Wednesday Evening Linkaround

Raining ACORNs:
Atlas Shrugs: ACORN Throws Out Republican Voter Registrations
via Instapundit: LA Attorney General: Rathke Embezzled $5 Million From ACORN. Must be that hyperinflation we've been hearing about.
Washington Times: Firefighters lose large U.S. grant to ACORN. Does that mean we can throw them into the next fire? Really??? Hey - you ACORN guys, get in there and fight! FIGHT!!!
HotAir: Friendly Reminder from ACORN: You're Racists (via Doug Ross)
Moonbattery: NAACP Registers Inmates to Vote. It's not just ACORN.

Government Efficiency:
via Instapundit: IRS Didn’t Answer 22.4 Million Taxpayer Phone Calls. Glenn comments: "but don't worry, health care will be different." Indeed.
Legal Insurrection: IRS Mishandles Stimulus, Prepares for Health Care. Really, they promise it will be better!

Taxes:
Amanda Carpenter: A new mommy tax. A tax on tampons, breast pumps, etc. How about we start taxing dumb ideas on the Hill?
Wade's Conservative World: MI House raises taxes, holds back all GOP reforms. Fortunately, this is DOA in the MI Senate.

Opportunity:
American Power: Are You America's Next Great Pundit? Dancing with the pundits! Darn the stress fractures in my blogging feet!

Tech:
Good news: Big Japanese brands readying 3-D flat-screen TVs. Bad news: You'll puke your guts out watching them without special electronic glasses. Quote: "Without the glasses, images on the screens are blurry and a bit nauseating to watch." Yikes.

A tax on 95% of working Americans:
AP via drudge: Higher taxes in health care bill. I'm shocked. SHOCKED I say! The AP (!) reported it?

What the...?
Strange headline from the Detroit Free Press: Letterman threw spitballs from glasshouse. Uh - isn't it you don't throw rocks in such glass houses (one word?) because it can come crashing down? Are Letterman's spitballs coated with metallic depleted uranium or something?

Just for laughs:
Holytaco: 25 Hilarious Cakes. Not for the faint of heart, but good for a few laughs.
Blog of Hilarity: Fat guys need chicken to live. Warning: strong language. Quote: "What do you get when you mix a surly, hungry, morbidly obese man with the undoubtedly incompetent staff inhabiting a fast food place inside a department store? I’m not sure, but you don’t seem to get chicken with it."
Too much information, and I didn't want to know: Gallery of cross-dressing politicians (Daily Beast)
Izismile: Humor with dead flies! (15 pics)
Hailmaryjane: Wife prank call goes horribly wrong:

Nancy Pelosi confirms that Harry Reid has the cooties!

Just watch this video via Gateway Pundit:

Ewwwwww! Cooties! Very much related to the above is this from Gallup via memeorandum: Approval of U.S. Congress Falls to 21%, Driven by Democrats . As for the 21%, who ARE these people??? So not only can America not stand Reid or Pelosi, but apparently they can't even stand each other.

Government-Run Healthcare Is A Prescription For Death

These statistics don't lie. I have many times mentioned survival rates here in the U.S. versus government controlled healthcare systems in Canada, the U.K. and other parts of Europe, such as these:

Average cancer survival rate in U.S: 68%
Average cancer survival rate in Canada: 55%
Average cancer survival rate in Europe: 45%

Average prostate cancer survival rate in U.S: 81%
Average prostate cancer survival rate in Britain: 43%

Average breast cancer survival rate in U.S: 83.9%
Average breast cancer survival rate in Europe: 73.1%
Average breast cancer survival rate in the U.K: 69.7%

Far more statistics are shown by Deroy Murdock over at the NRO today: Government Medicine Kills.

As the Senate Finance Committee prepares to vote on its Obamacare bill, it would behoove senators to ask themselves why on earth America should move even one inch closer to the government-driven health-care model that plagues Canadians and Britons. Thankfully, the Finance Committee bill lacks the government option for health insurance that sends liberal salivary glands gushing. Still, the bill is awash in mandates, regulations, subsidies, taxes, and plenty of other potential distortions that help make single-payer medical systems deadly.

According to Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development data, there were 26.6 MRI machines in the U.S. per million people in 2004. In Canada, there were 4.9 such devices, while Britain enjoyed 5. For every 100,000 Americans, 2006 saw 436.8 receive angioplasties. Among Canadians, that figure was 135.9, while only 93.2 Britons per 100,000 got that cardiac procedure.

Here's the telling chart comparing our healthcare results with those of Canada and the U.K:Why would anyone want to change our more successful system to the less successful of Canada and especially the U.K? It's not about healthcare. Never was. It's about control. Always was. If increased competition is to be had, then Obama can make healthcare portable across state lines without spending one red cent:

For whom do you suppose those 47% who don’t pay income tax vote?

From taxprof via Instapundit: For whom do those 47% who don’t pay income tax vote? Picture. 1,000 words: (click for larger image)Taxprof comments: "Following up on last week's post, 47% Will Pay $0 Income Tax in 2009: this chart breaks down the 2008 presidential election by income."

Kind of what you would assume. Those that don't pay taxes tended to strongly vote for Obama. Thus begs the question: how much bigger would the disparity at the low-end have been had a real conservative run instead of a wishy-washy spineless RINO? This goes right along in consistency with a prior post of mine: 60 Minutes/Vanity Fair Poll: 50% of Americans that don't pay taxes thinks "rich" people ought to pay more, even though top 1% pay more than bottom 95%
Note that the bottom 50% pay almost no taxes, while the top 5% pay about 60% of the federal tax bill. I agree with one thing - this isn't fair. But I think the rich are already paying too much, only to be sneered at by those that pay nothing at all. Human nature dictates that the majority of people will always go for a free lunch. It's now gotten so bad, so unfair, that the top 1% pay more in federal taxes than the bottom 95%:

Video: Roman Polanski on "To Catch A Predator"

HT: The Other McCain

Previously:
Video: Jack Webb Schools Roman Polanski on Sex with Children
Hollywood comes out in support of child rapist who drugged, sodomized 13-year old girl. Whoopi Goldberg: "he didn't commit rape rape"

Obama's Book To Be Renamed "Dreams from My Unrepentent Terrorist Mentor Bill Ayers"

From Backyard Conservative via memeorandum: Bill Ayers No Dream.

There I was, sitting in Reagan National Monday morning, sipping a Starbucks by the United counter before going through security. I had a little time, so I was browsing through the news. Some military guys had borrowed a chair from my table. I looked up from time to time to enjoy the sun streaming through. That's when I saw Bill Ayers, an instant blight. Scruffy, thinning beard, dippy earring, and the wirerims, heading to order. I gathered my things, got my camera ready, and snapped a shot right when he got his coffee.

I asked--what are you doing in D.C. Mr. Ayers?

For a moment I thought he might be on my flight back to Chicago. Charming. Initially I guess he thought I was laying claim to his coffee or something. He gave me an uneasy cheesy smile when he realized I was taking his picture. I asked him if he was speaking at GW? (Only I said GFW, guess I had the VFW on my mind) He said oh you mean GW, he said no...was trying to decide if I was a fan, then said he was giving a lecture in Arlington to a Renaissance group on education--that's what I do, education--you shouldn't believe everything you hear about me, you know nothing about me. I said, I know plenty--I'm from Chicago, a conservative blogger, and I'll post this. (Oh, yeah, Bill Ayers, quite the Renaissance man, nail-bomber extraordinaire. Gee, I see another friend of Barack, U.S. Sec. of Education Arne Duncan was there too. "The conference theme is “A Time for Reflection, Celebration and Rebirth.” How touching. At best, useless, at worst, so wrong.)

Then, unprompted he said--I wrote Dreams From My Father. I said, oh, so you admit it. He said--Michelle asked me to. I looked at him. He seemed eager. He's about my height, short. He went on to say--and if you can prove it, we can split the royalties. So I said, stop pulling my leg. Horrible thought. But he came again--I really wrote it, the wording was similar. I said I believe you probably heavily edited it. He said--I wrote it. I said--why would I believe you, you're a liar.

He had no answer to that. Just looked at me. Then he turned and walked off, and said again his bit about my proving it and splitting the proceeds.

I don't know. Maybe he was pulling her leg and maybe he wasn't. What is far more compelling is the evidence in the writing itself that has been thoroughly covered by Jack Cashill over at American Thinker. I take Ayers words with a grain of salt. But it is apparent, by the evidence itself, that Ayers wrote Obama's book. More commentary from Pajamas Media, American Thinker, And So it Goes in Shreveport, Hot Air, Townhall.com, The TrogloPundit, American Thinker, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, powerline, The Corner at NRO, protein wisdom, Another Black Conservative, THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS and Pundit & Pundette

Video: Where the Subway "Hoochie Mama" Commercial Came From

A classic, at least the first time you saw it:

Don't quite know what it had to do with Subway sandwiches, except that it's likely the guy on the copier put on a few extra pounds via Subway's so-called "healthy" menu. But, like many myths, and commercials, there is truth:

And now you know why unemployment keeps ticking up... HT: hailmaryjane

A 5-second video illustrating what is about to happen to the commercial housing market

In a word: bad. From Riehl World View via Instapundit: Commercial Real Estate Crash Anticipated.

The commercial real estate market is in the tank and many banks are said to be unprepared for it. The numbers aren't good at all. The Fed and other experts are anticipating a crash that could be worse than anything we've seen in a long while in that area. And the broader implications for the economy are, obviously, not very good.

Some excerpts below, more here. And you thought it couldn't get much worse? I smell a bail-out in the making, already. And don't forget, a lot of Obama insiders are heavy into commercial real estate in Chicago. We can't expect them to take a loss, now can we?

Many investors are sitting around waiting for the big commercial real estate crash, and they won’t be disappointed. As any property owner will tell you now, it’s a scramble to keep and find tenants. Rents are declining, buildings are starting to empty, and there is very little financing available. Everyone knows the debt refi burden that won’t peak until 2013.

Commercial real-estate loans are the second-largest loan type after home mortgages. More than half of the $3.4 trillion in outstanding commercial real-estate debt is held by banks.

Matthew Anderson, a partner at research firm Foresight Analytics, adds: “It’s like taping paper over a hole in the wall.”

Please - no more bailouts! They didn't work for GM - went bankrupt anyway. Didn't work for Chrysler - went bankrupt anyway.Didn't work for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac - went bankrupt anyway. Nor for the Post Office. Nor Amtrak. In fact - have bailouts ever worked? And the money will come from...? Just keep this in mind:Spending money our children haven't even had a chance to earn yet doesn't seem like the best game plan here, chief.

No Surprise: WaPo Got Played By Bogus Granholm Jobs Number: Claimed 163,300 Jobs Created. Real Number: 7,755

The state-run Obama Washington Post checks, double checks and then checks again - if a Republican is involved. Democrats, however, don't get checked. Not even once. Not even for a number that looks good even though the Granholm administration is set to lose 1,000,000 jobs in her 2 terms. 1 million jobs lost in a state with a total population of 10 million. That's going to leave a mark. In any case, I pointed out Granholm's claim yesterday in the WaPo that was at best fraudulent (Granholm On Pace To Lose 1,000,000 Jobs By The Time Her 2 Terms End. Green Jobs, Picking Winners And Losers, A Dismal Failure):

Since taking office in 2003, Granholm has created 163,300 positions, her office says. She expects that a recent infusion of more than $1 billion from the Obama administration aimed at nurturing car battery and electric-vehicle projects will generate 40,000 more positions by 2020.

40,000 positions by 2020. 11 years away. That's roughly 3,600 jobs per year. Excuse me, but we are losing far more than that per month! Note that the WaPo relies on Granholm's office for the "created" positions. No doubt this is just as nebulous as Obama's "saved" jobs number.

Now comes confirmation of what I and likely a ton of other people already knew. From James Hohman over at the Mackinac Center: Gov. Granholm Takes Washington Post for Ride on “Jobs” Numbers.

In a profile that appeared in today's Washington Post, Gov. Jennifer Granholm misused data on her targeted business tax break and subsidy programs, the administration's primary response to a Michigan economy that has lost 632,600 payroll jobs since her inauguration back in 2003.

The Post writes, "Since taking office in 2003, Granholm has created 163,300 positions, her office says," a reference to jobs directly attributable to business "incentive" programs. In fact, for the Michigan Economic Growth Authority, the state's flagship corporate welfare program, the real number is more like 7,755 since this governor took office.

It's not made clear how Gov. Granholm came up with the larger figure, but most likely it refers to MEGA's "direct jobs" estimates. However, those figures are problematic for a number of reasons.

First, they include job "retention" projects that grant firms discriminatory tax preferences just for not eliminating jobs.

Second, these figures double-count many jobs. For instance, a company called Plastech received MEGA tax credit deals for promising to create jobs, but then filed for bankruptcy, during which a number of its plants were purchased by other firms. These firms also applied for MEGA credit deals and received them - for the same job promises! MEGA includes both sets job promises in its tallies.

The most significant example of such double counting is General Motors - by far the largest MEGA beneficiary - which this year consolidated all its existing job creation or retention deals under new tax break agreements. The original and the "consolidated" credits are for the same job promises, but they all go down twice in MEGA's accounting.

However, by far the largest source of puffing in these figures is that they only count jobs promised by corporations in return for special tax breaks and other benefits offered by the state - and most of those promised jobs are never created. These factors explain why the most recent data received by the Mackinac Center indicate that only 7,755 new jobs have actually been created out of all the MEGA credits offered during Gov. Granholm's six year, nine month tenure in office.

A review and commentary of the state's economic development programs that includes a deeper look at the state's actual results can be found here.

What Michigan needs is real reform, not gimmicky programs that produce press releases rather than real economic growth and rising incomes.

Indeed. But that won't happen until 2011, after the next gubernatorial inauguration. Everybody on both sides knows it. She has been an unmitigated disaster in Michigan. Worse yet, just as Obama has brought Chicago politics to the White House, Granholm has brought Wayne County politics to Lansing (read: Detroit). That will last long after she leaves to go ruin something else. As for WaPo, there is no way a Republican would ever get away with giving such a bogus number and have that publication eat it up. No way.

Video: light bulb vs. Nanny State

HT: Detroit News, Adrienne's Catholic Corner

THOUSANDS In Detroit Line Up For "Free" Stimuls Money. Line Extends For Blocks.

Gee - why would anyone stand in that long of a line for free money? Click on the pic below for the video report. Just keep this in mind when watching the video: Detroit was the center of the industrial PLANET EARTH in 1950. That's within the lifetime of most. THIS is what liberal hegemonic domination has wrought:The requirement is hilarious. You must be a resident of Detroit and homeless (or about to be). Now if you're homeless, how do you also prove you are a resident? Can't anyone come in from anywhere in tatters and claim to simply be homeless? From Click On Detroit via drudge: Thousands Line Up For Stimulus Money.

Thousands of people have lined up Tuesday for a chance at millions of stimulus dollars set aside to help Detroit's homeless and low-income residents.

The money is available to help low-income residents from becoming homeless and homeless residents to find housing. Some people in line falsely believed they were registering for $3,000 stimulus checks from the Obama Administration.

City officials told Local 4 that Detroit was granted $15 million to help residents pay bills and their rent or find temporary housing for the homeless.

To qualify, a person must have been a resident of Detroit for more than six months, must be homeless or facing eviction and must be able to maintain housing after receiving assistance.

Free money. Thousands line up. Better than playing the lottery around here. I wonder how many of these people think Obama is coming through in his promise to pay their gas and mortgage?

HT: drudge

UPDATE: More from The Detroit News: Thousands seek lifeline for rent, utilities. Can't paint it a whole lot better than our Detroit MSM!

Tuesday Night Linkaround

Since there are always stories that are good but I never have enough time to post on, I thought I'd try out some aggregate linking on some days. This is my first shot at doing something like this.

Michigan MSM:
Detroit News: Editorial: What is Gov. Granholm's budget plan? There is no plan - that is the plan!
Detroit News: What's it gonna take for Michigan to change? The coming of November 2011 me thinks.

Auto Industry:
Doug Ross via ACC: "Chrysler is going out of business. The company just hasn’t made it official." Yikes. How's that government takeover working out for y'all?
via Instapundit: Cash For Clunkers Hurts Poor, Fails to Help Automakers. From the annals of the Law of Unintended Consequences.
Adrienne's Catholic Corner: The Real Cost of Cash for Clunkers. Not pretty.

MSM:
Via Instapundit: More Demo Viewers Watch Fox At 3am Than CNN at 8pm. State run media FAIL! My guess: fact-checking Saturday Night Live skits won't help much here...
Sundries Shack: And Now, Some CNN-Approved Jokes About Barack Obama. It's doing wonders for CNN's ratings.

Elections:
moonbattery: Democrats Disenfranchising Soldiers... Again. What's old is new again.
Riehl World View: Obama Halts Local Illegal Immigration Enforcement. Since the apparent demise of ACORN, what did you all think was going to happen? Need. More. Votes.

The Global Warming Swindle:
Climate Depot: Inconvenient Censorship: Stanford U. Bans Skeptical Climate Film from Airing Interview with Global Warming Prof. Stephen Schneider -- 'You are prohibited!'. Was for global cooling before he was against it. Now for global warming after he was against it. Just for kicks, here's some of that banned video:

Heh.

Life Issues:
Pundit & Pundette: 'Lethal medicine': Bioethicists advocate killing for organs. If they expand the definition of 'brain dead' to inlcude liberals, then we can solve a whole bunch of problems in one fell swoop!

Nutrition:
Riehl World View: Study: NYC Calorie Law Changed Nothing, Raised Costs. Is anyone surprised by this?

Sports:
Troglopundit: [this headline deleted in case the TrogloGrandma is reading] Brett Favre is awesomeness!
Unreality: The Best Football Fan Of the Weekend. Now that is cool!

Lastly, Happy 50th birthday to Stacy McCain - The Other McCain! 50 is the new 40 you know!

Jocelyn Benson (D-ACORN, SEIU) announces run for MI Secretary of State

Just what we need. Mike Cox, our current attorney general, has made sure that voter ID laws are respected in Michigan, handing down an opinion last year that photo ID requirement is lawful in Michigan. This flew over like a turd in the banquet punch bowl with ACORN, the SEIU, and a whole host of other 'social justice' thugs. What to do? Get one of their own in as attorney general to dismantle every sensible law so that elections can be stolen. Simple as that. Enter Jocelyn Benson, who's storied history against any voter ID requirement is legendary. ACORN and the SEIU sing folk songs about her efforts in making voter fraud as widespread as possible. From The Detroit News,which of course only lays out part of the story: WSU professor to run for Secretary of State.

Wayne State professor Jocelyn Benson is expected to announce Tuesday her run for Secretary of State.

She'll make her announcement 10 a.m. at the American Federation of Teachers Headquarters on Jefferson. Afterward, she'll make a similar announcement 1 p.m. in Lansing on the Capitol Mall, as well as Thursday in Flint at the Greater Flint YMCA at 9 a.m. and Grand Rapids at 2 p.m. at Alexander Elementary School.

Benson, a nationally recognized law expert and attorney, has degrees from Harvard and Oxford universities. She helped develop the first nationwide election protection for the Democratic National Committee in 2004.

Republicans running for the seat are Calhoun County Clerk Anne Norlander, State Sens. Michelle McManus and Cameron Brown and State Rep. Paul Scott.

Of course, being the Detroit News, this is only the tip of the iceberg. The good tip. Most lies below the surface, and it isn't quite as shiny. You see, Benson is being launched by ACORN and the SEIU. I had to dig through Google for a bit, but information is there. A little bit here, a little bit there. First, from American Courthouse: Keeping An Eye On The Secretary Of State Project.

The Secretary of State Project is rattling the tin cup for Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie and SOS challengers Debra Bowen in California and Jocelyn Benson in Michigan. The hope is that Bowen and Benson can do what Ritchie did in Minnesota: tip close elections, such as the Franken-Coleman race, in favor of their preferred candidate.

Ritchie, of course, was elected with SOS Project funding and quickly abandoned any pretense of running fair elections. According to Jeff Davis, president of the legislative watchdog group Minnesota Majority, Ritchie blocked an investigation of ACORN, which had endorsed him, despite evidence of “a number of irregularities” in Minnesota voter records - little things like dead people and convicted felons registering from prison. I guess the 2008 election was a two-fer for Ritchie as far as the SOS Project was concerned: He kept ACORN in the game and played a major role in tilting the election to Al Franken.

Like other groups funded by hedge fund billionaire George Soros - such as Justice at Stake - the SOS Project poses as a non-partisan, good government organization whose only ambition is to ensure clean elections. And, as with other Soros-bankrolled groups, this pose is used to shield the deeply partisan nature of the organization. I wonder if Bowen and Benson know that sweeping ACORN’s fraudulent activities under the rug is part of the job description for candidates taking $$ from the SOS Project.

Why yes; yes they do! More snippets from the actual SOS website:

Election law scholar and community organizer Jocelyn Benson is running for an open seat to replace republican Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land who is term-limited out of office. In 2004, she ran a voter protection campaign in 21 states, deploying 17,000 trained election law lawyers.

A community organizer! And general of voter fraud... err, social justice efforts in 21 states. SOS also endorses Ritchie on the same page, who stole the election for the clown from Minnesota Al Franken. SOS also list what they stand for, in liberalspeak. It's OK, I'll translate. Here are just a couple:

• No election official should play a partisan role in an election he or she will play a role in administering. All election officials must conduct their responsibilities openly and objectively to restore public confidence.

Translation: If they are far-left kook liberal and believe that Democrats ought to vote early and often, they're for us. By objectively, we mean the dead, pets, and illegal aliens shouldn't be disenfranchised. Because that's un-American or something.

• Our elections must be verifiable and secure. Every vote cast must be counted by a system that is auditable with a verifiable paper trail and all voting materials, including ballots and voting machines must be secured at all times.

Translation: By secure,we mean open boxes in car trunks, ready to be rolled out in the case of a close election. By every vote, we do mean every vote, even by illegals, felons, dead people, duplicate votes and such.

• Voter suppression and election fraud defined as the intent to cast a ballot illegally will not be tolerated. Efforts to suppress the vote through onerous requirements, such as unconstitutional photo ID laws, must be opposed.

Translation: we want ballots without verification of who you are or if you're voting more than once. Photo ID is unconstitutional even though you can't buy booze or cigs without it, take out money from a bank, get a job, drive a car, leave the country, or any other basic function of society. Because that's fair.

There are others but it's like shooting fish in a barrel around here. You can bet dollars to doughnuts that Benson's first act in office will be to dismantle any voting requirement whatsoever. And in a close election, she will make sure that an Al Franken gets elected here in Michigan. Partisan politics at its best. A word for any of the Republican candidates that may face her in the general after the primaries: hang ACORN around her neck. Make her wear it. After all, she deserves it.

Video: BET founder Sheila Johnson shamefully mimics, mocks Va. gov candidate's stutter

If this were a Republican, rather than the founder of Black Entertainment Television, tar and feathers would be on tap:

From MyFox DC via drudge: BET Founder Mocks Deeds' Stuttering.

The billionaire co-founder of Black Entertainment Television apologized Monday for pretending to stutter at a campaign event as she mimicked the Democratic candidate for governor.

BET co-founder Sheila Johnson, for years a major donor to President Barack Obama, Gov. Timothy M. Kaine and other Democrats, stunned Virginia political observers in July by endorsing Republican Bob McDonnell in the governor's race.

He is running against Democrat Creigh Deeds to replace Kaine, who is barred by state law from running for a second straight term.

In a YouTube video posted by Democratic blogger Ben Tribbett from a Sept. 25 McDonnell reception, Johnson tells a small crowd that Virginia needs a governor "who can really communicate, and Bob McDonnell can communicate."

"The other people I talk to, especially his op-op-op-o-opponent, di-di-did this all through my interview with him," she said to muted laughter. Then she added, "He could not articulate what needed to be done."

In a statement e-mailed to The Associated Press, Johnson said she sought to highlight Creigh Deeds' inability to "clearly communicate effective solutions" on important issues.

"I shouldn't have done it in the manner in which I did and for that I apologize for any offense he, or others, may have taken," Johnson said.

Shouldn't have done it in the manner that she did? That's teh best she could come up with? Why can't these people just say "I was wrong. I'm sorry?" When did the s-word leave the mainstream anyway? She should add that she is without excuse for doing such a stupid thing. Or, she should take a page from Obama's off-teleprompter gaffes and say that she "acted stupidly." The National Stuttering Organization was none too happy with the developments:

The National Stuttering Association has a question for Sheila Johnson, who ridiculed Virginia gubernatorial candidate Creigh Deeds stuttering:

Do you also make fun of people in wheelchairs, or do you believe that stuttering is the only disability its okay to ridicule?

And here I thought Democrats were for the downtrodden. The least in our society. Ecept the unborn. And, apparently, those that stutter and can't articulate well enough. Speaking of:

Granholm On Pace To Lose 1,000,000 Jobs By The Time Her 2 Terms End. Green Jobs, Picking Winners And Losers, A Dismal Failure

The state-run Obama Washington Post had a few eye-opening snippets in a piece dedicated to Michigan in general, and Granholm in particular, with a sprinkling throughout on "green jobs." I have been very critical of the governor in this blog for her job performance, or lack thereof, an utter failure to lead, capped off recently by yet another partial state shutdown as she was AWOL on the budget mess, her propensity to pick winners and losers, giving breaks to alternative energy companies while punishing other businesses throughout the state with a hideous 22% surcharge on top of an onerous business tax, and the list goes on and on. Here are just a couple of examples of my criticism of Granholm on her "green jobs" push that has resulted in net jobs lost:

• Granholm throws away job potential into the wind
• With Michigan In Perpetual Deficit, Granholm Throws Money Into The Wind

The Washington Post is coming around to seeing the truth in the green jobs myth. Oh green jobs will be waround to be sure. But to push the technology onto the market too early is a recipe for disaster. It's a recipe that Granholm has been making green cookies with. As they say, that's the way the cookie crumbles:

From WaPo: In Michigan, A Yellow Light For Green Jobs. The bias in the article is extreme, but the reality is in fact in there. You just have to read between the liberal lines.

If the future of American manufacturing lies in green industries, the Michigan governor's pursuit of jobs offers a cautionary tale.

This Story

Four years ago, Jennifer M. Granholm set out to remake her state, which took an exceptional walloping with the decline of the auto industry, as a pioneer in creating environmentally friendly jobs. Today, however, jobs are still disappearing much faster than she can create them, raising questions about how long it will take Michigan and other hard-hit states to find new industries to employ their workers.

Than she can create them? Has the governor created any private jobs? Fact is, any company relocating to Michigan is only doing so because of huge tax incentives. That's the untold story here. She is throwing taxpayer money at companies to come here at the expense of the taxpayer and other Michigan businesses that are themselves going out of business! Michigan has one of the most business unfriendly environments in the nation.

Since taking office in 2003, Granholm has created 163,300 positions, her office says. She expects that a recent infusion of more than $1 billion from the Obama administration aimed at nurturing car battery and electric-vehicle projects will generate 40,000 more positions by 2020.

40,000 positions by 2020. 11 years away. That's roughly 3,600 jobs per year. Excuse me, but we are losing far more than that per month! Note that the WaPo relies on Granholm's office for the "created" positions. No doubt this is just as nebulous as Obama's "saved" jobs number.

In the past decade, however, as the auto industry has grown smaller, Michigan has lost 870,000 jobs -- about 632,000 of them during Granholm's tenure. The number is expected to reach 1 million by late next year, the end of her term.

1 million jobs. 1 MILLION JOBS!!! Is the 40,000 new jobs over the next 11 years supposed to be a good thing compared the the 1 MILLION JOBS LOST??? Note also that the jobs created was credited to Granholm, while the jobs lost was credited to Michigan. As if the state made the decision that led to the job losses. Nice.

In her effort to attract employers, the governor has taken up the latest arms in the economic arsenal -- tax credits, loans, Super Bowl tickets and a willingness to travel as far as Japan for a weekend to try to persuade an auto parts company to bring more jobs to Michigan. She has won solar and wind energy, electric car batteries, and movie production jobs. About 10,800 of the new positions came from overseas companies, according to her office, the fruits of visits to seven countries.

Not mentioned is the huge sum of our taxpayer dollar used to buy these companies to come here, or what will happen once the tax incentives dry up in the next decade. And 10,800, at the same time as a MILLION JOBS have been lost? Is that a good thing? Is each green job worth 100 conventional jobs? Because when you read such tripe, that's what surfaces in this piece. By the way, while I'm at it, if tax abatements are so successful in attracting jobs, imagine if the state government were to give such a tax break to everybody rather than picking winners and losers. There are times when government needs to be gone after with a scalpel. This, dear readers, is not one of those times. A chainsaw is in order here. One last snippet:

In a state hit so hard by the recession, though, securing every new job has required enormous effort: mobilizing the state bureaucracy, negotiating tax deals with a politically divided legislature, dispelling impressions that Michigan is a pro-union state and inhospitable to business.

Uh - Michigan is a pro-union state. In fact, it's a forced-unionization state. A few years ago, Toyota (maybe it was Honda?) was going to manufacture cars in Flint, which had been decimated after GM pulled out. But the unions got involved and wouldn't let Toyota in without unionization. Toyota went elsewhere. And Flint sucks to this day in terms of job potential. Chickens. Home. Roost. That old chestnut.

And Michigan is inhospitable to business. Onerous business taxes including a surcharge that can only be labeled as stupid. Regulatory red-tape up the wazoo. It is a state government gone awry. And we are reaping what was sown by liberal policies. We really need a change in 2010.

The rest of the WaPo piece you can read at your leisure, but it's not very informative. The above snippets suffice in painting the right picture. And that's the way the cookie crumbles...

Previously:
Detroit Free Press: Gov. Granholm is brave because she has no vision for the future or something
MI 3 days from govt shutdown. GOP had budget ready in July. Dems *still* don't have one!
The Coming Reset In State Government. Michigan's Government Not listening.
Detroit Free Press On Granhom's $1.1 Billion Tax Hike Proposal: 2 THUMBS UP! Oakland Press: ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?
With only 3 weeks to go, Granholm finally reveals her plan: MORE TAXES! Meanwhile, MI AG Mike Cox makes good proposals. Can we swap our last two AGs?
MI GOP Proposing Budget Solutions, MI Dems Want To Kick The Can Down The Road...
MI Dem Solutions To 15+% Unemployment: Hike Min Wage, Hike Unemployment Benefits, Stop Home Foreclosures, Require All Employers To Provide Health Ins.
Granholm, Dems going after personal and homestead exemptions, food and prescription sales tax to "fix" budget deficit! Won't call these tax increases!
Michigan unemployment hits 15.2%!!! Number of unemployed highest since 1976! Obama says jobs NOT COMING BACK!
Tim Skubick Again Repeats The Lie That Granholm Cut Spending! Admits Granholm Can't Control Economy (That's Not What SHE Says!)
MI Democrat Party Chair Mark Brewer: Engler's Economic Growth NO! Granholm's Economic Recession YES!
$300 Million MI Budget Cut Deal Struck - Granholm Rolls Out Human Shields - Again...
Breaking: Michigan Budget Deficit Jumps 50%, Now At $1.2 Billion!
HUH? MI $800M in the Hole - Granholm Offers Less Than $100M Cut
MI staring at nearly a $3 Billion budget hole next year
Michigan's Budget Hole Getting Deeper By The Day
Granholm: Beam Me Up Scotty! My Budget Sucks!
Bad News: Granholm Going After MI Tax Structure
Has the MI Govt Ever Passed a *Real* Cut?
Is there *ANY* tax our Governor doesn't like?
Michigan: Taxes Good, Savings Bad! Huh?
Mortgaging Michigan's Future
Michigan in Deep Water
More tax increases on the way in Michigan? But... the Governor promised!
Duh! - States' budget woes will outlast the recession
Building common ground between cats and dogs
Granholm, 'no-brainers' and leadership
How do you cut spending AND expand government?
State Government Reform - Smoke and Mirrors

Astroturf FAIL! Obama minions hand out lab coats to liberal doctors for photo op

That speech Obama made yesterday to doctors from every state that support Obamacare? Astroturf. By definition. The doctors were part of "Doctors For America" which used to be called "Doctors for Obama." It was by invitation only. The kicker was that White House staffers handed out photo-op-ready lab coats:From the NY post via memeorandum: White House's botched 'op'.

A sea of 150 white-coated doctors, all enthusiastically supportive of the president and representing all 50 states, looked as if they were at a costume party as they posed in the Rose Garden before hearing Obama's pitch for the Democratic overhaul bills moving through Congress.

The physicians, all invited guests, were told to bring their white lab coats to make sure that TV cameras captured the image.

But some docs apparently forgot, failing to meet the White House dress code by showing up in business suits or dresses.

So the White House rustled up white coats for them and handed them to the suited physicians who had taken seats in the sun-splashed lawn area.

All this to provide a visual counter to complaints from other doctors that pending legislation is bad news for the medical profession.

But wait - there's more. Not mentioned in the NY Post article is who the doctors were. FoxNews has that report via Gateway Pundit:

The doctor made a White House call Monday -- 150 of them, in fact, all costumed in white hospital coats -- to try to help President Obama administer a booster shot to his ailing health care reform drive.

White House spokesman Reid Cherlin described the assembled physicians, from all 50 states, as the best voices for reform because they witness the current health care system on a day-to-day basis.

"These folks know better than anybody about what works and what doesn't," Cherlin told FOXNews.com, adding that the physicians come from "a variety of groups that we work with."

But the doctors in the Rose Garden were all supporters of health care reform -- and the invitation-only guest list drew heavily from Doctors for America, a grassroots organization that backs a government-run insurance option.

Roughly 98 percent of the group's 15,000 members support a public insurance option, Doctors for America spokeswoman Megan Smith told FOXNews.com. She said roughly 40 of the 150 doctors who attended the meeting were from the organization.

Cherlin insisted that the doctors "were not invited based on their support for a public option."

Yeah - right. As if the White House has any credibility left whatsoever. As a matter of fact, as Pundette astutely points out, an IBD poll revealed that 45% of physicians would consider giving up the practice of medicine should the democrats' reforms go through. More commentary from Michelle Malkin, Hot Air, NewsBusters.org, Wake up America, Another Black Conservative, The Strata-Sphere, Townhall.com, Althouse, Riehl World View, Scared Monkeys, JammieWearingFool and Moe Lane

UPDATE: Here's a vid of some of Obama's comments:

UPDATE #2:From Legal Insurrection: Can You Imagine If Republicans Handed Out White Coats. Indeed and heh.

Democratic Party’s first black federal judge in south Alabama charged with sexually abusing male inmates

And no, you won't find this in the New Yor Times. Or The Washington Post. Or The LA Times. Or a whole host of other state-run Obama media. You have to cross the pond to get this from the U.K. Mail Online via drudge: Ex-judge accused of spanking U.S. male inmates in his office and awarding them reduced jail time in return for sex.

A former judge is facing life in prison after being charged with sexually abusing male inmates in exchange for leniency.

Respected circuit judge Herman Thomas, who was once the Democratic Party’s choice to be the first black federal judge in south Alabama, is accused of bringing inmates to his office and spanking them with a paddle.

His trial for charges of sodomy, kidnapping, sex abuse, extortion, assault and ethics violations is set to begin today.

The 48-year-old insists he is innocent and claims he was trying to mentor the inmates.

The NAACP, of course, has come out in defense of the judge, claiming that the charges are racist in nature. Where was such zeal during the Clarence Thomas hearings back in the 80's? Oh yeah - the NAACP attacked Thomas back then. What could the difference be between judge Clarence Thomas back then, and judge Henry Thomas now? Hmmm. It couldn't possibly be ideology, could it? Nah. The NAACP really is for the advancement of all colored people, not just liberal blacks, right? Right???? Oh never mind...

Video: Only existing film images of Anne Frank

From Pam Geller over at Atlas Shrugs:

July 22 1941. The girl next door is getting married. Anne Frank is leaning out of the window of her house in Amsterdam to get a good look at the bride and groom. It is the only time Anne Frank has ever been captured on film. At the time of her wedding, the bride lived on the second floor at Merwedeplein 39. The Frank family lived at number 37, also on the second floor. The Anne Frank House can offer you this film footage thanks to the cooperation of the couple.

More from the U.K. Guardian:

The scene was filmed on 22 July 1941, just under a year before the Frank family went into hiding above the family business. The family were discovered in August 1944 and Anne died in a Nazi concentration camp in March 1945.

Here's the video:

And here's a vid of Otto Frank, Anne's father, talking about her diary via the NYT:

GOOD GRIEF! CNN fact-checks Saturday Night Live Obama Skit!

Could CNN show their true colors any more clear than this? The same network that besmirched and caricatured Sarah Palin and labeled tea party protesters with the crude homosexual slang term "teabaggers" is falling all over itself defending Obama from ... Saturday Night Live? What the? Isn't this blue on blue infighting? What a bunch of sycophant suck-ups over at CNN! And, of course, they had to get their Sarah Palin shot in as well. Just for good measure or something. Here's the video of CNN actually seriously fact-checking the SNL skit on Obama:

Good grief already! Allahpundit comments:

Via Greg Hengler. Heaven forbid that the average half-drunk late-night Saturday TV viewer be “misinformed” about our savior by a comedy show reminding them that health care’s “not done” (which it isn’t) and that Afghanistan’s gotten worse this year (which it has). Even if you want to clap Obama on the back for keeping his promise to send more troops, might it not perhaps be worth mentioning that he’s currently rethinking the entire “war of necessity” mindset on which he campaigned?

As a matter of fact, Afghanistan is worse, with 8 soldiers being ambushed and killed just a few days ago - the worst loss of life there on our side in more than a year.

UPDATE: More from No Sheeples Here! including this video:

Video: SNL goofs on Obama for accomplishing nothing

Things must be getting bad in Obamaland for SNL to goof on Obama like they did on Palin:

HT: HotAir

The Good, the Bad, And The Ugly: Detroit Free Press Editorial On How To Fix Michigan Budget

The Detroit Free Press is a pusher of liberal ideology and has been for all my memory since becoming politically aware. There simply isn't a tax they don't like over at perhaps the most liberal print paper in the state. So it comes as no surprise that the majority of their proposals to fix Michigan reside on the tax side. For those with short memories, Granholm pushed through a $2 billion tax hike exactly 2 years ago to permanently fix the perpetual budget hole, only to stare at a bigger $2.8 billion deficit now. What to do? More! These days, however, largely due to the internet, the freep is careful to throw in some token conservative proposals to make them look balanced. In fact, they tend to put the token proposals up front to show their fairness, even though the majority of proposals are steeped in liberal ideology. From the freep: 10 steps toward long-term balance. First, the good albeit token proposals:

• Pool public employees' health insurance benefits. ($900 million -- House Speaker Andy Dillon)
• Adjust state worker pay to the U.S. public sector average or the Michigan private sector ($287 million to $1.3 billion), and/or raise employee health-care premium contributions to the national public sector average ($74 million). (Business Leaders for Michigan)
• Put new teachers into a defined-contribution retirement system, rather than defined-benefit plans. New state employees already follow this system.

What do you think the chances are of any of the above passing? The unions are against all 3. Vehemently. To boot, they have the Democrats in their pocket like so many grains of sand. Thus, token proposals that conservatives have been getting at for some time, especially the latter 2. And that's about the only good in their 10-step program, which means the other 8 are either bad or ugly, or both. So the least ugly of the ugly will be the bad. And yes, they're all new taxes:

• Put a graduated income tax on the ballot and campaign for voter approval. ($600 million -- League of Human Services)
• Begin taxing some services, with trade-offs that exempt or limit taxes for some hard goods.
• Reinstate the estate tax. ($250 million, if the exemption level is $675,000 per person -- League of Human Services)
• Examine every tax exemption with a goal toward eliminating as many as possible. Examples (League of Human Services):
  

  • Prepared food in vending machines. ($25 million)

  • International and certain interstate telecommunications. ($15 million-$60 million)

  • Rented or leased water softeners and water coolers. ($0.5 million)

  • Driver's education vehicles. ($0.6 million)

  • Senior citizens in some categories, such as dividends. ($200 million)

How are any of these going to help the Michigan economy with the most unfriendly business environment in the Midwest? The estate tax will further hinder small businesses. Eliminating tax exemptions is a tax increase. The graduated tax is an overall tax increase veiled in class warfare and class envy. And then there's the ugly:

• Bring sentencing and incarceration and parole policies in line with neighboring states. ($400 million -- several groups)

That's right - let criminals loose based on what other states do. Nowhere in the above list is welfare reform mentioned. That by itself could almost fill the entire budget hole. Or the privatizing of services. Or the privatizing of prisons. Or the privatizing of schools which even DPS is now doing because the system is so inept. How about getting teacher union benefits in line with the national average. As of right now, they are 41% higher than the national average and cost Michigan taxpayers $2.6 billion annually, amounting to $1,600 per student. Nolan Finley had this over at The Detroit News just the other day: Teacher perks bleed budget dry. Make sure to click over and read the whole thing.