Monthly Archives: June 2010

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A Smoking Gun On Kagan

New evidence has come to light that Elena Kagan, the latest leftwing ideologue nominated to the Supreme Court of the United States by Our Lord and Savior, the Messiah Himself, Barack Hussein Obama, altered the findings of a medical group to make those findings support partial birth abortion rather than the actual findings, which were in opposition to the gruesome procedure, reminiscent of something found in Germany in the 1930s and 1940s.

Shannen Coffin writes at National Review on just how far the Left was willing to go to support partial birth abortion, a procedure in which the baby is partially delivered through the birth canal then has an instrument inserted into its skull with a vacuum device which sucks out the baby’s brains.

Via John Hindraker at Power Line:

A key event in the politics of partial-birth abortion was a report by a “select panel” of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), a supposedly nonpartisan physicians’ organization. That report included this statement, which the Supreme Court found highly persuasive in striking down Nebraska’s partial-birth abortion ban:

ACOG declared that the partial-birth-abortion procedure “may be the best or most appropriate procedure in a particular circumstance to save the life or preserve the health of a woman.” The Court relied on the ACOG statement as a key example of medical opinion supporting the abortion method.

Here is the shocking part: the ACOG report, as originally drafted, said almost exactly the opposite. The initial draft said that the ACOG panel “could identify no circumstances under which this procedure . . . would be the only option to save the life or preserve the health of the woman.” That language horrified the rabidly pro-abortion Elena Kagan, then a deputy assistant to President Clinton for domestic policy. This is what Kagan wrote in a memo to her superiors in the Clinton White House:

Todd Stern just discovered that the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) is thinking about issuing a statement (attached) that includes the following sentence: “[A] select panel convened by ACOG could identify no circumstances under which [the partial-birth] procedure … would be the only option to save the life or preserve the health of the woman.” This, of course, would be disaster — not the less so (in fact, the more so) because ACOG continues to oppose the legislation. It is unclear whether ACOG will issue the statement; even if it does not, there is obviously a chance that the draft will become public.

So what did Kagan do? She wrote language into the ACOG draft which made the draft say the opposite of what it actually said. From Coffin, who served as a deputy attorney general in the Bush administration and who defended the challenge to the Nebraska law banning partial birth abortion:

So Kagan set about solving the problem. Her notes, produced by the White House to the Senate Judiciary Committee, show that she herself drafted the critical language hedging ACOG’s position. On a document [PDF] captioned “Suggested Options” — which she apparently faxed to the legislative director at ACOG — Kagan proposed that ACOG include the following language: “An intact D&X [the medical term for the procedure], however, may be the best or most appropriate procedure in a particular circumstance to save the life or preserve the health of a woman.”

Kagan’s language was copied verbatim by the ACOG executive board into its final statement, where it then became one of the greatest evidentiary hurdles faced by Justice Department lawyers (of whom I was one) in defending the federal ban. (Kagan’s role was never disclosed to the courts.)

Here’s the note via Power Line in Kagan’s own handwriting:

Says Hindraker:

Unless there is some other interpretation of these documents that does not occur to me, it appears that Elena Kagan participated in a gigantic scientific deception. On behalf of the Clinton White House, she deliberately subverted what was supposed to be an objective scientific process. The ACOG report was certainly seen in that light by the federal courts …

This statement was obviously false. The federal courts were victimized by a gross deception and a perversion of both the scientific process and the judicial process, carried out, the evidence appears to show, by Elena Kagan.

Ms. Kagan has a great deal of explaining to do. Unless she can come up with an innocent explanation for these documents, she should not be confirmed.

This is huge, and if the Republicans, who’ve clearly placed their testicles in Algore‘s lockbox, don’t press this, then they don’t deserve to be put in charge of anything other than pushing the brooms behind the elephants at a circus.

It’s time to stop playing Mr. Nice Guy and take off the kid gloves and go after a nominee that is nothing more than a leftwing hack who will simply rubberstamp the unconstitutional Obama agenda. Heck, under questioning from Sen. Tom Coburn, Kagan couldn’t even rule out giving the government permission to dictate what we eat and drink:

The Other McCain cites a classic line from Animal House to explain Kagan’s qualifications to draft a medical paper.

Liberty Pundit Melissa Clouthier says Kagan’s deception is grounds for a Republican filibuster. She adds:

Her disgusting abortion stance notwithstanding, it’s her willingness to LIE, to misconstrue science, to misrepresent the truth that’s the problem here. A Supreme Court Justice should be all about judgment. This demonstrates an ethics hole in her character a mile wide and black hole deep.

There is not excuse for this. None. It is an automatic disqualifier in my opinion.

Mine too. But given the apparent lack of anything resembling a spine on the critters in the Senate with an R next to their names, I just don’t see this Obamaite radical not being confirmed with 58 Democrats and probably half of the Republicans showing “bipartisanship.”

Even more ammo: via Jim Hoft at Gateway Pundit, Kagan may have lied in a 9/11 case and if so, should be disbarred.

Any Republican who votes for her confirmation should be taken out by a real conservative and constitutionalist the very next primary.

Via R.S. McCain on Twitter comes word that the Senate GOPers may have located a spine long enough to press this issue:

Republican Senators are “fully expected . . . to make an issue of this an iussue int he second round of questions this afternoon,” a Senate source tells Human Events, referring to Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan’s reported involvement in drafting a 1996 document on partial-birth abortion.

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Priceless

From Moonbattery via RDW:

Anyone care to argue with me that America has the world’s richest poor? Here’s a bum getting a “free” meal paid for by us with a Blackberry.

Reminds me of the photo in the Sentinel Journal awhile back with a bunch of inner city residents lined up to get some type of handout. The picture showed the very latest in designer jeans, nails and hair as well as expensive cell phones. All the while expecting a handout from the rest of us.

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Obama’s Promises Kill 1,000 Jobs

The rhetoric of Our Lord and Savior Barack Hussein Obama just cost Wisconsin at least 300 good-paying jobs and another 700 to Americans elsewhere.

How so?

The U.S. Import-Export Bank denied Bucyrus  several million dollars in loan guarantees for a coal power plant and mine in India. 

Up to 1,000 jobs at Bucyrus International Inc. and its suppliers could be in jeopardy as the result of a decision by the U.S. Export-Import Bank, funded by Congress, to deny several hundred million dollars in loan guarantees to a coal-fired power plant and mine in India.

About 300 of those jobs are at the Bucyrus plant in South Milwaukee, where the company has 1,410 employees and its headquarters. The remaining jobs are spread across 13 states, including Illinois, Minnesota and Indiana.

On Thursday, the Export-Import Bank denied financing for Reliance Power Ltd., an Indian power plant company, effectively wiping out about $600 million in coal mining equipment sales for Bucyrus, chief executive Tim Sullivan said.

The fossil fuel project was the first to come before the government-run bank since it adopted a climate-change policy to settle a lawsuit and to meet Obama administration directives.

“President Obama has made clear his administration’s commitment to transition away from high-carbon investments and toward a cleaner-energy future,” Export-Import Bank Chairman Fred Hochberg said in a statement. “After careful deliberation, the Export-Import Bank board voted not to proceed with this project because of the projected adverse environmental impact.”

All for the myth known as global warming.

Here’s more impact: the Milwaukee Metropolitan Association of Commerce notes that Bucyrus has about 250 suppliers than employ another 15,000 people.

The ripple effect.

The plant is under construction in Sasan, central India, and is scheduled to be up and running in 2012. Coal mining will take place for the plant whether it’s done with Bucyrus machines or equipment from China and Belarus, Sullivan said.

“Unless the Obama administration jumps all over this and corrects a wrong fairly quickly, I am confident this business is going elsewhere,” Sullivan told the Journal Sentinel on Saturday.

“The bank’s decision has had no impact on global carbon emissions but has cost the U.S. nearly 1,000 jobs,” he added.

So Vice President Chia Pet, Joe “Plugs” Biden, can continue to blame George W. Bush for every problem the Obama Regime has on its hands all he likes. But it’s clear that it is the regime’s own policies that are hurting Americans and killing good-paying American jobs.

Of course, the environmentalist wackos are excited:

Environmentalists praised the Export-Import Bank’s decision Saturday, saying it should not support coal-fired power plants.

“Coal is the dirtiest form of energy that exists. There is no such thing as ‘clean coal,’ ” said Oliver Bernstein, spokesman for the Sierra Club, based in San Francisco.

Actually, there is such a thing as clean-burning coal. Unfortunately, the largest supply of clean-burning coal in the United States is located in southern Utah and became off-limits via an executive order issued by President Clinton in 1996 … right after he received gobs of illegal campaign contributions funneled through the Lippo Group in Indonesia, which controls the world’s largest supply of clean-burning coal. Quid pro quo.

Here’s more on The Anointed One’s stated plans to bankrupt the coal industry:

On January 17, 2008, Obama told The San Francisco Chronicle he opposes coal-fired plants, which supply half of the nation’s electricity needs.

“… if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can,” Obama told the paper in January. “It’s just that it will bankrupt them because they’re going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that’s being emitted.”

Obama said this in January 2008. It’s been out there. We all knew it. Wonder how many of those who voted for The Messiah despite knowing this feel today. And how many more will be put out of work as a result of His policies.

Says Hot Air’s Ed Morrissey:

This decision won’t stop one carbon molecule from hitting the air.  In fact, it will likely make carbon emissions worse.  India will look for other vendors to supply the equipment, probably from neighboring Russia or China, as they will continue to build and operate the plant.  Both nations compete in the same marketplace as Bucyrus, but they don’t work as cleanly as the American company does, which means the end result will be lower efficiency and more pollution.

Democrats like Obama keep talking about eeeeeevil corporations that export jobs overseas to save costs rather than keep them in the US.  Well, Obama and his Congress just sent 1,000 jobs overseas — jobs Americans lost, and jobs that either Russian or Chinese workers will get instead. And instead of bankrupting this new coal plant, they just made it dirtier.  Good job!

There are a bunch of Badger State politicians running for the tall grass or practicing a little CYA in the wake of this announcement. Gov. Jim Milhous Doyleone, himself a leading advocate of green energy and who tried pushing a green jobs bill through the state Legislature that would have killed what little is left of the state’s economy after eight years of Democrat Statist malfeasance, is trying to sound like a deathbed convert. Same with Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, seeking to fill Doyle’s third term. And Nobody’s Senator, Herb Kohl, likely a lame duck himself, all of a sudden picks up his pom-pons and cheers for coal. Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Al Qaeda) hasn’t said a word, no doubt in fear of alienating his radical leftwing environut supports on one hand and the voters who have the power to force him into retirement in November on the other.

More proof that elections have consequences.

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Another Biden Gaffe?

Vice President Chia Pet, Joe “Plugs” Biden told a Wisconsin audience that the damage done to the national economy and the number of jobs lost is irreversible — and blamed the Bush administration for all of the damage.

In other words, the dog ate my homework.

Biden gave a stark assessment of the economy today, telling an audience of supporters, “there’s no possibility to restore 8 million jobs lost in the Great Recession.”  

Appearing at a fundraiser with Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) in Milwaukee, the vice president remarked that by the time he and President Obama took office in 2008, the gross domestic product had shrunk and hundreds of thousands of jobs had been lost. 

“We inherited a godawful mess,” he said, adding there was “no way to regenerate $3 trillion that was lost. Not misplaced, lost.”

Actually, what the Obama Regime inherited wasn’t anywhere near as bad as what it has created with all of the policies hostile to private sector growth and the creation of private sector jobs; i.e., real jobs.

The only job sector showing any growth under the policies of the Obama Regime is the public sector. Government. Government jobs are not real jobs in the sense that they are not created out of necessity but rather are mandated into existence. Plus, those jobs are not funded from economic growth but rather by taxpayers. Other people working real jobs. And when the number of people working real jobs keeps declining, just how do those in Washington ecstatic by the growth of public sector jobs — also government union jobs — expect those jobs to be paid for?

Let’s look at what the Obama Regime has done thus far:

  • Porkulus, which did nothing but save a few public sector jobs and fund congressional pork projects going back some 30 years.
  • ObamaCare, or government-run health care on the fast track to becoming single payer. Job killer in every sense of the word.
  • Raising taxes. In other words, government sucking up more money that would be available for private sector investment.
  • Increasing regulations and mandates. More job and growth killers.
  • Nationalization of the auto industry and banks.
  • Vastly increasing the annual budget deficit and the national debt more in a year and a half than the Bush administration did in eight years.

The pending cap-and-tax legislation as well as the Wall Street “reform” are just more attacks in the ongoing assault on the private sector economy by the Chicago street thugs in the Obama Regime.

The gross domestic product can be increased. The economy can be revitalized. Real jobs can be created.

How so? Maybe the smartass manager of Kopp’s Custard in Greendale can help explain all of this to Biden.

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Calling All Smartasses

Yes, that means you. Especially if you support lower taxes.

Vice President Chia Pet, Joe “Plugs” Biden, thinks you’re a smartass if you want your taxes lowered.

Don’t believe me? Listen to arguably the biggest dolt inside the Beltway (and that’s saying a lot) for yourself:

A manager at Kopp’s Frozen Custard in Greendale tells Biden he wants his taxes lowered and Biden calls him a smartass.

The exchange (via Neal Boortz):

Biden: What do we owe you?

Manager: Don’t worry. It’s on us. … (inaudible) … Lower our taxes and we’ll call it even.

(A few minutes after the Kopp’s manager’s comment on “Lower our taxes,” there’s another exchange.)

Biden: Why don’t you say something nice instead of being a smartass all the time? Say something nice.

This exchange demonstrates clearly the gap gulf between the people and the tyrants trying to rule them. Note I did not say leaders attempting to govern. These are tyrants who believe they are our rulers. How dare one of the little people, the Great Unwashed, ask to keep more of what is rightfully theirs. It’s not the property of society or the government, to take from one and give to another.

It’s the confiscatory taxes pushed by the Obama Regime that are crippling the American economy for at least a generation. It’s the punitive attitude taken toward anyone who dares succeed — because in their eyes, that success came at the expense of someone who didn’t succeed or was achieved on the backs of others and as a result is not fair.

Oh, and frozen custard is not just your plain ol’ ice cream. But who’d haveexpected Joe “Plugs” Biden to have known that?

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A Klansman Departs

Sen. Robert “Sheets” Byrd (D-KKK) has assumed room temperature.

Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia, the longest-serving senator in American history, died Monday at the age of 92, a spokesman for the family said.

Byrd, a Democrat who served in the U.S. Senate since 1959, had been plagued by health problems in recent years and was confined to a wheelchair. He had skipped several votes in Congress in the past months. 

Jesse Jacobs, a family spokesman, said Byrd died peacefully at about 3 a.m. at Inova Hospital in Fairfax, Va.

He was the oldest member of the 111th Congress.

Not to mention the Senate’s very own Grand Kleagle. Yes, Byrd once was an active member of the Ku Klux Klan and at one recent point used the phrase “white nigger” twice in a televised interview. Of course, there weren’t any repercussions for Byrd using the N-word.  Why? Because he was a racist Democrat. As Michelle Malkin summarizes:

Ex-Klansman Robert Byrd, the senior senator from West Virginia, casually used the phrase “white nigger” twice on national TV this weekend. Enraged civil rights groups organized a protest campaign against Sen. Byrd and demanded that he undergo sensitivity training … not. The ex-Klansman, you see, is a Democrat. Democrats can join hate groups and utter the ugliest racial slurs and get away with it because they are Democrats. They belong to the party of racial tolerance and understanding. They’re paragons of virtue, and the rest of us are bigoted rubes.

Here’s the clip of Sheets using the racial slur:

Some good news from this development. The Politico pointed out while Byrd still had one foot in the grave and the other on the banana peel:

Byrd’s illness could complicate the financial reform bill’s path to President Barack Obama’s desk. Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown, one of four Republicans who voted for the original bill, has said he might vote against the version that emerged from the reconciliation of the House and Senate versions because it adds a $19 billion bank tax. 

Should Brown vote no and Byrd is unable to vote, it would leave the bill one vote shy of the 60 needed to close debate and move to final passage.

That may no longer be the case, since West Virginia’s governor is a Democrat Statist who will appoint another Democrat Statist to take Byrd’s place. If the Republicans vote as a block, that is 41 votes and still may be enough to kill the planned takeover of Wall Street by The Anointed One.

Power Line’s Scott Johnson had this remembrance of Robert Byrd:

Byrd was indeed a valuable link not only to the Senate’s past, but also to the Democratic Party’s history as the party of slavery, segregation, and opposition to equal treatment of blacks …

Byrd was old enough, for example, to have vowed memorably regarding the integration of the Armed Forces by President Truman that he would never fight “with a Negro by my side. Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds.”

Even after his resignation from the Klan, Byrd continued to hold it in high esteem, writing to the Klan’s Imperial Wizard in 1946: “The Klan is needed today as never before and I am anxious to see its rebirth here in West Virginia.”

And Byrd was old enough to have participated in filibustering the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as well as to have voted against it after cloture along with 18 other Democrats — in the name of the Constitution, of course.

And as Robert Stacy McCain points out:

He just became the best kind of Democrat, joining the sainted ranks of those who can no longer demagogue and pander their way to power, who no longer tax honest people into poverty so that their less industrious neighbors can be bribed with “free” government giveaways …

In other words, taking the Eternal Dirt Nap.

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Lethal Falling Concrete

First, our thoughts and prayers go out to the family of the 15 year old killed by falling concrete in the O’Donnell Park garage in Milwaukee.

Two others were injured but are expected to survive.

This is a structure with a long history of problems dating back to its construction in the 1990s.

Milwaukee County opened O’Donnell Park in the early 1990s. It covers more than 7 acres and is built atop a 1,250-space parking garage.

When it was built, problems dogged the project, including cracks in the structure because the weight of the park was more than the garage underneath could bear.

The first cracks were discovered in May 1991, prompting removal of tons of dirt that had been piled atop the park for landscaping. Crews also repaired and strengthened the steel-and-concrete skeleton of the structure.

Five months after discovering the cracks, the county fired Jordan Miller, the architect working on the $30 million project.

A subsequent investigation by the Milwaukee Sentinel found that Miller’s firm, Miller Meier Kenyon Cooper Architects and Engineers Inc., was not on the original list of finalists for the job but was added to the list at the request of Dave Schulz, then county parks director and later county executive.

Miller’s firm was selected even though the county was suing it over a defective roof design at the Mental Health Complex in Wauwatosa, a lawsuit that ended with a $700,000 judgment in the county’s favor.

In 1992, the county sued five other firms that worked on the project. Miller, Meier, meanwhile, filed a claim against the county for alleged damages.

Attempts to assign the blame to Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker and damage Walker’s campaign to become Wisconsin’s next governor will begin in 5 … 4 … 3 … 2 … 1

Oh look. Milwaukee County’s most prominent slumlord, County Board Chairman Lee Holloway weighs in:

Shortly after Thursday’s collapse, Milwaukee County Board Chairman Lee Holloway said in a statement that the county must address deferred maintenance at county parks and buildings. He also said he wants a review of all county facilities to ensure their safety.

“Earlier this year, stone chunks fell off of the Milwaukee County Courthouse,” Holloway said. “We are also dealing with numerous structural problems at the Mental Health Complex. Now, today, we are dealing with a terrible tragedy.”

What Slumlord Lee misses is the problems with the O’Donnell Park garage date back 20 years. Scott Walker was first elected as County Executive in 2002.

But don’t let the facts get in the way of a good smear. It fits the Left’s template to blame Walker for all sorts of problems in Milwaukee County stemming from his refusal to play along with the usual games of increasing spending and raising taxes.

But one would expect that from the leftist political hacks on the County Board. The body isn’t even cold and they are trying to score political points against Walker. They have no shame.

But apparently neither does Mark Neumann, Walker’s opponent in the Republican primary. Neumann continues a string of shameful attacks on Walker with this statement on the O’Donnell Park garage tragedy:

Government’s legitimate functions include providing safe infrastructure for its citizens. This concern must be paramount.

It is clear that along with this latest tragedy, the county courthouse, the Zoo Interchange, and the Hoan Bridge, a number of structures in Milwaukee County are in various stages of disrepair. A full investigation and safety review is absolutely warranted, particularly for structures and facilities that have already been flagged for critical problems. 

Once again, Neumann doesn’t fail to let the facts get in the way of a good political smear. The Hoan Bridge and the Zoo Interchange are both the responsibility of the state of Wisconsin, not Milwaukee County. That’s Gov. Jim Milhous Doyleone. Not Scott Walker. And Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett worked hand in glove with Diamond Jim to make sure the needed repairs to the Zoo Interchange didn’t get done. It’s Barrett and Doyle that want to spend $810 billion for a car-speed (averages 58 MPH) choo-choo between Milwaukee and Madison rather than fix and expand the freeway. It’s Barrett that wants to spend $91.5 for an idiotic streetcar to nowhere in downtown Milwaukee.

The Milwaukee County Board is populated with an assortment of political hacks (see Weishan, John, or as Mark Belling calls him, “Little Boy Weishan”) and outright crooks (see Coggs, Elizabeth). Coggs was first elected to the County Board in 1988 and has spent most of her time since lining her pockets at taxpayer expense. Anyone remember the Social Development Commission scandals and how much of our money found its way into her pockets? Crook. Unindicted, yes, but still a crook.

Who was County Executive when the garage was built? Let’s see. That would be the late Dave Schultz, who served one term from 1988 to 1992. He was followed by Tom Ament and the culture of corruption that existed on his watch is legendary. All Ament and the good ol’ boys on the County Board were into was feathering their own retirement nests. That results in the pension scandal of 2001-02 that cost numerous political hacks their jobs via recall or forced retirement.

If anyone is to blame, it’s the self-serving political hacks and assortment of crooks that spent the last 20 years on the County Board, funding their pet projects and lining their own pockets and those of the union thugs and bureaucrats that support the politicians and the status quo that are to blame.

How much money disappeared down the rabbit hole in the county pension scandal? Certainly some of that money could have gone toward the necssary repairs that are now being blamed on deferred maintenance.

Mark Neumann’s dirty little secret? Neumann has been working hand in glove with the political thugs and leftist attack dogs from One Wisconsin Now. That’s right. One Wisconsin Now, a sworn enemy of Scott Walker. Recall the old adage: the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Mark Neumann should remember that One Wisconsin Now is not his friend, any more than the Beltway Media was John McCain’s friend, despite McCain spending 10 years selling out his conservative principles to be liked and accepted by the Beltway Media, which turned on him as soon as he secured the Republican nomination for president in 2008.

One Wisconsin Now will not help Mark Neumann become Wisconsin’s next governor. Their goal is to get Tom the Taxer to become the third term of Jim Doyle. Period. If anything, One Wisconsin Now no doubt sees Neumann as the easiest candidate for Barrett to defeat and wants him to upset Walker for the GOP nomination for that reason, same as the Beltway Media wanted McCain as the GOP nominee in ’08 because he would be the easiest for the Democrat to defeat.

I guarantee that if Neumann somehow wins the Republican primary in September, One Wisconsin Now will turn on him within 24 hours and become his most vociferous critic in its attempts to get Barrett elected.