Feeling the pinch of the second edition of the “Summer of Recovery” ?

Well, do not worry, you can feel a little better knowing that those who helped kick off The Second Great Democrat Depression got plenty rich from you, your family’s and neighbor’s treasure.

About the only “good” part of the profane Dodd/Frank Wall Street Act (which is about as misnamed as the Ted Kennedy Violence Against Women Act) is that it did provide for a mandated “audit” of the Federal Reserve. Even a timid audit of this kind produced some amazing findings.

From The Raw Story:

The U.S. Federal Reserve gave out $16.1 trillion in emergency loans to U.S. and foreign financial institutions between Dec. 1, 2007 and July 21, 2010, according to figures produced by the government’s first-ever audit of the central bank.

Last year, the gross domestic product of the entire U.S. economy was $14.5 trillion.

Of the $16.1 trillion loaned out, $3.08 trillion went to financial institutions in the U.K., Germany, Switzerland, France and Belgium, the Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) analysis shows.

Additionally, asset swap arrangements were opened with banks in the U.K., Canada, Brazil, Japan, South Korea, Norway, Mexico, Singapore and Switzerland. Twelve of those arrangements are still ongoing, having been extended through August 2012.

So about 10% higher than the entire size of the U.S. economy. But, don’t worry. All of that “stimulus” will produce $100,000 jobs for everyone. Maybe. Possibly. One of these days. Or maybe not.

• 

• Tweet

To take just a few minutes away from today’s slaughter in Norway, here is a good laugh:

• 

• Tweet

On the heels of the Oslo bombing, are reports from SkyNews that “reports a man dressed as a policeman and armed with a handgun has attacked a summer camp for children near Oslo”

From The Telegraph via Jawa:

17.39 AFP is reporting that Jens Stoltenberg, the prime minister, had at one point been scheduled to attend the event on Utoya Island (the rally was for his Labour party), but he did not go for some reason.

17.33 People are reportedly phoning from Utoya saying they are benig shot at. Multiple ambulances being sent to the site. The alleged shooter was dressed as a police officer. He travelled on a boat to the island in the uniform and when he arrived he started shooting with a handgun, according to reports. Unconfirmed reports of four dead.

17.31 Andrew Ward, the Financial Times’ correspondent in Stockholm has more in the attack on Utoya. The event was being attended by up to 700 youths aged 14-25 attending the camp. Eyewitnesses are hearing “many, many, many” gunshots.

Michelle Malkin has much more. Including an amusing exchange with the inevitable “Do Not Jump To Conclusions” liberals.

It looks like these bombing and shootings are connected to one Mullah Krekar, as Norwegian authorities were planning on deporting him.

Update via Malkin: Police report a “massive vehicle bomb” was the source of the blast. Norwegian Twitter users reporting that police may be searching for more bombs.

• 

• Tweet

For sure, there have been an endless stream of WTF moments that have come from the Obama administration since it took power 2.5 years ago. From a President who needs a teleprompter to speak with schoolkids, to a vice-president who says that more spending needed to reduce the deficit (and who also thinks JOBS is a three letter word), to a Treasury secretary who did not pay his own taxes, the litany is endless. Utterly and completely endless.

However, we now might finally have the most deranged statement to come forth from an administration staff member yet.

Jay Carney, White Press secretary (which has to be the easiest job in the world, since all you are doing is lying to a bunch of Cookie Cutter Yes Men who nod their heads like a bobbing bird water toy), showed he must have eaten some of Michelle’s lead based veggies as he uttered a whopper that would even embarrass Goebbels.

Via Real Clear Politics (Hat Tip: Doug Powers)

“Well, two things remain uncontestably true. The economy is vastly improved from what it was when Barack Obama was sworn into office as president. We were in economic free-fall. There were predictions that we were headed to the second Great Depression. We were losing up to, over 700,000 jobs a month, we were contracting at greater than 6 percent — our economy was. So, the economy has improved. It has not improved enough.

“Well, there’s no question that we face headwinds, and the president has been very direct about that. And we need to do everything we can, across the front, to ensure we’re doing what we can to spur growth, spur job creation.”

Powers notes the obvious:

When Obama took office the unemployment rate was 7.2 percent — today, two and a half years later, it’s 9.2 percent. Gas was about $1.79 a gallon when Obama took office. Today it’s $3.68. There are around 13 million more people on food stamps today than there were in January of 2009. Sure, almost anybody can find statistics to suit their own argument, but all finger pointing to cast blame aside, if Carney actually believes it’s “uncontestably true” that the economy has “vastly improved” since January of 2009, he needs an uncontested psych evaluation.

Not to mention, real un/underemployment is actually closer to 20%, the number of homes that are now underwater has increased early 600% in the same time frame and a tremendous amount of capital is locked up tight. By companies, large and small, waiting to see when the next shoe will drop, either from regulation, or from the latest Executive Order SWAT Team, that will swoop in, seize assets and fire the CEO. (Oh yeah, $7 trillion has been added to the debt in that time, as well)

Pretty bad when the “good old days” are only 3+ years old.

• 

• Tweet

Well, even though it has been well over a year since ObamaCare was passed in the most rancid and poisonous way, we are still “finding out” what is in this Frankenstein’s Monster of a bill.

If you did not like what you have heard so far about this 800 trillion pound gorilla, well, a lot ObamaCare’s own supporters will join you. Since, now it looks like that certain provisions of the bill will literally lock worker’s families out of the house, with no key and no chance to get back in.

From The Hill:

At issue is a so-called “firewall” in the law that denies subsidies to workers whose employers offer quality, affordable coverage.

The firewall applies to plans with premiums that cost less than 9.5 percent of a worker’s income. If a worker has to dole out more than that amount to buy coverage, the employer coverage is considered unaffordable and the worker is eligible for subsidies to buy coverage on the new exchanges.

Initially, advocates thought the threshold also applied to family coverage. If premium costs paid to cover a worker’s family cost 20 percent of a worker’s income, for example, the worker and his or her family should be eligible for subsidies.

But in calculating the bill’s cost last year, Congress’s Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) took the law to mean that employers and their families aren’t eligible for subsidies as long as the individual plan is affordable — regardless of the price of the family plan.

This means the costs to an employee for covering his or her family could be too high to afford for many working families.

“If you’ve got employer-based coverage that’s affordable for the employee only,” Guyer said, “the family is expected to take the employer coverage even if it“s totally unaffordable and no one in the family is eligible for the exchange subsidies.”

Who would have thought that a massive, 2300+ page, never-read bill that was put together in a frenzied cut-and-paste manner would contain such a contradiction? Well, sort of like how, right after the bill was passed and signed in to law, that Obama and other Dems were touting about how all children under 26 would be “covered”. Expect, someone forgot to add that provision to the bill and it had to be added later. Debate? We do not need any stinking debate!

Remember the old saying:
ObamaCare: The efficiency of the DMV with the compassion of the IRS.

• 

• Tweet

As I wrote a couple of years ago, the Kenneth Gladney beating was “One that would give Robert Byrd and other long-time Democrat Klan members wet dreams and recalling the good old days”.

Well today, they and their SEIU bastard children can now celebrate another lynching.

Story from Big Government

Since St. Louis is the Poor Man’s Chicago, it is not surprising that a good amount of the jury pool had union ties. And also practicing the time-honored, union strategy of intimidating and starting down those would challenge them. It reminds me a lot of the Duke Lacrosse Hoax. (minus Al’s bullhorn, of course)

• 

• Tweet

Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later. And I suppose sooner is better, when it comes to government-sponsored, taxpayer-funded and so-called “legal” molestation of the youngest of American citizens.

Via The Tennessean:

A 41-year-old Clarksville woman was arrested after Nashville airport authorities say she was belligerent and verbally abusive to security officers, refusing for her daughter to be patted down at a security checkpoint.

Andrea Fornella Abbott yelled and swore at Transportation Security Administration agents Saturday afternoon at Nashville International Airport, saying she did not want her daughter to be “touched inappropriately or have her “crotch grabbed,” a police report states.

After reading this story, it seems to me that the TSA violated their own procedures when it comes to searching young children. As the links below refer to:

Airport screeners to get more options to lessen pat-downs of children

TSA changes pat-down procedures for young kids

Then again, when has that ever stopped an agency or it’s employees from doing so anyway?

• 

• Tweet