Archive for November, 2011

Michele Bachmann was the first GOP presidential candidate to demand Eric Holder’s resignation. Last Monday Rick Perry published an op-ed in The Washington Times demanding Mr. Holder’s resignation and yesterday morning Jon Huntsman also remarked that Mr. Holder should resign, yet the majority of the Old Media ignore them and the other congressmen who think Mr. Holder should resign.

Read more by Mary Chastain at BigJournalism.com

The Senate Republican Budget press office sent out this rather incriminating timeline of the Democrats’ complete lack of leadership and responsibility on the deficit issue. We’re now over $15 trillion in debt, and they don’t look like they’re taking it any more seriously than back in January. Case in point: the country still doesn’t have a budget.

Read more by Elisabeth Meinecke, Deputy Managing Editor, Townhall.com

Common Council takes steps to end unusual practice

More than 30 Milwaukee city employees - including two aldermen and the elections chief - are simultaneously earning a city paycheck, drawing a city pension and building credit toward a second city pension, records show.

That unusual “triple-dipping” arrangement is legal in Milwaukee, at least for now.

But it’s not allowed in the state or Milwaukee County retirement systems, or at most - if any - other public pension systems around the nation, officials say. And the Common Council recently acted to prohibit a second pension for any retiree who is rehired after December.

“I just think one pension is more than adequate,” said Ald. Michael Murphy, a city Pension Board member who sponsored the measure.

But the ordinance couldn’t legally cut pension benefits for any of the 32 employees already on track for a second pension, said Murphy and Mayor Tom Barrett.

Among those employees, the top earner is Sue Edman, who is paid $83,117 a year as executive director of the city Election Commission and draws a $76,023 annual pension as a retired police captain, for a total of $159,140 a year. That’s almost $12,000 more than Barrett’s $147,336 annual pay.

Read more by Larry Sandler of the Journal Sentinel

Make a difference in Milwaukee County.

The Republican Party of Milwaukee County, by State statute, gets to nominate people who want to be pollworkers in their own municipalities in Milwaukee County.

Volunteer to become a Republican Pollworker:

Be on the front line of fighting vote fraud at the polling place.
This is a paid position, you are an employee of your municipality.
You are trained by your municipal clerk.
Besides working on election day you also may be offered additional time  prior to the election.
We need you to respond by November 28, so that we can then appoint you to your municipality by November 30.

Being a Republican pollworker in your municipality is an excellent way to help prevent election fraud while getting paid for it at the same time. If you are interested in being a (paid) pollworker, please contact the Republican Party of Milwaukee County at 414-727-1220.

Volunteer to become an Election Observer:

Become the “eyes and ears” of the Republican Party.
We will arm you with the tools you will need to become an effective observer.
Your presence at the polls will let “would be violators” know that “we are watching”.
We want you to volunteer for the February primary or the April election so that you are an experienced observer for the all important fall elections.
Contact the Republican Party of Milwaukee County at 414-727-1220.

For more info, go to http://milwaukee.wisgop.info/volunteer/

For decades, Democrats have suffered continuous and increasingly severe losses among white voters. But preparations by Democratic operatives for the 2012 election make it clear for the first time that the party will explicitly abandon the white working class.

All pretence of trying to win a majority of the white working class has been effectively jettisoned in favor of cementing a center-left coalition made up, on the one hand, of voters who have gotten ahead on the basis of educational attainment — professors, artists, designers, editors, human resources managers, lawyers, librarians, social workers, teachers and therapists — and a second, substantial constituency of lower-income voters who are disproportionately African-American and Hispanic.

It is instructive to trace the evolution of a political strategy based on securing this coalition in the writings and comments, over time, of such Democratic analysts as Stanley Greenberg and Ruy Teixeira. Both men were initially determined to win back the white working-class majority, but both currently advocate a revised Democratic alliance in which whites without college degrees are effectively replaced by well-educated socially liberal whites in alliance with the growing ranks of less affluent minority voters, especially Hispanics.

Read more By THOMAS B. EDSALL in the NY Times

. . . by who we are or what we believe.”

spoken by candidate Barack Obama, 2008

That was soooo long ago.

The Federal Reserve and the big banks fought for more than two years to keep details of the largest bailout in U.S. history a secret. Now, the rest of the world can see what it was missing.

The Fed didn’t tell anyone which banks were in trouble so deep they required a combined $1.2 trillion on Dec. 5, 2008, their single neediest day. Bankers didn’t mention that they took tens of billions of dollars in emergency loans at the same time they were assuring investors their firms were healthy. And no one calculated until now that banks reaped an estimated $13 billion of income by taking advantage of the Fed’s below-market rates, Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its January issue.

Read more by Bob Ivry, Bradley Keoun and Phil Kuntz in Bloomberg Markets Magazine

(CNET) The U.S. Department of Justice is defending computer hacking laws that make it a crime to use a fake name on Facebook or lie about your weight in an online dating profile.

In a statement obtained by CNET that’s scheduled to be delivered tomorrow, the Justice Department argues that it must be able to prosecute violations of Web sites’ often-ignored, always-unintelligible “terms of service” policies.

Read more by Declan McCullagh at CBS News

In my post-mortem of the “Super Committee,” I opined that Congressional Democrats bear most of the responsibility for the colossal failure. It’s worth noting, though, that it was only after the final nail had been driven into place that President Obama emerged from his undisclosed leadership location to perform a disingenuous victory dance on the resulting wreckage. Now Townhall has been granted an exclusive first look at a new web video from the Republican National Committee, which exposes Obama’s latest abdication of responsibility as the cynical, self-interested political calculation that it is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYLzOlr5K6U

Read more by Guy Benson, Political Editor at Townhall.com

Lawmakers on the House and Senate Agriculture committees are trying to write a new five-year farm bill through the supercommittee process.

The legislators are using the supercommittee to avoid what would be a more public, election-year debate in 2012, when the current farm bill expires and new legislation would be scheduled for writing, according to critics of the effort.

“We call it the secret farm bill,” said one environmental activist, who worries that if the lawmakers succeed, it will prop up U.S. farm payments through 2017.

Read more by Erik Wasson at TheHill.com

from an Englishman! Daniel Hannan MEP

Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness

“One is about the freedom of the individual, the other about the power of the state”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dS6hQQ2pyco

On Thanksgiving Day, Americans gather with their family and friends to celebrate the blessings that Providence has bestowed on their beloved country.

A deep appreciation of these blessings involves understanding that they were earned. It is to understand the awesome truth of how “God helps those who help themselves” applies to the Mayflower Pilgrims and their First Thanksgiving at America’s birth.

This is an appreciation and understanding of which those on the Left are incapable - for it would mean celebrating the capitalist freedom that made that original Thanksgiving possible. This no liberal, no Democrat, no leftie can do. Thus they must distort history instead.

The distortion starts in Kindergarten, with the childish make-believe of your kid’s school play portraying the noble Squanto teaching the helpless Pilgrims how to feed themselves.

–SNIP– That freedom and abundance is today being threatened as never before by a Fascist Left determined to destroy it. Now more than ever is the time to focus anew on all that we love about our country, to know that Providence has always smiled upon it - for we, like the Pilgrims have the capacity to choose capitalist freedom over socialist slavery.

With that choice, the original Americans created a civilization out of the wilderness. With that choice, we Americans of today can rescue our civilization from the wilderness of the Fascist Left led by President Zero.

That choice liberates us from their power-lust and make us impervious to the poison of anti-America hate that eats at all liberal souls. That is why we are what they are not: grateful for our country, for the very existence of America, for the priceless privilege of being an American.

Happy Thanksgiving to you all.

Read more by Dr. Jack Wheeler at To The Point News

New York, 3 October 1789

By the President of the United States of America, a Proclamation.

Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor– and whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness.

Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be– That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks–for his kind care and protection of the People of this Country previous to their becoming a Nation–for the signal and manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of his Providence which we experienced in the course and conclusion of the late war–for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty, which we have since enjoyed–for the peaceable and rational manner, in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national One now lately instituted–for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed; and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and in general for all the great and various favors which he hath been pleased to confer upon us.

and also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions– to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually–to render our national government a blessing to all the people, by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed–to protect and guide all Sovereigns and Nations (especially such as have shewn kindness unto us) and to bless them with good government, peace, and concord–To promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the encrease of science among them and us–and generally to grant unto all Mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best.

Given under my hand at the City of New York the third day of October in the year of our Lord 1789.

Go: Washington

From http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/GW/gw004.html

Did you know that an average of 23 manufacturing facilities were shut down every single day in the United States last year? As World War II ended, the United States emerged as the greatest industrial power that the world has ever seen. But now America’s industrial might is being gutted like a fish and both political parties seem totally unconcerned. Yes, we will always need trading relationships that are fair and balanced with other countries that have economic systems that are similar to our own. However, the truth is that most of our trading relationships are neither “fair” nor balanced. For example, China manipulates currency rates so that Chinese products are much cheaper than they should be, they brazenly steal our technology and we let them get away with it, they deeply subsidize their most important industries and they exploit their citizens by allowing them to be paid slave labor wages. How in the world does that resemble the “free market” at work? Predatory nations such as China do everything that they can to distort the free market. So why in the world would any rational economist ever recommend that we should keep trading with other countries that are cheating us blind? After you read the facts in this article about the gutting of America’s industrial might, hopefully you will get very angry. We need the American people to start getting very upset about these very important issues.

Read more at The Economic Collapse Blog

The American Bar Association has secretly declared a significant number of President Obama’s potential judicial nominees “not qualified,” slowing White House efforts to fill vacant judgeships — and nearly all of the prospects given poor ratings were women or members of a minority group, according to interviews.

The White House has chosen not to nominate any person the bar association deemed unqualified, so their identities and negative ratings have not been made public. But the association’s judicial vetting committee has opposed 14 of the roughly 185 potential nominees the administration asked it to evaluate, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The number of Obama prospects deemed “not qualified” already exceeds the total number opposed by the group during the eight-year administrations of Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush; the rejection rate is more than three and a half times as high as it was under either of the previous two presidencies, documents and interviews show.

Read more by CHARLIE SAVAGE from the NY Times