Recently in Mr. Hussein's Neighborhood Category

Barack Obama delivered a speech last night.  Did you know that?  If I wasn't a blogger, I'm not sure I would have.  For a man whose overhyped reputation is as the greatest orator who ever lived, his dime-a-dozen, mail-it-in "historic speeches of the week" gimmick has gotten so old and busted that.  Maybe it has more than a little to do with the fact that everything he says is crap, and even everything you say is crap, it doesn't matter how well you say it, because it's still crap.  And, honestly, he ain't saying it so well anymore.

The speech was on Iraq, BTW, and how U.S. combat forces are leaving right on schedule, rather than after Iraq has a government in place and has military forces that can not just "maintain security," but also defend the country from Iranian/Syrian invasion.  He even gave it from the Oval Office, for some reason.  I guess they figured it was expected of him.

Let's see: He never mentioned victory, he never admitted he was wrong about the Surge, and while he did mention speaking to President Bush yesterday afternoon, he said zip, zero, nada about the phone conversation (which should give you a pretty good idea of how it went).  That's not to suggest that it was necessarily a shouting match; I kind of picture Barry dialing up the ranch in Crawford and when Dubya picked up, the L'il President did one of those pranks that Bart Simpson used to do to Moe the bartender.  Just so he could say without technically lying that he did, in fact, "speak to FORMER President Bush."  Which makes it a net loss for him to mention it if the only thing he could, or was going to, say is, "His patriotism and support of the troops is ALMOST AS STRONG AS MINE".

Oh, and he got bored half way through and lapsed into his "Recovery Summer" horseshit before TOTUS frantically waved him back on-message, sterile and phony though it was.

To me this feels like a rehash of the preview I already posted last weekend, which couldn't help but be spot-on in lieu of B.O.'s wearisome predictability.  Not even half way through his term and he's already "soldiering" on not out of fun or satisfaction or even a sense of duty, but out of stubbornness and spite - and the perqs.

I don't know 'bout y'all, but I don't have time for any more of an analysis, and if I did, it just wouldn't interest me enough to bother.  If you're interested, there are in-depth parsings all over the rightosphere.  My favorite was Jonah Goldberg's.  Any loose end he didn't tie off, Ramirez took care of in his daily 'toon installment.

If you'll excuse me, I have serious work to do.

He said it.  For over a year he said it.  "If you like your health insurance plan, you can keep it."  Which begged the question: If huge majorities of Americans do, in fact, like their existing health care plans and want to keep them, then wasn't ObamaCare a crappy solution in search of a non-existent problem?

The answer was the same for this boast as for "bending the cost curve" and "universal coverage" - it was bullshit.  It was ALL bullshit.  Huge majorities of Americans TOLD him it was bullshit.  He and the Pelosi/Reid Politburo rammed it down our throats anyway.

Behold the latest two groups to get shat upon.

***Red Barry's idea of "simplifying" the lives of senior citizens is to strip three million of them of their prescription drug coverage starting next year:

More than three million seniors may have to switch their Medicare prescription plan next year, even if they’re perfectly happy with it, thanks to an attempt by the government to simplify their lives.

The policy change could turn into a hassle for seniors who hadn’t intended to switch plans during Medicare’s open enrollment season this fall.

And it risks undercutting President Barack Obama’s promise that people who like their health care plans can keep them.

A new analysis by a leading private research firm estimates that more than 3 million beneficiaries will see their current drug plan eliminated as Medicare tries to winnow down duplicative and confusing coverage, in order to offer consumers more meaningful choices. Instead of 40 or more plans in each state, beneficiaries would pick from 30 or so.

“As a result of this policy, there are going to be fewer plans offered in 2011,” said Bonnie Washington, a senior analyst with Avalere Health, which produced the study. “There is still going to be robust choice for beneficiaries, but those who have to change plans could experience some disruption and inconvenience.”

You know what another adjective for "duplicative and confusing" is?  Competitive.  Here's an analogy: Let's say you want to go out to eat tonight.  Nothing fancy, just a burger somewhere.  But look how many places you can get burgers: McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy's, Dairy Queen, Jack In The Box, Burger Chef, Red Robin.  You can also get burgers at sit-down restraurants such as Shari's and Denny's as well, plus all manner of local burger stands and drive-ins.  Speaking as something of a burger connaisseur, that says to me one word: choice.  Variety.  It's why every fast food chain has a dollar/value/combo menu, and why they're always coming up with something new and delicious and healthy.  More choices are good.  Fewer choices are bad.

Except to a Marxist.  Now imagine the federal government nationalizes the fast food industry and "gives" us "single-combo".  With Scheherezade running things, it'd be some sanitized veggie gyro or something with a plain mini-salad (no dressing) and a half-pint of skim milk.  That's it.  No condiments, no kid's toy, no salt (Oh, my GOD, no salt), no dessert.  For young, old, male, female, fat, skinny, that's what you'd get.  Oh, yes, and each combo would cost ten bucks.  And the golden arches would be replaced with the O.

Why?  Because all those choices are "duplicative and confusing," dontcha know.  We're not smart enough to weigh and evaluate all those "duplicative and confusion choices"; we might just make the "wrong" one.  So for our own good, Barack Obama will eliminate all those "duplicative and confusing" choices and make the "right" choice for us.  And if you don't like that, well, who said YOU had any choice in the matter, Nazi evilmonger scum?

A quarter of seniors' prescription drug choices disappear next year alone.  At that pace, by 2014 - The Year We Are Fully Assimilated - there'll be one choice: Barry's.  And we'll like it, because the "simplication" of servitude is better than all the bother of living as a free human being.

Did I mention senior citizens vote?  Like no other demographic?  And they're, shall we say, "highly motivated" this cycle?

***You know how the Obama Depression keeps bankrupting states, which keeps trigger federal bailouts, which keeps triggering more bankruptcies, which keep triggering more federa bailouts, ad nauseum?  Here's a fascinating ObamaCare casualty you probably never thought of as belonging among victims:

More than a fifth of the nation’s 5,000 hospitals are owned by governments and many are drowning in debt caused by rising health-care costs, a spike in uninsured patients, cuts in Medicare and Medicaid and payments on construction bonds sold in fatter times.

In other words, all the factors that O-Care is going to enormously exacerbate.

Because most public hospitals tend to be solo operations, they don’t enjoy the economies of scale, or more generous insurance contracts, which bolster revenue at many larger nonprofit and for-profit systems.

Local officials also predict an expensive future as new requirements—for technology, quality accounting and care coordination—start under the overhaul, which became law in March.

Moody’s Investors Service said in April that many standalone hospitals won’t have the resources to invest in information technology or manage bundled payments well. Many nonprofits have bad credit ratings and in a tight credit market cannot borrow money, either. Meantime, the federal government is expected to cut aid to hospitals.

“We’ve been hit by that whiplash recently, with industries closing down and the number of insured growing less,” said J.D. Mosteller, the attorney for Barnwell County, S.C., which is considering selling its hospital.

There is a lone ultimate fate for these municipal hospitals: They'll cease to exist.  Either they'll get unloaded into the private sector, where larger systems won't be able to afford to upgrade and/or renevate them will will probably shut them down; or they won't be unloadable, in which case they'll be terminated without that extra step.  Whoever owns them, public hospitals and clinics will become even more unsustainable because they're the ones stuck taking Medicaid patients - of which there's been a gusher increase of late - and government Medicaid reimbursement rates suck even worse than Medicare rates (sorry, they bend the cost curve even better than Medicare does), which is why public hospitals and clincs are unsustainable.

Of course we know what the endgame Obamunist solution to such amputation-lovin', tonsil'-wacking private doctor greed is, don't we?  Nationalize all private hospitals and clincs (on the same rationale as ObamaCare) and draft all doctors into government servitude.

Because it's so less....confusing and duplicative that way.

***So it's finally come to this:

“Unfortunately, there still is a great deal of confusion about what is in [the reform law] and what isn’t,” Sebelius told ABC News Radio in an interview Monday.

With several vulnerable House Democrats touting their votes against the bill, and Republicans running on repeal, Sebelius said “misinformation given on a 24/7 basis” has led to the enduring opposition nearly six months after the lengthy debate ended in Congress.

“So, we have a lot of reeducation to do,” Sebelius said.

The administration is particularly concerned about the views of senior citizens – who “have been a target of a lot of the misinformation,” according to the health secretary. 

Ensign Ed calls this "parody".  I don't.  I think Oberfuehrer Sebelius's choice of words is completely genuous and entirely deliberate.  They are the words borne of the totalitarian mindset that seeks to put over truth as lies and lies as the truth.  The public isn't buying the lies - never did, in fact - and the regime has grown so frustrated that I think they fully intend to "re-educate" the American public - forcibly, if necessary - into regurgitating the effusive, toadying praise Dr. Chicago wants to hear.

If the Pelosi Politburo is left in power for another biennium, nothing will stand in the way of it.  Which might be why the Donk view outside the Obabinet is just a little bit more nuanced:

Now, HCAN’s field crews are finding that the best way to support reform-friendly lawmakers is to talk about something else: jobs, the economy or other issues likely to resonate more with voters.

“We want to be flexible in talking about what is most relevant to constituents, whatever issues are most motivational,” said HCAN’s national field director, Margarida Jorge, who organizes a daily call with their partner organizations. “We can have a high level of focus on health care but also understand at times the focus is going to shift.”

HCAN activists say they are not dodging their key issue; rather, they want to keep pace with voter concerns, which have markedly shifted over the past year.

But what HCAN describes as a tactical shift, reform opponents see as proof that the law is unpopular, a loser for Democrats in a tough election cycle. “Voters don’t like health reform and they know that,” said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former CBO director who now works with the American Action Forum on their Operation Healthcare Choice project. “Independents are key to control; health reform is unpopular but jobs and economy could move votes. When it comes to substance, on health reform, they’re in bad shape.”

Remember: First the Obama/Pelosi/Reid Axis wanted to ram through ObamaCare because it would help the crummy economy; then they wanted to ram through ObamaCare because all the front-loaded and so-called "consumer-friendly benefits" would distract voters from the crummy economy; and now they want to talk about the crummy economy "Recover Summer" has made even worse to distract voters from Barack Obama's Landmark Signature Achievement.

They can't talk about the economy, they can't talk about O-Care, and they can't even demagogue Bush anymore.  If Democrats weren't flailingly denouncing the electorate they need to keep them in power as racists, bigots, sexists, homophobes, and Islamophobes, they'd all be mute as well as deaf.

Yeah, we know all about the Obama regime's one-size-fits-all opinion of any who don't worship The One as applied to Beckapalooza.  "Bitter clingers," "economic anxiety," "old, white, angry," blah, blah, blah.  It's the sort of "analysis" that can be read off 3x5 index cards without even getting out of bed, probably with a lot of mumbling and drooling as well.

But Re-Education Oberfuehrer Arne Duncan wasn't sleeping - mumbling and/or drooling, perhaps, though judging from his picture, he probably gave up sleep so he could spend all the rest of his time on teeth-whitening - and he was bound and determined that none of his underlings would sleep in, relax, or otherwise loaf away last Saturday, either:

President Obama’s top education official urged government employees to attend a rally that the Rev'rund Al Sharpton organized to counter a larger conservative event on the Mall.

“ED staff are invited [wink, wink, nudge, nudge] to join Secretary Arne Duncan, the Reverend Al Sharpton, and other leaders on Saturday, August 28, for the ‘Reclaim the Dream’ rally and march,” began an internal e-mail sent to more than 4,000 employees of the Department of Education on Wednesday.

You know what the irony of this is?  If not for this story, I'd have never known there WAS a Sharpton remora to the Beck Great White [Charity!  Charity!] Shark.  And neither would anybody else outside of the four thousand Educrats who were forced "invited" to be there.

Predictably, Sharptontopia was an angry, partisan hatefest, or everything the Left insisted the Restoring Honor rally would be but wasn't.  Because the latter had honor, and the former wouldn't know it from a pile of foot stamps.

Only other thing you need to know about it came from this former DoE program manager:

“It sends a signal that activity on behalf of one side of a political debate is expected within a department. It’s highly inappropriate … even in the absence of a direct threat,” Boaz said. “If we think of a Bush cabinet official sending an e-mail to civil servants asking them to attend a Glenn Beck rally, there would be a lot of outrage over that.”

Outrage?  There'd have been riots.  There'd have been angry congressional hearings.  There'd have been shouts of "THEOCRACY!!!!"  There'd have been an impeachment inquiry.

But this is an OBAMA stooge, and the law doesn't apply to them, because they're on a mission from God(bama), and we must comply.  That the Sinister Minister's (Yeah, that's my nickname for Jesse Jackson, but he and Sharpton are functionally interchangable) "crowd" was a hundred times smaller and compulsory is irrelevant.

Besides, it gave the New Black Panthers and their vow to physically attack the Beckians someplace safe to hide.

Follow the bouncing common thread ball....

***The residential housing market has collapsed (again) because....there are no jobs.  The White House's big idea of a solution has not been to remove Red Barry's boot from the private sector's throat via repeal of Obamanomics and, say, permanently extend ALL the Bush tax cuts, but instead offer a temporary homebuyer tax credit last fall, and another one this past spring.  Neither did jack to revive the housing market, the housing market crashed (again) after each one expired, and the second one had less artificial goosing effect than the first.

The White House's next brainstorm?  A third temporary homebuyer tax credit:

Shaun Donovan, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, said Sunday that the housing market’s July woes were “worse than expected” and that the administration may support a new homebuyer tax credit.

In an interview on CNN, Donovan said the administration is “concerned” about the path of the industry. He defended the Obama administration’s record on supporting the housing market, amid new signs that the market is struggling alongside the broader economy.

Donovan did not rule out a further homebuyer tax credit to support the market. Congress passed a homebuyer tax credit to support first-time buyers. The credit has now expired.

“I think it’s too early to say after one month of numbers whether the tax credit will be revived or not,” Donovan said.

No, it isn't.  To the contrary, it's just about too late, because the Republican tsunami will ensure that this circle-jerk of stubborn futility doesn't last past the end of the year.

***Geoff's spot-on headline: "Obama: Hey Small Businesses!! Don't Need Credit? I'll Give You More!!":

..Republicans need to stop obstructing an initiative he proposed to cut taxes that will encourage small businesses to hire and expand, as well as a $30 billion small business lending initiative.

“Drop the blockade,” he said to Senate Republicans, whom he said were “holding this bill hostage,” damaging economic growth.

This gibbering turns causality on its head.  The FACT is that "economic growth" is ALREADY damaged by his policies, which is why small businesses aren't accessing credit to expand and grow:

Overall, 91% of the owners reported all their credit needs met or they did not want to borrow, up one point. Credit may be harder to get compared to the bubble period (as it should be) and is always harder to arrange in a recession. But credit availability does not appear to be the cause of slow growth as many allege.

You know what IS the cause of no growth?  Obamanomics - higher taxes, crushing regulation, avalanches of debt.  There's no "uncertainty" about it; Barack Obama has declared war on the private sector, then gets all pissy when his statist gimmickry doesn't perform like a magic wand to bamboozle what's left of private business to put what's left of their meager capital reserves at risk for meager rewards, if any, they'll never be allowed to keep.  And that means....no jobs.

This, of course, is called "greed".  And "holding blockaded growth hostage".

***But don't worry, ladies and gentlemen; Godbama's "compassion" is as limitless (and record-setting) as the intrinsic value of his regime's debt:

More than forty million people get food stamps, an increase of nearly 50% during the economic downturn, according to government data through May. The program has grown steadily for three years....

More than 4.4 million people are on welfare, an 18% increase during the recession. The program has grown slower than others, causing Brookings Institution expert Ron Haskins to question its effectiveness in the recession.

As caseloads for all the programs have soared, so have costs. The federal price tag for Medicaid has jumped 36% in two years, to $273 billion. Jobless benefits have soared from $43 billion to $160 billion. The food stamps program has risen 80%, to $70 billion. Welfare is up 24%, to $22 billion. Taken together, they cost more than Medicare.

Understand that this is after basically eliminating any eligibility barriers, and does not include the additional towering costs ObamaCare will pile on top of it:

The program has grown even before the new health care law adds about sixteen million people, beginning in 2014. That has strained doctors. “Private physicians are already indicating that they’re at their limit,” says Dan Hawkins of the National Association of Community Health Centers.

Well, then, those greedy tonsil pirates will just have to rethink that obviously lazy defiance...or else.  Because above all else, a god needs compassion.

But what Americans need are jobs, not soul-grinding poverty and dependency.  Jobs are the byproduct of an expanding, growing economy.  An economy cannot expand and grow when it is squashed flat beneath the cancer of a gigantic, tyrannical, bankrupting Mega-State.

And the leader of that gigantic, tyrannical, bankrupting Mega-State will not tolerate any "reality" other than that he, and it, are the sole allowable source of all virtue, prosperity, and collective salvation.

Annnnnnnd "jobs."

Follow that bouncing ball while you can - the Obamunists will be coming for it, too, before long.

Anybody who regularly listens to Glenn Beck's morning radio program has long since been acutely aware that his Restoring Honor rally at the Lincoln Memorial last Saturday was not about politics, not about policy, but was about restoring the Judeo-Christian cultural roots of our country by proclaiming how far We, The People have strayed from them.  Indeed, the political content of his show has, over the past month or so, dwindled down to virtually nothing.

So it comes as no surprise that the Left (1) didn't understand it and so, inevitably, (2) projected their own psycopathic pathologies on it like it was just another leftwingnut Rorschach test.  Actually, they would have done (2) whether they understood it or not.  They didn't give a moment's thought to what Beckapalooza was actually about because they pre-emptively rejected taking it at face value, probably not even at a conscious level.

The end product is more of their same tiresome arrogance and condescension, from no less than King Hussein himself, shrimp be upon him:

I — I do think that it’s important for us to recognize that right now, the country’s going through a very difficult time, as a consequence of years of neglect in a whole range of areas. Our schools not working the way they need to, so we’ve slipped in terms of the number of college graduates, you know?

A financial system that was not, you know, operating in a way that maintained integrity and assured that the people who were investing or who were buying a home or were using a credit card weren’t getting in some way cheated. We had a health care system that was broken and that was bankrupting families and businesses. All those issues are big, tough, difficult issues. And those are just our domestic issues. That’s before we get to policy issues in two wars. And a continuing battle against terrorists who want to do us harm.

So, given all those anxieties — and given the fact that, you know, in none of these situations are you going to be fix things overnight. It’s not surprising that somebody like a Mr. Beck is able to stir up a certain portion of the country. That’s been true throughout our history. What I’m focused on is making sure that the decisions we’re making now are going to be be not good for the nightly news. Not good even necessarily for the next election. But are good for the next generation. And I’m very confident that those decisions are the ones that we’ve made.

Translation: "Y'know all those bitter clingers I told ya about a coupla years ago?  Well, they're still clinging to their guns and their racist Constitution and that J.C. guy, and now they're also clinging to that bloated albino wretch Beck, who's turned them into angry ingrates as well.  And after all I've done for 'em, too."

Barry wept.

"Know what Rahm calls him?  'Blind Mormon Shitlin'"  I'm gonna miss that mother[BLEEP]er around the West Wing."

Parenthetically, Eeyore can't really be confused about The One ascribing the huge turnout at a quasi-civic revival to "economic anxieties."  What other interpretation would an orthodox Marxist come up with?  Which, ironically, ought to help settle the question of what "religion" Lucifer truly follows.

That mouthy old bastard Bill Press certainly left nothing of his religious leanings to the imagination:

Well, it seems obvious to me: BIll Press worships Martin Luther King, and doesn't want talk of that Jewish carpenter usurper desecrating MLK's "sacred" temple, in which sits the statue of, um, the white Republican who, er, freed the slaves.

Oh, c'mon, it was incoherent at the mention of Press "crusading" against Beckapalooza.  Everything after was senility.

There was also the usual Fun With Crowd Size Estimates, with the half million or so-strong crowd "estimated" by the Obamedia as less than a fifth of its actual number.  Speaking for myself, I'm happy to settle on this commenter's compromise:

You can see November from the Washington Monument 

And so can the leftwingnuts.

Y'know what Recovery Summer needs to finally get off the ground?  Another series of Barack Obama discourses on how the economy is "headed in the right direction," assuming that the country is already in Davy Jones' Locker and the goal is to capsize it rightside-up back to the living world.  Joe Biden's done a super-duper fantastic job of putting over the economic equivalent of running back and forth across a vomit-strewn wooden deck, and now having set up his boss for the kill, he's got new worlds to conquer.

Barack Obama, saluting American troops in Iraq for "making America safer":

Barack Obama, three years ago, preaching chapter and verse on how U.S. forces in Iraq had made America "less safe":

The excellence of our military is unmatched. But as a result of this war, our forces are under pressure as never before. Our National Guard and reserves have half of the equipment they need to respond to emergencies at home and abroad. Retention among West Point graduates is down. Our powers of deterrence and influence around the world are down. That is a cost of this war.

America’s standing has suffered. Our diplomacy has been compromised by a refusal to talk to people we don’t like. Our alliances have been compromised by bluster. Our credibility has been compromised by a faulty case for war. Our moral leadership has been compromised by Abu Ghraib. That is a cost of this war.

Perhaps the saddest irony of the Administration’s cynical use of 9/11 is that the Iraq War has left us less safe than we were before 9/11. Osama bin Ladin and his top lieutenants have rebuilt a new base in Pakistan where they freely train recruits, plot new attacks, and disseminate propaganda. The Taliban is resurgent in Afghanistan. Iran has emerged as the greatest strategic challenge to America in the Middle East in a generation. Violent extremism has increased. Terrorism has increased. All of that is a cost of this war.

He left out foot fungus, submarining drivers who always try to cut you off on the freeway, mange, and the buttered side of the bread always falling on the carpet.  Almost as if we would have been safer doing nothing after 9/11, or precisely what led to....9/11.  But now, two years after the Surge crushed al Qaeda, when the insurgency is essentially over, and it's time to dispense credit where credit is due, The One pats himself on the back:

Ensign Ed's talley: "Total mentions of Bush: zero. Total mentions of victory: zero. Total mentions of “I” in speech: six..."

But did anyone really expect anything like graciousness or contrition or crow-eating to come from this scavenging jackal?  Heck, if he had just complimented our men and women in uniform and left it at that nobody would have said anything about it.  But Narciss must wallow in glory, especially if it's someone else's.  And if pulling out even the 50,000 troops left to advise the nascent Iraqi army by the end of next year gives the green light for Iran and Syria to invade and conquer Iraq?  Count on the Li'l Generalissimo to suddenly remember the name of his punching bag predecessor.

Fortunately, Speaker-in-waiting Boehner has stocked up on a huge supply of Wheaties for the long country-saving struggle that lies ahead....

The ominous part of this is that he's still got over half his term left, he's already pissed off pretty much the entire country, and he's STILL doubling down....

***Here is what the Obama regime told the U.N. Human Rights Council, which includes such exemplars of enlightened compassion, tolerance, liberty, and decency as Red China, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Libya, Russia, and Iran about the state of human rights in Obamerika:

In its first-ever report to the U.N. Human Rights Council on conditions in the United States, the State Department said Monday that some Americans, notably minorities, are still victims of discrimination. Despite success in reforming such inequities as slavery and the denial of women's right to vote, the department said, considerable progress is still needed.

"Although we have made great strides, work remains to meet our goal of ensuring equality before the law for all," it said.

The report noted that although the U.S. now has an African-American president and that women and Hispanics have won greater social and economic success, large segments of American society suffer from unfair policies and practices.

High unemployment rates, hate crime, poverty, poor housing, lack of access to health care and discriminatory hiring practices are among the challenges the report identified as affecting blacks, Latinos, Muslims, South Asians, Native Americans and gays and lesbians in the United States.

Know why this was our "first-ever" such report?  BECAUSE WE DO NOT VIOLATE HUMAN RIGHTS, THAT's WHY.  Violating human rights used to mean taking and torturing political prisoners and labor camp gulags and suppressing and outlawing dissent and freedom of speech and secret police and, well, the sort of genuine abuses that are standard operating procedure in all the countries Barack Obama wants to suck up and bow down to and otherwise grovel before.  Now its definition might as well have been written in Beijing, Riyadh, Islamabad, Tripoli, Moscow, Tehran, Damascus, Havana, Pyongyang, and/or Caracas.  You might say it was a "collective" effort.  And Red Barry will eagerly accept whatever "verdict" they, the global guardians of "human rights," hand down, because he's already, on behalf of thee and me, pleaded guilty.

***Eeyore sets the stage the only way it can be: "Hey, if air is an environmental hazard worthy of federal regulation, surely bullets are too, no?":

NSSF is springing into action, as the public comment period opens on EPA considering a regulation that will ban all traditional lead ammunition. This would basically end the shooting sports as we know it. Remember this is a no-win situation for us, because bullets made of materials other than lead are often considered armor piercing by law. Copper is your basic material, and copper is expensive, and has much poorer performance properties than lead.

As NSSF has pointed out, there’s no real scientific basis for restricting lead ammunition. Just about all shooting ranges at this point are recycling their lead (it’s too valuable to just leave in the ground). California’s ban has not been shown to reduce lead levels in Condors, and has driven more people away from hunting. Additionally, it’s interfered with lawful self-protection in parts of California that are considered condor habitat.

I'm not even a hunter and this takes my breath away.  Can Barack Obama and the Green Police really not have noticed the McDonald decision?  Or how the gun issue has turned completely against them over the past twenty years?

Here's how they think they'll get around those trifling little constitutional (and other legal) details:

Several environmentalist groups led by the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) are petitioning the EPA to ban lead bullets and shot (as well as lead sinkers for fishing) under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). Although EPA is barred by statute from controlling ammunition, CBD is seeking to work farther back along the manufacturing chain and have EPA ban the use of lead in bullets and shot because non-lead alternatives are available. But here's the catch: the alternatives to lead bullets are more expensive. A ban on the sale of lead ammunition would force hunters and sport shooters to buy non-lead ammunition that is often double the cost of traditional lead ammunition. A box of deer hunting bullets in a popular caliber could be upwards of $55.  

It's like saying, "I'm not going to shoot you in the head four times gangland style, I'll just poison you slowly with arsenic over a period of several months."  Not nearly as direct or spectacular or quick, but the end result is just the same - and just as illegal.

Eeyore envisions even this Congress warping back to D.C. to ram through a bill nullifying an EPA lead ban, which I do buy (it would go into effect two days before the election), and Red Barry signing it (based on his own re-election ambitions), which I do not.  I think The One would veto that bill and vigorously and publicly defend that ban.  Why wouldn't he?  ObamaCare, Arizona, Armus, Recovery Summer, the Ground Zero Mosque - It's not as if he hasn't spent the past nineteen months governing in "Fuck You Mode," and it hasn't slowed down the lower his poll numbers have plummeted.  In for a penny, in for a pound.  It's almost to the point where he already has very little left to lose.

***Lede by Slublog:

During the campaign, Obama repeatedly insinuated that the Bush Administration's approach to terrorism suspects was a violation of this country's values and stated time and again that he trusted the courts to bring terrorism suspects to justice. The unspoken message was clear: George W. Bush's approach to terror suspects proved that he didn't care about American values. Obama promised Americans that his administration would deal with terrorists in a way that he said would be more consistent with our nation's values.

He specifically made this guarantee to the families of those who lost loved ones in the al Qaeda attack on the U.S.S. Cole:

President Obama [in early February of last year] assured family members of Americans who were killed in the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole and in the September 11th attacks that the terror suspects will be prosecuted and brought “to a swift and certain justice.”

However, the day before he made this guarantee the regime dropped existing charges against Abd al-Rahim Al-Nashiri, the leader of the Cole attack, and now has abandoned his prosecution altogether.

Why?  Because he's still in the military tribunal system, and the regime wants to finagle some way of transferring him and more jihadis to the Stateside civilian criminal justice system:

This is actually less outrageous than it could be.  Regardless of when, or if, the regime ever gets around to trying al-Nashiri, there's no indiction - yet - that they're going to do what you would ordinarily do with a "detainee" against whom you drop criminal charges in the civilian criminal justice system - let them go.  As long as as many captured jihadis as possible are kept "on ice" and out of the war against us, I personally couldn't give a frog's fat leg how long they're stash at Gitmo.  Sure beats the high likelihood of Eric The Red botching prosecutions and building the leftwingnut howls for transferring them Stateside - or....letting them go.

'course, the reason why The One doesn't release them is because that's about the one area where he has shrunk from acting out HIS "values" because even he has recognized how politically suicidal it would be, so he's had to content himself with merely indulging in the hypocrisy of aping the Bushitler.  This he knows he can get away with, because his grumbling cultist followers have no place else to go.

But if I may venture a prognostication, the further B.O.'s political fortunes fall, especially after the November midterm massacre, the less I think he'll be restrained by even the spectre of turning loose the Islamic mass murderers we've got left in custody to launch even more spectacular and deadly attacks against American civilians.  After all, by rejecting first his congressional allies and then himself, we'll have proven our "unworthiness" and how richly we deserve what we end up getting.

I bet Lucifer will be the one to cut the ribbon at the Victory Mosque's grand opening - assuming the radiation has died down by then.

***Not the it matters, but the regime's own Armus commission has issued another study that concludes that there's no need for a drilling ban:

President Barack Obama’s moratorium on deep-water drilling is no longer needed because new rules reduce the risk of an uncontrolled spill, according to a report for a panel investigating BP Plc’s blowout.

Rules issued in June by the Interior Department “provide an adequate margin of safety to responsibly allow the resumption of deep-water drilling,” according to the report today from the Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington-based research group. The rules, if followed by BP, Apache Corp. and other drillers, and enforced by regulators, “will achieve a significant and beneficial reduction of risk.”

The report was prepared for the presidential commission investigating the BP spill. Its leaders, former Environmental Protection Agency Administrator William Reilly and former Democratic Senator Bob Graham of Florida, have questioned the need for the moratorium, which is scheduled to expire November 30.

“It confirms what we’ve been saying in Louisiana, that a six-month moratorium is arbitrary and capricious,” Louisiana Lieutenant Governor Scott Angelle, a Democrat, said today in an interview. The rules “have created an environment where a bipartisan, independent group says we can get back to work. We need to start issuing permits.”

There never was any legitimate justification for the moratorium.  Its purpose was always ideological - to artificially extend the crisis bequeathed the White House by the BP spill, especially after nature took care of it all by its lonesome, in order to use it as an additional tool in The One's anti-energy jihad.  And by Barack, they're gonna keep it in place right through November 30th, even if the Supreme Court itself strikes it down.  And then Ken Salazar will make the ban permanent, even if the Republican 112th Congress negates it by veto-proof majorities.  If it costs him his presidency, False Messiah will bid hail & good riddance to every last drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico, and the Gulf states economy right along with it.  Even if he has to go down in a bathyscape and personally re-break the Deepwater Horizon pipe himself.

***To all the U.S. servicepeople in Iraq he'll be hypocritically patting on the back next week, don't worry, your betrayer-in-chief still really hates your guts:

I have written previously here at PJM that all waiver requests should be denied. Unfortunately, if you are an overseas servicemember from Delaware, Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island, or Washington, the protections in the MOVE Act aren’t going to apply to you this year. And if you are from one of the states who still aren’t in compliance with MOVE — like Colorado, Wisconsin, or Alaska — don’t be surprised if you get scant help from Attorney General Eric Holder.

Waivers can be granted from MOVE only if states find a way to make sure the votes of servicemembers are still counted.

Washington, despite having plenty of time after an August 17 primary to get the job done, received a waiver today. Washington was unwilling to change their schedule of ballot preparation to allow for forty-five days mailing time. Though modern printing technology makes the Washington waiver unnecessary, it was granted.

Delaware election director Elaine Manlove says the state can get ballots out in time — but applied for a waiver “just in case.” Delaware’s waiver was motivated by caution, but caution isn’t a basis for the granting of a waiver. The law says “undue hardship.” However, waiver granted.

Rhode Island shared Delaware’s risk aversion: Spokesman Chris Barnett says they asked for a waiver in case they had a recount in the primary. A hypothetical “undue hardship.” Waiver granted.

Since MOVE passed last October, Massachusetts did nothing to adjust their late September 14 primary to comply. (This was the same state that introduced and passed legislation in mere days so that Senator Paul Kirk could be sworn in to vote for ObamaCare. The legislature previously stripped Republican Mitt Romney of the power to appoint replacements and required a special election.) It’s a shame soldiers aren’t as important as Senator Kirk’s vote was. Waiver granted.

New York sought a waiver. No surprise there: seven years after the passage of the Help America Vote Act of 2002, New York still wasn’t in compliance. Waiver granted. 

See, you can still enjoy the privilege of serving our country, even though Obamunist surrenderism will leave you with little else to do than peel potatoes, dig ditches, and be "models" in sodomy hygiene videos.  Or you can wuss out and return to civilian life, and enjoy the right to vote, until the regime finally formally does away with democracy altogether. 

But not both.

Call it a "less drastic" sacrifice than the one you may face now.  I'll guarantee you they will.

***Wow, looks like the Obama EPA are a bunch of dirty water and dirty air-lovin', globe-warming, polluter-hugging planet-killers after all:

Responding to a grassroots outcry from gun owners, the Environmental Protection Agency today announced that it has denied a petition by the Center for Biological Diversity and other radical groups that had sought to ban the use of lead in ammunition.

Agreeing with the position of the NRA and the firearms industry, the agency explained in a news release that it “does not have the legal authority to regulate this type of product under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).”  Further crushing the hopes of anti-gun and anti-hunting activists, the release added: “nor is the agency seeking such authority.”

“It’s outrageous that this petition even went this far,” said Chris W. Cox, NRA-ILA Executive Director.  “We applaud the EPA for its understanding of the law and its common sense in this situation — both of which were totally missing in the petition filed by these extreme anti-gun and anti-hunting groups.”

Because the EPA has no power to regulate ammunition, it will not move ahead with a public comment period on the petition.  However, a comment period will remain open until September 15 on the other part of the petition, which asks EPA to ban the use of lead in fishing sinkers.

Be sure to watch for more coverage of this important victory in next week’s Grassroots Alert and in NRA’s magazines.

Pussies.  They'll probably roll over, ass-skyward, for the National Rod Association, too.