Tuesday, August 04, 2009

Bizarre Photos o' the Day












Via: IZI Picdump.

'Blue Dog' Steve Driehaus makes the Drudge Report!


And not in a good way. Driehaus is, of course, the 'Blue Dog' Democrat and self-proclaimed 'fiscal conservative' who voted for the Stimulus package and Cap-and-Trade. Yesterday, Driehaus held a town hall on health care that turned raucous after he filibustered, deflected and dissembled.

Correspondent Amalaur sends in some new commentary this afternoon to address criticism that the health care town hall meetings were purposefully disrespectful and disruptive. That appears, at least in the case of the Steve Driehaus town hall, not to be the case.

I saw Rick Moran's column today where he said that "screaming in impotent rage at your congressmen is not the way to go".

As I described, the meeting was respectful and quiet to begin with. That was even the case after the moderator called any anti-Government Health Care folks "teabaggers"... after Driehaus filibustered for about 15 minutes with a prepared statement... and so on. It was only after a series of deflections and a refusal to run a real town hall meeting, like letting people line up and ask questions, that the folks started getting angry. The average age was probably 60. This wasn't a bunch of activists, these were seniors genuinely worried about losing insurance they have, they'd paid for, losing their relationship with their doctors, even getting denied care, which frequently happens to seniors in Canada and Britain. Everyone knows that state-run care will mean rationing as you can't add tens of millions of people without adding doctors!

Watch this video for an example. She asks a good question about state portability of insurance, which I mentioned in my first email. Driehaus would not answer any of these questions directly.

No one was getting shouted down here, they were cheering a question that Driehaus continued to evade and never answered. No one in the meeting hall that I saw came in to be rude or disrespectful, they were genuinely worried about losing health care.

And rightfully so, if these headlines are any indication.

Why is it that ACORN and "community organizing" and SEIU protests -- why is all of that okay, but real grassroots dissent by taxpayers, seniors and veterans is somehow "programmed", "directed" or otherwise illegitimate?


Update: Democrats see phony health bill outrage (Washington Times)

Update II: Crisis of Confidence: America's Government Losing Faith in Out-of-Touch Constituents. Also: The Corner and Virtuous Republic weigh in.

Exclusive Look at New Wikio Top Blog Rankings


Mom's been pressing "reload" on the browser again... which explains our improved #62 blog ranking. And our sincere thanks to all six of our regular readers... we appreciate and love you very much. And your checks are in the mail.

1The Huffington Post
2TechCrunch
3Think Progress
4Gizmodo
5Political Ticker - CNN
6The Daily Dish
7Political Punch
8Michelle Malkin
9Hot Air
10The Official Google Blog
11Instapundit.com
12Mashable!
13Gateway Pundit
14Gawker
15Firedoglake
16The Conscience of a Liberal
17Crooks and Liars
18fivethirtyeight
19NewsBusters
20The Caucus - New York Times blog
21Valleywag
22Daily Kos
23Power Line
24Talking Points Memo
25Michael Goldfarb - The Blog - The Weekly Standard
26ReadWriteWeb
27White House.gov Blog Feed
28AMERICAblog
29Glenn Greenwald
30CrunchGear
31Deadspin
32The Business Insider
33In The Faith - A Chronicle of the Christian Faith
34The Consumerist
35Reason Magazine - Hit & Run
36Kotaku
37The Plank
38Bits - New York Times blog
39Marginal Revolution
40The Volokh Conspiracy
41Lifehacker
42Balloon Juice
43io9
44The Note
45Jezebel
46Neatorama
47Greg Mankiw's Blog
48Atlas Shrugs
49SCOTUSblog
50The Big Picture
51GigaOM
52Kottke
53Wonkette
54Hullabaloo
55Calculated Risk
56Threat Level
57Pam's House Blend - Front Page
58The Boy Genius Report
59/Film
60Swampland
61Gadget Lab - Wired Blog
62Doug Ross @ Journal
63Wired Science - Wired Blog
64Obsidian Wings
65The Plum Line
66PerezHilton.com
67Political Wire
68Deadline Hollywood Daily
69VentureBeat
70xkcd.com

Ranking by Wikio.


Larwyn's Linx: The 'Public Option' Deception

Have a great link you'd like me to review? Drop me an email or reply via Twitter.

Nation

The 'Public Option' Deception: Wizbang
In Africa we have seen plenty of men like Barack Obama: AT (Ikenga)
Civil Rights Board blasts Holder decision on Panthers: Times

Stupidity, Schooling, and the Take-Over of America’s Culture: Sayet
Voucher opponents losing PR battle: PJM (Forster)
How many Obama voters feel let down?: PJM (Rubin)

But I play one on TV: PubSecrets
'Just say no': Dems face angry reaction back home: GOPleader
Earworms Helping Destroy Obamacare: LegalIns

Senate Dems have backup plans to ram healthcare through: Hill
Health Care Reform: at Seniors' Expense: Morris
Lloyd Doggett (D-TX) gets the recess blues: LibertyPost

Choice! Enroll in Medicare, or lose Social Security: Aces

Economy

There is no free lunch in economics, Mr. President: Hanson
AP: Biggest tax revenue drop since 1932: BlogProf
Obamacare, as it applies to useful machines with economic value: PRim

Desperate Times: Arizona Leases State House: Mercatus
Obama channels Robert A. Heinlein: AT (Geer)
Good news! SEIU in California threatens job action: San Fransanity

LA mulls spending federal tax dollars on Canadian circus: AT (Lifson)

Climate & Energy

Meteorologist Satterfield Launches Assault on Skeptics: Depot
Why spend $4,500 to buy someone else a car?: SIGIS
Professor calls on 'International Activism' to combat warming: Depot

Media

10 things the media won't tell you about American health care: NewsBusters
Bully boy Rahm puts screws on media execs: Malkin
Detroit Free Press Bureau Chief: "Federal government has an endless supply of money": BlogProf

Michelle makes a new friend on The View: Hot Air

World

Obama to allow Iran to acquire nuclear arms: Bayefsky
Iran is ready to build an N-bomb - it is just waiting for the Ayatollah's order: Times of London
From a Victorious British Conservative, Some Advice for the GOP: PJM (Dodge)

Al Qaeda Offers 'Truce' to President Obama: ABC
Boo-hoo, poor Mary Robinson thinks she is 'bullied': AT (Lifson)

Cornucopia

Poll: Obama and the Economy: Yahoo!

Monday, August 03, 2009

'Blue Dog' Steve Driehaus ripped, mocked, booed and laughed at during his Town Hall on Health Care


Correspondent Amalaur sent this report in from Ohio's District 1, where Steve Driehaus held a town hall on health care reform. While Driehaus campaigned as a fiscal conservative, he had the gall to vote for the Stimulus as well as Cap-and-Trade.

Apologies for the poor quality of photographs, these were taken using my phone. We got there early (about 6:10pm) for Steve Driehaus' town hall meeting that was scheduled for 7pm.

By 6:20, hundreds of people were in line. Once the doors opened, a tiny assembly room filled in moments. The organizers decided to move the meeting to the church's small (and very steamy) sanctuary. This allowed several hundred people to witness the debacle.

Not sure which group sponsored it, but NOW played a part and the organizers were very liberal. At first, they didn't even allow people to ask questions. You had to write questions down and submit them. The moderator began with a threat that "Teabaggers" who disrupted the proceedings would not be tolerated! Of course, the written question approach was a disaster, since there were hundreds of questions submitted (we had two, which weren't asked, of course).

Driehaus began with a canned statement of the typical Obama talking points and the crowd grew increasingly angry. A guy behind me yelled "Stop filibustering!" at about 7:15, at which point Driehaus gave in. He then started answering the written questions, mostly softball, that were picked out for him. The crowd started to get really rambunctious. One guy kept yelling out, "That was lie number (whatever)" when Driehaus repeated some nonsensical talking point like that there are 47 million uninsured.

You could hear a bunch of Tea Partiers outside yelling. Finally, enough attendees were sufficiently disruptive that Driehaus began taking real questions. There were a lot of good ones, about illegal immigrants covered under the bill... how the government couldn't run cash-for-clunkers, how could it run health care... etc.

I would say the ratio of those opposed to ObamaCare and single-payer ran about 8-to-1 (maybe more). In fact, when the "public option" was raised and people yelled that would destroy competition, one of the Obamatons screamed, "the public option is competition!". The guy next to me erupted, "No, it's MARXISM!"

The good news is that people are educated about what the public option is, which basically is a disaster for private insurance. One questioner noted that you could go on the Internet and get access to about 14,000 different health insurance quotes with reviews and so on. She wanted state portability. Driehaus, of course, ignored that part.

As the meeting progressed, folks got more and more fired up, openly laughing at Driehaus' talking points, mocking some of his more ridiculous answers ("I haven't made up my mind yet") and -- in general -- combating the patent falsehoods that he tried to market.

I felt bad for his daughter, who I think is about 12-years old. She didn't seem too happy to be there.

After an hour of questions, Driehaus called a halt to the proceedings. As the meeting broke up, chants of 'Vote for Chabot!' and 'Just say no!' rang out. Driehaus is a phony, through and through. He's no more a fiscal conservative than Nancy Pelosi.

Steve Chabot is the Republican that Driehaus displaced, barely, in 2008. Amalaur says that Chabot intends to run again in 2010.


Update: Doses of Reality also has a report on the event.

Update II: Driehaus makes the Drudge Report!

Linked by: Michelle Malkin, Hot Air's Ed Morrissey, Gateway Pundit, Wizbang, RightOhio and Oil for Immigration. Thanks!

Headlight FAIL





And Alinsky Smiled: Obama Advisers and Palin's Ethics 'Scandals'


Flopping Aces offers evidence that Obama campaign staffers conspired to file phony ethics complaints to help derail Sarah Palin's candidacy in 2008.








Obama adviser Pete Rouse, whose office sits between those of Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod, is an Alaska native.





Read (and watch) the whole thing.

Why are Democrats blocking release of Countrywide's records that document the origin of the mortgage crisis?


To its credit, CBS News reported this weekend that a variety of D.C. power players received sweetheart mortgage deals during the heyday of the real estate bubble. The main corporate player was Angelo Mozilo, CEO of Countrywide Financial, who curried favor with politicians, agency bureaucrats and regulators with 'special' loans.

True to form, however, CBS waits until the last paragraph of the story to unleash this bombshell:

"Democrats are blocking a Republican effort to subpoena Countrywide documents."

Why would Democrats obstruct discovery of these records?

Consider what we know so far. Among the recipients of sweetheart loans were then-Fannie Mae CEO Franklin Raines, former Fannie CEO James Johnson (an advisor to President Obama, according to CBS) and Minyon Moore, a former COO of the Democrat National Committee. All served in the Clinton administration.

How did Fannie Mae relate to Countrywide? CBS explains that Fannie "bought billions in toxic Countrywide loans that defaulted at taxpayer expense."

Raines was finally forced out of Fannie in 2004 over allegations of a $10 billion accounting fraud. Although he claimed innocence, he finally agreed to settle the suit with the government in 2008 and said he would pay back a "few million of the [approximately] $50 million... he [allegedly] obtained illegally."

All told, Franklin Raines pulled down $90 million in Fannie Mae compensation before the implosion. Clinton Deputy Attorney General and FNMA Vice Chair Jamie Gorelick made $26 million. Obama adviser and FNMA vice-chair James Johnson pulled in $21 million -- in one year. A few years later, the entire house of cards collapsed, leaving American taxpayers on the hook for trillions.

Moreover, a secretive "Countrywide program" gave special loans to connected individuals including the Democratic Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, Sen. Christopher Dodd, and the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, Democrat Kent Conrad.

Put simply, Democrats used Fannie Mae like their own personal piggy bank, leveraging holdovers from the Clinton administration and other sympathetic officials. And what were Republicans and indpendent officials doing at the time? Trying to sound the alarm.

For example: in 2003, the Bush administration tried to rein in Fannie's top managers, all of whom were ex-Clinton staffers.

The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago... Under the plan, disclosed at a Congressional hearing today, a new agency would be created within the Treasury Department to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored companies that are the two largest players in the mortgage lending industry...

...The new agency would have the authority, which now rests with Congress, to set one of the two capital-reserve requirements for the companies. It would exercise authority over any new lines of business. And it would determine whether the two are adequately managing the risks of their ballooning portfolios.

And why did the Bush administration fail at reforming Fannie Mae ?

Among the groups denouncing the proposal today were the ...Congressional Democrats who fear that tighter regulation of the companies could sharply reduce their commitment to financing low-income and affordable housing.

These two entities — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — are not facing any kind of financial crisis,” said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. ”The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.” ...Representative Melvin L. Watt, Democrat of North Carolina, agreed.

On a straight party-line votes in committee after committee, Democrats procedurally stonewalled any increased oversight of the GSEs.

And Republicans weren't the only ones anxious to address the problems. Officials at the Federal Reserve publicly expressed their concerns as well.

In February 2004, Alan Greenspan warned that, unless reined in, Fannie and Fredde could cost taxpayers dearly. At the time, Greenspan stated that Fannie and Freddie "have grown so rapidly and accumulated so much debt that they cannot adequately hedge against the risks of financial crises." The Fed chairman said both entities, which then held about $2 trillion worth of obligations tied to home mortgages, had grown much faster than their competitors because investors believed the federal government would simply bail them out in a crisis.

Why are Democrats blocking the release of Countrywide's records?

The answer is obvious. The close ties between Countrywide and the Clinton-controlled GSEs, the Fannie Mae accounting scandals, the failure to properly oversee and regulate the GSEs, all of the major blunders and criminality that led to the financial crisis have Democrat cronies laced throughout.

The blood of the economy is on Democrat hands.

It's time for the truth: call a Democrat representative near you and demand a full release of the Countrywide records. The American people demand it.


Linked by: The Anchoress, Ed Morrissey, Memeorandum, PrairiePundit and Provocateur. Thanks!

Larwyn's Linx: Democrats' Long, Hot August Recess Begins

Have a great link you'd like me to review? Drop me an email or reply via Twitter.

Nation

Long, Hot August Recess Begins: Malkin
Islamist Groups Push Conspiracy Theories: PJM
Geithner hints tax hikes on the way: Instapundit

Palin vs. the Victim Pimps of the Left: DaleyGator
Michelle Obama's Legal Jeopardy: Maggie's Notebook
Convicted felon Monica Conyers still on ballot: BlogProf

Bachmann speaks out on denial of care for the disabled: GenGOPMom

Economy

Campaign Promises and 'Letting The Process Work': Zero Hedge
Ford: Impossible to Compete with Government Motors?: GRW
The Tao of the Clunker: Doc Zero

Geithner blames skyrocketing deficits on Bush: NewsBusters
The Collapse in Commercial Property: Economist
Big Con on Virginia's 'Big Dig': Examiner

King salmon vanishing in Alaska, smokehouses empty: AP

Climate & Energy

NYT says 2009 record cold due to natural factors; but blamed record warmth in 2000 on man: Depot
I blame global warming: parts of Michigan had coldest July ever: BlogProf
Ice choking Northwest Passage: officials: Ottawa Citizen

Media

Has the Washington Post lost its mind?: Riehl
Liberal blogs crash and burn over Palin divorce rumor: PJM
Goldman Sachs: Scandal and Coverup: Classical Capital

Obama 2007: Commits to eliminating private health insurance: NewsBusters
Tea Party Ad: YouTube

World

Do All the World's Countries Really Love the Obama Administration? A Survey: Rubin
Hillary goes off script - 'clarifications' follow: Times
Someone, please, tell us this is not what it appears to be: BrutHon

SciTech

Apple tried to silence owner of exploding iPod with gag order: London Times

Cornucopia

Obama hungover at press conference: Matzav
Sometimes You Get Lucky: Crazy Uncle

Sunday, August 02, 2009

New print ads promote Obama's WelfCare™ bill



Idea: Irritable Pundit.

Subject: 4 free tickets...


Email from Papa B.:

Subject: 4 free tickets...

I have four extra tickets to the Robbie Knievel event in the Cow Palace in San Francisco for next weekend.

He is going to attempt to jump over 1,000 Obama supporters with a D10 Caterpillar Bulldozer.

It should be a good time.

Let me know.

"Politically correct" isn't exactly the first term I'd use to describe Papa B.

SEIU bosses throw union members to the wolves


The pro-business group Americans for Tax Reform provides some excellent background information for union members to chew on. Put simply, union bosses appear to be underfunding their members' pensions, deliberately and systematically, while enriching their own plans.

The Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the large public sector union, appears to be one such group. Aside from being a major supporter of the far left Democrat agenda, it is tied to ACORN, the troubled group of community agitators. So the act of skirting ethical, legal and moral roadblocks isn't exactly virgin territory for this crew.

The Rank Hypocrisy of the SEIU

The SEIU argues on its website that 401(K) plans are bad for workers. It claims that defined benefit funds are superior tools to assure workers' pensions. It would seem reasonable that the SEIU, then, would ensure that its 2 million members would benefit from generous, well-funded pensions.

But that is not the case -- at least for rank-and-file union members. ATR reports that:

• In 2006, the average SEIU members' pension plan was only 82% funded with assets of about $19,000 per person.
• Separate funds for employees of the SEIU were 105% funded, with about $85,000 per person.
• And funds covering SEIU officers and employees were 123% funded, holding roughly $80,000 per person.

However, only ten years earlier, in 1996, the SEIU National Industry Pension Fund possessed nearly 110% of the funds it would need for all of its pension obligations.

The Reason for the Disconnect Between Union Bosses and Members

So why are the union bosses' pension plans overfunded at 123% and the rank & file union members plans are near "endangered status" at 82%?

While the union blames market conditions, actual fund performance metrics demonstrate that this is not the case. It appears, instead, that the playing field has been tilted to reward the union bosses and union employees at the expense of the rank-and-file.

The problem exists not only in the SEIU's national plans. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce revealed that 13 SEIU local pension plans were less than 80% funded. Six were less than 65% funded.

For example, the Massachusetts Service Employees Pension Fund fell from nearly 110% to 70% funded in 10 years; and the SEIU 1199 Upstate Pension Fund fell from 115% to 75% since its inception in 1999.

To regain some semblance of fiscal stability, the SEIU has wagered heavily on forcing other employees to help fund its drying pension reserves. That was the motivation behind the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), a major Democrat initiative for 2009, and one on which the SEIU spent tens of millions of its members' money.

Enactment of the EFCA (also known as "Card Check") would tie the hands of employers and employees, leaving many in a dire situation:

• Government arbitrators could force workers into underfunded pensions, putting their retirement at risk
• The average union pension has resources to cover only 62% of what is owed to participants
• Less than one in every 160 union-represented workers is covered by a union pension with required assets
• Under EFCA, government arbitrators can force businesses to fund failing pensions
• The PBGC already supports upwards of 30,000 pension plans
• Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation (PBGC), the governmental pension insurer, will assume $86.7 billion in liabilities by 2015
• The PBGC limits the benefits in multi-employer plans to $13,000 a year per retiree, compared with roughly $52,000 for single-employer plans.
• In 2007, the PBGC reported a deficit of $955 million, a $216 million increase from the previous year
• On July 23, PBGC agreed to take on $6.2 billion in pension liabilities from bankrupt auto supplier Delphi Corp

The EFCA-slash-Card Check bill is a Democrat payoff to union bosses, who fear what will happen when the massive pension disparity between workers and bosses becomes widely known.

The bill could, quite literally, crush companies under the weight of unfunded pension liabilities, and further devastate the economy.

The Card Check bill must be opposed at all costs.