Senin, 29 Juni 2009
Will 'truth about Obama' be sold on eBay?
BORN IN THE USA?
Will 'truth about Obama' be sold on eBay?
Bids soar past $15,000 for alleged proof of president's Kenyan birth
Posted: June 29, 2009
5:37 pm Eastern
By Drew Zahn
© 2009 WorldNetDaily
Four times an eBay auction page listing an allegedly genuine copy of Barack Obama's birth certificate – from Mombasa, Kenya – was scrubbed from the popular Internet site, presumably for violating eBay's policy prohibiting the sale of government documents.
But now a fifth posting promising "the truth" about Obama's birth, this time in the form of a written dissertation – sidestepping the restriction against auctioning government documents – has remained on the site for hours; and the top bid has skyrocketed past $15,000.
 Original eBay offer for Obama's 'Kenyan birth certificate' |
Racism rejected: SCOTUS reverses Sotomayor in firefighters case
President Obama applauds the decision as a victory for equality under the law. Not.
The Supreme Court has ruled that white firefighters in New Haven, Conn., were unfairly denied promotions because of their race, reversing a decision that high court nominee Sonia Sotomayor endorsed as an appeals court judge.
SCOTUS Blog background here. More background here and here.
Tom Goldstein: “Ricci result: Kennedy finds a violation of Title VII. An outright reversal 5-4…the plaintiff firefighters won. New Haven violated the law by throwing out the test.”
Sotomayor = Not so wise now.
***
The Ricci opinion is now available here.
At Cato, Roger Pilon and Ilya Shapiro weigh in.
And Wendy Long at the Judicial Confirmation Network responds to the decision:
How a Loophole Benefits GE in Bank Rescue
Bill Orielly is going to be very peeved about this , as I am. They taken our and our children's money and given to these people {GE} that have broken the law doing business with Iran, the country who has supported the terrorists who attacked us and who are killing our brave sons in Iraq. Jeff Immelt and Obama must be blood brothers. I am effin outraged about this...Up in Smoke
By Jeff Gerth and Brady Dennis
ProPublica and Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, June 29, 2009
General Electric, the world's largest industrial company, has quietly become the biggest beneficiary of one of the government's key rescue programs for banks.
At the same time, GE has avoided many of the restrictions facing other financial giants getting help from the government.
The company did not initially qualify for the program, under which the government sought to unfreeze credit markets by guaranteeing debt sold by banking firms. But regulators soon loosened the eligibility requirements, in part because of behind-the-scenes appeals from GE.
As a result, GE has joined major banks collectively saving billions of dollars by raising money for their operations at lower interest rates. Public records show that GE Capital, the company's massive financing arm, has issued nearly a quarter of the $340 billion in debt backed by the program, which is known as the Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program, or TLGP. The government's actions have been "powerful and helpful" to the company, GE chief executive Jeffrey Immelt acknowledged in December.
GE's finance arm is not classified as a bank. Rather, it worked its way into the rescue program by owning two relatively small Utah banking institutions, illustrating how the loopholes in the U.S. regulatory system are manifest in the government's historic intervention in the financial crisis.
The Obama administration now wants to close such loopholes as it works to overhaul the financial system. The plan would reaffirm and strengthen the wall between banking and commerce, forcing companies like GE to essentially choose one or the other.
"We'd like to regulate companies according to what they do, rather than what they call themselves or how they charter themselves," said Andrew Williams, a Treasury spokesman.
GE's ability to live in the best of both worlds -- capitalizing on the federal safety net while avoiding more rigorous regulation -- existed well before last year's crisis, because of its unusual corporate structure.
Banking companies are regulated by the Federal Reserve and not allowed to engage in commerce, but federal law has allowed a small number of commercial companies to engage in banking under the lighter hand of the Office of Thrift Supervision. GE falls in the latter group because of its ownership of a Utah savings and loan.
Obama says coup in Honduras is illegal?
I am only saying one thing...I am 52 years old and NO American President has stood on the side of 2 dictators,one a Communist, and the other a Socialist,,,,to the best of my recollection. What the hell is going on?!.......Up in Smoke
By Arshad Mohammed and David Alexander
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama said on Monday the coup that ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was illegal and would set a "terrible precedent" of transition by military force unless it was reversed.
"We believe that the coup was not legal and that President Zelaya remains the president of Honduras, the democratically elected president there," Obama told reporters after an Oval Office meeting with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe.
Zelaya, in office since 2006, was overthrown in a dawn coup on Sunday after he angered the judiciary, Congress and the army by seeking constitutional changes that would allow presidents to seek re-election beyond a four-year term.
The Honduran Congress named an interim president, Roberto Micheletti, and the country's Supreme Court said it had ordered the army to remove Zelaya.
The European Union and a string of foreign governments have voiced support for Zelaya, who was snatched by troops from his residence and whisked away by plane to Costa Rica in his pajamas.
Obama said he would work with the Organization of American States and other international institutions to restore Zelaya to power and "see if we can resolve this in a peaceful way."
Minggu, 28 Juni 2009
Boehner: Climate bill a 'pile of s--t'
| Posted: 06/27/09 09:22 PM [ET] | |
| Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) had a few choice words about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-Calif.) landmark climate-change bill after its passage Friday. Pelosi's office declined to comment on Boehner's jab. But one Democratic aide quipped, "What do you expect from a guy who thinks global warming is caused by cow manure?" |
WANTED: The 8 cap-and-tax Republicans
and the 44 Democrats who voted no
Introducing the GOP’s Cap-And-Tax 8…
I listed them earlier tonight, but am breaking out a separate post to spotlight them again.
The 8 cap-and-tax Republican turncoats again are:
Bono Mack (CA) (202) 225-5330
Castle (DE) (202) 225-4165
Kirk (IL) (202) 225-4385 (And he’s seriously considering running for Senate!)
Lance (NJ) (202) 225-5361
LoBiondo (NJ) (202) 225-6572
McHugh (NY) (202) 225-4611
Reichert (WA) (202) 225-7761
Smith (NJ) (202) 225-3765
(Phone numbers h/t commenter rightwingmom)
Congrats, congresspeople, you helped the Democrats pass a junk science-based, massive national energy tax. Headed to Disney World now?
We still want to know: What were your payoffs/earmarks?
***
Stacy McCain’s message to the NRCC: Not one red cent.
***
In case you were wondering, here are the 44 Democrat NAY votes:
Altmire
Arcuri
Barrow
Berry
Boren
Bright
Carney
Childers
Costa
Costello
Dahlkemper
Davis (AL)
Davis (TN)
DeFazio
Donnelly (IN)
Edwards (TX)
Ellsworth
Foster
Griffith
Herseth Sandlin
Holden
Kirkpatrick (AZ)
Kissell
Kucinich
Marshall
Massa
Matheson
McIntyre
Melancon
Minnick
Mitchell
Mollohan
Nye
Ortiz
Pomeroy
Rahall
Rodriguez
Ross
Salazar
Stark
Tanner
Taylor
Visclosky
Wilson (OH)
Reminder: The two Republicans who didn’t vote: Jeff Flake (AZ) and John Sullivan (OK).
Here’s why: Flake had a “family conflict” (his daughter is reportedly in a beauty pageant in Alabama tomorrow) and Sullivan is undergoing alcohol treatment. As I noted earlier today, Dem. Rep. Patrick Kennedy was pulled out of rehab to cast his vote.
And another reminder that the full roll call vote is here.
Selasa, 23 Juni 2009
The Villagage Idiot gets his due...or so he says
| Perez Hilton says he was punched by Peas' manager |  |
 | |
| Jun 22 01:44 PM US/Eastern By ROB GILLIES Associated Press Writer | |
Hilton, who is openly gay, said in interview with The Associated Press that he called will.i.am a "faggot," a gay slur, inside the club after the musician told the blogger not to write about his band on his Web site.
"He was like 'You need to respect me.' He was in my face. He was obviously trying to intimidate me and scare me," Hilton said. "I was like 'I don't need to respect you. I don't respect you and I did say this, and I knew that it would be the worst thing I could possibly say to him because he was acting the way he was. I said 'You know what, I don't respect you and you're gay and stop being such a faggot.'"
Hilton, who was at the club with Lady Gaga, said he then left the club and was punched from behind. The pop stars and the blogger were among celebrities in Toronto for the MuchMusic Video Awards on Sunday night.
Minggu, 21 Juni 2009
They killed Neda, but not her voice
Her name was Neda, which means “voice” in Farsi. According to numerous online accounts picked up by media outlets worldwide, she was shot in the streets by Iranian state police while protesting today. This is what repression looks (warning: graphic//update: vid link fixed):
Iranian blogger Madyar has a chilling still photo of the dying girl.
Steve Schippert pays tribute to the Voice of Iran.
The L.A. Times reports:
Click here for Obama's Response
Red State - Blue State Comparisons
Maps of the 2008 US presidential election results
Election results by state
Most of us are, by now, familiar with the maps the TV channels and web sites use to show the results of the presidential election:
Click on any of the maps for a larger picture
The states are colored red or blue to indicate whether a majority of their voters voted for the Republican candidate, John McCain, or the Democratic candidate, Barack Obama, respectively. Looking at this map it gives the impression that the Republicans won the election handily, since there is rather more red on the map than there is blue. In fact, however, the reverse is true – the Democrats won by a substantial margin. The explanation for this apparent paradox, as pointed out by many people, is that the map fails to take account of the population distribution. It fails to allow for the fact that the population of the red states is on average significantly lower than that of the blue ones. The blue may be small in area, but they represent a large number of voters, which is what matters in an election.
We can correct for this by making use of a cartogram, a map in which the sizes of states are rescaled according to their population. That is, states are drawn with size proportional not to their acreage but to the number of their inhabitants, states with more people appearing larger than states with fewer, regardless of their actual area on the ground. On such a map, for example, the state of Rhode Island, with its 1.1 million inhabitants, would appear about twice the size of Wyoming, which has half a million, even though Wyoming has 60 times the acreage of Rhode Island.
Here are the 2008 presidential election results on a population cartogram of this type:
As you can see, the states have been stretched and squashed, some of them substantially, to give them the appropriate sizes, though it's done in such a way as to preserve the general appearance of the map, so far as that's possible. On this map there is now clearly more blue than red.
The presidential election, however, is not actually decided on the basis of the number of people who vote for each candidate but on the basis of the electoral college. Under the US electoral system, each state in the union contributes a certain number of electors to the electoral college, who vote according to the majority in their state. The candidate receiving a majority of the votes in the electoral college wins the election. The electors are apportioned roughly according to states' populations, as measured by the census, but with a small but deliberate bias in favor of smaller states.
Numbers on Welfare See Sharp Increase
By SARA MURRAY
Welfare rolls, which were slow to rise and actually fell in many states early in the recession, now are climbing across the country for the first time since President Bill Clinton signed legislation pledging "to end welfare as we know it" more than a decade ago.
Climbing Caseloads
See the increase in welfare cases for the 30 most populous states, year-over-year.
Twenty-three of the 30 largest states, which account for more than 88% of the nation's total population, see welfare caseloads above year-ago levels, according to a survey conducted by The Wall Street Journal and the National Conference of State Legislatures. As more people run out of unemployment compensation, many are turning to welfare as a stopgap.
The biggest increases are in states with some of the worst jobless rates. Oregon's count was up 27% in May from a year earlier; South Carolina's climbed 23% and California's 10% between March 2009 and March 2008. A few big states that had seen declining welfare caseloads just a few months ago now are seeing increases: New York is up 1.2%, Illinois 3% and Wisconsin 3.9%. Welfare rolls in a few big states, Michigan and New Jersey among them, still are declining.
The recent rise in welfare families across the county is a sign that the welfare system is expanding at a time of added need, assuaging fears of some critics of Mr. Clinton's welfare overhaul who said the truly needy would be turned away.
[Welfare]
"To me it's good news," says Ron Haskins of the Brookings Institution, who helped draft the 1996 welfare-overhaul law as a Republican congressional staffer. "This is exactly what should happen."
Welfare cases peaked at above five million in 1995 and declined sharply after the 1996 law put time limits on benefits and emphasized moving recipients from welfare to work. The time limits vary by state, but the federally mandated maximum is five years with some exceptions; after that, benefits end.
The cash assistance program, called Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), was created b
Tancredo sets sights on drug legalization
Face the State Staff Report
Former Republican Congressman Tom Tancredo's 2008 presidential bid was an admitted opportunity to speak against current immigration policy. And while immigration reform remains in Tancredo's sights, his new policy stomping ground may come as a surprise: marijuana legalization.
TancredoFTS Staff Photo
Since retiring from Congress in 2008, Tancredo has founded the Rocky Mountain Foundation, a non-profit think tank with policy centers and scholars in three primary areas: Immigration and customs reform, energy policy, and the Center for Individual Liberty, focused on marijuana legalization and the failed "war on drugs". In a speech earlier this year, Tancredo says the issue may be seen as "political suicide," but he nonetheless believes it is time for a change in drug policy.
Here is my response to Tancredo, who I support.
Before Obama, I, A spiritual Conservative cared about this. Now, drug legalization, is a distant concern. I have long known the hypocrisy of alcohol vs. marijuana. In my opinion alcohol is a much greater destroyer than marijuana would ever be, yet society has long been encouraged to drive to bars, get monkey drunk, then return to their abodes in ...their cars. Alcohol creates a mindset of violence that has devastated our women and children and fathers, yet no one cares about stopping its death march on our people. Marijuana on the other hand is the lesser of the two evils. People don't tend to drive or fight under its influence, as my observation of this has proven. Drive drunk, spend 48 hrs in jail. Get caught with pot, and you punishment will be greater than some murderers. Who are we kidding here. How bout some reality folks. Chris Rock got it right in his analysis of this conundrum ( http://www.youtube.com/wat
J. Mark Underwood.
Here is where you can find out about Thomas Tancredo
That’s SENATOR Evil To You, Sir!
Sabtu, 20 Juni 2009
Kamis, 18 Juni 2009
The Anti-Reagan....PBJ
By Patrick J. Buchanan
Despite his boldness, Barack Obama seems as fated to fail as were Woodrow Wilson and Jimmy Carter. And for the same reason: a belief in his own righteousness and moral superiority, and a belief that his ideals and his persona count mightily in the modern world.
Wilson declaimed about America’s fight to “make the world safe for democracy” when in harness with the British, French, Russian, Japanese and Italian empires, all slavering to feast on the carcasses of the Hohenzollern, Habsburg and Ottoman empires.
By 1920, Wilson was a tragic failure, mocked by ex-allies and reviled by former enemies for having................Click here for more
Selasa, 16 Juni 2009
U.S. credit card defaults rise to record in May
Shtinkykat's PF BlogMon Jun 15, 2009 4:17pm EDT
By Juan Lagorio
NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. credit card defaults rose to record highs in May, with a steep deterioration of Bank of America Corp's lending portfolio, in another sign that consumers remain under severe stress.
Delinquency rates -- an indicator of future credit losses -- fell across the industry, but analysts said the decline was due to a seasonal trend, as consumers used tax refunds to pay back debts, and they expect delinquencies to go up again in coming months.
Kamis, 11 Juni 2009
Fire David Letterman Now!..Join the Cause below
David Letterman Should be Fired:
Fair Minded Americans Should Boycott Sponsors of Late Night
Defensive Letterman Responds to Flap over "Joke"
62 Year Old Letterman a Disgrace to Common Decency
For Verbal Sexual Attacks on 14 year Old Girl
Subscribe to www.firedavidletterman.com now!
Open Letter To David Letterman from Mark Underwood
6-11-2009
Dear Dave,
I am writing to you to express my utter disgust for you and the writers of your show. You have descended way past the limits of decency and decorum for what you may think is funny. It's not funny. You should try saying the same thing about Michele Obama's young daughters and see what would happen.
As a Man, I declare you to be a embarrassment and a fool. You don't represent the common decency of male hood, and if you had said the same about my kid, I would kick your ass.. You are a stupid man who does not deserve the exclusive lifestyle that you have been afforded. You are a debased human who needs to wake the hell up, and be responsible for your actions. You have perverted a gift that has been given to you, a gift of entertainment that many equal men should have been chosen over you.
You disgust me. These words are fightin' words, and as long as I draw breath, I will rail against you and CBS.
This letter is posted openly on my blog, and will be tweeted to thousands right after I dot the last letter.
So take care Davey, and finally, let me extend to you a fine proper Southern "Screw You , you Moron." Don't let Hell's door hit your ass on the way in!
Worst Regards,
Mark Underwood - Up in Smoke
Please visit the site below and sign the petition to fire David Letterman. Thanks, Mark..
Minggu, 07 Juni 2009
Sabtu, 06 Juni 2009
Audio clip of the day
Heather, a military wife in Virginia, calls in to the Mark Levin show with her moving response to President Obama’s Cairo speech (hat tip for YouTube clip - Breitbart TV):