They're Just Charts, People

The Tax Plan we all want.

 

People gotta eat right?

 

Job Gains & Losses

 

 Welfare Spending or

Just give them money and they'll shut up.

 

I'm sure Nancy, Princess of Pineapples could explain this.

Right Your Highness?

We won't deny that Obama has set several records in the past 4 years:

US Unemployment rates

 And in case you're wondering why gas is at 3.75 a gallon:

Energy News

The American Energy Industry in the Age of Obama

Big Peace has been tracking the challenges faced by American energy companies during the Age of Obama. The Wall Street Journal has a new piece today which highlights how the power of American energy companies is on the decline while those in Russia, China, and countries such as Brazil are on the rise. In 2005, for example, only two non-western companies were among the world’s largest energy companies. Today, half of them are. This is about more than market value. As the piece points out, many of the big American companies don’t own as many energy reserves around the world as they used to. In the 1960s Exxon and Shell owned 85% of the world’s energy reserves. Today, the major western companies control only 15%.
Is it too difficult to understand how this will undermine our strategic position in the world? Is anyone in the White House paying attention to this? Do they even care? Too scary to answer that question.

Why (or How) Is This Legal?

ChiComs buy GM subsidiary.

A GM unit in China’s hands

You don’t need to understand exchange rates and trade wars to grasp the economic change that has come to Saginaw, Mich. Remarkably, the largest private employer there will soon be the city government of Beijing.

In the weeks ahead, a 104-year-old unit of General Motors will be sold to new owners from China. The unit made steering equipment for decades under the name Saginaw Steering Gear. Now known as Nexteer, it employs 8,300 people around the world. Its new Beijing owners call themselves Pacific Century Motors.

You and the rest of the world probably missed this $450 million deal. General Motors, still controlled by the U.S. government, gave it little attention this summer as it readied its own high-profile return to the stock market.

Read more:

Dhimmi Unions and Foreign Money

Who’s really influencing the elections?
Jonathon M. Seidl

The Wall Street Journal has a report that says the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) is spending $87.5 million this election season to re-elect Democrats.

But you’re supposed to overlook that and remember that the Chamber of Commerce, along with big business, is buying this election.

Brought to you by Business Insider.

NRA Sells Out Gun Owners

Email from a friend out in the western part of the Territories.
HR 5175 Restriction of Free Speech
You Can't Call A Congressperson An Idiot Act

The NRA is fully prepared to sell out grassroots gun organizations across the nation, including VCDL, to the anti-gun Democratic leadership in the U.S. House of Representatives by not fighting a bill that will gag the free speech of those who criticize members of Congress.

The NRA, in a news release included below, has said it will turn a blind eye to H.R. 5175, the DISCLOSE Act, since it exempts the NRA. Bottom line: the NRA has been bought off.

Here is the criteria in the bill for an exemption:
* More than 1 million members
* Has been in existence for more than 10 years
* Has members in all 50 states
* Raises 15 percent or less of their income from corporations

It appears the ONLY gun organization to meet that set of criteria would be the NRA - not GOA or SAF or CCRKBA, much less VCDL.

VCDL rarely criticizes another gun organization, but on this issue we cannot, and must not, hold our tongues.

Let me not mince words - this appears to be an unholy alliance between Nancy Pelosi and the NRA, which would wipe out the NRA's competition.

If you snuggle up with a rattlesnake you are going to get bit. The NRA is playing a fool's game if they think they will survive this unscathed. Nancy Pelosi is not their friend now, nor will she ever be.

For their own self-interest, the NRA is apparently choosing to drive, or at least ride in, the bus that is going to run over the rest of us.

Portion of Press Release from NRA:
On June 14, 2010, Democratic leadership in the U.S. House of Representatives pledged that H.R. 5175 would be amended to exempt groups like the NRA, that meet certain criteria, from its onerous restrictions on political speech. As a result, and as long as that remains the case, the NRA will not be involved in final consideration of the House bill.

Guns and Free Speech
16 June 2010
The Wall Street Journal

The National Rifle Association is suffering a sudden onset of amnesia this week, as the gun lobby cuts a deal to exempt itself from the latest Congressional attempt to repeal the First Amendment. NRA members may soon regret the organization's bid to ingratiate itself with Democrats at the expense of its longtime free-speech allies.

The campaign finance bill, sponsored by Senator Chuck Schumer and Representative Chris Van Hollen, is the Democratic response to the Supreme Court's January decision in Citizens United v. FEC, which restored the First Amendment right of corporations, unions and nonprofits to make independent campaign expenditures. At the time, the NRA's Wayne LaPierre called Citizens United "a defeat for arrogant elitists who wanted to carve out free speech as a privilege for themselves and deny it to the rest of us."

Look who's arrogant and elitist now. Under the Schumer-Van Hollen bill, political speech would be bound up with new restrictions, including special burdens on government contractors and corporations that have a certain level of foreign ownership or received TARP funds. The bill also includes disclosure rules designed to hit corporations, requiring CEOs to appear to "approve this message" the way politicians do, and for groups to identify their donors. Except for the NRA.

Under the NRA carve-out in the House bill, the new rules won't apply to any organizations that have been around for more than 10 years, have more than a million members and receive less than 15% of their funding from corporate donors. That fits the NRA nicely, though as best we can figure, everyone else, from the Sierra Club to Planned Parenthood, fails to qualify. So much for defending the little guy against the fat cats.

This backroom deal came at the behest of Democrats from conservative states, for whom the NRA's scorecard of their legislative record can be a major boost or obstacle to election. Creating a special exception for the NRA, and thereby assuring the Democrats "good grades" on Second Amendment rights, eases the way for the bill to be passed. A failing grade on First Amendment rights is somebody else's problem.

By erecting what amounts to a grandfather clause of First Amendment rights, the bill creates a sort of interest-group incumbency, concentrating the power to speak freely among a handful of large and longstanding groups. Established organizations like the NRA provide important representation for their members, but their lobbying cause is specific and limited.

Left vulnerable by the special treatment are the smaller grassroots outfits that often pop up in response to new and immediate policy challenges. The ability of these groups to count on the full protection of the First Amendment is critical to diverse and responsive political debate.

The NRA may swing a big lobbying stick by virtue of the breadth and voting power of its members, but it draws its legitimacy from the Constitution and it has drawn support on gun rights from those who care about the entire Bill of Rights. Cutting a special deal at the expense of the First Amendment with lawmakers who have decided for now to stop gutting the Second Amendment reveals an NRA that is unprincipled and will be weaker for it in the long run.

Patriot Post "Editorial Exegesis"

Legislation by Fiat: The Politboro uses this tactic.

"We're not sure American schools teach civics any more, but once upon a time they taught that under the U.S. Constitution a bill had to pass both the House and Senate to become law. Until this week, that is, when Speaker Nancy Pelosi is moving to merely 'deem' that the House has passed the Senate health-care bill and then send it to President Obama to sign anyway.

Under the 'reconciliation' process that began [Monday] afternoon, the House is supposed to approve the Senate's Christmas Eve bill and then use 'sidecar' amendments to fix the things it doesn't like. Those amendments would then go to the Senate under rules that would let Democrats pass them while avoiding the ordinary 60-vote threshold for passing major legislation. This alone is an abuse of traditional Senate process.

But Mrs. Pelosi & Co. fear they lack the votes in the House to pass an identical Senate bill, even with the promise of these reconciliation fixes. House Members hate the thought of going on record voting for the Cornhusker kickback and other special-interest bribes that were added to get this mess through the Senate, as well as the new tax on high-cost insurance plans that Big Labor hates.

So at the Speaker's command, New York Democrat Louise Slaughter, who chairs the House Rules Committee, may insert what's known as a 'self-executing rule,' also known as a 'hereby rule.' Under this amazing procedural ruse, the House would then vote only once on the reconciliation corrections, but not on the underlying Senate bill.

If those reconciliation corrections pass, the self-executing rule would say that the Senate bill is presumptively approved by the House -- even without a formal up-or-down vote on the actual words of the Senate bill. Democrats would thus send the Senate bill to President Obama for his signature even as they claimed to oppose the same Senate bill.

They would be declaring themselves to be for and against the Senate bill in the same vote. Even John Kerry (who served in Viet Nam) never went that far with his Iraq war machinations. ... This two-votes-in-one gambit is a brazen affront to the plain language of the Constitution, which is intended to require democratic accountability.

Article 1, Section 7 of the Constitution says that in order for a 'Bill' to 'become a Law,' it 'shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate.' This is why the House and Senate typically have a conference committee to work out differences in what each body passes. ...

If Congress can now decide that the House can vote for one bill and the Senate can vote for another, and the final result can be some arbitrary hybrid, then we have abandoned one of [James] Madison's core checks and balances." --The Wall Street Journal

Morning Must Reads from DCExaminer

Washington Post -- House Democrats' tactic for health-care bill is debated
The White House thought it had a winner in talking about budget reconciliation by focusing on Republican obstructionism and the limitations of a supermajority-rules Senate. It not only provided a distraction from the contents of the president’s plan (like the addition of a brand-new 3-percent tax on investment income), but it also seemed clear cut: majority rules.
But the House has followed suit with its own procedural hijinks, further eroding public confidence in the process and the product. Passing a bill without voting on it sounds like cheating and the speaker’s rationale – liberals, anti-abortion purists, and moderates all hate the Senate bill and want to avoid guilt by association – is the rankest example of political butt covering since Arlen Specter went back to the Democratic Party.
Talking about process instead of policy was one thing when Democrats were arguing for an “up or down vote” in the Senate. But it’s quite another thing to be avoiding an “up or down vote” in the House.
For now, with no bill yet from the White House despite lots of late-night cramming with drug lobbyists and other special-interest groups, every hour that goes by talking about the process hurts Democratic chances of final passage.
Writer Amy Goldstein explains that while a health plan produced in such an ungainly fashion might survive a legal challenge, political survival for the swing-district Democrats who support it is less likely.
“On the other hand, Stuart Rothenberg, a nonpartisan political analyst, said the current stage of the debate is a rare instance in which the public is focused on the process of legislating. ‘Voters are aware it's been pulling teeth,’ he said, adding that some Americans think Congress's Democratic leaders had ‘to give away the store to get even Democrats to pass it’ and, more recently, resorted to a ‘reconciliation’ procedure that requires fewer Senate votes to pass.
‘From there, we've leapt to a totally different planet with this deeming,’ Rothenberg said. ‘I feel like I've fallen through the rabbit hole: 'Oh, they are going to not pass the bill and just pretend they passed the bill.'’”

Wall Street Journal -- Overhaul Splits Party Faithful
The new poll from The Wall Street Journal and NBC News confirms that Democrats have suffered tremendous damage in their health care gambit.
They’ve allowed Republicans to climb back on top for core GOP issues – deficits, taxes, and national security – and moved from a 19-point advantage to a tie with Republicans on handling the economy.
It brings to mind the company that focuses all its resources on a new product launch only to find that no one is buying. I’m looking at you Apple Lisa.
President Obama’s job approval rating (48 percent) and support for his health care plan (36 percent) are nearly the same as they were in July at the start of the nine-month voyage through the legislative Horse Latitudes. What’s different is the rise in opposition to the plan (from 42 to 48) and disapproval of how the president is handling the issue (from 46 percent to 57 percent).
Obama wrecked his brand on health care and the shoddy means and frequent failures in the process will make his political rehabilitation more challenging whatever happens in Congress.
Democrats are now playing to a narrow base in the false hope that fired up liberals can beat back fed up independents and fired up Republicans.
“At the same time, Democratic voters strongly favor the legislation being pushed by President Barack Obama, particularly constituencies such as blacks, Latinos and self-described liberals. Those groups mobilized in 2008 to help elect Mr. Obama, but are far less enthusiastic than core Republicans about voting in this year's midterm elections.
The survey found a 21-point enthusiasm gap between the parties, with 67% of Republicans saying they are very interested in the November elections, compared with 46% of Democrats. "If the Democrats are going to close that gap, they've got to get their people excited. And I don't see how you get those people if you vote no" on the party's health-care legislation, said Democratic pollster Peter Hart, who conducted the survey with Republican Bill McInturff.”

New York Times -- Obama to Appear on Fox News
How bad is it for Democrats? So bad that the White House gave Fox News’ Brett Baier one of the hour-long interviews it usually reserves as a reward for the likes of Diane Sawyer and Brian Williams.
This is big for Baier, who has established his brand nicely since the quasi-retirement of Brit Hume. This is his chance to establish himself as the straight-news star of the dominant cable news network.
For Obama, it’s a chance to talk to someone other than his base supporters. And while he risks tougher questions that Sawyer or Williams would ask, it’s good for the president to make this tacit admission that he and his administration’s war on the network was a mistake. And remember, Obama’s best interview of 2008 was his September session with Bill O’Reilly.
Writer Sheryl Gay Stolberg is our TV guide:
“The interview with Bret Baier will be broadcast at 6 p.m., at the height of a week in which Democrats, including Mr. Obama, are pressing allies and lawmakers to push ahead to get the health care bill passed in the House despite solid Republican opposition and the lessening of public support for the legislation.”

Washington Post -- U.S. Chamber of Commerce sets sights on Democrats ahead of midterm elections
The Chamber is getting ready to drop $50 million on vulnerable congressional Democrats.
It’s not as much as the AFL-CIO is rolling out to preserve a Democratic majority, but business leaders are running with the wind this year.
After spending big bucks to get a seat at Obama’s big table and accommodating Democrats, the Chamber has decided that if you can’t join ‘em, beat ‘em.
Aside from a favorable atmosphere, the Chamber will be helped by the ability to run ads right up until Election Day thanks to the recent Supreme Court campaign finance ruling. The Chamber is good at advertising and can now hold back money until the races sort themselves out and then hammer the weakest Democrats on health care and cap and trade.
Writer Dan Eggen passes along the preposterous response from Democrats that it is good news because it shows Republicans are in the pocket of big business. No one may have told the DNC, but big government isn’t exactly trouncing big business in public opinion these days.
“‘One of our biggest points going into this election will be how difficult it is to change Washington because of the moneyed interests like the Chamber,’ [DNC spokesman Brad] Woodhouse said. ‘We'll use the Chamber of Commerce and health insurance companies as Exhibit 1.’”

New York Times -- Budget Cut for Fence on U.S.-Mexico Border
Examiner colleague Julie Mason explains today that the muted White House response dire security situation in northern Mexico, even after the murder of American diplomats, has outraged Texans.
The move by the Obama administration to further scale back efforts to seal the U.S.-Mexico border has further inflamed attitudes in border states.
Writer Randal Archibold explains that because of problems with the “virtual fence” idea from the Bush Administration, the Obama team is stepping away from any concept of any fence at all.
“The virtual fence is part of a multiyear, multibillion-dollar effort known as the Secure Border Initiative that was announced with fanfare by the Bush administration in November 2005. Besides increasing the number of guards and expanding a border wall, it promised a sophisticated system of cameras, sensors and radar that would zero in on people crossing the border with new speed and clarity and quickly guide agents to them.”

Morning Must Reads -- Obama says Mirandize, Cheney says waterboard

Just kill 'em all and let God sort it out. Seriously, send them to allah.

Wall Street Journal -- Cheney Attacks Obama on National Security
Former vice president and wraith of liberal nightmares Dick Cheney took a unusually sympathetic tone in his drubbing of the Obama administration’s national security policy on Sunday.

He praised President Obama for a second escalation in Afghanistan and spoke frequently of the difficulty of making security decisions.

The Cheney message: It’s not Obama’s fault that he doesn’t know how to protect the country, but his super-slow learning curve is a huge problem for the rest of us.

Vice President Biden, sent forth to rebut Cheney from his perch as head of the U.S. delegation in Vancouver, just seemed sort of goofy.

Presented with Biden’s assertion that success in Iraq is one of the main accomplishments of the Obama administration, Cheney just laughed it off and said Biden should thank George Bush.
Biden also said that a military trial for KSM is possible, an announcement that will make big headaches for the administration.

Also – Cheney thinks waterboarding rocks. Cheney said he would have fake-drowned the underwear bomber in a stent-assisted heartbeat. So would I, and I have the stent.

“Mr. Cheney said interrogators should have had the option to use the ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ his administration approved—including the use of simulated drowning, or ‘water-boarding.’ He called himself ‘a big supporter of water-boarding,’ which critics say amounts to torture.

‘Now, President Obama has taken [those techniques] off the table,’ Mr. Cheney said. ‘He announced when he came in last year that they would never use anything other than the U.S. Army Manual which doesn't include those techniques. I think that's a mistake.’”

USA Today -- Roadside bombs taking bigger toll in Afghanistan
The allied battle for the former Taliban stronghold of Marja in the Helmand Province of Afghanistan is saw brief spurts of intense fighting, but seems to have found only limited resistance in the end – not a decisive battle with a concentrated enemy force. The attack, though, did result in the deaths of 15 civilians, mostly women and children, from an errant rocket.

The great danger to U.S. troops in Afghanistan is not direct confrontations with the Taliban, but in random bombing attacks. And as the U.S. presence exceeds 100,000, the casualties will mount.

Writer Tom Vanden Brook tells us the sad news.
“Winter weather failed to deter insurgents from stepping up roadside bomb attacks in Afghanistan, as both blasts and casualties among U.S. and allied troops in January more than doubled from a year earlier, Pentagon data show.
Coalition troops found 727 bombs in January compared with 276 in the same month of 2009. Blasts killed 32 U.S. and allied troops and wounded 137 others, compared with 14 deaths and 64 injuries in January 2009, according to the data. These bombs are the top killer of U.S. troops in Afghanistan.”

New York Times -- After 9/11 Trial Plan, Holder Hones Political Ear
The biggest headache for the White House today and the foreseeable future are the now clearly naïve promises the president and his team made to try the worst of the worlds’ terrorists in U.S. civilian court.

Complicating the situation is Attorney General Eric Holder, who seems to function as the liberal conscience of the administration.

Writers Jodi Kantor and Charlie Savage talked to Holder about how he helped get the president stuck in this bog and how he means to get out. The answer is the same as Obama’s on health care – do better with the messaging but don’t change the message.

Holder leaves out the possibility that people understand the situation but just think bringing KSM to NYC is a foolish idea or that getting a public defender for a foreigner who tries to blow up a plane is a little dainty, even for this administration. The president still seems ok with the plan, but it will be interesting to see how Holder functions in an administration that now operates in a state of high anxiety.

“Last fall, White House officials emphasized that the trial venue was the attorney general’s choice alone. That is no longer clearly the case. Asked who would make the decision, Mr. Holder gave a long pause and exhaled audibly. ‘I think that I make the final call,’ he said, ‘but if the president is not happy with that final call, he has the ability to reverse it.’”

The Hill -- Kyl: Dems have already decided how to force health bill through
If the GOP doesn’t find a way to attend the health summit 10 days hence it will be bad for the party as they will look unwilling to negotiate. But, if President Obama can’t find a way to get them there, it will be another major disaster for him on the question of whether he is able to govern.

It’s more difficult for Obama because the things that the GOP is asking for — a new plan, not a modification of an old one and for Democrats to agree to abide by the Senate rules and not try to use a procedural end-around of budget reconciliation to pass the bill — are not unreasonable sounding to voters but are very hard to convince Democrats in Congress to do.

For Speaker Pelosi and others in the House, giving up on a big bold initiative in favor of a compromise plan would be a bitter pill after watching the bungling process in the Senate.

They’re open to passing something pretty close to the Senate Democrats’ plan, but a bipartisan plan, perhaps without an insurance mandate, would be a bitter defeat. But Reid knows that reconciliation isn’t just politically unpopular because it smacks of cheating the system, its also devilishly difficult. It’s like trying to get an elephant to tap dance. Sure, it’s possible. But nobody wants to sit in the orchestra pit. Reconciliation presents a huge risk because it means breaking up the bill into individual pieces and moving each one with 51-vote majorities, but on each point the Senate parliamentarian gets to say whether it is an appropriate subject for reconciliation or not. It could take weeks and would be hugely controversial.

And with so many Democratic senators looking to get some open water between themselves and the administration and this plan, the maneuver would be subject to lots of intra-party attacks.

Writer Taylor Rushing looks at the CW on the Republican side, as told by Sen. Jon Kyl:
“He quoted a recent Wall Street Journal article that asserted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has ‘set the stage’ for using reconciliation to pass the bill. That controversial legislative tactic could allow the bill to pass the Senate with 51 votes instead of 60 as usually required to break a filibuster.

‘What that means is they’ve devised the process by which they can jam the bill through that the president has supported in the past, without Republican ideas in it,’ Kyl told CNN host Candy Crowley.”

Washington Post -- White House revamps communications strategy
The new White House communications strategy? Get back to the magic of 2008.
The administration is touting the new way they will be selling the presidents’ initiatives to the public – a direct, high-profile push by the boss on issues like health care, global warming (!), and the deficit.

In further evidence that the arrival of David Plouffe as a senior adviser is going to cause headaches, the administration is now bragging about a communications strategy that takes a caustic tone with critics and keeps Obama in constant campaign mode.

Sure, they did those things for all of 2009, but the problem, Obamites say, is that they didn’t do it hard enough. The strategy was good, they just didn’t push it hard enough. No one yet seems to have realized that a campaign has one goal. A presidency has many goals.

As evidence of the tin ear of the communications team, writer Michael Shear tells us that the administration thinks it’s winning the message war on the underpants bomber.
“White House advisers promise a quicker, more aggressive response to GOP attacks on the president and his policies. They noted that Obama and his top White House advisers have pushed back hard against Republican accusations that the FBI mishandled the interrogation of the man accused of trying to bomb an airliner on Christmas Day -- and as Biden did on Sunday.”

Morning Must Reads from DCExaminer

Wall Street Journal -- Leverage Sought In Health Summit
Republicans are asking President Obama to make a show of good faith before his proposed health care summit by publicly scrapping the existing Democratic legislation, crafted at great pains over the past year.
The president cannot explain that the only reasons for the summit are to show that he went down fighting for the great liberal cause, to demonstrate that Republicans are unworthy partners for bipartisan outreach, and, of course, to prove that he was right.
The White House is attempting a controlled demolition while Republicans are proposing a new construction project.
But as Examiner colleague Julie Mason points out, the White House is keenly aware that the president’s pivot to issues of concern for voters has resulted into a duck hook back into the health care bunker.
Writer Laura Meckler explains that speed will trump outcomes when it comes to the Battle of Blair House.
“Mr. Obama has repeatedly said Democrats' messy negotiations soured the public. The White House now hopes that a better, more public process will boost public support and give congressional Democrats enough confidence to pass the bill, using a parliamentary procedure that requires just 51 Senate votes…If that fails, the White House hopes the summit will lay the groundwork for a modest bipartisan bill that would fall far short of Democrats' original goals, but would give the president and his allies a success to show voters this fall. Another possibility: the session might do nothing to break the deadlock and merely provide grist for each side's fall campaign.”

Washington Post -- In Congress, it's decision time on long-term unemployment benefits
The jobs bill being considered in the Senate is also a no-jobs bill. It includes provisions to keep a million Americans who are slated to lose unemployment benefits on March 1 on the dole for a total of two years, rather than the six months usually allowed.
Writer Perry Bacon offers a handy primer for how the 12 million people currently getting an average of $325 a week from the government continue to cling to the financial lifeline that currently costs taxpayers $13 billion a month.
The question is not whether to extend, but how. Some Democrats want a temporary, targeted expansion, while others want a permanent expansion of the entitlement. Republicans wonder if it’s a wise thing to make not working pay.
“Through a series of laws, including the $787 billion economic stimulus, people in states with high rates of unemployment are eligible to get jobless benefits for up to 99 weeks, an all-time high.”

New York Times -- U.N. Climate Panel and Chief Face Credibility Siege
The swami of Global Warmism, Rajendra Pachauri, has become a liability to the beleaguered faith.
Al Gore’s 2007 co-laureate and the originator of the theme of the Copenhagen climate summit (“Less meat equals less heat”) has been taking a shellacking both for the junky report his UN team produced three years ago and for his own business dealings.
The 2007 climate report that was heralded as the final word on man-made global warming has recently been found to have been as well sourced as a freshman term paper written in an all-nighter. Claims on glacier melt, ocean rise and weather disruption seem to have been selected for salaciousness, not accuracy.
But Pachauri, an Indian railroad engineer with a knack for the NGO game, is also in hot water for the jet-set life he has led as a corporate advisor, much like Gore. At the heart of Pachauri’s operation is a non-profit group that corporations can fund in order to receive absolution from the warmist high priest.
Writer Elisabeth Rosenthal offers one case:
“The energy institute has financial interests in a number of companies. For example, it was awarded stock by the founders of GloriOil, a start-up based in Houston, in exchange for permission to use a method developed at the institute to extract residual oil from older wells.
‘We thought about it long and hard, and decided to get involved in this because the U.S. has the largest number of these wells and it is better than drilling offshore or in Alaska,’ Dr. Pachauri said.”

Washington Post -- U.S. proposes new climate service
It takes chutzpah or extraordinary tone-deafness to create a new global warming tracking service in the depths of the worst winter in Washington since before RFK Jr. was knee-high to an Eskimo and while the global scientific consensus on global warming is in disarray.
The Obama administration wants to change the focus of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration from providing a weather service to providing a climate service that can help people and organizations make plans for the warm years to come.
The joke is lost on writer Juliet Eilperin, who makes only a glancing reference to the UN climate models now held up for ridicule by many in the scientific community.
This is starting to feel a little like the metric system. The folks in the administration and their cheerleaders in the press, like Eilperin, may be the last ones to know that they lost the fight.
“Commerce Secretary Gary Locke said in an interview that the service would be able to provide advice on such diverse topics as where ski operators might want to refocus their activities in light of changing snowfall patterns and which farm crops will need increased irrigation.
In the same way businesses such as the Weather Channel and AccuWeather.com have taken advantage of the National Weather Service's predictions, Locke said, ‘you'll see much of the private sector will want to build on this one-stop shop of climate services.’”

Wall Street Journal -- Senator Prodded Fed to Aid Ailing Lender
Kudos to the Federal Reserve for having the courage to blow off the unethical demands of a powerful senator even as the central bank was fighting for its life on Capitol Hill.
Bob Menendez went to bat for two home state politicos and asked the Fed in a private letter to approve a merger that would have bailed out two of his cronies. Not to consider the merger, but to approve it.
The Fed said no, but if the Senate Ethics Committee were more than a dumping ground for inconvenient facts, Menendez would be stripped of his seniority for trying to bully an essential agency.
Thanks to writer Damian Paletta for bringing it to light, along with Menendez’s race-card excuse.
“In a written statement, Mr. Menendez said helping the community bank, which mostly served Hispanics, was the right thing to do. ‘If any New Jersey constituent—regardless if it is a family or a local community bank—comes to me seeking assistance with a legitimate federal matter, not only is it important to help, I was elected to help,’ he said. ‘Telling them 'no' would be abdicating my responsibility.'"

Osama As Enviro-Nazi?

An administration run by czars and hippies sworn to Marxism
Welcome to the Osama-Obama Generation

An administration run by czars and hippies sworn to Marxism is capable of most anything as long as it is allowed to operate behind the scenes.

Just one day before the Underwear Bomber emerged as a “national security victory” and a “political vindication for President Obama”, Dennis C. Blair, Obama’s director
of national intelligence put us on notice that Al Qaeda and its affiliates may attempt a large-scale attack on America before July.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Al Qaeda is “certain” to try an attack soon.
What took them so long? The authorities that is, not the terrorists.

The terrorists, building their very own camps for target practice on American soil, have been right under the authorities’ noses all along, in fact they were there even before 9/11.

Without intervention of any kind, terrorists have been actively recruiting for new members on the Internet and among prison populations.

When former President George W. Bush, (George W, The Hated) tried to deal with terrorists, he was slammed with accusations of water boarding and other “cruelties”.

Now they get their Miranda rights read to them, the right to remain silent, and the prospect of show trials in major American cities with the same kind of publicity potential as an O.J. Simpson. The Johnny Cochrans and Marcia Clarks are waiting in the wings.

The story being spun by the new Marxist regime in the White House is that foiled terrorist attacks, nine years in the making, are being stopped by Obama within the first year of his presidency.

According to the spin, all dufus terrorists start to sing like proverbial canaries. Diplomacy is so much better than waterboarding, right?

Even to the present day, a politically correct media and authorities do not name perps. Passengers on airflights who witness “dry runs” are instructed to stay Mum.
It should be a new more terrifying kind of terrorism now that Obama and Osama are singing from the same page of the hymnal and are on the same wave length on UN-inspired Marxist tactics like Global Warming is going to kill you!

Morning Must Reads from DCExaminer

Wall Street Journal -- Public Health Tab to Hit Milestone
If you’re worried about the government takeover of health care, you’re too late.

Writer Peter Landers explains that for the first time ever, more than half of all health spending will come through the government.

Government actuaries report that 50.4 percent of the more than $2.34 trillion spent on health care will come from taxpayers in 2011.
But this isn’t really a health-care story. This is a deficit story.
It also helps explain why the president may be willing to get bipartisan on health care. If he doesn’t, Medicare will gobble up all of his other priorities as Baby Boomer start soaking up more and more services.

But some aren’t worried:
‘There is nothing inherently wrong with crossing this threshold, especially in light of the recession. These data show that government programs are working as intended,’ said Rep. Charles Rangel (D., N.Y.), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. ‘However, these projections do reinforce the need to enact comprehensive health reform, like the legislation passed by both chambers, that lowers costs for individuals and businesses and improves coverage.’

New York Times -- LaHood Backtracks on ‘Stop Driving It’
Even Joe Biden must have winced when he heard about Treasury Secretary LaHood’s gaffe -- telling the drivers of more than 4 million Toyotas that may be subject to a rare but serious problem with their accelerators to immediately dump their cars at their local dealers for repairs.
Toyota stock imploded and a creeping unease turned into panic for some drivers. By the time he hit the pack of reporters outside, LaHood was ready to retract the statement.

But the news just keeps getting worse for the world’s number one carmaker. Toyota has expanded its product concerns to now include the brakes on the Prius. But look at it this way – it may be a bummer to read a bunch of smug bumper stickers in traffic, but it least it means that the Prius is in front of you.

Writers Mark Leibovich and Matthew Wald do not explore the question of whether it’s appropriate for Hood to be on a crusade against one of the top competitors of the government’s car company, but do give you a sense that LaHood may have outlived his usefulness as a symbol of phony bipartisanship.

Note Rahm Emanuel (who had to call LaHood “f---ing developmentally disabled” because of his promise to the Special Olympics) use of the past imperfect tense.

“Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, defended Mr. LaHood. ‘I think and the president thinks Ray’s been a great secretary.’

When he misspoke, Mr. Emanuel said, ‘he immediately realized he’d said it.’ When some officials make an error like that, Mr. Emanuel said, ‘Usually these things take days. He did it in five minutes.’”

New York Times -- National Prayer Breakfast Draws Controversy
Writer Laurie Goodstein doesn’t tell you exactly how today’s National Prayer Breakfast is connected to the imprisonment of homosexuals in Uganda, but takes plenty of time to raise concerns about the involvement of President Obama and others in the event.

Goodstein’s argument seems to be a claim by undercover author Jeff Sharlet that The Fellowship, the Capitol Hill Christian group that hosts the breakfast, was the motivating force behind a Ugandan bill that would have made certain homosexual acts punishable by death. This claim hasn’t apparently been confirmed elsewhere but has become a rallying cry for gay activists who believe that the Ugandan model is what American evangelicals are hoping to pursue here. But, again, no context from Goodstein.

It’s an ironic story given Obama’s message today: that we must not demonize our political opponents.
“The Family has no identifiable Internet site, no office number and no official spokesman. J. Robert Hunter, a member who has spoken publicly about the group, said that it was unfair to blame the Family for the anti-gay legislation introduced by David Bahati. Mr. Hunter said that about 30 Family members, all Americans, active in Africa recently conveyed their dismay about the legislation to Ugandan politicians, including Mr. Bahati.”

USA Today -- Obama's budget curbs border program
An interesting nugget from writer Mimi Hall: the Obama budget shifts money away from securing the U.S.-Mexico border -- fewer agents, no expansion of the existing physical barriers, and a reduction in electronic surveillance.

Where is the money going?
“In the wake of the failed attempt to blow up an airplane bound for Detroit on Dec. 25, Obama's budget for next year calls for $371 million for 500 more body scanners, 275 more canine teams and an unspecified number of new air marshals.

Former Homeland Security department policy chief Stewart Baker says in paying for more aviation security, the White House "has decided that some of the border defenses are more expendable. ... We're taking some risks there."

Wall Street Journal -- U.S. Announces Helmand Offensive
Allied forces are hoping to drive the Taliban out of their stronghold of Marjah in the Helmand Province without an attack or to provide a decisive victory in a high-profile attack that conspicuously features Afghan forces.

Taking the unusual step of advertising the attack – even issuing press releases and giving the mission a name (Which mean “Operation Together” in Pashtun) – NATO commanders hope to demonstrate that the Afghan government has clout.

U.S. Marines are hoping the civilians clear out so they can kill as many bad guys as possible without running afould of the Pentagon’s rules of engagement.
Writer Michael Phillips explains:

“That is what happened in 2008 in Garmsir, a Taliban-held town further south in Helmand province. The locals fled to the desert during a month of fighting between a Marine battalion and dug-in insurgents. With little reason to worry about civilian casualties, the Marines were able to use their superior firepower, including helicopter gunships and mortars, to oust the insurgents.”

Column on “punching bag bipartisanship” is here.

Morning Must Reads from DCExaminer

Michelle has more on ths scumbag who should never have seen the light of day.
Thanks a lot, Governor Huckabee

Seattle Times -- Suspect in Lakewood police shootings was wounded, may be dead

The man who murdered four police officers picking up coffee before their Sunday shifts in Washington State may be dead or wounded from injuries received at the scene of the crime. But in an odd twist, the suspect was granted clemency by then-Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee in 1999, an issue that Huckabee took plenty if heat for in 2008. And that was before the clementee was a suspect in the worst cop killing in recent memory “‘This is the day I've been dreading for a long time,’ Larry Jegley, prosecuting attorney for Arkansas' Pulaski County said tonight when informed that Clemmons was being sought for questioning in connection with the killings. Clemmons' criminal history includes at least five felony convictions in Arkansas and at least eight felony charges in Washington. The record also stands out for the number of times he has been released from custody despite questions about the danger he posed. Huckabee, who ran for the Republican presidential nomination last year, issued a statement tonight calling the slaying of the police officers ‘a horrible and tragic event.’”

Wall Street Journal -- Critical Decisions This Week on Batch of Obama Initiatives

For those of you just getting back into the swing of things, writer Jonathan Weisman offers a superb look ahead at a pivotal week for the Obama era: big moments on Afghanistan, unemployment, health care, diplomatic initiatives and more.

But next week will see President Obama take on climate change in Copenhagen, duck and weave his way through the acceptance of his Nobel Prize, and perhaps Senate debate on his administration’s request on raising the government’s debt limit beyond the current $12 trillion.

The Obama team has discovered in the waning weeks of 2009 that the presidency provides plenty of headaches, especially in the midst of two wars and a deep economic funk. Simultaneously proposing an energy tax, a national health program and hundreds of other smaller initiatives must have sounded like a much better idea in January.

“David Axelrod, a senior White House adviser, downplayed any immediate outcomes from the difficult week as ‘far less important than execution in the long run,’ which he said is how ‘the administration will be judged.’

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel -- who added efforts to isolate Iran's nuclear program to the week's agenda -- defended the ‘Big Bang’ approach to the administration's first year. In an interview, he contended that on each front ‘we're in a better position than we were when we began,’ citing progress on a health-care bill, shifting resources to Afghanistan from Iraq and moving toward imposing sanctions on Iran.”


Washington Post -- U.S. offers new role for Pakistan

The president’s speech on Afghanistan Tuesday night from West Point will be about advancing and retreating simultaneously – we’re getting out by going deeper in. It’s a tough sell, especially in his own party, as I argue in my column today .

If Obamian standards hold true, the speech will be a long, professorial muddle about his minutely researched strategy for Afghanistan punctuated by a few pleasant turns of phrase.

But at the heart of Obama’s strategy is the belief that he can help bring into being a strong, centralized, pro-Western government in neighboring Pakistan. Of course, Pakistan’s president has just been stripped of his access to the nuclear arsenal and Muslim hard-liners are gaining ground by accusing him of being a puppet of India and the U.S.

Writer Karen DeYoung was given a copy of the Pakistani government’s to-do list and the White House decoder ring for the Tuesday speech: when he says Afghanistan he means Pakistan.

“But despite the public and political attention focused on the number of new troops, Pakistan has been the hot core of the months-long strategy review. The long-term consequences of failure there, the review concluded, far outweigh those in Afghanistan.

‘We can't succeed without Pakistan,’ a senior administration official involved in the White House review said. ‘You have to differentiate between public statements and reality. There is nobody who is under any illusions about this.’”


Wall Street Journal -- White House, Business Leaders Split on How to Create Jobs

The president is having the boys from Google and the SEIU over to the White House again Thursday for his job creation summit. With a flaccid recovery and lots of uncertainty in the marketplace because of pending regulatory changes, getting companies to hire is going to be a tall order indeed.

Crippling deficits mean that Republicans could block the president in the Senate if he called for more federal spending, even as Democrats in the House prepare another round of stimulus.

It seems likely that what we’ll see out of the new focus on jobs at the White House is an extension of unemployment benefits to 99 weeks and some nibbling around the edges.

Writer Neil King and Gary Fields explain:

“Businesses of all sizes are brimming with proposals they say would spur economic growth. The most commonly voiced are tax cuts and boosting access to credit.

The White House, for its part, wants to discuss job growth in the clean-tech sector and shifting some stimulus spending to infrastructure projects. Obama aides are also eyeing a limited range of incentives for small businesses to create jobs.”


Washington Post -- In health-care reform, no deficit cure

Senate debate on health care will get underway Tuesday, and the cost of the president’s proposal remains a crushing burden for the Democratic leadership selling the plan -- costs to taxpayers, higher insurance costs, costs added to the deficit.

Writer Lori Montgomery looks at how no report or promise of future cuts seems able to convince skeptical senators that it would be fiscally prudent to commit the nation to trillions in new health spending.

It seems bizarre now, but the original promise was that universal coverage would be the silver bullet that would slay the deficit.

“As a whole, the CBO projects that Reid's bill would not change the trajectory of federal health spending. And a competing House bill, the CBO said, would push federal spending higher.

Obama's more conservative critics accuse him of ‘a big bait-and-switch,’ as Andrew Biggs of the American Enterprise Institute put it. ‘They said the only way to fix the budget is to cut health-care spending. And they come out with something that increases health-care spending. If it weren't such a big deal, it would be a joke.’”


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The Troops In Afghanistan Could Use Some Leadership From the White House

Of course, that assumes there is actually a "leader" who understands the concept of victory over those who would destroy Western Civilization.

Editorial Exegesis

"Democrats have found someone worth fighting in Afghanistan. His name is Stan McChrystal. The other night, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi went after the commander of U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan, 'with all due respect,' for supposedly disrespecting the chain of command.

Around the Congressional Democratic Caucus, we're told Members refer to General McChrystal as 'General MacArthur,' after the commander in Korea sacked by Harry Truman. White House aides have fanned these flames with recent leaks to the media that 'officials are challenging' his assessment asking for more troops.

In the last two days, the White House National Security Adviser and the Secretary of Defense have both suggested that the general should keep his mouth shut. President Obama called him in Friday for a talking-to on the tarmac at Copenhagen airport.

Though a decorated Army four-star officer, the General's introduction to Beltway warfare is proving to be brutal.

To be fair, Gen. McChrystal couldn't know that his Commander in Chief would go wobbly so soon on his commitment to him as well as to his own Afghan strategy
when he was tapped for the job in April. ...

Gen. McChrystal's liberal critics also have very short memories. In 2003, Army Chief of Staff General Eric Shinseki clashed with his superiors by saying many more troops were needed to pacify Iraq. He became a Democratic hero and is now Mr. Obama's Veterans Secretary. In this case, Gen. McChrystal has become a political target merely for taking at face value Mr. Obama's order to fight the war properly. ...

In an interview with Newsweek, Gen. McChrystal said he wouldn't resign if the President rejects his request for more troops. If he were really trying to dictate policy, he'd have given a different answer. But we don't think Gen. McChrystal should stay to implement a Biden war plan either. No commander in uniform should ask his soldiers to die for a strategy he doesn't think is winnable -- or for a President who lets his advisers and party blame a general for their own lack of political nerve." --The Wall Street Journal

Michael Moore is a Big Fat Idiot and a Capitalist Pig

He's also the fattest scam artist I've ever seen. Moore doing a documentary on the evils of capitalism is like Castro doing a documentary on the evils of socialism.

Moore is making money, i.e. he's a capitalist pig and he's laughing all the way to the bank.

I have an idea for his Largeness, if you really think Islamic extremists are harmless, carry your fat butt over to Afghanistan and introduce yourself. I hear the Taliban like big boys with big butts.

Repeating an action and expecting different results is insanity.

Are we doomed to repeat history? Its said that those that do not read history are doomed to repeat it. How about those that just flat out ignore history?

In 1932, the Great Depression was easing throughout the world. Employment was up in the US. And then FDR decided to "help," thereby turning our depression into a Great Depression, a depression WITHIN a depression.

It started with overspending and Smoot-Hawley.

Obama just started a trade war with China.

Obama is borrowing to spend our way out of the depression, sending our credit rating into the toilet.

Europe, though socialist lite, has not interefered to such a great extent in their economies as we have done. Europe is pulling out of the recession.

Now, for all those that expect inflation to jump, gold is very popular. Will Obama steal your gold, just like FDR did? Probably not. Its not necessary. Gold buyers have been demonized as "crazy". Its just gone up over $500 since 2003.

So, what will Obama do when his policies fail just like FDR's did? It took WWII to solve our problems back then.....

The Left ALWAYS attacks its critics. Always.

Re-posted with additions. Cross posted at RedState.

From the Clinton machine to Obama’s minions, the left has attacked every critic. Pelosi calls concerned citizens, many of them democrats, nazis. The administration tells its people to “punch back twice as hard.” This is against private, albeit loosely organized, citizens. Joe the Plumber was investigated and his private information used against him. The press pilloried him for daring to question “the One.” Do you think Gov. Palin would have had so much trouble if she had never left Alaska, or hadn’t attracted so much support? Now, private citizens are getting calls and emails for questioning and contradicting their representatives in public. Many have gotten threats to their lives. Katy Abrams dared to question Arlen Spector and her family is now getting threats. Kenneth Gladney was beaten by SEIU thugs for daring to be a conservative black man.

Do you really think that, under a Progressive government, who you know and what you say won’t be held against you? Who invented anti-2nd Amendment political correctness? Who invented the idea of hate crimes and hate speech? And, of course, we always hear that “right wing” talk is “hate speech,” thereby making conservative talk, or thought, a crime, if taken seriously.

Now, picture these same tyrants in charge of your health care……

Who did you vote for? Are you a union member? Do you support the unions? Are you a member of the right ethnic group? Which candidate did you send money to? Have you sent your donation to the DNC?

These questions, or similar ones, could appear on your standard medical questionnaire.

Tell me that’s not a possibility with what you’ve seen this administration do. Tell me that, with what you’ve seen appear on the census, this couldn’t happen. Tell me, with the incorporation of ACORN, etc, into the government, that this wouldn’t matter.

Let’s hope that you are right.

But it would be safer if we just don’t have government run health care.

That said, take a look at what the “health care” plans would do. Even if the following ideas were not implemented, since unions are exempted from the public plan, citizens would unionize just to get good health insurance….

h/t Flopping Aces

Read the Union Health-Care Label
Get ready for Detroit-style labor relations in our hospitals.
By Mark Mix
Wall Street Journal
SEPTEMBER 10, 2009

In the heated debates on health-care reform, not enough attention is being paid to the huge financial windfalls ObamaCare will dole out to unions—or to the provisions in the various bills in Congress that will help bring about the forced unionization of the health-care industry.

Tucked away in thousands of pages of complex new rules, regulations and mandates are special privileges and giveaways that could have devastating consequences for the health-care sector and the American economy at large.

The Senate version opens the door to implement forced unionization schemes pursued by former Govs. Rod Blagojevich of Illinois in 2005 and Gray Davis of California in 1999. Both men repaid tremendous political debts to Andy Stern and his Service Employees International Union (SEIU) by reclassifying state-reimbursed in-home health-care (and child-care) contractors as state employees—and forcing them to pay union dues.

The current House version of ObamaCare (H.R. 3200) goes much further. Section 225(A) grants Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius tremendous discretionary authority to regulate health-care workers “under the public health insurance option.” Monopoly bargaining and compulsory union dues may quickly become a required standard resulting in potentially hundreds of thousands of doctors and nurses across the country being forced into unions.

Ms. Sebelius will be taking her marching orders from the numerous union officials who are guaranteed seats on the various federal panels (such as the personal care panel mentioned above) charged with recommending health-care policies. Big Labor will play a central role in directing federal health-care policy affecting hundreds of thousands of doctors, surgeons and nurses.
…
The House bill has a $10 billion provision to bail out insolvent union health-care plans. It also creates a lucrative professional-development grant program for health-care workers that effectively blackballs nonunion medical facilities from participation. The training funds in this program must be administered jointly with a labor organization—a scenario not unlike the U.S. Department of Labor’s grants for construction apprenticeship programs, which have turned into a cash cow for construction industry union officials on the order of hundreds of millions of dollars each year.

There’s more. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus has suggested that the federal government could pay for health-care reform by taxing American workers’ existing health-care benefits—but he would exempt union-negotiated health-care plans. Under Mr. Baucus’s scheme, the government could impose costs of up to $20,000 per employee on nonunion businesses already struggling to afford health care plans.

Mr. Baucus’s proposal would give union officials another tool to pressure employers into turning over their employees to Big Labor. Rather than provide the lavish benefits required by Obamacare, employers could allow a union to come in and negotiate less costly benefits than would otherwise be required. Such plans could be continuously exempted.

Americans are unlikely to support granting unions more power than they already have in the health-care field. History shows union bosses could abuse their power to shut down medical facilities with sick-outs and strikes; force doctors, nurses and in-home care providers to abandon their patients; dictate terms and conditions of employment; and impose a failed, Detroit-style management model on the entire health-care field.

ObamaCare is a Trojan Horse for more forced unionization.

Mr. Mix is president of the National Right to Work Committee.

Obama has been a great success!

At one time, the active subversion of our Constitution would have be grounds for tar and feathers. In other cases, we would have seen marches, riots, and rebellion in the the streets. Rope. Tree. Politician....Some assembly required.

Many citizens in America submit that Obama and the Democrats in Congress are failing; that they are NOT helping the economy. The Right thinks that the progressive policies of the current Congress and Administration, and the recent bailouts started under Bush, are damaging to the culture and nature of the USA. Trillions have been spent with little or no accountability, all the while Congressional members posture in front of the cameras. The government is reaching into the the very fabric of our nation and tearing it apart.

Financial institutions have been harangued by irresponsible, corrupt demagogues while those same "leaders" have been selling our nation to the highest bidder for decades. Some of those financial institutions have been forced to accept TARP money:

Here's a true story first reported by my Fox News colleague Andrew Napolitano (with the names and some details obscured to prevent retaliation). Under the Bush team a prominent and profitable bank, under threat of a damaging public audit, was forced to accept less than $1 billion of TARP money. The government insisted on buying a new class of preferred stock which gave it a tiny, minority position. The money flowed to the bank. Arguably, back then, the Bush administration was acting for purely economic reasons. It wanted to recapitalize the banks to halt a financial panic.

Fast forward to today, and that same bank is begging to give the money back. The chairman offers to write a check, now, with interest. He's been sitting on the cash for months and has felt the dead hand of government threatening to run his business and dictate pay scales. He sees the writing on the wall and he wants out. But the Obama team says no, since unlike the smaller banks that gave their TARP money back, this bank is far more prominent. The bank has also been threatened with "adverse" consequences if its chairman persists. That's politics talking, not economics.

Think about it: If Rick Wagoner can be fired and compact cars can be mandated, why can't a bank with a vault full of TARP money be told where to lend? And since politics drives this administration, why can't special loans and terms be offered to favored constituents, favored industries, or even favored regions? Our prosperity has never been based on the political allocation of credit -- until now.

The government cares nothing about the law. Retroactive laws and regulations are unconstitutional. The Democrats care only for increasing their power.

The banks complain about the rules that the U.S. Treasury keeps imposing on them retroactively, sometimes in ways that seem arbitrary or driven by constituents' anger.

Some say they never needed the money but were cajoled into taking it by the Treasury, which wanted a show of industry support for its program.

The Treasury basically ordered nine of the nation's biggest banks, including Bank of America and Wells Fargo & Co., to participate in the program.

“It's not something we signed up for,” Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis said in an interview last week with the Observer, referring to TARP's introduction.

Since then, legislators and regulators – fueled by popular backing – have imposed more regulations on the TARP banks, such as caps on executive pay and increased disclosure for how the loans are being spent. They also hauled the CEOs of the biggest banks to Capitol Hill for questioning.

“Congress has shown its hand – and that hand is both manipulative and actively malevolent,” said Nancy Bush, an analyst at NAB Research.

The so-called Stimulus Bill is evidence that the current regime has a different definition of success than you or I. While Keynesian economic models won't get the US out of a recession, the increased spending will shore up the Democratic power bases.

Charles Krauthammer points out the obvious to everyone, well, everyone except the 52 million that voted for the ONE:

....we are now so deep into government intervention that constitutional objections are summarily swept aside. The last Treasury secretary brought the nine largest banks into his office and informed them that henceforth he was their partner. His successor is seeking the power to seize any financial institution at his own discretion.

Obama has far different ambitions. His goal is to rewrite the American social compact, to recast the relationship between government and citizen. He wants government to narrow the nation's income and anxiety gaps. Soak the rich for reasons of revenue and justice. Nationalize health care and federalize education to grant all citizens of all classes the freedom from anxiety about health care and college that the rich enjoy. And fund this vast new social safety net through the cash cow of a disguised carbon tax.

Obama is a leveler. He has come to narrow the divide between rich and poor. For him the ultimate social value is fairness. Imposing it upon the American social order is his mission.

Fairness through leveling is the essence of Obamaism. (Asked by Charlie Gibson during a campaign debate about his support for raising capital gains taxes -- even if they caused a net revenue loss to the government -- Obama stuck to the tax hike "for purposes of fairness.") The elements are highly progressive taxation, federalized health care and higher education, and revenue-producing energy controls. But first he must deal with the sideshows. They could sink the economy and poison his public support before he gets to enact his real agenda.

The Democrats are proposing additional questionable activities. Besides stealing the census from its proper constitutional place, the Obama administration has placed the Census under Rahm Emanuel, the President's Chief of Staff, a man that is directly answerable only to the President. ACORN, another political ally of Obama, one that supports "estimating" the population, is going to be instrumental in operation of the Census.

An if stealing votes via the Census is not enough, Democrats are trying to subvert the Constitutional Amendment process by awarding Washington, D.C. representation in Congress, by congressional vote alone.

Washington Post:

Justice Department lawyers concluded in an unpublished opinion earlier this year that the historic D.C. voting rights bill pending in Congress is unconstitutional, according to sources briefed on the issue. But Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., who supports the measure, ordered up a second opinion from other lawyers in his department and determined that the legislation would pass muster.

A finding that the voting rights bill runs afoul of the Constitution could complicate an upcoming House vote and make the measure more vulnerable to a legal challenge that probably would reach the Supreme Court if it is enacted. The bill, which would give the District a vote in the House for the first time, appeared to be on the verge of passing last month before stalling when pro-gun legislators tried to attach an amendment weakening city gun laws. Supporters say it could reach the House floor in May.

In deciding that the measure is unconstitutional, lawyers in the department's Office of Legal Counsel matched a conclusion reached by their Bush administration counterparts nearly two years ago, when a lawyer there testified that a similar bill would not withstand legal attack.

Holder rejected the advice and sought the opinion of the solicitor general's office, where lawyers told him that they could defend the legislation if it were challenged after its enactment.

Many favor the idea of granting DC statehood, no matter that this would violate not only the letter of the law, but, also the Founders basic idea of a Federal territory being the capital of all the country. Ask yourself this question. Would Obama and company be so enamoured of statehood for DC if the city was full of conservatives?

Obama has been a great success these last few months. His agenda has increased the power of government and the opportunities for political influence immensely. His every speech has contributed to the perceived success of the progressive movement. Government intrusion into the American way of life has become impossible to remove. Our prestige and respect throughout the world is dropping, even from the supposed lows of Bush's term. Not only do our enemies laugh at us, unafraid, Obama is alienating the very allies which did stand by us. His "smart diplomacy" has angered and insulted nations from Turkey to Great Britain. He has kowtowed to Saudi Arabia. Angered the Turks by mentioning Armenia. Insulted the Queen and Prime Minister of Great Britain. He has demonstrated his lack of wit in every country that he has visited. His State Department relies on his hand picked choice, a woman that has played the fool both at home and abroad.

He is not trying to improve America. He is not trumpeting our successes or our exceptionalism. No. Obama is succeeding in leveling the playing field by criticizing America and apologizing for our actions.. He is succeeding in concentrating ever more power in his administration. He is succeeding in placing more economic power in the government's greedy hands. He is succeeding in slandering entire industries to further his aims.

Obama is a success. So far. God Help Us.

Catch and Release Won't Work for Terrorists

The Laws Of War Have Served Us Well
Our armed forces shouldn't have to play catch and release.
By David B. Rivkin Jr. and Lee A. Casey

This week, President Barack Obama signed an executive order to close the terrorist detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay within the year. It was a symbolic repudiation of the Bush administration's policies, but Gitmo is not the crucial issue. The real question is whether Mr. Obama will uphold the legal architecture necessary to continue the war against al Qaeda and its jihadist allies.

What Mr. Obama's national security team will quickly discover is that the civilian criminal-justice system is an inadequate tool to deal with terrorists. President Bush's policies -- particularly treating captured terrorists as unlawful enemy combatants and employing a military court system to try them -- were dictated by the very real need to defend American citizens, not by disdain for the rule of law.

The Bush administration chose the law-of-war paradigm because the international law of armed conflict gives the U.S. maximum flexibility to meet the jihadist threat, including the right to attack and destroy al Qaeda bases and fighters in foreign countries. The alternative legal framework, the civilian criminal-justice system, is unsuitable for several key reasons. Civilian criminal suspects quite obviously cannot be targeted for military attack. They can be subjected only to the minimum force necessary to effect an arrest. They cannot -- consistent with international law -- be pursued across national boundaries. And finally, they are entitled to a speedy trial in a public courtroom. These rules cannot be ignored or altered without constitutional amendment.

In addition, the type and quality of evidence necessary for convictions in civilian courts is simply unavailable for most captured terrorists. One federal district judge recently concluded that although the government's information on one detainee was sufficient for intelligence purposes -- that is, he presumably could have been targeted for deadly attack -- it was insufficient to hold him without trial.

Trying senior al Qaeda leaders for relatively minor offenses ancillary to their major war crimes (like Al Capone for tax evasion) also is not the answer. Even if convictions and punishments could be obtained in this way, the cause of justice and historic closure requires the perpetrators to be charged with their worst offenses. This view informed the Nuremberg prosecutions.

Many have advocated for the creation of a U.S.-based national security court. Such a court would certainly be subject to constitutional challenge, and likely could not handle the sheer number of detained enemy combatants. A few hundred detainees at Guantanamo is one thing, but U.S. forces have captured and processed thousands of prisoners in the war on terror, and still hold upward of a thousand al Qaeda fighters in Iraq and Afghanistan, with many more to come in the years ahead.

Some changes to the Bush policies are obviously inevitable. But what Mr. Obama must keep in mind is that the laws of war form a relatively seamless web. Different elements -- military detention and prosecution, and robust rules of engagement driven by combat necessities -- reinforce each other. So while he may grant detainees additional due process rights (the courts have already established a right to habeas corpus proceedings for those at Guantanamo), he must continue a system of
military detention for most of the captured fighters.

That's because the law of war requires that enemies be "granted quarter" -- meaning prisoners must be taken if they surrender. But if these prisoners cannot be held until hostilities are concluded and must be released only to fight again, the military would be consigned to a deadly game of catch and release. Without a viable detention regime, the U.S. cannot fairly ask its soldiers to risk their lives in combat any more than we can send in troops with defective equipment.

Since routinely prosecuting captured terrorists in the civilian courts is unrealistic, some sort of military court system for the detainees must be retained, regardless of whether they are called military commissions or special courts martial. This renvigorated military court system must be directed to begin prosecuting those captured enemy fighters that have committed war crimes against American troops or civilians. The fact that none of the individuals now held in U.S. custody in Iraq or Afghanistan has been brought to justice, even in situations where there is sufficient evidence to prosecute them, is historically unprecedented and a slap in the face of the U.S. troops fighting this war. Giving de facto immunity to war criminals is also inconsistent with international legal norms.

Republicans like Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.), who have criticized some Bush policies, must make their voices heard here.
This system of detention and military trials must also apply here at home. We cannot limit the military legal paradigm to overseas operations. Al Qaeda has already successfully targeted American territory, and may do so again. Foreign fighters entering the U.S. to carry out attacks should not have rights superior to those on distant, more conventional battlefields. Not only does this double standard create exactly the wrong incentives for our enemies, but it is legally unsustainable. The Supreme Court has indicated a willingness to extend constitutional protections to detainees held where the United States exercises a sufficient level of control, and this ruling can easily be extended beyond Gitmo.

Finally, the new administration cannot behave as if the military justice system for detainees is shameful, like some crazy uncle in the attic. These are legitimate laws of war and should be treated as such.

Mr. Bush's opponents have denigrated this system for nearly eight years. Many of them have now assumed power, and with power comes responsibility -- especially when it comes to protecting Americans from their enemies.

Messrs. Rivkin and Casey are Washington, D.C., lawyers who served in the Justice Department under Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

Motherlode in Virginia

The US needs energy.
We keep getting told that coal and oil cause "greenhouse" gases and the world will come to an end if we continue to use them.
Wind and Solar energy ARE NOT enough.
Hmmmm, since the James won't be dammed anytime soon, that leaves nuclear energy as our only feasible alternative.
Oh, wait, we have to import uranium from Canada and Australia. And our dear friends in the Russian Federation. So, yet again we're stuck with foreign suppliers........what, we don't have to import uranium? We have uranium in Virginia? Ooohhh, we can't mine it. We can process it into nuclear fuel in Virginia, but, we can mine it.....yeah, that makes sense.

Max Shulz in the Wall St. Journal sheds some light on the situation...

In Pittsylvania County, just north of the North Carolina border, the largest undeveloped uranium deposit in the United States -- and the seventh largest in the world,...
(Now that's a glowing report.)

Virginia is one of just four states that ban uranium mining. The ban was put in place in 1984, to calm fears that had been sparked by the partial meltdown of a nuclear reactor on Three Mile Island outside of Harrisburg, Pa. in 1979. (That makes sense, we still process it and have plants, but we can't mine the ore that CAN'T melt down...)

Since Virginia is already a nuclear-friendly state that properly manages the risks of nuclear power, what sense does it make for the state to ban the safest step in the nuclear fuel cycle?

Gov. Kaine supports allowing the National Academy of Sciences to determine whether mining could be done safely....

While there are legitimate concerns about any sort of mining, whether it be uranium, coal, or gold, proper studies should be conducted. There are other uranium mines in the US. Horrible, cataclysmic pollution and degradation WOULD be in the news. Proper procedures, of course would be enforced, if only by those living in the vicinity of a mine.

Or do you want our energy policies to continue to be run by people like this:
"There will be a dead zone within a 30 mile radius of the mine," he says with a courtly drawl. "Nothing will grow. Animals will die. The radiation genetically alters tissue. Animals will not be able to reproduce. We'll see malformed fetuses." Mr. Dunavant doesn't believe the governor has an open mind on the issue. He calls Mr. Kaine, "our 'supposed green' governor" and says that the "only thing green about him is his love of money." Coles Hill "is all about greed," he says. "It's criminal activity as far as I'm concerned."