UPDATED: Administration learns from Solyndra scandal

UPDATES BELOW.

Learns nothing, that is.  Here we go again:

The Energy Department on Wednesday approved two loan guarantees worth more than $1 billion for solar energy projects in Nevada and Arizona, two days before the expiration date of a program that has become a rallying cry for Republican critics of the Obama administration’s green energy program.

Energy Secretary Steven Chu said the department has completed a $737 million loan guarantee to Tonopah Solar Energy for a 110 megawatt solar tower on federal land near Tonopah, Nev., and a $337 million guarantee for Mesquite Solar 1 to develop a 150 megawatt solar plant near Phoenix.

The loans were approved under the same program that paid for a $528 million loan to Solyndra Inc., a California solar panel maker that went bankrupt after receiving the money and laid off 1,100 workers. Solyndra is under investigation by the FBI and is the focal point of House hearings on the program.

Corruption.  Incompetence.  Crony capitalism.  2012 can’t get here soon enough.

UPDATE (09/29/2011 – 11:00 AM EST): As Kanaka Girl points out in the comments, the aforementioned Tonopah Solar Energy company getting $737 million in our money to fund 45 jobs (a bargain at $16.3+ million per job) has connections with Nancy Pelosi’s brother-in-law.  Details here.  Yep, Ron Pelosi is executive director of Pacific Corporate Group, an “investment partner” with Tonopah’s parent company SolarReserve.  But hey, I’m sure this is just another big ol’ coinkidink and not a case of the crony capitalism we’ve come to expect from the Chicagoland Thug-in-Chief.

Obama to NC audience: You have 153 “structurally deficient” bridges. NC DoT: You’re about 153 bridges too high in your calculation.

Kinda reminds me of when he lamented the loss of 10,000 people in the Kansas tornado, when the number was 12.  Not 12,000…but 12.  A dozen.  Kinda off by a few powers of 10, huh?

Anywho, B.O. is out there pitching his “jobs plan”, which is essentially Porkulus II (which worked so darned well the first time that they figured they oughta give it a whirl again).  The latest:

Governor Perdue can tell you — there are a lot of roads and a lot of bridges that need fixing.  There is a lot of work that needs to be done in schools and airports.  All these things are in need of repair.  In North Carolina alone, there are 153 structurally deficient bridges that need to be repaired.

The same Governor Perdue who said we ought to suspend elections so ObaMao can force more of his massively unpopular and wildly unsuccessful socialism down our throats?  Boy, is this chick having a bad week or what?

DOT engineers and administrators are fielding calls about the president’s remarks, too. They say the bridges around the Beltline and across the state are safe.

“The key thing is: We don’t have any bridges that are about to fall,” said Wally Bowman, DOT’s division chief for Wake and six neighboring counties. “We don’t have any bridge out there that is structurally inadequate, where it cannot handle the traffic. We make sure those bridges stay in a good state of repair.”

So was it ignorance or lying?  And is either acceptable?

Dem NC governor: Why don’t we suspend the Constitution so we can get stuff done?

Daily Caller has the story, as well as the audio.  Excerpt:

f it was a joke, North Carolina Democratic Governor Bev Perdue needs to polish her delivery.

Newly released audio contradicts the claims of Perdue’s press team that her call Tuesday for suspending Congressional election was a joke or hyperbole. In the recording, her tone is matter-of-fact and her comments are part of a serious speech.

“Listen to the Governor’s words: She wasn’t joking at all,” North Carolina GOP spokesman Rob Lockwood told The Daily Caller. “The congressional Democrats are wildly unpopular in North Carolina, so she may have been trying to invent a solution to save their jobs from public accountability.”

“If it was a joke, what was the set-up?,” Lockwood adds. “What was the punch-line? Where was the pause for laughter? It took them three hours to say it was a ‘joke,’ but when that flopped it became ‘hyperbole.’ We’ll just call it an unconstitutionally bad idea.”

The spin from the left and the MSM (pardon the redundancy) is that the guv was “just kidding”.  Seriously, the humor-impaired left is suddenly in tune with what is funny and what isn’t, and what is intended to be humor and what isn’t?  Anywho, listen to the audio and judge for yourself.

I’m sure the goob(ernor) is worried mightily about her own hide and that of her fellow NC Democrats.  Dems took a HUGE pounding in NC in 2010, and the state legislature turned red for the first time since Reconstruction.  The new legislature is going to redraw districts in very red ways, too.

I’m not worried about elections being suspended because some leftist hayseed thinks they should be.  No, this is just another example in an already-long list of them of leftists holding their own perceived intellect in such a delusional high regard and the intellect of the individual voter in such condescendingly low regard.  Leftists know that their ways aren’t going to be embraced by Normal America, especially in the South, so they need to remove barriers to their socialist utopia…even/especially if the barriers are erected by the “great unwashed”.

Quote of the day, “Obama’s campaign and metaphors” edition

Heh.

President Obama’s chief political adviser is calling President Barack Obama’s road to re-election a “Titanic struggle.”

And David Axelrod also concedes that the Democratic president doesn’t have the wind at his back.

This country would be well served if B.O.’s campaign met the same fate as the Titanic.

Quote of the day, “Obama’s Freudian slip” edition

B.O. straying from the telebinky:

If asking a billionaire to pay the same tax rate as a Jew, uh, as a janitor makes me a warrior for the working class, I wear that with a badge of honor. I have no problem with that.

I guess all Jews and janitors look alike to him, huh?

As John points out at the link, imagine if a Republican had made such a gaffe.  MSNBC would interrupt their non-coverage of Solyndra to make it their talking points du jour.

Feds used taxpayer dollars to buy and sell illegal weapons to Mexican drug lords in “Operation Fast & Furious”

Oh, I’m furious, no doubt.  New details:

Not only did U.S. officials approve, allow and assist in the sale of more than 2,000 guns to the Sinaloa cartel — the federal government used taxpayer money to buy semi-automatic weapons, sold them to criminals and then watched as the guns disappeared.

This disclosure, revealed in documents obtained by Fox News, could undermine the Department of Justice’s previous defense that Operation Fast and Furious was a “botched” operation where agents simply “lost track” of weapons as they were transferred from one illegal buyer to another. Instead, it heightens the culpability of the federal government as Mexico, according to sources, has opened two criminal investigations into the operation that flooded their country with illegal weapons.

So what was Operation Fast and Furious?

Operation Fast and Furious began in October 2009. In it, federal agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives encouraged gun stores to sell weapons to an arms smuggling gang, then watched as the guns crossed the border and were used in crimes. Each month, the agency allowed hundreds of guns to go South, despite opposition from some agents.

All told, the gang spent more than $1.25 million for the illegal guns.

In June 2010, however, the ATF dramatically upped the ante, making the U.S. government the actual “seller” of guns.

According to documents obtained by Fox News, Agent John Dodson was ordered to buy six semi-automatic Draco pistols — two of those were purchased at the Lone Wolf gun store in Peoria, Ariz. An unusual sale, Dodson was sent to the store with a letter of approval from David Voth, an ATF group supervisor.

Dodson then sold the weapons to known illegal buyers, while fellow agents watched from their cars nearby.

This was not a “buy-bust” or a sting operation, where police sell to a buyer and then arrest them immediately afterward. In this case, agents were “ordered” to let the sale go through and follow the weapons to a stash house.

According to sources directly involved in the case, Dodson felt strongly that the weapons should not be abandoned and the stash house should remain under 24-hour surveillance. However, Voth disagreed and ordered the surveillance team to return to the office. Dodson refused, and for six days in the desert heat kept the house under watch, defying direct orders from Voth.

A week later, a second vehicle showed up to transfer the weapons. Dodson called for an interdiction team to move in, make the arrest and seize the weapons. Voth refused and the guns disappeared with no surveillance.

David Voth and a slew of others within the administration should be fired over this.  With the exception of FNC, the rest of the MSM is quieter than MSNBC’s prime time coverage of the Solyndra scandal.

Another Solyndra creditor? The California Democrat Party!

I’m sure this is a big coinkidink:

Out of the hundreds of out-of-work employees, vendors, investors and other creditors in the bankruptcy of government-backed solar-panel maker Solyndra LLC, one name stands out: the California Democratic Party.

Why California Democrats would be creditor to a company that received more than a half-billion dollars in federal loans to build a solar-panel plant isn’t clear. Even party officials say they’re not sure.

The California Democratic Party’s communications director, Tenoch Flores, said the organization was not owed “any funds in any form” by the California-based company. He said he was unclear why the party would be listed as a creditor in Solyndra’s bankruptcy filing.

Additionally:

Under a policy first issued by the White House in 2009, federal agencies were required to disclose lobbying for stimulus funds. McBee Strategic Consulting, a lobby firm then under contract with Solyndra, said it had contacted the Energy Department in the first and third quarters of 2009 regarding the Recovery Act, according to records filed under the Lobbying Disclosure Act (LDA).

Yet a review by The Hill of the more than 40 lobbyist contact disclosure forms regarding the stimulus posted online by the Energy Department reveals no contact between the department and Solyndra’s lobbyists.

The only capitalism that the Economic Illiterate in Chief and his party’s mouth-breathing retards understand is crony capitalism.  And he’s not any good at that, either.

Once again, Chicagoland thugonomics on full display.

Democrats: You know, Hopenchange may doom us in 2012

While Debbie What’s-her-name Schmuck is trying to polish a turd, other Dems are much more realistic than she is.  From Politico:

Obama looms large in every calculus for House control. Buffeted by sinking approval ratings that recently hit sub-40 percent lows, Democrats privately express worry about running on a ticket with his name at the top.

“It didn’t have to be this way,” said another House Democrat who requested anonymity in order to speak candidly. “Obama’s presidency has fizzled. It’s going to be every person for himself in 2012. There just won’t be any coattails, and any effect he does have on the ballot will hurt us.”

“It’s hard because we’re inherently linked to the president and his number,” said a top Democratic operative close to party leadership. “It’s got us all pessimistic.”

Let’s see: B.O. is way upside-down in FL (sucks for Obama’s lap dog, too, in Sen. Bill Nelson).  A Dem poll shows 60 battleground districts all trending Republican, more so than in other elections (including last year’s bloodbath).  ObaMao’s stewardship of the economy has us longing for the Bush economy that supposedly sucked.  So yeah, I’d say that the pessimism is warranted.

Obama embarrasses himself, US, in group photo

I thought at first this was a photoshop when Kanaka Girl sent it to me.  But no, it’s making its way around Al Gore’s invention faster than Michael Moore getting down to CiCi’s for the pizza buffet.  So, what right-wing blog did I cherry pick this from?

Um…MSNBC.  Dude beside him whose face is obscured must be thinking “Move your hand, pal.  No one can see me.”

“Hey, everyone, look at me!  As usual, it’s all about me!  But enough about me, let’s talk about…me.”

Democrats: We want jobs created! CEO: I was fined by the feds for creating jobs.

Peter Schiff, CEO of Euro Pacific Capital, tells Congress about his adventures in hiring.  Video at RCP, an excerpt of which follows:

In my own business, securities regulations have prohibited me from hiring brokers for more than three years. I was even fined fifteen thousand dollar expressly for hiring too many brokers in 2008. In the process I incurred more than $500,000 in legal bills to mitigate a more severe regulatory outcome as a result of hiring too many workers. I have also been prohibited from opening up additional offices. I had a major expansion plan that would have resulted in my creating hundreds of additional jobs. Regulations have forced me to put those jobs on hold.

Huh.  Regulations are job-killers?  Who knew?

Howard Dean: Yeah, Obama was lying with “if you like your plan, you get to keep it!”

Story and video here.  Details:

Former Democratic National Committee Chairman, and doctor, Howard Dean backed a McKinsey & Co. survey today that found that almost a third of private-sector employers will drop their employee health insurance coverage when Obamacare’s government-managed insurance exchanges come online.

Dean told Morning Joe, “The fact is it is very good for small business. There was a McKinsey study, which the Democrats don’t like, but I do, and I think its true. Most small businesses are not going to be in the health insurance business anymore after this thing goes into effect.”

The reason Democrats fought so hard to dismiss the McKinsey survey when it was released is because its conclusion undermines two major claims  Obama made during health care debate: “If you like your health plan, you can keep it” and “It will not add one penny to the deficit.”

Fellow Morning Joe guest former New York Gov. George Pataki immediately hit the first point: “The only way its a help is if they drop coverage and their employees would all of a sudden have to go on the exchange, which is what of course the president promised wouldn’t happen.”

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) premised their Obamacare score on the assumption that only 7 percent of employers would drop their employee health plans. If the percentage is closer to the 30 percent, as the McKinsey survey results predict, Obamacare’s price tag would rise by almost $1 trillion.

For the left, this is a feature and not a bug.

But hey, the feds have done such an awesome job managing the Postal Service, Social Security, Medicare, Amtrak, etc., so we can expect that same level of competence and efficiency when it comes to running our health care, right?

MA Governor: Car-Free Week is good enough for thee, but not for me!

Typical liberal:

Governor Deval Patrick did walk to a morning event on Beacon Hill — a stone’s throw from the Statehouse — but was quick to sheepishly admit that he probably hadn’t set the best example earlier in the day.

“You got me!” grinned the Governor.
…
One problem.

The Governor himself recently declared this “Car-Free Week,” urging people to ditch their autos in favor of public transportation, biking, walking, or at the very least carpooling — espousing the environmental and health benefits of that switch.

Liberals are fine and dandy forcing their absurd ways on everyone else, so long as they themselves don’t have to practice what they preach.

Obama administration pressured not one, but TWO, witnesses to alter testimony regarding donor’s company

Last week:

The four-star Air Force general who oversees U.S. Space Command walked into a highly secured room on Capitol Hill a week ago to give a classified briefing to lawmakers and staff, and dropped a surprise. Pressed by members, Gen. William Shelton said the White House tried to pressure him to change his testimony to make it more favorable to a company tied to a large Democratic donor.

The episode—confirmed by The Daily Beast in interviews with administration officials and the chairman of a congressional oversight committee—is the latest in a string of incidents that have given Republicans sudden fodder for questions about whether the Obama administration is politically interfering in routine government matters that affect donors or fundraisers. Already, the FBI and a House committee are investigating a federal loan guarantee to a now failed solar firm called Solyndra that is tied to a large Obama fundraiser.

Now the Pentagon has been raising concerns about a new wireless project by a satellite broadband company in Virginia called LightSquared, whose majority owner is an investment fund run by Democratic donor Philip Falcone. Gen. Shelton was originally scheduled to testify Aug. 3 to a House committee that the project would interfere with the military’s sensitive Global Positioning Satellite capabilities, which control automated driving directions and missile targeting, among other things.

Today:

Philip Falcone, the billionaire political donor whose hedge fund owns a majority financial stake in the satellite-wireless company LightSquared, says he told anyone in the federal government willing to listen that testing his company’s signal for GPS interference on commercial and military equipment “should not take that long.”

“Everything is already set up, the labs are set up. All we need are the list of devices that need to be tested. We have been telling the people who are asking for the testing of this for months now,” he said in an interview Monday.

Not all the bureaucrats who deal with GPS for the military and the federal government agreed. Still, the White House’s Office of Management and Budget urged federal officials testifying before two House oversight hearings in the last month to say they hoped testing for GPS and LightSquared interference would take only 90 days, according to interviews.

The Daily Beast obtained the paragraph the OMB asked government witnesses to insert into their recent congressional testimony, which says in part, “We hope that testing can be complete within 90 days.”

How many more examples of this kind of typical Chicagoland corruption will be emerging in the coming weeks?  Looks like the corruption inherent in the Solyndra debacle was not an isolated incident.

UPDATE: Obama’s newest tax proposal: the “Warren Buffett” tax

UPDATES BELOW.

Details:

President Barack Obama, in a populist step designed to appeal to voters, will propose a “Buffett Tax” on people making more than $1 million a year as part of his deficit recommendations to Congress on Monday.

Such a proposal, among suggestions to a congressional supercommittee expected to seek up to $3 trillion in deficit savings over 10 years, would appeal to his Democratic base ahead of the 2012 election but likely not raise much in revenues.

White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer said in a tweet on Saturday the tax would act as “a kind of AMT” (Alternative Minimum Tax) aimed at ensuring millionaires pay at least as much tax as middle-class families.

The “Buffett Tax” refers to billionaire U.S. investor Warren Buffett, who wrote earlier this year that rich people like him often pay less in tax than those who work for them due to loopholes in the tax code, and can afford to pay more.

As Ed points out, the AMT is so effective at keeping the rich from avoiding paying “their fair share” that…it needs to be patched and tweaked every year to keep from crushing the middle class.  So yeah, let’s implement another AMT, on account of how wildly successful the current AMT has been.

But if I read anything else alleging that Buffett pays less in taxes than his secretary, I’m going to barf.  Projectile, of the Linda Blair variety.

First of all, he does not.  He pays far more in taxes than his secretary does, about 201x as much.  It’s not even close.

Secondly, this is a man who has hired accountants to determine how to minimize the amount of taxes that he needs to pay…only to turn around and complain that these accountants have minimized the amount of taxes that he is paying?  Friggin’ hypocrite.

Thirdly, if Buffett feels like he is undertaxed (i.e. his accountants did too good of a job in minimizing his tax liability), he is more than free to cut a check to Uncle Sam in the amount he feels he was undertaxed.

Finally, I’d be content if Buffett would just pay the d#mn taxes he already owes the feds before complaining that he should be paying more.

I find it funny that liberals point to rates/percentages when it suits their needs, but then point to dollars when that number is more to their liking.  Remember when the Bush tax cuts went into effect?  “Tax breaks for the rich!” was the lie of the day.  The rate reduction of the upper income tax bracket was a much smaller rate reduction than that of the lower brackets, so the lower brackets got a bigger rate reduction.  In other words, the poor and middle class got to keep a bigger percentage (i.e. rate) of their money than the evil rich did.

So how did the left react?  Predictably (and emotionally), of course!  “Why, this rich guy was paying $1 million in taxes, and now he’s paying $970,000!  That’s a $30,000 tax cut!  The poor factory worker didn’t get a $30k tax cut, now did he?”  No, but the factory worker got a bigger percentage (i.e. rate) of his taxes cut, and probably feels it much bigger than the rich guy.  Yet the left howled like Barney Frank at a Chippendales show that the rich guy got a bigger dollars-based tax cut than the poor.

In other words, when it comes to tax cuts, it’s the dollars that are important and not the rate that is important.

But now, useful idiot Warren Buffett comes along and says he doesn’t pay enough in taxes (not that he actually intends to do so, as demonstrated above).  He pays far more in tax dollars than nearly everyone, but he and his leftist enablers complain that the rates are unfair.  In other words, now the feels that dollars are not important and the rates are important.  Geez, you emotional twits, pick a story and stick to it, will you?

As has been shown before, you could tax 100% of the income of every “rich” person in America, and assuming that they would be stupid enough to keep working for free, you still wouldn’t come close to paying down the deficit and debt that ObaMao has run up.  The best way…nay, the only way…is to grow the economy in such a way that more people are working, which means that more people are paying taxes.  But when you have an economic illiterate ideologue who is more interested in class warfare and socialist redistribution (“spread the wealth around”) than in reviving the economy, what we are seeing today is more than predictable.

UPDATE (09/20/2011 – 07:00 AM EST): The Wall Street Journal illustrates Buffett’s lie:

There’s one small problem: The entire Buffett Rule premise is false, as the nearby table shows. In 2008, the last year for which such data are available, the IRS reports that those who made more than $1 million in adjusted gross income paid an average income tax rate of 23.3%.

That’s slightly lower than the 24.1% rate paid by those making between $500,000 and $1 million, probably because the richest are like Mr. Buffett and earn more from capital gains and dividends. The rate for a relative handful of the rich—400 people—fell to 18%, the modern equivalent of Barr’s Gang of 21. But nearly all millionaires still paid a rate that is more than twice the 8.9% average rate paid by those earning between $50,000 and $100,000, and more than three times the 7.2% average rate paid by those earning less than $50,000. The larger point is that the claim that CEOs are routinely paying lower tax rates than their secretaries is Omaha hokum.

If Mr. Obama really wants all of these people to pay even more in taxes, there are only two ways to do so. One is to raise tax rates on capital gains, dividends and other investment income that is taxed at 15% and represents a great deal of income for the wealthy. This is probably Mr. Buffett’s tax secret, though to our knowledge he hasn’t released his returns to the public.

UPDATE (09/20/2011 – 09:40 AM EST): Even the AP gets off their duff to fact-check Obullsh#t’s and Buffett’s claims.  Conclusion: FAIL.  The great Vincent Gambini had something to say about that:

Solyndra scandal worsening

I’ll shoot straight with you, folks: I haven’t been following the Solyndra scandal all that closely.  But I am now.

The latest:

The White House faced mounting political complications as a second top fundraiser for President Obama was linked to a federal loan guarantee program that backed a now-bankrupt Silicon Valley solar energy company, and as two California lawmakers called for investigations of a state tax break granted to the firm.

Steve Spinner, who helped monitor the Energy Department’s issuance of $25 billion in government loan guarantees to renewable energy projects, was one of Obama’s top fundraisers in 2008 and is raising money for the president’s 2012 reelection campaign.

Spinner did not have any role in the selection of applicants for the loan program and, in fact, was recused from the decision to grant a $535-million loan guarantee to Solyndra Inc. because his wife’s law firm represented the company, administration officials said Friday.

But Spinner’s role as a top official in the Energy Department program, which had not been previously revealed, is likely to spur new inquiries into whether political influence played a role in the handling of the “green” energy fund. Solyndra faces a congressional probe, a criminal investigation and separate internal inquiries at the Energy and Treasury departments.

As Ace notes, Spinner “recused himself from formally making the decision, they say, but he may not have recused himself from influencing the decision”.

In the beginning, all I knew about Solyndra was that B.O. touted them as model of efficiency in developing clean energy, only to watch them go belly-up and take half a billion of our tax dollars with them.  That was irritating enough.  But now to see that the administration was warned to NOT subsidize the company and proceeded anyway, only to discover that B.O.’s fundraisers were linked to the loan program?  The corruption inherent in Chicagoland politics is on full display in the White House, and with the economy (and his poll numbers) in the crapper, this is the last thing that Chairman Zero needs to have happen right now.

Politico theorizes that Obama’s woes with his own party are because…you’ve GOT to be kidding me…he’s not leftist ENOUGH?

Dude, if this is the pony they’re gonna bet Aunt Edna’s money on, I am soooo cool with that!  😆  Excerpt:

It’s open season on President Barack Obama — and that’s just from members of his own party.

With frustration and disappointment mounting from stinging defeats in Tuesday’s two special elections and over Obama’s jobs plan, the media is filled on Thursday with Democrats on the record publicly questioning and doubting the president and some of his policies, and a few even unleashing biting criticism.

Rep. Eliot Engel, a Bronx Democrat, offered his harsh take on the party’s loss in the New York special, focusing his attack on the president’s stance on Israel.

“What I get in my district is that people want the president to stand up for what he believes,” Engel told the Washington Post. “They want him to stand up to the Republicans; not cave in; stop giving up the store…And then I also get in my district a lot of Jewish people dissatisfied with Obama’s policies; what they’ve perceived to be his lack of support for Israel.”

“Maybe this will send a message,” he added.

Note that Engel says Hussein’s “perceived lack of support for Israel”?  What is Engel saying, that Jews are too stupid to know what real lack of support for Israel is?  Classic liberal: You’re too stupid to know any better, but luckily for you, you’ve got me to do your thinking for you.

Here’s a hoot:

Democratic Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania said he was concerned about the plan being offered as a single bill, telling the Times: “I think the American people are very skeptical of big pieces of legislation. For that reason alone I think we should break it up.”

Casey is a freshman Senator, up for re-election in PA next year, and Obama is upside-down in the state big time (those bitter clingers!) and may take Casey down with him.  But Casey has the onions to criticize “big pieces of legislation” that need to be broken up, when the hypocrite voted for ObamaCare?

Point to ponder #1: Since we’ve been told for 3+ years that criticism of B.O. is based largely on racism, and since liberals are now criticizing Dear Leader, can we not logically deduce that liberals are racist?  😆

Point to ponder #2: How soon until these and other critical Democrats wind up on Attack Watch?

Yet another instance of “we have to pass the ObamaCare bill to see what’s in it” story

You know, I’m starting to get the sneaking suspicion that lawmakers and the president didn’t actually read the ObamaCare bill before it was signed in to law.  Latest development:

Even as leading Democrats offered assurances to the contrary, government experts repeatedly warned that a new long-term care insurance plan could go belly up, saddling taxpayers with another underfunded benefit program, according to emails disclosed by congressional investigators.

Part of President Barack Obama’s health care law, the program is in limbo as a congressional debt panel searches for budget savings and behind the scenes, administration officials scramble to find a viable financing formula.

A longstanding priority of the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports program, or CLASS, was spliced into the health care law despite nagging budget worries. Administration emails and documents reveal that alarms were sounded earlier and more widely than previously thought. Congressional Republicans seeking repeal of the program provided the materials to The Associated Press.

“Seems like a recipe for disaster to me,” William Marton, a senior aging policy official in the administration, wrote in an October 2009 email. Marton explained his concern that large numbers of healthy people would not willingly sign up for CLASS, creating a predicament in which soaring premiums for a smaller group of frail beneficiaries would destabilize the program.

That central design flaw has dogged CLASS from the drawing board, and it may turn out to be insurmountable without making the program mandatory for most workers. CLASS remains vulnerable to repeal.  (Another individual mandate?  Huh.  Imagine that. – CL)

Item #1 on the agenda on Jan. 21, 2013, unless the Supreme Court beats us to the punch: Repeal ObamaCare.

Why does Obama hate poor people?

Heh.

Yesterday, it was announced that an astounding 1 in 6 Americans are living in poverty. President Obama’s response? To demand a tax on donations to soup kitchens and other charities that help people desperately in need. The President’s proposal will impact approximately 40% of all the tax deductible contributions, and essentially penalize soup kitchens, hospitals, and churches that provide essential services to those who need them most. It’s no wonder this tax hike has been rejected on both sides of the aisle.

Heartless Marxist.

DNC Chair Schultz: We lost “a very difficult district” in NY-09

Weiner’s seat went to Republican Bob Turner in last night’s special election.  So how did Debbie What’sHerName Schmuck explain it away?  This is how:

Democratic party leaders insisted the loss wasn’t a harbinger of things to come. “It’s a very difficult district for Democrats,” said Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, noting its Democratic margins there tend to be the second lowest of all the districts in New York City.

If, by a “very difficult district”, she means a district that hasn’t sent a Republican to the House since 1922, then yeah.  Then again, maybe she meant that it is a very difficult district FROM NOW ON, thanks to Chairman Zero’s policies?  😆

By the way, how’s this for a kneeslapper?  Remember when Democrats Bill Owens (NY-23) and Kathy Hocul (NY-26) won traditionally safe red districts, Pelosi et al told us that it was a repudiation of Republican policies.  Now that a seat that has been blue since the Harding administration has flipped red, suddenyl we’re hearing “Nah, this was a local race, not a referendum on Obama or liberal policies.”  If only that were true.

Myopia’s not very attractive on you, Mrs. Hyphen-Democrat.

Crush Liberalism gets nominated for “Malkin Award”

Boy, the barrage of vile comments that I have received over the last couple of days has been stunning.

It seems that the moonbatosphere is atwitter with my 9/11 post and none other than the Excitable Queen himself, Andrew “Trig isn’t Sarah Palin’s kid because everyone knows that it’s teenage girls and NOT 40+ year old women who give birth to Downs Syndrome kids” Sullivan, pushed some traffic my way.  His braindead cowardly minions have provided me with some pure comedy gold, though.  If only their comments weren’t laced with bilous invective, some of them might have seen the light of day here.  Oh, well, I’ll settle for these morons proving my point that liberalism is all about feeling, not thinking.

Anywho, Power Glutes himself has nominated me for one of his “Malkin Awards”, which is defined on Wikipedia’s Sully page thusly:

The Michelle Malkin Award is named after blogger Michelle Malkin. It is for shrill, hyperbolic, divisive and intemperate right-wing rhetoric.

The guy who is repelled by Palin’s icky girlparts but nonetheless endures uterus spelunking to determine if her Downs Syndrom child is really hers has the temerity to talk about “shrill, hyperbolic” rhetoric.  Yeah, targeting a special needs baby is real macho, but lamenting the state of the country since 9/11 is way out of bounds.

At any rate, I wear with honor Sully’s nomination for an award named after a fine, intelligent conservative woman that drives the left even nuttier than they already are.  To be mentioned in the same blogging breath as Mrs. Malkin…why, I’m not worthy, I tell ya!  😆

Moonbats: the other white meat.

Quote of the day, “health care and socialism” edition

From the American Enterprise Institute:

Ironically, many of the problems in our current healthcare system that lead to demands for public policy fixes—the underpayment of primary care providers, overpayment for certain specialty procedures, excessive payments for medical supplies—actually originate in government-run health programs. Expecting things to get better by expanding the reach of government in medicine appears to be a triumph of hope over experience.

How odd!  I mean, the government is so efficient with what it runs (Post Office, the VA, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Social Security, Medicare), so why shouldn’t we allow the feds to replicate the same level of success they’ve had in the aforementioned programs and agencies with respect to our health care system?

Pawlenty endorses Romney

The same guy who lampooned Romney on “ObamneyCare” now endorses him.  Shows that the establishment guys stick together, no?

Here’s a rundown, if you want it.

Reflections on 9/11, a decade later

For those of you on the left, feel free to Google “9/11/2001” if the date doesn’t ring a bell for you.

All of us who weren’t in a drug-induced stupor recall exactly what we were doing when the attacks came and when we first got word of it.  I’ll spare you the play-by-play of what I was doing, other than to say that the first plane hitting the WTC made me think it was an aviation accident.  Obviously, the second plane hitting the other tower minutes later cleared up that misconception.

In the days immediately following, I had never seen patriotism and unity like that in my life, and I haven’t seen it since.  I doubt I ever will again, either.  I recall getting chills watching then-House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt (a man I did not hold in high esteem) give an impassioned “This is war!” speech that drew a standing ovation from the entire chamber.  I remember legislators falling over themselves to shake our Commander in Chief’s hand during Bush’s joint Congressional appearance a few days later.

Then, three years later…the country was one state away (Ohio) from sending to the Oval Office a liberal Masshole with a shameful record of crapping on the American soldiers and palling around with Hanoi Jane.  His “service” to this country was a resume-padding means-to-an-end for that schmuck.  Yet here we were as a country, pretty much back to the attitude we had before 9/11/2001, hung up on matters that should have paled in comparison to the big matter of “Who will keep us safer?”  Luckily, the blueblood with a lackluster record of achievement was found to be the weaker link.  But were our attention spans really that short?

Then the unthinkable happened: Seven years after that fateful day in 2001, the country elected an unaccomplished leftist ideologue who had never run so much as a lemonade stand, but had plans on bringing the American economy to its knees worse than it already was.  Why did Americans do such a foolish thing?  Because the brother was adept at reading a teleprompter.  Because he could orate in glittering generalities and vague, non-specific niceties.  Because it was the “in” thing to do, so we could tell our friends and neighbors “See?  I’m not racist!  I voted for the black guy!”  Because he would give us more government goodies than the old dude who, unlike Kerry, actually did serve his country with honor and dignity and withstood years of torture and imprisonment rather than crap on his fellow soldiers.  With the willing accomplices in the kamikaze media, it was a fait accompli.

Sure, there are some signs that the country is waking up to its mistake of 2008.  But the damage has been done, possibly irreparably so, and I submit to you that the damage done by four years of liberal legislative assault and 2.5 years of socialist executive rule far exceeds the carnage that was experienced ten years ago.  As I watched the History Channel this week, all those memories came rushing back to me, along with the realization that our country doesn’t learn its lessons well anymore.

I pray for the family members and friends of those whose lives were lost ten years ago today.  Their pain is a kind that I hope I never experience, ever. I also pray for my country: may it return to the roots that made us great and the envy of the world.

UPDATE:  Welcome, moonbats!  I see I got a plug from Her Highness, Queen Andrew the Power Glutes, and Excitable Andy’s pals at the Village Idiot’s Voice.  What, were the welfare lines closed today?  Anywho, the honor’s all…well, yours.

Weiner’s district in danger of flipping in special election?

A district that would send a leftist #sshat like disgraced former Congressman Anthony Weiner to D.C. is, to quote Captain Obvious, a little left of center.  It was assumed to fall easily into Democrat hands after Weinergate prompted the resignation.

Well, the seat is actually in danger of flipping red in a special election.  Details:

For Democrats who hadn’t already started to panic over Tuesday’s special election in New York’s Brooklyn- and Queens-based 9th Congressional district, now would be a good time to start.

Republican Bob Turner led Democrat David Weprin by 6 points in the nonpartisan Siena College poll released this morning.

The nonpartisan survey conducted Tuesday through late Thursday found 50 percent of those polled would vote for Turner if the election were held “today” while 44 percent would vote for Weprin. Six percent of the 886 likely voters polled said they were undecided.

The numbers have flipped from a Siena poll a month ago, when Weprin had a 6-point lead. …

The seat may very well remain blue, and even if it flips red now, it will almost certainly revert to blue form next November.  That said, it is hilarious to see the Dems dropping a half mill on a race that shouldn’t even be competitive.  Such is the plight of the donks these days!  😆

Quote of the day, “Obama looks to Carter’s re-election strategy” edition

Many Democrats and media members (pardon the redundancy) have stated, with enthusiasm and wishcasting, that Truman was unpopular in 1948, yet he won re-election.  The hope is that President Zero (as in zero jobs created) will be able to replicate that approach.  However, Jay Cost has a great piece explaining why that is impossible for B.O. to do.

It’s a great piece, and I encourage you to read it.  But for me, I liked this part about how the Man-Child is going to run his campaign:

In fact, the party’s only substantial domestic achievement since the Beatles broke up is Obamacare, which is massively unpopular. The RealClearPolitics average has the bill pulling in just 36 percent support, while the recent Fox News poll found approval for Obama on the health care issue at a measly 41 percent. So, Truman could tour the country saying that a vote for Dewey would destroy the New Deal, but Obama can’t go around saying that a vote for Perry or Romney will destroy Obamacare because that might actually help the GOP nominee!

Broadly speaking, Truman could win amid tough times in 1948 because the country had confidence in the Democratic party’s ability to govern. That simply does not exist today, which is why the Truman model won’t work for Obama.

Instead, it looks more and more like Obama is actually going to run Carter’s 1980 campaign. Sure, he has nothing popular to show for his four years in office, but he’s still better than the out-and-out radical the GOP just nominated. Will that work for Obama?

Well … did it work for Carter?

Worked out well for the country, not so well for Carter.

That will, by default, be Obama’s strategy: “Vote for me, because while I certainly do suck, I suck much less than that guy.”

Obama for “corporate jets” tax break, before he was against it…before he was for it again

Dude…seriously?

It seems like it was just yesterday that Obama was decrying “tax breaks for
corporate jet owners”. It wasn’t. It was the end of June.

But it was just yesterday that news leaked about what would be in Obama’s prime time Thursday pivot speech to jobs, jobs, jobs (h/t Ace).

You know what’s reported to be part of his plan?

Extending the tax break for corporate jet owners:

Obama also is expected to continue for one year a tax break for businesses
that allows them to deduct the full value of new equipment. The president
and Congress negotiated that provision into law for 2011 last December.

He’s a friggin’ caricature by now.

Obama’s new jobs proposal sounds awfully like old jobs proposal

It’s been his singular focus. Or something.

Humor of the day, “liberals and economics” edition

Paul Krugman just called to say “I don’t get it!”

Social Security IS a Ponzi scheme

Gov. Rick Perry was catching hell for having the nads to state the obvious: Social Security is, by its very nature, a Ponzi scheme.  The same thing for which Bernie Madoff and Nevin Shapiro went to prison is exactly how our government runs Social Security.  Economist Dean Kalahar explains, an excerpt of which follows:

In simple terms the FICA program is a pyramid or Ponzi scheme. In the fraud, people on the top of the pyramid collect as long as they can get others below them to pay in. Now as the baby boom retires, the takers outstrip the payers. And like all Ponzi schemes, this is when the system will collapse like a house of cards and take with it the American economy.

The day of reckoning is here. Not even the all powerful OZ can spend other people’s money, write an IOU to himself, and then on some future day expect to use those IOUs to fund the Emerald City. It’s time to pull back the curtains and admit “the emperor has no clothes.”

The good news is that it’s in everyone’s self-interest; liberals, conservatives, left, right, Democrat and Republican, to stop in the runaway train and de-energize the third rail before it runs us over. All aboard!

An ostrich just called to say he doesn’t seen anything.

Bachmann: If elected, I will abolish the federal Dept. of Education

I’m gonna go out on a limb and guess the MSM and the left (pardon the redundancy) will have a conniption over this:

Painting herself as a “constitutional conservative” Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann told Sen. Jim DeMint’s forum Monday that if elected president she would look to get rid of the Department of Education, among other things.

“Because the Constitution does not specifically enumerate nor does it give to the federal government the role and duty to superintend over education that historically has been held by the parents and by local communities and by state governments,” she said, responding to a question by DeMint, a popular figure among the tea party movement.

Now I’ll admit that Bachmann is not my first, second, or even third choice among GOP prez hopefuls.  That said, why would it be crazy to shiite-can the Dept. of Education?

First of all, there is no question that “one size fits all” when it comes to education is patently absurd.  There is no way that D.C. can better manage schools than local and state governments can do.

Secondly, how did the republic survive before the Dept. of Ed was founded in 1980?

Thirdly, our nation’s test scores have dropped precipitously ever since D.C. created the behemoth.  If you want to dismiss any cause-and-effect here, be my guest.  But I won’t.

Finally, it’s clear that our Founding Fathers never intended for the federal government to meddle in educational affairs of cities, counties, and states.  Nowhere in the Constitution is the federal government authorized to educate your children or mine.  Judging by how poorly educated our kids are in matters related to civics, I’d say that D.C. needs to butt out of molding our kids’ minds and let parents and local governments do our jobs.  Everything D.C. touches turns to crap, anyway.