Big Government is running a caption contest (hat tip: Sondrakistan), but feel free to suggest candidates in the comments section.Don't all rush to be first now.
Big Government is running a caption contest (hat tip: Sondrakistan), but feel free to suggest candidates in the comments section.Illinois budget deficit to hit $8 billion despite tax increaseDespite a major income tax increase, the state of Illinois is expected to end the budget year more than $8 billion in the red...
...In all, the state will be $8.3 billion short on June 30 if nothing is done, according to the report. The majority of that money, roughly $5.5 billion, will come in the form of unpaid bills from companies that provide everything from meals for the elderly to toilet paper for prisoners. Another $1.2 billion is composed of Medicaid payments the state will push off until the next budget year, while the remaining $1.6 billion is owed to companies for tax returns and health insurance bills for state workers.
...Msall is calling on lawmakers to rein in pension costs by limiting benefits for current employees. It's an effort led by House Republican leader Tom Cross of Oswego that has been met with skepticism from some leading Democrats, including [Democrat Governor] Quinn.
...Meanwhile, Democratic Rep. Frank Mautino of downstate Spring Valley said lawmakers can ease some of the budget burden by borrowing to pay off the backlog of bills... More borrowing is an idea the Civic Federation has opposed, contending that the state's reliance on loans leads to higher debt payments that ultimately means less money to spend on daily operations.
Twenty years later, 23 retired union officials from Chicago stand to collect about $56 million from two ailing city pension funds thanks to the changes."
...Until last year, that pension came on top of Gannon's union salary, which had grown to more than $240,000. He now draws the pension while working for a hedge fund, Grosvenor Capital Management, that does work with public pensions, including the Teachers Retirement System of Illinois. The firm also was one of Mayor Rahm Emanuel's largest campaign contributors."
Yes, I preemptively reported myself to AttackWatch.com.The Food Crises: A quantitative model of food prices including speculators and ethanol conversionRecent increases in basic food prices are severely impacting vulnerable populations worldwide. Proposed causes such as shortages of grain due to adverse weather, increasing meat consumption in China and India, conversion of corn to ethanol in the US, and investor speculation on commodity markets lead to widely differing implications for policy. A lack of clarity about which factors are responsible reinforces policy inaction...
Here, for the first time, we construct a dynamic model that quantitatively agrees with food prices. The results show that the dominant causes of price increases are investor speculation [Ed: market forces, i.e., supply-and-demand] and ethanol conversion. Models that just treat supply and demand are not consistent with the actual price dynamics...
...Both causes of price increase, speculative investment and ethanol conversion, are promoted by recent regulatory changes—deregulation of the commodity markets, and policies promoting the conversion of corn to ethanol. Rapid action is needed to reduce the impacts of the price increases on global hunger.
Obama to Blacks-Take Off Your Slippers; Stop Complaining: ConBlkChkQOTD: "Why is it more moral for a federal bureaucrat in a state-supplied SUV to shut down an offshore oil rig on grounds that it is too dangerous for the environment than for a private individual to risk his own capital to find some sort of new fuel to power his government’s SUV fleet? All affluent societies believe that they are just too rich not to be able to afford another regulation, just one more moralizing indulgence, yet again an added entitlement. But as we see now in postmodern America, idle 250,000 acres of farmland for a tiny fish, shut down an entire oilfield, put off a new natural gas find in worry over possible environmental alteration, add a cent to the sales tax, mandate yet another prescription drug entitlement not funded, or offer yet another in-state tuition discount to an illegal alien — and the costs finally equate to an implosion as we see in Greece or California. And as we know from past collapses, a new entitlement in a matter of minutes becomes an institutionalized right whose withdrawal causes far more anguish than its prior nonexistence. Justinian learned that when he sought to cut the civil service and almost lost his throne." --Victor Davis Hanson
Tainting the tea party movement with the charge of racism is proving to be an effective strategy for Democrats.
There is no evidence that tea party adherents are any more racist than other Republicans, and indeed many other Americans. But getting them to spend their time purging their ranks and having candidates distance themselves should help Democrats win in November [2010]. Having one’s opponent rebut charges of racism is far better than discussing joblessness.
According to the company’s proposal to join a United Nations clean-air program, the settlers living in this area left in a “peaceful” and “voluntary” manner...
...People here remember it quite differently... villagers described gun-toting soldiers and an 8-year-old child burning to death when his home was set ablaze by security officers... “They said if we hesitated they would shoot us,” said William Bakeshisha, adding that he hid in his coffee plantation, watching his house burn down. “Smoke and fire.”According to a report released by the aid group Oxfam on Wednesday, more than 20,000 people say they were evicted from their homes here in recent years to make way for a tree plantation run by a British forestry company, emblematic of a global scramble for arable land.
...Across Africa, some of the world’s poorest people have been thrown off land to make way for foreign investors... in this case, the government and the company said the settlers were illegal and evicted for a good cause: to protect the environment and help fight global warming.
The case twists around an emerging multibillion-dollar market trading carbon-credits under the Kyoto Protocol, which contains mechanisms for outsourcing environmental protection to developing nations.
The company involved, New Forests Company, grows forests in African countries with the purpose of selling credits from the carbon-dioxide its trees soak up to polluters abroad. Its investors include the World Bank, through its private investment arm, and the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, HSBC.
To summarize:The state's over-reliance on taxing the rich has been a disaster during bad times
If President Obama really wants to see the "Buffett Rule" in action, he should look at California's tax system. The state has been plagued by it for years.The revenue stream is unstable and the state budget has been a deficit disaster... In California, we've got what you could call a Buffett Rule-Plus. There's an extra tax bracket — at 10.3% — for income exceeding $1 million.
...California relies heavily on rich investors for its income tax revenue, which fuels half of the general fund... Some examples of this over-dependence, based on the 2009 tax year:
• The top 1% earned 18% of California's income but paid 37% of the income tax.
Illustrating the volatility of the California income tax, however, the top 1% paid 48% of the total take in 2007 before the stock market collapsed. In the next two years, the state's income tax revenue fell 25%.
• The top 10% earned 45% of the income but paid 72% of the taxes.
• During the recession, the middle class paid a slightly larger share of the declining income tax take. Those earning between $45,000 and $84,000 kicked in 11% of the total revenue in 2009, compared to 9% two years earlier. But one could argue they still were under-taxed. They earned 19% of the income.
"The real people who don't get taxed enough in California are the middle-income folks," says Steve Levy, director of the left-leaning Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy...
...Meanwhile, if Buffett really wanted to live by his own rule, he could leave Nebraska, move to California and pay our state taxes.
Conservatives, Sisyphus, and a Renewed Constitutional Movement: ATQOTD: "This scandal coverage has been driven from the bottom up, from the very beginning. No one thought we'd get "mainstream" news coverage, but we did. No one thought we'd get the GOP seriously involved in finding out the truth, but we did. No one thought we'd ever get hearings, but we did. You did that -- by demanding it.
You did it before, you can do it again.
Let's finish these criminal bastards' cover-up, once and for all.
Demand a second front in the Gunwalker Scandal investigation." --Sipsey Street Irregulars
In the fall of 2008, then-candidate Barack Obama made a campaign promise to jumpstart the economy with an influx of green jobs... The President has kept his promise to spend billions of borrowed dollars on green energy, but his promises that such spending would create a new, self-sufficient industry capable of providing millions of jobs for Americans have proven empty.
...Two years later, the President’s promise of millions of jobs stands in stark contrast with reality. As a recent report from a Bay-Area news organization made clear, green jobs predictions are “proving a pipe dream.”...Since its introduction in the 2009 stimulus bill, the Department of Energy (DOE) has issued $40 billion in new loan guarantees for private-sector loans for renewable energy projects that might not otherwise have been market-viable. Already, multi-million dollar projects, initially labeled as successes, have failed:
• The first renewable energy loan guarantee recipient, solar start-up Solyndra, received a loan guarantee for $535 million in the fall of 2009, even after repeated warnings from federal financial analysts. In the spring of 2010, it failed to complete its initial public offering after an independent audit questioned the ongoing viability of the firm. Then, in the fall of 2010, the firm closed one of its manufacturing facilities and laid off 180 workers. Finally, the firm declared bankruptcy and laid off 1,100 employees only 15 months after Obama visited a company factory.
• Beacon Power, received a $43 million loan guarantee in July of 2009. Since then, its stock price has dropped by 90 percent – a period during which the NASDAQ exchange on which it is listed has increased by 40 percent. The company has not been in compliance with NASDAQ listing requirements, leading to a delisting determination from the exchange.
• First Wind Holdings, received a $117 million loan guarantee in March of 2010. First Wind withdrew its initial public offering in October of 2010, due to a lack of investor demand. According to the Boston Globe, investors shied away from the company because “First Wind owes more than $500 million, loses money on a steady basis, and reports a negative cash flow.”
Even in the midst of these failures, DOE has been advertising additional loan guarantee recipients, announcing a $1.2 billion loan guarantee to another solar company just one day after the FBI raided Solyndra’s offices. Congressional investigators are initiating a review to examine how many future Solyndras have been already financed by this loan-guarantee program or approved through shoddy review, and how can we prevent future examples of this kind of wasteful federal spending.
Southwest Airlines is confirming an investigation is underway into suspicious markings on the underbellies of a number of its passenger planes... The markings are not in English, possibly Arabic and first appeared several months ago but the number of incidents have become more frequent. Southwest spokeswoman Brandy King calls it an “internal vandalism issue.”
King says it would appear that the incidents are originating from someone with safety and security access to airplanes.
The questions that are not being answered: which airports are being affected and if other airlines are being targeted. Though sources tell KMOX News that two or three Southwest planes with the markings have been seen at Lambert Airport.
King denies that there are any risks to the flying public even though Southwest is not revealing how the person or persons is gaining access to airplanes.
I was sent this by someone who can’t be named. SWA has clamped down on anything coming from internal staff.
All this Arabic markings crap. They all know they are swords. My source says that some flights will only make $20.00 (why they like carry on dogs) and this could cause many to not fly and hurt business.Thought you might like to see a real photo of what they look like. And, they only show when the engine is hot.
This is the flag of Saudi Arabia, just for your reference.
And this is the classic Arab scimitar, just for your reference.Some mysterious graffiti has been appearing on the outside of some Southwest Airlines planes... The airline released this statement about the situation: "Southwest takes this behavior very seriously, and we will continue to involve local and federal law enforcement agencies as needed until the situation is resolved. We want to reassure customers and employees that safety is always our primary consideration, and the safety of our aircraft is in no way impacted by this act of vandalism."
The airline had suggested the symbols, which only show up with heat and are believed to be vandalism, looked like Arabic writing... However the Department of Arabic and Islamic Studies at Georgetown University in Washington D.C. looked at the photos for MailOnline and a spokesman concluded they are ‘not Arabic script’....Most of the affected planes appear to be flying out of Los Angeles, California. Southwest Airlines said the markings are not seen as a threat, but began appearing on the bellies of its jets earlier this year...
...a Southwest employee, who said the markings are usually seen on the exhaust pipe of engines and look like swords... said he had not seen any 'Arabic' writing.
Here are some common “markings” found under jets. Left by ground crew on the nose gear cover. Very different from what they are finding now. Ground crews do this on many airlines. (heck, you should see what some passengers leave in the bathroom!)
"“Everybody knows that it makes no sense that you send a kid to the emergency room for a treatable illness like asthma, they end up taking up a hospital bed, it costs, when, if you, they just gave, you gave them treatment early and they got some treatment, and a breathalyzer, or inhalator, not a breathalyzer. I haven’t had much sleep in the last 48 hours.”" --Barack Obama, 9 October 2008
Remember how Obama recently waived new ozone regulations at the EPA because they were too costly? Well, it seems that the Obama administration would rather make people with Asthma cough up money than let them make a surely inconsequential contribution to depleting the ozone layer:Asthma patients who rely on over-the-counter inhalers will need to switch to prescription-only alternatives as part of the federal government's latest attempt to protect the Earth's atmosphere.
The Food and Drug Administration said Thursday patients who use the epinephrine inhalers to treat mild asthma will need to switch by Dec. 31 to other types that do not contain chlorofluorocarbons, an aerosol substance once found in a variety of spray products.
The action is part of an agreement signed by the U.S. and other nations to stop using substances that deplete the ozone layer, a region in the atmosphere that helps block harmful ultraviolet rays from the Sun.
But the switch to a greener inhaler will cost consumers more. Epinephrine inhalers are available via online retailers for around $20, whereas the alternatives, which contain the drug albuterol, range from $30 to $60.
The eco-world has gone beserkers with this one, even CBS News is asking: Why? Me too especially since global ozone is predicted to recover [according to a 2004 EPA Report].
...What will really happen is that this will turn regular people and children into scofflaws, and they’ll buy over the counter inhalers in other countries like Mexico and have them shipped here. It will be another giant sucking sound.
After following this car with multiple messages on its rear end, I was
fascinated with what type of person the driver would be?
A. A young Caucasian female ?
B. An African American male?
C. An African American female?
D. A rotund white "hippie-type" female who escaped from the sixties?If you guessed "D", you guessed right!
* With a few tiny touch-ups by Commander Biff Spackle, most recently of Her Majesty's Royal Marines....it's been five years since I busted Wasserman-Rubin and sparked the investigation that is dogging her today. The story was called Cash Cow, and it had to do with gaming of the new town of Southwest Ranches by Wasserman-Rubin; her husband, Rick Rubin; and a slew of other well-heeled manipulators......Rick Rubin was paid obscene amounts of money -- something like a million dollars -- by the town to write county and state "green space" grants that Wasserman-Rubin voted on. Based on one grant approval by Wasserman-Rubin and her colleagues, Rick Rubin received a $15,000 bonus.
A citizen named Ray McKinney got pissed off when he read it and sent it to the Florida Ethics Commission. Incredibly, the commission, one of the most useless governmental agencies ever created, actually hit Wasserman-Rubin with administrative charges and fined her $15,000... It was a small victory for anticorruption forces in Broward County -- a largely toothless dog bit Wasserman-Rubin and gave her a little bruise...
...The [scandal] effectively ended Wasserman-Rubin's career. Not long after we reported the existence of the criminal investigation, she announced in early April that she was abandoning her reelection campaign...
The husband of former Broward Commissioner Diana Wasserman-Rubin was sentenced to 10 months in prison on Wednesday for tax evasion... Sixty five year Richard Rubin, who pleaded guilty, was also ordered to serve three years probation and pay $104,671.08 in restitution.
...According court documents, Rubin willfully failed to report real estate commissions [and] and the sale of a condominium in Hollywood on his federal tax return...Last July, Rubin’s wife resigned her post on the commission shortly before she was charged with seven counts of unlawful compensation.
According to investigators, Wasserman-Rubin voted at least 15 times to support of fund grants prepared by her husband on behalf of the Town of Southwest Ranches. In addition to his normal compensation, Rubin reportedly received three $15,000 bonuses for his work on successful grants that were supported by his wife.
Under Florida law, elected officials are not allowed to vote on matters that could benefit them or their spouse.
Perhaps these articles help explain some of the lawless, unconstitutional and unethical behavior of Debbie Wasserman-Schultz. She seems to hold the citizens of America in contempt and is willing to lie over and over again to retain her white-knuckled grip on power.President Obama can thank Republican Mitt Romney for more than the Massachusetts health care law that helped shape Obama's national health care plan.One of Romney's former top state environmental officials during his tenure as Massachusetts governor now oversees air quality at Obama's Environmental Protection Agency, playing a key role in the march of environmental regulations to fight climate change and slash pollution from coal-fired power plants that is regularly blasted by Republicans seeking Obama's job. Sometimes, even Romney himself.
...Gina McCarthy, EPA's top air pollution official... the EPA assistant administrator of the Office of Air and Radiation, has taken on much of the heavy lifting of writing, structuring, and implementing the rules.
"[EPA Administrator] Lisa [Jackson]'s the coach and Gina's the quarterback" in the work of rolling out new clean air regulations, said Daniel Weiss, an energy and climate policy expert at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank with close ties to the Obama administration. "She's running the plays, improvising on the line."
...In his book, No Apology, Romney wrote: "I believe that climate change is occurring -- the reduction in the size of global ice caps is hard to ignore. I also believe that human activity is a contributing factor. I am uncertain how much of the warming, however, is attributable to man and how much is attributable to factors out of our control."
...Earlier this week, the Memphis Daily News reported that at a Tennessee fundraiser closed to the press, an attendee said that Romney "lambasted federal agencies -- specifically calling out the EPA -- as hamstringing businesses with regulations that he says are getting in the way of job creation."
'Perry’s Winning Glow Dims After Poor Debate Reviews': PattericoQOTD: "I've advised my kids to sneak into Mexico, then smuggle themselves back into Texas so they can save $20,000 a year on college tuition." --Me, just now.
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.
While U.S. oil and energy prices "necessarily skyrocket," as President Obama once said they would under energy policies that have imposed a de facto ban on offshore drilling, a massive Chinese-built semi-submersible oil rig is on its way from Singapore to a drilling position off northwest Cuba... as little as 50 miles from Key West....
...Normally, what are called "economic zones" extend 200 miles off a country's coastline. In some cases, there are conflicts based on resources and geography. In 1977, President Carter signed a treaty with communist Cuba that essentially split the difference and created for Cuba an "exclusive economic zone" extending from the western tip of Cuba northward virtually to Key West. Cuba then divided its side of the Florida Strait into 59 parcels and put them up for lease.
The U.S. Geological Survey recently estimated the North Cuban Basin contains as much as 9 billion barrels of oil and 22 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Other estimates range from 5 billion to 20 billion barrels of crude. Pools of oil and natural gas tend not to obey lines drawn on a map. It's certain that at least some of Cuba's wells will be tapping oil pools that straddle the boundary separating our zone from Cuba's, meaning Havana will be getting oil that should be ours.
I hear all this, you know, "Well, this is class warfare, this is whatever."--No!There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody.
You built a factory out there--good for you! But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for.
You didn't have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did. Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea--God bless. Keep a big hunk of it.
But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.
Elizabeth Warren is a moronic hack who will use any excuse to justify the theft of your money.