Goodbye Barney Frank -- Hello Maxine Waters

That's right. Just when you thought you had something to really celebrate--the retirement of that Great National Impoverisher, Barney Frank, from his 16-term Congressional seat in Massachusetts, comes the gut-wrenching reminder that Maxine Waters is next in line to take over over ol' Barney's enormously powerful ranking Democrat position on the House Committee on Financial Services.

Even though Barney's retirement won't begin until the end of next year, his retirement announcement still sounds like a tune a long-suffering country could dance to. Frank left his thumbprints all over the subprime mortgage crisis that's still reverberating through our suffering economy, and he's remained up to mischief ever since.

But consider a few items on the track record of his presumed successor as lead Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee. Maxine Waters, who has had 11 terms in which to sink her tentacles deep into Congress, managed to get one of those tentacles so deeply embedded in the government cookie jar that even Nancy Pelosi felt the need to call for an ethics examination.

Nancy's concern about Maxine's ethics was, of course, mainly (or perhaps solely) for show. The ethics trial of Maxine Waters was set to begin in November of 2010,

But the Democrat leadership has delayed Waters' trial by blocking subpoenas and firing the lead lawyer working on the two-year investigation. Also, the ranking Democrat on the House Ethics panel reportedly is holding up the hiring of a new staff director.

The ever-creative Maxine had pressured bank examiners into bailing out her husband's bank, OneUnited, with $12 million of TARP money and then had gotten OneUnited "a unique exemption from the FDIC's accounting rules." Not so difficult a task, apparently, for a member of House Oversight and Investigations subcommittee.

OneUnited Bank certainly was in trouble: Its CEO had recently been busted for cocaine possession, and the FDIC had ordered it to cease and desist operations due to its "unsafe banking practices." "Of the 700 banks receiving TARP funds, OneUnited was the weakest."

More to the point, however, is that the $12 million of TARP money saved Maxine's husband, one of the bank's directors, in excess of $350,000: the value of the his OneUnited stocks that, without the bailout using public funds, would have been worthless.

The frosting on Maxine's $12 million cookie was this:

While under investigation, Waters got a provision added to the Dodd-Frank Act exempting minority owned banks [including OneUnited] from the new oversight.

What else would you expect from a legislator sitting on the House Oversight and Investigations subcommittee?

Maybe this: giving ACORN oversight of CFPA, Obama's Consumer Financial Protection Agency? Maxine Waters introduced the amendment, and the Democrats on the House Financial Services Committee (including herself and Barney) voted to pass it.

Today, Maxine Waters, who is the House Chief Deputy Whip, also "serves" as the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Capital Markets and Government Sponsored Enterprises and on the Subcommittee on Insurance, Housing and Community Opportunity; the Committee on the Judiciary; the Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, Competition, and the Internet; the Subcommittee on Immigration Policy and Enforcement; and the Committee on Steering and Policy.

Scared yet?

Whomever Maxine Waters is serving, it's a safe bet that she's not serving you.

Let the ethics trial begin.
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Neurosurgeon Talks about ObamaCare: Over 70? Die.

How many "units" over age 70 will have to die before the people of this country get rid of ObamaCare?

Uh, so far, nobody is talking about what the Obamatons have in mind for "units" under age 4.

Addendum 1/10/12: This post is still getting a lot of traffic, so I am adding this chart to clarify why I fear that ObamaCare could put children under the age of 4 at risk of facing health care rationing similar to that imposed on the elderly? Check out the health rationing curve published by Obama's health care advisor, Ezekiel Emanuel:

Hat tip: Adrienne.
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Thanksgiving Song -- David Campbell

I hope you are enjoying a Happy and Blessed Thanksgiving, Friends.

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Cryin' Holy Unto My Lord -- Bill Monroe

Linked by Backyard Conservative, who wonders, "Where's waldObama?" when the U.S. could use some leadership. (A rhetorical question, that.) Thank you, Anne.

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Date Night

Ya gotta love it . . . .

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Obama's Promises, Meet Obama's Results

John E. over at Ace of Spades compared some of Barack Obama's promises during his 2008 campaign and at his inauguration to today's reality and then turned the results into a compelling graph.

The comparisons cover income, jobs, unemployment, and poverty; cost of gas and health insurance, and federal debt.

Here's one that particularly sticks in my craw:

View the rest.

Thanks to Mind Numbed Robot.
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#OWS Therapy: Watching Occupy Harvard Embarrass Themselves

Photo: Maryam Monalisa Gharavi

Mocking Harvard has become a very satisfying sport, particularly since that university has aroused so much ire in the last few years for its contributions to the breakdown of the body politic, starting with awarding law degrees to Barack and Michelle and supporting their advance to the White House.

Other contributions include race-card beer summits at the White House, promotion of such public health propaganda items as you have no right to your own body parts (and you know who does), partial birth abortion is a nifty thing (don't listen to what actual physicians have to say), and gov't should decide who gets what health care and when (you get to pay for it, whether you want to or not). Another Harvard-brew progressive nightmare that keeps people around the globe awake at night is "global warming is a man-caused global disaster" (i.e., hide opposing evidence).

Time and again, Harvard has proven themselves soooo easy to mock, it is embarrassing. All one needs do is repeat facts, such as:

On Wednesday, November 9, Occupy Harvard began. The university is frequently accused of being an “academic gatekeeper,” but the administration and police response to the nascent protest movement has made this gatekeeping uncomfortably literal: Harvard Yard has been placed on indefinite “lockdown,” meaning two-level ID-checks at every entrance.

That's rich. Pun intended. Howie Carr at the Boston Herald is among those who are appalled:

So let me get this straight: Harvard students are “occupying” the Yard to protest how the 1 percent keep the 99 percent in economic servitude. But the Crimson protest against capitalist oppression is by invitation only, and all the gates on campus have been locked, chained and padlocked to keep out the real 99 percent? 

Harvard's lockdown is that university's way of saying, "Tough luck" to extension students, visiting scholars, tourists, members of the press, and in general the folks in Cambridge who pay the property taxes that Harvard would have to pay if it paid taxes, which it does not.

By the way, this is the first time Harvard has ever been on full lockdown. Which is another way of Harvard saying that it is far more frightened of the 2011 "occupiers" than it ever was of the 1969 Vietnam War protesters. Think of that.

More from Carr:

The pampered pukes are saying their faux encampment of Eddie Bauer and L.L. Bean tents is “symbolic.” It sure is — symbolic of the breathtaking hypocrisy of these limousine liberals.

They’re in solidarity with the rabble ... as long as the riff-raff stay on their side of the wall.

One certainly can empathize with Harvard for not wanting to scrape human excrement off its lawns and having tuberculosis and lice spread to its faculty and students. But Harvard is not too eager to grant other people the right to protect their property.

Now nobody can walk across the Yard unless he has a Harvard ID. They tried something like this in Arizona, and as I recall everyone at Harvard denounced SB 1070 as racism, as in, “They’re checking papers in Arizona!”

Now the moonbats are checking papers in Harvard Square. . . .

When political correctness comes in one of Harvard's gates, rationality flies out the window.

But what if an illegal alien wants to cross the Yard? Remember, when an illegal falsified his application to get into Harvard, they gave him a scholarship. When an American kid from Delaware tried to pull the same stunt, they gave him six months at Billerica House of Correction.

And what if Skippy Gates tries to take a shortcut across campus and he doesn’t have his ID with him? Will Barack say the campus cops “acted stupidly?” Will there be a sushi summit at the White House?

Carr tells it like it is:

Occupy Harvard Yard is like when you were 6 years old, and you went camping ... in your backyard, with your father. If you got scared, you could just run back in the house to get a hug from Mommy.

Which is the atmosphere one might reasonably expect Harvard to provide for their immature students new to the ways of the real world.

Harvard Yard is not altogether pink just yet. "Some freshmen from balcony dorms," those apparently still capable of rational thought, "yelled 'We are the 1 percent! We are the 1 percent!'” It is unclear whether those students were referring to their own incomes, their family incomes, or Harvard's income, which is not unsubstantial.

In 2008, Harvard's endowment was $37 billion, making it the second-wealthiest non-profit in the world, after the Catholic Church. When comparing the two institutions, it is useful to note that the Catholic Church has existed since the time of Christ and has acquired property in every location in the world in which Catholics have built a church during the last two millennia, whereas Harvard was founded less than 400 years ago and is pretty much confined, physically, to Cambridge, Massachussetts. When referring to Harvard, the term "non-profit" is most accurately defined as "pays zero taxes on its enormous investments and holdings, which circumstance does not stand in the way of it receiving enormous amounts of tax money collected from people locked out of Harvard Yard."

Sadly, any mocking of Harvard University is done through tears of woe. In just a few years, Harvard's students, rational or not, like the cadre of Harvard professors "serving" in the Obama administration, are going to be making decisions--big decisions--about your future and mine.

Because Big Nanny knows best.
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NYC Locates a Sane Judge to Rule against 24/7 #OWS Campout

The "occupiers" can stay in Zuccotti Park, but their camping gear cannot.

From the Wall Street Journal:

A judge ruled against Occupy Wall Street protesters, upholding a move by New York City and the landlord of the privately owned plaza to clear tents from Zuccotti Park and prevent protesters from bringing equipment back in.

Hours after police cleared the last protester from their encampment Tuesday, lawyers for the city and Brookfield Office Properties faced off with Occupy Wall Street representatives inside a courtroom.

Supreme Court Justice Michael Stallman weighed whether to extend a temporary restraining order that bars the city from enforcing park rules against tents and other camping equipment. The original ruling came after police and sanitation workers had already swept all personal belongings from the two-month-old encampment, with more than 200 people arrested in the raid.

Lice, tuberculosis, scabies, garbage, trash, illicit drugs, human waste, and wireless technology still welcome. Not sure about the drums and rats. Update: The occupiers say they will be subject to search before entering Zuccotti Park, which might (maybe) perhaps (possibly) mean that illicit drugs are not (entirely) welcome.

Live link to the Zuccotti Park "occupation" here.
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Livestream of Occupy Wall Street after "Eviction"

The link is here.
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Take the High Road through the Valley -- Blind Boys of Alabama

Featuring the Oak Ridge Boys . . .

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Keeping one's friends close?

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"Reach your hand out to your vets"

". . . because they need it today."

Especially in my thoughts today are the veterans who care for their fellow veterans, particularly those who care for our wounded vets in VA facilities around the nation. 

Thank you, and God bless you. 

 

This video comes courtesy of molinelobo, whose father, a sailor and former tailor, was called upon in January of 1943 to hurriedly help make Franklin Delano Roosevelt's flag, featured in the video. This flag was flown by the USS Memphis, the cruiser that transported Franklin D. Roosevelt to the Casablanca Conference, where FDR and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill outlined plans for the invasion of Sicily and Italy and met with representatives of the Free French Forces. The flag now resides in the Roosevelt Presidential Library.
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Geitner Gives Cheap $$$ to Ford, Tesla, & Nissan

In the age-old game of "follow the money," it's always interesting to see where government is spending our hard-earned (or expensively borrowed) cash. Over at Business Insider, Bruce Krasting has invited us to take a look at who is getting cheap money from the government.

As of September 30, 2011, the Federal Financing Bank, which is owned by the U.S. Treasury and operated by Tim Geitner, had lent, sold, or guaranteed $58 billion to business enterprises.

This past September, the bank made loans of money that U.S. taxpayers can expect never to see again, from a hefty $1.5 billion to the U.S. Postal Service (that will be broke by summer) to a piddling (by federal standards) $214 thousand to Beacon Power Corporation (they are already bankrupt).

Don't let the size of those numbers fool you though. The U.S. Postal Service owes the American people a total of $13 billion, and Beacon Power (another green whitewash by the Obama administration) owes a us a total of $40 million. Kiss all of that good-bye. Various and sundry solar companies, over time, have racked up bills totaling $4.9 billion, about a quarter of which is already toast.

But lookee here:

• Ford Motor Company got $364.5 million in long-term loans at 1.4% interest. In just the month of September.

• Tesla Motors got 90.8 million in long-term loans at 1% interest and 1.4% interest. That's not their first gov't loan, of course.
  

• Nissan North America got $33.6 million in long-term loans at 1% interest, 1.8% interest, and 2.5% interest. Nissan gets your money without ever having sold you a car?

A couple of years ago, so much money was transferred from the public coffers to General Motors that it earned the new moniker, Government Motors. Around the same time, half a billion in taxpayer dollars went to Fisker Automotive to build electric cars in Finland. That's also when Tesla Motors was approved for almost half a billion dollars in federal loans on an "as needed" basis.

For the Obama administration's extension of their tentacles into the automobile industry, it looks like GM, Tesla, and Fisker were just a start.
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Would it be too much to demand that students study LOGIC?

Judge Judy and Baliff Byrd meet recipients of their tax payments and are not too happy:

H/t: teaparty.org
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If These Were Global Warming Graphs, We'd All Be Vaporized

A 375% increase of a nice, comfortable 72°F would be 270°F HOT, a temperature certain to be noticed by global warmists if they had not already been reduced to soup. (Apologies for yesterday's incorrect calculation, oops.)

However, when it comes to a 375% increase in spending on education over the last 40 years--with NO associated increase in reading, math, or science scores--Lefties like this Palestine-sympathizing #OWSer [video 2] think that people who want to get rid of the Department of Education are fools.

They seem to have forgotten that old adage about a fool and his money.

H/t: teresamerica.
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