Then Why are 16,000 IRS Agents Being Hired to Enforce Obamacare?

For the same reason Lincoln invaded the South.

Reported here yesterday:

"You can't maintain power through coercion. At some level in any society, there has to be consent."

-- President Obama

Patriot Act Votes Show Rep. Bachmann's Tea Party Caucus is Full of TINOs

Tea-Partyers in Name Only.

Everyone's getting this wrong, from Adam Serwer here at The Washington Post to Rush Limbaugh here, on partisan grounds. The Post wants to paint the Tea Party Caucus as a bunch of hypocrites, and Rush wants people to believe the Tea Party actually supports even the most controversial provisions of the Patriot Act.

Rush chalked up the Feb. 8 revolt of 26 Republicans to rookies being poorly advised by the Republican leadership:

Now, the Republicans lost 26 of their own members, adding to the 122 Democrats who voted against it," and some of the Republicans say that they 'felt completely uniformed [sic] by their leadership' on this. Some of the rookies, some of the freshmen say they were not really advised about all this in time -- and the leader of the opposition was Dennis Kucinich.  Now, something tells me here that Republicans do not intend to vote with Dennis Kucinich, 'cause he's aligned with the ACLU opposing extending the whole thing, the whole Patriot Act.  So if Kucinich is for it, "all rational people" ought to be against it.  

The only trouble is, the exact same bunch of Republicans all voted against the controversial provisions again yesterday. They've had six days to get brought up to speed by the leadership, but not a single one has changed his vote. And Rep. Hanna joined them to make it 27 and the third from the membership of the more liberal Republican Main Street Partnership.

I guess Rush must think these 27 Republicans are quite irrational after all, voting with Kucinich and the left. Rush was silent about this today, hoping we've forgotten what he said.

The facts are these. The Tea Party in the US House is much smaller than people think, and it isn't co-terminous with Bachmann's caucus. The latter is a bunch of me-too Republicans who find it expedient to identify with the Tea Party politically, just like Michael Steele did, and even Sarah Palin, who took an eternity to speak out against the bailouts. Just 8 self-identified Tea Party Caucus members voted both times against the controversial provisions of the Patriot Act. And only 7 others who joined them were elected in the Tea Party wave last autumn, but they still do not self-identify that way.

When you consider that the vast majority of the Tea Party Caucus voted to extend the Patriot Act provisions, you can understand why 19 Republicans who voted the other way might have a reason not to associate themselves with such pretenders.

Bachmann's list hasn't been updated since last summer, despite the gargantuan Republican sweep in November. Where is all the new blood, huh?

It's staying away for a reason, if it's really there at all.

Half of CPAC This Year is Libertarian, Heckles and Walks Out on Dick Cheney

The Libertarians hate the Department of Defense and the US military more than they hate the much larger, arguably unconstitutional, social welfare state erected by FDR.

Bunch of queers.

Story and video here.

Treasure Trove of British Archives Undermines "Lincoln Freed the Slaves" Myth

The Washington Times has the details:

Newly released documents show that to a greater degree than historians had previously known, President Lincoln laid the groundwork to ship freed slaves overseas to help prevent racial strife in the US.

Just after he issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, Lincoln authorized plans to pursue a freedmen’s settlement in present-day Belize and another in Guyana, both colonial possessions of Great Britain at the time, said Phillip W. Magness, one of the researchers who uncovered the new documents.

Historians have debated how seriously Lincoln took colonization efforts, but Mr. Magness said the story he uncovered, to be published next week in a book, “Colonization After Emancipation: Lincoln and the Movement for Black Resettlement,” shows the president didn’t just flirt with the idea, as historians had previously known, but that he personally pursued it for some time. ...

"What we know now is he did continue the effort for at least a year after the proclamation was signed.”

The newly discovered evidence will give greater credence to the argument that Lincoln crucified the country in the Civil War over his crusade for an extra-constitutional Sovereign Union of states, in the middle of which, when things were going badly in 1863, Lincoln the demagogue hit upon slavery as a new way to salvage support for the war of Northern aggression.

Read the whole story here.

Obama The Despicable Betrayed Britain to Russia in START Treaty

What a scoundrel Obama is, and every Senator who voted to ratify START:

While William Hague, the foreign secretary, last year disclosed that “up to 160” warheads were operational, he took care not to confirm what the actual number was, nor the number of missiles to which the warheads attached.

Now, in his desire for a disarmament treaty that will boost Obama’s image as a peace-monger, the president has blurted out that number to the Russians. Any Briton caught doing such a thing would be immediately arrested under the 1911 Official Secrets Act, tried, and imprisoned for up to 60 years. When Obama does exactly the same thing, however, for short-term political gain, it’s called statesmanship. Small wonder that there has been an outcry in Britain.

The full story of our president's treachery may be read here.

US Oil Production Up 2 Years in a Row, Despite Gulf of Mexico Moratorium

New techniques used to extract natural gas from shale deposits are now helping drillers extract oil once thought locked in the ground:

[A] surge in production last year from the Bakken helped US oil production grow for the second year in a row, after 23 years of decline. This during a year when drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, the nation's biggest oil-producing region, was halted after the BP oil spill.

US oil production climbed steadily through most of the last century and reached a peak of 9.6 million barrels per day in 1970. The decline since was slowed by new production in Alaska in the 1980s and in the Gulf of Mexico more recently. But by 2008, production had fallen to 5 million barrels per day.

Within five years, analysts and executives predict, the newly unlocked fields are expected to produce 1 million to 2 million barrels of oil per day, enough to boost US production 20 percent to 40 percent. The US Energy Information Administration estimates production will grow a more modest 500,000 barrels per day.

By 2020, oil imports could be slashed by as much as 60 percent, according to Credit Suisse's Morse, who is counting on Gulf oil production to rise and on US gasoline demand to fall.

Add oil to the reasons to be bullish on the future.

The complete story is here.

Two Feet of Snow

h/t Scott

'Conservatives' Compromising with the Devil

Not that I make it my business to follow this sort of thing very closely, but, well, there it is in USA Today:

Andrew Breitbart, a conservative blogger, says in a headline on his website that Palin "throws support behind GOProud." He has posted a clip from Palin's interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network in which Palin wonders whether conservatives should reach out to those with opposite views and "allow for healthy debate" on issues. Breitbart is on GOProud's advisory board.

More here, and here.

Sarah Palin knows what side of the bread the butter's on. She isn't going to alienate a big part of her base. Half of the Tea Party is libertarian, which means half of the Tea Party is ok with gay.

As is Roman Catholicism. That's why a Tammy Bruce can fill in for Laura Ingraham, no problemo. That's why Andrew Breitbart and Ann Coulter can be chums.

That's why repeal of DADT was off the radio radar screens on Bill Bennett's show, Ingraham's, Hannity's, etc.

Good Catholics all.

And that's why Elton John was treated so graciously by Rush Limbaugh at his (fourth) wedding.

The Protestantism that gave us that work ethic thingy that Pat Buchanan remembers made America so great?

It's in the rear view mirror and getting smaller every day. Mainline Protestants like the Episcopalians, the Methodists and the Lutherans have all loosened their sphincters for gay and lesbian preachers in their pulpits. Traditionalists have fled in droves to non-denominational churches, or to lonely isolation.

The left doesn't need to trouble itself with dividing the opposition on the right. Its minions masquerading as conservatives are doing the job all by themselves.  

An In Depth Look at How Federal Workers are Overpaid

From The Weekly Standard, here:

The question of whether federal workers are overpaid is often portrayed in the media as unanswerable, with each side of the debate citing its own numbers. In fact, the academic evidence is much more one-sided: Generally speaking, federal workers do receive higher salaries than similar private employees; individuals changing jobs receive bigger pay increases when their new job is with the federal government; federal employees quit less than private workers; and private workers line up to get federal jobs.

The Most Important Investing Advice You Can Read, Maybe Ever

Il Duce

From "Why Politics and Investing Don't Mix" by Barry Ritholtz in The Washington Post, this time without a single typo:

Liquidity is a major factor in how the economy and stock markets perform. Trillions of dollars in fresh cash was very likely to goose equities higher [in 2003]. (Sound familiar?)

And maybe the best thing he's ever written, too.

Read it all, here.

P.S. Martin Walker said as much on May 8, 2009 on The McLaughlin Group, as we pointed out here. Nerves of steel those guys have, and guts of iron.

Why Would You Want a Mexican Car?

Top Gear asks the question:

"Why would you want a Mexican car?” demands co-presenter Richard Hammond. “Cars reflect national characteristics don’t they, so German cars are very well built and ruthlessly efficient, Italian cars are a bit flamboyant and quick. A Mexican car’s just going to be a lazy, feckless, flatulent [they've mixed the laughter very loud over this bit so it's uncertain, but it sounds like he says "overdose tw*t"]… leaning against a fence asleep, looking at a cactus with a blanket with a hole in the middle of it as a coat.”

Akira The Don has The Compleat Wreck here.

A declaration of war by Mexico against Britain is expected.




h/t Mark Steyn

RC Whalen Wants Us To Declare FDR's 'Emergency' Over Already

Some excerpts:

President Herbert Hoover said of the New Deal that it was an attempt to crossbreed Socialism, Fascism and Free Enterprise, part of a collectivist revolution led by FDR and carried within the Trojan horse of economic emergency. ...

The second half of volume three of President Hoover’ s memoir, The Great Depression, contains a scathing critique of his successor -- and also an admission of personal responsibility for the catastrophe. It features several times the word “ fascism ” to describe many Roosevelt-era prescriptions for fighting the Depression, a blunt reminder that much of what FDR did during these dark years was borrowed from the strong men of Europe — Mussolini in Italy, Hitler in Germany, and Stalin in Russia.

Don't miss the rest, here.

Temps in the Single Digits F in Ciudad Juarez Since Tuesday

For more on this global warming related cold snap, see here.

That Critic of the Innumerate, Barry Ritholtz, is (Still) Illiterate

"Why do am I critical . . .?"

". . . you cans get a pretty good estimate . . .."

References passim, but notably here.

British Teenager Emails Obama, Calls Him a Pussy, Gets Banned From US For Life

Luke Angel is his name, according to the story reported at this link last September.

He is a keen judge of character, I'd say, like someone else we know.

A Department of Homeland Security goon is quoted as saying there are about 60 things on their list which will get you banned from visiting the US.

Funny how if you're a citizen and live here already and say such things they don't (yet) resort to banishment. I guess that whole freedom of speech thing isn't for export while every stupid precedent of international law is supposed to be eligible for import.  

Percentage of People Working Lowest Since the Early 1980s

So says CalculatedRiskBlog here:

[T]he participation rate declined to 64.2% - a new cycle low, and the lowest level since the early '80s. Note: This is the percentage of the working age population in the labor force . . .. The participation rate has now fallen 2 percentage points during the recession - a huge decline.

US District Judge Rules Obama Regime in Contempt of Court

“Each step the government took following the court’s imposition of a preliminary injunction showcases its defiance."

“Such dismissive conduct, viewed in tandem with the re-imposition of a second blanket and substantively identical moratorium, and in light of the national importance of this case, provide this court with clear and convincing evidence of the government’s contempt."

-- Judge Martin Feldman of New Orleans (quoted here)

Global Warming in Mexico: 8.6 Degrees F in Ciudad Juarez Lowest in 50 Years

According to this story:

Ciudad Juarez mayor Hector Murgia said the temperatures of around minus 13 degrees centigrade (8.6 Fahrenheit) were the lowest recorded in almost 50 years.

Suez Canal Moves 2.5 Percent of Global Oil Production

So says an article at Bloomberg.com here:

About 2.5 percent of global oil production moves through Egypt via the Suez Canal and the adjacent Suez-Mediterranean Pipeline, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. The waterway carries more than 2.2 million barrels of oil a day.


The US Department of Energy puts the figure closer to 1.8 million barrels per day in 2009, here, in the canal itself. The Suez Canal is unable to accommodate the newer tankers in the Very Large Crude Carrier and Ultra Large Crude Carrier classes. 

Democrat Controlled Senate Changes its Mind, Rescinds Onerous ObamaCare 1099 Law

But 17 extremist Democrats still couldn't bring themselves to vote to part with the $17 billion in tax revenues the imposition of the massive reporting requirements would have generated:

Senate Democrats Unite to Keep ObamaCare 51-47, Defeating House Repeal Effort

George Bush: Mushy-Headed Liberal

George W. Bush has been beating his little isolationism, protectionism and nativism drum for years now, but it seems like conservatives such as Laura Ingraham are finally looking at it in the right way. She's even suggesting that if we knew in 2000 what we know today about George and his family (people should be free to marry anyone they love), maybe conservatives wouldn't have supported W back in the day.

I know I didn't. I admit it. I was one of the few, the proud, the (top!) 500,000 Americans who voted for Pat Buchanan in 2000. And I've still got the lawn sign to prove it! In 2004 I had to be drawn kicking and screaming to vote for Bush. The alternative was too horrible to contemplate (a man who won't stop for stop signs while behind the wheel of his Jeep is a dangerous man, willing to break any law), as it was also too horrible to contemplate in 2008, as events prove everyday.

Bush's continuing antagonism against, for example, advocates of border security doesn't surprise me, and Laura is right to perceive that his sort of Republican poses a threat to the policy initiatives championed by Tea Partyers and conservatives. Her show this morning is devoting considerable time to Bush's remarks at Southern Methodist University on January 24th.

But Bush was making similar remarks already in November 2010 in Britain as part of his book tour, and Pat Buchanan eviscerated him way back in March 2008 for the very same kind of loose and silly talk:

In smearing as nativists, protectionists and isolationists those who wish to stop the invasion, halt the export of factories and jobs to Asia, and stop the unnecessary wars, Bush is attacking the last true conservatives in his party.

Which is understandable. For after the judges and tax cuts, what is there about Bush that is conservative? His foreign policy is Wilsonian. His trade policy is pure FDR. His spending is LBJ all the way. His amnesty for illegals is Teddy Kennedy's policy.

The truth is George Bush hasn't changed, and has never been a conservative. Ever true to his self-described role as The Decider, he once boasted that he would be the one who decided what is Republican and what isn't:

"That conservative movement stuff is over. I've redefined the Republican party."

Even liberals have recognized Bush as one of their own. So Richard Cohen in The Washington Post in 2007, after cataloguing Bush's liberal intentions in No Child Left Behind, in affirmative action hires in his administration, and even in the Iraq war, he adds:

You only have to listen to Bush talk about the virtues of immigration -- another liberal sentiment -- or his frequent mention of the "soft bigotry of low expectations" to appreciate that the president is a sentimental softie, what was once dismissively called a "mushy-headed liberal."

Cohen leaves out Bush's greatest liberal achievement: Drugs for Seniors, the single largest expansion of federal government to that time since Lyndon Johnson. He leaves it out because that's what really drives liberals crazy, how George Bush out-liberaled the liberals, and co-opted them for eight years.

That's why they really hated him.

Obamacare Declared Void in its Entirety by US District Judge in Florida

"Because the individual mandate [requiring Americans to buy health insurance on pain of fine] is unconstitutional and not severable, the entire act must be declared void."

-- US District Judge Roger Vinson (reported here)

The judge sided with the 26 (!) states which brought suit. His ruling will be appealed by the Obama regime.

President Pothead Meant Iraq, not Afghanistan

“As I said, we will be out of Afghanistan by the end of this year,” Obama said, a fairly significant misstatement of his administration’s Afghanistan policy, which doesn’t call for a troop withdrawal until 2014.

Politico.com did not attribute the mental lapse to damage caused by prolonged exposure to THC.

Preliminary Report of GDP for Q4 2010 at 3.2 Percent

Up from 2.6 percent in Q3.

This according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis here, which issued the customary caution:

The Bureau emphasized that the fourth-quarter advance estimate released today is based on source data that are incomplete or subject to further revision by the source agency . . .. The "second" estimate for the fourth quarter, based on more complete data, will be released on February 25, 2011.

When you consider that for all of 2010 GDP is estimated in some quarters at about only 2.9 percent overall, the economy is barely treading water seeing that GDP was negative 2.6 percent in the previous year, 2009. And to get it there it's been thrown a life preserver in the form of extreme government spending, loans and guarantees worth trillions upon trillions of dollars. We're not working on our third consecutive trillion-dollar-plus deficit for nothing. 

Applying these paddles and shots to the heart of the American economy has the patient out of intensive care, but its condition is still serious.

It's still a sham GDP for a sham economy. 

WhiteHouseDossier.com Says Obama Parties While Cairo Burns

The key point being the American journalism profession a bunch of hacks had nothing better to do than fete the president's political adviser while a real crisis, unlike the kind they usually spend their time manufacturing, was staring them in the face.

When oil hits $200 a barrel will anyone remember the Energy Secretary was there instead of planning how to contain the damage?

Feckless bastards one and all, but especially one Barack Hussein Obama.

Here's the link to the post at the left.

To the Left, Enforcing the Law is Right Wing Extremism

As in this from Conor Williams for The Washington Post:

Yet [the ex-governor's] views are hardly moderate at all: [Tim] Pawlenty has advocated fining or jailing business owners who employ undocumented immigrants. He's even suggested amending the Constitution to repeal birthright citizenship.

This approach to immigration policy could be disastrous for a region already suffering from economic hardship. The Midwest needs more immigrants - not fewer.

What the Midwest needs is fewer coastal pricks telling fly-over country what's what, and a vigorous emigration policy for liberals, from wherever they hail, including the Michigan governor's residence.

TSA's Pistole Pulls Plug on Private Screener Program

"It's unimaginable that TSA would suspend the most successfully performing passenger screening program we've had over the last decade," [Rep. John] Mica [R-FL] said Friday night.


"The agency should concentrate on cutting some of the more than 3,700 administrative personnel in Washington who concocted this decision, and reduce the army of TSA employees that has ballooned to more than 62,000."


More here.

AP News Frash: Rush Rimbaugh Must Aporogize, Right Now!

"Threats to minority lawmakers are not new," according to Judy Lin here.

Yeah, especially if you're a Republican lawmaker.


Is there a Caucasian American Journalists Association? 

Rush Imitates Hu Jintao

Ching Chong! Ching Chong Cha!

Stories here and here.

Proof That Education Improves Neither Character Nor Intelligence

As reported here in The San Francisco Chronicle:

A California university professor has been charged with peeing on a colleague's campus office door. ... Investigators say a dispute between Petrov and another math professor was the motive.

He did it twice. They caught him on tape on the second go, so to speak.

Sarah Palin Jumps Down in the Gutter with the Rest of Them

What a disappointment, in a string of disappointments:

His theme last night in the State of the Union was the "WTF," you know, "Winning the Future." And I thought, "OK, that acronym, spot on." There were a lot of "WTF" moments throughout that speech, namely, when he made the statement, Greta, that he believed that we can't allow ourselves to, I guess, eventually become buried under a mountain of debt. ...

That was another one of those WTF moments, when he so often repeated this Sputnik moment that he would aspire [sic] Americans to celebrate. ...

-- Sarah Palin, January 26, 2011, quoted here

Leadership seeks to elevate the discourse, to model the good that people may follow it. And this isn't it.

Obamacare Waivers Explode to 729 from 222 Since December 2010

Can we still say "explode"?

We've gone from 1.5 million to 2.2 million Americans on waivers in under two months.

The new health care law applies to fewer and fewer Americans because specially privileged groups seek and get waivers from the requirements. Which is to say that healthcare inequality under Obamacare is a growing problem.

How much you wanna bet under Obamacare the specially privileged never reach 85%, the proportion of Americans who had private health insurance before the law was passed and wanted to keep it? Which is to say that more Americans will lack "desirable" coverage because of Obamacare than will have lacked it before it (15%).

View the burgeoning list here.

Hu Jintao Embraces Lang Lang for White House Propaganda Coup

From Nicholas Eberstadt for The American, here:

But what, exactly, is this “gorgeous” and “beautiful” (Hu’s words) tune that so entranced China’s visiting leadership?

“My Motherland” is not a “Chinese song” in any ordinary meaning of the term. Instead, it is a Mao-era propaganda classic: the theme from "Triangle Hill" (Shangganling), a film in which heroic Chinese forces fight, kill, and eventually beat Americans in pitched battle during the Korean War.

“My Motherland” epitomizes the “Resist America, Aid [North] Korea” campaign that Beijing embraced during and after the Korean War. It celebrates Sino-American enmity.

Wikipedia Lang Lang Article Softened 'Jackal' to 'Wolves' for Political Reasons

Here's a screen shot of the Wikipedia discussion of the Lang Lang article between Arilang and Jim101 late on the night of January 23.

Arilang initiates the discussion saying he thinks the article will contribute to a "political storm" for Obama.

He immediately focuses on the word translated "jackal" from the song Lang Lang played at the White House state dinner for Hu. He seems to accept it as the natural translation (as do most unbiased observers), but he notices the new change of the translation in various places to "wolves" and asks Jim101 about it, obviously because he thinks Jim101 is responsible.

Jim101 admits he uses sources for posting which conform to translations which are guided by "the Chinese perception" of the US:  

Jim101 appears to have foreign loyalties, and a political axe to grind as heavy as the one he thinks Glenn Beck carries.

Lang Lang and "Jackals": Famous 1951 North Korean Novella by Han Sorya Vilifying USA, Celebrates Unpredictable Spontaneous Outbursts and Fits of Rage

According to BR Myers for The New York Times in May 2003, reproduced here:

In North Korea, the people's spontaneity is seen as one of the country's greatest strengths.

North Korean novels and movies often show the hero casting off the restraints of his book learning in a fit of wild, sometimes suicidal rage against the Japanese or American enemy. This political culture induces officials to tolerate a high level of violence in daily life; North Korean refugees attest that fistfights are the accepted way for men and women to settle even minor differences. While communism was always an internationalist movement, juche (literally, self-reliance) sees the world in ethnic terms. North Korean propaganda makes no distinction between American capitalists and American workers; the entire "Yankee" race is presented as inherently evil, degenerate and ugly. Dictionaries and textbooks suggest that Americans be described with bestial attributes ("snout" for nose, for example).

The central villain of Han Sorya's novella "Jackals" (1951), the country's most enduring work of fiction, tells of an American child who beats a Korean boy so brutally that he ends up in a hospital -- where he is murdered by the American's missionary parents. Since the South Korean government began pursuing its policy of rapprochement, the North's ethnocentric world view has become even more stark; the United States is now presented as being exclusively responsible for all tensions on the peninsula.

This propaganda appears to be effective even among North Koreans opposed to the rule of Kim Jong Il. When I visited a resettlement center for refugees near Seoul last year, many of those to whom I was introduced as an American recoiled in terror or glared at me in hatred.

Yeah, that song that Lang Lang played for Obama, with the lyrics about the jackal, that's just a complete coincidence! And totally innocuous and lacking in any cultural specificity whatsoever!

Han Sorya's 1951 'Jackals' is about an American missionary who deliberately kills a Korean boy by injecting him with germs.

(image source here)

Super Bowl "Unmanned Helicopters" is Code for DHS Spy Drones

The NBC DFW affiliate reports here:

Arlington Police have acquired some new equipment with homeland security grants including unmanned helicopters to watch over the stadium site [for the Super Bowl].

That's code for DraganFlyers, provided by DraganFly Innovations, Inc., teeny tiny little spy drones which look like little remote control toy helicopters but have sophisticated camera capabilities, as described here:

These Colors Don't Run: Reload!

The "America is a Jackal/Wolf" Metaphor is a Popular North Korean Trope

(source here)

Lang Lang Strikes a Chord: "Do Not Forget the American Jackals!"

North Korean War Propaganda

Lang Lang's choice of music at the White House state dinner for Chinese Paramount Leader Hu Jintao included an extremely popular Chinese patriotic song with these lyrics, in which "jackal" refers to America, which would be recognized by most every Chinese:

Great mountains, great rivers and an amazing place

Every road is flat and wide

When friends are here, there is fine wine

But if the jackal comes

What greets it is the hunting rifle

(source for poster above)

Lang Lang's Double Insult: Double Because We Didn't Know It

From The Epoch Times, here:

At the White House State dinner on Jan. 19, about six minutes into his set, Lang Lang began tapping out a famous anti-American propaganda melody from the Korean War: the theme song to the movie “Battle on Shangganling Mountain.” ... “In the eyes of all Chinese, this will not be seen as anything other than a big insult to the US,” says Yang Jingduan, a Chinese psychiatrist now living in Philadelphia who had in China been a doctor in the Chinese military. “It’s like insulting you in your face and you don’t know it, it’s humiliating.”

Here's a screenshot of the Wikipedia entry, before someone changes it:

Let's send Lang Lang back back to China where he belongs. The president can go with him.

Police in Colorado Use Draganflyer Spy Drone

According to The Washington Post, here:

"Not since the Taser has a technology promised so much for law enforcement," said Ben Miller of the Mesa County Sheriff's Office, which has used its drone, called a Draganflyer, to search for missing persons after receiving emergency authorization from the FAA.

From the company website here:

Carried in a backpack, ready for flight in minutes.

"At hover the Draganflyer X6 produces less than (approx.) 65dB of sound at one meter (3 feet), and less than (approx.) 60dB at three meters (9 feet)."

Used under very cold conditions at accident scene.

This unit was made ready for deployment under very cold conditions in the front seat of a police car.

Police in Austin, Texas, Deploy WASP to Reconnoiter Suspect's House

Story here in The Washington Post:

So the Texas agents did what no state or local law enforcement agency had done before in a high-risk operation: They launched a drone. A bird-size device called a Wasp floated hundreds of feet into the sky and instantly beamed live video to agents on the ground. The SWAT team stormed the house and arrested the suspect. ... Among state and local agencies, the Texas Department of Public Safety has been the most active user of drones for high-risk operations. Since the search outside Austin [in 2009] ... the agency has run six operations with drones, all near the southern border, where officers conducted surveillance of drug and human traffickers. ... In a 1986 Supreme Court case, justices were asked whether a police department violated constitutional protections against illegal search and seizure after it flew a small plane above the back yard of a man suspected of growing marijuana. The court ruled that "the Fourth Amendment simply does not require the police traveling in the public airways at this altitude to obtain a warrant in order to observe what is visible to the naked eye."

WASPs are made by AeroVironment, Inc.

You will have nowhere to hide from the tyranny, unless you stop it now.

Obama: When Life Begins Was "Above My Pay Grade"

But not now:

Today marks the 38th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that protects women's health and reproductive freedom 

[at the expense of someone else's life],

and affirms a fundamental principle: that government should not intrude on private family matters

[like buying health insurance, giving food and water to the chronically hospitalized, eating hamburgers and french fries for lunch, smoking cigarettes around your kids, spanking them, purchasing and using trigger locks . . . and once upon a time selling your slaves' children to the highest bidder].

I am committed to protecting this constitutional right


[except for the aborted child]

[which by the way was never intended by the framers of the 14th Amendment, but I digress].

I also remain committed to policies, initiatives, and programs that help prevent unintended pregnancies, support pregnant women and mothers, encourage healthy relationships, and promote adoption

[all of which are an intrusion on private family matters].

And on this anniversary, I hope that we will recommit ourselves more broadly to ensuring that our daughters have the same rights, the same freedoms, and the same opportunities as our sons to fulfill their dreams

[except for fatherhood and the right also to kill their unborn children].

-- Barack Insane Obama, January 22, 2011, here

In August of 2008, here, deciding when a baby is entitled to human rights was above his pay grade.

Obviously it isn't now. A baby isn't entitled to protections. A father isn't either. Only a woman is. That's what Obama is all about, not equality of rights, but special rights for protected classes of human beings. And that makes him no different than the slave holders of the past. 

Obama: "Punished With a Baby"

"When it comes specifically to HIV/AIDS, the most important prevention is education, which should include -- which should include abstinence education and teaching the children -- teaching children, you know, that sex is not something casual."

"But it should also include -- it should also include other, you know, information about contraception because, look, I've got two daughters. 9 years old and 6 years old."

"I am going to teach them first of all about values and morals. But if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby."


-- Barack Obama, March, 2008, quoted here

They applauded for that in Pennsylvania (here).

Philadelphia: Abortion Hellhole

Where eugenics is wrapped in feminist clothing.

The details here are unspeakable, like Birkenau.

We kid ourselves that our indifference is different than Philadelphia's. Our silence is complicity.

List of Elected Democrats Reported to be Packing Pistols

Rep. Steve Cohen, D (TN-9), here

Sen. Jim Webb, D (VA), here

List of Elected Republicans Reported to be Packing Pistols

Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R (UT-3), here

Rep. Allen West, R (FL-22), here

Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R (TN-7), here

Rep. Steve Womack, R (AR-3), here

Rep. Randy Neugebauer, R (TX-19), here

Pistol Packing US Representatives in North Carolina

Is your representative armed and dangerous?

Representative Renee Ellmers (R, NC-2) and Representative Heath Shuler (D, NC-11) both pack heat, according to this story from an NBC affiliate.

Now that's what I call self-government!

Competition is Always an Act of Aggression

Pat McIlheran of The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel likes the new governor's welcome signs at the borders and crafts this little gem at the end, aimed, like the signs, at the higher tax regimes in Illinois, Minnesota and Michigan:

"Competition is always an act of aggression toward systems that can survive only by coercion."

Full story here.

While Obama spent at least $9 million on signs bragging about stimulus projects, the new Wisconsin governor spent about $1,500 on 20 signs which advertize Wisconsin is open for business. And the best part may be that the new signs cover up the spot where the former governor's name appears.

Democrats' Map Targeting Republicans (with targets) in 2009 Still in Evidence on Facebook

Here's the link, and here's a good history of the story at Verum Serum.

closeup

Long Term Gold Chart 1975-2010

$200 gold in 1975 should be closer to $800 in 2010 when adjusted for inflation using CPI.

WTI Crude 1975-2010

$11 oil in 1975 adjusted for inflation using CPI would be about $44 in 2010.

New Hawaii Governor Can't Produce Obama's Hospital-Generated Birth Certificate

So says the UK Daily Mail here:

Pressure was mounting on Hawaii Governor Neil Abercrombie today amid increasing confusion over whether President Obama was born there.

Abercrombie said on Tuesday that an investigation had unearthed papers proving Obama was born in Hawaii in 1961.

He told Honolulu's Star-Advertiser: 'It actually exists in the archives, written down,' he said.

But it became apparent that what had been discovered was an unspecified listing or notation of Obama's birth that someone had made in the state archives and not a birth certificate.

And in the same interview Abercrombie suggested that a long-form, hospital-generated birth certificate for Barack Obama may not exist within the vital records maintained by the Hawaii Department of Health.

Neil Abercrombie may rue the day he ever brought this up.

Repudiation of Obamacare by US House After Only 10 Months is Historically Singular

So says The Wall Street Journal here, adding that its repeal was by more House members than was its passage:

More House Members—245 in total—voted to rescind the new entitlement than the 219 Democrats who voted to create it last March. That partisan majority narrowly prevailed over all 178 Republicans and some 38 Democrats. The three Democrats who favored repeal yesterday confirmed the bipartisan opposition to the kind of vast new social program that historically has been built on a national bipartisan consensus.

US House Repeals Obamacare 245-189: Democrats Become the Party of No

Well now. That didn't take long. And the Republicans didn't ruin our Christmas or Easter in repealing it, like the Democrats did in passing it. BRAVO!

Politico.com has the story here, noting that only 3 Democrats joined the Republicans in voting Yes:

Boren, OK-2

McIntyre, NC-7

Ross, AR-4.

The Roll Call is here.

Giffords, AZ-8, did not vote.

Latest Democrat's Nazi Remark Reminds Us It's a Family Tradition Made Famous By Nancy Pelosi

Dating to August 6, 2009, when health care reform was being protested at townhall meetings across the country, and Pelosi implied that the protestors were Nazis.

She and Steny Hoyer also called the protestors "un-American" in a famous op-ed in USA Today here.

For the swastikas video go here, and for the transcription go here:

Interviewer: Do you think there’s legitimate grassroot opposition going on here?

Pelosi: I think they’re Astroturf… You be the judge. They’re carrying swastikas and symbols like that to a town meeting on healthcare.

Tennessee Democrat Didn't Get the Civil Discourse Memo

ABC News has the story here:

“They say it's a government takeover of health care, a big lie just like Goebbels. You say it enough, you repeat the lie, you repeat the lie, and eventually, people believe it.  Like blood libel.  That's the same kind of thing.

“The Germans said enough about the Jews and people believed it--believed it and you have the Holocaust.  We heard on this floor, government takeover of health care.  Politifact said the biggest lie of 2010 was a government takeover of health care because there is no government takeover."

-- Representative Steve Cohen, D-TN

TSA Warns Photography Can Cross The Line Into Surveillance!

An official from the Transportation Security Administration told Local 10 [Miami] that if photography is stepping over the line into surveillance, TSA agents should alert police, which is what happened in Aboyade's case.

Oh, really!

Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.

Story here.

At least they caught an illegal.

Arizona Democrats Stirred the Libertarian Pot Loughner Drank From

Was Jared Loughner moved to kill because he thought fellow Jew Gabrielle Giffords' political tactics were manipulative?

He certainly thought the US government was manipulating people through language, through math, through fiat money, even through religion, the message of which is represented on coin and currency. That's why Loughner said he wouldn't use money not backed by gold and silver to pay debts, and why he wouldn't trust in God. The entire structure of reality was manipulated as far as Loughner was concerned, including 911, a conspiracy of lies orchestrated by the government.

So did Loughner discover that Giffords, too, had manipulated the election in their own district? Is that why he waited to buy his gun until almost a month after Giffords won?

Consider that Giffords' fellow Democrats barraged her district late in October 2010 with a mailing promoting the third party Libertarian candidate, who ended up bleeding off over 10,000 votes in the race, which Giffords won by less than 3,700 votes over Republican challenger Jesse Kelly.

The Arizona Daily Star broke the story here, reporting on it just days before the November 2010 election. In it, it quoted Jennifer Johnson, spokeswoman for Arizona's Democratic Party, as saying:

“It’s about letting voters know their choices, and when it comes to tea party ideals and knowing the Constitution, Jesse Kelly doesn’t hold a candle to Steve Stoltz. So we are simply letting voters know about their choices in this race.”

The strategy obviously worked . . . a little too well, for Giffords and her fellow victims.

WBZ-TV Claims Blogger Who Wrote "1 Down, 534 to Go" is a Libertarian

First we have Bush-hater and truther-inspired son of a Jewess Jared Loughner spouting atheism and hard money, ideas commonly conjoined only in Libertarian circles, and now we get a self-described Libertarian applauding the shooting of Jewish Congresswoman Giffords in a blog post entitled "1 Down, 534 to Go."

And still no one is calling attention to the Libertarian connection, because the left wants to paint the whole right with that broad brush, and because the right knows that the Tea Party is half Libertarian but needs its support.

Libertarianism is soulless, and neither left nor right should make a pact with that devil.

Read the WBZ-TV story and watch the video here.

Federal Reserve Arrogates Power in Third Mandate

The financial blogs are all abuzz over Ben Bernanke's comments last week in which he matter of factly points to a rising stock market as proof that purchase of treasuries by the Fed is helping the economy.

James Saft for Reuters is the latest to comment on the remark by Bernanke:

“Our policies have contributed to a stronger stock market, just as they did in March of 2009, when we did the last iteration (of quantitative easing). The S and P 500 is up about 20 percent plus and the Russell 2000 is up 30 pct plus.” ...

While we have known for months that the Fed was targeting asset prices with QE, it really is shocking to hear it enunciated so clearly. ...

The Federal Reserve is deeply compromised by doing this; it is two thirds of the way down a slippery slope and the mud is starting to fall from above.

This describes what is just the flip side of the growing American fascist police state under Obama's Department of Homeland Security. Call it Corporatism if you wish. State Capitalism if you must. The plain fact is we have good old fashioned National Socialism, and its scapegoats are the so-called right wing extremists, the new Jews. The black is calling the kettle pot.

The difference this time is we're mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore. 

Denise in Houston Tells Laura Ingraham Democrats Patronize Blacks All of the Time

In the call of the day this morning to Laura's show, posted here, a black woman named Denise unloads on Democrats and Obama:

I don't need Republicans to like me ...

Democrats patronize blacks all of the time ...

They only show up at election time. They're just hypocrites. I'd like to give all of them the big ten toe salute from Denise . . . kick all of them . . . right in their behinds, 'cause they're nothing but phonies. ...

They say the church is loaded with hypocrites, but whenever you show up there's one extra there. So [Obama] can just stay at home and save himself some trouble.

Call of the decade more like it. The audio at the link above has to be listened to, to be properly appreciated.

Mm. Mm. Mm.

Obama Laughed Out Loud When Wanda Sykes Hoped Rush Limbaugh's Kidneys Failed

Remember this from the White House Correspondents' Dinner, May 9, 2009?

Transcript:

WANDA SYKES: Rush Limbaugh, one of your big critics. Uh, boy, Rush Limbaugh said he hopes this administration fails.

You know, so you're saying, 'I hope America fails.' You're like, 'I don't care about people losing their homes, their jobs, our soldiers in Iraq.' He just wants the country to fail.

To me, that's treason. He's not saying anything differently than what Osama bin Laden is saying.

You know, you might want to look into this, sir, because I think maybe Rush Limbaugh was the 20th hijacker, but he was so strung out on Oxycontin he missed his flight.

Too much? But you're laughing inside. I know you're laughing.

Obama wasn't "laughing inside." He was laughing openly at Sykes' ugly remarks.

SYKES: Rush Limbaugh -- 'I hope the country the fails.' I hope his kidneys fail. How 'bout that?

He needs a little waterboarding. That's what he needs.

Wow.

I'm not surprised that Sykes would say that stuff; but I am surprised that Obama would allow himself to be seen laughing at such horrible remarks.

The above from Freedom Eden here.

See it here and here.

Additional commentary in The UK Telegraph here by Toby Harnden:

Hard to take from the man who promised a new era of civility and elevated debate in Washington.