For the Bond fans...more video for Friday

The Lonely Conservative passes along this video from American Crossroads that highlights the "flexibility" comment of President Obama last week.  I hope the story of Obama's flexibility stays in the public view from now until November.  As LC writes:

The star of the video is Obama as “President Flexible” and the costars include Medvedev as “Dr. Trasmitkov” and Vladmir Putin as himself.

Narrator:  In a world, where one man cannot lose, the fate of the world rests in one top secret mission.

President Flexible:  This is my last election. After my election I have more flexibility.

Dr. Transmitkov:  I understand. I transmit this information to Vladmir and I stand with you.

Female Voice:  Your mission is simple, Mr. Obama. Win one last election to win unchecked flexibility, weaken our defenses, and fundamentally transform the world. Dmitry will transmit the information. ….

One has to wonder....just what will he give away with this new flexibility after the election?

Free Enterprise

A new video from the Free Enterprise Alliance.  Too bad this wont be shown in public schools.



Hat tip to The Lonely Conservative.

Of course we're for oil drilling

That's what the Obama administration wants you to believe.  But the facts are a bit different.  Drilling, sure.  Drilling in America, well, that's another matter.  From Breitbart:

Yesterday the Obama administration announced a delaying tactic which will put off the possibility of new offshore oil drilling on the Atlantic coast for at least five years:

The announcement by the Interior Department sets into motion what will be at least a five year environmental survey to determine whether and where oil production might occur.

Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell notes that a planned lease sale, which the administration cancelled last year, will now be put off until at least 2018.

Remember that every time you fill up between now and November.

Out of the mouth of babes....

From the walking gaffe-machine, aka VP Joe Biden:

I never had an interest in being a mayor 'cause that's a real job.  You have to produce.  That's why I was able to be a senator for 36 years.

 Finally, I agree with him on something.

Irony of the day

From the Associated Press comes this news from the Golden State:

SACRAMENTO, CA - California has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn Arizona's tough immigration law, saying it would drive illegal immigrants into other states.

Meaning, "We don't want illegals here, but are too timid to actually come out and say it.  Let them stay in Arizona."

Loons across the ocean

While we have our own leadership election this year to keep our attention, the French are also in the process of selecting a president.  Two of the leading candidates from the left have truly redistributionist views.  First, there is Francois Hollande, the main Socialist candidate.  He advocates a tax rate of 75% on income over €1,000,000 ($1,327,000).  Talk about a disincentive to success.

But that's a piker in the world of European left-wing thought.  Jean-Luc Mélenchon is a hard left, anti-capitalist activist who is rising in the presidential election polls.  He advocates capping "fat-cat" salaries at €360,000 ($477,000), after which income tax would be set at 100%.  Think about that.  The government says, "You have earned enough.  Anything more you make goes to us."

The scary part - there are many who think this is a good idea.  The even scarier part - many in the Democratic Party think that the USA needs to be more like Europe.

Who needs it?

From the audio recording at the Supreme Court.  The government's attorney tries to explain a point but seems to have a bit of a problem.




Will there be five votes to say NO?

Contrast and Compare

Stolen from House of Eratosthenes.

The circular logic of the MSM

I have stayed away from commenting on the Trayvon Martin death for a number of reasons.  Chief being that too many facts are not known to the public.  That said, this observation really strikes home.

From the Last Refuge:

One of the media narratives you’ll probably see reported upon quite a bit is a recent CNN poll of people’s opinion about whether George Zimmerman should be arrested.

Think about it.   This is how the media justifies their false narrative.  The very opinions they survey are based on what people know about the story.  And where does the majority of that knowledge come from?  Yep, the same media reporting the poll results.

See how that works.  Create a false narrative of guilt by supposition without presenting the facts, then justify your supposition reporting of guilt by citing the poll showing people have the same suppositions.

Never quite thought of it that way.  It's the media version of the self fulfilling prophesy.  And it comes into play in many more situations than just this one.

Great "homage"

If you like those DirectTV ads that present a crazy chain of events (and I do), and you are against Obamacare, you've gotta love this new ad from the National Republican Congressional Committee.



Gotta admit, I played it over and over again.

Bales and Hasan - A comparison

Received this in an email.  No idea who the author is, but it's worth consideration.

From a retired Navy Captain I served with when he was a lowly Ensign:

After reading the headlines about the US soldier who shot up Afghanistan
civilians, I couldn't help noticing an irony. There is all the clamor to
try this guy quickly and execute him, never mind his having suffered a
traumatic brain injury. Yet this Major Hasan, who shot up Fort Hood
while screaming Allah Akbar, still hasn't stood trial, and they are still
debating whether he was insane, even with the clear evidence regarding his
motive: Slay as many infidels as possible.

So we have a guy in a war zone who cracks, and he must be executed
immediately. But this Muslim psychiatrist who was stateside in a nice
safe office all day murders 13, wounds 29 of our own guys, and they try to
argue the poor lad suffered post-traumatic stress syndrome, from listening to
real soldiers who had actual battle experience. Two and a half years later,
they still haven't tried the murderous bastard.

 The double standards keep growing.

Solyndra and the iceberg

Solyndra may only be the tip of the iceberg.  From Powerline:

Well, today we learn, courtesy of a Freedom of Information Act request by the Wall Street Journal, that fully one-third of the Dept. of Energy’s clean energy loan portfolio is on an internal “watch list” for being at high risk.  No wonder Obama is now saying, Solyndra—never heard of them, wasn’t us . . . per se.  Solyndra wasn’t an outlier: it is the model.

Maybe they are trying to delay the bankruptcies until after November.  Wouldn't put it past any of that bunch.

237 Years Ago Today

 The “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death” Speech

 Patrick Henry (1736–1799)

 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 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 fulfil 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 toward my country, and of an act of disloyalty toward 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.

Fast, Furious and Stupid

From the LA Times comes proof of the wisdom of those folks at the Justice Department.

Seven months after federal agents began the ill-fated Fast and Furious gun-tracking operation, they stumbled upon their main suspect in a remote Arizona outpost on the Mexican border, driving an old BMW with 74 rounds of ammunition and nine cellphones hidden inside.

Detained for questioning that day in May 2010, Manuel Fabian Celis-Acosta described to agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives his close association with a top Mexican drug cartel member, according to documents obtained this weekend by the Times/Tribune Washington Bureau.

The top Fast and Furious investigator, Special Agent Hope MacAllister, scribbled her phone number on a $10 bill after he pledged to cooperate and keep in touch with investigators.

Then Celis-Acosta disappeared into Mexico. He never called.

Of course, if you asked the government to trust you, I know they'd do just the same.  Right.  Besides, that $10 bill probably went on the agent's expense form, so Joe Taxpayer footed that as well.

Complete article can be found HERE.  Hat tip to Patterico for the pointer.

Regulatory Insanity

Patterico posts this story from Southern California:

We submitted our building construction plans for the restaurant last year to the county. We had over fifty revisions including a request that the trash dumpster have an enclosure. We stated that the dumpster had a walled enclosure of six feet in height and that the dumpster was rain proof. The County stated that we must have a roof over the trash dumpster. We had the architect draw it up. The plans returned rejected.

The County now rejected the dumpster enclosure because it violated the Americans with Disabilities Act. They required that we build a ramp with a locking gate at the top of the ramp for any wheelchair-bound employee. We argued that the public did not have access to the enclosure and we would not ask any employees in a wheelchair to throw out the trash. The County stated that the lack of a ramp would create a barrier to hiring a handicapped person.

The additional ramp with locking gate increased construction costs by $17,000 and it will take my employees longer to throw out the trash on a daily basis.

And you want to know why the economy isn't rebounding.....just look at the obstacles your friendly bureaucrats love to construct.  Where is the ramp to overcome THAT barrier??

Full story is HERE.

Fiscal Solution

I wonder if this hasn't already crossed someone's mind in Washington.




Hat tip to the brilliant Greg Mankiw.

Keeping track of apologies

Rep. Louie Gohmert goes through the list:



It would be funny if it wasn't so sadly true.

Hat tip to House of Eratosthenes, who added this commentary:

But Barack Obama is a demigod, that’s why we make a point of capitalizing the H when we refer to Him. Admitting to an occasionally flawed decision, is beneath Him…so…we had to have a “teachable moment” with glasses of beer. All because He Who Caused The Oceans To Recede can’t admit a mistake.

 And the apologies He does have time to give — I haven’t re-scanned the Gohmer clip from beginning to end with just this in mind, but it seems whenever He does issue an apology, it’s an apology for something someone else has done. People try to get me to read His biography, explaining that it’s a “love letter” to America, pointing out things the country must stop doing that it’s doing wrong…I don’t think I like the sound of that, sounds like, as they say, a love letter from O.J. to Nicole. But that fits into the pattern. Every bad decision that needs a re-do, in the Obama universe, is something that was decided by someone other than Barack Obama.

Random thought for Friday

Ever notice the people who want “laws kept out of my/her uterus” are the same people who want lots and lots of regulation everywhere else?

Potemkin?

Mark Tapscott posits an interesting question.

What if the Left is just one Potemkin Village after another?

When you see a tree with a bunch of apples on it, the logical conclusion is that you are looking at an apple tree, right?

But what if you are looking at a political movement that claims to represent “the people,” yet constantly gets caught manufacturing the appearance of popular support?

That’s called an Astro-Turf tree and it’s found mainly - though not entirely -  on the Left, from the grassroots all the way to the nation’s capital. If you doubt me here, consider these recent stories:

Read the rest of the story HERE.

Quote without comment

From the Washington Examiner:

Vice President Joe Biden addressed 87 wealthy Democrats last night attending a fundraiser at the home of Sen. John Kerry in Georgetown. As they dined on grass-fed New York strip steaks and white truffle mashed potatoes underneath a outdoor tent, Biden criticized Republicans for being out of touch.

“These guys don’t have a sense of the average folks out there,” Biden said according to the pool report, “They don’t know what it means to be middle class.”

87 guests paid a minimum of $10,000-per-couple to attend the dinner.

What did you say??

From the flip-flopper in chief:



Amazing.

In an interview with Marketplace’s Kai Ryssdal, Obama said that Solyndra really “was not our program.” Rewriting history?  Or trying to?

The transcript from Real Clear Politics:

Marketplace's Kai Ryssdal : With all respect, it was kind of a gutsy move I think to come to a solar facility. Your administration has staked a lot on clean technology, green jobs. The biggest item most people know about that strategy is, of course, a company named Solyndra, which your administration gave loan guarantees to, that then went bankrupt and has been the subject of many investigations. Are you doing your "all of the above" strategy right if that's what we have to show for it -- Solyndra?

Obama: We are doing the "all of the above" strategy right. Obviously, we wish Solyndra hadn't gone bankrupt. Part of the reason they did was because the Chinese were subsidizing their solar industry and flooding the market in ways that Solyndra couldn't compete. But understand: This was not our program, per se. Congress -- Democrats and Republicans -- put together a loan guarantee program because they understood historically that when you get new industries, it's easy to raise money for startups, but if you want to take them to scale, oftentimes there's a lot of risk involved, and what the loan guarantee program was designed to do was to help start up companies get to scale. And the understanding is is that some companies are not going to succeed, some companies will do very well -- but the portfolio as a whole ends up supporting the kind of innovation that helps make America successful in this innovative 21st century economy.

Do I wish that Solyndra had gone bankrupt? Absolutely not. And obviously it's heartbreaking what happened to the workers who were there. When you look at the overall portfolio, is it right for us to make sure that we're not just cashing in our chips and letting the Chinese or the Germans develop the technologies that we know are going to be critical in the future? I'm proud to say that we're going to continue to support it.

Solyndra, along with other "green" projects, was just about the money, the influence, and the politics.  Denying it now is ass-covering at its finest.

Selective memory?

From that dim bulb, DWS:



Can't remember or wants to scrub the truth?  You decide.

Is bribery a resume enhancement in Chicago?

I guess that corruption doesn't matter in one party:

Last week state Rep. Derrick Smith (D-Chicago) was indicted for bribery. He's accused of accepting $7,000 to arrange a state grant for a day care center. But I'm sure it was "for the kids." In yesterday's Democratic primary race against Tom Swiss, Smith collected three-quarters of the vote.

Of course, this is the same party that has an impeached former federal judge, Alcee Hastings, in a Congressional leadership position.

Green jobs

It seems that there is no limit to the chutzpah of the Obama administration.  From the Nevada Journal comes a story of a presidential visit to a solar energy plant funded by the federal government.  Unfortunately, the "stimulus" really didn't provide jobs or economic benefit:

President Obama will tout investments in “renewable” energy Wednesday at the local Copper Mountain Solar 1 plant, although the plant has only five full-time employees.

The plant, owned by San Diego-based energy company Sempra, was built in late 2010 at a cost of $141 million. Funding included $42 million in federal-government tax credits and $12 million in tax-rebate commitments from the state of Nevada.

Construction of the plant involved over 300 part-time jobs, but currently only five full-time employees operate the plant, a Sempra spokeswoman confirmed. That comes out to $10.8 million in tax-dollar subsidies per employee.

 Over TEN million dollars to create one job.  You could skip the investment, just pay someone $100,000 per year for over 100 years and still spend less money.  Where did these folks learn math?

In addition to wanting to create many new jobs, President Obama has claimed green-energy investment will decrease America’s energy costs and reduce the country’s dependency on foreign oil.

In Boulder City, however, renewables have produced no lower energy costs. Instead, in late 2009, the city approved a 35 percent rate hike, while power generated by Copper Mountain is to go to Southern California — rather than serve Nevadans whose taxes helped finance the plant.

So, the folks that helped to pay for the plant don't even get the energy from it.  And the green energy picture keeps looking uglier every day:

Nevada received over $1 billion in federal “stimulus” funds for energy and environmental projects, yet state ratepayers still pay some of the highest electricity rates in the country. Recently, the Nevada Public Utilities Commission approved yet another rate increase.

Solar plants aren’t the only government-funded energy projects in Nevada that haven't lived up to their proponents’ promises. The Reno Gazette-Journal recently reported that seven local windmills that cost taxpayers $1 million to install have only saved the City of Reno $2,785 in electricity costs over their 18 months of existence.

If we survive the Obama presidency, the green boondoggle will likely go down in history as the greatest heist in our existence.  Too bad most people don't know how bad it all is.  

Hat tip to The Lonely Conservative.

Picture Fun

Stolen from Theo Spark:

How true.....

News Flash....Detroit Broken

From Motorcitytimes comes the latest update:

When a city depends on governmental agencies as three of its top five employers, there is a serious problem. When you drill further into Detroit’s employment data, you find that 47.8% of employees at the city’s top 25 employers work for a tax payer supported (governmental) agency. In other words, a very large (and expensive) percentage of Detroit’s work force does not add anything to the economic growth of the city whatsoever.

Full post can be found HERE.

Hat tip to Theo Spark for the pointer.

More Steyn

The brave middle-aged schoolgirl had the courage to stand up in public and demand that someone else pay for her sex life….

No taxation without rubberization, as the Minutemen said. The shot heard round the world, and all that….

No, the most basic issue here is not religious morality, individual liberty, or fiscal responsibility. It’s that a society in which middle-aged children of privilege testify before the most powerful figures in the land to demand state-enforced funding for their sex lives at a time when their government owes more money than anyone has ever owed in the history of the planet is quite simply nuts.

From NRO. Hat tip for the pointer to Legal Insurrection.

Quote of the Day

The transformation of “human rights” from restraints upon state power into a pretext for state power is nicely encapsulated in the language of Article 14 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, which states that everyone has the right “to receive free compulsory education.” Got that? You have the human right to be forced to do something by the government.

From Mark Steyn at NRO.  Hat tip for the pointer to Proof Positive.

Real world example

Of the liberal mindset.  Of "We know better than you how to run your life".

From the folks at Small Dead Animals:

Leftists the world over love to blather on & on about how "conservatives want to control your life". In reality though, its the underlying notion of the Leftist mindset to shape everything around them into their view of Nirvana. This is done, at first, through a never-ending series of Rules & Regulations and Penalties. Here's an example of the "Welcome" sign that greets visitors to the beaches of Santa Monica, California:

How welcoming. No this, no that. My favorite is on the bottom, where you are told you can't walk on the bilk path. And it's the VEHICLE CODE that bans walking.

I see that this is promulgated by the "Open Space Management Division".  Only open space I can see is in that large hole in their heads.

More on the stimulus

The Washington Times reports:

Despite receiving more than $885 million in federal economic stimulus funds since 2009, the D.C. government — whose residents face one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation — cannot say how many jobs it actually created for those who live in the District.

Most of the money has been spent, and data suggest that overall regional job growth did occur as a result of the massive infusion of capital. But a review by The Washington Times of figures provided by D.C. officials shows that the city spent hundreds of millions of dollars without being able to demonstrate any significant improvement in the city’s jobs outlook.

If anything, the employment picture has worsened in the District. At the end of 2011, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the city’s unemployment rate was 10.4 percent, ahead of only three states: Nevada (12.6 percent), California (11.1 percent) and Rhode Island (10.8 percent).

In the District, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate has increased by 8 percent since 2009, as the D.C. government was receiving historic levels of federal stimulus funding via contracts, grants, loans, tax benefits and entitlements.

My bet is that it is not that they can't say, but don't want to.  Better to have no number than some pitiful excuse for a jobs creation plan.

Hey, but it's the thought that counts.  Let's multiply that $885 million by all the other "constituencies" that got cash and you can see that this was cronyism on a grand scale.

Hat tip to Weasel Zippers.

The Stimulus

Remember how the Obama stimulus was supposed to provide jobs for Americans?

From KVAL-TV in Eugene, OR comes this story:

Federal Stimulus money went to hire foreign workers before Americans as KVAL-TV (Eugene, OR) reports.

Reportedly, four companies in Oregon used nearly $7 million in taxpayer-funded stimulus money for a job that hired 250 foreign workers. The companies were able to exploit a loophole that allowed them to hire workers using the H-2B visa system.

Logging jobs in Oregon that went to foreigners.  Loans to cronies in the "green energy" market.  Payoffs to unions for campaign support.  Does the public know how much of a boondoggle it all was?

Video of the story available here.

Obamacare and money

Remember....this is the person in charge of your healthcare.

Health and Human Services Sec. Kathleen Sebelius appeared flummoxed by questioning from Sen. Ron Johnson (R., Wis.) at a hearing on the new health care law Wednesday.

Johnson challenged Sebelius over a number of the Obama administration’s claims about the new health care law, namely that it will reduce the deficit and allow individuals to keep their current healthcare plans.

On several occasions, Sebelius professed to have “no idea” what Johnson was talking about.

Full story over at Free Beacon.

Unions and CPAC

Who you gonna believe, Richard Trumka or the unemployed dude??



Hat tip to Moonbattery for the video from the Daily Caller.

Netanyahu at AIPAC

Whether you agree or not, he lays it out in very stark, clear terms.



THIS is a man who does not bluff.

Your tax dollars

Hard at work in the Motor City:

DETROIT (WWJ/AP) - An audit has found that a portion of an $11 million federal grant intended to provide business attire to 400 low-income job-seekers in Detroit helped only two people.

The audit of the city’s Department of Human Services found the department failed to control the operations and finances of a boutique that was to provide clothes, the Detroit News reported. The city’s auditor general conducted the review for the period from July 2009 to September 2011.

The center, at 1970 Larned, included the Customer Choice Pantry, the New Beginnings Clothing Boutique and a call center that had the capacity to service 60,000 families in need. The boutique was to provide business attire for low-income residents for job interviews.

To receive clothing, residents were required to have a job interview scheduled. According to the audit, the DHS was supposed to help 400 people between October 2010 and September 2011 but instead served only two.

Must have been all those shovel-ready jobs - folks didn't need to go to interviews.  That's it.

When will people learn that government merely takes the citizenry's money and distributes it to their favored subjects?  Government doesn't create anything, it merely takes and redistributes.

A simple question

Michael Ramirez of Investors Business Daily has it nailed:

John Hinderaker of Powerline adds his own take:

My own interpretation of this cartoon is broader than Ramirez perhaps intended. It is not just forcing religious institutions to pay for contraception, etc., that is unconstitutional under the First Amendment. Rather, for the federal government to dictate any coverages that must be included in private insurance policies is well beyond any enumerated power in the Constitution, and therefore is invalid.

I think that John and Michael are actually on the same wavelength.

Dennis Miller on Breitbart

Miller writes:

I do know this though, Rockne just crashed in a wheat field a few days ago and the rest of us are going to all have to do our job just a little better if we are to balance out the loss of this truly consequential man.

Yes...we must do our jobs better. Thank you for the jolt of courage, Andrew.