"Manipulate the Constitution"?

I listened to the House debate on Cut, Cap and Balance during my drive home today. Unbelievably, the talking points issued to the Leftist zombies were to assert that going through the constitutional process for considering an amendment to the Constitution is 'manipulating the Constitution'. Every one of the witlings who spoke against it, used that phrase, among the handful of canned lines that they tried to pass off as reasoned debating points.

No, I don't get it either - except that the Dems know they don't have to appeal to the absent reason of the drones who feed at the federal trough or senselessly guffaw at Bill Maher's sophomoric prattle and parrot whatever schlock they pick up on MSNBC since they are too ignorant of the Constitution or too befuddled generally to grasp the stupidity of the assertion on its face.

I missed this howler from Congressdope Debbie W. Schultz - so did the target of her fallacious ad hominem, Congressman Allan West. But he did respond appropriately. I look forward to hearing their face-to-face confrontation. A battle of wits between LTC West and the drooler Schultz, well it wouldn't be one, since she is plainly witless.

Question of the Day

Jackson Lee: Congress complicating debt ceiling because Obama is black
By Josiah Ryan - 07/15/11 03:02 PM ET

"Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) on Friday strongly suggested that members of Congress are making it difficult for President Obama to raise the debt ceiling because of his race.

""Read between the lines," she continued. "What is different about this president that should put him in a position that he should not receive the same kind of respectful treatment of when it is necessary to raise the debt limit in order to pay our bills, something required by both statute and the 14th amendment?"

Jackson Lee concluded by saying that she hoped someone would step up and say that what appears obvious to her is not in fact true.

"I hope someone will say that what it appears to be is not in fact accurate," said Lee. "But historically it seems to be nothing more.""

Is it because he is Socialist or because he is ruining the country?

Maybe.

Another trip down the memory hole

Checking Drudge periodically today, I found the banner headline:
OBAMA: 80% OF AMERICANS WANT HIGHER TAXES

Obama: Public is 'sold' on tax increases in a debt-ceiling deal
By Sam Youngman and Alicia M. Cohn - 07/15/11 11:54 AM ET

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/171743-obama-public-sold-on-tax-increases-in-debt-ceiling-deal

The article at The Hill leads off: President Obama on Friday kept up the pressure on Republicans to agree to revenue increases in a deal to raise the debt ceiling, claiming 80 percent of the public supports Democrats' demand for tax increases.

A bit later in the day, Drudge added another link: 55% Oppose Tax Hike In Debt Ceiling Deal
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/business/taxes/july_2011/55_oppose_tax_hike_in_debt_ceiling_deal

"Just 34% think a tax hike should be included in any legislation to raise the debt ceiling. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 55% disagree and say it should not."

Curious, I went back to the article from the Hill. I was certain that there was a direct quote from the president explicitly saying that 80% approved of tax increases. Now I can't find it. Where did it go?

At the bottom of the Hill article I found the hole down which Obama's ill-considered sentence went: "—This story was updated at 12:50 p.m."

UPDATE: Real Clear Politics has the unexpurgated version:


"The American people are sold," President Obama said.

"The American people are sold, I just want to repeat that."

"You have 80% of the American people who support a balanced approach. 80% of the American people support an approach that includes revenues and includes cuts. So the notion that somehow the American people aren't sold is not the problem. The problem is members of Congress are dug in ideologically."

What do the 10 most polluted places in the world have in common?

What do the 10 most polluted places in the world have in common?

If you said places with weak government controls over the economy you would be wrong.

If you said places plagued with unfettered free markets, you would be wrong.

Chernobyl, Ukraine

Dzerzhinsk, Russia

Kabwe, Zambia

La Oroya, Peru

Linfen, China

Norilsk, Russia

Sukinda, India

Tianying, China

If you said none of them are located in Liberal Democracies with strong defense of property rights you'd be correct.

If you said they are all current or former Socialist Paradises, you would be correct.

J. Wellington Obama

"I'll gladly cut spending increases in 2016 for budget and tax increases passed today!"

Entitlements

So let me get this straight: we are not entitled to the money we earn, save and invest. Thus the government should tax it at rates nearing 50%. But we are entitled to those earnings, savings and investments once plundered from their owners through taxes and distributed through "entitlement programs."

Strange indeed.

Who's in Wall Streets back pocket?

Barrack Obama, according to Cornel West:

“I thought Barack Obama could have provided some way out. But he lacks backbone,” Princeton Professor Cornel West told truthdig.com recently.

West said Obama sold out the poor to become “a black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs and a black puppet of corporate plutocrats. . . . I don’t think in good conscience I could tell anybody to vote for Obama.”

So I really do wish the Leftist and Democrats (but I repeat myself) would stop lying.

The flash mob phenomenon began innocuously enough. Choirs seemingly spontaneously forming in shopping malls or human sculptures in train stations.

Inevitably, stunts intended simply for fun or publicity have morphed into political statements.
But the method of the flash mob suits less frivolous ends as well. Gangs of teens in various cities have taken over the method to commit mayhem
The epidemic has become so bad in Chicago, that the police have been forced to react.

CHICAGO (CBS) — The teenage robbery mobs are at it again on North Michigan Avenue.
Some 50 young people barged into a Walgreens at Michigan and Chicago on the Magnificent Mile on Tuesday afternoon. They took bottled drinks and sandwiches off the shelves, then ran off, CBS 2′s Suzanne Le Mignot reports.

Chicago Police officers, some of them undercover, have been stationed at downtown CTA stations and other “choke points” to stop large groups of unruly young people intent on causing trouble, officials said Wednesday.
The change in tactics — and a “marginal addition” to police resources downtown that have so far triggered 29 arrests — are City Hall’s latest response to the flash mobs and wildings that, one alderman acknowledged are “giving our city a real bad name.”

Hopefully, the authorities will exercise some sense in divining groups truly intent on causing trouble and groups that may merely be troubling to the authorities:

But being a bit jaundiced regarding the ability of authorities to act reasonably, I don’t expect future pro-life flash mobs to avoid the heavy hand of the state.
But that may be the least of their worries. What is more troublesome is the violent turn some of these mobs are taking:

As forces for Good bravely take their message of hope to the streets,

forces of darkness and despair will not yield willingly.

I shudder to think what will happen when these worlds collide.

Shovel Ready Keynesianism

UPDATE: Obama’s Economists: ‘Stimulus’ Has Cost $278,000 per Job

My Keynesian plan would have failed for only $15,100 per job...

John Maynard Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money, chapter 10:

"If the Treasury were to fill old bottles with banknotes, bury them at suitable depths in disused coalmines which are then filled up to the surface with town rubbish, and leave it to private enterprise on well-tried principles of laissez-faire to dig the notes up again (the right to do so being obtained, of course, by tendering for leases of the note-bearing territory), there need be no more unemployment and, with the help of the repercussions, the real income of the community, and its capital wealth also, would probably become a good deal greater than it actually is."

Let's give it a go:
There are 14,000,000 Americans unemployed
It costs $20.00 for a decent shovel at Lowes.com
$280,000,000.00 Total amount of "Stimulus" buying shovels would create
Pay at $7.25/hour Federal minimum wage
for 2,080 standard work year (hours)
Would cost $211,120,000,000.00 for 1 year's "Stimulus" employing available labor digging holes

$211,400,000,000.00 Keynesian solution employing available labor digging holes.

$211B....for full employment.... Wow. Obama and the Democrats spent 6 times that and unemployment went up.

Keynes is supposed to have said: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?"

Obama, tries to spend a $Trillion more.

Barrack Hussein Barbarossa

More and more, when the Obama administration attempts to justify its most recent outrage against the Constitution, I call to mind Pirates of the Caribbean.

"Barbarossa: First, your return to shore was not part of our negotiations nor our agreement so I must do nothing. And secondly, you must be a pirate for the pirate's code to apply and you're not. And thirdly, the code is more what you'd call "guidelines" than actual rules. Welcome aboard the Black Pearl, Miss Swann"

Clearly, the Pirates of the Capital believe that The Defense of Marriage Act, the War Powers Act and Immigration Laws are more what you'd call "guidelines" than actual laws:

Halt to Deportation of Citizen's Same-Sex Partner Draws Fire

"The federal decision to stop deportation proceedings against a Venezuela-born New Jersey man who legally married his same-sex partner in the United States -- effectively recognizing gay marriage -- is an "abuse of executive authority" by the Obama administration, immigration experts told FoxNews.com.

Henry Velandia, a 27-year-old professional salsa dancer from Caracas now living in New Jersey, legally married U.S. citizen Josh Vandiver, 30, in Connecticut last year, but due to the Defense of Marriage Act -- a 1996 federal law that defines marriage as between a man and a woman -- Vandiver was not allowed to sponsor Velandia for a green card in the same way a heterosexual person could for his or her spouse. The Department of Homeland Security nevertheless decided to drop deportation efforts against him Wednesday.

But by stopping the deportation proceedings against Velandia, the federal government is effectively giving same-sex couples a "status that is not recognized in federal law or in many states," Vaughan said."

Obama Raffle Video Not Legal, Election Law Experts Say

"If the video was filmed in the Map Room, as it appears to be, then there is no question it violates the law, von Spakovsky explained, because it is clearly part of a fundraising pitch, precisely the type of activity prohibited under the law.

“The video is clearly designed to get people to participate in this raffle and the video takes you directly to a web site – directs you to a web site – where there’s an immediate solicitation for funds,” he said."


Obama Says He Doesn’t Have to Answer Whether War Powers Resolution Is Constitutional

"President Barack Obama told reporters he does not have to answer the question of whether the War Powers Resolution is constitutional.

“There may be a time in which there was a serious question as to whether the War Powers Resolution was constitutional. I don’t have to get to the question,” Obama said during a White House news conference Wednesday."

U.S. forces STILL flying hundreds of bombing raids over Libya as Obama says America is only playing a limited role

"U.S. forces are still flying hundreds of bombing raids over Libya even though the Obama administration claims that American armed forces are only playing a limited role in the conflict.

Since NATO’s Operation Unified Protector took over from the American-led Operation Odyssey Dawn on 31 March, the U.S. has flown hundreds of strike missions, according to United States Africa Command (AFRICOM).

The White House originally claimed that U.S. planes were mostly providing intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance and played down the number of bombing raids.

However AFRICOM spokeswoman Nicole Dalrymple said: 'U.S. aircraft continue to fly support missions, as well as strike sorties under NATO tasking.

'Since 31 March, the U.S. has flown a total of 3,475 sorties...Of those, 801 were strike sorties, 132 of which actually dropped ordnance.'"