CONTRACT AT THE RHODE ISLAND CONVENTION CENTER AS WELL AS THE WESTIN PROVIDENCE AND PROVIDENCE BILTMORE HOTELS, Raven Brooks, Netroots executive director, told Washington Wire. A convention center official said he was not immediately aware of the arrangement.

The conservative conference, RIGHTONLINE, HAS FOLLOWED NETROOTS AROUND THE U.S. SINCE 2008, SEEKING TO ACT AS A COUNTER-EVENT. This year, a shouting match broke out when Mr. Breitbart tried to enter Netroots, camera crew in tow. Mr. Brooks alleged other cases of harassment at the Hilton Minneapolis, which was used by both events, and at downtown bars.
There are, of course, other hotels, in downtown Providence.

“The folks at RightOnline are free to hold differing political views,” Mr. Brooks said in an email. “THEY ARE NOT FREE TO HARASS OUR PEOPLE AND CREATE A POOR SOCIAL EXPERIENCE AT OUR HOTELS.”

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2011/06/21/netroots-nation-tries-to-keep-its-distance-from-rightonline-at-2012-conference/

The last sentence is the money quote. Netroots is looking for an echo chamber experience. This is typical of the left and is one of the reasons their arguments are so pathetic. They don’t test their ideas with others with a different perspective.


Feminism redefined

Freshman Congresswoman Kristi Noem busted the liberal "republicans hate women" myth tonight on the House floor, stressing the importance of having people in Congress with real world experience, regardless of gender.

"I didn't run because I was a woman and I didn't expect people to vote for me because I was a woman."

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2011/06/21/kristi_noem_republicans_are_pro-woman

Feminism is being redefined and the liberals hate it. A color blind, gender blind society is much more what the Republicans represent rather than the quota embracing Democrats support.

Stupidity reigns on Current TV

Keith Olbermann is back and here is the stupidest thing he opined right at the beginning of his show:

“This is to be a newscast of contextualization and it is to be presented with a viewpoint that the weakest citizen of this country is more important than the strongest corporation.”

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/kevinglass/2011/06/21/keith_olbermann_returns,_nothing_changes

So basically passing a bill that would help the weakest citizen of this country but hurt the strongest corporation even if 10,000 people would lose their jobs as a result, it not simply a fair tradeoff to Mr. Olbermann, but it seems morally right. Olbermann is like a weed in an intellectual garden. He may be green, but he adds nothing of value to the rest of the garden.