Monday, February 21, 2011

Larwyn's Linx: Fort Sumter, Wisconsin

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Nation

Fort Sumter, Wisconsin: America's Right
Everyone Should Have Seen This Coming: Chequerboard
Pictorial: Protest Saturday in Wisconsin: Hot Air

Democrats on Course to Shutdown the Government: Greenroom
Ryan: We Won't Budge on Spending Cuts: Cubachi
Pelosi: Subverting Democracy is 'Democracy in Action": RWN

Government Unions — beyond Wisconsin: Cato
Walker: 'Democracy is not about hidit out in another state': Cubachi
Cornell to open first Muslim chaplaincy: Creeping

Economy

Who Are You Unionized Against?: SDA
It's the deficits, dummy: Surber
Two Reasons Muni Investors Should Be Terrified of WI: Yahoo

Fake sick teachers may cost WI taxpayers at least $6M: Malkin
Unions tell teachers to go back to work: WaPo
Sale of the Century: Niall Ferguson

Climate & Energy

Abiotic Oil: Science or Politics?: FinSense
Nature Unleashes a Flood … of Bad Science: WUWT
Libya: Stop Oppressing Protesters or We Cut Off Oil: WZ

Media

'All the grace of an alcoholic denied the bottle': Pundette
Liberals Provide Smears, Innuendo Over Fake Doctors Notes: RWN
A Post on Unions You Should Read: P&F

Peggy Noonan Seems Confused: Riehl
Some Dare Call It Treason: MNR
Cleric plans DC protest: 'rise up', establish sharia: Creeping

Happy Presidents Day, Mr. President: Diogenes
Obama's political organization colludes with special-interests to demagogue reform-minded governors: PJMom
Krugman: 'Gov. Walker Trying to Make Wisconsin and America a Third-World-Style Oligarchy': NewsBusters

Bubbles Bursting: Belmont Club
But That’s What Community Organizers Do: Hanson
The book Americans aren't allowed to buy: RWN

World

The Yuppie Revolution In Egypt Is Over, The Islamist Revolution Has Begun: LegalIns
Egypt gets its Khomeini: JPost
Commie Thoughts on Wisconsin: ushanka

Libya, oh Libya: Mullings
Massacre in Libya: Jawa
Libya in flames: Qaddafi wages war on protesters, son vows to fight 'until the last bullet': Hot Air

Israeli MK: We Can No Longer Rely on the White House, Obama Doesn’t Lead, He Follows: WZ
In the Land of the Brother Leader: Totten
Is Pakistan's Nuke-Laden Government the Next to Fall?: TAB

SciTech

Microsoft Retaliates: Mozilla, You Don't Get It: Fool
Apple "blowing it" with app subscription scheme, analyst says: NetWorld
All-ETF VA gives a hedge edge, Moody's says: Investment News

Cornucopia

Big Government’s Mike Flynn Confesses “Elaborate Sting”: BigJournalism
Fred Levenhagen LIES!: iOTW
Would-be robbers end up losing money as stickup goes wrong: KCStar

Can You Dig It?: P-A Notes
Breaking: the Hilton Wench Goes Muslim: Tatler
Yuri Bezmenovs' 1985 Interview. "Useful Idiots": SDA

Images: Phil Hands, via Disrupt the Narrative
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: Support Governor Walker

QOTD: Christiane Amanpour: So, George, Wisconsin. Is this the sort of battle that we're going to see shaping up around the country? Is this really the sort of political and philosophical debate that's going on right now about what these cuts are going to mean?

George Will: It would have been even if the president hadn't intervened. But in the span of three days, Christiane, he first submits a budget that would increase the federal deficit and, two days later, he mobilizes his party, his own political machine, and organized labor, which is an appendage to his party, to sabotage Wisconsin's attempt to do what he will not do, which is deal with the insolvency of their government. In doing so, he has set the stage for 2012 by saying the Democratic Party is the party of government, not just in having an exaggerated view of the scope and competence of government, but because its base is in public employees.

--Obama, the DNC, & the Unions vs. The Rest of America (SDA)

Sunday, February 20, 2011

The most under-reported news story of the week: Governor Walker wants to save 12,000 teachers' jobs

Mike Shedlock reports the news that legacy media is apparently too busy to cover.

Unions don't really want to save jobs. Rather they want every union worker to extort every possible cent from every possible taxpayer. The goal of unions is to do the least work at the most cost.

Governor Walker's proposal will save 12,000 jobs. The union does not care. It would rather fire 12,000 teachers than for all of them to make modest concessions.

I have countless examples to prove that, yet the myth goes on.

If this was really "about the kids" rather than about the greed and arrogance of the public unions, teachers would be in the classroom teaching instead of fraudulently calling in sick, with help of doctors aiding and abetting that fraud.

Please consider 12K State Workers Could Be Fired Without Budget Deal, Wisconsin Governor Warns.

If changes aren't made to the benefit contributions paid by Wisconsin's nearly 300,000 public sector employees, about 10,000-12,000 workers will lose their jobs, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker warned Sunday.

"I don't want a single person laid off in the public nor in the private sector and that's why this is a much better alternative than losing jobs," Walker told "Fox News Sunday... If we're going to be in this together, (cut) our $3.6 billion budget deficit, it's going to take a whole lot more than just employee contributions when it comes to pensions and health care... it's like a virus that eats up more and more of the budget if you don't get it under control."

President Obama, whose group Organizing for America, has bused in some of the nearly 70,000 protesters outside the state capitol on Saturday, last week called the bill "an assault on unions."

Under the governor's proposal, unions still could represent workers, but they could not force employees to pay dues and would have to hold annual votes to stay organized. Only wages below the Consumer Price Index would be subject to collective bargaining, anything higher would have to be approved by referendum.

As Mish points out, no less a Democrat icon than FDR understood that public sector unions are antithetical to the concept of American government.

All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service... Particularly, I want to emphasize my conviction that militant tactics have no place in the functions of any organization of Government employees.

A strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to prevent or obstruct the operations of Government until their demands are satisfied. Such action, looking toward the paralysis of Government by those who have sworn to support it, is unthinkable and intolerable.

Yet today's Democrat Party -- which has aligned itself with the most horrifically failed policies of the modern era -- has set a course for fiscal destruction.

Today the Democrat Party is the government leviathan. They are inseparable, like a pod-person from Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

There's no choice: the public sector unions must be broken. And it's truly a pity it had to come to this.

God Bless Governor Walker.


Linked by: Michelle Malkin and Memeorandum. Thanks!

Applying the Individual Mandate to your retirement account

Rather than abide by Judge Roger Vinson's ruling that the entirety of Obamacare is null and void, the Obama administration is doing its best to ignore the decision. It is continuing to implement new regulations and create new bureaucracies while playing "Four Corners" in court.

The reason is simple: if the Individual Mandate is eventually deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, many of the Statists' grand plans for this society go poof -- pulverized into dust.

For if the government can compel you to purchase a particular kind of health insurance product, what are the limits on the bureaucrats' control over the individual? Truly, there are none, for the appetite of the Democrats is insatiable. As their massive social engineering experiments implode (say, Medicare and Fannie Mae), they're on to the next set (e.g., Obamacare and HAMP) without a single look back to see what went wrong.

Using the Individual Mandate to force you to buy 'safe investments'


Next on the Democrats' agenda: a plan to use the precedent of the Individual Mandate to force you to buy "safe investments" in your retirement accounts. Oh, it would be for your own benefit. They're just looking out for you.

The always fascinating Pensions & Investments (their latest centerfold was a real doozy) reported last year that the feds were examining the regulation of all private pension plans.

The point being: the Obama administration would love to get their hands on the trillions of dollars in private retirement accounts. By forcing individuals, say, to buy annuities (for their own safety, remember), they would require the insurance companies that manufacture annuities to include a certain amount of Treasury notes (government debt) in their investment portfolios (again, just for safety's sake).

That would funnel trillions of private dollars into the government's coffers in exchange for paper promises, enabling them to continue borrowing and spending like drunken liberals.

In 2008 Democrats talked openly about 'eliminating investment risk'


It's not crazy talk: Congressional Democrats, circa 2008, openly discussed the possibility of confiscating 401(k) and IRA plans; one can legitimately connect the notion of "eliminat[ing] investment risk" to giving the feds control of your retirement account.

...In a joint agency RFI published in today's Federal Register, the Treasury and Labor departments expressed concern that defined contribution plans generally make only lump-sum payments available to plan retirees.

The agencies specifically want to know whether some form of “lifetime income distribution” should be required in all defined contribution plans...

To put this news in context, consider that in late 2008 Democrats openly discussed the possibility of confiscating private retirement accounts in order to "strengthen and protect Americans’ 401(k)s, pensions, and other... plans".

The [Congressional] testimony of Teresa Ghilarducci, professor of economic policy analysis at the New School for Social Research in New York, in hearings Oct. 7 drew the most attention and criticism. Testifying for the House Committee on Education and Labor, Ghilarducci proposed that the government eliminate tax breaks for 401(k) and similar retirement accounts, such as IRAs, and confiscate workers’ retirement plan accounts and convert them to universal Guaranteed Retirement Accounts (GRAs) managed by the Social Security Administration.

...The current retirement system, Ghilarducci said, “exacerbates income and wealth inequalities” because tax breaks for voluntary retirement accounts are “skewed to the wealthy because it is easier for them to save, and because they receive bigger tax breaks when they do.”

...GRAs would guarantee a fixed 3 percent annual rate of return, although later in her article Ghilarducci explained that participants would not “earn a 3% real return in perpetuity.” In place of tax breaks workers now receive for contributions and thus a lower tax rate, workers would receive $600 annually from the government, inflation-adjusted. For low-income workers whose annual contributions are less than $600, the government would deposit whatever amount it would take to equal the minimum $600 for all participants.

In a radio interview with Kirby Wilbur in Seattle on Oct. 27, 2008, Ghilarducci explained that her proposal doesn’t eliminate the tax breaks, rather, “I’m just rearranging the tax breaks that are available now for 401(k)s and spreading — spreading the wealth.”

Now that the Democrats have decimated the economy (more quantitative easing, anyone?), the trillions of dollars in private retirement accounts represent the juiciest of all possible targets.

The Individual Mandate is unconstitutional. Because if it is not, the federal government has unlimited power over the individual -- and our free society really will have come to an abrupt and unseemly end.


Mark Levin puzzled by Ann Coulter's bizarre endorsement of Chris Christie, who supports gun control, amnesty, Obamacare and climate legislation

Cub Reporter Biff Spackle was kind enough to transcribe the following soliloquy by radio host Mark Levin last Monday night.

I want to politely address my dear friend -- and she is my dear friend -- Ann Coulter. We've had some email exchanges.

What is your great love of Chris Christie based on? The man supports gun control. The man appoints a radical Islamist to a judgeship. The man is for amnesty [for illegal aliens]. The man is, to some extent, part of the "green" movement. He campaigned for Michael Castle.

And it's interesting. [Mitt] Romney is being attacked, correctly by the way, for RomneyCare. Yet here we have Obamacare, we have 28 states challenging it: 26 states in one suit; Virginia in another suit; Oklahoma in another suit -- and New Jersey's sitting on the sidelines.

Why? I cannot believe it's the cost. Because I have offered, as have others, to do it for free. Just sign your name on a brief. That's free. And yet Christie sits on the sidelines.

So he either supports [Obamacare] or I don't know what. Maybe while Romney's explaining RomneyCare, Christie can explain his [tacit support of] Obamacare.

But the idea that if we don't back Christie, who's already said he's not qualified enough to be president, that Romney is the winner and that we were warned about McCain, is a little rewrite of history. Nobody was more against McCain than I. Then at the very end I said we had to vote for him to stop Obama. But I fought him every step of the way. Ask McCain's people. They hate me. Feeling's mutual!

Anyway, it's a little bizarre to me. The way I see Chris Christie is he's Christine Todd Whitman as a male. I do like his fiscal positions. I do like the way he deals with the public sector teachers' unions. That's all to the good.

But when you're the president of the United States, you've got a whole lot of issues that affect a whole lot of people.

And it's not good enough to be good on one out of 20. So this [obsession with Christie] I don't get.

I agree completely. Christie has a number of troubling positions -- some even outright bizarre -- that seriously limit his acceptability as a GOP nominee. At least until he explains himself thoroughly on these issues.

Coulter isn't usually off-key on these sorts of things: but she couldn't be more wrong with her premature statements regarding Christie. Nominating another mushy centrist -- and I count the governor of New Jersey as one, based upon his track record -- will guarantee Barack Obama a victory in the general. And that we cannot accept if this Republic is to survive.


Image adapted from: Politico.

Motivational speaker didn't want to live in a van down by the river: pulls off $18M life insurance scam by hiring hit-man to kill himself

Not exactly an inspirational story.

A motivational speaker paid a hitman to kill him so that his family could receive $18 million in life insurance payments.

Jeffrey Locker, a 52-year-old father of three, was murdered in July 2009 by a man named Kenneth Minor, who's now on trial for the crime. Minor's lawyer, Daniel Gotlin, told an almost unbelievable story of how Minor came to kill Locker. Locker had paid a career criminal in Harlem to shoot him: he was deep in debt and wanted his family to be able to claim his life insurance.

When the hitman backed out and ran away, Locker spent time walking up and down the streets, asking random strangers to shoot him in exchange for money. He approached Minor, whom he'd never met before that night. He offered him his ATM and credit cards, saying he'd paid another man to murder him, but the man had run off with his cash. He then instructed Minor to tie his hands with wire, take a knife from the glove compartment of Locker's car, and hold the knife while Locker thrust his body forward and stabbed himself with it. Locker was later found dead in his car.

In a statement to the court, Minor said Locker had told him "it had to look like a robbery so his family can get what they deserve." Locker had set up the scene to look like a crime had occurred: he'd gone to a store and bought some water and condoms beforehand, then had Minor strangle him with some wire and tie it to the headrest as if there had been two killers in the car: one sitting in the back seat, and the knife-wielder in the front.

Gotlin says Minor, his client, should not be convicted of murder. "[Locker] wasn't killed by some wicked man," he told the court. "He killed himself -- that's what happened here."

Peter Casolaro, the lawyer for the prosecution, disagrees: "When you're paid money to kill another person, that makes you a contract killer, a murderer."

When I think of 'motivational speaker', I think of Matt Foley, not bizarre contract killings. Until now.


Illinois: 200 feet below the surface and running out of air

Illinois Governor Pat Quinn has proposed a new state budget that sketches out spending of $52.7 billion. The problem: his plan requires borrowing of $8.7 -- 17% of the budget -- to help pay for all of the overdue bills the state owes.

Republican lawmakers said the budget plan is DOA, noting that overall state spending would increase by about $1.7 billion. Chicago's Civic Federation, a budget watchdog group, said the borrowing would cost Illinois about $3.4 billion in additional interest. Even Democrats in the state legislature said were not satisfied with the plan and promised to look for additional places to cut spending.

Quinn also came under fire from human service agencies who say his budget plan would unfairly hurt the poor, sick and elderly [cutting] $1 billion [overall and] $552 million ... the state's Medicaid reimbursement rate...

...The bond offering, now scheduled for next week, will help the state to pay its annual contribution to the state's public pension plans, which are more than 50% underfunded. Notably, Quinn's budget plan doesn't address the state's pension problem, which is one of the worst in the nation.

Even the state's notoriously liberal media outlets have come to realize just how precarious Springfield's position is.

Stop. Your. Borrowing.

In January, Gov. Pat Quinn and his fellow Democrats in the state Legislature told all of us we have to surrender an additional $7 billion in income taxes so that deadbeat Illinois can pay its old bills.

Now Quinn and some Democratic lawmakers want this hugely indebted state to borrow $8.75 billion so that … um … deadbeat Illinois can pay its old bills.

...That's the core problem every Illinoisan needs to grasp: With Quinn & Co. in charge, these unsustainable patterns of spending just go on and on. More taxing and borrowing only liberates them from having to restructure how Illinois does business with public employee unions and others who benefit from taxpayer dollars...

...That's right. As with prior borrowing to cover annual payments into the state pension system, the Democrats want to borrow long-term money to pay routine operating costs of state government. By that corrosive tactic, Quinn and Cullerton would dump today's everyday expenses onto tomorrow's taxpayers.

And it gets worse: By the Civic Federation's estimates, taxpayers would pay more than $3.4 billion in interest to retire these 15-year bonds. And the proposal backloads both principal and interest payments: Total debt service would leap upward in 2015 and 2016 — when Quinn's supposedly "temporary" income tax hike is scheduled to vanish.

Not to be callous, but the residents of Illinois are getting precisely what they deserve. They keep electing corrupt, irresponsible hacks to office. Otherwise known as Democrats.


Image adapted from: Chicago Sun-Times.

Larwyn's Linx: The People versus the Unions #wiunion #solidaritywi

Have a great link you'd like me to review? Drop me an email. Bloggers: you can install a Larwyn's Linx blog widget!

Nation

The People versus the Unions: No Runny Eggs
Wisconsin Union Protest Mega Roundup: Uncoverage
Still Mad in Madison: JOM

Wisconsin -- What Is At Stake: Wolf Howling
GOP Uses ObamaCare Vote PR To Cover Budget Fail: Riehl
Tea Party Rallies in Wisconsin: Surber

Get Ready: SEIU Thugs Ready to Show in Wisconsin: Malkin
Highlights from Day Five of the Wisconsin Protests: NiceDeb
Wisconsin Update: with Herman Cain Video: RSM

Economy

The War on Taxpayers: Hayward
Unions want to overturn election result: McIlheran
Unions Starting to Cave in Wisconsin: RedState

Double-Dipping Educators Get Rich Off the Taxpayer: RWN
Whoa: Radical Union Hack Named to Key Trade Post: NoisyRoom
Union Thugs Go After Idaho Official’s Mother: AllAm

A slice of doom, with a tasty dessert of misery and failure: Ace
Roosevelt Comes Back to Haunt Obama: WZ
President Obama Wines, Dines the Titans of Tech: Gizmodo

Climate & Energy

Coal bill seeks to thwart EPA: Kentucky
House Votes to Defund IPCC: WUWT
Scientific American Proposes Socialism as a Means to Eliminate Murder: BSF

Media

Photo gallery: What Big Labor protesters are teaching kids (language warning): Malkin
Media Hypocrisy: Why Aren't They Covering "Hate Speech" of Wisconsin Protests?: Lid
Liberals Provide Smears And Innuendo Over Wisconsin Doctors Notes Story: RWN

Has the Media whitewashed the latest Islamic Terrorist Attack on the US?: PunditPress
Newsweek's Evan Thomas: Obama's Budget a 'Profile in Cowardice': NewsBusters
Gery Chico Save A Life Foundation Connection: What Was His Role At Troubled Charity?: HuffPo

Keith Olbermann’s Question to the Wisconsin Public Unions: Driscoll
George Soros, the Left’s Dr. Evil, Weighs In On Obama and Glenn Beck: NewsReal
Liberal Wisconsin Newspaper Hammers Democrats: BlogProf

Barack Obama Time Travels from January to Scold Barack Obama of February for Lack of Civility: ConTeach
Ed Schultz Exposed for Exaggerating How Much Wisconsin Governor's Plan Costs Employees: NewsBusters
Phone Call With An Aldermanic Candidate: P&F

World

Great News: Team Obama in 'Secret Talks' with Taliban: JWF
Two U.S. Citizens Arrested; Accused Of Being Taliban Arms Dealers: GWP
Hillary Clinton: Israeli Settlements 'Illegitimate': ABC

Will the Hunger Strike in Venezuela Lead to Another Egypt?: Fausta
State Dept helps set up pro-Islam think tank…in France: Creeping
"Conservative" Dhimmitude: Zilla

Susan Rice's Illegitimate U.N. Folly: LegalIns
The Global Insurrection: Ledeen
Obama Finds a Place to Cut: Voice of America Broadcasts Into Red China: BrutHon

SciTech

The Significance of Watson: Kurzweil
New York City hospital system admits to massive data breach: InfoSec
Microsoft Investigates Windows Zero-Day Vulnerability: eWeek Europe

Cornucopia

Wax On --- Wax Off: iOTW
Construction begins on 1,000 mph supercar: BBC
Daily Scoreboard: Surber

Image: iOwnTheWorld
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: The Legal Project (to aid the Jawa Report)

Saturday, February 19, 2011

Advice for Arab Leaders Who Need Support From the Obama Administration During Periods of Citizen Unrest [Mark Levin]

Advice from Mark Levin for Arab governments who need support from the President against their rebellious citizens:

"Just call the protesters 'tea partiers'."



Suffice it to say that the Union hacks and the Democrats -- but I repeat myself -- aren't math majors #wiunion #solidaritywi

Consider the following data-points as backdrop to the public sector union skulduggery in Wisconsin:

• The national unemployment rate is 10% and the U-6 underemployment rate is 19.6%

In California roughly 200,000 of the 235,000 state employees are unionized. In the last decade, pension payments by the state increased 2,000% with $3 billion paid out in 2009 alone. 15,000 retirees collect at least $100,000 a year. Many are former police officers, firefighters and prison guards who can retire at age 50 with pensions that pay 90% of final year's pay and are indexed for inflation

In Illinois, more than 4,000 retirees receive in excess of $100,000 annually and nearly 15,000 collect more money than they ever did as state employees. The state's pension system is the most underfunded plan in the nation with a $50 billion shortfall

The economy is flat on its back and the states' pension systems are about to collapse.

And the crybabies in Wisconsin are complaining that they'll have to contribute 5.8% of their salaries towards pensions and contribute 12.6% of their health insurance premiums (hint: the national averages for real workers -- real because they're the taxpayers, not the tax-takers -- are 7.5% and 20%, respectively).

Public sector union bosses have completely hosed their members and taxpayers by constructing impossible pension payment schemes. The shortfall will be real, the outrage formidable and the misery significant.

When a company goes bankrupt, the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corp (PBGC) is intended to step in to cover the shortfall. But the PBGC does not protect state or local retirement plans.

It's high time that public-sector unions were outlawed and all such organizations currently operating disbanded. It's clear that they serve no useful purpose other than soaking taxpayers and their rank-and-file members. It's simple math: it can't last and it will all collapse.


Photo: Doctor writing fraudulent excuses in Wisconsin to assist illegal strike by "educators" #wiunion #solidaritywi

Democrats: flee the state rather than honor the democratic process. Protest having to pay a measly amount of their salaries toward their own retirement and benefits, which everyone else in America has to do. Hold an illegal strike under the guise of a "sick out" -- leaving kids and parents in the lurch.

This photograph exemplifies everything that's wrong with the Soros-controlled, hard left Democrat Party.

This is the example they want to set for our kids, these "teachers".

And President Obama is so laser-focused on jobs and the catastrophic federal budget deficit that he's busy urging state workers to commit fraud.


Update: 'To Wisconsin's Unions: Sit And Spin'

Hat tip: Larwyn.

President Obama Condemns Steve Jobs for Oppressive Working Conditions in Apple's Chinese Factories and Urges Workers to Unionize -- Not

Hey, Union Bosses: Why Not Go to Apple's Factories in China Where It Sounds Like You're Desperately Needed?

Methinks some communities near Shanghai need organizing.

Apple Inc. says its audits found labour, safety and other abuses by its suppliers in 2010, though it praised Taiwanese manufacturer Foxconn for saving lives through its handling of a spate of suicides at its factories in China... The findings... prompted local reports Wednesday to decry the "high price" paid by Chinese workers who assemble hit gadgets like the iPod and iPad.

"Apple Releases Supplier Report: Chinese Environmental Groups Dissatisfied," said a headline Wednesday in the state-run newspaper 21st Century Business Herald. "China Pays a High Cost for Apple's Success," said the Shanghai Daily.

Apple's report lists steps the company has taken to deal with underaged workers, involuntary or debt-bonded labour and unsafe handling of dangerous chemicals, among other abuses found in audits of 127 production facilities... Meanwhile, the company said it was working with Foxconn, a major supplier to many electronics makers, to help prevent further suicides at its factories, which employ more than 920,000 people and are expanding into China's inland areas.

...Apple said its audits found 91 underaged workers at 10 Chinese factories [and] acknowledged other troubles, such as inadequate safety provisions at factories, including one case last year in which dozens of workers were poisoned by unsafe handling of the chemical n-hexane at a factory in Suzhou, near Shanghai ... Wintek had gotten better results using n-hexane, a solvent that can cause nerve damage, rather than alcohol to clean screens and switched to the more toxic chemical without telling Apple.

...The Institute for Public & Environmental Affairs welcomed what it called Apple's "positive steps" in acknowledging the poisoning at Wintek, but said its claim that all the workers affected had returned to work was "highly conflicting" with what the workers have said... "Many of them have been categorized as occupationally disabled. Their condition therefore makes it dangerous for them to return to the Apple production line and to be exposed to chemical substances such as acetone," it said in a statement Wednesday... The NGO also chastised Apple for not providing specific details about other environmental risks, saying it was studying further cases it had found.

But I'm sure President Obama gave Apple CEO Steve Jobs a stern lecture on workers' rights when he dined with him on Wednesday night. In between his requests for campaign donations, that is.


Larwyn's Linx: An Open Letter to Mr. Daily Kos #wiunion

Have a great link you'd like me to review? Drop me an email. Bloggers: you can install a Larwyn's Linx blog widget!

Nation

An Open Letter to Mr. Daily Kos: Vodkapundit
Dems: government shutdown a sign of failure, except in WI: VS
The Doomed President: AT

ObamaCare vs. The Constitution of the United States: NetRight
Walker to Obama: Focus on Your Own Damn Budget: Cubachi
Misleading Judge Vinson: Patterico

Obama’s Brownshirts Behind Wisconsin Chaos: RWN
Surprise: Group Targets Speaker Boehner’s House: Driscoll
Socialist Public Employees Want Revolution in WI: AmPower

Economy

Apocalypse Now: Wisconsin vs. Big Labor: Malkin
Obama Acted Stupidly In Siding Against Taxpayers: LegalIns
Athens in Mad Town: WSJ

Public employee unions show their true face: Toldjah
The Madison insurrection: follow the money: AT
WI Teachers Make More Than Twice Average Prviate Worker: TAB

It's a Start: GOP Trims $61 Billion: RWN
Outrage: Republicans Reject Tiny Spending Cuts: Patterico
Why Isn't Wall Street in Jail?: Rolling Stone

Climate & Energy

Judge to Obama Admin: End the Drilling Permatorium: Ace
Culture of contempt: Interior Department spanked yet again: Malkin
Congress to NASA: Study Space! (Not Climate. That’s Not Space.): PJM

Media

Alternet's Racist Tirade Against Cain: 'Black Garbage Pail Kid', 'Monkey', CORE Condemns: BigJournalism
The Top 10 Craziest Posts At Feministing: Cassy
Wisconsin Madness as Seen by the ‘Little People’: PJM

Make Believe Media: Obama's Failure of Leadership Is Actually A "New, Crafty" Way To Lead: Ace
Fired Journalist Has a History of Anti-American Slanders: PJM
Wisconsin Blues: TL In Exile

Column One: Lara Logan and media rules: Glick
Irony: Democrat Party Subverts the Democratic Process: BlogProf
The hypocritical left, con'd. : Texas4Palin

Union & DNC-backed protests in Wisconsin sure seem a lot like the Tea Parties in some liberal minds : GayPatriot
Thoughts about the Wisconsin teachers’ union: RWN
Demonstrating race: The asymmetrical classification of crowds: TigerHawk

World

Emergency Committee for Israel Responds to U.N. Security Council's Attack on Israel: WklyStd
Obama Hoisted by Own Petard on Israeli-Palestinian Front: AT
Canadian Death Panel Decides Baby Should Die, Canadian Court Agrees: RWN

SciTech

Which Stocks Will Rise? Ask Google: SmartMoney
Apple Store Employee: Stop Asking Me About The Next iPhone: Consumerist
The truth is on our faces: Former Army psychologist trains troops to spot lies through microexpressions: ArmyTimes

Cornucopia

"A Week With My Father": Sparkle
Wisconsin Volley: Budgeting to the Baseline: MOTUS
Sorry, Nancy: GM's Place

Image: Erin Bonsteel
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: Stemberger Legal Defense Fund and I Stand With Scott Walker

Friday, February 18, 2011

Treasury Secretary Geithner to Senate: "Yes, Obama's Budget Will Cause the United States to Collapse. What Are You Gonna Do About It?"

"What this country needs are more unemployed politicians." -- Edward Langley, Artist (1928-1995)

Yesterday's testimony by the Treasury Secretary in the Senate Budget Committee meeting was shocking for two reasons. First: Tim Geithner as much as admitted that his boss's budget sucks. Second, that legacy media didn't report his shocking admission.

That is: Obama's budget sets the United States on a course of complete economic collapse. And, no, I'm not kidding -- though I wish I were.

Sen. Jeff Sessions: "...Under your budget, the interest increases each year. It was $187 billion in 2009, under your proposal it increases to $844 billion."

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner: "Senator, absolutely, it is an excessively high interest burden, it’s unsustainable."

Sessions: "Well it’s your plan. That’s the plan the President submitted."

Geithner: "You’re absolutely right that with the president’s plan, even if Congress were to enact it, and even if Congress were to hold to it and reduce those deficits to three percent of GDP over the next five years, we would still be left with a very large interest burden and unsustainable obligations over time."

The question, though, is -- just to be direct about it -- what's the alternative plan? ... We'll be able to see from the House, to see from this body, whether you people can find the political will here to go deeper. And if you can find --

Sessions: "Well, what your plan is, that plan, the one you're required by law to submit, and ... it's not acceptable..."

Let me repeat: Interest payments by the federal government were $187 billion in 2009.

Under the Chavez administration, our annual interest payments alone -- alone! -- will total $844 billion. That interest payment is double the worst total Bush-era deficit.

Now that's what I call change.


Hat tip: Mark Levin.

Breaking: Inside The CBS NewsRoom

The invaluable Irony Curtain offers a candid look at legacy media.



Allen West's Letter to His Constituents

West is a hero. And I'm not talking about his commendable military service -- just his first month in Congress.

Over this past week I have watched and listened to members of the House of Representatives from across the aisle.

I am appalled at their ignorance, belligerence, and dishonest rhetoric filled with empty emotional platitudes. Have they no shame in realizing that their inept, incompetent failures are the reason why we are debating this continuing resolution? They failed to pass a budget during the 111th Congress.

Have they no honor in realizing that their fiscal irresponsibility over the past four years has resulted in our standing on the precipice of a fiscal canyon from which we may not recover.

Also troubling are the events in the state of Wisconsin which mirror those that happened in Greece several months ago. We are witnessing the abject hostility of a unionized entitlement class that is being lauded by the liberal left, seemingly to include our President.

It is such a critical time for our Republic, yet there seems no visionary leadership — it is as if America stopped producing adults. I have never seen a greater assembly of petulance and sophomoric behavior as what I have witnessed this week on the floor of the House of Representatives.

To those across the aisle, please explain to the American people how your economic policies have created a better environment for long-term sustainable growth.

This debate is about jobs and the economy.

It begins with remedying the spending problem on Capitol Hill. It includes tackling the burdensome taxation and regulation policies strangling our country. It is the understanding that Keynesian tax and spend policies did not grow America’s economy, but the indomitable, entrepreneurial spirit of the American people.

Government sets the conditions for job and economic growth, it does not create jobs.

I am pleased that we are having open debate in the peoples' house. However, there is clearly something lacking in this discourse — the recognition of the failure of the bureaucratic nanny-state liberal policies.

Rest assured that I will do everything in my ability to stand firm and lead on the principles that make America exceptional.

God bless Allen West.

This is a man who our country's founders would have embraced.

Allen West and Michelle Bachmann are my front-runners for the Presidential nomination in 2012.


A Bipartisan Approach to Deficit Reduction - a Letter to the Editor

Scott writes:

I just read this at the Wall Street Journal:

Deficit Plan Details Emerge


The first sentence says it all: "A bipartisan group..." With all due respect, why do we need the input of a bunch of irresponsible Democrat losers? When are you people going to learn that compromise with losers equals losing? This proposed agreement is nothing but window dressing, Band-Aids and kicking the can down the road. It solves no problems.

The article also suggests that reforms would generate $785 billion in new revenues over the next 10 years. Excuse me? The government does not need more revenue! Money should be returned to the American people via cuts. Cuts!

Anything that does not start with repealing socialized medicine, de-funding PBS and CPB and killing Amtrak -- just to name few -- is a non-starter. Personally, I wouldn’t mind seeing the Departments of Commerce, Energy, Labor and Education completely defunded. Oh -- and the United Nations as well.

And since the Department of Justice is stiffing Congressional investigations, how about cutting some of their funding until they comply with Congressional requests for information. If you all need more ideas, please consider "How to Cut $343 Billion from the Federal Budget."

Why can't you all emulate Sen. Rand Paul? At least he has the sense to ask for real cuts. I voted for change last fall, but all I’m getting is business as usual. It looks like nothing has changed.

This is not enough. Don’t compromise. Fight for your constituents. Don’t give up. Don’t give in. Play hardball. Be adults for once in your life.

Cue the applause.


Liberal Conundrum o' the Day

Posed by a friend of Mark Levin:

Liberals say it's legal to require every American to purchase mandatory health insurance...

...but they oppose voter IDs.

Cue the face-plant.


Comment o' the Day: Kill Or Be Killed [Wretchard]

Wretchard:

Israel has been in [a kill-or-be-killed] position, more or less, for six-plus decades now, and that’s just the modern state. Yet the Israelis, who are there already at ‘kill or be killed’, do not kill. One would think that peace-loving folks might grant a small nod of recognition to that.

Why would anyone believe, even for a moment, that any Western state could “pre-emptively” nuke the Muslim world when it cannot muster the will to secure its borders, balance its budget, get Pakistan to release a diplomat or get Argentina to release a C-17′s cargo load of equipment? That would be like thinking that man who can’t run 50 yards can run the 100 meter dash in 9.5 seconds.

The path to nukes is far more probably going to take the path of use in desperation. And in fact a country which secured its borders, drilled for its own oil, got Pakistan to release diplomats, and did the normal things would be the only kind of country which might use nukes pre-emptively because it conceive of such a strategy. Yet ironically it would be the kind of country that wouldn’t have to attack pre-emptively. The idea of country going straight from supine behavior to nuking pre-emptively is a fantasy built on the awareness of weakness. Solve the weakness and then your enemies will consider you capable of pre-emption. But guess what: solve the weakness and you won’t have to pre-empt. They will back away.

This is all elementary game theory; and tried, true and hoary deterrence theory. Be strong and you won’t need to use nukes. Be weak and you’ll use them for sure.

The problem of radical Islam is the problem of Western weakness. That is the problem to which the policy nuking Muslims is an impertinent answer. Who’s going to do it? Obama? And yet if Obama lost the next election in favor of someone who might actually resist, then the probability of having to pre-empt declines dramatically.

The logical problem is that any strategy which requires pre-emptively nuking the Islamic world implies a President who is too weak to do it anyway. But that doesn’t mean it might not happen. As I’ve argued ad nauseam, the biggest danger to nuclear use, in both the Israeli and general Western case, is via the act in desperation.

As long as Israel’s strategic position is strong, it will not unleash the nukes. But only in its dying gasp will that be certain. So what do the geniuses at State do? Bring Israel to the point of strategic death.

For the same reasons, the weaker Obama makes America the more its enemies are emboldened. Yet this does not bring pre-emption closer. That becomes more and more unthinkable until the last push, when desperation takes hold. Then the probabilities go from near zero to near 1.

The Pakistanis and even the rapists in Tahrir Square are testing, testing. And they are finding no resistance. Therefore they will push and sooner or later, they will push too far. Why not since no stop signal will be received from the Smartest Man in the World.

Then when things go too far, desperation, not calculation, will unleash the Apocalypse. It’s happened before. In 1939. It’s not impossible, just conveniently forgotten. The Western elite are like the Bourbons, who remember everything and have learned nothing.

Me, I’ll take the bottle and forget the dynasty.


Hat tip: D&S.

Larwyn's Linx: Support Wisconsin -- Trumka storms Madison tomorrow

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Nation

Support Wisconsin: Trumka storms Madison tomorrow: Malkin
Media Showing Itself As Financial Catastrophe Denialists: Ace
FCC’s Michael Copps Demands His Critics Be Silenced: RWN

To Be a Republican Lawmaker in Madison: NRO
Civility Police: Liberal Threats And Violence Surge: RWN
How much respect did unions show for Capitol grounds? : Althouse

Obama and the DNC Inject Themselves into WI Politics: Howling
Boehner supports Walker for 'daring to speak the truth': Cubachi
Nine Violent Protesters Arrested in WI: GWP

Economy

The stakes in Wisconsin : GayPatriot
Democrats Flee WI in Courageous Effort to Bankrupt State: Ace
Wisconsin: Reason Number 4,085 to Homeschool: Adrienne

Shame, Come Back, Shame!: Belmont Club
Decline Is In the Mind: Hanson
How Obama’s Big Labor Pals Warp the System: RWN

Lead Lawyer Challenging Obamacare Under Cyber Attack: Foundry
Unions Own the Wisconsin Dems: Tapscott
Big Green's congressional junkets take America for a ride: WashExam

Climate & Energy

The Environmentalists Are Not On Your Side: Elephants
Federal judge to Salazar: Stop stalling drilling permits: Tapscott
A Shale of a Difference: IBD

Media

You Don’t Win By Losing In Politics, You Win By Winning: RWN
Are You Now or Have You Ever Been a Member of the ‘Obama Wasn’t Born in the US’ Party?: Malkin
Sarah Palin is no Birther: BrutHon

Cable News Ratingzz: Chickaboomer
While Promoting Civics at CPAC, Richard Dreyfuss Compared Me to Mass Murderer Pol Pot: BigHollywood
Democracy Sucks!: CFB

CNN Refuses to Cave to Media Matters’ Ongoing Crusade to Blacklist the Right: BigJournalism
The Gypper And The Gipper - Identity Theft & the Obama Presidency: Peters
Fox News Highlights Nazi Signs in Wisconsin Pension Debate, Networks Skip Controversy: MRC

World

Egypt Gets Its Khomeini: BRubin
Mexican military incursion into Texas?: Tatler
The Guns of August: The Corn is No Longer as High as an Elephant's Eye: AmDigest

John Boehner: Israel Sacrificed For The Sake of Peace and Stability: MagNote
"Egypt's New Hitler," Sheik Qaradawi, Returns to Egypt for Friday Prayers: Atlas
GOP Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen Unloads on Obama Over Support for UN Resolution Condemning Israel: WZ

Jihadist attorney takes aim at Jawa Report, Jawas go to federal court seeking protective order: Jawa
The Tyrants Lunge: IBD
Lara Logan’s Rape and Egyptian Muslim Jew-Hatred: Bostom

SciTech

IBM researchers show love for 'Jeopardy' champion Watson: CNet
An update to Google Social Search: GoogleBlog
Bulk of browsers found to be at risk of attack: ComputerWorld

Cornucopia

Baby Trashes Bar: Las Palmas
Anti-Tea Party Progressives “Proud” to Voluntarily Give Back Tax Refund Checks : Doswell
It's Party Denouncement Time!: Cube

Image: When Push Comes to Nuke
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: One Marine Who Could Use a Helping Hand
QOTD: "Just ponder how a third-rate community organizer — from the most incestuously corrupt political region in the U.S.; with a record of participation in the most vulgar gathering of Jeremiah Wright posing as a reverend, spouting Fanonian rhetoric and bigotry; with mentors such as the unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers; channelling the teachings of Saul Alinsky and Rashid Khalidi of the Chomsky school of self-loathing and sophistry — could advance through the ranks of American politics at an astounding speed, with little or no record of experience in government, to become the 44th president. In one of my columns from 2008 for the Sun Media in Canada, I had written in disbelief, as I watched the primaries unfold, of how American voters could be so beguiled by a charlatan of the Harold Hill type from The Music Man and vote for Obama. I was wrong in my overestimation of reason and experience among American voters as a check on the naivete of the university crowd and the duplicity of Lenin’s 'useful idiots' in free societies. One of the lessons from 2008, for me, is this: how can I now scold Egyptians for wanting freedom and democracy behind the banners of the Muslim Brotherhood when their experience with electoral politics is negligible, and their history of 7,000 years offer little guidance for what freedom requires — respect for the other and not mistaking freedom for licentiousness?" --Salim Mansur

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Top 15 Photos From the Wisconsin Hate Rallies You'll Never See in Legacy Media #wiunion #solidaritywi

No captions are necessary. But remember, geniuses like Nancy Pelosi, Charles Blow, Bill Maher and the other drones say all of the hate speech comes from the right.
















I love how these economic illiterates -- that's you liberal drones -- say that they want more of your money. They want more of your private property, which you pay for with the precious, finite hours you spend working.

Attention, drones: there is no money! The Democrats and the public sector union bosses created untenable compensation, pension and benefit packages... and then promptly destroyed them by making them so outrageous that the taxpayers simply can't afford them anymore. And instead of saving up the union members' dues money for tough times -- like these -- they spent all of that money electing Demcorats and funding ever more untenable spending programs. Get it? There's no freaking money!

Democrats have created and bankrupted Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the "Great Society" welfare programs, you name it. Every form of social engineering experiment -- all unconstitutional mind you -- Democrats have tried has resulted in untold misery, poverty and destruction.

And they ignore all of that history and pass Obamacare -- against the will of the people -- with an enormous bill that no one read and fewer understand.

Now they're turning Madison, Wisconsin into Greece -- and, believe you me, the worst is yet to come.


Update: Here's the salary info that Wisconsin's public sector union bosses don't want you to see. Tip: prepare to scroll down a while through the list of $100K+ administrators who work nine months a year and get gold-plated benefits courtesy of the taxpayer.

Update II: Pictorial: Protest Saturday in Wisconsin ("(a) Scott Walker is still Hitler, (b) he’s “exterminating” union members, and (c) Sarah Palin shot someone’s dog.")


Hat tips: Hot Air, FoxNation, WISGOP.org, @brentgohde, @jerryhaines, @millbot, @cassidyjasper. Linked by: Weasel Zippers and Don Surber. Thanks!