Spinnin'

soooooo..."Obama caves"?

Your Random End Of The Year

So long year 3, may year 4 see us steer him towards the door.

In that spirit, let's let John Ransom recall the biggest 9 fails of Obama's, oh, 300 or so fails this year:

9) Sending a budget to Capitol Hill that didn’t get one vote:

Calculate the man-hours that went into presenting to Congress a budget that didn’t muster even one vote in the Senate...Nothing better represents the disconnect between Washington and the rest of the country as Obama’s attitude towards passing a budget. They didn’t even pretend to take the process seriously. And then they thought no one would notice...

8) Predicting the economic recovery...

7) Spiking the “football” on Osama bin Laden:

Obama has made too may references to “getting” Osama bin Laden. He’s done it in such a way that he claims too much credit. The proper thing to have done was to give the US Intelligence Community along with our armed forces all of the credit...The intelligence gathering that eventually “got” bin Laden started a long time before Obama was president. Obama’s never learned the hard lesson, often lost on the “special” child, that no one likes a braggart...

6) Solyndra:

The economic futility of the regime in Washington was best displayed by the decision to “invest” US taxpayers’ hard-earned money in Solyndra, even knowing that the company would fail. This at a time when Obama was lecturing the half who actually pays taxes that we are not paying our fair share. Even after getting caught, then lying and getting caught in the lie about the decisions surrounding the DOE program that made the Solyndra investment possible, Obama doubled down on stupid to put billions, yes, billions more into the program...

5) Fast and Furious:

Admittedly I haven’t been a fan of Eric Holder’s. But even I’m amazed at the breathtaking cynicism shown by our top law-enforcement officer as he lied to Congress about what he knew and when he knew it regarding Fast and Furious. It shouldn’t have taken the death of a federal agent to know arming drug gangs in Mexico would lead to no good...

4) Vacations 1, 2 & 3

I don’t begrudge the president taking his family someplace, you know, once. But $4 million dollars for a Christmas vacation? And despite what some progressives are claiming, yes that amount is the tab picked up by the US taxpayers for Obama’s 17-day Hawaiian vacation with Mary Todd Lincoln Jr. And the money part isn’t the worst of it. This year Obama was notably absent during the start up to the war in Libya and during the aftermath of the debt ceiling negotiations- remember the ones he really didn’t take part in in the first place? He promptly decamped to Martha’s Vineyard while S&P downgraded US debt...

3) Keystone Pipeline...

2) Libya

Nothing cried hypocrisy more than Obama’s decision to start a time-limited, scope-limited kinetic military activity- whatever that is- in Libya over European oil. Up to that point, progressives supported him. After that? Not so much...

1) Debt Ceiling:

It’s hard to pin this completely on the president. But really you have to because here’s the un-get-aroundable fact. In February, Obama presented a budget that called for more deficit spending, more borrowing, more debt. In July he was pretending to be concerned about the deficit. He wasn’t and isn’t. That was just a bid to raise taxes. Super, epic, utter fail, dude. Thanks for playing.

The Road To Hell

Here's to a better 2012, maybe the geniuses that know better than everyone else, the ones that rely on "science" will get a clue.

How about that ethanol, folks? It's led to huge spikes in food prices as corn has been redirected to making ineffective combustion products, leading to corn price hikes, hikes in things that use corn, and hikes due to shortages in other products because growers switched to gubmint-subsidized corn. Not to mention the engine-destroying factor or the reduced fuel economy (weren't we supposed to be increasing fuel economy?).

This, of course, followed on the heels of the disastrous decision to force the addition of MTBE to fuel, which also led to reduced fuel efficiency (I 'fondly' recall how I could drive one way back/forth to college on a tank of MTBE-less fuel whereas I needed to refill going the other way with MTBE-laden gas) and the terrible health effects and environmental destruction wrought by MTBE that was forced on us by the government. Again, weren't we supposed to be improving fuel efficiency and saving the environment?

Which, naturally, brings to mind the hysteria over hydraulic fracturing to extract the cleanest burning fossil fuel available - natural gas, because of an unproven and unlikely fear of aquifer contamination. Where were these people when the government was forcing MTBE on us, a highly mobile contaminant now found in drinking water in all 50 states, a man-made, man-added contaminant the government practically dumped into drinking water aquifers?

Where does it end with these geniuses?

A Simple Solution

My, my, my. So much fuss.

Priests molesting little boys.

Male teachers molesting little boys.

Now we're on our third(?) scandal where a man employed by high level sports team employee has been exposed (is that the right word? 'caught'?) molesting little boys.

So much fuss about how to stop these men teaching and coaching from molesting little boys when the answer has already been so ably provided by the left, who has assured us they know the reason...

Just let them marry!

What? Doesn't make sense to you? You don't understand why allowing men who are obsessed with having sex with little boys to marry will solve the problem? I'm sure the New York Times can explain it...

What If They Told The Truth About The Weather?

I know...radical concept. The NY Times tried to ruin everyone's Christmas with a load of coal baloney in our stockings, but they just can't keep a lid on the truth anymore.

The article is pounded into tinsel here: The Worst NYT Story on Climate Ever?

It effectively eviscerates the unsubstantiated, unsourced scaremongering in the Times such as:

-misrepresenting the work and products of NOAA

-the 'rise' in costs from extreme weather

-tornado frequency

Why Fighting Media Bias Matters

Before the media needed to spin the manufactured "crisis" the Democrat's way:


After the spin was in place:


Notice anything different?

Occupy Blame?

Channel 13 news: "Police are still searching for the people responsible for causing $30,000 in damage to the Holiday Lights display in Washington Park."

YNN: "An estimated $30,000 worth of damage was done to several light displays sometime between Friday night and early Saturday morning. Corporate sponsorship signs within the display were sprayed with graffiti messages. Some electrical cords were also cut on many displays."

Times Union actually brushes on the facts: "Someone had also spray-painted anti-corporate messages on wood sponsor boards that are also erected at the end of the route in Washington Park."

Fox23News: "Officials with the Albany Police Athletic League tell FOX23 News all the lights at the Hannaford Holiday Lights in the Park have finally been repaired after many were cut and signs were tagged."

Missing from all these stories? The details. Specifically that the holiday display was vandalized to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars with an emphasis on vandalizing corporate sponsorship notices and that the "signs were tagged" with anti-corporation graffiti...days after "Occupy Albany" was dispersed by the City. Fox23News even has a tab for news just about "Occupy Albany". Yet the press, oh so eager to tie anything negative to the Tea Party or conservatives, despite the lack of any and all evidence, is carefully covering up the fact that the park vandalism appeared specifically targeted at corporations and motivated by anti-corporate sentiment - the exact hallmarks of the "Occupy" 'movement'.

Double standard much?

--

I would point out that the print Daily Gazette found a mathematician for Monday's paper and put 2 and 2 together, allowing the beyond obvious connection to at least be raised. The TU's initial reporting also mentioned it.

3 Years Of ObamaFail In Chart Form

Nice collection of economic charts over at the American Enterprise Institute's blog you should check out here: The 7 most illuminating economic charts of 2011

They include an updated version of the unemployment rate vs. Obama's promised unemployment rate if we spent more than the Iraq War on his stimulus-that-didn't. We're "supposed" to be around 6% by now according to Mr. Off-to-Hawaii-again.

There's also what the unemployment rate would look like if people hadn't stopped looking for work.

Middle-class stagnation is debunked.

Another myth obliterated? Income inequality, specifically how the top 1% aren't hoarding all the assets.

Also, as we already know, just how pitiful Obama's "recovery" has been compared to other recessions where the government didn't "help" so much.

Your Random Saturday

If you're going shopping today, be safe out there and smile, even when people don't deserve it :)

Why socialists get it all wrong:

Elizabeth Warren, liberal candidate for the senate in Massachusetts, recently declared that nobody succeeds on their own in the country. This is true. There are always many people involved in any success. But she took it one step further, stating that success is a gift from civilized society...

One of my businesses is a 137-room hotel with a restaurant and banquet facilities. Last year this hotel paid quite a bit for roads, fire and police, and schools...That $1 million of local taxes is before I pay any state or federal income taxes and multiple fees...

In fact, Professor Warren’s argument is exactly upside down. My little hotel doesn’t drive on the roads, use the library or send kids to public schools. How do you think these things are paid for, by the household that pays $4,500 a year in property taxes and sends 2 kids to school at $12,000 per year?

Ugh:

I still remember that visit Michelle Obama made to a government classroom here in Atlanta. A picture of her in the classroom interacting with the kids appeared in the Atlanta Journal Constitution. On the classroom wall behind Michelle were the typical alphabet signs; one sign for each letter strung along the wall. Under each of the letters was a word beginning with that letter. Under “M” we had the word “monkey.” Under “N” we had not one, but two words. Those words? “National Government.” They chose not to use “notebook,” something in virtually ever classroom. Maybe the teacher could have used “necklace” or “necktie.” But no. It just had to be “National government.” Never miss an opportunity to keep the federal government foremost in the minds of your children.

Obama's track record devastatingly exposed:

Speaking in Richmond, Va., on Oct. 22, 2008, Obama promised to put millions of Americans back to work; he pledged "real change." Instead, the unemployment rate is 8.6 percent. Or is it? Ed Luce of the Financial Times writes, "According to government statistics, if the same number of people were seeking work today as in 2007, the jobless rate would be 11 percent."...

On CBS, the president said the 2012 election is about his vision, but as CBS News' Stephanie Condon reported last week, "Sixty-six percent of Americans say they do not have a clear idea of what he wants to accomplish in a second term. ... Fewer than half of Democrats say they have a clear idea of what the president wants to accomplish if re-elected." Don't we know? It's taxing "millionaires and billionaires" so the government has more of our money to waste...

The president's housing programs received $50 billion from Congress to help stem foreclosures on 9 million homeowners. As The Washington Post reported in October, only $2.4 billion of that money has been allocated, helping just 1.7 million people avoid foreclosure.

Imagine what Democrats and their acolytes in the media would say if a Republican president had a similar track record. One doesn't have to imagine. With a lower unemployment rate and less debt in the Bush administration, Democrats were relentless in their attacks, promising improvements. Barack Obama assured us he would make things better.

Give 'em the business, Larry:

The Democratic National Committee pounced and immediately put out a video: "Mitt Romney: Simply Out of Touch -- Ten Thousand Times Over."

But which "elite, out-of-touch politician" considers a $172,200 annual salary "relatively modest" -- Republican presidential hopeful Romney or President Barack Obama? Answer: Obama.

Whose $300K-per-year hospital-executive wife traveled to working-class Zanesville, Ohio, and complained about the high cost of her daughters' summer camp, piano and dance lessons? Answer: Obama's.

The then-U.S. senator was making $170K. The 2005-2009 median income in Zanesville: $28,854, almost $13,000 less than the national median...

Obama, on the other hand, is a "man of the people."

But Obama has long enjoyed a very un-Joe Sixpack-like life. His mom had a Ph.D. in anthropology. His father won a graduate scholarship to pursue an economics Ph.D. at Harvard. Obama was raised for a time by his maternal grandparents -- one a successful salesman, the other a bank executive. He attended the most prestigious private prep school in Hawaii, Punahou School. Obama spent his first two college years at the elite private California school Occidental, before transferring to Ivy League Columbia and then to Harvard Law. He met his future wife, Michelle, at a blue-stocking, big-time Chicago law firm, where today first-year associates make the "relatively modest" pay of about $160K.

Obama, to counter this and make himself more relatable, apparently takes a page from The New York Times playbook -- and makes stuff up. On the 2008 campaign trail, for example, he says he and his mom spent time on food stamps -- something that he somehow failed to included in his autobiography. Conveniently, records do not exist to prove or disprove this.

The Spin Gets Stupider

Reuters turn to spin the payroll tax slapfight is perhaps the most incoherent of them all.

The headline lets you know that things aren't going to make much sense beyond wild spinning for Democrats: "Congress punts hard payroll tax work to 2012"

Yeah? "Congress"? Wasn't it the Democrats and Obama that wanted to punt to 2012? Didn't they get a big "win" (as we'll see) from forcing the GOP to agree to punt to 2012 when it was the GOP that wanted to deal with it now? I mean, this is just classic liberal media bias spin - if you can't just blame the GOP because, well, it's demonstrably the fault of Obama and the Democrats, then say everyone was to blame.

President Barack Obama signed into law a two-month payroll tax cut extension on Friday, capping a year of fierce partisan combat over taxes and spending that will resume in January and play heavily in the 2012 elections.

The rest of the story? ALL caused by the failure of the Democrats and Obama to produce a budget. Again.

"We have a lot more work to do," the president said at the White House.

And I'm sure he won't be doing it, just like his failure to get his party to do a budget for the past 3 years.

Obama heads to vacation in Hawaii with an important political win in his portfolio after he and fellow Democrats prevailed in the message war by backing lower taxes for middle-class Americans in the midst of a fragile economic recovery.

This only makes sense to someone with their head in their posterior. The GOP wanted a year of extended rates, the Democrats wanted 2 months. So Obama's "important political win" is keeping people from having their taxes raised for more than 2 months. Why the GOP isn't pointing this out is beyond me.

While Congress is on a long winter break now and does not return to full swing until late January, newly appointed negotiators are expected to begin work soon on figuring out how to pay for extending the payroll tax cut through 2012.

And why is that going to happen? Because the embarrassed and defeated GOP forced it into the bill against the wishes of Senate Democrats and forced them to agree to it. Yup. Big fail.

Obama scored a victory in the payroll tax struggle over Tea Party conservatives in the House who tried to block the two-month extension. They backed down on Thursday in the face of bipartisan criticism, but they are not going away.

Again, his "victory" was ensuring that workers might be facing tax hikes again in 2 months instead of 12. Nice Christmas gift, workers? Obama and the liberal media think so, they think it's a big win for Obama to get the chance to raise your taxes again in February.

The payroll tax funds the Social Security retirement pension system. If it had been allowed to rise, the increase would have hit the wallets of 160 million working Americans.

The $33 billion needed to pay for the two-month extension will be raised by increasing fees charged by housing finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for guaranteeing mortgages.

Analysts said the fee hike, which investors will likely pass along to borrowers, could raise financing costs for mortgages, but probably not enough to slow a housing market recovery.

So Obama and Democrats' big victory is ensuring that uncertainty remains over your taxes as soon as February AND they're paying for it by making mortgages more expensive. Yes, indeed, this is all GREAT news for working class Americans!

Also included in it was a Republican initiative aiming to force the administration into fast approval of an oil pipeline opposed by environmentalists and many Democrats. The provision gives Obama 60 days to either approve TransCanada's Keystone XL pipeline from Canada to Gulf of Mexico facilities in Texas, or declare it not in the national interest.

Also carefully overlooked by the press in Obama's big victory is that he vowed to veto the bill if it has this provision - but he ended up signing it, take THAT, GOP!

The modest two-month fix drew fire from some businesses that said it will complicate payroll processing and tax planning.

More people satisfied with Obama's big victory!

The payroll situation "could get more confusing," said Robert Gard, an accountant with Gard and LaFreniere LLC in Alpharetta, Georgia. If the tax is not extended at the end of February, businesses will need to reprogram software, he said.

Which, presumably, will be a giant BOON for the economy! Way to go, Obama!

Obama Caves, Signs Bill He Vowed To Veto

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama has signed legislation extending a payroll tax cut for two months. The action concludes an end-of-year drama that split Republicans and threatened a tax hike on 160 million Americans.

So there you go...Obama caved. Remember what he was saying just a few days ago?

Obama threatens veto if pipeline decision is added to payroll tax cut

The battle between the White House and Republicans over the Keystone XL pipeline escalated Wednesday with a veto threat delivered personally by President Obama...

“Any effort to try to tie Keystone to the payroll-tax cut, I will reject,” Obama told reporters Wednesday after meeting at the White House with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Obama said he would not accept a payroll-tax-holiday bill to which Republicans add “extraneous” provisions.

“I don’t expect to have to veto it because I expect they’re going to have enough sense over on Capitol Hill to do the people’s business, and not try to load it up with a bunch of politics,” the president said.

Yes, Virginia, the bill he just signed contains a provision that requires him to act on Keystone - either he nixes it, pissing off, well, everyone including the unions, or he approves it and his head explodes, meanwhile the rest of us stop celebrating the highest gas prices in decades (see that article in the papers about how gas prices as a share of income is higher than in many years?).

Oh, and yeah it contained all those other things that he said he wouldn't accept, too.

Hopes He's Only 4th WORST

And The Ridiculous Times Union

The Times Union on Wednesday didn't do any better than the Gazette. They, too, blame Republicans solely, particularly tea party extremists for the failure to pass ANOTHER stopgap bill, a 2-month patch of the Democrat's failure.

1) Why aren't the Democrats to blame and the heartless ones for failing to pass a YEARLONG extension and instead demanded and dug in their heels to only give people another piddling 2-month extension so we can do this AGAIN in February?

2) Why is the President allowed to be all snooty and sneery and act like he won something when all he won was the right to make us go through this again in February instead of giving people some certainty for a whole year?

3) Why the f**k is the paper quoting Nancy Pelosi, without explanation or rebuttal, saying the GOP "didn't want tax cuts"? What kind of la-la land is this?

4) How the hell do they live with themselves talking about this being the GOP's fault and how we have to keep doing this WHEN THE REASON WE HAVE TO KEEP DOING THIS OVER AND OVER AGAIN IS BECAUSE THE DEMOCRATS HAVEN'T DONE A BUDGET FOR 3 YEARS?! WHY CAN THEY EVEN MENTION OBAMA IN THIS DEBATE AS ANYTHING OTHER THAN CAUSE 1 WHEN HE HAS BEEN IN OFFICE FOR 3 F***ING YEARS AND HAS ONLY DONE 1 F***ING BUDGET??!!

The Laughable Gazette

I thought this editorial was pretty funny from Wednesday's Gazette:

...we can understand House Republicans rejecting the Senate compromise that would have accomplished this for a measly two months. Members of both parties have been increasingly too willing to "kick the can down the road" rather than budge on their positions...

Senate leaders felt a short-term extension was the best they could do, and if they were right it was only because of Republican intransigence in both chambers...

Both parties are to blame, but, uh, it was all the Republicans' fault. Brilliant stuff.

Turning The Tables

(NotQuiteRealNewsNetwork) Jeremy C. Moneypants, the inventor and manufacturer of worldwide marketing sensation GimmeMoney Sexypants, awoke Wednesday morning to the worst day of his life. His factory was burned to the ground in a freak manufacturing accident. The formula used to concoct the Sexypants material was lost as Mr. Moneypants has a terrible memory and kept the only copy on his computer at work. Aggressively growing his business, he had invested all of his earnings this past year, nearly $450 million, back into the factory. Because of a stroke of terrible luck in planning, the upgrades were being installed just prior to his higher insurance kicking in, so insurance will fall millions and millions short of covering the damage. Mr. Moneypants is expected to file for bankruptcy by the Christmas weekend.

Unconfirmed reports speculate that his dog, Dr. Rufflepaws, ran away.

The 4,500 people employed directly at the GimmeMoney factory have obviously lost their jobs days before Christmas. The extended losses to suppliers will number thousands more, along with GimmeMoney store employees, drivers, etc. Charities to which Mr. Moneypants had pledged money will have a bit gloomier Christmas this year, as well. Three orphans tried to visit Mr. Moneypants and give him their life savings - $4.17, a Barbie head, and a stuffed donkey named Marcus that is actually a silly looking horse but no one had the heart to tell that to the orphan.

Flowing Dirt Springs, MN, the town where GimmeMoney Industries was located, said they have no idea how they will survive and provide essential services without the tax revenue paid by GimmeMoney. Local public schools are expected to be unable to reopen after the Cold Time Of Year School Break.

Such a heartbreaking story, isn't it? Ultra-rich guy reduced to nothing in the blink of an eye.

Meanwhile those liberal hatemongers on MSNBC and other liberal pundits squeal away about "the rich" who never did anything for anyone and who don't pay their fair share, utterly contemptuous and heartless in light of this single, isolated, tragedy that is far from the norm and has nothing to do with "the rich" they routinely rant about...

Best. Blog. Comment. Ever.

So Steve Barnes posted a brief item on the latest desperate Trader Joe's rumor and it generated what I consider to be the best blog comment ever:

I heard they’re replacing Empire Plaza with one huge Trader Joe’s. The biggest ever! And then they’re building a Whole Foods/Wegmans right on top of it. And on top of that: the biggest Ikea you’ve ever seen.

Sweet. Very Smallbany-y comment :D

The Fantastic, Amazing Fantasy World Of Professor Cornelius J. Obama

I've nibbled at this tidbit before...Is Obama actually mentally 'all there'? He's said that he thinks every move he's made on the economy has been correct. He rates his performance as President higher than Washington, Reagan, Kennedy...well, all but 3. He doesn't even seem to be considering firing his Attorney General who keeps getting called to Capitol Hill to explain why his agency is killing Americans, helping criminals, and getting caught lying about it.

He just told an interviewer: "We ended up asking the wealthiest Americans to do a little bit more in terms of taxes. Going back to rates that would still be lower than they were under Ronald Reagan, our deficit problems would be solved." His deficits are running at $1.5 TRILLION PER YEAR! TRILLION! The whole United States economy is only like $15 trillion and he thinks a few billion more from "the wealthiest Americans" will "solve" his $1.5 TRILLION "deficit problems".

Forget about re-electing, he needs professional help.

Try Not To Think About It

In 2008, Obama tried to scare voters by telling them that the GOP was trying to scare them because Obama has a funny name.

Just think, the next president will like either be 'Newt' or 'Mitt'. Take that, Barry.

Truthiness In Reporting?

You be the judge. The web portal take:


Vs. the details from a story at FoxNews (emphasis by underlining from me):

Republicans and Democrats are trying to broker a potential agreement to resolve the payroll tax standoff which has paralyzed Capitol Hill for a week...

House Republicans seemed to soften their hard-line position Thursday afternoon...

The tradeoff from Democrats in the Senate: Majority Leader Harry Reid would appoint conferees so they could have a genuine conference committee between the House and Senate to negotiate differences.

The Republicans' provision calling for approval of the controversial Keystone pipeline project would remain in the bill...

So. Is it correct to boil this down to "House GOP caves"?

Oh, and by the way, the White House has previously said Obama would absolutely veto the bill if it contained the Keystone Pipeline provision. Will Obama "cave"?

--

Update, Yahoo now has an ABCNews story about it up, it contains such details as:

House GOP appeared to be adopting a compromise suggestion by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell who, earlier today, urged the House to pass the two-month extension in exchange for the Senate appointing members to a conference committee, which will negotiate a longer-term extension...

The White House is pursuing an aggressive campaign on social media to highlight the loss in benefits that millions of Americans will incur on Jan. 1 if Congress doesn't act. Americans, on average, would lose about $40 per paycheck if the tax cuts expire. On Wednesday, Obama himself personally took to Twitter asking Americans to share what that loss would mean to them.

"Forty dollars can make all the difference in the world," Obama said today, as he read out stories from Americans who had responded to his request. "Enough is enough. The people standing with me today cannot afford any more games."..

2 quick questions? 1) So the Democrats only want those taxes to go up in 2 months instead of in a year and the GOP are the heartless ones? Don't get that one. 2) Will Obama, pushing for this like a good demagogue, sign it, after vowing to veto it...that is, "cave"? This is what 'leadership' has come to in America - the GOP wants to pass long-term tax relief, but the President only wants to give out 2-months of tax relief, and he and the press get to kick around the GOP as the unfeeling ones, claiming the ones that want to provide long-term certainty for business planning instead of constant gamesmanship every few weeks are the ones playing games. Grow a pair, GOP. Maybe Palin can lend you some of her spares.

I pulled out this unbelievable nugget: "The payroll tax cuts, passed by George W. Bush's administrations are popular on both sides of the political aisle. Washington experienced a similar gridlock in 2010 when the time came to renew the cuts."

Go ahead, read it again. Then read it one more time. The tax cuts are "popular on both sides of the political aisle"...but somehow there was gridlock when it came time to renew them. Hmmm. Seems to me the GOP certainly wanted to renew them. So are they popular with the Democrats or did the Democrats cause "gridlock"? Because these are mutually exclusive explanations.

RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACISM!

Falling Back To Failure

Remember the heady days of 2.5% GDP growth in the 3rd Quarter following 1.3% in the 2nd Quarter? Then it was revised down to 2%? Final revision is in at a whopping 1.8%, barely faster than the 2nd Quarter.

Recovery summer fall winter spring summer fall!

Obama: "the economy is not where it wants to be and even though I believe all the choices we've made have been the right ones"

For those that need a reminder, 3% growth is considered 'a healthy economy'.

We're Still Waiting

What's So Hard To Understand?

If someone...

was befriended as a child by a known communist,

said they intentionally sought out Marxists at college,

has been enthusiastically supported at every turn by communist organizations,

said that everyone is better off if you spread the wealth around,

said that at some point you've made enough money,

had used their power to greatly expand reliance on government services from food to medical care,

appointed one known socialist/marxist/communist after another to positions of power in his administration,

has pushed programs that increase the government's power while limiting individual rights (especially the socialist bogeyman: private gun ownership)...

Wouldn't you be an idiot to conclude that they're anything but a socialist?

Winner

And the winner of the "most unfathomable logic award" for 2011 goes to...

John Bender of Johnstown! Yay!!!!

His letter, published in the December 18 Daily Gazette, firmly launches us from point A to point B through a brick wall of Wonderland (as in "Alice In") reasoning!

John nonsensically spews:

Another candidate [Rick Santorum] wants to have a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution while lowering taxes on the wealthy and on corporations. If they lower the taxes on the rich, it follows that they want to lower the income of the poor and the middle class.

Well, John, I'm not logicamatician, but that makes about as much sense as SCUBA gear for a fish to me, so I think you've won this one hands down! Great job!

Deep In Obama's Tank

Pile of MSNBC Hosts Go to White House for Coffee Talk with Obama

On his blog Political Punch, ABC's Jake Tapper reported "an all-star list of progressive and liberal media folks" had coffee with President Obama in the Roosevelt Room on Monday -- including MSNBC hosts Ed Schultz, Rachel Maddow, and Chris Hayes. In the Bush years, it was considered a major scandal for Roger Ailes to send a note to the White House, but MSNBC stars meet with Obama, and it's just another day of "hope and change."...

The list also included Washington Post blogger Greg Sargent, Frank Bruni of The New York Times, Nation magazine editor/publisher Katrina Vanden Heuvel, and “stars of the interwebs Arianna Huffington, Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo, [and] Faiz Shakir of ThinkProgress.”

More from IBD:

"The group chatted with the president about economic messaging, his agenda for 2012, the various campaign arguments against different GOP candidates, the desire among some Democrats for him to highlight his foreign policy accomplishments, fighting corporate influence, and the 'crappiness' of the Senate filibuster."

A skeptic might think it was just a president sharing his thoughts with reporters. But this wasn't even that. None of these chosen ones at what Mediabistro called the "ego summit" wrote or broadcast anything about this White House pow-wow.

According to Tapper, this session was all about "messaging" — how to smear the president's political opponents, both in the Congress and on the campaign trail, with a single coordinated voice to maximize the impact...

Participants included Washington's most visible elites — Ezra Klein and Greg Sargent of the Washington Post, Frank Bruni of the New York Times, Ed Schultz and Rachel Maddow of MSNBC, Katrina vanden Heuvel and Chris Hayes of the Nation, Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo and Faiz Shakir of ThinkProgress...

A look at the media output of the participants since the meeting reveals the threads of message coordination.

The Post's Sargent blogged that Republicans were on the ropes over the payroll-tax dilemma, ominously reporting about "the increasing isolation of the House GOP." Meanwhile, Talking Points Memo's Marshall claimed: "All the available information suggests that the current payroll tax debate is hurting Republicans badly and buoying the president."

Keep those names in mind...I will. Everything they post in the next year is suspect and should be considered direct from the White House, not impartial "reporting".

The papers keep occasionally bleating about home heating aid. I put it that way because I'm not hearing anything about draconian cuts in aid for the poor anywhere else, just in places like Monday's Times Union editorial.

President Obama, in fact, proposed the worst of the cuts to the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, suggesting it be slashed by nearly half, from $4.7 billion to $2.5 billion. It appears Congress will bring it to around $3.5 billion...

This, as more people than ever in America need assistance to help them heat their homes. New figures from the Census Bureau show the number of Americans in poverty, or close to it, is rising, with more than 146 million people now classified as poor or low-income. That includes 49 million people below the poverty line and 97 million people earning between 100 and 199 percent of the poverty level.

To put a fine point on it, that's nearly half of America...

It doesn't help their understanding, of course, when pundits make so much fuss over the fact that many of America's poor have things like televisions and cell phones and refrigerators, as if people are not deserving of help until they are completely bereft of every comfort and their life is reduced to a Dickensian existence.

If this correctly encapsulates the argument, then I'm afraid I still don't get it. Let's take the last first. One, thinking that maybe people should think about heating their home before buying a big screen TV is hardly a "Dickensian" attitude. Thinking that a $100 a month cell phone bill ($1,200 per year) is a necessary "comfort" to keep them from begging for more gruel is a bit of a stretch. The AP reports that heating this winter is expected to average $3,300. That cell phone gets you 1/3 of the way there. And let's keep this apples to apples, shall we? Let's not talk about the widow that hasn't saved any money in her entire life, when people talk about the TVs and cell phones they're not talking about her.

Next, when the government is classifying half the country as in poverty...guess what? Take a look around the world...if half of Americans are classified as in poverty then the definition of poverty is, bluntly put, 100% wrong. Of course it looks that bad when you decide that those earning twice the poverty level should be grouped with those making nothing or next to it. Because that makes sense.

Finally, let's talk dollars and sense...well, billions of dollars, actually. All this "slashing" going on is talking about getting to, what, $3.5 billion? But as recently as 2008 LIHEAP was only budgeted $2.5 billion.

See, this is the socialist left-wing Obama system in a nutshell. They rocketed up spending at unfathomable rates when the Democrats control everything so that when the grownups get the remote back the liberals can scream about slashing things. Problem is, when you look at the numbers, aid would have increased by a whopping 40% in only 3 or 4 years. That's a pretty healthy increase if you ask me, perhaps even justified given the economy. But a 100% or more increase that the liberals are screaming for? Does it really make sense to be increasing aid by 25% every year?? In what system is that sustainable? Here are the real numbers from the government:

2010 $4,999,672,000
2009 $5,100,000,000
2008 $2,590,678,110

This is no different than the WIC charade where they ratcheted up those levels so high they couldn't even spend it all, even with Obama's dire economy and food stamp use at record levels - but as soon as the adults tried to cut out just the extra that they couldn't even spend, the liberals start frothing at the mouth about taking food out of the mouths of children.

It's just such crap.

Upside Down Media World

On YNN this morning they noted that it looked like taxes would be going up next year because the House had rejected the Senate's nonsensical 2-month extension of tax rates.

This was relayed to viewers as 'workers will be getting less' next year.

Get that?

If your taxes go up, you will get less. This is, of course upside down from reality in which you earn the same amount but what is happening is that the government will be taking more of it.

Well, There We Go

Ah, Squat Albany finally produced a document explaining why they are squatting in a public park. And I see it's full of pixie dust and unicorns, guaranteeing that the police will have to forcibly remove them.

They say they should be able to stay because "they have the right to protest". I agree. They absolutely have the right to protest...that's not the same as the right to live in a public park.

They say they won't leave without a return to "true democracy in America". Well, we've never been a "democracy", so that's just ignorant and dangerous. These encampments of squatters haven't even been able to manage "true democracy" amongst a few people squatting in a park.

There was something about wanting "office space" to continue their protest. Um, OK, fine. There's lots of space available in the city and surrounding area, go lease some like everyone else.

TANSTAAFL.

In fiscal year 2011, the federal government spent $3.6 trillion. That's nearly $10 billion every day.

The Atlantic Wire wants you to "Meet Charles Feeney, Cornell's $350 Million Donor". I'm more than sure they thought the best thing about this supersaver/donator is this line: When Miller asked him why he decided to give everything away, Feeney replied, "I simply decided I had enough money."

Awwww...a man after Obama's own heart. Wipe away that tear, though. Look at what this guy has given away -

The New York Times has unmasked 80-year-old Cornell alum Charles F. Feeney as the anonymous donor who gave the school a $350 million donation to construct a new technology-based satellite campus on Roosevelt Island in New York City. Officials at The Atlantic Philanthropies, the foundation started by Feeney in 1982, confirmed to the paper last night that he was the one who made the gift for the project, which is expected to generate an extra $1.4 billion in tax revenue for the city, plus 20,000 construction jobs and as many as 30,000 new jobs once the facility is up and running...

In 2009, he gave $125 million to build a new medical center for the University of California-San Francisco that would treat women, children, and cancer patients. Over the course of the last decade, he's given more than €46m to the University of Limerick in Ireland...

Schools, hospitals...50,000 jobs just from one donation...

Look at what he has been able to do through direct donations from a private individual. He was worth, what, several billions it looks like?

Look at what he did with that money. Wow.

And just think, had the federal government confiscated all of it, it would have funded it for less than a day.

Aren't They Wonderful, Folks? Let's Give Them A Hand

Already aglow from lighting themselves on fire accidentally whilst toking up the building they lit on fire from the praise of being named the person of the year for crapping on police cars and having to set up 'rape free zones' to cut back on the, you know...rapes, well now a new accolade has been heaped upon these destroyers-of-lawns:

Fred Shapiro, associate librarian at Yale Law School, has released his sixth annual list of the most notable quotations of the year.

I know what it has to be, that immortal chant...

Everything seems to be possible. You can travel to the moon. You can become immortal by biogenetics. You can have sex with animals, or whatever.

Stirs the soul, it does. Fires the imagination.

If Only It Were Just A Joke

Alas, it's usually all too true:

The liberal media is an old story, but it's still a big story when it comes to creating the impression of scandal out of thin air.

Most people say, "Where there's smoke, there's fire." I say, "Where there's smoke around a conservative, there are journalists furiously rubbing two sticks together."

A Good Morning

Ding dong, ill-dong is dead.

I'll take that to start my Monday morning.

Your Random IBD Saturday And More

Summarizing all the hot topics...

Hypocrites

Let's see...when Newt (or anyone else) says that kids, poor kids in broken home environments in particular, could benefit from valuable work experience and having role models outside the home when they can't depend on parents as such...well, you know what happens - heads explode, cries of RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACISM split the air, and editorials are depicting Newt as presiding over an army of child slave laborers.

Buuuuuuuuut...

When the President's wife says that "We can’t just leave it up to the parents" when it comes to what kids eat...ahhhh...nods of agreement with her noble wisdom.

Yeah, but Newt's talking about putting little kids to work cleaning toilets!

Well, no he's not, but what about government programs paying to teach "Babies. Little itty-bitty babies" what they should be eating so "they push their parents and their families to be different"?

Cripes is this easy...

More Tales Of Rich Greed, Reverse Robin Hood, And The Rich Getting Richer Off The Backs Of The Poor

Maybe something to keep in mind when you see unwashed "comrades" attacking those with jobs and doing things to cause more of us to lose jobs while they demand that those that work hard and manage to hold a job pay their debts and give them things.

The young father stood in line at the Kmart layaway counter, wearing dirty clothes and worn-out boots. With him were three small children.

He asked to pay something on his bill because he knew he wouldn't be able to afford it all before Christmas. Then a mysterious woman stepped up to the counter.

"She told him, 'No, I'm paying for it,'" recalled Edna Deppe, assistant manager at the store in Indianapolis. "He just stood there and looked at her and then looked at me and asked if it was a joke. I told him it wasn't, and that she was going to pay for him. And he just busted out in tears."

At Kmart stores across the country, Santa seems to be getting some help: Anonymous donors are paying off strangers' layaway accounts, buying the Christmas gifts other families couldn't afford, especially toys and children's clothes set aside by impoverished parents.

Before she left the store Tuesday evening, the Indianapolis woman in her mid-40s had paid the layaway orders for as many as 50 people. On the way out, she handed out $50 bills and paid for two carts of toys for a woman in line at the cash register.

"She was doing it in the memory of her husband who had just died, and she said she wasn't going to be able to spend it and wanted to make people happy with it," Deppe said. The woman did not identify herself and only asked people to "remember Ben," an apparent reference to her husband...

Dona Bremser, an Omaha nurse, was at work when a Kmart employee called to tell her that someone had paid off the $70 balance of her layaway account, which held nearly $200 in toys for her 4-year-old son.

"I was speechless," Bremser said. "It made me believe in Christmas again."

Dozens of other customers have received similar calls in Nebraska, Michigan, Iowa, Indiana and Montana.

The benefactors generally ask to help families who are squirreling away items for young children. They often pay a portion of the balance, usually all but a few dollars or cents so the layaway order stays in the store's system...

The sad memories of layaways lost prompted at least one good Samaritan to pay off the accounts of five people at an Omaha Kmart, said Karl Graff, the store's assistant manager.

"She told me that when she was younger, her mom used to set up things on layaway at Kmart, but they rarely were able to pay them off because they just didn't have the money for it," Graff said.

He called a woman who had been helped, "and she broke down in tears on the phone with me. She wasn't sure she was going to be able to pay off their layaway and was afraid their kids weren't going to have anything for Christmas."...

Lori Stearnes of Omaha also benefited from the generosity of a stranger who paid all but $58 of her $250 layaway bill for toys for her four youngest grandchildren.

Stearnes said she and her husband live paycheck to paycheck, but she plans to use the money she was saving for the toys to help pay for someone else's layaway.

In Missoula, Mont., a man spent more than $1,200 to pay down the balances of six customers whose layaway orders were about to be returned to a Kmart store's inventory because of late payments.

Store employees reached one beneficiary on her cellphone at Seattle Children's Hospital, where her son was being treated for an undisclosed illness.

"She was yelling at the nurses, 'We're going to have Christmas after all!'" store manager Josine Murrin said.

A Kmart in Plainfield Township, Mich., called Roberta Carter last week to let her know a man had paid all but 40 cents of her $60 layaway.

Carter, a mother of eight from Grand Rapids, Mich., said she cried upon hearing the news. She and her family have been struggling as she seeks a full-time job.

"My kids will have clothes for Christmas," she said.

Plenty of worthy causes to support here in the Capital Region, now at Christmas and all year through, if you're able.

-
apologies to AP and Margery Beck, the writer, for the very lengthy excerpt, but in the spirit of the story I trust they'd be good with it

A hearty 'well done' and 'Merry Christmas' to the AP, and Ms. Beck, for telling this tale I'd heard about in other places in excellent fashion.

Counting The Cost

And there go 90 jobs, 90 jobs of low-to-middle class workers. Directly responsible? Time's Person of the Year*.

Milk Street Cafe, the restaurant whose business dried up in the face of the Occupy Wall Street barricades, is shutting down...

The restaurant owner, who operates an eatery and catering business in Boston, said he pressed the city daily for their removal, but got nowhere.

Milk Street Cafe’s closure will result in the layoff of 70 workers. That’s on top of the 21 let go in October...

When asked whether he would ever open a restaurant in New York again, Epstein responded, “Never.”

Way to go, geniuses.

As for the entrepreneur that opened the business to begin with? The one they hate? He still has a job. And the 90 working class jobs he created in NYC? Gone. Along with the future jobs he'll never create in NYC.

Don't worry, those 90 people can do more good with food stamps and unemployment checks than they ever could with paychecks. Or maybe some hobo will hire them all, since it's not people with money that create jobs.

--

Keep counting...

~400 workers at Portland's port forced to stay home without pay days before Christmas due to these People of the Year.

Food for the needy among that stopped by the People of the Year.

People of the Year block trains by putting little kids on the train tracks.

* Yes, illustrious Time Magazine's Person of the Year is a guy taking a crap on a police car. Can I get a golf clap up in here?

Finally Proven - Kagan Lied

Well, enough documents have finally been forcefully extracted from Obama's administration to prove that Kagan lied when she, in writing, told the Senate that she had not participated in cases tied to Obamacare. This goes beyond the previous evidence that pretty much showed that Kagan was involved in at least the early stages of planning the Obama administration's defense of Obamacare in court. This is explicit evidence that Kaga, months before she informed the Senate, in writing, that she had not been involved, was notified by her own office that she was directly tied to a case tied to Obamacare.

Put bluntly, Obama's ridiculous appointment to the Supreme Court lied to the Senate Judiciary Committee during their confirmation investigation. Not 'may have lied', 'might have lied', 'wasn't entirely truthful', or 'it was a judgement call if she lied'.

She was involved (of course she knew she was involved) in a case directly related to Obamacare.

Her office, in preparation for this imaginary 'segregation' her office performed whereby they would keep the head of the office from being involved in the biggest piece of legislation in Obama's presidency, judged that she had been directly informed and told her, in writing that she was involved in this type of case.

She was asked, point blank, by the Senate Judiciary Committee if she had been involved in this type of case.

She replied, in writing, 'No', despite the contradictory evidence provided by her office.

And this is one of the 9 people deciding what freedoms we can have.

The tap dancing is over. She lied. She knowingly lied. She must recuse herself and, let's be blunt, this dishonest, unqualified person should resign immediately and give Obama a year to seat a new Justice, an honest one, as is his prerogative. Refusing to answer speculative questions posed by the Judiciary Committee, as practiced by Ginsburg and other, more recent nominees, is one thing. Deliberately lying to the Committee during the vetting process about your past work is something else completely. Must we really be subjected to the whims of these dishonest types who set out to lie a completely inadequate nominee (the existing Justices routinely mocked her performance and abilities when she came before them) onto the Supreme Court? We're talking about deliberate, premeditated dishonesty with this 'segregation' baloney, a segregation already pierced by other emails that showed that the 'wall' was more of a net curtain.

On Jan. 13, 2010, the Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee sent then-Solicitor General Elena Kagan a series of written questions examining the issue of how she would handle recusing herself from cases she might have been involved in as solicitor general if she were confirmed to the Supreme Court...

Among other things, the senators asked Kagan if she had ever been asked her opinion regarding the merits, or underlying legal issues, in Florida’s lawsuit challenging the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA)—otherwise known as Obamacare.

In her written responses, Kagan answered: “No.”

Then they asked her a more sweeping question: “Have you ever been asked your opinion regarding any other legal issues that may arise from Pub. L. No. 111-148?” (Pub. L. No. 111-148 is the Obamacare law.)

Kagan again answered: “No.”

Exactly two months before the Judiciary Committee Republicans asked Kagan these questions, however, her top deputy, Neal Katyal, had written her a memo informing her that she had “substantially participated” in Golden Gate Restaurant Association v. San Francisco—a case that Kagan’s own office tied to Obamacare...

In the days immediately after President Barack Obama nominated Kagan to the Supreme Court, Edwin S. Kneedler, the deputy solicitor general handling the Golden Gate case twice alerted Kagan’s top deputy, Katyal, about the connection between it and PPACA and that Kagan had been involved in the case...

“During her Senate confirmation, then-Solicitor General Kagan answered ‘no’ when questioned about whether she had ever been ‘asked about [her] opinion’ or ‘offered any views or comments regarding the underlying legal or constitutional issues related to any proposed health care legislation … or … potential litigation resulting from such legislation,’” Smith wrote. “Yet, documents released by the Department in response to recent Freedom of Information Act requests raise questions about that unequivocal denial.”

The Justice Department has refused to comply with the House Judiciary Committee’s request.

Testifying before the committee last week, Attorney General Holder could not cite a legal privilege to justify his department’s refusal to comply with this congressional oversight request.

Looking, But Not Finding

AP headline story scream:

Census shows 1 in 2 people are poor or low-income
Nearly half of Americans are low-income as rising expenses, unemployment shrink middle class

Search "Obama". No hits. Search "president". No hits.

3 years, he's had. Think "Bush" would produce no hits if this had been 2005?

Juuuusst A Bit Outside

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The U.S. military officially ended its war in Iraq on Thursday, packing up a military flag at a ceremony with U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta nearly nine years after the invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein...

President Barack Obama, who made an election promise to bring troops home, told Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki that Washington will remain a loyal partner after the last troops roll across the Kuwaiti border.

Yeah, a campaign promise to do it in his first year in office, a promise he broke when he missed it by, oh, two years or so.

Funny that they didn't mention that...

This Should Go Over Well

Remember "If you hear something bad about ObamaCare, report it to the White House?"

Yeah.

The Obama presidential campaign is launching an effort to collect Republican email addresses by inviting its supporters to submit information about their Republican associates to the Obama 2012 website.

There is simply no reason any Republican cannot win.

Just for fun, I'd like to see Gingrich set up a system and ask his supporters to submit information about their Democrat associates and see what the media reaction is...and then what the media reaction is after a couple of days when he points out that Obama did it first. Oh man, that would be sweet.

'It Wasn't My Fault!'

Oh, for Pete's sake...

Illinois Teen Learns About Bank Fees the Hard Way

This is just idiotic on so many levels with the Mom looking the dumbest of the bunch, but thanks to 'public shaming' in a newspaper, a bank has to cover what they spent dealing with these clueless people with money invested by other bank depositors.

Melinda Ganziano of McCullom Lake, Ill., wanted to introduce her son to the basics of banking, but he ended up with $229 in fees in two weeks with a balance of just $4.85...

After he put money into the savings account from his job, Daniel Ganziano's balance eventually fell to $4.85 and with such a small amount, he ignored it.

However, TCF sent him a letter on Oct. 12 informing him that it had charged him a $9.95 monthly maintenance fee six days earlier because the account had a low balance. That led to an overdrawn account by $5.10, which then led to a $28-a-day overdraft fee. The account was 10 cents over the $5 threshold for which the daily fee kicks in. Young Ganziano's account was now overdrawn by $33.10...

Ganziano, who banks elsewhere, asked for the fees to be waived, but the bank would eliminate only one of the $28 daily charges.

So, in order to "introduce her son to the basics of banking", when he screws up just about the most basic thing, keeping a minimum balance in his account, she wants them to not treat her son like any other customer abiding by basic banking rules? What is he learning out of this, exactly?

"They would just not cooperate," Ganziano told ABC News. "We were trying to teach him the right thing. If he had overdrawn by himself I would have made him pay the fees, but it wasn't him."

Oh, really? Did someone else take money out of his account that caused it to fall below the minimum? This is the modern "teaching the right thing" - when you screw up you go to the entity you owe due to your screw up and tell them you don't want to be punished, it wasn't your fault, and someone else should cover your bill. Occupy Ganziano!

She also learned that her older son, who had a balance of $0, would also be charged a monthly fee so they closed his account, too. Daniel Ganziano wanted to fight it by not paying the fees.

She's doing a bang-up job teaching these kids about basic banking and responsibility, alright, another one took all his money out of a basic account that we all know has minimum balances and his answer? The same as mom - I don't want to pay for my mistake, let someone else clean up my doo-doo.

Ganziano said her older son learned "banks are not the way they used to be."

"You have to check them out really well," she said.

Yeah? I bet I'm older than her "older son" and banks have always been this way since I've had an account. The days of flopping a couple of beaver skins down on the counter and they lock them up for you free of charge until you want them are long over. Again, just what was she teaching them? Well, apparently she was teaching them that they could avoid their responsibility, ignore the bank rules and fees, and keep a whopping $0 in their account and forget about it because that's the way it was done in the good ole days. As for her parting comment...I don't want to advocate violence, but sometimes people really need to be slapped upside the head, even figuratively. You let two sons open accounts with minimum balances, then they take all their money out and forget about the accounts, and when they get charged fees, fees that I guarantee were presented up front when they opened the account (I can barely go a month without getting new notices from my bank about fees and such), you want the bank to not charge them for their negligence, shifting the burden to people that actually follow the rules and the contract they agree to who have to cover all the administrative expenses your sons triggered through their negligence.

Bravo. Doing a heckuva job teaching them banking basics...assuming they plan to live in a tent in a park for the rest of their life, panhandling and beating a drum and eating donated food if those damned 'real' homeless people don't get to it first.

Who Killed The Deal? Who Caused The Gridlock?

I can't wait for the stories excoriating the Republicans for gridlock, do nothing, uncooperative, partisan, etc etc...

In Which The Mockery Is So Easy

I thought I'd let everyone in on something that has been cracking me up for days.

First, here is Newt Gingrich articulating his 'let kids work' concept at the recent debate:

Third, as to schools, I think virtually every person up here worked at a young age. What I suggested was, kids oughta be allowed to work part-time in school, particularly in the poorest neighborhoods, both because they could use the money...if you take one-half of the New York janitors who are unionized and paid more than the teachers, an entry-level janitor gets paid twice as much as an entry-level teacher. You take half of those janitors, you could give virtually-- you could give lots of poor kids a work experience in the cafeteria and the school library and-- and front office, and a lot of different things.

I'll stand by the idea, young people oughta learn how to work. Middle class kids do it routinely. We should give poor kids the same chance to pursue happiness.

Oooohhh...quite sinister! Not a "chance to pursue happiness"! Anything but that!

So, anyway, after this declaration of black-hearted evil, we've been 'treated' to things like this in the Gazette - note, if you please, the double whammy of the editorial drawing and the head-exploded columnist (click to embiggen):


Blam! Slave labor, hypocrisy, "exploitation of child labor". Now, just hold on, we're not even close to the punch line.

For instance, look at this letter from a melting down Karin Henrikson in the Times Union on the 11th:

...along comes Newt Gingrich with his brilliant idea to have poor schoolchildren work as part-time school janitors. In Newt's world, poor children, as young as 9, need to learn the value of work...What kind of person could think that this is a good idea?...Second, Newt has evidently forgotten about child labor laws enacted decades ago to halt the exploitation of children...Newt and "The Donald" should get their heads out of the toilet...

No! Wait, we're nowhere near the punchline! You know this is going to be good, right? Yeah, there's more...bigoted Gazette columnist Froma Harrop also goes there:

Gingrich further explained that he just wanted to help poor kids learn to be responsible wage-earners...Another is that if having students clean their schools is good for character-building, why shouldn't upper-middle-class kids be doing the same? The third is that schoolwork is already work.

Leave alone the fact that Newt is saying middle-class kids already do and her internal confusion over "upper-middle class kids" not working while "schoolwork is already work". So here we are. At the punch line. I think it's a pretty good one. Here we go.

The Times Union. December 11. Reporting proudly on a program supported by the Times Union.

A GARDEN GROWS LIFE SKILLS by Kenneth Crowe

TROY -- An acre of crops hugs the 8th Street hill overlooking downtown.

The Produce Project is an adventure in urban farming with a mission of helping the city's teenagers.

"It's a job training program for at-risk youth from Troy High," said Amy Klein, executive director of Capital District Community Gardens.

"The goal is to provide the youth with job training and life skills," Klein said.

Work and job skills are mixed with learning how to grow produce and how to eat healthy...

Established in 2009, The Produce Project helps about 50 teenagers, ages 14-18, annually. They work with Brian Bender, the program's urban farmer, in the acre of fields and a greenhouse. The students receive a weekly stipend of $50 for about 10 hours of work. They learn the skills needed to raise their crops, to develop work experience and to prepare for finding jobs.

The program costs about $85,000 annually to operate. That's where the Times Union Hope Fund is assisting.

The program was one of the organizations in the Capital Region this year to receive assistance from the Hope Fund, which raises money to help pay for after-school and summer camp programs for at-risk and disadvantaged children in the Capital Region...

"It's a learning experience," he said. "It's a good job to have before you go to a real job."...

A contribution to the Times Union Hope Fund will support after-school programs and summer camps for needy children.

For more information, including how to contribute, go to: http:/timesunion.com/fund/.

Oh, my busted gut. At least the Gazette, Karin, and Froma know where to find the child labor exploiting slave masters...right there in Troy and at the Times Union, which is funding this child slave labor. And look how good they're brainwashed, Karin! These poor minority kids are all set for a job picking crops for their 1% overlords! Have you gone down there to save them from their fate, yet? You know where to find them.

Racist Unions

Unbelievable. I mean, can you believe those vote-denying racists at the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers have placed the ridiculous burden of requiring people to produce photo ID to vote?!

Needle on Hypocrisy-Meter Breaks Off

Now that's comedy.

Christmas Shopping List

Places to shop more at:

_ Amazon

Because 99% of the time you can't go wrong supporting what is loathed by the 1% of loafers calling themselves the 99%.

_ Lowe's

Lowe's Home Improvement has found itself facing a backlash after the retail giant pulled ads from a reality show about American Muslims...

A state senator from Southern California said Sunday he was considering calling for a boycott.

Calling the Lowe's decision "un-American" and "naked religious bigotry," Sen. Ted Lieu, D-Torrance, told The Associated Press he would also consider legislative action if Lowe's doesn't apologize to Muslims and reinstate its ads...The senator vowed to look into whether Lowe's violated any California laws and said he would also consider drafting a senate resolution condemning the company's actions.

Because the most clever reaction to perceived bigotry is bigotry. Because the best way to deal with someone trying to stay out of a conflict that would result in a boycott is by boycotting them. Because government officials should be dictating who can advertise where. Because it is 'discrimination' to not financially support a television program of someone else's choosing.

This. That.

Rick Santorum takes down a lefty media drone:

Candy, hold on. Hold on. Stop, Candy. That's just not true. Ask Robert Menendez and ask all the folks in the United States Senate who want to impose the real sanction that will make a difference on Iran and the President has opposed it. Now that's just a fact. He also has recognized the state of Syria, called Assad a reformer, has continued to have an embassy there when in fact this is a real thug that is a real threat to the state of Israel and to the stability of the region.

And again here's the interesting link. It is a client state of Iran. The greatest area he's appeased is Iran which is the greatest threat, and here he is recognizing Assad, setting up an ambassadorship with a client state of Iran who is a great funder of Hezbollah, a threat to Israel and the region. You go to Egypt. Again, he supported the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafists as it turns out into overthrowing an ally in Egypt. There is a consistent pattern of contingencies that have come up under this administration where he has opposed the freedom fighters and has gone with the radical Islamists. That is a problem for the security of Israel and our country.

So people around these parts are interested in the ponies, aren't they? Seems that way to me. I think there was even some items in the local news about the reversal of the ban on killing horsies for food. I probably just missed the front page stories and editorials denouncing Obama for breaking a campaign promise to not allow horse eating: Obama Flipflops on Campaign Pledge to Prevent Horse Slaughter, Media Mum

Idiotic On So Many Levels

Keeping it short, Lowe's decided it didn't want to get involved in the controversy over that new 'Muslims are people too' show, especially after being faced with a boycott, so they pulled ads from the show.

The leftist response is both typical and especially idiotic.

Some of them, because Lowe's was facing a boycott, want to boycott Lowe's.

And others, following the lead of Obama and the Democrat party, want to take legislative action against a private business or prosecute Lowe's for not advertising on the shows they want to advertise on.

Calling the Lowe's decision "un-American" and "naked religious bigotry," Sen. Ted Lieu, D-Torrance, told The Associated Press on Sunday that he would also consider legislative action if Lowe's doesn't apologize to Muslims and reinstate its ads...

The apology doesn't go far enough, Lieu said. The senator vowed to look into whether Lowe's violated any California laws and said he would also consider drafting a senate resolution condemning the company's actions.

Pucker up and finish kissing the first amendment goodbye.

Look It Up

Step 1:

“Some billionaires have a tax rate as low as 1 percent,” Obama barked. “That is the height of unfairness.” Except, when the Washington Post asked the White House for evidence to support the claim, an official confessed they “had no actual data to back up the president’s assertion.”

Step 2: Demagogue - "a leader who makes use of popular prejudices and false claims and promises in order to gain power"

Any questions?

Why Are We Still Arguing About Whether He's A Socialist?

Obama Blocks The Biggest Shovel-Ready Project Ever

In the president's view, extending the payroll tax cuts is more important than adding more people to the payrolls, unless they are making electric cars that catch fire or work for solar-panel makers that go bankrupt...

"However many jobs might be generated by a Keystone pipeline," he said, "they're going to be a lot fewer than the jobs that are created by extending the payroll tax cut and extending unemployment insurance."...

You get back much more than you spend. In their skewed view, joblessness can create jobs...

It's estimated Keystone XL will also create 118,000 spinoff and support jobs. We saw how Gulf Coast communities suffered after the administration imposed its drilling moratorium, which continues to this day in the form of a glacial and restrictive permitting process.

But, the administration contends, only food stamps and unemployment checks create spinoff jobs...

McConnell said that "here's the single greatest shovel-ready project in America, ready to go, and for some reason he's suddenly not interested. ... If this episode tells us anything, it's that the president is clearly more concerned about getting himself re-elected next year than getting somebody in Nebraska or Kansas or South Dakota or Missouri a job today."

Guns And Bias

Interesting editorial in the Times Union on Tuesday the 6th all about cracking down on gun show sales that apparently let guns end up in the hands of those that don't qualify...

Especially coming from an editorial staff that hasn't scene fit to comment on the Obama/Holder program that intentionally put guns illegally into the hands of Mexican drug gangs, resulting in the death of at least one American officer.

THE ISSUE:

Gun shows are tainted by new allegations of illegal sales.

But Obama isn't when his justice department's illegal sales result in the deaths of Americans?

THE STAKES:

There's still work to be done to keep guns away from the wrong people.

Especially when the White House is helping them get guns!

Mr. Schneiderman's revelations have prompted U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand to propose some tougher rules on gun trafficking. But they also underscore the need for Congress to end the so-called gun show loophole once and for all.

But no comment on a Congressional investigation that has found that Holder, beyond any doubt, lied to Congress about his and justice's involvement in running guns to Mexico?

Federal law requires licensed dealers to run all buyers' names through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, a database of people barred by law from owning a gun. They include felons and people convicted of certain misdemeanors, drug abusers and addicts, fugitives, people who have been adjudicated as mentally defective or who were involuntarily committed to a mental institution and people who are the subjects of an order of protection.

But Holder's office ordered law enforcement to not stop such sales where the guns were targeted for Mexican drug gangs. Not worth mentioning?

Yes, illegal buyers would still be able to try to find a gun through a private sale...

Especially with Obama and Holder's help!

Problem dealers could be subject to higher levels of federal monitoring, and those who violate the law could face suspension or revocation of their licenses. That is an apparent weakness. While there might be a need for some very limited discretion, we're hard pressed to see the value of suspending dealers who break the law. Those who knowingly or through clear negligence put deadly weapons in the hands of people who shouldn't have them don't deserve second chances.

AAAAHAAAAHAAAAA!!!!! Does that include Barack Obama and Eric Holder, Times Union?

None of this is about making it one iota harder for law-abiding people to purchase guns. It's about trying to keep guns out of the wrong hands, and holding accountable those who put them there.

Except if it's Obama and Holder. Right?

IBD notes why the press is covering up for Obama and Holder...it was all planned:

As we observed in June, the way Fast and Furious — the government's gun-running operation that resulted in the death of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry — was conducted made no sense unless its intent was to facilitate violence with U.S. weapons in the interests of pursuing the administration's gun-control agenda.

Now documents obtained by CBS News confirm that our first suspicions were correct.

As CBS' Sharyl Attkisson reports, emails show ATF officials discussed using the deliberate transfer of weapons to Mexican drug cartels to justify a new gun regulation known as "Demand Letter 3."...

Demand Letter 3 was so named because it was the third ATF attempt to have Southwest gun shops report all long-gun (rifle or shotgun) sales to the ATF — even those to law-abiding American citizens with all the proper registration and other forms.

Run Of The Mill Liberal Media Bias

*yawn* Nothing exciting here, just a typical example of liberal media bias, the sort of thing that is completely indefensible, yet still they deny it.

NYT Cheers Obama Attacks on GOP Hopefuls, Was Angered by Bush's in 2004

Thursday’s New York Times front-page campaign story by Jeff Zeleny and Jim Rutenberg prominently featured Obama campaign advisor David Axelrod frankly discussing how the party plans to influence the GOP primary by pitting Newt Gingrich (himself a "juicy target") against Mitt Romney: “Democrats See 2-Horse Race, Adding Whip.” It’s the kind of early White House attacks the Times once disapproved of, at least when done by Republican President George W. Bush...

“It wasn’t that long ago, and the debates and the tactics were very much what we’re dealing with today,” Mr. Axelrod said. “I mean it was shutting down the government in order to defund the E.P.A., and to defund education programs and to cut Medicare in order to give tax cuts to the wealthy. These guys are in the back-to-the-future machine.”...

“You have these candidates spending virtually all their time criticizing the president,” said Robert Gibbs, a political adviser to the president. “That wasn’t something we were going to let happen for months and months and months.”

By contrast, when sitting Republican President George W. Bush began criticizing probable Democratic nominee Sen. John Kerry back in March 2004, much deeper into that year’s Democratic presidential primary, political reporter Adam Nagourney seemed shocked by Bush’s “fierce campaign of attacks” and “orchestrated barrage of criticism.” Nagourney complained that “Mr. Bush reached back nine years to single out for criticism a proposal by Mr. Kerry to cut spending on intelligence, the kind of very directed attack that is unusual to hear from a president eight months before Election Day.” The word “attack” appeared 10 times in the story.

On February 27, 2004, reporter Elisabeth Bumiller characterized Bush’s criticisms as an “assault”...

By contrast, there was no “assault” on Romney and Gingrich in Thursday’s front-page story, and only two references to “attacks,” and no hint from the reporters that the Obama administration is somehow out of line to influence the opposing party’s primary.

As blatant as it gets.

Peep, Friends. Peep For America At Every Opportunity

We must peep for America, peep the peeps that the liberal media will not peep:

In that speech Tuesday, Obama once again tried to build a case for his liberal, big-spending, tax-hiking, regulatory agenda. But as with so many of his past appeals, Obama's argument rests on a pile of untruths. Among the most glaring:

• Tax cuts and deregulation have "never worked" to grow the economy. There's so much evidence to disprove this claim, it's hard to know where to start. But let's begin with the fact that countries with greater economic freedom — lower taxes, less government, sound money, free trade — consistently produce greater overall prosperity.

Here at home, President Reagan's program of lower taxes and deregulation led to an historic two-decade economic boom. Plus, states with lower taxes and less regulation do better than those that follow Obama's prescription...

• Bush's tax cuts on the rich only managed to produced "massive deficits" and the "slowest job growth in half a century." Budget data make clear that Obama's spending hikes, not Bush's tax cuts, produced today's massive deficits.

And Obama only gets his "slowest job growth" number by including huge job losses during his own term in office...

• During the Bush years, "we had weak regulation, we had little oversight." This is patently false. Regulatory staffing climbed 42% under Bush, and regulatory spending shot up 50%, according to a Washington University in St. Louis/George Washington University study. And the number of Federal Register pages — a proxy for regulatory activity — was far higher under Bush than any previous president.

• The "wealthiest Americans are paying the lowest taxes in over half a century." Fact: the federal income tax code is now more progressive than it was in 1979, according to the Congressional Budget Office. IRS data show the richest 1% paid almost 40% of federal income taxes in 2009, up from 18% back in 1980.

• We can keep tax breaks for the rich in place, or make needed investments, "but we can't do both." Not true. Repealing the Bush tax cuts on the "rich" would raise only about $70 billion a year, a tiny fraction of projected deficits...

But they might, if he's able to endlessly repeat them without a peep of protest from the mainstream press.

About That CPB Funding

The next time the left rolls out Grover to save money earmarked for leftwing public broadcasting, well, keep this fuzzy fella in mind: On CNN Prime-Time, Foul-Mouthed Muppet Announces Candidacy for President, Rips GOP

CNN – "The Most Trusted Name In News" – has recently been giving some quality air time to Muppets. It's newest prime-time anchor Erin Burnett interviewed Elmo back in October, Wolf Blitzer spotlighted Kermit the Frog last Thursday, and then a cursing "Marvin E. Quasniki" announced his candidacy for president at the end of Wednesday's Erin Burnett OutFront.

When asked how he would pay for the payroll tax cut as President, the Muppet answered he would "Throw rich people in jail. Take their money, and then give it to everybody else. Number one. Boom. Done. Yeah."

"And you're a Republican," an incredulous Burnett answered before Quasniki fired back "Well, I'm – you know what, I'm an American. Right now I'm only running as Republican because they're a bunch of clowns, but you never know, I'm an American. I'm for the people...I was driving in my car a couple of weeks ago and I was listening to the debates. And I'm thinking to myself this is all a bunch of bulls***..."

Then Burnett played the puppet's YouTube statement that was "laced with some profanity"...

Twisted History

Interesting:

It has been 4,689 days since the IRS formally cleared Newt Gingrich of any violation of tax law. It’s been 4,689 days since ABC, CBS, and NBC have had the opportunity to report it. What the heck. Why not today? Now is the time for these networks to report the truth for once. The networks owe it to the American people to report the fact that in 1999 the IRS completely vindicated Gingrich.

Between December 15, 1996 and January 31, 1997 the network morning and evening newscasts filed a staggering 244 stories. Total number of network stories on the news that Newt was completely innocent? Zero. That’s beyond pathetic.

I Remember Those From The Tea Parties!

Ah yes...I certainly recall learning in school about them at the first Tea Party. And of course they were heavily covered by the slavering press at all of the recent TEA parties. Yessirree, really, they're the reason this isn't very interesting to the press anymore.

Yeah...the need for "rape free" tents is what really turned the press against the Tea Partiers.

Yeah, Right

So the children in DC decided they could get away with building a structure for themselves in a public park?? Riiiiiight.

31 arrested in McPherson Square can occupy somewhere else: jail

Members of the Occupy D.C. movement decided to erect a large wooden building in the middle of their encampment in McPherson Square, so as to have a place to hold their “general assembly” meetings and be better protected from the elements. When police asked them to remove it, members refused and stood in solidarity around the structure, many held onto it, unwilling to move. The police had given the occupiers a one-hour deadline to start dismantling the large building, and when the protesters refused the police had no choice but to begin arresting them.

The reaction to police involvement was not amicable, and many resisted arrest and taunted police as if daring them to attempt to arrest them. One protestor even urinated off of the top of the structure before the police removed him from the roof. For a movement that claims to be about peaceful protesting and gaining support from others, that was deplorable at best...

This movement claims to be peaceful and working towards a world where everyone can exist together, and yet one of their supposed members shot nine rounds at the windows of the White House with a long range rifle. Further proving the insanity of the Occupy factions, after a rally in San Diego their Occupy movement held a moment of silence for Ortega-Hernandez, citing him as one of them (as in, a member of the larger Occupy movement) and praising his dedication to the movement.

An Un-Secret...REVEALED!

AP Exclusive: Inside Romania's secret CIA prison

As expected, the giant, hidden CIA "black site" "prison" complex is nothing more than a room in a basement in a building downtown.

Despite their fondest wishes, no one (worth mentioning) denied that high-value terrorists were detained overseas by the CIA, only that the CIA was operating giant, hidden prison complexes like Area 51 in Eastern Europe...and this "exclusive!" only proves the case. Whoo-pee *slow finger twirl*.

3 Years Of Failure

Remember when Obama first took office and the pile of foreign policy failures heaped on top of one another?

It's good to know that after 3 years they've still got their heads up their foreign policy rears:

The White House is distancing itself from remarks by an American ambassador and 2008 Obama campaign fundraiser suggesting that hatred of Jews was linked to Israeli actions, but some critics said the comments align with a “blame Israel” mentality in the administration...

In response to the furor over the ambassador, the White House in a statement sent to Jewish organizations and published by Washington Jewish Week said, “We condemn anti-Semitism in all its forms, and that there is never any justification for prejudice against the Jewish people or Israel.”...

Update: State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Monday that U.S. ambassador Howard Gutman “was expressing his views on an issue,” but when pressed about whether the envoy had been speaking as a private citizen,added, “anytime an ambassador speaks, he is representing the United States.”

Is it 2013, yet?

Send In The Clowns

Obama sets campaign theme: Middle class at stake

Unfortunately for him the GOP can use the same theme because he's the reason!

Despicable She

Did Nancy Pelosi just threaten to smear Newt Gingrich with confidential material from a Congressional investigation to affect the presidential campaign?

Why, yes. Yes, she did.

So, as soon as you start seeing any unsourced smears, you know who to look at and whistle.

A Socialist Fairy Tale

One day a perfect storm of poor economic conditions, high gas prices, and years of crushing burdens to unions caused the certain doom of American automakers, including Chevrolet.

But it was OK. Because the president was willingly enslaved to the unions. So he made sure that instead of the companies going bankrupt, as the law requires, instead they would just tell the companies' creditors to bend over and smile while he took a big piece of them for the government and gave the rest to the unions. Phew!

Of course this then meant the the president was running the company! But it was OK, even though he had never run any sort of business before in his entire life, not even a lemonade stand. What he did know how to do, though, was have the government tell supposedly-private businesses what they should make and could make and, since he was now in charge, would make. And since he also promised that he could control the world's climate, he decided to tell the company that they should make an electric car, despite the failure of anyone to make an electric car successfully. So they made an electric car. An electric car that could barely drive anywhere without needing to be recharged. And, as a bonus, this compact car cost $40,000. But not really. It only cost $40,000 because the climate-controlling-first-time-business-owner president was also giving the company thousands and thousands of taxpayer dollars for each of those cars because it actually cost WAY more than that to make the compact cars that you can't drive very far.

But the president was so happy!


Yeah, he was just thrilled with himself.

But then something bad happened...as 99% of us knew it would. It turned out that, after a minor accident, weeks and weeks could go by with no one thinking anything bad would happen...

and then the car would burst into flames.

Yeah.

So the company had to do something about that or the liberal media might even start to investigate this and hyperbolically relate a bunch of lies and half-truths (mostly lies) to try put the company out of business like they tried with (non-union-enslaved) Toyota.

By TOM KRISHER

DETROIT — General Motors, concerned about the image of its Chevrolet Volt, is offering free loaner vehicles to owners who are worried about the electric cars catching fire.

Phew! Just in the nick of time they said you could have a comparable loaner car.

He was so happy, the president decided to set an example by driving one of the loaners to work.