OK, the article on this doesn’t actually say that, but I couldn’t pass it up. It’s a report of a huge increase in ice on the Baltic Sea. It’s extended beyond 250,000 square kilometers (sorry, I don’t convert metric), one of the worst in recent memory:

The last time so much of the Baltic was frozen was the winter of 1986-87, when ice covered nearly 400,000 square kilometres of the sea’s surface.

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Well…not exactly. It isn’t that man-made global warming is the cause of these uprisings; it’s the policies, what I call the dogma of the religion of Anthropogenic Climatism, being used to “fight” it. For years, the Dept. of Agriculture has subsidized farmers, especially those growing corn, to funnel their harvest towards the production of corn-based ethanol and biofuels instead of as food; as a result, food prices around the world have exploded. In addition, the U.S. is being run by a lawless regime that is bent on raising energy costs on all Americans, along with further increasing America’s dependence on foreign oil.

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I’ve been saying recently that Tea Party and other conservative protests need to include a demand that the entire lawless Obama regime resign since they truly have no business being in their positions; after all, this is the standard Obama set regarding the removal of Hosni Mubarak as President of Egypt. So I’ve been thinking about past successions to the office of President that have occurred in our country’s history. There are some fairly interesting facts, at least they are interesting to me, and perhaps to you.

Vice Presidents have become President following the previous President’s death or resignation nine times; only one was due to a resignation, that following Richard Nixon.

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The South Dakota state legislature recently put together a bill to update a justifiable homicide law that added protecting the unborn from criminal harm in its classification. Pro-abortion fanatics had a cow. The deceit was so bad the legislature shelved the bill for now; they wouldn’t even work on fixing the language in the bill.

The zealots are back in force as Nebraska and Iowa are working on their own versions of the shelved South Dakota bill. The pro-abortion crowd is “concerned” that abortionists will be targeted for death if any of these bills are passed, not realizing the irony about how these abortionists have performed state-sanctioned killings of Stalin-esque proportions since Roe v. Wade was decided. I haven’t read either of the laws, nor am I interested in getting into a debate with them about the language in these new bills; this post is not about that. It is about the hypocrisy of many of those commenting on Nebraska and Iowa, specifically Mother Jones, Think Progress and Matt Yglesias, Daily Kos, Washington Monthly’s Steven Benen, and Shakesville. Content warning, graphic descriptions below the fold.

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Full Disclosure: I am not a lawyer nor a trained legal scholar.

There was one thing I forgot to mention in my earlier post. Kessler actually provides the definition of a particularly critical word; ironically, she completely undermines the definition in the same paragraph, then then spends the rest of the opinion further undermining that definition because it doesn’t fit her political views. But this is par for the course for leftist activists in other activities. Let me show you what I mean.

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Full Disclosure: I am not a lawyer nor a trained legal scholar.

So another Clinton-appointed federal judge, Gladys Kessler of the D.C. District (part of the D.C. Circuit), ruled the Obamacare mandate is entirely Constitutional (via Gabe Malor). In a pig’s eye. While Kessler does grant standing to the plaintiffs (something other Democrat judges haven’t done in many of these Obamacare cases), her “analysis” regarding the Commerce Clause leaves much to be desired.

This is the third ruling on the merits of the mandate (as opposed to those cases dismissed due to lack of standing) in which a Democrat sides with the Party over the Constitution. In all cases, they’ve added a new definition to the word “commerce”, to mean the act of not buying something. As I’ve said before, this is tantamount to Congress relegating the American people as serfs.

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Statists in the federal government and in Florida are pretty upset with Republican Gov. Rick Scott canceling Florida’s high-speed rail project. The statists are so upset they are willing to ignore the election that put Scott into office to keep the boondoggle alive. It would be comical if it weren’t so dangerous.

As reported by the Miami Herald, one of the leaders of these statists is Republican Rep. John Mica, Chairman of the House Transportation Committee:

U.S. Rep. John Mica, R-Winter Park, floated a proposal to dramatically shrink the project to an Orlando International Airport to Walt Disney World link, cutting Tampa and Lakeland out of the mix, for now.

But it gets better. By better, I mean worse.

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Brian Beutler at TPM said Republican Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker “ginned up” a “budget shortfall“. As if on cue, Jamelle Bouie at The American Prospect said Walker’s deficit reducing plan was “a ginned up crisis“. Political fiction writer Steven Benen (that’s what his posts are) says Walker is insincere. The Constitutionally confused Ezra Klein claims the “Badger State was actually in pretty good shape. It was supposed to end this budget cycle with about $120 million in the bank.”

All of these truth-challenged individuals are using two pieces of information. One is this report from Wisconsin’s Legislative Fiscal Bureau, the state’s equivalent of the CBO. The second is the notion from Klein, Benen, and Beutler that outgoing Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle left Walker a surplus that the new governor squandered. The truth, which these clowns could find but have ignored, presents a far different picture.

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Did any of you know about this story? I lived in Illinois for 45 years and didn’t hear about it anywhere, and definitely not by the Democrat media:

A federal jury found Thursday that 16 former workers with the Illinois Department of Transportation were fired seven years ago by representatives of former Gov. Rod Blagojevich because they were Republicans.

The story in the Peoria Journal Star is two days old. Granted with the disgraceful actions by Democrats and their union thugs in Wisconsin taking center stage, it’s understandable why it would be missed. But the lawsuit in question was filed 7 years ago when Democrat Rod Blagojevich was still in his heyday ripping off the taxpayers of Illinois as the state’s governor.

How many endless stories and screeches from lefties about how Republicans were politicizing the Justice Department and supposedly rooting out liberal Democrats there? We still here them when discussing the New Black Panther Party voter intimidation case, even though it’s been pretty well shown that liberal Democrats have run it for far too long and make it a point to not enforce the law equally. And yet, a story about Blagojevich and his cronies engaging in politically-motivated firings? Not a one that I know about from the Democrat media. Even during all the media coverage of Blago’s impeachment, conviction in the Illinois state Senate, and corruption trial, I never heard a thing about this story.

Read the whole piece.

Via DrewM. at AOSHQ and Andrew Stiles at The Corner:

The costs of those coverage expansions—which include the cost of the subsidies to be provided through the exchanges, increased outlays for Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and tax credits for certain small employers—will be partially offset by revenues from the excise tax on high-premium insurance plans and net savings from other coverage-related effects. By repealing those coverage provisions of PPACA and the Reconciliation Act, over the 2012-2021 period H.R. 2 would yield gross savings of $1,390 billion and net savings (after accounting for the offsets just mentioned) of $1,042 billion.

That’s from a letter from CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf to Speaker of the House John Boehner.

How long did the left treat us with the CBO saying Obamacare was going to save the country money over the long haul? How often were we ignored by the left when we knew that that was based on numbers pulled out of the collective butts of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid?

Elmendorf goes through the motions of saying Medicare outlays, outlays that Obamacare might have reduced, would be increased. That’s crap and can be ignored. He also talks about how over half a trillion dollars in guesstimated revenues would be lost, except the government doesn’t have them anyway and there’s no way until it happens to know if those guesstimates are accurate (highly doubtful).

Developing…

You know, there are still a lot of people who believe President Obama is a Muslim (I’m with Ann Coulter; I think he’s an atheist). He insists he’s a Christian who prays frequently. Members of the Democrat media keep bringing this up to various Republicans and conservatives, usually with a birther question to go with it, in order to keep this going as an issue to embarrass conservatives and help Obama’s re-election.

Then, I read stories like this from the Christian Science Monitor and I have to wonder if Obama really is a closet Muslim.

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Am I missing something here? Wasn’t there an election this past November where Republicans replaced Democrats in the Wisconsin legislature and governor’s office? I think there was. Members of the Democratic Party and their union thug allies are ignoring the results of that election where Wisconsin voters elected a Republican legislature and Gov. Scott Walker to clean up the out-of-control spending in the state. As a result, Wisconsin Democrats and their thug union allies have abandoned their jobs to protest.

Here’s a question that Democrats will never answer: isn’t there supposed to be a government of, by, and for the people? Apparently not. According to the thugs, it’s a government of, by, and for unionized public employees, their unions, and members of the Democratic Party, the people who pay the bills be damned.

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Following on my post from earlier today, William March of the Tampa Tribune posted this:

Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson has just talked with Transportation Secretary Ray Lahood about financing the Tampa-Orlando bullet-train rail without the state government’s participation, according to an announcement from Nelson’s office.

So here we have a Democratic U.S. Senator going against the wishes of the state and the Republican governor. When the Founders put together the Constitution, the Senators would be selected by the state governments to best represent the needs of the state. After the 17th Amendment was passed, Senators’ loyalties were transferred to those who could help them get elected, even if it negatively affected the state the Senator was supposed to represent. This is what we have here with Nelson trying to go around the state he represents to make sure a pet project of the Democratic Party is implemented even though the state’s elected officials put the kabosh on it.

Nelson is up for re-election in 2012. Since the interest of his Party are more important than those of his constituents, let’s figure out how to make Nelson an ex-Senator.

A couple of months ago, the Orlando Sentinel put out an unnamed editorial slamming incoming Governor Rick Scott (R-FL) for indicating he might kill the Orlando to Tampa high-speed rail project the U.S. Transportation Department and the Obama administration wanted built. Today, Scott said “thanks, but no thanks” to Sec. Ray LaHood and told the Obama administration to keep their $2 billion.

I went through my own dissertation (read it to get a background) on why this was nothing more than a costly boondoggle that the Sentinal insisted was Free! Free!!! FREE!!! As confirmed today:

Scott said he believes that ridership and revenue projections tend to be too optimistic and would likely require ongoing state government subsidies.

Worse for the state:

Finally, Scott noted, that if the project went belly-up, Florida would be required to refund the federal government’s investment in the project.

Florida joins Wisconsin and Ohio in rejecting the efforts to give free train rides to Joe Biden.

The Kermit Gosnall revelations haven’t slowed down the pro-abortion zealots in their mission to advance infanticide. Kate Sheppard of Mother Jones claims a new bill making its way through the South Dakota state legislature would justify the murder of abortion providers. The bill passed by the SD House Judiciary Committee does no such thing. But here’s the deal, as recounted by Sheppard [emphasis mine]:

The bill, sponsored by state Rep. Phil Jensen, a committed foe of abortion rights, alters the state’s legal definition of justifiable homicide by adding language stating that a homicide is permissible if committed by a person “while resisting an attempt to harm” that person’s unborn child or the unborn child of that person’s spouse, partner, parent, or child.

The part highlighted in bold says it all. Because Jensen is a foe of abortion, then his bill is meant to allow justifiable homicide against abortion providers. Even the Scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz didn’t need as much straw for the man Sheppard is trying to build.

In an update to the piece, state Rep. Jensen commented that his bill expanded the definition of justifiable homicide when done against those committing illegal acts. As Jensen says, abortion is not illegal, therefore his bill is not to be used to justify killing someone who isn’t committing a crime. In fact, if you look at the liberals who are freaking out over this bill, it’s clear the left is being deliberately deceitful. They know those like Jensen know the law; but the left is pushing out their shoddy product anyway, the truth be damned.

The pro-abortion zealots have much to answer for regarding Gosnall and others like him. Lying about what is in this bill doesn’t cut it.

We all know about the left’s horrible attacks on Sarah Palin. Although I’m sure it’s not the first time, but the left isn’t fond of Herman Cain either. Not only because he is a successful conservative, but because he has committed the liberal crime of being a successful conservative who is black and not a Democrat. Via Power Line, lefty trash AlterNet (I won’t link to them) went full-blown into KKK mode in a scathing attack on Cain, calling the former Godfather’s Pizza Chairman and CEO a “black garbage pail kid”, a “minstrel”, a “mascot”, and a “monkey”. I kid you not.

The post, authored by someone using the pseudonym Chauncey DeVega, is one endless screech of projection. According to DeVega, being black and not towing the Democratic Party line means Cain is playing the part of a “Sambo” or “Uncle Tom”. So, Cain thinks differently than everyone else, but DeVega engages in some of the foulest racial attacks against Cain because Cain doesn’t blindly follow the dictates for Americans who are black as eschewed by leftist Democrats. Right.

The one thing I get from reading DeVega is that he/she is a racist, through and through. If DeVega is white, his/her attacks are classic KKK garbage in the mold of liberal Democrats Robert Byrd and Hugo Black. If black, DeVega hates all who aren’t black. Anybody who could treat black conservatives like DeVega does would say the same against fellow leftists of all races who don’t cater to Democrats who are black.

This is typical of the left. It happened when they have described Clarence Thomas, Colin Powell (before he became an Obama supporter), Condi Rice, Michael Steele, and Allan West. Same with Sarah Palin, Ginny Thomas, Michelle Bachmann, and other conservatives who are women. Leftists’ baser instincts take over when threatened by those who don’t adhere to their stereotypes.

On Cain’s Facebook page, he said this:

Please join me in condemning AlterNet for their shameful behavior towards me and all black conservatives. Special thanks to my friends Niger Innis, Dana Loesch and Andrew Breitbart for standing with me.

I wholeheartedly join Cain in condemning the racists at AlterNet for spewing their garbage, especially since AlterNet, as pointed out by John Hinderaker, claims it “confront[s] the failures of corporate media, as well as the vitriol and disinformation of right wing media, especially ‘hate talk’ media”. Talk about projection!!!

It appears the Department of Justice’s stonewalling of the New Black Panther Party voter intimidation case may not have paid off. The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights is all set to close the investigation and issue its final report. But they also voted to delay issuing the report until one of the Democrats, Michael Yaki, is reappointed (if he is reappointed, although I would be surprised if he isn’t; the law allows the President to select, without confirmation, 4 members, the Senate two, and the House two, and no party can have more than four members on the Commission; Yaki is one of those selected by the House). Three new members have been installed since last year; two were appointed by President Obama, and one of the Senate picks, Dina Titus, was appointed by Harry Reid a couple of months ago after Titus lost her House election.

The interim report itself (H/T: Jennifer Rubin) issues a recommendation (page 97 of the PDF) that consists of nothing more than asking Congress to address the very real conflict of interest between the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division/Department of Justice/Attorney General and the Commission; on more than one occasion, the DoJ and/or AG deliberately withheld information from the Commission that the Commission required. What the report also shows is the acrimony between the Democrats and Republican Vice-Chair Abigail Thernstrom against the others who believe there is something to the idea that there is a conscious effort from the DoJ to only investigate alleged voting rights violations by whites and ignoring the same violations from minorities; as stated in the press release for the report, testimony came out showing there is “reflected a culture within the Justice Department that believes voting rights laws should not be enforced in a race-neutral fashion.” The testimony of two DoJ attorneys (J. Christian Adams, who is no longer with the DoJ, and Christopher Coates, who is still there) has not been challenged by the DoJ. Rubin ends with this:

And now the commission passes its findings on to Congress, specifically the new chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Tex.) I suspect he will pick up where the commission left off and demand the stonewalling come to an end.

Considering Democrats in Congress did absolutely nothing when they had the majority, and Democrats on the Commission, along with Thernstrom the Republican, assisted in whitewashing this (pardon the pun), the whole episode is but another example of the lawless Obama administration. Let’s hope Rep. Smith has a bit more success.

Speaking of petulant children, the leftosphere is “up in arms” over the Chamber of Commerce allegedly targeting the “good folks” at Think Progress and the SEIU, other groups, along with Brad Friedman. Their real complaint is that the Chamber is doing to these lefties what the lefties do to conservatives.

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As I mentioned here, one has to wonder where President Obama is when it comes to democracy. When the protests in Egypt really got going, the administration muddled its way through making one contradictory statement after another. Finally, after Mubarak was out, Obama gave a speech where he said the following:

We stand ready to provide whatever assistance is necessary — and asked for — to pursue a credible transition to a democracy.

What democracy? Maybe the administration believes it knows more about what’s going on, although that is highly questionable as the recent performances of the heads of the government’s intelligence apparatus will attest. As far as assistance, Obama reduced aid to some Egyptian opposition groups and completely cut it from others. All of a sudden, it’s now important again as Obama announced an aid package for the opposition, although nobody knows how much or to whom it’s going.

And even though Obama says he wants Egypt to “pursue a credible transition to democracy,” is it true? Considering he just sanctioned a military coup, and a potentially illegal one at that (by all the things I’ve read), who knows. It’s obvious that it will be the military who ultimately decides this. If anything, Obama is using the Cloward-Piven playbook to a tee.

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From this piece in Time magazine, an unhappy revelation:

The Obama administration cut democracy and governance aid to Egyptian opposition groups in its first two years in office from $45 million in George W. Bush’s last budget to $25 million for the 2010 and 2011 fiscal years. The Obama administration also stopped providing aid to groups that had not registered with the Egyptian government, drawing criticism from human rights organizations.

Yes, Bush did provide aid to those groups Obama and Democrats decided to cut out. And this aid was on top of the $1.3 billion per year in aid the U.S. was providing the Egyptian military.

Obama has been squealing about Egypt being democratized as quickly and as peacefully as possible over the last couple of weeks. And yet, he’s done everything he could to avoid financially assisting those groups the U.S. would like to see run Egypt, groups funded by President Bush.

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