DHS SECRETARY: THE SYSTEM WORKED

The unmitigated gall is palpable. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano actually said that the reason Northwest flight 253 didn't blow up was because "the system worked". Uh, not so much. The reason flight 253 didn't explode was that a Muslim's chemical concoction didn't blow up as advertised. Couple that with the heroic efforts of a Dutch passenger in preventing the dirtbag from doing any further damage and you have your answer.

The system didn't work. Its blatant failures were overcome by the common man and perhaps the Grace of God. The arrogance of Napolitano in uttering those words just about takes the cake.

The White House, according to both Joe Lieberman and Susan Collins, has been stonewalling the Fort Hood shooting investigation. Now we learn that Hasan's Imam, al-Awlaki, may have had connections to the man who almost blew up Flight 253. If that turns out to be true and the passenger actually did succeed in vaporizing a commercial jetliner, perhaps not stonewalling Leiberman and Collins would have prevented it.

But alas, practically everything this administration says and does is backward.

Click HERE to see video.

Story at POLITICO

VIDEO: IS MAX BAUCUS DRUNK ON SENATE FLOOR?

Sure looks and sounds like it. The only thing missing was the hiccups. Nonetheless, slurred speech is beyond obvious. Is he drunk on taxpayer dollars? In the past, I've used the analogy of politicians being like alcoholics who can't get off the sauce and continue digging. However, I had no idea I could have used it as a literal argument.

All week long, we were hearing about how all of these whack jobs were working round the clock and right up until the Christmas break. If they're allowed to get drunk on other people's money while conducting the people's business and giving the people the business, why exactly should we be ok with that?

Drunk on the job.



h/t to NR

VIDEO: HEALTHCARE BILL A FISCAL FRAUD

The Democrats, including Obama himself, have been touting this health care bill as one that will create $130 Billion in savings through Medicare cuts and higher taxes. The problem is that the CBO has shown that this does not account for the IOU's that will be sent from the Treasury to the Medicare Trust fund. According the CBO report itself, in order for the claim that a budget surplus would be realized, the money must be counted twice.

Here is the relevant portion of the two-page MEMO, released by the CBO on December 23rd, with the even more relevant excerpts bolded.

The key point is that the savings to the HI trust fund under the PPACA would be received by the government only once, so they cannot be set aside to pay for future Medicare spending and, at the same time, pay for current spending on other parts of the legislation or on other programs. Trust fund accounting shows the magnitude of the savings within the trust fund, and those savings indeed improve the solvency of that fund; however, that accounting ignores the burden that would be faced by the rest of the government later in redeeming the bonds held by the trust fund. Unified budget accounting shows that the majority of the HI trust fund savings would be used to pay for other spending under the PPACA and would not enhance the ability of the government to redeem the bonds credited to the trust fund to pay for future Medicare benefits. To describe the full amount of HI trust fund savings as both improving the government’s ability to pay future Medicare benefits and financing new spending outside of Medicare would essentially double-count a large share of those savings and thus overstate the improvement in the government’s fiscal position.

Now for the Video. Republican senators Jeff Sessions (AL), John Kyl (AZ), and Judd Gregg (NH) were visibly disturbed by the blatant attempt by the Democrats to lie in order to get this monstrosity passed, with Sessions actually making the accusation that if this was corporate America, someone would be going to Jail. The video is a little lengthy but very much worth watching.



Unfortunately, the CBO memo didn't come out until Wednesday, the 23rd. Thanks to Nebraska senator Ben Nelson's sellout, the vote to end cloture took place two days earlier at 1am so this CBO report was basically rendered inconsequential in terms of the Senate version of the bill passing.

Phillip Klein has been writing about this as well. In reference to the Democrats continuing to claim budget savings, Klein ended one ARTICLE this way:

Similar comments have been echoed by Democrats during the several weeks that the Senate has been debating health care -- it would have been nice to have the CBO memo back when it could have actually made a difference.

For some reason, I can't help wondering if that one-on-one meeting between Obama and CBO Director Doug Elmendorf back in July had anything to do with the delay between the Democrats getting 60 votes and the CBO reporting the truth. Elmendorf gets to go on record as having reported the truth about the costs and the bill still gets rammed through.

Remember THIS? When you watch this video, fast forward to the three-minute mark to watch the part about Elmendorf and the CBO.

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h/t to SAY ANYTHING