Hillary, Holder and Shulman: Obama's Know-Nothing Government Zoo?

Hillary Holder and Shulman

Jonathan Turley in The Washington Post, here, warns about the growth of Leviathan, the administrative state, which makes monkeys out of its politically appointed overseers (or does it?):

There were times this past week when it seemed like the 19th-century Know-Nothing Party had returned to Washington. President Obama insisted he knew nothing about major decisions in the State Department, or the Justice Department, or the Internal Revenue Service. The heads of those agencies, in turn, insisted they knew nothing about major decisions by their subordinates. It was as if the government functioned by some hidden hand.

Clearly, there was a degree of willful blindness in these claims. However, the suggestion that someone, even the president, is in control of today’s government may be an illusion. ...

For much of our nation’s history, the federal government was quite small. In 1790, it had just 1,000 nonmilitary workers. In 1962, there were 2,515,000 federal employees. Today, we have 2,840,000 federal workers in 15 departments, 69 agencies and 383 nonmilitary sub-agencies. ...

[T]he Supreme Court ruled in 1984 that agencies are entitled to heavy deference in their interpretations of laws. The court went even further this past week, ruling that agencies should get the same heavy deference in determining their own jurisdictions — a power that was previously believed to rest with Congress. In his dissent in Arlington v. FCC, Chief Justice John Roberts warned: "It would be a bit much to describe the result as ‘the very definition of tyranny,’ but the danger posed by the growing power of the administrative state cannot be dismissed.”

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Doesn't this line of argument smell just a little like a pre-emptive defense of the bad monkeys who were actually up to no good? Perhaps a diversionary tactic? Throughout the article, Turley constantly refers to the untouchable agencies as "the fourth branch" of the government. Isn't this a deliberate rhetorical shift? The fourth estate, the press, has been the traditional conception from the time of Carlyle. The fourth branch appears to be a recent innovation, a neologism originating in a leftist critique of the media when captured by the elected, usually Republican, government (as fine a description of the current Obama regime as any, which might be a reason Turley seeks to redeploy the term for what conservatives have long termed the managerial state to keep the focus off the compromised media--it's more prudent for a liberal to change the subject from media complicity when it's media complicity with liberalism we're talking about).

It's also suspicious when liberals start talking like conservatives just when their side starts getting its feet held to the fire. And isn't it also a little rich to hear John Roberts warning about the growing power of the administrative state when on behalf of the third branch of government he basically shoved ObamaCare down the throats of the American people against their will? Or is Leviathan so irresistable that the judiciary follows the legislative in ceding its own power to the faceless bureaucracy?

It would probably behoove the cause of liberty more to forego a special prosecutor in the IRS scandal at this time simply in order to keep televised hearings before the eyeballs of all. Educating the people about the malfeasance of the so-called fourth branch under Obama is job one in order to pierce the fourth estate's media halo around their hero Obama.

America Still Stands Despite Enemies Foreign . . .

. . . and domestic.

Obama's Tea Party Attack Dog Bob Bauer Is A Maoist Like His Wife, Anita Dunn

"struggle session"

From Investor's Business Daily, here, which thinks the dots connect to Obama:

But as the Wall Street Journal's Kimberly Strassel reminds us, Obama's 2008 campaign was demanding the Justice Department criminally prosecute conservative groups with 501(c)4 tax-exempt status. Then, last year, President Obama's re-election campaign "targeted private citizens who had donated to Romney groups."

The chief operative? Longtime Democratic Party lawyer Robert Bauer, general counsel for Obama's presidential campaigns, White House general counsel during Obama's first term, Democratic National Committee general counsel, and the Democrats' counsel in President Bill Clinton's Senate impeachment trial. And, not least, husband of Democratic political strategist Anita Dunn, White House communications director in Obama's first term, and now an MSNBC contributor.

Actually, the dots connect beyond Obama to Mao.

Maggie's Notebook prominently showcased Bauer and Dunn as a couple already in 2009, here. We should have understood better what this implied. While Anita Dunn is on record stating her admiration for Mao, Bauer actually has been busy echoing Maoism in his capacity as Obama's personal lawyer and as general counsel for the White House and the Obama political campaigns.

One of the main techniques of Mao's Great Leap Forward in China was for local communist parties to target landowners for public intimidation in "struggle sessions" in order to break the grip of counterrevolutionary power in the countryside. They ended up executing an estimated 2 million of them during the 1950s. As a feature of the permanent revolution, the struggle sessions eventually made it to the cities where counterrevolutionary rival communists were frequently targeted and persecuted.

These struggle sessions have been adapted to the new revolutionary environment by the Obama Left. Whether it's Acorn cadres occupying bank lobbies, or using the Justice Department, the IRS, and individual US Representatives and Senators to single out private citizens, businesses and nonprofits on political grounds, targeting one's political and class enemies with whatever means are available comes straight from the dark ages of 20th century communism, brought to you by ObaMao and Company.

China was ready to welcome one of their own.

The new Great Leap Forward

No bank failures so far tonight

The total stands at 13 for 2013.

Happy full moon everybody!

Rush Limbaugh Continues In Error: McCain Did NOT Get More Votes Than Romney

Rush Limbaugh can be so wrong sometimes it's infuriating, and once he gets some misinformation into his head, it's almost impossible to get it out of there. He can complain about the low information voters all he wants, but it's the lazy misinformation he spews which we all need to worry about, as when Rush won't allow Donald Trump into the conservative movement because The Donald wants to raise tariffs to beat the hell out of China. That's not conservative, Rush says, nevermind a tariff regime funded this country clear through the War Between The States and many decades thereafter. The fact is that Rush Limbaugh's version of conservatism doesn't win because it can't imagine America before 1913, isn't intelligent and doesn't compel assent for that reason. America still has an institutional memory, and the people still can tell when someone makes sense and when they don't.

Rush opened the second hour of the program today, here, claiming for the umpteenth time that Romney got fewer votes than McCain, which he didn't: "Obama got millions fewer votes in 2012 than he did in '08, but so did Romney get many million fewer votes than did McCain." This phone-it-in comment is in service of Rush's new vote suppression meme, i.e. Democrat suppression of Republicans, courtesy of the new IRS nonprofits targeting scandal. But the theory is completely unsupported by the facts of the last election. How different is this misinformation than the idea swallowed hook line and sinker by Republicans that they lost in 2012 because they lost the Hispanic vote? Maybe they lost the white vote. 

Romney polled 60.93 million in 2012 and McCain 59.95 million in 2008, okay? And Romney lost the election by half as many votes in the swing states as McCain lost it by in those same states. Romney was a better candidate than McCain, but he was still a bad candidate.

With what's happened with the IRS scandal I don't think Rush will ever be convinced he's wrong about the 2012 election numbers, even though he is.

That would require some effort on his part, and as we all know, the older we get, the harder that gets.

IRS Scandal Under Democrat Shulman Is The Bipartisan Gift That Keeps On Giving

Rush Limbaugh, here:

"By the way, everybody is making a big deal out of the fact that Shulman was a Bush appointee. All right, let me deal with that. We must. Yeah, he was a Bush appointee, but he's a Democrat. Douglas Shulman is a Democrat. He gave the Democrat National Committee $250 a month before Bush appointed him to his job. Do you know what Shulman is? Shulman is one of countless Bush appointees who were put there by Bush -- Democrats -- in order to show bipartisanship.

"Remember he had that Florida aftermath -- all this acrimony, hatred and partisanship -- and Bush put a lot of Democrats in positions, and he left a lot of Democrats in positions -- as a show of good faith, in an attempt to show compassionate conservatism, in an attempt to mend fences with the Democrats. It didn't matter. It never will work that way. It never does matter. But that's what Bush was trying to do. Shulman's a Democrat. He's a lifelong Democrat. He's a Democrat partisan."

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President George W. Bush appointed Douglas Shulman to run the IRS in November 2007 as the political wheels were coming off the Bush administration bus after the Democrats took over the US House in the November 2006 elections, and as the economic wheels began coming off the country as the housing bubble popped and banks began to fail in 2007.

Meanwhile we have now learned from Kim Strassel of The Wall Street Journal here that the general counsel of the 2008 Obama campaign and later also the general counsel in the White House, Bob Bauer, was part of a new and broad attempt by Obama's leftists to suppress conservatives precisely on their own nonprofit turf:

'Bob Bauer, general counsel for the campaign (and later general counsel for the White House), on the same day [August 21, 2008] wrote to the criminal division of the Justice Department, demanding an investigation into AIP [American Issues Project], "its officers and directors," and its "anonymous donors." Mr. Bauer claimed that the nonprofit, as a 501(c)(4), was committing a "knowing and willful violation" of election law, and wanted "action to enforce against criminal violations."

'The Bauer onslaught was a big part of a new liberal strategy to thwart the rise of conservative groups. In early August 2008, the New York Times trumpeted the creation of a left-wing group (a 501(c)4) called Accountable America. Founded by Obama supporter and liberal activist Tom Mattzie, the group—as the story explained—would start by sending "warning" letters to 10,000 GOP donors, "hoping to create a chilling effect that will dry up contributions." The letters would alert "right-wing groups to a variety of potential dangers, including legal trouble, public exposure and watchdog groups digging through their lives." As Mr. Mattzie told Mother Jones: "We're going to put them at risk."'

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Someone at the IRS embarked on the exact same strategy of creating a chilling effect at least from March 2010, perhaps in the wake of Citizens United in January 2010, but the strategy, and the practice, predates it.

How Shulman could not have known about it is hard to believe.

  

Old Yeller, New Yellen?

“When the time has come, am I going to support raising interest rates? You bet.” 

Janet Yellen, quoted here.

George Will's Euphemism For The Left's And Obama's Tyranny

"[P]rogressivism’s agenda — unchecked executive power."

Read all about it, here.

Former Sen. Phil Gramm Underestimates The Cost Of Obama's Debt Bomb

Sen. Phil Gramm for The Wall Street Journal, here:

Since the World War II era, the average maturity of outstanding federal debt has been about five years, and the average interest cost on a five-year Treasury note has been 5.9%. At this interest rate, the expected cost of the Obama debt burden will eventually approach some $590 billion per year in perpetuity, exceeding the current annual cost of any federal program except Social Security.

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As might be expected, the senator who didn't understand the consequences of the final repeal of Glass-Steagall in 1999 grossly underestimates the cost of carrying the national debt under a normalized interest rate environment.

Interest expense on the debt for fiscal 2009-2012 has averaged $404 billion annually. The debt to the penny on October 1 for each year 2009-2012 has averaged $14.1 trillion annually. Therefore the implied interest rate has been 2.87% annually. Normalized to 5.9% as he suggests, which is just a little more than double the current average rate, the debt service interest expense would have been $832 billion annually, over 40% higher than the former senator predicts down the road.

Of course, not all debt resets instantly in a rising interest rate environment, but in view of the number, size and long duration of many of the securities on the fed's balance sheet which would suffer immediate declines in net asset values, it is difficult to imagine how the fed could prevent a bond market debacle and unwind everything as gradually, and as imprudently, as it wound it up in the first place.

This is what passes for conservatism, folks.

Lois Lerner Pleads The Fifth Amendment After Trampling On The First

Seen here.

The Current Asset Allocation Of The United States

Total bond market: $38 trillion (Bloomberg/SIFMA here)

Total stock market: $21 trillion (Wilshire 5000 x 1.2)

MZM money stock:$12 trillion (StLouisFed here)

That's 17% to cash, 30% to stocks, and 53% to bonds.

With stock and bond markets at all time highs, the country really ought to be raising cash.

The 3-Month Treasury Yield Is An "Abomination"

So says John Hussman, here:

The 3-month Treasury yield now stands at a single basis point. Unwinding this abomination to restore even 2% Treasury bill rates implies a return to less than 10 cents of monetary base per dollar of nominal GDP. To do this without a balance sheet reduction would require 12 years of 6% nominal growth (which is fairly incompatible with sub-2% yields), a more extended limbo of stagnant economic growth like Japan, or significant inflation pressures – most likely in the back half of this decade. The alternative is to conduct the largest monetary tightening in the history of the world.

Normalization of yields to even 2% implies 50% balance sheet contraction [see his last graph].

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The latter would mean a contraction of $1.55 trillion or so based on the current level, and that those securities would not mature on the balance sheet for their respective terms and come off naturally over time but quickly in a disorderly fashion, and therefore a bond market debacle is implied, and that to be defensive under this threat is to remain in cash, painful as that is.

Latest Tanana River, AK, Ice-Out In 97 Years Today, Surpassing 1964 Record By Hours

Story here, where they live-blogged the event linked to the official Nenana Alaska "Ice Classic" webcam.

Up there you pays you money and takes you chances. But it's only $2.50 for a ticket, on which you predict the date and time of the ice-out, which seems to occur as early as April 20 and as late as, well, today. If you're the closest, you win the kitty, this year over $318K.

Previously scientists were wont to point to seemingly earlier and earlier ice-outs on this river as evidence of the phenomenon of global warming. The long record in this location, however, has shown a cyclicality of its own which on days like today produces silence from that community. 

It was like watching paint dry overnight, but one guy did show up all alone in the parking lot to entertain everyone for a moment by mooning the cam, which is fixed on the tripod-like marker placed out in the ice every March for the event. 

Ron Fournier: Obama Is An Incompetent, Obfuscatory, Demagogic, Bungling Political Quack And Buffoon

Well, that about covers it from the former Washington Bureau Chief of the Associated Press.

Ron Fournier says all that, and more, for National Journal here.

Obama's IRS, FBI, ATF And OSHA Gang Up Vs. Family At Center Of TrueTheVote

There is must reading here today at National Review about coordinated Obama regime harassment of the family at the center of TrueTheVote.org.

America Remains In A Depression

So says James Rickards, here:

“We don’t have to worry about a recession — we are in a depression,” says James Rickards. “If you take the classic definition of a sustained, long-term downturn with economic growth below trend, then we are in the midst of a depression,” says the senior managing director of Tangent Capital and author of “Currency Wars.” Rickards doesn’t see Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke as having the solution to the economic malaise gripping the county.

Real GDP per capita through 1/1/11 bears this out (I think this gets updated through 1/1/12 this summer in the big annual GDP revision):

The peak to trough decline was 5.1% January 2007 to January 2009.

The metric remains 2.6% off peak.

Obama Remains A Small Man Without The Courage Of His Socialist Convictions

Here The New York Times matter of factly displays Obama the socialist, longing to be free like the character Bulworth ("Yeah, yeah / You can call it single-payer or Canadian way / Only socialized medicine will ever save the day! Come on now, lemme hear that dirty word - SOCIALISM!"):

In private, he has talked longingly of “going Bulworth,” a reference to a little-remembered 1998 Warren Beatty movie about a senator who risked it all to say what he really thought. While Mr. Beatty’s character had neither the power nor the platform of a president, the metaphor highlights Mr. Obama’s desire to be liberated from what he sees as the hindrances on him.

“Probably every president says that from time to time,” said David Axelrod, another longtime adviser who has heard Mr. Obama’s movie-inspired aspiration. “It’s probably cathartic just to say it. But the reality is that while you want to be truthful, you want to be straightforward, you also want to be practical about whatever you’re saying.”

Inflation Year Over Year April Is 1.06%: Bob Brinker Thinks That's Great!

Here's a news flash for you: At 1% inflation it will take about 69 years to halve the value of your money. I said halve it. To many people like Bob Brinker on his radio program "Money Talk" today it is more than acceptable that after 69 years go by your dollar will be then worth 50 cents. That's what the rule of 72 teaches, but our contemporaries couldn't care less about rules, especially involving MATH!

Back in the good old days of the gold standard when you couldn't pull a fast one on the average Joe without getting a bullet in your chest, a dollar from 1774 lost nearly NOTHING of its value by 1899, when you needed an extra 3 cents to buy what $1 bought 125 years prior.

But things have completely collapsed in this country in the 113 years since 1899. Compared to then, in 2012 you needed $28.60 to buy what your $1.03 could buy two years before the close of the 19th century. What would you choose? A loss of 3 cents over 125 years, or a loss of $27.57 over 113 years, for every dollar you own?

The founders of our country would find today's relatively very low rate of inflation an outrage and a cause for taking up arms against the government because the government of the United States is robbing its own people blind as a matter of policy.

None dare call it tyranny.

Obama's Choom Gang In 2012

Another Big Lois Lerner Lie: There Was No Surge In 501(c)(4) Applications In 2010

In addition to trying to deceive the public that the IRS under Obama has been a transparent, apolitical arm of the government by planting the question she took from the audience of an American Bar Association conference, now we learn there was no surge in tax-exempt applications from conservatives as Lois Lerner has said, undermining her excuse that aggregating them in that way was merely an administrative efficiency.

TheAtlantic.com here explains how on Friday it was revealed that the IRS itself provided data to the Inspector General which shows the actual number of such applications went down in 2010, not up as she claimed in testimony:

Lois Lerner is a snake who, sensing a threat, struck before the Inspector General's disclosure that the IRS unaccountably and exclusively targeted Tea Party and other conservative group applications, and then recoiled to the safety of a demonstrably false excuse.

Like the rest of the incompetents in Obama's administration, she can't even lie properly.