8 EXAGGERATIONS AND MYTHS PUSHED BY CONSERVATIVES ABOUT OBAMA

It is difficult to be on the outside looking in when it comes to the exercise of power. For 8 years, it caused hysterical derangement on a very large slice of the left who tried to promote the idea that George Bush was a fascist, or a theocrat intent on establishing an authoritarian “regime” – [...]

Robert Fibbs: WH really doesn’t care what Chief Justice Roberts thinks about SOTU dis

Surely you weren’t expecting any other type of response, were you?

Asked for comment, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said, “What is troubling is that this decision opened the floodgates for corporations and special interests to pour money into elections – drowning out the voices of average Americans.”

Gibbs continued, saying, “the President has long been committed to reducing the undue influence of special interests and their lobbyists over government. That is why he spoke out to condemn the decision and is working with Congress on a legislative response.”

LOL. The Liar In Chief has “long been committed” to no such thing (more here).

I should also note that it’s another dis on the SCOTUS to, as Gibbs did, completely ignore the content of what the Chief Justice of the SCOTUS actually said rather than to at least acknowledge respect for the court before launching into the tired, canned talking points about “special interest money.”

Of course, it should be noted that Roberts didn’t actually condemn criticism in and of itself coming from a President, but instead was talking about how it looked doing so in a setting that is normally supposed to be free from such cheap shots at the judiciary – cheap shots that can’t immediately be responded to in kind by the Justices. But why let a little thing like “the facts” get in the way of a good ol’ bogus rant against “special interests” by FibbsCo?

We’re not talking “low class” here. We’re talking no class. Whatsoever.

Via Memeorandum.

Adam Kokesh: An anti-war smear merchant in “Republican” clothing

Before there was a nationwide, grass-roots Tea Party movement, there was another nationwide, grass-roots movement that brought thousands of Americans to Washington, D.C. They called themselves the “Gathering of Eagles.” I covered two massive, GoE rallies against the Soros-funded, anti-war Left in March 2007 and September 2007. GOE activists continue to expose the transnational progressives, anti-military bullies, and phonies who operate under the “peace” banner.

One of the groups that GOE dogged was Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) — whose members have included bomb-threat bullies and death-threat nutballs who threatened to assassinate me, fake Army vet Jesse MacBeth, and another prominent member who smeared the Young America’s Foundation by faking an anti-Muslim hate flyer and smeared David Horowitz with similar race-card playing flyers, then weaseled out of the attacks by claiming they were “satire.”

The last two incidents involved an IVAW member named Adam Kokesh. He marched in uniform in mock patrols for the anti-war movement, paraded around holding an upside-down American flag (see Jonn Lilyea for more), was arrested for defacing signs, and traveled to Germany to urge soldiers to abandon their posts and seek aid and comfort with his anti-war minions.

Kokesh, believe it or not, is now running as a Republican candidate for Congress in New Mexico. And, believe it or not, he is getting positive exposure on at least one Fox News show. He has the backing of Ron Paul, the Republican Liberty Caucus, and the 9/12 Project.

The New Mexico Republican Party has its head in the sand. If you have friends and family in New Mexico, make sure they know who the real Adam Kokesh is.

He is an anti-war smear merchant in GOP clothing. Spread the word.

Open Thread

Next Victim of Obamunism: Recreational Fishing

After the nightmare progressives call Hope & Change is finally over, it may take years to sort out all the liberties we’ve lost. Some of the most outrageous encroachments are hardly even reported, having been drowned out by the thunderous artillery aimed at our healthcare system. For example:

The Obama administration will accept no more public input for a federal strategy that could prohibit U.S. citizens from fishing some of the nation’s oceans, coastal areas, Great Lakes, and even inland waters.

This announcement comes at the time when the situation supposedly still is “fluid” and the Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force still hasn’t issued its final report on zoning uses of these waters.

That’s a disappointment, but not really a surprise for fishing industry insiders who have negotiated for months with officials at the Council on Environmental Quality and bureaucrats on the task force. These angling advocates have come to suspect that public input into the process was a charade from the beginning.

…unless anglers speak up and convince their Congressional representatives to stop this bureaucratic freight train, it appears that the task force will issue a final report for “marine spatial planning” by late March, with President Barack Obama then issuing an Executive Order to implement its recommendations — whatever they may be.

The task force apparently consists of radical greenies who can be counted on to put the screws to humans in the name of animals at every possible opportunity.

WWF, Greenpeace, Defenders of Wildlife, Pew Environment Group and others produced a document entitled “Transition Green” shortly after Obama was elected in 2008. What has happened since suggests that the task force has been in lockstep with that position paper.

If liberal apparatchiks are willing to turn the bountiful San Joaquin Valley into a dustbowl in honor of the delta smelt, they aren’t going to pass up a chance to ban fishing.

At least the Obamination Administration gets points for consistency. Every initiative advanced by Comrade Obama could be expected to drive up unemployment. Cracking down on recreational angling is no exception. Reports Phil Morlock, director of environmental affairs for Shimano and a board member at the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation:

“There are over one million jobs in America supported coast to coast by recreational fishing. The task force has not included any accountability requirements in their reports for evaluating or mitigating how the new policies they are drafting will impact the fishing industry or related economies.

“Given that the scope of this process appears to include a new set of policies for all coastal and inland waters of the United States, the omission of economic considerations is inexcusable.”

But jobs, like freedom, are a price our liberal rulers are more than willing to make us pay for the greater glory of the authoritarian dystopia they plan to construct on America’s ashes.

On tips from JustAl and Incitatus.

Obama’s anti-fraud gimmick

During his closed-door, invitation-only Obamacare Road Show appearance before a cherry-picked audience at St. Charles High School in St. Louis today, the president will announce a new anti-fraud initiative:

President Barack Obama is directing federal agencies to expand their use of private audits to detect fraudulent payments to health-care and other federal contractors.

The initiative, which Mr. Obama is set to announce Wednesday on a trip to St. Louis, could allow him to argue that he is serious about cutting health-care costs, a concern of lawmakers who are weighing whether to support the Democrats’ health-care legislation.

Mr. Obama will sign a presidential memorandum directing federal agencies to make more aggressive use of “payment recapture audits,” in which private companies under contract scrub government books to find wrongful payments and are paid a portion of what they find.

Under current law, only certain federal agencies are eligible to use this system. The president is also endorsing legislation to expand their use to other agencies and programs, including Medicaid.

The federal government estimates that it made $98 billion in improper payments last year. The audits are on pace to find $1 billion over the next three years, and the White House said more aggressive use of them could double that to $2 billion.

Of that $1 billion, as much as $750 million is from improper Medicare payments.

More details from the WSJ.

No doubt the kiddie stage props will cheer lustily when Obama unveils it.

But if he were so interested in rooting out fraud and saving taxpayers money, why the hell did he wait more than a year to issue his presidential directive?

And given how Team Obama has waged war on independent watchdogs, how long before these anti-fraud efforts get sabotaged or muzzled by this administration?

Obama Judicial Nominee Supports Sexual Predators

U.S. District Court Judge Robert Chatigny was nominated by Barack Obama to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. Dear Leader referred to him as a”first-rate” legal expert and “faithful” public servant. One revered class of the public that Judge Chatigny is faithful to contains sexual predators and serial murderers.

U.S. District Court Judge Robert Chatigny gained notoriety in 2005 for his role in trying to fight the execution of convicted serial killer and rapist Michael Ross, also known as The Roadside Strangler, whom Chatigny had described as a victim of his own “sexual sadism.”

His conduct in that case, which included threatening to go after Ross’ attorney’s law license, as well as his ruling in 2001 against sex offender registries created under Megan’s Law, has caused a commotion among Republicans on the judiciary panel.

What, the Democrats didn’t stir as well? It can’t be — after all, they’re for the little people.

A few years before the standoff over the execution, Chatigny had also issued a ruling that Connecticut’s sex offender registry was not constitutional. Though the federal appeals court upheld the ruling, it was later unanimously reversed by the Supreme Court.

Thankfully, the Senate Judiciary Committee has postponed Judge Chatigny’s hearing. This touchy-feely, criminal’s rights liberal appears dead-set against representing the victims and potential victims of sexual criminals.

The House Ethics Committee is a corruption-enabling cesspool

You know it. I know it. And everyone disgusted with the culture of corruption in Washington needs to make their voices heard on it. The watchdogs are crippled. CYA is the order of the day. The Beltway has changed nothing since the GOP scandals and is still acting blind, deaf, and dumb toward the Democrat scandals.

USA Today weighs in on the pathetic, corruption-enabling cesspool known as the House Ethics Committee:

What does it take for a member of Congress to get in real trouble with the House ethics committee?

Quite a lot.

In fact, only one lawmaker — Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y. — has merited even a wrist slap since Democrats were swept into the majority in 2007 on a wave of voter revulsion to scandals engulfing Republicans in Congress. Back then, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi pushed through more stringent rules, vowed stricter enforcement and famously promised to “drain the swamp.”

Well, she’s going to need a bigger pump.

So far, the supposedly invigorated bipartisan House ethics committee has:

– Handed down its limpest discipline, an “admonishment,” after finding that Rangel had taken two free trips to Caribbean conferences even though he should have known that big corporations indirectly financed them in violation of House rules.

The committee has yet to finish reviewing Rangel’s more serious ethical problems, such as glaring omissions on his congressional financial disclosure statements. (Pending the outcome, Rangel has taken a “leave of absence” from his powerful post as chairman of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee.)

– Exonerated five others who took the same trips as Rangel. The committee bought their stories that they didn’t know about corporate sponsorship. Funny, conference photos show lawmakers standing in front of a bunch of corporate logos. Maybe they were blinded by the Caribbean sun.

– Essentially gave lawmakers a go-ahead to solicit campaign donations from business executives and lobbyists who apparently believe they’re paying for federal contracts. Last month, the committee cleared seven members despite the findings by an independent investigative panel that two of them — Reps. Peter Visclosky, D-Ind., and Todd Tiahrt, R-Kan. — might have tacitly tied requests for campaign donations to legislative earmarks profiting specific companies.

As I pointed out last week, the ethics committee steamrolled the OCE in the Pete Stark case.

USAT adds:

The Democrats like to point out that they created an independent Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) to investigate allegations, recommend action to the ethics committee and issue public reports. But they promptly emasculated their new creation by failing to give it subpoena power and ignoring its findings in several cases, despite evidence that members violated House rules.

No teeth, no reform. No reform, no change. The swamp overfloweth.

Law of Supply and Demand Suspected of Racism

Not only does Walmart refuse to let unions drive its prices through the ceiling, it’s also racist — or is it the law of supply and demand that’s racist?

Walmart is raising eyebrows after cutting the price of a black Barbie doll to nearly half of that of the doll’s white counterpart at one store and possibly others.

A photo first posted to the humor Web site FunnyJunk.com and later to the Latino Web site Guanabee.com shows packages of Mattel’s Ballerina Barbie and Ballerina Theresa dolls hanging side by side at an unidentified store. The Theresa dolls, which feature brown skin and dark hair, are marked as being on sale at $3.00. The Barbies to the right of the Theresa dolls, meanwhile, retain their original price of $5.93. The dolls look identical aside from their color. …

A Walmart spokeswoman, who could not verify the exact store shown in the photo, said that the price change on the Theresa doll was part of the chain’s efforts to clear shelf space for its new spring inventory.

Could it be that with only 12% of the population being black, there is less demand for black dolls? Or is Walmart a secret subsidiary of the KKK, as the MSM’s raised eyebrows seem to imply?

Too bad for Walmart that it gets no credit for lowering prices for a less affluent demographic — in contrast to what it’s been accused of in the past:

Local 6 news in Central Florida is accusing Walmart of setting their prices for sugar and other “staples” by demographic — charging more in stores where the population isn’t as wealthy as other neighborhoods.

Moonbats offended that black Barbies aren’t expensive enough can take solace from the $149.99 tag on this product:

See if you can hold out awhile; the way Hopey Change is panning out, the price might soon come down to free.

On tips from TED, Wiggins, Mega, Nancz, Jeff F, and Lyle.

Another ‘Rat Jumping Ship?

Rep. Chet Edwards is a Democrat. But I wouldn’t blame him if he isn’t admitting it.

On a tip from John R.

Is Wilders wrong?

On Monday, Charles Krauthammer had this, in part, to say about Geert Wilders:

What he says is extreme, radical, and wrong. He basically is arguing that Islam is the same as Islamism. Islamism is an ideology of a small minority which holds that the essence of Islam is jihad, conquest, forcing people into accepting a certain very narrow interpretation [of Islam].

The untruth of that is obvious. If you look at the United States, the overwhelming majority of Muslims in the U.S. are not Islamists. So, it’s simply incorrect. Now, in Europe, there is probably a slightly larger minority but, nonetheless, the overwhelming majority are not.

The words “radical” and “extreme” connote the relationship between Wilders’ view and mainstream thinking (in this they differ from the word “fascist,” which connotes a specific ideology). In the politically correct West of today, I believe it is fair to characterize Wilders as radical and extreme.

But is Wilders wrong? Krauthammer says he is because the overwhelming majority of Muslims in the U.S. and Europe are not Islamists. Wilders does not deny this. As he said last week in London:

The majority of Muslims are law-abiding citizens and want to live a peaceful life as you and I do. I know that. That is why I always make a clear distinction between the people, the Muslims, and the ideology, between Islam and Muslims. There are many moderate Muslims, but there is no such thing as a moderate Islam.

Wilders is making a theological point here — his contention is that Islam, as set forth in the teachings of the Koran, “commands Muslims to exercise jihad. . .to establish shariah law [and]. . .to impose Islam on the entire world.” I’m no scholar of Islam, but I believe Wilders is correct. To show otherwise, one would have to explain away portions of the Koran. It is not enough just to call Wilders’ interpretation of that book “narrow.”

But the bottom line issues for me are neither the theological question in the abstract nor the precise theology embraced by most Muslims in Europe. The core issues are: (1) whether (or to what extent) the massive growth of the Islamic population in countries like the Netherlands poses a threat to democracy, free speech, and other fundamental values and institutions and (2) if so, what to do about it. Wilders makes a strong case that the demographic trend poses such a threat, and a substantial one.

Some of his proposed solutions — such as banning Islamic immigration — are radical and extreme (as defined above), but that doesn’t mean they are wrong. Indeed, it’s plausible to believe they are reasonable solutions. But without living in the Netherlands or having studied it carefully, it’s impossible for me to give a thumbs up or a thumbs down to some of Wilders’ more controversial specific proposals.

Wednesday Open Thread

I’ll be tied up most of the morning. Will check back in when I can.

A composite x-ray image shows the galaxy cluster 1E 0657-56, also known as the ‘Bullet Cluster.’ Most of the matter in the clusters (blue) is clearly separate from the normal matter (pink), giving direct evidence that nearly all of the matter in the clusters is dark. REUTERS/NASA

Obamacare Road Show, Pt. II: Bring out the human kiddie shields

(Makestickers.com)

My column shines light on the Hail Mary strategy of the Demcare-peddlers: Quick, hide behind the children! Just a reminder that President Obama will be in St. Charles, Missouri today for a closed-door, invitation-only Kabuki health care speech to high school students and then he’ll be heading off for a fund-raiser with Claire McCaskill. Tea Party activists are organizing two counter-protests — get all the info on the who, what, where, when at Gateway Pundit.

The column notes two new developments — Hill buzz over some Senate Democrat leaders’ plan to attach the nationalization of student loans to the health care reconciliation bill and the use of a new, dubious poster boy for Demcare, Marcelas Owens. The story doesn’t add up, and as usual, anyone who questions the logic and holes in these anecdotes will be labeled a “stalker.” Been there, done that…

***

Desperate Dems cling to human kiddie shield
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2010

Have you noticed something about the audiences that President Obama has cherry-picked to cheer his government health-care takeover road show? They’re getting younger and younger. Today, Obama brings the traveling campaign to St. Charles High School in St. Louis, Missouri for a closed-door, invitation-only speech. If he doesn’t end the endless “No More Time For Talk” talks soon, he’ll be peddling Democrat reconciliation tactics on Dora the Explorer and SpongeBob Squarepants.

But desperate times call for demagogic measures. True to form, the Obama White House is wielding the human kiddie shield as its last-stand defense for Demcare.

On Monday, Obama surrounded himself with a ticketed-only crowd of Arcadia University college students in Pennsylvania (sprinkled with purple-shirted officials from the Service Employees International Union, natch). The Washington-based commander-in-chief traveled outside his Beltway bubble to a campus bubble to trash the political climate which he leads.

“That’s just how Washington is. They can’t help it,” he pontificated as the idealist young students nodded like empty bobbleheads. “They?”

You won’t be surprised by Obama’s biggest applause line of the speech: Peddling a Big Nanny provision in the Senate-passed health care bill that requires insurance plans that cover dependents to provide benefits to children up to age 26. Vowed Santa Obama: “If you’re a young adult, which many of you are, you’ll be able to stay on your parents’ insurance policy until you’re 26 years old.” Whoops and huzzahs erupted from the eager wards of the permanent, ever-expanding Nanny State.

As I’ve reported before, there are now an estimated 20 states that have already passed legislation requiring insurers to cover adult children. The slacker mandates cover “kids” ranging in age from 24 to 31. And it’s these very government health care mandates that contribute to rising health care costs.

But there was no time for higher learning at Arcadia University. Out: education. In: adulation. “I love you!” screamed a cult follower in the stands. “Love you back,” Obama responded.

Now, comes word from The Hill that Senate Democrat leaders want to graft Obama’s single-player plan to nationalize the student loan market onto the Senate health care reconciliation bill. That way, Obama’s college-age foot soldiers can argue that a vote against Demcare is a vote against The Children.

How low can they go? One of President Obama’s youngest lobbyists – 11-year-old Marcelas Owens of Washington state – traveled to D.C. on Tuesday on the dime of astroturf group, HCAN (Health Care for America Now). His 27-year-old mother, Tiffany, died of pulmonary hypertension. According to the family, Ms. Owens – a single mother of three — lost her job as a fast-food manager and lost her insurance. She received emergency care and treatment throughout her illness, but died in 2007.

Young Marcelas – goaded by his left-wing activist grandmother and promoted by Democrat Sen. Patty Murray — is now a regular on the pro-Obamacare circuit and is leading a congressional sit-in until the Democrat plan passes. He admits he doesn’t understand the complexities of health insurance reform and doesn’t “think it’s anyone’s fault” that his mom passed away. “But they could have done more” for her, he says.

It’s a heart-wrenching story, but the tale raises more questions than it answers. Washington state offers a plethora of existing government assistance programs to laid-off and unemployed workers like Marcelas’s mom. Why didn’t she enroll? Second, she died nine months after she reportedly lost her health insurance. By the time she lost her coverage through her employer, she was apparently already in dire health straits. It’s not clear that additional doctors’ visits in the subsequent months would have prevented her death.

All that said, the Owens’ case demonstrates the flaws of the employer-based system of health insurance. It needs real reform. Unfortunately, the current crop of Democrat plans would leave the employer-based system fully intact. What we need are grown-ups to start over from scratch and leave the kids on the playground.

Eric “I am an Ass” Massa Pulls Back On Democratic Gangster Tactics

A troubling image

I can’t think offhand of anything President Obama has said or done that has shocked me more than his attack on a Supreme Court decision with members of the Court arrayed respectfully in front of him during the State of the Union speech. The attack on the Court’s decision was rank demagogy, calculated to prompt the wild approval of congressional Democrats. On cue congressional Democrats salivated like Pavlov’s dogs.

The congressional Democrats gave visible form to the threat that the mob poses to the rule of law, much as Lincoln warned against in his Address before the Young Men’s Lyceum of Springfield in 1838. Lincoln decried “the growing disposition to substitute the wild and furious passions in lieu of the sober judgment of courts, and the worse than savage mobs for the executive ministers of justice.”

Obama himself could have embodied the threat to freedom posed by the man of supreme ambition with the mob at his disposal. Lincoln warned: “Towering genius disdains a beaten path. It seeks regions hitherto unexplored.” Such towering genius “thirsts and burns for distinction; and if possible, it will have it, whether at the expense of emancipating slaves or enslaving freemen.”

Speaking to law students in Tuscaloosa yesterday, Chief Justice Roberts commented on Obama’s State of the Union display with diplomatic understatement: “The image of having the members of one branch of government standing up, literally surrounding the Supreme Court, cheering and hollering while the court – according the requirements of protocol – has to sit there expressionless, I think is very troubling.”

Via Instapundit.

NYT Gets It Kinda Right On Green Economy Nightmare

In an almost-departure from pummelling us with Obamaspeak, The Old Gray Hag actually reports on the catastrophe that is Spain’s green energy economy — the very same Spain that President Obama and other eco-kooks have praised as a shining example of a success story for its solar and wind-power industries. From the NY Times story:

[A]s low-quality, poorly designed solar plants sprang up on Spain’s plateaus, Spanish officials came to realize that they would have to subsidize many of them indefinitely, and that the industry they had created might never produce efficient green energy on its own.

In September the government abruptly changed course, cutting payments and capping solar construction. Puertollano’s brief boom turned bust. Factories and stores shut, thousands of workers lost jobs, foreign companies and banks abandoned contracts that had already been negotiated.

Most of the story is fluff trying to pass as journalism, wishfully blowing air into the corpse that is the green energy economy. But the truth has a way of making it through even an NYT story if it’s unavoidable enough. Now, if they would only report the rest of the story on how Spain has become a prime example of the destructiveness that ensues from forcing a “green economy” onto a struggling economy: 2.2 regular jobs lost for every green job created.