Congressional Liars Caught in the Act, Part II

And now we take you to the show trial that never was...

You may recall that, after Pelosi-care was passed, Caterpillar, AT&T, and a number of other major American corporations took immediate, gigantic writedowns against their current income as a result of certain of the bill's provisions. Always quick to demagogue, the 'Rats--led by the despicable Marxist Henry Waxman and the gutless soon-to-be-former-Congressman from Michigan's Upper Peninsula, Bart Stupak--decided to demand an appearance by the CEOs of these and other companies to explain their obviously phony provocations. But there was a problem.

Again citing Power Line, which is dead on this week, let Scott Johnson explain this for you:

...when Caterpillar and the other companies took the charges against earnings, the White House suggested that companies were exaggerating the effects of the tax change. Obama administration Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke dutifully peddled the administration line, asserting that the companies were being "premature and irresponsible" in taking the chargeoffs.


Reps. Henry Waxman and Bart Stupak opened an investigation and demanded that four companies -- AT&T, Caterpillar, Deere and Verizon -- supply documents analyzing the "impact of health care reform," together with an explanation of their accounting methods. The Democrats apparently thought that they could eliminate a corporate tax deduction for the purpose of raising government revenue without affecting corporate earnings. That's why deep thinkers like Waxman and Stupak are paid the big bucks by taxpayers.


Waxman and Stupak even planned to produce a bit of political theater, scheduling a hearing on the chargeoffs at which the companies' executives were to testify. The production was canceled when Waxman was apprised of the obvious consequences of the bill he and his Democratic buddies had just voted for. 

What consequences? The fact that, according to currently acceptable accounting procedures, Caterpillar, AT&T, and other companies were, in fact, REQUIRED to take IMMEDIATE WRITEDOWNS. In other words, Waxman, et. al., were so ignorant of this provision of their bill, which they obviously never read or understood, that they were fully prepared to conduct a show trial which would, in fact, end up with THEM, not the corporate CEOs, looking like the asses that they were and are. They were saved from their stupidity by their staffers. (That's not uncommon in Washington, BTW.)

If nothing else, this exposes not only the deep and abiding ignorance of those in Congress who purport to being our betters. It also shows their arrogant overconfidence, prepared as they were to launch a show trial to embarrass a batch of CEOs--who have better things to do--without knowing the fact that they themselves had established in the legislation.

Both the incidents I've just commented upon are ample evidence of two things:

1. Congressional Democrats are dominated by Marxists for whom the truth is not objective. It is what the Party declares it to be.
2. The first instinct of a Congressional Democrat when confronted with opposition is always to smear an opponent first rather than argue a point, knowing in all probability that he or she will lose in a debate based on fact.

Just when you think these people can't sink any lower, they figure out a way to do so.

Congressional Liars Caught in the Act, Part I

Being a Democrat is never having to say you're sorry...

I'm on the road for the next two weeks and blogging will be a sometimes thing. But I'm beholden this evening to Power Line for today's two reasonably brief entries. The first involves the ongoing flap wherein a quartet of minority Congresspeople fabricated a story to slander Tea Party members protesting the then-just passed Pelosi-care bill. Most political junkies by now are familiar with the accusation made by said Congresspeople, viz., the Tea Partiers spat on them and hurled forth the N-word. As Power Line's Scott Johnson describes it:

On March 20 the McClatchy news organization faithfully served up the story peddled by Reps. Emanuel Cleaver, Andre Carson, John Lewis and Andre Carson: "Tea party protesters scream 'nigger' at black congressmen." There is just one problem with the congressmen's story and McClatchy's account of it: it didn't happen.

A bit after this baseless slander, prodded by readers, the WaPo ombudsman attempted to defend the integrity of the reporters who "reported" the "incident." The defense was lame and it didn't hold up. That irritated yours truly and I blogged on this not-so-deft sidestep in this entry and this one as well.

Looks like, no matter how hard they tried, no reporter could corroborate the incident.  Johnson concludes:

This alleged incident, fabricated by congressmen including one of the Democratic congressional leaders, is a scandal hiding in plain sight. Surely someone who reports on politics for a living will not want to leave it to Breitbart to blow the whistle on it.

C'mon, Scott. You know better than that. As you point out, the Congressmen in question have gone to ground and will lay low until the press loses interest, which it did the moment they found out they couldn't blame the Tea Partiers for something that never happened. The incident will drift out of coverage, the anti-Tea Party slanders will remain in the Nexis database to "confirm" the veracity of this lie for future researchers, and the Tea Partiers will stay smeared in history.

Scott does provide Andrew Breitbart's damning video in his post which should lay this story to rest for any remaining skeptics.

If the media ever wonder why they're losing audience and readers, it ain't the iPhone and the Internet, folks. In my day, the average journo longed for the fame of a best selling novelist. Since all of them now write fiction for a living, I'd think that dream has finally been fulfilled.

On "Polarization"

Power Line's John Hinderaker has an interesting observation today on the brouhaha surrounding Arizona's decision to, in effect, start enforcing the immigration laws the Federal government has chosen to ignore. His opening graf:

CNN reports on Arizona's new statute that makes illegal immigration a state crime. CNN's theme: "Immigration law polarizes Arizonans."

He elaborates:

CNN acknowledges that some Arizonans support the new law, but its account tilts heavily, in both volume and sympathy, toward its opponents. The law, after all, is "polarizing."

Fact is, LOTS of Arizonans support the law. A paradox Hinderaker has duly notes, commenting on the sheer, continuing, willful faultiness of the media coverage of this issue. It's:

...typical of news coverage of the Arizona statute. Google News lists over 4,000 stories about protests against the law; that is the overwhelming majority of all coverage. CNN reports that "Hundreds protest immigration law." The Washington Post headlines, "Arizona immigration law protesters urge action." The Associated Press finds newsworthy demonstrations against the law haven't happened yet: "Illegal immigrant law opponents to rally in Arizona."

Note the AP cheerleading for the as-yet nonexistent protests. It's almost as if this hard-left organization is attempting to drum up protestors for the alleged event.

But back to Hinderaker's original point:

Why, exactly, is the most newsworthy fact about the Arizona statute that it is "polarizing"? Why, exactly, are demonstrations against the law especially noteworthy? Most laws are the subject of controversy. Politics, by its nature, addresses issues about which people disagree. Actually, the Arizona law is supported by an unusual degree of consensus: polls indicate that 70 percent of Arizonans support it. So why do the small minority who oppose this particular law deserve top billing?

He eventually answers his own question:

Obviously, it is due to the fact that nearly all reporters and editors are Democrats. 

PS to John: Might as well say they're all Democrats. The percentage of Republican reporters and editors is so small as to be mere statistical noise.

All of which brings us around to a point I've been pushing here lately. For the hard left--aka the Democrat Party and its willing dupes in the MSM--the "truth" is not something objective, provable via hard evidence or syllogistic logic. The "truth" is what the Party says it is. And when you see these pathological liars accusing everyday patriotic Americans of something awful, it's they themselves who are guilty of the offense. You have to recognize this stuff for what it is: classic Stalinism.

In the case of Arizona's self-defense on the illegal immigration issue, the left's "truth" is that when Republicans/the right/the Tea Partiers/average Americans support the enforcement of existing laws to protect and preserve our nation, that's "polarizing." When illegals support the flouting of immigration law and any attempt to expel them for so doing, that's "patriotic." Which, of course, is exactly the opposite of the actual truth. It's the Democrats' continued pandering to the illegals that's polarizing for Arizona's citizens. Not the other way around.

Again, my patented truth formula bears repeating yet again, this time with a slight modification:

If the Democrats and/or the MSM are accusing the Republicans and the Tea Partiers of perpetrating Evil Thing X...

Then the Democrats themselves are currently undertaking Evil Thing X.

Molly Norris Wimps Out: Everybody Draw Mohammed Day, Take 2

Yesterday, HazZzMat posted a virtual poster we spotted on Dan Savage's blog urging folks to support the censored South Park cartoon team by drawing a picture of Mohammed (Muhammed) and posting it to the web on May 20, 2010.

Later in the day, we noticed several posts in which someone identified as a Seattle cartoonist, Molly Norris, was claiming credit for this outstanding idea. I've seen nothing to contradict her claim to be the originator of the idea, so I'll accept it for now.

But today, what do my wondering eyes doth appear? Ms. Norris, seemingly overnight, has had a change of heart:

The momentum drawn from Norris' cartoon was more than the artist had anticipated and by Sunday Norris had posted the following message on her website:

"I am NOT involved in "Everybody Draw Mohammd Day!" I made a cartoon that went viral and I am not going with it. Many other folks have used my cartoon to start sites, etc. Please go to them as I am a private person who draws stuff"

On her website Norris originally explained the campaign was not meant to disrespect any religion, but rather meant to protect people's right to express themselves. 

If you don't believe me, read the message at Molly's website here, assuming it's still up. More on the brouhaha here at the WaPo, which quotes Molly as saying:

"I just want to go back to my quiet life."

Fascinating. Wonder what kind of hate e-mail she got last night. She sure was basking in the good PR she was getting yesterday. According to the AP, via The Daily Caller:

Norris told KIRO Radio’s Dave Ross that cartoonists are meant to challenge the lines of political correctness. “That’s a cartoonist’s job, to be non-PC.”

“...As a cartoonist I just felt so much passion about what had happened I wanted to kind of counter Comedy Central’s message they sent about feeling afraid,” Norris said.

Norris has asked other artists to submit drawings of any religious figure to be posted as part of Citizens Against Citizens Against Humor (CACAH) on May 20th.

On her website Norris explains this is not meant to disrespect any religion, but rather meant to protect people’s right to express themselves.

What a difference a day makes. In all seriousness, the poster currently on her website (apparently stringently edited today) does not sport the invitation to draw graf that appears on the poster that we put up here yesterday with a hat tip to Dan Savage. I have no idea as to whether Savage (or someone else) added the invitation verbiage after the fact, or whether Molly edited the invitation out of an earlier post she put up as a way of rewriting history, something the New York Times does all the time. But she is indeed indirectly quoted as having issued her invitation to "participate" in the cartoon protest on radio station KIRO yesterday.

Molly can disclaim all knowledge if she wants to. That will certainly put an end to her dubious 15 minutes of fame. But whoever was really the instigator of this delightful idea that "went viral"--whether it was Molly or someone else--you need to know it's no longer under your control. There will be a lot of Mouhammed drawing showing up in the blogosphere on May 20, 2010. We'll be posting one here even though at the moment we have no clue how to draw. And yeah, maybe that will cause an issue for some of the posters.

But let's get it straight, folks. The issue here is freedom of speech. If we don't support it, it's gone. If, these days, that level of support happens to involve a bit of personal risk, so be it. I, for one, am sick of seeing Westerners cave to murderous 10th century Islamofascists. It's these clowns who need to learn respect for other people and other religions, not the other way around.

My old man and his fellow sailors and Marines took at least 4 kamikazes in the flight deck of their aircraft carrier near the end of the Second World War defending our freedom against murderous fascists and militarists. As a result, many of dad's buddies, burnt to a cinder by the explosions and aircraft fuel, never made it home. But that's what freedom costs, and sometimes you have to pay. Why is it any different for us? Why do some of us boast about how "edgy" and "avant-garde" we are and then chicken out when someone raises the stakes?

As for those brave, beyond a doubt leftist censors who run Comedy Channel--which routinely disses, slanders, and reviles Republicans, conservatives, and all other religions 24/7 with impunity--everyone now knows all about your own special brand of selective courage and patriotism. Enjoy living with it and hope it blows over.

Everybody Draw Mohammed Day?

In case you haven't been following the scurrilous South Park on the Comedy Channel, there's been a hot scandal brewing. The network censored the satirical series' clever attempt to poke fun at the Islamofascists by showing an image of the Prophet Mohammed. The prophet was hidden inside a bear suit! But after a veiled death threat from an Islamofascist blogger, Comedy Central censored this story line--something it's never bothered to do on behalf of any other religious group.

My wife and I are pretty big fans of South Park--although I take exception to their Jesus satires--because the cartoonists are pretty even-handed regarding their targets. And because, more often than not, it's the lefty sacred cows that get the shaft--about the only place in media where this happens  besides Fox News. But I'm getting sick and tired of media and government types caving to Islamofascists when confronted by the usual death threats that ensue when you poke at their delicate sensibilities. I mean, where the hell are we living? Yemen? Don't we believe in free speech any more? (Rhetorical question.) Whose country is this, anyway!?

At any rate, we now arrive at the "Why the Hell Didn't I Think of This First?" Department. Here's an absolutely swell idea from blogger Dan Savage. (Click on the image to enlarge so you can read it.)

I'm on board with this. Are you? Get out your pens. (Or Adobe Illustrator.) See you back here on the 20th of May.

Nanny State Takes Away the Salt

Feds Mount Indirect Household Invasion; or, More Creeping Lefty Incrementalism

Just when you thought it was going to stop, the current Marxist-Democrat Administration in Washington is at it again, deciding what's good for us and doing its best to limit our choices to what's politically correct. This time, in food choice. From today's WaPo:

The Food and Drug Administration is planning an unprecedented effort to gradually reduce the salt consumed each day by Americans, saying that less sodium in everything from soup to nuts would prevent thousands of deaths from hypertension and heart disease. The initiative, to be launched this year, would eventually lead to the first legal limits on the amount of salt allowed in food products.

How nice of them. Did it ever occur to any of these intrusive idiotarians that maybe some people like the taste a little extra salt imparts? Yeah, yeah, I know, bad for us, etc. But Chicago's moronic, lefty city council banned foie gras because it's bad for us.** (And bad for the geese.) Closer to my backyard, the Food Police in Maryland's rich-beyond-avarice left-liberal Montgomery County are tracking down every last ounce of trans-fats in restaurants. God knows what else is going on everywhere else.

But wait! There's more on the salt issue:

Officials have not determined the salt limits. In a complicated undertaking, the FDA would analyze the salt in spaghetti sauces, breads and thousands of other products that make up the $600 billion food and beverage market, sources said. Working with food manufacturers, the government would set limits for salt in these categories, designed to gradually ratchet down sodium consumption. The changes would be calibrated so that consumers barely notice the modification.

Aha! So that's what our tax dollars are being spent on! Another complicated, intrusive, money-wasting, bureaucratic witch hunt. As for the inevitable "modification." Screw this. I'LL notice the modification. And I'll add the salt right back in. Until they ban that.

This is the kind of crap the government you pay for is putzing around with these days instead of figuring out ways to cut taxes, stimulate the economy, and get people back to work. (Please remember that this November, particularly if you're unemployed.) Remember. Modifying your behavior by fiat is far more important to these clowns than getting you back on the job.

Looks, folks. Drinking a glass a day of transfats and pouring shot-glasses of salt on your medium-rare steak every day of your short, happy life will surely hasten your end. But an occasional indulgence in these areas is simply no big deal, healthwise, for 99% of the population. By declaring that it is, 24/7, the intrusive 'Rats once again chip away at our freedom to choose product x or product y when we feel like it. They simply remove the option. Because they've decided that they know best and we children can't be left to our own devices. This is, as always, the height of arrogance, but it's just another day at the office for the rich socialists currently running Washington for your benefit and mine.

Maybe sometime next year, they'll pass another law only permitting us to breathe just 3x a day to cut down on carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Be forewarned: You might start out agreeing with this or that "sensible" little behavior mod that government types decide to impose on you. But incrementalism is how we got into our current hydra-headed messes. Tomorrow, there'll be another ban, and then another, on something else you like to consume or do that's no longer permitted. It's time to just say no and put a stop to the endless intrusiveness of the elitist leftists who run the government for the sole purpose of controlling our lives as they see fit. These idiots are our employees. Just who the hell do they think they are?

**PS: The foie gras ban was rescinded in 2008.

Obamanomics: Wall Streeters Wise Up

FACTBOX-Wall St shifts campaign support to Republicans

WASHINGTON, April 20 (Reuters) - Major Wall Street banks sharply increased their campaign spending for Republicans in Congress during March, while scaling back support for Democrats, according to official U.S. government documents.

As the Senate financial reform debate and the 2010 election campaign both gathered pace last month, political action committees for five institutions set aside $167,500, or 62 percent of their campaign spending, for Republican candidates and other party beneficiaries.

By contrast, Democrats got 38 percent, or a combined $104,500.

**************
Newsbrief snipped from inside my online brokerage account site so I can't give you a link back. But you get the picture.

You may recall my comments on the sheer dumb-ness of rich Wall Streeters who partied away "making history" by voting for Barack Obama. These fat cats, who employ countless numbers of attorneys, analysts, accountants, you name it--never bothered to utilize this vast fleet of professionals to discover what the lazy, fashionably socialist media was loathe to reveal: a "community organizer" is a Marxist agitator.

With this simple sin of omission, Wall Streeters slit their own throats. Hence, the continued attacks on capitalism, most notably investment bankers. What do you expect from a post-colonialist, Marxist administration and an equally Marxist Congress, so committed to the Party that they're willing to sacrifice their cushy jobs to jam in socialized medicine?

Noting the headline above, it appears that Wall Street's Rip Van Winkles have, er, collectively woken up and smelled a rat. Better late than never, I guess. Things seem to be going in the right direction now, funding-wise. Can you say "change"?

Freddie the Freeloader Returns

 Old wine in new bottles.

Those of a certain age, like yours truly, remember somewhat fondly, the long-running "Red Skelton" TV show in all its incarnations. Among Red's comic skits were several favorite characters. One, based on his old pre-TV circus clown act, was known as "Freddie the Freeloader," a happy-go-luck goofball who seemed genetically predisposed to avoid work:

There was a reason that Freddie was a Freeloader, of course—he had a ongoing allergy to work in any form.  Once example of this was when Freddie the Freeloader, asleep in his bathtub, was awoken by his alarm clock.  He awoke, looked at the clock and exclaimed, “Great Scott!  It’s Thursday!  I’ve overslept and missed my unemployment check! (pause) Oh, well, easy come, easy go.”

(This citation, interestingly, is excerpted from a clown ministry URL.)

Freddie was so funny in the 1950s and 1960s because he was the antithesis of your average, hardworking, post WWII dad. Today, however, it looks like Freddie's actually been cloned in our own century, as per the following Michael Ramirez cartoon. (Click the graphic to enlarge for easier reading.)

 Hat tip to Power Line for the find.

More Violence from the Left

Where's the MSM? Oh, that's right. They're covering the nonexistent violence of the Tea Partiers.

Most political animals, at least those on the right side of the aisle, are familiar by now with the violent beating administered to Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal's campaign finance director. If not, here's a quick synopsis from Connie Hair of Human Events:

Allee Bautsch, 25, a top fundraiser for Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, and her boyfriend, Joe Brown, 29, were verbally assailed as they left the event, followed to their car then savagely beaten. 

Bautsch’s leg was “stomped” by her assailants causing breaks in four places that required surgery, a steel rod and seven screws to reconstruct. Brown suffered a broken jaw and nose, a brain concussion and black eye.

Yep, that's right. Real violence as opposed to the "fake but accurate" racism allegedly perpetrated by Tea Partiers on Capitol Hill peacefully protesting the bogus healthcare vote a few weeks back.

Bautsch is still under heavy sedation according to the above report. Meanwhile, at last word, the allegedly Tea Party-victimized Congresspeople remain untouched and have been busily about the business of re-allocating the income of American workers to the public employee unions.

Hair cites third-party visual evidence pretty much proving that the perps were among the usual suspects, violence prone "anarchists" who were careful to avoid leaving tracks.

Mick Wright at the Tennessee Conservative has an extensive array of photographs  of the actual group of protesters in his report on the nature of their signs: all about money and “the rich” and class warfare....Their signs at the GOP event protest included the capital “A” with a circle, an anarchist gang-style symbol, and such gems as, “Capitalist f***s,” “Tax the Rich,” “JINDAL, tell your rich friends to GO HOME,” and “Ruling class robbers” to name a few.

I have good reason to believe that these stealthy, violence prone individuals who magically appear at legitimate political and governmental events around the world (and most particularly at IMF meetings) are actually anarcho-syndicalists.

In their 21st century incarnation, these despicable hoods are basically hardcore Marxists who are covering their tracks by claiming to be simple anarchists. Wrong answer. In the New Orleans attack, I see more "class struggle" than activities consistent with a genuine belief in political anarchy. Hence, anarcho-syndicalism, or, theoretical anarchism that's been overwhelmed by Marxist tenets, especially class hatred. Additionally, these leftist thugs appear to have carefully studied the tactics of Josef Stalin as evidenced by their fearless hyperviolence.

Glenn Reynolds comments:

The hypocrisy has gotten out of control. All the actual violence seems to be coming from lefty thugs. It’s just the hypothetical violence that seems to involve the right.

My little truth formula bears repeating here, I think:

If the Democrats are accusing the Republicans and the Tea Partiers of perpetrating Evil Thing X...

Then the Democrats themselves are currently undertaking Evil Thing X.

World Starting to Love the US

BBC/Eurotrash elites create another predictable headline.

This just in from the BBC:

For the first time since the annual poll began in 2005, America's influence in the world is now seen as more positive than negative....

In these nations - or 14 of them, not including the US itself - positive views of the US fell to a low of 28% on average in 2007, from 38% in 2005, but recovered to 35% in 2009 and 40% in this year's poll.

Hmm, let's see. They "report," we decide.

The BBC's perps started taking this poll in 2005, right after GW Bushitler decisively won his second term in office. You know, when "everyone" hated America. And those already low pro-US ratings tended lower and lower until 2007. You know, the year before everyone "made history" and elected Barack Obama, whose longtime unregistered memberships in the Alinsky Marxist and academic postcolonialist clubs was hidden from the electorate by the media, including the BBC.

Now, mirabile dictu, this annual poll--which, surprise, was invented/supported by the Marxist-front BBC's World News Service--shows a decided bump up for the US under Obama's impeccable Marxist stewardship. Apparently, lefty Eurocrats are orgasmic with joy that the US will finally follow their lead, walking hand-in-hand with them towards a socialist, third-world utopia which they will run for our benefit.

Nowhere in this ridiculous puff piece is the methodology of the poll disclosed. But, like the East Anglian climate-change fraudsters, I guess we're just supposed to believe anything that the Euro-leftist elites tell us we should believe. The BBC article implies as much:

Fifteen of the countries have been surveyed every year since 2005, allowing long-term trends to be discerned.

Let's see. 2010-2005=5 years. And 5 years is a "long-term trend." Sounds like the BBC has been contracting with the same crack East Anglian "statisticians" who brought us "global warming," eh? You don't need to be a statistician to figure this little game out.

Digging a little further, the article provides us a bit of a clue as to where they're coming from:

"People around the world today view the United States more positively than at any time since the second Iraq war," said Doug Miller, chairman of international polling firm GlobeScan, which carried out the poll with the Program on International Policy Attitudes (Pipa) at the University of Maryland.

Well, of course they do. Suddenly, the BBC, the MSM, and PIPA are no longer trashing the US which is now an Obamanation no longer run by the evil, illegitimate Bushitler regime. What a concept.

Digging further we discover that the "Program on International Policy Attitudes" is yet another front organization supporting, among other things, unilateral (US) disarmament, something Obama's socalled nuclear conference last week was also subtly endorsing.

A list of PIPA's underwriters reads like a Who's Who of the American anti-nuke, anti-US left. Here's a partial roster with each organization followed by my own comments:

• Rockefeller Foundation [Co-opted by the left decades ago]
• Rockefeller Brothers Fund [Supports left-tinged "social justice" causes]
• Tides Foundation [One of the most notorious and secretive hard left subversive nonprofits]
• Ford Foundation [Another longtime, once capitalist foundation undermined by decades by leftist control]
• German Marshall Fund of the United States [Yet another organization taken over some time ago by "global warming," er, "climate change" fanatics]
• Compton Foundation [Provides high-minded support for "Peace & Security, Population & Reproductive Health, or Environment & Sustainability,; i.e., unilateral disarmament, abortion, and global warming fanatics]
• Carnegie Corporation [Ditto Rockefeller and Ford Foundations, another reliable source for lefty funding that would have Henry Ford turning over in his grave]
• Benton Foundation [Supports "innovation" in the Internet realm, i.e., socialist-style "net neutrality," which support is hidden under neutral sounding catchphrases]
• Ben and Jerry's Foundation [Need we say more?]
• Stanley Foundation [UN True Believers]
• Ploughshares Fund [Unilateral disaremers and global warmists]

Computer virus detectors ought to have filters for bogus stories like this one from the BBC, don't you think?

Goldman, John Paulson, and "Financial Reform" in Obamanation

Obama-gogues trashing taxpaying, job-creating corporations once again as market tanks on Friday.

By now, all the money fans in the audience will be familiar with the SEC allegations against investment banking giant Goldman-Sachs, viz., Goldman allegedly sold highly defective mortgage security tranches (codenamed "Abacus") to its valued customers so that investing bigwig and whale/hedgie John Paulson could short them. Tigerhawk writes:

By now, everybody knows that the Securities and Exchange Commission is bringing an enforcement action against the world's most consistently profitable investment bank, Goldman Sachs, for allegedly structuring a complex mortgage securities transaction for the benefit of John Paulson, a hedge fund operator. The New York Times has a fairly comprehensive write-up in today's paper edition. Outside the Beltway covers the waterfront. Interestingly, the SEC is not bringing an action against the supposed beneficiary, billionaire Paulson. By way of explanation, the SEC says that Paulson did not actually make any "misrepresentations" in the deal.

Well, no, but is it really the case that the SEC could not find a conspiracy or aiding and abetting claim to file?

More likely, the SEC did not go after Paulson, the dude who actually seems to have profited from this alleged fraud, because they want him to be a friendly witness against big, bad, Goldman Sachs.

Well, the "friendly witness" part might be true. But think harder, Tiger. Remember Deep Throat. Follow the money.  According to RightPundits' Andrew Zarowny:

John Paulson, the other major player in the Abacus scheme, just recently held a large fund raiser for Charles Schumer. Chris Dodd has also been a major recipient of campaign contributions from Goldman Sachs, as has Barney Frank and even Joe Biden (before his promotion). This could turn out to be a real can of worms!

Chucky and Chrissy couldn't possibly be shielding their pal from the investigation, could they? While Dodd is out after 2008 due to fallout from his own financial scandals, Schumer is eager to be re-elected so he can continue demagoguing for another 6 years from his bully Capitol Hill pulpit. Why diss a major donor? A "friendly witness" can be co-opted to keep those campaign funds flowing.

While we're on the subject, here's a related irony. Goldman and most other Wall Street firms and bigwigs donated lavishly to the Barack Obama presidential campaign in 2008. Now most of them, including Goldman execs, have been heard crying in their beer.

But JP Morgan's Jamie Dimon, a lifetime Democrat and another big Obama supporter in 2008, at least now has the guts to oppose this administration's generalized trashing of select business segments to aggressively advance its socialist legislative agenda. The Saul Alinsky way, that is, i.e., "Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, polarize it." Where's everyone else in the NYC financial community? Targeted, frozen, personalized, and polarized, no doubt.

I pointed out several times in 2008--before the Obama-ites even had the opportunity to act on their big-business-bashing redistributionist agenda--that Wall Street's elite clowns were cruising for a bruising. By supporting a Democrat, whose hard-left bonafides were blatantly obvious to anyone who chose to look past the MSM's cheerleading efforts, they ended up slitting their own collective throat. No one bothered to investigate beyond the hype. Absolutely no one. They were too busy "making history" in November 2008. (While the media was too busy dumpster-diving in Wasilla, Alaska.) That's what happens when rich fat cats work with the media to turn national elections into a bad imitation of American Idol.

The chickens have now come home to roost. So much for the "smart money."

For whatever reason, most Wall Streeters seem genetically inclined to support Democrats in local and national elections. All the time. This simply baffles me.

Such a mindlessly reflexive voting pattern may have been okay a couple of generations ago when the average Democrat was a World War II veteran and really loved this country and what it stood for. But this once-great party--of which I myself was once a member--was definitively taken over by the hard left in 1972. It's only gotten worse since then, more anti-American, more anti-business, and more anti-middle class.

Without a doubt, it's time for real capitalists to start defunding the hard left and stop encouraging them in their mindless pursuit of a mythic socialist, post-colonialist utopia.

UPDATE: This just in from NYPost:

Wall Street is more than a little suspicious of today’s charges by the Securities and Exchange Commission, which has accused Goldman Sachs of lying to investors about who was really behind junk mortgages securities it sold to clients.

Barclays banking analyst Roger Freeman comes right out and blasts the SEC effort as “a well-timed, and perhaps not coincidental, effort to sway some on-the-fence Republicans” to get tough on financial reform. 

Well-timed and not coincidental? Gee, ya think guys? Read the rest via the link above.

Clinton Hearts McVeigh: How the Left Works

...or, never let a good tragedy [that you indirectly caused] go to waste.

Power Line notes that the 15th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing has just passed. I have been fascinated at how quickly the Democrats, particularly Bill Clinton, jumped on this event as a way to smear Republicans and Tea Partier. As is always the case with these low-lifes, one should never fail to take political advantage of tragedy. John Hinderaker's Power Line piece actually details, via quotes from Dick Morris, how Clinton took political advantage of this violent incident when it occurred.

Morris, working at that time as a Clinton operative, actually recommended that the then-beleaguered President, who'd just lost the House to the Newtonians, could use Oklahoma City to smear the Repubs and turn the incident to his political advantage. Citing an article in the Washington Examiner, Power Line elaborates:

Morris told Clinton that "direct accusations" of extremism wouldn't work because the Republicans were not, in fact, extremists. Rather, Morris recommended what he called the "ricochet theory." Clinton would "stimulate national concern over extremism and terror," and then, "when issue is at top of national agenda, suspicion naturally gravitates to Republicans."

It worked:

It was a political strategy crafted while rescue and recovery efforts were still underway in Oklahoma City. And it worked better than Clinton or Morris could have predicted. In the months after the bombing, Clinton regained the upper hand over Republicans, eventually winning battles over issues far removed from the attack. The next year, 1996, he went on to re-election.

 Power Line adds a comment from Instapundit's Glenn Reynolds on the topic:

[T]his statement serves as a useful reminder to those who have come to think of Clinton as some sort of cuddly, not-so-bad figure. He was a demagogue who would say whatever he thought might work when he was President, and he still is.

If you examine this all more carefully, this particularly tactic actually hews pretty closely to the Alinskyite tactics of the Obamamaniacs--currently on display in the careful timing of the SEC's accusations against Goldman Sachs. The general idea is to target, freeze, smear, and discredit any and all obstacles standing in the way of the lefty elites' agenda. It's a discernable pattern.  And unfortunately, it's proved quite effective.

Making matters worse, the evildoing that the Democrats love to blame on the right is, more often than not, being perpetrated by the Democrats themselves. Their current meme is that the only terrorism we have to fear is the terrorism coming from the right--which, in fact, is virtually nonexistent, as in the still baseless charges of violence and racism vs. the Tea Party. Unreported by the media, however, is the simple fact that most violence and intimidation is currently initiated and conducted by union, machine Democrat, and far left thugs against those on the right.

So to Hinderaker's, Morris,' and Reynolds' useful observations, I'd like add my own convenient  "if...then" statement which pretty much distills how this whole thing works. And, I hope, provides a useful, practical insight that can be used by Republicans and Tea Partiers this summer and fall:

If the Democrats are accusing the Republicans and the Tea Partiers of perpetrating Evil Thing X...

Then the Democrats themselves are currently undertaking Evil Thing X.

Krauthammer on Barack's Condescension

One pundit who tells it like it is...

Barack Obama, like most academia-oriented leftists who dominate academia, the media, and the Democrats, is more transparent than most when he sneers condescendingly upon the majority of the electorate. I've cited this tendency of Democrat elites for years in this space and am gratified that at least some people are beginning to grasp the contempt is which the average American is held by these elitist, socialist snobs, most of whom have never gotten their hands dirty or run a business with actual employees.

In this Fox video, Charles Krauthammer, as usual, hits the nail right on the head. Well worth a listen. (Hat tip: Breitbart.com.)

WaPo Ombudsman Fiasco, Phase II

Yesterday, I wrote about the Washington Post Ombudsman's lame defense of the Post's "reporters" who casually slimed Tea Partiers for an alleged racial incident purportedly occurring just after the disastrous Congressional vote that burdened us all with Obamacare PelosiCare. I actually read the original defense in the Post's dead tree version, having subscribed to this rag for roughly 40 years on a "need to know" basis. (It actually used to be a pretty decent paper way back when.)

When I wrote my entry, however, I was unaware that Power Line was covering the same thing in a different way. In today's installment, they provide an enlightening chain of correspondence between the Post's ombudsman, Andrew Alexander, and a Tea Party member who was actually at the event in question. Rather than sum it up, I'll give you the link here. I urge you to read it and note several things:

• Note how many times Greg Farrell (the Tea Partier) asks specific questions that are completely ignored by Alexander
• Note the verbal twisting and sidestepping meant not only to obscure the shape-shifting nature of the original "story" but to confuse the issue
• Observe how, in one response, Alexander takes issue with Farrell defining him as a member of the Post's staff, i.e., a W-2 employee. Alexander takes great pains to point out that he is NOT an employee, but this is a red herring. The point of having an ombudsman who's not an employee of a given newspaper is allegedly to ensure his or her objectivity. In point of fact, Alexander has a contractual arrangement with the Post to perform this service. Riddle me this, Andrew: if I were fortunate enough to have your contract, how many times would the Post allow me to blast its reporters for malfeasance and lack of professionalism before you'd find a way to terminate my contract? 

Needless to say, Posties get whacked just often enough by the current ombudsman that it creates a sense of verisimilitude for the average reader. But this is only skin-deep. The Post, perhaps less egregiously than the openly treasonous New York Times, still toes the Socialist Democrat party line which the paper myopically (or not) regards as a "moderate" point of view. Whomever their current ombudsperson happens to be, the paper will not countenance relentless criticism of their countless sins of omission and commission. You can bank on it. And you'll understand this better if you take the time to go through the tap dance I've cited above.

Look, Andrew, I myself have written the kind of Washingtonspeak you write, for two administrations (Democrat and Republican) no less. I know how this is played. And besides, I was being paid to be partisan. You and the Post's reporters are allegedly being paid to provide the unvarnished, objective truth, right? So why don't you investigate the left as vigorously as you attempt to discredit the right?

And when are guys like you going to do some soul-searching with regard to the role all of you have played in the destruction of a once honorable profession? This, rather than the loss of ad revenue to Google, is the reason why print journalism today is in such a sorry state. None of us expects an answer to this, of course. But maybe you should think about it.

WaPo Ombudsman Not as Smart as He Thinks He Is

...or, Missing the Salient Point

Most of the right-side blogosphere has had ample time to comment on the so-called "racial incidents" attributed to certain alleged Tea Partiers after Congressional ObamaCare PelosiCare supporters staged their smarmy, outdoor triumphal march to celebrate this odious bill's passage. You know, the demonstration where black Congressmen were allegedly assaulted with the "N" word and, in one case, allegedly spat upon.

In the Washington Post's Sunday ombudsman column, Andrew Alexander sums up the incident(s) in question, essentially claiming the paper's staffers correctly reported on the Tea Party's evildoers but chiding them for not pinning things down a bit more precisely. He even gives the benefit of the doubt to the alleged spitter.

In his sniffy attempt to exonerate the paper's typically lazy, liberal reportage, however, Alexander totally ignores the elephant in the room (no pun intended). Many Tea Party demonstrations have been infiltrated by left wing trolls posing as Tea Partiers who conduct themselves in ways that are guaranteed to bring discredit on the movement by attracting unfavorable media attention. Check out this story by Dana Loesch who details the efforts of one such left-wing miscreant. There are many  more.
 Phony, obnoxious signs and phony "racist" demonstrators are classic disruptive devices meant to belittle, marginalize, and stigmatize any individual, group, or movement that doesn't move in lockstep with America's Stalinist left. We know the tactics. We've seen them before. The press should know better, should be more curious, and should investigate before reporting this kind of street theater as received fact. But they don't. The lefty plants aid and abet the MSM's standard left-wing narrative wherein any American who doesn't wholeheartedly support socialism is a sub-human jerk.

In his eagerness to defend his narrow-minded, incurious reporters, Alexander never once holds up the possibility that most if not all the post-healthcare bad behavior he cites might have been staged by left-wing plants, not legitimate Tea Partiers. Think again, Andrew. You've read Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals? Haven't you? Fix, target, smear, slander. Variations on a familiar theme.

Wake up and get a life.

More Arctic Ice? The Goracle Speaks

...or doesn't...

Hey, under the circumstances (i.e., ClimateGate), I wouldn't want to talk about it either.

If there is a God, we won't be seeing much more of this two-bit tyrant in the future.

Stupak on the Way Out?

Flip-flopping 'Rat may call it quits.

Interesting news from Michigan's Upper Peninsula. As we predicted here earlier, Rep. Bart Stupak, who was against abortion in the Obamacare fiasco before he was for it, has apparently checked out which way the wind was blowing. Surprise! Looks like it might be a Republican wind. Hence, the Bartster is rumored to be considering, er, maybe spending more time with his family?

The Washington Examiner reports:

Money has been flooding into the coffers of Stupak’s opponent ever since he flip-flopped on abortion funding. If Stupak doesn’t run, his district is a likely GOP pickup.

Ah, the rewards for supporting Pelosi Reid Obamacare. Let's work on retiring a few dozen more of these clowns in Congress. Hopefully, Michigan's Yoopers will go back to their traditional Republican base this fall. It's not like the Dems, both local and national, have done that state much good recently, eh?

Unemployment Horror Show

Don't believe all the happy talk you hear from Washington and Wall Street.

There was great rejoicing last week over a batch of bogus unemployment numbers that purported to show that jobs were back on the growth path in the US. Yours truly begs to differ with the happy talk. First, the unemployment rate remained at 9.7%. It didn't move. So how did this alleged "job creation" help.

Second of all, 48,000 of these "jobs" were in fact temp jobs paid for by the US government. No, they weren't part of the "stimulus" plans inflicted on taxpayers by Obamanation. (See more here under the heading "A Recovery in Name Only.") They were (and are) census jobs, the result of the 10-year census provision that's actually part of the US Constitution. They more or less had to be created anyway, and they'll go away in a few months.

Third of all, as many have pointed out before me, the "unemployment rate" itself doesn't include people who've run out of unemployment bennies or people who have simply given up looking for work. It's been calculated by several sources that the real unemployment rate hovers around 17%. Washington (particularly the current iteration) doesn't want you to know. Allows them to fiddle with more ways to tax workers and businesses that are left. Meanwhile, businesses are petrified to take on new employees, fearing that ever increasing Federally ordered benefit and tax increases will crush them. So they wait, wait, wait to see if healthcare coverage really plays out, if crap and trade actually happens, etc.

To get a picture of what has happened to unemployment since problems started coming to a head in 2007, take a gander at the video below. The map, broken down by county, shows growth in unemployment dating from 2007 thru January 2010. This is a small chart, so remember that the darker the colors, the worse the unemployment.

A bigger, easier to view version of this graphic appears here. Pretty stunning, don't ya think? As they used to say on the old Batman TV show: The worst is yet to come! (Particularly if you're already unemployed.) UPDATE: Earlier link was incorrect, now fixed here. Hat tip to one of our eagle-eyed commentators.