IRS Political Targeting Scandal Continues Full Speed Ahead Under Antichrist President Obama

The sheer chutzpah of Obama and liberals is frankly stunning.

When the IRS scandal first came out and it was obvious that tea party and conservative groups across the board (including Christian and other pro-life groups and pro-Israel Jewish groups) had been blatantly targeted for political reasons, Obama came out and said that this kind of thing cannot be allowed to happen.

As Obama once said in one of his grandiose speeches, “Just words.”

Remember, the IRS actually APOLOGIZED and ADMITTED it had targeted conservative groups.  And the number of conservative groups targeted exceeds FIVE HUNDRED.

Now that it is more obvious than EVER that conservative groups were targeted for political reasons, and now that we know that the targeting originated strangely enough from the office of the guy Obama handpicked as the chief counsel of the IRS, Obama went on the “phony scandal” warpath.

For the factual record, the OTHER of the two Obama appointees – now very recently former IRS Commissioner, Douglas Shulman – made a staggering 157 visits to the White House.  Which is way, WAY more than any other Obama official.  That’s a lot of high-level “discussion” (better known as “plotting”).  That is particularly glaringly obvious given the incredibly appalling fact that the IRS commissioner just before the targeting started visited with Obama campaign manager Stephanie Cutter.

Yesterday, we learned from an IRS agent that the IRS is CONTINUING to target tea party and conservative groups AS WE SPEAK.  Even a full three months after this very real scandal broke.

Today we learned that one of Obama’s Internal Revenge Service thugs just got promoted for her Stalinistic thuggery.

That’s right for you kids keeping score at home: the Cincinnati IRS Program Manager of the Tax Exempt Organization Division – Cindy Thomas – who was at the center of this scandal – just got promoted.

Here’s the story on Cindy Thomas’ promotion for doing the devil’s work (the devil being a.k.a. Barack Hussein Obama):

IRS official who oversaw Cincinnati exempt operations office during scandal gets promotion
Published August 10, 2013
FoxNews.com

The IRS official in charge of the exempt organizations office in the  Cincinnati branch at the time conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status  were unfairly targeted just got a promotion.

Cindy Thomas has been appointed to the senior technical adviser team for the  Director of Exempt Organizations.

Thomas, a 35-year IRS veteran, will fill the spot vacated by Sharon Light.  Light, a one-time close adviser to Lois Lerner, is the sixth senior IRS official  to leave the agency.

Lerner is the employee at the center of the political storm that hit the  nation earlier this year. She was the first IRS agent to publicly acknowledge  wrongdoing.

Lois Lerner is still receiving a full paycheck in exchange for targeting conservatives and then pleading the Fifth Amendment so as not to criminally incriminate herself or her messiah pharaoh god Barack Obama.

We now know that this is a POLITICAL SCANDAL that runs all the way up to the number two (of two) political appointee at the IRS.  That’s a FACT, not a “phony.”

We now know that Lois Lerner, queen of the damned and of the pleading of the 5th Amendment to avoid incriminating herself – ILLEGALLY provided the Federal Election Commission with information about conservative groups.

This same Lois Lerner came out of the FEC and was a Democrat thug at that agency, and in fact had a HISTORY of using her position to attack conservatives, so Obama knew he could trust her to attack conservative groups for him in her job at the IRS.

One of the reasons Richard Nixon resigned under threat of impeachment was that he merely TALKED ABOUT using the IRS to target his political enemies.  He never actually did it.  Barack Obama has taken this nation to the lowest Stalinist point in American history.  And there’s nothing “phony” about that.

Barack Obama is counting on something that Stalin had but Nixon (as a Republican no matter how much a RINO Republican) didn’t have: he’s counting on the mainstream media to circle its wagons around him like TASS did for Stalin and like Joseph Goebbels’ Ministry of Propaganda did for Adolf Hitler.  Obama believes he can get away with anything, and in his arrogance he CONTINUES to use the IRS to criminally target conservatives out of his partisan political ideological hatred.

6 Million Benefit Paying Jobs Vanish This Year: Aint Obamanomics Doing GREAT?

There’s got to be a voice screaming in the head of every single American that something is just not right – and that Barry Hussein and the Democrat Party are bringing this nation to the verge of destruction.

But then, many Americans are Democrats, and that screaming voice has to compete with all the other screaming voices in their heads.

6 Million Benefit Paying Jobs Vanish in One Year!
By Mike Shedlock on 11/17/2010 – 2:12 am PST

Analysis of weekly unemployment data and covered employees shows that 5,977,844 benefit-paying jobs have been lost in the last year.

click on chart for sharper image

The above chart is from reader Tim Wallace. I added the date and numeric annotations. Thanks Tim!

Covered Employment Stats of Merit

• Covered employment is back to 2004 levels.
• Close to 6 million benefits paying jobs have vanished in a year.
• Over 8 million benefits paying jobs have vanished since the 2008 peak.

What is a Covered Employee?

The exact meaning of “covered employee” varies slightly state to state, but not by much. In simple terms it means one is eligible for unemployment insurance benefits.

Most states exclude the self-employed, commission based employment such as real estate agents, those in student training programs, academic and hospital internships, employment by churches or religious organizations, and rehabilitation programs.

Self-employed individuals must pay into unemployment insurance programs, however, the self-employed are not eligible for benefits anywhere.

Nearly 6 Million Jobs Vanish

By the above interpretation, it is safe to conclude that 5,977,844 jobs totally vanished (not just benefit paying jobs).

The only way that cannot be true is if there was a sudden shocking increase in the number of real estate agents, church hiring, or close to 6 million people all of a sudden decided to go into business for themselves.

All of those possibilities are highly unlikely to say the least.

Tim Wallace writes ….

The ANNUAL ADDITIVE TREND from 2004 to 2008 of 1.9 million is now a net loss of 8 million the past two years

Year….Covered………..Number added from previous year
2004….126,276,670….Data from hard copy sheets
2005….127,622,590….1,345,920
2006….130,605,286….2,982,696
2007….132,623,886….2,018,600
2008….133,902,387….1,278,501 average added per yr = 1,906,429
2009….131,823,421….-2,078,966
2010….125,845,577….-5,977,844

Did the stimulus SAVE or CREATE any jobs, or did we lose over 8 million jobs in two years in spite of record amounts of stimulus?

Download data including the covered column is found on the US Department of Labor website, Weekly Claims Data.

Was there a Massive Surge in Retirees?

click on chart for sharper image

There was no massive surge in retirees so that cannot account for the loss of benefits-paying jobs.

Retiree Data

• In October of 2006 there were 30,908,097 retirees.
• In October of 2007 there were 31,467,071 retirees, an increase of 558,974.
• In October of 2008 there were 32,222,895 retirees, an increase of 755,824.
• In October of 2009 there were 33,366,881 retirees, an increase of 1,143,986.
• In October of 2010 there were 34,463,650 retirees, an increase of 1,096,769.

Information on retirees is from the Social Security Administration. It undercounts retirees not in the system so actual numbers would be somewhat higher.

The number of retirees is certainly increasing which suggests the number of jobs needed to keep the unemployment rate steady is dropping. It also helps explain a falling participation rate (although not at the rate that it is falling).

That aside, the growth in the number of retirees cannot begin to explain the massive loss of benefits-paying jobs.

The increase in retirees from 2008 to 2010 is only 2,240,755 total. Civilian population growth was rose by 1,980,000 just last year.

Population Changes

I recently discussed population changes in my post In Search of 1.1 Million Jobs Claimed by Obama; Where the Hell are They?

Let’s take another look at the BLS October Jobs Report.

Scroll down to page 5: HOUSEHOLD DATA Summary table A. Household data, seasonally adjusted.

click on chart for sharper image

The first item of interest is the Civilian Noninstitutional Population (i.e the population aged 16 and up not in school, prison, or other institutions).

In the last year, the table shows Civilian Noninstitutional Population rose by 1,980,000 an average gain of 165,000 potential workers a month.

Expected Increase In Workforce

In the last year the Civilian Noninstitutional Population rose by 1,980,000. There were 1,096,769 retirees. That mean the labor force should have increased by 883,231 workers. Instead the BLS reports the labor force increased by 50,000 workers (second line in table A above).

The rest supposedly dropped out of the workforce.

Hard Facts

Please remember the numbers in Table A are from phone surveys, seasonally adjusted, and arguably quite error prone.

On the other hand, the covered employees chart was produced from actual jobs data from the states.

Hard data says the US lost 5,977,844 benefits-paying jobs in a year, and 8,056,810 benefits-paying jobs in 2 years when we should have gained close to a million jobs a year or so based on population growth, even factoring in the number of retirees.

6 Million Benefits-Paying Jobs Vanish and Unemployment Rate Drops!

In spite of losing nearly 6 million benefits-paying jobs in the last year (and not gaining another 800,00 to a million more based on population growth minus retirees), the unemployment rate in October of 2009 was 10.1% and it is now supposedly a half-point lower at 9.6%.

Is this a crock or what?

Mike “Mish” Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

If you’re a Democrat, just keep your head in that same nice, warm, safe place you’ve had it all your life:

Remember the magnificent promise of your messiah:

If Obama starts looking bad to you, just remember that handsome face in the mirror:

And remember, keep voting Democrat:

You don’t have a thing to worry about.  Your ship will come in soon.

Enjoy your luxurious trip on His Majesty’s Ship Titanic.

Obama Fiddled, Stonewalled And Lied While Gulf Coast Drowned In Oil

When we find out the actual record of just how bad Obama failed us in the Gulf of Mexico during the BP oil spill disaster, we should all be enraged.

First of all, we now find that:

“The Obama administration blocked efforts by government scientists to tell the public just how bad the Gulf oil spill could become and committed other missteps that raised questions about its competence and candor during the crisis, according to a commission appointed by the president to investigate the disaster.”

And we now find that:

The Obama administration failed to act upon or fully inform the public of its own worst-case estimates of the amount of oil gushing from the blown-out BP well, slowing response efforts and keeping the American people in the dark for weeks about the size of the disaster, according to preliminary reports from the presidential commission investigating the accident.

You get the sense that Obama fiddled (I suppose the modern equivalent of ‘fiddling’ by incompetent tyrants today would be ‘golfing’) while the Gulf Coast drowned.

Disaster in the Gulf: 52 Days and Counting …
Published June 10, 2010

The Obama administration claims it has been on top of the Gulf oil spill disaster since “day one.” Here’s a look at what the president and administration have been doing every day since the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded April 20, triggering the massive spill. The following daily updates are based on a review of White House schedules, news releases and news coverage and do not cover every activity in the Gulf or in Washington:

June 10

In the Gulf: BP awaited the arrival of a second vessel to help pump more oil from the ruptured well up to the surface — the containment cap was capturing 630,000 gallons a day, but the second vessel is expected to double that. Meanwhile, local business owners and workers who have filed damage claims were complaining that BP is slow to respond and not paying them enough for their losses.

At the White House: President Obama was scheduled to meet in the afternoon with the families of those killed on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig. He was also receiving a briefing on the oil spill in the morning and meeting with business leaders and energy experts to discuss energy reform after his meeting with the families.

June 9

In the Gulf: BP said it is dialing back a prediction by its chief operating officer that the leaking oil would be reduced to a “relative trickle” by next week. COO Doug Suttles now says it will take more time to reach that point.

At the White House: Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, who is heading the U.S. oil spill response, said the containment operation is now catching up to 630,000 gallons (2.3 million liters) a day and that the amount could nearly double by next week as processing of the captured oil is expanded.

June 8

In the Gulf: While the wellhead has been capped, oil that was still leaking and oil that has already leaked was separating and spreading out along the Gulf shore. Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen warned the day before that the slick is no longer a “large, monolithic spill.” Rather, it is an “aggregation of hundreds or thousands of patches of oil that are going a lot of different directions.” Local officials continued to express concerns about the impact the spill would have on the economy as tourism season begins.

At the White House: President Obama was receiving a briefing on the spill in the morning before leaving to conduct a “tele-town hall meeting” on health care issues concerning seniors. He and first lady Michelle Obama were holding a congressional picnic at the White House later in the day.

June 7

In the Gulf: Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen reported that the cap on the wellhead was capturing 460,000 gallons of oil a day — up from 250,000 on Friday. At that rate, the cap could be diverting as little as 37 percent or as much as 77 percent of the oil leaking from the Gulf floor. Patches of oil were spreading out all along the Gulf region. Florida’s Panama City Beach was expected to get hit by oil within 72 hours, while Pensacola Beach continued to have tar balls wash ashore.

At the White House: President Obama and top federal officials were briefed in Washington by Allen on the BP spill. The president said the Gulf region will “bounce back” from the crisis and be “stronger than ever.” Obama was scheduled to participate in a high school graduation ceremony in Kalamazoo, Mich., later in the evening.

June 6

In the Gulf: BP CEO Tony Hayward said the container collected 10,500 barrels in 24 hours. Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour said the spill is killing tourism though the beaches in his state are not suffering badly from the oil. National Incident Commander Adm. Thad Allen told morning news shows that progress is being made but the relief well is the ultimate solution.

At the White House: More Coast Guard are being sent to the region for direct oversight of the contractors. Allen said he reports to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and President Obama but he is the on-scene coordinator and he makes the calls in the gulf.

June 5

In the Gulf: BP worked on its latest attempt to tame the runaway well by capping it and trying to siphon off some of the crude. The damaged rig has disgorged at least 22 million gallons of crude in the Gulf.

At the White House: In his weekly radio and Internet address recorded from the Gulf, President Obama promised to fight the oil spill and maintained his increasingly forceful tone toward BP.

June 4

In the Gulf: BP engineers adjusted a sophisticated cap over the Gulf oil gusher, trying to collect the crude now fouling four states. Engineers hoped to close several open vents on the cap throughout the day in the latest attempt to contain the oil.

At the White House: President Obama was in Louisiana, his second trip in a week and the third since the disaster unfolded.

June 3

In the Gulf: BP CEO Tony Hayward hailed the company’s work after underwater robots successfully sheared off a busted oil pipe spewing millions of gallons of crude into the Gulf, telling reporters that the company would have a “fully sealed” containment system in place by the end of June.

At the White House: The White House announced President Obama will return to the Louisiana Gulf Coast Friday, his third trop to the region since the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion on April 20.

June 2

In the Gulf: BP’s effort to contain the oil gusher hit a snag when a saw became stuck in a thick pipe on a blown-out well in the Gulf of Mexico. Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen said the goal was to free the saw and finish the cut later in the day.

At the White House: The Justice Department has announced it started criminal and civil probes into the spill, although the department did not name specific targets for prosecution.

June 1

In the Gulf: BP is moving to start its first major pipe cut as soon as Wednesday, after which they will attempt to place a cap-like containment device over the leaking riser that would siphon the mixture to the surface.

At the White House: President Obama gave the leaders of an independent commission investigating the Gulf oil spill marching orders to thoroughly examine the disaster and its causes to ensure that the nation never faces such a catastrophe again. He said if any laws were broken, people will be prosecuted.

May 31

In the Gulf: Transocean, which owned the rig that it leased to BP, said it would like its liability limited. The beach at Grand Isle, La., which was hit with oil from the spill, and other areas along the coast were opened but swimming and fishing was prohibited.

At the White House: The White House confirmed that its national incident commander Thad Allen will begin on Tuesday to hold daily press briefings from the scene of the spill. The Justice Department announced Attorney General Eric Holder and U.S. attorneys will meet with state attorneys general and hold a press conference on Tuesday.

May 30

In the Gulf: BP says it will try another containment effort beginning on Monday or Tuesday.

At the White House: Obama remained in Chicago for the Memorial Day weekend vacation. The White House released a summary of a discussion between Obama and chief liaison Thad Allen, which said the government is tripling its environmental cleanup team in areas affected by the spill. Environmental adviser Carol Browner appeared on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” She said 150 government scientists are on the case.

May 29

In the Gulf: BP offered few details on its latest bid to plug the well as progress was difficult to measure from BP’s “spillcam” of mud, gas and oil billowing from the seafloor.

At the White House: Obama returns to Chicago for his Memorial Day weekend vacation.

May 28

In the Gulf: BP continues to try the “top kill” method, but also tries shooting rubber and other man-made “junk” into the well.

At the White House: Obama tours the Louisiana coastline. He says the federal government is treating the spill as its highest priority — he says the government has deployed 1,400 National Guard troops, 1,400 vessels and 3 million feet of boom

May 27

In the Gulf: BP continues to shoot heavy mud into the well, a process that appears to be making progress.

At the White House: Several developments related to the spill emerge in Washington. Minerals Management Service director Elizabeth Birnbaum resigns. The Obama administration announces new restrictions on offshore oil drilling, canceling and delaying certain projects. Obama holds a major press conference in which he declares the federal government is “in charge” and pledges to stop the leak. Obama leaves for a family vacation in Chicago at night.

May 26

In the Gulf: BP attempts to use the “top kill” method to shoot mud into the well. Meanwhile, BP says 25,000 claims for economic losses have been submitted, and that it has already paid close to $30 million.

At the White House: Obama visits a solar facility in Fremont, Calif.

May 25

In the Gulf: BP agrees to show a live feed of the “top kill” procedure under pressure from the Obama administration.

At the White House: Obama meets Italian President Giorgio Napolitano, then travels to San Francisco for fundraisers for Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

May 24

In the Gulf: BP continues to prepare for the “top kill” procedure, as oil moves deeper into the Louisiana marshes.

At the White House: Obama meets with Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano lead a Senate delegation to the Gulf region.

May 23

In the Gulf: BP says it will take at least another two days before crews can start to implement the “top kill” plan to plug the leaking well. BP continues to siphon out some oil from the leak.

At the White House: Obama orders top administration officials back to the Gulf to monitor the response.

May 22

In the Gulf: BP says it intends to continue using chemical dispersants after the EPA raises concerns about their long-term effects. Oil continues to wash ashore.

At the White House: Obama announces a presidential commission to investigate the disaster. He says in his weekly radio address that the panel, which is given six months to complete its work, is intended to figure out the “root causes” of the explosion and figure out how to make offshore drilling safer. The president speaks at the West Point commencement ceremonies in the morning.

May 21

In the Gulf: BP continues to prepare for the “top kill” procedure, while officials find animals covered in oil.

At the White House: No public events.

May 20

In the Gulf: BP continues to siphon out oil from the busted well. The company begins preparing for a new plan to stop the oil leak called a “top kill.” The plan involves injecting mud into the top of the well and then sealing the area with cement.

At the White House: No public events.

May 19

In the Gulf: U.S. officials reportedly hold talks with Cuban officials on response efforts amid concerns that the oil slick is spreading even farther.

At the White House: Obama welcomes Mexican President Felipe Calderon to Washington. Both heads of state publicly criticize Arizona’s new immigration law. The president hosts a state dinner for Calderon at night.

May 18

In the Gulf: A U.S. official says it is “increasingly likely” the oil will be swept out to the Florida coastline.

At the White House: Obama visits a factory in Youngstown, Ohio.

May 17

In the Gulf: BP claims the tube is sucking out more than 42,000 gallons a day from the Gulf floor to a tanker ship. That’s still a fraction of the oil leaking out from the well.

At the White House: Obama hosts the NCAA tournament champion University of Connecticut women’s basketball team.

May 16

In the Gulf: BP crews successfully hook the tube to the oil pipe to siphon oil to a tanker ship. Researchers say the oil has entered a current that could carry it toward the Keys.

At the White House: No publicn events.

May 15

In the Gulf: BP struggles to install the tube into the oil pipe, but expresses optimism in the plan. The company continues to drill a relief well, which is considered the permanent, though time-consuming, solution to the problem. The process is about halfway done.

At the White House: Obama speaks at the National Peace Officers Memorial Service. He delivers his weekly radio address on “Wall Street Reform.”

May 14

In the Gulf: BP uses robots to try to insert a small tube into the leaking pipe on the Gulf floor, in an attempt to seal it off and siphon oil to the surface.

At the White House: Obama honors TOP COPS award recipients at the White House.

May 13

In the Gulf: BP prepares to suck oil away from the spewing well before trying to place the smaller containment box on top.

At the White House: Obama flies to Buffalo, N.Y., for a tour and town hall meetings at a local factory. He later travels to New York City for a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee event.

May 12

In the Gulf: Crews lower the new, smaller containment box to the Gulf of Mexico floor.

At the White House: Obama meets with Afghan President Hamid Karzai at the White House, then takes questions from the press.

May 11

In the Gulf: Response crews replenish fuel and water in preparation for long-term relief efforts.

At the White House: Reports surface that the Obama administration has proposed splitting up the Minerals Management Service, the agency responsible for overseeing offshore drilling. One arm would be tasked with inspecting rigs and enforcing regulations while the other would oversee drilling leases.

May 10

In the Gulf: BP announces it will try to place a smaller dome over the leaking oil well in the Gulf of Mexico.

At the White House: Obama meets with Cabinet officials and senior staff at the White House to discuss the oil spill response.

May 9

In the Gulf: BP officials say, after the 100-ton box fails to stop the leak, that they may try to do the same thing with a smaller box. Approximately 3.5 million gallons of oil have spilled into the Gulf at this point.

At the White House: Obama speaks to graduates at Hampton University in Virginia.

May 8

In the Gulf: Balls of tar begin washing up on Alabama’s beaches. Meanwhile, the 100-ton box meant to capture the leak is not working.

At the White House: Obama delivers his weekly radio address on holding insurance companies more accountable.

May 7

In the Gulf: Robots place a 100-ton box over the oil well on the ocean floor, in an unprecedented attempt to stop the flow. Officials expand the coastal area closed to fishing due to the spill.

At the White House: No public events.

May 6

In the Gulf: Officials confirm that oil has made landfall on the Louisiana coastline. BP prepares to lower a giant box over the oil well to capture the leak.

At the White House: Obama participates in a national security meeting on Afghanistan and Afghanistan.

May 5

In the Gulf: BP caps one of the three oil leaks, though thousands of barrels of oil continue to leak into the Gulf.

At the White House: Obama attends a Cinco de Mayo celebration at the White House.

May 4

In the Gulf: Winds in the Gulf of Mexico calm down, giving crews a chance to lay down boom by the shorelines. BP tries to cap a small leak while preparing to place a containment dome over the main leak.

At the White House: Obama speaks at the Business Council in Washington. There he pledges to minimize economic damage from the oil spill.

May 3

In the Gulf: BP’s executive says crews are reducing the amount of oil reaching the surface by using dispersants. He pledges that BP will pay “all necessary and appropriate” costs associated with the clean-up.

At the White House: The administration, holding a meeting with BP executives, presses BP to explain how it will cover those clean-up costs. The president has a conference call with Allen and local officials to discuss the response.

May 2

In the Gulf: More vessels and response teams are deployed. Fishing is shut down from the Mississippi River to the Florida panhandle.

At the White House: Obama travels to the Gulf coast to survey the damage and meet with local officials. He calls the spill a “potentially unprecedented” disaster and pledges a “relentless” federal response. Obama is later briefed on the attempted Times Square bombing.

May 1

In the Gulf: Two more offshore platforms are shut down in the Gulf of Mexico as a precaution. Crews continue using dispersants by the leak. The slick from the explosion has tripled in size. Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Thad Allen is put in charge.

At the White House: Obama speaks at the University of Michigan commencement. Obama later attends the White House Correspondents Dinner.

April 30

In the Gulf: Oil reportedly begins to wash ashore in Louisiana’s wetlands. High winds make coastal protection efforts difficult.

At the White House: Obama again addresses the spill in public remarks. He suspends new offshore oil drilling but reaffirms his commitment to domestic oil production. The president order an immediate review on rig safety and sends top administration officials to the Gulf coast.

April 29

In the Gulf: The Coast Guard says the oil spill could soon reach landfall, while mitigation efforts continue.

At the White House: Obama, in his first public remarks on the spill, pledges to deploy “every single available resource” in response. He speaks with the governors from five Gulf states, while Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano declares a “spill of national significance.”

April 28

In the Gulf: Crews start to set fire to select sections of the spill. The Coast Guard reports that it has found a new leak, and updates its estimate of the spill from 1,000 to 5,000 barrels a day.

At the White House: Obama talks about the economy in Missouri. He later travels to Illinois to talk about financial reform. He is briefed on Air Force One about the spill on the way back to Washington.

April 27

In the Gulf: More boats are deployed to the Gulf. Coast Guard officials say they’re considering lighting the spill on fire.

At the White House: The Obama administration launches an investigation into the explosion. Administration officials meet with BP executives. Obama meets with the newly formed debt and deficit commission, then travels to Iowa to speak at an energy facility.

April 26

In the Gulf: About 15,000 gallons of dispersants and 21,000 feet of boom are used at the spill site to mitigate the damage from the leak.

At the White House: Obama greets the New York Yankees at the White House, then speaks at an entrepreneurship summit.

April 25

In the Gulf: The Coast Guard estimates up to 1,000 barrels are leaking in the Gulf every day in the wake of the blast. Dozens of boats and hundreds of response workers are deployed to contain the spill.

At the White House: Obama leaves Asheville to attend a memorial service for the West Virginia miners who died in the Upper Big Branch explosion.

April 24

In the Gulf: The Coast Guard discovers oil leaking from the ocean floor.

At the White House: Obama plays golf in North Carolina.

April 23

In the Gulf: The Coast Guard ends the search for the missing 11 workers, who are presumed dead, at the end of the day. The Coast Guard reports that oil does not appear to be leaking from the well head, though they are trying to contain what spilled in the explosion.

At the White House: Obama and the first family travel to Asheville, N.C., for vacation.

April 22

In the Gulf: The Deepwater Horizon rig sinks, while search-and-rescue efforts continue.

At the White House: Representatives from 16 federal agencies collaborate as part of a national response team to the Gulf disaster. Obama travels to New York City to discuss his financial regulatory bill. The president later holds a meeting in the Oval Office about the response to the oil rig tragedy. The White House releases a statement saying Obama is ensuring the government is offering “all assistance needed” in the rescue effort and in responding to the environmental impact.

April 21

In the Gulf: Coast Guard helicopters search for 11 missing oil rig workers.

At the White House: Obama meets with Senate Judiciary Committee members at the White House to discuss the Supreme Court vacancy. He later hosts a reception for G20 labor officials.

April 20

In the Gulf: An offshore oil drilling rig owned by Transocean and operated by BP explodes in the Gulf of Mexico nearly 50 miles of the Louisiana coast.

At the White House: The president returns to Washington from Los Angeles, where he was attending a set of Democratic fundraisers the night before.

And if that isn’t bad enough, the president added injury to incompetence.  Thanks to Obama’s incredible incompetence and failure as a president, more than 800,000 Americans are going to lose their jobs, according to a government report by the Environment and Public Works Committee.

… The noble Indian rode his horse up to the putrid brown muck that had once been known as the Gulf of Mexcico.  And he saw what President Barack Obama had allowed to happen to the majestic waters.  And he wept at the incompetence of the most evil American president since Democrat Andrew Jackson – who had ordered the genocidal march known as the Trail of Tears.

Oil Spill Panel: Obama Incompetence Destroyed Public Trust

Only one thing truly mattered to Barack Obama as millions of gallons of oil spewed out of the ocean floor to contaminate the Gulf Coast: that Barack Obama not be blamed:

President Obama may have decried finger-pointing today, but he also did a fair amount of it himself. Not only at the three companies, but at previous administrations.

Here’s what he said today when he turned the finger at the federal government:

“For too long, for a decade or more, there has been a cozy relationship between the oil companies and the federal agency that permits them to drill. It seems as if permits were too often issued based on little more than assurances of safety from the oil companies. That cannot and will not happen anymore.””A decade or more” clearly encompasses the Bush Administration, and may include the Clinton years too. But Mr. Obama’s been president for nearly 16 months. Does he get at least a little piece of the blame?

Not a bit, he made clear. He portrayed his administration as valiantly fighting the good fight against the oil companies from day one […]

None of the following things that Barack Obama did were Barack Obama’s fault:

Barack Obama took more money from British Petroleum than any politician over a twenty year period.  In spite of the fact that he had only been in national politics for less than three years.  Barack Obama’s administration approved the project and granted the permit for the doomed BP drilling site.  Barack Obama’s administration helped quash environmental problems and issued an environmental waiver to BP at said doomed site only days before the disaster.  Barack Obama failed to take the disaster seriously and delayed serious action for weeks, fiddling with fundraisers, golf outings, and vacations while the Gulf went to hell.  The Obama administration has continued to delay and waste time pursuing the dotting of the i’s and the crossing of the t’s regarding mindless bureaucratic inanities.

It was also not Barack Obama’s fault that Barack Obama turned down virtually every international offer to help help him clean up his mess while he was clearly not up to the job.

It was not Barack Obama’s fault that Barack Obama seemed to have absolutely no clue whatsoever what to do – as testified by even his own fellow liberals.

Nor was it Barack Obama’s fault that Barack Obama’s deceit-based moratorium on drilling has cost the Gulf thousands of jobs in what can only be seen as a double-whammy-smackdown on a region that had already experienced disaster.

And so, clearly, it is not Barack Obama’s fault that the public lost trust in Barack Obama’s government due to Barack Obama’s incompetence:

Spill panel: Federal confusion lost public trust
By SETH BORENSTEIN and DINA CAPPIELLO, Associated Press Writers Seth Borenstein And Dina Cappiello, Associated Press Writers  – September 27, 2010

WASHINGTON – The Obama administration’s repeated low estimates of the huge BP oil spill undermined public confidence in the government’s entire cleanup effort, leaders of a White House-appointed commission declared at an investigatory hearing Monday.  One likened the mistakes to Custer’s disastrous decisions at Little Big Horn.

Federal officials botched the government’s response, a local official and government and university scientists contended as the commission focused on the questions of who was in charge and how much oil spewed out of the well into the Gulf of Mexico.

Eventually, U.S. officials said the spill was about 60 times bigger than originally estimated. Instead of 42,000 gallons a day, the volume of leaking oil was closer to 2.4 million gallons a day.

“It’s a lot like Custer,” said panel co-chairman Bob Graham, a former Florida senator and governor, referring to the battle that killed George Armstrong Custer and wiped out most of the Army’s 7th Calvary in 1876. “He underestimated the number of Indians on the other side of the hill and paid the ultimate price.”

And who was in charge? Billy Nungesser, president of Plaquemines Parish, one of the coastal areas most affected by the spill, referred to another famous leader, this one fictional.

“It became a joke,” he told the commission. “The Houma command was the Wizard of Oz, some guy behind the curtain.”

Mistakes in the information that was being given out sapped confidence in the government on the issue, Graham and co-chairman William Reilly said at a news conference. Reilly described “repeated wrong numbers” on the amount of oil that was spilling.

I know who was supposed to be in charge: Barack Obama.  But he’s a total incompetent failure, who is skilled only in reading aloud whatever a teleprompter screen prompts him to say, and demagoguing.  And that’s why a crisis became such a pathetic and costly joke on every American citizen.

Pelosi And Democrats Block BP Oil Spill Investigation

Democrats really want to get to the bottom of the BP oil spill and all the failures of leadership and action thereafter.

In other related news, I have decided to sell the Golden Gate Bridge in a closed bidding process.  Just send me your bid, and I’ll let you know whether you’re the lucky winner.

From before the disaster – when Barack Obama received more money from BP than any politician over the past twenty years – to after the disaster, Democrats ought to be ashamed of themselves.

And their shame is showing:

Pelosi Blocks Oil Spill Investigation
by  Connie Hair
07/28/2010

The latest version of the CLEAR Act is slated for a floor vote in the House this week as Democrats look for ways to use the Gulf oil spill as a means to pass elements of their unpopular energy agenda.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) stripped out authorization for an independent investigation into the Gulf disaster.

The Natural Resources Committee unanimously passed the amendment in committee markup July 14 offered by Rep. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) that would establish a bipartisan, independent, National Commission on Outer Continental Shelf Oil Spill Prevention.

Unlike the commission set up by President Obama — packed only with environmental activists and no petroleum engineers — the commission unanimously approved by the Natural Resources committee would be comprised of technical experts to study the actual events leading up to the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

Not a single member of the committee voiced opposition at the bill’s markup.  The Senate has also approved an independent commission.

“To investigate what went wrong and keep it from happening again, the commission must include members who have expertise in petroleum engineering.  The President’s Commission has none,” Cassidy, the amendment’s author, told HUMAN EVENTS after the announcement.  “It defies common sense that this amendment passed unanimously in committee, only to be deleted in the Speaker’s office.”

Rep. Doc Hastings (R-Wash.), top Republican on the Natural Resources Committee said the Obama’s administration’s commission was set up to protect the President.

“By deleting the bipartisan, independent oil spill commission that’s received bipartisan support in both House and Senate committees, Democrats have shown they are more interested in protecting the President than getting independent answers to what caused this tragic Gulf spill.  Some of the biggest failures that contributed to the Gulf disaster are the direct responsibility of the federal government and by deleting this bipartisan, independent commission, Democrats ensure that only the President’s hand-picked commission will be digging into any failures of his own Interior Department appointees.  There is widespread agreement that no member of the President’s commission possesses technical expertise in oil drilling, and several are on the record in opposition to offshore drilling and support a moratorium that will cost thousands of jobs,” Hastings said.

The bill also sets up myriad regulations and new standards and laws for drilling that have nothing to do with offshore drilling.

“Even more outrageous is this bill’s attempt to use the oil spill tragedy as leverage to enact totally unrelated policies and increase federal spending on unrelated programs by billions of dollars. What does a solar panel in Nevada, a wind turbine in Montana, uranium for nuclear power, or a ban on fish farming have to do with the Gulf spill? Nothing — but the spill is a good excuse to try and pass otherwise stalled or unpopular new laws,” Hastings said.

Another member of the committee, Rep. John Fleming (R-La.), pointed out the hand-picked Obama commission is just getting underway with no findings or recommendations made.

“This ‘fix it’ bill is being rammed through without an accurate and full understanding of what actually went wrong. The Presidential Commission is just barely beginning its work, no investigations are yet concluded, and the failed [blowout preventer] still on the ocean floor, yet we are voting on a bill without knowing what went wrong,” Fleming said.

“Furthermore, at a time when Washington should be focused on creating jobs, this bill will do just the opposite by hampering future energy development and stifling job creation along the Gulf Coast,” Fleming added.  “This knee-jerk legislation — coupled with the Administration’s damaging Moratorium on offshore drilling — will worsen, not help, the situation.”

Yet the House is poised to vote this week on the CLEAR Act, likely Friday.

“This bill has less to do with preventing another spill than it does preventing domestic energy production,” Cassidy said.

UPDATE: House Republicans released bullets on the CLEAR Act this morning breaking down some of the measures included in the bill, including:

–     Imposes job-killing changes and higher taxes for onshore natural gas and oil production. It fundamentally changes leasing onshore by the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management, which affects not just leasing for natural gas and oil, but also for renewable energy including wind and solar. Forest Service and BLM leasing are shoved into the three new agencies that are replacing the former Minerals Management Service (MMS).

–     Creates over $30 billion in new mandatory spending for two programs that have nothing to do with the oil spill (the Land and Water Conservation Fund and the Historic Preservation Fund). In the version of the bill headed to the House floor, Democrats added brand new language that expressly allows this $30 billion to be earmarked by the Appropriations Committee.

–     Raises taxes by over $22 billion in ten years – with the taxes eventually climbing to nearly $3 billion per year. This is a direct tax on natural gas and oil that will raise energy prices for American families and businesses, hurt domestic jobs, and increase our dependence on foreign oil. This tax only applies to U.S. oil and gas production on federal leases – giving an advantage to foreign oil and hurting American energy jobs.

–     Requires the federal takeover of state authority to permit in state waters, which reverses sixty years of precedent. The mismanagement, corruption and oversight failures of the federal government are being used as justification to expand federal control by seizing management from the states.

–     Allows 10% of all offshore revenues – an amount possibly as high as $500 million per year – to be spent on a new fund controlled by the Interior Secretary to issue ocean research grants (ORCA fund). There is no requirement that the fund is used for the Gulf region or anything related to oil spills or offshore drilling. These funds can be earmarked.

If this wasn’t yet another way that Democrats are scheming to implode this country, it would be hilarious.  This bill is akin to my shooting you, and then using the shooting incident to pitch my gun-ban agenda.

You DO have to applaud the Democrats for their creative use of oxymorons.  I mean, to take a bill that deliberately prevents any kind of transparent independent investigation, and call it the “CLEAR Act,” is really something else.

Don’t forget to bid on my bridge.  You might be able to win it cheap!

And you can trust me not to rip you off, of course.  Because I’m at least as honest as Nancy Pelosi.

Oops.  My bad.  Nancy Pelosi famously promised to “drain the swamp,” but then she helped fill it instead.  So I’d have to be a total slimeball indeed not to be as honest as Nancy Pelosi.

Sarah Palin Demolishes Obama’s Pretentions State of the Deception Speech

From Sarah Palin’s Facebook page:

The Credibility Gap

Today at 2:17pm

While I don’t wish to speak too harshly about President Obama’s state of the union address, we live in challenging times that call for candor. I call them as I see them, and I hope my frank assessment will be taken as an honest effort to move this conversation forward.

Last night, the president spoke of the “credibility gap” between the public’s expectations of their leaders and what those leaders actually deliver. “Credibility gap” is a good way to describe the chasm between rhetoric and reality in the president’s address. The contradictions seemed endless.

He called for Democrats and Republicans to “work through our differences,” but last year he dismissed any notion of bipartisanship when he smugly told Republicans, “I won.”

He talked like a Washington “outsider,” but he runs Washington! He’s had everything any president could ask for – an overwhelming majority in Congress and a fawning press corps that feels tingles every time he speaks. There was nothing preventing him from pursuing “common sense” solutions all along. He didn’t pursue them because they weren’t his priorities, and he spent his speech blaming Republicans for the problems caused by his own policies.

He dared us to “let him know” if we have a better health care plan, but he refused to allow Republicans in on the negotiations or consider any ideas for real free market and patient-centered reforms. We’ve been “letting him know” our ideas for months from the town halls to the tea parties, but he isn’t interested in listening. Instead he keeps making the nonsensical claim that his massive trillion-dollar health care bill won’t increase the deficit.

Americans are suffering from job losses and lower wages, yet the president practically demanded applause when he mentioned tax cuts, as if allowing people to keep more of their own hard-earned money is an act of noblesse oblige. He claims that he cut taxes, but I must have missed that. I see his policies as paving the way for massive tax increases and inflation, which is the “hidden tax” that most hurts the poor and the elderly living on fixed incomes.

He condemned lobbyists, but his White House is filled with former lobbyists, and this has been a banner year for K Street with his stimulus bill, aka the Lobbyist’s Full Employment Act. He talked about a “deficit of trust” and the need to “do our work in the open,” but he chased away the C-SPAN cameras and cut deals with insurance industry lobbyists behind closed doors.

He spoke of doing what’s best for the next generation and not leaving our children with a “mountain of debt,” but under his watch this year, government spending is up by 22%, and his budget will triple our national debt.

He spoke of a spending freeze, but doesn’t he realize that each new program he’s proposing comes with a new price tag? A spending freeze is a nice idea, but it doesn’t address the root cause of the problem. We need a comprehensive examination of the role of government spending. The president’s deficit commission is little more than a bipartisan tax hike committee, lending political cover to raise taxes without seriously addressing the problem of spending.

He condemned bailouts, but he voted for them and then expanded and extended them. He praised the House’s financial reform bill, but where was Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae in that bill? He still hasn’t told us when we’ll be getting out of the auto and the mortgage industries. He praised small businesses, but he’s spent the past year as a friend to big corporations and their lobbyists, who always find a way to make government regulations work in their favor at the expense of their mom & pop competitors.

He praised the effectiveness of his stimulus bill, but then he called for another one – this time cleverly renamed a “jobs bill.” The first stimulus was sold to us as a jobs bill that would keep unemployment under 8%. We now have double digit unemployment with no end in sight. Why should we trust this new “jobs bill”?

He talked about “making tough decisions about opening new offshore areas for oil and gas development,” but apparently it’s still too tough for his Interior Secretary to move ahead with Virginia’s offshore oil and gas leases. If they’re dragging their feet on leases, how long will it take them to build “safe, clean nuclear power plants”? Meanwhile, he continued to emphasize “green jobs,” which require massive government subsidies for inefficient technologies that can’t survive on their own in the real world of the free market.

He spoke of supporting young girls in Afghanistan who want to go to school and young women in Iran who courageously protest in the streets, but where were his words of encouragement to the young girls of Afghanistan in his West Point speech? And where was his support for the young women of Iran when they were being gunned down in the streets of Tehran?

Despite speaking for over an hour, the president only spent 10% of his speech on foreign policy, and he left us with many unanswered questions. Does he still think trying the 9/11 terrorists in New York is a good idea? Does he still think closing Gitmo is a good idea? Does he still believe in Mirandizing terrorists after the Christmas bomber fiasco? Does he believe we’re in a war against terrorists, or does he think this is just a global crime spree? Does he understand that the first priority of our government is to keep our country safe?

In his address last night, the president once again revealed that there’s a fundamental disconnect between what the American people expect from their government, and what he wants to deliver. He’s still proposing failed top-down big government solutions to our problems. Instead of smaller, smarter government, he’s taken a government that was already too big and supersized it.

Real private sector jobs are created when taxes are low, investment is high, and people are free to go about their business without the heavy hand of government. The president thinks innovation comes from government subsidies. Common sense conservatives know innovation comes from unleashing the creative energy of American entrepreneurs.

Everything seems to be “unexpected” to this administration: unexpected job losses; unexpected housing numbers; unexpected political losses in Massachusetts, Virginia, and New Jersey. True leaders lead best when confronted with the unexpected. But instead of leading us, the president lectured us. He lectured Wall Street; he lectured Main Street; he lectured Congress; he even lectured our Supreme Court Justices.

He criticized politicians who “wage a perpetual campaign,” but he gave a campaign speech instead of a state of the union address. The campaign is over, and President Obama now has something that candidate Obama never had: an actual track record in office. We now can see the failed policies behind the flowery words. If Americans feel as cynical as the president suggests, perhaps it’s because the audacity of his recycled rhetoric no longer inspires hope.

Real leadership requires results. Real hope lies in the ingenuity, generosity, and boundless courage of the American people whose voices are still not being heard in Washington.

– Sarah Palin

She nailed it.

Spending Demon Democrats Demand Another $1.9 TRILLION In Debt Ceiling

Would you mind giving me a small loan?  All I need is two trillion dollars.

I’m good for it.  Seriously.

Democrats seek to up debt ceiling by $1.9 trillion
By DAVID ROGERS | 1/20/10 8:47 PM EST

Upping the ante just a day after losing their 60th Senate seat, Democrats moved Wednesday to seek a $1.9 trillion increase in the federal debt ceiling and give the Treasury adequate borrowing authority past November’s elections and into next year.

Republicans were caught off guard by the scale of the increase which follows a $290 billion short-term debt increase approved prior to Christmas. “That’s just escapism of the worst sort,” Sen. Judd Gregg (R.,N.H.) told POLITICO. But Democrats countered that their only alternative would be to give-in to a Republican strategy of forcing multiple smaller debt ceiling increases, designed to bleed them politically before November.

This perception was reinforced by a meeting Tuesday between Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). By going now with the higher $1.9 trillion target, Democrats are making a high-stakes gamble that the party can pull together once more to put the debt ceiling issue behind them for this election year.

“We have to do this. The alternative is worse,” said Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D—Mont.) in a brief interview.

Why can’t the Democrats do their “high-stakes gamble” with their own $2 trillion?

So the Democrats are clearly playing politics – wanting a massive and risky debt ceiling increase of nearly $2 trillion so that people will forget before the November elections.

And Republicans are being depicted as playing politics by making Democrats pass smaller, more incremental increases that would make Democrats look bad.

But Democrats look bad all by themselves.  And the incremental increases have never been anything even close to such a massive sum.  From Bloomberg:

The debt limit increase, raising the legal cap on government borrowing to about $14 trillion, would be the fourth in 18 months. A $1.8 trillion boost would probably be enough to prevent lawmakers from having to raise the limit again before next year’s midterm elections.

Such an increase would be more than twice the size of each of the past three debt limit increases, each of which lifted the cap by $800 billion or less.

So it’s really just political demagoguery to accuse the Republicans of pursuing a purely political agenda.  And this is how the leftwing political establishment and the leftwing media present a narrative instead of just presenting the facts.

There are actually more than a few people who think that the government is irresponsible, and shouldn’t have so much money to spend all at once, lest they piss it away and waste it.  I’m one of those people.

If your next door neighbors aren’t massively in debt, they’re probably such people, too.

Even Democrats were reluctant to vote for the last debt ceiling increase (of $290 billion) just before Christmas without a significant effort to reduce spending.

So to solve this problem – or at least go through the motions of pretending to solve it – “the Obama administration reached a tentative accord with congressional Democrats to create a version of the panel by executive order.  Obama’s proposal “would require Congress to vote on the commission’s recommendations without making any changes.”  And “with a commission created by presidential order, congressional leaders would promise to bring its proposals to a vote although such a vote wouldn’t be required by law.”

And that kind of crap-sandwich is what’s making Republicans roll their eyeballs about 180 degrees:

[Republican Senator Judd] Gregg told reporters that the proposal to create a commission by executive order was “a very cynical act by the administration” that “is by definition partisan and the whole purpose” is to have a bipartisan body.

“There is no way you can require a vote” by Congress so “it’s a nothing-burger,” Gregg said.

Which is to say that Obama wants to get a blank check of $1.9 trillion, which he hopes will tidy him over until AFTER the November midterms so Democrats won’t look bad coming for mere hundreds of billions in dribs and drabs.  And Republicans are supposed to go along with that, because they obviously should make the Democrats’ political fortunes the center of their world.  In exchange for this fools’ bargain, Republicans (and the fiscally responsible Democrats who don’t want to vote for it either) would get a commission that would have the power to impose nothing — the nothing burger.

I bet a nice, big, juicy nothing burger sounds pretty good to you.  Just don’t try to count on actually ever being able to eat it.

And by Obama’s demagoguery narrative, the Republicans will be evil if they don’t go along with this stupidity.

Note to Congress: try spending less.

I know one place you could start: the Obama White House averaged one party every three days during Obama’s first year.

Back in January 2009, before he signed his failed $787 billion stimulus bill into law, Barack Obama told America that everyone must sacrifice for the greater good. Everyone must have “some skin in the game.”

What he meant, of course, was that everyone would have to sacrifice to lift American out of the worst recession since the Great Depression except for Barack and Michelle Obama.

A party every three days, and nothing but the finest at the White House.  That’s a lot of Black Sea caviar and French truffles.

So you can see why Obama wants that $1.9 trillion.

Leftwing Warning Of ‘Obama’s Euthanasia’ Too

We are being told by the propagandists (including the propagandist-in-chief in the White House) about “rightwing efforts to frighten senior citizens.”  And we’re being told about “angry mobs” of  protesters at community town hall meetings are being “organized” (by the community organizer-in-chief).

But it isn’t true.  This health care legislation is no longer about the right vs. the left; it is about life and death.  There are plenty of independents and Democrats who are hollering mad at Democrats pushing ObamaCare.  And it turns out, there are leftwing blogs warning of “death panels” as well.

The Daily Beast is no conservative bastion.  In fact, they went after me once for daring to suggest that conservatives do unto Obama as liberals had unrelentingly done unto Bush:

Ironically, some wingnuts on the right are blaming Democrats’ techniques on their newfound commitment to tear down the next President of the United States. Take one particularly unhinged culture warrior, Michael Eden of TheAmericanSentinel.com, who writes: “Barack Hussein Obama and his Democratic lackeys get to wear the bullseyes on their foreheads for the duration of the next election cycle…don’t let a bunch of appallingly blatant hypocrites tell you that you owe Obama one more iota of respect than they gave Bush… It’s time to start burning down their houses and salting their fields.”

My response, for the record, was to say, “‘One particularly unhinged culture warrior.’  I actually liked the ring of that.  Thought about making it my byline.  Michael Eden – one particularly unhinged culture warrior.”

I offer that interaction only to provide you with my personal experience to assure you that the Daily Beast is hardly a bastion of rightwing plots.

So it is somewhat notable that Lee Siegel has an article entitled, “Obama’s Euthanasia Mistake” on the Daily Beast.

The Republicans carping about limitations on end-of-life care have a point. Lee Siegel on why the plans Obama is endorsing are dangerously sympathetic to “cost effective” end-of-life treatments.

For those of us who believe that the absence of universal health care is America’s burning shame, the spectacle of opposition to Obama’s health-care plan is Alice-in-Wonderland bewildering and also enraging—but on one point the plan’s critics are absolutely correct. One of the key ideas under consideration—which can be read as expressing sympathy for limitations on end-of-life care—is morally revolting. And it’s helping to kill the plan itself.

Make no mistake about it. Determining which treatments are “cost effective” at the end of a person’s life and which are not is one of Obama’s priorities. It’s one of the principal ways he counts on saving money and making universal healthcare affordable.

This is the Big Brother nightmare of oppressive government that the shrewd propagandists on the right are always blathering on about. Except that this time, they could not be more right.

Obama told Diane Sawyer in June that government should “study and figure out what works and what doesn’t. And let’s encourage doctors and patients to get what works. Let’s discourage what doesn’t.”

Sawyer then asked him: “Will it just be encouragement? Or will there be a board making Solomonic decisions?”

Obama replied, “What I’ve suggested is—is that we have a—a commission that helps—made up of doctors, made up of experts, that helps set best—best practices.”

When Sawyer pressed him to say whether those practices would be enforced by law, he evaded the question.

This reeks of the Big Brother nightmare of oppressive government that the shrewd propagandists on the right are always blathering on about. Except that this time, they could not be more right.

Leave aside the argument for ending life when its prospects for continuing seem too painful or too hopeless. Leave it aside because this is one case where Kant’s beautiful categorical imperative—act as though your particular deeds should be a universal law—will never apply. We know that theft and murder are wrong because if they were universally committed, the world would explode in chaos. But the decision to end your life before nature wrenches it away is as rational and humane as the decision to prolong your life by whatever means necessary. Life is too specifically precious to turn its final phase into any type of universal practice, whether it’s enforced by custom or by law.

As for the argument that fruitless tests and “senseless” procedures are bankrupting the health-care system, that is an insult to the intelligence. No one knows which tests and procedures will be effective beforehand. No amount of “study” and research is going to address the particular case and the particular condition, let alone the particular, desperate, irrational will to live—which, in animal terms, is pragmatic and rational.

(And anyone who thinks that we are not all animals—even the “experts” Obama is so enamored of— must read David Rieff’s remarkable account of his mother Susan Sontag’s refusal to accept her doctors’ verdict of imminent death. The will to live does not suddenly become an error of judgment just because a “system” cannot “afford” to accommodate it, especially when the system has the means to do so.)

Most consequential of all, even if limitations were put on certain tests and procedures, the only people who would be affected by it would be the people who, presumably, are the ones meant to be rescued by the very plan that would be imposing those limitations. The financially strapped, in other words, who are the intended beneficiaries of the health care plan would be the only people forbidden access to expensive life-extending technology. The rich will always be able to afford it.

Once the technology to extend life has become available, you cannot restrict its availability. That would be like only letting some people use cell phones. Such technology is a drain on the system? Then save money elsewhere. It’s ironic that lacking the will to tax the very wealthy, some of health-care supporters in Congress now wish to save money by limiting end-of-life options to the economically burdened.

Where is Obama coming from? Why is such an apparently humane man not more strongly condemning a utilitarian initiative straight out of Victorian England? A good part of the explanation has to do with the University of Chicago Law School milieu that Obama comes out of. By far, the most influential figure in that world is Judge Richard Posner, who teaches law at Chicago and publishes streams of pompous, robotically written books that are much praised and little read.

Judge Posner is both an enthusiastic advocate of euthanasia and an energetic eugenicist. He once wrote of Oliver Wendell Holmes’ ideas about eugenics—Holmes believed that a just society “prevents continuance of the unfit”—that “we may yet find [Holmes’] enthusiasms prescient rather than depraved.”

Cass Sunstein, who is Obama’s nominee for regulatory czar, is a disciple of Posner and believes in what Time magazine describes as “the statistical practice of taking into account years of life expectancy when evaluating a regulation.” In other words, Sunstein believes that the lives of younger people have a greater value than those of the elderly. This, obviously, would have a radical bearing on end-of-life considerations.

End-of-life treatment is still under consideration and would be a tiny sliver of Obama’s health-care package. But it is a highly volatile sliver. Betsy McCaughey, who singlehandedly killed the Clintons’ health-care initiative 15 years ago with her infamous and infamously inaccurate cover story in The New Republic, claims that this small passage in the bill “would make it mandatory—absolutely require—that every five years people in Medicare have a required counseling session that will tell them how to end their life sooner.” Not quite. But—painful as it is to concede anything to an ideological hack like McCaughey—it’s uncomfortably close.

The section, on page 425 of the bill, offers to pay once every five years for a voluntary, not mandatory, consultation with a doctor, who will not blatantly tell the patient how to end his or her life sooner, but will explain to the patient the set of options available at the end of life, including living wills, palliative care and hospice, life sustaining treatment, and all aspects of advance care planning, including, presumably, the decision to end one’s life.

The shading in of human particulars is what makes this so unsettling. A doctor guided by a panel of experts who have decided that some treatments are futile will, in subtle ways, advance that point of view. Cass Sunstein calls this “nudging,” which he characterizes as using various types of reinforcement techniques to “nudge” people’s behavior in one direction or another. An elderly or sick person would be especially vulnerable to the sophisticated nudging of an authority figure like a doctor.

Bad enough for such people who are lucky enough to be supported by family and friends. But what about the dying person who is all alone in the world and who has only the “consultant” to turn to and rely on? The heartlessness of such a scene is chilling.

Yet many liberals seem drawn to such fantasies of power and control. We live in a highly quantified society, entertained on all sides by divertissements that reduce human life to cute little anecdotes illustrating the morality of statistical, utilitarian analysis, from Malcolm Gladwell to Freakonomics and beyond.

A few weeks ago, The New York Times Magazine unfathomably ran an entire essay arguing, in effect, for a eugenic attitude toward end-of-life treatment written by Peter Singer, a Princeton University “bio-ethicist” whose views are squarely in line with those of Posner and Oliver Wendell Holmes. The essay drove the conservatives opposing Obama’s health-care plan into even greater apoplexy, as it should have. The only point on which it convinced was that euthanasia is morally acceptable only as an antidote to tenure.

One of Obama’s most alluring traits has been what some see as a literary bent that relishes complexity, irony, and even the mystery of the human personality. Let him turn toward that part of his nature and leave the sterile precincts of utilitarian social and legal theory behind. He should immediately and publicly declare his commitment to not placing economic hurdles in the way of people who want to prolong their life, or the life of their loved ones. In that way, he would take the air out of charlatans like McCaughey. And he would calm the fears of people who, far from being right-wing fanatics, are in clear-eyed possession of perhaps the only universal truth there is. No one wants to die.

I’m glad that people on the left are realizing what is going on with this plan and attacking it accordingly.  Whether I’m “one particular unhinged culture warrior” or not, my fear and loathing of this plan is quite genuine, and quite justified.

When you see what key Obama officials intimately involved with the health care agenda have said, it should make your skin crawl regardless of your political party.

The idea of stopping health care reform just to make Democrats look bad is not a project I’m interested in.  If the Democrats’ health plan was good, I would simply ignore it and go after them over something else (just being honest).  But the problem is it’s NOT a good plan; it’s a terrible plan.

And euthanasia by denial of medical resources – what you might call ‘passive euthanasia’ – is right around the corner.

Wow, That Hot Sarah Palin Sure Looks Good In Her… Character

Sarah Palin is a real pretty lady.  She’s got that “hot librarian” thing going on, no doubt about it.

But this former Miss. Alaska runner-up looks best of all where it counts the very most: on the inside.

This woman is simply amazing.  I am looking at her with increasing admiration building toward awe.

This is a woman who – shortly after being elected as Governor – fired the Governor’s chef because “her children could fix their own breakfast and sandwiches.”

This is a Governor who put the private jet purchased by the previous Governor with state money on eBay.

This is a Governor who sold the Governor’s limousine and instead drives her Volkswagon Jetta to work.

This woman is better than any giant-killer; she’s the slayer of the infamous “Bridge to Nowhere.”

Last year, this woman “vetoed 13 percent of the state’s proposed budget for capital projects. The cuts, the Anchorage Daily News said, ‘may be the biggest single-year line-item veto total in state history.'”

Now, that is a woman I can look at all day!

Sarah Palin is a pulchritudinous champion of the people against pork, corruption, and pretentious hoity-toity disconnect between leaders and the people they are supposed to serve has a remarkable personal story.  If you read on, you’ll get to see a titillating picture…