Tag: politics

Family Of Murdered Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry Files $25M Claim Against ATF

I cannot blame them at all:

The family of murdered Border Patrol agent Brian Terry has filed a $25 million wrongful death claim against the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives claiming Terry was killed with AK-47s that were knowingly sold under the Fast and Furious gunrunning probe to a straw purchaser for drug cartels.

In a 65-page complaint, served on the government on Wednesday, attorneys for the family claim ATF “wrongdoing” in Operation Fast and Furious.

“ATF’s failures were not only negligent but in violation of ATF’s own policies and procedures,” the complaint claims.

The family has also filed a claim against the Lone Wolf Trading Company seeking unspecified damages for negligence in selling the weapons to the purchaser and aiding and abetting in Mexican drug cartels’ conduct.

The claim says Lone Wolf knowingly sold “hundreds of weapons” to various straw purchasers and in turn realized “hundreds of thousands of dollars in profits from these sales.”

The claim alleges that “but for defendants’ negligent and illegal sales … Brian Terry would not have been murdered in the Arizona desert on Dec. 14, 2010.”

The family is seeking a jury trial.

via Family Of Murdered Border Patrol Agent Files $25M Claim Against ATF | Fox News.

Between this and now this bribery scandal, Eric Holder ought to be finding a new line of work.

By the way, you can watch the holder testimony here, it’s a live video feed.

Needless to say, this whole mess is going to be very interesting to follow.

Others: Jammie Wearing Fools, Scared Monkeys, The Gateway Pundit, americanthinker.com and Fox News Insider

Uh-oh: Report: DOJ Prosecutors accepted bribes

I quoted this last night… But I thought I would blog about it too…

A U.S. Justice Department source has told The Daily Caller that at least two DOJ prosecutors accepted cash bribes from allegedly corrupt finance executives who were indicted under court seal within the past 13 months, but never arrested or prosecuted.

The sitting governor of the U.S. Virgin Islands, his attorney general and an unspecified number of Virgin Islands legislators also accepted bribes, the source said, adding that U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is aware prosecutors and elected officials were bribed and otherwise compromised, but has not held anyone accountable.

The bribed officials, an attorney with knowledge of the investigation told TheDC, remain on the taxpayers’ payroll at the Justice Department without any accountability. The DOJ source said Holder does not want to admit public officials accepted bribes while under his leadership.

via Justice Department | Bribery | Corruption | Financial-Crime Suspects | The Daily Caller.

This makes Fast and Furious look like child’s play. Those hearings on the hill ought to be very interesting to watch. 😯

Update: You can watch that hearing live here.

Others: Doug Ross, Nice Deb, The Right Scoop, Ricochet Conversations Feed, Patterico’s Pontifications and The PJ Tatler

Ann Coulter flips her cork

Oh Yeah, she’s lost it.

If only the Democrats had decided to socialize the food industry or housing, Romneycare would probably still be viewed as a massive triumph for conservative free-market principles — as it was at the time.

It’s not as if we had a beautifully functioning free market in health care until Gov. Mitt Romney came along and wrecked it by requiring that Massachusetts residents purchase their own health insurance. In 2007, when Romneycare became law, the federal government alone was already picking up the tab for 45.4 percent of all health care expenditures in the country.

Until Obamacare, mandatory private health insurance was considered the free-market alternative to the Democrats’ piecemeal socialization of the entire medical industry.

In November 2004, for example, libertarian Ronald Bailey praised mandated private health insurance in Reason magazine, saying that it “could preserve and extend the advantages of a free market with a minimal amount of coercion.”

A leading conservative think tank, The Heritage Foundation, helped design Romneycare, and its health care analyst, Bob Moffit, flew to Boston for the bill signing.

via Ann Coulter – February 1, 2012 – THREE CHEERS FOR ROMNEYCARE!.

It’s terrible when Conservatives go into the tank for a candidate. This is living proof.

Audio: Mark Levin challenges Ann’s Column

Others: Campaign 2012, The Other McCain, The Right Scoop, Riehl World View, iOwnTheWorld.com, Hot Air, The Gateway Pundit, Mark America, THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion and Patterico’s Pontifications

A good reason why the Government needs to get OUT of the Space Business!

(Via Insty)

The problem:

The problem was that after the ISS was complete, without the Shuttle, the U.S. would have no capability to reach it, and there would be a “gap” in capability until some sort of replacement was developed. At the time of the announcement, the “Crew Exploration Vehicle” (CEV) was the proposed means, but it wasn’t expected to be ready until 2014, resulting in a “gap” of at least three years, and probably longer. When Mike Griffin replaced Sean O’Keefe in 2005, he rolled out a concept called Constellation, which included the CEV, renamed at that time Orion. It also included a new rocket for it, that had not been anticipated in the original Bush plan, called Ares I, despite the fact that existing rockets, such as the Atlas V or Delta IV, could have done the job. Griffin even originally claimed that his plan would reduce the gap, being ready by 2011.

Unfortunately, the design chosen was flawed, and ran into technical difficulties immediately, increasing its costs and stretching its schedule. Because there had not originally been plans for a new launcher, there wasn’t sufficient budget to support it, and other budgets, in science and technology, and the hardware actually needed to get back to the moon, were raided to feed the rocket disaster. The schedule was slipping more than a year per year, and by 2009, when the Augustine Committee was convened to evaluate the situation, it moved rightward to 2017, with only a low probability of hitting that operational date.

[…]

Next year, it will be a full decade since Columbia was lost. And judging by the pathetic state of space policy discussion we’ve seen over the past few days, with Mitt Romney hiring Mike Griffin, the man who caused this policy disaster, to advise him, it’s likely that we’ll still be floundering and earth bound, despite the billions we’ve spent and continue to spend.

via PJ Media » Nine Years Of Space Policy Disaster.

The Solution:

The United States of America needs to get the hell OUT of the space business! Period! End of Discussion. It has been proven time and time again that NASA is nothing more than a wasteful, hazardous, big Government bureaucracy. Let private companies do the research, the development and the deployment.  The question is this; how many more astronauts are going to have to be killed, before we realize that the United States Government is not good at space exploration?

This is the entire problem with Neoconservatives or big Government Conservatives; they rail against Big Government, but when it comes to programs like space exploration — they are all for it. Wake up guys! Big Government is Big Government! Either kill the space program and let private companies do the job or stop calling yourself small Government advocates, because you look like absolute hypocrites. This is not some off-the-wall Ron Paul sounding stuff either. It is simply common sense, something that is sorely lacking in the world of politics and Government today.

It is time that Republican and Conservatives started talking and really acting like that which they claim to be. Either we believe in small Government or we don’t. Pick a position please. We do not have the money to be the leader in space exploration anymore. We need to fully privatize that industry. The Russians are no longer a threat to our society, the cold war is over, finally. So, why do we care what the Russians do?

This is the stuff here, that separates me from the rest of the “right” in the Blogosphere. The rest of these guys believe in small Government, except when it comes to space programs. History proves that Government space programs are dangerously misguided; Challenger, Columbia, Apollo — all of them.

We need to stop it, before more people are killed.

 

Hope and Change: More Jobs to Disappear

(H/T Insty)

Oh my….:

Disappointing Jobs – While everyone seems to debating what the non-farm payroll numb will be Friday, a few are looking toward the annual revisions in the much debated Birth/Death model.

As you probably recall, it does not refer to the birth or death of humans. The badly named model refers to the birth and death of businesses. Each January the BLS revises the number, usually vaporizing thousands of jobs.

We were going to try and calculate the likely revision, but our sharp-eyed friend over at Bloomberg, Rich Yamarone, as usual, beat us to it. Here’s what he wrote in his Notepad column recently:

The Net Birth/Death (NBD) statistic adjustment – an adjustment the BLS uses to account for job creation or loss with respect to births and deaths of businesses – is always the weakest during January. Over the last five years the NBD for January has averaged -335k. [January 2011: -339k, January 2010: -427k, January2009: -356k, January 2008: -378k, January2007: -175k.]

So, if past is prologue, we could see three or four hundred thousand jobs vanish. Nothing like a dependable indicator.

via Art Cashin Explains Why Several Hundred Thousand Jobs Are About To “Vaporize” | ZeroHedge.

Between this and the new scandal involving Eric Holder, this President is screwed.

Explaining myself

I really do not feel the need to do this; but just in case someone tries to accuse me of talking out of both sides of my rather large pothole — I will. 😀

I said in the space of 24 hours a few things that might make some of you think I am either being hypocritical or double-minded. (who me? 😯 )

Quoting me here:

Furthermore, the reason for my decision is this; the race of the GOP’s nomination for President of the United States is not supposed to be a religious test.  If that is the case in the Republican Party, then why in the name of the Almighty God of Heaven did Newt Gingrich use the Jews as a proxy to attack Mitt Romney’s Mormonism?  I know the answer —-desperation.  I do not wish to support a man, who instructs his advisors to play “Dirty Pool.”  It shows of the man’s character and I find it lacking greatly.  I will not call Newt Gingrich an Anti-Semite, as I do not know his heart or him personally.  However, I found this attack to most untactful, idiotic and highly unbecoming of someone who is supposed to be a Reagan Conservative.

and…quoting me here:

…and by the way, Mitt? We’re not that concerned about your stupid, out of touch, rich, white Mormon ass either!:mad:

Now at first blush, you would say, “Hey! You’re just as bad as Newt!” and to your credit, it does look that way.

However, one thing is missing; and that is the fact that I was not attacking Mitt Romney because he is a Mormon — I was attacking Mitt Romney because he sounded like an out of touch elitist.

Sometimes I do not make stuff like that clear and I get accused of being a hypocrite or not practicing what I preach.   One of my worst character traits is that I always assume that everyone else knows what I am referring to; and sometimes I use the wrong words or wrong express to covey a thought. It might have something to do with my A.D.H.D. So, pardon me if you misread the above thought I was double-jaw-jackin’ ya’ll. I wasn’t. I knew what I meant! Now, everyone else? Not so much. 😛

One of these fine days I will finally learn that we as humans are not clairvoyant! 😀

 

Mitt Romney sticks his foot in his mouth…..again

Just when I think the stupidity bar has been reached, someone comes along and raises the bar. In other words; move over Jennifer Petkov and Newt Gingrich, you have company. 🙄

The Video:

 

The Story:

After winning the Florida primary, GOP presidential nominee hopeful Mitt Romney explains to CNN anchor Soledad O’Brien that he is focused on a particular portion of the American population in his campaign.

Romney says, “I’m not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there. If it needs a repair , I’ll fix it. I’m not concerned about the very rich…. I’m concerned about the very heart of America, the 90-95 percent of Americans who right now are struggling.”

O’Brien asked him to clarify his remarks saying, “There are lots of very poor Americans who are struggling who would say, ‘That sounds odd.'”

Romney continues, “We will hear from the Democrat party, the plight of the poor…. You can focus on the very poor, that’s not my focus…. The middle income Americans, they’re the folks that are really struggling right now and they need someone that can help get this economy going for them.”

via Mitt Romney: middle income Americans are focus, not very poor – CNN Press Room – CNN.com Blogs.

What a better way to communicate to the rest of world, such as independent voters, like me — who struggling and looking for work; and cannot find a job — like me.

…and by the way, Mitt? We’re not that concerned about your stupid, out of touch, rich, white Mormon ass either! 😡

What really steams me, is the fact that this idiot is — what black liberals accuse me of being; which makes it even worse. 😡

I hate to post this, because I like to try and keep the swearing on this blog to a minimum; but this right here, is some seriously serious Weapons-Grade asshole-manship right there…

Others: Erick’s blog, Michelle Malkin, American Spectator, National Review, No More Mister Nice Blog, Liberal Values, The Enterprise Blog, Opinionator, Business Insider, PERRspectives, RedState, New York Times, The Atlantic Online, Informed Comment, Riehl World View, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, Little Green Footballs, Stinque, Booman Tribune, Washington Monthly, The PJ Tatler and Taylor Marsh — Via Memeorandum

Newt Gingrich does not even know how to lose

Just a little cherry on top to what I wrote last night:

Newt Gingrich gave his post-primary speech tonight while gracelessly declining to congratulate the man who beat him by double digits. According to the Romney campaign, Gingrich hadn’t called to congratulate the Florida winner as of 9:30 p.m. ET.

The speech was vintage Gingrich, comparing his predicament to Lincoln at Gettysburg and vowing to conduct a “people’s campaign.” He made one small run at Romney, calling him “the Massachusetts moderate,” and then wandered into a rather trite recitation of his commitment to change. He rambled a bit, getting nostalgic about his Contract with America and assuring us he’d been studying “how to do this” since 1958. (He was running for president as a child?) He is going to get rid of White House czars, move the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and halt the war on religion. If there was a theme in there, it was hard to spot.

He obnoxiously ended by pledging: “My life, my fortune, my sacred honor.” But he’s not doing any of that. And it’s quite an insult to American patriots who have said that and meant it.

Gingrich has been reduced to a smaller-than-life figure. He’s a guy with a lot of words and very little appeal, whose meanness got the best of him and helped to wreck his campaign on a heap of attacks, insults and downright vile accusations (the latest being his claim that Romney is hostile to religion).

via Newt Gingrich loses Florida — and reminds us why – Right Turn – The Washington Post.

Now something to remember, Jennifer Rubin is a Romney supporter. However, I think that this speaks to the mentality and character of Newt Gingrich; he is that ate up with a lust for power that he does not even have the graciousness to call his opponent and congratulate him on a win.

Which is why I have washed my hands of the race; I hope the GOP picks wisely and they are able to defeat Barack Obama. However, in all honestly, I really do not believe that any of these candidates will be able to even remotely beat Barack Obama, he is going to be too well funded, is going to have all of the cards on the table — including the race card.  As Hillary Clinton found out, running against racial politics is the hardest thing ever to do. If you do it wrong, you do can come out actually looking like a racist, and somehow or another, I highly doubt that any of these candidates even remotely know how to fight against identity politics.

So, again, in short; We are so screwed….again. 🙁