Thursday, February 16, 2012

Meet the masterminds who will decide what kind of health care you and your family will receive

The Wall Street Journal (via AEI) has the uncomfortable low-down on what Obamacare means:

Meet the Obamacare mandate committee


Think the contraception decision was bad? Wait until bureaucrats start telling your insurer which cancer screenings to cover


Offended by President Obama's decision to force health insurers to pay for contraception and surgical sterilization? It gets worse: In the future, thanks to ObamaCare, the government will issue such health edicts on a routine basis—and largely insulated from public view. This goes beyond contraception to cancer screenings, the use of common drugs like aspirin, and much more.

Under ObamaCare, a single committee—the United States Preventative Services Task Force—is empowered to evaluate preventive health services and decide which will be covered by health-insurance plans.

The task force already rates services with letter grades of "A" through "D" (or "I," if it has "insufficient evidence" to make a rating). But under ObamaCare, services rated "A" or "B"—such as colon cancer screening for adults aged 50-75—must be covered by health plans in full, without any co-pays. Many services that get "Cs" and "Ds"—such as screening for ovarian or testicular cancer—could get nixed from coverage entirely...

...Americans first became familiar with the task force in November 2009, when it made the controversial decision to recommend that women ages 40-49 shouldn't get routine mammograms. More recently, it rebuffed routine prostate-cancer screening and the use of tests that detect the viruses that can cause cervical cancer.

...The task force is a part-time board of volunteer advisers that works slowly and is often late to incorporate new science into its recommendations. Only in 2009 did it finally recommend aspirin for the prevention of stroke and heart attack among those at risk—decades after this practice was demonstrated to save lives and had become part of standard medical practice.

The article's author recommends several common-sense measures:

• Congress should make the task force "subject to the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which would at least require it to hold its deliberations in public."

• And Congress should likewise "let private health plans—and their members—decide on their own how preventive tests and treatments should be covered."

All of this is a brutal wake-up call for Americans: Obama's contraception mandate isn't an anomaly. It's the sign of things to come.


Hat tip: BadBlue.

Remember that scene in Animal House when they flashed the slide of Flounder on the screen?

Drudge does it again:

Getty captions this photo as follows: "US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton delivers remarks at an event in recognition of the International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation February 16, 2012 in the Benjamin Franklin Room of the Department of State in Washington, DC."

Drudge really needs to have some sort of interstitial warning when running a lede photo like that.


It was Bush's fault...

...not.

Here's the only chart you need to combat the absurd lies of the Left.

Bush was certainly a big-government Republican. But no human being in history has spent as recklessly as Barack Obama (with the help of Democrat miscreants like Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid). No one's even come close. Together this troika of idiocy has lawlessly permitted the country to run for more than 1,000 days without a budget.

The budget deficit in 2007 – the last budget approved by the Republican Congress before Nancy Pelosi became speaker – was $160 billion. When the Democrats took over, the deficit exploded. So, yes, Barack Obama inherited a huge deficit from the Democrats in Congress.

...You can also see above that it is irresponsible spending, not revenue, that is driving the debt.

Barack Obama, with the help of a Democratic Congress, has put us on an unsustainable path. This country cannot afford four more years of this man’s destructive policies. He must be defeated.

But November is coming.


A Chart From the Obama Budget That Is So Horrifying It Must Have Been Left In Accidentally

There are many historic "firsts" associated with the Obama administration, but none more curious than the appointment of the first known tax cheat as Treasury Secretary. Tim "TurboTax" Geithner is a partisan hack of the first order and his recent testimony before the House Budget Committee should be required reading for all Americans.

Testifying before the House Budget Committee today, U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner told Chairman Paul Ryan the following: “We’re not coming before you to say we have a definitive solution to that long-term problem. What we do know is we don’t like yours.”

Actually, President Obama sort of did have a definitive solution. He created a debt commission, which devised a long-term debt reduction plan. Which the president rejected. And instead, we get this new budget proposal, which makes no effort to deal with Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security — the long-term drivers of U.S. federal debt. The debt curve never gets bent, as [this] White House (!) chart shows.


Yes, this chart came right out of the Obama administration's budget.

It says: follow us! We're headed for collapse!

At one point during the hearing, Ryan brought out this chart illustrating the impact of the Ryan debt plan, the one Geithner said “we don’t like”:

And here was the exchange between Geithner and Ryan, after Ryan pointed the terrifying baseline (in red):

GEITHNER: You could have taken [the chart] out [to the year] 3000 or to 4000. [Laughs]

RYAN: Yeah, right. We cut it off at the end of the century because the economy, according to the CBO, shuts down in 2027 on this path.


And that’s no joke, Mr. Geithner.

Actually, the topmost chart is a joke. A sick, tragic joke, the butt of which is us.

Our country cannot survive another four years of Barack Obama.


Larwyn's Linx: Obama's X-Files

Have a news tip or great story? Drop me an email. Bloggers: you can install a Larwyn's Linx blog widget!

GOP Primary

Obama's X-Files: JPA
Ohio Poll: Santorum 36, Romney 29, Gingrich 20, Paul 9: WS
Santorum’s hat trick spurs Facebook friend surge: Politico

Election 2012: Republican Presidential Primary: Rasmussen
Why did Santorum lose in 2006? :York
Santorum on the elite snobs that want to control you: Scoop

Nation

For Liljenquist, Mourdock, and Cruz: A Tea Party Senate takeover: Malkin
How Republicans can win even if the economy keeps improving: Peth
Meese: Obama Administration 'as Close to a Monarchy as George III': CNS

Levin: A Functioning House Would Impeach Sebelius: CNS
Dwarf Senator: Right to Insurance Trumps Religious Freedom: LifeNews
Possible Democrat Plant to Face Allen West in GOP Primary?: Shark

Is IRS Targeting Obama's Enemies?: NewAm
The Truth Behind Obama’s Truth Team: CDN
Maxine Waters: Boehner and Cantor ‘Demons’: NRO

Economy

How Taxing the Rich Harms the Middle Class: AEI
OMB Director Challenged to Resign After Refusing to Answer Budget Question: FreeB
Santelli: IL budget makes Greece look like Utopia: FreeB

Cost of Four Years of Obama: $5,170,000,000,000.00: MB
The DOJ is wrong when it claims the ObamaCare mandate is a tax, says … Obama’s OMB chief: Hot Air
Obama Valentine’s Day Splurge Priced at Up To $300: Dossier

Timmy Geithner Just Took a Tax Spanking!: RedCty
Guess Who Has the Only Earmark in the Senate Highway Bill?: RS
Federal School Lunch Agents: What Country Is This?: Powers

Scandal Central

WaPo finds nearly $4 billion in green-tech stimulus funds went to WH-connected firms: Hot Air
Napolitano acknowledges ‘lots of mistakes’ in Fast and Furious gun sting: Chron
Hippies hate Heartland: Bayonet

Climate & Energy

Oh, Those Green Supremacists: Driscoll
Officials: Eastern Europe's cold snap kills more than 600: USA Today
Level-pegging?: EUReferendum

Media

Media Matters tax-exempt status may face new scrutiny from Congress: DC
Media Matters took $600K for gun control while carrying?: Hot Air
Jack Kennedy, 'Elusive Hero,' Has No Clothes: IBD

Obama Media begin the Blatant Faking of Obama Poll Numbers: CDN
New York Times/CBS Gin Up Polls For Obama: S&L
Condoms, Two-Bit Whores, And Sluts At CPAC: Hawkins

Rachel Maddow and my lesson in civility: RWN
Whitney Houston Critics Called Her ‘Too White’ — Black Republicans Can Relate: RWN
Beckel: We Must Subsidize Women's Contraceptives Because of Crackheads, or Something: Tatler

The Scrubbing To Benefit Obama Has Begun: iOTW
A Point By Point Commentary On Keith Olbermann’s “Debunking” Of The Occupy Rape: Stranahan
Levin: Obama would agree with Hobbes' "Leviathan" and Wilson's "Constitutional Government": MRC TV

World

Obama's Unilateral Disarmament Of The U.S.: Howling
Joint chiefs chair: Chinese hacking not necessarily a hostile act : CNN
Farage On Greek Chaos: "You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet": ZH

Ruh Roh: Moody’s places almost all EU banks on alert: TAB
Bangkok bombers planned to attack Israeli diplomats, say Thai police: Guardian
Brit teen severely beaten by “Asian” gang: Creeping

Anatomy of a Smear: 'The Third Jihad' Fights Back: Clarion
Tampa parents rip school for letting controversial Muslim group speak to students: Fox
Top Foreign Policy Reps Urge Obama not to cut Israeli Missile Defense Funding: Beacon

Sci-Tech

Anti-Gravity Yoga: Daily Mail
'App-gate' serves reminder: You're on your own: CNet
Site Hack, Continued: ProWis

Cornucopia

Join the MOTUS Truth Team: Expose the Lies: MOTUS
President Eisenhower Met With Aliens (with actual photo): Spew
Mass. parents sue to remove 'under God' from pledge: Times

Image: John Hawkins
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: Rick Santorum for President

QOTD: "Obama is a master divider, and I believe that once he has convinced a majority of American women that contraception is a “right” that should be free, he can then divide people of faith against one other and against their own church leaders. He also believes that persuading a few liberal Catholic groups to support his “compromise” ends the discussion. Someone compared this to forcing all Jews to eat pork chops just because some of them don’t keep kosher.

It is long past time that Christian leaders stood up in their pulpits and declared that a vote for Barack Obama is a vote against God. Just imagine if every Bible believing minister in America made that announcement to their congregations the Sunday before the election. Then, try to imagine what a second Obama term might look like." --Doug Patton

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Entertaining Saudi Crime Report o' the Day

You can't make this crap up:

JIZAN – A Hai’a security inspector has been fined SR3,000, six weeks in prison and 120 lashes for marrying more than four women and breaking residency laws. The Hai’a is the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice.

He married three Saudi women, who are on his identity card, two non-Saudi women who don’t have Iqamas and a non-Saudi who has an Iqama...

It is against Islamic law for a Muslim man to have more than four wives at one time.

...The Administrative Court at the Jizan Board of Grievances in Uhud Al-Masariha gave him 120 lashes for marrying more than four wives... He was also ordered to memorize certain chapters of the Holy Qur’an and study their interpretation. He was also banned from traveling abroad for five years, delivering a speech in the mosque and leading prayers in the mosque.

System Error: No Snark Available At This Time.


Brief Separated-at-birth Interlude

Former Maryland Head Coach Gary Williams and the late, great Dennis Hopper as Frank Booth in Blue Velvet.

Whatcha think? Any other unconventional SABs?


Top Congressional Foreign Policy Experts Beg Obama Not to Cut Israeli Missile Defense Funding

Well, this doesn't appear to be good news for the tiny country of Israel.

Two of the House’s top foreign policy voices have petitioned President Obama to reconsider his proposal to reduce U.S. missile defense funding to Israel.

Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Howard McKeon, respectively the chairs of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the House Armed Services Committee, jointly write that they are “deeply concerned” over Obama’s “record low support for this vital defense cooperation program,” which was first reported on by the Washington Free Beacon...

For the second straight year, the Obama administration has proposed to reduce the level of funding for Israel’s critical Arrow and David’s Sling defense systems. This despite the president’s repeated declarations that the U.S. has an “iron-clad commitment” to Israel’s security.

In conjunction with Obama's "lead from behind" strategy related to Iran -- which has simply emboldened the Mullahs as they pursue nuclear weapons -- this development is beyond ominous. It's apocalyptic.


Poster o' the Day (actually inspired by a Washington Post article, if you can believe it)

If you're a Democrat and you've lost the WaPo...

Federal funds flow to clean-energy firms with Obama administration ties


Sanjay Wagle was a venture capitalist and Barack Obama fundraiser in 2008, rallying support through a group he headed known as Clean Tech for Obama.

Shortly after Obama’s election, he left his California firm to join the Energy Department, just as the administration embarked on a massive program to stimulate the economy with federal investments in clean-technology firms.

Following an enduring Washington tradition, Wagle shifted from the private sector, where his firm hoped to profit from federal investments, to an insider’s seat in the administration’s $80 billion clean-energy investment program.

He was one of several players in venture capital, which was providing financial backing to start-up clean-tech companies, who moved into the Energy Department at a time when the agency was seeking outside expertise in the field. At the same time, their industry had a huge stake in decisions about which companies would receive government loans, grants and support.

During the next three years, the department provided $2.4 billion in public funding to clean-energy companies in which Wagle’s former firm, Vantage Point Venture Partners, had invested, a Washington Post analysis found. Overall, the Post found that $3.9 billion in federal grants and financing flowed to 21 companies backed by firms with connections to five Obama administration staffers and advisers...

This is raw criminality, plain and simple. People need to go to jail.


Obama Truth Team Unveils Spiffy New Logo

President Obama is trying to recruit a 2 million member-strong "Truth Team" to ensure that those speaking out against his administration are appropriately dealt with. I'm not kidding.

The Obama campaign is today beginning a new effort to enlist and educate at least 2 million supporters for a “grassroots communications team” they’re calling the Truth Team... “The goal is to ensure that when Republicans attack President Obama’s record, grassroots supporters can take ownership of the campaign and share the facts with the undecided voters in their lives,” the campaign said in a statement.

The teams will be first launched in 13 “swing states,” including Iowa, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Minnesota, Nevada, Ohio and Virginia.

Cub Reporter Biff Spackle, in another world exclusive, nabbed photos of the Truth Team's new logo:

The one on the right is for their arm-bands.

In all seriousness, have you ever heard of such a thing? And can there be any doubt as to what Obama meant when he twice mentioned -- in very visible public settings -- the need for "a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded" as our military?

If we don't vote this man out in November, this country is finished.


Larwyn's Linx: Obama “undoubtedly pulled punches in his first term...'

Have a news tip or great story? Drop me an email. Bloggers: you can install a Larwyn's Linx blog widget!

GOP Primary

Obama “undoubtedly pulled punches in his first term...': LI
Santorum Pulls Ahead of Romney Nationwide: Hayward
Time for Newt to Do the Honorable Thing: AmSpec

Nation

The 'Progressive' Legacy: Sowell
Mike Lee: Obama ‘Manifestly Wrong’ on U.S. Constitution: Foundry
Has the Tea Party Peaked?: AT

Obama appointee: citizens have no right to bear arms: DC
Marxist Democrat Schakowsky Slanders Christians: GWP
Obama Has Stranded the Catholic Left: Anchoress

Economy

Obama’s Deficit Spending Over Four Years: $70K per Family: WZ
Obama's 2013 budget destroys the millionaire fantasy: Hayward
Happy Valentine's Day, From the Democrats: Alexa

Black Community Responsible For Its Young People: IBD
Boehner’s Bailout: The Highway to Hell: RS
Government dependency tipping point? Been there, done that: Q&O

Top tax rates could exceed 100 percent under Obama’s Buffett Rule: Peth
Obama Advisor Dreams of a Global Minimum Tax: Hayward
Senate Democrats Muted on Obama Budget: Roll Call

Sebelius Admits ObamaCare Exchanges Aren’t Happening, Then Disqualifies Herself from Office: Cato
Obama to Poor Kids In Rotten Schools: Drop Dead: Hayward
TSA Dallas: Woman Sent Through Scanner Three Times for the “Guys”: VS

Scandal Central

Rep. Issa to Holder, We Want Documents Now, Contempt Charges Still On The Table: BigG
Fast and Furious: Arizona Sheriff Paul Babeu Says Holder Has Perjured Himself: BigG
GM Unplugs from Business Realities with Chevy Volt Re-Launch: FuelFix

Climate & Energy

Will Canadian Oil Be For the Lamps of China?: IBD
Tragedy unfolding in Europe – Is U.S. media trying to ignore it?: Ice Age Now
Obama Whines About Gas Prices Forgets to Mention Keystone, Other Projects He Killed: GWP

Media

Obama's New 'Truth Teams' and Web Sites Aren't News at AP, NYT: Blumer
Finally...Truth Team Comics: PJM
Dershowitz: Media Matters Could Cost Obama the Election: BigJ

Is Obama Programing Media Matters Or Is It The Other Way Around? : BigJ
Media Matters memo called for hiring private investigators ‘to look into the personal lives’ of Fox employees: DC
The Media Matters Bombshell (with a Semi-Defense of Ben Smith): VS

BREAKING: IN 1990, according to a line in the Pittsburgh Press...: ProWis
6 in 10 Catholics disapprove of Obama: Exam
Obama's Ohio Attack Dogs: BigG

Another So Called News Journalist Joins The Obama Administration: Glob
Will Congress See the Greek Writing on the Wall?: CDN
FreedomWorks takes Obamacare to Court: FreedomWorks

World

The Obama Defense Strategy Is To Have Less Defense: IBD
Muslim Brotherhood Rep: Our Ultimate Goal Is Establishing a Global Islamic Caliphate: MEMRI
Two 10 Year-Old Suicide Bombers Arrested in Afghanistan: GWP

Michigan: School, police chief shut down talk about sharia law: Creeping
Obama Showers Islamist Radicals With Our Money: MB
Saudi Arabia targets supporters of blogger arrested over Mohammad tweets: Creeping

AP Report: Obama Considering Slashing U.S. Nuclear Force By Up To 80%: WZ
Obama wants to Increase Money to Pakistan: Free Beacon
Obama Tells China He “Welcomes” Their Rise To Power: WZ

Sci-Tech

MIT opens enrollment for its first free, automated online course: GlobPost
Babies understand words from 6 months old, scientists say: Fox
Google Public DNS prevails as the world's largest service: CNet

Cornucopia

Food police bust 4 year-old in NC: Pundette
St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, without all the messy blood: MOTUS
Obama's Eligibility Diversion: AT

Image: iOwnTheWorld
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: Rick Santorum for President

QOTD: "The Occupy movement has me madder than Janet Napolitano's blind date." --Kevin Jackson

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

BBC: "America's homeless resort to tent cities"

Of course, America's "journalists" are nowhere to be found.

America's homeless resort to tent cities


...Just off the side of a motorway on the fringes of the picturesque town of Ann Arbor, Michigan, a mismatched collection of 30 tents tucked in the woods has become home - home to those who are either unemployed, or whose wages are so low that they can no longer afford to pay rent.

Conditions are unhygienic. There are no toilets and electricity is only available in the one communal tent where the campers huddle around a wood stove for warmth in the heart of winter... Ice weighs down the roofs of tents, and rain regularly drips onto the sleeping campers' faces.

Tent cities have sprung up in and around at least 55 American cities - they represent the bleak reality of America's poverty crisis... There are an estimated 5,000 people living in the dozens of camps that have sprung up across America.

...Unemployment in America today has not reached the astronomical levels of the 1930s, but barring a short spike in 1982, it has not been this high since the Depression era... There are now 13 million unemployed Americans, which is three million more than when President Barack Obama was first elected. ... The stark reality is that many of them are people who very recently lived comfortable middle-class lives.

The real unemployment rate is over 15 percent. Only through obvious, political skulduggery (like disappearing 1.2 million workers from the workforce in a single month) are the headline numbers reporting to be "improving".

And the media -- which is now indistinguishable from the Democrat Party -- laps it right up. And then wonder why their profession is dying.


So soon? House moves a step closer to finding Holder in contempt of Congress

It's about freaking time.

On Tuesday Rep. Darrell Issa, chairman of the House committee on Oversight and Government Reform, took a major step toward holding Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress for his failure to provide subpoenaed documents and other information about Operation Fast and Furious.

In a Jan. 31 letter, Issa had threatened Holder with such a move if he failed to provide all the subpoenaed documents relating to the Fast and Furious gunwalking scandal by Feb. 9. That deadline has come and gone, and Holder’s Department of Justice still hasn’t provided most of those documents. Issa’s subpoena dates back to Oct. 12, 2011.

...“We cannot wait any longer for the Department’s cooperation,” Issa continued. “As such, please specify a date by which you expect the Department to produce all documents responsive to the subpoena. In addition, please specify a Department representative who will interface with the Committee for production purposes.”

Issa added that whoever Holder designates as the go-to DOJ official for delivering subpoenaed documents “should also serve as the conduit for dealing with the contempt proceedings, should the Department continue to ignore the Committee’s subpoena.”

The California Republican slammed Holder, too, for claiming the congressional investigation into Fast and Furious was a political game for Republicans... “It is ironic that while the Department’s delay tactics have extended this investigation into a presidential election year, you have had the audacity to characterize it as an attempt at ‘headline-grabbing Washington ‘gotcha’ games and cynical political point scoring,’” Issa wrote to Holder on Tuesday.

Issa also attacked Holder for Justice’s failure to comply with Congressional subpoenas. “Had the Department demonstrated willingness to cooperate with this investigation from the outset — instead of attempting to cover up its own internal mismanagement — this investigation likely would have concluded well before the end of 2011. In reality, it is the Department that is playing political gotcha games, instead of allowing a co-equal branch of government to perform its constitutional duty to conduct oversight of the Executive Branch.”

Issa’s letter concluded by warning that Congress will continue to investigate Operation Fast and Furious until responsible parties are held accountable. He pointed to bipartisan support behind efforts to assign responsibility for Border Patrol agent Brian Terry’s murder, for the murders of at least 300 Mexican civilians and, likely, for the murder of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Jaime Zapata.

“This is not an ‘election year political ‘gotcha’ game,’ but rather a bipartisan sentiment,” Issa wrote. “As Ranking Member [Democratic Rep. Elijah] Cummings promised the family of slain Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, ‘we will not rest until every single person responsible for all of this, no matter where they are, are brought to justice.’

The House Oversight Committee offers the following summary of their latest request.

The letter outlines lingering unanswered questions about Operation Fast and Furious including:

• Exactly how and when did senior Department officials learn the truth of what happened?

• Did Department officials retaliate against whistleblowers?

• Why did Department officials decide to move forward with prosecuting old cases involving highly objectionable tactics when line prosecutors had refused to do so?

• Why did senior Department officials fail to see the clear connection between Fast and Furious and prior flawed operations they have admitted they knew about?

• When did the Department first learn about Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer's February 2011 suggestion of gunwalking, and why did the Department wait so long before telling Congress about it?

• A year later, will the responsible senior Department officials be held accountable?

I do like the internal title of the House letter (PDF):




Another day, another Obama-funded "green energy" company falls by the wayside

Please consider juxtaposed headlines number one...

...and number two.

You guessed it: this bankruptcy represents yet another Democrat "Success Story".

I used to maintain the Handy Dandy Energygate Cheat Sheet so I could keep up with the constant diversion of taxpayer dollars to Obama campaign contributors green energy companies with ties back to the administration.

The list grew so long that I've given up. At least for now.

Maybe I should just start a Wikipedia article to make it easier for all of us to keep up-to-date.


Could someone wake up John Boehner? Because it's long past time to impeach Kathleen Sebelius

The peerless Mark Levin made the point last night. If the House of Representatives had real leadership, it would already be drafting articles of impeachment for HHS Chief Kathleen Sebelius.

...the Obama administration has reversed itself on whether it has enough money to create federal Exchanges in states that decline to create them. The administration has repeatedly claimed that the $1 billion ObamaCare appropriates would cover the federal government’s costs of implementing the law. And yet the president’s new budget proposal requests “another $1 billion” to cover what Sebelius calls “the one-time cost to build the infrastructure, the enrollment piece of [the federal exchange], the IT system that’s needed.”...

In other words... the Obama administration does not have the money it needs to create federal Exchanges. Therefore, if states don’t create them, ObamaCare grinds to a halt. (Oh, and this billion dollars is the last billion the administration will request. Honest.)

Most important, however, is this:

Even if Congress does not grant the president’s request for more health reform funding, Sebelius said her department will find a solution. “We are going to get it done, yes,” she said.

An HHS staffer prevented the reporter from asking Sebelius what she had in mind... This is a remarkable statement. Sebelius basically just copped to a double-subversion of the Constitution: Congress appropriates money for X, but not Y. Sebelius says, “I know better than Congress. I’m going to take money away from X to fund Y.” Sebelius has already shown contempt for the First Amendment, first by threatening insurance carriers with bankruptcy for engaging in non-fraudulent speech, and again by crafting a contraceptives mandate that violates religious freedom. Now, she has decided the whole separation of powers thing is for little people. What will Sebelius do the next time something gets in the way of her implementing ObamaCare?

We know what she'll do. She'll spit on the Constitution.

Could someone tell me what the hell John Boehner is doing as Speaker? The president is violating the Constitution left and right as he bankrupts America. His attorney general is, in the estimation of some law enforcement officials, perjuring himself in the process of orchestrating a massive cover-up of an illegal gun-running operation. And his HHS Secretary has basically laid a dukie on the House Speaker's head.

Which is the term Boehner prefers, I hear.

John Boehner needs to go. He's about as useful as you-know-whats on a bull. Which really overstates his usefulness.


Larwyn's Linx: Michigan: Santorum 39, Romney 24, Paul 12, Gingrich 11

Have a news tip or great story? Drop me an email. Bloggers: you can install a Larwyn's Linx blog widget!

GOP Primary

Michigan: Santorum 39, Romney 24, Paul 12, Gingrich 11: WS
The Underestimation of Rick Santorum: RS
Rick Santorum Takes First National Lead: RSM

Santorum Leads in Michigan: PolWire
When Romney Praised Obamacare: PolWire
Is Mitt Romney A Serial Liar?: PunditWire

Nation

"Squid Ink": The HHS mandate is already law: Pundette
The Liberal Uses of Race: Sultan Knish
Notre Dame to Obama: HHS Mandate 'Can Not Stand': GWP

Obama: In the Footsteps of Twentieth Century Despots: AT
AttackWatch II: Obama’s Goon Squads Launch “Truth Teams”: JWF
Obama’s Attack Watch returns as … “Truth Team”: Hot Air

Economy

Obama's 2013 Budget: A Monument To Irresponsibility: IBD
Dem Rep. on Obama Budget: 'A Nervous Breakdown on Paper': JWF
More Obama Budget Buffoonery: CDN

Failed President to Unveil “Job Training” Program: JWF
Economy recovering in spite of Obama: Exam
Obama’s IRS to Target Charter Schools?: CDN

Even Politico calling Obama's budget 'Borderline Delusional': Cove
White House Underestimated 2012 Deficit by $769.5B--or 138 Percent: CNS
Michigan Teachers Instruct Elementary Students To Write Letters Criticizing Budget Cuts: SAB

Obama’s ‘rosy’ budget scenario doubles down on class warfare: Peth
President’s Budget Shows Feds Can’t Create ObamaCare ‘Exchanges’: Cato
Obama Requests $1 Billion…To Get Right Names on Social Security Checks: BigG

Scandal Central

Fast And Furious Gun Control Plot Was Widely Known: IBD
Solyndra Tip of Iceberg: Tens of Billions Yet to Come: MagNote
Media Silent As Mexico Arrests Key Figure In Fast and Furious: BigJ

Climate & Energy

Obama Budget Kills $8K/Yr. DC Scholarships, But Ups Subsidies For Chevy Volts To $10K Apiece: HayRide
Obama Proposes Nearly $90 Billion in Tax Hikes on Energy Producers: ATR
Shocker: dirty electric cars: Watts

Media

Remember when no one understood why ABC asked about contraception at the NH GOP debate?: LI
'Non-Partisan,' Tax-Exempt 'Media Watchdog' Organization Has... Weekly Strategy Session With White House: Ace
GOP discovers Obama's Achille's Heel: Just Let Him Do What He Wants: ZH

Non-shocker of the morning: Soros monkeys coordinate with Democrats: Malkin
The War on Life: JPA
National Review to Newt: Get Out: Hot Air

Is the White House manipulating the media through Media Matters?: Hot Air
Obama Chief Of Staff: "American People Should Be Pleased" That Economy Is Improving: RCP
Jim Cramer: Obamacare is going to derail economy: Exam

The CPAC 2012 Experience: 43 Pictures: RWN
CPAC: Observations From a Rookie: MenRec
Krauthammer on Obama’s Budget: “Truly Scandalous”: GWP

World

Breaking: Iran’s ‘Fordow’ Nuke Plant Now Fully Operational: Kahlili
Saudi Arabia Gives Israel Clear Skies to Attack Iranian Nuke Sites: Fox
Bombs target Israeli diplomats in India, Georgia; 2 injured: WaPo

Greece Goes Cold Turkey: Q&O
The Silent Victims of the U.S.-China Currency War: USN&WR
Obama proposes $800 million in aid for "Arab Spring": Reuters

Clinton: We need Assad's consent to put troops in Syria: ForPol
Must Watch Video: Douglas Murray on Israel and a nuclear Iran: TPC
5 people wounded in 3 explosions in Thai capital: AP

Sci-Tech

President’s 2013 Budget Hits Planetary Science Hard: Wired
Army doctor develops breast cancer vaccine: ArmyTimes
Tech lament, who are the iDiots behind iTunes for Windows 7?: WyBlog

Why I quit Facebook: Post
AT&T customers surprised by 'unlimited data' limit: AP
How To Reduce Eye Strain While You Read, Work And Watch: Consumerist

Cornucopia

Moonbat Tech: Eco-Friendly Mobile Home: Moonbattery
Photos - CPAC 2012: Urban Infidel
Messageless: Occupy protesters demand Al-Jazeera on Cable TV in Philly: Marathon

Image: The CPAC 2012 Experience: 43 Pictures, by John Hawkins
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: Rick Santorum for President

QOTD: "...according to family members, by the end of his life Osama bin Laden was telling his family to “Go to Europe and America and get a good education.”

What? The great Islamic umma, center of global culture and light of the world has no universities where the children of the Great Jihadi can get a decent education? The clueless, hell-bound infidels of Europe and America make the Sons of the True Faith look incompetent and backward on the vital matter of educating the young? It isn’t enough to sit on a dirt floor in Pakistan memorizing the Koran and learning how to wear a suicide bomb vest?
But what about the obligation to take up the cause of jihad and violence and crush the evil doers in the West?

Never mind about all that, Osama supposedly told his children and grandchildren. “Do not follow me down the road to jihad,” he said. “You have to study and live in peace and don’t do what I am doing or what I have done."" --Walter Russell Mead

Monday, February 13, 2012

Pew: Santorum Passes Romney Nationally

It's Mitt Romney's worst nightmare: a true conservative that has energized the small-government wing of the Republican Party.

Rick Santorum’s support among Tea Party Republicans and white evangelicals is surging, and he now has pulled into a virtual tie with Mitt Romney in the race for the Republican presidential nomination. In polling conducted Feb. 8-12, 30% of Republican and Republican-leaning registered voters favor Santorum while 28% favor Romney. As recently as a month ago, Romney held a 31% to 14% advantage over Santorum among all GOP voters.

Santorum is now the clear favorite of Republican and GOP-leaning voters who agree with the Tea Party, as well as white evangelical Republicans. Currently, 42% of Tea Party Republican voters favor Santorum, compared with just 23% who back Romney. Santorum holds an almost identical advantage among white evangelical Republican voters (41% to 23%)...

...Three months ago, a slim majority (53%) of Republican and Republican-leaning voters said Mitt Romney was a strong conservative. Today, 42% see him this way, while the number who say he is not a strong conservative has jumped from 33% to 50%.

This growing skepticism about Romney’s conservatism is most pronounced among Tea Party Republicans. Among Republican and Republican-leaning voters who agree with the Tea Party, just 29% say Romney is a strong conservative, down from 51% three months ago. Fully 68% of Tea Party Republicans say Romney is not a strong conservative...

Santorum is a Constitutional conservative praised by Mark Levin, Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin -- to name but a few -- and, most importantly, is a man who has stood by his principles through thick and thin.

He didn't cut and run when he backed the surge in Iraq. He didn't shrink from leading a successful entitlement reform (the 1996 Welfare Reform Act). He's voted the right way on almost every important issue for conservatives.

If you have an extra five-spot (or ten of 'em), Rick Santorum can use your support.


Hat tip: Memeorandum.

J. Wellington Obama's Official Budget

J. Wellington Wimpy -- better known simply as "Wimpy" -- was Popeye's recurring sidekick in the long-running cartoon series.

And Wimpy had a motto that could just as well be President Obama's:

"I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today"

As Cato explains, Obama's budgets consist of tax hikes now, with spending cuts and accounting gimmicks sometime... in... teh... future.

We’ve become so used to these unfathomable levels of deficits and debt—and to the once-rare concept of trillions of dollars—that we forget how new all this debt is. In 1981, after 190 years of federal spending, the national debt was “only” $1 trillion. Now, just 30 years later, it’s past $15 trillion...


As ATR points out, the "Obama Plan Uses Budget Gimmickry To Mask Explosive Spending":

The budget continues to call for spending at historic levels: the request sets spending for the fiscal year at $3.8 trillion and projects $47 trillion in spending over the next ten years

Holds spending at 23 percent of [GDP] the next ten years, two percent higher than its historical average

Uses totally dishonest accounting: the President claims to include $4 trillion in deficit reduction. These supposed cuts include $1.6 trillion in tax hikes and $900 billion in war spending the President plans to plow back into infrastructure spending

Repeats failed “stimulus” spending: For the third year in a row, the plan looks to create a permanent Infrastructure Bank with $350 billion in new spending. The budget also requests $500 billion for a transportation package while shifting Highway Trust Fund spending to mandatory accounts, ensuring its insolvency for posterity

Continues practice of extending Medicare providers payments without offsetting the $438 billion in spending with cuts elsewhere

The budget only addresses 40 percent of the government spending problem: the President bankrupts the entitlement programs by once again refusing to confront the nation’s largest debt-drivers

Fails to take into account the coming costs of the government takeover of healthcare and financial regulatory overhaul. Instead, the President’s budget claims zero effect for supposed cost-saving mechanisms, such as the implementation of the Obamacare Independent Payment Advisory Board

James Pethokoukis summarizes some of the most important changes for the average worker and small businessman:

• The top income rate [for individuals and most small businesses] would be raised to 39.6 percent vs. 35 percent today... [Ed: well, that should help hiring.]

• Between now the end of a second Obama term, Obama proposes $707 billion in “net deficit reduction proposals.” Of that amount, only 16 percent is spending cuts.

• The capital gains rate would rise to 25.0 percent (including the Obamacare surtax and deduction phase out) from 15 percent today... [Ed: well, that should help investments.]

• The double-tax on corporate profits (including dividends) would increase to 64 percent based on the statutory corporate tax rate (58 percent using the effective tax rate), easily the highest among advanced economies... [Ed: well, that should help hiring.]

...Higher taxes, more spending, more debt, and no long-term entitlement reform plan. Hmm, this isn’t a rosy scenario at all. It’s actually a pretty bleak one.

The problem on Capitol Hill is spending, catastrophic levels of debt and an impending fiscal collapse. And we need another wave of real conservatives -- not RINOs and certainly not Democrats -- to continue turning the tide. Because the feckless John Boehner ain't cutting it.


Epic fail for the electric car crowd: researchers find that electric vehicles are far worse for public health than real cars

Even assuming electric cars worked effectively (which they don't), the eco-tards' whiny shrieks for plug-in vehicles make, oh, about as much sense as the rest of their agenda.

Report Finds Electric Cars in China Worse for Public Health


Electric cars are often assumed to be better for the environment and therefore better for public health.

A study by the University of Tennessee of electric vehicles in China, however, found that when you factor in where and how the energy for those vehicles is produced, the result is actually worse for public health when compared to gas-powered cars...

...According to new research from the University of Tennessee, electric cars in China have had an overall worse impact on the public health with regard to releasing particulate matter compared to those guzzling gas. The research conducted by Chris Cherry, assistant professor in civil and environmental engineering, and graduate student Shuguang Ji, evaluated 34 major Chinese cities where electric vehicles, including bikes, outnumber conventional vehicles 2:1. Their research states that the number of electric cars have grown to more than 100 million in the country in the last decade...

...Cherry says his study clearly shows that electric vehicles aren’t the zero-emission savior many expect them to be... “I think electric vehicles have a lot of promise, but I’m not an evangelist,” he says. “There are these electric cars out there touting themselves as being emission free, but you and I both know that’s not true.”

Oh, and don't assume the researchers are just talking about China. While they didn't study the U.S. directly, a huge portion of our electricity is produced by coal. Therefore, it's safe to say that we have many of the same challenges.

Consider this Exhibit 18,036 for my new book entitled The Inevitable Result of Central Planning: Epic failure, Democrat-style.

When the free market's ready for electric cars, the free market will produce electric cars. Not a minute before nor a minute after.

Schmucks.


Hat tip: BadBlue.com.

Obama Unveils Family Togetherness Plan: Economy Sucks So Bad That a Record Number of Adults Are Moving In With Their Parents

Had Democrats known their wanton destruction of the economy would bring so many families together, it's likely they would've toned down the reckless deficit spending and regulations a bit.

According to a report released today by Pew Research, most Americans believe the young have been hardest hit by the Obama economic failures, nearly one quarter young adults aged 18-34 have been forced to move back in with their parents.

For some, tough economic times have had an impact on their personal life as well. Roughly a quarter of adults ages 18 to 34 (24%) say that, due to economic conditions, they have moved back in with their parents in recent years after living on their own. Among those ages 25 to 29, the share moving back home rises to 34%. Most adults under age 25 are enrolled in school at least part time (46% are full-time students). By age 25, the majority are out of school, but jobs and housing can be hard to come by, and many “boomerang” back home.

The lesson here, of course, is that you should never tell your parents that you hate living with them, because you’ll probably end up back there, eating your words and helping to chop beans with a dull knife.

To be fair, the real lesson for young people is that voting Democrat means voting for your own economic destruction -- through massive, centralized government; unchecked deficit spending (which you'll have to pay for... plus interest); and complete disregard by government for the rule of law and the civil society.

To paraphrase Margaret Thatcher, the problem with Democrats is that eventually they run out of other people's money to spend.