The Politics of Food

In January 2009, there were 31,939,110 Americans receiving food stamps; in November 2012, the number rose to 47,692,896, almost a 50% increase. And it increase again in January 2013.

Not content with having more Americans on food stamps than people in Spain, the Obama administration is ringing the dinner bell for illegal aliens. We’ll feed you and not check your status.

As we wrote last July, just as food stamp use has skyrocketed here under President Obama, so have marketing efforts to Hispanics under a partnership with Mexico.

We dubbed the program “Fat and Furious” after the administration’s gun-running program that also seemingly had worthy goals but had unclear motives and pernicious effects.

“USDA and the government of Mexico have entered into a partnership to help educate eligible Mexican nationals living in the United States about available nutrition assistance,” the USDA explained in a paragraph on its “Reaching Low-Income Hispanics With Nutrition Assistance” Web page. “Mexico will help disseminate this information through its embassy and network of approximately 50 consular offices.”

Now the watchdog group Judicial Watch has obtained Spanish-language fliers through a Freedom of Information Act request.

It announced Thursday that the “promotion of the food stamp program, now known as SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), includes a Spanish-language flier provided to the Mexican Embassy by the USDA.”

The interesting thing about this flier is a statement advising Mexicans in the U.S. that they don’t need to declare their immigration status in order to get aid. Emphasized in bold and underlined, it reads, “You need not divulge information regarding your immigration status in seeking this benefit for your children.”

They get the carrot, we get the stick! Up our “collective” asses!

This is a huge carrot to incentivize illegal immigration at the same time the Obama administration is pushing what is called “comprehensive immigration reform” designed to assimilate those illegal aliens already here.

But don’t worry about the Border Security and the flood of illegals. Just because in 1986 it was 3 million and now it would be at 12 Million it can’t happen again… 🙂

An administration unwilling to secure our borders is ringing the dinner bell for anyone able to sneak past the U.S. Border Patrol.

Then with Amnesty they can vote for more Democrats!

“The revelation that the USDA is actively working with the Mexican government to promote food stamps for illegal aliens should have a direct impact on the fate of the immigration bill now being debated in Congress,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “These disclosures further confirm the fact that the Obama administration cannot be trusted to protect our borders or enforce our immigration laws.”

Indeed it should, for it is contemptible that an administration that has run the U.S. economy into the ground and increased legitimate demand by legal U.S. citizens for food aid to be actively recruiting foreign nationals to further burden American taxpayers who have their own families to feed. (IBD)

But you don’t want children to starve do you? you heartless, mean, cruel, nasty old racist! 🙂

Rep. Tom Marino, R-PA, introduced the SNAP Transparency Act on Friday, which would require the USDA to publicize what food stamps pay for.

“SNAP is a perfect example of how our government spends too much money with too little oversight and accountability,” said Marino in a statement.

A 2012 Yale study estimated Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program benefits, formerly called food stamps, pay for $2 billion in sugary drinks alone every year. A 2010 study by the Center for Science in the Public Interest said that spending was even higher, estimating soda companies reap as much as $4 billion each year in SNAP money. (WE)

So Liberals want to regulate what foods you can get and what you can drink. How about starting here. 🙂

Oh, sorry, these are the Once and Future Democrat Dependent Majority for life, can’t screw with them…No waste, fraud or abuse here! 🙂

Food stamp fraud has more than doubled since Barack Obama took office in 2009. In 2011, according to the USDA, food stamp fraud was approximately $750 million. The type of fraud noted was derived from selling Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits to food retailers for cents on the dollar.

The USDA stated, “In 2011, program costs totaled $75.7 billion. Using the most recent data on trafficking available, USDA estimated that trafficking would be 1 percent of $75 billion, or approximately $750 million.” (Breitbart)

But if you propose “cutting” this out, or tightening the rules to save money, you’re just a asshole who wants kids to starve!

Don’t you dare touch The Dependent Democrat Majority For Life! These are there voters. Their power base. How dare you want to touch them in any way.

Think Progress (a far left “think tank”): Rather than looking for cuts in the food stamp program, perhaps lawmakers could instead focus on crop subsidies that fuel the junk food industry.

Narrow minded, partisan ,anti-capitalist attack instead of cutting The Once and Future Dependent Democrats, wow, what a shocker!

The Politics of Food. 🙂

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Politics of Science

‘We could be in for a cooling period that lasts 200-250 years. The period of low solar activity could start in 2030-2040.’

Global warming which has been the subject of so many discussions in recent years, may give way to global cooling. According to scientists from the Pulkovo Observatory in St.Petersburg, solar activity is waning, so the average yearly temperature will begin to decline as well. Scientists from Britain and the US chime in saying that forecasts for global cooling are far from groundless. (Voice of Russia)

Yeah, that would screw up their power grab if they had to switch back to Global Cooling hysteria that they had 40 years ago.

Love that “consensus” that says the issue is settled and they are always right. 🙂

Global warming was a tough one for Obama and the rest of his band of witch burners, because it involved actual metrics – which didn’t pan out.

So they changed their meme to “climate change” which has no metrics, no definition, no theoretical basis, no boundaries, no way to prove or disprove – and they can blame every weather event on it.

So Big Brother can call it any way he wants and get the EPA lapdogs to do it for him.

THE AGENDA, not science.

Well, we know now what’s been taking up his time now. Since the FAA debacle didn’t work and our Dear Leader’s only focus is destroying the Republicans in 2014. Jobs, Iran,Syria, North Korea, Jobs, the economy, jobs, Terrorism, border security, jobs don’t really get his Campaign juices flowing…

The campaign group formed to support Barack Obama’s political agenda has launched an initiative to shame members of Congress who deny the science behind climate change.

In an email to supporters on Thursday, Organizing for Action said it was time to call out members of Congress who deny the existence of climate change, saying they had blocked efforts to avoid its most catastrophic consequences.

The email linked to a video mocking Republicans who reject the science on climate change. “Right now, way too many lawmakers in Washington flat-out refuse to face the facts when it comes to climate change,” Jon Carson, executive director of Organizing for Action wrote in the email. “We’re never going to make real progress on this issue unless members of Congress get serious.”

The video mainly features Republican members of the House of Representatives who are notorious for denying the existence of climate change, or positing bizarre notions about its causes.

However, it also includes some national figures such as the Florida senator Marc Rubio and House speaker John Boehner, whose views on climate are not that broadly known. There are no Democrats in the video. (UK Guardian)

Global Warming is the Republicans Fault, don’t you know.

You are supposed to believe everything bad is the Republicans Fault. We are at War with Oceania (Republicans) and always have been, says Big Brother. 🙂

Boo hiss! Everyone have their TWO MINUTE HATE.

Now some of  Big Brother’s “scientists”  have come out and said that Global Cooling ended at the end of the 19th Century, conveniently just after Industrialization, which they blame for Global Warming.

Surely, that a coincidence! 🙂

So, the liberal history now say it has ALWAYS been with us since industrialization so it must be Man that caused it! Right?

The logic errors in that line of “thinking” is not worth my time.

http://news.discovery.com/earth/global-warming/global-cooling-ended-in-19th-century-130426.htm

So how would  they explain Newsweek November 1975: (they usually just say they had faulty interpretation of data back then of course that absolutely does not mean they have faulty data NOW!) 🙂

a 1975 Newsweek cover story proclaimed:

There are ominous signs that the Earth’s weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production – with serious political implications for just about every nation on Earth.

The evidence in support of these predictions has now begun to accumulate so massively that meteorologists are hard-pressed to keep up with it. In England, farmers have seen their growing season decline by about two weeks since 1950, with a resultant overall loss in grain production estimated at up to 100,000 tons annually… Last April, in the most devastating outbreak of tornadoes ever recorded, 148 twisters killed more than 300 people and caused half a billion dollars’ worth of damage in 13 U.S. states. To scientists, these seemingly disparate incidents represent the advance signs of fundamental changes in the world’s weather. The central fact is that after three quarters of a century of extraordinarily mild conditions, the earth’s climate seems to be cooling down. Meteorologists… are almost unanimous in the view that the trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century. If the climatic change is as profound as some of the pessimists fear, the resulting famines could be catastrophic.

But as we all know, Big Brother is never wrong and it’s the Ministry’s job to tell you that.

Ah, isn’t the Politics of Science wonderful….

Pathway

“Creating a pathway to earned citizenship for the 11 million unauthorized immigrants in this country is essential. The way we treat our friends and neighbors who are undocumented – by creating a mechanism for them to earn citizenship and move out of the shadows – transcends the issue of immigration status. This is a matter of civil and human rights. It is about who we are as a nation. And it goes to the core of our treasured American principle of equal opportunity.”

This would be the same Attorney General who sued the State of Arizona for wanting to enforce Federal immigration Law. The same one who dropped the Black Panther case AFTER the conviction. Who also rushed in to save our Chechan “victim” from spewing his guts out about the Boston bombing by sending in a Magistrate to clamp him down with “rights”.

Attorney General Holder’s claim is more than simply silly; it is also pernicious. It attempts to frame this debate not on the merits of granting a pathway to citizenship for those who have violated our laws; it’s an effort to frame it as a conflict between those who support (good people) and those who oppose (bad people) basic human rights. This is an effort, in other words, to demonize those with whom one disagrees, and therefore creates yet more polarization and anger and self-righteousness in a debate that probably needs less of it. What Holder said also reveals a fairly common mindset of those on the left, which is to characterize whatever position they embrace not simply as correct but as a basic civil right. In other words, as something fundamental and teleological, as a right that is ours based on our nature as human beings. The idea that a person who violates American sovereignty by illegally crossing our borders should be given a pathway to citizenship as a matter of civil and human rights is therefore indefensible, an invention. The attorney general is employing a very serious concept in a reckless way. And it empties the term of meaning, just as promiscuously accusing those who oppose the policies of President Obama of racism empties that charge of meaning. It really ought to stop, since human rights violations and racism really do exist.

No one who comes to this country illegally has a “right” to stay here.  If — if — we end up crafting a political path to legalization and perhaps citizenship, its beneficiaries would be recipients of a profoundly generous gift, not beleaguered victims who’ve finally gained the civil or human rights to which they’ve been entitled all along.  Holder’s insidious remark risks poisoning the well for many would-be supporters of reform.  Question: Is that by design, or is he so steeped in, and surrounded by, leftism that he literally cannot comprehend the ramifications of his words?  Either explanation is plausible in my book.  I’ll leave you with the latest reporting from the indispensable Byron York.  The ‘Gang of Eight’ bill is riddled with loopholes:
 

The green card process would take additional years, meaning the road to full citizenship could take as long as 15, or even 18, years. Unless it doesn’t. A little-noticed exception in the Gang of Eight bill provides a fast track for many — possibly very many — currently illegal immigrants. Under a special provision for immigrants who have labored at least part-time in agriculture, that fast track could mean permanent residency in the U.S., and then citizenship, in half the time Rubio said. And not just for the immigrants themselves — their spouses and children, too. A second provision in the legislation creates another fast track for illegal immigrants who came to the United States before they were 16 — the so-called Dreamers. The concept suggests youth, but the bill has no age limit for such immigrants — or their spouses and children — and despite claims that they must go to college or serve in the military to be eligible, there is an exception to that requirement as well.

So “DREAM kids” would include people who were (or claim to have been) brought here as young children decades ago.  Also, remember that one year window to apply for provisional legal status about which I reported last week?  Turns out that’s a flexible standard, too:

If an illegal immigrant is apprehended by authorities after the passage of the bill, and appears to qualify for blue card status, the law requires the Department of Homeland Security to give him a “reasonable opportunity” to apply for blue card status. He cannot be deported while his application is under review. Even if he is in removal proceedings, the bill says, the Secretary of Homeland Security is required to allow him to apply for blue card status, and immigration authorities are required to “terminate [removal] proceedings without prejudice.” The bill’s supporters point out that the Gang of Eight would limit the period of time in which illegal immigrants can apply for a blue card. That’s true; the bill specifies that applications have to be filed in the year after the last of the rules enforcing the new immigration law have gone into effect. But the bill also gives the Secretary of Homeland Security the discretion to extend that period by another year and a half if she or he determines that “additional time is required” for the applications. The extension can also be granted for any other “good cause.”

Let’s see if I understand this correctly:  If an illegal immigrant hasn’t voluntarily emerged “from the shadows” to seek legal status on his own, US officials would still be required to inform him of his right to apply for a blue card if and when he happens to be apprehended in an unrelated incident?  It seems to me that if someone (a) hasn’t proactively come forward already, for whatever reason — wrongdoing? ignorance? — and (b) has been apprehended for another reason, perhaps this individual shouldn’t be a prime candidate for legal residence at all.  Furthermore, that 365-day limited window could stretch to two-and-a-half years, on the say-so of the DHS Secretary.  How much do you want to bet that Janet Napolitano would decide that “additional time is required”?  After all, the implementation of Kafkaesque Big Government programs are known for going seamlessly, right?  Sen. Rubio downplayed my concerns about vesting Napolitano with more discretionary power during our recent interview.  She’ll be gone sooner or later, was the gist of his argument.  It’s a fair point to some extent, but three years is a long time; Napolitano’s fingerprints and influence would be all over the crucial early stages of implementing the law.  For that reason alone, I’m comforted by the House Judiciary Committee’s slow, deliberative approach to immigration reform.  The only reason to rush this process is to pass a bill before we know what’s in it. (Guy Benson)

Let the genie out of the bottle, then worry about the consequences later…

Talk is not so Cheap

FAA Update:

The White House has endorsed a plan to eliminate FAA spending cuts that have cause air travel delays across the country. The agency has been forced to furlough air traffic controllers as part of the automatic budget cuts that kicked in this spring. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid wants to end the cuts by claiming savings from the draw down of war spending in Iraq and Afghanistan. Republicans reject his proposal calling it an accounting gimmick.
Of course it’s an accounting gimmick.  The point is that Democrats are desperate to extricate themselves from this mess, which they orchestrated in a bone-headed attempt to rile public anger against any spending cuts.

Chicago Tribune: Hours before the federal spending sequester began on March 1, when President Barack Obama predicted that “People are going to be hurt,” he did not add, Trust me, I’ll make sure of it. But he might as well have, as this week’s furloughs of air traffic controllers make obvious. The furloughs reflect panic: Having exaggerated their early predictions that the sequester’s small reduction in spending growth would seriously affect Americans, many Democrats are hell-bent to pre-empt those Americans from drawing two logical conclusions: If one level of cuts is this painless, then maybe we should make … more cuts to expenditures. And while we’re at it, maybe we should ignore the politicians who told us that if Washington lowered the spending growth curve … the Earth will fly into the sun….

We’re less certain, though, that this hostage-taking will cut the way the White House expects: The scheme relies on citizens being — how to put this delicately? — stupid enough to think that the Federal Aviation Administration can’t find a more flier-friendly way to save $600 million.

The Trib’s editors also cite polling showing that the public is less and less worried about the sequester cuts by the day, which likely sparked panic inside the White House:  We can’t allow spending cuts to go unnoticed.  People might start getting the wrong idea.  It’s time to deliberately inflict totally avoidable pain on the populace — it’s for their own good, really. (townhall)

A pre-sequester FAA report demonstrated that air traffic controllers were operating at 22 percent over capacity.  Even FAA employees are aware that the pain is political and intentional: “I am disgusted with everything that I see since the sequester took place,” another FAA employee wrote. “Whether in HQ or at the field level it is clear that our management has no intention of managing anything. The only effort that I see is geared towards generating fear and demonstrating failure.” (Townhall)

So the Congress passes a bill and the whole stupid episode goes away, but it’s still not their fault.

Speaking of  flying off on partisan stupidity..

Rep. Hank Johnson (D) (The guy who in 2010 said if too many Marine were on Guam the Island would tip over!) took to the House floor “like a kid at a carnival” Thursday to defend Americans’ right to helium in light of sequester spending cuts.

The Georgia Democrat, irked by his Republican cohorts, gave a snarky, pun-heavy speech in support of the Responsible Helium Administration and Stewardship Act of 2013, which would prevent the closure of the Federal
Helium Reserve, scheduled to shutter by October.

“Mr. Speaker, I’m relieved, and I’m sure that the American people are relieved as well, that Congress is finally going to do something about one of the most pressing issues of the day,” he began. “That is we’ve got to ensure access to helium for all.”
The substance of this bill is not the focus of my sarcasm,” he said. “My point is that America would be much better off if this tea party Republican Congress brought to the floor issues that mean the most to Americans.”

(that’s funny, because the Senate has a Left Wing Democrat Majority that refuses to even talk to the other side of the political aisle)

You mean like $7 Trillion Dollars in new Debt and annual deficits near or over a Trillion dollars a year?
Sorry, Democrats don’t want to talk about that.

7.8%+ unemployment for  4 1/2 years?
Sorry, Democrats don’t want to talk about that.

That 20% of all Americans are on Food Stamps.
Sorry, Democrats don’t want to talk about that.

Muslim Terrorists.
Sorry, Democrats REALLY don’t want to talk about that.

Border Security.
Sorry, Democrats don’t want to talk about that. They just want to promote “undocumented Democrats”.

Benghazi.
Sorry, Democrats don’t want to talk about that.

Failure of Schools to adequately Educate.
Sorry, Democrats don’t want to talk about that.

ObamaCare Costs.
Sorry, Democrats don’t want to talk about that. (But they do want to exempt themselves!)

The Debt Ceiling.
Sorry, Democrats don’t want to talk about that.

The Budget that hasn’t been passed in 4+ years.
Sorry, Democrats don’t want to talk about that.

Iran, North Korea, etc.
Sorry, Democrats don’t want to talk about that.

“Knowing that potentially chemical weapons have been used inside of Syria doesn’t tell us when they were used, how they were used,” Mr. Obama told reporters in the Oval Office. “We have to act prudently. We have to make these assessments deliberately.”

Orwell would be proud of your cowardice and lack of backbone about your own “line in the sand”.

Welfare Reform?
Sorry, Democrats don’t want to talk about that.

The abuses of Federal Government Power?
Sorry, Democrats don’t want to talk about that.

Government Ammo Stockpiling?
Sorry, Democrats don’t want to talk about that.
But they are hopped up on Helium, Sugar, Soda, salt, Gays, Illegals, Their own Hubris, The AGENDA, fundraising for 2014, and your right to defend yourself you evil bastards!

So leave them alone. They have their Priorities…. indeed… 🙂

“Everybody sit down,” Obama said sheepishly. “You’re making me blush.”

He told a crowd at the Planned Parenthood Conference. He is after all, Pro-Choice, as long as you make the Correct Choice! (aka whatever the Liberal says).

After all, AG Holder: He said that establishing legal status for the nation’s estimated 11 million illegal immigrants is a “matter of civil and human rights.”

“The way we treat our friends and neighbors who are undocumented by creating a mechanism for them to earn citizenship and move out of the shadows transcends the issue of immigration status.” “This is a matter of civil and human rights,” Holder continued.

So if being here illegally is a “civil right” then why do we have a border at all. Everyone is entitle to come here at will and at whim (and vote for the Democrats).

So do they want to talk about that, or just high-handed demagoguery? 🙂

Speaking of that…

CRONY CAPITALISM UPDATE

Ever since the Clinton administration agreed in 1999 to make $50,000 payments to thousands of black farmers, the Hispanics and women had been clamoring in courtrooms and in Congress for the same deal. They argued, as the African-Americans had, that biased federal loan officers had systematically thwarted their attempts to borrow money to farm.

But a succession of courts — and finally the Supreme Court — had rebuffed their pleas. Instead of an army of potential claimants, the government faced just 91 plaintiffs. Those cases, the government lawyers figured, could be dispatched at limited cost.

They were wrong.

On the heels of the Supreme Court’s ruling, interviews and records show, the Obama administration’s political appointees at the Justice and Agriculture Departments engineered a stunning turnabout: they committed $1.33 billion to compensate not just the 91 plaintiffs but thousands of Hispanic and female farmers who had never claimed bias in court.

The deal, several current and former government officials said, was fashioned in White House meetings despite the vehement objections — until now undisclosed — of career lawyers and agency officials who had argued that there was no credible evidence of widespread discrimination. What is more, some protested, the template for the deal — the $50,000 payouts to black farmers — had proved a magnet for fraud.

(emphasis added)

Absolutely unbelievable.  Ever wonder how Obama can “need” higher taxes despite going on the biggest spending spree in American history? Perhaps this story offers a clue. (townhall)

Will Democrat want to talk about that?

No.

 

V.D.

The latest available data from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) shows that a record number 23 million households in the United States are now on food stamps.

The most recent Supplemental Assistance Nutrition Program (SNAP) statistics of the number of households receiving food stamps shows that 23,087,886 households participated in January 2013 – an increase of 889,154 families from January 2012 when the number of households totaled 22,188,732.

The most recent statistics from the United States Census Bureau– from December 2012– puts the number of households in the United States at 115,310,000. If you divide 115,310,000 by 23,087,866, that equals one out of every five households now receiving food stamps.

As CNSNews.com previously reported, food stamp rolls in America recently surpassed the population of Spain. A record number 47,692,896 Americans are now enrolled in the program and the cost of food stamp fraud has more than doubled in just three years.

But if we just spend more money everything would be fine! 🙂

After all, the economy is improving. 🙂

Sep 24, 2012 … One in seven Americans is on food stamps.

We just need to Spend More money!

It’s that those Damn Republican’s Fault!

It’s the Sequester!! 🙂

Let’s just call it what it is: The country has a big, nasty case of V.D. (That’s Virus Democratus).

A particularly invasive, and aggressive strain.

Anywho, as I was saying: The country has a virus similar to the malaise that was going around when Carter was president. Our enemies are treated like friends and our friends are treated like enemies; Gas prices are high, wages are low, and the misery index is on the rise, even if calculated differently today than when Carter was the Worst-President-Ever.

Unemployment that has been 7.8%+ SINCE he took office!

$7 Trillion Dollars in New Debt. But we have to Spend Even More.

Cutting Increases in Spending is Evil, wrong, and “hurts people”. But none of these other factors do?

This is what happens when you put hippies in charge.  Again.

“Free” “love” and “peace” often ends in this type of communicable disease.

Quick: What percentage of people in the Obama administration do you think go to church each week? What percentage of people in the Obama administration smoke weed each week?

Now subtract the one number from the other.  

Any questions?

The lurch to the left that has been institutionalized by our newest Worst-President-Ever – an ideological lurch where appearances don’t matter anymore- is scaring even Democrats.

“And while the president made the big calls, like pushing for a health-care overhaul, he did not always drive the administration’s strategy on getting his agenda achieved. That has now, fully, changed,“ reports BuzzFeed.

Hurray! Obama’s now in charge of EVERYTHING.

“‘You’re talking about somebody who has a tremendous amount of confidence in his own capacities,’” said a top Democrat. “‘On most days it’s hard to tell him he’s wrong about anything.’”

Really? You guys are just figuring this out now?

Ha!

It’s not hard to tell the Democratus apparatus that they deserve exactly what they’ve got coming- while laughing uproariously.

After a decade of letting Obama work on scholarship because of white guilt, demographics and a weak bench of unelectable doofuses- John Edwards, Howard Dean, Joe Biden, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton anyone?- now that political results matter to the Democratus Party, some are getting a little shy about the president.  

And can you blame them? These are folks who won’t get the same free pass that Obama gets.  

Imagine when the entire Democrat party is remade in Obama’s image.

Confident.

Capable.

Arrogant.

Irresponsible.

Wrong.

Politico laid out the dilemma facing Democrats even before Obama was sworn in for his second term.

“To the extent that they break with the president, it could be — I don’t want to say it is — a big advantage for them in deep-red states,” a Democrat strategist told Politico in January regarding Democrat Senators up for reelection.

Politico cited particularly the gun issue, where Democrats from more moderate states could be at risk by an aggressively left-wing Obama agenda.

From Politico:

Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), who could face a tough reelection and has previously opposed reinstating the assault weapons ban, said there needs to be “more emphasis on [mental health issues and counseling families in crisis] as well as enforcing some of the laws that are already on the books.” She added it was important for Washington “not to overreact one way or another.”

[Senator Mark] Begich [D-AK] added: “To start saying we’re going to have more laws and more regulations, I think, would be problematic.”

Udall voiced similar sentiments, though he suggested more of an openness to tightening background checks.

“When you talk about gun rights and the situation in the West, there are very mixed feelings in terms of pushing a nationwide package — a one-size-fits-all package,” [Senator Tom] Udall [D-NM] said, questioning the effectiveness of an assault weapons ban.

From their mouths to Obama’s very large ears, somehow, something in the manner of this warning was lost in translation.

Because Obama’s defeat on the gun issue was both large and stunning.

Or, as Politico pointed out, maybe it was what we could have expected.

Any other president would have been defeated in November based on results. Any other president would have been chastened by the results, not emboldened.

Instead, Obama is acting more like himself, more in charge and exactly in character:

Confident.

Capable.

Arrogant.

Irresponsible.

Wrong.

These are all symptoms of a very bad disease for  the Democrats.

And because it’s communicable, the country is at risk as well.  (John Ransom)

But that’s why they need Amnesty. The 10-12 million new Democrats will give them a voting majority for life and it won’t matter what YOU think or what anyone thinks.

All they have to do is pander to this majority and they are set for life. To a Democrat what could be better than complete and total, uncontested rule over everyone and everything forever!

Heaven on Earth! 🙂

Not for For Me, But for Thee. It’s the Story That Counts.

For Thee, Not for Me.

The chief of the FAA told Congress today that Washington-area airports will largely escape the effects of the air traffic controller furloughs — a blessing for lawmakers who fly out of the nation’s capitol.

Michael Huerta, head of the Federal Aviation Administration, told a congressional panel that the Washington region’s airports are spaced out enough and have enough spare capacity that furloughs to air traffic controllers won’t hurt as much here.

Because, in case you hadn’t heard Obama and his FAA have decided that the Sequester is not causing enough pain so they need to ratchet it up some more., but NOT on themselves though.

The White House accused Republicans of a political distraction Wednesday after House committee chairmen asked President Obama to release a State Department cable that they said would prove Hillary Rodham Clinton, as secretary off state, signed off on security cuts at the diplomatic post in Benghazi ahead of the attack Sept. 11. (WT)

Not that the whole “internet video” thing wasn’t a massive distraction and politically motivated to begin with.

Not for For Me, But for Thee.

“Green” Update…The Story Continues

Remember the “green” stimulus money that went to a company in Finland to build electric cars (not here in the US, but Finland).

The electric carmaker, which laid off 75% of its employees earlier this month, missed its first loan payment to the Energy Department on Monday. Treasury has already seized $21 million in an effort to get back some of the taxpayer money loaned to it, but most of the $192 million that was given to the company over the three years is very much at risk.

Also at risk is about $21.5 million it received from the state of Delaware because of plans it once had to reopen a closed General Motors plant there.

Company officials and spokesmen are not commenting on the outlook for the company or reports that it is close to a bankruptcy filing.

Fisker is what is known as a story stock. It’s not a public company, of course, but it still qualifies. A story stock is a company that relies upon “a story” to get new investors to pony up more money to keep the story going. 

It can’t point to results, or a business model, or demographics. It has some new, breakthrough technology or process that will revolutionize the world if and when… blah, blah, blah, blah, talk, talk, talk.

And all they need is a bit more money.

And Obama gave Stimulus Money to them.

More Money down the “green” rat hole.

Story stocks suffer from the opposite problem Google and Facebook posed: Story stocks have a revolutionary way to monetize demand for products, but they have little demand.

And the last thing a company with very little demand needs is a bit more money.

A bit more money gives a company with no customers the trappings of success without the fuss and bother of actually selling things; a bit more money allows the story to supplant sales; a bit more money means that the only thing left to do is go out and get a bit more money over and over again.

In the 1990s the fuel of the future was to be ethanol, especially ethanol derived from biomass cellulose waste like switchgrass and cornstalks and sawdust.

All they needed was a bit more money to perfect the technology of refining ethanol from waste products and success was to be ensured.

Sounds like every Liberal idea I’ve ever heard of. When it fails, all we need (perpetually) is more money and it will succeed!  Just that little bit more…!!! 🙂

Twenty years later, all biomass fuels have to show for the story is more research grants from the Department of Energy, more demonstration plants that can’t produce commercial volumes and more need for subsidies from the federal government to stay afloat.

Other than an a food storage because of all the Corn converted to fuel instead of food, that is. 🙂

And regular corn ethanol- a competitor to biomass ethanol- is still only about as economical as regular gasoline, if not a little less so. 

Just a bit more money, please.

“There are two times in a man’s life when he should not speculate,” Mark Twain wrote in Following the Equator, “when he can’t afford it, and when he can.”

Twain by then had been ruined by a story stock of his own making.

“The author,” he says, “did not gather [these observations] from practice, but from experience.”

Twain invested in, managed and ultimately smothered a new marvel in typesetting technology called the Paige Compositor. Twain had the great disadvantage of knowing a thing or two about typesetting. He was a young apprentice typesetter in Philadelphia, New York and St. Louis.

In Twain’s case- as in other story stocks- a little knowledge proved to be a dangerous thing.  The inventor James Paige beguiled Twain with creating the most perfect machine ever, instead of one that would sell. Consequently the machine never even got to the prototype stage. Instead of merely losing money in the affair, Twain’s quest for a perfect machine finally drove him into bankruptcy- an event from which his creative mind never fully recovered.

According to biographer Justin Kaplan, Twain later indulged in fantasies of locking the inventor of the typesetting machine in a steel trap and watching him die.

The folks from Fisker have no less arduous a trap to face themselves.

“As the years rolled by,” writes Scientific American, “Fisker observers became increasingly suspicious that the company didn’t even possess a working car. At the 2008 debut, Fisker announced that the Karma would go on sale in late 2009. Yet by early 2010, when Bill Gifford profiled the company for Popular Science, no one but the chauffeur for the Crown Prince of Denmark had driven even an early prototype.”

But like most Liberal ideas, it sounded good, noble and tugged at the heart strings of emotion so with good intentions they wasted vast amounts of money. And in stead of admitting they were morons for buying into it they just want to spend even more money to prove their pie-in-the-sky righteousness is correct no matter what.

They actually did build a few cars, but most of them flooded before some spontaneously caught fire, just like the Chevy Volt. Really.

So now the steel trap set for Fisker is in Congress, which of course wants taxpayer money back. But what Congress really wants more than anything is to embarrass Obama, the Department of Energy and the whole green energy scheme, which was produced by a little too much knowledge and way more money than they ever needed.

They have found a willing victim in Fisker.

While Twain could only fantasize about retribution, Congress owns the steel trap of public investigation in which many others who speculate on the public dime have gone to die a slow, and humiliating, death.  

It’ll make a great story.  (Townhall)

The Greatest Story/Show on Earth. 🙂

 

The Obama Years

The Obama Years: For someone who goes out of his way to miniaturize the threat from terrorism, terrorism sure seems to dog this president. When will President Obama face up to this growing evil?

Never. Not within his mindset. He would have to rebel against his Orwellian beliefs.

U.S. officials familiar with the FBI’s counterterrorism training program and its controversial public outreach program to Muslim groups said FBI policy toward Islam—that it should not be used to describe those who seek to wage jihad or holy war against the United States and others they regard as infidels—has prevented both effective counterterrorism investigations and training.

The officials said the problem is that most field agents understand the nature of the threat but have been hamstrung by policies imposed by senior FBI leaders who are acting under orders of political appointees in the Obama administration, including Islamic advisers to the White House. The policies have prevented the FBI from conducting aggressive counterterrorism investigations of Islamic radicals or those who are in the process of being radicalized.

If this is true, it is an outrage.  Political correctness shouldn’t get in the way of the #1 responsibility of the President (and the executive branch he heads): Keeping America safe. (Townhall)’

No, he has to keep THE AGENDA safe. That’s all.

During coverage of the Boston Marathon bombings, CNN made a startlingly inaccurate claim about the terror tempo occurring under this administration — one that reflects the administration’s own state of denial about the rising threat.

They also went looking for someone on the right to blame, immediately.

The network’s homeland security analyst, Juliette Kayyem, asserted: “We have not had (even) a small-scale terrorist attack on American soil since 9/11.”

In fact, the nation has suffered several major attacks — and most of them have taken place on Obama’s watch.

Since 2009, terrorists have shot up our military bases, assassinated our diplomats and burned our embassies. And now they’ve murdered and blown off the limbs of innocent spectators, ambushed and shot cops and completely shut down our 10th-largest city.

June 1, 2009: Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad shot and killed one military recruiter and seriously wounded another at a Little Rock, Ark., recruiting station. Muhammad, a convert to Islam, had visited Yemen for 16 months, where he spent time in prison and became radicalized. Muhammad identified with al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula.

Nov. 5, 2009: Nidal Malik Hasan, a U.S. Army major serving as a psychiatrist, opened fire at Fort Hood, Texas. He shouted “Allahu Akbar!” — Allah is Greatest! — as he killed 13 and wounded 29 fellow soldiers. Hasan had received approval for his act from al-Qaida operative Anwar Awlaki.

Remember how the DoD refused to classify Nidal Malik Hasan’s attack as terorrism, referring to it instead as “workplace violence”? 🙂

The only “terrorists” the Left sees is The Right, namely Tea Partiers.

“The ‘tea parties’ and similar groups that have sprung up in recent months cannot fairly be considered extremist groups, but they are shot through with rich veins of radical ideas, conspiracy theories and racism,” Mark Potok, director of the SPLC’s Intelligence Project, wrote in a piece titled “Rage On The Right: The Year In Hate And Extremism” from the group’s Spring 2010 edition of its Intelligence Report. (DC 2010)

The AP called Tea Partiers “insurgents” in 2010. “Insurgents” largely has been used of late in the media as a watered-down reference to terrorist.

Hmmm…

March 4, 2010: John Patrick Bedell, a Muslim convert, shot and wounded two Pentagon police officers at a security checkpoint in the Pentagon station of the Washington Metro transit system in Arlington County, Va.

Sept. 11, 2012: Al-Qaida operatives attacked the American diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya. The heavily armed assault began during the night at a compound meant to protect the consulate building. A second assault early the next morning targeted a nearby CIA annex. Four people were killed, including U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens. Ten others were injured.

April 15, 2013: In the latest act of terror on Obama’s watch, at least two Muslim jihadists set off pressure-cooker bombs loaded with shrapnel at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing three and injuring 183. Then, in a second wave of terror, the terrorists shot two police officers, killing one, and also injured several others with military-grade explosives. As this is being written, the terror siege hasn’t ended.

These are just the actual terror attacks. They don’t include all the major plots and near misses, such as:

September 2009: Authorities arrested Afghan native Najibullah Zazi before he could blow up the New York City subway.

September 2009: Police nabbed Jordanian national Hosam Maher Husein Smadi before he could plant a bomb in a Dallas skyscraper.

December 2009: Passengers on a flight bound for Detroit tackled Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab before he could detonate dangerous PETN and TATP explosives sewn into his underwear. Abdulmutallab was trained in Yemen by al-Qaida.

May 2010: A massive bomb planted by Faisal Shahzad, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Pakistan, fails to explode as planned in an SUV parked in Time Square. He was trained and funded by the Taliban.

October 2010: Chicago synagogues discovered explosives packed inside two printer cartridges shipped by cargo planes from al-Qaida in Yemen. Luckily, the attacks failed.

Mr. President, saying there’s no Islamic terrorism doesn’t make it go away.

And canceling the war on terror doesn’t end it. Face it, we are engaged in a long-term war. And it’s not over yet. (IBD)

But didn’t you know in Orwellian Thought that if you can’t think the thought it doesn’t exist?

And they want you to be just like them….OR ELSE! 🙂