That's SLife

Republicans Accuse Obama of ACORN Cover-up

2009-12-03T13:46:00.001-05:00

House Republicans accused the Obama administration Tuesday of covering up criminal activities committed by the embattled community activist group ACORN, saying that the president has used the group as an illegal political tool to help himself and other Democrats get elected.

"The current administration is fast becoming, in reality, the war room of ACORN's political machine," said Rep. Darrell Issa, California Republican. "I am concerned that the era of corruption promulgated by ACORN and protected by the White House is just the beginning."

The top Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said ACORN has engaged in "illegal, partisan activities designed to help individual Democratic members."

'Hope and Change' Through Lies

2009-12-03T10:48:00.001-05:00

Outrage over the suppressed data refuting "global warming" at the East Anglia Institute in England, now spans the world. Though as a result of a liberal media "blackout," news of the event currently remains primarily confined among the intellectually honest participants in the climate debate. Nevertheless, with each passing day, ever increasing numbers of common citizens are realizing that every aspect of their lives, from the nature of the vehicles they own to the type of lighting that will be "allowed" them by their beneficent government, is being dictated by a hoax bearing no more substance than the "Bermuda Triangle."

Yet the global warming hucksters continue, as if the cooked and contrived data records and suppression of inconvenient facts debunking the motion of rising global temperatures were never uncovered. These eco-alarmists are compelled to do so. They have too much invested in this fraud, and it has been far too lucrative for them in the past to simply abandon it merely because it has been wholly discredited. But their seemingly confident public front belies an undercurrent of panic and desperation. Keep a straight face, continue demanding "funds" for further research and advocacy, and hope for a perpetuation of the revolving door of government monies and increased political power to continue business as usual.

Obama Channels Bush

2009-12-02T10:02:00.001-05:00

Last night we watched Obama address the cadets of West Point and, over their shoulder, the American people. I kept asking myself: if I were in the audience did I hear anything worth risking my life for?   

There is a lot in Afghanistan worth risking one's life for, but Obama sure didn't summon it.   

Watching President Obama address the nation, the right probably recognized the incongruity of sending additional troops on a difficult mission and setting, at the same time, a very short timetable for their withdrawal. The right doubtless wondered why the Taliban won't just wait Obama out and move in after he leaves.  

But the political cost of this speech will not come on the right. Obama will get the support of everyone who won't ever vote for him. But it is with his base on the left that he will be in trouble.  

His volunteers, his backers, his donors have to have watched that speech and asked themselves "why did we win the election?" Obama sounded just like Bush. More articulate, perhaps, but substantively precisely the same.  

States Would Be Slammed Hard by Obamacare

2009-12-01T13:10:00.001-05:00

The "healthcare reform" bills in Congress would hit 39 states hard with new expenses by raising Medicaid eligibility above the current income cutoffs.

The only states that won't have to raise eligibility because of the Senate bill are Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Vermont, and Wisconsin (plus the District of Columbia). And the House bill would force even Massachusetts and Vermont to pay more.

Hardest hit would be Texas ($2,750 million a year in extra state spending under the Senate bill), Pennsylvania ($1,450 million), California ($1,428 million) and Florida ($909 million). Who knows if Florida could avoid imposing an income tax if it has to meet so high an unfunded mandate?

The required increases in state spending are likely to be quite high in some states whose senators are swing votes on Obamacare:

Sacrifice Spending to Pay for the War

2009-12-01T13:04:00.000-05:00

Liberals in Congress and out are calling for a new tax to pay for the war on terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq. At the same time, rising unemployment and falling political prospects have driven President Obama and friends to fumble for stimulus 2.0, the first $787 billion Obama stimulus having now so obviously if predictably failed. Only liberals could propose higher taxes and a jobs summit at the same time and not notice the conflict.
Of course, the real purpose of the tax proposal is to bring additional leftwing pressure on Obama to force him to surrender in Afghanistan. Whatever the purpose, there is a legitimate debate here. In addition to disrupting families and costing thousands of American lives in America’s defense, these wars are also expensive (over $100 billion annually), have gone on a long time (8 years for Afghanistan), and appear likely to continue for years to come.
In this context Chairman David Obey (D-WI) of the House Appropriations Committee talks about fiscal responsibility and “shared sacrifice” like Santa Claus preaching renunciation. In truth, he has a point but then draws the wrong conclusion. Congress should offset the costs of the war with spending reductions elsewhere. Congress’ pet projects should share and bear the full sacrifice.

More Funny Numbers from the Obama Administration

2009-12-01T13:02:00.000-05:00

Confronted by discrepancies in the number of jobs created by the stimulus bill, officials in the Obama Administration eventually were forced to concede that their numbers could not stand up to scrutiny. Unfortunately, the lesson appears to have been lost on the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) in its exuberance to fire up public support for health care legislation. Once again, the Administration appears to be fudging the numbers.
The Administration’s website, HealthReform.Gov, which is maintained by DHHS, includes a feature, Health Insurance Reform and Your State: The Case for Change. Viewers are invited to “[s]elect your state to see the report on the current status of health care and the benefit of reform.”
In selecting Ohio as an example, the reader is informed that “1.4 million residents who do not currently have insurance and 533,000 residents who have nongroup insurance could get affordable coverage through the health insurance exchange.” This is not correct. The problem is the 1.4 million figure for Ohio comes from an Urban Institute report, The Cost of Failure to Enact Health Reform: Implications for States which was produced before the current legislation was introduced in Congress.
So that 1.4 million reflects the total number of uninsured in Ohio, not how many will be helped by the legislation as DHHS alleges. Under the Senate bill, S. 3590, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that under current law, there will be a total of 51 million nonelderly people who will be uninsured in 2014. The legislation would reduce the number of uninsured by 16 million in 2014 or by 31 percent. By 2019, the number of uninsured projected under current law will be reduced by 57 under the Senate bill.
Assuming Ohio looks like the national average, there will still be about 1 million people without health insurance in 2014. How many members of the Ohio delegation are using the DHHS figures to explain their support for the current legislation? Congress should be checking the math. More importantly, how will DHHS explain to 1 million Ohioans that the implied promises of 2009 were merely an illustration, not the Department’s estimates based on the actual legislation?

A Tasty Recipe for Conservative Victory

2009-12-01T11:17:00.001-05:00

To the people in Washington... it does take a rocket scientist to recognize what's going on around the country. It's clear why Republicans lost power, and it is certainly clear that people are learning what Democrats will do when given full power in government. America is not a socialist country, yet that's exactly the type of country Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid want to see.

So, how does the Republican Party regain its footing? It's simple, really. The leaders of the Republican Party only have to look around. The answer is staring them in the face. They lost because they strayed from conservatism and adopted the "let's just stay in power" philosophy. That's a recipe for disaster... here's a recipe for winning...

Morning Bell: The Obamacare Rationing Threat To Your Mammograms

2009-11-24T10:23:00.000-05:00

Last week, the United States Preventive Services Task Force issued new guidelines recommending that women in their 40s no longer have annual mammograms and that women ages 50 to 74 have them only every other year, instead of annually. The recommendations were highly controversial, and by week’s end most health insurers and the federal Medicare program said they would ignore the panel’s recommendation and continue covering annual mammograms. This is as it should be: the federal government collects information and makes recommendations, and Americans are then free to consult their health care providers, ignoring the government if they so choose. The problem is that Obamacare would forever change this relationship.
Both the House and Senate versions of Obamacare create detailed new federal regulations that micromanage all health insurance decisions. Specifically, Section 2713 of the Senate Health Bill would give the recommendations of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force the force of law by requiring all health insurance plans to provide coverage (with no patient co-pays) for “items or services that have in effect a rating of “A” or “B” [recommended] in the current recommendations of the United States Preventive Services Task Force.”

H1N1 Vaccine Not a Killer: WHO

2009-11-23T10:37:00.000-05:00

The World Health Organization said on Thursday the H1N1 vaccine had been cleared of blame for 41 deaths which health authorities worldwide had investigated after suspicions they might have been caused by the inoculation.
The U.N. agency reaffirmed that the pandemic vaccine is as safe as the seasonal flu vaccine used for more than 60 years. It also voiced concern that some pregnant women and others at risk were shunning it because of a fear of side-effects.
"No new safety issue has been identified from reports issued to date ... Reporting so far reconfirms that the pandemic flu vaccine is as safe as the seasonal flu vaccine," Marie-Paule Kieny, WHO's top vaccine expert, told a telephone conference.

Morning Bell: The Impending Obama Borrow and Spend Disaster

2009-11-23T10:34:00.001-05:00

Speaking at Georgetown University on April 14th, President Barack Obama promised: “We cannot rebuild this economy on the same pile of sand. We must build our house upon a rock. We must lay a new foundation for growth and prosperity — a foundation that will move us from an era of borrow and spend to one where we save and invest.” Nice words. But the Obama administration actions have produced all sand and no rock. From the Wall Street Bailout, to Cash for Clunkers, to Obama’s failed stimulus, this administration has been all about borrowing and spending. And as the New York Times reports today, it will not be long before we begin paying a real price for these policies:
With the national debt now topping $12 trillion, the White House estimates that the government’s tab for servicing the debt will exceed $700 billion a year in 2019, up from $202 billion this year, even if annual budget deficits shrink drastically. Other forecasters say the figure could be much higher.
In concrete terms, an additional $500 billion a year in interest expense would total more than the combined federal budgets this year for education, energy, homeland security and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

House panel wants answers on faulty stimulus data

2009-11-19T13:18:00.001-05:00

Members of the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee will ask questions Thursday about faulty data on the Obama administration's Recovery.gov Web site.
The site is fixing errors that appeared to show hundreds of millions of stimulus dollars were spent in nonexistent congressional districts, the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board said Wednesday.
The errors, first reported by ABC News, were seen on Recovery.gov summary pages breaking down how many stimulus dollars were received in each state's congressional districts.
Arizona's page, for example, showed the state's 52nd, 15th and 86th congressional districts received hundreds of thousands of dollars in stimulus money, according to CNN affiliate KNXV. However, no such districts exist in Arizona, which has only eight congressional districts.

Obama Tries to Deflect Fort Hood Attention

2009-11-19T10:35:00.001-05:00

The Obama administration has a clear agenda here:

1) Stop people from focusing on how his administration permitted the worst domestic terror attack in eight years.

2) Avoid a national airing of how liberal policies, restraints on the intelligence community, political correctness in the armed forces, might have inhibited the military from reining in Hasan.

3) Re-ignite a firestorm on the left and abroad against the aggressive anti-terror policies of the Bush administration.

Making all this particularly important for Obama are his other political needs.

As he likely decides to send more troops to Afghanistan and eyes abandoning the "public option" to secure Senate passage of his health-care plan, Obama has to rebuild his credibility on the left.

A public circus that focuses on waterboarding and interrogations could be just what he wants and needs.

Morning Bell: Doc Fix Digs Debt Deeper

2009-11-18T10:32:00.000-05:00

Yesterday at 3:00 p.m. ET, the Treasury Department updated its calculation of the U.S. National Debt to: $12,031,299,186,290.07. That $12 trillion record high comes just eight months after it hit $11 trillion and is only expected to rise faster considering the federal deficit for 2009 was over $1.4 trillion. And what is the leftist majority of Congress going to do tomorrow about these skyrocketing deficits? They are going to pile on the spending faster.
The issue at hand is the congressionally created formula for annually updating the payments doctors receive for treating Medicare patients. The centrally planned price fixing formula was designed to control health care costs by tying doctor payments to the overall growth rate of the economy. Problem is the realities of supply and demand in the health care sector have pushed doctor’s fees higher than the formula allows for. So instead of going back and fixing the formula (or heaven forbid introducing some market based reforms into Medicare), every year Congress passes short-term fixes rescinding the scheduled rate cuts.
Fixing the problem permanently has long been the top legislative priority for the American Medical Association, and in exchange for their endorsement of Obamacare, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) promised them she would do so. Problem is Pelosi and co. could not figure out how to game the Congressional Budget Office’s numbers to show that Obamacare was deficit neutral and pay for the so called “doc fix” at the same time. So they solved the problem by pretending the “doc fix” was not health care reform. But to keep the AMA happy they took the unusual step of combining the debate rules for Obamacare and the doc fix.
As a result, Congress is set to debate the bill tomorrow for just one hour, and no amendments will be allowed. In other words, even if conservative Democrats or Republicans wanted to propose an amendment that would pay for the doctor’s higher payments, they are prevented from doing so. According to the CBO, just the ten year cost of the legislation will be $210 billion, but the damage does not end there. Medicare is a never ending entitlement program, so the real pain caused by the left’s free spending will be felt for decades to come. According to the latest report from the Medicare Trustees, the 75-year cost of allowing doctor payments to match the percentage change in the medical economic index is $1.9 trillion in more debt.

440 Phantom Congressional Districts Get $6.4 Billion According to Recovery.gov

2009-11-17T15:00:00.001-05:00

The government’s Web site that is supposed to tell taxpayers how their stimulus dollars are being spent, and which spends $84 million per year to do so, shows that $6.4 billion of the stimulus has been spent in 440 congressional districts that don’t exist, according to a report by the Franklin Center, as reported by Watchdog.org.
The site, Recovery.gov, reports, for instance, that North Dakota’s 99th Congressional District has received $2 million in stimulus funding. But North Dakota has only one congressional district. The nation’s capital now contains 35 congressional districts, according to Recovery.gov.
For those keeping score at home, there are really only 435 congressional districts, so adding 440 new ones effectively doubles the size of the House of Representatives. By the way, Recovery.gov also reports that the $6.4 billion spent in those districts has created 30,000 jobs, which works out to almost $225,000 per job created. Various news reports, however, show that many of the estimates of “jobs created or saved” are bogus, so that number, too is in doubt.

Morning Bell: The Fake Jobs of Obama’s Failed Stimulus

2009-11-17T09:13:00.001-05:00

Forget everything bad you’ve ever heard about President Barack Obama’s $787 economic stimulus. Combing through the data on the $18 million Recovery.gov website you’ll find tons of Obama stimulus success stories from across the country. In Minnesota’s 57th Congressional District, 35 jobs have been saved or created using $404,340 in stimulus funds. In New Mexico’s 22nd Congressional District, 25 jobs have been saved or created using $61,000 in stimulus cash. And in Arizona’s fighting 15th Congressional District, 30 jobs have been saved or created with just $761,420 in federal stimulus spending.
The it-would-be-funny-if-it-weren’t-our-tax-dollars-at-stake punch line here is that none of the above Congressional Districts actually exist. Yet those jobs “created or saved” claims still sit on the Obama administration’s official “transparency and accountability” website Recovery.gov. As the Washington Examiner’s David Freddoso points out, it would have been nearly costless for the Recovery.gov site designers to limit the input fields so that non-existent Congressional Districts never made it into the public domain, but for whatever reason the Obama administration chose otherwise. Defending the fake data on his website, Recovery.gov Communications Director Ed Pound told ABC News: “We report what the recipients submit to us. Some recipients clearly don’t know what congressional district they live in, so they appear to be just throwing in any number. We expected all along that recipients would make mistakes on their congressional districts, on job numbers, on award amounts, and so on. Human beings make mistakes.”

Morning Bell: Big Labor Is Bankrupting Our Country

2009-11-13T16:00:00.000-05:00

Last month when the White House released its visitor log for the first six months of the Obama presidency, one name appeared far more often than any other: Service Employee International Union (SEIU) President Andrew Stern. Stern has every right to expect to be welcome in the Obama White House. He has repeatedly bragged about the fact that under his leadership, the SEIU spent $60.7 million to elect Barack Obama president. Stern and Obama collectively support ever expanding federal government programs and state government bailouts which are rapidly bankrupting our country.
Unlike his predecessor, John Sweeney, who came up the ranks after starting with the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, Stern entered the labor movement when the SEIU organized his shop when he was working as a welfare case worker for the State of Pennsylvania. Stern’s public sector entrance into labor is by no means an anomaly. In fact, for the first time ever in American history, preliminary estimates of union membership for 2009 show that most union members now work for either the local, state, or federal government.

Chanos: Huge China Crash Coming

2009-11-13T10:33:00.001-05:00

To the growing number of China bears, add Kynikos hedge fund manager Jim Chanos, who is reportedly shorting the entire Chinese economy.

Chanos, among the first to see through Enron’s web of accounting tricks, told Politico.com he sees a similar situation evolving in China — starting with the fact that the $4.3 trillion Chinese economy is under-performing despite a $900 billion stimulus program.

Also, China seems to be cooking its books, making claims such as a huge surge in car sales while gasoline sales stay flat.

Finally, there’s a concern that China may have too much capacity to produce too many goods for too few buyers, notes financial journalist Ed Conway.

“China has grown to its current size, as do most ‘young’ economies, by exporting cheap goods to richer countries. . . (resulting in) the biggest trade surplus in history,” Conway writes in the UK Telegraph.

Chinese leaders, Conway points out, are doing whatever they can to keep the value of their currency low.

“Such a policy made sense when China had an economy that was relatively underdeveloped, and was trying to shield nascent exporters from volatility; but now, by keeping assets artificially cheap, it serves to exacerbate the bubble that is building up as a result of those low US interest rates,” Conway writes.

This, combined with trying to pump up the economy further by channeling cheap credit to companies, “could hardly be a more reliable recipe for an asset bubble,” Conway says.

Neighbor: Fort Hood suspect emptied his apartment

2009-11-06T11:58:00.000-05:00

An Army psychiatrist suspected of opening fire on fellow soldiers at Fort Hood cleaned out his apartment in the days before the rampage that left 13 people dead, a neighbor said Friday.
The neighbor, Patricia Villa, said Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan came over to her apartment Wednesday and Thursday and offered her some items, including a new Quran, saying he was going to be deployed on Friday. She wasn't sure if he was going to Iraq or Afghanistan.

Soldiers who witnessed the rampage reported that the gunman shouted "Allahu Akbar!" — an Arabic phrase for "God is great!" — before opening fire, said Lt. Gen. Robert Cone, the base commander. He said officials had not yet confirmed that Hasan made the comment before the shooting spree.

US unemployment hits 10pc for first time since Ronald Reagan was in power

2009-11-06T11:23:00.001-05:00

Worse-than-expected data from the Bureau of Labour Statistics showed that the unemployment rate touched 10.2pc at the end of October, higher than the 9.8pc rate at the end of September, and greater than the 9.9pc rate economists had been expecting.
It is the first time since April 1983 that unemployment has surpassed the politically-sensitive 10pc threshold, a threshold that makes it even more likely that the Federal Reserve will hold interest rates at current record lows for some time.

Exxon-Led Consortium Wins Iraq Oil Contract

2009-11-05T11:16:00.000-05:00

The Iraqi Oil Ministry on Thursday said it has awarded a consortium led by Exxon Mobil Corp. and Royal Dutch Shell PLC the right to develop the West Qurna-1 oil field, representing the first American-led team gaining access to the country's oil patch.

The pact is the latest in a series of deals Iraq has recently signed or initialed with some of the world's biggest oil companies. Earlier this week, Iraqi officials completed a final agreement with BP PLC and China National Petroleum Corp. and an initial agreement with a consortium led by Italy's Eni SpA. U.S. oil company Occidental ...

Iraq Stock Exchange moves to full week of trading

2009-11-04T15:03:00.001-05:00

Iraq's stock exchange on Sunday moved to electronic trading every day of the business week for the first time, in a step towards embracing the modern world of international finance.

The move came after months of extended testing of its new electronic systems, initially used for just one day in a shortened three-day trading week.

"Yes, today is the first day that we started electronic trading for a five-day week," an Iraq Stock Exchange spokeswoman, who asked not to be identified, told AFP.

ELEMENTARY EPIDEMIC: 11 Uncovered Videos Show School Children Performing Praises to Obama

2009-11-04T14:22:00.001-05:00

Big Hollywood has already posted a couple disturbing videos of young school children singing/speaking praises to President Obama, but when eleven more dropped in our email box it came as quite a shock. What seemed like an aberration now appears to be a troubling pattern.
Maybe “epidemic” is a better word.
Each one of the videos below is creepier than the last because the further down you go, the younger the children — brace yourself for kindergartners – except for the last and most disturbing video, which you have to see to believe.

Report: Cash for Clunkers a Huge Waste

2009-11-03T15:38:00.001-05:00

Cash for Clunkers clearly distorted the U.S. economic figures in an unsustainable way, according to The Business Insider, which cites a report from the Bureau of Economic Analysis that indicates GDP growth in the third quarter would have been 1.89 percent, not 3.5 percent as claimed, without government money.

Moreover, the $3 billion program cost an average of $24,000 per additional car sold, according to an analysis by automotive consumer researcher Edmunds.com.

Nearly 690,000 vehicles were sold during the program, officially known as CARS, but Edmunds.com analysts calculated that only 125,000 of the sales were incremental.

The rest of the sales would have happened anyway, regardless of the existence of the program.

Obama team makes it official: Budget deficit hits record. By a lot.

2009-11-03T14:09:00.001-05:00

The Obama administration has released new deficit numbers, and they are not pretty.

The deficit for fiscal year 2009, which ended Sept. 30, came in at a record $1.42 trillion, more than triple the record set just last year.

In addition, future deficits are currently projected to total $9.1 trillion in the coming decade.

The political lines are being drawn.

GAO: Contract issues could slow Iraq drawdown

2009-11-03T14:05:00.001-05:00

A series of contracting issues are among the potential complications that could hamper the U.S. drawdown from Iraq, according to a report by the investigative branch of Congress.

Many contracts are set to expire next year just at the height of U.S. efforts to draw down to 50,000 troops by the end of August, according to the Government Accountability Office.

“Executing the rapid movement of troops and equipment out of Iraq will require significant truck assets,” the report said.

“Transitioning the mission to a new contractor and requiring the new contractor to provide 23,000 trucks and crews could be daunting.”

As multiple Iraqi contractors assume responsibility for base support, more U.S. personnel will be required to oversee the contractors, limiting the number of troops who can go on operations, the report said.

Another issue is that more contractors may have to fill in for departing U.S. troops, but commanders have still not figured out how many contractors will be needed during the drawdown, the report said.

Army officials in Kuwait and the United States could not comment when asked if they wanted to respond to the issues raised in the GAO report.

Meanwhile, the Defense Department plans on handing over about $600 million in military equipment to the Iraqis, but the department is only allowed to give the Iraqis what the Army has deemed surplus. The list of equipment is currently being reviewed.