Saturday, October 23, 2010

Dead Pundit Walking: How Long Until NPR Fires Mara Liasson for a Manufactured, Faux-Controversial 'Gaffe'?

National Public Radio and Media Matters just received $1.8 million and $1 million donations, respectively, from George "Goldfinger" Soros, presumably to advance the cause of despotism in America. Coincidentally (*chortle*), NPR immediately fired Juan Williams for voicing an opinion about airport travel in the era of 9/11. Curiously, President Obama has yet to complain about all of the foreign money flowing into the coffers of the leftist front groups known as NPR and Media Matters.

The Daily Caller reports that NPR personality and frequent Fox contributor Mara Liasson is the next personality to have a laser-dot on her forehead.

“NPR’s Mara Liasson and her long-running association with Fox News has often raised questions. This might be the proper time for NPR to finally address that thorny issue,” wrote Media Matters columnist Eric Boehlert Thursday in a post entitled “What about Mara Liasson?” “[I]f you look at NPR’s code of ethics, there’s simply no way Liasson should be making appearances on Fox.”

Boehlert cited an official NPR document that says employees may not make media appearances that are “harmful to the reputation of NPR or the NPR participant” or “where the employee’s appearance may appear to endorse the agenda of a group or organization.”

Boehlert said that since Fox News pushes a “political agenda,” Liasson’s association violates the organization’s code of ethics.

In 2009, it was reported that NPR pressured Liasson to cut her ties with Fox News, a network she has contributed to since 1997. Liasson did not immediately return a request for comment.

Yes, Boehlfart insists that Fox has a political agenda, unlike the ultra-centrist NPR and 'non-profit' Media Matters.

These people are would-be tyrants who would do anything to silence the critics of an all-powerful central government. They don't give a damn about free speech unless it's their side's.

The only people sticking up for Juan Williams -- despite the ideological differences with many of his beliefs -- are conservatives. Remember this in ten days' time.


Exclusive transcript: Obama at Occidental 'was looking forward to an imminent... revolution, where the working class would overthrow the ruling class'

Dr. John Drew was a classmate of President Obama's at Occidental College. He was interviewed last week by Paul Kengor on The Glen Meakem Show, and I took time to transcribe most of the podcast because of its importance.

Q: I interviewed you for my book Dupes a year ago and you had contact me a couple of years ago because you read a piece that I wrote for American Thinker and it was called "Dreams from Frank Marshall Davis" and it was on Obama's background and youth. Frank Marshall Davis was an actual Party member and that's something, John, I spent two or three years on investigating, but there's no question about it... the documentation is there, a 1957 Senate report called him "and identified member of the Communist Party", there's an FBI file that's 600 pages, and I took ten or twelve pages from that report and put it in the appendix of my book. It even lists Davis' Communist Party card number, which was 47544, so very clear. Why is all of this relevant? Well, I think it explains, at least to some degree, that -- if he's not a Communist, he's at least very far to the left -- and has some very left-oriented views. But you met Obama when he left Frank Marshall Davis in 1980 coming from Hawaii and went to Occidental College. So tell us about when Obama got there and when you met.

A: I see myself as Barack Obama's missing link from his exposure to Communism through Frank Marshall Davis and his later exposure to Bill Ayers and Alice Palmer in Chicago. So, as far as I can tell, I'm the only one of Obama's extended circle of friends who's spoken out and verified that he was a Marxist-Leninist in his sophomore year of college, from 1980 to 1981.

I met him because I graduated from Occidental College in 1979 and I was back at Occidental visiting a girlfriend. I met him because of the relationship which I'd started my senior year at Occidental --

Q: By the way, tell us where Occidental is. We're way out here in Western Pennsylvania.

A: Sure, Occidental College is in the Eastern Los Angeles area. It's a very prestigious, very beautiful, sort of very garden, rose-garden sort of college, with three- or four-thousand students --

Q: And pretty competitive, I mean Obama would have had to have good grades and been a good student to get accepted there.

A: Yeah, my sense is because of affirmative action, guys like me were going to Occidental instead of even better schools and guys like Obama were going to Occidental instead of, uh, less challenging schools. A lot of very successful people were there, were part of Obama's social circle at the time.

Q: Now, was Occidental known for radical left politics? Would that have been an attraction for Obama?

A: Yeah, I'm certain that it was. It was considered sort of the "Moscow" of southern California. There were a lot of Marxist professors, many of whom I got to know pretty well, not just there but also at Williams College in Massachusetts. Two of the same Marxist-Socialist professors were on the staff with me at Williams.

Q: So, that might have been an attraction for him? I'm trying to think, what would have made him go to Hawaii to Occidental? Do you think Frank Marshall Davis could somehow have been an influence in having him choose Occidental?

A: I don't have any evidence of that...

Q: Because they won't release his records, I called them --

A: Yeah, I think that's odd. I don't know, I got straight A's my first year, it sounds weird, but I don't talk about it, Paul, you'd think that if Obama did well he'd release those transcripts.

Q: Now, this is speculation, but do you think those files might hold a letter of recommendation from Frank Marshall Davis? Right? Why not?

A: Wow.

Q: Davis was a mentor. Davis writes about him in Dreams From My Father very warmly, in fact Obama writes that Davis gave him advice on women, on race, on life, on college. So, he must have recommended Occidental, but it's sad we have to speculate. If they'd just release these records...

A: Well, this is what I know for sure, and this is why I'd sought you out, to be helpful to the historic record, is to verify that Barack Obama was definitely a Marxist and that, it was very unusual for a sophomore to be as radical, or as ideologically attuned as young Barack Obama was. I think people like David Remnick [a biographer], they make it sound like Frank Marshall Davis had no impact on Obama and that his friend Mohammed Shandu somehow converted him to Marxism at Occidental. And my impression is that Obama was the leader of that group and Obama was already very ardent and committed to Marxism. And Shandu struck me as somewhat more passive. So it doesn't fit the story that I read in Remnick's story The Bridge.

Q: And Remnick did not contact you, did he?

A: No! No! ...Well, Remnick interviewed my girfriend, Carolyn Bosch -- she's on three or four pages -- and they interviewed a guy named Gary Chapman, a guy who was very active in the Democrat Student [Socialists'] Alliance.

Q: I like David Remnick. I use his book in my Compartive Studies class at Grove City College.

A: He's a sharp guy. And he's got some good facts in there, but he didn't want to hear from little Dr. Drew...

Q: ...You said that Obama was introduced to you at Occidental as a Marxist because you were one at that point.

A: Yeah, that's embarrassing, but I had studied Marxist Economics at Sussex College in England. I had a junior year scholarship over there, and did my senior honor's thesis on Marxist Economics when I was at Occidental College. And I actually founded the Democrat Student Socialists' Alliance, under a different name, in 1976... it was as Marxist as you could get, but they come up with a more general name while I was away in England.

Q: ...John, you had told me before, and I'm reading from my book, that "Obama was already an ardent Marxist in the fall of 1980 when I met him. I know it's incendiary to say this, but although he said in Dreams From My Father that he'd 'hung out with Marxist professors', he did not explain in that book or clarify is that he was 100% in total agreement with those professors.

A: Yeah, you've got that exactly right. Obama believed, at the time I met him, this was probably around Christmas time in 1980. I'd flown out on Christmas break from Cornell, where I was in grad school. And Obama was looking forward to an imminent social revolution, literally a movement where the working classes would overthrow the ruling class and institute a kind of socialist Utopia in the United States. I mean, that's how extreme his views were his sophomore year of college.

...I was a comrade, but I was more... the Frankfort School of Marxism at the time. I was, I felt like I was doing him a favor by pointing out that the Marxist revolution that he and Caroline and Shandu were hoping for was really kind of a pipe-dream. And that there was nothing in European history, or the history of developed nations, that would make that sort of fantasy, that Frank Marshall Davis fantasy of revolution, come true.

Q: So you had a realistic sense that, even though you liked these ideas, that you knew they wouldn't really work?

A: Right... [There were some] who were puzzled why they didn't see Marx's predictions come true, and weren't interested in the role of psychology or false consciousness in preventing a revolution from happening. I was a card-carrying Marxist, but I was more of an east coast, Cornell University Marxist at that time.

Q: But Obama thought it was practical. He thought it could happen in America?

A: Oh, yeah! He thought I was a little reactionary... or insensitive to the coming needs of the revolution! He was full-bore, 100% into that very, kind of simple-minded Marxist revolutionary framework.

Q: And, also at this time, this is 1981, Jimmy Carter was President [?] and Ronald Reagan was yet to call the Soviet Union 'the Evil Empire' when he becomes President. Did you have talk about the election, about Reagan. I mean, that must have really upset Obama?

A: You know, it's so long ago. My clearest recollection was that we were more concerned with more U.S. intervention in Latin America and the repression of Communist and Socialist forces like the Sandanistas and things like that... this sound weird, but there was part of me at the time that was ready to go off and fight with the Sandanistas against the Contras. I was pretty crazy, Paul...

Q: Now this gets to a critical point and I know Obama supporters want me to ask this... to be fair, look where you were then and where you are today...

A: Oh, yeah. Now I'm a Ronald Reagan, church-going, Baptist conservative, so...

Q: So, what about Obama. That's the... trillion dollar question? ...We have to know this stuff about our Presidents, you can't leave this about biographies...

A: Well, I think that he, I've challenged President Obama to explain how he evolved this Marxist-Leninist viewpoint he had in his sophomore year of college. And he's just never articulated how he changed. In fact, he's buried and, I think, lied about his ideological convictions of his youth. And we can trace it all the way to Alice Palmer, I think, in 1995 [the Illinois state senator who he replaced]... who attended the Communist Party "Politburo" event. Or she was part of a big international Communist convention in Moscow!

Q: ...And Palmer was with Obama in the living room of Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn when -- and The New York Times even wrote about this -- there was sort of a political blessing, where Palmer identified Obama as his chosen successor...

A: ...Well, I think I can knock down some doors here but stating that he had a very consistent ideology, I think, probably from the time he was in [Hawaii] to the time he was with Palmer and Ayers in Chicago. I think his current behavior demonstrates that he still has some ideological convictions. When ever he talks about taxing the richest two-percent? I think he knows that will harm the economy. To him, the redistribution of wealth is extremely important. And he never took economics or science like I did. He went straight to law school, never had any business experience, never had a payroll to meet. And I think he's locked in a very dangerous mindset, where if he didn't fight to redistribute the wealth that he'd be violating [his] ideology.

...You see people like Van Jones, who's an admitted Communist, you see Anita Dunn, who's praising Mao Tse-Tung, to me, it's like Obama's Marxist-Socialist ideology is hiding in plain sight! It's frustrating to me. It seems to me like people should be up in arms about this!

...I think whenever he talks about people clinging to their guns and religions due to economic stress, that's just the standard Marxist argument... he's still using the standard Marxist architecture, the way he talks about things. I think he's surrounded by people who share that mental architecture!

...I feel like our nation's life is at stake.

Yes. It is. The time for action grows near.


Linked by: Weasel Zippers, NewsReal, Protein Wisdom and Curmudgeonly & Skeptical. Thanks!

Larwyn's Linx: Beautiful--Illegal Aliens Canvas for Democrats in Washington State

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

Illegal Aliens Canvas for Democrats in Washington State: GWP
Latinos Go Conservative: PJM
A Desperate Raul Grijalva Panics: RWN

WaPo Confirms: Racial Politics Played in Panther Case: Verum Serum
Election Fraud and Eric Holder: PJM
Dems Playing Soviet-Style Insanity Card: PJM

538.com: Surber Is Right: Surber
How the Constitution is Read: AT
Is the Tea Party as Racist as Democrats?: RWN

Economy

Five Freedoms You'll Lose With ObamaCare: Adrienne
Feds Deciding When Health Care Costs Too Much: RWN
What Are They Teaching Our Best and Brightest?: AT

Figures: SEIU offshoot had 6,000 bogus voter registrations: GWP
America at Debt's Door: A Primer: AT
Obama Stagehand Sent Home for Wearing Bush Shirt: Powers

Krauthammer, on Obama’s Condescension: BizzyBlog
Are Europe and America Trading Places?: AT
Lawrence Kotlikoff - Actions of Fed, Treasury Are Child Abuse: ZH

Media

Free the Taxpayers: Defund State-Run Media: Malkin
Limbaugh announces 'Reverse Operation Chaos': Driscoll
Glenn Greenwald of Salon – Add Him To the Ever Growing Asshat List: iOTW

Juan Williams, Mugged by Reality: Driscoll
First Campaign Ad of 2012?: Hot Air
An Airplane! Ad Against Barbara Boxer: Patterico

The David Horowitz Interview: RWN
Thanks, NPR. We Get the Message: GrandRants
Juan Williams: I used to think the right was the intolerant side: Hot Air

World

New York Times: Cheerleader for the Death Cult: AT
Former Chairman of Joint Chiefs: President Clinton Lost Launch Codes, With One Glaring Exception of Course: Powers
Abandoning our Closest Allies: FPM

Iraq war report leaks detail 'bloodbath': Maktoob
Teleprompter Heads to India: SHN
Taliban: British Muslims Our Greatest Source of Funding: Undhimmi

Obama and the Axis of Chavez: PJM
Forty Million Losers: AT
Least Shocking Study Results Of The Day: Muslim Treatment Of Women Stinks: RWN

SciTech

Report: China hijacked U.S. Internet data: CNet
The Escalation Begins: Potluck
4 Baby Deaths Spur Graco Stroller Recall: WebMD

Cornucopia

The Florist Who Performed Heart Surgery: iOTW
How to Make Winning Dice: C&S
The Obama Card: Don't Leave Home Without It: Cubachi

Image: Maktoob Business.
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: Support Dino Rossi -- Fire Patty Murray!


Friday, October 22, 2010

Nancy Pelosi lays her cards on the table: she's going to confiscate your 401(k), your IRA, and everything else she can lay her hands on

It's true: Democrats are plotting the confiscation of your 401(k) and IRA retirement plans. Don't believe me. Believe Nancy Pelosi.

...We’re talking about addressing the disparity in our country of income, where the wealthy people continue to get wealthier and some other people are falling out of the middle class, when we want to bring many more people into the middle class.

But that disparity is not just about wages alone, that disparity is about ownership and equity.

It’s all about fairness in our country.

And we believe the healthcare bill is about jobs, the energy bill is about jobs, the education bill is about jobs, certainly the Recovery Act is about jobs...

And when people have those jobs, we want them to be able to bargain collectively. (Applause) We want to pass the Employer Free choice act as well...

If you had any doubt whatsoever that the modern Democrat Party is socialist at its core, Pelosi's talk to the union bosses should disabuse you of that naive notion.

The Democrats are socialists. They are true believers. They're radical sixties retreads.

Consider that France is, at this very moment, suffering from convulsions and gridlock as its unions revolt against hiking the retirement age from 60 to 62. How'd you like to retire at 62? Well, the out-of-control unions think that's radical. And France represents a preview of our future with the unholy alliance of Democrats and union bosses.

The complete shutdown of France's refineries and a rolling transportation strike that has disrupted life for almost two weeks couldn't have come at a worse time for the country's economy... On Friday, France's environment minister Jean-Louis Borloo estimated that about 20 percent of France's service stations had run out of fuel, down from 40 percent earlier in the week before the government began unblocking depots.

If you'd like to surrender to the first counter-revolution in American history -- the Left's direct attack on the Constitution and America's founding -- then don't vote on November 2nd.

Remember all of the anxiety.

All of the angst.

All of the pain.

Remember it.

Rally your family, your friends, your neighbors and everyone you know.

This is it. The Republic hangs in the balance. Nancy Pelosi just said as much.


Josh Silver, president of the ill-named FreePress, proves--without a shadow of a scintilla of a doubt--that he is a flat-out totalitarian nut

So much for free speech. The Left, it would appear, really doesn't support the First Amendment, the Second Amendment, the Tenth Amendment, or the Constitution, for that matter.

Josh Silver, president of the ill-named FreePress, proves -- without a shadow of a scintilla of a doubt -- that he is a flat-out totalitarian nut. Writing at the Muffington Host, which I'm guessing is also funded by George Soros, Silver decries the Constitution.

The reactionaries of the far-right are clawing and scratching at their latest red meat: National Public Radio's decision to fire Juan Williams for comments he made about Muslims on Fox News Channel...

...Regardless of what you think about Juan Williams' dismissal -- and NPR's own ombudsman has questioned how it was handled -- using it to take away public radio's funding is like asking for the death penalty in small claims court. It's crazy and it must be stopped...

Public media like NPR play a crucial role in the American information ecosystem that is otherwise drowning in a sensationalism and soundbytes [sic]...

...If the United States spent the same per capita on public media and journalism subsidies as Sweden and Norway, which rank 1 and 2, we would be spending as much as $30 billion a year on public media instead of $440 million.

Sweden? Really?

Malmø, Sweden--The police now publicly admit what many Scandinavians have known for a long time: They no longer control the situation in the nations's third largest city. It is effectively ruled by violent gangs of Muslim immigrants. Some of the Muslims have lived in the area of Rosengård, Malmø, for twenty years, and still don't know how to read or write Swedish. Ambulance personnel are attacked by stones or weapons, and refuse to help anybody in the area without police escort.

Sounds... eh... politically correct.

The Left whines endlessly about the separation of Church and State; but they do so, whether they know it or not, in support of KKK lawyer Hugo Black's controversial 1947 decision that magically became an immutable legal doctrine. At least for the Left, which despises free speech when it conflicts with the advancement of totalitarianism.

Fine. They want to claim separation of church and state is in the Constitution? Then defund NPR: after all, it's all about separation of the free press -- and the state.

As for Josh Silver? He'd be perfectly happy as a lackey of Hugo Chavez, Pol Pot, Nikita Khrushchev or Josef Goebbels.


'Let George Soros Support 'Em': Jim DeMint Introduces Bill to Defund NPR

The nimrods at NPR reportedly claim that they don't receive any federal funding. That's true, but only if you don't count half a frickin' billion dollars that taxpayers spend on the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

The good news: if we can take over Congress, we can put an end to the kind of senseless partisan manure excreted by state-run media. What is this, East Berlin? We need a state-run media?

I think not. And neither does a real American hero, Jim DeMint.

Sen. Jim DeMint, the conservative and increasingly powerful Republican senator from South Carolina, introduced a bill Friday to strip federal funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) in the wake of National Public Radio's decision to fire Juan Williams for comments about Muslims that he made on Fox News earlier this week.

During a panel about Muslims and terrorism on "The O'Reilly Factor," Williams said he sometimes is afraid boarding an airplane if he sees a person in "Muslim garb." He went on to say that stereotyping all Muslims is wrong.

After an NPR vice president told Williams he would be fired if he did not stop appearing on Fox News, Williams was terminated. He later defended his remarks as truthful and said that NPR is hostage to narrow thinking.

"This is evidence of one-party rule and one-sided thinking at NPR that leads to enforced ideology, speech and writing," Williams wrote on FoxNews.com. "It leads to people, especially journalists, being sent to the gulag for raising the wrong questions and displaying independence of thought."

With federal spending completely out of control and deficits exploding, I can think of an excellent way to save about half a billion dollars.

Let Soros fund this crap.


Image: iOwnTheWorld. Hat tip: Memeorandum. Linked by: Michelle Malkin. Thanks!

In Alaska, Lisa Murkowsciecz Picks Up Another Coveted Endorsement

Looks like another dead guy endorsed Lisa Mankowitz in Alaska. Not sure who this person is, but does it really matter?

Support Joe Miller for U.S. Senate. He's the real deal.


Larwyn's Linx: Elections Have Consequences

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

Elections Have Consequences: iOTW
Military Voters, We Want to Hear From You: PJM
Harry and Friends: AT

Charles Lollar forcing Steny Hoyer to actually campaign: AnBlkCon
Christine O'Donnell: Right on the First Amendment: LegalIns
Anna Little Closes in on Leftist Frank Pallone in NJ-6: GWP

On Church and State: What Coons Doesn't Know: RWN
AZ: Leftist Group Rounds Up 3,000 Suspect Latino Voters: GWP
Conyers speaks at Dem Socialists of America meeting: RWN

Economy

SEIU dumps $225K into Angle Attack Ad: Malkin
Figures. Obama Takes Credit For Bush's Wind Farm Jobs: GWP
WSSU email called illegal: W-SJ

“Going Dillinger”: PracticalState
More Documentation on Bogus Loans: Denninger
The Economics of 'Seinfeld': Carpe Diem

Climate & Energy

Volt Fraud: iOTW
Oberstar Global Warming Flat Earther: MCP
Avatard: iOTW

Media

NPR and the Muslim Brotherhood: HayRide
Proposal: the Juan Williams Law: Simon
Firing offense: NPR axes Juan Williams for opinions on Muslims and post-9/11 travel: Malkin

All the News That Fits Soros' Agenda: AT
NPR Hits Pledge Drive Week Paydirt, Fires Fox News Contributor for Progressive Cash: Riehl
Confirming: Tom Friedman is an Idiot: RWN

Politico: Lying About Palin Again: RWN
Sarah Palin: It’s Time For National Public Radio to Become National Private Radio: GWP
Surprise--CBS’s ‘Medium’ Presents Sheriff Joe Arpaio-Like Character As Rapist-Murderer: RWN

World

Obama Pushing to Reduce American Power: BigPeace
Norway and the Jews: AT
When Bill Clinton Lost His 'Biscuit: BigPeace

Soros-Funded Documentary Embraces Left-Wing Terrorists Who Plotted To Kill Republicans: Jawa

SciTech

Why Apple's new MacBook should worry Microsoft: CNet
Restore the balance between energy and environment: Tapscott
Star Trek ran on Microsoft Windows: BlogProf

Cornucopia

Sulpher Creek: Utah 3D
F*** You (Official Video): Cee Lo Green (Language)
It's Come To This: Even Free-Thinking Sci Fi Writers Want To Bring Back the Laws Against Blasphemy: Ace

Image: Erin Bonsteel.
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: Legal Insurrection's Top 10 Donations


Thursday, October 21, 2010

Harry Reid Escapes From Handlers, Beclowns Himself Anew: 'But For Me, We'd Be In a World-Wide Depression'

Based upon his statements over the last few years, Harry Reid is -- at best -- a doddering old fool.

"But For Me, We’d Be in World-Wide Depression"

At worst, well, I'm not a real doctor, but I play one on this blog.

• Speaking of illegal immigration in July 2010, Reid actually claimed that there were no illegal construction workers in Nevada, blithely calling the idea “absolutely without foundation,” and declaring “[t]hat may be some place, but it’s not here in Nevada.”

• With Nevada’s unemployment the highest in the nation at 14.3 percent in August 2010, Reid claimed that his costly, unpopular health care overhaul was a “boon” for the economy, and that the majority of Nevadans’ who oppose the bill suffer from a ““very obvious… lack of understanding.”

• In March 2010, Reid declared on the U.S. Senate floor: “Today is a big day in America. Only 36,000 people lost their jobs today, which is really good.”

• In February 2010, Reid pushed for a massive new deficit-spending bill by claiming on the Senate floor that more men beat their wives because of the high unemployment they suffer under his leadership.

• In January 2010, a new book revealed that Reid expressed his excitement at Barack Obama’s “light-skinned” appearance and the fact that he spoke “with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.”

• And in 2007, Reid claimed the war was lost, while our own men and women in the military were on the battlefield.

Harry Reid has some very serious issues.

Support Sharron Angle for giving Reid a pink slip.


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

Great. MSNBC's 'Lean Forward' Branding Campaign Omits 'Creator' From Its Version of the Declaration, Coincidentally Just Like Barack Obama

MSNBC's latest brainstorm -- the hilarious "Lean Forward" campaign -- uses a carefully edited recitation of the nation's founding document. It omits any mention of God (though it does depict gay marriage).

"We hold these truths to be self-evident. That all men and women have certain unalienable rights. Life, liberty, pursuit of happiness."

It can't be a coincidence. It conforms precisely with President Obama's new version of the Declaration of Independence, which he is said to have recited on five separate occasions.

"As wonderful as the land is here in the United States, as much as we have been blessed by the bounty of this magnificent continent that stretches from the Atlantic to the Pacific, what makes this place special is not something physical. It has to do with this idea that was started by 13 colonies that decided to throw off the yoke of an empire, and said, 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that each of us are endowed with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.'"

As Mark Levin observed last night, there's a reason the liberals despise the notion of God-given rights.

Because in the statists' formulations, only the government can grant rights.

Case in point: FDR's 'Second Bill of Rights', which is basically a socialist's wet dream:

...Roosevelt's argument was that the "political rights" guaranteed by the constitution [sic] and the Bill of Rights had "proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness." Roosevelt's remedy was to declare an "economic bill of rights" which would guarantee:

• Employment, with a living wage,
• Freedom from unfair competition and monopolies,
• Housing,
• Medical care,
• Education, and,
• Social security

In other words, FDR sought an authoritarian central government that would have unlimited power to confiscate private property and redistribute it in order to create a Soviet-style Utopia. For those who did not wish to comply would be compelled to do so, at threat of life or liberty.

In fact, Roosevelt's construct was precisely the type of government the Framers sought to prevent.

Are you fed up yet with the party of food stamps, illegal immigration, sloth and failed social experiments?

It's time to crush the Democrat Party in this election and every election forward -- until they buy a clue about this country.


Free Juan Williams!

So reads the headline at the invaluable Investors Business Daily.

Public broadcasting strikes a blow for censorship by firing a nationally known commentator for suggesting a connection between Islamofascism and terrorism. Sorry, there is one, and it makes us nervous too...

...To be fair, Williams warned O'Reilly that a blanket condemnation of Muslims wouldn't be any more justified than blaming all Christians for the actions of Timothy McVeigh in blowing up a federal building in Oklahoma City.

This is something liberals do all the time. Watch out for those right-wing militias and those racist Tea Partyers, you know. NPR, interestingly enough, recently engaged in politically correct stereotyping by running a segment on how to speak "tea bagger."

...It is political correctness that forces grandmothers and children through body scanners. It was political correctness that allowed Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan to rise through the ranks undetected until the day he shot up Fort Hood shouting "Allahu akbar!" (God is great) despite numerous warning signs. It is what caused us to ignore a group of young Middle Eastern men attending flight school to learn how to fly, but not land, a 747...

...Political correctness is getting Americans killed. And those who worry about our civil liberties being taken away while they sit silently as our freedom of speech is suppressed are hypocrites.

Why do we have government-run news?

That's the first thing we should cut to balance the budget. There are 50,000 radio stations in the U.S. And about a bazillion cable channels.

And we need state-run news why?

And, say, you've got to admit that's a pretty cool t-shirt, if I do say so myself.


Stunner: Countrywide Was Scamming the Scammers?

Bear Trap emails us a link to a "letter outlining the lawsuit against BofA... It is pretty stunning. Countrywide formed subsidiaries to do maintenance, etc. on foreclosed properties at double the market rate, which the trust and therefore, investors paid."

As the housing market began to unravel in 2008, Countrywide was one of the first victims and was acquired by Bank of America in a distress sale.

Now it appears that Countrywide had a few additional tricks up its sleeve. Among the allegations contained in the letter, which essentially advises Countrywide of the legal s***storm about to come raining down on them, are the following:

...the Master Servicer ... continued to keep defaulted mortgages on its books, rather than foreclose or liquidate them, in order to wrongfully maximize its Servicing Fee, at the expense of the Certificateholders’ best interests, including rights to recover from pool or financial guaranty insurance policies...

...The Servicers’ failure to proceed appropriately and their failure to maintain records in an accurate, appropriate, and adequate manner has impeded this process and caused wholly avoidable delays that have injured investors, borrowers, neighborhoods, and communities...

...Despite the requirement that Servicing Advances were to be incurred only for reasonable and necessary out of pocket costs, the Master Servicer instead utilized affiliated vendors–who marked up their services to a level 100% or more above the market price–to provide services related to the preservation, restoration, and protection of” Mortgaged Property, in a fraudulent, unauthorized, and deceptive effort to supplement its Servicing income...

Among the signatories to the letter are Blackrock, Freddie Mac, Kore Advisors, Maiden Lane (I, II and III), MetLife, Neuberger Berman Europe, PIMCO and Western Asset Management.

In other words, the biggest dogs on the block.

Barry Ritholtz observes that the damage could range from tolerable ($1-3 billion) to catastrophic ($20-50 billion) for the Bank of America and other institutions.

As an aside, the egregious Angelo "Orangina" Mozilo -- former head of Countrywide and friend of the disgraced, soon-to-be ex-Senator Chris Dodd -- is the very definition of a crony capitalist.

Mr. Mozilo settled the charges of fraud brought against him by the SEC by agreeing to pay $45 million to cover "ill-gotten gains," and he'll also have to pay a $22.5 million penalty. Bank of America will cover $20 million. Judging by Mr. Mozilo's earnings over the years — he raked in more than $500 million between 2000 and 2008 — he won't be in the market to rent a mobile home in North Dakota anytime soon...

One day in February 2009, Sen. Dodd, still hoping to salvage his re-election campaign, staged a Countrywide document dump in which he revealed some, but not all, of the loan papers to a select group of reporters and did not allow them to make copies. He never has followed through on his promise to disclose everything related to his loans, which a former Countrywide loan officer asserts saved him at least $75,000.

Maybe he's telling the truth. Now, with his political career coming to a close, and with the Countrywide matter put to bed, he has a chance to go out on a high ethical note by coming clean about his relationship with Mr. Mozilo, as well as his involvement in sabotaging lending-reform efforts by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., President Bush and others at a time when they actually might have done some good. In short, he has a chance to unconnect the dots.

He'll do exactly that if he has any respect for his constituents. To put it another way, he won't do it.

I'll say it one more time: the root cause of the mortgage meltdown was the Democrats' brain-damaged social engineering schemes combined with crony capitalism at its very worst.

And anyone who tells you otherwise is lying through their teeth.


The Unholy Spawn of ACORN and Barney Frank Likely to Cost Taxpayers a Quarter of a Trillion More Than Previously Expected

The government-sponsored entities (GSEs) known as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are still hemorrhaging cash two years after their bankruptcies helped bring down the entire financial industry. Protected for years by Democrats and used to subsidize mortgages for folks who couldn't otherwise afford them (under the rubric of "social justice", of course), Fannie and Freddie remain headed for a financial cataclysm.

The rescue of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could cost taxpayers between $142 billion and $259 billion through 2013, according to a new report...

...It's been two years since the housing bubble popped and the companies were put under government control.

In comparison, the auto industry bailout has cost taxpayers about $50 billion, according to the Treasury Department’s latest estimate...

In 2003, as the Bush administration pursued the corrupt Democrat leadership of the GSEs themselves -- and the politicians protecting them -- despicable hacks like Barney Frank, Maxine Waters and others pulled out the race card and threatened complete gridlock to salvage these corrupt enterprises.

At the same time, cronies installed by Bill Clinton -- including Franklin Raines, Jamie Gorelick, Jim Johnson and others -- were heading up the GSEs and touching off multi-billion accounting scandals while simultaneously paying themselves roughly $200 million over a six-year span.

So every time some liberal nutcase says that Bush or the free market or Bush or Bush caused the financial crisis, I would strongly discourage slapping them upside their heads and knocking some sense into them. Instead, show them the testimony of the Marxist Democrats who destroyed the housing industry.


Larwyn's Linx: All the President's Radical Women

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

Extreme Girls: All the president’s radical women: Malkin
HHS Attacks Employers for Exposing ObamaCare's Ugly Reality: GL
Report: Steny Hoyer Knuckle-Punched GOP Opponent: GWP

Obama To Buy ‘Indian Vote’ For $680M: S&L
NAACP Says Tea Party Is 'Racist'--Soils Itself Again: Joshua
Fiorina, Whitman leading in California?: Hot Air

Chris Coons Punished Public Employees for Political Views: RWN
Decrees of Separation: IBD
'Only Thing I've Shipped Overseas Is Me & My Paratroopers': Ace

Dems pull support from Grayson, 12 other losers: GWP
Obama Edits the Declaration of Indpendence: AT
Stick a Fork in Conway: Liberal Media Attacking Dem: GWP

Economy

The War Against Capitalism: GrandRants
Will November be the death knell for big labor unions?: WashExam
Price of Obamunism So Far: $3,000,000,000,000: RWN

Krugman's Latest Brain-Fart: AT
Thank you, Obamacare: Our premiums are going up 45%: Pundette
CNN confirms: health care costs to rise 14%: BlogProf

Climate & Energy

Will GOP Go After EPA And Lisa Jackson?: RWN

Media

Juan Williams Commits the Ultimate Kinsleyesque Gaffe: Driscoll
And On O'Donnell's Flub: WaPo Reporter Ben Evans Simply Lied.: Ace
Maoist Hollywood Propaganda and the Attack on Conservative America: NoisyRoom

Screw Free Speech, NPR Fires Juan Williams for Muslim Remarks: BigJournalism
Dupes -- and Traitors: AT
Sold-Out Crowd Gives Former President Bush Three Standing Ovations During Speech: Tyler

Everyone's disintermediating the gateway media now: sisu
The Billboard That Steve Driehaus Doesn't Want You to See: RWN
Fish Wrap Offers Pre-Halloween Story About Scary Secretive GOP Donors: RWN

World

The Welfare State, RIP: Project Syndicate
Terrific: Jihadi all-star Anwar al-Awlaki had lunch at Pentagon shortly after 9/11: Hot Air
Obama’s U.N. ‘Engagement’ Swindle: NRO

Gone With the Wind: Belmont Club
UK Will Cut 1/2 Million Government Jobs: S&L
Ahmadinejad: Promise of God Is “The Enemies of Our Nations Will Go One Day”: GWP

SciTech

The militarization of the Internet: Susan Crawford
Predator Software Pirated?: Schneier
Zoho: Microsoft's Closed Approach Will Sink Its Cloud Ambitions: Insider

Cornucopia

65 Random Thoughts Everyone Has Had: ManCouch
Nitro Detonation in Slow-Mo: Ace
The NFL jumps the shark: Moran

Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: Give Harry Reid a Pink Slip Today -- Support Constitutionalist Sharron Angle



Wednesday, October 20, 2010

The Hindemburg: '91 Democratic seats are in competitive races'

USA Today just reported that Charlie Cook's survey shows that "91 Democratic seats are in competitive races."


Someone needs to delouse Illinois politics: Cook County prisoners get hand-delivered ballots, U.S. military -- not so much

Three dozen counties in Illinois mysteriously failed to mail military ballots to our forces serving overseas.

But that hasn't stopped Cook County election officials from ensuring that inmates have their ballots.

The Chicago Board of Elections hand delivers ballots to the jail. They don’t even wait for the inmates to apply – they bring the applications with the ballots!

...Over 2,600 inmates have cast ballots so far – strikingly similiar to the 2,600 soldiers who will likely not receive a ballot for the Nov 2 election.

This is the modern Democrat Party in action.


Hat tip: Mike M.

Top 5 Reasons Democrats Are Scared S***less of Allen West


5. Because he destroys the extremist myth: West and the 37 other black Republicans running for national office destroy the liberal myth that the Tea Party movement is somehow racist and extremist. Hint: it's neither.

4. Because he kicks liberal ass (metaphorically speaking, of course). Like challenging Barack Obama to a debate.

3. Because he's a Constitutionalist: "The Constitution says 'promote the general welfare', not provide welfare!"

2. Because he knows the stakes: "...when you listen to that fife and drum, it hearkens me back to how this country got started. When you think about how patriots got together in taverns, when patriots got together in houses along rivers and creeks, when you think how the U.S. Marine Corps got started in a place called Tun Tavern, this is where we are right now in our country. We need to meet... and talk about restoring our liberty and fighting back against a tyrannical government."

1. Because he's got presidential mettle. He's a leader. A war hero. A Constitutionalist. He's the vanguard of a new conservative black Republican movement, possibly the first since Reconstruction. But now he needs to win his Congressional election.

Help him out. The fife and drum are sounding in the distance. You don't have to go to war, you just have to muster your support and your vote.




Nice: 500 California Highway Patrolmen make over $150,000 annually--and the proposed budget shows a 3% increase for the department to $1.98 billion

God bless our law enforcement personnel. Hell, years ago, Papa B was some kind of deputy in Fulton County, Georgia. But the public sector unions and Democrat officials, working hand in hand, have just about bankrupted municipalities across the country.

And California is among the worst of the lot, what with a $20 billion budget deficit, $500 billion in unfunded pension liabilities, and a Democrat gubernatorial candidate who wants amnesty for illegal aliens.

But to get the full flavor of just how out-of-control California's public sector unions are -- they represent hundreds of thousands of employees -- let's take a quick look at the compensation of the California highway patrol system.

Note the jump in salaries between 2008 and 2009. This is likely due to "pension spiking" or artificially granting large raises just before retirement in order to boost pension payments.

The following is page 10 of the report, each of which has 25 officers per page.

There are nearly 500 state highway patrol officers making $150,000-a-year or more. 500. Which means just those fine folks alone are costing California's taxpayers about $100 million annually.

And, best I can tell, there are about 10,000 people employed by the state highway patrol system. Ten-freaking-thousand. And 5,200 of those public employees make over $100,000 annually.

Just a guess, but from perusing the database, it would appear that the average salary is about $110,000.

Which means the CHiPs system costs California's taxpayers $1.1 billion in compensation alone, to say nothing of facilities, retirement payments, vehicles, etc.

But go ahead, Californians, just vote for Jerry Brown and more Democrat union cronies. Things couldn't get worse.

Could they?


Hat tip: Captive Directory.

'Yes We Can!'

Some dude named Michael Sherrard at MorOn.org sent me this earlier.

Yes.
      We.
            Can.


Larwyn's Linx: The Dept. of Interior--Now Facilitating Illegal Immigration!

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

The Department of Interior -- Now Facilitating Illegal Immigration!: GWP
Canada’s lax border: Sharron Angle is right: Malkin
Senate Republicans May Not Try to Repeal Obamacare!?!: RedState

Report: Coons sued 3 times in '07 for political retaliation: Glob
Schakowsky mum on flotilla terrorists: GWP
Devil 30%, Daniel Webster 46%: Patterico

Hmm: Fiorina, Whitman Leading in CA?: JWF
14 States Move to Deny Citizenship to 'Anchor Babies': WZ
Absurd: 10,000 DC kids eat three meals at school: Pundette

Economy

The Liberal Elite and Black Intellectual Serfdom: AT
Aggregate-demand-goosing, the Obama way: Fausta
Your Tax Dollars Funding Leftist Propaganda: RWN

Social Justice and Fair Taxes: AT
Nonunion Workers at Boeing Get Shafted by ObamaCare: Moonbattery
Stimulus-funded weatherization, the Chicago way: Pundette

Climate & Energy

Climatism: A Remarkably Flexible Ideology: AT
Climategate and the American Physical Society: PJM
California's Green Jobs Meltdown: PJM

Media

Hoisted Upon Their Own Retard: iOTW
Amber Alert Issued for ‘By Their Creator’: Malkin
What The Liberal Culture Has Brought Us: RWN

George Soros’ Millions Buying ‘Political Reporters’ For NPR: RWN
Christine O'Donnell: 'Separation of Church and State' Not in Constitution, MSNBC Shocked, Angered: NewsBusters
Dingy Harry: Obama Like a Chilean Miner or Something: JWF

World

Afghanistan: American Troop Morale Plummets: "They Won’t Let us Fight": WZ
Barbara Boxer Won’t Provide Copy of Fallujah Letter to Military Mom: GWP
As Secure As Its Ever Been: Mexican hit men stalk U.S.: Times

Comrade Obama Has No Objection to Venezuela Building Nuclear Power Plants: WZ
Oy: Conyers Calls for 'Department of Peace': RWN
Russia: Al-Qaeda Suicide Bombers Storm Chechen Parliament, 6 Killed: WZ

'Anna Chapman Has Done More to Excite Russian Patriotism Than the Russian Soccer Team' : JWF
PBOC’s ‘Vicious Cycle’ Worsened by Fed, Yu Says: China Credit: BizWeek

SciTech

Cyberwar Declared on Iran: Timmerman
Compromise turns Kaspersky site into malware hub: Register
Rare Earth Metals Become Rarer: LegalIns

Cornucopia

Obama Commissions New Aircraft Carrier: iOTW
The United Monster Talent Agency: RWN
10 Hilarious Lawyer Commercials: Asylum

Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: Go West 2010