Monday, April 19, 2010

Bill Maher Bechumps Himself: The Same Independents and Conservative Democrats who voted for Obama are now Teabagging Racist Klanners

Continuing his quest to reach the pinnacle of nescience, the lavishly ignorant Bill Maher bechumped himself once again yesterday. On his television show, which gets lower ratings than the spin dry cycle at the laundromat, Maher and his guests proferred the standard state-approved propaganda. You know, Tea Party activists are racists.

...Maher’s guests, which included New Yorker editor David Remnick and journalist Laura Flanders, appeared to concur with Frank Rich’s take on what’s motivating the movement, concluding from the poll results that the Partiers are actually not that upset about government involvement or taxing (they like their medicare; social security), but are worried and angry that we have a black president.

Says Flanders: “All this time we’ve been told to believe that they were beleaguered poor white people worried about taxes, now we come to find out they’re actually quite well-to-do white people, worried about a black president.”

Says Remnick: What concerns me is the phrase ‘Take Back Our Country.’ When I hear the phrase ‘we want our country back’ I’m afraid that’s coded language.

Counters Maher: Let’s not say they’re racist, let’s say they’re nostalgic for an era where blacks were invisible.

Liberals love dividing people. They divide by race, religion, income, industry, you name it.

The idiot with the veiny, bulbous nose somehow forgot that 40% of Tea Party members are Democrats or independent. Those are the same swing voters who elected Barack Obama president. But now they're racist, teabagging Klanners.

This is precisely why liberalism is the philosophy of the stupid. Those who allow themselves to be divided -- to be manipulated -- by arbitrary distinctions drawn by idiots like Maher are themselves ignorant.

Our founding document -- the Declaration -- and our highest law -- the Constitution -- draw no such distinctions. Millions gave their lives to defeat slavery, crush Nazism and eradicate Communism to protect our right to live freely, to set limits on an out-of-control, authoritarian government.

That is why liberalism must be defeated. The enemies of the Constitution side with evil; they side with unlimited government and inevitable tyranny. And the pathetic Bill Maher is the handmaiden of stupidity.


Update: Black Tea Videos.


Larwyn's Linx: Play Health Care Trivial Pursuit!

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

Nation

Play Health Care Trivial Pursuit: Goodman
Fish Wrap: About Those Insurance 'Fixes'...: RWN
Obama, Democrats Making Great Strides...: GWP

Health Care Coercion Will Only Get Worse: LegalIns
The Washington Monument: Belmont Club
A Shadow Warrior Falls: Timmerman

How Clinton used Oklahoma City for political gain: InstaPundit
Mayday, W.Va., Mayday!: Surber

Economy

Media helps Obama ignore unemployment: HNN
Graph of the Day: State Income Taxes: AT
Ruh roh: Merrill accused to same fraud as Goldman: Insider

World's dumbest blogger flunks econ, again: RSM
Bond-Buyers Voting against Obamanomics: AT

Climate & Energy

'Climate Change' Scamsters to go Global: NewZeal
Reuters: Iceland Volcanoes Caused By... Global Warming: BlogProf
Eco-tards now claim there's a shortage of air pollution: LAT

Media

Time's Joe Klein: Palin, Beck Potentially Committing Sedition: NewsBusters
Frank Rich covers all the bases: Driscoll
As Illinois Dies, the Blame-Blago MSM Narrative Comes Apart: BigJournalism

New York Times Runs Racist Op-Ed Against Tea Party: RWN
Detroit Free Press likens tea party movement to the Confederacy: BlogProf
Major Correction and Apology Time: Hayward

A Mighty Pale Newspaper: Malkin
The Seinfeld/Costanza White House in action: RWN
Poll: 'Epic distrust' of government, elected officials: AmPower

World

Wishful Thinking, Willful Indifference: JRubin
Why Rashid Khalidi is Happy: The Obama Middle East Policy and the Palestinians: PJM
Irony: Mugabe Urges End to Violence He Promoted : JWF

How different is this guy's nuclear disarmament goals from Obama's?: Wizbang
The 'Colonel Nicholson' Democrats: JOdysseus
The Jews of Silence: Baehr

SciTech

Droid Incredible Review: Engadget
N.J. H-1B case reads like Sopranos episode: NetWorld
Microsoft Outsources Internal IT to Indian Firm: Enterprise IT Planet

Cornucopia

Edumucation: Parkway Rest Stop
Bacon Break: R&R
Keeping critters out of the garden: TAB

Image: Maktoob Business
Today's Larwyn's Linx Sponsored By: Cold Fury

QOTD: "He makes you yearn for the days of Jimmy Carter." -- Me. Just now.


Sunday, April 18, 2010

Straight out of Caracas: White House tied to anti-Tea Party astroturf group?

Cass Sunstein, Barack Obama's 'Regulatory Czar', has a history of advocacy. Unfortunately, it's for the kind of Statism that would make Mussolini cringe. Sunstein, among other egregious activities, supports the establishment of government propaganda ministries.

Writing on January 15, 2010, Glenn Greenwald at Salon noted Barack Obama’s new head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Cass Sunstein, had championed creating fake websites and using outside 501(c)(3) interest groups to act as alleged independent champions of government policy and to “cognitively infiltrate” opposition websites, etc...

Sunstein advocates that the Government’s stealth infiltration should be accomplished by sending covert agents into “chat rooms, online social networks, or even real-space groups.” He also proposes that the Government make secret payments to so-called “independent” credible voices to bolster the Government’s messaging

That may explain websites like The Other 95, a thinly veiled propaganda site hawking the White House talking points. Some would call it astroturf.

Why this sort of site is needed, when we already have The New York Times, is a question for the Democrat National Committee. Or its contributors, who appear happy to throw money into a sinkhole.

RedState's Erick Erickson reports the website designer is affiliated with MoveOn.org and other Soros-controlled groups. You know, grassroots.

Let’s also remember that Center for American Progress, led by Obama’s transition team director John Podesta, has regular 8 a.m. phone calls to coordinate activity on the left.

It’s a play right out of Lenin’s handbook, forget Alinsky, to call the authentic “inauthentic” and then create something inauthentic demanding it be called “authentic.”

Indeed ™.


Animated: the Spread of Volcanic Ash Across Europe

TAB has the must-see animation of the effects of the eruption of Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano (courtesy: DMI Denmark).


Now, I wonder which one of our brilliant climate researchers will provide us with an honest, accurate measurement of the toxic crap belched out by this single volcano -- and compare it to all man-made pollution since, oh, time began.

My guess: you won't see such a comparison, because one hour of this volcano's output likely represents all human-caused greenhouse gases since the beginning of recorded history.


Hat tip: Charlie Foxtrot.

Chuck Schumer in bed with both Goldman Sachs' John Paulson and Bernard Madoff: but, remember, Democrats are for the little people

On Friday the SEC slapped a civil suit on Goldman Sachs. The charges are so egregious they make Bernard Madoff look ethical by comparison.

[Hedge fund billionaire John] Paulson goes to Goldman Sachs and asks the investment bank to create mortgage-backed bonds that he could short. Goldman Sachs agrees, taking a $15 million payment from Paulson for doing so. But Goldman goes a step farther by allowing Paulson to pick the mortgages that would be bundled into bonds — the mortgages that Paulson thought would be most likely to fail. Goldman then sold those tainted, Triple A-rated bonds to unwitting Goldman clients, collecting another hefty fee in the process. Like Paulson, it too placed secret bets that the bonds it had sold to trusting clients would fail.

Paulson and Goldman are alleged to have created the investment vehicles to fail -- they went short and Goldman got to sell them to investors who were long. Gee, I'm no expert, but that seems a tad conflicted.

Paulson, the hedge fund manager, is a good friend of none other than the menacing sleazebag known as 'Chucky Schumer', senior Senator from New York.

John Paulson, the hedge fund short-artist in the middle of today's SEC suit against Goldman Sachs, recently helped raise money for Sen. Charles Schumer (D., N.Y.), referring to the Senator in a fund-raising letter as "one of the few members of Congress that has consistently supported the hedge fund industry."

Back in the good old days before hedge-fund managers were greedy corporate fat-cats and Democrats were selfless crusaders for Main Street, Schumer was instrumental in preserving "carried interest" tax accounting that let folks like Paulson list their fees from managing trades as interest and capital gains instead of income, meaning that they are taxed at 15 percent.

That's right: for all of their tripe about protecting the "little people", Democrats were in bed with the hedge fund billionaires and even had their gains categorized in such a way that they pay less federal taxes than you and I.

And speaking of Madoff, you may remember that Schmucky Schumer was intimately familiar with the author of the world's most notorious Ponzi-scheme (after Social Security, of course).

How did Madoff keep himself insulated from regulators and government oversight? As you might expect, he greased the skids. And Schumer was one of the primary recipients of Madoff's grease.

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) Monday led a long list of officeholders and groups expected to give up more than $430,000 in political contributions from Bernie Madoff and his family...

"My money, I'm returning," Schumer said... The $100,000 Madoff donated to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, run by Schumer until last month, should also be returned, but "that is their decision," Schumer said...

A spokesman for the committee, now headed by Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), said, "We're reviewing it."

You may also recall that the top three recipients of Fannie Mae's campaign contributions -- before it collapsed and precipitated the mortgage meltdown -- were all Democrats: Chris Dodd (D-CT), Barack Obama (D-IL) and John Kerry (D-MA). Obama's presence on the list is particularly troubling as he was only in the Senate for a few months before he embarked on his run for the presidency.

I need not mention that Fannie Mae execs Franklin Raines ($90 million in compensation), Jamie Gorelock ($26 million) and James Johnson ($21 million) were all Democrat operatives linked with both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.

Everywhere you look in the financial meltdown, you spot the hands of Democrats: from Bill Clinton, to Chuck Schumer, to Barney Frank, Chris Dodd and Barack Obama.

And since legacy media won't report the truth -- won't hold their feet to the fire, it's up to us to spread the word. The media apparently has their hands full trying to link the Oklahoma City bombing to the Tea Party movement.

Putting Democrats in charge of 'financial reform' is like giving a teenager the keys to the Porsche and a handle of Jose Cuervo. Misery and destruction are certain to follow.


Gibbs Proposes End to White House Leaks by Axelrod Emanuel Anonymous Sources

The White House is seeking to control every facet of administration messaging by legacy media.

Press Secretary Robert Gibbs approached White House reporters earlier this year in an attempt to end the long-standing practice of sourcing claims to anonymous administration officials, he told CNN on Sunday.

During that meeting with the press corps, Gibbs offered correspondents a no-background policy, in which the White House would only give on-the-record interviews if reporters promised not to cite unnamed sources, he explained to host Howard Kurtz in an interview on "Reliable Sources."

"I think we could all put what we want to say to the American people and to the news media all on the record," he said. "I've offered to end it. But it's got to be a two-way street."

The news arrives as tensions between the White House and its devoted correspondents are growing, in part because of the minimal access they had to last week's Nuclear Security Summit. Those reporters recently sat down with Gibbs to share their concerns in a meeting that lasted well over an hour.

Leni Riefenstahl could not be reached for comment.


Update: "WH Sources: Help Us Rahm, You're Our Only Hope"

Hat tip: Memeorandum.

The FUBAR Doctrine

Dan from New York:

April 18, 2010

Ahmadinejad extolls Iran's military might


(AP) – 4 hours ago

TEHRAN, Iran — President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says Iran's military is so powerful today no one would dare attack the country.

###

April 18, 2010

Gates Warns U.S. Lacks Strategy on Iran Nukes


Associated Press

Memo from Defense Secretary Robert Gates to the White House warns the United States lacks a nimble long-term plan for dealing with Iran's nuclear program, according to a published report.

###

Read the entire Gates story. You'll learn that (incredibly) the White House was quick to emphatically deny that Gates's memo prompted any reevaluation of Obama's policy.


Another screw-up heard from: DemCare Bill forgot to include a religious exemption clause

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as DemCare, has all sorts of hidden secrets. The immense and hastily drafted law, passed through the Senate on Christmas Eve with bribes aplenty, has hundreds of new mandates and some accidental omissions.

• Businesses with over 50 employees are required to construct dedicated "breastfeeding rooms" (which cannot be bathrooms).

• Congress forgot to exempt themselves and their staff members from the bill's effects, which means they "will not be able to keep the insurance they like, and may lose it even before there are any alternatives for them."

• Millions of seniors will lose their Medicare Advantage coverage, while millions more with Health Savings Accounts will be fined or have to buy new policies. There are 19 new taxes including penalties for individuals and families who do not buy "government-approved" policies; and businesses with 50 or more employees must pay a $2,000-a-head fine if they don't offer approved coverage.

• There is a huge new tax on investment income, which is not indexed for inflation. It will therefore hit more and more people every year -- just like the AMT.

• There is a new tax on home sales of 3.8%. This will hit middle-income people who are "'rich' for only one day" as they sell a house and buy a new one.

• There are $15.2 billion in new taxes on the middle class as DemCare severely restricts the medical expense deduction, which is widely used by families who have a serious illness or are elderly.

• According to Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA), there is a huge new loophole in the bill as nothing prevents health care companies from raising rates by any amount.

• The bill will lead to a dramatic shortage of doctors -- around 150,000 doctors almost immediately -- because the pool of newly insured welfare DemCare recipients has expanded so dramatically.

Now it appears the bill contains another surprise: the "religious exemption" that allows individuals to conscientiously object to joining DemCare was screwed up as the bill is written. Based upon the letter of the law as it was written and passed, there is no religious exemption.

‘(A) RELIGIOUS CONSCIENCE EXEMPTION- Such term shall not include any individual for any month if such individual has in effect an exemption under section 1311(d)(4)(H) of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act which certifies that such individual is a member of a recognized religious sect or division thereof described in section 1402(g)(1) and an adherent of established tenets or teachings of such sect or division as described in such section.

Problem is, there's no section 1402(g)(1) in the bill. That goes for the certified copy of the bill, not just the one online.

The U.S. Report also noticed the screw-up.

Another apparent omission relates to a section about exemptions for “a recognized religious sect or division thereof...” That section in HR 4872 references descriptions of such a sect in “section 1402(g)(1),” but the section appears to either be missing or to be part of an extraneous document. That section could not be located in HR 3590 either. We utilized a document search and we also combed through both bills. If it’s there, we could not locate it. What religions are exempted?

We must point out this religious exemption is unconstitutional, in our opinion. Attorney Marci Hamilton, writing for FindLaw, agrees with me and she does a fine job explaining why. Hamilton also believes this is a danger to children, “The sad truth is that members of Congress either do not know this religious-exemption provision exists within the mammoth health care bill, or else they are willing to pander to a small religious group at the expense of children's well-being.”

Now, what the staffers who wrote the bill probably meant to say is Section 1402(g)(1) of the Internal Revenue Code, which deals with Members of certain religious faiths and exemption from the code.

Any individual may file an application (in such form and manner, and with such official, as may be prescribed by regulations under this chapter) for an exemption from the tax imposed by this chapter if he is a member of a recognized religious sect or division thereof and is an adherent of established tenets or teachings of such sect or division by reason of which he is conscientiously opposed to acceptance of the benefits of any private or public insurance which makes payments in the event of death, disability, old-age, or retirement or makes payments toward the cost of, or provides services for, medical care (including the benefits of any insurance system established by the Social Security Act).

But, as the law is written, there are no religious exemptions.

No one gets to opt out: not the Amish, not the Muslims, not the Atheists.

How many other mistakes have the master planners made? How many omissions have the geniuses, who think they can proscribe the operation of one-sixth of the economy, made?

The horrors associated with this disastrous bill won't become fully evident for years, but it's safe this "law" marks the end of the United States as a Constitutional Republic.


Larwyn's Linx: Photos of a Tax Day Revolt in DC

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

Nation

Photos of a Tax Day Revolt in DC: LATL
Thank You, Mr. President: RWN
Missouri Tea Party Provocateur Spills the Beans: BMW

This is How They Buy You: Stormbringer
Blue on Blue: Commies attack Nazis in L.A.: AmPower
Goodwin Liu: Faulty memory, expedient metamorphosis: Malkin

Cultural Marxism in Education: The Gathering Revolt: AT
Barack Obama's Missing Girlfriends: Cashill
Obama defies tradition of the free press: Sun-Times

Economy

No, the economy's not turning around: BMW
Family Dairy Farms and Immigration Reform: AT
Former Obama car czar named in state pension scam: Post

Climate & Energy

Iceland's Volcano Impacts Economy, Weather, Health: AT
We knew, it was only a matter of time…: WUWT
Cocked and Loaded: Dewey

Media

“On behalf of the Obama Adminstration…”: Anchoress
Source Of Vicious Right-Wing "Whisper Campaign" Against Elena Kagan Uncovered: Mere Rhetoric
How Barack Obama invented himself: Telegraph

See No Qur’an, Hear No Qur’an: Spencer
Hospice America: Doc Zero
Goldman Indictment found ... in the back of the Virginian Pilot.: MoneyRunner

Rush: 'I want to thank you, Mr. President': RWN
Huffington Post puts up 'outrageous' tea party poster pics, epic FAIL ensues: BlogProf

World

Gates: No Strategy to Stop Iran: LegalIns
Israel: Obama's Scapegoat: PJM
Susan Rice: Ducking a Congo Odyssey: Frontpage

Obama's Syrian Policy Collapses: JRubin
Step Aside Madonna, Brangelina, Bono. American kids coming through ...: Crittenden

SciTech

How much control will Apple have over news app content?: CNet
Latest Liberal Fad: Sipping Expensive, Delicious Civet S***: TAB
Web coupons know lots about you, and they tell: CNet

Cornucopia

Adios Amigos. Hola Czarinna de Diplomacia: MOTUS
And the Number One Reason to Get Right? Hot Babes!: AmDigest
Catchy. Fun. Spot-on.: C&S

Way, Way Above My Paygrade: MOTUS
At least Madonna has muscle: Gather
Greg Hits the Big Time: FTD

Today's Larwyn's Linx Sponsored By: Pundit & Pundette


Young Democrat Socialists Honor Noam Chomsky, Decry "Teabagger Fascism"... While Simultaneously Condemning the Murderous "Jewish Disease"

Chris Maisano, a member of the "Young Democrat Socialists of America", describes the latest secretion from decrepit leftist Noam Chomsky.

"I'm just old enough to have heard a number of Hitler's speeches on the radio," [Chomsky] said, "and I have a memory of the texture and the tone of the cheering mobs, and I have the dread sense of the dark clouds of fascism gathering" here at home.

Chomsky was speaking to more than 1,000 people at the Orpheum Theatre in Madison, Wisconsin, where he received the University of Wisconsin's A.E. Havens Center's award for lifetime contribution to critical scholarship.

"The level of anger and fear is like nothing I can compare in my lifetime," he said.

Readers added their own perspectives. The aptly named hayate says that Chomsky isn't radical enough:

The media gives space to the neo-cons as they are the zionist sponsored batch and the most extreme of the teabaggers. They are also as phony as the fundy Christian movement, another zionist started and lead fascist movement to promote zionist policy. The neo-con teabaggers' purpose is to give zionist puppet obama and his merry corporate welfare crew some opposition to fool the wad with...

Really nasty opposition, whom obama & co. will look progressive against. You see, that's how zionists maintain their political control over the wad. They put rightwing up against far right fringies and call that political diversity. It's all a crock of shite. The dangerous fascists in the usa, the ones with the real power to actually do things, are the zionists and their puppets who are at the root of all this rubbish. But you wont hear chomsky mention them. And we all know why, by now. What chomsky is doing is naming some of the symptoms of this known disease while hiding what disease it is and what its cause is. Not very honest, and not very bright, either. It's like busting charles manson's crew and leaving manson free to walk the streets. Each time I hear chomsky talk or read something from him, he loses more of my respect and I don't have much of that left for him now. That's quite a loss of confidence, considering back in the 80's, I probably respected the man more than any other in his field.

The "right wing" believes in the Constitution: the rule of God's law and equality of opportunity for all mankind, no matter the race, religion or creed.

The "left wing" believes in the rule of man: a small set of master planners who claim to have the ability to organize others' lives.

The fascists, socialists, Marxists, communists and other statists are of the left. They believe in the power of the state, not the individual. They reject the Declaration and the Constitution. They reject our founding principles. They reject thousands of years of human experience.

Liberalism is the ideology of the stupid. They appear to be incapable of learning, of understanding history. Of using facts, logic and reason.

Fortunately, there's more of us than them. For now.


Linked by: Ed Driscoll. Thanks!

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

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

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
Today's Larwyn's Linx Sponsored By: News from Doswell and:
J.D. Hayworth for U.S. Senate (Get Your Own J.D. Blog Widget)