Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Larwyn's Linx: Lyndon McCain Meets Woodrow Obama

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Nation

Lyndon McCain Meets Woodrow Obama: Jeffrey Lord
Putin Didn't Save Obama, He Beat Him: Lee Smith
Total Recall: Gun-Grabbing Democrats Recalled in CO: Michelle Malkin

The ‘I Saw Something Nasty In The Woodshed’ Speech: HayRide
9/11: America’s Unfinished Business: Michelle Malkin
Remembering The 9/11 Massacre: The First One: DiploMad

No, John Boehner Really Won't Defund Obamacare: Susan Jones, CNS
Bikers arrive in DC! Traffic cams cover thunder live: BPR
Countdown to Gun, Magazine & Ammo Confiscation in California: AmmoLand

The Rest of America Is Coming to DC: Act Well Your Part
Here They Come: 2 Million Bikers On Their Way to DC: Scoop
Weiner flips the bird to journos as he drives away from election loss: Twitchy

Economy

ObamaCare Medical Device Tax Kills 1,000 Jobs in Michigan: GWP
‘Teachers for Social Justice’ pamphlet riddled with spelling errors: EAG
Obama Judge: Hijab Ban Violates Muslim Civil Rights: JW

Public Pensions Are Even Deeper In Debt Than Previously Thought: MPN
Net Neutrality Oral Argument: Stuart Benjamin, Volokh
MORGAN STANLEY: Clients Preparing For Loss Of Central Bank Control: SFGate

Scandal Central

Kerry Not ‘Prepared’ to Let Congress Interview Benghazi Survivors: Jason Howerton
Reflections on Benghazi: Samuel S. Stanton
Issa threatens to compel Benghazi wounded to testify: The Hill

Media

Assad tells Charlie Rose: Obama runs a ´social media administration´.: Lucianne
Krauthammer: Obama’s Syria address “one of the most odd presidential speeches ever delivered”: Scoop
CNN's Van Jones Organized Rally to Celebrate 9/11 Terrorists on 9/12/01: Sentinel

RFK Jr. diary revealed: Jackson, Sharpton give me creeps, make me feel dirty: BPR
‘Chillax, Buddy!’: Anthony Weiner Does Epic MSNBC Interview Hours Before Polls Open: Jill Colvin, Politicker
New York Times CEO: We’re Not Twitter: Don Irvine, AIM

World

Shouldn't Putin Address Us Tonight?: Rush Limbaugh
Doctors Flee Single-Payer Hungary to Earn Enough to Survive: Breitbart
Eyewitness Places ICNA Official at Bangladesh Mass Killings: IPT

Two Former Hostages of Syrian Rebels Go Against the Narrative: Gates of Vienna
Death by a Thousand Cuts as Obama Administration’s Whittles Away Our Rights: AmmoLand
Toy company creates 'crystal meth lab' for children with Breaking Bad play sets: Daily Mail

Sci-Tech

The feds pay for 60 percent of Tor’s development. Can users trust it?: Brian Fung
What to do (and what not to do) when your $1B system-wide EHR fails: Erin McCann, Healthcare IT News
Body armor roundup: What's new in ballistic protection products?: PoliceOne

Cornucopia

We put our plans for a Petite Military Strike (PMS) on hold for now.: MOTUS
Cradle To Grave = Death Of Liberty: 90 Miles
Oh? Obama's on? I'm busy watching something much more interesting...: Feral Irishman

Image: @PJStrikeForce
Sponsored by: 10,000 Calls For Steve Lonegan for U.S. Senate – Everyone Must Help

QOTD: "The president’s supporters and publicists in the press know how to package Obama’s weakness. The fear that everyone else in the world smells emanating from him like a wounded animal is really just humility and modesty—fitting attributes for the leader of a superpower that needs to make amends for having meddled so long in the affairs of others. And besides, this talk of strength and weakness is juvenile—the world is not a schoolyard. And so Obama ignored Putin’s slights and held his head high. This revealed to Putin Obama’s real liability, his vanity. Obama always needs to look good. He will embrace defeat so long as he can still imagine himself a handsome princeling. After pushing Obama around for five years, now Putin escorts him out of the Middle East. Here, friend, take my hand. Let me help you to the sidelines...

Putin’s goal is to replace the United States as the regional power broker... What good are American aircraft carriers if you don’t have the will to use them? Putin will use anything he has to win, while Obama is looking for a reason not to fire a few cruise missiles into the Syrian desert. There is absolutely no chance Obama would risk a shooting war with Iran.

....Obama can relax now and imagine that he has finally earned his Nobel Peace Prize and that that sound he hears is the tide of war receding... In fact, it is the sound of American allies around the world—the Poles and Czechs, the Japanese and the South Koreans, the Saudis, Jordanians and Israelis, among others—gnashing their teeth. They now see that they are on their own, and that the word of the United States means nothing." --Lee Smith

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

COOL GRAPHIC: Where NFL Quarterbacks Throw, Visualized

Jamie Condliffe at Gizmodo passes along this way-cool illustration of NFL passes by Kirk Goldsberry:


It’s very rare for an NFL quarterback to complete a pass in which the intended receiver is standing more than 45 yards from the line of scrimmage. In fact, NFL quarterbacks only attempted 175 such throws during the entire regular season last year, and only 48 resulted in completions. Joe Flacco was responsible for six of them.

Until recently, this kind of factoid was hard to uncover, but like every other sport, football’s analytics are evolving quickly. Thanks to new forms of data and emerging kinds of analyses, teams, media, and fans are gaining new insights into on-field performances. I have been exploring one such data set, a giant collection of highly detailed passing data created and maintained by ESPN’s Stats & Information group...

...During the 2012 regular season, NFL quarterbacks attempted more than 19,000 passes and completed more than 11,500; the chart above shows the location of nearly every pass. Dots are placed in spots nearby the receiver or the intended receiver. In the cases of out-of-bounds throwaways, those dots are placed at the sideline near where the ball went out of bounds. The color of the dot corresponds to the league’s overall completion percentage in that zone...

If you're a football fan, check out all the graphs. The level of detail will blow your mind and -- not that you need it -- help you kick butt in Fantasy Football.


Hat tip: BadBlue Tech News.

WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE? One Year Later, the Families of the Benghazi Dead and Wounded Want Answers

Guest post by Investors Business Daily


Scandal: As cruise missiles are readied to aid Syria's al-Qaida-linked rebels, the president has yet to keep a promise to avenge the Benghazi dead and bring the killers to justice.

A year has passed since Ambassador Christopher Stevens, Glen Doherty, Sean Smith and Ty Woods were murdered in a Sept. 11 terrorist attack on our diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya.

A month later, Obama said of the attack that "my biggest priority now is bringing those folks to justice, and I think the American people have seen that's a commitment I'll always keep."

That depends on what he means by "bringing them to justice." It's not like we don't know who they are or we have failed to finger the suspects. As an Associated Press report detailed in May:

"The U.S. has identified five men who might be responsible for the attack on the diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, last year, and has enough evidence to justify seizing them by military force as suspected terrorists, officials say. But there isn't enough proof to try them in a U.S. civilian court as the Obama administration prefers."

So we essentially do nothing while the FBI "continues to investigate." The status of that investigation came up over the weekend as "Fox News Sunday" host Chris Wallace invoked the approaching first anniversary of the attack and asked White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough why the perpetrators hadn't been brought to justice.

Wallace was especially interested in why the U.S. had not brought in Ahmed abu Khattala, who has been charged with the crime but not arrested, despite having given interviews to several news outlets.

"Why is it that reporters seem to be able to find this guy, who the government is charging with involvement in Benghazi, but law enforcement can't find him?" Wallace asked. "It's been a year, sir."

SENDING A MESSAGE: The Comic Strip

Stilton Jarlsberg of Hopenchange Cartoons is as talented an illustrator and writer that we have operating today. This is his latest.

[Regarding] today's cartoon, all we'll say is that if you want to send a message to someone, then you should send them the message - not send it to a random neighbor.

But sadly, we think that Iran has already received Barack Obama's "message" loud and clear: he will not prevent either their acquistion or use of nukes.

Because this president believes that Middle East "peace" will only be achieved when the entire Middle East is under the dictatorial control of radical Islam. And he seems to be doing everything possible to make it happen.

[And t]o make absolutely certain that the "message to Iran" will be unmistakably clear, John Kerry has just announced that any military action taken against Syria for using prohibited weapons will be "unbelievably small."  No doubt to match a foreign policy which is unbelievably stupid.

Bookmark Stilton's site. This guy's the real deal.


Hat tip: R.F.

Hey, Old Media Clowns: If We're Really In a "Recovery", Why Is One-Sixth of the U.S. on Food Stamps?

You can't browse a vintage media newspaper or website without seeing the assertion that the U.S. is in "a recovery".

Really? How so?

The Labor Force Participation Rate just hit a 34-year low.

And food stamp usage continues to explode, the product of rampant fraud, Obamacare's destruction of full-time employment, and the fact that welfare pays better than work.

Food-stamp use grew 2.3% in June from a year earlier, with nearly one-sixth of the U.S. population receiving benefits.

Illinois showed the largest enrollment increase from last year with a 14.7% gain, according to Agriculture Department data released Friday. Wyoming was in second place, with rolls up 11.1% since the same time last year. Utah experienced the largest annual decline in food-stamp use, dropping 11.2%, among a dozen states to post a decrease. (Enrollment also decreased in Arizona, Idaho, Maine, Michigan, Missouri, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oregon, South Carolina, Pennsylvania and Washington.)

One of the largest social safety net programs in the United States, food stamps – formally known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP – expanded substantially during and after the recession, with enrollment rising about 70% from 2007 to 2011. At the same time, the government also temporarily increased benefits and allowed users in the hardest-hit areas to receive aid for longer-than-usual periods of time. The average monthly benefit was $133 last year.

Critics clamor against what they see as a disturbing rise in government dependency. But new economic research suggests the program’s expansion isn’t alarming and can, in fact, be explained by business cycles.


Yo, antique media clowns: it's called The Cloward-Piven Strategy. Look it up. That is, if you want to stop retyping press releases from the White House and doing actual reporting for a change.

I know, I'm a dreamer.


Hat tip: BadBlue News.

Warning - Obamacare May Be Hazardous to Your Health: Heritage Unveils Massive Times Square Billboard

Founded in 1973, The Heritage Foundation is the single most important legislative research and educational institution in the world. And it is doing yeoman's work educating Americans on the unfolding catastrophe called "Obamacare".

We’ve talked a lot about Obamacare’s costs—how it will hurt the economy, kill jobs, and cost you and your family more when you pay for health care.

But there’s an even more important cost: your health.

Obamacare will affect the quality of care in this country. It will limit the choices we have in doctors, hospitals, and treatments. People are already learning that their trusted doctors aren’t going to be available to them in the new insurance plans Obamacare is forcing them into.

And disrupting your relationship with your doctor is not how health care reform should be.

...Our new billboard in the heart of New York City will be installed this week to get people thinking and to raise awareness about the need to stop Obamacare.

Why? Because we don’t want to see people lose their health coverage—and the doctors they trust.

We don’t want to see access to treatments and procedures determined by government boards, putting bureaucrats between doctors and patients.

We don’t want to see seniors’ care suffer because of Obamacare’s cuts to Medicare.

We don’t want to see millions of Americans dumped into Medicaid—because it is not quality health care... We can’t stand by and watch these threats to our health and our families’ health go unchallenged. We must stop Obamacare.

We need to defund Obamacare so that we can start over on health care reform, with a blank slate, with solutions that leave health care decisions firmly in the hands of individuals and their doctors.


Contract your House Representative now and demand they de-fund Obamacare. The Framers gave the House the power of the purse for a reason: to check and balance an out-of-control Executive Branch.

And that's precisely what we have today. Call your representative now. The clock is ticking on our health care system and lives hang -- quite literally -- in the balance.


Related: HEALTH CARE INSIDER: Obamacare Has Two Fatal Flaws Designed to Kill Health Insurers, Bring About Single-Payer.

Kickstarter: World War III

Incredibly funny because it's so incredibly true.


Because Obama, betch.

With every donation over $100, you get a piece of rubble kissed by Lindsey Graham.


Hat tip: iOwnTheWorld

Larwyn's Linx: House GOP Leaders Think You're as Dumb as They Are

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

Nation

House GOP Leaders Think You're as Dumb as They Are: Erick Erickson
Fundamentally Transforming the United States of America: Roger Kimball
Unmistakable Fear of Liberty Amendments Begins to Infect the Left: Kuznicki

Washington, D.C. denial of 2-million bikers backfires!: NoisyRm
BWAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!!!: Vulgar Curmudgeon
What Happens When Citizens Get Fed Up With Speed Cameras: Blaze

Pete Sessions Latest Texan to Run Scared From De-Funding: Erick Erickson
The Implications of Fundamental Change: David Limbaugh
Syria and Obama: Thomas Sowell

Economy

Now Time Warner Dumping Retirees Into Obamacare Exchanges: LoneCon
Just How Distorted is the U.S. Unemployment Rate Number?: Mish
Once Again, the Private Sector Delivers More Help for the Poor: Elephant

Scandal Central

Holder, former IRS chief taught black churches how to skirt tax code: Joe Saunders, BPR
13 Leftists With Ties to Obama and Jeremiah Wright Tied to Massive Grant Fraud: Eric Odom
Impeach Attorney General Holder - for Justice's Sake: Clarice Feldman

Climate & Energy

Lengthy Senate report details EPA FOIA abuses: Exam
Bundle Up: Global Warming Is Over: MB
Former EPA chief Lisa Jackson returns to familiar hot seat: Andrew Restuccia

Media

Surrender in the Culture Wars: Fred On Everything
Coulter: Putin Making a Monkey Out of Obama; Left in Full Race Card Meltdown: FAM
RFK, Jr. Secret Sex Diary Revealed: Kept Scorecard of Conquests: Tammy Bruce

An Invitation to Our Friends on the Left: Scoop
An Answer For Barbra Streisand's Stupid Question: Jean Paul Zodeaux, Downtrend
Paul Krugman is Blithering Idiot: Jean Paul Zodeaux

Sarah Palin: Forget Syria — It’s time to bomb Obamacare: Twitchy
Confounded on the Rehm Show: CAMERA
Alina Cho Departs CNN: A Recap of Her Worst Bias at the Network: Matt Hadro

World

Australia Demonstrates How Conservatives Can Win Against the Marxist Left: Blasted Fools
Barack and Malik Obama, Muslim Brotherhood, US Consulates and Billions of Your Money: MagNote
Israel's Defense minister ridicules notion of democracy in Mideast: Times of Israel

Obama Inc. Spends $1 Billion on Syrian Aid, Cuts Pay for US Soldiers: Daniel Greenfield
“Unbelievably small” describes a number of things about Sec. of State John Kerry: Sister Toldjah
The Biggest Mega-Mosque in Scandinavia: Soeren Kern, Gatestone

Bashar al-Assad Coldly Asks: 'What Red Line?': Brian Resnick
The Myth of the Moderate Syrian Rebels: Daniel Greenfield
Gold treasure trove unearthed at base of Temple Mount: Times of Israel

Sci-Tech

4 Trends Pushing Startup Changes: Jeff Carter
Supposed iPhone 5S User Guide brands fingerprint sensor as ‘Touch ID’: Benjamin Mayo, 9to5Mac
You Can Now Stream Video From Android to Roku: Jamie Condliffe, Gizmodo

Cornucopia

"Nowhere in the Bible does Jesus have a sword fight.": 27bslash6
Bikers Rolling On DC To Save America #2MillionBikersToDC: Zilla
To punish Syria, Obama urged to send his economic advisers, not missiles: Andrew Malcolm

Image: Gold treasure trove unearthed at base of Temple Mount
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: Sign the Petition - Don't Fund Obamacare!

QOTD: "S&P's answer [to the Holder Department of Justice's] prosecution isn't really about 2008, or the years preceding it. It's about 2011, when S&P was the one major credit-rater that dared to downgrade the U.S. Treasury, stripping the government of the triple-A rating it had held for 70 years.

...now we know that Moody's has not been charged in the Justice suit. Coincidentally, Moody's counts among its owners Berkshire Hathaway, run by Obama pal Warren Buffett[, y]et Moody's had a rating identical to S&P's on nearly every tranche of every security mentioned in the lawsuit. All of which raises the question posed by federal Judge David Carter of the Central District of California in a recent court hearing: "Where's Moody's?"

...[T]his case has the aroma of political payback. So it's welcome news that Judge Carter is giving S&P the opportunity to conduct discovery to determine what government officials were saying to each other about this case before and after the 2011 downgrade. A deposition of Attorney General Eric Holder would be a good start." --WSJ

Monday, September 09, 2013

"TASTES LIKE VOMIT": Michelle Obama Says Her Anti-Obesity Program is Wildly Successful, But Schools Nationwide Have Kicked It to the Curb

Yea! Three cheers for FLOTUS! Her 'healthy eating' program has saved the country from obesity!

Michelle Obama credited her anti-obesity program with bringing about a “cultural shift” in the way Americans eat.

“Make no mistake about it. We are changing the conversation in this country. We are creating a cultural shift on how we live and eat. And our efforts are having an impact on our children’s lives.”

The first lady touted the success of her Let’s Move anti-obesity program during a visit on Friday to Orr Elementary School in Washington, D.C.

Yet even CBS News reports that school districts throughout the country -- including California -- have abandoned Michelle's "healthy eating" program.

The Laguna Beach Unified School District, in Southern California, is the latest district to rebel against the federal healthy lunch program -- a cornerstone of first lady Michelle Obama's campaign against childhood obesity. The school district announced Tuesday night that it will revise its lunch menus.

The USDA (which administers the program) says growing pains are to be expected, but the complaints from school officials are getting louder; they say kids aren't eating the vegetables and low-fat choices and end up too hungry to learn. And they're saying they're losing money from throwing out all the uneaten food.

The new lunch rules, some districts say, are just unpalatable. Grumblings came from school boards in California to Illinois, Indiana and New York.

In Kentucky, one official said students thought the healthy fare "tastes like vomit."

In fact, things are going so great for Michelle's health eating program that schools in 19 states are measuring kids' BMI for obesity:

...schools in 19 states have started to conduct annual weigh-ins of students that test for their body mass index, the primary measurement used to determine if someone is overweight or obese, and then sending students home with reports – or “fat letters” – of the results.

“We look at growth charts and percentiles. And when a child is at 95 percent of their…we can look at weight for age or weight for height…that child would be considered obese,” Lauren Schmitt, a registered dietitian in California who measures the weight of hundreds of preschoolers in the San Fernando Valley, told CBS Los Angeles.

She added that out of the 900 pre-schoolers she looks at annually, roughly 200 are considered obese.

Success! Only one in four kids are obese!

Oh, and I forgot: the economy is so great a whopping one-sixth of the nation is on food stamps, and we know those are all used for the healthiest food choices imaginable.

Were they not in power, these Leftists would be employable only as comic relief.


Hat tip: BadBlue News Service.

HEALTH CARE INSIDER: Obamacare Has Two Fatal Flaws Designed to Kill Health Insurers, Bring About Single-Payer

Guest post by Tyrion


I was fortunate enough to have a conversation today with one of the country's foremost insurance product experts. She is responsible for the actuarial analysis and design of life and health care products.

She was commiserating about the difficulty of working with state exchanges: in her opinion, it is virtually impossible to find out which companies are going to offer products in the state exchanges.

Remember, enrollment starts on October 1st, so this is a crucial problem for the exchanges. The vast majority of states won't disclose which carriers will participate or, crucially, whether any carriers have even elected to join.

And which consumers are supposed to participate in the state-run exchanges? The intent is to provide affordable coverage for those who are uninsured or for employees who don't receive health insurance through their employer.

Fatal Flaw 1 - When Underwriters are Outlawed, Only Outlaws Will Have Underwriting


The first fatal problem with the exchanges, according to this expert, is that the population entering the exchanges is likely to have increased morbidity (higher risk for disease). Her contention is that due to the economic strata of those who use the state exchanges, many health insurers will avoid entering those risk pools.

In other words, since the insurers are forbidden from underwriting (i.e., the backbone of insurance), they will avoid the state exchanges to decrease their risks.

It is therefore likely that the exchanges in many states will be stillborn, with very few insurers participating.

Fatal Flaw 2 - Health Insurance Is Not the Same as Getting Treated


The other problem with the state exchanges, she said, is that people will assume that health insurance is the same as getting treated for health problems.

What if, she asked, you buy a Bronze policy from a small insurer in your state, and find out their network of providers is exceptionally small? You want to see a specialist for a bad knee and you're told you'll need to wait six months?

This is precisely what happens in Canada and the U.K. The expert says that those health care systems do a fine job with the easy, basic tasks of medical care, but specialties must be rationed because central planning can never work as efficiently as a market-based system.

She believes a significant percentage of the population will be outraged when they see firsthand how little treatment they are able to get from the exchanges.

Executive Summary: Obamacare is an Untenable Ruse Designed to Lead to Single-Payer


By removing competition, by designing products for insurers, by prohibiting underwriting, by instituting price controls (e.g., mandated medical loss ratios), she believes that the health care industry as it stands today is doomed.

Obamacare isn't going to collapse, in her opinion, it's going to destroy the health insurance industry and transfer even more control to the federal leviathan. Obamacare is a ruse designed to collapse private insurance.

Scared yet? You should be.

Contract your House Representative now and demand they de-fund Obamacare. The Framers gave the House the power of the purse for a reason: to check and balance an out-of-control Executive Branch.

And that's precisely what we have today. Call your representative now. The clock is ticking on our health care system and lives hang -- literally -- in the balance.


Cartoon: A.F. Branco at CDN.

No Wonder the EPA is Illegally Hiding Its Temperature Data

If the radical Leftists controlling the Democrat Party had even an iota of evidence suggesting the validity of global warming, they would be clamoring to make public its data. Instead, they are unlawfully concealing the data, violating Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) requests and other demands.

It would seem to be common sense for the data used in a study that guides public policy and the writing of federal regulations to be publicly available. That’s not the case when it comes to EPA and air pollution data.

As J.R. Reed explained on Free Enterprise in July:

During their pursuit of regulations that would cost businesses billions of dollars, EPA officials have refused to reveal the data used to support these proposals – not to White House officials, not to Congress, not to leading environmental experts, and not to the American people. The data sets have not been analyzed by independent scientists or gone through a peer-review process, and, yet, these findings are being used to justify onerous regulations.

Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), chairman of the House Science Committee, sent six letters to EPA asking for the data. In 2011, current EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy promised to do so, but never delivered it. Rep. Smith subpoenaed the agency on August 1.

ScienceInsider reports that EPA continues refusing to turn over the requested data so, Rep. Smith found EPA in default:

“You did not provide the Committee with anything new,” Smith wrote in a letter to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy. Instead, Smith wrote, the agency responded to his 1 August subpoena by providing “a file of already public information along with a letter outlining excuses for why EPA did not comply.”

In a statement, Rep. Smith explained,

EPA is using the subpoenaed data to support regulations that could cost the American people trillions of dollars. Yet the agency has refused to make the data available to Congress or the American people. Regulations based on secret data have no place in a democracy.

Ah, there's your mistake, Rep. Smith. We no longer live in a Constitutional republic, the kind in which a virtuous government does its best to hew to the letter of the law. Instead we have an out-of-control administration, with officials laced throughout the bureaucracy defying the courts and Congress.

As for "global warming"? Even the United Nations has been forced to confess the Earth is cooling.

Well, this is awkward. A leaked report by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that the world is not warming but actually cooling, and will continue to get colder until the middle of the century.

You remember the IPCC, right? It’s the group whose 2007 report on global warming said that snow would disappear from everywhere but the highest mountains, icebergs would melt, sea levels would rise, deserts would spread, people would die in heat waves and pretty much the earth was going to end if we didn’t immediately destroy our carbon-fueled economy with job-killing government regulations.

Well, that’s not happening. In fact, the Arctic ice cap has grown by 60 percent since 2012.

Thanks to the IPCC’s original predictions, billions of dollars were spent on supposed green measures to curb global warming ... Now, either those measures really, really paid off, or the skeptics were right all along.

There are only three reasonable ways to explain a "belief" in global warming. In order of increasing malevolence, they are hubris, greed, and Marxism. And they are not mutually exclusive; see exhibit A: Al Gore.


Related: Global Warming Comics -- The Fraudulent And The Immoral. Hat tip: Weasel Zippers.

Larwyn's Linx: The Predicate to The Liberty Amendments

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

Nation

The Predicate to The Liberty Amendments: Dave Carter
Permit denied? We don't need no stinking permit: MagNote
Ted Cruz makes case against attacking Syria and makes it well: Scoop

Obama to Discuss All Islamic Extremist Groups Operating In Syria?: RWN
Unreal: Susan Rice to Brief Congress on Syria on Benghazi Anniversary: CNS
CT Townhall on Syria Turned On Its Head By Mysterious “Agitator”: iOTW

Illegal Immigrants: The Real Occupy Movement Taking Over America: CDN
Anti-Koch Hacktivist Belatedly Discovers He’s a Criminal: R.S. McCain
Early turnout strong in Colorado recall effort: Fox

Economy

IBM Dumps Retirees From Health Plan: LoneCon
Labor Sec. Perez Openly Lying About Obamacare: Bruce Krasting
Zuckerman: Part-Timers Will Near 50% of Workforce: Noel Sheppard

Radical Feminist Takeover Destroying Harvard Business School: AmPower
Free Markets Plus Individual Virtue Produces Prosperity: Star Parker
Are Property Taxes Unconstitutional?: GWP

Scandal Central

Hicks: ‘Possible’ Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods Could Have Been Saved: WFB
Benghazi Whistleblower: “I don’t know why I was punished” for speaking out: Scoop
Bush Administration Reaches Through Time To Mind-Control Obama Into Setting the NSA Loose: Reason

Climate & Energy

Cooking Climate Consensus Data: “97% of Scientists Affirm AGW" Debunked: William F. Jasper
Thank you, Mr. President: Sondrakistan

Media

Mark Levin discusses The Liberty Amendments at Reagan Library with Q&A: Scoop
Guns, and Less Butter: Clayton Cramer
CNN’s Jeffrey Toobin: UN, NATO are “legitimate substitutes” for congressional authorization for war: Scoop

100 Years After Woodrow Wilson, Mark Levin Pens A Brilliant Response: Forbes
Hoisted by their own PC petards: Celebutards join us in the rabbit hole.: MOTUS
James Woods’ latest twitter shot: ‘Where is this liar hiding during Syria fiasco?’: BPR

Two Gray Ladies In One!: Ed Driscoll
Pirro explodes on White House lobbying for war in Syria: MinorityReport
Chris Wallace to Obama Chief of Staff: Where Are Benghazi Arrests?: Mediaite

World

Barack Obama’s delusions of grandeur: compares Syria intervention to fighting World War II: Nile Gardiner
The Coming Flood of Syrian Refugees to Sweden: Israpundit
Small California city welcomes doomsday bunkers: Sarah Parvini, AP

Syrian Children Kidnapped By Rebels Identified As Gas Victims By Obama Administration: MinorityReport
Did John McCain let the Cat out of the O’Bagy?: Shoebat
Never Let A War Go To Waste…: NoisyRoom

Sci-Tech

Report: NSA Has Full "Back Door" Access To iPhone, Android and BlackBerry devices: ZH
Topsy, Now With Every Tweet From 2006 On, Has Other Social Media Indexes In The Works: Sarah Perez
In No Uncertain Terms, The Robocop Trailer Looks Amazing: Geekosystem

Cornucopia

I Came, I Saw, I Skedaddled: Decisive moments in Barack Obama history.: P.J. O'Rourke
Obama to Address American People Next Tuesday: Three Pound Universe
Slogans for the War in Syria: IMAO

Image: MOTUS
Sponsored by: We don't need no stinking permit: 2 million bikers to D.C.

QOTD: "Will the perfidy of the Bush administration never cease? Even from beyond the political grave, the former president reaches out with his civil liberties-violating will to mind-control the current chief executive into loosening restrictions on the National Security Agency. That must be what happened, anyway. How else to explain why the oh-so constitutionally respectful President Barack Obama would successfully prevail upon the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in 2011 to reverse restrictions on the NSA imposed under the previous administration?

...The restrictions were imposed in 2008 at the Bush administration's request. That's an interesting point, considering that more than a few defenders of the current regime have told us how much more legally reasonable the NSA's practices are now than they were under Bush." --J.D. Tuccille

Sunday, September 08, 2013

'This Week' Transcript: Benghazi Whistleblower Gregory Hicks

On ABC's This Week earlier today, former Clinton apparatchik-turned-journalist George Stephanopoulos interviewed Benghazi whistleblower Gregory Hicks -- the Deputy Chief of Mission in Libya -- as the anniversary of the deadly attack nears.

And we still can't find out what the President what was doing for nine hours as Americans fought, bled and died.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN KERRY, SECRETARY OF STATE: We're talking about people being killed by gas and you want to go talk about Benghazi.

REPRESENTATIVE JEFF DAVIS: Absolutely want to talk about Benghazi. Four Americans lost their lives.

SECRETARY KERRY: We don't deserve to drag this into yet another Benghazi discussion when the real issue here is whether or not the Congress is going to stand up for international norms.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHANOPOULOS: One year later as you can see, the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi is still a political football. But for the Americans there on the ground it was a story of heartbreak and the struggle to survive. Greg Hicks was the Diplomat in Charge that night. The only officer who has spoken out about that harrowing night. This dramatic account is an ABC News exclusive.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GREGORY HICKS, FORMER DEPUTY CHIEF OF MISSION IN LIBYA: I've been perplexed and frustrated with the way this has all played out. Because to me this is a simple story. Ambassador Stevens went to Benghazi to do his job. To what he knew Secretary Clinton wanted him to do. And he was attacked while he was there.

And the American staff in Benghazi and in Tripoli responded as we've been trained to do, in an amazing way, to save the lives of our people who were in Benghazi. Unfortunately we lost four people in the line of duty.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Let's take a look back at the events of that night. You're home in Tripoli--

HICKS: Right.

STEPHANOPOULOS: That evening at around what, 9:45?

HICKS: It's at 9:45 Tripoli time, right, 3:45 Washington time. Our regional security officer comes running into the house where I was and yells, Greg! Greg! The consulate's under attack! And I immediately look at my telephone and I see a missed call. I call back on that number, I get the Ambassador.

And the Ambassador says Greg we're under attack.

The Curse of Liberalism

Guest post by Alan Caruba


“Liberalism has become an ugly blend of sanctimony, self-interest, and social connections,” writes Fred Seigel whose credentials include being a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. He has written “The Revolt Against the Masses: How Liberalism Has Undermined the Middle Class”, but you won’t be able to read it until it is published in January. As a reviewer, I received an advance copy from Encounter Books.

It hardly needs to be said that today’s liberals and conservatives loathe one another, nor that the nation is as sharply divided politically as in the days before the Civil War. Politically, America has swung back and forth between liberal and conservative administrations as evidenced by the elections of the previous century and this new one.

Moreover, many have noticed that there is often scant distance between Democrat and Republican administrations. Both have been led by patricians, often the graduates of Harvard and Yale. Seigel refers to them as the “clerisy” defined as educated people being a class unto themselves.

Liberalism has been a very expensive failure


“Liberalism has been a very expensive failure,” says Seigel and points to the Obama administration as an example of “the apparent disdain for the copybook maxims of faith, family, and hard work.” When liberals go to court to force schools to remove a daily prayer or a pledge of allegiance to start the day, support abortion on demand and gay marriage, seek to expand so-called “entitlement programs” and put as many people as possible on some form of government dole, this should be obvious to anyone.

The seizure of one-sixth of the nation’s economy in the form of Obamacare is yet another example and the failure of this program, passed near midnight by a straight party vote by Democratic legislators who had no idea what was in the bill, demonstrates the liberal preference for a massive central government.

“Liberalism has been dedicated to preserving the problems for which it presents itself as the solution.”

Seigel traces the beginnings of liberalism in America. “American liberals don’t like to compare themselves with other twentieth-century ideologues. But, like all ideologies that emerged in the early twentieth century—from communism and fascism to socialism, social democracy, and its first cousin, British Fabianism—liberalism was created by intellectuals and writers who were rebelling against the failings of the rising middle class.”

Among the intellectuals who advanced liberalism was Herbert Croly, the editor and co-founder of The New Republic whose 1909 book, “The Promise of American Life”, was the first manifesto of modern American liberalism. Croly “rejected American tradition with its faith in the Constitution and its politics of parties and courts.” This reeks of the intellectual snobbery that has dominated liberal thinking for more than a century at this point.

WAPO: Obama Lied to American People, Had Bush-Era Restrictions on NSA Surveillance of Americans Lifted in 2011

Only a few short weeks ago, President Barack Obama spoke to the American people and said, essentially, that the government's surveillance of Americans' phone records and emails were targeted and had been "ongoing for years".

On the heels of a series of reports detailing the U.S. government's practice of tracking private citizens' phone and internet use, President Obama on Friday sought to downplay the invasiveness of the procedure, assuring a California audience that "nobody is listening to your phone calls," and that any data tracking is governed by comprehensive oversight spanning all three branches of U.S. government...

...But he reminded Americans that these programs have been ongoing for years, and that Congress regularly reauthorizes the programs and receives updates on how they are conducted.

The Washington Post reports today, however, that both assertions appear to be bald-faced lies.

The Obama administration secretly won permission from a surveillance court in 2011 to reverse restrictions on the National Security Agency’s use of intercepted phone calls and e-mails, permitting the agency to search deliberately for Americans’ communications in its massive databases...

...the court in 2008 imposed an explicit ban — at the [Bush administration]’s request — on ... searches [of U.S. communications], that officials in 2011 got the court to lift the bar and that the search authority has been used.

Together the permission to search and to keep data longer expanded the NSA’s authority in significant ways without public debate or any specific authority from Congress...

...Officials would not say how many searches have been conducted.

...The court’s expansion of authority went largely unnoticed when the opinion was released, but it formed the basis for cryptic warnings last year by a pair of Democratic senators, Ron Wyden (Ore.) and Mark Udall (Colo.), that the administration had a “back-door search loophole” that enabled the NSA to scour intercepted communications for those of Americans.

The Constitution's Bill of Rights has a Fourth Amendment for a reason.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Americans of all party affiliations should reject this administration's lawless behavior, its unconstitutional maneuvers and all of its many, attendant lies.


Hat tip: BadBlue News Service.

PATIENTLY AWAITING THE APOLOGY FROM THE MEDIA: Syria's WMDs Came From Saddam Hussein's Iraq

Guest post by Investors Business Daily


War On Terror: As the regime of Bashar Assad disintegrates, the security of his chemical arsenal is in jeopardy. The No. 2 general in Saddam Hussein's air force says they were the WMDs we didn't find in Iraq.

King Abdullah of neighboring Jordan warned that a disintegrating Syria on the verge of civil war puts Syria's stockpile of chemical weapons at risk of falling into the hands of al-Qaida.

"One of the worst-case scenarios as we are obviously trying to look for a political solution would be if some of those chemical stockpiles were to fall into unfriendly hands," he said.

The irony here is that the chemical weapons stockpile of Syrian thug Assad may in large part be the legacy of weapons moved from Hussein's Iraq into Syria before Operation Iraqi Freedom.

If so, this may be the reason not much was found in the way of WMD by victorious U.S. forces in 2003.

In 2006, former Iraqi general Georges Sada, second in command of the Iraqi Air Force who served under Saddam Hussein before he defected, wrote a comprehensive book, "Saddam's Secrets."

It details how the Iraqi Revolutionary Guard moved weapons of mass destruction into Syria in advance of the U.S.-led action to eliminate Hussein's WMD threat.

Larwyn's Linx: House decides to let Senate be on the hook for Syria

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

Nation

House decides to let Senate be on the hook for Syria: Moe Lane
What Is Our National Purpose?: Blasted Fools
Cory Booker called out by Newark resident for the mess he's made: RWN

Dumb and Dumber: Cold Fury
Obama's Syria Media Blitz: Ace
Feinstein Up to Old Tricks; Asks DHS Not to Deport Farm Workers: RWN

Economy

On Poland and Detroit. Not For the Faint of Heart.: Ann Barnhardt
Why Is One-Sixth of U.S. on Food Stamps?: Khadeeja Safdar
The HHS Data Hub, Does Private Information Exist in America?: Ben Swann

Eric Holder trumps Miley Cyrus when it comes to obscenity: Larry Sand
New IRS policy taxes automatic tips for waiters: Patrick Howley
Rockford, Ill, the Underwater Mortgage Capital of America: WSJ

Scandal Central

Indiana Man Gets 8 Months For Teaching How To Beat Polygraph Tests: Slashdot
Colombian Drug Lord Vanishes After Conviction… in the US!: Daniel Hopsicker
Food Stamps Exchanged For Drugs, Weapons, Contraband: JW (2012)

Climate & Energy

Conservative wins Australia by landslide; declares end to climate change ‘crap’: BPR
Warmists Blame Syrian Conflict On “Climate Change”: RWN

Media

The Liberty Amendments: Restoring the American Republic: TIR
“We Will Golf In The Shade” — Or: The Most Powerful Coward In The World: Noisy Room
WaPo Adopts Slate's Outrage-Trolling Business Model: Ace

You Stay Classy, Atheists! (Language Warning): R.S. McCain
Ed Asner Explains Hollywood Silence On Syria, Obama: “They Don’t Want To Feel Anti-Black”: WZ
Michigan: Fed judge rules Dearborn sharia-enforcement violated Terry Jones’s constitutional rights: Creeping

World

Powerful photo of bloody Benghazi ‘red lines’ shames Obama, goes viral: BPR
We all thought Libya had moved on – it has, but into lawlessness and ruin: Independent
Obama's Epic Fail at G20: Atlas Shrugs

Great…US aid now going to Palestinian terrorists: Scoop
Meet the Syrian Islamists Controlling Sen. McCain’s Agenda: Creeping
Obama tells Russian activists he is proud of their work: Raw Story

Sci-Tech

3Doodler Gadget Makes Handheld 3D Modeling Possible: Nick Barber, CIO
Stalking the Fortune 500: Denis Pombriant, CRM Buyer
Traveling = An excuse to drink cocktails!: Dr. Bik

Cornucopia

Gas and Air: The Foundations of Western Moral Authority on the Use of Chemical Weapons: Chris Floyd
‘Killer’ Obama Logic: SHN
Let’s Join One Another to Crush the Unholy, Unruly, Jihadi Muslims: Vladimir Putin

Image: The 796
Sponsored by: Kickstarter: Obamacare, the Board Game

QOTD: "

Chief Executive of Sparta, Barack Leonidas Obama, at the Battle of Thermopylae
Stand down, men.
The chairman of the Greek City States Alliance Joint Chiefs of Staff has indicated to me that our capacity to execute this mission against Xerxes is not time-sensitive.

Julius Barack Caesar Obama Crosses the Rubicon
I am crossing the Rubicon. Brrr, the water’s chilly. Deep, too. I’m going for a walk along the riverbank to look for a bridge. And I will cross the Rubicon as soon as the weather warms up. The die has been cast. That is, the deck has been shuffled. Or the Wheel of Fortune has been spun.
And I’ll buy a vowel.

Sir Winston Barack Churchill Obama
We shall fight on the beaches—mostly on Martha’s Vineyard, where everybody was over Labor Day weekend—we shall fight at the G-20 summit in St. Petersburg, we shall fight at the U.N. Security Council, we shall fight in the House of Representatives and the Senate when Congress is finally back in session;
we shall never surrender unless
we don’t get enough votes or our poll ratings are low.

here was a couple I was toying with:

Barack Christ Hussein Jesus Obama:
“Follow me, and I will make you eaters of dog.”

No, wait; this one’s better:

“Follow me
and I will make you killers of preborn babies.”

"--Chancy

Lindsey Graham: Either we kill some camels in Syria or Charleston could get nuked by Iran!

The adjectives for this level of idiocy escape me.

South Carolina U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham says he’s convinced that Syrian President Assad used chemical weapons on his own people...

He says if there is no U.S. response, Iran will not believe America’s resolve to block Iran from developing nuclear weapons [and] those nuclear weapons in the hands of terrorists could result in a bomb coming to Charleston Harbor.

He says he’s working to convince South Carolinians weary of war that the situations in Syria and Iran are linked. Graham says Syria could destabilize the entire Middle East...

So, Lindsey, firing a "shot across the bow" -- in Obama's words -- will somehow deter a nuclear Iran?

So, Lindsey, launching an attack "just muscular enough not to get mocked" will subdue Iran?

You're a joke, Senator Graham. You're a joke and a disgrace. And you need to go. My hope for 2014 is that a primary challenger will emerge and defeat you.


Hat tip: BadBlue News.

Saturday, September 07, 2013

When it comes to obscenity, Eric Holder trumps Miley Cyrus

Guest post by Larry Sand


When it comes to obscenity, cheating kids out of a good education is far worse than a salacious dance act.

While it is a sad spectacle to watch a gawky 20 year-old stick out her tongue and sex it up in front of millions on national television, the 62 year-old U.S. Attorney General’s act is far worse, as his will do much more lasting harm. He waves his magic wand and poof – thousands of poor children are chained to the confines of failing schools in Louisiana.

Miley Cyrus would appear to be a lost puppy whose father claimed in 2011 that she was influenced by Satan. On the other hand, Eric Holder would seem to be under the spell of the teachers unions and the overrated god of diversity.

The Holder story has its roots in May when the Louisiana Supreme Court ruled that:

the current method of funding the statewide school voucher program is unconstitutional. Act 2, part of Gov. Bobby Jindal‘s 2012 package of education reforms, diverts money from each student’s per-pupil allocation to cover the cost of private or parochial school tuition. The act authorizes both the Louisiana Scholarship Program and the new Course Choice program.

In other words, the voucher program is sound, but the court thought its funding mechanism wasn’t constitutional. So on June 6th, the Louisiana House and Senate compromised on a budget that allowed the program to use funds not allocated through the state’s funding formula.

Problem solved, right?

Not quite.

Later in June, the teachers unions School Choice Enemy No. 1 promptly swung into action.

A Letter from a Republican to Hispanics

Guest post by Dennis Prager


I am writing to you as a concerned and sympathetic American who is a Republican. My sentiments do not represent every American -- that would be impossible. But I believe the following represent most Americans.

First, a message to those of you here illegally:

You may be very surprised to hear this, but in your position, millions of Americans, including me, would have done what you did.

If I lived in a poor country with a largely corrupt government, a country in which I had little or no prospect of hope for an improved life for me or my children, and I could not legally get into the world's freest, most affluent country, the country with the most opportunities for people of any and every background, I would do whatever I could do to get into that country illegally.
Mexico and many other Central and South American countries are largely hopeless places for most of their people. America offers hope to everyone willing to work hard. Who could not understand why any individual, let alone a father or mother of a family, would try to get into the United States -- legally preferably, illegally if necessary?

Now that I have made it clear that millions of us understand what motivates you and do not morally condemn you for entering America illegally, I have to ask you to try to understand what motivates us.

No country in the world can allow unlimited immigration. If America opened its borders to all those who wish to live here, hundreds of millions of people would come here. That would, of course, mean the end of the United States economically and culturally.