Thursday, July 28, 2011

The Boehner Plan For Dummies

Someone far smarter than me can correct this assessment in the comments but -- as I understand it -- the Boehner plan is:

• Raise the debt ceiling with no real cuts - check

• Hold secret meetings with an elite "commission" of masterminds - check

• Trying to avoid blame rather than fix problems - checkety check

• End up getting pwnt by legacy media anyhow - check and mate

I'm sure glad the current RINO leadership wasn't advising General Washington at Valley Forge.


Related: How Barack Obama is destroying the American economy in two nauseating charts


New sign at Wal-Mart [Papa B]

Papa B:

Remember when America was dumbing down? No more. We have arrived...


It's the new math.


How Barack Obama is destroying the American economy in two nauseating charts

You don't need to be a math major to understand these devastating charts (slightly modified from the originals to depict the beginning of the "one-time, emergency Stimulus"):

...next time Obama or his allies in the press go back to the well and recite the well-worn verse that spending is all the other guy’s fault, take a look at the facts...

President Obama has steered a fiscal course that will lead to more spending and deeper deficits and ultimately to vastly higher taxes...

...If you want to know the real cause of our deficits today, the answer lies primarily with Obama. If you want to know the real cause of our deficits in the near future, the answer lies in entitlement spending, which Obamacare increases.

That John Boehner, who was put into power by the same Tea Party conservatives he condemns, could ignore the so-called "emergency Stimulus" package -- and leave it in all subsequent baseline budgets -- is a freaking moral outrage!

Fight! Why won't they fight? Because: (a) they're cowards; or (b) they like big government. Either answer is un-freaking-acceptable. Has Barack Obama given an inch in his battle to Cloward-Piven-ize America? No! Did Stretch Pelosi? No! Did Harry "Chuck Schumer writes my speeches" Reid? Hell, no!

Boehner had two nuclear weapons at his disposal. And he chose to use neither. He had the debt ceiling and a threat of a downgrade by the rating agencies.

Cut, Cap & Balance addressed both issues.

If Republicans had united behind CCB, they could have forced a vote in the Senate -- by putting massive pressure on the 20 Democrats who had earlier pledged to support a Balanced Budget Amendment -- and send it to the President's desk.

Boehner could then tell the American people: there's only one plan that addresses the deficit and prevents a downgrade.

And let Obama deal with the fallout of a veto -- if he has the guts.

Instead, we submit a plan that still results in downgrade and default.

Idiocy. Sheer, unmitigated idiocy.

We need to elect a boatload more conservatives in 2012, politically eradicate the RINOs, and jam true conservatives into leadership positions.

Because all of these pantywaists -- put together -- don't have the cojones of Michele Bachmann.

They're wimps who are selling out the American people -- just a tad bit slower than the Marxist, Democrat Left. We're headed for fiscal apocalypse and these feckless RINOs won't even put up a fight.


Larwyn's Linx: The Man Without a Plan

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 Man Without a Plan: PJM
Rancor on the Right: Of elephants and asses: Malkin
All 53 Senate Democrats Threaten Default: GWP

All You Need To Know About The House Republicans: RS
F*** John McCain: RSM
Choosing Time for Conservatives: Pundette

Bam, it's time to cut spending - period: McCaughey
Will Boehner 2.0 Launch?: Hewitt
Obama’s Battleground-State Blues: NatJourn

Gunrunner

ATF Official: I shared Gunwalker Data with White House: CBS
Issa Hopes White House Official Will Testify: Foundry
Just a reminder, and a thank you; Confounding the 'EeBeeGees': Sipsey

Economy

A Thousand Pictures Is Worth One Word: Worthless: ZH
In the wake of Obamacare: Boortz
Sgt. Schultz: GOP acting like a dictatorship or something: Hot Air

Hey, Mr. President, ‘Where’s the Plan?’: NoisyRm
More Idiocy From Democrats: Denninger
GE: 'Stop Complaining About Big Government' Moves to Beijing: SHN

A Leadership Default: WSJ
“We Don’t Have A Deficit Problem Right Now.”: RWN
One nation, under Moody’s: Malkin

Climate & Energy

Henry Waxman Asks Sec. Chu To Create Globull Warming Re-Education Program: RWN
The Death of Cars: Snapped Shot
Green agenda has parallels with excesses of communism: Herald Sun

Media

New York Times Reader Kills Dozens In Norway: Coulter
Did Obama Give the Nod to the SEIU/ACORN Economic Pressure Campaign Against Wall Street?: Vadum
The Politics of Blame: The Petulant Boy-King Stamps His Foot – One More Time: Marfdrat

Limbaugh: Tell Obama "We're Waiting for Your Plan, Chief": Ace
Re: Media Assassins; Pamela Geller Under Assault, It’s The Anti-Anti-Jihad Movement: POH Diaries
Carney gets testy over more questions on lack of Obama plan: TRS

Michelle Malkin to DC: We will not sit down and shut up! No more!: TRS
The New Journalism: IBD
Sarah Palin to Keynote September 3rd Tea Party Event in Iowa: Malkin

World

‘Gentle Justice’ Meets Mass Murderer: PJM
Breivik hated women and feared equal rights: TAB
The 5 Biggest Lies Told about Oslo Shooter Anders Breivik: PJM

Dictatorial Daydreams: MoneyRunner
Department of Sensitive Defense: Snapped Shot
Norway, Oklahoma City, and the notion of Christian terrorism: JPA

Sci-Tech

'War texting' lets hackers unlock car doors via SMS: NetworkWorld
Google+ traffic dropping already?: CNet
A Stuxnet Comeback?: DarkReading

Cornucopia

Big Love in Park City and Aspen: MOTUS
An Open Letter to All Patriots: NoisyRm
Mark Levin gives a history lesson on Nov. 2010: TRS

Image: Adapted from iOwnTheWorld
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: Senate Conservatives Fund


Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Hanson: the Collapse of Our Failed Welfare State Will Purify Us

Historian Victor Davis Hanson is far more optimistic than I regarding the aftereffects of the impending debt implosion here in the U.S. We are approaching $15 trillion in national debt, which does not even take into account the $60+ trillion entitlement programs that will soon overtake our ability to pay. In that light, Hanson asks:

• "Should those on welfare who have more than three children still qualify for increased assistance for each additional offspring?"

• "Does the affluent class deserve mortgage-interest deductions on second and third homes?"

• "Should U.S. troops subsidize the defense of an allied and rich Germany or Japan 66 years after World War II?"

Hanson observes that the aberration of deficit spending will soon result in a return to rationality:

...the dogma that a teenager with dyslexia or a mature man with a bum knee will receive years of Social Security disability benefits will be assessed as an historical aberration of the last twenty years. A decision by an insurance company or government agency that a 62-year old must settle for arthroscopic surgery on a chronically torn meniscus rather than a complete knee replacement will not be interpreted as social cruelty.

Almost everything that can be said has been said about illegal immigration — and about the sustainability and morality of millions of Mexican and Latin American nationals crossing the U.S. border unlawfully and plugging into the American entitlement system. But an insolvent state like California, despite the liberal protestations, cannot continue to house 50,000 Mexican nationals in its penal system at a per capita cost of nearly $35,000 a year, or to extend free tuition in its broke university system to those without legal residence, or to provide social services to illegal aliens that may well cost the state nearly $10 billion a year. Even to suggest such limits was once considered illiberal. Now, not to state the obvious — that those without education, English, and legality have been expecting far more than what they could contribute in return — will be considered derelict.

Do the almost 50 million people now on "food stamps" all truly need them? Are they all starving to death? Is the program fraud-free and used only to buy bare necessities?

Is 99 weeks of unemployment (or more) reasonable?

Can someone who owns an iPhone, a big-screen television, a laptop computer, and a comfy leather couch really be called "poor"?

We can no longer afford the liberal philosophy of redistribution. Hanson concludes that there "...is a certain brutal honesty about this debt crisis. It is slowly beginning to force us to see the world in the tragic way it is, rather than in the therapeutic way we dream it must be."

But as Greece showed us -- and the public sector battle in Wisconsin hinted at -- civil unrest could be on the horizon rather than a becalmed expiation of liberals' sins.

Hope for the best. Prepare for the worst.


Hat tip: Pundit & Pundette.

Gas Pump Sticky-Note Campaign Part Deux

Just a reminder: the 'Gas Pump Sticky Note Campaign' is still underway.

Rather than hand-written notes, here are a couple that you can print:


Of course, the notes don't have to be this fancy.

They can be as simple as a PostIt with the exhortation "Stop the damn spending!!!"


More good news from the Obama depression: study finds massive, permanent job loss from de facto drilling moratorium

Maybe the hapless, lying sack of weasel dung (which is the phrase he prefers, I hear) named Timothy Geithner can pin the blame for this story on, say, Dwight D. Eisenhower or Barry Manilow.

A new report redoubles calls by oil and gas interests for the federal government to speed up permitting of offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

The report, issued Thursday by IHS Global Insight and sister energy research firm IHS CERA, says that oil and gas companies are ready to invest, and that faster approvals by the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement could create 230,000 jobs nationwide in 2012. The report also warns that continued slow permitting will reduce domestic oil and gas production and could drive energy companies to shift their investments to other countries, permanently shrinking the American oil industry.

Environmentalists question whether the economic gains of faster permitting outweigh potential ecological and economic harm of additional oil spills. And the report may miss progress that has been made since spring. The study ended April 10, and federal officials have since approved a number of permits.

...A new report projects that the offshore oil and gas industry could create 230,000 jobs in 2012 if permitting is speeded up. Here's a look at jobs projected to be created in the top 11 states:

1. Texas 73,944
2. Louisiana 68,319
3. California 14,292
4. New York 8,809
5. Florida 7,497
6. Illinois 6,069
7. Mississippi 5,440
8. Pennsylvania 5,214
9. Ohio 4,539
10. Georgia 3,975
11. Alabama 3,353
Source: IHS Global Insight and IHS CERA

The report says 3,400 jobs could be created in Alabama, 11th-most among the states, and 5,400 jobs could be created in Mississippi, seventh-most. About 60 percent of jobs would flow to Louisiana and Texas, where the offshore drilling industry is concentrated. However, the authors emphasized that employment benefits would spread nationwide.


Well, geez, things are going so swell right now that we don't even need any more damn jobs!

Cause we've got green jobs for everyone and free Obamacare! We've got peas in every pot and a Chevy Volt in every carport!

Don't we?


The question for the House Republican leadership: are you going to do what you think is politically expedient -- or will you do what is right?

Unbeknownst to most who live outside the Beltway, there's a silent and furious battle being waged over control of the Republican Party. Earlier this week, arms were being twisted and talking points disseminated in support of House Speaker John Boehner's erstwhile "compromise" plan. You know, the one that cut roughly 0.02% of discretionary spending in 2012.

No less an éminence grise than Dr. Charles Krauthammer, a reliable spokesman for intra-495 conservatives, parroted the Boehner line. In short, the Speaker was doing the "right thing" in introducing something that could conceivably pass the Senate and arrive on Obama's desk.

That Boehner's plan did nothing to tackle the deficit nor avoid a downgrade by the rating agencies was not discussed. Never mind that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid declared it "dead on arrival" and President Obama vowed to veto it.

Erick Erickson at RedState perfectly described the disastrous strategy of the Speaker and the old guard Republicans:

One week ago the entire conservative movement was unified behind Cut, Cap, and Balance [CCB] as was both House and Senate GOP caucus — no small feat to be sure.

Then, because Harry Reid denied CCB a vote through a procedural motion, John Boehner produces a crackpot plan that rips the conservative movement apart at the seams and after taking two stabs at it, still can’t get to the promised $1.2 trillion in cuts he initially claimed it would have.

The bill is being whipped against by Pelosi (which CCB was not) and will likely draw less Dem support than CCB. The bill is said by Reid to be DOA in the Senate.

But Boehner believes that it is strategically smarter to die on this hill and force it down Senate Dems throats rather than try to do that on a bill in which he has the support of all his members, all the movement, and 66 percent of the American people.

These people need to be put in a mental ward.

Precisely.

Let me get this straight: the Speaker wants to pass a bill in the House that doesn't remotely address the deficit problem and therefore still results in downgrades by the rating agencies. And then Obama -- in typical Alinsky fashion -- blames the Republican plan (or Bush, or William McKinley, or anyone else but him) for the downgrades?

There's only one plan that lifts the debt ceiling and saves the credit rating of the U.S. That's CCB, which is supported by a whopping two-thirds majority of American adults.

What can you do?

If you want to stop the GOP from taking a bad deal out of fear, go to http://www.redstate.com/action right now and call your member of Congress to oppose John Boehner’s plan.

Tell them to pass CCB again and force a vote in the Senate. We, the American people, will apply massive pressure to a few "moderate Democrats" -- who run home pretending to be fiscal conservatives -- and all 20 Democrats who once promised to support the Balanced Budget Amendment.

Then let Obama veto the best chance we have to repair the fiscal damage he's done. If he has the guts.


Update: Boehner, get real!

Larwyn's Linx: How Obama Caused The Debt, Downgrade Crisis

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Nation

How Obama Caused The Debt, Downgrade Crisis: Riehl
The Debt Mountain Labored and Brought Forth a Mouse: Steyn
Erick And DeMint Are Holding ... Well, Something: Riehl

New polls confirm Obama's Democratic base crumbles: LAT
Are you better off today than you were in Jan. '09?: Q&O
Class Warfare, Slavery and Corporate Jets!: SIGIS

Boehner Grounds Into a Double Play: RS
The Freshmen vs. the Insiders: Hewitt
Gutierrez Arrested During Open Borders Protest: GWP

Gunrunner

Holder Lied, Agents Died: IBD
Gunwalker scandal called "perfect storm of idiocy": CBS
Obama administration accused of intimidating witnesses: Lid

Economy

Tim Geithner, Liar.: Sundries
1 in 8 employer insurance plans getting the axe: DC
Cal makes huge cuts, but not on useless diversity programs: CJ

The Crisis Behind the Crisis: IHTM
FDA Moves to Regulate Walnuts as a Drug: RWN
Great News: Higher food prices likely "new normal": BlogProf

Climate & Energy

So How’s That Sea Level Rise Thing Working For You?: CBullitt
Gingrich Regrets That Everybody Misconstrued His Pelosi Climate Change Ad: Malkin
Tree ring widths more affected by sheep than temperature: CBullitt

Media

Media insists Americans crashed DC phone systems with calls for higher taxes: GWP
Fanaticism, mass murder and the left: Phillips
Yet Again, MSM Repeats the ’90 Percent Lie’: Owens

Two Papers In One!: Driscoll
Dear New York Times: Dry Your Eyes. Your Salvation is At Hand.: Sundries
Hilarity: Carney gets punched for 10 minutes over lack of an Obama plan: NRO

'War Hero' Who Attested to Kerry's Heroism Turns Out to Be Liar and Kiddie Porn … Um, 'Researcher': RSM
Eric Cantor Rips Obama: “Stop Your Policies That Are Wrecking the American Economy!”: GWP
Media Skip Over Sen. Bernie Sanders's Anti-Obama Remark: NB

World

Hamas's Gaza – Four Years Later Chapter 5: Islamization in Gaza: MEMRI
Indicted Al-Shabaab Recruiter Continues Jihad on Facebook: PJM
Former ATF Official Admits Bureau Allowed Guns Into Mexico: Foundry

Obama’s Foreign Policy Is About as Successful as Obama’s Domestic Policy: RSM
MSM Goes LGF: Media Trying to Blame Norway Massacre on Pamela Geller?: RSM
Norway: Israel Brings Terrorism on Itself: Commentary

Sci-Tech

Twitter Marketing Lessons from the Fortune 50: BizPun
Mac vs. PC via McDonald's Wi-Fi guide: CNet
Getting Kicked Out of an Apple Store Is Not Easy: Atlantic

Cornucopia

The Unhappy Meal makeover; Photoshop contest call!: Malkin
FBI Exposes The Terrifying Face Of "Anonymous": TSG
The Zombie Deployment Guide: ArmyTimes

Image: Sad Hill News
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: Fight Obama in Wisconsin - Support Dan Kapanke

QOTD: "With respect, Rich, your correspondent needs to get out of the House more. The $7 billion that he calls “a real, enforceable cut for FY2012″ represents what the Government of the United States currently borrows every 37 hours.

If the CBO’s scoring is correct – that it reduces the 2012 deficit by just $1 billion – then the ”cut” represents what the United States borrows every five hours and 20 minutes. In other words, in the time it takes to photocopy and distribute Boehner’s “plan”, the savings have all been borrowed back." --Mark Steyn

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Bleeding-Edge Technology From a Half-Century Ago






Gee, I wonder how many of these magnificent breakthroughs were created by the federal government?

You say none of them?

Perhaps someone should tell Barack Obama and the far left Democrats that it was the free market -- not some centralized, authoritarian government in a faraway city -- that orchestrated the most magnificent society even seen on the face of the Earth.

Oh. I'm sorry. Did someone's head just explode?


Liberals stunned to discover that "trickle-up economics" works about as well as the Stimulus, Cash-for-Clunkers and Obamacare

Remember when Democrats mocked "trickle-down economics" (shhh... forget that the Reagan revolution created an unprecedented 25-year economic boom)?

Remember when President Obama said that "spreading the wealth around" would create jobs and opportunity?

Well, turns out that crap -- like all of the Democrats' social engineering rhetoric -- was, for lack of a better phrase, an epic fail. Mmm hmm, like everything else the Democrats have touched.

The median wealth of white households is 20 times that of black households and 18 times that of Hispanic households, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of newly available government data from 2009.

These lopsided wealth ratios are the largest since the government began publishing such data a quarter century ago and roughly twice the size of the ratios that had prevailed between these three groups for the two decades prior to the Great Recession that ended in 2009.

Say, Dems: how's that "Great Society" working out for you?

How are all of those social engineering programs, ostensibly designed to create "equality of outcome", doin'?

How's that Marxist class-warfare crap treating you?

Yo. We're Americans.

Do you know the race of those who pumped the fuel that transported your food to market? Do you know the religion of those who grew the wheat that became your bread?

No! And you don't care! The free market is the most advanced form of society ever seen on Earth; it has brought more happiness, more scientific and medical breakthroughs, more advancement for humankind than any other system!

Liberals: I encourage you to join the biggest tent of all: the freedom tent. Individual liberty, private property, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Because free enterprise knows no color, no race, no religion.

What is the alternative? Do you prefer a failed, European-style socialist state bent on incessant deficit spending? Do you like the riots in Greece? Because that's where the Democrats are taking us.

If you want a future for your children, as I do, you'll join us.


Hilarity: White House Press Secretary and Former MSM "Reporter" Jay Carney Gets Punched For 10 Minutes Straight on Lack of an Obama Plan

President Obama probably never anticipated that one day he'd yearn for Robert Gibbs.

After bobbing-and-weaving for nine minutes, Carney finally says what everybody knows: the president won’t put his plan on paper because he doesn’t want it to become “politically charged” before a compromise can be reached. In other words, you’ve got to pass it to find out what’s in it...

...So POTUS doesn’t have a plan, as such. The Republicans, for their part, have several. But the president’s senior advisers are recommending that he veto the latest.

Of course! He wants to "fundamentally transform" the country by bankrupting it!


The only qualification you need to write for The New York Times: you must be a lying sack of excrement

Yesterday's Times op-ed on the debt ceiling ("The Republican Wreckage") does an admirable job of parroting the Obama administration's talking points: diffuse blame for the debt crisis; obfuscate the cause of the debt crisis; and ignore the 820 days that Democrats have gone without producing a budget.

In short, The New York Times welcomes America's new Chinese overlords.

Consider the key logs the authors squeezed out:

"[Republicans] have largely succeeded in their campaign to ransom America’s economy for the biggest spending cuts in a generation"


Please review the accompanying chart, courtesy of the Office of Management and Budget (a claque of neo-con terrorist racist teabaggers, no doubt). In short, the 111th Congress and President Obama initiated the biggest spending spree and deficit spending in all of world history.

That some conservative Republicans are trying to unwind it is heroic. Failure to do so will mean a debt rating downgrade; and that will be on Obama's head -- not the Republicans.

As for wrecking the economy? What do you call Obama's wreck-ord?

"In a scathing prime-time television address Monday night, President Obama stepped off the sidelines to tell Americans the House Republicans were threatening a 'deep economic crisis'"


Scathing? Or did it simply consist of reading pure, unadulterated, focus-group-tested demagoguery off a teleprompter?

How did we get to this point?

Could it be that in 1960, federal spending was 27% of GDP... today it is 37%. On the Obama trajectory, federal spending will consume 50% of GDP by 2038. Could it be that today 51% of working Americans have no federal income tax liability and 70% take more than they put in?

The system is unsustainable. Of course, economic collapse -- or, as Obama likes to call it, "fundamental transformation" -- appears to be the goal of the Cloward-Piven Democrats.

And what's with the incessant demonization of "corporate jets"? Who builds these "corporate jets"? Who services them? Who flies them? Who fuels them? A bunch of "millionaires and billionaires"?

No. It's just more standard, Marxist class-warfare rhetoric, designed to divide Americans and destroy free enterprise. Which is the intent.

"Mr. Reid’s proposal does at least protect Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security"


Medicare just had $500 billion stolen from it by Obamacare and is set to go bust in a dozen years -- that's according to the right-wing, tea-bagging, homophobic extremists known as the Medicare Actuaries. Medicaid is bankrupting the states. And Social Security will collapse a few years after Medicare kicks the bucket.

Some "protection".

It's almost like the Medicare Actuaries don't exist; the CBO doesn't exist; all of the economists who've warned that the deficit spending is unsustainable don't exist. Only within the Times' progressive reality field do Obama's massive deficits make fiscal sense.

Which is why the only qualification to write for The New York Times is that you need to be a lying sack of excrement. And don't smell your hands after reading a copy.


Hat tip: Memeorandum.

Larwyn's Linx: They Just Aren't Serious

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

They Just Aren't Serious: RS
Ryan: my plan didn't count made-up savings: Ace
Rating Agencies Warn That Reid Plan Is an Epic Fail: WZ

Did Obama refuse a bipartisan deal on the debt ceiling?: HotAir
Debt Fight Doomsayers: Gasparino
Bachmann flattens Pawlenty: JRubin

Another Manic Debt Plan Monday: Malkin
Obama to La Raza: “I Need A Dance Partner” To Pass Amnesty: WZ
What the President Won’t Tell Latinos This Weekend: Foundry

Economy

Conservatives bridle at trillions in 'phony' cuts: York
Obama and the Debt Crisis: Detached, Alone and Passive: PJM
Job Search Stretches Past a Year for Millions: WSJ

The Deepest Cut: babalu
Cut Defense Before Foodstamps: Aces
Steve King on default: Obama could be impeached: Politiho

Audit: Incompetent CA Dept. of Corrections Also Stealing: RWN
Jerry Brown to sign Dream Act for undocumented college students: LAT
Wisconsin's Budget Reform Plan Continues Having Odd Result of Saving Teachers' Jobs: Ace

Media

Dear Yankee: Eight things you ought to know before you start writing stories about Rick Perry.: TXmonthly
Toying With Default: The President isn't serious about real spending cuts.: WSJ
Debt of a Salesman: Camp o' the Saints

Obama's Within-Hours Tax-Increase Contradiction: USAT Ignores, AP's Espo Pretends: NB
NY Slimes: Maybe right wing bloggers are partly responsible for Norway attacks: Toldjah
So If Pamela Geller Is Responsible For The Oslo Nutjob…: RWN

Another Obama ’08 Backer Blasts The Won: Tatler
The Hill Poll: Most voters see media as biased and unethical: Hill
John Edwards Civil Law Suit Getting Uglier as Rielle Hunter and Andrew Young Battle: ABC

World

(BREAKING) Iran: ‘We Have No Option but to Destroy Israel’: Kahlili
Armied to the hilt: The world's biggest armed forces: Economist
"Breivik came to attention of intelligence services in March": TAB

If Hamas Ran Oakland: Jawa
Norway: Kill 94, serve 21: Fausta
Random CT Lesson from Norway #2: Carry Weapons: Jawa

Sci-Tech

Smuggling Drugs in Unwitting People's Car Trunks: Schneier
RIM to lay off 2,000 employees: CNet
Android Passwords are stored in plain text on Disk: TheHackerNews

Cornucopia

The Budget Crisis Explained to a Nineteen-Year-Old: AT
Finally: "300" Author Brings Us a Superhero to Kick al Qaeda's Ass: Jawa
Proposed Law Rattles Washington's Elite: Diogenes

Image: Frank Miller via Jawa
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: Senate Conservatives Fund

QOTD: "“He’s an ex-Marine. He doesn’t put up with a whole lot of nothing.” --Kenneth Kobobel, Jr., describing how his father ran down and killed an armed man who had pointed a gun in his face and robbed him

Monday, July 25, 2011

Remember Obama's 'Civilian National Security Force'? Soros Puppet Podesta Still Pitching Armed Force to 'Advance Progressive Change'

John Podesta, one of Barack Obama's key 2008 campaign advisers, has laid the "D" card on the table.

No, not "depression". We've already got that.

I'm talking about a de facto "dictatorship". Bypassing the will of the people -- as if that hasn't happened enough in the last two-and-a-half years -- through a set of unconstitutional Czars and the administrative state.

And armed force, if necessary, according to Podesta.

Oh, Doug -- that's so controversial.

Fine. If it's not a dictatorship, please tell me what you would call the form of government that Podesta calls for?

Because it's certainly not a representative republic nor Constitutional in any way.

The U.S. Constitution and the laws of our nation grant the president significant authority to make and implement policy... The ability of President Obama to accomplish important change through these powers [including executive orders and armed forces] should not be underestimated [in] continuing to make progress.

In March of 2009, at the dedication ceremony of the National Defense University's Abraham Lincoln Hall, President Obama expressed his need for a civilian national security force (MP3, 74:00 mark; DOD press release, transcript):

America must balance and integrate all elements of our national power. We can not continue to push the burden onto our military alone, or leave dormant any aspect of the arsenal of American capability. That's why my administration is committed to renewing diplomacy as a tool of American power and developing our civilian national security capabilities.

"Our civilian national security capabilities?"

In July of 2008, Jim Lindren noted a couple of peculiar sentences in a Barack Obama speech.

In Barack Obama’s July 2, 2008 speech calling America to national service, Obama proposed “a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded” as our military... This has prompted some in the blogosphere to raise the specter of a huge new domestic paramilitary organization...

[Obama said] "We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we've set. We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded."

Curiously, the official transcript of the speech omitted those last two sentences.

After the last two-and-a-half years, can there be any real doubt as to what Obama meant?

And what George Soros John Podesta is after?

The Left used to enjoy calling Bush a fascist, but the closest thing we've ever had to a dictator -- from the iconography to the vicious language to the unconstitutional power-grabs -- is Barack Obama.


Hat tips: The Blaze and Gateway Pundit.

Rush Transcript: After jamming through massively unpopular Stimulus and Obamacare bills, Obama demands compromise and balance on debt

This is a rush transcript. Any errors are solely the responsibility of my dogs, who kept barking at Obama.

Class warfare! Corporate jet owners! Hedge fund managers! Millionaires and billionaires! Oil companies!

Radical Republicans holding the entire country hostage!

Blame Bush: inherited this crisis... made crisis better... economy is awesome now, and the Republicans are ruining it!

Balanced approach!

Balanced!

I will lead from behind!

And may Allah bless these 57 states of America.

Fore!

Mr. President:

The election of 2010 meant something.

We won. You lost. Time to slash your ridiculous spending programs that have failed -- utterly and completely -- to stimulate anything other than the growth of the federal bureaucracy.


Rally at John Boehner's Hometown Office

A hastily arranged Tea Party rally at John Boehner's hometown office took place earlier today. Karl writes:

...Several Ohio and Kentucky Tea Party groups rallied at Speaker Boehner's office in Ohio today...

...It was a rowdy group of right wing extremism. Grandmas and Grampas, Moms and Dads, and a couple children. Each arrived with a personal letter to the Speaker which was then handed to a gentleman from the Speaker's office. Letters were collected for those who could not attend and handed over in a binder. 350 letters!

There are more pictures at Karl's place.


In which I write the speech John Boehner should give

The Speaker of the House -- a guy reportedly named John Boehner from Ohio who apparently needs to be primaried -- has proposed a short-term spending plan the adjectives for which have yet to be invented.

Republicans insisted if the President wants his debt ceiling increase, the American people will require serious spending cuts and reforms...

--Cuts That Exceed The Debt Hike. The framework would cut and cap discretionary spending immediately, saving $1.2 trillion over 10 years (subject to CBO confirmation), and raise the debt ceiling by less - up to $1 trillion.

--Caps To Control Future Spending. The framework imposes spending caps that would establish clear limits on future spending and serve as a barrier against government expansion while the economy grows. Failure to remain below these caps will trigger automatic across-the-board cuts (otherwise known as sequestration).

Oh. My. Heavens.

$1.2 trillion over 10 years is a joke. A pittance. Since President Obama took office, the government borrows about $1.6 trillion each and every year. In other words, Boehner's ten-year "savings" would be eaten up in around nine months at the current levels of spending.

And "caps to control future spending"? How have those worked out in the past?

If this plan passes, the rating agencies are certain to downgrade the country's credit rating. Standard & Poor's already said as much. And then Republicans get the blame either way!

John Boehner needs to be primaried. He's too weak to fight the existential threat represented by the Democrats' spending; it is the most massive borrowing program in world history.

How hard is it to explain? Here: let me write the damn speech for John Boehner:

Ladies and Gentlemen:

These are the facts related to our difficult budget situation:

• Democrats took a one-time "Stimulus" program and then intentionally refused to pass a budget so that those spending levels would run on "auto-pilot"

• The annual budget requires that we borrow around $1.6 trillion a year, or roughly four times the worst Bush-era deficit.

• At minimum, the entire $800 billion "Stimulus" must be removed from all budgets going forward. That is non-negotiable.

• Why? Because failure to do so will mean certain downgrades and economic calamity.

• The Stimulus was a scam. Only 6% of its funds were used on "shovel-ready" infrastructure projects. The rest of the money, borrowed money mind you, was used to fund a Soviet-style grab-bag of failed social programs, welfare, and other wealth redistribution schemes.

For the sake of our children, the "one-time Stimulus" must be removed from the baseline budget. If not, then the Democrats can pass the Cut, Cap and Balance bill. Those are their only choices.

Call us when you Marxist crackpots make up your mind.

See? It's just that simple.


Larwyn's Linx: House Republican Leaders Cave in Less Than 24 Hours

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Nation

House Republican Leaders Cave in Less Than 24 Hours: RS
Reid, Pelosi Push Faux Debt Plan With $2.5T in Cuts: Mish
Allen West Challenges Republican Party to Show Leadership: Shark

The Unanswered Questions for GOP Leaders from Freshmen: RS
A Brief History Of Obama's Fiscal Record: ZH
DNC Head Wasserman Schultz repeatedly assaults black man: Aces

To the Most Arrogant, Petulant President in History: Dewey
Black Tea Partiers to Protest NAACP: Root
Obama fears losing reelection more than default: RS

Economy

Court: NAACP, Unions Can't Trap Kids in Failing Schools: BG
ACORN Groups Join SEIU's Economic Terrorism Campaign: BG
Obama Charm offensive fails to win over business: Hill

Our Ten-Trillion-Dollar Man: Hanson
Bachmann's Right: All Should Pay Taxes: IBD
Surprise! Connecticut to grab more income: NHR

Save Award: Guess Which is the Most Liked Idea So Far?: VR
Boehner's Full Fox News Appearance: ZH
Dick Durbin's Fuzzy Math: JWF

Climate & Energy

Inhibiting an Oil and Gas Boom: AmSpec
End of the Line: Why the EPA Train Wreck Must be Stopped: FreedomWorks
More than 99.6% of stations failed to break records sometime over the past week: HockeySchtick

Media

Rick Santelli Goes on Another Epic Rant!: iOTW
Media Myth Debunked: Almost No Temperature Records Broken in Last Week's 'Record-Breaking Heat': NB
Fallows' Brain Lies Fallow: AmSpec

NY Times: It’s the Democrats Who Are Blocking a Deal: Commentary
That Saucy Memeorandum: RSM
Migraines, Michele, and me: Jacoby

Putting words in Jen Rubin's mouth: Instapundit
Cornel West: Best. Interview. Ever.: Hot Air
CNN Concedes the Auditorium Where the Undefeated Was Shown Near Atlanta “Was Packed” and “Sold Out”: C4P

World

“The Norway Attacks, 2011” — A View From Ireland: GoV
For the Record: Once More With Feeling: GoV
Gunman used hollow-points on rampage; desperate victims barricaded themselves using mattresses: LDM

EU bails out Greece as Greek government spends $15 million to build Athens mosque: Atlas
Why Nazism Was Socialism and Why Socialism Is Totalitarian : Mises
Toddler found alive in rubble of China train crash: MyWay

Sci-Tech

Street View cars grabbed locations of phones, PCs: CNet
What the World Needs Now: New Mossberg AR-15: TTAG
Apple laptop batteries could run malware, overheat: SCMag

Cornucopia

Celebutards from 50 of Our 57 States: Part 2 (Multi-Media Edition): MOTUS
72-Year-Old Ex-Marine Runs Down, Kills Armed Man Who Robbed His Business: Blaze
Re-purposing -- it's a lefty thing: iOTW

Don’t listen to the “experts”: Smash Mouth
You might be a liberal if...: AlinskyDefeater
Football Star Chad Ochocinco Angers Fans By Tweeting About Reading Glenn Beck: Mediate

Image: Zero Hedge
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: Time For a Tea Party - Make Your Voice Heard!

QOTD: "The Right is represented by Colonel West. The Left is represented by Cornel West. Any questions?" --'Left Cost Right Mind' via Ed Driscoll

Bonus QOTD: "It seems reasonable to conclude from the planlessness and budgetlessness of the Obama/Reid Democrats that their only plan is to carry on spending without limit. Otherwise, someone somewhere would surely have written something down on a piece of paper by now. But no, apparently the Department of Writing Down Plans is the only federal expense the president is willing to cut." --Mark Steyn

Sunday, July 24, 2011

Comment o' the day: American Bar Association faces scrutiny as job prospects, debt burdens of law school grads worsen

Earlier today, the Washington Post sounded the obligatory alarm klaxon for would-be law school students (something that Professor Glenn Reynolds has warned of for years):

Since 2008, a retrenchment at the nation’s law firms has had newly minted attorneys wringing their hands over the rapidly shrinking job market.

Yet enrollment at law schools has continued to climb, with a record 44,004 people earning law degrees last year. The result has been that employment rates for new graduates are at their lowest levels since 1996, a gloomy prospect for students who borrow heavily to attend law school. Recent surveys of graduates show a growing proportion carrying loans of $120,000 or more.

Now, regulators and members of Congress are pressing the agency that accredits law schools — the American Bar Association — to step up efforts to keep student debt levels down and reduce the risk of default.

The article spotlights a Department of Education review that pins much of the blame on the American Bar Assocation (ABA).

“The ABA appears to be doing little to assess student-loan default rates in its law school accreditation process,” [Sen. Dick] Grassley wrote.

The ABA shot back Thursday with a letter to Grassley’s office, saying it does not track student loan default rates for all law schools because most — 181 of the 200 ABA-approved schools — are part of larger universities that do not break out the data for each academic program. The ABA, however, does track default rates for the remaining 19 schools, which operate independently; default rates at those schools range from zero to 7.4 percent.

ABA President Stephen Zack said he shares Grassley’s concerns about making law school financing and postgraduation job prospects transparent, and that the compliance issues raised by the Department of Education “are being dealt with in an expedited manner.”

Commenter 'Terminator_x' offers some rational perspective:

The problem is that there are countless liberal arts majors getting out of college with nothing to do. They are only 21 or 22 years old, and seek out law school as a "defined" career path. They are duped and misinformed by law schools into unrealistic expectations about how many new attorneys actually get big firm jobs. Movies and TV similarly dupe non-lawyers into thinking that the practice of law is a ticket to wealth in a profession where one earns a living merely by arguing cleverly across a table for eight hours a day and, and when the day is over, have flings with hot co-workers.

The reality is that young attorneys spend hours in the library reading boring materials and writing lifeless boilerplate. The business model of most law firms is to convince clients to pay for attorneys' work, one hour at a time. Attorneys don't make money unless they earn it by billing their time to someone who is willing to pay for it, in six minute increments. It is not a sexy job.

There are several simple solutions: (1) Any schools (law schools or otherwise) that offer student loans must be on the hook for 10% of any defaults; (2) No federal loans for any school with defaults beyond a given threshold; (3) Schools must index nominal tuition to inflation if they are to offer federal student loans.

These three suggestions make eminent sense, which means that they are certain to be ignored by the federal government.