Promises, Promises

It seems that every blogger on Earth is responding to the news that the Obama Administration is considering opening offshore drilling areas. near Alaska, in the Gulf of Mexico, and along part of the East Coast.

Predictably, most bloggers on the right find this to be welcoming news and a vindication of the GOP's energy policies, while the eco-left is whipping itself into a lather of outrage and indignation... which isn't really news, since they'll go nuclear when the barista gets their order wrong.

Among all the wailing and high-fiving, I think only Dan Riehl has it figured out.

This is nothing.

It is an empty promise of what could be if the Interior Department at some date in the distant future deems it acceptable. It says so right here:

But as a result of the Obama decision, the Interior Department will spend several years conducting geologic and environmental studies along the rest of the southern and central Atlantic Seaboard. If a tract is deemed suitable for development, it is listed for sale in a competitive bidding system. The next lease sales — if any are authorized by the Interior Department — would not be held before 2012.

It's a fake concession, designed to buy Democrats a chance at avoiding a total collapse in November, and perhaps for his 2012 Presidential run.

To borrow from the Bard:

...it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

Great Job Clearing The Crime Scene, Guys

I'm glad that law enforcement was able to take down the Hutaree cult without shots being fired, but as with the Waco raid, there is good reason to question to question whether how they executed the raids were in the best interests of public safety (which, coincidentally, is the subject of an article I'm writing for Pajamas Media).

But now I'm concerned that they did a less than stellar job of securing the crime scene, thanks to this line in a Wall Street Journal report.

The Hutaree appears based at Mr. Stone's home, a pair of dilapidated house trailers near the intersection of dirt roads in rural Clayton, Michigan—population 303—about 85 miles southwest of Detroit. The yard this week held three cars, a dog house, debris and a gun leaning on an old washing machine. [my emphasis--ed.]

I'm going to give the writers the benefit of the doubt and suggest they can tell a firearm from a length of pipe. If they are, what does that say about the ability of the authorities to seal a crime scene? More importantly, if they are unable to secure weapons laying in public view in plain sight, can we trust that they have done a thorough job sweeping the area for hidden munitions, such as the kind of IEDs the Hutaree were presumably planning to use in the crimes they are alleged of plotting?

FBI Had Agent Inside Hutaree Cult

Thomas William Piatek should be able to provide solid, first-hand evidence of the Hutaree plot to kill police officers in hopes of triggering a civil war, which means the prosecutors should have solid case that will keep these folks behind bars (or attached to a needle) where they belong.

Hope, Change, and $300-$500 More a Year in Taxes

I wonder just how much young liberals are going to like it once they figure out that it is going to be their money that is going to be redistributed.

Beginning in 2014, most Americans will be required to buy insurance or pay a tax penalty. That's when premiums for young adults seeking coverage on the individual market would likely climb by 17 percent on average, or roughly $42 a month, according to an analysis of the plan conducted for The Associated Press. The analysis did not factor in tax credits to help offset the increase.

The higher costs will pinch many people in their 20s and early 30s who are struggling to start or advance their careers with the highest unemployment rate in 26 years.

It's real easy to be a liberal when you're still sponging off mom and dad. Once you start paying your own bills, and see the government leaching away the fruits of your hard work to provide for others that can't (or more infuriatingly, won't), then socialism loses its shine.

An Impassioned Defense From the Incompetence-Based Community

There is a deep and abiding hatred for mom and pop America on the political left, an anger born out most vividly on the op-ed pages of the New York Times and Washington Post by writers unable to tolerate the fact that most Americans remain opposed to the heath care rationing bill rammed through Congress by the bribery, threats, and coercion of the Democrat Party.

The most recent manifestation of that hatred is Eugene Robinson's latest outburst in the Washington Post, where the writer attempts to claim that the fetid swamp in which he wallows is actually high ground.

But for the most part, far-left violence in this country has gone the way of the leisure suit and the AMC Gremlin. An anti-globalization movement, including a few window-smashing anarchists, was gaining traction at one point, but it quickly diminished after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. An environmental group and an animal-rights group have been linked with incidents of arson. Beyond those particulars, it is hard to identify any kind of leftist threat.

By contrast, there has been explosive growth among far-right, militia-type groups that identify themselves as white supremacists, "constitutionalists," tax protesters and religious soldiers determined to kill people to uphold "Christian" values. Most of the groups that posed a real danger, as the Hutaree allegedly did, have been infiltrated and dismantled by authorities before they could do any damage. But we should never forget that the worst act of domestic terrorism ever committed in this country was authored by a member of the government-hating right wing: Timothy McVeigh's bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City.

It is dishonest for right-wing commentators to insist on an equivalence that does not exist. The danger of political violence in this country comes overwhelmingly from one direction -- the right, not the left. The vitriolic, anti-government hate speech that is spewed on talk radio every day -- and, quite regularly, at Tea Party rallies -- is calibrated not to inform but to incite.

Like all members of the community-based reality, Robinson is blind to the constant incitements to violence from the political left, and purposefully mute when those calls for violence bear fruit.

Like all lefties, he reflexively cites McVeigh's horrific attack in Oklahoma City, utterly ignoring the fact that the attack on the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building is only the worst domestic terrorist attack because President Obama's long-time mentor Bill Ayers was incompetent. Ayer and his wife Bernadine Dohrn, the co-hosts of Obama's first fundraiser, were part of a bomb-happy leftist radical group that failed in their most violent attempts. One was an attempt to bomb a police station across from a crowded diner. An even more ambitious attack to destroy a dance at Fort Dix was thwarted only because Ayer's girlfriend and her fellow left wing terrorists prematurely detonated themselves with the bombs they were building in the basement of a Greenwich Village townhouse instead.

When left-wing Indymedia writer Andrew Mickel ambushed and killed Red Bluff Police Officer David Mobilio as he sat in his car on November 19, 2002, he did so for the exact same reasons that authorities attribute to the Hutaree. Mickel was trying to start a civil war as well, one that he hoped his fellow socialists and communists would support.

"Hello Everyone, my name's Andy. I killed a Police Officer in Red Bluff, California in a motion to bring attention to, and halt, the police-state tactics that have come to be used throughout our country. Now I'm coming forward, to explain that this killing was also an action against corporate irresponsibility."

Mickel now sits on death row, and the solitary Washington Post story that tells his sad tale is one of the few references to his crime that can be found in a media that refuses to admit that left-wing calls to violence and savage paranoia are routine. And Mickel's violence is hardly isolated.

Carlos Hartmann, a radical liberal from Michigan, was so incensed by the Netherlands supporting the Iraq war that he traveled there with the express intent of murdering Dutch or American soldiers. Unable to find a suitable military target for his rage, this deranged liberal did the unconscionable, and brutally slayed a Dutch student with an axe at the Roosendaal trains station. That story, like Mickel's, was all but buried by an American media with a vested interest in down-playing the violence committed by their co-conspirators.

And the left-wing violence continues, unabated.

A middle-aged MoveOn.Org radical bit the finger off of a senior citizen he provoked a fight with, and remains at large. Thugs belonging to labor unions loyal to the President have beaten up and intimidated numerous protesters, and some of those thugs await trial. A three-time cancer survivor was assaulted by an Obama supporter just three days ago. And of course, two-time Obama campaign contributor and Jew-hating loon Norman Leboon was just arrested for death threats leveled at Republican Eric Cantor and his family.

The left is awash in a sea of blood and threats. It always has been, and always will be. Such must be the mindset of those who champion the supremacy of state over the rights of the individual. The only thing surprising is that more don't call Robinson and his ilk on their lies.

It's Always Nutty in Philadelphia

An arrest has been made in one of the cases of nutjobs threatening Republican Congressman Eric Cantor. This guy seems like a real winner.

Michelle Malkin has all the details, including pictures of the suspect, one Norman Leboon, who claims to be the 12th imam when he's not threatening American Jews.

Oh... and he's apparently a two-time Obama donor.

Hutaree Plot Revealed

If the allegations are true, this was one nasty little cult:

The indictment claims that the Hutaree planned to kill an unidentified member of local law enforcement and then attack the law enforcement officers who gather in Michigan for the funeral. According to the plan, the Hutaree would attack law enforcement vehicles during the funeral procession with improvised explosive devices rigged with projectiles, which constitute weapons of mass destruction, according to the announcement by U.S. Attorney Barbara L. McQuade.

"Because the Hutaree had planned a covert reconnaissance operation for April which had the potential of placing an unsuspecting member of the public at risk, the safety of the public and of the law enforcement community demanded intervention at this time," McQuade said in the announcement. "Hutaree members view local, state, and federal law enforcement as the 'brotherhood,' their enemy, and have been preparing to engage them in armed conflict."

The alleged plot is one spawned of a vicious mind. When a police officer dies in the line of duty, the funeral typically consists of dozens of officers, and often includes representatives of local law enforcement agencies from around the region, federal and state law enforcement, and local and state authorities in addition to grieving family members and friends.

The slow-moving procession would be an easy target for IEDs, and it would not be surprising if it is revealed that the group planned to lie in wait with the intention of ambushing police and rescue units responding to the initial attack.

If the attacking force were sufficiently competent, they could easily kill dozens in such a scenario.

Update: According to the NY Times a total of nine co-conspirators were charged, and the charges include sedition.

I do take issue with the claim made by the Detroit FBI SAIC:

"This is an example of radical and extremist fringe groups which can be found throughout our society," Andrew Arena, Federal Bureau of Investigation Special Agent in Charge in Detroit, said in a statement. "The F.B.I. takes such extremist groups seriously, especially those who would target innocent citizens and the law enforcement officers who protect the citizens of the United States."

There are groups like these throughout society? Really?

If that is the case, we would have already had attacks such as those the Hutaree envisioned, or at least similar arrests. As we have neither, it strongly suggests that Andrew Arena, Federal Bureau of Investigation Special Agent in Charge in Detroit, is full of crap.

The article also sheds light on more details of the attack that the cult had been plotting:

The indictment charged that between August 2008 and the present, the defendants — led by David Brian Stone, 45, who also used the name "Captain Hutaree" — developed a conspiracy that they hoped would result in a war against the United States government. They allegedly decided they would kill a local law enforcement officer, and then bomb the funeral caravan. The killings "would intimidate and demoralize law enforcement diminishing their ranks and rendering them ineffective," it said.

Afterward, the indictment said, Hutaree members would retreat to several "rally points" and wage war against the government, using prepared fighting positions as well as "trip-wired and command-detonated" bombs.

"It is believed by the Hutaree that this engagement would then serve as a catalyst for a more wide-spread uprising against the government," the indictment said.

Mr. Stone used the Internet to obtain diagrams of "explosively formed projectiles," a particularly lethal form of roadside bombs responsible for many deaths of United States soldiers in Iraq, the indictment says.

AP Sources: Hutaree Militia Were Plotting to Kill Cops?

Such is the claim, but does it really make sense?

People familiar with the case against seven suspects arrested by the FBI this weekend say the case revolves around a plot to kill police officers.

Two law enforcement officials tell The Associated Press that members of the group in the Midwest had planned multiple attacks on police officers or other law enforcement personnel as a way of acting out their hatred for the government.

From what I've read of the Hutaree and similar groups, they see the federal government as their enemies. They tend to champion local and state governments having more authority. Members of this same cult recently helped a nearby militia conduct search and rescue operations at the request of local law enforcement. This claims doesn't seem to make sense.

Another theory postulates that the group was plotting to attack Muslims, though there has been precisely zero evidence of that displayed, either.

The seven Hutaree arrested over the course of the weekend have a court appearance scheduled for later today. Perhaps then we can find out precisely what they were arrested for, and whether or not federal law enforcement was justified in such a massive display of manpower for so few suspects.

An identically-sized domestic terrorist cell was successfully apprehended in Willow Springs, NC without the massive show of force authorities used in this tri-state raid. Both groups were religious extremists with large caches of weapons intent on holy war.

So why were their arrests so radically different?

Some have posited that perhaps federal authorities were attempting to provoke a response from other militias known to be active in the area. Until there is some explanation by authorities as to why such a greater show of force was warranted in this more recent arrest, we have no way of proving these theories wrong.

FBI Arrests Seven in Bomb-Making Raids

The media and blogosphere have been all over the map on this one. Last night federal agents conducted raids in three states, apparently targeting a small end-times religious cult called the Hutaree. According to Fox News, the raids were carried out to arrest those suspected of manufacturing and selling pipe bombs. If true, then yeah, arresting those involved was a good idea.

I'm just glad the raids were executed without anyone targeted being killed.

Federal law enforcement has a rather dismal record (to put it mildly) of botching raids on armed religious cults, and timing the raid during the current political crisis means that any gunplay could have caused the militia-saturated region to quickly escalate into bloody skirmishing between militiamen and federal authorities. It was a bad tactical decision, that could have ended badly for everyone.

I question the wisdom of using such heavy forces (including armored vehicles and helicopters according to witness reports), when light, fast and quiet raids would have been at least as effective.

More than the timing, I question the leadership.

Off Target

Has Josh Sugarmann of the Violence Policy Center ever been right?

Harry Reid's Last, Best Hope Facing Felony Charges

It is really difficult to con people into thinking you represent their values and siphon off their votes when you're sitting in prison. Unless you're a Congressman's wife.

But we're talking about fake Tea Party Senate candidate Scott Ashjian, who doesn't look like he'll be politically viable.

Sorry, Harry.

A Nevada asphalt contractor who faces a legal challenge to his Tea Party of Nevada candidacy for U.S. Senate was hit Friday with felony theft and bad check charges in Las Vegas that allege he bounced a $5,000 business check last year. Scott Ashjian is one of a record 22 candidates, including 12 Republicans, running for the seat held by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who is seeking a fifth term.

Bernie Zadrowski, head of the Clark County district attorney's office bad check unit, said he would seek an arrest warrant Monday in Las Vegas Justice Court. Ashjian could face up to 14 years in state prison if convicted.

The tea party movement is a disparate coalition of conservative groups angered by federal spending, rising taxes and the growth and reach of government. Other tea party activists have been distancing themselves from Ashjian, and an ad targeting him has been sponsored by the Tea Party Express, one of the most visible factions of the national tea party movement.

The Tea Party of Nevada is a fake grassroots organization led by a Democratic lawyer and conspiracy theorists that hoped to split away enough Republican votes to give Harry Reid a chance of remaining in office.

It doesn't appear that strategy is going to work.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

I don't have the vocabulary to describe how reprehensible this is:

Mark Duren told News 2 the incident happened around 4:30p.m., while he was driving on Blair Boulevard, not far from Belmont University.

He said Harry Weisiger gave him the bird and rammed into his vehicle, after noticing an Obama-Biden sticker on his car bumper.

We all get angry at politicians (if you didn't, you wouldn't be reading political blogs), but attacking a stranger on the street over something as innocuous as a campaign bumper sticker is not just criminal, it crosses the line into insanity.

The attacker, a retired real estate developer named Harry Weisiger, is charged with felony reckless endangerment. I think the district attorney would get bipartisan support if the charges were upgraded to two counts of attempted murder.

Update:Weisiger's wife died of brain cancer just over a month ago.

It certainly doesn't do anything to absolve or mitigate his assault, but does it provide a hint of a motive?

Krugman Almost Gets One Right

The old Southern aphorism "Even a blind hog can find an acorn every one in a while" is analogous to cliche of broken clock being right twice a day. It seems in his latest dim rant, blind hog Paul Krugman actually did manage to stumble into making a relevant comment, even if it wasn't intentional:

...if you care about America's future, you can't be happy as extremists take full control of one of our two great political parties.

Amen, Mr. Krugman!

Conservatives have been saying that for the better part of a year as we've watched the destructive policies and corrupt deal-making of the Progressive wing of the Democratic party set the nation on a path toward economic ruin, all to satiate their childish dreams of "economic justice." Leftists—and their economists—refuse to face the fact that true economic justice is best served by capitalism, where justice is derived in free markets as higher value and in demand products succeed, while those that are obsolete or substandard fail.

But Krugman isn't talking about economics, which is good, considering how little he actually knows about the subject (much like the raft of university professors who teach business classes even as they've failed in the market themselves).

No, our smug Times editorialist valiantly takes up the fight against his favorite opponent, the strawman.

What has been really striking has been the eliminationist rhetoric of the G.O.P., coming not from some radical fringe but from the party's leaders. John Boehner, the House minority leader, declared that the passage of health reform was "Armageddon." The Republican National Committee put out a fund-raising appeal that included a picture of Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House, surrounded by flames, while the committee’s chairman declared that it was time to put Ms. Pelosi on "the firing line." And Sarah Palin put out a map literally putting Democratic lawmakers in the cross hairs of a rifle sight.

All of this goes far beyond politics as usual. Democrats had a lot of harsh things to say about former President George W. Bush — but you'll search in vain for anything comparably menacing, anything that even hinted at an appeal to violence, from members of Congress, let alone senior party officials.

No, to find anything like what we're seeing now you have to go back to the last time a Democrat was president.

Krugman's mock collapse onto the fainting couch is imminent.

Help! Help! Republicans are using literary devices!

No sane or sober person could equate metaphors used with enticing violence, but Krugman struggles mightily to make the non-existent connection.

No, if we want to take an honest look at descents into violent threats and fantasy, we merely need to watch how rank-and-file liberals have acted over the past eight years. You can and should include the murder committed by radical leftists like Andrew Mickel in the left's bloody tally. The Indymedia journalist turned death row resident assassinated a police officer in hopes of triggers a war against capitalism in 2002. Somehow, I don't think we can blame Sarah Palin for that.

Liberal Carlos Hartmann of Michigan was so outraged that the Netherlands provided troops for what he saw as "Bush's War for Oil" that he flew across the Atlantic in hopes of killing Dutch soldiers. Unable to find a soldier at the train station where he plotted to carry out his attack, Hartmann vented his rage by hacking a student to death with an axe. I'm pretty sure John Boehner didn't inspire him.

Other left-wing sociopaths—as yet uncaptured—sabotaged Florida Republican Eddie Adams truck during his campaign, and nearly burned him to death. I know...blame Bush!

These are just some of the acts of radical left wing violence the media does its very best to avoid covering... there are many, many more, from assaults and intimidation by SEIU union thugs to the biting off of fingers from MoveOn.Org antagonists to acts of vandalism, gunfire, and arson by the left-wing domestic terrorists Janet Napolitano tries very hard not to see.

Krugman wants to talk about extremism dominating political parties? Let me provide the details he ignored in his eight-year amnesia.

Even his lord and savior Barack Obama has direct ties to two of the worst domestic terrorists of the past half century, a man and woman who led an organizationthat has been implicated in murders, armed robberies, and attempted to blow up a soldiers' dance as they fantasized about murdering what they estimated to be 25 million Americans in concentration camps if they were ever able to seize power.

Indeed, Americans have watched one of its two political parties go to extremes.

Krugman just doesn't want to admit belonging to it.

A Tale of Four Polls: Public Still Overwhelmingly Against Obamacare Cram-down

Via the Senate Republicans Communications Center (so liberals will immediate ignore/discount it for intruding on their community-based reality), but still simply citing the facts:

QUINNIPIAC POLL APPROVAL OF HEALTH CARE BILL:

Mostly Approve: 40%

Mostly Disapprove: 49% (Quinnipiac University Poll, 3/22-23/10)

BLOOMBERG POLL APPROVAL OF HEALTH CARE BILL:

Favor: 38%

Oppose: 50% ("Bloomberg National Poll," 3/19-22/10, P.1)

CBS NEWS POLL APPROVAL OF HEALTH CARE BILL:

Approve: 37%

Disapprove: 48% ("CBS News Poll," 3/18-21/10, P. 4)

CNN OPINION RESEARCH POLL APPROVAL OF HEALTH CARE BILL:

Favor: 39%

Oppose: 59% ("CNN Opinion Research Poll," 3/19-21/10, P.2)

No matter which one of these polls you look at, support for the Democrat's health care rationing scheme never exceeds 40%.

And Shots Rang Out: Lies of Congressional Black Caucus Lead To Gunplay

At least, that is how the headline would read if the New York Times, Newsweek, or the rest of the media were as far right as they are left, but let's face facts: John Lewis and the other CBC members that alleged racism against tea party protesters will never be held accountable for the death threats their false charges created, such as this:

Yes, uh. Yeah, I'm glad, uh. the president passed healthcare, yeah. Funky-ass, racist-ass Republicans hate that, don't you? Jean [sic] Smith, when you got hit by that car or when you fell or whatever, you should've broke your back, b***h. You, and Boehner motherf***er, that Mitch McConnell -- all you racist f***ing Republicans. Why don't you just change y'all's party name to "racist"? 'Cause if one of those little f***ing Teabaggers would've spit on me, I would have socked them in the f***ing face with my f***ing .09 mm. F*** all you racist motherf***ers.

That particular threat was left at an office of Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-Ohio).

Someone else thought mere threats were not enough, and actually fired into Eric Cantor's office.

Virginia Rep. Eric Cantor said Thursday that his Richmond campaign office has been shot at and that he's received "threatening e-mails" -- but at the same time the House minority whip accused top Democrats of trying to exploit the threats they've been receiving for "political gain."

Cantor said "a bullet was shot through the window" of his campaign office. The incident happened Monday, Fox News has learned, the latest in a rash of apparent threats and acts of intimidation against members of Congress.

The Democratic thuggocracy has, without a doubt, underestimated the American public's resolve to stand up to their Alinsky tactics and lies designed to fan the flames of racial discord. They've simply played this card too many times, without justification or reason, for anyone but the true believers and besotted special interests to believe any claim they make.

Perhaps when our next left wing radical detonates a bomb or assassinates someone (again) these leftist thugs will stop inciting violence from their followers, but based upon their long and bloody history, I'm not getting my hopes up.

Update: In what can only be described as good news, preliminary ballistics from the Richmond PD seem to indicate that the shot that hit Cantor's office window was probably a shot that was fired into the air from a distance. This would indicate that this incident was probably not a targeted attack.

This in no way absolves the CBC of intentionally stirring up racial hatred merely for the purposes of cheap political theater. Leftists have a well-documented propensity for violence, whether bombs or bullets, or arson and sabotage, and intentionally inciting them should be recognized as a criminal act.

Breitbart Challenges Congressional Black Caucus Members to Offer Proof of Alleged Tea Party Racism

As video after video suggests that Democratic attempts to troll for racism among tens of thousands of Tea Party protesters was a failure that resulted in formerly respected Congressmen lying to the media, Andrew Breitbart has issued them a challenge:

It's time for the allegedly pristine character of Rep. John Lewis to put up or shut up. Therefore, I am offering $10,000 of my own money to provide hard evidence that the N- word was hurled at him not 15 times, as his colleague reported, but just once. Surely one of those two cameras wielded by members of his entourage will prove his point.

And surely if those cameras did not capture such abhorrence, then someone from the mainstream media — those who printed and broadcast his assertions without any reasonable questioning or investigation — must themselves surely have it on camera. Of course we already know they don’t. If they did, you'd have seen it by now.

THOUSANDS OF TIMES.

Rep. Lewis, if you can't do that, I'll give him a backup plan: a lie detector test. If you provide verifiable video evidence showing that a single racist epithet was hurled as you walked among the tea partiers, or you pass a simple lie detector test, I will provide a $10K check to the United Negro College Fund.

I suspect Lewis will not collect one thin dime from Breitbart, and it's a shame, really. If Lewis has no evidence, and won't take a polygraph, and won't apologize for fabricating these slurs, it strongly suggests that a man who spent the early part of his life combating racism has been corrupted in his later years into embracing it himself.

Should House Democrats Be Censured Over False Charges of Bigotry?

Video evidence confirms that Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO)was not intentionally spat upon. John Lewis didn't hear anyone anyone call him a charged racial epithet. Barney Frank, who was called a name, was called that after uttering a shocking profanity at protestors first, a fact the media failed to report, and may have conspired to cover up.

In every one of these instances, Democrats conspired to lie or misrepresent Obamacare protesters, slandering the thousands of Americans in attendance and the millions that share their views. The deserve to be censured for their behavior now that the truth has been revealed.

Just don't expect it from the most corrupt congress in recent memory.

Update: Add Russ Carnahan to the list of gutless Congressional Democrats slandering Obamacare protestors.

Update:Politico updates to paste over Carnahan's lies.

A Special Prosecutor for Barack?

Rep. Darrell Issa of the House Oversight committee is on the verge of asking for a special prosecutor to investigate the Obama Administration for a blatant attempt at bribery:

Rep. Darrell Issa, the top Republican on the House Oversight committee, told CBS News Wednesday that he will call for a special prosecutor to investigate the White House if it does not address Rep. Joe Sestak's claim that he was offered a federal job in exchange for dropping out of the Pennsylvania Senate primary.

"If the public doesn't receive a satisfactory answer, the next step would be to call for a special prosecutor, which is well within the statute," Issa (pictured) told Hotsheet.

The California Republican has been pushing for the White House to provide details of conversations between Sestak and administration officials in the wake of Sestak's comment during a radio interview last month that he was offered a high-ranking administration job in exchange for dropping his primary challenge against Sen. Arlen Specter.

Asked if that job was secretary of the Navy, Sestak declined to comment. His press secretary told CBS News that the lawmaker stands by his original statement that he was offered the job in exchange for an administration post.

Only complete criminal ineptitude by President Obama's inner circle would end up indicting him directly in the alleged scheme, but then, we are dealing with a very arrogant and corrupt Administration, led by a neophyte and staffed by bullies and thugs. If there is significant evidence of an attempted quid pro quo agreement in order to rig the Pennsylvania Senate primary, President Obama would almost certainly face impeachment. If Democrats lose a significant number of seats in November and the evidence is strong enough, Obama and members of his Administration could be out of office—and on the way to a federal prison—by 2011 or 2012.

All of this hinges, of course, on whether or not there is evidence of a specific crime. Considering the great lengths the White House has gone to to repeatedly duck the issue, evidence beyond the public statements of the man they tried to bribe would seem to exist.

...And We're Back

During a series of late night/early morning votes designed to keep the public's eye of the behavior of Democrats, the Senate parliamentarian discovering a pair of rule violations that will send Obamacare back to the House for another contentious round of voting:

As an exhausted Senate labored past 2 a.m. on a stack of GOP amendments, Jim Manley, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, told reporters that Republicans consulting with the chamber's parliamentarian had found "two minor provisions" that violate Congress' budget rules.

[snip]

Democratic aides said the problematic provisions deal with protecting students from future cuts in their grants if Congress does not provide enough money for them. They violate budget rules because they do not produce savings, one aide said.

Procedurally, this is merely a bump in the road for Democrats, but it is going to be explosive politically. After days of harsh words and threats from irate constituents, the House is going to have to vote on Obamacare again, under far more pressure.

Rules of Engagement

If you are an American and value your individual liberties and the responsibilities that go with them, this week has been a very troubling one. Using bribes, coercion, bullying and lies, a disgraceful Democratic Congress and President have passed a law that usurps power over one-sixth of the economy, and now eagerly plots their next power grab.

Predictably, many in this nation of 300 million have taken this transformative undermining of the Republic quite seriously, and harbor righteous anger towards the corrupt and powerful who made this unconstitutional law.

Several Congressional offices have been vandalized. These were acts to be condemned, though understood.

But a line was crossed in Virginia last night, and such behavior cannot be tolerated:

Law enforcement authorities are investigating the discovery of a cut propane gas line at the Virginia home of Rep. Tom Perriello's (D-Va.) brother, whose address was targeted by tea party activists angry at the congressman's vote for the health care bill.

An aide to the congressman confirmed to POLITICO that a line to a propane tank behind his brother's home near Charlottesville had been sliced.

[snip]

"While officials are not willing to characterize the exact nature of the incident because of the ongoing investigation, it did not involve an immediate threat to occupants of the residence. However officials are taking the incident very seriously and conducting a vigorous investigation," the statement said.

The cutting of the line—a thin, flexible tube that delivers propane from the bulk tank—was not an immediate threat as the Fire Marshal investigating the incident makes clear, but it was a threat, and a threat against innocents that had nothing to do with making or passing the law.

No matter what you think of Obamacare and the craven ideologues that passed it, is totally unacceptable to threaten their relatives or friends and put them in danger.

Go to your Congressman's office and scream at him in the most colorful language possible. Hang him in effigy at protests. If you're willing to do the time for the crime, have a swing at him.

Better yet, throw a shoe... after all, the left values such behavior as a form of "vigorous dissent," and will no doubt ask for any charges against you to be dropped.

Perhaps one day stronger action will be required if Progressives continue to trample on our liberties in their blind quest for power. But that time is not now.

At this time, I suspect Shikha Dalmia's call for massive civil disobedience is the correct path. Show your anger. Make sure those who have trampled your liberties are stuck down by ballots. With your help, the Democratic Party's assault on the Republic can be undone.

The right way.

EXCLUSIVE: Media Falls For Pallywood Production...Again

European media has been falling all over itself this week to report that Israeli soldiers slaughtered a pair of innocent Palestinian boys near the sight of a protest. A human rights group is parading around an X-ray that they say is proof that Israeli forces used live ammunition instead of rubber-coated less lethal ammunition.

It is too bad for them that all the X-ray does is provide considerable evidence of deliberate fraud.

An interesting aspect of the story is the commentary of a radiologist who looked at the image, and provided his feedback after this story was written.

He noted:

Is the bullet actually inside the skull? If somebody wanted to, he/or she could take an xray with the bullet overlying the person's head and make a similar appearance. On the limited image I don't see any shards of bone/fractures to indicate entrance into the skull. I would need some kind of cross sectional image to confirm that the bullet is ACTUALLY inside the skull.

A different angle (frontal xray or crossectional imaging i.e. CT/MRI) would definitely be able show fractures or fragments of bone, but unfortunately i'm only provided with a low quality image of a one-view skull xray.

DemCong: Obamacare a Law Written "...to Control The People"

Via Ed Morrissey at Hot Air, we find John Dingell of Michigan having a Freudian slip and admitting that the purpose of Obamacare is to control the American people:

Let me remind you this has been going on for years. We are bringing it to a halt. The harsh fact of the matter is when you're going to pass legislation that will cover 300 American people in different ways it takes a long time to do the necessary administrative steps that have to be taken to put the legislation together to control the people.

And therein lies the defining philosophical difference between statists and free men.

Democrats—I no longer see the utility of separating them rhetorically from the radical progressives that drive them—are convinced of their own intellectual and moral superiority. They are certain that society at large is too ignorant to survive and thrive on it's own, and must be overseen and controlled... "for their own good." Their default worldview is that people are children barely more competent than dumb animals, and they need to be controlled. They, of course, set themselves above the crowd, and imagine themselves benevolent protectors.

Conservatives and Libertarians—I care little for the lesser statist views of many modern Republicans—have a set of beliefs that is diametrically opposed to that of Democrats. We acknowledge that man will make mistakes and sometimes work against his own best interests, but we believe that the freedom to make decisions—including mistakes—is essential to the future of humanity. Without freedom, without liberty, imagination and innovation die. We believe that the pioneering, exploring spirit of man is to be celebrated and rewarded, that failures are to be seen as learning experiences and not traumas to be avoided.

Statism crushes the souls of men, emasculating them. It reduces and enslaves them, and punishes those who dare to dream and aspire to be more than average.

Liberalism requires mediocrity. It rewards complacency. In a world exploding with life, possibilities, and color, it desires to be beige.

We deserve better. And we shall never submit to being controlled.

Obamacare-Related Jobs Massacre to Begin

The media is doing it's damnedest to ignore the damage that Obamacare will have on small businesses, ignoring anecdotal stories of small businesses that will be forced to lay off workers.

It will be a bit hard to hide when they come 2,500 at a time.

SLM Corp. may cut 2,500 jobs as a result of education loan provisions contained in health-care legislation passed yesterday by the U.S. House of Representatives.

"We are profoundly disappointed that thousands of student loan originators will soon lose their jobs -- although the Senate has the power to change this," the McLean, Virginia- based lender known as Sallie Mae said today in an e-mailed statement.

Manufacturing groups are also lamenting the damage that the short-sighted political power grab will do to their businesses, making it difficult for them to keep from cutting health benefits.

"This legislation is fundamentally flawed...an could cost as much as $2 trillion over 10 years once it takes full effect," said NAM. The group said manufacturing has lost 2.2 million jobs since December 2007.

"America's manufacturers will continue to advocate for real health care reform that lowers costs, improves care and does not impede our ability to create jobs, grow our economy and remain competitive in a global market," stated the group.

The Medical Device Manufacturers Association has also issued concerns about the healthcare bill, citing how the $20 billion device tax provision will impact patient care, innovation and small businesses.

"If eliminating the tax is not possible, structuring it to provide relief for smaller companies is critical. Under the current structure, many companies will owe more in taxes than they generate in profits, requiring companies to layoff employees, cut R&D budgets and slow the development of new therapies that will improve the quality of care for all Americans. Moving forward, these issues must be addressed before the tax takes effect in 2013," the group stated in a statement.

In addition, Obamacare was created with the intention of undermining and destroying the private health care insurance market, which will begin affecting them immediately, and which will force thousands of people out of work.

On the bright side, Obamacare will create thousands of new jobs for IRS workers and in the mortuary industry.

Ted Kennedy's Death Had Global Economic Impact

What a tragedy.

For The Dumb and Uneducated, Obamacare "To Be Like Christmas"

I pity DeCarlo Flythe, a local man without insurance, or much in the way of smarts:

"It's just going to be like Christmas," said DeCarlo Flythe, who lost health coverage for his family when he was laid off almost three years ago. "It's going to be great. You know, no worries (about) the bills. We are going to go ahead and pay our co-pay and be alright."

For dim souls like Flythe, Obamacare certainly seems to be an answer to their worries. In the short term, IRS agents will confiscate monies from those of us who pay taxes to pay for his inability to take care of his own family. Obamacare will pay for his diabetic medicines, and his eventual blindness. After all, with me and you picking up the tab, there is little incentive for Flythe to change his behavior to help regulate his diabetes.

What Flythe and his slow-witted allies in the dependency lobby don't grasp is that the quality of service consistently goes down in nations where socialized medicine has been tried, even as costs go up. Rationed care is an inevitability. Flythe will eventually die of his diabetes, once his poor lifestyle choices and the illusion of Obamacare's protections conspire to render him as one of those simply not worth treating as a cost-benefit matter.

Then again, Flythe might not die of diabetes and neglect.

He very well may die of one of any number of other health problems as Obamacare drives medical device manufacturers, pharmaceutical companies, and doctors out of business.

Jobs are being lost already. Promising lines of research will stagnate and new cures to diseases affecting millions will never be developed.

I've read the plodding thoughts of liberal blog commenters in recent days that Obamacare will provide care to those with pre-existing and congenital conditions. What they know better than the promise is that Obamacare will lead to the development of new treatments, new cures or make fatal illnesses and conditions curable.

The simple fact of the matter is that Obamacare promises a near stasis in medical care. Research and development will necessarily slow as the very companies that create new techniques and tools for the betterment of man face crippling taxation to pay what should be the obligations of un-men like DeCarlo Flythe and other dependent wards of the welfare state.

Cancer treatments will come years later, or not at all, terminating the lives of millions before their time. Cures for cystic fibrosis, AIDS, autism and spinal cord injuries will simply not have the funding to continue in the private sector. Chronic, but non-life threatening conditions will continue to debilitate millions.

I'm not promising that our existing medical research would find cures for each and every malady if left alone, but there simply are no credible claims that Obamacare or any other iteration of socialized medicine leads to future medical innovation, and plenty of data to suggest it cripples progress.

Obamacare, as others have noted both in the House chamber and on the street, is not about patients. It's about politics.

We can only wonder how many will die unnecessary deaths before figuring that out.

Update: Even Lefty Jane Hamsher of firedoglake admits that people such as Flythe are idiots for thinking they'll get something for nothing (or next to nothing), and that a lot of people are going to get screwed by Obamacare (and not in the way Obama screwed Vera Baker).

On Tyranny, And The Illusions Of Hope

No man thinks more highly than I do of the patriotism, as well as abilities, of the very worthy gentlemen who have just addressed the House. But different men often see the same subject in different lights; and, therefore, I hope that it will not be thought disrespectful to those gentlemen, if, entertaining as I do opinions of a character very opposite to theirs, I shall speak forth my sentiments freely and without reserve.

This is no time for ceremony. The question before the House is one of awful moment to this country. For my own part I consider it as nothing less than a question of freedom or slavery; and in proportion to the magnitude of the subject ought to be the freedom of the debate. It is only in this way that we can hope to arrive at truth, and fulfill the great responsibility which we hold to God and our country. Should I keep back my opinions at such a time, through fear of giving offense, I should consider myself as guilty of treason towards my country, and of an act of disloyalty towards the majesty of heaven, which I revere above all earthly kings.

Mr. President, it is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren, till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the number of those who, having eyes, see not, and having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation?

For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth -- to know the worst and to provide for it. I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided; and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past. And judging by the past, I wish to know what there has been in the conduct of the British ministry for the last ten years, to justify those hopes with which gentlemen have been pleased to solace themselves and the House?

Is it that insidious smile with which our petition has been lately received? Trust it not, sir; it will prove a snare to your feet. Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss. Ask yourselves how this gracious reception of our petition comports with these warlike preparations which cover our waters and darken our land. Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation? Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be reconciled that force must be called in to win back our love? Let us not deceive ourselves, sir. These are the implements of war and subjugation -- the last arguments to which kings resort. I ask gentlemen, sir, what means this martial array, if its purpose be not to force us to submission? Can gentlemen assign any other possible motives for it? Has Great Britain any enemy, in this quarter of the world, to call for all this accumulation of navies and armies?

No, sir, she has none. They are meant for us; they can be meant for no other. They are sent over to bind and rivet upon us those chains which the British ministry have been so long forging. And what have we to oppose to them? Shall we try argument? Sir, we have been trying that for the last ten years. Have we anything new to offer on the subject? Nothing.

We have held the subject up in every light of which it is capable; but it has been all in vain. Shall we resort to entreaty and humble supplication? What terms shall we find which have not been already exhausted? Let us not, I beseech you, sir, deceive ourselves longer.

Sir, we have done everything that could be done to avert the storm which is now coming on. We have petitioned; we have remonstrated; we have supplicated; we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the ministry and Parliament.

Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult; our supplications have been disregarded; and we have been spurned, with contempt, from the foot of the throne. In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation. There is no longer any room for hope.

If we wish to be free -- if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending -- if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained, we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight! An appeal to arms and to the God of Hosts is all that is left us!

They tell us, sir, that we are weak -- unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance, by lying supinely on our backs, and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot?

Sir, we are not weak, if we make a proper use of the means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. Three millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us.

The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable -- and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come!

It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, "Peace! Peace!" -- but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!

Patrick Henry - March 23, 1775. 235 years ago, today.

Standing in the Fallout

Where do we go from here?

That was the question on the minds of Americans this morning as they awoke to find that Democrats have overridden overwhelming public opposition and forced through a massive entitlement program for the first time in our nation's history, purely along partisan lines.

Obamacare passed not because it reforms the health care system and reduces costs—it will create trillions in debt—but because of backroom deals, bribery, arm-twisting, deceptive accounting schemes, and outright lies from the majority party.

The select few who think they will benefit from this affront to liberty are giddy this morning with the prospect of what has transpired overnight. Most Americans however, awoke to a feeling of dread.

They know entitlement programs always cost far more than Democrats claim. They know that forcing employers to provide health care for all of their workers means that these employers are forced into the uncomfortable position of being bullied into providing health care they can't afford and watching their company's decline, or of letting go valued employees in the worst of times.

The first casualties of Obamacare are already rolling in. A commenter at WRAL lamented that the small business where his wife was employed was forced into firing 35 of their 60 part-time employees this morning because they would not be able to afford their health care. His wife was one of those let go. There will be tens, if not hundreds of thousands more that will lose their jobs. The economy will suffer as a result.

And Democrats are quietly pleased, because more will become dependent on the nanny state they would create and lord over.

America is angry. Americans feel betrayed. And yet the question remains.

Where do we go from here?

Some are calling for the armed revolt against this encroaching tyranny. It was for this specific reason, after all, that our Founders made sure Americans would not be denied the use of arms.

Some misguided souls seem to already be responding to this affront to liberty with violence. I fail to find the usefulness or utility of such symbolic and largely impotent acts. This sort of petty vandalism is not what the Founders sought to protect.

They sought to protect our right to replace—yes, overthow—would-be tyrants and rouges that history has taught us always eventually arrive to usurp power and run roughshod over the rights of the people.

As we have been told countless times by philosophers and statesmen, tyranny is always seeking power and it comes in many guises. Sometimes sunlight is enough to dissuade those who would enslave others. In other instances, the mechanisms of justice can undo such wrongs. Thankfully, the final mechanism our founders instill to protect us from tyranny has not had to be used since an isolated event 64 years ago.

We live in a nation full of freshly-experienced combat veterans and graying patriots alike that still remember their oaths to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. The taste of liberty is much sweeter for them, having been to parts of the world where such things cannot be taken for granted. Pray that we are not required to call upon their service in a struggle against our own countrymen. God protect us all if we are forced to such extremes by a power-mad clique intent on transforming citizens into dependent subjects.

I have some hope that the courts will respond favorably to the many states suing to eradicate this unconstitutional scheme, or that November's elections will destroy the Democratic majority and lay the ground for a full repeal of a bad law designed purely for one party's political gain.

The thought of the morally-required alternative is almost too much to bear.

Media Matters Irate That I Stated An Obvious Truth

Media Matters is furious that I dared challenge the farcical Democratic claim that health care is a "right." when I wrote on my Twitter account:

the next one of these jackasses that calls #healthcare a "right" deserves to be drawn and quartered.

I proudly stand by that comment.

A handful of elitists spoke on the House floor this evening, arrogantly insisting that it was our financial obligation (yours and mine) to pay for the medical care of others, and insisting it is their "right" to be provided medical care.

It most certainty is not.

According to Democrats such as Nancy Pelosi (who just so happened to be the Democrat speaking when I wrote that tweet, but was assuredly not the first), it is my obligation to pay for your "right." I will be forced to pay for coverage, whether I want it or not. I will be forced to pay for the coverage of others, whether I want it or not.

I stand by my comment that the Democrats who crammed this unwarranted bill down the throats of the American people who clearly and overwhelmingly opposed it deserve to be drawn and quartered.

As Wikipedia notes, having someone "laboring against that person's will to benefit another, under some form of coercion" is the very definition of involuntary servitude... slavery. We are Americans, and will be slaves to no man, no Congress, and no President.

Be Sure Thank your Congressional Reps For Obamacare

The votes are in, and Obamacare passed using the so-called "nuclear option" of a reconciliation vote, without a single Republican in favor of the bill, and 34 Democrats voting against our slide into tyranny.

The New York Times has publicized a helpful list of who cast their votes for continued freedom and who voted to force you into socialized medicine, raise your taxes, and create more unemployment.

Be sure you thank them in person.

"Hell No You Can't"

John Boehner Sums up the problems with Obamacare.

NOW Freaking Over Obama Executive Order; Stupak's Political Cover Compromised in an Hour

Every Obama promise comes with an expiration date. Stupak's promised executive order is dying already.

National Organization for Women President Terry O'Neill issued a statement Sunday afternoon slamming President Obama, saying that he had broken his faith with women by agreeing to issue an executive order that prohibits federal funding for abortions.

Those Who Refuse to Learn From History...

Every once in a while I'll get an email or a link to the words of Kitty Werthmann, an Austrian-born naturalized American citizen that watched Austrians give themselves to Hitler's creeping fascism, only too recognize their mistake after their freedoms were extinguished.

Today, her warning is haunting, and seems to echo what we see unfolding before us.

Stupak Joins Scheme Allowing Pro-Abortion Obamacare to Pass

Bark Stupak and his so-called "pro-life" Democrats are going to try to pull a fast one on the American people, and will vote for the pro-abortion Obamacare bill.

Health reform holdout Rep. Bart Stupak of Michigan announced Sunday that he and fellow anti-abortion Democrats have reached an agreement with the White House to defuse the controversy over abortion in the health care bill and will now vote "yes" – which Stupak said gives Democrats enough votes to pass the sweeping overhaul by day’s end.

The move came just after the White House announced that President Barack Obama will sign an executive order reaffirming a ban on federal funding of abortions.

Stupak's "out" is a lie, which he knows in advance of the vote. Both the President and the Congress know—and have always known—that an executive order cannot override written law.

The scheme was concocted to allow Stupak and his allies to claim they were acting in good faith when they cast their votes for Obamacare, even though it finances abortion. The truth is that Stupak and his allies know that the Executive Order will be quickly struck down by the courts.

Stupak and the rest of the pro-life Democrats have abandoned their professed life-long ideals and principles in order to placate their leaders.

May history and judge them harshly for their cowardice.

Update:

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) calls out the deception:

"The law of the land trumps any Executive Order, which can be reversed or altered at the stroke of a pen by this or any subsequent President without any congressional approval or notice. Moreover, while an Executive Order can direct members of the executive branch, it cannot direct the private sector.

"Because of Roe v. Wade, courts have interpreted the decision as a statutory mandate that the government must provide federal funding for elective abortion in through federal programs. In other words, no Executive Order or regulation can override a statutory mandate unless Congress passes a law that prohibits federal funding from being used in this manner."

Reconciliation Off the Table if Senate Bill Fails to Pass?

Seems to good to be true, but is the House reconciliation bill dead on arrival? That what the Senate Republicans have claimed via email:

BREAKING: “FIX” BILL MAY NOT ADVANCE IN SENATE

Senate Democrats Refuse Bi-partisan Meeting With Parliamentarian Until After House Votes

WASHINGTON DC – Senate Democrats have balked at a bi-partisan meeting with the Senate Parliamentarian to discuss a rule violation that could doom the entire House reconciliation proposal.

DON STEWART, McCONNELL SPOKESMAN: "Republicans have been trying to set up a meeting with Senate Democrats since yesterday to discuss this fatal point of order but have been met with nothing but silence. We suspect Democrats are slow walking us so as to have the House vote first. Since Senate Democrats refuse to meet with us and the Parliamentarian, we’ve informed our colleagues in the House that we believe the bill they’re now considering violates the clear language of Section 310g of the Congressional Budget Act, and the entire reconciliation bill is subject to a point of order and rejection in the Senate should it pass the House."
BACKGROUND

DEMOCRAT LEADERSHIP RELEASE: "The Congressional Budget Office estimate of the health care legislation shows an increase in Social Security revenues… CBO projects that the resulting increase in wages will generate $29 billion in additional FICA contributions to the Social Security Trust Fund." ("Health Care Reform Update," Office of Rep. Steny Hoyer, 3/21/10)

CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET ACT: "LIMITATION ON CHANGES TO THE SOCIAL SECURITY ACT.—Notwithstanding any other provision of law, it shall not be in order in the Senate or the House of Representatives to consider any reconciliation bill or reconciliation resolution reported pursuant to a concurrent resolution on the budget agreed to under section 301 or 304, or a joint resolution pursuant to section 258C of the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985, or any amendment thereto or conference report thereon, that contains recommendations with respect to the old-age, survivors, and disability insurance program established under title II of the Social Security Act." (Congressional Budget Act Of 1974, Sec. 310g, P. 31)

This is only noteworthy if the House can't pass the Senate Bill. If Pelosi gets the votes to pass the Senate Bill—which is very much in doubt at this moment—then Obamacare will go to the President and be law by nightfall.

Pelosi is Falling Short?

The so-called "conventional wisdom" on today's health care rationing vote (Obamacare) seems to be indicating that if the pro-life Democratic block of Bart Stupak cannot be bought off in the final hours before the vote, then Nancy Pelosi will fall 2-3 votes short of passing Obamacare.

Two Tennessee Demcorat that have decided to cast no votes have put the Speaker in "a major bind."

This now running in red on Drudge:

FLASH: Senate Republicans found a provision in the new House health care bill that likely makes it ineligible for expedited 'reconciliation' procedures in the Senate. Dems refused to meet with GOP and Parliamentarian.... Developing....

Did Black Representative Lie About Racial Slurs?

The Dana Show posts video of John Lewis (D-GA) through a crowd of Tea Party protesters yesterday, and the audio suggests that nothing remotely like a racial slur was hurled at him.

They video is only 22 seconds long, but in our camera-saturated society, other videos will pop up today of Lewis, Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC), and Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO) going through the crowd as well.

I'm sure that if recordings prove that no slurs were directed at them, Lewis, Clyburn, and Cleaver will contritely apologize for slandering the protesters.

Yeah, right.

Same Liberals that Routinely Use Sex Slur Against Protestors Get Vapors Over Dubious Allegations That Coarse Language Was Used Towards Their Congressmen

After more than a year of hearing liberals spit out the derogatory word "teabagger" at Tea Party protestors, I couldn't give a crap if a handful of Democrats claimed—without any corroboration—that bad language was hurled their way.

Just be thankful it wasn't the tar and feathers they deserve.

Ready to Riot?

I ran out on some errands this morning, and noticed several things.

The gun store downtown was doing what I suspect was unusually brisk business for an early Saturday morning outside of hunting season. This same gun store's parking lot was overflowing mid-afternoon yesterday shortly after 3:30 PM, with traffic filling the lot, the nearby on-street parking filled, and overflow parking spilling into the gravel lot next door.

I've also seen a minivan with a warning/threat against Obamacare written in red paint on the windows (I didn't get a great look at it as it was moving in the opposite direction, but I got the gist of it).

This is hardly the equivalent of militiamen forming on the village green, but there seems to be a distinct undercurrent of frustration and rage building against the federal government in general, the tricks of Democratic Party in specific, and tomorrow's Obamacare may be the catalyst.

I don't sense any organization, but strong sentiment appears to be brewing. Is anyone else seeing similar behavior where they live?

House Dems Claim Memo that Accurately Reflects Their Plot Is a Fake

Yesterday blogs and other news outlets posted a memo provided by Republicans that was said to have been circulated by Democrats. The memo outlined a scheme to lie about (or direct attention away from) the true cost of Obamacare, and then pass separate laws later in the year that would drive the overall cost of the plan even higher.

Talking Points Memo is being very careful handling this, and they should; whether or not the memo originated from a Democratic staffer or strategist or was a dirty trick is utterly irrelevant. The source isn't what matters. The memo accurately reflects known positions of previous iterations of Obamacare that Democrats were begrudgingly forced to temporarily drop to get enough votes to make the bill passable.

It is entirely credible—and in fact likely—that Nancy Pelosi's House leadership are plotting to do precisely what the memo outlines.

Interestingly enough, Republicans won't cite the source for the memo. Democrats are claiming that it is a fake generated by Republicans.

It is more likely that the memo is a sanitized version of actual Democratic plans, passed along to Republicans by House Democrats opposed to the costs, plots, and rationing associated with the dishonest socialist attempt to grab for themselves power that rightfully belongs to the people.

Passing Obamacare Will Cost American Jobs

That is the only honest takeaway you can have reading this article from Chicago Breaking Business News:

Caterpillar Inc. said the health-care overhaul legislation being considered by the U.S. House of Representatives would increase the company's health-care costs by more than $100 million in the first year alone.

In a letter Thursday to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and House Republican Leader John Boehner of Ohio, Caterpillar urged lawmakers to vote against the plan "because of the substantial cost burdens it would place on our shareholders, employees and retirees."

Caterpillar, the world's largest construction machinery manufacturer by sales, said it's particularly opposed to provisions in the bill that would expand Medicare taxes and mandate insurance coverage. The legislation would require nearly all companies to provide health insurance for their employees or face large fines.

The Peoria-based company said these provisions would increase its insurance costs by at least 20 percent, or more than $100 million, just in the first year of the health-care overhaul program.

"We can ill-afford cost increases that place us at a disadvantage versus our global competitors," said the letter signed by Gregory Folley, vice president and chief human resources officer of Caterpillar. "We are disappointed that efforts at reform have not addressed the cost concerns we've raised throughout the year."

Business executives have long complained that the options offered for covering 32 million uninsured Americans would result in higher insurance costs for those employers that already provide coverage. Opponents have stepped up their attacks in recent days as the House moves closer toward a vote on the Senate version of the health-care legislation.

If Obama passes:

• Companies that already pay health insurance will have to pay higher rates, meaning less profitability, higher costs, and fewer jobs
• Companies that don't currently pay health insurance will have to pay high health insurance rates, meaning less profitability, higher costs, and fewer jobs.
• Companies that cannot withstand the high costs of forced health care will simply shut down.

In all three situations, job loss—or at least the absence of job creation—is a certainty.

If Democrats really want to save or create jobs they'll vote against Obamacare.

Fraud, Treason, and Violence

12 hours after first reading Jeffrey Anderson's revelation that the real ten-year costs of Obamacare, I'm having a hard time getting my mind around the scale of the duplicity:

To see the bill's true first-decade costs, we need to start the clock when the costs would actually start in any meaningful way: in 2014. The CBO says that Obamacare would cost $2.0 trillion in the bill's real first decade (from 2014 to 2023) — and much more in the decades to come.

But $2.0 trillion wouldn't be the total ten-year costs. Instead, that would merely be the "gross cost of coverage provisions." Based on earlier incarnations of the proposed overhaul, the total costs would be about a third higher (the exact number can't be gleaned from the CBO's analysis, which is only preliminary and is not a full scoring) — making the total price-tag between $2.5 and $3 trillion over the bill's real first decade.

"...making the total price-tag between $2.5 and $3 trillion over the bill's real first decade."

Don't bother trying to wrap your mind around the specific figures involved, because they are far too large to be viewed in anything but the abstract .

Instead, focus on what the Democratic Party has done to conceal those numbers. Focus on what they've done in order to lie to you.

Steny Hoyer and House Democrats crowed yesterday morning when they revealed that the Congressional Budget Office scoring of Obamacare put the cost of the program at "just" $940 billion.

What House Democrats and their allies in the media will not tell you is that the CBO is constrained to using strict instructions and parameters provided by Nancy Pelosi and the House leadership.

As briefly noted yesterday, the CBO was handcuffed by House Democrats, and forced to use bogus figures and timelines and other unrealistic constraints as the Democratic Party carried out an orchestrated campaign of fraud unprecedented in cost. Sadly, these Democrats dragged the non-partisan CBO into the scheme as unwilling accomplice.

The real coss of Obamacare over ten years is $2.5 to $3 trillion, or $1.5 to $2 trillion more than the Democratic Party is claiming.

Now, let's make this next point very, very clear.

Barack Obama knew in advance the real cost of the legislation that bears his name. He embraced the lie, has lied, and will continue to lie to your face about the cost.

Nancy Pelosi knows the real cost of the legislation, and along with other Democratic leaders in the House, was instrumental in purposefully deceiving the American people by hiding this cost.

Likewise, Harry Reid and other Senate Democratic leaders were well aware of the conspiracy to deceive the American people, well before the scheme went into motion.

The 44th President of the United States Barack Hussein Obama, 60th Speaker of the House Nancy Patricia D'Alesandro Pelosi, and 24th Senate Majority Leader Harry Mason Reid conspired to hide the true cost of Obamacare, and have attempted to defraud the people of the United States. They think you are idiots. They think they can fool you. They think you'll take it lying down.

And maybe they are right. So they've made a calculated risk.

Obama, Pelosi, Reid and their accomplices know that they will never see the inside of a court of law for perpetrating this fraud. Hell... they write the law. They always provide themselves with an out.

But what is legal and what is moral are often quite different things, and never are the two further apart than when we're discussing politics.

The fraud Obama, Pelosi, and Reid and engaged in is a clear economic threat to the future of the United States, one which may bankrupt the nation. Their attempt to fundamentally transform our Republic through trickery and deceit are no less an affront to this nation that was the deception carried out by General Benedict Arnold when he attempted to hand over West Point to the British.

Does their fraud and conspiracy meet the legal definition of treason? No documents or conversations currently known to the public could support such a charge. But I defy anyone to proclaim that a conspiracy of politicians to seize one-sixth of the most powerful economy in the history of the planet by means of deception and lies is not morally a capital crime.

Nor do I suspect the Founding Fathers would have stood idly by as the Republic they envisioned was subverted into a lesser state where people became unwilling subjects to a greedy and ever-hungry government.

They would fight. They would kill, if they had to. They did.

I cannot forecast the future, and do not know if Sunday's vote on Obamacare will bring about a momentary respite from encroaching tyranny of our present government or usher us ever faster towards the precipice.

Like you, though, I am a student of history. We know that tyrants are never sated by small bites of freedom. They will continue to consume liberties until they are driven off, are killed, or are victorious.

Violence is in our nation's future. It remains to be seen if it will be violence towards tyrants, or violence towards liberty.

Actual Cost of Obamacare: $2+ Trillion

Lying. Rat. Bastards.

Fired Teacher Hangs Obama in Effigy... In Classroom

Superintendent Frances Gallo, the administrator who fired all the teachers at Central Falls High School when they refused to work slightly longer hours to help their students (at $30/hr), found an unlikely backer in President Obama. The fired teachers will complete this semester, but will not be back in the fall.

Now, the teachers—mostly Democrats—are peeling the Obama campaign stickers off their cars, and some are doing worse. Gallo was forced to sneak into Central Falls High in the dead of night to find just how far one teacher had gone to denounce Obama:

Gallo knew Obama's endorsement would create further uproar. She just didn't know how bad it would get.

She continued making her way through the school, clearing the first two floors. She was disheartened by the newspaper postings but relieved she hadn't found the offensive item.

One floor to go.

She climbed the steps and entered a classroom.

There it was.

"You couldn't miss it."

An Obama doll, about a foot tall, hung by its feet from the white board; the doll held a sign that said, "Fire Central Falls teachers," she says.

Racists.

CBO Numbers Cited By Dem Leadership are Bogus; Could It Backfire?

Matthew Continetti notes that Steny Hoyer to various new organizations about the CBO's health care cost estimate are speculative, based upon preliminary numbers that does not take into the account reconciliation proposal, review, and refinement.

In other words, they're crap. The media ran with Hoyer's claims without having the evidence in-hand.

Will the media hold Hoyer and his Democratic allies accountable for this subterfuge, or are they in on the fix?

And will this lie damage already faltering Democratic efforts to force through a bill that the public clearly doesn't want passed?

Update: To lie was their goal all along:

If it kicked in right away, the decade-long estimate would obviously be well into the trillions. So they simply stalled it for four years, incurring just $17 billion in costs — or 1.8 percent of the total 10-year estimate — through 2013 so that wavering Democrats could go back to their districts and tell baldfaced lies to their constituents about the pricetag. A perfect ending to this travesty.

In what can only be cast as a desperate act, the Democratic leadership is trying to convince members of their Party to out-and-out- lie to their constituents.

I guess we'll find out Sunday if on-the-fence Dems are willing to make that lie.

You Lie! CBO Report On Health Care Merely Garbage In, Garbage Out

Leave it to tax-and-spend liberals to trumpet a $940 billion boondoggle as some sort of cost-savings measure.

Especially since the numbers don't really exist.

But let's go with the lie for a moment.

Hey, if I drive competent people out of an entire sector of the economy and replace them with dim-witted drones (think TSA airport screeners with access to your most personal information), I can trumpet "savings" of a sort as well.

You just won't like the result.

Of course, the Democrats can claim deficit reduction in the CBO's numbers because the Congressional Budget Office merely calculates the data they are given; they do not weigh in on whether those figures are arrived at by honest data or data which has been manipulated.

As is so often the case, the numbers provided the CBO by House Democrats is more rigged with more tricks than Dolly Parton's superstructure.

The CBO figures trumpeted by Democrats is based on junk, because junk is what they fed them.

Here are some graphs that represent the true costs of health care reform. They don't represent the latest tweaks in the House bill, but instead were compiled from a nearly identical House plan and the Senate plan.

First, a graph based upon an earlier CBO report of a previous version of the House Bill (source).

Now the Senate Bill (source).

One thing you'll note in any honest representation of the Democratic health care rationing scam is that it is going to cost us hundreds of billions if not trillions of dollars to create a system when none are turned away, but all are equally miserable.

There can be health care reform. There will be health care reform. But it can be done without bankrupting our nation, or growing a federal government already intent on devouring our individual liberties.

Let's scrap this trainwreck, and start over with a bill that make sense, that all Americans can get behind.

Obama Not Bothered by Possibly Un-Constitutional "Procedural" Deem-and-Pass Scheme; Dem House Leaders Set Selves Up For Future Ethics Charges

Just win, baby:

The president, in an interview with Fox News' Bret Baier, responded for the first time to the controversy over a plan to use a parliamentary maneuver to allow the House to pass the Senate's health care bill without forcing members to vote for it directly.

The esoteric procedure has drawn fierce protest from Republicans, who say Democrats are trying to avoid accountability. But the president said there will be no doubt about where lawmakers stand on health care reform.

"I don't spend a lot of time worrying about what the procedural rules are in the House or Senate," Obama said. "What I can tell you is that the vote that's taken in the House will be a vote for health care reform."

At Volokh, experts suggest that using deem-and-pass (or "demon pass" as some have dubbed it) will bring the Constitutionality of the legislation in question, as it would assume a controversial law passed without directly voting on it, seemingly in clear violation of the Constitutional requirement. While supporters of the Demcratic scheme are quick to point out that deem-and-pass has been used previously by both Democrats and Republicans, the simple fact of the matter is that it has never before been used to force through legislation that did not have clear majority support.

Deem-and-pass has been used to pass legislation unpopular with voters but with scant opposition in Congress; using it as a trick to avoid possible rejection in an open vote is clearly against what the Founders intended, and arguably grounds for ethics charges to be brought against Democratic leaders who are clearly acting in bad faith.

While there is little chance that the current Congress would bring up Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, Louise Slaughter, and other Democratic architects of the scam up on charges, the possibility exists that a November revolt that returns the House to Republican control could see such charges pursued. Based upon the public's strong opposition to the current health care rationing bill, such ethics cases would likely find overwhelming public support.

Obama Tea Bags Kucinich for Health Care Vote Switch

The first rule about Air Force One Mile High Club is not to talk about Air Force One Mile High Club.

But it worked.

When reached for comment, the President said:

"mfoown mmm um hmm do ohhhhh..."

Congressman Kucinich later claimed the experience was the most fun he's had in the air since the last time he was abducted by aliens.

AP: Goods News! Your Insurance Premiums Will Rise Under Obamacare

Even the Associated Press is forced to admit that Obama is purposefully misleading the American public on the costs of Obamacare:

Buyers, beware: President Barack Obama says his health care overhaul will lower premiums by double digits, but check the fine print.

Premiums are likely to keep going up even if the health care bill passes, experts say. If cost controls work as advertised, annual increases would level off with time. But don't look for a rollback. Instead, the main reason premiums would be more affordable is that new government tax credits would help millions of people who can't afford the cost now.

[snip]

"There's no question premiums are still going to keep going up," said Larry Levitt of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a research clearinghouse on the health care system. "There are pieces of reform that will hopefully keep them from going up as fast. But it would be miraculous if premiums actually went down relative to where they are today."

The statistics Obama based his claims on come from two sources. In both cases, caveats got left out.

MA Treasurer: Obamacare Could "Wipe Out" The National Economy In Four Years

He should know. As he notes in Businessweek, he's living it:

The Massachusetts treasurer said Tuesday that Congress will "threaten to wipe out the American economy within four years" if it adopts a health care overhaul modeled after the Bay State's.

Treasurer Timothy Cahill -- a former Democrat running as an independent for governor -- said the 2006 law has succeeded only because of huge subsidies and favorable regulatory changes from the federal government.

"Who, exactly, is going to bail out the federal government if this plan goes national?" He asked.

In a nation of more than 300 million only half of us pay taxes, and Democrats would force upon us to pay for the health insurance of all. A child can see that simply isn't a sustainable model, especially with the debt load of existing entitlement programs weighing down on us.

Simply put, a vote (or a shifty and probably un-Constitutional "deeming") in favor of Obamacare is irresponsible and unsustainable. We can only hope that Democrats in Congress are more loyal to their nation than Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama.

Hawaii Considers Birther Smackdown

Dear Birthers: Hawaii has had it up to here:

Birthers beware: Hawaii may start ignoring your repeated requests for proof that President Barack Obama was born here.

As the state continues to receive e-mails seeking Obama's birth certificate, the state House Judiciary Committee heard a bill Tuesday permitting government officials to ignore people who won't give up.

"Sometimes we may be dealing with a cohort of people who believe lack of evidence is evidence of a conspiracy," said Lorrin Kim, chief of the Hawaii Department of Health's Office of Planning, Policy and Program Development.

So-called "birthers" claim Obama is ineligible to be president because, they argue, he was actually born outside the United States, and therefore doesn't meet a constitutional requirement for being president.

Hawaii Health Director Dr. Chiyome Fukino issued statements last year and in October 2008 saying that she's seen vital records that prove Obama is a natural-born American citizen.

But the state still gets between 10 and 20 e-mails seeking verification of Obama's birth each week, most of them from outside Hawaii, Kim said Tuesday.

I've never quite understood the logic of those who claim Barack Obama was born somewhere other than the United States.

Claiming that he was born in Kenya is simply absurd and doesn't pass a smell test; why on Earth would a very pregnant woman with decidedly limited funds make an international flight to a third-world country so close to her due date? A competing claim that he was instead born in Canada is more plausible logistically, but you still run into the eternal question: why? Why would Stanley Dunham leave her husband and family while pregnant to go to another country to give birth?

Who does such a thing?

No doubt about it; Barack's mom was a strange duck who was just as nutty politically as her son grew up to be, but there is no indication she was insane. I don't see any reason to suspect she gave birth anywhere but in Hawaii, and I've yet to hear a single plausible explanation to the contrary.

Barack Obama is an idiot, and incompetent, and arguably an embarrassment to the nation, but he's our mistake.

It's time to deal with that truth.

Attack Thwarted On Lenin's Corpse

Rest easy, liberals... Lenin wasn't hurt.

The man, named as Sergey Karpentsov, is quoted as saying he wanted to let loose a volley of bullets at Lenin's carefully embalmed corpse, one of the Russian capital's most popular and ghoulish tourist attractions.

"My main demand is the quick bulldozing of the mausoleum which contains the body of the anti-Christ," he said. "I wanted to open fire on the tomb with an assault rifle but I was advised not to do that in case the tomb is armour-plated."

[snip]

Police say they spotted Karpentsov behaving strangely near the mausoleum and that he viciously beat a police officer who confronted him before shooting and wounding the man.

"Agents of Incompetence Series" Noted by Field & Stream

This may not be that big a deal to many of you, but growing up I devoured every issue of Field & Stream as it came in. Their writers were (and are) superb, and of those, David E. Petzal has always been one of my favorites.

So I thought it was very cool this morning when I found out Petzal had written a post on The Gun Nut that linked approvingly to my "Agents of Incompetence" series at Pajamas Media.

And now, we have our friends in the U.S. Customs and their pals in the ATF, who have impounded 30 M4-replica Airsoft rifles, claiming that they can be converted to real M4s. This story comes our way courtesy of reporter Bob Owens, and it has to be read in full to be appreciated. Go to it by clicking here, and if you don’t drink now, you will afterward.

Pretty cool, to me at least. If you didn't see the series yet, you can catch it via the links below:

Agents of Incompetence: ATF Seizes Gun Shipment Labeled 'Toys' — But They Really Were Toys

Agents of Incompetence: ATF Seizes ‘Toys,’ Then Touts Their Danger (Part II)

Agents of Incompetence: Customs, ATF Dodging All Questions About Toy Guns (Part III)

I sent in a Freedom of Information Act this morning asking the BATF for all communications, documentation, video and photographic evidence, along with a record of emails and communications between BATF and CBP.

Considering the Obama Administration's track record with FOIA I can't say I'm confident I'll get the answers I seek, but it it worth trying, all the same.

You Can Lead the House to Slaughter, But You Can't Make Them Think

The political tension and suspense is building on Capitol Hill as Democratic leaders try to find ways to bribe, blackmail or bully enough House Democrats into casting their votes for Obamacare. If they fail to muster enough votes, House Democratic leaders are considering a short-circuiting of the required voting process through procedural trickery that could force a Constitutional crisis (or not).

We've been looking at health care reform for over a year, but all Congress has come up with is the underhanded theft of a sixth of the economy, supplanting it with yet another unfunded bureaucracy that will follow Social Security and Medicare into insolvency and potentially trigger national bankruptcy.

If I were to speak to Representatives today who was still trying to decide how to vote on this pending legislation, I'd ask them to answer the following questions for themselves:

• Will imposing more bureaucracy improve patient customer service and satisfaction?
• Will imposing more bureaucracy be more likely to increase or decrease the quality of care?
• How much will the imposition of this new bureaucracy slow the research and development of new treatments and cures?
• What is the probability that this new bureaucracy would provide services less expensively and more efficiently than the private sector?
• Can you assure us that you completely understand the implications of taking over one-sixth of the nation's economy?

It is very hard to believe that any Congressperson could truthfully conclude that forcing Obamacare upon Americans would result in better customer service, better care, and the continued drive to find new cures in a cost-effective manner, without posing a significant threat the nations' economic future.

They therefore have to conclude that this is horribly flawed legislation, and it most be voted against if the best interests of their constituents are really what Representatives have in mind.

The only question now is whether House Democrats will show integrity and stand up to their cynical leaders, or if they will instead cave to an ideological agenda that compromises the trust of their constituents.

I fear the later, but would love to find myself surprised by a rare display of spine.

More White House Duplicity: Cancer Patient Not Threatened With Home Loss

Obamacare has been an incompetently-run, dishonest enterprise from the beginning, so I guess it should come as no surprise that just as the President has lied about lied about the dire need for this flawed legislation, he's lied about the lack of options for his newest political prop:

Natoma Canfield, the cancer-stricken woman who has become a centerpiece of President Obama's push for health care reform, will not lose her home over her medical bills and will probably qualify for financial aid, a top official at the Cleveland medical center treating her told FoxNews.com.

Though Canfield's sister Connie Anderson said her sibling is afraid she'll lose her house and Obama warned at an Ohio rally Monday that the patient is "racked with worry" about the cost of tests and treatment, she is already being screened for financial help.

Lyman Sornberger, executive director of patient financial services at the Cleveland Clinic, said "all indications" at the outset are that she will be considered for assistance.

[snip]

...Sornberger said that even if Canfield doesn't qualify for charity care or Medicaid, "there's probably eight to 10 options that a patient has" to find payment.

"It doesn't stop there," he said.

Dear Mr. President: Thank You For Creating Natoma Canfield's Problems

When Barack Obama delivers his upteenth "the time for talk is over" speech about Obamacare in Ohio today, he will try use the story of cancer patient Natoma Canfield as a heart-wrenching anecdote to justify the government seizing control of 20% of the nation's economy. What he will not do is explain is tell the truth about what Natoma Canfield cannot find affordable insurance, which is a problem that he and his fellow politicians artfully created.

In what appears to be White House boilerplate, there are stories being run by various legacy media outlets today lamenting Ms. Canfield's condition and her loss of insurance.

Once again, President Obama and his serially dishonest allies will try to slander an insurance company as being heartless and greedy, a soulless, profit-seeking entity that exists to wring as much money away from people as possible before tossing this infirm away as a discarded husk. In today's particular bit of theater, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield will play the villain, but only the name changes from one episode to another. Democrats have latched on to the strategy of trying to convince Americans that it is the insurance companies at fault for higher health care.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Like any major industry in the United States, the health care industry exists to provide a much-needed service in exchange for profit, and it employs millions of Americans towards that end. Those employed directly or indirectly by the industry are your friends and neighbors, sons and daughters. 1 in 6 jobs is related to the health care industry.

The insurance industry is a major component of the health care industry, and a vital part of making health care affordable by sharing costs. But health care insurance is becoming less affordable for many Americans. That we can't deny. What politicians—and liberal Democrats in particular—are desperate to conceal is the undeniable fact that they are directly responsible for making health insurance so expensive by creating barriers to competition and driving prices up.

What Barack Obama will not mention in his speech in Ohio today is the truth. He will not lay the blame for the rising cost of insurance at the feet of his fellow politicians and bureaucrats that have created mountains of laws and regulations that have crippled the ability of insurance companies to compete with each other in a free market system for your dollars. He will not admit that his allies have created blockages to bringing your health care costs down. Red tape, callousness, inefficiency and bloat are the signatures of government intrusion into the private sector, and power-hungry politicians such as Mr. Obama are the root cause of the increasing price of insurance. They are not the solution.

Barack will not mention this truth. Barack cannot acknowledge this truth. In the bizarro insular world he inhabits, more government is good. Bureaucracy equals efficiency. Tight government control is superior to individual initiative, ingenuity, and drive.

When Barack Obama uses Natoma Canfield as a prop today, he will see her as justification for intrusion, not as a person. To him,and those like him, Canfield represents a dim and anonymous Public That Must Be Taken Care Of instead of individuals with dreams and aspirations. In his perfect future world, she and we will be numbers in the system to be cost-justified and managed from cradle to grave.

If Barack Obama, Harry Reid, and the Democratic party were remotely interested in decreasing the cost of health care and increasing its quality, they would be creating a bill of deregulation, freeing companies to seek efficiencies and compete for your health care dollars across state lies, undercutting each other to as they compete for your business much as Geico competes with State Farm competes with Allstate for your car insurance.

Has anyone you know ever been bankrupted by the cost of car insurance?

Wouldn't it make far more sense to let health insurance providers have the freedom to compete that car insurance companies have?

But Barack Obama isn't in Ohio to make insurance cheaper for Natoma Canfield. He hasn't been on a year-long campaign of subterfuge to make coverage better, or the process and bureaucracy less tedious. Obamacare isn't about any of those things.

Above all, Obamacare is about growing government, asserting control, and forcing submission to an ever-growing nanny state. Barack Obama is in Ohio today to tell the world he knows better than you do what you need.

But Obamacare isn't the solution.

Obamacare is the cancer.

Blunt Enough for You?

A little honesty on the Democrat's death panel from one of their own trying to stop it:

"Their position says that women, especially those without means available, should have their abortions covered." The arguments they have made to him in recent deliberations, he adds, "are a pretty sad commentary on the state of the Democratic party."

What are Democratic leaders saying? "If you pass the Stupak amendment, more children will be born, and therefore it will cost us millions more. That's one of the arguments I've been hearing," Stupak says. "Money is their hang-up. Is this how we now value life in America? If money is the issue — come on, we can find room in the budget. This is life we're talking about."

Maybe Democrats can find a nice token of appreciation for those who abort their useless, too costly children.

The last bunch enamored with this concept desired a little more pageantry with their savagery. They liked passing out yellow stars to their victims.

Democrats treat the unborn with even less respect. Just a figure on a ledger.

One they would prefer to round off as a mistake.

Shock: CNN Promotes Sanka Party

Talk about a "made for TV movie."

CNN is touting the Coffee Party as an alternative to the Tea Party movement, noting the number of CP followers on Facebook already outstrips that of the Tea Partiers.

Funny, I don't recall hearing of any actual Coffee Party protests. As for the group out of central casting that CNN interviewed, I thought they were as diverse as any pair of film directors organizing their third fake grass roots campaign could hope to find.

Update: On second thought, calling them the Kopi Luwak Party is probably more appropriate than Sanka, considering their desire to swill massively overpriced crap that no person in their right mind would ingest, and which would bankrupt anyone who swallowed it regularly.

Update: More on one of the CP members from Tim at Left Coast Rebel.

You Know What We Need To Pass Health Care? Bundling in the Government Takeover of Student Loans

The Democrats don't have the votes in the Senate to force through an attempt to drive banks out of the student loan business, so someone decided they could avoid debate and defeat by adding the loan legislation to Obamacare's health care rationing scheme.

Democrats believe that what will make America a better place is turning it over to bureaucrats, and are so enamored with their superior beliefs that they intend to ram them through any way they can, no matter how duplicitous. One can only imagine the other items Democrats have hidden away in their economy-killing boondoggle.

They simply must be stopped, before they bankrupt us all after seizing every bit of freedom and self-determination they can.

Howell Raines: Why Can't I Be You?

Howell Raines, who championed advocacy journalism in the name of liberalism at the Times during his brief stint as executive editor, is lamenting the fact that the kind of journalism he practiced hasn't succeeded in quashing all alternative viewpoints.

Of course, he phrases it a bit differently:

One question has tugged at my professional conscience throughout the year-long congressional debate over health-care reform, and it has nothing to do with the public option, portability or medical malpractice. It is this: Why haven't America's old-school news organizations blown the whistle on Roger Ailes, chief of Fox News, for using the network to conduct a propaganda campaign against the Obama administration -- a campaign without precedent in our modern political history?

Through clever use of the Fox News Channel and its cadre of raucous commentators, Ailes has overturned standards of fairness and objectivity that have guided American print and broadcast journalists since World War II. Yet, many members of my profession seem to stand by in silence as Ailes tears up the rulebook that served this country well as we covered the major stories of the past three generations, from the civil rights revolution to Watergate to the Wall Street scandals.

If Raines had a "professional conscience" there is the distinct possibility that he would still be the executive editor of the New York Times instead of posting grouchy op-eds on the pages of his old competitors.

But Raines was by any measure a horrific editor with a fear-based leadership style, and a Stalinist penchant for purging those who did not bow down to him:

According to insiders, Raines is the kind of 1950s-style autocrat who manages through humiliation and fear. Aside from right-hand men Gerald Boyd and Andy Rosenthal and a core of loyalists, morale is said to be at a new low. There are many rooms in that palace and nobody sees the whole picture. But, says one source, "the old timers who lived through the worst of [former executive editor] Abe Rosenthal say they have never seen anyone be so arrogant, so petty, so mean. Vindictiveness is in." Another source says, "It's no longer about managing down. It's about paying obeisance to the king." Among cognoscenti, 43rd Street is now known as the "republic of fear."

It is very much in his nature for Raines to call for the heads of those who would have ideas that do not conform to his own, or those who do not bow down to his latest infatuation with a silver-tongued fraud. Luckily, America caught on to Barack Obama far faster than they did Jayson Blair.

As always, the autocratic Raines will be the last to figure it out.

Signs of No-mentum

I haven't given it much thought myself, but Michelle Malkin brilliantly skewers Barack Obama when she notes that his "time for talk on health care is over" tour just keeps going.

Poor baby. It sounds like the job is just too much for him sometimes, doesn't it?

Holder, Wrote, Hid Brief in Support of Terrorist Plotting to Kill American Civilians

Attorney General Eric Holder, you are scum:

So the Attorney General, while he was in private practice at a firm that openly bragged about its "pro bono" representation of numerous Girmo detainees, chose during our war with al Qaeda to file a brief on behalf of an al Qaeda operative who tried to kill lots of Americans. So he argued that such people ought to be treated as criminal defendants swaddled in the Bill of Rights rather than enemy combatants detained for interrogation and war crimes commissions. So what? What, are you, like, saying that the positions Holder voluntarily took as a private lawyer zealously representing unpopular clients might shed some light on the policies he would implement in the completely unrelated role of top Justice Department official.

Apparently Holder "forgot" he wrote such a brief, repeatedly, up until and including the time more than a half dozen attorneys in Justice were criticized for representing terrorists.

Of course, what really has potential to get him in hot water is the fact that he refused to disclose the existence of the brief during his confirmation hearings.

Pundits have asserted in the last month that Obama was looking for an excuse to push Holder "under the bus." I wonder if someone in the White House might have been part of getting this significant nondisclosure brought to light.

Happy Little Tyrants

It seems the more power so-called liberals think they have, the more control they want:

If State Assemblyman Felix Ortiz has his way, the only salt added to your meal will come from the chef's tears.

The Brooklyn Democrat has introduced a bill that would ban the use of salt in New York restaurants - and violators would be smacked with a $1,000 fine for every salty dish.

"No owner or operator of a restaurant in this state shall use salt in any form in the preparation of any food," the bill reads.

What Did Pelosi Know About Massa, And When Did She Know It?

The Washington Post is reporting this morning that Speaker of the house Nancy Pelosi's office had been alerted to allegations of predatory behavior by (now former) Democratic Congressman Eric Massa back in October of 2009.

Did Pelosi sit on this information for months before the House Ethics investigation?

Quite frankly there simply isn't enough information in the public eye yet to know who knew what, when, but if Pelosi's office was aware of Massa's predatory behavior towards young gay staffers, she needs to be the focus of her own ethics investigation. If it is found that she was indifferent to Massa's hunting of staffers for sexual assaults, then she should resign her Speakership, and perhaps her seat.

Agents of Incompetence, Part III

Watch this news report closely, and you'll notice the Special Agent in Charge (SAC) of the BATF's Seattle Field Division attempt the insert the Airsoft gun's magazine in the gun backwards before finally getting it right.

According to an ATF whistleblower blog, this same Special Agent was demoted two levels to his current level for incompetence, and has cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars... and that's just before this latest incident.

The stench of a BATF cover-up is growing stronger.

This article may be the last planned installment in my three part series (here are part 1 and part 2 if you missed those) at Pajamas Media, but there is so much done wrong, so badly, by these two federal agencies that I have a feeling that this story is far from over.

Atlantic - Naval Massa Had Keen Interest in Main Masts and Poop Decks, Too

Other than commenting on how politically incompetent it was for Democrats to force him out at a time they did in the Health care debate, I've pretty much avoided the story of (former) Congressman Eric Massa, the Democrat apparently run out of office in a gay sexual harassment scandal involving his own aides.

It now appears that Massa's interest in his fellow man goes back at least to his Navy days, when he was repeatedly rebuffed by junior officers for his attempts to play hide the torpedo with them.

Massa's bombastic, self-serving (and entirely amusing) excuses for his forced retirement means the end of the House ethics complaint against him. I sincerely hope that other investigations into his behavior are forthcoming to make sure his is not a predator.

Slaughter's House Rules

Unable to competently draft a health care rationing bill that Democratic majorities in the House and Senate can agree on, House Rules Chairman Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) is attempting to concoct an unconstitutional rule that would consider the bill voted upon, even though it is has not been:

The twisted scheme by which Democratic leaders plan to bend the rules to ram President Obama's massive health care legislation through Congress now has a name: the Slaughter Solution.

The Slaughter Solution is a plan by Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY), the Democratic chair of the powerful House Rules Committee and a key ally of Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), to get the health care legislation through the House without an actual vote on the Senate-passed health care bill. You see, Democratic leaders currently lack the votes needed to pass the Senate health care bill through the House. Under Slaughter's scheme, Democratic leaders will overcome this problem by simply "deeming" the Senate bill passed in the House - without an actual vote by members of the House.

They are attempting to declare victory without a vote, governing by fiat.

Please pay attention, my fellow Americans.

Governments that begin trying to rewrite rules that have worked for hundreds of years in order to seize a temporary advantage quickly become drunk on that power if they are allowed it, and the result is always unpleasant.

Slaughter's subversive House rules are just one avenue that leftists are pursuing in a frenetic quest to seize as much power for themselves as possible before many of their number are thrown out of office in November. The problem, of course, is that if they find that they can simply rewrite the rules to suit them, then even the sting of electoral defeat may no longer be a threat to their ambitions.

Watch them closely.

The Punk White House

Having a sense of decorum and has never been a requirement for the Presidency. It is a pesky, almost irrelevant detail the Founders wisely chose not to include becuase it could be abused to exclude otherwise qualified candidates from seeking the office. That said, having a President without a sense of decency and respect for the Office is painfully embarrassing for the nation, both domestically, and in the eyes of the world.

Barack Obama's presidency has been an unending trainwreck this far, from serial protocol gaffes that disrespected foreign heads of state, to attacks against the media that debase the office, to his recent and embarrassing attack against the Supreme Court that overshadowed his first State of the Union address. Justices are required by protocol and tradition to sit stoically throughout the Address. Obama's assault on them over an unconstitutional law they overturned was the equivalent of kicking a defenseless dog on a chain.

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts diplomatically attempted to answer questions about the breach of decorum by simply calling it "very troubling."

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs, a perfect representative for the most thin-skinned of presidents, did not have the grace to let even that innocuous comment slip by without going into attack mode. Instead, Gibbs magnified the breach of decency and it's measured response by launching into an attack on the court yet again:

"What is troubling is that this decision opened the floodgates for corporations and special interests to pour money into elections - drowning out the voices of average Americans," Gibbs said. "The President has long been committed to reducing the undue influence of special interests and their lobbyists over government. That is why he spoke out to condemn the decision and is working with Congress on a legislative response."

The push back against the Supreme Court header from the White House seems almost unprecedented in its directness, though White House officials claim previous administrations expressed equally public criticisms of the court. Undoubtedly, it's bound to spur another round of debates over what constitutes proper decorum between the two branches.

Gibbs' answer is filled with lies and hypocrisy—the White House has appointed lobbyists with reckless abandon and allows the special interests they represent to write policy on everything from education, to climate change, to recreational fishing—but what is most troubling is the inability of this President and his staff to respectfully represent the Office of the Presidency that they temporarily inhabit.

Perhaps Obama is simply lacking in class and decency. Perhaps his thuggish mentors and allies did not adequately teach him to respect his position or his nation. Whatever the excuse, Barack Obama and his closest allies are an international embarrassment as the continue to engage in the petty and banal.

This behavior is beneath the Office, and if Obama and his lackey's can't respect that, one can hope they develop the political sense to at least go mute.

Comical: NAACP Calls for Resignation of School Board Head Who Called People "Animals"... For The Way The Crowd Treated a Black Speaker

Perhaps the most obvious thing about the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in the decades since the Civil Rights era is that "advancement" doesn't seem to be their goal in many instances. Instead, they often tend to fall back into a defensive mode, circling the wagons to defend ineffective or even destructive situations in the name of political expediency and patronage politics.

We have a perfect example of that idiocy developing here in central North Carolina, after a slate of candidates swept into office on a reform platform began to attempt to fix the faltering Wake County schools.

One of the proposals supported by voters and the new school board they sent to shake things up was the return to a community schools model. The proposal is simple. Instead of busing students all over the county to enforce diversity artificially, most parents and the school board desire to limit the amount of time students spend commuting. The hope is to send students no further than five miles away from their homes to school.

As the parent of a child that faces a 45-minute one-way commute every day (admittedly by choice to a centralized magnet school), I can certainly understand why parent would like to have their kids closer to home.

But North Carolina NAACP head Rev. William Barber did what the NAACP always does. Instead of debating the philosophy or statistics of the change, he instead immediately attempted to cry that the attempt to change a broken system was designed to hurt minorities.

To try to bolster his weak cries of racism, he has attacked (and continues to attack) Wake County School Board Chairman Ron Margiotta for comments he made in a meeting earlier this month.

After U.S.House candidate Bill Randall spoke in favor of ending the current busing policy—a speech that was consistently interrupted by outbursts by supporters of a failed status quo—Margiotta growled "Here come the animals out of their cages, " as he braced for an onslaught of opposition to the plan that was based on politically and racially-motivated fear-mongering instead of facts.

Despite the fact the crowd was indeed mob-like and disruptive, Margiotta was probably out of line to speak of opponents so dismissively. But he simply wasn't singling out one group or entity. He was responding to a contentious, diverse, and disorderly crowd.

Rev. Barber—a defender of patronage politics designed to infuse people such as himself with power—is using his position as the President of the state NAACP to bring the national organization to bear against Margiotta, trying to get him to step down by misrepresenting his non-racial comment.

Barber's goal is clear: use false charges of racism to undermine the clear will of the majority of Wake County voters.

But is is clear that there was no racism in Margiotta's outburst, even if he was in a foul temper by that point. Congressional Candidate Randall was trying to make a speech, and opponents tried to drown him out.

Barber and the NAACP are welcome to debate the merits of various approaches to education policy, and they are welcome to file lawsuits if the feel they the new policy will negatively impact children in Wake County schools.

But trying to claim there is racism when it clearly does not exist is the petty act of an organization that has long outlived its originally function and utility, and the state and national leaders that stoop to this level are the leaders that desperately need to be replaced.

Good News: Obama's Eco-Nazis A Threat to a Million Sport-Fishing Jobs

That this is even a possibility is incredibly absurd:

"In spite of what we hear daily in the press about the President's concern for jobs and the economy and contrary to what he stated in the June order creating this process, we have seen no evidence from NOAA or the task force that recreational fishing and related jobs are receiving any priority."

Consequently, unless anglers speak up and convince their Congressional representatives to stop this bureaucratic freight train, it appears that the task force will issue a final report for "marine spatial planning" by late March, with President Barack Obama then issuing an Executive Order to implement its recommendations — whatever they may be.

Led by NOAA's Jane Lubchenco, the task force has shown no overt dislike of recreational angling, but its indifference to the economic, social and biological value of the sport has been deafening.

Additionally, Lubchenco and others in the administration have close ties to environmental groups who would like nothing better than to ban recreational angling. And evidence suggests that these organizations have been the engine behind the task force since before Obama issued a memo creating it last June.

As noted later in the article, policies based on junk science are being pushed by anti-use environmental extremists friendly to the Administration could be a threat to a multi-billion dollar industry employing over a million people.

I'd think this was a parody, if this wasn't the exact path Obama's energy policy has already taken.

Not Too Bright

The Brady Campaign apparently thinks the best way to convince their fellow citizens to disarm themselves is to make penis jokes in the captions of their photos. The anti-gun group has since removed the captions entirely, but not before the damage was done.

I'd simply like Brady, the Violence Policy Center, and related anti-gun groups to make fact-based arguments for their positions, instead of resorting to cheap emotionalism.

Or is that too much to ask?

Agents of Incompetence, Part II

U.S. Customs inspectors and BATF agents claim that a shipment of Airsoft guns are machine guns, because of a BATF determination that claims that these toys can easily be modified into automatic weapons.

In the second installment of Agents of Incompetence, two teams of experts take the BATF determination apart:

In short, the gunsmith determined that the entire upper receiver would have to be replaced by an upper from a real M4/M6 type rifle to have a hope of functioning, and a trigger pack from a real M4 would have to undergo extensive modification to even fit. And even when modified to fit, it wouldn't fire. If this gunsmith is correct, then all the effort to take a $400 toy and $600-plus of real gun parts — plus significant labor from a proficient gunsmith — would result in a thousand-dollar club less functional than the original toy...

And Bush Was The Idiot?

A year ago, Barack Obama had strong personal favorability ratings and very good poll numbers, a supermajority in the Senate, and an overwhelming majority in the House of Representatives.

In the course of little more than a year, he's destroyed his favorability ratings and illusion of competence, has abdicated his role as leader and ripped apart the Democratic Party and the House and Senate to the point no one trusts anyone. Now, the biggest story of the day on the eve of yet another push to pass his health care rationing bill is a claim by a Democrat that he was framed by House leaders in a gay sex scandal so that he would resign and not be a vote against the bill, a bill in which Obama has unwisely invested all of his political capital.

He's now reduced to stump speeches attacking American businesses in the feeble hope of salvaging his wounded pride.

How far he has fallen, and how little he has to show for his zealotry.

The Lazy Unemployed

Steve Benen writes that THE GOP STILL JUST DOESN'T LIKE THE UNEMPLOYED....

My immediate response to the headline was the snarky thought, "...as opposed to the Democrats, who are doing everything in their power to make everyone unemployed."

But I clicked through anyway, to see Benen trying to set up his argument by citing Tom DeLay:

It's astounding, but in the midst of an unemployment crisis, prominent Republicans continue to castigate those struggling to find jobs.

Yesterday, for example, disgraced former Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) argued that unemployment benefits are a bad idea, because, as he sees it, they discourage people from entering the work force.

"You know," DeLay said, "there is an argument to be made that these extensions of these unemployment benefits keeps people from going and finding jobs." When CNN's Candy Crowley described his argument as "a hard sell" to the public, DeLay replied, "It's the truth."

Crowley followed up, asking, "People are unemployed because they want to be?" DeLay again said, "Well, it is the truth."

After citing other examples of no-doubt evil Republicans making similar comments, Benen then concludes:

As a matter of conscience, having prominent Republicans chastise those struggling to find work during an unemployment crisis is just callous and cruel.

And as a matter of politics, who, exactly, is going to be impressed by Republicans attacking the unemployed as lazy? Since when is "screw struggling families, let's worry about corporate tax cuts and the estate tax" an effective election-year message during difficult economic times?

I can only assume Benen chooses to turn a blind eye to the phenomena of funemployment, the breezy, recreational abuse of unemployment benefits that has a become a lifestyle of its own, with Web sites and blogs dedicated to it.

This is the kind of abuse that DeLay and other Republicans are targeting, and I cannot see how any sane person can defend making unemployment benefits to those who choose to abuse the system instead of finding a way to become a contributing member of society.

Then there are the purposefully underemployed, those that could be working full time jobs—often with benefits—but at lower salaries that they previously made. They choose to remain unemployed because they are arrogant and feel entitled and would rather be unemployed than take a position they feel is beneath them.

These people, again, are those that continue to sponge off the taxpayer as they sit on their plump backsides watching The View because they system is broken and allows them to live a life without accountability (or at least with reduced accountability) for their inaction.

Unemployment should be a safety net, not a plush feather bed or even a futon.

It's a simple concept: If you don't work because you won't work, you don't eat.

It's so simple, even a liberal can grasp it.

Lazy and Unqualified

Surely, they can't be serious.

Agents of Incompetence

Don't you think that U.S. Customs and the ATF should be able to tell shipments Airsoft guns from machine guns? And if they did determine that such toys could be converted into real weapons, that they should stop all imports of the toys, and not just the imports to a single store?

In the first article of a three part series at Pajamas Media, I tackle what can only be descried as Agents of Incompetence.

Obama To Dems: It's All About Me

For the first time in his life since the last time, Barack Obama reminds America that his Presidency isn't about leading America, but about satisfying his ego:

President Obama's message to progressives who are dissatisfied with the Senate health care bill is two fold: First: Don't forget about the uninsured. Second: Don't forget what failure to pass this bill would do to the party and my presidency.

Wow. ...and my presidency.

I want to ask a simple question: are there still citizens that believe that Barack Obama cares more about the uninsured than he does about how he will be remembered?

And are there still Democrats who think he won't hang them out to dry in his raw pursuit of self-glorification?

Global Warming Scientists Scramble to Find Way To Blame Man for Earth's Methane Release

I can only imagine that Phil Jones, Algore, and the rest of the anthropogenic global warming fetishists are wracking their brains to find a way to blame mankind for this discovery:

Vast amounts of methane are bubbling up from the East Siberian sea, raising fears of a massive hike in global warming.

Permafrost in the seabed has been previously assumed to act as an effective cap for the enormous amount of methane in the area.

But researchers at the Russian Academy of Sciences, the University of Alaska and Stockholm University have found that eight million tonnes of methane are currently leaking into the atmosphere every year.

"The amount of methane currently coming out of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf is comparable to the amount coming out of the entire world's oceans," said Shakhova, a researcher at UAF's International Arctic Research Center. "Subsea permafrost is losing its ability to be an impermeable cap."

The problem with this discovery is two-fold for the AGW Truthers.

First, the role of methane release in triggering previous warming periods is well documented, and the continuing release would seem to provide a far more likely explanation for any warming that may have occurred or which may occur in the near future than the anthropogenic argument.

Second, the release of the discovery comes at a time when the anthropogenic warming supporter are reeling under a continuous stream of revelations that have undermined the credibility of the "settled science" itself and many of the scientists/officials involved.

The great fear for anthropogenic warming supporters isn't that the world may be warming, but that they won't be able to find a way to profit from it, financially, or politically.

Pentagon Attacked by Anti-Bush Nut/ 9/11 Truther

Patterico has the details.

Two police officers were wounded in the attack. The shooter was fatally shot during the attack. His name was John Patrick Bedell of Hollister, CA. According to MSNBC, he had prior arrests for cultivating marijuana and assaulting cops.

Update: The shooter was a registered Democrat, not that the fact will keep dishonest, ideologically-driven propagandists such as Peter Grier from attempting to smear those on the center right..

Trash Sues For Cash

Give me a freakin' break:

VICTIMS of Hurricane Katrina from Mississippi are seeking to sue carbon gas-emitting multinationals for helping fuel global warming and boosting the devastating 2005 storm, legal documents showed.

The class action suit brought by residents from southern Mississippi, which was ravaged by hurricane-force winds and driving rains, was first filed just weeks after the August 2005 storm hit.

"The plaintiffs allege that defendants' operation of energy, fossil fuels, and chemical industries in the United States caused the emission of greenhouse gasses that contributed to global warming," say the documents, seen by AFP.

The increase in global surface air and water temperatures "in turn caused a rise in sea levels and added to the ferocity of Hurricane Katrina, which combined to destroy the plaintiffs' private property, as well as public property useful to them".

Every single person taking part in this lawsuit emits carbon dioxide with every breath they take. Hopefully someone will countersue to keep these idiots from breeding.

More Incompetence From Obama

Despite the headline, Barack Obama is almost certainly not selling judgeships to secure heath care votes.

For starters, holding on to the appointment until after the vote would have been Obama's power play, and it is also rather difficult to claim that Scott Matheson isn't a good candidate for the position.

But any politician—even a neophyte city councilman—simply has to know how bad the optics of this appointment are at this time. While the appointment is probably perfectly legitimate, even amateurs know better than to create the appearance of possible bribery, especially leading into a close-run and controversial vote on a high-profile piece of legislation with little public support.

Supporters claim that Barack Obama is refreshingly smart and cerebral compared to our last President.

How much longer do we have to wait until he shows it?

Domestic Violence Lobbyist Guns Down Husband After Five Day Marriage

While it is far from always being the case, most of us tend to think of domestic violence as a crime that typically occurs within the home, not blocks away:

Witnesses told police that Bridges was wearing a nightgown and a shower cap as she argued with Rankins on the sidewalk on North Avenue near West Peachtree Street around 10:45 p.m. Monday.

And moments later, witnesses said, they heard shots. They said she then "calmly walked away."

A MARTA police officer stopped her as she was getting into her car, perhaps to return to her home nearby on Centennial Olympic Park Drive.

Arelisha Bridges apparently chased down her new husband in her car and then shot him down on the street after an argument.

Bridges is registered as a lobbyist for the little-known National Declaration for Domestic Violence Order, but seems to have been almost inactive in that role.

Seems she should have been a lobbyist for Orderly Domestic Violence.

The Kind Of Leadership We Need...

...can't be found in Washington, DC.

People always want something for nothing, and politicians, being the craven creatures they are, always try to provide it even when their actions create crushing debt on future generations. They trade long-term prosperity for temporary power, and the political class we've been cursed with has abused the system's holding capacity for such incompetencies to its quite generous limits.

We live in a time where we see states and entire nations on the verge of bankruptcy, and yet the people who have caused this problem think the proper response is not just to continue a pattern of chronic spending abuse, but to make it worse. They'll go so far as to completely ignore the pleas of those they swore to serve, threatening the solvency of the very union they should protect and defend with their lives.

As others have noted, it's all about ego for a generation of elected representatives that has convinced themselves they are something akin to a ruling class. November cannot come fast enough.

We must purge ourselves of those politicians that revel in their own sense of importance and believe that they, not the American people, are the source of this nation's greatness.

We've suffered these condescending fools and their scheming for too long. We can only hope they don't cause irreparable damage before they are dragged or driven out.

SPLC's Interesting Ideas of "Right Wing Hate"

I'll let others dissect liberal Mark Potok's increasingly irrelevant claims about the growth of right wing hate, and instead focus on what the group claims about my home state of North Carolina.

My first observation is that our typically "red" state that many urban liberals like to mock for being part of the Old South has less than half the listed hate groups (29) of "tolerant" California. Bigots.

But what I find especially interesting is that in their report on right wing hate, they link to their so-called "hate map" as if to imply all groups listed are right wing.

They most certainly are not.

Of the 29 hate groups the SPLC lists in North Carolina, 8 are black separatist groups, including chapters of the Nation of Islam, the New Black Panther Party, and two branches of The Israelite Church of God in Jesus Christ.

While I'm not at all familiar with the last group, the Nation of Islam and New Black Panther Party both tie themselves closely to the Democratic Party and many left-wing initiatives, including advocating the Presidency of Barack Obama. The Nation of Islam's leader was and is openly praised and accepted at Obama's church and among his closest mentors in Chicago.

By the SPLC's standards of guilt by loose association, the Obama Administration should clearly be listed as a black separatist hate group operating with branches in Chicago and Washington, DC, if not nationwide. Of course, this same loose standard was applied and Obama-supporting groups were documented, then Potok would have to explain the explosive growth of left wing hate groups... and Potok is not about to document that.

Certainly, most sensible people would view the way the SPLC pigeonholes groups on vague and arbitrary standards as absurd.

But then, people with sense don't fund the SPLC.

Tea Party Knockoffs: Watered Down, Bitter

It looks like our friends at the NY Times and Washington Post are thrilled to jump on the bandwagon of the left-wing Coffee Party.

Too bad their articles cheerleading the group just happened to come out on the day Pajamas Media published my article exposing them as the front-end of a left-wing astroturfing campaign.

Climate Change Cultists Don't Believe in Peer-Reviewed Science, Unless Reviewed By Like-Minded Believers

Two interesting ways of telling the same, sad story.

Via Breitbart:

A British climate researcher at the centre of a row over global warming science has admitted he wrote some "pretty awful" emails to sceptics when he was refusing their requests for data.

But Phil Jones, of the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit, defended Monday his decision not to release the data about temperatures from around the world, saying it was not "standard practice" to do so.

"I have obviously written some pretty awful emails," Jones told British lawmakers in response to a question about a message he sent to a sceptic in which he refused to release data saying he believed it would be misused.

And from the UK Daily Mail:

Giving evidence to a Science and Technology Committee inquiry, the Institute of Physics said: 'Unless the disclosed emails are proved to be forgeries or adaptations, worrying implications arise for the integrity of scientific research and for the credibility of the scientific method.

'The principle that scientists should be willing to expose their results to independent testing and replication by others, which requires the open exchange of data, procedures and materials, is vital.'

Last month, the Information Commissioner ruled the CRU had broken Freedom of Information rules by refusing to hand over raw data.

But yesterday Professor Jones - in his first public appearance since the scandal broke - denied manipulating the figures.

Looking pale and clasping his shaking hands in front of him, he told MPs: 'I have obviously written some pretty awful emails.'

He admitted withholding data about global temperatures but said the information was publicly available from American websites.

And he claimed it was not 'standard practice' to release data and computer models so other scientists could check and challenge research.

Uh, how is that scientific method supposed to function again? This is from Wikipedia, but I think they still have this mostly correct (my emphasis below):

Scientific method refers to a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge. To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on gathering observable, empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning.[1] A scientific method consists of the collection of data through observation and experimentation, and the formulation and testing of hypotheses.[2]

Although procedures vary from one field of inquiry to another, identifiable features distinguish scientific inquiry from other methodologies of knowledge. Scientific researchers propose hypotheses as explanations of phenomena, and design experimental studies to test these hypotheses. These steps must be repeatable in order to dependably predict any future results. Theories that encompass wider domains of inquiry may bind many independently-derived hypotheses together in a coherent, supportive structure. This in turn may help form new hypotheses or place groups of hypotheses into context.

Among other facets shared by the various fields of inquiry is the conviction that the process be objective to reduce biased interpretations of the results. Another basic expectation is to document, archive and share all data and methodology so they are available for careful scrutiny by other scientists, thereby allowing other researchers the opportunity to verify results by attempting to reproduce them. This practice, called full disclosure, also allows statistical measures of the reliability of these data to be established.

A core principle of the scientific method is the full-disclosure of all relevant documentation. Dr. Jones, along with many of his peers damned in the Climategate emails, have decided to completely abandon the scientific method for faith-based beliefs.

There seems to be very little separating climate change cultists from the evolutionists creationists they love to mock, except that they don't have the self-awareness to know their beliefs are based on faith.

Obama is Not a Drunk

The Guardian made it appear that President Obama was told to moderate his drinking (suggesting he drinks too much), a story that quite a few bloggers have reported on.

Unfortunately, a copy of Obama's medical exam released to the press confirms that he cannot blame alcohol abuse for his Presidency.

Pelosi To House Democrats: I'll Sacrifice You For Obamacare

Hear the words of a true believer:

Ms. Pelosi was asked what she would say to House Democrats who were "in real fear of losing their seats in November if they support you now."

"Our members, every one of them, wants health care," Ms. Pelosi said. “They know that this will take courage. It took courage to pass Social Security. It took courage to pass Medicare. And many of the same forces that were at work decades ago are at work again against this bill."

"But," Ms. Pelosi continued, "the American people need it. Why are we here? We're not here just to self-perpetuate our service in Congress. We're here to do the job for the American people, to get them results that give them not only health security, but economic security."

I'm sure it comes as a surprise to no one that Nancy Pelosi is a radical zealot willing to sacrifice as "lesser" red state Democrats to advance her drive to socialism. That she sees the bankrupting nightmares of Social Security and Medicare as the kind of program Obamcare should aspire to be simply clarifies she is far more interested in growing the power and influence of government than she is helping the poor taxpayers saddled by the debt she keeps attempting to increase in billion dollar bites.

Pelosi and her dim-witted allies can't seem to grasp the basic concept that government cannot provide cradle-to-grave everything, nor does she understand it does almost nothing well. Nor do she and her allies seem to grasp that the United States doesn't have an infinite supply of money, even as her home state edges ever closer to bankruptcy because of the exact same kinds of economy-killing liberal programs she champions.

Her run as Speaker may be over in November.

Let's hope the damage she can do to our nation in the meantime is negligible.