-By Warner Todd Huston
This video perfectly illuminates the unseemliness of Obama’s constant gloating and bragging that he, himself killed Osama bin Laden.
This video comes out just in time as members of the SEALs are slamming Obama for bragging so much about bagging binnie.
As the caption notes:
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Bragging Mr. President? Heroes Don’t Spike the Football”
AFP’s “Wasteful Spending” ad holds President Obama accountable for sending billions of taxpayer dollars to “green energy” companies overseas, even while Americans suffer with rising energy prices and a lack of jobs.
Learn more: www.americansforprosperity.org
-By Larry Sand
Tax Freedom Day is April 17th. Freedom from teacher union extortion? To be announced.
The National Education Association has thrown itself full force into the “corporate loophole” demagoguery campaign. According to the NEA, children are being victimized by avaricious corporate types who don’t pay their fair share of taxes. The NEA exhorts the American people to “stand up for the middle class and support closing corporate tax loopholes at the federal and state level, so that additional resources can be invested in public education and other services that build our communities.” In a message oozing with class warfare, we learn that “Corporate tax loopholes are costing our schools and communities resources that would help the next generation achieve the American Dream.” (Cue the violins.)
They then post a list of programs that would thrive if the greedy corporate bastards would just pay their fair share – Title 1, Pre-K education, etc. NEA of course fails to mention that these programs, though popular, are essentially federal boondoggles. They don’t really do what they purport to do. They do make work for unionized adults, however, which if you haven’t been paying attention, is all NEA really cares about. But I digress….
Using Citizens for Tax Justice as their source, NEA claims that closing the seven largest corporate tax loopholes would provide an estimated $1.487 trillion in additional revenues over the next ten years. Coincidentally, CTJ just happens to be the union founded and funded lobbying wing of something called the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.
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NEA Greed Machine is in Overdrive”
-By Warner Todd Huston
Earlier in the week a video surfaced on Youtube of Al Armendariz, head of the EPA office in Dallas, saying that he and his agency planned to “crucify” any business that crosses them. The video caused a lot of consternation on Capitol Hill as well as recriminations for the EPA. But by Friday the video had been pulled by Youtube because of complaints from the man that originally made the video. Turns out he’s an extreme environut connected with the gay community.
To quickly recap the video, Armendariz noted that his job as an EPA enforcer was like that of the ancient Romans. He joked that the EPA’s philosophy was like the Roman’s who, when mollifying a populace, would “find the first five guys they saw and they’d crucify them.” This, he laughed, would make the town “easy to manage for the next few years.”
So apparently Armendariz felt that the EPA’s job was that of indiscriminate intimidation as opposed to law enforcement.
That said, how does one guy get a video like this pulled and why did it happen?
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EPA ‘Crucifixion’ Video Pulled From Youtube, The Liberal Cockroach Behind the Move”
-By Warner Todd Huston
Erik Soderstrom made the fantastic chart seen below to show who pays what amount of taxes in this country today. (Click on it if you want to make it bigger)
At his blog, Soderstrom also explains further the chart, so go on over and check it out.
-By Warner Todd Huston
For some unknown reason, the state Democrat Party of Georgia’s Political Director, one Ali Rashad Richey, is a man with a long arrest record and no one seems the last bit worried about it in the Peach State — neither politicians nor the media. This man’s arrests are for such offenses as burglary, assault, battery, driving offenses, and violation of probation. In fact he’s been arrested at least 12 times in the last decade.
Are Georgia Democrats so used to convicted criminals in their midst that no one cares about this?
Who is Ali Rashad Richey? For one thing he is listed as a political director for the State Democrat Party on a Linkedin profile. He is also listed on the State Democrat Party disclosure report as having been paid $4,000 in 2010 for “political work.” There he is listed as living at 1834 Carla Drive, in Morrow, Georgia. Richey received at least two other checks for $4,000 each in January and February. His pay day amounts at the least to over $30,000 from the State Democrats thus far and it seems he’s still on the payroll.
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Why is the Georgia Democrat Party Employing a Convicted Criminal?”
-By Warner Todd Huston
Leaked emails from the intelligence group Stratfor recently revealed some shocking allegations of massive Democrat voter fraud in 2008. The emails revealed by WikiLeaks say that the McCain campaign decided to ignore the wide spread voter fraud in order to avoid massive civil unrest — even though it meant he’d lose the White House.
The emails say that Democrats were caught “stuffing ballot boxes in Philly and Ohio,” but the McCain campaign decided to let it all go.
After discussions with his inner circle, which explains the delay in his speech, McCain decided not to pursue the voter fraud in PA and Ohio, despite his staff’s desire to make it an issue. He said no. Staff felt they could get a federal injunction to stop the process. McCain felt the crowds assembled in support of Obama and such would be detrimental to our country and it would do our nation no good for this to drag out like last go around, coupled with the possibility of domestic violence.
J. Christian Adams, a former United States Department of Justice official, notes how fraught with danger these revelations are.
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In 2008, John McCain Ignored Vote Fraud to Avoid Civil Unrest”
And the ignoramuses keep making fools of themselves…
Accuracy in Media’s Brigette Namata pays a visit to the Occupy DOJ rally to see how good a grip the protesters have on inconvenient things like facts. Tales only get taller after 31 years it seems.
-By Warner Todd Huston
On April 20, Michael Mukasey appeared before the Republican Lawyers Association’s National Policy Conference and C-SPAN cameras were there to record his discussion of the conference theme: Restoring a Government of Laws: The Obama Administration v. The Constitution.
Mukasey, the former Bush Administration Attorney General, headlined a half hour discussion — which included a Q&A session — and offered one of the more cogent explanations I’ve seen of why Obamacare is so wildly unconstitutional.
The whole presentation is worth watching but one of his answers during the Q&A segment was particularly important.
One of the attendees asked if Mukasey regale tell them with his hypothetical argument in support of Obamacare. Mukasey joked that his supporting argument would be “an extraordinarily short opinion,” but his more detailed answer actually presented a concise argument to the opposite; why Obamacare is simply unconstitutional. (At about 25 minutes into the segment)
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Michael Mukasey’s Excellent Argument Against Obamacare”
From Bankrupting America…
ARLINGTON, VA – Bankrupting America, a project of Public Notice, today announced a multipronged online educational advocacy campaign leading up to the three-year anniversary since the last time Congress passed a budget. The campaign includes a web video, online advertising, a Twitter hashtag campaign and a grassroots call to action urging the Senate to pass a budget.
Congress last passed a budget on April 29, 2009, almost three years ago. Since then, Members of Congress from both parties have failed to work together to perform one of the federal government’s most basic functions.
Gretchen Hamel, executive director of Public Notice, issued the following statement announcing the campaign:
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Bankrupting America Launches Online Advocacy Campaign Urging Senate to Vote on a Budget”
-By Warner Todd Huston
Obama is an autocrat. Were we a South American nation he’d be our Hugo Chavez. He is not interested in democracy, our republican form of government, or listening to other’s opinions. And he most certainly is not interested in allowing the American people to see their will reflected in their duly elected officials. It’s his way or the highway. Period.
All this is the subject of a recent New York Times piece that, even as it notes Obama’s wild grabs for personal power, tries its best to give cover to a president that has decided that he has no need to work with Congress and intends to bypass both the courts and our elected representatives to put his radical agenda into place.
With its typical, hypocritical partisanship on full display, the Times, the same paper that repeatedly called George W. Bush an imperial president, is now bending over backwards to excuse even more egregious behavior from its Obammessiah.
In fact, the first paragraphs of the two stories liked above are telling in how the Times regards the two presidents and in how the actual issue of executive overreach is a but a device in stories meant to sell readers on a picture of the man, not the issue.
Let’s take the first paragraph of the 2006 piece on Bush (my bold):
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Obama Loves America… When It Agrees With Him”
I have now become a Hitler-gets-mad video maker. I just couldn’t help myself.
-By Warner Todd Huston
The extremists of the left (you know, Democrats) have been trying to make a big deal out of the time that Mitt Romney put his dog on top of his car in the dim, dark past. They say this proves that Romney is mean, evil, rotten, a dog-hating scumbag.
But in his own memoir President Obama said that he had actually eaten dogs when he lived in Indonesia.
… and yet, these hypocrite lefties say nothing about it. And when they do bother to recognize this in-his-own-words admission from Obama that he has actually eaten dogs, they explain it away as no big deal.
Now, to me neither case is of interest. But what IS of interest here is the hypocrisy of the leftists that want to get all exercised over Romney putting a dog atop a car yet NOT getting the least bit upset over Obama EATING dogs!
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Barack Obama: Dog Eater”
-By Warner Todd Huston
It’s just unfair, isn’t it? I mean, if an $80,000-per-year, union protected, unfireable, teacher can’t retire at the extremely young age of 47 while the rest of us have to work into our 70s, well, what kind of world are we living in? That’s how teachers in Michigan feel, anyway.
Just ask the haughty Terri List, a Michigan public school teacher from Saginaw Township. She’s entirely disgusted with all those ignorant taxpayers — who vote in evil Republicans — that won’t let her retire at 70% of her salary at a sprightly 47-years-of-age. She’s so upset that she’s telling anyone that will listen that being a teacher isn’t worth the effort.
On the government union site run by the Michigan Education Association, Mz List is seen carping that waiting to retire at 60 is a travesty for the teaching profession. In what rotten world do people have to wait until they are 60 to retire, anyway!?
… only the rest of us, Mz List, only the rest of us. You know the “us” I’m speaking of Mz List? Yeah, the “us” that are with our taxes forced to pay your exorbitant salary, your overly generous benefits, and your retirement in your middle age.
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Wealthy Michigan Teacher Upset She Can’t Retire at 47″
-By Warner Todd Huston
Californians are being asked once again to fund a government boondoggle with a ballot initiative which will levy more taxes on an already over taxed state. This time it is Proposition 29, intended to fund the California Cancer Research Act, a measure that appeals nicely to emotions but will likely be just another black hole for tax dollars when all is said and done — just like many other successful California ballot measures have been.
Naturally, many members of the media are in love with yet another new tax not to mention its chimerical promise of “cancer research.” Take Dan Morain of the Sacramento Bee, for instance, who recently pumped out the false dichotomy of having to choose between the wonderfulness of “cancer research” and those evil, rotten cigarette companies.
Here is how Morain characterizes the debate:
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Media Misleads on California Prop 29″
-By Larry Sand
With teacher union enabling, child abuse goes on unabated.
A male business owner joking about life for homosexuals in prison, forced a junior accountant to bend over a desk, lined up behind him to simulate a sex act, then quipped, “I’ll show you what’s gay.”
An insurance company middle manager who had been warned about touching secretaries brushed his lower body against a new employee, coming so close that she told company investigators she could feel his genitals through his pants.
A corporate vice-president sent text messages to and called one of his female underlings nearly 50 times in a four-week period and, over the winter holidays, parked himself near her home.
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Perverts Prevail in Public Schools”
-By Warner Todd Huston
Ten years ago this month the Democrats defeated the bill that would have allowed us to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Preserve (ANWR). So it’s happy anniversary to the loss of our energy independence once again.
It turns out that the tenth anniversary is known as the “tin” anniversary in that wonderful list of gifts one gives to celebrate such things. Tin is the perfect alloy when one notes the “tin ear” represented by the constant refrain the left always trumpets whenever we talk about drilling for oil, namely that it is pointless to do because we won’t realize any benefits for up to 10 years.
To that point, Democrat Representative Maria Cantwell disgorged that very talking point during that 2002 debate:
I believe there is no way to justify drilling in ANWR in the name of national security. Oil extracted from the wildlife refuge would not reach refineries for 7 to 10 years and would never satisfy more than 2 percent of our Nation’s oil demands at any one time.
Well, it’s ten years, folks, and because the Democrats continually defeat new efforts to drill or explore for oil on American soil we are once again out of luck for exploiting our own sources of energy. Thanks to Obama and his party we stay dependent on foreign sources of energy.
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ANWR: It’s Been ’10 Years,’ We Could Have Been Reaping Rewards Now”
-By Warner Todd Huston
Every few weeks leftist supporters of Obamacare will float the “fact” that our founders passed the first “national healthcare law” claiming that this supports Obamacare. The truth is, though, the history they claim supports them doesn’t in any way prove that the founders would approve of mandates in general or Obamacare in particular.
This failed historical analogy is once again seen this month in the prattling of one Einer Elhauge, a fellow who claims himself the title of a professor at Harvard Law School. If his recent article in The New Republic is any indication of the level of history he teaches students, we have yet another example of our failed state of higher education.
Elhauge makes two failed analogies to history in his support of Obamacare. One is the 1792 law that required men to own a firearm. This law passed by many members of our founding generation — with only four opposing the mandate — proves, Elhauge claims, that mandates were not something the founders would oppose.
Elhauge’s claim is facile, of course. After all, we had no standing army at the time (in fact the founders were vehemently against a standing army) and the whole of the people in the form of the militia were the army.
So, requiring people to own firearms was, at the time, observing the Constitutional mandate to protect the nation. Helthacre is not something in the Constitution and cannot be construed as such, so Elhauge’s extrapolating military matters to Obamacare is absurd o its face.
Then there is the sailor relief act that lefties have been harping on for several years now claiming that it supports Obamacare. This, too, is a facile comparison cynically and illicitly used to explain away Obamacare.
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No, Left-Wingers, the ‘Founders’ Did NOT Approve of Mandates or Obamacare”
-By Warner Todd Huston
The Titanic sunk 100 years ago this year. The great ship went down in international waters as a vessel of British registry. When it went down the United States was barely a presence on the international stage. Yet now, 100 years later, American Democrats imagine they have the duty and power to control what will happen at the final resting place of over 1,500 passengers.
In their arrogance and led by the haughty and self-referential Senator John Kerry (D, Mass.), American Democrats are pushing Congress to pass legislation to make the wreck site of the Titanic off limits to further exploration.
Supporters of the Kerry arrogance claim that the Titanic’s final resting place should be afforded the same legal standing as a cemetery and James P. Delgado, director of maritime heritage at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, says that he believes “there are people inside” the unexplored sections of the ship.
Few experts agree with this assessment, though. The Times notes that Hollywoodite James Cameron, who has been through the wreckage more than just about anyone, says he’s never once seen any evidence of bones or human remains.
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Arrogant Democrats Think They Have Role to ‘Protect’ Titanic Wreck Site”
-By Warner Todd Huston
When Barack Obama first won the White House, gun sales soared because supporters of the Constitution rightfully understood that Barack Obama is a gun-banner at heart. They feared he’d attack their Constitutional rights and begin a long trail of legislation or regulatory efforts to ban guns.
Everyone has been surprised — including Obama’s own supporters — that he has not done anything to advance the anti-gun issue. Even going so far as to line up in favor of some gun issues (such as allowing guns in national parks).
In fact, looking back through recent political history shows that Democrats have practically given up pushing their gun-banning ideas on the electorate. Proof of this is the fact that every state but one (Illinois) now has some sort of shall issue law on the books, Democrats having given up fighting to stop it all.
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Salon: Why Worry About Obama and Guns, America?”
-By Warner Todd Huston
Much was made of Governor Sarah Palin’s use of the term “government death panels” to lambaste Obamacare. Left-wingers and Democrats everywhere scoffed at the term and accused Palin of demagogy and even lying. But the fact is, government death panels of all sorts are inevitable once government takes over healthcare. In fact, once government takes over healthcare, all sorts of unscientific, non-health related nonsense creeps into your healthcare whether you like it or not and none of these decisions are made with your doctor’s advice or consent.
To understand this we have but to look to countries that already have government provided healthcare to see many incidents of the foolishness that is government control of medicine. Arbitrary decisions are made, people are told they are too old to bother with and treatments are too late to save the patient because of long wait times.
Worse, are the cases where government lackeys use non-medical criteria to replace medical considerations such as a recent case in Britain where a woman was told she can no longer get her healthcare because her travel distance makes her “carbon footprint” too big.
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Healthcare Death Panels Are Inevitable”
-By Warner Todd Huston
There is an old joke from the Soviet Union that perfectly encapsulates the stupidity, hate, and failure that is modern liberalism… and yes I am saying there is no material difference between American liberals and Soviet communists.
Here is the story:
Once in the Soviet Union Ivan and Mikhail were equals. But Ivan found a cow one day and his life got instantly better. The cow, not Ivan’s wife, pulled the plow, the cow gave free milk to Ivan’s family and his children got healthier. The cow birthed calves that grew to provide meat for Ivan’s table and Ivan sold the meat to others. Soon Ivan seemed like a very rich man to Mikhail.
Finally Mikhail had had enough. He prayed to God that he and Ivan were equal again like they once were. God answered Mikhail’s prayers and told him, “Tomorrow you will both be equal again.”
Mikhail praised God saying, “Thank you God that tomorrow you are going to kill Ivan’s cow!”
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A Morality Tale Warning Against Liberalism”
-By Warner Todd Huston
This is the sort of thing that makes these idiotic Occupy whatevers… well, idiots.
Via Marathon Pundit, a cadre of comrades in the Occupy Chicago “movement” decided it would be a cool idea to have a “fare strike” and crash Chicago’s mass transit system in order to ride for free.
When Ruberry asked the gaudily masked nut what a fare strike was, he said that it means we pay “zero” to ride the bus and/or the train.
“It’s when a lot of people show up and say this is what we’re willing to pay for this public service,” he explained. “Today it was exactly zero.”
So, here’s a random question… how, exactly, do these morons think we can even have a mass transit system if no one even pays any fare to use them?
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Petulant, Occupy Chicago Protesters Want Everything ‘Free’”
-By Warner Todd Huston
An exciting opportunity to join a nation-wide effort to “true” our voting system is happening in Houston, Texas. The 2012 True The Vote National Summit is happening on April 27 and 28 and if you want to be part of the leading voter integrity project in the nation you should be there, too. (Register to attend today)
The first national True The Vote Summit was conducted by those who in 2010 successfully rooted out vote fraud in Harris County, Texas. In 2011 folks from 27 different states were in attendance to learn how the Harris County effort was conducted in hopes of replicating the same back home, but with the hard lessons already learned by their hosts.
Last year’s summit was wildly successful and this year a new schedule of speakers will help inform and educate those in attendance on the state of our elections system today and what needs to be done to correct the major problems we are experiencing.
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National Election Integrity Event, Houston, Texas April 27, 28″
-By Warner Todd Huston
In a shocking new video, James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas demonstrates to the Attorney General of the United States, Eric Holder, just why he should be concerned about a lack of voter ID laws by walking into Holder’s Washington D.C. voting precinct and showing the world that anyone can obtain Holder’s own voting ballot by simply asking for it.
The video’s about section reads:
You need ID to cash a check, drive a car, get into a court house, pass a check , etc etc etc. But not to vote, wonder who’s profiting from that? Could it be the very people that are against voter ID? Those of you that use the BS excuse that it disenfranchises minorities, are so full of it. The only minority being shut out with voter ID laws are the ones that shouldn’t be there in the 1st place. True it does cut into the Democrat base, guess that’s why you are using that lame excuse.
If it is this easy for an investigative reporter to go into a voting place and misrepresent himself to take someone else’s ballot, how often does it happen to people that have passed away or to registered voters in any other situation? How often are votes cast by people misrepresenting themselves? And why is it that easy to do?
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Vote Fraud Test Case: US Attorney General Eric Holder’s Ballot to Vote Offered to Total Stranger”
-By Warner Todd Huston
This month two states, Indiana and Virginia, have indicted Democrats and convicted felons on charges of vote fraud during the 2008 election cycle.
While reading these, remember that the left says there is no vote fraud in the USA…
In Indiana four St. Joseph County Democrat officials have had charges filed against them for allegedly forging Obama primary petitions during the 2008 election.
Authorities charge that the scheme to submit the fake petitions for Obama was hatched at the local county Democrat headquarters.
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Court Watching: 2008 Democrat Vote Fraud in Indiana and Virginia”
The General Services Administration has been in the news for some fairly questionable spending recently. Bankrupting America has uncovered some revealing footage surrounding the infamous conference in Las Vegas and the planning that went into it. Check out the fact sheet here.
-By Larry Sand
The release of teachers’ VA rankings should not be viewed as an attack on teachers, but as a wake-up call for the rest of us.
The recent release of teachers’ value added (VA) rankings by the New York Times reignited a controversy which began when the Los Angeles Times did the same thing in 2010. The value added technique of rating teachers is “based on their students’ progress on standardized tests year after year. The difference between a student’s expected growth and actual performance is the ‘value’ a teacher adds or subtracts during the year.”
The imbroglio has two facets – the first being whether or not teachers can be accurately evaluated by how well their students do on a standardized test. As I wrote in January,
In perhaps the most in-depth study on the subject to date, three Ivy League economists studied how much the quality of individual teachers matters to their students over the long term. The paper, by Raj Chetty and John N. Friedman of Harvard and Jonah E. Rockoff of Columbia, tracked 2.5 million students over 20 years, and using a value added approach, found that teachers who help students raise their standardized test scores have a lasting positive effect on those students’ lives beyond academics, including lower teenage-pregnancy rates, greater college matriculation and higher adult earnings. (The authors of the study define “value added” as the average test-score gain for a teacher’s students “…adjusted for differences across classrooms in student characteristics such as prior scores.”)
The second and more contentious element of VA concerns itself with who should get to see the teacher’s ranking. Some think it should be just the principal who can use the data to help low performing teachers. Others think that parents should also be allowed to learn about the effectiveness of their child’s teacher. And finally there are those who demand that all people — especially taxpayers — should have access to them. The reasoning, of course, is that since taxpayers are shelling out for the teachers’ salaries, they have a right to know what they are getting for their money.
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Publishing Teacher Value Added Rankings: Shame on Whom?”
-By Larry Sand
Julius Caesar came to a bad end on March 15th, the same date many good teachers were warned that they may be unemployed in June.
“Nearly 20,000 Teacher Pink Slips Statewide Show Drastic Need for More Education Funding” screamed the headline on the California Teachers Association website.
First, let’s straighten out the union spin. Typically when a person receives a “pink slip,” it means that they are fired. What some teachers actually received is a Reduction in Force (RIF) notice, which according to state law, must be sent to teachers by March 15th if there is the slightest chance that they will be laid off in June. School districts really don’t know in March what their budget will be for the next school year so they plan for the worst case scenario. It’s unheard of for all teachers who get the notices to actually be laid off, but some will, and they must be notified if there is any chance they will lose their jobs.
As a young teacher in New York City in 1975, I lost my 6th grade teaching because the city was in the midst of a fiscal swoon. A few thousand of us were laid off because we were the newest hires, not because we were the worst teachers. The union contract did not make any provision for getting rid of the poorest performers, just the newly employed. Fast forward 37 years and we are still doing the same stupid thing.
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Good Teachers: Beware The Ides of March”