Top 10 Scandals of 2009

Every year has its share of scandals. It might surprise you that 2009 was no different. In fact, there were dozens of scandals. But I've picked out the ten biggies of 2009. So without further adieu, here are the top ten scandals of 2009. . . in no particular order.

1. Fake Stimulus Jobs

Democratic President Obama’s sole “achievement” to date has been the massive “stimulus” package. But the stimulus didn’t create any jobs. So Obama came up with the idea that it would “save OR create” jobs. That still didn’t work. So they put together a list of nearly 700,000 jobs that they claimed were saved. But an examination of that list quickly found that many of the jobs did not exist. Then it was discovered that stimulus money was spent in Congressional districts that did not exist. And sometimes, it was spent on people who were owed money by members of Team Obama. At this point, at least 20% of the 700,000 have turned out to be fake.

2. Taxes Are For Little People

Democratic President Obama came to office promising a higher level of competence and ethics. But five of his nominees were blasted right out of the gate for not paying their taxes. Tom Daschle was forced to withdraw his nomination after it was discovered that he failed to pay $140,000 in back taxes, as was appointee Nancy Killefer.

Tim Geithner managed to get confirmed despite not paying his taxes, though he’s now involved in a new scandal. Apparently, Geithner directed AIG to delay publicly disclosing that tax dollars were used to pay $62 billion in insurance-like bets owed to major American and foreign banks, so that the disclosure would not interfere with his nomination.

But taxes weren’t the only problems for Obama nominees. New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson withdrew his nomination after it was disclosed that Richardson was involved in pay-to-play allegation related to bonds issued by the state of New Mexico. According to Bloomberg, a federal grand jury was investigating the relationship between Richardson and a company called CDR Financial Products, Inc., which received almost $1.5 million in fees from the New Mexico Finance Authority after donating $100,000 to Richardson.

3. ACORN

Democratic ally ACORN first came to public attention in 2008, when its workers registered a whole lot of fake people to vote. In 2009, ACORN was exposed as an all around criminal organization that used Federal funds for who knows what. The final straw came when ACORN volunteers around the country advised two reporters, posing as a prostitute and her pimp, how to get away with human trafficking and tax evasion. This caused the Census to drop ACORN’s involvement in the 2010 Census and Congress to cut off their funding, an act ACORN is now challenging in court.

4. Hiking the Appalachian Trail

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, seen by many as a strong candidate for the Republican nomination for president in 2012, gave us a new euphemism: hiking the Appalachian Trail. In our coarsened culture, there are affairs and then there’s just plain stupid, and Sanford gave us stupid in spades. The scandal began when people realized that no one knew where Sanford was, including his staff. He told them he was hiking the Appalachian Trail, but in reality he was getting busy in Buenos Aires, Argentina with his mistress. . . sparking a national game of Where’s Waldo and killing any aspirations he had for higher office.

5. Max Baucus Falls In Love

Democratic Sen. Max Baucus too hiked the Appalachian Trail this year. He then recommended that his mistress and former campaign worker, Melodee Hanes, be appointed as the United States Attorney for Montana. This was after Baucus gave her a $14,000 raise after they became romantically involved.

6. Chris Dodd’s Sweetheart Deal

Democratic Sen. Chris Dodd, the creature from Connecticut and Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, which regulates the financial industry, was discovered to have gotten a sweetheart deal on a loan for a Capitol Hill townhouse from subprime lender Countrywide Financial. Dodd claimed he didn’t know he got a sweetheart deal.

Dodd also claimed he had nothing to do with the AIG bonusgate, though he later acknowledge that he had added the language to the stimulus bill that allowed AIG to pay those bonuses. Dodd also became infamous for insisting that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were sound and for refusing to reign them in. Not coincidentally, Dodd received more contributions from Fannie and Freddie than anyone else on earth.

All of this has caused Dodd to give up his re-election campaign.

7. Gov. Rod Blagojevich, Salesman of the Year

Democratic Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was impeached in 2009 after it was discovered that he tried to sell Obama’s seat in the Senate -- he had the power to appoint a successor. Obama initially claimed to have never heard of Blagojevich, but photos soon surfaced of the two doing everything together except hiking the Appalachian Trail. Even for a place as hopelessly corrupt as Illinois, this was a little too much.

8. Climategate

Perhaps the most important scandal of our time began when a hacker exposed a trail of e-mails between a small group of scientists who appear to have been manufacturing the global-warming crisis. (I will finally provide my long-promised article on this on Monday.) This scandal seems to have finally exposed the socialist/climate-change lobby.

9. Charlie “RICO” Rangel

Democratic Representative Charlie Rangel’s problems began years ago, but they really hit their stride in 2009. At the end of 2008, we learned that Rangel, who writes the United States tax code as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, failed to pay his taxes on various properties and that he took improper exemptions. He claimed ignorance. In August 2009, Rangel disclosed that he had previously failed to disclose $500,000 in assets and income, effectively doubling his declared net worth.

It was then discovered that a company called Nabors Industries was using a loophole Rangel was protecting (after fighting to close it for years) to avoid paying tens of millions of dollars in taxes by opening a small outlet in Bermuda and calling themselves a foreign corporation. Nabors Industries, coincidentally, donated one million dollars to the Rangel Center at the City College of New York. Only four companies in the USA benefit from this loophole.

Then it was discovered that Rangel gave $80,000 in campaign funds to a company founded by his son that may not do anything.

In September, it was discovered that Rangel had prevented a bill from coming to a vote that would have prevented $2.8 billion in U.S. taxpayer funds from going to British alcohol giant Diageo to make rum in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Rangel received significant campaign contributions from Diageo.

10. Bonusgate

After blowing trillions of dollars bailing out huge banks that over-extended themselves, it was revealed that team Obama allowed AIG, which taxpayers had bailed out to the tune of $170 billion, to pay out nearly $1.2 billion in bonuses, even though the company lost $61 billion. Team Obama initially tried to blame Bush, but this fell apart when somebody remembered that Geithner and Dodd made the decision. In fact, Dodd specifically changed the TARP bill to allow these bonuses, something Dodd claimed he did at the insistence of Obama and Geithner -- a claim he made after initially stating that he knew nothing about the issue. This caused the New Haven Register to refer to Dodd as “a lying weasel.”


And there you have it: 2009 was truly a scandalous year. We could hope that 2010 will be better, but with a less intelligent version of Al Capone in the White House there isn’t much hope for improvement. Soooooo grab some popcorn and enjoy the ride.

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San Francisco Diary--Journal Of An Exile

It's been a fun week in The City. Lots of "community" activity, "spontaneous demonstrations," and City Hall hijinks. The City that used to call itself "The City That Knows How," has become The City That Isn't Even Sure What." Gray skies, windy days, and record low temperatures have matched the mood of the local activists, in content if not in enthusiasm.

NOTE: The City is going bankrupt (along with the rest of the state), business is the worst is recent memory, and people are trying to hold onto as much of their income as possible (assuming they even have an income). So it's time for a union demonstration. Over 1,000 "spontaneous demonstrators" from the Hotel Workers Union (and unsurprisingly, national officials of the union) marched into the Downtown Hilton Hotel. They are demanding more money because the poor dears now have to pay a portion of their health care benefits. The overpaid workers who have no real skills that any teenager with a strict mom doesn't have are making plenty to pay that extra expense. And it's part of the contract they're currently working with. They just want more money, more money, less work, less work. Unskilled union workers who make beds, dust, and carry food trays around are paid what skilled workers outside the industry are paid. No wonder the economy in San Francisco is skewed and screwed. Only unskilled city workers can compete with their salaries and fringe benefits (and like the hotel workers, the city transportation workers are demanding raises for the same reasons).

And they're employed, which is something a lot of skilled workers aren't. So these geniuses are attempting to start a boycott of four major downtown hotels. Very sensible. You're already overpaid, you want more money, so what's the best way to get it? Interfere with the operations of the hotels that pay your wages, and do your best to damage their businesses. That will make it virtually impossible for you to get raises in your next contract. Unlike the federal government, hotels are not allowed to print money. I don't really understand leftist logic. But I do know they all think that money just magically appears from heaven (aka Washington, DC).

It was an unlawful assembly, and by going into the hotel, they violated their own contract and municipal trespass laws. But the demonstrators elected to do so anyway. Still they insisted on being arrested outside the hotel. And why? The press was outside, prevented from entering the hotel while the confusion went on and the police were investigating a possible crime scene. After getting themselves back in front of the cameras, one of the demonstrators explained their position: "We can't afford no health care payments cuz we have to pay rent and buy food, ya know?" Yes, and I suppose the rest of us don't have to pay rent and buy food. Devastating logic, kids.

NOTE: Never get into a hissing contest with a snake. One hissing contest has made it into court, and it's fun watching it. Two free San Francisco news rack publications have gotten into a beaut of a fight, and big bucks and control are the stakes. Both publications are free to the public, and depend entirely on paid advertising for their revenue. The Bay Guardian sued the SF Weekly over illegal price-cutting for advertisements. That all started about two years ago, when The Guardian won a huge judgment allowing it to seize and sell its rival's two delivery trucks and confiscate the rent The Weekly receives through its buildings division (the leased-out office space on Berry Street). Don't feel too sorry for The Weekly though. It's wholly owned by the New York based Weekly and Village Voice Media. The latest round started because The Guardian got tired of waiting for The Weekly to start paying off its legal debt, and proceeded to collections proceedings.

Lawyers are made to upset the apple cart, and The Weekly's lawyers know how to play the game well. They have filed a motion to stay any collections action by its rival, on the basis that the case is presently before the Court of Appeal which might, or might not, reverse the lower court decision which held that the defendant publication had engaged in predatory pricing and ordered The Weekly to stop selling below-cost ads designed to hurt its rival. Naturally, the defendant also raised freedom of the press as an issue (which really has nothing to do with predatory advertising practices). But The Village Voice is clever. In the most recent action in 2008, The Guardian proved to the judge's satisfaction that the holding company which controls The Weekly from Phoenix has been siphoning off profits from the San Francisco operation to New York in order to show losses on which its rival should not be able to levy.

This is the biggest fight over a free newspaper in San Francisco history, and rivals some of those where the big names fought over the profit spoils, and ultimately ended up with The Chronicle as the last newspaper in town that charges customers for its publication. And even that one wasn't as obvious as it sounds. The Chronicle was actually purchased a few years back by its own rival, The Examiner, part of the Hearst empire. Hearst sold the Examiner name to a private investor, and it is now a free publication as are all the others. I suppose I should add that both of the subject free publications have a strong lefty bent on both the editorial and news pages (if you can sort out which is which), so the advertisers are wasting their time and money on me.

NOTE: This is the fortieth anniversary of another famous San Francisco testorone battle. Harvard Professor Timothy Leary had just announced to the love generation that they should "tune in, turn on, drop out." Local beat poet Alan Ginsberg didn't take well to a "suit" stealing his thunder, so he made a rare public appearance for the press, denouncing Leary's pre-emption of what Ginsberg considered to be "his thing." Leary made his announcement in San Francisco, with his supporters Ram Dass, Huston Smith and Andrew Weil in tow. He invited Ginsberg to the announcement, and handed Ginsberg The Chronicle with the headline: "HIPPIES RUN WILD." Ginsberg, the high priest of hippiedom took unabashed umbrage a the whole thing.

"That's ridiculous," Ginsberg complained. "Like it was an esthetically very good scene. They should have sent an art critic." Then Ginsberg made an angry call to the newspaper, berating the night editor with "What is this nonsense about hippies running wild? Your story has the kind of inaccuracy of tone and language that's poisoning the community. Is that what you want to do? I don't know what kind of hippies you have over there at your place. Beside, what is this hippie business? What does 'hippie mean, anyways? These kids aren't hippies. They're seekers. Today was a serious religious occasion (my italics for emphasis)."

The hissing contest went downhill from there. The Chronicle had its "hippiest reporter" meet with Ginsberg at the publication's offices in the paper's "meditation room." Ginsberg's first comment was: "Man, it's bad enough that you have a telephone in your meditation room." He then offered his take on the earlier proceedings. He aimed it a TV reporter in the room who had asked pointed questions about the drugs and unlawful assemblies, and had said: "I don't know why, but this whole day strikes me as absolutely sane and right and beautiful. You guys must have put something in my tea (again, emphasis added)." "What's so insane about a little peace and harmony," replied Ginsberg, not recognizing a friend when he saw one. "Thousand of people came to the park today, just so they could relate to each other, as dharma beings. All sort of people. Poets, children, even Hell's Angels. People are lonely, it's strange to be in a body." Hard to tell if he meant his own body, or a collective body of people.

The reporter replied: "People are groovy." Said Ginsberg, mugging for the cameras: "It was very Eden-like today. Kind of like Blake's vision of Eden. Music. Babies. People just sort of floating around having a good time and everybody happy and smiling and touching and turning each other on and a lot of groovy chicks all dressed up in their best clothes." Ginsberg neglected to mention his own homosexuality, and failed to foresee the Hell's Angels future killings at the Rolling Stones Altamont concert later that decade. The Summer of Love didn't finish up well at all. The reporter seemed a little more grounded. He asked Ginsberg: "How long do you think this will last?" Ginsberg replied: "How do I know? And who cares?" Today, those of us who live under a city government heavily-influenced by the Leary-Ginsberg connection have an answer for that: "We do."

NOTE: Speaking of hippies, Haight Street merchants who are not hippies and who don't think much of the whole Haight-Ashbury love bead thing, enlisted the support of the police in trying to clean up the bums, aggressive and threatening panhandlers, and drug-dealing and other criminal activity occurring in broad daylight and very publicly on their streets. Under the previous police chief, the officers were told "Hey officer, there's no law against sitting on the sidewalk." And the chief seemed to accept that. New police chief George Gascon does not agree in theory or practice. Gascon quickly responded to the merchants' and residents' pleas, and instituted police sweeps of the neighborhood. He quickly advised the Board of Supervisors that The City indeed needs more specific "sit and lie" ordinances to cover the specific situations.

And here come the "homeless advocates" and "do your own thing" types so influential in San Francisco. The leftist Bay Guardian (remember them--above?) immediately published an edition describing "massive sweeps, arresting homeless people." Gascon has a lot more backbone than his predecessor, and came out swinging. "If the city of Berkeley can find a way to implement and enforce such laws, why can't we?" he asked, pointedly picking out the only city in California with more leftist leanings than San Francisco. "Bullying and intimidating, and then attempting to hide behind a non-existent constitutional protection" is how he described the activities in the Haight. The Guardian refused to back off, but did at least have the honesty to print Gascon's official reply on the police department's official Web site, in which he said: "My sense is that the community supports this." "Now all that's needed is a supervisor with the gumption to admit that a sit/lie law can work," said a Chronicle writer.

LATE NOTE: Our local Board of Supervisors member, Chris Daly, who is known for his foul-mouthed outbursts at public meetings has announced that he will drop the F-Bomb at least once at every meeting. I mentioned his multiple obscenities hurled at the new police chief last week (and possibly at one of the other supervisors as well), and the San Francisco Chronicle published both a news piece and an editorial item condemning his lack of civility. Daly's announcement (which included the -ing form of the F-Bomb) was greeted by an equal round of groans and scattered applause.
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The Meeting That Changed The World

When Obama was elected, one of the side-effects was supposed to be a return of American prestige. We were told the free world would rally behind Obama and we would enter a new age of international cooperation. Our enemies would stop their evil ways and our friends would join us in creating a brave new world. But our enemies saw Obama’s strategy of leadership through weakness as just plain weakness. And now it looks like our friends are abandoning us as well. . . for China.

Over the past year, we’ve seen a lot of hints about the erosion of American prestige among our friends. When the Honduras issue arose, “our friends” in South America didn’t turn to us to solve the crisis, they looked to Brazil. Our friends in South Africa have ignored our efforts to solve the man-made disaster (an appropriate use of the term) in Zimbabwe, and have actively embraced the creature that destroyed the country. Moreover, much of Africa now looks to China for leadership.

Turkey, long considered the most important Muslim country by America, turned away from us as well. They have become increasingly anti-American and anti-Israeli, and are actively looking for new friends in Iran, Syria and throughout the Middle East.

Europe spoke about a new era of cooperation with the United States and then promptly turned their back on us. Rather than embrace Obama’s new regime, they have increasingly looked to the influence of Putin’s Russia on the issue of energy and to China on the issue of economics.

India too seems to have laughed off American leadership. During the cold war, India was relatively neutral, with a slight bias toward the communists. When the cold war ended, India turned its attention to America and worked hard to become our friends. The high point of that relationship came near the end of the Bush administration, when Bush condoned India’s violation of the non-proliferation treaty. Under Obama, that relationship has all but collapsed into mockery.

Brazil, India, and South Africa are considered the most important democracies in the third world. They are the up and comers, the ones that many internationalists think will dominate the future. I don’t buy that, but it would be foolish to deny their significance.

And when Obama ran for office, he specifically mentioned these countries, among others, as candidates for what he saw as a “league of democracies,” a group of like-minded countries that could work together to make the world a better and more free place. Thus, it is quite a blow that these countries have turned away from American leadership. It is even more of a blow that they have chosen instead to look to totalitarian China for leadership.

There was a little-reported event at the Copenhagen summit that highlights exactly how much this relationship has changed. Get this. . .

When Obama arrived at Copenhagen, he tried to hold a meeting of 20 nations. But to his surprise, the Chinese sent vice foreign minister He Yafei instead of Premier Wen. This was an intentional snub.

In response, Obama demanded a private meeting with Wen and got it. But when he arranged a follow up meeting, they sent an even lower ranking envoy.

An upset Obama demanded another meeting with Wen, but was told that he was at the airport. At the same time, Obama tried to arrange a meeting with India, Brazil and South Africa. But. . . He was told that Indian Premier Manmohan Singh had already left Copenhagen. South African President Jacob Zuma at first agreed to the meeting, but then cancelled when he “learned” that India would not be there. Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva refused to attend as well on the basis that India would not be there.

Eventually, the Chinese agreed to meet with Obama. Obama was told this would be a one-on-one meeting with Premier Wen. So imagine Obama’s surprise when he walked into the meeting and found a meeting already on-going. In attendance were China’s Wen, India’s Singh, South Africa’s Zuma, and Brazil’s Lula. There was no chair set out for Obama.

As White House aides scrambled to find Obama a chair, Obama apparently stated: “I’m going to sit by my friend Lula.” He then attended the rest of the meeting and “achieved” his non-agreement agreement, which he trumpeted as the agreement that saved the conference. . . a claim which official Chinese newspapers called “grandstanding” and which environmental groups call fraud.

There has been much debate outside of the MSM about what this event means. Team Obama has tried to downplay this as mere confusion and by claiming Obama didn’t crash the meeting because he was invited by the Chinese. But that’s all about saving face.

In reality, this is an ominous signal that these three “great democracies” no longer see American leadership as relevant. They now look to China for leadership. There simply is no other interpretation for these leaders lying to Obama about being in Copenhagen and then meeting secretly with China.

By the same token, the one thing most observers have missed is that the Chinese invite had to be intentional. So far, everyone who has discussed these events has attributed China’s inviting Obama either to confusion or to Obama crashing the meeting. But they’ve all missed the point. The reality, I’m afraid, is a bit more obvious -- China wanted Obama to arrive at this meeting and see them leading Obama’s “friends” by the nose. This was a set up to demonstrate China’s new influence to Obama in the most personal of ways.

While this is no doubt embarrassing to Obama, this should be of greater concern to all Americans. If we have lost our leadership role among the world’s democracies, then it’s going to be an ugly century. The Chinese way is mercantilism, not free trade; oppression, not freedom or human rights; and neocolonialism and client-states, not a world of colleagues.

This could get ugly.


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Navy SEALs On Trial--Part 3

As of this writing, the trials of the Navy SEALs for possibly giving a terrorist a fat lip are scheduled to go forward, despite prosecution motions to continue them to a later date. The excuses and the weasel-words for this travesty are starting to flow from the politicians in and out of the military, but so far there's nothing to indicate that the situation should ever have gotten to this point.

I deliberately chose a picture which illustrates what the terrorists consider to be humane treatment. Note the two charred American bodies hanging from the bridge over the Euphrates. Those are two of the four American citizens who were tortured, incinerated and then hanged by the terrorists. While the Obama administration continues to offer all the benefits of a civilian trial to mass murderers, the SEALs will face the far more stringent requirements of a military court. The terrorists will have Miranda, press publicity, a forum for their propaganda, well-paid defense counsel (or ACLU lawyers making a name for themselves), the multitude of constitutional guarantees, the arcane and oft-misused rules of evidence, all the presumptions of innocence available to any ordinary criminal, and the many levels of appeals and years to pursue them. The SEALs will have their honor, and hopefully a fair tribunal.

The SEALs will not even get an all expenses paid trip to New York City, unlike Khalid Sheikh Muhammed, the man who planned the 9-11 attack on the same city. Heroes who put themselves in harm's way will be held to the strictest standards, while terrorist planners and murderers get a vacation in the Big Apple. Nothing that will damage national security or give an advantage to the defendants will come out at the military trials. The odds are very good that in Muhammed's trial, considerable evidence harmful to national security will make its way to the front page of The New York Times. And if top secret information is denied to Muhammed's defense, he has all the civilian rules of discovery available to him, as well as all the pretrial motions to dismiss the case entirely based on failure of the prosecution to produce records if they don't turn over highly-classified information. So far, the prosecution's case against the SEALs is built solely on the word of the alleged victim and the statements of one third-class master at arms who gave five totally conflicting statements to investigators. This type of "proof" would be very unlikely to make it past pretrial motions in a civilian court if pressed against a terrorist suspect. Something other than law is going on here.

Since my last two posts on the subject, we have now been treated to the words of Maj. General Charles T. Cleveland in defense of the indefensible prosecution of these three heroes: "While the assault and resulting injury to the detainee (Ahmed Hashim Abed) were relatively minor, the more disconcerting allegations are those related to the sailor's attempts to cover-up the incident. The abuse of a detainee, no matter how minor, creates strategic repercussions that harm our nation's security and ultimately costs the lives of U.S. citizens. I must ensure that the service members under my command abide by the laws passed by Congress and follow the lawful orders of their superior officers." You'll notice that Cleveland didn't even use the usual "alleged" when describing the alleged assault and resulting injury. The general owes no ethical or legal duty to a US Congressman to speculate on the guilt or innocence of military personnel, even when the request for comment came on official Congressional stationery (the inquiry came from US Representative Dan Burton, who should have known better).

Where to begin? Why is an Army general commenting about a pending trial of Navy SEALs (even though the detention facility was under his command)? Why is he making public statements in advance of trial which could prejudice the tribunal? How does he know that the SEALs "assaulted" the scumbag in the first place (we only have the terrorist's word for it, and the statements of a very confused, or lying, witness so far)? Is this general capable of distinguishing abuse from rough treatment in subduing a reluctant terrorist murderer who doesn't want to be imprisoned for his faithfulness to Islamofascism? Other than mouthing the leftist talking-points about rough treatment creating new hordes of terrorists, how does this general know that a cut lip will "ultimately cost the lives of U.S. citizens? Has it occurred to this general that the whole incident may be a phony (right out of the Al Qaeda handbook) and that the alleged cover-up was actually a fair representation of the truth? And finally, how long does this lapdog general think it will take for Obama to hand him a promotion for his sycophancy?

Maj. General Cleveland must have studied at the same military school of politics (aka The Obama Promotion School of Military Politicization and Obfuscation) as General Casey. Cleveland's faux defense of military rectitude is on a par with Casey's reaction to the mass murders at Ft. Hood: “I’m concerned that this increased speculation could cause a backlash against some of our Muslim soldiers. And I’ve asked our Army leaders to be on the lookout for that.” Genuine concern that some Islamofascist's feelings might get hurt combined with the ridiculous expectation that military personnel dealing with terrorists should be saints. In a war like no previous war, the political bigwigs in the military seem to think that murderous terrorists should be treated like American civilians getting a speeding ticket.

Meanwhile, the terrorist himself is basking in the surroundings of his politically-correct imprisonment. He is being treated with kid gloves. He gets a proper Muslim diet. He has his prayer rug and his Koran. He is free to pray for the deaths of more infidels whenever he chooses. No trial has been set for his murders. Maybe they're deciding on whether a civilian trial in Miami or other more pleasant climes is less inhumane than facing the cold weather in New York City. The parents, families and friends of the murdered, burned and hanged Blackwater American civilians are still waiting for their day in court and justice for their dead loved ones.

To read my two prior posts on the subject, go here: SEALs 1 and here: SEALs 2.
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Night Of A Thousand Retirements

Ladies and Gentlemen, 2010 is starting off as a banner year. We’re only a few days in and already we’ve seen a series of surprising retirement announcements. The most recent: Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND) and the creature from Connecticut, Chris Dodd. What does this mean? It means the writing is on the wall and the Democrats are in serious trouble.

With the Democrats’ poll numbers hanging lower than a gangbanger’s pants, a large number of the rats have started leaving the Obamatanic. Over the past couple months, we’ve heard stories of one House Democrat after another deciding that they would not seek re-election. Even a few governors seem to have discovered the writing on the wall, like Colorado’s dipsh*t Democratic governor Bill Ritter. And now the Senate Democrats are getting into the act.

Some Republicans are leaving their seats too, but there is a difference. Those Republicans are leaving their seats to challenge for a higher office and they tend to be leaving safe Republican seats. Many of these Democrats aren’t. Indeed, many of them are in districts that McCain carried by a significant margin. Four such “McCain Democrats” have already announced their retirements (Kansas, Washington and two in Tennessee). One, Alabama House Democrat Parker Griffith, jumped parties.

Just as interesting, Democratic recruits are headed toward the exits as well. In a number of races, the Democrats lined up heavy hitters to challenge incumbent Republicans or to challenge for open seats, and now those people are deciding not to run.

The Hill identifies five such challengers who have withdrawn in recent weeks in Kansas, Texas, Ohio, Tennessee and California -- candidates that the DNC touted as evidence of their recruiting success.

Now the Senate is getting into the act. Polls show that the Democrats are in trouble in Senate races in Illinois and Delaware (Obama and Biden’s old seats), Colorado, Ohio, Nevada (Harry Reid’s seat), Pennsylvania, Arkansas and New York. Even Ted Kennedy’s seat appears to be in reach -- though I put no faith in that remaining true.

Now we add Byron Dorgan to the mix. Dorgan is another of the supposed moderates in the Senate, though there are no moderates in the Senate if you look at their voting records this year. He is retiring because early polls show him trailing Republican Gov. John Hoeven should Hoeven run. This should now become a fairly easy pickup for the Republicans.

Dodd you all know. He’s a crook and an as~hole and recent polls show that he would lose to Hitler. In a way this is a bad development for the Republicans because it allows the Democrats to find a candidate who would be palatable to the electorate. And in a state that appears to be 94% Democratic, such a candidate has a much better chance than Dodd. But that’s not clear. Looking at the national mood, it’s possible that this election will be much worse than the Democrats expect, and this wave of retirements is the evidence that their internal polling has shown them the light.

Consider the following. Republicans continue to lead in the generic polls. Obama’s polls are at a low and continue to fall. The Democrats are slightly less popular than herpes. And they seem intent on moving further left in the hopes of “energizing” a base that has been turned off by their corruption and failures. Indeed, there has been a lively (hateful) debate recently, unnoticed by the media of course, in which various Democrats argued about whether or not to move toward the center or keep moving further left. Further left appears to be winning.

With a massive gap in the enthusiasm of voters foretelling a huge anti-Democrat wave in 2010, and little resistance from the faithful, this could become an interesting election. Right now, the Republicans do not stand to retake either the House or the Senate, but that could change.

If the Republicans sweep the ten seats mentioned above, they would only have 49 seats in the Senate (and they may lose New Hampshire). At the same time, the four seats above leave them with a 36 seat gap in the House, though the DNC identifies 40 House Democrats at risk (the Republicans identify 25 of their own as at-risk).

In the end, this will all depend on turn out. If the left remains indifferent and the right turns out in force, 2010 could sweep the Republicans back into power in both chambers, but that will take a strong turn out on the right. If the left does turn out, or if the right keeps whining rather than joining the campaign, then the Democrats and Obama will get two more years of doing whatever they please.

It should be an interesting election.

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Captioning: Un-Smooth Criminal

Barack Obama, desperate to find more money to lavish on Wall Street banks, is seen here trying to steal a bead necklace. While this effort failed, he did previously manage to take a rather nice jewel from the Queen of England and some cheese from the pocket of the German Chancellor. . . possibly camembert.




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Encyclopedia Updatica

I grew up with The Book of Knowledge Encyclopedia, published by the Grolier Society. But the standard for encyclopedias of the day was the Encyclopaedia Britannica (American Edition). The traveling salesman for Grolier must have gotten to our house before the traveling salesman for Sears (the distributor of E.B. at the time). Grolier had written and telephone research facilities as part of the price, so I'm sure that was also a decision-maker for my parents.

Today, you can buy the Encyclopaedia Britannica online, complete with interactive research. But the online "people's encyclopedia," which is free, is Wikipedia. Millions of students and others seeking information turn to Wikipedia for research materials and historical information turn daily to this online source. They should have their heads examined.

Let's start with Wikipedia's own article on the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Since the article is not supposed to be either an advertisement or an editorial, the content of the article ought to be neutral. At first blush, it appears to be completely neutral. But very little goes on Wikipedia that doesn't have some sort of agenda. The article describes the venerable Britannica publication and its history with a large amount of accuracy and neutrality. But why the emphasis on this? Read what Wiki's writers have to say: "In 1933, the Britannica became the first encyclopaedia to adopt a 'continuous revision' policy, in which the encyclopaedia is continually reprinted and every article is updated on a regular schedule."

The suggestion that the Britannica was dumbed-down with the 11th edition for consumption by dumb North Americans aside, Wikipedia is setting the stage for justifying its own policy of having friendly users revise Wiki entries online, sometimes daily. It ignores the fact that the Britannica is carefully put together by international scholars, peer-reviewed, and changed only to correct erroneous facts in earlier editions and bring each edition up to date. It is not changed to reflect current political trends, nor does it utilize scholars with a viewpoint which has strong opposition from other peer scholars. And it most certainly doesn't allow "democratic" changes to entries that delete or revise the work of other writers. Britannica avoids updated entries by writers who might simply not agree with the tone or politics of the original authors.

Wikipedia on the other hand, commits all of the aforementioned scholarly errors. Which brings me to the point of this article. The founder of Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales, wrote a piece published in the Wall Street Journal last week which lamented "the rise of online hostility"and the "degeneration of online civility." Much though I may agree with him on that general principle, what does it have to do with publications which are supposed to provide information that the public can rely on?

Mr. Wales is of, shall we say, the "progressive" persuasion. Which means that among other things, there are no real "facts" or "truths" but only opinions of fact and truth. And since that is the situation, why not allow a supposedly neutral compendium of knowledge to be edited by hand-picked experts and writers of like mind?

The latest, and biggest flap over Wikipedia rewrites, and the one which brought Mr. Wales out of hiding, was the startling article by Lawrence Solomon entitled "How Wikipedia's green doctor rewrote 5,426 climate articles." In the wake of irrefutable proof that the world has been cooling slightly for nearly ten years, "global warming" articles on Wikipedia have become "climate change" articles. But the articles predict doom, either way, if mankind doesn't surrender to the wisdom of the pseudo-scientists and give up almost all of their modern conveniences.

The revisionist author in question is William M. Connolley, a Green Party activist in Britain, and a pal of Wales. After most of the globaloney appearing on Wikipedia was either disproved (the "hockey stick graph") or seriously challenged by other, less agenda-driven scientists, Connolley began the lengthy process of re-writing the global warming articles on a regular basis to justify the conclusions by adjusting the responses to the legitimate challenges to the underlying theory/agenda.

Among Connolley's accomplishments are his twin magical tricks of eliminating both the medieval warming period and the "little ice age" from the entries describing earlier warming and cooling periods. With those earlier eras left in concerning a period of pre-industrialization and low population, the entire agenda of the neo-luddites simply looks like a ridiculous con job. Having eliminated science from the science articles, he then began prodigiously producing political articles attacking all the critics of the global warming/anthropogenic climate change agenda. Did I mention that Connolley has no scientific expertise, but is rather a software engineer? That makes his revisions and new articles easy for him to post, in large numbers.

Although Wales laments the harshness of Solomon's uncivil "attack," nevertheless on December 23, a mere day after Solomon's article appeared, the following showed up at Wikipedia: "Recently, the Wikipedia Arbitration Committee determined that Wiliam M. Connolley has on a number of occasions misused his administrator tools by acting while involved, and as a consequence, William M. Connolley's administrative privileges are revoked." I suppose that means that "uncivil" commentary gets results. But at Wikipedia, such results appear to be highly ephemeral.

Within three days after Solomon's article, the articles on the medieval warming period were still revised nearly 50 times. Connolley had departed, but his acolytes kept submitting articles, which were then countered by other less agenda-driven writers, and then back again. The facts from Wikipedia on Monday were quite different from the facts on Tuesday. Are you high school and college scholars beginning to get a picture of why I think you should have your heads examined if you rely on Wikipedia as a source for your term papers?

Some of the notable Connolley disciples who have been involved in the revisions on the medieval warming period alone have included Penn State's Michael Mann (the inventor of the "hockey stick graph") and numerous writers from RealClimate.org, global warming enthusiasts all. I won't go any farther into the climate debate, since that alone could be the subject of many articles, and isn't the purpose of this piece anyway. It is simply a cautionary warning to those who aspire to knowledge and academic excellence. Go to the sources and view opposing opinions. Don't go to the secondary or tertiary source and the purveyor of multiple revisions and secret agendas. In other words, don't go to Wikipedia.
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Obama Agenda: Ethics

Today we continue our walk through Obama’s agenda by examining the issue of ethics. Stop laughing. Obama, like every other recent administration, promised to be the most ethical administration in history -- a pledge he broke, like his predecessors, the minute his implant-laden booty hit the big chair. Now, he’s paying a heavy price for this, as ethics have climbed to the top of voters concerns about his administration.

Promises Ignored

Let’s knock out the easy ones first. These are the promises Obama made that he ignored after he took office, i.e. no action taken:

• To issue an executive order that requires all new hires to affirm that no political appointee offered them the job “solely” on the basis of political affiliation or contribution.

• Issue an executive order banning registered lobbyists from giving gifts in any amount or in any form to executive branch employees.

• To end “the abuse” of no-bid contracts by requiring that all contracts be competitively awarded.

• To require his appointees to conduct significant business in public, so that any citizen can see in person or watch on the internet.

• To create a “contracts and influence” database that will disclose to the public how much federal contractors spend on lobbying.

• To create a central database of lobbying reports, ethics records and campaign finance filings, so that people can easily see what is going in their government.

• To seek an independent watchdog agency to investigate congressional ethics violations.

Promises Broken

Now let’s look at the more problematic ones. These are the ones where Obama took action, but not the kind he said he would. These are the ones he’s been breaking left and right. Most of these deal with lobbyists or transparency:

• Obama promised he would not accept contributions from Washington lobbyists and political action committees.

But he did. In fact, he received a ton of money from these very people. For example, among his list of “bundlers” (i.e. people who gather contributions from groups of people or organizations (think "personal PAC")), you would find directors of Lehman Brothers, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Capital Partners, Landmark Partners, various hedge funds, Merrill Lynch, New Century Financial, and UBS among many others.

And Obama wasn’t shy about rewarding his top donors with VIP access to the White House, private briefings with the administration advisors and invitations to events. Examples of the privilege that came with giving bribes. . . er contributions, include:

USB CEO Robert Wolf, Obama’s top contributor, who got to golf with Obama in Martha’s Vineyard. Thirty-nine donors who were treated to a lavish St. Patrick’s Day celebration. One donor got a birthday visit to the Oval Office. Another got to take his family bowling in the White House. Others get to watch movies with Obama. No word if they all snuggled together as Obama picked $1,000 bills out of their underwear, but it sounds likely. Other donors received a personal visit from deputy chief of staff Jim Messina who flew to Los Angeles and San Francisco to provide in-person briefings on Obama’s health care plans.

Obama assigned Chicago lawyer David Jacobson to dole out ambassadorships to his most prolific donors. Jacobson asked each to provide a list of their top six choices and then sorted out the list. Some examples include: music executive Nicole Avant, who became ambassador to the Bahamas, and fundraiser Alan Solomon who got Spain.

Other contributors were appointed to presidential commissions and advisory panels, like the president’s Economic Advisory Board (Pritzker, Wolf) or the Commission to Study the Potential Creation of a National Museum of the American Latino (Lopez, Pollak). Penny Pritzker, by the way, the Obama campaign finance chair, is the former CEO of a defunct bank that was deep into a subprime lending scam in Chicago. Pritzker wasn’t charged with a crime, but “voluntarily” paid the government $460 million to defray the government’s losses.

On this whole issue, the White House has gone from saying it wasn’t happening, to suggesting that these donors were invited by people other than Obama and the DNC to laughably saying: “I would say that from our reckoning, our research, there are fewer donors getting fewer things, whatever you may call them, from this White House than from any White House in memory.”

• Close the revolving door on former and future employers. And I quote: “No political appointees . . . will be permitted to work on regulations or contracts directly and substantially related to their prior employer for two years.”

This was the cornerstone of Obama’s ethics platform, and he’s broken it repeatedly.

Team Obama granted three waivers to former lobbyists, allowing them to serve in the administration (e.g. former Raytheon lobbyist William Lynn, who is now deputy secretary for defense; Jocelyn Frye, a lobbyist for the National Partnership for Women; Cecilia Muñoz, a lobbyist for the National Council of La Raza). Moreover, they’ve let them work in areas from wence they came.

But this doesn’t tell the whole story. In some instances, Team Obama hasn’t bothered with the waivers, relying instead on the lobbyist-turned-appointee to recuse themselves from matters on which they worked as lobbyists. This includes, for example, Mark Patterson, the chief of staff to Tim Geithner, who worked as a lobbyist for Goldman Sachs in 2008 and has never obtained a waiver. Determining the exact extent to which Obama has broken this promise is not easy as Team Obama has played games with releasing information about the waivers they’ve granted and the recusals supposedly undertaken.

Now Team Obama is singing a different tune. Apparently, they’ve discovered that some lobbyists are good people and many others bring expertise that you just can’t find elsewhere. Compare that to Obama’s campaign stump speech:

“Make no mistake: We need to end an era in Washington where accountability has been absent, oversight has been overlooked, your tax dollars have been turned over to wealthy CEOs and the well-connected corporations. You need leadership you can trust to work for you, not for the special interests who have had their thumb on the scale. And together, we will tell Washington, and their lobbyists, that their days of setting the agenda are over. They have not funded my campaign. You have. They will not run my White House. You'll help me run my White House.”

Not a true word in the bunch.

Even where Obama appeared to take a tough stance on lobbyists, he ultimately didn’t. Like those serving on the Industry Trade Advisory Committees, which give business leaders a voice in U.S. trade policy. Obama claimed his lobbyist rules applied to these boards. But rather than remove the lobbyists, Obama allowed the lobbyists on these boards to simply drop their certification as lobbyists and stay on the Board.

• Require Congress to post bills on line for 72 hours before voting on them and will make them available to the American public for five days before signing them.

Obama and the Democrats have broken this on virtually ever major bill on which they’ve worked, from the credit card bill to the CHIPs bill to the health care bill. In some instances, they haven’t even given the representatives 72 hours to examine the bill before the vote.

• Make White House communications public.

Obama hasn’t done this either. In fact, they’ve gone out of their way to hide visitor logs (something they used to attack Dick Cheney for).

• Nullify Bush attempts to make the release to presidential record more difficult.

Obama hasn’t done this either. In fact, they’ve flat out refused to release Bush-era documents about TARP bailout, and they’ve struggled against FOIA requests by anyone they don’t like.

Further Ethical Deficits

But even beyond his promises, Obama has had serious ethical lapses.

In April, Obama met repeatedly with lobbyists for the pharmaceutical industry, the AMA, AARP, the American Cancer Society, the Business Roundtable, Family USA, and the SEIU. All sides officially claim there was no quid pro quo, these groups suddenly decided to support ObamaCare and Obama suddenly decided that they needed tax breaks, needed to have their monopolies protected, needed an additional $250 billion for doctors under Medicare, and needed various other things that Obama handed out like well-paid-for candy. Bill Allison, a senior fellow at the Sunlight Foundation, a nonpartisan, nonprofit group that advocates for greater transparency and ethics in government said the meeting “raises issues.”

An interesting side outcome of this meeting was that these groups ended up paying two firms to produce ads. One of these firms, AKPD Message and Media, was founded by David Axelrod, employs one of Axelrod’s sons, and still owes Axelrod $2 million. Smell like bribe?

Team Obama also has been beset by hypocrisy problems. For example, despite his enthusiasm for class warfare, Obama’s cabinet is packed with millionaires, as is 44% of the Congress, compared to 1% of the population at large. Clinton’s net worth is $21 million, SEC Chairwoman Mary Shapiro’s net worth is $26 million. Obama himself is worth $4 million.

Even as late as November 2009, Obama was still appointing officials with tax problems. Obama’s nominee for undersecretary of the Treasury for international affairs, Lael Brainard, was the fifth Obama nominee who failed to pay her taxes. She joins Tom Daschle, Timothy Geithner, and others.

Team Obama also has shown an inability to be truthful, like when it was discovered that at least 20% of the 700,000 jobs they claim were “saved or created” were fictitious.

The Democrats Aren’t Helping Either

Nor have the Democrats provided much of an example to offset Obama’s problems. In October, we learned that more than 30 House members, most of them Democrats, were under scrutiny for ethics violations. . . Democrats like Maxine Waters (D-Cal), who used her influence to help a bank in which her husband owned large amounts of stock. Laura Richardson (D-Cal) who received special treatment from a lender. Others were accused of steering appropriations to clients of lobbying firms, from whom the Congresscritter had received a bribe. . . er, campaign contribution. This included nearly half the House Appropriations defense subcommittee. Some of these names included Frank Murtha (D-Pa), Peter Visclosky (D-Ind) and James Moran (D-Va).

And, of course, you had Chris Dodd (D-Conn), who got a sweetheart deal from Countrywide, a mortgage company which he regulated. You had Charlie Rangel (D-NY) who apparently doesn’t pay taxes. He’s also under investigation for his travel, his financial deals, his fundraising and his financial disclosures. And let’s not forget William Jefferson (D-La), who went to prison with a 33 year sentence for bribery, fraud and money laundering.

Basically, you can’t swing a dead voter without striking a Democrat under investigation for corruption. The problem, of course, is that the weasels are investigating themselves.

The effect of all of this is that Obama may go down in history as the most corrupt administration of all time. U.S. Grant must be smiling.


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The Collective Shoots The Messenger

As we’ve said before, leftist need enemies. Their beliefs don’t work in the real world and they lack the insight and introspective to understand that. So they explain their failures by finding enemies who “undermined” them. You see this in their claims that “socialism works, if only it would be done right,” you see it in their claims that their schemes would work if only we didn’t allow alternatives, and you see it in their claims that their failures are the result of dark forces of capitalists, racists, or secret cabals of “those who would oppose.” They have new enemy: Scott Rasmussen.

Scott Rasmussen, a co-founder of ESPN, runs Rasmussen Reports, a polling outfit that we have often cited to at Commentarama. He’s been at it for as long as I can remember and has earned national renown from both sides for his accuracy and impartiality.

The Wall Street Journal and leftist rag Slate Magazine declared Rasmussen Reports to be one of the most accurate polling firms for the 2004 and 2006 Presidential elections. Fordham University found Rasmussen to be the most accurate national polling firm for the 2008 election. Leftist website FiveThirtyEight awarded Rasmussen its third highest mark for accuracy in 2008. Rasmussen also was the closest to predicting the outcome of the New Jersey governor’s race this year and he was the first to show Obama narrowing the gap with Hillary Clinton in 2008.

But that was then and this is now and something has changed. What changed? In 2004-2008, Rasmussen’s results were generally favorable to leftists. Now they’re not. Suddenly, Rasmussen is reporting results that show the left in serious trouble. Could this mean that the public has turned against the left? No, of course not! Don’t be silly! Rasmussen must be a secret Republican agent!!

That’s right. These same people who once praised him now claim that his polls “are, at best, the result of a flawed polling model and, at worst, designed to undermine Democratic politicians and the party’s national agenda.” The only thing missing from this quote is the inevitable: “Ve are beink betrayed Mein Fuhrer!”

Whines Eric Boehlert, a senior fellow with Media Matters, “His data looks like it all comes out of the Republican National Committee.” Kill him!!

Others on the left insist that Rasmussen “feeds conservative talkers a daily trove of negative numbers that provide grist for attacks on Obama and the Democratic Party.” Off with his head!!

As proof, they note that Rasmussen’s tracking poll has consistently shown Obama’s support 5% lower than other polling outfits, like the CNN “poll” which won’t release its methodology, or the NBC “poll” which seems to think a poll that includes two Democrats for every Republican is a fair poll, or the “poll” of the CBS newsroom -- you know the one, the one that showed Obama with 110% support.

“He’s been underpolling Obama all year! People start thinking, ‘There’s something going on here,’” screeched Eric Boehlert, before he probably added: “Ve are beink betrayed!”

Democratic, and thus unbiased, pollster Mark Mellman accused Rasmussen of writing their questions to elicit negative responses about der Fuhrer and the National Democratic Party: “I think (doubt that) they write their questions in a way that supports a conservative interpretation of the world. In general, they tend to be among the worst polls for Democrats, and they phrase questions in ways that elicit less support for the Democratic point of view.” In other words, they don’t shade their questions to get liberal responses like the other outfits.

The Daily Kos mindlessly repeats these talking points as well and adds a little hate.

Even Hollywood has gotten into the act, with Jimmy Fallon making fun of Rasmussen. . . ok, I’m sorry, let me correct that. Fallon really isn’t Hollywood, he’s a TV hack, and nothing he’s ever done is funny, so let me rephrase that: even a late-night television hack has heaped ridicule on Rasmussen.

Alan Abramowitz, a “political scientist” from Emory University, which I understand to be a trade school for Druids, makes the following paranoid claim: “My guess is that [Rasmussen’s sample] is heavily skewed toward older, white, Republican voters.” Oh you damn, dirty, old white people!

There have been no calls yet to outlaw Rasmussen or to put him in a re-education camp, but with leftists, it’s only a matter of time.

For his part, Rasmussen takes it all in stride, responding: “It’s the adage that if you don’t like the message, shoot the messenger.” Careful Mr. Rasmussen, they might take you up on that.

All in all, I find this rather fantastic. The fact that the left is so upset by this tells me that they’ve run out of other excuses. When they start shooting the messenger, that means they’ve given up hope on the current situation. This should be very good news for America.


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Question: Predictionarama 2010

The start of the new year is always a good time for whipping out the old crystal ball. Will Vesuvius finally blow? Will Pelosi's servants escape her crypt? Will Clooney make a decent movie? Will an accident double Sean Penn's IQ to 14? Are hungry aliens heading this way as we speak? Will Obama win the World Cup? You tell us. . . [+] Read More...

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Basketball Shooters

That picture is the latest technology in basketball shooting equipment (the Gun 6000 from Shoot-A-Way.com). I don't know if the pros use the machine, but there's a lot of preparation for shooting baskets (and other basketball players) going on in the National Basketball Association. Added to the outside shot, the fade-away jump shot, and the free throw shot are the .45 shot and the .357 shot.

The Washington Bullets changed their name to The Wizards awhile back, so it seems the players decided to bring back the bullets, in a slightly different way. In a locker room disagreement (if you can call guns at high noon a "disagreement"), all-star player Gilbert Arenas reached into his locker and pulled out a gun and pointed it at fellow player Javaris Crittendon. Crittendon had been pushing Arenas to pay him a gambling debt. Before pulling the gun, Arenas is reported to have shouted "I'm not your punk (or bitch, depending on which version you believe)." Not to be outdone, Crittenton then also pulled a gun and pointed it at Arenas. It's unclear whether Crittenton had his own gun, or pulled it from the ample supply in Arenas's locker.

Another version making the recent rounds of speculation is that Arenas pulled three guns out of his locker and laid them on the bench between the lockers. Then he told Crittenton to pick one. Since that was probably not the offer of a gift, the logical assumption is that it was the thug version of "draw, pardner." Crittenton allegedly declined, saying that he had his own gun, thank you very much. Then Crittenton proceeded to pull his gun out.

Those are two of the current versions, and it would be bad enough if that were all there was to it. But now it appears that Arenas not only had guns, but Wizards management already knew about it. The story was that Arenas had a small arsenal that he had brought to the locker room because he didn't want his little ones in Virginia to get hold of them and, like, hurt themselves. What a good dad! So he brought them to the arena, and turned them over to security. And security then promptly put them into his locker? Hmmmm.

Whether Arenas actually ever turned the guns over to security is highly questionable, but even if he did, bringing guns to the arena is a clear violation of NBA rules. This is not Arenas's first run-in with league rules and local law regarding guns. He was arrested, and pled guilty to carrying a concealed weapon in San Francisco six years ago. So it's clear that the Wizards' management and quite likely the other players knew about Arenas's propensity for owning and possessing guns. Not illegal, at least until you conceal it in D.C. or point it menacingly at someone nearly anywhere. And there seems to be plenty of evidence that management also knew about Arenas's serious gambling habits. Arenas doesn't deny this, but assures everyone that he never gambles on basketball (which could get him suspended or fired, unlike locker storage of arms that rival the local National Guard armory).

The D.C. police are now investigating Arenas for having the guns in his locker (even after Heller, the police can investigate to determine why and how many guns a person convicted previously of illegal possession may have if there's suspicion that the guns are not solely for self-defense and may have been unlawfully purchased).

Although Arenas (and Crittenton) refused to speak with reporters, Arenas was fairly free with his tweets. His first entry on Twitter was "I wake up this morning, and seen I was the new JOHN WAYNE. Imao media is too funny." Later in the day he tweeted "I understand this is serious, but if u ever met me you know I dont do serious things im a goof ball this story today dont sound goofy to me." I assume Arenas was drafted out of college. An English major, perhaps? Some time after the incident, however, Arenas did respond on Twitter briefly to a blog written by a Washington Post reporter. Says Arenas: "That's not the real story," and later, "I saw the story. Very compelling. Some real O.K. corral stuff." Huh? Did Arenas fantasize that he had been part of the gunfight at the OK corral?

Wizards' management, speaking on behalf of itself and the NBA announced that "We are continuing to cooperate fully with the proper authorities and the NBA and will have no further comment at this time." At least now I know why basketball is called a non-contact sport. If the other guy gets in your way, pull a gun. No need to hit him with any body parts. It makes me wonder if they'll extend this fun onto the court. "And now, folks, Arenas looks like he's going to take the outside shot."

This whole thing would be funny if it weren't so serious, and indicative of how sports figures, and their enablers, believe they are above the law. The NBA has said that "if Arenas is convicted of a felony, he could be subject to having his contract with the Wizards voided (emphasis added)." Ditto for Crittenton, although it would only cost Crittenton $1.48 million for the final year of his three year contract, while it would cost Arenas about $100 million for voiding of the remainder of his six year contract. The upside is that will save Arenas more in taxes than I'll make in my entire life.

I look at Arenas and Crittenton as a couple of overpaid thugs with a talent for basketball. They deserve plenty of punishment, if nothing more than termination of their contracts and banishment from the NBA for life, with or without a felony conviction. But it shouldn't stop there. It appears that the Wizards management and staff need a serious housecleaning. And if it's happening at their arena, how about others? I'm guessing that the Bullets/Wizards aren't the only ones who are packing. The league itself has left itself open for accusations of willful blindness to the possible criminal actions of its players. One more example of how despicable the worship of "sports heroes" has become. At least Arenas didn't shoot one of Michael Vick's dogs, so I suppose PETA won't be joining the chorus of criticism.

LATE UPDATE: Well, this is refreshing. The New York Post and Fox News report that the Reverend Al Sharpton had a lengthy conversation with NBA Commissioner David Stern, blasting Stern for the ubiquity of guns in sports. Appparently a face-to-face meeting is in the offing.

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The Most Transparent Government Gets Sued For Information

My friends over at the National Right to Work Foundation called my attention to an article in the Washington Examiner. NRTW president Mark Mix and his organization have been seeking information on the links between the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), AFL-CIO, other big labor organizations, and officials in the Obama administration. Their multiple Freedom of Information Act requests have been entirely ignored by the Department of Labor. NRTW has now filed suit in federal court to require the administration to respond to those FOIA requests.

We all know that the Obama administration is heavily beholden to big labor, but rewarding your loyalists is not the same thing as using the offices of the federal government in illegal or unethical ways, while trying to hide the direct links between officials in government and officials in the labor organizations. When SEIU president Andy Stern is the most frequent overnight visitor at the White House, reasonable people want to know why. This goes a lot deeper than that.

The FOIA requests were more pointed than visits to the White House. Hilda Solis, the Secretary of Labor, was a former leader of American Rights at Work (ARAW). That organization was funded by both the AFL-CIO and the SEIU. Once in office, Solis has held private meetings with leaders of those two organizations, and refuses to release any information about what was discussed. That sounds sneaky, but it's also a direct violation of ethics requirements and the words of the man at the top, one Barack Obama. In his first day in office, Obama declared "[my appointees] will not for a period of two years participate in any particular matter involving specific parties that is directly and substantially related to their former employer." So what was with Solis overseeing lobbying activities of ARAW while a member of Congress followed by secret meetings with the same people after her appointment as head of the Department of Labor? NRTW wants to know, and the administration refuses to answer.

In addition, NRTW wants to have an explanation of Secretary Solis's close connections and meetings with former AFL-CIO lawyer Deborah Greenfield, who is now an employee of the Labor Department. Nothing wrong with them meeting as associates in the Department of Labor, but why is Greenfield placed in charge of rolling back union disclosure requirements when prior to her appointment she had sued the Department of Labor to prevent implementation of the very regulations she is now rolling back? At best, there's a conflict of interest between her duties as former AFL-CIO counsel and her present duties at the DOL. And why is this lawyer one of the parties evading the FOIA requests from the NRTW?

The Obama campaign and the Democrats in general received more than a billion dollars in campaign contributions from the forced dues of union members who may or may not have supported Obama and his fellow lefties. So they owe favors to the union leadership (but not necessarily to the union members who don't much like what's going on in D.C. these days). That payback could be accomplished publicly, legally and ethically as long as the details are being revealed to the public. But there is the strong likelihood that much of what is being discussed in those secret meetings are payoffs, not paybacks, and that union members specifically and the public generally would not like what's being cooked up. Each time "card-check" was mentioned publicly as a Democratic goal, there had just been a meeting between DOL and labor leaders. Coincidence? Secret meetings and backroom deals are anti-democratic, as are card-check procedures which prevent secret ballots on whether employees want to unionize or not.

There is at least a strong argument that something nefarious is going on. An honest, documented answer to the FOIA requests could clear this apparent conflict up. But the more the officials hide and obfuscate, the more likely it is that the connections are either unethical or illegal, or both. At best, it indicates that the Obama administration wants to be opaque rather than transparent. As the Examiner article puts it: "Starting on day one, the Obama administration set about to dismantle union disclosure regulations, impose coercive unionization on unwilling federal contractors and limit employee access to information about their rights in the workplace. Because this has all been accomplished through a series of under-the-radar executive orders, the media have not scrutinized Big Labor's influence in Washington." I suppose I should add that the latest attempt to unionize our national security workforce is another example of this opaqueness.

Union operatives are clearly getting nearly unrestricted access to the Department of Labor. There is no doubt that they are playing an important part in reconfiguring the Department's policies, while leaving the public out in the cold. Even union workers are left out of the dialog. They may also be helping the administration prepare new pro-union legislation to be submitted to Congress. But who knows? The Department of Labor, Secretary Solis and her minions refuse to tell us anything. I applaud the NRTW lawsuit, and wish them every success.
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“We’re more popular than Jesus!”

In 1966, John Lennon uttered the above-phrase to a good deal of consternation worldwide. Now a Danish newspaper has gone one further: “Obama is, of course, greater than Jesus.” Wait till you read this. . .

During the election and shortly afterward, a great many losers on the left (if that isn’t redundant) came to see Barack Obama as a religious figure. They spoke of him as a god and genuinely seemed to expect Obama to use supernatural powers to remake the world. Of course, that didn’t quite work out, and, by now, even his most ignorant supporters seem to be struggling with the idea of the Messiah who couldn’t. . . or wouldn’t.

So it was rather strange when, last week, the second largest newspaper in an obscure country called Denmark choose to compare Obama to Jesus. Indeed, in one of the most bizarre and poorly reasoned articles this side of the comments section at Huffpo, the Danes lay bare their incredible power of self-delusion and declared that Obama has a greater legacy than Jesus. Let’s take this one piece by laughable piece:

The article starts by offering a Bible-worthy description of Obama:

He is provocative in insisting on an outstretched hand, where others only see animosity. His tangible results in the short time that he has been active – are few and far between. His greatest results have been created with words and speeches – words that remain in the consciousness of their audience and have long-term effects. He comes from humble beginnings and defends the weak and vulnerable, because he can identify himself with their conditions.

Oh brother. He insists on an outstretched hand? Could they mean to beg China to keep buying his debt? Or perhaps they mean his penchant for obtaining bipartisan agreement? Or maybe they meant the way he didn’t prejudge the Honduras situation?

As for his words “remaining in the consciousness”. . . riddle me this: give me one single Obama quote. Seriously, what has this man ever said that anyone remembers?

But the Danes sure are right about his humble beginnings. Harvard is certainly a humble place, full of the downtrodden. And they’re right about his defending the weak and vulnerable too, if by “weak and vulnerable” they mean HUGE international banks stuffed to the gills with bankers who earn seven figure bonuses. Yep, he sure helped those needy souls.

Next the Danes go in for a little historical revision:

For some time now, comparisons between [Jesus and Obama] have been a tool of cynical opinion that quickly became fatigued of the rapture that Obama instilled prior to and after the presidential election last year. From the start, Obama’s critics have claimed that his supporters have idolized him as a savior, thus attempting to dismantle the concrete hope that Obama has represented for most Americans. The idea was naturally that the comparison between Jesus and Obama – which is something that the critics developed themselves – would be comical, blasphemous, or both.

Yeah, that’s right. It was the right that made the morons on the left speak in messianic tones. Indeed, I personally recall brainwashing a couple of the little darlings into calling Obama “God” and gushing about the tingle up their legs. Yep, that was me. Heck, I probably even made the Danes write this article.

Next, the Danes go beyond historical revision and just substitute fantasy for history:

If such a comparison were to be made, it would, of course, inevitably be to Obama’s advantage.

Really? Obama comes out better than Jesus in a head to head comparison? I can’t wait to hear this. Let’s start with Obama’s ‘accomplishments’:

Despite all the compromises, it has finally been possible to ensure something so fundamental, as the right of every American not to be financially shipwrecked when their health fails them. Add to that the biggest ever financial support package in America’s history, a major disarmament agreement and the quickest-ever re-establishment of American reputation.

Alright my little Danish friends, enough of your Obamanography. First, there is no disarmament agreement. There is an agreement to agree to some nuclear weapons cuts -- far less than were achieved by Ronald Reagan by the way. And, interestingly, while this Danish Messiah dithers the current treaty has expired and the Russians are talking about building new missiles. So contrary to the Danes' assertion, their God is on the verge of creating a nuclear arms race. . . not to mention the one already going on in Korean and Iran that he’s failed to address.

Secondly, that financial support package went to huge banks. . . banks that didn’t need it. . . banks that paid their officers and directors seven and eight figure bonuses with that bailout money. Is that the achievement they’re touting? Oh, and the health care “reform” -- if I may paraphrase my favorite Spaniard, “that reform, I don’t think it means what you think it means.”

And they think that’s better than Jesus huh?

On the other hand, we have Jesus’ miracles that everyone still remembers, but which only benefited a few. At the same time, we have the wonderful parables about his life and deeds that we know from the New Testament, but which have been interpreted so differently over the past 2000 years that it is impossible to give an unequivocal result of his work. Obama is, of course, greater than Jesus – if we have to play that absurd Christmas game.

Give me a break. Now I’m not as historically ignorant as the people of Denmark, but I will try to keep this on a very simple level so as not to frighten any readers from Denmark with too many things of which they are so clearly, deeply ignorant. But here goes. . .

Whether you believe Jesus is the son of God or not, the fact remains that Jesus was a philosopher, much like Plato or Aristotle. Plato and Aristotle gave us ethics. Jesus gave us compassion. He introduced a way of thinking that fundamentally reformed the way the Western World thinks and behaves. At the time, the Romans (like most societies of the era) believed in might and power, and engaged in human sacrifice, blood sport, and blood rituals. Sympathy, empathy, charity, sharing were all considered signs of weakness. Jesus changed that with his words. Which is a heck of a lot more than Barry’s ever done with his.

Jesus’ words directly or indirectly led to the creation of all that liberalism that the Danes take for granted today. Christianity is directly responsible for the creation of hospitals, for the idea that helping the poor is a good thing, and for many of our ideas about charity and community. Christianity gave the West an impulse to work together to help our neighbors rather than to fight for the supremacy of our tribes. What has this Danish Messiah Obama done to compare to that? A few billion dollars handed to rich bankers?

Moreover, the criticism that bad things were done in Christ’s name is as ridiculous as blaming unethical conduct on Aristotle. And if we want to play that game, the Christians have already taken responsibility for most of what was done in the name of their religion. When will the Danish God “Socialism” apologize for the hundreds of millions of people butchered in its name during the Twentieth Century?

The truth is that without Christianity, the world would be a much nastier, darker place today. Without Obama, it would be a better place. A world without Denmark. . . no one would notice.

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The Death of Medicare

There was an interesting announcement yesterday that portends the death of Medicare. The Mayo Clinic announced that it would stop seeing Medicare patients in its Arizona clinics. This is part of a two year test by the Mayo Clinic to see the economic (and likely the public relations) effects of their decision. Until that test is completed, this won’t affect other Mayo facilities, but afterwards it presumably would be extended to their other facilities.

The Mayo Clinic, a Minnesota and Cleveland based organization with 3,700 staff physicians and scientists, treated 526,000 patients last year over a number of states (Florida, Minnesota, Ohio, Arizona). The Medicare decision will affect 3,000 patients only at this point. These patients will be required to pay cash if they wish to receive treatment.

The Mayo clinic made this decision because of the amount of money they lose on treating Medicare patients each year. How bad did things get for the Mayo Clinic? They lost $840 million treating Medicare patients in 2009. $120 million of that loss came from their Arizona operations.

To give you a sense of how significant that is, in 2006, the Mayo Clinic had revenues of $6.9 billion yet only earned a profit of $117 million (a measly profit margin of 1.69% -- a worse return on investment than treasury notes at the time). Think about that: their Medicare losses were more than seven times their profits ($840 million versus $117 million).

How could they lose so much in treating Medicare patients? According to the clinic, Medicare covered only 50% of the cost of treating elderly primary-care patients.

So why does this mean the death of Medicare? Simple, doctors can’t afford to keep seeing Medicare patients.

Many doctors claim (correctly) that they lose money when they see Medicare patients and that they simply cannot afford to keep seeing such patients. On an anecdotal note, I’m aware of several doctors who went bankrupt trying to treat Medicare patients and I know of many more who simply will not accept Medicare patients. The Mayo decision only highlights how bad this can get and that the problem is indeed widespread.

With a large, respected group like the Mayo Clinic publicly opening this door, it is highly likely that whatever stigma there might be in refusing to take Medicare patients will disappear almost overnight. Human history tells us this will result in more and more doctors and medical facilities rejecting Medicare patients. If doctors won’t see Medicare patients, then Medicare becomes worthless.

Add in the fact (despite Democratic denials) that the $500 billion in Medicare cuts the Democrats have planned will result in even lower rates of reimbursement, and you have a recipe for even more doctors leaving the system.

The likely end result is twofold. First, those on Medicare who can afford private insurance will probably begin buying such insurance so that they can get medical treatment. This should actually reduce the costs to Medicare and will extend its life, but will wipe out the support the program currently enjoys among the population at large.

Secondly, those on Medicare who can’t afford private insurance will likely find themselves trapped in a ghetto-cized system with few doctors and few facilities willing to treat them. As with most such programs, these will not be the best doctors, nor will they have access to the best (or possible even adequate) equipment.

How long can such a system survive? It’s not clear. If the only people using it are the aged-poor, then it will have little support -- especially as they will not be enamored of the treatment they receive. Other voters will likely be furious that they paid into a system that gives them nothing. Moreover, fixing the program would take nearly as much money as Obama is proposing to spend on ObamaCare, money which no longer exists because Obama blew his wad on the faux-stimulus and bailing out his contributors (banks and GM). Nor is it likely that taxpayers would support paying more for Medicare once most of them have abandoned the system.

This has all the makings of a death spiral.

In the end, the Democrats may have achieved something rather bizarre. In their desire to seize control of the nation’s medical system to extend FDR’s legacy, they may have killed the one achievement of FDR that people actually liked. Now that would be a fitting legacy for Obama, Pelosi and Reid.


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These Aren't Tribbles You're Dealing With, Mr. President

To paraphrase Dinah Washington, "what a difference a year makes." A year ago, the MSM sounded like a church choir praising the name of The One. Washington DC was preparing for the entrance of the messiah, come unto his temple. The air (and the airwaves) were filled with the hymns of hope and change, and America was about to experience a "fundamental change." Now, even the most groveling of Obama acolytes are discovering that their god has feet of clay.

On December 30, swooning Obamist Maureen Dowd of The New York Times finally joined the world of reality after the tepid and confused response of The One to the attempted Christmas terrorist attack aboard a Northwest Airlines jet preparing to land in Detroit. She thought it was bad enough that the president took three days to get off the golf course to make a full statement about the attempted murder of the passengers on the plane as well as the possible deaths of hundreds more on the ground. But even this regular worshiper found the statement which did finally come to be inadequate, overly-academic, lacking in any action plan, mushy, and unclear.

After the obligatory attacks on Bush and Cheney, Dowd goes on to say that things haven't gotten any better. In fact, she opines, they may even have gotten worse. She recognizes how many technological advances have been made since 9-11, and how almost none of them have been used at the airports. She describes the "failure to capitalize on snazzy new technology while agencies thumb through printouts and continue their old turf wars. [As a result of Obama's initial response to the attempted attack], instead of modernity, we have airports where security is so retro that taking away pillows and blankies and bathroom breaks counts as a great leap forward."

She actually has come to realize how serious this problem has become. "I thought our guard might be down because of the holiday; now I realize our guard is down every day." Welcome to the wonderful world of terrorist reality, Mo. Better late than never. She goes on to say: “If we can’t catch a Nigerian with a powerful explosive powder in his oddly feminine-looking underpants and a syringe full of acid, a man whose own father had alerted the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria, a traveler whose ticket was paid for in cash and who didn’t check bags, whose visa renewal had been denied by the British, who had studied Arabic in al-Qaida sanctuary Yemen, whose name was on a counterterrorism watch list, who can we catch?”

"Before he left for vacation, Obama tried to shed his Spock mien and juice up the empathy quotient on jobs." Now here are the words I never expected to hear from Dowd: "But in his usual inspiring/listless cycle, he once more appeared chilly in his response to the chilling episode on Flight 253, issuing bulletins through his press secretary and hitting the links. At least you have to seem concerned." We've been taking note of Obama's half-human responses to worldwide diplomacy and terrorism from the get-go. But if Dowd has finally decided to admit what she likely already knew, however reluctantly, I'll take what I can get.

After the president's formal statement, in which he actually spoke for himself instead of through surrogates, Dowd concluded: "In his detached way, Spock was letting us know that our besieged starship was not speeding into a safer new future, and that we still have to be scared. Heck of a job, Barry." Like a puppy who barks, and scares himself, I'm sure Dowd will do some backtracking on her criticism over the next few days, but it was refreshing, even if it was only temporary.

By way of contrast, I suppose that makes Bush more like Captain Kirk. Not as brilliant as Spock, but immediately capable of distinguishing friend from foe, and capable of deciding on a course without agonizing over all the possible alternatives and choosing the one least likely to offend the enemy. In reality, Bush was very determined, but still lacking in the will to identify the real enemy--radical Islam. Instead, we got the "war on terror" without a clear message as to who the terrorists are, and the common belief they share. So we dithered a bit while the starship was under attack, then picked specific targets without using our full armament against the Klingon/Islamofascist empire and its quest for universal domination by force.

Also in reality, Obama sounds like Spock with that droning, unemotional way of addressing every issue from irritating small asteroids to serious attacks on the starship. But he has none of Spock's intelligence, or at least very little of it. Spock intellectualized everything, then drew a conclusion. Obama has his agenda already decided, then pseudo-intellectualizes it in order to make the attack fit into his pre-established conclusions. The thinking never changes, never analyzes, but merely shifts the droning speech to sound as if it's something well thought-out.

As a result of his non-decision decisions, the terrorists are further emboldened. Big cities wonder what will hit them next. New York City's bustling Times Square was briefly evacuated near the Conde-Nast building because of an unattended van, with windows blocked out by plastic bags, that was parked at the same location for two days in the area (the early reports said "tinted windows"). The van had a placard with the name of a nonexistent law enforcement agency on the dashboard, and no license plates. It sounded too much like the van that launched the first World Trade Center attack to be ignored. Fortunately, it turned out to be a false alarm, or at least so we're told. Yet the police and parking authorities took no action until a civilian reported the suspicious vehicle. Sadly, the parking officers had never checked the phony police-type placard nor had they called in the temporary paper license (unlike permanent registration, temporary licenses can't be scanned for ownership).

The New York Daily News, a reliably moderate/liberal publication said "The attempt to blow Northwest Airlines Flight 253 out of the air was planned as an attack on the United States and very nearly succeeded in accomplishing that horrific goal. The moment demanded inspiring, decisive presidential leadership. America waited four days for a glimmer. What the public was left with was a never-to-be-repeated case study in crisis mismanagement. It's time to get a grip, Mr. President. Obama's description of Abdulmutallab as an 'isolated extremist' was remarkable and disturbing. This radicalized young Nigerian is nothing of the sort. He operated, in fact, as an Al Qaeda-recruited, Al Qaeda-supplied, Al Qaeda-directed foot soldier--as, to put it directly, an enemy combatant, and not as the criminal 'suspect' of Obama's description."

The conservative Washington Times didn't have to twist itself into knots to criticize Obama's lack of leadership and understanding of the situation. It has been pointing out this serious lack of spine and intellect from the beginning of the Obama ascendancy. In an editorial, it described the Obama style of leadership as "the pooh-pooh presidency." I would have prefered "poo-poo" presidency, but that misses the point the publication was making. "When Mr. Obama finally did address the American people about the attempted terror attack three days later, it wasn't to rally a people under attack or to assure the nation he was up to the challenge of defending the United States, it was to pooh-pooh the attack. He blamed the whole thing on an 'isolated extremist.' Mr. Obama bravely called on the American people to join him in continuing to underestimate the size of the problem."

The Times concluded with: "While the president continued to play golf, basketball and work out in an island paradise during the Detroit terror aftermath, many in the media excused Mr. Obama for blowing them off. After all, reporters following the president are happy not to be sweating it out in Crawford, Texas anymore."

Kirk/Bush may have followed his advisers' overly cautious need to avoid offending the Muslim world, but Bush himself had no doubts about who the real enemy was, and is. He may have used the wrong words, and made blunders in how he launched and continued the counter-attacks, but there was no doubt he was going after the right enemy. Spock/Obama has continued his intellectualized maunderings and meanderings at the expense of the necessary identification of the true enemy while seeking the least offensive counter-measures. Mr. Wannabe Spock, that will get a whole lot of us killed.
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