Rufus the Stunt Bum turns his life around

While I respected Rufus' right to act in the controversial Bumfights video and he clearly appeared to be enjoying himself in its making, it's nice to see he's really put that time behind him.

No, that wasn't me

Sign at Jon Stewart "sanity" rally: "I masturbate to Christine O'Donnell."

Though that sentiment indicates sanity more than the guys with Republican Hitler signs. Or, indeed, Stewart sharing the stage with Yusuf "kill the infidels" Islam.

Hatemonger-in-Chief

Charles Krauthammer:

In a radio interview that aired Monday on Univision, President Obama chided Latinos who "sit out the election instead of saying, 'We're gonna punish our enemies and we're gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us.' " Quite a uniter, urging Hispanics to go to the polls to exact political revenge on their enemies - presumably, for example, the near-60 percent of Americans who support the new Arizona immigration law.

This from a president who won't even use "enemies" to describe an Iranian regime that is helping kill U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan. This from a man who rose to prominence thunderously declaring that we were not blue states or red states, not black America or white America or Latino America - but the United States of America.

This is how the great post-partisan, post-racial, New Politics presidency ends - not with a bang, not with a whimper, but with a desperate election-eve plea for ethnic retribution.

I wonder if he told them which party tried to sabotage a charismatic, young, Hispanic candidate for a rich, old, white, Republican opportunist.

SLOBs working hard toward the finish line

With four days to the revolution, some of the San Diego Local Order of Bloggers (SLOBs) are hitting it hard.

Leslie Eastman live-blogs from the Yes on 23 phone bank.

Left Coast Rebel, aka Tim Daniel, interviews Loretta Sanchez challenger Van Tran on PJTV.

It will be a well-deserved adult beverage at Tea Party Central on election night!

A Pre 2010 Election Open Letter to all Democrats, Republicans, Liberals, and Conservatives alike:

A good way to get someone with different political views than yours to think more openly about the more serious political problems we have right now, and to more deeply understand their own frustrations with the way our two parties have been governing, might be to say something like this:

Look, most people are frustrated right now with both parties. There was a time when you and I would likely say we are "with" one party or another. And you may still agree with what you think your party stood for at that time. But given everything that the U.S. has been through over the last few years (real unemployment floating between 17-19%, $60 Trillion in debt and obligations [for perspective, it takes $3-4 Trillion to run the entire Federal Government for a single year], a long recession, bailouts, TARP, A corruption-filled "Stimulus" bill, see list below for more), if now is not the time to completely reset your political views, start from scratch, and reconsider everything you thought you "understood" about the 2 parties, and about your own politics, then there will never be such a time for that.

Now is the time to dig deep, to read a ton, to look and learn, to be open to realizing you may have "been wrong" about this or that, to challenge your own existing beliefs, to not trust a single thing any politician or media figure says but to instead look at the data, look at how the politicians voted, look at who and what interests they are aligned with, and try to really understand the larger system; how it robs us every single day without us even knowing it (the U.S. dollar has lost over 95% of its value since the establishment of the Federal Reserve Bank in 1913, for instance). Then question how it was even allowed to get like this, and what the politicians were saying as they were "creating" this current system and as these conditions were starting to develop into the horror we see today (again, $60 Trillion in Debt and Obligations, the mighty U.S. as a now functionally bankrupt nation, TARP, Unemployment, Stimulus, etc). Now is the time to reconsider your blind allegiance to one party or the other, if that's the form your allegiance had taken before today.

The first thing to do is to figure out if you are "blind" about it all. The second thing to do is remove all "social" issues/factors/concerns from your political beliefs, so that you can first gain a clearer understanding of how this ongoing robbery by our government is affecting you, your life, your family, and even your social stances indirectly (the "social" issue of Immigration, for instance, is directly affected by the massive, large-scale theft our Gvt has been engaged in for decades, because that theft has helped create the manufacturing and trade deficits and labor market conditions that attract so many illegals to our nation in the first place). I would even dare say that neither most liberals nor true conservatives even want the government getting much involved in social issues anyway. So forget them for now. You can later "reinstall" your social concerns if you want. But, the social issues are the parties' main tools of distraction. They hypnotize us with their stances and arguments on them. They trick us into thinking these things are what they are concerned with, when really they are only concerned with how they can more quickly, more easily, and more severely rob you of your money and give it to their cronies, interests, and donors. Heck, they're even stealing money from your yet-to-be-born children now. They do that with the hand we don't see while they dazzle and confuse us with their visible hand waving an attention-getting social-slogan flag. So set aside your "social" concerns for now. After you've taken a hard look at the rest of it all, you're probably not going to see them as very important politically anymore.

Many people are now seeing the two parties differently after they've done some simple research. It's an exciting time because of that, and you could be a part of it. Perhaps you could pick a political or financial topic or issue outside of the normal, narrow, and shallow range of hyped up topics the media regularly presents, and just start digging into it. Some people have been "awoken" to a new view of the two parties by simply looking into the basics regarding Free-Market economics vs. Keynesian economics. Which one has a fairly good record when implemented? Which does not? Some have found it eye-opening to have looked into the basics about currency, for instance. One topic I have found incredibly enlightening is the history of the U.S.'s currency, and how it has alternated multiple times between being a debt-based currency controlled by a privately owned bank (like the Federal Reserve) and being a gold or silver-backed currency controlled by the U.S. government itself (Lincoln's "Greenbacks"). How did those alternations of currency types parallel our other major historical events? Well, I'm glad you're interested, because there are reasonable and provocative arguments to be made that even some of the reasons why the U.S. got involved in certain wars had to do with currency interests and changes. To me, that is fascinating.

Those kinds of topics (money and who controls it) are generally at the root of everything, especially our political problems. If you ask yourself why the U.S. has racked up so much debt over the last many decades, and you understand currency, you might quickly follow that question with these other simple questions; Does racking up more national debt benefit the citizens? Or does racking up more national debt benefit the privately owned bank (The Federal Reserve) that gives the U.S. government those newly printed dollars in exchange for interest-paying government debt? Is printing 1 Trillion brand new dollars in order to "pay for" a massive "Stimulus" bill more beneficial to the citizens, who's every earned and saved dollar drops in real value as every newly printed dollar rolls off the press? Or is it more beneficial to the banks that now have those extra new debt payments coming in? Now, one more non-partisan question comes to mind; Did the Constitution lay out who controls our currency? Yes. It specifically says only Congress shall do that. Yet Congress basically decided to take the easy way out, and removed that centrally important duty from their own hands by subcontracting that responsibility to a privately owned bank in 1913. They deliberately named it the Federal Reserve Bank so that it would sound like a government agency and the uninformed citizens would be ok with it. From 1913 on, it could even more safely be stated that the Banks indeed "owned" Congress.

Back in the day, before I had learned any of this, I was more likely to care about what gaffe politician X said on one of the Late Night Talk Shows, or what past scandal about politician Y had just been uncovered. But that stuff doesn't matter, because once (or before) they get into office, they all connect themselves with the power brokers and controlling interests that steer our national financial and political decisions always and ever towards their own benefit and away from the citizens' benefit. Now, those are the kinds of deeper questions a simple, basic understanding of the Federal Reserve and currency might cause to spring up in one's mind. That's one topic that got me looking deeper into that history I found so interesting. But you might be more interested in looking into some other finance-related issue that might help you understand the two parties better. Do you believe the media when it says inflation is not a problem? Wanna see inflation? Go check your grocery store and you'll see that there's often now significantly less food in the same sized packages than there was a year ago. That's hidden inflation. You pay the same price for less food. Or check out the quickly rising prices for grain. Whatever form your newly-found financial-political curiosity takes, taking a step back from social concerns in order to objectively look into some of the basics about our financial-political power structures will do wonders for your political outlook. For instance, if you think corporations are evil and government is the only hope we have against them, then after you take a deeper look into these things, you might come away understanding that, in a way, the big evil corporations and banks are our government. They own both parties. And sometimes the big corporations and banks themselves even write the text of the actual bills Congress votes on.

Now, let's all go to work on this, my liberal (or conservative) friend. We may reach different conclusions and have different stances. But don't be fooled by any of our politicians. Our government has fundamentally separated itself from its Constitutionally mandated restraints. Our politicians love that fact not because it allows them use of more tools and resources with which they can then "help the poor" or "provide more services to everybody", but because it gives them more power, more money, and more control. And with that power and control, they are ROBBING US BLIND EVERY SINGLE DAY. Are you interested in stopping that?

-Sic Ibid

List of frustrations with the Federal government (continued):

• the printing of Trillions of new dollars • The Fed gvt Protecting Banks from their own bad investment decisions at the expense of taxpayers • Fed gvt seizing 95% of all mortgages • Fed gvt controlling GM • Rogue Judges who prefer to look at foreign nations' laws for legal precedents • Congress and the President Forcing a massive Health Care bill on the people when over 70% of them don't want it • Federal Gvt partnering up / cozying up with huge media companies [NBC's CEO Immelt is on the President's Economic Advisory Board] • self-described "Communists" installed as White House "Czars" (Van Jones was just 1 example of this) • Cities disobeying Federal immigration laws blatantly and proudly • violent lawlessness, kidnappings and chaos caused by Drug Cartels in our border states not being successfully stopped by our own Federal Gvt • Fed gvt giving itself the power to regulate a gas that human beings naturally exhale [CO2] • Fed gvt seizing an interest in / share of some of our largest banks • higher taxes • And a gvt that keeps fraudulent and fundamentally misleading statistics, like an inflation index that doesn't count the price of everyday staples like food and gas, and an "unemployment" index that doesn't count people who've reached the end of their unemployment checks but still haven't found work, and then uses those fraudulent figures to hype up and celebrate its "accomplishments" • The list could go on...•

National Democrats tried to throw black Congressman under the bus to make way for rich white Republican opportunist

Stay classy, Democrats!

Heckuva job, Larry!

Barack Obama, the über-GW Bush, continues his streak of Bush-mimicry:

Yes, he really said that Summers "did a heckuva job." The candidate that was gifted the opportunity to run against the legacy of one of the worst presidents in U.S. history has, as president, used Bush as his role model to continue many disastrous policies. It was strangely fitting that he would channel Bush's infamous praise ("Heckuva job Brownie") for the FEMA chief who failed New Orleans so badly in the hurricane.

Larry Summers is an epic failure like Michael "Heckuva job, Brownie" Brown. But at least Brown didn't pile up an extra trillion dollars in debt to no benefit.

Communism and Camaros

“Every single great idea that has marked the 21st century, the 20th century and the 19th century has required government vision and government incentive,”

Just to be clear, he obviously doesn't include the 18th century because he is well versed in Philipp Wilhelm von Hornick's Austrian Mercantilism which was still the prevailing theory and practice; and as such Biden knows that risking comparison would prove futile at the very least and more likely invoke scholarly rebuttal. Biden is shrewd as well as being brilliant.

Own this sexy shirt

"He brought us hope...and left us change." This Varones-designed gem is a heavy-duty, 100% cotton shirt (Anvil 6.1 oz), available in blue or grey, sizes S-XXL.

$12 via PayPal, free shipping. We're not making money on this. We're spreading tea party love.

Orders and inquiries to oldzeke at gmail dot com.

Good riddance to that guy!

Remembering Bush's extreme and divisive rhetoric.

SEIU Members are the Technicians for our Voting Machines = Election Fraud

In Nevada, reports are emerging of ballots being found to have been punched for Harry Reid (Democrat) before a voter even steps into the booth. Also, there are multiple reports of Voting Machines spitting out ballots that show a Straight Democratic Party vote was cast when, in fact, the actual voter had cast a Straight Republican Party vote.

How could this be? Could it have anything to do with the fact that the technicians for the voting machines are members of the SEIU, the Service Employees International Union? The same Union gave over $60 million to the Democrat Party in 2008. The head of that Union, Andy Stern, was the most frequent visitor to the White House in 2009. He is well known for having said, "'Workers of the World Unite'? It's no longer a slogan. It's the way we need to do our work'" and "[If we can't succeed by] using the power of persuasion, we'll use the persuasion of power."

The SEIU is the largest Public Employee Union in this country. They represent government employees. Therefore, they have a direct interest in encouraging the expansion of government power, spending, corruption. They have way too much power, as evidenced by the fact that they've managed to block the people's attempts to lower their own tax rates as well as cut their own spending, in states like Oregon in 2009, for instance. When you have a government run by Unions, you are dealing with a government structural model that, at its core, is the same as the Soviet government's structure.

Whatever your political beliefs are, please tell me why we should ever allow a group that has a strong alliance with 1 of our 2 major parties, and an aggressive interest in boosting that party, to be the technicians for the machines with which we cast our votes?

-Sic Ibid

Election night celebration -- 4th & B, downtown San Diego

Come celebrate the victory with the people who made it possible!

Good music, good people, good times. No-host bar. Free admission.

Brought to you by Mason Weaver, local tea partier extraordinaire. You can RSVP here.

Tea Party North -- Rob Ford wins Toronto mayor's race

We've pointed out before that Canada has gone totally Tea Party.

Now word comes from our Canadian informant Tim Sheithner that liberal Toronto has just elected a Tea Party mayor in a landslide!

Says Tim:

[...] the new right wing mayor of Toronto who completely blew away his opponents (he was declared the winner 11 mins after the polls closed). Polling had indicated the race would be close --- oops. He came out of nowhere but his platform resonated with a normally liberal city.

The issue he campaigned on: cut taxes, take on the city’s unions who were crippling the budget (first on the hit list, garbage collectors…look at privatizing it).

More on the election here.

... and the Toronto media are already whining about it.

Would Obama Tell Rosa Parks to Sit in the Back if She were Republican?

"We can't have special interests sitting shotgun. We gotta have middle class families up in front. We don't mind the Republicans joining us. They can come for the ride, but they gotta sit in back."

I love that Obama is taking a pro-segregation stance here. That's just dripping irony. It's a bit scary though in that the Executive branch is supposed to be the leader of the nation. More and more it seems Obama wants to be known as the President of the Party because the Party is the nation. And if you are a Republican or a non-Democrat citizen, you are somehow less equal than your Party counterparts.

And who is he kidding? The middle class doesn't even have the rights of Rosa Parks let alone equality; at least she was let on the bus. Obama has kicked the middle class off the bus, lined them up in front of the bus and handed the keys to Lloyd Blankfein and Jamie Dimon to run them over.

It's wonderfully ironic that Obama would reference Rosa. The Ruling Class gets to sit on the bus while the Middle Class just needs to realize that they are lucky to even get a seat at all. So sit down and shut up scum non-dems, otherwise he'll throw you under the bus like you deserve.

The Senate is in the best of hands

Harry Reid's press secretary married a terrorist suspect for money in a sham marriage to get him through immigration.

Tea Baggin'

W.C. Varones presents a tribute to the tea partiers of 2010. Revolution is just a week away!



Many thanks for the talents and efforts of Charlie McDanger in performance and video editing, and Left Coast Rebel and Sarah Bond for photography.

Past is prologue

Did someone say Meg Whitman would be another Arnold Schwarzenegger?

Austan Goolsbee, partisan hack, gets fisked

Watch and laugh.

Democrats run fake "Tea Party" candidates to split opposition vote

Must maintain power at all costs:

In Nevada, conservative radio listeners have heard an advertisement promoting the Senate campaign of a “Tea Party of Nevada” candidate, Scott Ashjian. The ads criticize Sharron Angle, the Republican nominee and favored candidate of the actual Tea Party movement in the race against Senator Harry Reid, the Democratic majority leader.

The ad was sponsored by a group backed by unions and casino and mining companies supporting Mr. Reid.

Nevada is one of several states, including Florida, where “Tea Party” political committees have appeared on ballot lines without the knowledge or support of leading Tea Party activists, who have generally chosen not to support third-party candidacies. In most of those cases, local bloggers, reporters and lawyers have traced connections to local Democrats, drawing lawsuits, complaints and, in a couple of cases, admissions of involvement.

Stay classy, Democrats.

Peggy Noonan: the tea party saved the GOP from itself

We've come a long way, baby.

Even moderate Republican Peggy Noonan is all gushy over us now:

Two central facts give shape to the historic 2010 election. The first is not understood by Republicans, and the second not admitted by Democrats.

The first: the tea party is not a "threat" to the Republican Party, the tea party saved the Republican Party. In a broad sense, the tea party rescued it from being the fat, unhappy, querulous creature it had become, a party that didn't remember anymore why it existed, or what its historical purpose was. The tea party, with its energy and earnestness, restored the GOP to itself.

[...]

The tea party did something the Republican establishment was incapable of doing: It got the party out from under George W. Bush. The tea party rejected his administration's spending, overreach and immigration proposals, among other items, and has become only too willing to say so. In doing this, the tea party allowed the Republican establishment itself to get out from under Mr. Bush: "We had to, boss, it was a political necessity!" They released the GOP establishment from its shame cringe.

[...]

I know and respect some of the establishmentarians, but after dinner, on the third glass of wine, when they get misty-eyed about Reagan and the old days, they are not, I think, weeping for him and what he did but for themselves and who they were. Back when they were new and believed in something.

Finally, the tea party stiffened the GOP's spine by forcing it to recognize what it had not actually noticed, that we are a nation in crisis. The tea party famously has no party chiefs and no conventions but it does have a theme—stop the spending, stop the sloth, incompetence and unneeded regulation—and has lent it to the GOP.

Click on over and read the whole thing.

Quotations from Chairman Varones

I'm such an absolutist on the First Amendment, the next time somebody starts going on about "You can't yell 'fire' in a crowded theater," I'll punch him in the mouth.

Government employee unions getting the best Congress they can buy

WSJ: Public-empoyee union now leads all groups in independent election outlays.

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees is now the biggest outside spender of the 2010 elections, thanks to an 11th-hour effort to boost Democrats that has vaulted the public-sector union ahead of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the AFL-CIO and a flock of new Republican groups in campaign spending.

The 1.6 million-member AFSCME is spending a total of $87.5 million on the elections after tapping into a $16 million emergency account to help fortify the Democrats' hold on Congress. Last week, AFSCME dug deeper, taking out a $2 million loan to fund its push. The group is spending money on television advertisements, phone calls, campaign mailings and other political efforts, helped by a Supreme Court decision that loosened restrictions on campaign spending.

"We're the big dog," said Larry Scanlon, the head of AFSCME's political operations. "But we don't like to brag."

You think there's a little conflict of interest there, with the unions owning the Congress that creates government jobs and sets wages and benefits?

Happy birthday to Jr. Deputy Accountant

Our favorite Fed-basher turns 2.

Can it really be only two years? JDA is such an internet institution that it feels like it's been around forever.

I majored in economics and worked for years in the investment business, but I never understood how the Dirty Fed worked until I read Jr. Deputy Accountant.

Let me repeat what I wrote what seems like years ago:

If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention... and if you're not paying attention, you're not reading Jr. Deputy Accountant.

Did you ever see the movie 8mm? As I recall, it was about a snuff film that was so gruesome that anyone who watched it would be psychologically scarred for life. Or Apocalypse Now, where Colonel Kurtz was driven mad by the horrors of war he'd seen? Well, that's what the Federal Reserve is like. Few try to understand it, and those that do generally come back babbling insanely. But Jr. Deputy Accountant has gone into the Heart of Darkness, discovered the terrifying truth, and yet come back sane as ever, lucidly explaining the horrors she's seen.

Keep Jr. Deputy Accountant at the top of your blogroll not just to keep up with Fed news, but for to-the-point, razor-tongued commentary on the halfwit children playing with nukes at the Federal Reserve.

Happy Birthday, JDA! And you can take the girl out Frisco, but you can't take Frisco out of the girl!

Bonnie Dumanis's Body Count

Armando Gabriel Perez choked, kidnapped, and raped his estranged wife, Diana Gonzalez, holding her over three days. Police arrested him. San Diego County DA Bonnie Dumanis let him go. Call it "catch and release" for domestic violence.

Three weeks later, man kills wife.

I feel like I'm back in San Francisco with DA Kamala Harris.

Left goes into full meltdown, circular firing squad mode

NPR fires Juan Williams for ideological impurity.

Related: Is NPR a hate group?

Gwen Ifill: yet another condescending idiot

This is a recurring theme:

1) Leftists hear something they don't understand from Sarah Palin.

2) Leftists, smug in their condescending view that Sarah Palin is an idiot, don't bother to check facts.

3) Leftists embarrass themselves attempting to mock Palin, who is correct.

This brought great hilarity when University of Wisconsin professor Menzie Chinn did it in 2008.

Now Gwen Ifill does the same, mocking Sarah Palin for referring to 1773 at a tea party, when in fact the Boston Tea Party occurred in 1773.

Of course, it's not just Ifill. It's a whole smorgasbord of I'm-so-much-smarter-than-Sarah-Palin leftists.

It's nice to see that Ifill's PBS is dropping any pretense of fairness, though.

Neil Young - Fork in the Road

Two years later. So much has happened, but nothing has changed.



Got a pot belly
It's not too big
Gets in my way 

When I'm driving my rig
Driving this country

In a big old rig
Things I see
 mean a lot

My friend has a pickup
Drives his kid to school
Then he takes his wife

Tto beauty school
Now she's doin' nails
Gonna get a job
Got a good teacher


There's a fork in the road ahead
I don't know which way I'm gonna turn
There's a fork in the road ahead

Forgot this year
To salute the troops
They're all still there

In a f-ing war
It's no good
Whose idea was that?



I've got hope
But you can't eat hope

I'm not done

Not giving up

Not cashing in
Too late

There's a bailout coming
But it's not for me

It's for all those creeps
Watching tickers on TV
There's a bailout coming
But it's not for me.

I'm a big rock star
My sales have tanked
But I still got you
Thanks!

Download this
Sounds like sh-




Keep on bloggin'
'Til the power goes out
And your battery's dead

Twist and Shout

On the radio
Those were the days
Bring 'em back

There's a bailout coming
But it's not for you
It's for all those creeps
Hiding what they do
There's a bailout coming
But it's not for you.
Bailout coming
But it's not for you.

Got my new flat-screen
Got it repo'd now
They picked it up
Left a hole in the wall
Last Saturday
Missed the Raiders game

There's a bailout coming
But it's not for you
There's a bailout coming
But it's not for you
It's for all those creeps
Hiding what they do.

Will Countrywide sink B of A?

Ah, poetic justice.

The Dirty Fed is now trying to force a repurchase by Bank of America of fraudulent mortgages that were serviced by Countrywide and sold to Bear Stearns which collapsed and whose crap assets were backstopped by the Dirty Fed's off-balance sheet scam called Maiden Lane.

We tried to warn country bumpkin Ken Lewis, over and over, not to buy the steaming pile of crap known as Countrywide, but he just wouldn't listen.

I wonder if George Bowser Jr. of Seeking Alpha still thinks that Lewis "added enormous shareholder value."

Donate where it matters

The Campaign for Liberty's ads in Nevada and Kentucky would be a good place to start.

Qualcomm slashes health care benefits in response to ObamaCare law

The W.C. Varones Blog broke the news in May that Qualcomm was planning to slash health care benefits in response to ObamaCare.

Word now comes from a Qualcomm employee that benefit cuts were announced last week.

Anyone with details or documents, please send them to wcvarones -at- gmail -dot- com. Please don't cc: flag@whitehouse.gov.

UPDATE: Boeing does too!

Aerospace giant Boeing is joining the list of companies that say the new health care law could have a potential downside for their workers.

In a letter mailed to employees late last week, the company cited the overhaul as part of the reason it is asking some 90,000 nonunion workers to pay significantly more for their health plan next year. A copy of the letter was obtained Monday by The Associated Press.

"The newly enacted health care reform legislation, while intended to expand access to care for millions of uninsured Americans, is also adding cost pressure as requirements of the new law are phased in over the next several years," wrote Rick Stephens, Boeing's senior vice president for human resources.

... and about that cost curve....

I guess Nancy Pelosi was right: we had to pass the bill to find out what was in it! How's that Hope and Change working out for you?

Cartoons Say the Funniest Things

HT: The Daily Bail

Gee, Ward, you were kind of rough on the Beaver last night

Barbara Billingsly is dead.

RINO obsession

Over at Liberator Today, B-Daddy disagrees with a couple of my candidate picks in the governor and lieutenant governor picks.

Fair point, and most of my libertarian, conservative, and Tea Party friends would probably agree with B-Daddy at least against Gavin Newsom if not also for Meg Whitman.

The difference is that I'm angrier about liars (Abel Maldonado) and liberals (Maldonado, Whitman) on the Republican side. A vote for Newsom hurts Maldonado more than a third-party vote does. And though B-Daddy points out that state employee unions are against Whitman, I don't think that says much about Whitman. The unions are always against the Republican, no matter who it is. I honestly believe Whitman would be another Schwarzenegger, bending over for Democrat legislators. She is neither principled nor conservative by any stretch of the imagination.

Ruling Class Decides Prices Need to go up

Bernanke Sees Case for `Further Action' on Economy With Too-Low Inflation

What is stunning isn't his statement, it is that the population isn't grabbing pitchforks and marching on 33 Liberty. People(!), your government wants the things you buy to cost more. Do you want things to cost more?


UPDATE - Denninger nails it: "In a very real sense, Bernanke is throwing Granny and Grandpa down the stairs - on purpose. He is literally threatening those at the lower end of the economic strata, along with all who are retired, with starvation and death, and in a just nation where the rule of law controlled instead of being abused by the kleptocrats he would be facing charges of Seditious Conspiracy, as his policies will inevitably lead to the destruction of our republic."

UPDATE2 - Today's quote of the day from Bo Peng: "But isn't there something wrong about the system when one person should have such a huge impact on the market? Prior examples of such overwhelming prominance include Hitler, Mao, and Greenspan."

The pension time bomb

I know there's a lot to worry about these days. Foreclosuregate, 10% GDP deficits, Bernanke's dollar-debasing printing press, structural unemployment, ObamaCare, etc.

But let's not forget about the slow-motion train wreck that started before any of those and still hasn't hit us: state and city pensions.

Joshua Rauh, of the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, and Robert Novy-Marx, of the University of Rochester, estimate that the states’ pension shortfall may be as much as $3.4 trillion and that municipalities have a hole of $574 billion. Mr Rauh calculates that seven states will have exhausted their pension assets by 2020—even if they make a return of 8%, a common assumption that looks wildly optimistic. Half will run out of money by 2027. If pension promises are to be kept, this will place immense strain on taxes. Several have promised annual payments that will absorb more than 30% of their tax revenues after their pension funds are exhausted (see chart 1).

The severity of states’ pension woes was disguised for years, because asset markets were so strong and because of the way states accounted for the cost of pension provision. But the 21st century has been dismal for stockmarkets, where most pension money has been put. State budgets came under huge pressure as a result of the 2008-09 recession, which caused tax revenues to plunge. Meredith Whitney, an analyst who made her name forecasting the banking crisis, believes the states could be the next source of systemic financial risk.

Now the problem is making headlines, especially in California, where taxpayer groups have been highlighting the generous pensions of some former employees. More than 9,000 beneficiaries of CalPERS, the largest state retirement plan, receive more than $100,000 a year.

Che for Strength

After mass consuming the recent financial books, and entering a pit of despair, I went fiction for a while. I finally got tired of that, although for a really fun series I can't recommend The Girl... enough. It's a great thriller/crime/spy read.

So I’ve gone a totally different direction. I’m reading Che.

I’m about a quarter of the way in and it’s fascinating. It’s the context of his youth that can logically reason why he ended up the way he was. I’m not defending it but it’s interesting to listen to this author's portrayal of the economic developments in South America during that time.

And it really is incredible how powerful and wealthy the USA was. It makes it all the more depressing that we’ve taken that world power status and destroyed it. I’m just not sure people can conceptualize how powerful we used to be. I mean sure with armies, tanks and missiles and all, but as an economic engine there has never been anything like it in history.

I'll provide a full critique of the book and my thoughts on Che when I'm done.

You've come a long way, baby!

It seems like only yesterday that Sharron Angle was derided by the Democrat mainstream media as a fringe candidate who was Harry Reid's dream opponent.

Well look at the polls now. And look at who just raised a shocking $14 million in one quarter, 94% of which was donations of $100 or less.

The people are in full revolt against the Obama/Reid/Pelosi regime!



Let's see this thing through. You can donate to Sharron Angle here.

Oceanside Tea Party write-ups with pictures and video

I was going to do a big write-up on yesterday's 10-10-10 Tea Party in Oceanside, but others have already covered it so well. Please check out the posts from our friends:

Beers with Demo
Liberator Today
Temple of Mut
Shane Atwell

... and the MSM:

North County Times
... and the Union-Tribune profiles local Tea Party leaders including our friend Sarah Bond.

I've got videos of speakers Leslie Eastman, Jamiel Shaw Sr., New York Myke, Richard Rider, J.D. Hayworth, and Ted Hayes on YouTube. Unfortunately, my memory card filled up and cut off most of Hayes' great speech. I'm hoping to find someone with a complete recording.

Free money mania causes market silliness

Artemis Capital Management via ZeroHedge:

This past summer my wife and I visited the beautiful Hawaiian island of Kauai and rented a cottage near the Napali coast. Twice a week the locals hold a farmers market next to the elementary school which we visited to buy fruits and vegetables for grilling with freshly caught Ono for dinner. This one local family sells delicious golden pineapples but you have to get to them early because they sell out fast. In the farmer's market, just like the stock market, the higher quality goods eventually command a premium over less desirable produce. Those pineapples were the Hanalei Bay equivalent of Apple stock selling at a high P/E ratio. Over time the demand for high quality produce like the pineapples should be uncorrelated with demand for lower quality fruit. For those who prefer common sense to statistics let me explain this macro-theory using a micro-metaphor.

Hypothetically let's imagine that Ben Bernanke shows up in the parking lot of the Hanalei Bay farmers market. Over a bullhorn he agrees to give away $1,000 to everyone in attendance on the condition they spend the money immediately. What will happen? The quality of the produce instantly becomes of secondary concern to simply realizing the full value of the hand out. Whether or not you are buying star fruit, pineapples, or bananas it is largely irrelevant because if you don't buy something you will lose out on the free subsidy. The demand for all produce will rise near equally as the correlations of fruit increase and the Hanalei Bay farmer's market ceases to function as a true marketplace.

HT: T-Dub

Beautiful day for a Tea Party

Oceanside, CA. 45 minutes before showtime.

Come on down. Good people, good sunshine, good times.

Good reads

Brad Newsham, the indefatigable visionary who started Impeach at the Beach, has an excellent new cabbie blog, Free Rides Journal.

Click on over, but don't tell them a Teabagger sent you.

Democratic Senator Russ Feingold, trailing in polls, claims to be Teabagger

We've come a long way, baby.

Even left-wing Democrats want to claim the mantle of the Tea Party now.

For the record, I kinda like Russ, as he's been pretty independent and good on some issues like Wall Street and Federal Reserve reform. I'd rather see him keep his seat than Harry Reid, Lisa Murkowski, or a lot of other ruling party elitists. But not that much. He voted for ObamaCare, after all.

Credit bubble: game on!

I've posted recently about how the credit bubble is back and banks are tripping over themselves to issue credit cards. Chase gave me two free round-trip airline tickets to take their card and buy a cup of coffee with it. Discover is giving me $100 cash (plus additional rewards of up to 5%) to take their card and spend $1000 within three months.

Today alone, I received another offer from Chase for $100 if I would take yet another card from them and spend $1000 on it, and another offer from Capital One offering 10,000 bonus miles to take their card and make a single purchase on it. I'm not usually one to pass up a free $100 or 10,000 free miles, but this is getting ridiculous. I don't want to keep track of a dozen credit cards.

Don't let anybody tell you banks aren't lending. Consumers aren't borrowing.

The apple falls far from the tree

Warren Buffett's right hand man, Charlie Munger, is, like Buffett, a member of the ruling class and beneficiary of its self-perpetuating largess. Munger says, "Thanks for the bailout, you unwashed masses. Now suck it in!"

Meanwhile, his son, Stanford physicist Charles Munger Jr., is fighting the ruling class by sponsoring California's Prop 20, redistricting reform.

Quote of the Day

This from Jon Stewart regarding Obama's veto of HR3808, clip here.

"You know it's crazy when getting us back to square one feels like a victory."

I wouldn't have at all minded if Stewart had mentioned that the Republican written bill was passed by the majority Democrat Senate in secret, but that's asking a bit much, and I guess I should just be happy he's not outright blaming the Republicans. He's so obviously biased but at least he's covering these issues critically and he does provide a laugh.

Besides that, HR3808 deserves a long discussion regarding states' rights and that oh-so-out-of-vogue concept of THE LAW, but that has to wait. I'm just glad the ruling class mandated that junior employee Barrack veto it, giving the Constitution a stay of execution. After the election expect the bill to be back and Barrack to joyfully sign it. He'll probably have a press conference and state "This is a triumph for the American people. This is the day that Main Street tells Wall Street - 'WE done had enough!'"....to rapturous applause.

UPDATE: Denninger is referencing a rumor that apparently the Senate hasn't adjourned and HR3808 will become law without a Presidential signature or a vote count of the Senators and Representatives that voted for it.

Inside Job opens today in NY

Next week, LA. Elsewhere soon after.

Get thee to a theater for Inside Job.

Facebook and your political future: the legend of Krystal Ball

Dressing up as a dominatrix Santa and putting a dildo on your reindeer-husband's nose? Lotsa fun when you're 22.

Having those pictures show up on the Internet when you're running for Congress seven years later? Not so much.

HT: Left Coast Rebel

Jon from CHiPS (Larry Wilcox) busted in penny-stock scheme

You just couldn't retire to a quiet life in Mexican soap operas, could you?

SEC Press release:

Washington, D.C., Oct. 7, 2010 - The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged more than a dozen penny stock promoters and their companies with securities fraud for their roles in various illicit kickback schemes to manipulate the volume and price of microcap stocks and illegally generate stock sales. One of the schemes was perpetrated by an actor who starred as a police officer on the long-running television show CHiPs.

The SEC worked closely with the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida and the Federal Bureau of Investigation as the separate schemes were uncovered through FBI undercover operations conducted in such a way that no investors suffered harm. The U.S. Attorney today announced criminal charges against some of the same individuals facing SEC civil charges.
According to the SEC's complaints filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, the schemes generally involved the payment of kickbacks to purportedly corrupt pension fund managers or stockbrokers, who would use their clients' accounts to purchase the publicly traded stock of microcap issuers controlled or promoted by the individuals and companies charged today. What the promoters and insiders did not know was that the people with whom they arranged these illegal transactions were actually undercover FBI agents or confidential sources participating in undercover operations.
"These corrupt promoters meticulously planned their schemes down to the last detail, except for the possibility that they were walking into an undercover operation," said Robert Khuzami, Director of the SEC's Division of Enforcement. "This joint law enforcement effort is a stark warning to those who embark on securities fraud schemes that we may be listening and we may be watching."

Eric I. Bustillo, Director of the SEC's Miami Regional Office, added, "These penny stock promoters paid illicit kickbacks to people who they thought would help them profit at the expense of unsuspecting investors by manipulating the price of their stock or fraudulently selling their shares."

The SEC's complaints allege the following individuals and companies perpetrated various kickback schemes:

Larry Wilcox, who lives in West Hills, Calif., and played Officer Jonathan "Jon" Baker on CHiPs, perpetrated interrelated kickback schemes with two other penny stock company executives. Anthony Mellone, who lives in Fort Lauderdale and was CEO of Tri-Star Holdings Inc., began the process by paying an illegal kickback to a purported employee pension fund trustee who was to purchase 40 million restricted shares of Tri-Star stock. Days later, Mellone paid another kickback for a purchase of 50 million restricted shares of stock. Unbeknownst to Mellone, the corrupt trustee and the trustee's business associate were undercover FBI agents, and another middleman was an FBI cooperating witness. Mellone, satisfied how the deal worked for his own company, sought to implement the same fraud with others. He informed Wilcox and Alex Parsinia of Calabasas, Calif., about the purportedly corrupt trustee, and both agreed to replicate the scheme for their own companies. Mellone demanded and received a $1,000 kickback from the witness for each completed restricted stock transaction he initiated. In each instance, the three attempted to conceal the kickback by entering into a consulting agreement with a phony company the trustee purportedly created to receive the kickback. Parsinia's company is Zcom Networks Inc. and Wilcox's company is The UC Hub Group.

Full complaint here.

Life lessons from the poker table

...over at our friend Charlie's blog.

Parker sucks, Spitzer swallows

CNN, the last-place cable network, is still trying to find a replacement for its once-successful Crossfire program. The latest incarnation is "Parker Spitzer," pitting Eliot "Client 9" Spitzer against Kathleen "Who?" Parker.

We've actually encountered Parker's drivel before. She's one of those dimwitted phony conservatives that the liberal media put forward as a conservative in order to make conservatives appear dimwitted and phony. We wrote about Parker back in 2005, where she took a bold and controversial stance by opposing child molestation. And see how Ace of Spades has a field day mocking her paranoid, anti-blogging rant.

Well, what happens when an idiot and a pervert fall in a forest with no one around to hear? Epic fail, naturally.

That not only left CNN far behind its main rivals — Bill O’Reilly on Fox had 3.1 million on Fox News and Keith Olbermann had 1.1 million on MSNBC – but it also trailed Nancy Grace on the HLN channel, who had 468,000 viewers.

Even worse for the new CNN program, it lost viewers from the show on just ahead of it, “John King USA,” which had 471,000 viewers. Perhaps more troubling for CNN, “Parker Spitzer” was down sharply from the show it replaced, “Rick’s List,” hosted by Rick Sanchez, who was recently ousted from CNN. And it even fell short of the show that had long occupied the 8 p.m. slot on CNN, with Campbell Brown.

Boehner warns Republicans to stay away from K Street whores

The Hill:

Some women on K Street, who say they are already at a disadvantage to their male counterparts, are upset about the reports of Boehner’s edict and say it represents yet another obstacle. There are just 17 Republican women in the House compared to 56 Democrats, while the Senate has just four Republican women compared to 13 Democrats.

“What year are we in again? Is this 1960?” asked one female Republican lobbyist. “There’s no problem with congressmen drinking at the Capital Grille [Restaurant] with their male lobbyist-friends, which happens every night of the week. But somehow if they do it with a woman, it doesn’t look good. That’s just an outdated attitude and one reason we don’t have more women in top Republican leadership jobs.”

You're whores. You're all whores. The men too. You'd all be dripping like Heidi DeJong Barsuglia if it meant getting your bill passed for your filthy corrupt employer.

This kinda blows the whole Don Draper thing, though, Boehner.

Gold shoots up $23 to new high $1338, still far short of keeping up with Zimbabwe Ben's printing press

Want to put the gold "bubble" in perspective? How's this?



That's the price of gold vs. the monetary base, essentially the amount of money that Zimbabwe Ben has created out of thin air. Oh, there's a bubble all right. But it ain't in gold.

Sources: St. Louis Dirty Fed and GoldPrices.com.

Amazon Finally Gets Real

Do you have a psychological issue? Do you need counseling? Amazon finally gets real in the books to point you to a solution. Look at the first 4 books it recommends under the categories Books > Mind & Body > Psychology & Counseling:No more new age, pussy solutions like therapy my friends. You want to solve your problems - drop acid, read Victorian romance, or go to war.

Seattle Imitates US Government

Now it's become an old saying; you don't issue debt to solve your deficit spending crisis. Seattle is doing just that, metaphorically, by curing alcoholism with alcohol. Brilliant!

The government-subsidized housing project in Seattle caters exclusively to 75 hard-core alcoholics who came from the streets and are allowed to keep drinking, snub treatment and still keep a roof over their heads.

But seriously the amenities are extrodinary:

Upstairs are 49 traditional studios with small kitchenettes and private bathrooms. The stoves have automatic shut-off timers in case a resident passes out. The bathroom floor and the kitchen sink have overflow drains to prevent floods if the faucet is left on or the toilet overflows. Every apartment has a two-way intercom, allowing front desk staffers to make announcements to the group or individuals. The system also allows staff to listen in on the residents, although administrators say there's neither the time nor inclination to do that.

The article does not state where one can apply for the program, but we are definitely looking into it.

2012

Chris Christie goes to Iowa.

Christie has indicated that he's not likely to run in 2012, but the Republican Party needs him. Palin is unelectable, Romney is too close to Wall Street, Huckabee is a nut. Christie is just a plain-talking, no-nonsense fiscal conservative who can attract independents and secular moderates. He'd win in a Reaganesque landslide.

Only the little people go to prison

Dick Fuld, Angelo Mozilo, Ken Lewis, Franklin Raines, Hank Paulson, and Ben Bernanke walk the streets today.

Jérôme Kerviel gets three years in prison for a trifling $6.7 billion.

Inside Job opens this Friday.

10-10-10 Pre-Election Tea Party in Oceanside

This promises to be the biggest event in California before the election, so join us!

Pdf flyer here.

Schwarzenegger budget: What, me worry?

Step 1: Assume robust revenue growth.

Step 2: Assume huge federal bailout.

Step 3: Sell off state assets to plug this year's budget, and don't worry about the fact that you'll increase future deficits by having to lease back those same assets.

Problem solved! I don't know why that took so long.

I'm not making this up.

To make up the shortfall, the agreement counts on an improving economy and the federal government to provide more money than previously projected.

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, said last week that the leaders turned to some "creative" bookkeeping after Republicans refused to raise taxes and Democrats rejected deeper budget cuts.

The pact he and the others reached Friday night assumes about $5 billion will come from the federal government, up from the $3.4 billion the governor had projected, said multiple sources close to the negotiations. It uses the Legislative Analyst's Office optimistic forecast of an additional $1.4 billion flowing to the state from higher-than-projected revenues. And it counts on as much as $1.2 billion from selling 11 state properties, then leasing them back.

Congratulations to the "One Nation" pro-Obama, anti-Tea Party rally today

They turned out quite a crowd.



Awful lot of white people though. They must be racists.

HT: Left Coast Rebel

San Diego hates children

Families are not welcome at the Tour de Fat, because Demon Beer is served there.

San Francisco allows families into the Tour, with no adverse effects.

The Tour de Fat organizers did the best they could to accommodate families within San Diego's fascist rules. They set up spaces near the stage but outside the fence where kids could hang.

Varones Voters' Guide to the 2010 California Candidates

Your reform / libertarian / common sense / Tea Party guide to the candidates.

Guide to the propositions is here.

Governor: Dale Ogden (Libertarian). Obviously, this is a protest vote, as he isn't going to win. But the two main party candidates are both awful. Jerry Brown unionized the public employees during his last run as governor. Meg Whitman is a progressive, having supported extreme liberal Barbara Boxer in the past. She flip-flopped on illegal immigration, pretending to be for enforcement in the primary and then running soft on enforcement ads in Spanish. She refuses to support the Prop 23 jobs initiative. Clearly, Meg Whitman would be another Schwarzenegger as governor. Sometimes, the best message to send to the Republicans is, "Screw you. We want a better choice next time."

Lt. Governor: Gavin Newsom (Dem). Yes, he screwed his best friend's wife. And yes, he has his own body count, having protected an illegal alien gang member who went on to murder a family in cold blood. But his opponent, Abel Maldonado, is a liar who signed a "No new taxes" pledge and then provided the crucial last vote for the biggest tax increase in California history. In exchange for this treachery, Schwarzenegger gave him an appointment to the Lt. Governor's job. Throw the bum out! UPDATE: Or write in Karen England!

U.S. Senator: Carly Fiorina (Rep). I'm no fan of Fiorina. Everybody who worked for her at Hewlett-Packard hates her, and she's a McCainite RINO. But picking up another vote in the Senate to slow down the Obama agenda is just too important this year.

Secretary of State: Damon Dunn (Rep). Young, energetic, African-American, Tea Partier. Opponent Debra Bowen is an old career Sacramento politician.

Controller: Andy Favor (Libertarian) or Tony Strickland (Rep). Incumbent is Democrat John Chiang, who's fought Schwarzenegger's attempts to furlough and cut pay for government workers by claiming his payroll systems are too screwed up and outdated to change anything. UPDATE: Tony Strickland is a real fiscal conservative running as a Republican. I didn't have the information on him originally, I think because he was left off a Secretary of State candidate statement list because he refused to accept voluntary spending limits missed a deadline. UPDATE2: Andy Favor is good too. Check out his platform in the comments.

Treasurer: Mimi Walters (Rep). Endorsed by Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association. Incumbent is career Sacramento politician Bill Locker (Dem).

Attorney General: Steve Cooley (Rep). Will investigate and prosecute pension scandals and Hien Tran / Mary Nichols CARB fraud. Opponent is Kamala Harris, who lets crime run wild as DA of San Francisco.

Insurance Commissioner: Dave Jones (Dem). Opponent is Mike Villines (Rep), liar who signed a "No new taxes" pledge and then provided the crucial last vote for the biggest tax increase in California history (like Abel Maldonado above). Throw the bum out!

Establishment NRSC wants to bask in Tea Party glow

Well, lookie here. The same National Republican Senatorial Committee that backed Bailout Bob Bennett and Lisa Mikulski is now giving out bumper stickers alluding to the Tea Party.



We've come a long way, folks.

If you want to donate, Jim DeMint's Senate Conservatives Fund or the Campaign for Liberty or the Club for Growth would be far better than the RINO incumbent-backing NRSC.

Global Warmists tip their hand

This is not a spoof. This is a real ad by the global warmists, supposed to make you feel better about joining their jihad.



Background here.

UPDATE: Osama bin Laden urges action against climate change. Again, I'm not kidding!

I struggle because you hate my people

CNN host Rick Sanchez: "CNN is run by a bunch of Jews who don't like minorities like me."

CNN: "Alright beaner, that's enough of you."

Seriously, take five minutes and listen to this guy. At my law school, you could fill lecture halls with people like this.

No hyperinflation

ZeroHedge makes a good argument for why hyperinflation won't happen here.

Basically, Congress will eventually show some fiscal restraint. Zimbabwe Ben will let inflation run for a little while to inflate away the debt, but then he'll slam on the brakes. The economy will suck, but Bernanke will eventually choose recession over hyperinflation. This aligns with the stagflation scenario I've been envisioning, and it's the implicit assumption in my devaluation argument: that we'll we able to start inflating and then change course a la Volcker. That remains to be seen.

Schwarzenegger decriminalizes marijuana

... not because it's the right thing to do, but because the state can't afford to keep providing defense lawyers to all the broke, deadbeat stoners it keeps prosecuting.

There's an upside to state insolvency: the state stops doing some things it shouldn't have been doing in the first place!