US Senate: Den of Thieves

Trains for Transportation? Try Painful Transformation.

Patrick McIlheran for the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, here, describes a transportation policy being shoved down our throats as surely as was Obamacare, just saying No to which isn't going to stop them:

"Obama promised change, but it is you who will undergo it. In 2008, you were electing a whole new you."

Louis Woodhill Thinks Gold at $218 the Ounce is About Right

Here, based in large measure on what it can buy, in relative terms.

Here's a similar way to look at it from measuringworth.com, using the 1913 price of gold in dollars:

Either way you cut it, gold is presently overvalued.

Some Call This a Buying Opportunity

The Res Gestae Divi Obama: Chooser, Declarer, Charger, Believer, Promiser, Director, Memorializer, Giver of Thanks, Uniter, Interpreter of Events, Perserverer

Naw, we don't spike the football:

When I chose Leon Panetta as Director of the CIA, I said he was going to be a strong advocate for this agency and would strengthen your capabilities to meet the threats of our time.

And when I chose Jim Clapper as Director of National Intelligence, I charged him with making sure that our intelligence community works as one integrated team.

On my first visit, just months after taking office, I stood here and I said that this agency and our entire intelligence community is fundamental to America’s national security. I said that I believed that your best days were still to come and I pledged that you would have my full support to carry out your critical work. 

Soon after that visit, I called Leon into the Oval Office and I directed him to make the killing or capture of Osama bin Laden the top priority in our war to defeat al Qaeda.

My second visit, a year later, came under more somber circumstances. We gathered to pay tribute to seven American patriots who gave their lives in this fight at a remote post in Afghanistan. As has already been mentioned, their stars now grace this memorial wall. And through our grief and our tears, we resolved that their sacrifice would be our summons to carry on their work, to complete this mission, to win this war.

Today I’ve returned just to say thank you, on behalf of all Americans and people around the world, because you carried on. You stayed focused on your mission. You honored the memory of your fallen colleagues. And in helping to locate and take down Osama bin Laden, you made it possible for us to achieve the most significant victory yet in our war to defeat al Qaeda. 

I just met with some of the outstanding leaders and teams from across the community who worked so long and so hard to make that raid a success. And I’m pleased today that we’re joined by representatives from all of our intelligence agencies, and that folks are watching this live back at all of those agencies, because this truly was a team effort.

This is one of the few times when all these leaders and organizations have the occasion to appear together publicly. And so I thank all of you for coming -- because I think it’s so important for the American people to see all of you here today.

That’s why I came here.  I wanted every single one of you to know, whether you work at the CIA or across the community, at every step of our effort to take out bin Laden, the work you did and the quality of the intelligence that you provided made the critical difference -- to me, to our team on those helicopters, to our nation.   

After I directed that getting bin Laden be the priority, you hunkered down even more, building on years of painstaking work; pulling together, in some cases, the slenderest of intelligence streams, running those threads to ground until you found that courier and you tracked him to that compound.

In the months that followed, including all those meetings in the Situation Room, we did what sound intelligence demands:  We pushed for more collection.  We pushed for more evidence.  We questioned our assumptions.  You strengthened your analysis.  You didn’t bite your tongue and try to spin the ball, but you gave it to me straight each and every time.

And we did something really remarkable in Washington -- we kept it a secret.  (Laughter and applause.)  That’s how it should be. 

Of course, when the time came to actually make the decision, we didn’t know for sure that bin Laden was there.  The evidence was circumstantial and the risks, especially to the lives of our special operations forces, were huge.  And I knew that the consequences of failure could be enormous.  But I made the decision that I did because I had absolute confidence in the skill of our military personnel and I had confidence in you.  I put my bet on you.  And now the whole world knows that that faith in you was justified. 

That’s why I still believe in what I said my first visit here two years ago:  Your greatest days are still to come.  And if any of you doubt what this means, I wish I could have taken some of you on the trip I made to New York City, where we laid a wreath at Ground Zero, and I had a chance to meet firefighters who had lost an entire shift; police officers who had lost their comrades; a young woman, 14 years old, who had written to me because her last memory of her father was talking to him on the phone while her mother wept beside her, right before they watched the tower go down. 

And she and other members of families of 9/11 victims talked about what this meant.  It meant that their suffering had not been forgotten, and that the American community stands with them, that we stand with each other. 

Liberal Senate Republicans Stand in the Way on Passage of Ryan Budget

As reported here.

They might as well switch parties:

Mitch McConnell

Susan Collins

Scott Brown

Olympia Snowe

Kay Bailey Hutchison

Dick Lugar

Chuck Grassley.

Free Ticket

"Have we eliminated Social Injustice or Poverty? Or, has the unintended consequence been to create a Welfare State which has become a tool to destroy many American families? Have we not created an opportunity for millions to behave irresponsibly without personal accountability while taxpayers pick up 'the tab'?"

(source)

Growth in 2000s 38 Percent Lower Than 1930s

Louis Woodhill doesn't much like the Paul Ryan plan because of "static analysis," here, but fails to note that Ryan's is an intellectual and political concession to the status quo. This has been the GOP's problem for decades, and why we perceive the party to be "moderate" and a paler reflection of liberalism. Why vote for that when you can get the real thing from Democrats?

Unsurpisingly, support for the Ryan plan is overwhelming in the over-55 set, for whom the plan changes nothing. Those who stand to lose under it, however, and lose votes, understandably don't like it. America's problem has been and remains addiction to socialism. That Ryan is trying to chip away at this is really what drives liberals crazy, but America simply cannot afford to continue spending $30,000 per year subsidizing every retiree in the country.

Woodhill unintentionally provides support for this point in his brief history of economic growth, which should be a wake-up call for conservatives who need to re-assess their past support for Bush era Republicanism. 

Average real annual rates of growth by decade:

1930s: 2.71 percent

1940s: 5.57 percent

1950s: 3.50 percent

1960s: 4.20 percent

1970s: 3.18 percent

1980s: 3.24 percent

1990s: 3.40 percent

2000s: 1.67 percent

"This last number is shocking. Our real growth rate in the 2000s was less than half of the average (3.5 percent) from 1930 to 2000, and it was 38 percent lower than that of the 'Great Depression' decade of the 1930s."

Yes, the 2000s, when George W. Bush out-liberaled the liberals and expanded government more than at any time since the Great Society programs of the 1960s, with his massive "drugs for seniors" program. Why, he even got liberals to vote for two wars at the same time. Talk about guns and butter.

No wonder Democrat liberals hate him. No wonder growth went nowhere.

Rare Sighting of the Equally Rare "Plum Whale"

Obamacare Waivers Now Total 1372

Waivers have increased 332 since early March. The data may be found here.

TheHill.com has a story about it here.

The Daily Caller has another one here, quite delicious: it seems Nancy Pelosi's district has gotten 20 percent of the latest waivers, with lots of them going to up-scale eateries and the like in San Franfreako.

Equality under the law?

Fuhgeddaboutit.

Here's Some Novel Healthcare Accountability For Ya: Pay or Die!

“I think we have to find a way to hold people accountable for paying for their health care."

-- Newt Gingrich, quoted here

No Newts in 2012

Everybody's piling on today. ThinkProgress.org on the left is one, with links to some of the righties joining on the pile, here. George Will notably on Sunday called his an unserious candidacy. Indeed.

Does Newt really expect us to believe that his different version of a healthcare mandate is any less radical than Obama's, or than Rep. Paul Ryan's proposed entitlement reforms for that matter?

Newt evidently also thinks that his long history of flip-flops, detailed by The Weekly Standard, doesn't matter in the new world of Obama's promises with expiration dates.

Need for Cooling Water at Fukushima Reactors Due to Leaks, Not Boil-Off

Leaks in the pressure vessels themselves, where the fuel is. In other words, perhaps three of the reactors are technically in a state of meltdown and breached containment.

This appears to be the conclusion this week, ever since repair of a water gauge has resulted in data showing that the water is disappearing at a faster rate than otherwise expected, and apparently accumulating in the lower levels of the plant, in the turbine buildings. Radiation levels where the water is pooling are said in a Wall Street Journal story to be in the range of 1 to 2 Sieverts per hour. A two hour exposure at such levels would kill you in 30 days.

Scientific American has these details via Reuters:

"There must be a large leak," Junichi Matsumoto, a general manager at the utility [TEPCO] told a news conference.

"The fuel pellets likely melted and fell, and in the process may have damaged...the pressure vessel itself and created a hole," he added.

Since the surface temperature of the pressure vessel has been holding steady between 100 and 120 degrees Celsius, Matsumoto said the effort to cool the melted uranium fuel by pumping in water was working and would continue.

VESSEL HAS A HOLE

Based on the amount of water that is remaining around the partially melted and collapsed fuel, Matsumoto estimated that the pressure vessel had developed a hole of several centimeters in diameter.

Read the full story, here.

Fukushima Reactor 1 Melting Fuel Rods Put Small Holes in Pressure Vessel by 3/12

According to a report at NHK World here, and The Wall Street Journal here.

Without quick action to pour on water and keep it on, it would have been much worse. But as it was, it was and is far worse than some realized.

Newt Thinks Paul Ryan is a Right Wing Radical

Here.

If Jack Kemp were alive to hear that, he'd have died of a heart attack on the spot after the laugh heard round the world. PAUL RYAN REPRESENTS THE MIDDLE.

I suppose declaring independence from Great Britain would have been too radical for Newt, too.

Is this what happens to conservatives when they become Catholics?

Tsunami, Thy Name is Debt

TSA Blog Has a "Delete-O-Meter"!

Feeling you up and spiking your opinion at the same time!

(source)

Bank Failures By Year

2000: 002

2001: 004

2002: 011

2003: 003

2004: 004

2007: 003

2008: 025

2009: 140

2010: 157

Year to Date 2011: 40

The Line of the Day from Real Clear Politics

"I heard the line was too long so Osama gave up."

-- kegan05, comment in response to:

"Osama Bin Laden Wanted To Kill President Obama"

George Bush: The Smug Head Speaks

Just recently, here:

Bush said US foreign policy needs to continue to promote the ideas of democracy and freedom as a way to combat global terrorism.

"The long-term solution is to promote a better ideology, which is freedom. Freedom is universal," Bush said.

The problem is that 1.57 billion people around the world, who value submission as a way of life over freedom, would not agree.

Fighting ideology with ideology is not the solution.