Interesting Items - Monday Mar 12, 2012 Come visit us at our new web site: www.interestingitems.org Leave your thoughts, comments and opinions. We look forward to hearing from you. Interesting Items Alex Gimarc [email protected] Monday Mar 12, 2012 Howdy all, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy – In this issue:
1. Global Test 2. Voter ID 3. GM 4. Fluke 5. USA 6. Keystone 1. Global Test. SecDef Leon Panetta resurrected the Kerry Global Test for military action last week. In his testimony before the Senate Armed Services Panetta said that a legal basis was needed before setting up a no fly zone over Syria. His definition of the “legal basis” includes some sort of joint international resolution as part of an international coalition. Senator Jeff Sessions pressed Pannetta about getting congressional approval as required by the War Powers Act before entering into another international military action. Panetta was reduced to mumbling about perhaps informing congress sometime after the festivities started. Allahpunditwriting in Hot Air on Wednesday covered the story from Bretibart. This discussion is all tied into the Libyan action which US forces in the Med were used to assist Libyan rebels without consultation or approval of congress. Looks like it is about to happen again in Syria. 2. Voter ID. A Wisconsin judge issued a temporary injunction against a new law in Wisconsin requiring a photo ID for voting. It turns out that judge is yet another partisan democrat hack (redundant) currently infesting the state bench, as his name was found among the hundreds of thousands of names urging the recall of Governor Scott Walker. Expect the state to appeal the decision and continue the fight in the courts. In other Voter ID news, Eric Holder’s (In)Justice Department blocked a new voter ID law in Texas claiming that it would pose a disproportionate burden on Hispanic (Illegal) voters this year. No word out of Holder concerning the disproportionate impact to Hispanics (Illegals) having to display a photo ID in order to get on an airplane. Texas is held to this higher standard due to the Voting Rights Act passed in the 1960s that rolled back obstacles for voting by blacks in the South. But that was half a century ago and nearly three generations and things in the South have changed. Locals believe that the Texas Attorney General screwed up by not taking the new law immediately before a federal judge for approval. Allowing Holder to get himself involved will let (In)Justice slow roll the court case until after the election. Expect Texas to fight this early and often and perhaps get the offending section of the Voting Rights Act tossed out by the SCOTUS. Democrats simply cannot win unless they lie, cheat and bribe voters. And voting fraud is a very large caliber weapon in their arsenal. 3. GM. Government Motors had themselves quite a week. Early last week they suspended production of the Chevy Volt due to lack of sales. GM originally intended the Volt to be a hybrid concept car with a low sales number, not unlike the Corvette. Unfortunately, once the feds took it over and gave it to the United Auto Workers, the Obamaoids tagged the Volt as the answer to all our economic problems. It was going to be the vehicle the Obamaoids was going to force us all to purchase and ride in because it was green, efficient, and had a huge Miles per Gallon number. Unfortunately for Government Motors the Volt tends to explode and burn on occasion. Ralph Nader had his breakout anti-business campaign going after the Corvair in the early 1960s for doing the same thing. The Corvair had a gas tank in the rear and tended to explode and burn when rear-ended. Where is Nader on the Volt, pray tell? The Obama administration is responding to all of this by proposing an instant $10,000 tax credit on every purchase of a Volt. No word yet about how successful that bribe is yet. What else do you get when the Obama administration holds 30% of the largest auto manufacturer in the US? You get some really stupid investments. Last week, GM dropped a cool $400 million of taxpayer dollars into failing French automaker Peugeot. We taxpayers now own 7% of an auto manufacturer that had its bonds downgraded to junk bond status a day after GM made its stock purchase. Finally, GM parts manufacturer Delphi has taken steep cuts in retirement health care benefits and pensions. Interestingly enough, the cuts did not impact union retirees. Instead, the union-controlled company targeted the white collar retirees (non-union and management) for the bulk of the cuts. This payback by the union. Classy, guys. Real classy. 4. Fluke. Late last week, PJ Tatler ran a piece tying Susan Fluke to the Obama WH. Fluke is making the rounds of talk shows and various public appearances as the new face of the so-called “Republican War on Women.” The Washington DC Public relations firm handling her appearances has one Anita (I love Chairman Mao) Dunn, Obama’s former WH Communications Director as its Executive Director. This means that the entire operation has very likely been an Obama reelection gambit, intended to stir up the young, single women that supported Obama so strongly in 2008. In related news, there have been at least two calls for lawsuits against Limbaugh. One was a suggestion by House Minority Whip Stenny Hoyer (D, MD) that Fluke bring a civil defamation action against Limbaugh. Mark Levin discussed it that afternoon and a great time describing how the discovery phase of the lawsuit would work. Given all the ties between Fluke and the Obama reelection machine, discovery would be a hoot. By weeks’ end feminist ambulance chaser Gloria Allred got herself involved in a call for the local District Attorney to go after Limbaugh on criminal defamation charges. Once again, since Fluke was the one that trotted out her sexuality in front of the cameras to help Nancy Pelosi (D, CA) make a political point, she is now a public figure. Finally, we have the news of Limbaugh’s advertisers. As of weeks end, eight major sponsors dropped the show. After the weekend, there were reports of over 40 sponsors dropping the show. The larger number describes advertisers that purchase time on local stations. The smaller number is national advertisers. A couple of the advertisers changed their mind after customer blowback and tried to reestablish their advertising relationship with Limbaugh. Limbaugh refused. A third company, Carbonite has seen its stock prices fall precipitously since dropping the show. It is never a good idea to needlessly antagonize a committed audience and some of these companies are going to learn the lesson the hard way. 5. USA. In San Antonio last week, a local school district appeared to do an unfortunate kneejerk reaction to political correctness with a response to a chant of USA! USA! USA! following the end of a high school basketball game. The backstory is that one of the schools is heavily Hispanic and the other one was not. Edison students like to poke at students of the other high school with chants of “Alamo Whites.” Reportedly they were doing some of this during the game. Alamo Heights won a local championship game against Edison and returned the favor with the USA! chant after they won. Nothing like a good hot bowl of STFU between friends. Appears that the students took care of things themselves. The PC police at the school district ought not to get involved. 6. Keystone. The Keystone XL pipeline is the gift that continues giving for democrats. As gasoline prices on the coasts spike over $5/gallon, the Senate democrat majority defeated an amendment to the Senate Highway Bill that would force the administration to issue permits for its construction by a 56 – 42 vote. The vote fell 4 short of the 60 needed to stop a filibuster. Eleven democrats, most of which are up for reelection in November, supported the amendment. In this one, Obama himself made phone calls to democrat senators before the vote to ensure the amendment did not pass. Going to be tough for the democrats to make the case that they are doing everything humanly possible to control gasoline prices as they support Obama’s continued obstruction of new oil and natural gas development here in the US. And a lot of the democrats who upheld the filibuster are also up for reelection in November. More later - - AG "If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen." - Samuel Adams, speech at the Philadelphia State House, August 1, 1776. 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