Here is the translation:
Today, Dimitry Medvedev, became a chairman of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), earlier, this position was taken by an american president, Barack Obama (flip off). During the press conference that took place in the? capital of Hawaii, Honolulu, Medvedev spoke on this matter as well as cooperating with Americans on anti-missile defense system.

Hat Tip: Knowledge Is Power

Yesterday, 40 Republicans sent a letter to the President asking him to ask for Eric Holder’s resignation. The fact that no Democrats signed the letter shows you how uninterested the current administration is about accountability.

The letter, spearheaded by Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.), highlights Holder’s role in the botched gun-tracking operation known as Fast and Furious, which was run under the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).

Republicans have been investigating who authorized and had knowledge of Fast and Furious, which oversaw the sale of thousands of weapons in the Southwest region to known and suspected straw buyers for Mexican drug cartels. The majority of the weapons were never tracked, and two of the guns were found at the murder scene of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry last December.

“We call on you today to hold Attorney General Eric Holder accountable for Operation Fast and Furious — and urge you to ask for his immediate resignation,” the letter reads.

“In intentionally letting over 2,000 firearms ‘walk’ across the border into Mexico,” it continues, “the [ATF] — under the leadership of Attorney General Holder — carried out an operation that left a U.S. Border Patrol agent dead, broke federal law and attempted to build a case for gun control. Operation Fast and Furious has proved to be one of the most serious errors in judgment carried out in recent history by a federal agency.”

At first, Holder didn’t even admit that he knew about this operation, despite having received several operational memos from the field office conducting the operation. Instead, he claimed that he never saw the memos because they go to his underlings first, so they can make sure that he only sees the important stuff. Under tough questioning from the Senate Judiciary Committee, he “clarified” this claim to mean that he really meant that he heard about it when it started appearing in the press.

Its easy to see how Holder can claim ignorance of these things. He has constructed a circle of  “plausible deniability” around him by having the information sent to him filtered by underlings. This way, he can claim that he never heard about it because someone else decided it wasn’t important enough to pass on. Seems to me, that if a field office sends information to the Attorney General, it is because he thinks that the Attorney General needs to know about something. If Holder’s people are preventing him from being fully informed about the government agency he is in charge of, then they need to be held accountable along with Holder.

Of course, after the whole Black Panthers episode after the 2008 Election, it isn’t surprising to see Holder’s incompetence on display like this. Apparently, he’s more interested in “social justice” than real justice, which is troubling given that he is in charge of the Department of Justice.

Milton Friedman lays waste to the basis of the “Occupy” movement in under three minutes.

So, protesters decide that its time to gather together and protest corporate greed. What better place to put on this protest than on Wall Street, the center of the financial universe. So, the typical collection of bored, out of work college students, 60′s protest rejects, and every other victim of “the Man” show up with tents, laptops, and drums and “occupy” a park.

Of course, these people failed to bring other necessities, such as provisions for restrooms or provisions for trash disposal. Thus, after a few weeks of their “protest,” the park reeks of urine and crap, while the garbage is piling up so high as to constitute a health hazard. When the owner of  the park, concerned about public health and safety, decided to remove the protesters to clean the place up, the mob howled and threatened all kinds of mayhem. Finally, the city made a deal with the owner to leave them alone. As far as I can tell, the place still reeks and the garbage is just getting piled higher.

So, what exactly is it that these people want to accomplish with this demonstration? Several reporters from several different news operations have all gone down to the protest site and asked protesters this question, and have failed to get a coherent answer from anyone, even the “organizers.” Say what you want about the 60′s hippie protesters, they at least had an identifiable goal (to end the war, to end the draft). This group says they are against corporate greed. OK, while I don’t particularly agree that a corporation that makes a lot of money is greedy, I can certainly see that some in the corporate world have clearly crossed the legal line in their dealings. So, how exactly will this occupation/ protest/ demonstration/ camp out do anything to end corporate greed? Sure, they have brought a lot of attention to Wall Street, but most of that attention is focused on the lack of sanitation in the park and smorgasbord of fringe liberal groups infiltrating the protest for their own ends. Nothing these people have done during the past month and a half has accomplished anything worthwhile.

As more and more time passes, the various occupation groups across the country are starting to break down and become violent. This was seen most recently in Oakland, where the police had to resort to tear gas and rubber bullets to remove protesters from the area they were set up on because they were pelting officers with rocks and bottles. If the mob in New York decides to get violent, there’s no telling how bad it will get.

So, when this movement has passed and the protesters have all gone home, what will they have accomplished? What will be different? What difference will they have made?

None.

All this energy, enthusiasm, and effort will have been spent for nothing. Corporations will still be conducting business and making tons of money doing it, Wall Street will still be trading stock and making tons of money doing it, and those protesters who are unemployed will still need a job. Nothing done by these protesters has done anything to address the problems they are complaining about.

Maybe that says more about the protesters than anything else.

One of my colleagues at work told me about this guy he saw on cable TV who had predicted several of the last Presidential elections accurately. Having never heard of him before, I was naturally skeptical. After all, if this guy is that accurate, why isn’t he a household name? I doubted my colleague’s recollection of what he saw, but it turns out that I will owe him an apology tomorrow for doubting him. Turns out, the gentleman’s name is Professor Allan Lichtman, a history professor at the American University in Washington, DC.

Professor Lichtman has come up with what he says are the “13 Keys to the White House” (one of the reasons I had trouble tracking this down was because my colleague had said their were 12 categories). According to Lichtman, if an incumbent President “wins” at least 6 of the 13 keys, he will be re-elected. Also according to him, President Obama wins 9 of the 13 keys. A complete list of the 13 keys is here, as well as Lichtman’s interpretation of the keys. You should go and read this now before I tear it to shreds. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

<insert Muzak here>

OK, here we go. The absolute first thing you should notice is how subjective many of the keys are. In fact, only 6 of the keys could be said to be based solely on fact:

1) Incumbent party picks up seats in preceding mid-term.
2) There is no serious challenger for the incumbent party nomination.
3) The incumbent party candidate is the sitting president.
4) There is no significant third party challenger.
6) Real per capita economic growth during the past term is at least equal to mean growth during the previous two terms.
7) The incumbent administration pushes through major national policy changes.

Based on facts, Obama wins 4 of these keys, leaving the GOP 2. The remaining 7 keys are almost completely subjective, and depending on your opinion of them, could arguably be scored either way.

Key 5: The economy is not in a recession during the election campaign. Lichtman rates this key a “Push” or tie, and I find that very questionable. The August 2011 jobs report said zero new jobs were created in the national economy, gas prices continue to soar, and unemployment has been over 9% for a period longer than any other since the Great Depression. On top of that, even the Union rank and file are starting to doubt Obama’s ability to improve the job outlook. Smart money says the GOP wins this key.

Key 8: There is no sustained social unrest during the previous term. Depending on how you define social unrest, a good argument could be made that the Tea Party movement, along with the Labor Unions’ violent responses to it, is social unrest. In fact, this social movement may well turn out to be responsible for the single term Obama will serve as President. GOP wins this key.

Key 9: The incumbent administration has no major scandals. Again, Lichtman gives this one to Obama, apparently totally ignoring the entire ATF/Justice Department Selling guns to Mexican drug lords situation. Also, exactly how many of his cabinet appointees had significant tax problems? Lichtman says that the Obama Administration was “squeaky clean.” He’s either insane or delusional. GOP wins key 9.

Key 10: The incumbent administration suffers no major foreign/military affairs failure. Obama rates good as far as military matters, but foreign affairs is another matter. The disrespect he has put on display to old and trusted allies (Great Britain and Israel come to mind) has done nothing to enhance our reputation abroad. Also, Obama’s World Apology Tour has done nothing but make us look weak in front of our enemies. In fact, I can’t think of a single foreign policy achievement of this administration which isn’t military in nature. This key is a tie.

Key 11: The incumbent administration achieves a major success in foreign/military affairs. Again, the Obama Administration, by largely ignoring the military strategies it trumpeted during the 2008 Election and continuing the majority of the Bush Administration’s military policies has achieved a lot of good in military affairs. However, as previously pointed out, I can’t think of a single non-military based foreign policy achievement. This key is also a tie.

Key 12: The incumbent party candidate is charismatic. Lichtman gave this key to the GOP, recognizing what the media and press have been lamenting for the past several months: that whatever magic Obama had in his speeches prior to Election has lost its power This is an obvious win for the GOP.

Key 13: The challenging party candidate is not charismatic or a national hero. Apparently candidates like Romney, Perry, and Bachmann, who draw thousands to their speeches, qualifies as “uncharismatic”. Hell, even Palin outdraws Obama on the campaign trail, and she doesn’t have the labor unions inflating the attendance figures for her. The GOP wins Key 13.

So, my interpretation of these 13 keys has the GOP at 7, and Obama at 4 with two ties. A much closer race than Lichtman predicts. Also, I hope I’ve shown the folly of his “never wrong” claim. Speaking of which, Don Surber puts the lie to this claim as well.

At a time when the only economic plan President Downgrade has presented is to tax the wealthy into bankruptcy so he can spend more on his social justice agenda, you’d think he would want to increase the number of rich people. You’d be wrong:

Newsalert has posted a chart from a Wall Street Journal blog titled “Recession and the Rich.” The chart, based on 2009 IRS figures, shows that the number of taxpayers reporting annual income over $1 million fell 39 percent between 2007 and 2009; the number of super-wealthy individuals making over $10 million annually plunged 55 percent.

Here’s the aforementioned chart:

On the one hand, Obama needs the rich to fund his wealth redistribution social justice policy agenda; on the other hand by raising taxes to ridiculously high levels on the people who provide the jobs our economy needs, he is destroying the country’s ability to recover from the economic abyss he has put it into.

President Downgrade’s domestic economic policies are destroying the capitalist engine which drives the economy of this country. There is no way the economy can recover without this engine running at peak power and efficiency. Unless Obama’s odious regulatory burdens and life-sucking tax policies are removed and/or reversed soon, the economy may never be able to recover.

So, how’s that hopey-changey stuff working out for you?

After having failed to show even a scintilla of leadership during the debt ceiling debate, President Downgrade now wants you to believe that Things such as the Arab Spring, Japanese Tsunami, and the European economy are solely to blame for the credit rating downgrade. He doesn’t mention the fact that he never, ever submitted a plan for raising the debt ceiling, preferring instead to offer vapid generalities like, “I’ll consider entitlement reform,” or “I’ll consider raising the eligibility age for Social Security.” In fact, the only idea he was specific and precise on was that he wanted to raise taxes. Even then, when the Republicans agreed to raise taxes by over $800 billion, President Downgrade first agreed only to pull the rug out from everybody by demanding another $400 billion in taxes before he would agree.

If you listen to President Downgrade’s henchmen in the Congress, this is all the fault of the Tea Party. Never mind that they were elected on the promise of making huge spending cuts to bring the deficit and debt under control. Who are they to do what they said they would do? Well, obviously, they’re NOT DEMOCRATS. Oh yeah, by the way, where exactly is the Democrats’ proposed 2011 and 2012 budget? Obama sent one to the Senate a while back, and it was rejected by every Senator who voted (including Democrats). All the Democrats can complain about is that they can’t spend more and more taxpayer money to implement their wealth redistribution schemes. This, despite the fact that the Obama Administration, since the beginning of 2009, has increased the National Debt by an average of $4.5 billion per day. To contrast, George W. Bush raised the debt an average of $1.6 billion per day and Bill Clinton raised it an average of $560 million a day.

This is what happens when you elect an empty suit with no executive experience to be the nation’s top executive. It doesn’t have anything to do with his skin color, and it doesn’t have anything to do with where he was born. It has to do with what he does (or doesn’t) know. President Downgrade doesn’t know squat about running a nation, guiding its economy, or creating an environment where the free market can create jobs. All he knows about is taking hard earned money and property from those who work for it, and giving to those who don’t.

Look around. This is what happens when Democrats are allowed to implement their ideas. Do you really think it is worth it?