Monday, May 09, 2011

Authorities "do not yet have a motive" of suspect who tried to break into American Airlines cockpit while shouting "Allahu Akbar!"

I, for one, suspect that Militant Quakers are behind this, the third major airline disturbance in 24 hours.

The passengers sat stunned as they watched a man walk quickly toward the front of American Airlines Flight 1561 as it was descending toward San Francisco. He was screaming and then began pounding on the cockpit door...

Within moments Sunday, a flight attendant tackled Rageh Almurisi. Authorities do not yet have a motive.

While authorities said that Almurisi, 28, of Vallejo, Calif., has no clear or known ties to terrorism, the incident underscored fears that extremists may try to mount attacks to retaliate for the death of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden last week.

Federal agents are investigating Almurisi's background. He was carrying a Yemeni passport and a California identification card, authorities said...

...passengers on the plane were stunned when they saw Almurisi walking down the aisle. She said a woman in a row across from her who speaks Arabic translated that Almurisi said "God is Great!" in Arabic... Andrew Wai, another passenger, told KGO-TV on Monday that the wife of one of the men who took Almurisi down later said Almurisi was yelling "Allahu Akbar."

"There was no question in everybody's mind that he was going to do something," Marty said...

Worry not, dear citizens. We have crack investigative minds like Eric Holder and Janet Napolitano on the case; they will certainly be able to deduce the true motive of Mr. Almurisi given enough taxpayer dough, time, resources and race-baiting.


Hat tips: Atlas, via TrendingRight.

O-pression: Experts Put Real Unemployment At Between 18% and 22%

Mike Shedlock crunches the numbers and comes to an inescapable conclusion: real unemployment is far, far worse than official government statistics reflect.

60% of 6,484,000 = 3,890,000
Civilian Labor Force: 153,421,000 + 3,890,000 = 157,311,000
Unemployed: 13,747,000 + 3,890,000 = 17,637,000
Unemployment Rate = 11.2%


According to the BLS [Bureau of Labor Statistics], there are now 8,600,000 workers who want a full-time job but instead are working part-time. The BLS labels this group "part-time for economic reasons". The number of rose by 167,000 last month.

...If you factor in those working part-time for economic reasons the unemployment rate rises to 15.9%, and if you factor in students and those in forced retirement who really would rather be working, it is likely another 1-2 points higher still.

In other words, it's probably in the 18% range.

ShadowStats thinks things are even worse: a little over 22%.

The seasonally-adjusted SGS Alternate Unemployment Rate reflects current unemployment reporting methodology adjusted for SGS-estimated long-term discouraged workers, who were defined out of official existence in 1994. That estimate is added to the BLS estimate of U-6 unemployment, which includes short-term discouraged workers.

The U-3 unemployment rate is the monthly headline number. The U-6 unemployment rate is the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) broadest unemployment measure, including short-term discouraged and other marginally-attached workers as well as those forced to work part-time because they cannot find full-time employment.

Let's just compromise and call it 20%.

Either way, this president's bankruptcy-inducing policies have set this nation on a course for an unprecedented fiscal calamity. We are seeing a preview of coming attractions in Europe, the results of unchecked deficit spending and the spread of socialist welfare programs that can't work and have never worked throughout human history.

And yet Democrats lobby for more: more spending, more deficits, more unchecked wealth redistribution schemes. They know they are unsustainable, yet they plow ahead, bankrupting future generations for some mirage of a Utopian society where everyone is equal, no matter how hard they work.

And that, my friends, truly is the definition of insanity.


Democrats Continue to Strengthen the Family Unit: Navy Authorizes Chaplains to Perform Same-Sex 'Marriages' in Naval Chapels

Having destroyed the two-parent family in the inner city, Democrats have now set their sights on undermining the basic family unit in the military as well.

Anticipating the elimination of the military ban on homosexuality, the Office of the Chief of Navy Chaplains has decided that same-sex couples in the Navy will be able to get married in Navy chapels, and that Navy chaplains will be allowed to perform the ceremonies -- if homosexual marriage is legal in the state where the unions are to be performed.

The advisory came in the form of an April 13 memo issued to all chaplains, in which the Chief of Navy Chaplains, Admiral Michael Tidd, said the Chaplain Corps was revising its Tier I training manuals, which had previously indicated that same-sex marriages are not authorized on federal property.

Instead, Tidd called for chaplains to comply with service-wide efforts underway to be more accepting of homosexuality and same-sex marriage as the end of the military policy on homosexuality nears.

Citing "additional legal review" by Navy attorneys, the admiral said the Navy "has concluded that, generally speaking, base facility use is sexual orientation neutral... If the base is located in a state where same-sex marriage is legal, then the base facilities may be used to celebrate the marriage..."

The admiral’s memo also gives chaplains permission to "marry" homosexual couples – but would not force them to perform ceremonies.

...Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo.), a member of the House Armed Services Committee, is concerned that, in its haste to “hustle-in homosexuality,” the Navy may be violating federal law – the Defense of Marriage Act... “Offering up federal facilities and federal employees for same-sex marriage violates DOMA, which is still the law of the land and is bound to the duties of our military, including chaplains,” Steve Taylor, communications director for Akin, told CNSNews.com.

Like most conservatives, I could care less what kind of relationships people engage in. That's their business. But keep the military out of it.

The military is about protecting America: it's not about gay rights, nor about affirmative action, nor about gender equality.

This kind of idiocy will -- guaran-damn-teed -- get people killed.


Hat tip: TrendingRight. Linked by: Memeorandum. Thanks!

Larwyn's Linx: The Senate Seeks to Create Caesar

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Nation

The Senate Seeks to Create Caesar: NoisyRoom
Obama to use Osama in 2012 'Big Things' Campaign Tour: RWN
Obama to pander on immigration reforms: WashExam

Top 10 Bush Terror Policies Continued by Obama: HE
Eric Holder's bin Laden Moment : WSJ
Passenger tries to open door on flight to Chicago: Trib

Cain serves up Red-Meat Special, hold the identity politics: Treacher
DOJ, DHS assure Muslim leaders they're exempt from scrutiny: Creeping
Union Nurses Go On Strike From Children’s Hospital: LoneCon

Economy

Audacity of irresponsibility: Confronting the fallout of a failing economy: DC
"I'm From the Government. We're Ordering You To Move": Canticle
Stockman: It will take major dislocation to wake up America: ZH

Defending defending America: Obama's NLRB v. Boeing: NLRB
Class of 2011, Most Indebted Ever: WSJ
Why America's College Bubble Is Next To Burst: ZH

Climate & Energy

Thanks, 'Ears': Prince Charles Says "America Eats too Much Beef": Streetsweeper
The Vatican gets involved in climate change: WUWT
Visualizing the “Greenhouse Effect” – Light and Heat: WUWT

Media

ThinkProgress and DailyKos Punked, Again: iOTW
Detroit Free Press: Mired in failure, Granholm was an awesome governor because of her genitalia: RWN
Sheepshead Bay Patriots Fight Super-Sized Mosque: Atlas

Motherhood Is Political: Loesch
Moore Clichés: HE
BREAKING: ThinkProgress pig-ignorant about military: RedState

Palin Bumper Sticker Sparks “Terrible” Response: Con4Palin
Chris Wallace: Why Is It OK To Shoot Unarmed Bin Laden In The Head, But Not Waterboard KSM?: Dollard
Hillary Clinton Photoshopped Out Of Iconic Situation Room Photograph: OTB

World

Why Pakistan knew it could hide Osama: Steyn
Iran’s Leader Orders Murder of Protesters in Syria: Kahlili
Noam Chomsky Attacks Israel's 'Expansion Over Security' at UCLA Lecture on 'Palestine in Crisis': AmPower

Rift in Iranian Leadership Spreads to the Streets of Tehran: Kahlili
WikiLeaks Exposes North American Integration Plot: NewAm
“NO such thing as A RADICAL or MODERATE MUSLIM!!”: Creeping

To Be a SEAL: Mudville
Watch: Osama’s Blooper Reel, Courtesy of the Navy SEALs: Wired
This New Roommate is Driving Me Nuts: IowaHawk

SciTech

Beware the Twitterjackers: SMH
Moore’s Law Lives: the Future Is Still Alive: PJM
MIT studies how age affects distracted driving: AutoBlog

Cornucopia

This Week in Automotivators: RWN
SNL: OBL’s Last Will and Testament: Greenroom
George Washington's Beer Being Brewed in NYC: FoxNation

Image: Day by Day -- Chris Muir
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: TrendingRight.com - what conservatives are talking about

QOTD: “Scarcely have our minds been able to emerge from the astonishment into which one stroke of parliamentary thunder has involved us, before another more heavy, and more alarming, is fallen on us. Single acts of tyranny may be ascribed to the accidental opinion of a day; but a series of oppressions, begun at a distinguished period, and pursued unalterably through every change of ministers, too plainly prove a deliberate and systematical plan of reducing us to slavery. When the representative body have lost the confidence of their constituents, when they have notoriously made sale of their most valuable rights, when they have assumed to themselves powers which the people never put into their hands, then indeed their continuing in office becomes dangerous to the state, and calls for an exercise of the power of dissolution”. --Thomas Jefferson, A Summary View of the Rights of British America. 1774

Sunday, May 08, 2011

TurboTax Tim Wants a $2 Trillion Debt Cap Raise, Coincidentally Enough to Keep Borrowing Through the 2012 Election

Gee, and all this time I thought Tim Geithner wasn't a political hack.

The Treasury has told lawmakers a roughly $2 trillion rise in the legal limit on federal debt would be needed to ensure the government can keep borrowing through the 2012 presidential election, sources with knowledge of the discussions said.

Obama administration officials have repeatedly said that it is up to Congress to decide by how much the $14.3 trillion debt limit should be raised... But when lawmakers asked how much of an increase would be needed to meet the government's obligations into early 2013, Treasury officials floated the $2 trillion working figure, Senate and administration sources told Reuters.

...A Reuters analysis of Treasury's borrowing needs forecast Congress would have to raise the debt ceiling by more than $2 trillion to get through next year's election without having to revisit the issue. According to the Treasury, the government borrows on average about $125 billion per month.

Say, I have an idea!

How about the federal government stops spending $125 billion a month that it doesn't have? Start with the $343 billion in cuts recommended by the Heritage Foundation. And then go further. We have a blueprint. It's called "the Constitution".


Obamacare poised to put the stake in the heart of Illinois' bankrupt Medicaid program

It isn't well-publicized, but the only reason Illinois was able to pay its Medicaid bills over the last three years was the vast spigot of "Stimulus" spending offered by you, the American taxpayer. And that money has officially run out.

With a state budget quagmire still complicating business, providers of health care services and products reimbursed by Medicaid are wondering what new plan Illinois officials will scrape together in the coming months to continue — or continue to delay — paying them.

The state has hundreds of millions of dollars in backlogged Medicaid bills, and its new fiscal year starts July 1. Officials can’t agree on a budget cure for the state’s ailing debt, and an $8.75 billion borrowing plan favored by Gov. Pat Quinn appears to be going nowhere.

Hospitals, doctors and nursing homes experienced some relief during the past two years because state officials started expediting reimbursements to them so the state could benefit from increased matching money offered by the federal stimulus package. But that increased money — and the incentive to pay on time — expires June 30.

So state officials are scrambling for a solution and may rely on a backup plan tested last fall that would “sell” Medicaid vendors’ debt to banks and financial institutions willing to front vendors the money they’re owed and wait to be repaid by the state... hospitals are being paid now in less than 60 days, but in the past the state has delayed payments as long as eight or nine months.

Far from creating jobs, $158 billion in "Stimulus" spending was used to help balance state budgets, of which Medicaid represents roughly a third.

And Obamacare is poised to make the Medicaid burden on states far, far worse.

So it's quite fitting that Obama's home state of Illinois will be the first domino to fall in the Democrats' bizarre, Soviet-style central planning exercise known throughout history as socialized medicine.


Greece: Between a Rock and Hard Place

European economists are issuing dire warnings of what will transpire should Greece exit the Euro.

Commerzbank AG (CBK) Chief Economist Joerg Kraemer said it would be “economic suicide” for Greece to return to the drachma, which would prompt a run on local banks to withdraw euros, Welt reported, citing an interview.

Thomas Mayer, chief economist at Deutsche Bank AG, said a Greek exit from the euro region would lead to a crisis in Europe’s political and currency union and could cause a bank run in some EU countries, the newspaper said.

Thomas Straubhaar, head of the Hamburg-based HWWI economic institute, told the newspaper a euro exit could force Greece into bankruptcy and cause a “domino effect” like the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.

So why is Greece threatening to leave the Euro? Because it took a $157 billion bailout loan last year from the European Union and the IMF. And the payments to the troubled Mediterranean country are contingent upon successfully passing a series of audits.

Greece heads for another audit of its battered finances this week after European officials closed ranks to quash fears of an inglorious Greek exit from the euro cited in a German online report.

A high-level team of experts from the EU, the IMF and the European Central Bank will pore over plans by the Greek government to economise some 26 billion euros over three years to help bring down the country's enormous debt.

..The delivery of a 12-billion-euro instalment from that loan hinges on the audit but Greece so far has struggled to meet its deficit-reduction targets because of a deeper-than-expected recession at home.

Problem is, the market thinks that the Grecian-formula bailout has little likelihood of ever being paid off.

The cost of insuring Greek sovereign debt for five years using derivatives rose 5.6% Friday from the previous close, reaching 1,370 basis points [Ed: 13.7%] on unconfirmed reports that Greece is considering exiting the euro currency, according to data provider Markit.

...Now quoted at 1,370 basis points, the cost is equivalent to $1.37 million a year to cover the same amount of sovereign debt for five years. This is not yet an official closing price, but if it were it would be a record high, Casey said.

Prices on the five-year protection now imply a 70% chance of default, up from 66% in mid April, according to Markit.

Greece will never be able to pay off its massive deficits. It just hasn't admitted it yet.

Yet, here in the U.S., the Democrat-Media complex continually lobbies for more deficit spending and more insane redistribution schemes, which can't work and -- in fact -- have never worked throughout human history.

Which is all the proof you need that liberalism is, as Ann Coulter once said, a mental disorder.


US Releases Photo of Bin Laden's Funeral


Hat tip: Dennis.

Good News: Radical Muslim Separatist Groups Now Actively Trying to Undermine Border Security Between Canada and Michigan

What do you get when you cross CAIR with Eric Holder's Justice Department and Janet Napolitano's DHS?

Long-term, I'd wager on needlessly dead Americans.

The U.S. government has launched an investigation into allegations that federal agents at several U.S.-Canada border crossings in Michigan repeatedly harassed, jailed and body searched Muslims because of their background or appearance... The investigation comes in response to complaints filed in March by the Council on American-Islamic Relations with the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security.

...every time Wissam Charafeddine of Dearborn has crossed the border into the U.S. from Canada in the last three years, he says he has been detained, fingerprinted and body searched... One time, he said, he was separated from his family and jailed in a cold cell for five hours as his 1-year-old daughter cried for milk.

...One of the 10 complaints by local Muslims involves Imam Ali Suleiman Ali, head of the Canton Mosque, one of the larger Islamic centers in metro Detroit... He described a recent border crossing in which he says agents handcuffed and detained him while asking him, "Where's your mosque?" and "What Islamic organizations do you belong to?" Ali described several other similar situations at borders or airports in the past five years.

... "Why do I have to be treated like a terrorist?"

The theme of undermining border security measures is a consistent one for this particular Imam.

Saying that body scanners violate Islamic law, Muslim-American groups are supporting a fatwa — a religious ruling — that forbids Muslims from going through the scanners at airports. The Fiqh Council of North America ... issued a fatwa last week that says going through the airport scanners would violate Islamic rules on modesty...

...Two members of the Fiqh Council are from Michigan, Imam Hassan Qazwini of the Islamic Center of America in Dearborn, and Imam Ali Suleiman Ali of the Canton Mosque. “Fiqh” means Islamic jurisprudence...

...The Council on American-Islamic Relations, which has a chapter in Michigan, says it endorses the fatwa. “We support the Fiqh Council’s statement on full-body scanners and believe that the religious and privacy rights of passengers can be respected while maintaining safety and security,” said Nihad Awad, national executive director of CAIR.

Their actions make it clear that CAIR and "the Fiqh Council" are dedicated to weakening America's security posture.

And it doesn't have a bit to do with religion. It has to do with promoting a political system -- Sharia law -- that just happens to be conveniently wrapped in the protective coating of a religion.

It seems perfectly obvious that Sharia is what CAIR and the other radical Muslim separatist groups are after. And with terror defenders and apologists like Eric Holder in charge of the DOJ, they're likely to get much of what they want.


Larwyn's Linx: The Alinsky-ite Strategy Of The Left In Three Easy Letters

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Nation

The Alinsky-ite Strategy Of The Left In Three Easy Letters: Glob
The president's pronouns: Pundette
Rand Paul: We need the balanced budget amendment: Cubachi

Is Obama A Gunrunner?: IBD
Bush Led, Bin Laden Dead, but Where's the Credit?: Elder
TN has police, teachers in Muslim sensitivity training: Creeping

Rutgers student pleads guilty to Thought-Crime: RWN
Kloppenburg Undermining Inevitable Prosser Win: LegalIns
Thoughts on a Surreal Depression: Hanson

Economy

Fannie and Freddie: Still Mortgaging America’s Future: NewAm
Why Not a Negative Income Tax?: City Journal
Shocker: Obama-Appointee to NLRB A Pro-Union Fanatic: WZ

Amtrak Turns 40 - Called ‘Massive Failure’ by its Founder: Blaze
The Most Exciting Two Minutes in School Choice: Foundry
CA: $200K/yr. lifeguards with million-dollar pensions: BlogProf

Climate & Energy

Obama: Expensive Impractical Green Energy Jobs Are the “Jobs of the Future”: GWP
House GOP (and 33 Dems) to Obama: Drill, baby, drill: Malkin
Y2Kyoto: No S***, Sherlock: SDA

Media

Collateral Damage To Anti-Bush Mythology About The Hunt For Bin Laden: LegalIns
The President’s “current relationship with cocaine”??: Tatler
Pamela Geller, American Thinker: Wintour's Whitewash: Vogue on my Mind: Atlas

Altogether now, 'gutsy', Obama was gutsy to say OK to the bin Laden raid: Q&O
Disgusting: Obama Turns His Back on 9/11 Victim : JWF
Andrew Breitbart on mainstream media's "contempt" for Americans: CBS

Time to Celebrate?: Power Line
Traffic Nosedives for Soros’ Media Matters: BigJourn
So: if Obama made up the whole 'we got bin Laden' story to boost his poll numbers…: RWN

Yoo: Obama “Too Afraid” to Take Bin Laden Alive: RWN
Rumsfeld: Obama Admin. Should Not Be Talking About Seized Intel : Aces
The Decline and Fall of the American Empire: SDA

World

Evidence at bin Laden’s home raises nuclear concerns: Times
Did Zawahiri betray bin Laden?: Tatler
Osama Bin Laden's Anti-U.S. Strategy: Exploit Minority Converts: Atlas

Terrorist Home Videos: Malkin
Will Obama’s gutting of defense prevent a future Operation Geronimo?: DC
Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood Demands Sharia Slavery: NewsReal

China’s Cranks Up Effort to Spy on U.S. Secrets: Blaze
Muslim Mob Attacks Christian Church in Cairo – 6 Dead: GWP
Wait, The Army Has An Environmentally Friendly Projectile?: RWN

SciTech

Europeanizing American Space Activities by Stealth: PJM
When Steve Jobs isn't happy, he really isn't happy: CNet
Boy targeted in probe of online attack of Gene Simmons sites: TSG

Cornucopia

Saturday Movie Matinee: NiceDeb
What's an Outlaw to Do?: Backwoods
Woman stranded 7 weeks in Nev. wilderness found: CBS

Image: CNN
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: TrendingRight.com

QOTD: "Bush laid the foundation for Obama's success, a success which would not have taken place had Bush followed Obama's demands to stop harsh interrogations (even those short of waterboarding), to close so-called "black sites," to lawyer-up detainees early on, to close Gitmo, and to treat the al-Qaeda problem as a law enforcement problem.

Obama made the right decision in killing bin Laden, but it was a decision made possible by hard work that took place during the Bush years.

One of the collateral benefits of the killing of bin Laden is that more facts are coming out, and those facts debunk the malicious mythology which has been spread by the mainstream media and Democratic Party politicians and pundits about George W. Bush and the hunt for Osama bin Laden." --William A. Jacobson.

Saturday, May 07, 2011

Paging Mister Boehner... Mister Boehner... You Have a Telephone Call at the Front Desk

I'm not an expert at interpreting poll results, but this appears to be compelling evidence that Americans want action on the debt. Right. Now.

As the federal government rapidly approaches the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling, 96 percent of Americans say it is important to reduce the national debt, according to a new Reason Foundation-Rupe poll. Of those surveyed, 69 percent believe reducing the national debt is “very important.”

With the debt piling up, it is also clear that taxpayers do not trust the federal government to live within its means. In fact, the Reason-Rupe survey finds 74 percent of Americans support implementing a spending cap that would prohibit the government from spending more money than it takes in during a fiscal year. Only 19 percent oppose a government spending cap.

The most popular policy prescription for reducing the national debt is spending cuts: 45 percent of people say Congress should bring down the debt by reducing spending without raising taxes. Another 16 percent favor reducing the debt primarily through spending cuts, but are open to some tax increases; 14 percent prefer an equal emphasis on spending cuts and tax increases; 8 percent want to reduce the debt primarily through higher taxes with some spending cuts; 4 percent say current spending levels should be maintained and taxes should be raised as needed; and 1 percent of Americans say we shouldn’t do anything about the debt.

I created a graph to illustrate the dichotomy between the realists and, for lack of a better term, the kooks.

The progressives on the right-side of the graph are the outliers. The extremists. The cultists.

We, the Tea Party conservatives, are the mainstream. The majority.

Get it, Mr. Boehner? Not too hard to understand? Now get to steppin'.



Hat tip: Dennis.

Flashback: 'Obama White House ordered coverup of religious symbols for Georgetown speech'

The Democrat blogosphere and media complex spent much of the day yesterday blistering conservatives -- me included -- for misconstruing a Jake Tapper tweet. Tapper's breathless message from Ground Zero -- and the site of President Obama's first-ever visit to the World Trade Center memorial -- read "One minute to air and they decided to take the flag down from the live shot!"

I made the mistaken assumption that the President, often concerned with symbolism over substance, had decided to remove the flag from the background to avoid "spiking the football" (as Michelle Malkin put it). But that wasn't the case: apparently Tapper's hysteria was precipitated by a scheduled removal of the flag an hour after Obama had left the scene.

So the conclusion to which I jumped was provably wrong -- but, given Barack Obama's history, not out of character.

In April of 2009, the Los Angeles Times reported that the "Obama White House ordered [the] coverup of religious symbols for [the president's] Georgetown speech":

Surprising word today that President Barack Obama's White House asked Georgetown University to cover all religious symbols at the scene of the president's economic speech at the Roman Catholic institution Wednesday.

And the prestigious Jesuit university agreed... The Democratic White House explained the move as a desire to keep the backdrop for presidential speeches consistent and not distracting to the audience. The president, who has yet to select a local parish for his family in Washington, has described his religion as "Christian."

That's not all.

Obama's controversial decision to remove his U.S. flag pin during the 2008 campaign must have proven decidedly unpopular in David Axelrod's polls. He soon restored the American flag pin to his lapel.

Furthermore, President Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and other Democrats have conspicuously redacted the word "God" from the Declaration of Independence and the Pledge Of Allegiance.

It's happened several times. It's not a coincidence.

Our founding document -- the Declaration -- enunciates immutable, God-given rights. But Democrats believe that only government can grant rights (e.g., the "right" to free health care).

In order to successfully prosecute their agenda, Obama and his sycophants have no choice but to supplant God with government. Sound crazy? I welcome other explanations for these uncanny "coincidences".

Given these incidents as background, it's no wonder many of us miscontrued Tapper's tweet. The conclusion we jumped to was entirely plausible.


Rick Moran: Keystone Word-Cop

Rick Moran, proprietor of Right Wing Nuthouse, seems to have designated himself the righteous Ayatollah of diction for the conservative blogosphere. How else to explain this screed, which devotes numerous paragraphs to demonizing moi, your lovable, centrist narrator? Moran writes:

I have given up my one man quest to protect the English language from right wing Visigoths who insist in raping, pillaging, and burning their way through the dictionary - corrupting definitions and creating havoc with meaning while doing their utmost to make intelligent discourse impossible... ...Case in point: Today’s blow up over the flag at Ground Zero being pulled up before President Obama spoke. Or something. Doug Ross, among others, rushed into the fray after a tweet from ABC News White House correspondent Jake Tapper that read; “One minute to air and they decided to take the flag down from the live shot!” ...[A]n excitable and indignant Ross wrote:


'This administration and, by extension, the Democrat Party are now so thoroughly divorced from the history, traditions and morals of America that we might as well admit the Marxist left has executed a successful coup d’état on this Republic.'

The mindlessness, the out of control idiocy represented in that one comment says volumes about many on the right, who toss around words like “Marxist” and concepts like “coup d’etat” as casually as if they were discussing the weather...

...It is doubtful that Ross, or any of the bloggers who linked and aped his manifestly absurd blog post would know a true Marxist if they came up and bit him... Democrats are Democrats. Marxists are Marxists ... What concerns me and should concern anyone with any reverence for the English language, is that jamokes like Ross - and there are thousands of them on the right who use these ill-chosen descriptives every day - are either too ignorant to know what the real definitions of “socialist,” “communist,” and “Marxist” are.

For a man who prides himself on verbal precision, Moran slings invective with the best of any "right wing Visigoth". But that said, Moran seems to have been in suspended animation since the thirties, when the Democrats launched their first major attack on the Constitution with Wickard v. Filburn.

The path the modern, MoveOn-controlled Democrat Party is on today was presciently described by Stuart Chase in 1942. He wrote that the agenda of the Fabian Socialists -- who had launched a counter-revolution against America's founding -- was to create an authoritarian and completely centralized government apparatus. The tenets of the Fabian Socialists were codified as follows:

• Strong, centralized government
• Government-controlled banking, credit and securities exchange (like Dodd-Frank, etc.)
• Government control over employment (like the "Employee Free Choice Act" and NLRB efforts to increase unionization of the workplace)
• Unemployment insurance, old age pensions (like 99-week unemployment benefits, Social Security, easy access to welfare)
• Universal medical care, food and housing programs (like Obamacare, food stamps, HUD)
• Access to unlimited government borrowing (like massive deficits)
• A managed monetary system (like an opaque Federal Reserve)
• Government control over foreign trade (like China tariffs)
• Government control over natural energy sources, transportation and agricultural production (like drilling moratoriums, the EPA's regime of "Cap-and-Trade")
• Government regulation of labor (like the Wagner Act, monopolistic power of trade unions, et. al.)
• and Heavy progressive taxation (like our current tax code, the most "progressive" of all Western countries).

Rick, the policies of the modern Democrat Party are absolutely synonymous with Marxism. And that's not just my opinion, that's the take of historians and Constitutional attorneys like David Limbaugh and Mark Levin.

In his review of the seminal work Liberty & Tyranny, David Solway describes the road on which the modern Democrat Party is traveling in words even Moran can understand.

The Statist ... is preoccupied not with liberty but with equality. “In his war against the individual, the free market and ultimately the civil society,” Levin writes, the “Statist must claim the power to make that which is unequal equal and that which is imperfect perfect.” The problem is that the Statist is interested not only in equality of opportunity, to which no reasonable person could object (assuming that opportunity is not manipulated to favor one class of persons over another, as, for example, affirmative action), but in equality of outcome, which sanctions the massive interventions of the state into the private domain.

Every legitimate forecaster -- from Moody's to Peter Orszag -- describes America's fiscal condition as critical. And why is that?

Could it be that the Democrat Fabian Socialist principles of wealth redistribution, limitless welfare, open borders, "Great Society", universal health care, and dozens of other failed entitlement programs are bankrupting this Republic?

So, Rick, next time you opine on wordsmithing, take the 30 seconds to compare the agenda of the Fabian Socialists with that of the modern Democrat Party. Because you couldn't separate the two with a freaking crowbar.

The Democrat's failed, Marxist policies have cost American taxpayers untold trillions of dollars and simultaneously breached the firewalls of the Constitution.

So, Rick, please: read Federalist 45 and tell me you can come to any other conclusion that today's Democrats are the avowed, open enemies of the Constitution. This ain't your pappy's Democrat Party any more.

So man up, and quit acting like a Keystone Word-Cop. These Democrats are freaking Marxists as certain as Michael Moore is a morbidly obese Communist sympathizer.


Linked by: Protein Wisdom and The Other McCain. Thanks!

Larwyn's Linx: The Fog of Fog

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 Fog of Fog: Malkin
Just Another O-Blunder: Cold Fury
UBL Planned to Attack Trains on 9/11 Anniversary: Fox

Gunwalker Scandal: Watergate with Murder?: BigPeace
Issa Calls Holder to Account: PJM
Was Gun Control the Ultimate Aim of 'Gunrunner'?: RWN

Allowing photos of dead U.S. soldiers, but not Bin Laden: GWP
‘Smart’ Pundits Sneer at Herman Cain: RSM
Police Find IED Near Amtrak rail in PA: Atlas

Economy

SEIU drops mask, goes full commie: Zombie
Hurray for 9.0!: Malkin
Unemployment Rate Up To 9%: LegalIns

Today's a Perfect Day to Fire TurboTax Tim Geithner: Reason
Libraries Buy Business Cards for Janitors in Illiterate Detroit: RWN
Herman Cain defends the Fair Tax: Cubachi

Climate & Energy

Governor Palin: “[Obama] Is Doing All That He Can to Manipulate the US Supply of Energy”: C4P
Mission Accomplished: Gas Average Now at $4 a Gallon: JWF
Top Green Admits: “We Are Lost!”: AmInt

Media

Giuliani: Release the photo: Cubachi
A Cartoon Worth a Thousand Words And Then Some: Bruce
Liberal journalists working overtime to create image of Obama the Warrior: IHTM

Leaders with Ginni Thomas: Mark Levin: DC
We Don't Need NPR: P&F
MSM refuses to report that GM's profits were built on the backs of taxpayers: BlogProf

World

Amateur Hours: Wizbang
SEALS in bin Laden raid drawn from Red Squadron: ArmyTimes
Al Qaeda confirms bin Laden's death, vows more bloodshed: Post

Londonistan erupts with tributes, funerals for bin Laden: Tatler
The PLO’s desperate defenders: CGlick
Argentina state tv to air Islamic dawah to convert non-Muslims: Creeping

Obama May Prosecute CIA Agents Who Got bin Laden Intel: Jawa
Syria kills dozens, US warns of more action (VIDEO): GlobPost
The Muslim Brotherhood Mobilizes: PJM

SciTech

Google Maps Will Soon Let You See Inside Buildings: Atlantic
How Much Would an Apple iPad Cost if it Weren’t Made by Suicidal Slaves in China?: RWN
Is your iPhone obsolete? Meet PaperPhone: CNet

Cornucopia

Exclusive video of Operation Neptune's Spear!: VikingPundit
New York man makes $120K selling 'bin Laden is dead' T-shirts: Post
Dennis Miller on Islam: Creeping

Image: Zombie
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: TrendingRight.com - what conservatives are talking about


Friday, May 06, 2011

Photo o' the Day: Fish Food


Hat tip: Papa B.

Obama asks 10-year old son of deceased 9/11 first responder how he feels about Bin Laden being dead

Perhaps the president was looking for another 'attaboy!'

The 6-foot-1 leader of the free world stared the pint-size kid in the eyes and solicited his opinion about a subject that has captured the attention of the world.

"He asked how I felt about Osama Bin Laden being dead," the boy said.

"I said he could have done something a little less harsh to him, but it was nice to just know that after what happened to my dad, this guy was killed, too."

This guy is all class. All class.


WTF at WTC? Obama Has American Flag Removed From Ground Zero Site Moments Before Photo Shoot! [Updated: or Perhaps Tapper Just Confused All of Us]

ABC's Jake Tapper was on the scene. He disbelievingly tweeted:

Here's his photo of the take-down.

This administration and, by extension, the Democrat Party are now so thoroughly divorced from the history, traditions and morals of America that we might as well admit the Marxist left has executed a successful coup d'état on this Republic.


Update: The timing of Tapper's tweet is the subject of some discussion now on Twitter. @AllahPundit offers this photo of the wreath-laying, which depicts the flag in the background. So exactly what Tapper was talking about is a mystery to me.

Update II: Michelle Malkin gets to the bottom of it (hat tip: Tabitha Hale):

Earlier this morning, I tweeted a link to Doug Ross’s post highlighting a seemingly outrageous photo from ABC News White House reporter Jake Tapper showing the American flag being removed from Ground Zero.

Tapper wrote: “One minute to air and they decided to take the flag down from the live shot!”

Many, including me, jumped to the conclusion that the stage managers at the White House had the flag removed.

It’s not true... As Allahpundit points out, Tapper tweeted the photo at the end of the day yesterday after the Ground Zero event and the flag was visible during the ceremony.

As do I. But I'm sticking by my "Marxist coup d'état" comment.

Update III: Why the Leftists commenting here are idiots: (a) the next retraction one of the Left-leaning media sources makes will be their first (e.g., "Terror Wiretaps plus Invasion of Iraq plus Rendition plus Waterboarding Led to Bin Laden"); (b) Obama's on-again/off-again flag-pin patriotism; (c) and his well-documented failures to show respect to the flag -- all make it clear that Tapper's tweet would be utterly believable in the original context.

Don't let the blog's door hit you on the ass on the way out, drones.

Update IV: Flashback: 'Obama White House ordered coverup of religious symbols for Georgetown speech'


Hat tips: FireAndreaMitchell, via TrendingRight.

Larwyn's Linx: Was Obama Forced Into Action On Osama Bin Laden?

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Nation

Was Obama Forced Into Action On Osama Bin Laden?: AJS
McCain, Graham Vote For Another Obama Judicial Leftist: Ace
Dirty Pictures of Osama Bin Laden: AmSpec

S.C. GOP 2012 Presidential Debate -- Cain Wins: RSM
Drunkblogging the First Republican Primary Debate: VodkaPundit
Sebelius: Under Ryan Plan, Seniors Would Die Sooner: WZ

Issa Strafes Holder on Gunrunner: Sipsey
U.S. Weapons Reaching Cartel Hands a Huge Scandal: PJM
The GOP's Minority Trap: RWN

Economy

U of Missouri Epic Fail: Context Can't Rescue Judy Ancel: BigJourn
House Committee Chair: Repeal Of Obamacare Is Dead: OTB
Obama, Sebelius target 83-year-old drug executive: WashExam

Nearly Half of Detroiters Illiterate. Cause Apparently a Mystery.: Cato
Because No Job is the Greenest Job of All: Malkin
Tipping Point? U.T. Takes Delivery Of $1B In Physical Gold: ZH

Climate & Energy

Obama Floats Plan To Tax Cars By The Mile: Instapundit
What Can Onions Teach Us About Oil Prices?: Carpe Diem
General Electric's Jeff Immelt Surrenders: FreeWork

Obama's Scandalous War Against Domestic Oil: DLim
Hey, Democrats: Punishing Big Oil Won't Cut Prices: IBD
Oil Drops - I Blame the Speculators!: CFB

Media

Why Are All These Less-Well-Off Rural Folks and More-Well-Off Suburban Folks Voting Against Their Interest? : Ace
What The Osama-Kill Story is Cloaking for The MSM and The Administration: Babalu
Rush Limbaugh: Maybe Donald Trump Can Get Obama To Release The Bin Laden Photos: SAB

Politico: Obama Makes “Triumphant Return To Ground Zero”: RWN
Huffington Post Readers Respond to Osama bin Laden’s Demise: RWN
Ugh: GOP Minn. Gov. Pawlenty studying mileage tax, satellite-based tracking: Malkin (2009)

Left-Wing Media Kook: When Will Navy SEALs Take Out George W. Bush? : MRC
Bollywood vs. Bin Laden: Why Radical Islam Fears Pop Culture: BigGovt
Legendary founder of Seal Team Six speaks: Reuters

Jay Carney is floundering under pressure, say Washington insiders: Telegraph
For Obama team, transparency means sneaking off to a coffee shop: WashExam
DREAM Act to Invade Our Nightmares Again: PACNW Righty

World

Report: Bin Laden Died A Coward: Ace
Fatah-Hamas Unity Will End the Peace Process: PJM
Terror Expert Marc Thiessen: Barack Obama Eliminated Interrogation Tool His Second Day In Office: GWP

Regarding The Delicate Sensibilities of War: NoisyRoom
Michigan Muslim Stalks Daughter Over 4 States Before Shooting Her in the Head: GWP
Iran: Ayatollah Khamenei Has Ahmadinejad’s Allies Arrested, Charged With Sorcery: WZ

SciTech

Amazon's Bezos, VCs back nuclear fusion start-up: CNet
Security Expert: Sony Knew Its Software Was Obsolete Months Before PSN Breach: Consumerist
LastPass forcing members to change passwords: CNet

Cornucopia

Obama hesitated! Panetta issued order!: AxiomRed
Osama bin Laden, the Onion, and some guy’s rear window: Troglo
A Veteran of SEAL Team Six Describes His Training: VanityFair

Image: A Veteran of SEAL Team Six Describes His Training
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: TrendingRight.com

Thursday, May 05, 2011

Chart o' the Day: Progressive Income Taxes are Regressive

Vice President Joe Biden once said that we all "have to have skin in the game". Apparently he wasn't talking about Democrats.

Consider the following chart from JP Morgan Funds, which illustrates the disastrous policies of "progressive" income taxes.

The top 10% of taxpayers are paying increasingly larger shares of the federal tax burden. Conversely, the bottom 10% are paying less than ever.

And the amount of revenues collected by the feds continues to decrease.

How's that 'tax the rich' strategy working out, Sparky?


Source: JP Morgan Funds.

First Reax: GOP Debate

I'll be blunt.

Herman Cain, Tim Pawlenty and Rick Santorum are the only real contenders on stage tonight. The waterboarding question sealed the deal ("Would you approve of enhanced interrogation techniques under certain circumstances you could imagine?").

Only Gov. Johnson and Ru Paul failed to answer in the affirmative.

We need Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin on stage.

We need Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin kicking ass and taking names.

Jon Huntsman? Ron Paul? Newt Gingrich? Sorry, guys, but give me a freaking break.