Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Larwyn's Linx: Eleven Years On

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Nation

Eleven Years On: Gates of Vienna
See What I Mean?: Dossier
Campaigns Hold 9/11 Moratorium, Except Nobody Told Obama: JWF

Is America Over?: Kuznicki
Ohio Democrat campaigns against Obama, Pelosi: Breitbart
Examiner: Romney leads by 8 in an unskewed CNN/ORC poll: HySci

So How Do Islamic Radicals Celebrate 9-11?: Wolf Howling
White House disavows apology for Mohammed Film: WZ
Polls Really Show a 4-Point Lead for Romney: VARight

Economy

Romney's Tax Plan Defines Presidential Race: IBD
Does this look like an economy that’s moving forward?: Peth
Under Obama, 11,327 Pages of Federal Regulations Added: CNS

Scandal Central

House Hearing Today on Obama's Serial Abuses of Power: Nice Deb
Still More Corrupt Green Energy Boondogglery: MB
Wasserman Schultz's Luxury Cars and Growing Net Worth: Shark

Climate & Energy

CEI Files FOIA Suit: What Is “Most Transparent Ever” Administration Hiding on a Carbon Tax?: CEI
Sierra Club: Hey, North Jersey, You Really Don’t Need Power: Cove
Brrr: Obama still trying to convince us that global warming is not a hoax: IBD

Media

Ramirez: Media bias toward Obama a national scandal: Hot Air
Andrea Shea King investigates Obamas' $35 million Hawaii estate purchase for 2013: HillBuzz
Vanity Fair editor has public orgasm over Obama in athletic wear: NakedDC

Obama Campaign Forced To Respond To Dinesh D’Souza Film: Glob
Too busy to find time to meet with Netanyahu, but has time for the Pimp With the Limp: JWF
AWESOME – Rush: Heavily skewed CNN poll proves that Obama inevitability talk is manufactured: Scoop

EXCLUSIVE: ’2016 Obama’s America’ Filmmaker Reacts To President’s Slam: Deadline
Another Screw-Up at the DNC: Elephant
Levin to Romney: Take your damn boxing gloves off, put your brass knuckles on and FIGHT LIKE HELL!: Scoop

World

Arab World Celebrates 9/11 by Blaming Attacks on Israel and Jews, New York Times Blames Bush: JWF
But let's keep those borders open: American arrested in Mexico with alleged Hezbollah: Blaze
Muslims celebrated 9/11 attacks: BlackFive

Netanyahu slams US: Those who don’t set red lines for Iran have no right to keep Israel from attacking: Scoop
Obama Has Held More Fundraisers than Intel Briefings Since Campaign Began: Commentary
To Hell With Your Day Of Service. This Is A Day Of Vengeance.: Hawkins

Obama vs. Israel, Yet Again: AmSpec
U.S.-Israel tensions on Iran are boiling over: JTA
In unusual snub, Obama to avoid meeting with Netanyahu: Reuters

gyptian-Iranian intelligence meeting prompts fears of a new Middle East terror axis: Beacon
Obama: ‘I have never been a Muslim’: Times
Better Late Than Never: Looking Spoon

Sci-Tech

Steve Jobs legacy: he personally brought Siri to Apple, saw that Siri had a contextual future: Scobleizer
Reporter allegedly goes undercover at 'iPhone 5' factory: Apple Insider
Hype and Hope: Test Driving Google's New Glasses: WSJ

Cornucopia

9-11 It’s a Day of Remembrance: MOTUS
Sick: Pranksters mock Applebee’s 9/11 tribute with vile fake retweets: Twitchy
Ron's Daydream: Denny

Image: Shark Tank: Wasserman Schultz's Luxury Cars and Growing Net Worth Raise Questions
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: America's Comeback Team

QOTD: "A focus on openness and honesty is likely to hurt Mr. Obama far more than Mr. Romney. Mr. Obama remains the mystery candidate with an autobiography full of gaps and even fabrications. For example, to sell his autobiography in 1991, Mr. Obama claimed that he “was born in Kenya.” He lied about never having been a member and candidate of the 1990s Chicago socialist New Party. When Stanley Kurtz produced evidence to establish that he was a member, Mr. Obama’s flacks smeared and dismissed Mr. Kurtz.

Mr. Obama’s 1995 autobiography, “Dreams from My Father,” contains a torrent of inaccuracies and falsehoods about his maternal grandfather, his father, his mother, his parents’ wedding, his stepfather’s father, his high school friend, his girlfriend, Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. As Victor Davis Hanson put it, “If a writer will fabricate the details about his own mother’s terminal illness and quest for insurance, then he will probably fudge on anything.”" --Daniel Pipes

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Drudge-a-topia

I just created a mobile version of the current Drudge Report front-page. Put simply, the S has HTF.


Dead serious: can you imagine what 2013 will bring under a President Obama?

2014?

2015?

2016?

Vote accordingly in November.


The Obama plan: deficits "never seen before in U.S. history"

World War II was a minor perturbation in the history of deficit spending, if Barack Obama has anything to say about it. For the fourth straight year -- coincident with the Obama presidency -- the U.S. will ring up more than $1,000,000,000,000 (one trillion dollars) in annual budget deficits.

The CBO’s report follows Treasury’s grim confirmation last week that the national debt reached the $16 trillion mark, engulfing the size of the entire U.S. economy. That translates into $51,000 in debt per U.S. citizen, about what the average American will earn this year. Because of Washington’s overspending, the debt continues to climb upward toward the $16.394 trillion statutory limit...


Washington lacks the resolve to rein in federal spending, despite such negative report cards. Congress’ latest proposed spending bill, the FY2013 continuing resolution (CR) that will fund the government, doesn’t even freeze spending at current levels, as a typical CR would. The CBO estimates that level to be $1.039 trillion. Instead, lawmakers plan to increase discretionary spending by $8 billion, in order to reach the annual rate of $1.047 trillion provided under the BCA.

If the current state of the budget appears gloomy, the future could prove to be downright awful. Absent reforms to entitlement programs—especially Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security—federal spending will skyrocket...

...Moody’s Investor Service today joined Standard & Poor’s in issuing a stern warning that it would likely lower the United States’ credit rating... if Congress does not stabilize the debt-to-GDP ratio and address the coming fiscal cliff.

We are approaching Greece-level debt-to-GDP ratios, even discounting our numerous failed entitlement programs.

I can't state this clearly enough: a few more years like these and collapse is certain.

November looks to be the last chance we have to rescue this society.


Hat tip: BadBlue News.

Instantly Discredited NYT Hit Piece Claims Bush Was Aware of Impending Bin Laden Attacks, Did Nothing

It would appear that the Times has embraced a borderline form of Truther-ism.

In what must be Chapter 48,204 of The New York Times' unceasing war on George W. Bush, a propagandist named "Kurt Eichenwald" -- if that is his real name -- recycles the ludicrous claim that the 43rd President ignored plain warnings about the 9/11 attacks.

...11 years later, new details of the attack on the World Trade Center continue to emerge from the government's vault of classified documents and the journalists who've gained access. This year, the reporter with the jaw-dropping scoop is Kurt Eichenwald, a former Timesman and present contributing editor at Vanity Fair.

After reading more than one tweet with the simple instructions "Read this," we clicked on the link to Eichenwald's powerful op-ed, due to be published in The New York Times on September 11. In it, Eichenwald goes into teeth-grinding detail about how the Bush administration had even more advance notice about Osama Bin Laden's attack than we previously realized. You should read it, too.

With the infamous August 6 White House briefing as a focal point, Eichenwald walks through the months and years [Ed: Remember, Bush has been President for all of half a year when these events occurred] of warnings leading up to the September 11 attacks. Some of these are events and reports that remain classified, but Eichenwald says he's "read excerpts from many of them, along with other recently declassified records, and come to an inescapable conclusion: the administration's reaction to what Mr. Bush was told in the weeks before that infamous briefing reflected significantly more negligence than has been disclosed."

Eichenturd's source for the article: "An intelligence official and a member of the Bush administration."

Which, of course, means a single person who could be an entry-level staffer... or a more senior one holding a grudge. In other words, following the template of prior Times hit pieces, it's one anonymous person. Kind of like the one anonymous person who told me Eichenwald likes to wear women's underwear.

As commenter Hokma reminds us:

Eichenwald was demolished on the Joe Scarborough Show by former New York Governor George Pataki who ripped him to shreds and Eichenwald had no where to go trying to defend his book...

Here are [the] facts. Bin Laden should have been dead or captured before Bush was President.

Indeed. Remember Bill Clinton's National Security Adviser, Sandy Berger?

Yes, that's the same fun-loving Sandy Berger who stole and destroyed classified documents related to the 9/11 investigation.

While the NYT's Truthers are busy investigating how Halliburton imploded WTC 7, Richard Miniter discloses the real reason Berger risked a prison sentence to steal the 9/11 documents.

My informed sources suggest that what Berger destroyed were copies of the Millennium After-Action Review, a binder-sized report prepared by Richard Clarke in 2000—a year and half before the 9-11 attacks. The review made a series of recommendations for a tougher stance against bin Laden and terrorism. There are 13 or more copies of this report. But only one contains hand-written notes by President Bill Clinton. Apparently, in the margin beside the recommendations, Bill Clinton wrote NO, NO, NO next to many of the tougher policy proposals.

You can see why Clinton might be happy to see these records vanish down the memory hole... So Berger was stuffing in pants and socks and later shredding the evidence that President Clinton did not want to take a tougher line on bin Laden, following the 1998 attack on two U.S. embassies that killed 224 people (including 12 American diplomats).

[Now Hillary] makes Berger one of her top three foreign policy advisers... and I have a few questions:

Did she bring him aboard to reward him for his criminal destruction of classified material? Or did she sign him up because of his stellar record in fighting bin Laden in the late 1990s?

If Miniter's sources are correct -- and, from the looks of things, they are -- it's easy to determine why Berger took the risks he did.

Bill Clinton's legacy and Hillary Clinton's 2008 hopes for the presidency rested on Berger's ability to purge the National Archives of the incriminating material.

And the Times wouldn't lift a finger investigating any of these outrages.

They were too busy inventing extramarital affairs for John McCain and weapons-grade-stupid hit jobs like the "Al Qaqaa" fable.


"Even from space, this view of 9/11 cries out"

Writing at Investors Business Daily, Andrew Malcolm commemorates the catastrophic terror attack on America 11 years ago today.

On that awful morning of Sept. 11, 2001, only the third crew of the new International Space Station soared around the world at 17,000 miles an hour.

What he saw as a high-tech witness touched the heart of Station Commander Frank Culbertson, who wrote in his diary:


"The world changed today. What I say or do is very minor compared to the significance of what happened to our country today when it was attacked...

...It's horrible to see smoke pouring from wounds in your own country from such a fantastic vantage point. The dichotomy of being on a spacecraft dedicated to improving life on the earth and watching life being destroyed by such willful, terrible acts is jolting to the psyche, no matter who you are."

I'm with John Hawkins, whose primary emotion remains one of anger: "To hell with your day of service. This is a day of vengeance."


Arab Spring: Government-Approved Muslim Brotherhood Mob Assaults U.S. Embassy in Egypt, Rips Down Flag on 9/11

Another completely predictable result of The Obama Doctrine: ever-increasing chaos in the Middle East.

Egyptian Protesters Breach U.S. Embassy

In response to ‘insulting’ film, Egyptians tear down American flag

A frustrating and infuriating situation is unfolding in Egypt today where protestors have scaled the walls of the United States embassy, torn down the American flag, ripped it apart when they couldn’t burn it, and replaced with a black flag with an inscription of the Shahada on it.


According to reports, the mob is venting its frustration about the Koran-burning pastor Terry Jones, who has made a film (along with some Egyptian Copts) that reportedly vilifies Muslims and their prophet Muhammed...


The timing is also worth pointing out, not only for its obvious and insulting resonance today, but because as Eric Trager mentions, the attack comes as Egypt is seeking aid–which the United States has provided a billion dollars of annually since 1979.

Yes, by all means, let's ensure that the Muslim Brotherhood gets $1.2 billion of our money. I'm sure very little could go wrong.



Larwyn's Linx: About that Ohio poll the left is orgasmic about…

Send us tips! Bloggers: install a Larwyn's Linx widget. Get real-time news, 24/7, at BadBlue.

Nation

About that Ohio poll the left is orgasmic about…: DTG
43 Months of Depressing Misery: Blumer
Spreading Fear and Despondency: Tatler

An Economic 'Plan'?: Sowell
What Happens if Obama is Re-elected?: HayRide
Left-Wing "Psy Ops": Liebau

Chicago thuggery personified: Meet CTU's Karen Lewis: Malkin
Obama holds rally in FL, Tea Party breaks out: GWP
Sign o' the day: Chicago teachr dosn't spel good: HySci

Economy

Woodward Inadvertently Confirms Coming Economic Apocalypse: Pelerin
Chicago Teachers Strike, Despite 16% Raise: S&L
Two Huge Flaws in the Legend of the Clinton Economy: Foundry

The Truth About the Unemployment Rate in 2 Graphs: AT
Obama Is Winning His War On The Economy: S&L
Happy Deficit Day, America!: RCM

The Democrats' GM Fiction: NRO
The most important issue in the country today: Q&O
Budget deficit tops $1 trillion for fourth time: Times

Scandal Central

'I don't think my church is particularly controversial': RS (Howe)
Harvard law dean cited ‘affirmative action’ in 1993 Elizabeth Warren hiring: DC
What Voter Fraud? Maryland Democrat Quits Amid Revelations That She Voted in Two States: MenRec

Climate & Energy

Pentagon buying Chevy Volts to ‘green up’ military: Beacon

Media

Yep, CNN rigged its own poll: Breitbart
Rush Limbaugh: Media Running Campaign To Dispirit You: RCP
All These Guys Not Only Want Obama to Win, But Think He Could Never Lose: HillBuzz

How the Corrupt Media Deliberately Deceives You With Polling in Order to Help Obama: HillBuzz
Flashback, September 14, 2000: "Why Bush Is Toast": Ace
Politico Calls The Election For Barack Obama: S&L

Sluts on Parade: SlutWalk SF 2012: Zombie (NSFW)
Now Racist: Peanut Butter & Jelly Sandwiches: Ace
Romney Mocks Obama’s Forward Slogan, Says Forewarned is Better: LoneCon

World

Parents of SEAL Team Six member say unit endangered by Obama administration statements: Fox
U.S. “Cooks the Books” To Show Record No. Of Deportations: JW
Senator Lieberman to Obama: Detail Steps to Stop Iran: WS

Report: Jerusalem Within New Iranian Missile’s Range: Beacon
Poll Shows Obama Getting Lowest Jewish Support Since Carter: Commentary
Euro Zone Will Pay 'Terrible Price': Jim Rogers: CNBC

Sci-Tech

Nimble Storage gets $40M as IPO approaches: GigaOm
What Really Made Steve Jobs So Angry at Google?: Gizmodo
Army Wants Tiny Suicidal Drone to Kill From 6 Miles Away: Wired

Cornucopia

WHITE HOUSE INSIDER: Ohio Now Turning To Romney – Polling Data 101: Ulsterman
Battle Royale: In a Mass Knife Fight to the Death Between Every American President Who Would Win?: Ace
11 September 2011: Eleven Years On: Camp o' the Saints

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

QOTD: "Reid began to lay out the two-step $2.7 -trillion debt limit extension, then stopped. He was not a details guy. "Well, let David just tell you what it is," he said.

It was highly unusual for someone to pass the ball so completely to a staffer. The 44-year-old Krone outlined the plan, including a secret Republican pledge to count $1 trillion in savings from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan toward deficit reduction. That was surprising. Earlier, Boehner had not been willing to accept this accounting gimmick.

"I don't trust these guys," the president said dismissively.

Krone either would not or could not conceal his anger.

"Wait a second," Obama said, interrupting someone else who was about to speak. "I can tell David has something else to say."

"Mr. President, I am sorry -- with all due respect -- that we are in this situation that we're in, but we got handed this football on Friday night. And I didn't create this situation. The first thing that baffles me is, from my private-sector experience, the first rule that I've always been taught is to have a Plan B. And it is really disheartening that you, that this White House did not have a Plan B." --Bob Woodward

Monday, September 10, 2012

Pic: Washing Machine Not Happy With New Detergent

At least that's how I interpreted this picture, spotted at @BuzzFeedAndrew's Twitter feed:


Some good news for Romney-Ryan: the trend is your friend

Be of good cheer. The latest polls have caused a few shudders throughout the right side of the blogosphere (premature, to be sure), but there are several objective elements of which you should be aware.

First, the long-term InTrade trend-line -- generally a pretty good indicator since real money is at stake -- appears to be a positive one for the Romney-Ryan ticket.


As more people learn about the tremendous qualifications possessed by Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, the more comfortable they become with the pair.

In addition, there are several reasons I think the polls are fundamentally misstating support for Barack Obama's obviously failed presidency:

1. The return of "The Bradley Effect": Barack Obama, a thoroughly likable and eloquent politician, marketed himself as a centrist and post-partisan figure in 2008. Unknown and un-vetted that year, he could get away with it. Pollsters are likely not accounting for the fact that Obama is a known quantity this year -- and the well-known Bradley Effect could very well resurface.

2. The revolt of the union rank-and-file: If you're a union member aware of Obama's destructive agenda -- killing the coal industry, oil drilling, trucking, and refining (to name but a few), you're not going to respond to some random call with the truth. Union members have to be cautious and they are used to being pressured and intimidated. I can assure you that pollsters are not taking the Reagan Democrat factor into account, just as they missed it completely in 1980.

3. Incorrect sampling of the population: As HillBuzz explains, polling firms are generally using 2008 party breakdowns when the entire country has changed dramatically:


1. Look at the partisan breakdown of the poll and make sure it is the 2012 numbers. The partisan breakdown I am using for the 2012 elections is: D=33.3%, R=37.6%, I=29.2%. We are at the highest percentage of Republican registrations and the lowest percent of Democrat registrations in history. The polls you see that show Obama leading in states like Ohio are deceiving you because they are running Democrat percentages that are 44% or MORE; that’s just ridiculous because the highest Democrat registration advantage in YEARS was in 2008, where Democrats were at 41.4% to just 33.8% for Republicans and 24.7% for Independents. 2008 was the Democrats’ high water mark...

2. Look at the gender gap in the poll and see if it is realistic. The second easiest way to cook a poll is to include a much higher percentage of women than men because women tend to vote Democrat more than men...

3. Look for the racial breakdown of the poll to check if that’s being cooked for Democrats’ benefit. This is similar to the above, but is a little more complicated because on average blacks are 12% of the population but have a very low turnout in typical election years. 2008 was an anomaly because race-pride drove a lot of blacks to the polls... There’s no way that blacks or any other Democrat identity bloc will vote in 2008 percentages, though, so any poll that’s saying these numbers will be the same (or higher!) is bunk...

Clearly, all of us still have work to do.

But old media and the polls didn't predict the 2010 wipeout until the last possible minute (even then, many of them flatly understated the seachange).

Nothing's really changed since then, except more people are out of work and more people are ticked off than two years ago.


Rush: Chicago Teachers Union Strike Is a Setup, Designed to Benefit Obama Reelection Effort

Rush Limbaugh has an interesting response to news of the first Chicago teachers union strike in 25 years: It's a setup.

Rush Limbaugh said Monday a strike by the 26,000-member Chicago Teachers’ Union was nothing but a ploy to help President Barack Obama’s reelection.

...He and [Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel] will figure this out so they get credit for solving it. Because, I tell you: There is no union that is gonna go on strike right now for the express purpose of harming Barack Obama.”

The union started striking Monday for the first time in a quarter-century after rejecting a contract that offered them a four percent annual pay raise over the next four years. [Ed: 16 percent increase over four years]

...Despite apparent cracks between Emanuel and his old boss, Limbaugh insists it’s all a set-up to get the “media swooning.”

“I’m warning you right now,” he said. “You haven’t seen anything until you see the PR surrounding Obama solving the teacher strike, and then the video of the little kiddies going back to school. They’re gonna be singing Obama songs.”

Then White House advisor -- and now Chicago Mayor -- Rahm Emanuel is infamous for stating, "Never let a crisis go to waste."

There is no public sector union in the country that would go on strike if it would hurt Obama's reelection chances in any way.

Do the math.


Image: Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis, via Michelle Malkin.

President too busy to attend daily intelligence briefings; made up for it by missing all of his daily economic briefings

Is it still a "Presidential Daily Brief" if the president doesn't bother to attend? The Washington Post relays the stunning stats from the Government Accountability Institute.

During his first 1,225 days in office, Obama attended his [Presidential Daily Briefing] PDB just 536 times — or 43.8 percent of the time. During 2011 and the first half of 2012, his attendance became even less frequent — falling to just over 38 percent. By contrast, Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush almost never missed his daily intelligence meeting.

...Officials tell me the former president [Bush 43] held his intelligence meeting six days a week, no exceptions... Once a week, he held an expanded Homeland Security briefing that included the Homeland Security adviser, the FBI director and other homeland security officials. Bush also did more than 100 hour-long “deep dives” in which he invited intelligence analysts into the Oval Office to get their unvarnished and sometimes differing views. Such meetings deepened the president’s understanding of the issues and helped analysts better understand the problems with which he was wrestling.

When Obama forgoes this daily intelligence meeting, he is consciously placing other priorities ahead of national security.

And the president also appears to be placing other priorities ahead of the economy and unemployment: from April 2011 through July 24, 2012, the president hasn't received a single daily economic briefing.

Something is missing. If you look at Barack Obama's calendar for 26th of April, 2011 you will see on his schedule at 10 AM "The President receives the Economic Daily Briefing," after that nothing. According to the daily schedule released by the White House, Barack Obama hasn't received his "daily" economic briefing for the past 15 months (The White House, Accessed 7/23/12).

Somehow, however, the president has managed to work in 104 rounds of golf and hundreds of games of pickup basketball.

Fortunately there are no pressing economic or national security issues for the country.


Larwyn's Linx: Be Ye Not Dismayed

Send us tips! Bloggers: install a Larwyn's Linx widget. Get real-time news, 24/7, at BadBlue.

Nation

Be Ye Not Dismayed: RSM
The Dangerous Virtuosity of Johnny One-Note: Ricochet
Double-Minded Republicans: McCarthy

Barack Obama In Quotes: Hawkins
Ryan on Face the Nation: Obama "says one thing, does another": Nice Deb
Dave Weigel Says I'm a Troll: Lid

Tampa vs. Charlotte: RWN
"Three words: Made in the U.S.A": Hoft
A Small Convention Bounce: Hawkins

Economy

Zero American Unemployment Before The Next Presidential Election: ZH
An “Obama bounce”… in gun sales?: Hot Air
Europe's political minefield lies ahead: Telegraph

Chicago Teachers Strike, But Its Not For Better Schools: Howling
Chicago Teachers Union Will Strike for First Time in 25 Years: AmPower
Should Government Fund "the Arts"?: Reason

Scandal Central

Judicial Watch Sues DOJ and DHS for Records about Legal Basis of Obama’s New “Amnesty” Program: JW
Asking for I.D. to Vote is NOT racist!: iOTW

Climate & Energy

NOAA Conducts Large-Scale Experiment And Proves Global Warming Skeptics Correct: FloppingAces

Media

Kudos to CNN for Fact Checking the Democrats: AIM
Mitt Romney Spars With David Gregory On Meet The Press: RSM
Larry Flynt Offers $1M for Obama’s College Transcripts: JWF

Mike Rowe’s letter strikes chord with Mitt Romney: LI
The Promises, The Deceptions – Eliminating Employer Health Care Coverage: MagNote
Allen West to Obama -”Take Your Traveling Road Show Somewhere Else”: Shark

Left falls for fake Romney quote: ‘I can relate to black people, my ancestors once owned slaves’: Twitchy
NBC’s Absurd Jobs Reporting: Publius
The View From the Other Side: 'Anger and Denial' On the 'Wingnut Right': AmPower

Klein on DWS: 'Her Pants are on Fire': Beacon
A Two-Point Change in the Polls is Not a 'Bounce' — Especially With the Undercover Media in the Tank: AmPower
Obama is not a Communist!: Loudon

World

The Mosaic of War: NoisyRm
Obama’s top ten foreign policy and national security failures: Babalu
Thought Experiment: TAB

The Muslim Drinking Game: BlackFive
Undocumented Immigrant Drivers License Law Fails to Boost Number of Insured: Fox News Latino
Why Naomi Wolf Loves the Burqa: NewsReal (2009)

Sci-Tech

A Woman's Drug-Resistant TB Echoes Around the World: WSJ
Teenager floats £30 camera into space to capture curvature of Earth: Telegraph
This Is the Clearest Photo of Mars Yet: AtlWire

Cornucopia

Comic Book: Paul Ryan The Norse God of Math!: Morlock
The Price of Politics: It’s high - but on sale!: MOTUS
Lesnar's friend says star not likely to ever return to UFC: Post

Image: I Hate the Media: Female Biker Sits on Joe Biden's Lap
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: Please Support the Senate Conservatives Fund

QOTD: "...the difference between Ann Romney and Michelle Obama is that Ann Romney would never ask Americans to donate their birthday presents, wedding gifts or to deny their family a meal for any reason, for the sake of donating money to her husband’s campaign.

Such requests are indecent and unconscionable." --Puma By Design

Sunday, September 09, 2012

Four Simple Charts to Share With Friends, Family Members, Neighbors and Colleagues

If you know someone disconnected from politics, unmotivated to vote, or otherwise sitting on the fence, please share with them the following four graphs. And then ask them one simple question, which I've listed below.

Household income fell more in recovery than during recession


Gas prices have more than doubled since Obama took office:


Labor Force Participation Rate Goes Backward to 1981


"The [labor force participation] rate dipped in the early part of the last decade but rose again during the Bush expansion and was 66.2% as recently as January 2008... It fell again in the recession, but the most distressing news is that it has kept falling during the last three years of recovery. This is unprecedented, and the big question is why."

The 'One-Time' Stimulus Became Part of the Federal Baseline Budget

In 2009, Democrats and President Obama pushed a "one-time" Stimulus spending package through Congress in order to jump-start job creation and keep unemployment under 8 percent. It ended up costing the American people $840 billion and unemployment has remained over 8 percent ever since...


Unfortunately, that so-called "one-time" spending spree was built into each and every year's budget -- and is driving America to a Greece-style debt crisis.

That one simple question to ask: Can we survive four more years of this?

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Please considering sending this article to friends, family members, neighbors and colleagues. We can all do our part before November.

Just click the button to email:


As U.S. casualties mount in Afghanistan, passing 2,000 KIA in June, MSM suddenly forgets "grim milestone" phrase

Remember that phrase -- "grim milestone" -- whenever a round number of U.S. troops had perished in Afghanistan or Iraq? Gallons of ink were consumed to market the phrase during the years George W. Bush served as president.

In August, the U.S. surpassed the 2,000 KIA mark in Afghanistan to almost no fanfare. As Dan Riehl observes, much of the U.S. is numb to the heroic sacrifices of our military, primarily because vintage media no longer has a Republican president to hammer.


In June, the number of fallen U.S. soldiers reached 2,000 in the Afghani theater of operations. More than twice as many U.S. troops have perished in Afghanistan under President Obama's command in three-and-a-half years than during President Bush's two terms in office.

And unlike the Bush era, most of big media completely ignored the grim milestone:

There was no story last week on the Afghanistan death “milestone” on ABC, NBC, the PBS NewsHour – or even on the MSNBC programs found in Nexis, including Rachel “Our Military’s In a Perilous Drift” Maddow.

But the networks were all more aggressive when the 2,000 mark arrived in Iraq on October 25, 2005. The Big Three networks devoted 14 morning and evening news stories to the death toll from October 24 through the end of October, and another 24 anchor briefs or mentions. They used the number to spell “disaster for this White House.”

I did a quick Google News Search (for the phrase "grim milestone" AND ("afghanistan" OR "iraq")) by year to determine whether the phrase had gone out of favor about the time President Obama took office.

Here's what I found:

2004: CNN, CBS News, New York Times, USA Today, the Associated Press
2005: People Magazine, Sacramento Bee, New York Times, Dallas Morning News, Boston Globe, USA Today, New York Daily News, the Associated Press, Bloomberg, BBC
2006: USA Today, CNN, New York Times, CBS News, Fox News, the Associated Press, CNN, NPR
2007: USA Today, msnbc, New York Times, Reuters, CBS News
2008: New York Times, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, Seattle Times, ABC News, msnbc, US News & World Report, CNN, Sacramento Bee
2009: CBS News, New York Times, USA Today, CNN, msnbc
2010: Boston Globe, Time, CNN, ABC News, USA Today, Reuters, Boston Globe, Business Week, Washington Post,
2011: Seattle Times
2012: PBS

The New York Times and USA Today, in particular, appear to have dropped the "grim milestone" phrase from its style guide.

But don't accuse them of being biased.


Staring into the Economic Abyss

"A modern-day depression."

That's how Mortimer Zuckerman describes the current state of the economy, highlighting an effective 19 percent unemployment rate.

We are experiencing, in effect, a modern-day depression. Consider two indicators: First, food stamps: More than 45 million Americans are in the program! An almost incredible record. It's 15% of the population compared with the 7.9% participation from 1970-2000. Food-stamp enrollment has been rising at a rate of 400,000 per month over the past four years.

Second, Social Security disability—another record. More than 11 million Americans are collecting federal disability checks. Half of these beneficiaries have signed on since President Obama took office more than three years ago.


These dependent millions are the invisible counterparts of the soup kitchens and bread lines of the 1930s, invisible because they get their checks in the mail. But it doesn't take away from the fact that millions of people who had good private-sector jobs now have to rely on welfare for life support.

There's little doubt that President Obama is responsible for much of this mess. His decisions -- from killing the Keystone XL pipeline, to funding phony "green jobs" at companies like Solyndra, to punishing the health insurance industry -- have resulted in massive private sector job destruction.

Worse, his only claimed success -- "saving GM" -- is turning out to be another disaster. Not only does GM owe American taxpayers upwards of $35 billion, but Forbes reports the company is headed for bankruptcy... again.

Right now, the federal government owns 500,000,000 shares of GM, or about 26% of the company. It would need to get about $53.00/share for these to break even on the bailout, but the stock closed at only $20.21/share on Tuesday...

...In the 1960s, GM averaged a 48.3% share of the U.S. car and truck market. For the first 7 months of 2012, their market share was 18.0%, down from 20.0% for the same period in 2011...


...To help understand why GM keeps losing market share, let’s look at the saga of the Chevy Malibu... The Malibu is GM’s entry in the automobile market’s “D-Segment” [comprised of] mid-size, popularly priced, family sedans, like the Toyota Camry and the Honda Accord.

...At this point, it appears that the 2013 Malibu is not only inferior to the 2012 Volkswagen Passat, it’s not even as good as the car it replaces, the 2012 Chevy Malibu... In their March 2012 issue, Car and Driver published another D-Segment comparison test, pitting the 2013 Chevy Malibu Eco against five competing vehicles. This time, the Malibu came in dead last...

GM, in other words, never fixed its structural problems with the UAW. It never repaired its management team. It never made rational decisions related to the free market (Exhibit A: the Chevy Volt). And therefore it may be circling the drain again.

As GM hemorrhages more cash, a bigger issue lurks for the White House. Overlooked in the aftermath of the unemployment report is this simple truth:

Little-Noticed Fact: Average Job Creation in 2011 Falls Below 2010 Levels, Pointing To a Slowing Economy, Not a Growing One

Obama of course is now claiming he "never told you this was going to be quick or easy," or words to that effect. But he did previously offer a 3 year deadline.


Seems to me that three and a half years ago he thought it would only take three years. Now he's telling us that it'll take four, five, six, seven. Who knows. And as he says this, he says "I never told you any differently."

...I said [earlier]: In 2008, Obama was a man like no other who's ever existed who would Save Mankind.

In 2012, he's runnin' as just a regular guy, just amblin' along, tryin' to do the best he can. Win some, lose some. Needs more time.

In 2008, he was a MASTER OF THE UNIVERSE!

In 2012, he's a victim of circumstance.

He's failed as thoroughly as a president can fail.

By all means, let's hire him up again, and let him fail some more.

Finally, John Hinderaker wonders -- given the unceasing bad economic news and the disastrous policy decisions by the administration both here and abroad -- how this election could even be close.

On paper, given Obama’s record, this election should be a cakewalk for the Republicans. Why isn’t it? I am afraid the answer may be that the country is closer to the point of no return than most of us believed. With over 100 million Americans receiving federal welfare benefits, millions more going on Social Security disability, and many millions on top of that living on entitlement programs–not to mention enormous numbers of public employees–we may have gotten to the point where the government economy is more important, in the short term, than the real economy. My father, the least cynical of men, used to quote a political philosopher to the effect that democracy will work until people figure out they can vote themselves money. I fear that time may have come.

...Maybe this anxiety is misplaced. President Obama has never been able to rise above 47% support in the polls, and perhaps when November comes undecided voters will break against the incumbent, as the conventional wisdom has it. Maybe the election won’t be so close after all. We’d all better hope so. Because, given the rate at which Democrats are frantically adding to the dependency state, another four years of Obama may be enough to tip the balance between the private sector and government dependence once and for all.

I'm not giving in without a fight. Marshal your family members, your friends, your colleagues, your neighbors.

Because if we don't stop the the Cloward-Piven Democrats in November, this country will slide into an economic abyss the likes of which none of us have ever seen before.


Larwyn's Linx: Obama vs. the Constitution

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Nation

Obama vs. the Constitution: Ponnuru
Obama: 'You'll Love Me Even More': WS
Obama Mails It In For Weekly Address On September 11: Cove

The Problem With Sexual ‘Rights’: RSM
A Nation of Sandra Flukes: Steyn
Flashback 9/80: Gallup Had Carter Up 4 Points Over Reagan: GWP

An Overdose of Hope: Taki's Mag
The DNC Vote: God Matters: Virtuous
Obama and the DNC Running on Empty: Clarice

Economy

Hey, Gallup: it'd be a shame if anything happened to your business: RWN
Magic of 2008 Eludes Obama After Flat Convention: Barone
Obama DNC promise to Medicare lasts... 24 hours: WZ

A Map of Obamavania: Lane
California’s Awful Prop. 31: Is This Your Future?: Kurtz
Those Jobless Numbers Are Even Worse Than They Look: Zuckerman

Scandal Central

Dealing With Unfavorable Polls the Chicago Way: MB
Valerie Jarrett's Million-Dollar Security Detail: a Slumlord Protected by Taxpayers: MagNote
FL Democrat exec resigns after claiming Christians want Jews slaughtered: FAM

Climate & Energy

Obama goes full witchcraft by telling voters they 'can do something about' droughts and floods and wildfires: Depot
Good News: Wind Turbines Supposedly Making People Sick: RWN
Two Tornadoes Strike in NYC: AP

Obama Disses Alternative Energy Source: IMAO
Obama's One Million Electric Car Goal: Three Percent Complete: Breitbart
And now, the ultimate in ... science: Soylent (NSFW)

Media

Disturbing Trends at Fox News: Israpundit
Christian Faith of the Founding Fathers: Elohim Reigns
Mr. Obama: A Competent President: Phaedo's Corner

What Will Become of Dirty Debbie?: Ace
How stupid is Joe Scarborough? This stupid: Riehl
DWS attacks Examiner for ‘deliberately’ misquoting her, but here’s the audio: Exam

Slate's "Conservative" Wiegel: When Conservatives Report What MSM Embargoes, It's "Trolling": Ace
Gawker article takes sympathetic look at pedophiles; outraged readers suggest #GawkersNextArticle: Twitchy
Obamanomics: 173K New Food Stamp Recipients Vs. 96K New Jobs: WZ

World

You CAN blame Obama for this: US numb to drumbeat of troop deaths: Riehl
Rejecting the European Project: CityJrnl
Muslim guilty of tossing 3-month old daughter off New Jersey bridge to her death: Creeping

Must See… Daylight: The Story of Obama and Israel: GWP
Canada: The New World Leader?: RWN
Wave of Attacks Kill at Least 44 in Iraq: ABC

Republican Jewish Coalition's rift ad: Matzav
Interpol, Swedish Authorities Help Saudis Hunt Woman Who Converted From Islam: WZ
The forbidden public toilets of Beijing: BBC

Sci-Tech

Amazon caves in, will remove ads from Kindle Fire for $15 fee: Ars
FBI to roll out $1 billion public facial recognition system in 2014: Engadget
Enterprise-D restoration fundraiser: your chance to revive a slice of Star Trek is here: Engadget

Cornucopia

Cats Don't Like Obama: Cube
Dems Warned Against Certifying Obama Eligible For White House: Western
Post D&C Show – After Party Links: Zilla

Image: Bahraini Clerics Reject Catholic Church Construction, Say It's Forbidden In Arabian Peninsula
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: America's Comeback Team

QOTD: "With respect to Sandra Fluke, I think there’s a [more likely scenario] looming. The paperback edition of my book comes out in a week or so, and you can pretty much get the gist of it from the title: After America. For me, the likely scenario isn’t that the Republicans will be terrorizing rape victims or that the Democrats will finally pass the necessary legislation to make contraception available for the contraceptively starved millions crying out for it, but that America will be sliding off the cliff — literally, as Joe Biden would literally say. And when America slides off the cliff it lands with a much bigger thud than Greece or Iceland. I’m not certain that the Republicans will be able to prevent that happening. But I know that the Democrats can’t. America owes more money than anybody has ever owed anyone in the history of the planet. But millions of Americans don’t see it, and millions of those who do see it don’t see it as a problem." --Mark Steyn

Saturday, September 08, 2012

Son, you were going 160 miles an hour OVER THE SPEED LIMIT

Even in Texas, where the speed limit is now 85 MPH on certain highways, could you really drive 160 over the limit?

In a word: yeppers.

Because a 190 mph Cadillac isn’t fast enough... Texas tuning house Hennessey Performance has announced plans to offer a modified Cadillac CTS-V Coupe with an estimated top speed of 242 mph.

The two-ton VR1200 Twin Turbo coupe can reach this epic speed thanks to a 7.0-liter V8 engine with the aforementioned boosters good for 1226 hp and 1,109 lb-ft of torque...


...Hennessey says it will accelerate to 60 mph in 2.9 seconds, cover a quarter mile in 10.2 and break 200 mph in the standing mile.

The brakes and suspension have been upgraded in an attempt to keep up with the car’s newfound prowess, its magnetic ride control dampers retuned by former GM chief test driver John Heinricy, who developed the factory version of the CTS-V.

And, just so everyone knows not to mess with you, the body has been festooned with properly evil-looking carbon fiber additions, including a front splitter that could be used as thresher and a hood extractor that looks like it could move as much air as a nuclear power plant cooling tower.

The price is $295,000, low by 242 mph car standards with its value enhanced by a very limited run of just 12 cars, which means it’s unlikely that you’ll ever see another one coming.

Daddy like.


Bummer: NLRB Loses Court Challenge Over Secret Ballots

Just one unlawful act of many by President Obama this year delivered control of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to his union boss backers. His intent was to stack the board with hard left radicals to make it easier for them to unionize the private sector.

He knew, however, that his extreme picks would never pass the Senate's review, which is the duty assigned it by the nation's founders in the United States Constitution.

Therefore, in an act unprecedented in all of American history, President Obama unilaterally declared the Senate in recess over a long weekend earlier this year (though it clearly was not) and named his radicals through recess appointments.

Fortunately, some of the courts have not been cowed:

A federal government agency [the NLRB] lost its court challenge of an Arizona constitutional amendment that guarantees workers in the state can vote by secret ballot on whether to join a union.


...NLRB Chairman Mark Pearce said Thursday that while he was disappointed by the judge’s dismissal, he was “very pleased that the court recognized that these choices are guaranteed to employees by federal law and cannot be taken away by the states.”

...Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne said in a statement that the judge’s decision is a “stinging rebuke to an outrageous National Labor Relations Board attack” on the sanctity of the secret ballot.

That's right: the radical, hard left Obama NLRB is doing its best to eliminate secret ballot elections. Never mind that unions require photo IDs for their own election votes, as you can see in the photo above.

We all know why the secret ballot is anathema to Democrats: card-check elections allow workers to be intimidated by organizers so that more companies -- whether their workers like it or not -- will become unionized.

Because that's worked out so well for GM, Chrysler, California and Illinois.

Remember in November.


Two can play this game: FAA supervisors reportedly warned employees that a vote for Mitt Romney would mean their jobs

The minor barrier of legality has never been much of a hurdle for this administration:

Senior FAA officials accused of telling workers 'job security' at risk if GOP wins


Two federal agency supervisors allegedly warned employees earlier this year that a Republican takeover in Washington could threaten their jobs -- comments that some workers apparently took as guidance on "how to vote" and that one group claims may have violated federal law.

Two can play this game.

If you own or work in a small business with two or more employees, I would tell your co-workers the truth.


Electing Barack Obama could very well cost you your job.

His naked, destructive agenda of taking from "the rich" (small business owners) and redistributing it will reach ramming speed if he is reelected.

The EPA is poised to publish new, even more onerous regulations on the air we exhale -- CO2 -- in order to control all industrial production in the U.S. If you own a dry-cleaner, a gas station, a laundromat, a convenience store, a machine shop, or virtually any other business, you are guaranteed to come under new, onerous, and expensive regulations.

Energy prices -- gasoline and electricity -- will skyrocket, just as candidate Obama promised in 2008. If you own a fleet of cars or trucks, expect significantly higher expenses.

Obamacare kicks in for real in January, conveniently just after the election, and offers an impressive set of 20 new taxes, including new fees on medical device manufacturers, new taxes and regulations on investment income (including the sale of your house), increased payroll taxes, and new taxes on insurers.

Those are just off the top of my head. If you thought the president had acted lawlessly over the past four years, you ain't seen nothin' yet if he's reelected.

Every small business owner in America should -- correctly -- warn their employees that their jobs are at serious risk if Barack Obama is reelected.


California's Prop. 31: One Small Step for Democrats, One Giant Leap Down the Road to Totalitarianism

Writing in National Review, author Stanley Kurtz describes California's Proposition 31 as "robbing the suburbs to pay for the cities."

Consider it three ominous portents of the radical Left's redistributionist agenda: to force more and more people into urban centers; to reduce mankind's greedy use of energy; and to greatly restrict personal freedom of movement (it's mass transit for you, bubba):

California’s Proposition 31 is the project of a collection of “good government” groups, in particular, California Forward. California Forward says its goal is “fundamental change.” They’re right about that. The change they have in mind, unfortunately, is creating a collection of de facto regional super-governments designed to undercut the political and economic independence of California’s suburbs. The goal is to redistribute suburban tax money to California’s failing cities.

Instead of taking on the mismanagement that is breaking California’s cities, Prop. 31 lets failing cities bail themselves out by raiding the pocketbooks of California’s suburbanites. In the process, Prop. 31 will kill off the system of local government at the root of American liberty.

...How does Prop. 31 work? It allows local governments to join together to form “Strategic Action Plans.” Supposedly, this pooling of local municipal services into a kind of de facto collective regional super-government would be voluntary. In fact, Prop. 31 deploys powerful incentives to effectively force the creation of these regional super-governments. To begin with, municipalities that join regional collectives–and only those municipalities–can effectively waive onerous state laws and regulations by creating their own more lax versions of those rules. Next, Prop. 31 channels a portion of state sales tax revenue to municipalities that join regional governing collectives–and only those municipalities. Finally, Prop. 31 authorizes local governments participating in the regional collectives to pool their property-tax receipts...

...Proposition 31 is an offense against America’s most fundamental concepts of liberty and self-government.

Barack Obama is an ardent supporter of the anti-suburb movement. Just a few weeks ago, "A photo of President Obama was suddenly pulled from the website of the group Building One America."

For more than two decades, Obama and his fellow radical community activists, agitators have been working toward punishing all those people who voted with their feet and fled the cities and left them filled with only poor and minority residents. "Suburbs are for sellouts...For Obama, the suburbs are a defect in the very structure of American life. That is why the president backs his old friends' movement to abolish them."


"'We are battling apartheid in America.' So said Obama's onetime organizing mentor Mike Kruglik in 2005, explaining the philosophy behind his crusade for regional equity. At the the time, Kruglik was directing the regionalist efforts of the Gamaliel Foundation, a national network of community organizations that Obama himself had helped launch in the mid-1980s. Today Kruglik leads the Gamailied offshoot Building One American, which fights for regionalism in partnerships with the Obama White House, although few Americans have any idea that this is the case."

...[Obama and Kruglik] hope to achieve this basic change in America by expanding cities into regions that will all come under the control of the nearest cities. Obama and his allies consider everything about the suburbs to be bad. That's where the money has fled. That's where the SUV's and autos pollute the environment. That's where valuable farmland and forests are absorbed to build more urban sprawl. The suburbanites need to be dragged back into the cities and their love affair with the car crushed.

Mass transit is intended to stop the building of highways in order to help eliminate the use of automobiles.

Lest you think all of this sounds outlandish, I encourage you to tick off the rest of the items on the checklist.


Hat tip: JTT.