Friday, March 11, 2011

Larwyn's Linx: Dem staff engineered WI capitol takeover by mob

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Nation

Dem staff engineered WI Capitol takeover by mob: B14
DOJ Tells U.S. Soldiers: Go Bother Someone Else!: Adams
CPUSA Calls for Stepped-Up Struggle in Wisconsin: Noisy

8 GOP Senators to Reid: Cut the Debt, Dammit: Cubachi
Levin Surge!: Mark Levin
House GOP Shuts Down Failed TARP Mortgage Programs: HE

Holder grilled about Gunwalker under oath: Sipsey
You know that Keith Ellison tear-jerker? Yeah, it's a crock: WZ
Ellision: Constitution Was a Racist Conspiracy: Tatler

Economy

Why I'm Fighting in Wisconsin: Walker
'New Civility' Update: WI DoJ Investigates Death Threats: Malkin
Mark Pocan: Chickens*** Punk: GWP

Six-figure bus drivers and other heroes: Coulter
Obama's America: A Welfare State: EIB
Solidarity and Sleepovers in Madison: Boston Review

Government Out of Our Bathrooms!: RWN
Violent Rhetoric, Unions and Wisconsin Democrats: Shayne
Libs don't like guns but they do love death threats: Glob

Climate & Energy

Gasoline Prices Take Off for the Sky: RWN
Latest Victim of Global Warming: Coffee: JWF
Time: Why Don't People Believe Our 'Climate Change' Meme?: RWN

Media

GOP: Full speed ahead on defunding NPR: York
Research: Medicaid Worse Than No Coverage at All: WSJ
Obama Calling Tea Party Racist Reveals A Far More Disturbing Reality: Marcus

For Republicans in 2012, it's Sarah Palin or another big fat L: LAT
The Racial Presidency: MenRec
This May Be Nothing, Or It Might Be Worth an Instalanche: RSM

An informational essay for all patriots – Please share: RWB
Obama's Make-Believe Life: FNF
Obama: Hey, Everyone Has to Make Sacrifices. . . Except Michelle, She Gets to Sport a $1,000 Handbag: WZ

HuffPo Responds to NPR Taking It in the Neck: RWN
Cartoon o' the Day: That's Racist!: RWN
Irony: Failed MI ex-Gov Granholm calls successful WI Gov Walker "lazy": BlogProf

World

France Fills Leadership Vacuum; Recognizes Libyan Rebels As Legitimate Government, Lobbies For Air Strikes: Ace
Congress must pass the FTAs with Colombia and Panama: Fausta
Barack Obama's Libya straitjacket: WaPo

Massive Earthquake Off Japan’s Coast; Magnitude 8.9: Tatler
Severe earthquake leads to tsunami, death and destruction in Japan: Post
Final Nail in the Coffin: Cube

SciTech

Full Body Scanners: Wired
Toxins Move Up On Worry List: RWN
Where's my flying car?: Slate

Cornucopia

American Asshat: Michael Moore: Diogenes
When a Picture Truly Is Worth a Thousand Words: Ricochet
Home Schooling Ingalls Family Wins Presidential Commencement Speech Challenge: IMCFT

Images: Gateway Pundit.
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: Marizela Perez: Still missing

QOTD: "Because of the insane union contracts in Wisconsin, one Madison bus driver, John E. Nelson, was able to make $159,000 in 2009 -- about $100,000 of which in overtime pay. Jackie Gleason didn't make that much playing bus driver Ralph Kramden on "The Honeymooners." Seven bus drivers took home more than $100,000 that year.

When asked about the outrageous overtime pay for bus drivers -- totaling $1.94 million in 2009 alone -- Transit and Parking Commission Chairman Gary Poulson said: "That's the contract."

It's ludicrous to suggest that these union contracts were fairly bargained. Only one side was at the negotiating table. Ordinary people with jobs were not at the meetings where public sector compensation was discussed." --Ann Coulter

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Green Joblessness: Hundreds of Energy Projects Stalled Indefinitely in Regulatory Limbo

True, the situation in the Middle East is troubling, especially when it comes to oil prices. Thankfully, all of those Green Energy Projects™ promised by the Obama Democrats should pick up the slack.

The Chamber of Commerce released a report Thursday that found 351 energy projects around the country were in regulatory limbo last year because of regulations, environmental protests, or lawsuits... None of them include drilling for oil or gas and remarkably, almost half of the delayed projects involved renewable energy.

"There are hundreds of laws with thousands of provisions, all of which can stop a project," said William Kovacs of the Chamber’s Environment, Technology & Regulatory Affairs Division... [and the] delays are costing the economy dearly... the stalled projects cost the economy $1.1 trillion in economic activity last year and would have provided 1.9 million jobs in each year of construction.

The report said that once constructed, the projects would have supplied some 791,000 jobs per year over 20 years and added $3.4 trillion to the GDP, and that’s without taking into account lower energy prices that could result from the completed projects.

Kovacs said the purpose of the report is to urge a more rational permitting process, such as a 180 day statute of limitation for protests similar to the process used in federal determinations on highway projects.

...A partial list from the report shows the stalled or delayed proposals included 22 nuclear projects, 1 nuclear disposal site, 21 transmission projects, 38 gas and platform projects and 111 coal projects... [and] renewable energy isn’t exempt from the slowdowns either. Included are 140 renewable energy projects, notably 89 wind, four wave, 10 solar, seven hydropower, 29 ethanol/biomass and one geothermal project.

In fact, Pociask, the study’s author, said that of the projects studied, 45 percent were renewable energy projects... “We would think that if we want cleaner energy, the process should be working for it,” Pociask said. “What we demonstrate in the study is that it is broken for everyone."

Gallup reports that the average American consumer believes gas prices will soon rise to $4.36 a gallon.

That could be a best-case scenario now that we're seeing "the Obama Doctrine" (i.e., voting present) spread to Saudi Arabia.


Hat tip: D&S. Linked by: Weasel Zippers. Thanks!

Legacy Media: Death Threats Against Political Figures Are Now Perfectly Fine and Unworthy of Notice

...that is, so long as it is conservatives who are receiving the death threats.

...left-wing filmmaker and propagandist Michael Moore appeared yesterday on “The Rachel Maddow Show” and all but incited violence... “Really, this is a war,” Moore told Maddow. “This is a class war that’s been leveled against the working people of this country.”

...Thus, the danger in using such extreme and over-the-top rhetoric is that some people will take Moore’s rhetoric literally and act accordingly. The result, tragically, could be incidents of violence that result in murder and mayhem... Unfortunately, this is no phantom worry. It’s happened before in American history, thanks to violent union thugs, and it could happen again. And of course, it doesn’t help when Democratic members of Congress such as Rep. Michael Capuano (D-Mass.) urge union goons to take to “the streets and get a little bloody…”

So it isn’t surprising that, as Wisconsin talk radio host Charles Sykes reports, there is “growing intimidation and escalating threats of violence” in Madison.

Yesterday, 15 Republican state senators received a chilling, death threat-laden email from a union supporter.

This is how the civil society frays before it unravels altogether.

And legacy media -- which helped an inexperienced crypto-Marxist achieve the nation's highest office by completely failing to vet him -- is once again culpable.

Once so concerned with civility and the attitude of non-violent Tea Party protesters, The New York Times, the Washington Post, ABC, CBS and MSNBC have all fallen silent when confronted with real incivility and real violence on the part of the radical Left.

There is no media left in this country, save a few radio talk show hosts, Fox News, some intrepid bloggers, and a handful of digital gurus like Matt Drudge and Andrew Breitbart.

One gets the feeling that James O'Keefe could have successfully run the NPR sting operation against any of the best-known legacy media outlets.

They're all pathetic and disgraceful.


Image credit: Sad Hill News.

What the hell is the matter with John Boehner, Eric Cantor and the rest of the House GOP leadership?

Our country is on the edge of a financial abyss.

That's not my opinion. That's the official position of the Congressional Budget Office in 2009, reiterating its warning in 2010, and repeating it last month.

Bill Gross, the world's most powerful bond investor, recently shed all U.S. debt from his $1 trillion-plus portfolio. He warns that "there is no way out" of the Democrats' debt trap and that American living standards are destined to plummet.

Gross further states that interest rates will almost certainly rise much faster and much higher than official government projections. The amount of federal spending to service that debt, then, will be unsustainably high: "...these [federal] projections, which show an explosion in the amount of money needed to service our debt, underestimate the problem, since any decrease in economic growth resulting from higher interest rates — or any other cause — is not accounted for. Bottom line: This could be really bad."

The Medicare Trustees have repeatedly warned that their health care system is headed for "collapse".

Social Security, according to the Office of the Chief Actuary, will become insolvent years ahead of schedule.

And while the existing entitlement programs are headed for certain catastrophe, Medicare's Chief Actuary issued his own official warning: "[Obamacare] won't hold costs down, and it won't let everybody keep their current health insurance if they like it."

It, too, is on an unsustainable path.

Billionaire Carl Icahn just returned nearly $2 billion to investors, warning of a 'renewed market dislocation'.

In other words, the support beams of the American financial system are splintering.

To the House leadership: what the hell is the matter with you? Afraid you won't get invited to the best cocktail parties? That you'll get snubbed by that idiot at Meet the Press? Who gives a flying crap!

The future of our children is at stake! Start fighting! The Left is destroying the foundation of this country -- the Constitution -- and it is destroying our currency. The full faith and credit of the American system hangs in the balance and you're whittling around the edges? What the hell!

$61 billion? When the budget deficit is $1.65 trillion? Cut a trillion! Refuse to raise the debt ceiling unless all of Obamacare is defunded! What do you have to lose? The entire system is headed for collapse! Is that reason enough?

Start fighting or we promise -- we pledge -- to devote the next 18 months to primarying your asses and defeating you.

Speaker Boehner, Leader Cantor and the rest of the you old guard Republicans: as a presidential candidate once said, "Get in their faces!"


Chart: Gateway Pundit.

If James O'Keefe continues at this pace, de-funding NPR will be unncessary because it won't have any employees left

Investigative journalist James O'Keefe just released Part II of his NPR Housecleaning Tapes. And he promises more to come.

An NPR fundraising executive said her organization would be willing to shield a would-be donor from a government audit by keeping the donor's name anonymous, according to a series of surreptitiously recorded phone calls released on Thursday... Betsy Liley, NPR's senior director of institutional giving, made the comments to a man posing as a trustee of a fictitious Muslim charity, which the man had said had connections to the Muslim Brotherhood, an Egypt-based group that has suspected ties to terrorists.

...O'Keefe [also] secretly videotaped Liley's boss, Ron Schiller, making demeaning comments about conservatives during a luncheon meeting set up to discuss what the NPR managers believed was a potential $5 million contribution. Liley was also at that meeting and briefly comments on the video.

Ron Schiller resigned from NPR on Tuesday for his role in the video scandal. The video's release also led to the resignation on Wednesday of his boss, NPR chief executive Vivian Schiller.

In a lengthy follow-up phone call with Liley after the lunch, an O'Keefe associate posing as "Ibrahim Kasaam " of the Muslim Education Action Center (a fictitious entity) expressed concerns that NPR, which receives government funding, would be subject to government audits or would have to disclose the source of its donations.

Liley responded, "If you were concerned about that, you might want to be an anonymous donor and we would certainly, if that was your interest, we would want to shield you from that."

At another point, Kasaam asked Liley, "It sounded like you're saying that NPR would be able to shield us from a government audit, is that correct?"

"I think that is the case, especially if you were anonymous, and I can inquire about that," Liley said. She later informed Kasaam via e-mail that NPR's management had cleared an anonymous donation from his group.

NPR had previously said, in the wake of the luncheon video, that it had "repeatedly refused" to accept donations from the organization.

NPR put Liley on administrative leave as a result of the video.

I guess we could call this a "citizen's de-funding".

Well done, Mr. O'Keefe.


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

Larwyn's Linx: Action in Madison, Without Democrats

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Nation

Action in Madison, Without Democrats: Pundette
WI Dem 'drove 80 mph' to try to stop tonight’s vote: Tatler
Preserve Talk Radio From FCC Assault: Morris

Dozens of Liberals Call for Walker's Death: PunPre
Unions' Nuclear Response: Stop Assembly From Voting?: Ace
Blue Corruption puts Wisconsin in Red: AT

Obama: America Isn’t Fair: Nation
Palin vs. Christie: Hill
Entire State of Maine Gets Obamacare Exemption: SAB

Economy

‘No Way Out’ of Debt Trap: NRO
WI Dem to Union Members: Pay Dues or Lose Jobs: RWN
Labor’s health care trick: Globe

Socialized health care: HMOs with Guns: BSF
World's Largest Jailer By Far: Carpe Diem
Firehouse Flunkies: Times

Climate & Energy

When the Water Well Runs Dry: Garden Serf
Can government tell us what light bulbs to buy?: IBD
Gasoline cost to jump $700 for average household: Reuters

Trash Collectors Refuse to Pick Up Toxic Eco-Bulbs: RWN
Global AGW Conspiracy? Why, Only Neandethal Right-Wing Troglodytes Believe That, Not Real Skeptics: CBullitt
Oh, Noes! Climate Change Could Affect Even Sweet, Sweet Love: RWN

Media

All Things Considered, NPR Board Decides it’s Best to ‘Oust’ CEO Vivian Schiller: Malkin
Another MSM report on NPR that manages to hide the anti-Semitism, but does reveal funding lies: Bookworm
Morning Bits: Fast Enough: JRubin

Oops: PBS Got Stung, Too: RSM
Justin Elliot of Salon Is Idiocy Distilled Into Powerful Pill Form: iOTW
Janet Napolitano’s DHS Undercover Website Shutdown By Host For Pedophilia: SHN

Mr. President: Lead or Get out of the Way!: Reagan
Dear Ezra Klein: Would you please name the Christian equivalent of OBL?: Toldjah
They're Never Wrong, They Never Resign: C&S

Three Cheers for Jack Cashill: AT
Telling the Truth: NoisyRoom
Justice Alito Was Right: AmSpec

World

King receives threats on hearing's eve: Hill
North Korea Nears Completion of Electromagnetic Pulse Bomb: ABC
Bill Gross Dumps All Treasuries, Brings Total "Government Related" Holdings To Zero, Flees To Cash: ZH

Leftist Propaganda From Hollywood May Have Triggered Frankfurt Terror Attack: RWN
Turkey and the Restoration of the Caliphate: AT
Karl Marx: 'Racial Trash Will Have to Be Destroyed': NoisyRoom

SciTech

Anonymous Vows Personal Attacks on U.S. Military Families, "War" on U.S.: DailyTech
Comscore’s Latest Stats Show Android Wiping The Floor With Its Competition: ZH
VMware launches virtual desktop app for iPad: CNet

Cornucopia

‘Game Change’: Julianne Moore Will Play Sarah Palin: POH Diaries
Obama Born In Hawaii, Because He Says So: Case Closed – Whew!: SHN
Cops: Orlando Man Sabotaged "Whac-A-Mole" Games: WFTV

Image: MacIver Institute
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: Missouri Right to Work Conference: Friday

QOTD: "Remember when ObamaCare passed, and Tea Partiers went nuts, stormed the hill, took over the building and handcuffed themselves inside? Yeah, me neither, because the Tea Partiers are civilized and didn’t do any of that. Wisconsin’s leftist union thugs, not so much.

Meade called back to say, some of the doors are handcuffed shut and some are wide open. “ANYBODY CAN GET IN AND ANYBODY CAN BRING ANYTHING IN. THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO SECURITY WHATEVER.”


If the police are being so lax in their security out of political spite, and someone gets hurt, well I don’t want to think about what follows that." --Bryan Preston

Wednesday, March 09, 2011

Eradicating Collective Bargaining Isn't the Endgame

As Steven Malanga points out in City Journal, eradicating collective bargaining isn't the endgame -- it's just the beginning.

Who needs collective bargaining if you’ve got legislators in your pocket?

When the skyrocketing cost of public employees’ salaries and benefits helped push New York City to the brink of bankruptcy in the mid-1970s, state and local officials put together a bailout that reduced pension and benefits packages for Gotham’s workers. But by 1987, with the city out of the crisis, New York’s unions were again demanding better pensions and benefits. When Mayor Ed Koch balked, the union simply abandoned the bargaining process and went to Albany, where it offered state legislators its political backing in exchange for enacting generous new benefits. “It’s the same old story,” said a frustrated Koch. “Giving in to the unions will help Assembly members and senators stay in office.” The mayor decided to go to Albany too and dissuade the legislators from granting the new benefits—but they told him to stay home. “They sent [labor leader] Barry Feinstein to see me,” Koch told me several years ago, recalling the incident. “He told me that there was nothing I could do to stop the bill.” The cost to the city’s taxpayers: $101 million annually.

The situation that Koch faced back then is familiar to many mayors, city council members, and even governors today. This year’s face-off in Wisconsin between Governor Scott Walker and unions has generated an unusual, and long overdue, debate over collective bargaining rights in the public sector. But few seem to realize that when public-sector unions can’t win at the bargaining table, they have other ways of getting what they want—above all, exerting their muscle on legislators.

California is getting a taste of this now with union leaders unwilling to give an inch on any aspect of their rich compensation packages.

A coalition of influential labor groups in California opposes some public-pension changes that Gov. Jerry Brown has considered as part of a compromise with Republican lawmakers, further complicating the governor's hope for a quick resolution to budget talks to close a $26.6 billion deficit, said people familiar with the matter.

In a letter to Mr. Brown and legislative leaders, the group plans to say it "simply cannot stand for any attempts to leverage the budget crisis in order to circumvent the collective bargaining process" and "must draw the line at some proposals that would unduly harm working families..."

By that, I assume they don't mean the taxpayers. There are currently over 15,000 retired state workers in California who receive over $100,000 annually in pension payments -- and that number grows 40% a year!

In Illinois, the state pension system is devoting nearly four times the average to its pension obligations -- hardly a sustainable model.

Most states, on average, have to devote only about 4 percent of their budgets to pensions for government retirees... But Illinois, in the upcoming fiscal year, will devote what amounts to roughly 15 percent of its budget toward the pensions of its retirees.

In essence, most other states are able to spend much larger chunks of their dollars on roads, public safety, education, health care, assistance for the poor or the elderly and other government services.

...Illinois government employees, state legislators, judges, university staff and public school teachers outside the Chicago area have been promised $139 billion worth of retirement benefits, but the five state pension systems have assets of only $63 billion.

In New York, the public pension systems are literally imploding as we speak.

At a time when public school students are being forced into ever more crowded classrooms, and poor families will lose state medical benefits, New York State is paying 10 times more for state employees’ pensions than it did just a decade ago.

That huge increase is largely because of Albany’s outsized generosity to the state’s powerful employees’ unions in the early years of the last decade, made worse when the recession pushed down pension fund earnings, forcing the state to make up the difference.

Although taxpayers are on the hook for the recession’s costs, most state employees pay only 3 percent of their salaries to their pensions, half the level of most state employees elsewhere. Their health insurance payments are about half those in the private sector.

In all, the salaries and benefits of state employees add up to $18.5 billion, or a fifth of New York’s operating budget. Unless those costs are reined in, New York will find itself unable to provide even essential services.

And to think that the people who run these bankrupt 'Blue States' actually go to Washington and control the federal purse-strings.

It's time to decertify all public sector unions.

Every one. They serve no useful purpose except as fundraising arms for the Democrat Party -- using taxpayer dollars against our wishes.

Public sector unions must go.


Walker Wins, Government Unions Lose, Fleebaggers Throw Temper Tantrum, President Obama Votes Present #wiunion #SolidarityWI

It turns out President Obama's efforts to foment civic unrest organize government unions against taxpayers were just as successful as his laser-like focus on jobs.

Which is to say: the result was an epic fail.

Republicans in the Wisconsin Senate have voted to strip nearly all collective bargaining rights from public workers after discovering a way to bypass the chamber's missing Democrats.

All 14 Senate Democrats fled to Illinois nearly three weeks ago, preventing the chamber from having enough members present to consider Gov. Scott Walker's so-called "budget repair bill" -- a proposal introduced to plug a $137 million budget shortfall.

The Senate requires a quorum to take up any measures that spend money. But Republicans on Wednesday split from the legislation the proposal to curtail union rights, and a special conference committee of state lawmakers approved that bill a short time later.

The move set up a vote in the Senate, which voted mere moments later.

Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald blasted the fleebagging Democrats:

After nearly a month of debate on the budget repair bill, nearly three weeks of childish stunts and delay tactics from the Democrats, the longest public hearing in state history and the longest Assembly debate in state history, the Senate met tonight to pass the non-fiscal items in the Budget Repair Bill...

Before the election, the Democrats promised “adult leadership” in Madison. Then a month and a half into session, the Senate Democrats fled the state instead of doing their job... In doing so, they have tarnished the very institution of the Wisconsin state Senate. This is unacceptable.

This afternoon, following a week and a half of line-by-line negotiation, Sen. Miller sent me a letter that offered three options: 1) keep collective bargaining as is with no changes, 2) take our counter-offer, which would keep collective bargaining as is with no changes, 3) or stop talking altogether.

With that letter, I realized that we’re dealing with someone who is stalling indefinitely, and doesn’t have a plan or an intention to return. His idea of compromise is “give me everything I want,” and the only negotiating he’s doing is through the media.

Enough is enough. ...The people of Wisconsin elected us to do a job. They elected us to stand up to the broken status quo, stop the constant expansion of government, balance the budget, create jobs and improve the economy. The longer the Democrats keep up this childish stunt, the longer the majority can’t act on our agenda.

Tonight, the Senate will be passing the items in the budget repair bill that we can, with the 19 members who actually DO show up and do their jobs. Those items include the long-overdue reform of collective bargaining needed to help local governments absorb these budget cuts, and the 12 percent health care premium and 5 percent pension contribution.

We have confirmed with the Legislative Fiscal Bureau, the Legislative Council and the Legislative Reference Bureau that every item in tonight’s bill follows the letter of the law.

The people of Wisconsin elected us to come to Madison and do a job. Just because the Senate Democrats won’t do theirs, doesn’t mean we won’t do ours.

Well done, Leader Fitzgerald. Well done.

Well done, Governor Walker. Well done.

One wishes that the Republican leaders in Congress were this brave.


Hat tip: D&S.

An Illustrated Guide to EMP

North Korea has a nascent EMP weapons capability that should trouble anyone concerned with national security. Please consider ABC News' North Korea Nears Completion of Electromagnetic Pulse Bomb.

Since March 4, Pyongyang has been trying to disrupt GPS receivers critical to South Korean military communications... Strong jamming signals were sent intermittently every five to 10 minutes... The scope of the damage has been minimal, putting some mobile phones and certain military equipment that use GPS signals on the fritz.

...The jamming, however, has raised questions about whether the Korean peninsula is bracing for new electronic warfare.

The North is believed to be nearing completion of an electromagnetic pulse bomb that, if exploded 25 miles above ground would cause irreversible damage to electrical and electronic devices such as mobile phones, computers, radio and radar, experts say.

What is an EMP?

Brian T. Kennedy, president of the Claremont Institute, offered an ominous warning in a in 2008 Journal op-ed. Entitled "What a Single Nuclear Warhead Could Do", it described exactly why the U.S. needs a space-based missile defense system to protect the country against a particularly deadly form of attack called EMP.

On July 9, 1962, a high-altitude nuclear test named Starfish Prime was conducted by the United States military above Johnston Island in the Pacific Ocean. Its unexpected electromagnetic pulse (EMP) effects caused disruptions in electrical systems and equipment in Honolulu 700 miles away.

The EMP shut down long-distance telephone calls and disabled three satellites in low earth orbit. Radiation resulting from the test destroyed a total of seven satellites by knocking out their solar arrays or electronics.

A massive current of EMP could be unleashed with catastrophic effect on the United States if a nuclear weapon were detonated high above the center of the country. The energy of this pulse would disable and possibly destroy any unshielded electronic device and power grid in line-of-sight of the detonation.

Cars.

Buses.

Trucks.

Planes.

Trains.

Any vehicle with an electronic ignition or engine control system could be rendered useless.

The lifeblood of America -- food, energy, goods and services -- would be gridlocked.

The power grid: knocked out.

The phone system: gone.

All computer-based systems wiped away in the blink of an eye.

The United States -- dispatched back to the 19th century?

Several years ago, an Iranian military journal publicly considered the idea of launching an electromagnetic pulse attack as the key to defeating the world's lone superpower.

Yet, Copperhead Democrats call the threat of Iran "hype" and "fear".

Frank Gaffney, author of Warfooting, states "If [an EMP weapon] hits the electrical grids of the United States... if it hits electronic devices, computers, chips of various kinds--the things, in other words, that power our society--they're likely to be severely damaged, if not destroyed."

This would wreak havoc on the country's electronic systems, and plunge much--if not all--of the continental U.S. into a pre-industrial state. A blue-ribbon commission created by Congress confirmed this danger in a report submitted in August 2004.

At a height of 300 miles, the entire continental United States would be exposed to EMP attack, along with parts of Canada and Mexico. Congress was warned of Iran's plans by Peter Pry, a senior staffer with the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse Attack in a hearing of the subcommittee on terrorism, technology and homeland security.

Pry pointed out the Iranians have been testing mid-air detonations of their Shahab-3 medium-range missile over the Caspian Sea. The missiles were fired from ships.

"A nuclear missile concealed in the hold of a freighter would give Iran or terrorists the capability to perform an EMP attack against the United States homeland without developing an ICBM and with some prospect of remaining anonymous," said Pry. "Iran's Shahab-3 medium range missile mentioned earlier is a mobile missile and small enough to be transported in the hold of a freighter. We cannot rule out that Iran, the world's leading sponsor of international terrorism might provide terrorists with the means to execute an EMP attack against the United States."

It is worth pointing out that North Korea and Iran have been collaborating on missile and nuclear technologies for years despite "sanctions" and harshly worded memos.

Lowell Wood, acting chairman of the Congressional commission, noted in 2008 that such an attack – by Iran, North Korea, or a terrorist entity acting on their behalf – could cripple the U.S. by knocking out electrical power, computers, circuit boards controlling most automobiles and trucks, banking systems, communications and food and water supplies.

"No one can say just how long systems would be down," he said. "It could be weeks, months or even years." Wood said he could think of no other reason Iran would be experimenting with high-altitude detonations of missiles besides planning for an EMP attack. The same goes for North Korea.

One nuclear weapon. One missile. One motivated maniac.

Those are today's realities, immutable facts, no matter how the Copperhead Democrats try to delay, demoralize and dismantle our missile defense efforts.


Sources: WSJ: What a Single Nuclear Warhead Could Do, Warfooting: Report of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the US from EMP Attack and Joseph Farah.

Larwyn's Linx: Walker Offers Olive Branch, Fleebaggers Spit in His Face

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

Nation

Walker Offers Olive Branch, Fleebaggers Spit in His Face: RS
The lucky Ones Who Get Waivers From Obamacare: RWN
“A Day In The Life Of An Arizona Rancher”: GWP

John Kerry explains why spending cuts are impossible: Hayward
Bachmann: $105B in secret Obamacare money: Cubachi
Fears Grow as Obama Hits Campaign Trail: RC

Gunwalker: a deliberate conspiracy vs. the 2nd Amendment: Sipsey
Team Obama Directly Working to Recall WI Republicans: ATR
Why did Paul Ryan vote for a disastrous union giveaway?: RWN

Economy

Obamacare Subsidizes Healthcare for Union Retirees: Foundry
Unions vs. Taxpayers: IBD
WI teachers: receive year's salary for 30 days of work: RWN

Obama's oil policies killing jobs, costing consumers: SCT
GOP set to Vaporize Thousands of Cowboy Poetry Fans: Driscoll
BofA divides almost half of its mortgages into 'Bad Bank': Bloomberg

Climate & Energy

Blame the Democrats for High Gas Prices: RedState
Palin: President Obama is “Scary Wrong” on Oil: Con4Palin
Surprise: NYT Doubles Down On Eco-Scare Stupid: CBullitt

Climategate's Michael Mann Thrown Under the Bus: Deleted Emails, Lies and Bogus Data: WUWT
How many barrels of crude oil were consumed in the minute you've been reading this?: TPC
IBD/TIPP Poll: Americans Back Offshore, ANWR Drilling: IBD

Media

NPR executives caught on tape bashing conservatives and Tea Party, touting liberals: Caller
O’Keefe Says He Targeted NPR Over Juan Williams Firing: WZ
Obama's "Personal Popularity" is a Media-Created Myth Designed to Scare Republicans into Submission: EIB

What on Earth Is Ezra Klein Smoking?: Cato
Abandoning Your Children: New "Redefinition" of Motherhood: Zilla
The Real Death Panel & the Cloward-Piven Devastation Awaiting You in Obamacare: NoisyRoom

Can We All At Least Agree That Only The Right Cares About Reducing Government Spending?: RWN
The NPR Sting: GoV
Bachmann Demands Democrats Give Back $105 Billion 'Tucked Away' Inside Health Care Law: Fox

Levin goes nuclear on Republican leadership: TRS
Applicants Wanted: ‘Win a Commencement Speech From President Obama’ Contest Falling Short: Malkin
MI School District caught systematically cheating on standardized test, state covering it up: BlogProf

World

Obama Security Adviser Comforts Muslims With Terrorist Ties: Judicial Watch
Why Do Islamic Groups Fear Hearings on Islamic Radicalization?: PJM (Poole)
UN-Sponsored Youth Camp Names Soccer Tournament After Female Palestinian Suicide Bomber: WZ

Zimbabwe to Supply Iran With Uranium: RWN
Al-Qaeda Already Using Wikileaks Material Against Us:PJM
Myth of Moderate Islam: Dakota Voice

Allen West Reflects on His Visit to Gitmo: Cubachi
Obama’s Pentagon: ‘Too Many Whites, Men Leading Military’: BigPeace
Gaddafi forces attack rebel town in west: Maktoob

SciTech

Instaprint service is the Polaroid of the Instagram generation, no shaking required: Engadget
Apple’s Primacy May Have To Move From Smartphones To Tablets: 24/7 Wall Street
Google's code change shifts billions from losers to winners: CNN

Cornucopia

Calm Man Successfully Buys TV And Denies Walmart Receipt Checkers: Consumerist
TV Sitcom Title Contest: iOTW
Report: Qaddafi Flees Libya, Replaces Steven Tyler on American Idol : IMCFT

WTF: Now Accepting Applications: MOTUS
The Chuck D. From Public Enemy Interview: Farrakhan, Air America’s Failure, And Open Borders: RWN
Condemned to Joy: City Journal (Pascal Bruckner)

Image adapted from: What are they afraid of? What are they hiding?
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: Searching for Marizela: An update

QOTD: "Congressional Research Service, with the reports that was issued two weeks before the election, no one was really reading Congressional Research reports. And then there was another report issued in February that detailed the $105 billion. And this is an enormous sum of money. $105 billion, $464 million, this was tucked away inside the Obamacare bill.

People say, 'Well, what's wrong with the members of Congress? Why didn't you know it's there?' It's because we didn't get the bill until literally a couple of hours before we were supposed to vote on it and it's 2900 pages long. What they did is they took the bill, this amount of money, split it up and put in different sections of the bill. Nobody knew until February, when it came out. We had an eagle eye from the Heritage Foundation, Ernest Istook, a former member of Congress, found this in this report... [and one] of my colleagues Steve King from Iowa also found out about this and we've been trying to do everything we can to alert people and say, give the money back..." --Rep. Michelle Bachmann

Tuesday, March 08, 2011

Community Organizers Try to Shout Down Ohio Governor As He Proposes Plan to Deal With $8.5 Billion Deficit

AFSCME, the SEIU, and Barack Obama's personal political arm -- Organizing for America -- are doing the one thing they do best. Fomenting class warfare, spewing hateful rhetoric and shouting down political debate.

Most of the leftist bullies were forced to stand outside the Chamber Door today during Ohio Governor John Kasich’s State of the State Address...

However, at least one shrieking protester interrupted the Republican Governor during his speech today...

In his first state of the state address, Ohio governor John Kasich (R) was jeered as he called for collective bargaining reforms in the Buckeye state, even though the subject was barely mentioned in the 65 minute speech... Kasich says the reforms in the bill are needed so local governments can control their budgets.

“Frankly, folks, the provisions of collective bargaining reform are examples of what we wanted to do to allow people to control their costs,” Kasich said as boos rained down from protesters watching in the chamber... He then addressed the passion of protesters gathered in and outside the state house whose chants could be heard at other points during the speech...

“I appreciate passionate people who don’t agree with us… People who feel strongly, I respect them, but they also need to respect those who don’t always agree with them, Ok?” he said to extended applause from Republicans.


Did this stop the thugs from screaming? ... No.

Of course not.

Free speech and sensible fiscal policies are off limits to the community agitators who control this era's Democrat Party.


Change: More than a third of all U.S. wages and salaries come from government confiscating wealth and redistributing it

There's no better evidence of the Democrats' half-century of policy failures than this story from CNBC: "Welfare State: Handouts Make Up One-Third of US Wages".

Government payouts—including Social Security, Medicare and unemployment insurance—make up more than a third of total wages and salaries of the U.S. population, a record figure that will only increase if action isn’t taken before the majority of Baby Boomers enter retirement.

...social welfare benefits make up 35 percent of wages and salaries this year, up from 21 percent in 2000 and 10 percent in 1960, according to TrimTabs Investment Research using Bureau of Economic Analysis data.

“The U.S. economy has become alarmingly dependent on government stimulus,” said Madeline Schnapp, director of Macroeconomic Research at TrimTabs, in a note to clients. “Consumption supported by wages and salaries is a much stronger foundation for economic growth than consumption based on social welfare benefits.”

The economist gives the country two stark choices. In order to get welfare back to its pre-recession ratio of 26 percent of pay, “either wages and salaries would have to increase $2.3 trillion, or 35 percent, to $8.8 trillion, or social welfare benefits would have to decline $500 billion, or 23 percent, to $1.7 trillion,” she said.

Let's start by ending the Democrats' disastrous "War on Poverty", which has created more poverty and misery than any set of government programs in world history.

If there's anything the last half-century of failed Leftist policies have taught us, it's this: when you reward sloth, you get more sloth. When you reward hard work, you get more hard work.

Killing off welfare except to those in desperate need would be a nice trillion-dollar stimulus to the real economy. And it would actually increase marriage rates, reduce violent crime, and improve educational outcomes.


Hat tip: Tatler.

Top 10 Rejected Scripts From Katie Couric's 'Muslim Cosby Show'

A couple of months ago, CBS news personality Katie Couric had quite the brainstorm.

Couric suggested a Muslim Cosby Show would perhaps help eradicate Islamophobia in America. Couric said, "I know that sounds crazy," she said, "but The Cosby Show did so much to change attitudes about African-Americans in this country, and I think sometimes people are afraid of things they don’t understand."

One of the problems with her idea is that so many script ideas would be off limits for devout Muslims. Biff Spackle lists the following story pitches almost certain to be rejected.

• Teenage daughter brings home a Christian boy

• Rebellious son decides he no longer wants to practice Islam

• Teenage daughter dabbles with homosexuality

• Youngest daughter steals a candy-bar from a convenience store

• Rebellious son is caught drinking vodka with friends

• Teenage daughter wears super-revealing clothing to school

• Rebellious son is caught sassing the Imam

• Teenage daughter brings home a Jewish boy

• Rebellious son is caught desecrating the Koran

• Teenage daughter brings home Charlie Sheen

Spackle asserts that ending a show with a flogging or an amputation wouldn't exactly help the ratings.


Linked by: Weasel Zippers. Thanks!

Excellent News: NPR Willing to Partner With Muslim Brotherhood to Combat Zionist Agenda Using Your Tax Dollars!

Ron Schiller, NPR's senior vice president for fundraising, just got punk'd by conservative activist James O'Keefe. A hidden camera caught Schiller baring his soul regarding Republicans, conservatives and Jews in a meeting with two men claiming to represent the fictional Muslim Action Education Center (MEAC). MEAC claimed that it was willing to donate $5 million to NPR to help its efforts to fight the mainstream media's "Zionist coverage".

Schiller's diatribes included the following gems:

— “The current Republican Party, particularly the Tea Party, is fanatically involved in people's personal lives and very fundamental Christian — and I wouldn't even call it Christian. It's this weird evangelical kind of move ... it's been hijacked by this group that ... "

— "It's not just Islamophobic, but really xenophobic. Basically, they believe in white, middle America, gun-toting — it's pretty scary. They're seriously racist, racist people.”

The operatives in the sting then proceed to disparage what they call Jewish control of the media, prompting Schiller to assure them that Zionist influence doesn't exist at NPR, but "it's there in those who own newspapers obviously."

Schiller laughs when one of the men jokes that NPR's reporting on the Middle East had garnered the nickname "National Palestinian Radio” while his colleague Liley chuckles: “Oh really? That's good. I like that.”

...While discussing media coverage of the political uprising in Egypt, Schiller said what he is “most disappointed by," in the United States, "is that the educated, so-called elite in this country is too small a percentage of the population, so that you have this very large uneducated part of the population that carries these [unworldly] ideas."

Oh, and there's this:

— "I think what we all believe is if we don't have Muslim voices in our schools, on the air ... it's the same thing we faced as a nation when we didn't have female voices." In the heavily edited tape, that comment followed Schiller being told by one of the men that their organization "was originally founded by a few members of the Muslim Brotherhood in America." There's no sign in the edited tape that Schiller reacted in any way after being told of the group's alleged connection to an Islamic group that appeared to be connected with Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood.

— That NPR "would be better off in the long run without federal funding," a position in direct conflict with the organization's official position.

Remember, though, NPR claims to be unbiased. In fact, they're so confident that they're unbiased, they've challenged Republicans to find proof of their political affiliation.

Oops.

Alternate headline: Ignorant, Gun-Toting Racists Decide Not to Fund NPR.


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

Larwyn's Linx: The Insanity of Our Borrowing and What Must Be Done

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

Nation

The Insanity of Our Borrowing and What Must Be Done: VR
Bachmann helps expose secret stash of Obamacare cash: Foundry
Who'd have thought an impeached judge would be unethical?: RWN

Obamacare Waivers: 1,000 and Rising: Cubachi
Witness List Set for King Hearing: IPT
Obama/Holder DoJ Attacks NY Firefighters: AmSpec

WI Republicans Want Paul Ryan for President: WklyStd
Bachmann Stands by 'Gangster Government' Description: RC
W.H. Refuses GOP Request for Healthcare Meeting Notes: TPM

Economy

Apres Nous Le Deluge (After the Deluge): GoldSuisse
Treasury Drew Down $81.6B in Just First 4 Days of March: CNS
Long-lost Tea Party tract discovered — dating back to 1963!: Tatler

Union Myths: Sowell
Socialist Labor Secretary Solis Mobilizes Unions: NR
Did Progressives Engineer the 2008 Financial Crash?: RWN

Is the economy set on 'rebound'?: Q&O
Ellmers: We’ve Only Just Begun to Cut Spending: Foundry
The MERS Mystery: Mises

Climate & Energy

An Easy-to-Follow Energy Road Map: Foundry
Time to Get Serious About U.S. Oil, Like N. Dakota: Carpe Diem
Feds: No new drilling permits, but we'll tap into Strategic Petroleum Reserve!: WashExam

Salazar Shows How In Contempt Of Feldman’s Court He Really Is: Salazar
Tag team in the Senate: Inhofe and Barrasso gang up on Obama’s global warming “expert”: IHTM
Why We Need to Drill Here and Drill Now: PJM

Media

Are We Broke Yet?: Michael Moore, Rachel Maddow, NYT Say No. Reality Begs to Differ.: BigGovt
Sarah Palin’s Parents Says They Sleep With Guns Over Fears of Leftist Death Threats: WZ
All's Right With the World: Comrade Obama Back on Golf Course: RWN

“Why Do Newspapers Support Westboro Baptist, but Not Citizens United?”: Reason
CAIR – Distorting Facts, Videos, and Reality: MentalRecession
Crackpot Liberal Group With Obama Ties Calls for $382 Billion Stimulus : JWF

New York Times: NY is not like WI: Q&O
Obama Is Tough On Leakers – Obviously, Liberals Have A Problem With This: RWN
17 Minutes of Birds’ Eye Terror From a NYPD Chopper on 9/11: WZ

World

Europe’s Ticking Demographic Time Bomb: the days of the cradle-to-grave social welfare state are numbered: PJM
British ObamaCare update: Top NHS doc says babies born at 23 weeks should be left to die: Marathon
Pics From the Front: WZ

Obama preparing for Islamists, sharia in Middle East: Creeping
London Imam Comes out in Support of a Woman’s Right to Refuse the Veil, Promptly Gets Death Threats: WZ
Traders ‘short’ dollar as currency loses attraction: FT

A Blast From the Past, and Maybe the Future: Power Line
UK electricity CEO: Get used to not having any electricity, suckas!: Tatler
Pro-Israel Student's Suit Targets UC Berkeley: IPT

SciTech

How Traffic Jams Happen: Big Picture
CNET tests tablet Web speed, battery life: CNet
Recently Declassified NSA History Document: Schneier

Netflix spooks Hollywood more than ever: CNet
Nintendo and Sony Still Don’t Get It: Apple’s Already Crushing Them in Gaming: BNet
Microsoft begs users to stop running IE6: Sophos

Cornucopia

Where Up is Down; Cold Is Hot: MOTUS
Apple Employees Can’t Help But Gloat About The New iPad: TeamCoco
What Apple Water Would Look Like: BusinessPundit

Image: People's Cube
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: Missing in Washington: Marizela Perez


Monday, March 07, 2011

Photographic Proof that the President's National Security Advisor is Right: 'Many Different Faiths' Really Do Turn to Terrorism

At first blush, the statement by President Obama's Deputy National Security Advisor, Denis McDonough, seems like just another bizarre bit of propaganda.

Denis McDonough, Obama's Deputy National Security Advisor, who said that members of many different religions "succumb to terrorist ideologies." McDonough said this in an address given on March 6 at the Islamic ADAMS Center in Sterling, Virginia.

With his remarks at the headquarters of this Muslim organization, McDonough proved that he simply refuses to recognize reality concerning radical Islam and is even willing to minimize that threat by pretending that all religions contain "terrorists."

"For example," McDonough said, "we know there are many different reasons why individuals -- from many different faiths -- succumb to terrorist ideologies."

Obviously this is an idiotic contention. No Christians are perpetrating acts of terror throughout the world. No Hindus are blowing up trains in Spain. No Jews are fostering suicide bombings in England or the United States. No Buddhists have flown jetliners into high-rise buildings. Islam is responsible for the bulk of the world's acts of terror. To use such rhetorical conventions is dangerous because it disarms us from the real threat.

But Cub Reporter Biff Spackle has located a photograph that validates McDonough's assertion.

I think we all deserve an apology from Warner Todd Huston.