5.31.2012

Romney punches back twice as hard on Solyndra

You all know I carry no torch for mainstream moderates.

But I'm beginning to get wood for the ultimate mainstream moderate, Mitt Romney.

The differences versus decrepit old First-Amendment-hating surrender-monkey John McCain are striking.

First, saying what needs to be said about Obama's taxpayer-looting crony capitalism:
“Free enterprise to the president means taking money from the taxpayers and giving it freely to his friends,” Romney said.

[...]

“If the business had done spectacularly well, the shareholders -- his friends -- would have done very, very well, but the taxpayers would have just gotten their money back,” Romney said. “On the other hand, of course, if the business failed -- as it did -- it’s the taxpayers that get stuck with losing a half a billion dollars.”
Second, using the Obama regime's own tactics against it, sending hecklers out to spoil a stunt by Obama spokesman David Axelrod.



Now that's what I call community organizing!

I'm beginning to envision, and be very comfortable with, President Romney.

5.30.2012

Greenspan goes to Greece

Athens News:

A 61-year old pensioner was found hanging from a tree on Wednesday, in the Agios Filipos park of the Nikaia area. The lifeless body of the pensioner was discovered by a park attendant, who also found his suicide note which read as follows:

"The police does not know me. I have never touched a drink in my life. Of women and drugs I have never even dreamed of. I have never been to a kafenio (coffee house), I just worked all day! But I commited one horrendous crime: I became a professional at age 40 and I plunged myself in debt. Now, I’m an idiot of 61 years and I have to pay. I hope my grandchildren are not born in Greece, seeing as there will be no Greeks here from now on. Let them at least know another language, because Greek will be wiped off the map! Unless of course there was a politician with Thatcher’s balls so as to put us and our state in line. Signed, Alexandros 29/5/2012”

His neighbours described the pensioner – a father of two- as a hard working man. He had been employed in ship repairs and construction sites and up until recently, he had been working as an electrician on a merchant ship.

He was facing sizeable financial problems and it was these that pushed him over the edge.
So to all who say that America, with its 100% debt/GDP and serial 8% - 10% GDP deficits, is exactly like Greece: this irrefutably proves that America is not Greece.  In America, the guy would have blown it on booze, drugs, and hookers.

MorOn.org running out of morons

This warms my heart:
MoveOn, a giant in the progressive political world and an early endorser of Barack Obama in 2008, warns that it might have to “pull the plug” on key campaigns to help Obama and Senate Democrats if its 7 million members don’t pony up with at least $5.

Without a rush of new cash, MoveOn says it will have to give up efforts to elect Elizabeth Warren in Massachusetts, help the recall fight against Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, and energize younger voters who’ve soured on Washington.

“It's like picking which of your kids you love the most. I just can't do it,” said MoveOn in an email plea. “If we can’t increase our budget, we might have to dramatically scale back or pull the plug on some of MoveOn’s most important election efforts this year.”
"MoveOn" got its start during the Monica Blewclinsky affair, pretending to be a common sense, nonpartisan group that wanted to "move on" from impeachment for the good of the country. Then when GW Bush got elected, they suddenly no longer wanted to "move on" any more.

It's a testament to the colossal failure of Barack Obama that he has so dispirited his base that they won't even kick in five bucks any more.

5.29.2012

The callous hypocrisy of President Choomwagon

I can't say it any better than John Aziz did:
I don’t have a problem with Obama — or anyone else — smoking dope. As far as I am concerned, consenting adults have the liberty to do whatever they like so long as they don’t hurt others, or take their liberty or property.

I don’t have a problem with Obama — or anyone else — defining themselves by smoking dope.

I have a problem with hypocrisy.

Not only did Obama use marijuana in his youth, he also used cocaine, and reportedly crack. Today around 400,000 Americans are jailed for non-violent drug related offenses. That’s 400,000 outside of the workforce who could be out working and producing, instead of burdening the taxpayer, who pays to create profits for well-connected corporations in the prison-industrial complex.

Put more simply, there are more black people in prison as a result of the drug war today than there were slaves in 1850.

What’s President Obama — as a black man and a drug user — doing about that? There are still thousands of people being arrested for nonviolent drug offenses who are facing life in prison.
How did a guy who grew up as Jeff Spicoli end up as an adult mutant cross of Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter?

FailBook

Just blew through $30 like a hot knife through a turd sandwich.

5.27.2012

Greenspan's Body Count: Florence and Susan Beran

Greenspan goes to Connecticut:
Two weeks ago, police discovered the bodies of Florence, 85, and Susan Beran, 57, on Friday, May 11 in the home. Investigators concluded that Susan Beran, a longtime caregiver for her elderly mother, killed Florence with her late father's shotgun and then used the weapon to take her own life some time later. Neighbors hadn't reported any gunfire that week. Police suspect the murder-suicide occurred sometime in the 48 hours before police discovered the gruesome scene, less than a month after the house was auctioned off as part of a tax foreclosure.

Florence Beran owed the city $52,364 in back taxes as of this past March. She also owed $6,136 to CL&P [Connecticut Light & Power], which won a legal judgment against her in January, and $12,358 to a debt collection agency called Midland Funding. A CL&P spokesman did not return calls for comment Friday.

Susan Beran, a former nurse, couldn't afford to hire full-time medical care for her mother, who suffered from Alzheimer's disease. She also couldn't leave her alone long enough to find her own job, according to Deborah Gebhard, a friend of Susan's who lives in Michigan.
Greenspan's Body Count stands at 215.

The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America

5.26.2012

Dirty, Sanchez?

American Idol loser Jessica Sanchez could get only $30,000, far less than previous losers.

5.25.2012

Clicking through Elizabeth Warren's Facebook ads

I like to do my part for GDP growth by clicking through Facebook ads from statists.  Every click adds to GDP!



You can sign Fauxcahontas's petition here.  (Incidentally, Fauxcahontas is right on this issue, but she's become such a parody that you've got to hit that.)

5.24.2012

Forks over Knives free on Amazon Prime

I've mentioned the documentary Forks over Knives before.  It's about the Big Ag - Government Industrial Complex, and how the USDA is controlled by factory farms and doesn't work in the interest of consumers.  The government is lying to you about the health benefits and risks of meat and dairy.  As Roger Ebert says, "A film that can save your life."

Our friend Charlie recommends it enthusiastically.
Two of the interesting points: 1) Cancer cells in many cases depend on animal protein for growth.  Shut off the animal products and you shut off the cancer. 2) Countries with high milk consumption have higher rates of osteoporosis, not lower. This is the exact opposite of what your bribe-driven government scientists have been telling you.
Please watch it here on Amazon Prime for free, or get the DVD for $14.96 , or get it on Netflix or Redbox otherwise.

Hewlett-Packard CEO Meg Whitman: "We've laid a lot of pipe."


Video link.

Indeed they have!



They've been laying pipe all year long!

Meg Whitman is the right woman to lead Hewlett-Packard. She has lots of experience laying pipe from her 2010 gubernatorial campaign.

5.23.2012

"Fire John Boehner. Spread the word."

... says my friend Left Coast Rebel in a long overdue rant.

We all know about how Boehner has folded to Obama and Reid at every opportunity on spending and debt.

But the latest outrage is that Boehner has just signaled support for Chuck Schumer's Citizenship Equals Slavery Act. The U.S. is already the only major country that taxes its citizens' income even when they don't live or work in the country. Schumer and Boehner want to take this even further and make citizens permanent wage slaves of the Treasury even if they want to renounce citizenship. As Simon Black says,
It’s truly extraordinary that the Land of the Free has deteriorated to the point that the government must now resort to threats, coercion, and intimidation in order to keep its most productive citizens inside.
No other Western nation treats its citizens remotely like this.

Click on over and read the whole thing.

5.22.2012

Enlighten thyself

McDanger dishes on energy efficiency.

Greenspan's Body Count Goes to Ireland -- Greenspan Limerick Contest

Murphy's Law, 2012 edition: If Alan Greenspan can kill someone, he will.

Limerick, Ireland:
LIMERICK people are penning suicidal letters at a rate of three a week after being driven to despair by debt, it has been revealed. And a Limerick advocate who provides free advice for people with financial problems is pleading with people to seek advice rather than take drastic action. One lone parent who wrote to the Life After Debt organisation, said she has already tried to commit suicide because she has no way of paying her mortgage, making ends meet and sometimes cannot even put food on the table for herself and her child.

“We have no heat in the house, no food in the fridge and I cannot buy new shoes for my little girl. My electricity is about to be cut off again. “The money I get as a lone parent only lasts a couple of days as I’m always trying to pay bills that are in arrears and I never make any headway. I can’t cope anymore,” one Limerick city woman wrote in a letter to  Seamus Sherlock, founder of the Life after Debt organisation in the city.

I got your limerick right here.

There once was a Maestro celebrated
His ego became quite inflated
He could see no bubble
Nor sign of bank trouble
His Body Count climbs unabated!

Please submit your limericks in the comments.

5.20.2012

Checking the facts the MSM won't: this weekend's outrageous Obama and Pelosi lies

It's a travesty that the bootlickers in the mainstream media are so reliable that Democrats are completely comfortable making outrageously dishonest statements and knowing they will never be called on them.

I'm not even paying attention to the news that much this weekend and I caught two whoppers.

First, Obama on the J.P. Morgan prop trading disaster:


We found out that a big mistake at one of our biggest banks resulted in a $2 billion loss [actually, it was $3 billion and counting, but let's not quibble]. While that bank can handle a loss of that size, other banks may not have been able to. And without Wall Street reform, we could have found ourselves with the taxpayers once again on the hook for Wall Street's mistakes.
Excuse me? J.P. Morgan lost billions in prop trading after Dodd-Frank and that's evidence that Dodd-Frank is working? What kind of psychotic logic is that? The problem in 2008 was that giant, Too Big To Fail banks were allowed to run with insane levels of leverage and threatened to destroy the the economy if they didn't get bailed out. None of that was fixed by Dodd-Frank. In fact, the TBTF banks have all grown even bigger since!

Why have the TBTF banks been allowed to get even bigger? Let's go to the tape: Obama 2008 campaign contributions.


Funny how that works!

Let's also not forget that Obama picked for Treasury Secretary Timmy "the Tax Cheat" Geithner, who was head of the New York Fed, and responsible for regulating all the Wall Street banks when they made their over-leveraged bad bets and blew up. Failure deserves its rewards!

And secondly, Nancy Pelosi:
Last year, just the threat of not lifting the debt ceiling caused us to -- our credit rating to be lowered. This is not a responsible, mature, sensible place for us to go.
That is a blatant lie. Boehner folded and raised the debt ceiling with no real near-term cuts or a path to fiscal sustainability on August 2. Standard and Poor's downgraded the U.S. on August 5 because Boehner caved in, not because he had earlier held out. S&P's statement:
The downgrade reflects our opinion that the fiscal consolidation plan that Congress and the Administration recently agreed to falls short of what, in our view, would be necessary to stabilize the government’s medium-term debt dynamics.
The worst thing that Boehner could do now, from the rating agencies' (and any sane person's) perspective would be to cave in again and raise the debt ceiling without getting structural reform. The problem isn't the debt ceiling; it's the debt!

5.19.2012

#FalseFlag: Police give Molotov cocktails to dumb young Occupiers, then arrest them for domestic terrorism

USA Today:
The trio was arrested Wednesday in a nighttime raid in the Bridgeport neighborhood on the South Side. They're accused of trying to make Molotov cocktails ahead of the two-day NATO summit that starts Sunday.

The three were charged with providing material support for terrorism, conspiracy to commit terrorism and possession of explosives.

Defense attorneys told a judge that undercover police are the ones who brought the Molotov cocktails, and that their clients had been entrapped. The men were each being held on $1.5 million bond.
We have always been at war with Eastasia.

P.S. There was a time when I'd give the government the benefit of the doubt over defense attorneys. There was a time when I was ridiculously naive.

5.18.2012

Condelences Mish

We at W.C. Varones are very sorry for your loss.

5.17.2012

I have become comfortably numb

I had the pleasure of seeing Roger Waters at the San Diego Sports Arena last weekend. I hadn't seen any of the Pink Floyd crew since seeing David Gilmour and the boys at Earl's Court in London in the mid-90's.

Suffice it to say, Roger Waters is still against American fascism and imperialism, even under the Obama Hope & Change brand. A great show, all in all.



There is no pain, you are receding

A distant ship smoke on the horizon

You are only coming through in waves

Your lips move but I can't hear what you're saying

When I was a child I had a fever

My hands felt just like two balloons

Now I've got that feeling once again

I can't explain, you would not understand

This is not how I am

I have become comfortably numb
UPDATE: Simon Black at Sovereign Man went to the LA show and has a longer, better-written post on the same subject.

5.16.2012

Obama will lose re-election

I am stunned at the consensus.  Intrade puts Obama re-election odds at 58.6%.  I attribute this to East Coast Media groupthink.  Take the other side of that bet!

Barack Obama is a radical socialist who hates the American free enterprise system.  The American people, who thought they were voting for a moderate Hope & Changer, now realize they got a radical socialist who hates the American free enterprise system.  We won't get fooled again! State and national polls are already showing huge swings against the Obama regime.

I am no Mitt Romney fan, but he is the perfect Republican to defeat Obama.  Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum had boxcars of baggage to make them unelectable, but Mitt Romney is a bland, inoffensive, blue state moderate.  Unless they find Mitt Romney with a dead girl or a live boy, he's going to win this thing.

Before you dismiss this view as partisan or pollyannaish, please consider that I was the first to go on record in 2005 that Rick Santorum would lose his re-election bid (which he did, in a landslide).

Greenspan's Body Count: Norman Rousseau

Norman Rousseau and his wife Oriane bought their house at 580 Wilshire Place, Newbury Park in 2000 for $225,000 with 30% down.

According to a lawsuit filed by the Rousseaus, in 2002, 2006, and 2007, during Greenspan's bubble, they were solicited by World Savings / Wachovia, now a unit of Wells Fargo, to refinance into dangerous Pay Option ARMs. The final 2007 loan was an egregious negative-amortization, 7.2% interest, $368,000 weapon of financial mass destruction.

Read the Rousseaus' lawsuit against Wells Fargo here.

On Sunday, as foreclosure loomed just two days away, Norman Rousseau went into his garage and shot himself to death.

Greenspan's Body Count stands at 213.

Photo credit: Jr. Deputy Accountant.

5.14.2012

Please share with your friends and neighbors

... this great Ron Paul ad which sums up what's wrong in USA 2012. Time is running out...

5.12.2012

Varones Tea Party Voter Guide to the 2012 California Primary Election

Your Varones Voters Guide to the June 5 primary:

Republican nominee for President: Ron Paul. To vote for Paul, you need to register Republican by May 21. You can get a form here or at the post office. I believe everyone should do so, as Ron Paul is a clear alternative to the corrupt, crony capitalist, bankster-owned, war-mongering, civil-liberties-killing mainstream Democrats and Republicans. Democrats, Libertarians, and independents get no choice in the primary (other than writing in Mickey Mouse), and the primaries for all other positions are open, so there's no reason not to register Republican. You can re-register Dem or no party immediately after the election.

Senator: Gail Lightfoot. Unfortunately, we won't have a choice for Senator as no serious candidate is challenging uber-establishment career politician, 1%-er, and authoritarian Dianne Feinstein. Orly Taitz is the only other name I recognized among the twenty-something on the ballot. She's a Tea Partier but an obsessive Obama birther who has zero chance. Give Gail Lightfoot, retired nurse and Libertarian, your protest vote.

Prop 28: No. This is a sham term-limit initiative written by legislators to weaken the term limits passed by voters. California voters will probably fall for it.

Prop 29: No. Another $1 a pack tax on cigarettes. Taxes are already so high on cigarettes that people are buying in bulk out of state or on the black market. No more taxes until the state addresses the real fiscal problem: pensions.

San Diego Candidates and Initiatives:

San Diego Mayor: Carl DeMaio. DeMaio is the only reformer in the race. District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis is a GOP establishment coddler of corruption. Nathan Fletcher is a slimy opportunist who was behind the scenes supporting the Schwarzenegger tax hikes while pretending to be a fiscal conservative. Bob Filner is a union-owned Washington Democrat.

Congress, 49th District: Darrell Issa owns this district, and none of the other candidates appear to be mounting a serious campaign. Take your pick.

Congress, 52nd District: Brian Bilbray needs to go. He's an establishment GOP politician who voted for the debt ceiling can-kicking and the budget continuing resolution with no spending cuts, as well as the NDAA indefinite detention of American citizens.  Take physician Wayne Iverson, who's campaigning against the Obamacare abomination.

State Assembly, 76th District: Sherry Hodges is the GOP establishment pick, and a lock to win. Take Rocky Chavez or Farrah Douglas as a protest.

Board of Supervisors, 3rd District: Dave Roberts. Steve Danon is Brian Bilbray's chief of staff, a creature of the GOP machine, and a real brown-nosing weasel. Dave Roberts is the deputy mayor of Solana Beach, a pension-reforming Democrat.

San Diego City Prop A: Yes. Open city jobs to non-union contractors.

San Diego City Prop B: Yes.  Reform pensions before they bankrupt us.



UPDATE: The Liberator Today's picks.

UPDATE: Temple of Mut's picks.

5.10.2012

The most dangerous game

Mitt Romney:
As president, Mitt will work to expand and enhance access and opportunities for Americans to hunt, shoot, and protect their families, homes and property, and he will fight the battle on all fronts to protect and promote the Second Amendment.




5.08.2012

Rumors of the Tea Party's demise are greatly exaggerated

Tea Party whacks six-term uber-establishment Senator Richard Lugar.  In a blowout.

Bank of Amerika

From each according to his ability, to each according to his need
The peoples' Bank of America has decided in this election year to forgive principal on some mortgages. Bank of America, who by using any accounting standards is insolvent, has decided to take this step letting alleged adults out of the contracts they had signed. This as part of a "settlement agreement" with 49 State Attorneys General because remember kids, when you're a bank and you break the law, you just borrow from the Fed at 0.0000% interest to purchase your innocence. Check this:
Bank of America has started sending letters to thousands of homeowners in the United States, offering to forgive a portion of the principal balance on their mortgages by an average of $150,000 each.

The reduction for qualifying homeowners could amount to monthly savings of up to 35 percent on mortgage payments, Bank of America said in a news release on Monday evening.

The principal reduction offers from Bank of America Home Loans are the result of a $25 billion settlement agreement earlier this year with 49 state attorneys general as well as federal authorities who had been investigating allegations of abuses over the handling of foreclosures.
At some point the number of people capable of making the 20% downpayment on these horribly inflated housing prices will go to 0. Then how do you stop the bubble from bursting comrades?

5.05.2012

Ron Paul speaks at UCSD, May 4, 2012

Ron Paul spoke last night at UCSD to a huge crowd of thousands of cheering fans.  He spoke for about 45 minutes, off-the-cuff, including recent and local topics like Chinese dissident Chen Guancheng and DEA victim and UCSD student Daniel Chong.  He hit on all the topics you'd expect - the war on drugs, the debt and deficit, central planning, the TSA, big government destroying the economy, the Dirty Fed, global imperialism, etc.  And of course the solution to all of this: restore the Constitution.

I went down with Left Coast Rebel to watch. It was great to be there and see the foremost leader of the freedom movement.  And after following Dr. Paul and the freedom movement for decades, it was awesome to see such enthusiasm for the principles of liberty catching on among people of all ages.

This guy caught the beginning and end of the speech, so you can get a feel for both the speech and the crowd.




UPDATE: My video, catching only the beginning, but with a closer view.



And my pics:















End the Fed baby!

5.03.2012

Unicorn Killer slays Ben Bernanke

Ira Einhorn was the predecessor to today's Occupiers: a dirty hippie with rage issues.   Like the Occupiers, he was celebrated by the elitist establishment, and given a fellowship to Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.  In 1977, he beat his girlfriend to death and stuffed her body in a trunk he kept in his closet for a year and a half before the neighbors started noticing more than usual hippie stench.   Einhorn had given himself the hippie name "Unicorn" after the translation of his German last name: "one horn," and since has been known as the "Unicorn killer."

Well, old Ira's still rotting in prison, but his namesake, hedge fund manager David Einhorn, has just gone on a rampage that would make Ira proud.  David Einhorn beat the central planning brains out of Ben Bernanke, and stuffed him in the Weimar trunk he rode in on.

Unicorn Jr. at ZeroHedge:

A Jelly Donut is a yummy mid-afternoon energy boost.

Two Jelly Donuts are an indulgent breakfast.

Three Jelly Donuts may induce a tummy ache.

Six Jelly Donuts -- that's an eating disorder.

Twelve Jelly Donuts is fraternity pledge hazing.

My point is that you can have too much of a good thing and overdoses are destructive. Chairman Bernanke is presently force-feeding us what seems like the 36th Jelly Donut of easy money and wondering why it isn't giving us energy or making us feel better. Instead of a robust recovery, the economy continues to be sluggish. Last year, when asked why his measures weren't working, he suggested it was "bad luck."
Click on over and read the whole thing.  I can't possibly do it justice here.  He uses the Simpsons family to illustrate how individuals rationally respond to insane monetary policy quite differently than the ignorant macroeconomic Ph.D. central planners expect.

I've often commented on how central planners, macro-economists, and liberals (but I repeat myself) fail to understand the incentive effect.  The world would be a lot better off if Ben Bernanke took a remedial Micro-economics 101 course.


Americans waking up to Zimbabwe Ben's dollar debasement?

Gallup:



My first reaction to this was concern that perhaps gold love had become so widespread that we were perhaps at risk of a bubble.

But of course this poll asks about opinion, not ownership. How many of those 28% actually have a significant portion of their net worth or retirement assets in gold?  How many actually own a single ounce?

What defines a bubble is not what people say, but what they do.  Think about the housing bubble.  Everybody was in it.  People were becoming mortgage brokers and house flippers by the thousands.  Broke and unemployed 20-year-olds were getting loans from Countrywide to buy multiple houses.  Or consider the internet stock bubble.  Cabbies and waitresses were trading CSCO, JDSU, and EDIG.  How is that remotely like what's happening now with gold?

Americans are busted.  The median family net worth was $120k at the peak of the housing bubble, and likely zero or negative now.  The median 401(k) balance is only $23,000, and you can't even own gold in most 401(k)s.

This poll is about Americans having been burned by all the other asset classes: Greenspan's housing bubble, the centrally planned stock market, and Zimbabwe Ben's negative real rates on bonds and savings.  Americans now see that gold is the only safe haven from central bankers and deficit spenders gone wild, but they don't have enough money to buy much of it.

I'd like to have seen Gallup ask, "How much of your retirement funds are in gold, stocks, real estate, bonds?"  Try it yourself: ask your friends, neighbors, co-workers whether they have any of their retirement funds in gold.  I know you won't find 28% of their wealth in gold, and I'd be surprised if 28% of them own a single bullion coin at all.

5.01.2012

Happy May Day!

It's the international socialist movement's own holiday today.  History here and here.

Those lovable lefties in San Francisco got an early start celebrating last night.

And to mark the occasion, America's best-known socialist just released a new "Forward" campaign theme steeped in socialist history.
Many Communist and radical publications and entities throughout the 19th and 20th centuries had the name "Forward!" or its foreign cognates. Wikipedia has an entire section called "Forward (generic name of socialist publications)."

"The name Forward carries a special meaning in socialist political terminology. It has been frequently used as a name for socialist, communist and other left-wing newspapers and publications," the online encyclopedia explains.

The slogan "Forward!" reflected the conviction of European Marxists and radicals that their movements reflected the march of history, which would move forward past capitalism and into socialism and communism.
Kick it Forward!


Happy Super Tuesday!