What Did Holder’s Inbox Know, And When Did It Know It?

October 4th, 2011
Apparently, Eric Holder's Inbox, but not Holder himself, was aware that the Department of Justice was smuggling illegal guns into Mexico for use by the narcotraficantes. One would have thought that an international gunrunning operation designed to arm drug cartels would have been top of list reading for Holder's limo ride home. But, apparently, not.

The Tragedy of Inactive Ingredients and Stuff

October 4th, 2011
Well, the "activists" who "occupy" Wall Street have finally taken off their bedroom slippers and put on their marchin' shoes and come up with a manifesto and a list of grievances that they are just really pissed off about and intend to whine, moan, and generally make pests of themselves until somebody decides to pay attention to them. Let's have a look at the list. Whenever you read "They" insert "Corporations"...
They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.
And since the original mortgage has gotten lost in the system, they should have just given the house away for free. Bastards.
They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses.
Which, of course, is completely different and much, much more evil than taking somebody else's house for free because the original mortgage documents are lost.
They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one's skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.
It's their fault that women and minorities don't major in mechanical engineering and investment banking, and choose Vagina Studies or Queer History instead.
They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.
Which is why everybody is dead and arugula is so expensive at Whole Foods.
They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless nonhuman animals, and actively hide these practices.
It's their fault we're not all vegans. Set the chickens free so they can join us in solidarity!
They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions.
It's a sure sign of corporate oppression that people still have to show up for work occasionally and don't enjoy unlimited paid stress days.
They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right.
It's an insane policy when people have to pay back the money they borrow simply to exercise a right that has existed since the first Australopithecus graduated from the University of Redden-Toothenclaw.
They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers’ healthcare and pay.
Taking jobs from people who whine, complain, moan, bitch, carp, and refuse to work because they don't have enough stuff and giving them to other people who want to work even if they have less stuff is really, really mean.
They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people, with none of the culpability or responsibility.
And the fact that corporations are just a collection of people with a common goal doesn't count so don't even bring it up.
They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams that look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance.
Which is completely different from spending millions of dollars on legal teams to get free money in lawsuits.
They have sold our privacy as a commodity.
Google, Facebook, and Twitter suck, and we can't get by without them.
They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press.
Which is why none of this will ever see the light of day and we'll never get our 15 seconds of fame on the network evening news.
They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in pursuit of profit.
No one will ever know how many have died from eating the silica gel packets in food.
They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce.
Our government is powerless to control them.
They have donated large sums of money to politicians supposed to be regulating them.
And those politicians have spent most of the money on whores and liquor. The rest they just wasted.
They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil.
ExxonMobil bought the patent for a car that runs on air from a guy in Cedar Falls, IA, and then buried it in the Arabian desert. Then they capped him and the Jews blew up the World Trade Center to distract everybody.
They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people’s lives in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantive profit.
And we get to define "substantive".
They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit.
We're not sure which is worse - mistakes or inactive ingredients. Because we're always right and we're activists.
They purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media.
Which is why we gave this to the media and why the stuff you're reading is not really what we said, since it was published in the media. Or something.
They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt.
And we have no doubt whatsoever that they're guilty of murder.
They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad.
And it's high time they let the dictators properly care for the people in Zimbabwe and Syria.
They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.
Corporate armies have ravaged Africa and the Middle East, despite the protestations of their benign leaders.
They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts.¹
And governments, who we love, continue to issue contracts but it's not their fault because they're too busy spending the payoff money on whores and liquor to read the laws the corporations write. This list of demands complaints is followed by an exhortation for Da Peeps of da World to all lie down squalling in the grocery store checkout line at the same time. Further instructions will be issued via Facebook and Twitter (despite their assaults on privacy). Oh yeah, and...
¹These grievances are not all-inclusive.
We're not done yet with the kvetching.  

The Whole Earth Reader: V

October 2nd, 2011
This fifth installment of the Whole Earth Reader series is for those who seek Kosmic Groovulusness. And your guide to Groovulosity is the "first true guru", Baba Ram Dass (aka Richard Alpert, son of a Newton MA railroad magnate):
He makes the message of the East comfortable for our coffee table studies with references to drugs we have taken, books we have all read, and flashes we have all experienced...
Common ground and identical experience was, presumably, a basis for the Quest for Individuality and Unique Godhood that characterized the youth of the Sixties, the Age of Aquarius. We even dressed alike to announce our differences, much as the young do today. Baba Ram, perhaps originally inspired by the song "Rama-Lama-Ding-Dong" popularized by The Edsels in 1957, is still going strong today. If you visit his blog, you can spend a few bucks and  read profundities like the classic short essay, "A Tree Isn't Frightened". Not an essay to be missed, for sure, if groovulousness is your goal. Baba Ram also published a book entitled Be Here Now. On Amazon, the review of the book begins thusly:
It's easy to dismiss Be Here Now as the relic of a whacked-out '60s acid tripper.
Indeed it is. But the Whole Earth Catalog review of the book appears below. Enjoy.

Green Jobs In A Socialist Paradise

October 1st, 2011
The McDowngrade Administration classifies driving a hybrid bus as a "green job". Well, I think you'd have to agree that the vehicles pictured below are hybrid buses, and the photos were taken in the Socialist Paradise of Cuba:

I think it would be a good idea to send Michael Moore and Sean Penn down there when they get sick. They'll have a free ride back and forth to the hospital. Some of the advanced medical facilities are shown below:

 

The Islamofascists Finally Invent Something…

September 30th, 2011
Hey, you gotta give 'em credit where credit is due. The depraved murderers of Palestine finally came up with an invention: drive-by stoning. Here's how it works:
Instead of standing around for a passing Israeli car, throwing rocks and maybe getting caught, Palestinian terrorists have devised the drive-by rock-throwing method. Two or three Palestinians sit in a car holding a large rock ready. They hurl it at the windscreen of an oncoming Israeli car and drive off at speed.
That's how they murdered Asher Palmer, 25, and his 1-year old infant son.
After the eulogies ended, mourners carried the body of Asher and a tiny prayer shawl carrying Yonatan to a waiting van, in which they were taken for burial in Hebron.
Those wacky Palestinians. They should give them a country. And then nuke it.

On Breakouts and Collapsing Dams

September 30th, 2011
Hm. I read today, over @ Sister Toldjah's place, that the Fast'nFurious gunrunning scheme cooked up by the Justice Department is about to "break wide open", and that the "dam is collapsing". I'm thinkin' no. The reason, you see, is that Fast'nFurious is getting about all the attention it's ever likely to get. Events may yet prove me wrong, but I don't think so. Why is that? Well, it is simply not possible to think up a more insane "policy" than this: deliberately smuggling vast numbers of semiautomatic weapons, some paid for by the US government, across a border into a foreign country teetering on the brink of collapse due a violent criminal insurrection, resulting in the murder of numberless foreign citizens, and even American law enforcement officers on American soil. In my opinion, this is a bigger story than Watergate, where a small band of burglars broke into DNC headquarters in DC. It is bigger than Teapot Dome, a superscandal over a few million dollars in illegal payoffs. It is as if J Edgar Hoover got caught selling guns to Al Capone who then used them to murder innocent people in Chicago... minus the diplomatic repercussions. And no one has even been fired. Until the engineered ascent of Barack Obama to the White House, any American President and his Attorney General, irrespective of party affiliation, would have been utterly destroyed by these revelations. And rightfully so. Talk of "breakouts" and "collapsing dams" is wishful thinking, in my opinion. The opposition research is already underway to destroy Grassley in the Senate and Issa in the House. The regime currently headquartered in the White House is safe from the press because the press installed them.  

The NYT Catches Up With The Apostate

September 29th, 2011
Those intrepid reporters at the New York Times must have IQs in the bathwater range. Two weeks ago, we predicted that the UAW was gearing up to strike Ford. In a discussion of that Ford "Bailout" commercial that embarrassed the White House into strongarming Ford to discontinue its use, we noted that
Ford is selling cars in this commercial, but I’m betting they’re also cultivating public opinion for the probable upcoming UAW strike. You see, the government and President McDowngrade gave GM and Chrysler to the union.
Well, finally, the dullards in Manhattan are getting on board:
The U.A.W. told officials at Ford plants across the country over the weekend to begin forming strike committees and to distribute information to workers about a possible strike.
It's time to begin gearing up for Picket Line Thug Watch.

HHS Guidelines on the Prevention of Information

September 29th, 2011
In keeping with the McDowngrade Administration's motto, Most Transparent Regime Evah, the Department of Heath and Human Services has issued their Prevention of Information Guidelines. Obviously, the Department feels that information was disseminated that did not accurately reflect the Talking Points of the Day:
In order to make certain we provide the media the best possible service and information in a timely fashion, it is important that the relevant agency public affairs office be notified of all media calls/contacts that employees receive about their HHS work... When approached by a reporter, HHS employees should work with their immediate supervisor and coordinate with the appropriate public affairs office/personnel in their agency.
Some reporters disagree with the notion that this new policy will deliver the "best possible service". For example, Jim Dickinson, long-time health journalist and Editor of the FDA Review, said:
The new formal HHS Guidelines on the Provision of Information to the News Media represent, to this 36-year veteran of reporting FDA news, a Soviet-style power-grab.
While I view Mr Dickinson's characterization of the new policy as a "Soviet-style power grab" as hyperbole, I also know that Soviet-style power grabs rarely begin as Soviet-style power grabs. They evolve into Soviet-style power grabs over time. In that (r)evolutionary spirit, Peter Orszag, former budget czar for the McDowngrade regime, observes:  "[R]adical as it sounds, we need to counter the gridlock of our political institutions by making them a bit less democratic." But wait! There's been a mistake! I'm sorry! I misread the title of the new Guideline. I see now that it is the Provision of Information Guideline, designed to provide, not prevent, information... but only through fully vetted (r)evolutionary organs.
The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns, as it were, instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink. ------ George Orwell
[H/T: Contentions]

Why I Am Opposed To A Federal Balanced Budget Amendment

September 28th, 2011
A federal balanced budget amendment will result in confiscatory tax rates. There is no doubt about it. Republican or Democrat, the supply of do-good impulse will always exceed the Federal revenue stream. The problem is not that a balanced budget is not Constitutionally required. Yes, I know that most states are required to balance their budgets. For example, both California and Illinois are required to do so. Obviously, a constitutional requirement is not enough to stand in the way of well-intentioned politicians. There is, however, a solution. Consider the following sample of brilliantly formulated texts:
  •   "Congress shall make no law" [1st Amendment]
  • "... the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." [2nd Amendment]
  • "The right of the people to be secure  [...] shall not be violated..." [4th Amendment]
  • "[T]he accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial..." [6th Amendment]
Notice anything? They are either limits on Congressional power (1st, 2nd, 4th), or they are clear statements of citizen's rights (6th). Read the rest of the original Ten. Now consider the 16th Amendment...
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.
Consider the difference between the Bill of Rights and the 16th Amendment. The Bill of Rights expressly limits the power of the government or establishes the inviolable rights of individual citizens; the 16th establishes the right of Congress to expropriate the wealth of citizens - without limit. No, what we need is not another amendment to require a balanced budget. Unless, of course, you want Congress to raise taxes, without limit, to fund whatever Solyndras, high-speed trains to nowhere, ethnic reparations, and entitlements they find both good and proper. No, what we need is an amendment to repeal and/or rewrite the Sixteenth to limit the unlimited power of the government. Without repeal or revision of the Sixteenth, we can never again have limited government in America. Because as John Marshall, arguably the greatest Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, said:
That the power to tax involves the power to destroy [is] not to be denied... ------ McCulloch v. Maryland (1819)
 

Come On, Guys! Tell Us How You Really Feel…

September 28th, 2011
[Telegraph] Berlin savaged [US Treasury] plans to boost the EU rescue fund as a "stupid idea" and told the White House to sort out its own mess before giving gratuitous advice to others.
This contemptuous dismissal of McDowngrade Administration meddling in the European crisis comes hard on the heels of a previous bitchslapping. Geithner himself took that insulting blow after he crashed a meeting of EU Finance Ministers earlier in the month. Please don't assume I'm defending the decisions and strategies of the EU political class. But I do think this is a perfect example of how the McDowngrade Administration has squandered American influence in Europe, to the point that second-tier bureaucrats feel perfectly comfortable calling the President of the United States and his Secretary of the Treasury "stupid". Of course, you can't really blame the Europeans. A majority of Americans are doing the same thing.

Rule 5: For the Travelin’ Man

September 24th, 2011
Today's Rule 5 roundup is a compendium of pretty girls from around the world. And there are pretty girls to be found everywhere. If you're a travelin' man, like Mr Ricky Nelson alongside, you know that I am right. The young ladies shown below are the best of the best, all contenders for the 2011 Miss Universe title. And we''ll begin with Miss Universe 2011 herself...

 Leila Lopes, Miss Angola

Scherri-Lee Biggs, Miss Australia

Johanna Solano, Miss Costa Rica

Natalia Gantimurova, Miss Russia

Chanyasorn Sakorchan, Miss Thailand

Ima al-Bagd'up, Miss Jihadistan

World’s Smartest Man Or Clever Hans?

September 23rd, 2011
You know, of course, that President "Tingles" McDowngrade is the World's Smartest Man. Or so they say. But the New York Times apparently thinks otherwise. While the Solyndra executive team is pleading the Fifth in Congressional hearings today, it has become obvious that the World's Smartest Man, along with his crackerjack team of elite czars, was played the sucker by Washington lobbyists:
[NYT] The government’s backing of Solyndra, which could cost taxpayers more than a half-billion dollars, came as the politically well-connected business began an extensive lobbying campaign that appears to have blinded government officials to the company’s financial condition and the risks of the investment...
You see, it's difficult to explain how that less smart people saw the truth. For example, the folks at PricewaterhouseCoopers weren't "blinded". In their "Report Of Independent Registered Public Accounting Firm" attached to Solyndra's March 2010 Form S-1 submitted to the SEC, they acerbically note:
The accompanying financial statements have been prepared assuming that the Company will continue as a going concern. As discussed in Note 1 to the consolidated financial statements, the Company has suffered recurring losses from operations, negative cash flows since inception and has a net stockholders’ deficit that, among other factors, raise substantial doubt about its ability to continue as a going concern. [emphasis added -ed.]
For readers unfamiliar with SEC Form S-1, it is, according to Wiki,
[T]he basic business and financial information on an issuer with respect to a specific securities offering. Investors may use the prospectus to consider the merits of an offering and make educated investment decisions. A prospectus is one of the main documents used by an investor to research a company prior to an initial public offering (IPO)...
Is it possible that the World's Smartest Man is actually just a 21st Century version of Clever Hans, the German horse that could allegedly do arithmetic? Of course, a clever investigator exposed Clever Hans as a fraud and not so clever after all. You'll have to ask the Times.

President McDowngrade Creates Jobs

September 23rd, 2011
Offshore drilling has been a sore point in Florida politics for many years. Politicians from both sides of the aisle, but particularly from the Luddite Left, have fought hard to keep the rigs away. The final nail was driven in the coffin in December 2010 by President McDowngrade:
[AP]Pointing to the BP blowout and risks of a new environmental disaster, the Obama administration reversed itself Wednesday and promised not to pursue offshore drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico or anywhere else along the nation's East Coast.
Alas, Socialist Spain and Communist Cuba, aided and abetted by the Smart Power™ foreign policy of the McDowngrade Administration, are going to defeat the Luddite Left and their enablers on the right. Drilling is coming to the Keys.
[IBD] Deep-water drilling will resume in the Florida Strait when a giant, semi-submersible oil rig en route from Singapore arrives later this fall. The bad news is it will not be American... The long-predicted move could come as early as November, as Spanish oil giant Repsol YPF leads an international consortium that will operate the rig known as Scarabeo 9. It wants to wait until the hurricane season ends before it begins drilling. Six wells are planned to be drilled with this rig by the various international companies that own exploration rights off the north shore of [Cuba].
This should certainly help create jobs for the slaves Worker's vanguard on the prison island Socialist paradise. I'm looking forward to seeing the Secretary of Labor, Hilda Solis, tout the employment numbers during election season. She is, after all, known for her Latina ethnicity and determination to create jobs for her fellow ethnics. Quoted in Taco News (no, I'm not making that up), Secretary Solis reported that President McDowngrade told her, “Hilda… as tough as things have been on Latino workers, I know our economic future depends upon them.” Who knew he was talking about Cuban jobs supplying our energy needs by selling oil on world markets to further enrich the Castro brothers and rehabilitate their crumbling network of political prisons? Thank heaven those jobs won't be going to the greedy, climate-denialist CEOs and their racist homegrown terror militia lackeys in the American oil business. The jobs will be going to good socialist citizens that do as they are told when they are told to do it.

The Natives In Apostateland Are Starving

September 22nd, 2011
Listen to my sad story. Over the last 20 years, spending on food in Apostateland, as expressed as a percent of Gross Household Product (GHP), has undergone a precipitous decline. If I were a Progressive, I would take this data as prima facie evidence that the natives of Apostateland are starving. Of course, you and I know that, in reality, the food around here is one hell of a lot better than it was twenty years ago. The difference is attributable to the fact that GHP growth has outstripped spending on food. What a nice problem to have. But that's an example of a favored technique used by Progressives: data distortion. The Senate GOP has published a new video illustrating how the federal spending data have been distorted to gin up enthusiasm for more education and infrastructure waste. It's worth four minutes of your time... http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=voYx7ghEjmg I'm glad they finally did something like this (apparently, the 2010 elections did not go to waste). It's a bit sad, though, that such a video is necessary, considering that one graph tells the whole story of education spending:

By the way, about those natives in Apostateland. A case of Krug 1979 Brut Blanc de Blancs and a kilogram of Beluga won't go to waste. The children are starving.

 

Oh Dear! Another Downgrade for President McDowngrade.

September 21st, 2011
Hey, you remember that "investment" President McDowngrade made in the auto industry? Remember when President McDowngrade said this...
We made the decision to stand with you [Chrysler] because we had confidence in the American worker, more than anything. And today we know that was the right decision.... We're coming back. We're on the move. ------ B. Obama 11/23/2010 [speech @ Kokomo IN Chrysler ------plant]
Well, you're definitely moving...
AFP - Moody's downgraded Italy's Fiat from Ba1 to Ba2 on Wednesday over fears that the auto giant's merger with US group Chrysler may burden the carmaker with debt, the ratings agency said in a statement. Moody's said the outlook was negative, which means Fiat faces another possible downgrade in the near future...
I'm thinking maybe America needs a new investment adviser.  

Negotiating With Vermin

September 21st, 2011
The United States of America, once a beacon of freedom to the world, is negotiating with a reptile by the name of Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian National Authority.
(Reuters) - President Barack Obama will meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday to urge him to drop plans to ask the U.N. Security Council to recognize a Palestinian state despite U.S. and Israeli objections.
It is time for a reminder about who Abbas is... A graduate of Patrice Lumumba University, a Potemkin university created by the Soviets to indoctrinate and train revolutionary elements in third-world countries, Abbas' thesis topic was:
The Other Side: The secret relations between Nazism and the leadership of the Zionist movement" in which he attempted to prove that the Nazi holocaust of Jews never happened. His supervising professor was KGB officer [and eventual KGB Chairman] Yevgeny Primakov.
There is no "other side". There is no "side". There is only the truth... Why are we negotiating with these vermin?

Signs of the Times: YouWalkAway.com

September 21st, 2011
Tired of making that mortgage payment? Well, Bunky, there's a website for you: YouWalkAway.com. Do you suffer from any of these symptoms?

Ask Yourself…

  • Are you stressed out about your mortgage payments?
  • Are you having trouble deciding if it makes financial sense to walk
  • Do you need to move for work or family and can’t sell?
Take a "strategic default":
Strategic default, also known as voluntary foreclosure, is when the borrower decides to stop paying a mortgage even though they can still afford the payment.
Moral hazard is not just a theoretical concept, my friends.

Settled Science Gets No Respeck

September 20th, 2011
Oh gosh. The Times Atlas of the World, published by Harper Collins and marketed as the 'world's most authoritative" atlas, just vomited up a scientific hairball.
[BBC] Publicity for the latest edition of the atlas, launched last week, said warming had turned 15% of Greenland's former ice-covered land "green and ice-free".
Lessee here... lemme pull out my cackalater and run the figgers. The extent of icepack melt would be equivalent to the entire surface area of Ireland and the UK (pronounced "uck"). That turns out to be one hell of a lot of mud. Unfortunately, there's a fly in the Guinness. The Scott Polar Research Institute, located in Cambridge University (a small public land-grant college in England), sez:
"Recent satellite images of Greenland make it clear that there are in fact still numerous glaciers and permanent ice cover where the new Times Atlas shows ice-free conditions and the emergence of new lands," they say in a letter that has been sent to the Times... "There is to our knowledge no support for this claim in the published scientific literature."
Wilberforce Percodan, spokesman for the Gore Settled Science Institute, suggested that the satellite imagery had been hacked by the global oil cartel, and that the Scott Polar Research Institute is nothing more than a shell front company staffed with denialists and bought and paid for by Republican Party donors.

Lt. Col. West: Theopolitical Islamism Is No “Perversion”

September 19th, 2011
"The first thing you gotta do is study and understand who you're up against." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYbaln3Uqfc&feature=player_embedded

The Seagull In The Coal Mine

September 19th, 2011
Mrs Apostate and I had our second date at a restaurant in Newport, RI. In those days, circa 1988, the Ocean State seemed like a great place to live, work, and visit. But there was a worm at the core. My, how times change... These days, the Ocean State is the seagull in the strip mine dug by state and local public unions and their political cronies:
[T]he state could never afford the beautiful utopia it was crafting, and so politicians and union leaders chose the path of systemic deceit.  Taxpayers weren’t told what the bill for the system would be; public service workers weren’t told that the pension guarantees they’d been sold were worthless because taxpayers would not and could not foot the bill.
The future does not look bright...
[WaPo] In Rhode Island, as those investments have failed to live up to predictions, the yearly burden being borne by state and local governments is growing and is beginning to crowd out public services in ways that experts say could soon take hold in other parts of the country... The increase in government contributions to the pension system between 2012 and 2013 would be enough to fund a dozen state agencies, including the Department of Environmental Management, the Department of Health and the public defender’s office, the treasurer’s office has said.
Naturally, union officials stamp their feet and sing "lalalalala" whenever someone proposes anything except more of the same. Michael Downey, President of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, had this to say:
They are going to fix this for Rhode Island on the backs of people who have worked their entire lives.
Allow me to rephrase that, Sir: they are going to fix this problem on the backs of the people who caused the problem - union members and leaders. Thanks to your farsighted leadership, many of your members are going to be signing up to work part-time as Wal-Mart greeters instead of enjoying the secure retirement you told them you were negotiating. This is how it's probably going to play out:
[Pension reform] is likely to result in reduced benefits for 51,000 public workers and retirees. Officials are pondering lowering retirement payments, replacing part of the guaranteed pensions with 401(k)-type accounts, and sharply reducing generous cost-of-living increases enjoyed by retirees.
Can you say "Greece", Mr Downey? Citizens of California and Illinois, look sharp! Because the Rhode Island meltdown is coming your way.