What New Tone? Obama Introduced Biden in 2008 by Tearing Down Cheney

Obama has been a hypocrite and a liar about "ugly partisanship" from the very beginning:

After decades -- after decades of steady work across the aisle, I know [Joe Biden] he'll be able to help me turn the page on the ugly partisanship in Washington so we can bring Democrats and Republicans together to pass an agenda that works for the American people.

And instead of secret energy task forces attacking -- stacked with big oil and a vice president that twists the facts and shuts the American people out, I know that Joe Biden will give us some real straight talk. ...

We know what we're going to get from the other side -- four more years of the same out of touch policies that created an economic disaster at home, a disastrous foreign policy abroad, four more years of the same divisive politics that's all about tearing people down instead of lifting the country up.

We cannot afford more of the same. I am running for president, because that's a future I don't accept for my daughters, and I don't accept it for your children...

... and I don't accept it for the United States of America. It is time for the change that the American people need.

Now with Joe Biden at my side, I am confident we can take this country in a new direction, that we are ready to overcome the adversity of the last eight years, that we won't just win this election in November.

We will restore that fair shot at your dreams that is at the core of who Joe Biden is, and I am, and what America is as a nation.

-- Barack Obama, Springfield, IL, August 23, 2008, here

NY Times Paints Loughner and Hard Money Libertarianism as Right Wing Extreme

The leftist ridicule offensive continues, designed to preoccupy the opposition and get the right fighting amongst themselves over who belongs and who doesn't, while the left presses on for new gun control measures and suppression of free speech.

Notice the elision going on in the first passage here:

He became an echo chamber for stray ideas, amplifying, for example, certain grandiose tenets of a number of extremist right-wing groups — including the need for a new money system and the government’s mind-manipulation of the masses through language.

Libertarians generally hold to hard money ideas, but that hardly makes them right wing, witness the long war of traditionalists like Russell Kirk against what he called "the chirping sectaries." The hard money idea is subtly paired with mind-manipulation conspiracy theory by the Times, whatever that means, without support and simply by assertion. Having been a fairly well-informed conservative since the late 70s, one is hard-pressed to know what the Times is even talking about. There you go again, one of our own might say now. We've had our Truthers and our Birthers. Now we've got our Minders, I guess.

One suspects the Times knows full well its only plausible case is in the Libertarian hard money ideology, as here:

A few days later, during a meeting with a school administrator, Mr. Loughner said that he had paid for his courses illegally because, “I did not pay with gold and silver” — a standard position among right-wing extremist groups. With Mr. Loughner’s consent, that same administrator then arranged to meet with the student and his mother to discuss the creation of a “behavioral contract” for him, after which the official noted: “Throughout the meeting, Jared held himself very rigidly and smiled overtly at inappropriate times.”

Notice the effort to paint gold and silver backed money as "a standard position" on the right. It isn't, and it hasn't been as long as conservatism has been resurgent since the 60s and Milton Friedman style monetarism and devotion to a strong dollar captured people's imaginations.

Clear-headed thinkers on the right, like George Will, have well noted the Federal Reserve's failure to maintain a sound currency partly because its mandate was divided in 1978 to include maintaining full employment. Instead, hard money ideology has been an enthusiasm prevalent on the fringe, among Libertarians, in the post-war era in view of the fact that the monetarist consensus has been breaking down due to its failures, and because the gold standard used to be, well, the law of the land, all the way up until . . . FDR.

The dishonesty of the presentation coheres with the view of the Times that, for most of its history, America has been a veritable right-wing nuthouse. They ought to know.

Federal Government Offices are Closed Today in Honor of ...

1. Michael Luther King, Jr.

2. A plagiarist.

3. An associate of communists.

4. A womanizer.

Snopes.

When Will We Say NO! To Revolutionary Jurisprudence?

From the dissenting opinion of William H. Rehnquist (1924-2005) in Roe v. Wade, January 22, 1973:

"To reach its result, the Court necessarily has had to find within the scope of the Fourteenth Amendment a right that was apparently completely unknown to the drafters of the Amendment.

As early as 1821, the first state law dealing directly with abortion was enacted by the Connecticut Legislature.

By the time of the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868, there were at least 36 laws enacted by state or territorial legislatures limiting abortion.

While many States have amended or updated their laws, 21 of the laws on the books in 1868 remain in effect today.

There apparently was no question concerning the validity of this provision or of any of the other state statutes when the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted.

[T]he drafters did not intend to have the Fourteenth Amendment withdraw from the States the power to legislate with respect to this matter."


May he rest in peace.

I Do Not Like This Uncle Sam, I Do Not Like His Health Care Scam ...

I do not like this Uncle Sam,

I do not like his health care scam.

I do not like these dirty crooks,

or how they lie and cook the books.

I do not like when Congress steals,

I do not like their secret deals.

I do not like this speaker, Nan,

I do not like this 'YES WE CAN.'

I do not like this spending spree,

I'm smart, I know that nothing's free.

I do not like your smug replies,

when I complain about your lies.

I do not like this kind of hope.

I do not like it, nope, nope, nope!

h/t Sean G.

Remembering When Obamacare Wasn't Some Bolshevik Plot

When Obamacare looked impossible at the end of January 2010 because its two versions looked irreconcilable and a 41st vote against it suddenly appeared in the Senate, within days Obama quickly resorted to Alinsky's rule #5, marginalizing dissent by ridiculing it.

With the help of those at the top of the hierarchy in the House, especially Speaker Pelosi, and the propaganda arms of the government, union, academic and media establishments, he succeeded and shoved the Senate's version down the throats of the rest of the House and the American people.

Almost a year ago Obama said to the House Republican Retreat:

"Now, you may not agree with Bob Dole and Howard Baker, and, certainly you don't agree with Tom Daschle on much, but that's not a radical bunch. But if you were to listen to the debate and, frankly, how some of you went after this bill, you'd think that this thing was some Bolshevik plot. No, I mean, that's how you guys -- (applause) -- that's how you guys presented it."

-- President Obama at the House Republican Retreat, January 29, 2010, here.

As with so many such denials, he was telegraphing not just the ends, but also the means, as students of Bolshevism know well.

The good news is that the House has more clappers now, but the country is still in great danger. The ridicule offensive must be joined and counterrevolution pressed in order to have the hope of success.

Republican fellow travelers sitting among the opponents for the State of the Union is not the way to begin. Party leadership should immediately enforce discipline, and require the caucus to sit apart.

They might even withhold all applause, to teach Obama what a real memorial service looks like. Real Americans, after all, are still in mourning for their country.

Tucson Shooting Survivor Detained for Yelling "You're Dead!" at Tea Party Spokesman

Story here.

Obama's Idea of Civil Discourse with Sean Hannity in 2008: "Tear Him Up!"

Video here: "I'll put Mr. Burgess up against Sean Hannity, he'll tear him up!"

Democrat Jesse Jackson's Civil Discourse About Obama: "Cut His Nuts Off"

From 2008. Reported here. Video here.

Obama's Idea of Civil Discourse about Republicans: "Hand-to-Hand Combat"

Remember this from October 2010?:

"They are fired up. They are mobilized. They see an opportunity to take back the House, maybe take back the Senate," he said. "If they're successful in doing that, they've already said they're going to go back to the same policies that were in place during the Bush administration. That means that we are going to have just hand-to-hand combat up here on Capitol Hill."

Source.

He asked for it. I say give it to him.

On Courtesy

"Manners fit for a royal court cannot exist without an aristocracy."

-- Imam John

Here Comes the Repression: Your Representative or Senator May Accuse You to the FBI

Newly elected Republican Billy Long, MO-7, is going after a political opponent in his home district, a conservative blogger no less, named Clay Bowler, aka Bungalow Bill.

Looks like one hell of an abuse of federal power to me, trying to squelch a constituent's freedom of speech, intimidate him, and reduce him to servility while they go about their business of picking our pockets clean and shoveling the shit down our throats.

Hey, thanks Billy, you giant statist toadie. 

You can also thank the Capitol security police for facilitating this newest and ominous expression of police state power, reported here:

The local sheriff told KSRP that Capitol police are actively soliciting the names of possible threats from members of Congress in the wake of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’s assassination attempt. And he admitted there are more names his office is looking into — names that came from Long.


Obviously there are no Oathkeepers among the Capitol police.

Time to lawyer up.

Howard Dean's Idea of Civil Discourse: "I Hate the Republicans"

As quoted here in January 2005:

"I hate the Republicans and everything they stand for, but I admire their discipline and their organization," the failed presidential hopeful told the crowd at the Roosevelt Hotel, where he and six other candidates spoke at the final DNC forum before the Feb. 12 vote for chairman.

America Needs a Rebellion Every 20 Years

So said Thomas Jefferson, here: "God forbid we should ever be 20 years without such a rebellion."

Go ahead. Put him in prison.

The Second Amendment isn't about Self Defense, or Hunting

"You know, our Founding Fathers, they put that Second Amendment in there for a good reason and that was for the people to protect themselves against a tyrannical government. And in fact Thomas Jefferson said it's good for a country to have a revolution every 20 years.

I hope that's not where we're going, but, you know, if this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies and saying my goodness what can we do to turn this country around? I'll tell you the first thing we need to do is take Harry Reid out."

-- Sharron Angle, quoted here

Harry survived the 2010 elections, but there are plenty of anti-gun Democrats to defeat in the upcoming contests in 2012. Plan to be there!

Thomas Jefferson Advocated Frequent Recourse to Second Amendment Solutions

As he said, about every 20 years at the outside, and using weapons:

[W]hat country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms.

The source is at this link, and dates to 1787.

To think the country gladly took him for president after that, from 1801 to 1809. Today the Democrats would try to put him in jail, or worse.

Number of Homes Repossessed by Banks Grows to 1.05 Million in 2010

2010: 1.05 million

2009:  .92 million

2008:  .86 million

2007:  .40 million

2006:  .27 million

2005:  .10 million

Messiah's Miracle Continues After Visit

As reported here:

Giffords' neurosurgeon, Dr. Michael Lemole, said after five days of pushing for caution, "We're wise to acknowledge miracles." ...

"We had been telling her that she was inspiring the country with her courage and that we couldn't wait to take her out to pizza and a weekend away,” Gillibrand said. “Then after she heard our voices and the encouragement of Mark and her parents, she struggled briefly and opened her eyes for the very first time. It was a miracle to witness." ...

Speaking on "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" on MSNBC cable, Pelosi said: "We witnessed almost a miracle. We saw the power of prayer, the power of the effect of the excellence of her medical care and we saw a little girl power too because we were trying to amuse 

Gabby, trying to get through to her about how much she was loved and missed in the Congress and what was waiting for her when she came back."

"And being there with her parents and her husband and when she opened her eyes was quite remarkable. ... It was a glorious, glorious experience. We thought we brought a little fun to the room and she reacted," she said.

Percent of Population on Food Stamps 1970-2010

h/t Mish

Messiah Visits Wounded Gabrielle Giffords, Spontaneously Opens Eye

"And I want to tell you … right after we went to visit, a few minutes after we left her room and some of her colleagues in Congress were in the room, Gabby opened her eyes for the first time," Obama told the crowd, which reacted with emotional cheers. "Gabby opened her eyes for the first time."

As reported here.

All You Need to Know about the So-Called Memorial Service

Acceptable Ways to be the Opposite of Civil

1. Religious (as long as you're Muslim).

2. Military (as long as you're queer).

3. International (as long as you're a job-exporting, multicultural globalist).

4. Discourteous (as long as it's toward Republicans, Tea Partyers, Patriots, Straights and Christians).

Michael Savage Puts Me To Sleep Almost Every Night

His voice is mellifluous, not furious and angry as that metro Chris Matthews has suggested here.

On the contrary, it is deep and resonant, perfect for the radio, especially at bed time. He puts me to sleep in minutes, like a book used to do, and I wake up in the morning and almost curse that I missed what he had to say! Especially about pasta! 

Would Our Democrats Outlaw Even This Kind Of Speech?

Wonderful is the effect of impudent and persevering lying.

The British ministry [think: the Democrat Party]  have so long hired their gazetteers [think: The New York Times] to repeat and model into every form lies about our being in anarchy, that the world has at length believed them, the English nation has believed them, the ministers themselves have come to believe them, and what is more wonderful, we have believed them ourselves.

Yet where does this anarchy exist? Where did it ever exist, except in the single instance of Massachusetts [think: The Tea Party of 2011]? And can history produce an instance of rebellion so honourably conducted? I say nothing of its motives. They were founded in ignorance, not wickedness.

God forbid we should ever be 20 years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty.

We have had 13 states independent 11 years. There has been one rebellion. That comes to one rebellion in a century and a half for each state. What country before ever existed a century and half without a rebellion? and what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms.

The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.


Our [Constitutional] Convention has been too much impressed by the insurrection of Massachusetts: and in the spur of the moment they are setting up a kite to keep the hen-yard in order. I hope in God this article will be rectified before the new constitution is accepted.

-- Thomas Jefferson, November 13, 1787, here, writing from France about Shays' Rebellion

The Worst Offender Inciting the People to Anger is The New York Times

So concludes James Taranto for The Wall Street Journal here, naming names, but especially Paul Krugman:

The campaign of vilification against the right, led by the New York Times, is really about competition in the media industry--not commercial competition but competition for authority. ...

Its authority dwindling, the New York Times is resorting to authoritarian tactics--slandering its competitors in the hope of tearing them down.

Decline in Housing Values Slightly Worse Than Great Depression

According to CNBC.com and Zillow, here:

Home values have fallen 26 percent since their peak in June 2006, worse than the 25.9-percent decline seen during the Depression years between 1928 and 1933, Zillow reported.

November marked the 53rd consecutive month (4 ½ years) that home values have fallen.


Sounds like an historic opportunity to me.

Chris Matthews Wanted to Watch Someone Kill Rush Limbaugh

The date was October 13, 2009, here:

CHRIS MATTHEWS: You guys see Live and Let Die, the great Bond film with Yaphet Kotto as the bad guy, Mr. Big?  In the end they jam a big CO2 pellet in his face and he blew up.  I have to tell you, Rush Limbaugh is looking more and more like Mr. Big, and at some point somebody’s going to jam a CO2 pellet into his head and he’s going to explode like a giant blimp.  That day may come. Not yet. But we’ll be there to watch. I think he’s Mr. Big, I think Yaphet Kotto.  Are you watching, Rush?

... [Matthews is] openly wistful for the day it happens, telling Politico’s Jonathan Martin and Washington Post reporter Anne Kornblut that “we’ll be there to watch” when someone offs Rush.

Classy.  Really, really classy.  Does NBC want to stand behind this standard for its broadcasts?

Happy Binary Palindromic Tuesday!

1-11-11

Pennsylvania Democrat Paul Kanjorski Wanted Florida Republican Shot

According to this October 23, 2010 report in The Scranton Times Tribune:

"That Scott down there that's running for governor of Florida," Mr. Kanjorski said. "Instead of running for governor of Florida, they ought to have him and shoot him. Put him against the wall and shoot him. He stole billions of dollars from the United States government and he's running for governor of Florida. He's a millionaire and a billionaire. He's no hero. He's a damn crook. It's just we don't prosecute big crooks."

Kanjorski was defeated for his Pennsylvania District 11 US House seat in November by Lou Barletta 45 percent to 55 percent.

Tucson Politicians Criticize Sheriff Dupnik

According to The Arizona Daily Sun here, a Republican state representative from Surprise and a Republican state senator from Tucson both think Sheriff Clarence Dupnik has demonstrated some serious shortcomings.

Full coverage at the link.

The Arizona Republic Thinks Dupnik Has Become Partisan

Here:

Dupnik needs to recall that he is elected to be a lawman. With each additional comment, the Democratic sheriff of Pima County is revealing his agenda as partisan, and, as such, every bit as recklessly antagonistic as the talk-show hosts and politicians he chooses to decry.

"Rage is Encoded in Conservative DNA"

So says commie pinko Michael Tomasky here in the pinko commie rag for which he writes, The UK Guardian.

And he's right.

But not completely.

It's in his DNA, too.

And the only real difference between us is that he and his ilk will never admit it, which is why you should fear people like him. Their delusional sense of superiority over their fellows has led some of them to murder far more people than one nut with Glock in Arizona ever dreamed of, but to do that they first have to destroy the institutions we've erected to keep human evil in check. 

"A man's got to know his limitations," Harry Callahan once reminded us. And Michael Tomasky doesn't.

Ugliest Political Rhetoric Coming From Those Trying To Exploit A Crime

James Taranto for The Wall Street Journal (at this link) covers all the bases for the last 48 hours on the politicization of the Tucson shooting massacre, with excerpts and links to all the stories, and comes down hardest on those trying to exploit the crime for political gain:

There is no denying that "relentlessly hostile rhetoric" can be found on the right, and also on the left. (On the center, too, for that matter.) Opinions will vary as to where the problem is worst, and it is human nature to find fault with the other side more readily than with one's own.

That said, it seems to us there is a very strong case to be made that the ugliest political rhetoric of the past 48 hours has been that coming from the side whose leading voices are attempting to make sense of a senseless crime by blaming their opponents for it.

Or perhaps we should say from the side that is attempting to exploit the crime in this manner.

Dick Morris, are you listening?

Democrat Joe Manchin Fires Rifle at Cap and Trade Bill in Ad Last Fall

Oh dear, oh my, the horrors! Those needlessly inflammatory Democrats! Those NRA-endorsed troglodytes! Why, somebody might pick up a gun and shoot a politician or something! How dare they?!

Palin Effigy Lynched in West Hollywood in 2008

Sec. of State Hillary Clinton Likens Half of America to Tucson Shooter and to Islamic Extremists

Speaking in the United Arab Emirates, as reported here by Reuters:

"The extremists and their voices, the crazy voices that sometimes get on the TV, that's not who we are, that's not who you are, and what we have to do is get through that and make it clear that that doesn't represent either American or Arab ideas or opinions," she said.

Did Jared Lee Loughner yell "Allahu Akbar!" before he opened fire?

Did the DLC Targeting Strategy Inflame the Public in December 2004?

Daily Kos Put Bull's Eye on Gifford and Other Blue Dogs in 2008

Daily Kos: Rep. Giffords Now Dead To Me Two Days Before Shooting

Obama Brings a Gun to the Fight, 2008

Labor Participation Rate For Men The Lowest Since 1948

So says Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, here:

The “labour participation rate” for working-age men over 20 dropped to 73.6pc, the lowest the since the data series began in 1948. My guess is that this figure exceeds the average for the Great Depression (minus the cruellest year of 1932). ...

Multinationals are exploiting “labour arbitrage” by moving plant to low-wage countries, playing off workers in China and the West against each other. The profit share of corporations is at record highs across ... America and Europe.

Men with nothing to do eventually find it, but it is called "trouble."

Democrat Harry Mitchell Put J.D.Hayworth in the Crosshairs in 2006

The video is here:

Gabrielle Giffords' Democrats Promoted Libertarian as True Conservative to Divide Vote on her Right

The following excerpts come from the website of the Libertarian Party candidate, Steve Stoltz, whom the Democrat Party (yes you read that right) promoted in its literature as the true conservative running against the Democrat incumbent Gabrielle Giffords, shot in Tucson on Saturday, to bleed off votes on the right from the Republican challenger Jesse Kelly:

As a Libertarian, I am socially liberal, compassionate and humanitarian, but I am also fiscally conservative and principled.

The United States should have sound money that is backed by gold not the “monopoly money” of a fiat currency that is essentially counterfeited by the printing presses of the Federal Reserve which causes massive inflation.

As a Libertarian I believe that everyone owns their own body and can do ANYTHING they want with it, so long as they do not infringe upon someone else’s life/health, liberty or property (the 4rth amendment of the constitution says that people have a right to be secure in their person).

Government has no authority over the nature of a person’s consensual sexual relationships - even if they desire to engage in promiscuity and immorality.

The government has no right to tell a person what food they can eat, has no right to restrict their access to vitamin and mineral supplements, has no right to prevent a person from taking experimental drugs or getting medical treatments they feel will cure them of disease.

It is ironic that laws limit access to drugs, while the FDA has permitted poisonous/toxic substance like aspartame to be introduced into beverages.

Drugs like marijuana should be legalized, with increasing amounts of regulation and taxation applied to the more addictive drugs.

Society should lift prohibitions, but should regulate drugs the way alcohol currently is.

Lifting some drug prohibition could have a positive impact on national security.

Marriage is a legal contract protecting the rights of two individuals who decide that they want to live together and share property.

The state’s sole role is to enforce the property rights of the union, without placing stipulations on the nature of the union, whether it is between heterosexuals or homosexuals.    

The equal protection clause of the 14th amendment says that every US citizen shall enjoy the equal protection of the law.

Since no group should be given special treatment relative to over another, the military’s current policy of “Don’t ask don’t tell” is un-Constitutional, and should simply be reduced to “Don’t ask”.

The military should not expel a member who has already proven they can do the job merely because that person has identified himself/herself as homosexual.

I believe the government must respect the 2nd amendment, and place absolutely no restrictions on gun rights.

Although I am totally opposed to violence, I find it amazing that those who would place restrictions over a private citizen’s access to guns also seem to place blind faith in the integrity of the police, merely because they are agents of government.

Social security ... The system should be restructured so that younger persons invest in a privately held account, the way the government originally sold it.

I do not believe that it is moral for a wealthy person to hoard their wealth without trying to use it to help people.

[I]t doesn’t make sense for the government to document illegal aliens.

I do not believe that illegal aliens who give birth in the United States should instantly be granted citizenship (i.e. “anchor babies”).

I don’t believe illegal aliens should enjoy special access to entitlements relative to US citizens.

[W]hile it might be unfair for the children of illegal aliens who don’t pay property tax to receive a free education in US school systems, they nonetheless fall under the same category as the children of US citizens who receive a free education because their parents rent and don’t pay property tax.

The illegal alien problem is a multi-faceted social problem that can’t be solved merely by erecting a fence.     

Female reproductive rights/abortion – I am pro-choice.    

The focus of the military should be primarily to defend the nation’s borders against invasion.

As a Libertarian, I believe that in order for anything to be regarded as a crime, there must be a victim.  Civil fines for traffic violations that do not result in an accident or property damage or personal injury, and merely raise money for the state represent victimless crimes.

Two Thirds of Decline in Unemployment Due to Falling Participation Rate

So says CalculatedRiskBlog here:

If the participation rate had held steady at 64.5%, then the unemployment rate would have only declined to 9.64%. [Instead, unemployment fell to 9.4 percent.] 

So almost 2/3rds of the decline in the unemployment rate was related to the decline in the participation rate. Some of the decline might be from workers going back to school, but some is probably due to people just giving up.

A large portion of the decline in the participation rate was for people in the 16 to 24 age group. ...

Another group that saw a decline in the participation rate was men in the key 25 to 54 age group. I wonder if these people are just giving up? ... 

The participation rate has fallen sharply from 66% at the start of the recession to 64.3% in December. That is almost 4 million workers who are no longer in the labor force and not counted as unemployed in U-3, although most are included as "discouraged workers" or "Marginally Attached to Labor Force" in U-6. 

A decline in the unemployment rate mostly due to a decline in the participation rate is not good employment news.

Here is Mish's annotated version of the chart from Calculated Risk:

Incompetent WSVN.com Shows the Wrong Spy Drone in Miami-Dade Police Story

Here's the drone shown in the video by WSVN.com, which their own story says weighs 20 pounds and is called a Honeywell T Hawk:

Link to the story with video here (dc20500 caught the error and posted so in the comment section).

You'd think the numbskulls could at least check Wikipedia (here) and showcase the correct object so people in Florida know what to look for.

And when it's weaponized it will perfectly resemble the probe droid sent to the planet Hoth in Star Wars.

A Hypothetical US Bank Run Exercise: How Much Would You Get?

According to The Federal Reserve Bank of New York, here, only about one third of US currency in circulation is thought to be held within the United States:

In April 2008, M1 was approximately $1.4 trillion, more than half of which consisted of currency. While as much as two-thirds of U.S. currency in circulation may be held outside the United States, all currency held by the public is included in the money supply because it can be spent on goods and services in the U.S. economy.

Current observations by The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, here, show that currency in circulation as of the end of December 2010 came to about $983.7 billion.

So let's ask hypothetically, just for the mental exercise, that if we had a bank run in America and we decided we would ration the available cash in equal shares to the adult population of, say, 228 million people, assuming of course each such person had some digits on a bank statement warranting cash claims, how much maximum could each claimant expect to get under such circumstances?

$1,438 each.

2009 Circulating Currency Production Totaled $219,468,800,000

A total of 6.24 billion notes were printed for 2009 circulation, according to the US Bureau of Engraving and Printing here:

$2.6368 billion in ones

$1.92 billion in 384 million fives

$3.456 billion in 345.6 million tens

$14.336 billion in 716.8 million twenties

$18.560 billion in 371.2 million fifties

$178.56 billion in 1.7856 billion hundreds.

2009 Circulating Coin Production Totaled $601,492,000

A total of 3.548 billion coins were minted for 2009 circulation, according to US Mint figures here:

$23.54 million in 2.354 billion pennies

$4.332 million in 86.64 million nickels

$14.6 million in 146 million dimes

$133.48 million in 533.92 million quarters

$1.9 million in 3.8 million halves

$423.64 million in an equal number of dollar coins.

Sweet! The Witch is Dead.

Irish Banks' Deposit Base Declines 15 Percent in Last Year

So says a story here for Fortune, which also asserts that foreign depositors have pulled out 100 billion Euros since 2008.

What BankRun2010 failed to accomplish on the Continent with premeditation might actually have been happening all along in Ireland. There are worries that a cascade of withdrawals might trigger runs in the rest of the PIIGS.

Retirement Assets Declined 22 Percent in 2008

Whenever government sees something big, it either wants to tax it or confiscate it.

Here's the data about retirement assets for 2008, according to the Investment Company Institute, totaling just over $14 trillion:

IRA assets = $3.613 trillion

Defined contribution plans (401Ks, 403(b)s, 457s, etc.) = $3.517 trillion

Defined benefit plans (private sector pensions, government pensions, life insurance company annuities, etc.) = $6.9 trillion.

In 2007 such assets totaled nearly $18 trillion.

WAPO's Richard Cohen Still Hates America

In a twisted, weird rant about today's All Volunteer Army vs. his army of the Vietnam War era, Richard Cohen of The Washington Post displays the self-loathing which is still at the heart of liberalism, saying that today's army, mostly white and Southern, is only wonderful to today's general public because most of us are strangers to it, while his army of the bygone days was an army of the people, familiar and contemptible:

Yet one was an army of the people, draftees and such, and the other is an army of volunteers, strangers to most of us. What's happening here? The answer, I fear, is a cliche: Familiarity breeds contempt.

In other words, if you only knew the truth about people you'd say America sucks, too, and you wouldn't idolize the military so.

Don't worry, Richard. Today's army is only going to get more wonderful as all those white Southerners who fight your wars for you bail out with the influx of the queers. Somehow I think you will like this just fine.

Confiscation of Your Retirement Funds is Unthinkable, Right?

Well, not in Europe, where private monies have already been taken by statist spendthrifts in Hungary, Bulgaria and Poland, according to this story in The Christian Science Monitor, originally posted at the Polish arm of The Ludwig von Mises Institute (here).

The same people greedy bastards in this country who brought you Obamacare are just as enthusiastic about taking your IRAs, 401Ks and the like, people like Democrat Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa.

Political realities right now mean that the plan eyeing your savings will sit in some Democrat's desk until times change, just as Obamacare was really a bill long pre-dating him, sitting in Representative Henry Waxman's top drawer for over a decade until the moment was right.

The difference between liberals and Republicans in America is that liberals have a long term strategy to take over and transform the country, while so-called conservatives keep backing up, drawing new lines in the sand in a strategy of retreat, daring liberals to cross them, which they invariably do. The policies of these conservatives are offensive enough to liberals, but it is conservatives' cowardice which really inspires their contempt.

The failure to install gays in the military and Hillarycare in 1994 took 16 years to redress, but liberalism surely did so with its victories in 2010, overturning DADT and passing Obamacare.

Individual liberty, the foundation of which is in traditional values derived from revealed religion, has been under assault in America since the victory of Abraham Lincoln and the united States became the United States. The war between originalism and "a more perfect union" was decided long ago by force. The contemporary Republican Party will be a conservative party when it finally realizes this, but frankly, it doesn't have the nerve.

A Barbarian, Supposedly America's Finest, is in Charge of the USS Enterprise

What kind of a country produces people like this, and puts them in charge of American power? A country that's finished, that's what. When they're done with the enemy, we'll be next.

The story and video are at this link:

They're all part of a series of short movies produced aboard the Norfolk-based aircraft carrier Enterprise in 2006 and 2007 and broadcast to its nearly 6,000 sailors and Marines. The man who masterminded and starred in them is Capt. Owen Honors - now the commander of the carrier, which is weeks away from deploying.

The videos, obtained by The Virginian-Pilot this week, were shot and edited with government equipment, many of them while the Enterprise was deployed supporting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

At the time, Honors was the carrier's executive officer, or XO, the commanding officer's deputy. He took command of the ship in May.

Homeland Security Will Watch Entire US Cities With GORGON STARE, and Soon

From a very disturbing new report from The Washington Post:

Gorgon Stare is being tested now, and officials hope it will be fielded within two months. Each $17.5 million pod weighs 1,100 pounds and, because of its configuration, will not be mounted with weapons on Reaper aircraft, officials said. They envision it will have civilian applications, including securing borders and aiding in natural disasters. The Department of Homeland Security is exploring the technology's potential, an industry official said.

You are in danger from the United States of Surveillance. Stop it now, or suffer the consequences.

While the British and US Reaper and Predator drones are physically in Afghanistan and Iraq, control is via satellite from Nellis and Creech USAF base outside Las Vegas, Nevada. Ground crews launch drones from the conflict zone, then operation is handed over to controllers at video screens in specially designed trailers in the Nevada desert.

More about that here. If you see one, beware:

Joe Miller Concedes to Leesah Mercowsky on Friday

There's a long re-telling of the saga here.

Alaskans get to keep their nepotistic senatrix, and are saved from the unlikely and imperfect Miller, who hails from Yale and West Point but was supported by the Tea Party.

The election will be remembered for the way a judge roughed up the English language, so that "writing in a name on a ballot as it appears on the candidate's certification of candidacy" became "appearing to write in on a ballot the name of the candidate."

Poor Alaska. It only appears to be a state.

A Binary Palindromic Happy New Year to All!

The Bubbles Caused by High Taxation

Brian Domitrovic for Forbes discusses how capital went on strike in the 1970s because of a clutch of onerous tax increases starting in 1969, and was diverted instead to a bunch of "inert stuff" like gold, oil and land, causing unemployment to rise: 

The rich spent the 1970s trying to figure out how to hide their money. ...

The 1970s were the first heyday of “alternative investments.” Gold, oil, land, straddles, these exotica had been the preserve of a small group of specialists before 1969, when high earners got hit with a triple tax increase. The top capital gains rate got upped to an effective 49%, there was an income-tax surcharge, and the millionaire’s minimum tax (the AMT monster of today) began. This is not to mention “bracket creep,” whereby real tax rates go up with every increase in the price level. For the record, inflation was 200% from 1969 to 1982.

In this environment, the rich simply stopped what they were doing and focused all attention on preserving capital and avoiding confiscatory rates. ...

Read the whole thing here.

It Ain't No 'With Two You Get Eggroll' For The-Office-Milker-in-Chief

A trio of appetizers: Wong's seafood cake, a tomato with li hing mui dressing and Wong's famous "soup and sandwich," a two-color Big Island tomato soup and foie gras grilled cheese sandwich.

Lobster lasagna

Ginger-crusted onaga

The President's favorite entree, soy-braised shortribs.

And his favorite dessert, "The Coconut," coconut ice cream covered with dark chocolate, in a shape that looks exactly like half a coconut, served with a colorful array of tropical fruits.

As reported here.

WAPO Blogger Klein Thays Constitution Justht Too Old and Confusthing

Talk about lip thservice. Isth he done or what?! Here.

The "Right" To Healthcare is a Threat to Life and Liberty

Ross Kaminsky for The American Spectator here gets close to making a point which needs to be made more often, more forcefully, and more primary, namely, that one man's right to healthcare comes at the expense of another man's right not to provide it if he doesn't wish to:

[I]f health care is a right, that means that an American who for whatever reason does not have access to a doctor must be provided that access, whether that means redistributing taxpayer money to the would-be patient or even the potential of forcing a doctor to provide his services in an area "underserved" by health care professionals. ...

In other words, when one person's right is forcibly taken away for the benefit of someone else, it can no longer be a right any more than taxes extracted for the benefit of the poor may be deemed charity.

A doctor practices medicine by choice, not by compulsion, so we can no more force him to provide care than we can force people to become doctors. But, of course, if the courts decide that government can compel expenditure for health insurance, then it is a short distance to compelling other things, indeed anything, at which point this country is finished, if it isn't already.

Quibbling about how the inherent limitations accruing to conceptions of positive rights shows that they are not rights, such as that Obamacare under Berwick's rules will be provided as a right only

up to a certain age, a certain degree of sickness, or a certain cost,

has utilitarian value but is really beside the point.

A different contract governs the relations between a doctor and his patient, which Obamacare would overthrow, as full of negative pledges as the Bill of Rights is full of negative rights, the most famous of which people remember as "to do no harm."

The real offense of Obamacare is the compulsion at the heart of it, as real as the oppression of any tyranny.

What we need to stop it is a Hippocratic Revolt.

Debt by Congress

"After years of historic deficits, this 110th Congress will commit itself to a higher standard: Pay as you go, no new deficit spending. Our new America will provide unlimited opportunity for future generations, not burden them with mountains of debt."

-- Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010

111th Congress, 2009-2010, New debt = $3.22 trillion

110th Congress, 2007-2008, New debt = $1.96 trillion

Total new debt under Pelosi and Dems = $5.18 trillion

An increase of new debt of 134 percent over the historic deficits she was referring to, making hers, well, more historic:

109th Congress, 2005-2006, New debt = $1.05 trillion

108th Congress, 2003-2004, New debt = $1.16 trillion

Total new debt under Republicans        = $2.21 trillion

Proving once again that Republicans give less of the same, and Democrats more.

Full story here.

On Patriotism

"Patriotism is now the last refuge of the bugger."

-- Imam John

TSA Mops The Floor With Claire Hirschkind at Austin-Bergstrom Int'l Airport

"I can't go through because I have the equivalent of a pacemaker in me."

"I turned to the police officer and said, 'I have given no due cause to give up my constitutional rights.  You can wand me,'" and they said, 'No, you have to do this.'"

"I told them, 'No, I'm not going to have my breasts felt,' and she said, 'Yes, you are.'"

 "[T]he police actually pushed me to the floor, (and) handcuffed me.  I was crying by then.  They [dragged] me 25 yards across the floor in front of the whole security."

The TSA did release a statement Wednesday that said in part, "Our officers are trained to treat all passengers with dignity and respect. Security is not optional."

Complete story and video here. 

Preparing Our Hearts For Christmas, With George Washington and Thomas Paine

From Paine's December 23, 1776 The American Crisis, which Washington had read aloud to his troops as they prepared to attack Trenton on Christmas:

Not all the treasures of the world, so far as I believe, could have induced me to support an offensive war, for I think it murder; but if a thief breaks into my house, burns and destroys my property, and kills or threatens to kill me, or those that are in it, and to "bind me in all cases whatsoever" to his absolute will, am I to suffer it? What signifies it to me, whether he who does it is a king or a common man; my countryman or not my countryman; whether it be done by an individual villain, or an army of them? If we reason to the root of things we shall find no difference; neither can any just cause be assigned why we should punish in the one case and pardon in the other. Let them call me rebel and welcome, I feel no concern from it; but I should suffer the misery of devils, were I to make a whore of my soul by swearing allegiance to one whose character is that of a sottish, stupid, stubborn, worthless, brutish man. I conceive likewise a horrid idea in receiving mercy from a being, who at the last day shall be shrieking to the rocks and mountains to cover him, and fleeing with terror from the orphan, the widow, and the slain of America.


Enjoy it all, here.

Minyanville Founder and Dead-Head Asks The Stupid Question of the Year

"What's another word for thesaurus?" (Todd Harrison, here)

You'd think "treasury" would come to the mind of someone whose job it is to talk about money all the time, and preempt the question, but that would presuppose that Syracuse University required its honors graduates to know some Greek.

On Sin

"Sin is what everyone commits, but few admit."

-- Imam John

Politico.com Fawns Over Senator Murcowskie (RINO-AK)

With photos no less, here.

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

Which is why we should repeal the 19th Amendment.

TSA De-deputizes Pilot For Posting Video of Sacramento Security Theatre

The story, with video, is here.

Apparently the TSA is upset that you find out from this story that ground crews don't go through the invasive screening that you and flight crews have to endure. Ground crew members swipe a card reader and get access to your plane, by-passing metal detectors, naked scanners, and enhanced pat downs.

Do you feel safer?

Well, do ya, punk?

The Major Antonyms of the Moment

Military Will Follow the Nuremberg Offense on Repeal of DADT

Just following orders, sir:

Major Tim Densham of the 63rd Brigade said the military will do as asked.

“Our role is to do what the president tells us to do. We are just going to follow the rules.”

The moral hollowness of a Nazi.

Here.

Vern Ehlers' Parting Shot at Conservatives

U.S. Rep. Vern Ehlers, R-Grand Rapids, voted for repeal [of DADT].

He predicted people will look back in five or 10 years and wonder what all the fuss was about.

“I just don’t think there is going to be a problem here,” Ehlers said.

Here.

Mlive.com Targets Free Speech

Per the very unattractive, Stalinist cave-dwelling hobgoblin in charge, here.

Admiral Says Obama's Motive in START was not National Defense

“If Obama wanted to save some money and improve national defense, he should have gotten out of the nuke negotiations and acted unilaterally. START is simply a political victory for Obama.”

-- Vice Admiral Jerry Miller, USN (Ret.), here

Alaska Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Senator Lisa Murcowskie

But she wanted more:

Murkowski tried to make her lead even bigger by arguing that the state should have counted about 1,500 ballots where voters wrote in her name but didn't fill in the oval next to it.

The Supreme Court considered that along with Miller's lawsuit and ruled the state was right not to count those additional ballots for Murkowski.

The full story is here.

"The Tax Code is 10 Times Longer Than the Bible, Without the Good News"

So says Republican Representative Dave Camp of Michigan, and George Will approves, here, especially with the additional observation that it is not right that the bottom two income quintiles pay no taxes whatsoever, and receive direct cash payments in the form of refundable tax credits.

Real conservatives agree: everyone needs to have skin in the game.

Senate Traitors Enshrine Doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction 71-26

Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse than George Bush's immoral doctrine of pre-emptive war, 16 Republicans helped, HELPED!, the Senate's Democrat majority turn back the clock to the bad old days of mutually assured destruction and ratified THE NEW START, which is just the old madness. 13 actually voted for the thing. 3 didn't bother to show up.

From The Washington Post:

The final vote came after Senate Democrats accepted two amendments designed to placate Republicans who had qualms about the treaty. The amendments, which passed on voice votes with bipartisan support, emphasized the administration's commitment to a limited missile-defense program and to continued funding to modernize the aging US nuclear weapons complex.

The amendments were to the resolution of ratification accompanying the treaty, a nonbinding statement that codifies the Senate's understanding of the pact but does not directly affect its language. Republican efforts to alter the treaty language were defeated, with supporters of the pact arguing that such changes would have forced new negotiations with Moscow and effectively killed the treaty.

Thirteen Republicans joined all of the Senate's Democrats in voting for ratification, helping to exceed the 67 votes required. Three senators - all Republicans - were not present.

The amendments are meaningless, pure mental gestures by the effete for the effete.

Charitable observers will nevertheless say the US Senate ignored Russian threats to embark upon a new arms race if we didn't ratify, when the truth is this country under Barack Obama doesn't have the stomach to defend itself and couldn't declare its independence from the inside of a paper bag. It doesn't even know what it stands for, and couldn't articulate it if it did.

The moral center of America has melted, as the passage of repeal of DADT makes plain.

What are we fighting for? The right of Afghan men to parade their adolescent lovers as they do, to the disgust of every frontline soldier in arms?

Are we really in such a state of decline that we fear the Russians' ability to outspend us? The answer in truth is No. But what we do have is a population fed up with the protracted wars of nation building in Iraq and Afghanistan and consequently now incapable of understanding the pressing need to rise above this squandering of resources and build up America's deteriorating strategic defenses. Barack Obama is a man made for just such a time as this.

The Russians will use the opportunity to build anyway, and cheat and lie about it as they always have done, which suits the Bolshevik in Chief Barack Obama just fine, a traitor to everything this country has stood for, who will get us all killed if something isn't done soon to stop him.

Clearly the Republicans are not the party to do it. The Stupid Party has struck again, snatching another defeat from the jaws of a victory won just weeks ago, and the Democrats are laughing all the way to New Year's Eve with feathers of healthcare, another year of stimulus spending, repeal of DADT, and this treaty in their caps. The corks will be a-poppin' on Nancy Pelosi's last flight as Speaker. 

Here are the names of the disreputable lot of Republican cowards:

Alexander-TN

Bennet-UT

Brown-MA

Cochran-MS

Collins-ME

Corker-TN

Gregg-NH

Isakson-GA

Johanns-NE

Lugar-IN

Murkowskie-AK (heh, heh, heh)

Snowe-ME

SPECTRE-D, PA (heh, heh, heh)

Voinovich-OH

The Republicans not bothering to vote on something so momentous:

Bond-MO

Brownback-KS

Bunning-KY.

Useless men and women, all.

A pox on them, and on their states.

I'm Barack Insane Obama, and I'm Full of Bolshevik

Effete Senate Republicans Rest on A Letter and A Resolution on START

The news that a resolution of understanding will be attached to the START treaty along with a letter from President Obama to address the misgivings of Republicans reminds one of the Executive Order on abortion the president provided when healthcare reform passed in March.

The language of the treaty will be the law, not the resolution nor the letter from the president, as surely as abortions will be paid for under Obamacare despite the Executive Order.

Fill your boots, men, and stop acting like the sissies everybody thinks you are.

Story here.

Obama's FCC Internet Commissars Impose Doctrinaire Anti-Capitalism

In other words, Marxism masquerading as "net neutrality," as John Fund for The Wall Street Journal makes plain here:

Over 300 House and Senate members have signed a letter opposing FCC Internet regulation, and there will undoubtedly be even less support in the next Congress.

Yet President Obama, long an ardent backer of net neutrality, is ignoring both Congress and adverse court rulings, especially by a federal appeals court in April that the agency doesn't have the power to enforce net neutrality. He is seeking to impose his will on the Internet through the executive branch. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, a former law school friend of Mr. Obama, has worked closely with the White House on the issue. Official visitor logs show he's had at least 11 personal meetings with the president.

The net neutrality vision for government regulation of the Internet began with the work of Robert McChesney, a University of Illinois communications professor who founded the liberal lobby Free Press in 2002. Mr. McChesney's agenda? "At the moment, the battle over network neutrality is not to completely eliminate the telephone and cable companies," he told the website SocialistProject in 2009. "But the ultimate goal is to get rid of the media capitalists in the phone and cable companies and to divest them from control."

A year earlier, Mr. McChesney wrote in the Marxist journal Monthly Review that "any serious effort to reform the media system would have to necessarily be part of a revolutionary program to overthrow the capitalist system itself." Mr. McChesney told me in an interview that some of his comments have been "taken out of context." He acknowledged that he is a socialist and said he was "hesitant to say I'm not a Marxist."

"You'd think that this thing was some Bolshevik plot." -- Barack Obama, January 29, 2010