And so it begins. The Obama administration will begin to tap federal retiree programs to help fund operations after the government loses its ability Monday to borrow more money from the public, adding urgency to efforts in Washington to fashion a compromise over the debt. Rather than find somewhere to cut spending, Obama and Geithner will start raiding pension funds of federal retirees. No doubt | Read More »
Just like when we have bad housing data or jobs numbers over here and it’s always called ‘worse than expected’, we have the same situation with the PIGS – well at least the PIG – across the pond, according to Forbes. The European Union says the debt loads of Greece, Ireland and Portugal will be much bigger than previously forecast, adding to fears that international | Read More »
The NY Times is reporting that the IRS is firing a warning shot across the bow of donors to 501(c)(4) groups engaging in political advocacy by sending letters to five unnamed donors saying that their donations might be subject to gift taxes. In addition to reading between the lines as to how Obama and the IRS could manipulate this to Democratic advantage, it’s also interesting | Read More »
From the diaries by Erick As so often seem to be the case, the GOP doesn’t follow the Democratic playbook when it comes to obstruction. They caved when it came to a vote last week on the nomination of Jack McConnell as a US District Court Judge. He’s only 52 or 53, so we can look forward to decades of his rulings. Among the items | Read More »
I guess it all depends on your point of view. United Steelworkers Union “Sun Council” president Jerry Dugan stood outside the Sunoco shareholders’ meeting … to tell reporters that … Sunoco CEO Lynn Elsenhans seems to want to sell or close the Philadelphia and Marcus Hook refineries — a move that would put 1,600 employees out of work. “She just wants to be a marketer, | Read More »
As week 7 of the ‘days not weeks’ war nears its close, we get a few updates from meetings in Rome that Secretary of State Clinton is participating in along with representatives of 21 other countries and various international organizations. “Everyone is always impatient. We expect things to be done immediately in our very fast world,” Clinton said. Gee, she didn’t have a problem with | Read More »
Here are two examples from this weekend. The titles are: Obama’s McCain resolution demands ‘American’ parents and Online ‘birth certificate’ document ‘was changed’ In the first one, they say Obama’s bill in 2008 requires two American parents. Perhaps it’s a good thing that the U.S. Senate didn’t take up a resolution on Barack Obama’s status as a “natural born Citizen” in 2008 – as members | Read More »
This sad story came out last week. Princeton had a popular Spanish (as in “actually from Spain”) lecturer named Antonio Colvo in the Spanish Dept for past decade. Unfortunately for him, a couple of grad students and another lecturer decided he needed to go. His offenses? Well they are really quite severe … if you’re a thin-skinned spoiled brat who can’t stand criticism. The second | Read More »
Obama and his fellow liberals are falling all over themselves to backtrack on their votes against raising the debt limit under Bush. Until today, I had to hand the hypocrisy crown to Obama, who said in 2006 that Bush’s request to increase the debt limit was “a sign of leadership failure”. Now that HE is the “leader” (using the term loosely), it must be a | Read More »
The rating scale used by the Washington Post fact checker consists of 1-4 Pinocchios for lies, a Gepetto checkmark for 100% truthfulness, or a teetering scale if it’s unclear. The latest piece there about Obama’s position on Libya starts with quotes in Boston Globe interviews from Senators Obama, Biden, and Clinton from 2007 saying that Bush had better not launch any sort of military action | Read More »
Today Obama made it perfectly clear, to use one of his favorite phrases, that a ground invasion of Libya ain’t gonna happen. Obama was asked in an interview with the Spanish-language network Univision if a land invasion would be out of the question in the event air strikes fail to dislodge Gadhafi from power. Obama replied that it was “absolutely” out of the question. Asked | Read More »
Not that we see much news of it here where the MSM is in Obama’s pocket, but in the UK the reporting is just a wee bit more open. We already know the Arab League flipped and flopped as soon as the first missile was launched, but how about our western allies? Here are some snippets from this overnight Daily Mail piece to give some | Read More »
Last week he said the action there would last days, not weeks, and that we’d just be in a supporting role as others led the way. Hmmm…. I wonder then why Illinois Air National Guard folks are being deployed to Libya. (I guess they really mean Italy.) Won’t we be finished by the time they get there? Shouldn’t whoever is going to be in charge | Read More »
Wholesale prices skyrocketed last month. The price of vegetables was up 50%. With $4/gallon gas, everything will keep going up. Wholesale prices jumped last month by the most in nearly two years due to higher energy costs and the steepest rise in food prices in 36 years. Excluding those volatile categories, inflation was tame. I love the last line. Translation: “Other than the places it | Read More »
Most of you are probably used to getting a good chuckle out of Iowahawk from his blog or his hilarious tweets. But he got serious earlier this week and used actual facts and figures to obliterate the KnownFacts™ that we are bombarded with by the teacher unions in WI and “experts” like Paul Krugman. Iowahawk examined published 2009 figures for 4th and 8th graders by | Read More »
14 CWA drivers of disabled people called in sick the other day. Maybe they have a cadillac health care plan or maybe Obamacare is working miracles, but in any case several of them were healthy enough a short time later that same day to show up at a protest in Trenton. The ones who have been identified on camera have been suspended. This is one | Read More »
From the diaries by Bill S. Update from Erick: The U.S. Naval Institute has more here. Frank Buckles, the last of the 4,734,991 Americans who served in World War I, has passed away. When you think of most kids today, his story is just staggering. He was born on a Missouri farm when William McKinley was President. When the US entered WWI in April 1917, | Read More »
This is a new one. We’re used to variations on the victim card, but this may be a new low. Providence RI, which last I knew was not controlled by heartless Republicans, faces a possible $40M school deficit next year. State law requires them to notify teachers by March 1st if they will not be retained. Therefore the superintendent is apparently going to tell every | Read More »
Promoted from the diaries… They’re currently gathering signatures so it can be placed on the November ballot. You can’t help but read this story about the guy behind it without doing a compare and contrast with abortion a certain safe/legal/rare medical procedure. Schofield’s ordinance would outlaw the procedure throughout San Francisco, even for religious reasons. The only exception would be “a clear, compelling and immediate | Read More »
Jan 20th – “lower than expected” at 404,000 A Labor Department official said the larger-than-expected decline was partly explained by jobless claims returning to trend after the big rise the earlier week. Translation: Last week’s rise was just a blip. This proves the Obama economy is working. Jan 27th – “higher than expected” at 454,000 A labor spokesman said snowstorms earlier in the month forced | Read More »
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