Sarah Palin - Supermagnet!

Could it be? Is Sarah Palin merely playing the part of the supermagnet to help save the GOP, conservatism, and, well, America?

Frankly the idea is extremely exciting to me. Every day that Sarah Palin is all over the news with liberal talking heads and editors attacking her and obsessing over her is another day that the GOP has to shake down its list of viable candidates for 2012 and get itself organized without the liberal spotlight on them.

When Sarah takes a day off and the press gets antsy and starts looking at the GOP prospects they go on and on (and on and on...) about how 'weak' the field is and how unknown the 'frontrunners' are.

I'm not seeing this as a bad thing. Candidates that the liberal press finds unappealing, unelectable, and unknown are probably exactly the kinds of people we want duking it out for the GOP nod. After all, the last person they found so offensive and unknown was Governor Palin herself - still think she's an unknown?

Every day that we weed out the wacky and the wishy-washy without the press deciding we should run McCain again is a good day for conservatives and America, because let's face it, we need a conservative, sound candidate to get into the White House in January of 2013. Another 4 years of this might be the end for us.

So while the supermagnet rides around the country firing up conservatives she ensures that the bullets from the press are trained firmly on her and not on the GOP primary candidates. This 'mobile magnetizing' that she's doing now is fantastic - it fires conservatives up all over the country, ensure that even the flak from local media can't head towards other candidates since they can't resist Palin, and ensures long-term coverage, keeping the liberals away from the GOP primary for a long stretch. It keeps them from being able to make up garbage about decent candidates, pretend that nuts like Trump are the face of the GOP, and maybe draws away some of the negative, vicious liberal attention that might otherwise keep a good candidate like Perry out of the race.

Roll on, Sarah, you're the supermagnet - they can't resist you. There is nothing better you can do for America than what you are currently doing.

editoriaLIES

Times Union - May 27

"SOME LESSONS ON MEDICARE"

Let's clear that up...

"SOME LIES FOR MEDISCARE"

OK.

"U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan's plan to cut Medicare..."

Lie #1 - Ryan's budget increases Medicare spending by 70%, that's not a cut.

"...by turning a popular entitlement program into a private insurance system..."

Lie #2 - Ryan's budget envisions the government paying most of Medicare recipient's premiums, that's not "a private insurance system".

"And on Tuesday, that debate was largely settled. The idea that Medicare could be "saved" the way Mr. Ryan and his supporters envision went down in a resounding defeat."

Not really. His proposal received an admirable number of votes. Obama's plan to "save" Medicare by doing nothing and letting it go bankrupt received zero votes.

"A day later, the Senate voted overwhelmingly against the Ryan plan. Five Republicans defected to join the Democrats in that 57-40 vote."

Lie #3. Less than 3:2 is now "overwhelmingly"? I don't think so. More than 41% voted for his plan. None voted for Obama and the Democrats' 'Let Medicare go bankrupt' plan.

"And why wouldn't they? In the critical arena of electoral politics, what had been such an appealing solution to the Republican establishment seemed, to ordinary voters, more like eliminating Medicare rather than saving it."

Because the press keeps lying about it to scare voters, d'uh.

"The worst lesson to take out of western New York is to ignore the warning of former President Bill Clinton and conclude that nothing can be done to control Medicare costs."

But Clinton, who ran for re-election on saving Medicare, did nothing about entitlements as they creep towards insolvency.

"Simply denouncing Mr. Ryan's plan might make for short-term political gain, but leaves longer-term fiscal problems unaddressed. The Democrats should consider themselves every bit as obligated as the Republicans to develop an alternative to a Medicare strategy that's been rejected by a tiny yet significant portion of the American electorate."

Maybe the Times Union should stop lying about it, then.

Not Really

Actually, I'm pretty sure it was Obama that tagged himself with that label.

Doubled gas prices. Housing as bad as ever. Inflation on the way. Stagnant economic growth. Consistent 9% unemployment, 15-20% "real unemployment". Inexcusably no budget from his party for nearly 2 years in the face of this data. Vacation after vacation after vacation in the face of this data.

Where's The Outrage?

(updated as needed - new items before the fold, old stuff after)



The 'hit or miss' John Hawkins puts one into the cheap seats with this write-up:

In Barack Obama's case, the media would be focusing on an entirely different set of issues if he were a Republican.

1) This guy is way too stupid to be President of the United States!...How does Quayle's gaffe compare to Obama thinking there are 57 states? Duhr! How about Obama walking into a window at the White House? Duhr, duhr! What about signing a guest book 2008 in 2011? Duhr, duhr, duhr! Obama's stupidity would be a staple of late night talk show jokes if he were a Republican.

2) Obama's an amateurish cowboy who's wrecking our image around the world!...He's screwed things up so badly with Pakistan that it's endangering the war effort in Afghanistan. His administration gave Russia a "reset button" that actually said "overcharge." The fact you probably don't even know about how badly we screwed things up in Honduras is telling. Then, there's Obama's impulsive and bizarre insertion of the American military into a civil war in Libya. If Obama were a Republican, the media would be telling us we need to get a Democrat in office to repair the damage caused by Obama's blundering.

3) Obama's going to bankrupt the country by giving our money to his corporate cronies! Remember when the media talked about the size of the deficit all the time? Remember when we heard about Halliburton and Blackwater on a daily basis? Oh, yes, that was when we had a Republican President...

4) He's the job-killing, gas-price-raising, economy-wrecking President! Can you imagine the stories we'd see every day if a Republican were President? We'd have daily stories on the people left homeless by the “Obamaconomy,” human interest stories about single mothers who can't feed their kids anymore, and we'd hear from experts every day about how Obama is killing jobs, raising costs at the pump, and destroying the economy with his policies. Remember how the press used to slip a reference to George Bush speaking in front of the "Mission Accomplished" banner into every story about Iraq? Well, they'd do the same thing with Barack Obama's empty promises about how his 1.1 trillion dollar stimulus would "save or create jobs."...

5) Obama's not an authentic black man. Black conservatives have their "blackness" challenged all the time...

6) He's an arrogant jerk who cares about no one but himself!... Vacation, golf, shooting hoops -- the fun never stops for Barack Obama. It would be great if the rest of us could take that much time off, but our jobs keep us too busy. It's also fantastic that Obama finally went to Joplin, Missouri. If you're wondering why it took so long, well, they didn't have a golf course cleared until now...

Public? Private?

How come when times are tough, as they have been, private enterprises can 'tighten their belts', 'buckle down', 'do more with less' and actually see their productivity rise and profits increase...but the left looks at the public sector and can't possibly even begin to fathom that such a thing is possible for those agencies and employees to do the same? Do they have so little respect for and confidence in the people they spend so much time courting and pampering?

Blame Taxes?

Tax cuts for the rich are to blame for deficits and debt that have skyrocketed since the Democrats took Congress in 2006?

Depreciation and similar tax writeoffs for oil companies (that have been in place for decades and, if anything, are less generous than those to other types of businesses) are to blame?

Of course not.

After all, in just 2007, the total budget was just $2.728 trillion with only a $160.7 billion deficit. Now, in 2011, according to the Office of Management and Budget, the budget will be $3.771 trillion with a $1.597 trillion deficit. That’s a whopping 893 percent increase in the deficit in just four years. How can this be, when marginal tax rates are exactly the same as in 2007?

Democrat spending is blame, plain and simple. It's not rocket science, people.

So this is one of your prime Memorial Day barbecue talking points:

1. Since the Democrats took control of Congress until today, when they have still failed to produce a budget for nearly 2 years, the deficit has risen nearly 900%.

The others:

2. The Democrat plan for Medicare is bankruptcy.

3. The Ryan budget passed in the House increases spending on Medicare, the Democrats voted to CUT Medicare to pay for ObamaCare. It gives more to poorer people and less to the "rich" - isn't that what Democrats always claim they want when they demand the "rich" give their "fair share" to the poor?

4. If the Tea Party is so fringe and losing influence, as the media and the left keeps feverishly claiming, why did the Senate just UNANIMOUSLY vote to reject Obama's massive spending plan, a plan they, including Chuck Schumer, praised just months ago? While it is still massively bloated, he did propose cutting home heating aid to the poor for next winter by more than half. See? He's a cost cutter!

5. What's the deal with gas prices? a) Massive spending/debt and printing money to no avail have seriously devalued the dollar recently, which raises the price of oil, which is traded in dollars. b) Japan lost massive amounts of nuclear capacity, sharply increasing their demand for oil. c) Obama has systematically and deliberately shut down huge quantities of domestic oil production, when you reduce the supply of something, the cost goes up.

Bumpiness Ahead

Attacks on TX Gov. Rick Perry beginning in...3...2...

Doom!

Nice work by Dennis Prager:

It appears that the Rapture leading to the end of the world predicted by a Christian radio broadcaster for this past Saturday, May 21, 2011 did not take place. And the failure was covered worldwide...

The secular, especially the anti-religious, left, enjoy these spectacles of religious foolishness. They seem to confirm for them not only how absurd these end-of-days predictions are, but how absurd religion is in general.

But the left should not laugh too loudly. The religious world has far fewer doomsday predictions than the left does. At least every few years, the secular-left frightens itself -- and tries to frighten everyone else -- about another doomsday scenario...

"Six years ago, the United Nations issued a dramatic warning that the world would have to cope with 50 million climate refugees by 2010. But now that those migration flows have failed to materialize, the UN has distanced itself from the forecasts. On the contrary, populations are growing in the regions that had been identified as environmental danger zones."...

Recall the Time and Newsweek cover stories about how heterosexual AIDS would become a national plague -- since "AIDS doesn't discriminate." Skeptics who said at the time that heterosexual AIDS in America was largely a scare were called "anti-science." But Michael Fumento, the science writer who wrote "The Myth of Heterosexual AIDS," first in Commentary Magazine and then as a book, turned out to be right. In America, it was a myth...

In his 1968 book, "The Population Bomb," Stanford Professor Paul Ehrlich wrote: "In the 1970s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate."...

Two prominent feminist writers, Gloria Steinem and Naomi Wolf wrote in their bestselling books, "Revolution from Within" and "The Beauty Myth" -- and the news media reported -- that 150,000 girls and women per year die of anorexia nervosa. The number is actually fewer than 100.

There is one major difference between leftist and religious doomsday scenarios. The religious readily acknowledge that their doomsday scenario is built entirely on faith. The left, on the other hand, claims that its doomsday scenarios are entirely built on science.

Comedy Break

***

Harry Reid, 2005: "We killed the PATRIOT Act!"

Harry Reid, 2011: "The national security of the United States is at stake, and the junior senator from Kentucky is complaining that he has not been able to offer amendments. When the clock strikes midnight tomorrow, we would be giving terrorists the opportunity to plot attacks against our country, undetected."

Democrat-controlled Senate extends PATRIOT Act, 79-18.

Medicare Planning

IBD:

Still, there's no denying that Hochul pounded and pounded the Medicare issue with the mantra that "without a doubt, the Republican budget would decimate Medicare." But the truth is, House Budget Committee Chairman Ryan's budget saves Medicare, whose unsustainable status quo leads to certain fiscal destruction...

This is changing, in large part thanks to House Republicans' principled freshman class. Rep. Cory Gardner, whose eastern Colorado district is not unlike the one Hochul just won, put it simply and beautifully, as quoted in Politico: The "Democrats' plan is bankruptcy."...

How many NY-26 voters knew all this Tuesday? How many knew it's really Democrats who would decimate Medicare by default? Obviously not enough to defeat the Medi-Scare tactics Democrats promise to continue into the 2012 election.

Of course one of the big arguments that the left is throwing into the Medicare 'debate' is that out-of-pocket costs will go up for those on Medicare (of course they will, the plan will be bankrupt otherwise). Unlike, I guess they want you to believe, the way their wonderful Ponzi scheme is going now.

Right?Oops.

And, you see, the GOP at least has some sort of plan. Actually they have several, including the Ryan budget that the House passed. Under his plan, spending on Medicare would RISE by about 70% over the next decade. Yes, RISE.

And the Democrats? Well, they've failed to produce a budget in like 2 years. As for Medicare, they passed ObamaCare that includes massive CUTS to Medicare, yes CUTS, to fund ObamaCare.

The next argument is that the GOP plan will 'fundamentally change Medicare'. I guess what they're saying in this is that they, the liberals, won't. That's right, they're going to keep things just the way they are.

Medicare is headed for bankruptcy faster than expected. The program’s trustees released their annual report Friday which concluded that the government old-age health insurance program will go bankrupt in 2024 — last year’s report had predicted it could last until 2029.

Great plan. Yeah, reducing 'waste' is going to stop that. Do a little poking around the leftweb and see how funny the left thinks it is when the GOP tells people about this, they claim it's the "GOP" that's making the bankruptcy claim and that it's a "howler" and "hilarious". Yeah. Pretty funny. It's the people that administer the program that say it's going bankrupt and you're the ones that don't want to make any changes. Funny.

Them's basically the choices, folks.

The GOP plan:

-changes Medicare for those still a decade away from being on it ONLY
-increases spending on Medicare
-keeps Medicare solvent
-let's you keep using health insurance the way you've used it your entire life, you pick a health insurance provider, most of the premiums are paid in the background (by the government instead of by an employer), and you get health care, just as you always have, just as current seniors do with their supplemental Medicare Advantage plans they they love, and just as they do with their pharmacy coverage

The Democrat "plan":

-changes Medicare immediately for everyone by implementing rationing and unaccountable boards that will decide who gets what treatment
-massively cuts Medicare spending by redirecting Medicare funding to ObamaCare funding for more 'productive' members of society
-let's Medicare go bankrupt before today's young children graduate from college
-and, just by the way, did Nancy Pelosi just say that one of the democrat priorities is doing away with the Medicare prescription coverage?

More Evidence Of Natural Weather Cycles

Just by sitting around and watching the weather it seems that one can find more evidence of natural periods of climate variation than in all the doctored 'global warming' scaremongering.

Temperature records seem to indicate periods of cooling and warming that last about 30 years. 30 years ago the media was talking about global cooling and impending ice ages.

Unless I'm misremembering, the 30 year cycle coincides with solar activity and/or el nino/nina patterns.

And now, practically thrown in Algore's prodigious lap, here's another example of real world weather fitting this cycle that global warming 'models' never seem able to match to reality:

Dr. HOWARD BLUESTEIN, University of Oklahoma: Well I can't speak for hurricanes, but for tornadoes and supercells, I don't think we can prove whether or not the occurrence of all these bad events this year are due to global warming whatsoever. They could be simply due to natural variability. After all, when you think back to some of the other historic events, like April 30 1974, the tornadoes in Missouri in 1953, the tri-state tornadoes back in 1925. If you through [sic] the records, you'll see that every 20, 30, 40 years there are these tremendous widespread outbreaks and some of them occurred long before we were talking about global warming.

One might think that there's something here a scientist would find interesting enough to investigate, eh? Well, the answer to that would apparently be 'no' because all the money is going to ginned up 'global warming science', not to mention the outright hostility to anyone researching anything on the other side.

I mean, c'mon, there's something here. While the only way global warming 'scientists' can fit their 'models' to reality is by doctoring them and "hiding the decline" and eliminating data gathering sites that are in cool climates and eliminating all but tiny sets of samples that show what they want them to show (cough tree rings cough), meanwhile we've got these 30 year (or so) cycles of deadly tornado swarms, 30 year up and down temp trends (hot in 2000s, cold in 1970s, hot in 1940s...). As they say...who you gonna believe...?

Hilarious

It's just hilarious the way the media tries to spin a Democrat winning a House seat in New York, I repeat - NEW YORK, as being some kind of "teutonic shift" in national politics.

Biased? Who? Us?

I cannot imagine where anyone could get the idea that the editors of the Times Union are blatantly liberal ideologues. I mean, c'mon, how do you get that from stuff like this (Sunday 5/22 editorial):

Elsewhere in the Capital Region, Sen. Neil Breslin, D-Bethlehem, is a reliable vote for gay marriage. Sen Hugh Farley, R-Niskayuna, is a hopeless vote against it.

The pro-redefinition of marriage Democrat is a "reliable vote". The anti-redefinition of marriage Republican is "hopeless".

Mr. McDonald voted, along with all the other Republicans, against same-sex marriage in a collective act of cowardice on the Senate floor two years ago.

Voting against the redefinition of marriage, a redefinition not supported by the public, is a "collective act of cowardice"?

Get real.

What A Waste

Obama also said that the extra highway money would "create or save" 150,000 jobs by the end of 2010.

Well, the results are in.

A new study by economists Timothy Conley of the University of Western Ontario and Bill Dupor of Ohio State found that despite the influx of all that federal money, highway construction jobs actually plunged by nearly 70,000 between 2008 and 2010.

As the authors explain, many states simply took the free federal money and shifted their own highway funds to meet other needs. In fact, in some states, highway spending dropped, even with the added federal money.

Examples cited in the study:

• Texas got $700 million in highway stimulus funds last year, but spent $560 million less on its roads in 2010 than it did in 2009.

• New York's highway spending was basically unchanged between 2009 and 2010, despite getting $522 million more in federal highway bucks.

• Michigan boosted its highway spending just $17.4 million, far below the $189 million extra the feds handed the state for highway improvements...

Research by John Cogan and John Taylor of Stanford's Hoover Institution found zero effect one way or another from all that stimulus money, since states mainly used the funds to cut back on borrowing, and the temporary tax cuts didn't stimulate extra consumer spending.

What a rich bounty they've reaped by stealing from our children.

Recent Media Bias Lessons

Hmmm...when Bush was president then it was "illegal war for oil!!!!" from day to night from the left and their media mouthpieces. This despite Bush having Congressional and UN approval prior to the beginning of military action.

When Obama sends American troops into combat in a prominent oil-producing nation, Libya, and then willfully ignores the Constitutional limitations on his powers...the media shrugs it off. The AP actually reports this violation of explicit constitutional responsibilities as simply "skipping" a "legal deadline". Unbelievable.

When Bush was president, the foul being known as Ted Rall's despicable anti-American screeds were prominently featured in the liberal media.

When Obama is president, Rall can't get his garbage attacking leftist Obama from the ultra-left published.

A sample of recent rejections, each from editors at different left-of-center media outlets:

· "I am familiar with and enjoy your cartoons. However the readers of our site would not be comfortable with your (admittedly on point) criticism of Obama."

· "Don't be such a hater on O and we could use your stuff. Can't you focus more on the GOP?"

· "Our first African-American president deserves a chance to clean up Bush's mess without being attacked by us."

I have many more like that.

When the GOP wants to read the Constitution before kicking off a legislative session it's mocked, attacked, and leftists go to the length of trying to figure out how much it 'cost' to familiarize America with the Constitution. When the GOP passes a repeal of Obamacare in the House it's called a waste of time.

When the Democrats in the Senate bring an unconstitutional bill (knowing that it is unconstitutional), well, where's the outrage?

And finally, the AP's economic reporting appears to have fully gone over the falls in a barrel of opinion writing.

Now...would the press have tolerated any of these under a Republican president?

What the White House has done by telling the Boston Herald it can no longer send a pool reporter to cover local campaign events on behalf of the media is another baby step toward state control of the media, using the carrot of access against the stick of exile...

It's not as if the Herald was making up stories — as the New York Times or Washington Post have been caught doing. Its "crime" to the White House was an unrelated editorial decision to run former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney's opinion piece on "the Obama misery index" on its front page two months ago.

Seems the newly self-appointed goons of "fairness" never noticed that what the former governor thinks is of particular interest to Massachusetts readers...

Just two weeks ago, the White House duked it out with the San Francisco Chronicle, a lefty paper in a lefty town but one with an independent voice.

Chronicle reporter Carla Marinucci was threatened with the same booting the Herald got because of White House displeasure at her filming of a bunch of looney left protestors improbably criticizing Obama...

Meanwhile, an Orlando Sentinel pool reporter was stuffed into a closet and held against his will on the Joe Biden campaign trail, while the Pleasanton (Calif.) Weekly was warned by the White House its coverage of first lady Michelle Obama was insufficiently flattering.

Sit, Ubu media, sit. Good dog.


Of course there's no liberal media bias. How dare we suggest such a thing?

The Ongoing Post-Osama Non-Spiking Goes On...And On...

Continuing a seemingly endless series of events meant to make Obama look good and tough and "gutsy" for agreeing to let the military carry out a mission that they trained heavily for, that was previously agreed-to by the target nation, and that was supported by 80% or more of the nation...

Obama has now decided to hold a ceremony honoring...

wait for it...

the room he sat in while Navy special forces killed Osama.

Yes. You read that correctly.

No word yet on whether the chair they let him sit in and watch will be giving any prepared remarks.

But remember, they're not into "spiking the football".

Nuh-uh. Not them.

Cuomo's Role In Economic Turmoil Again Hammered

Could it be that the press is starting to move away from their '3 monkeys' approach to the housing catastrophe where their favorite son, Cuomo, is involved?

Cuomo And Geithner Skated

The New York Times, for one, is directing its venom at Wall Street enforcers and regulators like Timothy Geithner and Andrew Cuomo. The paper says the former New York Fed chief and New York attorney general cut a deal in 2008 to go easy on Wall Street firms to focus on "stabilizing world financial markets."...

HUD's own documents show that Cuomo prodded Fannie and Freddie to dominate what had been a risky fringe industry, arguing that they'd find their "goals-qualifying" mortgages there.

Just before leaving office in 2001, Cuomo required that the now-failed mortgage giants for the first time devote fully half their business to loans tailored to minority borrowers with poor credit. His quotas remained in effect through the Bush years...

Cuomo admitted that "there'll be a higher default rate on those mortgages." But he didn't care, because as he put it, this was "affirmative action" lending — and he wanted more of it. "It will help reduce the huge homeownership gap dividing whites from minorities and suburbs from cities," he said.

Cuomo also pushed Fannie and Freddie to buy subprime securities to earn credits against his drastic affordable-housing goals. They in turn drove Wall Street demand for subprime investment. In 2004, HUD credited Cuomo's policies for "increasing (Fannie and Freddie's) business in the subprime market."

Dizzy From The Spin

The pro-Obama spinning AP: Fewer people apply for unemployment benefits

Here's the first couple of paragraphs - aka 'what people actually read':

The number of people applying for unemployment benefits plummeted last week, reversing nearly all the sharp rise reported the previous week.

The number of laid-off workers seeking benefits dropped 44,000 to a seasonally adjusted 434,000, the Labor Department said Thursday. That is the steepest weekly fall since February 2010.

The drop suggests that the increase of 47,000 reported last week was mostly due to temporary factors.

Then they move into the middle section - aka 'almost no one reads this' where they break from the hyperbolic and pretend to be getting into the facts and where the bad news is actually revealed:

Still, the latest applications figure is far above the 375,000 level typically consistent with sustainable job growth...

The four-week average of claims, a less volatile measure, rose to 436,750, its fifth straight increase. The average has jumped 46,500, or nearly 12 percent, since early April.

And then the big finish, which is nothing short of sideshow bizarre:

Employers have been adding jobs at a healthy pace since February. Companies have added 250,000 jobs each month, on average, in the past three months, the biggest hiring spree in five years...

Wait...they've been adding jobs "at a healthy pace"? But you just said the number of new applications is "far above" the "level typically consistent with sustainable job growth". And if they've been adding jobs "at a healthy pace", then why are unemployment applications rising for 5 straight weeks, a 12% rise in the past month+? How are these statements not mutually exclusive? And how exactly does a drop of a mere 44,000 justify the use of the word "plummet"? 44,000 is about a 10% drop in weekly figures and constitutes, what, about 0.02% of the working population? "plummet"?

And now the impartial Briefing.com:

Initial weekly jobless claims were also just posted. Once again the tally exceeded what had been expected. Initial claims totaled 434,000, which is greater than the 423,000 initial claims estimated in the Briefing.com consensus.

So remind me again why we're supposed to cheer the addition of 250,000 jobs when 430,000 people just applied for unemployment.

Cuomo's Role In Economic Turmoil Again Hammered

Could it be that the press is starting to move away from their '3 monkeys' approach to the housing catastrophe where their favorite son, Cuomo, is involved?

Cuomo And Geithner Skated

The New York Times, for one, is directing its venom at Wall Street enforcers and regulators like Timothy Geithner and Andrew Cuomo. The paper says the former New York Fed chief and New York attorney general cut a deal in 2008 to go easy on Wall Street firms to focus on "stabilizing world financial markets."...

HUD's own documents show that Cuomo prodded Fannie and Freddie to dominate what had been a risky fringe industry, arguing that they'd find their "goals-qualifying" mortgages there.

Just before leaving office in 2001, Cuomo required that the now-failed mortgage giants for the first time devote fully half their business to loans tailored to minority borrowers with poor credit. His quotas remained in effect through the Bush years...

Cuomo admitted that "there'll be a higher default rate on those mortgages." But he didn't care, because as he put it, this was "affirmative action" lending — and he wanted more of it. "It will help reduce the huge homeownership gap dividing whites from minorities and suburbs from cities," he said.

Cuomo also pushed Fannie and Freddie to buy subprime securities to earn credits against his drastic affordable-housing goals. They in turn drove Wall Street demand for subprime investment. In 2004, HUD credited Cuomo's policies for "increasing (Fannie and Freddie's) business in the subprime market."

Billionaire Obama Donor Convicted Of Insider Trading

Hedge-Fund Manager Rajaratnam Found Guilty of Insider Trading

Raj Rajaratnam, the billionaire founder of New York City hedge fund Galleon Group, was found guilty Wednesday of insider trading in one of the most high-profile insider cases in history.

It was a huge win for the U.S. government; Rajaratnam was found guilty on all 14 counts he faced - nine for securities fraud and five for conspiracy.

Referencing some research I did earlier, I note that good old superrich Raj didn't support the 'party of the rich', but the 'party of the people':

2005, $4,200 for Hillary
2006, $26,700 for DEMOCRATIC SENATORIAL CAMPAIGN COMMITTEE
2001, $1,000 Chuck Schumer
2004, $1,000 Chuckie again
2007, $2,300 Hillary again
2004, $2,000 Rohit Khanna (Dem that ran in CA)
2006, $2,000 Maria Cantwell (Dem)
2008, $30,800 for Obama
2006, $12,100 for a PAC that it looks like supported Menendez, NJ Dem
2008, $4,600 for Obama again
2008, $26,200 for DNC
2006, $2,100 for Menendez
2006, $10,000 NJ Dems

At one point in the past he also gave a whopping $5,000 to a PAC that seems to have supported Republicans.

Leftwing Media Attack Speaker For Saying Rich Should Pay More For Medicare - WTF?

Talk about wanting to have your cake (attack the rich for not paying 'their fair share') and eat it, too (attack anyone for saying billionaires should pay more for Medicare)...sheesh!

In response to a question from billionaire Pete Peterson, Boehner gave a hearty endorsement to the idea of "means testing" Medicare benefits.

"There's no reason why we should subsidize Pete Peterson's premium," he said. "I'm sorry. He ought to pay the full cost of his premium to be in Medicare."

While normally eager to sock it to the rich, the left unleashed a barrage of attacks against Boehner.

The liberal Talking Points Memo, for example, whined that "it would mean requiring a wealthier subset of seniors to pay thousands more dollars a year out-of-pocket, after they paid their whole lives into a program meant to significantly limit their costs."

The Arkansas Time's Max Brantley was more blunt: "This would, in time, kill Medicare."...

And people take the media seriously!

Yeah, Well

Report: Americans don't give a f**k about demeaning bin laden's family.

Yeah, We Need To Get This Guy Out Of Office

And while we're at it, maybe we can find an honest press than can stop being so partisan.

At White House dinner, Barack Obama calls for unity

President Barack Obama called on lawmakers Monday to “harness” the sense of unity stemming from the death of Osama bin Laden and apply it to upcoming domestic policy debates...

“I know that that unity that we felt on 9/11 has frayed a little bit over the years, and I have no illusions about the difficulties of the debates that we’ll have to be engaged in, in the weeks and months to come,” Obama said. “But I also know there have been several moments like this during the course of this year that have brought us together as an American family, whether it was the tragedy in Tucson or, most recently, our unified response to the terrible storms that have taken place in the South.

“Last night was one of those moments,” Obama continued. “And so tonight, it is my fervent hope that we can harness some of that unity and some of that pride to confront the many challenges that we still face.”

Obama mocks Republican position on immigration

In search of Hispanic votes and a long-shot immigration overhaul, President Barack Obama on Tuesday stood at the U.S.-Mexico border for the first time since winning the White House and declared it more secure than ever. He mocked Republican lawmakers for blocking immigration over border security alone, saying they won't be happy until they get a moat with alligators along the border.

"They'll never be satisfied," he said...

"We have gone above and beyond what was requested by the very Republicans who said they supported broader reform as long as we got serious about enforcement," Obama said. "But even though we've answered these concerns, I gotta say I suspect there are still going to be some who are trying to move the goal posts on us one more time."

"Maybe they'll need a moat," he said derisively to laughter from the crowd. "Maybe they'll want alligators in the moat."

What a two-faced ass.

Looking For A New Restaurant?

Restaurant review up at True Falze for Al-Baraki in Cohoes. Yum!

Bravo, Times Union!

Well done to the Times Union today! They managed to have a lengthy front page story about high school taxes and the need to cut electives at schools without once mentioning the expanding and unsustainable cost of teachers' union benefits with many of them refusing to make any concessions to meet budget crunches, choosing to make towns cut electives for the children they care so very much about instead of making them pay a more reasonable portion of their health insurance, retirement, or *gasp* letting them get rid of lousy teachers.

Way to miss the biggest obstacle completely, I mean, that's just, wow. That's skill right there. That's like writing a story about the fires plaguing a downtown area and worrying about the costs and the risk to lives and ignoring the guy wandering around in plain sight with a flamethrower.

Democrats Giving Us Gas Pains

IBD has two editorials up that will make your wallet twinge with gas pains:

Another Tax On Gas?

First put forward by Obama's Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood in February 2009, the idea gathered support from such Democrats as Jim Oberstar, former congressman from Minnesota who was once chairman of the House Transportation Committee, and North Dakota's Kent Conrad, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee...

The fact is, we already collect a per-mile tax. It's called the gasoline tax, and it's supposed to be used to fund transportation needs...

...Recall just a couple weeks back, when people were up in arms after Exxon-Mobil announced record first-quarter profit.

Exxon-Mobil's earnings came out to 7 cents a gallon, up from 2 cents in the fourth quarter.

What about gasoline taxes?

During the same quarter, they totaled 48 cents a gallon — seven times larger than Exxon's profit, which more than one Democrat termed "obscene."...

Recent estimates show that just 65% of current user fees and taxes on transportation are spent on motorists and truckers. More than a third of the money goes to politicians' pet projects — pork, in other words.

Please remember this when proponents inevitably talk about our nation's "crumbling infrastructure" and other things intended to make us think we need to be taxed much more. Straight out, they're lying.

Punishing Big Oil Won't Cut Prices

House Democrats hoped to force a vote Thursday on a bill that would boost taxes for Big Oil by stripping its access to a tax deduction provided to all industries under the American Jobs Creation Act of 2004 — a law designed to encourage domestic production and create jobs that got widespread bipartisan support...

And no economist — at least not any living in the real world — would argue that raising taxes on the oil industry will somehow lower the price of gasoline at the pump...

Nor should the GOP be embarrassed about opposing efforts to cut off the oil industry's access to tax deductions available to every other industry, even if Democrats do try to dress it all up as eliminating "subsidies."

The ability to expense intangible drilling costs (enacted in 1916), for example, isn't any different from the tax breaks other companies get for R&D.

And the "percentage depletion allowance" (enacted in 1926) doesn't even benefit Big Oil, but independent producers, and isn't just for the oil industry but all other "extractive industries."

These two breaks, along with the Job Creation Act's domestic production deduction, constitute almost the entire $4 billion in annual "subsidies" Democrats are targeting...

Over the past 30 years, these taxes have exceeded industry profits by 37%. And the oil and gas industry pays more in taxes as a share of net income than the average manufacturing company.

Why A Focus On The Media Matters

What I do, this 'hobby' of mine, may seem trivial at times. Even to me. But when you see downright lies perpetuated by a local paper that refuses to correct them even when presented with irrefutable evidence (lookin' at you, Gazette) it makes sense. And when I see even supposed political 'insiders', in this case a respected pollster with all sorts of connections, repeating, days later, the half- and less-than-half-truths foisted on us by the Obama administration in the early hours of this week, well, it makes it more important in my mind to keep pushing. Here we sit, days removed, and Matt Towery still writes the following malarkey:

That aside, we now may well be witnessing the maturation of a president. Looking at the photographs in the situation room, as the president and his advisors watched the bin Laden mission in real time on video, one can't help but notice the similarities to John F. Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Here was a president -- maligned by many -- making historic, and historically good, snap decisions.

Alas, we know it all to be a myth, but thanks to early media saturation even this 'insider' has it all upside down. They weren't watching the "mission in real time on video"...they were watching a blank screen, maybe some graphics of loose reporting. We've already learned that the feed went dead before the raid started and that room of focused 'leaders' was actually just waiting for something to happen, like when the cable goes out during a big game and you're hoping it comes back in time for the big finish...Hillary, we now know, was not recoiling at some gruesome sight...she was stifling a cough from spring allergies. Indeed, she says she can't even remember what they were looking at, it was that riveting. And he goes on!

Then he praises Obama's "historically good, snap decisions". Are you friggin' kidding me, pal? We now know that he was handed Osama basically on a platter - they knew where he was, they had a trained team all ready to go kill him, and no one knew they were ready to do this. And Obama went to bed! He decided to "sleep on it" and had everyone wait while he slept on it. They said, we've got Osama, no doubt this time, we're trained and ready and he doesn't have a clue we're coming, you just say 'go' and we go kill Osama bin laden. And Obama had to sleep on it. At least he didn't wait too long or decide not to kill the world's most wanted terrorist like Clinton when handed to him. But "snap decisions"? Bullspit. The only decision he made in that time (apart from which club to use when he went golfing ahead of the assault), one that rumors have him being forced into, he took a day to make and had to "sleep on it" first.

Cripes, Matt. Come on, man.

Want Sprinkles On Your Double Dip?

Here it comes. GDP growth has slowed precipitously for a 'recovery' (we should probably 5 or 6% growth in a good recovery and just saw the first quarter come in under 2%, down from previous quarters), gas prices are crushing the poor and middle class (yet there are not daily heartwrenching sob stories in the paper as there were when prices hit $4/gal and Bush was president...funny, eh?), Obama is trying to raise gas prices again by raising taxes on oil companies, food prices are soaring, the housing market is still a shambles, inflation is on its way (already here in oil and food, the rest will follow) as predicted when the Fed started printing money at a furious rate with no positive affect (also as predicted), and, oh by the way...there go the jobs again:

Premarket selling has picked up in the minutes that have followed the latest weekly jobless claims tally. Initial jobless claims for the week ended April 30 totaled 474,000, which is far greater than the 400,000 initial jobless claims that had been expected, on average, among economists polled by Briefing.com. The latest count represents an increase of 43,000 from the prior week. Continuing claims climbed to 3.73 million from 3.65 million in the prior week.

**

The number of Americans filing for jobless benefits rose to an eight-month high last week and productivity growth slowed in the first quarter, clouding the outlook for an economy that is struggling to gain speed.

But, hey, at least he got Osama! Yup, cancel the election!

Obama Got Him

Yes, President Obama "got" bin Aerated at long last.

With a little help from his friends those he loathes.

The special forces that carried out the President's (delayed) order to "get" him? Rebuilt and modernized by Rumsfeld and other Bush team members.

The team that carried out the order consisting of military and CIA operatives? Able to work together because Bush's team saw to it that Jamie Gorelick's "wall of separation" between the military and intelligence agencies was torn down.

The 'focus' and 'top priority' agenda to find bin Aerated by Obama? Made successful by intelligence gathered years before under Bush.

The intelligence team that painstakingly compiled vague clues for more than half a decade to pinpoint his location? Rebuilt from practically nothing by Bush's team after Clinton decimated our intelligence gathering capabilities.

The people that obtained the key intelligence used to ultimately eliminate bin Aerated? The same people that Obama's team wanted to see prosecuted for the gathering of this same (and other) intelligence.

The long years of intelligence gathering, used to capture the operatives that gave us the final clues? Terrorist monitoring programs authorized by Bush and put into place by his team amid vetting by his legal team.

The key to the final kill, years later, coming via information gathered about this 'courier'? A 'courier' and not an intercepted call because the left chose to reveal our secret terrorist monitoring programs to the terrorists and the world, leading to bin Aerated discontinuing the use of phones.

The crucial piece of intelligence? Drawn from a terrorist operative captured not in Afghanistan or Pakistan, but in Iraq coordinating terrorist baby killers in what Obama called Bush's "stupid war".

The crucial intelligence? Drawn from a high-ranking terrorist operative reportedly subjected to the 'enhanced interrogation' efforts authorized by Bush after an exhaustive legal review and tight legal restrictions - efforts de-authorized by Obama.

The crucial intelligence? Drawn from high-ranking terrorists held at Gitmo, which Obama promised and desperately tried to close, and undisclosed locations overseas in the custody of the CIA (I still refuse to call random locations for a prisoner or two a "secret prison") under Bush's team.

So, just maybe, he could pull his head and those of his sycophants out of his fanny and share some of the credit with a few other people. One right decision does not exonerate years of wrong ones, decisions that, if he had his way, could never had led to this outcome. Yes, he deserves credit for making that final, right decision. Absolutely. But he also deserves to be reminded of what, and who, made it possible.

History will reward him with the label of the one who captured and killed the worst terrorist of the past twenty years.

But he did so standing on the shoulders of a President who took political backlash, foul media coverage, and a toxically poisoned electorate (poisoned largely by the efforts of Obama directly) to do what was right, to press forward in obtaining the critical pieces of data to set up the eventual capture and kill of Bin Ladin.

President Obama owes his rightful success to a man he directly undermined, nearly the entire time he was setting the pieces in place for Obama's biggest national security achievement.

President Obama owes an apology to President Bush.

Harry Reid Wants To Be VP

Seems like with the rustlings about replacing Slow Joe for Obama's doomed re-election bid, Harry Reid, seeing the writing on the wall of returning to minority status in the Senate, seems to be auditioning for the job. How else to explain the following?

Joe Biden:

"My state was a slave state. My state is a border state. My state is the eighth largest black population in the country. My state is anything from a northeast liberal state."

***

[Delaware was a] "slave state that fought beside the North. That's only because we couldn't figure out how to get to the South. There were a couple of states in the way."

***

"I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that’s a storybook, man."

***

"You cannot go into a 7-11 or a Dunkin’ Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. Oh, I’m not joking."

vs. Harry Reid:

He doesn’t know "how anyone of Hispanic heritage could be a Republican."

and when he was asked why Senator Marco Rubio talks like a Republican even though he’s Latino.

"Marco Rubio has to understand who he is."

It Defies (Liberal) Logic!

From Reuters:

The rich keep getting richer, both here in the United States and especially in the world's emerging markets.

Public and private investments controlled by the richest families are expected to more than double in value to $202 trillion by 2020, from $92 trillion this year, according to survey of millionaires in 25 countries by Deloitte LLP.

Meanwhile the ranks of families with more than a million dollars will also increase, by two-thirds to 55.5 million in the developed world.

Whoa whoa whoa! How can this be? It simply can NOT be, according to the prevailing (liberal) wisdom. The rich can only get richer on the backs of the poor! It is simply NOT possible that the rich could get richer and yet we could still see the ranks of the rich grow, that is people become rich who are not yet rich, by 66% at the same time.

It is simply not possible. After all, economics is a zero sum game, someone can get more only by taking it from someone else. The conservative, free market model whereby the entire pie grows bigger, allowing those that have to have more and those that have less to also have more just cannot happen.

It is simply not possible, according to the left, that when the top percentiles do better that the lower percentiles could also do better. After all, if you say 'the rich get richer' you have to conclude that the 'poor get poorer'.

Right?

That said, the United States is likely to remain home to the most millionaires, doubling to 20 million households by 2020 from this year.

Nope. Can't be. Nanananananana I can't hear you nananananananana!

Times Union Hits And Misses

Tuesday's Times Union, unlike the Gazette that chose to lie about George Bush and repeat a long-debunked media-pushed myth about him to discredit him in a story about an American success, struck a near perfect chord in writing about this historic event. They chose to rise above partisanship at this time, the culmination of the work of our intelligence community through three presidencies, covering both parties. Apart from calling the financier the 'mastermind', they really showed us what newspapermen (and women) can do when they put aside their partisanship.

Alas. Later in the paper we were treated by an article by staffer Tim O'Brien who, I can only assume, is trying out the new liberal media line to be used in the re-election campaign of Obama. Now that Donald Trump has driven a spike through the leftwing media's obsession with the birth certificate fringe (well, except for MSNBC), seems the next ploy is to smear the cross-section of America that identifies with the TEA partiers by smooshing them up next to the bizarre Birch Society. Alas for the ploy, the right routinely mocks the Birchers. But we can fully expect the 'keep throwing it against the wall and see what sticks' approach to accompany the lies about the GOP budget proposal where we're treated to near-daily lies about "cutting" Medicare.

Well Said

Best I've seen, out of the gutter and striking all the right notes - Rich Galen writes:

At 1:41 this morning I got an e-mail from Speaker Boehner's chief of staff Barry Jackson who has spent much of his adult life on one end of Pennsylvania Avenue or the other. It simply read:

"We will not tire, we will not falter, we will not fail...justice will be done."

Words from President Bush's address to the nation shortly after 9/11.

Someone pulled the trigger on the gun that killed bin Laden. Somewhere, someone cast the barrel of the rifle which fired the round that killed bin Laden. Somewhere someone had mined the coal, or tended the nuclear plant that generated the power to run the furnace that cast the barrel of the rifle that fired the round that killed bin Laden.

D-Day didn't begin on June 6, 1944. It had begun years earlier when it was decided there would be a D-Day and the foundations for factories began to be poured to house the furnaces which would forge those millions of rifle barrels...

When President Bush went to what has become known as Ground Zero and put his arm around that retired firefighter, Bob Beckwith, and shouted into the megaphone that "they're all going to hear us pretty soon" no one could have believed it would take nearly 10 years to fire the round that killed bin Laden.

Sometime late last week, President Barack Obama made the decision to approve the mission. That's when Presidents - leaders - earn their money. Much like when Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower said on the evening of June 5, 1944, "Tonight, we go."...

The mission which had started as far back as 2002 when the nickname of one of bin Laden's couriers was squeezed out of a prisoner presumably at Guantanamo. Like the pouring of the first footers for the first factory before World War II that disclosure set in motion a series of events which ended yesterday in success.

So, who took the shot that killed bin Laden?

America.

Gazette Correction Requested

I thought we were over this. I guess not. The Gazette today (Tuesday), falsely claimed that President Bush "erroneously" proclaimed "mission accomplished", referring to the media fantasy that never happened, the same way they now seem to think Gov. Palin once claimed to be able to see Russia from her house. They just make s**t up, repeat it, and then believe their lies once they hear themselves say them enough times.

I have written to the Gazette requesting a correction - text as follows:

Tuesday's editorial falsely stated that President Bush "once erroneously said" "mission accomplished".

Apparently the Gazette's editors only remember the speech they imagine George Bush gave instead of what he actually said. I'll do the work the editors refuse to do - the text of his speech can be found here and about a billion other places on the internet: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/05/01/iraq/main551946.shtml

The president, of course, never said "mission accomplished" that day and, in fact, said: "Our mission continues." The only accomplished mission that was celebrated that day, as proclaimed by that proud banner, was the mission of our brave sailors aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln.

You should immediately print a correction to this false statement and strongly consider an apology to those brave sailors that you claim did not accomplish their mission on that deployment. Not to mention President Bush, whose history you seemingly seek to tarnish with falsehoods.

This goes up on the tally board as a requested correction and an editorial lie. Should the Gazette actually issue a correction (not holding breath) the lie count will be lowered accordingly (since it will now read as an 'error') and the correction count will actually budge off the floor for the first time.

Not What You Expected, Eh?

So the liberals up in Canada managed to drum up all kinds of things they claimed showed conservative PM Harper and his party was corrupt, so Canadians better put the liberals back in charge ASAP!

Funny thing happened on the way to the rink...

Canadians went to the polls and destroyed the Liberal Party and gave the Conservatives a majority in Parliament, handing Harper a friendly legislative body for the first time.

The separatist Bloc Quebecois might as well pack it in as they were swept from their seats almost to a man, with a mere 4 seats remaining in their hands.

The AP called the trouncing of the Liberals and Bloc a "shattering defeat".

It's the economy, stupid...and Harper kept Canada basically out of the worldwide downturn with sane fiscal policies. People like that stuff, I'm told.

Ex-Speaker Nancy Hypocrisy

Compare and Contrast

So we won't be politicizing 9-11...right?

It's Time To Get Serious About Cutting

“Thirty percent of general Tea Partiers want to cut Medicare. But you look at these numbers on the other side, 69 percent of Tea Partiers against these cuts in Medicare. ...The only cuts that they seem to want are the cuts for the poor people. And you have a modest majority, 52- [[Newsweek's] Jonathan Alter laughs.] You’re laughing because you know how right-wingers think. They don’t mind cutting the poor people who get Medicaid.”
— MSNBC’s Chris Matthews on Hardball, April 20.

“People love Medicare. And the only one the Tea Party people want to cut is Medicaid because it’s for poor people and minorities. That’s how they see it at least.”
— Matthews on Hardball the next night.

That's it. I've had it. We've got to get real to deal with this budget crisis and it's time we stop playing political games and lying and do what the left is urging. We have to stop these BS cuts to things that benefit the poor and focus on the stuff that really eats up our budget. The time is now. Who's with me?

1) Those free private jumbo jets that are handed out to people once they submit their first tax return showing over $500 million at the taxpayers' expense? Gone!

2) Free health care for billionaires? Not anymore, Mr. Gates!

3) Subsidized gas discount cards for people making over $500,000? See ya!

4) Weekly deliveries of taxpayer funded meals to homes larger than 22,000 square feet? Say goodbye, Al Gore!

5) Top-secret private schools with taxpayer-funded tuition for people raking in over a million a year? Close 'em down!

6) 'Free ice cream cone and gold watch' Fridays on Wall Street? Lick up your last one, fat cats!

7) Seven-figure birthday gifts from "Uncle Sam" every year to Warren Buffett? You've unwrapped your last one, pal!

8) Beverly Hills soup kitchens with a dress code and bank account requirements? No soup for you - next!

9) Gold-plated retirement packages for politicians even if they commit crimes or get new jobs...oops, they're keeping that one!

10) Taxpayer-subsidized plastic surgery at military hospitals for movie stars? Snip!

It's time to get serious, America, and stop cutting real programs that benefit the needy, it's time to start cutting these wasteful, imaginary budget items funded by the taxes of the bottom 50% of taxpayers for the benefit of the rich. When the left screeches that conservatives only want to cut programs that aid the needy, they're right and it's time to stop that - it's time to start cutting the vast number of programs designed to benefit the wealthy! And the time is now!!

Steady As She Goes, Marco

Marco Rubio, refusing to take any of David Gregory's bait on Meet the Press, stayed right on track and hammered home a few points that must be touched on by all conservatives, all Republicans, each and every time they have the opportunity to be in the press or in front of their constituents - because they're not hearing these hard facts from anyone else. Reform or bankruptcy, it's not a false choice:

GREGORY: Alright, one of the ways to do that, as you well know, Chairman Paul Ryan of the Budget Committee has said we have to change Medicare as we know it. It's either premium support or a voucher system, but it's going to change, Okay? Are you prepared to vote to support the Ryan plan?

RUBIO: Well, it would take three things. Number one is, Medicare as we know it goes bankrupt, so it can't not – you know, you can't sustain it the way it is. I mean, anytime – anywhere between five and the next 12 years, Medicare as we know it will go bankrupt. And all the people that are out there attacking the Ryan plan, my question is, 'Where is your plan?,' Introduce your plan. Because if your plan is to keep Medicare the way it is, then your plan is bankruptcy, and that doesn't work for anybody.

Number two, as far as the Ryan plan is concerned, I will support any plan that saves Medicare, doesn't impact current seniors, and doesn't hurt economic growth. The Ryan plan does that.

GREGORY: Right.

RUBIO: If people don't like the Ryan plan, including Democrats in the Senate, then introduce your own plan. Where is your plan?...

GREGORY: And look at some of the reaction in terms of how people feel about cutting spending for Medicare. We'll put it on the screen. Cutting Medicare spending, 78 percent oppose. Medicaid spending, 69 percent oppose. You're not operating in a political vacuum here, you well know that. You are a senator from Florida with a lot of older voters. Are you prepared to stand up to them and say, 'Sorry, folks, we've got to do this'?

RUBIO: You know-

GREGORY: Because a lot of Republicans think this is, this is handing something to the Democrats that'll be potent against Republicans down the line.

RUBIO: Well, two things. The Ryan plan doesn't cut Medicare. Actually, it increases funding in it. And the only people in this town that have voted to cut Medicare are the people that supported ObamaCare, that cut half a trillion dollars over the next 10 years out of Medicare and is using it to fund a healthcare experiment somewhere outside of Medicare. The only people in this town that have voted to cut Medicare spending are the people who voted in favor of ObamaCare. That's a fact. And so the truth is the people-

GREGORY: But you don't deny that, that if you introduce a voucher system into Medicare, that there's going to be a set amount of dollars that seniors have to go into the private marketplace. That is not Medicare as we now have it.

RUBIO: Well, Medicare as we now have it goes bankrupt. That's not a – Medicare as we now have it is not an option. Here's my challenge today. Anybody out there that thinks there's a better way to save Medicare should introduce a bill on Monday. Tomorrow when we get back to work here in Washington, run up to Capitol Hill and introduce your bill. Why hasn't the President proposed a Medicare plan? Why hasn't the congressional Democrats proposed a, a Medicare plan? Why haven't the leaders in the Senate that control the Senate, they haven't even proposed a budget, much, much less a Medicare plan. What is their plan to save a program that's going to go bankrupt in five to 12 years? Don't just criticize, propose. Otherwise, you're not serious, you're up here to play political games.

Don't Support The GOP, They Want To Keeeeeeel You!

(updated with some more - originally posted 4-18-11)

Oh those vile Republicans, always putting their own interests (and those of the RIIIICH!) ahead of everyone else, willing to frighten you to death! or just about in order to get power.

Oh. Right. Wrong party. Time for an update for the 'Fear' tag with some full scale demagoguery by the left, explaining why we can't roll back federal spending to levels seen a few years ago without slaughtering most of the poor, women, and elderly people in America!!!!

NY's own Rep. Louise Slaughter: "In ’94 people were elected simply to come here to kill the National Endowment for the Arts. Now they’re here to kill women."

FL's Rep. Debbie Whatshername Schultz: "This plan would literally be a death trap for some seniors."

IL's Rep. Jan Schakowsky: The GOP's budget that has no impact on those over 55 is a "war on seniors".

Hooker-addicted political failure Eliot Spitzer, now a paid commentator on CNN: "You are driving the government to bankruptcy and then balancing the budget on the backs of the poor..." (not sure how that one works, personally, since the poor don't pay any taxes, then again, Paul Ryan's probably smarter than I am and found a way)

DC's Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton: Shutting down the government is "the functional equivalent of bombing innocent civilians."

New York Times food writer Mark Bittman: "These supposedly deficit-reducing cuts...will quite literally cause more people to starve to death, go to bed hungry or live more miserably than are doing so now.

MD's Sen. Barbara Mikulski: "This entire debate has involved throwing women and children under the bus."

Headline News host (and super-genius) Joy Behar: "Poor white people, poor black people are the ones who are oppressed by the right wing in this country..."

Ole Tingly Leg: "So, the plan is the president says, look, let them offer a big slash in Medicare, which is going to kill half the people who watch this show."

The NYT: "Six months after voters sent Republicans in large numbers to Congress and many statehouses, it is possible to see the full landscape of destruction that their policies would cause...The elderly, in particular, would be cut adrift by Mr. Ryan." (particularly the elderly under 55)

The Times Union on the 14th: "Yet the House Republican strategy for America's budget is just the opposite: it upends the social contract, funding tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires in part by cutting things like health care for the elderly and early education programs for children. It enriches the comfortable at the expense of the vulnerable."

Newsweek's Jonathan Alter: "After many years where Democrats kind of cried wolf about Republicans wanting to throw granny into the snow, this time that’s what they have just voted to do."

Wait wait wait JUST WAIT A MINUTE! Democrats don't talk that way! They keep telling us so.

Ahem.

Excuse me.

Let's cut right to the chase. No more dicking around. Why should you beat the hell out of any Republican or conservative you happen to come across? Why is this %&%%$#^#$#$+ Ryan a horse's rear for a proposal to cut federal spending to 20% of GDP from the current 25%, even though it was 18% during the heady days of Bill Clinton ("He [Paul Ryan] doesn’t deal with the revenue side at all....His goal is to do 18 percent of GDP as revenue. That’s not enough." -Former Newsweek managing editor Evan Thomas)? Let's ask MA Congressman Ed Markey:

"(T)hey're also trying to pass legislation to help destroy the whole wide world."

You see, the GOP has to be stopped...they're trying to "destroy the whole wide world"!!!!

Today, defund the abortionists and the only source of news for the toothless hordes of clueless hicks that populate the flyover country lolling about on rickety porches with fleabitten hound dogs and a clay jug of XXX next to their banjo. Tomorrow, destroy the world!!!!

(Newsbusters notes that the 'Ryan Budget' increases Medicare spending over the next 10 years from $563 billion to $953 billion per year - very drastic "cuts" indeed)

Two Brief Thoughts

1. Please, let's not get carried away, OK, press? Stop calling bin-aerated the "mastermind" of the 9-11 attacks. The bloated loser that masterminded the attacks has been in custody for years.

2. Heard the classless Tonko on 810 this morning who found time to praise just about everyone in America for bumping off bin-aerated...except for George Bush. Even the bottom-feeding Obama was able to find enough class to include Bush in this 'win'. Way to wallow in the gutter, Paul.

Trump Wins Again

Donald Trump wins another round with Obama, forcing him to spend his time attacking Trump in front of the press instead of serious challengers, making him look shallow and unserious.