Dad29

Holder: Not 'Rule of Law,' But "Rule of Holder"

2012-03-08T07:38:00.000-06:00

I thought Holder couldn't be any worse.

I was wrong.

Last month, in an appearance at Columbia University, his alma mater, Holder made a jarring statement in support of racial preferences, saying he "can't actually imagine a time in which the need for more diversity would ever cease." "Affirmative action has been an issue since segregation practices," he declared. "The question is not when does it end, but when does it begin. . . . When do people of color truly get the benefits to which they are entitled?"

.....But to have an attorney general of the United States say that the force of government must be used, forever, to enshrine into law what used to be called "reverse discrimination" is for him to say that American law will always put skin color above other considerations - and pick winners accordingly.

This is not the rule of law as most Americans understand the very concept, and it certainly violates every reasonable notion of equal justice under the law. --AmSpec quoting John Fund

Holder's disgusting and condescending racism is beyond the pale.

Marginal Romney

2012-03-08T06:05:00.000-06:00

Sharp observation from RedState:

...Romney is steadily outpolling any one of his individual rivals, cementing his frontrunner status. Two, his frontrunner status derives entirely from the division among his opponents: the conservatives have consistently outpolled the moderates. And three, despite winning his home state of Massachusetts by a 60-point, 220,000 vote margin on Super Tuesday and despite none of the conservatives being on the ballot in Virginia, Romney’s not getting any stronger – even with Perry and Bachmann out of the race and Cain not drawing a single recorded vote, the conservatives drew a majority of the votes on Tuesday.

Yup.

Farcical Flanagan, the Reliable Madistan "Judge"

2012-03-07T22:16:00.000-06:00

Esenberg simply nukes Farcical Flanagan's silliness.

...Without rehearsing all of the legal niceties, reliance on the Wisconsin Constitution gives the plaintiffs an opportunity to argue that laws that may make it more difficult to vote should be subject to what lawyers call heightened scrutiny. Judge Flanagan accepted that argument, stating that the law must be subject to what is "strict scrutiny," i.e., that the law must be necessary to serve a compelling interest.

This is what I think won't hold up on appeal. While it may be superficially attractive to say that anything that makes it harder to exercise the "sacred" and "fundamental" right to vote should be held to this high standard, a little thought reveals that this is not a workable idea. Elections have to have rules. Rules will make it harder to vote than it might otherwise be. Recognizing this, courts have not always subjected rules regulating voting to "strict" or even "heightened" scrutiny. Rather, they have tended to do so only when the restriction on the voting rights of some group of electors has been severe or is wholly unrelated to the qualifications to vote and the rational administration of elections....

...which is NOT the case in Wisconsin.

Flanagan assured himself of re-election in LaLaLand, however.

The Bankrupti-zation of the US, Obozo Style

2012-03-07T21:59:00.000-06:00

News note:

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the division the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) responsible for enforcing the nation’s immigration laws, will provide “hormone therapy” to illegal aliens it has detained who say they are transgender, according to the agency’s operations manual for its detention facilities.--Moonbattery quoting CNS News

Obama realizes that the easiest way to demolish the US is through bankrupting the country. As a side benefit, bankrupting the country will allow for "emergency" Presidential powers.

Stalin would have been proud of his little student.

Our President, the Marxist

2012-03-07T21:07:00.000-06:00

Yah, that's what he is, if one is sagacious enough to judge by the company he kept--and continues to keep.

There was a play about Alinsky put on in Chicago. The Marxist-in-Chief was one of the panel-members who discussed Alinsky and the play afterwords.

Who else was a panel-member?

Leon Despres: Despres knew Saul Alinsky for nearly 50 years, and together they established the modern concept of “community organizing.” Despres worked with secret Communist and Soviet spy Lee Pressman to support strikers at Republic Steel in Chicago in 1937...

Quentin Young: From 1970 until at least 1992, Quentin Young was active in the Communist Party front organization, the Chicago Committee to Defend the Bill of Rights...

Timuel Black: An icon of the Chicago left, Black was originally denied officer training because military intelligence claimed he had secretly joined the Communist Party. Black also worked closely with the Socialist Party in the 1950s...

Roberta Lynch: A leading member of Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and a leader of the radical Marxist New American Movement (NAM)...

....and Studs Terkel, generously described as a running dog.

That's only the beginning of the Saga of Barack Hussein Obama.

The Elite Kills More Jobs

2012-03-07T07:00:00.000-06:00

No surprise here:

The state Senate voted Tuesday to reject the latest version of mining legislation, prompting a company that planned a mine in northern Wisocnsin to announce it is pulling the plug on the project.

The Senate voted 17-16 with GOP Sen. Dale Schultz joining all 16 Dems in rejecting the Joint Finance Committee's substitute amendment...

Those ~2400 jobs weren't "high tech," nor AFSCME, nor teachers, nor in Madistan.

So who needed them, anyway?

Nobody important.

Go Ahead. Make My Day.

2012-03-07T06:57:00.000-06:00

The price of following your conscience is high – especially if you resist the mandate to furnish your employees with reproductive products and services that violate your religious beliefs. According to a report released by the Congressional Research Service, religious institutions that fail to provide abortifacient drugs to their employees could be fined $100 a day for each of its employees --LifeSite News

I don't think that Sibelius or the Twit-in-Chief has the balls to try it.

Primary the Bastard RINOs!

2012-03-07T06:38:00.000-06:00

I'm thinking of Dale Schulz, the anti-job twit/Left-o-dweeb in the State Senate.

Here's what could happen to him:

...the biggest news of the night is outside the confines of the presidential election. In OH-2, Representative Jean Schmidt was defeated in a stunning upset by conservative challenger Brad Wenstrup. She is the first of those who voted for the debt ceiling deal to go down in a primary.--RedState

Just primary the bastards. Make them find a real job someplace.

Obama to Democrats: "Too Bad. Raise Your OWN Money."

2012-03-06T06:02:00.000-06:00

Seems that the current occupant has troubles of his own.

Democratic congressional leaders, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, have privately sought as much as $30 million combined from Obama for America and the Democratic National Committee — a replay of the financial help they received from Obama in 2008 and 2010.

But that’s not going to happen, top Obama aides Jim Messina and David Plouffe told Reid and Pelosi in back-to-back meetings on Capitol Hill on Thursday --RedStates quoting Politico

Couldn't happen to nicer people.

Two Problems With Romney

2012-02-25T11:37:00.000-06:00

Just observations here, not "science." And yes, I'm not a Romney fan...

1) He is Clintonesque in his poll-driven/focus-group campaign. He campaigned as a 'progressive' (RINO) in Massachusetts--and governed pretty much that way--but now that the country's mood has shifted, so has Mitt.

2) He strikes me as far too professional--too calculated and ..ummmm...slick...to be real. I don't doubt that the guy is a good guy--someone you and I would love to have as a neighbor. But in campaign-mode, he comes across as just a bit chilly, like HRC.

Except HRC is the very picture of cold and calculating and no, I wouldn't want HER as a neighbor.

There you have it.

Yoo--Hoo!! Calling AG Van Hollen!!!

2012-02-24T09:34:00.000-06:00

Van Hollen seems to be too busy to defend the First Amendment.

Seven states filed a lawsuit against the Obama administration today seeking to overturn the mandate that religious employers provide contraception, sterilization, and abortifacients to their employees as part of their health care plans.

The state attorneys general of Florida, Michigan, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Texas filed suit today in U.S. District Court, arguing that the mandate violates both the First Amendment and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. All seven plaintiffs are Republicans.

Not Wisconsin. Nope. Can't take the time for that. Nope.

Now the Propaganda and Spin: Obozo Goes Into Campaign Gear

2012-02-24T09:30:00.000-06:00

Over the next several months, we'll hear a lot of agit-prop, spin, and lies from Obozo.

One example: his energy bullcrap.

...Today, the national average for one gallon of unleaded gasoline is $3.57, which is 18 cents higher than a month ago, according to AAA. In Florida, where he spoke, the average price per gallon is $3.68. The speech comes less than a month after Obama rejected the Keystone XL oil pipeline, which would have run from Canada through the midwest to the Gulf of Mexico.

“Under my administration, America is producing more oil today than at any time in the last eight years,” Obama told the audience at the University of Miami. “That’s why we have a record number of oil rigs operating right now – more working oil and gas rigs than the rest of the world combined.”

Sounds real good. But Obozo's claiming what ain't his.

The increase in domestic drilling was almost entirely in areas for which the Obama administration exercised no authority, as oil production on federal land declined by 11 percent in fiscal year 2011, according to a study by the Institute on Energy Research (IER), a free-market energy think tank. But oil production on state lands increased that year by 14 percent and increased by 12 percent on private lands.

(Damn good thing he did NOT have authority, or we'd be paying $25.00/gallon for gas.)

Obama also told the Miami crowd that foreign oil dependence is down under his watch.

Half-true:

...However, FactCheck.org said that foreign-oil dependence has been declining since 2005, when President George W. Bush was in office. It went on to cite the same Energy Information Administration report from 2011 that said, “There is no single explanation for the decline in U.S. oil import dependence since 2005. Rather, the trend results from a variety of factors. Chief among those is a significant contraction in consumption. U.S. oil product deliveries declined by 1.7 million barrels per day (bbl/d) to 19.1 bbl/d in 2010, from 20.8 million bbl/d in 2005.”

More Obozo-nomics will result in even LESS imported fuels!! And make the Great Depression look like a picnic, too....

Of course, Obozo has done his best to turn off the lights in the USA:

[Jack Gerard, president of the American Petroleum Institute:]

“Today, 85 percent of the outer-continental shelf has been placed off limits once again. When he took office, there were proposals on the table to open up opportunities in those areas,” Gerard told CNSNews.com. “Today, in the Rocky Mountains, the leasing has gone down 70 percent since taking office. We now have 10 federal agencies, departments, looking at the technology of hydraulic fracturing, which has really opened up this vast game-changer both in natural gas and oil in the United States.”

Election Day. Election Day. Election Day. Election Day. Election Day.

Another "House Bigot" in Obozo's Gang

2012-02-23T06:52:00.000-06:00

Seems that Obama has gathered every pro-death bigot-bozo into his circle.

John P. Holdren, the top science adviser to President Barack Obama, wrote in a book he co-authored with population control advocates Paul and Anne Ehrlich that children from larger families have lower IQs.

The book—"Human Ecology: Problems and Solutions"—argued that the United States government had a “responsibility to halt the growth of the American population.”

That is so profoundly wrong, on so many levels, that it is near-impossible to address it.

We could start with this, however: "So what (if they have 'lower' IQ's?"

There is a reason that the term "average" exists, Mr. Holdren.

Social Security's going broke and an alleged 'innerlekshul' proposes that less people should pay the bill?

Holdren proves that bigots are really, really, really stupid.

Obozo: "We Don't Need No Steeenkin' Defense!!"

2012-02-22T07:07:00.000-06:00

Seems that the Twit-in-Chief has all sorts of stupid ideas.

...Mr. Obama has directed the Defense Department to come up with plans for reducing the U.S. nuclear arsenal by as much as eighty percent. Evidently, he is prepared to take such a step unilaterally in order to encourage by our example other nations to join in his longstanding ambition to “rid the world of nuclear weapons.”

Umnnnhhhh.....

...It is not just that President Obama is blindly driving for ideological reasons the numerical evisceration of U.S. nuclear forces. As Congressman Turner pointed out earlier this month in introducing legislation aimed at holding the administration to commitments made during the consideration of the New START Treaty in 2010, the administration is also walking away from its promises to modernize what remains of our deterrent. Over time, the practical effect of combining the draconian nuclear cuts Mr. Obama seeks and his failure to arrest and reverse the atrophying of the obsolescing arsenal will leave us functionally disarmed.

Wait, wait!!

We can always throw mercury-laden lightbulbs at the enemy!!!

Ron Paul: "Liberating" Money, Too

2012-02-21T07:12:00.000-06:00

Back in the good old days, Lefties stole things and called it "liberating" them.

Seems like Ron Paul has a 'liberating' problem.

...James' recollection and new documents obtained by Roll Call suggest Paul was aware that he was often being reimbursed twice for individual flights. In all, Roll Call found 26 flights in which several layers of documentation show double payments: credit card statements that detail the ticket purchases, a payment to Paul from his taxpayer-funded House account for reimbursement of a flight and Federal Election Commission records or copies of checks that verify a second payment from a separate group for the same flight....--AmSpec quoting Roll Call

Prolly all 'clerical errors,' ya' know.

A $10 Million 'Contingent Liability' for Duke Power Shareholders

2012-02-21T07:02:00.000-06:00

Duke Power is publicly traded, and has just assumed a $10 million contingent liability.

...Duke Energy is subsidizing the Democratic National Convention by guaranteeing a $10 million line of credit for the convention.

...Duke has lobbied for and stands to profit from the sort of cap-and-trade policies President Obama supports, as well as other Obama green-energy subsidies. Specifically, Duke has pocketed $230 million in taxpayer money from Obama's stimulus, according to the Washigton Free Beacon's Andrew Stiles.

We await the Left-o-Wacky noise about "corporate contributions to politicians".

The Perverted "Theology" of the Media

2012-02-21T06:40:00.000-06:00

In sum, the Boob Schieffers of the MFM actually do worship a god: the State.

Here’s the primary belief animating Big Media theology: nothing happens unless the federal government does it. Pre-natal care only happens if the taxpayers finance it, or insurance companies are mandated to perform it for “free.” Kids will only receive an education if Jimmy Carter’s Department of Education and the teachers’ unions provide it. The Earth will only receive proper stewardship if Big Government – centralized even beyond Washington, D.C. – compels it.

Organized religion is acceptable to the media only when it reinforces these goals, or at least refuses to challenge them. That’s why the same people who are working hard to build a narrative that Santorum is unfit for high office because he’s a harbinger of incipient theocracy have absolutely no problem with Barack Obama using religion to justify redistributionist liberalism. In fact, they grow very angry when they think a liberal’s religious sincerity is challenged, even obliquely. The only thing that enrages them nearly as much is a conservative whose religious sincerity is apparent. It’s all about showing the appropriate degree of deference to the proper Ultimate Authority.

Even Thomas Jefferson--a Deist who had no love whatever for organized religion--would not have swallowed that line of crap.

The Dismal ObozoConomy

2012-02-21T06:20:00.001-06:00

That is a chart of the labor-force participation. The chart tracks the % of working-age Americans who are actually employed; it does NOT count retirees, so it is controlled for demographics.

That stimulus really, really worked, no?

Today Gallup reports that mid-February unemployment was 9%, up from the 8.3% of January....

HT: RedStates

Why the Santorum Surge?

2012-02-20T07:06:00.001-06:00

Santorum is giving Romney a run for his money--of which Romney has a lot. And the Republicans should be damned happy about that.

Why?

In the opinion of this Democrat, Santorum has misunderstood why he has surged ahead of Mitt Romney in recent days. "He was beating Romney because he was the conservative alternative, not because he was the social conservative alternative," the Democrat says. "The deeper in he wades, the more he is going to have to walk it back in order to be in a position where he can actually win the presidency. His strength as an alternative has nothing to do with social policy."

In his first surge, in the last days of Iowa caucus campaigning, Santorum shot into the lead on the strength of a platform that featured appealing positions on jobs, on taxes, on national defense, as well as the social positions for which he is well known. Alone among Republicans, Santorum spoke at length about the decline of U.S. manufacturing and the problems of American workers who don't have college degrees. ("The best speech he ever gave was the speech he gave in Iowa on caucus night," says the Democrat.) Those positions, along with his dogged determination on the stump, caused many Republicans to give him a serious look.

What that prominent Democrat does NOT say directly is this: Santorum is rising because he believes what he says. He believes that manufacturing is critical to a healthy economy. He believes that family formation is critical to the future of the country. He believes that every human life is sacred.

It's what's called 'the strength of convictions.' Most voters are sick to death of the BS and foofoodust of such as Obama and the back-and-forthright Romney and they 'get' that the country is headed over the cliff if we have another 4 years of the crapola.

Will "social issues" kill Santorum in the general?

Nope.

...social conservatism has had a winning track record for the GOP since 1968.

The Democrats who won, including even Barack Obama in 2008, did not play up social liberalism in their campaigns. In 1992 Bill Clinton was a death-penalty advocate who promised to “end welfare as we know it” and make abortion “safe, legal and rare.” Social issues have come to the fore on the GOP side in two of the past six presidential elections—in 1988 (prison furloughs, the Pledge of Allegiance, the ACLU) and 2004 (same-sex marriage). “Those are the only two elections since Reagan where the Republican Party has won a popular majority,” Mr. Bell says. “It isn't coincidental.” --CC quoting Taranto/WSJ

Fuggedabout the "senior Republican Senator" remarks. Santorum can win this.

Forced Prenatal Testing? Yup. The Reich Demands It!

2012-02-20T06:59:00.000-06:00

This is not just a matter of a sonogram.

...On the campaign trail in Ohio Saturday, Santorum said, "Free prenatal testing ends up in more abortions and therefore less care that has to be done because we cull the ranks of the disabled in our society." Asked about his statement during an appearance on CBS's "Face the Nation" Sunday morning, Santorum held his ground. "The bottom line is that a lot of prenatal tests are done to identify deformities in utero and the customary procedure is to encourage abortions," he said. "This is what goes on in medical rooms around the country. And yes, prenatal testing, amniocentesis does, in fact, result more often than not in this country in abortions."

First off, it's not "free." With that out of the way....

Santorum's absolutely correct. ObozoCare requires amniocentesis; it would no longer be elective. And Santorum's also correct that when a deformity is detected, abortion is suggested.

We should add that, in cases where the baby is born with a grave deformity, it is also suggested that 'feeding and hydrating the baby' is a waste of time and money.

To the Statists, individuals have no rights. Only the State has rights.

"Businessman"? MItt's Olympic "Success"

2012-02-19T21:10:00.000-06:00

Well, looky here, Jed....

“One of Mitt Romney’s greatest accomplishments, one of the things he talks about the most, is how he heroically showed up on the scene, and bailed out and resolved the problems of the Salt Lake City Olympic Games,” Mr. Santorum, a former Pennsylvania senator, told an audience at a hotel ballroom here.

“He heroically bailed out the Salt Lake City Olympic Games,” he then added, “by heroically going to Congress and asking them for tens of millions of dollars to bailout the Salt Lake Olympic Games. In an earmark.”

Pointing out that the Romney campaign has been attacking him over earmarks in Congress, Mr. Santorum added: “Does the word hypocrisy come to mind?” He also noted that one of Mr. Romney’s supporters this year, Senator John McCain, had criticized the taxpayer money provided for the Games.

Romney makes it seem as though the "post-9/11" earmark was all about security. He's half-right.

Come to think of it, he's half-right all the time. And half-left, too.

20,000 XL Jobs Killed by Obozo: Twice That Coming in Med Supply Ind'y

2012-02-19T19:00:00.000-06:00

Best sharpen up your burger-flipping skills and move to a resort area where Queen Michelle or King Obozo like to visit.

...Mass.-based Zoll Medical Corp., which makes defibrillators and employs some 1,800 workers in the U.S. and around the world, says the medical device tax will cost the company between $5 million and $10 million a year. Its profit in 2009 was $9.5 million. “Running our company at close to break even would not be a sustainable position for us,” CEO Richard Packer said in a public statement, “so we will be forced to look at alternatives.”

Those “alternatives” include cutting payroll, cutting R and D and passing on the costs to patients, of course. Industry estimates put the tax-induced job losses at 43,000. So far, the number-crunchers at 1600 Pennsylvania are mum on the number of potential jobs — and lives — destroyed by the medical innovation death tax.

Plenty more stories of other firms contemplating either serious cutbacks OR simply moving out of the US altogether.

HT: Malkin

Steyn Nails It, Again

2012-02-19T16:51:00.000-06:00

Steyn gets this issue very well. At the end of this post, I'll give you another example of death-by-Obozo.

...I notice that in their coverage NPR and the evening news shows generally refer to the controversy as being about “contraception,” discreetly avoiding mention of sterilization and pharmacological abortion, as if the GOP have finally jumped the shark in order to prevent you jumping anything at all. It may well be that the Democrats succeed in establishing this narrative.

But anyone who falls for it is a sap. In fact, these two issues — the Obama condoms-for-clunkers giveaway and a debt-to-GDP ratio of 900 percent by 2075 — are not unconnected. In Greece, 100 grandparents have 42 grandchildren — i.e., an upside-down family tree. As I wrote in this space a few weeks ago, “If 100 geezers run up a bazillion dollars’ worth of debt, is it likely that 42 youngsters will ever be able to pay it off?” Most analysts know the answer to that question: Greece is demographically insolvent.

...The United States faces a mildly less daunting arithmetic. Nevertheless, the Baby Boomers did not have enough children to maintain mid-20th-century social programs. As a result, the children they did have will end their lives in a poorer, uglier, sicker, more divided, and more violent society...

We note that the common (MFM,economist and libertarian) yappaflappa about the Japanese "lost decade" wholly ignores the FACT that Japan, too, is on a path of self-extinction through contraception--as is Greece, Italy, and Germany.

By the way, if you think my children are going to support YOU, you are nuts. They know what I meant when I said "Buy More Ammo."

HT: Fr Z

Beauty, Spirit, Liturgy

2012-02-19T16:41:00.000-06:00

Fairly lengthy essay here which raises an important point: it ain't just "body and soul." It's body, intellectus, and ratio.

The loss of the "spirit"--or intellectus--after the Enlightenment also led to the loss of the sense of beauty; thus the circus-tent church, or Picasso, or Schoenberg's dodecaphony--topped only perhaps, by Glass' unending nothingness.

It strikes me that such a neglect as a result of the Enlightenment should result in a cultural decline as well as a liturgical decline is made all the more understandable when one considers the role of the intellectus, or spirit, in the apprehension of beauty. In the first part of her little essay Beauty, Contemplation and the Virgin Mary, Sister Thomas Mary McBride, OP describes succinctly in just a few paragraphs, the traditional understanding of beauty and how man apprehends it. She draws on the Latin medievals and states that beauty illuminates the intellectus, describing the apprehension of beauty as the 'gifted perfection of seeing'. Then echoing Caldecott in the connection between intellectus and spirit says: 'In the light of the above, this writer would suggest that the proper place of beauty is in the spirit.'

An appropriate active participation in the liturgy is one that engages the full person in order to encourage within us the right interior disposition. Any participation in the liturgy that does not engage body, soul and spirit therefore does not engage the full person.

Many have described the liturgical music landscape following VatII as "pragmatic"; in some cases, the music almost seems to have been written by a committee.

B-16 has mentioned "beauty" as a very important quality in liturgy (and its music) at least a dozen times while Pope and Cardinal. There's a reason for that.

Greta Should Stick to the Lost Girl Stories

2012-02-18T07:42:00.000-06:00

Greta VanSusteren beclowned herself last week with her attack of Santorum over an old one-liner told by a Santorum backer.

(Andrea Mitchell attempted to top VanS's idiocy, and there are reports of some clueless dolt reporter-ette actually wondering aloud "....how does that work?")

Maybe Greta should get back to covering missing girls in the Caribbean, or borrow a sense of humor from McCain.

You Just Don't Know What's Important, You Rubes, You....

2012-02-17T21:12:00.000-06:00

PowerLine says it very well.

...You know that Obama’s acting OMB Director, Jeffrey Zients, appeared before the Senate and House Budget Committees to defend the budget and encountered rough sledding. Among other things, Senator Jeff Sessions asked Zients whether the president’s budget increases spending compared with current law, and Zients was unable or unwilling to answer the question. You know that Tim Geithner followed Zients to the Senate Budget Committee hearing room, and he, too, was unable to say whether Obama’s budget increases federal spending. (It does, both in comparison with current law, as represented by the Budget Control Act, and in absolute terms, by 46% from FY FY 2012 to FY 2021.) You know that the administration’s claim that its budget contains $2.50 in spending cuts for every dollar in tax increases is ridiculous. You know that, despite his confusion on other points, Geithner testified for the second year in a row that President Obama’s budget is “unsustainable.”

All of the above would seem to be big news. The United States is hurtling down a road that leads to the collapse we now see in Greece and other European countries. President Obama has no plan to deal with the nation’s debt crisis, other than to hold the accelerator firmly to the floor. And, in order to facilitate Obama’s fiscal recklessness, his administration has lied freely about its own budget. (Sorry, there isn’t any nice way to put it.)

So, every newspaper in America must be on top of this explosive story, right? Actually, no. Every newspaper in America is absorbed with Rick Santorum’s views on birth control.

The MFM: a protection-racket.

The Reich's Education Takeover

2012-02-17T07:06:00.000-06:00

The Statist-in-Chief is not only trampling the First Amendment. The Tenth is also on the block.

The constitutional, statutory and philosophical abuses by the Obama administration continue piling up. Last week, two of the top former lawyers for the federal Department of Education released a peer-reviewed report showing the administration violating or evading three separate federal laws by pressuring states to adopt a national core curriculum. Those laws exist for good reason: Control of educational content by the national government risks creating a national system of indoctrination, without local recourse to diversity of thought.

It was not a conservative but the Democratic former Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, Joseph Califano, Jr. (an aide to both Lyndon Johnson and Jimmy Carter), who warned that “In its most extreme form, national control of curriculum is a form of national control of ideas.” To protect against such dangers, local control of public education always has been a touchstone of the American system.

So?

...without statutory authority, the authors explain how the Obama administration has begun issuing “waivers” of expensive federal mandates, along with providing cash grants, in return for adoption of national standards. The administration then defines the national standards in such a way that only one initiative actually fits the definition – namely, the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), a supposedly voluntary national effort that easily morphs into a form of compulsion.

Inane Laws of the Bush Era, Part 22,354

2012-02-16T06:54:00.000-06:00

Never let it be said that we coddle GWB here.

Congress created the [student] loan forgiveness program in 2007 to encourage graduates to enter the public service field. In exchange for that service, the remaining balance of student loans would be considered repaid after 120 full payments.

To qualify for the loan forgiveness, one must now work for a federal, state or local government agency or organization, including public water, bridge or housing districts, or nonprofit organizations designated as tax exempt by the Internal Revenue Service.

Public services that also qualify for the loan forgiveness include emergency management, military service, public safety, law enforcement services; public health services; public education, public library services; school library and other school-based services; public interest law services, early childhood education; public service for individuals with disabilities and the elderly.

IOW, join AFSCME or SEIU and you're out of college-debt in 10 years. (The military exemption is perhaps the only halfway reasonable exemption.)

Granted, Bush had a (D) Congress to fight....

"Tax." "No, Fee." "No, Tax!!!" "No, It's a Fee!"

2012-02-16T06:45:00.000-06:00

That's the Obozoites describing the money you'll have to pay for ObozoCare.

And yes, it DOES make a difference.

WIsconsin Senate Recall Failures

2012-02-16T06:31:00.000-06:00

Looks like there are two "FAILS" in the Wisconsin Senate recalls.

You all know about Fitzgerald.

But the Moulton recall is in deep trouble, too. According to True the Vote, the recallers had to produce 14,958 valid signatures to force a recall election. The recallers submitted 21,000 signatures.

But there were quite a few problems. Signatures that were too late, or which came from people outside the district, or which were duplicates, or which were indecipherable, will subtract 1,829 from that 21K.

In addition, there are another 3,000+ signatures which are dubious.

True the Vote found 15,294 signatures were eligible--but it's possible that those 3,000 "problems" will pull the number below the required 14,958.

Stay tuned.

Where Was Abp. Dolan in 2010?

2012-02-15T08:09:00.000-06:00

We refer you to a story from 2010.

Note well: Abp Tim Dolan was not quoted in the story. The Milwaukee "newspaper" didn't even run the story. There was no Sykes radio appearance from the Archbishop of Milwaukee. There was no television appearance from the Archbishop of Milwaukee.

In other words, Abp. Tim Dolan took a pass on the direct precursor to the Obozo mandate.

Now that Archbishop--in New York City--is aghast.

Really?

Obozo's Reichspolzei

2012-02-15T07:50:00.001-06:00

They pick on the children, who cannot resist. (Reminds you of abortion-fiends, no?)

A mother in Hoke County complains her daughter was forced to eat a school lunch because a government inspector determined her home-made lunch did not meet nutrition requirements. In fact, all of the students in the NC Pre-K program classroom at West Hoke Elementary School in Raeford had to accept a school lunch in addition to their lunches brought from home.

.... she made her daughter a lunch that contained a turkey and cheese sandwich, a banana, apple juice and potato chips. A state inspector assessing the pre-K program at the school said the girl also needed a vegetable, so the inspector ordered a full school lunch tray for her. While the four-year-old was still allowed to eat her home lunch, the girl was forced to take a helping of chicken nuggets, milk, a fruit and a vegetable to supplement her sack lunch.

The 'state inspector' was just following Federal orders.

Boehner Does Three-Card Monte and You're the Mark (Again)

2012-02-15T07:10:00.000-06:00

You're supposed to be very happy with Boehner because he split the Big Spend Highway bill into three parts.

It's a sucker play. You're the suckers.

...The end result will be a top-down federal highway bill that requires an immediate $40 billion bailout for a new mass transit account and future bailouts down the road. Either way, there will be no pension reform or expanded oil drilling from the final version of the bill. This is yet another example of the shenanigans that are so endemic of Washington politics.

Isn't it time for Boehner to retire?

Obozo to Give Death Panel More Power

2012-02-14T06:51:00.000-06:00

Not surprising in the least.

"...IPAB has been highlighted by economists and health policy experts as a key contributor to Medicare’s long term solvency. Under current law, if the projected Medicare per capita growth rate exceeds a predetermined target growth rate, IPAB recommends to the Congress policies to reduce the rate of Medicare growth to meet the target. IPAB recommendations are prohibited from increasing beneficiary premiums or cost-sharing, or restricting benefits. To further moderate the rate of Medicare growth, this proposal would lower the target rate from the GDP per capita growth rate plus 1 percent to plus 0.5 percent. Additionally, the proposal would give IPAB additional tools like the ability to consider value-based benefit design." --Budget document quoted at Beltway

Another preferred Obama methodology is just killing 'em off with abortifacients or abortion. IPAB should look into the cost of bullets. They're cheap.

It IS the Spending, Stupid! (Part 335,631)

2012-02-14T06:23:00.000-06:00

Think you'd seen irresponsible spending last year? The year before last?

You ain't seen nothing yet.

When the gimmicks are removed, spending even rises $1.5 trillion above current projections—$47 trillion in total. Annual spending will rise by 62 percent between 2011 and 2022. There are no real reforms and the new taxes are used to fund more wasteful Washington spending. So even with almost $2 trillion in job-crushing tax hikes, the president remains incapable of reducing the deficit --Sen J. Sessions, (Budget Committee)

Your children, their children, and their children's children will be debt-slaves.

Nice future!

ObozoBudget: S.W.A.G. Numbers

2012-02-14T06:18:00.000-06:00

Well, our Marxist-in-Chief released a new budget, which predicts that the deficit will go down. In 2013.

That would be good news, except that his budget predictions are notoriously rotten.

In February 2009, Obama submitted his first budget to Congress. It boldly predicted that the federal deficit would decrease dramatically during Obama’s term, dropping from an estimated $1.841 trillion in fiscal 2009 to $557.4 billion in fiscal 2012.

However, in the fiscal 2013 budget that Obama submitted to Congress today, the White House is predicting that the federal deficit for fiscal 2012 will not be $557.4 billion after all. Instead, the White House says, it will be $1.3269 trillion.

That means Obama’s fiscal 2010 budget proposal missed on its fiscal 2012 deficit prediction by $769.5 billion--an error of 138 percent.

Uh-huh. Well, if at first you don't succeed.....

The Rise and Fall of Liberty: the Church's Error

2012-02-13T07:09:00.000-06:00

Mid-length essay on the history of "freedom of religion." An alternative title could be "Why the Road to Hell is Paved With the Skulls of Bishops."

...There was a time when Roman Catholicism was the great defender not only of its own liberty but of that of others. There was a time when the prelates recognized that the liberty of the church to govern itself in light of its guiding principles was inseparable from the liberty of other corporate bodies and institutions to do the same.... in the course of defending its autonomy against the secular power, the Roman Catholic Church asserted the liberty of other corporate bodies and even, in some measure, the liberty of individuals. To see what I have in mind one need only examine Magna Carta,...

Those were the 'good old days.'

Things went south after the Reformation.

...In Protestant lands, it tended to strengthen the secular power and to promote a monarchical absolutism unknown to the Middle Ages. Lutheranism and Anglicanism were, in effect, Caesaro-Papist. In Catholic lands, it caused the spiritual power to shelter itself behind the secular power and become, in many cases, an appendage of that power. But the Reformation and the religious strife to which it gave rise also posed to the secular power an almost insuperable problem – how to secure peace and domestic tranquility in a world marked by sectarian competition. Limited government – i. e., a government limited in its scope – was the solution ultimately found, and John Locke was its proponent.

In the nascent American republic, this principle was codified in its purest form in the First Amendment to the Constitution. But it had additional ramifications as well – for the government’s scope was limited also in other ways. There were other amendments that made up what we now call the Bill of Rights, and many of the states prefaced their constitutions with bills of rights or added them as appendices. These were all intended to limit the scope of the government. They were all designed to protect the right of individuals to life, liberty, the acquisition and possession of property, and the pursuit of happiness as these individuals understood happiness. Put simply, liberty of conscience was part of a larger package

This is what the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church forgot. In the 1930s, the majority of the bishops, priests, and nuns sold their souls to the devil, and they did so with the best of intentions. In their concern for the suffering of those out of work and destitute, they wholeheartedly embraced the New Deal.

You'll wait a long, long, long time to hear Abp Tim Dolan say "We're sorry for that."

The pass we've come to as a result?

...the leaders of the American Catholic Church fell prey to a conceit that had long before ensnared a great many mainstream Protestants in the United States – the notion that public provision is somehow akin to charity – and so they fostered state paternalism and undermined what they professed to teach: that charity is an individual responsibility and that it is appropriate that the laity join together under the leadership of the Church to alleviate the suffering of the poor. In its place, they helped establish the Machiavellian principle that underpins modern liberalism – the notion that it is our Christian duty to confiscate other people’s money and redistribute it

The fact that the Protestants came along for the ride is cold comfort.

...the Roman Catholic Church in the United States has lost much of its moral authority. It has done so largely because it has subordinated its teaching of Catholic moral doctrine to its ambitions regarding an expansion of the administrative entitlements state. In 1973, when the Supreme Court made its decision in Roe v. Wade, had the bishops, priests, and nuns screamed bloody murder and declared war, as they have recently done, the decision would have been reversed. Instead, under the leadership of Joseph Bernadin, the Cardinal-Archbishop of Chicago, they asserted that the social teaching of the Church was a “seamless garment,” and they treated abortion as one concern among many.

Ah, yes. Bernardin. Chicago again.

....in the 1980s, when Cardinal Bernadin was the chief leader of the American Church and the man most closely consulted when the Vatican selected its bishops, it became evident to the American prelates that they had a problem – that, in many a diocese, there were priests of a homoerotic orientation who were sexual predators – pederasts inclined to take advantage of young boys. They could have faced up to the problem at that time; they could have turned in the malefactors to the secular authorities; they could have prevented their further contact with the young. Instead, almost certainly at the instigation of Cardinal Bernadin, they opted for another policy. They hushed everything up, sent the priests off for psychological counseling, and reassigned them to other parishes or even dioceses – where they continued to prey on young boys. In the same period, a number of the seminaries in which young men were trained for the priesthood became, in effect, brothels – and nothing was done about any of this until the newspapers broke the story and the lawsuits began.

There is, I would suggest, a connection between the heretical doctrine propagated by Cardinal Bernadin in the Gannon Lecture and the difficulties that the American Church now faces. Those who seek to create heaven on earth and who, to this end, subvert the liberty of others and embrace the administrative entitlements state will sooner or later become its victims.

Umnnhhh, not for nothing is Pride the progenitive principal Vice.

To the Aztecs, Human Sacrifice Was "Sacred", Too

2012-02-13T06:24:00.000-06:00

This woman spoke accurately.

A Planned Parenthood affiliate’s newest president and CEO said in an official statement that she regards her work for the biggest abortion business in America to be a holy profession.

Melaney Linton, who will now oversee Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, is determined to further the Life-ending work of Planned Parenthood:

“I am honored and humbled to be entrusted with such a sacred duty...

12,000 human sacrifices in 2010, just from her Gulf Coast operations.

Not all that far from Tenochtitlan, either.

Remember My "Buy More Ammo" Meme?

2012-02-12T20:08:00.000-06:00

Neumayr sets it up.

Modern liberalism is willfulness writ large -- a godless ideology that rests upon the caprice of central planners. Under it, the fluctuating and often frightening desires of corrupt men, rather than the changeless will of a caring God, form the shaky measure of "good government." As the grim chapters of recent history show -- chapters written in the blood of millions of unborn children and other "undesirables" -- taking God out of "goodness" drains the term of any coherent meaning, leaving mankind at the mercy of power-seeking ideologues.

... But on another level, buried deep within his cold and rootless personality, [Obama] is a man of perverse tenacity, a convinced socialist and secularist who was trained long ago to run the ball into the end zone for radicalism.

For all his joshing and superficial charm, he remains the creepy child of post-Enlightenment liberalism...

...The brutal logic of these bogus rights, as Obama hints in his mumbles about "access" as the trumping value in this debate, is that everyone must recognize them. Who cares if the Church objects to financing the sins of her employees? The Church is wrong, and error has no rights, hiss feminists. The dogmatism of which Obama routinely accuses the religious is on far starker display in his own ideology, a species of raw social engineering that depends for its fulfillment upon bullying conscientious objectors at the point of a government gun.

This is a historic moment in the culture war -- a crystallizing flashpoint in which the totalitarianism and bigotry long implicit in secularism rises to the surface and becomes explicit for all to see.

...The essential character of secularism is totalitarian. For all of its chatter about religion as a "private" matter, for all of its nonsense about the "privacy of the bedroom," nothing under secularism in the end is actually private. The social engineers of Obamacare will determine the birth control methods of the unwashed. They will dictate the terms of man's beginning through eugenic abortion and his end through death panels. And to gratify the bloodlust of bigots, they will leave the stained bill for the reviled religious to pay.

In the alternative, of course, there could be a civil war.

Did PPP Go All Conservative? Or Is Romney Dead Meat Walking?

2012-02-12T15:02:00.000-06:00

PPP is a (D) polling outfit. They're good at what they do, but they do no favors for Conservatives. So when they release a poll with these contents:

...Less than a week after besting Romney in primary contests in three states, Rick Santorum has a 15-point lead on the former Massachusetts governor, according to a national poll released Saturday by Democratic firm Public Policy Polling. Recent polls had shown Romney up about 10 points on Newt Gingrich, his nearest rival.

Santorum leads Mitt Romney 38 percent to 23 percent in the new poll, while Gingrich is in third place with 17 percent. Ron Paul comes in last with 13 percent....

As I recall, HRClinton was "inevitable" in the last Democrat primary race.

HT: McCain

Meantime, the Poohbahs of Obozo Ignore the Mexican Border

2012-02-12T14:51:00.000-06:00

Oh, I know that Obozo isn't the first President to simply ignore the border. GWB did his damndest to ignore it, too.

The Iranian-supported Shi’ite terrorist group Hezbollah has spread its influence all the way to the U.S. border with Mexico, a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on Iran’s influence in the Western Hemisphere heard on Thursday.

Michael Braun, a former chief of operations at the Drug Enforcement Agency, said Hezbollah had developed relationships with the powerful Mexican drug cartels to “move their agenda forward.” He cited a plot, recently uncovered by the DEA, involving an Iranian operative in Mexico allegedly planning to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington, D.C.

... Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), committee member and chairman of the Homeland Security Committee’s subcommittee of oversight and investigations, asked about Hezbollah’s relationship to criminal organizations in the Western Hemisphere and what it means for U.S. security.

Braun warned that those relationships allow “these groups to operate freely in our neighborhood” and said the U.S. would regret it if the threats were not taken seriously.

“I don’t want to sound too crude, but I think there’s going to be hell to pay in the not too distant future,” he said. --Captain quoting CNS News

If I were the Arizona Governor, I'd be stuffing more than an index finger into Obozo's face.

Another View on the Obozo Abortifacient Mandate

2012-02-12T14:04:00.000-06:00

Here's a viewpoint which does not concentrate on the Constitutional issue.

...The argument seems to be that it's important for women, so therefore it should be free to women. There are lots of things that are at least as important, though, that we certainly don't expect to be free: food, for example, or sufficient clothing for the winter. The argument seems to be that birth control ought to be free (and indeed it is, in the form of abstinence, a form of birth control that Catholics consider it a virtue to materially assist: but I digress). It ought to be free, and any employer ought to be sure that any of their employees receives it as free.

This is really an astonishing demand. I could understand demanding it at cost: we could structure an argument whereby insurance companies are understood to receive a reasonable profit, and as part of the price of approving the practice of the business in the state, we mandate that they arrange to provide certain critical medications to their consumers at cost. We might ask, even then, why birth control or abortifacients would be the medicine we chose to occupy this position of special importance -- surely life-saving drugs would be a more worthy choice? Still, at least at cost could conceivably be a reasonable demand.

Free, though? Nothing is free. Everyone knows this....

But "Free Stuff" is what Democrats do, you know.

HT: Grim

Bishops Figured Out Obozo's Trickery and Deceit (!!)

2012-02-12T13:37:00.001-06:00

Well, duh....

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which had led opposition to the regulation, issued a statement saying that they didn't believe their concerns were addressed by a new policy offered by President Barack Obama on Friday morning to allow religious employers who object to the use of birth control to turn over responsibility for covering it to insurance companies. --AOSHQ quoting WSJ

Elegantly worded "stuff it where the sun never shines."

Another back-track by Obozo!!

In other news, yesterday President Obama caved in to pressure from an organization that wished to preserve their moral clarity on a particularly divisive issue that's been in all the papers lately. The Feds announced that the NAACP and other groups focused on the status of African-Americans will no longer be forced to reimburse their employees for yearly membership dues to their local Klan Klaverns (or whatever the hell those groups call themselves). ** The checks to the Klan will still be issued, but instead of coming directly from the NAACP office with "Klan Membership Dues" written in the lower left-hand corner, they will instead be hidden in payments to the NAACP's insurance company. So, you know: Out of Sight, Out of Mind and all that.

Well, maybe that's not exactly the way it was worded.

Feel Testy? Here's One for You

2012-02-12T13:34:00.000-06:00

AOSHQ comes up with these--so it's near-obligatory.

Note well: college profs, professional politicians, and the general public are not exemplars of citizenship (who could have guessed?)

And yup, I got two wrong.

The Early Warning About Planned Parenthood

2012-02-12T12:37:00.000-06:00

Very useful quotation here.

"The abandonment of the reproductive function is the common feature of all perversions. We actually describe a sexual activity as perverse if it has given up the aim of reproduction and pursues the attainment of pleasure as an aim independent of it. So, as you will see, the breach and turning point in the development of sexual life lies in becoming subordinate to the purpose of reproduction. Everything that happens before this turn of events and equally everything that disregards it and that aims solely at obtaining pleasure is given the uncomplimentary name of "perverse" and as such is proscribed."

There you have the definition of perversion. That's been superceded by a new one--more limited--which encompassed homosexual activity only. Now even that use of the term is out-of-favor for the obvious reason: it's no longer correct to call a spade a spade.

You may think that the quotation above was from some Church-type; if not a Pope, then a ranking cleric, right?

Wrong.

That's Siggy Freud--naming the contraceptive mentality of Planned Parenthood (and others) as "perversion."

He's right, you know.

HT: Barnhardt.biz http://barnhardt.biz/ (scroll to January 30th)

SS,DD: Obozo "Compromises" With No Change at All

2012-02-10T20:00:00.000-06:00

You've all read the "news" stories about Obozo's 'compromise' on tearing up the 1st Amendment vis-a-vis abortifacients and contraceptives.

Uh-huh.

Here's a nicely-worded dissent from the MFM's story:

He's taken one unconstitutional, tyrannical mandate and, to deflect criticism, simply asserted a new unconstitutional tyrannical mandate to cover the first.

Since Napolitano is monitoring 'net activity for "dissent", I won't put into pixels what I think of Obozo. But you can guess.

Kmiec, a "Really Intelligent Guy", Failed the IQ Test

2012-02-08T08:28:00.000-06:00

Here's a guy whose resume would tell you that he's really intelligent.

President Barack Obama’s most prominent Catholic supporter is backing away from the radically pro-abortion leader over his administration’s decision to force religious institutions to cover contraception, including abortifacients, and sterilizations.

Doug Kmiec, Obama’s former Ambassador to Malta, revealed this week that he is now “without a candidate” for the 2012 election because of the contraception mandate.

“Until I have an opportunity to speak with the president, I am for now (unhappily) without a candidate,” he wrote in an e-mail to The Hill.

Proving the maxim that common sense ain't all that common, Douggie.

Now It's Santorum v. Rombama

2012-02-08T07:54:00.000-06:00

Mere "beauty contests"? Not.

With Gingrich going the way of Pawlenty, Cain, and Bachmann, the battle for the Republican Party's soul is now clear.

Rombama, a Big-Government-Protection machine v. an actual Conservative who will place American families first.

Obozo to Unemployed Engineer: "Eat Dirt, Dog!"

2012-02-08T07:39:00.000-06:00

The Wedel case didn't make any difference to Obama; he's circumventing Congress (again) and will be encouraging age-discriminatory hiring by high-tech firms.

Sen. Grassley gets it:

...Despite your online chat and interest in investigating the problem, just last week, your administration proposed rules to “attract and retain highly skilled immigrants.” The Department of Homeland Security will expand the eligibility for foreign students to stay in the U.S. under the Optional Practical Training program. This program does not have U.S. worker protections, nor does it require that employers pay prevailing wages to these foreign students/employees. Your administration will also provide work authorizations to spouses of H-1B visa holders, thus increasing the competition for many Americans who are looking for work. It’s astonishing that, at this time of record unemployment, your administration’s solution is to grant more work authorizations to foreign workers. These initiatives will do very little to boost our economy or increase our competitiveness.

Not that Obozo is the only politician who throws highly-educated US citizens under the bus; GWB was another, and Congress is filled to the rim with people who fellate "high-tech" firms with immigration law accomodations.

This will be an interesting campaign.

Another Setup of the Taxpayers

2012-02-07T06:19:00.000-06:00

Read it and weep.

...Simply put, conservatives oppose the House leadership’s highway bill (H.R. 7) because it continues the failed top-down federal approach to transportation spending, while precluding devolution to the states for at least another five years. Moreover, it eschews the pay-as-you-go funding mechanism of the Highway Trust Fund (eerily similar to the Social Security Trust Fund!) by permanently authorizing a higher level of spending than the fund’s corresponding revenue source; the federal gas tax....

So. In five years or so, the Spending Establishment is going to tell us that "there's no MONEY for the HIGHWAYS" and impose another tax or three--or user fees, or 'wheel fees', or whatever.

You'll have forgotten that it was Boehner, of course, and he'll be retired, living on your tax dollars.

Did I say "tax" enough??

The Romney Machine Moves Back-and-Forthrightly to Minnesota

2012-02-06T21:03:00.000-06:00

Romney has dumped a 1500+ word opposition brief on Santorum into the press' lap.

Hmmmmm. Even got Pawlenty, the not-very-memorable Minnesota Moderate to slam Santorum.

Tells ya sumpin' folks.

Asked about Romney's decision to focus on Santorum, a spokesman for the former Pennsylvania senator's presidential campaign called the tactics "tired" and blasted Romney's record as "abysmal."

"If Governor Romney is confident running on his record and his vision for the future, he would," Santorum spokesman Hogan Gidley told Yahoo News."But Gov. Romney does what he always does and directs his well-funded attack machine to destroy the opponent. Mitt Romney's act is tired, old and wearing thin with voters and I suspect at this point, with the media too. Romney never touts his own record — because it's abysmal."

The Back-and-Forthright candidate, Romney, could run on EITHER of his records, I suppose.

A Letter to the Suddenly Awakened Catholic Bishops

2012-02-06T06:29:00.000-06:00

There were perhaps seven or eight Catholic Bishops who spoke out against ObozoCare before it was enacted. (See references here.)

The rest of them? Pretty quiet about it.

So now they figured out that they were pretty stupid in their quietness.

One Atlanta Catholic has a few things to say....

....In 2009 and 2010, nominally faithful Catholics who value all of the policy choices you do — labor unions, forced charity, high rates of taxation, urban ghettoes, and of course, universal “health care” — and who claimed to be ardent defenders of the unborn sold out to a one, sacrificed millions of babies and betrayed the infallible teaching of their faith so they could get one gigantic step closer to the social justice you so crave.

And for that, for that moment when they put aside their baptismal and confirmation vows, repeated every Easter, and their recitation of whatever version of the Nicene Creed you’ve settled on this week, your response was … applause. Silence. Satisfaction. A professed willingness to work with the Administration.

Umnnnhhhh....yes, indeed.

Follow the (Anti-Coal) Money: Sierra Club Version

2012-02-05T16:46:00.000-06:00

Sierra Club. Kinda sounds neat-o, mountains, big trees, sunset vistas....

Well, not really.

A Time magazine blogger reported Thursday that the Sierra Club, America’s oldest and most august environmental organization, accepted millions of dollars in donations from one of the nation’s biggest natural gas-drilling companies for a program lambasting coal-fired power plants as environmental evildoers.

The total take for John Muir’s conservation group? A whopping $26 million over four years from Chesapeake Energy and its subsidiaries, mostly through Chesapeake CEO Aubrey McClendon.

Not a bad haul for a propaganda dump.

HT: JunkScience

What (Actual) Conservatives Believe

2012-02-05T16:26:00.000-06:00

Nicely summarized.

The conservative believes that the individual is foolish, although the species is wise; therefore, unlike the confident intellectual, he declines to undertake the reconstruction of society and human nature upon the scanty capital of his private stock of reason. The conservative believes that the world is not perfectible, and that we fallen human creatures, here below, are not made for happiness, and will not find happiness––at least, not if we deliberately pursue it; therefore, unlike the ideologue, he is not under the impression that any single fixed system of political concepts can bring justice and peace and liberty to all men at all times, if uniformly applied. --Russell Kirk (of course).

Ideologues of the Left (and alleged 'right') should take note.

JFK Chased Babes. Sun Rises in East

2012-02-05T16:02:00.000-06:00

Not exactly a hot-news item:

Former U.S. President John F Kenendy took the virginity of a White House intern in a side room just feet away from where administration staff were drinking at an after-work party, an explosive new book has claimed.--VerumSerum quoting Daily Mail

It was called "Camelot" because of all the humps, duh.

The FBI: Liars

2012-02-05T15:31:00.001-06:00

Just in case you are still naive enough to think that the FBI boyzzz are all just like Elliot Ness, here's a bit of real-live evidence that the FBI lies. A lot.

...Dozens of pyrotechnic devices were found in the rubble, and most significantly, several were found at the points of origin of the fires started that day inside the building.The evidence we found that day in the Texas Ranger evidence locker eventually showed that there were not only multiple types of pyrotechnic devices, there were in some cases, dozens of them used against the folks inside Mt Carmel that day. And it seems that our friendly local military commander, General Wesley Clarke, at Ft. Hood, Texas, had been kind enough to supply the FBI HRT with 200 rounds of 40mm HE, (High Explosive) fragmentation grenades and two 40mm, Mark 19 automatic grenade launchers. All of which the FBI had consistently denied was in their possession , much less “used” by them against the Davidians…but FBI/US Army documents and photos don’t lie

That was the Clinton Administration's FBI, as you recall. But that probably doesn't make much of a difference.

So the next time you hear that "this surveillance technique is only used against terror suspects," you know that it likely came from the mouth of a liar--or someone who works shoulder-to-shoulder with liars.

HT: Arms/Law

Morrissey Joins Levin, Family Research Council: Santorum for President!

2012-02-05T15:02:00.000-06:00

Ed Morrissey:

...Santorum has demonstrated a level of personal integrity in this race that outshines the rest of the field. Santorum has campaigned with blue-collar Reagan Democrats in mind, pushing for an economic plan that would revitalize manufacturing and small business.

....joining the crowd.

Those Cute Little Fuzzy-Bear Banks?

2012-02-04T07:56:00.000-06:00

The AG of New York State...

...today filed a lawsuit against several of the nation’s largest banks charging that the creation and use of a private national mortgage electronic registry system known as MERS has resulted in a wide range of deceptive and fraudulent foreclosure filings in New York state and federal courts, harming homeowners and undermining the integrity of the judicial foreclosure process. The lawsuit asserts that employees and agents of Bank of America, J.P. Morgan Chase, and Wells Fargo, acting as "MERS certifying officers," have repeatedly submitted court documents containing false and misleading information that made it appear that the foreclosing party had the authority to bring a case when in fact it may not have. The lawsuit names JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., Bank of America, N.A., Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., as well as Virginia-based MERSCORP, Inc. and its subsidiary, Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc. --Vox quoting NYS AG release

Friendly local fraudsters.

All Green (And Yellow, Too!!!)

2012-02-04T07:41:00.000-06:00

Another AlGore experiment turns to.....ahhh........

Students at a high school in Boca Raton, Florida, must step over rivers of urine and endure the stench of rancid waste after a plan to bring ‘green’ waterless urinals into bathrooms backfired.

School officials at Spanish River High School thought they had found an environmentally-friendly, cost-saving solution for their bathrooms when they installed Falcon Waterfree urinals in their boys bathrooms.

But with no water moving through the school’s copper pipes to flush the urine into the sewer system, the waste produced noxious gases that ate through the metal, leaving leaky pipes that allowed urine to drip into walls and flow onto floors. --PowerLine quoting South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Water, water, everywhere, and not a drop to drink.

More on the Unemployment Numbers

2012-02-04T07:36:00.000-06:00

Steve the Number-Cruncher has a couple of pertinent observations.

On a seasonal basis, the 141,637,000 employed is lower than it was in February 2009, and indeed the last time prior to that point it was that low was May 2005. On the other side of the equation, the 12,758,000 officially unemployed (i.e., they didn’t have a job and looked for one in the 4 weeks prior to the mid-January survey) is higher than any point prior to February 2009. Worse, the 6,319,000 who want a job but were not counted as “unemployed” because they had not looked for work in the previous 4 weeks was higher than any point between May 1994 (the fifth month this stat was recorded) and December 2010, and over 1 million higher than any time between one month prior to Bill Clinton’s re-election (October 1996) and Barack Obama’s election in November 2008. Zero Hedge noticed a record 1.2 million departing the labor force on a seasonal basis (or if you prefer unseasoned numbers, Ed Morrissey noted it as nearly 1.6 million on an unadjusted basis).

It ain't pretty.

Marquette University Fails PC Exam

2012-02-04T07:32:00.000-06:00

The Perfesser notes that Marquette University's PC cop-shop adopts the Henry Ford maxim: "Never explain. Never apologize."

So much for all that 'academic' tripe, eh?

Time for Ginsburg to Go

2012-02-04T06:48:00.000-06:00

Since this old Lefty hag doesn't like the US Constitution--which has protected her in her job for decades--perhaps she should go to South Africa or Canada to mal-practice law.

Eight Point Three % of Nobody Left in the Workforce

2012-02-03T19:35:00.000-06:00

What counts?

For the MSM, fellating the current occupant counts. So they scream headlines on the 8.3% unemployment count (which will be revised next month....)

For actual people--beyond the 8.3% who can't find work--what really counts is the statistical method. Because when 1.2 million people leave the workforce altogether, it's a helluvalot easier to get only 8.3% unemployed.

But it's a helluvalot harder to get tax revenues from them. So the '12, '13, '14.... projected tax-rev numbers are crumbling before your very eyes.

It's STILL the SPENDING, STUPID!!

Rombama? Obamney? All the Same, Really

2012-02-02T06:46:00.000-06:00

Not only the 'back-and-forthright' candidate, but another vicious anti-Catholic.

Yes, I'm referring to Willard Romney, perma-candidate.

A defining moment in Mitt Romney's post-pro-life-conversion political career came in his third year as governor of Massachusetts, when he decided Catholic hospitals would be required under his interpretation of a new state law to give rape victims a drug that can induce abortions.

Romney announced this decision — saying it was the "right thing for hospitals" to do — just two days after he had taken the opposite position.

The story includes another Willard Romney habit: hiding in the dark!!

...As Planned Parenthood and NARAL demanded action on the bill, and the Massachusetts Catholic Conference continued to speak out against it, Gov. Mitt Romney remained mum.

"Shawn Feddeman, spokeswoman for Gov. Mitt Romney, declined to comment on the governor's position on the bill," the Boston Globe reported on July 1, 2004. "'We'll review it when it reaches the governor's desk.'"

The bill was reintroduced in the next session — and Romney remained mum.

(You will recall that hiding in the dark is exactly what Willard did on the homosex-marriage bill--until he un-Constitutionally rammed it through by executive fiat.)

Next chapter:

On Dec. 7, 2005, a week before the law was to take effect, the Boston Globe ran a piece headlined: "Private Hospitals Exempt on Pill Law." The article said the state Department of Public Health had determined that the emergency contraception law "does not nullify a statute passed years ago that says privately run hospitals cannot be forced to provide abortions or contraception."

Public Health Commissioner Paul Cote Jr. told the Globe: "We felt very clearly that the two laws don't cancel each other out and basically work in harmony with each other."

Romney spokesman Fehrnstrom told the Globe that Romney agreed with the Department of Public Health on the issue. The governor, he said, "respects the views of health care facilities that are guided by moral principles on this issue."

And finally, the RomBama pronouncement:

Liberals joined in attacking Romney's defense of Catholic hospitals. But that defense did not last long.

The same day the Globe ran its editorial, Romney held a press conference. Now he said his legal counsel had advised him the new emergency contraception law did trump the 1975 conscience law.

"On that basis, I have instructed the Department of Public Health to follow the conclusion of my own legal counsel and to adopt that sounder view," Romney said. "In my personal view, it's the right thing for hospitals to provide information and access to emergency contraception to anyone who is a victim of rape."

The Weathervane Governor became the Weathervane candidate--where he's been for the last 20 years or so.

There's a reason he's never been the nominee.

The Real "Petition Problem"

2012-02-01T07:13:00.000-06:00

Multiple stories about 'petition problems' are hitting the air and 'net. "Gatherer" problems arose in Racine County, obviously-forged signatures/addresses pop up on hundreds of pages, the "80 times" guy was broadcast; you get the idea.

Most of the petition-gathering was done by two groups: the teachers and the AFSCME members.

IOW, the teachers and municipal workers did most of the cheating and forging.

That's what you have running your school? One is curious: when did these individuals BEGIN their cheating careers? In grade school? High school? College?

And will their cheating and forgery stop?

The Brownshirts of "Occupy"

2012-02-01T06:43:00.000-06:00

Malkin's column is titled "First, They Came for the Catholics". She discusses Obama's blatant violation of the 1st Amendment vis-a-vis forcing Catholics to pay for birth control and abortifacients.

She mentions something that fits very well into that reference, too:

Is it any surprise their counterparts in the "Occupy" movement have moved from protesting "Wall Street" to harassing pro-life marchers in Washington, D.C., and hurling condoms at Catholic school girls in Rhode Island?

Many observers--Limbaugh among them--thought that the "Occupy" protests were under the operational control of Obama's re-election campaign.

Is it time for us to simply re-title him "Der Fuhrer"? Should we begin re-inforcing glass windows?

Need a Temporary Job? Go to an Obozo "Green" Loan Recipient!

2012-01-31T06:55:00.000-06:00

Well, there's Solyndra, then Ener1, now....

Just seven months after California-based solar power company Amonix Inc. opened its largest manufacturing plant, in North Las Vegas, the company’s contractor has laid off nearly two-thirds of its workforce. --Human Events quoting Las Vegas Sun

That's only $5.9 million in US tax dollars "invested."

More Boehning, Chapter 465

2012-01-31T06:38:00.000-06:00

Once again, the Boehner "leadership" is toward national bankruptcy.

As part of their ongoing “jobs agenda,” House Republicans will unveil this week and soon consider the American Energy & Infrastructure Act (AEIA) to reauthorize transportation spending for five years. The “highway bill” promises a host of reforms (consolidating programs and streamlining red tape) and includes increased oil and gas exploration. But unfortunately these reforms are meant to distract from the overall size of the program, and the fact that such spending will require a massive bailout from federal taxpayers.

Except that the bill will bust the Ryan budget and build on an already-bloated previous bill (SAFETEA). SAFETEA not only spends a lot of money; it spends more than the highway trust fund has available from taxes.

Boehner, a '60's style pol, packages it with some oil drilling--a spoonful of sugar, you know.

Screw him. And his horse, too.

RayOVac Getting Out of Madison. Smart Move!

2012-01-30T07:03:00.000-06:00

RayOVac (Spectrum) is leaving Madistan for Middleton.

And Soglin doesn't like it.

But there are a number of businesses which have deliberately avoided a Madison location, knowing that the taxes, fees, and regulations of Madison are burdens.

Soglin complains that he was 'out of the loop'. There's a reason for that:

...Soglin says the Spectrum consultant who originally contacted the city last spring would not reveal the name of the company unless the city signed a confidentiality agreement to keep the identity undisclosed, which Soglin refused to do. Therefore, the consultant would not agree to further discussions.

According to Soglin, the Cieslewicz administration had signed a confidentiality agreement last March, just a month before the 2011 mayoral election, but did not move forward. Cieslewicz could not be reached for comment.

Uh-huh.

More On Obozo's "Contraception/Abortion" Ruling

2012-01-29T20:51:00.001-06:00

The Bishops of the US are--like most of their flocks--VERY unhappy with the Obozo Administration's flagrant violation of the 1st Amendment.

Here's Bp. Zubik of Pittsburgh:

...Let’s be blunt. This whole process of mandating these guidelines undermines the democratic process itself. In this instance, the mandate declares pregnancy a disease, forces a culture of contraception and abortion on society, all while completely bypassing the legislative process.

This is government by fiat that attacks the rights of everyone – not only Catholics; not only people of all religion. At no other time in memory or history has there been such a governmental intrusion on freedom not only with regard to religion, but even across-the-board with all citizens. It forces every employer to subsidize an ideology or pay a penalty while searching for alternatives to heath care coverage. It undermines the whole concept and hope for health care reform by inextricably linking it to the zealotry of pro-abortion bureaucrats.

The Bishop is being charitable, which is his vocation.

Much more from various Bishops here. Obozo will regret this move.

HT: CMR

The "Good Citizens" of High-Tech

2012-01-29T16:20:00.000-06:00

Just a little Sherman Anti-Trust violation (or 1,000s of them--who knows?)

...Apple, Google, Adobe, Intel, Intuit and other tech firms, it was revealed, had agreements not to poach one another's employees. Technically, the Department of Justice settled an antitrust lawsuit in 2010, but employees who claim they were injured by the arrangement are still fighting for more, with a proposed class-action lawsuit that's having its day in court this month. --Ticker quoting The Verge

Silicon Valley firms were also heavily promoting national health-insurance schemes back in the '90's--as were the Big Three automotives.

About time that it is clear: these assholes are predators, not "capitalists."

Holder Sinks to a New Low (Believe It or Not)

2012-01-29T14:11:00.000-06:00

Well, well.

Attorney General Eric Holder’s Department of Justice dumped documents related to Operation Fast and Furious on congressional officials late Friday night. Central to this document dump is a series of emails showing Holder was informed of slain Border Patrol agent Brian Terry’s murder on the day it happened – December 15, 2010 – and that he was informed the weapons used to kill Terry were from Fast and Furious on the same day. --AOSHQ quoting Daily Caller

Holder testified that he didn't know about the Terry/F&F connection until April.

Time for Eric to go.

RomBama Dismisses ObamaCare Concerns

2012-01-27T06:59:00.000-06:00

After 10 or 20 years of campaigning for the Presidency, you'd think Romney would get it.

He doesn't.

....Santorum didn't just offer a grazing attack of Romneycare like many other candidates have in prior debates. He got very specific. He noted that it was top-down government control -- from the mandate forcing individuals to purchase health insurance to the expansion of Medicaid. And when Romney tried to wiggle away, and defended the individual mandate making the same arguments as President Obama, Santorum pinned him down, explaining all the problems with the health care system in Massachusetts under the law. Romney's response to Santorum's passionate case against government-run health care was to say, “It’s not worth getting angry about,”...

Perhaps Willard doesn't recall the genesis of the American Revolution, which was a very small tax on tea, along with a Statism which resembles the one Obozo is beginning to impose.

B.O.M. Goes Apple

2012-01-25T06:49:00.000-06:00

Oldsters will recall that the original IBM Bill-of-Material software (BOMP, then DBOMP) was written in Milwaukee by (among others) IBM, Arthur Anderson, Allis-Chalmers, and Allen-Bradley.

Now a Racine firm has replaced the paper BOM with an Apple.

All Wisconsin, all the time....

President Downgrade's SS, DD

2012-01-25T06:26:00.000-06:00

You'd think that for his farewell address, Obozo could at least get new lines.

Nope.

SCOTUS Makes It Harder for the Snoops

2012-01-24T06:26:00.000-06:00

Good ruling.

The United States Supreme Court ruled Monday that when police use GPS tracking devices on suspect vehicles, that does constitute a search. That ruling effectively wipes out a Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling that said the opposite, and could mean big changes for local police.

Some are calling this ruling the biggest Fourth Amendment ruling of the computer age. The U.S. Supreme Court has decided that police will need to get a search warrant from a judge in most cases, before they can stick a GPS tracking device on a suspect's vehicle.

If it's a solid case, the warrant will be issued. Right?

Obama's "American Values": Costly!!

2012-01-24T06:12:00.000-06:00

The cost of Obamism (or "American values" as he calls it):

So far, during the presidency of Barack Obama, the price of a gallon of gasoline has jumped 83 percent, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

During the same period, the price of ground beef has gone up 24 percent and price of bacon has gone up 22 percent.

That's offset by the cost of Michelle's vacations, of course.

Obamism/Obamunism/Socialism/Alinsky-ites

2012-01-23T08:13:00.000-06:00

It's all there, in the book.

Here's the (30-minute) brief, naming names including Harold Washington, the "Raza" of Chicago--which reminds one of the Milwaukee Hispanic agitator-socialist bunch "Frontera".....

HT: PowerLine

39th Anniversary of the American Holocaust

2012-01-22T13:38:00.000-06:00

39 years ago today, the worst decision ever by the Blackrobes.

Pray. Harder.

"Safe" Abortions, Eh?

2012-01-22T13:36:00.000-06:00

There's a fellow named "Jim" whose brother worked for Planned Barrenhood--so Jim spends a lot of time and effort in my comboxes telling us all about how "good" abortion really is.

Well, then, there are the damn facts....

HT: Al/Dubuque

MoDo's Slam of Obozo & The Queen

2012-01-22T13:23:00.000-06:00

Holy Wah!!, as they say in Green Bay.

Reagan didn’t socialize with the press. He spent his evenings with Nancy, watching TV with dinner trays. But he knew that to transcend, you can’t condescend.

The portrait of the first couple in Jodi Kantor’s new book, “The Obamas,” bristles with aggrievement and the rational president’s disdain for the irrational nature of politics, the press and Republicans. Despite what his rivals say, the president and the first lady do believe in American exceptionalism — their own, and they feel overassaulted and underappreciated.

We disappointed them.

Quoted by the Prof.

Why Manufacture in PRChina?

2012-01-22T13:10:00.000-06:00

Some thought-provoking stuff here, discovered in the NYT by Althouse.

....Apple had redesigned the iPhone’s screen at the last minute, forcing an assembly line overhaul. New screens began arriving at the plant near midnight.

A foreman immediately roused 8,000 workers inside the company’s dormitories, according to the executive. Each employee was given a biscuit and a cup of tea, guided to a workstation and within half an hour started a 12-hour shift fitting glass screens into beveled frames. Within 96 hours, the plant was producing over 10,000 iPhones a day ....

The facility has 230,000 employees, many working six days a week, often spending up to 12 hours a day at the plant. Over a quarter of Foxconn’s work force lives in company barracks and many workers earn less than $17 a day.

Hmmmm.

On the Death of a Friend

2012-01-22T12:49:00.000-06:00

A lady I knew died last night.

She was an old-school Great Lady--with a capital "L". Knew how many pieces of silver were to be laid out, exactly where they belonged on the table, and what course went with what silver. Knew when the red wine was served, in which goblets, at what temperature. Quoted Milton, Shakespeare, and Twain, not to show that she could, but to remind you that there was nothing new under the sun.

But she was not a priss. When the historical society re-enacted the old days of Milwaukee, she played the madam for the house on the west side of the river at Juneau Ave., and did so with just the right smile. She could rollick with the young ladies she knew, but never, ever lose control.

She was fearsome in her 5,000 lb. Olds sedan, which occasionally escaped her control. St Peter knows that, of course, and will prudently step out of her way.

Requiescat in pace, Rosemary.

Fast & Furious Has Grandchildren!

2012-01-22T12:20:00.000-06:00

Operation "White Gun."

...members of Congress who have spent months scrutinizing the Fast and Furious debacle are seeking to determine whether White Gun was another weapons investigation gone wrong.

"Apparently guns got away again," said one source close to the investigation, led by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista) and Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa). "How many got into Mexico, who knows?"

Same agent as "Fast & Furious," same results. Some people never get learned, eh?

HT: Arms/Law

So It's Romney?? Really?

2012-01-22T07:21:00.002-06:00

Delegate count: Romney 33, Newt 25, Santorum 14, Paul 4

1500+ to win at the convention.

Obozo's War on Religion

2012-01-20T20:36:00.000-06:00

Not really surprising at all.

Today, in a huge victory for women’s health, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced that most employers will be required to cover contraception in their health plans, along with other preventive services, with no cost-sharing such as co-pays or deductibles. --Catholic Vote quoting ThinkProgress

OK, jackwad. You want a war? Ask the Muslims how they did at Lepanto, or Vienna.

Lawsuit to follow.

Carl Pope Goes Off the Rails in "Manufacturing" Part 3

2012-01-20T06:40:00.000-06:00

We've cited a few chunks of Pope's Bloomberg essays here because he makes a few good points.

Too bad that he now advocates what amounts to Fascism--or at the very least, a re-working of the 'military-industrial complex' against which Eisenhower warned us.

...Liveris is part of an emerging consensus that includes New Economy business gurus such as former Intel Corp. CEO Andy Grove, whose essay on the need to rejuvenate manufacturing, “How America Can Create Jobs” is a seminal document. The gospel is infiltrating Silicon Valley, where investors such as Vinod Khosla and his former partners at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers are believers. It has been embraced by the American labor movement, including AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, United Steelworkers President Leo Gerard, Teamsters’ head Jimmy Hoffa and former Service Employees International Union President Andy Stern.

Liveris’s analysis is bolstered by former General Motors Co. Vice Chairman Bob Lutz, Honeywell International Inc. CEO David Cote and ArcelorMittal’s U.S. CEO Michael Rippey. A growing number of public officials, such as former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, have come to see manufacturing as the key to economic revival and jobs.

Unstated in the essay is that many of these individuals want to de-couple health and pension benefits from employment and move the liabilities to Government.

Pope's logical fallacies begin here:

...A national industrial policy is anathema to many conservatives. When solar-panel maker Solyndra LLC went bankrupt after receiving $535 million in federal loan guarantees, opponents of industrial policy eagerly cooked the failure into a “scandal.” The attack was not only a partisan shot against the Obama administration, which had signed off on the loans. It was intended to preempt and disqualify federal support for manufacturing in the future.

Although conservatives condemn the notion of a national manufacturing policy, they embrace similar policies on the state level....

The "attacks" on the Solyndra deal have to do with the utter failure of the business model (high-cost/low-price, then heavy losses) rather than with the "national" involvement. And Mr. Pope, like other Statist-inclined foks, forgets that there is a 10th Amendment.

Pope, an ideologue on the Green Goddess' side, even found the villains:

...for the Tea Party and its financial backers, like the Koch brothers, weakening the federal government is ideologically more important than strengthening the national economy; if a unified, competitive national economy requires a strong, powerful federal government, the trade-off is not worth it to them. Second, the political leaders who shape federal economic policy are responsive to the sectors that have mastered lobbying -- oil, agribusiness, finance and drug companies. Manufacturing for decades has been left to take care of itself.

Being an early TEA Party guy, I can tell you that I don't really give a fig for Koch Industries; they can stand or fall on their own. The fact that they're standing says something about their business model, ain'a?

(And Carl, the term stands for "Taxed Enough Already.", for your information. Further, although you may be out of the loop here, most of us know that there are two parts to the Chamber of Commerce: the 100 or so ultra-big transnationals, and the rest of 'commerce' in the US. That's why the message is muddled.)

Pope's yappaflappa does have a few more good insights. Here's one:

To create markets, we must enforce trade agreements and insist on fair play. China has been stealing wind-turbine manufacturing by requiring 70 percent domestic content in its turbines. U.S. manufacturers like General Electric Co. make components in China solely to satisfy that demand.

If Pope had been paying attention, he'd note that the term "FAIR Trade" has been around for quite some time--voiced by P J Buchanan and the Tonelson gang. Good that he's catching up, though.

Yes, manufacturing has been crunched in the US. PRChina adopted State mercantilism and imposes zero regulatory burden, zero benefits-burdens, and only minor 'baksheesh' burdens.

But going to State mercantilism here--particularly by tossing Big Tax Bucks into technologies which are questionable and--frankly--inefficient, is to imitate,........ahhh........the People's Republic of China.

Not the model we're going to follow, Carl.

Raising the National Debt

2012-01-19T06:30:00.000-06:00

Sure, it's going to go through.

Republican Study Committee Chairman Jim Jordan offered the following statement as the House prepared to vote its disapproval of President Obama’s decision to raise the debt limit by another $1.2 trillion:

“Interest payments on the national debt will cost more this year than the entire federal budget did in 1972, and that’s with interest rates at historic lows. We have to stop the crazy spending if we’re going to stop this crazy borrowing. Fiddling around the edges won’t get the job done. We need to cut, cap, and balance the budget.”

Actually, Congress and the Executive Branch should be "cut, capped, and balanced." Takes two to tango.

Killing US Manufacturing, Part 2

2012-01-19T06:25:00.000-06:00

Yesterday we noted a Bloomberg article about US manufacturing.

Today we have Part Two. The author has some weaker arguments here, (see the link), but some are very compelling.

...When federal fuel-economy rules required Detroit automakers to produce some fuel-efficient cars, they decided to make them in places like Mexico because two decades of trade deals, under Republicans and Democrats, protected American banks, agriculture, drug companies and Hollywood -- but not manufacturing. (Gas-guzzling trucks, intriguingly, continued to enjoy tariff protection -- one reason Detroit made so many.)

The final nail in Detroit’s coffin was also hammered by Washington. It was gasoline priced at almost $4 a gallon. For decades, the U.S. government let the Saudis manipulate the market -- periodically flooding it with cheap oil to discourage the U.S. from making serious efforts to reduce our demand for oil, which, ironically, is the only way to ensure cheap oil.

That last line is half-right. There are TWO parts to the equasion: supply and demand. Supply is also restricted by the FedGov (see below post).

This line, however, is key:

Former Intel CEO Andy Grove warns that the whole “scaling” process by which innovation led to mass production has broken down in the U.S. As he put it in a 2010 essay in Bloomberg Businessweek, “How America Can Create Jobs,” both politicians and business leaders bought into a “general undervaluing of manufacturing -- the idea that as long as ‘knowledge work’ stays in the U.S., it doesn’t matter what happens to factory jobs.”

In other words, the Utopians in Gummint (and other places) decided that people who do NOT do "knowledge work" are irrelevant and immaterial to the US and its economy.

Talk about 'elitism writ large'....

Ironically, the author is the ex-President of the Sierra Club--which explains his animus toward "gas guzzlers."

Perhaps he should look at KeystoneXL and 'splain that, too.

"Never Forget" XL? Not Just the Blue-Collar Workers!

2012-01-19T06:09:00.000-06:00

The Green Goddess claims another 20,000 (plus families) victims.

...the Obama administration decided on Wednesday to kill the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, which would have carried crude oil from Canada to Gulf Coast refineries.

The Laborer's Union Pres:

“The score is Job-Killers, two; American workers, zero. We are completely and totally disappointed. This is politics at its worst,” LIUNA General President Terry O’Sullivan said. “Once again the President has sided with environmentalists instead of blue collar construction workers – even though environmental concerns were more than adequately addressed. Blue collar construction workers across the U.S. will not forget this.”

You're not the Lone Ranger here, Mr. O'Sullivan.

Manufacturing: It's Not the Labor Cost

2012-01-18T06:13:00.000-06:00

Nothing new in this item if you've been paying attention.

...My host, a NASA engineer turned Silicon Valley entrepreneur, has just conducted a fascinating tour of his new clean-energy bench-scale test facility. It’s one of the Valley’s hottest clean-technology startups. And he’s already thinking of going abroad.

“Wages?” I ask.

His dark eyebrows arch as if I were clueless, then he explains the reality of running a fab -- an electronics fabrication factory. “Wages have nothing to do with it. The total wage burden in a fab is 10 percent. When I move a fab to Asia, I might lose 10 percent of my product just in theft.”

I’m startled. “So what is it?”

“Everything else. Taxes, infrastructure, workforce training, permits, health care. The last company that proposed a fab on Long Island went to Taiwan because they were told that in a drought their water supply would be in the queue after the golf courses.”

Read the rest--and Part Two when it materializes.

Cleaning Out the Jungle

2012-01-17T14:32:00.002-06:00

From MoonBattery. Who else??

"Zero" Income Tax? Ron Goes Further Off the Edge

2012-01-17T08:38:00.000-06:00

Ron Paul now wants a "zero" income tax.

Cute rhetoric.

That goes along with his "yes/no" on taking out Bin Laden and his anti-gun votes--not to mention his profligate earmarking (which is paid for by.......yup.......income taxes.)

OK, Ron. Whatever.

Kilowatt Price Falls--Except Where Regulation Increases It

2012-01-17T08:26:00.000-06:00

Interesting item here. The Doylies/Green Weenies cost you a lot of money.

...Mirroring the gas market, electricity prices have dropped more than 50 percent on average since 2008, and about 10 percent during the fourth quarter of 2011, according to a Jan. 11 research report by Aneesh Prabhu, a New York-based credit analyst with Standard & Poor’s Financial Services LLC. Prices in the west hub of PJM Interconnection LLC, the largest wholesale market in the U.S., declined to about $39 per megawatt hour by December 2011 from $87 in the first quarter of 2008. --JunkScience quoting Bloomberg

In Wisconsin, however, electric rates are holding steady or moving upwards, due to the utilities' willingness to provide "renewable" energy. That, along with the compliance-costs of the new Oak Creek coal-burners, insures that ratepayers will be paying the GreenGoddess for quite some time into the future.

Other utilities aren't quite so......ahhh........expensive:

...With abundant new supplies of gas making it the cheapest option for new power generation, the largest U.S. wind-energy producer, NextEra Energy Inc. (NEE), has shelved plans for new U.S. wind projects next year and Exelon Corp. (EXC) called off plans to expand two nuclear plants. Michigan utility CMS Energy Corp. (CMS) canceled a $2 billion coal plant after deciding it wasn’t financially viable in a time of “low natural-gas prices linked to expanded shale-gas supplies,” according to a company statement.

IOW, since WEnergies rolled over to the Doyle/Greenies, we pay.

So How's QE2 Working Out?

2012-01-17T08:14:00.000-06:00

QE2 ain't doing what Helicopter Ben thinks it should do. Now he wants QE3?

With an increase of $1.8 Tn in base money supply since (roughly) '08, we find that bank loans divided by base money supply has dropped to ~2.5x from a high of 8x in late '07. The overall average of that number from 1970 through '07 was ~6x.

Hmmmm.

More devastating to the monetarists: M2 Money Supply divided by base money is now at ~3.5x--where the annual average from 1957-2008 was about 9.5x.

Lotsa chart-porn at Mish's place.

Who's the Racist?

2012-01-17T08:01:00.000-06:00

Noted at Zippers:

In its strategic plan for the Africa Region for 2010 to 2015, the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) states that it is working toward an 82 percent increase in abortion services

Uh-huh.

"Survey Says"......Santorum WON Iowa?

2012-01-16T20:32:00.000-06:00

Well, here's a fine kettle of fish.

...But what if Romney did not actually win Iowa? That could change the calculation considerably. And there is a very real chance that the Republican Party of Iowa will announce this week that Rick Santorum, and not Romney, won the Iowa caucuses.

...One campaign source says the vote count as of midday Monday showed Santorum ahead by 80-something votes. If that number holds through certification of the last precincts, Santorum will win. Of course, there is always the possibility that some of the final precincts will contain discrepancies that put Romney back on top. It's just not clear.

Heh.

Gee. Romney Lies. Water Is Wet. Sun Rises in the East.....

2012-01-16T17:07:00.000-06:00

Now the Establishment Liar has PO'd Santorum, too.

We recall that Hillary Clinton was "inevitable."

More Defined-Benefits for UW Employees?

2012-01-16T15:01:00.001-06:00

Word on the street is that Pat Strachota (R-West Bend) intro'd legislation to allow UW System to offer a defined-benefit pension plan.

Oh, really, Pat?

She offers some flapdoodle about 48 other States, and how since U-teachers move around a lot, they really need a defined-pension plan, yada yada yada.

Foofoodust.

A 403(b), which is the public-sector version of a 401(k), is portable--unlike defined-benefit plans, and can be converted at retirement into a defined-benefit pension. That's called an SPDA.

C'mon, Pat. Get a grip on reality.

On Cdl. Dolan

2012-01-16T12:38:00.000-06:00

The Catholic Thing reviews John Allen's book on Cdl. T. Dolan.

Some interesting "Dolan-isms" in there....