Ominous speculation

Ick. Will this ever cease:

The Justice Department's actions are consistent with the theory I've previously offered that the Obama administration is intentionally feeding left-wing lawyers who are trying to persuade foreign courts to prosecute Bush administration officials for actions taken in defense of the United States. This way, Obama and Holder can give the Left the "reckoning" they promised without having to do the dirty and politically explosive work of prosecution themselves. The question is whether they'll get away with it — that's up to the public.

Scozzafava drops out

If you've been following the NY 23 race (and who hasn't), you know that it's been a knock down dragout fight against the traditional, run a liberal RINO choice and a true conservative (I might even say Hoffman seems like a tea partyer). Today Scozzafava dropped out because Hoffman has pulled ahead, because the Republican establishment (all except Newt) had stopped paying her bills and because the outcry from conservatives across the country has boosted Hoffman's numbers greatly. Now the vote will no longer be split. Good, good news:

Republican Dede Scozzafava has suspended her bid in next Tuesday’s NY 23 special election, a huge development that dramatically shakes up the race. She did not endorse either of her two opponents -- Conservative party candidate Doug Hoffman or Democrat Bill Owens.

Tax everything that moves

and doesn't move. Hillary actually lectures Pakistan on this:

We (the United States) tax everything that moves and doesn’t move, and that’s not what we see in Pakistan,” she said.

Paranormal taxivity

I

What could possibly go wrong?

Jim Hoft:

Let me get this straight.

We’re going to pass a health care plan written by a committee whose head says he doesn’t understand it, passed by a Congress that hasn’t read it but exempts themselves from it, signed by a president that also hasn’t read it, and who smokes, with funding administered by a treasury chief who didn’t pay his taxes, overseen by a surgeon general who is obese, and financed by a country that’s broke.

What possibly could go wrong?

Perrysburg native Doug Brinkley claims Obama creates a climate of "no fear"

Who is he kidding? Obama's destroyed banks, auto and now health care in this country. They go after people who simply disagree with them. And he's created a "no fear" climate? Ha!

"Obama has created an atmosphere of no fear," Douglas Brinkley, a history professor at Rice University and political biographer, told the National Journal. "Nobody is really worried about the revenge of Barack Obama, because he is not a vengeful man. That's what we love about him; he is so high-minded, and a conciliatory guy, and he tries to govern with a sense of consensus – all noble goals, but they don't get you very far in this Washington knifing environment."

Detroit imam shot

Detroit is a hotbed for terrorists:LINK ONLY

1 fry short of a happy meal

Yeah, well, somebody needs to run against this loon: LINK ONLY

A stirring story

Over at National Review. God bless 'em, while we can say that publicly:

In 1994, the Fairview High School Christmas concert was going to close with the students processing out of the auditorium singing ‘Silent Night.’ Huge controversy, with multiple cries against ‘religion in the public schools.’ The school district’s attorneys said no. Since it was too late for the music teacher to arrange for something else, the students began to recess in silence. The audience was having none of it, and started singing ‘Silent Night’ themselves. That story still gives me goose-bumps.”

They're getting single payer health care

Cash for clunkers cost $24000 per car

Ugh. And health care is next. LINK ONLY

Maxine Waters demands NFL reimburse her husband for injuries

Ok, so Maxine Waters' husband played pro ball for 6 years in the 60s. Now they're finding out that those NFL players who were hit repeatedly (and who isn't) have higher likelihood of developing diseases like dementia and other cognitive diseases. So apparently no one knew when they signed those multi million dollar contracts that they might be injured. So Maxine wants her husband to be remunerated now...no mention if he has any diseases. This is what Congress has devolved to...self-interests and bullying on the part of Congress to get stuff that benefits themselves.

She said the NFL needs to recognize that injuries will always result from professional football, no matter the rules or the equipment.

"The question is, what are you going to do? Are you going to pay for it? Are you going to pay the injured players and their families for the injuries that they have received helping you to be a multibillion operation?" she asked. "I know that you do everything you can to hold onto those profits. And I think the responsibility of this Congress to take a look at the antitrust exemption that you have, and in my estimation, take it away."

Narcissism

We all know who is:

Last week's coordinated Obama attack on Fox News made no PR sense. Fox increased its viewership by 10%. Obama lost points in the polls; you can give the American people only so many demonstrations of the Chicago Way before they figure out you aren't the Great Healer after all.

Obama is far and away the biggest and most naïve narcissist in living memory to occupy the White House. He hasn't been smoothed and polished by years of deal-making in the Senate like LBJ. The outrage looks like it was just an uncontrollable expression of who Obama and his crew are. If we get more of this, Obama's carefully buffed sheen will be permanently damaged for the saner 70% of the population. The other 30% will always fall for him anyway.

Stealing from our children

Read it at Big Hollywood:

Now, with no more to steal from our parents or our children, many of us are demanding that we receive deeply discounted health-care services. It’s something, we argue that we’re entitled to (for no other reason than that we’ve graced the world with our presence. )

The problem is that, forcing insurance companies to write bad policies – to take in in premiums far less than what they’ll have to dole out for the aging Boomers’ growing medical conditions – is untenable. In fact, it is exactly the same formula these same Leftists used to force banks to make bad loans because they felt that everyone of their generation was “entitled” to own a house.

But the Boomers have a plan!

Hawaii teachers cut work hours

Rather than cut their pay, they cut their pay and their hours: LINK ONLY

Is America fading?

I don't know about you, but all this diminishment of our dear country has really weighed on my heart and mind. I loved this article by Charles Krauthammer, who is such a dear and wise man. It's long but worth reading:

Krauthammer: The Chinese are rising, the Indians have a very long way to go. But I'm old enough to remember the late 1980s, "The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers" by Paul Kennedy and the prevailing view that America was in decline and Japan was the rising power. The fashion now is that the Chinese will overtake the United States. As with the great Japan panic, there are all kinds of reasons why that will not happen.

Look, eventually American hegemony will fade. In time, yes. But now? Economically we now have serious problems, creating huge amounts of debt that we cannot afford and that could bring down the dollar and even cause hyperinflation. But nothing is inevitable. If we make the right choices, if we keep our economic house in order, we can avert an economic collapse. We can choose to decline or to stay strong.

Whose war is it?

James Taranto has an opinion, with his customary biting commentary:

Hang on a second. It has now been 51 weeks since Obama was elected president, and more than nine months since he took office, and he's just now getting around to asking the "questions . . . that have never been asked"?

But that's not really fair to Obama. After all, he has a busy schedule, what with golf games and pitching the International Olympic Committee and date nights and Democratic fund-raisers and health care and the U.N. Security Council and Sunday morning talk shows and saving the planet from global warming and celebrating the dog's birthday and defending himself against Fox News and all.

Cap and trade HUGE costs

Read Jim Hoft's latest column here:

Democrats know their cap and trade energy legislation will cripple the US economy. Barack Obama admitted this on the campaign trail in 2008 saying the program "would cause energy prices to skyrocket." Obama also promised an audience of supporters that cap and trade wouldbankrupt the coal industry. White House Budget Director Peter Orszag told George Stephanopoulos in a March 2009 interview that Obama's proposed cap and trade energy legislation would increase energy costs for everyone. Democratic Congressman John Dingell (D-MI) summed up cap and trade at a Congressional hearing on April 24th saying, "It's a Great Big Tax."

Cap and trade policies will likely cost Americans $700 to $1,400 dollars per family per year. The Department of Energy estimated GDP losses would be between $444 billion and $1.308 trillion over the 21-year period. Cap and trade also could cost the US 4 million jobs.

Democrats dumping the poor?

Read it here:

As recent work from the Center on the Budget and Policy Priorites has shown, the bill that the Senate Finance Committee approved actually offers substantially less protection for people making less than twice the poverty line. If the bill were to pass, the result could be significant financial hardship for people least equipped to deal with it:

The greatest concern relates to people with incomes below 200 percent of the poverty line (below $36,620 for a family of three in 2009). The amounts that families between 133 percent of the poverty line (where Medicaid eligibility generally would end) and 200 percent of poverty would have to pay for insurance purchased through the health insurance exchanges would be as much as two to four times higher as under the Senate HELP Committee or House bills and would constitute a substantial burden for many of these households.

Congress makes more than the insurance companies

Yeah, that would be THOSE insurance companies that Congress keeps insulting as evil and immoral in their greediness. Read about it at Gateway Pundit:

Figures… Congressional Raises Topped Insurance Company Profits Last Year

Sunday, October 25, 2009, 11:05 AM

Jim Hoft

Democrats are quick to accuse the evil health insurance industry of massive profits. …But insurance companies ranked only 35th on the list of most profitable American industries in 2009.
In fact, the members of Congress enjoyed a better raise than the insurance companies this year.

Objective reporter advises The One

It's pretty sickening. Therefore, only a small excerpt. Follow the link to swallow the rest:

Have courage: Even if it hurts

The theme of your campaign was summed up by the title of one of your books, "The Audacity of Hope." You've given us hope, Mr. President. Now show us the audacity.

Liberal city of Detroit rots

$500 for a piece of land. And no one will buy it at that. LINK ONLY

Obama WAS informed about Afghanistan

He was given all the information that he needed and then reproduced it as his own. Read it at PowerLine:

The Chicago mob's behavior is unbelievably unseemly. Here they were given an immense amount of material, a complete strategic review and plan with the author's heading left blank. President Bush felt it was his duty to do so. And all Obama can do is smear president Bush, even after he filled his own name into the author's column.

Obama seems not to understand that it is not President Bush who is suffering here. Rather, it is our under-resourced soldiers in Afghanistan who are suffering. Obama has had his hands on this plan for a full year now, and he's done virtually nothing except play politics. He needs to give our soldiers the resources to succeed, and then help create the political atmosphere so that they have time to succeed. It seems he has the intestinal fortitude to do neither. Weak, weak, weak.

It feels good to be a victim

New surrender monkey on the block

Read it over at the Telegraph:

President Pantywaist is hopping mad and he has a strategy to cut Kim down to size: he is going to slice $1.4bn off America’s missile defence programme, presumably on the calculation that Kim would feel it unsporting to hit a sitting duck, so that will spoil his fun.

Watch out, France and Co, there is a new surrender monkey on the block and, over the next four years, he will spectacularly sell out the interests of the West with every kind of liberal-delusionist initiative on nuclear disarmament and sitting down to negotiate with any power freak who wants to buy time to get a good ICBM fix on San Francisco, or wherever. If you thought the world was a tad unsafe with Dubya around, just wait until President Pantywaist gets into his stride.

Fake website alert!

A fake website is set up to trick people into falling for their satirical stories. Be careful not to believe anything on it. It is called Jumping in Pools. Read about it on Gateway Pundit:

Jumping in Pools Blog is a website that specializes in writing realistic but fakestories, publishing them and then watching who will link to their bogus news story. The blog does not identify itself as a satire site and several of their satire pieces are so close to fact that it is hard to tell the difference. Don’t be fooled. Several conservatives have fallen for their pranks and Reuters even published one of their posts at least once. This is a dangerous website.

The Magic of Michelle

The New York Times, naturally, fawns over Michelle and then asks for forgiveness. No, I don't think I can forgive you.

Obama to announce extra terrestrials are here

I know, I know. Just reporting the, uh-hum, news: LINK ONLY”

Closing in

Politico reports Reid is closing in:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid closed in on clinching 60 votes for a public health insurance option Friday as two key moderates signaled they wouldn’t stand in his way – clearing a path for Reid to finish work on a bill as early as Tuesday, Democratic officials said.

Who will step up to defeat Marcy?

Michelle Bachman stepped up in Minnesota: LINK ONLY

Republicans do what they're told but Democrats think for themselves

Because The One is president of both Republicans and Democrats, he sees himself as the great uniter. Oh, wait....

I think of Obama’s knocking of Bush on foreign soil — and to a group of students! (That was in Turkey.) I think of his laughing at a death-to-Rush joke. I think of this latest jibe against Republicans, delivered at his New York fundraiser. And I think of the famous putdown by JFK of Richard Nixon, a putdown so cherished by Democrats: “No class.”

The Great Uniter

Read it at Real Clear Politics:

In the first nine months in office President Obama and/or members of his administration have accused doctors of performing unnecessary medical procedures for profit; demonized bond holders as "speculators;" produced a report suggesting military veterans are prone to becoming right wing extremists; attacked insurance companies and threatened them with legislative retribution; ridiculed talk show hosts and political commentators by name from the White House podium; dismissed and demeaned protesters and town hall attendees as either unauthentic or fringe characters; maligned a white police officer for arresting a black man without knowing the facts of the case; launched an orchestrated campaign to marginalize the country's biggest pro-business group; and publicly declared war on a news organization.

Twice in the last week, perhaps carried away by the campaign atmosphere, President Obama ramped up the use of the kind of partisan rhetoric that will drive Americans further apart; oncein San Francisco at a DNC fundraiser and once last night at a rally for Jon Corzine.

Fraud exposed in 1st time home buyer program!

More free money! More fraud exposed!

It seems, according to this inspector general, that tens of thousands of people have received $8,000 checks from the government for purchasing a new home that were not eligible to receive such checks. We aren't talking about some little technical detail in the paperwork where they didn't dot all the I's or cross the T's. No we are talking about checks being cut for children as young as 4, illegal aliens, and at least 53 IRS employees, whose job it was to oversee the program to start with.

Krauthammer on the war on Fox News

Read it at Investors. LINK ONLY

Glenn Beck goes to Harlem

Read it here. Watch for the interview next week:

But it was funny because I went with Charles Payne to his old neighborhood when he grew up and it's for a piece that I'm going to do here in the next couple of weeks. And so we were walking down the street and we were just talking and the cameras were there and everything else, and we stopped on a street corner and I started talking Charles was talking to me and this crowd started to form. And one woman was speaking very loudly. I'm sure you'll be able to hear her during the interview. She was speaking very loudly and she was like, yes, sir, that is Glenn Beck. And somebody else was like, that can't be him. Yes, it is. I see him all the time. That's Glenn Beck. What is he doing in our neighborhood?

Waiting in line in Milwaukee for a flu shot

Of course, this is just the beginning.

You're makin' me MAD!

Safe schools czar promotes disrespect and porn

I know it when I see it. Read about it at Gateway Pundit:

Obama’s Safe Schools Czar Kevin Jennings funded a pornographic anti-Christian art show now on display at Harvard University.

Mass Resistance reported:

If you want to know what Americans can expect in public schools, look no further.

Kevin Jennings is Barack Obama’s “safe schools” czar in the US Department of Education. He’s also the founder of the national homosexual group GLSEN, which sets up “gay straight alliance” clubs in high schools and middle schools across America. GLSEN is officially supported by the Massachusetts Legislature.

Jennings is also a former member of the radical homosexual group “Act Up”, and he contributed to this depraved and offensive museum exhibit on “Act Up” now at Harvard University (see press release) .

And now for a laugh

because we all need one

UAW goes after Ford

Because they aren't run by the government. Read the article HERE:

Ford, as you'll recall, refused any bailout money. And now they must be punishedfor insisting on their independence.

Customarily, when the UAW opens contract negotiations, they pick their targets carefully. They figure which of the big three will give them the best deal and go after them, then use that agreement as leverage with the next two.

Not this time. Since they are on both sides of the negotiating table with GM and Chrysler (both directly and through their buddies in the Obama administration), they don't have to worry much about those deals. But Ford, on the other hand... they must be held to a far higher standard. They must make greater concessions to keep the peace with their workforce.

Whence the housing bust

Who caused it? Peter Schweizer's new book has the story:

The study discovered that the most significant determinant of the rate of foreclosure was the "immigrant share of the population" and the "native-born Hispanic homeownership rate." An analysis by the New York Times (one of the few media outlets who have picked up this story) echoed those findings. The paper discovered that in areas where default rates are at least double the national average, 85% of the neighborhoods are majority black and Latino. Minority mortgage holders had a foreclosure rate three and a half times higher than the national average.

This reality gives us evidence to find out who got us into this mess in the first place: housing activities and government officials who pushed for and got an aggressive affirmative-action lending program for home mortgages.

The idea sounds appealing enough: encourage homeownership in order to reduce crime, unemployment, and broken families. But activities pushed their agenda by demanding that lending institutions loosen their lending standards and look the other way when lending to people with bad credit. Activist groups such as ACORN, the Congressional Black Caucus, and the Service Employees International Union pushed banks to use "less traditional income sources such as food stamps, unemployment, part-time jobs, non-court ordered child support and foster care payments" while considering a mortgage application.

Stage hands make hundreds of thousands of $

Unbelievable.

Oct. 20 (Bloomberg) -- After you practice for years and get to Carnegie Hall, it’s almost better to move music stands than actually play the piano.

Depending on wattage, a star pianist can receive $20,000 a night at the 118-year-old hall, meaning he or she would have to perform at least 27 times to match the income of Dennis O’Connell, who oversees props at the New York concert hall.

O’Connell made $530,044 in salary and benefits during the fiscal year that ended in June 2008. The four other members of the full-time stage crew -- two carpenters and two electricians -- had an average income of $430,543 during the same period, according to Carnegie Hall’s tax return.

WaPo skews poll to get desired results

As usual, they have to skew the numbers to get the figures they want. So transparent:

The sampling comprises 33% Democrats, as opposed to only 20% Republicans. That thirteen-point spread is two points larger than their September polling, at 32%/21%. More tellingly, it’s significantly larger than their Election Day sample, which included 35% Democrats to 26% Republicans for a gap of nine points, about a third smaller than the gap in this poll. Of course, that’s when they were more concerned about accuracy over political points of view.

Jennifer Granholm's Michigan

Michigan--the tragedy...read about it at the WSJ:

Meanwhile, the new business taxes didn't balance the budget. Instead, thanks to business closures and relocations, tax receipts are running nearly $1 billion below projections and the deficit has climbed back to $2.8 billion. As the Detroit News put it, Michigan businesses are continually asked "to pay more in taxes to erase a budget deficit that, despite their contributions, never goes away." And this is despite the flood of federal stimulus and auto bailout cash over the last year.

There is no such thing as the free market

Ron Bloom, Obama appointee and Mao admirer:

Medical personnel in England "leapfrog" lists

Because, of course, THEY don't want to have to wait like everybody else.

HE National Health Service has spent £1.5m paying for hundreds of its staff to have private health treatment so they can leapfrog their own waiting lists.

More than 3,000 staff, including doctors and nurses, have gone private at the taxpayers’ expense in the past three years because the queues at the clinics and hospitals where they work are too long.

Group linked to White House makes up news

about the Chamber of Congress's stand on the Cap and Tax legislation and posts it as real. Then the WH accuses Fox of making up news. And, of course, Rush was convicted on made up news. But Fox is the one who makes up news. Read it at Jammie Wearing Fool:

Hmm, in a curious coincidence, the White House has recently added the Chamber of Commerce to the ever-growing enemies list. I wonder if those who accuse others of peddling fake news have anything to do with fake press releases?

Update: Politico says some group called AVAAZ.org was behind it.

Ever ask yourself

What iparticipate.com is? or createthegood.com? or that creepy city year.org? or Americorps? It's all part of the plan, Stan...all part of The One's vision for the future, which may even include MANDATORY volunteer service...

Congress exempts itself from govt health care

Well, at least, the kind WE'RE all going to be on...not their gold plated, doctors on call 24/7 health care. Read it at Townhall, h/t Gateway Pundit:

Personal doctors on call 24/7. Coverage that knows no caps. No exemptions for pre-existing conditions.

Those are the sorts of benefits members of Congress currently enjoy on the taxpayer’s dime, and the kinds of benefits Americans on a government-run public health care plan will never see if Obamacare passes.

“One thing is certain: Congress will exempt itself from whatever lousy health care system it forces on us little people,” said Michael Cannon, director of health policy studies at the Cato Institute. “Congress will get better insurance than you do because politicians always get a better deal under government-run health care.”

How to undermine your "unity credibility"

The One urges news organizations to shun Fox

I guess nobody's supposed to be asking question. I guess the job of Pravda, er, the news media is to promote the administration's agenda:

The White House stopped providing guests to "Fox News Sunday" after host Chris Wallace fact-checked controversial assertions made by Tammy Duckworth, assistant secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs, in August.

Dunn said fact-checking an administration official was "something I've never seen a Sunday show do."

"She criticized 'Fox News Sunday' last week for fact-checking -- fact-checking -- an administration official," Wallace said Sunday. "They didn't say that our fact-checking was wrong. They just said that we had dared to fact-check."

More on ceding sovereignty

Read it here:

The theme of the December 7 - 18 conference is "Hope," so perhaps Mr. Obama will have more luck this time. Instead of soliciting the International Olympic Committee with triteclichés and no payoffs, he will be doing something much easier: selling out our country. After all, ceding power, relinquishing billions in U.S. tax dollars and destroying U.S. economic competitiveness is a pretty easy sell to the countries that will benefit, and he has had a lot of practice doing the same thing here at home. He will have a hard time screwing this one up.

The Hope site optimistically pronounces: