Liberals Not Too Upset About Using Campaign Donations For Political Sway

By William Teach May 8, 2012 – 11:30 am

In this case, the Washington Post’s Greg Sargent notes

Some leading gay and progressive donors are so angry over President Obama’s refusal to sign an executive order barring same sex discrimination by federal contractors that they are refusing to give any more money to the pro-Obama super PAC, a top gay fundraiser’s office tells me. In some cases, I’m told, big donations are being withheld. (snip)

Now these and other donors are beginning to withold money from Priorities USA, the main pro-Obama super PAC, out of dismay over the president’s decision. (Some of these donors have already maxed out to the Obama campaign, I’m told.) It’s the first indication that areas in which Obama is at odds with gay advocates — and in fairness, his record on gay rights has been very good — could dampen overall fundraising.

DrewM at Ace Of Spades muses

Wait, you mean to tell me people use donations to politicians to influence policy? That they are more apt to give contributions to office holders who institute policies that they support and withhold those same contributions when they don’t get policies they like?

Why last I heard, when the Koch Brothers (aka Evil Incarnate) support institutions that reflect their political preferences the very life of the republic itself is endangered.

Well, yeah, because when liberals use money to sway politicians it is Good And Right And Just. When Conservatives do it, well, Satan is rising. Neither Firedoglake nor Steve Bennan (at The Maddow Blog) see the rank hypocrisy of supporting the notion of using campaign contributions to sway politicians on their side after spending years demonizing any entity (like Wall Street, Big Oil, Koch Brothers, Crossroads, etc) that does the same but opposes the far left agenda.

PJ Tatler: Straight up: These donors are trying to buy an executive order that benefits their businesses. At least, that’s how Sargent and other leftwing bloggers would write about this if the donors were conservatives withholding money from the RNC or Mitt Romney over some specific issue. Set the gay angle aside for a moment, and we have wealthy donors withholding campaign funds to apply pressure to get an executive order that would set aside federal contracts business they believe is owed them. That’s buying an executive order. If Obama ever signs that EO, then he has been bought. I bet he signs it in September or October, if the polls show that it benefits him.

I’m sure the Occupiers, who’ve spent almost a year complaining about money in politics and stuff, will get right out and picket and boycott these groups, right?

 

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Ever Notice That Warmists Are Really Fond Of Their “Land Yachts”?

By William Teach May 8, 2012 – 8:56 am

Also, have you ever noticed that Warmists aren’t willing to shell out the boatloads of cash necessary to purchase one of these expensive “green” vehicles? Over at Grist, Warmist David Roberts wonders “What car should my family buy“? I suppose he’s assuaging his guilt over driving a vehicle that is Killing Gaia by asking for consensus

Shortly after we got married almost 11 years ago, my wife and I bought a used 2001 Honda Odyssey minivan. We have been driving it ever since. We drove both of our kids home from the hospital in it. We picked up our puppy in it. It’s been on every one of our road trips. I’m incredibly fond of it.

My wife, not so much. She does most of the day-to-day driving, so the nostalgia factor isn’t enough to overcome her aversion to piloting a suburban land yacht. It’s too big, too hard to maneuver and park on city streets, too fuel inefficient. She’s over it.

The MPG of an Odyssey is 16/23. Not particularly Gaia friendly, eh? But, the Robert’s want a new car

Just to anticipate: Yes, I’m sure it would be wonderful if we had no car at all and got our kids around on the bus or in some fancy four-seater bike contraption. But … no. Where we live, what we do, we have to have a car. Maybe someday we’ll live in a walkable enough place that we won’t need one — I hope! — but not today. And also to anticipate: Yes, I’m aware the “greenest” thing we could do is just keep driving the minivan into the ground. But that ship has sailed. So, moving on … here’s our thought process so far:

I love how Warmists always complain about gas guzzling autos and Big Oil, yet, when push comes to shove, they “have to have a car.” The Roberts’ have ruled out sedans, too tiny, and that Chevy Volt “which is too expensive for us anyway.” The Nissan Leaf is too darned expensive, as well. As is a Prius. So, what does Dave get?

Well, really, he and his family should walk. But, the climate change hoax is not about doing anything other than spreading awarness. Real life always intrudes. That said, a different Warmist discusses the challenge of making consumers buy electric vehicles.

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Ever Notice That Warmists Are Really Fond Of Their “Land Yachts”?

By William Teach May 8, 2012 – 8:55 am

Also, have you ever noticed that Warmists aren’t willing to shell out the boatloads of cash necessary to purchase one of these expensive “green” vehicles? Over at Grist, Warmist David Roberts wonders “What car should my family buy“? I suppose he’s assuaging his guilt over driving a vehicle that is Killing Gaia by asking for consensus

Shortly after we got married almost 11 years ago, my wife and I bought a used 2001 Honda Odyssey minivan. We have been driving it ever since. We drove both of our kids home from the hospital in it. We picked up our puppy in it. It’s been on every one of our road trips. I’m incredibly fond of it.

My wife, not so much. She does most of the day-to-day driving, so the nostalgia factor isn’t enough to overcome her aversion to piloting a suburban land yacht. It’s too big, too hard to maneuver and park on city streets, too fuel inefficient. She’s over it.

The MPG of an Odyssey is 16/23. Not particularly Gaia friendly, eh? But, the Robert’s want a new car

Just to anticipate: Yes, I’m sure it would be wonderful if we had no car at all and got our kids around on the bus or in some fancy four-seater bike contraption. But … no. Where we live, what we do, we have to have a car. Maybe someday we’ll live in a walkable enough place that we won’t need one — I hope! — but not today. And also to anticipate: Yes, I’m aware the “greenest” thing we could do is just keep driving the minivan into the ground. But that ship has sailed. So, moving on … here’s our thought process so far:

I love how Warmists always complain about gas guzzling autos and Big Oil, yet, when push comes to shove, they “have to have a car.” The Roberts’ have ruled out sedans, too tiny, and that Chevy Volt “which is too expensive for us anyway.” The Nissan Leaf is too darned expensive, as well. As is a Prius. So, what does Dave get?

Well, really, he and his family should walk. But, the climate change hoax is not about doing anything other than spreading awarness. Real life always intrudes. That said, a different Warmist discusses the challenge of making consumers buy electric vehicles.

Read: Ever Notice That Warmists Are Really Fond Of Their “Land Yachts”? »

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Robinson: You Crazy GOPers Need To Give This Austerity Thing Up

By William Teach May 8, 2012 – 8:33 am

Liberals love government spending. They don’t like using their own money on it, of course. They refuse to send in extra money to the IRS, always wanting Someone Else to be taxed higher. But, they love government spending. And the elections in Europe remind me of a Ben Franklin quote “When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.” Excitable Eugene Robinson would like to herald in that end

(Washington Post) Economic austerity is a dangerous, self-defeating intellectual fad. Perhaps I should say that’s what it was, given Sunday’s election results in Europe. Perhaps I should also say good riddance.

Voters in France, Greece and even Germany — a hotbed of the austerity cult — told their political leaders, in no uncertain terms, that boosting economic growth is more important than cutting government spending. Here in the United States, I hope that Democrats, at least, were paying attention; I fear that the addled ideologues who control the Republican Party will never get the message.

These United States haven’t even had a chance to try austerity. The GOP only controls the House, and has not been able to really implement any sort of budget cutting. But, we have tried the “spend obscene amounts of money” route. How’s that worked so far? It’s almost three years since the official end of the recession, and the US is still stuck with high unemployment, huge numbers of people abandoning the job market, low consumer confidence, rising energy and food prices, the home market is still a mess, and the roads haven’t been fixed, despite Obama’s prolificant spending, including his “Stimulus”. Among other economic issues.

On Sunday, French voters elected Socialist Party candidate Francois Hollande as president, ousting center-right incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy in what amounted to a referendum on Sarkozy’s embrace of austerity.

But on Sunday, even Merkel got a message from voters: Her party was punished in local elections in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein, where it appeared that a center-left, anti-austerity coalition would end up in control.

Also on Sunday, voters in Greece tried their best to say no to austerity. For them, sadly, it’s probably too late. The fiscal and debt crises there were so acute that the Greeks, from the start, have had only painful choices.

The anti-austerity votes included a huge number of neo-Nazi’s being elected in Greece, which the media dutifully calls “ultra-Right“. Which is strange since these elections were supposed to be about the far-left being elected on a “we need to spend a ton more money. We don’t really know how that will work, but, we want more money.” In fact, just like during Hitler’s time, these Nazi’s are far left progressives, just more extremist. Like progressives, they want more and more power held in the hands of the central government.

But putting a chokehold on government spending at a time when economies are just sputtering back to life — as the austerity fetishists have tried to do in Europe, and as Republicans solemnly pledge to do in the United States — is monumentally self-defeating. Governments end up magnifying the constituent parts of the economic crisis, not minimizing them.

Therein lies the problem with Liberal ideology: they think Government is the answer, not the problem (or at least part of the problem). Even before the Great Recession, most EU countries were mired in high unemployment and low GDP after decades of trying the huge spending government gig.

What Lefties like Robinson do not understand is that continuing to increase spending and social programs will eventually lead to complete collapse.  Any uptick in the economy is temporary, masking the symptoms of complete insolvency. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc, will go bankrupt. That’s the reality. People in Europe thought of themselves only when going to the voting booth. They wanted money for themselves. So, they voted for some. Left side ideology in practice is a very selfish one.

Crossed at Right Wing News and Stop The ACLU.

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Good Grief: Here We Go With The “Climate Change” Causes Volcanoes And Earthquakes Again

By William Teach May 7, 2012 – 9:17 pm

If you remove a few letters from “earthquakes” and the “-” from the “e”, you’re left with “quacks”

(Environment360) Geological disasters might influence climate, for instance when volcanic debris blots out the sun. But climate cannot disrupt geology. Right? Well, actually no, says a British geologist Bill McGuire, in a troubling new book, Waking The Giant: How a Changing Climate Triggers Earthquakes, Tsunamis and Volcanoes.

There is, McGuire argues, growing evidence to incriminate changing climate in the planet’s most destructive geological events. Melting ice sheets and changes in sea level can, he maintains, set off the largest earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Indeed, thanks to climate change, a human hand may already be at work. Potentially, McGuire’s argument adds a whole new dimension to why we should be worried about climate change.

Except, there were no receding glaciers near the massive earthquakes in Japan and Indonesia. Nor the big ones in Mexico, Chile, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and many others. Yet again, much like with “climate change” and weather, they’re taking events and assigning causation with inference. Much like “man induced “climate change” itself.

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Obama Finding That Young Voters Aren’t That Into Him Anymore

By William Teach May 7, 2012 – 3:44 pm

They aren’t flocking to Romney (yet), but, Obama is losing quite a few

(Daily Beast) It’s no surprise President Obama officially kicked off his reelection campaign on two college campuses Saturday. You’re supposed to apply pressure at the site of bleeding. And the president’s support among young voters is bleeding away.

While others in the media are focused on the upward trend in the president’s approval ratings over the last four months in this age group, as shown in the latest survey of young Americans’ attitudes toward politics and public service from Harvard University’s Institute of Politics, there are troubling signs for the campaigns and the country embedded more deeply in the numbers.

A snapshot comparison of the college-age subset of millennials from this point in the 2012 election year versus the same point in the 2008 campaign (when only 18- to 24-year-olds were surveyed) should worry Team Obama.

What do these folks care about?

“It’s jobs, stupid.” Of 20 issues presented to the young millennials polled, 78 percent rated jobs as the most important. Only 31 percent of those in college or with some college education thought student-loan debt would create “a lot” of impact on their financial circumstances going forward.

So, while Obama is running around pushing the college loan issue, most don’t care. They want jobs. And Obama is exactly the wrong person to create a positive job situation.

In terms of policies and priorities, the group appears more right of center than imagined. Almost four in 10 believe cutting taxes is key to growth. Just 19 percent think government spending is the answer. And those who believe health insurance is a right dropped from 61 percent in 2008 to 43 percent in 2012.

The top-10 issues ranked in importance for this cohort were creating jobs, reducing the deficit, lowering the tax burden for all, becoming energy-independent, ensuring affordable access to health care, creating a world-class education system, addressing Social Security, preventing the spread of terrorism, protecting individual liberties from government, and preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. Combating the impacts of climate change fell near the bottom of the list.

Everything that Obama is incompetent at are important issues. Obama can try the “climate change” route, but, no one will care. He can try all the deflections and silly memes he wants, but, when push comes to shove, he is an unmitigated disaster on the issues that matter. Romney might not get the votes for himself, but, he can keep Obama from getting them with solid messaging.

Read: Obama Finding That Young Voters Aren’t That Into Him Anymore »

Posted in Barry Obama, Elections | 2 Comments | Trackback URL

If All You See…

By William Teach May 7, 2012 – 1:00 pm

…is an awesome Gaia compliant bicycle that everyone else should ride, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is the Air Vent.

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Chairman Obama Releasing Taliban Fighters For Promise To Be Good

By William Teach May 7, 2012 – 9:36 am

All that’s missing is PBO’s “peace in our time” speech. The man is desperate to get some sort of political win in Afghanistan. Either that or he simply doesn’t understand, or care, that the Taliban is a hard core Islamist group bent on killing the infidel.

(Washington Post) The United States has for several years been secretly releasing high-level detainees from a military prison in Afghanistan as part of negotiations with insurgent groups, a bold effort to quell violence but one that U.S. officials acknowledge poses substantial risks.

No, the Obama admin has been releasing these people who are pretty anti-women.

But the releases are an inherent gamble: The freed detainees are often notorious fighters who would not be released under the traditional legal system for military prisoners in Afghanistan. They must promise to give up violence —and U.S. officials warn them that if they are caught attacking American troops, they will be detained once again.

That reminds me of an old Robin Williams joke about British police carrying no guns, just nightsticks “Stop! Or I’ll yell stop again.” Buy, I’m sure the little Taliban darlings will simply give up there life of violence in the name of Allah and Mohammed and play with pretty unicorns they were given on release.

Jon Lilyea opines: “You’d think that the US would hold off on releasing our own prisoners until the Taliban releases Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl or Warren Weinstein, don’t you think? So since we’re just engaged in a catch and release program, the troops should stop catching them.”

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Posted in Barry Obama, War On Terrorism | 5 Comments | Trackback URL

Good Grief: Now Warmist Blame The Demise Of The Dinosaurs On “Climate Change”

By William Teach May 7, 2012 – 7:36 am

Is there a little something to this “theory”? Well, a little, as methane is certainly a much more potent greenhouse gas than CO2. And the notion that the dinosaurs were killed off by an asteroid has come under some question, some wacky, some legitimate. Most tend to focus on the asteroid as the leading cause. But, leave it up to the insane Warmists to trot this out

(UK Daily Mail) Dinosaurs may be partly to blame for a change in climate because they created so much flatulence, according to leading scientists.

Professor Graeme Ruxton of St Andrews University, Scotland, said the giant animals spent 150 years emitting the potent global warming gas, methane.

Large plant-eating sauropods would have been the main culprits because of the huge amounts of greenery they consumed.

The team calculated the animals would have collectively produced more than 520m tons of methane a year – more than all today’s modern sources put together.

It is thought these huge amounts could easily have been enough to warm the planet.

It is even possible that the climate change was so catastrophic that it caused the dinosaurs eventual demise.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the very fact that they use the phrase “climate change” rather than “global warming” immediately negates any sort of scientific notion. Greenhouse gases cause it to get….warm. Not cold.

On the bright side, at least they aren’t pushing the “everyone (else) should go meatless” meme. Yet.

Read: Good Grief: Now Warmist Blame The Demise Of The Dinosaurs On “Climate Change” »

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Attorney For 9/11 Defendants Promises Long, Hard Fight

By William Teach May 7, 2012 – 7:34 am

Gee wiz, if only the Obama administration had simply accepted that KSM and the other defendants wanted to plead guilty, instead of playing games, like withdrawing all charges “without prejudice” in order to attempt to prosecute them in civilian court. Furthermore, can you imagine how much of a circus it would be if the trial was a civilian one, rather than a military tribunal?

(Washington Post) The behavior during their arraignment Saturday of the five defendants charged with orchestrating the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks was a form of “peaceful resistance to an unjust system,” according to one of their attorneys who spoke at a news conference Sunday.

“The accused refuse to acknowledge the legitimacy of the military commissions,” said James Connell, an attorney for Ali Abdul Aziz Ali. The “arraignment demonstrates that this will be a long, hard-fought but peaceful struggle against secrecy, torture and the misguided institution of the military commission.”

Connell sure has the language of the political left down to a tee, eh?

One of the defense attorneys, Cheryl Bormann, appeared at the arraignment in a full-length black abaya that showed only her face. Bormann, who is from Chicago, refused to comment on reports that she had received death threats in the wake of the arraignment and said she wore the abaya in deference to the cultural and religious sensitivities of her client, Walid bin Attash.

Bormann also asked in court that a female member of the prosecution team dress more modestly, saying her clothing was a distraction for the defendants and might cause them to “commit a sin” by looking at her. Three women on the prosecution side wore knee-length skirts.

A bit of dhimmitude by yet another hardcore leftist.

The proceedings will now enter a long period of trial litigation, with the first motions scheduled to be argued at Guantanamo next month. The trial itself is at least a year away. The judge said he would set a tentative trial date at the next hearing and seemed inclined to pencil in May 2013 for the selection of a jury of military officers and opening arguments.

If Team Obama had allowed them to simply plead guilty, this would have been over by now. Instead, they attempted to create a spectacle for political purposes by pushing for a trial down the road from Ground Zero, which blew up in their faces.

Crossed at Right Wing News and Stop The ACLU.

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