Dept of Justice investigation of IRS scandal exposed as phony

From the Washington Times:

The Justice Department selected an avowed political supporter of President Obama to lead the criminal probe into the IRS targeting of tea party groups, according to top Republicans who said Wednesday that the move has ruined the entire investigation.

Not surprisingly, the MSM is ignoring this:

So far ABC, CBS and NBC have yet to mention what Darrell Issa called “a startling conflict of interest.” In fact the Big Three networks have almost completely stopped covering the IRS scandal investigation altogether.

 For comparison:

In less than 24 hours, the big three networks have devoted 17 times more coverage to a traffic scandal involving Chris Christie than they've allowed in the last six months to Barack Obama's Internal Revenue Service controversy

Creeping Fascism: what are you loyal to? the country or its leader?

Judge Aquilina

A turning point in German history occurred on August 2, 1932.  That was the first day that German soldiers were required to pledge loyalty not to their country but to Adolph Hitler personally.

Flash forward to July 19, 2013 when Judge Rosemarie Aquilina rejects Detroit's bankruptcy petition, stating “It’s also not honoring the president, who took [Detroit’s auto companies] out of bankruptcy.”  The judge added: “I know he’s watching."

It is one thing for judge to rule based on findings of fact or law.  It is quite another to invoke the "honor" of the president in a legal ruling.   While this is clearly not the same thing as the German loyalty oath, it is a small but frightening step away from the rule-of-law toward the rule-of-man.

Obama's continuing incoherence

Pres. Obama spoke yesterday at the Interfaith Prayer Vigil Address at Newtown High School.  After reflecting on the horrific murders at Newtown and other shootings across the country, the President declares:

We can’t tolerate this anymore.  These tragedies must end.  And to end them, we must change.  We will be told that the causes of such violence are complex, and that is true.  No single law -- no set of laws can eliminate evil from the world, or prevent every senseless act of violence in our society.

But that can’t be an excuse for inaction.  Surely, we can do better than this.

He says that we "can't tolerate" these tragedies and they "must end."  That sounds clear and definitive.  But wait, just a couple sentences later, he  admits that we cannot "prevent every senseless act of violence,"  and thus these acts will not end, and we will have to tolerate them.

For a speech that liberals are comparing to the Gettysburg Address, shouldn't it at least be coherent?

Jacob Sullum says that the speech reveals the magical thinking of gun controllers (hat tip: Instapundit).  Obama's speech, however, is not even consistently magical.

If the news media is so biased, why did they turn on Obama?

Pres. Obama's performance in the debate last Wednesday received uniformly negative reviews.  In response, some liberals ask, reasonably, how come, if the news media is as biased as non-liberals say, they turned on Obama?  There are three factors at work:

First, while the news media routinely lie, they can't lie easily about a debate if you just saw it, unedited, on live TV.  Further, they knew from the focus groups and instant polls that it was obvious to viewers that Obama failed.  This limits the journalists' options.

Secondly, and, I think, more importantly in this case, liberal journalists and commentators were  themselves shocked by Obama's poor performance.  They had believed their own spin.  They had demonized Clint Eastwood for his empty chair comedy routine.  Now, they saw, along with the rest of the country, that Eastwood was right.  They were in shock.  Anti-Obama rants, like the one from Chris Matthews, were the result.

Thirdly, a key feature of liberal news bias is that the journalists are loyal first and foremost to the liberal world view.  Journalists will abandon a politician the moment that he does not serve the cause.  You may remember that happening to John Kerry.  They are loyal to the message, not the messenger.  If it starts to look like Obama is making liberalism look bad, they will abandon him too.  Most of the media has not gotten to this point with Obama but the new New Yorker cover (above) indicates that this may change.

Stimulus Fail: when can we declare Keynesian economics dead?

Economics has various schools of thought. The Keynesian school, popular among Democrats, believes that, if the government spends money that it doesn't have, then, through a multiplier effect, the economy will grow. Thus, back in early 2009, economists working for Pres. Obama calculated that, without additional government spending, the unemployment rate would follow the light blue curve. With the stimulus spending, they calculated that it would follow the dark blue curve, never going over 8% and dropping to 5.5% by today. The stimulus passed but the actual unemployment rate is shown by the red dots (click on any figure to enlarge):

If there were as many people in the workforce today as there were when Obama took office, the unemployment rate would be 10.7%. The rate has drifted down over the past two years only because people have left the workforce: giving up, retiring, or going on disability.

How large was the actual stimulus? This chart shows deficit spending since 2000 with Obama's actual deficits shown by orange bars. The red and pink bars are, respectively, projections by CBO and the White House:

Liberals like to claim that deficits are due to Bush's war spending. This chart shows otherwise. As Pres. Bush's war spending ramped up, deficits dropped. Deficits started increasing again only after Democrats took control of both houses of Congress in 2007.

Now that Democrats have had this four year experiment with extreme deficits while the economy had the worst recovery since the Great Depression, can we declare Keynesianism dead?

Of course, we can't.  Keynesianism justifies their power.

Al-Qaeda flags fly over rebel-held Syria

Flag of Al Qaeda

Asia Times reports that Syrian rebels are proudly flying Al Qaeda flags.  Richard Engel at NBC reports that, in return for a generous supply of guns and cash, Al Qaeda is making Syrian rebels an offer that they cannot reconsider:

I have spoken with rebel units who told me they were offered large amounts of money, in exchange for pledging allegiance to al-Qaida. But it comes with a caveat: they can not leave. One rebel commander told me that one of his relatives had joined al-Qaida and tried to leave – but was executed for his apparent treason.

Al Qaeda's ability to insinuate itself in Syria shouldn't come as a surprise: before Al Qaeda attacked America, it was at war with Russia and Assad's Syria is a Russian/Iranian client state. Further, While the majority of Syria population is Sunni, Assad's regime is Alawite, a variation on Shia.  Al Qaeda is Sunni.

The government that replaces Assad might make Assad's regime seem "moderate."

The lesson that we learned in Iraq is that it is easy to topple to unpopular Arab regime but hard work to nurture a better (i.e. democratic) government.  Obama's policy of destabilizing governments, such as Libya and Egypt, without doing the hard work of supporting a good replacement will likely be as disastrous as Jimmy Carter's efforts to replace the Iran's Shah with the Ayatollahs.

The Angry Liberal

One might have thought that the four liberal Supreme Court Justices would have been happy that Chief Justice Roberts switched sides to join them in upholding Obamacare. They weren't. Instead, they were furious. Here is Justice Ginsburg excoriating Roberts as "rigid," "crabbed," "specious," and "stunningly retrogressive":

"According to the Chief Justice the Commerce Clause does not permit that preservation. This rigid reading of the Clause makes scant sense and is stunningly retrogressive. . . . The Chief Justice's crabbed reading of the Commerce Clause harks back to the era in which the Court routinely thwarted Congress' efforts to regulate the national economy in the interest of those who labor to sustain it. . . . The Chief Justice's novel constraint on Congress' commerce power gains no force from our precedent and for that reason alone warrants disapprobation. . . . The Chief Justice also calls the minimum coverage provision an illegitimate effort to make young, healthy individuals subsidize insurance premiums paid by the less hale and hardy. This complaint, too, is spurious. . . . Failing to learn from this history, the Chief Justice plows ahead with his formalistic distinction between those who are "active in commerce," and those who are not. . . . The Chief Justice accepts just such specious logic when he cites the broccoli horrible as a reason to deny Congress the power to pass the individual mandate. . . . If long on rhetoric, the Chief Justice's argument is short on substance."

The full text of the Court's decision is here (PDF). The above excerpt was collected by James Taranto.
Note the left's casual disregard for the constitution when Justice Ginsburg complains of Roberts' thwarting of efforts to "regulate the national economy in the interest of those who labor to sustain it."  The Constitution has no provision enabling regulations in favor of "labor" to override other Constitutional provisions.  Our Constitution is not Marxist.
As a side note, one of the left's justifications of Obamacare is that health care is expensive because of the high cost of the uninsured which is cost-shifted onto those who pay. However, Justice Ginsburg writes:

As a group, uninsured individuals annually consume more than $100 billion in health-care services, nearly 5% of the Nation's total.

In other words, even by Justice Ginsburg's numbers, the cost of the uninsured is a small fraction of healthcare costs and hardly a reason to destroy the system that the rest of us use.

Obama supporters explain why you should vote Obama in 2012. From the streets of San Francisco!

This video was taken during Obama's last two visits to the SF Bay Area. The SF Tea Party was at both to protest (see here and here). The highlight of the video though has to be the Obama supporters trying to explain what Obama's greatest accomplishments are:

(From TeaPartyTelevision)

PREVIOUSLY on recent SF Bay Area events:
•In the streets of San Francisco: a protest against Obama!
•Obama visits the San Francisco Peninsula and a Tea Party breaks out
•Global warming provokes laughter, even in the San Francisco Bay Area
•OccupyFail: the "general strike" that wasn't
•San Francisco Tax Day Tea Party
•San Francisco: inmates run asylum
•SF Churches rally: has a second front opened in the war for freedom?
•Reluctant California bureaucrats are shamed into saying the Pledge of Allegiance

San Franciscans protest against Obama

Barack Obama, America's Fundraiser-in-Chief, visited San Francisco today in search of still more campaign cash. Because San Francisco, home to Nancy Pelosi, has a reputation as America's most liberal city, one might think that The One would be safe from criticism here. It is not so. As he arrived for lunch at the Julia Morgan Ballroom in the historic Merchants Exchange Building on California Street, the San Francisco Tea Party was there to greet him (click on any photo to enlarge):

Just a couple years ago, the local SF news media ignored tea parties. Now, they will take a few pictures of tea parties and sometimes their reports are even accurate. Below, KRON interviews Sally Zelikovsky, the founder of the Bay Area Patriots:

After the rally, Sally commented that the media interest in the Tea Party seemed to be at an all-time high. Could it be that the Wisconsin results have finally convinced them that the Tea Party is not going away? [Update: Fund47 has more on the press coverage. Sally writes on the press coverage here.]

Breitbart was here also and celebrating the victory in Wisconsin:

More people with messages:

The sign below reads "POTUS: we hope the winds of change blow you away!!":

I

There is always a lot of security for the President but, in my observation, this was a first: to protect The One, dump trucks were used to block off the streets:

Naturally, this prompted the crowd to burst out in a chorus of "Dump Obama."

At another moment, a dog was seen being walked toward the Merchants Exchange Building. Concerned that Obama might think it appetizing, the crowd shouted chants of "poor little pup" and "save the dog."

The number of vehicles requires to protect the President is always impressive. Here is an array of San Francisco Police motorcycles that arrived as part of the Presidential protection detail:

Does this make the SFPD California's largest biker gang? Regardless, the use of so many vehicles, replicated along every step of the way, shows just a small piece of how carbon-intensive Obama's travel really is.

The left also appeared. Apparently in sympathy with polar bears (but not with consumers), this crowd wanted to stop arctic drilling:

There was also a contingent of left-wing anti-war protesters such as this woman:

It was just four years ago that there was much Hope for all the Change that America's new messiah would bring. It must be very disappointing to the left that Gitmo is still open and that they still need their venerable "peace" signs. Reality is tough.

Larry from SF was at today's rally. Expect to see more tea party photos at his blog, Fund47. [Update: the permalink to Larry's photos is here.]

UPDATE: Zombie followed Obama every step along the way yesterday and has photos.

WELCOME to readers of Instapundit, FoxNews, GatewayPundit, Memeorandum, Fund47, Moonbattery, Zombie, AmericanThinker, The Examiner, BeforeItsNews, MyMyMy, IOwnTheWorld, PatDollard, AllPatriotsMedia, FreeNorthCarolina, WhatBubbaKnows, and NoMossHere.

PREVIOUSLY on recent SF Bay Area events:

•Obama visits the San Francisco Peninsula and a Tea Party breaks out
•Global warming provokes laughter, even in the San Francisco Bay Area
•OccupyFail: the "general strike" that wasn't
•San Francisco Tax Day Tea Party
•San Francisco: inmates run asylum
•SF Churches rally: has a second front opened in the war for freedom?
•Reluctant California bureaucrats are shamed into saying the Pledge of Allegiance

Obama is not carbon neutral II

Pres. Obama has his barber, Zariff, flown in from Chicago to D.C. to cut his hair every two weeks.

Remember that the next time that you are asked to sacrifice in the name of "global warming."

(What level of vanity does a person have to have to think he requires a haircut every two weeks?)

PREVIOUSLY on eco-hypocrisy:
•Pres. Obama is not carbon-neutral
•Study: Environmentalists more likely to "cheat" and "steal"
•The UN's global warming advocates vs. their own carbon footprint
•Eco-hypocrite of the day: supermodel Giselle
•The ever-increasing energy use of Al Gore's mansion
•With five private jets, Travolta still lectures on global warming.

How Obama bought support for Obamacare from the big Pharmaceutical companies

Bloomberg reports (hat tip: Instapundit) that the House Energy and Commerce Committee released documents revealing the deal that the Obama administration made with pharmaceutical companies to secure their support for Obamacare.

In a gift to big Pharma, Obama agreed to block re-importation of drugs from Canada and other countries where some drugs are cheaper than in the US.

In return, the pharmaceutical companies promised a big ad campaign to support both Obamacare and the politicians who supported it:

“As part of our agreement, PhRMA needs to undertake a very significant public campaign in order to support policies of mutual interest to the industry and the Administration,” according to a July 14, 2009, memo from the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America. “We have included a significant amount for advertising to express appreciation for lawmakers’ positions on health care reform issues.”

The goal, the memo said, was to “create momentum for consensus health care reform, help it pass, and then acknowledge those senators and representatives who were instrumental in making it happen and who must remain vigilant during implementation.”

PREVIOUSLY on Obamacare:
•AstroTurf for Obamacare
•Preview of Obamacare: Medicare loses $375 million to fraudulent billings by a single physician
•Obama Admin defunds a piece of Obamacare
•Government health care is something to die for
•AP: Obamacare increasingly unpopular
•Obamacare forcing Boeing to cut back employee healthcare coverage
•Special privileges: McDonald's and 29 other companies get waivers from Obamacare
•Obamacare threatens health coverage for fast-food workers
•ObamaCare threatens child-only insurance
•Medical insurance prices rising due to ObamaCare
•Obamacare endangers student health
•Obama's health care and economic policies explained
•Obamacare may raise insurance costs by 54%
•Harvard economist explains why Obamacare will raise premiums
•HHS says Obamacare will cause costs to go up and cause employers to drop coverage
•The dawning of the reality of Obamacare
•Consumers outsmart Massachusetts' version of Obamacare
•Obamacare threatens high tech jobs
•Obamacare and trillions of dollars of unfunded mandates
•The fraud of Obamacare, as seen from the left
•Pelosi: Pass Obamacare so artists can quit their day jobs
•Britain's Obamacare: Hospital patient dies of thirst as nurses ignore his pleas for water
•Nobel Laureate economist explains why socialized medicine always fails
•Rep. Ryan explains the dishonesty of Obamacare economics

Obama visits the San Francisco Peninsula and a Tea Party breaks out

Pres. Obama had another busy day of fundraising today. First he went to the Atherton home of heirs of the Levi Strauss fortune where he had dinner with supporters who paid $35,800 per plate. He then went to Fox Theatre (where he missed his entrance cue) in Redwood City to mix with supporters who paid from $1,000 to $12,500 per person to attend. Outside the Fox, the San Francisco Tea Party assembled to protest Obama (click photos to enlarge):
Don't get confused by the "Hope-Change" signs above: they read "Hope you like the Change November 6, 2012." There are also signs supporting Romney, opposing "Obama Debt," as well as several of San Francisco's red Nobama 2012 fingers. Here are some more views:





The San Jose Mercury News has a story on this event that manages to miss the story. Their report features Obama supporters and mentions critics of Obama only if they criticize him from the anti-war left. By count of signs, as you can see above, the crowd was overwhelmingly from the Tea Party but the Mercury didn't mention 'tea party' in the story at all. Print newspapers deserve their financial troubles.

This is San Francisco's third Tea Party this year. The first protested outside an Obama fundraiser on Nob Hill. The second was the traditional tax day Tea Party.

Obama warns that excessive debt endangers jobs!

In an email today, The Barack Obama campaign explains what is wrong with "Romney economics":

On the campaign trail, Mitt Romney points to his private sector experience as his chief qualification to be president.

So we took a look at that experience, and put together a new site, RomneyEconomics.com, on it. Take a look for yourself here.

Let me sum up how Romney economics works:

Romney and his partners bought companies across the United States, often loading them up with debt in the process.

Too often, they slashed pensions, benefits, and jobs, while paying themselves and their shareholders straight from the debt they'd accumulated.

Because of that debt, several of these businesses went bankrupt, leaving workers without jobs, without pensions, and without health care -- all while Romney and his partners walked away with millions.

What other companies loaded up on debt and then went bankrupt, leaving workers without jobs, but enriching well-connected investors? Solyndra comes to mind.

What else has piled on the debt while shedding jobs? The US under Obama.

Like so many Democrat criticisms of Republicans, this one seems driven by psychological projection.

PREVIOUSLY on the subject of psychological projection:
•Liberals and their vivid imagination
•Homophobia and liberals
•More psychological projection: Democrats says those racists call them names
•The masters of astroturf claim that tea parties are astroturf
•Air America projects hate
•Air America fantasizes a right-wing hate machine
•Syria imagines that Israel does not want peace
•The New Republic says lying is 2nd nature to Republicans
•Rahm Emanuel caught projecting his strategy onto Republicans
•Alec Baldwin projects his hate onto Republicans
•Progessives and prejudice and hate
•HuffPost blogger projects enviro-hypocrisy
•Dems accuse other Dems of acting like Republicans

Consequences of Obama's rhetoric: 15 violent attacks

At PJMedia, Bob Owens reports (hat tip: Instapundit):

The assaults on a pair of Virginian-Pilot reporters in Norfolk, Va., two weeks ago at the hands of 30 black youths, reported for the first time Tuesday, are the latest in a series of attacks driven by a warped sense of racial vigilantism hiding behind calls of “Justice for Trayvon.” At least 15 whites have been beaten not just with fists, but with potentially deadly weapons including hammers and lengths of chain. Many of the victims have been hospitalized, some may never fully recover, and one lingers on the verge of death.

More details at the link.

Of course, Pres. Obama is only the most prominent of the race-baiters in this case. Among others, NBC News has worked to incite race hatred with Dowdified quotes while ABC News spent weeks inflaming passions with false reports that Zimmerman was uninjured before admitting error.

IRS and the abuse of power

Our progressively more powerful government requires that all sorts of confidential details be disclosed to the IRS in tax returns. And then, when it suits someone's political agenda, that confidential information can be leaked to the co-chairman of President Obama's reelection committee for him to use as he pleases. Breitbart.com has the details.

RELATED: Pres. Obama jokes about having the IRS audit his enemies.

FLASHBACK: The IRS illegally leaked Richard Nixon's tax returns. John O. Requard Jr. denies that he was leaker. Requard, who had been a volunteer for George McGovern's presidential campaign in 1972, was working for the IRS in 1973. He does admit that IRS employees had printed out and passed around Nixon's tax returns. He just says it was someone else who sent it the media.

PREVIOUSLY on Democrats, taxes, and the IRS:
•IRS gives "refunds" based on forged W-2s submitted by illegals
•Obama selects tax cheats to run the government
•Rep. Charlie Rangel's tax problems
•Poll: Democrats more likely to approve of cheating on taxes
•Taxes and left-wing Senators Al Franken and Paul Wellstone

Obama's upside down world

At a fundraiser in Maine, Pres. Obama explained:

"We won't win the race for new jobs and new businesses and middle-class security if we cling to this same old, worn-out, tired `you're on your own' economics that the other side is peddling," Obama said.

"It was tried in the decades before the Great Depression. It didn't work then. It was tried in the last decade. It didn't work," he said. "You know, the idea you would keep on doing the same thing over and over again, even though it's been proven not to work. That's a sign of madness."

Is it really necessary to explain that the left-wing interventionist policies of the FDR were a disaster that made an economic downturn last a whole decade? Obama's similar interventionist micromanagement of the economy has made economic bad times last the whole time he has been in office.

Obama's point, if he has one, might be that the 1920s ended with a recession just as Obama's turn in office began in a recession. Recessions happen every several years and, as the Austrian school of economics teaches, human nature seems to make them unavoidable. Thus, economic success is when recessions are short or mild. By this test, Obama and FDR both fail.

Has a second front opened in the war for freedom?

Pres. Obama's attempt to use Obamacare to crush religious freedom is provoking a backlash even in San Francisco where Christians organized a massive rally on Friday against Obamacare's mandates (click to enlarge):

(Photo courtesy of Larry from SF)

(Photo courtesy of Larry from SF)

Up until now, the TEA party, a secular group, has been the central force defending freedom against Obama's governmental power grabs. If this rally is an indication, religious groups may form a second front in this war for freedom.

Since Christianity values charity, many Christians have supported Democrats and their government welfare state. Obama has demonstrated however the danger in this ill-conceived alliance. The massive power of a Federal welfare state is a threat to religion and religious values. It is not just the outrage of the government requiring Catholics to pay for abortifacients and the possibility that this may force the nationwide network of Catholic charity hospitals to close. Obama's stated goal of giving old people aspirins instead of medical care is also a clear violation of Christian conscience:

(Photo courtesy of Larry from SF)

This rally took place at Noon on Friday at the Federal Building in San Francisco. Although some media reported the crowd size at 500, Larry from SF estimates the attendance at 1,000. This rally was part of a nationally organized Stand Up for Religious Freedom protests.

One of the groups represented at the rally was Couples for Christ, a Catholic organization, with a newly discovered mission to oppose Obama:

(Photo courtesy of Larry from SF)

Some in the crowd had a good time:

(Photo courtesy of Larry from SF)

[Update: these two have been identified as infiltrators]
There was a large religious contingent at the last San Francisco TEA party protest against Obama in San Francisco (story and photos). This rally takes that opposition to a new and higher level. One can hope that this represents an awakening on the part of Churches to the idea that their survival depends not just on changing the language of one mandate among many in the Obamacare regulations but recognizing what the founding fathers understood: our government should not have had to power to make such mandates in the first place.

Thanks to Larry for an advance peak at his photos. Expect more commentary on this rally with photos to appear soon at Larry's blog: Fund47. [Update: Larry's post is here.]

WELCOME to readers from GatewayPundit, Frugal Café, and Extreme Conservatives.

Obama celebrates a free lunch

In today's email from the Obama campaign:

Let everyone know: "I like Obamacare."

What's not to like? Obamacare means you won't have to pay out of pocket for preventive care like cancer screenings and birth control, insurance companies can no longer drop people when they get sick or refuse coverage for "pre-existing conditions," and women won't have to pay more just for being women.

Yes, if Obama wills it, then everything is free. At least, that is what Democrats believe.

It is frustrating and, at times, frightening that TINSTAAFL (there is no such thing as a free lunch) is not obvious to everyone.

RELATED on nomenclature hypocrisy: at Hot Air, Rob Bluey remembers the previous spin on the use of the word 'Obamacare':

Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) said last July, “I take great offense when I hear the word ‘Obamacare.’ There is no such thing.” His colleague, Rep. William Lacy Clay (D-MO), called the word “purposefully provocative,” “misleading” and “unfair.”

For Democrats, it is always important to be outraged.

PREVIOUSLY on Obamacare:
•Preview of Obamacare: Medicare loses $375 million to fraudulent billings by a single physician
•Obama Admin defunds a piece of Obamacare
•Government health care is something to die for
•AP: Obamacare increasingly unpopular
•Obamacare forcing Boeing to cut back employee healthcare coverage
•Special privileges: McDonald's and 29 other companies get waivers from Obamacare
•Obamacare threatens health coverage for fast-food workers
•ObamaCare threatens child-only insurance
•Medical insurance prices rising due to ObamaCare
•Obamacare endangers student health
•Obama's health care and economic policies explained
•Obamacare may raise insurance costs by 54%
•Harvard economist explains why Obamacare will raise premiums
•HHS says Obamacare will cause costs to go up and cause employers to drop coverage
•The dawning of the reality of Obamacare
•Consumers outsmart Massachusetts' version of Obamacare
•Obamacare threatens high tech jobs
•Obamacare and trillions of dollars of unfunded mandates
•The fraud of Obamacare, as seen from the left
•Pelosi: Pass Obamacare so artists can quit their day jobs
•Britain's Obamacare: Hospital patient dies of thirst as nurses ignore his pleas for water
•Nobel Laureate economist explains why socialized medicine always fails
•Rep. Ryan explains the dishonesty of Obamacare economics

Giving credit when undue

The LA Times story on US domestic oil production reaching a new high features a photo of a smiling Pres. Obama under the headling "Oil imports down, domestic production highest since 2003":
The visual composition would lead a casual reader to think that increased domestic production was the result of Pres. Obama's kind and caring policies implemented with the goal of helping cash-strapped consumers as they struggle to pay for a tank of gas. To its credit, the LA Times does admit, if you read to the eighth paragraph, that maybe Obama shouldn't get the credit:

But independent analysts attribute much of the fall in oil imports to slack U.S. demand in a still-anemic economy. And to a certain degree, they say, the boost in domestic oil and gas production is the result of decisions energy companies made during the George W. Bush administration to develop key reservoirs.

A more honest article would point out the Obama administration's hostility to oil develop, fracking, and the Keystone pipeline, as well as a general intransigence on oil exploration permits. But, the paragraph above is the most one can expect from the liberals at the LA Times.

PREVIOUSLY on oil:
•News reporter hypocrisy on gas pump prices
•Federal judge finds Obama administration contemptible
•The Keystone pipeline: Obama sows economic chaos
•Instead of permitting oil exploration, Obama supports "green" failures
•"Expert": By the year 2000, if present trends continue, we will be using up crude oil at such a rate…that there won’t be any more crude oil. You’ll drive up to the pump and say, `Fill ‘er up, buddy,’ and he’ll say, `I am very sorry, there isn’t any.’
•Obama ignores oil, supports "green" energy
•Obama only pretended to lift ban on deepwater oil exploration
•Obama uses faked science to ban oil drilling
•Obama subsidizes Brazil's offshore drilling
•Study: gas savings from driving a hybrid failed to make up for the higher initial price:
•While Obama bans US exploration, Russia, China negotiate with Cuba to drill for oil off Florida coast
•Ethanol subsidies are more expensive than BP oil spill
•"Peak oil" theory discredited.

Whistleblower exposes Obama junk science

Against intense local opposition, the Obama administration wants to demolish three dams on the Klamath River in Siskiyou County, California. Low-cost clean hydroelectricity as well as water for irrigation would be lost if the dams were removed. Removal of the dams would also cause chaos for ranchers, homeowners, and small business who live and work in the downstream of the dams. Despite this, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has been trying to force dam removal for the supposed benefit of some salmon and steelhead spawning habitat.

Now, Prof. Paul R. Houser of George Mason University alleges that the administration's plan is all based on junk science. In his role as science advisor to the Bureau of Reclamation, he was closely involved in the project. He has filed a formal complaint (PDF) alleging "intentional falsification" and "intentional . . . compromise of scientific and scholarly integrity." In particular, he says that, under orders from Ken Salazar, the department produced a "summary" report that "intentionally distorts and generally presents a biased view of the Klamath River dam removal benefits." In particular, he alleges:

• The summary section on Chinook Salmon recovery projects an 81.4 percent recovery, but says nothing about the nine contingencies summarized in the June 13, 2011, Klamath River Expert Panel Final Report: Scientific Assessment of Two Dam Removal Alternatives on Chinook Salmon report that could completely negate this projected recovery . . . .
• The summary states that "Coho salmon reclaim 68 miles of habitat", but says nothing about the April 25, 2011 statement in the Klamath River Expert Panel Final Report: Scientific Assessment of Two Dam Removal Alternatives on Coho Salmon and Steelhead that "the difference between the Proposed Action and Current Conditions is expected to be small, especially in the short term (0-10 years after dam removal)." . . . .
• The summary states that dam removal will likely reduce salmon disease, but does not properly state its uncertainty [which is] very high".
• The summary also spins an optimistic outlook for Steelhead trout, providing access to 420 miles of historical habitat. However, the April 25, 2011 Klamath River Expert Panel Final Report: Scientific Assessment of Two Dam Removal Alternatives on Coho Salmon and Steelhead states that this success would be dependent on effective implementation of the proposed and related actions [e.g.Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL)]; whereas ineffective implementation would result in no detectable response.

The changes, Prof. Houser alleges, report only the positive while distorting or falsifying the science.

You can read more about Prof. Houser's extensive qualifications here. Congress has not yet approved Salazar's plan. With luck, they will block it entirely.

UPDATE: Over a month, later, the MSM is catching up: the Daily Caller has a story on this scandal here.

Hat tip: Leonard

WELCOME to readers of Michael Savage, GatewayPundit, QuiteNormal, TalkStraight, TunnelWall, ImpeachObamaToday, DaleyGator, Tea Party for California, Cornwall Alliance, Armstrong, TheTownCrier, Support Rural America, The Persistent Patriots, and DorkFishExpress.

PREVIOUSLY on politicized science:
•Politicized Science, the delta smelt, and California farmers
•EPA uses phony peer review
•National Academy of Sciences warns EPA on junk science
•The failed science of environmentalism
•Federal Judge rejects Federal enviromental "science" as "arbititrary and capricious"
•The politicization of medical research funding
•2 more examples of politicized science: Gulf oiil spill and California's air regulations
•AIDS advocates distorted science
•Politicized science of crime statistics
•Politicization of medical science
•Bee colony collapse disorder: the cause is whatever your politics say it is
•Ozone hole and politics