Come for the Politics, Stay for the Pathologies



Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Hump-Day Reality Check

  • Socialism is on decline in Europe due in part to it’s failure to provide a panacea to the failings of human nature, along with it's inherent – albeit unintended - nurturing of them. Meanwhile, the U.S. races forward to embrace every failed socialist policy/program ever tried, plus a few new models.

  • President Obama gives a fantasy speech to the UN Security Council as the Imperial Potentate of the post partisan, post racial, post nuclear world. Even the French know this is hogwash. The next day – so as not to infringe on the fantasy spun the day before – the president announces Iran’s development of a second facility capable of developing weapon grade nuclear fuel. He acts outraged and threatens, you guessed it, sanctions. Because he just announced global nuclear disarmament the day before. Let’s get with the program, Mahmud.
Somehow French president Sarkozy sounds more reasonable than the leader of the free world: “Obama dreams of a world without weapons ... but right in front of us two countries are doing the exact opposite," Sarkozy said, referring to Iran and North Korea.
  • Award winning “artiste” Roman Polanski, accused, confessed and convicted of drugging and raping a 13 year old girl, is arrested in Switzerland after 30 years on the lam. Instead of applauding justice delayed, France and Hollywood whine that after all this time we should just ignore the crime and the conviction –because..because, well I guess I don’t know why. Because they said so, I guess. The guy is a pedophile and a perv. I would blame the rationalization for ignoring this incredibly heinous act on our public education system, but that doesn’t explain the French.

  • Communist China, who now owns the Empire State Building, will be lighting it up in Red and Yellow today in honor of the birth of Communist China 60 years ago. If you are 20 years either side of 60, I’ll bet you never thought you’d live to see this.

  • Senator Baucus explains why the Senate won’t have the very controversial health care reform bill on line for the public to review 72 hours (or even 1) before the scheduled vote, despite Obama’s pledge to do so as part of his administration’s new transparency: it’s too hard. That’s right. It would be too much work. He claims it would take his staff 2 weeks to upload it to the internet. Huh? Libraries can upload whole books in well under an hour. This doesn’t bode well for the efficient execution of the legislation they are “crafting” for us.

  • A 60 Minutes/Vanity Fair poll reports that Wal-mart is the institution that best symbolizes America. Other data mined from the poll: Obama was edged out by George Clooney (24 percent to 26 percent) among respondents choosing "which man they would most like to trade places with for a week," followed by Tom Brady and Bruce Springsteen.

Among woman, First Lady Michelle Obama was the favorite, chosen by 26
percent, with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton picked by 16 percent, actress
Angelina Jolie by 13 percent and singer Beyonce selected by 12 percent.

Next time, I would suggest they use lab rats for their polls: same results
and no humans would be harmed in the process.

Have a nice day.

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Dewey’s Future Fake News: Michigan Blowin’ In The Wind

Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm signed into law today a bill mandating that Michigan’s entire 3177 miles of Great Lakes coastline be isolated for the exclusive development of wind turbine generated power.  This follows a fierce battle within the great lakes shorelinestate legislature over the past 2 years.

Proponents of the Wind And Solar Technology Energy (WASTE) bill, argued that the Wind Power project along the state’s shoreline would provide 75-85% of Michigan’s required electric power upon completion. Opponents responded that if that proved to be true, it would be because the state’s last remaining businesses had emigrated to more business friendly states. Supporters countered with the claim that the Wind Mill aqua-farms would create or save 341 jobs, which represents 24.3% of Michigan’s total workforce.windmills on lake mich

Another issue of contention surrounding the controversial act involved the funding of the advertising campaign in support of the bill. The 325 member strong United Wind and Solar Technology Energy workers(UWASTE) reportedly contributed $8 million to the television, radio and print campaign promoting the legislation. Additionally, it has been alleged that the Union contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to state senators and representatives who ultimately voted to pass the legislation.

On a related note: Holland, Michigan – a forerunner in the windmill business - announced today that they are decommissioning their last remaining wind mill.windmill island holland mi The authentic Dutch working mill  stands on Wind Mill Island,  and has been a popular tourist attraction in this west Michigan city on the shore of Lake Michigan for over 100 years.

The city council cited an inability to meet UWASTE’s demand for wage increases in light of the increased costs to the city’s  budget associated with Obamacare taxes fines, decreased tourism due to competition from newer wind mills everywhere, and the 47% increase in the State’s sales and income taxes to be assesed in order to subsidize the WASTE initiative.

 

Coming soon….

The 2 Deweys are on the road again, checking out all of the shovel ready projects across America. Will have great fake news post up tonight.

In the meantime, please visit our sister site, MOTUS, who’s been getting all the attention lately.

Thursday, September 24, 2009

From a Tiny ACORN, a Giant Hoax did Grow

The IRS announced today that they are severing ties with ACORN in the wake of the mounting scandal surrounding the community organizing group.

I wonder? If I committed tax fraud, supported a pimp and prostitute operation that brought underage girls into the country illegally for the express purpose of prostitution, and committed several felonies regarding the illegal use of government power and lobbying laws…

Could I possibly get the IRS to sever ties with me too?

acorns

H/T “Hope n’ Change”

 

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Wednesday, September 23, 2009

You Are Now Free To Move About the Socialist Country. Just Don’t Say Anything

In Venezuela they will put up with a lot.

Beginning with their great, glorious leader, Hugo Chavez. He controls the presidency (potentially for life, or as long as he wants to run for re-election, and Jimmy Carter’s available to certify the results), the courts, the media (he just shuts down the outlets that don’t agree with him),parliament (that goes without saying) and the oil business (he nationalized the oil business and threw out the American oil companies that had build infrastructure to develop the oil leases they had purchased legally from the government). And while there are some who oppose him – at great risk to their own life and livelihood – most have remained silent.

But with the passing of a new Education Law in August, which boldly states it’s purpose of “socializing” the children of Venezuela, more people are finding their voices.

 

Unlike here, where socialist indoctrination in the classroom is subversive, Hugo is proud of it, and proud of his ability to demonize capitalism:

“In the capitalist society it is all about the individual here…, we are all the same. You are all being socialized.”

Nor is he the least bit shy about his goal of indoctrination of the young.

 “Yes we are indoctrinating children from the first grade through college, every grade, private schools. The ideology of the revolution, the ideology of socialism – our ideology.”

Here’s an even more chilling report on the new Education Law that Chavez signed in August: the law bans the teaching of religion in  schools – public or private,  reports that the new law also will establish censorship of the press, and prohibit communications that:

"produce terror in children, incite to hatred, and offend the healthy values of the Venezuelan people and the mental and physical health of the population."

All of which will be determined by the government of course.

But there’s still more:

The new law also gives power to "community councils" to be organized and paid for by the government, which will act as "agents of education" with the "pedagogical role of liberator for the formation of a new citizenry,"

People fear that the law will allow the state to remove their children from their home if the government doesn’t feel you are educating them correctly. Chilling.

This is the man that Obama greeted warmly, and joked with at the Summit of Americas last April:

hugo obamaAnd here’s Obama’s inane explanation as to why this is what the American people elected him to do.

Why do Obama’s foes call him a socialist? Hint: it’s not because they’re racists. It’s because he agrees with this socialist dictator on too many fronts. He can’t wait to catch up with Hugo on the takeover of  healthcare, the media, energy production and the manipulation of young brains.

It’s not like we haven’t been warned.

But still, there is one thing, one crucial mistake that Chavez has made that may yet prove to be his undoing: he has attacked golf as a bourgeois sport, and has begun to shut down golf courses across Venezuela. That might prove to be change that neither his people, or Obama, can believe in.

 

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Pimp My Pride

When does the pimping stop and the governing begin?

First there’s ACORN,  willingly and literally accommodating pimps and prostitutes. Now comes the  National Endowment of the Arts scandal in which administration  functionaries pimp out the all too willing artists to prostitute themselves for the Obama-tization of America. All this after a long, long season of MSM pimping for the entire Democratic party.

Wow! I expect that type of behavior from community organizers and (sadly) the main stream media. But artists? Artists!? What happened to the artistic integrity that an artist would be willing to die for? Or at least willing to say, “Uh, no.  I don’t think I need the money that badly” ?  I’ve known artists who wouldn’t even take a commission if the client ( “patron,” if you want to be snooty) had the audacity to suggest a color palette, let alone a subject matter. Apparently “suffering for your art” is not such a big deal anymore. Or perhaps, from the looks of some contemporary art, imagination has simply died and taking marching orders from the government is an easy cure for artist’s block.

But what artists are willing to do for a federal handout is not of as much concern to me as is a bureaucracy that exists simply to direct and control the flow of said funds. This, undoubtedly, is one of the profoundly “critical” programs that Congress can never see fit to eliminate from the federal budget. Read the whole transcript of how your tax dollars are employed for the good of the country. Or just read the short version by Nick Gillespie at Biggovernment.com. His succinct conclusion on the wisdom of public funding of the arts:

It leads to the use of taxpayer-funded culture as a means of propagandizing for specific, partisan political aims. Which corrupts not just art but artists.

And just so we’re clear on all of this: I’m not whining about a gray area  of ethical  propriety. The behavior captured by the transcript is strictly against the law. That we have people in the White House flagrantly flaunting the laws designed to prevent just such dangerous manipulation is a demonstration of either their total arrogance or their total stupidity. I’m not ruling out a combination.

Either way, if this is what’s going on at the NEA, what are we to assume is happening at the important federal agencies – the CIA for instance?  Oh yeah, I guess we know the answer there too. The new administration is pimping for terrorists.

Washington has always been full of whores. But only Organized Crime would have thought to round them all up and unionize them.

 

Monday, September 21, 2009

If They Talk Long Enough, A Truth Slips Out

I just love it when New York Times columnists accidently tell the truth. Especially when they expose themselves  in the process. Take Bob Herbert’s column today, for example.

First he explains that Jimmy Carter spoke one of the 10 great truths in America when he charged anyone disagreeing  with the Obama Doctrine with racism. He even describes Carter’s statement as a Homer Simpson “doh!” moment: if you don’t see racism in the emotional agitation against the President, you,sir, are an idiot and a liar. Then he turns around to remind us that St. Jimmy himself:

(… During his presidential campaign in 1976, … blithely let it be known that he had no problem with residents “trying to maintain the ethnic purity of their neighborhoods,” and he tossed around ugly terms like “black intrusion” and “alien groups.” He later apologized.)

Hmmm. Can apologizing make you not a racist? He maybe needs to apologize some more if that’s the case, as he’s the only one I’ve ever heard call Obama a “black boy.” And it just seems to roll off his tongue.

Herbert has inadvertently exposed the truth that non-racists everywhere have always suspected: those who scream “racist” loudest and most frequently, who see racism no matter where they turn, are usually the biggest racists in the room. I reach this conclusion because pretty much everything else in Herbert’s column appears to be angry accusations of racism hurled in the direction of the other party.

But hey, read Herbert’s column yourself and tell me who you think is stirring up racism for their own purposes.

And then there’s this, from the op-ed pages that just keep on giving: An insight from Maureen Dowd: Women are unhappier now than they used to be. Read Ms. Dowd’s  column carefully to track her demons.  She quotes from the study’s authors, but we get the distinct feeling that her observations are based more on her own “research.”  She takes many different paths into her existential dead end, but it seems to boil down to this: Feminists and Feminism transformed females from sex objects into …sex objects with full time jobs.  So I guess the whole point of her column is that she’s unhappy. Man, who could of seen that one coming?

Maureen didn’t ask for advice, and she clearly doesn’t need it because it’s embedded right there in her own copy: You’re nearly 60 years old. Stop trying to look  and act like you’re in your 20’s. Do you want to end up looking like Nancy Pelosi, for God’s sake? Because you’re well on your way.

Geeeze. I really should have been a therapist. How hard is it?

nota bene: all snarky things directed towards girls of any age in this blog are written by She-Dewey. He-Dewey is not permitted to participate in that game. House rules.

Saturday, September 19, 2009

The First Reality Show President

Michelle is out pedaling the softer side of Obamacare  “be sure to eat your vegetables, or we’ll have to tax your food at a higher rate.”  BHO himself will be making the rounds on the Sunday shows. He’ll be on every channel that has a Sunday show  - and even one that doesn’t, Univision - except FOX. I’m assuming that’s because the donation basket jingles better when you preach to the choir. And heathens are always asking questions.

No doubt the President will be handling  the “hard” soft sell. Telling people why there is no public option in his plan, unless you want one, and then there’s “wink,wink” non-profit co-ops. And of course, he’ll be reminding the choir that this is his legacy; and you did vote for change.

As of tomorrow, Obama will have addressed the American people in one arena or another an astonishing 144 times in the 8 months he’s been in office. For comparison purposes, at the same time  in his presidency Bush had done so just 40 times and Clinton, 46. One hundred forty four major addresses in 8 months. Eighteen a month. Who’s running the country?

realitytv1 This president is on TV so often that it’s beginning to look like he won a role on a reality TV show rather than the presidency.

Does he really think the country needs a steady dose of his razzle dazzle to stay in line? Does he think so little of the American populace that he believes we don’t see or know the difference between governing and cheer leading? I know people tend to keep on doing whatever it was they did that got them to where they are. But we really don’t need any more stump speeches and community organizing.

No matter how many times you tell us it’s not universal health care, no matter what you call it : “public option,” “federal subsidies,” “ non-profit cooperatives,” it doesn’t change it’s face. They all set in motion government controlled universal healthcare. Believe otherwise at your own peril. These public plans will not “compete” with the private insurance companies that the administration continues to bad mouth, while simultaneously cutting deals with. If it’s competition we want, the best way to achieve that is to  open health care insurance up across state lines.  That would force the health-care industry to price plans more competitively, which in turn would lower prices and deliver better care. That’s what honest competition always does. But creating fake competition with a government option is a ruse. It will simply snuff out private insurers.

In his 137th speech to the American people since taking office, President Obama said "My guiding principle is, and always has been, that consumers do better when there is choice and competition," noting that in many states the market is dominated by five or fewer companies. So,  as James Freeman asked in the WSJ

“… why not open things up? It's as if Ted Kennedy, author of airline deregulation in the 1970s, had decided what was needed was a government-run airline to compete with private ones.”

This administration thinks we are a pack of morons who needs their help at every turn because they are the more enlightened amongst us. Whether their hubris is well meaning or not (I tend to think not) it will mean the death of liberty.

 

Friday, September 18, 2009

ACORN: The Gift That Keeps On Giving

Nobody does it like Jay. Nailed it. ‘Nuff said.

Thursday, September 17, 2009

How Bad Is It?

The ACORN corruption scandal? So bad that even liberal FAKE news broadcasters are embarrassed.  Must see TV.

 

Watch the White House run from Acorn as fast as they can. Watch President Obama throw his community organization group under the bus so fast you won’t even see the hit. Run, Barry run.

From a tiny ACORN, a giant HOAX did grow. Read the article only if you’ve had your Wheaties today, you’ll need the fortitude. Then ask yourselves these questions: How does ACORN  qualify for tax-free non-profit status? Why is the US government funding this corrupt, illegal, anti-American, anti-capitalist operation with millions of tax paper dollars year after year?

I’ve enjoyed some up-close and personal experience with ACORN’s confrontational, intimidating (ala Saul Alinsky, again) protest tactics. They are despicable. Please write, call or fax your elected representatives in Washington to demand total defunding of this corrupt operation. This is one of the groups undermining America’s system and values.

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

More Things Detroiters Like: Hunting For Hoffa

 

jimmy While it might sound a bit ghoulish, we love hunting for the remains of Jimmy Hoffa.

machus This somewhat peculiar past time has continued sporadically ever since  Jimmy went missing form the Machus Red Fox restaurant on Telegraph in 1975.

For people not yet born in ‘75, James Riddell Hoffa was at one time the president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, and arguably the most famous and powerful trade unionist of all time.  His career was cross-hatched with entanglements with Organized Crime, and it was well known in Detroit that he was “all mobbed up.” Unfortunately, that didn’t help him when Robert Kennedy’s FBI decided to target him for prosecution. He was  convicted of  jury tampering in 1964, and later, fraud.  He began serving an 8 year sentence in 1967 and was pardoned by President Nixon in 1971.

At the time of his 1975  “disappearance” Jimmy was, as they say, between jobs. He was banned from active Union activity until 1980, undoubtedly financially strapped, especially since both he and his wife had been fired from their functionary jobs at the Teamsters by Frank Fitzsimmons - the new head of the Teamsters. He probably should have taken the hint.

It is generally believed that Hoffa was killed by the mob because he wanted to make a come-back and recapture the presidency of the biggest union in America, a position he had relinquished when he was sent to prison in 1967, after being convicted of fraud and jury tampering. His comeback was something the mob did not want, and organized things accordingly.

On the morning of July 30, 1975 Jimmy Hoffa prepared to meet with his long time associate and friend Tony Giacolone – one of the most infamous of Detroit’s Organized Crime figures.

On July 30th., 1975, Jimmy Hoffa dressed casually in a dark blue pullover shirt, blue pants, black Gucci loafers, and trademark white socks. Sometime that morning, he received a telephone call at his two storied, cottage-style summer house on Square Lake, in Bloomfield Hills, about 20 miles north of Detroit. It apparently confirmed a meeting he was waiting to hear about. He kissed his wife goodbye, and drove off at 1.15p.m. in his big, green, two-door Pontiac Grand Ville. He told his wife he was going to the Machus Red Fox restaurant, next to a shopping strip on Maple and Telegraph Roads, in Bloomfield Township.

And that’s the last anyone ever saw of Jimmy Hoffa. Nobody doubts that he was rubbed out that day, most likely by the Mob, but no one has ever found the body. Rumors of the whereabouts of his final resting place are legion: from the concrete pads at Giants stadium in the Meadowlands, New Jersey, to a junk yard in Hamtramck, to a swamp in Florida to the bottom of a river in Northern Michigan. Every few years another tip sends law enforcement off on another big dig. And that’s most likely what’s happening again, at a lumberyard in Detroit.

His remains will most likely never be found, probably because there was more truth than not to the purloined refrain from the Scarlet Pimpernel popularized in the 80’s: “We Seek him here, we seek him there, but Jimmy’s buried everywhere.”

A lot has changed in Detroit since old Jimmy went missing. Machus Red Fox has been gone for over 15 years.

pontiac grand ville The Pontiac Grand Ville, like Jimmy, met it's demise in 1975. 

Unions have switched their allegiance from the Mob to the Democrats,  The Mob itself has changed its face, and apparently is now made up exclusively of angry old racist white guys. And the city of a million hopes and dreams continues its steady pace of atrophy.

I don’t know where Jimmy Hoffa’s remains are. But I’m betting as long as there’s money left in the Stimulus Bill, he will provide the country with one shovel ready project after another. Who doesn’t like a good scavenger hunt?

 

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Alternate Realities

Top 10 signs we are living in an alternate universe:

10. Seven US senators voted to continue funding an organization that promotes tax fraud, money laundering and prostitution by underage illegal aliens.

9. Michelle Obama is an International Fashion Icon.

8. The Messiah speaks. And nothing changes.

7. America now has more Czars than Russia had at the height of the Romanoff’s reign.

6. There is a march on Washington that somewhere between .5 million and 1.5 million (but who’s counting?) turn out for. But not a peep, or even a tweet, about it on MSM outlets.

5. The country that virtually invented the concepts of free speech and freedom of the Press has succumbed to self-censoring content they find discomfiting to their favored political party.

4. Nancy Pelosi

3. Controversial talk show host Michael Savage is considered as dangerous in Great Britain as Islamo-fascist terrorists.

2. An international conference on global warming convenes to identify ways to stop global warming – while the earth is actually cooling. Because of the SUN. Go figure.

1. The President of the United States of America is actually a Teleprompter.

Monday, September 14, 2009

Why Blogging Matters – Part Deux

We’ve finally achieved the impossible: bipartisan dissatisfaction with the mainstream media. Two big opposable thumbs up to the Pew Research Center.  They’ve inadvertently done a “follow-up” piece  to my post from last Saturday  “Why Blogging Matters”.

Pew reports in its latest People & the Press survey the shocking results of the public’s assessment of accuracy in the media: “Press Accuracy Rating Hits Two Decade Low.”

Just 29% of Americans say that news organizations generally get the facts straight, while 63% say that news stories are often inaccurate.

But perhaps even more damning:

 Similarly, only about a quarter (26%) now say that news organizations are careful that their reporting is not politically biased, compared with 60% who say news organizations are politically biased.

pew media accuracy chart

Looking at the chart of survey results going back to 1985, my lying eyes suggest that the MSM began a steep, nearly unrelenting fall around 1989. Probably coincidental, but  I seem to remember a “journalistic shift” beginning at about the same “time”:

“As the science editor at Time I would freely admit that on this issue (global warming) we have crossed the boundary from news reporting to advocacy.”
Time Science Editor Charles Alexander at a September 16, 1989 global warming conference at the Smithsonian Institution as quoted by David Brooks in an October 5, 1989 Wall Street Journal column.

And just like mighty oaks from little ACORNs grow, 20 years hence  “advocacy journalism” has mainlined and morphed into messianic proselytizing. Such partisan advocacy results not just in simple,  gushing adoration – although we’ve certainly seen plenty of that – but the equally insidious sin of omission concerning inconvenient truths. Just this past weekend we were witness to three great examples: first the Van Jones resignation story that Howard Kurtz serves up fairly well after the fact:

By the time White House environmental adviser Van Jones resigned over Labor Day weekend, the New York Times had not run a single story. Neither had USA Today, which also didn't cover the resignation. The Washington Post had done one piece, on the day before he quit. The Los Angeles Times had carried a short article the previous week questioning Glenn Beck's assault on the White House aide. There had been nothing on the network newscasts. ..

New York Times Managing Editor Jill Abramson told readers online that the paper was "a beat behind on this story" and that while the Washington bureau was short-staffed during a holiday week, "we should have been paying closer attention."

Well, uh, yes Jill. You do claim to be the “Newspaper of Record.” Record this! Some people consider it news.

Then there is all of the non- coverage of a rather sizable gathering of peaceful citizens protesting multiple issues that they felt required redressing by the government. The on-line version of the New York Times had nothing that I could readily find about a half million strong demonstration in our nation’s capital. Ditto the sleeping alphabet soup networks. You could catch it on FOX, or overseas in the Daily Mail. Here’s a picture they published:

mail on line

But the NYT didn’t get a chance to print any pictures. I guess their reporters were still hung over from the big Labor Day celebration, and couldn’t really focus on all that commotion.

Allegedly, The Mail also reported that protestors were carrying signs saying "King George didn't listen to us either."

And in yet another really big headline that the MSM has had precious little interest in: ACORN pimps your house, and again no one except FOX considers this a real news issue. Oh, I guess they’ll have to talk about it now because the Senate just voted to de-fund the ACORN housing operations. Although – and I just checked - still nothing on the NYT website. Probably left early for cocktails. It’s been a long day.

So, I don’t know how Tom Friedman (Pulitzer prize winning New York Times columnist) feels about having lower approval ratings than Nancy Pelosi, Congress, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.  To the degree he believes it at all, he probably thinks us blogger-nuts in our pink bathrobes and fluffy bunny slippers are responsible.  And while I would love to think that my "open sewer of untreated, unfiltered information," contributed in some small way, unfortunately Tom, you earned the ratings completely on your own.

 

I Nominate Jimmy Carter

You’ll never forgive yourself if you don’t read this little story.

But if you’re in a hurry, here are the highlights (there aren’t many):

The president of the United Nations General Assembly, Rev. Miguel D’Escoto Brockmann, on Saturday declared Bolivian President Evo Morales as “World Hero of Mother Earth” in a ceremony at the presidential palace in this capital.

With a medal and a parchment scroll, the General Assembly of the United Nations Organization named Morales “the maximum exponent and paradigm of love for Mother Earth”

Evo Morales

For starters, I can just tell you that Al Gore is going to royally torqued off. He thought he had that award in the bag. Secondly, since Evo is a long time grower of Coca (as in cocaine, not Hershey’s), I think it goes without saying that he’s going to worship the ground it springs from.

Besides Morales, the former Cuban head of state Fidel Castro has been named “World Hero of Solidarity” and the late ex-president of Tanzania, Julius Nyerere, will be honored as “World Hero of Social Justice.”

Castro? Solidarity? Of what? Owners of gently used American automobiles, c. 1950-61? Survivors of 45 years of continual economic contraction? And I guess we can ignore the executions and imprisonments of Fidel’s enemies and opponents. Because they weren’t really in solidarity now, were they?

By comparison Nyerere is a saint: he was simply a proponent of African Socialism which he understood to be the closest economic system to the centuries-old African tribal system. He was right of course. That’s why Africa is still starving. But surely that “social justice” thing’s working out pretty well over there. Anyone from Darfur care to comment? Rwanda? Somalia? Any one?


What we want to do is present these three people to the world and say that they embody virtues and values worth emulation by all of us,” said D’Escoto, who like the socialist Morales is a staunch critic of U.S. foreign policy in Latin America.

So let me see if I have this straight: The United Nations wishes us to emulate all the murderous, cocaine growing socialists that worship Gaia and hate U.S. foreign policy?  Got it.

Now I’m not sure how they’re doing math these days in the enlightened global world of the UN, but last time I looked you could add up Bolivia’s, Tanzania’s and Cuba’s contributions to the  UN and it would get lost in the rounding of the United States’ contribution.

Don’t you  think that eventually it will occur to the Marxist Goose-steppers over on the United Nations Plaza that if they push this socialist crap too far, they’re going to kill the goose that lays one of the few golden eggs in their nest?

 

Sunday, September 13, 2009

George W. Bush: Whatever Else You Think of Him, He Kept Us Safe

He was not an icon of conservatism as we may have hoped for. He certainly couldn’t even be counted on in the right hand column when it came to fiscal conservatism.

But no matter what your other complaints about George W. Bush, it must be said, and remembered, that he kept us safe.

And while he did, while the Enemy Within rained hell on him, this uncommonly decent man stood firm as he grew old before our eyes.

Where this country would be had he not possessed such unexpected grit is unthinkable…

God bless the men and women who guard the wall. God bless President Bush. God bless the grand and noble experiment that produced them.

There will come a time when people will look back in history at George W. Bush and say of him:  despite great adversaries, despite unyielding opposition and in the face of severe criticism, this man acted in accordance with his moral code and conscience to keep the country safe. It remains to be seen if we can keep ourselves whole.

gwb keeping us safe

John Nolte’s piece in Big Hollywood is worth reading, if for no other reason than we’ve begun to be complacent about our safety again.  And regrettably, we can’t.

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Why Blogging Matters

Paul Miller’s piece at American Thinker is a little shot in the arm for all of us hapless bloggers floating – untethered - out in the ether-net. Miller takes issue with Tom Friedman, who took to the airwaves (that would be the MSM airways) last Sunday to criticize the New Media as an  "open sewer of untreated, unfiltered information,"  going on,

"He continued to mock new media, suggesting that the American public is incapable of deciphering between facts, fiction and opinion,"

That, I assume, is because we are all stupid.  Which of course is where the mainstream media comes in.  Better that trained professionals  - our betters – tell us what to think about and how to think about it. New Media types are dangerous pajama-wearing morons that will mislead the weaker thinkers down the wrong path.

Miller demonstrates the advantage of having citizen journalists filling the role that MSM is unwilling to take.

(New Media’s) importance was revealed, just this past weekend, before which, very few Americans recognized the name Van Jones. The White House environmental adviser was one of thirty-two "Czars" appointed by the president who is accountable only to the president, immune to government oversight and senate confirmation.  The major networks and newspapers including Mr. Friedman's employer, the New York Times, failed to acknowledge his existence until after new media watchdog's revealed information that the mainstream press failed to uncover.

Van Jones would have been a nameless, faceless, dangerous man  in the Obama administration but for the blogosphere. Why? Because no one in the mainstream was the least bit interested or concerned about a self-avowed communist who made numerous racially incendiary remarks, had no qualms about calling the entire Republican party an “explicative deleted”, signed – under no duress – the “Truther” document claiming Bush and other government officials were behind the 9/11 attacks, and is a supporter of convicted cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal.

That such a man be appointed to a powerful job as an environmental czar,  answering to no one but the President is not only shocking, it’s close to malfeasance.  Such a man could not possibly have the best interests of this republic at heart, as he has clearly indicated he doesn’t believe in several of the republic’s underlying principals.

So, question to Mr. Friedman: what makes your open sewer of untreated, unfiltered information better than ours?

Friday, September 11, 2009

Never Forget



Have You Forgotten? - Darryl Worley


911picture1c

911

911-2

Thanks to Darryl Worley and Pam Geller for song, pictures and remembering.

Never forget. They hate us because we are free. Never apologize.

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Big Nuts on Biggovernment.com

Have you ever wondered what ACORN workers do in between  elections – when they’re not arranging mortgages for the Keebler elves to buy homes in oak trees all across America?

It turns out that some of them provide advice on how to lie to banks and the US treasury department, also known as tax fraud. But you won’t see this video on 60 Minutes, or any other main stream news outlet.  It was made by a conservative journalist posing as a pimp and a young woman portraying a prostitute. They went to an ACORN office in Baltimore to find out how to qualify for a mortgage. For his whore house - that would be staffed with illegal, underage prostitutes from El Salvador. Sure it sounds like a joke, but apparently it didn’t sound like one to the ACORN staff. No. The ACORN staffers took it very seriously.

And the ever helpful staffers provided the “pimp”with great advice on how to get a mortgage for his whore house; including: be sure to refer to the girls as “performance artists,”  claim the underage illegal aliens as dependents on his tax returns, and that it would be best not to mention that the girls were turning tricks, especially since they were underage. Watch the whole thing at Biggovernment.com .

We knew ACORN was a “performance artist” for the Democratic party, but who knew they were also willing to pimp for entrepreneurs in the free market of child pornography?

Oh, and did I mention that ACORN is eligible to get $8.5 billion in tax payer funding as result of the Stimulus Bill? I guess to tell people how to work the system. Have a nice day.

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Your Money Or Your Health: Are You Feeling Lucky?

Tonight we’ll hear from the President why we should all bow at the altar of government for one of the most important aspects of our life: healthcare.

So let’s see how well the government regulatory bureaucracy has worked in another arena. Enter Bernie Madoff. In the wake of the largest ponzi scheme to date, the SEC - that botched multiple tips and accusations regarding Madoff’s illegal operations - launched an in-depth investigation. They announced the results over the long Labor Day weekend with this mind numbing revelation:

“The Enforcement staff failed to appreciate the significance of this revelation that NASD had no records of Madoff holding any of the OTC options position he claimed.”

Is it just me, or is this just about as basic as it gets in an investigation of fraud involving securities? Maybe about as basic as beginning chemo treatment when cancer is found, instead of waiting 18 months to see if it will go away on its own.

Note: The too Dewey’s are on the road this week, currently in Las Vegas (don’t ask) so postings will be a bit sparse. All this noise, all these lights and twirlly things make our brain synapses unreliable. But we do assume that 09-09-09 must mean something so we’ll try our lucky number on the Roulette table, and let you know how that worked out for us. We suspect it’s more of a sure thing than Obamacare.

Monday, September 7, 2009

This Just In From DNN

Future Fake News Stories From the Dewey News Network

Breaking:

Michigan Petitions For Secession From the USA

Today the bankrupt state of Michigan filed it’s previously rumored petition for secession from the United States of America. Canada immediately took steps to annex the distressed state as the 11th Canadian Province. Canadian Minister of the Interior, Guy LeBoutier, said he felt the territory would be a good fit with Canada because of its unique location north of the Ontario Province, it’s shared contiguous borders, and it’s excellent Hockey team.

Stanley Cup Red Wings Penguins Hockey

Michigan stated in its petition that with the demise of GM, Ford and Chrysler, and the resulting impact on the state’s tax base, it could no longer afford the state’s portion of the federally mandated health care plan.

The petition indicated that Michigan felt with secession they could use the State’s previously world class health care facilities to develop a thriving economy based on cross border medical care for other US citizens dissatisfied with the levels of care and notoriously long wait times for treatment experienced within the US system.

In fact, prior to the US’s adoption of Universal Health Care in 2009, Detroit served as a hub for providing just those types of services to Canadians across the border. That business dried up when Canada repealed their universal Health Care system.

Saturday, September 5, 2009

The Michigan Death Spiral: Tax and Spend More

Today’s Wall Street Journal ran an op-ed called “The Michigan Experience.” It tracks Michigan’s industrial policy over more than a decade. During this time the rest of the state’s taxpayers financed subsidies for businesses - selected by bureaucratic state agencies - with the goal of creating and retaining jobs. So did it work? The answer is not only no, but no to the 10th power.

The short story: over the past 14 years Michigan has spent $3.3 billion in tax credits through the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC) and another $1.6 billion in other outlays to create and retain jobs.

Here’s the punch line based on an exhaustive study done by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy:

In Michigan these programs were responsible for 0.25% of all new jobs created in the last decade, according to the study. Meanwhile, in 2007 Michigan raised business taxes by $1.4 billion on other firms to pay for many of Ms. Granholm's favored companies.

And please note, that’s 0.25%, lest you thought it a typo. The concept of creating jobs by “incenting” businesses to build or relocate is on it’s face dangerous. For starters, bureaucracies are not as efficient at allocating scarce capital as private enterprise, if for no other reason (and there are multiple) because rate of return on investment is seldom a key criteria for government.

These programs are really nothing more than corporate welfare, providing subsidies to state selected businesses at the expense of others. Like social welfare, they are not self-funding. Legislatures seem incapable of grasping the fact that someone has to pay for all this, and it’s always the same people: the rest of us. And when you create a welfare program, corporate or social, it doesn’t take long for people to figure out how to game the system.

Case in point: last July I reported in “Michigan Math” that the MEDC in conjunction with the Michigan Economic Growth Authority granted $47 million to Quicken Corp. to relocate (not build, just relocate) to downtown Detroit – from Livonia. Michigan. We’re paying for a 25 mile move. Ostensibly to create jobs in the state. And then the MEDC whined that they had spent up their allocation for the year, and wouldn’t be able to do any more good works for the people of Michigan. Tax payers heaved a sigh of relief.

We sit with a $2.8 deficit for the next fiscal year (Starting October 1), and furloughs and “closing corporate tax loopholes” i.e. raising taxes, are the only serious proposals on the table. Although the Democratic chairman has advanced some of the most anti-business proposals ever seen in the state. I pointed out just a few days ago in “Spending Our Way to Prosperity” that Michigan’s business tax rates range, depending on what index you use, from mediocre to dismal. And still, our legislators can’t figure out why the state is in such dismal shape, nor what to do about it. Maybe the WSJ op-ed piece should be required reading;

Despite all the giveaways, Michigan was recently ranked as having the third most antibusiness climate among states, in a survey of executives by CEO magazine. If Michigan had simply cut taxes for every business, as Mr. Engler did in the 1990s when the state briefly led the nation in new jobs, it's a good bet unemployment would be lower.

Now the Michigan experiment - writ large - is being repeated in Washington. A trillion dollars in stimulus funding aimed at “creating or retaining jobs?” Folks, it just doesn’t work that way. Not in Michigan, not in California, not anywhere. The Journal piece wrapped up with a reference to Jennifer Granholm, Michigan’s Democratic governor:

When Ms. Granholm gave her state of the state address earlier this year, she crowed about the similarities between the Michigan and Obama Administration strategies of using tax subsidies to aid favored businesses. "President Obama's priorities are nearly identical to ours," she declared, and we can only hope the results won't be.

We give our elected representatives the power to tax and spend. And yet most of them couldn’t pass an Economics 101 exam if you gave them the answers. It’s bad enough they lie to us, but to not even understand what they’re lying about is unforgivable.

Friday, September 4, 2009

I Pledge To Teach Civics On The Street Corner

The Obama “I Pledge” video, an inane piece that has been around since  the election last fall, has recently been getting a lot of attention. It seems some schools in Utah have been showing it as part of their back-to-school assembly. And in conjunction with the President’s planned speech to the nation’s school kids on September 8, some parents are growing concerned over the potential for indoctrination of their children in this country. A little late, I think, to start worrying about that.

But  take a look at the pledge video first, as it sounds innocuous enough. Warning: if you don’t have a high tolerance for crap, you’ll want to turn it off well before it’s over; but if you do, you’ll miss the money quote.

 

It features a bunch of Hollywood celebutards, most of whom I don’t recognize but assume to be young, dumb, rich and famous.  They are all pledging to – what? –  be better people for Barack Obama? What ever.

Here are a few examples of their pledges: “to never give anyone the finger when I’m driving again,”  “I pledge allegiance to the funk, to the united funk of funkadelica.” These two pledge-ees should get together.

Then there’s the green weenie squad. They are pledging to flush the toilet only after  they’ve been wee-weed up twice, in order to save water,  to “not  use plastic garbage bags”,  "turn the lights off", "drive slower to use less gas" and “to sell my obnoxious car and buy a hybrid.” Uh huh.

Then you have the “save the world” crowd. They want to “help make sure senior citizens have access to health care," “help end Alzheimer's”  and  “advance stem-cell research."  Somebody needs to tell these people they’re not running for Miss America.  Besides, these are pledges  that mean they want us to do something they’ve decided is the right thing to do. Most likely because somebody else told them that it was a good thing. They probably assume that we’ll appreciate having someone do our thinking for us, too.

This “public service” film  winds up with Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore, cutest bi-generational couple around and masterminds behind the video, pledging  “to be a servant to our president.”

And there you have it: the entire ass-backward world of the intellectually lazy and/or challenged: they think they should be serving the president rather than the other way around.

So, now we have a new class of voluntary slaves. That’s what happens when you stop teaching Civics.

 

To A Hammer, Every Problem Looks Like A Nail

With so many to choose from, who would’ve guessed that Chris Matthew’s would have been my first nominee for the “To a Hammer, Every Problem Looks Like a Nail” award?

But damn, here he is performing in the “To a Race-monger, Every Disagreement Looks Like Racism” category:


Honorary winners in this category (so far) include New York Governor Patterson, New York Representative Charles Rangel, and California Representative Dianne Watson. Need I mention they’re all Democrats?

Stay tuned, the candidates for this honor are almost too numerous to keep track of.

Thursday, September 3, 2009

Let Them Eat Cake, and Other Revolutionary Ideas From the Front

President Obama tells us that health care reform does not include illegal aliens (undocumented workers, for the deconstructionists), and the “right-wing racists” don’t believe him.

He says there won’t be rationing, and right-wing racists and senior citizens don’t believe him.

He says there will be no death-panels and, again, the right-wing racists don’t believe him, senior citizens don’t believe him and parents of special needs children don’t believe him. And left-wing racists are starting to get queasy.

He tells us that we can keep our doctor, and that the public option will be voluntary; and the right-wing racists with private insurance, as well as the left-wing racists with private insurance, think it’s a lie.

He says there will be no public funding of abortion and nobody believes him.

Why is that?  Where does all this hostility and doubt come from?  Has the proletariat finally trained their ears to pick up on political doublespeak a mile away? Is it because when their betters tell them that “it’s in there” or “it’s not in there”, they know that  there’s no there there?

Is it that they know that until there is a final health care bill that  both Houses will vote on, the pols are free to lie to us with impunity? That despite this president’s pledge of transparency, all of the real decisions are going to be made in the previously smoke filled back rooms?

Could it be that the populace is finally onto the endless games that politicians play to our eternal detriment?

Could Daniel Henninger be correct? Could there be a global disgust with the electorate class and their enablers, which he describes as:

…lumpen bureaucratariat—the permanent, often faceless overclass of gerrymandered politicians, bureaucrats for life and the public unions and special interests that swim alongside like pilot fish.

Have we perhaps finally figured out that nobody is looking out for us? We’re just here to feed the giant maw of government:

In short, the lumpen electorate works, and the lumpen bureaucratariat spends. They get away with it because they have perfected the illusion that no human hand causes these commitments. The payroll tax just happens. Entitlements are "off-budget," presumably in the hands of God. This is government without the responsibility of governance.

Grab your pitchfork. A revolution might be coming soon to a village near you. And thank you, but we’ll pass on the cake. We know how to make our own bread.

 

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Spending Our Way to Prosperity

And this just in from Michigan (The state just marginally behind California in the insolvency sweepstakes), a plan from a coalition of educators, labor, and social service agencies to solve Michigan’s economic woes: you guessed right! Raise taxes!!!

This coalition, ironically named “A Better Michigan Future” is an obvious group of self-serving fools who don’t want to have their cheese moved. As always, that requires some of everyone else’s money.

Yes, by all means, let’s raise taxes. That will stem the flow of businesses and individuals out of the state, and avoid further decrease of the tax base, no? That should fix everything up so the legislature doesn’t have to make any really hard decisions that will make people mad, and sad. Won’t it?

Michigan’s woes can be blamed on many factors, but too low a tax structure isn’t even in the running. By any index, as assembled by the Mackinac Center, Michigan is no piker. If someone tells you “Michigan is no worse than any other state”, you may be assured that they’ve cherry picked among the indices. And yes, numbers can be misleading. But if you look at the entire array of indexes you’ll see that Michigan is at best mediocre and at worst is, well, worst.

Raise taxes in Michigan? Honestly, were all these morons educated in public schools?

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Obamacare 2.0: Let The Rationing Begin, II

How might Obamacare 2.0, as laid out by Charles Krauthammer, still result in rationing? On it’s face it looks like all the “town hall mobsters” got what they have been screaming they want: elimination of the public option and maintenance of private healthcare insurance.

Unfortunately, with government, nothing is as it appears to be:

It is all done through private insurance companies. Ostensibly private. They will, in reality, have been turned into government utilities. No longer able to control whom they can enroll, whom they can drop and how much they can limit their own liability, they will live off government largess -- subsidized premiums from the poor; forced premiums from the young and healthy.

The utility analogy is an apt one: Funded privately but beholden to a seemingly endless array of regulations, requirements and constraints.

Let’s start with your local gas/electric utility. Investors put up the money at risk for infrastructure and the administrative and operational costs of providing the service. The state Public Service Commission (PSC) determines whether their costs are reasonable, and what kind of rate of return they can earn. And who they must provide service to, and when they can turn that customer off (generally only after they owe hundreds or thousands of long over-due bills). And Washington determines the programs and budgets available to the utility to pay the bills for low-income customers – who the utility companies can’t turn off because of the legislation passed by Congress in conjunction with providing funding for low income customers. See how this works? The Utilities love it, ACORN loves it, and as long as the American tax payer doesn’t revolt, it’s all good.

There exists in such pseudo-private enterprises a symbiotic relationship that ultimately works best for the corporate entity and the governmental regulatory agency (a life force of its own).The average, pay-my-own-way customer is the least best served. Regulation and bureaucratic burdens make establishing service a nightmare, and discontinuing it not much better. Customer service has declined to the point that it’s almost an oxymoron. And prices will go up every year: if not the commodity portion of your bill at least the administrative cost portion. It’s as if you get the worst of both worlds: the indifference of monopolistic organizations combined with government inefficiency.

But it gets worse. The nuclear energy industry is a textbook example of failed private/public partnership. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission was set up in 1975 to regulate safety standards in the nascent nuclear reactor industry. It was determined that its predecessor, the Atomic Energy Commission,whose mission was to expand the “peaceful use of atomic energy” wasn’t leading us in the right direction (no windmills, hydro, solar or hamsters). At the beginning of the 70’s electricity generated by nuclear power plants was touted as “too cheap to meter.” Thirty years and one scary movie later, nuclear energy in this country is all but non-existent. Why? Is it too dangerous? I don’t think so, the French use it for over 85% of their electricity load. If it was dangerous and scary you can rest assured that, unless it could be spread on a baguette, the French would not be on board.

No, it’s because it was essentially regulated out of existence in this country. The NRC, freaked by the mass hysteria of the 1979 Three Mile Island incident, and it’s subsequent Hollywood version “The China Syndrome” increased their staff a hundredfold and begin writing regulations around the clock. No utility company constructing a nuclear plant could keep up with the rapid edicts flowing out of the NRC. Construction costs spun out of control, to the point that some plants under construction were abandoned with billions of dollars already invested. Scores of others were pulled off the drawing board, or decommissioned as required by their PSC’s in order to recover their costs.

As a result, 3o years later we still have the liberals screaming for domestic energy independence. We would have had it by now, but for out of control government regulatory intervention. As the cost of nuclear power became prohibitive, one might argue that it was “rationed”, using the new-liberal definition of that term. When a commodity or a service becomes economically non-viable, you get much less of it. What’s left (if any) is then “rationed”.

So don’t expect anything good to come out of yet another public/government enterprise. Imagine that Krauthammer’s assumed model was adapted for an auto company. The government will provide grants for people who need, but can’t afford, a car and the auto maker will make cars that the government approves of. And if you buy one of the cars that the government approves of, you’ll receive a tax credit. At first, the government may not get too involved, maybe only dictating salaries and benefits that can be paid to executives. Oh, and of course they will want to dictate the fuel standards that the cars have to achieve,the maximum body size and the optional equipment that can be added. Then down the road they may dictate what models they can make at all: some constituency might complain that it’s unfair that some people get to buy a really expensive car, just because they can afford it, when they have to settle for basic transportation. In the interest of egalitarianism, the government will restrict production to just two basic models. But you can get any color you want, as long as it’s black.

And then, since the government is rather strapped for funds to buy everyone a car, they will mandate that you can only get a new car every 8 years. 12, if you’re over 60 and retired. By that time it won’t matter anyway, because there will be a 5 year wait for a new car. You’ll have become adjusted to getting by with public transportation – an outcome the government highly approves of!

And so it will be with Obamacare 2.0: Health Insurers Co-opted by Government For Better Healthcare. “Private” insurance companies will have to conform and comply with a myriad of well-intentioned governmental regulations and nostrums. Eventually this fundamentally flawed business model will fail us, and the care and treatments that we’ve become accustomed to will no longer be available, or available only after significant waiting, worrying and suffering.

How bad can it be? The Swine Flu vaccine situation gives us a glimpse of our future. The government contracted with private pharmaceutical companies for the development and production of all the vaccine that will be available in the United States, It will be distributed through the CDC. Originally, the Obama Administration told us they would have 100 million doses available by September for inoculation in advance of this year’s flu season. Now, we are told to expect just 40 million doses available by the end of October. Obviously that will not be adequate to meet demand. Here comes the tricky part: who will get it? Who decides?

Let’s be clear; the government is not, repeat NOT rationing the vaccine. The CDC is simply prioritizing who should get the 40 million doses available first. For now, it’s pregnant women, healthcare/emergency workers, children age 6 months to 24, people age 25 –65 with health issues or compromised immune systems. (Truly senior, senior citizens are no where in sight. Hmmm?) The groups listed comprise an estimated 159 million.You do the math.

But no, there will not be rationing. Just prioritization and general unavailability.

The government lies, even when it thinks it’s telling the truth. That’s why they can never be trusted. Least of all with our medical care.

Vigilance is the price of freedom.