Video: "The Socialist." Or what's at stake in this November election

An excellent video put together by Ben Howe:

Via Powerline:

The video provides a graphic counterpart to Stanley Kurtz's political biography of Obama to be published on October 19. Kurtz's new book is Radical-in-Chief: Barack Obama and the Untold Story of American Socialism. Kurtz announced the impending publication of the book here.

It's been twenty months already since Obama took the US economy that he said was a car in a ditch, and then proceeded to blow that car up in the hope of taking it out of said ditch piece by piece. Should have just put it in reverse. HT: Instapundit

Typical: Congress passed bank bailout bill without voting on it, Obama to issue pocket veto after getting caught

They thought this bill would just get signed and nobody would know about it. The bill is HR 3808: Interstate Recognition of Notarizations Act of 2009, which would have the effect of bailing out banks from following due process in foreclosing one's home. But here's the most infuriating thing: Congress never voted on it. From Gov Track, check out this bit of unconstitutional chicanery:

What the heck? Is it not a constitutional requirement that a roll call be kept for passing legislation? Especially major legislation like this one? The light was shown on this today, and the cockroaches scattered.  Once this was made public, it was leaked that Obama would issue a pocket veto out of fear that news of another bank bailout would lead to more losses for Democrats next month. From Zero Hedge: Obama To Veto H.R. 3808

As we expected, and suggested last night, Obama would not enact H.R. 3808 for fear of the populist fallout that would follow. Indeed, Dow Jones has just confirmed that Obama will "Pocket Veto" the notarization bill, eliminating the last possible roadblock for a tsunami of legal action against mortgage servicers.
From Dow Jones:

President Barack Obama won't sign into law an overlooked piece of legislation that critics say would make it easier for banks and others to process foreclosure proceedings without human signatures, a person familiar with the matter said.

Obama hasn't yet issued a veto during his presidency. In this instance, he will send the bill back to Congress using a process known as a "pocket veto."

Michelle Malkin has the scoop on how the bill was passed: What the hell: How stealth banking bailout reached Obama’s desk

Both the left and right sides of the blogosphere are buzzing about a bipartisan TARP-style banking bailout bill that somehow reached President Obama’s desk in the legislative rush before Congress adjourned for the midterm election break.

The sordid episode underscores everything I’ve spotlighted about the culture of corruption over the last two years — sabotage of the deliberative process, circumventing of rules, backroom deals, and contempt for the will of the people.

Yes, the Vampire Congress strikes again.

The bill is HR3808, the “Interstate Recognition of Notarizations Act of 2010,” which requires courts to accept as valid notarized letters made out of state, making it harder to challenge the authenticity of foreclosure and other legal documents. Here’s the legislative history of the bill.
Reuters lays out the basic story:

A bill that homeowners advocates warn will make it more difficult to challenge improper foreclosure attempts by big mortgage processors is awaiting President Barack Obama’s signature after it quietly zoomed through the Senate last week.
The bill, passed without public debate in a way that even surprised its main sponsor, Republican Representative Robert Aderholt, requires courts to accept as valid document notarizations made out of state, making it harder to challenge the authenticity of foreclosure and other legal documents.

The timing raised eyebrows, coming during a rising furor over improper affidavits and other filings in foreclosure actions by large mortgage processors such as GMAC, JPMorgan and Bank of America…The legislation could protect bank and mortgage processors from liability for false or improperly prepared documents.

And now, the dirty details of the legislative legerdemain that paved the bill’s path to Obama’s desk:

After languishing for months in the Senate Judiciary Committee, the bill passed the Senate with lightning speed and with hardly any public awareness of the bill’s existence on September 27, the day before the Senate recessed for midterm election campaign.

The bill’s approval involved invocation of a special procedure. Democratic Senator Robert Casey, shepherding last-minute legislation on behalf of the Senate leadership, had the bill taken away from the Senate Judiciary committee, which hadn’t acted on it.

The full Senate then immediately passed the bill without debate, by unanimous consent.

No debates.

No amendments.

No roll call votes.

It's the Chicago way...

Video: Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX) Debunks White House Stimulus Report

Pretty much all the things I have laid out with regard to the failed stimulus boondoggle:

He mentions what I have coined* as the "jobs deficit" - the different between what Obama promised and what we have. That number is around 7 million right now since 1) Obama promised that the stimulus would created 3.5 million NEW jobs, and 2) 3.5 million jobs have been lost instead. So it pretty much follows his handling of the budget. For all the regime's flailing around, even Democrats admit the stimulus has been an utter failure: Sen. Michael Bennet (D): Trillions in Debt, "NOTHING TO SHOW FOR IT". Recall that the stimulus package was supposed to stop the unemployment rate at 8%! A crisis could become a calamity? Remember that? Here's how that looks (via Michael's Comments):

Note that the blue lines are the numbers that Obama's team came up with. So the actual unemployment rate is not only worse that what would happen with porkulus, but even worse than was predicted without it. By the way, tomorrow the new unemployment rate for the last month will be released, and it's going to be a doozy. Via Instapundit: CHANGE: Gallup: Unemployment rate back over 10%. “In yet another harbinger of tomorrow’s official jobless report, Gallup shows a sharp increase in unemployment for September, pushing their estimate of joblessness to 10.1%." How's that hopey changey working out for you all?

* - the term was coined by yours truly back in February of this year and has since been picked up by bloggers everywhere sans reference to the originator. Stephen Green aired his weekly show and pinned my new term in blogosphere lore: Video: theblogprof #5 on PJTV Steve Green's "This Week In Blogs"

Reason TV: 3 Reasons Obama's Education Vision Deserves an F

Reason TV uses this chart that I have shown before (Pic of the day: The cost of K-12 ed vs student test scores):

Here's their very good video on the topic:

And their 3 reasons:

1. Money Talks. Obama says that the educational system needs new ideas and more money. Despite a doubling in inflation-adjusted per-pupil spending since the early 1970s, student achievement is flat at best. But Obama is placing most of his bets on the money part. While he brags constantly about his Race to the Top initiative, in which states competed for $4 billion to fund innovative programs, he's spent more than $80 billion in no-strings-attached stimulus funds to maintain the educational status quo.

2. Choice Cuts. Candidate Obama said that he'd try any reform idea regardless of ideology. Yet one of his first education-related moves after taking office was to aid his Senate mentor, Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), in killing a successful and popular D.C. voucher program that let low-income residents exercise the same choice Obama did in sending his daughters to private school.

3. The Unions Forever. The two largest teachers unions, The American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association, overwhelmingly supported Obama with their votes and their contributions. Some 95 percent of the groups' campaign contributions go to Democratic candidates and the NEA, spends more money on elections that Microsoft, ExxonMobil, Walmart, and the AFL-CIO combined. No wonder Obama's big talking point is that he wants to add 10,000 more teachers to public payrolls despite the fact that there are already more teachers per student than ever.

I have posted on Obama's shameful act of pulling the successful DC voucher program several times in this blog, such as these:

• It's official: Democrats kill successful DC voucher program, resegregate DC Public Schools 
• After hiding the data and dumping the successful DC voucher program, the only thing Obama should tell students today is "I'm sorry"
•  Freep: Public Schools Are Crap - Let's Remold It!  
• Detroit News: DPS FAIL!!! 
• Vouchers vs. D.C. public schools 
• WaPo: Voucher Subterfuge

There is a big difference between supporting public education and supporting public schools and that gulf is widening by the day.

L Brooks Patterson: Gary Peters "is a phony," "wolf in sheep's clothing," "running from his record"

UPDATED with this video via Dan Calabrese:

Like all Pelosi lapdogs, Gary Peters is running from his own voting record while simultaneously shooting a mud-slinging Gatling gun while turning tale. He voted with Pelosi for the unconstitutional ObamaCare bill. He voted with Pelosi for the stimulus boondoggle that destroyed jobs and raked up debt. He voted with Pelosi for the bailouts. He voted with Pelosi for the cap-and-trade bill that would be the biggest tax increase in history on our standard of living had the measure not faltered in the Senate. But Peters doesn't want to talk about any of those votes. Instead, he came right out of the gate attacking Rocky Raczkowski personally. Oakland County executive L Brooks Patterson has himself launched a couter-offenbsive to the Peters mud-slinging. From The Michigan View: Brooks at full tilt: Peters 'is a phony'

If Democratic Rep. Gary Peters’ gutter-ball personal attacks on Rocky Raczkowski have taken the 2010 race for the Congressional 10th [it's the 9th Congressional district - ed] to new lows, they have inspired new heights of wicked commentary from Rocky’s Oakland County fraternity brother, Brooks Patterson.

While Raczkowski has responded to Peters’ with stern press releases, the county exec – and the state GOP’s most charismatic pol - has launched an entertaining arsenal of searing poetry and video volleys at Peters in Metro Detroit media.

The theme? Peters is a mud-slinging phony – a Pelosi poodle who is attempting an Extreme Makeover after selling Michigan down the river with Obama’s far-Left agenda.

Brooks wrote this "Ode to Gary Peters" In his Detroit News “Brooks Blog”:

If Peters would run on his record

His campaign would be a big dud

That's why he has gone so negative

And has been busily slinging mud

Oakland County voters aren't stupid

We're smarter than the average bear

We still remember Peters voted for

The Stimulus, Cap & Trade and Obamacare

On running from his own record, Brooks likened Peters flailing around strategy with Scramble:

...In politics a "scramble" occurs when an elected official bolts from his ideological playground and "scrambles" toward the safety of the political middle, in an effort to deceive the voters.

Caution: One could get trampled if you stand between Congressman Gary Peters and the political middle. For the first 21 months of his two year term in Congress, Peters enjoyed rolling around in the clover of left field, getting his "attaboys" from Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, only to find out that the voters back home strongly disapprove of his extreme liberal voting record.

When did Peters finally realize that? Did he bump his head and come to his senses? No, he read the polls that show that he's somewhere between 6 to 10 points behind the challenger, Rocky Raczkowski. And that's when he got religion.

One writer has called Gary Peters' new-found love of the political middle a "deathbed conversion." And folks, that's what it was: a cynical public embrace of the political middle, pretending to eschew runaway spending while knowing full well that his political roots are deeply planted in the Obama/Reid/Pelosi plowed field of liberalism.

Congressman Peters, have you ever heard the expression, "You reap what you sow"? Quit running from your record.

This one is a great read too: The Great Pretender... The great pretender needs to go. You can help. Click on the below pic and contribute to Rocky's campaign:

UPDATE: From American Thinker (HT: Angela Korn): Democrat Dirty Tricks: A Primer on Stealing Elections

Democrats are reaching into their bag of tricks. They are going beyond garden-variety tactics such as push polls and misrepresenting their own records, positions, and even identities (including stripping their party designation, the Scarlet D, from ads; hiding the fact that they are incumbents; denying one's paternity, as in the case of Harry Reid's son, who went the way of Cher during his campaign and used just his first name, Rory; running away from Barack Obama and their own votes on ObamaCare and the stimulus; pledging to vote to repeal ObamaCare and extend tax cuts for one and all; misrepresenting the views of their opponents; and portraying themselves as Blue Dogs despite being Pelosi Lapdogs). And, of course, they are postponing ethics trials of prominent Democrats until after November 2.

Video: How To Play Golf Against The Man Whose Wife You're Having An Affair With

The Onion is good for only one thing - laughs. But it's really, really good at that one thing. It's a gift of sorts. I'd post more of their videos but they tend to have bad words and thus are NSFW. Kind of like this one (a language warning):

Their absurd spoofs are hilarious. They have a YouTube channel where you can see a whole bunch more if that kind of thing floats your boat...

Bakery May Be Evicted for Not Endorsing Homosexual Lifestyle

A baker in Indianapolis may get evicted for refusing to bake cookies for gay events that violate his religious convictions. It's ironic that in nearby Minnesota, Muslims can deny services to whomever they choose without any consequence whatsoever:

How much you wanna bet that if the baker were a Muslim, Indianapolis bureauweenies wouldn't even bat an eye? From One News Now (HT: moonbattery): Bakery displays morals, now faces eviction

An Indianapolis cookie shop could be evicted from its longtime location for refusing a special order from a college homosexual group.

The bakery "Just Cookies" has operated in a city-owned market for over 20 years. The president of the board that oversees the market told the Indianapolis Star that he would "hate to lose them" as a tenant -- but that could very well happen because owner David Stockton took a moral stand and did not want to endorse homosexual activity.

Controversy arose this week after the owners of the bakery cited moral objections to a special-order request for rainbow-decorated cookies for next week's "National Coming Out Day" observance at a nearby university campus. Stockton told the caller he did not feel comfortable in supporting homosexual values, especially because it would not set a good example for his two daughters.

Micah Clark of the American Family Association of Indiana says there are reports the city might evict Stockton, citing a local "anti-discrimination" statute.

"Indianapolis passed a sexual-orientation city ordinance five years ago," Clark explains. "...We warned [at that time] that this type of thing would happen if they passed an ordinance elevating a sexual behavior to the same moral equivalent of race or skin color."

Let this be a lesson to all - anyone who doesn't endorse the homosexual lifestyle will not be tolerated. It's not enough for the baker to tolerate the homosexual lifestyle, he must endorse it with his business or the radical leftists will drive him out of business. I want to see the bureaucrat busy-bodies try and force a Muslim baker to conform to the gay agenda. I triple dog dare them!

Video: Illegal Aliens = Interned Japanese During WWII According To Former Clinton Secretary of Transportation Federico Peña

That's right - the forced, unconstitutional internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II is the same as the plight of illegal alien criminals in this day and age. Will some of these liberals from the ruling class next compare illegal aliens - those that willingly broke our laws - to the Jews in concentration camps? Give it a couple of days. From Big Government:

A bit hard to make it out, but here's what Peña said:

You know we’ve seen in this country historically, when strange things happen because people get carried away with the media, and they get carried away with myths, and they get carried away with fear.  We saw what happened to Asian Americans in this country, very very long ago with the Asian exclusion laws, and everybody thought that was the right thing to do.  And then during WWII, we put Japanese Americans in camps all over the county, thought it was the right thing to do.  Everybody got carried away with the emotion of the day. We thought they were somehow, you know, terrorists… And we see this happen in other countries, I won’t give you the history.  And that’s happening in our country today.

Democrat Rep. Betsy Markey didn't even bat an eye, by her actions endorsing what Peña had said. It's good campaign fodder for her opponent in that race with only a few weeks to go. Meanwhile, the immigration controversy in Arizona continues:

Video: Every $1 In Tax Increases Produces $1.91 In Added Govt Spending

The most analogous situation to our government and spending is a heroin addict that keeps mandating more heroin to reduce his habit:

Any new taxes, and there are plenty coming down the pike, go to extra spending measures, not debt reduction. So says the data as explained by Rep. Kevin Brady, (R-Texas):

The solution? Starve the heroin addict of heroine. Or as Rick Santilli says - "STOP SPENDING!:"

Middle Class Putting Brakes on Spending

I have opined many times in this blog that the prosperous times over the last 15 years or so was a figment of our collective imagination because it was not built on actual wealth but rather on debt. Lots of debt that was spurred by government-pushed subprime mortgages that let people use their homes like ATM machines. Well those times are over, albeit the aftermath is not, and people are doing what they should have been doing all along - and something our government sure hasn't learned yet - live within your means and don't spend more than you have:

From the Wall Street Journal: Middle Class Slams Brakes on Spending. Here's the data:

Middle-class Americans made their deepest spending cuts in more than two decades, slashing spending on such discretionary items as restaurant meals and alcohol during the recession.

Households in the middle fifth of the population sliced their average annual spending to $41,150 in 2009, the Labor Department said Tuesday in its annual spending breakdown. That was down 3.1% from 2007 and 3.5% from 2008, the steepest one-year drop since records began in 1984. The drop came even as those households' after-tax income remained relatively stable over the two years, at an average $45,199.

It's what they should have been doing all along. And I'm saying that as a member of said group that has also clamped down significantly on spending starting in 2008.

UPDATE: Via Instapundit: WHY PEOPLE IN WESTERN NATIONS don’t save enough.

UPDATE #2: Speaking of the mortgage meltdown, Gateway Pundit has this: Princeton Study Unintentionally Links Barack Obama to Current Financial Meltdown. It may have been unintentional, but it was accurate:

Video of Kathy Griffin On Larry King: Right Wingers, Religious Leaders, Churches To Blame For "Trickle Down Homophobia"

I wonder who's responsible for our epidemic of trickle-down, weapons-grade moonbattery:

They lament the teen suicide rate for gay kids, but will defend abortion on demand. And Wanda Sykes joked about Rush Limbaugh dying of kidney failure last year. The irony...

Video of Rep. Phil Hare (D-IL): US Debt Is A "Myth"

“Everyday that I am here is going to be spent, debunking the MYTH, that this country’s in debt and we just can’t spend. Well you can spend.”-Rep. Phil Hare, D-IL

We are more than $13 trillion in debt, and it's increasing every day with the unsustainable budget deficit. Note in this figure that the deficit was decreasing all the way to 2007 (after 4 years of war) when Democrats took over Congress. Since then, it's been a fiscal apocalypse:

Phil Hare just doesn't get it, and is willingly taking the blue pill and living in ignorant bliss:

Phil Hare doesn't worry about either the massive debt of the US Constitution:

UPDATE: More on Hare from Sharp Elbows on Youtube:

Previously:
Video: Rep. Phil Hare (D-IL) on ObamaCare: “I don’t worry about the Constitution on this”

Video: Runaway Slave asks "One Nation" Rally - "Free At Last?"

Well, at least he asked. The socialists at the failed "One Nation" rally didn't want to answer:

You see, black conservatives are held in the highest contempt for straying off the liberal plantation, both by the MSM and by black liberal slaves that do the bidding of the liberal ruling class. Here in Michigan, Democrats are attacking the only black justice that currently sits on the Michigan Supreme Court, who happens to be a Republican: Democrats target only black justice, Robert Young

Here's the "minority-friendly" Democratic Party website Manny describes in his post below going after the Michigan Supreme's only African-American justice, Robert Young. The site here - complete with "sleeping judge" photo - attacks Young for being Big Oil's puppet.

That oughta teach him to leave the Democratic plantation.

MI Democratparty chair Mark Brewer is now even using Justice Young's family against him. Even the left-leaning Tim Skubick calls it "Awful and Despicable." And from Henry Payne: How low? Democrats attack Justice Young’s family. It's a high tech lynching:

That's the way it's done these days to black conservatives. This is simply a form of slavery. That's right - slavery. Not to a plantation owner but to the state itself. The state sets certain rules and those that don't follow those rules - who veer off the chosen path - are vilified as Uncle Toms. It doesn't matter that the chosen path leads to misery and poverty. That's the whole point.

Keeping blacks down is a form of control that Democrats have become exceedingly efficient at. The same party that defended slavery, fought for it, segregated schools, filibustered the Civil Rights Act of 1964, came out later with welfare, good intentions on full display, which has broken the black family and replaced the father with the government. Since that time, the poverty level has not changed a single bit. Then the victim mentality was installed by Democrats. Affirmative action separated people by their race. Us against them. Black versus white. The party of identity politics divides people and judges them by the color of their skin, not by the content of their character. Democrats have kept blacks down in the plantations of failed urban environments with failed public schools, doomed to continue voting for Democrats to get handouts that they have been convinced they are entitled to. And Democrats continue to to reap many votes from people's misery that they themselves have created.

Biden Says He'll 'Strangle' Republicans Who Complain About the Federal Budget

Just so know how insane and idiotic this is; how brainless and thoughtless; how absolutely ignorant this man is, I have 4 words for Biden:

THERE IS NO BUDGET!

Let me just repeat that for Biden's sake: THERE IS NO BUDGET you jackass! The Democrats failed to pass a budget. Democrats own the US House with an overwhelming majority and refused to pass a federal budget that is their constitutional duty to do. Democrats own the US Senate - a debate club for which Biden himself is the President - with an overwhelming majority and refused to pass a federal budget that is their constitutional duty to do. And the Democrats control the executive branch so anything they pass would be signed into law right away. Once again, THERE IS NO BUDGET! Get it, Biden?

Apparently, that's too much to take in for our veep. From FoxNews: Biden Says He'll 'Strangle' Republicans

Vice President Joe Biden has told Democrats at a Minnesota fundraiser that he'll "strangle" members of the GOP who complain about the federal budget.

According to a pool report from Tuesday's event in Dayton, Biden was telling the crowd that Democrats know how to balance the budget. He said, "If I hear one more Republican tell me about balancing the budget, I am going to strangle them."

Uh - "Democrats know how to balance the budget?" Excuse me, but does anyone know if Biden has begun eating his own feces? Has he totally lost his mind? The Democrats "know how to balance the budget?" Note in this figure that the deficit was decreasing all the way to 2007 - after 4 years of war - when Democrats took over Congress. Since then, it's been a fiscal apocalypse:

The FY 2007 federal budget - the last one put together by Republicans - was $2.7 trillion. Since Pelosi and Reid took over the federal budget is at $3.8 trillion. The deficit is almost entirely comprised of new Democrat spending since 2007. And as bad as a $400 billion deficit sounds, it is absolutely puny compared to what has happened since Obama took office.

Rush Limbaugh Calls President Obama a ‘Jackass’, jackasses everywhere protest in the streets for such an insult. MSM ignores that Obama used the same word last year to describe Kanye West

The video of Rush via ABC Senior White House Correspondent Jack Tapper:

"He's a jackass.  He's an economic illiterate.  He's an economic ignoramus. And that's being charitable.”

Well, IT'S TRUE! The manchild hasn't a clue. ABC News’ Steven Portnoy took exception to using the word jackass. What Portnoy apparently doesn't remember is that Obama called Kanye West a jackass back last year:

Pot meet kettle. Kettle - pot. HT: memeorandum

Irony: Michigan University that expelled student for not endorsing homosexuality outraged over KKK cartoon

Eastern Michigan University is once again embroiled in controversy. Just as a reminder for how ironic this latest episode is, let's review the last controversy EMU was embroiled in:

• Eastern Michigan University Student Told To Endorse Being Gay Or Leave Program Loses Appeal 
• Did the Detroit Free Press smear EMU student kicked out for not endorsing homosexuality as morally good? 
• Eastern Michigan University: Endorse Homosexual Lifestyle or NO SOUP FOR YOU!

With that as a backdrop, here's the current kerfuffle via The Detroit News: KKK cartoon draws criticism at EMU. The student newspaper ran a cartoon depicting a Ku Klux Klan couple and a noose, with the caption "

Honey, this is the tree where we met." The response from EMU?

Eastern Michigan University on Sunday responded to backlash over a controversial cartoon depicting Ku Klux Klan members and a noose that ran in its student newspaper last week, saying the paper is an independent publication, but the university doesn't condone racially insensitive actions.

But apparently kicking students out who don't endorse depravity is AOK.

Video: Art Censored at Penn State for Being Critical of Islamic Terrorism

Let me repeat - the art was not critical of Islam, but of Islamic terrorism. It was banned anyway by taxpayer-funded Penn State University. Which should be a call to all Christians to start beheading people. Or at least slitting a bunch of throats - publicly and on-camera. Because if Christians did that, maybe they wouldn't have to put up with taxpayer-funded art exhibits that show Jesus receiving homosexual oral sex. Or the crucifix in a jar or urine as art, again at taxpayer expense. And we wouldn't have to put up with idiot SCOTUS justices giving special preference just to Muslims in clamping down on the free speech of everyone else. But Christians don't behead people, or force them to become Chritians, and react with tolerance rather than violence, which is why wimpy liberal 'artists' continue to defecate on Christianity but won't touch Islam with a 10-foot paint brush. The only message that they make at this point is that they're a bunch of wimpy douchebags. Penn State art graduate Joshua Stulman is not one of those, and has been censored using our taxpayer dollars as a result:

Stulman learned one lesson from Penn State - if you're going to mock anyone, make sure you mock the Creator of the universe and the Lord of Lords, King of Kings. Mocking fictitious Islamic terrorists on the other hand is off limits. Or so says our liberal ruling class. HT: moonbattery

Video of Muslim Cleric: "The Flag of Islam will one day fly over the White House" - Part 2

An update on a recent post: Video of Muslim Cleric: "The Flag of Islam will one day fly over the White House". This video has generated outrage:

Charles Krathammer took on those comments in this Bill O'Reilly segment:

Video: Christine O'Donnell's first TV ad - "I'm not a witch"

Christine O'Donnell is being Palinized by the left. Every form of venom is being hurled at her. She has been called a whore and a witch. Jay Leno made an oral sex joke on the air at O'Donnell's expense. She had to come out with an ad proclaiming that she is not a witch. Via The Other McCain (HT: memeorandum): What Did I Tell You About Her? "With a smile like that, she's awfully hard to hate.  The Castle campaign tried to demonize her and it backfired.  Maybe Baldy the Tax-Hiking Wanker will have better luck." Yup:

Jimmy Bise is worried that Christine O'Donnell just lost the crucial Wicca vote in Delaware. Heh. Imus had a whole segment on the ad:

A photoshop from Carol at No Sheeples Here.

More form Hot Air, Ace of Spades, Left Coast Rebel and Gateway Pundit

Change: Private sector shed 39,000 jobs in September

This is getting to be like beating a dead horse, but remember when Obama promised that the stimulus would create 3.5 million NEW jobs by this time, but 3+ million have been lost instead (that's a 6.5 million jobs deficit on top of Obama's fiscal deficit)? Or that unemployment wouldn't go above 8% but has been hovering at around 10% for a very long time now? And even though his dreadful mismanagement has resulted in 260,000 lost jobs the last 2 months alone he came out and said that it was actually good news because there was some private sector job growth? How's he going to paint this as a positive (from al Reuters via drudge):

Private employers unexpectedly cut 39,000 jobs in September...

But don't worry - al Reuters indicates that the regime will say that private sector job growth was actually positive this Friday. There. Feel better now? The only jobs Obama has been able to manufacture are ones on paper.

Video: Even Obama's Presidential Seal Abandons Him

How disastrous has the Obama regime been? Not only are Democrats running away from him when he visits states, but his own Presidential Seal has had enough of the manchild community organizer-in-chief. From The Politico via drudge:

From the accompanying article:

President Obama had some technical difficulties Tuesday night as the presidential seal fell off his lectern during a speech on the economy.

“Whoops,” Obama said at the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit. “Was that my, uh--?”

The teleprompter will leave next, and The One will be reduced to his natural form:

Typical: Jesus Depicted in Homosexual Sex Act In Taxpayer-Funded Art Exhibit in Colorado

Let me just remind you from the outset of the Congressional record of some of the communist goals from 1963:

22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."

23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art."

25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.

26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural, healthy."

From Fox News: Art Exhibit Depicting Jesus in a Sex Act Sparks Outrage in Colorado

Enrique Chagoya's "The Misadventures of the Romantic Cannibals," created in 2003, is a multipanel piece in which "cultural and religious icons are presented with humor and placed in contradictory, unexpected and sometimes controversial contexts," the artist's publisher, Shark's Ink, said on its website.

The lithograph, on display since Sept. 11 at the tax-funded Loveland Museum Gallery in Loveland, Colo., is part of an 82-print exhibit by 10 artists who have worked with Colorado printer Bud Shark. It includes several images of Jesus, including one in which he appears to be receiving oral sex from a man as the word "orgasm" appears beside Jesus’ head.

If these liberal artists - the one that created the blasphemy above is a professor at Stanford University - had a shred of bravery, they would draw the prophet Muhammed in the same position as Jesus above. Then they would understand what religious tolerance is really quickly. Here's a video report of the controversy:

UPDATE: Don Surber beat me to the punch and was also quoted by Fox News: Try it with Mohammed

This has been done so many times before that it is a cliche. In the artworld, such work belongs next to the Velvet Elvis and the dogs playing poker.

If this “artist” had any courage, he’d show Mohammed instead of Jesus. That’s cutting edge. That’s breaking new ground. That’s dangerous. That’s truly being willing to sacrifice for the sake of art.

I triple-dog dare the professor.

Me too.

US Textbooks: Muslims discovered America

It's both ironic and curious that leftists have gotten in bed with Islamists (who's on top?) who, if they had their way (and someday might), would publicly behead every single leftist in this country. Perhaps the lefties feel that partnering with terrorist sympathizers will destroy this country faster than they alone are doing. The latest example of the leftist/Islamist marriage is the perversion of public school books:

From the YouTube caption:

What US public schools will look like in 2 generations

Saudi-funded textbooks being used in America's K-12 classrooms.

Teaching, among other things, that Jesus was a "Palestinian," the state of Israel never existed, and that the Muslims discovered America before Columbus. At this rate, perhaps even Saudi grade-school textbooks, complete with jihadi and dhimmi declarations, will come to instruct American school-children.

Reason #4,295 why parents need to take responsibility and homeschool. HT: moonbattery

Video: Rep Ted Poe (R-TX) Demands Answers from Mexico on Jet Ski Murder In American Waters

An update on my post from 2 days ago: Video report: U.S. Man Gunned Down in American/Mexican Waters. The incident occurred on Lake Falcon, which is shared between the US and Mexico. The wife of the slain man recounts the incident here:

Rep Ted Poe (R-TX) is demanding answers from Mexico:

Of course, Mexico is denying the whole thing and pointing the finger at the wife:

How about we start protecting our southern border more?

Government wants cars to get 659 MPG by 2050

Well, not quite. At least not yet. But why not just shoot for the stars? I mean 62 MPG is already unattainable without significantly adding to the cost of a vehicle by $4,000. From The Detroit Free Press: 62 m.p.g. could be standard for 2025

Cars and trucks averaging 62 m.p.g.? Seems extraordinary now, but the government suggested Friday that automakers could be required to build new lineups by 2025 that make today's high-mileage hybrids seem conventional and turn gas guzzlers into relics of the past.

It's all included in potential efficiency ranges the government is considering for new cars and trucks starting in 2017.

By a decade and a half from now, in 2025, a carmaker's fleet of new vehicles may need to meet a standard somewhere from 47 m.p.g. to 62 m.p.g., the Transportation Department and Environmental Protection Agency said.

Who's behind the push for 62 mpg? The National Resource Defense Council, a well known ultra liberal special interest group that is tied together with the Sierra Club and has Obama’s ear. They also have the ear of Detroit News environmental writer Jim Lynch (Detroit News again throwing up environmentalist propaganda as news) who still refuses to answer any of my emails to him. The entire system has been co-opted by environmental fascists that have no clue about the laws of nature and their limitations on designing vehicles. And they're surely not pushing vehicles that consumers want. From The Michigan View: SUVs back over 50 percent market share

For the first time in more than two years, SUV sales account for more than half of the U.S. auto market. This will come as no surprise to readers of this blog, as we have charted the growing rebound of light truck sales as the U.S. economy has (albeit slowly) rebounded and gas prices remain under $3 a gallon.

The trend comes even as Washington issued a new edict that vehicles average an absurd 62 mpg by 2025. The current absurd standard -0 35 mpg by 2015 - has forced manufacturers to invest billions in new small car development.

Today, manufacturers are in defiance of their own customers - their marketing departments churning out small car ads touting their new green products. This puts automakers in a tough spot - continue to maker cars for the government or listen to their customers.

It used to be that the customer was king. Now it's someone else:

It's good to be the king

Michigan community to impose a tax on taxes to keep unsustainable union benefits

Livonia in Southeastern Michigan has come up with a novel way to increase taxes: tax taxes. If it doesn't generate enough revenue, perhaps they will tax the tax on taxes. And just keep taxing taxes until they have enough money to swim in like Scrooge McDuck:

Instead of cutting back on unsustainable union benefits like full pensions and full healthcare at a retirement age of 50, Livonia wants to bilk taxpayers for more money in a time of the longest recession since the Great Depression. From The Detroit Free Press: Livonia mulling 1% fee on taxes. Judges have declared fees to be taxes, so the bureaucrats are trying to play a rhetorical trick here in not calling a tax a tax. The freep headline ought to read "Livonia mulling 1% tax on taxes."

Livonia might charge its residents a 1% administrative fee to collect their property taxes, beginning with the December tax bill.

The city is considering the fee as part of efforts to deal with a substantial drop in revenue expected in its proposed $48.4-million budget for the next fiscal year. The council is holding a public hearing tonight, and is expected to vote on the proposed budget, which includes the fee, Oct. 20.

Livonia Mayor Jack Kirksey said the city's financial difficulties make the fee necessary. Without it, the city, which has been steadily reducing personnel through attrition, would have to consider making personnel cuts beyond the 7% called for in the budget. The proposed budget calls for layoffs in various departments of three part-time and eight full-time positions, including two police officers and three civilian positions in the Police Department.

Nowhere in the article are union benefits such as pensions even mentioned. Not even once. I wonder how much of the $48.4 million budget union pensions and healthcare after retirement consume? How much would they save, for instance, if they made their retirees pay for say 20% of their healthcare? Of course, that's not the point for Livonia politicians. Growing government is. Say they enact the tax on taxes which is just a property tax increase. How many out there believe that this tax on taxes will be repealed when the recession ends and revenues increase? Anyone? Bueller??? It won't happen. It will linger forever more. This is another example of the novel ideas bureaucrats come up with to metastasize the government. If only they would put in just a quarter of that effort into fixing the school system.

UPDATE: 3M is doing what the public sector refuses to do. Via memeorandum: 3M Co. will drop retirees from health plans, steer to Medicare. Fiscal reality meets ObamaCare. The results were predictable. More from Hot Air, Sister Toldjah, Sweetness & Light, Doug Ross and Gateway Pundit

Video: A Message to the Pelosi-Obama Regime - Subjugation Is Not Change We Wanted or Will Accept

Via Gateway Pundit:

Subjugation is the whole point. It's part of the bigger plan to dissolve America as it was founded:

More here in this 5-part video:

Example of how government metastasizes: Troy, MI

You don't need a wooden horse to ruin this Troy, the government will do it all by itself, metastasizing constantly into a bigger and bigger burden on the taxpayer. One mechanism bureaucrats use to metastasize government is to peel off essential services and dare taxpayers not to fund them at the ballot box. Police and fire departments have their own millage rates, peeled off so that the central city government can grow but claim they are doing no such thing.  This is how it works: say your city is whatever size it is - 100%. They peel off 10% of their budget in the form of an essential public service like Fire or Police protection which now becomes it's own separate entity on paper and on ballots. Meanwhile the city that should be 90% grows to 98% and claims a 2% cut while it really grew 8%. If you add the 98% city and the 10% service, the taxpayer is on the hook for 108% as city bureaucrats pat themselves on the back for right-sizing government. It's a shell game and Troy is playing it. This time with the library. From The Detroit News: Troy library plans to crowd November ballot. Get this - there are FOUR library millage proposals on the November ballot. Not one or two or three. FOUR!

Voters in one Oakland County suburb are likely to do a double take Nov. 2 when they read a ballot asking them to approve a library tax.

Four proposals to fund library operations — all with very similar language and millage amounts — are on the ballot. All are part of a drive to make the library independent, with its own millage and elected library board.

Library operations were cut back in May, after voters in February rejected a citywide millage increase. But four proposals were placed on the ballot, city spokeswoman Cindy Stewart said, because four individuals collected the necessary signatures to place their own request before voters.

Rhonda Hendrickson, president of Friends of the Troy Public Library, wrote Proposal 1 after researching how other communities fund public libraries. Her proposal calls for creating a Public Act 64 library in Troy, which would be independent and separate from the city’s general fund.

The specific request is for 0.9885 mills for 10 years, which would raise $4.1 million for library operations in its first year.

That's what a metastasizing government looks like. Starts out as a limited value-added to the taxpayer, then grows arms, legs, a head, and then other appendages with no end in sight. As FOUR proposals for an additional library tax hit taxpayers in the face, union benefits in Try have not been touched. How about residents of Troy put union bennies on the ballot in just one question, not four?

Teachers' Unions throw Kryptonite against "Waiting For Superman" movie fighting for charter schools, education reform

Waiting for Superman is a documentary that plays up the concept of charter schools where student performance, and not teacher tenure or other union demands, are of most importance. Of course, the teachers unions, who care only about continued union dues that drive their political advocacy and not childrens' education, are the proverbial kryptonite to any meaningful reform of public education. You can see the Kryptonite on full display as union members poo-poo the documentary in the press. From The Detroit News: Educators react to 'Superman'

I will stab Superman if he threatens teacher union benefits

David Hecker, president of the American Federation of Teachers Michigan, said the film was not fair to public schools.

“Waiting for ‘Superman’” is an attack on public education. It’s an attack on teachers, and it’s an attack on school units,” Hecker told The News. “We don’t need to wait for Superman. You walk into any public school and you see superheroes every day.”

The American Federation of Teachers is the Otis (Lex Luther's personal assistant in the original Superman) of education in Detroit Public Schools, representing a district that is the worst in the nation with a pathetic graduation rate of 1 in 4. ONE IN FOUR! What Hecker is saying is that he wants to continue the status quo. For many years now, support for public education has diverged from support for public schools. They are no longer the same thing and for him to say that the documentary is an "an attack on public education" is backwards from reality. Schools need competition, not a monopoly that has made them lazy. Charter schools are not by themselves a solution. I would prefer to see each school stand alone and fight for students that have vouchers attached to them. The better schools will grow and prosper. The bad schools would close. As it should be in a free market. There is absolutely no excuse in keeping children in failed schools, and offer multi-year solution to fix a problem that current children will never see.

So that brings us to Lex Luther, currently played by actress Governor Jennifer Granholm, who has done everything she could to NOT change the status quo. Remember years ago when a wealthy businessman wanted to donate $200 million to build charter schools in Detroit and Kwame told him to go pound sand? Remember at that time Granholm coming out and telling Kwame to stick it and forced the building of those schools anyway? Yeah - me neither. She sat mute, bought and paid for by unions. Laughably, she had some comments about Waiting for Superman:

Granholm said she hopes the film is a “catalyst for change” in making schools better for all students.

“We have to do whatever it takes to make sure every child has a quality education,” Granholm said before the screening.

“That’s not happening right now.”

Uh - where the hell has she been the last 8 years on this issue?!?!?! AWOL. She has been the Lex Luther of education reform. Nothing was going to change on her watch. For 8 years she watched while children in Detroit were deprived of a quality education and instead of doing something she held the children out as hostages for tax increases instead, and that by her own admission: Granhom admits she is holding students "HOSTAGE" for a tax increase! Those same teachers unions that are the bane of public education pushed her through to a 2nd term in office after all, spending a whole lot of money bilked directly from taxpayers. And they are bilking a lot: MEA extorts $42 per student raking in $66.3 million, but claim $124 million loss! Only spends 25% on representation! Exit question: will RINO Rick Snyder tackle education reform? As with all RINOs, you just never know.

Irony: Nobel Prize in medicine awarded to man that cost the lives of babies over scientist that saved them

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine  is awarded every year for outstanding contributions in the medical field. Specifically for saving lives. In that regard, this year was especially ironic. The winner of the prize was the guy that invented IVF:

From the AP via the Detroit News: In-vitro pioneer Edwards wins medicine Nobel

Robert Edwards of Britain won the 2010 Nobel Prize in medicine today for developing in-vitro fertilization, a breakthrough that has helped millions of infertile couples have children but also ignited an enduring controversy with religious groups.

Edwards, an 85-year-old professor emeritus at the University of Cambridge, started working on IVF as early as the 1950s. He developed the technique — in which eggs are removed from a woman, fertilized outside her body and then implanted into the womb — together with British gynecologist surgeon Patrick Steptoe, who died in 1988.

...“(Edwards’) achievements have made it possible to treat infertility, a medical condition afflicting a large proportion of humanity, including more than 10 percent of all couples worldwide,” the medicine prize committee in Stockholm said in its citation.

“Approximately 4 million individuals have been born thanks to IVF,” the citation said. ...

The dark side of IVF of course is that more lives are destroyed than created. A bunch of eggs are fertilized with only a few that get a chance for life, the others being discarded with about as much regard as fecal matter. Sometimes, rather than being discarded, they are donated to embryonic stem cell researcher that destroy life to try to find ways to extend it. Ironically, a scientist that has made embryonic stem cell research all but obsolete was passed over for the prize. From Creative Minority Report:

it should come as no surprise to anyone that Edwards beat out the Japanese scientist that discovered how to make stem cells from ordinary skin cells.

The big prize money and recognition in medicine comes with killing babies, not saving them.

That's about where I'm at with the award too. The Nobel committe that also hand out the Nobel Peace Prize did award it to 1) Fraudster Al Gore, 2) Terrorist Arafat, and 3) Idiot failed President Jimmy Carter. So it's not worth what it once was.

Video: UK pundit advises the murder of all disabled children

Exodus 20 (NIV):

¹³ "You shall not murder.

This is disgusting, depraved, repulsive, and purposely violates the conscience of humanity, sticking a finger into God's eye (via BreitbartTV):

"Virginia Ironside the celebrated advice columnist of The Independent newspaper has caused outrage this morning by saying that she, like all "good mothers", would put a pillow over the head of her baby if it was suffering from a disability and would have a poor quality of life." That's absolutely ridiculous tripe. Anyone with any such attitude should read these posts first:

• News you can use: parents of disabled children feel enriched 
• Chicken Soup For The Soul: A Father's Amazing Love (and example #8,897,234 on why I'm pro-life) 
• A miracle in pictures 
• Video: The Tim Tebow Story (must see!)  
• Video: John Piper To Obama - "NO Mr. President!" 
• "Hand of Hope" Baby Turns 10 Later This Year 
• The opposite of eloquence
• The single greatest argument against abortion

If you think the above UK moonbattery cannot happen here in the US, think again. Last year, a Texas Congresswoman introduced an infanticide bill that would define the murder of your own baby as not murder as long as the infant is less than 1 year old: Democrat Pushing Bill To Make Killing An Infant Not Equal To Murder. So basically she's pushing this absurd scenario:

Cartman's Mom is Still a Dirty Slut
Tags: SOUTH
PARKmore...

This is an extension of the abortionist mindset that pre-determines based on reading tea leaves not only what a "good quality of life" ought to be, but what a person's quality of life will be in the future. But worry not. As a pro-abort, feel better about murdering your born children by considering it a 4th trimester abortion, an act legal in states like Virginia: 

How sick is that? This isn't isolated to Virginia either. In a related scenario, babies have been born prematurely on purpose to be left in soiled linen closets to die while screaming and crying. Who would condone such barbarity? That would be one former Illinois Senator Barack Hussein Obama, who 4 times voted to protect 4th trimester abortion infanticide (more here and here):

²⁸Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. ²⁹They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, ³⁰slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; ³¹they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. ³²Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them. - Romans 1 (NIV)