Last Call For Water Fall In The West

Welcome to the future of the American West.

The punishing drought that has swept California is now threatening the state’s drinking water supply. 

With no sign of rain, 17 rural communities providing water to 40,000 people are in danger of running out within 60 to 120 days. State officials said that the number was likely to rise in the months ahead after the State Water Project, the main municipal water distribution system, announced on Friday that it did not have enough water to supplement the dwindling supplies of local agencies that provide water to an additional 25 million people. It is first time the project has turned off its spigot in its 54-year history.

We're not talking about "Oh well, can't water the lawn during the daylight hours."  We're talking tens of thousands of Americans having to get bottled water trucked in until further notice for months.  

Or longer.

“We are on track for having the worst drought in 500 years,” said B. Lynn Ingram, a professor of earth and planetary sciences at the University of California, Berkeley. 

Already the drought, technically in its third year, is forcing big shifts in behavior. Farmers in Nevada said they had given up on even planting, while ranchers in Northern California and New Mexico said they were being forced to sell off cattle as fields that should be four feet high with grass are a blanket of brown and stunted stalks.

100-year flooding two years ago, now 500-year droughts.  But climate change is a gigantic myth perpetrated by liberal media outlets to sell hybrid cars.

But it's all okay, because God will fix it.

Paul Ryan Is A Coward

Every day for the next three years, you will hear Republicans call the President "lawless" or some variation of "Will no one rid me of this troublesome Obama".  Paul Ryan is typical in that he is trying to incite someone to take the law into their own hands to "deal" with the President, and is too much of a coward to do anything himself.

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) on Sunday weighed in on President Obama's recent comments that he will use executive actions to push his agenda this year. 

"We have an increasingly lawless presidency where he is actually doing the job of Congress, writing new policies and new laws without going through Congress. Presidents don't write laws, Congress does," Ryan said on ABC's "This Week." 

Ryan drew a distinction between typical use of executive action and the way he believes Obama is using his executive branch powers. 

"It's not the number of executive orders; it's the scope of the executive orders. It's the fact that he is actually contradicting law like in the health care case, or proposing new laws without going through congress," he said. "That's the issue."

Actually, Ryan is wrong, but it doesn't matter.  And no, he won't do anything himself.

When asked if he would move to impeach Obama over his use of executive actions, Ryan said he didn't think so. 

"No, I'm not," he said. "We have a difference of opinion, clearly, and -- and some of these are going to get fought out in court. You have some court challenges with respect to religious freedom going to the court this spring."

He's too much of a coward to impeach, and wants the Supreme Court to do the dirty work.

Or, somebody else...

Projection Is A Funny Thing

Forbes cracks me up.  The number of Wingnut Welfare hacks writing columns over there has reached Breitbartian proportions, and one of the most blatantly stupid is Tom Basile, who is just the latest to criminalize Presidenting While Black in the court of public opinion.

The weaponization of government is happening and it’s time Americans took notice. For all the folks – primarily on the left – who screamed and yelled that the Patriot Act was shredding the Constitution, far more intrusive tactics that have nothing to do with the NSA or Homeland Security are being deployed right under our noses during this Administration. Those tactics reduce every Americans’ personal and economic freedom. 

There is a dangerous arrogance of power among the President and senior-level Democrats that should concern every American.

Which is funny, because these are the same people who told us the Patriot Act was 100% necessary to keep us from getting murdered in our sleep.  But what specific tactics are he complaining about?

There are the new revelations about the Administration intimidating banks to prevent them from doing business with a number of legitimate businesses. The until recently covert Operation Choke Point administered through the Departments of Justice and Treasury is already having an impact on the financial industry and other legitimate businesses the Administration is targeting. According to the Wall Street Journal, J.P. Morgan , has been forced to cut ties with thousands of customers in the last year. Sources indicate that out of fear of government scrutiny, the bank is ending relationships with customers even if there isn’t any sign that the customer has done anything wrong. Other major banks have stopped offering certain popular, legal products or services because of government pressure.

HOLY CRAP OPERATION CHOKE POINT WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE.

Under a new program, "Operation Choke Point," the department is checking banks over...

TO ARMS AGAINST THE KENYAN TYRANT!

...whether they enabled payday lenders to illegally siphon billions of dollars from U.S. consumers' checking accounts in exchange for handsome fees, the newspaper said, citing state and federal officials.

Errm.

In the first action under the program, federal prosecutors have already brought a lawsuit against Four Oaks Bank in North Carolina for being "deliberately ignorant" about processing payments on behalf of merchants, the report said. About $2.4 billion was illegally withdrawn from checking accounts of U.S. customers by companies enabled by Four Oaks Bank, the New York Times said.

Yes, well, I'm sure the armed revolution on behalf of making sure payday lenders have the right to steal billions in fees from bank accounts secretly is totally what Thomas Paine had in mind.

But surely there's more dastardly evidence on the weaponization of government!

Last week he indicated that no one should have to wait more than 30 minutes to vote. Sounds like the kind of ambiguous language that could lend itself to loosening voting requirements or at least another innocuously-named government agency to “investigate” voter behavior.

The bastard.  Pretty sure that's impeachable.

Our system of government is based on checks and balances. Ever since the beginning of the 20th Century, the Executive has, to one degree or another, been the dominant branch of government in large part due to the explosion of the Federal bureaucracy. Hundreds of agencies, departments, programs, task forces, and commissions are an arsenal that in the wrong hands can be used against the very freedom the government is supposed to uphold, protect and defend. Rest assured, it’s in the wrong hands. It’s time the toothless tiger called the GOP crafted a full-throat-ed strategy to investigate, expose and counter Barack Obama’s weaponization of government.

Wow, this guy really dislikes the federal executive branch.  I wonder why that is.  I mean, with this ridiculous hyperbole and strawman filled idiocy, this guy almost sounds like a former Bush administration press flack or something.

Thomas J. Basile served as a Senior Press Advisor to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq. He was a member of the Office of Strategic Communications staff and acted as spokesperson for Security and Baghdad issues. In this role, Basile aided Coalition officials in message development and communications planning for the Iraq reconstruction effort. In August, Basile and the Deputy Mayor of Baghdad initiated the first regularly scheduled press conferences at City Hall for the burgeoning local Iraqi press corps. 

Prior to joining Ambassador Bremer's staff at the CPA in July, Basile served a Director of the Office of Communications for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in Washington. In this role he managed the EPA Administrator's public liaison operation, developed strategic outreach initiatives and supervised the Agency's electronic communications efforts.

Oh well then.  So, basically this guy is the walking epitome of projection then.  Cool.

Carry on.