It’s Monday, February 13th, 2012….and here’s The Gouge!

First up, courtesy of Shannon Wood, a single piece of political satire completely encapsulates Team Tick-Tock’s entire campaign:

In a related item, we’ve read some perplexing prose, but rarely anything as uninformative as this snippet from FOX News:

President Obama’s budget meets early GOP skepticism

Drawing on $1 trillion in deficit reductions already negotiated in last summer’s debt ceiling deal, President Obama’s next fiscal year budget — out Monday — will call for an additional $1.5 trillion in spending cuts to go with $1.5 trillion in new taxes on corporations and high-income earners.

The $4 trillion, 10-year spending plan — the last Obama budget proposal before the presidential election — uses savings from the Iraq and Afghanistan military withdrawals to drive down the deficit, pledges $476 billion over six years for infrastructure projects, $350 billion in short-term stimulus-style spending for job creation and $60 billion for teachers and first responders. It offers little in the way of entitlement reforms, the biggest driver of the national debt.

Added all together, Obama Chief of Staff Jacob Lew claims that for every dollar of revenue in the plan, spending will be cut $2.50. (Huh?!?)

Seriously, don’t ask us what FOX was trying to report, as the bottom line with this latest Obamanation remains….

Obama budget predicts $1.3T deficit for 2012

Yes….that’s “trillion”….with a “t”.  More importantly, compare the $1.3 trillion figure with what was predicted just a short time ago:

Yeah….you got it….TWO TIMES the CBO estimate; MORE than 2X Team Tick-Tock’s meaningless figures.  And even the current $1.3 trillion deficit estimate is based on revenue that will never generated, particularly if The Obamao’s raises taxes on the “rich”.

In a related item, as the WSJ reports, Progressive preoccupation with the plight of the poor persists only as long as its politically profitable:

Squeezed in St. Paul

Under Obama pressure, the city pulls a Supreme Court case.

How far will the Obama Administration go to impose racial lending quotas for banks? Far enough to lean on St. Paul, Minnesota to deny the Supreme Court the chance to rule on whether the government’s actions are legal.

In an extremely rare move, St. Paul officials on Friday withdrew their petition to have the Supreme Court hear Magner v. Gallagher, a case in which slumlords accused the city of racial discrimination for enforcing its housing code. The city says it has “focused on eliminating conditions such as rodent infestation, missing dead bolt locks, inoperable smoke detectors, poor sanitation, and inadequate heat.”

The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case in November on whether “disparate-impact analysis,” which uses statistics to prove racial discrimination, could be used under the 1968 Fair Housing Act. Oral arguments had been slated for later this month.

The Justice Department started a special unit in 2010 to pursue disparate-impact claims, which don’t require proof of intent. Lower courts have loosely interpreted the Fair Housing Act to allow for disparate-impact analysis, which ignores other factors that affect lending decisions.

Bank CEOs have tended to settle these cases rather than risk bad publicity, and Justice has pocketed the cash to distribute to its political allies. The Department of Housing and Urban Development is also pushing a new rule to codify disparate-impact analysis under the Fair Housing Act, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is making such lending enforcement a priority.

However, the Supreme Court has suggested in a related case that it may view the law differently, and Magner would have been the first time it ruled on disparate impact under the Fair Housing Act.

The prospect of losing this political hammer against banks sent the feds scrambling to stop the St. Paul case. Justice, HUD and former Vice President and Minnesota Senator Walter Mondale counseled the city, which is run by Democrats, against pursuing the case.

St. Paul released a statement Friday saying it “likely would have won” at the Supreme Court but that “such a result could completely eliminate ‘disparate impact’ civil rights enforcement, including under the Fair Housing Act and the Equal Credit Opportunity Act. This would undercut important and necessary civil rights cases throughout the nation. The risk of such an unfortunate outcome is the primary reason the city has asked the Supreme Court to dismiss the petition.”

To sum up: St. Paul has spent taxpayer money for almost a decade fighting a case to force slumlords to provide the poor—including minorities—with better housing. But just as it was on the cusp of what it claims would have been a victory at the Supreme Court, the city withdrew its appeal under pressure from the Obama Administration and liberals who feared they might lose a weapon of dubious legality that they want to use to tell banks how and to whom to lend.

It’s enough to recall the old joke that liberals love the poor in theory—it’s the actual poor they have a problem with.

Next up, the latest on the Religion of Peace and Tolerance, courtesy of the Guardian:

Saudis Use Interpol to Have Journalist Arrested for Criticizing Muhammad

Interpol has been accused of abusing its powers after Saudi Arabia used the organisation’s red notice system to get a journalist arrested in Malaysia for insulting the Prophet Muhammad. Police in Kuala Lumpur said Hamza Kashgari, 23, was detained at the airport “following a request made to us by Interpol” the international police cooperation agency, on behalf of the Saudi authorities.

Kashgari, a newspaper columnist, fled Saudi Arabia after posting a tweet on the prophet’s birthday that sparked more than 30,000 responses and several death threats. The posting, which was later deleted, read: “I have loved things about you and I have hated things about you and there is a lot I don’t understand about you … I will not pray for you.”

More than 13,000 people joined a Facebook page titled “The Saudi People Demand the Execution of Hamza Kashgari”. Clerics in Saudi Arabia called for him to be charged with apostasy, a religious offence punishable by death. Reports suggest that the Malaysian authorities intend to return him to his native country.

Kashgari’s detention has triggered criticism by human rights groups of Malaysia’s decision to arrest the journalist and of Interpol’s cooperation in the process.

Burn him!  Burn him!

Meanwhile, back in Washington, the Pentagon once again demonstrates denial of the obvious is the lamest form of lying:

Pentagon calls for ‘urgent’ upgrade of massive bunker-busting bombs, as Iranian threat looms

The military’s so-called Massive Ordnance Penetrator, a 30,000-pound bunker buster bomb, requires an “urgent” upgrade, according to Pentagon officials who are trying to ensure that 20 of the bombs are battle-ready — possibly for use against Iran, though officials have been tight-lipped on potential targets.

Defense appropriators on Capitol Hill agreed to the request on Wednesday, just one month after Iran announced it would begin uranium enrichment at a hardened underground facility near the city of Qom in the Fardow mountain range. The tunneled facility is thought to be beyond the range of the bunker buster in question — the largest non-nuclear weapon in the U.S. Air Force’s arsenal.

A Pentagon spokesman said the funding was needed to “make the system more survivable.” Publicly, the Air Force denies this weapon is being rushed for use in the Middle East. Air Force Chief General Norton Schwartz dismissed suggestions that the upgrades are tied to tensions with Iran.

No; with America’s defense budget being halved almost daily, the Brass just thought an opportune time to upgrade a weapons system with very limited applicability!

In a related item, Ike Skelton, who already demonstrated he’s an indisputable ass by his involvement in the USS Gabrielle Giffords travesty (see today’s Cover Story at www.thedailygouge.com), adds blind stupidity to his already lengthy list of accomplishments:

Former Rep. Ike Skelton, who once served as House Armed Services chairman, was at the Pentagon on Friday to dedicate a new Navy ship in the name of former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. He was asked whether the MOP faced problems when his committee was responsible. He said, “no,” adding that the U.S. has the conventional firepower to stop Iran’s nuclear program.

Uh….Ike….MOP’s ARE conventional firepower….you dumb douche pump!

THIS is the nuclear, and now more-than-ever NEEDED, nuclear equivalent….

….which was unfortunately shelved (or WAS it?!?) due to Dimocratic opposition during the latter years of Bush II.

Then there’s the Charles de Gaulle Memorial “Prompt Surrender is the Best Policy” segment, brought to us today by the WSJ, with invaluable assistance of the passionate appeasers in both Foggy Bottom and the French-speaking segment of the U.S. Senate:

Our Friends the Russians

The State Department and John Kerry still believe in the ‘reset.’

In its latest display of political retribution, the Kremlin is putting a human-rights lawyer and corruption whistleblower on trial for tax evasion. The notable news here is that Sergei Magnitsky died in police custody two years ago. His prosecution is a poke in the eye of the man’s family, the U.S. and the rule of law in Russia.

Magnitsky worked for an American law firm in Moscow whose clients included a Jewish rights group and the investment house Hermitage Capital. In 2008 he uncovered evidence of police corruption and embezzlement. The police promptly put him in prison, claiming he had helped Hermitage evade taxes. Eleven months later, he died.

A Russian government committee found that Magnitsky was beaten and denied treatment for pancreatitis and recommended that his prison doctors and interrogators be investigated. This didn’t happen. Instead, with the Kremlin’s blessing, the police last summer reopened the case against a dead man and have now announced plans for a trial.

Maryland Senator Ben Cardin, a Democrat who has followed the case, wants to freeze the assets of Russian officials implicated in his death and ban them from entering the U.S.  Twenty-nine Senators from both parties have co-sponsored his bill, which was introduced in 2010.

Now would be a good time to revive the measure, but the State Department is opposed and Senate Foreign Relations Chairman John Kerry has refused to schedule a hearing. It’s an open secret that Mr. Kerry wants Hillary Clinton’s job in a second Obama Administration. So his committee calendar fills up with items like the Haiti Reforestation Act.

Mr. Kerry is still carrying water for President Obama’s Russian “reset” policy. Don’t they follow the news? In recent months, Russian leaders have stoked anti-Americanism, threatened NATO with nuclear-missile strikes, armed and protected Syria’s Bashar Assad, stolen parliamentary elections and repressed domestic opponents ahead of next month’s restoration of Vladimir Putin to the presidency. It’s never easy to admit a policy mistake, but this is embarrassing.

As is The Obamao’s entire term in office.

Other the Dimocratic Establishment in America….and the entire Muslim world….Russia is perhaps the most virulently anti-Semitic part of the planet, as evidenced by the fate that befell Sergei Magnitsky.  Yet an Administration claiming to stand for truth, justice and the American way (although NOT the U.S. Constitution!), along with any alien that cares to enter our country illegally, cannot find it in their heart to stand up for the rights of Russians.

That being said, before anyone ascribes a sincere interest in Magnitsky’s plight to Senator Cardin, understand, Ben is Jewwish….and a significant portion of his largest and wealthiest contributors are named Izzy, Morty, Irving and Sam….aka, The Boyz That Eat No Ham.  And Cardin’s standing for reelection in November.  The impact of losing all those campaign shekels would be a serious dent in Cardin’s war chest.

But trust him….

….such pedestrian pecuniary pursuits don’t play into Cardin’s policies!  No….not the guy who back in 2011 introduced a bill with Chuck Schumer to penalize distributors of “false and deceptive” campaign literature, i.e., the “Free Speech for Us….But Not for YOU!” bill.

That’s “hypocrisy”….spelled L-I-B-E-R-A-L!

And in today’s Money Quote, the wisdom of Thomas Sowell, courtesy of the WSJ:

“At the heart of the social vision prevalent among contemporary intellectuals is the belief that there are “problems” created by existing institutions and that “solutions” to these problems can be excogitated by intellectuals. This vision is both a vision of society and a vision of the role of intellectuals within society. In short, intellectuals have seen themselves not simply as an elite—in the passive sense in which large landowners, rentiers, or holders of various sinecures might qualify as elites—but as an anointed elite, people with a mission to lead others in one way or another to better lives. . . .

Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s famous declaration—”Man was born free, and he is everywhere in chains”—summarizes the heart of the vision of the anointed, that social contrivances are the root cause of human unhappiness and explain the fact that the world around us differs so greatly from the world that we would like to see. In this vision, oppression, poverty, injustice and war are all products of existing institutions—problems whose solution require changing those institutions, which in turn require changing the ideas behind those institutions. In short, the ills of society are seen as ultimately an intellectual and moral problem, for which intellectuals are especially equipped to provide answers, by virtue of their greater knowledge and insight, as well as their not having vested economic interests to bias them in favor of the existing order and still the voice of conscience.“

On the Lighter Side….

Then there’s the latest in Italian cruise fashions from John Cotton….

….and the latest RNC campaign ad, courtesy of Brenda Berry:

And in the Wide, Wild World of Sports, confirmation there’s only one way to generate interest in women’s sports….outside of immediate family members and the Professionally Politically Correct:

Morgan to appear in body paint for SI

Finally, can someone, somewhere who’s at least one-quarter black PLEASE rise to the occasion so we don’t have to hear anything more about Tiger?

Mickelson’s 40th PGA win comes at Tiger’s expense

Really?  Only at Tiger’s expense?  What….the 154-odd other pros that entered and lost the tournament, including the 15 others that bested Woods, were playing gratis under some PGA charity program?!?

From the opening round, Woods was never really in this tournament; yet for all four days, all we read or heard about was Tiger.  We know it’s not Tiger’s fault, but frankly, we’re sick of it.  And we’re not afraid to state for the record if Woods were of of paler complexion the only interest he’d be drawing right now would be as the answer to sports trivia questions.

Magoo