Saturday, November 19, 2011
Friday, November 18, 2011
After Party Photos
Frieda from the Missouri Precinct Project spoke at the St. Louis Tea Party's November After Party about the importance of getting involved as precinct committeemen/women, canvasing for candidates, and volunteering to be election judges/challengers. Thanks to Wes for the pictures above!
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Freddie Mac's Ed Haldeman gets a Golden Parachute
ZeroHedge: Congress Shocked To Find That Being CEO Of A Bankrupt Company Is The New Killing It:
Two weeks ago we reported with sheer disgust that the outgoing CEO of bankrupt Freddie Mac, Ed Haldeman, was to pocket over $4 million for his brief two year stay at the nationalized GSE, which money was to reward him for lots of hard work collecting bail out cash from the Treasury. $21 billion to be precise. Apparently it is not easy to beg from Tim Geithner which explains the compensation for a task which is essentially supervising a financial black hole with an attached run off portfolio.
Obviously, it pays to have friends in high places.
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Music for Veteran's Day: While There's Time
I met Carrie Beth and Stacie Ruth Stoelting of Unite the USA at the Values Voter Summit this past October. They released the video above as a tribute to America's veterans.
Steve Tilley bows out of Lieutenant Governor's Race
Tilley had been piling up huge fundraising quarters for the past six month, reporting $1.5 million on-hand last month. That sum, together with a long list of endorsements ready to roll out, helped him clear the field for the Republican primary.Moving from a state rep district to a state-wide race requires a commitment beyond just the dollars involved. You have to be willing to make a lot of personal sacrifices to put time in on the campaign trail. While I have not seen a statement from Tilley about his decision to abandon the LG race, I suspect he's realized the stress of such a campaign would take a toll on his family. It's good to see that he's taking a difficult step toward spending more time with his daughters. They do grow up and he'll never have that opportunity again.
Best of luck to Speaker Tilley in his future pursuits!
Monday, November 7, 2011
The Siren Song of Crony Capitalism
Sarah Palin as quoted by Mickey Kaus at the Daily Caller: Psst! Palin’s speech was better [emphasis in original]:
Yeah, the permanent political class – they’re doing just fine. Ever notice how so many of them arrive in Washington, D.C. of modest means and then miraculously throughout the years they end up becoming very, very wealthy? Well, it’s because they derive power and their wealth from their access to our money – to taxpayer dollars. They use it to bail out their friends on Wall Street and their corporate cronies, and to reward campaign contributors, and to buy votes via earmarks. There is so much waste. And there is a name for this: It’s called corporate crony capitalism. This is not the capitalism of free men and free markets, of innovation and hard work and ethics, of sacrifice and of risk. No, this is the capitalism of connections and government bailouts and handouts, of waste and influence peddling and corporate welfare. This is the crony capitalism that destroyed Europe’s economies. It’s the collusion of big government and big business and big finance to the detriment of all the rest – to the little guys. It’s a slap in the face to our small business owners – the true entrepreneurs, the job creators accounting for 70% of the jobs in America, it’s you who own these small businesses, you’re the economic engine, but you don’t grease the wheels of government power. So, do you want to know why the permanent political class doesn’t really want to cut any spending? Do you want to know why nothing ever really gets done? It’s because there’s nothing in it for them. They’ve got a lot of mouths to feed – a lot of corporate lobbyists and a lot of special interests that are counting on them to keep the good times and the money rolling along.
Saturday, November 5, 2011
Ann Wagner's Foreign Donors Bring Flashbacks of Obama's 2008 Campaign
The race in Missouri's 2nd Congressional District between Ann Wagner and Ed Martin has already been a bit messy. I know people that support both candidates. I was surprised, however, when someone emailed me to say that at least two of Ann's donors live in Europe because that reminded me of the shenanigans of Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign.
I don't know if Cindy Cope of Hessen, Germany, or Lisa Burrell of Weybridge, England, are American citizens or not, but I suspect that both of them are. Remember, Ann Wagner used to be Ambassador to Luxembourg. Perhaps, she met these two ex-pat homemakers while serving across the pond and struck up a friendship. Yes, if either of them is not an American, Wagner will have to return the money. Maybe the FEC would get involved, I don't know.
That said, I do think it's important to remember the illegal foreign donations that fueled Obama's 2008 campaign. Ace of Spades HQ was on point during that fiasco that never really left the blogosphere. It's important to understand how web-based credit card donation systems work, so I'll start with that.
When you make an online donation (or purchase) with a credit card, your transaction is checked through the Address Verification System (AVS). That system verifies that the address you supplied for your donation (purchase) is the same address on file with the credit card companies. If the addresses don't match, then the AVS returns a message explaining the discrepancy and stops the transaction. In 2008, Obama's campaign deliberately disabled this fraud detection tool on their campaign website.
As Ace and other bloggers reported in October 2008:
I cannot stress enough: AVS is default. It is not an arcane option you can choose. It is the default. To turn it off requires deliberate, intentional action.
And Barack Obama cannot offer any plausible legitimate reason for doing so.
Why does Barack Obama [have] less security on his credit card donations than my local cheesesteak shop?With the AVS system disabled, donations could be made from anywhere in the world with any accepted credit card. Cards issued overseas would never be traceable. Obama's campaign did not keep any of the credit card numbers used to donate. That's understandable. If you give a campaign money, you don't usually want to leave your credit card on file with them. That also means that there's a little less substantive evidence to prove this fraud.
When I got an email about Ann Wagner getting foreign donations, that all came rushing back. I think Ann's just got a great fundraising network.
Star Parker: Liberals Treat Herman Cain Like a Runaway Slave
Sean Hannity interviewed Star Parker and Dr. Marc Lamont Hill on his radio show November 2nd. Star had some harsh criticism for of the liberal attacks on Herman Cain.
Interestingly, Star Parker's Wikipedia page has been deleted. Here's a screen grab of the deletion message:
Wikipedia gets bashed a lot in conservative circles because of things like this. They deserve it; however, you can make a difference by creating a free and (optionally) anonymous Wikipedia account ("create account" is in the upper right corner of that page). Once you can login to Wikipedia, you'll be able to create and edit content their encyclopedia articles. That's one area of the Internet that I think needs more involvement from Tea Party conservatives.
Friday, November 4, 2011
In the Fight: Episode 56
The Defense Video & Imagery Distribution System produced Episode 56 of In The Fight. Here's their description of this half-hour show:
On this episode, we meet Soldiers living with the daily threat of rocket attacks on the Afghan-Pakistan border, U.S. forces consult the Iraqi military as they continue to draw down in Iraq, Afghan security forces take part in a rigorous four month long training program, Marines begin using alternative energy to power the battlefield, and a service member takes it upon himself to help a child.Related articles
Chicago Mercantile Exchange Tightened Margin Requirements
Zerohedge: CME Goes To Margin DefCon 1: Makes Maintenance Margin Equal To Initial For... Everything!?:
...as of close of business on November 4, today, the CME just made the maintenance margin, traditionally about 26% lower than the initial margin for specs,equal. For everything. Which means that by close of business Monday, millions of options and futures holders will be forced to deposit billions in additional capital to the CME just so they are not found to be margin deficient, and thus receive a margin call. Naturally, since it is very unlikely that this incremental amount of liquidity can be easily procured in one business day, we anticipate the issuance of hundreds of thousands of margin calls Monday, followed by forced liquidations of margin accounts across America... and the world. Just like when Lehman blew up, it took 5 days for Money Markets to break.Those billions in additional capital also represent billions of dollars worth of demand on the CME. By regulatory fiat, that demand has just evaporated which implies that commodity prices will fall.
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