Monday, August 31, 2009

Death Knell for CarbonCare™


The Bad writes:

Folks, I'm here to say that we no longer have to worry about the liberal healthcare debacle. All is lost for them:

Al Gore says the country has a 'moral duty' to pass HC reform

As we all know, Gore has the opposite of the Midas touch on issues. When he shows up to speak on Global Warming Hoax, record snow storms follow him. He's now out backing healthcare "reform".

Allow me to be the first to say, "Thanks Al, we might not have defeated it without you!"

Jarrett Skorup adds:

Whoa, Al! Not only is it a moral duty, but it's moral duty to be done now!

Now, I'm not a theologian, but I don't recall Jesus ever saying it was the government's responsibility to take care of the least of us, but rather the individual. When I'm judged before God, I assure you that one of the knocks against me won't be that I didn't vote for higher taxes.

Anyways, I'm not real convinced that Al looks to the Bible for his spiritual guidance. Which means (gasp!), that he's playing politics with religion!

...[but] it's not because of Jesus that the bill needs to be saved, but rather for President Obama. I understand the confusion; sometimes Democrats have the tendency to mix those two up.

Cue the rimshot.

CNBC: Democrat Utopia of California is "the nation's worst credit risk"


Two decades of unchecked liberal leadership have led California straight into the crapper. The state is so financially desperate it "is borrowing money to repay the money it is borrowing which was used to repay some IOUs".

Sounds Madoff-esque to me.


And who would loan funds to "the nation's worst credit risk"? To the capitol of the country's mortgage fraud crisis? To a primary instigator of the illegal immigration and public sector union debacles?

Officially, it's JP Morgan. But since you and I had to loan JPM the money for it to remain solvent (since repaid), perhaps it's the collective.

JP Morgan Chase is lending a hand to the nation's worst credit risk.

California State Treasurer Bill Lockyer announced that the banking giant is lending the state $1.5 billion to help it pay off IOUs... The terms are very favorable to California, as the loan carries a 3 percent annual interest rate, lower than the 3.75 percent rate the state is paying on the IOUs. Also, Chase is not charging any fees.

The loan will allow California to start redeeming IOUs a month early, beginning Sept. 4. That will also be the same day California will stop issuing IOUs. A total of 414,000 IOUs have been issued since early July, totaling $2.26 billion...

How much money California hopes to raise in total has not yet been determined. Controller John Chiang earlier said the state needs $10.5 billion more to get through the year.

Now, why would JPM loan the money to Cali -- a horrible credit risk -- at such favorable terms?

You guessed it: all of us taxpayers -- around the country -- appear to be backstopping this Democrat-instigated catastrophe. Talk about taxation without representation:

A plausible case can be made that this is an indirect bailout by the US government of California. JP Morgan is deemed to big to fail, and can borrow from both the Fed and at reduced costs in the market because of its status. This makes it far easier for the bank to lend confidently to California. What's more, JP Morgan can assume that if California were to come close to defaulting on the loan, the US government would bail out California.

Welcome to the era of hope, change and crony capitalism. Oh, and my beloved liberal readers: perhaps you can find a way to blame Bush for the current condition of the Democrat Utopia of California.


Auditing the Federal Reserve: Crossfire


Pro: Reggie Middleton argues persuasively for auditing the Fed: "The Fed Believes Secrecy is in Our Best Interests. Here are Some of the Secrets ."


Con: Henry Bee calls it "economic suicide."


Larwyn's Linx: The Lobbyists-First Healthcare Reform Bill

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

Nation

What we are learning about the Obama era: Hanson
Obama's Summer of Discontent: WSJ (Ajami)
My disagreement with the Kennedy narrative: Doc Zero

Shhh! IG Report Explicitly Says EITs worked: Ace
New Dem Strategy: Have Constituents Arrested: Morrissey
The Lobbyists-First Healthcare Reform Bill: AT (Shiver)

Cheneys lambast Obama-Holder CIA witchhunt: SIGIS
'Sandwich King' Dodd calls for civility: JWF
Airbrushing out Mary Jo Kopechne: Steyn

The Fall Guy: Strassel
President Obama: Fire Eric Holder: Gingrich
My Hobbies Include “Killin Crakkkas”: Greenroom

Finding no buyers for snake oil: Pruden
Kook Rep. Shea-Porter denies there are 42 czars in America: BlogProf

Economy

Economic Malcontentery: Greenroom
An ill wind blows from Japan: Denninger
Throwing Darts At HR3200 - Day 1: LegalIns

Another union success story: BlogProf
REITs racing to bankruptcy: ConProfits
How Long Does A Top Athlete Work For $100,000?: Carpe Diem

Estimating JP Morgan's Profits from Madoff: $483M: Zero Hedge

Media

Rangel and the Media: Examiner
Thin-lipped, milquestoast, cream-in-the-coffee cadaver called out: Ace
Agitprop as farce: RBO

Conor Freidersdorf Puts On His Big Boy Pants, Finds Them Not Big Enough.: Sundries Shack
Headline o' the Day: Driscoll

Climate & Energy

New Era of Cheap Energy Nears, Thanks to Free Markets, Free Trade and Capitalism: Carpe Diem
Liberal solution to global warming? Build a supercomputer that doesn't work and is a major polluter!: BlogProf

World

Why Such Secrecy? North Korea Caught Shipping Weapons to Iran: PJM (Rosett)
A true existential moment: Odysseus
Ahmadinejad, Kim Jong-il, Chavez, and now Assad con Tourist-in-Chief: JPost

SciTech

Single molecule, one million times smaller than a grain of sand, pictured for first time: Daily Mail (UK)
Most Psychologists Suffer From Acute Liberal Derangement Syndrome: PJTV
Make Plans Now: Earth to Be Destroyed in 2049.: Sundries Shack

Cornucopia

We didn't start the fire...: American Digest
The 3 AM Call: C4P
Russian tourist leaves $6,000 tip for lunch: Life in Italy

Sunday, August 30, 2009

New Democrat Town Hall Strategy: Have Constituents Arrested


Rep. Carol Shea-Porter of New Hampshire's District 1 appears to be implementing the new Democrat Town Hall strategy: have constituents arrested by police.

Writing at Hot Air, Ed Morrissey observes that this "is a curious re-election strategy, especially for a Representative who made her name by bird-dogging her former Congressman at his town-hall forums. Consistency isn’t Carol Shea-Porter’s strong suit, apparently, as she demonstrates in this clip from the meeting she finally held with constituents after dodging them for most of the month. When one of her constituents challenges the presence of union enforcers in the crowd, Shea-Porter asks for police intervention..."

Today's Democrats use the instrumentalities of government to suppress free speech (consider the "Fairness Doctrine", the "Local Diversity Rule" and other mechanisms to silence conservative opinion).

Residents of New Hampshire: watch the video, impress it in your memory, and then throw this Statist hack out of office in 2010.


Update: Robert Moon:

Liberals simply cannot compete on a level playing field, so they try to control the flow of information in this country at every turn, as they have done with academia, Hollywood, and are now even starting to do with the Internet.



No. They. Didn't.


The 2009 Mercedes-Benz G-Class, MSRP: between $100,250 and $119,450:


The 1995 Suzuki Samurai, Kelley Blue Book Price: between $1,700 and $1,875:


Add $1,150 in parts, paint and labor:

And *Voila*!

A brand-spanking new Merzuki Gamurai!



I've got mail!


Received the following message from Garry this afternoon (all spelling and grammatical errors are reproduced for your enjoyment):

as an Englishman who admires much of things America ..including my wife and children.. I find drivel such as yours depressing... its utter nonsense, and its curious that foreigners see the US far moree clearly today than Americans... remember the Daily Express headline re Bush " how could 60 [million] Americans be so stupid".. I thought at the time it was a rather ott comment though I sympathised ..but how right it was..

I speak as one who has lived in countries through bad times.. South Africa/ UK/Canada..and which have come out the other side courtesy of hardreflection and the need for change..

the Right here does America a huge disservice.. and I say that knowing 98% of them probably havent left the country.

Grary [sic]

After thirty seconds of reflection, I politely replied with the following message.

Dear Garry,

I am a conservative, which is to say I believe in the founding principles of the United States of America. That is: limited government, a respect for individual liberty, free enterprise and private property.

Those who oppose me reject America's founding principles: the very tenets that led to the creation of the greatest country the world has ever seen.

In little more than two hundred years, Americans defeated slavery, Nazism, military Shintoism and Communism; refined mass production; invented human flight; created 75% of all medical innovations on the planet; put a man on the moon; invented the telephone, the Internet and the search engine; and advanced humankind in millions of other ways, in every field and endeavor.

Those who oppose me oppose my Constitution and my Declaration of Independence.

Those who oppose me refute the notion of God-given rights of man and carefully constructed limits on an all-powerful, centralized, authoritarian government.

Those who oppose me see the world as rigid classes of people that must be manipulated to advance a political agenda; whereas conservatives revel in the notion that America has no static class structure; that every day the rich become poor and the poor rich.

Those who oppose me oppose free markets and the power of any individual -- no matter the race, creed, religion or color -- to achieve greatness through hard work, study, inspiration and innovation.

Now go wait in line for a dentist, you whining twit. And never sully my blog with your presence again.

Too harsh?



Beneath Moscow


Professional photographers are trekking into the bowels of Moscow's sewer and subway systems, using exquisite, modern lighting techniques to illuminate areas few humans ever see.












Hat tip: English Russia.

Little-remembered homily from Ronald Reagan's state funeral


I don't know what conservatives are complaining about when they observe that the Kennedy grandkids were trotted out at his public funeral ceremony to pimp socialized medicine. It's not the first time such an event has been politicized. Why, don't you remember this brief prayer from President Reagan's funeral service?



Let us pray.

Dear Lord, we beseech you to instill in all persons of this great land...

...an abiding desire to respect the rights of the individual as envisioned by this nation's founders.

To enact a flat tax, which protects the individual's private property from unjust confiscation by an out-of-control federal government.

To promote the continued development of a missile shield, which will make our nation immeasurably safer.

And to slash the size and budgets of federal bureaucracies by 20% or more, as they exceed any powers granted by the Constitution.

And it is only fitting that these policies are enacted immediately in honor of President Reagan's passing.

Let us say... Amen.


Idea: Gateway Pundit, AllahPundit and The Bad.

$20 Trillion


Illustrating an incomprehensible amount of debt that our children and grandchildren will have to repay:


Oh, but it's for the children.


Illustration: National Post.

Harry Reid's Bullying Tactics Called Out By Nevada's Largest Newspaper


The publisher of Nevada's largest newspaper, Sherman Frederick, unleashed a scathing account of an incident involving Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

On Wednesday, before he addressed a Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce luncheon, Reid joined the chamber's board members for a meet-'n'-greet and a photo. One of the last in line was the Review-Journal's director of advertising, Bob Brown, a hard-working Nevadan who toils every day on behalf of advertisers. He has nothing to do with news coverage or the opinion pages of the Review-Journal.

Yet, as Bob shook hands with our senior U.S. senator in what should have been nothing but a gracious business setting, Reid said: "I hope you go out of business."

Later, during his public speech, Reid again referenced the Las Vegas Review-Journal and his hopes that it suffers an economic calamity.

The paper's perceived crimes? It published public opinion polls that show Reid trailing GOP challenger Danny Tarkanian by double digits.

Frederick refuses to be bullied by Reid:

Such behavior cannot go unchallenged.

You could call Reid's remark ugly and be right. It certainly was boorish. Asinine? That goes without saying.

But to fully capture the magnitude of Reid's remark (and to stop him from doing the same thing to others) it must be called what it was -- a full-on threat perpetrated by a bully who has forgotten that he was elected to office to protect Nevadans, not sound like he's shaking them down.

No citizen should expect this kind of behavior from a U.S. senator. It is certainly not becoming of a man who is the majority leader in the U.S. Senate. And it absolutely is not what anyone would expect from a man who now asks Nevadans to send him back to the Senate for a fifth term.

If he thinks he can push the state's largest newspaper around by exacting some kind of economic punishment in retaliation for not seeing eye to eye with him on matters of politics, I can only imagine how he pressures businesses and individuals who don't have the wherewithal of the Review-Journal.

It goes without saying that the unaccountable, "ethically challenged" leadership of the Democrat Party is capable of anything when it comes to getting their way. This, remember, is the party of ACORN, dead voters, and paying for votes with crack cocaine.

To his credit, Frederick is having none of it.

For the sake of all who live and work in Nevada, we can't let this bully behavior pass without calling out Sen. Reid. If he'll try it with the Review-Journal, you can bet that he's tried it with others. So today, we serve notice on Sen. Reid that this creepy tactic will not be tolerated.

We won't allow you to bully us. And if you try it with anyone else, count on going through us first.

That's a promise, not a threat.

And it's a promise to our readers, not to you, Sen. Reid.

People of Nevada, Harry "Land Deal" Reid no more represents your interests than he does the life forms on Betelgeuse. You need to kick his butt out of office in 2010 and find someone who actually cares about Nevada... and the citizens of the United States.

Larwyn's Linx: Obama as Leninoid

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

Nation

Obama as Leninoid: AT (Lewis)
Waterboarding Not Only Worked, It Was a Huge Success: GWP
Rangel Lied, 'Most Ethical Congress Ever' Died: JWF

ObamaCare Kills Jobs: Surber
Health Care Run By Trial Lawyers: Times
Race-baiter Watson praises Cuban health care: Malkin

How many in Congress will sign on to the five pledges?: STACLU
Dem Shea-Porter: find tea-baggers opposed to socialized medicine: BlogProf
Who is Van Jones?: TAB

Economy

Union payoff should get stripped from ObamaCare: Detroit News: Morrissey
Enzi blasts health care plan: Times
Not too bad for government work: IBD

NYT: Embrace the Coming Inflation: Ace
Mary Schapiro: SEC needs 'significantly more money': Zero Hedge
Nemazee's Slimy Cash: Examiner

Obama's labor secretary lets union officials off transparency hook: Examiner
Southern Cali's Shadow Housing Inventory Explodes: DHB
Party of the Common Man: Denny

Insider Trading (Again - DELL): Denninger

Media

The WaPo Takes Cheney's Side On Enhanced Interrogation: Maguire
Video of the week: “It ain’t [America] no more, okay?”: Malkin
Progressive bloggers against the Declaration: STACLU

Conor Freakin'Dork is Back: Riehl
Lessons from the Left: Verum Serum
ABC won't run 'partisan' ad: Deceiver

Enough is enough, Harry: LVRJ
Inglourious Basterds, A Personal Take: Kesler

World

The Science of Islamic Terror: PJM (Muthuswamy)
U.S. moves toward formal cut off of aid to Honduras : Fausta
The Death Spiral of the Islamic Republic II: PJM (Ledeen)

From Russia with No Love: AT (Brownlow)
Obama’s impotence with the western world and jihad: Aces
Why is he still alive?: UNRR

Now we know: Wizbang
Global Anti-Chavez Day: Fausta
Sweden: Alluringly packaged abomination: JPost

SciTech

Nine earthquakes reported in Oklahoma: NewsOK
3.2 Earthquake Shakes South Carolina: Post & Courier

Cornucopia

Top Five Political Conspiracy Novels: WSJ
Fun to be had everywhere: TigerHawk
Starting to see a pattern here: Big Feed

The No-B.S. Exercise Ad: WWH
The Self-Portrait: Denny

Saturday, August 29, 2009

Toy FAIL





Hat tip: R-Lo.

Media Matters' Karl Frisch: Josef Goebbels Would Be Proud


Karl Frisch is one of Media Matters' (i.e., George Soros') professional liars -- I'm pretty sure that the job title even appears on his business card. In his weekly wrapup, Frisch can't keep himself from spewing the most virulent of lies and -- true to form -- he gets mired in his own written excrement.

In "Storming Camelot: Sen. Kennedy's Death Brings Out Worst from the Right", Frisch observes that:

When they weren't busy attacking Kennedy's legacy, media conservatives -- like Fox News' Laura Ingraham -- were attacking Democrats for purportedly attempting to use his passing to stifle debate and enact health care reform legislation, repeatedly calling this supposed tactic the "death card."

'Purportedly attempting'?

Purportedly attempting?

It took all of seventeen seconds to find Democrats not only lobbying for ObamaCare at Ted Kennedy's funeral...they were praying for it! AllahPundit asks:

I’ve been informed by liberal amateur theologians that it’s perfectly kosher to pray for universal health care — on TV, in the middle of a national debate, at a funeral service ostensibly devoted to grieving over someone, by exploiting an innocent child — because, um, Jesus would have supported it. I’m happy to discover that the left’s decades of righteous outrage at Christian conservatives for mixing religion with politics was, as so much else is, simple partisan posturing, but I’m unfamiliar with the sermon where Jesus called for Caesar to create a public fund to heal the sick. Can any Bible aficionados help?

Frisch's entire piece is something even Josef Goebbels might admire. His claim that the egregiously partisan Paul Wellstone memorial service wasn't, er, partisan is simply a "Big Lie" in capital letters.

The left-leaning Slate Magazine writer in attendance described the event as a political "pep rally":

Most of the event feels like a rally. The touching recollections are followed by sharply political speeches urging Wellstone's supporters to channel their grief into electoral victory. The crowd repeatedly stands, stomps, and whoops. The roars escalate each time Walter Mondale, the former vice president who will replace Wellstone on the ballot, appears on the giant screens suspended above the stage. "Fritz! Fritz!" the assembly chants.

...as the evening's speakers proceed, it becomes clear that to them, honoring Wellstone's legacy is all about winning the election. Repeating the words of Wellstone's son, the assembly shouts, "We will win! We will win!" Rick Kahn, a friend of Wellstone's, urges everyone to "set aside the partisan bickering," but in the next breath he challenges several Republican senators in attendance to "honor your friend" by helping to "win this election for Paul Wellstone." What can he be thinking?

Mr. Frisch: here's a word of advice: lay off the nachos and start exercising, because you're beginning to look like James Wolcott.

Another benefit of cutting that cheese from your diet: you could clear up that decade-long case of constipation you've been suffering from.

Which would actually benefit your listening and writing skills.