I don’t normally prowl the threads of Democratic Underground, but was interested to read comments regarding one of their complaints about an increase in social security withholding tax after Rush Limbaugh remarked on it today.

Surprise! The author self-deleted the comment.

I guess being featured on Limbaugh’s program was more shame that NCTraveler could bear. However, she is not the only one shocked to discover that they are counted among the “1 percent”, the “wealthy”, and the “privileged” by Team Obama today.

Twitchy has a compendium of tweets that show a complete lack of understanding about the impact of progressive policies and federal fiscal irresponsibility on the individual level. My personal favorites are from the employers who have to hand out the smaller paychecks to their unhappy employees:

It must be especially frustrating to those who got a raise in 2012, to find they will actually be taking home less real pay in 2013. Happy New Year!

But the news gets even grimmer. Decembers employment numbers remain weak, and Business Insider published a fairly scary chart comparing today’s employment situation to other post World War II era.

“This shows the depth of the recent employment recession – worse than any other post-war recession – and the relatively slow recovery due to the lingering effects of the housing bust and financial crisis,” writes Bill McBride of Calculated Risk.

I suspect that these will not be the only fiscal shocks progressives will be in for over the next few years. Obama truly has a golden touch!

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Note: You may reprint this cartoon provided you link back to this source. To see more Legal Insurrection Branco cartoons, click here.  

Branco’s  page is Cartoonist A.F.Branco

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In my Saturday Night Race Card post a few weeks ago, I mentioned that I was researching a book on real estate fraud and corruption.

The main characters in my narrative are a couple who look like you and me and seem perfectly lovely.  But in the go-go days of free mortgages last decade, they bought ten homes with almost no money and no credit, and as the market skyrocketed they cashed out on re-fis to the tune of millions.

Then when the market tanked and they found themselves upside on every property, they divorced for legal purposes (they’ve never not lived together), divvied up the homes, named each other as creditors, filed for individual Chapter 7 bankruptcies, lied repeatedly on the filings, wiped out millions in debts, were allowed to keep the upside homes because the bankruptcy trustees only want assets that they can convert to cash for the creditors, and have continued to collect rent from tenants while the homes are in foreclosure—going on four and five years.

A few days ago, as part of my research, I dispatched my wife to gather some documents from an old probate filing in Ventura(Calif.), just north and west of Los Angeles.

Keep in mind that these are public documents available for everyone to see, whether they’re cops or illegal aliens.  But when my wife filled out the request form and asked for the file, the clerk demanded her driver’s license.

“Why?” my wife asked why.

“For security,” the clerk said.

“These are public documents.”

“Yes, they are.”

“I don’t have to show my license to vote.”

“I know.”

“But here, I have to not only show you my license, I have to give you my license to see public documents?”

“We just hold it till you bring the file back.”

“But I’m sitting right there, at that table in front of you.”

“You wouldn’t believe the amount of theft we have.”

“So holding licenses is the only way to stop it?”

“It’s the cheapest way.”

“What if someone has a stolen license?”

“We can’t do anything about that.”

“If I show up voting day at the polls and pretend to be my neighbor or make up another name, I get to vote without showing i.d.”

“That would be illegal.”

“In fact, I think all I have to do to register to vote the first time is show a utility bill. In which case, I could be an illegal.”

“I don’t know about that.”

“But if I want to see public documents I have to...

Last night’s broadcast of ABC World News featured a segment in which Diane Sawyer interviewed all twenty female U.S. Senators in the newly sworn in 113th Congress.

The segment touched on an array of issues, from contraception, to abortion, to who they thought would be the first female President of the United States.

Though the interview was a bit heavy on “men-bashing,” I thought it was a very interesting segment. Much of the interview centered around the 113th Congress being a body of “firsts.”

Sawyer opens the segment reflecting on the historical significance of this particular Congress.

Across the capitol, a milestone in history. One after the other, women were sworn in as Senators. For the first time ever twenty U.S. Senators in all, and they were lawyers, ranchers, a former Governor. They were also mothers… They are living breathing history.

Later, Sawyer specifically identifies individual trailblazers among the group of twenty.

These new female arrivals signal a modern era. The first female Senator from Nebraska, Deb Fischer. The first Asian-American woman elected to the Senate, Mazie Hirono. And the first openly gay Senator, Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin…

Credit should be given where credit is due. And this is a truly remarkable group of women, many of which are pioneers for their race, ethnicity, or sexual orientation.

However, one thing was conspicuously absent from the recitation of the “firsts” achieved by this group of female Senators.

Sawyer failed to list Elizabeth Warren as the first Native American female U.S. Senator. Throughout her campaign for the Senate, Warren was dogged by her unrelenting claims of Native American heritage despite the fact that she never produced any real evidence to prove it, and consistently ignored those who questioned it. (Jump to 3:28 to see where Sawyer begins the list)

I inquired with ABC as to why Warren was left out. As of yet, they have not addressed my question. My assumption is that ABC presumably required a certain level of documentation to corroborate claims of heritage before broadcasting their validity on World News.

As has been documented here on numerous occasions, the proof offered by Warren is not sufficient to satisfy any real inquiries into her heritage.

Here’s one example of Warren’s “proof.”

Explanations like that may have cut it at Harvard Law School or the University of Pennsylvania, but it is apparently not enough for World News with Diane Sawyer.

Update: An e-mail from a reader alerted me that a new law maker with Native American heritage was, in fact,...

A little over two years ago, the newly-minted Speaker of the House John Boehner essentially said that Tea Party freshman would soon have an “adult moment,” when their principles came in to contact with Beltway politics.

Dawn Wildman is a state coordinator for the California Tea Party, President of the SoCal Tax Revolt Coalition in San Diego, and local pundit. She attended a meeting the day after Boehner’s insulting statement went public. This conference heralded how the views of the average American taxpayers would continue to be dismissed in favor of pure politics, despite the election of a Republican majority in the House of Representatives sparked by these very citizens.

Many conservatives believe the only home of conservatism is the Republican Party. However, her experiences at that meeting were clear portents of how party faithful are continually glad-handed and then ignored. It is a chilling lesson for everyone in “Panem” dynamics involving real Washington insiders, especially for those wondering about how the “Fiscal Cliff Deal”could have been struck.

“I was a National Coordinator for Tea Party Patriots at the time, and joined about 25 other tea party activists for a meeting with the staffers associated with both [Senate Minority Leader] Mitch McConnell and John Boehner,” Wildman said. “Even though McConnell was in the hallway, it seems these men were too busy to actually meet with us, despite the fact that most of the people in that room had been instrumental in getting Boehner his new spot.”

The inherent disrespect shown these citizen activists was highlighted in the assigned meeting center: The Strom Thurmond Room.

“Talk about bad optics,” noted Wildman. “For a group that had falsely accused of being racists daily by political opponents, the media, and members of Congress, to be put into a room named for a representative infamous for his archaic views on race was thoughtless.”

The purpose of meeting was to vent the frustrations over the rapid passage of budget-busting legislation (TARP, Obamacare, Cap & Trade, and the Stimulus). Despite Boehner’s insulting statement the day before, the attendees wanted to highlight the fact that they were willing to work with and assist the new Congress, as well as remind the politicians that they needed to also work with the citizen organizations.

“From the time we got there, it was clear we were to be herded and shuffled out of there promptly at the end of 45 minutes.” Recalled Wildman. “They wasted almost a half...

An edict was issued on Wednesday by Iranian authorities ordering Isfahan’s 1.5 million residents to leave the city because pollution in the area “has reached emergency levels.”

Skeptical of Iran’s explanation for the evacuation, some believe it to have been prompted by more than just your average pollution. (h/t Uncle Samuel)

[O]utside observers...

A year ago, sixteen scientists wrote an editorial for the Wall Street Journal to explain that there is “no compelling scientific argument” for “drastic actions on global warming”, despite the fact that the media continues reporting there is “incontrovertible” proof otherwise.

One of those scientists is Dr. Roger Cohen, who spent over...

Okay, I see you are.

Yeah, we’re following you.

The vast right wing conspiracy is everywhere.

From Bob,

A misplace Californian, spotted at a Taco Bell drive-thru in Longmont CO.

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I posted the other day about the lawfare threats against Canadian blog Blazing Cat Fur, In 2013, protect and support your local blogger more than ever.

I didn’t realize it, but they already have been sued by Michael Mann, who has sued National Review...

The Putnam County (NY) Clerk has refused to give the Lower Hudson Journal News data on gun permit holders.

The publication of gun permit holder information by the Journal News for Rockland County caused a firestorm...

The Council on American Islamist Relations (CAIR) demanded the media drop the term “Islamist” in a commentary piece today from communications director Ibrahim Hooper, ISLAM-OPED: Media Urged to Drop Term ‘Islamist’ in New Year.

In it, Hooper laments that the term “Islamist” is “used in an almost exclusively pejorative context” and unfairly labels...

Emily Miller points out how David Gregory is receiving special treatment at the hands of the D.C. police, Two systems of justice:

It’s been more than a week since police in Washington, D.C., opened an  investigation into NBC’s David  Gregory’s possession of a “high-capacity magazine” that’s prohibited in the  District on on...

Updates: John Boehner was relected, but just barely. It looked for a short while like he may not make it, but once it became clear he would get a majority of those voting, some “conservatives” who had not voted when first called decided to vote for Boehner.

Final...

The horror unfolding in Syria of late has been truly shocking. Tens of thousands of Syrians have died in an increasingly bloody civil war.

The situation in Syria has become even more appalling lately, and one wonders if a bloodbath on the scale of Rwanda is possible, particularly if Assad falls.

“This massive loss of...

Despite the large scale and outspoken dissatisfaction by many Republican lawmakers of Speaker Boehner following the fiscal cliff vote, most are in agreement that his speakership is not going to be legitimately threatened today.

That being said, today’s vote may not necessarily be the smooth sailing that it was for the Speaker...