This failed in Congress, with his own party, so he’s going it alone

Cap and Trade failed in Congress--there weren't enough Democrats to support it. Some of them want the economy to recover, and want to hold their seats.  But Obama really owes his leftist supporters, so he's going it alone.  Who needs a Congress when you've got a Czar? In a week in which he gave the worst speech of his career, traded five terrorists for a deserter, was AWOL on the VA scandal, and got two members of his administration to take the fall for him, his ratings couldn't go any lower, so why not just confirm that Congress is an outdated vestige of a past that included a Constitution that outlaws just about everything he does?.

“Personally, I'm pretty skeptical that enough Democrats would have embraced cap and trade, even if the president had put it before health care. Democrats were willing to do a suicide charge on health care because they (incorrectly, so far) assumed that it would be much more popular after it was passed. Only a lunatic could have thought that Cap and Trade would be more popular once it started taking chunks out of peoples' paychecks. Especially in the middle of a brutal economic crisis.” http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/01/17/why-did-cap-and-trade-fail

The truth is there weren’t enough Democrats willing to support a carbon cap, let along Republicans. Michael Shellenberger of the Breakthrough Institute—a think tank that is highly skeptical of cap and trade—told me that his group spoke to environmental lobbyists back in 2008 who were working on a cap-and-trade bill in the Senate then, the Warner-Lieberman bill. Though it never went to a full vote, Shellenberger believes that a carbon cap bill in 2008 would have received no more than 35 votes. Now there are more Democrats in the Senate than there were then, and political realities change with a Democratic president in the White House—but that’s still a huge gap. http://science.time.com/2010/07/22/cap-and-trade-is-dead-really-truly-im-not-kidding-whos-to-blame/

BP's negligence plus the government incompetence equals a case for global warming?

"On Wednesday President Obama faced the reality that he and those sharing his agenda and beliefs cannot make their "global warming" case, that after billions of taxpayer dollars trying to make it stronger they only find themselves in a deeper hole of public resistance. So he lapsed into saying that a company's negligence and governmental incompetence finally, somehow, provide that elusive reason to cede lifestyle decisions great and small to the state, through a scheme that is according to all parties climatically meaningless. But that's ok, the issue's not "global warming" anymore.

You see, the public aren't buying "global warming", so the issue is no longer the issue. It never was anyway. The issue is whatever might work. So far, the Senate's global warming bill has been called "not an environment bill" by Sen. John Kerry, who instead says it's a jobs bill, and a national security bill. Yeah, that's it."

There's a ton of money in cap and trade--all the big players in government, the banks they've been bailing out, Fanny and Fred--they're all invested in making "green" work and can make millions if they pull it off. Don't let them con you.

The American Spectator : AmSpecBlog : And Bob's Your Uncle

It's possible Tipper thought their marriage was maturing---into green dung heap

Forty years of standing by her man, and having their funds and lives co-mingled. And this is what it comes to . . legislating carbon caps, funding carbon research, investing her money in phony balony carbon exchanges like CCX  (worth trillions) while building and managing  huge homes, becoming a movie star celebrity, and denigrating her country. An aging, overweight, has-been hypocrite vs. your freedom and a huge settlement before it all collapses.  Which would you choose?

Or, and this is still my first guess, there's someone else. Counselor Mona Loeser in today's WSJ said, "It's extraordinarily unusual for a man to leave a marriage without having somebody." I heard my pastor say that in 1977 after 30+ years of marriage counseling. But he went a bit further--said he'd never known it to happen. I do know of one case--happened a few years ago--a man I know left his wife just to get away from her nagging and criticism, and there was no one else. But somehow, after 40 years, I would think the Gores would know how to deal with that.

How to kill jobs the Obama way

Chicago Carbon Exchange--the Players

"Here are the players and their roles:

Joyce Foundation – A group founded in 1948 that took a sharp turn to the left after its founder, Beatrice Joyce Kean died in 1972.

Barack Obama – President of the United States and one time Board member of the Joyce Foundation. Largely responsible for creating the Chicago Climate Exchange by funneling money to it from the Joyce Foundation.

Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) – An exchange dealing exclusively with Cap and Trade passes, techonology, etc. It was formed largely due to Obama's role as Board member on Joyce Foundation. Obama oversaw the funneling of money from that foundation to the CCX as well as to an entity headed by Bill Ayers' brother.

Valerie Jarrett – Senior advisor to Barack Obama and current Board member on the Joyce Foundation.

Al Gore – Founder of London-based Generation Investment Management (GIM). London also happens to be in the same country where climategate broke. GIM owns 10% of the CCX.

Goldman Sachs – Banking giant that, like Gore, owns 10% of the CCX. Also worthy of note is that at least six former Goldman Sachs executives work inside the Obama administration while Congress puts on a dog and pony show, publicly chastising other Goldman execs about their supposed complicity in the financial crisis.

Franklin Raines – Former head of Fannie Mae. While there, Raines used taxpayer dollars from Fannie Mae to purchase cap and trade technology."

Whether or not you like Glenn Beck, you might ask your favorite news source reporters why he is doing investigative reporting and they aren't. I think the charade going on about "punishing" Goldman Sachs is pretty clever since they're all on the same team. But it also serves a dual role of demonizing Jews, and indirectly by association, Israel, because "Wall Street fat cats" and "greedy CEOs" are just code words for Jews. Just check back into the anti-semitism of the 1930s.

CONSPIRACY REALITY: CONNECTIONS BETWEEN WHITE HOUSE, CHICAGO CLIMATE EXCHANGE AND GOLDMAN SACHS TOO BIG TO IGNORE - TheCypressTimes

The Pelosi Pole Vault

Nancy Pelosi has promised (Jan. 28) that the health care bill written by lobbyists and leftists that Americans don't want will be snuck into other bills.

"We will go through the gate. If the gate is closed, we will go over the fence. If the fence is too high, we will pole vault in. If that doesn't work, we will parachute in. But we are going to get health care reform passed for the American people for their own personal health and economic security and for the important role that it will play in reducing the deficit."

This is not new--think of all the times social programs or other pork have been tacked onto troop funding. She's being honest about what she thinks of the American people for once in her life.

Recently we've seen the EPA just go right around our elected Congress to do their own pole vaulting for Cap and Trade, a boondoggle that will probably give us a higher tax bill than "health care reform." I have difficulty reading the research articles in JAMA, but the social and political stuff isn't too hard. In the January 13 issue (Vol. 303, no. 2) there is an interesting article on "Human, animal, ecosystem health all key to curbing emerging infectious diseases" (p. 117-118). Yes, the 2006 spinach e coli outbreak can be tied to global climate change (OSU researchers found E coli in domestic and wild animals linked to unusual weather conditions contaminating irrigation systems). So at a November conference hosted by the Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council it was recommended that we must have new strategies locally, nationally and globally because our surveillance system is inadequate.

Keep an eye on cross fertilization of your tax health dollars and regulations among US Department of Agriculture (USDA), US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the US Agency for International Development (USAID, the National Institute on Environmental Health Services, wildlife management, all universities and research dealing with veterinary medicine, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) and "global effort." Cha-Ching. Of course, compared to billions and trillions, an initial investment in this system of $800 million is a drop in the government bucket which has a hole in it. It's those 12 recommendations that came out of the conference that include the World Health Organization, the Food and Agriculture Organization and the Office International des Epizooties and the goal of creating a funding stream that worries me. That and Nancy's pole vaulting skill.

If Europe wants to continue paying guilt money

And that's what Copenhagen-Hopenchangen is about. Be my guest. European countries had colonies all over the world, including North America, South America, Africa and Asia. The guilt money that France and the UK have poured into the various corrupt African dictatorships could sink a fleet of Somali pirate ships, but it hasn't done a thing for the people. There are many books on this topic, written mostly by liberals--government, non-profits, and NGO officials. All the money does is prop up goosestepping, military regimes. And we aren't much better. Our own environmentalists have been killing Africans for years through our misguided, misdirected anti-DDT programs. Far more Africans have lost lives and livelihood through bleeding heart (for animals and insects) liberal-environmentalists than ever made it through the swamps and jungles to the coastal areas with their African captors and on to the slave ships owned by Europeans to be sold in the Islands and the future United States. And now they are about to do it again, only to all of us this time.

If Obama wants to help some Africans, let him begin with his own extended family. The Obama Diaspora. Although one brother is following in his footsteps and will write about book about. . . nothing except being an Obama.

The Skeptics Handbook on Global Warming

If CO2 is not THE cause of climate change, then the whole Cap-and-Trade Scheme, as well as Kyoto Protocol is WRONG, and must be abandoned. But hurry, the gravy train is about to leave the station.

Free download here. I printed my copy--only 16 pages.

It's not about health, energy or the environment

All Obama's policies reflect a core liberal mindset that spans policies and endures decades, according to Heritage Blog (and mine too if you've been following it).

And that is, "the willingness to forego jobs and wages for American workers to achieve other goals liberal policymakers deem more worthy. In the case of tax rates, [Laurence] Summers admits growth will be sacrificed at the altar of a soak-the-rich mentality married to the need to fund Obama’s spending surge.

Health care reform has become an excuse to expand the reach of government and levy even higher taxes. The new House health care bill has yet higher rates than Summers was talking about: another blow to jobs and wages.

Cap and trade, a.k.a. pack and move for what it would do to the nation’s manufacturing sector, is an explicit, enormous trade off of lower economic growth for environmental goals. Recognizing the damage this policy would do to the economy, proponents anxiously argue that a few “green jobs” building subsidized windmills can compensate for the millions of real jobs destroyed if this legislation reaches the president." Read the entire piece here.

Mr. President, there is no consensus

Why does he keep smacking us with the global warming myth? Calling us names like naysayers and cynics. Defeatists. Living in the past. Pretending that most people believe it? Any thinking person can see where we're going with the cap and trade bills and agreements--not to protecting future generations, not to lower energy costs, not to saving glaciers and polar bears. Not only do we know the temperature hasn't risen in a decade, but we're on to his one world, global control scheme. It's just an opinion but considering what a bad country he believes he's heading, I think our president, hopes soon to be ruler of the world. (Look out Norway, he's got his eye on you!)

“There are those who will suggest that moving toward clean energy will destroy our economy — when it’s the system we currently have that endangers our prosperity and prevents us from creating millions of new jobs. There are going to be those who cynically claim — make cynical claims that contradict the overwhelming scientific evidence when it comes to climate change, claims whose only purpose is to defeat or delay the change that we know is necessary.” Obama's remarks at MIT, Friday

If anyone bought into this, it would be the building trades, architects in particular. Their livelihood depends on it--they're wetting themselves over the thought of tearing down the clunkers and getting government money to build green. And yet the cover story of Architect says 46% believe in climate change, 34% believe it isn't caused by humans, 13% believe global warming is a myth perpetuated by the media, and 7% aren't sure that building green will help when China and India are expanding so rapidly. So let's see, that's 46% for, and 54% who either don't believe it's man made, or it's a myth, or that there aren't political solutions. Does that sound like a consensus to you?

And how about Pew Research Center? According to the New York Times

The decline in the belief in solid evidence of global warming has come across the political spectrum, but has been particularly pronounced among independents. Just 53% of independents now see solid evidence of global warming, compared with 75% who did so in April 2008. Republicans, who already were highly skeptical of the evidence of global warming, have become even more so: just 35% of Republicans now see solid evidence of rising global temperatures, down from 49% in 2008 and 62% in 2007. Fewer Democrats also express this view – 75% today compared with 83% last year.

Obama and Waxman are losing ground on this, even among their own people. No wonder he wants to rush it through. The biggest drop of support is in the Mountain States. Hmmm. Do you suppose they are figuring out what cap and trade will do to their economy?

What's the hurry, Mr. President? "Never waste a [man made, trumped up, media engorged, one-world government] crisis."

Cap and Trade--what a nice gift for workers--lost jobs

"The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Data Analysis found that, for the average year over the 2012-2035 timeline, job losses will be 1.1 million greater than without a cap and trade bill. By 2035, there is a projected 2.5 million fewer jobs below the baseline. Some of these jobs will be destroyed completely. Others will move overseas where carbon capping isn’t in their country’s agenda and therefore the cost of production is cheaper.

We’re not the only ones who project unemployment from cap and trade. The Brookings Institute, for instance, projects that cap-and-trade will increase unemployment by 0.5% in the first decade below the baseline. Using U.S. Census population projection estimates, that’s equivalent to about 1.7 million fewer jobs than without cap-and-trade. A study done by Charles River Associates prepared for the National Black Chamber of Congress projects increases in unemployment by 2.3-2.7 million jobs in each year of the policy through 2030–after accounting for “green job” creation."

No lobbyist left behind

"The Waxman-Markey climate change bill, a 1,427-page special-interest wish list, was put together in such a rush that the allowance permit numbers don’t add up. If you add the percentage of emissions allowances to various special interests in the years 2016 and 2017 and you get a value greater than one hundred percent. That’s right—the bill allocates nearly a billion dollars worth of allowances over and above the emissions “cap” set for those respective years.

Thousands of lobbyists worked on this bill to secure a piece of the allowance pie. These special interests range from the natural gas industry to the auto industry. Even tropical rainforests made the list. Electric utilities were the big winners, receiving 43.75 percent of the allowances in 2012 and 2013. Petroleum refiners didn’t fare as well, receiving only 2.25 percent of the emissions allowances from 2014-2026. Lobbyists brought their A-game to shape this bill and Members caved into their demands, all but guaranteeing this bill will do nothing for the environment. And it comes at the expense of the ratepayer and the taxpayer.

With over 12,500 registered lobbyists in Washington, it’s no surprise that this bill turned into a feeding frenzy that was rushed through in the middle of the night and promises more than it can actually hand out. Waxman-Markey is nothing more than a huge energy tax and a handout for special interests." The Foundry

More ways to cripple the economy

You can't just look at the health care plan as this administration's blueprint to destroy the economy; don't forget The malarky filled Waxman-Taxman. The House members also didn't take the time to read that. So much for not taxing the middle class and only going after the rich. It makes the new cigarette taxes for the poor look like pennies.

"On June 26, the House of Representatives narrowly passed climate change legislation designed by Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Edward Markey (D-MA). The 1,427-page bill would restrict greenhouse gas emissions from industry, mainly carbon dioxide from the combustion of coal, oil, and natural gas.

If passed by the Senate, the bill would burden families with thousands of dollars per year in direct and indirect energy costs. According to a new study produced by Heritage's Center for Data Analysis (CDA), forecasts severe consequences—including crushing energy costs, millions of jobs lost and falling household income—if Congress enacts the so-called Waxman-Markey bill." Heritage.org, and each state is different so be sure to click to your own state. Here's some of the bad news for Ohio--your mileage and tax increases may differ.


"By 2035, Americans living in the state of Ohio will see their electricity prices rise by $1,091.47 and their gasoline prices rise by $1.40 per gallon solely because of Waxman–Markey. . . . [charts] As the economy adjusts to shrinking gross domestic product (GDP) and rising energy prices, employment will take a big hit in Ohio. Beginning in 2012, job losses will be 62,595 higher than without a cap-and-trade bill in place. And the number of jobs lost will only go up, increasing to 111,989 by 2035.

Contrary to the claims of an economic boost from green investment and green job creation and “postage stamp” costs, the Waxman–Markey climate change legislation does the complete opposite by increasing energy prices . . ."

No, it looks like none of the House members has read this one either--they're dragging us kicking and screaming back to the 1930s 10 year Depression. Must have gone to elite colleges like Harvard where they learned about evil capitalism.

Glenn Beck on our incompetent government

I won't imbed them all, but he is addressing California's budget, the cap and trade, ACORN, Al Franken the comedian is now a senator, etc. A number of clips at the RBO blog (tracks Obama's stupid stuff). We don't get Glenn up here. His new book on common sense is selling like hot cakes. See a bunch of them here, including the suppressed EPA report. An additional $3,000 per household per year? No, he's only going to tax the rich. Yeah.

Common Sense, by Glenn Beck

Saving Freedom, by Jim DeMint

What's going on in New Jersey?

With Obama attempting to bring down the government with so much poorly thought out legislation that neither Congress nor the voters can read them [can and trade bill was 1200 pages] or keep up, it's hard to follow the money trail. Here's a poster of the 8 RINOs that voted for the Crap and Trade-it bill.

HT Stop the Liberals Now

Newsmax: "Friday's vote was 219-212. The legislation was supported by 211 Democrats and eight aisle-crossing GOP members: Reps. Mary Bono (Calif.), Michael Castle (Del.), Mark Kirk (Ill.), Leonard Lance (N.J.), Frank LoBiondo (N.J.), John McHugh (N.Y.), David Reichert (Wash.) and Christopher Smith (N.J.). Forty-four Democrats voted against the bill, making the eight GOP votes all the more crucial.


“This is the biggest job-killing bill that’s ever been on the floor of the House of Representatives. Right here, this bill,” House Minority Leader John Boehner said after the vote. “And I don’t think that’s what the American people want.”

Also, we have a creek (Turkey Run) in our back yard; on Abington we had one too (called Evans Ditch by the old timers, but don't know if that's official). We also have a pot hole near one of the condo drains. Now all the water, standing or flowing, will belong to the Federal government if S. 787 passes, I guess because it takes such good care of everything.



HT Some Have Hats

Joe the Lip promised us a disaster after Obama was elected

And he was right! He said we'd question his plans and results. And he was right! Biden's all over the Ohio northwestern TV stations, spreading it deep and thick. Not only has his administration taken over and destroyed what was left of the auto industry of northern Ohio by giving it to the unions with our tax money, but it is planning to destroy our energy based economy with the phony baloney cap n trade, which will benefit the same rich corporate execs (plus Al Gore) but will destroy local jobs. We've got counties up here with a 17% unemployment rate, compared to about 6% during the 2006 campaign in which Strickland and other Democrats constantly griped about "this economy." Now they want to make it even worse with green pie in the sky and kill the southern half of the state.

Ohio, Indiana, West Virginia, Kentucky and southern Illinois are all coal states. You know, the "dirty" stuff that has supplied about 90% of your electricity and powers the industries where you work. Now they want to clutter the prairies and lakes with windmills, a very unreliable source of energy, but 3 guesses who will own the stock and who will be trading those credits!

A graphic at Powerline today is worth looking at. It shows the state-by-state annual taxes incurred due to cap-and-trade based on EIA and CBO data. Ohio's new tax bill? $642.5 million annually, following Texas, Indiana, and West Virginia.

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/06/023883.php

Ohio turns out to be the 4th biggest loser, which is fine if you're on reality TV competing with 49 other obese contestants, but this reality is lost jobs, incomes, schools, libraries, parks, highways, and it's big votes for Democrats who always promise a thousand times more than they can deliver, and people fall for it. Just like the FDR era, where they preferred WPA jobs to real jobs. Remember, the P in WPA was changed from Progress to Projects after several years of failure.

Global warming and the economy

"The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported that October in the US was marked by 63 record snowfalls and 115 lowest-ever temperatures. Over the past few years, similar signs of colder than usual weather have been recorded all over the world, causing many people to question the still fashionable, but now long outdated, global warming alarmism. Yet individual weather events or spells, whether warmings or coolings, tell us nothing necessarily about true climate change. . .

Introduction of a carbon dioxide tax to prevent (imaginary) warming, euphemistically disguised as an emissions trading scheme, is a politician's, ticket clipper's and mafia chief's dream. . ." Australian, Jan. 20, 2009

"The IPCC’s assertion that a dangerous human influence is being exerted on climate change rested in 2001 on three main arguments. These were (i) that the thermometer-based ground-temperature record shows unprecedented warming; (ii) the claim, after the Mann et al. (1998) ‘hockey stick’model of climate change, that late 20th century temperatures rose to an unnatural level and at an unnatural rate; and (iii) the implication, based on a radiative-balance model of atmospheric processes, that deterministic computer models can predict climate 50 or 100 years ahead.

Regarding (i), the ground temperature curve now shows no statistically significant warming since 1995, and cooling since 2002. Regarding (ii), the work of Mann et al. has been shown to be deeply statistically flawed (McIntyre and McKitrick 2003). Which leaves GCM computer models as the sole remaining argument for dangerous human-caused warming. ‘How are they travelling’, you ask? ‘Not at all well’ is the answer. . ." from "Knock, Knock: Where is the Evidence for Dangerous Human-Caused Global Warming?" by Robert M. Carter, ECONOMIC ANALYSIS & POLICY, VOL. 38 NO. 2, SEPTEMBER 2008 (Available on-line as PDF, 26 pages)

Just one big happy company trading in favors

According to Bloomberg:

"Goldman Sachs Group Inc., which got $10 billion and debt guarantees from the U.S. government in October, expects to pay $14 million in taxes worldwide for 2008 compared with $6 billion in 2007.

The company’s effective income tax rate dropped to 1 percent from 34.1 percent, New York-based Goldman Sachs said today in a statement. The firm reported a $2.3 billion profit for the year after paying $10.9 billion in employee compensation and benefits."

Ho, Ho, Ho. Merry Christmas. So we taxpayers, many of whom are now applying for unemployment checks or standing in a line of 937 for 10 jobs waiting tables, passed the hat for Goldman Sachs Christmas bonuses, which I'm sure were part of "compensation and benefits." Were no guidelines written into this give away package? The $18 billion bonus fund was set aside in 2007. Why didn't they use their own money for the bailout?

Couldn't Congress see this coming? Their own stimulus package so they can pay the mortgage on the multi-million dollar home and the 3rd Mercedes lease. Normally, I don't worry myself about bonuses, perks and salaries--unless I've loaned the company money or own stock in it. And I think I'm now an owner and should have a say in this one. What do you think?

Henry Paulson, the architect of these bailouts, and currently king of the world, is a former employee of Goldman Sachs and a partner with Al Gore in the next great ponzi scheme, cap and trade, a multi-million dollar business called, Generation Investment Management (GIM).

Al Gore might have invented the internet and a new religion, but he's not smart like Hank in money matters. GIM is part of the major carbon-credit trading firms that currently exist: the U.S. Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) and the Carbon Neutral Company (CNC) in Great Britain. The CCX, is a regulated exchange whose members are committed to cutting their emissions (all the big players are in it--Ted Turner, Kofi Annan, Gore's former chief of staff, Peter Knight, Canadian industrialist Maurice Strong). It is the only cap-and-trade system in North America for six greenhouse gases. Last September, Goldman Sachs bought 10% of CCX shares for $23 million. CCX owns half the ECX (European Climate Exchange), so Goldman Sachs has a stake there as well. See how neatly this works--and it is so bi-partisan, Republicans, Democrats, Americans, Canadians, Brits, Socialists and little 3rd world U.N. tyrants all working together, singing Kum-ba-ya around a non-polluting campfire.

Another former Goldman employee--18 years--is Obama's choice for a "sweeping overhaul" of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Gary Gensler. He probably had his cap set (no pun intended) on the SEC but has lost out the Mary Schapiro, head of FINRA, which was asleep at the switch in catching Bernie Madoff.

When Paulson was appointed in 2006 apparently two things on his side (to assure confirmation) was that 1) like most Goldman Sach CEOs he was "insanely wealthy", and 2) a committed environmentalist. Something for everyone.

For information on CCX, ECX, GIM, Hank and Al, see here, and here.

Madoff, Dreier and Blagojevich

Marc Dreier, the big spender and power hungry lawyer, has losses alleged to be $380 million plus a bunch of staff and partners wondering where their next paycheck is coming from (jail?), and the Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme could be $50 billion, an amount hard to hide, so Rod Blogojevich trying to weasel a paltry $500,000 and a job for his wife looks like small potatoes doesn't it? Plus, the outrageous other stories make Obama a charmed politician again--pushed the criminal activity of the Illinois governor right off the front page. But then, Obama hardly knew him. Helped with his campaign, his staff talked to him recently, but really, he's absolutely clean. All the media say so. And look how they sniffed out all those other stories of corruption! Yah! So much for investigative reporting.

Really, I've never been so discouraged or dispirited with both our government and our greedy, power hungry movers and shakers. It's hard to say which is more corrupt. Who do you trust these days? Certainly not George Bush who has allowed the government to slide into socialism using the economy as an excuse--after he became the all time big spender; and certainly not Barack Obama who will finish the job with his marxist buddies; and not an ex-president who took millions from foreign interests who hope his wife will stroke them; and not scummy Wall Street CEOs buying art collections and mansions, and not the inept union bosses; and not an ex-vice president in business with Hank Paulson to sell phony carbon credits; and not the people we elected who promised so much and then threw it all away; and not the regulators they appointed and hired to see that everything was done right and then didn't notice a thing was wrong despite a ballooning staff and budget. . .

I think we all, especially me, need to apologize to the welfare cheats and illegal, criminal aliens who have been stealing from us for the past 20-30 years. To all the lazy bums we've griped about, my sincere apology. Yes, you screwed up, but you didn't reach for the stars, didn't set high enough goals in your petty crimes. Some of you went to jail, and Dreier and Madoff are out walking around, or on "house arrest." Is that fair? I wish now you were the only crooks we needed to worry about. These small time criminals have allowed our prejudices toward the poor and stupid to take our eye off the rich and smart crooks. I think I can even say the little guy had limited options. But what do you say about the guys who went to Harvard and Yale, who cheated the friends and charities and staff who trusted them, who sat in the pew or synagogue when not jetting around the world, who threw lavish parties, and moved in all the right social circles, who sold the voters down the river, and partied and parceled out the pork 'til they couldn't hold any more?

List of Madoff's Clients, NYT

How the election of a black President will help black Africans

The United States of America now has what no other country in the world has, a democratically elected black leader of a free, constitutional republic. Europeans, the descendants of the slavers who purchased black Africans from the Arab Africans to be shipped to the "new world," can claim no African or even mixed race leaders; Africa can claim no free democracies (with the exception of Botswana which seems to be a model which all Africa could look to). Kenya had looked hopeful until Obama's cousin Odinga's followers massacred a few thousand after losing an election.

With his plans to destroy our current sources of energy--coal, gas and oil--his plans to raise taxes on successful small business, his plans to strengthen unions while discouraging business growth, his plans to bring the corrupt ACORN to the top (they are already at the table), his plans to allow millions more to flood our borders to bankrupt our social systems, his plans to shut down opposition in the press and airways, and his plans to reduce the military, the USA will be so weak that there will be nothing left over for the bailouts and food subsidies through various ill-advised and poorly planned NGO and government aid to African dictators and monarchs. Much of our aid simply destroyed African markets, however well intentioned. Other, initiative and ambition. Since none of this has helped Africa in 50-60 years, indeed has kept the former European colonies in a perpetual stage of adolescence, the reduction of American aid (and European, particularly France) to shore up weak leaders and economies in Africa will in the long run help Africa. It's the least he can do for change.