Wednesday - October 24, 2012
This Is SO NOT SPARTA
Only 300? Several orders of magnitude off the mark in my opinion. Puh-leez. Go back and find the next 300,000 now.
Colorado finds 300 more suspected noncitizens on voter rolls
DENVER – There are 300 more suspected noncitizens on Colorado’s voter rolls, Secretary of State Gessler announced Tuesday in the latest chapter of a contentious national debate over what Republicans say is vulnerability in the voting system.
The latest figures are from the 3,903 people who received letters from Gessler’s office questioning their citizenship in August. During a first round of checks, Gessler said 141 others were found to be possible noncitizens based on a federal immigration database.
Critics of Gessler, who is a Republican, have questioned his political motives and argue the checks have the potential to disenfranchise eligible voters. Some of the people who have received letters questioning their citizenship have turned out to be U.S. citizens, and a few of the original 141 have maintained they are citizens.
The majority of the people who are suspected to be noncitizens and on the rolls are unaffiliated voters, which make up more than half, and Democrats, according to data provided by Gessler’s office. The proportion in party registration breakdown is similar to the overall number of people who received letters in August.
State election officials did additional checks this month after obtaining immigration identification numbers from the state division of motor vehicles for all of people who received letters. They received letters because at one point they showed proof they weren’t U.S. citizens, such as a green card, when obtaining a driver’s license.
On the one hand, I’m glad Colorado is doing something about mistakes in their voter rolls. On the other hand, gee whiz, they’re kind of late to the party when Election Day is right around the corner and many of these illegal voters may have already sent in an absentee ballot.
What I would like to see is this story repeated several thousand times over, as every state, every county, every town purges and purifies it’s voter rolls, every 3 months. It is entirely inexcusable in this day and age of computerized everything: the data validation and cross database checking for even a million voters shouldn’t take more than a few seconds. And you had best believe that all levels of government are digitally connected, especially after 9/11.
Frankly, a properly kept voter roll is one of the key points to restoring faith in our government, so I’d like to see those officials who stand against this tell us why. Offer us your reasoning and your mea culpas; I’ll even give you a nice tall wooden platform to orate from. One with a trapdoor in it and a bit of sturdy overhead scaffolding above it.
Posted by Drew458
on 10/24/2012 at 09:20 AM
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Permalink • Friday - October 12, 2012
That Was So Unexpected
A sharp drop in the number of weekly jobless claims filed last week was caused by the failure of one large state to report all of its claims,, a Labor Department spokesman confirmed to FOX Business.
Initial jobless claims, which are a measure of the number of people recently laid off, fell by 30,000 to a seasonally adjusted 339,000, the lowest level in more than four years.
But the Labor Department spokesman said the numbers were skewed by one large state that underreported its data. The spokesman declined to identify the state, but economists believe California is the only state large enough to have such a significant impact on the overall numbers.
According to the spokesman, the reason that state’s claims numbers fell short was because the state left out a pile of unprocessed claims related to seasonal factors around the beginning of the fourth quarter, which began Oct. 1.
In a research note, Stephen Stanley of Pierpont Securities summed up the data: “In short, this reading is worthless in terms of informing on the general economy.”
California huh? And it was an accident because the unionized government employees didn’t get their task done on time? Yeah right. Pull the other one, it’s got bells on.
Coming a month ahead of the presidential election, some have suggested that the numbers are being manipulated for political purposes. Specifically, some supporters of Republican candidate Mitt Romney have accused the Obama Administration of doctoring the numbers to support President Obama’s re-election bid.
The White House and the Labor Department have denied the charges.
Denied the charges? Well now, that IS news.
Not.
update: Well yeah, all of that, plus this. Category shifting can hide plenty; it’s a form of accounting.
Posted by Drew458
on 10/12/2012 at 05:41 AM
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Permalink • Sunday - September 30, 2012
‘I have struck a city — a real city — and they call it Chicago, It is inhabited by
Last year sometime, I posted an angry rant with regard to the treatment given my wife by agents of the KGB, working for customs and immigration at LAX.
Stone faced, unhelpful, arrogant and petty in the extreme. Most regulars of BMEWS know the story so I won’t go into all of it again. For those who don’t know, perhaps with some help from Drew we can find a link to my original post and include a link here to that old post. If that’s possible. ??
I tried and failed to find it. ?? I am hopeless at this sometimes.
Well anyway, I came across an article in the Daily Mail a few days ago and didn’t get a chance to post it and so I am doing it now.
I guess Chicago immigration can be a bit of a challenge too.
Next year we have to return to the states for a short time and do something about a few items in storage, and see to legal matters.
Neither of us are looking forward to it, and the wife especially is really tired of being treated as though she’s a potential threat or trying to sneak into the USA illegally. Good grief, she collects SS after having been gainfully employed for 39 or 40 years. So I really well understand the writer’s frustration with what he faced in Chicago. After what we went thru 2wice bmews, as in twice, I am not even upset in the least by his comments and the desire at first, to just say the hell with it and turn around and go home. Oh how I wanted to do that, but couldn’t. I was already home. It was my wife who discovered that her home of some 40 years wasn’t home anymore. And before anyone suggests dual citizenship, HA! Check out the rules on that baby. They make it impossible.
If you don’t feel like surfing through a lot of print, then simply pick up a phone and call immigration and ask about that and how to qualify. Listen to what they tell ya.
So then .... here’s the article that started me off on another rant.
Why has friendly, beautiful Chicago got the second city blues?
By Martin Samuel
Chicago is feeling a little left out. America’s second city wonders why it attracts a fraction of the millions who visit New York, Los Angeles, Miami or Las Vegas.
It has a memorable skyline, great architecture and one of the world’s finest art galleries. It has a musical heritage second to none and superb restaurants. The lake is gorgeous.
Yet in 2010, while New York received 9.7 million visitors from abroad, Chicago entertained just 1.1 million, scraping into America’s top ten tourist destinations in last place. So where are all the people? Here’s a clue: maybe they’re at the airport.
Those arriving in Chicago on Monday this week took two hours to be processed at O’Hare. Regular visitors in the queue acknowledged this as standard. They reckon the country has no money for Homeland Security.
So we waited, in a soulless, low-ceilinged hall, with no mobile telephone signal to contact the outside world, until the single customs official on duty could be bothered to let us through. At one stage she went away and we were left staring at empty booths.
It was almost like a social experiment. How long could they humiliate people this way before there was a riot? Three hours, four hours? Maybe six? And this line was only for visitors. Passengers in transit and United States nationals had their own territory. They weren’t moving too fast, either.
It wasn’t as if ten planes had arrived simultaneously. This was a lone flight from London plus the residue of another from the east. And by the end of this voyage into tedium, most had decided that (a) America was skint and its politics bankrupt; (b) America was rude, inhospitable and had no respect for humanity; (c) they weren’t coming back, if they could help it.
Which is a pity, because Chicago is a fantastic city, one of the greatest in the world. The people are friendly, the urban landscape quite beautiful. I want to implore you to go.
But would I return? I’m not sure. I certainly wouldn’t change planes there because I don’t enjoy being treated like dirt.
And there is the irony. How can a city that wants to promote itself to the world, and a country that wants to promote its ideas and culture around the globe, allow this to be the first experience of any visitor?
How can it greet you, not with a smile, but the brusque suspicion that you are here to blow the place up? There is no courtesy on entry, none of the eagerness to please that is found beyond.
It is the same at the embassy. Those who have obtained an American visa will know the drill by now. The appointment, the wait, the inconvenience — no electronic devices, even electronic key fobs, allowed on the premises, and nowhere to store them — and then the incredible rudeness of the staff. It is a horrid, dehumanising experience.
Nobody who has been through it would think fondly of Chicago, of any American city, or American democracy. It smacks of what outsiders see as the worst of America: bullying arrogance and a refusal to engage in a civilised manner. Nobody smiles, nobody treats you nicely.
And then you get here and it couldn’t be more different.
Went to the White Sox game on Monday. Fantastic. The following night the local tourist board had invited a friend to dinner at a restaurant called Q. I tagged along.
The hospitality was insane. Tours of the kitchen, stuff on the house, try this, try that. We had the ‘competition ribs’, so called because they had won prizes.
They looked like something out of The Flintstones. The competition seemed to be who could get near finishing them without keeling over.
And all the time I was thinking that, if I’d had the option, I would have turned around and flown home without setting foot in the place.
It should be the easiest sell in the world, Chicago. They should be watching tumbleweed blow past at the tourist board, left with nothing to do, as visitors stampede to the Art Institute (260,000 works including Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks, considered the most recognisable painting by an American artist) or absorb Chicago’s history on the architectural tour.
‘I have struck a city — a real city — and they call it Chicago,’ wrote Rudyard Kipling. ‘Having seen it, I urgently desire never to see it again. It is inhabited by savages.’
He was wrong. Chicago isn’t inhabited by savages.
For some reason, though, its government is happy to let you think that way.
(c) they weren’t coming back if they could help it.
My wife’s thoughts exactly and I don’t fault her. Twice she was taken on her own to an interrogation room where she was questioned at length and the fact that she was married all these years to an American meant squat. That she has a bank account in Ca., meant squat. Why should she want to return once we get our other things in order?
Posted by peiper
on 09/30/2012 at 12:04 PM
Filed Under: • Government • Homeland-Security • Illegal-Aliens and Immigration • Jack Booted Thugs • USA •
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Permalink • Thursday - August 30, 2012
Just STFU Already
RCOB. Can’t somebody just drown these idiots like a bag of unwanted kittens? Holy ham on rye. We need ID for everything, from renting a hotel room to borrowing a book from the library. You can’t be a modern citizen without it. Period. So how the flippin flippity flap is having a voter ID racist? What, can’t the my-nar-it-tays drive themselves down to the county to pick one up? They’re free! And everybody else has to go get one too. So what’s the damn beef?
WASHINGTON — A federal court on Thursday blocked Texas from enforcing a strict new voter identification law, ruling that the state had failed to prove that the mandate would not disproportionately suppress turnout among eligible voters who are members of minority groups.
“The State of Texas enacted a voter ID law that — at least to our knowledge — is the most stringent in the country,” the court wrote. “That law will almost certainly have retrogressive effect: it imposes strict, unforgiving burdens on the poor, and racial minorities in Texas are disproportionately likely to live in poverty.”
Yer darn tootin, Newton: Texas is fucking OVERRUN with illegals and needs a seriously stringent system to keep them from illegally voting. But wait, this is the federal government of minority superiority, so let’s turn up Teh Stewpid dial to 11.
The 56-page ruling came days after another three-judge panel in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that the Texas Legislature had intentionally discriminated against Hispanic voters in drawing up new political maps for Congressional and legislative districts, citing the same section of the Voting Rights Act.
Greg Abbott, the Texas attorney general, called the voter ID decision “wrong on the law” and said that Texas would keep fighting.
“The state will appeal this decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, where we are confident we will prevail,” said Mr. Abbott, who has also vowed to appeal the redistricting case.
Mr. Abbott also noted that the Supreme Court had upheld the constitutionality of a voter ID law enacted by Indiana. Texas, however, bears a higher burden under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. Under that statute, jurisdictions that have a history of discriminating against minority voters must receive federal approval before making any change to their voting rules and it is up to the state to prove that its change will not dilute the voting power of members of minority groups.
Hey, there’s a double dose of fresh cow flop right there. First, there ain’t no damn HISPANICS in Texas. 5 million illegal MEXICANS, sure. But those guys are not hispanics. They’re Atlatl-Meso-Hispo-Americans, which means they only got a little bit of hispanolic in them, mostly Aztecish. Next up, what gives with the double dealing “higher burdern of proof” law. Is Texas now branded as some racist bad boy forever, who has to get down on his knees and beg and plead against the coastal PC faggots for the right to change state law? Go jump rope in the nude with some barbed wire buddy. That’s not the Texas way. Nor is it the American Way. That part of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act is unconstitutional. No group can be held to a higher hurdle than any other one: we all get treated the same. Equal protection under the law.
Oh, and By The Way: the federal court ruling is utter bullshit. There is simply no way in Hell that ANYONE can prove that law X, Y, or Z will not change voter turnout ahead of time. Because voters are a fickle bunch. And they could decide they’re just not going to bother this time ... and that itself would kill the new law, wouldn’t it, if that’s the burden of proof the feds are demanding. It’s impossible to meet. So fuck em: ignore their judgment. Any citizen who really wants to vote will make whatever effort is necessary, as long as it doesn’t cost anything other than time and filling out forms.
Posted by Drew458
on 08/30/2012 at 03:11 PM
Filed Under: • Government • Oppression • Politically Correct B.S. •
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Permalink • Tuesday - July 31, 2012
Can Anyon Spare A Fuse
Biggest Blackout In History Continues
Half Of India Without Electricity For Second Day
NEW DELHI – India’s energy crisis cascaded over half the country Tuesday when three of its regional grids collapsed, leaving 620 million people without government-supplied electricity for hours in, by far, the world’s biggest blackout.
Hundreds of trains stalled across the country and traffic lights went out, causing widespread traffic jams in New Delhi. Electric crematoria stopped operating, some with bodies half burnt, power officials said.
Two hundred workers were stranded in three coal mines in West Bengal when the blackout cut off electricity to elevators in their underground pits, a mining company official told The Times of India.
The massive failure—a day after a similar, but smaller power failure—has raised serious concerns about India’s outdated infrastructure and the government’s inability to meet its huge appetite for energy as the country aspires to become a regional economic superpower. The power failure affected people across 20 of India’s 28 states—about double the population of the United States.
...
Power Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde blamed the new crisis on states taking more than their allotted share of electricity.“Everyone overdraws from the grid. Just this morning I held a meeting with power officials from the states and I gave directions that states that overdraw should be punished. We have given instructions that their power supply could be cut,” he told reporters.
The Bharatiya Janata Party criticized the government saying the outage shows complete mismanagement as well as policy failure, The Times of India reports.
“It is a huge failure of the management in the power sector by the UPA government,” Prakash Javadekar, a BJP spokesman, told the Times of India.
“There failure is twin failure. It is management failure as well as the police failure,” he said.
Posted by Drew458
on 07/31/2012 at 06:20 PM
Filed Under: • Government •
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Permalink • Monday - July 02, 2012
Stealth Mode Lost
“I just want you to know that we are working on it. We have to go through a few processes, but under the radar.”
- President Obama to Jim and Sarah Brady, in front of Press Secretary Jim Carney, when asked about gun control.
In other words, they all knew about it from the very beginning, and it always WAS about taking a big chunk out of the Second Amendment, by forcing another Assault Weapons Ban.
(CNSNews.com) – Dennis K. Burke, who as a lawyer for the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee in the 1990s was a key player behind the enactment of the 1994 assault-weapons ban, and who then went on to become Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano’s chief of staff, and a contributor to
Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential primary campaign, and then a member of Obama’s transition team focusing on border-enforcement issues, ended up in the Obama administration as the U.S. attorney in Arizona responsible for overseeing Operation Fast and Furious.
When Obama nominated Burke to be U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona, Burke told the Arizona Capitol Times he believed he understood what the president and his attorney general wanted him to do.
“There’s clearly been direction provided already by President Obama and Attorney General Holder as to what they want to be doing, and this is an office that is at the center of the issues of border enforcement,” said Burke.
Dennis K. Burke has had a long career working as an aide and political appointee to Democratic elected officials. From 1989 to 1994, he was a counsel for the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee ... From 1994-95, Burke served in the Clinton Justice Department in the Office of Legislative Affairs, and in 1997-99, he was an assistant U.S. attorney in Arizona.
From 1999 to 2003, Burke was chief deputy and special assistant to Arizona Attorney General Janet Napolitano. In 2003, when Napolitano became governor, Burke became her chief of staff. He stayed in that job until the fall of 2008, when he left to help Democratic political campaigns, including then-Sen. Obama’s presidential campaign.
After Obama was elected in November 2008, Burke joined his presidential transition team, serving on the Immigration Policy Working Group.
Eight days before Obama’s inauguration, on Jan. 12, 2009--while Burke was working on the transition team--Obama met with Mexican President Felipe Calderon at the Mexican Cultural Institute in Washington, D.C. At that meeting, Obama “pledged” to take action to stop the flow of guns from the United States to Mexico.
Obama also decided to put Burke’s old boss, incoming Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, in a leadership role in making the gun-trafficking problem a top priority.
When Napolitano became Homeland Security secretary, Burke moved from the Obama transition team to become her senior adviser. On Feb. 25, 2009, a little more than a month after Obama had made his “pledge” to Calderon, Napolitano testified in the House Homeland Security Committee. She stressed that stopping the flow of guns to Mexico was a top priority of the Obama administration and key focus of her work.
Responding to a question about violence on the border, Napolitano said the administration was going to work with the Mexican government on the issue. Then she said: “Secondly, it is looking at, government-wide, at what we can do to stop the southbound export of weaponry, particularly assault-type weapons and grenades that are being used in that drug war.”
Napolitano further noted that drug cartels were targeting Mexican government officials and law enforcement officers, and that, given the seriousness of the threat, Obama’s national security adviser, the attorney general, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), and Customs (of which the Border Patrol is part) would all be working on the issue.
“I’ve met with the attorney general of Mexico and the ambassador already,” said Napolitano during the February 2009 hearing. “One of the things that I particularly am focused on is southbound traffic in guns, particularly assault weapons, and cash that are being used to funnel and fund these very, very violent cartels.”
The same day Napolitano testified in the Homeland Security Committee, Attorney General Holder addressed the issue of drug-trafficking-related gun violence in northern Mexico. He said he had had conversations about the issue with the Mexican attorney general and that the Obama administration believed that re-instating the assault-weapons ban in the United States--the one Dennis Burke had initially helped push through as Senate aide in 1990s--would help the situation in Mexico.
Yes, and very shortly thereafter we started hearing that “90% of the guns recovered in Mexican Cartel crimes can be traced back to America.” meme. Which normally would have been a pile of crap, but the gang at the very top of the law enforcement pyramid made sure of it by sending weapons of war - including grenades - across the border to arm ruthless drug gangs. How many have died so far in Mexico because of this? 20,000? 30,000? 50,000??
There is plenty more at the link. And a bit more over at Rush Limbaugh’s. They’re all connected, they’re all part of this, and they all did it for the same reason: to force the even sterner AWB II through. And they created such a false pretext for it that some consider what they did an overt act of war. To say nothing of all the lives lost in Mexico, and the murder of border agent Brian Terry. Every branch of the Judiciary is in this up to their eyebrows, including the Director of Homeland Security. And so is Obama.
But just sweep it all under the rug. No scandal. Nothing to see here. And no reason for the Attorney General of the United States to cooperate, even when under charges of contempt.
Posted by Drew458
on 07/02/2012 at 08:18 PM
Filed Under: • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists • Government • Guns and Gun Control •
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Permalink • Saturday - June 30, 2012
Unexpected News!
The Justice Department moved Friday to shield Attorney General Eric Holder from prosecution after the House voted to hold him in contempt of Congress.
The contempt vote technically opened the door for the House to call on the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia to bring the case before a grand jury. But because U.S. Attorney Ronald Machen works for Holder and because President Obama has already asserted executive privilege over the documents in question, some expected Holder’s Justice Department to balk.
Deputy Attorney General James Cole confirmed in a letter to House Speaker John Boehner that the department in fact would not pursue prosecution. The attorney general’s withholding of documents pertaining to Operation Fast and Furious, he wrote, “does not constitute a crime.”
So, now that the Legislative Branch has stripped all power from the States, and the Judicial Branch has stripped all rights from the People, we are seeing that the Executive Branch can act with absolute impunity against the Legislative Branch. How’s that for tyranny?
Instead of criminal prosecution, our spineless Republicans are going to take the civil court approach, which is nearly guaranteed to fail. Smoke and mirrors.
Republicans technically have a handful of other options if the Justice Department still refused to take the case to a grand jury.
Republicans could move to appoint a special prosecutor or even move to impeach. The last time that happened with a Cabinet member, though, was in 1876—with the impeachment trial of war secretary William Belknap.
Hill said lawmakers are not looking at that option for Holder. They remain focused on the civil court route.
To my surprise, it turns out that Congress does actually have to power to arrest people, although they have very rarely exercised that power. Not once in the last 75 years. This is under the rule of Inherent Contempt.
… the process, known as inherent contempt, is well-established by precedent, has been confirmed by multiple Supreme Court rulings, and is available to any Congress willing to force such a confrontation.
“The House is scared to death to use the inherent contempt power,” said Mort Rosenberg, a fellow at the Constitution Project and author of “When Congress Comes Calling.” “They’re scared to death because the courts have said … the way the contempt power is used is unseemly. It’s not that it’s unconstitutional, because it’s been upheld by four Supreme Court decisions, but unseemly to have somebody go arrest the attorney general.”
That’s why it’s been more than 75 years since either chamber has used the option ...
So, do you think they will do it? Hella No!! The flacid phallus in charge, crybaby John Boner Boehner has already broken this one remaining arrow in the Legislature’s quiver.
Republicans say it’s not even under consideration, with House Speaker John A. Boehner’s spokesman flatly ruling it out.
So what is the bottom line? The bottom line is that a solid year’s worth of investigating one of the most onerous acts every perpetrated by the federal government was never more than just smoke and mirrors. A sideshow to keep the Conservative Masses happy. Nothing more. Because when push comes to shove, and it’s time to firmly thrust, the Boehner remains flaccid. It wouldn’t look classy if they did what needed to be done, so this highest of high crimes and misdemeanors will go unpunished.
Fuck, even Bob Dole has his Viagra.
Once again you have been sold out by the Republicans in DC. The spineless party, so afraid of looking bad that they won’t prosecute murder or an overt act of war.
Posted by Drew458
on 06/30/2012 at 07:45 AM
Filed Under: • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists • Government • Corruption and Greed • Guns and Gun Control •
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Permalink • Friday - June 29, 2012
Oh SNAP, It’s Party Time!
“Throw a Great Party. Host social events where people mix and mingle,” the pamphlet encourages in one of the guides. “Make it fun by having activities, games, food, and entertainment, and provide information about SNAP. Putting SNAP information in a game format like BINGO, crossword puzzles, or even a ‘true/false’ quiz is fun and helps get your message across in a memorable way.”
The program, which provides food-buying help for low-income people, is a federal program under which benefits are distributed by states. While beneficiaries once received actual stamps, the benefits are now doled out via check cards.
The program has also funded paid radio ads in California, Texas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Ohio and the New York metro area. The ads work: The USDA began promoting food stamps with paid radio ads in 2004, under President George W. Bush, and food stamp participation increased 63 percent.
Some of the other guides listed as part of SNAP’s community tip sheets include “Tips to get an Op-Ed Published” and “Event Planning for Senior Audiences.”
“Every $5 in new SNAP benefits generates $9.20 in an additional community spending,” the USDA states without elaborating. The department continues: “If the national participation rate rose five percentage points, 1.9 million more low-income people would have an additional $1.3 billion in benefits per year to use to purchase healthy food and $2.5 billion total in new economic activity would be generated nationwide.”
Spending on the food stamps program has increased 100 percent since President Obama took office, and now one in seven Americans uses food stamps. In the 1970s, one out of every 50 Americans was on food stamps, notes the Daily Caller. After the recession, the ratio is expected to hover around one out of every nine, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Because it’s not bad enough that only 14% of the entire population is getting SNAP benefits. The USDA has to go out and push hard to raise the numbers. Everybody, sign up now! Get yours today! Everybody wins, nobody loses! Don’t worry, we’ll just Tax The Evil Rich™ a bit harder to pay for it. Or borrow a few more trillion from Red China.
Posted by Drew458
on 06/29/2012 at 02:05 PM
Filed Under: • Government •
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Permalink • Thursday - June 28, 2012
Watching and Waiting: ObamaCare Upheld
The SCOTUS decision on ObamaCare is due out within minutes.
I’m watching the TV just as close as I did when Eagle first descended to the lunar surface.
I’m rather upset by the whole thing ... and what really upsets me is that I have NO FAITH that the Supreme Court of the United States is going to rule this horrible thing unconstitutional. No faith at all.
UPDATE: IT’S A TAX? THEREFORE IT’S LEGAL? INDIVIDUAL MANDATE UPHELD??? WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK???
Oh whoopty fucking do, the punitive measures are unconstitutional. So the cocksucking cowards of the Supreme Court made their decision as “a little of this, a little of that” instead of standing up for what America is all about. This is wrong, wrong, wrong.
I think my nation just died.
“Congress’s ability to tax and spend is unlimited.” Boy howdy, they got that one right.
This is a very confusing decision. How in God’s name can they accept this as a tax, when our Glorious President told us over and over and over and over - several times a day for 18 mother fucking months - that this was NOT a tax?
Scalia/Kennedy/Thomas/Alito dissent calls decision “a vast judicial overreaching.” Yeah, no shit. I think the camel’s back is broken.
Update: One small ray of hope? One weak, guttering candle stub barely holding a flame in a hurricane? Ann Althouse post, stolen in it’s entirety (sorry Ann, but I had to.)
Obama imposes huge tax on the American middle class.
That’s the story, right? That’s the spin for Romney. What’s the spin for Obama?UPDATE: Drudge points to Obama’s assertion, back in September 2009 that the mandate is not a tax.
STEPHANOPOULOS: [I]t’s still a tax increase.
OBAMA: No. That’s not true, George. The — for us to say that you’ve got to take a responsibility to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase. What it’s saying is, is that we’re not going to have other people carrying your burdens for you anymore than the fact that right now everybody in America, just about, has to get auto insurance. Nobody considers that a tax increase. People say to themselves, that is a fair way to make sure that if you hit my car, that I’m not covering all the costs.
I have said repeatedly that Obama would be worse off if Obamacare were upheld, but what I’m really seeing is how bad it is for him with the mandate declared a tax.
Remember the Democrats got the statute passed by insisting it was not a tax. Now, we learn it is only constitutional because it is a tax. That’s got to hurt politically.
ADDED: Romney has at least 3 big arguments:
1. Obama imposed a huge new tax on working people.
2. Obama deceived the American people by saying it was not a tax, when it was.
3. The law made it look like money would go to insurance companies — in the form of new premiums — that would keep premiums low as the companies were required to take on people with pre-existing conditions, but now we find out that the money is really going to go to the federal government. [ADDED: So get ready for your premiums to spiral up and/or for insurance companies to be ruined.]
I am out of my mind depressed right now. I want to start a revolution and burn and kill. I can’t discuss this, I can’t debate this. For my own sanity, right now I can’t even think about this. I have to walk away for a bit. So let me give you John Goodman’s character Walter Sobchak’s quote from The Big Lebowski:
Ah, fuck it Dude. Let’s go bowling.
Posted by Drew458
on 06/28/2012 at 09:12 AM
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Permalink • Tuesday - June 26, 2012
Bring It
George Bush to the world: “You’re either with us, or with the terrorists.” And he was right.
Issa to Obama: “You’re either part of the Fast & Furious scheme and playing CYA, or you’re flexing muscles you don’t have, to obstruct justice.” And he is right as well.
“[Y]our privilege assertion means one of two things,” Issa wrote to the president in a letter dated June 25. “Either you or your most senior advisors were involved in managing Operation Fast & Furious and the fallout from it, including the false February 4, 2011 letter provided by the attorney general to the committee, or, you are asserting a presidential power that you know to be unjustified solely for the purpose of further obstructing a congressional investigation.”
Issa said Obama’s assertion of executive privilege “raised the question” about the veracity of how the “White House has steadfastly maintained that it has not had any role in advising the department with respect to the congressional investigation.”
Issa revealed in the letter to Obama that Attorney General Eric Holder had requested the president assert the privilege in a letter last Tuesday evening — shortly after Holder, Issa and other congressional leaders involved in Fast and Furious met to try to come a resolution before last Wednesday’s contempt vote in Issa’s oversight committee. The president’s decision to assert the privilege came via a letter from Deputy Attorney General James Cole to Issa minutes before Issa began the proceedings against Holder.
The California congressman told Obama that Cole’s letter stating that Obama has “’asserted executive privilege over the relevant post-February 4, 2011 documents’ raised concerns that there was greater White House involvement in Operation Fast and Furious than previously thought.”
Issa laid out that this is because the “Justice Department has steadfastly maintained that the documents sought by the committee do not implicate the White House whatsoever.”
“If true, they are at best deliberative documents between and among department personnel who lack the requisite ‘operational proximity’ to the president,” as legal precedent Issa cites requires. “As such, they cannot be withheld pursuant to the constitutionally-based executive privilege.”
Read the rest at The Daily Caller
Misconduct occurred on two levels. Issa’s reference is to the false information submitted by DoJ officials in Congressional testimony, which is the specific subject of the subpoenas on which the contempt charge is based. However, the overall investigation into OF&F also probes official misconduct in deliberately allowing thousands of weapons to be carried over the border with no way to track them, which violates regulations at the ATF — which is why ATF insiders blew the whistle on the operation in the first place. Either way, Issa is entirely correct under US v Espy that deliberative process executive privilege does not survive in these circumstances.
“Last week’s proceeding would not have occurred had the attorney general actually produced the subpoenaed documents he said he could provide.” [Issa wrote.]
The full U.S. House of Representatives is set to vote on Thursday to hold Holder in contempt of Congress. He would be the first attorney general to be held in contempt in the history of the United States.
And now the fight is on, and it’s pretty much proof positive that Fast & Furious goes all the way to the top. Which is what we all figured out in about 4 minutes a year and a half ago. Just you wait until the next whistle blower spills the beans that F&F was only one of a dozen or more parallel ops. I’ll betcha it was.
Meanwhile, Darrel Issa continues to show himself as one of the perhaps three or four honorable members of our government. Scalia, Bolton, Issa. That’s all I can spot from here. Anyone else? Bueller? Bueller?
Posted by Drew458
on 06/26/2012 at 12:48 PM
Filed Under: • Government • Corruption and Greed • Guns and Gun Control • Obama, The One •
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Permalink • Friday - June 22, 2012
Free Fallin’
I always wanted to rewrite the old Tom Petty Free Falling song with Weird Al style lyrics to make a paean to allergy season -
Now it’s tree pollen, yes it’s tree pollen
which just shows you how dangerous the combination of an unhinged imagination and a hearing problem can be.
But that has nothing to do with this post, which is yet another bash against Teh Won. His efforts haven’t done squat to revitalize the economy, and things are going from bad to worse. Worse to worser even.
Oil prices fell Thursday, hitting an eight-month low, as markets continued to react to disappointing economic news across the globe.
The price of oil for August delivery fell to $78.58 a barrel as markets settled, down nearly 4% from Wednesday. This is the first time since October that oil prices hit below $80, what analysts consider a key psychological number.
Signs of a slowdown in manufacturing in China, Europe and the United States delivered the oil market another blow on Thursday.
“Prices have gotten clobbered, and it’s being driven by the deteriorating economic data,” said Matt Smith, a commodity analyst at Summit Energy Services [not the guy currently playing Dr. Who].
The oil markets also reacted to jobless claims, which analysts said showed little improvement. Prices were also still coming down from disappointment over the Federal Reserve’s decision to hold interest rates steady.
...
The sharp dive in prices over the last month and a half has analysts concerned. Crude oil prices are often indicative of what’s going on in the larger global economy.“This is a tempering of optimism and expectations in economic growth beyond the oil market,” Smith said.
Gas prices fell below to $3.472 per gallon on Thursday, below $3.50 for the third day in a row after more than four months above that mark, according to AAA.
Kloza anticipates that gas prices will continue to fall as the summer driving season heats up, and well into the fall.
“The market is telling you that right around Election Day, the average price is going to be below $3 a gallon,” he said.
I watched the New York City news on TV last night, and their bit of coverage on this story said how NYC drivers going to the NJ shore would be pleasantly surprised with the price of gas on NJ’s highways, which averaged $3.42. This is cheap by NYC standards, because of the high taxes imposed by both the state and the metropolis. New Jersey taxes just about everything except gas, so our state always has the least expensive gas. But $3.42 is a rip. My station down the street here reacted to the latest price drop by lowering their price to $3.19. We’re down 50-60¢ in the past month; to heck with Election Day, I’m expecting $2.99 by the end of the month.
The economy is flatlined, still. Beeeeeeeeep. And all the stimulus in the world won’t defibrillate it, not with the Sword of Damoclse government regulation (EPA, Obamacare, et al) hanging over business’s heads. Way to go Mr. President.
Posted by Drew458
on 06/22/2012 at 09:15 AM
Filed Under: • Economics • Government •
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Permalink • Wednesday - June 20, 2012
I’ve got the nails, you bring the hammer
It’s about damn time.
A House panel voted Wednesday in favor of holding Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress, a move that inflamed partisan rancor on Capitol Hill and sets up the possibility of legal action against the attorney general himself.
Holder has not yet been formally held in contempt of Congress. The full House would still need to approve the resolution in order for that to happen—Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., afterward told Fox News that such a floor vote can still be avoided.
But the 23-17 party-line vote on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee marked a significant turn in lawmakers’ 16-month investigation into the botched anti-gunrunning operation Fast and Furious. With the vote, Republicans on the committee signaled they had exhausted all other means to extract sought-after documents from the Justice Department—though Democrats had insisted there was still an opportunity to sort out the mess without a contempt vote.
“We and the American people need answers sooner, not later,” said Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the committee.
Issa pressed ahead with the vote Wednesday despite an eleventh-hour move by President Obama to assert executive privilege over the Fast and Furious documents at the heart of the dispute.
For a year and a half this racist, lying, cheatin’, two faced mo-fo has been playing games and refusing to cooperate with Congress. What, he thinks he above the law? Nuh uh, EVERYBODY in government bows down to Congress. And now his time is about to run out. Crucify him. Offer him a deal if he rats out everyone, and then renege on it. Oops, sorry, you didn’t come clean enough fast enough, and now we’re furious. Tough luck.
For a few hours this morning it looked like he might have had an escape plan: Obama pulled the old Executive Privilege game, and tried to cover his homey with it. All that proved to me was that Obama was in this Fast And Furious business up to his neck, and had been since the beginning. And we all know what it was all about: creating a false “emergency” to bring back the AWB and to shut down the Second Amendment. And they were all in on it. Obama, Napolitano, Holder, Clinton, etc. Otherwise Holder would be another speed bump under the famous bus. But I guess the House Committee wasn’t going to accept that kind of cover up. Good for them.
Ealier:
President Obama has granted an 11th-hour request by Attorney General Eric Holder to exert executive privilege over Fast and Furious documents, a last-minute maneuver that appears unlikely to head off a contempt vote against Holder by Republicans in the House.
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is expected to forge ahead Wednesday morning with its meeting on the contempt resolution anyway.
If the vote proceeds, Republicans have more than enough votes on committee to pass the resolution. However, Holder would not be considered held in contempt of Congress unless and until the full House approves the measure.
The move by Holder and Obama to lock down some requested documents only complicates the fight over the botched anti-gunrunning operation between the legislative and executive branches.
When one domino falls it knocks over another one. And another one. And so on, and so on. Lets see what happens now. Is it possible that some Republicans in Congress have grown a bit of spine?
Posted by Drew458
on 06/20/2012 at 05:24 PM
Filed Under: • Government • Corruption and Greed • Guns and Gun Control • Obama, The One •
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Permalink • Wednesday - May 23, 2012
Do a good deed? That’s a ticketing!
I honestly don’t believe the stupidity, of both the police officer AND the law cited. Here’s the story:
Last Monday, May 14th John Davis was exiting I-90 at the West 117th ramp when he saw a man in a wheelchair. The man was pale, thin and holding a sign that had a religious sentiment and also a request for help.
Maybe I should add the possible stupidity of Mr. Davis for falling for what I already suspect was a scam. If the guy really was disabled enough to be in a wheelchair (how did he get to the exit ramp?) there’s an almost infinite number of Federal, state, and local programs to help him. Add in friends, family, private charities and this guy shouldn’t be panhandling anyway. But I digress. Let’s continue:
John reached into his wallet and grabbed a couple of bucks to give to the man. As he approached the light at the exit, he rolled the money up vertically and stretched his arm out of his window. He says, the man touched the cash and one of the dollars fell to the ground.
The man then bent over and picked it up.
Moments later as John travelled North on West 117th he says a Cleveland police officer pulled him over.
“He proceeds to tell me he’s pulling me over for littering,” said John.
Obviously Cleveland police have solved all other crimes. Since when is money trash? Doesn’t it have to be trash to be considered litter. In any case, the ‘litter’ was immediately picked up! Am I going to be ticketed for littering every time I drop something and immediately pick it up? That’s the stupidity of the police officer. Now let’s get to the law cited:
The ticket cited Section No: 613.06 of Cleveland’s Municipal Codes, which is littering from a motor vehicle.
His offense was listed as, “Throw paper out window,” and in parenthesis, “money to panhandler.”
John said he was confused because money is paper but it’s not trash.
I made that point earlier. Plus the money wasn’t ‘thrown’. It was handed to someone. But now it gets even better:
Cleveland police can’t comment on the ticket at this time but according to a spokesperson there is another code that may have been violated.
There is a code which states that it is illegal to panhandle or give money to panhandlers near a highway or street including a berm, shoulder, treelawn or sidewalk.
Have you ever encountered a panhandler anywhere else? Ticket the panhandlers then. But last time I checked, If I own something, including the money in my wallet, I can give it to who I wish to.
Section No: 471.06 states in part that “No person shall stand on a highway for the purpose of soliciting…contributions…”
It also reads that “No driver” is to “transfer currency….to any person standing on a street or highway.”
But John says that’s not what he was ticketed for. He was cited for littering from a motor vehicle, and the officer advised him to “take it up with the courts.”
The person in question was not ‘standing’ on a street or highway. He was sitting in a wheelchair. A technicality? Yes, but if you’re stupid enough to write a law, you better cover every possible variation. Anyway, Mr. Davis is going to fight it.
John does plan to challenge the ticket in court, mainly because it carries a hefty fine. It could cost him $500 once you add the fine plus court costs.
John says he has always had a deep admiration for Cleveland police, and he isn’t trying to start trouble, but that’s a lot of money for helping out someone less fortunate.
No word on if the panhandler was ticketed also. Probably not, since he wasn’t ‘standing’. I’d certainly bring that up in court.
Maybe Cleveland should adopt how Dayton handles panhandlers. They are legal if they’re licensed. Their licenses must be prominently displayed, usually hung on a cord around their neck. In other words, the City gets their cut.
Posted by Christopher
on 05/23/2012 at 01:17 PM
Filed Under: • Crime • Government • Insanity • Justice - LACK OF • Outrageous • Stoopid-People •
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Permalink • Wednesday - May 16, 2012
Common Sense? You’re Fired!
A Detroit groundskeeper, who turned in a loaded handgun he found hidden in weeds while working, was fired by the Wayne County Department of Public Services, MyFoxDetroit.com reports.
John Chevilott, who is just two years shy of retirement, found the loaded snub-nosed revolver on May 3 when he and his crew were mowing a lawn in Wayne County. Chevilott secured the gun, waiting for police to drive by so he could hand it over to them.
But, according to the station, the Detroit police never did pass by, so Chevilott finished his work that day, drove the gun home and later that same evening turned it into his local police department.
He says the cops ran the gun and discovered the weapon had been stolen from St. Clair Shores in 2005.
“They said I did the right thing getting it off the street,” Chevilott told MyFoxDetroit.com.
However, Chevilott’s superiors at the Wayne County Department of Public Services had a much different opinion. His foreman, who had knowledge of the situation, was suspended for 30 days, and after 23 years on the job, Chevilott was fired for violating department policies.
Department policy says no employee can have a gun on the job. Chevy countered that he didn’t bring a gun to work, he found the gun while on the job. As if that makes any difference. They fired him anyway. Chevilott says there is no existing policy on what to do if a firearm is found on the job. The landscaper’s union is filing a grievance. Good for them.
County bosses say Chevy was also terminated for insubordination. Well duh, of course he was. Probably because he told his pussified pencil pusher boss just what flavor of dumbshit he really was for making an issue of out this nothing situation. He was also fired for “unauthorized access to the road yard”, which means his bosses are ginning up every BS charge against the guy they can find, including being at the mower storage area when it wasn’t his official 10 minutes to be there. What a load of bullshit.
Want to play Guess The Truth? In his supervisor’s minds, he was supposed to race to the phone to dial his boss, who would instantly call 911, so the po-po could have a big gee-whiz, lock down the whole building or golf course or whatever it was that had grass too long, call in the bomb squad and the helicopters, and generally waste half a million or so of taxpayer money. Because ... it’s a gun!!! PANIC MODE ON!! Don’t make a decision, kick it upstairs, get everyone involved!! This could be the end of the world right now, so share the blame as wide as possible!! Plus, it would be the supervisor who got the official brass plated gold star attaboy that might get handed out.
Not.
Instead, the grass whacker picked up a bit of garbage, like any other garbage, and set it aside. Oh look, it’s a gun. Gosh. Hidden in the weeds. In Detroit. Oh lawdy, that ain’t nevah happened before, not never! Wrong. Realizing this was no more than a thin squirt’s worth of chicken shit, mower man put the thing in the mower’s toolbox and went back to work. Hey, if the cops came by, he’d give it to them. They didn’t, so he completed his job and clocked out. Might even have forgotten about it for a while. Just another day on the ride behind. Probably he went back to the yard after work, got the gun, and took it to the cops. Just another piece of trash taken off the streets. Such a non-big deal he didn’t even mention it. “Unauthorized access”? Dude, it’s HIS yard. He has the keys. He’s been doing the job since before the yard even existed. And he knew damn well that if he called the cops, he’d have to waste his whole evening waiting for them to show up, because they can smell chicken shit a mile away too. So not only did Chevilott do the right thing, he did it the right way, the way that caused the least susurrus for all parties involved.
Until his supervisor got the paperwork from the cops on Monday. And that wouldn’t have been a surprise if the guy had ever come around to check on the crews, or had shown the slightest interest in the daily affairs of his men. But no, not even a “hey, what’s new?” from that stuffed shirt. All he wants is the forms with all the boxes checked. That’s my guess, having worked this kind of job and had this kind of boss. They don’t want to hear from you for nothing. Chevi was on his own, all the time, and was expected to solve every daily problem himself, don’t bother me, until ex post facto the problems he solved were too big for his paygrade. Been there, done that, still have the shirt with the stains, quit the job.
So he gets canned for it ... after 23 years on the job. Most likely because he didn’t pitch a hoplophobic hissy sissy fit, applied a bit of common sense instead, and went about doing his job; his boss canned him because he’s reacting like a 15 year old girl “You didn’t callll me!” How dare Forest Gump have any intelligence or any ability to solve issues on his own. The nerve.
Posted by Drew458
on 05/16/2012 at 08:05 AM
Filed Under: • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists • Government •
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