Democrats ran on the Culture of Corruption charge in 2006 and gained control of both chambers of Congress on the promise to clean up Capitol Hill.  The Wall Street Journal finds instead that Democrats have used their power to spend taxpayer dollars on high-priced global travel.  Taxpayer-funded Congressional delegation travel has increased by 50% since the Democrats took charge:

Spending by lawmakers on taxpayer-financed trips abroad has risen sharply in recent years, a Wall Street Journal analysis of travel records shows, involving everything from war-zone visits to trips to exotic spots such as the Galápagos Islands.

The spending on overseas travel is up almost tenfold since 1995, and has nearly tripled since 2001, according to the Journal analysis of 60,000 travel records. Hundreds of lawmakers traveled overseas in 2008 at a cost of about $13 million. That’s a 50% jump since Democrats took control of Congress two years ago.

The cost of so-called congressional delegations, known among lawmakers as “codels,” has risen nearly 70% since 2005, when an influence-peddling scandal led to a ban on travel funded by lobbyists, according to the data.

Lawmakers defend codels as necessary research for voting on complicated legislation.  Prior to 2006, lobbyists picked up the tab for many of these flights, but the Jack Abramoff scandal put that practice in extreme disfavor.  Instead of limiting themselves to the truly necessary travel, though, lawmakers have actually traveled more — and we’re paying for it.

Where do they go?  Afghanistan?  Iraq?  Honduras?  Not quite:

Although complete travel records aren’t yet available for 2009, it appears that such costs continue to rise. The Journal analysis shows that the government has picked up the tab for travel to destinations such as Jamaica, the Virgin Islands and Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.

Lawmakers frequently bring along spouses on congressional trips. If they take commercial flights, they have to buy tickets for spouses. If they fly on government planes — as they usually do — their spouses can fly free.

Read the rest at Hot Air.

It’s not easy living in the DC area. The place is a 60 square mile enclave bordered by reality, where the phrase “I voted for George Bush” gets you looked at like you have two heads, while being a gay vegan is considered perfectly normal. No, really!

You can imagine how irritating it gets when out trying to enjoy a beer and one of Al Gore’s cult followers begins proselytizingsomeone&rsqu o;s belief system is pointless. Pointing out how Climate Change is based more on belief than fact quickly sets them off, and they usually proceed to cite heavily flawed studies or quotes from an equally unreliable source. You could go back and forth all day, or you can end the conversation fairly quickly - simply state that you don’t debate religion, and if you’re to be expected to treat it like science, your green friend has to do so first. They can accomplish this by answering three simple questions: to the cause of Global Warming. But I’ve discovered that like the followers of any other religion, debating

1) Given the age of the planet and how widely the temperature has fluctuated over time, what is the ideal temperature that the Earth must be, and how will we maintain it over time?

2) One of the foundations of scientific theory is that it stands up to defeating theories that prove it wrong. We’ve heard how shrinking glaciers prove global warming, growing glaciers prove global warming, more storms prove global warming, and fewer storms prove global warming. What events prove their theories false?

3) Every few years a new threat comes along that threatens our very existence unless drastic action is taken yesterday. Of course, the media provides sensational screaming headlines backed up by irrefutable scientific evidence to promote these scares. Off of the top of my head here are a few from the last 40 years:

• Population would outgrow food supply causing mass starvation
• Oil reserves would be depleted by 1980
• Global Cooling
• Dioxin threatened us all (until it was discovered a pint of Ben & Jerry’s contains 3,000 times the “safe” level)
• Oil reserves would be depleted by 2000
• The hole in the ozone layer would continue to grow at an exponential rate

Since all of these crises turned out to be wrong, why is it that this time is different?

Go read the rest.

Flopping Aces

As we prepare to celebrate Independence Day, we will hear about our Founding Fathers, about those who fought our wars to preserve and safeguard our nation, and other men and women who contributed to the nation’s greatness.

It is good to look back, but future generations will look back as well and wonder how such a great nation became such a silly nation, the object of scorn and ridicule around the world, challenged by every gangster nation that shares the planet; attacked by Al Qaeda, threatened by North Korea, mocked by Venezuela, insulted by Iran, and sustained by the wealth of China and other lenders.

America Governed by Fools

What other republic is governed by fools who voted without reading “climate” legislation whose 1,200 pages of rules and regulations will enrich a few and leave the rest scrambling to pay the light bill? That is, if the light turns on. If passed by the Senate, it will be the largest tax increase in the history of the nation. It exists to “save the planet” from a “global warming” that is not happening.

What other nation would systematically ensure that its vast resources of coal, enough to power plants to produce electricity for the next hundred or two hundred years, not be used because no new plants will be built? Fully fifty percent of our electricity comes from coal, but this nation is about to waste billions of dollars on wind and solar energy—so called “clean” energy—which accounts for about one percent.

If wind or solar was a sensible way to produce electricity, surely utilities would have invested in it long ago. It isn’t. It never will be. Only a very silly nation would shift billions of dollars to such “clean” and “renewable” energy when it was sitting on top of tons of coal.

Only a silly nation would ensure that its other vast, natural and national resource, oil, would be put off limits to all exploration and extraction in Alaska and along our vast coastlines, as well as huge reserves in the nation’s interior. Only a silly nation would do this while listening to its politicians talk about “energy independence.”

Only a silly nation would ignore the vast potential of nuclear power and use all manner of bureaucratic obstacles to drive up the cost of building plants to generate electricity.

Only a silly nation would ignore the security of its southern border as a virtual invasion of illegal aliens pours across, and take advantage of all manner of welfare programs, special education programs for their children, and free medical services. Our prisons, too, are filling up with illegal aliens.

Only a silly nation with twelve million or more of these illegal aliens in its midst would actually be looking for a way to magically make them citizens overnight while ignoring the fact that they having been taking jobs from natural born and naturalized citizens by working “off the books” and sending billions back to Mexico and points south. Amnesty would double or triple the existing population of formerly illegal aliens in America as family members joined them.

Spot on.  Oh, Canada!

Canada Free Press

The cap-and-trade bill passed the House of Representatives shrouded in a fog of willful ignorance and calculated irrationality.

No one could be sure what he was voting for — not after the 1,200-page bill had a 300-page amendment added at 3:09 a.m. the day of its passage. The bill is so complex and jerry-built that even its supporters can’t know how, or if, it will work. And it’s metaphysically impossible for someone to know whether the motivating crisis, impending planetary doom, will ever materialize.

Other than that, it’s a model exercise in thoughtful lawmaking.

The formulation of the so-called Waxman-Markey bill was less traditional legislative sausage-making than an unspeakable practice out of The Jungle. Its architects bought off every possible interest group no matter what the policy consequences until they had a bare majority to slam it through the House sight unseen (a physical copy of the final bill didn’t yet exist when it passed). Mission accomplished, although at the price of a ramshackle bill that won’t succeed on its own terms, even as it introduces costly distortions and invasive bureaucratic controls into the economy.

The basic idea of cap-and-trade is that government establishes an economy-wide cap on carbon emissions and then creates emission credits, which companies can buy or sell among themselves. It is essentially carbon rationing designed to suppress traditional sources of energy.

Because cap-and-trade is meant to create pain in an economy dependent on fossil fuels for 85 percent of its energy, the only way to make it politically salable is to vitiate it. Originally, the Obama administration counted on $80 billion a year from the government’s sale of emissions credits. To win over industry, Waxman-Markey gives the credits away for free. Poof! There goes the revenue.

The bill bestows hundreds of billions’ worth of credits on local electricity and natural-gas distribution companies, as well as on the auto, coal, and oil industries — basically anyone with the ear of a congressman or with a halfway-competent lobbyist.

Then there are the “offsets,” the environmental equivalent of indulgences. A company maintains its carbon emissions but buys an offset for someone else to capture carbon or reduce emissions — say, by not cutting down a tree in a rain forest somewhere. Offsets are notoriously dubious. Waxman-Markey makes generous allowance for them anyway.

The upshot is that an Environmental Protection Agency analysis says that under Waxman-Markey, there will be no reduction in emissions by 2020. The progressive Breakthrough Institute estimates that emissions could continue at their current business-as-usual rate through 2030. Perversities abound. According to the Los Angeles Times, under the bill, the U.S. “would use more carbon-dioxide heavy coal in 2020 than it did in 2005.” Time writes that “the total amount of renewable energy generation under Waxman-Markey would actually be less than the renewable energy that would have been produced without the bill.”

Morons.  The Senate better not pass this crap...

NRO

No, as far as I know, Neda and the victims of the Iran crackdown never got one of their own — but they did get a resolution of support, so never mind that comparison. What’s more irritating here, that the House would interrupt national business for this or that JJJ would have the stones to pay tribute to the “grace” and “mercy” of a guy who was accused of child molestation more than once and was known to pay $20+ million settlements in hush money to his accusers? Atheist bonus points to Junior for framing it as an “if there is a God” question, oblivious as he is to the implications for that subject if one believes Michael was “blessed” with a penchant for kiddie-fondling. Like Treacher says, it’s a good thing those cherubs have wings; they’re going to need them.

As I write this, the websites of CNN, FNC, ABC, and NBC are still in full banner mode. The only outlet not smoking the Jacko cracko is CBS. Thank god it’s Friday. Click the image to watch.

Oh fer the love of Pete!  Not like there's anthing ELSE going on in the world.

Video @ Hot Air.

Wakey wakey America: nightmare day is here. The day when the House of Representatives votes on probably the most pointless, damaging, wrong-headed and suicidally dumb piece of legislation since…

Well I was going to say Prohibition, but even Prohibition had a certain twisted logic to it. (You know: “Daddy, why does your breath smell funny? Why do you keep hitting Mom? Why’s there no money for food again this week?” etc. I’m not saying I’m persuaded by this argument but at least you can concede the Temperance movement had one).

So that must mean then that the Climate Bill - aka Waxman-Markey after the two, rather sinister-looking representatives who wrote it - being pushed through the House today is quite simply the worst piece of US legislation in living memory. And possibly beyond.

Why? Well at the cost of the biggest tax increase in American history, it will achieve precisely zilch.

(Actually, not quite zilch. There are one or two people who are going to be doing very nicely out of it, from the Libtard apparatchiks and Algore fellow travellers who’ve invested in the right carbon-trading companies to all those vested interests in the Mid-West who have been bought off with the inevitable pork barrelling concessions designed to ease the bill’s awkward passage.)

According to an analysis by the Heritage Foundation the Waxman-Markey bill -  whose centrepiece is a tax on carbon emissions, often known as “cap and trade” because it sounds innocuous and no one understands what it means - will by 2035 reduce aggregate gross domestic product by $7.4 trillion. (That’s more than 6 times the projected cost of President Obama’s ENTIRE universal healthcare programme).

But the misery doesn’t end there:

“In an average year, 844,000 jobs would be destroyed, with peak years seeing unemployment rise by almost 2 million.”

“Consumers would pay through the nose as electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket, as President Obama once put it, by 90% adjusted for inflation. Inflation-adjusted gasoline prices would rise 74%, residential natural gas prices by 55% and the average family’s annual energy bill by $1,500.”

And how exactly will the world benefit from this swingeing tax on the stuff every one of us breathes out every minute of day?

“According to an analysis by Chip Knappenberger, administrator of the World Climate Report, the reduction of U.S. CO2 emissions to 83% below 2005 levels by 2050 — the goal of the Waxman-Markey bill — would reduce global temperature in 2050 by a mere 0.05 degree Celsius.”

There’s ‘no debate on carbon pollution’ jeopardizing the planet, claims President Obama, who clearly gets all his information from the liberal broadcast media and the dead tree press, both of which for reasons known only to themselves cleave to the Al Gore “Anthropogenic Global Warming” meme like cognitive dissonant rats to a sinking ship.

Out here in the real world, meanwhile, there are fewer and fewer of us who want any more of their money of wasted on this bizarre eco-fascist fantasy. It was an exciting and novel distraction in the good old days when we still felt rich and a bit guilty for being rich and wanted to devise new ways of punishing ourselves for our (perceived) eco sins. But not any more. We haven’t the money to bribe the Third World to reduce its carbon emissions; nor are our economies nearly strong enough to absorb the burden of green taxation and zealous  and intrusive green legislation.

What’s more, the science is increasingly with us. Today I shall be praying with all my heart that Waxman-Markey dies the death it so fully deserves. So too will everyone else in the world who values liberty, a healthy global economy and plain common sense.

Melt the phones, people.  We cannot allow this Obomanation to pass!!

The Telegraph

Waxman-markey pre-liminary head-count as of Thursday afternoon (courtesy Myron Ebell):

218 needed to win…

Yes

Yes = 175
Leaning Yes = 35
TOTAL = 210

Undecided = 20

No

No = 190
Leaning No = 14
TOTAL = 204

Undecided or Won’t Say:

Kirkpatrick Az
Boyd Fla
Brown Fla
Bishop Ga
R Kirk Ill
Foster Ill
Donnelly Ind
R Jones NC
McIntyre NC
R Frelinghuysen NJ
Tonko NY
Arcuri NY
Space Ohio (he voted for it in committee)
Carney Penna.
Davis Tenn
Al Green Tex
Jackson Lee Tex
Ortiz Tex
Eddie Bernice Johnson Tex
Kind Wisc

Leaning Yes:

Mitchell Az
Cardoza Calif
Costa Calif
Baca Calif
R Castle Del
Grayson Fla
Meek Fla
Kozmas Fla
Abercrombie Hi
Bean Ill
R Cao La
Kratovil Md
R Ehlers Mich
Kildee Mich
Schauer Mich
Peters Mich
Clay Mo
Skelton Mo
Thompson Miss
Shuler NC
Adler NJ
Lance NJ
Meeks NY
McMahon NY
Murphy NY
R McHugh NY
Maffei NY
Driehaus Ohio
Fudge Ohio
Kilroy Ohio
Cooper Tenn
Edwards Tex
Rodriguez Tex
Nye Va
Kagan Wisc

Leaning No:

Salazar Colo
Marshall Ga
Boswell Iowa
Minnick Idaho
Halvorson Ill
Etheridge NC
Kissell NC
Massa NY
Kaptur Ohio
Boccieri Ohio
R Gerlach Penna
Hinojosa Tex
Mollohan WV
Rahall WV

The one-hour ABC News special "Primetime: Questions for the President: Prescription for America" (4.7 million viewers, 1.1 preliminary adults 18-49 rating) had the fewest viewers in the 10 p.m. hour (against NBC's "The Philanthropist" debut and a repeat of "CSI: NY" on CBS). The special tied some 8 p.m. comedy repeats as the lowest-rated program on a major broadcast network.

The special was shot at the White House and featured the president answering questions about his health care plan. The president's primary message was that those who like their current insurance will be able to keep it and that taking no action will result in higher health care costs.

The special drew fire from Republican leadership after refusing to allow an official opposition response, or even a paid ad. ABC also interviewed Obama on "Good Morning America" to help promote the special.

UPDATE: ABC points out that "Questions for the President" continued into late night during "Nightline" (4.3 million) and helped boost the news program to pull more viewers than CBS' "Late Show" and NBC's "Tonight Show."

*Snork*

The Live Feed

The Senate is about to pay off the unions for helping get Obama elected. Senator Max Baucus (D, Mont.) looks to be about ready to propose a plan to pay for Obama’s massive, more than $1 trillion in new government spending on healthcare by instituting a new tax on many employees that currently have healthcare through their workplace (nearly 1 in 8 workers according to Peter Barnes). Never having been “income” before, Senator Baucus is prepared to claim it is and will be taxed accordingly.

… unless, of course, you happen to be a union member. If you are a Democrat supporting, Obama voting union member, why you don’t have to pay this never before levied tax at all. You get off scot free. Fuggedaboutit.

So much for equal under the law. Now, all you have to do is join a union and, voila, you don’t have to pay the taxes everyone else suffers under. Aren’t you glad that Obama is so interested in “fair,” and “balanced” governance? Isn’t it great that the Obama era is the “post-partisan&rdqu o; era? If it weren’t the “post-partisan&rdqu o; era, I’d fear for my life instead of just my tax bill this being an example of Democrat’s “fairness” for America.

One of the many problems with Obamacare is his claim that the program could be made “revenue neutral.” It is a thorough fantasy to imagine it could be so. We all know that for Obama to begin to pay for even a small portion of this mess taxes will have to be raised in many areas. And even that will never cover the cost of the trillions that Obama wants to spend on this policy. Obama’s meddling in healthcare will cost an exorbitant amount of money. Worse, it is likely that the states will be left with unfunded mandates that will force them to raise taxes as well (just like what happened with Medicare and Medicaid).

Additionally, Baucus has a sort of bait and switch in his proposal. Not only is he selling this idea to his biggest supporters in unions as a free ride for them in order to get their class warfare vote, but he is also pretending that only “the rich” will have to pay the healthcare-coverage-as-in come tax. He says that only a small number of Americans will be hit with the new tax scheme. To soften the blow, Baucus is proposing a cap on on his tax exclusion at a level “significantly above” the cost of current federal employees plans. That way, he claims, the tax would hit only those making $100,000 or above (or $200,000 for a couple). He then proposes that the tax cap be frozen at this current rate. It’s a classic class warfare maneuver. Soak the rich, give everyone else a pass… even though that “everyone else” will ostensibly benefit the most.

So, why would Baucus only want to tax such a small number of people? If his goal is to “pay” for Obama’s massive spending on healthcare, one might think Baucus would make the cap at a much lower income level so that more Americans would find themselves paying the new tax.

This is where it gets underhanded. Once the Baucus cap is frozen at today’s rates, as time goes on and incomes rise, more and more Americans will find themselves suddenly “rich” enough to be taxed unequally. This happened with the “Alternative Minimum Tax.” In that case, only “millionaires&rdquo ; were supposed to be hit harder, but as incomes rose more and more people found themselves forced into the bracket that triggered the tax. The obvious tactic is to hurt fewer Americans now to get the thing passed all the while knowing that more and more citizens will be hit later.

And why exempt all union members? Shouldn’t they share the same burden as other Americans? This is just more of Baucus’ underhanded political games being played with our health. Was Baucus trained by Tony Soprano? It sure seems so.

Publius' Forum

President Barack Obama has gone to the golf course at least 11 times since he took the oath of office a little more than six months ago--three rounds were played during the late January, 12-day holiday Obama took with his family in Hawaii; one at Andrews Air Force Base; and seven at Ft. Belvoir Golf Course, including a round on Sunday, Father’s Day, with Vice President Joe Biden.
 
These 11 rounds played by the president are documented through media reports of his golf trips. The White House press office told CNSNews.com that to confirm every round of golf played by the president since he took office would take “hours” because the only records kept are those sent to the media through e-mails that are not posted on the White House Web site because they are for media planning only.

Despite ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, ongoing violence in Iran, and an economy that Obama has described as the worst since the Great Depression, the president has golfed multiple times in the past several weeks--on April 26, May 16, May 25, May 31, June 7, June 9, June 14 and June 21.

Obama’s golf outings have generated favorable reports from the media, in contrast to his predecessor, George W. Bush.
 
On Aug. 5, 2002, The Washington Post wrote about President Bush golfing near his parents’ home in Kennebunkport, Maine. Under the headline “Before Golf, Bush Decries Latest Deaths in Mideast,” staff writer Mike Allen described Bush as he “sprang from his golf cart at 6:15 a.m. and said he was distressed to hear about the latest suicide bombers in Israel.”

“Bush, wearing khakis and a knit shirt, was holding a driver in his gloved left hand,” Allen wrote.

“However incongruous the setting, the president plunged ahead,” Allen wrote.
 
“There are a few killers who want to stop the peace process that we have started, and we must not let them,” he [Bush] said. “I call upon all nations to do everything they can to stop these terrorist killers.”

“His business out of the way,” Allen wrote, “Bush barely paused for breath before saying, ‘Thank you. Now watch this drive.’”
 
A search of news reports on Nexis revealed that photographers, but not reporters have access to Obama when he is on the links. But his outings have been covered, including by The Washington Post on June 9, 2009, in an article with the headline “Just the Sport for A Leader Most Driven.”

“What’s the deal? Why golf?” Post staff writer Richard Leiby wrote. “The attraction seems to be simple. It’s a great escape; the game demands such attention that nothing else matters. It’s time spent with friends, an unhurried afternoon in loose clothing (shorts seem to be Obama’s preference).”

Leiby continued, “To some, Obama’s frequent outings reflect a cool self-confidence.”

Leiby even quoted a sports psychologist who said Obama seemed able to play golf despite the grim reports by the media about the wars and the economy.

In August 2003, Bush said he decided to stop playing golf to show his respect for the men and women serving in Iraq and Afghanistan and their families.

“I don’t want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander in chief playing golf,” Bush said in an interview with Politico and Yahoo News on May 13, 2008. “I feel I owe it to the families to be in solidarity as best I can with them. And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal.”

Bush said he made the decision after the August 2003 bombing of the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad, which killed Sergio Vieira de Mello, the top U.N. official in Iraq and the organization’s high commissioner of human rights. He was golfing when he got the news.

“I was playing golf--I think I was in central Texas--and they pulled me off the golf course and I said, ‘It’s just not worth it anymore to do.’”

Bush was criticized for giving up golf, including by presidential historian Robert Dallek who was quoted in a May 14, 2008 article in The Washington Post.

Dallek said Bush’s remarks about Iraq “speak to his shallowness.” Dallek added: “That's his idea of sacrifice, to give up golf?”

God I hate you lefty hypocrites...

CNS News

The Obamacare horror story you won’t hear
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2009

The White House, Democrats, and MoveOn liberals are spreading health care sob stories to sell a government takeover. But there’s one health care policy nightmare you won’t hear the Obamas hyping. It’s a tale of poor, minority patient-dumping in Chicago — with First Lady Michelle Obama’s fingerprints all over it.

Both Republican Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa and Democrat Rep. Bobby Rush of Chicago have raised red flags about the outsourcing program, run by the University of Chicago Medical Center. The hospital has non-profit status and receives lucrative tax breaks in exchange for providing charity care. Yet, it spent a measly $10 million on charity care for the poor in fiscal 2007 when Mrs. Obama was employed there—1.3 percent of its total hospital expenses, according to an analysis performed for The Washington Post by the non-partisan Center for Tax and Budget Accountability. The figure is below the 2.1 percent average for nonprofit hospitals in surrounding Cook County.

Rep. Rush called for a House investigation last week in response to months of patient-dumping complaints, noting: “Congress has a duty to expend its power to mitigate and prevent this despicable practice from continuing in centers that receive federal funds.”

Don’t expect the president to support a probe. While a top executive at the hospital, Mrs. Obama helped engineer the plan to offload low-income patients with non-urgent health needs. Under the Orwellian banner of an “Urban Health Initiative,” Mrs. Obama sold the scheme to outsource low-income care to other facilities as a way to “dramatically improve health care for thousands of South Side residents.” The program guaranteed “free” shuttle rides to and from the outside clinics.

In truth, it was old-fashioned cost-cutting and favor-trading repackaged as minority aid. Clearing out the poor freed up room for insured (i.e., more lucrative) patients. If a Republican had proposed the very same program and recruited black civic leaders to front it, Michelle Obama and her grievance-mongering friends would be screaming “RAAAAAAAAACISM!&rd quo; at the top of their lungs.

Joe Stephens of the Washington Post wrote: “To ensure community support, Michelle Obama and others in late 2006 recommended that the hospital hire the firm of David Axelrod, who a few months later became the chief strategist for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. Axelrod’s firm recommended an aggressive promotional effort modeled on a political campaign—appoint a campaign manager, conduct focus groups, target messages to specific constituencies, then recruit religious leaders and other third-party ‘validators.’ They, in turn, would write and submit opinion pieces to Chicago publications.”

Some health care experts saw through Mrs. Obama and her public relations man, David Axelrod—yes, the same David Axelrod who is now Mr. Obama’s senior adviser at the White House. The University of Chicago Medical Center hired Axelrod’s public relations firm, ASK Public Strategies, to promote Mrs. Obama’s Urban Health Initiative. Axelrod had the blessing of Chicago political guru Valerie Jarrett – now White House senior adviser.

Axelrod’s great contribution: Re-branding! His firm recommended re-naming the initiative after “[i]nternal and external respondents expressed the opinion that the word ‘urban’ is code for ‘black’ or ‘black and poor’….Based on the research, consideration should be given to re-branding the initiative.” Axelrod and the Obama campaign refused to disclose how much his firm received for its genius re-branding services.

In February 2009, outrage in the Obamas’ community exploded after a young boy covered by Medicaid was turned away from the University of Chicago Medical Center. Dontae Adams’ mother, Angela, had sought emergency treatment for him after a pit bull tore off his upper lip. Mrs. Obama’s hospital gave the boy a tetanus shot, antibiotics, and Tylenol and shoved him out the door. The mother and son took an hour-long bus ride to another hospital for surgery.

I’ll guarantee you this: You’ll never see the Adams family featured at an Obama policy summit or seated next to the First Lady at a joint session of Congress to illustrate the failures of the health care system.

Following the Adams incident, the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) blasted Mrs. Obama and Mr. Axelrod’s grand plan. The group released a statement expressing “grave concerns that the University of Chicago’s policy toward emergency patients is dangerously close to ‘patient dumping,’ a practice made illegal by the Emergency Medical Labor and Treatment Act (EMTALA)” – signed by President Reagan, by the way – “and reflected an effort to ‘cherry pick’ wealthy patients over poor.”

Rewarding political cronies at the expense of the poor while posing as guardians of the downtrodden? Welcome to Obamacare.

Michelle Malkin

And that suits those doing the blacklisting particularly if they call themselves liberal and claim to care about censorship and human rights.

But some liberals forget to keep quiet and make public what is really going on.

Richard Lindzen is an MIT physicist whose scientific investigations make him sceptical about Global Warming. But his significant scientific pedigree does not matter to those less qualified who believe otherwise. He recently told the GreenHellBlog that after a house fire he approached a Boston art appraiser to value an antique rug.

Professor Lindzen received the following response by email:

"I am sorry to inform you that after some consideration, I’ve decided not to perform the appraisal service that you’ve requested. Your writing on the subject of global warming is offensive to me personally, and I feel that I would have difficulty being an impartial appraiser of value given my view on the subject."

We smiled when the email was revealed and thought that Professor Lindzen and Boston could do with a new art appraiser.

However it was amusing only until we asked a number of US companies to work for us. We needed companies to make DVDs and provide translated subtitles for our new documentary Not Evil Just Wrong. Just like Professor Lindzen it challenges liberal orthodoxy - taking a critical look at environmentalism and Global Warming hysteria.

And just like Professor Lindzen we felt the chill hand of discrimination. One of the companies, in the midst of the biggest recessions in living memory, said "our order was too big" and declined to bid for the contract.

However, the Atlanta based International Services translation company really gave the game away when in an email they explained why they were refusing to provide us with their services.

CEO Sue Ellen Reager stated:

"I have researched your film on the web, and do not see scientific reviews or major press reviews in support (may be too early), and needed that support to assure cooperation from our translators. Because we translate with highly educated people around the world, located in countries like Germany and France, who take Global Warming very seriously, I am fairly sure that several countries will refuse to participate in this project."

In a follow up telephone conversation Ms Reager explained to "you guys in Europe" how the system really worked.

Ms Reager and her company have "worked in Hollywood for years" she explained. Their client list includes CNN, Turner Broadcasting, Google and Microsoft.

At first she blamed her European translators.

"Your content looks like it is refuting many assertions made by Al Gore and Europe is pro Al Gore... and I am pretty sure they will refuse to participate...we deal with really classy people in Germany and anything attacking Al Gore they will refuse."

Speaking on the phone Ms Reager said that in the email she was "just being nice" to us because we were Europeans and that she was worried that the film might be like some of the "Republican shit" that gets released in the US.

The real problem is with those pesky Republicans in the US who insist on making films that she and Hollywood don't agree with.

"I didn't know whether your documentary is fact based or part of the rubbish that Republicans make. You wouldn't believe the crap they put out. It is unbelievable shit, incredible lies," she said.

Many Republicans put out films that are just "faith based imaginings," she added.

We are European but isn't Altlanta the home of one of your famous civil rights leaders who in a "faith based imagining" dreamed that people one day would be judged by the content of their character and nothing else.

This dream does not seem to have reached Hollywood - just yet. It is a one party town where character, hard work and talent count for nothing. No dissent form the leftist orthodoxy seems to be tolerated and those who disagree experience quiet discrimination that slowly strangles their ability to work in the industry.

Not evil, just wrong

The new federal report on climate change gets a withering critique from Roger Pielke Jr., who says that it misrepresents his own research and that it wrongly concludes that climate change is already responsible for an increase in damages from natural disasters. Dr. Pielke, a professor of environmental studies at the University of Colorado, asks:

[Why] is a report characterized by [White House] Science Advisor John Holdren as being the “most up-to-date, authoritative, and comprehensive” analysis relying on a secondary, non-peer source citing another non-peer reviewed source from 2000 to support a claim that a large amount of uncited and more recent peer-reviewed literature says the opposite about?

You can check out Dr. Pielke’s blog for a detailed rebuttal of how the report presents science in his area of expertise, the study of trends in natural disasters and their relation to climate change. While the new federal report (prepared by 13 agencies and the White House) paints a dire picture of climate change’s impacts, Dr. Pielke says that the authors of this new report, like those of previous reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the Stern Review, cherrypick weak evidence that fits their own policy preferences. He faults all these reports for all relying on “non-peer reviewed, unsupportable studies rather than the relevant peer-reviewed literature” and for “featuring non-peer-reviewed work conducted by the authors.”

Dr. Pielke contrasts these reports’ conclusions about trends in natural disasters with the some quite different findings last year by the federal Climate Change Science Program. Dr. Pielke summarizes some of its less sensational conclusions:

1. Over the long-term, U.S. hurricane landfalls have been declining.
2. Nationwide there have been no long-term increases in drought.
3. Despite increases in some measures of precipitation . . . there have not been corresponding increases in peak streamflows (high flows above 90th percentile).
4. There have been no observed changes in the occurrence of tornadoes or thunderstorms
5. There have been no long-term increases in strong East Coast winter storms (ECWS), called Nor’easters.
6. There are no long-term trends in either heat waves or cold spells, though there are trends within shorter time periods in the overall record.

Okay, liberals, I have a radical idea I want to run by you: the Iranian government is bad and worthy of some of your outrage.

Yeah, I know, it sounds crazy. Iran is not a beauty queen speaking out against gay marriage, or Sarah Palin. Why in the world would you want to direct any scorn towards a brutal theocracy seeking nuclear weapons? It’s not obvious, but let me explain.

Now, I know it doesn’t take much to convince conservatives to be against Iran. You just tell them, “It’s full of foreigners.” And they’ll be like, “What?! Let’s nuke it! Let’s nuke it now!” Liberals, of course, are more sophisticated and will take a much more measured approach. When you tell them that Iran has an evil government worthy of outrage, they’ll point out the obvious — that it’s not America.

Well, that’s true, and I know America is the biggest meddler and cause of trouble everywhere, but also remember it’s now run by President Obama. Thus, if you’re too critical of America, you’ll also be critical of Obama, which is de facto racist. So you have to admit that’s a pretty good argument to redirect some of that scorn at another country.

Okay — I know the first country that comes to mind if you are not going to hate America is Israel. Israel is a close ally of America — which is pretty suspicious — while Iran constantly condemns America, something sophisticated people are known to do since America is full of the greatest threat to this planet: Mid-Westerners. Once again, I’m going to suggest something radical. …

Maybe you can try judging a country regardless of its opinion on America.

The Iranians just had an election stolen from them by their government. Remember how angry you were when you pretended the election was stolen in 2000? Why, you whined about it for years and years. Some of you still even whine about it today. Again, you guys were only pretending an election was stolen. Now think if the election were actually stolen, and Bush declared himself winner by 63 percent of the vote. You’d be so angry you might actually do something more than whine about it. Well, that is what’s happening with the Iranians, and they’re taking to the streets. If you miss the pretend anger about 2000, maybe you can direct some real anger at what’s happened in Iran.

Excellent.

Pajamas Media

In 2005, La Raza received $15.2 million in federal grant money for charter schools and get-out-the-vote campaigns and in 2006 got another $4 million in congressional earmarks for housing reform. The organization’s financial statements for 2008 show that it received another $5.1 million in federal grants, and holds assets worth $97.4 million. La Raza has received more than $30 million from the federal government since 1996.  

The Council of La Raza arranged to have its voice included in congressional hearings by House and Senate leaders and garnered an extra $4 million in federal tax funds earmarked by an anonymous senator in 2007 while continuing to lobby for open borders, driver’s licenses for illegals, and amnesty leading to citizenship for all illegal immigrants in the country. 

Many of Mexico’s leading politicians encourage the takeover of sovereign U.S. property, and La Raza encourages those statements, while offering advice about avoiding the terms “illegals” and “amnesty.” Former Mexican President Felipe Calderon told Mexicans in a state of the nation address that “Where there is a Mexican, there is Mexico.” In 1995, President Ernesto Zedillo told a group of U.S. citizens of Hispanic descent in Dallas that “You are Mexicans, Mexicans who live North of the border,” suggesting they owed a higher allegiance to Mexico than the United States. Zedillo brought a 1997 La Raza gathering in Chicago to its feet in applause when he said that the Mexican nation extends beyond the territory enclosed by its borders. All those statements accord with the accusations of the colonialism that the U.S. is constantly accused of pursuing by its enemies.

Go read the rest.

Human Events

The firing of Gerald Walpin as Inspector General was not an isolated incident, as the Chicago Tribune reports today.  Two more IGs have been dismissed in the past two weeks, and Senator Charles Grassley has started demanding answers.  The sudden push to rid the government of independent watchdogs appears to coincide with Barack Obama’s plans to use government spending to get control over more aspects of American life, such as with stimulus spending, the financial sector, and volunteer organizations (via Dan Riehl):

He was appointed with fanfare as the public watchdog over the government’s multi-billion dollar bailout of the nation’s financial system. But now Neil Barofsky is embroiled in a dispute with the Obama administration that delayed one recent inquiry and sparked questions about his ability to freely investigate.

The disagreement stems from a claim by the Treasury Department that Barofsky is not entirely independent of the agency he is assigned to examine — a claim that has prompted a stern letter from a Republican senator warning that agency officials are encroaching on the integrity of an office created to protect taxpayers. …

The dispute comes as Grassley, ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, is looking into the abrupt firings within the last week of two other inspectors general ¿ one of whom was fired by the White House and the other by the chair of the International Trade Commission.

Both inspectors general had investigated sensitive subjects at the time of their firings.

Grassley is now concerned about whether a pattern is emerging in which the independence of the government’s top watchdogs — whose jobs were authorized by Congress to look out for waste, fraud and abuse — is being put at risk.

The positions themselves indicate where the White House wants to go with its efforts.  Barofsky ruffled feathers in April when his watchdog report showed that the Obama administration had placed insufficient safeguards on Porkulus spending.   This later caused Joe Biden to shrug and tell the media, “Some people are being scammed already,” as if it wasn’t the job of the administration to stop it from happening.  Barofsky now has a leash around his neck, with the White House insisting that he answers only to Treasury.

This is what you progressive shitheads have elected:  A Chicago thug.

Hot Air

A top Republican senator is asking whether First Lady Michelle Obama's office played any role in last week's firing of former service program Inspector General Gerald Walpin. 

The concern, one of several surrounding Walpin's sudden dismissal, stems from the timing of a staff switch in the first lady's office. Just days before Walpin got the boot, the White House announced Michelle Obama's chief of staff would be appointed senior adviser to the agency Walpin was responsible for monitoring. Michelle Obama said at the time she and her outgoing staffer, Jackie Norris, would work closely going forward. 

With accusations now flying that the Walpin firing was politically motivated, the personnel change only adds to the list of questions Republicans have for the president. 

The White House insists the first lady had nothing to do with the firing. 

"She was not involved in any way in the decision to remove Mr. Walpin," White House spokesman Josh Earnest told FOXNews.com. 

Responding to criticism, President Obama on Tuesday offered a more detailed explanation for why he fired Walpin. In a letter sent through his special counsel, Norman Eisen, to leaders of the Senate committee that oversees AmeriCorps, Obama argued the agency's chief watchdog was so "confused" and "disoriented" at a board meeting that some questioned "his capacity to serve."

But Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, is looking for more documentation. 

He has sent a letter to Alan Solomont, board chairman for the Corporation for National and Community Service, asking that he provide all relevant correspondence from several offices and individuals. Included in that list was "contacts with officials in the Office of the First Lady." 

The letter did not elaborate on why the senator is seeking that information, but a Grassley aide confirmed that the Republican asked because of the recent staff switch in the first lady's office. 

Grassley's questions go far beyond that issue. He is among several Republican lawmakers who have sounded alarms about the firing and suggested President Obama canned Walpin in retaliation for investigating one of his supporters, Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson. Johnson was accused of misusing federal funds for an academy he founded. He eventually reached a settlement with the U.S. attorney's office.

Grassley, a frequent defender of government watchdogs, fired off thinly veiled accusations against the administration in his letter. 

"Inspectors general have a statutory duty to report to Congress. Intimidation or retaliation against those who freely communicate their concerns to members of the House and Senate cannot be tolerated," Grassley wrote. "This is especially true when such concerns are as legitimate and meritorious as Mr. Walpin's appear to be."

FNN

After being briefed today on President Obama’s firing last week of Gerald Walpin, Inspector General of the Corporation for National and Community Service, Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., said the president did not abide by the same law that he co-sponsored – and she wrote – about firing Inspectors General.

“The White House has failed to follow the proper procedure in notifying Congress as to the removal of the Inspector General for the Corporation for National and Community Service,” McCaskill said. “The legislation which was passed last year requires that the president give a reason for the removal.”

McCaskill, a key Obama ally, said that the president’s stated reason for the termination, “Loss of confidence’ is not a sufficient reason.” 

She added that she was “hopeful the White House will provide a more substantive rationale, in writing, as quickly as possible.”

 We’ve covered this story HERE  and HERE and HERE.

From ABC News, oddly enough...