Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Larwyn's Linx: Is Goldman Obama's Enron? No, it's worse

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

Is Goldman Obama's Enron? No, it's worse: WashExam
'We’re Going to Make it Uncomfortable for the Democrats': JWF
From Keith Ellison to Barack Obama: Power Line

Return to Waco: Volokh
Scott Brown: Obama, Dems to push Grahamnesty plan: GWP
Memo to Corker: Hewitt

Economy

All the president’s Goldman Sachs men: Malkin
Grotesquely Overpaid Illinois Teachers Demand Tax Hikes: RWN
Feeling Entitled: Instapundit

Obama and Chris Dodd lay groundwork for more bailouts: RWN
Democrat Culture of Corruption: NY State Senate Edition: JWF
FDA to regulate salt: BlogProf

Climate & Energy

71% of U.S. opposes Democrat-Graham Gas Tax: GWP
Big Nature, Tiny Us: AT
James Cameron, Master Projectionist and Pharoh Of Climate Change: Hindenblog

Media

Where in the World is Tony Rezko?: WashExam
An Age of Untruth: Hanson
NYT: Say, did you know ObamaCare screws the little guy?: TAB

Cornel West: Illegal Aliens Have a Friend in the White House: Moonbattery
Could the U.S. Become Argentina?: Times
What philosophers inspire liberal Democrats? I’ve got a better question than that.: Troglopundit

World

Howard Berman: Obstructing Sanctions Against Iran?: AT
Root Causes In Middle East: What if there wasn’t an Israel?: Kesler
Obama, Israel and the Genesis Prediction: Prager

Iran boosts Qods shock troops in Venezuela: Times
Hillary Speaks the Truth for Once: Fausta
The Happy Warrior: Steyn

SciTech

Steve Jobs: 'Folks Who Want Porn Can Buy An Android Phone' : PuffHo
Hitler Is Very Upset That Constantin Film Is Taking Down Hitler Parodies: TechCrunch

Cornucopia

Old Spice | Zoom :30: Old Spice
Moonbat Anti-Macho Manifesto: RWN
Checkmate?: C&S

Image: The Atlantic: Ronald Reagan and James Dean: Rare Video From 1954
Today's Larwyn's Linx Sponsored By: Take Murtha's Seat Money Bomb!

QOTD:

The plan Reno approved and took to President Clinton for approval contemplated the children choking in the gas unprotected for forty-eight hours if necessary, to produce the requisite “maternal feelings”. By taking aim at the children with potentially lethal gas, their mothers would be compelled, according to the FBI plan repeatedly defended by the Clinton administration afterwards as “rational” planning, to flee with them into the arms of those trying to gas them.

An independent report on Waco written by the Harvard Professor of Law and Psychiatry, Alan A. Stone, for the then Deputy Attorney General Philip Heymann, says it “is difficult to believe that the US government would deliberately plan to expose twenty-five children, most of them infants and toddlers, to CS gas for forty-eight hours”. Unfortunately, however, that appears to have been exactly the plan.

      -- Volokh Conspiracy, Waco


Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Same Chicago Pol Who Took $1 Million From Goldman Uses Staged SEC Attack to Save Kittens and Raise Money, But Mostly to Raise Money

In order to press the case for "financial reform", President Obama appears to have coordinated a Pearl Harbor-style attack on his long-time supporters at Goldman Sachs.

Campaign contributions from Goldman Sachs employees to President Obama are nearly seven times as much as President Bush received from Enron workers...

President Bush's connections to Enron were well-hyped during the company's accounting debacle that rippled through the economy. Time magazine even had an article called, "Bush's Enron Problem." The Associated Press ran with the headline, "Bush-backing Enron makes big money off crisis." David Callaway wrote that Enron for Bush was worse than Whitewater for Clinton.

In 2002, the New York Times wrote: "President Bush is seeking to play down his relationship with Enron's embattled chairman, Kenneth L. Lay. But their ties are broad and deep and go back many years, and the relationship has been beneficial to both."

But the mere $151,722.42 (inflation adjusted) in contributions from Enron-affiliated executives, employees, and PACs to Bush hardly add up to Obama's $1,007,370.85 (inflation adjusted) from Goldman-affiliated executives and employees. That's also not taking into account how much Goldman contributed to Obama cabinet member Hillary Clinton ($415,595.63 inflation adjusted), which was itself almost three times as much as Bush received as well.

And Goldman's been a continuing haven for Obama staffers. His first White House counsel, Greg Craig, joined Goldman and chief of staff Rahm Emanuel received $35,000 from the investment bank as a consultant. And Mark Patterson, a Geithner staff member, was a Goldman lobbyist shortly before joining the Treasury Department.

Michelle Malkin observes that after collecting seven figures-plus, the President's bizarre political action group (a more jaded observer would term them "Brownshirts") is using the Goldman fiasco to -- wait for it -- raise money.

The DNC/Organizing for America is at the ready to milk the new campaign for all its worth. Message from Obama: Hey, America, I’m fighting all the evil fat cats who funded my presidential bid. Now, send me more money!

President Obama is bringing his war on Wall Street to the enemy’s turf... He’ll make his pitch for financial reform in the heart of lower Manhattan Thursday – even as his team make hay of the Goldman Sachs fiasco with a tech savvy appeal to Democratic donors.

Internet surfers who entered “Goldman Sachs SEC” into Google were directed to the president’s campaign Web site via a sponsored link titled “Help Change Wall Street.” The White House’s political arm paid for the keywords — but would not say how much.

The tactic provided the latest evidence of how Obama and the Democratic National Committee are using the Securities and Exchange Commission’s bombshell fraud suit against the financial giant to push financial-reform legislation through Congress.

But showing it, too, was gearing up for a political fight, Goldman Sachs hired Obama’s former White House counsel, Gregory Craig, Politico reported last night.


There are no coincidences in Chicago-on-the-Potomac.

And a word for Goldman: if you lie down with Democrats you'll catch far more than fleas.


Update: Oops -- linkie go bye-bye.


It's Just That Simple

Papa B:


"And thus, dear students, we have arrived at the formula for understanding women!"


Grievance Politics and an Entitlement Mentality: The Democrat Disease Spreads from City to City and Town to Town

DeeDee from Cincinnati:

Consider the following local news stories, presented in order.

Kroger closing Roselawn store


April 16, 2010

Kroger announced Friday afternoon that it would close the store in Roselawn's Hillcrest Shopping Center that it has operated for more than 25 years... The store's last day will be April 25.

The Hillcrest location lost more than $1 million in 2009 and its shopper base has declined significantly over the last decade... research showed that 75 percent of the shoppers in that neighborhood already visited one of its other nearby stores.

To continue to provide grocery access to those customers who had shopped at the Hillcrest store, Kroger will partner with Metro to provide bus tokens for those shoppers to visit the Norwood or Hartwell locations... Kroger places no restrictions on its property at Hillcrest, wrote Shaffer. It is willing to negotiate with other grocery stores that may want to occupy the space and use the equipment... All associates will be offered positions at other Kroger stores.

Neighbors, Councilman Denounce Store Closure


April 17, 2010

Backed by several residents of Bond Hill, Cincinnati city councilman Cecil Thomas spoke out against the forthcoming closure of the Hillcrest Kroger store Saturday... [which saw] fewer customers over the last several years and that in 2009 it lost more than one million dollars...

"I don't buy this reason, 'Well this store is losing a lot of money,'" said Thomas. "I believe that this store is losing a lot of money because it's intentional to get the people to go somewhere else... If they would have made this a super-store, then you would have people coming here, spending their dollars rather than driving several miles," continued Thomas.

Community protests Kroger closing


April 19, 2010

Kroger's decision to close its Roselawn store could hurt residents' health over the long haul, some community activists argue... Kroger announced Friday that the Hillcrest Shopping Center store will close Sunday, leaving Roselawn without a supermarket. Company officials blamed a loss of more than $1 million last year at that store, and an eroding customer base.

But Dwight Tillery, CEO of the Center for Closing the Health Gap in Avondale, said profit shouldn't be the only issue when basic services are at stake.

"What we're looking at here is a pattern of major grocers are abandoning the inner city neighborhoods which happen to be primarily minority people and poor people and elderly people," Tillery said. "This has to be more than, 'We're not meeting our bottom line,' because food, like water, is essential to the health and wellbeing of our residents. You're losing something that is very critical to people's survival."

Obesity and related health problems are higher in neighborhoods where people don't have access to fresh fruits and vegetables, Tillery said.

...Rachael Betzler, a spokeswoman for Kroger, said the company will offer free bus tokens for customers of the Roselawn store who switch to their nearby Norwood or Hartwell stores... She cited the store's profit loss, as well as company data showing that 75 percent of customers at the Hillcrest store have already started shopping at other Kroger stores.

...Cincinnati Councilman Cecil Thomas wants to hear from residents at the April 29 meeting. He also plans to bring up the food desert issue before the council's Quality of Life Committee...

###

In a nutshell, Kroger is closing a store in an area of Cincinnati that suffers from high levels of violent crime. Not only did it lose $1 million last year, but a friend in the business told me that their are high levels of shrinkage (shoplifting) in the area.

Not only that, but Thriftway closed a bunch of stores in nearby areas a few years back that served many poor white and Hispanic folks. Same issue, no controversy.

So in that light consider the quote from a black, Democratic member of city council:

"I don't buy this reason, 'Well this store is losing a lot of money... I believe that this store is losing a lot of money because it's intentional to get the people to go somewhere else."

Yet another example of Democratic demagoguery that promotes an entitlement mentality and blesses self-destructive behavior.

Would you expect anything else from a Democrat?


Ruh Roh: Rep. Darrell Issa demands full disclosure from SEC regarding collusion with the White House and The New York Times over Goldman charges

Rep. Darrell Issa, the top Republican on the House Oversight Committee, is "demanding" documents from the SEC. Issa and other Republicans contend that the timing of charges against Goldman Sachs, when new financial oversight legislation is being marketed by Democrats, seems a bit too... uhm, coincidental. Issa's letter reads, in part:

The timing of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (the “Commission”) filing of a civil securities fraud action against Goldman Sachs & Co. (“Goldman”) has created serious questions about the Commission’s independence and impartiality. The Goldman litigation – filed by the Commission on Friday, April 16, 2010 – has been widely cited by Democrats in support of the financial regulatory legislation currently before the United States Senate...

...We are writing to request that you provide documents and information to this Committee regarding any sort of prearrangement, coordination, direction from, or advance notice provided by the Commission to the Administration or Congressional Democrats regarding last Friday’s filing against Goldman. The American people have a right to know whether the Commission, or any of its officers or employees, may have violated federal law by using the resources of an independent regulatory agency to promote a partisan political agenda.

The Commission’s canons of ethics require its members to “reject any effort by representatives of the executive or legislative branches of the government to affect their independent determination of any matter being considered by the Commission.” Moreover, the Commission is prohibited from using its resources to influence the passage of legislation.

Nevertheless, the events of the past five days have fueled legitimate suspicion on the part of the American people that the Commission has attempted to assist the White House, the Democratic Party, and Congressional Democrats by timing the suit to coincide with the Senate’s consideration of financial regulatory legislation, or by providing Democrats with advance notice. In fact, the aggressive campaign by Democrats in support of the legislation neatly coincided with the Commission’s announcement of the suit. For example:

--The Commission approved the Goldman suit in a vote that spit along party lines – a rare occurrence for approvals of enforcement litigation.

--Before the Commission had released its announcement, the New York Times published on its website a story describing the suit.

--Less than half an hour after the Times story’s publication, Organizing for America, the successor organization to Obama for America and now a project of the Democratic National Committee (“DNC”), sent millions of supporters an e-mail message from President Obama urging support for “Wall Street Reform.”

--Within hours, the Democratic National Committee had purchased AdWords advertising from Google, Inc. The DNC’s Google campaign fundraising advertisement, headed “Fight Wall Street Greed,” appeared whenever a user ran a Google search for the phrase “Goldman Sachs SEC.” It read, “Help Pres. Obama Reform Wall Street and Create Jobs. Families First!” and included a link to www.BarackObama.com, the website of Organizing for America.


--Democrats in Congress and the Administration have heralded the Commission’s suit against Goldman as a welcome boost to their case for the legislation.

--Members of the media have already begun to question the timing of the Commission’s suit and the actions of the Democratic National Committee.

As supported by the Commission’s canons of ethics, and as frequently reiterated by you and other Commissioners, the unqualified independence of financial regulators is crucial to the health of the financial system and the U.S. economy. For this reason, doubts about whether the Commission has scrupulously guarded its independence from the Administration’s partisan political agenda and concerted efforts to manipulate Congressional action are very serious, and should be addressed with full transparency.

The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is the principal oversight committee in the House of Representatives and has broad oversight jurisdiction as set forth in House Rule X. In light of the circumstances described above, and the need for the Commission to avoid even the appearance of bias, please provide the following records and information as soon as possible, but in no case later than 5 pm EST on Tuesday, April 27, 2010:

State whether any Commissioner or Commission employee communicated regarding the Commission’s suit against Goldman, prior to the public announcement of the suit on April 16, 2010, with any of the following:

--Any employee of the Executive Office of the President;

--Any employee of the Democratic National Committee or Organizing for America;

--Any employee of the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee;

--Any employee of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee; or

--Any Member of the Senate or the House of Representatives, or any employee of the Senate or the House of Representatives.

Identify every person who sent or received any communication described in request no. 1.

Identify all known communications by any Commission employee or employees with The New York Times or other news outlets prior to the Commission’s public announcement of the suit. If you are unaware of any such communications, please certify as such and explain what steps the Commission has taken to identify any individual(s) who may have engaged in unauthorized disclosure of information.

State whether Commission Chief of Staff Didem Nisanci or Senior Adviser Kayla Gillan engaged in any communication with any individual in the subcategories listed in request no. 1 between March 1, 2010, and the present, and identify any other member of the Chairman’s staff who engaged in any such communication.

...The American people have a right to know whether the Commission, or any of its officers or employees, have attempted to use their positions to help President Obama and Congressional Democrats pursue their legislative agenda and seek victory in the 2010 Congressional elections. If, however, the appearance of coordination between the Commission’s Goldman suit and Democrats’ partisan activities is merely the result of coincidence and extraordinarily fast political reflexes, disclosure should offer the commission the best opportunity to address outstanding concerns. In either case, we look forward to your timely production of records and information in response to this letter...

Gee, Darrell, I'm sure all of that s*** was just coincidental! As an aside, Ubersturmbannführer Axelrod could not be reached for comment at press time.

Paging Mr. Herman, Mr. Herman...


Hat tip: Drudge. Linked by: Michelle Malkin. Thanks!

'Rest In Peace, Technorati'

I used to visit the blog aggregator website Technorati.com to see which sites had linked to mine. Their "blog reactions" feature was one of the most valuable services a blogger could use, especially for small up-and-comers. I'm pretty sure Instapundit's Glenn Reynolds and Michelle Malkin never used it because only about 8 trillion blogs already link to them. But for the little guys it was invaluable.

Anyhow, about seven or eight months ago Technorati changed their "reactions" feature during a major site redesign and it hasn't worked since. Various users have complained for months on a support site to no avail, other than the occasional wan promise that it's in the works.

Today, Dividist wrote the epitaph for a once-valuable site.

A perfect example of a company completely losing its way. This was exactly what brought most bloggers back to Technorati every day. This was the one thing that Technorati did better than anyone else. I can only assume that they ran out of money at exactly the wrong time, could no longer afford the infrastructure needed to support this capability in an exploding blogosphere, could not raise money during the downturn and then made a fatal mistake...

They listened to an impatient VC insist they cut costs and reinvent themselves as a quasi social network because - you know - "social networks are hot and cool and look how much buzz twitter and facebook get."

So now you have a site that provides no value to anyone except potentially the top 100 sites, who have no real need for what Technorati offers.

A classic clusterfork. Rest In Peace Technorati. There is still no service that is as good and useful to the average blogger as you once were. But now you are completely useless to everyone.

I really can't disagree.


Larwyn's Linx: Christie Escalates War with the Teachers' Unions

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

Christie Escalates War with the Teachers' Unions: JWF
Humor vs. Contempt: Obama's Character: Kimball
Bordering on Fraud: Doc Zero

Leftist Political Crisis Exploitation: RWN
Conyers: 'Teabaggers' so angry their 'rational abilities' are gone: BlogProf
Oklahoma City, Waco, and crisis exploitation: Malkin

The Grand Illusions of America's Liberals: AT

Economy

How public-sector unions broke California: Malanga
Big Government Knifes Goldman Sachs in the Back: RWN
The New Front in the War on Wealth: AT

Obama on 'Global Rebalancing': Expect a Weaker America: GWP
Sorry, Dems, but the VAT idea is brain-damaged, too: Samuelson

Climate & Energy

Smart Grid Cash flows right back to an old Chicago Friend: Ameristroika
Say, where are all those 'green jobs'?: RWN
Panic spreads as Climate 'Titanic' goes down: BigJournalism

Media

The New York Times, and That Business At the Cathedral In Cordoba: Winds of Jihad
The New Alien & Sedition Acts: Because they worked so well last time!: Cold Fury
How A Free Press Dies… By Only Covering Tariq Ramadan, Not Ibn Warraq: Chesler

Tyranny May Be Closer than We Think: AT
Newsweak to keep Claiming America's in a big-time recovery until it's finally true: Ace
Beck Kicks Joe Klein's Butt, Metaphorically Speaking, Of Course: GWP

World

The Obama Administration and our Judicial System Just Blinded Us to Terrorist Attacks: Strata-Sphere
Defeating Radical Islam — a Lesson from Hercules: PJM
Two Top AQ Leaders in Iraq Die of Suffocation Due to Volcanic Ash and Being Trapped in Tunnel By Iraqi Forces, But Mostly Iraqi Forces: Ace

SciTech

Amazon fights demand for customer tax records: CNet
Microsoft patches fail on infected Windows: ZDNet
Your BlackBerry's dirty security secrets: InfoWorld

Cornucopia

That Ain't the Amazing Part: iOTW
The Narrative Goes All Kamikaze: SondraK
King Obama: iOTW

Image: Maktoob News
Today's Larwyn's Linx Sponsored By: Curmudgeonly & Skeptical


Monday, April 19, 2010

Citizen Reid

Harry Reid has a long, proud history of public service. Nevadans should cast a cold, hard look back at his many accomplishments before voting in 2010.

From 2002 to 2005, Senator Reid was extremely generous with Christmas gifts for service workers at his luxury condo. He gave away $3,000 in gifts and gratuities for elevator and cleaning personnel. Unfortunately, the money came from campaign contributions and not his own bank account. It was only after the Associated Press' John Solomon discovered the sleaze that Reid claimed it was a clerical issue and a Republican smear campaign.

In 2004, for example, after Reid made a profit of $1.1 million on a real estate deal, he failed to fully disclose the details as required by the Senate. His partner (left) was reported to have some odd ties to the casino business and his name surfaced in investigations into organized crime and bribery.

In 2005, Sen. Reid sponsored an $18 million earmark to build a bridge over the Colorado River. Coincidentally, a few miles from the bridge's location is a 160-acre parcel of land owned by one Senator Harry Reid. So, yes, Reid's own earmark greatly increases the value of his huge swath of land.

Curiously, Reid had received 60 of the acres from an oil magnate friend -- the owner of Haycock Petroleum -- for a total of $10,000 in 2002, though its assessed value was $120,000. And Reid continues to underreport the value of the land, though nearby sales put its real value at nearly half a million.

Harry Reid's three sons and his son-in-law are also concerned with serving the people. All have served as lobbyists and have blurred the line between family connections and special interests. In fact, his son-in-law helped increase lobbying fees at DC's Holland & Hart from $100K to $2 million in only one year. A series of LA Times investigative reports suggested that Reid had introduced legislation and pressured regulators to unblock a huge real estate deal fronted a heavy Reid contributor who also happened to be the employer of Reid's son Leif.

At the same time, Reid was vice-chair of the Senate Ethics Committee. When asked specifically about conflicts of interest involving family member-slash-lobbyists, he insisted there were none. Yet the Senate's rules have since changed to prohibit lobbying by family members, but I'm sure that's just a coincidence.

The Times' story found that mining companies paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to lobbying firms, and the payments just happened to follow around Reid's son-in-law from firm to firm. Rory Reid's services were also sought out by mining firm Placer Dome, according to the Times.

Reid's son-in-law was also engaged by the American Gaming Association, a helicopter tour company fighting restrictions near the Grand Canyon, chemical companies seeking deals in Nevada and the Hughes Corporation as it looked for land near Vegas. Sen. Reid helpfully advanced all of their agendas -- purely for altruistic reasons -- and even helped a partner in the law firm that employed all of Reid's sons get a right-of-way moved off his property.

"Reid never told his Senate colleagues or the public that the provisions he authored, some of which were technically and not apparently beneficial to anyone, were, in fact, introduced on behalf of clients who paid his sons and son-in-law over $2 million."

But Harry Reid's public service wasn't yet complete. In running the Senate, Harry's "spread the wealth" -- using the taxpayers' money to jam through socialized medicine with various bribes, payoffs and "incentives".

When Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana was undecided about DemCare, Reid ensured she received a $300 million "bonus" for her state. Chris Dodd received a $100 million medical facility in Connecticut (any guess as to what it might be called?).

In short, Harry Reid has selflessly served the people of Nevada and, indeed, the entire country. Please consider his exceptional track record when voting in 2010.


Based upon: ELECTION YEAR: Defeating Harry Reid, an excerpt of the new book 2010: Take Back America: A Battle Plan


'Sir, Mr. Soros is on the line'

Somewhere, in a luxurious chalet near Geneva, Switzerland, billionaire George Soros hits the speed-dial function on his mobile phone and slowly lifts it to his ear.


What's the latest on the health care bill? Are the Rethuglicans going to repeal it?

No possible way. I'll veto anything they throw at me. And we've renamed ACORN so the registration and absentee ballot efforts can continue.

What do the polls say?

They'll come around. Give me a little more time.

Got it. Now: how much will it really add to the deficit?

I promised that it would actually save money! And Pinchy picked it up, of course, and the rest of the media saluted. But the black book analysis says it'll add three trillion in deficits over the next ten years.

So the total comes to -- ?

Hold on. Have another call.

Be quick, I'm in the middle of a hand.

Hello?

Hi, Mr. Soetero, I'm calling about the unpaid bill from Columbia University.

This isn't Mr. Soetero, you've got the wrong number.

But this is the number we have on file. Is this Barry Soetero?

Dammit, stop calling me!

Sorry about that. The total should come to -- carry the one -- $23 trillion in the next ten years.

Excellent. You've done good work, Barry, very good work. Check your Swiss account for the latest balance. I think you'll be pleased.

Thanks -- gotta go. We'll talk on Sunday.

Right-o.

Yves.

Yes, George.

That $150 million I spent on MoveOn.org and the SEIU was the best investment I ever made.

I've made a cool $12 billion betting against the dollar.

George, did anyone ever tell you that you're starting to look more like Auric Goldfinger every day?