Wednesday, September 09, 2009

Cass Sunstein's Greatest Hits (He's Your New 'Regulatory Czar')


Cass Sunstein is poised to become the 'Regulatory Czar' in the Obama administration. You'd be hard-pressed to find a more radical nutcase, though he appears pretty average in that regard when compared to the rest of the "Czar-dines".

Sunstein thinks the First Amendment is outdated. As is the Second Amendment. And the Tenth Amendment. You see, Cass Sunstein has a better way. Among his most noteworthy statements:

"We ought to ban hunting"
- Cass Sunstein, in a 2007 speech at Harvard University


"[A]lmost all gun control legislation is constitutionally fine. And if the Court is right, then fundamentalism does not justify the view that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to bear arms. "
- Cass Sunstein, writing in his book, "Radicals in Robes"


"Animals should be permitted to bring suit, with human beings as their representatives …"
- 2004 book Animal Rights: Current Debates and New Directions


"[Humans’] willingness to subject animals to unjustified suffering will be seen … as a form of unconscionable barbarity… morally akin to slavery and the mass extermination of human beings."
- Cass Sunstein, in a 2007 speech at Harvard University


"[T]here should be extensive regulation of the use of animals in entertainment, in scientific experiments, and in agriculture."
- Cass Sunstein, “The Rights of Animals: A Very Short Primer,” August 2002.


Put simply, Sunstein fancies himself a modernizer of an outdated Constitution.

Put aside Cicero, Adam Smith, Edmund Burke, John Locke, Charles de Secondat (baron de Montesquieu), James Madison, George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Jay, and Alexander Hamilton.

Cast aside those petty historical figures, those weak-minded wannabes... because Cass-freaking-Sunstein has a better way. Bitches.



Source: StopSunstein.com.

Politics of Fear: Pass ObamaCare Now or Americans Will Die!


The lies continue unabated, each one more brazen than the last.

Obama warns Americans will die without health reform

President Barack Obama warned Congress Wednesday that more Americans would die if it did not act now on health care, seizing the spotlight at a pivotal moment for his embattled reform drive.

After months of charges by conservatives that he was trying to impose a "socialized" state-run health system, which hammered his once sky-high approval ratings, Obama declared: "the time for bickering is over... More Americans will lose their coverage when they are sick and need it most and more will die as a result."

Gee, I thought only conservatives peddled fear.

C'mon: pass the damn bill already, before grandpa gets whacked!


Rejoice: President Obama says we're on the path to recovery!


In his Labor Day speech to AFL-CIO officials, President Obama asserted that we are in the midst of an economic recovery.

President Barack Obama reaffirmed his support for setting up a government-run health insurance plan and said that revamping the medical-care system will bring workers greater stability and security... The president, in a speech to union members marking the U.S. Labor Day holiday, also said the U.S. economy is "moving in the right direction" on the path to recovery.

There are a lot of statistics that refute his contention.

The country continues to hemorrhage jobs -- hundreds of thousands a month.

The value of the U.S. dollar continues its historic descent in the wake of the Democrats' unprecedented expansion of the money supply.

Most disturbing of all: Philadelphia Eagles Luxury Suites are now available at a bargain price of $9,500. Each suite holds 20 people and includes four valet parking passes. In the past, single-game luxury suite passes ran between $25,000 and $30,000.

People are so excited that we're in the midst of a recovery, they've completely forgotten about being unemployed and hungry!


Larwyn's Linx: Power to the Patients!

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

Nation

The Unvetting of Van Jones: Greenroom
Valerie Jarrett's Show: Spectator
Obama and the Bureaucratization of Health Care: Lucianne (Palin)

The Awful Advent of Buyer's Remorse: PJM (Kimball)
Mr. President, Explain Your Dumping of Charter Schools: BlogProf
Public Option Splits House Democrats: Times

Power to the Patients!: AT
Obama and the Shadow Government: Greenroom

Economy

Collapse of an American Messiah: AT (Dunn)
The coming reset in state government: Instapundit
With three weeks to go, Granholm reveals plan to... raise taxes: BlogProf

The Condemnation of Barometers: OregonGuy
Socialism vs. Capitalism: Milton Friedman
Naomi Klein loves Cuba and North Korea: Milton Friedman

A Capital Asleep: Times
Stimulus!: Instapundit

Media

Mark Lloyd, “Diversity” Czar and Free Speech Threat: UnconTruth
Who set up the NEA-White House propaganda call?: BigHollywood
Olby: All Criticism of Obama is Racism: Hot Air

Best-Selling Conservative Books and the Networks that Ignore Them: CMI
He's no conservative, but he plays one on school television: BlogProf
Why the Left needs to keep the poor poor: PJTV (Rachel)

Journalists: It's Time for Introspection: PJM (Toto)
Olbermann flip-flops on Beck: NewsBusters
Sullivan predicts GOP health plan will pass: LegalIns

Climate & Energy

Left-wing eco terrorists celebrate sabotage: Malkin
Refining away affordable fuel: Times
Windmills are killing our protected birds: Left is silent: WSJ

World

What Carter Missed In The Middle East: WSJ
CAIR's Threat to National Security: PJM (Kaufman)
“We will show the Croats who are the leaders. There will be blood.”: Daily Star (UK)

Hugo on the Red Carpet: Power Line
It's Chic to Party with Dictators!: SIGIS

SciTech

‘E-Bomb’ Doomsday Conference Starts Today: Wired

Cornucopia

Obama Healthcare Czar talks about Socialized Medicine: Truth Serum Interviews

Tuesday, September 08, 2009

'What are your qualifications?'


Dan from New York writes:

Having a boyfriend that runs a male escort service out of your house doesn't make you a bad person. And neither does being a principal player in the worst financial meltdown since '29.

No, in the Obama Administration, those are the attributes that give you a leg-up on a Cabinet job.

Read Barney Frank wants Cabinet post.

This keeps getting better and better.


25 Unbelievable Pictures You May Have Never Seen Before


Alltop offers "25 Unbelievable Pictures You May Have Never Seen Before". My three favorites:



Check 'em all out.


Currency Collapse: The Obama Legacy


"To all; are you ready? Never in the history of financial markets have there been so many landmines in place, each one wired directly to a nuclear bomb that sits atop the entire global financial system. The 'masters of the financial universe' have postponed the coming day of reckoning for so long and in so many different ways that they have backed themselves into a corner where almost any movement at all will trip one of these numerous landmines." -- FOFOA

Zimbabwe, 2009:


38 years have passed since the U.S. decoupled its foreign debt obligations from gold. In 1971, the gold window closed -- meaning foreign debt could not be redeemed for gold -- and our currency began to 'float'.

Most money exists only in electronic form, as bits represented logically within computer storage. While the amount of tangible currency (bills, coins) has grown rapidly since 1971, counterparts such as M1, M2 and M3 have grown even faster.

Our current monetary system has changed several times over recent decades:

• From gold to gold IOUs
• From gold IOUs to debt IOUs
• From debt IOUs to electronic debt IOUs

As long as electronic debt IOUs can be traded for "hard commodities" like oil or gold at some realistic ratio, it can not be said that our currency is "unbacked".

It is worth noting that the oil crisis of 1979-1980 related to the simultaneous explosions in the price of both gold and oil as measured in U.S. dollars.

From 1933 to 1971, the payment system for oil was a stable one: gold cleared internationally at a fixed price of dollars in exchange for gold. In 1971, however, after foreign countries began draining the Treasury of thousands of metric tons of gold annually to pay for Johnson's "Great Society" and the Vietnam War, the U.S. unilaterally defaulted on its gold obligations.

This marked the death of Bretton Woods I, the international monetary exchange system created after World War II that employed a gold-backed dollar as the world's reserve currency.

Since 1971 -- or the implementation of "Bretton Woods II" -- the ability to trade oil for gold using only U.S. dollars has been in force. It is easy to surmise that the dollar's support is somewhat artificial, given its use as a reserve currency.

But, this year, after the Obama administration began printing money at a rate never seen before, Brazil, Russia and China -- among other countries -- began questioning the use of the dollar as the world's reserve currency.

In March, the dollar saw its largest weekly drop in value since 1985 after the Fed began buying long-term government debt.

Put simply, the ramifications of an alternative reserve currency would be devastating for the American economy.

While the possibility of a crash in the U.S. equity markets would be dire, the results would pale in comparison to a failure of the currency. Because the currency is implicitly and historically linked to trades of gold and oil, those markets will serve as "canaries in the coal mine".

In July, Russian President Medvedev introduced a new candidate for a reserve currency, aiming to eventually supplant the U.S. dollar. Bloomberg reported that Medvdev pulled a sample coin from his pocket, which bears the phrase 'Unity in Diversity'. Russia, along with China and India, have increasingly questioned the dollar's status as the global reserve currency.

Should an external attack on the currency occur, what might we see? Analyst PM at Zero Hedge posits the following scenarios:

1) A currency failure will happen rapidly (likely [ranging from] overnight to 8 - 12weeks). The dollar will devalue against gold and oil [by a] 50% decline or more.
2) Gold will go into backwardation (AKA Spot Price above Near-Futures Price). This is the single most important indicator.
3) The Gold price will vault upwards -- and ultimately trading will halt in USD.
4) Oil will likely vault upwards as well, but this analysis is difficult. The gold:oil ratio is a useful indicator.

The inverted triangle can be used as a tool to predict the flow of capital. Since 1971, capital moved upwards into more complicated and ambiguous expressions of value. Now, the movement of capital appears to have reversed.

Just how far remains to be seen.

The system was fragile prior to Barack Obama's presidency. But the Democrats' massive spending programs -- an $800 billion "Stimulus" package, nationalization of the auto companies, "emergency spending" bills -- have quadrupled the national deficit in only six months.

If Democrats are able to enact new energy taxes and nationalize the $3 trillion health care industry, we would likely see the destruction of the U.S. currency through its displacement as the international reserve currency.

As I wrote in March, "The only plausible explanation is that Obama's destruction of the economy is intentional... It is based on a failed ideology that has a track record of Mugabe-esque disaster."

Should the Democrats get their way and further undermine our currency -- the foundation of our entire economic system -- we very well could be looking at a reprise of Zimbabwe.


Linked by: The Other McCain. Thanks!
Related: ObamaCare's Crippling Deficits (WSJ).
Adapted from: Gold and Systemic Crisis.

Valerie Jarrett Unmasked


Valerie Jarrett is one of President Obama's most trusted advisers. In December, Judicial Watch named Jarrett one of its "Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicans", an event marked by the complete silence of the mainstream media.


Jarrett was also named in a 2008 Boston Globe report on Grove Parc, an immense housing complex largely funded by taxpayers and managed by her company. After burning through millions in public funds, Jarrett's management skills resulted in a complex that was largely "uninhabitable."

The following articles feature Jarrett and her troubling background:

08-16-2009: Thirty degrees below zero
12-31-2009: Valerie Jarrett: #8 on Judicial Watch's "Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians" for 2008
11-15-2008: Who is Valerie Jarrett, senior White House adviser to Barack Obama?
08-18-2008: Aerial photos of Obama's stunning State Senatorial experience
08-03-2008: Troubling donations to Barack Obama, starting with Valerie Jarrett

07-27-2008: The Daley Show: The Power Behind Obama and Jarretty
01-25-2009: And on the fifth day, subpoenas were served
12-18-2008: Why did Valerie Jarrett drop out of contention for Obama's Senate seat?
12-13-2008: The Blago Complaint in Plain English
12-09-2008: Obama, Rezko, Blagojevich: Illinois Governor Arrested

Valerie Jarrett, a product of Chicago's Daley machine, couldn't manage a housing complex with millions in taxpayer funds. But I'm sure she could manage, say, an overhaul of the $3 trillion health care industry. What could possibly go wrong?



Hat tip: Larwyn.

Larwyn's Linx: Health care is not a privilege... nor is it a right

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

Nation

The Eff Word: Doc Zero
Health Care Is Not a Privilege... Nor Is It a Right: PJM (Schwartz)
Cutting through Linda Douglass' doublespeak: Other McCain

Health Co-ops: Trojan Horse for the Public Option: JBS
Happy Labor Day: Anchoress
Bunked Almost As Tight as Sailors in a Sub: Patterico

What Professors Don’t Want You to Know: PJM (Grabar)
Obama's School Speech is an Outrage: Adrienne
10,000 at New Lenox/Joliet Rally: TPX

Tea Party Express Roars to DC: Times
Affirmative Vetting for Liberals: Riehl
Worst of both worlds: BlogProf

Economy

Why are we paying legal bills for Fannie execs?: Morrissey
Is Obama repeating Depression mistakes?: Telegraph
Brilliant! SEIU bigwig in charge of manufacturing: GWP

So much socialism, so little time: Black Commenter
Stimulus Cheerleader Biden Has No Credibility: GRW
Housing Market Still Reeling From Gov't Intervention: LawHawk

Media

Boycott Lessons Not Learned: LegalIns
AP publishes photo of dying Marine, Jihadis promptly use for propaganda: Warner
Olbermann's Advertisers May Be Next: Lamb

Firedoglake: Liberals Dis-Unite: Riehl
Michael Moore: Capitalist Pig Who Hates Capitalism: GWP
Tragedy: Blogger's Head Explodes: American Digest

The Hammer; Van Jones' Lunacy Is a Reflection on the Boss: GWP
Michael Moore's Private Beach: BlogProf

Climate & Energy

The 'administration had been looking at Van Jones for a long time, and liked what they saw': Hanson
How does a San Francisco court have jurisdiction over Minnesota?: Examiner
The PetroChina Syndrome: Doing it Right in Alberta: Lamb

Exposing the man-made drought in California: RHP

World

Cuba's Free Health Care: Wizbang (Priestap)
How's that outreach to dictators working out?: WaPo
NATO airstrike in Kunduz kills 90 fighters and civilians: LWJ

The Cuba Health Care Revolution: Real Cuba
The UN's Worldwide Web of Bias: Daily News
Saudi cleric says don't pray for destruction of infidels: Reuters India

SciTech

How team of geeks cracked spy trade: WSJ

Cornucopia

Let there be light: Corner
Lexus CT200h Concept First Audi A3, BMW 1 Series Fighter... Images Surface: Autospies

Monday, September 07, 2009

Democrats: we will lower health care costs by jacking them up


Tomorrow's edition of The Wall Street Journal reports that a compromise heath care overhaul bill is in the works.

Among the methods that Democrats intend to use to fund the plan: new taxes on existing insurance plans.

The committee needed to plug a $100 billion shortfall in the plan's budget over a decade, and Mr. Baucus assembled a combination of spending changes and revenue increases to make up for the gap, according to people familiar with the proposal. The main new item is an across-the-board fee placed on insurance companies that is estimated to raise tens of billions of dollars over the next decade...
 











For years, Barack Obama has pointed to rising health care costs as the rationale for a sweeping overhaul of the entire medical industry.

So the Democrats answer is to dramatically raise health care costs for the average American family that already has insurance by assessing new fees and penalties on insurance companies.

The insurance industry balked at the fee proposal. "New taxes on health-care coverage will only make coverage less affordable for families and small businesses," said Robert Zirkelbach, a spokesman for America's Health Insurance Plans, the industry's main trade group.

In short, Democrats will solve the problem of rising health care costs by making health care plans more expensive.

To call the Democrats' health care message incoherent is to give them far too much credit.

The sixties retreads that control the current Democrat leadership need to stop dropping acid for a couple of weeks so they can craft a message that actually sounds like one of their traditional lies.


What is Old is New Again: Top 10 Signs that Your Bank Is Failing


Top 10 Signs that Your Bank Is Failing, from Late Night with David Letterman, January 8, 1991:

10. Free handful of Cheetos with every new account.
9. They hand out calendars one month at a time.
8. Security guard offers to walk you back to your office for five bucks.
7. Overhear branch manager muttering to himself, "I wonder if you can eat squirrel?"
6. Free giveaway toaster is made by G.E.
5. Automatic teller machine replaced by fat guy with carton of twenties.
4. You glimpse inside the vault and notice it's stacked with empty soda bottles.
3. You deposit cash; an officer runs over, sticks it in his pocket, and dances around yelling, "Lordy, we're having biscuits tonight!"
2. You recognize some of the tellers as carnival people.
1. They can't change a twenty.

This was back in the day. You know, when Letterman was actually funny, hadn't lost his mind, and didn't have a vendetta against a popular governor and her young daughters.
 

Flowchart to determine what will happen at your Labor Day barbecue




Spotted at: The Hostages.

Mark Levin: Free Podcast o' the Day


Podcasts

If you haven't listened to Mark Levin's broadcasts, I'd encourage you to give these two shows a listen.

Levin is a Constitutional authority, the head of Landmark Legal Foundation, a best-selling author and the creator of the fastest-growing talk show in the land.

08/26/2009: Mark Levin reads Chapter One of Liberty and Tyranny (MP3)

08/27/2009: Mark Levin reads the Conservative Manifesto (MP3)


Things are tough all over: luxury cars abandoned in Dubai


A few short years ago, Dubai was the epicenter of conspicuous consumption. Its mammoth hotels, opulent resorts and over-the-top shopping centers represented the manifestation of man's insatiable hunger for energy.

Today, with a global financial crisis underway and oil prices halved from their highs, even Dubai has fallen on hard times. As unemployment takes its toll, the number of abandoned vehicles has risen by 20%.

Luxury cars worth hundreds of thousands of dirhams can be found gathering dust on roadsides across Dubai, the remnants of the city-state’s economic boom that was brought to an abrupt halt by the global financial crisis.

The financial crisis forced many companies to slash jobs and those made redundant who had taken advantage of easy credit during the boom found themselves unable to meet car payments... Dubai Municipality said 1,476 vehicles were recovered in the year to July 31, compared to 1,227 during the same period in 2008...

...Throughout Dubai there are dust-covered cars with violation notices stuck to the windscreens, warning the owners that their vehicles will be removed in 15 days. Once removed the municipality stores them at the Al-Qusais scrap yard.

In a sand pit in one affluent Dubai neighbourhood, the Springs, a Land Rover Discovery sits motionless covered in dust with "another one bites the dust" written on a grimy side window...

...A few miles down the road in another residential district called Al-Barsha, a Porsche Boxster is parked with keys in the ignition. On the passenger seat are documents for a 144,000-dirham ($39,200) loan taken out at a Dubai bank.

The number of vehicles that have been abandoned in Dubai as become the stuff urban legend, with rumours of thousands of cars being dumped at the airport as debt-laden, high-flying execs flee the emirate after losing their jobs in the global financial crisis...

MoneyWeek confirms the airport-as-permanent-parking-lot meme:

There is a "regular astonishing sight" at Dubai's international airport, says Mark Hollingsworth in ES Magazine: dozens of luxury cars – Mercedes, Porsches, BMWs, etc – abandoned with their keys still in the ignition. In some cases, notes of apology are taped to the windscreens.

The owners of these vehicles are mainly British expatriates, who have left in a hurry because they faced "crippling debts" as a result of Dubai's financial meltdown and their own profligate behaviour. Many of them, says Hollingsworth, have defaulted on loans; rather than risk arrest and jail, they drove at top speed to the airport where they jumped on the first flight to London.

And if you're looking for bargains, word has it that prices on used luxury cars dropped 40% from January to March.


Update: The Last Days of Rome: Dubai's Abandoned Supercars, Part II.


Image Credits: David MacKay, Buildings UK, News OK, McSavage. Linked by: AutoSpies. Thanks!

Three Quaker Boys Convicted In Massive Bomb Plot


Dan from New York writes:



...sorry, just kidding... This BBC story avoids the subject of the "extremists'" religion.

We wouldn't want any more Militant Quakers getting angry and blowing stuff up, now do we?


News Flash


Ted Kennedy just became eligible to vote in Chicago


Sent in by: Papa B.

Preview of Coming Attractions: Wisconsin Unemployment Hotline Drops 86% of Calls


Gee, grandma, I can't wait until the government controls the entire health care industry! The completely unionized staff will be soooo responsive!

Like in Wisconsin, where the unemployment phone line drops 86% of all calls.

The voices taunt thousands of Wisconsin's unemployed.


Here's what happens: Unemployed people call a hotline run by the Department of Workforce Development to check on their claims for unemployment benefits or to answer agency questions about their application.

The calm, recorded voice of a woman says: "To speak with the next available claims specialist, press 0."

But about 86% of the time, the caller is soon disconnected with a simple "Goodbye" from the calm, recorded voice of a man.

The callers still don't know why their unemployment checks haven't hit their bank account, and they can't ask a live person any questions...

Not to worry, though. Nothing can possibly go wrong with the plans of President Training Wheels to re-engineer a $3 trillion industry: after all, he's historic!

Pressing some buttons to help kill ObamaCare


Jasmine writes:

CALL THE 10 SENATORS LISTED BELOW: Your PHONE CALLS to Kill Obamacare socialized medicine have been very effective and the tide is definitely turning our way! Talking points are:

1) NO more socialism
2) NO government health co-ops
3) NO rationing
4) NO mandates
5) NO government bureaucrats making life and death health decisions
6) YES to keep private insurance.

Tell them to KILL Obamacare before it kills you or family members with health care rationing. We just need to KEEP making PHONE CALLS!. Most of these are conservative Democrats in red states:

Sen. Jon Tester (MT) 202-224-2644
Sen. Olympia Snowe (ME) 202-224-5344
Sen. Blanche Lincoln (AR) 202-224-4843
Sen. Mark Pryor (AR) 202-224-2353
Sen. Kent Conrad (ND) 202-224-2043
Sen. Byron Dorgan (ND)202-224-2551
Sen. Ben Nelson (NE) 202-224-6551
Sen. Bill Nelson (FL) 202-224-5274
Sen. Mary Landrieu (LA) 202-224-5834
Sen. Max Baucus (MT) 202-224-2651

Have a great day and get those phone calls rocking!

Press some buttons and make your voice heard; as always, remain civil but firm. ObamaCare must go.

"The Scariest Jobs Chart Ever"


How does the current unemployment situation compare to prior recessionary periods? Henry Blodget calls this "The Scariest Jobs Chart Ever."


It will take more than "hope" to spur a recovery. It will require a commitment by government to free enterprise: to alleviate the fears that business owners have regarding forced unionization and massive new energy taxes; to reduce the size and scope of government and its attendant tax burdens on the real economy; to spur new investments and innovations...

But given the current administration and the hard left Democrat leadership in Congress, one can safely assume that none of those things will come to pass.

As our beloved Vice President said many months ago, "Gird your loins."


Update: Gluskin Sheff offers a few additional graphs that further illuminate the harsh reality of the situation.





Update II: Calculated Risk has more.