Meet Elizabeth Warren—Native American

Meet Elizabeth Warren—Native American

California is not the only liberal state with candidates who routinely lie and exaggerate those parts of their lives which will appeal to their large politically-correct constituency. If you can’t be a black woman, or a wise Latina, there’s always your popular victim ethnic background—be a Native American. I would use the old-fashioned “Indian,” but the Democrats have already proven they don’t much like Bobby Jindal.

So---here’s Elizabeth Warren, Massachusetts Senatorial candidate. She’s running against Republican Scott Brown. Brown won the seat that had been called the “Kennedy seat” for decades, handing the Democrats a very embarrassing defeat. The Democrats are not about to let that white, pickup-driving man hold onto that seat. So they picked a woman who has in the past claimed to be a Native American. In fact, it was one of the items which originally got her teaching positions at the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard.

The truth is that Warren is about as much a Native American as her counterpart, the disgraced Ward Churchill, former professor of ethnic studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder. The number of Americans whose families have been here for a long time includes a great many who have some Native American blood. Most are proud of their heritage, but rarely declare themselves Native Americans when their genes are 1/32 or less tribal. If anything Warren says about her bloodline is true, she is at most 1/32 Native American.

Warren first tried to establish her political bona fides with the common folk of Massachusetts by calling herself “the Okie from Harvard.” She was indeed born in Oklahoma City, but has spent most of her life living elsewhere, including New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts. But before she tried to pass off that ½ truth, she first did her 1/32 truth in order to get preference for her teaching positions. When early reports came out showing that she had at least distorted her ethnic heritage in order to get preference for teaching positions, she waffled.

Instead of addressing directly the issue of her thin Native American bloodline, she indignantly denied that she had ever used that heritage to gain an advantage over other applicants for the positions. Even if that was partially true, there’s no question that she enhanced the original story as she moved from job to job, by calling herself a “minority professor.” She attended professional meetings and forums specifically as a minority professor. But knowing the best defense is a good offense, she got officials at Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, University of Texas, and the University of Houston to state the she had not used her Native American heritage in order to get teaching positions there.

Well, what else would you expect? The criteria for hiring one potential professor over another are very arcane and secretive, and in this day of affirmative action backlash and anti-discrimination public hiring laws, no institution is going to admit that ethnicity was a determining factor. Still, those same universities proudly went along with Warren’s description of herself as a minority professor. Needless to say, Warren is blaming Scott Brown partisans for raising a “phony issue.” The mainstream media are assisting Warren, of natch. The Washington Post asks "why is this non-issue being treated as if it were important news?"

For a law professor and now a professional politician, Warren is not very good at deflecting criticism or arguing a point coherently (which actually qualifies her to be Barack Obama’s next Supreme Court nominee). At a recent press conference, Warren babbled about her use of the minority professor gambit. “I listed myself for nearly a decade as a minority law teacher in order to connect with others like me.” She then stumbled over why she de-listed herself as a minority professor when she no longer needed the leg up.

And then she managed to prove herself another racist liberal by stating that she never really claimed to be a Native American, "it was all about stories passed on in her family for decades." Most importantly, she identifies with Native Americans because her grandfather “had the high cheekbones possessed by all Native Americans." Is that anything like “a typical white person?” The schools she taught at never listed her as being specifically Native American, but went along with the minority professor gag. She alone embellished her tribal roots.

If Harvard wasn’t affected by her claims which resulted in her hiring and granting of tenure, they did a very good imitation of it. When administration officials were questioned about the issue, the reply was that even though they had never hired a professor from a second-tier law school for a professor’s position, her expertise on debtor/creditor law pushed her into top contention. And they were proud to have such a notable minority professor. The Harvard Crimson was a bit less scrupulous about her claims. The campus paper published several articles in which Warren touted her connections to the Delaware and Cherokee tribes.

In the long run, this may be a tempest in a teapot. But given her exaggerations about being the Okie Harvard professor and a Native American, one has to wonder what else she has been distorting about her life and credentials. If this turns out to be a pattern, she may find that her attempts to blend in with the non-Harvard elite and to match Scott Brown’s genuine middle class values will end up simply looking ridiculous. Better to admit she is a Harvard elitist than to claim to be something she is provably not.

California is not the only liberal state with candidates who routinely lie and exaggerate those parts of their lives which will appeal to their large politically-correct constituency. If you can’t be a black woman, or a wise Latina, there’s always your popular victim ethnic background—be a Native American. I would use the old-fashioned “Indian,” but the Democrats have already proven they don’t much like Bobby Jindal.

So---here’s Elizabeth Warren, Massachusetts Senatorial candidate. She’s running against Republican Scott Brown. Brown won the seat that had been called the “Kennedy seat” for decades, handing the Democrats a very embarrassing defeat. The Democrats are not about to let that white, pickup-driving man hold onto that seat. So they picked a woman who has in the past claimed to be a Native American. In fact, it was one of the items which originally got her teaching positions at the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard.

The truth is that Warren is about as much a Native American as her counterpart, the disgraced Ward Churchill, former professor of ethnic studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder. The number of Americans whose families have been here for a long time includes a great many who have some Native American blood. Most are proud of their heritage, but rarely declare themselves Native Americans when their genes are 1/32 or less tribal. If anything Warren says about her bloodline is true, she is at most 1/32 Native American.

Warren first tried to establish her political bona fides with the common folk of Massachusetts by calling herself “the Okie from Harvard.” She was indeed born in Oklahoma City, but has spent most of her life living elsewhere, including New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts. But before she tried to pass off that ½ truth, she first did her 1/32 truth in order to get preference for her teaching positions. When early reports came out showing that she had at least distorted her ethnic heritage in order to get preference for teaching positions, she waffled.

Instead of addressing directly the issue of her thin Native American bloodline, she indignantly denied that she had ever used that heritage to gain an advantage over other applicants for the positions. Even if that was partially true, there’s no question that she enhanced the original story as she moved from job to job, by calling herself a “minority professor.” She attended professional meetings and forums specifically as a minority professor. But knowing the best defense is a good offense, she got officials at Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, University of Texas, and the University of Houston to state the she had not used her Native American heritage in order to get teaching positions there.

Well, what else would you expect? The criteria for hiring one potential professor over another are very arcane and secretive, and in this day of affirmative action backlash and anti-discrimination public hiring laws, no institution is going to admit that ethnicity was a determining factor. Still, those same universities proudly went along with Warren’s description of herself as a minority professor. Needless to say, Warren is blaming Scott Brown partisans for raising a “phony issue.” The mainstream media are assisting Warren, of natch. The Washington Post asks "why is this non-issue being treated as if it were important news?"

For a law professor and now a professional politician, Warren is not very good at deflecting criticism or arguing a point coherently (which actually qualifies her to be Barack Obama’s next Supreme Court nominee). At a recent press conference, Warren babbled about her use of the minority professor gambit. “I listed myself for nearly a decade as a minority law teacher in order to connect with others like me.” She then stumbled over why she de-listed herself as a minority professor when she no longer needed the leg up.

And then she managed to prove herself another racist liberal by stating that she never really claimed to be a Native American, "it was all about stories passed on in her family for decades." Most importantly, she identifies with Native Americans because her grandfather “had the high cheekbones possessed by all Native Americans." Is that anything like “a typical white person?” The schools she taught at never listed her as being specifically Native American, but went along with the minority professor gag. She alone embellished her tribal roots.

If Harvard wasn’t affected by her claims which resulted in her hiring and granting of tenure, they did a very good imitation of it. When administration officials were questioned about the issue, the reply was that even though they had never hired a professor from a second-tier law school for a professor’s position, her expertise on debtor/creditor law pushed her into top contention. And they were proud to have such a notable minority professor. The Harvard Crimson was a bit less scrupulous about her claims. The campus paper published several articles in which Warren touted her connections to the Delaware and Cherokee tribes.

In the long run, this may be a tempest in a teapot. But given her exaggerations about being the Okie Harvard professor and a Native American, one has to wonder what else she has been distorting about her life and credentials. If this turns out to be a pattern, she may find that her attempts to blend in with the non-Harvard elite and to match Scott Brown’s genuine middle class values will end up simply looking ridiculous. Better to admit she is a Harvard elitist than to claim to be something she is provably not.

Meet Elizabeth Warren—Native American

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Trouble In Democratic Paradise?

Trouble In Democratic Paradise?

Much is being made by the mainstream media and the Democratic strategists about the allegedly tepid support that Republican presidential nominee-presumptive Mitt Romney is receiving from his fellow Republican power brokers. True or not, I have serious doubts that any Republican governor will withhold his or her support from Romney, let alone in a very public way. The same cannot be said of Barack Obama.

With all the advantages of incumbency and without the necessity of going through a bruising primary campaign, the president can’t even hold the Democratic governors together. West Virginia Democratic Governor Earl Ray Tomblin has gone on record as refusing to endorse Obama for reelection, but has also given some pretty strong reasons for his refusal.

Gov. Tomblin’s statement minces no words: “President Obama has apparently made it his mission to drive the backbone of West Virginia’s economy, coal and the energy industry out of business. That will not only hurt thousands of West Virginia families, it will destroy the economic fabric of our state.” Tomblin went on to say: “As a loyal member of the Democratic Party and as governor of our state, I will continue to do everything I can, including suing the EPA, to get the president to change the misguided policies that are hurting West Virginians.”

How long this will last and how much effect it will have on other Democratic stalwarts remains to be seen. But Tomblin is not the only important Democratic figure from a state heavily-dependent on the production and use of coal and oil for the health of their state economies. In addition, several Republican governors of coal producing/using states could quickly latch onto the same refrain (Pennsylvania and Ohio come to mind—both battleground states). Never mind the phony “war on women.” This is a real war on coal and oil, and now a Democratic governor has spoken the unspeakable.

Make no mistake. Tomblin is not about to become a maverick who endorses a Republican for president. West Virginia is a very poor state, with a large rural population and a significant portion of its population dependent on government handouts. But he has made a point which could resonate throughout other fossil-fuel states. And he has essentially “given permission” for other Democrats to remain loyal to their party without being loyal to the Great Job Destroyer.

Tomblin made it clear he is not a fan of either Romney or the Republican agenda, then proceeded to repeat Democratic talking points. Said Tomblin: “Mitt Romney is supporting policies that will end Medicare and Social Security as we know it. His policies will put more burdens on West Virginia families who are simply trying to make ends meet.” In other words, “I support Democratic policies which keep many West Virginians on the plantation and on the welfare rolls, but not a president who destroys union jobs and raises energy costs in quantum leaps.”

He concluded with “neither President Obama nor Governor Romney has earned my vote at this point.” That leaves open the question of whether he would reverse his position should Obama throw a few bones to West Virginia in the form of job incentives that are more apparent than real. That would be a real tightrope for both the president and the governor. Federal government handouts can go a long way toward greasing the wheels of currently-Democratic states.

West Virginia has a 2-1 Democratic registration majority, but has elected many Republicans to statewide and federal offices in the very recent past. Both the governor and Senator Joe Manchin (Tomblin’s predecessor in the governor’s mansion) are acutely aware that when it comes to unions and welfare, they are on solid ground. On the overall issue of jobs and the Obama ecoweenie attacks on coal production and coal-fueled energy their jobs are on shaky ground, and they know it. It doesn’t do them any good to support the United Mine Workers Union if the coal mines are forced to cease production and the state economy reaches final collapse.

In addition, Sen. Manchin has not endeared himself to the Obamacrats as he has implored the president to reverse course on “conscience waivers” in Obamacare to accommodate doctors religiously opposed to abortion and forced coverage for birth control and abortifacients. Blue Dog Democrats are a vanishing breed, but they haven’t yet gone entirely extinct.

So there appears to be a war going on in Democratic heaven. The question is, “who plays Satan and who plays God in this Paradise Lost scenario?” And then there’s always the question of which one will win.

Much is being made by the mainstream media and the Democratic strategists about the allegedly tepid support that Republican presidential nominee-presumptive Mitt Romney is receiving from his fellow Republican power brokers. True or not, I have serious doubts that any Republican governor will withhold his or her support from Romney, let alone in a very public way. The same cannot be said of Barack Obama.

With all the advantages of incumbency and without the necessity of going through a bruising primary campaign, the president can’t even hold the Democratic governors together. West Virginia Democratic Governor Earl Ray Tomblin has gone on record as refusing to endorse Obama for reelection, but has also given some pretty strong reasons for his refusal.

Gov. Tomblin’s statement minces no words: “President Obama has apparently made it his mission to drive the backbone of West Virginia’s economy, coal and the energy industry out of business. That will not only hurt thousands of West Virginia families, it will destroy the economic fabric of our state.” Tomblin went on to say: “As a loyal member of the Democratic Party and as governor of our state, I will continue to do everything I can, including suing the EPA, to get the president to change the misguided policies that are hurting West Virginians.”

How long this will last and how much effect it will have on other Democratic stalwarts remains to be seen. But Tomblin is not the only important Democratic figure from a state heavily-dependent on the production and use of coal and oil for the health of their state economies. In addition, several Republican governors of coal producing/using states could quickly latch onto the same refrain (Pennsylvania and Ohio come to mind—both battleground states). Never mind the phony “war on women.” This is a real war on coal and oil, and now a Democratic governor has spoken the unspeakable.

Make no mistake. Tomblin is not about to become a maverick who endorses a Republican for president. West Virginia is a very poor state, with a large rural population and a significant portion of its population dependent on government handouts. But he has made a point which could resonate throughout other fossil-fuel states. And he has essentially “given permission” for other Democrats to remain loyal to their party without being loyal to the Great Job Destroyer.

Tomblin made it clear he is not a fan of either Romney or the Republican agenda, then proceeded to repeat Democratic talking points. Said Tomblin: “Mitt Romney is supporting policies that will end Medicare and Social Security as we know it. His policies will put more burdens on West Virginia families who are simply trying to make ends meet.” In other words, “I support Democratic policies which keep many West Virginians on the plantation and on the welfare rolls, but not a president who destroys union jobs and raises energy costs in quantum leaps.”

He concluded with “neither President Obama nor Governor Romney has earned my vote at this point.” That leaves open the question of whether he would reverse his position should Obama throw a few bones to West Virginia in the form of job incentives that are more apparent than real. That would be a real tightrope for both the president and the governor. Federal government handouts can go a long way toward greasing the wheels of currently-Democratic states.

West Virginia has a 2-1 Democratic registration majority, but has elected many Republicans to statewide and federal offices in the very recent past. Both the governor and Senator Joe Manchin (Tomblin’s predecessor in the governor’s mansion) are acutely aware that when it comes to unions and welfare, they are on solid ground. On the overall issue of jobs and the Obama ecoweenie attacks on coal production and coal-fueled energy their jobs are on shaky ground, and they know it. It doesn’t do them any good to support the United Mine Workers Union if the coal mines are forced to cease production and the state economy reaches final collapse.

In addition, Sen. Manchin has not endeared himself to the Obamacrats as he has implored the president to reverse course on “conscience waivers” in Obamacare to accommodate doctors religiously opposed to abortion and forced coverage for birth control and abortifacients. Blue Dog Democrats are a vanishing breed, but they haven’t yet gone entirely extinct.

So there appears to be a war going on in Democratic heaven. The question is, “who plays Satan and who plays God in this Paradise Lost scenario?” And then there’s always the question of which one will win.

Trouble In Democratic Paradise?

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San Fran Nan Explains The Parties

San Fran Nan Explains The Parties

I just got my weekly e-mail from Rep. Nancy Pelosi (former Queen of the House of Representatives). I look forward to her missals each week because she is a genius at clarifying and elucidating the important issues of the day while explaining why Republicans are evil and Democrats are the Good Samaritans. This week she explained the difference between the parties in simple terms, comprehensible to even the most ignorant of voters.

You see, Republicans are only concerned with subsidies for big oil, while Democrats only wish to prevent breast cancer. It’s as clear as earlier Democratic slogans such as “food, not bombs” and “make love, not war.” Says Nancy: “Their priority is to protect the subsidies for Big Oil (capital letters are hers), while our priority is to prevent breast cancer, cervical cancer, to immunize children, so that they are healthy. It’s survival to women. And that just goes to show you what a luxury Speaker Boehner thinks it is to have good health care for women.”

Pelosi is of course doing a head fake to keep the public from noticing that the House Republicans had just passed a paid-for student debt relief bill which the Senate won’t even take up and which the president has vowed to veto if it ever reaches him. Bring the topic back to the “war on women” and the public will miss another Democratic stall tactic to prevent any worthwhile legislation from being passed.

She also muddied the facts by giving credit to Obama for the proposed legislation while blaming the Republicans for ruining it by proposing spending cuts to pay for the cost of buoying up the student loans—all in the name of the war on women. “Thankfully, our president went out, made the pitch to the American people with such clarity that the Republicans are now changing their mind and coming back and saying ‘okay we won’t have it (the loan interest rate) go from 3.4% to 6.8%, but in order to pay for it we’re going to make an assault on women’s health—make another assault on women’s health, continue our assault on women’s health.’” (Just in case you didn’t get it—it’s an assault on women’s health.)

And then came one of those brilliant Pelosi stream of consciousness clarifications of her beliefs: “We will not support a bill that robs Peter to pay Paul, which ostensibly supports a middle-class initiative on making those very same people pay for it. I don’t know what it is that the Republicans have against the idea that there’s a positive role that we can do in a public-private way to make America healthier. That a women’s [sic.]health is central to the health of her family, they consider it a slush fund to pay for women’s health. We consider it an absolute necessity and that’s the difference here.” Ah, now I understand. Don’t you?

What the genius from Sodom by the Bay was talking about (at least I think it’s what she was talking about) is the Republican plan to pay for the lower student government-insured loan rates with $17 billion saved in cuts to the prevention and public health fund portions of the Obamacare monstrosity. That would save $5.9 billion on the loans rates with the rest of the savings going to other needed government functions..

When asked about her “war on women” rhetoric and side-stepping of the issue of Obama multi-trillion dollar deficits, Pelosi insisted that it was not political posturing to go ballistic over $6 billion. “I don’t see it as any posturing. $6 billion is $6 billion.” In fact, it was so important that she already has the answer to the problem: “We say, okay, we want to pay for it (that would be a refreshing departure for Democrats), and we can pay for it by going to subsidies for big oil and gas. And what we see here is what are the priorities of the parties in Washington DC?”

She continues the stream-of-consciousness with: “We say big oil (small letters this time) and gas get subsidies to have incentives to drill so that they can make probably $1 trillion over the next ten years. Certainly, we could spare some of that money for the student loan—reducing the student loan interest. But the Republicans say No! Leave the subsidies for big oil intact and let’s take it out of our old favorite target: women’s health. And that’s just wrong.”

I haven’t heard that kind of clarity of thought since a college sophomore friend of mine got roaring-drunk and tried to explain quantum physics to me in five minutes. It’s easy to dismiss the ramblings of this botoxed beauty as insignificant. But we must remember that she is still the majority leader of the House Democrats, and speaks for the powers-that-be in that party.

I just got my weekly e-mail from Rep. Nancy Pelosi (former Queen of the House of Representatives). I look forward to her missals each week because she is a genius at clarifying and elucidating the important issues of the day while explaining why Republicans are evil and Democrats are the Good Samaritans. This week she explained the difference between the parties in simple terms, comprehensible to even the most ignorant of voters.

You see, Republicans are only concerned with subsidies for big oil, while Democrats only wish to prevent breast cancer. It’s as clear as earlier Democratic slogans such as “food, not bombs” and “make love, not war.” Says Nancy: “Their priority is to protect the subsidies for Big Oil (capital letters are hers), while our priority is to prevent breast cancer, cervical cancer, to immunize children, so that they are healthy. It’s survival to women. And that just goes to show you what a luxury Speaker Boehner thinks it is to have good health care for women.”

Pelosi is of course doing a head fake to keep the public from noticing that the House Republicans had just passed a paid-for student debt relief bill which the Senate won’t even take up and which the president has vowed to veto if it ever reaches him. Bring the topic back to the “war on women” and the public will miss another Democratic stall tactic to prevent any worthwhile legislation from being passed.

She also muddied the facts by giving credit to Obama for the proposed legislation while blaming the Republicans for ruining it by proposing spending cuts to pay for the cost of buoying up the student loans—all in the name of the war on women. “Thankfully, our president went out, made the pitch to the American people with such clarity that the Republicans are now changing their mind and coming back and saying ‘okay we won’t have it (the loan interest rate) go from 3.4% to 6.8%, but in order to pay for it we’re going to make an assault on women’s health—make another assault on women’s health, continue our assault on women’s health.’” (Just in case you didn’t get it—it’s an assault on women’s health.)

And then came one of those brilliant Pelosi stream of consciousness clarifications of her beliefs: “We will not support a bill that robs Peter to pay Paul, which ostensibly supports a middle-class initiative on making those very same people pay for it. I don’t know what it is that the Republicans have against the idea that there’s a positive role that we can do in a public-private way to make America healthier. That a women’s [sic.]health is central to the health of her family, they consider it a slush fund to pay for women’s health. We consider it an absolute necessity and that’s the difference here.” Ah, now I understand. Don’t you?

What the genius from Sodom by the Bay was talking about (at least I think it’s what she was talking about) is the Republican plan to pay for the lower student government-insured loan rates with $17 billion saved in cuts to the prevention and public health fund portions of the Obamacare monstrosity. That would save $5.9 billion on the loans rates with the rest of the savings going to other needed government functions..

When asked about her “war on women” rhetoric and side-stepping of the issue of Obama multi-trillion dollar deficits, Pelosi insisted that it was not political posturing to go ballistic over $6 billion. “I don’t see it as any posturing. $6 billion is $6 billion.” In fact, it was so important that she already has the answer to the problem: “We say, okay, we want to pay for it (that would be a refreshing departure for Democrats), and we can pay for it by going to subsidies for big oil and gas. And what we see here is what are the priorities of the parties in Washington DC?”

She continues the stream-of-consciousness with: “We say big oil (small letters this time) and gas get subsidies to have incentives to drill so that they can make probably $1 trillion over the next ten years. Certainly, we could spare some of that money for the student loan—reducing the student loan interest. But the Republicans say No! Leave the subsidies for big oil intact and let’s take it out of our old favorite target: women’s health. And that’s just wrong.”

I haven’t heard that kind of clarity of thought since a college sophomore friend of mine got roaring-drunk and tried to explain quantum physics to me in five minutes. It’s easy to dismiss the ramblings of this botoxed beauty as insignificant. But we must remember that she is still the majority leader of the House Democrats, and speaks for the powers-that-be in that party.

San Fran Nan Explains The Parties

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Electoral Math

Electoral Math

Ok, let’s talk about the election so you don’t have to waste your time worrying about things like national polls or how 48 states might vote. Sadly, this election comes down to two states. That's right, two states -- unless something unexpected happens, in which event four whole states could become relevant. Get ready to have your mind blown. . .

Above is a chart provided by Yahoo which addresses which states are currently leaning in which directions and what that means in terms of electoral math. According to Yahoo, Obama has nineteen states and the District of Columbia in his pocket. Those give him 247 electoral votes. Romney has 23 states firmly in his column, which gives him 191 electoral votes.

The remaining eight states: Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Virginia, Colorado, Nevada, Iowa and New Hampshire, have an even 100 electoral votes between them. To win, a candidate needs 270 electoral votes. That means Obama needs 23 of those 100 and Romney needs 79 of those 100.

But here’s the thing, several of the states they’ve classified as toss-up states aren’t really toss-up states. History tells us that Virginia, Nevada and North Carolina are all but guaranteed to end up in Romney’s column. That boosts him to 225 electoral votes and means he needs 45 more.

Colorado, most likely, will go to Obama. . . grrr. That gives him nine more votes for a total of 256. That means he needs only 14.

Here’s what’s left:

Florida (29)
Ohio (18)
New Hampshire (4)
Iowa (6)

Now do the math. If Obama wins Florida OR Ohio, then he wins the election. But if Romney wins both Florida and Ohio, then he wins the election. New Hampshire and Iowa don’t matter in either of those scenarios. IF Obama loses Colorado but wins Ohio, then Iowa could matter because Obama could win by combining Ohio with Iowa. But New Hampshire never really matters.

What this comes down to is Florida and Ohio, with a slight chance that Colorado and Iowa could matter. Is that good or bad? It's good because those aren't strong states for Obama. But it's bad because it means it's going to be a close race, which means anything could happen.

Ok, let’s talk about the election so you don’t have to waste your time worrying about things like national polls or how 48 states might vote. Sadly, this election comes down to two states. That's right, two states -- unless something unexpected happens, in which event four whole states could become relevant. Get ready to have your mind blown. . .

Above is a chart provided by Yahoo which addresses which states are currently leaning in which directions and what that means in terms of electoral math. According to Yahoo, Obama has nineteen states and the District of Columbia in his pocket. Those give him 247 electoral votes. Romney has 23 states firmly in his column, which gives him 191 electoral votes.

The remaining eight states: Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Virginia, Colorado, Nevada, Iowa and New Hampshire, have an even 100 electoral votes between them. To win, a candidate needs 270 electoral votes. That means Obama needs 23 of those 100 and Romney needs 79 of those 100.

But here’s the thing, several of the states they’ve classified as toss-up states aren’t really toss-up states. History tells us that Virginia, Nevada and North Carolina are all but guaranteed to end up in Romney’s column. That boosts him to 225 electoral votes and means he needs 45 more.

Colorado, most likely, will go to Obama. . . grrr. That gives him nine more votes for a total of 256. That means he needs only 14.

Here’s what’s left:

Florida (29)
Ohio (18)
New Hampshire (4)
Iowa (6)

Now do the math. If Obama wins Florida OR Ohio, then he wins the election. But if Romney wins both Florida and Ohio, then he wins the election. New Hampshire and Iowa don’t matter in either of those scenarios. IF Obama loses Colorado but wins Ohio, then Iowa could matter because Obama could win by combining Ohio with Iowa. But New Hampshire never really matters.

What this comes down to is Florida and Ohio, with a slight chance that Colorado and Iowa could matter. Is that good or bad? It's good because those aren't strong states for Obama. But it's bad because it means it's going to be a close race, which means anything could happen.

Electoral Math

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Media Finally Spots Flaw In Democrat's Hispanic Strategy. . . Sort Of

Media Finally Spots Flaw In Democrat's Hispanic Strategy. . . Sort Of

We at Commentarama like to keep you ahead of the curve. So while others are worrying about things that will never happen or missing both forest and trees, we’re busy trying to let you know exactly what is going on and what the world will look like in the near future. And that brings me to the issue of immigration. It turns out, the Mexican invasion is over. And while you knew this already two years ago (Link), the public is only now getting hints of this. Perhaps it’s time for the Democrats to panic?

The idea that Hispanics (particularly Mexicans) will take over the United States has become an article of faith on the left. Indeed, the Democrats are counting on it. Their electoral strategy involves pandering to minorities and trying to get overwhelming support among them to offset their near-total collapse of support among whites. To achieve that level of support, they are working hard to scare these groups with claims of racism and to enslave them with poor education and by ingraining hobbling ideas like group rights.

But this whole idea relies on a faulty premise. Indeed, it depends on immigration from Mexico remaining at the same levels it was during its peak period in the 1980s/1990s. In 1980, there were 30 million Hispanics in the US. By 2000, there were 45 million. If you draw a straight line between those points and extend it to the future, there will be 104 million in 2040 and they will be the new majority group shortly after.

Sounds simple, but here’s the problem. That growth has nothing to do with births of Hispanics in the United States. Indeed, 12 million of the 15 million growth in the last twenty years was purely illegal immigration. And the vast majority of that comes from Mexico. Ergo, if immigration from Mexico slows, then the minority take over of America is over.

And guess what? Immigration from Mexico has all but stopped. Starting in 2007 (before the recession), immigration from Mexico began dropping. Within the last few years, it’s actually reversed itself, as the number of Mexicans returning to Mexico has exceeded the number of Mexicans who have come to the United States. How much? Well, according to Pew and the Census Bureau, the number of illegal immigrants in the US fell by one million in the last five years while the number of legal immigrants rose only by 200,000.

Why is this happening? Partially it is the sad state of our economy. But even more importantly, it’s because Mexico is running out of Mexicans. Mexico’s birthrate is in free fall. In the past decade alone, it has fallen 20% (from 24 births per 1,000 persons to 19), and it keeps right on falling. Mexico’s birth rate is now just over 2 children per mother, almost identical to the birth rate in the United States, and it’s still falling -- it will soon be at European levels (around 1.4). Because of this, Mexico’s population is estimated to peak in 2043, though I suspect that will happen much sooner, as it has in other countries. And that means Mexico, like Europe, is starting to suffer from a birth shortage and, consequently, a worker shortage. That means there won’t be waves of millions of Mexicans sneaking across the border in each of the next 3-4 decades because they can find the jobs they want at home. So instead of having 104 million Hispanics in 2040 as expected, the US is more likely to have 60 million -- which won’t be anywhere near a majority in a country of 350 million people.

I told you about this in May 2000 and again last year. The LA Times first hinted at this yesterday. Neither the Times nor others on the left have yet fully grasped the meaning of this, but it will come as they realize what this means for the Democratic strategy.

And falling numbers aren’t the only problem. Look at the concentration of Hispanics in the United States. That is not a map which affords Hispanics political power. As California has learned, anything above 50%+1 is a waste in our system. So piling millions upon millions of Hispanics into the same 3-4 states means their influence will always been small compared to their numbers.

Further, there is this point I mentioned last year. According to the Census, 53% of Hispanics now identify themselves as “white,” while 37% identify themselves as “some other race” (the choice on the form) with the rest selecting other races such as black. And American- born children of Hispanics are even more likely to identify themselves as “white.” This means Hispanics are doing what every other ethnic group except blacks has done -- they are joining the melting pot.

The Democratic dream of an angry racist Hispanic majority which supports their socialist ways is over. This wave of Hispanics is not coming, they are not going to the right states, and those that are here are leaving the race-reservation. The LA Times has finally put its finger on this, but hasn’t grasps the full implications yet. But that will come as the Times article is now getting widespread publication. Any guesses what the Democrats will do about their mistake. . . or if they'll put this together?


And don't forget, it's Star Trek Tuesday at the film site!

We at Commentarama like to keep you ahead of the curve. So while others are worrying about things that will never happen or missing both forest and trees, we’re busy trying to let you know exactly what is going on and what the world will look like in the near future. And that brings me to the issue of immigration. It turns out, the Mexican invasion is over. And while you knew this already two years ago (Link), the public is only now getting hints of this. Perhaps it’s time for the Democrats to panic?

The idea that Hispanics (particularly Mexicans) will take over the United States has become an article of faith on the left. Indeed, the Democrats are counting on it. Their electoral strategy involves pandering to minorities and trying to get overwhelming support among them to offset their near-total collapse of support among whites. To achieve that level of support, they are working hard to scare these groups with claims of racism and to enslave them with poor education and by ingraining hobbling ideas like group rights.

But this whole idea relies on a faulty premise. Indeed, it depends on immigration from Mexico remaining at the same levels it was during its peak period in the 1980s/1990s. In 1980, there were 30 million Hispanics in the US. By 2000, there were 45 million. If you draw a straight line between those points and extend it to the future, there will be 104 million in 2040 and they will be the new majority group shortly after.

Sounds simple, but here’s the problem. That growth has nothing to do with births of Hispanics in the United States. Indeed, 12 million of the 15 million growth in the last twenty years was purely illegal immigration. And the vast majority of that comes from Mexico. Ergo, if immigration from Mexico slows, then the minority take over of America is over.

And guess what? Immigration from Mexico has all but stopped. Starting in 2007 (before the recession), immigration from Mexico began dropping. Within the last few years, it’s actually reversed itself, as the number of Mexicans returning to Mexico has exceeded the number of Mexicans who have come to the United States. How much? Well, according to Pew and the Census Bureau, the number of illegal immigrants in the US fell by one million in the last five years while the number of legal immigrants rose only by 200,000.

Why is this happening? Partially it is the sad state of our economy. But even more importantly, it’s because Mexico is running out of Mexicans. Mexico’s birthrate is in free fall. In the past decade alone, it has fallen 20% (from 24 births per 1,000 persons to 19), and it keeps right on falling. Mexico’s birth rate is now just over 2 children per mother, almost identical to the birth rate in the United States, and it’s still falling -- it will soon be at European levels (around 1.4). Because of this, Mexico’s population is estimated to peak in 2043, though I suspect that will happen much sooner, as it has in other countries. And that means Mexico, like Europe, is starting to suffer from a birth shortage and, consequently, a worker shortage. That means there won’t be waves of millions of Mexicans sneaking across the border in each of the next 3-4 decades because they can find the jobs they want at home. So instead of having 104 million Hispanics in 2040 as expected, the US is more likely to have 60 million -- which won’t be anywhere near a majority in a country of 350 million people.

I told you about this in May 2000 and again last year. The LA Times first hinted at this yesterday. Neither the Times nor others on the left have yet fully grasped the meaning of this, but it will come as they realize what this means for the Democratic strategy.

And falling numbers aren’t the only problem. Look at the concentration of Hispanics in the United States. That is not a map which affords Hispanics political power. As California has learned, anything above 50%+1 is a waste in our system. So piling millions upon millions of Hispanics into the same 3-4 states means their influence will always been small compared to their numbers.

Further, there is this point I mentioned last year. According to the Census, 53% of Hispanics now identify themselves as “white,” while 37% identify themselves as “some other race” (the choice on the form) with the rest selecting other races such as black. And American- born children of Hispanics are even more likely to identify themselves as “white.” This means Hispanics are doing what every other ethnic group except blacks has done -- they are joining the melting pot.

The Democratic dream of an angry racist Hispanic majority which supports their socialist ways is over. This wave of Hispanics is not coming, they are not going to the right states, and those that are here are leaving the race-reservation. The LA Times has finally put its finger on this, but hasn’t grasps the full implications yet. But that will come as the Times article is now getting widespread publication. Any guesses what the Democrats will do about their mistake. . . or if they'll put this together?


And don't forget, it's Star Trek Tuesday at the film site!

Media Finally Spots Flaw In Democrat's Hispanic Strategy. . . Sort Of

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Obama's Campaign Strategy Talking Points

Obama's Campaign Strategy Talking Points

It’s interesting when you notice Democratic talking point being passed around. The other day, The Economist put out an article which reeks of Obama re-election talking points. Almost instantly, I saw similar points being made at other websites. We even had a troll visit us with a cut-and-paste job of these. Without further adieu, here is how Obama apparently plans to sell himself for re-election.

● Defending Obama’s Glorious Record: The first big problem for Obama is his record. From causing the Great Recession to unbelievable debt and deficits, to the lost credit rating, to his failure to fix too-big-too-fail, his failure to fix the mortgage crisis, his failure to create any jobs, soaring gas prices, soaring energy costs, increased dependence on foreign old, overseas surrenders, his “failure”/attempt to enact gun control, “failure” to create a single-payer healthplan/his attempt to seize the medical system, his “failure”/attempt to enact cap and trade, his “failure”/attempt to end the Bush tax cuts and No Child Left Behind, his failure to close Guantanamo, or a dozen other things, no one left, right or center likes this man. Here’s how Team Obama plans to spin this.

First, blame Bush. The Economist put it this way, “considering the circumstances, he has not done badly.” In other words, Bush set him up for failure. They then credit him with preventing a Great Depression, rescuing Detroit’s carmakers and “stabilizing the banks.” If by “stabilizing” they mean “making the situation much worse” and by “rescuing” they mean “delaying the inevitable,” then sure, he did do those things. Claiming the Great Recession as a good thing is perverse, and they do it by claiming that “more Americans would be out of work today” if not for Obama. This is nonsense, but can’t be proven either way.

The Economist then finishes by crediting Obama with “battering al Qaeda” and killing Osama bin Laden. On point two: who cares, he wasn’t in charge anymore and it clearly didn’t stop a damn thing. On point one: where exactly is the proof for this? We are the ones with our tails between our legs in Afghanistan. Piracy, a new al Qaeda venture, is out of control. There are record numbers of terrorists attacks each year. How exactly did Obama neuter al Qaeda?

Our troll ran with this too. He points to bin Laden’s death (yawn), and he claims the Navy freed someone from the Somali pirates. He doesn’t seem to realize that under Obama there’s be a 625% increase in the number of ships taken, a 3,600% increase in the amount paid per ship, and a total increase in profits of 22,527%. At least somebody’s better off under Obama.

He then says: no one can name anything Obama did which “would remotely qualify as Marxist.” Well, I’m relieved. Then he lists some policies without mentioning they didn’t work -- the stimulus, the auto industry bailout, putting “attractive tax write-offs” on hybrids. . . which aren’t selling. He lists spending on various things as if that was somehow a good thing: high-speed porno for schools and increased infrastructure spending “after years of neglect.” He also lists some things that didn’t happen like healthcare coverage being given to four million more children, the closing of offshore tax safe havens, and “making more loans available to small business.” That’s all simply false. And this one I love, he “instituted enforcement for equal pay for women.” Uh. . . no. Obama made a point of not promising that the other day. Instead, he’s promising to pay for family medical leave and condoms.

That’s the laughable game plan for selling Obama’s record. Notice they don’t even try to defend the bad parts, they just gloss over those. But even more importantly, all of the above misses the key problem: the average American voter is much worse off than they were before Barry took over.

● The Campaign: Because Obama’s record is so horrible, Obama will run a vile, racist campaign. To prepare everyone for this, The Economist notes that this will be an ugly election. . . because of Romney. Apparently, the vile Romney must plead to the Republican base’s “hatred of Mr. Obama” to win the election. This will cause Mr. Obama to “run a more partisan campaign this time around.” Yeah, they really described it that way.

Then they said something hilarious. See, for reasons unknown to The Economist, Obama just happens to have been “portraying the Republicans as ruthless asset-strippers who care nothing about the middle class so long as they can promote the interests of the super-rich,” when good fortune smiled upon him: “How lucky for Mr. Obama that the super-rich Mr. Romney made his fortune in the cut-throat business of private equity.” Wow, what a coincidence? Obama just happens to be blasting the vile rich for no apparent reason, and then the vile-rich Romney gets the nomination. That’s so perfect, you would almost think Obama was saying those things intentionally. . . unless you work for The Economist, then you just see this as a lucky coincidence.

They continue by noting that Obama has been claiming the Republicans “embrace a form of ‘thinly veiled social Darwinism’ that would deprive needy children of healthy food, slash cancer research, close down national parks and eliminate air-traffic control in swathes of the country.” Why The Economist says this isn’t clear, unless they just want to spread the word for Obama. Indeed, that seems to be the case based on the very next sentence: “It sounds scary, and it contains more than grain of truth,” even though the Republicans “have proposed none of these specific cuts.” In others words, it’s scary because it’s true, even though it’s not technically true. Wow.

At least they do point out that Romney responded to this by arguing that these are straw men arguments. Of course, then The Economist says: “Coming from the Republicans, this is rich. They have attacked a straw man since the day Mr. Obama was inaugurated. They labeled his conventional Keynesian response to a deep recession ‘socialist.’ They called Obamacare unAmerican, even though this market-based scheme to extend health cover to 30m uninsured Americans is almost identical to the one Mr. Romney adopted.”

Can you feel the tears? Those evil Republicans made The Economist cry and we should therefore ignore the truth of what the Republicans say. Notice also the massive double-speak here. Obamacare is not a market-based scheme by any definition. It is not identical to Romneycare. It was supposed to cover 43 million Americans, not 30 million. Keynesianism plus nationalizing banks and car companies, taking over state budgets, forcing unionization on companies, etc. etc. is socialism.

And again, notice how perfectly these whiny lies fit with the troll, who assures us there is no proof Obama is a Marxist. The troll also said, this is “why Republicans want to put the full weight of the National Debt on American Workers, while the super-rich get even richer.” Tell me that doesn’t sound like The Economist’s little tirade about the Republicans as “asset-strippers who care nothing about the middle class so long as they can promote the interests of the super-rich.” Sounds like somebody cheated off somebody else’s paper!

To its “credit,” The Economist does note that Romney has correctly attacked Obama for not coming up with a serious plan to tame entitlements, BUT “there is plenty of blame to go around.” Then they point out how Obama tried to do this last summer but was frustrated by Congress, and then they credit him with $1.2 trillion in phantom cuts. (By the way, this same magazine attacked those cuts as dangerous at the time.) They also note that the “Buffett rule” is just a gimmick. The Buffett rule, in case you didn’t know, is “supposed to make millionaires like Mr. Romney pay at least the same tax rate as their secretaries.” And for the record, Obama paid less than his secretary this year. . . as did his crony buddy Warren Buffett.

Finally, they finish with the old “can’t we all just get along” which liberals always use when they are going to lose.

That is Obama’s campaign in a nutshell. These are the talking points you will hear liberals start repeating now ad nauseam until you are ready to strangle every last one of them. And if you do indeed feel that need, don’t let me stop you.

It’s interesting when you notice Democratic talking point being passed around. The other day, The Economist put out an article which reeks of Obama re-election talking points. Almost instantly, I saw similar points being made at other websites. We even had a troll visit us with a cut-and-paste job of these. Without further adieu, here is how Obama apparently plans to sell himself for re-election.

● Defending Obama’s Glorious Record: The first big problem for Obama is his record. From causing the Great Recession to unbelievable debt and deficits, to the lost credit rating, to his failure to fix too-big-too-fail, his failure to fix the mortgage crisis, his failure to create any jobs, soaring gas prices, soaring energy costs, increased dependence on foreign old, overseas surrenders, his “failure”/attempt to enact gun control, “failure” to create a single-payer healthplan/his attempt to seize the medical system, his “failure”/attempt to enact cap and trade, his “failure”/attempt to end the Bush tax cuts and No Child Left Behind, his failure to close Guantanamo, or a dozen other things, no one left, right or center likes this man. Here’s how Team Obama plans to spin this.

First, blame Bush. The Economist put it this way, “considering the circumstances, he has not done badly.” In other words, Bush set him up for failure. They then credit him with preventing a Great Depression, rescuing Detroit’s carmakers and “stabilizing the banks.” If by “stabilizing” they mean “making the situation much worse” and by “rescuing” they mean “delaying the inevitable,” then sure, he did do those things. Claiming the Great Recession as a good thing is perverse, and they do it by claiming that “more Americans would be out of work today” if not for Obama. This is nonsense, but can’t be proven either way.

The Economist then finishes by crediting Obama with “battering al Qaeda” and killing Osama bin Laden. On point two: who cares, he wasn’t in charge anymore and it clearly didn’t stop a damn thing. On point one: where exactly is the proof for this? We are the ones with our tails between our legs in Afghanistan. Piracy, a new al Qaeda venture, is out of control. There are record numbers of terrorists attacks each year. How exactly did Obama neuter al Qaeda?

Our troll ran with this too. He points to bin Laden’s death (yawn), and he claims the Navy freed someone from the Somali pirates. He doesn’t seem to realize that under Obama there’s be a 625% increase in the number of ships taken, a 3,600% increase in the amount paid per ship, and a total increase in profits of 22,527%. At least somebody’s better off under Obama.

He then says: no one can name anything Obama did which “would remotely qualify as Marxist.” Well, I’m relieved. Then he lists some policies without mentioning they didn’t work -- the stimulus, the auto industry bailout, putting “attractive tax write-offs” on hybrids. . . which aren’t selling. He lists spending on various things as if that was somehow a good thing: high-speed porno for schools and increased infrastructure spending “after years of neglect.” He also lists some things that didn’t happen like healthcare coverage being given to four million more children, the closing of offshore tax safe havens, and “making more loans available to small business.” That’s all simply false. And this one I love, he “instituted enforcement for equal pay for women.” Uh. . . no. Obama made a point of not promising that the other day. Instead, he’s promising to pay for family medical leave and condoms.

That’s the laughable game plan for selling Obama’s record. Notice they don’t even try to defend the bad parts, they just gloss over those. But even more importantly, all of the above misses the key problem: the average American voter is much worse off than they were before Barry took over.

● The Campaign: Because Obama’s record is so horrible, Obama will run a vile, racist campaign. To prepare everyone for this, The Economist notes that this will be an ugly election. . . because of Romney. Apparently, the vile Romney must plead to the Republican base’s “hatred of Mr. Obama” to win the election. This will cause Mr. Obama to “run a more partisan campaign this time around.” Yeah, they really described it that way.

Then they said something hilarious. See, for reasons unknown to The Economist, Obama just happens to have been “portraying the Republicans as ruthless asset-strippers who care nothing about the middle class so long as they can promote the interests of the super-rich,” when good fortune smiled upon him: “How lucky for Mr. Obama that the super-rich Mr. Romney made his fortune in the cut-throat business of private equity.” Wow, what a coincidence? Obama just happens to be blasting the vile rich for no apparent reason, and then the vile-rich Romney gets the nomination. That’s so perfect, you would almost think Obama was saying those things intentionally. . . unless you work for The Economist, then you just see this as a lucky coincidence.

They continue by noting that Obama has been claiming the Republicans “embrace a form of ‘thinly veiled social Darwinism’ that would deprive needy children of healthy food, slash cancer research, close down national parks and eliminate air-traffic control in swathes of the country.” Why The Economist says this isn’t clear, unless they just want to spread the word for Obama. Indeed, that seems to be the case based on the very next sentence: “It sounds scary, and it contains more than grain of truth,” even though the Republicans “have proposed none of these specific cuts.” In others words, it’s scary because it’s true, even though it’s not technically true. Wow.

At least they do point out that Romney responded to this by arguing that these are straw men arguments. Of course, then The Economist says: “Coming from the Republicans, this is rich. They have attacked a straw man since the day Mr. Obama was inaugurated. They labeled his conventional Keynesian response to a deep recession ‘socialist.’ They called Obamacare unAmerican, even though this market-based scheme to extend health cover to 30m uninsured Americans is almost identical to the one Mr. Romney adopted.”

Can you feel the tears? Those evil Republicans made The Economist cry and we should therefore ignore the truth of what the Republicans say. Notice also the massive double-speak here. Obamacare is not a market-based scheme by any definition. It is not identical to Romneycare. It was supposed to cover 43 million Americans, not 30 million. Keynesianism plus nationalizing banks and car companies, taking over state budgets, forcing unionization on companies, etc. etc. is socialism.

And again, notice how perfectly these whiny lies fit with the troll, who assures us there is no proof Obama is a Marxist. The troll also said, this is “why Republicans want to put the full weight of the National Debt on American Workers, while the super-rich get even richer.” Tell me that doesn’t sound like The Economist’s little tirade about the Republicans as “asset-strippers who care nothing about the middle class so long as they can promote the interests of the super-rich.” Sounds like somebody cheated off somebody else’s paper!

To its “credit,” The Economist does note that Romney has correctly attacked Obama for not coming up with a serious plan to tame entitlements, BUT “there is plenty of blame to go around.” Then they point out how Obama tried to do this last summer but was frustrated by Congress, and then they credit him with $1.2 trillion in phantom cuts. (By the way, this same magazine attacked those cuts as dangerous at the time.) They also note that the “Buffett rule” is just a gimmick. The Buffett rule, in case you didn’t know, is “supposed to make millionaires like Mr. Romney pay at least the same tax rate as their secretaries.” And for the record, Obama paid less than his secretary this year. . . as did his crony buddy Warren Buffett.

Finally, they finish with the old “can’t we all just get along” which liberals always use when they are going to lose.

That is Obama’s campaign in a nutshell. These are the talking points you will hear liberals start repeating now ad nauseam until you are ready to strangle every last one of them. And if you do indeed feel that need, don’t let me stop you.

Obama's Campaign Strategy Talking Points

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A Whiff of Scandal

A Whiff of Scandal

One of the surest signs of an administration in freefall is when the whiff of scandal begins to take hold, especially when it’s a Democratic administration because the MSM tries to shield them until the MSM decides they are sure to lose. So it’s interesting that so many scandals are suddenly appearing.

● GSAgate: The GSA scandal just keeps getting worse. First, you had a video of several GSA employees playing around rather than working. Then you had reports of $800k used to party in Vegas, and $900k used on expensive gifts for employees. Then more videos came out of GSA employees playing around. Over the weekend, we heard that criminal charges have been recommended by the Inspector General for many of these same party-goers, along with allegations of bribery and kickbacks. The head of the department has resigned, as have several other senior individuals. Some have pled the Fifth before Congress! Now we hear of a senior GSA employee who took his wife to Hawaii, Guam and the Mariana Islands on the taxpayer’s dime as a birthday gift. . . even after the Vegas scandal hit the news. And we’ve learned that GSA employees routinely invented fake awards so they could get the government to pay for food at meetings. Those are criminal acts.

This is the death of a thousand small scandals. Moreover, these are the types of scandals which catch people’s attention because it’s easy to understand -- unlike something like Fast and Furious. What’s worse, the Democrats are responding poorly by trying to allege this IG investigation is nothing more than a GOP smear or a "war on Vegas." That’s never worked. And Obama stepped in it by trying to claim this was Bush’s fault. That laid this firmly on Obama doorstep because his responding confirmed that this is something which sits at the presidential level of accountability.

● Air Farce One: Anyone remember Pelosi’s plane? Well, Leon Panetta is now answering questions about why the taxpayers had to pay to fly him home on weekends to California at a cost of $860,000 so far. He’s apologizing to anyone who will listen, which means he knows this too is the sort of thing taxpayers remember, especially in an administration known for taxpayer-funded vacations and golf.

● Boogie Down Secret Agent Man: The Secret Service is in the middle of a growing scandal as we learn that between 11-20 of their agents decided to party with a group of hookers in Cartagena, Columbia. I doubt the public wouldn’t attribute this to Obama, except for two things. First, when scandal is in the air, all scandals touching an administration get sucked in and become a pattern of misbehavior or mismanagement. Secondly, Obama put his foot in his mouth saying he would be “angry” if this proved to be true. This makes Obama sound like a chump because this goes back to his not knowing “whose ass to kick” in the Gulf of Mexico. It also makes it sound like these men were directly under his authority. He should have said he trusted the Secret Service to determine the facts and sort this out.

● Crony Industrial Policy: As we discussed yesterday and several times in the past, Obama’s fascist-inspired industrial policy has fallen apart in record time, and many of these are finally hitting the airwaves. This is why even the MSM is beginning to question why companies like Solyndra, Enerl, Beacon Power, Solar Trust for America, and others could possibly have gone bankrupt so quickly, sucking down so much government money. . . after making sizeable donations to Team Donkey.

● Bad Touch: Finally, there is a state-level sexual harassment scandal unfolding in North Carolina, where the NC Democratic Party executive director resigned Sunday after it was revealed he had paid a former staffer to keep quiet about sexual harassment allegations. Normally, this would be no big deal nationally, except for a couple facts: (1) this blew up in the middle of the whiff of scandal moment (and a slow news cycle), (2) it happened right after Hilary Rosen’s broadside against motherhood, which happened right as the Democrats charged the GOP with waging a war against women, and (3) the governor made it so much worse. Indeed, Governor Bev Perdue told reporters to “get over it” when she was asked about the scandal, despite the fact she had just declared April to be “Sexual Assault Awareness Month.” She finally joined calls for the resignation, but the damage was done. Between this and Rosen, the Democratic propaganda about a war on women has exploded in a huge ball of hypocritical fire.

This is all bad news for Obama and the Democrats. It’s not that any one of these scandals is truly bad by itself, it’s that they are getting noticed by the MSM. This suggests the MSM knows Obama is doomed and they’ve decided to gain some credibility on his back by taking down all kinds of peripheral players. This will allow them to pretend they are unbiased when they start hunting for (and manufacturing) scandals under the Romney administration. I’ve seen this every time a Democrat is in trouble.

The one thing that may save them, however, is this fact: according to data compiled by the IRS, only 85 million people actually paid Federal tax last year. That’s only 27% of the population. Yes, you read that correctly. Only 1 in 4 Americans paid federal tax. That means 3 in 4 Americans are getting a free ride on the Federal government. By comparison, 49% of Americans, 147 million people, live in a household where someone received benefits from the government. This means a tremendous class of people is being created who will keep voting for more government, and that means Democrats.

That makes this election extremely important. The Republicans must cut these people off. They must break this cycle of dependence before it takes hold and they need to make more people pay taxes. This is vital the future. They should also mercilessly mock these scandals.

One of the surest signs of an administration in freefall is when the whiff of scandal begins to take hold, especially when it’s a Democratic administration because the MSM tries to shield them until the MSM decides they are sure to lose. So it’s interesting that so many scandals are suddenly appearing.

● GSAgate: The GSA scandal just keeps getting worse. First, you had a video of several GSA employees playing around rather than working. Then you had reports of $800k used to party in Vegas, and $900k used on expensive gifts for employees. Then more videos came out of GSA employees playing around. Over the weekend, we heard that criminal charges have been recommended by the Inspector General for many of these same party-goers, along with allegations of bribery and kickbacks. The head of the department has resigned, as have several other senior individuals. Some have pled the Fifth before Congress! Now we hear of a senior GSA employee who took his wife to Hawaii, Guam and the Mariana Islands on the taxpayer’s dime as a birthday gift. . . even after the Vegas scandal hit the news. And we’ve learned that GSA employees routinely invented fake awards so they could get the government to pay for food at meetings. Those are criminal acts.

This is the death of a thousand small scandals. Moreover, these are the types of scandals which catch people’s attention because it’s easy to understand -- unlike something like Fast and Furious. What’s worse, the Democrats are responding poorly by trying to allege this IG investigation is nothing more than a GOP smear or a "war on Vegas." That’s never worked. And Obama stepped in it by trying to claim this was Bush’s fault. That laid this firmly on Obama doorstep because his responding confirmed that this is something which sits at the presidential level of accountability.

● Air Farce One: Anyone remember Pelosi’s plane? Well, Leon Panetta is now answering questions about why the taxpayers had to pay to fly him home on weekends to California at a cost of $860,000 so far. He’s apologizing to anyone who will listen, which means he knows this too is the sort of thing taxpayers remember, especially in an administration known for taxpayer-funded vacations and golf.

● Boogie Down Secret Agent Man: The Secret Service is in the middle of a growing scandal as we learn that between 11-20 of their agents decided to party with a group of hookers in Cartagena, Columbia. I doubt the public wouldn’t attribute this to Obama, except for two things. First, when scandal is in the air, all scandals touching an administration get sucked in and become a pattern of misbehavior or mismanagement. Secondly, Obama put his foot in his mouth saying he would be “angry” if this proved to be true. This makes Obama sound like a chump because this goes back to his not knowing “whose ass to kick” in the Gulf of Mexico. It also makes it sound like these men were directly under his authority. He should have said he trusted the Secret Service to determine the facts and sort this out.

● Crony Industrial Policy: As we discussed yesterday and several times in the past, Obama’s fascist-inspired industrial policy has fallen apart in record time, and many of these are finally hitting the airwaves. This is why even the MSM is beginning to question why companies like Solyndra, Enerl, Beacon Power, Solar Trust for America, and others could possibly have gone bankrupt so quickly, sucking down so much government money. . . after making sizeable donations to Team Donkey.

● Bad Touch: Finally, there is a state-level sexual harassment scandal unfolding in North Carolina, where the NC Democratic Party executive director resigned Sunday after it was revealed he had paid a former staffer to keep quiet about sexual harassment allegations. Normally, this would be no big deal nationally, except for a couple facts: (1) this blew up in the middle of the whiff of scandal moment (and a slow news cycle), (2) it happened right after Hilary Rosen’s broadside against motherhood, which happened right as the Democrats charged the GOP with waging a war against women, and (3) the governor made it so much worse. Indeed, Governor Bev Perdue told reporters to “get over it” when she was asked about the scandal, despite the fact she had just declared April to be “Sexual Assault Awareness Month.” She finally joined calls for the resignation, but the damage was done. Between this and Rosen, the Democratic propaganda about a war on women has exploded in a huge ball of hypocritical fire.

This is all bad news for Obama and the Democrats. It’s not that any one of these scandals is truly bad by itself, it’s that they are getting noticed by the MSM. This suggests the MSM knows Obama is doomed and they’ve decided to gain some credibility on his back by taking down all kinds of peripheral players. This will allow them to pretend they are unbiased when they start hunting for (and manufacturing) scandals under the Romney administration. I’ve seen this every time a Democrat is in trouble.

The one thing that may save them, however, is this fact: according to data compiled by the IRS, only 85 million people actually paid Federal tax last year. That’s only 27% of the population. Yes, you read that correctly. Only 1 in 4 Americans paid federal tax. That means 3 in 4 Americans are getting a free ride on the Federal government. By comparison, 49% of Americans, 147 million people, live in a household where someone received benefits from the government. This means a tremendous class of people is being created who will keep voting for more government, and that means Democrats.

That makes this election extremely important. The Republicans must cut these people off. They must break this cycle of dependence before it takes hold and they need to make more people pay taxes. This is vital the future. They should also mercilessly mock these scandals.

A Whiff of Scandal

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Allen West’s “Gaffes”

Allen West’s “Gaffes”

Having failed to make Santorum the nominee (and with Ricky now dropping out of the race), the MSM is now trying to destroy various Republican VP candidates before Romney makes his choice. Last weekend, Politico took a shot at Rep. Allen West by listing his ten biggest “gaffes.” Of course, these were not gaffes, they were just things liberal do not want to hear. Let’s look at some of West’s finest moments:

1. The Right Principles: Allen West espouses all the right principles. West summarizes these nicely in several of his supposed gaffes.

● Here is West describing the economic foundations of America while attacking the Democrats for undermining them. To Obama, Reid and Pelosi, he says: “Take your message of equality of achievement, take your message of economic dependency, take your message of enslaving the entrepreneurial will and spirit of the American people somewhere else. You can take it to Europe, you can take it to the bottom of the sea, you can take it to the North Pole, but get the hell out of the United States of America.”

● West has also made the same point more positively: “This is what America is about when it comes to understanding that it is equal opportunity versus equal achievement. Each and every one of us has the opportunity for greatness in this country.”

● And here is West explaining why he supports the Tea Party. Notice the reference to limited, constitutional government: “I think that if we get back to some basic fundamental principles, we can make sure that we resolve the issues. And I think that that's what the Tea Party was all about. It's getting back to a constitutional conservative government. And that is limited, but it's also effective and efficient. I think that that's what we'll be able to do.”

2. A Fighter Not A Lover: West also has a strong track record of fighting back against the Democratic smear/propaganda machine. Here are a few more of his “gaffes.”

● First, West is clear that the Democratic party is bad for blacks and others who get trapped in the dependence the Democrats hope to engender: “So I’m here as the modern day Harriet Tubman to kind of lead people on the Underground Railroad away from that plantation into a sense of sensibility.”

● He also makes no bones about the Democrats' willingness to lie and cheat and use any means to smear and destroy those with whom they disagree: “If Joseph Goebbels was around, he’d be very proud of the [Democratic] Party because they have an incredible propaganda machine.” This one really got the left upset, but if the jackboot fits....

● He has fought back against that vile Gollum-like create Debbie Wasserman Shits. . . er, Schultz, whose hateful public pronouncement would actually have made Goebbels blush. Indeed, he called her “the most vile, unprofessional, and despicable” member of the House. Then he added, “You have proven repeatedly that you are not a Lady, and therefore, shall not be afforded due respect from me!”

● And when he was later asked what he thinks whenever Shultz’s name is mentioned, he said this: “I need a bucket.”

● Lastly, he gave us this one which I think of as “speaking truth to the power-mad”: “I must confess, when I see anyone with an Obama 2012 bumper sticker, I recognize them as a threat to the gene pool.”

What’s more, Allen hasn’t been blinded by the mob over the past two years like so many others. He’s recognized that you can’t play “take it or leave” in our form of government, and he’s recognized that you can’t build anything by destroying the Republican Party. He has proven to be a savvy operator and yet has maintained his principles. We need more Republicans like this.

BONUS ROUND: Here are some of Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s recent quotes:

● On Paul Ryan’s budget: “As a result, many seniors in America will be forced into poverty, and worse. Some seniors will end up dying because they are forced to put off getting that pain checked out due to huge out-of-pocket costs that will skyrocket for them. This plan would literally be a death trap for some seniors.”

● Calling ObamaCare “ObamaCare” is “a disparaging reference to the President of the United States.”

● Schultz said it would “belittle” minorities to extend hate crimes laws to veterans: “It really is belittling of the respect that we should have for [minorities] to suggest that members of the armed services have somehow systematically been the victims of hate crimes.”

● She held a rally to attack Allen West (before his election). At the time, she explained the difference between her crowd and the Tea Party thusly: “I don’t see any swastikas or any pictures of the President in black face or burned in effigy here. The difference between the way we express our First Amendment rights and the way I’ve seen Tea Party extremists—Republican Tea Party extremists—express their right is dramatically different.” So the “difference is different?” Bright.

● Then she despicably tried to latch onto the Giffords shooting by dragging her own daughter into it, and by trying to define the Giffords shooting as a result of Arizona’s anti-illegal immigration law: “After my daughter heard that, you know, Gabby had been shot, the first thing she asked me was, you know, ‘Mommy, are you going to get shot? Does that mean you're going to get shot? But Mommy, Florida's going to pass an immigration law like Arizona and then people are going to be mad at you.’”

She’s a real piece of shitzu poo.


Don't forget, it's Star Trek Tuesday at the film site!

Having failed to make Santorum the nominee (and with Ricky now dropping out of the race), the MSM is now trying to destroy various Republican VP candidates before Romney makes his choice. Last weekend, Politico took a shot at Rep. Allen West by listing his ten biggest “gaffes.” Of course, these were not gaffes, they were just things liberal do not want to hear. Let’s look at some of West’s finest moments:

1. The Right Principles: Allen West espouses all the right principles. West summarizes these nicely in several of his supposed gaffes.

● Here is West describing the economic foundations of America while attacking the Democrats for undermining them. To Obama, Reid and Pelosi, he says: “Take your message of equality of achievement, take your message of economic dependency, take your message of enslaving the entrepreneurial will and spirit of the American people somewhere else. You can take it to Europe, you can take it to the bottom of the sea, you can take it to the North Pole, but get the hell out of the United States of America.”

● West has also made the same point more positively: “This is what America is about when it comes to understanding that it is equal opportunity versus equal achievement. Each and every one of us has the opportunity for greatness in this country.”

● And here is West explaining why he supports the Tea Party. Notice the reference to limited, constitutional government: “I think that if we get back to some basic fundamental principles, we can make sure that we resolve the issues. And I think that that's what the Tea Party was all about. It's getting back to a constitutional conservative government. And that is limited, but it's also effective and efficient. I think that that's what we'll be able to do.”

2. A Fighter Not A Lover: West also has a strong track record of fighting back against the Democratic smear/propaganda machine. Here are a few more of his “gaffes.”

● First, West is clear that the Democratic party is bad for blacks and others who get trapped in the dependence the Democrats hope to engender: “So I’m here as the modern day Harriet Tubman to kind of lead people on the Underground Railroad away from that plantation into a sense of sensibility.”

● He also makes no bones about the Democrats' willingness to lie and cheat and use any means to smear and destroy those with whom they disagree: “If Joseph Goebbels was around, he’d be very proud of the [Democratic] Party because they have an incredible propaganda machine.” This one really got the left upset, but if the jackboot fits....

● He has fought back against that vile Gollum-like create Debbie Wasserman Shits. . . er, Schultz, whose hateful public pronouncement would actually have made Goebbels blush. Indeed, he called her “the most vile, unprofessional, and despicable” member of the House. Then he added, “You have proven repeatedly that you are not a Lady, and therefore, shall not be afforded due respect from me!”

● And when he was later asked what he thinks whenever Shultz’s name is mentioned, he said this: “I need a bucket.”

● Lastly, he gave us this one which I think of as “speaking truth to the power-mad”: “I must confess, when I see anyone with an Obama 2012 bumper sticker, I recognize them as a threat to the gene pool.”

What’s more, Allen hasn’t been blinded by the mob over the past two years like so many others. He’s recognized that you can’t play “take it or leave” in our form of government, and he’s recognized that you can’t build anything by destroying the Republican Party. He has proven to be a savvy operator and yet has maintained his principles. We need more Republicans like this.

BONUS ROUND: Here are some of Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s recent quotes:

● On Paul Ryan’s budget: “As a result, many seniors in America will be forced into poverty, and worse. Some seniors will end up dying because they are forced to put off getting that pain checked out due to huge out-of-pocket costs that will skyrocket for them. This plan would literally be a death trap for some seniors.”

● Calling ObamaCare “ObamaCare” is “a disparaging reference to the President of the United States.”

● Schultz said it would “belittle” minorities to extend hate crimes laws to veterans: “It really is belittling of the respect that we should have for [minorities] to suggest that members of the armed services have somehow systematically been the victims of hate crimes.”

● She held a rally to attack Allen West (before his election). At the time, she explained the difference between her crowd and the Tea Party thusly: “I don’t see any swastikas or any pictures of the President in black face or burned in effigy here. The difference between the way we express our First Amendment rights and the way I’ve seen Tea Party extremists—Republican Tea Party extremists—express their right is dramatically different.” So the “difference is different?” Bright.

● Then she despicably tried to latch onto the Giffords shooting by dragging her own daughter into it, and by trying to define the Giffords shooting as a result of Arizona’s anti-illegal immigration law: “After my daughter heard that, you know, Gabby had been shot, the first thing she asked me was, you know, ‘Mommy, are you going to get shot? Does that mean you're going to get shot? But Mommy, Florida's going to pass an immigration law like Arizona and then people are going to be mad at you.’”

She’s a real piece of shitzu poo.


Don't forget, it's Star Trek Tuesday at the film site!

Allen West’s “Gaffes”

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The Abominable No Man Strikes Again

The Abominable No Man Strikes Again

The House recently passed the JOBS Act (Jumpstart Our Business Startups) with the assistance of 158 Democrats. Then it went to the Senate, where it was crushed by the DOPES (Democrats Opposing Practically Everything Sensible). Majority Leader Harry Reid led a team of job-killers which included Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill), Mary Landrieu (D-La), Carl Levin (D-Mich) and Jacke Reed (D-R.I.).

Even Barack Obama supported the bill.

The bill raised the shareholder threshold for companies to go public but created a fast track for companies to avoid the worst provisions of Sarbanes-Oxley and Dodd-Frank regulations and roadblocks for five years. This bill was a boon to small business startups, which everyone except the DOPES agrees is the key to getting the economy moving again. Over the past few years, there was a precipitous drop in American IPOs (Initial Public Offerings), largely as a result of the deleterious regulations of Sarbanes-Oxley and Dodd-Frank, and this was a way to get past that.

No dice, said the DOPES. And this is despite the fact that the Treasury Department’s own experts estimate that the throat-gripping IPO regulations of Sarbanes-Oxley and Dodd-Frank have probably cost as many as 22 million jobs (yes, you read that right—22 million). Technically, Treasury was saying those were jobs "not created." You want a little irony? Back in the House, Barney Frank (D-Mass) himself supported the JOBS Act, along with his heir-apparent Maxine Waters (D-Ca).

It’s very hard to understand the DOPES’ reasoning. Clearly, if implemented quickly, this act would have given the Democrats and their leader in the White House another talking point about being pro-business. It’s nonsense to think that, of course, but jobs would likely have been created in substantial numbers very quickly had the JOBS Act passed. It’s not the stock market “recovery” that voters are looking at in large part. They are looking at pernicious unemployment numbers, and this would have worked to the Democrats’ advantage by possibly reducing those persistent 8%+ numbers.

Reid’s quashing of this very sensible bill instead proves that the recalcitrant Democrats in the Senate don’t fully understand new realities, even though they call themselves progressives. One of the major features of the JOBS Act was that it allowed companies to solicit purchases online, following the CraigsList and E-Bay models. That meant that entrepreneurs could raise money online in $100 or less increments per investor, somewhat akin to the old “penny stocks” concept. Senator Jack Reed pooh-poohed the idea that such a model would work, saying that the model flies in the face of decades-old securities regulation.

That was the point, of course, but Reed doesn’t like it. Most of those regulations that Reid and Reed love so much were imposed originally during the Great Depression, at a time when many people had no telephones and the Internet wasn’t even a gleam in the eye of yet-unborn inventor Al Gore. But Reed snarkily said that E-Bay and Craigslist selling used tennis shoes and unwanted clothing is not the same thing as purchasing small stock offerings. The gummint must vet it first. Reed ignores the fact that those same private entities also sell outrageously expensive jewelry, antiques and real estate. But Reed thinks $100 online investments require more government regulation than million dollar trades in real property.

The other advantage of using the Internet for funding startups is the speed with which it can be done. The faster the startups can fund and get to work, the sooner jobs are created and unemployment reduced. But Reid and the other DOPES, who claim to hate Wall Street, have chosen to protect those old Wall Street firms and their arthritic way of doing business over innovation and fresh ways of raising money. “Progressives” indeed. It’s much faster and much less expensive for a small, viable startup to post an offering on the Internet than to hire huge prospectus teams, regulations experts, and an entire mailing and telephoning team to get the word out. Yet that creaky old system is what the Senate DOPES are protecting.

Online investors would get more realistic and useful information through the Internet publication than the Obama administration got about Solyndra using all the traditional methods. And savvy small private investors would do considerably more investigation into the company for a $100 investment than the Obamists did with the half-billion dollars of taxpayer money wasted on the Solyndra scam.

The JOBS Act would have lifted the threshold for most Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regulations and mandates from 500 to 1,000 shareholders before the regulations kicked in (2,000 for community banks). Moreover, it would have removed the restrictions on stock ownership for company employees. Who is more likely to know the viability of a startup than employees who are willing to invest their own hard-earned money in the company they work for? Insider trading rules should be applied to institutional investors and management in this particular instance rather than to employees who want to share in the wealth.

If there is nothing else to be learned from this, it must teach us that it’s time to get rid of Democratic Senators who are still in love with Roosevelt-era rules and regulations which were designed in a much more primitive economy. We must rid ourselves of those who don’t know the difference between logical and necessary regulation and gross overregulation. We must elect younger, savvier, pro-business Senators who understand the verities of the twenty-first century. And if you won’t take my word for it, ask Barney Frank and Maxine Waters.

The House recently passed the JOBS Act (Jumpstart Our Business Startups) with the assistance of 158 Democrats. Then it went to the Senate, where it was crushed by the DOPES (Democrats Opposing Practically Everything Sensible). Majority Leader Harry Reid led a team of job-killers which included Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill), Mary Landrieu (D-La), Carl Levin (D-Mich) and Jacke Reed (D-R.I.).

Even Barack Obama supported the bill.

The bill raised the shareholder threshold for companies to go public but created a fast track for companies to avoid the worst provisions of Sarbanes-Oxley and Dodd-Frank regulations and roadblocks for five years. This bill was a boon to small business startups, which everyone except the DOPES agrees is the key to getting the economy moving again. Over the past few years, there was a precipitous drop in American IPOs (Initial Public Offerings), largely as a result of the deleterious regulations of Sarbanes-Oxley and Dodd-Frank, and this was a way to get past that.

No dice, said the DOPES. And this is despite the fact that the Treasury Department’s own experts estimate that the throat-gripping IPO regulations of Sarbanes-Oxley and Dodd-Frank have probably cost as many as 22 million jobs (yes, you read that right—22 million). Technically, Treasury was saying those were jobs "not created." You want a little irony? Back in the House, Barney Frank (D-Mass) himself supported the JOBS Act, along with his heir-apparent Maxine Waters (D-Ca).

It’s very hard to understand the DOPES’ reasoning. Clearly, if implemented quickly, this act would have given the Democrats and their leader in the White House another talking point about being pro-business. It’s nonsense to think that, of course, but jobs would likely have been created in substantial numbers very quickly had the JOBS Act passed. It’s not the stock market “recovery” that voters are looking at in large part. They are looking at pernicious unemployment numbers, and this would have worked to the Democrats’ advantage by possibly reducing those persistent 8%+ numbers.

Reid’s quashing of this very sensible bill instead proves that the recalcitrant Democrats in the Senate don’t fully understand new realities, even though they call themselves progressives. One of the major features of the JOBS Act was that it allowed companies to solicit purchases online, following the CraigsList and E-Bay models. That meant that entrepreneurs could raise money online in $100 or less increments per investor, somewhat akin to the old “penny stocks” concept. Senator Jack Reed pooh-poohed the idea that such a model would work, saying that the model flies in the face of decades-old securities regulation.

That was the point, of course, but Reed doesn’t like it. Most of those regulations that Reid and Reed love so much were imposed originally during the Great Depression, at a time when many people had no telephones and the Internet wasn’t even a gleam in the eye of yet-unborn inventor Al Gore. But Reed snarkily said that E-Bay and Craigslist selling used tennis shoes and unwanted clothing is not the same thing as purchasing small stock offerings. The gummint must vet it first. Reed ignores the fact that those same private entities also sell outrageously expensive jewelry, antiques and real estate. But Reed thinks $100 online investments require more government regulation than million dollar trades in real property.

The other advantage of using the Internet for funding startups is the speed with which it can be done. The faster the startups can fund and get to work, the sooner jobs are created and unemployment reduced. But Reid and the other DOPES, who claim to hate Wall Street, have chosen to protect those old Wall Street firms and their arthritic way of doing business over innovation and fresh ways of raising money. “Progressives” indeed. It’s much faster and much less expensive for a small, viable startup to post an offering on the Internet than to hire huge prospectus teams, regulations experts, and an entire mailing and telephoning team to get the word out. Yet that creaky old system is what the Senate DOPES are protecting.

Online investors would get more realistic and useful information through the Internet publication than the Obama administration got about Solyndra using all the traditional methods. And savvy small private investors would do considerably more investigation into the company for a $100 investment than the Obamists did with the half-billion dollars of taxpayer money wasted on the Solyndra scam.

The JOBS Act would have lifted the threshold for most Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regulations and mandates from 500 to 1,000 shareholders before the regulations kicked in (2,000 for community banks). Moreover, it would have removed the restrictions on stock ownership for company employees. Who is more likely to know the viability of a startup than employees who are willing to invest their own hard-earned money in the company they work for? Insider trading rules should be applied to institutional investors and management in this particular instance rather than to employees who want to share in the wealth.

If there is nothing else to be learned from this, it must teach us that it’s time to get rid of Democratic Senators who are still in love with Roosevelt-era rules and regulations which were designed in a much more primitive economy. We must rid ourselves of those who don’t know the difference between logical and necessary regulation and gross overregulation. We must elect younger, savvier, pro-business Senators who understand the verities of the twenty-first century. And if you won’t take my word for it, ask Barney Frank and Maxine Waters.

The Abominable No Man Strikes Again

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Holder Saves An Oppressed Minority

Holder Saves An Oppressed Minority

Having gotten all of America’s other legal problems firmly taken care of (including Fast and Furious), Attorney General Eric Holder has moved on to fixing one of the most egregious civil rights violations in all of American history. Holder saw the horrendous wrong in requiring valid photo ID in order to vote, and is using his executive powers to block the current Texas law.

The Texas law is almost identical to photo ID laws which have been upheld in other states. But Holder has a slight advantage in the Texas matter. Texas is among those states directly impacted by the 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA) designed to end discrimination against black voters in the formerly segregated South. Any change to voting rules, regulations, and even districting must be first approved by the Civil Rights Division of the Attorney General’s office. The consent decree did not include any northern state which did not have a record of de jure and de facto discrimination against blacks.

Holder only cares about pandering to Hispanic votes at election time, while exhibiting benign neglect the rest of the time. But it is election time, and Texas has a lot of Hispanic votes to pander to. Blacks in Texas are registered to vote and have valid photo ID at nearly the same rate as whites, so Holder needed a different stalking horse to misuse the Voting Rights Act for his own nefarious purposes.

Therefore, Holder’s surrogate at the Justice Department, Tom Perez, sent a six page demand letter to the Texas Director of Elections informing him that “Texas has not sustained its burden under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act to show that the new law will not have a discriminatory effect on minority (in this case, read “Hispanic”) voters." Now if that burden of proof sounds backwards, it is. And here’s why.

Under regular rules, the Attorney General would have the burden of proof to show that there is intentional discrimination rather than the state proving there is not. But the VRA and the consent decree turn the burden of proof on its head. There is good reason why the Democrats have managed to extend the Act multiple times rather than let it die a natural death some time in the late 80s or early 90s. It prevents logical redistricting based on current realities rather than 60s realities, and it prevents conscientious elections boards from verifying their voting rolls and preventing voter fraud.

Holder and his legal storm troopers based their ridiculous decision on one lousy set of statistics. An estimated 11% of Hispanics in Texas do not have state-issued photo ID. And of the total estimated three-quarters of a million eligible Texas voters who don’t have state-issued photo ID, the estimates also show that somewhere between 29% and 38% are Hispanic. Well, so what? Upsetting a reasonable state law using estimates of estimates is hardly sound legal reasoning.

In his letter to the Director, Perez also wrote: “While the state law says the new photo ID requirement is to ensure electoral integrity and deter ineligible voters from voting, the state did not include evidence of significant in-person voter impersonation not already addressed by existing state law.” Since when does the federal government object to “redundant” legislation? God knows, during the Obama administration multiple redundant and even self-contradictory laws have been passed. Furthermore, where is the rule that says that the Attorney General can substitute his wisdom for that of the state? Even the consent decree doesn't distort burden of proof that much.

The state actually did conduct extensive investigations into voter fraud, and found that there was a sufficient number to justify the new law. On the other hand, Perez’s statement is what lawyers call a “naked allegation” without supporting evidence. Should we not have laws against violent murders because they are somewhat rare? And how does Holder explain the ACORN and SEIU investigations which showed thousands of attempts to register dead people, people who don't exist, people in more than one precinct, and cartoon characters? Next to the right to live, the right to protect the sanctity of the ballot box stands out as nearly equal in importance in a free, self-governing society.

Because of the consent decree, Holder felt safe about not proving that there was any actual discrimination, and if there was, that it was intentional. Concurrence is not causation, and the fact that an unusually large percentage of the population lacking state-issued photo ID is Hispanic is not in any way proof that the state legislature was targeting Hispanics and only Hispanics for “voter suppression.” Furthermore, Texas is among the states which make obtaining state-issued photo ID easy and cheap (free, if necessary). The only group that the law discriminates against is those too lazy or too devious to obtain one of those ID’s.

Perez didn’t even bother with the argument about “poor people,” or the elderly, or even other “oppressed minorities.” That wouldn’t gain Obama any votes in Texas. But striking down a law that is disingenuously described as anti-Hispanic is top-notch demagoguery.

The Holder/Obama decision to interfere with the Texas law demonstrates just how low this race-baiting administration will go to use the law to perpetuate racial and ethnic division at the expense of the Constitution and the integrity of the voting booth. Equally importantly, it demonstrates just how much harm a once-good law can do when it is extended well beyond its useful and realistic life.

Except for the sole guiding principle of guaranteeing the right of American citizens to vote in a fair and honest election, the entirety of the 1965 Voting Rights Act should be repealed. Thinking people have known that for over two decades, but Congress just keeps extending it. Democrats claim to be “progressive,” but in fact they are still living their imaginary lives back in their heydays of the 60s.

Having gotten all of America’s other legal problems firmly taken care of (including Fast and Furious), Attorney General Eric Holder has moved on to fixing one of the most egregious civil rights violations in all of American history. Holder saw the horrendous wrong in requiring valid photo ID in order to vote, and is using his executive powers to block the current Texas law.

The Texas law is almost identical to photo ID laws which have been upheld in other states. But Holder has a slight advantage in the Texas matter. Texas is among those states directly impacted by the 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA) designed to end discrimination against black voters in the formerly segregated South. Any change to voting rules, regulations, and even districting must be first approved by the Civil Rights Division of the Attorney General’s office. The consent decree did not include any northern state which did not have a record of de jure and de facto discrimination against blacks.

Holder only cares about pandering to Hispanic votes at election time, while exhibiting benign neglect the rest of the time. But it is election time, and Texas has a lot of Hispanic votes to pander to. Blacks in Texas are registered to vote and have valid photo ID at nearly the same rate as whites, so Holder needed a different stalking horse to misuse the Voting Rights Act for his own nefarious purposes.

Therefore, Holder’s surrogate at the Justice Department, Tom Perez, sent a six page demand letter to the Texas Director of Elections informing him that “Texas has not sustained its burden under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act to show that the new law will not have a discriminatory effect on minority (in this case, read “Hispanic”) voters." Now if that burden of proof sounds backwards, it is. And here’s why.

Under regular rules, the Attorney General would have the burden of proof to show that there is intentional discrimination rather than the state proving there is not. But the VRA and the consent decree turn the burden of proof on its head. There is good reason why the Democrats have managed to extend the Act multiple times rather than let it die a natural death some time in the late 80s or early 90s. It prevents logical redistricting based on current realities rather than 60s realities, and it prevents conscientious elections boards from verifying their voting rolls and preventing voter fraud.

Holder and his legal storm troopers based their ridiculous decision on one lousy set of statistics. An estimated 11% of Hispanics in Texas do not have state-issued photo ID. And of the total estimated three-quarters of a million eligible Texas voters who don’t have state-issued photo ID, the estimates also show that somewhere between 29% and 38% are Hispanic. Well, so what? Upsetting a reasonable state law using estimates of estimates is hardly sound legal reasoning.

In his letter to the Director, Perez also wrote: “While the state law says the new photo ID requirement is to ensure electoral integrity and deter ineligible voters from voting, the state did not include evidence of significant in-person voter impersonation not already addressed by existing state law.” Since when does the federal government object to “redundant” legislation? God knows, during the Obama administration multiple redundant and even self-contradictory laws have been passed. Furthermore, where is the rule that says that the Attorney General can substitute his wisdom for that of the state? Even the consent decree doesn't distort burden of proof that much.

The state actually did conduct extensive investigations into voter fraud, and found that there was a sufficient number to justify the new law. On the other hand, Perez’s statement is what lawyers call a “naked allegation” without supporting evidence. Should we not have laws against violent murders because they are somewhat rare? And how does Holder explain the ACORN and SEIU investigations which showed thousands of attempts to register dead people, people who don't exist, people in more than one precinct, and cartoon characters? Next to the right to live, the right to protect the sanctity of the ballot box stands out as nearly equal in importance in a free, self-governing society.

Because of the consent decree, Holder felt safe about not proving that there was any actual discrimination, and if there was, that it was intentional. Concurrence is not causation, and the fact that an unusually large percentage of the population lacking state-issued photo ID is Hispanic is not in any way proof that the state legislature was targeting Hispanics and only Hispanics for “voter suppression.” Furthermore, Texas is among the states which make obtaining state-issued photo ID easy and cheap (free, if necessary). The only group that the law discriminates against is those too lazy or too devious to obtain one of those ID’s.

Perez didn’t even bother with the argument about “poor people,” or the elderly, or even other “oppressed minorities.” That wouldn’t gain Obama any votes in Texas. But striking down a law that is disingenuously described as anti-Hispanic is top-notch demagoguery.

The Holder/Obama decision to interfere with the Texas law demonstrates just how low this race-baiting administration will go to use the law to perpetuate racial and ethnic division at the expense of the Constitution and the integrity of the voting booth. Equally importantly, it demonstrates just how much harm a once-good law can do when it is extended well beyond its useful and realistic life.

Except for the sole guiding principle of guaranteeing the right of American citizens to vote in a fair and honest election, the entirety of the 1965 Voting Rights Act should be repealed. Thinking people have known that for over two decades, but Congress just keeps extending it. Democrats claim to be “progressive,” but in fact they are still living their imaginary lives back in their heydays of the 60s.

Holder Saves An Oppressed Minority

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The Best Things In Life Are Free

The Best Things In Life Are Free

If legislators in Michigan have their way, that will include a college education. The proponents of the proposition say that high school graduates in the state could simply go on to college without paying for the education and without it costing the taxpayers a dime. After all, they say, the high school education didn’t cost anything, so why should college?

This comes from genius legislators in a state with fiscal problems that make California look downright frugal. It seems obvious that the legislators putting this proposal on the table do not have an elementary school education about finance and how things get paid for, so they are probably college grads themselves. As my parents used to tell me when I asked them to get me something extremely expensive and somewhat useless, the Michigan legislators probably plan on going out into the back yard and picking some cash off the money tree. Or perhaps they actually think that public education doesn’t cost anything because it is essentially free for the students.

Michigan’s unemployment rate is so high that they might think that schools get built by unemployed construction workers who are volunteering their services. The actual construction materials appear magically in the middle of the night. The schoolbooks are printed by education philanthropists because nobody, not even the schools themselves, should have to pay for educational materials. They also assume that the beneficent unions are paying the teachers out of the proceeds of union charity programs.

If you can do that with primary and secondary education, why not with college? Look at the savings to the students (no more college loans). Look at the savings to the taxpayers. How could anyone oppose such a good deal that benefits everyone and costs nobody anything?

Oh, sure, there are the detractors. On Fox Business, Tracy Byrnes asked: “Where’s the drive and the incentive to want to graduate to get into a good school?” Byrnes continued, “Not every kid should be in college. We need people to do other things … it is a silly silly idea and we cannot afford it.” Obviously, Byrnes is an elitist. Former M.A.S.H. cast member and current financial pundit Wayne Rogers said: “Smart students always find a way to get financial aid or scholarships.” Then, to add insult to injury, Rogers closed with “We have free educations in secondary schools today, and look what a mess that is.”

Even before this proposal can kick in, Michigan already faces the problem of college graduates who can’t read their own diplomas. But it’s a great opportunity for the secondary level school teachers to pass on the blame for certified ignorance to the college instructors. “We prepared them for college, how did they unlearn so much in the next four years?”

I’ve complained for years that I can find a dozen PhD’s who can’t find their way to the bathroom, but I can’t find a good auto mechanic. This proposal, if successful, would go a long way toward explaining why.

If legislators in Michigan have their way, that will include a college education. The proponents of the proposition say that high school graduates in the state could simply go on to college without paying for the education and without it costing the taxpayers a dime. After all, they say, the high school education didn’t cost anything, so why should college?

This comes from genius legislators in a state with fiscal problems that make California look downright frugal. It seems obvious that the legislators putting this proposal on the table do not have an elementary school education about finance and how things get paid for, so they are probably college grads themselves. As my parents used to tell me when I asked them to get me something extremely expensive and somewhat useless, the Michigan legislators probably plan on going out into the back yard and picking some cash off the money tree. Or perhaps they actually think that public education doesn’t cost anything because it is essentially free for the students.

Michigan’s unemployment rate is so high that they might think that schools get built by unemployed construction workers who are volunteering their services. The actual construction materials appear magically in the middle of the night. The schoolbooks are printed by education philanthropists because nobody, not even the schools themselves, should have to pay for educational materials. They also assume that the beneficent unions are paying the teachers out of the proceeds of union charity programs.

If you can do that with primary and secondary education, why not with college? Look at the savings to the students (no more college loans). Look at the savings to the taxpayers. How could anyone oppose such a good deal that benefits everyone and costs nobody anything?

Oh, sure, there are the detractors. On Fox Business, Tracy Byrnes asked: “Where’s the drive and the incentive to want to graduate to get into a good school?” Byrnes continued, “Not every kid should be in college. We need people to do other things … it is a silly silly idea and we cannot afford it.” Obviously, Byrnes is an elitist. Former M.A.S.H. cast member and current financial pundit Wayne Rogers said: “Smart students always find a way to get financial aid or scholarships.” Then, to add insult to injury, Rogers closed with “We have free educations in secondary schools today, and look what a mess that is.”

Even before this proposal can kick in, Michigan already faces the problem of college graduates who can’t read their own diplomas. But it’s a great opportunity for the secondary level school teachers to pass on the blame for certified ignorance to the college instructors. “We prepared them for college, how did they unlearn so much in the next four years?”

I’ve complained for years that I can find a dozen PhD’s who can’t find their way to the bathroom, but I can’t find a good auto mechanic. This proposal, if successful, would go a long way toward explaining why.

The Best Things In Life Are Free

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Trolling For Women (Voters)

Trolling For Women (Voters)

Another one of Barack Obama’s major constituencies is a lot shakier than it was in 2008. He won the women’s vote by a heavy margin. That’s not such a sure thing this time. His numbers fell seriously over the past few months, although it seems to have had a temporary bump since Rush Limbaugh called the Georgetown Law student a prostitute, sort of. It also seems that Rick Santorum is scaring moderate and liberal women (fairly or unfairly).

Obama sewed up the women’s vote in the 2008 election. In the affluent suburbs, replete with moderates and independents, his margin among women was thirteen percent. Without winning the women’s vote by a healthy margin, Barack Obama would not be president today. But following the election, and after three years of a pathetic economic recovery and unemployment stubbornly holding at above eight percent, the dew was off the rose. Women were turning to economic issues, and Obama was not fulfilling any his promises about reinvigorating the economy.

Among independent and moderate women, generic Republicans were pulling very close to The One in approval and disapproval polls. The slide was slow but sure. But the Democrats have gotten a temporary reprieve. Rick Santorum, Republican candidate for the nomination, has made social issues a major part of his campaign. Polls clearly indicate that this has no effect on conservative women, but is starting to have an effect among moderates and independents. They may not reject social conservatism, but they don’t want it at the top of the list, and they’re unsure that other Republican candidates don’t harbor the same views.

Then came the Obamacare birth control/abortifacient mandates. Democrats were losing ground on the religious freedom issue, so they cleverly turned it into a debate about women’s rights. In fact, Obama’s minions had started to declare the conservative and religious objections to the mandates as “a new war on women.” When the issue was brought up in the Senate as a rejection of the mandates imposed on religious institutions, the Democrats said “this is a Republican attempt to roll back long-established women’s rights.”

Failing to get a witness approved who had nothing valuable or germane to say at the hearings on the mandates, Nancy Pelosi put on her own dog and pony show in the House. Her witness was Sandra Fluke (pronounced Fluck, for some strange reason), a ditsy Georgetown Law student who was too stupid to figure out how to get free contraceptives. This Georgetown Dunce is attending a very expensive private law school, but thinks that the public and religious objectors should pay for her birth control and abortifacients. It might have died a quiet death, if not for a nasty (though accurate) comment by Rush Limbaugh.

“Aha!” said the Democrats. Our big opportunity to detour the religious freedom debate and make it all about mean white male woman-haters who want women barefoot and back in the kitchen. The fake indignation spread like wildfire. Barack Obama, who recently couldn’t take time out of his golf games to talk with the Israeli Prime Minister suddenly felt it necessary personally telephone the Georgetown “slut” to apologize for a remark that he didn’t make and which wasn’t being attributed to him. Exactly on whose behalf he made the apology is unclear. But he felt it was imperative that he console this thirty year old helpless woman whose life was being ruined by the alleged lack of free birth control.

The whole social issue, “gimme my free condoms and pills” debate has had a negative effect on independent and moderate women. The gap that was narrowing is opening again. It may just be temporary if Republican candidate Rick Santorum will pay less attention to social issues and more attention to economic issues, but so far he’s showing no sign of doing so.

The deleterious effect on the women’s vote can be demonstrated by the results of exit polls after the Ohio primary. Married women leaned toward Santorum. Unmarried women leaned toward Romney. Conservative women said that the Fluke incident had no effect whatsoever on their choice. But when men were asked the same question, there was literally no significant difference between married and unmarried men.

This controversy will probably blow over. And it’s a long time until November. But I must commend two Republican women for refusing to cower under the Democratic attacks. First of all, Ann Romney, wife of candidate Mitt Romney, made it clear that Republican women were not going to be silenced because of a manufactured issue. Defiantly, Mrs. Romney addressed her comments directly to the leader of the Obamists: “Do you know what women care about? Women care about jobs. They’re angry and they’re furious about the entitlement debt we are leaving to our children.”

Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski also made a definitive statement. “I’m right along with Ann Romney. There is clearly a direction we can take as Republicans that gives confidence and assurance.” She added: “Women in Alaska are worried about what they’re paying in energy costs. They’re worried about whether or not they’ll be able to put their kids through college, whether their savings are secure.”

Now those are the real women’s issues, not whether or not a Georgetown law student is a slut or a prostitute. And of course the mainstream media have jumped on the bandwagon, touting both Fluke’s innocent helplessness and Obama’s great empathy for women who can’t afford free birth control. If the Republicans, and particularly the women Republicans, can stay on message and keep the issues revolving around a woman’s desire for economic stability in her home and at work, the Democrats’ poster girl for entitlement and government largess will fade from memory. And then Sandy Fluke can go cry on Anita Hill’s shoulder. Another attorney who couldn’t take the heat.

Another one of Barack Obama’s major constituencies is a lot shakier than it was in 2008. He won the women’s vote by a heavy margin. That’s not such a sure thing this time. His numbers fell seriously over the past few months, although it seems to have had a temporary bump since Rush Limbaugh called the Georgetown Law student a prostitute, sort of. It also seems that Rick Santorum is scaring moderate and liberal women (fairly or unfairly).

Obama sewed up the women’s vote in the 2008 election. In the affluent suburbs, replete with moderates and independents, his margin among women was thirteen percent. Without winning the women’s vote by a healthy margin, Barack Obama would not be president today. But following the election, and after three years of a pathetic economic recovery and unemployment stubbornly holding at above eight percent, the dew was off the rose. Women were turning to economic issues, and Obama was not fulfilling any his promises about reinvigorating the economy.

Among independent and moderate women, generic Republicans were pulling very close to The One in approval and disapproval polls. The slide was slow but sure. But the Democrats have gotten a temporary reprieve. Rick Santorum, Republican candidate for the nomination, has made social issues a major part of his campaign. Polls clearly indicate that this has no effect on conservative women, but is starting to have an effect among moderates and independents. They may not reject social conservatism, but they don’t want it at the top of the list, and they’re unsure that other Republican candidates don’t harbor the same views.

Then came the Obamacare birth control/abortifacient mandates. Democrats were losing ground on the religious freedom issue, so they cleverly turned it into a debate about women’s rights. In fact, Obama’s minions had started to declare the conservative and religious objections to the mandates as “a new war on women.” When the issue was brought up in the Senate as a rejection of the mandates imposed on religious institutions, the Democrats said “this is a Republican attempt to roll back long-established women’s rights.”

Failing to get a witness approved who had nothing valuable or germane to say at the hearings on the mandates, Nancy Pelosi put on her own dog and pony show in the House. Her witness was Sandra Fluke (pronounced Fluck, for some strange reason), a ditsy Georgetown Law student who was too stupid to figure out how to get free contraceptives. This Georgetown Dunce is attending a very expensive private law school, but thinks that the public and religious objectors should pay for her birth control and abortifacients. It might have died a quiet death, if not for a nasty (though accurate) comment by Rush Limbaugh.

“Aha!” said the Democrats. Our big opportunity to detour the religious freedom debate and make it all about mean white male woman-haters who want women barefoot and back in the kitchen. The fake indignation spread like wildfire. Barack Obama, who recently couldn’t take time out of his golf games to talk with the Israeli Prime Minister suddenly felt it necessary personally telephone the Georgetown “slut” to apologize for a remark that he didn’t make and which wasn’t being attributed to him. Exactly on whose behalf he made the apology is unclear. But he felt it was imperative that he console this thirty year old helpless woman whose life was being ruined by the alleged lack of free birth control.

The whole social issue, “gimme my free condoms and pills” debate has had a negative effect on independent and moderate women. The gap that was narrowing is opening again. It may just be temporary if Republican candidate Rick Santorum will pay less attention to social issues and more attention to economic issues, but so far he’s showing no sign of doing so.

The deleterious effect on the women’s vote can be demonstrated by the results of exit polls after the Ohio primary. Married women leaned toward Santorum. Unmarried women leaned toward Romney. Conservative women said that the Fluke incident had no effect whatsoever on their choice. But when men were asked the same question, there was literally no significant difference between married and unmarried men.

This controversy will probably blow over. And it’s a long time until November. But I must commend two Republican women for refusing to cower under the Democratic attacks. First of all, Ann Romney, wife of candidate Mitt Romney, made it clear that Republican women were not going to be silenced because of a manufactured issue. Defiantly, Mrs. Romney addressed her comments directly to the leader of the Obamists: “Do you know what women care about? Women care about jobs. They’re angry and they’re furious about the entitlement debt we are leaving to our children.”

Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski also made a definitive statement. “I’m right along with Ann Romney. There is clearly a direction we can take as Republicans that gives confidence and assurance.” She added: “Women in Alaska are worried about what they’re paying in energy costs. They’re worried about whether or not they’ll be able to put their kids through college, whether their savings are secure.”

Now those are the real women’s issues, not whether or not a Georgetown law student is a slut or a prostitute. And of course the mainstream media have jumped on the bandwagon, touting both Fluke’s innocent helplessness and Obama’s great empathy for women who can’t afford free birth control. If the Republicans, and particularly the women Republicans, can stay on message and keep the issues revolving around a woman’s desire for economic stability in her home and at work, the Democrats’ poster girl for entitlement and government largess will fade from memory. And then Sandy Fluke can go cry on Anita Hill’s shoulder. Another attorney who couldn’t take the heat.

Trolling For Women (Voters)

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Pelosi Praises Phony Witness

Pelosi Praises Phony Witness

The House Committee which was investigating the Obamacare mandate in relation to religious freedom completed its taking of testimony last week. Nine experts in two sessions (including two invisible women) stated their case. But one flaky witness was excluded. Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi held a special session to listen to what this visible woman had to say.

The Congressional hearings on mandating religious organization participation in birth control and abortifacient insurance wasn't intended to be a discussion of medical procedures. Therefore, the majority voted to exclude testimony about experiences with birth control in order to concentrate on the religious issue. That meant that Pelosi's primary sob-story witness didn't get to pluck the harp strings and derail the actual purpose of the hearings. But San Fran Nan isn't anything if not annoyingly persistent. So Pelosi put on the dog and pony show at the Democratic Steering and Policy Committee instead.

Pelosi trotted out Georgetown Law School student Sandra Fluke. She hasn't apparently taken the evidence course yet, because Fluke's first sob story was: "Just last week, a married female student told me that she had to stop using contraception because she and her husband just couldn't fit it into their budget anymore." Objection, hearsay! But it's not only hearsay, it's utter nonsense. Then this future Democratic operative testified that "poor women employed in low-wage jobs without contraceptive coverage face the same choice as her anonymous fellow student."

She and her fellow student can afford Georgetown Law School, and probably a pretty good bottle of wine to go with dinner. But even if they couldn't, how much truth is there to her boo-hoo testimony? Next to none. There are three federally funded Planned Parenthood clinics near the Georgetown campus, none farther than 3.2 miles from the law school. Checking with Planned Parenthood's website, you find that condoms cost about $1.00 each, and if you can't afford that, you can get them for free.

Says Fluke: "Some might respond that contraception is accessible in lots of other ways. Unfortunately, that's just not true." Well, the ones who respond that way are those armed with facts instead of sob-stories. In fact, it is true. Planned Parenthood is just one of multiple organizations which run free clinics, particularly in urban centers. Whether federally-funded, funded by private charity, or a combination of both, birth control is readily and cheaply available to the poor as well as to affluent law students who can't get their priorities straight.

Not only did Fluke's testimony entirely sidestep the religious issue, but it was lacking in facts, logic and supporting evidence. But it was a really good story. I've gone through an entire box of Kleenex over it.

I'll be out of town on business for most of the day. But I'd love to see what you think about this reprehensible attempt to replace good government with low drama and the First Amendment with secular mandates. I promise I'll respond to your comments as soon as I get home.

The House Committee which was investigating the Obamacare mandate in relation to religious freedom completed its taking of testimony last week. Nine experts in two sessions (including two invisible women) stated their case. But one flaky witness was excluded. Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi held a special session to listen to what this visible woman had to say.

The Congressional hearings on mandating religious organization participation in birth control and abortifacient insurance wasn't intended to be a discussion of medical procedures. Therefore, the majority voted to exclude testimony about experiences with birth control in order to concentrate on the religious issue. That meant that Pelosi's primary sob-story witness didn't get to pluck the harp strings and derail the actual purpose of the hearings. But San Fran Nan isn't anything if not annoyingly persistent. So Pelosi put on the dog and pony show at the Democratic Steering and Policy Committee instead.

Pelosi trotted out Georgetown Law School student Sandra Fluke. She hasn't apparently taken the evidence course yet, because Fluke's first sob story was: "Just last week, a married female student told me that she had to stop using contraception because she and her husband just couldn't fit it into their budget anymore." Objection, hearsay! But it's not only hearsay, it's utter nonsense. Then this future Democratic operative testified that "poor women employed in low-wage jobs without contraceptive coverage face the same choice as her anonymous fellow student."

She and her fellow student can afford Georgetown Law School, and probably a pretty good bottle of wine to go with dinner. But even if they couldn't, how much truth is there to her boo-hoo testimony? Next to none. There are three federally funded Planned Parenthood clinics near the Georgetown campus, none farther than 3.2 miles from the law school. Checking with Planned Parenthood's website, you find that condoms cost about $1.00 each, and if you can't afford that, you can get them for free.

Says Fluke: "Some might respond that contraception is accessible in lots of other ways. Unfortunately, that's just not true." Well, the ones who respond that way are those armed with facts instead of sob-stories. In fact, it is true. Planned Parenthood is just one of multiple organizations which run free clinics, particularly in urban centers. Whether federally-funded, funded by private charity, or a combination of both, birth control is readily and cheaply available to the poor as well as to affluent law students who can't get their priorities straight.

Not only did Fluke's testimony entirely sidestep the religious issue, but it was lacking in facts, logic and supporting evidence. But it was a really good story. I've gone through an entire box of Kleenex over it.

I'll be out of town on business for most of the day. But I'd love to see what you think about this reprehensible attempt to replace good government with low drama and the First Amendment with secular mandates. I promise I'll respond to your comments as soon as I get home.

Pelosi Praises Phony Witness

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Welfare Drug Testing Gains Ground

Welfare Drug Testing Gains Ground

“Ending welfare as we know it” was a great idea, partially-implemented. But many of the excesses have crept back into the body politic. The economic mess we are currently experiencing has driven up the number of families receiving food stamps and other government services and benefits. Some programs will indeed be temporary for many of the recipients until they can get back to work in a better economy.

But that doesn’t mean we should simply abandon all attempts to control government benefits. Among conservatives, there is a growing movement to make at least one small dent in the welfare rolls by requiring that all government assistance recipients submit to drug and alcohol testing prior to receiving assistance. Twenty-three states have passed testing legislaton, have legislation in progress, or are taking up the issue in upcoming sessions. On the far right, the thought is that all welfare recipients are cheats and most are drug or alcohol addicted. On the far left, welfare and unemployment compensation are considered some sort of constitutional right that can’t be interfered with by invading the recipient’s personal privacy.

Many people assume that the number of drug and alcohol abusers is much higher among welfare recipients than among the general public. Studies from the left, right and center have tended to prove this assumption false. In most studies, the general public is substance addicted at approximately the same rate as welfare recipients. The liberal argument, then, is that since the general public and welfare recipients are addicted at about the same rate, it would be “unfair” to test only welfare and unemployment compensation recipients.

That thinking fails the simple common sense test. If members of the general public can hold jobs, pay their bills, pay their taxes, and function normally, it’s nobody’s business but their own. But the same does not apply to welfare recipients. They are consuming taxpayer dollars in a miserable economy which the general public is not doing. In fact, that general public is paying its own way and paying for the welfare recipients as well. Even substance addicted members of the general public have the right to require that those who are taking money from the public treasury are truly needy and ready to take work as soon as it is available.

Every taxpayer has the right to demand that his tax dollars are being spent for programs that are necessary rather than merely convenient. Wyoming is the most recent state to take up drug testing for welfare recipients. Wyoming Republican House Speaker Ed Buchanan said: “The idea, from Joe Taxpayer is, ‘I don’t mind helping you out, but you need to show that you’re looking for work, or better yet that you’re employed, and that you’re drug and alcohol free.’” When a substance abuser in the work force loses his job because of the drugs or booze, that’s his problem. When a welfare recipient can’t get a job or hold one because of his substance abuse, that’s the taxpayers’ business.

Legal challenges in the past have resulted in the modification or abandonment of mandatory drug testing in the dozen or so states which had such legislation in place. But times have changed. We have a different Supreme Court. We have a terrible economy in which every penny counts. And we have a lot of people who are ready, willing and able to work but are out of work through no fault of their own. Of those, a large percentage of them must use up all their savings, investments and creditworthiness before seeking public assistance. This latter group is particularly angry that those who have never worked a day in their lives didn’t have to give up a thing to start collecting public benefits.

Michigan was the last state to have such a requirement, but after five weeks in 1999, it was suspended, and ultimately declared unconstitutional by an appellate court decision. Since that time, and as an explanation of why all these states are trying again, the courts have upheld mandatory drug testing, even for private companies screening their employees (that’s the simple version, there are other requirements for any legislation to be valid). Schools are allowed to require drug testing for students who wish to participate in athletics. Proponents of welfare (and unemployment) drug and alcohol testing are convinced that taking public funds is a far better justification for testing than those which have been allowed.

The ever-vigilant ACLU has hopped into the debate, crowing about its defeat of earlier measures in both Michigan and Florida. Its spokeswoman in Wyoming, Linda Burt, said it would challenge Wyoming’s law if it passes (which seems highly likely). But those were different times, different laws, and the ACLU argued very different facts. The main problem with past legislation is that it addressed a broad problem without citing why it was a problem. The ACLU argued that drug testing was found to be unconstitutional with absolutely no cause.

The current round of legislation cites non-welfare cases where drug testing has been allowed, and almost all tie the requirement to economic hard times, cutbacks in every area, and the estimated amount of money which would be saved by disallowing government benefits for people who are not ready, willing and able to obtain or retain a job. Most of the proposed legislation requires that a public official has first found that there is reasonable cause to believe the recipient is abusing drugs or alcohol. Previously (in the states where the earlier legislation has been stricken), all welfare recipient were required to be tested.

The proposal in California never got out of committee, and in Colorado, the Democrat-controlled legislature has pronounced the proposal dead on arrival, but at least the Republicans were able to get the debate started. Republican presidential candidates Romney, Santorum and Gingrich have all stated support for some version of testing of welfare recipients. Paul has not, largely because he doesn’t much like welfare but he doesn’t think drug use is an issue the government should be involved in.

The momentum for such testing is growing. States are beginning to flex their muscles and challenge federal beneficence and pro-welfare court decisions. You can bet the debate will be heating up, and may even play a small part in the general election. Considering his admitted past use of marijuana and cocaine, and the fact that almost all Democrats in Congress seem to be permanently stoned, it’s very likely that President Obama will oppose testing as a violation of the right of privacy (yeah, that nonsense again) and Attorney General Holder will probably be filing briefs opposing the laws because they’re racist.

So what do you think? Should there be mandatory drug testing for recipients of unemployment and welfare benefits, and if so, under what circumstances? Do you think the majority of Americans will support this kind of legislation? We can talk about what the courts might do after we’ve gotten past the hurdle of passing the legislation in the first place.

“Ending welfare as we know it” was a great idea, partially-implemented. But many of the excesses have crept back into the body politic. The economic mess we are currently experiencing has driven up the number of families receiving food stamps and other government services and benefits. Some programs will indeed be temporary for many of the recipients until they can get back to work in a better economy.

But that doesn’t mean we should simply abandon all attempts to control government benefits. Among conservatives, there is a growing movement to make at least one small dent in the welfare rolls by requiring that all government assistance recipients submit to drug and alcohol testing prior to receiving assistance. Twenty-three states have passed testing legislaton, have legislation in progress, or are taking up the issue in upcoming sessions. On the far right, the thought is that all welfare recipients are cheats and most are drug or alcohol addicted. On the far left, welfare and unemployment compensation are considered some sort of constitutional right that can’t be interfered with by invading the recipient’s personal privacy.

Many people assume that the number of drug and alcohol abusers is much higher among welfare recipients than among the general public. Studies from the left, right and center have tended to prove this assumption false. In most studies, the general public is substance addicted at approximately the same rate as welfare recipients. The liberal argument, then, is that since the general public and welfare recipients are addicted at about the same rate, it would be “unfair” to test only welfare and unemployment compensation recipients.

That thinking fails the simple common sense test. If members of the general public can hold jobs, pay their bills, pay their taxes, and function normally, it’s nobody’s business but their own. But the same does not apply to welfare recipients. They are consuming taxpayer dollars in a miserable economy which the general public is not doing. In fact, that general public is paying its own way and paying for the welfare recipients as well. Even substance addicted members of the general public have the right to require that those who are taking money from the public treasury are truly needy and ready to take work as soon as it is available.

Every taxpayer has the right to demand that his tax dollars are being spent for programs that are necessary rather than merely convenient. Wyoming is the most recent state to take up drug testing for welfare recipients. Wyoming Republican House Speaker Ed Buchanan said: “The idea, from Joe Taxpayer is, ‘I don’t mind helping you out, but you need to show that you’re looking for work, or better yet that you’re employed, and that you’re drug and alcohol free.’” When a substance abuser in the work force loses his job because of the drugs or booze, that’s his problem. When a welfare recipient can’t get a job or hold one because of his substance abuse, that’s the taxpayers’ business.

Legal challenges in the past have resulted in the modification or abandonment of mandatory drug testing in the dozen or so states which had such legislation in place. But times have changed. We have a different Supreme Court. We have a terrible economy in which every penny counts. And we have a lot of people who are ready, willing and able to work but are out of work through no fault of their own. Of those, a large percentage of them must use up all their savings, investments and creditworthiness before seeking public assistance. This latter group is particularly angry that those who have never worked a day in their lives didn’t have to give up a thing to start collecting public benefits.

Michigan was the last state to have such a requirement, but after five weeks in 1999, it was suspended, and ultimately declared unconstitutional by an appellate court decision. Since that time, and as an explanation of why all these states are trying again, the courts have upheld mandatory drug testing, even for private companies screening their employees (that’s the simple version, there are other requirements for any legislation to be valid). Schools are allowed to require drug testing for students who wish to participate in athletics. Proponents of welfare (and unemployment) drug and alcohol testing are convinced that taking public funds is a far better justification for testing than those which have been allowed.

The ever-vigilant ACLU has hopped into the debate, crowing about its defeat of earlier measures in both Michigan and Florida. Its spokeswoman in Wyoming, Linda Burt, said it would challenge Wyoming’s law if it passes (which seems highly likely). But those were different times, different laws, and the ACLU argued very different facts. The main problem with past legislation is that it addressed a broad problem without citing why it was a problem. The ACLU argued that drug testing was found to be unconstitutional with absolutely no cause.

The current round of legislation cites non-welfare cases where drug testing has been allowed, and almost all tie the requirement to economic hard times, cutbacks in every area, and the estimated amount of money which would be saved by disallowing government benefits for people who are not ready, willing and able to obtain or retain a job. Most of the proposed legislation requires that a public official has first found that there is reasonable cause to believe the recipient is abusing drugs or alcohol. Previously (in the states where the earlier legislation has been stricken), all welfare recipient were required to be tested.

The proposal in California never got out of committee, and in Colorado, the Democrat-controlled legislature has pronounced the proposal dead on arrival, but at least the Republicans were able to get the debate started. Republican presidential candidates Romney, Santorum and Gingrich have all stated support for some version of testing of welfare recipients. Paul has not, largely because he doesn’t much like welfare but he doesn’t think drug use is an issue the government should be involved in.

The momentum for such testing is growing. States are beginning to flex their muscles and challenge federal beneficence and pro-welfare court decisions. You can bet the debate will be heating up, and may even play a small part in the general election. Considering his admitted past use of marijuana and cocaine, and the fact that almost all Democrats in Congress seem to be permanently stoned, it’s very likely that President Obama will oppose testing as a violation of the right of privacy (yeah, that nonsense again) and Attorney General Holder will probably be filing briefs opposing the laws because they’re racist.

So what do you think? Should there be mandatory drug testing for recipients of unemployment and welfare benefits, and if so, under what circumstances? Do you think the majority of Americans will support this kind of legislation? We can talk about what the courts might do after we’ve gotten past the hurdle of passing the legislation in the first place.

Welfare Drug Testing Gains Ground

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Y'All Come! Si Se Puede!

Y'All Come! Si Se Puede!

At the end of the Bush administration and for the first few months of the Obama administration, illegal immigration from Mexico was on a downward spiral. It was a combination of better border enforcement and the calamitous downturn in the American economy. Those illegals who came here for work began to realize jobs were few and far between. Fewer illegals came, many returned home.

Yet with little change in the economy, the numbers are creeping back up. If jobs aren’t the reason for the increases, something else must be. The biggest reason is the illegal-friendly Obama administration and the Democratic Party’s pandering to Hispanic voters. The administration has dodged or reinterpreted Congressional action to set up a lengthy series of rules which make crossing the border illegally easier and staying less uncomfortable. What it couldn’t get in Congress with the proposed comprehensive immigration reform (aka “amnesty”) and the Dream Act it is accomplishing administratively and bureaucratically.

The administration talks about its achievements in deporting illegals, but the record hardly supports the claim. While talking deportation numbers with one side of his mouth, President Obama talks “prosecutorial discretion” out of the other side. Under current law, deported illegal immigrants must remain outside of the United States for a minimum of three years before returning under some legal plan. The administration has acted to change that rule using a “hardship” exception. If the illegal already has legal relatives living in the United States, he can claim his absence would pose a hardship for the family. It’s an Alice in Wonderland kind of reasoning, but you can bet that immigration authorities will find the exception nearly every time as long as this administration remains in power.

Another new rule imposed is that once caught, a large majority of illegals who have not run up a criminal record will go to the end of the deportation line. And while remaining in the country they can build up “longevity credits” putting them closer to the magic legalization goal. In major cities, where most illegals end up, this will mean a large number of very dangerous people being allowed to stay. Most of America’s big city immigration magnets are “sanctuary cities,” or cities so overwhelmed by crime that they simply can’t keep up. In sanctuary cities, criminal activity is not reported to the federal authorities unless there has been a conviction. In San Francisco, youthful offenders are rarely reported at all, and adults are reported only after being convicted of major violent felonies.

And then there’s the simple issue that if you can’t get in through the door, sneak in through the window. The Government Accountability Office reported that in 2011 only 15% of the border with Mexico was under full Border Patrol control. Another 44% is not under full control, but is counted as being under “operational” control. That means that 41% of the border is under minimal or no control. That’s about 800 miles of unprotected border. That would be bad enough. But when individual states have attempted to assist the federal government in enforcing border control, the feds have either ignored their efforts or sued the states for interfering in a federal prerogative.

Arizona has been a primary target of administration ire. While the state is losing $2.7 billion in enforcement and public services losses during the period from 2009 to the present, it has been the whipping boy for the Obama administration for simply passing legislation which is designed to do the job the feds either can’t or won’t do. Yet the Arizona statutes take no power from nor do they create parallel immigration power with the federal government. They simply create the mechanism by which the state can turn illegal immigrants over to the federal authorities.

Still, the Obama administration felt it wasn’t doing enough to support illegal immigration and fast-track legalization. It remedied that lack by appointing immigration enthusiast Andrew Lorenz-Strait to the post of public advocate for the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE). Another czar. And it’s the first time ever that an administration of either party has created a position which essentially advocates for illegals. The very agency charged with the enforcement of immigration law will effectively have a man who will act as a taxpayer-funded lobbyist for illegals.

Lorenz-Strait previously advocated for cuts to the ICE budget of the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program which helps states cover the cost of jailing illegal immigrants. The President’s crazed budget announced just after his State of the Union address includes this cut—to the tune of $170 million. Lorenz-Strait is off to a good start.

The pandering appears to be paying off. Obama won about 67% of the Hispanic vote in 2008, and his reelection campaign committee is predicting that number could increase to 73% in 2012. I think that’s an exercise in radical optimism, but surely the pandering isn’t hurting his popularity among Hispanic voters.

Immigration will not be the big issue of the 2012 campaign, but it can’t be ignored. Any Republican presidential candidate is going to need good answers to questions about immigration. A “get ‘em out now” approach may appeal to many nativists, but it could be utter disaster in the general election. Comprehensive immigration reform is an important issue, but the Obama administration will try to paint anything short of amnesty as racism and jingoism. It must be addressed, but in realistic and humane terms. It is quite possible to reassure Hispanic voters without caving in to the open borders crowd.

At the end of the Bush administration and for the first few months of the Obama administration, illegal immigration from Mexico was on a downward spiral. It was a combination of better border enforcement and the calamitous downturn in the American economy. Those illegals who came here for work began to realize jobs were few and far between. Fewer illegals came, many returned home.

Yet with little change in the economy, the numbers are creeping back up. If jobs aren’t the reason for the increases, something else must be. The biggest reason is the illegal-friendly Obama administration and the Democratic Party’s pandering to Hispanic voters. The administration has dodged or reinterpreted Congressional action to set up a lengthy series of rules which make crossing the border illegally easier and staying less uncomfortable. What it couldn’t get in Congress with the proposed comprehensive immigration reform (aka “amnesty”) and the Dream Act it is accomplishing administratively and bureaucratically.

The administration talks about its achievements in deporting illegals, but the record hardly supports the claim. While talking deportation numbers with one side of his mouth, President Obama talks “prosecutorial discretion” out of the other side. Under current law, deported illegal immigrants must remain outside of the United States for a minimum of three years before returning under some legal plan. The administration has acted to change that rule using a “hardship” exception. If the illegal already has legal relatives living in the United States, he can claim his absence would pose a hardship for the family. It’s an Alice in Wonderland kind of reasoning, but you can bet that immigration authorities will find the exception nearly every time as long as this administration remains in power.

Another new rule imposed is that once caught, a large majority of illegals who have not run up a criminal record will go to the end of the deportation line. And while remaining in the country they can build up “longevity credits” putting them closer to the magic legalization goal. In major cities, where most illegals end up, this will mean a large number of very dangerous people being allowed to stay. Most of America’s big city immigration magnets are “sanctuary cities,” or cities so overwhelmed by crime that they simply can’t keep up. In sanctuary cities, criminal activity is not reported to the federal authorities unless there has been a conviction. In San Francisco, youthful offenders are rarely reported at all, and adults are reported only after being convicted of major violent felonies.

And then there’s the simple issue that if you can’t get in through the door, sneak in through the window. The Government Accountability Office reported that in 2011 only 15% of the border with Mexico was under full Border Patrol control. Another 44% is not under full control, but is counted as being under “operational” control. That means that 41% of the border is under minimal or no control. That’s about 800 miles of unprotected border. That would be bad enough. But when individual states have attempted to assist the federal government in enforcing border control, the feds have either ignored their efforts or sued the states for interfering in a federal prerogative.

Arizona has been a primary target of administration ire. While the state is losing $2.7 billion in enforcement and public services losses during the period from 2009 to the present, it has been the whipping boy for the Obama administration for simply passing legislation which is designed to do the job the feds either can’t or won’t do. Yet the Arizona statutes take no power from nor do they create parallel immigration power with the federal government. They simply create the mechanism by which the state can turn illegal immigrants over to the federal authorities.

Still, the Obama administration felt it wasn’t doing enough to support illegal immigration and fast-track legalization. It remedied that lack by appointing immigration enthusiast Andrew Lorenz-Strait to the post of public advocate for the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE). Another czar. And it’s the first time ever that an administration of either party has created a position which essentially advocates for illegals. The very agency charged with the enforcement of immigration law will effectively have a man who will act as a taxpayer-funded lobbyist for illegals.

Lorenz-Strait previously advocated for cuts to the ICE budget of the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program which helps states cover the cost of jailing illegal immigrants. The President’s crazed budget announced just after his State of the Union address includes this cut—to the tune of $170 million. Lorenz-Strait is off to a good start.

The pandering appears to be paying off. Obama won about 67% of the Hispanic vote in 2008, and his reelection campaign committee is predicting that number could increase to 73% in 2012. I think that’s an exercise in radical optimism, but surely the pandering isn’t hurting his popularity among Hispanic voters.

Immigration will not be the big issue of the 2012 campaign, but it can’t be ignored. Any Republican presidential candidate is going to need good answers to questions about immigration. A “get ‘em out now” approach may appeal to many nativists, but it could be utter disaster in the general election. Comprehensive immigration reform is an important issue, but the Obama administration will try to paint anything short of amnesty as racism and jingoism. It must be addressed, but in realistic and humane terms. It is quite possible to reassure Hispanic voters without caving in to the open borders crowd.

Y'All Come! Si Se Puede!

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Solyndra Strikes Again

Solyndra Strikes Again

The Solyndra scandal just refuses to go away. By now, everyone knows about the money thrown at a pie-in-the-sky solar panel scheme by the unwilling taxpayers on the orders of the Obama administration. The company was shaky at best, but it was run by big contributors to the Obama campaign, so a few (dozen) federal rules and plain common sense were tossed aside to fund another green disaster.

The company failed shortly after receiving the loans, and the taxpayers are now on the hook for the losses. As part of a sweetheart deal between Solyndra’s chief investors, Obama contributors all, and the Department of Energy, Solyndra not only received approximately $535 million in federal guaranteed loans, but in violation of federal law the major shareholders were granted priority in bankruptcy over the taxpayers who coughed up the money for the loan. The Department of Energy has claimed all along that it had no idea whatsoever that Solyndra was about to fall off a financial cliff.

And now we have a new wrinkle to consider. A mere two days before the Solyndra board of directors decided to file for bankruptcy protection, there was a mysterious sell-off of inventory. Allegedly, the sale was to stave off the collapse of the company. It is not an unusual procedure for going concerns which are experiencing short term cash flow problems. But in the real world of healthy, but troubled corporations, these things are carefully-planned and take place weeks or months before a company is facing bankruptcy.

The sell-off has a number of very strange-smelling details. First, there is the question of why the inventory was sold off so cheaply. The inventory was fairly evaluated at $58.1 million. It was sold for cash--$17.5 million in cash. Even very distressed corporations in need of cash can usually find a buyer that will pay the real value of the inventory, or something close to it. Even under the worst possible circumstances, getting only 30% of the actual value is nearly unheard-of.

To any trained accountant (in the Department of Energy, for instance?) this means that the company is not only in trouble—it’s in big trouble. The bankruptcy court must look at the time of the sale, as well as the buyers, and determine if the sale was for reasonably equivalent cash-to-value as well as whether there was any reasonable belief that the infusion of cash would increase liquidity to the point that the corporation might remain viable. Given the bankruptcy filing two days later, that seems unlikely. That leaves the question of who paid the cash.

Even the name of the buyer is suspicious—Solyndra Solar II. That name was picked for the affiliates of Solyndra’s debtor-in-possession lender. And who might that be? Argonaut Private Equity and Madrone Capital Partners. Argonaut is the investment wing of a foundation headed by billionaire George Kaiser. Full circle, ladies and gentlemen. Kaiser is one of those Obama contributors and Solyndra board members who got precedence over the taxpayers in case of bankruptcy. Madrone Partners also has connections to the Waltons of Wal-Mart fame.

An official spokesman for Argonaut, who also served on the Solyndra board, told reporters that the investors (which investors?) did not profit from overall sales of the inventory or the accounts receivable. A separate corporation had been formed to purchase the Solyndra accounts receivable by the same cast of characters, and is named Solyndra Solar LLC. The spokesman, Steve Mitchell, added that the plan was to give the company more time to turn around. Two days? That would be one helluva turnaround.

Solyndra Solar LLC and Solyndra Solar II were both properly listed in the initial bankruptcy filing. But it was not until a much later addendum that the full list of officers and investors of the buyers was added. And it was only at the late filing that the amount of the money, inventory, and accounts receivable became known.

All of this is unusual, but not entirely unheard of in the wonderful world of failing corporations. The purchasers have sometimes managed to make a good deal by which the original company survives and the investors in the special corporations provide the money and own the inventory which they supervise while the original entity changes form, but still remains in business. That most assuredly did not happen in the case of Solyndra.

George Mason University Professor and bankruptcy expert Todd Zywicki gingerly explains it this way: “There’s nothing inherently problematic about that as it is common to want to stockpile cash on the eve of a bankruptcy in order to have a sort of war chest going into the case. It could be a problem, however, if there were particular creditors who were benefited by converting the accounts receivable and inventory to cash for some reason or if those assets were converted for less than reasonably equivalent value."

And therein lies the rub. We await an explanation from George Kaiser, Friend of Obama..

The Solyndra scandal just refuses to go away. By now, everyone knows about the money thrown at a pie-in-the-sky solar panel scheme by the unwilling taxpayers on the orders of the Obama administration. The company was shaky at best, but it was run by big contributors to the Obama campaign, so a few (dozen) federal rules and plain common sense were tossed aside to fund another green disaster.

The company failed shortly after receiving the loans, and the taxpayers are now on the hook for the losses. As part of a sweetheart deal between Solyndra’s chief investors, Obama contributors all, and the Department of Energy, Solyndra not only received approximately $535 million in federal guaranteed loans, but in violation of federal law the major shareholders were granted priority in bankruptcy over the taxpayers who coughed up the money for the loan. The Department of Energy has claimed all along that it had no idea whatsoever that Solyndra was about to fall off a financial cliff.

And now we have a new wrinkle to consider. A mere two days before the Solyndra board of directors decided to file for bankruptcy protection, there was a mysterious sell-off of inventory. Allegedly, the sale was to stave off the collapse of the company. It is not an unusual procedure for going concerns which are experiencing short term cash flow problems. But in the real world of healthy, but troubled corporations, these things are carefully-planned and take place weeks or months before a company is facing bankruptcy.

The sell-off has a number of very strange-smelling details. First, there is the question of why the inventory was sold off so cheaply. The inventory was fairly evaluated at $58.1 million. It was sold for cash--$17.5 million in cash. Even very distressed corporations in need of cash can usually find a buyer that will pay the real value of the inventory, or something close to it. Even under the worst possible circumstances, getting only 30% of the actual value is nearly unheard-of.

To any trained accountant (in the Department of Energy, for instance?) this means that the company is not only in trouble—it’s in big trouble. The bankruptcy court must look at the time of the sale, as well as the buyers, and determine if the sale was for reasonably equivalent cash-to-value as well as whether there was any reasonable belief that the infusion of cash would increase liquidity to the point that the corporation might remain viable. Given the bankruptcy filing two days later, that seems unlikely. That leaves the question of who paid the cash.

Even the name of the buyer is suspicious—Solyndra Solar II. That name was picked for the affiliates of Solyndra’s debtor-in-possession lender. And who might that be? Argonaut Private Equity and Madrone Capital Partners. Argonaut is the investment wing of a foundation headed by billionaire George Kaiser. Full circle, ladies and gentlemen. Kaiser is one of those Obama contributors and Solyndra board members who got precedence over the taxpayers in case of bankruptcy. Madrone Partners also has connections to the Waltons of Wal-Mart fame.

An official spokesman for Argonaut, who also served on the Solyndra board, told reporters that the investors (which investors?) did not profit from overall sales of the inventory or the accounts receivable. A separate corporation had been formed to purchase the Solyndra accounts receivable by the same cast of characters, and is named Solyndra Solar LLC. The spokesman, Steve Mitchell, added that the plan was to give the company more time to turn around. Two days? That would be one helluva turnaround.

Solyndra Solar LLC and Solyndra Solar II were both properly listed in the initial bankruptcy filing. But it was not until a much later addendum that the full list of officers and investors of the buyers was added. And it was only at the late filing that the amount of the money, inventory, and accounts receivable became known.

All of this is unusual, but not entirely unheard of in the wonderful world of failing corporations. The purchasers have sometimes managed to make a good deal by which the original company survives and the investors in the special corporations provide the money and own the inventory which they supervise while the original entity changes form, but still remains in business. That most assuredly did not happen in the case of Solyndra.

George Mason University Professor and bankruptcy expert Todd Zywicki gingerly explains it this way: “There’s nothing inherently problematic about that as it is common to want to stockpile cash on the eve of a bankruptcy in order to have a sort of war chest going into the case. It could be a problem, however, if there were particular creditors who were benefited by converting the accounts receivable and inventory to cash for some reason or if those assets were converted for less than reasonably equivalent value."

And therein lies the rub. We await an explanation from George Kaiser, Friend of Obama..

Solyndra Strikes Again

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R.I.P. California

R.I.P. California

California rivals the federal government in the number and excesses of its multiple bureaucracies. Its legislature is the envy of left wing Democrats everywhere. It now has the perfect governor—Jerry “Moonbeam” Brown. It is still feeling the effects of the administration of blockhead governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

To paraphrase Hannibal Smith of the A Team, “they love it when a plan comes together.” The leaders and their faithful sheep have a plan that they think will make California green and wealthy. The citizens of Lotus Land have a nearly infinite capacity for self-delusion. Their plan is actually organized suicide by green pipedreams, regulation and taxation. The Rev. Jim Jones only needed to stay in California and wait another thirty years or so, and he could have been governor.

I’m going to list some of the most egregious excesses of California governance. But there’s method to my madness. Americans in general, and conservative Republicans specifically need an occasional reminder of what could happen to them in the other states if The One is re-elected president along with a Democratic Congress.

Those of us who live in the Central Valley are experiencing a double-whammy. California has been the breadbasket of America for nearly a century. But no more. The bureaucrats have decided that the preservation of an obscure species of fish that holds no known niche in the macro-ecosystem is more important than water for the amber waves of grain and jobs for agricultural workers. In the case of Delta Smelt vs. Human Existence, the useless fish wins. This has been a joint effort of the federal EPA and California fellow-traveling bureaucracies. California embraced the EPA restrictions and added a few of its own. No water, no crops. Simple, no?

At the same time the state, in conspiracy with the Obama administration, has decided to transform the state that was built by the automobile into the state that runs on rails. Exploiting the misery and unemployment brought about by the artificial Central Valley drought, the boys in Sacramento and the boys in DC are shoving a high-speed rail project down the throats of Californians. And they have cynically chosen the Central Valley city of Bakersfield as the first leg of the run.

The train is supposed to run from San Francisco to Los Angeles, but since the resistance to the project in those towns is minimal, they chose a starting place where objections to the project could be overcome by the desperate need for jobs. Clever, huh? And never mind California is essentially bankrupt. Federal funds are available, but the state must bear the largest share of the costs of the project, which in two years have escalated from $30 billion to $96 billion without a single track being laid.

Another California bureaucracy has a plan for all Californians. The California Air Resources Board has determined that 15% of all the cars on the California roads must be fully electric by 2025. The legislature and the two most recent governors think that’s just dandy. In a state where distances between routine destinations are measured in hours and minutes rather than in miles, the state has mandated automobiles which will travel no more than sixty to eighty miles before needing a time-consuming recharge. That’s fine for the denizens of San Francisco where nothing is more than five miles from anything else. But what about the rest of the state?

At least they’re requiring you to purchase an automobile which can be converted into a heat source (accompanying illustration). In the event the weather turns cold, just pull over, kick your car somewhere near the battery compartment, and you will generate a warm fire. Sometimes immediately, but in other cases it might take as long as a week for the blaze to get going, so be careful where you park.

The federal government imposed light bulb standards on all Americans. You are expected to buy a “green” light bulb which contains dangerous levels of mercury in order to use less energy. “Not good enough,” said California. Those not fortunate enough to live near a Wal-Mart will have to buy 60 watt bulbs that used to cost twenty or thirty cents, and replace them with a $3.00 bulb, manufactured in China The new 60 watt bulb actually puts out about 57 watts of ghastly light, while a 75 watt puts out about 63 watts. They also don’t fit right in your nicer lamps, and they look absolutely hideous in a chandelier. Just follow the greenie brick road, and don’t ask questions.

Then there’s law enforcement. Or maybe we should call it law observation. When rioters like the Occupy Movement or Oakland gangs celebrating a Raiders victory loot and pillage, the police are allowed to observe, but laying a hand on an out-of-control anarchist is police brutality. This is not the fault of the police. The governor sees assault and property damage as abstract concepts that don’t happen in his home. The big city mayors express open sympathy with the bums and thugs, give meaningless orders about protecting public property, then forbid the police to do anything “violent” to prevent the occupations. The police in Oakland are expected to react to thrown cement blocks, knives and Molotov cocktails with harsh words and mean looks.

As for border-hopping illegal aliens, welcome to California, land of the freebie and home of the goodies. Bop on over to your local DMV, get a license to drive (en Espanol), then drive around the building and register to vote yourself even more largess from the few remaining taxpayers in the state. If you're old enough, you can also apply for admission to the state's colleges and universities, paying in-state tuition denied to actual American citizens from the other states.

Criminals are welcome as well. The legislature is about to get rid of that pesky “three strikes” law that kept criminals in prison and out of the Occupy camps. It’s very humanitarian, allowing the rapists to have victims of the opposite sex which are unavailable to them in the Graybar Hotel.

I guess this is my way of saying that if you’re a conservative who doesn’t like any of the current Republican candidates for president, think carefully about sitting on your hands or voting for Barack Obama in the general election. Barack Obama and his merry band of socialists have a single goal: Make the rest of the United States just like California.

California rivals the federal government in the number and excesses of its multiple bureaucracies. Its legislature is the envy of left wing Democrats everywhere. It now has the perfect governor—Jerry “Moonbeam” Brown. It is still feeling the effects of the administration of blockhead governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

To paraphrase Hannibal Smith of the A Team, “they love it when a plan comes together.” The leaders and their faithful sheep have a plan that they think will make California green and wealthy. The citizens of Lotus Land have a nearly infinite capacity for self-delusion. Their plan is actually organized suicide by green pipedreams, regulation and taxation. The Rev. Jim Jones only needed to stay in California and wait another thirty years or so, and he could have been governor.

I’m going to list some of the most egregious excesses of California governance. But there’s method to my madness. Americans in general, and conservative Republicans specifically need an occasional reminder of what could happen to them in the other states if The One is re-elected president along with a Democratic Congress.

Those of us who live in the Central Valley are experiencing a double-whammy. California has been the breadbasket of America for nearly a century. But no more. The bureaucrats have decided that the preservation of an obscure species of fish that holds no known niche in the macro-ecosystem is more important than water for the amber waves of grain and jobs for agricultural workers. In the case of Delta Smelt vs. Human Existence, the useless fish wins. This has been a joint effort of the federal EPA and California fellow-traveling bureaucracies. California embraced the EPA restrictions and added a few of its own. No water, no crops. Simple, no?

At the same time the state, in conspiracy with the Obama administration, has decided to transform the state that was built by the automobile into the state that runs on rails. Exploiting the misery and unemployment brought about by the artificial Central Valley drought, the boys in Sacramento and the boys in DC are shoving a high-speed rail project down the throats of Californians. And they have cynically chosen the Central Valley city of Bakersfield as the first leg of the run.

The train is supposed to run from San Francisco to Los Angeles, but since the resistance to the project in those towns is minimal, they chose a starting place where objections to the project could be overcome by the desperate need for jobs. Clever, huh? And never mind California is essentially bankrupt. Federal funds are available, but the state must bear the largest share of the costs of the project, which in two years have escalated from $30 billion to $96 billion without a single track being laid.

Another California bureaucracy has a plan for all Californians. The California Air Resources Board has determined that 15% of all the cars on the California roads must be fully electric by 2025. The legislature and the two most recent governors think that’s just dandy. In a state where distances between routine destinations are measured in hours and minutes rather than in miles, the state has mandated automobiles which will travel no more than sixty to eighty miles before needing a time-consuming recharge. That’s fine for the denizens of San Francisco where nothing is more than five miles from anything else. But what about the rest of the state?

At least they’re requiring you to purchase an automobile which can be converted into a heat source (accompanying illustration). In the event the weather turns cold, just pull over, kick your car somewhere near the battery compartment, and you will generate a warm fire. Sometimes immediately, but in other cases it might take as long as a week for the blaze to get going, so be careful where you park.

The federal government imposed light bulb standards on all Americans. You are expected to buy a “green” light bulb which contains dangerous levels of mercury in order to use less energy. “Not good enough,” said California. Those not fortunate enough to live near a Wal-Mart will have to buy 60 watt bulbs that used to cost twenty or thirty cents, and replace them with a $3.00 bulb, manufactured in China The new 60 watt bulb actually puts out about 57 watts of ghastly light, while a 75 watt puts out about 63 watts. They also don’t fit right in your nicer lamps, and they look absolutely hideous in a chandelier. Just follow the greenie brick road, and don’t ask questions.

Then there’s law enforcement. Or maybe we should call it law observation. When rioters like the Occupy Movement or Oakland gangs celebrating a Raiders victory loot and pillage, the police are allowed to observe, but laying a hand on an out-of-control anarchist is police brutality. This is not the fault of the police. The governor sees assault and property damage as abstract concepts that don’t happen in his home. The big city mayors express open sympathy with the bums and thugs, give meaningless orders about protecting public property, then forbid the police to do anything “violent” to prevent the occupations. The police in Oakland are expected to react to thrown cement blocks, knives and Molotov cocktails with harsh words and mean looks.

As for border-hopping illegal aliens, welcome to California, land of the freebie and home of the goodies. Bop on over to your local DMV, get a license to drive (en Espanol), then drive around the building and register to vote yourself even more largess from the few remaining taxpayers in the state. If you're old enough, you can also apply for admission to the state's colleges and universities, paying in-state tuition denied to actual American citizens from the other states.

Criminals are welcome as well. The legislature is about to get rid of that pesky “three strikes” law that kept criminals in prison and out of the Occupy camps. It’s very humanitarian, allowing the rapists to have victims of the opposite sex which are unavailable to them in the Graybar Hotel.

I guess this is my way of saying that if you’re a conservative who doesn’t like any of the current Republican candidates for president, think carefully about sitting on your hands or voting for Barack Obama in the general election. Barack Obama and his merry band of socialists have a single goal: Make the rest of the United States just like California.

R.I.P. California

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