Evil Republicans Explained

If you wonder what makes those greedy, fascistic Republicans tick, Bill Whittle may have the answer in this video:




Whittle also explains the difference between the Occupy movement and the Tea Party:

Near Miss: Motorist Avoids Head-On Collision with Tractor Trailer

As we head into winter, next time you find yourself getting impatient while driving on a snow- or ice-covered road, you might want to keep this video (from Russia) in mind:

Obamas Fly Separately to Hawaii for Christmas

Last summer, Daily News columnist and The Five co-host Andrea Tantaros referred to Michelle Obama as a "Modern Day Marie Antoinette" for among other things her lavish vacation in Spain partially on the taxpayer's dime.

Since then, nothing has changed, despite a presidential executive order about avoiding unnecessary federal travel costs. In this video, hapless White House spokesman Jay Carney, a former "journalist," lamely tries to justify the First Lady separately flying to Hawaii on a taxpayer-funded military jet on the family "annual holiday trip" instead of waiting for the president to join her on the same plane.




According to the Hawaii Reporter, "Mrs. Obama’s early flight to Hawaii costs about $63,000 (White House Dossier), but add security and personnel for a total of about $100,000," while the the total cost of the family trip is at least $4 million.

The Daily Mail asks: "With thousands of families struggling to raise funds for Christmas, you would think the Obamas might manage a little thriftiness."

On the subject of vacations, Keith Koffler of the aforementioned White House Dossier blog wrote the following back in August:

First Lady Michelle Obama over the last year has spent a total of 42 days on vacation, or a little more than one out of every nine days, according to a White House Dossier analysis of her travel.

 Her vacations, the cost of which are mostly borne by taxpayers, include trips to Panama City, Fla., Martha’s Vineyard, Hawaii, South Africa, Latin America, Vail, Colo., and her visit this week to her brother in Corvallis, Ore.

The total does not include a nine day sojourn in Martha’s Vineyard that the Obamas will enjoy this month. Nor does it include a trip she made to Ireland and Great Britain in May, which I’m counting as official travel...

 Mrs. Obama’s extensive vacation travel comes while many America citizens find themselves out of work or having trouble making ends meet as the economic recovery stalls.

Taxpayers pick up most of the cost of transporting the first lady and her extensive entourage – including Secret Service and her staff – to her various destinations. While she may in some cases pay some of the tab for her personal expenses and travel, the amount is dwarfed by the overall cost to the public.

China Gives Failing Grades to Liberal Arts Curriculum

Does Florida Governor Rick Scott (who wants to de-emphasize state funding for liberal arts degrees) and China may have something in common when it comes to creating real jobs for college graduates?

Much like the U.S., China is aiming to address a problematic demographic that has recently emerged: a generation of jobless graduates. China’s solution to that problem, however, has some in the country scratching their heads.

China’s Ministry of Education announced [in late November] plans to phase out majors producing unemployable graduates, according to state-run media Xinhua. The government will soon start evaluating college majors by their employment rates, downsizing or cutting those studies in which the employment rate for graduates falls below 60% for two consecutive years.

Separately, does this description resonate at all with the U.S. under the Obama administration?

State-controlled media portray China's leaders as living by the austere Communist values they publicly espouse. But as scions of the political aristocracy carve out lucrative roles in business and embrace the trappings of wealth, their increasingly high profile is raising uncomfortable questions for a party that justifies its monopoly on power by pointing to its origins as a movement of workers and peasants.

Supreme Court To Review Arizona Immigration Law

Instead of securing the border and enforcing immigration law, the Obama administration would rather use its resources to file lawsuits against states that want to get serious about enforcement when the federal government won't do it's job. Similarly, rather than rooting out vote fraud, the U.S. Justice Department wants to make vote fraud easier.

Do you see a trend here?

It's almost as if DOJ lawyers decided to emulate Seinfeld's George Costanza by doing the opposite of what is rational--except that Costanza's reversal made sense in the context of the show!

This week, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear Arizona's appeal of the 9th Circuit ruling that blocked the state's immigration measure. Justice Kagan has recused herself from the case, as she should also do in the upcoming Obamacare appeal.



The expectation is that the High Court will allow at least part of the Arizona law to go into effect, but time will tell.

In the meantime, there are reports that the administration will draw down the token number of National Guard troops at the border.

Barney Frank: Thanks For Nothing

In the 2008 presidential debates, Sen. John McCain inexplicably failed to inform the American people that Democrats--including then-Sen. Obama, former Sen. Chris Dodd, and Congressman Barney Frank--blocked any reforms to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the quasi-government agencies that helped bring about the subprime mortgage meltdown. While the economy cratered thanks in part to those corrupt government-sponsored enterprises, Democrats continued to use them as as a massive slush fund.

Frank was the genius that claimed that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac "are fundamentally sound, that they are not in danger of going under."

In the recent debates, Herman Cain appropriately remarked that the much ballyhooed Dodd-Frank financial reform statute still does not rein in either of these key agencies. (He also famously quipped that the other two problems with the bill were "Dodd and Frank.")




The former chair of the House Financial Services Committee, in late November Frank announced his retirement from Congress after serving 16 terms in office.

The Waterbury (Conn.) Republican-American summed up Frank's career as follows:

With his fellow Democrat, former Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut, Rep. Frank, D-Mass., shoulders much of the blame for today's economic catastrophe and the fiscal crises plaguing governments at all levels. They spent years pushing policies that ultimately required lenders, under the threat of government retribution and political demagoguery, to write mortgages, for borrowers with little or no down payment and no hope of repaying.

To backstop trillions in reckless borrowing, Rep. Frank and then-Sen. Dodd helped establish Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as the No. 1 buyer of worthless mortgages and then blocked any number of attempts to reform those government-sponsored enterprises to keep them from failing.

All the while, they combined to rake many tens of thousands in campaign contributions from Fannie and Freddie, according to the Center for Responsive Politic

 Here is, in part, National Review Online's send off for the Congressman:

But though his private life spilled over into his public duties, it is as a champion of a different kind of pay-for-play operation, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, that the congressman did the most damage to the country. The government-backed mortgage giants were at the center of the housing bubble and the subsequent financial crisis. Representative Frank was a stalwart defender of the organizations, even after the government uncovered “extensive” fraud at Fannie Mae and found that Freddie Mac had illegally channeled funds to its political benefactors. Again, Representative Frank’s personal life intruded into the story: He was sexually involved with a Fannie Mae executive during a time when he was voting on laws affecting the organization. The final cost of the Fannie/Freddie bailouts will run into the hundreds of billions of dollars, and the real damage that the organizations did to the U.S. economy — and the world economy, for that matter — probably is incalculable.

In response to a financial crisis in which he was a significant figure, Representative Frank helped to craft a financial-reform law that bears his name. The drafting of Dodd-Frank began as a punitive measure, evolved into a dispensary of political favors, and in the end did little or nothing to address the problems that led to the 2008–09 crisis or to prevent similar crises in the future. Which means that we may have Barney Frank partly to thank not only for the last financial crisis but for the next one.

After 32 years in office advocating virtually every half-baked liberal policy, Frank finally got something right. He is apparently supporting the repeal of the Obamacare "death panels" (those same death panels that supposedly didn't exist in the socialized medicine scheme according to all the Palin bashers):

Massachusetts Democratic Rep. Barney Frank announced on [November 29] his support for the repeal of the Independent Payment Advisory Board, a significant portion of President Obama’s health care overhaul...IPAB is a 15-member board, appointed by the president, scheduled to convene in 2014. In order to reduce per capita Medicare spending, the board will recommend levels at which Medicare recipients, including seniors, can be reimbursed for health care expenses.

Newt Gingrich Speaks Truth to Power

He may yet implode as a presidential candidate, but "good on you" (as they say in Australia, at least according to one movie we just watched) Newt Gingrich for some candor about the Israeli-Palestinian situation. Jerusalem Post columnist and Middle East expert Caroline Glick supports Gingrich's "invention" thesis:

His statement about the Palestinians was entirely accurate. At the end of 1920, the "Palestinian people" was artificially carved out of the Arab population of "Greater Syria." "Greater Syria" included present-day Syria, Lebanon, Israel, the Palestinian Authority and Jordan. That is, the Palestinian people were invented 91 years ago. Moreover, as Gingrich noted, the term "Palestinian people" only became widely accepted after 1977.

Ron Prosor, Israel's U.N. ambassador, recently stated the following:

“From 1948 until 1967, the West Bank was part of Jordan, and Gaza was part of Egypt.” Prosor stated. “The Arab world did not lift a finger to create a Palestinian state. And it sought Israel's annihilation when not a single settlement stood anywhere in the West Bank or Gaza.”

Despite recent anti-Israel remarks by Obama administration officials Howard Gutman and Leon Panetta, Obama vaingloriously praised himself (during yet another fundraiser) for protecting Israel's security. Given the actual track record, Charles Krauthammer says the president is delusional:

 

Prominent YouTube commentator and gadfly Pat Condell, apparently a former Israel basher (and an atheist) who has reversed course, discusses among other things in this video the "Palestinian public relations industry" otherwise known as the Western media:

Putting differing historical interpretations aside, lets say the two-state solution was implemented tomorrow. Does any reasonable person really believe that this would actually solve widespread Middle East turmoil?