Friday, December 31, 2010

Thursday, December 30, 2010

Jesse Jackson Asks Bill Clinton to Call off Campaigning For Rahm Emanuel Because His Opponent is Black…

Jesse Jackson Asks Bill Clinton to Call off Campaigning For Rahm Emanuel Because His Opponent is Black…: "

Doesn’t want Clinton to “offend” his black supporters by supporting Emanuel…

Affirmative action political campaigning…

CHICAGO — The two most prominent black candidates for mayor of Chicago met Thursday night to examine the state of their respective campaigns against the presumed front runner, Rahm Emanuel.

Congressman Danny Davis and Carol Moseley Braun talked on Christmas Eve and again Wednesday night.

Rev. Jesse Jackson was there, too. Jackson tells WGN-TV, there must eventually be just a single black candidate who appeals to voters of all races if there is to be any hope of electing a black mayor.

Jackson says Rahm Emanuel’s candidacy will be well-funded; but he says, mayor Harold Washington proved that a candidate with a positive message can beat one with money.

Jackson also called upon former President Bill Clinton to reconsider his decision to visit Chicago and campaign for Emanuel next month.

Jackson says African-Americans and Hispanics were among Clinton’s biggest supporters; and he says, rather than offend his most loyal friends, Clinton should call off his campaign trip.

"

Monday, December 27, 2010

Dem-Controlled 111th Congress Added More Debt Than First 100 Congresses Combined, Over $10K Per Person in U.S.


Holy shnikes!..

(CNSNews.com) – The federal government has accumulated more new debt–$3.22 trillion ($3,220,103,625,307.29)—during the tenure of the 111th Congress than it did during the first 100 Congresses combined, according to official debt figures published by the U.S. Treasury.

That equals $10,429.64 in new debt for each and every one of the 308,745,538 people counted in the United States by the 2010 Census.

The total national debt of $13,858,529,371,601.09 (or $13.859 trillion), as recorded by the U.S. Treasury at the close of business on Dec. 22, now equals $44,886.57 for every man, woman and child in the United States.

In fact, the 111th Congress not only has set the record as the most debt-accumulating Congress in U.S. history, but also has out-stripped its nearest competitor, the 110th, by an astounding $1.262 trillion in new debt.



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Sunday, December 26, 2010

ftblog52.gif 915×625 pixels



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Perverted Teacher, 75, Logs 13 Years in Rubber Room


The New York Post reports:
At age 75, Roland Pierre is the granddaddy of the rubber room -- 13 years in the purgatory of teachers yanked from the classroom for alleged wrongdoing.
But the Department of Education can't fire Pierre, and he's stuck around long past the minimum retirement age.
Pierre was permanently removed from the classroom in 1997 after he was accused of sexually molesting a sixth-grade girl at PS 138 in Brooklyn.
But since then, Pierre has continued to receive full pay and fringe benefits, including health, pension and vacation, officials said. He pulls down $97,101 a year.


What a progressive business model for the 21st Century! A truly proud moment in public education.


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Are unions the enemy of the arts?


At Avery Fisher Hall and Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center, the average stagehand salary and benefits package is $290,000 a year.

To repeat, that is the average compensation of all the workers who move musicians' chairs into place and hang lights, not the pay of the top five.

Across the plaza at the Metropolitan Opera, a spokesman said stagehands rarely broke into the top-five category. But a couple of years ago, one did. The props master, James Blumenfeld, got $334,000 at that time, including some vacation back pay.

How to account for all this munificence? The power of a union, Local 1 of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees. "Power," as in the capacity and willingness to close most Broadway theaters for 19 days two years ago when agreement on a new contract could not be reached.

The full article is here and I thank Victor N. for the pointer.



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Saturday, December 25, 2010

@rsmccain, 12/25/10 6:03 PM

Robert Stacy McCain (@rsmccain)
12/25/10 6:03 PM
#tcot Global Warming Update: Blizzard Edition http://bit.ly/gBlG2Q


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Monday, December 20, 2010

@PTDoremus, 12/20/10 6:04 AM

Tom Doremus (@PTDoremus)
12/20/10 6:04 AM
Of the four wars in my lifetime, none came about because the U.S. was too strong. ~Ronald Reagan



Sunday, December 19, 2010

A Scientific Theory Is Judged By Its Predictive Power


"Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past." That is what global warming alarmists in Great Britain were telling us just ten years ago:

Britain's winter ends tomorrow with further indications of a striking environmental change: snow is starting to disappear from our lives.

Sledges, snowmen, snowballs and the excitement of waking to find that the stuff has settled outside are all a rapidly diminishing part of Britain's culture, as warmer winters - which scientists are attributing to global climate change - produce not only fewer white Christmases, but fewer white Januaries and Februaries. ...

According to Dr David Viner, a senior research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia,within a few years winter snowfall will become "a very rare and exciting event".

"Children just aren't going to know what snow is," he said.

The Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia was, as you probably remember, home to the famous "Climategate" emails of 2009. As it turned out, the alarmists' farewell to snow in Great Britain was premature, as England is now experiencing another severe winter, with record low temperatures and near-blizzard conditions in some areas:

Forecasters warned that parts of Britain could see record low temperatures this week of -26C (-15F). Heathrow will experience lows of about -9C (16F) tonight and further snowfall is expected in the South East during the evening rush hour.

Motorists continued to struggle. The M25 was closed in both directions for about six hours while drivers on the M40 in Oxfordshire suffered severe delays.

Commuters were warned to expect treacherous conditions with thick ice and freezing fog today. Train passengers also face delays and cancellations, particularly in the North. Eurostar services between London and Paris have also been affected.

Snow and ice grounded the vast majority of flights in and out of Britain, with Heathrow the worst-affected airport.

British children (not to mention motorists) are in no danger of forgetting what snow is all about. Yesterday, traffic ground to a halt on the A3:

r2675313118.jpg

Winter is tough on drivers; this photo was taken earlier this month in Epsom:

3913734.bin.jpeg

But snow isn't all bad. Those British kids who were never supposed to know the joys of sledding, skating and, above all, snowball fighting are in luck:

r1546801933.jpg

It's fun to ridicule the warmists because they are so often wrong, but their errors are in fact significant: a scientific theory that implies predictions that turn out to be wrong, is false. A principal feature of climate hysteria is its proponents' unwillingness to be judged by the standards that govern real science.



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@timcarvell, 12/19/10 1:18 PM

Tim Carvell (@timcarvell)
12/19/10 1:18 PM
Spent the morning playing "Birds Who Are Not Angry, Just Disappointed", passive-aggressively guilting pigs into returning my stolen eggs.



Down for the Count


Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion

16 minutes ago by Kathleen McCaffrey

There was an interesting article today on the Forbes site about the prospects of Tuesday's census report release. An expanding population in the sun belt, and a decline in the Rust Belt, may reform our elections in 2012 and beyond.

"The population continues to shift from Democratic-leaning Rust Belt states to Republican-leaning Sun Belt states, a trend the Census Bureau will detail in its once-a-decade report to the president. Political clout shifts, too, because the nation must reapportion the 435 House districts to make them roughly equal in population, based on the latest census figures. ....

The combination of population shifts and the recent election results could make Obama's re-election campaign more difficult. Each House seat represents an electoral vote in the presidential election process, giving more weight to states Obama probably will lose in 2012. The states he carried in 2008 are projected to lose, on balance, six electoral votes to states that his GOP challenger, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, won. That sets a higher bar for Obama before his re-election campaign even starts."

Good to know. I am glad to see that the Sun Belt, Texas, and the like are attracting new migrants. Their ethos, marked by lower taxes and ease of business, should set a trend in other states. Their success is the result of state government competition and we should all be so proud to live in a country where such a thing can exist.

... Especially when it makes the job of Barack Obama's campaign managers much, much more difficult.
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@VRWCTexan, 12/19/10 9:34 AM

Tom T. (@VRWCTexan)
12/19/10 9:34 AM
TSA officer sentenced to 3 years' "Probation" for stealing laptop computers from passengers' luggage at Philadelphia airport



Al Sharpton: ‘You a Punk Faggot’



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Awesome

Saturday, December 18, 2010

Happy Autumn! Global Warming Updates:



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@ihatethemedia, 12/18/10 10:37 AM

I Hate The Media (@ihatethemedia)
12/18/10 10:37 AM
Sorry, Asians. Sorry, Hispanics. Sorry, Eskimos. Chicago mayoral candidate says only blacks are miniorities. http://bit.ly/e7r2Ti



Friday, December 17, 2010

@michellemalkin, 12/17/10 9:11 AM

Michelle Malkin (@michellemalkin)
12/17/10 9:11 AM
With border in chaos, J-Nap proclaims "environmental justice" a priority http://is.gd/iU52v



Thursday, December 16, 2010

Chicago Democrat: Only Blacks Should be Considered Minorities, Says Women, Asians, Hispanics “Shouldn’t Be Able to Use That Title”…


How very racist of him…

(Chicago Sun Times)Mayoral challenger James Meeks scrambled Thursday to put out a political fire touched off by his suggestion that only African-Americans should be eligible for city contracts set aside for minorities and women.

Meeks made the statement on Wednesday during an interview on WVON-AM (1690). It happened during a discussion of why African-American businesses got a 7 percent sliver of Chicago's $1 billion spending pie through Aug. 31, down from 8 percent a year ago.

"The word 'minority' from our standpoint should mean African-American. I don't think women, Asians and Hispanics should be able to use that title," he said.

"That's why our numbers cannot improve — because we use women, Asians and Hispanics who are not people of color, who are not people who have been discriminated against."

And yes, he is a Democrat even though the above article doesn't mention it.



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@robport, 12/16/10 2:27 PM

Rob Port (@robport)
12/16/10 2:27 PM
Remember When Democrats Were Upset That You Couldn't Read Your Credit Card Bill? http://ht.ly/1aubvG



Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

The Democrats’ Capstone


The proposed Senate omnibus bill makes for truly amazing reading. It's like the Democrats have decided to wear proudly the mantle forced on them by Republicans in the last election—the mantle of pork, waste, and Obamacare. It makes it perfectly clear that the chatter surrounding the deficit commission and the sudden interest in fiscal restraint among some Democrats in Congress since November has been just idle talk, and that what the Democrats really want is more reckless spending.

This 2,000 page monstrosity stuffed down the country's throat in the last moment of the 111th Congress would be the epitome of everything the voters rejected. Is this the first major piece of legislation President Obama wants to sign after the election? Is this how the Senate Democrats who are up in 2012 want to start their reelection cycles? Republicans need to make it very clear to those Senate Democrats that this vote will not be forgotten: it will serve as a symbol of the old way, and together with the 2009 stimulus bill and the health-care bill will hang around the neck of every member of Congress who supports it.

Yuval Levin


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Sunday, December 12, 2010

Federal Housing Agency Looking for an Associate Director of Minority and Inclusion--Only Paying $255K With Plenty of Benefits


Should you need additional proof that the Democrat-controlled federal government is completely and utterly out of control, may I present Exhibit 9 Bazillion?

...Through subordinate staff, you will assess and analyze the diversity policies and practices of FHFA and the regulated entities and the Office of Finance. Other responsibilities include: Directing the development and implementation of standards and procedures to ensure the fair inclusion and utilization of minorities, women, the disabled, veterans and minority-owned and women-owned businesses in all business and activities of FHFA at all levels, including in procurement and all types of contracts;

...The person selected as the Associate Director for Women and Minority Inclusion will lead this new office. Additional vacancies will be advertised in the near future...

That last paragraph is important: after all their regulations failed to avert the mortgage crisis (thanks especially to Chris Dodd, Barney Frank and Maxine Waters), the Democrats are busy building up new agencies and new offices to oversee the same losers that failed the last time.

Democrats don't mind that the country is bankrupt. They've emptied the Treasury with trillions in failed spending programs. And still they spend, hiring new bureaucrats as greedily as Michael Moore hordes french fries at Johnny Rocket's.

By the way, if you want to apply for the job, please contact Marisa Harper, a Human Resources Specialist at Federal Housing Finance Agency in Washington, DC. Please be polite and tell her I sent you. Maybe I'll get a referral fee.


Hat tip: Brad.



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Warmal Colding Maps o' the Day


As of about 9:00am ET, these are the temperatures around the continental United States.

I'd like you to consider the following assertion:

No matter how many temperature stations they position to get extra heat, no matter how many manatees die of hypothermia, no matter how many respected scientists tell them that global warming is no more caused by humans than is the sun's heat, and no matter how many record low temperatures the U.S. experiences, you won't change the global warmists' opinions.

Because it has nothing to do with science. It has to do with money. Wealth redistribution, to be more precise.

The environmental movement is a crypto-Marxist movement. And everyone knows it now. Science is the last thing on their minds. Confiscating your wealth is their highest priority, and the EPA is their preferred mechanism to do so: an unelected, unaccountable bureaucracy setting industrial policy without any checks or balances.

Some might call that kind of system a dictatorship. Whatever it is, it's certainly not the form of government our founders created.




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Gov. Jan Brewer vs. Phoenix Suns


Don't Spread My Wealth

about an hour ago by DSMW Editor

What if the owners of the Suns discovered that hordes of people were sneaking into games without paying? What if they had a good idea who the gate-crashers are, but the ushers and security personnel were not allowed to ask these folks to produce their tickets stubs, thus non-paying attendees couldn't be ejected. Furthermore, what if the Suns' ownership was expected to provide those who sneaked in with complimentary eats and drinks? And what if, on those days when a gatecrasher became ill or injured, the Suns had to provide fee medical care and shelter?

- Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer to the owner of the Phoenix Suns basketball team, Robert Sarver, who opposes the new immigration law.



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Global Warming Strikes Minneapolis


Excess snow has collapsed the roof of the Metrodome. Today's NFL game between the Vikings and Giants has been rescheduled for Monday -- if the global warming melts in time and the roof wasn't severely damaged. Stay tuned.

Greg Pollowitz


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Saturday, December 11, 2010

Killing Obama’s “Build America Bonds” Is a Big Reason to Like the Tax Deal

http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/killing-obamas-build-america-bonds-is-a-big-reason-to-like-the-tax-deal/


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Bill Clinton Was Against the Bush Tax Cuts Before He Was For Them

The Powers That Be

Last night over at Michelle's place I wrote about how President Obama met with Bill Clinton to discuss Clinton's support for the deal Obama made with Republicans that included continuing all Bush tax cuts at all levels.

Go here to read more about that generally odd scene that was an ill-advised move for Obama to call apparently on his own (in the NFL there's a reason rookie quarterbacks don't call their own plays — same goes for politics… usually).

President Clinton, who looked to be actively re-claiming that title, spoke of his support for Obama's compromise.

Here's what Clinton had to say about the "Bush tax cuts" at the 2004 Democratic Convention:

At home, the president and the Republican Congress have made equally fateful choices, which they also deeply believe in.

For the first time when America was in a war footing in our whole history, they gave two huge tax cuts, nearly half of which went to the top 1 percent of us.

Now, I'm in that group for the first time in my life.

And you might remember that when I was in office, on occasion, the Republicans were kind of mean to me.

But as soon as I got out and made money, I became part of the most important group in the world to them. It was amazing. I never thought I'd be so well cared for by the president and the Republicans in Congress. I almost sent them a thank you note for my tax cuts until I realized that the rest of you were paying the bill for it. And then I thought better of it.

There was a lot more tax-cut bashing from Clinton back then, but you get the point. At the presser yesterday he succeeded in pulling off his support for the Obama compromise and avoid any mention of his past stance on this issue. They don't call him "Slick" for nothing.

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@backyardconserv, 12/11/10 9:19 AM

Anne Leary (@backyardconserv)
12/11/10 9:19 AM
Did Obama Just Quit?: I'm still incredulous at that presidential presser yesterday. "Say what you want about Sar... http://bit.ly/hyZxFo


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@dkberman, 12/11/10 7:46 AM

Dennis K. Berman (@dkberman)
12/11/10 7:46 AM
Short-term, high-interest loans. WSJ reveals Illinois is so broke it's relying on payday-lender schemes. http://on.wsj.com/fnjy82 #illinois


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Friday, December 10, 2010

The Beauty of Flight

Paul Kedrosky's Infectious Greed

For a short promotional film, GE Aviation captured all the takeoffs and landings in one day at Kelowna and Oakland airports, and then showed them as trains of planes. Gorgeous stuff. [-]

[via DataPointed]

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@instapundit, 12/10/10 9:00 PM

instapundit.com (@instapundit)
12/10/10 9:00 PM
JIM TREACHER: Did Obama Just Quit? "Say what you want about Sarah Palin quitting her job, but at l…: JIM TREAC... http://bit.ly/eo2RHf


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NYT: White House advisors totally surprised by Obama-Clinton press conference

Hot Air TV

Surprise!


Oh, I'll bet they were. Say what you will about Axe, Gibbsy, and the rest of the crew, but I'd like to think they have the basic political common sense to avoid photo ops where the president has to skip out after a minute or two to go eat gingerbread cookies. I'd like to think [...]

Read this post »

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ON THE ABILITY OF TREES TO GROW TO THE SKY

By Annaly Capital Management

Most of the headlines you'll see related to the Federal Reserve's Z.1 Flow of Funds report are focused on the change in household net worth. In the 3rd quarter 2010 report, released yesterday, the change was a positive one: household net worth rose $1.2 trillion, driven primarily by $1.3 trillion gains in equities and mutual fund shares which offset a drop of $649 billion in owner occupied housing value (the first decline since the first quarter of 2009). This reversed most of the $1.4 trillion decline in household net worth from previous quarter. Despite gains in 5 out of the previous 6 quarters, net worth remains $10.8 trillion below its 2007 peak.

We also tend to spend our time in the Z.1 report analyzing total debt outstanding in the economy. As far as the debt trends go, we are here to report that nothing has changed. All trends remain the same.

Total credit market debt outstanding still stands at over 350% of GDP, but has fallen for 6 straight quarters. Were this ratio to return to 300%, where it stood only a few short years ago in 2003, that would suggest a decline in debt outstanding of $8 trillion (holding GDP constant).

The chart below shows the individual sectors that are driving this deleveraging (and the one sector that is working hard to offset it).

Federal government debt as a percentage of GDP is now at 61.1% of GDP, which is a tie for the highest level ever seen in the data series, recorded in the very first month that the Flow of Funds data was first measured: 1Q 1952. Given the recent fiscal measures proposed by the White House, expected to add somewhere between $800 and $900 billion dollars to the deficit, it's tough to see how a new record for government debt outstanding won't be set in the 4th quarter of 2010.

Despite a ripping stock market, households continue to repair their balance sheets. As you see in the chart above, household debt as a percentage of GDP peaked out very near 100% before reversing course. In the chart below we look at household debt as a percentage of the organic and recurring income that is available to service it: disposable income less government transfer receipts.

In the chart, this ratio appears to be a trend variable. As new kinds of credit became more widely available to households, through the growth of credit cards and the development of the securitization machine, the household DTI ratio climbed. These kinds of financial innovation made debt easier to access, and households had the income to support it. However, debt-to-income ratios simply cannot be, by definition, a trend variable. There is an upper bound of debt that can be serviced. Were the household DTI ratio to return to 1.2, where it stood in 2002, the household would need to shed an additional $2.5 trillion of debt. Too loose underwriting standards during the housing boom may have helped the household explore for a short time the thin air above the top end of sustainable leverage.

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@NROcorner, 12/10/10 5:43 PM

National Review (@NROcorner)
12/10/10 5:43 PM
Who's Left to See the Patients Post-Obamacare?: Thanks to Obamacare, the medical landscape may be dramatically... http://bit.ly/haHBnz


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Thursday, December 9, 2010

@Bret_Baier, 12/9/10 10:48 AM

Bret Baier (@Bret_Baier)
12/9/10 10:48 AM
Senior House Democratic Leadership aide: "This vote shows how much the White House screwed this up."Also, Rep.... http://fb.me/NJq3C8yD



Wednesday, December 8, 2010

One Chart To Rule Us All

Using data from the Office of Personnel Management, I generated the following graph that depicts the number of federal employees, year by year, since 1940. I purposely omitted the Department of Defense, which it turns out is actually a legitimate function of the federal government.

Some striking observations:

• The raw growth in bureaucrats during Barack Obama's first year in office appears to be the largest since WWII.

• How did we ever survive before the Department of Transportation was created in the sixties?

• Are there really 100,000 Agriculture Department employees and, if so, what the hell are they doing?

• It would appear that we now have about 175,000 Homeland Security employees, yet we can't seem to secure the border with Mexico.

• Is anyone else curious about the roughly 300,000 employees marked "Other"?

A federal employee, fully loaded, runs about $100,000 annually -- more in the DC area. In rough terms, every 100,000 federal bureaucrats excised from the federal trough would cut $100 billion annually from the deficit. As Martin Lawrence used to say: "get to steppin'".

It's time to slash and privatize large swaths of this unaccountable bureaucracy that grows uncontrollably in good times and bad.






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