Spend and Tax

Big Labor’s legacy of violence
My syndicated column today takes on the rise of President Obama’s best new Big Labor buddy, Richard Trumka — whose looming presence on the political scene I first flagged in April. As we noted last week, he’s got a combined $88 million war chest with his labor alliance and a Marxist get-out-the-vote force behind him. When they are through, they’ll make the SEIU Purple Army’s political expenditures (and its thuggery) look like a pittance. On a related note, the NLRB (with SEIU attorney Craig Becker recess-appointed onto the catbird’s seat) is set to launch an assault on workers’ rights to a secret ballot to remove an unwanted union. See here. Card check through the back door. Who needs the legislative front door?...

Meeting Mr. Palin
WASILLA, Alaska -- The young lady at the desk of the Dorothy Page Museum and Visitor Center has blue hair -- not the blue-silver of advanced age, but a punk-rock razor-cut style dyed cerulean blue. She is friendly and helpful to out-of-towners who stop by the Main Street museum to ask about the town's most famous resident. Has Sarah Palin become a tourist attraction in Wasilla? "I don't know," says the blue-haired woman. "I guess a lot of people have added it to their itinerary."...

Survey USA poll shows Whitman, Fiorina leading in CA
Welcome to California … the Red State. At least that’s what Survey USA finds in its latest poll of likely voters in the gubernatorial and Senate races, where Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina still lead. Fiorina barely edges Barbara Boxer in what is really a dead heat, but Whitman still beats Jerry Brown outside the margin of error — and the former two-term Governor still remains stuck at 40%:...

Pence says Republican majority would move first to extend Bush tax cuts
House Republicans' first move in the majority would be to extend tax cuts set to expire at the end of the year, House GOP Conference Chairman Mike Pence (Ind.) suggested Wednesday evening. Pence, the third-ranking Republican in the House, said that House Republicans would look to extend the tax cuts they helped President George W. Bush pass in 2001 and 2003, which are set to expire at the end of the year. ...

120 Days to Go Until the Largest Tax Hikes in History
n 2001 and 2003, the GOP Congress enacted several tax cuts for investors, small business owners, and families. These will all expire on January 1, 2011: Personal income tax rates will rise. The top income tax rate will rise from 35 to 39.6 percent (this is also the rate at which two-thirds of small business profits are taxed). The lowest rate will rise from 10 to 15 percent. All the rates in between will also rise. Itemized deductions and personal exemptions will again phase out, which has the same mathematical effect as higher marginal tax rates. The full list of marginal rate hikes is below:
- The 10% bracket rises to an expanded 15%
- The 25% bracket rises to 28%
- The 28% bracket rises to 31%
- The 33% bracket rises to 36%
- The 35% bracket rises to 39.6%

Private Sector Adds 67,000 Jobs Unemployment Rate Rises to 9.6%
WASHINGTON -- Job losses continued to mount in the U.S. economy last month, though at a more modest pace than expected, putting further pressure on policy makers to take action to spur growth and employment. Nonfarm payrolls fell by 54,000 last month, matching the level of revised losses recorded the previous month, the U.S. Labor Department said Friday. The revision in July layoffs to 54,000 followed an original estimate of a 131,000 drop in payrolls. The U.S. economy has shed jobs for three straight months, though the losses in August were about half the 110,000 predicted by economists in a Dow Jones Newswires survey.....

U.S. Underemployment at 18.6% in August
PRINCETON, NJ -- Underemployment, as measured by Gallup, was 18.6% in August, up from 18.4% at the end of July. Underemployment peaked at 20.4% in April and has yet to break below 18.3% this year.....

Chief White House Economic Advisor Admits Her Forecast on Unemployment Was 'So Far Off'
Christina Romer, the departing chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisors said America’s economic “turnaround has been insufficient.” She added that the current 9.5 percent unemployment rate is “an unacceptable level by any metric.” Romer also admitted that her prediction that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) would bring unemployment down to 8 percent was “so far off.” ...

NYT Op-Ed: “Obama, subtly but persistently, is talking down American Exceptionalism”
You can learn a lot about those with whom you disagree by just listening to what they are saying about Barack Obama. Strangely, sometimes they say the same thing you do, but they see it as positive instead of disastrous. That’s the case with an op-ed in the New York Times today, where writer Roger Cohen sums up what he calls “The Obama Doctrine” very well. Cohen agrees with Obama, and believes his approach to the world is realistic and correct, but his description of “The Obama Doctrine” really sums up Obama’s ideology when it comes to America, and our place in the world (bolding below is mine):...

Two teachers' jobs saved but not by legislation
At least two unemployed people went back to work after President Obama announced his push to spend billions of dollars to save teachers' jobs. They were the two teachers who stood beside him during the Rose Garden news conference on Aug. 10. And neither of them got their jobs back because of the federal legislation that Obama was touting. Rachel Martin, 44, of Park Forest, had been out of work for months when she got a call from the White House the day before that news conference. She has been rehired as a kindergarten teacher in Matteson School District 162, where she had previously worked....

'Recovery Summer' Ends With Economic Pothole
Whatever happened to recovery summer? This was supposed to be the season the economy heated up, thanks to a wave of public works projects, funded by the government's stimulus program. But summer is coming to an end, and the recovery has not taken root. Forecasters are expecting another gloomy employment report on Friday. And before long, stimulus dollars will be fading like autumn leaves. None of that is encouraging for President Obama, who launched the summer with a crew in hard hats in Columbus, Ohio, on June 18....

News 9-2-10
Economy tops 1st Boxer, Fiorina Senate debate
MORAGA, Calif. (AP) - After a summer of firing campaign shots from afar, Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer and Republican challenger Carly Fiorina met on the same stage for the first time Wednesday over who best represents California's economic interests for the next six years. During the hourlong debate in which both women exchanged feisty jabs, Fiorina called Boxer an agent of big government spending, taxes and policies that strangled America's entrepreneurial spirit. Boxer fired back by criticizing Fiorina for serving the interests of "billionaires, millionaires and companies that outsource jobs," rather than average Americans....

A Colossal DHS Error, or a Tale of Two Terrorists Gone Awry?
Sometime early Monday, the Department of Homeland Security — America’s multi-billion dollar national security net — determined that two male travelers of Yemeni descent had boarded United Airlines Flight 908 and were headed to Amsterdam. DHS notified the federal air marshals on board — a message would have gone through the United Airlines pilots as federal air marshals are prohibited from using electronic devices on airplanes while in flight. ...

Obama Labor Dept Shill Praises Hugo Chavez, Tells Students ‘Republicans Hate Latinos’ VIDEO
The Honorary Chairperson of the Democratic Socialists of America, 80-year old Dolores Huerta, is indoctrinating US students, and inciting violence against Americans. Huerta has been tapped by Cong Grijalva (D-Ariz) to praise the virtues of Hugo Chavez and the supposed socialistic "advances" in Venezuela. Hilda Solis is Obama's appointee to head the US Labor Department. Solis is forcing taxpayers to underwrite advertisements featuring Dolores Huerta that instructs illegal aliens to fight for fair wages. In this recently uncovered videtaped audio (link below), Huerta is speaking to high school students and praising the virtues of Hugo Chavez and the supposed socialistic...

The Permanent Campaign broacast straight from the Oval Office
If you are anything like me, after hearing the president’s Oval office speech you may be wondering why president Soetoro felt that he needed to give such a speech. As you probably surmised, this speech was not to announce the end of the Iraq war though he did certainly announce a “New Dawn” in the manner in which America, under his leadership, plans to invite attack from those who declared war on America . Obviously the “turn the page” media meme echoing at us throughout the day suggest that. No, this was a campaign speech broadcast from the Oval Office...

Strategists vs. experts — Obama loses(note view of liberal mind not enough spending)
LAST WEEK, the bottom seemed to fall out of the economy all at once. Second-quarter growth was revised downward. The Dow dropped below 10,000. Sales of single-family homes plunged to their lowest level in 15 years. The White House appeared helpless. Asked whether, in hindsight, the stimulus had been too small, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs demurred. “Nobody had, in January of 2009, a sufficient grasp [of] the sheer depth of what we were facing,’’ he said. “I think that’s true for virtually every economist that made predictions.’’....

It's NOT the Economy, Stupid: It's the Mess in Washington
Despite all the worry about the sluggish US economy, businesses and investors are finding an even bigger reason to be cautious these days: the political mess in Washington."Businesses—especially smaller businesses, independent businesses—they don't know what their cost structures are going to be because of government-imposed changes," David Kotok, founder of Cumberland Advisors, said on CNBC this week. "Half the US economy's holding back because of this great uncertainty that's coming from....

News 9-2-10
Speaking truth to race-hustlers
And right on again, from Jerome Hudson via Human Events: Like most Americans, I’ve had enough with this administration’s policies. I was fed up and fired up. I am even more so in the wake of the most moving gathering I’ve ever been privileged to be a part of. At one point, some of the people attending the Rev. Al Sharpton’s “counter rally,” coined “Reclaiming King,” stopped me. I guess they must have been judging me by the color of my skin not the content of my character, because they asked if I was going to come join them....

Key Obama Ally Works with Socialists for Global Tax
Video Only

Factory Order Growth Slides To 0.1% In July
The number: Factory orders of 0.1% have come in a bit lighter than expected, and the number is down from 0.6% in June. This isn't a huge market-mover, however, so stocks are still up following the decent pending home sales number....

BBC had "massive bias to left:" director general
The director general of the BBC admitted Thursday that his organisation had been guilty of a "massive bias to the left" but said "a completely different generation" of journalists now works at the broadcaster. Mark Thompson told the right-of-centre Spectator magazine that there was an institutional bias when he joined the organisation, reinforcing the findings of a 2007 internal report which concluded that greater efforts were required to avoid liberal bias. "In the BBC I joined 30 years ago, there was, in much of current affairs, in terms of people's personal politics, which were quite vocal, a massive bias to the left," Thompson said....

Heath Shuler Gets Defensive
I had the opportunity to meet my congressman, Rep. Heath Shuler, D-N. C., at the Industrial Opportunities, Inc. (IOI) luncheon for military veterans on 8-26-10. I asked him several questions, including about his voting record. I asked why, in his four years in office, he has never had a face to face Town Hall meeting with his constituents. I previously tried to get an appointment to see him and called in to his two telephone Townhall meetings last summer, but I guess his call screeners did not like my questions....

Auto sales: Worst August since 1983
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The nation's top automakers reported disappointing sales Wednesday, resulting in the worst August for industrywide auto sales in 27 years. According to sales tracker Autodata, U.S. new vehicle sales fell just short of 1 million vehicles, a drop of 21% from a year ago, which included Cash for Clunkers. That federal program created a sugar rush of sales by dangling an incentive of up to $4,500 in cash for buyers who traded in older gas guzzlers for more efficient models....

News 9-1-10
Robert Gibbs Faces Repeated Questions on Whether Obama Will Credit President Bush for Success in Iraq – Video
Here is video of White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs facing repeated questions today about whether President Obama will give credit to former President George W. Bush for the Surge Strategy that brought about victory in Iraq. Gibbs did everything he could to avoid answering the question. His response was to essentially say that Obama knew all along that putting additional troops in Iraq would improve the security situation there....

A List of Endangered Democrats Now Running From Pelosi & How Often They Voted with Her
ou've seen the Politico story about endangered Democrats running away from Nancy Pelosi in order to win re-election. In the past few weeks, several of these Blue Dogs and even liberal Democrats have run ads and spoken to their constituents trying to portray their disconnect with Madam Speaker. Let's see just how these Democrats, who are now asking "Nancy who?", have voted compared to San Fran Nan....

Why Wall St. Is Deserting Obama
Daniel S. Loeb, the hedge fund manager, was one of Barack Obama’s biggest backers in the 2008 presidential campaign. A registered Democrat, Mr. Loeb has given and raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for Democrats. Less than a year ago, he was considered to be among the Wall Street elite still close enough to the White House to be invited to a speech in Lower Manhattan, where President Obama outlined the need for a financial regulatory overhaul.

Breaking: ‘Windgate’ Raises New Questions About Sestak’s Honesty
Reports yesterday emerged that Joe Sestak had potentially violated House ethics rules barring earmarks going to for-profit groups. Now, the Sestak campaign and the would-be earmark recipient, Drew Devitt, are offering competing, at-odds narratives. At issue is whether Sestak’s congressional office was aware that Devitt, who requested a $350,000 earmark as chairman of the Thomas Paine Foundation, also heads a for-profit group called New Way Energy, LLC., which would have “partnered” with his foundation to develop a potentially for-profit wind prototype....

News 9-1-10
Pawlenty Rejects "Obamacare" Funding for Minnesota
Attacking President Obama's health care reforms from all angles, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty today issued an executive order directing state agencies to turn down any discretionary funding from the legislation. The health care reform package signed into law earlier this year "represents a dramatic attempt to assert federal command and control over this country's health care system," the potential Republican presidential candidate wrote in the executive order. ...

House Travel Stipends Probed
Congressional investigators are questioning a half-dozen lawmakers for possibly misspending government funds meant to pay for overseas travel, according to people familiar with the matter. The investigation follows a Wall Street Journal article in March that said lawmakers had used daily cash stipends, meant to cover certain costs of official government travel overseas, to cover expenses that appeared to be unauthorized by House rules. An independent ethics board has referred the matter to the House ethics committee.

No Surprise Holder Behind Suspension of USS Cole Bomber Case
There should be no surprise that the Obama administration and Attorney General Eric Holder would put terrorists’ “rights” before their victims and the safety of the American people by suspending the trial of Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, mastermind of the USS Cole attack.
Holder and the Clinton administration have pandered to terrorists for political gain before....

A Black Man Goes To Glenn Beck's Rally
To hear the mainstream media tell the story, you would have thought that I, a black man, had walked into a hornet’s nest of racists when I decided to attend Glenn Beck's "Restoring Honor" rally. In reality, my experience was the complete opposite. Instead of hooded Klansman frothing with hate and venom, I made dozens of new Facebook friends and gained a hundred Twitter followers. One lady from New Jersey asked me if I was "afraid" because I was one of the "few blacks in attendance?" I looked at her square in the eye and said, "Ma'am, the only thing I'm afraid of is that if I don't hurry, I'm not going to make it to the restroom in time."...

News 8-31-10
President Obama Refuses Meeting with Texas Gov. Rick Perry on “Border Security”
Once again, President Obama has refused to talk with Texas Gov. Rick Perry about the issue of “border security.” Gov. Perry requested to meet with Obama on the issue while Obama is in Texas today, and an aide said the Governor “has been denied a meeting” with President Obama:...

Louisianans Give Bush Higher Marks Than Obama for Crisis Response
As the five year anniversary again summons up memories of Katrina's devastation of the Gulf Coast, Louisiana voters are giving higher marks to former President George Bush for handling of the storm's aftermath and dealing with crisis than they do for President Obama's handling of the BP oil spill, according to a Public Policy Polling survey conducted Aug. 21-22....

GOP Takes Unprecedented 10-Point Lead on Generic Ballot
PRINCETON, NJ -- Republicans lead by 51% to 41% among registered voters in Gallup weekly tracking of 2010 congressional voting preferences. The 10-percentage-point lead is the GOP's largest so far this year and is its largest in Gallup's history of tracking the midterm generic ballot for Congress. 2010 Trend: Candidate Preferences in 2010 Congressional Elections, Based on Registered Voters....

U.S. Auto Sales May Hit 28-Year Low as Discounts Flop
U.S. auto sales in August probably were the slowest for the month in 28 years as model-year closeout deals failed to entice consumers concerned the economy is worsening and they may lose their jobs. Industrywide deliveries, to be released tomorrow, may have reached an annualized rate of 11.6 million vehicles this month, the average of eight analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg. That would be the slowest August since 1982, according to researcher Ward’s AutoInfoBank. The rate would be 18 percent below last year’s 14.2 million pace, when the U.S. government’s “cash for clunkers” incentive program boosted sales...

The party of the rich
Democrats and the media still brand Republicans as the party of the rich, and Republicans seem to believe it’s true. It’s not. Today, we get the latest little data point: who are the richest members of Congress? Democrats. John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee worth $188.6 million is easily the richest lawmaker, outpacing Republican Darrell Issa by more than 10 percent. Of the 12 richest lawmakers, only 3 are Republicans. Drill down a bit further, and it evens out — Republicans are 23 of the richest 50 according to The Hill. Other data points:...

Iraqis Approved of U.S Leadership Under Bush More Than Obama, Says Gallup Poll
With President Barack Obama preparing to give a speech tonight from the Oval Office announcing the end of the U.S. combat mission in Iraq, recently released polling data from Gallup indicates that the Iraqi people approved of the job performance of the American leadership more under President George W. Bush, who invaded their country and overthrew the dictatorial regime of Saddam Hussein, than they do under Obama, who opposed the invasion of Iraq and has repeatedly vowed to have all U.S. troop out of that country by the end of 2011...

German official unemployment rate stable at 7.6%(cutting spending)
FRANKFURT — The German unemployment rate was stable in August at 7.6 percent of the workforce, official figures showed on Tuesday as the number of people seeking work edged slightly lower to 3.188 million people. "The clear rebound of the German economy continues to translate positively onto the jobs market," a labour agency statement said. The fall from an unadjusted figure of 3.192 million, the figure used as a public reference, meant the jobless rate was unchanged from July as Europe's biggest economy powers out of its worst post-war recession. The adjusted rate used by economists was also 7.6 percent in August, but the corresponding number of unemployed declined by 17,000 people, the federal labour office said....

News 8-31-10
Democrats and Lieberman dig deep in their pockets for Harry Reid
Democratic senators are donating generously to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid but his biggest contributor is the one who often gives him a serious case of heartburn – Independent Sen. Joe Lieberman (Conn.). An examination of incumbent senators’ donations to Reid (D-Nev.) found Lieberman led the way with $14,000, coming from his two PACs....

CBO: Eight Years of Iraq War Cost Less Than Stimulus Act
As President Obama prepares to tie a bow on U.S. combat operations in Iraq, Congressional Budget Office numbers show that the total cost of the eight-year war was less than the stimulus bill passed by the Democratic-led Congress in 2009. According to CBO numbers in its Budget and Economic Outlook published this month, the cost of Operation Iraqi Freedom was $709 billion for military and related activities, including training of Iraqi forces and diplomatic operations....

Barack Obama on Iraq: Then and now
Barack Obama, 2002: What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other armchair, weekend warriors in this administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne....

EXCLUSIVE: VA Spends Millions to Maintain Vacant and Hazardous Buildings
The Veterans Affairs Administration is spending tens of millions of taxpayer dollars every year to maintain hundreds of buildings – most of them vacant – that have fallen into such a state of disrepair that many of them are considered health hazards, an investigation by FoxNews.com reveals. Exactly how much it costs to maintain the run-down and abandoned buildings is a matter of dispute. The General Accountability Office estimates that the VA has spent $175 million every year since 2007. But the VA disputes that figure, saying it spent $85 million on the buildings in 2007 and only $37 million last year....

Afghanistan bomb attacks kill twenty-one US soldiers in 48 hours
A series of bomb attacks have badly hit US troops in eastern and southern Afghanistan in the past 48 hours. The death toll among in the Nato-led coalition has reached 484 this year and is predicted to far surpass 2009’s total of 521. Deaths have risen consistently each year since 2001. Afghan police and civilians have suffered far higher casualties. The coalition blames the rise in troop deaths partly on the influx of reinforcements, which is allowing commanders to target previously untouched insurgent safe havens where rebels are mounting stiff resistance. (I put this in because the Lame Stream Press is NOT)

CLIMATE CHANGE LIES ARE EXPOSED
THE world’s leading climate change body has been accused of losing credibility after a damning report into its research practices. A high-level inquiry into the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found there was “little evidence” for its claims about global warming. It also said the panel had emphasised the negative impacts of climate change and made “substantive findings” based on little proof. The review by the InterAcademy Council (IAC) was launched after the IPCC’s hugely embarrassing 2007 benchmark climate change report, which contained exaggerated and false claims that Himalayan glaciers could melt by 2035....

News 8-30-10
Record number in government anti-poverty programs
WASHINGTON — Government anti-poverty programs that have grown to meet the needs of recession victims now serve a record one in six Americans and are continuing to expand. More than 50 million Americans are on Medicaid, the federal-state program aimed principally at the poor, a survey of state data by USA TODAY shows. That's up at least 17% since the recession began in December 2007. POLITICS: Welfare agencies boost voter rolls "Virtually every Medicaid director in the country would say that their current enrollment is the highest on record," says Vernon Smith of Health Management Associates, which surveys states for Kaiser Family Foundation....

Joe Miller, RINO Killer
Joe Miller's ascent to political stardom has been astonishingly sudden. When I first interviewed Miller in early July, he was "Joe Who?" After last Tuesday's stunning upset -- defeating Sen. Lisa Murkowski by 1,668 votes in the Alaska Republican primary -- he has become a hero to grassroots conservatives nationwide. That Miller has beaten Murkowski is something the incumbent has not acknowledged. After coming up short on Tuesday night, the senator said she would not concede until the absentee ballots had been counted and then held a Wednesday press conference where she declared, "It ain't over."...

The Un-American Dream End Washington's homeownership crusade.
When the housing boom went bust and mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac failed, forcing taxpayers to cough up $150 billion and counting, Washington should have reconsidered its policy of promoting homeownership. It hasn't. Last Tuesday, Tim Geithner led a summit to determine the future of Fannie and Freddie. According to Geithner, "We will not support returning Fannie and Freddie to the role they played before conservatorship." ...

EPA's Jackson: We'll make more regulations on emissions
Democrats on the Hill have not been successful at passing a climate change bill yet and many believe such legislation will not be possible unless the bill is put forth during a lame duck session following the November mid-term elections. In the meantime, the Environmental Protection Agency's Lisa Jackson appears to be looking for ways to legislate climate change regulations if the Congress cannot deliver a bill. In an interview with NPR's Liane Hansen on Sunday, Ms. Jackson talked about what the EPA plans on doing in the absence of climate change legislation....

Is the U.S. Treasury the Scene of the Next Bubble to Burst?
Daniel Gross, he of “bubbles are good for the economy!” fame, says not to worry about a possible bubble in U.S. Treasury bonds. Worry. Treasury bonds, Gross’s argument goes, are one classy class of asset — not like the snake-oil securities that often indicate the presence of bubbles in other markets. It’s not a bubble, he says, just “frothy.” First, one of the features about bubbles is that, toward the end of them, the people selling assets—shares in telegraph companies in the 1840s, railroad bonds in the 1880s, dotcom stocks in the 1990s, Miami condos in 2006 — are hawking pipedreams and fantasies. They’re making financial promises that can’t be fulfilled, or that simply don’t add up. When reality finally catches up with the hype, the crash can wipe out some investments entirely and the bubble-prone sector can slump 70 percent or more.....

News 8-30-10
Fringe Group? National Mall Jammed For Beck Rally; Estimates From 300-500 Thousand
VIDEO

Obamacare’s Bureaucracy Nightmare
We now see how the regulatory bureaucracy [1] works—or probably can’t work– and how it “may well push us into the single-payer health care system,” Grace-Marie Turner astutely pointed out Aug. 26 in the Detroit News. Turner is president of the Galen Institute, a research organization focusing on health policy. Under a single-payer system, the federal government would be the paymaster making the medical decisions. Three influential House Democrats are now pushing [2] for a public option (single-payer). ModernHealh.com reported July 22. Rep. Pete Stark (D-Calif), chairman of the House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee, is leading the movement. The “public option offers lower cost competition to private insurance companies,” added Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif ) co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Il), is the third Member....

Dramatic climate change is unpredictable
The fear that global temperature can change very quickly and cause dramatic climate changes that may have a disastrous impact on many countries and populations is great around the world. But what causes climate change and is it possible to predict future climate change? New research from the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen shows that it may be due to an accumulation of different chaotic influences and as a result would be difficult to predict. The results have just been published in Geophysical Research Letters. For millions of years the Earth's climate has alternated between about 100,000 years of ice age and approximately 10-15,000 years of a warm climate like we have today. The climate change is controlled by the Earth's orbit in space, that is to say the Earth's tilt and distance from the sun. But there are also other climatic shifts in the Earth's history and what caused those?...

Carbon Tax Threatens Farming – You Know, That Thing Cows Do
Two Years ago, I finished the original series I did on the ramifications of what The Kyoto protocol was calling for, and that series, originally intended for maybe half a dozen posts morphed into more than 50 separate posts. Having finished I was looking for something further to post on, thinking I had just about said it all, and that, having done that, there was nothing left to say. That has proven not to be the case, but what that series did show me as I went to the numerous sites that I used for references, was that this was something that the public was just not being informed about. There has indeed been a wealth of things to say on the subject, but at the time I thought that anything further I might say would be just repeating what I had already said. So, in looking for other things to post on, I did some general interest things, and one of those was actually related back to what I had previously been writing about...

Seventy percent of Americans know they've been conned
Minimum estimate of Saturday's crowd on the Mall: 300,000 Maximum estimate: One million people. Meaning of the crowd: An enormous upheaval in the emotions of average Americans is coursing through the country, with a certain significance for November's elections. It will have a lasting, profound impact on America's political direction.

News 8-27-10
Snapshot of economy about to get a lot bleaker
The government is about to confirm what many people have felt for some time: The economy barely has a pulse. The Commerce Department on Friday will revise its estimate for economic growth in the April-to-June period and Wall Street economists forecast it will be cut almost in half, to a 1.4 percent annual rate from 2.4 percent. That's a sharp slowdown from the first quarter, when the economy grew at a 3.7 percent annual rate, and economists say it's a taste of the weakness to come. The current quarter isn't expected to be much better, with many economists forecasting growth of only 1.7 percent....

8 in 10 Americans Say Economy Is Bad
A new CBS News poll finds that fewer than half -- 48 percent -- approve of the job President Obama is doing. That’s a four point improvement from last month, reports CBS News congressional correspondent Nancy Cordes. Pessimism about the economy is deepening. More than 8 in 10 Americans (83 percent) now say the economy is bad....

The difference between good guys and bad guys
Wednesday morning’s on-line Seattle Post-Intelligencer brought another bit of sterling reporting by Casey McNerthney, this time about a Seattle recidivist identified as David W. Groce. The story detailed how Groce allegedly strolled into the Union Street Market wearing a hooded sweatshirt, pulled a pistol and robbed the place Sunday evening. According to the report, Groce was booked into the King County Jail just five days after he was released from the same facility after serving a sentence on a drug conviction....

Is America the next Japan?
Despite the feverish efforts of policymakers, including a new round of money printing by the Federal Reserve, the U.S. economy continues to dance on the edge of oblivion. Job growth has stalled. The stock market sits just a couple of percentage points above where it was a year ago. Fed up and fearful, investors are throwing their cash at the seemingly safest asset class of them all -- Treasury bonds -- and pushing long-term interest rates to historical lows....

Are the Poor Subsidizing the Rich via Credit Card Rewards? Don't Be So Sure
Do credit card reward systems subsidize the rich at the expense of the poor? There has been a lot of press over the last week about a new research report out of the Boston Federal Reserve that claims that credit card payments are a form of regressive wealth transfer, taking money from the poor in the form of higher prices and giving to the rich in the form of credit card rewards....

Poll shows Herrera with 13-point lead over Heck
Republicans received further encouraging word in Southwest Washington's open congressional seat Thursday morning. A new poll from SurveyUSA taken for KING-TV in Seattle shows Republican Jaime Herrera, a state representative from Camas, leading Democrat Denny Heck, 54 percent to 41 percent. The two are vying to replace retiring Democratic Rep. Brian Baird of Vancouver.Interestingly, the poll result is not far off the vote totals gathered by the two parties in last week's non-partisan primaries. The latest results show Republicans with 53.7 percent of the vote to 42.4 percent for the Democrats....

News 8-27-10
Obama jobs death toll: Layoffs, layoffs, layoffs
The Summer of Wreckage turns to fall… Children’s Hospitals plans to cut up to 250 jobs – “The provider — with campuses in Minneapolis and St. Paul — said Wednesday the down economy is forcing more children to rely on Medicaid.” Nearly 400 StarKist Co. cannery workers lose jobs – “StarKist has had to contend with federally mandated minimum wage increases. Butler says other costs are also rising in such areas as utilities and transportation.”....

The Most Fiscally Irresponsible Government in U.S. History
There is an instinctive conclusion among the American public that President Obama's stimulus package has failed to create a sustained recovery. Unemployment has increased, not declined; consumers have retrenched; housing starts have crashed along with mortgage applications; and there is a fear that a double-dip recession may very well be in the pipeline. The public perception, reflected in Pew Research/National Journal polls, is that the measures to combat the Great Recession have mostly helped large banks and financial institutions, and that's a view common to Republicans (75 percent) and Democrats (73 percent). Only one third of either political leaning thinks government policies have done a great deal or a fair amount for the poor....

GOP plans wave of White House probes
If President Barack Obama needed any more incentive to go all out for Democrats this fall, here it is: Republicans are planning a wave of committee investigations targeting the White House and Democratic allies if they win back the majority. Everything from the microscopic — the New Black Panther party — to the massive –- think bailouts — is on the GOP to-do list, according to a half-dozen Republican aides interviewed by POLITICO....

Economic Growth Rate Downgraded to Anemic 1.6 Percent in Second Quarter
WASHINGTON -- The Commerce Department is revising downward the economic growth from April to June to 1.6 percent -- a decline from the original 2.4 percent forecast and much slower than the 3.7 percent of the first quarter 2010. The barely-there number isn't enough keep pace with population growth, which needs about 3 percent annualized growth just to break even each year and prevent unemployment, currently 9.5 percent, from rising...

Environmental Protection Agency Reviewing Petition to Ban Lead Bullets
Will Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson make a back door move to ban lead bullets the day before the November 2 elections? Several environmentalist groups led by the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) are petitioning the EPA to ban lead bullets and shot (as well as lead sinkers for fishing) under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). Although EPA is barred by statute from controlling ammunition, CBD is seeking to work farther back along the manufacturing chain and have EPA ban the use of lead in bullets and shot because non-lead alternatives are available. But here's the catch: the alternatives to lead bullets are more expensive. A ban on the sale of lead ammunition would force hunters and sport shooters to buy non-lead ammunition that is often double the cost of traditional lead ammunition. A box of deer hunting bullets in a popular caliber could be upwards of $55.....

Hospital withholds food, water from Christian pastor [Canadian death panel is killing him]
It's been more than a week since pastor Joshua Kulendran Mayandy has been given food or water at a Brampton, Canada, hospital where he is being treated for a brain impairment following a heart attack. The medical facility's officials are following a determination that he will get his next sustenance only when he can ask the doctor for it. The Sri Lankan Mayandy, who arrived in Canada 10 years ago to pastor a small church, complained of chest pain and was hospitalized after collapsing with a heart attack May 29....

News 8-26-10
Drug cartel suspected in massacre of 72 migrants
MEXICO CITY (AP) - The discovery of 72 slain Central and South American migrants on a ranch just south of the U.S. border provides a horrific reminder of the brutality of human trafficking in a country dominated by drug cartels. A wounded Ecuadorean who escaped the killing ground in Mexico's Tamaulipas state told authorities that the migrants' abductors identified themselves as Zetas, a drug gang whose control of parts of the state is so brutal and complete that even many Mexicans avoid traveling its highways....

103 Democratic Seats in Play
I've never seen so many House seats in play in one party. I'm tracking four of the pundits who rate House races -- Cook, Rothenberg, Sabato and CQ. Between the four an incredible 103 Democratic seats are in play. I think they have missed maybe 3 to 5 seats, but they may list them sooner or later.

* 24 seats are very slightly to strongly leaning Republican.
* 16 are pure toss ups to very slightly tilting Democratic.
* 25 are leaning Democratic

That means an incredible 65 seats are very seriously in play. Another 38 seats are rated likely Democratic but at least one of the four, and two thirds of the cases two or more of the pundits....

UAW Joins Push For 'Green Jobs'
The United Auto Workers has announced that it will join a coalition of unions called the BlueGreen Alliance in an effort to push "green jobs." I was amused by what BlueGreen Alliance founder Leo Gerard said of this addition to the group....

GOP seizes on private-public pay gap as a midterm election issue
Federal workers have become a new flashpoint in the fight between Republicans and Democrats on the economy. House GOP Leader John Boehner (Ohio) this week blamed Democratic policies for exacerbating a gap in the pay between public and private workers that he claims was rising even as the country suffers through a housing crisis and high unemployment. House and Senate Republicans already have offered legislation to freeze the salaries of the 2 million federal employees through amendments to economic stimulus bills being ushered through Congress by Democrats. Each effort has failed due to opposition from Democrats....

Election 2010: California Governor
The tie is broken for now, with Republican Meg Whitman, coming off last weekend’s state GOP Convention, moving out to her best showing yet in the race to be the next governor of California....

U.S. Government Prepares for ‘Crisis’
Two months ago, I wrote a commentary reporting that “the second bubble had burst” in the U.S. housing market. Roughly three weeks later, I reported that the U.S. economy had resumed its “crash”. Contrary to the reports of the mainstream media, there was absolutely no “surprise” at all to any of these developments. I had previously written (in April of 2009) that the U.S. housing market would suffer its next collapse beginning some time in the spring of 2010. As far back as July of last year, I wrote commentaries explaining why the U.S. economy could not “recover”, followed by a plethora of commentaries simply asserting that there was no “recovery”. ...

News 8-26-10
EPA Now Accepting Public Comment on Petition to Ban Lead in Ammunition and Fishing Tackle
Environmental activists are pressing the Obama administration to ban the manufacture, processing and distribution lead shot, bullets, and fishing sinkers under the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976, but hunting and Second Amendment groups say the EPA lacks the authority to do so, for starters. A petition submitted to the Environmental Protection Agency on Aug. 3 says ammunition and tackle manufacturers are now marketing a wide variety of non-lead, nontoxic bullets, shotgun pellets and fishing tackle, which can and should be used instead of lead projectiles and weights...

What About the Stupid Lies Democrats Believe?
Thirty-one percent of Republicans, according to the Pew Research Center, believe that President Barack Obama is a Muslim. And more Republicans, 74 percent, than Democrats, 39 percent, oppose the construction of a mosque near ground zero. Thus, goes the argument, opposition to the proposed mosque stems from similar "right-wing" ignorance and Islamophobia. Why do so many people think Obama is a Muslim? Are they lunatics?...

Unemployment rate at 10 percent, possible by the mid-terms
Economist Mark Zandi, who has been economic adviser for President Obama, thinks that 10 percent unemployment rate is quite possible before the mid-term elections and no later than the end of the year. Zandi, who spoke to group of reporters today, said that job losses will continue to be about 50,000 a month, leading to the unemployment rate of 10 percent. Getting the unemployment rate back below 8 percent “will take five years”.

The Most Fiscally Irresponsible Government in U.S. History
There is an instinctive conclusion among the American public that President Obama's stimulus package has failed to create a sustained recovery. Unemployment has increased, not declined; consumers have retrenched; housing starts have crashed along with mortgage applications; and there is a fear that a double-dip recession may very well be in the pipeline. The public perception, reflected in Pew Research/National Journal polls, is that the measures to combat the Great Recession have mostly helped large banks and financial institutions, and that's a view common to Republicans (75 percent) and Democrats (73 percent). Only one third of either political leaning thinks government policies have done a great deal or a fair amount for the poor....

News 8-25-10
Stimulus to cost $27B more than original pricetag
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama's massive stimulus measure has created or saved as many as 3.3 million jobs and continues to boost economic growth in the second half of 2010, but it's come at a higher pricetag than originally billed.....

48% Say Obama’s Views Are Extreme; 51% Say Hillary Is Mainstream
Forty-eight percent (48%) of U.S. voters now regard President Obama’s political views as extreme. Forty-two percent (42%) place his views in the mainstream, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. By comparison, 51% see the views of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as mainstream. Thirty-five percent (35%) think Clinton’s views are extreme. Fourteen percent (14%) are undecided....

More than 3M seniors may have to switch drug plans
WASHINGTON — A plan by Medicare to try to make it simpler for consumers to pick drug coverage could force 3 million seniors to switch plans next year whether they like it or not, says an independent analysis. That risks undercutting President Barack Obama's promise that people can keep their health plans if they like them. And it could be an unwelcome surprise for many seniors who hadn't intended to make a change during Medicare's open enrollment season this fall....

A Stunning Election Night for Red Meat Conservatives
Last night was a phenomenal time for Republicans in general and conservatives in particular. It was also a historic night for supporters of strong border enforcement and the tea party. Here are the major highlights. ...

Obama’s Stimulus Cost More Than The Entire Iraq War [Reader Post]
The Iraq War ends this month. The last combat brigade left August 19. Operation Iraqi Freedom, which began in 2003, will end August 31. September 1 marks the beginning of Operation New Dawn. Now that it’s over, what did the Iraq War cost? Here are examples of what some people Here are examples of what some people had been saying about Iraq War costs. “It was under Mr Bush that the deficit spiralled out of control as we fought an unnecessary and endless $3,000bn war in Iraq…”..

1 in 5 Seniors Could be Forced Out of Their Medicare Prescription Drug Plan
As if more than one-half trillion dollars in Medicare cuts that could jeopardize access to care wasn’t enough bad news for seniors, analysis released yesterday by Avalere Health, a health care research firm, estimates that 1 in 5 seniors could lose their Medicare Part D plan because of actions taken by President Obama’s Administration. As reported by the Associated Press, these actions risk “undercutting President Barack Obama’s promise that people can keep their health plans if they like them. And it could be an unwelcome surprise for many seniors who hadn’t intended to make a change during Medicare’s open enrollment season this fall.”...

News 8-25-10
Boehner dials up attack on Obama; calls for firing of White House economic team
House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) blasted the Obama administration's economic policies in a speech Tuesday and called on the president to fire his top two economic lieutenants. Boehner wants President Obama to ask for and accept the resignations of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Larry Summers, head of the National Economic Council. Firing his economic team is one of five actions Boehner argues the president should take to right the economy....

Obama’s Beltway Chainsaw Massacre
Building on my continuing War on the West/War on Jobs series, today’s column initiates an Obama jobs death toll. The social justice Left has always used Alinskyite story-telling to get its way. Time for the Right to better tell the stories of the forgotten victims of the Obama job-killing machine. Regarding the new CBO report on the stimulus (coincidentally — or maybe not coincidentally — released on the same days as GOP leader John Boehner’s jobs speech), McQ says pointedly: “Of course it boosted the GDP by a sizeable amount. When you pour almost a trillion dollars out of the government bucket and that is part of the calculation of GDP, then naturally the GDP is going to be ‘boosted’....

Sales of new homes hit slowest pace on record
WASHINGTON — Sales of new homes dropped sharply last month to the slowest pace on record, the latest sign that the economic recovery is fading. The Commerce Department said Wednesday that new home sales fell 12.4 percent in July from a month earlier to a seasonally adjusted annual sales pace of 276,600. That was the slowest pace on records dating back to 1963. The past three months have been the worst on record for new home sales....

The Recession Is Over, Welcome To The Depression
Recent economic numbers reflect serious problems with the U.S. economy. On Tuesday the National Association Of Realtors announced the largest drop in existing home sales since 1968 when they began to keep such records. This happened in one of the stronger months for home sales, and with deflated prices and record low mortgage rates. Most economists expected about a 13% decline but they missed the mark by far as existing home sales dropped a whopping 27%.....

WARNING: Strong Language- Holocaust Survivor Cursed Out By Ground Zero Mosque Supporter
A Ground Zero mosque supporter hurled expletives towards a Holocaust survivor during the protests in NYC this past Sunday, going as far to claim that he “obviously he didn’t learn his lesson all this time he was a Holocaust survivor.” “I have no problem cursing out an unpatriotic, treasonous, piece of garbage that wouldn’t know the god**mn Constitution if it hit him in the f***ing face”, the mosque supporter said of the Holocaust survivor when confronted afterward. Later he said,”obviously he didn’t learn his lesson all this time he was a Holocaust survivor, cause right now he want’s the same god**mn thing to happen to the Muslims that happened to him.” VIDEO

News 8-23-10
The White House War on Jobs
How’s that Summer of Recovery working out for you? Continuing my series on the White House War on the West, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar’s attack on the economy, and the White House land lock-up (Part 1, Part 2) and ocean grab, here is the latest on Barack Obama’s deliberate job destruction policies. According to the WSJ, the administration forged ahead with its junk science deepwater drilling ban despite knowing it would cost 23,000 jobs...

Philly requiring bloggers to pay $300 for a business license
t looks like cash hungry local governments are getting awfully rapacious these days: Between her blog and infrequent contributions to ehow.com, over the last few years she says she’s made about $50. To [Marilyn] Bess, her website is a hobby. To the city of Philadelphia, it’s a potential moneymaker, and the city wants its cut. In May, the city sent Bess a letter demanding that she pay $300, the price of a business privilege license.

Stimulus and Health Care Have Democrats on Defensive
Like many Democrats over the past 40 years, Barack Obama has hoped that his association with unpopular liberal positions on cultural issues would be outweighed by pushing economic policies intended to benefit the ordinary person. In his campaign in 2008 and as president in 2009 and 2010, he has hoped that those he characterized to a rich San Francisco Bay area audience as bitterly clinging to guns and God would be won over by programs to stimulate the economy and provide guaranteed health insurance....

The Big Labor Bailout
Whether you like it or not, future debts are being written in your name. You have bailed out the financial industry, the auto industry, the insurance industry, the unemployed, and most recently the states and the schools. Many of you have aggressively protested against the bailouts, but a check was written on your behalf anyway. If that has you upset then pay no attention to the next obligation Congress is gearing up for you –union pensions!...

When Economic Policy Became Social Policy
The recent Treasury Department conference is further proof we will never get out of this housing mess until we are ready to face facts. Watching the Treasury conference on housing finance earlier this week, I was struck by the gloomy thought that we will never get out of this housing mess until we are ready to face facts. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner’s remark that the demise of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac was caused by their pursuit of short-term profits was not a constructive contribution to the resolution of the major issues before us. In reality, Fannie and Freddie were doomed by a badly designed government housing policy, and government efforts to disguise its responsibility with a false narrative will only make a solution more difficult....

News 8-23-10
LA unveils $578M school, costliest in the nation
LOS ANGELES – Next month's opening of the Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools will be auspicious for a reason other than its both storied and infamous history as the former Ambassador Hotel, where the Democratic presidential contender was assassinated in 1968.
With an eye-popping price tag of $578 million, it will mark the inauguration of the nation's most expensive public school ever. The K-12 complex to house 4,200 students has raised eyebrows across the country as the creme de la creme of "Taj Mahal" schools, $100 million-plus campuses boasting both architectural panache and deluxe amenities.

FDA commissioner says agency needs more authority
WASHINGTON – Food and Drug Administration chief Margaret Hamburg, beset with an egg-and-salmonella food safety challenge, said Monday the agency must move from a reactive to preventive enforcement strategy. Giving a series of network interviews in the wake of some 1,300 salmonella cases from tainted eggs, Hamburg said the FDA is taking the issue "very, very seriously." At the same time, she said Congress should pass pending legislation that would provide her agency with greater enforcement power, including new authority over imported food...

2011 INCOME TAX CALCULATOR
Fill out the left-hand column and click Calculate to estimate your 2011 income tax under various scenarios:
(1) Congress allows all of the Bush tax cuts to expire;
(2) Congress acts to extend into 2011 all of the Bush tax cuts (the position of most congressional Republicans);
(3) Congress passes the tax laws suggested in President Obama's budget, letting cuts expire for families making over $250,000 a year (and singles making over $200,000), as well as extending some stimulus measures and imposing new limitations on itemized deductions; and
(4) Congress passes the tax laws recently proposed by congressional Democrats, similar to the Obama plan, but without extending stimulus measures and with no additional limitations on itemized deductions....

The document that should stop the Islamic “Victory Mosque”
...Among the golden nuggets of evidence produced during the trial of the United States vs. The Holy Land Foundation et al is a document that should end any ambiguity concerning the true intent of Feisal ABDUL-RAUF in his quest to construct an Islamic center at Park Place. In fact, it should be cause to reexamine all Islamic centers and mosques that fall within a certain criteria. Cataloged as “Exhibit 003-0085” by the U.S. federal government, a document translated from Arabic to English...details the objectives of the Muslim Brotherhood in America. Feisal ABDUL RAUF is indeed an adherent and promoter of...

News 8-20-10
Calling him out: Ohio Democrat official debunks White House stimulus lie
Hey, remember when the White House launched a “fact check” propaganda site to call out all the supposed misinformation about its massive government takeover of health care? “Facts are stubborn things,” they lectured. Yes, indeed they are. And now, the White House is getting schooled on its stimulus propaganda by a local Ohio Democrat official who set the record straight about Obama’s claims...

High-tech carts will tell on Cleveland residents who don't recycle ... and they face $100 fine
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- It would be a stretch to say that Big Brother will hang out in Clevelanders' trash cans, but the city plans to sort through curbside trash to make sure residents are recycling -- and fine them $100 if they don't. The move is part of a high-tech collection system the city will roll out next year with new trash and recycling carts embedded with radio frequency identification chips and bar codes....

Obama now blames poor job numbers on congressional inaction. Wait! His party runs Congress
Just a few minor things to catch up on for the weekend now that the Fundraiser-in-Chief has gone on another vacation (Don't worry though. White House chef Sam Kass went along, so the first family need not eat ordinary human food.) -- The Congressional Budget Office says the 2010 federal deficit will be in excess of $1.3 trillion, as in $1,000,000,000,000+. (BTW, the next level we'll be talking about out of Washington is quadrillion, which has fifteen 0's.)...

Where are the Jobs in a Summer of Recovery?
This is the death of the American Dream. Near 10% joblessness and no hope or change, propaganda can rescue this economy. President Barry Hussein Suitor and Vice President Joe Biden announced this as the Summer of Economic Recovery; instead, millions of Americans have been out of work for more than 99 weeks and counting. They know we all know this is the end of American Exceptionalism; this is the end of the American middle class, as we know it. (see story) Andrew Klavan gives a unique informative and comparatively witty look at president Soetoro’s Summer of Economic Recovery and the...

Video of 80 Year Old Foot Bridge Illegals Can Use to Cross the Rio Grande
Check out the video at the end of this report about the foot bridge across the Rio Grande that illegals can use to cross the border. A bridge that is not guarded at any time during the day or night. As you stand next to the foot bridge you can see that the $2.4 billion border fence that was constructed to stop illegal aliens from crossing the border is not going to deter anyone wanting to come across to America as long as there are not one but two such foot bridges that take all of 12 seconds to cross. ...

News 8-20-10
Majority in Gallup daily poll disapprove of Obama for first time
A majority of those surveyed by Gallup disapproved of President Obama's job performance for the first time. According to the Gallup daily tracking poll released on Tuesday, 51 percent of U.S. adults said they disapproved of how Obama was handling his job, compared with 42 percent who approve. The poll reflects a one-point change from Monday, when Obama's disapproval number hit 50 percent for the first time....

And now: The stealth Obama ocean grab
It’s not enough that the White House is moving to lock up hundreds of millions of acres of land in the name of environmental protection. The Obama administration’s neon green radicals are also training their sights on the deep blue seas. The president’s grabby-handed bureaucrats have been empowered through executive order to seize unprecedented control from states and localities over “conservation, economic activity, user conflict and sustainable use of the ocean, our coasts and the Great Lakes.”_...

Ground Zero still a hole in the ground nine years later
The events of September 11, 2001 are seared into my memory. I can still see the silhouettes of my fellow Americans hurling themselves from the inferno of the twin towers. I vividly recall the gut-wrenching vision of the south tower collapsing. And then watching, helpless and hopeless, as the north tower joined its twin in a heap of rubble....

Charlie Cook Says Republican “Wave” is Coming; Believes GOP Will Regain Control of the House – Video
Here is video of political prognosticator Charlie Cook telling the Wall Street Journal that a Republican “wave” is coming in this November’s Midterm Elections, and that he believes they will regain control of the House of Representatives. Cook is now estimating a gain of 35-45 seats for the GOP, but says that is a “conservative” estimate. It will likely be more. the GOP needs a net gain of 39 seats to take control of the House...

Little Barry Bypasses the Senate
The Constitution requires the “advice and consent of the Senate” on certain presidential appointments. Not all, mind you, just some, such as ambassadors and public ministers whom the Congress has not actively exempted from the requirement. This is fortunate for the busy Senate, since our overgrown executive branch now employs about two million civilians across some 1300 federal agencies...

News 8-19-20
CBO sees difficult economic times ahead
The U.S. economy faces even more difficult times ahead with chronic high unemployment rates and slow manufacturing growth hurting the recovery, Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Elmendorf said on Thursday. The U.S. unemployment rate will not fall to around 5.0 percent until 2014, Elmendorf wrote in his blog about CBO's new economic and budget outlook....

Stocks drop as jobless claims rise unexpectedly
NEW YORK (AP) -- Stocks tumbled Thursday after two disappointing economic reports renewed investors' concerns about the pace of a recovery. The Dow Jones industrial average fell nearly 150 points in late morning trading. Broader indexes also fell more than 1 percent. The Labor Department said claims for unemployment benefits rose unexpectedly last week and the Federal Reserve of Philadelphia said manufacturing activity in the mid-Atlantic region has dropped during August....

Analysis: The Public Employee Union Scam
Under the National Labor Relations Act, private-sector unions are allowed to extract dues and fees from workers if the employer agrees to it. The NLRA, passed in 1935 during Roosevelt's first term, does not, however, apply to public sector employees, including state and federal workers, because the thinking was that this would over-politicize government and cause a conflict of interest between unions and politicians. In a Weekly Standard piece by professors Fred Siegel and Dan DiSalvo titled, "The New Tammany Hall," this problem is described:...

Dr. Laura, the Progressive Liberal Democrat Terrorists have won
Why is Dr. Laura quitting her radio show? Dr. Laura has been terrorized by Liberal terrorists, you think I’m exaggerating? I’m not. Liberal terrorism has embedded itself into the American culture and it is as real as Islamic terrorism. Dr. Laura told Larry King that she is quitting her radio show because, “[Liberal terrorists] try to silence you. They try to wipe out your ability to earn a living and to have your job. They go after affiliates. They send threats to sponsors.” That sounds like terrorism to me! (see 4:09min video) You know, when I started in radio, if...

Thomas Sowell on American Collapse: Chapter 4 of 5
Thomas Sowell states that if the Obama agenda is not stopped in the November 2010 elections, he doesn’t know how it will ever be stopped. This a Video

Blame politics if IOUs return, controller says
State Controller John Chiang warned Wednesday that California may begin issuing IOUs in as little as two weeks because the state budget is now 50 days late, with no resolution in sight. In a speech to the Sacramento Press Club, Chiang, a Democrat, criticized the governor and lawmakers for not yet agreeing on a spending plan for the state that solves a $19 billion deficit. California has issued IOUs only twice since the Great Depression: last year and in 1992....

News 8-19-20
Pelosi and the Treasure Island land grab
Speaker Mop & Glo made headlines for her call to investigate opponents of the Ground Zero mosque, but there was something else about her remarks that should have raised your hackles:“There is no question there is a concerted effort to make this a political issue by some. And I join those who have called for looking into how is this opposition to the mosque being funded,” she said. “How is this being ginned up that here we are talking about Treasure Island, something we’ve been working on for decades, something of great interest to our community as we go forward to an election about the future of our country and two of the first three questions are about a zoning issue in New York City.” ....

Vineyard buzzes less for Obamas’ second visit
But this year’s T-shirt sales are much less brisk, merchants say. “Last year, Obama gave you goose bumps, but I don’t think you’re going to see that this year,’’ said Alex McCluskey, co-owner of the Locker Room, who sold more than 4,000 “I vacationed with Obama’’ T-shirts last year. But so far this year, he said, his hot item is T-shirts of former President Bush asking, “Miss me yet?’’...

Renewable Power Fail – As Usual – May 2010
With all the rhetoric being spoken of in respect of the need to move away from coal fired power because of the emissions of Carbon Dioxide, now labelled as a dangerous Greenhouse Gas, and the imperative of moving towards the use of renewable methods to generate the electrical power we need, it’s worthwhile looking at actual statistics for that Renewable Power sector, especially those now favoured methods of Wind Generation and both forms of Solar Power Generation, and to see if they actually are doing what is being claimed. In looking at these statistics, it provides us with some insight into what we have to look forward to if this move to renewable power is ramped up to the scale we are told is what is needed....

GM needs to double earnings to repay taxpayers
General Motors’ much anticipated initial public offering filing finally landed on Wednesday. But investors shouldn’t get too caught up in the hype. Sure, the automaker looks in pretty decent shape thanks to last year’s bankruptcy clean-up, and car sales are motoring away from last year’s lows. But to repay U.S. taxpayers in full, GM needs to at least double its earnings. That’s assuming the carmaker is valued at the same earnings multiple as Ford Motor. Granted, GM and its bankers could argue that it has advantages over its cross-town rival that may warrant a higher valuation. It has far less debt, for starters. And it has a stronger position in fast-growing China...

On Energy Independence and Governor Palin's Experience
Sarah Palin’s guest appearances this week in a 3-part series from Alaska with FOX News Channel’s Greta Van Susteren have hopefully opened some eyes regarding the 20-million-acre ANWR (Arctic National Wildlife Refuge), NPR-A (National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska), the North Slope, Prudhoe Bay and the entire issue of drilling for oil and natural gas in the “Last Frontier.”...

Social Security Benefits Will Be Used By Obama In An Attempt To Buy Back Votes Of Angry Senior Citizens
With one swipe of his pen, President Barack Obama signed into law a health care reform bill that will cut Medicare's budget by $500 billion over the next ten years. In addition, late in the first year of his presidency, Social Security recipients received a letter notifying them that they would not be receiving a Cost Of Living Adjustment (COLA) starting January 2010. Since this announcement, there are reports seniors and the disabled will not receive a COLA for two years or more beyond the current year....

News 8-18-10
Analysis: The Public Employee Union Scam
Under the National Labor Relations Act, private-sector unions are allowed to extract dues and fees from workers if the employer agrees to it. The NLRA, passed in 1935 during Roosevelt's first term, does not, however, apply to public sector employees, including state and federal workers, because the thinking was that this would over-politicize government and cause a conflict of interest between unions and politicians. In a Weekly Standard piece by professors Fred Siegel and Dan DiSalvo titled, "The New Tammany Hall," this problem is described:...

American Socialists Release Names of 70 Congressional Democrats in Their Ranks
The Socialist Party of America announced in their October 2009 newsletter that 70 Congressional democrats currently belong to their caucus. This admission was recently posted on Scribd.com:...

The Dumb & Dumber of Democrats!
Oh, good grief!! This little piece of news gave me a nice laugh this morning. Two California Democrat candidates, Mike Benoit and Ray Lutz, have decided to starve themselves until Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) agrees to a debate with them! Politico reports:...

The Religion of Intimidation Crosses the Border
The religion of peace has shown its true colors once again, this time north of the American border. The growing debate over the proposed Ground Zero Cordoba House mosque in New York has become international. And so have the threats. Raheel Raza, a Canadian and the founding member of the Muslim Canadian Congress, had previously spoke out against the mosque idea, calling it "“a deliberate provocation". As reported in the Sun, after returning from a meeting in N.Y. regarding the mosque (Raza was joined by Maureen Basnickim, a Canadian widow of 9-11), Raza says she received a phone call from a man who said his name was Sharif El Gamal....

Retiree and Annuitant Pay: Change to CRDP Amount
Retiree and Annuitant Pay: Change to CRDP AmountJeffrey Johnson, Deputy Director of DFAS Retired and Annuitant (R&A) Pay, Tuesday, August 17, 2010 9:01 AM Beginning with the June 1, 2010 paycheck, Concurrent Retirement Disability Pay (CRDP) will be rounded down to the nearest dollar amount, rather than paid to the exact penny. This change will be applied to all future payments including any future retroactive computations. Because this change represents less than one dollar per month, we will not recoup previous payments that were not rounded down. The law requires that all amounts computed under Chapter 71 of Title...

Victory Mosque: Are We Being Played?
US President Barack Obama’s warm endorsement of the plan to build a mosque by the ruins of the World Trade Center tells Israel – and its enemies – everything we need to know about the president of the United States of America. -Caroline B. Glick, Jerusalem Post
The president was well aware that an overwhelming majority of the American people were strongly opposed to the construction of a monument to Jihad a mere 600 feet from Ground Zero. So what? Most of his policies are strongly opposed by the American people. He was not, however, prepared for the force of the resistance following his statements in support of the Victory Mosque. His coattails just got even shorter....

News 8-18-10
Summer of corruption: Obama’s Big Labor ethics loophole
Today’s column targets SEIU consigliere Craig Becker and the latest White House gift to Big Labor. So far this summer, Team Obama is fronting the SEIU-backed $8 billion Child Nutrition Act expansion and forked over the union-stamped $26 billion BigGovJobs bailout. And as I noted yesterday, the next big government/labor payoff is on the way in the form of the PBGC bailout. How many more union payoffs can we afford?!...

WRATH OF A NATION: MICHELLE OBAMA'S BIG SPENDING SPRE
The shocking truth behind MICHELLE OBAMA's $500,000 a day European "vacation". Furious that her husband Barack Obama invited Oprah Winfrey to his Chicago birthday bash, first lady Michelle blew nearly half a million bucks on a shopping spree in Spain!...

Obama Demagogues Private Enterprise
Last weekend, President Obama pandered for votes by trashing Social Security privatization. "I'd have thought that debate would've been put to rest once and for all by the financial crisis we've just experienced," Obama said. "(N)o one would want to place bets with Social Security on Wall Street."...

Just How Smart is Obama?
The meteoric rise to the presidency of Barack Obama was fueled in no small part by the widely-accepted contention that he was one of the smartest men ever to seek the Oval Office. He is not the first leader to be oversold. "As far as Saddam Hussein being a great military strategist, he is neither a strategist, nor is he schooled in the operational art, nor is he a tactician, nor is he a general, nor is he a soldier. Other than that he's a great military man -- I want you to know that." It is an article of faith among the mainstream media, even on the squishy right (Bill O'Reilly comes to mind), to start any discussion of the 44th President with a ritual expression of utter amazement at his enormous brain power....

Gore calls for major protests on climate change inaction
Former Vice President Gore is calling for major rallies to protest congressional inaction on climate change. In a post on his personal blog headlined “The Movement We Need,” Gore linked to and quoted from an Australian wire service report that “tens of thousands of protesters … have taken to the streets across Australia to urge the major political parties to take action on climate change.”...

AP Poll: Obama at new low for handling economy
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama earned his lowest marks ever on his handling of the economy in a new Associated Press-GfK poll, which also found that an overwhelming majority of Americans now describe the nation's financial outlook as poor. A frustrated electorate could take it out on the party in power — Obama's Democrats — in the November elections....

News 8-13-10
Dems Might Want to Re-Think Criticizing Linda McMahon’s WWE Connection
Linda McMahon stepped down as CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment in September 2009 in order to run for the US Senate, and she has since become the Republican nominee from Connecticut. Since then, the Democrat criticism of McMahon’s connection to the WWE

Trying to kill Bush tax cuts shows Democrats’ child like view of “dynamic scoring”
Democrats don’t do economics very well. They only produce good economic results when the media helps them lie about their accomplishments. Their child like denial of dynamic scoring (they only believe in it when it suits them) is shameful coming from putatively intelligent people. Parroting the phrase “taxes cuts for the rich” is the Democrats only economic policy, and that just won’t cut it....

$26.1 Billion Union Bailout Went to States that Didn’t Need it
As I mentioned in a previous discussion on the Democrats $26.1 billion bailout for unions that Speaker Pelosi pushed through Congress at the last minute this summer, there was no need for the money for the stated purpose of “saving teachers” jobs. After all many states still had $30 billion of the previous stimulus that has yet to be used and others already have fully funded payrolls for at least this year....

Youth Unemployment Hits Record High
Global youth unemployment has hit a record high following the financial crisis and is likely to get worse later this year, the International Labor Organization (ILO) said Thursday. The report from the ILO says 81 million out of 630 million 15-24 year olds where unemployed at the end of 2009, some 7.8 million more than at the end of 2007. Thursday marks the first day of the UN International Youth Year; the ILO warned these trends will have "significant consequences for young people as upcoming cohorts of new entrants join the ranks of the already unemployed."....

Democrat denial about illegal immigrants and violent crime in Arizona.
The left is still all a buzz about a misspeak when Arizona’s Jan Brewer claimed that law enforcement has been finding beheaded bodies in the desert. I will say in Brewer’s defense that her comments were made within a day or two of the discovery of two decapitated bodies in Chihuahua, Chihuahua, just south of El Paso, Texas. So they did find headless bodies, but just right across the border, in the desert. ...

The stunning decline of Barack Obama: 10 key reasons why the Obama presidency is in meltdown
The last few weeks have been a nightmare for President Obama, in a summer of discontent in the United States which has deeply unsettled the ruling liberal elites, so much so that even the Left has begun to turn against the White House. While the anti-establishment Tea Party movement has gained significant ground and is now a rising and powerful political force to be reckoned with, many of the president’s own supporters as well as independents are rapidly losing faith in Barack Obama, with open warfare breaking out between the White House and the left-wing of the Democratic Party. While conservatism in America grows stronger by the day, the forces of liberalism are growing increasingly weaker and divided....

News 8-13-10
Sailors press Gates on how defense budget hits them
SAN DIEGO, California (Reuters) – For sailors aboard the USS Higgins docked in San Diego, a popular question for visiting Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Thursday was how the austerity drive he announced this week would affect them. "We are fighting two wars and so the budget is a huge deal for us," said Naval Petty Officer Michael Allen after Gates gave him and the rest of the crew aboard the guided-missile destroyer a commemorative coin....

Obama closes curtain on transparency
President Obama has abolished the position in his White House dedicated to transparency and shunted those duties into the portfolio of a partisan ex-lobbyist who is openly antagonistic to the notion of disclosure by government and politicians. Obama transferred "ethics czar" Norm Eisen to the Czech Republic to serve as U.S. ambassador. Some of Eisen's duties will be handed to Domestic Policy Council member Steven Croley, but most of them, it appears, will shift over to the already-full docket of White House Counsel Bob Bauer....

The Constitution is no longer in effect and we didn't even know it
Our public servants and military personnel all take an oath to protect and defend our Constitution. However, what if everyone from the President on down failed to keep their oath. What if no one carried out the oath to protect and defend our Constitution, would the Constitution still be in effect? The answer is no. If the Constitution is not enforced, it is no longer in effect and for all intent and purposes, this is no longer the United States of America. For example, the non-enforcement of United States borders is in direct contradiction of the Constitutional mandate to protect...

Unemployment Illustrated
An animated map of the US showing unemployment from January, 2007 through May, 2010.

Palin: From failed candidate to political star
Sarah Palin converted a failed run for the vice presidency into a job, more or less, as a driving force for American ultraconservatism and its manifestation in the nationwide tea party movement. It was not surprising that she managed to convert her celebrity into a financial gold mine. Americans pay well for celebrities' books and public appearances. But it has been rare for a vice presidential candidate _ particularly one snatched from the relative obscurity of the governor's mansion in a politically sidelined state such as Alaska _ to convert a rocky, uneven campaign performance into a position of national political power....

News 8-12-10
We Want Our IOUs
State Controller John Chiang said Tuesday that without a state budget, California's government would be unable to pay its bills in late August (or maybe early September). That means issuing IOUs to some people. Possible dates for IOUs could be either Aug. 27 or Aug. 31, when big payments to schools are due, according to this schedule on the controller's website....

Washington vs. Paul Ryan
The immune system of the modern body politic is nothing if not resilient, and this summer all of its antibodies seem to be trained on heretofore little known Congressman Paul Ryan. That makes this a particularly instructive moment, because the attacks on the Wisconsin Republican show how deeply his radical honesty is subverting Washington's flim-flam—to borrow a phrase....

10 Dumbest Uses of Your Tax Dollars in Stimulus Bill
A recently released GOP paper on the stupid use of federal stimulus dollars has resulted in the typical dismissal from the administration and the mainstream media as “right wing partisan politics”, but there’s nothing wrong with pointing out the results of this ill-conceived hasty distribution of dollars from our children’s generation to the current one. ...

Public favors Tea Party over top Dems
The American public has a more positive view of the Tea Party movement than both leaders of the majority party in Congress, according to a poll released Wednesday. An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll showed that 30 percent view the grassroots conservative groups very or somewhat positively compared to 34 percent who view them very or somewhat negatively...

Illegal Immigrants Bear 8% of Children Born in the U.S.
As discussion over whether to end birthright citizenship intensifies, a new study of Census Bureau data reveals that 8 percent of children born in the United States in 2008 were parented by illegal immigrants. The Pew Hispanic Center, a project of polling organization Pew Research Center, finds that, of the 4.3 million babies born in 2008, roughly 340,000 were born to undocumented aliens. This is double the percentage of illegal immigrants in the U.S., owing in part to the fact that the illegal immigrant population is largely comprised of men and women at birthing age....

New claims for unemployment aid reach 484K
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The employment picture is looking bleaker as applications for jobless benefits rose last week to the highest level in almost six months. It's a sign that hiring is weak and employers are still cutting their staffs. First-time claims for jobless benefits edged up by 2,000 to a seasonally adjusted 484,000, the Labor Department said Thursday. Analysts had expected a drop. That's the highest total since February....

News 8-12-10
Watchdog panel cites global impact of US bailout
WASHINGTON (AP) - The $700 billion U.S. bailout program launched in response to the global economic meltdown had a far greater impact overseas than other countries' financial rescue plans did on the U.S., according to a new report from a congressional watchdog. Billions of dollars in U.S. rescue funds wound up in big banks in France, Germany and other nations. That was probably inevitable because of the structure of the Treasury Department's program, the Congressional Oversight Panel says in a new report issued Thursday....

Every Bill Should State Its Constitutional Authority, Republican Congressman Says
A Republican congressman says all bills introduced in Congress should include a statement setting forth the specific constitutional authority under which a law is being enacted....

Taxpayers paying freight in war crimes trial
Prosecutors at the U. N. Special Court for Sierra Leone at The Hague interrupted the trial of former Liberian leader Charles Taylor last week with some comic relief. They put supermodel Naomi Campbell on the stand to tie Taylor to the trade of "blood diamonds." Note to prosecutors: If your case hinges on a supermodel - one who says she never heard of "a country called Liberia" until she met Taylor at a 1997 charity dinner hosted by then-South African President Nelson Mandela - you probably are in over your head....

Videos that Didn’t Win the EPA’s “Rulemaking Matters” Contest
As reported in April, the Obama administration was again using public money to create yet another grass roots people’s expression of public support. This time, it was the EPA, still wobbling from criticism of its illegal creation of cap-n-trade law by classifying life-giving CO2 as a pollutant....

Candidate apologizes for Sarah Palin death wish post on Facebook
CONCORD, N.H. — A Democratic candidate for the New Hampshire House has apologized for posting a death wish for Sarah Palin on Facebook. Keith Halloran of Rindge made the comment in response to a Republican lawmaker’s post Tuesday about the plane crash that killed former Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens. When the lawmaker expressed disappointment that some news accounts of Stevens’ death focused on negative aspects of his career, Halloran responded: "Just wish Sarah and Levy were on board," an apparent reference to Palin and her daughter’s ex-boyfriend, Levi Johnston....

News 8-11-10
Democrats, Advocacy Groups Blast Cuts to Food Stamps to Fund $26B Aid Bill
Some Democrats are upset and advocacy groups are outraged over the raiding of the food-stamp cupboard to fund a state-aid bailout that some call a gift to teachers and government union workers. House members convened Tuesday and passed the multibillion-dollar bailout bill for cash-strapped states that provides $10 billion to school districts to rehire laid-off teachers or ensure that more teachers won't be let go before the new school year begins, keeping more than 160,000 teachers on the job, the Obama administration says...

Obama’s feeling sorry for himself
I was reading this article today, and was reminded of a prediction I made nearly a year ago. The article today is titled “The increasingly Self-Pitying Obama White House” by Peter Wehner....

Eric Holder says infecting your cellmate with HIV is a “Civil Right”: Whose right is he protecting?
Eric Holder is in court trying to prove that Alabama and South Carolina are backward and unenlightened because they want to treat HIV as a contagious disease. The DoJ wants HIV infected prisoners to be desegregated and returned to the general population where they can act on their predatory urges toward other inmates....

Obama Refuses Governor Perry’s Letter On Video
This video clip makes this Texas girl’s blood run HOT! We had the great misfortune here in Texas of having President Obama step foot on our sacred soil. However, being the better man, Governor Perry made sure he was on the tarmac to welcome President Obama and I’m sure hoping to be extended the courtesy, as the Governor of this great state, a moment of Obama’s time. However, the it was indeed only a moment- brief, cold and rude. Shocking, I know. Governor Perry used the mere seconds to try and hand Obama a letter addressing our border security. Instead, Obama obviously refused to acknowledge the hand held out with the letter and shooed Governor Perry off to Valerie Jarrett. Clearly, Perry seemed slightly disgusted, but not surprised, in his interview after the incident...

A Party for Charlie Rangel? Political Class Not Even Pretending to Care Anymore
New York Democrats are planning a birthday bash for Charlie Rangel. This brought to mind the lyrics John Adams sings in the musical 1776: Is anybody there? Does anybody care? General George Washington supposedly wrote them when he received no replies to 15 dispatches to the Continental Congress. Yes, President Obama suggested to CBS News that Rangel might step down. And a few House Democrats made similar suggestions. Good for him and them, even if the members were looking over their shoulders at polls that predict tough races for them in November. But you don’t need to search far for evidence that a lot of political types don’t care about what most Americans feel....

Unelected Medical Boards Fail To Cut Health Care Costs
Jonathan Cohn takes issue with Republicans who want to abolish the Independent Payment Advisory Board. IPAB, created under ObamaCare, will consist of 15 members appointed by the White House and Senate. They will recommend changes to Medicare payments in years that Medicare exceeds set spending targets. Congress can override IPAB, but only if it comes up with equivalent savings....

The Left's Special Interest Human Shields
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi deserves a swift rap on the knuckles for hiding underneath the desk of the American schoolteacher. In a cynical ploy to evade accountability for the Democrats' continued fiscal recklessness, Pelosi accused opponents of the $26 billion public employee union bailout bill of "demeaning" teachers -- and nurses, police officers and firefighters. Pelosi took great offense at Republican leaders who called out the Big Labor special interests pushing the emergency summer rescue. But if they walk, talk, spend and lobby like special interests, let's call them what they are....

Despite Naysayers, Reporters Get at the Truth about What Happened in Lardeo
This is a cautionary tale about reporters eagerly attacking other reporters working a developing story. Because it’s not possible to provide evidence as quickly as some might demand it doesn’t mean the story is false. On July 24, Kimberly Dvorak, of the Examiner, and Don Amato, of the blog Digger’s Realm, broke the story about two Texas ranches outside of Laredo, Texas, being seized by members of Los Zetas drug cartel. Today, Ms. Dvorak posted a copy of the police blotter which provides a good deal of the information necessary to confirm her initial story’s claims:(interesting)

News 8-11-10
America Is 'Bankrupt Mickey Mouse Economy': CIO
America is a "Mickey Mouse economy" that is technically bankrupt, according to Jochen Wermuth, the Chief Investment Officer (CIO) and managing partner at Wermuth Asset Management. "America today looks like Russia in 1998. Consumers, companies and the government are all highly indebted. America as a result is a bankrupt Mickey Mouse economy," Wermuth told CNBC...

Arizona sheriffs call ICE chief's visit a 'stunt'
Two key sheriffs along the Arizona-Mexico border on Tuesday called a planned visit by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Assistant Secretary John Morton a "political stunt" and described as "pathetic" Obama administration attempts to "cover up its inaction in protecting our borders."...

Daily Presidential Tracking Poll
The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Wednesday shows that 24% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as president. Forty-six percent (46%) Strongly Disapprove, giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -22 (see trends). ...

"Waves of More Foreclosures" = More Bank Failures + Big Trouble for the FDIC, Suttmeier Says
The U.S. housing market continues to send mix signals. More homes continue to enter foreclosure but the number of homeowners carrying so-called “under water mortgages,” declined in the second quarter, Zillow.com reported Monday. 21.5% of homeowners owed more on their mortgage than their home was worth in the second quarter, that’s down from 23.3% in the first quarter and 23% a year ago...

Wall Street increasingly favors Republicans: study
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Wall Street and its financial allies did an about-face in political spending in June, giving Republicans over two-thirds of their campaign contributions as Democrats pushed financial reform forward in Congress, a report said on Tuesday. The preliminary findings by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics suggest that a financial industry trend favoring Republican candidates, which began in late 2009, may have accelerated as reform legislation progressed in the run-up to November's congressional mid-term elections...

Congress Now Not Even Bothering to Name the Bills They Pass
Thanks to CATO’s Jim Harper, we discover that the slovenly work of Obama’s Congress is so bad that they are now passing bills that they haven’t even bothered to name. It’s been bad enough that the Democrats have affixed to bills names that are entirely Orwellian in nature, but now they aren’t even bothering to think that hard. ...

More Nonsense From Liberal Plant Who Claims To Be A Rand Paul Supporter
Yesterday, a video was released featuring an obvious Tea Party plant in Kentucky wearing a tin foil hat, holding a sign with Dora the Explorer attached, and speaking proudly of his support of racism, and ultimately, a Rand Paul supporter. Later in the video, they found the same man– minus the fake southern accent he used in the initial interview. It was speculated, but not proven, that this man could possibly be working on Jack Conway campaign– Paul’s opponent. However, this is only speculation. The Conway campaign denied the accusation yesterday. VIDEO

News 8-10-10
Stop the BigGovJobs bill
The Democrats call their $26 billion, Big Labor/bankrupt states’ bailout legislation the “EduJobs” bill. Let’s inject some truth in advertising. The “EduJobs” bill is nothing but a BigGovJobs bill — a massive election season pay-off to Democrat special interests. With your money. I noted last week that Nancy Pelosi is summoning her minions back to Washington for a special session to rush the Senate-approved legislation into President Obama’s hands (the House had approved an earlier version of the bill). As with so many other political wealth redistribution schemes peddled by the ruling majority and championed by the White House, this one comes wrapped in endless, specific-seeming promises of salvation (it will save “3,000? in Washington state, “5,000 slots” in Illinois, and “4,200? in Michigan)....

Sarah Palin Confronted On Video
Democrats could take a moment from this video clip of Sarah Palin and a fellow Alaskan and learn a lesson on how to handle an encounter with someone who disagrees with you. Over the last few months we’ve seen dozens of “caught on video” moments of Democrat politicians who, when confronted, dissolve into immediate and nasty tantrums that sometimes even end in physical assault.
In this clip (turn up your sound), Sarah Palin is confronted by another woman who is angry and feels that Palin abandoned her state and her seat to become a celebrity. The reaction from Palin is interesting and while she is defensive at first, it almost seems that they find some common ground and camaraderie at the very end. Also, note Bristol Palin sticking up for her mom. Love or hate the Palins, at least she took the moment to respond instead of knocking the woman to the ground and throwing herself kicking and screaming to the floor....VIDEO

Zogby: Obama May Be 'Toxic' for Democrats
Pollster John Zogby predicts President Obama will become "toxic" for Democrats on the campaign trail if incumbent Sen. Michael Bennet loses to state legislator Andrew Romanoff in Tuesday's Democratic primary in Colorado. In an exclusive Newsmax.TV interview, Zogby says a loss by Bennet, a favorite of the Democratic establishment who has received strong personal support from the president, would send a clear signal to other Democrats, sharply truncating Obama's coattails come November....

John Mauldin on Obama's Plan to Raise Taxes: "Very Dangerous" and "Patently Absurd"
The Obama administration's determination to allow the Bush tax cuts to expire for the wealthiest Americans is akin to "operating on an economic body without the benefit of anesthesia," says John Mauldin, president of Millennium Wave Advisors. "What we're doing is a grand experiment." No fan of tax hikes in ordinary times, Mauldin says raising taxes now -- with the economy at "stall speed" and inflation near zero - is "very dangerous."...

BP's Deepwater Oil Spill - Details of the Cement Kill - and Open Thread 2
The pressure testing following the cementing operations indicates we have an effective cement plug in the casing which was the desired outcome. In recent days, additional details of the Deepwater Horizon well cementing operation have emerged from the press conferences of Kent Wells and Admiral Allen. Admiral Allen held the first and shorter conference on Friday, and there were only two external questions, so perhaps interest is now fading fast as the well is now effectively plugged. It is not yet legally plugged and the need for certain procedures to comply with regulation was part of the discussion today....

Can Greedy Politicians Throw You Out of Your House?
In 2003, Mount Holly Township unveiled its plan to take — or “purchase,” as it is known in eminent domain parlance — the 350 homes in the Mount Holly Gardens housing complex so that 25 acres of land could be turned into a housing and commercial complex....

Pelosi Economics
Nancy Pelosi, the U.S. Speaker of the House, recently said that unemployment benefits are creating jobs faster than practically any other program. "It injects demand into the economy," Pelosi said. "It creates jobs faster than almost any other initiative you can name." Some public policy experts and national media writers sound off on Pelosi's comments:...

News 8-10-10
House ethics panel outlines charges against Waters
WASHINGTON (AP) - The House ethics committee on Monday announced three counts of alleged ethics violations against California Democrat Maxine Waters, including a charge that she requested federal help for a bank where her husband owned stock and had served on its board. Waters, a 10-term representative from Los Angeles, has denied any wrongdoing and had urged the committee to come forth with details of the charges so that she can defend herself in a trial expected to take place this fall....

You Are Public Servants- NOT Royalty!
It wasn’t until the gross details of Michelle Obama’s extravagant trip to Spain began to leak out that Americans started to sit up a little straighter and take notice. And with each little detail we got a bit more furious. The calculators have been pulled out and it is reported that Americans are paying a LARGE portion of this lavish $375,000 trip. In fact, reports are informing us that this little jaunt is costing us, the taxpayers, at least $75,000 a day. ...

Fox and Friends Exposure Helps 911 Pledge Go Nation-Wide
he good people at FOX News invited me to speak on the subject of our “911 Hard Hat Pledge”. Well I certainly was not prepared for the reaction I got which was explosive! Tens of thousands of hits and comments on the Blue Collar Corner site. The comments that were left were extremely moving. Things like : I am not a blue collar worker but I run a paper plant in Iowa and all of us at the plant support you and all New Yorkers in your pledge. Civil servants from out of state who participated in the clean-up nearly a decade ago were elated to hear that there has been a movement started to appeal directly to the Imam and his group in hopes that it would not come to a Boycott across the country which is exactly where this is going....

Introduction to American Government
Governments should do only those things that cannot be done more efficiently by the private sector, e.g., provide for common defense, courts; facilitate trade, i.e., those things allowed by our Constitution! Allowing competition usually results in the best product or service for the least cost. Therefore it is suggested that our medical and postal systems be privatized by cutting down their Federal subsidies over the next four years as well as the Departments of Agriculture, Energy and Education. The fundamental reasons are summarized below....

Judge freezes furlough order; Schwarzenegger vows appeal
An Alameda Superior Court judge Monday temporarily barred Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger from imposing new furloughs on state workers beginning Friday. Judge Steven A. Brick ruled that there are "serious questions" about the legality of the furloughs and that permitting them before a scheduled Sept. 13 court hearing could cause irreparable harm....

Austerity Obama Style
Are you dreading your personal financial situation? Are you making all of the sacrifices that President Obama and Vice President Biden are calling for but you still feel like you need to get away and clear your head from all of the pressures of no money and possible insolvency? Don’t fret we all have to face hard times together. As president, Barry Hussein Soetoro told us we all have to have some skin in the game. Michelle Obama and daughter Sasha returned from Spain on Sunday, a vacation at a lavish hotel on the Mediterranean coast that triggered her first...

News 8-6-10
Jobs Picture Worsens With 131,000 Losses; 9.5% Rate
U.S. employment fell for a second straight month in July as more temporary census jobs ended while private hiring rose less than expected, pointing to an anemic economic recovery. Non-farm payrolls fell 131,000, the Labor Department said on Friday as temporary jobs to conduct the decennial census dropped by 143,000. Private employment, considered a better gauge of labor market health, rose 71,000 after increasing 31,000 in June. In addition, the government revised payrolls for May and June to show 97,000 fewer jobs than previously reported....

GM to build $500 million plant in Mexico
t's just one hypocrisy after another from Barack Obama. The president sold the taxpayer bailout of
General Motors by telling us that it was needed to save jobs. Obviously it doesn't mean American jobs
because Government Motors has decided to spend half a billion, taxpayer dollars, to build a new plant
in Mexico. In my opinion the company shouldn't be allowed any capital expansion, especially outside the United
States, before it fulfills its obligation to the taxpayers of America. Until their debt is paid, they are
spending our money to construct a plant in a country that is contributing to the collapse of America. I
guess cheap labor trumps being loyal to your country; right Mr. President?...

Despite Budget Cuts, Layoff Fears, Milwaukee Teachers Fight for Taxpayer-Funded Viagra
With the district in a financial crisis and hundreds of its members facing layoffs, the Milwaukee teachers union is taking a peculiar stand: fighting to get their taxpayer-funded Viagra back. The union has asked a judge to order the school board to again include Pfizer Inc.'s erectile dysfunction drug and similar pills in its health insurance plans..

Palin’s Fraternal Greetings
No sooner had President Obama concluded his dirge before the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations than Sarah Palin was out with a posting on her Facebook page, commiserating with her husband’s fellow union members on having to sit through another “Blame Bush” lecture. Her post went up as the Web was abuzz with talk about the gaffe of Michelle Obama taking a stroll through the glamorous resort of Marbella, Spain, while America is staring at a the prospect of a double-dip recession. The Drudge Report marked the event by linking to a column in the Daily News likening Mrs. Obama to Marie Antoinette.

Holder is extorting settlement money to fund ACORN. If AG is a crook where do we go to complain?
Apparently there are no limits to the depths to which Eric Holder will sink. This fraud is willing to allow Black thugs to threaten peaceful Whites trying to vote, and completely ignore the outrage over this miscarriage of justice. Now he is engaging in full fledged extortion.
According to the federal criminal Statues, Mr. Holder is sworn to enforce, his new policy for assessing and keeping funds from defendants in discrimination lawsuits is a violation of the Hobbs Act...

News 8-6-10
USPS posts $3.5 billion loss as mail volume plunges
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The U.S. Postal Service reported a $3.5 billion loss in its most recent quarter Thursday, as mail volume plummets and retiree health care costs mount. The USPS, a self-supporting government agency that receives no tax dollars, said operating revenue declined 1.8% to $16 billion during the fiscal 2010 third quarter compared to a year earlier, while operating expenses spiked 4.2% to $19.5 billion...

No shady banking buddy left behind
First Lady Michelle Obama’s latest overseas jaunt is getting all the headlines. But President Obama’s money-grubbing junket to Chicago may cost taxpayers far more in the long run. With his Gaultier-clad wife sashaying around the Spanish seaside, the lonely fundraiser-in-chief returned to Illinois to take care of some birthday-week business. Job One: Filling the Senate campaign coffers of his corruption-tainted political protege Alexi Giannoulias.....

Romer To Leave White House
Christina Romer, chairwoman of Pres. Obama's Council of Economic Advisers, has decided to resign, according to a source familiar with her plans. Romer, an economics professor at the University of California (Berkeley) before taking the key admin post, did not respond to repeated calls to her office. "She has been frustrated," a source with insight into the WH economics team said. "She doesn't feel that she has a direct line to the president. She would be giving different advice than Larry Summers [director of the National Economic Council], who does have a direct line to the president." ...

Recovery Bummer Continues: 130,000 Jobs Lost for July


Black Tea Partiers Take on Reporters Video
Black tea partiers have made a bold move stepping into the spotlight and publicly defending their conservative values and their position against racism, but the reporters aren’t giving in. In this clip the tea partiers knock every unsubstantiated allegations reporters tried to bring up out of the park....

Monkeying around with our tax dollars
Those stingy Republicans have issued another lame attack on what they call "wasteful spending" in President Barack Obama's $863 billion job stimulus program. In their so-called "report," U.S. Sens. John McCain and Tom Coburn listed 100 instances of what they claim to be government "waste" and "abuse."

Obama Earmarks $1 Billion in Stimulus Money for Company in Illinois
The biggest earmark in American history has been doled out to a company in Illinois, the President’s home state, in the name of green jobs. The President’s $862 billion Stimulus plan has been an abysmal failure. It provided states and localities with billions in bailout moneys, funded wasteful projects like the Monkey cocaine study at Wake Forest and given false hope to Americans that the President has ideas to turn around the economy. This earmark is an outrage and the signature project of the President’s Stimulus plan. Thankfully, Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) is sounding the alarm bells and educating the American people to this new Obama outrage...

News 8-5-10
Obama Returns to Illinois for U.S. Senate Campaign Dominated by Scandals
President Barack Obama, who left Chicago promising hope and change, appears in his adopted hometown today to raise money for a U.S. Senate candidate amid reminders of the difficulty of getting away from the tarnish of a place renowned for its political corruption.
Obama’s speech at a downtown hotel for Alexi Giannoulias, the Democrat seeking the seat he once held, will be two blocks from the federal courthouse where jurors are weighing the fate of Rod Blagojevich. The former Illinois governor stands accused of trying to sell the Senate post to the highest bidder....

Angle: Democrats want to 'make government our God'
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Nevada U.S. Senate candidate Sharron Angle sees her campaign as a battle to stop Democrats in Washington who want to expand entitlement programs and "make government our God." In an interview with a Christian radio network, Angle describes her effort to oust Majority Leader Harry Reid as a religious calling in "a war of ideology, it's a war of thoughts and of faith."..

ObamaCare Decisions Will be Made by Sebelius
Click here to find out more! Already known for his flow charts illustrating the complexity of the monstrosity known as ObamaCare, Houston-area Congressman Kevin Brady (R-Texas) has just released another chart showing the disorganization and chaos inherent in the new health care legislation that the Democrats rammed through Congress. The flow chart — covering only about one-third of the bill ¬— is expected to provide ammunition for the already-overwhelming opposition to the nearly 3,000 word catastrophe that hands over America’s health care decisions to political appointee Kathleen Sebelius, the Secretary of Health and Human Services....

Does He Get It?
The conventional wisdom these days is that the best shot for Democrats heading into the November elections in marginal districts is for the president to raise money and lower his profile. Just send checks. Events after 7 p.m. Closed to the press. This is not an election Democrats want to "nationalize." Better to keep it local. Better to run as your own man or woman, not as the president's best friend. Republicans, by contrast, will spend as much time as they can running against the president. If his popularity is down to his base (low 40s), that means voters in the middle are up for grabs, and Republicans will try to grab them by capitalizing on their concerns about the man they elected two years ago....

Swindling our seniors: AARP shills for White House on Obamacare
For most of last year, AARP was the White House's designated huckster with lawmakers on Capitol Hill to pass comprehensive health care reform legislation and cut Medicare by $500 billion. This calculated move by AARP, which will virtually destroy the popular Medicare Advantage program, will vastly increase the demand for medigap supplemental insurance - AARP's primary insurance product. This was a cynical and calculated move for a non-profit organization that is supposed to be advocating for the elderly - not its own business interests.

News 8-5-10
The shady Shorebank bailout revisited
In May, I reported on the attempt by a coalition of government-corporate-left-wing advocacy interests to shore up the social justice banking poster child, Chicago-based Shorebank. Yesterday, I told you about Shorebank’s latest dire financial reports, showing an even worsening capital deficiency than first thought. Today, Bloomberg reports that the bailout deal may crumble:...

New claims for jobless benefits rise to 479K
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Initial requests for jobless benefits rose last week to their highest level since April, a sign that hiring remains weak and some companies are still cutting workers. The Labor Department said Thursday that new claims for unemployment insurance rose by 19,000 to a seasonally adjusted 479,000. Analysts had expected a small drop. Claims have risen twice in the past three weeks...

GM donates $41,000 to lawmakers' pet projects
When General Motors went through bankruptcy last year, it suspended its political donations. Now that it's owned by the U.S. government, it's donating to lawmakers' pet projects again. The carmaker gave $41,000 to groups associated with lawmakers, the vast majority of it -- $36,000 -- to the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, the company reported on a disclosure form last week. The CBC Foundation is a charity with 11 members of the Congressional Black Caucus on its board....

Karl Rove, Radio Host: In For Rush Limbaugh Monday
Former Senior Advisor to Pres. George W. Bush (and “Bush’s Brain”) Karl Rove is an author, a Fox News contributor and a regular on Twitter. Is a radio career next? Rove will fill in for radio titan Rush Limbaugh. He made the announcement on Twitter this morning: “Rush Limbaugh will be out Monday, 8/9/10. Tune in as I make my EIB Network guest-host debut!”...

Is Obama about to forgive billions in mortgage principal?
James Pethokoukis hears rumors of an August surprise coming from the White House, one that will attempt to win backs the hearts and minds of voters dismayed at the failing economic policies of the Obama administration. With the government fully in control of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Barack Obama may issue an order to forgive portions of underwater mortgages processed through the GSEs, where negative equity approaches $800 billion overall. Some financial houses have begun quietly preparing for the possibility:..

News 8-4-10
Mad Maxine’s minority fat-cat bankers
My column today hits again on Maxine Waters’ brewing ethics scandal. Her supporters are ratcheting up the victim-card rhetoric. She appeared on the race-hustling Reverend Al Sharpton’s radio show yesterday to stoke the fires and re-cast the ethics probe as an attempt to squelch advocacy on behalf of all black businesses. Another guest bemoaned the House Ethics panel’s “racial profiling” of Congressional Black Caucus members. Even liberal WaPo columnist Ruth Marcus is tired of the House “culture of entitlement.” And the culture of corruption....

Sheriff Taylor's health pitch sparks cardiac arrest
WASHINGTON -- Was it not enough for President Obama to saddle future Americans with billions of dollars in new health benefits and entitlements that they simply cannot afford? He also had to go and corrupt one of America's most beloved figures of the last half-century. And stick you with the $700,000 bill. Before Obama started pimping him out last week to sell the highly unpopular health-care law, actor Andy Griffith was about as all-American as you could get...

Private Enterprise Does It Better
In "Myths, Lies and Downright Stupidity," I bet my readers $1,000 that they couldn't name one thing that government does better than the private sector. I am yet to pay. Free enterprise does everything better. Why? Because if private companies don't do things efficiently, they lose money and die. Unlike government, they cannot compel payment through the power to tax. Even when a private company operates a public facility under contract to government, it must perform. If it doesn't, it will be "fired" -- its contract won't be renewed. Government is never fired...

The Auto Bailout Payback
President Barack Obama went on the TV show "The View" and told the cast that all the taxpayer money his administration spent to bail out General Motors and Chrysler will be repaid. The Mackinac Center for Public Policy experts talk about their take on the impact of the auto bailouts. James Hohman, fiscal policy analyst for the Mackinac Center The whole situation proves Ronald Reagan's observation that, 'Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it." The standard story here is that the auto industry was saved by government. What's missing was the horrible public policies that helped put the Detroit 3 on death's door....

BP's Deepwater Oil Spill - Tests End and the Kill Begins - and Open Thread
Overnight Monday night there was a second set of leaks detected in the BOP assembly sitting on top of the Deepwater well in the Gulf, however these were successfully stopped by Tuesday morning and the flow testing of the well began. Oil was pumped into the well at several different rates, starting at 1 barrel/minute and ending at 7 bpm. During this series of tests the pressure in the well was monitored, and the results were sufficiently satisfying – “Textbook”, as Kent Wells noted, that the well is now in process of being killed as mud is fed into the well at a slow, but steady rate....

C hris Christie: The Scourge of Trenton
t was supposed to have been the biggest fight of Chris Christie’s young administration: a May showdown over what Democrats in Trenton were calling the “millionaires’ tax,” designed, like each of the 115 statewide tax increases of the last decade, to paper over a small part of a yawning structural deficit by soaking the rich, one last time. Never mind that half the filings and a third of the revenue from the tax were to come from New Jersey’s business community, already battered by a perfect storm of overtaxation, capital flight, and recession. The Democrats were loaded for bear, and had the legislative majorities in place to pass the measure, having spent all winter threatening a government shutdown should Christie use his veto pen....

Former Shirley Sherrod employee accuses her of exploiting black farm laborers
Readers who read my original Washington Examiner post about Shirley Sherrod know that she and husband Charles received $150,000 each for "pain and suffering” as part of "a thirteen million dollar settlement in the minority farmers law suit Pigford vs Vilsack." Based on history presented by Ron Wilkins yesterday at Counterpunch, it's appropriate to ask: "Whose pain and suffering?"It now seems that Mr. and Mrs. Sherrod inflicted quite a bit of pain and suffering on their own -- and on some of the very people Mr. Sherrod described as "our own" in a speech earlier this year -- at New Communities, Inc. (NCI). The group is described at the Rural Development Leadership Network's web site as "the land trust that Shirley and Charles Sherrod established, with other black farm families in the 1960s."...

News 8-4-10
Tolerance: Libs target GOP homeowners in Pacific Northwest
Ah, it looks like the tolerant lefties in my old stomping grounds in the Pacific Northwest are at it again. There’s an anonymous campaign to target GOP homeowners who display campaign signs in their yards with signs that read “RepublicansAreADisease.”Peace, love, rainbows, unicorns…and property destruction. Via the Seattle Times (hat tip: reader Jack A.):...

Calif. campaign watchdog eyes new Internet rules
Politicians' tweets and status updates should be held to the same standards as paid advertising that voters see on television, hear on radio or find in their mailboxes, California's campaign watchdog agency says in a report being released Monday. The Fair Political Practices Commission is considering how to regulate new forms of political activity such as appeals on a voter's Facebook page or in a text message. It's become necessary as politicians in California and elsewhere announce their candidacies and major campaign policies through Twitter, YouTube and a host of social networking sites, said FPPC Chairman Dan Schnur...

Mo. voters reject key provision of health care law
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) - Missouri voters on Tuesday overwhelmingly rejected a key provision of President Barack Obama's health care law, sending a clear message of discontent to Washington and Democrats less than 100 days before the midterm elections. About 71 percent of Missouri voters backed a ballot measure, Proposition C, that would prohibit the government from requiring people to have health insurance or from penalizing them for not having it....

Stimulus Projects that Created No Jobs
(CBS) A couple of Republican senators put out a report today spelling out how they say a lot of the money taxpayers shelled out for the stimulus package was wasted. CBS News investigative correspondent Sharyl Attkisson Follows the Money. It may be called the Recovery Act, but to Pastor Greg Sheets - it's the law of unintended consequences. A well-meaning stimulus project to improve the road in front of his Newark, Ohio home has led the city to take part of his yard through eminent domain. Sheets got a restraining order when workers got too close to his house. The mess is now in its fourth month...

ivility? By All Means! But Vote No.
The Senate opened debate today on President Obama's nomination of Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court. Harry Reid began the proceedings with a plea for civility. Coming from a Democrat, this was deeply ironic. I guess he meant that he didn't want the Republicans to bork Ms. Kagan. There was, of course, no fear of that. Republicans don't play that despicable game. But the fact is that Elena Kagan is not remotely qualified for the Supreme Court; not by experience, not by temperament and not by philosophy. Senator Jeff Sessions stated the case against her with great clarity:...

Deal between Friendship-West Baptist Church and former secretary, Elizabeth Payne, falls apart
A legal settlement reached last month between a former Dallas church secretary, Elizabeth Payne, and Friendship-West Baptist Church has collapsed, court documents show. This scuttled deal means that details about sexual e-mails between Payne and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, President Barack Obama's former pastor, may be the subject of testimony in federal court. (Not very realavent just background)...

Caught on Video: Couric Mocks Palin on Day She’s Named Running Mate
Raw footage of CBS News anchor Katie Couric recording voice-overs for news segments about Gov. Sarah Palin on the day she was named as John McCain’s running mate:What’s newsworthy here isn’t merely that Couric mocked the GOP’s historic Vice Presidential nominee–most of us have said things we’re not proud of in private–it’s that she did so so brazenly in front of her supposedly objective news team....

News 8-4-10
Maxine, Barney, Fannie, Freddie & TARP Hanky-Panky
Over the weekend, I gave you a refresher course on entrenched California Democrat Rep. Maxine Waters’ OneUnited Bank ethics scandal. It’s a textbook case of cronyism of color. Last night, the House Ethics Committee filed three charges against her related to those shady dealings — specifically, her role in arranging a special meeting between then-Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson (known on this blog as the lying, Naked Emperor) and her pals at the black-owned, deeply indebted OneUnited Bank...

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner: Unemployment Could Go Up Before It Comes Down
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner acknowledged that it is still a "tough economy" for most Americans, and warned it's possible the unemployment rate will go up for a couple of months before it comes down as more people enter the labor force. When they see a little hope that there may be jobs out there, they start to come back in again. And that can cause the measured unemployment rate to go up — temporarily," Geithner told "Good Morning America's" George Stephanopoulos in an exclusive interview. "But what we expect to see,....

Mayberry Defiled, and Obamacare Still Stinks
he following was written by Gina Miller. Her opinions don’t necessarily reflect those of ScottFactor.com, but because they’re here, they probably do.I don’t know why this new, seemingly small, development should break my heart, but it does. And maybe I really do know why. It may seem like a little thing, but it’s not. In their ever-increasing attempts to deceive the public, the people in the Obama administration have now hijacked a piece of the heart of America, the fictional town of Mayberry, North Carolina, and they’re using it as a tool to sell their lies. It stunned me to read that Andy Griffith is now on cable television shilling for the Democrat’s health care deform legislation...

Senate Scrambling To Pass $26 Billion Bailout For The States
Realistically, the worst cash-strapped states have little hope of Washington DC coming to their rescue, at least not on a major scale.
A bill that would have provided a mere $26 billion -- and yes, we mean mere, because in the grand scheme of things, this is peanuts compared to both the deficit, the Federal budget, and what the states need -- is looking unlikely to pass the Senate, after a vote was delayed yesterday.

Examiner Editorial: No, Congressman, government does have limits
When Rep. Pete Stark, D-Calif., was told during a July 24 town hall meeting with constituents that he and public officials like him were "destroying this nation," he smirkingly replied, "And I guess you're here to save it. And that makes me very uncomfortable." This derision of a constituent was particularly poignant, considering that the questioner had only asked what limits would remain on the federal government if Congress could get away with passing a bill as destructive of individual rights as Obamacare. Stark responded that "I think that there are very few constitutional limits that would prevent the federal government from rules that could affect your private life." He was roundly booed, but then given another opportunity to respond. He observed that "the federal government, yes, can do most anything in this country."

Dem pollster says voters not buying Bush-boogeyman strategy
If Democrats want to convince anyone not already firmly in their own camp to support their candidates, they need a better argument than BushBushBushBushBush. National Journal reports the results of a poll commissioned by a Democrat-leaning think tank that shows voters don’t consider today’s GOP as watercarriers for Barack Obama’s predecessor. Almost two-thirds of respondents see Republican control of Congress as, well, Hope and Change:...

News 8-4-10
Saying Nope to SYEPSaying Nope to SYEP
On Monday, District residents’ tax dollars went to pay Summer Youth Employment Program participants to attend a Council oversight session at which they lobbied for more funding for the program. It’s just the latest outrage surrounding one of D.C.’s best-intentioned and worst-run programs. SYEP, which hires about 20,000 D.C. youth for various minimum wage summer jobs, was budgeted at $22.7 million. But it’s already $11.5 million over budget -- an overrun of 50 percent.....Students paid with taxpayer money to lobby for more taxpayer money (Drudge Report)

Democrats Disillusioned
You expect Republican politicians to criticize Democratic administrations and vice versa. But when Democrats start criticizing Democratic administrations, that is news. Someone once said that the headline “Dog bites man” is not news, but “Man bites dog” is. We are now starting to get “Democrat bites Democrat” news....

Not about Health Care, About Liberty': Virginia Wins Round One in Court
n a Press Conference after the Courts Ruling was issued, Attorney General Kenneth Cuccinelli told reporters, "This case is not about health care, so much as it is about liberty". It appears that the Federal Court may very well agree with him. Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell weighed in with his own Press Release "The requirement that all Americans must purchase health insurance or face a penalty is not permitted under the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution". Stay tuned. This significant Constitutional Case now proceeds to full hearing.

The Rangel Center for Public Service - really
The House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct - also known as the House ethics committee - issued a Statement of Alleged Violation last week to Rep. Charlie Rangel, D-N.Y. To sum it up, Rangel thought he could skirt the rules and get away with it. Earlier this year, the ethics committee admonished Rangel for taking corporate trips to the Caribbean in violation of House rules.

Greed and secrecy mark nation’s first, biggest cap-and-trade program UPDATED: Repeal effort launched
While Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid desperately seeks a way to force a cap-and-trade energy bill through the Senate, folks in 10 northeastern states are getting a bitter taste of what such a program really means. In the case of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) that includes New Jersey New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Vermont, Delaware and Maryland, greed and secrecy appear to be the most dominant considerations....

News 7-2-10
Arizona Sheriff: ‘Our Own Government Has Become Our Enemy’
Pinal County (Ariz.) Sheriff Paul Babeu is hopping mad at the federal government. Babeu told CNSNews.com that rather than helping law enforcement in Arizona stop the hundreds of thousands of people who come into the United States illegally over its southern border in Arizona, the federal government is targeting the state and its law enforcement personnel....

Obama, Congress create another bailout fund
If ever there was a phrase to describe the Obama administration's handling of the economy, this line from an audit by Neil Barofsky, the special inspector general for the government's Troubled Asset Relief Program may work best: "[B]ased on a theory and without sufficient consideration of the decision's broader economic impact." How else to define Democrats' efforts this week to create the "Small Business Lending Fund"? Touted as a means to open up lending for credit-starved small businesses, in practice this fund would continue the very politicization of the financial industry that has voters upset and the economy in shambles. Senate Republicans have so far been successful at blocking this bill, but Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid hopes to bring it to a test vote on Monday....

The Party of the Rich
Back when I was a kid, we used to assume the Republicans were the party of the rich. It was a given — all those plutocrats with chauffeurs shuttling them between the penthouse in Sutton Place and the weekend manse in Southampton. Of course that was pretty idiotic then (a Kennedy was in the White House), but it’s outright moronic now....

Palin on Illegal Immigration: 'Jan Brewer Has the Cojones Our President Does Not'
Sarah Palin said on Sunday that when it comes to securing America's borders, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer "has the cojones that our president does not have to look out for all Americans." Speaking to Chris Wallace on "Fox News Sunday," Palin addressed this week's decision by a federal judge to block much of the anti-illegal immigration law passed by Arizona earlier this year....

Summer of Corruption: Maxine Waters/OneUnited Bank refresher course
On the heels of the Rangel House Ethics tangle, word came down this weekend that fellow Congressional Black Caucus member and racial grievance-mongering diva Rep. Maxine Waters will face her own House Ethics Committee trial. The subject of the inquiry? Her government cronyism of color wheeling and dealing with minority-owned bank OneUnited Bank in Los Angeles. Regular readers of this blog know all about it. I reported on the mess in March 2009 and am reprinting my column/blog post on the subject in full below as a refresher course. Culture of corruption chickens coming home to roost:...

Alan Greenspan warns that US could be heading for double-dip recession
Amid worries about a slowdown in economic recovery, Mr Greenspan said: "We're in a pause in a recovery, a modest recovery but a pause in the modest recovery feels like a quasi-recession." Questioned on NBC's Meet the Press programme about whether the US could slide into another recession he said: "It is possible if home prices go down. Home prices, as best we can judge, have really flattened out in the last year....

Debt is Devouring Sovereign Nations, U.S. Deficit is being Monetized by the Fed
While we wait, watch and listen, the Fed decides when the banks will be given the word to start lending to get the domestic economy back to neutral. Action is needed quickly because the world economy is quickly deteriorating, and the recovery is simply not happening, as the administration admits to a fiscal deficit of $1.4 trillion. That would be down from a deficit of $1.9 trillion in 2009. Our long-term estimate has been $1.6 to $2 trillion...

Spoiler Alert: U.S. Unemployment Is Now Rising, Not Falling
Don't look surprised when U.S. unemployment is shown to have increased, later this week: Bloomberg: The jobless rate rose to 9.6 percent last month from 9.5 percent in June, according to the median estimate of 57 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News ahead of a Labor Department report Aug. 6. A drop in federal census workers as the population count wound down depressed payrolls by 60,000, the data may also show....

News 7-2-10
Troubled Waters
Rep. Maxine Waters who may be facing a formal House of Representatives ethics trial over her activities on behalf of a bank, is just the most recent member of the Congressional Black Caucus to face such an investigation. Currently New York Rep. Charles Rangel is facing an ethics trial, following in the footsteps of ethically challenged Louisiana Rep. William Jefferson. Waters, the long-time Southern California representative, is, according to House sources, facing charges that she provided special access to OneUnited Bank, a Massachusetts based bank that is similar in its history to the notorious ShoreBank in Chicago....

Now That We Agree Deflation Is What's Coming, Is Hyperinflation Right Around The Corner?
So today the deflationistas get the whole Wall Street Journal treatment, meaning it's already time to ask: what's next? Surprisingly, a lot of them might tell you it's inflation. And not just any inflation, but hyperinflation...

Shale: The Good News On Energy
You probably have never heard of oilman George Mitchell, but more than anyone else, he has changed the global energy outlook. In 1981, Mitchell's small petroleum company faced dwindling natural gas reserves. He proposed a radical idea: drill deeper in the company's Texas fields to reach gas-bearing shale rock more than a mile down. Because the gas was tightly packed, most engineers believed it was too costly to extract profitably. But after nearly two decades of trying, Mitchell proved doubters wrong. The result: The world has far more available natural gas than anyone suspected....

Two Democrats Say Obama Campaign Used Intimidation to Win 2008 Democrat Nomination – Video
Here is video of two Democrats who were delegates for Hillary Clinton in 2008 at the Democrat National Convention who say they were prevented from actually casting their vote for Hillary, even though they were required by law to do so. One of the two interviewed here is lawyer Gloria Allred, who said she was “gagged” and kept from telling fellow-delegates that they had to vote in accord with their constituents’ wishes. They are part of a new documentary that lays out the case that the Obama campaign used intimidation to take the nomination away from Hillary Clinton....

Cuba eyes more self-employment as massive layoffs loom
President Raul Castro expanded self-employment fields on Sunday, ahead of looming government plans to slash as many as one million jobs -- 20 percent of communist Cuba's work force -- from state payrolls. The economy, 95 percent of which is currently in state hands, does not have the ability to absorb such vast numbers of jobless. Castro's move aims to try to reduce the socioeconomic fallout, but it will be an uphill battle...

Rush tops Stern as the "most important radio talk show host of all time"
To commemorate the 20th anniversary of Talkers Magazine, there’s an all-time list of the “Heaviest Hundred.” Calling him “The most important innovator in modern news/talk,” Rush Limbaugh took the top spot on the list. At #2, the talker called “the standard by which younger-demo talk is judged,” Sirius XM’s Howard Stern. Following Limbaugh and Stern to round out the top-10, in order, is Larry King, Sean Hannity, Don Imus, ...

Little improvement in labor market seen in July
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- Only a small portion of the 14.6 million unemployed Americans likely found jobs in July, economists say, as businesses continue to be cautious about hiring in the face of forecasts of anemic growth for the rest of the year -- and as much high-tech production has moved overseas. The U.S. economy likely added about 100,000 private sector jobs in July. This will be slightly above the 83,000 private sector jobs added in June...

News 7-30-10
Memo outlines backdoor 'amnesty' plan
With Congress gridlocked on an immigration bill, the Obama administration is considering using a back door to stop deporting many illegal immigrants - what a draft government memo said could be "a non-legislative version of amnesty." The memo, addressed to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Alejandro Mayorkas and written by four agency staffers, lists tools it says the administration has to "reduce the threat of removal" for many illegal immigrants who have run afoul of immigration authorities.

Dem Patrick Kennedy Displays Left’s Entitlement Mentality by Defending $2 Million Earmark for a “Bike Path” – Video
Here is video of Democrat Rep. Patrick Kennedy (Ted’s son) defending a $2 Million earmark for his district to build a “bike path.” Kennedy’s defense illustrates why our country is broke, and despite that fact, far-left progressives like Kennedy just want to keep driving the nation deeper in debt. Kennedy defends his $2 Million Bike Path by pointing out the health concerns in America – particularly diabetes. He urges paying for the bike path in order to help people be more healthy. How many people are really going to be healthier if the Federal Government builds another bike path? If you build a bike path in that Rhode Island location, shouldn’t you build them all over the country? That’s the problem. We don’t have the money to build bike paths all over the country, and we should not be spending $2 Million to build one in Patrick Kennedy’s district....(VIDEO)

Did the government cause the Gulf spill?
The generally accepted view of the Deepwater Horizon disaster has focused on the blowout preventer and the non-standard procedures BP conducted just before the explosion and fire. However, most of the damage and the main source of the spill came from the collapse and sinking of the DH platform rather than the initial explosion. A new report by the Center for Public Integrity, based on testimony from people on scene and Coast Guard logs, contains evidence that the platform sunk because of a botched response from the Coast Guard, which failed to coordinate firefighting efforts and to have the proper resources to fight the fire:...

What I Told Obama’s Fiscal Commission About Social Security
Recently, I had the opportunity to meet with two first-rate staff members of the White House fiscal commission who were seeking creative ideas for restoring Social Security solvency. The gist of my message to them was the same I gave in “A Well-Tailored Safety Net,” a new book that does not reflect the editorial view of IBD....

The Hilarious Arizona Ruling
Judge Susan Bolton has to get credit for her cheekiness. She took a matter of profound national concern and injected an element of hilarity into it. As gloriously ridiculous as a classic Monty Python skit, the federal judge’s decision blocking Arizona’s immigration law is an appropriate first volley in the legal war over the law. If our immigration system is to be defined by a judicially sanctioned lawlessness, we might as well dispense with the pretense....

A Democrat Goes into a Psychiatrist’s Office
Come in. Make yourself comfortable. What’s that? You’re a congressional Democrat? You voted to triple the national debt; destroy a health-care system that an overwhelming majority of Americans were happy with in a way that creates a massive and infinitely complex new entitlement; bail out the banks and auto companies; and “stimulate” the economy with an $862 billion boondoggle that hasn’t created a single private-sector job? Your president is suing the state of Arizona for having the effrontery to enforce a law he wishes not to enforce (though he does have the constitutional responsibility to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed”)? The war in Afghanistan is not going well?...

Spending-Cut Talk Ahead Of Election? Expect The Ax In '11
It's axiomatic: Politicians running for re-election never get specific when talking about spending cuts. It would open them to attack from opponents and interest groups and put their entire party on the defensive. Yet massive deficits and chronic long-term budget woes have created a political climate encouraging a few members of Congress — Republican and Democrat — to challenge that wisdom this year.

Book says many U.S. universities are waste of money
NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) – Spending as much as $250,000 on a bachelors degree from world-renowned U.S. universities such as Harvard University and Yale is a waste of money, a new book asserts. "Higher Education? How Colleges Are Wasting Our Money And Failing Our Kids - And What We Can Do About It," urges parents and students to consider colleges that spend on teaching instead of sports and which encourage faculty to interact with students instead of doing research, taking sabbaticals and sitting on campus committees...

Voters Show Independent Streak
Independent voters have broken away from President Obama, a trend backed up by public polling, “largely due to fiscal issues,” Luke Frans of Resurgent Republic told attendees at the Bloggers Briefing at the Heritage Foundation on July 27, 2010. Resurgent Republic provided the attendees at the briefing with the results of their eighth national survey, highlighting the shift in Independents, targeting twelve designated “toss up” or “battleground” voting states....

News 7-30-10
The Real Spending Debate
WASHINGTON -- On the federal debt crisis, inertia has all the momentum. A compelling political logic favors inaction. Americas debt problem is mainly an entitlement spending problem. Serious entitlement reform would involve concentrating limited resources on the poor, eliminating subsidies for the rich and moving support for the middle class from a system of defined benefits to defined contributions. However skillfully this transition is designed, it will mean a middle-class benefit cut. That's why, in 2005, Republicans and Democrats both fled from Social Security reform like startled grouse. Even worse, this year President Obama and the Democratic Congress created a new health entitlement funded mainly by taking money from Medicare, making that program more difficult to stabilize in the future. The Obama administration has not only avoided reform; it has complicated the job for future administrations...

Why Deflation Fears Are Overblown
Given the dire deflation warnings that have become the standard talking points of most economists, American investors can be forgiven for reaching for their Prozac. I believe their anxiety is misplaced. Unfortunately modern economists don't understand what deflation is or why, in reality, we have much more to fear from inflation. Moderate deflation is actually the natural trend for a productive economy. If a producer can increase his output per unit of input, then he can afford to expand his market by lowering prices and still increase profits. In that way, deflation allows consumers to buy items that they may not have previously afforded. It also promotes savings, which is essential for investment and capital development....

Investment Outlook
I write this month to condemn the inventor of the electronic “seeing eye” toilet. Yes, that’s right, I’m talking toilets here, doo-doo-stuff, some of which I hopefully won’t step in myself over the next few paragraphs. I know there must be more substantive and less objectionable topics to bring before you, but I have a sense that many of you join me in spirit if not common experience and so I devote this month’s Outlook to another trivial snippet emphasizing our joint humanity and sense of loss due to the recent disappearance of the hand flusher....

Rangel Case Poses Test for Democrats as Elections Near
WASHINGTON — In laying out 13 charges of ethical violations committed by Representative Charles B. Rangel, the House ethics committee set the stage for a rare public trial of the Democratic Congressman this fall, a potential embarrassment for the Democratic leadership during the election season....

SEIU Attacking Fellow Union for Concessions
The Engineers and Architects Association, a 48,000 member public employees union in L.A., has come under attack from the politically active Service Employees International Union (SEIU) for having the civic sense to realize that the high times of ever rising pay at the taxpayer’s expense is coming to an end....

Tenth Amendment Stages Comeback
America ought to possess a clearly defined and laid out set of municipal jurisdictions; the states having one level of control in governing, while the federal branches of government have their own, Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah) said at The Heritage Foundation Bloggers Briefing on July 27, 2010....

Angelo M. Codevilla — Our Era's Tom Paine?
Rush Limbaugh recently dedicated a substantial portion of his show to an incredible article by Angelo M. Codevilla in the current American Spectator: America's Ruling Class — And the Perils of Revolution. (Here's the text of Limbaugh's monologue.) Here's how important I think this article is: It makes me think of Thomas Paine's Common Sense. (On our opening page links)

News 7-29-10
Stunning Web Ad: “14 Weeks” (to November) – Video
One of the best web ads you will ever see. Put out by the Republican Governors Association, “!4 Weeks” calls Americans to put an end to the unbridled arrogance of President Obama and the Democrat Majority in Congress by going to the polls in November (14 weeks away). Stunning ad!...

Charles Rangel to Democrats: Drop me if you must
A subdued Charles Rangel started to tell colleagues Wednesday that he expects them to be with him only as long as they can. It’s a favorite phrase of the ethics-embattled New York Democrat that means one politician shouldn’t sink his or her own political fortunes to help another. “I know you love me,” Rangel quipped to one junior Democrat. “But love yourself more.”...

Michelle Obama's Request for Birthday Wishes for Her Husband Links to Donation Page
It seems like a nice gesture – an e-mail message from a loving wife, urging thousands of people to join her in wishing her husband a happy 49th birthday by signing an electronic birthday card. But in Washington, D.C., nothing is that simple. The wife, in this case, is first lady Michelle Obama, and the message is being sent by the Democratic Party to people on its list nationwide. And underlying the birthday wishes, the message is political: The electronic card to Barack Obama also is a Democratic Party fundraiser...

Europe's €30 trillion headache
European banks have amassed €30 trillion in liabilities and face a serious funding threat over the next two years as authorities withdraw emergency support, according to a new report by Standard & Poor's. The rating agency said banks are at risk of a vicious circle as sovereign debt fears and financial stress feed off each other. "Banking sector woes are eroding sovereign credit-worthiness, which is in turn reducing the real and perceived capacity of governments to support weak banks," said S&P....

Judge Grants Preliminary Injunction Against Arizona Immigration Statute
The doctrine of federal preemption, like overly expansive interpretations of the Commerce Clause under the reign of Good President Roosevelt II, has been taken too far. Judge Susan Bolton’s decision on Wednesday is just one more step along the path to total federal dominance over all aspects of life in the United States.

Clinton appointee disregards law and Constitution in support of meritless government arguments
The argument is this, If the Federal government abdicates it’s Constitutional duties (which it has) which are to protect American borders and protect the American people, is a State within the Constitution if that State enforces Constitutional laws that the Federal government refuses to enforce? Clinton appointee Judge Susan Bolton is symptomatic of everything that is wrong with America. She has made herself complicit in the Federal government’s violation of the Constitution of the United States of America. We are no longer a nation of laws; we are now, a nation of progressive judicial rulings.(see article) Judge Bolden did not...

News 7-29-10
Obama administration's absence in moratorium hearing is telling: An editorial
Louisiana officials and business owners told the Senate Small Business Committee this week how deeply the Obama administration's ban on deepwater drilling is affecting the state's economy -- offering a persuasive case against the ill-considered blanket moratorium.Leslie Bertucci and her husband own a business that leases equipment used on offshore rigs. "We employ 14 people,'' she told the committee. "Those 14 people have families to take care of -- 42 spouses and children to be exact. In addition, we have more than 40 vendors that we order supplies and services from every month.''....

The Obama Administration Tries To Propagandize Its Way To An Economic Recovery
Yesterday we noted how, absurdly, The White House blog was trumpeting a new cheap housing program as part of its recovery efforts. Actually, not just its recovery efforts, but its Recovery Summer efforts. That's right, the recovery, over the past month, has been branded. So, for example, Joe Biden recently visited Yellowstone National Park as part of this Recovery Summer. Presumably the idea is: get everyone repeating this phrase, recovery summer, over and over again, and maybe it will actually happen....

Is Time on a Gold Bull's Side?
The European debt situation has continued to calm, which has reduced the need for a safe haven, although fans of the yellow metal eyeball reasons why “time” could quickly become a gold bull’s ally. The gold market traded sharply lower yesterday, with the market busting through key support from the May 21 low at $1,168.00. Gold is now on course for its first monthly drop since March and has already touched an eight-week low recently....

Time Mag Shocker: Rush Limbaugh Might Have Been Right About Oil Spill
Time magazine reported Thursday that Rush Limbaugh might have been right about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico not being the environmental disaster that everyone warned. In an article [1] surprisingly titled, "The BP Spill: Has the Damage Been Exaggerated?", author Michael Grunwald first insulted the conservative talk radio host: The obnoxious anti-environmentalist Rush Limbaugh has been a rare voice arguing that the spill - he calls it "the leak" - is anything less than an ecological calamity, scoffing at the avalanche of end-is-nigh eco-hype. Yet, in the very next paragraph, Grunwald shockingly changed his tune:...

Americans Cut Back on Visits to Doctor
Insured Americans are using fewer medical services, raising questions about whether patients are consuming less health care as they pick up a greater share of the costs.The drop in usage is showing up as health-care companies report financial results. Insurers, lab-testing companies, hospitals and doctor-billing concerns say that patient visits, drug prescriptions and procedures were down in the second quarter from year-ago levels....

News 7-28-10
GM Volt's price induces some sticker shock
The long-anticipated Chevrolet Volt, General Motors' electric car, will cost $41,000, the company announced Tuesday, leaving consumers to decide whether its environmental appeal is worth a price far above that of similarly sized conventional autos. Electric-car technology has been around for years, but the high cost to make the vehicles has prevented automakers from producing them for the mass market. The price announcements for the Volt and its electric rival, the Nissan Leaf, have been highly anticipated as a result. Nissan, the only other major manufacturer expected to bring such a vehicle to market this year, said the Leaf will cost $32,780....

The Coast Guard has gathered evidence it failed to follow its own firefighting policy during the Deepwater Horizon disaster
Coast Guard officials told the Center for Public Integrity that the service does not have the expertise to fight an oil rig fire and that its response to the April 20 explosion may have broken the service’s own rules by failing to ensure a firefighting expert supervised the half-dozen private boats that answered the Deepwater Horizon’s distress call to fight the blaze. An official maritime investigation led by Coast Guard Capt. Hung M. Nguyen in New Orleans is examining whether the salt water that was sprayed across the burning platform overran the ballast system that kept the rig upright, changing its weight distribution, and causing it to list....

Trump Urges Obama to Extend Bush Era Tax Cuts for All
Donald Trump, the real estate mogul and reality TV star, opposes President Barack Obama’s effort to deny an extension of the Bush era tax cuts for people with income of more than $200,000 a year. “He’s taking away a lot of incentives from a lot of people that produce a lot of taxes,” Trump told Fox News. The cuts, enacted in 2001 and 2003, will be revoked next year for all income brackets if Congress does nothing. Obama wants Congress to keep the reductions in place only for those with income of less than $200,000 a year....

SEC Says New FinReg Law Exempts It From Public Disclosure
So much for transparency. Under a little-noticed provision of the recently passed financial-reform legislation, the Securities and Exchange Commission no longer has to comply with virtually all requests for information releases from the public, including those filed under the Freedom of Information Act. The law, signed last week by President Obama, exempts the SEC from disclosing records or information derived from "surveillance, risk assessments, or other regulatory and oversight activities." Given that the SEC is a regulatory body, the provision covers almost every action by the agency, lawyers say. Congress and federal agencies can request information, but the public cannot....

Kerry Caves And Promises To Pay Taxes On Yacht!
See, bloggers aren’t so bad! In fact, they could very well be responsible for an additional $500,000.00 in tax money to the Massachusetts Revenue Department by one fell swoop. News that John Kerry was more than likely skipping out on paying Massachusetts taxes by harboring his $7 Million yacht in Rhode Island, burned through internet via blog sites all over the country. From all accounts, it looked as if Kerry attempted to bail on $437,500.00 in sales tax – as well as $70,000.00 a YEAR in excise tax....

Another Environmental Scientist Bails on Man-Made Global Warming
Physicist Dr. Denis Rancourt, a former professor and environmental science researcher at the University of Ottawa, has officially bailed out of the man-made global warming movement.In a hard-hitting and exclusive new exclusive video just released by Climate Depot, Dr. Rancourt declares that the entire man-made global warming movement is nothing more than a “corrupt social phenomenon.” “It is as much psychological and social phenomenon as anything else,” Rancourt, who has published peer-reviewed research, explained in a June 8, 2010 essay....

News 7-28-10
Brewer to Obama: 'Everything's off the table' til borders secure
On the eve of an expected court ruling on the federal government’s challenge to her state’s controversial immigration law, the governor of Arizona is continuing her confrontational stance toward the Obama administration. In an exclusive interview Tuesday on CNN’s John King, USA, Gov. Jan Brewer, R-Arizona, said until the borders are secure, she has no interest in working with President Obama on passing a comprehensive federal immigration bill that includes a path to citizenship for the millions of undocumented immigrants in the country...

CBO warns of Debt Crisis
This is a PDF File from CBO , 8 pages

House Dems Block White House Witness in Google Email Breach
The effort by House Republicans to investigate email practices at the White House hit a wall yesterday, when a motion to subpoena the White House deputy chief technology officer was blocked by Democrats during a House Oversight subcommittee hearing. Subcommittee Ranking Member Patrick McHenry (R-NC) demanded a recorded vote on a motion to subpoena White House technology officer Beth Noveck, after saying that the absence of a White House witness “undermines the purposes of the hearing and prevents us from doing our job of conducting oversight of this issue.”...

Atlas Didn't Shrug
THE BATTLE OVER FISCAL POLICY has been joined. In one corner stands Jean-Pierre Trichet, urging an immediate adoption of austerity. In what the Financial Times described as a "strident" article published in its own op-ed pages, the European Central Bank president last week proposed tax increases and spending cuts throughout the industrialized world. Trichet's call for fiscal austerity in the FT reiterated his assertion last month at the Group of 20 meeting that such hair-shirt policies would boost confidence and therefore the economy, an argument last heard 80 years ago. ("G20 Channels Herbert Hoover," June 8) ...

Expiration of Bush Tax Cuts Would Cost Families Thousands in 2011, Study Shows
Millions of families will be faced with thousands of dollars in tax increases if the Bush tax cuts are allowed to expire at the end of the year, according to estimates from the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation. A preliminary report obtained by Fox News shows that several tax increases would hit hard if Congress does nothing to minimize the damage before Dec. 31. The study found that raising just the lowest income tax rate from 10 percent to 15 percent would cost 88 million taxpayers an average of $503 next year...

K Street goes to the defense of Charlie Rangel
Every person accused of a crime or an ethics violation deserves a competent defense. Charlie Rangel's legal defense, fittingly, comes from K Street.Two of the three firms providing legal counsel to Rep. Charlie Rangel, D-N.Y., in his pending ethics cases are lobbying firms. In fact, one firm, Oldaker, Belair & Wittie, conducts much of Rangel's political fundraising, while operating four different lobby shops....

News 7-20-10
J ohn Kerry Gets a Long Face When Reporters Confront Him About Taxes on the SS Rhode Island
Several reporters caught up to John Kerry and asked him about keeping his newest yacht in Rhode Island instead of Massachusetts — a move that just by happenstance allows Thurston and Lovey to avoid a $500,000 Bay State luxury tax. Kerry’s claim is that the boat is in Rhode Island for repair work. Everybody who’s ever been to Nantucket, Martha’s Vineyard, Cape Cod and the general Boston area knows there’s a tremendous shortage of businesses that perform boat repair:VIDEO..

Texas Sues US In Air Quality Dispute
The state of Texas today sued the US Environmental Protection Agency in the federal appeals court in New Orleans over the US EPA’s decision to reject the state's 16 year old 'Flexible Permits Program' to measure air quality from factories, refineries, and power plants, 1200 WOAI news reports....

Democrats Target Free Speech in Senate Vote Tuesday
The Senate is slated to vote Tuesday afternoon on a procedural cloture motion that would bring the latest version of the DISCLOSE Act to the Senate floor for debate. Sen. Chuck Schumer’s (D-N.Y.) latest attempt at a Democrat incumbency protection program still contains the special interest exemptions for groups like the Sierra Club and the NRA, which makes only groups without millions of members a target of the political free speech ban....

Consumer confidence continues to sink
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Uncertainty about the economy continued to shake consumer confidence in July, pushing a key measure of morale to the lowest level since February. The Conference Board, a New York-based research group, said Tuesday that its Consumer Confidence Index dropped for a second straight month, to 50.4 in July from June's upwardly revised level of 54.3....

Good mornin' shine
Good mornin' captain... Good mornin' shine. - Jimmie Rodgers Bet you don't know what a "shine" is. See below... On Friday, everything went down. Well, almost everything. The Dow fell 261 points. Gold dropped $22. Copper. Oil. The dollar. You name it; it went down. Unless you name US Treasury bonds - which were up! What does this mean? Maybe nothing. But since it accords with the direction we think the markets ought to be taking, we'll say it's a trend. It's a Great Correction. Asset prices go down. Cash goes up....

News 7-20-10
Wait! There's even more dirt on Rangel
WASHINGTON -- Harlem Rep. Charles Rangel said yesterday that investigators have unearthed new allegations of misconduct against him, while House Democratic leaders increased the pressure on him to reach a settlement before a congressional trial starts Thursday. "We waited almost two years, and they finally investigated, and guess what -- they have some more alleged violations," Rangel said....

Obama religion adviser linked to unindicted co-conspiratorObama religion adviser linked to unindicted co-conspirator
A religion adviser to President Obama has close ties to a radical Muslim group that was an unindicted co-conspirator in a scheme to raise money for Hamas. The group, the Islamic Society of North America, or ISNA, has an extensive relationship with the Obama administration. In February, Obama named a Chicago Muslim, Eboo Patel, to his Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. Patel is the founder and executive director of Chicago-based Interfaith Youth Core, which says it promotes pluralism by teaming people of different faiths on service projects....

Free pass for sanctuary cities?
The Obama administration had gone to federal court to kill Arizona's new illegal-immigration law, scheduled to go into effect Thursday. The Department of Justice argues that enforcement of the Arizona law "is pre-empted by federal law and therefore violates the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution." Does this mean that if Team Obama prevails over Arizona, San Francisco and other sanctuary cities should prepare to go to court against the feds?...

Democrats Refuse to Hold Medicare Rationing Czar Hearing
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Sander Levin (D-Mich.) is refusing to hold public hearings to examine administration plans to implement a new health care rationing system at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS). The president’s new Medicare Rationing Czar, Sir Donald Berwick, is a big fan of British health care rationing....

Obama, Reagan, and the economy
It’s easy to understand why President Barack Obama’s friends don’t want to acknowledge that July represents 17 months since Congress passed the $787 billion economic stimulus bill — the president’s signature measure to jump-start the economy and fight unemployment. Obama says the economy is headed in the right direction; jobs are being created, not lost, and he is doing everything possible to revive the “worst economy since the Great Depression.” Most of the national press has been remarkably accepting of this narrative — even if the president has been vague, at best, about when we might finally see an uptick in economic growth and job creation....

News 7-19-10
LA suburb residents march over high city salaries
BELL, Calif. (AP) - Several hundred angry residents from a modest blue-collar Los Angeles suburb marched Sunday to call for the resignation of the mayor and some City Council members in a protest sparked by the sky-high salaries of three recently departed administrators. The residents of the city of Bell marched to Oscar's Korner Market and Carniceria, owned by Mayor Oscar Hernandez, then to his home, demanding that he reduce his own six-figure compensation or quit....

Van Jones Tells Netroots: Stop Worrying About Deficit, We Can Tax Rich Companies
Apparently some people still consider the former Obama “Green Jobs” Czar relevant–news to me. Van Jones spoke at the progressive 2010 Netroots Convention in Las Vegas this past weekend and made statements that would be shocking, if they weren’t this painfully routine for him. He reassured those in attendance that the deficit in the U.S. is really nothing to worry about– we can always nail those big, bad rich companies for higher taxes....VIDEO

Daily Presidential Tracking Poll
The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Monday shows that 25% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as president. Forty-four percent (44%) Strongly Disapprove, giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -19 (see trends)....

When Will the U.S. Go the Way of Rome?
When do you suppose the citizens of imperial Rome first realized that their way of life had tipped into inexorable decline? A few foresaw the impact of Caesar's usurpation of the rule of law, marking his ascension as the beginning of the end. Many more sounded the alarm when Rome's fiscal balance spiraled out of control, debts multiplying faster than the ability to extract taxes from a dwindling base of productive citizens. The plebeian masses, accustomed to bread and circuses, were probably oblivious until Rome was finally sacked. Everything was fine yesterday, how did these barbarians arrive at our gates?...

Words I Never Expected To Type
I never expected to write those words. The Bush-era Republicans were out-of-control big spenders, fiending for appropriations, handing out largesse, creating giant new health-care entitlements here, building nations there, all with a devil-may-care attitude about where the money would come from. They were all carrot and no stick, cutting taxes but not doing a thing about spending....

BP's Deepwater Oil Spill - After the Storm - and Open Thread
The “Bonnie” storm has passed, and the different vessels are not only returned to the site, but are already making progress in returning to operations. As Admiral Allen noted on Sunday...

News 7-19-10
Britain Plans to Decentralize Health Care
LONDON — Perhaps the only consistent thing about Britain’s socialized health care system is that it is in a perpetual state of flux, its structure constantly changing as governments search for the elusive formula that will deliver the best care for the cheapest price while costs and demand escalate....

Goldman reveals where bailout cash went
Goldman Sachs sent $4.3 billion in federal tax money to 32 entities, including many overseas banks, hedge funds and pensions, according to information made public Friday night. Goldman Sachs disclosed the list of companies to the Senate Finance Committee after a threat of subpoena from Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Ia....

Mr. President, where are you?
Barack Obama ought to be one of the happiest men in America. In less than two years, he's presided over monumental, historic changes to our health care system and financial industries. He has won a Nobel Peace Prize and already has nominated two like-minded scholars to the U.S. Supreme Court, leaving a lasting imprint on the high court. Yet, his approval rating (44 percent) dropped to historic lows this past week. The country has been in a funk for the better part of a year and the economy is dangerously close to a double-dip recession....

White House backed release of Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi
This administration has made dishonesty its only order of business. I for one am frustrated beyond belief. I wonder if next they may secretly negotiate the release of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed....

U.S. may face deflation, a problem Japan understands too well
Economists worry that America could be edging closer to the trap that cost the other nation more than a decade of growth
Reporting from Washington — The White House prediction Friday that the deficit would hit a record $1.47 trillion this year poured new fuel on the fiery argument over whether the government should begin cutting back to avoid future inflation or instead keep stimulating the economy to help the still-sputtering recovery....

Anita Moncrief: I Am Filing FEC Charges Against Obama Administration
Anita Moncrief, an ACORN whistle-blower, attended the 2010 Right Online conference in Las Vegas in which she announced that she will press FEC charges against the Obama Administration for the campaign’s illegal work with ACORN during the 2008 election.
Anita recently launched the site EmergingCorruption.com , which will be used to keep an eye on corruption and fraud in ACORN and affiliated groups. VIDEO

News 7-23-10
The Democrats’ War on the West
“Why do they hate us?” It’s a burning question on the minds of border-dwelling taxpayers, small business owners, farmers, and Rocky Mountain oil and gas industry workers suffering under punitive Democrat policies. Eighteen months into the Obama administration, the war on the American West is in full swing....

Renewable Power Fail – As Usual – April 2010
This post continues the monthly series that shines a high intensity spotlight on how Renewable Power is failing on a huge scale to deliver electrical power to consumers. The spin from politicians and supporters of Renewable Power is that it is the way of the future, and can be used to replace traditional methods of generating power, in the main, coal fired power generation. In fact, there is currently Legislation in train that will exponentially increase the introduction of Renewable Power. No matter what these politicians and supporters say, Renewable Power fails, and fails most abjectly, to do what is claimed, that being to deliver power on the regular basis that coal fired power already does deliver....




'Lose Christianity or face expulsion'
A lawsuit against Augusta State University in Georgia alleges school officials essentially gave a graduate student in counseling the choice of giving up her Christian beliefs or being expelled from the graduate program. School officials Mary Jane Anderson-Wiley, Paulette Schenck and Richard Deaner demanded student Jen Keeton, 24, go through a "remediation" program after she asserted homosexuality is a behavioral choice, not a "state of being" as a professor said, according to the complaint. Also named as defendants in the case that developed in May and June are other administrators and the university system's board of regents. The remediation program...

The Agenda
At Right Matters, Ramesh Ponnuru has posted a potential agenda for Republican congressional candidates running in 2010. I agree with Ross’s characterization of the proposals as “substantial, sensible and politically sale-able.” Below I offer some additional thoughts: Here, admittedly off the top of my head and in no particular order, are a few of the ideas I hope Republicans run on: 1) A tax reform that includes tax relief for parents, increased incentives to work and save, and considerable simplification of the tax code. (In other venues I have sketched out how taxes could be reformed in this way without...

News 7-23-10
Sen. Kerry docks yacht in R.I., saves on taxes
BOSTON — Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry is docking his family's new $7 million yacht in neighboring Rhode Island, saving roughly $500,000 in Bay State taxes. The Boston Herald reported Friday the 76-foot, New Zealand-built sloop has two cabins, a pilot house fitted with a wet bar and cold wine storage. It is owned by a limited liability corporation in Pittsburgh, the longtime home of Kerry's wife, philanthropist Teresa Heinz Kerry...

Senate Passes $60B War Bill, Kills Add-ons
WASHINGTON -- In a take-it-or-leave-it gesture, the Senate voted Thursday night to reject more than $20 billion in domestic spending the House had tacked on to its $60 billion bill to fund President Barack Obama's troop surge in Afghanistan....

SARAH PALIN TAKES ON JOURNOLIST’S “SICK PUPPIES”
Forget freedom of speech and freedom of the press if these yahoos ever get their way in America. It seems…
As we’ve already discussed, from the very day Sarah Palin was announced as John McCain’s running mate, the dishonest and corrupt “mainstream media” has been on a coordinated mission to destroy her. Jonathan Strong, who has penned all of the Journolist articles for the Daily Caller was able to get Sarah Palin’s take on this scandalous breech of trust by our so-called “guardians of the truth.”:...

GOP attack plan: 'Starve beast' of Obamacare
One GOP lawmaker has already formulated a 2011 plan of attack should Republicans take control of the U.S. House of Representatives: Serve subpoenas, conduct exhaustive hearings and slash funding to "starve the beast" of the Obama administration's big-government programs. "Oh, I think that's all we should do," Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., told the GOP Youth Convention in Washington, D.C., today. "I think that all we should do is issue subpoenas and have one hearing after another and expose all the nonsense that is going on." ....

Journolist Archives prove Media coordinated assault on Sarah Palin to secure Obama election
On July 29th, 2008, K. did a TV spot for CBS here in Chicago reacting to the announcement of Sarah Palin as John McCain’s running mate. We’d been advocating Governor Palin as the ideal McCain VP choice for some time, and the McCain campaign in Illinois called K. up that morning and asked him to do a man-on-the-street reaction to the announcement, since he’d been studying Governor Palin and writing about her. After he did the spot, shortly before Governor Palin was introduced to America by McCain in Dayton, K. walked over to the big screen TVs in the square off Michigan Avenue where the NBC studio sits. There, he watched the Media coverage of Palin’s introduction with a crowd of Chicagoans....(VIDEO)

Congress' Food Tab: $604,000 for Bottled Water, $152 at Quiznos
House members spent part of their Members Representational Allowances on these items -- and more -- during the nine-month period between late 2009 and early 2010 covered by the Sunlight Foundation's House Expenditure Reports Database. The info is highly enlightening, revealing, for instance, the popularity of Chantilly Donut's sinkers; what it costs to feed hungry congressional pages; and how lucrative it can be to own a part of the cottage industry of keeping our duly elected representatives fed and well hydrated....

News 7-22-10
US oil spill could destroy 100,000 jobs: experts
The impact of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill was thrown into sharp relief Tuesday, as US data showed rising unemployment in Louisiana and experts warned the disaster could cost up to 100,000 jobs. The US Department of Labor said Louisiana -- among the US states worst hit by the spill -- was one of only five states across the country to see a rise in unemployment last month, with the jobless rate up 0.2 points to seven percent...

Race Played Role in Obama Car Dealer Closures
The Obama administration, already under fire for unprecedented allegations of racial bias, faces a new bias claim from a most unlikely source: one of the administration's own inspectors general. Decisions on which car dealerships to close as part of the auto industry bailout -- closures the Obama administration forced on General Motors and Chrysler -- were based in part on race and gender, according to a report by Troubled Asset Relief Program Special Inspector General Neal M. Barofsky....

Great news! Obama’s healthcare 1099 scheme will choke the IRS in a glut of paperwork
In order to finance Obama’s Ponzi – like healthcare scheme, small businesses will be required to “issue” 1099s to vendors like Staples, Home Depot and Pet Smart if they purchase more than $600 in goods from these firms.
In other words if a dog walker in the upper West Side of Manhattan buys $610.00 worth of “doggie treats” to make her day a bit easier, SHE will have to issue Pet Smart a 1099 at the end of the calendar year. It’s not all bad news…. While the choking tentacles of Obamacare are destroying the rest of America, a recent interpretation of the monstrous document shows its demands for an overwhelming amount of paperwork have the potential to bring the IRS to a grinding halt....

At Politico, Context and Facts Are Negotiable
Today’s lead story at Politico is one of the finer examples you will find of ideological ax-grinding dressed up as straight-news reporting. The piece, by Ken Vogel and Keach Hagey, uses just about every journalistic trick in the book, assembling a selection of quotes and points to establish a narrative that was set in the authors’ minds long before they sat down at their keyboards. But the piece does so much more too; it flirts with some blurry ethical lines as well. Shouldn’t, for example, a Politico article about Journolist have perhaps mentioned or disclosed that at least some reporters for Politico were, you know, members of Journolist? Perhaps Politico has an incentive to downplay the impact of the listserve? (And, Mr. Vogel, did Andrew Breitbart really not respond to Politico?)....

News 7-22-10
Congress Ranks Last in Confidence in Institutions
PRINCETON, NJ -- Gallup's 2010 Confidence in Institutions poll finds Congress ranking dead last out of the 16 institutions rated this year. Eleven percent of Americans say they have a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in Congress, down from 17% in 2009 and a percentage point lower than the previous low for Congress, recorded in 2008....

It’s Not Health Care ‘Reform’; It’s Exploitation
Scratch a health care “reformer” and you’re likely to find a health care exploiter. As ObamaCare’s provisions and taxes begin and resistance builds through lawsuits and state-level measures, it’s important to see the exploitative motives driving increased political control of your medical care. Health control advocates won’t stop with ObamaCare (HR 3590). “Once we kick through this door, there’ll be more legislation to follow,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi....

Drug Cartels Recruit Teen Mules
In Yuma County, AZ border patrol agents arrested a 17-year-old Mexican national who allegedly was smuggling 30 pounds of marijuana on his bicycle into the country only five days after he had been apprehended -- and deported without prosecution -- for a similar attempt as reported by James Gilbert for the Yuma Sun. The Mexican drug cartels are recruiting children -- both Mexican and American -- as young as 12 to smuggle drugs across the border for as little as $50 a trip in recognition that the U.S. government is declining to prosecute such cases as reported by Katie Raml for KNXV.... VIDEO

News 7-21-10
Andrew Breitbart Defends Sherrod Story
Video on reasons why the Sherrod story

Obama: It's All About the Perks
Remember that guy you went to high school with? You know, the one with the rich parents. The one who drove a Porsche to school and wore the slickest clothing. The one with a pool in the backyard and the Xbox and the tennis court. You thought he was a jerk then. He's still a jerk now. Only now, he's president of the United States. His parents didn't buy him the SUV and the tickets to the concerts and the jet rides to New York. You did...

Obama's Lack of Faith
With midterm elections approaching, President Barack Obama has gone on the charm offensive, claiming Republicans are demonstrating a "lack of faith in the American people." "Faith" often is defined as "having confidence or trust in a person or thing." In this case, though, faith means adding another $35 billion in unemployment benefits to the infinite intergenerational tab -- sometimes referred to as the budget -- and mailing out as many checks as possible before Election Day....

Obama hits low in Quinnipiac approval rating
The public relations push at the White House has really flopped. Not only have the economic indicators made a mockery of Joe Biden’s “Recovery Summer,” even Barack Obama’s approval ratings refuse to respond. The latest national survey from Quinnipiac of registered voters give Obama their lowest approval rating of his presidency, 44%, with 48% disapproving:...

AL GORE SEX SCANDAL SHOCKER POLICE INVESTIGATE TWO MORE
The ENQUIRER reports in an exclusive bombshell exclusive that police have investigated charges from TWO MORE WOMEN who claimed they were abused by former VP AL GORE! The allegations come hot on the heels of an ongoing Portland, Ore., police investigation that reopened after The ENQUIRER exclusively revealed accusations by a licensed massage therapist who says Gore groped her in 2006....

News 7-21-10
Dealergate, social justice & the Obama job-killing machine
My column today dives into the TARP special inspector general’s audit of the “Factors Affecting the Decisions of General Motors and Chrysler to Reduce Their Dealership Networks.” You can find it at the TARP OIG’s website here. I encourage you all to read through the entire 45-page report. The superficial MSM coverage of the audit, released late Sunday, didn’t do justice to the independent watchdog’s damning indictment of the arrogant bureaucrats in charge of nationalizing the U.S. auto industry — or the devastating consequences of politically-driven “shared sacrifice” with Obama, his SEIU cronies, and campaign lackeys behind the wheel.

Gold Coin Sellers Angered by New Tax Law
Amendment Slipped Into Health Care Legislation Would Track, Tax Coin and Bullion Transactions...

Daily Presidential Tracking Poll
The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Wednesday shows that 26% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as president. Forty-four percent (44%) Strongly Disapprove, giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -18 (see trends). Fifty-six percent (56%) of voters still favor offshore oil drilling and 47% favor deepwater drilling....

BP's Deepwater Oil Spill - Time is Not Our Friend - and Open Thread
There is a certain frustration in hearing some of the officials who act as spokesmen for the management team handling the spill from the Deepwater well in the Gulf of Mexico. Their evaluation of the situation is bound around a full collection and compilation of the existing evidence, a comprehensive and contemplative understanding through a scientific explanation of the causes of whatever anomalies and other behavior that is not following the model anticipated, and subsequently then working out the best steps forward and determining the potential benefits relative to alternative approaches....

Liberal journalists suggest government shut down Fox News
When the writer Victor Davis Hanson wrote an article about immigration for National Review, for example, blogger Ed Kilgore didn’t even bother to grapple with Hanson’s arguments. Instead Kilgore dismissed Hanson’s piece out of hand as “the kind of Old White Guy cultural reaction that is at the heart of the Tea Party Movement. It’s very close in spirit to the classic 1970s racist tome, The Camp of the Saints, where White Guys struggle to make up their minds whether to go out and murder brown people or just give up.”The very existence of Fox News, meanwhile, sends Journolisters into paroxysms of rage. When Howell Raines charged that the network had a conservative bias, the members of Journolist discussed whether the federal government should shut the channel down.

News 7-20-10
AP Shills for NAACP Against Wishes of Black Citizens in North Carolina
The Associated Press on Monday published a news item that would more correctly be called a shameless press release on behalf of the NAACP. Writer Allen G. Breed followed the liberal group to Raleigh for a recent show of kabuki theatre. The cause? Getting the Wake County school system to continue the antiquated method of forcibly busing students to far-flung neighborhoods in pursuit of racial integration. Never mind that the minority-heavy county brought sweeping changes to the school board by giving Republicans control last year - on the very platform of ending integration. And never mind that the majority of...

If Obama Imposes the U.N. Gun Ban On America, Which Would Dissolve Our Bill Of Rights And Orders Gun Confiscation What Will You Do?
If Obama Imposes the U.N. Gun Ban On America, Which Would Dissolve Our Bill Of Rights And Orders Gun Confiscation What Will You Do?The new United Nations Treaty is being designed to disarm citizens of each nation that signs. The treaty will give all governments a free hand to do as they please. It is making headway in Washington D.C. and it is feared that President Obama may very well try to use the treaty to consolidate his power in America. The treaty specifics are now being negotiated and Obama has given the OK For the U.S. to be a...

Sheriff Richard Mack: Fed's Can't Tell States What to do! (VIDEOS)
In 1994, Sheriff Richard Mack filed a lawsuit challenging the Brady bill to stop the federal government from forcing another unfunded mandate. After winning that Supreme Court decision he was catapulted to national attention, with television appearances on the Donahue Show, Good Morning America, Crossfire, Nightline, and more. Here is a recent interview with national radio show host Alex Jones.

LA Times helping LULAC lie about Latinos support for stronger border controls
A poll released by the Hispanic Federation and the League of United Latin American Citizens, (LULAC) says as much about the media’s willingness to join in the destruction of our country as it does about Hispanic attitudes toward border control. By cleverly reversing the percentages from the survey, the LA Times (LAT) has presented a picture of Hispanic sentiments which misleads readers on a number of key questions....

EXCLUSIVE: 'BMWs' Help Afghans Go AWOL From Texas Air Base
A loose network of Mexican-American women, some of whom may be illegal immigrants, have been responsible for helping numerous Afghan military deserters go AWOL from an Air Force Base in Texas, FoxNews.com has learned. Many of the Afghans, with the women's assistance, have made their way to Canada; the whereabouts of others remain unknown. Some of the men have been schooled by the women in how to move around the U.S. without any documentation....

News 7-20-10
Ground Zero imam tied to ‘un-indicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation trial’
The New York Daily News reports that New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg defended his aide's response to former governor Sarah Palin weighing in on the proposed Ground Zero mosque. ... Last night, on Fox 5 TV in New York City, retired FDNY firefighter and 9/11 survivor Tim Brown of theBravest.com and 64th District Leader Paul Newell discussed the Cordoba House * mosque: ... "Today, we tied Imam Rauf to the Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamic Society of North America ... the ISNA is an un-indicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation trial." ...

Here's what Obama's doing with your money – in Kenya!
An investigation by three Republican congressmen has revealed the Obama administration has secretly spent $23 million of U.S. taxpayer dollars in Kenya to fund a "Yes" vote on a constitutional referendum scheduled for Aug. 4 that would increase access to abortions in Kenya and establish legal status for Islamic law tribunals....

Blunt Anti-Carnahan Ad: "I'll Work for Missouri - Not Barack Obama"
Blunt vs. Carnahan and Obama: Meanwhile, in Missouri, likely GOP Senate nominee Roy Blunt is going up with a TV ad aimed at both Robin Carnahan -- and President Obama, Politico reports. The ad features Obama’s comment at a fundraiser for Carnahan earlier this month that Carnahan winning would give him another vote in the Senate. It concludes, “Roy Blunt -- he’ll work for Missouri, not Barack Obama.” (Video)

Obama:Screwing up America like its never been screwed up before
Barry Hussein Soetoro emphatically stated that he was a believer in knowing what one is doing before taking on a job. With that bit of wisdom, he implied that he would not to run for the Office of President of the United States in 2008. Ok, ok just the first of many lies that this man would tell. The just elected Senator of Illinois said he believed that he would virtually have to start running for President from day one of his Senate term. (now that was true!)(see: 36sec. video) Well, here we are Soetoro is president of the United...

News 7-19-10
Mystery shrouds closures of blog, forum platforms
July 18, 2010 8:59 PM PDT Mystery shrouds closures of blog, forum platforms by Greg Sandoval Font sizePrintE-mailShare27 comments Yahoo! Buzz .Share 770diggsdiggTwo services that enable users to blog or create online forums have disappeared from the Internet under mysterious circumstances. Blogetery.com, a blogging platform, went dark on July 9, less than a week before Ipbfree.com, a service that helped users create Web message boards, went offline. No one has said these situations are linked, but they nonetheless possess intriguing similarities. • Each of the services host loads of user-generated content. • Operators at both Blogetery and Ipbfree said they...

Fox News Poll: Democrats Deserting Obama
Throughout the Obama administration, the president has been able to count on the solid support of Democrats. Not anymore. According to the Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll, Obama's job approval among Democrats has dropped from 84 percent two weeks ago (June 29-30) to 76 percent on July 13-14. At 76 percent, this level of job approval is below any the Fox News poll has ever recorded....

Open Borders Creates Severe Health Concerns: Illegal Immigration, The Unwanted Gift That Keeps Giving
The content of this briefing is deliberately intended to stimulate thought and discussion, as well as to inform. As with all my reports and briefings, whether Classified and Restricted or Not Classified informational analysis comprising global security, national security of the sovereignty of the United States of America and the Great State of Arizona, economic forces as a dimension to national security, culture, freedom in human rights, defense, and the rule of law are considered within the framework of this treatise....

DEMOCRATS’ TICKING TAX BOMB, PART I
Get ready to pay higher taxes in 2011 thanks to Democrats in Washington. Starting January 1, 2011 – less than six months from now – an unprecedented, $3.8 trillion tax increase is scheduled to kick in, affecting every American who pays income taxes. This Democrat tax hike will force hard-working Americans to pay over $200 billion in higher taxes next year alone....

Arizona FBI Stats
The following information is compiled from Federal Bureau of Investigation and Department of Homeland Security reports: * 83% of warrants for murder in Phoenix are for illegal aliens. * 86% of warrants for murder in Albuquerque are for illegal aliens. * 75% of those on the most wanted list in Los Angeles , Phoenix and Albuquerque are illegal aliens. * 24.9% of all inmates in California detention centers are Mexican nationals * 40.1% of all inmates in Arizona detention centers are Mexican nationals * 48.2% of all inmates in New Mexico detention centers are Mexican nationals * 29% (630,000) convicted...

Pampered populists
It's surreal to see President Obama play the class-warfare card against the Republicans while on his way to vacation on the tony Maine coast, and even more interesting to note that now gone are the days when the media used to caricature Bush I ("Poppy") for boating in the summer off the preppie-sounding Kennebunkport. The truth is that the real big money and the lifestyles that go with it are now firmly liberal Democratic....

Top of the Agenda: U.S. Fears BP Oil Well Leakage
The U.S. government is worried oil may be leaking (BBC) from the seabed near the damaged Gulf of Mexico oil well that BP capped last week....

News 7-19-10
Top Secret America grows out of control
The top secret world the government created in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has become so large, so unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work....

Reaganomics Rules - Obamanomics Fools
The recent flap between Pelosi and the White House over the mid-term elections shows two things clearly: Dems in congress are running scared and they are looking for someone to blame for their poll problems and their failed fiscal policies. In the past, Dems, who have blamed Bush, are now blaming Ronald Reagan for everything from the economy to the BP oil spill...,

Do Not Trust Cornyn or McConnell on Spending Cuts
Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Republican majority leader, sounds like a reasonable guy when he says that Republicans aren’t against extended unemployment benefits, but merely want them offset with spending cuts elsewhere in the budget. In some circles, that’s the very definition of moderation: I’ll go along with your program, but you have to find the savings...

Daily Presidential Tracking Poll
The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Monday shows that 28% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as president. Forty-three percent (43%) Strongly Disapprove, giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -15 (see trends). ...

No Federal Funds to Sanctuary Cities!
Allow me to express my feelings about the so-called sanctuary cities as clearly and succinctly as I possibly can. I don’t like them. I don’t like the idea of them and I really don’t like that my tax money, and yours, is going to those cities – at all!...

BP's Deepwater Oil Spill - Should the Oil Flow Restart? - and Open Thread
At the end of last week, BP began the testing of the Deepwater well cap, closing all the valves and stopping the flow of oil and natural gas into the Gulf waters. With this cut-off in flow, the volumes to be collected at the surface are rapidly diminishing around the well, and the use, albeit controversial, of the dispersant at the same time as more of the oil was collected, means that the amount making it to the shore has also already diminished. So now the question becomes, does BP restart the collection process by re-opening valves to the surface vessels? It also opens the questions as to how much of the preventative work now being brought up to speed, is actually going to be needed....

News 7-16-10
Berwick: Bigger Than Kagan
Barack Obama's incredible "recess appointment" of Dr. Donald Berwick to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is probably the most significant domestic-policy personnel decision in a generation. It is more important to the direction of the country than Elena Kagan's nomination to the Supreme Court. The court's decisions are subject to the tempering influence of nine competing minds. Dr. Berwick would direct an agency that has a budget bigger than the Pentagon. Decisions by the CMS shape American medicine....

LIES MY GOVERNMENT TOLD ME
Our government lies to us. If you disagree with that statement you are either naive, a liar, or a fool. Democrats lie. Republicans lie. Politicians of all kinds lie. We know this yet we continue to allow it to happen and then feign shock when it does. I’m not talking about little lies, like B. Hussein Obama saying taxpayer money would not be used for abortion, or George W. Bush lying about having to “act now” to avoid economic collapse, but the kind of lies that manifest change in America and take the country in a direction it would not go without the lie, and leads to the death, the intentional death, of untold numbers of Americans....

Core Consumer Inflation Rises By More Than Expected
Consumer prices fell 0.1% in June, which was equal to an expected -0.1% decline, according to the Consumer Price Index (CPI). Core consumer prices, stripping out volatile food and gas prices, rose 0.2% vs. an expected 0.1% increase....

Obesity Rating for Every American Must Be Included in Stimulus-Mandated Electronic Health Records, Says HHS
New federal regulations issued this week stipulate that the electronic health records--that all Americans are supposed to have by 2014 under the terms of the stimulus law that President Barack Obama signed last year--must record not only the traditional measures of height and weight, but also the Body Mass Index: a measure of obesity....

Palin's 76% Favorable Among Republicans Tops Others in GOP
PRINCETON, NJ -- Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is the best known and most positively rated of five possible contenders for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination. Her 76% favorable rating among Republicans is higher than those for Mike Huckabee, Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, and Bobby Jindal....

Are These the Last Days of Barack Obama?
Eighteen months in, the Obama presidency is in as dreadful shape as one can imagine. He’ll almost certainly lose the House in the fall elections; and now it’s looking like he could lose the theoretically impregnable Democratic majority in the Senate. What’s more, he has, to an astonishing degree, been unable to communicate even the remotest sense of who he is to the nation:...

News 7-16-10
Ken Salazar needs another ass-kicking
When President Obama picked former Democrat Sen. Ken Salazar as his Interior Secretary last year, the Coloradan donned a 10-gallon hat and dubbed himself the “new sheriff in town.” But Cowboy Ken is the one who needs to be run out on a rail. In his continued quest to shut down offshore drilling, Salazar has run roughshod over scientific integrity, transparency, and the Gulf Coast economy...

BP's Deepwater Oil Spill - Results as the Testing Begins - and Open Thread
The picture that everyone has long been waiting to see became available after 3:25 pm (Eastern) this afternoon, when BP closed the choke lines on the 3-ram stack, and oil stopped flowing into the Gulf. ...

Congressman Rothman Confronted Over Breaking Oath! (Video)
Congressman Steve Rothman (D-NJ) gets confronted in a town hall meeting by a brave constituent who actually plays back a recording of Rothman giving an oath to his constituents that he would vote NO on Obamacare. Obviously, he votes yes and now he has a moment where he is forced to answer for it. And he can’t. Congressman Rothman, as my 10 year old would say… “You just got SERVED!”...

The Bitter Fruit of Obamacare
Get ready for your life to change. The so-called benefits of ObamaCare don't start until 2014, but the tax increases, misallocated resources and federal regulations start now. Speaker Nancy Pelosi famously said the night of ObamCare's passage, "We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it ." The emerging picture is frightening....

The Backlash: Dems Still Don't Get It
The great Democratic revolution of 2008 is en tering its pitiful stage. If House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had a guillotine, Robert Gibbs' head would be rolling around in a basket. His offense? Uttering perhaps the most unassailably accurate statement of his tenure as White House press secretary: that there is "no doubt" Republicans might take back the House...

Gibson says support is ‘overwhelming’
COLUMBIA COUNTY — Chris Gibson, a fiscally conservative combat veteran who entered the race to represent New York’s 20th Congressional District in March, demonstrated his fundraising prowess with a posting of nearly $500,000 for the quarter. Roughly 90 percent of total contributions came from individuals, his campaign has announced. Gibson believes his ability to immediately begin out-raising his opponent, Scott Murphy, after a late entrance into the race shows the viability and strength of his message....

News 7-15-10
Fed paints weaker picture of growth and employment
WASHINGTON – Federal Reserve officials have a slightly dimmer view of the economy than they did in April, reflecting worries about how the European debt crisis could affect U.S. growth and job prospects. Fed officials said Wednesday in an updated economic forecast that they think the economy, as measured by the gross domestic product, will grow between 3 percent and 3.5 percent this year. That's a downward revision from a growth range in their April forecast of 3.2 percent to 3.7 percent....

Holder’s Hypocrisy
Attorney General Eric Holder has developed a bad habit of accusing others of acting in bad faith while doing so himself. Take the issue of Guantanamo Bay. In Aspen, Colo., last week, Holder accused Congress of playing politics by preventing President Obama from closing the Guantanamo Bay detention center — as Obama had serially promised to do within a year of his inauguration...

Harry Reid Really Can’t Get Above 43, Can He?
The good news for Republicans who want to see Harry Reid defeated is that he just denied that illegal immigrants do construction work in Nevada, people are renouncing him on their deathbed, and here’s his percentage of the vote in the last fourteen polls: 43, 40, 40, 40, 37, 42, 38, 40, 40, 42, 41, 39, 41, 43. (Now that’s consistent.)....

If This is "Recovery Summer," I'd Hate To See "Recession Winter"
President Obama is in Michigan today, begging voters to believe that his economic plans and policies are helping the state, the region and the country recover their economic bearings.Voters aren’t buying the spin, however, and the White House aide who came up with the slogan which Team Obama is deploying along with the president, “Recovery Summer,” must be a GOP plant....

Democrats Seek to Tax the Internet
They’re baaaaack! The Democrats, in their persistent view that anything which possibly can be taxed should be, are again proposing federal legislation to impose sales taxes on interstate purchases made over the Internet. The measure, H.R. 5660 sponsored by Rep. Bill Delahunt (D.-Mass.), has the Orwellian title of the “Main Street Fairness Act.” New-speak continues in the subtitle: “To promote simplification and fairness in the administration and collection of sales and use taxes; and for other purposes.” At least the last four words are accurate....

Axelrod: “No administration tougher on enforcement” while ICE orders free pass for illegal aliens
Last Sunday Obama puppet master David Axlerod told FOX News host Chris Wallace, “No administration has been tougher on enforcement. We have more manpower there [on the southern border] than ever before- more equipment drones, helicopters, airplanes. We’re doing this in a smart, more efficient way and we’re producing better results.” Wallace’s response “there were some facts and figures that contradict what..[you are saying]” was as far as the matter went. Had Wallace dug a bit deeper he would have found a recently issued memo from ICE Assistant Secretary John Morton describing how illegal aliens are to be treated....

News 7-15-10
NAACP Direct Tie to Black Panthers
In the past 24 hours, more than a few pundits and writers have noted that the NAACP resolution accusing Tea Partiers of racism is hard to swallow when the NAACP seems unconcerned with the New Black Panther voting intimidation case. Their points would be valid by analogy only. Their points are even more valid, though, because of a direct, rather than just analagous, tie between the NAACP and the Panther case....

S enate VIP Loans Mount
U.S. senators or Senate employees received 30 loans—far more than had previously been known—under a controversial lending program at Countrywide Financial Corp. that provided cut-rate terms to favored borrowers.The information is contained in a letter sent to the Senate Select Committee on Ethics by Rep. Darrell Issa (R., Calif.), who has been spearheading the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee's investigation into Countrywide's so-called VIP mortgage program...

Obamaland Pension Meltdown Update
And so it was prophesied: Illinois is headed into a public-pension death spiral even sooner than predicted. The Land of Obama leads the way....

NAACP: Even When They Make it Up, They Get it Wrong
Want a laugh? Take a look at the press release issued by the NAACP announcing their resolution condemning the Tea Party movement for racism: In March, members of the Congressional Black Caucus were accosted by Tea Party demonstrators and called racial epithets. Civil rights icon John Lewis was spit on, while Congressman Emanuel Cleaver was called the “N” word...

Demand for financing leads global economic recovery toward 'wall of debt'
A massive wave of borrowing will start cresting this year when the U.S. and European governments sell an estimated $4 trillion in new bonds. The surge will course through the world financial system for several years as countries, corporations and banks borrow record amounts of money to repair the damage from the financial crisis and pay back loans from the boom that preceded it. ...

Obama Family Cook Named Policy Adviser
In a comical move even for a czar-happy president who has rewarded dozens of cronies with distinguished titles, the White House has named the Obama’s personal Chicago cook as “Senior Policy Adviser for Healthy Food Initiatives.”...

News 7-14-10
Pennsylvania’s Republican Roots are about to flourish, again
Pennsylvania has been a democrat state for a long time – or, as a conservative, so it seems. The governor, both senators, and the House delegation by a 12-7 margin are dems. (We all knew Specter was a dem a long, long time ago.) We (them – not me!) have voted for the dem POTUS candidate every four years since and including 1992 when George the Elder lost. Pennsylvania has more union members than the national average as a percentage of the workforce since 1989, when such data was first gathered. The two largest population centers – Philadelphia and Pittsburgh – are traditional dem strongholds. And let’s not forget the racist pigs of the New Black Panthers spewing their malignant felonious words in Philadelphia...

Taxes To Fight Obesity?
Feel like you're taxed enough already? More could be coming. There's an early push to explore taxing soft drinks that are sweetened with sugars – all to get you to stop buying them. CBS 2's Kristyn Hartman reports it's all about obesity.A coalition of groups is in the very early stages of mapping out a plan to fight fat in Illinois. Sugared beverage consumption has tracked with rising obesity rates – so it's getting some attention.

Key lawmaker sees 200 House Dems backing immigration bill
A key House Democrat said Wednesday that 200 of his colleagues support his immigration reform legislation, putting them short of the majority needed to pass it. Despite being 17 votes short of a majority, Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) expressed hope that the House could pass legislation before the November midterm elections....

News 7-14-10
Democrat Voter Fraud is Far More Widespread Than You Think
Last week I wrote an article titled How Obama Used an Army of Thugs to Steal the 2008 Democratic Primary that introduced the conservative community to the movie “We Will Not Be Silenced”, made by Democrat activist Gigi Gaston two years ago. Her video documented widespread voter fraud committed by Obama supporters during the 2008 Democratic primary election to secure the nomination for Obama over the popular vote winner Hillary Clinton. The story went viral and 24 hours later Fox News asked Gaston to appear on the Sunday morning program Fox and Friends. For the first time many Americans saw for themselves first hand accounts from Democrats who personally witnessed “the disenfranchising of American citizens by the Democratic Party and the Obama Campaign.” ...

Stupaks Abortion by Executive Order: Pennsylvania Embraces Taxpayer Funded Abortions
The Obama administration is giving the state of Pennsylvania $160 million from taxpayers to fund a "high-risk" insurance program to "cover any abortion that is legal in Pennsylvania." Rep. Bart Stupak's Abortion by Executive Order is off to a galloping start, and warmly embraced by the state of Pennsylvania. Video below....

OBAMA BROKE MANY CAMPAIGN PROMISES to protect the racist New Black Panther Party (NBPP) [links to sources]
OBAMA BROKE HIS CAMPAIGN PROMISES TO PROTECT RACISTS Obama and his Department of Justice in their zeal to protect the black racists of the New Black Panther Party (NBPP) dismissed a lawsuit already won against these thugs for voter intimidation. By doing that, Obama broke so many of his campaign promises. Here is a reprint of our October 2008 article listing Obama’s campaign promises on Civil Rights, Crime, Law, and Transparency. Is it OK for Obama to discriminate against whites?...

News 7-13-10
BP's Deepwater Oil Spill - the 3-ram stack - and open thread (Excellent info)
After a relatively long and technically difficult process BP has managed to locate and install the three-ram Lower Stack on the flowing well in the Gulf. At the same time the viewing site has been changed, so that the feeds from all 14 ROVs can be seen together. The view from Skandi ROV2 shows the flow from the well is now issuing from the segment of drill pipe left at the top of the stack, after the installing drill pipe was disconnected.

Why A Price On Carbon (Dioxide) Is Nothing More Than A Great Big New Tax
Fill a standard sized glass (about the same size as would hold a can of Coke) with water from the tap and have it close by as you read this. First off, read that title again. What infuriates me is that when people make statements on this, they say how we need to place a price on Carbon. Listen closely the next time someone from politics or the media talk about this. They always say just Carbon....

Targeting Free Speech
Any doubts about the administration's designs on reducing First Amendment opportunities may no longer exist due to officials' remarks and government actions including a recent decision by President Barack Obama. The administration's resolve to tamp down dissent was signaled in a June 28th presidential memorandum that would lead to the end of all free, over-the-air television....

The 5 Biggest Threats To America's Future Success
Douglas MacArthur once said that, "Old soldiers never die; they just fade away." As it is with old soldiers, so it goes with nations. When you watch "end of the world" movies on TV, America may be overrun by zombies, hit by asteroids, destroyed by aliens, annihilated by a climate gone mad -- and so it may be. However, the history books teach another lesson. For the most part, great nations do not usually disappear; they become progressively weaker, more decadent, less flexible, and slowly, almost imperceptibly decline until some great event comes along that lays bare their newly vulnerable condition before the world. This tragedy has played out again and again on the world stage in Greece, the Roman Empire, Britain, the Soviet Union and in hundreds of lesser nations. Do you believe the United States is immune? We're not. People who study history know this. Conservatives know this. It's why we're concerned about,....

The U.S. Department of Social Justice
eam Obama’s open-borders crusaders are doubling down. Not content to file one lawsuit (already piled on top of the CLU/reconquista crowd’s lawsuit), Attorney General Eric Holder signaled this weekend that he’s prepared to file another complaint: Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said Sunday that if the federal government does not stop Arizona’s immigration law from taking effect, it might launch a second legal challenge to combat any racial profiling that occurs....

Hatch lays out case against Kagan
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) believes that Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan is an "inappropriate" choice to serve as a justice on the highest court. Hatch — a member of the Judiciary Committee slated to vote on Kagan as early as this week — wrote in an op-ed Monday in the National Review that President Barack Obama's choice for the bench lacks the judicial and legal experience for the high court, and he criticized her past political jobs...

All your computer are belong to us
Congress is debating legislation that could grant the federal government new powers to mandate the features and design of every phone, computer, GPS or any other device with a screen that connects to the Internet. The bill - which has been dubbed the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2009 - will soon face a key vote before the Energy & Commerce Committee and the House of Representatives. ..

Bank Failure Friday Returns With a Vengeance
10-Year Note -- Semiannual and quarterly supports are 3.479 and 3.486 with my annual pivot at 2.999, and daily, weekly, annual, quarterly, and semiannual resistances at 2.935, 2.858, 2.813, 2.495, and 2.249. The low yield for the move was 2.879 set on July 1, and was a failed test of my 2.999 and 2.813 annual risky levels. The US Treasury sells $34 billion in 3-Year notes today, $21 billion 10-Year notes on Tuesday, and $3 billion 30-Year bonds on Wednesday...


KILLING THE AMERICAN DREAM
As former President Ronald Reagan might have said, "Obama, there you go again." The current occupant of the White House claims to know how to create jobs. He claims jobs have been created. But so far the score is Great Obama Depression 2.2 million lost jobs, Obama 0 -- a blowout. Obama is as hopeless, helpless, clueless and bankrupt of good ideas as the manager of the Chicago Cubs in late September. This "community organizer" knows as much about private-sector jobs as Pamela Anderson knows about nuclear physics...

Obama Panel Warns Governors: Debt Will Destroy US Like a Cancer
The heads of President Barack Obama's national debt commission painted a gloomy picture as the United States struggles to get its spending under control. Republican Alan Simpson and Democrat Erskine Bowles told a meeting of the National Governors Association that everything needs to be considered — including curtailing popular tax breaks, such as the home mortgage deduction, and instituting a financial trigger mechanism for gaining Medicare coverage...

Government Spending Can’t Fix the Economy
Home-mortgage interest rates are the lowest in history, but house sales are plunging. Banks can make money easily because of the Federal Reserve’s low interest rates, but they’re not making many loans. Major corporations are sitting on something like $2 trillion in cash, but they’re not investing...

News 7-13-10
Mocking war hero Nick Popaditch: A teachable moment
On Sunday night, several readers e-mailed to let me know about a cartoon in the Imperial Valley (CA) Press that upset them immensely. Reader Marty sent the jpeg. It shows two young skateboarder punks looking up at a campaign poster. The candidate is not identified. He is bald and wears an eye patch. The punks crack jokes about the candidate’s physical disability and appearance:...

IBD/TIPP Poll: 52% Of Independents Want GOP Congress
t's been a hot summer in Washington, D.C., but the forecast for President Obama and Democrats is dark, overcast and chilly , according to July's IBD/TIPP poll. Only 43% of likely voters say they want the Democrats to retain control of Congress after November's midterm elections, while 48% favor a Republican takeover. Independents, the swing voters that decide elections, are even more eager for change: They prefer GOP control by a 52%-31% margin...

Turns Out Last Week's Sun Valley Media Retreat Was One Big Obama Trash-Talking Session
Not much of the chatter being exchanged among moguls at last week's annual big-media gathering in Sun Valley, Idaho made its way into the press. But it turns out that much of what the moguls talked about, while they boozed and golfed and white water rafted and stuffed their faces during the all-expeneses-paid retreat, was President Obama and his attitude toward the business community, according to The Daily Beast's Peter Lauria, who spent the week collecting on- and off-the-record dish from the people who "collectively control hundreds of billions, if not trillions of dollars, of the country’s gross domestic product"....

Obama's Cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Becker: Seniors and Disabled Outside Looking In
If you are a senior, retired or a disabled individual, you probably have noticed the Obama administration has demonstrated little, if any, care for those who fall into this group. The President's highly unpopular health care reform bill, which was rammed down the throat of the American people, included $500 billion in cuts to Medicare alone. Yes, I know the half trillion dollars which have been slashed from Medicare will supposedly be made up through the elimination of fraud and waste related to Medicare. However, it wasn't necessary to pass a bill in order to eliminate fraud and waste. ...

Governors Voice Grave Concerns on Immigration
BOSTON — In a private meeting with White House officials this weekend, Democratic governors voiced deep anxiety about the Obama administration’s suit against Arizona’s new immigration law, worrying that it could cost a vulnerable Democratic Party in the fall elections....

The Left likes to Dish it out but they can't take it
My friend TJ Aulds who writes for the Galveston Daily News recently wrote a blog asking if Tea Party Members are all racist. He goes on to say that surveys show that the demographics show that TeaParty members are “predominately older, white and men. But about a quarter of those surveyed are Hispanic, Asian-American or African American.” While his demographic breakdown on race are fairly accurate, non-white members only make up about 25% of membership. However, according to a survey by Gallup, who will never be confused with being a conservative polling entity the members are far from being angry, old, white men...

Niall Ferguson: A U.S. Debt Crisis Is On Its Way
gnore the uber-low yields on U.S. government debt. It's only a matter of time before markets lose confidence in the U.S. government argues Harvard professor Niall Ferguson...

The Impact of Obama's Regulatory Environment on Business
I have noted with interest the recent meme on your show about government policy severely hurting the business environment. My ears especially perked up last Thursday when Brian Westbury discussed how regulatory policy was keeping the pool of money available for lending very low. There are vast areas of regulatory policy that have a similar effect so I thought I’d write you and tell you about the particular one I deal with....

Berwick, Obama's Body Czar, "I Fell In Love With Brit Health Care"
Society needs a "radical transfer of power" for medical equity.Britain sets a new record on late-term abortions last year, with 3000 children over 20 weeks gestational age being aborted, the Daily Telegraph reports. The official statistics show that the great majority of these abortions were for what is termed "lifestyle reasons.""NICE" -National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence - in Britain also supports euthanasia - Full scale of euthanasia in Britain. Fury as number of 'assisted deaths' claimed to be 18000.Berwick "One Man Death Panel"Medical quality today decided by skin color. Berwick, highlights race as a factor in health...

Al-Shabaab Islamists suspected in deadly Ugandan World Cup bombings
Somali Islamists carried out two bomb attacks in Kampala, killing at least 64 people as they watched the World Cup final, Ugandan authorities said on Monday....