Showing posts with label MSM. Show all posts
Showing posts with label MSM. Show all posts

Friday, December 02, 2011

The Weekly Standard's Droll New Parody Section

The bastion of big-government Republican, cocktail-circuit, anti-Tea Party "thought leadership" is a little-read magazine known as The Weakly Standard. Its wit is so incisive, so rapier-like, that it must warn readers ahead of time when it's deploying a devastatingly funny new "parody".

Oh, my.

Whew. Let me catch my breath.

And now you know why the WS is John Boehner's favorite periodical.

Now, if I were running the Parody section for Kristol, et. al., my version of the ad would look like this:

Attention, RINOs: we are trying to nominate a man or woman who can save this Republic. Get focused, schmucks.

Oh. And just one other question: was Bill Kristol's celebration of the "Arab Spring" earlier in 2011 supposed to be part of the nascent Parody Section?


Wednesday, November 30, 2011

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * * * * * * * *

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

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

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


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

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


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


Hat tip: Mark Levin.

Sunday, November 27, 2011

Escape from Washington [Biff Spackle]

By Biff Spackle:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


Mediate's Tommy Christopher Beclowns Himself, Chapter MCMXCVI

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

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

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

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

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

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


Saturday, November 26, 2011

Climategate 2.0 emails: Warming "Scientist" Michael Mann Eviscerated by the Late John L. Daly

The author of the infamous -- and now debunked -- "hockey stick" graph that purported to prove global warming is a climate "scientist" by the name of Michael Mann.

Mann's work depended in great part upon tree ring data. The relative width of tree rings, in Mann's estimation, could be used as proxy data for reconstructing past temperatures.

Newly revealed by the Climategate 2.0 email drop: the late John L. Daly eviscerated Mann's use of tree rings, in language as terse and powerful as one could imagine (emphases mine).

A tree only grows on land. That excludes 70% of the earth covered by water. A tree does no grow on ice. A tree does not grow in a desert. A tree does not grow on grassland-savannahs. A tree does not grow in alpine areas. A tree does not grow in the tundra. We are left with perhaps 15% of the planet upon which forests grow/grew. That does not make any studies from tree rings global, or even hemispheric.

The width and density of tree rings is dependent upon the following variables which cannot be reliably separated from each other. sunlight – if the sun varies, the ring will vary. But not at night of course.

• cloudiness – more clouds, less sun, less ring.

• pests/disease – a caterpillar or locust plague will reduce photosynthesis

• access to sunlight – competition within a forest can disadvantage or advantage some trees.

• moisture/rainfall – a key variable. Trees do not prosper in a droughteven if there’s a heat wave.

• snow packing in spring around the base of the trees retards growth temperature – finally!

The tree ring is a composite of all these variables, not merely of temperature. Therefore on the 15% of the planet covered by trees, their rings do not and cannot accurately record temperature in isolation from the other environmental variables.

...Mann’s theory simply does not stack up. But that was not the key issue. Anyone can put up a dud theory from time to time. What is at issue is the uncritical zeal with which the industry siezed on the theory before its scientific value had been properly tested. In one go, they tossed aside dozens of studies which confirmed the existence of the MWE and LIA as global events, and all on the basis of tree rings – a proxy which has all the deficiencies I have stated above.

The worst thing I can say about any paper such as his is that it is `bad science’. Legal restraint prevents me going further. But in his case, only those restraints prevent me going *much* further.

Cheers
John Daly

The entire global warming movement was the product of an utterly corrupt United Nations; it can be considered a follow-on project to "Oil-for-Food" and other ripoffs designed to redirect billions of dollars into the pockets of global bureaucrats.

And some "scientists" -- eager to cash in on immense grants offered by governments to strengthen their case for more regulations and more control -- were happy to oblige. The fact is, man-made global warming is the new alchemy -- and the Climategate emails reinforce the raw greed and criminality behind this pseudo-scientific religion.


Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Progressivism, Illustrated

These are the geniuses who claim they can run the health care industry, the energy industry, the auto industry, the banking industry, and much, much more.

The fact that some of these people vote is, at the end of the day, somewhat terrifying.


Name That Party: 12 Indicted in Georgia for ACORN-style Vote Fraud

The late and unlamented community organizing group ACORN became infamous for combining fraudulent voter registrations and absentee ballots to steal elections. Yesterday Georgia WALB reported on yet another case of (*cough* alleged *cough*) vote fraud (which Democrats, of course, continually argue is non-existent).

12 former Brooks County officials were indicted for voter fraud. The suspects are accused of illegally helping people vote by absentee ballot.

State officials launched an investigation after an unusually high number of absentee ballots were cast in the July 2010 primary election. "As a result of their grand jury findings 12 individuals were indicted in that particular matter and we will be trying that case in a court of judicial law instead of a court of public opinion so that will be pending this next year," said District Attorney Joe Mulholland.

The defendants include some workers in the voter registrar's office and some school board members.

Since WALB is playing "Name That Party", I think it's safe to assume that these fine, upstanding citizens are Democrats.


Neurosurgeon reports back on HHS meeting: yep, there are death panels that will prevent us from treating the elderly

The indispensable Right Scoop:

Tonight, a brain surgeon [Ed: vetted by Levin's staff] called into Mark Levin's radio show and said that he had just recently visited Washington DC to review Obama’s new health care plan for advanced neurosurgical care for patients over 70 years old, issued by HHS. The plan, that included "ethics panels", stated that if you are over 70 years old and on government supported healthcare and you visited an emergency room, you get “comfort care” [Ed: that is, no aggressive treatment].

Caller: Basically what the document stated was that if you were over 70 and you’d come into an emergency room and you’re on government supported health care, that you’d get “comfort care”.

Mark Levin: Wait a minute... what’s the source for this?

Caller: This is Obama’s new health care plan for advanced neurosurgical care.

Mark Levin: And who issued this? HHS?

Caller: Yes. And basically they don’t call them patients, they call them units. And instead of, they call it “ethics panels” or “ethics committees”, would get together and meet and decide where the money would go for hospitals, and basically for patients over 70 years of age, that advanced neurosurgical care was not generally indicated.

Mark Levin: So it’s generally going to be denied?

Caller: Yes, absolutely... If someone comes in at 70 years of age with a bleed in their brain, I can promise you I’m not going to get a bunch of administrators together on an ethics panel at 2 in the morning to decide that I’m OK to do surgery.

The ludicrous "Politifact" website hardest hit.


Sunday, November 20, 2011

How guys like Corzine and Madoff get dealt with in China

When stories like this come down the pike, I get to thinkin' there are a couple o' things about Red China I actually like.

As reported today in the Suzhou evening news:

Former President Shen Changfu of China Mobile Telecom Chongjing Co, Ltd was sentenced to death on charges of taking bribes of over 36 million RMB. (Around $6 million U.S.D)

On 17Nov, 2011 his son Shen Juncheng was sentenced to ten years in prison for taking bribes valued at 13 million RMB ($2M USD) In this case, the son was using his father's connections to support getting new contracts for companies. He was then paid dividends by the companies.

The mentally challenged Thomas Fried-man hardest hit.


Saturday, November 19, 2011

Occupy Cairo Movement Off To Slow Start [Dan from New York]

Dan from New York:

Yo occupiers! Take a look at this.

Your compatriots in Cairo are having a rough time. Makes you long for the days of Mubarak, and an end to the tenure of President Obama on 1/20/13, don’t it?

Oh, almost forgot, comrades. Things aren’t much better for Occupy Syria, as you’ll see here.

So stop whining about a little mace in the face. You never had it so good.

"At least one person has been killed and more than 600 wounded in fierce clashes between protesters and security forces in central Cairo... The clashes came as police moved to prevent a long-term sit-in..."

The ludicrous Bill Kristol hardest hit.


Thursday, November 17, 2011

Photo: a Young Mark Levin

Via The Right Scoop:

As an aside, Levin's new book -- the followup to the bestselling Liberty and Tyranny -- promises to be a doozy.

My guess is that The New York Times will repeat its cowardly performance -- refusing to review the book no matter how many million of copies it sells. Because conservatism's logic, its principles, its philosophical foundations and its historical bases are no more assailable by progressives than Everest can be scaled by a gerbil.


Sunday, November 13, 2011

Schweizer's New Book: 80% of Energy Department's "Green Loan" Program Went to Obama's Backers

Peter Schweizer's new book has received attention from across the political spectrum, including law enforcement. Even 60 Minutes reportedly leveraged the book to shine a spotlight on Nancy Pelosi's insider trades.

When President-elect Obama came to Washington in late 2008, he was outspoken about the need for an economic stimulus to revive a struggling economy... After he was sworn in as president, he proclaimed that taxpayer money would assuredly not be doled out to political friends...

...But an examination of grants and guaranteed loans offered by just one stimulus program run by the Department of Energy, for alternative-energy projects, is stunning. The so-called 1705 Loan Guarantee Program and the 1603 Grant Program channeled billions of dollars to all sorts of energy companies...

...In the 1705 government-backed-loan program [alone], for example, $16.4 billion of the $20.5 billion in loans granted as of Sept. 15 went to companies either run by or primarily owned by Obama financial backers—individuals who were bundlers, members of Obama’s National Finance Committee, or large donors to the Democratic Party. The grant and guaranteed-loan recipients were early backers of Obama before he ran for president, people who continued to give to his campaigns and exclusively to the Democratic Party in the years leading up to 2008. Their political largesse is probably the best investment they ever made in alternative energy. It brought them returns many times over.

...The Government Accountability Office has been highly critical of the way guaranteed loans and grants were doled out by the Department of Energy, complaining that the process appears “arbitrary” and lacks transparency. In March 2011, for example, the GAO examined the first 18 loans that were approved and found that none were properly documented. It also noted that officials “did not always record the results of analysis” of these applications. A loan program for electric cars, for example, “lacks performance measures.” No notes were kept during the review process, so it is difficult to determine how loan decisions were made. The GAO further declared that the Department of Energy “had treated applicants inconsistently in the application review process, favoring some applicants and disadvantaging others.” The Department of Energy’s inspector general, Gregory Friedman, ... has testified that contracts have been steered to “friends and family.”

...These programs might be the greatest—and most expensive—example of crony capitalism in American history. Tens of billions of dollars went to firms controlled or owned by fundraisers, bundlers, and political allies, many of whom—surprise!—are now raising money for Obama again...

The ludicrous Jonathan Alter hardest hit.


Tuesday, November 08, 2011

Stratfor Research: Italy has seven days to avoid an "immediate and catastrophic" financial meltdown

Uhm, Stratfor Research is well-known for avoiding alarmist views and overstatements. Which makes this missive all the more foreboding (emphases mine, Paul Krugman hardest hit):

The Italian government eked out a legislative victory today, but the victory was a hollow one. Only 308 of the parliament's 630 MPs voted for the government's budget, eight shy of a majority. The bill only passed because the opposition chose to abstain rather than defeat the budget. Italy has now taken the lead position in the contest of what can unravel the euro.

Greece, which has held that dubious honor for nearly two years, is actually now off the radar. Today the Greeks formed a national unity government that has the political authority to implement deep austerity while compartmentalizing political backlash against the system. It might not work, but it should last at least until the new year.

But today's Italian budget vote - or more specifically the decision of several previously pro-Berlusconi deputies to abstain with the opposition - puts Italy squarely in the crosshairs.

Italy, like Greece, faces an insurmountable debt mountain. Italy, like Greece, has problems with political unity. But Italy, unlike Greece, has a leader who refuses to step aside in favor of a national unity government. Berlusconi has been at or near the top of the Italian political scene for a generation, and his People of Freedom party is his own personal political machine.

Berlusconi now has seven days to repair that machine. If he cannot muster an additional eight votes by Nov. 15, his government will fall in a scheduled confidence vote. That would push Italy into an election at a time when markets are waking up to the fact that it is not Ireland or Spain or even Greece that is the biggest threat to the eurozone. It is Italy.

Even in the worst-case scenario Greece only has about 350 billion euro of debt outstanding, most of which now is held either internally or by the European Central Bank. Italy has nearly 2 trillion euro in outstanding debt. An Italian credit cutoff would trigger a financial meltdown across Europe that would both be immediate and catastrophic.

Avoiding that would require a new Italian government without going through one of Italy's famously destabilizing elections. In the aftermath of today's budget vote, Berlusconi claims that he will resign after a series of austerity laws are adopted, ushering in a new unity government. Votes on those laws, however, are scheduled to be held after the confidence vote, so it's not clear whether this is truly turning the page or simply stalling for time.

Can... meet kick.

And sometime -- in the very near future -- the road for can-kicking will have reached an end.


Monday, November 07, 2011

Why I canceled my newspaper subscription [Sean]

Finally! Justice is served!

And John Stossel says government can't do things better than free enterprise!

I won't hold my breath awaiting the results of this hunt.

That's a damn good paint job!

Followed by the meeting on new lighting that's held in the dark.

I'm more upset about NEPA's EIS on BNFL's RAPPI before DRUADs.

Go figure.

That's a brother for you.

It's a partisan issue, I'm sure.

I'll try to remember. I guess it was a slow day at the Poison Control Center.

Please call immediately if you've seen this... man... woman... insect...

Right after finding corpses in the mausoleum.

This is taking the principle of "More Guns, Less Crime" a bit too far.

I'd wager these guys took federal grant money to come up with this conclusion.

Ouch!

Hat tip: Sean

Sunday, November 06, 2011

Yoo hoo, Politico: NRA Chairman during Herman Cain's tenure says the anonymous allegations are, and I quote, "a hatchet job"

Politico smear merchants Jonathan Martin and Kenneth Vogel hardest hit:

...former National Restaurant Association board chairman Joseph Fassler offered a firm defense of GOP presidential front-runner Herman Cain, along with an explanation for how Washington’s best-kept secret — the identities of Cain’s sexual-harassment accusers — was also kept from the association’s board.

The accusations? It’s a hatchet job, in my opinion,” Fassler told TheDC from his Phoenix, Ariz. office. “My gut tells me it’s a hatchet job. He gets a lead, he gets some traction, and the next thing you know, here come these allegations. It’s sad.”

Fassler said his four years in leadership positions on the association’s board — including one year as chairman and another as past chairman — overlapped with two and one-half years of Cain’s time as CEO. Fassler was first elected to the board in 1984, and was chairman in 1997.

While he said he had no reason to doubt the accuracy of reports that the restaurant trade group made five-figure payments to employees then embroiled in what is now a campaign scandal, Fassler said he was never informed about those payments while on the board.

Politico reported late Thursday that one of Cain’s accusers, then a 30-year-old female government-affairs staffer, reported an allegation of sexual harassment to an NRA board member within hours of what she said was an improper sexual overture.

Fassler’s account, however, either questions the accuracy of this account or suggests a communications failure among board members... He [said] he “never heard anything about Herman that would suggest he had those sort of allegations lodged against him. He was a professional. Thoroughly professional.”

Severance agreements, he said, were — and remain — “common” in human resource management. “You offer people severance agreements, unless they are for cause, all the time,” he said.

...Asked why no complaint about Herman Cain ever reached the board, Fassler put the episode in perspective, essentially seeing the amount of money involved as small-potatoes... Fassler drew a clear distinction between legal settlements for significant amounts of money and routine severance packages that would normally be handled far beneath the board’s level of responsibility.

...Fassler’s memories of Cain, he said, were all positive. He called the GOP front-runner a smart businessman, and said that even 15 years ago, the Georgia pizza mogul had a grasp of government policy and routine that was stronger than most of his peers... “Herman, during those days, did a very good job of getting our message heard on the Hill,” Fassler said.

On Friday, the National Restaurant Association itself described the salient details of the complaint:

“We have seen the statement Joel Bennett released earlier today on behalf of his client, a former employee of the Association. The Association consented to the release of that statement, at the request of Mr. Bennett’s client.

“Based upon the information currently available, we can confirm that more than a decade ago, in July 1999, Mr. Bennett’s client filed a formal internal complaint, in accordance with the Association’s existing policies prohibiting discrimination and harassment. Mr. Herman Cain disputed the allegations in the complaint...

...The Association and Mr. Bennett’s client subsequently entered into an agreement to resolve the matter, without any admission of liability. Mr. Cain was not a party to that agreement. The agreement contains mutual confidentiality obligations. Notwithstanding the Association’s ongoing policy of maintaining the privacy of all personnel matters, we have advised Mr. Bennett that we are willing to waive the confidentiality of this matter and permit Mr. Bennett’s client to comment. As indicated in Mr. Bennett’s statement, his client prefers not to be further involved with this matter and we will respect her decision.

So Cain has no idea what the agreement says and, further, the complainant is free to state what happened.

What do we get? Bupkis.

In related news, anonymous sources have revealed exclusively to me that Politico's pro journalists Jonathan Martin and Kenneth Vogel enjoy wearing women's underwear.


Related: Politico's Top Secret Scandal Selector Software

Friday, November 04, 2011

Gallery of Twitches: Stop-Action Photos of Nancy Pelosi as She Faces Blistering Questions from 60 Minutes' Steve Kroft

What emotions do you see when former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi faced uncharacteristically tough questions from a member of legacy media?

Pelosi's net worth during the last three years somehow tripled (from approximately $12 million to over $35 million) during one of the worst economic downturns in American history.

When 60 Minutes' Steve Kroft leveled a series of questions about her passage of laws regulating the very industry she was profiting from, I saw a range of emotions.

A face flickering with scarcely-concealed, twitching anger. Licking her lips repeatedly. Rage and disdain.

This is what an oligarch looks like.

It's time to turn all of these Democrat bums out in 2012, from the White House down to your local school board. Because this is the most corrupt gang of organized criminals in government since the Teapot Dome scandal.


Thursday, November 03, 2011

Time-Space Continuum May Have Warped: Is 60 Minutes Investigating Nancy Pelosi's Financial Skulduggery?

AJC's Jamie Dupree reports on an overheard conversation:

I was working on other stories at the time, but the questions - and answers - caught my ear, as Steve Kroft, the veteran correspondent for the CBS program "60 Minutes" was pressing Pelosi about some of her investments... Kroft is not a regular in the Capitol, so his presence and his questions certainly merit some attention...

Q: Madam Leader, I wanted to ask you why you and your husband back in March of 2008 accepted and participated in a very large IPO deal from Visa at a time there was major legislation affecting the credit card companies making its way through the House. Did you consider that to be a conflict of interest?

Leader Pelosi. I don't know what your point is of your question. Is there some point that you want to make with that?

Q: Well, I guess what I am asking is do you think it is all right for a Speaker to accept a very preferential, favorable stock deal?

Leader Pelosi. Well, we didn't.

Q: At a time when there is major legislation affecting that company in the House?

Leader Pelosi. Well, first of all let me say this. What we are talking about is an industry. What we are talking about is a Congress that passed more protections for credit card holders. The [Credit Cardholder’s Bill of Rights] bill, you know Carolyn Maloney has been our champion on, to the point where the industry spent $3 million to try to defeat her last time.

So the issue that you are talking about, first of all, what you are contending is not true. But second of all, we are very proud of our record of what happened.

Now, what Congressman or Senator Durbin was able to do in the Senate is quite remarkable, and when he was able to achieve that, then it was on this same issue, it was included by our Chairman Barney Frank in the bill.

Q: That was 2 years later though.

Leader Pelosi. But it was when we had a President who could sign the bill, and that is when we passed what Carolyn Maloney had. There was no interest on the part of President Bush to sign such a bill. But the fact is your basic premise is a false one, and it…

Q: I don't understand. Why is it false? You participated in the IPO.

Leader Pelosi. Well, I have many investments.

Q: You were Speaker of the House, and there was a bill very unfavorable to the credit card companies.

Leader Pelosi. Well, I will hold my record in fighting the credit card companies, as a Speaker of the House or as a Member of Congress, up against anyone. We had passed the Credit Cardholder Bill of Rights. I don't know what your point is. You like one bill better than another bill. No, this was the big powerful bill, and in fact we were able to achieve both once we were able to have a Democratic President. That is really all I am saying.

Q: You don't think it was a conflict of interest or have the appearance of a conflict of interest?

Leader Pelosi. No, it only has the appearance if you decide that you are going to elaborate on a false premise. But it is not true, and that is that.

Q: I don't understand what part is not true.

Leader Pelosi. That I would act upon an investment.

Pelosi was also heard to shriek: "Are you serious? Are you serious???"

But I'm sure the curious confluence of events surrounding Pelosi's ascent to the Speakership while her bank accounts rapidly swelled were purely coincidental.


Image hat tip: PoliNation.

Politico's Top Secret Scandal Selector, by Jonathan Martin and Kenneth Vogel

Biff Spackle located the screening tool used by Politico journolists Jonathan Martin and Kenneth Vogel to determine whether a political scandal is newsworthy:

To assess the scandal factor, please check all that apply:

Did the politician emit spooge on a young intern's blue dress?

Did the politician drive drunk into a pond, leaving his passenger to helplessly drown, flee the scene, and fail to report the incident to authorities in time for a rescue?

Did the politician spend decades as a Ku Klux Klan member, rising to the level of Kleagle (recruiter) and Exalted Cyclops?

Did the politician have a three-decade history of sexual violence against women?

Did the politician accept sweetheart loans and donations from the very organizations he was supposed to be regulating?

Did the politician steer billions in contracts to companies controlled by her spouse?

Did the politician's gay lover run a bisexual prostitution ring out of the politician's apartment?

Did the politican use campaign funds to support a mistress and love child while his wife was dying of cancer?

Was the politican accused of inappropriate behavior by two unnamed persons several decades ago?

IMPORTANT: Please select the politician's party affiliation: Democrat       Republican

Press button to determine this story's scandal status:



Wednesday, November 02, 2011

Today's 'Paul Krugman Hoisted On His Own Petard', Self-Beclownment Edition

Is there a more hilarious propagand-conomist than Paul "The Problem with Keynesian Economics Is That We're Not Borrowing Enough" Krugman? I don't mean his looks. Ignore the elf-boy physique, concentrate on his record.

He's got enough face-plant-style failures to shame Milli Vanilli.

Today, Krugman is crying doom-and-gloom for the Euro, predicting bank runs, dogs and cats sleeping together, total fiscal apocalypse -- all thanks to the failed Eurosocialist welfare state. But it wasn't too long ago that Elf-Boy was championing the Eurozone...

• In "The Comeback Continent" (Jan. 2008), Krugman told us that the Eurozone was a bulwark of the world economy, worthy of emulation by the U.S.:

The G.D.P. of the European Union is roughly comparable to that of the United States; the euro is almost as important a global currency as the dollar; and the governance of the world financial system is, for practical purposes, equally shared by the European Central Bank and the Federal Reserve.

But there’s another thing: it’s important to get the facts about Europe’s economy right because the alleged woes of that economy play an important role in American political discourse, usually as an excuse for the insecurities and injustices of our own society...

...What European countries definitely haven’t done is dismantle their strong social safety nets. Universal health care is a given. So are a variety of programs that support families in trouble, helping protect Europeans from the extreme poverty all too common in this country. All of this costs money — even though European countries spend far less on health care than we do — and European taxes are very high by U.S. standards.

In short, Europe continues to be a big-government sort of place. And that’s why it’s important to get the real story of the European economy out there.

According to the anti-government ideology that dominates much U.S. political discussion, low taxes and a weak social safety net are essential to prosperity. Try to make the lives of Americans even slightly more secure, we’re told, and the economy will shrivel up — the same way it supposedly has in Europe.

But the next time a politician tries to scare you with the European bogeyman, bear this in mind: Europe’s economy is actually doing O.K. these days, despite a level of taxing and spending beyond the wildest ambitions of American progressives.

• In "Why Oil Isn't Gold" (May 2008), Krugman told us how useless gold is as a store of value and, in "Wingnuts, wingnuts everywhere", he openly mocked gold-bugs.

Based on my analysis, a Ouija Board would do a far better job at predicting macroeconomic events than the embarrassment known as Krugman.