PIC: Blind Squirrel Media Finally Finds Nut

To quote John McClane, "Welcome to the party, pal!"

QFE: “Obama has to get on top of this [ #Scandalpalooza ] if he wants to save his presidency.” - @jonathanalter ~ twitter.com/adamsbaldwin/s…

— Adam Baldwin (@adamsbaldwin) May 14, 2013

PHOTO: The Incestuous Love-Child of the Democrat-Media Complex

So this is why they play from the same sheet music.

"There's so much inbreeding between the White Hut and the Media, that every time we watch network news, we hear banjo music!" --Old Sarge.

SCANDAL VS. SCANDAL: A Media Retrospective #Benghazi

Compare and contrast:

The Pet Goat vs. Going to Sleep During an Attack

Remember The Pet Goat? That was the book that President George W. Bush read for seven (7) minutes to an elementary school class after he received word of the attacks on the World Trade Center.

Bush was pilloried mercilessly for his "inaction", even though the Secret Service is reported to have requested the delay to enhance the president's security for the trip to the airport.

How does that compare to Benghazi? Eight months after the slaughter of Americans, we still don't know what the president did after a 5pm ET meeting with SECDEF Panetta. No one knows, but many have surmised he watched sports and then went to sleep to prepare for a fundraiser the next day.

Cindy Sheehan vs. Pat Smith
The mother of a fallen soldier during the Iraq War, Cindy Sheehan became a poster child for the Democrat-media complex. No less a vintage media star than Maureen Dowd stated unequivocally that "the moral authority of parents who bury children killed in Iraq is absolute".

As for the mother of murdered diplomatic official Sean Smith, Dowd is less vocal. Silent, even. Pat Smith has struggled to make her voice heard because, though apolitical, her message is one of pain, grief and anger. "They want to shut me up," she's stated, referring to the Obama administration that has treated her with utter disdain.

Valerie Plame vs. Benghazi
Remember what all of the hullabaloo about Valerie Plame was about?

Neither do I.

The former intelligence officer didn't get shipped to one of the most dangerous locations on earth, she didn't have all of her security stripped from her over her vociferous pleas, she wasn't the victim of an all-out terrorist attack on her office, she wasn't killed during a firefight, her body wasn't dragged through the streets of Benghazi, and her death wasn't the subject of administration lies and a massive cover-up.

No, that was Ambassador Chris Stevens along with the heroes who tried to save his life.

* * * * * * * * *
And a cadre of propagandists in the mold of Julius Streicher claim that Benghazi isn't a scandal. Michael Hersh is one such pathetic hack. Writing in the left wing National Journal, Hersh claims that there was no cover-up at all.

Hersh intentionally omitted referencing yesterday's most damning testimony. After the attack, Clinton consigliere Cheryl Mills demanded that Gregory Hicks, the former deputy chief of mission/chargé d’affairs in Libya, avoid answering any questions from the visiting Congressional delegation.

Hicks was asked whether he’d ever been told before not to meet with a congressional delegation; his response: “Never.”

And just who is Cheryl Mills?

Cheryl Mills is no run-of-the-mill State Department apparatchik, even among the top tier. She’s been one of the Clintons’ right-hand men for decades. She worked in Bill’s White House legal office, then as counsel to Hillary’s presidential campaign, then became chief of staff at State when Hillary was appointed secretary. If she’s the right-hand man, what other conclusion is there than that Hillary’s the one who wanted Hicks to keep his mouth shut when meeting with Chaffetz?

And precisely what did President Obama do after he received word of the attacks? No one knows and an incurious media has never bothered to ask that question.

When a local reporter unexpectedly broached the subject with the president, Obama stumbled through an ill-conceived and incoherent answer.

We know, in fact, that the president did nothing. Except watch sports on TV and then go to sleep.

And we also know, despite his sputtering exhortations to the contrary, that "there was never any intention to rescue our people in Libya."

Consider what met the threshold for a scandal then versus now: can there be any doubt that the media, as this country once knew it, is dead?

What are "Progracists"?

Guest post by Zombie

What are “progracists”?

Progracists are people who continually classify individuals by “race” and yet can’t see how that is racist.

Progracists hate Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream of an America in which people “will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character,” because progressive policies are based on race consciousness, ethnic division, and identity politics.

Progracists keep minorities addicted to government benefits and entitlements specifically to make sure they remain poor and economically enslaved, and therefore a reliable voting bloc.

Progracists always seek to restrict everyone‘s freedoms because they think that’s the only way to stop minorities from misbehaving — at least the only way to control minorities without looking like you’re targeting them specifically.

Progracists call Americans “cowards” for not discussing race enough; but when we do discuss it, they call us racists.

Progracists still promote “affirmative action” policies even half a century after racial discrimination was outlawed in schools because progressives racistly think minorities will never be smart enough to get into college on their own merits.

Progracists routinely spew blatant racist slurs at any blacks who have conservative opinions, openly calling them “house n*****s,” “Uncle Toms,” and so on, and yet somehow continue to imagine that they themselves would never be perceived as racist for doing so.

Progracists think black mothers are too ignorant to know how to feed their own children, so progracists pass nanny-state laws dictating what is allowable to eat.

Progracists want to ban standardized tests because progracists think black people are too stupid to pass them.

Progracists don’t want you to remember that the Progressive Movement originally promoted eugenics as a way to weed out “undesirables” from society, including and especially minorities and the mentally handicapped.

Progracists never condemn blatant racism exhibited by fellow progracists.

Progracists intentionally gutted the American education system because they believed that only by dumbing down school could they eliminate the racial “achievement gap.”

Progracists implement blatantly unfair “set-aside” policies which guarantee lucrative government contracts to otherwise under-qualified minority-owned businesses — only to then award those contracts to sham companies with token minority figureheads, further enriching the white progressives who actually own the companies.

Progracists governing white-dominated universities and corporations often foreground minorities in their promotional materials, allegedly to encourage “diversity” and tempt more minorities to apply, but in reality to disguise just how all-white their organizations really are.

Progracists gasp in horror at Rudyard Kipling’s notion of “The White Man’s Burden,” completely oblivious to the fact that every modern liberal do-gooder cause is a direct descendant of Kipling’s call to action.

Progracists deem “Islamophobic” anyone who tries to rescue Muslim women from an oppressive culture, because progracists simply don’t care about Muslim women.

Progracists facilitate and justify inner-city violence and unrest, hoping to use minority criminals as unwitting shock troops to destabilize society and thereby pave the way for a progressive totalitarian state — but in the process make life miserable for all the law-abiding minorities in ravaged neighborhoods.

Progracists don’t want you to know that the progressive hero Margaret Sanger sought to legalize abortion specifically to reduce the population of minorities in America, as part of a eugenics program to protect the racial purity of whites.

The “soft racism” of progressives’ lowered expectations for minorities ends up being more pernicious and corrosive than their formerly upfront racism because back then they were at least honest about it.

Progressive hero and Democratic president Lyndon Baines Johnson once explained his rationale for addicting African-Americans to welfare and government handouts by saying “I’ll have those n*****s voting Democratic for the next 200 years.”

Democrat Woodrow Wilson was the first progressive president — and he also introduced racial segregation and Jim Crow laws to Washington DC, claiming segregation was beneficial to blacks because otherwise they would be out-competed by superior whites; he even used the White House to promote the film Birth of a Nation and especially its glorification of the Ku Klux Klan; despite all this (or perhaps because of it), Wilson remains an iconic hero to modern progracists.

After progressive Delaware Senator Joe Biden described Barack Obama as the “first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean,” Obama actually invited Biden to be his Vice President.

Shortly before he made the seamless transition from Klan leader to progressive politician, Democratic Senator Robert Byrd said, “Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds.”

Progracist journalist Mike Wallace once said on camera that blacks and Hispanics were too busy eating “watermelons and tacos” to read the fine print on their insurance policies.

In an attempt to decrease the number of minority babies being born, progracists go to extreme lengths to make contraception available to girls at younger and younger ages, since black and Hispanic girls are getting pregnant at a much higher rate than girls of other races, threatening the progracists’ white majority.

Progracists promote open borders and mass immigration not for any humanitarian concerns about poor people in foreign countries but only because they see new immigrants as a huge voting bloc to keep progressives in power.

Progressives never criticize black entertainers for constantly using the “n-word” because progracists hold blacks to a lower social standard than everyone else.

Progracists want you to forget that some historians have defined the Ku Klux Klan as “the terrorist wing of the Democratic Party.”

Progracists think minorities in urban areas are too irresponsible to stop littering, so progressive-dominated local governments want to ban plastic bags for everyone even though most people don’t litter.

A growing number of African-Americans believe that progracists want to make abortion freely available to poor minorities specifically to commit slow-motion genocide of the black community.

Progracists always accuse everyone else of racism to deflect attention from their own racist policies and beliefs.

Related: When did the NAACP join the Klan?

15 Stunning Tweets From Today's #Benghazi Whistleblower Testimony

I am speechless not only at the depravity of this administration but also its enablers in both the Democrat Party and the Julius Streicher media. I never thought I'd live to see the day. Have you no shame, sir? Have you no shame?

Eric Nordstrom getting choked up about how much it matters to him and the american public to uncover what happened in Benghazi

— Kirsten Powers (@kirstenpowers10) May 8, 2013

U.S. diplomats on the ground knew the Benghazi attack was terrorism, not outrage over a YouTube video thebea.st/10GSC9h

— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) May 8, 2013

Overriding message sent by Obama admin to #benghazi staff on the ground: "You're on your own" - Hicks.

— Michelle Malkin (@michellemalkin) May 8, 2013

"Why was Amb Stevens headed to #Benghazi?"Hicks:"According to Chris,Sec Clinton wanted Benghazi converted into a permanent constituent post"

— Obama Clock (@Obama_Clock) May 8, 2013

Cover. Up. MT@DavidMDrucker: Hicks says admin lawyers ordered him to prevent Congressmen from questioning him/others abt #Benghazi.

— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) May 8, 2013

Hicks testifies that Clinton confidante Cheryl Mills called him directly re efforts to cover up what really happened in Benghazi.

— Liz Cheney (@Liz_Cheney) May 8, 2013

Hicks: After I met with Chaffetz, I sensed a shift in how I was treated by Asst. Sec. Jones and delivered "blistering critique." #Benghazi

— TheBlaze (@theblaze) May 8, 2013

Hicks:I've been demoted from Deputy Chief of Mission to desk officer#Benghazi

— Shannon Bream (@ShannonBream) May 8, 2013

"So the people at State told you 'don't talk to the guy coming to investigate?'" "yes sir" #benghazi

— El SOOPer!! (@SooperMexican) May 8, 2013

WH spox says changes to Benghazi talking points were "stylistic." Yes, I believe that style is called "lying."

— John Hayward (@Doc_0) May 8, 2013

Republicans are at a hearing investigating Al-Qaeda attacks on #benghazi, Democrats are at same hearing investigating attacks on Obama.

— El SOOPer!! (@SooperMexican) May 8, 2013

Clinton blamed video in front of dead Americans & their families, Obama blamed the video in front of the UN ow.ly/kQ65F #benghazi

— Katie Pavlich (@KatiePavlich) May 8, 2013

Chaffetz talking to Nordstrom about Hillary/State blaming Nordstrom for security decisions on ground. "Stunning," Chaffetz sez. #benghazi

— Michelle Malkin (@michellemalkin) May 8, 2013

Chaffetz: There was never any intention to rescue our people in Libya j.mp/ZQ4QkE

— Right Scoop (@trscoop) May 8, 2013

Rep. Chaffetz Openly Cries when Bringing Up Americans Killed in Benghazi:bit.ly/15Ja8mf

— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) May 8, 2013

Tragic, shocking and utterly emblematic of the sickness of the left.


Related: DAMNING: The Complete Benghazi Timeline in Spreadsheet Format

NO ONE TELL PAUL KRUGMAN OR HENRY BLODGET: "Spain Is Beyond Doomed"

The Keystone Keynesian Klowns are going to have a delightful time explaining the meltdown of Europe, which has only just begun.

Five years after its housing boom turned to bust, Spanish unemployment hit a record high of 27.2 percent in the first quarter of 2013. It's almost too horrible to comprehend, but 19.5 percent of the total workforce has not had a job in the past six months; 15.3 percent have not in the past year; and 9.2 percent have not in the past two years. You can see this 1930s-style catastrophe in the chart below from the National Statistics Institute.


...the real story of the Spanish depression has been the story of the indignados: the mostly young, long-term unemployed. It's a bit hard to see just how dramatic it's been in the chart above, so I converted it to a line chart below. Almost all of the increase in unemployment since 2010 has been due to the increase in long-term unemployment of two years or more...


In other words, unemployment is a trap people fall into, but can't fall out of... That is what a permanent underclass looks like.

This debt-fueled madness will, of course, end in war and misery -- as it has throughout human history.

And Paul Krugman was, you may recall, an early champion of the Euro experiment. Combined with his stint at Enron, championing the housing bubble, and endorsing Fannie Mae's subprime extravaganza, the midget propaganconomist has a track record only Jamie Gorelick could love.


Hat tip: BadBlue Financial News.

STEALTH REPARATIONS: New York Times confirms Obama administration behind billions in fraudulent payments

It's not often that I'll write approvingly of an article in The New York Times, but for Sharon LaFraniere's masterful deconstruction of the Pigford Scandal, I'll make an exception.

Pigford, you may recall, was first exposed by Andrew Breitbart and because of it he was sued, dismissed and lampooned by the Democrat-Media Complex. The term vindication was invented for situations like this.

In the winter of 2010, after a decade of defending the government against bias claims by Hispanic and female farmers, Justice Department lawyers seemed to have victory within their grasp.

Ever since the Clinton administration agreed in 1999 to make $50,000 payments to thousands of black farmers, the Hispanics and women had been clamoring in courtrooms and in Congress for the same deal. They argued, as the African-Americans had, that biased federal loan officers had systematically thwarted their attempts to borrow money to farm.

But a succession of courts — and finally the Supreme Court — had rebuffed their pleas. Instead of an army of potential claimants, the government faced just 91 plaintiffs. Those cases, the government lawyers figured, could be dispatched at limited cost.

They were wrong.

On the heels of the Supreme Court’s ruling, interviews and records show, the Obama administration’s political appointees at the Justice and Agriculture Departments engineered a stunning turnabout: they committed $1.33 billion to compensate not just the 91 plaintiffs but thousands of Hispanic and female farmers who had never claimed bias in court.

The deal, several current and former government officials said, was fashioned in White House meetings despite the vehement objections — until now undisclosed — of career lawyers and agency officials who had argued that there was no credible evidence of widespread discrimination. What is more, some protested, the template for the deal — the $50,000 payouts to black farmers — had proved a magnet for fraud...

The compensation effort sprang from a desire to redress what the government and a federal judge agreed was a painful legacy of bias against African-Americans by the Agriculture Department. But an examination by The New York Times shows that it became a runaway train, driven by racial politics, pressure from influential members of Congress and law firms that stand to gain more than $130 million in fees. In the past five years, it has grown to encompass a second group of African-Americans as well as Hispanic, female and Native American farmers. In all, more than 90,000 people have filed claims. The total cost could top $4.4 billion...

...From the start, the claims process prompted allegations of widespread fraud and criticism that its very design encouraged people to lie: because relatively few records remained to verify accusations, claimants were not required to present documentary evidence that they had been unfairly treated or had even tried to farm. Agriculture Department reviewers found reams of suspicious claims, from nursery-school-age children and pockets of urban dwellers, sometimes in the same handwriting with nearly identical accounts of discrimination...

...But critics, including some of the original black plaintiffs, say that is precisely what the government did when it first agreed to compensate not only those who had proof of bias, but those who had none...

...[For example, in] 16 ZIP codes in Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi and North Carolina, the number of successful claimants exceeded the total number of farms operated by people of any race in 1997, the year the lawsuit was filed. Those applicants received nearly $100 million...

...Acting Associate Attorney General Tony West, who supervised the civil division and oversaw the handling of the cases, canceled an interview. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. also declined to comment...

Like Operation Fast and Furious and Benghazi, the Pigford Scandal is a hundred times worse than Watergate. It represents institutionalized corruption and theft orchestrated by the President of the United States.

It is, in effect, a form of stealth reparations executed unlawfully on the part of this administration.

Heads should roll and impeachment should be on the table. Knowing the cowardly, feckless House Republican leadership, however, it's likely all of this will be ignored because John Boner and Eric Cantor are more interested in retaining their white-knuckled grip on power than doing the right thing.

Kudos to The New York Times for covering this blatant, open ripoff of the American taxpayer.


Hat tips: Lee Stranahan and Mark Levin.

Remember hearing that 90% of Americans want gun control? Well, those claims were pig excrement.

Economist John Lott eviscerates the propagantician known as "Lies, Damn Lies and" Nate Silver (which is the nickname he prefers, I hear):

Despite assurances by the likes of Nate Silver that these are solid polls showing "Overwhelming majorities of 80 to 90 percent of the public say they favor background checks," 

I have previously noted my skepticism of claims.  To me, it wasn't too surprising that the Senate voted down the gun control bill about 10 days ago.  My concern is that people were really just being asked about whether they wanted to keep criminals from getting guns, not about the particular legislation being voted on by the Senate.  Well, now there is another poll by the PEW Research Center that I think is much more accurate.  It asks people whether they are happy that the Senate gun control bill was stopped.  Apparently, both Republicans and Independents are generally happy that it was stopped.  My guess is that Republicans should pay a lot more attention to what Independents and Republicans wanted than Democrats who wouldn't never have voted for the Republicans anyway.  It looks to me that Republicans voted the way that there constituents wanted.  So Republicans shouldn't really care that among all voters the poll showed support of 47 to 39 percent.  They should look at the results by political affiliation.

Many, such as the New York Times, paint a picture of Senators [like Max Baucus] who both simultaneously opposed the will of 90 percent of their voters and at the same time quake in fear of the NRA... Note in Baucus' case, he is retiring and yet he still voted against the so-called "universal background check" bill.  Might [the Times'] Mr. Nocera re-examine his piece?

By the way, the Nate Silver analysis of how Senators would vote on the Manchin-Toomey bill has sone major problem, he uses a very unreliable measure of gun ownership from Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System.  If you use a bad survey, you get a lot of noise and it makes it more likely that you won't get a statistically significant result.  I also like the way he runs a regression after the fact rather than predicting how people were going to vote before the Senate vote.  Letting him play around with different factors (we have no idea how many regressions that he ran before he decided to report the one that he did) makes the predictive power of that regression pretty useless.

It's back to the propaganda drawing board for you, Mr. Silver!


Hat tip: BadBlue Gun News.

A single graph that depicts a society spiraling into the dustbin of history

Why work when you can just collect disability? After all, last month a record 8.9 million took advantage of impossible-to-verify "ailments" like back pain and mood disorders.

...Today, 6.5 workers are on disability for every 100 who have a job. That's double the ratio from two decades ago. The number of people on disability has climbed almost sixfold since 1970.

That influx has caused SSDI costs to climb faster than its dedicated payroll tax revenues. The program has been running a deficit since 2009, and will be insolvent by 2016, according to the program's administrators...


...Last year, the federal government paid $135 billion in disability benefits, which is more money than it devoted to food stamps and welfare combined.

And because those on disability are eligible for Medicare benefits after two years, the sharp rise in SSDI enrollment has put a huge strain on Medicare's budget, costing the program $80 billion in 2012, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

In other words, one-sixth of Medicare's budget now goes to pay benefits for working-age disabled.

Record numbers on disability, a large percentage of which are fraudulent. Record numbers on food stamps, many of those fraudulent. Record welfare payments, many of those also fraudulent. Record income tax credit fraud. In fact, government officials have documented hundreds of billions of fraudulent payments each year laced throughout the federal government's massive, unsustainable wealth redistribution programs.

One might call this the Obama-Krugman-Blodget recipe for national suicide.

But I'll be charitable and simply ask: what is this, the fourth annual "Summer of Recovery"?

Media Quiz: Possible Motives for Boston Marathon Bombing

In spite of a plethora of evidence, the kooks in media and the Obama administration -- but I repeat myself -- appear thoroughly stumped in ascertaining the motives of the Boston bombers.

For that reason, I offer the following helpful quiz for the administration and its public relations officials in antique media.

Question: What was the motive for the terror attack at the Boston Marathon?

Please select only one answer from the following choices:

Nicki Minaj not returning tweets, which indicts all of American society

Tsarnaev brothers are Yankees fans; took the term "Bronx Bombers" a little too seriously

Sick of TBS, which keeps showing the same "Master of my domain" Seinfeld rerun

Revenge for food poisoning incident at Boylston Street's Mr. Sushi

Bitterly clinging to holy book and pressure cookers

Hope to inspire Matt Damon and Ben Affleck to make the movie of the Tsarnaev Brothers' lives

Six-month trip to Russia centered around study of Rasputin's love-making techniques

That idiot Elvis impersonator stole my Ricin idea

Even Cialis ain't working

Kill infidels in the name of Jihad

Nostradumbass: Paul Krugman on the Euro

But first, a little context-setting: Walter Russell Mead describes the current reality in Europe as the dream of a single currency unravels at an ever-increasing pace:

...For the eurozone to survive as it now stands, house prices, wages, the cost of meals in restaurants, groceries, and so on would all have to fall by as much as 50 percent in the periphery. That can’t happen without massive losses to banks, which have lent money based on current price levels. These loans cannot be repaid if prices fall that far. And this kind of price adjustment also means massive unemployment, probably dragging on for many years...

...this situation means that Europe’s single currency has in effect already failed. €300,000 in Germany is not the same as €300,000 in Italy or Spain, and there is no way to equalize values without years of wretched and ruinous pain.

There are lots of consequences, but the one that may cause the most trouble fastest has to do with banking. If a Spanish euro is really worth much less than a German euro, sooner or later bank deposits in Spain are going to be worth less than bank deposits in Germany. Intelligent people will realize this and start moving their bank deposits out of Spanish banks and into German or even non-eurozone banks; those who fail to do this stand to lose a lot of money when the system finally snaps...

And now is the time when we juxtapose! Mr. Peabody, set the Wayback Machine to January 7, 2002 and turn the channel to The Nightly Business Report, where The New York Times' Paul F. Krugman offered the following commentary:

So now Europe has a single currency. Should Americans care? At first, the euro won't make much of a difference to you and me. Vacations in Europe will be a bit easier to arrange, but they will also be a bit more expensive because the arrival of euro notes will give the currency a boost.

It will take years, maybe decades, before the impact of the euro really hits home. But then it will rock your world. The euro, you see, isn't mainly about economics...

For Europe's economy is as big as America's; Europe's technological sophistication is a match for our own; Europe's population is by and large better-educated. What that means is that soon, for the first time since World War II, we will face a political and economic equal - not an enemy, but another power that offers an alternative model of how a modern society can and should be run.

Europe shares many of our values, including a deep commitment to democracy. But it also disagrees with us about some things, including the appropriate level of taxes and social benefits. Until now, we haven't had to take those differences seriously; we were a superpower and they weren't. Now that may change, and I think that's all to the good. I love big, multicultural democracies; I love them so much I want to see two of them, so we can learn from each other. Viva la difference! I'm Paul Krugman.

But not to worry, gentle readers. Despite his train-wreck of a record -- including Enron and the "Housing Bubble", to name but a few -- Krugman can predict with absolute certainty the inconsequential ramifications of massive sovereign deficits as well as the dire environmental catastrophe that awaits us because of... Carbon Dioxide.

At least that's what passes for the intelligentsia on the Left would have you believe.

PURE, UNVARNISHED SCUM: The New York Times' Nicholas Kristof Blames Senate GOP for Terror Attack

If your first reaction upon seeing this:


And this:


Is this:

Pure class RT @nickkristof: explosion is a reminder that ATF needs a director. Shame on Senate Republicans for blocking apptment

— Michael C Moynihan (@mcmoynihan) April 15, 2013

You might be the Leftist scum Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times.

The Sublime Genius of Dr. Paul R. Krugman

Oh, my.


Krugman's resume -- including his work with Enron, Fannie Mae, subprime mortgages, the Fed's preternaturally low interest rates, and his Cypriot-style deficit lunacy -- is one only fellow Democrat hack Jamie Gorelick could envy.


Hat tip: Amalaur.

Your Krugmanism for the day is...

Commenting at Zero Hedge, "nmewn" relays the following:

"For people like me, on the other hand, the economy is a social system, created by and for people. Money is a social contrivance and convenience that makes this social system work better — and should be adjusted, both in quantity and in characteristics, whenever there is compelling evidence that this would lead to better outcomes." --Paul Krugman

Need one say more?

The characteristics of fiat money is a social contrivance.

Creating money from thin air makes the system work better if there's evidence this would lead to better outcomes?


As in France before Napoleon, when society collapsed?

As in Germany before Hitler, when society collapsed?

As in Zimbabwe before Mugabe, when society collapsed?

Krugman's resume includes Enron, advocating for the housing bubble before the mortgage meltdown, and the historically disastrous money-printing exercise called "Quantitative Easing".

Krugman is a mastermind, a tinkerer, a Utopian. He refuses to learn from history. He believes he and the rest of the central planners can better orchestrate society than all of mankind. But he will soon learn a very painful lesson in real world economics.

This may be Paul Krugman's kid

I'll say it again: Michael Ramirez may be the most talented political cartoonist of not just this -- but any -- generation.


As our national treasure Mark Levin demonstrates night after night, liberalism is indeed the philosophy of the stupid.

GRAPH: 400,000 Years of Warmal Colding

In the extremely unlikely event that anthropogenic (human-caused) global warming is actually occurring, it may be rescuing us from another Ice Age:

...in terms of the geologic time scale, human history is the blink of an eye compared the 4.5 billion year age of the earth. The end of the last ice age, a monumental, undeniably non-anthropogenic warming event, happened about 12,000 years ago; to a geologist it may as well have happened a week ago last Thursday. Yet climate scientists rarely address the implications of that warming event on their modern-day warming theories.

But this week, a new study came out which alarmingly concludes that CO2-forced temperatures are at or near their Holocene (post ice age) maximum... data from the Vostok Ice Core ... affords a look at the last 400,000 years of earth history, encompassing several ice ages.

...The top graph shows CO2 concentration in the atmosphere; the bottom one shows average temperature departure from the 1950 value. Two observations are readily apparent:

• For the last 400,000 years at least, "normal" = "COLD!"

• The warm periods are but brief interludes between ice ages. Wild temperature fluctuations were common before any possible impact of human civilizations. The anomaly is the stability of the moderate temperatures during the Holocene, the last 12,000 years (indicated by my red arrow), when warm weather fostered the development of human agriculture, cultures and civilization.

Consider what a global ice age would mean. Cincinnati, OH and points north would be under a glacier hundreds of feet thick (not necessarily a bad thing, in the mind of some readers and SEC football fans). Agriculture would be impossible in North America. The planet could sustain a tiny fraction of its current population.

Given the writings of the more extreme Climatards (which is the term they prefer, I hear), eradication of the "Human Virus" is the goal.


Hat tip: BadBlue News Service.

For all the Democrat-Media whining about the Sequester, federal spending actually... higher this year than last

To illustrate just how sick the Democrat-Media complex has become, consider the following: ABC, CBS, NBC ("Cuts would hit vaccination, elderly meals, childcare"), and The New York Times ("Poor May Be Hit Particularly Hard") -- to name but a few -- all hyped the "devastating" Sequester cuts in the most hysterical terms imaginable.

Only, as it turns out, "year-to-date spending through five months of the government’s fiscal year is up by 2.7 percent":

With all the talk of sequstration and its supposed “austerity on autopilot” (as characterized at Voice of America — your tax dollars at work against you), it’s useful to look at what has really been happening with federal spending over the past six years, something the establishment press is very reluctant to do.

On Thursday, the Congressional Budget Office released its February Monthly Budget Review ahead of the Treasury Department’s official report which will arrive early next week. It estimates that the federal government ran a one-month deficit of $205 billion. It also shows that year-to-date spending through five months of the government’s fiscal year is up by 2.7 percent, and is up even after adjustment for timing quirks...

The federal government has historically run deficits in February, but it’s useful to see how dramatically reported (and for 2013, estimated) February spending and deficits have risen in just the past six years, because it’s clear that the increase is almost entirely due to higher spending (all numbers are billions):

February 2007 — Spending, $240; Deficit, $120
February 2008 — Spending, $281; Deficit, $176
February 2009 — Spending, $281; Deficit, $193
February 2010 — Spending, $328; Deficit, $221
February 2011 — Spending, $333; Deficit, $223
February 2012 — Spending, $335; Deficit, $232
February 2013 (estimated) — Spending, $332; Deficit, $205

These days, the apparent definition of “austerity” is “trying to level off spending now that it’s almost 40% higher than it was just six years ago.” The press never, ever reports on how long-term spending has exploded, but instead assumes, as does the administration, that the current level of spending is the new normal, and that any attempt to reduce its growth trajectory will cause unspeakable hardship.

Any attempt at a real reduction in spending automatically considered “draconican,” even by Republicans like Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama.

As the great Investors Business Daily astutely points out, it is Barack Obama's policies that are hurting minorities and the poor, not any phony "Sequester" austerity.

Is all of human history wrong and Barack Obama right?

This chart, spotted at The Jacksonian Party, explains a great deal about our current situation; one in which the people find themselves pitted against their elected officials.

Prior to 1902, Congress had never reached a 70% reelection rate.


Jacksonian argues that when the Senate became a directly elected body and no longer represented Statehouses, taxation and other federal usurpations of Constitutional bounds became rife. In other words, the federal government could and did use its power to begin punishing the states, regulating local affairs and interfering in every sort of arcane transaction.

That change triggered an ever-increasing federal budget that went far beyond national defense. Budget-busting initiatives, politically motivated in nature, purported to help retirees, the sick, the elderly and so on, while concentrating ever more power in Washington.

The federal government now consists of a body of lifetime bureaucrats, many of whom couldn't power a flashlight with all of their brainpower combined, who are reelected automatically through their use of federal tax funds. They reward, they punish, they anoint.


And they continue to aggregate more power at the federal level -- and to build their own personal wealth -- ignoring and flouting the law. Rangel, Feinstein, Frank, Reid, Waters, Conyers -- to name but a few -- have repeatedly thumbed their noses at financial disclosures, ethics violations, criminal complaints, FOIA requests, and the like.

If government worked as Obama and the National Socialist Democrats say it will, then why would we care about separation of powers? Why would we care about different levels of government?

Why would we care about the Constitution?

Why was this nation founded in the first place?

If government is so beneficent, so effective, so humane and compassionate, how is it that throughout all of human history, the great philosophers and thinkers were so fearful of it?

Aristotle, Cicero, Locke, Montesquieu, Edmund Burke, Adam Smith, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and so many more.

Were they all wrong about government and Obama right?

Were they all wrong about limiting, balancing, placing checks on government? Were they all wrong about liberty?

Is human history all wrong and Obama right?

Is human history all wrong and Nancy Pelosi right?

Is human history all wrong and Harry Reid right?

Do you really think Obama, Pelosi and Reid hold a candle to the greatest thinkers civilization has ever seen?

Because for Obama to be right; and for his party, now in the hands of the radical left, to be right; the Founders had to be wrong.

For Obama to be right, the Declaration of Independence has to be wrong.

For Obama to be right, the Constitution has to be wrong.

For Obama to be right, Aristotle, Cicero, Locke, Montesquieu, Burke, Smith and the founding fathers all had to be wrong.

And so it is clear how all of this will end.

Government-run health care will be used as a tool by government officials. As these programs always are. It will be used to punish political enemies, to reward friends, to entice supporters and -- always -- to aggregate more power.

It must be repealed. It must be obliterated.


Hat tips: The Jacksonian Party, Thirty Thousand and Mark Levin.

Shocker: Vintage Media Censored News of Sen. Paul's Historic Filibuster

For the drones, progressives, and other miscreants who rely upon the likes of The New York Times or The Washington Post for their "news", suffice it to say that they missed out completely on yesterday's historic and bi-partisan filibuster led by Rand Paul. It's like it never happened.

Yesterday, Rand Paul embarked upon a nearly 12-hour-long standing filibuster. The filibuster’s ostensible purpose and practical effect was to delay a vote on John Brennan’s nomination to head the CIA. It’s real purpose, though, was to force Attorney General Eric Holder to answer a straightforward question: “Does the President have the authority to use a weaponized drone to kill an American not engaged in combat on American soil?” ...


...Paul not only managed to derail the scheduled vote for John Brennan, he forced Eric Holder to answer his question [with a 'no'.]

As Senator Ted Cruz, a renowned litigator, observed last night, Holder's obfuscations and deflections are outrageous. The question isn't a difficult one:

If a citizen of the United States is, say, sitting in a cafe inside the country -- not posing an imminent threat to anyone -- does the president have the authority to order a drone strike and assassinate that person?

Of course not. Any pre-law student could tell you that.

As for antique media? For the most part, they completely ignored this historic question and resulting filibuster of the ostensible CIA director, just as they censored news of Operation Fast and Furious and Benghazi-gate.

The basic information surrounding these deadly scandals, which resulted in the murders of at least a half-dozen U.S. officials -- has never been released by the Obama administration.

And legacy media could care less.

Which is why I use BadBlue News to go around the media. I don't need any progressive Statists censoring my news.

New York Post: Administration Officials Called Female Reporter Who Asked Tough Questions a "C***", "B****", "A**hole"

Bob Woodward has unleashed the floodgates: liberal media is finally admitting the truth about the Obama administration's lack of respect for the freedom of the press.

In addition to Woodward, correspondents Lanny Davis, Bill Plante, Neil Munro, Ron Fournier, David Brody, Conor Friedersdorf, and others have expressed their concern and disbelief regarding the administration's fascistic mindset:

... “I had a young reporter asking tough, important questions of an Obama Cabinet secretary,” says one DC veteran. “She was doing her job, and they were trying to bully her. In an e-mail, they called her the vilest names — bitch, c--t, a--hole.” He complained and was told the matter would be investigated: “They were hemming and hawing, saying, ‘We’ll look into it.’ Nothing happened.”

...He wound up confronting the author of the e-mail directly. “I said, ‘From now on, every e-mail you send this reporter will be on the record, and you will be speaking on behalf of the president of the United States.’ That shut it down.”

...Another White House correspondent says that last week’s blowup over pool reporters’ access to the president’s golf game with Tiger Woods — which was none — is indicative of a larger problem. “Today’s a perfect example,” he says. “Jack Lew is sworn in” — as US Treasury secretary, on Thursday — “and they didn’t even allow a photographer in there. A reporter asked [press secretary] Jay Carney why, and his answer was, ‘It’s a family ceremony.’ No! This is a high-ranking government official whose salary is paid for by taxpayers. No.”

“This administration has tools to reach people on their own,” CBS White House correspondent Bill Plante said this week. "...they’re undercutting the First Amendment, which guarantees a free press through many voices. If they put out their own material, it’s state-run media..."

None of the White House correspondents who spoke to The Post are hopeful that things will improve. “What’s our recourse?” says one. “How do you force them?”

...For these reasons especially, Fournier is nostalgic for the days of covering Bill Clinton. “Every five or six days, he’d do a public event, and we’d go and yell questions and occasionally, he would answer,” Fournier says. “He had to be accountable to an a--hole like me. That’s healthy for democracy.”

Now that's a war on women.

Unlike Dick Nixon, the Obama administration wears its 'Enemies List' on its sleeve.