Tuesday, August 09, 2011

Top 20 #ObamaBusTourNames

As usual, I missed the Twitter hashtag meme from a few nights ago. It solicited names for President Obama's bus tour of battleground states that will operate at -- what else? -- taxpayer expense. My favorites?

20. Downgrade One
19. BusT Tour
18. 57 States
17. We have to ride it to know what's in it
16. Spinning the Future
15. Obama, the Bachmann Slayer
14. Rolling Blunder
13. The "Bus-driver acted stupidly" tour
12. Debt Race 2012
11. Titanic on wheels
10. StimuBus
9. America Under the Bus Tour
8. The "Not a Corporate Jet" Tour
7. Tragical history tour
6. Sputnik Moment
5. Blunderbuss
4. Blame Bush Tour
3. Barackisalosa 2012
2. The "McDonald's Is Hiring" Tour
1. The "Free iPods for the Battleground States" Extravaganza

Important note: the second bus is for Michelle's clothes and servants.


Update: Just thought of another one: Continental Failways.

Good news: 83% of Obamacare Grants Awarded to Local Health Centers In States That Supported Obama in 2008

Earlier today, the Department of Heath and Human Services announced it was writing $29 million in checks to "expand access to health care". These Obamacare funds would support "community health center programs across the country", though it would appear Blue states did decidedly better than Red States. Of the $29 million HHS awarded, $24 million of it went to 2008's Blue States.

But I'm sure that's just coincidental. I'm certain that Kathleen Sebelius and her fine cadre of bureaucrats would never, ever permit political bias to impact their decision-making processes.

Except it turns out that more than 83% of the funds went to Blue states.

You may recall that it appears that Nancy Pelosi abused the Obamacare waiver system to reward her restaurateur friends in San Francisco.

Obamacare has nothing at all to do with health care. It's about control. Punishing enemies and rewarding friends. It's about a Soviet-style form of government that has as its core the destruction of the Constitution and of our individual liberties. Removing the options you have for medical treatment and replacing them with a one-size-fits-all, centralized health care regime is a huge step in the direction of totalitarianism.


Translating Today's Fed Statement: Recovery impossible until President Subprime McDowngrade is voted out of office

I'm paraphrasing, but only just:

To promote the ongoing economic recovery and to help ensure that inflation, over time, is at levels consistent with its mandate, the Committee decided today to keep the target range for the federal funds rate at 0 to 1/4 percent. The Committee currently anticipates that economic conditions--including low rates of resource utilization and a subdued outlook for inflation over the medium run--are likely to warrant exceptionally low levels for the federal funds rate at least through mid-2013.

Now, what major economic changes would have taken place by "mid-2013" to allow for higher growth rates?

With any luck, a new President will have assumed office in January. He or she will have have begun unwinding the huge regulatory bureaucracies (the EPA and the NLRB foremost among them) that have destroyed businesses large and small; rescinding the ability for federal employees to unionize; defunding HHS to begin the eradication of Obamacare; begun implementing sensible spending policies like Cut, Cap & Balance; etc.

In other words, the new President will take his job seriously, unlike our current demagogue-in-chief who seems to do little more than fundraise, read from a teleprompter, party and golf.

Does Obama's schedule -- at right -- strike you as that of a man with a care in the world, apart from getting reelected?



Larwyn's Linx: "Conquering the Storm"

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

"Conquering the Storm": ProWis
Obama accepts no responsibility, offers no plan: Tatler
Screencap of the Day: BigJourn

Reviewing Eric Holder's Voting Section Resumes: PJM
Report: Perry to announce Saturday, sort of: Hot Air
Obama Spends Monday Behind Closed-Doors: Tapper

Economy

Did Soros make $8.5 billion off the downgrade?: Surber
Greenspan: US Will Never Default; Just Print Money: Malkin
Gold Up $41, Hits Record $1761: ZH

Verizon Offers $50K Reward After Militant Union Strike Sabotage: RS
Cloward-Piven, Saul Alinsky, and Their Influence on Obama: Aces
Walker's collective bargaining law to save Milwaukee millions: Politik

Obama: Creating jobs "not rocket science"!: Pundette
Ryan: S&P said GOP Budget Would’ve Prevented Downgrade: WS
Would we still be AAA without Stimulus and Obamacare?: RWN

Gunrunner

"Fast and Furious" Goes All the Way to the White House: HE
A Fast And Furious Assault On Private Gun Sales: Forbes
Obama's Growing Gun Problem: HuffPo

Climate & Energy

AGW Motors–You May Need New Battery In 3 Years…: Soylent Green
Al Gore Has Apoplectic Fit, Literally Goes Bats**t Crazy In Front Of Colorado Audience: Lid
It's Official: Al Gore Is a Prophet: WUWT

Media

If Only Americans Weren't So G***amned Stupid We Wouldn't Have to Send Them to Re-Education Camps: Reason
CBS Pushes Liberal Talking Point About Tea Party 'Downgrade': NB
Rick Santelli Goes Off: “We’d Be BBB Without Tea Party!”: GWP

The National Organization for Women defends Bachmann against Newsweek: DC
Hillary: NoQuarter
Wasserman Schultz Ignores House Franking Rules with Taxpayer-Funded Mailer: Shark

NYTimes stumbles over a factoid that blasts its own narrative: ProWis
NBC's Gregory Accuses GOP of 'Politicizing' Debt Downgrade, After Allowing John Kerry to Blame Tea Party: NB
Black Activists: Tea Party Not Responsible for Credit Downgrade: NatCtr

Cokie Roberts Blames Credit Downgrade on Constitution: RWN
HuffPo Readers React to SEAL Massacre: RWN
Top Ten Obama Excuses for the Failing Economy: Dossier

World

Stunning Pictures of Senseless London Riots; Conflagration and Carnage in the Capital and Beyond: Mish
An Anatomy of European Nonsense: Hanson
Tampa Police CSI tech admits "fear of Muslim reprisal" behind saying honor killing was accidental death: JihadWatch

Details: "Ill-fated Mission Targeted Taliban Leader, Officials Say": Mudville Gazette
More on Biden and his fat mouth: Patterico
Harvard Professor's Article Against Islamic Terror Kicks Up Storm in India; Harvard Faculty Members Demand His Removal: MEMRI

Sci-Tech

Amazon’s New(ish) Social Network — Now Lifting Even More Info From Facebook, Twitter: Wired
10-year-old hacker finds zero-day flaw in games: CNet
Are your co-workers killing you?: Wired

Cornucopia

In Honor of the Fallen: Commentary
Communists Sue Democratic Party For Stealing Platform: Cube
S&P Hates Black People: Cube

Image: JihadWatch
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: Senate Conservatives Fund

Monday, August 08, 2011

Exclusive Photo: Actual Cause of S&P Downgrade and Market Meltdown Discovered

Thanks to David Axelrod, John Kerry, Howard Dean, and President Obama, we now know the true cause of the U.S. debt crisis, S&P's downgrade, and the resulting economic turmoil.

It was not a Democrat refusal to address entitlement reform. Not a failure of the Democrat-controlled Senate and President Obama to proffer a budget for more than 800 days. Not a "one-time, emergency Stimulus", the most aggressive spending increase in world history, that is now built into the baseline budget. Not a refusal to acknowledge the repeated failure of Keynesian economics. Not passing the most expensive entitlement program ever -- Obamacare -- which passed in the dark of night so Americans could "find out what's in it". Not a massive, command-and-control takeover of the financial industry -- Dodd-Frank -- with a bill so immense and complex that even today no one can predict exactly what it will do to banks and insurers. Not scores of bureaucrats in the EPA and the NLRB, who are shuttering businesses large and small.

No, none of those things were responsible for the debt crisis and downgrade. This was:

So now you know.



When Obama rated himself a "good, solid B+", who knew he meant America's credit rating?

A month ago, Standard & Poor's noted that passage of the Cut, Cap & Balance plan would avert a downgrade to America's debt. Curiously, in his speech this afternoon, President Obama failed to mention that trivial little detail, instead pinning the blame for America's ongoing economic malaise on everyone and everything but his own failed policies.

Losses on Wall Street were, er, 'historic' "...the equity market was a horror show across the board. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slumped 634.76 points, or 5.6%, to put it below 11,000 at 10,809.85... [Since] April 29, the Dow has surrendered more than 15%. In terms of points, the session was the sixth-worst in the index's history..."

Casey Anthony could run against Obama and win at this point: "Registered voters by a significant margin now say they are more likely to vote for the 'Republican Party's candidate for president' than for President Barack Obama in the 2012 election, 47% to 39%."

With the government actively sabotaging businesses through excessive and oppressive regulations, this comes as quite the surprise: "Small and medium-sized companies are increasingly glum about the chances of a pickup in growth in the U.S. economy over the next year... The percentage of chief executives of small companies who expect the economy to improve over the next 12 months dropped sharply to 31 percent from 50 percent last quarter..."

But perhaps the president can successfully pin all of this bad news on tsunamis, Martin Van Buren and Carmen Electra.



Geithner: S&P Acted Stupidly

I'm paraphrasing, of course, though just barely.

The credit rating agency Standard & Poor's showed "terrible judgment" in lowering the U.S. government's credit rating, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Sunday... "They've handled themselves very poorly. And they've shown a stunning lack of knowledge about the basic U.S. fiscal budget math," Geithner said in his first public comments about the credit rating decision.

...Late Friday, S&P announced it was lowering its rating for U.S. debt one notch from AAA to AA+... The other two major credit rating agencies, Moody's Investor service and Fitch Ratings, have not lowered their AAA ratings, although they have warned of a possible downgrade if more is not done to deal with soaring federal deficits.

...S&P had been warning for months of a possible downgrade and said that a credible plan would need to achieve $4 trillion in deficit reduction. The plan that Congress passed last week seeks to achieve between $2.1 trillion and $2.4 trillion in deficit cuts.

...He said he had "absolutely no concern" that China, the largest foreign holder of U.S. government debt, would stop buying that debt...

While it is true that China has limited options for diversifying its investments, the alarm claxons truly are sounding as the PRC's leadership prepares for a new sheriff in the global economy.

"The U.S. government has to come to terms with the painful fact that the good old days when it could just borrow its way out of messes of its own making are finally gone..." -- China's state-owned Xinhua News Agency... Beijing may well increase its reserves held in Yen, as well as in gold. And it will no doubt continue to increase its investment in hard assets...

As for our beloved Commander-in-Chief, who hasn't been heard from for the last 48 hours or so?

President Obama is slated to speak to the country about the ongoing crisis at 1pm Eastern Time today. Expect to hear the blame for the sovereign debt crisis apportioned to S&P, the Tea Party, corporate jet owners, hedge fund managers, oil companies, health insurers, millionaires and billionaires, and the rest of the usual suspects. Though not necessarily in that exact order.

As Steven Hayward observes, "You know who should watch Obama's statement today closely? Standard & Poor's legal team."



Larwyn's Linx: The Sickness Besetting the Country, and the President

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Nation

The Sickness Besetting the Country, and the President: Dossier
Obama is hiding from downgrade, Bachmann says: Exam
Every Single One: Eric Holder’s Voting Section: PJM

A nation in mourning for Navy SEAL Team 6: Hewitt
Conservative Crazy Eyes & Other Stupid Photo Tricks: Malkin
Michele Bachmann speaks: Adrienne

Economy

Was the downgrade a rejection of ObamaCare?: Hot Air
Why the GOP should give Obama the higher taxes he wants: Exam
Gold Tops $1,700 for First Time on U.S. Rating: Bloomberg

48 hours post-downgrade, Obama yet to make a statement: GWP
Blaming downgrade on Tea Party like blaming MADD for drunks: VaRt
John Kerry and the ‘Tea Party Downgrade’: Malkin

Doom: Drown in My Own Tears: Ace
Government Logo Fail o' the Day: Malkin
Estonia's Rebound via Fiscal Discipline: Foundry

Gunrunner

Documents: Obama Admin. Sold Guns to Sinaloa Cartel, Allowed Cocaine into U.S.: RWN
Gunwalker: Drug Enforcement Agency Admits Involvement: Owens
Albuquerque gun store owner challenging ATF rule: Mercury

Climate & Energy

150 Days to Doom: Daily Bayonet
Gore’s meltdown over climate change debate: Tapscott
Our Colossal Ignorance On Global Warming: RWN

Media

Cokie Roberts on Downgrade: 'The Problem That We Have Here is the Constitution': NB
Tea Party Movement as Large as Nation’s Entire Liberal Population, Say Gallup Polls: CNS
The Crossing of the Rubicon: Green Mountains

Leading Up to the Downgrade: a Timeline: Ace
Liberals buzz over brutal takedown of Obama: York
HuffPo Rips Obama’s Endless Pivot to Jobs, Jobs, Jobs: VS

The Best Quotes From Ann Coulter’s “Demonic: How the Liberal Mob Is Endangering America”: RWN
Speaking of Rants: Tatler
Cavuto owns a Congressman on ‘shared sacrifice’: Scoop

MSNBC Analyst Steve Rattner Confronted On ABC For Comparing Tea Party To Terrorists: Mediaite
Two Weekend Op-Eds Exemplify the Delusions of the Left and the Insights of Conservatives: PJM
The GTFO Timeline: Hostages

World

It's come to this: China Tells US It Must ‘Cure Its Addiction to Debt’: BlogProf
Irony Meter Explodes: Geithner Says European Nations Must Get ‘Fiscal House’ in Order: JWF
We've been here before. Not 1929, but 1931. And that's not good...: DailyMail

NATO, Afghan forces fight insurgents near crash site: ArmyTimes
Sharia Compliant Time's Magazine: Slaughter and Slander: Atlas
US military feeding Gitmo jihadis day and night during Ramadan: Creeping

Sci-Tech

Backyard Theater-in-a-Box Is a Pricey Delight: Wired
250GB Android tablet coming--interested?: CNet
Anonymous Hacks Syrian Ministry of Defense Website: Wire

Cornucopia

E-Trade Baby Picked the Wrong Day to Film an Ad: Powers
Reading Our Tea Leaves: MOTUS
This Week In Auto-Motivators: RWN

Image: Curmudgeonly & Skeptical
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: Michele Bachmann for President

QOTD: "For the first two years of Obama’s presidency, the Democrats, including one John Kerry who now wants everybody to believe he’s become a reborn frugalitarian, had full control of the Senate and House. At that point the Democrats could have done anything, including cutting back spending to sane levels (pause for laughter), but instead they went on a wild spending binge and presided over the largest expansion of government since World War II." --Doug Powers

Sunday, August 07, 2011

New Democrat Logo Unveiled

Free Radical:
Update: Al Sharpton hardest hit.


Credit:Hope 'n' Change Cartoons.

Obama Commissions Heroic Hollywood Pic on Bin Laden Raid With Premier Slated For... October 2012

Pssst, Ann: you need to add permalinks to your posts:

Obama commissions Hollywood pic on OBL Raid


...Maureen Dowd of the New York Times [reports that t]he Obama regime has commissioned a major motion picture about the fake Bin Laden raid. The film will be released . . . October 12, 2012.

Guys, we're into full-blown Leni Riefenstahl territory now.

Here's the link to the Dowd piece. I am linking to page 2 of 2 because that's where the stuff about the movie is, but do read the whole thing.

Read up... Money quotes:

The White House clearly blessed the dramatic reconstruction of the mission by Nicholas Schmidle in The New Yorker — so vividly descriptive of the SEALS' looks, quotes and thoughts that Schmidle had to clarify after the piece was published that he had not actually talked to any of them...

The White House is also counting on the ... big-screen version of the killing of bin Laden to counter Obama's growing reputation as ineffectual.

The Sony film by the Oscar-winning pair who made "The Hurt Locker" will no doubt reflect the president's cool, gutsy decision against shaky odds. Just as Obamaland was hoping, the movie is scheduled to open on Oct. 12, 2012 — perfectly timed to give a home-stretch boost to a campaign that has grown tougher.

The moviemakers are getting top-level access to the most classified mission in history from an administration that has tried to throw more people in jail for leaking classified information than the Bush administration.

It was clear that the White House had outsourced the job of manning up the president's image to Hollywood when Boal got welcomed to the upper echelons of the White House and the Pentagon and showed up recently — to the surprise of some military officers — at a CIA ceremony celebrating the hero SEALs.


Is this why Matt Damon is currently sporting a buzzcut? Hmmmm.

Gee, it's truly surprising that President Obama would attempt to synch his reelection with a Hollywood movie depicting his 'heroic' actions at Lattabatta. Or whatever the hell it's called.

And may God bless our soldiers, their families and all those who help support the effort to save this republic.


Neither rain, nor snow, nor market declines, nor downgrades, nor chopper crashes shall keep President Obama from his appointed tee time

Good thing there are no pressing matters of state to which the president must attend today.

On Friday the United States lost its coveted AAA credit rating [as] Standard & Poor’s downgraded the nation’s rating for the first time since the U.S. won the top ranking in 1917. 18 countries now have a better credit rating than the US.

So where is Barack Obama?

The president has yet to make a statement on the historic downgrade. [But he did go] to Camp David... Dallas Blog reported:

>Obama, a Democrat, enjoys spending time on the golf course on Andrews Air Force Base, which is nearby Camp David. Regardless of circumstances, Obama loves to play golf. The U.S. stock exchanges are plunging and the S&P has just downgraded the credit rating of United States federal government debt. So, how does the President respond to recent developments of the Obama Depression? He plays golf.

Next up: another vacation, this time to Martha's Vineyard -- which, by my count, will be his family's fifth this year.


Hat tip: Trending Right.

Blame the Messenger [Rich]

Rich:

The Obama administration wants to "pivot" to jobs. A bit late, I would say. They wasted a year pushing health care reform. That passed with zero Republican votes in the House and Senate, and about the same number of Republican ideas. When the Democrats controlled both branches of Congress and the White House, they shoved their approach down the throats of Republican in Congress, and an American public that opposed then and still opposes the legislation by a 3-to-2 margin. There was not a lot of concern about a "balanced approach" to health care reform. That is why tort reform was absent, why HSAs were AWOL, and pro-competitive approaches received the death panel.

An article today confirms that Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel favored a much more modest, less costly approach than Obamacare -- one that assisted those who were uninsurable to get coverage. But Obama wanted something big, and he got it- a big and unwieldy approach that will raise health care spending by hundreds of billions a year, at a time when existing spending on government care programs -- on Medicare and Medicaid -- is threatening the fiscal future of both the federal government and many states.

Close to two-thirds of the financing for the new health care entitlement spending comes from new taxes on the wealthy (if you consider making $200,000 a year wealthy). The Democrats never mention the new taxes in Obamacare, since they do not fit neatly with their "storyline" of the need for a balanced approach and shared sacrifice. Taxes already on the book don't count; only new taxes represent the balance that is needed.

The Democrats had their spokespeople on the Sunday TV news programs today to respond to S&P's downgrade of U.S sovereign debt... and to provide the talking points we can now repeat from memory: we need a balanced approach to deficit reduction; that means revenues from taxing the ill-gotten gains of millionaires and billionaires, oil companies, yacht- and jet-owners, and hedge fund managers. And by the way, they noted, S&P was a major contributor to the subprime collapse, plus they made a two-trillion dollar error, so they have no credibility.

We now need to spend hundreds of billions more on jobs and to raise taxes. The New York Times had its short list of suggested tax increases in an editorial today: raise income tax rates for everybody; raise capital gains rates; add a value added tax (VAT); a new carbon tax; higher gasoline taxes; and eliminate all the tax loopholes for corporations and wealthy individuals.

Perhaps the administration thinks it can foment anger at S&P and marshal flash mobs (or their allied union goons, once they are done intimidating people in Wisconsin) to come to New York State and threaten S&P executives in their homes. These S&P rating analysts are like Tea Party leaders in the fevered minds of the Left: they are terrorists and financial jihadists; they threaten the reelection of the President; and they are tearing down the progressive dream to remake America into a European social welfare state, at exactly the time the European nations are coming to realize they have over-promised, and can no longer afford that vision.

In my health care career, I made many presentations to rating agencies to get hospital bonds rated, and answer questions about financial feasibility studies my firm prepared. The analysts were serious and, most of the time, I thought they got it right. Sending out political hacks to insult S&P this weekend is a sign of desperation by the administration. You don't win the future (to use another oft-repeated talking point) with a downgrade of your debt.

The Bush administration did a miserable job with the nation's finances, running up over $4 trillion in new debt in 8 years. Obama will blow past that number in less than three years. The Left can not talk about Medicare, and Medicaid and Social Security. They must be off the table, or they will lose their ability to demagogue Paul Ryan and the Republicans. They will no longer be able to scare seniors, deliberately ignoring the fact that Ryan's plan would not impact anyone over age 55.

The Wisconsin Congressman had the guts to offer a serious multi-decade plan to get spending in line with historic revenues on a glide-path approach, without sudden, sharp hits to anyone. This required addressing big entitlements, including the newest one: Obamacare. Its spending pace guarantees future financial collapse.

We can not be Germany or France as far as social spending, when our current health care costs are twice as a share of GDP of other countries, even with gaps in coverage. The big health care problem is cost, not access. The best estimate was that three million of the uninsured were uninsurable. Obamacare provides subsidies for more than ten times that population, creating a vast new middle class entitlement. Since the Democrats won't consider serious entitlement reform, we will spend our way to oblivion, and the average standard of living will be reduced sharply at specific future points when buyers of our federal debt decide to pass on new bonds, or demand much higher rates.

We will get the kind of standard of living reductions now being enforced in Greece, Iceland, Ireland, and Italy. For the record, I think the private economy is where the engine of job creation exists. Government jobs are costly and make-work jobs are temporary. Ask Rahm Emanuel about the efficiency of unionized government workers, now that he has inherited the waste of the city's financial future delivered to him by Mayor Daley, who basically caved to union demands on wages, pensions and health care benefits.

For the record, I would eliminate pretty much all the noise in the tax code, all the deductions and special interest approaches to incentives for real estate or other industries (green jobs and alternative energy, oil and gas companies, hedge funds), in exchange for a simpler tax code with lower rates that are permanent, for both individual and businesses, and provide real incentives for work, investment, and economic growth, the best approach to creating jobs.

A government that serves K Street is a tool of crony capitalism, serving only the few. Piling on hundreds of thousands of pages of new regulations, issued by unaccountable agencies , such as the EPA, will make Al Gore and Barbara Boxer happy, but also crush job growth. We can send hundreds of billions to the oil cartel each year, or extract our own resources, in shale oil and gas, thereby creating thousands of new private sector jobs in the process.

The Left trusts government to rearrange the wealth and income of society, believing private industry greedy and unfair. The Left went apoplectic last week because the debt deal cut future spending by $2 trillion. But it did not cut spending. It cut $2 trillion from a schedule of $13 trillion in new spending, and $50 trillion in total spending. That is what a "cut" in government spending means.

One angry Pennsylvania Congressman, Mike Doyle, blurted out that "the other side won't let us spend any money". I guess $3.7 trillion in one year does not count as spending any money. Has a more ignorant comment ever been made by a member of Congress? One out of every four dollars in GDP is now federal spending, up from one in five just three short years back. And then there is spending by cities, counties and states, another 15% of GDP. But the Left says we need more spending- extending unemployment insurance and more shovel-ready projects (you know the ones that never got created when money from the stimulus was shoveled to the states to allow them to keep the unions happy and defer the day of reckoning for the spendthrifts).

The Left says to trust big government to get us out of the hole they dug. If you were in S&P's shoes, wouldn't you downgrade this mess?


Heh: new Obama banner ads omit wildly unpopular president's face, use cute blonde instead

The results of the focus-group testing must have been fairly disturbing for the Obama campaign to omit an image of the President's handsome visage.

At the rate his support among the young is deteriorating, it won't be long before we see ads featuring bikini-clad Swedish girls beckoning young males to support President Subprime McTrainingwheels' campaign.


Related: Top 10 Never-Before-Seen Obama 2012 Banner Ads

Reid Lied, Our Rating Died

The leader of the Democrat-controlled Senate is a handsome and charismatic man named Harry Reid.

Reid is a true patriot, who fights tooth-and-nail for higher taxes, to confiscate ever more wealth from the private sector, to exfiltrate more money from the wallets of Americans who can't or won't use the money as effectively as the enormous and critically important federal bureaucracies can.

Further, Reid asserts -- using his typical eloquence and spell-binding, off-the-cuff speaking style (no pre-approved talking points for Harry, mind you) -- that S&P downgraded the United States because Democrats' calls for higher taxes were ignored.

"The action by S&P reaffirms the need for a balanced approach to deficit reduction that combines spending cuts with revenue-raising measures like closing taxpayer-funded giveaways to billionaires, oil companies and corporate jet owners. This makes the work of the joint committee all the more important, and shows why leaders should appoint members who will approach the committee’s work with an open mind – instead of hardliners who have already ruled out the balanced approach that the markets and rating agencies like S&P are demanding."

Uhm, not really, Har. Standard & Poor's has been very clear that it favors huge spending cuts over any tax hikes. Reason being that tax hikes further strangle the private sector and helps to keep unemployment high.

The decision by Standard & Poor’s to downgrade the U.S. credit rating to “AA+” at once laments the possibility that cuts to entitlement programs will not materialize and the decreasing likelihood of new tax revenues. But it appears to give more weight to the need for more spending cuts, as it warns that a further credit rating downgrade is in the cards if the U.S. does not trim spending.

Pity that our beloved Democrat leadership never studied basic economic theory, mathematics, logic, or American history.


Larwyn's Linx: Obama’s ‘Trillion-dollar deficits for years to come’ catches up with us

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

Obama's 'Trillion-dollar deficits for years to come' boomerangs: RS
Obama and the Narcissism of Big Differences: WSJ
S&P warns of a second downgrade: Politico

“A Closed ‘Super Congress’? Oh, I Don’t Think So.”: Cato
Physician Sentenced to 20 Years for Medicare Fraud: NewAm
Believe In States’ Rights? You’re A Racist: RWN

Know What Else Obama Inherited From Bush? A 'AAA' Rating!: NB
Democrats tweet, spin, point fingers: DC
Decade of Stimulus Yields Nothing But Mountain of Debt: Mish

Economy

The Debt Deal and the Progressive Crack-Up: WSJ
Things Falling Apart: LI
There Aren't Enough "Rich" to Tax: EIB

Why Obama and the Democrats are to blame for downgrade: RWN
Obamacare forcing health insurers to pay for social policy: First
Tea Party Vindicated: S&P Says It Wants Spending Cuts: WZ

Gunrunner

What? Feds Let Cartel Smuggle Drugs in Exchange for Intel?: Owens
As The Details Worsen, ‘Fast and Furious’ Becomes Dem. Party’s Trip To Jonestown: RSM
DEA acknowledges supporting role in Operation Fast and Furious: LAT

Climate & Energy

Al Gore Lets the BS Fly: Malkin
Beaver Fever Fanaticism: EPA Eco-Radicals Are Hurting Families at the Tap: PJM
Hilarious: Germany to pay for new coal power plants by diverting money from climate change fund: IHTM

Media

Guess Whose Fault The US Downgrades Is: RWN
Former White House Counsel: Media Matters Displays Pattern of ‘Unlawful Conduct’: BigJourn
Black gangs attacking whites in… Chicago’s Boystown — and your taxes pay for it!: Fury

Want Proof of How Democrats Would Shut You Up, Tea Partiers?: BigJourn
WI Democrats make (illiterate) threats to news organization.: RS
Is 10 years old too young to be a high fashion model?: Hot Air

Chuck Schumer Uses 'Gun To The Head' Rhetoric In Press Conference: Point of a Gun
Humorless Dem’s Bad “Temperamint”: Anchoress
Interviewing Jedediah Bila About Her Book “Outnumbered: Chronicles of a Manhattan Conservative.”: RWN

World

Will He Cut and Run, or Respond Appropriately?: BizzyBlog
The U.S. Is Downgraded, and Obama Will Be Too: Commentary
China Warns US: Good Old Days of Borrowing Are Over: GWP

Israeli Protests: Volokh
Anti-Semitism: The Same Old Lies Since 200 B.C.: PJM
Today, There's A Much Bigger Story Than The S&P Downgrade: Insider

Sci-Tech

20 Years Ago Today: The First Website Is Published: Wired
Tiny Glass Lens Could Turn Mobile Devices Into Projectors: Wired
AntiSec hackers post stolen police data as revenge for arrests: CNet

Cornucopia

Ronald Reagan Farewell Part II: YouTube
Worst Ad Ever: C&S
Teach me to Dougie: C&S

Image: People's Cube
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: Forgotten Heroes: Navy SEAL Families

QOTD: "[The downgrade] is a colossal disaster for Barack Obama, and anybody who says otherwise is kidding himself or trying to spin you. We know that the election of 2012 is going to be fought on jobs, the economy, and the wisdom of health care. But now the GOP has an overarching theme that I predict will be at the core of a $500 million advertising campaign: 'America needs its good name back.'” --John Podhoretz

Saturday, August 06, 2011

The most expensive fender-bender in world history

Or, at least, that's the working assumption after a blonde Bentley owner touched off a pileup in Monte Carlo with a Mercedes, a Porsche, a Ferrari and an Aston-Martin.

...a woman driver caused a £700,000 five-car pile-up as her Bentley collided with a Mercedes, Ferrari, Porsche and Aston Martin.

Disaster struck as the hapless blonde negotiated the traffic around the Place du Casino in her £250,000 Bentley Azure.

The driver of a white Mercedes S Class worth £75,000 was the first victim as the 2.7-ton Bentley scraped down the side of it before ploughing into a £143,000 black Ferrari F430.

An Aston Martin Rapide worth £150,000 and an £80,000 Porsche 911 also came a cropper. The driver and her two passengers then suffered the embarrassment of being surrounded by tourists as they were unable to open the doors of the convertible...

The Daily Mail goes on to cite a University of Michigan study that reviewed 6.5 million car crashes and found a higher-than-expected number of accidents between two female drivers.

Although you didn't hear that from me.


Hat tip: Right Wing News.

A Most Worthy Rant

Patrick Richardson, writing at The Tatler, throws down:

We saw this coming. Both rating agencies have been warning us for months this downgrade was coming. So what did the idiots on the left do? Nothing. Not one damn thing.

Well, that’s not quite true. They, their willing accomplices in the MSM, and dupes and useful idiots within the Republican party, (you listening tan-boy John Boehner? Mitch McConnell? Yeah you, I called you idiots, wanna make something of it?) railed about how we couldn’t “fix the deficit on the backs of the most vulnerable among us.” You demonized the only adults in Washington D.C. who were among the Tea Party. You made certain we would end up here.

How hard could it have actually been? The ratings agencies TOLD you what you needed to do — rein in spending – it wasn’t bloody rocket science. Hell anyone who ever balanced a CHECKBOOK could have told you what you needed to do.

But you played politics. You acted like Scarlet O’Hara and just refused to think about anything unpleasant. Well, Barry, I hate to tell you this, but there’s no kindness of strangers here to rely on. This is cold, hard reality. Until YOU, sir, the U.S. credit rating has always been stable or improving. YOU, sir, own this. You and your lickspittle accomplices in Congress and the media have brought us to this point.

Do not think the American people will forget. Do not think we will forgive. This country is angry sir, and nation after nation has discovered there is nothing on Earth more dangerous than a pissed-off American.

This country is on the edge of something very ugly, sir, and you personally have brought us here.

My fellow Americans, this election is our last and only chance to turn this thing around. To call the politicians on both sides of the aisle who have brought us to this point “cretins” is to insult cretins. Get behind the adults in the room. The Tea Partiers. The ones who say “however much it hurts, we have to rein in spending, we must rip off the bandaid or there will be no healing.” Get behind those people.

Before the whole mess comes down in blood and fire.

Uhm, I guess I just copied the whole thing. Hopefully, Roger 'The Executioner' Simon doesn't send his legendary hordes of trademark lawyers after me.

But Richardson is absolutely right. The conservatives -- the Tea Party and others who believe in the Constitution -- railed against the faux "debt ceiling deal" and the idiotic negotiation strategies of Messrs. Boehner and McConnell.

A few of us warned the RINOs repeatedly that failure to enact real cuts would still result in a devastating downgrade.

If we are to save this country, 2012 not only marks the year in which the Democrat Party is politically obliterated -- it also is the year that we throw the feckless, old guard Republicans out of their leadership positions and back into the dugout where they belong.


Hat tip: D&S.

Tragedy: Did Joe Biden's Loose Lips Sink the SEALs?

The Master Chief reminds us that the dumbest vice president in American history likely played a role in the tragedy that saw 31 special operators killed, 25 of whom served in the ultra top-secret SEAL Team Six.

...It is believed that many of these men were the ones that brought Usama Bin Laden to justice. This is a double tragedy. First, the loss of any American fighting personnel is tragic. Second, SEAL Team Six is the best of the best! Replacing them is difficult at best and probably impossible.

The Taliban has taken credit for this kill. I suspect that they were tracking SEAL Team Six ever since the OBL event. How did the Taliban know who did the OBL job[?] Vice President Biden told the press[!] He blabbed [about] a top secret op in the open to the press to look good! This moron is a danger to the security of America not to mention the lives of American fighting personnel.

SEAL Team Six has been in operation since the early 1980's. It was established by President Reagan. They have accomplished many missions and saved many lives, all under the cover of secrecy. Even their base of operations was classified. Their secret compound was double guarded and secure within the confines of a Naval Training Base. They wore civilian clothes, grew beards and long hair, did not carry military ID cards and did everything in secret. That lasted, until this administration. The Vice President's reckless abandonment of security [practice] has lead to the death of 31 military members including 25 members of this elite team. He should be tried for treason and murder in my book. His desire to "look good to the press" by showing them he knew what was going on, permitted the Taliban to track and kill these men. If this was an enlisted man, he would be in a Courts Martial this morning and hung this afternoon. But not Vice President Biden. No, he will continue to be a threat to the lives of our military and the security of our Nation.

I have known about Six since 1980, when I was the GMG detailer. I toured their facility in 1987 when I was the Force Master Chief of the Surface Forces, U.S. Atlantic Fleet. I am proud to have know some of these men, past and present, who have defended freedom, quietly, secretly, and very effectively for the last four decades. Now I fear they will cease to be viable because their cover has been blown by a politician of the lowest denominator. A politician who will sacrifice anyone, lie about anything, and plagiarize anyone, to look good to the press and to get re-elected. Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. Remember this event, these deaths in November 2012!

Let's rewind to May of 2011, when London's Daily Telegraph exposed what most of our far left-wing media outlets failed to report.

Since President Barack Obama announced that “a small team of Americans” had killed Osama bin Laden, US government officials have carefully stuck to the line that they will not talk about which units were involved... Obama did not say it was the SEALs. In numerous television appearances, Obama’s counter-terrorism chief John Brennan didn’t and his deputy national security adviser Denis McDonough didn’t. Despite the numerous news reports that named the SEALs, none of the anonymous briefers from the CIA and Pentagon would confirm it.

...But here’s what the legendarily verbose and loose-lipped Vice President Joe Biden said at a dinner at Washington’s Ritz Carlton Hotel last night...

Let me briefly acknowledge tonight’s distinguished honorees. Admiral James Stavridis is a, is the real deal. He can tell you more about and understands the incredible, the phenomenal, the just almost unbelievable capacity of his Navy SEALs and what they did last Sunday...

...Folks, I’d be remiss also if I didn’t say an extra word about the incredible events, extraordinary events of this past Sunday. As Vice President of the United States, as an American, I was in absolute awe of the capacity and dedication of the entire team, both the intelligence community, the CIA, the SEALs...


Biden, as has been proven over and over again, is an outright idiot.

May God Bless our brave warriors and their families.

They are far too brave and far too good for our current breed of feckless politicians. As the Master Chief reminds us: 2012 is coming and we must vote in the most conservative citizen-politicians into office that we can find. We must support men and women who believe in and abide by the Constitution.

More to the point: we must politically obliterate the hapless, lying, power-hungry, political hacks who believe themselves to be some kind of permanent ruling class. In a general sense that translates to primarying RINOs and then defeating Democrats at every level of government. The Democrat Party has been hijacked by the 1960-retread Marxist left. It's bent on destroying this country and capitalism with it. The modern Democrat Party must be politically crushed.

I urge you to remember your anger in 2012.


Hat tip: Tim.

Roundup of Reactions to the Downgrade of the World's Largest Debtor Nation

Mark Steyn envisions Thunderdome in the not-too-distant future.

"Cutting federal spending by $900 billion over 10 years" is Washington-speak for increasing federal spending by $7 trillion over 10 years. And, as Washington had originally planned to increase it by $8 trillion, that counts as a cut. If they'd planned to increase it by $20 trillion and then settled for merely $15 trillion, they could have saved five trillion...

...And, if none of these parties seems inclined to pay down the debt now, what are the chances they'll feel like doing so by 2020 when, under these historic "cuts," it's up to $23 trillion-$25 trillion?

...Last week, the firm of Macroeconomic Advisors, one of the Obama administration's favorite economic analysts, predicted that interest rates on 10-year U.S. Treasury notes would be just shy of 9% by 2021. If that number is right, there are two possibilities: The Chinese will be able to quintuple the size of their armed forces and stick us with the tab. Or we'll be living in a Mad Max theme park. I'd bet on the latter myself.

Walter Russell Mead takes an historical view:

China, Europe, America, Japan: each of in its own way is moving toward comprehensive bankruptcy: financial, spiritual, social. Recent tremors in world financial markets are a warning from the invisible hand that we are skirting dangerously close to that final frontier, but we will miss the point if we do nothing more than put our financial affairs in slightly better order.

The blunt and truthful Michele Bachmann piles on:

This president has destroyed the credit rating of the United States through his failed economic policies and his inability to control government spending by raising the debt ceiling. President Obama is destroying the foundations of the U.S. economy one beam at a time.

As reported by China's state news Xinhua, even the Communists want to take control of Ben Bernanke's printing press:

China, the largest creditor of the world's sole superpower, has every right now to demand the United States address its structural debt problems and ensure the safety of China's dollar assets. The US government has to come to terms with the painful fact that the good old days when it could just borrow its way out of messes of its own making are finally gone.

International supervision over the issue of U.S. dollars should be introduced and a new, stable and secured global reserve currency may also be an option to avert a catastrophe caused by any single country.

And Tyler Durden teases a reaction out of the federal commissars:

Presenting the joint statement by The Fed, the FDIC, NCUA, OCC. In essence: the Fed tells S&P to go fornicate itself...

Earlier today, Standard & Poor’s rating agency lowered the long-term rating of the U.S. government and federal agencies from AAA to AA+. With regard to this action, the federal banking agencies are providing the following guidance to banks, savings associations, credit unions, and bank and savings and loan holding companies (collectively, banking organizations)


For risk-based capital purposes, the risk weights for Treasury securities and other securities issued or guaranteed by the U.S. government, government agencies, and government-sponsored entities will not change. The treatment of Treasury securities and other securities issued or guaranteed by the U.S. government, government agencies, and government-sponsored entities under other federal banking agency regulations, including, for example, the Federal Reserve Board’s Regulation W, will also be unaffected.

Have I mentioned before that President Obama is 'historic'?




Larwyn's Linx: How Obama Will React To the Downgrade

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Nation

How Obama Will React To the Downgrade: Riehl
Illinois Senate Records Show Obama as Confused, Off-Topic: PuPr
Massive Mob Runs Wild at Wisconsin State Fair: MB

Gunwalker: It Must Have Been Eric Holder... or Higher: Owens
Another Great Obamachievement: RWN
Guess who the President had at his BBQ Bash?: Joshua

Wisconsin Recall Elections Coming Down to the Wire: WS
LeMieux Campaign- Hasner “Masquerading” as a Conservative: Shark
Communist Party formally endorses Obama: RWN

Economy

Obama by the Numbers: Yes, He Owns This Economy: JWF
America’s AAA Credit Rating? It Was Fun While It Lasted: Driscoll
July Unemployment-9.1%: A farewell to discouraged job seekers: HE

Former Obama adviser on downgrade: 'We're f---ed': GWP
Pelosi participates in CWA union activist call: Marathon
Where your tax dollars are going: Weir

Schooling Matt Damon: Malkin
A Very Tiny Piece of the Pie: MB
Flashback '09: TX has credit-rating lifted due to Perry budget: WZ

Climate & Energy

EPA Attempts Hostile Takeover in North Dakota: ChamberPost
Side by side: LED, CFL, and incandescent bulbs: CNet
A Proper Use of Green Energy: Maggie's Farm

Media

Media Battlefield Preparation in 2004 and 2011: Driscoll
John Kerry: Media Has "Responsibility" To "Not Give Equal Time" To Tea Party: RCP
Polar Bear Kills One In Norway…MSM Blames Rightwing Extremists: That Mr. G. Guy

In Search of Millionaires: Hayward
The Left Will Never Abandon Obama: Cost
Let me fix that headline for you: Driscoll

World

Report: 31 US Special Forces Troops Killed in Afghanistan Crash – Taliban Takes Credit: GWP
Pamela Geller’s Book Stop the Islamization of America Is a Work of Love, not Hate: PJM
Give 'em a state! 80% of Palestinians support Hamas: GWP

The Invisible Hand Is Writing On Our Wall: Mead
Somalis Starve as Shabab Islamists Bar Escape From Famine: AmPower
U.S. Taxpayers Help Pay Millions in Salaries to Jailed ‘Palestinian’ Terror Suspects’: Creeping

Iran Plans For A World Without America: IBD
Brokest Nation In History On Edge Of Armageddon: IBD
Foreign Influence in American Politics—Imad Ramadan in Virginia: BigPeace

Sci-Tech

Boost Your WiFi Signal With A Beer Can: Consumerist
Scientists: Dieting Forces Brain To Eat Itself: S&L
BlackBerry through the years (photos): CNet

Cornucopia

Pot Smoking Slackers!: Reluctant Rebel
Sustaining the Unsustainable: MOTUS
Praying for Marizela, Month 5: Malkin

Image: New York Daily News
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: Michele Bachmann for President

QOTD: "The Obama disaster continues. Highest food stamp level and lowest credit rating in history in the same 24 hours." --Newt Gingrich