Wall Street's War of the Machines

Happy July 5, the nation's official "commercial" Independence Day holiday. Making things even more festive today, Washington DC's traditionally oppressive heat and humidity aside, is the fact that Wall Street is on holiday as well. Sadly, unless there's a nice surprise, it's likely to resume its current Long March down to new lows tomorrow when trading opens at 9:30am.

We've opined many times before on two items that are massively contributing to this mess, aside from the Obama Administration's systematic destruction of capitalism as we know it. The first, which we'll again visit in detail soon, is the ongoing nonsolution to relentless short-selling: the socalled Uptick Rule which was scuttled in the waning months of the Bush Administration--just in time to ensure that certain already stressed banking institutions had no alternative other than being flushed down the toilet bowl of history. There's a sort of "fix" in for this in terms of circuit breakers. But it won't be at all effective during the next flush downward which we'll see probably sooner rather than later.

We have to keep in mind, though, that the absence of the original uptick rule isn't exactly what CAUSED the current Wall Street mess. It merely aided and abetted it. My reasoning in arguing for its return intact is that there's no reason for anyone to help profiteering mischief makers transform a very bad situation into a worse one.

What is currently proving far more damaging however, are the existence in the investment community of so-called "dark pools"--private stock transactions of considerable size that are not reported on the tape and thus hidden from the average investor and, arguably, many mutual fund managers; and socalled "flash trading" or "high speed trading" wherein computer programs, linked to market movements, trade mass quantities of many, many stocks, often within milleseconds, generating massive profits via tiny, incremental moves.

None of this stuff, from dark pools, to short sales, to high speed trading, has been addressed in the currently pending "FinReg" legislation. Presumably, they will be addressed by rulemaking bodies after this amazingly flawed legislation is passed.

Problem in the first place is that regulators, who are never really responsible to voters, are bureaucrats at heart. It will take a long time to get them appointed, installed, and working, and a longer time to start creating, considering, and implementing rules.

Problem is in the second place that we can't count on them to create rules to shelter the average investor--only the wealthy high-speed traders who've turned investing into the stock market into the kind of game better suited for playing on your kid's Wii or Xbox.

Problem is in the third place is that it's actually decision time not for the Government but for Wall Street. The Street and its various exchanges are at an important crossroads. Currently, the average investor, whether running his or her own portfolio or participating via mutual funds or retirement accounts (like 401ks), has largely dropped out of the market entirely, preferring to stay in cash.

The reason why is simple: it's now abundantly clear that the system, always game-able, has become fatally so for any investor who doesn't have supercomputing power doing the trading for him. The 30-somethings and their machines now control 70% of daily trading on Wall Street (Wall Street Journal figures, can't link due to subscription wall). Since no one else, statistically speaking, is trading besides hedge funds (a bunch of which are probably using these same whiz kids and their algorithms), the exchanges love these traders and are now depending almost entirely on them for business. Were any rules put in place to either ban or restrain high speed trading, Wall Street exchanges and trading firms for that matter would lose a huge chunk of their business and profitability with no guarantee that the little guy would come back to the market to make up for the difference.

We are at a crossroads here. Follow me on this. Social Security is now well-known to be a slow-speed train wreck. The current administration and Congress are on a path to destroy what's left of the national budget and our healthcare infrastructure to boot. Meanwhile, Defined Benefit pension plans have pretty much gone by the boards, replaced by often self-directed 401(k) programs, most of which went in the tank in 2008, were briefly revived last year, and are now gurgling down the toilet once again.

In other words, the whole socalled social safety net is not just frayed, it's broken. The current solutions, stated or quietly undeclared, are to let retirees drift into poverty like they used to, force anyone over, say, 55 to join them (since, once laid off, they will never be hired in any great numbers again), and let them die, sooner rather than later, when the government determines they're no longer cost effective.

Hey, guys and gals, this ain't what we signed up for, saved in our 401(k)s for, and got docked 5-ish percent every year for FICA taxes for, is it?

We don't have much time to get this fixed. But a good way to begin is for the Feds and for Wall Street to get serious for once and for all and decide on their business model going forward. To wit: Do we just put a painful end to the myth of investible 401(k)s, declare an end to personal investing, and turn Wall Street into an elaborate video game for bored, overpaid young oligarchs from good families and Ivy League schools? Or do we put these punks out of business, make them do real work in a steel mill for a change, and get Wall Street back to its original game of raising capital for business and maintaining capital markets for businesses and investors to grow and prosper. In other words, is Wall Street so addicted to its high commission structures that it no longer cares that it's abandoned its primary purpose, ceding it to the video gamers? Or is Wall Street going to get serious and get America back on the road to prosperity.

Washington is currently getting an F in this regard. If Wall Street caves in permanently to the video-gamers and their automated trading machines, capitalism is dead and gone, leaving us to start over again with no capital, no hope, and no future since there won't be anything left to manufacture or buy.

I'm not trying to be silly or alarmist here. But the Street--and ultimately, the boneheads in Washington as well--are at a Decision Point. And I'm no longer sure they have the knowledge, the intellect, or the gumption to do the right thing, since I'm also no longer sure they have any active gray matter at all.

Is the Goracle Fallible??

Seems like it was only a couple of weeks ago we learned that the Al-Tipper Gore "Love Story" made in heaven was reaching terminal status. Nary a word as to why.

Over the last 10 days or so, however, a story has surfaced via the ever-notorious Enquirer but also virally on the right-wing web, viz., that a hapless Portland, Oregon massage therapist (a real one, not the call-girl variant) was dispatched to the hotel room of Al Gore. The ex-Veep, Nobel Prize winner, global warming genius, and propagandist film maker apparently did more than just repeatedly proposition the therapist who allegedly freaked out and managed to exit the uncomfortable situation.

After a few years, the story has finally surfaced. Allegedly (once again), according to the alleged victim, she failed to press charges due to pressure from her liberal friends not to derail the Exalted Mission of the Greatest of All Global Warming Prophets. There's real feminist solidarity for you.

"DC Trawler" comments:

If this woman really has a sample of Al Gore’s DNA, can’t we use it to make some clones? What’s going to happen on the day when, Gaia forbid, Al’s not flying around the planet anymore telling people not to fly around the planet? The fate of the Earth is too important. We should make an entire army of Al Gores. The Green Lamenter Corps!

Writes a bathetic Melinda Henningberger:

The Gores weren't just a solid couple for Washington; they were solid, period. And if they couldn't stay together after 40 years, four kids, almost losing their son to a terrible accident, her depression, his schedule, their winning and losing and worse -- and then coming back together from what must have been hell after the recount -- well, what, if anything, does that mean for the rest of us?

Gee, I don't know, Melinda, Mrs. W and I have only been married 39 years. Guess we've still got to learn.

Melinda's not quite done, however, as she blathers into a faux conclusion: a silly rhetorical question based on a ridiculous fictional premise:

Sad as it is, it takes bravery to make a decision this hard at this point, when most people would just do whatever it took to make the broken bearable. Would Oliver and Jenny Barrett have ended up divorcing after 40 years, too, had the heroine of Erich Segal's Love Story lived that long?

So much for the myth of the liberal intellect.

Re: Gore once again. I'd engage in a good bit of snarky schadenfreude here (actually, I already sort of did) if I could do it in good conscience. To me, there's hardly a less-appealing individual in the universe than the waddling, pompous, condescending dope that used to be our Vice-president, and I'd dearly love to see this clown taken down a peg or two. But, sadly, I'm not seeing concrete proof of his transgressions here, and the case gets even more tenuous as the Democrats' shadow hit squad starts pushing out info on the alleged victim with the intention to discredit her charges and smear her character.

No, my real irritation here is at the MSM. Just as they sat on the John Edwards sex scandal during the 2008 presidential primaries and for pretty much an entire YEAR thereafter, they surely knew about the Gore stuff for years but never put it out there. Probably for the same reason the alleged victim declined to press charges. No point in besmirching the Saint of Global Warming. You might damage the "movement"--the one we all know now was a hoax from the get-go.

Happily, even if our socalled journos are largely missing in action in this story, we can leave it to non-Americans to find the humor in all this. As in this clever if rather vulgar Japanese video-cartoon also posted by DC Trawler. There's not a word of English in it, but it doesn't need operatic surtitles. You'll get the drift:

Go Gamecocks! Happy Fourth of July!

We're a day late and a dollar short on this news item. But I'm happy to report that the University of South Carolina's baseball Gamecocks won the national college World Series this past Tuesday in Omaha, Nebraska by whomping the powerful UCLA Bruins 2-1 in 11 innings. It's the University's first national men's championship in men's sports and was certainly a long time coming. Congrats, dudes!

Here's the champs, after their triumphant return home and victory parade this past Friday in Columbia, SC. (Double click for larger images):

Why the interest here? Although I grabbed my first two college degrees at Georgetown in DC, I taught English down at South Carolina while I was earning my doctorate, and co-founded the department's original Writing Lab (it now goes under another name). Although I experienced some of the usual professorial sturm und drang while down there, teaching and studying in Columbia, SC was an extraordinarily positive experience on balance. And the university, as well as the town, turned out to be a surprisingly tranquil and positive atmosphere for scholarly activities. Although I didn't have much money at the time, the city was an inexpensive place to live, and I still remember the graciousness of my elderly neighbors when we lived in a little duplex off the Five Points area of the city.

Sports, of course, was a big deal down there--still is, as it usually is at large state colleges. The school never copped big championships while I was there, although its basketball team did quite well at the time, even after the school left the ACC. In any event, it's nice to see a national championship finally residing at my final alma mater.

Columbia, the state capitol, BTW, is the home of the state's fabled Capitol Dome, the one that caused controversy for years by flying the Stars & Bars below the Stars & Stripes on its flag mast. The given reason, a valid one at least on the surface, was that South Carolina was where the first shots of the Civil War were fired and the rebel flag was part of the state's heritage. Black South Carolinians, for obvious reasons, weren't buying it, so the Stars & Bars were eventually retired from the mast to reside inauspiciously elsewhere I am told.

Someone just sent me a picture of the Dome this week. It's now flying the Fighting Gamecock flag, festooned with an image South Carolina's oddly-chosen mascot. (It's the bottom flag, below the US and State flags.)

Here's a closer look:

Looks good, eh? We're sure this is one additional flag that all South Carolinians can be proud of. What a great way to celebrate this 4th of July!

(Except maybe for Clemson Tigers.)

Get your championship T-shirt here.

Still Diverted by Diverticulitis

Boy, I keep promising to post, but I've had a bout with diverticulitis like you wouldn't believe. I've been a sour enough mood already, given the latest stock market swoon and Obama's pathological lack of concern with BP's runaway Gulf oilwell--which would be getting a LOT more attention from the MSM if his name were Bush.

So then I come down with an attack of the big D. Even though I'm pretty adept at Latin, I have a hard time spitting that word out. Suffice it to say that it's a not-uncommon intestinal issue that can put you in the morgue if you don't pay attention to it.

Fortunately I did, but I've been wobbly (not in the Margaret Thatcher sense) for the better part of two weeks.

As I attempt to start blogging again, the only thing I can see that's worse than my health is the health of this economy. The perfect storm has finally arrived. The country is now being run by a cadre of academic Marxists who have no clue as to how to jump-start a near comotose economy. They've never held a real job and regard the whole thing as an academic exercise, or at least it would seem.

All we can hope is that the American voters--most of whom now realize they were nearly completely bamboozled by the media in 2008--start rectifying the horrendous error they made that year when they go to the polls again this November.

General BetrayUs, Round 2?

This from Instapundit:

MCCHRYSTAL FIRED, Petraeus asked to take over. Will MoveOn and Keith Olbermann reprise their “General BetrayUs” routine?

Many more juicy tangents contained in our top link reference. For the mouse-phobic, read the whole schmear here.

PS: Glenn Reynolds concludes:

FINALLY: MoveOn Scrubs “General Betray Us” Page From Website. Have you noticed how these people are always airbrushing? It’s kind of an admission that their stuff won’t sell if they tell the truth. . . 

My comment:

Heh.

Pelosi's Crocodile Tears

This just in from The Hill's Blog Briefing Room:

In a fundraising letter for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Pelosi says if Republicans take back the House, they'll initiate "endless investigations against President Obama" and "bring back the days of Ken Starr and the politics of personal destruction."

"Remember a Republican-controlled Congress that devoted more time to subpoenas and investigations than to solving our country's problems?" Pelosi asks. "There is far too much at stake for our country now to allow it to happen again."

Boo-hoo. You mean like the "endless investigations" of American business that Pelosi-crats have been waging against American employers from Day One of this administration? Or the "endless investigations" of the Abu Ghraib incident during the Bush administration?

Or for that matter, the Democrats' 24/7 slander and smear campaigns against Bush, Sarah Palin, and anyone else who gets in their way?

Cry me a river, Nancy.

Obamacare for the Gulf

Apropos my previous post:

A picture is indeed worth 1000 words. Hat tip to TobyToons. It appears this guy's solution to the Gulf Oil Issue is to extort money for the government in order to further its thus far useless response. Remember the big Katrina flap ("Heck of a job, Brownie") when the Bushies were in power? Where's the MSM outrage now? Disgusting. But what else is new these days? However, this president is indeed accomplishing the seemingly impossible: He's making Jimmy Carter look competent.

Diverted by Diverticulitis

Well, just when I was ready to get blogging again, I ended up in the emergency room this weekend with an attack of acute diverticulitis. Never a clue I had that problem. A couple of IV bags of antibiotics and I'm back home again and not feeling all that well. But this incident made me wonder. I was in to Reston Hospital Center circa 3 AM, checked in without even being hassled about insurance (which I have), saw a doc by 3:30, was sent up for a CAT scan around 5 (after ingesting a liter of "dye"), was wheeled back to the emergency suite by 5:30, had the IVs inserted by 6 and left the hospital about 8:15, complete with appropriate prescriptions.

And what I'm wondering about is--if the Feds were in charge of this (which they intend to be), would I be dead now? Something to think about this November.

Guess it's also time to get on the ball and get that colonoscopy done. (Shudder.)

Wall Street: Video Game or Market of Stocks

Hint: Got a joystick handy? Flash Crash may be here to stay.

I'm going to be commenting from time to time on a phenomenon that's really got me bothered. The recent gyrations and volatility of the market--while certainly caused at least in part by the equally volatile international economy--have been wildly exaggerated. And here in the US, they've also occurred with remarkably low volume on the exchanges.

The already-legendary "flash crash" last month was perhaps the warning shot that finally alerted people to the underlying problem. But they don't understand what that underlying problem is. I do. The stock market has ceased to become a market of investors. It has, in fact, become the playground, the toy of a bunch of video gamers. Using sophisticated algorithms and high speed computing systems, these so-called "high frequency traders" execute hundreds, perhaps thousands of trades in seemingly nanoseconds, profiting by scoring a penny here and there which, given the volume of their trades, makes them a tidy living. 

Problem is, this completely distorts the market mechanism making it difficult for folks like you and I to make money the old-fashioned way: by INVESTING.

The Federal government, which allegedly regulates financial activities, is asleep at the switch. I'll have more to say in successive posts.

Back From Unscheduled Hiatus

Just a quick note to let you know I'm back from an unexpected hiatus. Three of my real estate investments went temporarily terminal and I had to attend to them. One's being completely reno'd. One needs help. And one needs to get cleaned up and rented back out again when the current tenant moves on. Things hit all at once, and there's no point in blogging if you let yourself go Chapter 11, right??

So I'll be back again with pretty much daily posts until vacation time happens in mid-July. Lots of stuff to catch up on, too, including the BP mess and other fun things that actually aren't so much fun.

Stay tuned.

Obama Oil Blame Game -- Get the Target Right, Mr. President

The President has spent a lot of rhetorical energy (what other kind is available in the White House?) on how the GOP's deregulatory changes are at the roots of the Gulf oil disaster.

Wrong, sir!

BP is a British company and not subject to American regulations. The disaster occurred in international waters, where United States law and regulations do not apply.

If you're going to blame someone, start with the right country of origin and location, Mr. President.

The last three major offshore disasters, off Nova Scotia in the 70s, and off Scotland in the 80s, and this one, were all BP. Better talk to the Labor Party's leaders, or to the current British PM. No American rig has been involved in a disaster since Santa Barbara in 1969.

Outcome in 2012? Here's a Clue.

Back in 1992, I happened to be in Mackinaw City, Michigan, right after the annual Labor Day Big Mac Bridge Walk. George Bush Sr., then our president, joined the throng of walkers, searching for votes in the Upper Peninsula which, Bart Stupak aside, had generally been conservative at that point.

Going through the sale merchandise the day after the walk, I notes dozens, perhaps hundreds of T-shirts hanging on the racks, proudly emblazoned with phrases like the following: "1992. I Took the Big Mac Bridge Walk with President Bush." "Oh, oh." I said to myself. "Why didn't these sell?" Negatives had been building for the Bush campaign for months. But this telling piece of anecdotal evidence was the last straw. This was Bush territory. But Bush T-shirts were not selling. It was then I knew that George Bush, the incumbent, would lose.

Fast forward to 2010. It's a little early yet, but here's an interesting story from Tigerhawk:

Earlier this evening, I was walking through a parking lot at the local Whole Foods Market, where I was shocked to see a Toyota Prius displaying the following bumper sticker:

Tiger observes:

If you've lost the Whole Foods-shopping Prius-driving voter, you've lost liberal America, and you're in trouble with your base.

Obama Competent? Peggy Noonan Lays an Egg

Headline of Peggy Noonan's latest op-ed for the Wall Street Journal (via WSJ Online), re: the election of Barack Obama:

"He was supposed to be competent."

Peggy wonders aloud what's going on with the Obama presidency. After all, she and all her friends in NYC voted for him and made history, right? So how could they be so wrong? How could they know that this guy HAD NO CLUE? Wide-eyed with wonder, Peggy now wonders aloud, WHO KNEW?

Well, hey, kid, I DID, for one, and said so here many times. While the MSM clowns commenced dumpster-diving on Sarah Palin 24/7 and denouncing her as "inexperienced," they did their very best to avoid doing the same to Barack Obama WHO REALLY WAS INEXPERIENCED. And, note to NYC Idiotarians: Obama wasn't running for VEEP.

Now, from Wall Street bankers to New York socialites, to columnists who purport to being Republican-oriented, the reaction to the serial disaster that is Barack Obama's presidency is essentially, "Don't blame me. I didn't know."

This is the biggest, most self-serving crock of s... I've ever heard. It's tantamount to Louie's great line in Casablanca when he "discovers" that gambling is going on at Rick's: "I'm shocked. SHOCKED!"

It also reminds me of that famous Pauline Kael quote (which her loyal supporters claim she never said), upon the landslide re-election of Richard Nixon over the left-wing George McGovern. How could Nixon's triumph have happened, Kael allegedly mused. "No one I knew voted him."

And it's not just moi. Check out Little Miss Attila's observations on Noonan's astuteness:

...she, Ann Althouse, and Megan McArdle will have to deal with it for the rest of their lives. Those three women have all been an intellectual blessing to public discourse in this country, but they all succombed to the same cult of personality two years ago, and we still do not know what the final price tag on that cult of personality is going to be.

Miss A's commentators are even more straightforward and pungent. Says one:

The bottom line to Barack Obama’s unfortunate victory is the complete abdication of the media from their duty to investigate and inform the public. They failed in their First Amendment mission and Noonan et al. were part of that failure. The lurid coverage afforded the pregnancy of Bristol Palin proves and underscores this point.

Says another:

Never have so many projected so much onto so little. Not only is Barrack Obama not competent, there was no evidence which would have suggested that he was.

Says a third, the optimist in the group:

There’s a potential silver lining here: The Obamunist experience might have inoculated the nation against left-liberal ideology and Obama’s sort of politicking. If so, it could be fifty years before another social-fascist / redistributionist demagogue rises to trouble America. That would be long enough to get me safely and cozily into the ground, which, at this point, is all I ask.

Here's the deal. Peggy and her pals happily took leave of their reason in order to elect the Chicago leftist cipher known as Barack Obama as president of the United States so they could bask in glory of making history. In so doing, they elected an aloof, cold, phony intellectual, trained as a Marxist organizer whose splinter organization as yet remains unidentified. Politically tone deaf, lacking in essential empathy and humanity, and dedicated to working out far-left theories without any regard to the damage they are causing, his presidency is fast closing in on Jimmy Carter's as the most disastrous in modern times.

The clues were always there. Remember how long it took Obama the Patriot to finally stick an American flag pin in his lapel? Why avoid adopting such a trivial, yet important for so long? That was actually a big tell, but the media pretty much ignored it. How about Obama's comment that he never knew about his minister's racist rantings? After attending services at the rev's church for over 20 years? Give me a break.

The list goes on. The lies, the superciliousness, the arrogance, the deep and abiding relationships with Weatherpersons Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn--Amerikkka's original homegrown terrorists--the dishonesty, the utter lack of a knowledge of American history. They were all there in plain sight. But they were never reported, only occasionally mentioned, and always quickly forgotten as they were never a part of the Received Narrative.

For Obama was The One. If you really think about it, he didn't really win the presidency in 2008. He won the biggest-ever competition for American Idol.

Peggy and her pals "thought he was competent." On what evidence?

We need to stop labeling these morons "intellectuals." Like Obama, they are anything but. They have the veneer of intellectuals. But, as Gertrude Stein once said of an obscure town in Iowa: "There's no 'there,' there."

November's on the way. Time to reboot. Deploying both hemispheres this time.

Wynn Bashes Anti-Business DC

“Washington is unpredictable these days,” declares the CEO of Wynn Resorts. “No one has any idea what’s next…the uncertainty of the business climate in America is frightening, frightening to everybody, and it’s delaying the recovery.”

That's the lede in this piece from CNBC online, and it pretty much sums up why it's been next-door-to-impossible for the US to extract itself from the Great Recession. Steve Wynn has been one of the few businessmen with enough guts to speak out about what's going on.

In their 24/7 assault on American business, that triple-threat team of Obamacrats, Pelosicrats, and Reidcrats continue to pummel, assault, and otherwise punish anyone who tries to make money, thus entirely disincentivizing entrepreneurs and established companies to grow their businesses and hire new workers.

The country is clearly in the iron grip of a batch of socialists who want to extract every last dollar from anyone who has a few and redistribute those dollars to their "disadvantaged" supporters, including the trade unions and the American Trial Lawyers. But, ironically, they're torpedoing their own avowed aim. By strangling business and preventing hiring, they are, in fact, DESTROYING the wealth they're trying to distribute.

Wynn pretty much sums up things in the final graf of this piece:

He’s concerned about the prospect of inflation, of FHA repeating the mistakes of Fannie and Freddie, and the cost to business from the new healthcare law. “We’re on our way to Greece, in the hands of a confused, foolish government,” Wynn says. “It’s got to stop. It’s got to stop.”

A confused, foolish government. Led by a batch of left-wing academic theoreticians who have no idea how money works or how it's made. Wynn's got that right, pointing out that, at least for now, it's far easier for him to do business with the Chinese Communist government than with the US. That, my friends, speaks volumes.

It's a losers game. And we're the losers. We'll have just one chance to fix this in November. Hopefully, Rip van Winkle has awakened from his long, media-induced nap.

Opera Goes to the Movies

In my official capacity as the Washington Times' online music and theater critic, I recently caught an interesting, live production of Wagner's Das Rheingold, as staged in Milan's fabled La Scala opera house. Right down the street, too, in Herndon Virginia's Worldgate 9 movie theater complex. (Herndon is a suburb of Washington, DC.) It's all part of an effort to bring opera from legendary European opera houses right to our own backyards.

Attendance was a bit sparse. They could use more PR. And live opera at the movies is not a totally new concept, having been pioneered by the Met several years ago. But, given the total lack of cultural education in public schools these days, events like this can only be viewed as a blessing in a country that is beginning to lose a clear vision of itself and its rich and interesting heritage.

Check out my article here. And click here to find a theater near you that's participating in this series of live broadcasts.

Tardy Draw Mohammed Entry

My drawing skills are pathetic, not to mention derivative (see if you can recognize part of this PhotoShop pastiche). But here's my overdue promised offering for "Draw Mohammed Day:"

All resemblances to persons living and dead are purely coincidental. Draw conclusions as you will.

As those who've followed this brouhaha are aware, the artist who originally came up with this idea in defense of the "South Park" cartoonists immediately copped out when she realized there might be consequences for her not-so-bold bold idea. She disavowed the May 20 event she herself had created, once again proving that a probably lefty "supporter" of free speech wasn't brave enough, in the end, to back up her own ringing endorsement of it.

Likewise, Reason online, which picked up the challenge and sponsored a "contest" for the best Mohammed drawings, also copped out, blathering on about the whole thing yesterday with a windy essay and posting 3 asinine entries, none of which showed the least bit of guts since no one really drew Mohammed.

Look people, if you're going to stand up and take credit for something, at least have the guts to follow through. What are we, a generation of wimps? If you don't knock the neighborhood bully down, he's going to whip your ass every day. Didn't any of you learn that in grade school? Why is anything different now?

BTW, for those of you who hunger for actual images, Hot Air refers us to this site. Enjoy.)

The whole point of this exercise, for me, is that nobody tells me what to do in my own neighborhood. 

The day we start allowing international fascists to order us around is the day we lose the freedom we claim to cherish. These people have no respect for us and never did. So now, I'm returning the favor.

Communist Ron Gochez Violates Smith Act

Time to crack down on sedition in US?

As if the US doesn't have enough problems with terrorism these days. Courtesy of a Facebook page entitled "Stand with Arizona," here's taxpayer supported public school teacher and Hugo Chavez-lover Ron Gochez preaching a literal Communist, racist revolution on the campus of, where else, the Communist-run indoctrination center also known as UCLA. This is sedition, no more or less, specifically prohibited by the Smith Act, which, interestingly enough, hasn't been enforced since 1961. Take a look at this disgusting spectacle. Save for the use of the English language, you might think you were in Caracas. Also note the textbook Marxist-Leninist language Gochez employs in his classic Commie diatribe.



As if we don't have enough trouble with the Taliban and Al Qaeda, now we get clowns like this, nurtured at the breast of the "capitalist, imperialist" system he denounces. Does the Obama Administration have enough guts to prosecute this clown under the Smith Act? Does the local or state public school system in California have the guts to terminate this America hater? Don't hold your breath. As evidenced by the continuing threat to law enforcement officers in Arizona and elsewhere, the "revolutionary" violence in the border states has only just begun.

NASDAQ's List of "Funked Up" Stocks

As all 10 of our regular readers know, I've been on the road for nearly 2 weeks with limited connectivity during much of that time. But I'm on the way home and in Berkeley Springs WV today with DSL, so it's time to get re-connected by offering you a useful bit of info, assuming you're still in the stock market at all. Due to Thursday's as-yet-to-be-diagnosed electronic massacre, the NASDAQ has actually cancelled a number of trades in over 200 stocks that got hammered at least in part due to some mysterious system error. The magic list is listed here, courtesy of the NASDAQ and CNN.

All in all, it's been a hell of a time to be on the road in largely rural areas, isolated from the hustle, bustle, and nonsense we call civilization. Let's see. We have Greeks rioting because their socialistic state has been financing rich public sector benefits for decades with what appears to be thin air. We have President Obama threatening Arizona for, in effect, having the audacity to enforce U.S. immigration laws. We have an Islamofascist wacko trying to blow up shoppers and theatergoers in Times Square very possibly to avenge a recent South Park episode poking fun at the prophet Mohammed. And, of course, we have the continuing saga of the gigantic Gulf of Mexico oil slick--and the concurrent refusal of the MSM to eviscerate the Obama administration for dithering around for a week before even paying any attention to this unfolding and obvious disaster. Gee, imagine what would have happened if the current prez was a guy named Bush. Obamie, you're doing a heck of a job!

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.