Did you just see the post below how 40% of top Obama donors were given positions within the administration? Well in the name of “hiring for merit” if you worked for the Bush administration you are locked out of civil service.
There is establishing proper civil service rules for merit and then there is Chicago style use and selective enforcement of such policies.
Most of these policies go back one or two years, but five …wow. It just kills me how bureaucrats can make the most outrageous of policies sound so reasonable.
Bush fired six “serve at the pleasure of the president” US Attorneys and the elite media and the Democrats had a cow and pretended like it was a criminal act. Of course when Bill Clinton fired ALL of them in a single stroke they said it was perfectly justified.
I believe we must hold ourselves and the government to a higher standard, one that honors and supports the President’s strong commitment to a Government that is transparent and open. OPM’s responsibility to uphold the merit system is not limited to Presidential election years nor to competitive service appointments. That is why I am instituting a change in OPM policy with respect to hiring political appointees for civil service jobs.
Beginning January 1, 2010, agencies must seek prior approval from OPM before they can appoint a current or recent political appointee to a competitive or non-political excepted service position at any level under the provisions of title 5, United States Code. OPM will review these proposed appointments to ensure they comply with merit system principles and applicable civil service laws. I have delegated decisionmaking authority over these matters to career Senior Executives at OPM to avoid any hint of political influence.
In no case may an agency make an appointment of the type described below without written authorization from OPM:
The appointment of a current political Schedule A or Schedule C Executive Branch employee or a former political Schedule A or Schedule C Executive Branch employee who held the position within the last five years to a competitive or non-political excepted service position under title 5 of the U.S. Code.
The appointment of a current Non-career SES Executive Branch employee or a former Non-career SES Executive Branch employee who held the position within the last five years to a competitive or non-political excepted service position under title 5 of the U.S. Code.
Less than nine months into his four-year term of office, President Barack Obama’s record is already one of abandoned promises, sidelined issues and lack of action.
1.PROMISE BROKEN. Mr Obama said he would “not sign any non-emergency bill without giving the American public an opportunity to review and comment on the White House website for five days”. But the “sunlight before signing” promise has already fallen by the wayside with Mr Obama signing three major bills without public scrutiny.
2.PROMISE BROKEN. Mr Obama repeatedly said he would negotiate health care reform in televised sessions broadcast on C-SPAN, the public service network. Instead, he his approach has been no different from his predecessors, holding talks behind closed doors at the White House and Congress.
3.PROMISE BROKEN. Mr Obama solemnly pledged that “no political appointees in an Obama-Biden administration will be permitted to work on regulations or contracts directly and substantially related to their prior employer for two years”. In practice, Mr Obama has granted several waivers to this rule, allowing lobbyists to serve in the top reaches of his administration.
4.PROMISE BROKEN. Mr Obama said he would end income tax for the elderly making less than $50,000 per year, thereby eliminating taxes for seven million of them. This has not been part of his economic stimulus bill, his first budget outline or any legislation proposed by the White House.
5.PROMISE STALLED. On taking office, Mr Obama announced with great fanfare that the Guantanamo Bay prison camp would be closed within a year of his inauguration on January 20th. Defence officials now concede that this self-imposed deadline will not be met.
6.PROMISE SIDELINED. Mr Obama promised to end the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy that prohibits openly gay personnel from serving in the United States armed forces. Despite reiterating the pledge this weekend, Mr Obama shows no signs of taking concrete action on the issue.
7.PROMISE BROKEN. Mr Obama said that in 2009 and 2010 “existing businesses will receive a $3,000 refundable tax credit for each additional full-time employee hired”. Democrats on Capitol Hill opposed this and Mr Obama has quietly abandoned the proposal, omitting it from his list of requirements for draft legislation.
8.PROMISE BROKEN. During the campaign, Mr Obama promised that “as President I will recognise the Armenian genocide” carried out by the Ottoman Empire after 1915. Once in office, he travelled to Turkey and made no mention of genocide. In a statement in April on the memorial day for the genocide he spoke of the “heavy weight” of history and the “terrible events ” of the period but failed the use the g-word.
9.PROMISE SIDELINED. As a candidate, Mr Obama highlighted his support for abortion rights, stating he would back this up “by passing the Freedom of Choice Act as president”. At a press conference marking his first 100 days, Mr Obama said this was “not my highest legislative priority” and that it was important to “focus on those areas that we can agree on”.
10. PROMISE SIDELINED. Mr Obama promised to end warrantless wiretaps on the domestic communications of Americans and to “update the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to provide greater oversight and accountability”. So far, he has taken no action.
“Your doing a good job Brownie.” Those are the words spoken by President Bush to the soon after to be doomed FEMA Director Michael Brown. Democrats including Barack Obama chastised the Administration for appointing cronies to government positions. Obama promised to appoint professionals based on merit. As we can see this was just another lie.
WASHINGTON — More than 40% of President Obama’s top-level fundraisers have secured posts in his administration, from key executive branch jobs to diplomatic postings in countries such as France, Spain and the Bahamas, a USA TODAY analysis finds.
Twenty of the 47 fundraisers that Obama’s campaign identified as collecting more than $500,000 have been named to government positions, the analysis found.
Overall, about 600 individuals and couples raised money from their friends, family members and business associates to help fund Obama’s presidential campaign. USA TODAY’s analysis found that 54 have been named to government positions, ranging from Cabinet and White House posts to advisory roles, such as serving on the economic recovery board charged with helping guide the country out of recession.
Nearly a year after he was elected on a pledge to change business-as-usual in Washington, Obama also has taken a cue from his predecessors and appointed fundraisers to coveted ambassadorships, drawing protests from groups representing career diplomats. A separate analysis by the American Foreign Service Association, the diplomats’ union, found that more than half of the ambassadors named by Obama so far are political appointees, said Susan Johnson, president of the association. An appointment is considered political if it does not go to a career diplomat in the State Department.
That’s a rate higher than any president in more than four decades, the group’s data show, although that could change as the White House fills more openings. Traditionally about 30% of top diplomatic jobs go to political appointees, and roughly 70% to veteran State Department employees. Ambassadors earn $153,200 to $162,900 annually.
The list of donors who got jobs:
RAISED MORE THAN $500,0000
Nicole Avant Ambassador to the Bahamas
Matthew Barzun Ambassador to Sweden
Don Beyer Ambassador to Switzerland and Liechtenstein
Jeff Bleich Ambassador to Australia**
Richard Danzig Member, Defense Policy Board
William Eacho Ambassador to Austria
Julius Genachowski Chairman of Federal Communications Commission
Donald Gips Ambassador to South Africa
Howard Gutman Ambassador to Belgium
Scott Harris General Counsel, Department of Energy
William Kennard Ambassador to the European Union**
Bruce Oreck Ambassador to Finland
Spencer Overton Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General
Thomas Perrelli Associate Attorney General
Abigail Pollack Member, Commission to Study the Potential Creation of a National Museum of the American Latino
Charles Rivkin Ambassador to France and Monaco
John Roos Ambassador of Japan
Francisco Sanchez Under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade
Alan Solomont Ambassador to Spain and Andorra**
Cynthia Stroum Ambassador to Luxembourg**
RAISED BETWEEN $200,000 and $500,000
A. Marisa Chun Deputy associate attorney general
Gregory Craig White House counsel
Norman Eisen Special counsel to the president for ethics and government reform
Michael Froman Deputy assistant to the president and deputy national security adviser for international economic affairs
Mark Gallogly Member, Economic Recovery Advisory Board
Max Holtzman Senior adviser to the Agriculture secretary
James Hudson Director, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development
Jeh Johnson General counsel, Department of Defense
Samuel Kaplan Ambassador to Morocco
Nicole Lamb-Hale Deputy general counsel, Commerce Department
Andres Lopez Member, Commission to Study the Potential Creation of a National Museum of the American Latino
Cindy Moelis Director, Commission on White House Fellows
William Orrick Counselor to the assistant attorney general
John Phillips Chairman, Commission on White House Fellows
Given that we’re spending billions of stimulus dollars to rebuild our highways, it makes sense to think about what we’ll be driving on them. For years to come, most of what we drive will be powered, at least in part, by diesel fuel or gasoline. To fuel that driving, we need access to oil. The less use we make of our own reserves, the more we will have to import, which leads to a number of harmful consequences. That means we need to drill here and drill now.
We rely on petroleum for much more than just powering our vehicles: It is essential in everything from jet fuel to petrochemicals, plastics to fertilizers, pesticides to pharmaceuticals. According to the Energy Information Administration, our total domestic petroleum consumption last year was 19.5 million barrels per day (bpd). Motor gasoline and diesel fuel accounted for less than 13 million bpd of that. Meanwhile, we produced only 4.95 million bpd of domestic crude. In other words, even if we ran all our vehicles on something else (which won’t happen anytime soon), we would still have to depend on imported oil. And we’ll continue that dependence until we develop our own oil resources to their fullest extent.
Those who oppose domestic drilling are motivated primarily by environmental considerations, but many of the countries we’re forced to import from have few if any environmental-protection laws, and those that do exist often go unenforced. In effect, American environmentalists are preventing responsible development here at home while supporting irresponsible development overseas.
My home state of Alaska shows how it’s possible to be both pro-environment and pro-resource-development. Alaskans would never support anything that endangered our pristine air, clean water, and abundant wildlife (which, among other things, provides many of us with our livelihood). The state’s government has made safeguarding resources a priority; when I was governor, for instance, we created a petroleum-systems-integrity office to monitor our oil and gas infrastructure for any potential environmental risks.
Alaska also shows how oil drilling is thoroughly compatible with energy conservation and renewable-energy development. Over 20 percent of Alaska’s electricity currently comes from renewable sources, and as governor I put forward a long-term plan to increase that figure to 50 percent by 2025. Alaska’s comprehensive plan identifies renewable options across the state that can help rural villages transition away from expensive diesel-generated electricity — allowing each community to choose the solution that best fits its needs. That’s important in any energy plan: Tempting as they may be to central planners, top-down, one-size-fits-all solutions are recipes for failure.
For the same reason, the federal government shouldn’t push a single, universal approach to alternative-powered vehicles. Electric cars might work in Los Angeles, but they don’t work in Alaska, where you can drive hundreds of miles without seeing many people, let alone many electrical sockets. And while electric and hybrid cars have their advantages, producing the electricity to power them still requires an energy source. For the sake of the environment, that energy should be generated from the cleanest source available.
Natural gas is one promising clean alternative. It contains fewer pollutants than other fossil fuels, it’s easier to collect and process, and it is found throughout our country. In Alaska, we’re developing the largest private-sector energy project in history — a 3,000-mile, $40 billion pipeline to transport hundreds of trillions of cubic feet of natural gas to markets across the United States. Onshore and offshore natural gas from Alaska and the Lower 48 can satisfy a large part of our energy needs for decades, bringing us closer to energy independence. Whether we use it to power natural-gas cars or to run natural-gas power plants that charge electric cars — or ideally for both — natural gas can act as a clean “bridge fuel” to a future when more renewable sources are available.
In addition to drilling, we need to build new refineries. America currently has roughly 150 refineries, down from over 300 in the 1970s. Due mainly to environmental regulations, we haven’t built a major new refinery since 1976, though our oil consumption has increased significantly since then. That’s no way to secure our energy supply. The post-Katrina jump in gas prices proved that we can’t leave ourselves at the mercy of a hurricane that knocks a few refineries out of commission.
Building an energy-independent America will mean a real economic stimulus. It will mean American jobs that can never be shipped overseas. Think about how much of our trade deficit is fueled by the oil we import — sometimes as much as half of the total. Through this massive transfer of wealth, we lose hundreds of billions of dollars a year that could be invested in our economy. Instead it goes to foreign countries, including some repressive regimes that use it to fund activities that threaten our security.
Reliance on foreign sources of energy weakens America. When a riot breaks out in an OPEC nation, or a developing country talks about nationalizing its oil industry, or a petro-dictator threatens to cut off exports, the probability is great that the price of oil will shoot up. Even in friendly nations, business and financial decisions made for local reasons can destabilize America’s energy market, since the price we pay for foreign oil is subject to rising and falling exchange rates. Decreasing our dependence on foreign sources of energy will reduce the impact of world events on our economy.
In the end, energy independence is not just about the environment or the economy. It’s about freedom and confidence. It’s about building a more secure and peaceful America, an America in which our energy needs will not be subject to the whims of nature, currency speculators, or madmen in possession of vast oil reserves.
Alternative sources of energy are part of the answer, but only part. There’s no getting around the fact that we still need to “drill, baby, drill!” And if those in D.C. say otherwise, we need to tell them: “Yes, we can!”
Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.) locked Republicans out of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee room to keep them from meeting when Democrats aren’t present.
Towns’ action came after repeated public ridicule from the leading Republican on the committee, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), over Towns’s failure to launch an investigation into Countrywide Mortgage’s reported sweetheart deals to VIPs.
For months Towns has refused Republican requests to subpoena records in the case. Last Thursday Committee Republicans, led by Issa, were poised to force an open vote on the subpoenas at a Committee mark-up meeting. The mark-up was abruptly canceled. Only Republicans showed up while Democrats chairs remained empty.
Republicans charged that Towns canceled the meeting to avoid the subpoena vote. Democrats first claimed the mark-up was canceled due to a conflict with the Financial Services Committee. Later they said it was abandoned after a disagreement among Democratic members on whether to subpoena records on the mortgage industry’s political contributions to Republicans.
A GOP committee staffer captured video of Democrats leaving their separate meeting in private chambers after the mark-up was supposed to have begun. He spliced the video to other footage of the Democrats’ empty chairs at the hearing room, set it to the tune of “Hit the Road, Jack” and posted it on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s minority webpage, where it remained as of press time.
The discovery that Countrywide Financial Corp. recorded phone conversations with borrowers in a controversial mortgage program that included public officials — and that those recordings have been destroyed — has prompted new congressional calls for more information about the program.
Rep. Darrell Issa of California, the ranking Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, is trying to subpoena the remaining records of Countrywide’s VIP loan program. So far, the committee’s chairman, New York Democratic Rep. Edolphus Towns, has turned down that request.
“Very often the instinct for an incumbent party is to defend and justify,” said Geoff Garin, a pollster for Democratic candidates. “But in this kind of environment, the best defense is a good offense. This needs to be a cycle where Republican vulnerabilities are a central part of the debate.”
Charlie Cook, the nonpartisan political handicapper, framed the Democrats’ challenge for 2010 more bluntly. It does not track the genial, new-politics identity that President Obama has cultivated.
“They’re going to have to play really rough,” said Mr. Cook, who pegs Democrats’ chances for holding the House next year at only slightly better than even…
Democrats will “have to make the opponent the issue,” said Neil Newhouse, a Republican pollster. “No. 1, try to tie them to George W. Bush — and then make it personal after that.”
The British newspaper The Independent reported today that Gulf oil producers were negotiating with Russia, China, Japan and France to replace the dollar in pricing oil with a basket of currencies.[1] According to the Wall Street Journal, Arab oil officials have denied the story, but even the possibility of such a talk weakens the dollar and renews fears about its continued viability as an international reserve currency.[2] In fact, today a United Nations official called for a new global reserve currency to replace the dollar and end our “privilege” to run up huge deficits.[3] We can see the effect of this in the price of gold, which hit a record high today in response to fears about the weakened dollar.[4]
All of this is a result of our out-of-control debt. This is why we need to rein in spending, and this is also why we need energy independence. A weakened dollar means higher commodity prices. This will make it more difficult to pay our bills – including the bill to import oil.
In his book Architects of Ruin, Peter Schweizer points out that the Obama administration is focusing primarily on “green energy,” while ignoring our need to develop our domestic conventional energy resources.[5] We’re ignoring the looming crisis caused by our dependence on foreign oil. Because we’re dependent on foreign nations for our oil, we’re also at their mercy if they decide to dump the dollar as their trade currency. We can’t allow ourselves to be so vulnerable to the whims of foreign nations. That’s why we must develop our own domestic supplies of oil and gas.
Though the chant of “Drill, baby, drill” was much derided, it expressed the need to confront this issue head-on before it reaches a crisis point.
Bottom line: let’s stop digging ourselves into debt and start drilling for energy independence.
- Sarah Palin
[1] See http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/the-demise-of-the-dollar-1798175.html
[2] See http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125484066563367821.html
[3] See http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.e272eaa74dccc30f21c6ff7638b0f37b.461&show_article=1
[4] See http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20091006/ts_afp/commoditiesgoldmetalsprice_20091006144514
Congresslady extraordinaire Michelle Bachmann asked for citizens to come to the capital one week ago and wow did they come.
Michelle Bachmann
Our friends at FactReal.com put together a fabulous post with all of the pictures, videos and other goodies for you to view - LINK. So be sure to pay them a visit. FactReal also put together the following list of links to help get educated on the latest version of Pelosi/ObamaCare:
Posted by GOP Leader Press Office on November 5th, 2009
Health care reform should not be used as an opportunity to use federal funds to pay for elective abortions. Health reform should be an opportunity to protect human life – not end it.
Unfortunately, Speaker Pelosi’s 2,032-page government takeover of health care does just that. On line 17, p. 110, section 222 under “Abortions for which Public Funding is Allowed” the Health and Human Services Secretary is given the authority to determine when abortion is allowed under the government-run plan. The Speaker’s plan also requires that at least one insurance plan offered in the Exchange covers abortions.
What is even more alarming is that a monthly abortion premium will be charged of all enrollees in the government-run plan. It’s right there on line 16, page 96, section 213, under “Insurance Rating Rules.” The premium will be paid into a U.S. Treasury account – and these federal funds will be used to pay for the abortion services.
Section 213 describes the process in which the Health Benefits Commissioner is to assess the monthly premiums that will be used to pay for elective abortions under the government-run plan. The Commissioner must charge at a minimum $1 per enrollee per month.
This is pure insanity and as foolish politically as can be. The Democrat leadership must want this more than they want to keep their seats in 2010.
This post has been stickied to the top of the page. Please scroll down for the latest posts & updates - Editor
UPDATE: SHOCK! Speaker Pelosi’s Government-Run Health Plan Will Require a Monthly Abortion Premium – LINK.
Obama Advisor and former Labor Sec. Robert Reich. Listen for yourself:
We are going to let the old die because its to expensive and we are going to make the drug companies poor so they cant innovate new drugs so you young people likely will not live much longer than your parents. We have to make the young pay more.
And the Democrats called Sarah Palin a liar ……
.. The Roundup:
Democrats Lied About Choice: Health Care Bill Targets Most New Private Health Insurance Policies. Watch the videos to listen to their own words - LINK
Ten questions to ask your Congressman about ObamaCare – LINK.
Obama health care advisors say: Very old and very young will get less care – LINK.
Oregon State health Service tells 64 year old woman: We wont pay for the drug to save your life, but we will pay for Euthanasia – LINK.
IBD Poll: 45% Of Doctors Would Consider Quitting If Congress Passes Obama/Pelosi Health Care Overhaul – LINK.
Answering far left talking points on US health care – LINK.
Congressional Committee confirms: Buy Insurance, Pay ObamaCare Penalty, or Go to Jail! – LINK.
Cornell Law Professor: Palin is right about “Death Panels” for ObamaCare – LINK.
European Member of Parliament – National Health Service has made us iller” – LINK.
CBO says that ObamaCare will result in benefit cuts. AARP stands to make millions from ObamaCare – LINK.
ABC 20/20 Takes on Government Health Care:
The Case Against Nationalized Healthcare in 3 minutes 42 seconds:
GOP Health Care Alternative Bill Online. First Step in Moving Towards Consortium Based Health Pools & Away from Mandates Forced On Citizens by Employers, Union Bosses, and the State - LINK.
You can examine all of our health care coverage HERE.
NY 23: Owens 49, Hoffman 45, Scozzafava 6 – with precincts still reporting.
But what is the real news??
It was no surprise that the GOP took back the state of Virginia, what is a surprise is the massive 18 point margin. This amounts to 34 points of movement away from Democrats in Virginia since 2008. Virginia is Washington DC’s back yard so this can very much be seen as a partial referendum on the Democrats behavior since they have taken power as Bill Clinton said it would be.
New Jersey is now in GOP hands. The 5% margin for the GOP is a big shocker because New Jersey is known for vote fraud. If not for that the GOP may have won by another point.
NY 23. The awful behavior of the GOP Party leadership in that district sent voters to the Democrats in this heavy R+ district. Doug Hoffman, who was totally unknown 30 days ago, who had very little money and ran on a couple of high profile endorsements, got 45% of the vote. Imagine if NY23 had bothered to have a primary instead of Scozzafava being selected by the machine? What if Doug Hoffman had that $900,000 that the GOP spent on that campaign for Scozzafava? What if Hoffman actually lived in the district? While Hoffman being a virtual unknown certainly did hurt him in the race, there can be little doubt that the Republican machine in that district was either not trusted or even punished for their behavior in this race and it cost them votes. In my view many voters will be watching the behavior of the local GOP machine in NY23 before they decide if they will be trusted in 2010. My suggestion to NY23 Republicans; its time to get some new party leadership.
The real news!
When you look at statewide and mayoral races in key battleground states like Pennsylvania and Florida Republicans did very well and won many seats. In counties where Republicans win by a few thousand votes, the margins for Republicans greatly increased. The margins for Republicans greatly increased.
Independents and cross pressured voters went for Republicans in these battleground states in a big way. Exit polls show that young people, who so overwhelmingly supported Democrats in 2008, stayed home showing a 9% turn out in surveyed precincts.
Ok its getting late and it is passed my bed time. I am sure that there will be much to chat about tomorrow.
The elite media is euphoric, saying the Obama stimulus package worked and we had 3.5% economic growth this quarter!
Unfortunately when I explain to you how the U.S. Government comes up with that number you are going to realize why the CBO likely never has an accurate forecast and why most economists are worse than weatherman at predicting economic trends. What I am about to explain to you is a tad arcane but Poligazette and my IUSB Vision readers are some very smart people and I have confidence that you will grasp this just fine.
The first thing that must be understood is the difference between a growth in GDP (Gross Domestic Product is the total sum of production within the borders of a country in a given year adjusted for inflation) and a growth in real GDP per capita. It is possible to claim that your economy is in “recovery” even at 1% growth (Joe Biden) but since 2% of production growth in the United States is because of improvements in technology and capital goods; and another 1% is needed for population growth, an economic growth rate of over 3% is required to reliably increase the GDP per capita of the United States. The GDP per capita is the most important measure of the standard of living and wealth of the average citizen.
With a claimed GDP growth rate of 3.5% and a non farm unemployment rising past 10%, how can each citizen be producing more per person while the unemployment rate is skyrocketing with another 530,000 NEW jobless claims just in the last month? This would have to mean that American consumers went on a spending spree to drive that number up or that each worker became way more productive and must be working lots of extra hours and overtime to get that per capita GDP up….
If you are starting to think that something sounds fishy you would be right.
I had a brief chat and open lecture with noted economist Bradley Schiller today. He told me that with the new 3.5% number that per capita GDP must be up and with unemployment also up the overtime worked hours must be way up. As you can see from the graphic, Schiller was wrong.
The graphic is from the Bureau of Labor Statistics from October 29th. As you can see the hours of persons worked is way down in both categories. The total output is also down so how can this be? Where did the 3.5% growth come from? Could it be that Americans went on that spending spree? Sorry consumer confidence is down 5.7 points this quarter.
How can the output per hour have increased so high on the graphic when hours worked and total output are way down? Did Americans go into overdrive and suddenly become become super workers? The answer to why that number is artificially inflated is the same reason why the GDP number has been artificially inflated.
So how does the the US Government measure GDP? They use an old and very flawed Keynesian formula.
GDP= C+I+G+(X-N)
C = consumer consumption of goods and services measured. I = capital investment like building factories, production robots, machine tools etc. (X-N) is exports minus imports and since we have a large trade deficit that is always a negative number. G= government spending and this is where the smoke and mirrors come in.
Since GDP has to equal total production of the workforce, this means that if Mr. Bernanke at the Federal Reserve prints up a bunch of money and Nancy Pelosi spends it, congratulations, each worker in the United States just became more productive on paper. This is the effect that a $1.7 trillion yearly deficit for 2009 has on an economy. For the sake of comparison the yearly deficit spending for 2007 was a “measly” $211 billion.
This is why the old, flawed Keynesian model is favored by politicians, socialists and other leftist ideologues, because on paper it means that the more you spend the better your economy is and the more productive you appear. What this amounts to is that there is no economic dip, depression, or problem that cannot be fixed by government spending. It gets worse, because of another flawed Keynesian concept called “leakage” they actually believe that government spending is MORE efficient in growing the economy than tax cuts. When Vice-President Biden said that we have to greatly increase deficit spending so we don’t go bankrupt, now you know why.
The reality is that most government spending does not create much if any wealth and much of it simply amounts to a transfer payment. Government is gargantuan and bureaucratic. Government money is spent for political reasons and not for economic reasons or efficiency.Thus the “multiplier effect” government spending has on the economy is much less than creating real wealth like creating things or investors building a factory.
There is even an argument to be made that much of the “G” variable for government spending should be counted as a negative number towards GDP because each dollar government spends eventually is a dollar taken from you or an investor to spend it. GDP exploded after 1947 when government spending dropped from 188 billion to 58 billion. It also should be mentioned that the larger government is, it engages in more arbitrary, regulative and taxing behavior that also drives down consumer and investor confidence. Deficit spending also drives up inflation.
The old Keynesian model is what a majority of economists believe because this is what they are taught in school; they simply never think for a moment to challenge it. This is a big part of the reason why government economists are so bad at cost/revenue forecasts. The economic collapse and the inability of 80% of economists to see it coming helped to convince me that most economists are great at applying flawed theory and don’t really understand economics.
It should also be noted that some economists are saying that one percentage point of the alleged 3.5% growth measure was due to the cash for clunkers program which studies have shown mostly was utilized by those who had planned to buy a car anyways this year; so the program just borrowed some spending from the future that will result in dips in auto sales for the next two quarters. In either case, the economy really isn’t improving anywhere near the degree that the elite media and some politicians say it is.
At best the current GDP formula is not a very good measure of an economy. A new formula for GDP needs to be constructed and tested.
I saw the headline on the CBS web site “Statisticians: “Global Cooling” a Myth – Claims about Last 10 Years Are Deceptive; Temperatures Rise and Fall, But Overall Trend Is Higher”. Rest assured what is deceptive is this article that misrepresents what is already a bad study that stands in direct contradiction to a previous data set from the NCDC from January.
I was hoping that the Obama Administration had not politicized the National Climactic Data Center (NCDC) as they had the EPA when they suppressed a report showing how global warming skeptics are correct (LINK – LINK).
Have you heard that the world is now cooling instead of warming? You may have seen some news reports on the Internet or heard about it from a provocative new book.
Only one problem: It’s not true, according to an analysis of the numbers done by several independent statisticians for The Associated Press.
Ok time to stop right there, as has been documented by us (one example we reported LINK) and others such as the Media Research Center (example LINK, LINK, LINK and I could fill a page of links with examples of this problem), that almost always, the people the elite media portray as “independent” are people who are known to the reporter or news organization, with a known point of view, who will say what the reporter wants to report. The same few “random experts” appear in the elite media over and over and over again. It is a main component of how the elite media editorializes the news and hide the fact that in reality it is the news organizations editorial point of view they are presenting.
Why is IPCC author Dr. John Christy not a common talking head in the elite media?
CBS/AP continues:
In a blind test, the AP gave temperature data to four independent statisticians and asked them to look for trends, without telling them what the numbers represented. The experts found no true temperature declines over time.
“If you look at the data and sort of cherry-pick a micro-trend within a bigger trend, that technique is particularly suspect,” said John Grego, a professor of statistics at the University of South Carolina.
Yet the idea that things are cooling has been repeated in opinion columns, a BBC news story posted on the Drudge Report and in a new book by the authors of the best-seller “Freakonomics.” Last week, a poll by the Pew Research Center found that only 57 percent of Americans now believe there is strong scientific evidence for global warming, down from 77 percent in 2006.
Global warming skeptics base their claims on an unusually hot year in 1998. Since then, they say, temperatures have dropped – thus, a cooling trend. But it’s not that simple.
Since 1998, temperatures have dipped, soared, fallen again and are now rising once more. Records kept by the British meteorological office and satellite data used by climate skeptics still show 1998 as the hottest year. However, data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA show 2005 has topped 1998. Published peer-reviewed scientific research generally cites temperatures measured by ground sensors, which are from NOAA, NASA and the British, more than the satellite data.
The recent Internet chatter about cooling led NOAA’s climate data center to re-examine its temperature data. It found no cooling trend.
[Oh wait, could they mean this, UK Telegraph: 2008 was the year man-made global warming was disproved – UPDATED!. This was one of our little posts that went viral on the internet and got my little IUSB Vision Web Log pronounced the second most reviled web site on global warming by the Huffington Post. I really should buy Arianna a nice lunch for the publicity she gave me on that one - Chuck Norton]
Notice how they said that the study relies on ground sensors and pay special attention to the quote “recent Internet chatter about cooling led NOAA’s climate data center to re-examine its temperature data” …under NOOOOOO political pressure from the new administration I’m sure…
So I headed over to the WUWT blog to see if they had found the data that I was suspecting and sure enough. The data the story relies on comes from NOAA ground sensors and ignores the oceanic data sets and other important data sets. The NOAA ground censors have been discredited as controlled data because in a great many cases the NOAA censors are placed on or near asphalt, stone, heat vents, parking lots, surrounded by black tires in junk yards etc. all of which absorb heat during the day and release it at night. Also notice how the article states that they did not rely on satellite data that tends to show cooling and that presents another problem. According to alarmist global warming theory more warmth is trapped under the “greenhouse layer” of the atmosphere causing temperatures globally to rise. This layer of the atmosphere can be read by satellites and weather balloons (the John Christy method). So if you are to measure greenhouse warming according to the theory, that is the place to do it. However, measuring it that way does not give global warming alarmists the measurements they want.
This [AP] article, however, (which is not a true independent assessment if the study was completed by NOAA scientists) is not based on the much more robust metric assessment of global warming as diagnosed by upper ocean heat content. Nor does it consider the warm bias issues with respect to surface land temperatures that we have raised in our peer reviewed papers; e.g. see and see.
So as Pielke points out at WUWT, the “study” and the AP article doesn’t even address oceanic data sets. Nor does it address other data sets. It gets worse, would you like to see examples of NOAA ground sensors??
WUWT is up to part 91 of its “How not to measure temperature” series on these NOAA ground sensors.
Oh Look! Its a NOAA sensor in a junk yard with black tires.
Oh Look! Its a NOAA sensor next to that concrete porch and look to the left, its a grill. It has no cover so I guess it has been used pretty frequently.
Oh look! Its a NOAA sensor in a parking lot of asphalt. Would you like to walk barefoot on that on a warm summer day? I wonder how much heat the cars that park right next to it give off when the people who live in those apartments come home. Hey what is that a few yards behind the sensor? It's the heat pump for a home air conditioner!
But worry not scientific community and global warming alarmists, WUWT reports in “How not to measure temperature: Part 87” that NOAA “adjusts” for these types of anomalies….yup they adjust the temperatures DOWN in the PAST thus increasing the “current statistical warming trend”!! There are 91 of these ground sensors that WUWT has catalogued so far and they all seem to have one thing in common. They are placed in areas that will artificially make them read higher temperatures.
As we stated above, the new NCDC “study” ignored other data sets such as ITS OWN North American Temperature Data Set updated just last January… hmmm now what has happened between January and today….oh yes we have a new political administration that has already demonstrated that it has no problem trying to shut scientists up (LINK – LINK) who dare tell the truth about global warming.
Yet ANOTHER dataset showing the cooling of the last 10 years.
NCDC now has December 2008 in the database. Annual North American temperature since 1998 (11 years of data) is falling over the period at a rate of 0.78(F)/decade or 7.8(F)per century. At this rate we will be in an ice age within 5 decades. If you can get the graphic, the heavy black line is the average over the century 1901 to 2000.
This data set is a collection of this continent only, but it shows the same cooling trend that other global data sets have shown. Since 1998 the Earth is cooling and it happens to coincide with a similar period of unusually low solar activity.
Of course we realize that to many people, including many radicalized professors, global warming alarmism is almost like a religion. No data set or series of data sets is going to put a dent in those people. Fortunately there are still plenty of people who are not zealots who can appreciate the information. Thanks to the famed WUWT Blog for the heads up.
Maybe this article can get the Huffington Post to rank me the number one most reviled global warming columnist on the internet. Being number two just seems so second best.
Some have seen the original list of 26, but I felt compelled to few to add to my own to 46 and lets see if we can come up with a few more. I invite you to come up with some we missed in the comments section.
1. Offended the Queen of England.
2. Offended British PM By snubbing him and offering trade gifts that were a joke (25 DVD’s that wont play in England).
3. Offended the British People by returning a bust of Winston Churchill that they gave the United States (its like sending the Statue of Liberty back to France).
4. Offended the President of France by snubbing him multiple times.
5. Bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia.
6. Praised the Marxist Daniel Ortega.
7. Kissed Socialist Hugo Chavez on the cheek.
8. Endorsed the Socialist Evo Morales of Bolivia.
9. Sided with Hugo Chavez and Communist Fidel Castro against Honduras.
10. Announced we would meet with Iranians with no pre-conditions while they’re building their nuclear weapons.
11. Reneged on a missile shield agreement with Eastern Europe almost ending all relations with Poland and the Czech Republic.
12. Left the country of Georgia in the cold after the Russian invasion.
13. Gave away billions to AIG also without pre-conditions.
14. Expanded the bailouts.
15. Insulted everyone who has ever loved a Special Olympian.
16. Doubled our national debt.
17. Announced the termination of our new missile defense system the day after North Korea launched an ICBM.
18. Released information on U.S. Intelligence gathering despite urgings of his own CIA director and the prior four CIA directors.
19. Accepted without comment that five of his cabinet members cheated on their taxes and two other nominees withdrew after they couldn’t take the heat.
20. Appointed a Homeland Security Chief who identified military veterans and abortion opponents as “dangers to the nation.”
21. Ordered that the word “terrorism” no longer be used and instead refers to such acts as “man made disasters.”
23. Circled the globe to publicly apologize for America’s world leadership.
24. Told the Mexican president that the violence in their country was because of us.
25. Politicized the census by moving it into the White House from the Department of Commerce.
26. Appointed as Attorney General the man who orchestrated the forced removal and expulsion to Cuba of a 9-year-old whose mother died trying to bring him to freedom in the United States.
27. Salutes as heroes three Navy SEALS who took down three terrorists who threatened one American life and the next day announces members of the Bush administration may stand trial for “torturing” three 9/11 terrorists by pouring water up their noses.
28. Low altitude photo shoot of Air Force One over New York City that frightened thousands of New Yorkers.
29. Sent his National Defense Advisor to Europe to assure them that the US will no longer treat Israel in a special manner and they might be on their own with the Muslims.
30. Praised Jimmy Carter’s trip to Gaza where he sided with terrorist Hamas against Israel.
31. Nationalized General Motors and Chrysler while turning shareholder control over to the unions and freezing out retired investors who owned their bonds. Committed unlimited taxpayer billions in the process.
31. Passed a huge energy tax in the House that will make American industry even less competitive while costing homeowners thousands per year.
32. Quietly ended the Washington DC school voucher program dooming promising children to one of the worst school districts in the nation.
33. Reversed himself on his transparency pledges multiple times.
34. After promising lobbying reform he had a financial responsibility summit that ended up being a lobbyist meet up with government. He also signed an order relaxing the lobbyist rules.
35. Allowed multiple lobbyists in the administration after promising not to.
36. After promising a new era of bi-partisanship his party locks Republicans out of bill negotiations.
37. Helped protect the bonuses at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
38. Signed a bill containing over 9,000 pork earmarks after promising earmark reform.
39. Instead of using the TARP bailout funds to buy peoples mortgages and renegotiate them with citizens as promised he used the money to buy up/nationalize banks and leave citizens in the cold.
40. Committed multiple violations of the Hatch Act (see HHS.GOV).
41. Declared War on Fox News.
42. Declared War on the Chamber of Commerce.
43. Suppressed an EPA Report showing that global warming skeptics are largely correct.
44. Participating in the dismantling of the Dollar as the world reserve currency.
45. Signed into law the reversal of Bill Clinton & Newt Gingrich’s very successful and hugely popular bi-partisan welfare reform (which was the main plank of Bill Clinton’s legacy).
46. Announced nationalized health care “reform” that will strip seniors of their Medicare, cut pay of physicians, increase taxes yet another $1 trillion, and put everyone on rationed care with government bureaucrats deciding who gets care and who doesn’t. Bloomberg: Daschle says, “Health care reform will not be pain free. Seniors should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them,” while former Colorado Governor Dick Lamm says seniors have “a duty to die.” If this does not sufficiently raise your ire, just remember that the President, Senators and Congressmen have their own special gold plated health care plan which is guaranteed the remainder of their lives and they are not subject to this new law if they pass it.
The biggest news here is the lack of transparency going on with the current process and of course all the new taxes the Democrats promised they wouldn’t levy…
In violation of the spirit of the process the bills are being merged behind closed doors with the Republicans being locked out. Remember when Obama promised transparency and how the hearings and such on the health care bill would all be on C-Span and not behind closed doors??
Just a reminder, here are Obama’s seven lies in under two minutes.
Below you will read about how what are called “Cadillac Plans” will be taxed at 40%. The bill also requires that those with pre-existing conditions and the sick cannot be turned down. It also mandates that there be limits on the differences in premiums between the old and young, healthy and sick. This will make the costs of premium go way up especially for the young. The young will choose to pay the tax penalty rather than get the insurance. But no worries, when you get sick go buy the insurance and when your better drop it.
The end result? Premiums will go up in cost and become considered Cadillac plans over time. Most good plans that are as good or better than the public option will be considered “Cadillac Plans” over time. using price forces to send you into the public option, which is the goal.
This will also make an adversarial relation ship between the doctor and the patient. The doctor will have budget schedules to meet and you will need the best care possible. One cannot serve two gods. perhaps this is why presidential advisors have said that the Hippocratic oath is taken too seriously and is a part of the problem.
This brings us back to the death panels again. Dick Morris believes that the final versions of the bill will have the same cost/benefit analysis called QARY (Quality Adjusted Remaining Years). So if you are 95 and need a pacemaker , well odds are you wont live much longer so the cost divided out over your QARY is too high so the answer is no. I know a nice married couple in their late 80’s who are in better physical shape than I am and very active. This is exactly why doctors and individuals need to make these choices and not a cost benefit analysis. And before it is said in the comments, death panels does not mean that they will decide who gets the plug pulled, rather it decides who gets the plug plugged in in the first place.
The Senate majority’s contempt for the American people rears its ugly head again. The Senate Finance Committee just voted down a GOP amendment requiring that Obamacare legislation be available online 72 hours before the panel votes. Instead, the Democrats offered to make “conceptual language” available.
Dems lied, transparency died:
WASHINGTON — Senate Finance Committee Democrats have rejected a GOP amendment that would have required a health overhaul bill to be available online for 72 hours before the committee votes.
Republicans argued that transparency is an Obama administration goal. They also noted that their constituents are demanding that they read bills before voting.
Democrats said it was a delay tactic that could have postponed a vote for weeks.
Democrat leaders legislating in special deals for their states
Oct. 20 (Bloomberg) — Nevada would get help with its Medicaid bills. The elderly in Florida and New York would receive additional Medicare benefits. And workers in so-called high-risk professions such as firefighting and construction would get a break on a new insurance tax.
Those are provisions that Senate Democrats, including Majority Leader Harry Reid, put in an $829 billion health-care bill to shield constituents from measures intended to pay for the biggest overhaul of the medical system in four decades.
The result is the new policies may be unevenly administered, with some U.S. states getting preferential treatment, a possibility that has given Republican lawmakers ammunition to attack the legislation.
“It’s going to hurt the bill and raise the level of cynicism about Washington politics,” said Senator Lamar Alexander, a Tennessee Republican. “The provisions ought to be applied to all of the states.”
The number of special provisions is likely to grow as the full Senate begins debating the measure in coming weeks. Because Democrats are unlikely to win many Republican votes, individual lawmakers will have leverage to demand changes to satisfy parochial interests.
Baucus Senate Health Bill Costs Skyrocket Over Time
Remember when health-care reform was supposed to make life better for the middle class? That dream began to unravel this past summer when Congress proposed a bill that failed to include any competition-based reforms that would actually bend the curve of health-care costs. It fell apart completely when Democrats began papering over the gaping holes their plan would rip in the federal budget.
As it now stands, the plan proposed by Democrats and the Obama administration would not only fail to reduce the cost burden on middle-class families, it would make that burden significantly worse.
Consider the bill put forward by the Senate Finance Committee. From a budgetary perspective, it is straightforward. The bill creates a new health entitlement program that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates will grow over the longer term at a rate of 8% annually, which is much faster than the growth rate of the economy or tax revenues. This is the same growth rate as the House bill that Sen. Kent Conrad (D., N.D.) deep-sixed by asking the CBO to tell the truth about its impact on health-care costs.
To avoid the fate of the House bill and achieve a veneer of fiscal sensibility, the Senate did three things: It omitted inconvenient truths, it promised that future Congresses will make tough choices to slow entitlement spending, and it dropped the hammer on the middle class.
One inconvenient truth is the fact that Congress will not allow doctors to suffer a 24% cut in their Medicare reimbursements. Senate Democrats chose to ignore this reality and rely on the promise of a cut to make their bill add up. Taking note of this fact pushes the total cost of the bill well over $1 trillion and destroys any pretense of budget balance.
It is beyond fantastic to promise that future Congresses, for 10 straight years, will allow planned cuts in reimbursements to hospitals, other providers, and Medicare Advantage (thereby reducing the benefits of 25% of seniors in Medicare). The 1997 Balanced Budget Act pursued this strategy and successive Congresses steadily unwound its provisions. The very fact that this Congress is pursuing an expensive new entitlement belies the notion that members would be willing to cut existing ones.
Most astounding of all is what this Congress is willing to do to struggling middle-class families. The bill would impose nearly $400 billion in new taxes and fees. Nearly 90% of that burden will be shouldered by those making $200,000 or less.
It might not appear that way at first, because the dollars are collected via a 40% tax on sales by insurers of “Cadillac” policies, fees on health insurers, drug companies and device manufacturers, and an assortment of odds and ends.
But the economics are clear. These costs will be passed on to consumers by either directly raising insurance premiums, or by fueling higher health-care costs that inevitably lead to higher premiums. Consumers will pay the excise tax on high-cost plans. The Joint Committee on Taxation indicates that 87% of the burden would fall on Americans making less than $200,000, and more than half on those earning under $100,000.
Industry fees are even worse because Democrats chose to make these fees nondeductible. This means that insurance companies will have to raise premiums significantly just to break even. American families will bear a burden even greater than the $130 billion in fees that the bill intends to collect. According to my analysis, premiums will rise by as much as $200 billion over the next 10 years—and 90% will again fall on the middle class.
Senate Democrats are also erecting new barriers to middle-class ascent. A family of four making $54,000 would pay $4,800 for health insurance, with the remainder coming from subsidies. If they work harder and raise their income to $66,000, their cost of insurance rises by $2,800. In other words, earning another $12,000 raises their bill by $2,800—a marginal tax rate of 23%. Double-digit increases in effective tax rates will have detrimental effects on the incentives of millions of Americans.
Lieberman Says Baucus Health Bill Will Raise Prices and Taxes by $400 Billion:
Pricewaterhouse Coopers Report Baucus Bill will cause premiums to rise by $1700 per family by 2013.
You can examine the report yourself HERE. Fox News Analysis did an analysis with a GOP Senator
Clinton Advisor Dick Morris on What the Obama-care Bills Mean for You
Morris gives more details about the high price of Obama-care HERE and HERE.
Were Saved! Mew House Health Bill Only Costs $900 Billion and Will be Deficit Neutral for 10 Years….
House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Tuesday new estimates showed a healthcare overhaul drafted by Democrats would reduce the U.S. budget deficit over 10 years and cost less than $900 billion.
The preliminary estimates from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office moved Democratic leaders closer to finishing a merger of three separate healthcare reform bills into one for debate on the House floor.
Ok now how did they do it….. well this is the part where the proposal gets a lot less popular.
They do it by starting the new taxes now, cutting Medicare now, reducing the rates at which doctors are reimbursed now and kicking in the “reform” five years from now so that the new government expense for the program wont fully kick in for five years.
Those of you who are old enough to remember the 1970’s know what price controls do. They limit supply and choice. Oil lines, brown outs and rolling power outages in California etc. When you can’t make sufficient profit to cover costs, growth, and unexpected economic shocks would you produce more of it?
The $871 billion estimate — well under the $900 billion limit set by President Obama — is the latest of several versions scored by congressional budget analysts, according to a Democratic aide, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss private talks. The measure would include a government-run insurance plan that pays providers at rates tied to Medicare, the aide added. That so-called “robust” public option is preferred by liberals because it would save the government money and could force private insurers to lower their own reimbursement rates, driving down the cost of health care overall. (Thats price controls which result in long wait lines and reduced quality – Editor]
But the idea is opposed by many conservative Democrats from rural areas, where Medicare rates are well below the national average. A new insurance plan that paid such low rates would be devastating to their communities financially, these Democrats say. Instead, they argue that any public plan should negotiate rates directly with providers, as private plans do.
Ed Morrissey at Hotair.com has a nice detailed explanation HERE Patientpowernow.com produced the following videos:
They produced this video criticizing Oregon State run health care and yes this is what Oregon did.
Canadians Speak Out On Health Care
This is from the Mackinac Center who has more video’s and details.
242 Patients Died of Malnutrition in British Health Service Hospitals in 2007
PRISONERS HAVE A BETTER DIET THAN NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE HOSPITAL PATIENTS, SCIENTISTS WARN
Patients in Great Britain’s government-run National Health Service (NHS) hospitals are far more likely to go hungry than criminals in jail, scientists warn.
They say frail and elderly patients do not get the help they need with meals, and nobody checks whether they get enough to eat. Despite years of Government promises to tackle poor hospital nutrition, food still arrives cold, and patients often miss out because meal times clash with tests and operations. Meanwhile, prisoners are enjoying carbohydrate-rich, low-fat foods which in many cases are better than they would have been eating on the outside.
The Daily Mail has been highlighting the scandal of old people not being fed properly in hospital as part of its Dignity for the Elderly campaign. Hospital meals are often taken away untouched, because they are either unappetizing or are placed out of patients’ reach:
The latest figures show 242 patients died of malnutrition in NHS hospitals in 2007 — the highest toll in a decade.
More than 8,000 left hospital under-nourished — double the figure when Labor came to power.
The NHS throws away 11million meals every year, and many nurses say they are too busy to help the frail eat.
Earlier this year the Mail revealed that some hospitals spend less on meals than the average prison:
Ten hospitals spent less on breakfast, lunch and an evening meal than the £2.12 (about U.S.$3.54) a day allocated for food by the prison service; one spent just £1 (about U.S.$1.67).
Although most hospitals do spend more than £2.12 (about U.S.$3.45), prisoners end up better nourished than patients, say experts from Bournemouth University.
After studying the food offered to inmates and across the NHS, they found patients face more barriers in getting good nutrition.
Liberal Democrat health spokesman Norman Lamb said: “It’s incredible that so many hospitals are failing to serve healthy meals. If prisons can serve good food then so can hospitals.”
Obama Administration Violating Hatch Act by using Tax Dollars to Politic for ObamaCare
And yes it’s illegal. In short the Department of Health and Human Services Web Site has a section on the right hand side of the page to sign up to support and lobby Congress ObamaCare. Of course there is only one option, to support it.Senator Grassley fired off a letter to HHS letting them know that it is illegal. Ed Morrissey at Hotair has more details. This administration seems to be politicizing most everything. Afghanistan, the CIA, FCC etc.
CEI releases global warming study censored by Obama’s EPA
Natural forces as opposed to human activity are largely responsible for temperature fluctuations, according to a new study the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) released today as Congress prepares to vote on global warming legislation.
Internal email messages show the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) suppressed the report and silenced the author because the scientific evidence did not square with the Obama administration’s agenda of regulating carbon dioxide, CEI claims. The EPA has become overly reliant upon outdated information from the United Nations and has ignored major new scientific developments, the censored study concludes.
“While we hoped that the EPA would release the final report, we’re tired of waiting for this agency to become transparent, even though its administrator has been talking transparency, since she took office,” said CEI General Counsel Sam Kazman.
New scientific data highlighted in the report shows that ocean cycles and solar cycles are probably the most important factors behind temperature fluctuations. Moreover, satellite information now indicates there is little chance of endangerment from greenhouse gases, according to the report.
Some of the major developments overlooked by EPA official include a continued decline in global temperatures, an emerging consensus that hurricanes will not be more frequent or intense and new studies that demonstrate water vapor will have a moderating influence on temperature.
The report was exposed by hard work from the Competitive Enterprise Institute. See the entire EPA Report HERE.
This is a key page in the report (Hat Tip Dwight Schultz):
This report has other gems like this one. The EPA and the UN have reports that they tried to hide from you that tell this simple truth. As we have said repeatedly in IUSB Vision coverage. The evidence is clear that there has been global cooling for over a decade and the WUWT Blog has published hundreds of articles and data sets demonstrating this. The bulk of global warming and cooling cycles is the result of solar activity. CO2 is a minor greenhouse gas and man’s contribution to that is minor. Water vapor is the chief greenhouse gas.
Most “peer reviewed” global warming studies are based on computer models. The problem is that when actual recorded data from the past is entered into such models they cannot even accurately predict climate from yesterday or last year.
The CEI unveils the evidence that the EPA ordered people to shut up about the findings and you can see the report with ALL of the emails HERE . Here are just two of the emails reveled (Via Powerline):
Here, the two scientists’ superior declines to make their report public because “the administration has decided to move forward on endangerment.” Click to enlarge:
Here, Carlin and Davidson are ordered not to communicate to the public their conclusion that the global warming alarmist theory is wrong:
Powerline sums up this scandalous behavior with a devastating analogy:
Global warming zealots are a bit like Iran’s mullahs. They are fanatically devoted to a series of false propositions. Unable to win an open scientific debate, they consistently resort to bullying and brute force to suppress their opposition. Once again, we see the Obama administration taking the lead in this regard, putting political ideology above scientific truth and demanding that all others do likewise.
UPDATE: Newsbusters notes the almost complete media blackout of this story, and contrasts it with the news media’s treatment of the Bush administration.
This headline may come as a bit of a surprise, so too might that fact that the warmest year recorded globally was not in 2008 or 2007, but in 1998.
But it is true. For the last 11 years we have not observed any increase in global temperatures.
And our climate models did not forecast it, even though man-made carbon dioxide, the gas thought to be responsible for warming our planet, has continued to rise.
So what on Earth is going on?
Climate change sceptics, who passionately and consistently argue that man’s influence on our climate is overstated, say they saw it coming.
They argue that there are natural cycles, over which we have no control, that dictate how warm the planet is.
Time Magazine has an interesting article that bucks their usual shtick. The article advocates giving nuclear weapons the Nobel Peace Prize for helping to keep several wars from happening.
UN Calls for Dropping Dollar as World Reserve Currency
The UN along with a whole host of countries is witnessing what the government and the Federal Reserve is up to. Oh wait, you don’t know what they are up to? OK quick economics lesson. There are four ways to take care of a large debt.
1. Spend less and that is out as the Democrats have increased deficit spending from the 2007 eight times.
2. You can tax the people into the ground, and while they are certainly breaking promises and raising taxes and trying to raise more the bottom line is that the debt and future entitlement obligations are so large that there just aren’t enough people to tax.
3. Grow the economy and increase GDP so there is more economy to tax. Sorry in spite of overwhelming historical evidence most leftists just don’t believe in economic growth as we know it. Besides, in order to do that you have to unleash freedom and incentivise a growth environment which means abandoning central control and that is out of the question for the far left.
4. Print money up to inflate the currency to screw those we owe money to. That is exactly what is going on now and the world is very upset with us. Obama ran on raising the standing of the Unites States in the world. Well the world is not happy at all with what is going on.
Unintended consequences. The world does all they can to get out of the dollar (happening) we lose influence in the world, our currency loses value (so you saved for retirement and what are those dollars worth? The dollar has lost 29% of its value in the last seven years. Nine percent in the last six months.) and the world drops America’s credit rating form AAA to AA. That would mean that the cost of mortgages, credit cards and government debt would skyrocket. In short it would mean economic armageddon.
The United Nations called on Tuesday for a new global reserve currency to end dollar supremacy which has allowed the United States the “privilege” of building a huge trade deficit.
“Important progress in managing imbalances can be made by reducing the reserve currency country?s ‘privilege’ to run external deficits in order to provide international liquidity,” UN undersecretary-general for economic and social affairs, Sha Zukang, said.
Speaking at the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in Istanbul, he said: “It is timely to emphasise that such a system also creates a more equitable method of sharing the seigniorage derived from providing global liquidity.”
He said: “Greater use of a truly global reserve currency, such as the IMF?s special drawing rights (SDRs), enables the seigniorage gained to be deployed for development purposes,” he said.
The SDRs are the asset used in IMF transactions and are based on a basket of four currencies — the dollar, euro, yen and pound — which is calculated daily.
China had called in March for a new dominant world reserve currency instead of the dollar, in a system within the framework of the Washington-based IMF.
Countries Moving to Ditch Using the Dollar for Oil Trading
The dollar’s position as the world’s leading reserve currency faces increased pressure as the financial crisis allows emerging economies greater influence on the world stage, analysts said.
A report last week in The Independent claiming that China, Russia and Gulf States are among nations prepared to ditch the dollar for oil trades has heightened the uncertainty surrounding the US currency’s future.
The dollar slumped against rivals last week in the wake of the British daily’s controversial report.
“The US dollar is being hurt by the continued talk of a shift away from a dollar-centric world,” said Kit Juckes, an analyst at currency traders ECU Group.
“Three conclusions stand out very clearly. Firstly, the shift in economic power away from the G7 economies is continuing. “Secondly, there is a growing acceptance amongst those winners that one consequence of this power shift will be to strengthen their currencies.
“And finally, as long as the US economy is not strong enough for any rise in interest rates to be conceivable for a long time, the dollar’s underlying downtrend will remain in place,” added Juckes.
The Independent, under the front-page headline “The Demise of the Dollar”, reported last Tuesday that Gulf states, together with China, Russia, Japan and France, were considering replacing the dollar as the currency for oil deals.
Beck: US Newspapers Print More About ‘Jon and Kate’ Than Demise of the Dollar – VIDEO.
Some pinheads at politico.com are blaming Matt Drudge for the dollar woes for reporting what the American press will not. We cant blame what the government is doing….. nope they are blameless….
Durable goods orders, housing sales plunged in August
Ed Morrissey at Hotair.com has a great post showing that the economy is still tanking while the administration and some elite media outfits claims that it is a great recovery:
While Joe Biden tells Americans that the stimulus has worked “better than we hoped,” the numbers tell a different story. Seven months after passing a whopping $787 billion stimulus package, unemployment and mass layoffs both jumped in August. What didn’t go up? Orders of durable goods, which took a significant plunge instead:
New orders for long-lasting U.S. manufactured goods fell unexpectedly in August, dropping by their biggest margin in seven months, following a plunge in commercial aircraft orders, the government reported Friday.
The Commerce Department said durable goods orders tumbled 2.4 percent, the largest decline since January, after rising by a revised 4.8 percent in July. New orders for July were previously reported to have increased 5.1 percent.
Analysts polled by Reuters forecast orders rising 0.5 percent in August. Compared with the same period last year, new orders were down 24.9 percent.
Durable goods orders are a leading indicator of manufacturing activity, which in turn provides a good measure for overall business health.
Resales of U.S. homes dropped 2.7% in August to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.1 million, the first decline in five months, prompting the National Association of Realtors to again plead for more taxpayer subsidies for their business. …
“It is perfectly clear that realtors are scared to death of the tax credit’s expiration,” wrote Dan Greeenhaus, chief economic strategist for Miller Tabak & Co., noting the phrase “tax credit” appears six times in the group’s press release.
First-time buyers accounted for about 30% of sales in July and August, Yun said.
Without an extension of the taxpayer subsidy, the housing market could fall into a “double-dip” downturn, Yun said, which would stall the overall economic recovery.
The housing market is also being propped up by the Federal Reserve’s purchases of nearly $1.5 trillion in mortgage-related securities, accounting for about 80% of the market. The Fed said Wednesday it would slow its purchases and end them by next March.
Why will we hit a double dip in the recession without government subsidies? In part, it will come from the fact that the $787 billion stimulus and other government-subsidy programs don’t address the real problems of the recession.
[Morissey really hits the nail on the head and shows his understanding of economics]
The problem with the economy now is the drain of capital from the private markets, both now and especially in the future. The Obama administration has expansive dreams of big-government control of health care and energy production which will suck capital out of the private markets, where it gets used efficiently, into government bureaucracies that waste it. These massive programs are running up massive deficits, and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that taxes will get hiked in huge proportions to pay for it eventually. The result: investors put their money into savings rather than risk, jobs don’t get created, and recessions continue.
More McCain Fiengold Campaign Finance Regulations Struck Down
It seems that every time the Bi-Partisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA) also known as McCain/Fiengold gets parts of it struck down every time it goes to court and it should. BCRA is so unconstitutional that makes me ill and the courts are finally catching up with what was so painfully obvious when it was passed.
The other problem with the BCRA is that it has had exactly the opposite effect of its stated intent (Quinn’s Law # 1). BCRA exponentially increased the power of 527 groups, who are often the most ideological and the elite media.
Many 527 groups are controlled by a few key players like George Soros who end up wielding way too much influence over the DNC and elected politicians. Now these 527’s can have unlimited fund raising and run unlimited ads while political parties are still castrated by the law. This puts people like Soros in a much more powerful position than even the head of the DNC. This is why the average citizen loses. The money has been taken away from the parties and given to the hard left. Hard left moneydemands hard left policy. The average Joe can effect the party at the local level and get involved in the state and national parties and its easier to get involved than one might think. Not everyone involved in the parties is as extreme as the 527’s. There are still plenty of moderate elements even in the official Democrat machine.
This also means that every special interest will have its own 527 group to wield and threaten ads to gain more influence. Parties are under pressure to at least be directionally accurate, most 527’s don’t care about such pressure and will say anything and everything. Another problem is groups such as the Tides Foundation who take funds and route then to far left organizations so tracking the money can become more difficult.
It gives me a shudder to say this, but the old way of doing campaign finance was better.
A federal appeals court overturned hard-fought campaign finance reform regulations in a ruling on Friday that will make it easier for independent political groups to raise and spend money to influence elections.
The three-judge panel struck down regulations intended to blunt the power of such organizations, including the controversial Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and MoveOn.org, which drew heavy criticism for spending tens of millions of dollars on aggressive advertisements during the 2004 presidential campaign.
The ruling, if it stands, could provide a boost to Republicans and their allies as they try to win back Congress in 2010 and the White House in 2012. Outside conservative groups could become particularly important in countering the fundraising juggernaut of President Obama, who shattered past records by raising more than $750 million during his 2008 campaign.
Experts suggested that the court’s decision could provide a boon to groups tapping into the fervor of anti-Obama activity and “tea party” events. It will certainly allow groups across the political spectrum to raise and spend money without pause, potentially leading to a more acerbic campaign environment.
[Of course the WashPost has to make the editorial comment swipe at conservatives. They know full well that leftist 527's are much more organized and wealthy than conservative ones. Of course after that they admit that it was a left wing 527 that sued to get this done - Editor]
The groups “are now free to accept unlimited contributions, to spend unlimited funds independently supporting or opposing federal candidates,” said Richard L. Hasen, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles and an election law expert.
The decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit came in a lawsuit brought by Emily’s List, a nonprofit political organization that backs female Democratic candidates who support abortion rights.
This is the portion of the ruling that will be important in the near future:
The rules required the political committees to use hard money for at least 50 percent of their generic get-out-the-vote efforts and voter registration drives. It also compelled the organizations to use hard-money accounts to pay all costs of advertisements that referred to a federal candidate. If a group’s solicitations mentioned a specific candidate, the regulations required them to treat the donation as hard money.
Kavanaugh wrote that such rules were unconstitutional because they limited speech by political groups. The rules “do not pass muster,” he wrote, adding that they did not serve an anti-corruption purpose and had been enacted to “better equalize the voices of citizens and groups who participate in the political process.”
The BCRA rules were unconstitutional because they tried to “equalize” or dare I say redistribute political speech. This does not bode well for the Obama Administration and his FCC which are trying to come up with new rules to do the same thing to talk radio and the internet with policies such as “localism”, “net neutrality” or other policies designed to have a similar impact as the tossed out “fairness doctrine” which was selectively used to shut people up that organized groups didn’t like.
Overpaid Celebrities PSA Mocked
Don’t you hate it when celebrities who are as ignorant as they day is long try to lecture you about politics and policy? You will love this.
Government Shuts Down Neighborhood “Haunted House” That Operated Safely for 15 Years
Hey who needs tyranny from Washington when we can have it three miles away? Is this what you wanted your city officials to do?
Its no trick – the Town of Tonawanda is shutting down a haunted house and that’s no treat for Halloween lovers this October.
For 15 years, the Deck family has been scaring neighbors and trick-or-treaters at their annual haunted house. But this year, the boogey man turned out to be code enforcement. “When I came home from work, they posted a No Entry sign over my sign, that no one’s allowed to use it,” said homeowner Paul Deck.
The town posted a “Unsafe Structure” notice, which states that no one is allowed to go inside. “They want me change all my displays to the outside so people could just walk around it,” said Deck.
Deck designed this house of ghouls and ghosts with his three boys. They spent over 40 hours constructing it to be like a maze inside and he says its too late to rebuild the whole thing.
“Its approximately 1200 square feet. Its built with over 300 2×4s, 400 feet of plastic. Its got between 12-15 displays. Its got everything from Freddy, to Jason, to Hannibal Lector,” he said.
Deck’s neighbors are disappointed. This haunted house is something they look forward to every Halloween. “I think it’s a shame. The kids are really disappointed. Every year he does a great thing for the kids, they love to come, they love it, come in twice sometimes if they can,” said neighbor Scott Hummel.
NBC’s Andrea Mitchell: George Soros isn’t left wing …
Andrea Mitchell shows just how in the tank she is and that she is totally wrapped up in the beltway mentality. Any thinking person who takes a look at who Soros funds, his statements opposing freedom and capitalism, and the activities of his Orwellian named “Open Society Institute” could come to any other conclusion that Soros is at very best a super rich neo-marxist.
WASHINGTON – Even with an economic revival, many U.S. jobs lost during the recession may be gone forever and a weak employment market could linger for years.
That could add up to a “new normal” of higher joblessness and lower standards of livingfor many Americans, some economists are suggesting.
The words “it’s different this time” are always suspect. But economists and policy makers say the job-creating dynamics of previous recoveries can’t be counted on now.
Here’s why:
• The auto and construction industries helped lead the nation out of past recessions. But the carnage among Detroit’s automakers and the surplus of new and foreclosed homes and empty commercial properties make it unlikely these two industries will be engines of growth anytime soon.
• The job market is caught in a vicious circle: Without more jobs, U.S. consumers will have a hard time increasing their spending; but without that spending, businesses might see little reason to start hiring.
• Many small and midsize businesses are still struggling to obtain bank loans, impeding their expansion plans and constraining overall economic growth.
• Higher-income households are spending less because of big losses on their homes, retirement plans and other investments. Lower-income households are cutting back because they can’t borrow like they once did.
That the recovery in jobs will be long and drawn out is something on which economists and policy makers can basically agree, even as their proposals for remedies vary widely.
Retrenching businesses will be slow in hiring back or replacing workers they laid off. Many of the 7.2 million jobs the economy has shed since the recession began in December 2007 may never come back.
“This Great Recession is an inflection point for the economy in many respects. I think theunemployment rate will be permanently higher, or at least higher for the foreseeable future,” said Mark Zandi,chief economistand co-founder of Moody’sEconomy.com.
“The collective psyche has changed as a result of what we’ve been through. And we’re going to be different as a result,” said Zandi, who formerly advisedSen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and now is consulted by Democrats in the administration and in Congress,
Even before the recession, many jobs had vanished or been shipped overseas amid a general decline of U.S. manufacturing. The severest downturn since theGreat Depressionhas accelerated the process.
Many economists believe the recession reversed course in the recently ended third quarter and they predict modest growth in the nation’s gross domestic product over the next few years. Yet the unemployment rate is currently at a 26-year high of 9.8 percent — and likely to top 10 percent soon and stay there a while.
Why are people not investing in the United States? Why is manufacturing going over seas? The answer is simple, this government and some state governments have policies that punish the creation of wealth and are barriers to doing business. We have the second highest corporate income tax in the industrialized world, we have high capital gains taxes we have excessive regulation that is often designed to aid some competitors and punish others so that politicians to get kick backs. China has no capital gains tax.
The simple truth is that wealth goes where it is treated well. If I were to declare a war on wealth and prosperity I would do exactly what this government has been doing.
Government Wants a VAT tax. How Does This Hurt You?
Speaking of barriers to production and sending production jobs overseas. This tax is targeted to do exactly just that. Watch this video, its 6 minutes and you will learn a ton.
Propose Cap & Trade Tax Will Help Coastal States (Democrat strongholds) & Screw the Mid West
Speaking of sending more jobs overseas. This policy will do exactly just that.
While Congress debates the overhaul of one-sixth of the American economy with ObamaCare, another sixth of the economy looks as though it will get allocated on a political basis. The New York Times reports on an EPA analysis of emissions credits that favor mostly coastal states — mainly Democratic strongholds — at the expense of Midwestern and coal-belt states. Energy producers are up in arms, but everyone should be objecting to this rather corrupt allocation of emissions licenses.
Follow the link for the details, but Indiana will be hit especially hard.
Jack Abramoff. Remember him? The former Republican lobbyist who was sentenced to five years for unlawful campaign fundraising and influence peddling crimes. The elite media had him on the TV and front pages for months. The New York Times published 235 stories on Jack Abramoff and of course it was a page 1 story from the beginning.
So here we have Norman Hsu, ….well lets have Associated Press tell the story:
NEW YORK – Former Democratic fundraiser Norman Hsu was sentenced Tuesday to more than 24 years in prison by a judge who accused him of funding his fraud by manipulating the political process in a way that “strikes at the very core of our democracy.”
U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero sentenced the 58-year-old Hsu, who raised money for Hillary Rodham Clinton and others, to 20 years in prison for his guilty plea to fraud charges and another four years and four months in prison for his conviction at trial for breaking campaign finance laws.
In a lengthy criticism of Hsu’s fraud, the judge said the former fundraiser used political contributions to win respect and impress investors as he committed campaign finance fraud.
“Mr. Hsu’s disgraceful use of political campaigns to perpetuate his Ponzi schemes, as well as his acts of campaign finance fraud, strikes at the very core of our democracy,” Marrero said.
The judge said Hsu stole more than $50 million from hundreds of investors in a 10-year Ponzi scheme by winning their confidence with his pristine reputation and friendly nature, a two-faced quality the judge noted was common among certain white collar criminals.
Norman Hsu with Hillary
The government said at trial that Hsu used clients of his fraudulent investment business, including actors and other political novices, as straw donors to make thousands of dollars in campaign donations. The scheme bypassed rules limiting what any individual or group can donate.
During the May trial, prosecutors played a voicemail recording of Clinton, then a senator, effusively praising Hsu for his support.
“I’ve never seen anybody who has been more loyal and more effective and really just having greater success supporting someone than you,” she told him. “Everywhere I go, you’re there. If you’re not, you’re sending people to be part of my events. You know, we’re going to win this campaign, Norman, because you single-handedly are going to make that happen.”
Hmm…. so why hasn’t anyone heard of this guy? I went on Google and what did I discover? Well a 50 million dollar scandal at the highest levels of government should be big page 1 news right? After all, Abramoff only got got five years in prison and Hsu got 24. Oh I almost forgot, these are Democrats so thats ‘different’. The New York Times published all of 19 stories on Norman Hsu, none of which indicate that they were on page 1.
So I decided to do some searching on the other big fundraising scandals since 1990. Maria Hsia, another name you likely never heard, who was funneling bundled checks of illegal money of which the reported source was the Chinese Government and other Chinese interests to the Democrats, saw 22 stories in the New York Times and even managed a single page 1 mention upon her conviction.
Of course the two biggest names in illegal fundraising from Chinese interests to the Democrats are John Huang and Charlie Yah Lin Trie. Once again, unless you listened to the few talk hosts who covered this story like Quinn & Rose these are names you have likely never heard of. They raised funds for Democrats and Governor Clinton and on into his presidency. The group operated for nearly a decade.
The story was made more egregious by the fact that there were a number of policy changes that happened from Interior to Commerce that benefited the Chinese/Indonesian group including Trie and Huang. Huang was even named a Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Commerce Department. While plead down to just a few counts, Huang and Trie’s group raised over a million dollars for the DNC and the Clinton Legal Defense Fund alone. The New York Times published 97 articles on Huang and 50 on Trie.
For more details on the depth of this corruption the Senate Report on this scandal is published HERE and published a short bio on Maria Hsia HERE.
This is a valuable lesson about what stories the elite media gives a prominent position and which ones they do not. It is one of the most effective ways they assert their own ideological bias.
Here is most the news I wanted to talk about in the last three weeks while I have been sick. Of course this resulted in falling behind on school work which didn’t help either. Keep checking back as News Roundup Part II is on the way. – Editor
ACORN has asked an “Independent Panel” to do an investigation of the organization.
Well ok come to find out it is not so independent after all.
In a press release, ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis says, that as “a result of the indefensible action of a handful of our employees,” the group will immediately stop accepting anyone into ACORN office for service programs, will conduct in-service training of staff, and begin an audit “to review all of the systems and processes called into question by the videos,” to be conducted by the group’s Independent Advisory Council.
The Council includes many prominent Democrats, including the man who helped President Obama Transition Team, John Podesta, President and CEO of the Center for American Progress; former Maryland Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend; Andrew Stern, International President of the Service Employees International Union; and former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Henry Cisneros.
Hotair.com’s new blogger Karl has a few interesting details:
Cisneros, whoworked regularly with ACORNas HUD Secretary, would laterplead guilty to lying to the FBIto cover up a political embarrassment.Perfect choice. Townsend is so inependent that she called the stories of ACORN’s frequent involvement in voter fraud a“desperate smokescreen maneuver”masking an extensive coast-to-coast GOP push to disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of voters in 2008.No bias there. Stern heads SEIU, which hasa very cozy relationship with ACORN. How cozy? ACORN controls or significantly dominates several SEIU chapters. And Stern hand-picked ACORN’s Wade Rathke to direct SEIU’s nationwide organizing projects.He could not be more independent. And Podesta runs the Soros-funded Center for American Progress, which has beencoordinating the public defense of ACORN this summer.He might be even more independent than Andy Stern.
Results from a national Sacred Heart University survey released today reveal that many news consumers believe the media played a significant role in electing President Barack Obama and that the media continue to promote his presidency.
“A large majority, 89.3 percent, suggested the national media played a very or somewhat strong role in helping to elect President Obama,” according to a summary of the findings. “Just 10.0 percent suggested the national media played little or no role. Further, 69.9 percent agreed the national news media are intent on promoting the Obama presidency while 26.5 percent disagreed. Some, 3.6 percent, were unsure.”
And 86.6 percent said they believe the news media try to influence public opinion and that they have their own public policy and political positions. This compares to 87.6 percent in 2008 and 70.3 percent in 2003.
The survey, the third Sacred Heart survey of its kind, was conducted from Sept. 8-11. I am still seeking demographic information about the people who took the survey, which has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percent at the 95 percent confidence level.
Of those surveyed, 70.4 percent said they believe the national news media are not responsive to “consumer preferences and market desires.”
Congressional Research Service: Obama Wrong, Honduras Correct to Remove Zelaya
Another shocker and it is just like we told you HERE and HERE. The CRS Report is HERE.
The legal arguments made in the report, which was prepared by Senior Foreign Law Specialist Norma Gutierrez, are quite intricate and based in Honduran law. But the bottom line is this:
The Honduran Congress appears to have acted properly in deposing President Manuel Zelaya. Unlike in the United States, the Honduran Congress has the last word when it comes to interpreting the Constitution. Although there is no provision in Honduras’s Constitution for impeachment as such, the body does have powers to disapprove of the president’s official acts, and to replace him in the event that he is incapable of performing his duties. Most importantly, the Congress also has the authority to interpret exactly what that means.
The Supreme Court was legally entitled to ask the military to arrest Zelaya. The high court, which is the constitutional venue for trials of the president and other high-ranking officials, also recognized the Congress’s ouster of Zelaya when it referred his case back down to a lower court afterward, on the grounds that he was “no longer a high-ranking government official.”
The military did not act properly in forcibly expatriating Zelaya. According to the CRS report and other news stories, Honduran authorities are investigating their decision, which the military justified at the time as a means of preventing bloodshed. In fact, Zelaya should have been given a trial, and if convicted of seeking reelection, he would have lost his citizenship. But he is still a citizen now, and the Constitution forbids the expatriation of Honduran citizens by their government.
The proper line of succession was followed after Zelaya’s ouster. Because there was no Vice President in office when Zelaya was removed (he had resigned to run for president), Micheletti was the proper successor, as he had been president of the Congress.
“The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service concluded the removal of former President Zelaya was Constitutional, and we must respect that,” Rep. Aaron Schock said today. “It’s unconscionable the administration would attempt to force Honduras to violate its own Constitution by cutting of foreign aid.”
By the way Zelaya’s thugs trashed part of the capital of Honduras, but since the elite media is in the tank for Obama there was zero coverage of it. Gateway Pundit has the DETAILS.
Our ambassador is the only person I met there who thinks there was a ‘coup.’ Let’s release the State Department legal analysis.
In the last three months, much has been made of a supposed military “coup” that whisked former Honduran President Manuel Zelaya from power and the supposed chaos it has created.
After visiting Tegucigalpa last week and meeting with a cross section of leaders from Honduras’s government, business community, and civil society, I can report there is no chaos there. There is, however, chaos to spare in the Obama administration’s policy toward our poor and loyal allies in Honduras.
That policy was set in a snap decision the day Mr. Zelaya was removed from office, without a full assessment of either the facts or reliable legal analysis of the constitutional provisions at issue. Three months later, it remains in force, despite mounting evidence of its moral and legal incoherence.
While in Honduras, I spoke to dozens of Hondurans, from nonpartisan members of civil society to former Zelaya political allies, from Supreme Court judges to presidential candidates and even personal friends of Mr. Zelaya. Each relayed stories of a man changed and corrupted by power. The evidence of Mr. Zelaya’s abuses of presidential power—and his illegal attempts to rewrite the Honduran Constitution, a la Hugo Chávez—is not only overwhelming but uncontroverted.
As all strong democracies do after cleansing themselves of usurpers, Honduras has moved on.
The presidential election is on schedule for Nov. 29. Under Honduras’s one-term-limit, Mr. Zelaya could not have sought re-election anyway. Current President Roberto Micheletti—who was installed after Mr. Zelaya’s removal, per the Honduran Constitution—is not on the ballot either. The presidential candidates were nominated in primary elections almost a year ago, and all of them—including Mr. Zelaya’s former vice president—expect the elections to be free, fair and transparent, as has every Honduran election for a generation.
Indeed, the desire to move beyond the Zelaya era was almost universal in our meetings. Almost.
In a day packed with meetings, we met only one person in Honduras who opposed Mr. Zelaya’s ouster, who wishes his return, and who mystifyingly rejects the legitimacy of the November elections: U.S. Ambassador Hugo Llorens.
When I asked Ambassador Llorens why the U.S. government insists on labeling what appears to the entire country to be the constitutional removal of Mr. Zelaya a “coup,” he urged me to read the legal opinion drafted by the State Department’s top lawyer, Harold Koh. As it happens, I have asked to see Mr. Koh’s report before and since my trip, but all requests to publicly disclose it have been denied.
On the other hand, the only thorough examination of the facts to date—conducted by a senior analyst at the Law Library of Congress—confirms the legality and constitutionality of Mr. Zelaya’s ouster. (It’s on the Internet here .)
Unlike the Obama administration’s snap decision after June 28, the Law Library report is grounded in the facts of the case and the intricacies of Honduran constitutional law. So persuasive is the report that after its release, the New Republic’s James Kirchick concluded in an Oct. 3 article that President Obama’s hastily decided Honduras policy is now “a mistake in search of a rationale.”
Police association contractor charged with snooping on ‘Joe the Plumber’
Now lets have the government have all of our medical records and tax records tied together with Obamacare….
A former contractor for the Ohio Association of Chiefs of Police has been charged with rummaging through state computers to retrieve confidential information about “Joe the Plumber.”
Brett A. Gerke, 52, of 2329 Woodcreek Place on the Far North Side, is charged with attempted unauthorized use of property.
The Toledo-area resident was popularized as “Joe the Plumber” by Republican John McCain in a presidential debate the night before with Democrat Barack Obama.
Gerke was project manager in the development of the Ohio Local Law Enforcement Information Sharing Network, working on the project between 2004 and 2008 as a contractor for the police chiefs’ association.
Gerke used a test account and password he received to work on the project to search for information on Wurzelbacher and others, authorities say.
He was working as a contractor for the Ohio Department of Insurance at the time of the computer checks. Gerke’s lawyer, Joseph Scott of Columbus, would not comment on the case.
The Dispatch revealed several questionable checks of state computer systems for confidential information about Wurzelbacher after the presidential debate.
Helen Jones-Kelley, then director of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, authorized several computer checks on Wurzelbacher that the state inspector general concluded had no legal purpose.
Jones-Kelley, who was suspended by Gov. Ted Strickland after The Dispatch also revealed that she used her state e-mail account to raise campaign funds for Obama, later resigned. Two of her top aides also lost their jobs.
Government Blew Up GI Bill Program for Veterans Too
It’s not just cash for Clunkers, Medicare, Social Security, etc etc…
The U.S. government failed to send promised college tuition checks to tens of thousands of veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars before they returned to school this fall, even after being warned that it was inadequately staffed for the job.
The Veterans Affairs Department blamed a backlog of claims filed for GI Bill education benefits that has left veterans who counted on the money for tuition and books scrambling to make ends meet.
Veterans like American University student John Kamin, who received a letter Wednesday from the Army. He was hoping it contained news that his overdue GI Bill college tuition money would soon arrive. Instead, the Iraq war veteran was informed that he may be called back into active duty.
“It felt like salt in the wound,” said the 24-year-old from New York City. He is depleting his savings account and borrowing money from his parents to make up for thousands of dollars the government promised him to complete his political science degree.
“That was really disheartening,” Mr. Kamin said.
He isn’t alone. Out of more than 277,000 veterans who have filed for the college tuition benefits this semester, more than 200,000 claims have been processed and approved, but fewer than 11 percent of the veterans have received the funding, according to the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA).
The late-payments episode is the latest in a string of embarrassing cases of VA failures for the nation’s veterans.
Earlier this year, it was discovered that three VA medical centers failed to properly sterilize endoscopes, exposing 10,000 patients to infections including the HIV virus.
Last month, the agency sent letters to 600 veterans erroneously telling them they had been diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease.
Last year, the VA was embroiled in numerous scandals involving tests and medical experiments on veterans in which officials failed to follow certain standards.
For Obama American Decline is a Deliberate Choice
Charles Krauthammer’s brilliance on display once again. By the way he has a medical degree, degrees in political science and economics and is a board certified psychiatrist.
This is yet another of a very long list of sexist attacks against Sarah Palin from the elite media and the far left.
The news-Miner published an apology to Gov. Palin for calling her a broad HERE. Hotair.com rightly asks, “but an explanation of how editors signed off on the caption is also in order — and someone should be out looking for a new job”.
Journalism is it used to be is dead. Now you get more truth from some of the partisan press and at least they are honest enough to tell you that they have a point of view. We here at IUSB have an agenda to, to focus upon and highlight exactly what the elite media culture does not. Only that way can you be more fully informed.
The Power and Importance of New Media
CBS forged documents against president Bush, Monica Lewinski, Kathleeen Willey, Juanita Broaderick, Van Jones, ACORN , whats really in that House health care bill anyways; most of the big stories of our time are not broke by the elite media. They are broken by talk radio, blogs, Matt Drudge, and Fox News.
On Meet the Press this past Sunday, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman railed against internet news sources, referring to them as an “open sewer of untreated, unfiltered information.” He continued to mock new media, suggesting that the American public is incapable of deciphering between facts, fiction and opinion, when he said that modems should have a warning label from the surgeon general that reads “judgment not included.” What Mr. Friedman cannot understand is that web-based information sources like blogs, wikis and vlogs (video blogs) are the new beat reporters and investigative journalists of our time.
~snip
In a June 18, 2009, article in Forbes magazine, pollster John Zogby noted that over twice as many Americans trust internet news sources more than television, newspapers and radio. That poll came just eighteen months after a Harris Poll showed that 54 percent of Americans, in general, do not trust the press.
Veteran journalists such as Mr. Friedman want you to distrust new media. But it’s clear that the American people no longer trust the old press corps. Mainstream media’s complete disregard for the Van Jones controversy has highlighted the need for a new breed of watchdog – citizen’s journalists, as well as internet based professional news organizations that can bring back the investigative journalism prowess and objectivity that is lacking in the traditional Fourth Estate.
By the way, he is wrong about the “wikis”. Wikis claim to be public information but the truth is that ideological zealots, PR pros and law firms have managed to get in as “official” editors in the wiki’s to act as “watch dogs”. Wiki’s have become nothing but PR nonsense much of which is just plain inaccurate, but we know AT means well.
ACORN Took Tax and Charity $$$ for Poor and Transfered it to Themselves, Political Allies.
Documents released by a Senate Republican on Thursday show that leaders of the ACORN community organizing network transferred several million dollars in charitable and government money meant for the poor to arms of the group that have political and sometimes profit-making missions.
ACORN’s tax-exempt groups and allied organizations [~snip] used more than half their charitable and public money in 2006 to pay other ACORN affiliates, according to an analysis by the tax staff of Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa).
On Thursday, Grassley called the transactions a “big shell game” and said ACORN donors may be surprised by how the liberal group known for helping the poor obtain housing and health care was spending their money. He urged the Internal Revenue Service to take a closer look.
According to the Grassley report, charities “are being used to raise monies which are then funneled to other charities or to other organizations for purposes other than what the donor may have intended. . . . Dollars raised for charitable [purposes] appear to be used for impermissible lobbing and political activity.”
Fearful that they’re losing ground on immigration and health care, a group of House Democrats is pushing back and arguing that any health care bill should extend to all legal immigrants and allow illegal immigrants some access.
The Democrats, trying to stiffen their party’s spines on the contentious issue, say it’s unfair to bar illegal immigrants from paying their own way in a government-sponsored exchange. Legal immigrants, they say, regardless of how long they’ve been in the United States, should be able to get government-subsidized health care if they meet the other eligibility requirements.
State of Michigan to Mom: Stop Babysitting Neighbors Kids
IRVING TOWNSHIP, Mich. – Each day before the school bus comes to pick up the neighborhood’s children, Lisa Snyder did a favor for three of her fellow moms, welcoming their children into her home for about an hour before they left for school.
Regulators who oversee child care, however, don’t see it as charity. Days after the start of the new school year, Snyder received a letter from the Michigan Department of Human Services warning her that if she continued, she’d be violating a law aimed at the operators of unlicensed day care centers.
“I was freaked out. I was blown away,” she said. “I got on the phone immediately, called my husband, then I called all the girls” — that is, the mothers whose kids she watches — “every one of them.”
Snyder’s predicament has led to a debate in Michigan about whether a law that says no one may care for unrelated children in their home for more than four weeks each calendar year unless they are licensed day-care providers needs to be changed. It also has irked parents who say they depend on such friendly offers to help them balance work and family.
On Tuesday, agency Director Ismael Ahmed said good neighbors should be allowed to help each other ensure their children are safe. Gov. Jennifer Granholm instructed Ahmed to work with the state Legislature to change the law, he said.
Of course the problem is that a nameless, faceless, idiot bureaucrat had to sign off on this action. This is yet another example of how extremists, idiots and others who have no place wielding any power at all are attracted to government and education jobs.
One day after the Herald reported some surprised Bay State inmates – including murderers and rapists – were cashing in $250 stimulus checks, federal officials revealed the same behind-bars bonus was mailed to nearly 4,000 cons nationwide.
A federal watchdog is now probing how the cons were cut the checks. The same cash also may have been sent to fugitive felons, people kicked out of the country and even individuals now deceased.
WASHINGTON – Congress’ chief budget officer on Tuesday contradicted President Barack Obama’s oft-stated claim that seniors wouldn’t see their Medicare benefits cut under a health care overhaul.
The head of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, Douglas Elmendorf, told senators that seniors in Medicare’s managed care plans could see reduced benefits under a bill in the Finance Committee.
The bill would cut payments to the Medicare Advantage plans by more than $100 billion over 10 years.
Elmendorf said the changes “would reduce the extra benefits that would be made available to beneficiaries through Medicare Advantage plans.”
This is the key AARP angle. The number one seller of AARP medicare Advantage gap insurance is the AARP. AARP will have to raise rates to make up for the gap and more people will have to buy gap insurance due to the cut in benefits. AARP will make millions. Now you know why AARP is all for the latest health care proposals.
Hotair.com is reporting that the Senate Finance Committee Staff is saying the same thing:
SHAWN BISHOP, SENATE FINANCE COMMITTEE PROFESSIONAL STAFF MEMBER: “The $113 billion dollars is a reduction in the extra benefits, the added, additional benefits that Medicare Advantage enrollees have available to them. And those benefits come in the form of vision, dental, reduced hospital deductible. It’s unstatutory, it’s unlawful for any Medicare Advantage plan to reduce the AB covered benefit that they provide. That’s by statute. They have to provide that. They are going to have a reduction in the added benefits that they have in Medicare Advantage. So there’s a reduction in benefits but its additional extra benefits that they have above what they’re entitled to by law on the fee for service side.” (Finance Committee, U.S. Senate, Hearing, 9/22/09)
Ed Morrissey comments:
Only an idiot would conclude that $500 billion in cuts to Medicare over 10 years would mean no reduction in benefits. Webudgeted $413 billionfor this year, which makes a $50 billion “savings” target about 12% of its budget. Obama keeps talking about how efficient Medicare is compared to private health insurance, but how efficient can it be if he can slice 12% out of the budget without affecting benefits? In comparison, private health insurers spend 96.7% of all income on care and administrative costs, with only a 3.3% average profit margin.
Elmendorf is speaking not just from hard data but also common sense. Any attempt to get that level of “savings” from Medicare will necessarily cut the benefits going to its recipients. Trying to cast that as a myth is either an indication of mathematical incompetence, political dishonesty, or both. It’s also worth noting that when previous administrations attempted to cut Medicare spending by much lower amounts, Democrats would scream from the rafters about Republicans trying to steal Medicare away from seniors. In this case, the CBO confirms that Democrats have engaged inprojection.
And what happens in the media when the CBO exposes the President as a mythmaker, not a mythbuster? Well, it’s like the proverbial tree in the forest. None of the major newspapers covered the story that ObamaCare means cuts in Medicare benefits. Notone.
UPDATE (10/20/2009) – While googling about I see that Michelle Malkin has a post on the AARP rip off angle as well. I should have known that Malkin would be all over this story. As always Michelle, nice work.
Just 41% of voters nationwide now favor the health care reform proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats. That’s down two points from a week ago and the lowest level of support yet measured.
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 56% are opposed to the plan.
Senior citizens are less supportive of the plan than younger voters. In the latest survey, just 33% of seniors favor the plan while 59% are opposed. The intensity gap among seniors is significant. Only 16% of the over-65 crowd Strongly Favors the legislation while 46% are Strongly Opposed.
If the new ObamaCare bill passes it will generate two generations of Republican voters.
The shall issue mandate in current proposed legislation will cause premiums to skyrocket (details why below). Young people will not be able to afford it and as a result will be forced to opt for paying the mandated tax penalty. The penalty will still be much less than the premiums. The result, since the public option is gone, will be even more people who cannot afford health insurance, more employers who cannot afford health insurance for their employees, with both the poor, young and small employers paying higher taxes to subsidize the baby boomers.
It’s a rip off and there is a smarter way to do this.
Let’s have an honest debate before we transfer more money from young to old.
By Leavitt, Hubbard & Hennessey
Let’s start with basics: Insurance protects against the risk of something bad happening. When your house is on fire you no longer need protection against risk. You need a fireman and cash to rebuild your home. But suppose the government requires insurers to sell you fire “insurance” while your house is on fire and says you can pay the same premium as people whose houses are not on fire. The result would be that few homeowners would buy insurance until their houses were on fire.
The same could happen under health insurance reform. Here’s how: President Obama proposes to require insurers to sell policies to everyone no matter what their health status. By itself this requirement, called “guaranteed issue,” would just mean that insurers would charge predictably sick people the extremely high insurance premiums that reflect their future expected costs. But if Congress adds another requirement, called “community rating,” insurers’ ability to charge higher premiums for higher risks will be sharply limited.
Thus a healthy 25-year-old and a 55-year-old with cancer would pay nearly the same premium for a health policy. Mr. Obama and his allies emphasize the benefits for the 55-year old. But the 25-year-old, who may also have a lower income, would pay significantly more than needed to cover his expected costs.
Like the homeowner who waits until his house is on fire to buy insurance, younger, poorer, healthier workers will rationally choose to avoid paying high premiums now to subsidize insurance for someone else. After all, they can always get a policy if they get sick.
To avoid this outcome, most congressional Democrats and some Republicans would combine guaranteed issue and community rating with the requirement that all workers buy health insurance—that is, an “individual mandate.” This solves the incentive problem, and guarantees that both the healthy poor 25-year-old and the sick higher-income 55-year-old have heath insurance.
But the combination of a guaranteed issue, community rating and an individual mandate means that younger, healthier, lower-income earners would be forced to subsidize older, sicker, higher-income earners. And because these subsidies are buried within health-insurance premiums, the massive income redistribution is hidden from public view and not debated.
Mr. Leavitt, former secretary of Health and Human Services (2005-2009), has served as the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency and a governor of Utah (1993-2003). Mr. Hubbard (2005-2007) and Mr. Hennessey (2008) served as directors of the White House National Economic Council.
Polls and voting data don’t support Carter’s remarks
There is an inherent feeling among many in this country that an African-American should not be president.”
That comment comes from former President Jimmy Carter, which is fascinating considering Carter once ran for governor of Georgia proclaiming himself to be a “Lester Maddox Democrat.” (Maddox, a former Georgia governor, was an avowed segregationist who opposed integration under the Civil Rights Act.)
In fairness to President Carter, I do believe in redemption, and that people can change. But more and more people are inclined to say anyone who disagrees with Barack Obama must be racist.
J.C. Watts
It hurts me when the left and the right use race for political gain, and it depresses me further that it’s so awkward for us to talk about honestly and objectively about race. However, the implication that disagreeing with the president is racist also saddens and perplexes me.
Donna Brazile, campaign manager for Al Gore in 2000 and now a CNN analyst, nailed it when she said, “No one wins in touching race in such a shallow way. It raises defenses and creates backlash.”
The race issue blew up two weeks ago when Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., called Obama a liar on the floor of the House during the president’s address to a joint session of Congress. Although Democrats booed President Bush in that same chamber during a State of the Union a few years ago, it was still wrong for Wilson to do this.
He called the president’s chief of staff and apologized. I would have preferred he do it on the floor of the House, which is where the incident occurred.
There has always been a certain decorum in the people’s House. Boos and yelling “You lie!” are not part of that decorum.
Some try to defend one yelling “You lie!” because others boo, but two wrongs don’t make a right. Of course, we see this logic in politics from Democrats and Republicans both.
Be that as it may, was Wilson’s outburst racist? The congressman said it was not, so I take him at his word, and the opposition we’ve seen to the president’s agenda would not equate to racism based on the data released in the last year.
– President Obama did not get the majority of the white vote in 2008. Is that evidence of racism? No. This has been the case with Democrat candidates for years, including President Carter.
– President Obama did slightly better with the white vote in 2008 than John Kerry did in 2004.
– Before President Obama proposed a government takeover of the health care system, his approval rating with white voters was 57 percent.
– Between Election Day and the launch of Democrats’ health insurance reform efforts, President Obama did well with independent voters. But he has lost about 18 points with this demographic in the past two months. Most of these independent voters are white.
The data simply do not support President Carter’s claim.
Are there some people who didn’t vote for Obama because he’s black? Certainly. Just as there were some who opposed John McCain because he is white.
There are people of all colors who believe it is wrong for the government to take over our health care system.
There are people of all colors who believe we will have no choice but to ration health care when we put between 35 million and 40 million more people in the system but yet have the same number of doctors.
There are people of all colors who believe we already ration care through Medicare and Medicaid.
There are people of every color who believe it is bad economic policy to raise taxes, especially in a weak economy.
I would remind you that in the last two years of the Bush administration, conservatives were taking shots at President Bush for all his profligate spending, and it was never framed in terms other than “Republicans are mad at Bush for all the spending.”
How inconsistent that the media loved disgruntled conservatives being disenchanted with Bush, but abhor criticism of President Obama.
There are people of all colors who believe we are literally mortgaging our children’s futures with this spending spree. These people would have felt the same with if it were President Hillary Clinton, Kerry, Bill Richardson or any other president proposing the nationalization of 16 percent of our economy and spending like there’s no tomorrow.
Ironically, I wonder how President Carter would view things if it were President Clarence Thomas proposing tax relief, protection for the unborn, raising the troop levels in Afghanistan or exploring for oil right here in the United States.
As Arsenio Hall used to say, “It’s something that makes you say ‘Hmmm.’ “
J.C. Watts (JCWatts01@jcwatts.com) is chairman of J.C. Watts Companies, a business consulting group. He is former chairman of the Republican Conference of the U.S. House, where he served as an Oklahoma representative from 1995 to 2002. He writes for the Review-Journal twice monthly.
Yes she really said this. So does this mean that we don’t have to do our homework any more and we can still get an A because telling me I need to take personal responsibility makes you a racist…..
Melissa Harris-Lacewell, professor of African-American studies at Princeton, was invited on to National Public Radio to expound on the use of “racial code words” in “the current opposition to health care reform.” For example, explained professor Harris-Lacewell, “language of personal responsibility is often a code language used against poor and minority communities.”
Mark Steyn responds:
“Personal responsibility” is racial code language? Phew, thank goodness America is belatedly joining Canada and Europe in all but abolishing the concept.
Mark Steyn
“Code language” is code language for “total bollocks” [eg total bullcrap - Editor]“Code word” is a code word for “I’m inventing what you really meant to say because the actual quote doesn’t quite do the job for me.”“Small government”? Racist code words! “Non-confiscatory taxes”? Likewise. “Individual liberty”? Don’t even go there! To an incisive NPR racism analyst, the elderly gentleman telling his congressman “I’m very concerned by what I’ve heard about wait times for MRIs in Canada” is really saying “I’m unable to overcome my deep-seated racial anxieties about the sexual prowess of black males, especially now they’re giving prime-time press conferences every night.” With interpreters like professor Harris-Lacewell on the prowl, I’m confident 95 percent of Webster’s will eventually be ruled “code language.”
My colleague at America’s National Review, Jonah Goldberg, proposed a simple thought experiment: suppose Hillary Clinton had won the election and proposed the current health care reforms. Does anyone doubt that conservatives would be equally opposed to it? Would that, too, be “racist”? A reader wrote back: no, if they were opposing Hillary’s health plan, they’d be sexist. Er, okay, how about John Edwards? Would opposing his health care reforms be oleaginous trial-lawyer creepy adulterer-phobic?
Prof. Lacewell majored in English….what a shock. This far left propagandist should consider herself most fortunate that she doesn’t find me in her class because I would have a ball exposing her nonsense in front of the students daily. I would love to debate this professor. I have debated other professors and handily bested them all and for most of them it was on topics in their own field of study. The simple truth is that most far left professors are creatures of indoctrination and are in essence half educated nitwits. They are not disciplined thinkers and they lack almost any sense of introspective so defeating them isn’t tough. I realize that this is a sweeping statement but unfortunately it is a sweeping statement that matches a pattern of behavoir that fits far left academia like a glove.
President Obama’s diversity czar at the Federal Communications Commission has spoken publicly of getting white media executives to “step down” in favor of minorities, prescribed policies to make liberal talk radio more successful, and described Hugo Chavez’s rise to power in Venezuela “an incredible revolution.”
Mark Lloyd’s provocative comments – most made during a tenure at the liberal Center for American Progress think tank – are giving fodder to critics who say Mr. Obama has appointed too many “czars” to government positions that don’t require congressional approval. They are also worrying to some conservatives who fear the FCC might use its powers to remove their competitive advantage on talk radio and television.
Many of the remarks have been unearthed by conservative-leaning writers and bloggers and discussed on cable television amid a broader critique of Mr. Obama’s penchant for czars that exploded with the ouster this month of “green jobs czar” Van Jones.
In one of his more eye-opening comments, Mr. Lloyd praised Mr. Chavez during a June 2008 conference on media reform, saying the authoritarian Venezuelan president had led “really an incredible revolution – a democratic revolution.”
~
At another conference, Mr. Lloyd spoke about the need to remove white people from powerful positions in the media to give minorities a fairer chance.
“There’s nothing more difficult than this because we have really truly, good, white people in important positions, and the fact of the matter is that there are a limited number of those positions,” he said.
“And unless we are conscious of the need to have more people of color, gays, other people in those positions, we will not change the problem. But we’re in a position where you have to say who is going to step down so someone else can have power.”
He added: “There are few things, I think, more frightening in the American mind than dark-skinned black men. Here I am.”
Andrew Breitbart published the audio of the conference on his Breitbart.com Web site on Monday. Mr. Breitbart said the recording was made during a conference on media reform and racial justice in May 2005.
David Horowitz is a former marxist radical and turned conservative civil rights activist. He has written so many books that I have lost count. David Horowitz is a man who knows where the “bodies are buried” as it were and knows how leftist organizations help each other launder tax and charity money for political purposes. Horowitz has a site where he tracks the organizations and the people who run them on his site called “Discover the Networks”.
[Editor's Note - for the "if you oppose leftist policy you must be a racist" crowd. David Horowitz marched with Dr. Martin Luther King and faced the dogs and fire hoses when standing up for equal rights under the law wasn't considered cool.]
Horowitz has partnered with Beck and together they have proved to be the most effective at exposing the most extreme (and I mean really far out extreme that even leaves most partisan democrats scratching their heads) elements of the administration.
The pattern with Beck has been the following; Beck announces that he has learned something new, it could be Van Jones or ACORN or Tides Foundation, he is ridiculed by the elite media and the left as a nutty conspiracy theorist, then Beck is proved correct and Van Jones resigns or the Senate pulls ACORN’s funding etc and the circle starts all over again.
Rarely do we quote an entire article, but in this case we made a rare exception for the following reasons:
1. This information is SO important and so educational that it merits bringing it all to you IU South Bend readers and the nearly 40,000 others who come to us for news analysis.
2. You will notice that the text is filled with links to evidence/information that you can check and see for yourself. It really shows off the degree of intelligence gathering that has been done by the Horowitz organization.
3. If one were to read this article and its associated links the education conferred would be better than two semesters of political science classes.
Poligazette Editor Michael van der Galien comments at Hotair.com:
John convinced me today that Beck should not merely be tolerated by conservatives but publicly celebrated.
Although there is more in John’s post – much more even – the main point can be summarized in one short sentence: without Beck, the Obama administration would not have had to deal with any controversies.
Without Beck the far left would not have been exposed.
Many would undoubtedly have liked it to be different but the FrontPageMag editor is right. Beck is the only national figure willing to take on the extreme left and to prove that Obama has ties to them and may even be one of them.
That’s it; it is time for conservatives to stop criticizing Beck and to give him credit for helping the conservative movement take on the most progressive individuals ever to be in charge of the most powerful country on earth.
John Perazzo posted this awesome piece at David Horiwitz’ blog site and it is taking the blogosphere by storm:
In recent weeks, Glenn Beck has elevated political/news television to an entirely new level. Without fealty to any particular party, he is shining a light into the dark corners of a political cesspool that has been hidden for too long. He is taking the esoteric and making it accessible; taking the complex and making it simple. The result: Millions of Americans are waking up and beginning to understand, often for the first time, exactly what the left is all about. At the David Horowitz Freedom Center, we’re honored that one of the most vital resources from which Beck draws information that is presented on his program is our online encyclopedia of the left at www.DiscoverTheNetworks.org. It was our hope that by putting the networks, funders and covert agendas of the left up on the Web, we would awaken Americans to the internal threat to their freedoms from the legions of what is misnamed the “progressive” left. (In fact they are reactionaries and closet totalitarians who want to re-run the discredited socialist scripts of the past.) Since we launched DiscoverTheNetworks in February 2005, more than 20 million people have visited the site. But Glenn Beck is reaching over half that number of Americans every single day.
A thorough researcher who does plenty of homework in preparation for his program, Beck has perhaps done more than any other broadcaster to make Americans keenly aware of so many vital facts that few others in the media have ever even mentioned. For instance, he has stressed the immense significance of Saul Alinsky, the late godfather of radical “community organizing” — and probably the single most formative tactical influence on Barack Obama during his years as a political neophyte.
Beck also has done a magnificent job of bringing to light the vitally important, though not widely understood, Cloward-Piven strategy — a key tactic of the left.
First proposed in 1966 and named after Columbia University sociologists Richard Andrew Cloward and Frances Fox Piven, this strategy seeks to hasten the fall of capitalism by overloading the government bureaucracy with a flood of impossible demands. Though undertaken ostensibly to protect the “rights” of the “poor” and the “working-class,” the strategy’s ultimate objective is to thrust society into a political and financial crisis that will cause people to lose all faith in the existing system (capitalism), and to follow the lead of a self-assured, charismatic “community organizer” to a socialist alternative. Again, DiscoverTheNetworks has proved to be a vital resource for Beck; no source, anywhere, has laid bare the principles of Cloward-Piven with greater clarity than DiscoverTheNetworks.
[IUSB Vision Editor's Note: I have taken the time to examine some of Francis Fox Piven's lectures and writings. It was rather disturbing to explore the mind of one who I can only describe and genuinely evil. Piven takes leftist hate and envy to a level higher than I am used to experiencing among leftist academics.]
Cloward-Piven, of course, dovetails seamlessly with ACORN, an Alinskyite organization with a long history of attempting to stress American institutions to their breaking point. In its early days, ACORN members invaded welfare offices across the United States — often violently — bullying social workers and loudly demanding every last cent to which the law ostensibly “entitled” them – all in an effort to overwhelm the welfare system and spark an economic crisis. More recently, ACORN’s malign ambitions have focused on trying to overwhelm our electoral system by means of a voter-fraud campaign of unprecedented magnitude. And, on yet another front, ACORN worked long and hard, and with much success, to help bring about the collapse of the housing market — by aggressively pushing banks to extend credit to undercapitalized, high-risk borrowers in low-income, mostly-minority areas. Beck and DiscoverTheNetworks have been pointing this out for a long time.
Through it all, DiscoverTheNetworks has been a vital resource upon which Beck has drawn. His recognition of the value of the information in DiscoverTheNetworks, coupled with his unwavering commitment to truth – wherever it may lead – will go a long way toward waking up the American people to the corrosive agendas of the left.
Former U.S. vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, criticized for her lack of foreign policy experience, emerged in Asia on Wednesday to share her views from “Main Street U.S.A” with a group of high-flying global investors.
In her first trip to the region, the former Alaska governor addressed an annual conference of investors in Hong Kong in what was billed as a wide-ranging talk about governance, economics and U.S and Asian affairs.
“I’m going to call it like I see it and I will share with you candidly a view right from Main Street, Main Street U.S.A.,” Palin told a room full of asset managers and other finance professionals, according to a video of part of the speech obtained by The Associated Press. “And how perhaps my view of Main Street … how that affects you and your business.”
Palin started off her keynote — which was closed to reporters — with a light talk about the links between her state and the southern Chinese territory, then touched later on economic issues and China.
One attendee said she called on China to be a more responsible global citizen, allow greater freedoms and take a more active role in solving pressing world issues.
She also criticized the U.S. Federal Reserve’s massive intervention in the economy over the last year, arguing its actions only exacerbated the crisis, according to another attendee. She also praised the conservative economic policies of former U.S. President Ronald Reagan and former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
Earlier, she talked of Alaska’s salmon exports and complimented Hong Kong as a “beautiful city,” according to a third attendee. All three people spoke on condition of anonymity, because they did not want to be seen as speaking on behalf of their companies.
Former Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin used her first trip to Asia to attack the Federal Reserve for creating asset bubbles and encouraging excessive risk-taking that hurt working-class Americans.
In a wide-ranging, 80-minute speech to fund managers in Hong Kong today, Palin spoke about issues ranging from Alaskan fishing to energy independence to U.S.-Sino ties. She repeated calls for “market-oriented” health-care reform and said governments shouldn’t regulate executive compensation.
The Fed and the government sent a message to companies that “the bigger that you are, the more problems that you get yourself into, the more likely the government is to bail you out,” Palin said in the closed door speech, according to a tape of the event given to Bloomberg News. “Of course the little guys are left out then. We’re left holding the bag, all the moms and pops all over America.”
The speech was Palin’s first major public appearance since quitting as Alaska governor on July 26, less than a year after she ran with John McCain in an unsuccessful campaign against now-President Barack Obama. People at the event said she focused on a wide range of global and domestic issues rather than her own political future.
“She was brilliant,” said a European delegate, on condition of anonymity.
“She said America was spending a lot of money and it was a temporary solution. Normal people are having to pay more and more but things don’t get better. The rich will leave the country and the poor will get poorer.”
Two US delegates left early, with one saying “it was awful, we couldn’t stand it any longer”. He declined to be identified.
This was a foreign policy and economics speech so it is the foreign reaction that counts, but it should be no surprise that the only people who had something bad to say were from the United States. One can just feel the vitriol from the American quote. Many people have such an emotional connection with Barack Obama that they cannot stand to hear any critique of him. This is something I have seen first hand. One should NEVER make an emotional attachment to a candidate or a politician ever. The emotional connection will blind you. The polls make it crystal clear that the independent/cross pressured voters have turned against Obama’s policies, but for those partisans with such a strong emotional investment it is going to take a lot more damage to get them to open their eyes fully. Even the NY Times gave her presentation a good review.
Just as we predicted. The main reason that Hugo Chavez has promised to export gasoline to Iran in spite of any sanctions was in trade for assistance in its own nuclear weapons program.
Unfortunately when you launch your great foreign policy crusade with an apology tour and give up missile defense systems in Alaska and eastern Europe for no reason the bad guys know the cat is away so its time to play.
PORLAMAR, Venezuela – Iran is helping to detect uranium deposits in Venezuela and initial evaluations suggest reserves are significant, President Hugo Chavez’s government said Friday.
Mining Minister Rodolfo Sanz said Iran has been assisting Venezuela with geophysical survey flights and geochemical analysis of the deposits, and that evaluations “indicate the existence of uranium in western parts of the country and in Santa Elena de Uairen,” in southeastern Bolivar state.
“We could have important reserves of uranium,” Sanz told reporters upon arrival on Venezuela’s Margarita Island for a weekend Africa-South America summit. He added that efforts to certify the reserves could begin within the next three years.
The announcement came as revelations that Iran has secretly been building a uranium-enrichment plant provoke concerns among countries including the U.S., Russia, France, Britain, Germany and China.
Update - Just as we feared, Russia is helping Chavez as well.
PORLAMAR, Venezuela – Venezuela’s science and technology minister said his country is working with Russia to detect deposits of uranium but withdrew an earlier denial that the country was also working with Iran.
Jesse Chacon originally denied the reports that Venezuela is receiving support from Iran to seek uranium, but clarified later Saturday that his comments were only in regard to Russia and that exploration efforts with Iran fall under the direction of Venezuela’s Mining Ministry.
Mining Minister Rodolfo Sanz said Friday Iran is helping Venezuela to detect uranium deposits and that initial evaluations suggest reserves are significant. His announcement was made the same day world leaders criticized the Islamic republic for secretly building a uranium-enrichment plant that could be used to make an atomic bomb.
Sanz declined to respond to reporters when questioned Saturday about Chacon’s remarks. President Hugo Chavez said only that Venezuela “has a lot of uranium.”
Talk Host Michael Savage says that Obama maybe naive but he isn’t stupid and hopes that he will change when he realizes that our enemies, who he always thought were just misunderstood, are playing him for a sucker:
Americans are broadly satisfied with the quality of their own medical care and healthcare costs, but of the two, satisfaction with costs lags. Overall, 80% are satisfied with the quality of medical care available to them, including 39% who are very satisfied. Sixty-one percent are satisfied with the cost of their medical care, including 20% who are very satisfied.
The 15% who are uninsured are far less satisfied with the quality of their medical care (50% are satisfied), and only 27% are satisfied with their healthcare costs. (Sixty-nine percent are dissatisfied with their costs.)
So let that last statement sink in. Even the majority of uninsured are satisfied with the level of care they receive. They are far more worried about the costs and that is understandable because their out-of-pocket expense is much higher than someone with insurance which brings us to another problem. If people have the attitude of “heck with it the insurance or the government will pay for it” that is exactly a primary reason why medical inflation is too high.
People without insurance are more likely to shop for the best deal, if we had medical savings accounts the opening expenses of those with health insurance would be controlled directly by the customer and they would want a good deal too which would help drive down medical costs, fraud, waste and abuse.
