Amy Bishop: Clinging to Guns Out of Bitterness over Lost Jobs

"Apparently an Obama fan, living in a small town, who was bitter and angry at losing her job, who felt the proper folks weren't paying attention to all her wonderful work, took the words of her idol to heart and skillfully -- and tragically -- once gain using a gun, shot and killed three colleagues at the University of Alabama..."Amy Bishop a 'Bitter Clinger' to Obama, Ethel C. Fenig, American Thinker, 2/17/2010

Ethel Fenig probably won't chair the upcoming Presidential Commission on Fairness.

Amy Bishop the new poster girl for NYC Mayor Bloomberg's anti-gun crusade? Tough one. As evidenced by Fenig's remarkable discovery of Shepherds and Black Sheep's long, documented blog entry about Ms. Bishop's academic pursuits, the Alabama faculty shooter would be a good fit with some of the wackier groups, liars, bandits, and thugs involved with Climategate. That makes her one of the good guys in RINO Bloomberg's own environmental fervor. She's also a woman, a feminist, who could probably say it was a bunch of male "peers" who turned down some of her more interesting research projects and, ultimately, tenure.

Do we see a new idol for the martyrdom-in-academia set?

Stay tuned, Batperson.

Quote of the Day

"I'm sorry to tell you that Lindsey Vonn has been stripped of her Olympic gold medal because it has been revealed that President Obama is going downhill a lot faster than Lindsey did yesterday." Mitt Romney, 2/18/10

What fun Wonker has been having! The Copenhagen bust, the Scott Brown election, the "health care" fiasco, the ongoing CRU/NASA Climategate blowout, not to mention 40 inches of snow in Washington, DC, almost as big a snow job as the President's State of the Union address. What screenwriter could come up with stuff like this?

But, fast as he may be going downhill, El Presidente Grande just keeps charging. Next week's "Bipartisan" discussion of "health care" (Chicago style) is turning into a "Democrat + 1 Retired RINO Conference". On the latter participant, for those who don't have long memories, ex-Senator Simpson was regarded by many in Wyoming as the stupidest man to ever hold elective office. But they could be prejudiced; Wyoming citizens only live in the state. The federales, who own almost 90% of the land in Wyoming (and refuse to allow shale oil development for fear of spoiling their private views), obviously have a more objective case in selecting this retired clown to chair the "Bipartisan" commission.

Note: "Commission" is a familiar word to gangland afficionados. It's not necessarily a bunch of smart guys sitting around calmly discussing a rational approach to looting the average American's bank account.

And speaking of commissions, what a thrill about the fiscal responsibility commission! Let me guess. The White House and Democrats will have a majority of members of this commission. You know their main interest is in getting funding, not cutting costs. What might they suggest? Value-added tax (VAT)? This increases the price of European products by 25-100%. The "rich" in the US aren't wealthy enough to pick up the tab that Democrats won't reduce. The real question: why would any self-respecting Republican or Democrat participate in this farce? If it's used as a "mandate" to force Congress to go along, it's an unconstitutional usurpation of Congressional authority. (This may be why the White House has so carefully skirted giving the President personal authority in the commission).

The debt clock is ticking. The President's team is racing faster and faster downhill. At the end of the run, if they don't get off the slope, is the abyss of national bankruptcy. Stop them.

When Lake Erie Freezes Over

Lake Erie Frozen Shore to Shore. Is Hell Next? More On Global Warming.

This just in from AccuWeather:

Following a cold snap in the Northeast, Lake Erie's surface is virtually frozen over for the first time in about 14 years.

The ice ranges in thickness between paper thin along the northern shore and several inches along the southern shore, where many people are ice skating.

GoErie.com reports that the lake hasn't completely frozen since the winter of 1995-1996.

 Will Hell be the next thing to freeze over. Is this Little Ice Age II? Don't miss the next thrilling episode.

Speaking of Hell freezing over, Chief British Climate Fraudster Phil Jones has effectively thrown in the towel on his part in the giant "global warming" "climate change" hoax. Read the whole recap here.

I continue to push this issue. It's ongoing Exhibit 1 in my case against the never-ending Marxist-Gramscian worldwide effort to impose some flavor of socialism/state control on as many countries as possible.

Iran's February 11 Surprise

This just in. Iran's Fraud- President-for-Life and former U.S. Embassy Hostage Terrorist Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and a few of his close pals view a purloined copy of Avatar in 3-D while daring the U.S. to do anything about it.

...And Speaking of the Goracle: The Universal Theory of Everything

In Which We Beat "Global Warming" to Death Yet Again

An amusing, moderately clueless story just appeared in the online version of "The American Interest." It praises a half-assed AP assessment of ClimateGate as a "breakthrough" for the MSM, apparently unaware that the AP reporter who wrote it, Seth Borenstein, has been a shameless "global warming" apologist for God knows how long. Although we love to harp on it, ClimateGate is, in fact, really old news at this point, having come to a head last fall. So Borenstein, et.al., should actually be skewered for coming so late to the party and doing it so grudgingly.

Walter Russell Mead, author of the "American Interest" piece and usually a perspicacious fellow, sort of falls down on this one by treating Borenstein a bit too graciously whilst underestimating the intelligence of the average American as in the following opener:

It had to happen and today the Associated Press has given the American public at large its first good look at a story that has been old news for weeks in countries where the media is more alert.

First good look??? Hell, Walter, I've had a "good look" at this story for many months already via the ever-alert and amazingly accurate blogosphere, not to mention the British press online. Where were you? Anyone relying on the MSM for timely and accurate reporting these days has got his or her head lodged in a place where the sun never shines. In what circles do you travel, dude?

At least Walt pops a good question for the Nobel Prize winning Al Gore who's apparently been in hiding pretty much since the Copenhagen blizzard debacle.

Al Gore, so far as I can tell, is meanwhile remaining silent; I guess when truth is really, really inconvenient it’s better that way.

Indeed. Nonetheless and notwithstanding, both Mead and Gore are soundly battered by quite a few commentators whose piquant views are worthier of note than the piece itself. Here are a few of those comments, a couple of which duly note our current massive twin blizzards here in DC:

Hard to believe that Seth Borenstein is providing decent coverage on an environmental story. Maybe the IPCC skimped on his Christmas tip.

MR Mead writes: “Even Borenstein’s story doesn’t quite get the full measure of the problems: while the number of ‘proven’ errors in the IPCC report remains small, their impact is disproportionately large because the predictions were so high profile…” Not the full ‘measure’ of a scandal on the global warming front from Borenstein? If Mead knew about the Society of Environmental Journalism’s conspiracy against truth in science, he would not be so surprised or even dismayed. Borenstein is reknown as one of its High Priests – a dissimulator par excellence....Thus, we arrive at the real reason for the prolonged and egregious journalistic malpractice, amounting to a conspiracy of silence among the US media: money. The US federal government funds 95% of the worlds global warming science research. Vested interests do not kill the geese that lay their Golden Eggs.

A belief based on saving the planet requiring reallotment and restructuring of assets and industry worldwide becomes a religion/ideology when evidence and facts disproving doom and gloom scenarios is so resisted, denied and demonized. Good news becoming bad news requires a serious reality check.

I was going to joke about an Amber alert for Al Gore — he’s been rather silent of late — but Google informed me that the Rodeo Clown beat me to it. From the video at the link it appears that NBC News is touting the east coast blizzards as yet another symptom of global warming too. Is there anything it’s not responsible for? 

As it happens, no-one over 3 – 5+ years, neither phony IPCC researchers nor sophisticated skeptics like McIntyre, Moncton, Pielke, apparently ever scrutinized ridiculously alarmist UN reports in scholarly detail. Now of a sudden we find footnotes and references to sources appropriate to Captain Planet comic books, “peer reviewed” by Clown College Warmists who can’t even proofread idiotic data transpositions. No wonder peculating proselytizers like Gore, Pachauri, Climate Cultists’ Green Gang of Briffa, Hansen, Jones, Mann, Trenberth et al. got so much mileage under cover of their prima facie fraud. What’s next, “ocean acidification” that threatens mass extinctions due to heavy breathing? The asininity, feckless stupidity, of these death-eating Luddite sociopaths would be beyond belief if (for example) 75% of Britain’s unworthy heirs did not mindlessly subscribe to just such drivel.

This story is much deeper and much more troubling than you yet realize. To call it the biggest fraud in the history of science is no hyperbole. You still don’t understand what is going on, and you still seem unwilling to go where your own research is leading you.
You are far to generous with the MSM. They intentially withheld information from the American people because it did not jive with the Democratic Party agenda.

Currently here in the nation’s cesspool — sorry, Capital — it’s wind chill 2 degrees and snow up to my arse. Just as all politics are ultimately local, so is the whole global warming charade. Just another Convenient Lie from the EverHating Left. When I wake up tomorrow morning with ubersore arms and an aching back, I will renew my resolution to fight these wackos ’til the end.

And the final word:

If there’s a heat wave, it’s due to climate change. If there’s a blizzard, it’s climate change. Flood? Climate change. Sunny, seasonable weather? Climate change. Climate Change is the Universal Theory of Everything. And the only answer for it is a “wrenching transformation” (Gore’s exact words) in our standard of living in the developed world. Jeebus, you people are slow.

DC's Blizzard of the Century: A Break for Taxpayers

In Which I Pick Up a Snowshovel (Again) and Count My Blessings

As I prepare to spend yet another day here in Reston, Virginia--roughly 25 miles from Washington, DC--shoveling snow and straining ligaments, here's an amusing bit of "reportage" for you from the always en pointe ABC News Site:

...experts say this month's storms, with their "historic'" proportions, are ultimately a net negative for taxpayers, who foot the bill for snow cleanup and the lost productivity of more than 230,000 idle federal employees. Official Washington was shut down for a third straight snow day -- unprecedented in recent times.

Office of Personnel Management chief John Berry, who decides when to close the federal government, has said each snow day costs taxpayers an estimated $100 million in work government employees don't do. 

Yes indeedy, the Federal government is out on snow leave yet again tomorrow, their fourth day in a row--something I don't remember happening since I returned to the DC area from South Carolina over 30 years ago. But this ABC report has it exactly wrong. The snow daze is not a cost to the taxpayers at all. It's a SAVINGS for the taxpayers.

Let me explain. We've had, at this point, almost an entire week where Congress hasn't been in full session. An entire week where they haven't been dispensing pork to public employee unions, leftists, and other barnacles and leeches who live off the flesh of actual working people. And an entire week where DC's Federal work force has not been abusing taxpayers by not responding to their urgent requests on this and that because it's not convenient.

Let's do the math. Assuming the ABC report's budget estimate is correct, if we gave the entire DC contingent of the Federal government the entire year off, that would be 100 million smackers X 365. My calculator gives me a total of $36.5 billion dollars. Now just this fiscal year, Congress and all our area worker bees in your government have colluded to get us about $3 TRILLION dollars in hock. So if it costs us $36.5 B to give 'em the year off, we would actually end up SAVING a ton of money and reducing the deficit to boot, ya think? Not to mention the political mischief that simply won't happen.

Plus, the snows have provided us with an added bonus. After this winter, it will be really hard for any Congressman, except the most hardened leftist, to argue that we need "crap and trade" legislation because we have to stop "global warming," er, "climate change." The only one still stupid enough to argue in favor of "global warming," er, "climate change," is the Goracle himself.

How Federal Stimulus Plans Really Work

More Bottoms Up Wisdom from the Hinterlands

If you surf the web, you have a computer. And if you have a computer, you almost certainly have an email account. And if you get email, you sometimes get scurrilous, allegedly funny stuff sent to you all the time. Although it usually serves to clog up your email box, it's occasionally funny. And so it is with one I just got via my esteemed spouse. I have no idea of its origins, but it seems to have the current economic situation sized up just about right. Lightly edited by yours truly. Enjoy:

Sometime this year, we taxpayers will again receive another "Economic Stimulus" payment. This is indeed a very exciting program, and I'll explain it by using a Q&A format:

Q.  What is an "Economic Stimulus" payment?
A.  It is money that the federal government will send to taxpayers.

Q.  Where will the government get this money?
A.  From the taxpayers.

Q.  So the government is giving me back my own money?
A.  Only a smidgen of it.

Q.  What is the purpose of this?
A.  The plan is for you to use the money to purchase a high-definition TV set, thus stimulating the economy.

Q.  But isn't that stimulating the economy of  China?
A.  Shut up…

Below is some helpful advice on how to best help the  U.S. economy by spending your stimulus check wisely:

• If you spend the stimulus money at Wal-Mart, the money will go to China or  Sri Lanka.
  
• If you spend it on gasoline, your money will go to the Arabs.
  
• If you purchase a computer, it will go to India, Taiwan, or China.
  
• If you purchase fruit and vegetables, it will go to  Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala. (Editor's note: I'd emend this bullet item to include Chile and the People's Republic of Cal-ee-for-ni-yah.)
  
• If you buy an efficient car, it will go to Japan or Korea.
  
• If  you purchase useless stuff, it will go to  Taiwan.
  
• If you pay your credit cards off, or buy stock, it will go to management bonuses and they will hide it offshore. 

Instead,  keep the money in America by:

• Spending it at yard sales, or    
  
• Going to ball games, or  
  
• Spending it on prostitutes, or
  
• American Beer, or
  
• Tattoos. 

(These are the only American businesses still operating in the U.S.) 

Conclusion: Go to a ball game with a tattooed prostitute that you met at a yard sale and drink American beer all day!

No need to thank me, I'm just glad I could be of help.

RIP John Murtha (1932-2010)

Porkmaster General Buys the Ranch--for the Last Time

I generally regard it as inappropriate and in horrendously bad taste to badmouth someone on the day he dies. But I'm making an exception for this clown, a guy who singlehandedly seemed dedicated to giving Congress a bad name. (Not that he didn't have an awful lot of help.)

Yep, Congressman John Murtha is dead at the age of 77, due to complications from gall bladder surgery. The AP obit is here. It's a largely congratulatory pocket bio of a very bad man, and only glosses over his career of graft and theft in the last couple of grafs. And never gives even a mention of his outrageous  statements about our US Marines serving in Iraq. Among other things, Murtha was perhaps, until today, the best living example of why we damn well need term limits on members of Congress

This vicious, irascible, highly partisan leftist Democrat and Kleptocrat kept his Johnstown Pennsylvania Congressional district wallowing in pork for a good 36 years, wasting bucketloads of taxpayer dollars on boondoggles to nowhere, like a huge, mostly unused airport that would be impressive even if it were built outside of New York City. It's named after Uncle John Murtha, too. Surprised? It's always interesting the way that public building projects get named not for someone who's done something important for society but for someone who's stolen money from the taxpayers to pay for a monument to himself and buy his re-election.

On one level you could argue that Murtha was "just doin' his job." His district, by and large, has been mired in poverty for decades and one supposes he was just trying to "help." But if you probe a little deeper, an awful lot of the tens of millions of dollars Murtha extorted from the taxpayers went to defense contractors and subcontractors who ultimately added to the Congressman's own bottom line. Given the Democrat control of the current Congress, there was no way they were going to investigate this powerful and intimidating senior member for his alleged kickback schemes, one of which came to a head just last month. So it looks like the Almighty (or Fate if you will) finally had to step in and do the job.

Had enough? Making matters worse, irony of ironies, this miserable excuse for a human being was not only a veteran U.S. Marine, but collected a Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts for bravery in the process. Where's the shame in that, you ask? He obviously served our nation honorably, once, way back when he was in the Corps.

Well, here's the kicker: why it was so easy for a decorated, battle scarred Marine vet to instantly "convict" some US Marines of "murdering" Iraqi civilians in cold blood even before the military had had a chance to investigate these allegations? I can imagine what kind of choice words Murtha would have had if some idiot Congressman had popped off half-cocked at his own service in Vietnam.

Here's the original accusation by Murtha:

Early in the investigations, based upon unknown evidence, Democratic Rep. John Murtha (PA) stated that “there was no firefight, there was no IED that killed these innocent people. Our troops overreacted because of the pressure on them, and they killed innocent civilians in cold blood.”

There's patriotism for you. How easy it is to forget.

Of the eight Marines ultimately charged in this case, seven have been acquitted or have had the charges dropped as of this date. The remaining case has dragged on in spite of urgings that it, too, be dismissed. The Congressman, of course, was unapologetic for his asinine, inappropriate outburst. Makes me wonder whatever happened to "Semper Fi?" (Or due process for that matter, something the current Administration really cares about--when it comes to terrorists.) Apparently Congress will do that to you.

In any event, this miserable miscreant has been removed from Congress the only way, it seems, that Congressmen from certain districts can be removed. He's passed on to his Final Judgment. I hope there are a few ex-Marines on that Pearly Gate panel along with God and St. Peter.

Who knows what machine Democrat Murtha's district will arrange to get elected now? But whether you live in Johnstown PA or anywhere else, it's time to pause and think before you re-elect the same guy you've been pulling the lever for during much of your adult life. He (or she) is always telling you about the swell projects he's bringing into your district every year. But he (or she) never tells you how it's done--by stealing taxpayer money from some other state and "redistributing" it to yours.

Now, for better or ill, Johnstown will have its turn seeing what this feels like. Whomever replaces Murtha, whether Democrat or Republican, will have to start all over again on the bottom rung of Congress' corrupt seniority system. So the massive pork barrel money Johnstown grew to depend on will start disappearing as of the next fiscal year. It'll be tough for Murtha's cronies and minions to get used to this. But I guarantee you, it will also be some other district's gain.

Until we actually get angry enough to impose term limits on the dozens of Murthas in Congress and start paying attention to whom it is that we're voting in every two or six years, the pork barrel, always a moveable feast, will lurch on to the next Congressional district on deck in the seniority sweepstakes. The same sweepstakes that cursed this nation with John Murtha for over 30 years.

Tea Party, anyone?

Ultimate DC Snow Job

Mother Nature Trashes DC, Benefits Nation by Keeping Congress From Meeting

It's been tough to blog for the last two days as the DC area where I live has been getting whacked yet again by another major snowstorm--sort of an elegant postscript to the recent "global warming" hoax.
Power is in and out, the snow continues to come down, and it's COLD down here.

A big plus, though. The government is essentially shut down for a couple of days, and it's going to be tough for Congress to get back in session, which will rob the Democrats of at least two or three days' worth of chances to screw the country up further. Thank heavens for small favors.

As my power (and computer) are periodically out of commission, I'll put up entries as I can.

Patrick Kennedy Unfit to Serve in Congress

Rich RI Rep Inserts Foot in Mouth, Chews Vigorously

Scott Brown was finally sworn in as the late Senator Ted Kennedy's replacement this week, prompting the following typical response from his lowlife son, RI Representative Patrick Kennedy, according to an article in The Hill:

Sen. Scott Brown's (R-Mass.) election has been shown to be "a joke," the son of the late Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) said Thursday.

Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.) castigated Brown for having pushed to be sworn in ahead of schedule to permanently fill the Senate seat left vacant by the congressman's father's death in August.

"Brown's whole candidacy was shown to be a joke today when he was sworn in early in order to cast his first vote as an objection to Obama's appointment to the NLRB," Kennedy said Thursday.

Gosh, Patrick, ya think? You'd'a never done the same for the Democrats, would you?

In point of fact, Brown, who was initially prepared to be patient, had targeted February 11 as his swearing-in date. He was persuaded to move it up on the urging of Republican leadership.

Both Massachusetts law and Senate rules dictated, in this case, that Kennedy's temporary replacement in the Senate, Paul Kirk--appointed with dubious legality in the first place by Massachusetts' corrupt governor Deval Patrick--immediately lost his power to vote in the Senate upon Brown's surprise victory. That didn't keep the Democrat Senate leadership from ignoring this fact, however, and allowing Kirk to vote anyway. His votes from that point on were clearly illegal. But details like that never stopped the Democrats from doing anything they wanted to before, so why start now?

At any rate, Repubs had had enough of the stalling (including predictable stalling in certifying the election results by Massachusetts' Secretary of State, a Democrat). So they pushed Senate leadership via another longstanding rule that allowed the swearing-in of a new senator prior to official certification if it were clear that no recount would possibly reverse the outcome of the election. And in this case, it wouldn't have. So, given the national political mood, the Dems had to swear Brown in or lose another bucket of political points.

Which brings us back to the ever-gracious Rep. Kennedy, who thundered:

"Brown's whole candidacy was shown to be a joke today when he was sworn in early in order to cast his first vote as an objection to Obama's appointment to the NLRB," Kennedy said Thursday.... 

"Seven out of ten of Brown's voters were labor households and he stressed that he was independent and while he was originally scheduled to be sworn in next week, they moved it up to today so he could cast his first vote, the most anti-labor, the most anti-what his constituents thought they were voting for when they voted for him," Kennedy said.

We've already stated the truth of the matter. Note Kennedy's condescension toward union members, typical of a machine Democrat. Massachusetts union voters who crossed the aisle knew damn well what they were doing, and today's rank-and-file union brother (or sister) knows that Democrats are totally out of tune with them, even as they cut corrupt deals with union leadership. The average union worker, and plenty of others, have simply had enough--something Kennedy simply doesn't get.

Brown's vote on behalf of his fellow Republicans, while not the main reason for his swearing-in, was simply a bonus here. Kennedy's bitter, asinine remarks, seizing on this feeble pretext, were typical of a defeated Democrat, all of whom, it appears, think they're entitled to remain in office forever. They may also hearken back to ancient history, according to The Bostonist blog:

The ironic thing with a Kennedy calling Brown's campaign "a joke" is that Ted Kennedy's initial bid for Senate in 1962 was derided as a joke by primary opponent Edward J. McCormack, Jr. who famously said "Teddy, if your name was Edward Moore instead of Edward Moore Kennedy, your candidacy would be a joke."

Bostonist wouldn't be surprised if Ted Kennedy's younger son was not aware of this ironic fact.

Patrick Kennedy's sense of entitlement is somewhat puzzling, given that he's continued the Kennedy family traditions of booze, women, and drugs, particularly the latter. This doesn't give him much standing to bad mouth anyone, a point not lost on commentators responding to the article in The Hill that we cited above, aside from the usual illiterate lefty plants. Here's a few samples:

Time to start looking for a real job Patrick. Boozing, Blonds, and Blow is right up your alley…

Patrick is just angry that the dynasty is finally over. No one reveres the Kennedy clan anymore. Go away Patrick with all of your drugs. Take the rest of the Kennedys with you.

Kennedy Klansman Patrick is drunk or high — again. The Kennedy Klan poured in tens of thousands of dollars so Patrick could unseat a 10-year incumbent Democrat to become a state representative in Rhode Island while he was a junior at Providence College. Talk about a joke.

And the coup de grace:

Hey! Rep. Kennedy! Your whole pathetic life and its "coat-tail success" is the real joke! Now who is [it] that has developed a peculiar habit of driving his Mustang in reverse down city streets or into bridge piers and abutments?… YOU are the last person on earth to call someone else or their REAL sucesses, a joke. The "Kennedy" show is over! The Baby Boomers are the last generation to care about the Kennedy Family Circus Side Show, and they're all entering their "golden years" and will be "shuffling off their mortal coils" - not nearly soon enough. And nobody gives a rat a$$ about you anyway, you pathetic jerk!

BTW, as an aging Boomer myself, I take partial exception to the Boomer reference in this comment. But it's understandable. The only Boomers who've ever gotten positive MSM PR since the 1960s are the Marxists and fellow travelers who've spent their lifetimes smashing this country down. Their "leadership," characterized by the likes of Patrick Kennedy, actually have a lot in common with Al Qaeda's leadership: rich, spoiled, entitled brats who, with nothing better to do, spend a lifetime trashing the system that gave them swell lives simply because they're bored, like to hold onto the microphone, and think that pretty much everyone else is trash in need of enlightenment, or, better yet, an early death.

Barack Obama is one of these Boomers--something few seem to actually realize. And believe me, I do hope he's a one-term president. Two terms will finish us off as a nation that matters.

Boomers like me who've opposed these clowns for our entire lives have been dissed and ignored by all but are still trying to at least halt this nation's decline so maybe the Xers can have half a chance of fixing it before it's too late. Believe me, I feel their pain.

"Global Warming" vs. Apple

 

Well, I thought it was funny. (Click on the image if you have presbyopia.)

Ellie Light Revealed? (Well, Maybe...)

HazZzMat Newsflash! This Just In! Dateline: Cleveland?

The online website of the Cleveland Plain Dealer has just revealed the top-secret identity of Obama propagandist "Ellie Light." I think.

Ellie Light, the ubiquitous letter writer whose name appeared in newspapers nationwide praising President Barack Obama, appears to really be a male health care worker from California.

A man who identified himself as Winston Steward, 51, of Frazier Park, Calif., says he made up the name "Ellie Light" to protect himself from criticism and possible physical attacks, and used fake addresses across the country to get local newspapers to publish his letters.

Reporter Stephen Koff details the paper's contacts with "Winston Steward" and his wife (or maybe not), "Barbara Brooks," who covered for him, apparently, on the telephone early on in this cat-and-mouse game.

The paper appears to have done its due diligence and tracked "Steward" down in California and "Brooks" down in Texas. But the story is as nutty as a fruitcake, and who knows who really established the cover for this whole charade? That includes "Light's" new identity as "Steward," who seems convinced that right-wing crazies will kill or maim him if they find him. Read the rest here. Gawker has a credible alternate version of the story that's the same only different. The site also includes an alleged picture of "Steward" and a helpful link to his wife's (or ex-wife's) Facebook page.

Riehl World has outed "Steward" as a being member of the nefarious HuffPo for nearly a year, proving the alleged indifference he feigns in the PD piece toward hardcore lefties has a faint odor of insincerity about it. Patterico plugs in more details plus a juicy possible connection with the White House--this via a linkback to Riehl referencing the 2050 PR firm (which has magically gone offline save for a revolving globe logo). Oh, yeah, he also mentions that Ben Smith has audio of the "Ellie" encounter.

Meanwhile, Ben Smith (the real one) updates the mess here in Politico, inferring the blogosphere went nuts about nuthin'. Well, hell, Ben, maybe we did and maybe we didn't, but let's follow this to the bitter end, just for fun.

The PD may very well have smoked "Ellie" out, more or less. But there's more to this story than just an eccentric lefty wingnut. Or two. So I'm sticking with the criminal profile I established in one of my earlier followup entries until we get the real final story on Ellie-Winston-Barbara and who he, she, or it really is.

If I Were "Ellie Light"...More Clues to the Puzzle

Is the Now-Legendary "Ellie Light" Astroturfer a Grammar Goddess?

One of the frustrating things about co-running a blog like this is that I can only do it part-time and with limited resources. For this reason, I can only contribute educated speculation to the ongoing blogger investigation into the identity of mystery pro-Obama astroturfer "Ellie Light." I've already deduced that the occurrence of the Light Brigade neatly coincided with the arrival of Obama's former campaign manager David Plouffe in the Washington Post's op-ed pages this past Sunday--an appearance that had to have been choreographed in advance. Just like the "Ellie Light" op-ed campaign.

Both Plouffe and partner-in-crime, Obama insider David Axelrod are pretty well known for their encouragement of/involvement in astroturfing during the long 2008 election campaign. So I've been thinking that one or both of them are at least peripherally involved in the current flap.

Follow me, now. Both these guys, along with their staffers, are well versed in the arts of communication and mis-communication. Among other things, they and any staff they might hire are presumed masters of the English language, twisting it and molding it to suit their needs. But like any really smart writer/communicator dudes, they can make mistakes. And I think someone has made a mistake here.

Fox News online updates the "Ellie Light" story today, quoting the following paragraph from "her" letter--one that's already made the rounds. I'm inserting it below. Read it carefully:

"But today, the president is being attacked as if he were a salesman who promised us that our problems would wash off in the morning. He never made such a promise. It's time for Americans to realize that governing is hard work, and that a president can't just wave a magic wand and fix everything."

That first sentence is really interesting. The clause "as if he were a salesman" is in what used to be called the "subjunctive mood" back when I was in school. And, as a former English professor myself, I still employ this construction, at least in formal documents.

However, for better or ill, statistically, no one bothers with this distinctive form anymore, at least in the US. (The Brits still use it with great regularity.) Grammar is no longer rigorously taught in American schools, which is why our speech and writing habits have coarsened considerably since the 1950s. Most Americans in the above written excerpt would have said (or written) "if he was a salesman." "Were" is rarely employed by the vast majority of American speakers and writers in this context.

Ergo, unless "Ellie Light" is a Brit (or a well-educated member of the British Commonwealth), he/she is probably a well educated American and very possibly a professional writer. He/she also doesn't pal around with the actual proletariat much either. Otherwise, he/she would have long ago abandoned the formal subjunctive which is viewed by the average man on the street as a kind of haughty affectation.

Which brings us back to "Ellie Light." Fox reports that:

A woman claiming to be Light called into Michael Smerconish's Philadelphia radio show Tuesday morning. On the show, a clip of which was posted on Politico.com, she described herself as a "traveling nurse" and admitted to fabricating hometown addresses.

The woman who called may or may not be a phony, although this individual did at least fess up to the obvious--namely, that "Ellie" fabricated hometown addresses. Yet I'm not so sure that a "traveling nurse"--no offense to a highly educated profession--would be so natural and precise with the formal subjunctive in his/her writing. I think this phone call was another smokescreen.

To me, this subtle little clue gives us some insight into the skillsets and perhaps the profession of the "Ellie Light" writer. "Ellie" is well-educated, writes with far greater skill than the average American, and is likely a member in good standing of the political/social elite. "Ellie's" communications have all the hallmarks of a professional communicator. The average American don't write so good no more. Ironically, though, as a member of the elite class, this writer wouldn't have thought to cover his/her tracks by employing a little "lower class" grammar to throw off the hounds in the blogosphere.

I.e., we are indeed being hoodwinked by a pro or a team of pros. I leave it to more technically adept bloggers--who can actually trace phone calls or full email headers--to eventually expose the actual astroturfer. But my guess is, they won't have to stray very far from the Plouffe-Axelrod clubhouse to find the guilty dude/dudette.

Dennis "The Menace" Kucinich Sides With Tea Party?

From HazZzMat's "Now I've Seen Everything" Department

As readers of this blog know, I've been irritated most of my adult life at Dennis Kucinich, once boy mayor of my hometown, Cleveland, and now, unfortunately, essentially serving as Cleveland's sole Representative in Congress since the town's shrunk so much over the last 40 years.

Dennis is a demagogue, a socialist, and a narcissist, imagining every four years that the nation will want to elevate him to our highest office. Sadly, Dennis is shooting too low. Our current President, most likely a secret Marxist, beat him to the punch, big time. Sic transit, baby.

However, Dennis must know something about what makes his largely working-class constituents tick. Otherwise, they'd have thrown him out of office a long time ago. I think I've begun to pick up on what this factor might be via an interesting blog post. It unveils the genuinely populist side of Dennis the Menace, as opposed to the faux populist who sits in the Oval Office today.

Blogger Doug Ross notes Kucinich's recent CNBC appearance, citing this coverage from the National Ledger:

...He went as far as to mention the Tea Party movement in a separate interview, warning fellow Dems on the Ed Schultz Show not to ignore financial issues.

"I met with people who were, you know, unfairly ridiculed as being just a bunch of teabaggers and frankly they had basic economic concerns just like everyone else, they felt that government wasn't listening to them, and this is where the Democratic Party better wake up," he told the radio audience.

In the words of one of my old Great Lakes Merchant Marine buddies, "Truer words was never spoke."

Comments Ross:

Now that we've established that Dennis Kucinich is to the right of the current Democrat Party leadership, I think it's safe to say that the country is in some really, really deep s***.

Although, to be fair, last June the American Thinker's Randall Hoven warned us what to expect. Executive Summary: I'll see you in the rice paddies, comrade.

More on Mr. Plouffe and His Plouffe-ters

Can Obama Fool the People the Second Time Around?

As I mentioned in my previous post, I am beginning to wonder if the "Ellie Light" propaganda phenomenon signals the almost under-the-radar return of Obama's 2008 campaign chief, David Plouffe, to the center of this already highly politicized White House. Plouffe, David Axelrod, and numerous other despicable left-wingers--aided and abetted by media types in the tank for Obama from the get-go--were responsible for running the virtually information-free campaign that got their man into the White House. They waged imaginary battles with imaginary villains to distract the electorate from the real villains--themselves. And they succeeded brilliantly.

Their tactics were pure Saul Alinsky: having spent plenty of pre-campaign time working with the willing media to vilify and undercut President Bush throughout his second term, the Obama campaign carefully froze the phony Bush image in place and ran against it, smearing and slandering all the way. As to their opponents, they were secondary issues. They avoided attacking John McCain, a genuine war hero, directly for the most part and focused on the hapless Sarah Palin, re-inventing her as the kind of clueless idiot that would follow in Bush's footsteps if she were elected. The fact that she wasn't running for president wasn't important to them. The vilification was.

All Republicans running for office in 2008 were recast as clones of Bush. A transparently idiotic bit of chicanery on the surface, but it worked, proving that you can indeed fool all of the people at least some of the time.

The result: between George Bush and Sarah Palin, these Alinskyites created a collective comic book villain that inspired tens of thousands of young voters to pull the Democrat lever for probably the first and last time they will ever vote. The result: an astoundingly unsophisticated president with no executive experience who's now demagoguing furiously about fiscal matters best treated with extreme delicacy. Are you ready for more of this? Are you ready for another stock market crash tomorrow?

Obama may very well endanger our entire socioeconomic system. But why should he care? It'll just hasten the revolution that should have happened a long time ago. And to make sure it happens this time, the Chicago Messiah has brought back his old campaign team to start doing advance work for this fall.

Belmont Club's perspicacious Richard Fernandez unintentionally sets the table for an answer by citing an unusually credible piece in the NY Times:

Perhaps stemming from his earlier belief that he had “lost touch” with a fearful electorate, one of President Obama’s first moves in the wake of the Massachusetts debacle was to reshuffle his political operatives and put them on a permanent campaign footing.

In addition to Mr. Plouffe, who will primarily work from the Democratic National Committee in consultation with the White House, several top operatives from the Obama campaign will be dispatched across the country to advise major races as part of the president’s attempt to take greater control over the midterm elections, aides said.

“We are turning the corner to a much more political season,” said David Axelrod, a senior adviser to the president, who confirmed Mr. Plouffe’s role. “We are going to evaluate what we need to do to get timely intelligence and early warnings so we don’t face situations like we did in Massachusetts.”

Additionally, Fernandez cites the remarks of longtime liberal businessman Morty Zuckerman in this context. Zuckerman, along with the bulk of the East Coast's Wall Street fat cats, joyously pulled the lever for Obama in November, 2008. All of them, like the kiddie corps just cited, acted as if the election were just a big party where they could celebrate just how progressive they were by "making history." Now they're having a serious case of buyers' remorse. (The kids have gone back to their video games and saving the world through rock concerts.)

Zuckerman laments the sheer mendacity of Obama's and the Democrats' ultimate excuse for a national healthcare plan:

Five states got deals on health care—one of them was Harry Reid’s. It is disgusting, just disgusting. I’ve never seen anything like it. The unions just got them to drop the tax on Cadillac plans in the health-care bill. It was pure union politics. They just went along with it. It’s a bizarre form of political corruption. It’s bribery. I suppose they could say, that’s the system. He was supposed to change it or try to change it. …Focus on cost-containment first. But he’s trying to boil the ocean, trying to do too much. This is not leadership.

Fernandez takes the ball here and runs with it, offering one of the more cogent observations I've read recently about what's currently going on:

Zuckerman’s words — a man who voted for him — and the rejection by Massachusetts — the most liberal state in the country — echo through the debate. Sharpening the message and leadership style are not basic enough. Here’s a President who may have made the mistake of putting politics, not policy at the center of things. And repeating the mistake with greater emphasis isn’t necessarily a solution. He can send for his conjurers again and create the mightiest permanent campaigning machine history has ever seen. But they won’t bring back the magic. That requires performance in the areas of policy and governance.

The really worrisome thing is if the President can’t change as opposed to won’t change. If politics is all he knows and all he is good at then 2010 will be a rough year indeed, not just for Obama, but for everybody.

Amen to that. Even on the road in Elyria, Ohio, the President pretty much indicated that he won't change. God help us all.

The hits will keep on coming. Even more about Plouffe and other underground types in a future post. And they thought Karl Rove was a bad guy.

Charge of the (Ellie) Light Brigade Part Deux

Could David Plouffe Be the Ghost in the "Ellie Light" Machine?

A few entries ago, we discussed the emergence of a letter-writing sockpuppet engaged in a dishonest PR campaign on behalf of the currently hapless Barack Obama. "Ellie Light" (most probably not "her" real name) seems to be a resident of dozens of jurisdictions across the United States from which "she""mails" or emails essentially the same quite literate letter backing the blundering President and his blundering administration to the hilt.

The blogosphere has been on this like a horde of hungry people descending upon a free buffet meal. Updates here, here, and here.

As for me? I have just come up with a theory--it's still just that. I'm simply not quite sure how to delve into it. Follow me on this.

I read yesterday where a fellow named David Plouffe has just been put on the White House payroll to effectively do damage control, given the kind of disastrous week this administration has just endured caused for itself. Does the name sound familiar? It should.

Plouffe was the successful campaign manager for the Obama-Biden ticket in 2008. He was essentially their propagandist-in-chief in that a major part of the Obama campaign was geared toward creating a mythical figure who could win as the perfect superhero antidote to the MSM-demonized George W. Bush. I.e., the guy ran this campaign straight out of the Alinsky playbook and it worked. (Again, please read my previous post on "Ellie Light" linked above.)

If you following the links I provided above, you begin to see that the "Ellie Light" propaganda trail may, in fact, go back to similar phony pro-Obama letter writing astroturfing campaigns that surged nonstop through media outlets throughout the 2008 election cycle.

Fast forward to today's Washington Post op-ed section. What to our wondering eyes does appear? A huge, detailed propaganda manifesto masquerading as an opinion piece by none other than: David Plouffe. Let's see--we hear late last week that this guy is joining the administration as an advisor. His op-ed appears in the Sunday Post, which, like most newspapers, fleshes out its Sunday columns by midweek and puts these pages to bed on Friday night so it's available for stuffing into the Sunday sections.

In other words, it's a virtual certainty that Plouffe and his stooges in the Post editorial room engineered this timely propaganda surge even before Plouffe's appointment was announced. Yet to the uninitiated, Plouffe's puff piece seems like a real scoop, timely and fortuitous. But its timing, combined with a working knowledge of the news cycle, indicates it was written early last week. It was carefully planned for maximum effect not long after the Massachusetts election results were out and perhaps even sooner. This kind of placement is the work of a real professional.

If Plouffe was already doing this kind of advanced planning before anyone in the public realized he was back on Team Obama, I'm wondering if he might actually be the one behind the "Ellie Light" propaganda surge, which is probably a harbinger of even more of this kind of stuff.

I'll rebut the Plouffe propaganda piece itself in a later blog entry. It's pure, left wing propaganda, and I'll explain how it's done. Meanwhile, if anyone has better search resources than I do, I think there's a real scoop out there just waiting to be revealed.

More ClimateGate Scandal: UN and Nobel in Crosshairs

More Dishonesty Bad Science Exposed in UN Report

We haven't flogged "global warming" "climate change" for awhile, so let's catch up. Seems a UN report that actually copped a Nobel Prize for its absurdly extremist claims, was (surprise!) based on erroneous material. And the amount of this material, apparently, grows daily.

To wit, a report from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) claimed that the entire Himalayan glacier would melt by circa 2035--just 25 years from now. On the heels of the East Anglia-based ClimateGate scandal, we recently discovered that this report--whose conclusions are patently ridiculous if you think about it--was based on questionable data. Who knew?

Now the UN official in charge is in full coverup/damage control mode:

The Indian head of the UN climate change panel defended his position yesterday even as further errors were identified in the panel's assessment of Himalayan glaciers.
Dr Rajendra Pachauri dismissed calls for him to resign over the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change’s retraction of a prediction that Himalayan glaciers could disappear by 2035.

It's interesting that where the UN is concerned, the kinds of catastrophic errors that would get you or me fired within seconds should never be cause for an in competent bureaucrat's head to roll. In this case, Pachauri is responding to the discovery of even more errors in the UN snowjob report. And he's in a fighting mood:

“I know a lot of climate sceptics are after my blood, but I’m in no mood to oblige them,” he told The Times in an interview. “It was a collective failure by a number of people,” he said. “I need to consider what action to take, but that will take several weeks. It’s best to think with a cool head, rather than shoot from the hip.”

That's it! Those rotten "climate sceptics!" There's the problem. Next thing we'll discover is that Bush did it. You can just hear Pachauri's wheels grinding. "Hmm. If I can just stall long enough, this whole thing will blow away." 

Read the rest of this absurdly bad attempt at defending the indefensible by following the link above.

America Rising: Online Political Phenomenon

Anti-Dem, Tea Party Inspired Video Will Travel

The following video--decrying most of the things we decry here about the current socialist state of affairs in our nation's capital--is proliferating all over the net, so we're aiding and abetting said proliferation here. Not sure what the origin is. And no one here at HazZzMat ever voted for any single one of these clowns in 2008 as the author of the video seems to have done. Nonetheless, with the standard wordless chorus in the background, this video "letter" sums up the current electoral mood quite dramatically.

If you essentially agree with the sentiments in the video, feel free to send it along yourselves via email or blogs.

Obama vs. Capitalism: Take Three

Continuing Wisdom from the Proletariat

Via Instapundit. The succinct version of what we disgorged in our previous post:

GEE, THANKS MR. OBAMA: Reader David Davila writes:

Wednesday-Friday, the Dow lost 552 points, or 5.2 percent.

Thanks Mr. President!

Your new tilting at windmills ploy, errr, bad mouthing Wall Street, just blew up my 401(k), not to mention my other investments. Again. Right after they were just about even with the pounding they took a year or so ago. What a stellar job this administration is doing. Riiiight…

About now, I’m thinking if I wanted something screwed up, I can trust the Chicago boys to come through.

Click the link above to read the rest. Good job, dude.

Obama vs. Capitalism: Take Two

Obama Fights to Save Bernanke--Law of Unintended Consequences

If you read our post on Obama's trashing of the big banks earlier this week, you'll easily note our displeasure. It crashed the hell out of a precariously toppy stock market, wiping out plenty of  middle-class retirement money--money only recently recovered from the twin market debacles of 2008-2009. Some of it included my own. To paraphrase what they used to say in WWII: "Loose Lips Lose Lives."

Making matters worse, Obama's faux-populist anti-capitalist crusade has emboldened Senators on both sides of the aisle to gang up on Fed Chief Ben Bernanke, threatening to derail his confirmation vote which must be held before the end of the month. Without confirmation, Bernanke must immediately step down on February 1 with uncertain consequences after that.

Obama himself has figured this out and is trying to repair the damage to his nominee. So has the recalcitrant and possibly brain-dead Harry Reid. Both are now trying to salvage this nomination, put on hold by at least four senators from both sides of the aisle. His nomination now effectively requires 60 votes to confirm.

Immediate consequences of this ridiculous political snarl? Another thorough trashing of the market on Friday when it dawned on already-spooked traders that Bernanke's re-appointment may not happen.

Regardless of what you think of Uncle Ben--and I think he and the Fed were too slow to react to the early warning signs of the real estate debacle in 2007--he came through ultimately as a creative genius who did the opposite of what Herbert Hoover did after the Crash of 1929 and what the sainted FDR did again in 1937. He flooded the market with credit and worked with the Treasury to mount a massive intervention to buck up the major financial institutions. The ultimate object was to halt a potential run on the banking system along with incipient deflation. That's a far more difficult beast to control than inflation as anyone who survived the 1930s will tell you.

What Wall Street detests is uncertainty. But this administration has provided plenty of it. First, they pushed the first "stimulus bill" early in 2009--a boondoggle primarily aimed to shore up the public employees' unions by sending essentially bankrupt states enough money to keep paying their inflated salaries for another year.

Second, they wasted an entire year trying to ram through a socialized medicine plan containing more pork than real medicine, losing time to solve the employment problem their "stimulus" never addressed. Worse, their very fixation on "healthcare" has put businesses small and large into lockdown mode. Why? Once again, like Wall Street, businesses large and small abhor uncertainty, particularly of the Federal kind.

What terrifies businesses large and small is the forced addition, via Federal government edicts, of larger and larger mandatory employee benefit packages and related taxes, fines, etc. All increase the cost of doing business and would make the hiring of new employees by small businesses prohibitively expensive. The reaction of most businesses has been to hold off hiring new employees even if they're needed. They're terrified that, in a delicate economy, mandatory benefits additions will drive them right out of business.

Our economic recovery, in spite of all these gaffes, is actually underway. But at this crucial inflection point, both the Democrats in Congress and the amateurs in the White House are, for purely political reasons, squabbling about details, still focusing on their own re-election campaigns, and are risking a double-dip recession with their obtuseness. In point of fact, most Dems in charge today either have very little experience in business. Or, like Team Obama, they're Marxists who want to go socialist and kill all businesses they or the government don't run. This is a recipe for disaster.

A focused economic team is needed behind the scenes to keep things on an even keel until the fall 2010 elections can effect genuine stabilization by throwing a lot of the Congressional obstructionists out. The only team available right now with the smarts and the know-how to keep what remains of our economy afloat is run by Uncle Ben. Like him or not, to throw him out in a faux populist fit of pique over last week's Senate race in Massachusetts, is a fatal misreading of voter sentiment. It risks a massive market crash that will equal or exceed those we've already scene. It may erase confidence in the markets for at least a generation.

Lefty Democrats don't care, of course, because for them, US capitalism is a post-colonial system of oppression that needs to be shut down anyway. Righty Republicans hate the fact that Bernanke flooded the earlier problem with money--ignorant of the fact that it was his only choice. Everyone in the middle--most of us--is being completely ignored. The country may want some elements of the system to be repaired, but they don't want the whole system trashed. At the end of the day, they still like it.

Mark this: If the Fools on the Hill keep this up, the market will waterfall like you've never seen it before. If Ben Bernanke is not reconfirmed next week, you'd better get your money into your mattress, because that will be about the only safe place left for it.

UPDATE: Looks like I'm not the only voice crying in the wilderness here. Jennifer Rubin writes:

Pundits debate whether Obama’s new populist red meat will “work” — that is, allow him to recover his political footing. But if he unnerves the markets and spooks investors, he’ll be in further trouble. After all, he might insist that the economy is all George W. Bush’s fault, but fewer and fewer voters are buying that. And if his own policies — spending with abandon, pursuing a junk-a-thon stimulus plan, spending a year on the job-killing ObamaCare and cap-and-trade, and now frightening the financial markets – have paralyzed employers, then he surely is accountable for those results.