T-Rav's Sockpuppet Theater Presents: Battle at the Bordello

Republican Debate, the Silver State, the country's fate, the number eight, Journolist moderate, watch Romney gyrate, vacillate, vacillate, Santorum's Irate, the MSM’s hate, fabricate, fabricate, the Fed’s own weight, the Constitution Obama ate, liberate. . . liberate. . . [+] Read More...

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California Does It Again

California is one of the states suffering from a huge illegal immigrant problem. California Democrats generally refuse to admit that there is such a problem, or even such a thing as an illegal immigrant. But on those rare occasions when they do admit both, their focus is always on businesses which hire illegals rather than the illegals themselves.

They are at least partially wrong philosophically, but punishing employers who hire illegals and taking steps to prevent further illegal immigrant hiring are excellent ideas. Cut off the potential of employment and you eliminate one of the major sources of illegal immigration. The broadest and most effective way of doing this is E-Verify. Legislation is pending before Congress to establish nationwide mandates requiring employers to utilize E-Verify.

In California, fifteen cities and counties have enacted mandatory E-Verify since 2007. The governmental agencies instituted the requirement from as little as using it solely for city/county employees to revocation of business licenses for private employers who do not use E-Verify. The cities are Mission Viejo, Temecula, Murrieta, Riverside, Santa Maria, Lake Elsinore, Wildemar, Lancaster, Palmdale, San Clemente, Escondido, Menifee, Hemet, San Juan Capistrano, Hesperia, Norco, Rancho Santa Margarita, and Simi Valley. San Bernardino County is the only entity to require E-Verify on a county-wide bases.

In addition, six other cities have drafted legislation requiring E-Verify and were ready to vote. Then the boom fell. Governor Jerry "Moonbeam" Brown and the open borders Democrats who run the state passed a statewide law prohibiting governmental agencies at any level from mandating E-Verify. After all, what's the point of being an illegal immigrant getting in-state tuition, grants and scholarships if you can't get a job after graduation because of E-Verify?

Ted Wegener, who played a major role in getting E-Verify passed for San Bernardino County, says: "It is very disappointing when you spend all the time, you go to your elected representatives and you get them to do something, and then at the higher level they squash you." Wegener's group, the Inland Empire Conservative Activists, was on its way toward getting E-Verify passed for Riverside and Orange Counties as well.

The open borders crowd reached down and pulled up its usual arguments. Sara Sadhwani of the California Immigrant Policy Center said "while a handful of cities in California and a handful of states across the country have moved to mandate the use of this kind of program, it's very misguided." In other words, an effective means of drastically reducing the incentive for errant employers to hire illegals is "misguided."

Assemblyman Paul Fong (D-Sunnyvale), introduced the bill to halt E-Verify because he believes it is an unnecessary burden on business. I'd like to know what "business" he is referring to. The burden is making sure that the company has at least one person (who could easily be an already-existing employee) who has access to a computer and a minimal knowledge of how to use the Internet. There are costs of E-Verify that are minimal compared to the private background checks any diligent private employer would use to determine the immigration and criminal status of a potential employee. But that doesn't stop Fong: "It is costly, time-consuming. It's unfair for big businesses and definitely for small businesses. Why make a flawed system mandatory?" Well, I guess we wouldn't want to be unfair, would we?

Naturally the supporters of the bill cited examples of how the E-Verify system "often" misidentifies U.S. citizens and legal immigrants. And of course they pulled out a poster girl named Jessica St. Pierre who was allegedly fired from her job because her name was not correctly entered into the E-Verify system. Anecdotal evidence aside, E-Verify claims to have an error rate of about 1%. Independent agencies make it more like 6% and dropping as data banks are constantly updated and improved. The concept that legitimate employees are being denied employment willy-nilly because of E-Verify is about as believable as Barack Obama's claim that his mother died because of a lack of medical insurance coverage.

I simply find it hard to believe that any reputable employer would fire a good employee after an E-Verify notification without first thoroughly checking the employee's own proof. If the employee is in fact a legal immigrant or American citizen, that's easily proven, and the information can be sent off to DHS and E-Verify for correction. A valued employee is unlikely to lose a job permanently because a clerk at a computer somewhere made an entry error.

Beside the alleged "financial burden on business," there are other costs to be considered and weighed against it. How about the cost of Medicaid and welfare programs for illegal immigrants? How about the loss in state tax revenues resulting from employers who hire illegals and pay them "under the table?" How about the cost of jobs lost for American citizens and legal immigrants? For that matter, how about the human cost of allowing unscrupulous employers to hire illegals and pay them less than minimum or comparable wages while putting them into working conditions that no citizen or legal immigrant would tolerate?

Brian Ambrose, who is an analyst in the Murrieta city manager's office, is perfectly happy with the voiding of his city's E-Verify ordinance. Says Ambrose: "We have not received a single phone call [reporting illegal immigrant hiring]--we did not believe there was ever a problem with illegal immigration here in Murrieta." Who is this mysterious "we?" The city manager system frequently ends up with the city manager's office being at odds with both the citizens of the city involved, and often misguiding the city councils which pass the ordinances. Concurrence is not causation. A lack of phone calls could mean a great many things, including the likelihood that illegal immigrants facing E-Verify knew the jig was up and it was time to get out of Dodge before they got caught.

So now, it's up to Congress. The left won't like it, but if the bill requiring E-Verify nationwide is passed, they can't complain that the states are interfering with the fed's sole power over immigration matters. Not unexpectedly, the E-Verify bill in the House of Representatives is being advanced by Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas). But I take pride in pointing out that the former mayor of Simi Valley and now longtime Republican Representative Elton Gallegly of California is the co-sponsor.
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Analysis: Cain's 9-9-9 Plan

A couple of you have asked that we provide more detail on Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 plan. With another debate tonight (join us for another play by play), now is a good time to discuss the Hermanator’s plan.

Here’s how the plan works:

● Businesses would pay a flat 9.1% tax on gross income less purchases from other US located businesses, capital investment and net exports.

● Individuals would pay a flat 9.1% tax on income, less charitable deductions.

● A 9.1% national sales tax would be created to make up lost revenue.

Here are the reasons this is a good plan:

● The elimination of deductions ends the incestuous relationship between Big Business and government where Big Business buys politicians who insert deductions into the tax code to allow companies like GE to declare record profits and yet pay $0 in tax.

● This plan ends the economic misallocations caused by the current code because it eliminates the deductions which encourage people to hide their income. It does not give preferences to savings or consumption, capital or labor, or dividends verses income growth. In effect, the government gets out of the business of telling people how to structure their economic lives.

● It reduces the disincentive to work because it lowers payroll taxes. And it boosts the incentive to work, hire and buy new equipment because it lowers the overall tax rates for those activities.

● It encourages spending on American goods and services as only those can be deducted. And it encourages exports.

● This forces everyone to pay taxes, i.e. it broadens the tax base. Right now 47% of the public pays no tax, but gets government benefits. That needs to change to change the incentive these people have to keep demanding bigger government. Making them pay taxes goes a long way toward that.

Here are the arguments against:

● This will create a hidden Value Added Tax! Europe uses the VAT because VATs can be raised without people knowing. But this isn’t a VAT. This is a sales tax and would only apply to the sale of new goods or services to end users. In other words, whereas a VAT gets added at each level, a sale tax only gets added once. Moreover, you would see this tax on your receipts -- something you don’t get with a VAT.

● This weekend Cain admitted that some people will pay more under his plan. So what? Finding a plan under which no one pays more but revenues remain about the same is an impossibility.

● Idiot liberal: “Poor people will pay more!!” Idiot progressive: “The evil rich will pay less!!” A lot of information is being produced to claim this plan shifts the tax burden from the rich to the poor, but that's all fake -- it's based on unreal assumptions about what the rich and poor pay now (like assuming GE actually pays taxes) and it assumes neither rich nor poor will change their behavior in response to the plan. The truth is the 47% of people who currently pay no taxes will pay more. The others (the productive 53%) will pay less. And frankly, that doesn't bother me in the least.

● Grover Norquist: “This raises taxes!!” Grover is again equating the elimination of all those deductions with tax hikes. But if we accept Grover’s logic, then we are trapped in the current tax code forever. What a tool.

● The plan doesn’t raise enough money! Opponents scored the plan and claim it will only raise $2 trillion, not $2.2 trillion as Cain claims. Frankly, that’s more accurate than anything else proposed by Congress. But more to the point, this is standard static scoring where they just take current spending/ income and apply the new rates. They did not determine whether people would work more once they can keep more of their income (they would) or whether people would spend more once they have more income to spend (they would). (They did the same thing to criticize Reaganomics.) No one knows what this plan would actually bring in, but if the critics are claiming $2 trillion, expect it to do much better in reality.

But there is one more problem with the plan. . . this plan ain’t happenin. Our government is specifically designed to prevent radical ideas from being implemented and this plan is deeply radical. This plan would require a complete change in the way Washington works, and that will upset too many vested interest. For example:

● K Street will lose most of its business with the end of the deductions in the tax code.

● The poverty lobby will lose its cherished progressive tax.

● Most tax attorneys and tax accountants would lose their jobs.

● All the people who currently use deductions (everything from home owners to GE) will try to save their own deductions.

● Businesses will whine about the sales tax hurting their sales.

● Foreign countries will complain about “predatory taxation” designed to steal businesses.

That’s too much opposition for Congress to do something this radical. The Democrats will cling like grim death to the old system, as will many Republicans. Still, this plan tells us a lot about Cain and his goals and it is a worthwhile goal.


P.S. Check out Herman Cain singing about pizza: Not, I'm not kidding

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Immigration: Reality Strikes Liberals Again

If you haven't seen it yet, my latest article is up at Big Hollywood (Click Me).

Sometimes it’s amazing how daft leftists can be. We spent more money than we could afford and now we’re broke? How did that happen?! We tax rich people and they send their money overseas. Nobody could have seen that coming!! We let criminals out of jail and somehow the crime rate soars?! How? Now liberals have discovered that massive immigration depresses wages. Ya think?

While Britain’s Labour Party was in power between 1997 and 2010, they threw open the immigration doors to let pretty much anyone who wanted into Britain into the country. Part of this had to do with new European Union rules which allowed free movement from Eastern Europe and part of it was leftist political correctness which sought to de-British Britain.

To give you a sense of how open the doors got, consider these figures:

● Between 1980-1991, the UK lost an average of 42,000 people each year.
● Between 1992-1995, the UK gained 9,200 immigrants per year.
● Between 1996 and 2010, under Labor, the UK gained 178,000 per year.

A couple weeks ago, a report was released, which had been commissioned by Labor when it was in power and then suppressed, because Labour didn’t like its conclusions. In fact, they ran around telling the public the exact opposite of what the report found. But now the truth has come out.

According to this report, this wave of immigrants flooding Britain depressed British wage and “undercut” British workers. You don’t say?! It was so bad in fact, the Labour Party has had to admit Labour “got it wrong” on immigration and concedes this “had a big effect on people in Britain.” Great. . . now explain why you kept lying about it?

But can they seriously claim they had no idea this would happen? Assume you make widgets and you need a new worker. In Room A, there are two potential employees. . . they look surly. In Room B, there are 500 potential employees. Do you think you will end up paying more if you hire from Room A or Room B? It’s pretty obvious isn’t it? Yet, somehow it was never obvious to liberals that flooding Britain with workers, i.e. turning Britain’s labor market from Room A into Room B, would have a negative effect on the workers already in the country? How stupid do you need to be not to see that coming? Oh, that’s right, liberals don’t think about the future, they assume there are no unintended consequences.

Britain has shown that the consequence of importing a ton of labor are very clear. It will increase the competition for jobs, which will result in wages being depressed because there are more people bidding for the same number of jobs.

Now let's look at America. We are letting people in at three times the rate the British were when they “got it wrong”. . . we are letting enough people into this country every year to populate Denver, Colorado. That’s unsustainable.

The Democrats support this because they think these immigrants will vote Democrat, which will overcome the white flight their party has experienced. But what do they think the effect will be on the wages of blacks, Hispanics and uneducated whites.... the very groups the Democrats claim to want to help? The fools currently squatting outside Wall Street want this too (check out Bev’s article on their list of demands). Those idiots want both (1) a hike in wages and (2) open borders. But of course, those are contradictory demands because once you open the borders, wages will crash. Not surprisingly, Big Business wants this too because it keeps their costs down.

Talk about an unholy alliance!

I'm all for immigration, but there need to be limits. Clearly, three times the British level is too much.

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Mexico And The International Criminal Court

It's not news to anyone who picks up a newspaper or watches TV that Mexico is a mess. Civil law and order have broken down in major parts of the nation, The local law enforcement authorities have given up trying to enforce the law, and the army is taking on the cartels. Yet it's hard to tell the good guys from the bad guys.

A mixed bag of leftists and intellectuals in Mexico think they have found the solution. Citing the fact that "Mexico is living a state of emergency and suffering the most dramatic humanitarian crisis in its recent history," they have demanded that the International Criminal Court (ICC) stop the bloodshed. Whatever the right solution may be, this isn't it.

First of all, the ICC is a judicial body. It can find defendants guilty and order punishment, but there still has to be a law enforcement agency which will carry out the mandates of the court. And who might that be? It's already rather well established that the Mexican police and the military can't handle the internal warfare. So do what? Bring in the UN troops? Given their recent history in Africa (the only arena the ICC has so far addressed in its rulings), the UN troop cure might be worse than the disease. When the UN troops are not being simply inept and ineffectual, they have a habit of joining in the activity they're supposed to be suppressing.

Second, the pleaders have the same disease that intellectuals all over the world exhibit--moral equivalence and lack of focus. Instead of having a clearly identified bad guy (the criminal cartels, for instance) and a cause of action upon which the court might act, the Mexican eggheads want the ICC to conduct a human rights investigation into the roles of, well, everybody. They not only want to discover the truth about cartel leaders such as Joaquin Guzman, but they also want an investigation into Mexican President Felipe Calderon.

In reality, the ICC would be just another feelgood attempt to bring law and order to a nation which can't control its government or its people. I have no fondness for Felipe Calderon, and consider him to be just another political crook in a long line of political crooks who have held the Mexican presidency. I certainly resent him coming before the Congress and telling American states how they ought to be treating Mexican illegal immigrants. But he is a symptom of whatever has infected Mexico, not the cause. He has allowed his army to get out of control, and in some glaring examples, the army units and commanders have gone over to the side of the cartels.

America certainly isn't the answer (even though it's possible it could be). America hasn't had the will or the courage to end murderous banditry in Mexico and across the American border since the days of General Black Jack Pershing. The American governments of the past few decades would not take military action in (not against) Mexico without the approval of the United Nations. Somehow, I don't think we could get that approval. America is now suffering border incursions that can only be described as invasions, yet we continue to treat the matter as purely a Mexican problem. The current administration thinks that doing nothing is the best policy.

By some sort of arcane logic which I don't understand, the Obama administration has found that "political instability" in the Middle East and North Africa is more dangerous than strong men and jihadist militias. But somehow that same administration doesn't see the danger of political instability and civil unrest all along our southern border. The deadly violence has spilled across the border, and much of the recent murderous activity involves weapons sold to the cartels during the insane operation called Fast and Furious.

Instead of taking Calderon out to the woodshed and enforcing the idea that he must get his own house in order or we will, Obama praises Calderon for his views on border control and treats the Mexican president with a deference he doesn't show for his counterparts in England and the European continent. Obama could be offering financial and military assistance with the express condition that Calderon whip his army into shape and make serious headway against the cartels. Instead, we continue to send billions of dollars in aid to Mexico with no strings attached.

I certainly don't have a well thought-out plan for exactly how to effectuate change in Mexico. I'm hoping that some of you might. One thing does seem quite obvious to me however. Given the current status of the world, there are only two countries which can do anything about solving the problem. They are Mexico itself and the United States. With all due respect to the Mexican intellectuals, the ICC would be about as effective a solution to Mexican violence and national turmoil as my recipe for clam chowder would be for curing cancer.
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Is There Anything This Woman Won't Say?

Just a short time before the House took a vote forbidding the use of federal funds to pay for any part of a health plan that covers abortion, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that the bill would mean that "women can die on the floor." Fifteen House Democrats joined the Republicans in voting for what the president of NARAL called The Let Women Die Act.

The bill is aimed at one portion of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). Prior law forbade direct use of federal funds for abortion, but Obamacare slipped in provisions which did by the back door what it couldn't do through the front. Rather than pay for the abortion directly, Obamacare allowed abortion to be paid for by insurance plans which accept federal funds. The bill bans that practice.

The bill also covered another problem created by Obamacare. It prevents punitive action against any health care provider who refuses to perform or assist in performing an abortion based on moral or religious objections. It's important to note that as we review the Democratic hysteria over the bill, it doesn't ban abortion, just direct or indirect federal funding of it. Multiple polls have shown that somewhere between 65% and 70% of Americans who may otherwise have divergent views on abortion itself oppose federal funding of abortion in any form.

The Republican position on the bill was that Obamacare contains loopholes galore that allow the use of federal subsidies and stimuli for the purpose of purchasing insurance plans that cover abortion. Many of the supporters of the new bill (called the Protect Life Act) clearly believe that Obamacare must be repealed in its entirety, but wanted to take an early step in that agenda by eliminating one of the most egregious of Obamacare's flaws. Unlike many of the provisions of Obamacare which are purely economic nostrums or bureaucratic "solutions," this flaw flagrantly allowed federal funding for a medical procedure abhorrent to a substantial number of Americans.

Pelosi went off on a journey of free-association in discussing the bill. "Under this bill, when the Republicans vote for this bill they will be voting to say that women can die on the floor and health care providers do not have to intervene. It's just appalling. It falls right into their--all, it's a health issue." In other words, if the doctors don't perform a procedure which would terminate a perfectly normal pregnancy, a woman will die on the floor while the doctors stand by and swap golf stories.

Perhaps she doesn't realize that if a woman comes into a Catholic hospital bleeding heavily from a botched abortion performed elsewhere, those Catholic doctors will do everything in their power to save the mother (and the baby, if it still lives). But what can you expect? This is a practicing Catholic woman who lectures the bishops and the Pope on their misinterpretations of the Bible and their incorrectness on Church doctrine.

For a woman her age, Pelosi has amazing lung power. She can string together thoughts in random order and pronounce them without taking a breath. Example: "This is a health care issue and it falls right in with a lot of other initiatives that they [the Republicans] had coming up on the floor (where the women are dying?) about clean air, clean water, mercury, you name it--America's families deserve better than this and, again, today is another example of a wasted opportunity, instead of taking up even an aspect of the president's job bill that could create jobs they're--I can't even describe to you the logic of what is is that they are doing, I just know that you will see a large number of women on the floor today (dying women?) fighting for women's health issues, as well as to point out how savage this is about withholding care for a woman because of this legislation." Whew! I'll bet she could blow out a 150 birthday candle cake without taking a second breath.

Pelosi also went on to say "this is not a jobs bill." No, really? "Everybody in America has the creation of jobs as their top priority and what we are doing is wasting time. Every woman in America should be concerned with this assault on women's rights. This is just one aspect of women's health. But it has an impact across the board on how women get their health insurance. It's a waste of time." So if I'm hearing her right, women's health and access to abortion is vitally important, but it's a waste of time because jobs are at stake.

National Right to Life Director Douglass Johnson said: "President Obama won enactment of Obamacare in 2010 partly by pretending that the bill did not expand abortion. But now the mask is coming off. Obamacare contains multiple provisions designed to authorize federal subsidies for abortion." The Protect Life Act removes those subsidies. But it does not prevent any woman who wants health care insurance with abortion coverage from purchasing it. It just prevents them from purchasing federally-subsidized insurance which provides coverage for abortions.

The bill passed the House on a vote of 251-172 (236 Republicans and 15 Democrats in favor). There are two hurdles remaining. First, the Senate helmed by Democrat Harry Reid may never even get to vote if Reid uses his parliamentary tricks to keep the vote away from his colleagues. Even if Reid doesn't manage to table the bill, passage in the Senate is far from a sure thing. And in the event that the bill does pass the Senate, there's that final roadblock in the White House.

President Obama will have to do some serious spinning to come up with a reason to veto the bill. But spin he will. He spent months on the political trail obscuring the Obamacare loopholes for abortion because he claims to believe that federal funding should not be used for abortion. He can't veto the bill on that basis, then, without having another lie added to the long list of lies he has told. He might try to do his new "capitalist" thing, and claim that the bill interferes with the right to private contract. Who knows? But it is highly likely that he will veto the bill if it ever gets to his desk.
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The Great (film) Debates vol. 11

Some people claim that actors are important to modern films. I can see their point. . . a little. And I'm told they play "roles." So let's go with that.

Who is your favorite modern actor and what is their best role?


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Occupy Wall Street...sort of - Part III

There's an ill wind blowing near Wall Street and it's not just the stench of the unwashed masses. Our building is now officially under siege.   As of Thursday, One Liberty Plaza is surrounded by a double layer of barricades and a triple layer of security check points. As the Occupation goes into its fourth week, there is beginning to be less of a "kumbaya:" atmosphere and more of a rising level of violent rhetoric much of which the "movement" would just as soon you did not know about.

Well, let's just say that what is old is new again -

From #OccupyLA -

Oh yeah, this lovely lady works for the Los Angeles Unified School District.

And from #OccupyWallStreet right down at Zuccotti Park, there have been several incidences of ranting thuggery. Below is one example. Nobody stops it. Nobody questions it and it is explained away by the "Communications" table with a "They do not represent us, but, hey, they have a right to say what they want".

Seeing a theme beginning to appear?  About now I would be expecting our political leaders to be denouncing their hateful rhetoric, but they seem to be getting real kick out of it.

And just in case you were wondering who the Puppet Master of the #OccupyWallStreet movement really is...well, it's actually a Puppet a/k/a "Anonymous".

All kidding aside - This beginning to really scare me. With the Tea Party movement, I never feared that it would ever turn violent. We have always been clear in our purpose and focus our anger at the politicians who will not listen by voting them out and holding the ones left in office accountable for their legislation. But what is going on now, is just unfocused rage and it is not a matter of "if", but "when" the violence will begin. There is an element that WANTS the violence to begin. Even the MSM is prodding it on by stating that "what this movement needs is an element of Kent State".

A old friend of mine posted on his Facebook page that he was on his way to an Occupy 99 rally today. He proudly announced that his poster reads: "Forgetting Us Can Kill Y.O.U.". That made me sad. He used to an intelligent person, now he's a thug.

I closed today with these photo taken by David Webb on Thursday. David is one of the organizers of my Tea Party group - TeaParty365.org -  in New York City and host of The David Webb Show on Sirius XM Patriot 125:

Blatant Consumerism - Shame on him

Kumbaya, My Lord, Kumbaya...

I saved the best for last...
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Film Friday: Twelve Monkeys (1995)

I want to like Terry Gilliam’s films. I want to respect Terry Gilliam’s films. But I can’t. They’re a mess. Twelve Monkeys is an exception. Twelve Monkeys is almost brilliant. What makes it brilliant is its twist on time travel paradoxes. What makes it “almost” is Gilliam’s usual problems.

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Obama Discovers Free Trade

Pictured are South Korean President Lee Myun-bak and some guy from Chicago arriving for a press conference after the passage of a US/South Korean free trade agreement. Congress passed the agreement just six days after the Chicago guy (Barack Obama, I think) sent the proposal to the House and Senate.

And a mere two and a half years after the proposal first got to the Chicago guy's desk. Since the agreement involves economics, finance, diplomacy and math, it took Obama the two and a half years to get around to reading it. Boring stuff compared to community organizing, hope and chump change. People close to Obama are already having second thoughts, since such an agreement has angered the unions who say that free trade agreements are bad for jobs, workers' rights and our economy." Obama may have sought to pick up a few votes among independents and moderates who had previously thought he was a pure socialist/protectionist. It could cost him more votes and more campaign funds from the unions than he'll gain from supporting capitalism.

It should be interesting to see how this affects the Occupy Wall Street loonies who already have a baker's dozen of disjointed and incoherent objections to investment and other people's wealth. The US Chamber of Commerce issued a statement saying "The passage represents victory for American workers, American competitiveness, and American leadership." Not so opines AFL-CIO chief thug Richard Trumka, who said free trade agreements are "the wrong medicine at the wrong time and put corporations over people and profits over prosperity." Obviously, Trumka has been reading the signs being held up by the Occupy Wall Streeters.

Instead of TARP, bailouts, and government takeovers of private corporations Obama could have been signing the free trade agreements which actually create jobs and money. They all hit his desk at approximately the same time. But since Democrats are far better at spending other people's money than creating and earning it, Obama chose to lavish borrowed money on public employees, government projects, and union organizations which eat wealth rather than create it.

Republicans and even economists had been urging Obama to pay attention to creating real wealth almost since the day he first took office and the ice caps stopped melting and the oceans stopped rising. Unlike those wonderful projects that Obama threw billions at, the free trade agreements were shovel-ready from day one of the Obama administration. Three agreements were languishing on the Chicago guy's desk. Those proposals opened lines of free movement of goods and money rather than pumping government-printed money into unprofitable ventures, government employment, and crony socialism. South Korea, Colombia and Panama have been waiting all this time for Obama to read the damned agreements, submit them to Congress, and sign them.

The International Trade Commission has estimated that the South Korea agreement alone would result in an increase in American exports by $10 billion to $11 billion in the first year. US Trade Representative Ron Kirk says the deal will "secure at least 70,000 American jobs" and many more in subsidiary industries now freed of crippling tariffs. The US Chamber of Commerce estimated that had the agreements not been approved soon, Obama's unemployment lines would have gotten longer by another 300,000 jobs. But Trumka and his Keynesians estimate that it would cost 159,000 jobs (union jobs?).

It may be some time before we know what the actual impetus was for the guy from Chicago taking his feet off the Oval Office desk and submitting the agreements to Congress. Republicans, surely, but many blue dog Democrats as well. Maybe he just decided that nothing else was working, so let's try free trade and capitalism. Bill Clinton signed NAFTA, and his other half Hillary effusively praised the three new agreements. We can be sure of one thing. It wasn't Van Jones.
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Primer: Obama/Holder v. Iran

I figured you might like a primer on the new Iranian issue, as it’s all over the headlines and it’s an issue which could actually lead to war if mishandled -- although that’s extremely unlikely. Here’s what’s up:

● What Happened: On Tuesday, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the DEA and FBI had foiled a plot to murder the Saudi Arabian ambassador and blow up the Saudi and Israeli embassies. This plot was supposedly masterminded by Iran’s “elite” Quds military unit. The Quds are a special unit within Iran’s Revolutionary Guard whose job it is to “export” Iran’s Islamic revolution to other countries.

According to Holder, Manssor Arbabsiar (a Corpus Christi, Texas car salesman) was tasked by the Iranian government with finding someone to carry out the killing and the bombings. Arbabsiar turned to the nastiest of the Mexican drug cartels, Los Zetas, a group of former special forces soldiers who started their own cartel. I wrote about Los Zetas here: LINK. Arbabsiar wanted Los Zetas to do both the killing and the bombings and he wanted them to agree to funnel tons of opium from the Middle East into Mexico.

However, the person Arbabsiar contacted turned out to be a DEA informant. Whoops.

● Team Obama’s Response: The administration accuses Iran and describes this as: “a dangerous escalation of Iran's long-scale use of violence.” The reason they claim Iran did this was “the Iranians watch the Saudis roll tanks in Bahrain, and they see a key ally in Syria going down, so they step up the Quds Force.”

Joe Biden has been sent forth from the Idiotorium to take the lead on this. He described this as “really over the top” and said it was “an outrage that violates one of the fundamental premises on which nations deal with one another.” He also said that “no options have been taken off the table” for dealing with this, though the administration has already ruled out military action. Instead, they are considering sanctions, the standard response by liberals when they don’t know what to do.

● The Saudi Response: Saudi Arabia and Iran are bitter regional rivals largely because their versions of Islam consider the other to be heretics. The Saudi embassy said this was “a despicable violation of international norms, standards and conventions,” and their former head of intelligence said Iran will have to “pay the price.” They have not been more specific yet. However, Saudi Arabia does not have a military capable of defeating Iran.

● The Iranian Response: For its part, Iran denies involvement. They told the UN they are “outraged” and “strongly and categorically reject these fabricated and baseless allegations, based on the suspicious claims by an individual.” Tehran claims Obama has fabricated this to “divert attention from the Wall Street uprising.” Ha ha! They also repeated claims the US has assassinated Iranian nuclear scientists in the past two years.

For the record, the only link so far to Iran is that the car dealer apparently is a cousin of someone in the Qud and he visited Iran right before $100,000 was wired into the informant’s account by the car dealer. The FBI claims this was wired from a Qud bank account.

● The World Reaction: The world reaction has been skeptical. Iranian experts say that Arbabsiar does not fit the profile of the typical Iranian agent, who tend to be professionals. And they say it’s unlikely Iran would be behind such a plot. Similarly, an Iranian expert in Berlin said these claims would be viewed with skepticism as “everyone is extremely skeptical about US intelligence revelations” and added, “I don’t regard it as impossible but rather improbable, even if the details of the story presented by the attorney general are essentially true.”

One western diplomat said: “I don't believe Iran's regime was behind the plot. If we assume it was Iran's plot, it would seem like a group of professional gangsters hiring a careless agent for their most important project. It's impossible.”

Even a senior American law enforcement official said (on condition of anonymity) that the US isn’t quite sure what this was and it was likely a “rogue plan. . . so outside their normal track of activity.”

● Some Questions: This all leaves us with some odd questions. If we assume Holder is correct, then what will Obama do about it? Even Clinton dropped a few cruise missiles on Sudan after the embassy bombings in Africa. So Obama can’t just pretend this didn’t happen.

But if Holder is wrong, then is he simply wrong or is there more to this?

I never like conspiracies as an answer, especially when there are more likely answers -- such as this guy just being a nut job. But it is extremely coincidental that the day after Darrell Issa starts talking about subpoenaing Holder to answer for what are likely criminal acts related to Fast and Furious, that Holder manages to unveil a huge distraction involving the very elements of Fast and Furious -- DEA, drugs, Mexican cartels and cross border crime. This is one of those coincidences you can’t put in films or people will lose their suspension of disbelief.

My normal response would be to trust professional law enforcement. BUT we’ve already seen how compromised they’ve been by Democratic Justice bosses, such as when Janet Reno ordered the Branch Davidian attack to show that she was tough or the Elian Gonzalez deportation to show Castro goodwill or Holder’s actions in Fast and Furious itself, where potentially hundreds of lives have been taken or destroyed by Holder’s attempt to use the ATF for political purposes. Trust is in short supply here.

So I think we should keep an open mind at this point and not assume anything unless and until strong, verifiable, independent proof is provided.

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Latino Theme Parks

Barack Obama's Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar has now been recruited to bring back the Hispanic votes for the post-racial President. They've largely failed on the Dream Act, and the economy is so bad that even the illegals are starting to leave. So what to do? Start creating more Latino-themed national parks and historic landmarks.

No, I'm not talking about more Taco Bells. They're about as Hispanic as Arby's Roast Beef. El Pollo Loco is closer, if only because I'd love to have a national landmark called "The Crazy Chicken." Salazar is talking about real parks and real landmarks. And while he's at it, he thinks parks and landmarks should also increase the representation of women, African-Americans and other "minority" groups. Obama has basically lost the middle class of all colors and ethnicities, so it's time to make a big splash to draw back the victim groups.

Obama first appealed to the Hispanic demographic during his famous Cinco de Cuatro speech. Things have been going downhill ever since. Now, he realizes that he has a built-in Latino to do his demagoguing for him. Pan y Circos (bread and circuses) are out, parks and landmarks are in. Obama and Salazar deny that this is about vote-getting. Salazar says "the White House meetings following Hispanic Heritage Month have nothing to do with electoral politics--and are instead designed to improve the country's poor preservation of Hispanic history and culture." And if you believe that, I still have that orange bridge in San Francisco I'm willing to sell you cheap.

I don't want to be difficult, but in California alone there are four major landmarks not named after famous Swedes--San Francisco, Los Angeles, Sacramento, and San Diego. Salazar doesn't care. His view is that "less than three percent of all the national landmarks we have are dedicated to 'minorities.'" So now, conveniently, is the time to start catching up because "that tells you that the score is not even." It's purely coincidental that the time to do it coincides with the nadir of Obama's popularity among minorities and the opening shots of the 2012 electoral wars.

It's also coincidental that on Wednesday, the White House held a major conference at the executive mansion to discuss Latino heritage. The mission statement of the conference: "To focus on whether the government is properly serving Hispanic students, small business owners, military veterans, and artists." The four California cities I mentioned aren't enough, so Salazar met earlier with California National Park Rangers to try to identify Latino-themed sites in the state. I hope they met at historic and tourist-popular Olvera Street in Los Angeles.

Salazar has said that there's a huge history of Latinos in the United States that's never been told. How that is going to be advanced by creating or altering national parks and landmarks he didn't say. One spot he would like to choose is the "Forty Acres" used by Cesar Chavez during his attacks on farms, farmers, and unwilling migrant farm workers. Here's a snap quiz: Name any California city with a population over 500,000 that doesn't have a street, avenue or boulevard named after Cesar Chavez.

Not to be outdone by the Martin Luther King, Jr. memorial in Washington DC, Salazar has recently involved himself in the proposed National Museum of the American Latino. Salazar and multiple Latino special pleaders, with the enthusiastic support of the DC city planning commission are looking to locate the museum near the Capitol, at an estimated cost of $600 million. Now, Salazar has ordered a national study (cost unknown) of people and places worthy of national historic preservation.

I have a suggestion. The Alamo was designated a national historical landmark in 1960. Whites, Texans, expansionists, jingoistic norteamericanos, and xenophobes co-opted the site. So in 2011-2012, the Alamo should be re-designated a Latino Historical Landmark. After all, the Mexicans won that battle, didn't they?
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How Not To Create Conflict

Drama derives from the decision-making process. More specifically drama derives from the conflict that must be resolved in the decision-making process. The greater the conflict, i.e. the more difficult the choice, the greater the drama. This isn't a difficult concept. Yet, so many films fail right at this point because they don’t grasp how to establish the legitimate competing interests that make the decision difficult. Let’s look at two recent SciFi films that failed in this regard.

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Yet Another Debate Wrap Up

Last night saw yet another fascinating Republican debate. Most of the attacks were on Cain or Romney. Perry attacked Romney as did Bachmann. Paul and Santorum attacked Cain. Huntsman focused on Perry. Gingrich focused on the Fed. Romney focused on Obama. Cain focused on his own plans. And the moderators attacked Romney, Cain and Perry. In the end, I think Cain was a huge winner, even though that may not be immediately apparent, and the race is now between Romney and Cain.

● Cain: Cain needed to show he could take the pressure of being number two. He did. At no point did he fall flat on his face or lack for answers. His two worst moments came:

● When a moderator asked why he told the unemployed it was their own fault they didn't have jobs. This mischaracterized Cain’s comment, which was aimed at the idiots squatting on Wall Street, but it still sounded bad and his explanation wasn’t particularly strong.

● When Ron Paul attacked him for being on the Kansas City Fed, Cain gave an ok (not great) answer that the Fed didn’t act then like it does now. That won’t satisfy Fed-deniers.

Cain defended other attacks quite nicely, such as:

● When a moderator attacked Cain’s 9-9-9 plan for raising only $2 trillion in revenues instead of the $2.2 trillion claimed, Cain shot back with one of the best lines of the night: “The problem with that analysis is that it’s incorrect.”

● When a moderator attacked Cain’s 9-9-9 plan for being “regressive” and making “food and milk and beer” more expensive, Cain made the solid point that eliminating the payroll tax would more than offset that. I like that he didn't apologize for imposing a “regressive” tax.

● When Romney attacked Cain’s 9-9-9 plan for being too simple and claiming simple is not good, Cain turned this on Romney by asking him if he knows all 59 points in his own plan. Romney didn’t and instead came up with the “7 pillars” of his plan and thereby proved that simple is better.

● Several of the underlings jumped on the idea Cain’s 9-9-9 plan would give Congress a new source of revenue by creating a national sale tax, but this only emphasized how deeply entrenched in the system their mindsets are. Following their logic, we shouldn't try anything.

Cain had a brilliant line too: “The capital gains tax is a wall that stands between people with ideas and people with money.”

Cain didn’t blow anybody away, but he did show solid skills and he proved he won't trip himself up. He also did such a masterful job of selling his 9-9-9 plan that every other candidate talked about it constantly, as did the moderators, and it even came up in questions that didn’t involve him. He made his 9-9-9 plan THE take away from this debate and that will prove to be a huge win, even if it isn’t immediately obvious.

● Romney: Romney just needed to be smooth and for the most part he succeeded. BUT the problem with Romney was on full display again last night. He would say something great and then he would keep talking until he backtracked out of it. He also imploded during the TARP question because he danced so long around whether he would do another Wall Street bailout that it became clear not only that he would do another bailout, but it was also clear he was trying to lie to us.

Newt also had a solid hit on Romney by pointing out that “on page 47” of his plan (a slap at Romney’s inability to describe his 59 point plan) Romney plays into Obama’s class warfare argument by promising capital gains tax cuts “to people who don’t have capital gains.” Romney missed Newt’s point and tried to defend this by saying he favors the middle class because the rich can take care of themselves. . . conceding Obama's case.

In the plus category, Perry took a shot at Romney over RomneyCare being like ObamaCare, but Romney’s defense was even better this time than last: (1) we didn’t raise taxes like Obama does, (2) we only insured poor people, we didn’t try to force everyone onto it, (3) this is a state issue, and (4) Massholes like the system 3-1. Whether those are true points or not, they remained un-refuted and made this a dead issue.

Romney also had a great shot at Perry, Bachmann and Huntsman when he said, “I would not be in this race if I had spent my whole life in government.” He then detailed some of the companies he founded.

● Perry: Perry really needed to shine to stop his nosedive. He failed. He barely spoke last night and when he did it was all generic. In particular, he mishandled his pending economic plan. He didn’t seem to know what’s in it and he just kept promising that he would release it soon as if he didn’t want to spoil the surprise. When it was pointed out that he should be able to tell us what’s in it, he responded with a very bad answer, claiming he’d only had eight weeks to work on it, whereas Romney’s had six years. Frankly a candidate who understands what they believe can detail an economic plan off the top of their head.

The moderators also smacked Perry by saying that the way Texas develops business is similar to Solyndra. Perry’s response was basically “everybody’s doin’ it,” which will only add more fire to the cronyism charge.

● Paul: Ron Paul had another bad debate. He had little to say as Newt stole his thunder. When he spoke, he made good points, but they weren’t memorable.

● Gingrich: Newt was the most interesting last night. He repeatedly tried to win over Paul supporters with angry broadside attacks on Ben Bernanke and the Fed, and he tried to win over Palin supporters by defending her even though no one else had mentioned her. Neither group are traditionally Newt people, so he’s clearly trying to branch out. Paul seemed a little stunned by this.

● Santorum: Santorum needs to go. He kept interrupting and he bizarrely continues to paint himself as an outsider. He also did things like blast everyone at the table as insiders and then (in the same sentence) attacked Cain for his lack of experience. Huh? Also, after blasting all the horrible insiders, he bragged how his years as an insider would let him pass his plan. . . whatever that plan actually is. Then he said he wanted to go to war with China, though I think he meant he wanted to fight a trade war, which isn’t much smarter. And his economic plan seems to be to make people get married.

● Bachmann: Bachmann and Santorum came across as lifer politicians with bland platitudes and repeatedly using candidate speak, e.g. “I just spoke to a man who told me blah blah blah.” This is something annoying people do when they've been in politics too long. Bachmann also needs to stop telling us she has 5 biological kids and 24 foster kids and that she was an attorney for the I.R.S. It's become like Al Bundy talking about scoring 4 touchdowns in one game.

Bachmann's attack on Cain's plan also struck me as a negative. She said if you turn Cain’s 9-9-9 plan around, “the devil is in the details.” Ha ha ha. First, that's trite and she has no comedic timing. Secondly, how does that make sense? The beauty of Cain’s plan is the lack of hidden details, it’s the tinker-with-the-current-system advocates who are playing with details. Third, what does she know of details as her “plan” (a term I use loosely) has none -- it's pure platitude. She should join Santorum on the short bus back home.

● Huntsman: Huntsman remains a sniveling jerk. He takes hypocritical cheap shots and radiates smugness, and he continues to adopt Democratic rhetoric to attack the candidates. Last night he said Cain’s 9-9-9 plan sounded like a pizza price, which is a standard attack you’ll find in the leftist blog world.

● Speculation: Finally, there was more evidence for my theory that Cain and Romney have a deal. Cain inexplicable bailed Romney out on TARP and then while seemingly criticizing Romney in the direct question section actually gave Romney an open platform to discuss his economic plan. Romney then used his question against Bachmann, when tactically, he should have blasted Cain. My guess is Cain doesn’t think he’ll win, so he’s agreed he will eventually bow out and endorse Romney in exchange for becoming the VP.

Thanks to everyone who participated last night and thanks to T-Rav and his sockpuppets!

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T-Rav's Sockpuppet Theater Presents: That's Debatable

It's time for the next Republican Debate. . . who you got?

If you don't have Bloomberg, you can see it here online: WashPo Republican Debate or here (Bloomberg) if you prefer.


(Brought to you by the Happy Bunny Munitions Company bringing you quality explosions since 1907. If it doesn't say Happy Bunny, it might not explode!)

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Tuesday Night At The Debates!!

In case you haven’t heard, there’s another Republican debate tonight -- 7:00 pm EST, on BloombergTV. So watch for periodic interruptions from Hugo Chavez Bloomberg himself as he tries to declare himself President. Tonight’s debate will be in New Hamster and could be fairly interesting. This will be Cain’s first test as the field’s punching bag. Perry needs to prove he’s not finished. Romney needs to find Waldo. And the rest need to find graceful exit strategies. Join us here for a play by play. . . join us.. In the meantime, here’s an update on recent events and some bad boxing nicknames:

● Mitt "the Rambler" Romney: Romney has been mocking Obama for creating a “Where’s Waldo economy” in which “finding a good paying job in this economy is harder than finding Waldo in one of his books.” This is of course a horrible analogy made about a book that hasn’t been culturally relevant in 15 years. Nice work Romney. . . way to show us groovy cats that you’re the bees knees.

At the Citadel, he gave a foreign policy speech in which said: “This century must be an American Century.”.... which is a mutual fund. After that it got a little confusing. He has four principles that he claims he will follow in foreign policy, but these were extremely generic. He will use American power with clarity and resolve to support our friends and promote capitalism. He intends to be a leader in multinational organizations, and he wants a strong military. You tell me what that means.

● The Herminator: Cain continues to surge in the polls. Most national polls have him in second place and climbing, though a couple had him in first place. Two separate polls released this week have him moving into second place in liberal New Hampshire: Romney 38%, Cain 20%, Paul 13%, Perry 4%. This will make Cain the candidate all the other conservative will shoot at, just as they attacked Perry before him. How he handles the heat could well determined his future. A failure tonight would likely stop his momentum dead and kill his candidacy.

Meanwhile, in establishment land, The Washington Post is trying to mock him as the “flavor of the month” and scoffs that “conservatives will tire of him at some point and once again search for the next big thing.” Thus proving that the Post is indeed clueless about conservatives. We are looking for a good candidate, we don't have ADD like liberals do.

It also scoffs that Cain can't fool the Post about his lack of foreign policy experience and it notes that candidates who don’t know foreign policy always fail. . . assuming you ignore Carter, Reagan, Clinton, Bush II and Obama, each of whom had squat in the way of foreign policy experience when they took over.

● Texas Trainwreck Rick Perry: Most pundits are saying Perry needs to win big tonight or he’s finished. For his part, Perry is taking this debate very seriously. He has reportedly been practicing against a stand-in for Romney. . . who did indeed dress like Waldo. He also apparently intends to follow Commentarama’s advice and issue a “significant economic plan” next week. Personally, I’d release it right now, before the debate, but what do I know?

Perry went through a bit of an embarrassment last week when Perry supporter Evangelical leader Robert Jeffress decided to tell the world that Mormonism is a cult and thus, we should not vote for Romney. Perry’s campaign quickly issued a statement disavowing this comment: “The governor does not believe Mormonism is a cult,” and urged us to vote for Romney. Jeffress is now being compared to Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

● St. Ron Paul: In a bit of a shocker, Ron Paul won an informal straw poll at the Family Research Council’s Values Voter Summit. He won 37% of the vote. Cain came in second with 23%. Perry got fourth with 8% and Romney scored sixth with 4%. Paul isn’t exactly known for being a darling of the Religious Right, so how do we account for this? FRC leaders say Paul's support came from younger FRCVVS attendees. . . which doesn’t really answer the question, does it? Could Paul have more supporters than we think? Should we prepare for a Paul Presidency? Tune in November 2012 and find out!

● Jon Super-Butch Huntsman: Huntsman continues to pound his chest to prove to us that he’s not an effete liberal. He’s now promising to bomb Iran, and no, I’m not really kidding: “I cannot live with a nuclear-armed Iran. If you want an example of when I would use American force, it would be that.” To quote the late Al Davis, “just nuke ‘em baby!”

● Michelle Bachmann, Newt Gingrich and the other guys whose names I’ve forgotten, all continue to exist.

● The End Is Nigh: Finally, nothing you’ve just read matters. The Detroit Lions are 5-0, which means the world is ending. The Mayans were right. We’re screwed.

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It Can't Happen Here

Or can it? The symbol you're seeing is that of the Union of Supreme Islamic Courts. Islamic law is slowly creeping into the jurisprudence of some western democracies. For now, treating Muslim criminal defendants differently from all others is the first step in full Islamization of the secular courts. This travesty occurred in Australia. Next stop--America.
LATE NOTE: If you wish to discuss the Holder announcement of a foiled terrorist plot, please feel free to do so in the comments section below

The parallel between Australia and America is the widespread belief that there actually is something called Islamophobia, and that it is violent and pandemic. This ridiculous belief has been spread by the left and the mainstream press. But its main source is the "moderate Muslim community" which is maneuvering for special treatment in the courts. It signals that Muslims, unlike Buddhists, Jews, Hindus, Christians and Jews are particularly vulnerable to unwarranted attacks and police brutality. That totally unsubstantiated propaganda is starting to work.

The Australian case involved a man accused, among other things, of attempting to murder a police officer. The defendant was found guilty of illegal weapons possession (multiple counts) and terrorism charges. But the judge refused to find him guilty of attempted murder. The reason? The Islamophobia defense. Even though the defendant possessed multiple handguns and assault rifles, along with explosives, and a record of violence, the judge still maintained that his deliberate pointing of one of those guns at the police officer and firing was justified by his realistic fear that a non-Muslim cop was out to assassinate him just because he was Muslim. In other words, self-defense. The corollary to that defense is that the action was based on good faith but mistaken belief.

England is already allowing special "no police entry" Islamic enclaves, with the residents therein being judged by sharia law. Australia has now accepted Islamophobia as a legitimate defense to attempted murder. As Vladimir Lenin (repeated by Josef Stalin) is reputed to have said of weak-kneed western capitalists: "They will sell us the rope to hang them with." In order to appease the wounded feelings of "endangered" Muslims, several states have caved in to CAIR's propaganda and allowed "cultural differences" to be used both at trial and sentencing. The Islamists are using our good will and sappy multiculturalism to hang us.

Passing laws which prohibit the use of sharia law in any court matter is a good thing. But it's important to note that what is occurring now has nothing to do with sharia law. It has to do with creating a special defense for people who are hallucinating about widespread hatred toward and attacks on Muslims. For every imagined wound sustained by an American Muslim, there are a hundred examples of actual attacks on Jews. Yet the last time I looked, there were no special defenses to attempted murder being set up for frightened Jews. Blacks attempting to use the "racist cop" defense have been largely convicted anyway. Where's their right to a special defense?

The Islamist propaganda designed to give Muslims special standing not granted to any other group in court is succeeding beyond even their own wildest dreams. If they continue to succeed in advancing their own special agenda, they won't even need to impose sharia law in American courts. We'll do it for them by ignoring the Constitution's mandate of equal justice for everyone, regardless of race, creed, color or national origin.

And if you don't think it can happen here, let me remind everyone that New Jersey Governor Chris Christie appointed a sharia-compliant lawyer to the Passaic bench solely for the stated reason that "there is a large Islamic community in Passaic, and they deserve to have a judge who understands their special needs." The Islamophobia defense is not even a very long leap in New Jersey.
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Holder Searches For F&F Answers

This past Friday, Attorney General Eric Holder found himself on the hot seat before the House Oversight Committee questioning him about his involvement in the deadly Operation Fast and Furious. Finding no answers that would exonerate him in law or reality, Holder searched for exoneration wherever he could find it. His answers did little to alter his image as less an attorney than a Chicago politician.

Holder turned first to his speech and debate training, and instead of answering a direct question, attempted to use the tu quoque (thou also) argument. Pardon the metaphor, but that gun backfired. Hoping to deflect the spotlight from himself to the Bush administration, Holder brought out an old Bush-era operation which he claimed was just like Fast and Furious. The problem is that the operation (called Wide Receiver) was nothing like Fast and Furious.

Holder wanted to stymie the Committee by stunning them with an "everybody does it" non-responsive answer. According to Holder, Wide Receiver also "walked guns" to the Mexican cartels. Holder's "gotcha" moment quickly turned into a complete rout. The media attention he wanted to draw to the Bush administration and off his own won't happen because he got the facts wrong. In the alternative, he may have been given the wrong facts, or was attempting to spin the true facts, but the Committee members were prepared in advance for just such an attempt.

Wide Receiver was indeed an early attempt to track cartel members and the weapons they purchased in the United States. The operation didn't work, largely because just like Fast and Furious, the people who came up with the bright idea relied on high-tech and unproven methods to trace the purchases, and that technology was simply not available. Entirely unlike Fast and Furious, Wide Receiver was strictly a local ATF operation which never really got off the ground, and never even got close to being presented to the higher echelons of law enforcement or the Justice Department. Few weapons went to cartel members, nobody got killed, and the guns are largely accounted for.

So far, the Washington Post is the only major newspaper to accept Holder's claim of equivalence and "plenty of blame to go around" as an excuse for his own failed policy. Since the Post supports the Obama/Holder gun control agenda, it blindly missed the point that Wide Receiver was designed to prevent widespread cartel purchases of weapons while Fast and Furious was designed to get guns into the cartels' hands so that more rigid gun-control laws could be passed in the United States.

Holder should have known he set a trap for himself. Also on the Committee's agenda that day were the e-mails that strongly indicate that Holder's knowledge of Fast and Furious was a long way from incidental. Within those e-mails was a specific mention of Wide Receiver, and how it could be used to enhance Fast and Furious. The e-mail was sent to Holder's chief deputy AG Jason Weinstein. If Holder didn't know, he should have known.

Wide Receiver involved a botched local ATF operation. Fast and Furious involved the FBI, DEA, ATF, and possibly even Homeland Security. He might be excused for not knowing about a hare-brained local ATF scheme, but not knowing about Gunwalker and Fast and Furious, involving so many agencies directly or indirectly under his control, is either disingenuous or grossly incompetent. One also has the right to expect that a major operation fully-discussed with his chief deputy would reach the Attorney General himself before being given the green light.

If Holder didn't know of it, and/or didn't authorize or monitor it, then at best his department is out of control. Most recent evidence shows that Holder was personally informed of the death of Border Agent Brian Terry, who was murdered with a Fast and Furious gun. So even if Holder didn't know about the operation at an earlier date (which is highly doubtful), Terry's murder and its connection were known to Holder much earlier than he claimed he first heard about Fast and Furious. If he isn't lying, then his Alzheimer's has advanced too far for him to continue in office.

After stuttering and stammering his way around this self-created mess, Holder then fell back on his favorite dodge: "This matter is currently under investigation, and I therefore refer you to the office of the Inspector General." And why not? The Inspector General, Cynthia A. Schnedar, is an old crony of Holder's. While both were in lesser positions in the Justice Department, they worked together on somewhere between fifteen and twenty major cases. They have both filed briefs and written articles advocating strict gun control. That creates a clear conflict of interest when Holder refers matters to his buddy, the Inspector General.

What's a boy to do? Holder couldn't allow himself to be so easily and so clearly publicy humiliated. So right after the hearing, he went into high spin cycle. With the assistance of the compliant mainstream media, Holder put on his best righteous indignation mask and declared the hearing a political ambush. He puffed himself up to declare that he had to defend his honor. Yeah, right.

Knowing that he couldn't claim to be a strong law enforcement kind of guy (see: New Black Panthers), and not daring to attack the law enforcement officers who are most at risk in this dangerous venture, he instead attempted to deflect the issue away from himself. "I could not sit idly by as a Majority Member of the House Committee (Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Arizona) suggests, as happened this week, that law enforcement and government employees who dedicate their lives to protecting our citizens be considered 'accessories to murder.'" Gosar, of course, said nothing of the kind, and if Holder disagreed with what Gosar did say, a good government servant and top lawyer would have addressed that in his answers at the hearing.

And then, almost unbelievably, Holder concluded his remarks to the MSM by proving the point conservatives and Second Amendment supporters have been arguing all along: "Current [gun] laws are insufficient to stop weapons trafficking." If this all adds up correctly, the suspicions of Holder's opponents will be confirmed. For all its danger, and its deadly results, Holder apparently approved of Fast and Furious in order to undo the effects of two major decisions of the United States Supreme Court upholding the individual right of Americans to keep and bear arms.

If this can all be proven conclusively, Holder should resign, or face impeachment and removal. He should also prepare to defend himself against multiple criminal charges, including lying to Congress. Scooter Libby went to prison for far less.
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Top 20 Horror Films You Should Know

Originally posted at Big Hollywood: LINK

October is upon us! Run for your lives! It’s horror movie month! Horror is consistently one of the most popular genres in film, with even middling movies guaranteed to make money. Why? Because audiences want to feel emotion from their entertainment, and no emotion is easier to evoke than fear.

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Twitter Twits Tweet Anticapitalist Protest

But they're not exactly sure what it is they're protesting. It may be capitalism. Or profit. Or war. Or the environment. But aside from the professional agitators sent by MoveOn.org and George Soros to jump-start the roiling masses at Occupy Wall Street, most can't give a coherent argument concerning what they stand for or why.

Their messages have all the pithiness of a Twitter tweet. The protesters have a lot of hand-lettered signs, but there is also a suspiciously large number of expensive and professionally-produced signage to match. The signs read like a sloganeer's dream: "People Not Profits" and "Make Jobs, Not War." Aside from the fact that such bumper-sticker sloganeering makes zero logical sense, these are the silliest signs and silliest protesters I've seen since San Francisco protesters held up signs that said "Food, Not Bombs."

These people actually think that their predigested dichotomies somehow make sense. The signs are pure emotion, pure demagoguery, and no thinking. There at the events to stir up the mobs are the usual rich, capitalist hypocrites: Michael Moore, Janeane Garofalo, Susan Sarandon, Roseanne Barr, and a host of lesser lights.

These poor, starving victims of capitalism hate billionaires (I think). They tweeted, I-phoned, I-padded, laptopped, e-mailed, YouTubed and Facebooked using expensive devices invented and marketed by visionary people who started with nothing and became billionaires. Without those capitalists, the protesters would have had to get their message out by carrier pigeon. About the only billionaire they don't hate is George Soros, Nazi collaborator and currency manipulator. Soros is behind the wealthy hypocritical organizations which fomented the "spontaneous" protests. He has given them jobs all right. Con-jobs. The spontaneous protests were planned for months by Soros-funded Canadian anti-capitalist eco-wacko magazine Adbusters.

Like most unchecked cancers, the dearth of logical thinking cum lack of any solutions (other than burning down all the banks and investment firms) is spreading to other cities. But Wall Street is the world financial center, so it gives the know-nothings a great place to rally. Though their numbers are dwarfed by the mass movements of the 60s antiwar and civil rights demonstrations, these protesters share the same scruffy anti-capitalist, anti-soap, anti-logic of the outriders and disaffected "youth" of the 60s.

For good or ill, the protesters of the 60s had genuine causes and most had an articulate message to go with them. The vast majority of the Wall Street protesters are simply there to sloganeer, raise some hell, and hold up signs to protest things they clearly don't have a clue how to explain. "I'm against capitalism!" Why? "Because it's bad." It's also a lot of fun watching a babbling fool, smelling of body odor with a hint of urine, covered in piercings and gang-style tattoos trying to explain that it's Wall Street's fault that he can't get a job.

Hauling out 2008 Obamisms, the protesters hold up signs and chant: "The world is watching! This is how democracy looks! We are the ones we've been waiting for." The world is watching, and in the civilized world they are shaking their heads at the pure idiocy of the "movement." If that's what democracy looks like, it's no wonder the Founders wrote a republican Constitution to govern without the help of mobs. And they are the ones that Marx, Stalin and Mao were waiting for--useful idiots.

They even have the chutzpah to compare themselves to the Tea Partiers (the original and current ones). The original version of the Tea Party had a specific goal--stop taxing Americans without their consent and participation in government. These protesters are calling for more taxes to support their bohemian lifestyles and professional unemployment. The true patriots of the Boston Tea Party were balanced by patriots who believed the actions were too much like a mob, demanded that the partiers clean up after themselves and both George Washington and Benjamin Franklin demanded that the Tea Partiers reimburse the East India Company for its losses.

As for comparisons to the current Tea Party, there aren't any. Tea Partiers work for a living, they clean up after themselves, and their protests are peaceful with no need for police intervention. Most Tea Partiers can explain their political positions without resorting to tautologies. And all are against tax increases which are a burden on them and which are used in large part to support the government-dependent non-taxpayers currently mucking up Wall Street. Unlike the Occupy Wall Street people, when a Tea Partier speaks of the Founders, he is talking about brave men and women willing to sacrifice everything for freedom from oppressive government.

There are serious points to be made about Wall Street excesses, but these protesters can't articulate them. They blame the banks for the mortgage and housing crisis, but can't tell you anything about Barney Frank, Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae. They probably think those are the names of the Three Stooges. They babble about revolution without realizing that the only revolution which produced a peaceful, middle-class constitutional representative democracy was the American Revolution. They think revolution is about attacking "the establishment" and committing property destruction without understanding even the fundamentals of constitutional government or finance.

The difference between a revolt and a revolution is that a revolution is a successful revolt. This will not produce a revolution. But it will produce something they're not going to like. They are going to find out how civilized people riot. At the ballot box.

Barack Obama is also likely to find out the same thing. He hasn't exactly become the overt standard-bearer for Occupy Wall Street. And there's a good reason for that. The Wall Street Bankers that the protesters hate so much played a major role in getting him elected in the first place. Crony socialism has merely replaced crony capitalism. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
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