Talk of reparations

Sigh. Cash for clunkers. Bailouts. Paying parents to take care of their own kids. Sigh. Read about reparations for slavery being talked about in the MSM and congress. 

JAMES CLYBURN: Well, I think that Congressman Cohen's resolution that was unanimously passed by the House offered an apology, but it went into talking about how we ought to go about rectifying some of the current effects of that past discrimination. And that's what we're doing today as we roll out this working draft of our health care bill.

. . .  .

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Yeah, I think reparations make sense. I just wonder if we're ever going to figure out how to do it.  Mr. Clyburn, do you have a clear sense of what's the appropriate, if you were the president right now and had the congress 100% behind you, what would you do?

Iran at breaking point

Read about it at Tehran Bureau: 

The real explosion could some within a few days, when the so-called Guardian Council — a group of twelve bearded old clerics slavishly loyal to Khamenei — confirms the bogus election results. If they do — as expected — sometime mid-week, it’s possible that the sustained street protests could become a revolution.

From an Iranian source, it appears that for Mir Hossein Mousavi, Ali Akbar Rafsanjani, Medhi Karroubi, and other leaders of the movement, there’s no backing down. Here’s what he said: “Mousavi and the others cannot compromise. They know that if Ahmadinejad remains in power, he will try to eliminate all of them. All of them. And it will be violent.”

LA to pay parents for caring for their own children?

Why are they broke out in CA? Somebody remind me. GROAN. Read about the LA TImes, just this once:  

Supervisors suggest putting unemployed parents to work caring for their own children as part of proposed changes to CalWorks and other state government aid programs.

John Stossel's discussion of health care

2007-2 years ago Stossel ran the numbers. Check it out over at ABC: 

The government also makes insurance expensive by mandating the medical services that policies must cover. Required services vary state by state and include massage therapy, pastoral counseling, acupuncture, hair prosthesis and dentures. Such mandates are a reason why an individual policy in New Jersey costs around $4,000 a year while a policy in Iowa costs only a third of that. Yet insurance regulations make it illegal for someone in New Jersey to buy a policy from out of state.

Obamacare

Oh, that's MICHELLE O's idea of Obamacare....patient dumping the poor to city urban clinics, which she engineered while working at the University of Chicago hospital. Read about it at Michelle Malkin: 

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.

LORD OF THE FLIES!

Notice it's considered breaking news

Lee Fisher is running for Ohio Senate

Don't you REALLY want this guy to be part of the U.S. Senate, along with Al Franken in diapers? This is the equivalent of Howard Dean's scream. What a dope.

2 MPG more? We are offering $3500 for 2 MPG more?

Unbelievable! These Senators actually PASSED this thing!

Under the proposal, car owners could get a voucher worth $3,500 if they traded in a vehicle getting 18 miles per gallon or less for one getting at least 22 mpg. The value of the voucher would grow to $4,500 if the mileage of the new car was 10 mpg higher than the old vehicle. The miles per gallon figures are listed on the car window's sticker.

Owners of sport utility vehicles, pickup trucks or minivans that get 18 mpg or less could receive a voucher for $3,500 if their new truck or SUV got at least 2 mpg higher than their old vehicle. The voucher would increase to $4,500 if the mileage of the new truck or SUV was at least 5 mpg higher than the older vehicle.

City run by liberals decimated

All stores are leaving. There's little left.  The average house price is $6,000.

DETROIT -- They call this the Motor City, but you have to leave town to buy a Chrysler or a Jeep.

Borders Inc. was founded 40 miles away, but the only one of the chain's bookstores here closed this month. And Starbucks Corp., famous for saturating U.S. cities with its storefronts, has only four left in this city of 900,000 after closures last summer.

There was a time early in the decade when downtown Detroit was sprouting new cafes and shops, and residents began to nurture hopes of a rebound. But lately, they are finding it increasingly tough to buy groceries or get a cup of fresh-roast coffee as the 11th largest U.S. city struggles with the recession and the auto-industry crisis.

Down with the dictator!!

which refers to the Ayatollah. A moving account is at Boston.com. Read it here: 

The next thing I noticed surprised me: the crowd did not consist of young men, but housewives, seniors, businessmen wearing suits, even children. There was blood on many of them. They were walking downhill towards the Interior Ministry, determined and in force. The wave that had taken over Iran and partied in the streets into the morning for the last few weeks was now an army on the move. As I stood in place trying to figure out what I was seeing, I noticed shopkeepers shutting down and joining the flock. People were also chanting on the sidelines, "down with the dictator," referring to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, while the crowd chanted "join us proud Iranians, join us, join us." The crowd was growing by the moment.

More IG firings--

Read about it and links through Riehl World View: 

Not Just Walpin - 3 IG Firings Being Questioned

Another update: A witness to Walpin-gate. The Wash. Times isn't buying it. It is pretty thin gruel.

(Just a note -- Why are we reading about this in the Chicago Tribune? Perhaps his local paper doesn't have an Oba-worship problem?) Just a thought.

Update: Moe Lane with a little more background.

This is interesting. I looked around and perhaps I missed it on another blog, but the Chicago Tribune reports that it isn't just Walpin's firing over which Senator Grassley wants some answers. He's worried about a pattern, as no fewer than three IG's have recently been fired, all while investigating so-called sensitive issues. See Michelle for the latest on Walpin.

What it will take

is for the police/military of Iran to join with the protesters to make a difference in who controls Iran/Persia. If the military joins, the mullahs will have to change their behavior. Watch this remarkable video: 

Persia inspires!!

Mousavi! Mousavi! Mousavi! Read about the uprising at Gateway Pundit. Watch the video: 

Inside Iran

Read about it at Gateway Pundit. Jim has a video with personal interviews of Iranian former residents. Truly remarkable: 

In this video Kianoosh Sanjari reveals:

** Ayatollah Khomenei's grand-daughter was arrested during a recent demonstration.

** Former President Rafsanjari's daugher marched in the protest tonight in Tehran.

** On the night of the election after his vote Rafsanjari called on the people to demonstrate.

** There is a great split between the two factions of hardliners and moderates. It is reminescent of the 1979 revolution.

** The people of Iran will not forgive Barack Obama for siding with the evil regime.

Witness verifies Walpin account

If you haven't been following this story, you need to catch up. This is a major scandal and an abuse of power. The Washington Times has a witness who has verified Walpin's account, and who says he was NOT fired for just cause, as the law requires. The problem is that the administration did not like what Walpin had discovered. Read about it here: 

By all accounts, the May 20 meeting was contentious. It was then that Mr. Walpin chastised the board of the Corporation for National and Community Service for failing to exercise enough oversight over AmeriCorps grants. Our witness, a staff member, said the board was hostile and rude. He said the board repeatedly interrupted Mr. Walpin and peppered him with questions on multiple issues. He fully confirmed Mr. Walpin's account that the board excused Mr. Walpin for 15 minutes and that when Mr. Walpin returned to find his notepapers out of order, the board refused to give him time to get them straight.

More on the fly controversy

and how sickening the press has been over the fly swatting. Ninja? Tough guy? There's so much more over at NewsBuster on this:

DAVID GREGORY: You just have to appreciate the, the concentration and the precision! Just a few things going on in the world but it's as if everything was stopped and at a standstill for the President to lower the boom.

MEREDITH VIEIRA: But see I thought he was the kind of guy who would never hurt a fly.

GREGORY: Yeah well apparently he-

VIEIRA: Apparently not.

GREGORY: -wanted to shore up his, his credentials of being a tough guy there.

VIEIRA: Exactly, exactly.

And now, a break from depressing reality

Over at the People's Cube: 

Voice of progress: kill the health care hogs!

"Kill the health care hogs!" is the progressive message we hear increasingly from the more socially advanced comrades in Europe. How many times have you stood in line at the pharmacy behind an ancient decrepit walking dead? Inevitably, they order dozens of medications and then pay almost nothing as our Mother State picks up the tab! How is one to deal with these selfish broken-down useless monsters as they suck the economic lifeblood from our Cities? As usual, the Europeans have been leading the way. We all know how successful their previous bold moves in socialized health care have been.

The Dems' commitment to TRANSPARENCY

As told to Neal Boortz: 

DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THIS ONE?

By 

Neal Boortz 

@ June 17, 2009 

It happened last night. There was debate on the floor of the House over some amendments to a spending bill. The amendments were offered by Republicans and concerned funding for ACORN and an investigation into Nancy Pelosi's problems with the CIA.

As I understand the story, the Democrats announced that there would be no more votes that evening, and Republicans started heading home. When enough Republicans were gone the Democrats headed back to the House floor and called for a vote to end debate on all amendments to the spending bill. Republicans scrambled to get back into the House, but it was too late. Democrats saved Pelosi and ACORN with their little chicanery. For now.

Pictures directly from Iran

from a photographer named Hamed, seen on Flickr. 

Hurry up! Do it now, before you have a chance to think!

Have you noticed how EVERYTHING The One wants to do has to be done QUICKLY or else? Interesting article by David Harsanyi at The Denver Post: 

Weren't we promised some methodical and deliberate governance from President Barack Obama? Where is it?

The president claims that we must pass a government-run health insurance program — possibly the most wide-ranging and intricate government undertaking in decades — yesterday or a "ticking time bomb" will explode.

If all this terrifying talk sounds familiar, it might be because the president applies the same fear-infused vocabulary to nearly all his hard-to-defend policy positions. You'll remember the stimulus plan had to be passed without a second's delay or we would see 8.7 percent unemployment. We're almost at 10.

Sickening sycophancy

On and on go the MSM, blathering about The Enlightened One's pecs and abs and inspiring speeches, ETC. This newscast is an excellent example of how disgustingly obsequious these guys are getting. It is the story of the fly Obama swatted with his lightning fast reflexes and penetrating gaze. Read about it at News Busters: 

After detailing the President’s courage in battling the insect, Harwood also noted Obama’s cleanliness: "...and at the end of the interview, David, he picked up a napkin off the table and said ‘I clean up after myself’ and he picked up the fly off the carpet." In awe, Shuster observed: "Amazing...An amazing interview...it never fails, great weather, rainbows, incredible speeches, and three-point basket. A fly and he nails it. Unbelievable, unbelievable."

Co-anchor Tamron Hall concluded the discussion by comparing Obama’s quick reflexes to that of the martial arts expert in the movie Karate Kid: "Mr. Miyagi, just snapped it right up. Look at that – look at that intense look."

Things could be worse

You could want to do things like this to yourself and think it looks cool. Algernon says goodbye, Charlie.

What a joke!

Obama continues to blame everything that is wrong in this country on the previous administration. Last night he was on tv whining about Fox News, never mentioning that ALL the MSM is in the tank for him. It's that ONE news channel who won't toe the line for His Highness, the Enlightened One, that bugs him. Now he's claiming he has a "light touch" when it comes to the way he's dealing with the car industry, auto dealers, banking, the environment.  Read about his "light touch" at the Wall Street Journal:

"And so it's puzzling to me sometimes to hear the standard conservative critique of what we're doing, when essentially every step we're taking involves cleaning up the mess that we found when we arrived here at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue."

The president and his aides have reached a point of potential political peril, where the massive interventions they have made to deal with the recession and virtual collapse of Detroit -- to be followed soon by an attempt to overhaul the U.S. health system -- can be seen as the opening stages of a reordering of the American economy.

Obamanation

By Ed Montana 

Stimulus funds squandered money

Coburn has the entire report here, posted on Michelle Malkin. There is much more to come: 

The John Murtha Airport in Johnstown/Cambria County will receive $800,000 in economic stimulus funds, despite the fact that virtually no one uses the airport.   

 

According to ABC News the airport will receive money for an, “$18 million runway made of reinforced concrete that's big enough to land any airplane in North America. The airport also has a $7 million air traffic control tower, a $14 million hanger and $8 million radar.” However, “most of the time, the only thing the airport doesn't have is airplanes.”22  

 

Last year, Rep. John Murtha asked Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to pay to build a backup runway.  But with less than 10,000 passengers using the airport or close to 20 passengers per day, it didn’t meet the agency criteria for support, so the request was denied.  

Fashion icon?

Michelle O named "Fashion Icon"

Obama to appear on numerous channels

Just announced on Fox, Neil Cavuto. He will appear on Lifetime, The Food Channel, The History Channel...something called "Chiller"....??? But not on Fox News. Hmm. Something about Sponge Bob Squarepants....

Complaints YouTube removes videos

from Iran of the revolution. These complaints are lodged on Twitter. Nothing verified in the MSM yet.

State Dept asks Twitter

to delay routine maintenance to enable Iranian tweeters to post. They did. Amazing. History. Can you see it?

Twitter is the closest to real news coverage in Iran

I take back everything bad I have said about Twitter (just as I read about someone not having chocolate mile in the frig). The most current reports about the REVOLUTION in Iran are coming out with Twitter, which the state is having difficulty blocking. If you go to http://twitter.coma and enter #iranElection, you can watch real time posts from inside Iran. Watch this video which was just posted on Twitter minutes ago and BELIEVE in FREEDOM: 

Ahminedejad came in THIRD?

According to leaked results. Mousavi canceled planned protest, in the face of government slaughtering of protesters. Read about it here:

The statistics, circulated on Iranian blogs and websites, claimed Mr Mousavi had won 19.1 million votes while Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had won only 5.7 million.

The two other candidates, reformist Mehdi Karoubi and hardliner Mohsen Rezai, won 13.4 million and 3.7 million respectively. The authenticity of the leaked figures could not be confirmed.

Dealers were forced to buy cars before Chrysler crashed

This is a tragic story that won't go away for a long time. Obama's Travel Gate? 

Many dealers would long remember the warning that followed to those who refused to order their whole allotment of cars: "If you decide not to do that, we've got a good memory."

"Our jaws dropped," said Alan Spitzer, who appeared before Congress on Friday and until last week owned eight Chrysler-brand franchises in Ohio. "It was clearly a threat. There was no other way to take it."

Chrysler officials dispute that view, saying executives were simply working to save the company and had no plans to go into bankruptcy at the time.

But the Call has become part symbol, part rallying cry for the hundreds of Chrysler dealers who say they have endured a litany of indignities at the hands of the struggling automaker. Referenced by dealers in numerous interviews and during Chrysler's recent bankruptcy proceedings, it offers a window into the carmaker's increasingly frantic final months, as it sought to bolster its bottom line by pressuring dealers to buy more inventory, even as their showrooms overflowed with cars they couldn't sell.

Toledo makes the Drudge Report front page

Yeah, we ticket residents who park in their own driveways....yeah...

.TOLEDO, Ohio - Although not outlined in the city charter, a city memo has allowed workers with the city of Toledo’s Division of Streets, Bridges and Harbor to issue parking citations to citizens.

It was learned over the weekend that Susan Frederick, acting commissioner with streets, bridges and harbor, fined several motorists for parking in their driveways on Holland-Sylvania near Dorr Street.

Absolute rubbish

Watch this video interview with the founder of the Weather Channel, who wants to sue Al Gore for all the lies he has told: 

State [of Ohio] foots bill for fancy travel

According to The Columbus Dispatch: 

Despite the administration's call for "a few limited exceptions" on travel, state workers took trips to Germany, Belgium and other countries and all over the nation, from San Francisco, Santa Monica and Portland to New York, Washington and Orlando.

The trips sometimes involved stays at posh resorts or hotels, including Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin Resort in Florida, Harrah's in Las Vegas, and the Plaza in Buenos Aires, Argentina -- sometimes at more than $300 a night.

Breitbart refutes claims von Brunn was a conservative

Read about it here:

The inconvenient truth is that David Duke and James von Brunn currently share more in common with Markos Moulitsas and Arianna Huffington than with Bill Kristol and Charles Krauthammer. But the right wouldn't be so crass or foolish to try to blame the political left for the existence of - or motivation behind - haters like Mr. von Brunn.

Michelle O's influence on Americorps scandal

Well, it looks like the First Lady is getting involved in Americorps mess out in Sacramento. Not only do we have a fired (an illegal act) IG, inexplicably missing funds, a vow to return inexplicably missing funds even though the perps declare their innocence, but now we have the First Lady sending her crony out for a showdown. 

Conservatives disliked the Orwellian name and the implications of having so many young adults being trained as community organizers, and the concept went back in the closet with its ersatz presidential seal.

But why startle people with a creepy-sounding plan when you can just keep dumping money on AmeriCorps to eventually reach the same end?

And having some hard-nosed, headline-seeking, Republican-appointed inspector general running around wouldn’t make that any easier.

As Michelle Obama exerts her will more and more on her husband’s administration, expect the showdown with Walpin to be the first of many inside the bureaucracy.

More Americans conservative?

Well, that's what the latest Gallup poll says: 

PRINCETON, NJ -- Thus far in 2009, 40% of Americans interviewed in national Gallup Poll surveys describe their political views as conservative, 35% as moderate, and 21% as liberal. This represents a slight increase for conservatism in the U.S. since 2008, returning it to a level last seen in 2004. The 21% calling themselves liberal is in line with findings throughout this decade, but is up from the 1990s.

Walpin speaks about Obama scandal

Byron York at The Washington Examiner. Read it here: 

Together, Brown and the top Corporation brass negotiated a deal.  Johnson and St. HOPE would pay back about half of the $850,000 in AmeriCorps grant money it had received, and the suspension against Johnson would be lifted.  

Walpin was very unhappy.  First of all, he said it was a terrible deal for the U.S. government, because St. HOPE was essentially insolvent and would never pay the money back.  Second, he felt lifting Johnson's suspension would dilute the effectiveness of future investigations; why should grant recipients worry about their misconduct if any sanctions can be so easily lifted?  In the end, Johnson was not suspended, not debarred, and was probably not going to pay the vast majority of the money back.

"Spreading the wealth" China's way

Yeah, you read that right. The US will be paying China to control their greenhouse gases. Yeah, they are a "developing" country. CHINA, you say? Oh, yeah, you're right. THAT China! The one that's richer than we are and has been buying up OUR debt. We are calling it "assistance mechanism" these days.

Regardless, the United States will be spreading the wealth China’s way, helping them to meet whatever final carbon emissions reduction goals come out of Copenhagen.
 
“It [assistance] needs to focus both on mitigation – the means of producing your CO2 emissions, putting you on a low carbon path – and adaptation, which has to do with dealing with the effects of climate change that has already happened,” said Stern, then, “yes, there will need to be those [assistance] mechanism