Newt Gingrich has effectively called on Rick Santorum to drop out of the presidential race, yet the former Pennsylvania senator continues to poll in the double digits and shows no sign of quitting. Why are so many conservatives dissatisfied with a choice between Gingrich and Mitt Romney? Michelle Malkin’s Santorum endorsement is a good primer. [Santorum] didn’t cave when Chicken Littles in Washington invoked a manufactured crisis in 2008. He didn’t follow the pro-bailout GOP crowd – including Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich – and he didn’t have to obfuscate or rationalize his position then or now, like Rick Perry and Herman Cain did. He also opposed the auto bailout, Freddie and Fannie bailout, and porkulus bills. Santorum opposed individual health care mandates – clearly and forcefully – as far back as his 1994 U.S. Senate run. He has launched the most cogent, forceful fusillade against both Romney and Gingrich for their muddied, pro-individual health care mandate waters. He voted against cap and trade in 2003, voted yes to drilling in ANWR, and unlike Romney and Gingrich, Santorum has never dabbled with eco-radicals like John Holdren, Al Gore and Nancy Pelosi. He hasn’t written any “Contracts with the Earth.” Santorum is strong on border security, national security, and defense. Mitt the Flip-Flopper and Open Borders-Pandering Newt have been far less trustworthy on immigration enforcement. Santorum is an eloquent spokesperson for the culture of life. He has been savaged and ridiculed by leftist elites for upholding traditional family values – not just in word, but in deed. Personally, I think Santorum’s big government votes under Bush ought to be given more weight. Republicans tend to be much less fiscally conservative when they hold power or act on behalf of parochial concerns, so candidates who resist that temptation have more credibility than those who don’t. Santorum has also given little indication of having learned from the foreign policy blunders of the Bush years. That said, it is a respectable case, especially when compared to the contortions others must go through to justify supporting their preferred candidate. It’s also a reminder of why Santorum is going to continue to collect a lot of votes from conservatives uncomfortable with the frontrunners’ records.
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Michelle Malkin Endorses Rick Santorum
The fallout over Barack Obama’s decision to kill 20,000 (mostly) union jobs on the proposed Keystone XL pipeline project continues as the Laborers International Union of North America left the BlueGreen Alliance Friday afternoon. Founded in 2006, the BlueGreen Alliance is a political pairing of left-wing unions and environmental groups whose mission (so to speak) is to ensure that America’s conversion to a green economy results in union jobs as jobs in industries like coal are destroyed. Included among its stated goals are passage of cap and trade legislation, as well as the Employee Free Choice Act (aka card-check unionization ). According to the Laborers’ union press release announcing the union’s departure from the BlueGreen Alliance on Friday afternoon, at least Laborers’ president Terry O’Sullivan seems to be understanding the Devil’s pact union bosses have made by sacrificing their members’ jobs in exchange for an economically-unrealistic “green” economy: “ AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka recently said there was a divide in the labor movement over this project ,” LIUNA General President Terry O’Sullivan said. “ That is an understatement. That divide is as deep and wide as the Grand Canyon. We’re repulsed by some of our supposed brothers and sisters lining up with job killers like the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council to destroy the lives of working men and women .” [Emphasis added.] Specifically, O’Sullivan was referencing the CWA, SEIU, UAW, Transport Workers Union, United Steelworkers Union and Amalgamated Transit Union who had sold their souls (and union jobs) to the environmentalists and praised Obama’s decision to side with the green activists by killing the pipeline, as well as destroying the hopes of unemployed union members. O’Sullivan said Keystone is only the beginning of what will likely be a protracted struggle over major projects to build and strengthen America’s energy infrastructure. “LIUNA plans to unite with the support of the strong and proud unions of the AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Department to fight for good jobs that build America and strengthen our energy resources,” he said. “We will not stand idly by, nor will the Building Trades.” [snip] “Their real target wasn’t the pipeline, but the oil sands. They missed that target – the oil sands will be developed whether Keystone XL is built or not – but hit tens of thousands of working men and women,” O’Sullivan said. “ It is impossible for LIUNA to stand side-by-side with these groups . Construction workers are struggling with 16 percent unemployment and 1.3 million of them are jobless. The Keystone XL was not just a pipeline to them, it was a lifeline .” [Emphasis added.] While another BlueGreen Alliance member, the United Association of Plumbers & Pipefitters, whose members would have also seen work on the Keystone pipeline project has curiously stayed silent so far, the IBEW issued its own release on its website, which stated : While we are deeply disappointed with the U. S. State Department’s decision not to move forward with the Keystone XL pipeline, we are more concerned that a vital project that would create 20,000 construction and manufacturing jobs, generate $585 million in state and local taxes plus another $5 billion in property taxes and strengthen North America’s energy independence, has been ensnared in the political deadlock in Washington. On Wednesday, in addition to the Laborers’ scorching comdemnation of Obama’s decision, Mark Ayers, president of the AFL-CIO’s Building & Construction Trade Division (an umbrella group of 16 AFL-CIO construction trade unions) stated : With a national unemployment rate in construction at 16% nationally, it is beyond disappointing that President Obama placed a higher priority on politics rather than our nation’s number one challenge: jobs. Environmental activists who are not saddled with the economic and psychological scars that accompany long-term unemployment will applaud the fact that they successfully induced the White House to block this project. Meanwhile, thousands of proud Americans throughout the heartland will once again be faced with the terrifying prospect of losing their homes and their livelihoods as they struggle to find work. As was noted in the 2008 campaign, Barack Obama’s plan replace jobs destroyed with his “green agenda” was faulty at best. In fact, the Sierra Club’s “Beyond Coal” campaign has already destroyed up to 1.24 million jobs in 36 states—with more surely to come. For the sake of jobs (union and union-free), let us hope that more union bosses—and, if not them, their members —wake up from their delusion that Barack Obama is actually interested in creating jobs, as opposed to his agenda to “transform America.” __________________ “Socialism has no place in the hearts of those who would secure the fight for freedom and preserve democracy.” Samuel Gompers, American Federation of Labor, 1918 Cross-posted on LaborUnionReport.com
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Fallout On Obama’s Killing Of Keystone Jobs Continues As “Repulsed” Laborers’ Union Quits Alliance
What is to blame for Americans ‘ economic woes? Why, Americans ‘ selfish desires, according to a school of thought that appears to be currently dominant in the White House. An excellent example of this line of thinking is former presidential economic advisor Robert Reich ‘ s recent article in the Financial Times , in which he claims America ‘ s ” insatiable consumers ” have destroyed the economy and the ” hubs of our communities ” with their relentless pursuit of ” great deals. ” The ” lure of the bargain, ” suggests Reich, is a destructive force. Well that ‘ s rich — Berkeley professor Reich, clearly a member of the 1 percent, attacking the 99. While Reich consider low prices a great evil, he ignores what they actually mean. Low prices indicate that a good or service has become more abundant — that is, more available . This availability of goods and services is the very definition prosperity. The pursuit of low prices, which so offends Reich, is just the pursuit of prosperity — the pursuit of happiness that the Declaration of Independence called ” unalienable. ” Reich blames Americans ‘ desire for lower prices, prosperity, and happiness for sending jobs ” elsewhere. ” But he ignores the fact that those lower prices mean we have more money available to buy other, costlier goods and services here in America. So rather than make snow globes and t-shirts, Americans develop advanced technology, manufacture airplanes and cars, and provide the world ‘ s best financial, health, and education services. They use iPads that put enormous competitive pressures on laptop manufacturers and publishers to provide more creative services to people who want them. It is enough to make on wonder whether Reich has ever read Schumpeter, who in 1942 pointed out: ” The capitalist achievement does not typically consist in providing more silk stockings for queens but in bringing them within the reach of factory girls in return for steadily decreasing amounts of effort. ” ( Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy , p. 67) Trade freed Americans from the sweatshop and now it is freeing them from the factory floor. It will do the same for Asians and Africans. Yet Reich would end trade with poor countries, since their environmental and working conditions ” offend common decency. ” Does Reich truly believe these workers ‘ usual alternative, subsistence farming, can gain them a ” decent ” standard of living? Does he really believe he knows better than the poor in developing countries what is best for them? Not allowing those workers to decide for themselves would keep them in poverty. Meanwhile, middle-class Americans are made worse off by higher prices. Reich isn ‘ t the only Obama ally who wants higher prices. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner wants more subsidies to raise housing prices — even after those policies created a housing bubble that led to the current financial crisis. Commerce Secretary John Bryson has championed the cause of higher energy prices since the 1970s, telling Justice Stephen Breyer during a 2010 panel discussion that ” energy prices are going to have to go up. ” Breyer responded by saying , ” We better get away from oil. That’ll help us. … Raise the price of oil! Raise it through the roof, and then people will look for substitutes. ” It ‘ s easy for rich liberals to ask for higher taxes and higher prices, but these policies dramatically damage Americans ‘ standard of living. President Obama ‘ s cap and trade bill would have cost each American family $1,761 per year, according to the White House ‘ s own figures . While that bill failed, Obama ‘ s anti-drilling, anti-pipeline, anti-energy agenda is already forcing Americans to spend more on gas as a percentage of their income last year than at any point in the last three decades. Higher prices can and do kill the American dream. Reich wants to ” protect jobs and wages ” with ” democratic institutions that shape and constrain markets ” — the very same institutions he claims are controlled by corporations. The reality is that large corporations do benefit from government meddling in markets. Regulations increase costs that large companies can absorb but that can drive small companies out of business. Low prices mean abundance and prosperity. High prices mean scarcity and privation. The dynamic capitalism that works to drive prices ever lower has helped make America the most prosperous nation on Earth. The high price economy the Obama administration and its supporters want will benefit no one — except, ironically, some of the 1 percent.
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The High Price Economy
Those who contribute to, vote for, or otherwise support today’s Democrat party need to catch up to the curve. These are not your father’s Democrats. George McGovern would be a moderate in this party. This is the party that rejected Hillary Clinton because she was not left enough. Instead it literally took a Marxist street agitator from the Chicago political machine and put him in the White House. Barack Obama was actually teaching the social manipulation methods of openly communist revolutionary Saul Alinsky to other Marxist revolutionaries for the radical communist front group ACORN. His weird name reflects his personal rejection of American culture. This is the person today’s Democrat party wanted for President. But it is not just him. The leader of the House Democrats is former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, ultraleft San Francisco Democrat totem. She is virtually as far left as Obama, and her public statements make Sarah Palin seem like a Ph.D. in economics. She keeps telling us that unemployment insurance payments are the best way to restore booming economic growth and prosperity. When the American people rebuked Pelosi’s ultraleft leadership as House Speaker, turning to the Republicans for the greatest House turnover since the New Deal, House Democrats responded with their own rebuke of the people. They voted Pelosi right back in as their leader, effectively saying to the American people that they were too stupid to know what they are doing, and that Pelosi’s ultraleft San Francisco values best represent the Democrat party’s ideals. The Democrats also elected as DNC Chairman the unreasoned and far left screamer and name caller Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who also makes Sarah Palin look like a rocket scientist. She touts as her achievements in the Florida legislature the Florida Residential Swimming Pools Safety Act, and state regulation of dry cleaning prices. She compiled during her career there the widely noted most liberal-left voting record of any state legislator. The Democrat party considered that the perfect qualification for party chairman. If you think that increased government spending, deficits, and debt are the key to economic growth and prosperity, then this is the party for you. That is explicitly its economic policy, as crazy as that sounds. Democrats call it Keynesian economics. If you don’t agree that increased government spending, deficits, and debt promote economic growth, then you shouldn’t be voting for, contributing to, and supporting Democrats, and you shouldn’t let your friends do so either. Obama’s Hugo Chavez Strategy Our esteemed El Presidente greeted us in the new year with recess appointments of Richard Cordray as chief of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and three new members of the increasingly rogue National Labor Relations Board. There was just one problem. The Congress was not in recess. These appointments were consequently illegal, and in direct violation of the explicit text of the Constitution. As Stanford Law School Professor Michael McConnell explained in the Wall Street Journal on January 10, “It is hard to imagine a plausible constitutional basis for the appointments. The President has the power to make recess appointments only when the Senate is in recess.” McConnell further explained, “Article I, Section 5, Clause 4 [of the Constitution] requires the concurrence of the other house to any adjournment of more than three days. The Senate did not request, and the House did not agree to, any such adjournment.” The White House issued a supposed legal opinion to justify its action, claiming that the President refuses to take seriously the idea that the Senate was not in its Christmas recess after December 17. But somehow the Senate did manage to pass the President’s payroll tax holiday extension on December 23. The “legal opinion” is consequently nothing more than the taunt, “So sue us.” Actually, the entire Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, yet another regulatory bureaucracy enacted in the President’s notorious Dodd-Frank financial regulation bill, is transparently and undeniably unconstitutional under the Supreme Court’s recent ruling in the Free Enterprise Fund case. That case involved the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board established by the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation . The Court found that regulatory bureaucracy unconstitutional because it was an executive agency outside the direct control of the President. While the President made appointments to the Board, it was an independent agency reporting to another independent agency, the Securities and Exchange Commission. Moreover, the Board in that case determined its own budget financed by the fees it set itself on the regulated enterprises. A rogue institution outside direct public accountability and control. But that didn’t stop the President and the Democrat Congress from adopting the exact same framework for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in Dodd-Frank. That too is an independent body reporting to another independent body, the Federal Reserve, and even it has only limited and marginal oversight authority. Moreover, the Bureau sets its own budget as well, with fees it itself determines to assess on financial institutions, for the glory of being regulated by fools. The response of the Obama Administration is catch us if you can. The first time Cordray’s Bureau tries to enforce a regulation or fine against a bank, the action will be declared null and void because of Cordray’s illegal appointment, with the entire agency struck down as unconstitutional. But it is part of President Obama’s reelection strategy for him to pose as hamstrung into taking extraordinary actions to counter recalcitrant Republicans seeking to protect Wall Street and big shot bankers from the loving Democrats just trying to protect the little guy. Most of what President Obama does and says, in fact, is calculated deception, based on fooling the little guy into supporting Democrat authoritarianism, or worse, in a second term, with calculation as to what that little guy doesn’t and won’t know, and what a party controlled media won’t tell him. So President Obama doesn’t care about what the law says. By the time the legal system catches up with him, he will be reelected, he figures. And maybe by then he will have appointed more fellow Marxists to the Supreme Court, who don’t care about what the law says either. As McConnell added in the Journal regarding Obama’s illegal appointments: This is not the first time this administration has asserted unilateral executive power beyond past presidential practice and the seeming letter of the Constitution. Its slender justification for going to war in Libya without a congressional declaration persuaded almost no one, and its evading of the reporting requirements of the War Powers Resolution — over the legal objection of Justice Department lawyers — was even more brazen. McConnell explained, “Indeed, the Obama Administration has admitted to a strategy of government by executive order when it cannot prevail through proper legislative channels.” For example, instead of seeking legislative changes to the No Child Left Behind education law passed under President Bush, it has used waiver authority to implement Obama policies that were never legislatively enacted. When even a Democrat supermajority Congress refused to pass cap and trade legislation, the President used the EPA to implement it instead, telling us ominously “there is more than one way to skin a cat.” And when the Democrat supermajority Congress also refused to pass “card check” legislation, which would abolish secret ballot elections for workers to decide whether they wanted a union, the President’s National Labor Relations Board announced it would impose the policy by regulation. And now the President is making illegal appointments to that Board. And your friends and neighbors are considering whether to give this authoritarian a second term? Imagine what that would be like, with Obama never having to stand for election again. Would there even be another election? Che’s Tax Policy Talk about calculated deception. President Obama has spent the past year telling the American people that the rich don’t pay any taxes, leaving the middle class and working people to pay it all, when more nearly the opposite is true. Even before President Obama was elected, official IRS data showed that in 2007 the top 1% of income earners paid 40.4% of all federal income taxes, almost twice their share of adjusted gross income. The top 5% paid 60.6% of all federal income taxes, while earning 37.7% of adjusted gross income. The top 10% paid 71.2% of all income taxes, while earning 48% of adjusted gross income. By contrast, the bottom 95% of income earners paid 39.4% of all federal income taxes. That means the top 1% of income earners paid more federal income taxes than the bottom 95%! Again, this was before the comprehensive, across the board, tax rate increases for every major federal tax central to President Obama’s economic plan, which Obama has already enacted into current law to go into effect next year. He justified those soaring rate increases by saying they were necessary to ensure that the rich paid their fair share of taxes. But given the truth above, just what would be their “fair share?” The same tax policies are found in Democrat-run states. In California, the top 1% of income earners pay 48% of all state income taxes. The top 1% of income earners in New York pay 41% of all state income taxes. The top 1% of income earners in New Jersey pay 46% of all state income taxes. Moreover, in 2007, again before President Obama was even elected, the bottom 40% of income earners as a group paid no federal income taxes. Instead, they received net payments from the income tax system equal to 3.8% of all federal income taxes. I n other words, they paid negative 3.8% of federal income taxes. The middle 20% of income earners, the actual middle class, paid 4.7% of all federal income taxes. This is the result of Reagan Republican supply-side economics that began with Reagan and Jack Kemp in the 1970s and 1980s, continued through Newt Gingrich and his Contract With America, and further played out with the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003. Reagan and his Republicans abolished federal income taxes on the poor and what liberals call the working class. Moreover, they almost abolished federal income taxes on the actual middle class (the middle 20%). The origins of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), which has done so much to reduce income tax liabilities for lower income people, can be found in Ronald Reagan’s famous testimony before the Senate Finance Committee in 1972, where he proposed exempting the working poor from all Social Security and income taxes as an alternative to welfare. As President, Reagan cut federal income tax rates across the board for all taxpayers by 25%. He also indexed the tax brackets for all taxpayers to prevent inflation from pushing workers into higher tax brackets. In the Tax Reform Act of 1986, President Reagan reduced the federal income tax rate for the middle class all the way down to 15%. That act also doubled the personal exemption, shielding more income from taxation for everybody. Newt Gingrich’s Contract With America adopted a child tax credit of $500 per child that reduced the tax liabilities of lower income people by a higher percentage than for higher income people. President Bush doubled that credit to $1,000 per child, and made it refundable so that low-income people who do not even pay $1,000 in federal income taxes could still get the full credit. Bush also adopted a new lower tax bracket for the lowest income workers of 10%, reducing their federal income tax rate by 33%. Again, he cut the top rate for the highest income workers by just 11.6%, from 39.6% to 35%. Consequently, primarily as a result of Reagan Republican tax policies, even before President Obama was elected America actually had the most progressive tax policies in the world. When President Reagan was elected, the share of federal income taxes paid by the top 1% was 17.6%. After a quarter century of rate cuts, that share had more than doubled by 2007, as indicated above. That is because with the lower tax rates, incomes boomed along with the economy, and high income taxpayers had the incentives to pull their money out of tax shelters and invest it in the real economy, fueling the boom while increasing their reported income. That is why Jack Kemp always used to say, if you want to soak the rich, cut tax rates. In an article last week in the Wall Street Journal, Art Laffer showed that Kemp’s strategy has long been the most effective way to raise taxes paid by the rich. From 1921 to 1928, the top marginal income tax rate was slashed from 73% to 25%. Federal income taxes paid by the top 1% of income earners nearly doubled as a percent of GDP, from 0.6% to 1.1%. As a result of the Kennedy tax cuts adopted in 1964, the top income tax rate was slashed from 91% to 70%. Federal income taxes paid by the top 1% rose by 50% as a percent of GDP, from 1.3% to 1.9%. Laffer adds in the Journal , “Since 1978, the top earned income tax rate fell to 35% from 50%, the top capital gains tax rate fell to 15% from 39.9%, and the highest dividend tax rate fell to 15% from 70%.” Meanwhile, federal income taxes paid by the top 1% of income earners as a percent of GDP more than doubled from 1.5% in 1978 to 3.3% in 2007, while the bottom 95% saw their tax payments fall from 5.4% of GDP in 1978 to 3.2% in 2007. Laffer asks why Obama sycophant Mr. Buffett would want to reverse those numbers. He could ask as well why would Mr. Obama. The answer is neither wants to do so. Buffett is just playing for good publicity. Obama is just playing the voters to get reelected. I would be tempted to call President Obama a liar. But I am not in such a generous mood.
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The Che Guevara Democrat Party
The coming year will not give us a break from the steady stream of political knavery, green graft and governmental stupidity that 2011 delivered, though it will surely provide a flood of politically-induced comedy. JANUARY: An enterprising BBC reporter — seeking to prove the practicality of electric cars — drove from London to Edinburgh. The journey took four days — longer than a horse-drawn stage would have taken for the trip 150 years ago — including nine stops of up to ten hours. (In its first crisis summit of the year, EU leaders declared they would impose Germanic controls on its members’ sovereign debts and toasted each other with large portions of Rémy Martin Louis XIII cognac. Meanwhile, in the first Republican presidential debate, both television viewers cheered when twelve contenders, apparently chosen at random, actually showed up.) FEBRUARY: Chicago chose as its new mayor former White House chief of staff Rahm Effing Emanuel, who immediately ordered a voter registration drive in the city’s cemeteries. Shortly after that, the “Arab spring training season” began in Egypt. After Secretary of State Hillary said that the Mubarak regime was stable, the Cairo Clubbers traded their top grenade thrower to the Port Said Molotovs for two machine-gunners and a future draft pick. (In an urgent crisis summit, Eurozone leaders sought to solve Greece’s insolvency by imposing budget rationalization written by Italian PM Silvio Burlesqueoni. Eurozone leaders toasted each other’s wisdom with a tiny sip of Dom Perignon 1975 champagne. Burlesqueoni requisitioned the rest of the bottle for what he called a “bunga-bunga” party, which term had to be translated for the media by Bill Clinton.) MARCH: In January, Obama had proclaimed France our best and strongest ally. Because the French never forgive a favor, Sarkozy dragged Obama into his war for glory in Libya. Barry called it a “kinetic military action” and cute little Sarah called it a “squirmish.” My blazingly brilliant pal, Andy McCarthy, said that henceforth we should call acts of terrorism “kinetic Islam.” Barry told Congress to stuff its War Powers Resolution because bombing Libya wasn’t a hostile act. Meanwhile, Hillary called Syria’s Bashar Assad a “reformer.” Obama’s hostility was reserved for Israel, and only increased when Israeli PM Netanyahu schooled him in front of the television cameras. Despite comments from both governments, it was clear that Obama’s anger, in this instance, emanated only from the fact that Bibi pulled it off without a teleprompter. Forget APRIL and go to MAY, when we were treated to the news that the best of the best –”DevGroup,” formerly known as SEAL Team 6 — killed Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan where the Paks had hidden him for about five years. On the day the White House revealed that a large porn stash was found in bin Laden’s house, we also learned that the Real Wives of bin Laden weren’t cooperating with interrogators, which two events are not logically connected. The Navy named a new ship for migrant labor activist Cesar Chavez, best remembered for his role in pushing the 1986 amnesty for illegal aliens. According to one highly inebriated source, if Obama is re-elected the next three Navy ships (if any are built) will be named for Barney Frank, Jane Fonda. and Eric Holder. Before May ended former Illinois gov Rod Blagojevich testified in his corruption retrial that he was a “f****** jerk,” a fact of which the court could have taken judicial notice. After Disney Corp. surrendered its attempt to trademark “SEAL Team 6″ for toys, video games and such, no court could find that Mickey Mouse was a f****** jerk without additional evidence. JUNE: Enterprising Aussies found a new “cap and trade” scheme in an attempt to qualify for the Guinness Book of World Records for the “most corrupt carbon market.” Figuring that a camel produces 45 kilograms of carbon (in the form of methane) each year, the “kill a camel for carbon credits” plan quickly took shape. The conversion of camels to food may yet prove profitable because Aussies will eat anything as long as there’s enough beer to wash it down. Meanwhile, New York Cong. Anthony Weiner (D-of course. Why did you even ask?) became the first known “Twitticide” when he sent a picture of his aroused equipment out via the social networking site. As a NY Post headline said, “Erections have Consequences.” TSA thugs forced a 95-year old woman to remove her adult diaper, apparently confusing its plastic liner for explosives. (In another crisis summit, the Eurozone leaders resolved to bail out Greece with Italian-minted euros, and tried to give the bill to the International Monetary Fund. They toasted their latest success by drinking large glasses of Stolichnaya vodka. Television networks announced that the Republican debate series would replace both “Survivor” and “Real Housewives of Frostbite Falls” but not “Jersey Shore.” A splinter group of Iowa Republicans, seeking enhance their cash killing from selling tickets to the January caucuses, tried to get Snooki to declare her candidacy. The effort was stopped when a secret poll revealed she would get more votes than Ron Paul.) At about that time, we heard that Jack Daniels may be driven north out of its native Tennessee by tax-hikers. “Michigan Sipping Whiskey” may be coming soon to a liquor store near you. The Pentagon — convinced that ignorance is strength — declared that the Fort Hood Massacre, accomplished by crazed Muslim Nidal Hassan, was “workplace violence.” Because ignorance is a less effective defense than drunkenness, the city of Sunland Park, New Mexico denied the validity of several large contracts signed by Mayor Martin Resendiz who claimed he had been drunk when he signed them. (Seizing the opportunity in Resendiz’s statement, Eurozone leaders announced that their predecessors had been drunk when they signed the Maastricht Treaty. When they made that announcement, the Eurozoners were observed to be imbibing a large glass of something called the “Merkozy cocktail.” Laboratory analysis later revealed that the drink was a mix of Kool Aid, vodka and LSD.) Physicists at the CERN research center in Switzerland sent a stream of neutrinos to Italy where it was determined that the neutrinos had exceeded the speed of light and arrived before they left, apparently disproving Einstein’s theory of Special Relativity. The EU reacted angrily because in Europe nothing is allowed to go faster than anything else for fear that it might work harder. The EU enacted a special neutrino speed tax which Italy couldn’t pay because the entire Italian treasury had been spent on new Maseratis for the Ministry of Defense. The Italian parliament tried to determine who was driving the Maseratis and failed because none of the MoD staff had reported to work since Mussolini was executed. JULY: Niko Alm competed successfully with Muslim women for the right to self-decorate while being photographed for official government ID’s. Proclaiming himself a “Pastafarian” — a previously obscure religion that worships the Flying Spaghetti Monster — Mr. Alm succeeded in having his Austrian drivers’ license photo taken with a colander on his head. Rep. Ron Paul said he was not running for re-election to congress so that he could concentrate on his presidential bid. It was unclear, even after the first 638 Republican candidate debates, whether Paul wanted to run as a Republican or a Pastafarian. AUGUST: The proudest symbol of Barry’s green jobs campaign — Solyndra — filed for bankruptcy, leaving us stuck with the $535 million loan guarantee by the Energy Department. Fisker — an electric car company — got a huge loan from the Energy Department and promptly spent it on a production facility in Norway. Tesla, yet another green grifter company closely tied to Obama, also got a multi-hundred million dollar loan, which will be repaid as soon as hell freezes over or liberals admit these rent seekers are doing less than duck hunters to preserve the earth. Meanwhile, Congress and Obama agreed to raise the debt ceiling and play Russian roulette with an empty pistol. They created a congressional Supercommittee tasked to reduce our debt by great green globs by Thanksgiving. The bill included a “trigger mechanism” to impose “sequestration,” making automatic massive and painful cuts to defense and domestic spending, but not to entitlements. Judging congressional achievement appropriately, Standard and Poor’s declared the Obama downgrade, a first for America’s credit rating. The biochemical causation of this congressional knavery was confirmed by the dating service Chemistry.com, which reported that Washington, D.C. was among the top ten cities in which “high-estrogen” men could be found. These men — according to Dr. Helen Fisher of Chemistry.com — are “sensitive men who are concerned about the state of the world.” You know: girlie-men. Meanwhile, TSA inaugurated a new airport security measure, which requires any woman over the age of 60 to be held upside down and shaken to dislodge any hidden weapons or costume jewelry. SEPTEMBER: Republican debates became so boring that television networks considered hiring fake moderators such as Donald Trump. The problem can best be solved, without Trump, by ensuring that future debates are moderated, seriatim, by John Madden, the Kardashian sisters, and Liam Neeson accompanied by the rest of the stars of the “A-Team” movie appearing in character. I pity the fools… Audi of America President Johan de Nysschen called the Chevy Volt — Obama’s favorite automobile — a car for idiots. The Volt is the worst and most heavily government-subsidized car since the previous worst car of all time, the East German Trabant, which the Volt matches in performance and reliability. Don’t get matches close to it, because the Volt’s batteries are prone to catching fire. GM reported that it had sold 6,000 Volts so far, which means that, all told, the subsidy amounts to about $250,000 per car, a Great Green bargain. (Actually, a large part of those sales were to the government, which only multiplies the subsidy by making us pay for the cars twice.) In October, we all mourned the death of Apple genius Steve Jobs. Shortly after he left us, the world’s BlackBerry service was disrupted for several days which coincided with Apple’s announcement of the new “iHaunt” app for the iPhone. Meanwhile, Libyan rebels found Muammar Qaddafi-Gaddafi-Khadaffy cowering in a sewer. Khadafi was reportedly killed in a crossfire (between the guy on his right and the guy on his left.) This event was mourned only by editors who will no longer be able to make their reporters’ lives miserable by randomly imposing different spellings of Moammar’s name. The aforementioned N.Y. Post celebrated by publishing the best headline page in decades. Seems the guy who may have killed Krudaffy with his own gun was wearing a particular baseball cap. Which headline and subhead were too good to not reprint in full: “KHADAFY KILLED BY YANKEE FAN: Gunman had more hits than A-Rod.”
