Where's Trilby Lundberg, NPR?

In 2008, the last time gasoline prices were this high, Trilby Lundberg was a near constant guest or source on National Public Radio (NPR)’s Morning Edition and All Things Considered. Ms. Lundberg is a consultant specializing in gasoline price predictions, she’s a peak oil prophet, and she’s still active. But I didn't recall hearing her name mentioned at all this year on NPR. A search of NPR’s archives shows the last time she appeared was July 2008. I wonder what happened in late 2008 to the present that would keep NPR from inviting Ms. Lundberg back to discuss gasoline prices? It was almost as if NPR decided that talking about gasoline prices was no longer interesting after 2008. Hmm.

Tax Cheats Awarded with Stimulus Money

From the Associated Press: Hope or Change?


Thousands of companies that cashed in on President Barack Obama's economic stimulus package owed the government millions in unpaid taxes, congressional investigators have found.


The Government Accountability Office, in a report being released Tuesday, said at least 3,700 government contractors and nonprofit organizations that received more than $24 billion from the stimulus effort owed $757 million in back taxes as of Sept. 30, 2009, the end of the budget year.


The report said the tax delinquents accounted for nearly 6 percent of the 63,000 contractors and grantees examined and cautioned that the real number might be higher because the known tax debt does not measure such factors as income underreporting.


Among the examples was an engineering firm that received a $100,000 stimulus act contract but owed $6 million in taxes. The IRS called it "an extreme case of noncompliance." A social services nonprofit that received more than $1 million in stimulus funds owed taxes of $2 million.


The GAO referred those two cases and 13 others to the IRS for further investigation.

16 Tons from Iowahawk and Tennessee Ernie Ford

(hat tip to Instapundit)

I Hope this Belief Comes with an Expiration Date

President Obama on the defense budget - "We're going to have to conduct a fundamental review of America's missions, capabilities, and our role in a changing world."

Needless to say, President Obama did not similarly propose a fundamental review of America's missions, capabilities, and role in a changing world when it came to discretionary spending or entitlement reform. To do so would be an abhorrent thought about changing the basic social compact of America.

President Obama said, "we do not have to sacrifice the America we believe in." This seems to me to be a tacit suggestion that he would rather sacrifice America's solvency and vitality to preserve his own ideals. What leadership!

Everything President Obama Says or Believes Comes with an Expiration Date

Jake Tapper captured it perfectly by comparing two quotes from President Obama.

At the House Republican retreat in January, 2010:

We’re not going to be able to do anything about any of these entitlements if what we do is characterize whatever proposals are put out there as, “Well, you know, that’s — the other party’s being irresponsible. The other party is trying to hurt our senior citizens. That the other party is doing X, Y, Z.

Yesterday:

One vision has been championed by Republicans in the House of Representatives and embraced by several of their party’s presidential candidates…This is a vision that says up to 50 million Americans have to lose their health insurance in order for us to reduce the deficit. And who are those 50 million Americans? Many are someone’s grandparents who wouldn’t be able afford nursing home care without Medicaid. Many are poor children. Some are middle-class families who have children with autism or Down’s syndrome. Some are kids with disabilities so severe that they require 24-hour care. These are the Americans we’d be telling to fend for themselves.

Couldn't Agree More

"The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. ... Increasing America's debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that 'the buck stops here.' Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem."

What crazy Teabagger said such a thing on the floor of U.S. Senate, you ask? Why, that would be Sen. Barack Obama in 2006 - when Congress was previously forced to raise the debt limit.

I'll Take Violation of a Fiduciary Duty for $500, Alex

Shocked and appalled. Or not (from POWIP):


AFSCME, SEIU, and the WPPA all willingly threw their own members right under the bus in order to make sure they REMAINED members and paid FORCED UNION DUES for another 33 months. It wasn’t about providing certainty to union members at all. Rather, it was about providing certainty to union BOSSES, who couldn’t afford to lose access to automatic extraction of dues from all of those lovely, lovely government employee paychecks.

So, now members of four of the above-mentioned bargaining units are bound by 33-month contracts that amount to sugar-sprinkled crapola. What do they get for a substantial net loss in pay, benefits, and security…? The privilege of continuing to pay union dues, whether they like it or not. And if you think those dues will now be decreased “in solidarity” with the plight of Wisconsin workers…?  Hey, I’ve got some land in Florida I can sell you real cheap, right on the water.

No one should think for even a moment that this was an isolated incident. If AFSCME, SEIU, and the WPPA pulled this maneuver in Sauk County, you can bet your bottom dollar that union reps around the state were racing to make similar raw deals that benefited not their members but instead union coffers and leadership.

Well played, union bosses, well played! [Insert thunderous applause here.] Absolutely gorgeous how you’ve suckered those who trusted you. Brilliantly diabolical how, without their even knowing it, you held a gun to the your members’ heads when you thought you might no longer be able to hold it to taxpayers’. So breathtakingly obvious are your self-interested motives at this point that it almost carries me away with awe. Though, it’s entirely possible that awareness of this little triumph will fail to evoke further ecstatic, fist-raised shouts of “SOLIDARITY!” from the rank-and-file you’ve shafted…or from those who suspect you may shaft them next.

How dare you, Sir, call me out on exactly what I was doing.

New York Times Editorial

January 10, 2011:

"It is legitimate to hold Republicans and particularly their most virulent supporters in the media responsible for the gale of anger that has produced the vast majority of these threats, setting the nation on edge. Many on the right have exploited the arguments of division, reaping political power by demonizing immigrants, or welfare recipients, or bureaucrats. They seem to have persuaded many Americans that the government is not just misguided, but the enemy of the people."

Quite Presidential, Part II

If we don't get national health care, the terrorists will have won:

Participants also said Obama had referred to this week’s shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas, in which 13 people were killed. His remarks put in perspective that the hardships soldiers endure for the country are “what sacrifice really is,” as opposed to “casting a vote that might lose an election for you,” said Rep. Robert Andrews, D-N.J.

Quite Presidential

Always thought dissent was patriotic:

According to Representative Earl Blumenauer of Oregon - Democrat, who supports the health care bill, President Obama asked, rhetorically, to the Democratic representatives, “Does anybody think that the teabag, anti-government people are going to support them if they bring down health care? All it will do is confuse and dispirit” Democratic voters “and it will encourage the extremists.”

Ulterior Motives of President Obama

Good read on President Obama's "gestures":

We must keep in mind the fact that Obama is not a yokel and that the State Department is there to prevent an ill-informed president from unnecessarily stepping on toes. What happened last Thursday was a deliberate gesture. It was aimed at our allies in eastern Europe and at Russia, and it was recognized as such in Poland, the Czech Republic, and Russia. Vladimir Putin spoke of Obama's decision as a courageous act. Our friends in eastern Europe would not have used that adjective. A signal has been given, and they know the meaning.

More Cowbell

More Cowbell

http://images3.cafepress.com/product/408330213v3_350x350_Front.jpg

More Creepy John Edwards News

From the New York Times:

In the proposal, which The New York Times examined, Mr. Young asserts that he assisted the affair by setting up private meetings between Mr. Edwards and Ms. Hunter. He wrote that Mr. Edwards once calmed an anxious Ms. Hunter by promising her that after his wife died, he would marry her in a rooftop ceremony in New York with an appearance by the Dave Matthews Band.

Wow. And this guy was almost VP.

Wait - Republicans Have Proposed Comprehensive Health Care Reform

Wait a second. I was told by the President that Republicans have teamed up with Health Insurance providers and are trying to kill Health Care Reform. I was told that they weren't even giving reform a chance.

Hmm. Well, what about H.R. 2520, Patients' Choice Act? It is comprehensive Health Care Reform, proposed by Republican Representative, Paul Ryan. Wow, and it you read it, it actually accomplishes the ultimate goal of comprehensive Health Care Reform, without creating a government-run option. And it was proposed back in May 2009.

Now, I completely understand that Democrats won the majority of the House, Senate, and the Presidency in the last election. I mean, President Obama said it best, "I won." However, winning means that you can pass what you want on your own. It does not mean you get to lie to the American people and say that the opposing party is not playing fair and has not even provided their own solution.

House Democrats' Health Plan - Organization Chart

No, seriously. This is what will be the RESULT of health care reform.

It’s “like the Special Olympics or something,” the President said.

From the Anchoress:

 

Sigh. One almost gets tired of saying it, but one must say it, still: Can you IMAGINE what the press and the Dems would do with that, had Bush said it. Can you IMAGINE what the press and the Dems would have done with the Irish PM Teleprompter gaffe (the press has helpfully embargoed the video, so Obama doesn’t have to see it playing 24/7, as Bush would have - had Bush so gaffed). Can you IMAGINE what the press and the Dems would have done if Bush had given the Prime Minister of Great Britain a lousy pack of 50 “Classic” DVD’s that didn’t work in the UK?

 

Another story the press isn’t actually covering…

 

Without the help of the press - hiding his mistakes, never asking a tough or uncomfortable question, not even curious enough to ask to see his grades in college - where would this guy be? I’m thinking he wouldn’t be in the Oval Office, right now, that’s for sure.

So, tonight, he gets forty minutes on Leno. Next week he’ll have all four networks ditching programming and losing money for him. Again.

 

When things get hot, when the polling isn’t going right, when he feels unloved, or he needs to be happy, he gets on his big, expensive-to-run Air Force One, with his limos, etc, and he steps before the camera.

Gonna be a long four years.

 

In all good measure, When asked about the remark, the White House said the president did not intend to offend.

 

“The president made an off-hand remark making fun of his own bowling that was in no way intended to disparage the Special Olympics,” White House deputy press secretary Bill Burton said.

What is next, tripping old ladies and punching puppies?

Yeah! More Bonus Bail-Out Fun

From Yahoo!:

Fannie Mae plans to pay retention bonuses of at least $1 million to four key executives as part of a plan to keep hundreds of employees from leaving the government-controlled company.

Rival mortgage finance company Freddie Mac is planning similar awards, but has not yet reported on which executives will benefit.

The two companies, which together own or back more than half of the home mortgages in the country, have been hobbled by skyrocketing loan defaults. Fannie recently requested $15 billion in federal aid, while Freddie has sought a total of almost $45 billion.

Communism Provides Pizza for the Masses

From The Volokh Conspiracy:

North Korea may have the most oppressive government on earth, and its people may be starving as a result of horrendous communist policies. But the North Korean proletariat was surely thrilled to learn that their Dear Leader Kim Jong Il has thoughtfully provided "authentic" Italian pizza for a few of his most privileged subjects. And it only took a mere ten years to achieve this triumph of socialist central planning:

It has taken almost 10 years of work, but North Korea has acquired the technology to launch a project very dear to its leader's heart - the nation's first "authentic" Italian pizzeria.

The launch of Pyongyang's first Italian restaurant meanwhile brings to fruition a ten-year effort by Kim Jong-il - a renowned gourmand and lover of western food - to create the perfect pizza and pasta in his homeland.

Last year a delegation of local chefs was sent by Kim to Naples and Rome to learn the proper Italian techniques after their homegrown efforts to mimic Italian cuisine were found by Kim to contain "errors".