Showing posts with label Economy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Economy. Show all posts

Monday, October 17, 2011

The European Debt Crisis In Comic Book Form -- So Even Democrats Can Understand

It looks like the European bankers' can-kicking just ran out of road. The yield on a one-year bond from the country of Greece hit a new record high earlier today.

A yield of 172% means that bonds issued by Greece are worth just a few pennies more than the paper they're printed on. Put another way, Greece is dead bang certain to default on its debt.

European banks loaned Greece hundreds of billions of Euros -- the reasons don't matter at this point -- and were issued bonds in exchange for the money. The money's gone, spent on heaven knows what. And Greece is bankrupt, trying to make ends meet by laying off its bloated public sector union bureaucracy. That's why riots are occurring there on a near-daily basis.

Germany is considered the bulwark of the European banking system. But even Germany's most august financial institutions are up to their eyeballs in bad debt. For instance, Deutsche Bank alone has Є3.6 billion of debt issued by Greece (PDF).

Greece owes its creditors an amount equal to 162 percent of its entire gross domestic product (GDP, or the annual output of its economy). Without repealing the laws of mathematics (or Paul Krugman's alien invasion force dropping gold bars on Athens), there is no possible way this debt can be paid off.

The reason for the crisis boils down to this: the banks know they are going to take a horrific beating on their crappy investments (like debt issued by Greece). And they are doing everything possible to avoid recognizing those write-downs, because they do not have the requisite capital to continue operating normally if they do. Deutsche Bank's CEO, for example, is reported to be fighting even a 50% "haircut" (loss) on the Greek debt. But knowledgeable analysts say that a 50% markdown won't be nearly enough.

Worse still, there is the real possibility of "contagion". German banks aren't the worst offenders when it comes to exposure to Greece. French banks are in terrible shape, despite today's protestations by the governor of the Bank of France that "all is well". French institutions have suffered a series of downgrades over the past several months as their vulnerabilities became more evident. That is, to everyone except the governor of the Bank of France.

Oh, but I haven't even gotten to the worst part. Greece is only the beginning of Europe's debt insanity:

European banks have total exposure of $998.7 billion to Italy, $774 billion to Spain and $532 billion to Ireland versus just $162.4 billion to Greece.

Talk of a rescue package for Greece -- which hasn't yet been finalized because no one wants to pony up -- doesn't even contemplate much larger defaults like those of Spain and Italy. Yields on Italian 10-year bonds are now nearing the deadly 6 percent mark, which signal weakening confidence in that country's ability to make good on its debts.

Riots are underway in Italy this week to protest the government's handling of the financial crisis.

This is only the beginning of the shakeout. The worst has yet to unfold.

* * * * * * * * *

The European socialist welfare states are collapsing before our eyes. What we are seeing in Europe is a preview of the Obama-Democrat agenda writ large. Socialism can't work, won't work, and has never worked in all of human history.

2012 may very well be our last chance to save this precious Republic.

You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children's children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done. --Ronald Reagan


Sunday, October 16, 2011

Seafood dinner in the age of Obama



Hat tip: Bernie

Mark Levin: What kind of political party is it that employs a strategy built upon such truly sick lies?

President Barack Obama:

I ran for President for the same reason many people came to this country in the first place: Because I believe America should be a place where you can always make it if you try; a place where every child, no matter what they look like, where they come from, should have a chance to succeed... I still believe in that America. . . . That's why I put forward the American Jobs Act. . . . But apparently, none of this matters to Republicans in the Senate.

In other words, Republicans don't want minorities or children to succeed!

Vice President Joe Biden:

In 2008, when Flint had 265 sworn officers on their police force, there were 35 murders and 91 rapes in this city. In 2010, when Flint had only 144 police officers, the murder rate climbed to 65 and rapes–just to pick two categories–climbed to 229. In 2011, you now only have 125 shields. God only knows what the numbers will be this year for Flint if we don’t rectify it.

In other words, Republicans want more murders and rapes!

Former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi:

Under this bill, when the Republicans vote for this bill today, they will be voting to say that women can die on the floor, and health care providers do not have to intervene if this bill is passed. It’s just appalling. I can’t even describe to you the logic of what it is that they are doing.

Mark Levin observes:

As a matter of fact, law -- let along medical ethics -- does not permit a woman to "die on the floor" under any of these circumstances.

Did you know that? Nancy Pelosi knows that.

You've heard the President talking to a Latino group, saying -- basically -- Republicans don't want minorities to experience the American dream.

You've heard the Vice President say that Republicans prefer more rapes and murders.

Now you have Nancy Pelosi saying about Republicans, who are merely trying to enforce what Obama had agreed to (Ed: see "President Obama agrees to sign anti-choice executive order") and what had been policy in this country for three decades or so.

That by raising this and trying to enforce this, that is, no federal dollars for abortions, that Republicans want women to die on the floor and health care providers not have to intervene.

What kind of political party is it that has to build a strategy built upon such truly sick lies?

It is a political party without a soul. It is a political party that is so bereft of ideas and substance, so out of touch with the American people, that it has to resort to this.

This is why there will be a wave election. A landslide of sorts, certainly when it comes to the Congress, I believe. Because the American people are not going to fall for this crap any more.

Even in some families there are Democrats and Republicans. If you're a Democrat and you have a family member who's a Republican, do you believe they support women 'dying on the floor'? And a law preventing medical assistance from treating her?

What kind of a sick mind comes up with examples like this?

Perhaps it's one whose son -- Pelosi's boy -- benefited from his mother's connections to Countrywide, where his name was on the list to be laid off. Suddenly his name's off the list, and he's safe. Could it be that kind of mind?

Perhaps it's a mind that demands a particularly large military aircraft to fly her, her family, and friends back and forth to Washington, while you and I also pay for their booze and their food while she and her husband are worth $60 to $80 million. Could it be that kind of mind?

Or perhaps it's a mind that claims to stand up for unions, when her own winery and restaurants are non-union. That kind of mind?

Yeah, I think so.



Great News: Jamie 'Mistress of Disaster' Gorelick joins Defense Policy Board

What could possibly go wrong?

Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and retired Marine Corps Gen. James Cartwright are among five new members of the Defense Policy Board, a panel advising top Pentagon officials on matters of defense policy.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta also named Jamie Gorelick, former deputy attorney general and member of the 9/11 Commission, former U.S. congresswoman Jane Harman and retired Adm. Gary Roughead, former chief of naval operations.

After all, what's a couple of trillion-dollar disasters between friends?


Unfortunately all-too-real photos: #OWS protesters defecate on, stomp on American flag [Updated]

Among the formal supporters of the "Occupy Wall Street" movement are the Democrat Congressional Committee, Communist Party USA, the American Nazi Party, George Soros, ACORN, the SEIU, and the Obama White House.

And this is "the movement" in action *:

Yes, this is an OWS supporter defecating on the American flag. *

Lest you think this is an aberration, please consider this:

And then there's this:

OWS is fully supported by the Democrat Party, which has been completely and utterly subsumed by the radical left.

Remember in 2012.


* Update and correction: The first photo appears to have been taken in 2007 during an anti-war march in Portland.

Update II: Obama-Endorsed Group Sings “F*** the USA”

Hat tip: JTT.

Saturday, October 15, 2011

A.P. Coins New Slogan for Illinois

I can't wait for the new license plates:

Drowning in deficits, Illinois has turned to a deliberate policy of not paying billions of dollars in bills for months at a time, creating a cycle of hardship and sacrifice for residents and businesses helping the state carry out some of the most important government tasks.

Once intended as a stop-gap, the months-long delay in paying bills has now become a regular part of the state’s budget management, forcing businesses and charity groups to borrow money, cut jobs and services and take on personal debt. Getting paid can be such a confusing process that it requires begging the state for money and sometimes has more to do with knowing the right people than being next in line.

Isn't Democrat governance fun?

As of early last month, the state owed on 166,000 unpaid bills worth a breathtaking $5 billion, with nearly half of that amount more than a month overdue and hundreds of bills dating back to 2010... The true backlog is even higher because some bills have not yet been approved for payment and officially added to the tally. This includes the Illinois health care agency, which says it is sitting on about $1.9 billion in bills from Medicaid providers because there’s no money to pay it.

But at least Democrats are looking out for the little guy, right?

...Year after year, Illinois builds its budget on the assumption that it will pay its bills months late — essentially borrowing money from businesses and nonprofits that have little choice but to suffer the financial hardship.

The unpaid bills range from a few pennies to nearly $25 million. In early September, for example, Illinois owed $55,000 to a small-town farm supply business for gasoline, $1,000 to a charity that provides used clothing to the poor and $810,000 to a child-nutrition program... Funeral homes were waiting for $2.8 million in overdue reimbursement for burying indigent people.

Leigh Ann Stephens wrote a letter in August “asking, pleading” for $50,000 the state owed to the DuPage Center for Independent Living, where she is executive director... Like their clients, most of the employees are disabled, coping with blindness, loss of hearing, cerebral palsy and more.

...It also reflects resignation from some vendors who no longer expect the corruption-plagued Illinois government to function properly... Illinois leaders join in bemoaning the crisis but haven’t been able to find a solution.

Gee, it's so difficult. All of that Democrat brainpower in Springfield and they can't come up with the following list that would balance the budget in 30 days:

• Slash the state government's administrative costs by 50%

• Ban collective bargaining by state and local employees

• Reform all existing pension programs to comply with accepted accounting and audit principles

• Prosecute every corrupt politician in the state and work to see them sentenced to the maximum possible penalties

...Blagojevich’s replacement, Democrat Pat Quinn, raised income taxes and trimmed spending, but that money was gobbled up by other needs, primarily rising pension costs. Under budget agreements with legislative leaders, all Democrats, bills continued to go unpaid.

As recently as June 2008, Illinois paid its bills seven days after state agencies finished the paperwork. A year later the delay had reached 99 days. It stood at 118 days in June of this year, the comptroller’s office said.

Hold up... I've got an idea: maybe Illinois could borrow more money to cover these unpaid bills?

Oh. You say Democrats are already trying to do that?

Never mind. People of Illinois: please continue to elect corrupt Democrats, the same toadies of the unions, the Marxist left and the illegal immigration lobby. We'll gladly accept the successful people and businesses that have given up on Illinois and its Statist agenda.


Friday, October 14, 2011

Liberate Wall Street: Infiltrate and Humiliate!

Red Square:

In the glorious spirit of erstwhile Protest Warriors and Communists for Kerry, disorganized multitudes of pro-capitalist miscreants and saboteurs are getting organized again! Meet Liberate Wall Street - a loose coalition of the willing to mock, satirize, and expose the leftist absurdities of the Wall Street Occupussies.

The Occupussies demand free lunch in exchange for a total Big Government takeover of their lives. That would have been funny if that didn't involve the takeover of everyone else's lives as well - including yours and mine. They are too misguided and too misinformed to realize that "A government big enough to give you everything you need, is a government big enough to take away everything that you have." Their favorite politicians, celebrities, teachers, and mass media are on their side and that doesn't help.

So let's help them to start thinking. OK, the thinking part may not happen right away, but we could plant sound seeds that may later sprout in their polluted brains. And if that fails, at least we'll kick some hot air out of their enormously inflated egos and have fun in the process.

Join the Facebook page, crash the Occupussies in your local areas, take pictures of your actions, make videos, and post them below on this thread...

...With this in mind, General Secretary and I have prepared a number of simple black-and-white PDF signs that you can download (below) and print in any size at home or at your local print shop. You may as well think of your own signs, or reproduce ours with markers on a poster board. We can always add more later.

Right-click on the individual links to download, or get them all at once in a ZIP folder.

Will Chaos in America Be Obama's October Surprise? [Dan from New York]

Dan from New York:

Watch the trajectory of “Occupy (name goes here)” protests carefully. It may tell us a lot about what the atmosphere in the country might be during the election campaign next year. I for one don’t think Obama will let a little thing like the polls stand in his way.

Oh, while we’re on the subject, Mayor Bloomberg has decided to handle these proles with kid gloves. Wouldn’t want to ruffle their feathers, would he? They might get angry and go on a tear. What’s more, while the lumpen marched uptown to picket the homes of some of NYC’s wealthiest residents earlier this week, they passed over hizzoner’s townhouse and George Soros’s pad... Meanwhile, over at the Washington Post two of their worthies, Krauthammer and Gerson, have weighed in.

Krauthammer: “Obama is too intelligent not to know what he started. But so long as it gives him a shot at reelection, he shows no sign of caring.”

Gerson: “We are being asked to reelect a political figure who no longer exists.”

That's a powerful, powerful line.

"We are being asked to reelect a political figure who no longer exists."


Business Week Spotlights President SCOAMF

I can't tell whether this is a parody cover or not:

Okay, yes, I know it's a parody (courtesy of John E., via Jammie). The story precipitating the cover is truly shocking. Namely, the White House is already shredding the major 'features' of Obamacare that were used to game the CBO's assessment of its budget impact.

What's a guy to do when he's mired at a 38% approval rating? Why, abandon his signature achievement, of course.

The Obama administration says it is unable to go forward with a major program in the president's signature health care overhaul law — a new long-term care insurance plan.

Officials said Friday the long-term care program has critical design flaws that can't be fixed to make it financially self-sustaining.


Gee, maybe they should have read the bill before they passed it.

But a central design flaw dogged CLASS from the beginning. Unless large numbers of healthy people willingly sign up during their working years, soaring premiums driven by the needs of disabled beneficiaries would


...They knew it was a lie. Their actuaries told them so. The math was clear. They didn't care. If CLASS goosed the numbers for the broader bill -- thus helping secure the historic power grab they'd been salivating over forever -- these Statists were thrilled to adopt an "ends justifies the means" mentality. And that, my friends, is how the White House and Democrats manipulated the CBO score, lied their asses off to the American public, and passed their unaffordable, unwanted healthcare monstrosity under deliberately false pretenses. This. Crew. Must. Go.

Which reminds me of the bumper-sticker I just made.

Off topic: I really need a business manager to help me start selling some of this swag -- like my exclusive Fast & Furious t-shirt.


The Dumbest Sign From #OccupyWallStreet

Correspondent Amalaur sends us some photos from Manhattan's collection of kooks, anti-semites, 9/11 truthers, druggies, escapees from the loony bin, and parole violators. You may know them as "Occupy Wall Street".

Oh, there's also the bussed-in union hacks, who carry the professionally made signs like this one.

See, Republicans are apparently to blame for President Obama receiving more money from Wall Street than any other politician over the last 20 years. And shredding the economy over the last two years with his Democrat Congress.

But that's not the dumbest sign at #OWS. It's this one:

Yes, this really reads "STOP BUYING THINGS (ask me how)".

So unless this moonbat stole the cardboard and magic marker he used to make the sign, like, he's part of the system, dude! And even if he, like, ripped off the cardboard and the pen, he couldn't have even made the sign without the system, yo!

That sound you heard was me sighing. You know, if they weren't in power, these lunatic progressives would be useful only as comic relief. Or door stops.


Attention Moonbats: Please read The Progressive and the Pencil. It has pictures to keep your attention.

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Oh, Super: Romney Consulted With Obama Mass Sterilization Expert and Science Czar John Holdren

The ever-morphing policy positions of Mitt Romney are sufficiently disturbing on their own.

But if it's true that Romney consulted with Obama's crazed 'Science Czar' John Holdren, he should step out of the GOP race today.

Barack Hussein Obama has clotted the executive branch with unaccountable “czars” — unsavory characters too extreme to be confirmed for cabinet positions even by a hyper-partisan, Democrat-controlled Senate. Among the most alarming of these malevolent lunatics is Science Czar John Holdren, a participant in ClimateGate who has advocated de-developing America and putting sterilants in the public water supply...

...Holdren has also spoken in favor of forced abortions, confiscation of babies, targeted as well as mass involuntary sterilization, bureaucratic regulation of family size, and global authoritarian government. If there is a line between ultra-left ideologue and evil maniac, Holdren clearly crosses it. No one to the right of Pol Pot would want John Holdren advising our leaders.

This brings us onto still more common ground between Barack Obama and Willard “Mitt” Romney. From an official memo released by Willard’s office when he was Governor of Taxachusetts, announcing “Strict New Clean Air Regulations“ [i.e., Cap and Trade]...

...Sound familiar? Obama wanted to impose Cap & Trade nationwide, but it would so obviously cripple the economy that he couldn’t get it through a Democrat Senate that was radical enough to pass ObamaCare — the national version of RomneyCare.

Now to the even scarier part: In the development of greenhouse gas policy, Romney Administration officials have elicited input from environmental and economic policy experts. These include John Holden [sic], professor of environmental policy at Harvard University…

Of course, that was back in 2005. By now everyone knows that global warming is a hoax, and CO2 is harmless. Everyone except Mittens, that is. He continues to proclaim that economic activity makes it be too hot out.

This comes on the heels of reports that President Obama met with Romney's key advisers while designing Obamacare.

Newly obtained White House records provide fresh details on how senior Obama administration officials used Mitt Romney’s landmark health-care law in Massachusetts as a model for the new federal law, including recruiting some of Romney’s own health care advisers and experts to help craft the act now derided by Republicans as “Obamacare.”

Romney's shape-shifting positions are so flagrant that even Democrats are producing flip-flop videos of the sort that pulverized John Kerry in 2004.

Look, folks: I'll support Mitt Romney against Barack Obama if he's the nominee. But he's not the nominee. Herman Cain, Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich are all vastly superior candidates -- and vastly more electable in the general -- than Mitt Romney.

We don't need another John McCain or Bob Dole. We don't need another mushy centrist with ill-defined principles. Too much is at stake this year. While there may not be a Reagan in the race, there are Constitutional conservatives to choose from. And choose from them we must if this Republic is to survive.


Hat tip: TrendingRight.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

#NewTone: Occupy Wall Street Flea-baggers Now Issuing Public Death Threats

It's really quite helpful that President Obama, Vice President Biden and the entire Democrat Congressional Campaign Committee are solidly behind the collection of kooks, druggies, anti-semites, truthers, and union hacks that make up the point-nine-nine percenters.

Because now we know precisely where they stand: with punks like this.

If you had any doubt what we're up against with #OccupyWallStreet, this image, tweeted to me on Twitter (@snarky_basterd), should not only give you pause, it should send you to your local gun dealer to stock up.

This is a fight for freedom, my friends. It's a fight for your way of life, your property, your loved ones. If one of the "99 percent" thinks this way, you can bet your ass many more do.

Prepare yourself.

Linking themselves with the OWS miscreants will prove to be another strategic failure for the Axis of Axelrod.


Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Great news, New Yorkers: if you think Medicaid is 'breaking the bank' now, just wait 'til Obamacare kicks in!

Democrat drones hardest hit:

...New York’s Medicaid program has ballooned into America’s most expensive, and its runaway costs are pushing many localities to the brink of fiscal insolvency. Without question, we need real solutions to reform New York’s Medicaid program, reduce costs, increase efficiency and save taxpayer dollars.

...Medicaid is jointly funded through federal and state government, with the federal financing share constituting approximately 50 percent. In New York, state and local governments share in the program’s cost. The state share is approximately 35 percent; the local share amounts to roughly 15 percent. However, even though localities shoulder a significant portion of Medicaid’s hefty price tag, they have virtually no say in how the program is administered...

Since the program was launched, New York’s Medicaid costs have steadily risen to the highest in America. Medicaid spending in New York is now 69 percent more per beneficiary than the national average. This is why Medicaid was cited by the New York State Association of Counties as the largest of nine state unfunded mandates that consume 90 percent of county budgets and contributes to our having America’s second highest combined state-local tax burden. New York’s Medicaid expenditures have soared due to several factors including our state’s above average share of elderly and disabled residents, higher costs for healthcare practitioners and excessive compliance costs caused by state regulations.

Another reason for our state’s nation-leading Medicaid expenditures is New York’s generous income eligibility levels and extensive optional services, which other states do not provide. All of this contributes to the hefty Medicaid costs state government imposes on localities.

Just how out of control is New York’s Medicaid spending? New York spends more than Texas and Florida combined, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. The combined population of Texas and Florida is 43,948,871, while New York’s population is over 19 million, meaning we spend more than Texas and Florida together, even though we have nearly 24 million less residents!

Well, New York drones Democrats: your state's finances have only just begun to bleed, thanks to your politicians' reckless support of Obamacare.

According to a recent study by Ed Haislmaier of the Heritage Foundation, the rolls of beneficiaries and the costs of Medicaid continue to rise, bringing state budgets to the point of crisis. Thanks to Obamacare, this process has been accelerated.

Under Obamacare, Medicare and Medicaid can be expected to add 35-40 million enrollees in the next ten years, with cost projections amounting to a 35 percent increase of the current state burden of $190 billion. States will face massive cost-sharing increases...

State budgets are already at the breaking point. Thanks to Obamacare, we will soon see the structural collapse of Medicaid. Doctors, nurses and health care providers will disappear or simply stop treating Medicaid patients to survive.

And rationing of health care services will become a deadly reality.


Obama's 'Pass This Bill Now' Bill Fails to Get Democrat Support in the Senate; Ends Up in Recycle Bin

I blame the 'Occupy Wall Street' for distracting Senate Democrats with all of that public sex, defecation and drug-taking.

President Obama's $447 billion jobs bill failed to clear a procedural hurdle in the Democratic-controlled Senate Tuesday night despite a White House push that accelerated in the 11th hour.

The bill received a simply majority of 51 votes but fell short of the necessary 60 to end debate. Sens. Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Jon Tester of Montana were the only Democrats to vote against the bill. Both of them are facing tough re-election campaigns next year.

Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., had said earlier that although he intended to vote in favor of ending the Republican filibuster, he did not intend to support the bill if it reached a final vote.

Perhaps President Obama should have started his messaging with the exhortation "Pass this bill now, Democrats!"

Got that, Axelrod?


Sunday, October 09, 2011

Who you should thank for Bank of America's new $5 monthly debit card fee

I'm assuming you've heard about Bank of America's controversial decision to add a $5 monthly fee to each debit card account. Here's why they did it (hint -- thank the Dodd-Frank "financial reform" bill):

The new $5 monthly fee Bank of America is charging debit card holders wasn't just picked because the spreadsheet guys really like Subway $5 footlongs. There's actually a calculation behind it. Here's the math.

ConsumerAffairs.com explains how under the old rules, debit card fees usually amounted to an average of 44 cents per transaction. The new rules cap the fees at 24 cents per transaction. That's 20 cents per swipe they're not making.

Now, the average consumer has 25 debit card transactions per month. Multiply the 20 cents 25 times and you get $5 as the amount, on average, Bank of America stands to lose per debit card holder per month.

So there you have the business reason for the $5.

Gee, I'm stunned.

You mean central planning didn't work (again)?

Pity the Obama Democrats can't and won't ever learn this simple economic truth.


15 Photos from #OccupyWallStreet you'll never see in legacy media
















Hat tips: ReasonTV, ClaireDelune49, and Buzzfeed.

Photo: Chicago's working men and women express how they feel about the point-nine-nine percent

In Chicago, hard-working Americans are just mocking the "occupiers":

I call the "occupiers" the 0.99 percent: the Communists threatening violence against 'the rich', the anarchists, the Jew-haters, the union drones, and cop-bashers.

In other words, the Democrats' base.


Saturday, October 08, 2011

Obama spokesman Jay Carney calls CBS' Sharyl Attkisson a liar

CBS reporter Sharyl Attkisson's quest for the Pulitzer continued yesterday with new revelations concerning "Operation Fast and Furious", the disastrous ATF program that handed military-style murder weapons to Mexican drug cartels.

Attkisson reports that Eric Holder's Deputy A.G. received a "detailed Fast and Furious briefing".

Documents recently turned over by the Justice Department to Congressional investigators indicate that then-Deputy Attorney General Gary Grindler received a detailed briefing on Fast and Furious more than a year and a half ago.

...The briefing Grindler attended was on March 12, 2010, six months into ATF's Operation Fast and Furious, which allowed thousands of weapons on the street in an attempt to track down Mexican drug cartels. Portions of the documents are redacted.

Her dogged investigation has made Attkisson a target of the White House.

Ingraham: So they were literally screaming at you?

Attkisson: Yes. Well the DOJ woman was just yelling at me. The guy from the White House on Friday night literally screamed at me and cussed at me.

Ingraham: Who was the person? Who was the person at Justice screaming?

Attkisson: Eric Schultz. Oh, the person screaming was [DOJ spokeswoman] Tracy Schmaler, she was yelling not screaming. And the person who screamed at me was Eric Schultz at the White House...

...They will tell you that I’m the only reporter–as they told me–that is not reasonable... They say the Washington Post is reasonable, the LA Times is reasonable, the New York Times is reasonable, I’m the only one who thinks this is a story, and they think I’m unfair and biased by pursuing it.

Asked about the verbal attacks on the CBS reporter, White House spokesman Jay Carney said, basically, Attkisson was lying.

Again, I don't... I take issue with the report. I don't know that it's true. I know that you are tough enough to handle an extra decibel or two. I don't that's what happened here, but it's surprising to me.

But it was Carney, not Attkisson, who was also caught lying misstating the truth about the burgeoning "Energy-gate" story.

For weeks, the White House’s official line had been that there was no political or donor pressure to approve the [Solyndra] loan and a prominent 2008 Obama fundraiser named Steve Spinner—who advised the Energy Department—had recused himself from the Solyndra matter, in part because his wife’s law firm represented the company.

Even McCurry’s current successor at the podium, Obama press secretary Jay Carney repeated the line a few days ago.

“It’s my understanding, at least with regard to the gentleman you just mentioned [Steve Spinner], that he had no connection to overseeing the loan guarantee program,” Carney declared when asked by ABC about a Spinner connection.

Documents released yesterday show that Spinner squeezed the Energy Department to approve the loan, even invoking the office of the president and the vice president.

“How hard is this? What is he waiting for?” Spinner wrote in an Aug, 28, 2009 email to an Energy Department official. “I have the OVP (Office of the vice president) and WH (the White House) breathing down my neck on this. They are getting itchy to get involved.”

Later that same day, Spinner implored the officials to “walk over there and force him to give you the answer.”

For Jay Carney's next appearance in the White House press room, I suggest wiring him up to a polygraph with a shock collar.

That would make for some entertaining television.


Friday, October 07, 2011

Down With Evil Corporations! [Photo]

Via Power Line, this excellent photo is making the rounds on Facebook and other social networks.

Last night, Mark Levin used a caller as a foil to deconstruct this idiocy.

• Who's the biggest health insurer in the country?
• Who's the biggest bank in the country?
• Who's the biggest land-owner in the country?
• Who runs the biggest retirement plans in the country?
• And who alone has the force of law to force you to comply with their decisions?

That would be the federal government, an extra-constitutional monolith that controls every aspect of our lives, from shower-heads, to automobile bumper design, to thermostats, to building codes, to carbon dioxide emissions, to the size of toilet tanks, to health insurance plans, to...

Well, to everything.

Which is the problem. Remember the old Soviet Union? It tried to control everything. It tried to centrally plan the interactions of millions of individuals with five-year plans. With regulations, bureaucrats, agencies and offices.

And how'd that work out, drones?


Thursday, October 06, 2011

The Silence of the Lame-stream Media

Flashback:

Yesterday, CBS News investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson told radio show host Laura Ingraham that the White House yelled and swore at her over her reporting on the Fast and Furious gunrunning scandal tied to the deaths of two U.S. law enforcement agents. Attkisson also revealed that she'd also been yelled at by the Justice Department.

...Today, I called CBS News in an attempt to interview Attkisson. I was told by CBS News senior vice president of communications Sonya McNair that Attkisson would be unavailable for interviews all week. When I asked why Attkisson would be unavailable, McNair would not say.

With 200 Mexican nationals and two American law enforcement personnel already dead, Eric Holder's Operation Fast and Furious is ten times bigger than Watergate and Iran-Contra combined.

And the White House is actively attempting to suppress media coverage of the scandal.

Before she was muzzled, Atkkisson described their screaming jag as follows: "[The White House and Justice Department] will tell you that I'm the only reporter--as they told me--that is not reasonable. They say the Washington Post is reasonable, the LA Times is reasonable, the New York Times is reasonable, I'm the only one who thinks this is a story, and they think I'm unfair and biased by pursuing it."

For the slow learners in legacy media, let me see if I can summarize the events of the week:

• One of your family members, a fellow journalist, is being attacked by the federal government for reporting the news.

• A collection of anarchists, 9/11 Truthers, Jew-haters, Marxists and druggies have assembled on Wall Street and in other urban locations demanding a revolution (in truth, a counter-revolution) against capitalism and the American way of life.

• This assemblage of crackpots is supported by the Democrat Party's political organs including the Soros-funded MorOn.org, rich union bosses like Dick Trumka, and Ron Paul.

• In addition, mainstream Democrat politicians are openly supporting the totalitarian agenda of the Marxist left.

• Furthermore, discredited front groups like ACORN and, by implication, the President's political action wing (Organizing For America) are actively participating in the festivities.

Attention pro journalists: this isn't your Dad's Democrat Party any longer.

This is a totalitarian movement openly bent on the destruction of capitalism and the American system. And you -- ostensibly part of a "free press" -- are tacitly encouraging the destruction of our institutions, including your own livelihoods.

I'd encourage you to rethink your support of this administration... before it's too late.