This and That...

[Warph]

American hero Col. George "Bud" Day passed away today. He was 88.
Colonel "Bud" Day always stood up for America.

And, he stood against John "Lurch" Kerry

(Rest In Peace, Col. Day)

ABC reported:

Retired Col. George "Bud" Day, a Medal of Honor recipient who spent 5½ years as a POW in Vietnam and was Arizona Sen. John McCain's cellmate, has died at the age of 88, his widow said Sunday.

Day, one of the nation's most highly decorated servicemen since Gen. Douglas MacArthur and later a tireless advocate for veterans' rights, died Saturday surrounded by family at his home in Shalimar, after a long illness, Doris Day said.

Power Line wrote about Col. Bud Day, the recipient of the Medal of Honor and America's most highly decorated veteran, back in 2008:

Karl Rove met up with Col. Day in April and related this story in a subsequent Wall Street Journal column. Day escaped his original detention in North Vietnam, but was recaptured. Upon recapture, the North Vietnamese conveyed a harsh message:

When he was recaptured, a Vietnamese captor broke his arm and said, "I told you I would make you a cripple."

The break was designed to shatter Mr. Day's will. He had survived in prison on the hope that one day he would return to the United States and be able to fly again. To kill that hope, the Vietnamese left part of a bone sticking out of his arm, and put him in a misshapen cast. This was done so that the arm would heal at "a goofy angle," as Mr. Day explained. Had it done so, he never would have flown again.

But it didn't heal that way because of John McCain. Risking severe punishment, Messrs. McCain and Day collected pieces of bamboo in the prison courtyard to use as a splint. Mr. McCain put Mr. Day on the floor of their cell and, using his foot, jerked the broken bone into place. Then, using strips from the bandage on his own wounded leg and the bamboo, he put Mr. Day's splint in place.

Years later, Air Force surgeons examined Mr. Day and complimented the treatment he'd gotten from his captors. Mr. Day corrected them. It was Dr. McCain who deserved the credit. Mr. Day went on to fly again.

[Warph]

Elections have consequences, ladies and germs.

The erosion of Americans' personal liberties and assault on privacy are being violated not only by the Current Occupier of the Oval Office, but by Congress as well.

Remember when Obuma slammed the Bush administration for government overreach and invasion of privacy?  Sigh.

Hmmm... Obuma's looking pretty haggard these days in comparison to how he looked before the 2008 election in this video:

Obuma in 2007: "No more spying on citizens who are not suspected of a crime"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAQlsS9diBs&feature=player_embedded

Those were the days... and then, Obama became president. And took a 180-turn on warrantless spying on American citizens.

Here are but a handful of videos over the past few months following the Team Obama NSA snooping scandal:

Pres. Obama's response to the 2013 NSA PRISM spying scandal

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plXyn7-313s&feature=player_embedded

Congress Approves NSA Warrantless Spying on Americans | July 2013

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeaNXdhzaVQ&feature=player_embedded

Sen. Rand Paul Battles CBS Hosts Over Necessity Of NSA Snooping: 'They Put You In Jail If You Complain'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kheWCOf1IWE&feature=player_embedded

Mark Levin: 'We have the elements of a police state'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8Sq8CBDzRc&feature=player_embedded

'Fascism!': Bob Beckel Explodes at Obama Administration Over NSA Phone Records Grab – The Five

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWcz8KkXX5Y&feature=player_embedded

Coulter Blasts Obama for NSA Snooping, Would Rather Be 'Harassing Americans' Than Fighting Terrorism

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2LZrl8RLto&feature=player_embedded

NSA Leaks: Obama Officials Caught Lying

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2jT-hB6aDI&feature=player_embedded

Americans can wave bye-bye to what shreds of privacy, in social media, phone communications, and elsewhere, they have left.

[Warph]

The Progressive and the Pencil

This is a pencil. There isn't a single person in the world who could make this pencil.


The wood from which it was made came from a tree cut down in the state of Washington.


To cut down that tree, it took a saw.


To make that saw, it took steel.


To make that steel, it took iron ore.


The black center of the pencil, which we call 'lead', is actually made from compressed graphite.


It comes from mines in South America.


The eraser, made from rubber, likely comes from Malaysia.


The rubber tree wasn't native to Malaysia.  It was imported from South America by businessmen with the help of the British government.


The brass fairing that holds the eraser probably came from the Midwestern United States, where computerized machine tools stamp, roll, finish and convey them.


The yellow paint, the glue that holds it together... literally thousands of people cooperated to make this pencil.


People who don't speak the same language.  Who practice different religions.  Who might hate one another if they ever met.  When you visit a store and buy this pencil, you are in effect... trading a few minutes of your time for a few seconds of time from all those thousands of people.


What brought them together and induced them to cooperate to make this pencil?


There was no "Pencil Czar" sending out orders from Washington.  It was the magic of the free market.  The impersonal operation of a market system that brought them together and got them to cooperate to make this pencil, so that you could have it for a few pennies.



That is why the free market system is so important to our society.  It fosters harmony, cooperation and peaceful interactions between the peoples of the world.



How many of the Demo-rats' despised "millionaires and billionaires" were created as this pencil came into existence?  Do the employees of the steel mill care?  The saw manufacturer?  The buyer of the pencil?  Of course not.



In the formulation of the hard left Demo-rat party, the manufacture and distribution of pencils would be administered by a "Czar" and a centralized, federal agency.  A few masterminds, like Obumacare's health advisory board, would try to manage and control thousands of voluntary, individual interactions.  And we know from history that it simply can't be done.



We must call Obuma and the Demo-rats' incessant drive for centralized government... and their class-warfare rhetoric... what it is: a new branding of the old Marxist philosophies, i.e., "Progressivism".  It's just a different name for the same failed ideology that spreads misery and poverty where ever it is implemented.

The modern Demo-rat Party should be called what it is: the party of Marx. The Party of Unconstitutionality. The Party of Economic Misery and Failure. And it must be stopped... quickly... if this Republic is to survive.

[Warph]

BUSTED: The Complete IRS Scandal Timeline in Spreadsheet Format
[Updated]
 
Reading this timeline, I have come to three conclusions:

1. IRS official Steve Miller lied to Congress
2. IRS official Lois Lerner lied to Congress
3. President Barack Obama lied to the American people

This scandal has the fingerprints of Barack Obama, David Axelrod, and Valerie Jarrett all over it.

This is fascism on the part of the IRS and the White House. It is fascism, straight up.

Or, as I call the IRS: Organizing for Revenue:

[...]

THE IRS-OFA SCANDAL WIDENS: Lies, Cover-Ups and a Full-Fledged Assault on Free Speech and... Prayer
 
Like an iceberg beginning to surface, the lawless activities of the IRS-OFA are becoming more and more obvious every day. Conservatives, Jews, Hispanics, Catholics, and Pro-Life groups in general appear to have been harassed, intimidated and humiliated.

As a reward for this criminal behavior, the former head of the IRS' tax-exempt division now leads the agency's ObamaCare enforcement arm.

MSNBC, of all places, revealed this morning that the IRS covered up its unlawful activities prior to the election:

The IRS commissioner "has known for at least a year that this was going on," said Myers, "and that this had happened. And did he share any of that information with the White House? But even more importantly, Congress is going to ask him, why did you mislead us for an entire year? Members of Congress were saying conservatives are being targeted. What's going on here? The IRS denied it. Then when -- after these officials are briefed by the IG that this is going on, they don't disclose it. In fact, the commissioner sent a letter to Congress in September on this subject and did not reveal this. Imagine if we -- if you can -- what would have happened if this fact came out in September 2012, in the middle of a presidential election? The terrain would have looked very different."

And contrary to the president's standard assertion ("I only found out about this yesterday on the news"), Obama's Chief of Staff was aware of the IRS investigation last year:

Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said today that he was aware in the fall of 2012 of the Treasury inspector general probe of the IRS targeting of conservative groups, but he claims he did not know the details of the investigation... Even if ... he was not aware of details, It's not clear why Lew, as White House chief of staff, did not seek more information about such a potentially explosive matter as the IRS singling out the president's opponents for special scrutiny.

Additional reports say that the IRS asked Tea Party groups for access to their websites:


The Obama IRS demanded that several Tea Party groups provide back-end access to their websites... And, from reliable sources: This happened to several Tea Party groups! The source has this in writing. It states they wanted access to everything the members had access to, which would be chats, email, contact information, etc...

There would be only one reason to request back-end access to a Tea Party group's website: to intimidate it from expressing it First Amendment rights to free speech.

And it gets better: the IRS is said to have asked pro-life group about 'the content of their prayers':


During a House Ways and Means Committee hearing today, Rep. Aaron Schock, R-Ill., grilled outgoing IRS commissioner Steven Miller about the IRS targeting a pro-life group in Iowa.

"Their question, specifically asked from the IRS to the Coalition for Life of Iowa: 'Please detail the content of the members of your organization's prayers,'" Schock declared.

This is fascism, flat out. I am not exaggerating. This is fascism.

We need a special prosecutor. And we need one yesterday.

[Warph]

POS President Barack Hussein Obuma's Complete List of Historic Firsts [Updated as of May 2013]
 
Yes, he's historic, alright.

Law and Justice

• First President to Violate the War Powers Act (Unilaterally Executing American Military Operations in Libya Without Informing Congress In the Required Time Period - Source: Huffington Post)

• First President to Triple the Number of Warrantless Wiretaps of U.S. Citizens (Source: ACLU)

• First President to Sign into Law a Bill That Permits the Government to "Hold Anyone Suspected of Being Associated With Terrorism Indefinitely, Without Any Form of Due Process. No Indictment. No Judge or Jury. No Evidence. No Trial. Just an Indefinite Jail Sentence" (NDAA Bill - Source: Business Insider)

• First President to Refuse to Tell the Public What He Did For Eight Hours After Being Informed That a U.S. Ambassador Was Facing Imminent Death During a Terror Attack (Source: Mediate)

• First President to Lie About the Reason For an Ambassador's Death, Blaming it on an Internet Video Rather Than What He Knew to be the Case: the Al Qaeda-linked Terror Group Ansar al-Sharia (Source: House Oversight Committee, et. al.)

• First President to Have an Innocent Filmmaker Thrown in Jail After Lying About the Cause for a Deadly Attack on U.S. Diplomats, Using the Filmmaker as a Scapegoat (Source: CNN)

• First President to Use the IRS to "Unfairly Target Political Enemies" as Well as Jewish Groups (Source: Sen. Ted Cruz)

• First President to Unlawfully Seize Telephone Records of More than 100 Reporters to Intimidate and/or Bully Them (Source: Associated Press)

• First President to Witness a Single Cabinet Secretary Commit Multiple Hatch Act Violations Without Acting, Speaking Out, Disciplining or Firing That Person (Source: New York Times)

• First President to Have His Attorney General Held in Criminal Contempt of Congress For His Efforts to Cover Up Operation Fast and Furious, That Killed Over 300 Individuals (Source: Politico)

• First President to claim Executive Privilege to shield a sitting Attorney General from a Contempt of Congress finding for perjury and withholding evidence from lawful subpoenas (Source: Business Insider)

• First President to Issue Unlawful "Recess-Appointments" Over a Long Weekend -- While the U.S. Senate Remained in Session (against the advice of his own Justice Department - Source: United States Court of Appeals)

• First President to Fire an Inspector General of Americorps for Catching One of His Friends in a Corruption Case (Source: Gawker)

• First President to "Order a Secret Amnesty Program that Stopped the Deportations of Illegal Immigrants Across the U.S., Including Those With Criminal Convictions" (Source: DHS documents uncovered by Judicial Watch)

• First President to Sue States for Enforcing Voter ID Requirements, Which Were Previously Ruled Legal by the U.S. Supreme Court (Source: CNN)

• First President to Encourage Racial Discrimination and Intimidation at Polling Places (the New Black Panthers voter intimidation case, Source: Investors Business Daily)

• First President to Refuse to Comply With a House Oversight Committee Subpoena (Source: Heritage Foundation)

• First President to Arbitrarily Declare an Existing Law Unconstitutional and Refuse to Enforce It (Defense of Marriage Act - Source: ABC News)

• First President to Increase Surveillance of American Citizen Under the Patriot Act by 1,000 Percent in Four Years (Source: NBC News)

• First President to Demand a Company Hand Over $20 Billion to One of His Political Appointees (BP Oil Spill Relief Fund - Source: Fox News)

• First President to Have a Law Signed By an 'Auto-pen' Without Being "Present" (Source: The New York Times)


Scandals

• First President to publicly announce an enemies list (consisting of his opponents campaign contributors; and to use the instrumentalities of government to punish those on the list - Source: Heritage Foundation)

• First President to Attempt to Block Legally-Required 60-Day Layoff Notices by Government Contractors Due to His Own Cuts to Defense Spending -- Because The Notices Would Occur Before the Election. (Source: National Journal)

• First President to Intentionally Disable Credit Card Security Measures (in order to allow over-the-limit donations, foreign contributions and other illegal fundraising measures - Source: Power Line)

• First President to send 80 percent of a $16 billion program (green energy) to his campaign bundlers and contributors, leaving only 20% to those who did not contribute. (Source: Washington Examiner)

• First President to Propose an Executive Order Demanding Companies Disclose Their Political Contributions to Bid on Government Contracts (Source: Wall Street Journal)• First President to issue an Executive Order implementing a "Racial Justice System", a system that tries to achieve "racially equivalent outcomes" for crimes (Source: Daily Caller)

• First President to Leak Confidential IRS Tax Records to Groups Aligned Politically With Him for Partisan Advantage (Source: The Hill Newspaper)

• First President to Use the EPA to Punish Political Enemies and Reward Political Allies (Source: Competitive Enterprise Institute)

• First President to Send Millions in Taxpayer Dollars to His Wife's Former Employer (Source: White House Dossier)

• First President to Have His Administration Fund an Organization Tied to the Cop-Killing Terrorist Group, the Weather Underground (Source: National Review)


Economy

• First President to Preside Over a Cut to the Credit Rating of the United States Government (Source: Reuters)

• First President to Bypass Congress and Implement the DREAM Act Through Executive Fiat (Source: Christian Science Monitor)

• First President to Move America Past the Dependency Tipping Point, In Which 51% of Households Now Pay No Income Taxes (Source: Center for Individual Freedom)

• First President to Increase Food Stamp Spending By More Than 100% in Less Than Four Years (Source: Sen. Jeff Sessions)

• First President to Spend a Trillion Dollars on 'Shovel-Ready' Jobs -- and Later Admit There Was No Such Thing as Shovel-Ready Jobs (Source: President Obama during an early meeting of his 'Jobs Council')

• First President to Threaten Insurance Companies After They Publicly Spoke out on How Obamacare Helped Cause their Rate Increases (Source: The Hill)

• First President to Abrogate Bankruptcy Law to Turn Over Control of Companies to His Union Supporters (Source: Wall Street Journal)

• First President to Propose Budgets So Unreasonable That Not a Single Representative From Either Party Would Cast a Vote in Favor (Sources: The Hill, Open Market)

• First President Whose Economic Policies Have the Number of Americans on Disability Exceed the Population of New York (Source: CNS News)

• First President to Sign a Law Requiring All Americans to Purchase a Product From a Third Party (Source: Wall Street Journal)

• First President to Sue States For Enforcing Immigration Laws Passed by Congress (Source: The Arizona Republic newspaper)

• First President to See America Lose Its Status as the World's Largest Economy (Source: Peterson Institute)

• First President to redistribute $26.5 billion of the taxpayers' funds to his union supporters in the UAW (Source: Heritage Foundation)

• First President to Threaten an Auto Company (Ford) After It Publicly Mocked Bailouts of GM and Chrysler (Source: Detroit News)

• First President to Attempt to Bully a Major Manufacturing Company Into Not Opening a Factory in a Right-to-Work State (Boeing's facility in South Carolina - Source: Wall Street Journal)


Energy Policy

• First President to Endanger the Stability of the Electric Grid by Shutting Down Hundreds of Coal-Fired Plants Without Adequate Replacement Technologies (Source: National Electric Reliability Corporation - PDF)

• First President to Have His EPA Repudiated by a Federal Judge for "Overstepping Its Powers" When They Attempted to Shut Down Coal Operations in Appalachia (Source: Huffington Post)

• First President to be Held in Contempt of Court for Illegally Obstructing Oil Drilling in the Gulf of Mexico (Source: Politico)


National Security and World Affairs

• First President to Lie Repeatedly to the American People About the Murder of a U.S. Ambassador and Three Other Diplomatic Personnel for Purely Political Reasons, Rewriting a "Talking Points" Memo No Fewer Than a Dozen Times to Avoid Referencing a Pre-Planned Terror Attack (Source: ABC News)

• First President to Openly Defy a Congressional Order Not To Share Sensitive Nuclear Defense Secrets With the Russian Government (Sources: ABC News, Rep. Michael Turner)

• First President to Leak Highly Classified Military and Intelligence Secrets to Hollywood In Order to Promote a Movie That Could Help His Reelection Campaign (Source: Judicial Watch)

• First President to Terminate America's Ability to Put a Man into Space (Sources: USA Today, ABC News)• First President to press for a "treaty giving a U.N. body veto power over the use of our territorial waters and rights to half of all offshore oil revenue" (The Law Of The Sea Treaty, Source: Investors Business Daily)

• First President to send $200 million to a terrorist organization (Hamas) after Congress had explicitly frozen the money for fear it would fund attacks against civilians (Sources: American Thinker, The Independent [UK])


Miscellania

• First President to Insert Himself into White House Biographies of Past Presidents (Source: The New York Times).
• First President to Golf 122 or More Times in His First Four-and-a-half Years in Office (Source: White House Dossier)


But remember: he will not rest until all Americans have jobs, affordable homes, green-energy vehicles, and the environment is repaired, etc., etc., etc.

[Ross]

Warph,

I just received this in an email from an old navy buddy from 1966. The first few lines are his words.

This is so sad and so true!!  I lived in Detroit for seven years and saw the city crumble right before my eyes. Working in downtown Detroit was a very scary proposition - EVERY day. The silent majority must become more vocal and active or more cities will begin to look like Detroit.


   "Don't Cry For Me"- Says Detroit!!!!!!!
 

We asked for it, we voted for it. Now we are getting it.



(Frosty Wooldridge (born 1947) is a US journalist, writer, environmentalist, traveler)

DETROIT
By Frosty Wooldridge
For 15 years, from the mid 1970's to 1990, I worked in Detroit , Michigan . I watched it descend into the abyss of crime, debauchery, gunplay, drugs, school truancy, car-jacking, gangs and human depravity. I watched entire city blocks burned out. I watched graffiti explode on buildings, cars, trucks, buses and school yards. Trash everywhere!

Detroiters walked through it, tossed more into it, and ignored it. Tens of thousands, and then hundreds of thousands today exist on federal welfare, free housing, and food stamps!

With Aid to Dependent Children, minority women birthed eight to 10, and in one case, one woman birthed 24 children as reported by the Detroit Free Press, all on American taxpayer dollars.

A new child meant a new car payment, new TV, and whatever mom wanted. I saw Lyndon Baines Johnson's 'Great Society' flourish in Detroit . If you give money for doing nothing, you will get more hands out taking money for doing nothing.

Mayor Coleman Young, perhaps the most corrupt mayor in America , outside of Richard Daley in Chicago , rode Detroit down to its knees... He set the benchmark for cronyism, incompetence, and arrogance. As a black man, he said, "I am the MFIC." The IC meant "in charge". You can figure out the rest.آ

Detroit became a majority black city with 67 percent African-Americans.

As a United Van Lines truck driver for my summer job from teaching math and science, I loaded hundreds of American families into my van for a new life in another city or state.

Detroit plummeted from 1.8 million citizens to 912,000 today. At the same time, legal and illegal immigrants converged on the city for the free government handouts, so much so, that Muslims number over 300,000. Mexicans number 400,000 throughout Michigan, but most work in Detroit . As the whites moved out, the Muslims moved in.

As the crimes became more violent, the whites fled. Finally, unlawful Mexicans moved in at a torrid pace. Detroit suffers so much shoplifting that grocery stores no longer operate in many inner city locations. You could cut the racial tension in the air with a knife! Detroit may be one of our best examples of multiculturalism: pure dislike, and total separation from America ..

Today, you hear Muslim calls to worship over the city like a new American Baghdad with hundreds of Islamic mosques in Michigan , paid for by Saudi Arabian oil money. High school flunk-out rates reached 76 percent last June, according to NBC's Brian Williams. Classrooms resemble more foreign countries than America .. English? Few speak it! The city features a 50 percent illiteracy rate and growing.

Unemployment hit 28.9 percent in 2009 as the auto industry vacated the city. Inآ Timeآ Magazine on October 4, 2009, "The Tragedy of Detroit : How a great city fell, and how it can rise again," I choked on the writer's description of what happened. "If Detroit had been ravaged by a hurricane, and submerged by a ravenous flood, we'd know a lot more about it," said Daniel Okrent. "If drought and carelessness had spread brush fires across the city, we'd see it on the evening news every night." Earthquake, tornadoes, you name it, if natural disaster had devastated the city that was once the living proof of American prosperity, the rest of the country might take notice.

But Detroit , once our fourth largest city, now 11th and slipping rapidly, has had no such luck. Its disaster has long been a slow unwinding that seemed to remove it from the rest of the country.

Even the death rattle that in the past year emanated from its signature industry brought more attention to the auto executives than to the people of the city, who had for so long been victimized by their dreadful decision making."

As Coleman Young's corruption brought the city to its knees, no amount of federal dollars could save the incredible payoffs, kickbacks and illegality permeating his administration. I witnessed the city's death from the seat of my 18-wheeler tractor trailer because I moved people out of every sector of decaying Detroit .

"By any quantifiable standard, the city is on life support. Detroit 's treasury is $300 million short of the funds needed to provide the barest municipal services," Okrent said. "The school system, which six years ago was compelled by the teachers' union to reject a philanthropist's offer of $200 million to build 15 small, independent charter high schools, is in receivership. The murder rate is soaring, and 7 out of 10 remain unsolved. Three years after Katrina devastated New Orleans , unemployment in that city hit a peak of 11%. In Detroit today, the unemployment rate is 28.9%. That's worth spelling out: twenty-eight point nine percent.

At the end of Okrent's report, and he will write a dozen more about Detroit, he said, "That's because the story of Detroit is not simply one of a great city's collapse, it's also about the erosion of the industries that helped build the country we know today. The ultimate fate of Detroit will reveal much about the character of America in the 21st century.

If what was once the most prosperous manufacturing city in the nation has been brought to its knees, what does that say about our recent past? And if it can't find a way to get up, what does that say about Americaآ ï؟½s future?"

As you read in my book review of Chris Steiner's book,"$20 Per Gallon", the auto industry won't come back. Immigration will keep pouring more and more uneducated third world immigrants from the Middle East into Detroit , thus creating a beachhead for Islamic hegemony in America . If 50 percent illiteracy continues, we will see more home-grown terrorists spawned out of the Muslim ghettos of Detroit . Illiteracy plus Islam equals walking human bombs.

You have already seen it in Madrid , Spain , London , England , and Paris , France with train bombings, subway bombings and riots. As their numbers grow, so will their power to enact their barbaric Sharia Law that negates republican forms of government, first amendment rights, and subjugates women to the lowest rungs on the human ladder. We will see more honor killings by upset husbands, fathers and brothers that demand subjugation by their daughters, sisters and wives. Muslims prefer beheadings of women to scare the hell out of any other members of their sect from straying. Multiculturalism: what a perfect method to kill our language, culture, country and way of life.

I PRAY EVERYONE WHO READS THIS REALIZES THAT IF WE DON'T STAND UP AND SCREAM AT WASHINGTON , AND OUR STATE, CITY AND LOCAL LEADERS, THIS IS WHAT AWAITS THE REST OF AMERICA . IF YOU THINK MEXICANS AND MUSLIMS AND OTHER FORIEGNERS WILL EVENTUALLY FIT RIGHT IN THEN YOU ARE AS BIG A PART OF THE PROBLEM AS THEY ARE.

IF YOU THINK THIS IS JUST A BUNCH OF HOOEY AND YOU FEEL NO DUTY TO FIGHT FOR THIS COUNTRY, THEN I'M SORRY, I DON'T KNOW WHAT IT WILL TAKE FOR YOU TO STAND AND FIGHT ?

[Warph]

Obuma Finally Comes Out Fully Against Keystone Pipeline:
Claims It Wouldn't Create Jobs, Will Raise Gas Prices

(He could never come out for it, he is just too beholden to, and a part of, the eco lobby.  And you wonder why the economy is crashing?  Will 'raise gas prices'?   He believes in unicorns too)

Via Breitbart:

In a New York Times interview published Saturday, President Obama came out foursquare against the Keystone XL pipeline, claiming that it would not create jobs. "Republicans have said that this would be a big jobs generator," Obama said. "There is no evidence that that's true." He then blamed Canada for not "doing more" to prevent carbon emissions from oil sands. Obama continued, "I meant what I said; I'm going to evaluate this based on whether or not this is going to significantly contribute to carbon in our atmosphere. And there is no doubt that Canada at the source in those tar sands could potentially be doing more to mitigate carbon release."

Obama also blasted reports that job creation would be significant: ""[M]y hope would be that any reporter who is looking at the facts would take the time to confirm that the most realistic estimates are this might create maybe 2,000 jobs during the construction of the pipeline – which might take a year or two – and then after that we're talking about somewhere between 50 and 100 [chuckles] jobs in a economy of 150 million working people." He stated that gas prices would go up in parts of the United States thanks to Keystone XL: "So what we also know is, is that that oil is going to be piped down to the Gulf to be sold on the world oil markets, so it does not bring down gas prices here in the United States. In fact, it might actually cause some gas prices in the Midwest to go up where currently they can't ship some of that oil to world markets."

On Sunday, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew told Fox News Sunday that Keystone's failure to move forward was somehow Republicans' fault: "There were some political games that were played, that took it off the trail and path to completion, where Republicans put it out there as something that was put on a timetable that it could not be resolved. It caused a delay. Playing political games with something like this was a mistake."

[...]

Treasury Baloney-Miester Yak Lew: Yes, IRS Scandal Is "Phony"

(And water isn't wet)

Via NRO:
Treasury secretary Jack Lew on Sunday got specific about President Obama's contention that "phony scandals" are distracting lawmakers from tackling the important issues facing the country. With regard to the IRS's targeting of tea-party groups, Lew said, there is "no evidence" that any political appointee was involved in the matter, and "The attempt to try to keep finding that evidence is creating the kind of sense of a phony scandal that was being referred to there." "We have to distinguish reality from the part that is phony," Lew told NBC's David Gregory. He went on to try to do so.

[...]

Obuma Spends Yet Another Saturday On The Golf Course

(Round number 133 for those of you keeping score at home)

Via WHD:
Obuma is playing his usual round of Saturday golf with his usual roundup of junior aides.  He stopped briefly at the White House following his event at the Korean War Memorial today before heading out to the course at Fort Belvoir in Northern Virginia.

It's already Obama's 22nd time playing this year and outing number 133 of his presidency.

[...]

Goofy Yak Lew:Obuma Administration Will Make No Spending Cuts

(Yes, let's continue to spend.  Detroit, anyone?  No lessons learned.  The only really significant cuts I can see so far seem to be those affecting defense and the military at a time when there are more threats than ever against us in the world.  Certainly nothing has been cut in the vacation and party budget of the White House)

Via Breitbart:
On ABC's This Week on Sunday, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew threatened that President Obama would veto any bill cutting domestic spending, and said Obama would not hold negotiations of any sort on the debt ceiling.

"Congress can't let us default," Lew said. "Congress has to do its work... I certainly hope that Congress isn't looking to create confrontations and false crises because we did see, in 2011, how bad that is for the American economy. The mere fact of negotiating over the debt limit, after 2011, would introduce this notion that somehow there's a question about whether or not we're going to pay our bills, whether or not we're going to protect the full faith and credit of the United States."

Lew continued by saying that Congress might actually move in the other direction by replacing sequestration's automatic spending cuts. He specifically cited Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and John McCain (R-AZ) as possible negotiators with the White House – he said they would be meeting with White House staff to discuss other spending options. On NBC's Meet the Press, Lew said, "What the president said - and has written to Congress is – that they cannot fix the problems created by the across-the-board cuts– known as sequestration by cutting domestic priorities in order to fund defense. That's unacceptable...He won't sign that."

[Warph]

(White House Tours Still Closed, but POS
Obuma
Finds Cash For Endless Private Parties)

Via WHD:
The White House continues to bar average Americans from touring "The People House" but nevertheless lavishes spending on all sorts of special invitees – from diners at last week's Iftar dinner breaking the Muslim fast to sports teams and foreign diplomats.

Soon after the outcry over the cancellation of tours due to the sequester, the White House promised to see what could be done to allow some visits to resume. But nothing was done and no one can visit – unless President Obama finds you useful or amusing.

Favored guest have poured in this month, even though Obama was traveling in Africa for part of it.

Last week's glittering Iftar dinner featured about 130 guests treated to remarks by Obama and bread breaking with senior aide Valerie Jarrett and National Security advisor Susan Rice.

Obama held a mass reception for the entire diplomatic corps July 19. He hosted the  2013 NCAA Men's Basketball Champion Louisville Cardinals July 23 and will gather with the World Series Champion San Francisco Giants today.

[Warph]

Tingles Compares GOP Sponsored Voter ID Laws To Apartheid In South Africa

(The clown must be on the sauce again... only Tingles
could say something this stupid and actually believe it)

Via Noah Rothman:
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/dont-know-much-about-voter-id-matthews-exposes-ignorance-about-laws-only-republicans-pursue/

Chris Matthews, beating a familiar drum on Monday, attacked Republicans for aggressively pursuing voter identification laws at the state level. Matthews, in his predictably hyperbolic fashion, linked these laws to South African apartheid and added that only Republicans and conservative-dominated state legislatures have passed these laws. This is incorrect.

On Monday, Matthews told a guest that he believes voter identification laws suggest that American conservatives are emulating the experience of South Africa's dying white apartheid protectionists by instituting laws which subtly discriminate against minorities.

"It does look like it's almost like South Africa to this extent," Matthews said. "You have a white, what's the word, feeble minority — it's losing its majority status."
And it says, the Republican Party, we can only get so many white votes," he continued. "So we've got to reduce the votes of others. It does look that way."

[Warph]

Racist Al Sharpton Seemingly Attacks Himself:
"Some People Exploiting Differences Between
Us For Their Own Advantage"

(Was he looking in the mirror when he said this?)

Via CNS News:

Ol' Rev Al Sharpton, known for racially divisive rhetoric as an activist, political candidate, and talk show host, accused conservatives Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly — who he termed "the unholy triumvirate of right-wing reaction" —  of "exploiting differences between us for their own advantage" following the George Zimmerman verdict.

"We have a long history in this country of some people exploiting differences between us for their own advantage," Sharpton said on his MSNBC talk show, Politics Nation, on Friday. "It's a cynical appeal to the worst instincts in our great country."

Sharpton went on to denounce conservative talk show hosts who commented on the acquittal of Zimmerman, 29, who had shot and killed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin after an altercation in February 2012. Zimmerman said his actions had been in self-defense.

"And in the time since George Zimmerman's acquittal, some right wingers have gone into overdrive to push the most negative stereotypes of the African-American community for their own gain," Sharpton said. "The Rush-Hannity-O'Reilly crowd, the unholy triumvirate of right-wing reaction, has been desperate not to have a real conversation about the injustices of the criminal justice system."