Tuesday, September 25, 2012

HE JUST NEEDS MORE TIME: Household incomes fell again in August; have now dropped a shocking 8.2 percent under President Obama

Anyone who wants to give this man four more years seriously needs to have a full psychiatric evaluation (unless they're a campaign bundler, in which case they're simply taking advantage of the President's Solyndra-style payoffs).

In another sign that the economic recovery under President Obama is not producing gains for average Americans, median household incomes fell 1.1% in August to $50,678, according to a report released Tuesday by Sentier Research.

Since the economic recovery started in June 2009, household incomes are down 5.7%, the Sentier data show, and they are down more than 8% since Obama took office.

...Earlier this month, the Census Bureau released its annual report showing that the number of people in poverty was nearly 3 million higher in 2011 than in 2009, an increase of 6%.

That report also found that average incomes for middle- and lower-income households fell in 2011 after adjusting for inflation. They rose only for the wealthiest 20% of households.

I'm guessing those wealthiest 20% include Obama's campaign bundlers who profited from green scams like Solyndra, Abound Solar, and the dozens of other payoffs.

I've found the SCOAMF-o-Meter particularly helpful in educating intelligent Democrats. Drones, on the other hand, are a lost cause. Trying to use facts, logic, reason or arithmetic with them is roughly equivalent to trying to teach calculus to a goldfish.


THE FAIL IS STRONG WITH THIS ONE: Health Care Premiums Skyrocket. Unexpectedly.

On no fewer than 19 separate occasions, President Obama promised his new health care plan -- since dubbed "Obamacare" -- would lower premiums by $2,500 per family, per year.


The results are in. Try and contain your surprise:

John Merline over at Investor’s Business Daily reports that the new Kaiser Family Foundation employee benefits survey reveals that employer-based health insurance premiums have risen a whopping 9.5% in 2011 and another 4.5% so far in 2012, due in large part to the insurance “reforms” of Obamacare such as mandatory coverage of kids to age 26, mandatory loss ratios of 85%+, mandatory free preventive care, etc. So much for President Obama’s pledge to cut health insurance premiums by $2,500 in his first term.

Even worse news? Premium increases will skyrocket in 2014, when the (most expensive) remainder of Obamacare health insurance “reforms” kick in, including the mandate to buy health insurance, elimination of annual and lifetime coverage caps, mandatory community rating bands and prohibition of the use of pre-existing conditions for underwriting.

To get a sense for the problem with trying to cover preexisting conditions, picture the following scenario:

Lindsey Lohan (not the actress, some other made up person) crashes her $106,000 Porsche 911 into a school-bus while drinking from a flask of vodka and texting. Before the police can show up, she purchases full automobile coverage and a $15 million umbrella liability policy from Flo (not the Progressive spokesperson, some other made up insurance pitchman). Moments after getting her policies, she calls the insurer's Claims Department to begin collecting.

Whatever you call that kind of "underwriting", it has nothing at all to do with "insurance". In fact, it's specifically designed to bankrupt insurers and move the country to a Soviet-style, single-payer system.


Play the United Nations Match-the-Quote Game!

It's fun for the whole family!

Simply match the quote to the world leader who said it. The grand prize to the first person with the right answer is a brand new 2012 Mercedes GLK or a $2 off coupon to Cap'n Willie's All-You-Can-Eat Squid Buffet, whichever I have handy.


If you need a hint, check out this article at Twitchy.


Fascists-In-Training Just Knocked Conservative Blogger @NiceDeb Off the Air. Here's How You Can Help!

Conservative blogger Nice Deb at http://nicedeb.wordpress.com just had her blog TOSsed and booted off the air by WordPress.


My guess is that some miscreant, wannabe-fascists on the left reported bogus "Terms of Service" (TOS) violations to get her all-too-accurate commentary kicked off the air.

Don't get "Nice Deb" angry. Her nickname is kinda like calling that Left Tackle "Tiny"

How can you help? Tweet @Wordpress and @WordpressDotCom. Visit the support forums and post a complaint.


Update 21:21ET: Thanks to everyone who helped... NiceDeb is back up!


Larwyn's Linx: 10 Reasons Mitt Will Win

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

Nation

10 Reasons Mitt Will Win: DLim
Obama and Romney Tied in OH Poll... With D+10 Sample!: Nice Deb
Top 10 Obama Excuses: JRubin

Ruh Roh: Elizabeth Warren Practiced Law Without a License?: LI
Pow: Romney web ad features students who voted for Obama: Scoop
Phone Company PAC Funds Anti-Tea Party Democrats: Roll Call

Obama vs. Obama: Sowell
Daily Doom Antidote: Five Clues Obama is Losing: HillBuzz
Skewed and Unskewed Polls: Tatler

Economy

Obama's comfort zone is campaigning, not governing: Barone
Why Romney Will Win: MoneyRunner
Californians flee for better-run states, study finds: Fox

Full Obama tape in 1998: Welfare recipients as majority coalition: DC
Multimillionaire Michelle Obama Still Whining About College Loans: JWF
Coulter: Democrats dropping blacks, moving on to Hispanics: Hawkins

FACT CHECK: Obama Fibs on Medicare, Taxes, Regulations: Foundry
Axelrod in 2005: Adding $3 Trillion To Debt In 4 Years “Madness”: WZ
America's Deadliest And Poorest City About To Get Deadliest-er: ZH

Scandal Central

The Cloward-Piven Strategy Confirmed: Obama Saw Welfare Class As Major Voting Bloc: GWP
‘Fast and Furious’ Whitewash by Justice Department: RWN
Obama, Axelrod and Gun Control: Power Line

Climate & Energy

Joe Manchin, as an Obama Enabler, Is Responsible for West Virginia Coal Industry Job Losses: Bizzy

Media

Shameless, ObamaZombie Media Reaching New Heights in Hackery: Nice Deb
Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s ‘Secret Contract’: Shark Tank
Reuter Cites Radical Leftist Study On Voter ID: S&L

Politifact's Embarrassing Bias: Events
Richard Haass Schools Gullible Andrea Mitchell As She Gushes Over Morsi: NB
Kool-aid Overload: Crawdad Hole

Even MSM Beginning to Notice Obama’s Middle East Failures: Mead
Stephanie Cutter: Women Will Vote For Obama Because They’re Stupid: RS
Pamela Geller Takes CNN To The Woodshed Over Islamic Jihad Ads: Western

Krauthammer: If Romney Called KIDA in Libya Bumps in the Road 'It Would Be a 3-Day Headline': NB
On Polls: "Relax don't do it / When you want to go to it.": AmDigest
Jewish Dems warn Netanyahu to butt out of U.S. election: Hill

World

Obama, Holder approve the release of a major AL Qaeda figure from Gitmo: DC
Staggering: Obama to Cut Nukes by 80% - The Rush Limbaugh Show: Rush
Sharia in USA?: MB

Those Annoying Bumps in the Road: Pundette
Sacking of Benghazi consulate “a catastrophic intelligence loss”: Hot Air
Pentagon orders Islamic sensitivity training for U.S. troops after Afghans murder them: Creeping

Don't Get Distracted by the State Department's "F*** Off" to a Reporter, Focus on the Questions: Instapundit
Something Is Wrong: Ben Stein
The dangerous spin we can expect from Obama at the UN : Bayefsky

Sci-Tech

Foxconn Shuts Factory After 2,000-Employee Brawl Breaks Out: Gizmodo
Facebook Now Knows What You're Buying at Drug Stores: AtlWire
Autographer wearable camera takes the whole taking pictures thing out of taking pictures: Engadget

Cornucopia

HURL! Narcissist in chief Obama on ‘The View’: ‘I’m just supposed to be eye candy for you guys’: Twitchy
Mario Goes Berserk: Dorkly
Howard Stern Finds Obama Voters Liking Obama’s Choice of Black Man Paul Ryan for VP: MagNote

Image: Tehran says new drone can reach most Mideast destinations
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: Support America's Comeback Team

QOTD: "Remember, FOX news is using Karl Rove and Dick Morris as their experts on this matter. Dick Morris of "the election will be between Condi and Hillary" and Rove of "ignore the media GWB, the people will too." Both men have their particular segment of the party they are working for/against. They don't turn that off when they go on Fox. Rove's career will be over if TEA Party types control the party. Morris' vendetta is against the Clinton wing of the Dems. Be wary of anything either man says in those directions." --American Digest

Monday, September 24, 2012

First Air Marshal Obama Leads U.S. Military to its Worst Loss of Air Power Since Vietnam

Not that you'd read any of this in collectible media, mind you:

...the U.S. Marine Corps has suffered its worst air squadron catastrophe since Vietnam, and its prized VMA-211 squadron has taken its worst hit since its defense of Wake Island in World War II.

It happened on September 14, 2012, northwest of the city of Lashkar Gah in southern Afghanistan. A team of fewer than two dozen Taliban fighters attacked the USMC's massive Camp Bastion base there, killing VMA-211 squadron commander Lt. Col. Christopher Raible and destroying or permanently disabling eight of the ten top-of-the-line Harrier AV-8B attack aircraft stationed under him. Out of production for more than a decade, these aircraft can never be replaced.

By the time the smoke cleared, roughly 7% of the total harrier fleet operated by the USMC had been wiped out on a single day by a small force of ground combatants whose most potent weapon was the suicide vest, one of which was used to breach the camp's perimeter fence.

Under Obama, the U.S. has taken 1,491 casualties in Afghanistan, over 70% of the total 2,121 casualties sustained since the fighting there began. Helmland Province, where Camp Bastion is located, has been the grounds for the lion's share of them, twice as many as any other region of the country. Things have gotten so bad that, in the wake of the attack on Camp Bastion, the International Security Assistance Force, which trains Afghan citizens to defend their country against the Islamic fanatics of the Taliban, suspended operations.

Even The Atlantic noticed that the media has virtually blacked out the story.

Ah, those bumps in the road can be so... annoying.

Despite his campaign promises, U.S. casualties have soared rather than falling, and the hand held by the Taliban has strengthened, not weakened. Obama said he would achieve disengagement with honor, but instead he has escalated the violence and carnage without improving our strategic position, and it is clear now that if the Taliban fighters can achieve victories like the one in Camp Bastion against the mighty alliance led by the U.S., then the feeble Afghan army has no chance against it and will surely descend into chaos if the U.S. leaves the field. Then we can expect the terrorist camps to spring right back, targeting the new tower rising over Ground Zero in New York City and many others besides.

And the same can be said of Obama's policy in Iraq. No less a friend of Obama's than The New York Times was forced to admit in a recent article that Obama has fallen "frustratingly short" on his withdrawal objectives in Iraq. He has failed to create a stable successor government, failed to establish security patrol oversight, and failed to establish a training program for Iraqi security forces. The NYT itself admits that the MSM has largely ignored these failures and that Obama has attempted to sweep them under the carpet. The NYT admits that Iraq is now "less stable domestically and less reliable internationally" than Obama promised it would be. And of course, Obama didn't keep his promise to have all U.S. forces out of Iraq by the end of last year, so the U.S. is getting the worst of all possible worlds.

In related, disastrous news (that you also won't be reading in obsolete media), the capture of America's Benghazi consulate represents "a catastrophic intelligence loss". Or "SCOAMF" for short.


The War on Women: Mammogram Edition

One of the political parties does indeed appear to be waging a "War on Women". That would be the Democrat Party and its bastard step-child from hell, Obamacare.

At the June 29, 2012 anti-Obamacare rally hosted by American For Prosperity, blogger Ari Armstrong captured this short video of Dr. Jill Vecchio explaining how Obamacare will force her to practice substandard medicine.

Pay close attention to her words, starting at 1:00:

According to the government, I can only recommend a screening mammogram for women over 50 every other year until 74, then never again. That violates the American Cancer Society guidelines … The American Cancer Society says every year after the age of 40 until the woman no longer wants to have a mammogram.

Screening mammography has been proven to decrease the number of women who die by breast cancer by 30-40% — just screening mammography. These government rules that I will have to abide by will cause me to violate my Hippocratic Oath. And I won’t do it. I will violate their guidelines every day, many times a day. As a result of that … I will be fined, I won’t be paid …

I will not be practicing medicine when this law takes effect. Neither will thousands of other physicians.


Dr. Vecchio also alluded to possible jail sentences, which could be imposed for failing to follow guidelines on the use of mandatory electronic medical records...

Obamacare will force doctors to choose between their patients and their government paymasters. If Obamacare is not repealed, many doctors will “go Galt” and quit medicine, rather than violate their medical consciences and betray their patients’ trust.

Ask yourself: When the doctors who are willing to practice in their patients’ best interests quit medicine, what kind of doctors will remain?

That wasn't a misprint. You read that right. Obamacare explicitly forbids women over the age of 74 from getting mammograms. It violates the American Cancer Society's guidelines for preventive care.

But, whatever you do, don't call these unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats "Death Panels".



EXCLUSIVE FIRST LOOK: President Obama's September Scrapbook

It's all about priorities.


America deserves better, truly.



Tammy Bruce Recaps Mitt Romney's Horrible, Horrible Week

Did I say "Mitt Romney"? My mistake. I meant "Barack Obama's stuttering cluster foxtrot of a miserable week." The highlights?


Historical Analysis Shows Every President Below 50% in Mid-September in the Gallup Poll Has Lost the Election... Obama at 48%.

Romney Beating Obama Among Middle Class Voters By 14 Point Margin

Highlight Reel from Obama’s Disastrous 60 Minutes Interview


Carney Asked Why Obama Has No Meetings At UN, Says He Has “No Details”

Los Angeles Times: Obama meets with ‘The View,’ no foreign leaders during U.N. assembly

Chuck Todd: “Odd” That Obama Won’t Meet With Foreign Leaders At UN

Axelrod Admits Obama Doesn’t Have a Plan to Keep Social Security from Going Broke

Obama’s Cutter: Women “Not Really Concerned” About “What’s Happened Over The Last Four Years”

Obama Campaign Finally Ditches Faux Flag

The fail is strong with this one.

Despite the best efforts of Sixties media, the hard-left Democrat Party is in full meltdown mode. The economy is a disaster and the Middle East is in flames. No amount of spin and cover-ups can prevent the truth from reaching the electorate.

Read the whole thing.


Hat tip: BadBlue News.

Larwyn's Linx: An interesting question with which to start your Monday

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

Nation

An interesting question with which to start your Monday: RS
Romney gives impressive ’60 Minutes’ interview: Twitchy
CBS doesn't air Obama admitting mistakes in campaign ads: WS

Obama Administration’s Contempt for the Law: Sherline
Megyn Kelly Busts David Corn and His Fraudulent Edits: Scoop
'President Has Time for Whoopi Goldberg But Not World Leaders?': NB

Are Justices Uniquely Honest Angels?: RWN
Gibbs: Boy, I hope we can keep up with Romney at the debate: Hot Air
Nancy Pelosi objects to Mitt Romney "mute' ad: Politico

Economy

Obama's Hidden Bread Lines: Loudon
"Red Diaper Baby" Hits Romney for Paying Too Much in Taxes: NRO
70% of Spending Goes to Dependence Programs: Foundry

The Complacency of America: P&F
Obama Campaign Quietly Ditches Its Faux Flag: Power Line
Obama's tax plan will impoverish the middle class: Sentinel

Scandal Central

1979 News Story: Did Saudis Pay Obama’s College Tuition?: Tatler
Breaking: White House Knowingly Gave False Information to Media on Benghazi Terror Attack: GWP
Microsoft accidentally tweets anti-Ann Coulter message to 300,000 followers: Blaze

Climate & Energy

Report: More than 200 coal-fired generators slated for shutdown: CowboyByte
Romney fights back against Obama’s ‘War on Coal’: NetRightDaily
Major Landmark lawsuit filed against the EPA for immoral human experimentation: Watts

Media

The Weirdest Pro-Fascist Progressive Fantasia You'll Ever See?: Ace
MSNBC's Thomas Roberts Laughably Insists Democrats Didn't Control Congress for Two Years of Obama Term: NB
Media More Than Triples Crowd Estimate at Obama Event in Wisconsin: LoneCon

Americans Turn on MSM: What Does It Mean?: Mead
60 Minutes: The Biggest Corrupt Media Organization Ever: HillBuzz
Understanding Unskewedpolls.com — how they factor the media bias out of the current polling: HillBuzz

You Don’t Say, Kirsten Powers!: RSM
Does 1979 newspaper column shed light on 2008 campaign story?: Daily Inter-Lake
President Obama's Weekly Address - an Interpretation: Dinah Lord

World

Rid the World of These Savages: BlackFive
Well, I Guess That Groveling Apology From Obama and Hillary Didn’t Work: JWF
GOP Rep. Louie Gohmert Says Obama Has ‘Helped Jump Start a New Ottoman Empire’: Blaze

Coming up this week: Dhimmitude at the UN, plus The View: Fausta
Chris "Tingles" Matthews Further Slips From Reality; Says Middle East 'Totally Peaceful' For 2,000 Years: Jawa
In Oslo, Muslims threaten mass murder of Jews: MRC TV

Obama Refers to Israel Concern Over Iran as 'Noise': WS
France Set to Implode; Troika Soap Opera; Grappling with Neo-Nazis: Mish
Adobe Acrobat Update Sparks Violent Protests In Muslim World: Cube

Sci-Tech

Here comes everybody: Why AirBnB is so disruptive: GigaOm
“What’s the best way to become a Mac power user after only using PCs for several years?”: LifeHacker
Oh Great, SARS Is Back: AtlWire

Cornucopia

We're Not All That Impressed With This Romney Chap: Cube
The Air is Electric: WTF? Is it something we said?: MOTUS
Rare Footage of Ben Bernanke as a Child: MB

Image: Ron B.
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: Agents of Change: Why I Changed My Vote

QOTD: "It is easy to write a book about being a Navy SEAL, but it is very hard to write an obituary for one...

...To all the Operators here today I give you this charge: Rid the world of those savages. I'll say it again, RID THE WORLD OF THOSE SAVAGES!" --Dorothy Woods, widow of SEAL Ty Woods, killed in Benghazi defending Ambassador Stevens

Sunday, September 23, 2012

A CLEAR PICTURE: UnskewedPolls.com

Well, this qualifies as interesting:

If you haven’t checked it out, please visit UnskewedPolls.com... Okay, so this website factors out the deliberate skewing that the Left is inserting in all the current national polls to give Barack Obama a lead over Mitt Romney when in reality Obama is trailing Romney and losing the election.


The corrupt, vintage media is running this propaganda for three reasons:

• Showing Obama in the lead causes a “bandwagon effect” where low-information voters think to themselves “Obama’s winning, and I like betting on winners, so I’ll vote for him too, I guess since the tee-vee told me I needed to”
• Eeyores in conservative ranks are a skittish, worrisome lot by nature and will seize on any poll with Obama in the lead to collapse onto the ground in tears, screaming “We’re DOOOOOOMED!” because they are gluttons for attention
• The Legion of Gloom (that band of Fifth Column writers at conservative sites and in the media) just loves running these polls with headlines like “Can Romney Still Win?” because Eeyores eat that garbage up like it’s McRib sandwiches, three for $5, and this succeeds in Eeyore-breeding (the process of creating new Eeyores by running nonstop poll-driven headlines that “Romney is losing! Doom is coming!”).

...Do you ever see headlines like this on TV or any of the Left’s sites?

Can Obama still win? Considering he is polling far less than 50% in accurate samples that reflect current voter affiliation in this country, this is the question everyone should be asking right now… is there any way in Hell for Obama to win this, even with massive voter fraud? I think the answer to that is no. Too bad the jackasses on conservative sites fail to ask this question and instead love running “Can Romney still win?” instead.

Will Obama Overcome? No, he won’t. Even here in Illinois, Obama’s ground game is week, he’s not paying out street money to thugs because he doesn’t have the funds available, and Democrats find nothing inspiring or motivational about his campaign...

Does Obama Need A Shakeup? Yes, but it’s too late for that. Do you know that Obama staffers are sending out resumes for their next jobs, post-White House? David Axelrod long ago moved on to other things here in Chicago. He is minimally focused on Obama’s re-election campaign because he knows Obama won’t win... Axelrod left Obama after the 2010 midterms. He did not think he had until 2014 in the White House. THIS SHOULD TELL YOU SOMETHING.

Is Obama Losing? Hell to the Yes. His campaign sends out 5 or 6 emails a day begging for money. Not “asking”. BEGGING. I’ve never seen anything so desperate. I am surprised he has not dragged Sally Struthers out of her house of clutter and junk (she was recently outed as a major hoarder) to make commercials for him begging for money like those old “Feed the Children” spots in the 80s where she’d lay down guilt like it was molasses. Michelle Obama sent emails out asking people to skip their family’s dinners and donate the money to the campaign. Obama asked people to sell their things at yard sales or on Craigslist and give him the money. Sometimes the emails I get from Joe Biden asking me to have dinner with him seem so creepy I want to report him as a romantic stalker. It’s all SO STRANGE and so desperate.

Some of the comments are interesting:

• I live in deep blue Brookline, MA, and my Romney yard sign stands out like a sore thumb, but it hasn’t been stolen yet, and I haven’t seen a single Obama yard sign anywhere. Last time they were everywhere, and almost every other car had an Obama bumper sticker. There are some of those this time, but nowhere near as many.

• NC is considered gone for Obama. He’s still advertising here, but no campaign stops. He and Biden were in NC every fifteen minutes in 08, as were Palin and McCain. The closest campaign stops R/R are in VA. And where in VA? Nearer to DC, the blue strongholds. Want something far more reliable to indicate the state of the race – look at where they are campaigning.

• Here in Ohio, There are NO Obama signs except in front of the Union Halls. Even in the blue parts of the states such as Cleveland, Columbus & Cincinnati, there are few if any signs. College campuses same thing few if any signs. In the suburban & rural parts of the state, NONE. Personally, I think his approval rating in Ohio is about 40%. All the commercials Team Obama & MSM spin have been running in this state are just a waste of money. Voters in this state voted down Obamacare by 2 to 1 margin last November. .Why would they turn around & reelect him. As far as, the debates probably won’t matter in the end. Romney will win Ohio.

• ...to prove the point you are making about polls, I looked up the NJ Governor’s poll from 2009. The Real Clear Politics poll average had Chris Christie winning by a single point. He beat Jon Corzine by a whopping 6 points. Even Rasmussen, who is the most accurate, was off by 3 points... And if you scroll down, just a week to 10 days prior to election day some of the polls had Corzine up by 4 to 5 points.

Tell the media to kiss it. Toss a couple of bucks to America's Comeback Team.


Photo hat tip: Brendon Connelly.

Handy SCOAMF-o-Meter You Can Show Friends, Family, Neighbors

I found this chart, originally produced by John Thune's office, quite helpful:


Share it with any undecided voter you know. Because, as Terresa Monroe-Hamilton explains in a comprehensive post on the economy:

We are in a depression. The only reason the government achieves any plausible deniability with their assertions that “we are not in a depression” is by comparing the “obvious” visuals: we “don’t have bread lines” like they did in the 1930s. No. No, we don’t. Because the “bread lines” of today are concealed electronically.

Read the whole thing.


YOO-HOO, ANTIQUE MEDIA: You figured out yet that everything the White House told you about Benghazi was a lie?

Stephen Hayes does the rundown, which can be summarized as follows:

Ambassador Susan Rice lied on five Sunday talk shows last week, saying that the attack that killed Ambassador Stevens was not "premeditated or preplanned".

Ambassador Susan Rice also lied about Stevens' security, stating that " two of the four Americans who were killed were there providing security."

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney lied that the attacks had nothing to do with the anniversary of 9/11.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton lied as well, indicating that an anti-Islamic film was the cause of the non-existent protests in Benghazi

Hillary's State Department lied; first downplaying the possibility of 9/11 terror attacks and then scrubbing its website to remove its horrific mistake

Clinton also lied to Senate Republicans, claiming they did not have details of the terror attacks when they were instead revealing those details to The New York Times

President Barack Obama also lied, echoing the same falsehoods for days on end

The facts: There was no protest in Benghazi. There was only a planned, premeditated terror attack on the U.S. consulate. The attack was initiated on the anniversary of 9/11. And two heroic ex-Navy SEALs -- who were not part of Ambassador Stevens' security team -- jumped into the fray and died protecting him.

This is a scandal. And even Sixties media is going to have to cover it.


Hat tip: BadBlue News.

ANOTHER DEMOCRAT SUCCESS STORY: Estimate of California's real debt upped from $28 billion to... $335 billion

It must be fun to be a progressive. You get to spend money wildly without regard for who earned that money nor who will have to repay the loans you take out. I refer, of course, to Democrats in general... but also to Blue States like New York, Illinois and -- especially -- California:

Oh look, California is actually $335 billion in debt

The independent State Budget Crisis Tax Force [PDF] has released its analysis of California's finances and found that rather than being a whopping $28 billion in debt, as Gov. Jerry Brown alleged with he came to office, the state is actually a nearly unfathomable $335 billion debt. Brown called it a "wall," as the New York Times noted. But it's really more like a dozen walls. All stacked on top of each other to make a mega-wall that blocks out the Sun. 

This is not an exaggeration. Californian's total level of debt, on an off the books, is pushing a fifth of the total annual economic output of the state, which is about $2 trillion.


Some of the usual suspects are responsible for this: overspending and undertaxing during boom times, colossal pension liabilities, taking on too much debt. But the report zeroed in on ... a California tax system that relies far too much on the incomes of the wealthy, and in particular on income derived from capital gains, or the sale of stocks, bonds, and other assets...

...new taxes will be approved or disapproved by California voters in November, via the ballot process. But the underlying problem of a tax structure that's exposed to boom-and-bust asset markets, from which the wealthy derive most of their income, remains... There is no easy way to change this, except to build an economy in California where a stable middle class can contribute more substantially to the tax coffers and have enough earnings to spend at a level that can enable sales taxes to address imbalances. 

Until spending and outlandish union contracts are reined in, California's efforts to tax its way out of the debt crisis are guaranteed to fail. Sucking more money from the productive sector to fund an increasingly out-of-control government can't succeed and won't succeed. It will simply drive more of the productive class away.

And the dichotomy of how the Left behaves with its own money versus how it treats the taxpayers' funds is best explained by Mark Levin.


MY GOODNESS: That Video Kerfuffle Really Took a Toll

Not. Gallup's latest polling shows that the race is deadlocked:


The Tatler adds: "Also, this is registered voters. Likely voters probably favors Romney."



Larwyn's Linx: Obama’s Unfulfilled Promise of Change

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

Nation

Obama’s Unfulfilled Promise of Change: Barone
Obama's Dangerous and Disastrous Presidency: Hillyer
When Exactly Did America Cease To Be A Republic?: Western

Historically, Obama Isn't in Strong Shape: Cost
Permanent Spin: Hayes
State Dept. refused Senate briefing on Libya, given to NYT instead: Hill

Justice Dept. Used Enemies List to Attack Critics, Including Me: Foundry
Obama Permanently Out to Lunch: RS
Finish hard, and fight through the finish line: LI

Economy

Top 10 Bad Economic Signs for Obama: Events
U.S. Tipping Point: 51% of Households Now Pay No Income Taxes: CFIF
Former ECB Chief Economist Says ECB Is In Panic: ZH

QE3: The Whole US Economy Is Going To Implode: Peter Schiff
Man Charged With Redistributing Wealth From Obama HQ: JWF
Run On Banks Would Make Fiscal Cliff Look Like Speed Bump: Forbes

"What's Next?": Simon Johnson Explains The Doomsday Cycle: ZH
Suicide Now Bigger Killer Than Cars as Economy Takes Toll: DailyMail
Top 10 things to tell President Obama to get him to read Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations: No Oil for Pacifists

Climate & Energy

Dem slams Obama on EPA rules, coal: Hill
Energy Dept. Spends $10 Million on Water Turbine to Power 25 Houses: Foundry
A parting shot in the war on coal: Hot Air

Media

Sick: CNN admits concealing critical evidence in Ambassador Stevens’ murder: Twitchy
Four in Ten Newspaper Jobs Have Disappeared in the last Ten Years: AIM
"Treat the Press as Enemy Collaborators.": SSI

Frank Marshall Davis, Jr.: AT
Howard Dean: Yeah, Harry Reid has some credibility issues now, huh?: Hot Air
This stupid gun writer needs to get himself a dictionary.: SSI

World

Egypt's Mohamed Morsi Dictates U.S. Foreign Policy to the Obama White House: AmPower
Free Speech Isn't the Problem: Goldberg
Truth and Consequences: Godin

How to Handle a Scandal - Lessons in Futility: Elephant
Obama to Condemn Christian Filmmaker Before United Nations: Breitbart
Iranian commander: Israel-Iran war inevitable: JPost

CAIR Rep: Violence Shows It's America That Needs to Change: IPT
Bachmann-Clinton Showdown over Blind Sheikh: FPM
The "Innocence Of Dogs" Causes Howls Of Protests; Obama Issues Apology: Wolf Howling

Sci-Tech

Top 5 Mobile Apps for the Techie Traveler: SocMedToday
11-year-old wins $20,000 at AT&T hackathon for creating app that discourages texting while driving: Engadget
“The Story of Computers”, 1970: Retronaut

Cornucopia

The astounding coincidence of Barack Obama’s name: iOTW
The Decline of Manliness in All Sorts of Things: RWN
Handy #ClaireMcCaskillSlogans remind us the Missouri race isn’t over: Twitchy

Image: Retronaut
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: Support America's Comeback Team

QOTD: "With the Middle East now more hostile to U.S. interests than ever, the 'Arab Spring' has become a major political liability for the president. Try as he may, he can't distance himself from it.

Betraying his frustration with Cairo's Muslim Brotherhood, which egged on U.S. embassy rioters, President Obama said, "I don't think we would consider them an ally, but we don't consider them an enemy."

But in a May 2011 speech at the State Department, Obama essentially took credit for Islamists' rise to power as part of his broader Mideast strategy to help free them from the "repression" of despots, while ending their "suspicion" and "mistrust" of America from the war on terror.

"That's why, two years ago in Cairo," the president expounded, "I began our engagement based upon mutual interests and mutual respect."

The main beneficiary of his "engagement" was the radical Muslim Brotherhood, which has called for jihad against America and the destruction of Israel. The main loser was steady U.S. ally Hosni Mubarak." --IBD

Saturday, September 22, 2012

Ninety percent rayon! Very nice.

Damn - that's a FINE T-shirt!

Want to express your outrage with Sixties media? Anthem Studios has created one heck of a T-shirt that tells old media they can kiss it.


Thanks to iOwnTheWorld for the artwork and BadBlue.com for replacing newspapers.


Good News: Obama To Trash First Amendment in Speech to U.N.

How else would you interpret this story?

Obama to Condemn Christian Filmmaker Before United Nations


Not only are we seeing the White House and State Department call more attention to the Mohammed-mocking "Innocence of Muslims" than any terrorist network ever could've hoped for, but the President's indefensible scapegoating of the film and filmmaker to draw attention and blame away from U.S. security failures apparently knows no bounds.

Next week, Obama will denounce the film in a speech before the United Nations General Assembly:

"As he has in recent days, the President will make it clear that we reject the views in this video, while also underscoring that violence is never acceptable[.]"

As Obama's appalling policy of disengaging in the Middle East comes to fruition in the form of the region exploding and al-Qaeda's targeted assassination of an American ambassador -- the media spen[t] two weeks savaging Mitt Romney and directing our sorrow, rage, and helplessness on [a filmmaker].

For weeks this administration, aided and abetted by The State Media, has shamelessly lied to us about what happened in Libya. Moreover, in order to cover up and distract for unforgivable security lapses, this hapless filmmaker has been targeted for all of the blame -- certainly more blame than the Administration's failure to secure a consulate on 9/11 (of all days), but even more blame than the actual murderers.

And now, even though we know the truth about what really happened in Libya, it won't stop. It will never stop. Because Obama knows his media will never make him pay a political price for lying and scapegoating...

And so, next week, as Obama condemns this film, and therefore the American ideal of freedom of speech, before the entire world -- all in an effort to quadruple-down on a brazen lie that's already been exposed as such -- it will truly be the ultimate Big Brother moment of this presidency.

Not only has the administration lied about and covered up its failures in Libya, but today The Hill reported something even more bizarre:

Senate Republicans are furious the Obama administration rebuffed their attempts to learn details of the Benghazi attack, only to give the coveted information to The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.

Senators say they were rebuffed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton when they pressed for more information about the attack that killed U.S. envoy Christopher Stephens in Libya.

“That is the most useless, worthless briefing I have attended in a long time,” Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) told reporters after the closed-door session.

GOP lawmakers were incensed to find many of the details they tried to learn Thursday were in a front-page article in The Times the following morning.

That's right: the "President of All the People" gives better intelligence briefings to The New York Times than to Republican Senators.

Circulate this far and wide. November is coming.


Hat tip: BadBlue News Service.

My time in the 11th circle of hell, otherwise known as trying to get customer service from the cable company

The terms customer service and cable company go together about as well as Robb Stark and Cersei Lannister. Which, if you don't watch Game of Thrones, means they go together like the Bears and the Packers.

After more than 15 years of utilizing the fine, upstanding services of my cable provider, the latest outage debacle drove me over the edge. It was the final straw. It broke the camel's back. It was the end of the line. The final nail in the coffin. And other metaphors that indicate just how pissed off I was.

Here's what transpired:

Sunday 9:00am - All cable services go out. Every box in the Blog-Bunker™ is suddenly unable to connect. I initiate a web-chat with a representative on the well-designed support website (that's sarcasm - finding customer support is roughly akin to a Where's Waldo). The rep indicates that indeed, there is an outage in the area.

Sunday 9:00pm - Still assuming the neighborhood is experiencing an outage, all of the cable boxes remain dead.

Monday 6:00pm - Return from work. Cable is still out. Now questioning whether this is a neighborhood outage. I ask a neighbor if they are experiencing any issues. Nope. There's been no outage at all on our street. The web-chat representative "feedback" was completely bogus.

Monday 8:30pm - After at least four separate calls to, and web chats with, customer service -- and several escalations with "managers" -- the fastest anyone can get to our neighborhood is... wait for it... eight (8) days from now. I believe cable repair service at Bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad was faster. We put in our request, with the oh-so-fine-grained repair window of sometime, eight days from now. Despite several threats to cancel service, no earlier date was offered.

Monday 8:55pm - After ruminating on the conversations with "customer service", I've decided I've had enough. After more than 15 years of various debacles, this is finally the last straw. I decide that I no longer deserve the luxurious, 12-star customer service offered by the cable company.

Monday 9:03pm - I call the customer cancellation line. After a short delay; I am told that... wait for it... canceling service can only be accomplished prior to 8:30pm or after 9:00am. Can I put a name in a queue to be called on my cell when they open in the morning? The rep almost laughs in my face. Aren't government-regulated monopolies super?

Tuesday 12:18pm - I enter the "service downgrade" queue for my area.

Tuesday 12:25am - I get an agent, who tells me that her phone system is acting up and she can't access my information because she's in the wrong region of the country to service the account. Perfect. She says they've been having phone system routing problems -- do tell? -- and she will transfer me to the correct queue.

Tuesday 12:28am - The new rep, who I believe is speaking into a diving mask, says that she can't perform any transactions at the moment. The systems, it would seem, are down, and she is unable to make changes. I will have to call back. Is there an estimated time that the systems will be back up? I'll give you one guess and "yes" isn't it.

Tuesday 07:05pm - I enter the cancellation queue; and, as you might expect, they're not going to make it easy to cancel services.

Tuesday 07:29pm - After 15 minutes, I am able to convince the very nice customer retention specialist that I really do want to quit the cable service. Amazingly, they can schedule the home visit and shutdown this coming SUNDAY within a 1-HOUR WINDOW.

Stunning. They can show up within a 1-hour window on a Sunday to turn the service off. To fix something? Not so much.

I did a quick, back-of-the-napkin estimate and discovered that I've probably spent about $36,000 with the company over the last 15 or so years. So the lifetime value of a typical customer is significant.

In fact, the company should call their "customer service" area the "customer annoyance" department, because I missed out on the actual "service" part and they seem to treat customers as a bother than anything else.

I'm interested in your opinions. Am I the one being unreasonable here?

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The most terrifying aspect of this debacle? There's at least a tiny bit of competition when it comes to television services. You can opt for DirecTV or Dish Network. You can get a broadband Internet connection and try Roku or a similar, IP-based service. Some lucky consumers even have two cable providers.

Now I ask you: can you imagine the customer service you'll get from the government-run healthcare system after Obamacare takes hold? Imagine the DMV the Social Security Office, only without the peppy and motivated employees. Faceless, nameless bureaucrats will be providing "customer service" and, thanks to civil service and public sector unions, firing a bad employee will require an Act of Congress.

When Obamacare is finished rolling out, there won't be any insurance companies left. A company forced to cover a pre-existing condition is somewhat akin to a home insurer having to cover a house after it's been set afire. Whatever you may call it, it's not insurance.

I have seen the future of health care: it's like cable customer service, only with your family's life at stake.


Unmasking Obama: A Special Report

Who is Barack Obama? A must-read special report by The Washington Examiner is excerpted and illustrated below.


The Image and the Reality



Over the years and in two autobiographies, Obama has presented himself to the world as many things, including radical community organizer, idealistic civil rights lawyer, dynamic reformer in the Illinois and U.S. senates, and, finally, the cool presidential voice of postpartisan hope and change...

...Beyond the spin and the polls, a starkly different picture emerges. It is a portrait of a man quite unlike his image, not a visionary reformer but rather a classic Chicago machine pol who thrives on rewarding himself and his friends with the spoils of public office, and who uses his position to punish his enemies.

Peter Schweizer captures this other Obama with a bracing statistic in his book "Throw Them All Out," published last year...

In the Obama economic stimulus program's Department of Energy loans, companies owned and run by Obama contributors and friends, like Solyndra's George Kaiser, received $16.4 billion. Those not linked to the president got only $4.1 billion. The Energy Department is far from the only federal program in which favoritism has heavily influenced federal grants.

To paraphrase Tammany Hall's George Washington Plunkitt, Obama has seen his opportunities and taken them, over and over.

A Childhood of Privilege, not Hardship



First lady Michelle Obama told the Democratic National Convention that "Barack and I were both raised by families who didn't have much in the way of money or material possessions."

But... Obama lived in a "well-off neighborhood near the University of Hawaii where Barry, as he was known, resided in a comfortable home with his mother and her parents before she took him to Indonesia."

Tellingly, Obama has never lived in a black neighborhood. Maraniss reported in his book that when leftist activist Jerry Kellman interviewed Obama for a community organizing job in Chicago, he asked Obama how he felt about living and working in the black community for the first time in his life.

Obama accepted the job but chose not to live among those he would be organizing. Instead, he commuted 90 minutes each way daily from his apartment in Chicago's famous Hyde Park to the Altgeld Gardens housing project where he worked...

A Pattern of Minimal Performance



In the state Senate during the same years he was lecturing, Obama voted "present" nearly 130 times, the most of any legislator in the chamber.

When then-Sen. Hillary Clinton made Obama's state Senate voting record an issue in their Democratic presidential primary contest in 2007, the New York Times said it found at least 36 instances when Obama was the lone "present" vote or was one of six or fewer lawmakers casting that vote.

And during his lone term as a U.S. senator, according to Gov Track.us: "From Jan 2005 to Oct 2008, Obama missed 314 of 1300 recorded or roll call votes, which is 24.0%. This is worse than the median of 2.4%."

The 1997 Speech That Launched Obama



Few doubt that Barack Obama's stirring oration before the 2004 Democratic National Convention vaulted him into the national limelight... But another, less-heralded Obama address -- delivered on Valentine's Day 1997 at First Chicago Bank -- was equally essential to his later successes. Without it, it is doubtful that he would have ever been in position to assume so prominent a role in 2004.

...people interviewed by the Examiner who heard him speak say Obama laid out a powerful vision for a political strategy that ultimately reshaped housing activism on the Left, first in Chicago and then nationwide...

...He was drawing from the same well that had produced the Community Reinvestment Act, relaxed federal standards for mortgage qualifications, and creative financial packaging of subprime loans, but doing so in a manner uniquely matched to conditions on the political ground of Chicago...

Chicago thus became the proving ground for Obama's vision, which, according to LISC spokesman Joel Bookman, "really changed the direction of community development in Chicago and ultimately nationally." ... It was an irresistible combination of money, politics and idealism that also offered endless opportunities for greed and tragic abuse of the poor.

For the Slumlord's Defense, Barack Obama, Esq.



In March 1994, a year before "Dreams" was published, Obama was the lead defense attorney on an obscure case in Cook County Court that has heretofore escaped examination by the national media.

In this case, Obama defended a Chicago slumlord and powerful political ally who was charged with a long list of offenses against poor residents... Brazier's WPIC had failed for nearly a month to supply heat and running water for the complex's 15 crumbling apartments. On Jan. 18, 1994, the day the heat went off, Chicago's official high temperature was 11 below zero, the day after it was 19 below... Even worse, the residents were then ordered to leave the WPIC complex in the winter chill without the due process they would have been afforded by an eviction procedure.

...In court documents, Daniel W. Weil, commissioner of Chicago's Buildings Department, slammed WPIC for multiple municipal code violations, including "failure to maintain adequate heat," failure "to provide every family unit with approved heating facilities," and "failure to provide adequate" supplies of either hot or cold running water.

...Obama also did legal work involved in the establishment of four Brazier-Rezko limited partnerships: Woodlawn Partners Ltd., Central Woodlawn Partnership, KRMB Limited Partnership and Woodlawn Drexel Ltd. Partnership. Rezko is now serving a 10-year federal prison sentence for fraud and attempted bribery on state government contracts.

Obama's Harshest Critics on the Left



Robert Stark, director of the liberal Harold Washington Institute for Research and Policy Studies, told the Examiner that the demolition effort required to clear the way for the new affordable-housing projects advocated by Obama was disastrous for low-income blacks on Chicago's South Side...

...Obama's toughest critic on the Left, however, was the late Robert Fitch. Fitch, a radical leftist and freelance journalist who specialized in urban politics and economics, said Obama surrounded himself with people who got rich on Chicago's $1.6 billion neighborhood demolition program known officially as the Plan for Transformation.

At least 25,000 low-income apartments in Chicago were destroyed under the program, which forced thousands of black families -- many of whom lived in Obama's state Senate district -- to move out of the city. Obama's political allies directed the effort.

"What we see is that the Chicago core of the Obama coalition is made up of blacks who've moved up by moving poor blacks out of the community," Fitch charged in a 2008 speech before the Harlem Tenants Association... Obama sold out to a corrupt Chicago establishment. "Obama's political base comes primarily from Chicago FIRE -- the finance, insurance and real estate industry," he said.

...Obama's political endorsements also worried liberal reformers concerned about good government. Cynthia Canary, former head of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, recalled Obama's endorsement of corrupt officials like the imprisoned Gov. Rod Blagojevich and Chicago City Council members.

The Poor People Obama Left Behind



Four years after Barack Obama's historic election as president, little seems to have changed for the African-American communities on Chicago's South Side. The lack of change -- or the sense that these neighborhoods are getting worse -- is eroding the president's standing among African-Americans in his hometown.

In 2011, Chicago suffered the third-highest black jobless rate among the nation's major metropolitan areas, at 19 percent, according to the liberal Economic Policy Institute... Chicago still lacks enough affordable housing. Not only did the city demolish 25,000 public housing units in the previous decade, it also experienced more than 80,000 foreclosures, mainly in low-income neighborhoods.

Chicago "black nationalist" Eddie Read contends Obama has never fought for the black community. "I would not honestly tag Obama as a fighter for black people, black agenda or black issues," Read told The Washington Examiner... After Obama's election, Read said, "I hoped that it would change."

...D'Anna Carter, a neighborhood activist in Chicago's Woodlawn section, singled out the Habitat Co., which was run by Jarrett, now Obama's closest White House adviser... "They were never interested in poor people," she told the Examiner. "They would sell poor people a bill of goods," she said bitterly in an interview.

The Myth of Obama as State Senate Reformer



An Examiner review of a reform-minded state legislative caucus known as the "Fab Five" from 1995 to 2000 identified 22 proposals, including sweeping government procurement reforms like requiring open, competitive bidding for state contracts. Obama missed votes on several of the proposals, and those he supported were approved unanimously.

"He was nowhere to be found on reform," Fab Fiver Chris Lauzen told the Examiner. "I reached out to Barack. My wife and I took Barack and Michelle to dinner."

...Some of Obama's reluctance about the Fab Five may have stemmed from his occasional golf outings and lunches with the state's top gambling lobbyist, Alfred G. Ronan. Ronan was well-known in Illinois political circles for passing out cash contributions to supporters off the floor of the legislative chambers. Obama himself took $10,500 from Ronan and changed his position on a gambling bill afterward, according to the Los Angeles Times...

Cynthia Canary, former director of the largest statewide reform organization, said Obama's endorsement of Rod Blagojevich and other Daley allies worried her... "Obama has made a number of endorsements, not just the Blagojevich one -- he gave a number for the Chicago City Council that were complete whack jobs. I have never understood it or why he felt he needed to it," she said.

Obama's State Pension Scandal



State Sen. Barack Obama and members of an Illinois lobbying group representing politically connected minority-owned businesses launched a campaign in 2000 to pressure state pension funds to help their friends and donors... Obama and his cohorts targeted state officials in charge of pension funds for teachers, police and firemen, and regular government employees.

Much as the Rev. Jesse Jackson had been doing for years to Fortune 500 corporations, Obama and the Alliance of Business Leaders & Entrepreneurs, or ABLE, demanded that the officials set aside at least 15 percent of pension assets for management by minority-owned investment companies...

The campaign succeeded in early 2001 when more than $500 million from the pension funds was transferred to Ariel and Holland... Ariel's assets increased dramatically following the infusion from the pension funds, rising from $2.8 billion to $15 billion between 1999 and 2002, according to the firm's Securities and Exchange Commission filings.

John Rogers, Ariel Capital Management's CEO, and James Reynolds, founder of Loop Capital, were ABLE leaders and longtime Obama supporters... Even so, things did not go well a few years later. Ariel and Holland were terminated by ISBI and SURS for what pension board officials described as "underperformance."

Rogers also wasn't helped when U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald revealed in federal court proceedings that Rogers had given $22,500 to bundler Tony Rezko, who was later convicted of influence peddling... Rogers' money was destined for the campaign of Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who, like Rezko, is now serving a federal prison sentence for public corruption. No charges were ever filed against Rogers in connection with the $22,500.

Rogers remains an Obama confidant. He has visited the White House at least 37 times since Obama's 2009 inauguration for both business and social meetings.


Based upon: Washington Examiner Special Report - The Obama You Don't Know. This is Part I of the report. Stay tuned for Part II.