Saturday, April 17, 2010

Mark Levin brutalizes Bill Clinton, Pelosi, Reid and Obama, asking: which philosophers inspire the modern Democrats?

Last night, Mark Levin shredded the modern Democrat Party (MP3) with a stunningly frank question: while the conservatives stand on the shoulder of the founders, which philosophers inspire the likes of Clinton, Pelosi, Reid and Obama?

Bill Clinton said the other day that this isn't the Boston Tea Party. This isn't the Boston Tea Party -- we actually have legitimate representatives. Yes, we do -- [but they're] doing illegitimate things.

The individual mandate under the health care bill is worse than what the [British] Crown did to the Colonists with The Stamp Act. It's worse! The Stamp Act was a tax! The individual mandate is an effort to undermine the Constitution, to change the relationship between the citizen and his government, and to destroy individual liberty.

God knows we have enough Stamp Acts around here. We have taxes on everything we do! Everything we buy... all our services. This government has gone too far. It's gone way too far. I don't think the Founding Fathers would sit silently. Matter of fact, I know they wouldn't.

So you are operating, organizing, speaking out in the grandest traditions of this nation. You stand on the shoulders... of the people who established this society.

So I ask you: who does Clinton and Obama and Pelosi and Reid... whose shoulders do they stand on? Not one of the Founding Fathers, not one. They stand on the shoulders of... well, certain philosophers and ideologues from foreign lands. The Fabians, the Fascists, the Marxists, some mix of that -- whatever. Those are not the Founding Fathers. Those are not the people who wrote and adopted the Declaration of Independence and, later, the Constitution.

You see, what Obama and Clinton and Pelosi and Reid and the rest of them are advancing is an alien ideology. Alien to this nation. You have to reject the Declaration of Independence and you have to reject the Constitution to embrace it, because they cannot coexist.

They reject natural law and the laws of God, as the Declaration of Independence asserts. What they embrace is man-made law and man-made brute force. That's why you hear them mocking us, intimidating us, defaming us.

What really does Obama stand for? Or Clinton? Or Pelosi? Or Reid? How do they define what they stand for? What are limits of what they stand for?

Who are their great philosophical heroes? Well, it's none of the ones we embrace, is it? You keep your voices up... you keep up your organizing... find the conservative candidates running for local, state and federal office in the Republican primaries and back them. They're putting their necks on the line for us. Back them. And then we shall succeed. Then we shall overcome.

Listen for yourself.


Via: Mark Levin Show.

A Blast from the Future


Cars are restricted in size and must meet stringent emissions and fuel consumption regulations. 40% of all cars are required to be electric, and are frequently found by the side of the road because of battery issues. We're still getting used to electric cars and how long they take to charge.

Fuel prices are triple what they were just a few years ago, thanks to drilling prohibitions and massive, new taxes. Oil drilling is banned in the United States, and rigs sit idle atop the nation's vast treasure trove of oil and natural gas. This is the price we must pay in order to prevent global warming.

Because of high auto and energy costs, mass transit is the only option available to many citizens. In cities, electric subway cars are packed full from early morning to late at night.

Government officials, however, are given the option of receiving free vehicles at taxpayer expense. All cars must be painted white, because other colors of paint can result in the release of excess greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide.

Tax policies encourage citizens to live in carefully planned housing complexes, high-rise condos and apartments, which consume less of the country's precious energy supplies.

"Smart-grid" technologies meter energy usage down to the individual family, pricing it by time-of-day and number of persons in the household. Power can be cut off to a household if government limits are exceeded. Blackouts and brownouts, however, are typical during the summers because coal-burning was outlawed by the EPA.

All lighting systems in residential housing units are required to use compact fluorescent lights (CFLs). These lamps, though they contain toxic levels of mercury, help reduce energy consumption and help prevent global warming.

Each housing unit must use a special, water-saving sink-toilet. They recapture the sink's waste water into the toilet tank because fresh water is increasingly expensive.

Because of environmental regulations and government mandates, access to clean water is restricted. Before water is ever tapped for human consumption, detailed reviews -- often lasting many years -- are required to assess the impact on every possible animal species.

As for immigration policy, we have truly become an enlightened country. Open borders and streamlined paths to full citizenship now ensure a permanent Democrat majority.

It is true that open borders have resulted in various man-made disasters. For example, the tragic series of suicide bombings we endured at Texas amusement parks last year. But those setbacks are a small price to pay so that we can be recognized as citizens of the world.

It's also true that jobs are scarce, but if you can find one you will have a great advantage. When you are hired, you will automatically become a member of a union, which will protect your rights, secure your retirement benefits, set your pay, prescribe career advancement, and take care of negotiating all of the details with corporate bosses.

As for schools, all teachers are unionized, of course, which ensures that children are taught consistently, with government-approved materials. Home-schooling was outlawed in 2012 to give children the opportunity to learn in government-approved environments.

It's true that union dues are a flat 5% of gross income, but that's a pittance compared to federal, state and local taxes, which add up to 60% for most of us.

Government workers and college professors only pay 40% in taxes in recognition of their sacrifices for the public good. Nearly half of all workers are employed by government at the federal, state or local levels.

Health care is free, if you can find a general practitioner. If referred to a specialist, your wait may be six months or longer. You can elect to fly abroad for treatment if you can't wait, but since health care is free in the U.S. (and private doctors are banned), most elect to wait.

Retirees have a good quality of life. However, due to rules set by the Federal Health Board, if you are over 72 years of age, you can't receive publicly funded treatment for cancer, heart disease and other maladies because those services are reserved for younger, healthier patients. Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel proscribed this in his "whole life" mandate for cost-containment reasons.

It's true that many folks seem poorer, have less job opportunities, aren't as happy or as healthy, are less educated, and -- please don't repeat this, lest I get in trouble -- less free.

But that's what we voted for when we voted for change. We were voting for an ideal, a Utopia, a vision of equality. And now that we're entering Barack Obama's fifth term in office, a few would say we've achieved it.


Oops: California's public pension funds have a shortfall of $520 billion, with a "b", thanks to masterful management by Democrat hacks

A study by Stanford University's Institute for Economic Policy Research (PDF) finds that California's fiscal problems go well beyond its catastrophic budget deficit, which today stands at roughly $20 billion.

The state's biggest public pension funds -- those of the California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS), the California State Teachers' Retirement System (CalSTRS) and the University of California Retirement System (UCRS) -- are in a lot deeper trouble than they've been letting on.

What's most disturbing is the lack of transparency on the part of the pension funds, as they have reportedly overstated their financial health as a matter of course.

...we estimate the combined funding shortfall of CalPERS, CalSTRS, and UCRS prior to the 2008/2009 recession at $425.2 billion... At the time of this writing, the funds have not released more recent financial reports, but due to the previously mentioned $109.7 billion loss the three funds collectively sustained, we estimate the current shortfall at more than half a trillion dollars.

That figure represents six times the amount of the total California state budget.

The study points out that the huge number of baby-boomers, whose retirements approach by the day, translates to a potential disaster in only a few years.

The chief actuary for CalPERS says the current pension situation is "unsustainable". And the state treasurer, Bill Locke, believes that without reform, these pensions will bankrupt the entire state.

He's right. Stanford's mathematical model shows a 71 percent chance that CalPERS will have a deficit in 16 years... and a 44 percent chance that deficit will exceed $250 billion.

That's a time bomb only MacGruber can defuse.


Hat tip: ATR.

Fed's Latest Flow of Funds Report: Did the U.S. Sell Off Its Gold Last Year?

Perusing the latest Federal Reserve Flow of Funds Report (PDF) released last month, tipster J.B. in Maryland noted something odd:

Page 24 line 14 reports sales of $190 billion of gold (6,000 tons, roughly), about three-fourths of our alleged domestic holdings. This occurred in the Third Quarter of 2009, over 6 months ago. This was very quietly done, as one might expect.

Line 14, in the section entitled "Net acquisition of financial assets" specifies a $-190.9 billion figure related to gold and similar investment commodities.

Let's do the math:

$1,100 an ounce
$17,600 per lb. of gold
$35,200,000 per ton of gold
$190B is roughly 5,400 tons of gold

Although accurate figures are shrouded in mystery, Fort Knox is said to hold about 147.6 million ounces of gold.

Before World War II, there were 649.6 million ounces of gold in Fort Knox. The treasury now estimates that only 147.6 million ounces remain. However, the gold has not been inventoried since the 1950's. Some believe there is far less gold in Fort Knox. In 1971, the US abandoned the last remnants of the gold standard. US dollars are now fiat currency, not backed by gold or any other commodity.

In January, CBS independently reported that Fort Knox held roughly 147.3 million ounces.

Protected by a 109,000-acre U.S. Army post in Kentucky sits one of the Federal Reserve’s most secure assets and its only gold depository: the 73-year-old Fort Knox vault. Its glittering gold bricks, totaling 147.3 million ounces (that’s about $168 billion at current prices), are stacked inside massive granite walls topped with a bombproof roof. Or are they?

It’s hard to know for sure. Few people have been inside Fort Knox, a highly classified bunker ringed by fences and multiple alarms and guarded by Apache helicopter gunships. When the U.S. finished building Fort Knox in 1937, the gold was shipped in on a special nine-car train manned by machine gunners and loaded onto Army trucks protected by a U.S. Cavalry brigade. And the fort has been pretty much off limits since then.

Let's do the math:

147.3 million ounces is about 9,206,250 pounds.
That's about 4,603 tons.
In dollars, at $1,100 an ounce, around $162B.

Several days ago, Commodity Online speculated that the act of the U.S. secretly selling its gold was not outside the realm of possibility.

How can US citizens know whether US gold reserves of 8,133.5 tonnes really exist in their vaults? The last audit of the U.S. gold reserves was supposed to have taken place in 2005, but according to KPMG LLP, they only audited the mint's fiscal year 2005 financial statements and they never saw any physical gold or even went to Fort Knox. The last real audit of the U.S. gold reserves took place in 1954, according to National Inflation Association, (NIA).

...In June of 2007, Morgan Stanley agreed to pay $4.4 million to settle a class-action lawsuit with brokerage clients who bought precious metals and paid storage fees, when in fact it was alleged that Morgan Stanley wasn't physically storing their gold and silver at all. NIA believes we may now have an epidemic of banks selling gold/silver they don't have. If this isn't exposed immediately, it could bring down the world's financial system

..."We already know that the Federal Reserve's bailout of Bear Stearns was done in part to keep silver prices artificially suppressed. It's not out of the realm of possibility that our country's gold reserves are being secretly sold off in order to suppress gold prices and artificially prop up the U.S. dollar," NIA release said.

I'm not a conspiracy theorist.

Perhaps someone with a background in the Fed's accounting practices can provide a rational explanation for this data. Because I find it very hard to believe that the U.S. sold off its gold reserves in 2009.


Update: The invaluable Tyler Durden writes that this "...has to do with an increase in SDR allocations to the IMF. We wrote about it in October of 2009 ('Why Did U.S. SDR Holdings Increase Five Fold In The Last Week Of August?')." An SDR is a "Special Drawing Right", a monetary unit used by the International Monetary Fund. It is standardized against all currencies using it, rather than the dollar, and reflects a portion of the pooled contributions of member countries.

Larwyn's Linx: Oh my -- McCain 47, Hayworth 42

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Nation

Oh my: McCain 47, Hayworth 42: Hot Air
Palin: We like it, Mr. President!: Hot Air
Leftist Judge: National Day of Prayer Is Unconstitutional: GWP

Obama mocks, we remember: Malkin
AZ: No Need For Concealed Carry Permits: RWN
Cheaters never prosper: AmDigest

Economy

Recovery? Hah! Just Oscillating Unemployment Claims.: Ace
Obama decides who can visit you in the hospital: RedState
USPS will cut service to 'fight climate change': RWN

What the Goldman Sachs Indictment Reveals: MoneyRunner
How Could We Be So Stupid? Let Us Count the Ways: Hanson
The 21st Century Bank Run: FOFOA

Climate & Energy

Lindsey Graham: Useful Idiot for the White House: Ace
Obama asks businesses to get behind climate bill: Breitbart
AGW Eco-Tard Requires Rescue From “Melting” Pole: CBullitt

Media

An Open Letter to House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer: Chris Baker
CNN: Darn it, this free speech at Tea Party rallies might just be protected: Hot Air
Michigan Mainstream Media Headline: "Tea Baggers Rally In Alpena": BlogProf

Enron Henchman Paul Krugman Proves He's a Mendacious Twit: Hindenblog
Proposed Tea Party Tactic: Targeted Boycotts of Media Advertisers: Langbert
Patriotism's Call: Diogenes

Crashing the Crashers: Tea Party Infiltrators in S.F.: Zombie
HE is Amused by Us?: Feed Your ADHD
Rush Limbaugh, Bill Clinton Square Off: Who's Encouraging Domestic Terror?: ABC

World

Israel to America: No, we can’t!: Tygrrrr Express
The Palestinians already have two states: Chesler
Meet the Liberators: WaPo

Democrat Utopia of Detroit: One of the Most Dangerous Cities on the Planet: BlogProf
Greece, Dred Scott, and the American Civil War: Telegraph
Obama and Israel: Showdown at the UN?: Fox

SciTech

Ruh roh: Apple rejects political cartoonist from iPad: CNet
Google drafts cloud printing plan for Chrome OS: InfoWorld

Cornucopia

Target Market: Exurban League
Obama to the Rescue: Furious Diaper
The Palin Effect: AmDigest

Support J.D. HayworthImage: Lars Larson
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J.D. Hayworth for U.S. Senate (Get Your Own J.D. Blog Widget)


Friday, April 16, 2010

DemCare's Secret $1.62 Trillion Immigration Time-Bomb

Nancy Pelosi wasn't kidding when she said, "We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it."

Buried deep within the the Democrat health care bill is a secret payoff to immigrants that defies American traditions and was heretofore undisclosed.

Hidden within the 2,400-page DemCare legislation is a bullet to the head of the longstanding "public charge" doctrine. The doctrine states that "no alien can be allowed into the United States if he is going to become a burden on the US taxpayer upon entry -- a public charge."

Congress and Bill Clinton strengthened the doctrine in 1996. They levied a five-year threshold on public benefits for aliens: put simply, new immigrants were unable to take advantage of the public dole until they'd supported themselves for at least five years. Reasonable enough?

Using every surreptitious means possible -- and discovered only recently -- the DemCare bill eradicates the "public charge" requirement. Why?

Simple: to build a permanent Democrat constituency dependent upon "free" health care. It means 10.8 million new immigrants on the public dole.

The "public charge" time-bomb was intentionally buried in the new legislation -- so deeply that it took weeks to discover it. As they unveil "immigration reform", President Obama and his drones in Congress will claim it costs Americans nothing. That immigrants will do "the jobs Americans won't". And other lies.

What will the bill cost taxpayers? The ObamaCare bill assumes a toll of $15,000 a year for middle class families.

By granting amnesty for at least 10.8 million illegal immigrants, the Democrat health care bill will cost $162 billion a year -- or $1.62 trillion, which the CBO never took into account.

Unless we fire the Democrat Party in November, I fear the magnificent American experiment may be at an end.

 

Another Soviet-style performance: Obama's NASA speech was completely staged -- not a single NASA worker was permitted to attend

Interviewed on MSNBC, a visibly shaken Jay Barbree -- the longtime NBC science correspondent -- described the duplicity of President Obama. Put simply, Obama's campaign rhetoric -- that he would preserve NASA's cutting-edge science and engineering expertise -- was, like so many of his promises, a fabrication. And he couldn't even tell them to their faces.

BARBREE: ...I'm a little disturbed right now, Alex. I just found out some very disturbing news. The President came down here in his campaign and told these 15,000 workers here at the Space Center that if they would vote for him, that he would protect their jobs. 9,000 of them are about to lose their job. He is speaking before 200, extra hundred people here today only. It's invitation only. He has not invited a single space worker from this space port to attend. It's only academics and other high officials from outside of the country. Not one of them is invited to hear the President of the United States, on their own space port, speak today. Back to you Alex.

WITT: Alright Jay I can understand why that would certainly get you a bit upset. I will say, on behalf of the Obama administration, they contend that 2500 new jobs will be created, even more, they say, than the 2012 Constellation would have created, that program. So I know all this remains to be seen, but understandably we get why you're upset, right now. Along with many others down there. Let's see if the President clears that up later today. Jay thanks so much.

Gee, if MSNBC speaks "on behalf of the Obama administration", I wonder if they get franking privileges for their mail as well?

I think I need a new blogging category called "Broken Promises", because the old Clinton record was just shattered.


Sign spotted outside Hutchinson, Kansas, 35 miles northwest of Wichita

Sent in by Stretch.



The Incurious Sophistry of The New York Times

New York Times, 5 January 1995, Iran May Be Able to Build an Atomic Bomb in 5 Years: "Iran is much closer to producing nuclear weapons than previously thought, and could be less than five years away from having an atomic bomb..."

New York Times, 13 March 2003, Iran Plays the Waiting Game: "It's a remarkable study in Middle Eastern contrasts: as Saddam Hussein scrambles to deceive the West about his illegal weapons, Iran, like the proud father of a precocious child, decides to show the world that it has a new underground uranium-enrichment lab... and the country's program is likely within two years of building [nuclear weapons]."

New York Times, 11 August 2005, Iran's nuclear program: A crisis of choice, not necessity: "The growing crisis over Iran's nuclear program can be averted if the precious lessons from Iraq, above all the need to avoid unsubstantiated accusations of proliferation, are avoided - particularly given that U.S. intelligence agencies admitted recently that Iran is at least 10 years away from making the bomb."

New York Times, 7 September 2005, Nuclear Weapon Is Years Off For Iran, Research Panel Says, "A leading British research institute said Tuesday that Iran was at least five years away from producing sufficient material for ''a single nuclear weapon,'' and that it could make one only if it chose to ignore international reaction..."

New York Times, 3 May 2006, Very Bad and Worse — the Options With Iran : "Here are two final thoughts, one comforting, one not. First, there is time: Iran appears to be several years from making nuclear weapons..."

New York Times, 15 May 2007, Inspectors cite big gain by Iran on nuclear fuel: "...at this pace, Iran could have 3,000 centrifuges operating by June -- enough, if the uranium were enriched further, to make one bomb's worth of nuclear material every year."

New York Times, 28 September 2008, An Arms Race We’re Sure to Lose: "...Iran will have produced at least 1,500 pounds by mid-January [2009]. Re-circulated, this could produce 35 pounds of weapon-grade uranium, enough for a bomb. (In fact, this was about the amount called for in the implosion device that Saddam Hussein’s scientists were trying to perfect in the 1980s; according to intelligence sources..."

New York Times, 28 September 2009, Defense Chief Says Iran Faces 'Severe' Sanctions: "Mr. Gates estimated that Iran is still one to three years from a nuclear weapons capability..."

New York Times, 14 April 2010, Officials Say Iran Could Make Bomb Fuel in a Year, "...military officials said Wednesday that Iran could produce bomb-grade fuel for at least one nuclear weapon within a year, but would most likely need two to five years to manufacture a workable atomic bomb."

Only a few grains of sand remain at the top of the hourglass.

And, thanks to Pinch Sulzberger and his posse of useful idiots, Iran's Mullahs will have succeeded in possessing a weapon the likes of which other terrorists have only dreamed.

Not a whit of serious analysis. Not a column-inch on the decades of obfuscation by the U.N. and the I.A.E.A. Not a single sentence devoted to Iran's declaration of war on the West.

This is what passes for a newspaper in the age of nuclear terrorism. The periodical that ignored the Holocaust is doing its best to expedite another act of genocide.


Larwyn's Linx: The Tax Day Tea Party Super-Post

Have a great link you'd like me to review? Drop me an email. You can also install a Larwyn's Linx blog widget.

Tax Day Tea Parties

Thousands turn out in Irvine and Oceanside: AmPower
Tampa's Party Begins: Carol
Cincinnati's Fifth Third Arena: InstaPundit

Sterling Heights, Michigan: BlogProf
Colorado Springs: WheatChaff
Pontiac, Michigan: BlogProf

St. Louis: GWP
Shreveport, LA: SIGIS
Missouri's Lt. Gov. handle's Tea Party crashers: BMW

The Crashers: They Came, They Saw, They Failed: Malkin
Tea Party Crashers: Not Quite Understanding the Assignment: PJM
Obama mocks teapartiers: Hot Air

Nation

The New Currency Is Obedience: Doc Zero
Is the Public School System a Repository for Reprobates?: LB1901
Lambs to the slaughter: Grand Rants

Did Tea Party Smear Spark KC Riot?: Cashill
Time to infiltrate the liberal protesters: SmashMouth (NSFW)

Economy

Senate Democrats Try to Sneak Through Cap-and-Tax: RWN
'Experts' flummoxed by 'unexpected' job losses: RWN
The Welfare State of America: Times

First State-by-State Costs Of Medicaid Expansion: Save 70%?: Kesler
Obama's Quiet War on Red States: AT
Gangster government returns: Nice little bank ya got there . . .: Barone

Climate & Energy

UK Expect: Global warming 'hockey stick' graph is a fraud: FT
Surface Temperature Records: Policy Driven Deception?: ClimateRealists
Whitewashing is quick work: Daily Caller

Media

The New Aristocracy: AT
Stevens: 'I Never Left Sanity. Sanity Left Me': Coulter
Americans: "Yeah, Obama's a Socialist": Hindenblog

World

What Drives Islam to be the Religion of War?: Sultan Knish
The Times Makes It Official: Obama Has Shifted U.S. Policy Against Israel: Commentary
Was Marco Polo an ‘Islamophobe’?: PJM

Genocide in South Africa: Geller
Obama: 'Like Me', Aussie Prime Minister Is 'Smart But Humble': GWP
Britain bans Israeli tourism ad because it depicts Western Wall: TAB

SciTech

FollowFinder - a New Service for Twitter: Google
Google launches Twitter timeline search: CNet

Cornucopia

The office sure looks safe with Wheezy and Dozy on the door: Times of London
In mass shootings, the usual rules do not apply: Emergency Film Group

Today's Larwyn's Linx Sponsored By: You Have the Health Care, Now Get the Hat