Hippie Jailed

Eco-activist gains fame for civil disobedience

“ Protesters gathered around the courthouse and dozens were arrested Tuesday as Tim DeChristopher launched into a lengthy address urging others fight climate change by taking similar steps of civil disobedience. But U.S. District Judge Dee Benson said there was no excuse for the 29-year-old former wilderness guide's blatant disrespect for the rule of law.  Benson sentenced DeChristopher to two years in prison on Tuesday ... . He was jailed for for failing to make good on bids at a lease auction of Utah public lands. He ran up bids on 13 parcels totaling more than 22,000 acres in order to keep them from gas and exploration.   Look for Hollywood asshats to turn him into another Billy Jack, the 6o's counter-culture hippie hero.  Yes, we are living in the 60's again.  See also: Ohio National Guard gains fame for stopping civil disobedience

America's Burden

Today's Metaphor

1979 dela vu all over again

1979  deja vu all over again That Jimmy Carter was president was quite enough, thank you.

“ What big news do you remember from April 1979? That Iran voted to become an Islamic Republic? That a threatening swamp rabbit was stopped short of President Jimmy Carter's fishing boat? That Jane Byrne took office as Chicago's mayor? How about the heated debt-ceiling debate on Capitol Hill up until the last minute, followed by some missed Treasury bill payments? [Chicago Tribune]

Cat Nip ...

I think we're all a little tired of this genre of cheap joke fodder, after this one..

G'dt

My memory is not completely shot.  News that  AOLHUFFPO STOCK HITS ALL-TIME LOW  reminded me that I gave Huffington title instead to Newsweek in a plea to save Reader's Digest.  Shit. I need an editor.  Any volunteers?

Boner cracks the RINO whip

Boehner tries to tame GOP on debt ceiling plan

“ In a closed-door Republican Conference meeting on Wednesday, Boehner demanded his wavering members “get your ass in line” to back his proposal, and some members obliged. Michigan Rep. Thad McCotter, who is running for the GOP presidential nomination in 2012, switched from voting no to yes during the 90-minute session. Reps. Blake Farenthold of Texas, Billy Long of Missouri and Jeff Denham of California are now backing the speaker’s plan, as are Reps. Darrell Issa of California, Renee Ellmers of North Carolina, Nan Hayworth of New York and Dan Lungren of California. Lungren even got up during the meeting and likened Boehner to Ronald Reagan, the conservative icon who was president during Lungren’s first stint in the House. Other hard “no” voters have flipped to leaning no or even undecided. ”

Dem's shortcut to closing wealth gap backfired

Feds' Dem's shortcut to closing wealth gap backfired on minority homeowners

"Did you see the devastating numbers about the wealth of minority families? Their savings have largely been wiped out. White households now have 20 times more wealth than black households and 18 times more wealth than Hispanic households."

“ There are various reasons. But a big one is this: The federal government turned home ownership into an affirmative-action program, complete with quotas. And a lot of people who had no business buying houses bought them and then lost them. "As sad as it is to say, this began in the Clinton Administration as a response to the argument that the poor and minorities couldn't get credit and were being left out of the home-ownership dream," says James Wright, a sociology professor at University of Central Florida. "They couldn't meet credit requirements. There was a lot of pressure in progressive circles" to change those requirements.  [Full] Holy Crap! Orlando Sentinal columnist Mike Thomas comes closeer to articulating the truth about this as I've seen in print.  “ To further this goal, Fannie Mae agreed to buy high-risk subprime loans in 1999. This meant lenders could sell the loans to unqualified buyers and then dump them on Fannie and the taxpayers. The Department of Housing and Urban Development set a goal that, by 2001, half the portfolios of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae should be composed of loans to low-income and moderate-income buyers. Once Freddie and Fannie were fully engaged in the subprime business, the market went crazy. Lenders enticed unqualified and unsophisticated borrowers into signing loans they couldn't possibly pay off. ” I'll take small victories where I can find them.

Franken's Monster Mash

Monster Mash-up Democrats see wiggle room on Obama’s Aug. 2 debt-limit deadline The Aug. 2 deadline for raising the nation’s debt ceiling might not be as rigid a cutoff date as the administration has been saying, according to some senior Senate Democrats.

Meanwhile Franken's SNL moment in Senate “ For a moment Wednesday, Al Franken looked like he was back on the set of Saturday Night Live and not on the floor of the U.S. Senate. In a speech explaining that there would be no money to pay for military and security personnel if Congress doesn’t pass a bill increasing the debt ceiling by Aug. 2, Franken unveiled a large poster in the chamber that said, “Welcome Terrorists. Franken aimed his theater of the absurd at those who believe the U.S. doesn’t have to raise the debt limit to avoid economic catastrophe. He couched it as black humor, but certainly not as comic relief in a House and Senate deadlock that economists say puts the U.S. at risk of a financial meltdown. [Star Tribune] ” Franken's charts A previously referenced  Red State's "Seven Reasons Why August 2 Isn’t the End of the World"  chart compared with Franken's: RED STATE FRANKEN Federal Debt Interest $30 29 Social Security $50 49.2 Medicare-Medicaid $50 50 Veterans and active-duty military $9 — Defense vendor payments  — $32 Federal Unemployment Payments — $12.8 TOTAL $139 $172.7 Red State concludes: “ So that’s a total bill of $136 billion, easily covered by the $170-200 billion we’ll take in.  Of course, we won’t be able to afford everything the government currently spends on.  The Departments of HUD, Transportation, Commerce, Energy, and Education, for example, may have to take a pause while Congress works out a deal with the President.  But is that really “the end of the world”? ” Franken concludes: ???? I guess by saying if we cut anything, the terrorists win.  But it's really very simple.  It took me just 3 minutes to save $71B a month. Plus, cutting EPA's  $900 million would result in immediate 200% increased production and several $B of increased tax revenue.  End of story.

Closer Look at Herman Cain

Closer Look at Herman Cain

New Header

PSA

In case you missed it, I'm using he new header to run interesting (to me anyway) videos.  Currently it's about ants. You can normally go full screen by clicking the full screen icon.   In addition, Archives were fixed.  You're welcome.  As a matter of curiosity, did anyone watch the TOP GEAR drive to the North Pole while it was up?

Billfold 2012

Wait!  Will you have enough to get some lettuce too?

Ka-Ching!

MISH'S 10-Point Credibility Scale

Rating the Obama, Reid, and Boehner Deficit Reduction Plans on Mish's 10-Point Credibility Scale

“ $4 trillion sounds like a lot but it is only $400 billion a year, while the deficit is $1.4 trillion. Thus it's tough to give that plan a rating higher than Jello, and impossible to give it a rating higher than fudge.  ” “ 10-Point Credibility Scale Golden Rock Solid Fudge Jello Marshmallow Cream Puff Nauseous Gaseous Imaginary Delusional Scoring the Proposals Given a $1.4 trillion deficit, the latest plan from Boehner to cut a minuscule $85 billion a year (and back-loaded at that) is somewhere between nauseous and gaseous. It's no wonder that various Tea-Party members will not vote for it. Obama's plan is imaginary or delusional depending on whether or not the President actually believes he has a plan, when he doesn't. Parts of Senator Reid's plan are gaseous and the rest is clearly imaginary. In contrast, the gang-of-six $4 trillion deficit cutting plan has something of the consistency of Jello, fudge, or marshmallow depending on details that were never disclosed. ” There you have it. Boehner has proposed a $850 billion reduction over 10 years, a minuscule $85 billion a year on a deficit of $1.4 trillion. Bear in mind it is far worse than it looks because it is heavily back-loaded. The 2012 reduction is only $4 billion. Marc Miller

Late Night Obama

Late Night Obama

Tea Party Wants Boehner, Obama Fired

Tea Party Wants Boehner, Obama Fired

“ If House Speaker John Boehner or his senior leadership team thought they had the support of the Tea Party movement, they better think again. An internal poll of the largest group in the movement, the Tea Party Patriots, found that they are dissatisfied with the House leaders, Boehner in particular, and simply can't stand President Obama. Co-Director Jenny Beth Martin told Whispers bluntly: "We're really not satisfied with any of them." [Check out editorial cartoons about the Tea Party.] ” This is keeping me from losing hope: --81.5 percent are not satisfied with the House GOP leadership. --74.1 percent, asked if they want a new House speaker, said yes or maybe. --71.7 percent are not satisfied with the performance of the House. --97.6 percent are not satisfied with the performance of the Senate. --98.8 percent are not satisfied with Obama's performance.

When is an Ideology Responsible For Murder?

When is an Ideology Responsible For Murder?

“ The left wing media was only too eager to point to [Anders Behring Breivik's] ideology as the rationale for the shooting. David Neiwert of CrooksandLiars [...] A more rational answer would require an ideology to fulfill two basic criteria in order to be blamed for a particular act of violence. First, the ideology must itself promote the sort of violence get in their faces  at issue and the type of violence that takes place must bear some resemblance to the violence being promoted. This makes sense. If a group of pacifists shot-up a school, we could say with accuracy that they'd clearly misinterpreted pacifism. The same does not hold true of neo-Nazi ideology and Jews. Second, a large number of adherents to the ideology must engage in or support the form of violence in question. It is possible for formerly violent ideologies to change over time -- no one, for example, save Timothy McVeigh, thinks that Constitutional ideology is violent anymore, despite Thomas Jefferson's proclamations about the tree of liberty and the blood of patriots. [Ben Shapiro cont.] ” Well said, but let's not get carried away Ben. Wunderkind Ben Shapiro has a mind like a steel trap, and is a member of that rarest of breeds—   hardcore Jewish conservatives.  But,  I don't remember Timothy McVeigh citing Constitutional purity  as motivation for his OKC bombing.  Instead,  it was being pissed off at the  government for WACO.    So here is my quibble, a rather large quibble— If  "Thomas Jefferson's proclamations about the tree of liberty and the blood of patriots" is no longer valid in his world,  at what point would he suggest taking forcible action to defend against a demonic government (on the off-chance one should ever emerge, of course)?

Gun Holder

A [real] journalist's guide to 'Project Gunwalker'-Part One, Part Two, Part Three and Part Four

" ... ignorant of the fact that it was not tax cuts that made America great...." ...

A "Best Ever" Selection   Left Crack-up cracking me up

“ "Oh, The Banalty" Alas, that is the Tea Party. It is so lacking in any aspiration for American greatness, so dominated by the narrowest visions for our country and so ignorant of the fact that it was not tax cuts that made America great but our unique public-private partnerships across the generations. If sane Republicans do not stand up to this Hezbollah faction in their midst, the Tea Party will take the G.O.P. on a suicide mission. No American politician was more allergic to debt or taxes than Thomas Jefferson, but he also appreciated the need to have the resources to make the Louisiana Purchase and insisted that on his tombstone it be written that he founded the University of Virginia.  - By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

Bad Boner Emerging

Bad Boner Emerging

“ "Speaker of the House John Boehner was dealt a potentially devastating blow Tuesday when a Congressional Budget Office scoring of his debt limit proposal showed the plan would save significantly less than the $1.2 trillion promised. According to the CBO, the plan would only cut $840 billion. When the dismal score was made public, Michael Steel, a spokesperson for Boehner, said staff members were busy rewriting the legislation. 'We're here to change Washington,” no more smoke and mirrors, no more "phantom cuts,"' said Steel. [When is a cut not a cut?] ” First-off, if one wishes to strike the pose of new breed, no no more smoke and mirrors Republican leader, one does not employ Michael Steele as spokesman.

Harry Reid's Americans

Harry Reid's Americans

Obama admits - "No Default" ...

The Great Prevaricator: Pssst.  We're not defaulting.

“ In a series of phone calls, administration officials have told bankers that the administration will not allow a default to happen even if the debt cap isn't raised by the August 2 date Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner says the government will run out of money to pay all its bills, including obligations to bond holders. Geithner made the rounds on the Sunday talk shows saying a default is imminent if the debt ceiling isn't raised, and President Obama issued a similar warning during a Friday press conference after budget negotiations with House Republicans broke down.   Read more: In fact, what will cause the ratings services to downgrade U.S. bonds is failure to produce a budget " that results in $4 trillion in savings, the result of the massive debt load the country has accumulated in recent years."   Throwing Obamacare off the train will account for $2 Trillion.  I expect Liberals to lie about everything, but when the Republican Speaker of the House plays along, enough is enough.