Tag: Obama

The Obama administration has approved a deal between Space Systems/Loral and a Chinese satellite company, even though this is the same company that leaked crucial satellite technology to China in the past.

10:01 am

Here we go again: The Obama administration has approved a deal between Space Systems/Loral and a Chinese satellite company, even though this is the same company that leaked crucial satellite technology to China in the past.

Loral is the same company that gave big donations to Bill Clinton and the Democratic Party back in the 1990s, then got permission to make a launch deal with the Chinese. Shortly thereafter it was learned that the Chinese had obtained restricted and crucial military satellite technology from the arrangement.

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“You didn’t build that.”

9:31 pm

“You didn’t build that: Readings from the Book of Barack.”

1 In the beginning Govt created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the economy was formless and void, darkness was over the surface of the ATMs, and the Spirit of Govt was hovering over the land.

3 And Govt said, “Let there be spending,” and there was spending. 4 Govt saw that the spending was good, and that it separated the light from the darkness. 5 Govt called the spending Investments, and this he did in the first day.

6 Then Govt said, “Let there be roads and bridges across the waters, and let dams divide the waters from the waters.” 7 Thus Govt made the infrastructure and the patronage jobs for eternity under the firmament from the Potomac which was above the firmament; and it was so. 8 And Govt called the firmament Washington. This Govt did on the second day.

9 Then Govt said, “Let the regulations and the guidlines under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the Bureaus appear”; and it was so. 10 And Govt called the Bureaus demigovts, and the gathering together of them He called AFSCME. And Govt saw that it was good.

Read the whole thing.

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The IRS and Labor Department have started investigations into the finances of a Romney campaign contributor who was also named number one on Obama’s enemies list.

10:31 am

Leftwing tolerance: The IRS and Labor Department have started investigations into the finances of a Romney campaign contributor who was also one of the first listed on Obama’s enemies list.

I don’t appreciate it when the right attacks George Soros for supporting the leftwing causes he believes in, and I certainly oppose it when the left does the same. Here, however, it appears the Obama administration is using the force of the law to attack a private citizen, merely because he supports Obama’s opponent in the election. Such behavior is immoral, wrong, and hostile to everything our free country is supposed to stand for.

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The lawsuits fighting the Obama administration mandate that religious organizations fund contraceptives against their religious beliefs has now risen to more than 20 separate cases and nearly 60 individual plaintiffs,

2:00 pm

We’ve only just begun: The lawsuits fighting the Obama administration requirement that religious organizations fund contraceptives against their religious beliefs has now risen to more than 20 separate cases and nearly 60 individual plaintiffs.

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Much has been made in the past few days of this NYT/CBS poll that found the Presidential race to be a dead heat.

10:41 am

Oversampling Democrats: Much has been made in the past few days of this NYT/CBS poll that found the Presidential race to be a dead heat. This article however is the first I’ve found that notes this key fact about the poll:

Among registered voters, the NYT/CBS poll also oversamples Democrats and Independents: D-33/R-27/I-41. There’s no way the 2012 electorate will only be made up of 27% Republicans.

That’s right, this NYT/CBS poll purposely skewed the results by polling 6% more Democrats than Republicans. In other words, the race is likely not such a dead heat. Obama is significantly behind, especially since all polls have consistently found that voting enthusiasm is far higher among Republicans than Democrats.

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Despite a court order one year ago requiring them to “promptly” hold public hearings on the use of x-ray scanners, the TSA still refuses to comply.

9:45 pm

The law is such an inconvenient thing: Despite a court order one year ago requiring them to “promptly” hold public hearings on the use of x-ray scanners, the TSA still refuses to comply.

And I agree with Ham: Everyone should opt out of being scanned by these porn machines, and make the TSA feel them up each time. If enough people do that, they will be forced to abandon these x-ray scanners, which don’t work, have health risks, and are fundamental invasion of our constitutional right against unreasonable search.

In a related story, watch the video below the fold, in which an American citizen successfully refuses to answer any questions at two Border Patrol checkpoints, because in truth, he has the right not to answer those questions. And not only does he not answer the questions, he refuses to participate in a vehicle search, and is eventually allowed to go on his way.
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The Obama administration has been caught tracking the emails of a group of scientists critical of certain FDA actions.

9:28 am

George Orwell would be proud! The Obama administration has been caught reading the emails and personal files of a group of scientists who were critics of the FDA.

The agency, using so-called spy software designed to help employers monitor workers, captured screen images from the government laptops of the five scientists as they were being used at work or at home. The software tracked their keystrokes, intercepted their personal e-mails, copied the documents on their personal thumb drives and even followed their messages line by line as they were being drafted, the documents show.

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The Obama administration has backed off and is giving Florida access to a database of noncitizens so the state can check for illegal voters.

10:44 am

The law is such an inconvenient thing: The Obama administration has backed off and is giving Florida access to a database of noncitizens so the state can check for illegal voters.

What sadly surprises me about this is that the Obama administration obeyed the judge’s ruling. Based on this administration’s past behavior, I would have expected them to defy it.

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The EPA is attempting to enforce a regulation requiring ships to use low-sulfur fuel, despite the fact that the regulation has not yet been voted on by Congress.

10:27 am

The law is such an inconvenient thing: The EPA is attempting to enforce a regulation requiring ships to use low-sulfur fuel, despite the fact that the regulation has not yet been voted on by the Senate.

The treaty amendment at issue is a 2010 agreement under the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships, or MARPOL. The United States has signed onto MARPOL, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has accepted the 2010 amendment. Domestic enforcement of the amendment is not permitted without ratification by two-thirds of the U.S. Senate.

And the Senate has not voted on this yet.

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Why the Presidential race looks so close: Too many pollsters are oversampling Democrats.

11:44 pm

Why the Presidential race looks so close: Too many pollsters are oversampling Democrats.

An honest poll would reflect the actual split of Democrats to Republicans. Instead, pollsters seem to repeatedly assume there are many more Democrats in the country than there actually are, which falsely skews the results to Obama’s favor.

The thing is, this oversampling will do the Democrats no good this coming election. It gives them the false impression that they are doing better than they are, which means they will not do what they should to make up ground. Moreover, too many people today are aware of this biased polling, and thus less influenced by them.

Finally, and most important, these biased polls illustrate a fundamental unwillingness of many on the left to recognize the country’s real political state. These leftwing pollsters reflect the attitude of many Democrats, who refuse to believe the majority of the county opposes their policies, even when the 2010 elections should have told them different. They are in denial, and when November comes they are going to be very surprised by the results.

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Against the advice of almost every farm organization the USDA is proceeding with regulations that will require farmers to individually tag every chicken and cow.

4:11 pm

Racists! Against the advice of almost every farm organization the USDA is proceeding with regulations that will require farmers to individually tag every chicken and cow.

Fidelis Hegngi, a senior staff veterinarian at USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, also has his doubts. “To really truly have something like tagging work on poultry you would need to have something absolute because birds move a lot, if you don’t have something absolute, it’s not going to work. … I don’t think the technology is there yet to really implement the bird ID to be fully, fully functional,” Mr. Hegngi said. Government officials have not said whether they would check animals for identification at traffic stops.

Ms. Bergener has a simple solution to the poultry police: “I’m going to do selective passive resistance,” she said. “I’m not tagging.” …

According to the letter to OMB, the USDA’s disconnect with farmers does not stop at rules for poultry. The USDA estimates a rancher’s cost to identify cattle at 18 cents a head, but the letter cites a study from North Dakota State University that places the actual cost of cow citizenship at $20 a head.

Nowhere is it explained why the USDA is demanding such stringent ID requirements of farmers, other than to make their lives difficult and to increase the petty power of the Washington bureaucracy.

In other words, for the Obama administration it all can be summarized like this: “Voter ID bad! Chicken ID good!”

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At least 80 House Republicans have signed a letter demanding that Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) block any further funding of Obamacare.

7:24 pm

At least 80 House Republicans have signed a letter demanding that Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) block any further funding of Obamacare.

This story illustrates two things. First, the House Republican leadership has been timid about using its power to block the implementation of Obamacare, even though the public clearly wants it blocked. Second, that about a third of the House Republican membership has already signed the letter, with more signatures expected, suggests that the bulk of the Republican Party is not as timid as their leadership. Moreover, I expect the November election to significantly strengthen this fiscally conservative trend.

Thus, it will not surprise me if we see some very radical budget cuts in the next Congress.

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Is the U.S. government reading your emails? The answer appear to be “Maybe.”

2:09 pm

Is the U.S. government reading your emails without a warrant? The answer appear to be “Maybe.”

And the stance of the Obama administration?

The Justice Department and the Obama administration had a chance to settle the issue in April 2011, during a Senate hearing on the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. Instead, officials with both the Commerce and Justice departments failed to provide any clarity. Instead, a Justice Department official argued against extending Fourth Amendment protections — specifically strict warrant requirements — to email, saying that doing so would hinder investigations. “Congress should consider carefully the adverse impact on criminal as well as national security investigations if a probable-cause warrant were the only means to obtain such stored communications,” James Baker, associate deputy attorney general, testified at the hearing.

This behavior is not only immoral it is constitutionally illegal. It should stop.

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Another dismal jobs report.

9:47 am

Another dismal jobs report.

Job growth amounted to a disappointing 80,000, below analyst expectations of 90-100K, while the jobless rate remained the same at 8.2%:

Read the whole article. There’s a lot more, all of its depressing and trending downward.

While no President should be blamed entirely for the unemployment numbers, the policies of any President do have a direct influence on those numbers, and should bear some responsibility, especially in this era where we have ceded so much power to the federal government. Consider this graph (below the fold), which shows the “total unemployed, plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force.” The steep upward swing, beginning in 2008, sadly corresponds too closely with the beginnings of the Obama administration. And it is with this administration that we have seen the worst deficits, the most regulation, and the biggest increase in the power of government in our lifetimes. It is thus no surprise the economy has crumbled.
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A Tea Party event today in Tucson

10:28 pm

Last week I received an email from the local Tucson tea party, asking if I would be willing to attend a demonstration today in response to last week’s Supreme Court decision on Obamacare. To quote the email,

We would like to stage two simultaneous protests against the train wreck they call ObamaCare, at two separate locations Monday July 2nd, 4:00pm-5:45pm. 75 people at both locations are needed to make the necessary impact. They say the Tea Party is dead. What say ye? We need your commitment.

Today those protests took place at two different prominent street corners in the Tucson area. At each location there were about fifty people lining the sidewalk and holding signs and American flags out to passing motorists. My wife Diane and I went to one of those protests. Here are my impressions:
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The Secret Service shut down a “Fire Holder” rally this morning in front of the White House.

11:01 am

Freedom of speech in modern America: The Secret Service shut down a “Fire Holder” rally this morning in front of the White House.

After discovering a “suspicious package,” the Secret Service ended the protest. “Several agents seemed hostile to our march and seemed anxious for us to leave the area,” Maurice Lewis, a University of California student, told Campus Reform. “The discover[y of] the ‘unidentified package’ came just as the protest began gain traction.”

Not only should Holder be fired, so should Obama, for allowing this. And Romney should announce that he plans to investigate the Secret Service and fire them if this “suspicious package” report turns out to be false.

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Obamacare: the final battle.

9:27 am

Obamacare: The final battle.

Mitt Romney said it best on Thursday. “If we want to get rid of Obamacare, we’re going to have to replace President Obama.” Those who have been sitting on the sidelines, out of complacency or loyalty to someone else from the primaries, must get out of their chairs and get to work. But while that work must end with Mitt Romney in the White House, it must begin with a Republican majority in the Senate.

As I said last week, the only right way to get this terrible law it is for the voters to insist upon its repeal. And the only way to do that is to elect politicians who say they will repeal it. Not only will that get rid of the law, but it will instill such fear in politicians that it will be decades before any of them will attempt to introduce another one of these kinds of draconian laws.

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Wiretap applications by Eric Holder’s Justice Department are now providing evidence that top officials, including Holder, knew about the Fast-and-Furious program and its smuggling of guns illegally into Mexico long before the murder of border agent Brian Terry by one of those guns.

9:49 pm

It’s not the crime but the coverup: Newly revealed wiretap applications by Eric Holder’s Justice Department show that top officials, including Holder, almost certainly knew about the Fast-and-Furious program and its smuggling of guns illegally into Mexico long before the murder of border agent Brian Terry by one of those guns.

This evidence provides an explanation why Obama, Holder and other Justice officials have been stonewalling Congressional investigations. The documents they are withholding likely prove that they have been lying, from the beginning, about what they knew about Fast-and-Furious. Worse, their willingness to let guns pass over the border into Mexico illegally would make them accessories in the murders of Terry and numerous Mexicans.

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