Oregon Tax Money Blowing Away With Wind Power Scam

They would be built anyway, but wind turbine builders are happy to dip into the Oregon tax payers pockets. Who wouldn't?

Who Does Hugo Chavez Think He Is?

Barack Obama? Or maybe Maxine Waters?

Indians Are Off The Hook

Scientists are now claiming that Native Americans were not responsible for killing off the mastadons after all.

If humans were responsible for the extinction, it would have to be settlers that came along before the Clovis people, which is another debate in itself. The Clovis culture is thought to have been the first civilization to take hold in North America around 13,300 years ago–after the bulk of the megafauna extinctions, according to the new analysis. But some researchers believe that earlier settlers walked the land before the Clovis people, and could have hunted the mastodons and mammoths. The new study adds crucial info to the fossil record, but it is likely to kindle, rather than quench, the debate over megafauna extinction.

Happy Birthday Winston Churchill

Getting Rich Under Obamanomics

You're getting hurt. But some people are getting very wealthy thanks to Barack Obama.

Whether he likes it or not, President Barack Obama’s policies on finance, the economy, technology, the environment, and even health care are turning out to be boons to the most entrenched special interests. Meanwhile, smaller businesses, taxpayers, and some disfavored industries are bearing the burden.

Our President believes in a “mixed economy” in which private enterprise and the profit
motive are still alive and well, but government gets to pick the winners and losers.

The winners might surprise you: Such as Peabody Coal!?!?

Obama helped a Peabody-led coalition of coal and power companies win the largest earmark in history—a $1 billion line-item in the stimulus bill passed in February The money was for a demonstration project in unproven clean-coal technologies such as “carbon sequestration,” which means trapping CO2 gas underground. The House of Representatives’ global warming bill, which Obama has endorsed, also contains special gifts to coal-powered utilities.

You will not be surprised to learn that crossing Obama's palms with silver helps you get rich off the taxpayer.

Democracy Wins, Obama Loses

In Honduras anyway. The Obama-Castro-Chavez axis of evil loses.

Update: Zelaya loses, conservative wins.

Obamacare Kills 10,000 Per Year In Great Britain

And that's just the toll from late cancer diagnosis.

Up to 10,000 people die needlessly of cancer every year because their condition is diagnosed too late, according to research by the government's director of cancer services. The figure is twice the previous estimate for preventable deaths.

Earlier detection of symptoms could save between 5,000 and 10,000 lives in England a year, Prof Mike Richards will reveal this week. The higher figure is nearly twice his previous calculation, which put the figure at about 5,000.

Richards has revised up his estimate after studying the three deadliest forms of the disease ‑ lung, bowel and breast cancer ‑ which together kill almost 63,000 people a year.

"These delays in patients presenting with symptoms and cancer being diagnosed at a late stage inevitably cost lives. The situation is unacceptable," Richards told the Guardian.

UN Climate Totalitarians Unfazed By Truth

The United Nations is not particularly interested with scientific fraud within the Warm Mongering community.

Rajendra Pachauri defended the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in the wake of apparent suggestions in emails between climate scientists at the University of East Anglia that they had prevented work they did not agree with from being included in the panel's fourth assessment report, which was published in 2007.

Is Marice Clemmons Dead?

Michael Huckabee's Willie Horton was seriously wounded and may be dead.

"He has suffered a gunshot wound," Troyer said at a media briefing held just before 3 a.m.

Police know that Clemmons was wounded because they have detained other people — Troyer wouldn't say how many — who helped Clemmons after the shootings.

At the briefing, Troyer said police now consider Clemmons a suspect, rather than merely a "person of interest."

Police don't know the severity of Clemmons' wound, and Troyer said he may already be dead.

Update: Tweets from the scene.

Update: Clemmons not in the house. Might be on UW campus.

Update: Big search for Clemmons in Seattle's International District.

7 stories Barack Obama doesn't want told - John F. Harris - POLITICO.com

7 stories Barack Obama doesn't want told - John F. Harris - POLITICO.com

Obama is losing control of the narrative. And once the narrative evaporates, all that's left if truth. Uh oh.

7 stories Barack Obama doesn't want told - John F. Harris - POLITICO.com

7 stories Barack Obama doesn't want told - John F. Harris - POLITICO.com

Obama is losing control of the narrative. And once the narrative evaporates, all that's left if truth. Uh oh.

Mike Huckabee's Willie Horton Moment

The man sought for the murder of four Lakewood, Washington policemen was released by then Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee.

Of course, the criminal justice system in Washington will have a bit to answer for too.

Nine years ago, then-Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee granted clemency to Clemmons, commuting his lengthy prison sentence over the protests of prosecutors.

"This is the day I've been dreading for a long time," Larry Jegley, prosecuting attorney for Arkansas' Pulaski County said Sunday night when informed that Clemmons was being sought in connection to the killings.

Clemmons' criminal history includes at least five felony convictions in Arkansas and at least eight felony charges in Washington. The record also stands out for the number of times he has been released from custody despite questions about the danger he posed.

Clemmons had been in jail in Pierce County for the past several months on a pending charge of second-degree rape of a child.

He was released from custody just six days ago, even though he was wanted on a fugitive warrant out of Arkansas and was staring at eight felony charges in all out of Washington state.

El Nino Strengthens

I'm still waiting for El Nino to warm things up here. My gosh! We had single digit temperatures in mid-October and it's been quite cool all autumn with more than usual early season snow. But El Nino's getting stronger, and is now borderline strong. So maybe it'll finally improve way up here. On the other hand, the first two winters I spent on the Palouse were savage and that was with the strongest El Nino ever recorded.

Penn State To Investigate Michael Mann

It's fitting that Michael Mann gets the Ward Churchill treatment. Michael Mann's scholarship is beginning to look as legitimate as Churchill's.

Tiger Woods Tale Doesn't Add Up

No matter how much I try, I cannot bend, fold spindle or mutilate the facts to make them conform to the official story about how Tiger Woods came to be semiconscious on the ground with his wife standing over him with a golf club in her hands.

It would have taken a long, long time to break out the rear window of a Cadillac Escalade wide enough to allow her to get into the car to extricate Woods.

The facts seem to point to Woods trying to escape while Ms Nordegren was beating on the car with the club, then smacking him with the club after he emerged from the car.

Climategate Or, How To Rig A Scientific Consensus

What these emails reveal is that warm mongers had the fix in from the beginning.

The furor over these documents is not about tone, colloquialisms or whether climatologists are nice people. The real issue is what the messages say about the way the much-ballyhooed scientific consensus on global warming was arrived at, and how a single view of warming and its causes is being enforced. The impression left by the correspondence among Messrs. Mann and Jones and others is that the climate-tracking game has been rigged from the start.

According to this privileged group, only those whose work has been published in select scientific journals, after having gone through the "peer-review" process, can be relied on to critique the science. And sure enough, any challenges from critics outside this clique are dismissed and disparaged.

Nidal Hassan's Enablers

Mark Steyn believes as I do that Nidal Hassan was enabled by political correctness.

[A] constrained and regulated culture policed by politically correct enforcers leads to slaughter. I’m not being speculative here, as Commissar Lynch is about my murderous prose style. It’s already happened, just a couple of weeks back. Thirteen men and women plus an unborn baby were gunned down at Fort Hood by a major in the U.S. Army. Nidal Hasan was the perpetrator, but political correctness was his enabler, every step of the way. In the days that followed, the near parodically absurd revelations piled up like an overripe satire, but a two-panel cartoon at the Toronto blogger Scaramouche’s website provided the pithiest distillation:
“This is your brain. This is your brain on political correctness”—a small and shrivelled thing.

Major Hasan couldn’t have been more straightforward about who and what he was. An army psychiatrist, he put “SoA”—i.e., “Soldier of Allah”—on his business card. At the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences, he was reprimanded for trying to persuade patients to convert to Islam and fellow pupils objected to his constant “anti-American propaganda,” but, as the Associated Press reported, “a fear of appearing discriminatory against a Muslim student kept officers from filing a formal written complaint.”

This is your brain on political correctness.

Warm Monger Contrition At The New York Time?

Instead of being a real journalist, Andrew Revkin has uncritically served as the warm mongers' megaphone. He seems a bit humbled today.

I guess that's what happens when you and your friends have been exposes as co-conspirators concealling the truth.

Tiger Woods And His Wife Put Off Police Interviews For Another Day

Telling the truth doesn't take 48 hours of preparation.

How To Get Real News On The Mainstream Media

Hat tip: Small Dead Animals

Will Time Magazine Apologize To Glenn Beck?

It took no time at all for Time Magazine to blame Glenn Beck for the death of a census worker. Now that the death has been ruled a suicide, will Time apologize? After all, Michael Gerson says that the MSM is shamed when its biases and inaccuracies are exposed.

Carol Browner Unmoved By E-Mails

Carol Browner is not about to let information pollute her decisions making process.

“‘I’m sticking with the 2,500 scientists. These people have been studying this issue for a very long time and agree this problem is real,’ said Ms. Browner, who President Obama has tapped as his chief of policy on global warming…

“Ms. Browner initially shrugged when asked about the e-mails, saying she didn’t have a reaction.”

Mainstream Media Dying Because It No Longer Does Its Job

Michael Gerson tells us that we'll miss them when they're gone.

But a visit to the Newseum is a reminder that what is passing is not only a business but also a profession -- the journalistic tradition of nonpartisan objectivity. Journalists, God knows, didn't always live up to that tradition. But they generally accepted it, and they felt shamed when their biases or inaccuracies were exposed. The profession had rules about facts and sources and editors who enforced standards. At its best, the profession of journalism has involved a spirit of public service and adventure -- reporting from a bomber during a raid in World War II, or exposing the suffering of Sudan or Appalachia, or rushing to the site of the World Trade Center moments after the buildings fell.

The mainstream media is failing precisely because it is no longer shamed when its biases and inaccuracies are exposed. And they are only exposed in the new media. Were it not for the new media, Dan Rather could have gone along making it up indefinitely and the New York Times could continue to bury news that embarasses its ideological fellow travelers.

Global Warming Alarmists Are Not True Scientists

This hasn’t been a good week for the global warming alarmist industry. An as yet anonymous hero hacked into a computer at the University of East Anglia and released to the world data and e-mails from the heart of the global warming activism and revealed that the biggest names in the global warming industry have conspired to manipulate data, conceal contradictory information and punish nonconformists. It has also been revealed that the computer models used to predict global warming were poorly encoded and buggy.

But most importantly this information showed that global warming science is not being conducted by objective scientists whose primary goal is the elucidation of truth. Instead the biggest names in the field are ideological hacks driven by political agendas. It brings into question whether anything that they have produced in their careers can be trusted.

This is all terribly important as the United States Congress has on its docket a couple of carbon emission controlling bills that will cost trillions of dollars, throw millions of Americans out of work and dramatically erode the liberty of every American. The justification for this despotic legislation is the “scientific research” conducted by the very same men who have been exposed as quacks.

This story hasn’t gotten nearly the attention it deserves. When similar information revealed that tobacco companies knew that their products caused cancer, it was front page news. If embarrassing information were hacked from a health insurance company’s servers, it would be the first item on the evening news.

So far, reaction has been muted. The NBC News website shows nothing. This is hardly surprising as NBC’s parent company is General Electric. General Electric is the world’s largest manufacturer of “green technology,” such as wind turbines. What all green technologies have in common is that they rely upon public subsidies and those subsidies require global warming hysteria. More corruption.

The New York Times, quite laughably, announced that it would not publish the information because its journalistic standards do not permit the publication of illegally collected information. If there really is such a prohibition at The Times, then there is an exemption when illegally obtained information compromises national security.

No honest scientist believes that his profession is incorruptible. Data editing and massaging are unfortunately common. Many granting agencies often distribute money in expectation of a particular result. This might involve a chemotherapeutic agent that a pharmaceutical firm wishes to market. The manufacturer of a nutritional supplement funding research eagerly awaits the results of research that he anticipates will reveal a hoped for probiotic effect. Don’t think that the researcher isn’t aware of his benefactor’s wishes.

In the 1990’s, the Clinton Administration poured unprecedented amounts of cash into global warming research. Then Vice President Al Gore made global warming his signature issue. Billions were disseminated with the stipulation that the money be used to advance his side of a hypothesis.

In academia, careers are made or ruined based upon the amount of extramural funding brought to campus. Individual researchers know that tenure and promotion deliberations will turn largely on the amount of grant money won. Department chairmen seeking to become deans know that the weightiest single section of their resumés will be the amount of extramural funding his department attracted while he was at the helm. The same goes for deans who aspire to become college presidents. And even those who have no aspirations for higher office know that salaries are set based upon how good a rainmaker one is.

Nearly two decades worth of distortion in atmospheric science has yielded an academic atmosphere that rewarded zealotry over scientific rigor. The hierarchy in atmospheric science departments is tilted disproportionately toward those who have brought in the greatest amounts of money. As such, editorial boards at major journals are similarly stacked with those who grabbed Al Gore’s cash. Granting agency committees are typically populated with representatives from academia who are chosen for their success in that field.

What this scandal has revealed is that there is no limit to the corruption that can be purchased when one has access to the inexhaustible United State Treasury.

Arguably the greatest scientist in human history was Ernest Rutherford. He not only won a Nobel Prize, but trained 13 future Nobel Prize winners. And he never took a cent of extramural funding. He believed that no man can honestly serve two masters. He chose the truth. Global warming alarmists chose otherwise.

Mark Steyn has a fine article on this topic too.

US And California Attorneys General Torture Logic And Law For ACORN

Eric Holder finds a way for ACORN to keep suckling at the federal teet and Jerry Brown concocts absurd excuses for ACORN's attempt to obstruct justice.

Tiger Woods: A Car Wreck, An Affair and Criminal Charges

And to think that before today, missing the cut was considered a bad day.

First, there's news of an extramarital affair.

“I’m shocked that Rachel would be so casual about an affair that could break up Tiger’s family. It’s crazy,” adds the insider. “I reminded Rachel that he was married, and she said ‘Big f-cking deal! It’s Tiger Woods! I don’t care about his wife! We’re in love.’”
Uchitel is the same woman who allegedly had an affair with actor David Boreanaz earlier this year.

I have a feeling that the previous story contributed to last night's wreck.

Professional golfer Tiger Woods was seriously injured in a car accident early this morning, the Florida Highway Patrol reported.

Woods, 33, pulled out of his driveway in the Isleworth community about 2:25 a.m. when he struck a fire hydrant, and then drove into a tree at his neighbor's property, FHP reported.

Alcohol is not related to the accident, FHP said.

Update: Tiger released from the hospital. Injuries minor.

It seems that my first impression was right. That golf club was meant for Tiger's head.

Obama Blows It On Iran

Obama's greatest diplomatic triumph, is a bust. You can't say we weren't warned.

Obama's Great Diplomatic Success

China agrees to sign on to a toughly worded letter. I'm certain that Iran is quaking in its boots now.

What Scandal?

The BBC had the Climategate emails six weeks ago - and sat on them.

This will ultimately be a mainstream media scandal as much as it's a scientific scandal.

It's Unprecedented!

The White House's unprecedented use of 'unprecedented' - Carol E. Lee - POLITICO.com

Now this really is unprecedented.

President Obama has shattered the budget record for first-year presidents -- spending nearly double what his predecessor did when he came into office and far exceeding the first-year tabs for any other U.S. president in history.

In fiscal 2009 the federal government spent $3.52 trillion -- $2.8 trillion in 2000 dollars, which sets a benchmark for comparison. That fiscal year covered the last three-and-a-half months of George W. Bush's term and the first eight-and-a-half months of Obama's.

That price tag came with a $1.4 trillion deficit, nearly $1 trillion more than last year. The overall budget was about a half-trillion more than Bush's for 2008, his final full fiscal year in office.

Obama breaks promises regarding Freedom of Information Act | Washington Examiner

Transparency!

We can see right through him.

Reid And Dodd's Swan Song?

Harry Reid and Christopher Dodd are paying a political price for carrying Obama's spears.

Two Senate leaders trying to steer a pair of President Barack Obama's high-stakes initiatives through Congress are being dogged by re-election worries, and it's not clear whether their legislative prominence will help or hurt them.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., are trailing in early polls, and Republicans are eager to topple them in next year's elections.

They also are central players in two of the most ambitious and hotly contested agenda items in decades. Reid is scratching and clawing to find enough Senate votes to overhaul the nation's health care system. And Dodd, as chairman of the banking committee, is pushing a massive bill to re-regulate the nation's financial institutions following the mortgage meltdown and economic crisis.

CBS Discovers That Barack Hussein Obama Has A Credibility Gap

Actually, what CBS has discovered that most Americans distrust Obama.

The American people are increasingly questioning the President's credibility. He says the stimulus has saved or created 640,000 jobs, but only seven percent of Americans believe it has created any. And he's repeatedly promised health care reform will not increase the deficit, but a mere 19 percent believe him.

News Busters presents this as CBS discovering that there's something wrong with Obama. In truth, CBS is probably trying to figure out what's wrong with most Americans.

Minnesota Requires Politically Purifying Confessions From Future Teachers

I love Big Brother.

The task group is part of the Teacher Education Redesign Initiative, a multiyear project to change the way future teachers are trained at the U’s flagship campus. The initiative is premised, in part, on the conviction that Minnesota teachers’ lack of “cultural competence” contributes to the poor academic performance of the state’s minority students. Last spring, it charged the task group with coming up with recommendations to change this. In January, planners will review the recommendations and decide how to proceed.

The report advocates making race, class and gender politics the “overarching framework” for all teaching courses at the U. It calls for evaluating future teachers in both coursework and practice teaching based on their willingness to fall into ideological lockstep.

The first step toward “cultural competence,” says the task group, is for future teachers to recognize — and confess — their own bigotry. Anyone familiar with the reeducation camps of China’s Cultural Revolution will recognize the modus operandi.

The task group recommends, for example, that prospective teachers be required to prepare an “autoethnography” report. They must describe their own prejudices and stereotypes, question their “cultural” motives for wishing to become teachers, and take a “cultural intelligence” assessment designed to ferret out their latent racism, classism and other “isms.” They “earn points” for “demonstrating the ability to be self-critical.”

Documented Proof The Obama Lied About Gerald Walpin's Firing?

Will the Obama Approved Legitimate News Organizations finally take notice?

The White House not only deliberately misled Congress on Walpin’s firing, they also withheld these new documents until after Grassley and Issa made their initial report on the investigation on Friday. As Byron York notes, that takes the traditional Friday-night document dump to a whole new level. It also completely refutes any claim on transparency and openness from this administration.

The new information shows that Obama fired Walpin for political purposes, not for cause. The White House also broke the law, at least initially, by not giving Congress the proper notification before terminating Walpin (they adhered to the regulation after being called on this violation by postponing Walpin’s termination date). The firing appears to have been motivated to protect an Obama ally (Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson) from having allegations of using federal funds to pay off employees and avoid sexual harassment charges exposed. The White House essentially smeared Walpin with completely unsubstantiated allegations of senility to undermine his credibility, once Walpin went public. One might think that the national media would take an interest in this, but as York also notes, their interest has never been very intense at all.

The Robert Gibbs Bullshit Tour

Not even Obama's most loyal lackeys believe that Obamacare will reduce the national debt. But Robert Gibbs keeps marching out there reciting the Obamachisms.

The Unbearable Whiteness Of Being MSNBC

No network is quicker to accuse conservatives of racism than the monochrome MSNBC.

Newsweak Editor Calls Obamacare A Fiscal Fraud

But he still supports it.

After conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer accurately pointed out how the Senate bill only pretends to be “deficit-neutral” by front-loading the tax collection process while delaying the payouts, Thomas agreed: “Charles is right. This bill is a fiscal fraud.”

But he quickly added: “I’d still vote for it.”

Have The Democrats Totally Screwed Themselves With Obama/Pelosicare?

Rich Lowry thinks so, and explains why.

Tax hikes undid George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton (Bush lost his presidency, Clinton his congressional majority), and Medicare cuts undid Newt Gingrich (taking the air out of his "Republican revolution"). Obama's Democrats are prescribing themselves a strong dose of both, in an exercise in self-destructive quackery.

And Americans really don't want this.

Meanwhle there's the perky Katie Couric, who seems blissfully unaware.

The New Louisiana Purchase

Harry Reid bids $100 million for Sen. Mary Landrieu's (D-La.) vote. Not enough. She says it'll take $300 million.

Whores don't come as cheap as they used to.

Saturday Night Live Laughs At Obama - Again

Time for another CNN fact check segment.

Not Even David Broder Believes Barack Hussein Obama

Barack Obama says that he will not sign a bill that increases the deficit. Harry Reid claims that his bill will reduce the deficit. David Broder pronounces bullshit on both.

Holtz-Eakin cites a long list of Democratic-sponsored "budget gimmicks" that made it possible for the CBO to estimate that Reid's bill would reduce federal deficits by $130 billion by 2019.

Perhaps the biggest of those maneuvers was Reid's decision to postpone the start of subsidies to help the uninsured buy policies from mid-2013 to January 2014 -- long after taxes and fees levied by the bill would have begun.

Even with that change, there is plenty in the CBO report to suggest that the promised budget savings may not materialize. If you read deep enough, you will find that under the Senate bill, "federal outlays for health care would increase during the 2010-2019 period" -- not decline. The gross increase would be almost $1 trillion -- $848 billion, to be exact, mainly to subsidize the uninsured. The net increase would be $160 billion.

But this depends on two big gambles. Will future Congresses actually impose the assumed $420 billion in cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and other federal health programs? They never have.

If Barack Obama has lost David Broder. Oh, never mind. Democrats don't read anyway.

David Obey, In His Own Words: "So What?"

Obama's Failed Presidency

Can we call Obama a failed president after less than a year?

Yep.

It's not so much that he's a phony, knows nothing about economics, is historically illiterate, and woefully small minded for the size of the task-- all contributory of course. It's that he's not one of us. And whatever he is, his profile is fuzzy and devoid of content, like a cardboard cutout made from delaminated corrugated paper. Moreover, he doesn't command our respect and is unable to appeal to our own common sense. His notions of right and wrong are repugnant and how things work just don't add up. They are not existential. His descriptions of the world we live in don't make sense and don't correspond with our experience.

Climategate: The Greatest Scientific Scandal Ever?

What if this whole global warming thing was an elaborate hoax? What if the best evidence for the hoax are the words of the hoaxes perpetrators? Would that be news?

It even made the New York Times, believe it or not, has reported on it, so perhaps even Charlie Gibson will learn of it. Maybe even CNN, although it hasn't happened yet.

Jumping Away From Conclusions At Fort Hood

Do we have permission to think for ourselves yet? If not, then when will our betters grant us that permission?

Shortly after Major Nidal Malik Husan’s one man terrorist attack at Fort Hood Texas, President Barack Obama warned us all against premature conclusions. “We don't know all the answers yet. And I would caution against jumping to conclusions until we have all the facts.”

That’s fair advice. No one would argue in favor of a premature conclusion. And as if to set a good example, Obama Approved Legitimate News Organization host, Chris Matthews, declared that “we may never know if religion was a factor at Fort Hood.”

You mean, that part about Hasan chanting “Alahu Akbar” (Allah is great!) as he murdered soldiers wasn’t a clue? Or the story about Hasan celebrating when US servicemen are killed by roadside bombs isn’t a tipoff? And when Hasan learned in 2003 that a Muslim soldier in Kuwait had gone on a rampage and killed several of his fellow servicemen, he cheered. Is that consistent with anything else we’ve learned?

Now, let’s look at a brief history of “premature conclusions.” When late term abortionist Dr. George Tiller was assassinated in Kansas 6 months ago, the New York Times jumped immediately to the conclusion that principled opposition to late term abortions created a climate that contributed to the murder.

Of course, believing that abortion, especially late term abortion, takes a human life is a completely reasonable position. What else is a pregnant mother going to give birth to – a frog? In truth, if there was the slightest chance that abortion would kill a whale or a polar bear fetus, many of the same people who now favor human abortion would suddenly become pro-life.

But after the Fort Hood atrocity, the New York Times adopted the Matthews’ willful ignorance approach: “It is unclear what might have motivated Major Hasan. He seems to have been influenced by a mixture of political, religious and psychological factors.”

Other Obama Approved Legitimate News Organizations rushed to premature conclusions. Both Time and Newsweek magazines concocted extravagant, totally unsupportable theories for what might have set Hasan off. Newsweek invented a bizarre new combat related disorder. You’ve probably heard of post-traumatic stress disorder. How about pre-traumatic stress disorder as an explanation? Somehow the anticipation of combat stress (in someone who is no danger of experiencing combat) could result in symptoms similar to those who actually experience extreme combat stress.

Not to be outdone, Time Magazine speculated that, in the course of treating soldiers who actually are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, their experiences somehow rubbed off on Hasan. I suppose we could call this second hand post-traumatic stress disorder. Why not? The whole second hand smoke thing worked, didn’t it?

Time magazine even speculated that Hasan had suffered anti-Muslim discrimination and had finally cracked.

These premature conclusions are all okay. They fit the “blame America first” narrative favored by the left and do not point to politically uncomfortable conclusions. I rather expect that the official investigation will come up with similar nonsense.

It’s worth pointing out that both Time and Newsweek have given up any pretense of objectivity and are now competing to remake themselves as The New Republic for the barely literate.

The problem is clear. Hasan was dangerously radical and should not have been wearing the uniform. In all probability the United States Army did not discharge Hasan because it feared that the enforcers of political correctness, such as the Times, MSNBC, Newsweek and Time Magazine, would condemn the Army for religious intolerance. Even after the murders there was an effort to paint Hasan as the victim. In fact it’s quite likely that Hasan’s religion spared him from being discharged. Two years ago, Hasan’s supervisor at Walter Reed Army Medical Center evaluated Hasan as dangerously incompetent.

Whether some spokesman for the Council on American Islamic Relations shares Hasan’s violent predilections is not pertinent. Hasan believed that he was doing Allah’s will and he had as role models a great many other jihadis who have elected to interpret the War on Terror as a war on Islam or who have embraced that often preached doctrine that unbelievers (Christians) should be exterminated.

Many Muslims have died fighting for America in this war. Their sacrifices should not be tarnished by coddling extremists who do not share their values.

Andrea Mitchell - Palin Hater

The pictures tell all.

More on Palin haters here.

Stimulus! Congressional Report: Rhee did 'damage control' after sex charges against fiance Kevin Johnson | Washington Examiner

Congressional Report: Rhee did 'damage control' after sex charges against fiance Kevin Johnson | Washington Examiner

A congressional investigation of the volunteer organization AmeriCorps contains charges that D.C. schools chief Michelle Rhee handled "damage control" after allegations of sexual misconduct against her now fiance, Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, a former NBA star and a prominent ally of President Obama, The Washington Examiner has learned.

The charges are contained in a report prepared by Sen. Charles Grassley, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, and Rep. Darrell Issa, ranking Republican on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

The investigation began after the AmeriCorps inspector general, Gerald Walpin, received reports that Johnson had misused some of the $800,000 in federal AmeriCorps money provided to St. Hope, a non-profit school that Johnson headed for several years.

More here, from Kevin Johnson's hometown newspaper.

Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson offered to pay $1,000 a month to one of three girls who had accused him of inappropriately touching her while she was involved in his St. HOPE Hood Corps program, the girl told federal agents during their investigation of Johnson's nonprofit St. HOPE organization last year.

The girl -- unnamed in a newly released report by two ranking Congressional Republicans -- was interviewed by agents Jeffrey Morales and Wendy Wingers with the Corporation for National and Community Service's Office of Inspector General during an investigation of St. HOPE's misuse of $800,000 in federal AmeriCorps grants. Investigators say the girl alleged Johnson had offered to pay her $1,000 a month while she remained in the St. HOPE program, but she refused.

It's too bad she didn't take the hush money. I'd be interested to know how many jobs Obama would have claimed were "saved or created."

It will be interesting to see if the Obama Approved Legitimate News Organizations finally pick this story up. Still nothing as of this afternoon. I'm sure that it's because Times reporters have left early for the Thanksgiving break.

Candidate Announces A Run For Imaginary Congressional District

According to Barack Hussein Obama, there are twice as many Congressional districts than the Constitution allows. So, why not run for office in one of those districts.

Grant Bosse will announce today that he is seeking a seat in Congress by becoming a candidate for New Hampshire's 00 congressional district.

Bosse, an investigative journlist associated with the Watchdog.org group, is thus the first candidate in the nation to announce for one of the estimated 440 phantom congressional districts in which officials with President Obama's economic stimulus program credited their program with creating thousands of jobs at a cost of more than $6.4 billion.

Why is he doing it? "Because even a fake district needs real leadership," Bosse said. For more details, go here. Bosse is expected to be only the first of a wave of candidates announcing in the next few days for phantom congressional districts.

Andrew Breitbart Issues An Utimatum To Eric Holder

Investigate ACORN or we'll release more tapes just before the 2010 election.

"Oh my goodness there are! Not only are there more tapes, it’s not just ACORN. And this message is to Attorney General Holder: I want you to know that we have more tapes, it’s not just ACORN, and we’re going to hold out until the next election cycle, or else if you want to do a clean investigation, we will give you the rest of what we have, we will comply with you, we will give you the documentation we have from countless ACORN whistleblowers who want to come forward but are fearful of this organization and the retribution that they fear that this is a dangerous organization. So if you get into an investigation, we will give you the tapes; if you don’t give us the tapes, we will revisit these tapes come election time."

Is Global Warming A Hoax?

There seems to have been a security breach revealing that many prominent global warming alarmists are intentionally concealing contradictory data.

Is it real? Get to work alternative media. We know that the Obama Approved Legitimate News Organizations won't do the work.

Barack Obama Uses Eric Holder As A Human Shield

Barack Obama says that the had nothing to do with the decision to try Kalikd Sheikh Mohammed in civilian court.



So why did New York Governor David Paterson know about this six months ago?

On top of that, Eric Holder doesn't even have the authority to transfer KSM from military to civilian custody. Only the president can do that.

Hu Played Obama Like A Fiddle

David Rodham Gergen is distressed at Obama's poor showing in Asia.

Obama went into those sessions like Kennedy: with great hope that his charm and appeal to reason – qualities so admired in the United States – would work well with Hu. By numerous accounts, that is not at all what happened: reports from correspondents on the scene are replete with statements that Hu stiffed the President, that he rejected arguments about Chinese human rights and currency behavior while scolding the U.S. for its trade policies, and that he stage-managed the visit so that Obama – unlike Clinton and Bush before him – was unable to reach a large Chinese audience through television.

The sad think is that Obama probably believes he did great. After all, he is the photo op president.

Obama Finds A Use For US Soldiers

To make him look good.

Dead soldiers make for good photo ops too.

Khalid's Show Trial

Yep, it's a show trial. Not only has Obama already pronounced guilt and handed down the death penalty, but says that, even if found not guilty, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed will not go free.

Someone explain to me how this is going to improve our standing in the world?

Did Holder stiff Senate on Justice Dept. lawyers who defended jihadis? | Washington Examiner

How much worse can it get? This much.

Some Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee were taken aback Wednesday by Attorney General Eric Holder's refusal to reveal conflicts of interest involving Justice Department lawyers who, before joining the Obama administration, worked on behalf of Guatanamo detainees.

One reason it has taken so long to deal with the Guantanamo cases is the number of legal challenges lodged by lawyers for the detainees, some of whom are now working on detainee matters in the Obama Justice Department.

Some Republicans? You mean, Democrats were not taken aback?

NY police in crash ahead of Biden's 'Daily Show' motorcade‎ | Washington Examiner

NY police in crash ahead of Biden's 'Daily Show' motorcade‎ | Washington Examiner

Sheesh! This man is a traveling disaster show.

More Humbug on Stimulus Job

Is there no end to the lies this administration will try to foist on the world?

We've added thousands more jobs in several dozen cities to our not really "created or saved" stimulus jobs map. The total number of jobs we have found to be "not really created or saved" now approaches 80,000. Several new states and the Territory of Guam have new entries. We will continue updating the map in the coming weeks.

The newest entry shows that even though President Obama spent $787 billion on the stimulus package, taxpayers aren't even getting peanuts. A peanut grower reported creating ten jobs on a stimulus contract for "Roasted Nuts and Peanut Butter Manufacturing" for the Farm Service Agency. But the project has not begun, nor have any stimulus funds been received.

Even Obama lackeys are struggling with this bullshit.

Just wondering: Has CNN caught onto this batch of lies or are they more concerned about preserving their credentials as an Obama Approved Legitimate News Organization?

National Ammo Day!

How are you going to celebrate? I'm buying a box of hollow points.

How Stupid Is Attorney General Eric Holder?

This stupid....




This knucklehead is the best the Democrats could come up with?

Build More Nukes Or Head Hack To The Dark Ages? | Washington Examiner

Build more nukes or head back to the Dark Ages? | Washington Examiner

Someday, archeologists will sift through the debris of our civilization and scratch their heads at our national suicide. They knew how to produce clean, green, limitless energy, but they chose to ignore it. Must have been some sort of weird religion they'll think. It's official in Britain.

Environmental Extremists Irritate Environmentalist Elitists

The scourge of laundry lines spreads east.

Carin Froehlich pegs her laundry to three clotheslines strung between trees outside her 18th-century farmhouse, knowing that her actions annoy local officials who have asked her to stop.

Froehlich is among the growing number of people across America fighting for the right to dry their laundry outside against a rising tide of housing associations who oppose the practice despite its energy-saving green appeal.

Although there are no formal laws in this southeast Pennsylvania town against drying laundry outside, a town official called Froehlich to ask her to stop drying clothes in the sun. And she received two anonymous notes from neighbors saying they did not want to see her underwear flapping about.

"They said it made the place look like trailer trash," she said, in her yard across the street from a row of neat, suburban houses. "They said they didn't want to look at my 'unmentionables.'"

Next For Barack Obama - Motortrend's Car Of The Year/

Obama named "Leader of the Year" by Gentlemens Quarterly.

Is that for leading us to perdition, to serfdom, or to the poorhouse?

I hear he's expected to clean up at the country music awards. Did he win the Cy Young Award, or the Major League Baseball MVP?

Hat tip: Gatewaypundit

Why Can't Prominent Democrats Pay Their Taxes?

Another Obama nominee can't seem to obey tax laws.

The tax problems are (1) twelve late payments of real estate and personal property taxes, and late payment of unemployment taxes; (2) failure to timely file employment eligibility verification forms for her household help; and (3) failure to substantiate home office deductions. Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus today annnounced that he would support the nomination and that the committee would soon vote on the nomination.

Sheesh! Is the Democrat talent pool so shallow that they can't find nominees who pay taxes?

Eric Holder Hands Khalid Sheik Mohammed A Propogandist's Dream

It's a good thing we have an attorney general who is so smart that he can make this all work.

Of course, since everybody with a brain seems to think that this is a really, really bad idea, I'm having a hard time digesting the idea that Holder is even one-tenth as smart as he thinks he is.

Barack Obama Advocates Fiscal Discipline

Barack throws Barack under the bus.

This isn't the Barack Hussein Obama I know....

Independents Have Seen Enough

Approval of the Democrat Congress is down to 14% as independents flee the Democrats.

Mounting evidence that independent voters have soured on the Democrats is prompting a debate among party officials about what rhetorical and substantive changes are needed to halt the damage.


Following serious setbacks with independents in off-year elections earlier this month, White House officials attributed the defeats to local factors and said President Barack Obama sees no need to reposition his own image or the Democratic message.


Since then, however, a flurry of new polls makes clear that Democrats are facing deeper problems with independents—the swing voters who swung dramatically toward the party in 2006 and 2008 but who now are registering deep unease with the amount of spending and debt called for under Obama's agenda in an era of one-party rule in Washington.

It would probably be even better if Republicans would give voters a reason to vote for them.

How Stupid Is Al Gore?

This stupid.



Millions of degrees?

Republicans who endorsed Holder have second thoughts | Washington Examiner

It's about time.

Last January, several Republican legal stars wrote a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee supporting Eric Holder's nomination to be attorney general. Now, in light of Holder's decision to grant 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed full American constitutional rights and try him in federal court in New York, some of those veteran lawyers are having second thoughts.

The January letter called Holder an "extraordinary lawyer" of "unfailing integrity" who is "superbly qualified" to lead the Justice Department and whose appointment as the first African-American attorney general "should be hailed as a milestone." "From his experience Eric fully understands and appreciates the constant threat posed by al Qaeda and Islamic extremists," the GOP lawyers wrote. "[He] is the right man at the right time to protect our citizens in the critical years ahead."

You mean that turning loose Black Panthers who threatened white voters or suing a North Carolina town because he didn't think it's African-American residents couldn't figure out who to vote for unless Democrats were identified on the ballot didn't do it?

Obama's Illegal Alien Amnesty Plan

Anyone who doubted that Democrats are eager to put illegal aliens on the voter rolls should have had those doubts cleared up by now.

Leftist Goon Feeling the Power!

Obamagoons have attacked and beaten up conservatives again.

Another Fake Poll From The Washington Post

This is how an Obama Approved Legitimate News Organization burnishes its credentials.

After a while, it gets to be a broken record, but we still have to ask: does anyone know how to poll out there? Despite every indication that the partisan split among Americans has narrowed considerably since the last Presidential election, won by the Democrat by seven points while garnering considerable independent and Republican cross-over votes, the new Washington Post/ABC poll uses a sample in which Democrats outnumber Republicans by fourteen points.

CNN Parodies Itself

A panel on Sarah Palin without one Palin supporter.

Another Good Reason To Boycott Apple

A tool that will force you to read and comprehend advertisements.

Irony Alert: Obama Promises Fiscal Discipline

This man has no shame.

President Barack Obama has promised Asia’s creditor nations that Washington will not let US borrowing spiral out of control, vowing a major drive to cut the budget deficit and restore global confidence in the US dollar.

“As the economy recovers, I intend to take serious steps to reduce America’s long-term deficit,” he told the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) forum in Singapore. “Debt-driven growth cannot fuel America’s long-term prosperity.”

Not Quite The Dumbest Football Call Ever

Bill Belichick only rises to number two on this list.

First place still belongs to Barry Switzer who made the same call on the same part of the field in a tie game.

Soldiers Can't Do The Job With Handcuffs On

In this respect, Afghanistan really is beginning to resemble Vietnam.

"We have to follow the Karzai 12 rules. But the Taliban has no rules," he said. "Our soldiers have to juggle all these rules and regulations and they do it without hesitation despite everything. It's not easy for anyone out here."

Meanwhile, we can't secure our own borders because of onerous rules.

In the battle on the U.S.-Mexico border, the fight against illegal immigration often loses out to environmental laws that have blocked construction of parts of the "virtual fence" and that threaten to create places where agents can't easily track illegal immigrants.

Documents obtained by Rep. Rob Bishop and shared with The Washington Times show National Park Service staffers have tried to stop the U.S. Border Patrol from placing some towers associated with the virtual fence, known as the Secure Border Initiative or SBInet, on wilderness lands in parks along the border.

In a remarkably candid letter to members of Congress, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said her department could have to delay pursuits of illegal immigrants while waiting for horses to be brought in so agents don't trample protected lands, and warns that illegal immigrants will increasingly make use of remote, protected areas to avoid being caught.

Obamacare Will RAISE Healthcare Costs, By $300 Billion

Surprise! Surprise! The Democrats get it wrong again.

Democrats have promised that health reform would reduce health care costs, but legislation the House passed last week would increase costs over the next decade by $289 billion. By 2019, health costs would rise to 21.1 percent of GDP compared to 20.8 under current law, according to an actuarial report prepared by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

“With the exception of the proposed reductions in Medicare payment updates for institutional providers, the provisions of H.R. 3962 would not have a significant impact on future health care cost growth rates. In addition, the longer-term viability of the Medicare update reductions is doubtful,” the report said.

In other words, outside of Medicare payment cuts to hospitals, the bill doesn’t curb increasing health care costs. And even the Medicare payment cuts will be difficult to sustain.

Notice that last sentence. It assumes that Democrats will exercise a discipline that they've never shown in the past. It will probably be even worse than this. Much worse.

The First Fauxtographer?

It turns out that all the phony propogandizing photography that was ushered in with Photoshop was not the beginning of fauxtography.

A Festival Of Bacon

More bacon recipes that you can shake anything at.

It's All About Obama: Even The Fall Of The Berlin Wall

Barack Hussein Obama couldn't take time out of his busy fundraising schedule to bother himself with attending the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. But he couldn't resist the audience and therefore the opportunity to talk about himself.

“Few would have foreseen,’’ declared the president, “that a united Germany would be led by a woman from [the former East German state of] Brandenburg or that their American ally would be led by a man of African descent. But human destiny is what human beings make of it.’’

As presidential rhetoric goes, this was hardly a match for “Ich bin ein Berliner,’’ still less another “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.’’ But as a specimen of presidential narcissism, it is hard to beat. Obama couldn’t be troubled to visit Berlin to commemorate a momentous milestone in the history of human liberty. But he was glad to explain to those who were there why reflections on that milestone should inspire appreciation for the self-made “destiny’’ of his own rise to power.

Was there ever a president as deeply enamored of himself as Barack Obama?

No mention of Ronald Reagan. No mention of Lady Margaret Thatcher. No mention of John F. Kennedy or even the Berlin airlift. Nope. It's all about the "O."

Obama's Thug Politics In California

The Service Employees International Union has been accused of vote fraud in California.

Paint the Nation Purple!

Obama Promises That Khalid Sheik Mohammed Will Get A Military Tribunal

More news that no Obama Approved Legitimate News Organization will report.



And this is why someday, Breitbart will replace the New York Times as the primary news source.

The Price of Pestocrats

It’s too bad that gratuitous trouble makers get off free of charge in this world. If we could extract from them what they cost the rest of us, not only would it be easier to balance the books, but we’d probably hear less from them. And that alone would be a blessing. Pullman’s City Council is trying to decide how best to close a looming $87,000 budget shortfall in 2010. And that above and beyond the half a million dollars already cut. Will the city council impose a tax increase, or will it be more budget cuts? The aggravating truth is that, were it not for an infestation of Pestocrats, Pullman would probably be contemplating how to manage a cash surplus.

It’s been more than 4 years since Wal Mart was issued a conditional use permit to build a Supercenter on Bishop Boulevard on Pullman’s southern fringe. Immediately thereafter Pullman’s leftist fringe announced its opposition to the new storefront. For the next few years the ironically misnamed Pullman Alliance for Responsible Development (PARD) filed one frivolous appeal after another accomplishing nothing more than to postpone construction, deny Pullman millions of dollars in revenue, force Pullman residents to pay higher retail prices and expose themselves for the elitist snobs they really are.

Like former presidential frontrunner John Edwards, the PARDners opposition to Wal Mart arises primarily out of leftist elitism. The mega multimillionaire Edwards once boasted that his children would make fun of other children because their parents shopped at Wal Mart. Classy guy. A real man of the people. In their formal appeal, the PARDners listed among their objections to a Wal Mart their fear that a Wal Mart would attract “undesirable social elements” to Pullman. PARDners are like Hollywood liberals. They care oh so much about the lower income classes, as long as they stay in their own neighborhoods.

Economists estimate that having a Wal Mart in the neighborhood confers the equivalent of a $2000 per raise on the local residents. This might not mean much to overpaid PARDners, who buy their clothes from Chico’s and shop for organic groceries at the Moscow Food Coop. But for rest of us who have to stretch our dollars, having a Wal Mart or a Winco is much appreciated. And while Democrats attempt to cook up bureaucratic, big government solutions to providing low cost prescription drugs, Wal Mart offers its customers inexpensive solutions. And Wal Mart is able to offer its employees health insurance at a fraction of what Obamacare is projected to cost. We should learn from Wal Mart.

Thanks to their years-long histrionic exercise in left wing moral exhibitionism, Pullman lost out on millions of dollars in tax revenue that would have been pouring into the city’s treasury. And for indulging their vanity, the PARDners paid no price at all. It was the rest of us who have had to bear the cost for their narcissistic self-indulgence and it will be the rest of us who will now have to bear the brunt of the indirect costs associated with their economic obstructionism.

I’d like to think that we could dig into the liberals’ big bag of tricks and pull one out for our own use. Maybe we need something like a sin tax. A sin tax is a liberal tested, liberal approved boondoggle. It’s a tax designed to extract money from an unpopular segment of the population or the economy and is supposed to discourage disagreeable behavior.

Pestocrats don’t just have a lot of free time on their hands. They also seem have a lot of excess money or they would welcome a Wal Mart to Pullman. Why can’t we levy a tax on them? The precedent is established. We tax cigarettes because they supposedly increase health care costs. We have sin taxes on alcoholic beverages. Many states impose sin taxes on potato chips and soft drinks. Why not a tax on Pestocrats whose preferred form of self entertainment is to involve themselves in parasitic, posturing political activism that ends up draining vigor from the productive sector of the economy?

Yes, I know. Even pests are entitled to petition their government. But if we can’t actually tax pests for their nuisance value, perhaps we could keep a running tally of what their meddling actually costs. I think they’d lose a lot of popularity, even among their own fans.

Barack Hussein Obama Embraces Fiscal Responsibility

Wow! I don't know if even the Obama Approved Legitimate New Organizations can help sell this load of BS.

President Barack Obama plans to announce in next year's State of the Union address that he wants to focus extensively on cutting the federal deficit in 2010 – and will downplay other new domestic spending beyond jobs programs, according to top aides involved in the planning.

The president's plan, which the officials said was under discussion before this month’s Democratic election setbacks, represents both a practical and a political calculation by this White House.

On the practical side, Obama has spent more money on new programs in nine months than Bill Clinton did in eight years, pushing the annual deficit to $1.4 trillion. This leaves little room for big spending initiatives.

On the political side, Obama can help moderate Democrats avoid some tough votes in an election year and, perhaps more importantly, calm the nerves of independent voters who are voicing big concerns with the big spending and deficits. Even if Obama succeeds - and that’s a big if - it will be tough for many Democrats to sell themselves as deeply concerned about spending after voting for the stimulus, the bailouts, the health care legislation and a plan to address global warming, four enormous government programs.

“Democrats have to reassure voters we are not being reckless,” said a Democratic official involved in the planning. “The White House knows this and that's why we'll be hearing a lot about reducing the deficit early next year. Democrats owned this issue for the past four years and cannot afford to cede it to Republicans now."

On the other hand there's Porkulus Package 2.

Get ready for Stimulus 2.0 — Extreme Jobs Edition. Yes, the U.S. labor market is slowly healing. The declining number of monthly job losses and weekly initial unemployment claims show that. Yet President Obama still felt the need to announce a ‘jobs summit’ at the White House next month.

That’s compelling evidence that the White House doesn’t believe the job market is mending nearly fast enough to keep unemployment from trending higher — or Democratic electoral prospects in 2010 from trending lower.

Electric Cars Increase Carbon Emissions

Another liberal shibboleth goes up in a cloud of smoke (or carbon dioxide in this case.)

Not so green machine: Electric cars that need their batteries charged from the mains may not be as environmentally friendly as first thought

It added that if electric cars become widely used, they would need a meter on the dashboard to charge motorists as they drive.

The report represents a potential blow to Gordon Brown's stated dream of making Britain 'the electric car capital of Europe'.

It also said there is potential for improvement in performance and reduction of costs in the medium term, but not enough to suggest electric cars could compete head-on with conventional vehicles within the next two decades.

Even if the National Grid has the capacity and infrastructure to meet the needs of electric cars, demand could lead to greater use of coal and nuclear power.

The report warned that European officials have assumed that electric cars are 'zero-emission', and failed to take into account the electricity they use.

Well duh! Conservatives have been saying this for years! How about some nuclear reactors you green weennies!

NYT dishonestly distances Biden from alleged corruption | Washington Examiner

NYT dishonestly distances Biden from alleged corruption | Washington Examiner

Today's New York Times story on Peter W. Galbraith is a must read. Galbraith is a leading liberal hawk and former ambassador, as well as a former adviser to Senator John Kerry and Vice-President Joe Biden. It seems that Galbraith used his political influence to get rich off Iraqi oil money

This would be a big scandal if friends of Dick Cheney were getting rich with his help and influence. Not so much if it's Joe Biden

javascript:void(0)

Democrats Exercise Fiscal Discipline

Without the discipline.

Something unusual and largely unnoticed happened last week as Democrats pushed the national health care bill through the House. In a complicated, late-night maneuver, on a party-line vote, the House Rules Committee used the health bill to pave the way for a $210 billion increase in Medicare payments to doctors, without any money budgeted to pay for it. Congress then combined that $210 billion with a measure that would force lawmakers to exercise fiscal discipline -- except when it came to the $210 billion.

It was a particularly slick move, even by congressional standards. With one vote, committee Democrats managed to propose spending a huge amount of money while also claiming to clamp down on spending. More importantly, they threw a very big bone to several physicians organizations, which badly want the increased doctor payments and to whom Democrats are deeply indebted for support of health care legislation.

Smoking Rate Rises Under Obama

Obama has managed to reverse one trend.

Cigarette smoking rose slightly for the first time in almost 15 years, dashing health officials' hopes that the U.S. smoking rate had moved permanently below 20 percent.

A little under 21 percent of U.S. adults said they smoked, according to a 2008 national survey by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That's up slightly from the year before, when just 19.8 percent said they were smokers. It also is the first increase in adult smoking since 1994, experts noted.

I seem to recall that Bill Clinton had a similar effect on blowjobs.

Obama's Purge

Ridding the federal bureaucracy of imperfect thought.

More here.

"This is what happens in third world kleptocracies and totalitarian regimes."

Joe Biden Kills A Pedestrian

A pedestrian was struck and killed by a Secret Service armored SUV. A sad story, but it's not Joe Biden's fault, is it?

Of course not. But that's not how the Obama Approved Legitimate News Organizations treated the news that a motorcycle cop crashed and died while escorting a George W. Bush motorcade.

Example from Time magazine: "Bush Motorcade Kills Cop."

Man Run Over And Killed By Biden Security

A pedestrian was struck and killed by a Secret Service armored SUV. A sad story, but it's not Joe Biden's fault, is it?

Of course not. But that's not how the Obama Approved Legitimate News Organizations treated the news that a motorcycle cop crashed and died while escorting a George W. Bush motorcade.

Example from Time magazine: "Bush Motorcade Kills Cop."

Obama's Pay Czar Worried That He's Damaging America

Stop me before I do it again!

The Obama administration's pay czar says he is "very concerned" about scaring away top talent at seven firms that took the biggest bailouts.

Good grief!

Obama Really Is Destroying The Economy

All that deficit spending that's supposed to be keeping the economy afloat? It's actually destroying jobs.

Economic growth is supposed to create jobs. However, the U.S. economy shed twice as many jobs (1,332,000) in the third quarter of 2009, when GDP grew at a robust 3.5% annual rate, than it did in the second quarter (691,000), when the economy contracted at a 0.7% rate.

How can this be? To paraphrase the 1992 Clinton campaign, "It's the bonds, stupid!"

The massive sales of U.S. Treasury bonds to finance "stimulus", bailouts, and other government spending is sucking capital out of the private sector and destroying jobs. Once again, the October 6th BLS report tells the tale.

The BLS "household survey" showed job losses of 589,000, while their "establishment survey" showed a reduction of payrolls of only 190,000. This shows that most of the damage is being done in small business, "under the radar screen" of the BLS.

Small businesses-especially new small businesses-account for essentially all net job growth. However, business creation and expansion requires capital, and more and more of the nation's capital is being commandeered by the U.S. Treasury in the name of "stimulus".

More Stimulus Job Humbug Exposed

The Boston Globe is the latest to jeopardize its credentials as a Barack Hussein Obama Approved Legitimate News Organization.

While Massachusetts recipients of federal stimulus money collectively report 12,374 jobs saved or created, a Globe review shows that number is wildly exaggerated. Organizations that received stimulus money miscounted jobs, filed erroneous figures, or claimed jobs for work that has not yet started.


The Globe’s finding is based on the federal government’s just-released accounts of stimulus spending at the end of October. It lists the nearly $4 billion in stimulus awards made to an array of Massachusetts government agencies, universities, hospitals, private businesses, and nonprofit organizations, and notes how many jobs each created or saved.

But in interviews with recipients, the Globe found that several openly acknowledged creating far fewer jobs than they have been credited for.

One of the largest reported jobs figures comes from Bridgewater State College, which is listed as using $77,181 in stimulus money for 160 full-time work-study jobs for students. But Bridgewater State spokesman Bryan Baldwin said the college made a mistake and the actual number of new jobs was “almost nothing.’’

Hat tip: The Blogfather

Obama Blows Off His Generals

I seem to remember that George Bush was an arrogant idiot because he didn't listen to his generals. So, what is it when Barack Hussein Obama ignores his generals?

President Barack Obama does not plan to accept any of the Afghanistan war options presented by his national security team, pushing instead for revisions to clarify how and when U.S. troops would turn over responsibility to the Afghan government, a senior administration official said Wednesday.

Obama's Dictatorial Emergency Powers

What the hell does this have to do with global warming?

"But as we have been warning you in detail, this agenda transparently is not about GHG concentrations, or the climate. It’s about what this provision would bring: Almost limitless power over private economic activity and individual liberty for the activist president and, for the reluctant leader, litigious greens and courts that in this case would only have two choices. Those are follow the law, or declare it unconstitutional knowing the predilections of the appellate courts and what will very soon be Obama’s Supreme Court."

Pelosi Care Sucks, But It's Good For Pelosi

This is ridiculous! The healthcare bill that Pelosi pushed through the House of Representatives is a piece of crap, but it's still good for Pelosi and the cause of feminism and that's what matters.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi scored a giant gain for feminism last weekend. In shoving her controversy-plagued healthcare reform bill to victory by a paper-thin margin, she conclusively demonstrated that a woman can be just as gritty, ruthless and arm-twisting in pursuing her agenda as anyone in the long line of fabled male speakers before her. Even a basic feminist shibboleth like abortion rights became just another card for Pelosi to deal and swap.

It was a stunningly impressive recovery for someone who seemed to be coming apart at the seams last summer, when a sputtering, rattled Pelosi struggled to deal with the nationwide insurgency of town hall protesters -- reputable, concerned citizens whom she outrageously tried to tar as Nazis. Whether or not her bill survives in the Senate is immaterial: Pelosi's hard-won, trench-warfare win sets a new standard for U.S. women politicians and is certainly well beyond anything the posturing but ineffectual Hillary Clinton has ever achieved.

As for the actual content of the House healthcare bill, horrors! Where to begin? That there are serious deficiencies and injustices in the U.S. healthcare system has been obvious for decades. To bring the poor and vulnerable into the fold has been a high ideal and an urgent goal for most Democrats. But this rigid, intrusive and grotesquely expensive bill is a nightmare. Holy Hygeia, why can't my fellow Democrats see that the creation of another huge, inefficient federal bureaucracy would slow and disrupt the delivery of basic healthcare and subject us all to a labyrinthine mass of incompetent, unaccountable petty dictators? Massively expanding the number of healthcare consumers without making due provision for the production of more healthcare providers means that we're hurtling toward a staggering logjam of de facto rationing. Steel yourself for the deafening screams from the careerist professional class of limousine liberals when they get stranded for hours in the jammed, jostling anterooms of doctors' offices. They'll probably try to hire Caribbean nannies as ringers to do the waiting for them.