Hey Mr. Employee, I just got my new tax bill for that hope and change (you voted for) and the punch line is YOU’RE FIRED.
Monthly Archives: October 2012
10 Leave the Labor Force for Every One added
This situation makes the U3 unemployment number look better than the actual unemployment problem is. Using the U3 number those who get part time jobs and those who give up on looking for gainful employment are not counted among the unemployed.
“For Every 1 Person Added To Labor Force Since January 2009,” the chart reads, “10 People Added To Those Not In Labor Force.”
That is, in nearly the four years, since President Obama took office in January 2009, only 827,000 people have been added to the labor force, while during that same time period, 8,208,000 have been added to those not in the labor force.
The chart relies on data available from the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“The numbers represented in the chart are a measure of growth from January 2009 through September 2012,” the Republican side of the Senate Budget Committee explains. “The data is sourced from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Current Population Survey, a sample of 60,000 households conducted by personal and telephone interviews. Basic labor force data are gathered monthly. The labor force consists of all people aged 16 and over either employed or actively seeking work. It does not include discouraged workers, people who have retired, or those on welfare or disability who are no longer looking for work. The ‘not in the labor force’ group is defined as the total civilian non-institutional population minus the labor force.”
Since January 2009, the labor force has grown by 0.54 percent, or 827,000 people (from 154,236,000 to 155,063,000). Those not in the labor force grew by 10.2 percent during the same period (8,208,000 people), from 80,502,000 to 88,710,000. In other words, for every one person added to the labor force of the United States since January 2009, the size of the U.S. population not in the labor force grew by 10 people.
How AARP Made $2.8 Billion By Supporting Obama’s Cuts to Medicare
We have reported on this before.
As you know if you’ve been reading this blog, Obamacare cuts $716 billion from Medicare in order to pay for its $1.9 trillion expansion of coverage to low-income Americans. It’s one of the reasons why seniors are more opposed to the new health law than any other age group. So why is it that the group that purports to speak for seniors, the American Association of Retired Persons, so strongly supports a law that most seniors oppose? According to an explosive new report from Sen. Jim DeMint (R., S.C.), it’s because those very same Medicare cuts will give the AARP a windfall of $1 billion in insurance profits, and preserve another $1.8 billion that AARP already generates from its business interests.
Here’s how it works. AARP isn’t your every-day citizens’ advocacy group. The AARP is also one of the largest private health insurers in America. In 2011, the AARP generated $458 million in royalty fees from so-called “Medigap” plans, nearly twice the $266 million the lobby receives in membership dues.
Medigap plans are private insurance plans that seniors buy to cover the things that traditional, government-run Medicare doesn’t, like catastrophic coverage. Medigap plans also help seniors eliminate the co-pays and deductibles that are designed to restrain wasteful Medicare spending.
AARP blocked Medigap reforms, saving the group $1.8 billion
Adding catastrophic coverage to Medicare, while restraining the ability of Medigap plans to waste money, is a key to Medicare reform, one that has been a big part of bipartisan plans in the past. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, the Medigap reforms that AARP blocked would have saved the average senior as much as $415 in premiums per year.
But the AARP aggressively, and successfully, lobbied to keep Medigap reforms out of Obamacare, because AARP receives a 4.95 percent royalty on every dollar that seniors spend on its Medigap plans. Reform, DeMint estimates, would have cost AARP $1.8 billion over ten years.
Cuts to Medicare Advantage could earn AARP over $1 billion
Not only did AARP succeed in getting Democrats to balk at Medigap reform. Obamacare’s cuts to Medicare Advantage will drive many seniors out of that program, and into traditional government-run Medicare, which will increase the number of people who need Medigap insurance.
That means more royalty profits for the AARP. Reps. Wally Herger (R., Calif.) and Dave Reichert (R., Wash.) estimated that the change “could result in a windfall for AARP that exceeds over $1 billion during the next ten years.”
AARP Medigap plans exempted from Obamacare’s insurance mandates
It gets worse. AARP Medigap plans are exempted from most of Obamacare’s best-known insurance mandates. AARP Medigap plans are exempted from the ban that requires insurers to take all comers, regardless of pre-existing conditions. The plans are exempted from the $500,000 cap on insurance industry executive compensation; top AARP executives currently make more than $1 million. AARP plans are exempt from the premium tax levied on other private insurers. IPAB, Medicare’s rationing board, is explicitly barred from altering Medicare’s cost-sharing provisions, provisions that govern the existence of Medigap plans.
And AARP Medigap plans are allowed to have twice the administrative costs that other private insurers are allowed under Obamacare’s medical loss ratio regulations. This last point is key, because AARP’s 4.95 percent royalty is a significant administrative cost.
Democrats routinely excoriate private insurers for supposedly putting profits above people. “No American should ever spend their golden years at the mercy of insurance companies,” President Obama told the AARP yesterday. But the typical private insurer gets by on a profit margin of about 5 to 6 percent. AARP’s 4.95 percent royalty, on the other hand, doesn’t do anything to make a health plan operate more smoothly: it’s just pure profit for AARP.
Clinton: “I Take Responsiblity” For Benghazi. Political Arena Editor Comments
UPDATE – Clinton now says that the blame lies in “The Fog of War“. The circumstances and reasons below show that to be just plain false. In the comments below several US Senators are calling foul as well.
Political Arena Editor:
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Dan Rather gets it spot on. Here is why. When we look at the decisions down the line:
1 – The decision to not use Marines or Blackwater private mercenaries (who the administration shuns) for security and use locals (who sold them out) was a political decision not a security one.
2 – The building did not meet the minimum standards for physical security for an embassy was a political decision, because there are standard procedures that the State Department follows for the kinds of physical security all our embassies and consulates have and it takes a political decision to over ride them. Our building was penetrated by Al-Qaeda in 10 minutes and our sensitive documents were taken because the staff had no time to destroy them.
3 – The embassy was not fortified for the anniversary of 9/11. It should have been, In fact when the people on the ground asked for more security repeatedly the answer was no, when it was a no brainer that more security was needed. Our State Department Security is not capable of this level of incompetence so a political decision is almost certainly responsible.
4 – Embassy staff requested more security both physical and muscle and the answer was to have some security taken away, but the remaining security did have their danger pay increased as the Administration was aware that they were in more danger. Their efforts to get more security been going on for months so the odds of the problem being a mere security oversight is near impossible.
5 – The use of embassy funds to buy Chevy Volts. Would anyone like to argue that this was not a political decision?
6. Sending Ambassador Susan Rice out on the Sunday Shows to lie about the nature of the attack four days after the attack when people already knew better was a political decision certainly hand picked by the White House.
Romney Pays 57.9% in Charity Contributions & Taxes
Almost 60% of his income goes to charity and government. Democrats went on for weeks that they wanted to see the returns with some of them accusing him of being a tax cheat and a felon…. well there you go.
With President Obama expected to use his second-chance debate this week to portray Mitt Romney as an uncaring rich guy, a new analysis of the GOP candidate’s wealth shows that the millionaire was so generous that he kept just 42 percent of his income.
Obama’s team has mocked the 14.1 percent tax rate that Romney is in as shirking his responsibility. But Charlottesville, Va.-based Marotta Wealth Management, which pens a widely-followed research blog, found that when Romney’s tax burden and charitable gifts are included, he paid out 57.9 percent of his income.
“Giving $2.3 million to charity certainly should not be the basis of any criticism,” said David Marotta. “It is money the Romney’s did not keep for themselves, so I am counting it with the money lost to taxes.”
His basic math for Romney’s 2011 return: $18.6 million in income minus $10.8 million in taxes and charity results in a net of $7.8 million, 42.1 percent of gross. Ditto for 2010, said Marotta.
Federal News Service Edits Debate Trascript to Help Biden….and Gets Caught…
…by Breitbart News:
Yes, Virginia, there is something fishy about media coverage of the debates, but it’s deeper than you think. As was reported here on Friday, the New York Times elided Paul Ryan’s terrific line “And we will not blame others for the next four years” in their “complete” transcript of the vice-presidential debate.
Guess who else cut the line out of their transcript? National Public Radio (NPR). And here’s where it gets truly nefarious; the New York Times, NPR, the Chicago Sun Times and other news outlets used the same news source for the transcript: the Federal News Service (FNS). How many media outlets did the FNS use to mislead readers around the nation?
The Federal News Service was bought in 2010 by the Dolan Company, which published business journals, court and commercial newspapers and other publications, and then bought FNS, which, among other things, publishes transcripts of events like the debates.
Would a supposedly reputable company like FNS try to twist the truth in order to help one political party? You decide.
The CEO of the Dolan Company is James P. Dolan. Here is a list of his political contributions for 2009- 2010.
2009:
$10,000 for the Follow the North Star Fund, a Minnesota Democratic PAC
$2400 for Tim Walz for Congress. Walz is a Democrat.
2010:
$10,000 Follow the North Star Fund
$5000 Minnesota Democratic Farmer Labor Party
$2400 Friends for Harry Reid
$1400 Tim Walz for Congress
$1000 Klobachar for Minnesota. Klobachar is a Democrat.
$1000 Giffords for Congress. Giffords is a Democrat.
When Dolan bought FNS in 2010, he uttered these deathless words:
“Fed News plays an important role in public affairs, reporting exactly what was said, rather than official transcripts that often show only what was supposed to have been said.”
Why is it hard to believe him now?
UPDATE: The Federal news Service has corrected itself, but few of the outlets have, including the New York Times. The damage has been done.
79% say all Americans should pay income taxes
A large majority of likely voters believes all Americans should pay some federal income tax — even if it is as little as one percent of what they make.
Seventy-nine percent say everyone should pay something, according to a Fox News poll released Thursday. That includes 85 percent of Republicans, 83 percent of independents and 71 percent of Democrats.
According to the IRS, last year approximately 41 percent of tax filers did not pay federal income tax. The Tax Policy Center estimates that will increase to 46 percent this year.
Most voters (73 percent) are at least somewhat familiar with the widely-broadcast videotape of Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney talking about “47 percent of Americans” and the number of people paying no federal income tax. Romney also talks about his concern that the country is becoming an entitlement society and that many are too dependent on government. Journalists and pundits speculated the tape would damage Romney’s campaign. Yet a 63-percent majority thinks the substance of Romney’s comment about dependence on government is mostly (36 percent) or somewhat true (27 percent).
Three out of four voters believes the “average American” is at least somewhat dependent on government (76 percent), while less than a third says they personally are (31 percent).
The poll also shows nearly half of voters — 46 percent — think the federal government is “trying to do too much” these days. That’s more than twice as many as say it’s doing “too little” (22 percent). Just over a quarter says the government is doing “about the right amount” (28 percent).
Greg Lukianoff: Unlearning Liberty on Campus (video)
Greg Lukianoff: Unlearning Liberty on Campus. Greg Lukianoff is the President of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.
White House Aide Involved in ‘Fast and Furious’ Suddenly’ Transferred to Iraq; Issa Threatens Subpoena
Related: Obama Administration Illegally Fires ATF “Fast & Furious” Whistleblower – LINK
Kevin O’Reilly, a member of the White House National Security Staff who regularly communicated about Operation Fast and Furious with the Arizona-based ATF agent responsible for running the operation that allowed guns to flow to Mexican drug cartels, was suddenly transferred out of the White House and into Iraq in July 2011.
The transfer took place shortly after the ATF agent had testified in the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and the White House had provided the committee with a series of emails that O’Reilly and the agent had exchanged while Fast and Furious was underway.
Since then, the White House has declined to allow O’Reilly to be interviewed either by the committee or by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz, who conducted the administration’s internal investigation of Fast and Furious. The White House also refused to give the inspector general access to internal White House communications relating to Fast and Furious.
Under Fast and Furious, the ATF and the Justice Department deliberately allowed known straw purchasers for Mexican drug cartels to buy about 2,000 guns at U.S. gun stores. In December 2010, two of these guns were found at the scene of the murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry. Many more of the guns were found at crime scenes in Mexico.
In Sept. 20 testimony before the Oversight Committee, Horowitz said that the White House’s refusal to let O’Reilly speak and to provide the IG’s office with access to relevant internal White House communications “made it impossible” to “pursue that aspect of the case.”
In a letter they sent to O’Reilly’s attorney last Thursday, House Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa and Sen. Charles Grassley, the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, warned that Issa would subpoena O’Reilly if he did not agree to testify.
“We have been trying to arrange to speak with your client, Kevin O’Reilly, for nearly a year now,” Issa and Grassley wrote. “Earlier this year, you agreed to make O’Reilly available for an interview if the White House authorized his participation. The White House, where O’Reilly worked during the pendency of Operation Fast and Furious, refused to make him available, citing ‘an insufficient basis to support the request.”
“If O’Reilly chooses to continue to make himself unavailable, Chairman Issa will have no further alternative but to use compulsory process to require his testimony before the committee,” they wrote.
Continue reading HERE.
Obama’s War on Domestic Energy Jobs Continues: The Great Alaska Shut Out
Remember that Obama’s Energy Secretary, Steven Chu, testified to Congress under oath that gas should be $8.00 a gallon.
While Obama had instituted an illegal offshore drilling ban he was giving billions in low cost loans to Brazil (PetroBraz) to drill in water far deeper than we were in the Gulf. Of course, George Soros, the biggest money man for Democratic Party interests, is a large stock owner in PetroBraz…. but we all know that Chicago style politicians never engage in such behavior don’t we?
President Obama is campaigning as a champion of the oil and gas boom he’s had nothing to do with, and even as his regulators try to stifle it. The latest example is the Interior Department’s little-noticed August decision to close off from drilling nearly half of the 23.5 million acre National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska.
The area is called the National Petroleum Reserve because in 1976 Congress designated it as a strategic oil and natural gas stockpile to meet the “energy needs of the nation.” Alaska favors exploration in nearly the entire reserve. The feds had been reviewing four potential development plans, and the state of Alaska had strongly objected to the most restrictive of the four. Sure enough, that was the plan Interior chose.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar says his plan “will help the industry bring energy safely to market from this remote location, while also protecting wildlife and subsistence rights of Alaska Natives.” He added that the proposal will expand “safe and responsible oil and gas development, and builds on our efforts to help companies develop the infrastructure that’s needed to bring supplies online.”
The problem is almost no one in the energy industry and few in Alaska agree with him. In an August 22 letter to Mr. Salazar, the entire Alaska delegation in Congress—Senators Mark Begich and Lisa Murkowski and Representative Don Young—call it “the largest wholesale land withdrawal and blocking of access to an energy resource by the federal government in decades.” This decision, they add, “will cause serious harm to the economy and energy security of the United States, as well as to the state of Alaska.” Mr. Begich is a Democrat.
The letter also says the ruling “will significantly limit options for a pipeline” through the reserve. This pipeline has long been sought to transport oil and gas from the Chukchi Sea, the North Slope and future Arctic drilling. Mr. Salazar insists that a pipeline could still be built, but given the Obama Administration’s decision to block the Keystone XL pipeline, Alaskans are right to be skeptical.
Alaskans also worry that the National Petroleum Reserve will become the same political football as the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, or ANWR, which Washington has barred from drilling because of dubious environmental objections. The greens now want Congress to rename the energy reserve the “Western Arctic Reserve” to give the false impression that it is a fragile wildlife area. Some parts of the area are environmentally sensitive, but those 1.5 million acres (around Teshekpuk Lake) had already been set aside. Most of the other 11.5 million acres are almost indistinguishable from acreage owned by the state that is being drilled safely nearby.
The feds and Alaskan officials disagree about how much oil and natural gas is in the petroleum reserve. Some early federal estimates put the range between six and 15 billion barrels of oil, but in its latest survey the Bureau of Land Management projects closer to one billion. State officials and industry experts put the figure much higher based on the earlier surveys and improved drilling techniques.
The truth is no one knows. Prudhoe Bay turned out to be much more productive than originally believed, but surely the best strategy is to allow private drillers to risk their own money to find out. The oil and gas industry isn’t in the business of drilling dry holes on purpose.
The Interior power play couldn’t come at a worse time for Alaska, whose economy and government are heavily reliant on oil jobs and revenues. As recently as the 1980s, the Trans-Alaska Pipeline carried some 2.2 million barrels of oil a day from the North Slope to the port of Valdez. Yet as the once-rich fields of Prudhoe Bay and the Kuparuk River have declined, oil flow has dropped to one-third of that volume. North Dakota recently passed Alaska as the second highest oil-producing state behind Texas.
The problem isn’t that Alaska is running out of oil but that federal rules are preventing the state from developing those resources. No matter what Mr. Obama says now, in a second term his great Alaska energy shutout will continue.
Presidential Debate Moderator: Romney-Ryan “is some sort of ticket death wish” (video)
Candy Crowley: Paul Ryan on the ticket is ‘some sort of ticket death wish’..
When are the Republicans going to stop agreeing to these ridiculous moderators?
Not enough for you? Here is MORE.
Congressman Allen West’s “Field of Dreams” speech in Temecula California (video)
Allen West October 12, 2012.
Household income drops to 16 year low (but look who got rich)
What’s wrong with that picture? All the stimulus, regulations, bailouts and other spending in the name of the poor and who gets rich? Washington D.C. Tops List of Richest Cities.
Via Shadowstats:
• Real Median Household Income Collapses to 16-Year Low;
• 2011 Income Below Levels of Late-1960s, Early-1970s
• Income Variance Hits Record High, Suggestive of Greater Financial and Economic Crises Ahead
Illinois Raises Business Taxes: Jimmy Johns Corporation Leaves the State
Wealth goes where it is treated well. It should be the first rule of economics. When a bunch of radicalized leftists in Illinois demonize you for daring to start a good business and create jobs why stay?
CHAMPAIGN – The founder of Jimmy John’s said he has applied for Florida residency and may recommend that his corporate headquarters move out-of-state as a result of the Illinois tax increases enacted last week.
Jimmy John Liautaud told The News-Gazette on Tuesday that he is angry about the moves, which boosted the individual income tax from 3 percent to 5 percent and the corporate income tax from 7.3 percent to 9.5 percent.
“All they do is stick it to us,” he said, adding that the Legislature and governor showed “a clear lack of understanding.”
“I could absorb this and adapt, but it doesn’t feel good in my soul to make it happen,” Liautaud said.
Jimmy John’s, which has its corporate headquarters on Fox Drive in Champaign, has more than 1,000 sandwich shops nationwide, many of them franchise operations.
Champaign has been its corporate base, but Liautaud said it will not necessarily continue that way.
Liautaud said he has been contacted by “multiple pro-business states” that made him feel “wanted and important.”
“I enjoy being courted and the process,” he said.
Once he collects information on alternative sites, he will present it to the company’s board of directors and ask the board to decide.
As for himself, “my family and I are out of here,” he said.
Elizabeth Warren freaks when questioned about union members forced to campaign for her (video)
Union members are told that they will be fined if they do not campaign for Massachusetts Senate Candidate Elizabeth Warren. All she has is this class envy nonsense she spews all while the big money interests and far left academics are the ones that are funding her.
Star Trek’s Gary Graham Endorses Romney
More and more Hollywood Celebs including “A Listers” like Gary Graham are coming out for Mitt Romney.
Perhaps this is because Hollywood box office receipts are in decline and the reason for it is obvious – movie tickets are bough with discretionary income. A long double dip recession impacts Hollywood in a big way and the numbers speak for themselves.
Barack Obama has governed so far left that even some of my lefty friends in Tinseltown are throwing flags-on-the-play. Gone is the excited buzz from four years ago. Democrats talk only about their disgust and hatred for Romney, or Limbaugh or Hannity … or Bush. But oddly, unless it’s to brag about “their guy got bin Laden” … not a word about the Prez. And if Obama is mentioned at all, it’s in muted tones and short, general references. These days a patina of vague embarrassment colors liberal obstinancy in Hollywood.
I don’t know why they’re surprised – all he’s ever espoused has been neo-socialist rhetoric, anti-imperialism, and Saul-Alinsky-esque diatribes attacking capitalism, traditional American values and supply-side economics. So, nearly four years since taking office, why are so many of them shocked that he actually governed as the ultra-left radical he always swore he was?
As a former lefty myself, I’m familiar with the left’s propensity to court reality with no real intention to marry.
I, for one, believed Obama. That’s why I never supported him. As an ardent student of history, I’ve seen the ravages that socialism has inflicted upon the world. Hundreds of millions of lives lost needlessly and untold human suffering. The arrogance to think that it wasn’t the system to blame … that socialism could work if the right people were in charge, with the right leadership; then the unwieldy, overstuffed, non-aeronautic abomination could actually fly … and that all it took was good intentions, vague dreams of Utopian hopes and dreams to lift it off … and the physics of economics be damned. It’s beyond comprehension.
So, predictably, President Obama’s policies … all of them … have failed completely. On every score, they fail to do as promised. Rather than uplift and unite, they depress and divide. Rather than stimulate the economy, they slide us deeper into debt, stagnant economic growth and development and slip us deeper into recession. Rather than build up our image globally and foster love and appreciation, they alienate our allies and embolden our enemies and make us not only hated, but disrespected.
At the Emmys recently, host Jimmy Kimmel sniped, “Yeah who here is voting for Romney?” Expecting a groan and a laugh … he was mildly shocked to hear the positive response. It sounded like a third of the people present were cheering. Cheering – for a Republican challenger. At a Hollywood event!
Continue reading HERE.
O’Keefe video: Obama campaign staffer caught helping activist vote twice
James O’Keefe at Project Veritas gets the video once again.
British Meteorological Office: No Global Warming for 16 Years
The significance of this admission from them cannot be understated. The British Met is the academic epicenter of global warming alarmism. They work closely with the University of East Anglia and other ClimateGate hoaxers like Michael Mann at the disgraced Penn State University.
Global warming stopped 16 years ago, reveals Met Office report quietly released… and here is the chart to prove it
- The figures reveal that from the beginning of 1997 until August 2012 there was no discernible rise in aggregate global temperatures
- This means that the ‘pause’ in global warming has now lasted for about the same time as the previous period when temperatures rose, 1980 to 1996
By David Rose
The world stopped getting warmer almost 16 years ago, according to new data released last week.
The figures, which have triggered debate among climate scientists, reveal that from the beginning of 1997 until August 2012, there was no discernible rise in aggregate global temperatures.
This means that the ‘plateau’ or ‘pause’ in global warming has now lasted for about the same time as the previous period when temperatures rose, 1980 to 1996. Before that, temperatures had been stable or declining for about 40 years.
The new data, compiled from more than 3,000 measuring points on land and sea, was issued quietly on the internet, without any media fanfare, and, until today, it has not been reported.
This stands in sharp contrast to the release of the previous figures six months ago, which went only to the end of 2010 – a very warm year.
Ending the data then means it is possible to show a slight warming trend since 1997, but 2011 and the first eight months of 2012 were much cooler, and thus this trend is erased.
Obama Administration Illegally Fires ATF “Fast & Furious” Whistleblower
….in a Denny’s parking lot.
You just can’t make this stuff up folks… Lawsuit sure to come….
RELATED: White House Aide Involved in ‘Fast and Furious’ Suddenly’ Transferred to Iraq – LINK
Special Agent Vince Cefalu has worked for the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms for more than 25 years. On top of successfully placing dozens of hard criminals behind bars throughout his career, Cefalu has received promotions and consistently positive evaluations. When he started raising his voice about ATF corruption and illegal wiretapping in 2005, things changed. Tuesday evening, Cefalu was asked to meet Special Agent in Charge of the San Francisco Field Division Joseph Riehl at a Denny’s Restaurant near Lake Tahoe. When he arrived, he was served termination papers in the parking lot. Classy move. The exchange was secretly recorded by a confidential source. David Codrea has more:
The video, shaky at times from being handheld, and with color imbalance streaking happening inadvertently in the uploading to YouTube, was recorded by a confidential source and shows Cefalu approached by two ATF management representatives including Joseph M. Riehl, Special Agent in Charge of the San Francisco Field Division, which encompasses Northern California and Nevada field offices.
Riehl, seen talking to Cefalu through his Jeep window and reportedly telling him he couldn’t leave because he had to sign papers, had been criticized on the CUATF forum, and Gun Rights Examiner is attempting to track down audit reports to determine what an independent assessment reveals about the allegations there. But the bottom line is, an employee with over 25 years of service who has been a leading spokesman for whistleblowers was unceremoniously canned in a public parking lot by senior division management.
Cefalu was placed on administrative leave a year and a half ago after speaking out about Operation Fast and Furious. In 2009, he launched the website CleanUpATF.org in order for agents within ATF to blow the whistle on corrupt behavior anonymously due to the agency’s history of retaliation against those who “jump their chain of command.” His website is where bloggers and news reporters first saw allegations of gunwalking. The site is heavily monitored by the Department of Justice.
In the February 2012 issue of Townhall Magazine, Cefalu detailed the ATF corruption leading up to Fast and Furious and his retaliation case coming from inside the bureau that led to his firing this week.
Continue reading HERE.
Emails Reveal Justice Department Enlists Media Matters to Attack Reporters Reporting Obama Admin Scandals
Friends, this is absolutely Stalisnist and that is not a term we use lightly. This administration has threatened and targeted reporters again and again and is now using underhanded tactics like this to keep the elite media, who is already mostly in the tank for them, in line.
Internal Department of Justice emails obtained by The Daily Caller show Attorney General Eric Holder’s communications staff has collaborated with the left-wing advocacy group Media Matters for America in an attempt to quell news stories about scandals plaguing Holder and America’s top law enforcement agency.
Dozens of pages of emails between DOJ Office of Public Affairs Director Tracy Schmaler and Media Matters staffers show Schmaler, Holder’s top press defender, working with Media Matters to attack reporters covering DOJ scandals. TheDC obtained the emails through a Freedom of Information Act request. (RELATED: TheDC’s complete coverage of Media Matters)
Emails sent in September and November 2010 show Schmaler working with Media Matters staffer Jeremy Holden on attacking news coverage of the New Black Panther Party voter intimidation scandal.
Holden attacked former DOJ Civil Rights Division attorneys J. Christian Adams and Hans von Spakovsky on Sept. 20, 2010 for what he called an attempt “to reignite the phony New Black Panther Party scandal.”
Before Holden posted his article at 7:52 p.m., Schmaler sent him several emails with information helping him attack both former DOJ oficials.
“Here’s one Wolf letter,” read the subject of one email Schmaler sent Holden that contained no text. The email was likely a reference to Virginia Republican Rep. Frank Wolf, a member of Congress who led the Republican charge on the New Black Panther Party scandal involving alleged voter intimidation at a November 2008 polling place in Philadelphia.
In response, Holden told Schmaler that “The response to interog 38 is particularly helpful. Thanks!”
Interrogatory 38 was a reference to a question from Congress that the Justice Department answered, concerning the role of several senior officials in discussing litigation related to that voter intimidation case.
A follow-up email shows Schmaler sending Holden more information.
“[H]ere’s another one to Smith,” Schmaler wrote. “[I]t’s about perrelli contact with w. WH. helpful in that it makes clear perrelli didn’t have discussions w/ WH on the case (obviously confirming he knew of it) … but also illustrates [REDACTED] they’ve tried to throw up that won’t stick[.]”
Holden responded at 8:34 p.m. — three hours after Schmaler sent her first email at 5:34 — to say, “Post is live, FWIW [for what it’s worth]. Thanks again.”
Nearly two months later, on Nov. 18, 2010, Holden wrote a new blog post he described as an “EXCLUSIVE,” titled “Right-wing commission to vote on flawed New Black Panthers report.”
“The conservative-dominated U.S. Commission on Civil Rights will vote Friday on an interim report that omits critical evidence disproving allegations that the Obama administration refuses to enforce voting-rights laws against racial minorities, according to Media Matters’ analysis of a copy of the report we obtained,” Holden wrote in the Nov. 18 article.
Holden attacked Adams again, and Christopher Coates — another now-former DOJ attorney.
After Holden published that piece, Schmaler sent him an email titled “Great piece…” and continuing in the body of the message, “On USCCR investigation.’” One minute later, Holden responded, writing, “Thanks!”
Continue reading HERE.
Dinesh D’Souza and Michael Shermer on Obama and Fairness (video)
Will Obama Throw Hillary Under the Bus?
It seems that the Obama Administration is trying to make Hillary the scapegoat for the embassy attacks, lack of security and lies. Are the Clinton’s going to take this lying down?
Bob Beckel and The Five Blast Obama Admin for Lying About Embassy Attacks (video)
Bob Beckel is as partisan a Democrat hired gun as they come, but one thing I will say for him is that if you lie to him he does not like it one bit and the Administration has lied and while he tries to give them some benefit of the doubt he all but admits that the Obama Administration is just caught, should fess and “should get out from under this thing”.
Obama Green Energy Jobs Project Cost $28 Million Per Job
And this is just an excerpt… and so many billions in green jobs projects that just went to cronies and campaign contributors to make them rich. When you are done reading be sure to click the link below and read the rest. Also, retired famed super athlete Christine Lakatos now tracks these green energy projects and dollars on her web site which has shown to be very illuminating as to just how far this corruption has progressed.
Townhall Finance Columnist Marita Noon excerpt:
With the assistance of researcher Christine Lakatos, I have been chronicling Obama’s stimulus-funded green energy failures. First we looked at the companies that have gone bankrupt, and then those that are heading that way—or, at least, have financial issues. Within those reports, we frequently addressed specific green jobs failures. For example, regarding Fisker, the electric car made in Finland, we say:
“ABC reported: ‘Vice President Joseph Biden heralded the Energy Department’s $529 million loan to the start-up electric car company called Fisker as a bright, new path to thousands of American manufacturing jobs.’ Those jobs didn’t materialize—at least not in America. … Two years after the loan was awarded, the Washington Post stated that Fisker ‘has missed early manufacturing goals and has gradually pushed back plans for U.S. production and the creation of thousands of jobs’… Now, in 2012, Fisker Automotive is laying off staff in order to qualify for more government loans. So, President Obama’s ‘green’ energy stimulus was supposed to create jobs; now it’s destroying jobs so that companies can get more stimulus?”
About now-bankrupt, and under-investigation for fraud, Abound Solar, we wrote:
“President Obama, in July 2010, praised Abound Solar, which was to make advanced solar panels … He believed these plants would be huge job creators: ‘2000 construction jobs and 1500 permanent jobs.’ In December 2011, CEO Craig Witsoe called Abound Solar the “anti-Solyndra” saying that his company is “doing well and growing.” However, just months after that optimistic report, Abound Solar filed bankruptcy…”
Due to the various loans, grants, and subsidies, it would take an investigative team made up of dozens of people to ferret out each and every true green-energy job that was created, absent that, we are hitting the high points in attempt to answer Ryan’s question: “Where are the 5 million green jobs?”
Short answer, even optimistically—and perhaps deceptively, according to a Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) news release, only 3.1 million green jobs were created. To reach this number, BLS counts jobs that “were associated with the production of green goods and services,” specifically those which “are found in businesses that produce goods and provide services that benefit the environment or conserve natural resources.” It is important to note that most of these 3.1 million jobs are primarily pre-existing jobs that have been reclassified as “green.” Once those existing jobs were shifted into the green column, through three-quarters of 2011 only 9,245 new “green” jobs were generated when the White House touts generating over 200,000 new jobs by 2010.
The House Oversight Committee wondered, just what are those jobs that are “associated with the production of green goods and services?”
On June 6, 2012, at a House Oversight hearing Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) questioned BLS Director John Galvin on his agency’s green jobs numbers. Through Galvin’s reluctant responses (he didn’t want to be there), we learned that the Obama administration’s labor department counts oil lobbyists, bus drivers, garbage men, etc., as green jobs—shameful, embarrassing, deceptive. According to how BLS rates green jobs, I have a green job. I qualify under several headings. After all, I do education and public awareness on environmental issues. Next time I am at a social event, where I am asked the inescapable: “What do you do?” I’ll respond: “I have a green job.”
Complete details can be found in a report on the “Green Job Myth” from the Institute for Energy Research (IER). It states: “the green-job definition is extremely broad and includes both direct and indirect jobs.” Each of the following would qualify:
A person who sweeps the floor in a solar-panel manufacturing facility
A driver of a hybrid bus
A school bus driver
An employee who fills the bus with fuel
An employee involved in waste collection or water and sewer operations
A clerk at a bicycle repair shop
A manufacturer of rail cars
An oil lobbyist whose company is engaged in environmental issues
An employee of an environment or science museum.
Now that we know what the BLS constitutes as a green job—even recycled ones; those that already existed—we’ll look at the billions of taxpayer money spent on green jobs. We’ll focus specifically on just two programs: the Loan Guarantee Program and the Renewable Energy Grant Program.
On June 19, 2012, Veronique de Rugy, a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, testified at the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearings on the Loan Guarantee program. Within her thorough assessment of the program, she states: “since 2009, Department of Energy has guaranteed $34.7 billion in loans, 46 percent through the 1705 loan program, 30 percent through the 1703 program, and 14 percent through the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing (ATVM) loan program.” And, that “some 2,378 permanent jobs were claimed to be created under the program. This works out to a potential cost per job of $6.7 million.”
The 1603 Grant Program was implemented as part of the Obama stimulus, and is administered by the Treasury Department, with the goal of reimbursing eligible applicants for a portion of the costs of installing specified energy property used in a trade or business or for the production of income. Basically, 1603 gives billions in favored-businesses, tax-free cash gifts that do not have to be paid back.
The June 19, 2012 Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations hearing on “The Federal Green Jobs Agenda,” highlighted the “gimmick” accounting method used by the BLS. Testimony revealed that a multi-billion dollar stimulus program, the section 1603 grants for renewable energy, does not even include job creation among its primary objectives—which obviously contradicts the purpose of the 2009 trillion-dollar Obama stimulus package.
Congressional Research Services expert, Dr. Molly Sherlock, deflected direct questions regarding the total jobs created by the 1603 program. “If you’re looking at the direct jobs, this one estimate has direct jobs created at 3,666 in the construction phase, and direct jobs created at 355. Direct jobs would just be the construction jobs and the ongoing operations and maintenance jobs. But if you wanted to look at the supporting jobs in other industries then you’d want to look at the other figures.”
According to the Washington Free Beacon, Rep. Cory Gardner (R-CO) pressed on: “I just want to know how many jobs were created”
Sherlock admitted: 355 jobs created a year, for $10 billion—which comes out to about $28 million per job.
Trevor Loudon Lecture: Marxist and Communist Infiltration in Governments Around the World (video)
Most people have no idea how far the neomarxist and neostalinist left has progressed in government, education, and other institutions. This is not conspiracy or over hyped nonsense.
Jesus, Friend of Sinners
Video: Democrats on Gas Prices Under Bush vs Under Obama
Who feels your pain now?
President Obama’s Energy Secretary Steven Chu testified to Congress that gas is still too cheap and that it should be $8.00 a gallon.
This beautiful girl survived a botched abortion (video)
Why Lindsey Lohan’s Romney Endorsement is the Most Important of the Year (Not Kidding)
Political Arena Editor’s Note – Let us just roll up our sleeves and hunker down for a moment to chat. I am not a pop culture fan. I do not watch TV as it makes me ill, although from time to time I turn one on to remind me why I stopped watching it. I watch the TV news I must subject myself to online via streams. I do not know much about Lindsey Lohan except that she is troubled, not that bright, a bit tattered by substance abuse I suspect, and is the butt of comedian Jeff Dunham’s jokes, but in spite of that has a certain appeal and people flock to see her.
Lohan is a low informed voter, like so many who vote some for the right reasons and some for the wrong reasons. She is likely a typical young troubled girl who is a product of declining pop culture; in other words she is like almost half of the voters out there. If there can be one girl who is the poster child for uninformed, messed up American culture this young lady is it…and yet look at what she has to say…it is spot on.
Lindsay Lohan came out in support of Mitt Romney yesterday.
While most would, at first glance, write this off as gossip, it’s the latest instance of an evolving trend that jeopardizes President Obama’s chance at winning the White House.
Lohan, by all accounts, is a typical low-information voter. And low information voters, like it or not, will decide this election.
These people don’t follow politics, don’t understand the issues with depth, and plan to vote based on what little information they’ve gleaned.
Wrestler Hulk Hogan has backed Romney because he wants someone to “just take the lead and run.” Lohan said that the reason she was voting Romney was “employment.” From The Blaze:
“I just think employment is really important right now,” the troubled star told E!, while at Mr. Pink’s Ginseng Drink event in Beverly Hills, California, on Thursday. “So, as of now, Mitt Romney. As of now.”
Here’s why the Obama campaign should be worried.
Lohan is a low information voter convinced that (a) employment is really important, (b) thinks that employment is not being sufficiently handled by the White House right now and (c) thinks that Mitt Romney is better equipped to handle employment.
That arguably logical sequence is all that it takes for a low-information voter to support Mitt Romney. The thing is, there are millions of voters like her. That should terrify the Obama campaign.
Political Cartoon of the Year
Perspective.
Political Arena 