The Sunday 'Report;' 05/13/2012

What The National Pamphleteers Don't Report:
America's Two-Faced Liberals
by Dr. Walter E. Williams,
townhall.com
May 2, 2012
    President Barack Obama and Wall Street occupiers, along with their allies in the mainstream media and on college campuses, have maintained an ongoing attack on high-income earners, people they call 1 percenters. Listening to their deceitful demagoguery, you would naturally think of them as 99 percenters, but you'd be dead-wrong.  Last week, MSN Money posted a report titled "The richest counties in America." According to the report, residents of those 15 wealthiest counties "have median household incomes that are double the national average." Three of those counties have a median income of more than $100,000. The report goes on to say, "While many Americans struggle to find jobs, balance their budgets and get by with less, some folks are living high on the hog." Let's look at some of those counties.
    Loudoun County, Va., has a median household income of $119,540, making it the nation's richest county. Virginia's Fairfax County is next, with a median household income of $103,010; the median price of a house is $507,800. Third is Howard County, Md., where the median household income is $101,771. These three richest counties have seven nearby high-income neighbors, which include Arlington and Montgomery counties. The nation's richest counties are close to Washington, D.C., where people come to do good and wind up doing well for themselves.
    These 1 percenters are not wealthy right-wing Republicans; they are Obama's liberals. How can one tell? It turns out that seven of the 10 wealthiest counties in the Washington area voted overwhelmingly for Obama in 2008. These liberals portray themselves as 99 percenters when they are really 1 percenters. They're simply running a deceitful rope-a-dope, aided by the mainstream media, on the American people.
    During last year's Occupy movement, truly [....]
http://townhall.com/columnists/walterewilliams/2012/05/02/americas_twofaced_liberals/page/full/

Technology vs. Boots on The Ground:
Son Tay to Abbottabad, and Beyond
by: Charles W. Sasser,
commandposts.com
Date: April 30 , 2012
    On the morning of 2 May 2011, a team of 23 heavily-armed Navy SEALs in stealth helicopters assaulted into a walled courtyard in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Forty minutes later, they withdrew as quickly as they arrived after fatally double-tapping Osama bin Laden, the terrorist mastermind behind the 9/11 attack against the United States.  The raid was similar in scope and execution to another daring raid by Special Operations forces that occurred four decades earlier on 21 November 1970, when Army Green Berets in helicopters swept into the Son Tay Prison of North Vietnam to rescue American POWs. The raid was successful even though no prisoners were rescued; they had been secretly moved to another compound.
    “Both raids were Special Operations classics,” says U.S. Air Force Colonel (Ret) John Gargus, a key air operations planner for the Son Tay raid, and the author of The Son Tay Raid: American POWs in Vietnam Were Not Forgotten. “There is no doubt but what the guys who pulled Son Tay could have done bin Laden—or the other way around. The biggest difference is not in the operation, nor in the caliber of men. The biggest difference forty years made is in new warfighting technology and its incorporation into military training.” (2)
    The men of Son Tay who trained for their mission at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, used a “mock-up” of the prison constructed of wooden stakes and canvas cloth. They depended on flyovers for intelligence on the target, which meant the information was days to even weeks old. They launched the mission tactically blind as to what might await them on-target.
    In contrast, the Navy SEALs mission-trained on almost an [....]
http://www.commandposts.com/2012/04/technology-vs-boots-on-the-ground-son-tay-to-abbottabad-and-beyond/

Obama Ready To Campaign Openly As A Marxist
by Bob Livingston,
Personal Liberty Digest
May 2, 2012
The Barack Obama campaign revealed its slogan on Monday.
    President Barack Obama feels emboldened. He’s sensing victory in November, so he’s beginning to telegraph the way “Forward.”
“Forward.” was unveiled as Obama’s campaign slogan. It’s a word with strong ties to Marxism and socialism. “Forward!” (note the exclamation point) was a popular name for Communist and radical publications and entities during the 19th and 20th centuries. Obama’s slogan contains a period.
    The Washington Times posits that the Obama campaign didn’t look backward into history when it selected “Forward.” as its campaign slogan. That’s not true. The Obama campaign has Marxists and socialists in its midst. It’s inconceivable the Marxists and communists in Obama’s campaign didn’t know the history of “Forward.” The campaign is a masterful marketing organization.  Obama himself is a Marxist. His mentor — and likely biological father — was the communist Frank Marshall Davis. Obama referred to him as “Pops” in his book, Dreams from my Father. Obama’s mother and grandparents — longtime friends of Davis — were also communists. His political career was [....]
http://personalliberty.com/2012/05/02/obama-ready-to-campaign-openly-as-a-marxist/?eiid=

Fitial working to privatize CHC
by Haidee V. Eugenio
siapantribune.com 
May 13, 2012
    Gov. Benigno R. Fitial's administration is now looking at privatizing the Commonwealth Healthcare Corp. and is working with Philippine-based The Medical City to assess the viability of transitioning the only government hospital in the CNMI into a private entity. But it is still a long shot, given the need to invite proposers instead of awarding a sole-source contract.  The Medical City is currently building an estimated $220-million private hospital in Guam, to be called the Guam Regional Medical City and to be completed in 2014.  Press secretary Angel Demapan said The Medical City “is doing the assessment on their own” and will not cost the CNMI government.
    “The governor welcomes any other private providers who may be interested in presenting their plans,” Demapan said when asked whether Fitial plans to meet other private providers as well.  Fitial's plan of privatizing the CNMI hospital comes barely seven months since the government hospital transitioned into a corporation.  Senate Health Committee chair Ralph Torres (R-Saipan) and House Health Committee chair Sylvester Iguel (Cov-Saipan) separately said that the Fitial administration should not rush to privatizing the hospital without giving CHC the chance to really grow.
    Fitial, Lt. Gov. Eloy S. Inos, CHC chief executive officer Juan N. Babauta, CHC board members and other officials met with The Medical City officials yesterday morning at the governor's office on Capital Hill. The TMC group was led by Margaret Bengzon, president and chief executive officer of Guam Regional Medical City.  Privatization is expected help the hospital [....]
http://www.saipantribune.com/newsstory.aspx?newsID=118822&cat=1

["Clown Prince" Dates Pasty, White Girl]
Meet Barack Obama’s Real First Girlfriend
by Mytheos Holt,
theblaze.com
May 4, 2012
    By this point, President Obama’s fictional “composite girlfriend” has been roundly mocked by almost everyone. But don‘t assume that this means Obama didn’t ever date anyone – in point of fact, he dated quite a bit, starting at the age of 20 when he was still a student at Occidental. And in an instance of either stalking or successful journalism, the Daily Mail has found the woman involved.
   McNear refused to give any details about her dating experience with Obama and hung up on the Daily Mail when they tried to ask. Yikes. Still, her own life story, even without Obama, is plenty interesting:
Rather than moving into the White House she wed a rather less glamorous compensation prize – a Serbian boxer who once tried to rob $60,000 from a bank.
    Miss McNear married Bob Bozic in a ceremony which appalled her mother and brought a former vagrant and one time bookmaker into their upper middle class family.  On the face of it, Miss McNear and Mr Bozic made an extremely unlikely pair, even if her mother Suzanne was fiction editor at Playboy in the 1960s and 70s.
Miss McNear was a literary type from a waspish family who was seduced by Mr Obama’s intellectual musings on T.S. Eliot.
Burly Mr Bozic however spent [....]
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/meet-barack-obamas-real-first-girlfriend/

[Related Content]
["Clown Prince" Dates Pasty, White Girl #2]
Young Obama had great 'sexual warmth' but sharp edges...
and he 'didn't have a black bone in his body'
*Then-girlfriend Genevieve Cook wrote in her diary, 'He felt like an imposter. Because he was so white'
*In 'Dreams from My Father' Obama wrote about an unnamed girlfriend who he admits was a composite of several lovers, including Cook
*He wrote of a confrontation over 'black anger' with the composite lover in 'Dreams', but now reveals such a fight never happened
by Daniel Bates
dailymail.co.uk
3 May 2012
    He has modelled himself as a cool, calculated leader of the free world.  But at the age of 22 Barack Obama had a strong 'sexual warmth' that overwhelmed his girlfriend at the time, according to a new book that identifies her for the first time.  Vivid diaries written by Genevieve Cook reveal she was driven wild by the smell of sweat, smoking and deodorant that emanated from his bedroom.
    President Obama's first serious girlfriend, Genevieve Cook, has shared her diaries about their year-long love affair for a new biography and how the then 22-year-old Obama had great sexual warmth.
Cook wrote how Obama loved running and lived in an apartment that smelled of raisins and sweat. The 22-year-old would sit around shirtless in a sarong on weekends and do the Sunday crossword. She was 25 when they dated. 
    She said that on Sundays the future U.S. President loved to lounge around bare chested in a white and blue sarong whilst doing the newspaper crossword.  In a controversial claim she also recounted how he was deeply confused about his racial identity and 'felt like an imposter because he was so white'.  In the end Mr Obama, who was raised in Hawaii by his white mother, decided that he needed to 'go black' because it was best for him.  Ms Cook has long been hailed as the 'mystery woman' from Mr Obama's days in New York that he wrote about in his own memoir.  Cook also shared how Obama struggled with identity. He hung out with Pakistani friends, was raised by a white mother and white grandparents and had spent much of his childhood abroad.  This is the first time she has been identified or revealed her extensive diaries from the time she and Mr Obama dated.
    The disclosure are from a forthcoming book, 'Barack Obama: The Story' by David Maraniss and features in the June edition of Vanity Fair.  The journals are excerpted in this upcoming Obama biography by David Maraniss.  The extracts reveal Mr Obama and Ms Cook met at a Christmas party in New York's East Village in December 1983 when she was 25, three years older than him.  Mr Obama was still in his 'cocoon' phase and figuring himself out whilst working a dull job and living in a modest Manhattan apartment.  The two began seeing each other every Thursday night and on weekends and Ms Cook instantly found herself drawn to her 'startling' new friend.  In one diary entry she remarks: [....]
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2138518/Genevieve-Cook-Barack-Obamas-ex-girlfriend-says-President-great-sexual-warmth.html

Obama: Stop Lying About Oil Prices!
by John Myers,
Personal Liberty Digest
May 2, 2012
    Higher petroleum prices back up Barack Obama’s argument that renewable energy is urgently needed.Oil at more than $100 per barrel is far too expensive. Despite President Barack Obama’s recent protestations that oil speculators are to blame for expensive petroleum, the truth is that most of the blame rests on his shoulders.  There is plenty of oil in North America. Yet Obama and his Green lobby are happy to see gasoline prices go even higher just as we hit the busy summer driving season. The reason is that higher petroleum prices back up Obama’s argument that renewable energy is urgently needed.  President Franklin Delano Roosevelt made the famous pronouncement that “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
    Nearly 80 years later, a Democratic President is not playing down public fears but actually fanning them. If you don’t believe me, consider the facts about North America’s vast petroleum reserves and surging production.  Canadian oil production rose to 1.6 million barrels per day (mb/d) last year. That was an increase of more than 13 percent from the year before. According to the Canadian Energy Research Institute, Alberta and Saskatchewan oil sands production will more than double to 4 mb/d in the next seven years and will reach 6.2 mb/d by 2045.  Add that in with [....]
http://personalliberty.com/2012/05/02/obama-stop-lying-about-oil-prices/?eiid=

Obama creates "green jobs"--in other countries
(Political Ad)
americansforprosperity.org
on-going
    President Obama's reckless Stimulus spent billions of our tax dollars to create "green jobs"--in foreign countries like Mexico, Finland, and China.  The American people deserve to know what's going on--and that our tax dollars are being wasted on handouts to other countries, instead of creating jobs for 13 million unemployed Americans.  With the DNC admitting to their top donors that this ad could cause "serious damage" to the Left's agenda, and President Obama dedicating yet another TV ad to attacking AFP activists, they're more desperate than ever to keep the truth hidden.  There's a reason this [....]
http://www.americansforprosperity.org/ol0412a-ftv1

Why U.S. house prices won’t recover
Taking inflation into account, home prices are down to 1895 levelsby Jack Hough,
marketwatch.com
May 1, 2012
    When will U.S. house prices recover? Likely never. But that’s no reason not to buy.  The latest S&P/Case-Shiller numbers, reported last week, show that prices in 20 major markets declined 3.5% over the year through February. They’re now back to 2002 levels. If we subtract for inflation, they’re back to 1998 levels.
    But consider: After subtracting for inflation, prices are also back to 1986 levels. And 1955 levels. And 1895 levels.  That’s because the natural rate of price appreciation for houses is zero after inflation. Prices will eventually stop falling. They’ll resume rising. But over the long term, they’re unlikely to resume rising faster than inflation.  That’s why prospective buyers should stop focusing on the vague hope that house prices will jump from here and focus instead on the functional value houses provide for the money. In most markets, they provide enough of that to make buying a good deal.  To see why house prices and inflation are linked, consider that inflation is a general rise in the price of consumable goods and services. We measure [....]
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-us-house-prices-wont-recover-2012-05-01-1225310?siteid=nwhpf

Defunct or Lying Low?
Once Powerful Soros-Backed Project Goes Mysteriously Silent
by Becket Adams,
theblaze.com
May 1, 2012
    The Secretary of State Project, the once influential group backed by billionaire philanthropist George Soros, has either gone into hiding or informally disbanded.  What happened? Did the group just disappear? Well, before we investigate the group’s possible demise, perhaps a quick history lesson is in order.  The Secretary of State Project was created for the sole purpose of stopping Republicans from “stealing elections” (the project’s founders were a little sore about that whole Kathleen Harris thing). So how did the group plan to accomplish this? [....]
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/defunct-or-lying-low-once-powerful-soros-backed-project-goes-mysteriously-silent/

Morning Bell: A Better Life for Julia
by Mike Brownfield,
heritage.org
May 7, 2012
    Her name is “Julia,” and if you haven’t seen her, she’s a colorful cartoon character invented by the Obama campaign to help spread the message of how women will “benefit” under the president’s policies. What it shows instead, though, is the president’s vision of America — that individuals need the federal government at each stage of their life, and that he deserves credit for making our lives even better.  In Julia’s story, as depicted in a cartoon slideshow, a faceless young American woman grows from birth to old age with the government at her side every step of the way. In the good times and the bad times, government is there to lift Julia up — and without government, Julia could not succeed in life.
    This disturbing depiction of the president’s governing philosophy begins when Julia turns 3, at which time she is enrolled in the federally funded Head Start pre-school program. “Because of steps President Obama has taken to improve programs like this one, Julia joins thousands of students across the country who will start kindergarten ready to learn and succeed,” the cartoon explains. Never mind that Head Start is a proven failure. Despite Washington spending more than $167 billion on the program, a recent government study shows it has had no lasting benefits.  But this is only the beginning. According to the cartoon, thanks to President Obama’s policies, Julia is prepared for college, can afford to pay for college, has free health care, can repay for her student loans, enjoys free birth control, can have a child and give him a good education, can start a new business and hire employees, and can comfortably retire to a life of volunteering at a community garden. From birth to death, President Obama wants the federal government to carry Julia on its shoulders, and he wants to take credit for all the blessings of a life well-lived. That’s the liberal vision of America.
    What’s missing from this picture? The harm that big government [....]
http://blog.heritage.org/2012/05/07/morning-bell-a-better-life-for-julia/?roi=echo3-11928790391-8594560-b9d1c65d7d6b8b6e76cb3c8b67bd3e53&utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Morning%2BBell

Hastening The March To A North American Union And Global Governance

by Bob Livingston,
Personal Liberty Digest
May 7, 2012
The ultimate goal of the elites is to create a one world socialist government.The march toward a union of the United States, Canada and Mexico — and ultimately global government — continues apace.
    The ultimate goal of the elites is to create a one world socialist government. They have succeeded in combining most of Europe into a European Union (though the economic disaster there caused by the excessive corruption of the banksters, who overplayed their hands, may cause it to fly apart and the euro to crash). But even now we hear of a sinister plot by a covert group of EU foreign ministers who want to gain sweeping control over the entire EU and force member countries into ever-greater political and economic union.
    The group holding the secret talks (excluding a representative from Great Britain) is called the “Berlin Group” of Europhile politicians and is being led by the German foreign minister. Its goal, according to opponents, is to create a modern-day equivalent of the European emperor envisioned by Napoleon Bonaparte or a return to the Holy Roman Empire of Charlemagne that dominated Europe in the Dark Ages.  “This is a plot by [....]
http://personalliberty.com/2012/05/07/hastening-the-march-to-a-north-american-union-and-global-governance/?eiid=

Senior Obama Administration Adviser Defends Class Warfare By Quoting Karl Marx

by: Rob Port,
sayanythingblog.com
May 7, 2012
    Class war is not just inevitable but justifiable writes Rick Bookstaber, who serves on the Obama administraiton’s Financial Stability Oversight Council.  I wonder if the thinks those Occupy Wall Street protesters breaking out the glass of banks is “justifiable.”  Rick Bookstaber, who currently serves on the Financial Stability Oversight Council, the federal body established under the Dodd-Frank Act to “ensure the stability of our nation’s financial system,” took issue with conservative commentator Tucker Carlson’s accusations that liberals were engaging in “class warfare” by seeking to blame the nation’s fiscal problems on a small number of wealthy individuals.
    “There is little that matches the artfulness of the rich in waving off criticism of the widening income gap as ‘class warfare,’” Bookstaber wrote. “And there is little that matches the gullibility of the rest in following along.”
“I am not picking sides in this war,” he added, “but I believe such a war is justifiable, and indeed ultimately inevitable.”  Bookstaber doesn’t stop [....]
http://sayanythingblog.com/entry/senior-obama-administration-adviser-defends-class-warfare-by-quoting-karl-marx/

Putin's Evolving Strategy in Europe
by George Friedman,
STRATfor.com
May 8, 2012
    This week, Vladimir Putin was sworn in for a third term as Russian president. Putin's return to the presidency was not unexpected; he was never really unseated as Russia's leader, even during Dmitri Medvedev's presidency. But it comes as an anti-incumbent trend is developing in Europe, most recently demonstrated when socialist challenger Francois Hollande defeated Nicolas Sarkozy in France's presidential elections this week. In response to these changes, Putin will have to adjust Russia's approach in Europe.
Putin's Plans for Russia and Beyond
    Russia has been on the path to resurgence since Putin won the presidency in 1999. He inherited a broken, weak and chaotic Russia. As Stratfor has noted over the years, Putin did not seek to re-create the Soviet Union. He is a student of geopolitics, and he understands Russia's constraints and the overreaching that led to the fall of the Soviet Union. Putin's mission was to return Russia to stability and security -- a massive undertaking for the leader of a country that not only is the world's largest but also is internally diverse and surrounded by potentially hostile powers.  During his [....]
http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/putins-evolving-strategy-europe?utm_source=freelist-f&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20120508&utm_term=gweekly&utm_content=readmore&elq=a88ca1bca59e4fcbbb038f20069c0711

Scytl: Voter Fraud Facts and Fiction

by Michelle Malkin,
townhall.com
May 09, 2012
    With six months until Election Day, conspiracy theories are percolating on the Internet like bubbling mud pots at Yellowstone: Left-wing billionaire George Soros is going to rig the election for Barack Obama. Foreigners will oversee the nation's entire vote-counting system. The fix is in, and all is lost.  Before conservatives go all Michael Moore-moonbatty, let's calm down and separate voter fraud facts from fiction. There's no time to waste worrying about manufactured scares. And there are plenty of legitimate threats to electoral integrity without having to inflate or concoct them.
FACT: Scytl is a Spain-based business that specializes in "electoral security technology" and electronic voting applications. Its cryptographic research initially was funded by the Spanish government's Ministry of Science and Technology and later was spun off as a private-sector e-voting venture.
FACT: In January 2012, Scytl acquired U.S.-based SOE Software. SOE writes "election management" programs that assist officials with everything from "Internet voting to election night reporting and online poll worker training."
FICTION: According to alarmists, Scytl's acquisition of SOE amounts to a complete takeover of America's election system. No, not really. [....]
http://townhall.com/columnists/michellemalkin/2012/05/09/scytl_voter_fraud_facts_and_fiction/page/full/

Unemployment Explained:
Obama's Disability Scammers

by John Ransom,
townhall.com 
May 7, 2012
    I have to credit our own Mike Shedlock for writing about how Obama’s been able to drive down the topline unemployment number even though unemployment remains as a big problem today as it has ever been.  I’m often reluctant to piggy back on a contributor’s work, but when something is really newsworthy, I think it’s justified.  Yesterday Mish pointed out that:
In the last year, the civilian population rose by 3,638,000. Yet the labor force only rose by 945,000. Those not in the labor force rose by 2,693,000.
In the last month, actual employment fell by 169,000, but the unemployment rate dropped by .1%.
That is an amazing "achievement" to say the least.
    How did Obama do this magic trick of moving unemployment from a high of 10 percent to 8.1 percent without adding, you know, jobs?  Well according to Shedlock, economists at JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Morgan Stanley say that those on Social Security Disability (SSDI) checks have risen by about 2.2 million.
    People who qualify for SSDI are automatically excluded from the workforce, meaning that you can actually have an economy losing jobs while technically the unemployment rate will go down as more people received disability benefits and are subtracted from the workforce.  Social Security Disability is a picture perfect program scam for the Obama administration. It allows Obama to say that unemployment is going down, while adding to the rolls of people who are dependent on some sort of Democrat-Party enabled [....]
http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/johnransom/2012/05/07/unemployment_explained_obamas_disability_scammers/page/full/

Can You Pick Out the Flag Gaffe on Obama‘s New ’Julia’ Site? We Did

by Madeleine Mrogenstern,
theblaze.com
May 4, 2012
    The Obama campaign’s new “Life of Julia” tool has led to no shortage of mocking parodies of the faceless, fictional female guided through life by the president’s programs.  The efficacy of Obama’s policies — and the hardships “Julia” would befall under a Romney administration — are certainly up for debate. One thing that’s not? Whoever created Julia and her world really should have brushed up on their flag etiquette.  From “The Life of Julia,” age 25: [....]
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/can-you-pick-out-the-flag-gaffe-on-obamas-new-julia-site-we-did/

This 11% Yielder Continues To Show Consistent Growth And Progress

by Bret Jensen,
seekingalpha.com
May 4, 2012
    The market has had a tough week with a poor jobs report and concerns about the elections in France and Greece over the weekend. Not much is working here. The NASDAQ looks like it will have its worse week since December and the energy sector has just gotten hammered this week. One of the few areas that is working in my portfolio over the last five trading sessions are my positions in Business Development Companies. One of my stocks, TICC Capital Corp (TICC), reported solid earnings this morning and looks poised to continue to generate positive income with a [....]
http://seekingalpha.com/article/560431-this-11-yielder-continues-to-show-consistent-growth-and-progress?source=email_investing_income&ifp=0

The President's Private War

by Judge Andrew Napolitano,
townhall.com 
May 04, 2012
    Did you know that the United States government is using drones to kill innocent people in Pakistan? Did you know that the Pakistani government has asked President Obama to stop it and he won't? Did you know that Pakistan is a sovereign country that has nuclear weapons and is an American ally?
Last week, the Obama administration not only acknowledged the use of the drones; it also revealed that it has plans to increase the frequency and ferocity of the attacks. White House counterterrorism adviser John O. Brennan argued that these attacks are "in full accordance with the law" and are not likely to be stopped anytime soon.
    Brennan declined to say how many people were killed or just where the killings took place or who is doing it. But we know that Obama has a morbid fascination with his plastic killing machines, and we know that these machines are among the favored tools of the CIA. We also know that if the president had been using the military to do this, he'd be legally compelled to reveal it to Congress and eventually to seek permission.  We know about the need to tell Congress and ask for permission because of the War Powers Act. This law, enacted in 1973 over President Nixon's veto, permits the president to use the military for 90 days before telling Congress and for 180 days before he needs congressional authorization. Obama must believe that he can bypass this law by using civilian CIA agents, rather than uniformed military, to do his killing.  The Constitution limits the presidential use [....]
http://townhall.com/columnists/judgeandrewnapolitano/2012/05/04/the_presidents_private_war/page/full/


Olga and Julia: Moochers of the World Unite!

by Daniel J. Mitchell,
townhall.com 
May 4, 2012
    Back in 2010, I declared that Olga Stefou was a symbol of everything that’s wrong with the Greek welfare state.  She was one of the protesters and – if the story captured her thoughts accurately – she displayed an unlimited entitlement mentality. Sort of helps one understand why this cartoon is so accurate.  Now we have an American version of Olga. Her name is Julia, and she is just as much of a moocher.  The good news, though, is that Julia is only a make-believe leech. She’s been created by the Obama campaign to show how big government can provide cradle-to-grave handouts.
    The full series can be found at this link, and here’s a screenshot of the handouts that Julia might take at age 31.  Poor Julia is getting mercilessly mocked as everything from a deadbeat to a New Soviet Woman. But I realize my circle of friends, acquaintances, and contacts are not a representative sample.
So I do wonder whether this new gimmick from the Obama campaign will be successful. If it does work, it will show that this Chuck Asay cartoon was depressingly prescient. Heck, this cartoon about government as Santa Claus also will be accurate.
The European Version of “Welfare Cuts Are Racist”
There’s occasionally silly and dishonest demagoguery in America by those who want to equate small government sentiments with racism. The most infamous example from recent years were the malicious accusations that anti-Obamacare protesters used racial epithets.  And one of my first blog posts that actually got some attention dealt with the [....]
http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/danieljmitchell/2012/05/05/olga_and_julia_moochers_of_the_world_unite/page/full/

Secretaries Gone Wild

by Victor Davis Hanson,
townhall.com
May 3, 2012
    We’ve had some unusual cabinet secretaries in past administrations –Earl Butz, John Mitchell, and James Watt come to mind — but never anything quite like the present bunch.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has overseen some $5 trillion in new debt. To help pay for it, he wants the rich — the top 1 percent, which already contributes more in income taxes than does the bottom 90 percent — to pay more for what he calls “the privilege of being an American.” Geithner, whose department oversees the IRS, should have taken his own advice: As a rich American one-percenter, he once failed to pay his own self-employment taxes, and improperly claimed his children’s camp costs as a dependent-care deduction.
Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar has pulled off the near-impossible: At a time when the known gas and oil reserves of the United States on public lands have soared, he has cut back on federal leasing of them to just about 2 percent of available offshore lands and 6 percent of onshore. Meanwhile, huge new amounts of oil are being found on private lands despite, not because of, the Interior Department. When he was a U.S. senator, Salazar claimed that even $10-a-gallon gas would not change his mind about voting to increase offshore drilling. And although he controls the leases of the richest oil and gas reserves in the Western world, he recently shrugged that no one knew whether gas would hit $9 a gallon.
Then there is the even stranger case of Energy Secretary Steven Chu, whose department helped oversee millions in bad loans to green companies like Solyndra, First Solar, and Solar Trust of America — the Teapot Dome scandals of our times. Chu infamously quipped before assuming office that he wanted U.S. gas prices to reach European levels. Apparently Chu wanted to force a decrease in fossil-fuel burning — although he later confessed that he does not drive a car.  Chu also once warned that California’s Central Valley agriculture might disappear owing to global warming. True, it could decline, but that would more likely be due to the Obama administration’s decision to divert irrigation water in hopes of helping out the three-inch San Francisco Delta smelt. Chu should realize that private-sector California farmers create thousands of jobs, while his own cabinet’s Solyndra-like projects have done precisely the opposite.
Attorney General Eric Holder dropped charges against the New Black Panther Party for voter intimidation. That may explain why he [....]
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/298737/secretaries-gone-wild-victor-davis-hanson#

Mamas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be "Julia"

by Michelle Malkin,
townhall.com 
May 4, 2012
    Quick, hide under the covers. The nation's storyteller, Barack Obama, unveiled a frightening new fable on the Internet intended to scare women away from supporting fiscal conservatives in November. But as is increasingly common with Obama's social media propaganda initiatives, "The Life of Julia" immediately flopped.  Why? Because 1) self-sufficient women voters aren't as sheeple-ish as Democratic strategists make them out to be, 2) conservative activists are overtaking Obama's zombie army online, 3) non-delusional Americans don't want cradle-to-grave utopians turning their country into the next Greece or Spain, and 4) responsible grownups are getting sick and tired of radical Saul Alinsky-style tall tales from the progressive Pied Piper.
    Using snazzy graphics and interactive slideshow features, BarackObama.com spins a glowing narrative of imaginary Julia's life from age 3 to 67. But "Julia" is a pathetic figment of the progressive imagination. She simply cannot function without the lifelong intervention of federal patriarchs.  Instead of two [....]
http://townhall.com/columnists/michellemalkin/2012/05/04/mamas_dont_let_your_babies_grow_up_to_be_julia/page/full/

Members of Congress Work to Rein In Overcriminalization in America

by Joe Luppino-Esposito and
Paul J. Larkin, Jr.
heritage.org
May 2, 2012
    What do a legendary guitar maker and a lobster importer have in common? Both are alleged to have run afoul of the Lacey Act, one of the most egregious, overcriminalized statutes on the books. Now some Members of Congress are working to inject some much-needed fairness into the justice system.  Originally enacted in 1900 as a modest law designed simply to protect states against poachers who fled across state lines, the Lacey Act today makes it a federal crime to import fish, wildlife, or plants in violation of any foreign law adopted in any form by any foreign nation, irrespective of the reasonableness of a person’s conduct. No other nation puts its citizens at such risk of imprisonment.
    The result, predictably, has been miscarriage of justice. Federal agents raided the Tennessee manufacturing plant of Gibson Guitar for an alleged violation of the Lacey Act due to the import of certain wood from India. Months after the raid, the U.S. government still holds more than $1 million in seized property but has yet to file charges against the company.
Abner Schoenwetter spent five-plus years in prison for “heinous” crimes like importing lobsters into the U.S. that, under a void Honduran law, were too small to be taken and should have been packed in boxes rather than in clear plastic bags.
    Now, some members of Congress are looking [....]
http://blog.heritage.org/2012/05/02/time-to-focus-on-overcriminalization-in-america/
Until Next Sunday....