Doug Ross @ Journal

Friday, December 24, 2010

Unaccountable, Unelected Fourth Branch of Government: Screw Congress, We're Going to Ration Energy

The far left environmentalists who assumed power in 2008 have decided that Congress simply cannot be trusted to enact CO2-limiting legislation. They have determined it is in their best interest to ignore representative government in order to create a vast, Soviet-style central planning commission that will set industrial policy for the entire nation.

The Environmental Protection Agency announced Thursday that it will regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and oil refineries next year in an attempt to curb global warming...

...The move, coming on the same day the Interior Department unveiled a plan to protect a broader swath of the nation's wilderness, demonstrated that the Obama administration is prepared to push its environmental agenda through regulation where it has failed on Capitol Hill, potentially setting up a battle next year with congressional Republicans.

The EPA's new restrictions could shutter 20 percent of the nation's coal-fired power plants.

Is it an overstatement on my part to claim that those who set the Obama administration's environmental policy are members of the flat-Earth, no-growth, Marxist eco-Left?

No, it is not. Consider that environmental "czar" Carol Browner is a self-admitted socialist who, until assuming her role in the administration, served on a commission for the radical group Socialist International.

Forget, for a moment, that the United States is the only country on Earth that restricts access to its own energy.

Forget, too, that carbon dioxide -- which is required for photosynthesis to occur -- can no more be a pollutant than oxygen or water vapor.

Put aside the fact that the Constitution purposefully and carefully enumerated the powers of the federal government to restrict unaccountable and unelected bureaucracies from usurping power from the people and its representatives.

Instead, simply put this action in the context of the Democrats' other power grabs:

• in health care ("Sebelius Seizes Even More Power")

• in nationalizing vast swaths of land ("Interior Department reverses course, will nationalize new land for 'protection'")

• in restricting access to offshore oil ("Obama administration rescinds expansion of offshore oil drilling in eastern Gulf of Mexico")

• in promoting illegal immigration ("President Obama can use his Executive Power until Congress passes DREAM Act")

• and in actively plotting to erode the power of the Senate filibuster ("Senate Democrats Poised for Power Grab")

The modern Democrat Party, led by Barack Obama, is acting like a claque of tin-pot dictators in a Banana Republic. Congress won't vote the way they want -- so they bypass Congress. The Senate rules restrict their ability to slam through thousands of pages of legislation that no one reads or understands -- so they change the rules of the Senate. And the people completely repudiate their agenda with a massive landslide election -- so they use the unelected fourth branch of government to seize power.

Mark Levin is right; we are living in a soft tyranny. And it is time to tell the GOP to say no. No compromises. No more negotiating with statism. It's time to crush the Democrat agenda using every procedural and Congressional power available.

Inevitable Failure of Eurozone Watch: Ireland nationalizes yet another bank in move to 'staunch panicked run on savings'

In a move aimed to contain a country-wide run on banks, Ireland has nationalized a fourth bank with its takeover of Allied Irish.

Ireland has nationalised its fourth troubled financial institution after taking control of Allied Irish Banks (AIB) today in an attempt to stem the run on deposits at the stricken bank... In the latest sign of the lack of confidence in the Irish banking system, Ireland's government secured a high court order to inject €3.7bn (£3.15bn) of funds into the bank through the nation's pension fund.

As Ireland was shoring up its banking system, problems inside the eurozone worsened after Fitch downgraded Portugal, the country that many market experts believe will follow Ireland in taking financial aid from its EU partners and the International Monetary Fund...

...AIB is joining Anglo Irish, Irish Nationwide Building Society and EBS building society in being taken into state control. Irish Life is the only lender so far to avoid a bailout.

Several days ago, Guggenheim Partners' Chief Investment Officer Scott Minerd issued a report that all but predicts a meltdown of the Eurozone (PDF, via Tyler Durden):

Much of the shakeout in Europe is likely to occur in the next 12 months, but the chronology and rapidity of how the crisis will fully unfold is less clear. One thing I believe with certainty, however, is that the tenuous situation in Europe will eventually unravel to the extent that the only solution will be quantitative easing and ultimately some form of federalization of Europe...

...To help explain why I believe a broader financial crisis is coming to Europe, let me start with a quick story. Imagine for a moment that you’re an Irish citizen. Needless to say, you have many concerns about your country’s economic situation. The unemployment rate is 13.7 percent and climbing, your economy continues to contract, your nation’s debt-to-GDP ratio is 97 percent and rising (up from 44 percent just two years ago), your national deficit has ballooned to a whopping 30 percent of GDP, your government is caught in a debt trap, and its borrowing costs have increased 75 percent year-to-date. If expressed in current market rates, the interest payments on your government’s debt obligations could easily account for 7 percent of GDP, or roughly one third of annual tax revenues. To put this into perspective, the situation facing the Irish government is akin to waking up everyday only to realize that one-third of your salary is gone before you even think about paying for the necessities of life...

...The entire domestic Irish banking system has essentially failed, but the government wants you to believe that everything is fine. After all, the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank, and the European Union member countries have cobbled together an 85 billion-euro rescue package of which approximately 35 billion euros is set aside for the banking system...

...you get a hold of the Central Bank of Ireland’s most recent Credit, Money, and Banking report (publicly available on the internet). You see that total deposits for Ireland’s dwindling base of domestic credit institutions were roughly 496 billion euros as of October 2010. Some quick math tells you that this is more than three times Ireland’s GDP, and 14 times the scope of the current banking system bailout package. You start to wonder, “If I try to get my money from the bank at the same time everyone else does, where is the government going to get the euros to pay everyone?” You can’t think of an answer. Then you start to feel silly. “Why am I even bothering with all this worry?” you ask yourself. “I’ll just go down to the bank and take my money out now before things get worse. I can give it to a multi-national bank and sleep better at night.” ...It seems trite, but this little scenario is essentially what’s happening today. The Irish banking system is literally experiencing a run on its banks...

...Year-over-year, deposits declined 10.5 percent, and foreign investors are pulling their money out at an even faster rate of just over 20 percent per year. If the October data was that brutal, I cringe at the thought of what the November and December numbers may reveal. Even more disconcerting, domestic deposits have begun to contract. It’s one thing for foreign depositors to lose confidence, but now even the domestic deposit base is losing faith... Facing facts like these, each morning when I wake up I have to wonder, “Why is today not a good day for a wholesale run on the Irish banking system?” And if there is a wholesale run on the Irish banking system, then what stops the same scenario from cascading into Portugal, Greece, Italy, and most importantly, Spain?

It's a matter of when, not if.

Europe's Social Democrat welfare state is in the process of collapsing before our very eyes.

Yet the Obama Democrat blueprint -- from industrial policy to health care -- is precisely that of Europe's failing model.

Which says a great deal both about Barack Obama and the Democrat Party.

Larwyn's Linx: Defund Kathleen Sebelius

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Thursday, December 23, 2010

15 Bizarre Photos of the SoCal Mud Invasion--The Aftermath of "a Year's Worth of Rain in Just One Week"

ABC News has one of the best reports on the rain-soaked disasters swallowing southern California; the communities of Highland and Loma Linda are among the hardest hit.

Southern California residents will get a break today from the wet weather that inundated the region with a year's worth of rain in just one week.

The series of storms that has pounded the area since last week has triggered mudslides, flooding, swift-water rescues and prompted Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to declare a state of emergency for six counties.

But as the rain subsides and heads east, the clean up begins for areas hit the hardest by the strongest part of the Wednesday's storm.

In Laguna Beach, a wall of water four feet high poured through downtown, bringing with it a tide of mud. The heavy water has made driving nearly impossible near the Pacific coast, with puddles the size of lakes forcing road closures.

Another community that was drenched and damaged by mudslides was Dove Canyon, a community in Rancho Santa Margarita.

"When I stepped off the engine, (the mud) was about waist deep, and it was flowing rather rapidly," Capt. George Casario of the Orange County Fire Authority told ABC News Los Angeles affiliate KABC.

Firefighters said they performed 60 rescues in more than 30 homes.

On Wednesday morning, a mudslide devastated the town of Highland, Calif., near the foothills of the San Bernardino Mountains.

Jasmine Martinez had to leave her home as mud poured down the hillside Wednesday.

"We tried to open the gate because the mud was blocking it," Martinez told ABC News Radio. "So we couldn't get out. We couldn't leave."

Most of the residents' cars are now buried in mud, and more than 20 homes were destroyed in an instant.

The Red Cross was on the ground in southern California earlier this week and could -- as always -- use a hand if you've got the ability.

Family of Slain Border Patrol Agent Rips Janet Napolitano and Barack Obama: "You Gotta Wake Your Man Up In The White House"

You most assuredly won't be seeing this story in The New York Times or on network news.

Jim Hoft points us to a heartbreaking KGUN Channel 9 interview with the family of slain Border Patrol agent Brian Terry.

Bag pipes and a somber procession with murdered border patrol agent Brian Terry's flag draped coffin; they're all the accoutrements for the funeral of a federal agent shot and killed while on patrol in Arizona's southern desert.

But, not so typical was what Brian's family had to say to KGUN9 the night before he was brought to his final resting place at Michigan Memorial Park. "I understand that Janet Napolitano called (Tuesday night). What did you say to her?" 9 On Your Side reporter Joel Waldman asked Brian Terry's father, Kent.

"'I said you gotta wake your man up in the White House,'" Kent responded. "And she said, ‘He's done more in the last two years than any other president.'"

But the Terrys told Waldman that they don't buy it. Kent, step mom Carolyn, mom Josie, older brother Kent Jr., sisters Kelly and Michelle are all angry that their son and brother, Brian, died the way he did. They're not shy about blaming President Obama's administration for not doing enough, taking aim directly at Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano.

"She spoke with us and they were empty words today when she spoke," said step mom Carolyn Terry.

"Why so empty?" Waldman asked...

"They had no meaning to them. She'll have Christmas. She'll forget about it tomorrow."

...Local media were excluded from [Napolitano's] recent visit to southern Arizona, during which she discussed the Terry shooting with some local officials... Despite its response in sending more resources to the border, the White House has come under strong attack from those who believe the current administration is just not doing enough.

Members of the Terry family have now added their voice to those critics. Many of them tell KGUN9 News they will fight to make sure that their loved one did not die in vain.

What is so maddening about these terrible incidents is that President Obama and Secretary Napolitano appear more concerned with negative publicity than with the safety of U.S. law enforcement personnel. But, given their performances in the aftermath of the BP oil spill, that shouldn't really come as a surprise.

How hard is it to build a freaking security fence?

Apparently, too difficult for politicians in Washington, which is why we need to replace any and all Democrats in 2012.

WaPo Hack Lays Down Covering Fire for Dem Filibuster Reform: Forgets to Mention Who Instigated Judicial Filibusters and Other Statist Innovations

Perhaps Journolist really is dead, but the coordination of talking points between the Democrat Party and legacy media was never more obvious than today. Word on Capitol Hill is that Democrats are committed to reforming the filibuster -- with the word reform used in the same sense as it was employed in the phrases "health care reform" and "financial reform".

All Democratic senators returning next year have signed a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., urging him to consider action to change long-sacrosanct filibuster rules.

The letter, delivered this week, expresses general frustration with what Democrats consider unprecedented obstruction and asks Reid to take steps to end those abuses. While it does not urge a specific solution, Democrats said it demonstrates increased backing in the majority for a proposal, championed by Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., and others, to weaken the minority’s ability to tie the Senate calendar into parliamentary knots.

Among the chief revisions that Democrats say will likely be offered: Senators could not initiate a filibuster of a bill before it reaches the floor unless they first muster 40 votes for it, and they would have to remain on the floor to sustain it. That is a change from current rules, which require the majority leader to file a cloture motion to overcome an anonymous objection to a motion to proceed, and then wait 30 hours for a vote on it.

Leave it up to the The Washington Post's resident Leftist and full-time Democrat publicist -- Ezra Klein -- to lay down covering fire for this inanity.

[Senate.gov] tracked the number of cloture filings (when the majority begins the process of breaking a filibuster), cloture votes (when they vote to break the filibuster), and clotures (when the majority actually breaks the filibuster) in each Congress since 1919, when the Senate first gave itself the power to break a filibuster. Here's what it all looks like in graph form:

A few things about that graph. First, the rise in filibusters is just shocking. And this doesn't even count all of them. It only counts those filibusters that the majority actually tried to do something about. Plenty more filibusters get threatened, but cloture doesn't get filed because the issue isn't important enough or the votes aren't present.

Second, note how many filibusters get broken. It's not all, but it's a far cry from none (and it's more than you see in this graph, as filibusters that get withdrawn don't end through cloture). Some get broken by overwhelming majorities. But that doesn't mean the filibuster failed. A dedicated filibuster takes about a week to break even if you have the votes. That's a week of wasted time in the Senate. If your preference isn't merely to delay one vote but to threaten the majority with the prospect of getting less done overall, then launching a lot of fruitless filibusters makes perfect sense.

Say, Ezra, when every week seemed to herald the introduction of a 2,000-page bill that no one read, did you ever stop to consider that blocking this dreck might be a good thing?

Or, given the magnitude of the uprising by the American people in November against the Democrats' unrelenting Statist agenda, that it might be precisely what the citizenry demands?

Oh, and schmuck: perhaps you could also chart the number of pages of bills (and attendant regulations) passed by each session of the Senate. Consider the hundreds of thousands of pages of "transformational" legislation that not one person bothered to read. That, in the case of health care "reform", is being actively fought as unconstitutional by half the state Attorneys General in the country. That, in the case of financial "reform", omitted the cornerstones of the financial crisis: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Perhaps, dweeb, you could also mention which party created "innovations" like the judicial filibuster -- which Landmark Legal Foundation President Mark R. Levin believes is categorically unconstitutional. That delightful maneuver was first employed by Democrats bent on blocking conservative Hispanics from reaching the Supreme Court ("When Democrats derailed a GOP Latino nominee").

Or the Democrats' infamous filibuster of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, led by Al Gore Sr., former KKK Wizard Robert Byrd and Bill Clinton's inspiration J. William Fulbright.

Yes, the history of the filibuster is a proud one for the Democrat Party. Pity Klein forgot to describe the backdrop for his "shocking" graph. But that's to be expected for as rank a propagandist as can be found working in legacy media.

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

Larwyn's Linx: The Death Panel's First Murder

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Nation

The Death Panel's First Murder: AmSpec
Internet access is not a "civil right": Malkin
GOP Staffers Taught Constitutional Justification: RightPundits

The Truth About the 9/11 First Responder's Bill: RWN
A real reformer becomes House speaker: Surber
Forget About Rudy: LegalIns

Border Officials Let Millions Enter U.S. Without Proper ID: JW
Report: Border Patrol Suffers From Lack of Resources: CNS
Judge: Illegals Can Sue ICE For Rights Violations: JW

Economy

How Government Failure Caused the Great Recession: American
NLRB Will Promote Union Organizing Among Private Employers: VS
House Values Fall 30%, But Property Taxes Keep Rising: ZH

Labor department fails to release union corruption tracking report: DC
Unions profiting from favoritism by Obama's GSA: Tapscott
EEOC: Requiring Credit Checks is Racist: Lid

Climate & Energy

Speaking of Bureaucratic Power Grabs: ProWis
Let the polar bears die, liberals: It's only your beloved evolution at work: Cupp
Red Faces at the Met Office: WUWT

Media

With Census Out And Democrat States Losing Badly, Obviously, Moonbats Want “Change”: STACLU
Robert Reich to the twittersphere: "Put Fox out of biz": sisu
Heh: Actor Who Made $12.5 Million for ‘Gigli’ Says Corporate CEOs are Overpaid: Malkin (Powers)

Scrooge Was a Liberal: Coulter
Michele Bachmann lambastes Democrat overreach during lame duck session: Cubachi
Stephen A. Smith: Democrats take black people for granted : TRS

World

Iran Just Shipped Missiles to Venezuela. Hello? Is This Thing On?: PJM
Ratification: Senate passes START, 71-26: Hot Air
Israelis Think No Concession Will Ever Satisfy the West: 6 Reasons Why They’re Right: RWN

Freeing the Black Jihad Slaves in Sudan: BigPeace
Penn State Student Posts Jihadist Musical Tribute to Swedish Suicide Bomber: WZ
Nice. Muslim Group Launches “Christmas Is Evil” Poster Campaign: GWP

Lebanon: Jihadis fleeing to Europe: IIE
Onion Futures, India Prime Minister Future: P&F
Flash Mob Israel: Music1Lifestyle

SciTech

'I think we need a law that explicitly makes it legal for people to record government officials': Schneier
Whose Internet Is It, Anyway?: Slate
2011: the Year Android Explodes: Fortune

Cornucopia

Pure Michigan: Winter Virgins: Theo Spark
The 5 Creepiest Unsolved Crimes Nobody Can Explain: Cracked
Sign of the Times: JWF

Image: People's Cube
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: Top 15 Political Posts on Linkiest in 2010

QOTD: "...here's a question that's rarely asked: Why should we necessarily bother saving a species - any species - from extinction? ...Yes, animals are dying. But death - of a single animal or a whole species - is a part of life... At least, that's what Darwinists tell us. In fact, if you think hard about it, animal conservation should actually be anathema to the Darwin-loving liberal agenda, which holds up evolution - and not altruistic compassion - as the final word on the survival of a species... why, then, do polar bear activists insist that another species - that would be us - tamper with Darwin's grand design and swoop in to save an animal that simply wasn't fit enough to make it in the cutthroat world of biological survival?" -- S.E. Cupp

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

News Flash: Christmas is "Evil", "Depraved" and "the Path to Hellfire", According to Ultra-Tolerant British Muslim Group

I really wasn't aware that Christmas was the root of all mankind's problems until I read this:

Every year at this time we see the same ritual, the decorations are dragged out and draped over anything that stands still, Christmas trees are chopped down then erected in millions of front rooms, father Christmas, Christmas dinner, sleeping through the Queens speech, where's the evil in that you might say?

It's all about Father Christmas or it's a celebration of the birth of Jesus many say, the reality is that Christmas is more about office parties, house parties, raves night clubs, alcohol, drugs and all the things that these lead to, like illicit sex, violence, rape, domestic violence, crime, vandalism and so on. The fact is that Christmas is the time when men and women become the most base, immoral creatures who don't care for anything or anyone, their sole purpose becomes enjoyment in whatever depraved form that might take.

Is this what life is about, to be undignified, base, depraved, without any guiding morality. If Jesus were alive today would he join you. Of course you know very well he would not, he is someone who called for goodness and condemned evil. In this life it seems that there is no good and bad, that it is just someone's opinion. In fact there is good and bad and these are defined by God and it was up to prophets like Jesus and many others to inform mankind of this. Don't believe that man decides what is moral and what is immoral, when it is left to man the bar is slowly lifted, what is deemed to be acceptable is stretched further and further away from what is good. So in the past marriage was the only way for men and women to have relationship with one another, now anything goes (anyone, anyhow and with anything)...

...Islam is based on the fundamental principle of Tawheed (Monotheism) that answers this crucial question with the sentence Laa ilaaha illallah "There is none worthy of worship besides Allah". Islam dispels all the superstitions and blind faith in false gods, pointing out the inferiority and inherent weaknesses in all 'gods' besides the Creator...

...Tawheed requires us to recognise this distinction and identify Allah as the only one worthy of worship...

...the fundamental basis of Islam that brings mankind out of the darkness of blindly following and worshipping the superstitions of their parents and community into the light of worshipping the only One worthy of worship, Allah (swt) in accordance with the natural instinct of mankind.

I blame Bush. And Militant Quakers.

Ex-Speaker Pelosi Retains Steven Spielberg to Help Re-brand Democrats; First New Logo Attempt Succeeds Beautifully

The Washington Post reports that panicky Democrats are pulling out all the stops when it comes to re-branding their failed agenda.

...in public, Pelosi is projecting a no-looking-back aura. And behind closed doors, she is laboring to refashion the image of House Democrats - as well as herself.

Lawmakers say she is consulting marketing experts about building a stronger brand...

...The most prominent of her new whisperers is Steven Spielberg, the Hollywood director whose films have been works of branding genius...

...Lawmakers said Spielberg has not reported to Pelosi with a recommendation.

Pelosi met Friday with the members who will serve as ranking Democrats on committees, and she appointed a trio of rank-and-file legislators to take on new roles in helping shape and deliver the party's message.

Here's the message from Pelosi's four years controlling the federal purse-strings as Speaker: unemployment, depression, unsustainable social programs, epic failures, currency collapse, record deficits, and near calamitous terror attacks.

What's to rebrand?

Image: The Art of E (Evan Wondolowski). Hat tip: Larwyn. Linked by: Michelle Malkin. Thanks!.

House Interpretive Dancer and Camera-Seeking Missile Anthony Weiner: Republicans Must Start 'Acting Like Adults'

It would appear that CNN's Spitzer-Noonan has at least one viewer, because the heroes at Weasel Zippers braved the boredom to record a diatribe by Another Weiner, who was screeching like a little girl about Republican threats to shut down the government. I ask you: would anyone know if, say, the Department of Education ceased to exist for a few weeks?

"The Republicans are against health care, they're against financial regulation... what these agencies are going to get done... they still have rule-making... and these programs are a net savings for the American people, so I'm not sure what they can do. But they can make mischief... Every so often, we hit the statuatory debt ceiling, now it's the Republicans' job to raise that ceiling so the full faith and credit of the American government is still behind our currency... this is... the Republicans have to start acting like adults and realize they have to start governing now.

Many of us in the Democrat Party are gonna take some pleasure watching them try and figure out who they want to be when they grow up."

As if the month of November wasn't sufficient to educate you, schmuck, what we want from federal officials -- irrespective of party -- is limited, Constitutional, fiscally responsible government.

I know that's extraordinarily complex for one Anthony Weiner to comprehend, seeing as how he's been on the public dole since graduation from college. Yes, it's true. Read his bio. He's never worked an honest day in his life. He's your prototypical Statist on a mission. He wants to replace Chuck Schumer in the Senate and, eventually, run for the Presidency. Pity: the only Marxist President was just elected. We won't be seeing any others for a long, long, long time.

Related: Anthony Weiner Sit Down Remix.