Oracle Team USA Sending it on San Francisco Bay

Feds Look Closer at Cash Source in McAuliffe Car Scam

Here's something that won't get the attention of the writers and editors of the Virginian Pilot.  It appears that Terry McCauliffe, presumptive Democrat nominee for Governor of Virginia is involved in a very shady scam in a federal program that awards U.S. citizenship to foreigners in exchange for business investments.

A Watchdog investigation found that Virginia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe and a brother of Hillary Clinton used a similar EB-5 operation to raise cash from foreigners in order to launch a new automobile manufacturing company. A financial adviser calls the McAuliffe operation a fraud.

 

Read more.  But don't expect to find out more in the Virginian Pilot.  They're too busy accusing Republicans of being crooks.

Who is Diana Louise DeGette?

She’s best known as a fanatic gun grabber and the Congresswoman from Colorado’s First District. She came to public attention when she made it crystal clear that the only thing she knew about guns was that she wanted to ban them. She believes gun magazines (the part that holds the bullets) are used up and thrown away once the bullets are shot.

 

 

In a recent public forum she smirked and told a retiree that he shouldn’t worry about defending himself because if he were attacked he should depend on the Denver cops (approximate wait time 17 minutes) and besides, he’s probably going to be dead anyway.

 

Let’s find out a little more about this live political hand grenade.

 

She’s married to a “Super Lawyer” named Lino S. Lipinsky de Orlov according to his listing at his law firm McKenna Long & Aldridge. Between them they own two homes, one in Colorado and one in Washington DC. Both have first and second mortgages somewhere between $465,000 and $1,050,000.

 

Other than two homes and big mortgages, she reported that she and her husband have investment assets between $823,000 and $2,095,000. So let’s call them millionaires. The couple add somewhere between $34,000 and $335,000 each year to their investments.

 

Note that thanks the very fuzzy disclosure requirements for members of Congress, it’s very hard to get a precise fix on just how rich these people are. Suffice it to say, they are among what the Occupy Movement would call the “1%.”

 

She gets nearly 90% of her campaign contributions from PACs and large contributors.  We will be looking into Diana more in the future.  Any of her constituents are free to post comments. 

Obama Proposes Higher Taxes

Here's the NY Times spin on Obama's proposal to raise taxes again.

Dem Congresswoman Mocks Concerned Pro-Gun Senior Citizen: ‘You’d Probably Be Dead Anyway’

This is interesting.  The same stupid woman who doesn't know the difference between a magazine - which is the metal item that holds a number of bullets - and a bullet itself smirks and insults someone in the audience asking a question.

Lord help us, some of the people in Colorado elected this ignorant slut airhead.

First the stupidity:

“DeGette demonstrated her lack of knowledge as to what a magazine (not a clip) actually is: a reloadable container that houses ammunition, and can be used and reused. Her bill doesn’t ban the ammunition that is loaded into a magazine, and therefore her misconception that once high capacity magazines are shot they will ‘decrease dramatically’ exposes the complete lack of understanding of the very thing she is trying to legislate,”

Then the snark:

“My question is: What about me?” the Denver citizen asked Rep. DeGette, arguing against limiting magazine capacity. “There may not be one bad guy that comes into my house… I have to change magazines? I am a serious disadvantage.”

“What about me?” he repeated.

After arrogantly smirking at his question, DeGette replied: “The good news for you, you live in Denver. The [Denver Police Department] would be there within minutes.”

“You’d probably be dead anyway if they had that kind of firepower,” she added.

This is a member of The Ruling Class who obviously see themselves not only our moral but also our intellectual superiors.  How DARE you question their prescriptions for your life. 

From National Review Online: 

To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, you need a heart of stone not to burst out laughing at her — and gun control is Ms. DeGette’s “signature issue.”

As if to provide absolute proof that DeGette doesn't know shit about guns, her spokesman issued a "clarification"

“The congresswoman has been working on a high-capacity assault magazine ban for years and has been deeply involved in the issue; she simply misspoke in referring to ‘magazines’ when she should have referred to ‘clips,’ which cannot be reused because they don’t have a feeding mechanism,”

Actually, clips can be reused as well. 

This proves conclusively that DeGette not only doesn't know what a magazine is but she doesn't know what a clip is either. I wonder if this bright Democrat bulb has ever, in her entire life (a criminal waste of oxygen) held a gun.

Va. Minister Painted Racial Slurs on House Before Setting It On Fire

Another incompetent race baiter.

Chesterfield County police had investigated the fires as a possible hate crime because a racial slur had been painted on the house. Police believe 41-year-old Olander D. Cuthrell, who is black, painted the slurs on his home before he set it on fire.

 

Makes you wonder how many "hate crimes" are staged by the "victims." 

“Coming Out As A Conservative On Campus”

The Media-Government Axis

It’s fascinating to watch. Norfolk, Virginia recently completed a “light rail” project. What is light rail? It’s really an electric streetcar, something that disappeared from most cities somewhere in the middle of the last century as people preferred commuting using their own cars. Buses moved those who wanted mass transportation using the existing roads because it's easy to change a bus route, not so with streetcar rails. There were of course exceptions like New York and Chicago which had high population densities and a very extensive network already in place. But for much of the rest of America, streetcars running on rails were relegated to a tourist attraction like the San Francisco trolley system and amusement park rides.

 

The Virginian Pilot has been a relentless cheerleader for “light rail” because the Left likes mass anything: mass housing to warehouse the people, mass transit to move the people. Central control is what starts the Left’s juices flowing; from our medical treatment, to the cars we drive, the food we eat, where we worship, who we marry. The very term, “mass,” reeks of Das Kapital where the enlightened and the anointed in their infinite wisdom decide what is best for the “masses.”

 

But let an individual, or a group of individuals who are not part of the government propose a project, like extending the streetcar lines that the Virginian Pilot has proposed, and the Ruling Class at that point suddenly stop cheerleading and become very, very suspicious. The very concept they championed, if it slips out of the total control of the government, must come to a screeching halt. Oh, they don’t say exactly that, of course, but suddenly the project that they tried to ram through the local governments in the area needs very, very careful examination.

 

To the Virginian Pilot, if the government does it, it’s somehow sanctified even if things go wildly astray. The nearest analogy is the view that Christians have of the Catholic’s sex abuse scandals: an anomaly. The Left’s church is Big Government.  Like worshippers at a shrine they view government as intrinsically good, even if the people who are actually in the government are shown to be corrupt and venal. Corrupt, venal and incompetent beyond what is acceptable in private life.

 

This attitude is on glorious display in today’s Virginian Pilot.

Enjoy.

Remembering Michael Kelly

Michael Kelly was a national treasure writing insightful columns that were a delight to read and an oasis of truth in a deceitful time.  This article by Bret Stephens is an ode to Kelly who died in Iraq ten years ago. This is the part that stuck in my mind.

Take his view of Frank Sinatra. Everyone loved Old Blue Eyes and mourned him when he died in 1998. Everyone except Michael Kelly.

Kelly hated Frank because Frank had invented Cool, and Cool had replaced Smart. What was Smart? It was Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca: "He possesses an outward cynicism, but at his core he is a square. . . . He is willing to die for his beliefs, and his beliefs are, although he takes pains to hide it, old-fashioned. He believes in truth, justice, the American way, and love. . . . When there is a war, he goes to it. . . . He may be world weary, but he is not ironic."

Cool was something else. "Cool said the old values were for suckers. . . . Cool didn't go to war; Saps went to war, and anyway, cool had no beliefs he was willing to die for. Cool never, ever, got in a fight it might lose; cool had friends who could take care of that sort of thing."

It never, ever would have occurred to me to make the distinction until I read Kelly's column. And then I understood Sinatra. And then I understood Kelly, too.

Sometimes something that is true a decade or more ago becomes, somehow, a supernova of truth. Today, cool is omnipresent; embodies in Obama, the comedians on Comedy Channel and in video games like "Bioshock" where it's defenders tell us, to "chill man, it's only a game." And Mein Kampf is only a book.

NPR's First Person Shooter Fantasy

Before your read this story keep in mind that the killer at Sandy Hook was addicted to violent video games.  So of course NPR decides that violent first-person shooter video games are great art.  Well .... this one is because it's irresistible to the NPR producers.

NPR broadcast an article today about a developer of a violent video game in which the bad guys were Christians who revered the Constitution and were blatant racists.  Of course with a theme like that it's obviously comparable to one of the great tragedies of literature.

Levine has turned a game into an Aristotelian tragedy and used the model of great tragic heroes.

"Whether it's Hamlet or Oedipus, there's a notion of greatness to them," Levine says, "and a notion of what would've / could've [been]. And what's so painful about them is how wrong they went and how right they could have gone."

So what's the game about?

The game opens in 1912. Two mysterious people bring you by rowboat in the pouring rain to an empty lighthouse on an island off the coast of Maine. .... your task is to rescue Elizabeth from the city of Columbia and return her to New York. ... As you make your way up the inside steps of its tower, there are portents of what's to come: religious music and signs with messages like "Of thy sins shall I wash thee." That phrase evokes an ornery response from DeWitt, "Good luck with that, pal." ...

... But everything is laden with clues of a darker story that will bring this floating city to earth. There are preachers and statues of historical American leaders.

"This city is run by a prophet figure who created a new religion that worships the Founding Fathers of the United States," Levine says. He describes their religion as "a mixture of Christianity and a sort of Founder worship."

Here's a scene that has the NPR reporterette virtually slavering as she imagines what's in the secret heart of every conservative Christian person who admires the constitution:

In one scene, you're directed towards a raffle in front of a stage. You take a baseball from a basket with the number 77. You win! The curtain opens to reveal the prize — you're offered the chance to be the first to throw a baseball at a captive interracial couple.

And you have to make the choice to throw the ball at the couple or to throw the ball at the announcer. But here's the tricky part. If you throw the ball at the announcer, you will be revealed as a traitor and it may compromise your mission to find Elizabeth.

To NPR this is just like Hamlet or Oedipus. This is an NPR employee's dream of all that's wrong with America; America's founders, the religious heritage, and,of course the racism of everyone who's not part of the NPR family.

Now imagine that someone developed another game that had Liberals in control, people who revered eugenicist Margaret Sanger and plotted to destroy what she termed the inferior races by addicting them - like a drug pusher -  making them totally dependent on government handouts.  Who made aborting their babies the top woman's right.  Who laughed behind the scenes watching the Black family committed cultural suicide as its mothers killed their babies and their children shot each other.

Imagine it getting any air time on NPR. Unfortunately it's a video game that's being played out on in America.  You don't have to fire up the XBox.  It's not a fantasy.

UPDATE:  Thanks to Jeff Goldstein and Glenn Reynolds for the links.  Some people have commented that I have mischaracterized the actual game. That’s not the point. I have not mischaracterized the NPR story. And for those who claim that the game has people in it who are worse than Christians, white people and those who revere the founders, the message remains the same. The message is that white people, people of faith and people who want a return to the constitution are dangerous fanatics.

From Jeff Goldstein's excellent post: 

Here, today, the narrative from the neo-Stalinist progressives is that constitutionalists are racial supremacists and paranoid freaks; the Founding Fathers are their false idols; and the founding documents are their fetish. Religion is both their opiate and their cocaine, the thing that simultaneously dulls them into an intellectual stupor and turns them into evangelical zealots bent on demanding obeisance. Taken together, this toxic blend of hateful ignorance makes these slack-jawed clingers to their guns and their religion exceedingly dangerous to “sensible” people who want to live in a “community” wherein “common sense” laws — not the hoary edicts of dead white patriarchal slave owners — hold sway. Rational, cultured, intellectual people want to live in a land that looks forward, to progress, not backward, to a time of tri-cornered hats and oppression of the Other.
 

Jeff is right, that is the narrative, in crude comic-book/video-game form.  Exactly aimed at the "low information" voter.

UPDATE 2: My goodness, it looks like Jeff Goldstein and I have caused a bit of controversy. The younger crowd is working hard at being accepted and is in full straw man burning mode. It looks like gamers are an excitable bunch.

I won’t get into an argument about whether first person shooter video games are great art. I leave that to gamers and NPR. I should note that the NPR reporter references Hamlet and says that “Levine has turned a game into an Aristotelian tragedy and used the model of great tragic heroes.”

In modern America – in fact in all countries - politics is shaped by the culture and culture is shaped by the media.
 
People have commented: “It’s a video game, for heaven sake.” Yes, and the Daily Show is comedy. But strangely enough lots of people develop their idea about who to vote for depending on who gets portrayed as “uncool” on stupid comedy show for heaven sake. Do you or do you not get that?

Try another thought experiment. How about a series of first person shooter games where you are on Jihad and you get issued a sword and begin with an opportunity to behead Jewish reporters. You pick up other weapons, shoot US soldiers, plant IEDs, recruit your coreligionists into crashing airliners into tall buildings or strap on vests and set them off in restaurants in Tel Aviv. The goal is the Final Solution.  Here, Levine, I've given you the story line for your next Bioshock.

Hey, lighten up; it’s a game for heaven’s sake. Or it could be a Shakespearean tragedy.

UPDATE 3:
I was busy at work today so I was unable to reply to the hysterical denunciation we received at the hands of hip youngsters who “understand” the deep philosophical mysteries in first-person shooter video games. I have to admit that playing video games is not the way I would prefer to watch the minutes, hours and days of my life expire, but everyone has to go sometime and I doubt if, at the final trump, I will be asked about my gaming prowess. That’s for the recent graduates of Bill & Mary.

I am accused of claiming that NPR and the guy who developed a video game called “Bioshock” are, in this hysterical young gent’s words: “teaming up to destroy all that is good and true about America.” Well, not exactly, but then people like this hysterical young gent are not much into nuance.

Lest anyone misunderstand, I am tweaking NPR for:

1. Putting on a story about a violent video game in the wake of revelations that the Sandy Hook killer was a violent video game enthusiast.
2. Pretending that this particular video game - or any video game - is in the same league as Hamlet and Oedipus.

Finally I am making the point, one that Jeff Goldstein has made repeatedly, that those who control the language and the culture eventually control the country. The control of the culture is accomplished through movies and the mass media, but also via comedians, comic books and things as stupid as video games. So, yeah, it’s a big effing deal.

UPDATE 4:
Jeff Goldstein has a good summary  (Bioshock Unhinged) that I can endorse.

My post — and its critique — wasn’t aimed at Bioshock per se. It was, I thought I made clear, aimed at how NPR (and Levine, as presented) were presenting “Bioshock Infinite” — and then using that presentation of its themes (whether fairly or unfairly) to connect those themes outlined to high art, namely, the cartoonish portrayal of Founding Father worshippers.

I went on to note that this is part of a larger effort by the left to peddle this very cultural narrative, so for my purposes, whether NPR misrepresented “Bioshock Infinite” or the Bioshock franchise or Levine or art is relevant only inasmuch as it makes my broader point about the efforts of the left to frame conservatism and to work its narrative into the wider culture. That is, “Bioshock Infinite’s” deeper story structure wasn’t a concern; how the game was being described and added to the cultural noise surrounding Constitution fetishists was.

I should have thought someone claiming a heightened grasp of subtext would have understood that. But then, maybe I just overshot. Or maybe Mr Bloom didn’t pause long enough to consider that perhaps we hoary old embarrassments have the ability to do nuance, too — and that in his rush to separate himself from the “extremist” kind of conservatives like me, he has accomplished his mission, but only by dint of showing that he’s more eager to be accepted by the literati than he is to is to give the benefit of the doubt to conservative writers who have been at this quite a while and have a track record of being more than mere hysterics who rhapsodize to the dullards who still read him.
 

Bloom seems to be the kind of "Conservative" who is happy to live in a world where reality is shaped by the Left and he's allowed to live in it as long as he doesn't put up much  of a squawk.  He probably considers Dr. Ben Carson an embarrassment.

Another “Mug Him Again” Moment

I used the line "mug them again" in an essay I wrote about the Virginian Pilot employees who were attacked and beaten by a gang of black juveniles while they were driving back from a movie.  The Virginian Pilot decided not to write a story about this attack, which happened in the middle of Norfolk.  I, and many other people suspect this was because the editors of the Virginian Pilot are supremely politically correct.  The victims and their attackers were the "wrong" race for the Pilot so the event was flushed down the memory hole.

Evidently the editorial page editor, Donald Luzzatto, had never heard the expression used before and called me a meanie.  I read widely, but at the time I could not recall where I had read the "mug him again" expression.  so I was pleased to find out that it was part of a story told by former NY Mayor Ed Koch.  So her' for the edification of my readers and the high school graduates at the Virginian Pilot is the story.

Last year when liberal Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer was robbed, the New York Post editorial page used it to recall one of the late Ed Koch’s favorite anecdotes:

Back when he was first running for mayor, Ed Koch used to tell of the time he told some senior citizens about a judge he knew who’d been mugged.

The judge, said Koch, told a group that “this mugging will not influence any of my decisions from the bench” — whereupon a woman yelled, “Mug him again!”

Some people will not learn even if the lesson is literally pounded into their heads.

Gay Marriage: Asking the Stupid Question.

People who favor gay marriage are fond of asking those who oppose: “how will gays marrying affect your marriage?” The answer is assumed to be: “not at all,” and therefore gay marriage will not affect anyone. But that’s not really the question that should be asked.

Gay marriage is such a new concept and so few gays have gotten married that the wider cultural effects of the redefinition of marriage are totally unknown.

But we do know that changes in other aspects of marriage and child rearing have had a profound effect, an effect that its proponents never envisioned. Let’s take the issue of what were once called bastards. At one time if a girl and a guy had sex before marriage and the girl became pregnant, the guy married her and they went on to form a family. Occasionally the girl went away for a long vacation and came back to take up her life and people pretended not to know. The actual incidence of single-parent families was in the low single digits.

But Feminists and other Liberals declared that “a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle” and it was proclaimed that bearing a child out of wedlock did not attach a stigma to the single woman. In fact, it was celebrated a-la Murphy Brown. The question was asked “how will women having children without getting married affect your marriage?” The answer is now before us. It’s not affecting my marriage, but the question is stupid. The real question is how will large numbers of women having children without a father in the home affect society.

Nearly 40% of all births are to unmarried women. The rate in the Hispanic and Black communities is twice that. According to the CDC In 2007, 93% of births to 15–17 year-olds and 82% of births to 18–19 year-olds were nonmarital. The result is not simply the creation of a new definition of “family,” but the creation of a cohort of children who are largely doomed to poverty all of their lives and who have created islands of incredible danger to themselves and their neighbors (see Chicago).

Let’s take the new definition of “marriage” one step further. The idea that we can redefine marriage to allow gays to marry but shut the door to other arrangements is simply intellectual twaddle. If people who love each other can get married, irrespective of gender, what is the rational basis for limiting the number in that marriage to two?

If we can get rid of this taboo about "two" we can solve the Tiger Woods problem.  Let’s talk about Tiger Wood first wife, Elin Nordegren. She finds out that Tiger has been sleeping around when he’s on the road, leaving her alone a lot. Instead of throwing a fit and getting a divorce would it not have been simpler for all concerned if she also married coal magnate Chris Cline?  It would have been cheaper and easier for Tiger, Elin would have the financial resources of two fabulously rich men to support her, as well as their physical “attention.” And to make the relationship even more advantageous, Tiger could then marry Lindsey Vonn, creating a four-corned relationship that has many more sexual and financial advantages than if we arbitrarily limit the definition of marriage to the number two.  And lest anyone complain that financial issues are not at stake, let me remind you that one of the cases before the Supreme Court is about exactly that: the financial consequences of a same-sex partner dying without marriage.

Think of the advantages of this re-definition of marriage to more difficult circumstances. It is not rare for one partner in the old-fashioned definition of marriage to become ill and be unable to perform the role that they have traditionally played. I had a friend whose wife left him after he developed multiple sclerosis. This was not just a breach of the marriage vow but a psychological blow. I’m sure neither party felt good about this. But under the new and improved meaning of marriage my friend’s wife could simply have taken a second husband, meeting her needs and sparing both of them from a painful separation.

 

And finally, re-defining marriage in this way could absorb large numbers of those unmarried single mothers. As men marry multiple times, providing male role models to millions of boys lacking that today, the possibility for good abound. In fact, I can foresee the possibility of a government program to encourage the creation of harems … uh, new families.

 

As Glenn Reynolds is fond of saying: "What could possibly go wrong?"

WaPost op-ed blames whites for mass shootings; fact remains minorities are over-represented for ALL murder types, including mass murder

I don't think the Childress Sisters want to go there.

The Spiritual Journey of Magdi Allam

The short version. Muslin converts to Christianity. Leaves Catholic Church because the Church was too ready to concede to Islam. Keep in mind that people who convert from Islam are under a sentence of death.

The highest-profile convert to Roman Catholicism in recent memory, Magdi Cristiano Allam, has left the Catholic Church.

Allam, who was baptized in the Vatican by Pope Benedict XVI on Easter day 2008, explained that what “more than any other factor drove me away from the Church” was the “legitimization of Islam as the true religion of Allah as the one true God, Muhammad as a true prophet, the Koran as a sacred text, and of mosques as places of worship.”

Allam declared that contrary to all that, he was “convinced” that Islam was an “inherently violent ideology,” and that he was “even more convinced that Europe will eventually submit to Islam.”

Perhaps he can find a home as a Southern Baptist.  The Church that was founded by the Son of God will not be defeated by the sons of Satan.  But that doesn't mean that it will not suffer or have to fight.

Self-Driving Cars

"I Know That My Redeemer Liveth"

When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus’ body. Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb and they asked each other, “Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?”

But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed.

“Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’” — Mark 16 1-7

Roger Chesley, Race Hustler

Dr. Thomas Sowell in the American Spectator:

For example, think about all the hysteria the race industry is generating over having to produce a photo ID to vote. You know, every day of the week there are millions of blacks who have to show photo ID for all kinds of things. But to suddenly have to show photo ID for voting is going back to the days of Bull Connor. Bull Connor was not asking blacks to have photo IDs.

Roger Chesley: Going to a lot of trouble to find a little election fraud.

 

He calls election fraud a “phantom menace.” That's not a nice way to characterize an Ohio woman who proudly voted for Obama six times.   He ascribes evil motives to Republicans for voter ID laws claiming that the poor, minorities and college students have trouble getting ID.

These groups vote more often for Democrats. Which is why GOP-controlled legislatures here and elsewhere have been so manic in ramming through the laws.

 

"Manic."   "Ramming through."  Roger's not happy that people like to feel that their vote is not being cancelled out by anyone, rich, poor, young or elderly who vote illegally. 

The Dangers of Flexible Morality

In Mark Steyn’s Death of the Family he makes a penetrating point.

Modern Family works well on TV, less so in the rusting double-wides of decrepit mill towns where, very quickly, the accumulated social capital of two centuries is drained, and too much is too wrecked. In Europe, where dependency, decadence, and demographic decline are extinguishing some of the oldest nations on earth, a successor population is already in place in the restive Muslim housing projects. With their vibrant multicultural attitudes to feminism and homosexuality, there might even be a great sitcom in it: Pre-Modern Family — and, ultimately, post-Modern.

Let me paraphrase. The reason that homosexual marriage is being legislated and court-ordered into existence is because a lot of young and even middle-aged Americans lack a vibrant belief system in anything other than that “values” are out of date. But, and this is a big but, other groups do not lack such moral … let’s call it “flexibility.” Muslims may not be the dominant ethnic group in the US as they have become in some major European cities, but they are growing. And there are large and growing sub-sets of America that have belief systems which, if you transgress, can get you killed. In those areas the flamboyant gays of Modern Family simply cannot exist.

It’s a truism that the weak are eventually conquered by the strong, and this applies to the moral as well as to the physical sphere. Defenders of marriage few and far between because the idea that marriage needed defense was once thought to be absurd.

 

 Homosexuals may find that the castle they have captured has become a worthless shell. And then they may find that the culture they created is much deadlier than the one they left behind.

Will ObamaCare Lead to Lower Unemployment Numbers?

The assumption by everyone except committed ObamaBots is that ObamaCare will depress new hires as employers try to stay below the 50 employee limit that triggers their participation in this program. But in a perverse way it could have the opposite effect. It could actually increase hiring … of part time employees. This is not good for either employees or employers, but it could make the unemployment numbers look better as the unemployed become the partially-employed, and the full-timers become part-timers.

What started this train of thought was the picture of a woman with the word “Juicy” emblazoned on her derriere.

It turns out that an upscale women’s fashion store that sells expensive women’s clothing and accessories has told its full time employees that they can’t work more than 21 hours per week and are hiring more people to take up the slack. As a result, they don’t have to provide health insurance to its part-timers. 

Juice Couture is known for its expensive denim and its velour track suits. Jeans retail for upwards of $178 and handbags around $230. And yet! Employees at the company’s flagship store on 5th Avenue in NYC allege that the company is systematically trying to bilk employees out of hours and benefits. A petition started by employee Duane and former employee Darrell claims that the company has reduced all but a few employees to part time work. Now, they say, most of the store’s 128 employees are limited to less than 21 hours a week. That’s so they don’t have to offer health insurance to their workers — under the Affordable Health Care Act, employees who work 30 hours or more are eligible to receive health care benefits. Further, in order to qualify for sick days, Juicy says you must work more than 1400 per year, which is impossible on a 21-hour per week schedule.

I suspect that Darrell and Duane undoubtedly voted enthusiastically for Obama, not understanding the collateral damage of Obama’s policies.  In Rush Limbaugh's words they are "low information" voters who get their news from the Comedy Central.  For some reason, this is not what they were told they were going to get on The Daily Show. 

Though it won’t go into effect until January 2014, many companies are already slashing their full-time employees’ hours in order to get around the requirements. It’ll also increase the number of “temporary” workers, who work on contracts that must be periodically renewed. And thanks to the crappy economy, it’s easier than ever for companies to find workers that will take a job — any job — regardless of benefits or hours.
 

I, for one, can’t feel too bad for people who advertise their lubricity on their back-ends, or who vote for Obama.  But it would be the height of irony if one of the big unintended side-effects of ObamaCare is an explosion of part-time workers. 

UPDATE:  Via Doug Ross (note the second check-off box.)

 

Norks aim missiles at Hawaii, Washington DC, Los Angeles and Austin, Texas.

This gives our Dear Leader, the Won, an opportunity to show his magnificence.

Biden to Take Third Vacation of the Year

While the White House remains closed to visitors to save money ...

Biden’s trip is the latest episode in a bout of rampant vacationing by the First and Second Families, who have been roaring out of Washington this year on taxpayer-funded excursions even as the deficit mounts and the sequester axes jobs and critical spending on other priorities.

While both President Obama and Biden pick up some of the tab for their recreational travel, the bulk of the costs – including flights aboard Air Force One and Air Force Two and security and staff needs – are billed to taxpayers.

Biden should feel especially refreshed when he returns given that he just had a vacation last month in Snowmass, Colorado, where he spent several days over President’s Day weekend. Close by in a neighboring section of Colorado’s ski country was First Lady Michelle Obama, who was taking her second vacation of the year in Aspen.

Over the same President’s Day weekend, President Obama was roving the fairways at an exclusive golf resort in Florida where he got pointers both from Tiger Woods and Tiger’s famous former coach. He and Mrs. Obama had already spent part of late December and early January in Hawaii.

Biden’s first trip this year was a sun worshiping exercise in the U.S. Virgin Islands, where he stayed with his family from Friday, January 4 until Tuesday, January 8.

The crowned heads of Europe are so jealous.

Do you know how hard it is to bankrupt America?

The Shrinking Jim Webb

What do you call a person who complains about a situation he helped perpetuate? I’m trying to come up with a label to apply to Jim Webb, former Senator, and occasional jerk. I recall the time he made a big show about lecturing George Bush about the Iraq war. Another time when he let one of his aides take the fall for carrying a gun in Washington DC. Unlike Shakespeare’s Coriolanus, Jim Webb was never reluctant to show his wounds and rode his military decorations to public prominence and public office. There is rarely a time when he does not take the opportunity to refer to his military past. However, once home, he appears to have left his political courage on the battlefield, preferring to attack people who were in no position to fight back.

 

Now safely retired he has decided to blame an amorphous “Congress” for giving up its constitutional power to the President. Here’s his essay from the National Interest and a column by George Will.

 

However, unlike Rand Paul, Jim Webb never faced down the Senate or even members of his own party while he was there. Instead, he engaged in navel gazing and dealt with minutia while he held the position that he could have used to make a difference. Webb, the “military hero” was a faithful member of the Democrat troop that surrendered its constitutional powers to the President without as much as a whimper. Say what you will about Rand Paul, an ophthalmologist with no military medals, he has demonstrated that he is willing to stand on principle and is not interested in being a cog in a political machine. Less than a year after leaving office, it’s hard to recall what impact Webb had while in office; what legislation he sponsored or what causes he espoused. Meanwhile Paul, a freshman senator like Webb, has already made a name for himself and forced the Executive branch to acknowledge that there is, somewhere, a limit to its power.
  
Jim Webb was once decorated for a military action in which he played a major role. After that he appears to have found it much, much safer to snipe from the sidelines. It’s much safer to write an article for the National Interest than to do actual battle in the Senate.

Repeal Obamacare

Liberals had hoped, and some conservatives had feared, that the legislative Frankenstein’s monster known as Obamacare would become more popular as its sundry measures were implemented. But the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is no more popular now than when it was passed, as Americans have come to realize that it will neither protect patients nor provide for affordable care. While full repeal of the law is not within the realm of short-term political reality — the presence of Barack Obama in the White House and a Democratic majority in the Senate ensures that — repeal should nonetheless remain the end goal, either one piece at a time for now or root and branch.

The price tag for Obamacare has gone from shocking to preposterous. In March 2010, the Congressional Budget Office estimated the ten-year cost of the law at $898 billion; by February 2013, that number had climbed to $1.6 trillion, and it is likely that further revisions will be in the upward direction. That is a very high price to pay for a system that will, by the admission of its own supporters, leave some 30 million Americans uninsured. Long gone is the fiction pronounced by President Obama and repeated by his media enablers that the law will not add “one dime” to the deficit; the latest estimate is that Obamacare will add as much as $6.2 trillion to the long-term national debt, according to the Government Accountability Office. No thinking person takes President Obama seriously on fiscal questions, but those alleged experts and pundits who argued for Obamacare on fiscal grounds should be regarded as thoroughly discredited.

 

Read the whole thing.

Even the terminally stupid people who produce the Virignian Pilot are starting to get a clue. Today's issue has a front page story on the increased cost of health insurance that directly assigns blame to ObamaCare.

Study: Health law to raise claims cost 32 percent

What's bizarre about this story, which is actually an AP story, is not so much that it was actually printed in the Virginian Pilot, a pioneer in cheerleading for all things Obama, but that the writer says:

It could increase premiums for at least some Americans.

If you are uninsured, or you buy your policy directly from an insurance company, you should pay attention.

But if you have an employer plan, like most workers and their families, odds are you don't have much to worry about.

"Could increase premiums?"  "Could increase premiums?"  "Could increase premiums?"

 

Sure.  In the writer's alternative universe insurance companies are going to see their claims costs increase by 32%, but it may not affect what you pay for insurance because ... What?

 

Your insurance company if going to absorb the cost and willingly go bankrupt?

 

Your employer won't ask you to pay more if their insurance costs go up 32% - or more?

 

How stupid does the writing think you are?

 

Well, gently reader of the Virginian Pilot, since you voted for Obama's second term, he probably thinks you are one of those low information people and will swallow anything.

 

For those who are not terminally dense, we saw this coming and wnated nothing to do with it.  And even now are trying to firgure out a way of avoiding this Liberal disaster. 

 

Meanwhile, look how happy everyone looks in this three-year-old picture.  Remember every face in that crowd of elected miscreants.  Never forget.   Never forgive.

Berkshire to Pay Nothing to Be Among Top Goldman Sachs Holders

People who don't know any better believe that Warren Buffett is just a smart stock picker. Nothing could be further from the truth. He's very good at making deals that would make a loan shark blush if the loan shark was worth $50 billion.

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK/A) is poised to become one of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS)’s largest shareholders without paying anything after the companies agreed on a plan to settle warrants granted at the height of the 2008 financial crisis.

Mayors Gone Wild: Another member of ‘Mayors Against Illegal Guns’ arrested

Mayors Against Illegal Guns member and Democratic Gainesville, Fla., Mayor Craig Lowe was arrested on charges of driving under the influence and property damage after police found him asleep in his car at the scene of a crash last Thursday.

You will never find Bloomberg in that situation. People worth $5 billion don't drive themselves. The have chauffeurs for that, and armed guards, and their own private jets. The would not be caught dead in a Honda Civic.

To vacation a lot, just get elected President of the United states.

 

Nothing says "Ruling Class" better than the Obama Family.

 

More than a Vacation a Month for Obamas in 2013

In the first three months of the year, members of the first family have been on three vacations, averaging a vacation a month. And now it's being reported that the first daughters are on a spring break vacation in the Bahamas....

The Obamas began the new year in Hawaii. "President Obama departed Hawaii this morning for Washington, after spending NINE days vacationing with family and friends in his native state....

Then the first lady and their daughters vacationed in Aspen over President's Day weekend.... While the rest of the family was in Colorado, Obama went to Florida for a golf weekend....

And now it's being reported that the first daughters are on Spring Break in the Bahamas.... Of course, there's no reason to begrudge the first family for enjoying a good vacation. But at a time when the White House is closed to the public, it all might seem a little odd.

Not to the MSM. It's what rulers do.

Obama Prioritizes Family Spring Break Over White House Tours

As spring break begins for schoolchildren across the country, thousands of students will travel to Washington, DC. The trips, funded by bake sales and other events throughout the year, will allow the students to take in Washington's historic landmarks.

One premier destination is off-limits this year, however. A few weeks ago, the Obama Administration announced it was suspending public, self-guided tours of the White House as a result of the automatic sequester cuts that the administration proposed in 2011. While America's students stand outside the White House fence, the First Daughters, Sasha and Malia, are enjoying spring break with friends at the Atlantis Resort on Paradise Island in the Bahamas.

The royal couple and the princesses can't stay cooped up in the White House all the time, can they?  The peasants?  Let them eat cake! 

Why Draw the Line at Couples?

Good question.

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Here's Art in Windsor, Connecticut, as we go back to the phones. Hello, sir.

CALLER: Rush, how you doing?

RUSH: I'm fine, sir. Thank you.

CALLER: Look, I just think, you know, there used to be laws that said black people can't marry white people. I don't think this is any different. I mean, if you're gay and you want to marry somebody who's gay, marry somebody who's gay. That's your business. What is the business of the state government or the federal government telling me who I can and can't marry?

RUSH: You are serious with this? You want to equate interracial marriage to homosexual marriage?

CALLER: Yeah, I think that a person should be able to make their own personal decision. I think actually this should be something the Republican Party should be in support of. It's individual rights, you can marry whoever you want.

RUSH: You don't have to worry, the Republican Party's moving in that direction, it is.

CALLER: Yep.

RUSH: Well, let me ask you this. Where does this freedom to do what you want stuff stop? And what, in your case, what would two people wanting to do raise a red flag for you? What would you say, "Now, wait a minute, no, no, no, you shouldn't do that?"

CALLER: Well, I think if you were talking about like a three-party marriage, an eight-party marriage --

RUSH: Why? If you love one, you can love two. What if all three people love each other and they want the benefits and all that, who among us should deny those three people their love?

CALLER: I think they can be loved, I just don't think you need to give it a legal status because --

RUSH: Why not?

CALLER: Because two people would make a family, they could raise kids, adopt kids, do whatever they want, I don't think --

RUSH: Wait a minute. But why can't three people do that? In fact, if you have two of the same sex and one of the opposite sex, you've handled the adoption issue. You don't need to adopt. You can have one woman and two guys in a marriage, and the woman could be impregnated by the two, and, voila, you got a family.

CALLER: I don't see that.

RUSH: You got a lot of love and what could possibly be wrong with that?

CALLER: I think society's determined that two spouses, two people --

RUSH: Well, wait, society's determined, you know, by the way, human civilization, from the beginning of time, has determined that marriage is a union of a man and a woman. The Republicans didn't do it.

CALLER: Right.

RUSH: Conservatives didn't do it.

CALLER: Right.

RUSH: Churchill didn't do it. Margaret Thatcher didn't do it. Gorbachev didn't do. It was humanity which did it. You just said society has determined that -- well, society has determined that marriage is between a man and a woman, but I don't think society's right in that case.

CALLER: No, no. I don't agree with you. I think society has evolved away from that. I think the people in general think that you want if you want to marry somebody you should be able to marry them.

RUSH: Well, someday society is gonna evolve away from marriage by two people and could be three or four, and you're gonna oppose that then for some reason. You're gonna deny those people their love.

CALLER: Yeah, I would. I would oppose that.

RUSH: Why? I don't understand. Why would you discriminate that way? What does the number matter when we're talking about love here?

CALLER: 'Cause I think that in general, two people are necessary to raise a family unit. You need two parents.

RUSH: Well, why? Because every family's got grandparents and aunts and uncles. It's always more than just two people raising the child. It's a village doing it sometimes in the Clintons' case.

CALLER: Not in my family. I never had the village come to my house and raise my family. I think it generally takes two people. I'm not homosexual. I became a Republican after Lieberman got thrown out of the Democratic Party --

RUSH: Right.

CALLER: -- because I said if the party doesn't have enough room for Joe Lieberman, it doesn't have enough room for me. But I think that once that decision has been made, that in our society, financially and economically, you need who people to raise --

RUSH: Well, let me play devil's advocate with you because in the case of homosexual marriage, without additional steps, those two people can't produce a family.

CALLER: Right, they can't. They'd have to adopt. But then you'd have to --

RUSH: Well, adopt or have a surrogate, artificial womb somewhere.

CALLER: Yes. Or you'd have to say I've got, you know --

RUSH: Do you think maybe society -- (crosstalk)

CALLER: -- sterile woman --

RUSH: Do you think marriage evolved in society precisely because it takes one of each sex to make another human being?

CALLER: It used to.

RUSH: Let me ask you this. Do you believe or not believe, do you think it matters or not that a child grow up with two parents or one?

CALLER: I think in an ideal world it's better to have a male and female parent, but I think that the world is never ideal and I think having two parents of the same sex is better than having one parent who is not the same sex.

RUSH: Why do you think that?

CALLER: I think two-parents are better than one parent. I think two parents help to raise a family properly, and I think it really helps if you have a two-parent family.

RUSH: But why? What do two accomplish that one can't?

CALLER: Well, they produce more income. They have more time to divide among their kids. If one parent needs to take the kids to school and the other one needs to go to work, they can do that, I mean they can divide the -- it's a more resource available situation.

RUSH: But with feminism you don't have anybody at home anymore. Both husband and wife go off to work and they either got day care or a nanny or somebody else not in the family raising the kid.

CALLER: I think that was a temporary thing. I think that's kind of shifting back the other way now, as you were talking about just a few days ago, I think, weren't you?

RUSH: Well, the phenomenon, yes, of feminist women deciding after birth that, "You know what? I think I want to stay home with the child." Yes, that is happening.

CALLER: Right.

RUSH: It has been happening for awhile. So we could say that you hate single mothers. You hate single parents.

CALLER: No, I don't think you could say that. I just think it's not the ideal situation.

RUSH: Well, no, but that's what's gonna happen to you. I just want to warn you, you're gonna become a hater and a bigot. This is how the people, if there's a movement out there for single parent families and it's perfectly fine, it's nobody's business, but you, Art, come along say, "No, there have to be two parents, even if the same sex," you are gonna become a hater if you oppose the single parent family movement, should there ever be one, you will be called a hater and a bigot. I'm just trying to prepare you for it.

CALLER: Well, thanks, Rush. I appreciate the update there.

RUSH: Okay, so our caller here hates single mothers. That's what we've learned today from Art --

CALLER: All right, thank you.

RUSH: -- at the end of the call. Art, I appreciate your call. I really do. I hope you have a wonderful day out there.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: There is a movement in this country that you don't hear much about called polyamory. Our caller Art said, "Oh, no, no, no. No, no, no. That's where I draw the line." You can't have more than two people get married.

Well, there's a movement for that, and the proponents are being urged to shut up about it and just do it.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Now, we had a guy on the phone here a moment ago named Art who steadfastly maintained that he does have limits on this stuff. He thinks it's fine if two men want to get married and if two women want to get married. That's cool. None of our business. They love each other, that's great. And two parents, even the same sex, better than a single parent. So Art clearly hates single parents, as things work out in America today. But I said, "Well, okay, Art, at what point will these kind of arrangements become something you can't agree with?" He said, "Well, three people, if three people want to get married, I'm gonna draw the line."

"Why?"

"Well, it's just too many."

"Well, why? I mean, the more love, the better. Two people in love, three people in love. Two people of one sex, one of the opposite sex, I mean you got constant sex that way and you've got constant babies being born, and, oh, you don't need adoption."


That did it. He couldn't go for that. I kept probing. Why not? What's wrong with three? Why not four? It's just like the minimum wage argument. You can eventually reach an amount that even proponents say is too much. And here with the gay marriage argument, you can construct a definition of marriage that even proponents of same-sex marriage will say, "No, no, no, no, that's going too far." But, see, once you cancel the definition of marriage, then it can become anything. And that's another thing that Roberts is saying. Once you take something that has a specific definition, and you obliterate that, then it can become anything you want and there's no limit to it.

So there's a church out there, folks, called the Unitarian church. Many of you have heard of it. You just don't want people to know that you know. There's a joke about Unitarians. The joke is -- and this is the Washington Post saying this. This is not an El Rushbo joke, just so you know. It's right here in the Washington Post. "The joke about Unitarians is that they’re where you go when you don’t know where to go. Theirs is the religion of last resort for the intermarried, the ambivalent, the folks who want a faith community without too many rules. It is perhaps no surprise that the Unitarian Universalist Association is one of the fastest-growing denominations in the country, ballooning 15 percent over the past decade.

"But within the ranks of the UUA over the past few years, there has been some quiet unrest concerning a small but activist group that vociferously supports polyamory. That is to say 'the practice of loving and relating intimately to more than one other person at a time.'" Now, you people in Rio Linda know all about this. But for the rest of you, polyamory is loving and relating to three people in a relationship, four people in a relationship at the same time. And the Unitarians have "a mission statement by Unitarian Universalists for Polyamory Awareness (UUPA)." That's the acronym, UUPA. He-he. It is. "The UUPA 'encourages spiritual wholeness regarding polyamory.'"

Now, here's the problem. What's the limit? Where do you draw the line on polyamory? Two women and one man? One women and six men? Three women and two men? Twelve people? Where do you draw the line? The line has not been drawn. The polyamorists don't want any such lines. They don't want any limits whatsoever. A great example of this would be the famous rapper Shawty Lo. Remember him? He was gonna have that great TV show, the rapper in Atlanta. The Oxygen network canceled it. Boy, this guy was ahead of his time. This guy had 11 kids with ten baby mamas. They canceled this show because it was upsetting. But this guy fits right in now. That show could be exactly what's called for, especially to humiliate Roberts. You know, you could put that show on a DVD and drop it off at Roberts' office and say, "Here, these are my friends."

So it is happening out there within the Unitarian church. But the headline of this story is: "Many Unitarians Would Prefer That Their Polyamory Activists Keep Quiet." In other words, don't talk about it, don't call attention to what we're doing here, just do it. If you have a spiritual wholeness and an intimate relationship with three people, do it, but don't tell anybody. Don't run around and brag about it when you go to the IHOP, you know, just do it. And this church is growing.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Here is Paul in Ottawa, Canada. Hi, Paul. I'm glad that you called and got through. Welcome.

CALLER: Hi there. Great White North mega dittos.

RUSH: Thank you, sir, very much.

CALLER: Okay. You're absolutely right in what you say about, if same-sex marriage is made a civil right, then it's gonna brand everybody who's opposed to it as a bigot. That's pretty much what's happened up here, and it hits hardest on teenagers, I think, really, 'cause the peer pressure they face from other teenagers or from the educational system is really intense. You know, at times it drives a real wedge between parents and children.

RUSH: That is exactly the ploy being used here.

CALLER: Yup.

RUSH: This is the #1 issue among people under 30 in this country, even conservative young people under 30, and it is this technique that has secured it. I think you're right.

CALLER: It often drives a real wedge between both kids and their church as well if they're active in a church. It really goes beyond just branding individuals as bigots, though. If you say that same-sex marriage is a human right or a civil right or something along those lines, then every single church that stands for traditional marriage suddenly becomes like the KKK. That's a very dangerous situation to be in.

RUSH: Because they're opposed to "civil rights." The KKK was opposed to civil rights, and gay marriage is a civil right. So if you're opposed to it, you're no different than the Klan.

CALLER: Yeah. So how can the government justify giving you a break on property taxes or counting you as a charity if you're an organization opposed to a civil right.

RUSH: Exactly.

CALLER: In fact, there's actually a legal precedent.

RUSH: Right!

CALLER: That would give the government a lot of power to impose very harsh penalties on churches under that circumstance. If you go back to the late 1800s where there was this big fight between Mormons -- who were practicing polygamy, that definition of marriage -- and the federal government that had a monogamous definition of marriage, was a bill passed called the Edmunds-Tucker Act. That law wound up stripping anyone who didn't accept, like swear an oath to accept the state's definition of marriage, of rights.

If you didn't do that, you did not have the right to vote. You did not have the right to serve in a public office. You did not have the right to serve as a juror. Wives could be compelled to testify against their husbands or be sent to jail if they didn't. The Mormon Church itself was dis-incorporated and its assets were seized. And, you know, this sets a legal precedent that could be turned around at Catholics, Baptists, Mormons again, and every other church that holds to traditional marriage if you go and say that same-sex marriage is a right.

RUSH: Right. You know, it's not just that. It also works on the Manhattan, under-30, bar scene conservatives. Nobody wants to be called a bigot. Nobody wants to be thought of as discriminating against "love," which is apparently a commodity in short supply.

CALLER: Yes.

RUSH: Because whenever people find it, we're supposed to stop everything and celebrate it. It's so hard to find it out there now that when it is discovered, we gotta stop and celebrate it and proclaim support for it no matter what. Let me ask you this philosophically: Could we get to the point where we would say opposite-sex couples are bigoted because they're not marrying people of the same sex?

CALLER: (pause) Possibly. You know, give it time. I think anything's possible.

RUSH: (laughing)

CALLER: I think the real issue here isn't, you know, is same-sex marriage a right or not but who gets to decide what's a human right or not. That really is fundamental to what kind of government you have. You know, if you have a monarchy, the king has the ultimate power. If it's a theocracy, then some church or religious body has the ultimate power. Who has the ultimate power in the United States to decide what's a human right and what isn't? Is it some oligarchy of judges or politicians, or is it the people?

RUSH: It's a combination of both, but it's an oligarchy of judges that are deciding everything in this country. But you raise a good point: How long will it be before churches lose their tax deductions if they don't perform same-sex marriages? I'm not joking. People who engage in opposite-sex marriage, are they going to someday be bigots for not marrying somebody of the same sex? Which is the popular and hip thing to be doing. (interruption) Now, Snerdley, you're smirking at me, but I'm just taking this...

See, I love logic and I love context. I love to take things and ask, "Okay, do something today. Where will it lead down the road?" Which hardly anybody thinks about. (interruption) Why do we think it's popular? (interruption) What, same-sex marriage? (interruption) Well, Snerdley is telling me that everybody he knows is sick and tired of hearing about it and they just want it to go away. I will have to concur. A lot of my friends have a different reason they want it to go away.

They don't care.

They are so worried about what's happening to the economy, they are so worried about what their kids' futures economically are not gonna be, that they don't care about this. They think, "Just to hell with it! Why are we wasting time on something like this that doesn't matter?" That also is being taken advantage of in pushing the effort. But, you see, the reason why it all matters and the reason why it's all linked... (big sigh) Boy, am I gonna get in trouble in this. It's just whole concept of morality.

There's gotta be a moral foundation to every aspect of life in a free society or it's gonna vanish. We were talking earlier about this. When freedom is defined as anything you want to do with no moral underpinning, with no virtue attached, freedom without virtue is not really freedom. And I forget, Oz somebody, his book, I quoted from. I forget his last name, but he said this is the root to the decline of free societies is this open-ended definition of freedom to which no virtue is attached. "Hello, Rome," for example, is his point.

END TRANSCRIPT

Matt Lauer 'believes NBC set him up for a fall with airing of Sandusky interview and now trusts no one'

As I hinted in my previous post, when the Left has no one else to destroy, they begin destroying each other. That’s because when there are limited resources (and there always are) the people who are ruthless enough will destroy those who are in their way. It’s the law of the jungle. In this case, the paranoia that is always part of the Left media has to turn against someone or something. People like Lauer know the tools they have used to destroy the reputation of Conservatives. He just never expected their “allies” to use them against him.

 

He’s a fool.

Media Matters Attacks NPR

It's a shame they can't both lose.

When the Blue culture finds out that there is a limit to other people’s money  they have to begin attacking each other.

Does the sequester mean that Biden can't spend $321,665 on limos any more?

Or does that mean that Sasha and Malia Obama have fewer Secret Service agents following them as they frolic at Bahamas' 'Atlantis' Resort?

In other news, the White House is still closed to visitors to save money.

FOXY KNOXY RETRIAL

BREAKING NEWS: Amanda Knox WILL face a retrial over the murder of British student Meredith Kercher

Alameda County rewards boss: $400k…for life

Alameda County supervisors have really taken to heart the adage that government should run like a business — rewarding County Administrator Susan Muranishi with the Wall Street-like wage of $423,664 a year.

For the rest of her life.

According to county pay records, in addition to her $301,000 base salary, Muranishi receives:

– $24,000, plus change, in “equity pay’’ to guarantee that she makes at least 10 percent more than anyone else in the county.

– About $54,000 a year in “longevity” pay for having stayed with the county for more than 30 years.

– An annual performance bonus of $24,000.

– And another $9,000 a year for serving on the county’s three-member Surplus Property Authority, an ad hoc committee of the Board of Supervisors that oversees the sale of excess land.

Like other county executives, Muranishi also gets an $8,292-a-year car allowance.

Muranishi has been with the county for 38 years, and she’s 63. When retirement day comes, she’ll be getting a lot more than a gold watch.

That’s because, according to the county auditor’s office, Muranishi’s annual pension will be equal to the dollar total of her entire yearly package — $413,000. She also has a separate executive private pension plan, for which the county chips in $46,500 a year.

It's only money. More to the point, it's only Taxpayers money. Now it all belongs to her.  Think she's the only one?  Think again:
Calpers (that's the California Public Employees Pension Fund) now pays:

1 $371,043 Johnson, Michael, D County Of Solano
2 $328,525 Hurst, Robert Jrs San Diego County Superior Court
3 $314,713 Fuster, Joaquin, M University Of California At Los Angeles
4 $295,086 Gerth, Donald, R California State University At Sacramento
5 $289,554 Garrett, William City Of El Cajon
6 $280,504 Ream, David, N City Of Santa Ana
7 $279,480 Stahl, James, F Los Angeles County Sanitation District No. 2
8 $271,250 Schlag, John, D University Of California At Los Angeles
9 $271,157 Southard, Glenn, D City Of Indio
10 $268,175 Adams, Randy, G City Of Bell

James Taranto: universal background firearms checks means that anybody can request one.

I might begin by asking if Matt Lauer or David Gregory are eligible to buy a gun.

if you’re looking to dig up dirt on someone, a “no” answer on a firearms background check would give you a nice clump of it.

Hey Matt! Welcome to OUR world. You know. The one YOU and your ilk help create? Sucks to be you.

Matt Lauer whining

Media 'Can’t Just Repeat Something Over and Over Until it Sounds True. It’s Not Fair'

• "Benghazi resulted from a spontaneous protest over a video.
• Romney hasn't paid taxes in ten years.
• Eric Holder didn't know anything about Fast & Furious."
• "I can see Alaska from my house".
• "Tea Party people are racists"?
• Like 'Hope & Change'?
• Like 'Bush stole the election'?
• Like 'being gay is the right side of history'?
• Like 'will not raise the deficit one dime'?
• Like 'Obamacare will lower your medical costs'?
• Like 'global warming is real'?
• Like 'fighting terrorists only creates more of them'?
• Like 'illegal aliens are harmless'?
• This is a amazing economy..
• Chrisie Matthews MSNBC...Romney is too rich and cant understand the common man..
• Andra Mitchell NBC ..Obama is the smartest president we ever had.
• More of MSNBC ..We cant afford to run Whitehouse tours Obama .
• 500 HUNDRED Million to the PLO.....
• You did not build that...and my kids are in the Bahamas ..
• Tell that to George Zimmerman with a straight face.