Obama Lied, People Died

On March 8, President Barack Obama falsely claimed to have lifted the ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, Gilbert Meilaender, Paul McHugh, Benjamin Carson, Nicholas Eberstadt, Jean Bethke Elshtain, Alfonso Gómez-Lobo, William Hurlbut, Donald Landry, Peter Lawler, and Diana Schaub:

At the outset of his remarks, the president characterized his action as “lift[ing] the ban on federal funding for promising embryonic stem cell research.” That language does not accurately characterize the federal funding policy that has been in place during the entire tenure of this council. The policy announced by President Bush on August 9, 2001, did not ban federal funding of embryonic stem cell research; rather, for the first time, it provided and endorsed such funding (as long as the stem cell lines had been derived prior to that date).

Obama lied, people will die.

Barney Frank(MA – Four) writing in the Puffington Post attempts, rather lamely, to offer a defense for calling Justice Anton Scalia a homohobe:

Justice Scalia denounced the court majorities not simply for finding that it was unconstitutional to discriminate based on sexual orientation in cases involving political rights and the right to private consensual sex, but he also made it clear that in his view sex discrimination is not only permitted by the Constitution but is very much in society’s interest because homosexuality deserves to be treated with not only disapproval, but legal disability.

So from which planet does Frank come?   Certainly not Earth.   On Earth, there are but two sexes, to wit male and female.    Say what  you will about discrimination based on a person perceived  choice of sexual partners, it is not discrimination based sex.

Further, Frank imagines that somehow the Constitution bans discrimination based of sex.   Evidently on Frank’s planet they don’t have the the Ninetieth  Amendment:

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.

Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

If  prior to the ratification of the Ninetieth, the Constitution banned discrimination based on sex, , the amendment itself would have been pointless.   if the Ninetieth were intended to ban discrimination based on sex, it would have not been limited to mere voting rights.

Note, for the purposes of this discussion, the actual merits of disseminating based on sex are moot.

Look, I know this has long since become a matter of repeating earlier comments and replacing the names, dates and positions not being filled, but another of he president’s appointees… this time the number two slot at the EPA   (Yeah, I know, number two slot… I’m not going there just now)  is now under Obama’s bus.

The EPA is saying:

(Washington, D.C. – March 25, 2009) Jon Cannon, nominee for Deputy U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator, released the following statement:

Cannon

“Today I am voluntarily removing my name from consideration to be Deputy Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. It has come to my attention that America’s Clean Water Foundation, where I once served on the board of directors, has become the subject of scrutiny. While my service on the board of that now-dissolved organization is not the subject of the scrutiny, I believe the energy and environmental challenges facing our nation are too great to delay confirmation for this position, and I do not wish to present any distraction to the agency.”

EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson said: “I’m disappointed that Jon Cannon will be unable to serve as Deputy Administrator, and I thank him for his many years of dedication to the EPA. The administration will move quickly to identify a new candidate who can help us carry out our mission to preserve environmental sustainability and create green jobs as we transition the nation to a clean energy economy.”

(Aside, Hmmm… perhaps the EPA should be reading David Owen… these guys are not on the same page.)

Michelle who notes the same release, says the dinosaurs have  ignored it…also notes the origin of the problem:

… I found this EPA report from 2007 on how the America’s Clean Water Foundation mishandled three huge government grants totaling nearlly $26 million…

Ah, yes. Who could possibly object to clean water, rght? And so by extension any objection to the practices and tactics of “America’s Clean Water Foundation ” are seen as pro-polluters. right? 

You begin to see what we’re up against, here? 

So, who is Cannon? Where’s he been? he’s another lawyer… and environmental crusader, (That’s not a compliement)

But just about everyone is being tight-lipped about all this. There’s something deeper going on here.  Far as I can see, there was nothing to stand in the way of the nomination. Even James Inhofe was planning on supporting the nomination.  Nothing seemed to be standing in the way of his taking the position… and suddenly bam –  he withdraws, and nobody knows why-  and all the references to the 25 million in misused funding except the one bit Michele located, goes missing.

Hmmm.

Welcome, one and all, to the most intense nightly read anywhere on the sphere; The BitsBlog Nightly Ramble

This is the Roadside Cafe edition

• The magical disappearing tax cut: One of the things that did come out of that presser that nobody… well, hardly anyone, anyway… watched was that Obama will sign off on a budget that doesn’t incude the much touted middle class tax cut. So, anyone who voted for Obama on the idea that a tax cut for the middle class was going to happen, you’ve been suckered again. And yes, I said again. This is exactly what went down in the weeks following Clinton’s oath of office. I’ll let Greg Mankiw fill in the details.  Why do people keep voting Democrat, anyway?
• The Black Car Nation: California, it seems is planning on making it illegal to sell back cars out there. The stated reason? Global warming. No, I’m not kidding.  If this is really representitive of the people of California, I suggest we start calling them all idiots,now, and wall the place off.  No, I’m serious. Look,  I don’t feel like playing Lot, here, who argued with God to save Sodom and Gomorrah  if one rightious man could be found there.  The ones who have managed to keep their brains out there need to seperate themselves and move out. We need to seperate California from the rest of the population.  I think we can take the spread of this kind of thing down there as evidence that stupidity is contagious.  OK, Say it. I’m being an insensitive idiot.  But come on, now…  This is about as stupid as I’ve ever heard from any government anywhere. OTOH, what do you expect from the Gorbots at the Air Quality Board?  I’m telling you; what the  Democrats and the Unions haven’t done to California, the Gorebots will. To anyone in California reading this. Leave now. I beg you; save yourself before it’s too late.
• It’s those little comments:  I stopped wondering about George Soros a long time ago. The man is the definition of evil. His response on the crisis is telling, I think.
• I Dunno, Jonah:
  

  Look, I think there are examples of conservative or right-wing rhetoric getting out of hand vis a vis Obama. I listened to a video clip of Alan Keyes talking about Obama the other day and he might as well have been talking about Pol Pot. But I think most of the rhetoric has been perfectly legitimate given the times we’re in and what Obama is trying to do. In particular, as I noted the other day, I love how liberals — who have been pushing to Europeanize American social policy for generations — are suddenly aghast and contemptuous when conservatives complain that liberals want to Europeanize American social policy, just as the liberal effort starts to succeed.

  Mmmmph. Look, Jonah, I understand your reservation on the bombast of Keyes. But given, as you say, what Obama is trying to do, I can’t help wondering if he’s not in fact understating the case. At the risk of a Godwin-like response, was there anyone who predicted what Hitler would eventually become during his long rise to the top, who wasn’t considered a flake, a nut, an outcast in German society? There’s much in the way of similarity in the experience of both men. Enough, I think to give  quite reasonable people pause on this point.

•  Why Jindal should be taken seriously: Rick Moran has a great article up at Pajamas Media this morning, that in it’s way explains that very point.  Jundal is making the noises I’ve been making at this blog (And yes, others, too) for eight years, now. As I told you, anyone who takes those values seriously, is going to be a formidable poltical presence in this next cycle and going forward from there
• 

  Sarah Palin

  Bury her in legal fees: Speaking of a formidable poltical presence, the lefties must really be scared of Sarah Palin.  No, I mean it. Look; Given the number of outright criminal issues they’ve got going amongst their own right now,  their complaints about Palin can be nothing but politically, not morally motivated. They’re busy throwing the kitchen sink at her.  Another indication… Saint Andrew the Incontinent tossed another bit of crap at the wall this morning. Anything that has a chance of sticking. this kind of thing can only reflect fear.  They know that if they can’t take her down between now and 2012, she’s going to do them serious damage. I’m more than a little annoyed by those on the right trying to help the left out on their attacks on her, by the way. I’ll write to that point in the near future, I’m sure. For now, I suggest most of it is coming from people who thought…. incorrectly… that John McCain isn’t responsible for losing the 08 election.  Well, you know what I think of McCain, too, don’t you?

•  For Every Action: Have you seen how FedEx will respond to the Card Check Bill?  Good. Very good indeed. Let’s get more on board with this idea.
• This is the sound of Atlas Shrugging: If you’ve not read the resignation letter from Jake DeSantis formerly of AIG, you need to.
• The Homeless Lie: Remember the comments from various quarters doing Bush 41 about the astounding numbers of homeless people? They’re at it again.
• His brother’s Keeper:  Obama’s brother.. the one in Kenya… may have cholera? Yep. 
• With the financial crisis looming, the Senate leaps into action: Investigating how college football picks No. 1…  Must be a lot of them lost money on March Madness. Oh, what the hell.. the president made a big deal out of his bracket picks, too. Right?
  

  Doing the people's business?

• The Case of the missing photo: By the way, remember that pic of Obama looking over his bracket board for March Madness?  Yeah, this one here. Everyone and their brother had the thing up. All the news paper sites and agood chuck of blogs, too.  I couldn’t find it on Google, just now. Good thing I captured it, mostly by chance.  Wonder why it would go missing, like that.  Hmmmm. Couldn’t be that there was a negative reaction to it, so someone squashed it, huh? Nah. Couldn’t be.
• It happens every spring:  But not like this.  Say a prayer for the folks along the Red River which is giving the locals some serious problems.

For generations, the Radical Islam has sought to move us back to the 14th century. Now, we see they have an unlikely ally in that effort; the moder enviro-whack-job.

David Owen in The New Yorker, today:

The popular answer—switch to hybrids—leaves the fundamental problem unaddressed. Increasing the fuel efficiency of a car is mathematically indistinguishable from lowering the price of its fuel; it’s just fiddling with the other side of the equation. If doubling the cost of gas gives drivers an environmentally valuable incentive to drive less—the recent oil-price spike pushed down consumption and vehicle miles travelled, stimulated investment in renewable energy, increased public transit ridership, and killed the Hummer—then doubling the efficiency of cars makes that incentive disappear. Getting more miles to the gallon is of no benefit to the environment if it leads to an increase in driving—and the response of drivers to decreases in the cost of driving is to drive more. Increases in fuel efficiency could be bad for the environment unless they’re accompanied by powerful disincentives that force drivers to find alternatives to hundred-mile commutes. And a national carbon policy, if it’s to have a real impact, will almost certainly need to bring American fuel prices back to at least where they were at their peak in the summer of 2008. Electric cars are not the panacea they are sometimes claimed to be, not only because the electricity they run on has to be generated somewhere but also because making driving less expensive does nothing to discourage people from sprawling across the face of the planet, promoting forms of development that are inherently and catastrophically wasteful.

One beneficial consequence of the ongoing global economic crisis is that it has put a little time back on the carbon clock. Because the climate damage done by greenhouse gases is cumulative, the emissions decrease attributable to the recession has given the world a bit more room to devise a plan that might actually work. The prospects for a meaningful worldwide climate agreement probably improved last November, with the election of Barack Obama, but his commitments to economic recovery and carbon reduction—to bringing the country out of recession while also reducing U.S. greenhouse emissions to seventeen per cent of their 2005 level by 2050—don’t pull in the same direction. Creating “green jobs,” a key component of the agenda, is different from creating new jobs, since green jobs, if they’re truly green, displace non-green jobs—wind-turbine mechanics instead of oil-rig roughnecks—probably a zero-sum game, as far as employment is concerned. The ultimate success or failure of Obama’s program, and of the measures that will be introduced in Copenhagen this year, will depend on our willingness, once the global economy is no longer teetering, to accept policies that will seem to be nudging us back toward the abyss. 

Insanity. Sheer insanty.  Let me state this flatly, so there’s no mistaking my meaning: Owen is a fool, and a destructive one at that. He has proof… and admits it… that ‘green’ is anti-economic growth, that it will kill our economy. Yet, he continues, insanely, to hold this ‘green’ non mobile, non-technological culture as a goal. Insane! Why?

All of this is based on the Gorebot relgion of global warming, the evidence for which is suspect at least and in truth, a monumental construct  of lies and disinformation.  The very basis of our freedoms, and our economy… our mobility and our technology…is being challanged here, by a myth. 

I beg you: FIGHT!!!  Don’t let them do this to us.

Remember the late Carl Sagan, the theoretical astronomer?    Sagan was probably the only astronomer to be regular quest to the Tonight Show.   For all I know, Sagan was very good theoretical astronomer.  Not my cup of tea.    However Sagan never limited his opinions to just theoretical autonomy.   Sagan has opinions on everything.   The problem was that Sagan was an expert in one area, astronomy, he wanted you to believe the was an expert on everything.

In response to Sagan rather finite body of knowledge but rather infinite set of pronouncements, I developed the Sagan Principal.   It holds that a person’s  expertise diminishes the farther they are from their expertise.   Sagan wondered pretty far.

Speaking of lost wanderers, David Freddoso, National Review, links to this quote from the one, b/k/a   Barack Obama:

[T]he most critical part of our strategy is to ensure that we do not return to an economic cycle of bubble and bust in this country…The budget I submitted to Congress will build our economic recovery on a stronger foundation so that we don’t face another crisis like this 10 or 20 years from now.

The last time I checked Obama has a hack lawyer, who has never released his college or law school transcripts and never published anything, he himself, has written.   Obama has trouble understanding laws or executive orders he has signed.   Translation, if Obama is really a lawyer, he not a very good one.

So this hack lawyer makes this radical economic pronouncement that somehow economic recovery is magically linked to enacting his bloated three trillion dollar budget.  Since when?   Obama has no economic credentials..   He cites no economic experts who can collaborate his theory.   In short Obama gives us no reason to believe that his private theory is true.

The graph shows the Bush administration debt in gray versus the projected Obama administration debt in red.   It is not a pretty picture.

Hat tip photo and full story: Herttage Foundation.

In short, the idea of Obama, the eloquent, elegant, trans-racial hero, able to inspire his way around anything, ran into reality and was dissolved by it, revealing a not-well-prepared neophyte politician with an embarrassing penchant for gaffes

Noemie Emery, DC Examiner.

Welcome, one and all to the most intense nightly read anywhere on the sphere… The BitsBlog Nightly Ramble

This is the ‘Gee, you’re smart” edition.

• Irony, but no starchy:  I note Michael Barone  this morning, pointing out that Obama proposes to use the unregulated industres to bail out the regulated ones.
  

  I haven’t commented on Timothy Geithner’s plan, the one promised for February 10 and delivered on March 23, to clear out the toxic waste assets from the banks and other financial institutions that hold them. I hope it works, and I fear that it won’t. But this isn’t my area of expertise and I’m not confident enough to make any predictions. I note with interest that it’s being attacked, and being defended, by people on the left and people on the right.But I have noticed what I think is a paradox in the Geithner plan. He is asking the most unregulated parts of the financial system—hedge funds, private equity firms—to bail out the most regulated part of the financial system—the banks. With government help, or subsidy, of course. But of course the government isn’t really regulated either, is it? Except, I suppose, through the political process.

  The obvious questions are, why the unregulated businesses are doing better… well enough in fact to the point where they propose doing soemthing like this. Could it be that the reason the regulated businesses are in trouble is… (gasp!)… Regulation?!!?!?!  We are forever hearing from the left that the problems we are in just now are the direct result of insufficient regulation. If that’s true, then why are businesses are in trouble to the exact degree that they are governmentally controlled? Trust me, you’ll not get a straight answer out of Democrats on that one. Ever.

• That’s gonna leave a mark: I Rambled about the murder of George Weber of WABC fame the other day. The situation has taken a rather odd turn. According to the NY Daily News:
  

  A 16-year-old confessed to stabbing WABC newsman George Weber during a drugged-up date with the older man, police sources said Wednesday.The emotionally disturbed teenager was arrested early Wednesday morning after he admitted to cops that he had answered an ad Weber placed on the Internet looking for a partner in rough sex, police and law enforcements sources said.

  “He saw the victim’s ad looking for violent sex and said “I can smother somebody for $60″ but it got out of hand,” a source said.

  Yikes. The things they advertise on Craigslist, these days. I expect those of us in the north east will be hearing about this rather a lot as it moves forward.

• Headline of the day honors go to Drudge: Sperm bank offers stimulus deals…
• TOTUS:Gone, but…. Oh, wait.  So, what we saw last night on national TV was the president working without a teleprompter. What we didn’t see was that the thing had been replaced by a huge flat screen at the back of the room, with the teleprompter text on it.  Now, ask yourself, why would Obama want to hide the thing?  Maybe because someone would get the false impression he’d been ‘robbed’ of the teleprompter’s aid, and was therefore smart enough to work on his own?  Well, he wasn’t robbed, and clearly, he wasn’t smart enough, either. Even when he really wasn’t delivering all that much new. ( Here’s a Transcript… You know, I can remember a time when parsing this stuff just so you could understand what was what, wasn’t needful. )
• Shouting ‘Theatre” in a burning firehouse: So, Obama wants to have  an online townhall, where Joe and Jane Lunchpail can ask questions. Do you suppose there’s even a chance that any real questions will get through? I don’t, either.  This is Obama in campaign mode, and as the bit with the teleprompter shows us clearly, he can’t deal with anything that doesn’t mesh exactly with the mantra. This stuff isn’t even good political theatre, anymore… if that ever was a good thing.
• Slip sliding away: Zogby’s polling is still showing Obama dropping. Too early for last night’s presser to affect these numbers, frankly, but you know the speed with which this was laid on last night is in direct response to the drop.It’s why Obama’s people ahve retreated to the more freindly confines of campaign mode.  If Zogby is seeing it, you know Obama’s internals are showing it more.
• I noted without commenting on it, that Arlen Specter had decided to vote against Card Check’ ‘until the economy improves’. Way to stand on principle’ I thought. Clearly the move was an expediant one, not a principled one. Now we understand why.
  

  Apparently paying a political price for his support of President Barack Obama’s Stimulus Plan, longtime Pennsylvania U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter trails former Congressman Pat Toomey 41 – 27 percent in a Republican primary for the 2010 Senate race, with 28 percent undecided, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.

  Go ahead. Tell me again how the Tea Parties aren’t having an effect. If the total effect of the tea party movement is to get Arlen Specter out of office, it will have served a noble purpose. Bruce McQuain has me nodding agreement on this topic.

After removing around 500 junk addresses today, mostly with Russian and PolishIP addresses attached, I’ve decided to turn off applications for membership at BitsBlog.  I’ve noticed an uptick in these of late as if someone’s trying to take advantage of a vulnerability in WP.

Well, I’m not having it. (Click)

From the level of most people, this is mere formality, since membership, as such really isn’t needed anyway, because responses are open to the public, once you get past Sabre. The only reason one would need membership is if you’re going to post articles, here.

I’ll handle those situations manually on request.

Ann Althouse says it well:

“If you read his opinion [in Lawrence v. Texas], he thinks it’s a good idea for two consenting adults who happen to be gay to be locked up because he is so disapproving of gay people.” (Barney Frank)

Well, Barney, I have read that opinionmany times, and I know that you are either lying about having read it, lying about what Scalia wrote, or an embarrassingly incompetent reader. Here is the key passage:

Let me be clear that I have nothing against homosexuals, or any other group, promoting their agenda through normal democratic means. Social perceptions of sexual and other morality change over time, and every group has the right to persuade its fellow citizens that its view of such matters is the best. That homosexuals have achieved some success in that enterprise is attested to by the fact that Texas is one of the few remaining States that criminalize private, consensual homosexual acts. But persuading one’s fellow citizens is one thing, and imposing one’s views in absence of democratic majority will is something else. I would no more require a State to criminalize homosexual acts-or, for that matter, display any moral disapprobation of them-than I would forbid it to do so. What Texas has chosen to do is well within the range of traditional democratic action, and its hand should not be stayed through the invention of a brand-new “constitutional right” by a Court that is impatient of democratic change. It is indeed true that “later generations can see that laws once thought necessary and proper in fact serve only to oppress,”… and when that happens, later generations can repeal those laws. But it is the premise of our system that those judgments are to be made by the people, and not imposed by a governing caste that knows best.

That’s plain old deference to the democratic process and a resistance to creative interpretation of constitutional text. There is nothing — absolutely nothing — to support the proposition that Scalia thinks it’s a good idea to lock up gay people.

I’ll not hide from you I have some quibbles with Ann in this, But mostly, it’s nothing earthshaking.

I’ll tell you this; Ol’ Slobbering Barney is demagoguing this for the purpose of throwing some red meat to his biggest supporting demographic, incidental to trying to divert attention from his direct involvement in the creation of our financial problems.  That, after all, was why he decided to take the “Gay 365” interview in the first place.

Let’s remember, for all that Barney and his Democrat pals up on the hill like to say GWB caused the current problems, let’s recall that it is Congress, not the Presdient that has the power of the purse… and that the Democrats have been in control of Congress these last two years… which, not coincidentally, is exactly when this financial sleigh ride started.

So, now we have some idea why we have all this smoke and all these flames around Lawrence v. Texas,  a six year old case. It’s just another weapon of mass distraction.

Unless of course, Ol’ slobbering Barney really does feel that way about all of this, in which case, he’s speaking not from understanding but from fear. Fear of the other.  Were such fear directed at him as he is directing it at Scalia, he’d call it homophobic. Not so out of line, then, perhaps to call Barney Frank a Hetrophobe, by the same token, then, is it?

From the Palm Treo, in the field:

I’m finding blogging from my Treo to be a liberating and yet frustrating experience.

One of the problems is a lack of capacity for cutting and pasting URL’s in the Native web app… Blazer.

Another problem is speed. While I love that wheb I have an article idea, where ever I am, I can whip this thing out and jot down my thoughts, I find myself frustrated at the speed of conversion of thought to text. Typing on this dinky keyboard is not condusive to typing at anywhere near the speed of thought. There was enough delay in the process with my Pc’s at home and office. This is even slower.

Forget posting graphics in articles written on the Palm. It’s just not gonna happen.

I suppose as time goes on I’ll figure this stuff out… That these are the kind of issues that only time and exposure present answers for. I won’t deny, though, that it’s currently a little annoying for all but the smallest of posts.

This morning, in my new Pajamas Media piece, I examine the spendng tactics of Brack Obama and the Democrats.

The entire country has been, until recently, frozen in amazement by the tactics used by the administration to ostensibly address our financial problems. The most discussed of these is amazingly similar to the one used by the American military in our invasion of Iraq. The tactic, called “shock and awe,” was to hit the enemy with such an impressive display of firepower as to bewilder and confuse them. It left the Iraqi military not knowing where the attack was coming from, with no clue as to how to respond to it.

I’m sure the reader will agree that a trillion dollars worth of deficit spending — the largest single discretionary spending bill in history — is certainly substantial firepower.

However, polling data has started to suggest that people are waking up. That data says that in the estimation of most Americans the president’s aim is off the mark — if solving the current financial crisis is the goal.

If it’s not to solve the crisis, then what’s Obama about, then?
Answers at the link.

This what Fidel Castro did circa 1950:, via  Steve Gilbert, Sweetness &  Light:

The Obama administration is considering asking Congress to give the Treasury secretary unprecedented powers to initiate the seizure of non-bank financial companies, such as large insurers, investment firms and hedge funds, whose collapse would damage the broader economy, according to an administration document.

 It worked so well for Cuba:

GDP – per capita (PPP):
$12,700 (2008 est.)  

Evidentlly Barack Obama must have paid as much attetntion in History class as he claims to paid during Reverend Wright’s sermons.

From the mailbag:

I voted Democrat because I love the fact that I can now marry whatever I want. I’ve decided to marry my horse.

I voted Democrat because I believe oil companies’ profits of 4% on a
gallon of gas are obscene, but the government taxing the same gallon of gas at 15% isn’t.

I voted Democrat because I believe the government will do a better job of spending the money I earn than I would..

I voted Democrat because freedom of speech is fine as long as nobody is offended by it.

I voted Democrat because when we pull out of Iraq, I trust that the bad guys will stop what they’re doing because they will now think we’re good people.

I voted Democrat because I’m way too irresponsible to own a gun, and I know that my local police are all I need to protect me from Mexican drug lords and Salvadoran gangs.

I voted Democrat because I believe that people who can’t tell us if it
will rain on Friday can tell us that the polar ice caps will melt away in
ten years if I don’t start driving a Prius…

I voted Democrat because I’m not concerned about the slaughter of millions of babies so long as we keep all death row inmates alive.

I voted Democrat because I believe that business should not be allowed to make profits for themselves. They need to break even and give the rest away to the government for redistribution as THEY see fit.

I voted Democrat because I believe liberal judges need to rewrite the Constitution every few days to suit some fringe kooks who would never get their agendas past the voters.