Stanley McChrystal is a liberal who voted for Obama and banned Fox News from his HQ TV. Which may at least partly explain how he became the first U.S. general to be lost in combat while giving an interview to Rolling Stone: They’ll be studying that one in war colleges around the world for decades.
From the incomparable Mark Steyn – Rules of an unengaged president | obama, one, president – Opinion – The Orange County Register
Each additional dollar borrowed is now generating a REDUCTION in GDP of almost $.50. For more background and details, visit Nathan’s Economic Edge (h/t to Business Insider).
The Democrats are considering a parliamentary maneuver to brazenly and arrogantly avoid the “up or down vote” that Obama has demanded for Obamacare. Should they decide to do so, they will “slaughter” and “eat their own”, as the Wall Street Journal says more eloquently below, all for the sake of power. Move over Jim Jones, let Harry and Nancy take over…and start passing out that kool-aid.
We have entered a political wonderland, where the rules are whatever Democrats say they are. Mrs. Pelosi and the White House are resorting to these abuses because their bill is so unpopular that a majority even of their own party doesn’t want to vote for it. Fence-sitting Members are being threatened with primary challengers, a withdrawal of union support and of course ostracism. Michigan’s Bart Stupak is being pounded nightly by MSNBC for the high crime of refusing to vote for a bill that he believes will subsidize insurance for abortions.
Democrats are, literally, consuming their own majority for the sake of imposing new taxes, regulations and entitlements that the public has roundly rejected but that they believe will be the crowning achievement of the welfare state. They are also leaving behind a procedural bloody trail that will fuel public fury and make such a vast change of law seem illegitimate to millions of Americans.
The concoction has become so toxic that even Mrs. Pelosi isn’t bothering to defend the merits anymore, saying instead last week that “we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.” Or rather, “deeming” to have passed it.
With nonsense like this going on, it won’t be long before even liberals begin demanding the downsizing of government – that’s the only effective way to limit it’s intrusion into our lives.
Troopers raid popular bars for unlicensed beers | Philadelphia Daily News | 03/08/2010
IT WAS ELIOT NESS and the Untouchables, as played by the Keystone Kops.
The alleged offense: Although the bar owners had bought the beer legally from licensed Pennsylvania distributors and had paid all the necessary taxes, the police claimed that nobody had registered the precise names of the beers with the state Liquor Control Board – a process that requires the brewers or their importers to pay a $75 registration fee for each product they want to sell in Pennsylvania.
Based on a complaint from someone the State Police refuse to identify, three teams of officers converged last Thursday on the three bars, run by Leigh Maida and her husband, Brendan Hartranft. Checking their inventories against the state’s official list of more than 2,800 brands, the cops seized four kegs and 317 bottles, totaling 60.9 gallons of beer, according to police calculations.
In fact, according to Maida, more than half the beer removed by the State Police was properly registered – but the cops couldn’t find it on their lists because of "clerical errors" or "blatant ineptitude" between the police and the Liquor Control Board, with whom the officers were conferring by telephone.
She estimated the total value of the confiscated stock at $7,200, representing about 20 brands, some of which go by multiple names.
For instance, the cops grabbed Monk’s Cafe Sour Flemish Red Ale.
The beer has been sold throughout the state at dozens of restaurants and distributors for the last seven years. The brand appears on the state’s online list as "Monk’s Café Ale." It’s on tap seven days a week at the Center City bar after which it was named: Monk’s Cafe, at 16th and Spruce streets.
But that wasn’t enough to keep the State Police from confiscating 20 bottles and three kegs of the supposedly illegal ale at the three bars run by Maida and Hartranft – Resurrection Ale House, at 2425 Grays Ferry Ave.; Local 44, at 44th and Spruce streets, in West Philadelphia; and Memphis Taproom, 2331 E. Cumberland St., Port Richmond.
Maida said that the State Police also confiscated bottles of Duvel, a popular ale imported from Belgium that is widely advertised and available in at least 200 bars throughout the city and suburbs. The beer appears on the PLCB list as "Duvel Beer," while its label reads "Duvel Belgian Golden Ale."
…She added: "It’s McCarthy-like. They swarm in here and confiscate this product because they don’t know what the product is."
Industry sources complain that brand registration is typical of the onerous regulations that make selling beer in Pennsylvania difficult. For example, while it is the responsibility of the brewer or importer to submit the necessary paperwork and registration fee, it is the tavern or restaurant licensee who may be liable for selling unregistered brands, they said.
How many lessons here? Excessive regulation. Small businesses screwed once again. Government seizes private property due to the ineptitude of public servants who nevertheless demand that the rest of us pay their above market, exorbitant pensions for life. And so on…
President Obama spent last week gloating about a spending freeze that will (supposedly) generate $250 billion in savings over 10 years, but no more than 10 billion for the 2011 budget. Some think that he was sincere in that undertaking, yet given his announcement this week proposing a fiscal 2011 budget deficit of $1.3 trillion, it is very difficult to believe there is a shred of economic literacy within the Obama administration.
Take a look at this post from BusinessInsider.com:
Now, what do you think? Is Obama crazy? I doubt it. Does he have the foggiest clue about economics? Clearly not. How can the POTUS propose something so irresponsible? I suppose it could be because no one on Obama’s team has a clue about economics either, so we have the economically blind leading each other around inside the White House. See the chart below for details.
If it is not economic ignorance, what is it? The Cloward-Piven strategy? I don’t know, but if Obama continues to pursue such absurd economic policies, he will lead the US to economic ruin. Whether that is his intent or not will be for historians to figure out.
This chart illustrates the decline in personal responsibility for healthcare costs over the last 50 years. Now I have to find the best source for healthcare cost increases over the same time period, but I would guess the correlation between these two factors will be quite high. It’s what always happens when people can use “OPM” – other people’s money – to purchase anything for themselves. Note: This chart was created by Dan Mitchell, using data obtained from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ national health expenditures data website and originally posted at Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com.
Last week, President Obama quietly signed an executive order that makes Interpol, an international police force that functions as an agent of international tribunals and foreign courts, immune from the restraints of American law. It is outrageous to grant any foreign police force that operates without accountability to any US institution immune from the restraints of American law. It is even more outrageous to co-locate that agency within the offices of the US Department of Justice, which can use that agency to shield information, files, records and activities from the jurisdiction of US institutions. How can this action be even remotely squared with US interests? I would submit that it cannot, and is part and parcel of the anti-American agenda of America-hating Barack Hussein Obama. He wants the US to bow down to the International Criminal Court and other international organizations, all part of his radical agenda to “transform America”.
For more information, see these posts by Threatswatch, Andrew McCarthy, DBKP and Anchoress.
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