Libertyblog

Papal Apostasy?

This news made me think of the old expression, “The lights are on, but there’s nobody home.” (Via InstaPundit.)

Fluorescent Light Bulb Inspectors Wanted. Inquire Within.

Perhaps Obambi’s biggest lie is that restructuring the energy economy around the inefficiency of non-carbon resources is going to create wealth. Some facts from our friends the Spaniards:

• The U.S. can expect 2.2 jobs to be destroyed for every 1 renewable job financed by the government.

• Only 1 in 10 of the jobs actually created through green investment is permanent.

• Since 2000, Spain has spent €571,138 ($753,778) to create each “green job,” including subsidies of more than €1 million ($1,319,783) per wind industry job. Those programs resulted in the destruction of nearly 113,000 jobs elsewhere in the economy.

• Each “green” megawatt installed destroyed 5.39 jobs in non-energy sectors of the Spanish economy.

• Consumer energy costs in Spain would have to be increased 31 percent to repay the debt generated by the green jobs subsidies.

Playing Offense and Defense

Sworn testimony—albeit hearsay—accuses the New York Times, which created a McCain hit piece out of thin air, of looking the other way over Obambi’s ACORN connections.

Hardly News

Two Obambites face some confirmation trouble. One has been bitten in the ass by his résumé:

Tim Geithner’s new nominee for number two at the Treasury Department, Neal Wolin, played a key role in drafting legislation in the late 1990s deregulating the banking system, a former Treasury Department official confirms to us.

The law that Wolin helped draft has been blamed by some critics for easing up regulatory pressure on huge financial institutions, tangentially helping create today’s mess — and his role drafting it could come under questioning at his upcoming confirmation hearings.

Our reporter, Ryan Derousseau, came across Wolin’s role in researching our big profile of Wolin at WhoRunsGov.com. Stuart Eizenstat, a deputy Treasury secretary under Bill Clinton, confirmed that as Treasury’s general council at the time, Wolin “provided the technical and legal drafting” for the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act.

As Ryan writes, the Act hasn’t been directly blamed for today’s meltdown. But it did pave the way for the birth of huge financial companies like Citigroup that were deemed “too big to fail” when their mortgage bets went belly-up and the credit market evaporated. The government, of course, had to bail out these institutions with billions in taxpayer dollars.

Meanwhile, a Cabinet-level nominee faces—you guessed it!—tax questions:

Health and Human Services nominee Kathleen Sebelius has corrected three years of tax returns and paid more than $7,000 in back taxes after finding “unintentional errors”—the latest tax troubles for an Obama administration nominee.

“Unintentional.” Of course.

Change?

Over half the country still thinks we’re on the wrong track. If it’s any consolation, I’d say we’re going faster.

Nice Try

I don’t see the words “gun to her head” in this story:

It was a setup.

The video purporting to show Vice President Joe Biden’s daughter Ashley snorting cocaine was preplanned by a man trying to get rich selling the tape, RadarOnline.com has learned exclusively.

The man, who is apparently a friend of Ashley’s, even bought the cocaine and the hidden camera, our investigation has uncovered.

(Via Drudge.)

Master of All

Let me paraphrase Gerald Ford: A government powerful enough to reset your mortgage payments, guarantee your car warranty, and give you free health care is a government powerful enough to dictate your private employment salary, even retroactively. (Via Drudge.)

Guaranteed to Death

Let’s see if I’ve got this right. All those people who refinanced their mortgages and sucked out equity to buy nice GM cars, then defaulted, will now get a new deal to stay in “their” homes and have the government back their auto warranties?

Selective Outrage

We should have seen this coming:

Though the company teetered on the verge of bankruptcy at the time, this past December Philadelphia Media Holdings awarded bonuses to CEO Brian P. Tierney, vice president of finance Richard Thayer and Daily News publisher Mark Frisby.

PMH board chair Bruce Toll confirmed bonuses of $350,000 for Tierney and $150,000 each for Thayer and Frisby in a phone conversation on Friday. Reached by phone, Frisby told Philadelphia, “The numbers are wrong. But I’m not going to give you a number.”

Frisby refused to comment any further.

Tierney did not immediately return phone calls requesting a comment for this story.

Thayer could not be reached by e-mail for a comment.

Toll had first told Philadelphia that no bonuses had been awarded when asked earlier this week, but agreed to look into the matter. Today he said the bonuses had in fact been paid.

“I forgot,” he said.

Say, where did these newspapers stand on AIG bonuses?

Bonuses never should have been given to the people who helped to create the financial crisis. AIG’s financial- products unit devised the infamous “credit-default swaps” that helped to bring the company to the brink of collapse, necessitating the bailout.

Food for Impoverished Teens

A goodhearted Aussie:

A 27-year-old Australian man who pimped a 16-year-old girl so he and his girlfriend could afford their apartment, would pay the schoolgirl with chicken nuggets, the Australian Associated Press reported.

Ronald Vikash Gander used the $4,500 the teen made for having sex with five middle-aged men in June of last year to pay the weekly $1,050 rent on his Brisbane apartment, the Brisbane District Court was told.

Gander and his 16-year-old girlfriend would pay the teen with an occasional box of chicken nuggets, the AAP reported.

This will piss off the lefties for three reasons: She didn’t earn minimum wage, she was exposed to fried foods, and the poor chicken died.

It also reminds me of the old joke about the housewife-turned-prostitute who earned $1,000.10 for a mink coat when her cheap husband wouldn't buy her one. Who gave her the dime? All of them!