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AG Holder lied to Congress on Fast and Furious
New documents obtained by CBS News show Attorney General Eric Holder was sent briefings on the controversial Fast and Furious guns operation as far back as July of 2010. That directly contradicts his statement to Congress.
On May 3, 2011, Holder told a Judiciary Committee hearing, “I’m not sure of the exact date, but I probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks.”
In Fast and Furious, ATF agents allegedly allowed thousands of weapons to cross the border and fall into the hands of Mexican drug cartels. It’s called letting guns “walk,” and it remained secret to the public until Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was murdered last December. Two guns from Fast and Furious were found at the scene. And ATF agent John Dodson blew the whistle on the operation.
Corruption abounds in this White House and the media is complicit in trying to hide it all.
President to propose “millionaire’s tax” to help balance the budget
This is either scraping the bottom of the ideas barrel or the president is light years ahead of the rest of us, and knows something we don’t:
Mr. Obama, in a bit of political salesmanship, will call his proposal the “Buffett Rule,” in a reference to Warren E. Buffett, the billionaire investor who has complained repeatedly that the richest Americans generally pay a smaller share of their income in federal taxes than do middle-income workers, because investment gains are taxed at a lower rate than wages.
Mr. Obama will not specify a rate or other details, and it is unclear how much revenue his plan would raise. But his idea of a millionaires’ minimum tax will be prominent in the broad plan for long-term deficit reduction that he will outline at the White House on Monday.
So for the second time in a month, President Transparency proposes a literal blank slate of legislation, and is encouragin its passage. Kings have had harder times in mandating edicts.
What is this nonsense if it isn’t class warfare, and a desperate attempt to start discord among Republicans? After a disastrous few weeks for Obama and the Democrats, this is most definitely be his desired goal. The president knows that the proposed tax is dead on arrival in the House. He knows this. And anyone with a brain knows that this does nothing to create jobs, and is a drop in the bucket with regards to deficit reduction.
But Republicans will have to defend not endorsing it, and the administration, along with Democratic congressional leaders, will go on the offensive. But as the weeks drag on, and the government continues to pump out report after dismal report on the state of the economy (the September NFP report is out in a little over two weeks), it might not make a difference for the administration.
NY-9 race showing Mediscare tactics are not working for Democrats
With unemployment remaining over 9%, and Democrats providing nothing in the way of solutions, it’s no wonder voters are getting fed up:
[Democrat David] Weprin tried to adopt that strategy, warning that Turner would try to cut programs like Medicare and Social Security. But with unemployment still stubbornly high and voters upset with Washington over the debt ceiling negotiations, the pledge to protect entitlements was less resonant this time.
Democratic leaders trying to explain their bad night blamed it on the quirkiness of low-turnout special elections.
“The results in NY-09 are not reflective of what will happen in November 2012 when Democratic challengers run against Republican incumbents who voted to end Medicare and cut Social Security while protecting tax loopholes for big corporations and the ultra wealthy,” said Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Steve Israel of New York.
So Democrats are still sticking to the same talking points, despite a big denunciation of those talking points. Sounds like they have no solution that doesn’t involve wasting more taxpayer money. That’s a great strategy. For Republicans.
UPDATE. Mickey Kaus echoes what I wrote earlier on the failure of Mediscare:
After decades of pledging not to touch the two sacred programs, it’s beginning to look as if Democrats can’t just suddenly agree to pull trillions out of Social Security and Medicare and expect voters to maintain their reflexive loyalties. […]
Scaring voters about Paul Ryan and the Tea Partiers’s entitlement cuts was what was going to save Obama’s party from being dragged down even if Obama himself goes the way of Jimmy Carter. Now it looks as if that life preserver won’t float. …
Read Kaus’ entire post. He’s citing a Dave Weigel piece, which includes this bit of tragedy for Dems:
It’s the start of a problem for Democrats, who have gone from attacking the Ryan plans for entitlement reform to vouching support for some undefined “everything on the table” entitlement reform. There might not be any way for Democrats to dodge this, and there’s no sign that they want to. And that leaves all of them in the position of Democrats in New York’s 9th. Their traditional base, weary of the recession, not sure what Democrats have to offer any more, are ready to be wedged.
[h/t: Ace]
The Solyndra scandal for dummies
For those who want a brief, succinct explanation of the stench of cronyism, the stench of political corruption that is the story of President Obama and Solyndra, here is a five-panel cartoon.
First one in the series:
[h/t: Instapundit]
August NFP report shows net zero growth in jobs, the “great goose-egg economy”
A dismal labor report Friday showed the economy added zero net workers in August, intensifying pressure on President Obama to unveil a major jobs initiative during his speech to Congress next week.
The Labor Department report showed the unemployment rate stuck at 9.1 percent. It was the weakest jobs report since September 2010.
In a nutshell, this is the great goose egg economy — a big zero, a big nothing — and this better be one hell of a speech next week. There is a plethora of bad news. You have what is going on in Greece, you have lawsuits potentially coming today or Tuesday against the banks. You have the Fed in a Wall Street Journal article overnight asking Bank of America if they are going to be OK if things get really bad. There are a lot of confidence issues in the marketplace, the jobs number only made things worse and people wonder about this jobs number and its correlation with Philly Fed. That is scary.”
Who’s talking…