ThePartisanPatriot

Geithner: "I Don't Understand" Why Debt Ceiling Debate Is Back

Vegas — Fri, 18 May 2012 21:16:42 GMT

U.S. Treasury Secretary speaks with the PBS NewsHour's Jeffrey Brown Thursday at Marlin Steel Wire Products, a factory in Baltimore. Transcript below.

JEFFREY BROWN, PBS NewsHour: Here we are again this week where the debt limit question has bubbled up. Do you see --

TIMOTHY GEITHNER: Can you believe it?

JEFFREY BROWN: Can you believe it?

TIMOTHY GEITHNER: I can't. I can't. I don't understand it. I don't understand it.

JEFFREY BROWN: You can't because, you can't understand because --

TIMOTHY GEITHNER: Because look at how much damage it caused the country last August. I mean, it was terribly damaging for the country. And the idea you can govern effectively at this time in American history -- you know, we're fighting wars. We've got a major financial crisis in Europe. We have all of these challenges for the rest of the country with political politicians threatening to default if we don't adopt a partisan political agenda. It's deeply irresponsible. There's no basis for it.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/vid...e_is_back.html

Biden doesn't "blame people" for voting for a felon over Obama in WV

Vegas — Fri, 18 May 2012 20:29:46 GMT

It's like Arizona's trying to out-Mississippi Mississippi

kydoty — Fri, 18 May 2012 18:44:57 GMT

http://content.usatoday.com/communit...1#.T7aL5sVieZQ

The top elections official in Arizona says it is "possible" President Obama won't be listed on the state's November ballot because of questions about his birth certificate.

Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett said in a radio interview that he's been trying for eight weeks to verify with the state of Hawaii the facts in Obama's birth certificate.

"I'm not playing to the birthers. I'm not a birther," Bennett told KFYI host Mike Broomhead on Thursday. "I believe the president was born in Hawaii -- at least I hope he was.

"But my responsibility as secretary of State is to make sure the ballots in Arizona are correct and that those people whose names are on the ballot have met the qualifications for the office they are seeking," he said.

The Republican official is exploring a 2014 race for governor. Arizona has been pegged by some political observers as a possible battleground state in November.

Last April, Obama released the long form of his birth certificate in part to put to rest what he called the "silliness" surrounding the document.

Bennett's radio interview was done as a follow-up to a Phoenix New Times story about his contact with Jerome Corsi of World Net Daily, one of several people who have questioned the validity of Obama's birth certificate and, therefore, the legitimacy of his president.

Bennett said on the radio show that he was responding to requests from 1,200 Arizona residents, made after Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio launched an investigation into Obama's birth certificate.

Asked specifically if he would keep Obama off the ballot, Bennett said "that's possible." He said he was surprised at how challenging it has been to get a response from Hawaii officials.

Obama's Justice Department sued the Maricopa County (Arizona) Sheriff's office earlier this month, claiming that Arpaio has led the practice of racial profiling of Latinos. Arpaio called the lawsuit a political stunt to try to win Latino votes in the upcoming election

Middle Class Joe

Vegas — Fri, 18 May 2012 00:50:20 GMT

And here's the house that "Middle Class Joe" lives in:

Zillow.com, a reliable real estate web site, estimates the worth of Biden's Wilmington, Delaware, home (pictured above) to be a cool $2,856,950. (This does not appear to include the cottage on the Biden estate, which the vice president rents out to the Secret Service for more than $12,000 per year.)

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/...on_645110.html

Obama Made Mexican Maids Cry in College

Vegas — Thu, 17 May 2012 23:10:37 GMT

The Democrat Media Complex (DMC), desperate to divert attention from Obama�s weak economy, has spent the last week obsessing over GOP presidential nominee-to-be Mitt Romney�s high school days.

Like other recent Democrat efforts at distraction � Sandra Fluke�s inability to get her male partner to kick in for the $9/month birth control; Mitt Romney�s dog -- the 5,400 words from the Washington Post on Romney�s high school pranks almost 50 years ago have backfired miserably. Turns out Romney was a typical teen, and the Post really is a joke. But the DMC�s pimping of Haircutgate has also prompted conservatives to reread Obama�s first memoir, Dreams from My Father, with an eye for vetting him as thoroughly as the amateur historians at the Post.

Romney�s mid-1960s high school years are in play? How about Obama�s college years? How about the time Barack Obama so destroyed his college dormitory that it brought his Latino maids to tears! What�you have never heard that reported by the DMC?

Let�s go to Obama�s Dreams (p. 109, paperback copyright 2004), when he is recounting a college party his sophomore year at Occidental College. Friends Reggie and Regina are also at the party, and Reggie proceeds to tell Regina about a wild weekend from Obama�s freshman year, around 1980:

Just as she was finishing, Reggie wandered out of the kitchen, drunker than I was. He came over and threw his arm around my shoulder. �Obama! Great party, man!� He threw Regina a sloppy grin. �Let me tell you, Regina, Obama and me go way back. Should have seen our parties last year, back at the dorms. Man, you remember that time we stayed up the whole weekend? Forty hours, no sleep. Started Saturday morning and didn�t stop till [sic] Monday.�

I tried to change the subject, but Reggie was on a roll. �I�m telling you, Regina, it was wild. When the maids show up Monday morning, we were all still sitting in the hallway, looking like zombies. Bottles everywhere. Cigarette butts. Newspapers. That spot where Jimmy threw up . . .� Reggie turned to me and started to laugh, spilling more beer on the rug. �You remember, don�t you, man? Shit was so bad, those little old Mexican ladies started to cry. �Dios Mio,� one of �em says, and the other one starts patting her on the back. Oh shit, we were crazy�.�

Dios Mio indeed. Obama, in college, completely trashed his California dorm room and left it for �Mexican� women to clean. It was so beyond the pale, including vomit, it brought the hard-working women, who had no doubt seen messes every day, to tears�in Barack Obama�s presence�but he did nothing and let the immigrant women clean up his vandalism and destruction.

Hmm. Perhaps the Fourth Estate should report that (and if I were the RNC, I�d do some Spanish-language direct mail on it). Since we are always told it is laziness, not liberal bias, that keeps the DMC from this kind of investigation, here are a few ready-made questions for them to ask Obama about the incident:

1. Have you ever sought out the Mexican maids to apologize?

2. Will you apologize today?

3. When you had your personal maids in Chicago �come in and clean the house once a week,� as you put it in The Audacity of Hope (pages 341-42, copyright 2006), did you treat those maids as you did the ones in California?

4. Were your Chicago maids also Mexicans?

5. Mr. President, what is worse, cutting a kid�s hair in high school or abusing Latino women in college?

Now let�s be clear. The cries of 88 million adults not in the anemic labor market are better reasons to send Obama packing in November than his mistreatment of and indifference to Latina women when he was 20, as deplorable as it was. But if they want to talk Romney�s haircut, let�s talk Obama�s Mexican maids. Makes you wonder how he�ll trash the White House on the night of January 19th, 2013.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Governm...tino-maids-cry

WWF Living Planet Report Warns That By 2030 Two Earths Will Be Needed

Vegas — Thu, 17 May 2012 21:10:21 GMT

Humans will need two Earths to support our lifestyles by 2030 because we are draining the world�s resources so quickly, a new report has warned.

Produced by the World Wildlife Fund, the Zoological Society of London, the Global Footprint Network and the European Space Agency, the 2012 Living Planet Report measures humans� ecological footprint on the planet.

At the moment, the picture is bleak, according to Jim Leape, Director General of WWF International, with resources being drained 50 per cent faster than they can be replenished.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012...n_1520449.html

Bradley Manning Gets A Man Killed

SuperGonzo — Thu, 17 May 2012 21:04:31 GMT

http://www.timesofisrael.com/wikilea...-mossad-agent/

I can only hope that treasonous little piece of dog shit ends up facing the same fate. Or worse.

Oh, and if they can get that Assange motherfucker, too, that would be swell.

Solyndra �Just the Tip of the Iceberg�: New Obama Solar Loan Links

Vegas — Thu, 17 May 2012 19:55:26 GMT

A House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee dug further into the $90 billion directed toward green-energy initiatives in President Obama�s 2009 stimulus, noting questions not only about whether the programs have wasted taxpayer money but whether the White House pulled strings for some firms.

�When taxpayers lost over a half-billion dollars on Solyndra, the Obama Administration said that it was just one bad apple and that the rest of the portfolio was strong,� said subcommittee chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio). �It is becoming increasingly clear that Solyndra was just the tip of the iceberg in a sea of taxpayer risk.�

The Regulatory Affairs hearing was made even better by the chairman of the full committee, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), dropping in to question the six CEOs of alternative-energy companies lined up at the witness table.

Four of those companies together received $5 billion in loan guarantees from the Department of Energy.

�Alternative energy certainly has a place in our economy and we hope that all of these companies succeed,� Jordan said. �But the best way to get cheap energy to American consumers is to let market forces work, not allow bureaucrats in Washington to pick winners and losers through a politicized process.�

Ranking Member Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) quipped that Republicans hadn�t raised questions �over the last 100 years� for fossil fuel subsidies, and lamented that they had devoted four hearings to scrutinizing the green-energy loans.

�If we fail to support these renewable energy technologies our country will fall behind countries like Germany and China,� Kucinich said. �I think we should be helping to preserve America�s leadership.�

One witness who didn�t ask for any DOE money, James B. Nelson, described the work of his Santa Barbara company Solar3D, Inc., which is developing an advanced technology cell that could cut the cost of solar energy in half.

http://pjmedia.com/blog/solyndra-jus...ar-loan-links/

Obama's Literary Agent in 1991 Booklet: 'Born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Ha

Vegas — Thu, 17 May 2012 19:49:23 GMT

Note from Senior Management:

Andrew Breitbart was never a "Birther," and Breitbart News is a site that has never advocated the narrative of "Birtherism." In fact, Andrew believed, as we do, that President Barack Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, on August 4, 1961.

Yet Andrew also believed that the complicit mainstream media had refused to examine President Obama's ideological past, or the carefully crafted persona he and his advisers had constructed for him.

It is for that reason that we launched "The Vetting," an ongoing series in which we explore the ideological background of President Obama (and other presidential candidates)--not to re-litigate 2008, but because ideas and actions have consequences.

It is also in that spirit that we discovered, and now present, the booklet described below--one that includes a marketing pitch for a forthcoming book by a then-young, otherwise unknown former president of the Harvard Law Review.

It is evidence--not of the President's foreign origin, but that Barack Obama's public persona has perhaps been presented differently at different times.

***

Breitbart News has obtained a promotional booklet produced in 1991 by Barack Obama's then-literary agency, Acton & Dystel, which touts Obama as "born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii."

The booklet, which was distributed to "business colleagues" in the publishing industry, includes a brief biography of Obama among the biographies of eighty-nine other authors represented by Acton & Dystel.

It also promotes Obama's anticipated first book, Journeys in Black and White--which Obama abandoned, later publishing Dreams from My Father instead.

http://www.breitbart.com/mediaserver...ng?h=463&w=600

Clowns Plan To Protest During NATO Summit

Vegas — Thu, 17 May 2012 16:29:36 GMT

A group of clowns plans on taking part in protests in Chicago during this weekend�s NATO Summit.

The ClownBloq, as they call themselves, will be a group of protesters who will appear in clown suits.

As WBBM Newsradio�s Mike Krauser reports, while some protesters might throw a bottle of urine, the clowns say they will throw a pie.

�Joy and laughter and celebration is resistance,� one member said in a Hyde Park caf�.

The group will be armed with 1,000 whipped cream pies, and one member said he does not expect police to take it all in stride.

http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2012/05/...g-nato-summit/

Federal workers raking in millions in bonuses

Vegas — Thu, 17 May 2012 15:25:27 GMT

Not bad for government work.

A new in-depth database of federal worker salaries shows the government paid out a whopping $105 billion in salaries last year for most of its civilian workforce -- to boot, the workers got $439 million in bonuses.

The information, which was obtained and number-crunched by The Asbury Park Press through a Freedom of Information Act request, challenges the old notion that government workers trade high salaries for job security and benefits.

In fact, many workers get all those things.

"They get better pay and they especially get better benefits," said James Sherk, senior policy analyst with the conservative Heritage Foundation.

The database, which is now online, allows users to enter a federal worker's name and their department, and then look up their salary information. The trove covers about 70 percent of federal workers, with some eye-opening results.

The average salary, for instance, for New Jersey's federal employees was $83,749. Many senior executives throughout the federal government make a six-figure salary.

Attorney General Eric Holder makes $199,700 - like other Cabinet-level officials. And Jeff Neely, the suspended General Services Administration employee at the heart of the Las Vegas convention scandal, was pulling in $172,000.

The database also shows the government has been liberally handing out bonuses, with many in the ten-of-thousands-of-dollars range. The top bonus in the Justice Department was $37,505.

In the Agriculture Department, it was $62,895. Some of the biggest bonuses, though, were the product of a special presidential award program.

Moira Mack, a spokeswoman for the Office of Management and Budget, told the Asbury Park Press that the administration has "eliminated bonuses for all political appointees." The administration, she said, has also "directed agencies to adopt more rigorous personnel management processes, and set a cap to reduce spending on awards for career staff, saving taxpayers an estimated $200 million this year alone."

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012...#ixzz1v8nx3Qls

Dennis Kucinich opts out of Washington state race, will retire

Vegas — Thu, 17 May 2012 00:44:07 GMT

I bet he becomes a lobbyist.

Quote:

Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich announced Wednesday he has decided against running for Congress in Washington state, where activists had urged him to launch a campaign. In a statement, Kucinich signaled the end of his 16-year congressional career:

Because of my love of public service, I have given a great deal of time and much thought to the advice and encouragement I have received from so many people of good will in Washington State. I certainly want to continue to be of service to our country and to the working men and women who have built it.

After careful consideration and discussions with Elizabeth and my closest friends, I have decided that, at this time, I can best serve from outside the Congress. My commitments to peace, to workers' rights and to social and economic justice are constant and are not dependent upon holding an office.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/d...211037974.html

Emails show direct link between White House and energy loans, GOP says

Vegas — Wed, 16 May 2012 23:49:14 GMT

New emails obtained by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform show a direct link between the Department of Energy�s controversial green energy loan program and the White House, Republicans on the committee said Wednesday.

The White House and Energy Department have long held there was no political influence in the decision-making process that awarded billions of dollars in federal loan guarantees to renewable energy companies. However, emails disclosed at the hearing reference to communications with the White House.

House Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa (R., Calif.) said the emails are the first in the committee�s more than yearlong investigation that show a direct link between the White House and the decision to award the loan guarantees.

�Department of Energy�s credibility is thin, and I�m currently trying to put off communications with people on the Hill,� Brightsource CEO John Woolard wrote to Matt Rogers, senior adviser to the secretary of energy for the Recovery Act.

Brightsource received a conditional loan guarantee worth $1.6 billion in taxpayer dollars to build a solar farm in California.

http://freebeacon.com/power-politics/

Democrat-Held Senate Rejects Obama's Horrific Budget, 99-0

Vegas — Wed, 16 May 2012 23:07:45 GMT

For the second consecutive year, the Democrat-controlled United States Senate has unanimously rejected President Obama's 2013 budget. The final vote was 99-0, making the the running two-year tally 196-0. This move follows the House of Representatives' 414-0 rebuke of the same fiscal blueprint earlier this year. Astonishingly, not a single Senate Democrat has voted in favor of any budget for three years, even as they refuse to offer a plan of their own. Democrats have claimed that three fig leaves mitigate this embarrassing spectacle:

(1) "The Senate has already passed a budget!" False. The Senate has not passed a budget. It "deemed" itself a budget as part of a separate piece of legislation over the summer. That law did not address tax policy, entitlement programs, and a slew of other items that a real budget entails. Harry Reid's hand-picked Senate Parliamentarian has confirmed Republicans' contention that the Senate has not fulfilled its basic budgetary obligations. This is the 1,113th day in a row that this has been the case.

(2) "Republican obstructionism!" False. Budgets explicitly cannot be filibustered. If Democrats introduced a budget, whipped their members, and called a vote, it would pass. Simple as that. Republicans couldn't do a thing to stop it. But that would require Democrats to put their long-term plans on paper, which they've been avoiding like the plague for entirely political reasons.

(3) "This vote is a gimmick!" If Democrats want to label an up-or-down vote on a Democratic president's budget a "gimmick," they're welcome to do so. In some ways, it's an appropriate description, given the pitiful gimmicks upon which Obama's budget relies -- even to achieve the fraudulent "savings" it claims. Had it not been defeated by Congress 513-0, Obama's budget would have added $11 Trillion to the gross national debt. It would literally never balance.

The Senate will now move on to vote on four separate Republican-proposed budgets, including the House-passed version. They will all receive more votes than President Obama's brainchild, but none is expected to pass. Stay tuned for updates...

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybens...fic_budget_990

Obamacare's Patient-Dumping, Privacy-Meddling Scheme

Vegas — Wed, 16 May 2012 17:30:06 GMT

The stench of Chicago cronyism over the White House just got fouler. Inhale this:

A shadowy $10 billion Obamacare agency with zero oversight just awarded first lady Michelle Obama's pet patient-dumping scheme at the University of Chicago Medical Center a $5.9 million taxpayer-funded grant. It will enable Mrs. Obama's cronies to build a government-sponsored electronic medical record-sharing system.

The Chicago program, known as the Urban Health Initiative, is run by one of President Obama's closest golfing buddies, scandal magnet Eric Whitaker, who has been entangled with Illinois corruption celebrities Rod Blagojevich and Tony Rezko over the past decade.

Fun fact: Whitaker recently was named by author Edward Klein as the man who purportedly offered hate-mongering Rev. Jeremiah Wright $150,000 in hush money during the 2008 campaign.

The nearly $6 million grant was announced last week by the "Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation" at the Department of Health and Human Services. White House watchdog journalist Keith Koffler notes that "some 3,000 applications were received for a share on the $1 billion in 3-year grants available. Only 26 programs were included in the first batch of awards doled out." The administration grants circumvent any and all congressional deliberation as part of Team Obama's election-year "We Can't Wait" initiatives.

The grant recipients will help fulfill the mandated Obamacare vision of a centralized patient-record database with unprecedented federal oversight. The provision is being challenged in court by the Goldwater Institute for forcing Americans to share "with millions of strangers who are not physicians confidential private and personal medical history information they do not wish to share."

HHS denies any favoritism, citing a "competitive, objective" process. But as I first reported in March, a Congressional Research Service analysis concluded that Obamacare's Innovation Center is subject to no administrative or judicial review. The Innovation Center director is, in effect, a super-czar without any checks or balances on his grant-making decisions, methods or results.

I warned two months ago that the Obamacare Innovation Center and its multibillion-dollar slush fund smacked of "another pipeline for political payoffs and Chicago-style boodle that will result in less patient autonomy, fewer health-care choices, more government intrusion and lower-quality care."

The University of Chicago Medical Center grant walks and talks like just such a political payoff. I have reported extensively on how Mrs. Obama helped engineer the Urban Health Initiative's plan to offload low-income patients with non-urgent health needs. With consulting help from Obama senior adviser David Axelrod's Chicago-based PR firm and the blessing of fellow Chicago pal Valerie Jarrett (who chaired the hospital's board of trustees), Mrs. Obama sold the scheme to outsource low-income care to other facilities as a way to "dramatically improve health care for thousands of South Side residents."

The program guaranteed "free" shuttle rides to and from the outside clinics. In truth, it was old-fashioned cost-cutting and favor-trading repackaged by a nonprofit, tax-exempt hospital as minority aid. Clearing out the poor freed up room for insured (i.e., more lucrative) patients.

The American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) blasted MichelleObamacare, expressing "grave concerns that the University of Chicago's policy toward emergency patients is dangerously close to 'patient dumping.'" The group concluded that the Urban Health Initiative "reflected an effort to 'cherry pick' wealthy patients over poor." That practice was made illegal by the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) signed by President Ronald Reagan.

Bipartisan complaints about impoverished South Side Chicago patients getting the shaft led GOP Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa and Democratic Rep. Bobby Rush of Chicago to challenge the crony hospital's abuse of its nonprofit status and lucrative tax breaks. But the probe went nowhere.

And now, Whitaker will have $6 million more to play with when he's not vacationing with Obama or grappling with subpoenas over possible kickback and pay-for-play schemes while he served as a top health official under now-jailed Illinois. Gov. Blagojevich. One of the probes involves Whitaker's oversight of medical facilities construction projects exploited by now-convicted real-estate shark Tony Rezko.

Anyone who isn't concerned about the privacy implications of this government-funded records-sharing network hasn't been paying attention to how Team Obama and its surrogates are digging for dirt on private citizens who donate to GOP campaigns. But I digress.

Nothing to see or smell here? Discerning eyes and nostrils beg to differ.

http://townhall.com/columnists/miche...eddling_scheme