SnarkyBytes

Seabrook, Texas. You can almost see Galveston Bay over the fence. Almost.

Lower is better.

That index is on a scale from 1 to 10.

Freedom means a lot of different things to different people, but the right own your self and what you produce has to be at the top of the list. The power to tax is the power to enslave. It’s shameful that the US is in the middle of that index and not #1 where it should be.

From NRO:

Judge Sotomayor thought it appropriate to use an unpublished summary order to dispose of the claims of the New Haven firefighters in Ricci v. DeStefano. Today the Supreme Court issued 93 pages of opinions in the case that Sotomayor acted to bury.

Further, although there is a sharp 5-4 divide among the justices, not a single justice thought that Judge Sotomayor acted correctly in granting summary judgment for the City of New Haven.

ALL the justices thought she acted incorrectly.

Perhaps the Justices are sending a subtle message about what they think of Obama’s nominee. You would think that would pretty much kill her chances for being confirmed by the Senate, but I’m not holding my breath.

I’ll be in the Houston area for the next two weeks.

Cap-and-trade has nothing to do with the climate and everything to do with expanding government power.

The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) has released a Global Warming study that was censored by the EPA.

The report finds that EPA, by adopting the United Nations’ 2007 “Fourth Assessment” report, is relying on outdated research and is ignoring major new developments. Those developments include a continued decline in global temperatures, a new consensus that future hurricanes will not be more frequent or intense, and new findings that water vapor will moderate, rather than exacerbate, temperature.

New data also indicate that ocean cycles are probably the most important single factor in explaining temperature fluctuations, though solar cycles may play a role as well, and that reliable satellite data undercut the likelihood of endangerment from greenhouse gases. All of this demonstrates EPA should independently analyze the science, rather than just adopt the conclusions of outside organizations.

The smoking gun is an email from Al McGartland, Director, National Center for Environmental Economics to one of the study’s authors:

A report censored because it doesn’t support the party line on global warming. The facts don’t matter and the Democrats are going to use anthropomorphic climate change to try to ram through Congress the largest tax increase in the history of the nation.

It’s not about climate. It’s about the willingness of Democrats to lie, cheat and steal in order to preserve their power.

From The Hill:

When asked why he read portions of the cap-and-trade bill on the floor Friday night, Boehner told The Hill, “Hey, people deserve to know what’s in this pile of s–t.”

Awesome!

Thankfully there are plenty of Democrats that aren’t willing to destroy country too.

One Democrat was upset that his leaders would needlessly force vulnerable Dems to vote for a bill that will come back to haunt them. Mississippi Rep. Gene Taylor (D) voted against the measure that he says will die in the Senate.

“A lot of people walked the plank on a bill that will never become law,” Taylor told The Hill after the gavel came down.

There seems to be a lot of plank walking going on since “We Won” became the excuse to cram through every idiotic socialist utopia wet dream law a liberal ever had while they have the chance.

Get ready to bend over and take one for the Democrats, America.

Lies, lies and more lies are being used in an attempt to pass the largest tax in the history of the nation.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has put cap-and-trade legislation on a forced march through the House, and the bill may get a full vote as early as Friday. It looks as if the Democrats will have to destroy the discipline of economics to get it done.

Despite House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman’s many payoffs to Members, rural and Blue Dog Democrats remain wary of voting for a bill that will impose crushing costs on their home-district businesses and consumers. The leadership’s solution to this problem is to simply claim the bill defies the laws of economics.

Obama himself admitted in 2008 that “Under my plan of a cap and trade system electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket. Businesses would have to retrofit their operations. That will cost money. They will pass that cost onto consumers.”

The reality is that cost estimates for climate legislation are as unreliable as the models predicting climate change. What comes out of the computer is a function of what politicians type in. A better indicator might be what other countries are already experiencing. Britain’s Taxpayer Alliance estimates the average family there is paying nearly $1,300 a year in green taxes for carbon-cutting programs in effect only a few years.

Americans should know that those Members who vote for this climate bill are voting for what is likely to be the biggest tax in American history. Even Democrats can’t repeal that reality.

Democrats are scrambling to get this disastrous bill passed before the public has a chance to understand the implications. And like the “bail out” bill and “health care” they will lie, cheat and steal to get their way on this.

And like the bail out and healthcare bills, the cap and trade bill is all about expanding government power. “Global Warming” is just the convenient excuse.

Via HotAir and RealClearPolitics and ABC News:

In a stunning moment of honesty during ABC’s infomercial for ObamaCare, President Obama admitted that it wouldn’t be good enough for his family.

President Obama struggled to explain today whether his health care reform proposals would force normal Americans to make sacrifices that wealthier, more powerful people — like the president himself — wouldn’t face.

The probing questions came from two skeptical neurologists during ABC News’ special on health care reform, “Questions for the President: Prescription for America,” anchored from the White House by Diane Sawyer and Charles Gibson.

Dr. Orrin Devinsky, a neurologist and researcher at the New York University Langone Medical Center, said that elites often propose health care solutions that limit options for the general public, secure in the knowledge that if they or their loves ones get sick, they will be able to afford the best care available, even if it’s not provided by insurance.

Devinsky asked the president pointedly if he would be willing to promise that he wouldn’t seek such extraordinary help for his wife or daughters if they became sick and the public plan he’s proposing limited the tests or treatment they can get.

The president refused to make such a pledge, though he allowed that if “it’s my family member, if it’s my wife, if it’s my children, if it’s my grandmother, I always want them to get the very best care.

It’s not about healthcare, it’s about expanding government power.

Every single politician promoting socialized medicine knows it won’t affect them or their family. Congress will exempt themselves from the rules just like they do for every law they pass.

They don’t care because they don’t have to.

UPDATE: Good idea over at Chicago Boyz

We should create a legal requirement that political elites have to use the same system they foist on everyone else. They should have to wait for hours in doctors offices. They should have to wait weeks or months for test. They should be fobbed off on emergency rooms if they get sick over the weekend. They should be denied any hail-mary test , medications and procedures. They should get the entire politically-managed health care experience.

This standard should extend to all elected officials, political appointees and their immediate family.

Such a law would create a built-in feedback loop that would prevent politicians from ignoring the health of the people.

Via Gateway Pundit:

The Huffington Post is butt hurt because McCain wouldn’t say Obama is on the side of the reformers in Iran.

Either Sen. John McCain didn’t hear Joe Klein tell him to “be quiet” or he doesn’t care, because the former presidential candidate went right back at his ex-rival Tuesday afternoon for President Obama’s decision not to insert himself into the Iranian crisis.

McCain wouldn’t say which side of the struggle he thought Obama was on.

That’s because we don’t KNOW. Even Obama doesn’t know which side he’s on.

John McCain DOES know which side he’s on and he’s not afraid to let you know.

“I know what side I’m on,” McCain cut in. “I’m on the side of the people. I’m not on Ahmadinejad’s side or Mousavi. I’m on the side of the Iranian people and I’m on the right side of history. And I’m not going to walk on the other side of the street while people are being killed and beaten in the streets of Iran.”

McCain said Obama’s reaction wasn’t equal to the situation. “We can’t sit by and watch a film clip on television of a young woman bleeding to death and say that we’re worried about the Iranian reaction or our ability to negotiate with them. We have to stand up for those people,” he said.

Now THAT is a good answer.

Obama’s response wasn’t equal to the situation and the world knows it even if Obama doesn’t. I was a reluctant McCain voter last November, but seeing things like this and how truly horrible Obama has turned out to be, I’m more certain than ever that the wrong man is President today.

Quantum breasts, Iran, shocking videos, “Oh my god, no!”, perils of socialized medicine, milk in a bag, “What, you believed a politician’s promises?”, Guantanamo: “Why didn’t we just shoot them in the first place.”, THAT guy that stood downrange.

Something to offend everyone.

And check out the new LabRat quotes feature on the sidebar.

Available here

Or in iTunes.

Investor’s Business Daily

It all amounts to a sad corruption of American journalism. Once upon a time, people would go into journalism to expose the seamy underbelly of American politics. Today, ABC News, in its abject submission to the Obama administration on health care, has decided to become the seamy underbelly.

Because sooner or later governments always start shooting their own people.

The Iranian people have rock and cell phones.

Airdrop a few thousand ARs and this thing would be over.

Yesterday was the day.

The new iPhone 3Gs!

I bought an iPhone the day they came out back in 2007. I’ve been very happy with it.

When the iPhone 3G came out last year I didn’t see enough improvement to upgrade but this year, with the 3Gs, oh yes. I had to have one.

But oh the standing in line. I am not a fan.

So I ordered one from Apple for delivery. Apple said it would arrive Friday.

It did.

Best Phone Ever. And no standing in line. Good job Apple!

(Now make it run on Verizon so I don’t have to put up with AT&T’s craptastic network.)

I think I could watch this for hours.

The only Network TV journalist I bother to watch any more has a blog now.

Texas Governor Rick Perry visited LaRue Tactical and spent some time at the range.

(From ar15.com)

Here he is shooting 1/2 MOA groups.

Yeah, he’s still a politician, but he seems to be firmly reality based.

Refreshing change from the norm.

Obama dithers while French President Sarkozy says the Iranian election is a fraud.

It has to suck when the French show you up to be a coward.

Via the Telegraph:

(and don’t get me started on the shameful coverage by the US media.)

In a statement released through state media, the powerful committee of 12 clerics said the move may lead to changes in the candidates’ tally.

A spokesman said it was “ready to recount the disputed ballot boxes claimed by some candidates, in the presence of their representatives”.

“It is possible that there may be some changes in the tally after the recount,” Abbasali Kadkhodai, a spokesman, was quoted as saying by the official IRNA news agency.

But a senior reformist ally of the defeated candidates Mir-Hossein Mousavi, the former prime minister, and Mehdi Karoubi said they wanted a rerun rather than a recount of “a few ballot boxes”.

The council was asked to formally cancel the result by Mr Mousavi.
He has promised not to give up the struggle despite President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad being declared the winner with 63 per cent of the vote at the weekend.
The result has triggered three days on unrest in Tehran and elsewhere in the country.

I’m not gonna hold my breath expecting the “recount” to make a difference but the fact that a recount of any kind, real or fake, is happening is a credit to the brave people of Iran who are refusing to back down.

You can still follow the Twitter updates at here.

UPDATE: #iranelection has been blocked in Iran. Switch to #Iranians , #Tehran, and #Iran9 (via @arashamel)

Unfortunately this isn’t a reality show, it’s real life.

Useful Idiot in Chief, Jimmy Carter is up to his tricks again.

Former President Jimmy Carter will urge the Obama administration to remove Hamas from the terrorist list, FOX News has learned.

Carter, a chief defender of the U.S.-designated terror group, said he will meet with officials in the Obama administration in two days to discuss his latest trip to the Middle East.

Carter said he feels personally responsible that American weapons were used to fight in Gaza Strip last year, when Israeli Defense Forces entered the strip to stop the launch of rockets from there into Israel.

Personally responsible? Bit of ego there.

Thank goodness this clown is irrelevant.