WIsconsin Lefties: New York City Money

From the indispensable Sykes Site:

...One Wisconsin Now Action is required to file reports with the Internal Revenue Service that show its funding has come from handful of large contributors: New York media mogul Joseph Rosenmiller gave $139,000, for example, while New York philanthropist Alida Rockefeller Messinger gave $75,000, and Epic Systems CEO Judith Faulkner and her husband Gordon gave $24,000.

(Faulkner's really large money went to ObozoCare lobbying, of course.)

If you don't think that New York money is laden with social-disease microbes, then think again while looking at the agenda of the new Mayor of NYC.

Best Insight of 2013

Sorry to say that I temporarily dis-recall the author.  Regardless, whoever it was captured the essence extremely well.

The Insight:  Washington, D.C., is an area largely populated by ex-high school Student Council Presidents.

(The same goes for Madistan, by the way.)

Yahoo!? Nope. SBC

Nice play, SBC.

After we were told by an SBC techie that only Yahoo!! could remedy the problem, Yahoo!! referred us back to SBC due to "contract terms."

Thankfully, after laboring through SBC's automated phone/response tree twice, we found a competent and professional techie who cleared up the mess in about 10 minutes.

He would have been very helpful 6 days ago.

Now we're off to see what can be done about our bank's "online service" which is also inoperative and has been so for about 4 weeks.  Seems that the bank went through a conversion and their "a few days" is directly comparable to ObozoCare's online steaming pile.

Pajama Boy's Pals

Pajama Boy wouldn't know which end of the AR is up.  But his pals do.

By the way:  are you warehousing incandescent lightbulbs?  Did you mention it in your emails or phone calls?

HT:  Zippers

It's STILL the Spending, Wisconsin

Prestegard tells us what we should have suspected.

In Wisconsin it's not the taxes.

It's the spending.

...The Tax Foundation’s figures show that, had CPI and population-growth limits been in place since the late 1970s — the last time Wisconsin’s per capita personal income growth exceeded the national average — state and local government would spend half as much as state and local government does today....

Doh.

Cassandra McCarthy

I wish he were wrong.

...The radical shock troops seeking to “fundamentally transform the United States of America,” as their pied piper puts it, make up a distinct minority of the country. To advance their transformative program, they need the mob — and a president who knows how to use the mob’s “peer pressure,” who knows that telling a room full of jittery bankers that “my administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks” is akin to Don Corleone making them an offer they can’t refuse.

Consequently, we are not in ordinary times — times when speech competes with speech in Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes’s “marketplace of ideas,” and when we are simply trying to arrive at the best policies within an agreed-upon constitutional framework. We are in an us-versus-them time when the radicals are out to annihilate traditional culture and constitutional principles.

There are no Marquess of Queensbury Rules for confronting such a threat, since a fair fight is not what the mob has in mind. The threat and the aggressors making it need to be exposed, debated, mocked, and otherwise discredited whenever the opportunities present themselves. Nothing else will do, for the mob is immune to peer pressure and it has no shame.

Not a bright-and-sunshine-y forecast, is it?

By the way, this 'annihilation' movement is also operative within certain religious communities. 

Buy.  More.  Ammo.

Continuing Yahoo!! Mail Server Outage

Something blew up Yahoo!!'s mail server and the story doesn't get better.

It began getting glitchy on the 23rd and by 10AM the 24th it was blown.

Yesterday, their 800 number was too busy to take calls (but be sure to send an email and we'll respond!)

Yah, that works.

Today, one can get through to the 800 number, but after 5 minutes in queue, the line goes to a busy signal and drops the call.

During the wait, Yahoo!! apologizes.  I wonder if their "monitoring for quality" includes monitoring for just cutting off phone calls.

Back to Basics: Home and Family Econ

Not only is this old wisdom, it's not even disputed by the Left.

Only Obozo and his Statists are stupid enough to try reversing gravity.

...growing up outside of a two-parent family means lower income, less social mobility, and less “human capital” — is not controversial among social scientists. It is affirmed, Barone says, by undoubted liberals such as Harvard’s David Ellwood and Christopher Jencks.

Yet this fact seems vastly underappreciated in public policy debates. For example, President Obama is now avowedly focused on addressing income inequality and lack of upward mobility. But neither he nor anyone else of his political persuasion (or even much closer to the center) seems very interested in focusing on the relationship between these phenomena and the breakdown of the American family.

The reasons for this reticence are obvious. First, Obama does not want to offend unmarried parents, an important portion of his base. Second, Obama does not want to open up a discussion about the extent to which liberal policies and attitudes have contributed to family breakdown.

Nonetheless, the numbers demonstrate the centrality of family breakdown in the lack of social mobility....

Yup.  But attacking Christians for believing in monogamy, fidelity, marriage-before-kids, and all that stuff?

First on Obozo's list.

Merry Christmas

May the Christ child bless you and all of yours today and during the New Year.

Yahoo! Mail Server Exploded

The Yahoo! mail server has been down for about 30 hours.  Hmmmm.

The Farce: Obama

One wonders how many suns shine on Obozo's planet.

Reacting to multiple press inquiries, Obozo condescended to enroll in ObozoCare.

On the very last day for enrollment.

He delegated his staffers to actually do the work of enrollment because he didn't have the time while checking in to his vacay digs in Hawaii.

 Let's quote one of his minions:

...“Like some Americans, the complicated nature of the president’s case required an in-person sign-up,” the official said. “As you’d expect, the president’s personal information is not readily available in the variety of government databases HealthCare.gov uses to verify identities.”

(Not available?  What?  His birth certificate??)

The cheap-ass community organizer didn't bother to cover Moochie and the kids, so he's only paying $400.00/month for the ultra-cheapest plan available.

If he actually pays, of course.

This is what passes for "leadership" on Obozo's planet.

Paying the Pied Piper, Obozo

Wooopsie!!

.....[Insurance i]ndustry consultant Robert Laszewski told Ornstein that one of the insurers he works with said just 15% of people have paid and activated their plan so far. Another consultant, Kip Piper, put the figure even lower.


“So far I’m hearing from health plans that around 5% and 10% of consumers who have made it through the data transfer gauntlet have paid first month’s premium and therefore truly enrolled,” said Piper, who previously served at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. “I’m hearing it’s a small portion so far. And that, of course, is a fraction of an already comparatively small number of people who have made it through setting up an account.”


As CNN notes, “enrolling” on Healthcare.gov means nothing until you actually pay. The Obama administration claims a million people have “enrolled” for Obamacare but remains silent on how many of those individuals have cut their first payment check and truly gained coverage....

Whaddya wanna bet that Obozo issues another Regal Proclamation to the effect that nobody has to pay at all for the coverage?

"Ordered" Liberty? Nope. "Libertine"

You've read about the Utah same-sex marriage case.  Some black-robed twit decided that gay "marriage" is permissible.

You haven't read the alleged 'reasoning.'

Seems that the (Federal) judge--appointed by Obozo--has declared that state-licensed marital perversion is 'deeply rooted in the nation's history and implicit in the concept of ordered liberty.'

We must have missed something in our history books.

“The alleged right to same-sex marriage that the State claims the Plaintiffs are seeking is simply the same right that is currently enjoyed by heterosexual individuals: the right to make a public commitment to form an exclusive relationship and create a family with a partner with whom the person shares an intimate and sustaining emotional bond,” wrote the judge.
“This right is deeply rooted in the nation’s history and implicit in the concept of ordered liberty
- See more at: http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-jeffrey/federal-judge-right-same-sex-marriage-deeply-rooted-nation-s-history#sthash.F7iHP7m4.dpuf

The Prissification of NRO

It all started with a Sinatra/Martin gag:

How do you make a fruit cordial?
Be nice to him.

Sinatra and Martin are barely cold in their graves, and the above is now 'puerile'--so declared by some twit at NRO who has a title.  He uses that word, 'puerile', to establish his adulthood, which was not in question until he raised the issue.  He's also straining at the gnat.

Actually, the joke is a sort of 'rough masculinity' thing, fitting many of the characters played by Sinatra in his movie years, and at home in Las Vegas and Army barracks of yesteryear.  Wouldn't surprise me if those guys purchased that joke from a gay joke-writer, either.  It is certainly not elevated discourse, but it's not a body-slam either.

It's possible that the NRO twit has never broken a fingernail, used GoJo, or had to piss in the woods.  Goody for him.  It's certain that he'll never engage in hand-to-hand combat.

"Adults" of his type just don't do that sort of thing.

HT:  Vox

DHS, the Criminal Co-Conspirator

Seems that DHS is deliberately and knowingly assisting criminal enterprises in smuggling illegals into the country.

...one wonders: why does Obama want to partner with these inhuman mass murderers? Why did he ship them thousands of lethal weapons through the Fast and Furious program? Why has he ordered his Department of Homeland Security not to arrest the cartel members who traffic in small children, but rather, to partner with those criminals to achieve the goals of their illegal conspiracies, and to assure that the cartels will be paid, even though countless U.S. laws are broken along the way? Why has Obama transformed DHS, which was supposed to be a law enforcement agency, into a collaborator with the world’s most homicidal gangs? Maybe there is an innocent explanation for Barack Obama’s conduct, but I can’t think what it might be. We may need to reassess our charitable judgment of Obama’s character....

No s*&^, Sherlock.

Paul Ryan, the New Evangelism, and Economics

It should be clear that I am no fan of Ryan's budget cave, nor the '1/2 of 1/3rd' line used by Ryan and Boehner while funding ObozoCare, continuing enormous deficits, and growing the Statist enterprise by default..

But it is true that Ryan, in his situation, has the problem of herding cats, specifically the 230+ other (R) members of the House. 

Now it appears that Ryan is going to make his Catholicism a lot more apparent in his work.  This is good.

...Ryan echoed the sentiment in a commencement speech in May, putting the message in more distinctly Republican terms. “Concern for the poor doesn’t demand faith in big government,” Ryan told the graduates of Benedictine College. “It demands something more from all of us. If we continue to believe that the war on poverty is primarily a government responsibility, then we will continue to weaken our communities. We will drift further apart as people.”

Ryan, whose father died when he was 16, envisions the kind of civil society his family leaned on in the years after his passing — local networks of churches, charities, and concerned neighbors looking out for each other, with the state playing only a supporting role. It’s a vision he finds support for in Francis’s teachings. ...

That's the "subsidiarity" pull-quote from a lengthy essay--which is worth the read (link above.)

There's no question that the radical secularist Progressive project will try to attack Ryan's efforts.  It will be interesting to see exactly how they do so.  Can they attack 'demanding more' from us, if such 'more' is charity and/or personal volunteer effort?  Can they attack subsidiarity as a principle?

Heh.

Paul Ryan, evangelist.  Whodathunk?

ObozoCare v. Travel and Entertainment

If you're forced to sign up for ObozoCare--like 5 million Americans and far more to come--you should fuggedabout either travel OR having a second home out-of-state.

Unless you're rather wealthy.

And as Belvedere indirectly highlights, this could have an impact on all those "traveling Broadway productions", and road-shows of various bands.  Not to mention solo acts.

Oh, well.  It's for the children.

HT:  Grim

Seventy-Two Percent in Syria??

Was the Gallup poll taken in Syria?

Smooth Move, Rep. Ryan & Sen. RoJo

Seems that the 'really responsible' budget deal papered together by Ryan smacked disabled combat veterans' pensions.  Not by much, to be sure; and it's "only" a rate-of-increase reduction. 

Turns out that doesn't play well where the voters live (you may remember those places, Paul and Ron).

And by the way:  what's the "rate of growth" of Congressional pensions?

A Home Run From Ace

Yah, I point to the guy's blog a lot.  But here's one that really hits it out of the park.

In a discussion of the ObozoCare advertising campaign (which YOU paid for, thankyouverymuch), Ace concludes this way:

...no man wants to think of himself as either a shouty, drunken meathead or, alternatively, as a twee goof in footie pajamas. And I don't think women want to think of themselves as so terribly shallow as to, quite literally, only care about a major health care law to the extent it buys them birth control pills so they can fornicate with "hot guys."

Feminist leftists spend half of their time insisting that women are more than their reproductive functions and, it seems, the other half insisting they are only that.

It's very strange seeing the imagery and messages that the mutants of the political left think that young people will respond to. Because when someone guesses "This will appeal to other people," their first guide is what will appeal to they themselves.

So this, then, is how Obama's minions think about themselves, first of all.

Indeed.  It's precisely that and it has a name in psychiatry, too:  projection.

There's another application, of "projection" by the way.  The gun-grabbers have railed about "wild west" shootouts and have worked VERY hard to find a 'rightist' in every recent mass shooting.  They've not been very successful.

That's because (in addition to the broken-family factor noted below), there's this:  from Oswald to present, almost every "mass shooter" or assassin has been a Lefty or a crazy.  Gerry Ford's wannabee shooter-babe?  Lefty.  The Boston bombers?  Lefty/Muslims.  The most recent Colorado shooter?  Lefty.  The Connecticut school-shooter?  Crazy.  The Arizona shooter?  Crazy.  The California parent-shooters?  Lefties.

It's also possible that Crazy = Lefty, I know.

"Nice Little Insurance Company You Have....."

Wonder no longer how Obozo "persuaded" insurers to enroll non-paying applicants.

"It's still unclear how much cooperation HHS will get from insurers, who have been asked to extend payment deadlines into January, cover people's drugs and medical treatment if they are between plans and allow people to sign up later than Dec. 23 to get insurance Jan. 1. Health industry consultant Kip Piper said HHS doesn't have the authority to enforce what he calls these "political requests." But HHS said it will consider insurers' cooperation now when it decides which ones can participate on the insurance exchanges next year.  --AOSHQ quoting USAToday

Not all that different from circuit judges (i.e., popular but not successful lawyers) ordering private business-owners to serve clientele regardless of personal religious beliefs, ya'know.  I mean, whose business IS it, anyway, since you didn't build it?

Cong. "Lonesome" King (R-Statists)

Only several hours ago, Cong. King of New York called the NSA super-spy-on-everyone program 'perfectly constitutional' or some such.  He also said that it had prevented a bunch of terror attacks here.

Not according to the White House's hand-picked panel.

NSA, led by a perjuring crapweasel, is in deep doodoo.  King, a loudmouth, is not.

Pending WI Leggie Bill Should Pass Fast

Here's a bill which should get approved and signed in January of '14:

...legislation authored by Rep. Jacque and Sen. Glenn Grothman (R-West Bend), bans abortion coverage in state employee health plans and provides an exemption from the state contraceptive insurance coverage mandate for non-profit religious organizations, religious employers and religious institutions of higher education....

That would be AB216.  I'm sure that Rep. Kleefisch and Sen. Fitzgerald will push this hard.

Right?

(I like the license plate bill, too.)

School Shoots and Daddies

More accurately, '....and no daddy around.'

Another shooting, another son of divorce. From Adam Lanza, who killed 26 children and adults a year ago at Sandy Hook School in Newtown, Conn., to Karl Pierson, who shot a teenage girl and killed himself this past Friday at Arapahoe High in Centennial, Colo., one common and largely unremarked thread tying together most of the school shooters that have struck the nation in the last year is that they came from homes marked by divorce or an absent father. From shootings at MIT (i.e., the Tsarnaev brothers) to the University of Central Florida to the Ronald E. McNair Discovery Learning Academy in Decatur, Ga., nearly every shooting over the last year in Wikipedia’s “list of U.S. school attacks” involved a young man whose parents divorced or never married in the first place.

This is not exactly "news."  Rockford Institute has reams and reams of studies on the effects of divorce on children.  None of them are good-news stories.

By the way, the results are totally different when fathers are absent due to premature death, such as soldiers in combat.  Interesting, no?

Jim Jones, John Podesta, Extremists

A MOST interesting historical perspective on the California Democrats and Jim Jones. 

All of a sudden, (D) slime-master Podesta--also a Californian--doesn't like Jim Jones, eh?

501(c)(4)? Kiss It Goodbye

No more 'targeting' conservative groups like the TEA Party.

The Regime will simply schmeiss 'em.

...to get or keep tax-exempt status, 501(c)(4) organizations must devote a majority of their work to their “primary” social-welfare purpose. Most tea party groups were set up with a primary purpose of educating Americans on pressing problems—the size of government, the erosion of the Constitution—and did so mainly via nonpartisan voter guides, speakers forums, pamphlets or voter-registration drives.

What the proposed Treasury/IRS regulation would do is to re-categorize all these efforts as “political activity”—thereby making it all but impossible for tea party groups to qualify for 501(c)(4) status. Say an outfit’s primary purpose is educating voters on our unsustainable debt, which it does mainly with a guide explaining the problem and politicians’ voting records. Under the new rule, that guide is now “political activity” (rather than “social welfare”), which likely loses the group tax-exempt status. [...]

What makes this targeting more obvious is that the Obama Treasury rule only applies to 501(c)(4) groups. The ultra-liberal League of Women Voters Education Fund is registered as a 501(c)(3)—one of those “charities” supposedly held to the strictest IRS standards on politicking. Yet it brags on its website that it holds “candidate debates and forums,” and that its “educational activities” include “understanding candidate views and ballot initiatives.”  --PW quoting Strassel

See?  Now it's "legal"!!

Only Seventy-Two Percent?

Oh, that's right.  The other 28% work for Gummint.

Seventy-two percent of Americans say big government is a greater threat to the U.S. in the future than is big business or big labor, a record high in the nearly 50-year history of this question. The prior high for big government was 65% in 1999 and 2000. Big government has always topped big business and big labor, including in the initial asking in 1965, but just 35% named it at that time. 

The latest update comes from a Dec. 5-8 poll. Gallup has documented a steady increase in concern about big government since 2009, rising from 55% in March 2009 to 64% in November 2011 and 72% today....

Couldn't possibly have anything to do with BabaWawa's messiah, could it?

Entangled Alliance With Big Biz

Stuff in this column which is very revealing, indeed.  More important, it is a warning to Republican members of Congress:  one can have entangling alliances with domestic enemies, not just foreign ones.  And one does so at one's own peril.

...In The Diversity Machine, sociologist Fred Lynch details how corporations teamed up with progressives to fight the Reagan Justice Department’s attempt to end group preferences based on race, ethnicity, and gender. Attorney General Edwin Meese met strong resistance from the business community....

....an effort which will be furthered by Obozo, of course.

Another:

...Speaking to Atlantic reporter Chrystia Freeland in 2011, a U.S.-based CEO of one of the world’s largest hedge funds described an internal debate at his company. One of his senior colleagues had suggested that the “hollowing out of the American middle class didn’t really matter,” the CEO told Freeland, adding: “His point was that if the transformation of the world economy lifts four people in China and India out of poverty and into the middle class, and [that] meanwhile means one American drops out of the middle class, that’s not such a bad trade.”. . . .

Nice. And more:

....from a top Colgate-Palmolive executive, who in 1989 said, “There is no mindset [at Colgate] that puts this country [the United States] first.”...

I don't need any of your s*&t products, either.

Tax Tweaks? How About Spending Cuts, Gov Walker?

Interesting little note here:

Gov. Scott Walker indicated Tuesday he could be open to raising the sales tax or repealing some sales tax exemptions to pay for cuts to income or property taxes.

But he cautioned in an interview with WisPolitics.com that he's not proposing either step with the sales tax yet as part of his administration's discussions on tax reform. He also there would "absolutely have to be a correlation" between any sales tax hike and a cut in income or property taxes and he's been suspect of past proposals that advocate raising one tax to cut another.

*Cough*

Gov. Thompson doubled State employees during his regime.  Diamond Jim Doyle increased the State payroll, too.

Does Gov. Walker mean to tell us that there are no SPENDING cuts available to him?

Or was this interview structured to ignore that possibility?

No Kidding, Angela!!

Angela Merkel gets it.  Too bad Rep. "Lightbulb" Rogers doesn't.

In an angry exchange with Barack Obama, Angela Merkel has compared the snooping practices of the US with those of the Stasi, the ubiquitous and all-powerful secret police of the communist dictatorship in East Germany, where she grew up.

The German chancellor also told the US president that America's National Security Agency cannot be trusted because of the volume of material it had allowed to leak to the whistleblower Edward Snowden, according to the New York Times.

"Lightbulb" Rogers (another Statist Republican) is chair of House Intel.  He's famous for killing off incandescent bulbs here in the USA, and infamous for defending the NSA's activity (cough) both domestic and international.

"Lightbulb" doesn't like Merkel's complaint.

Dolan v. Obozo, Round One: Reverse & Pin, 4 Points

Cdl Dolan and the 1st Amendment win a big one

Yesterday, a district court judge struck down the Obamacare contraception mandate as applied to the Catholic Archdiocese of New York and its constituent organizations as a violation of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

Lotsa detail follows from Gabe b/c he does excellent work that the MSM will not do.

First off, this is a PERMANENT INJUNCTION.

--This case is important...because it recognizes that even the act of having to claim the exemption is an unacceptable burden on religion....

-- ....The judge found that, despite the administration's contortions to suggest the Archdiocese might not even be covered, the contraception mandate scheme was sufficiently burdensome to proceed to a decision.  (There's also a brutal slap-down of the US Attorney in that section--by the judge!  Worth reading.)

--...in this case, the administration was not able to claim that the contraception mandate serves a compelling purpose because it has been falling all over itself (largely for political reasons) to offer exceptions to the law.

--...the administration realized near the end of the litigation that the third parties designated by the Archdiocese to provide coverage may not actually be required to provide contraception. The district court rightly noticed that if that argument is true, the mandate obviously serves no purpose.

And here the judge slaps the shit out of Obozo's vainglorious un-Constitutional assholery:

...The Government first argues that the alternatives above are infeasible because the defendants lack statutory authority to enact some of them. This argument makes no sense; in any challenge to the constitutionality of a federal law, the question is whether the federal government could adopt a less restrictive means, not any particular branch within it. It would set a dangerous precedent to hold that if the Executive Branch cannot act unilaterally, then there is no alternative solution. If defendants lack the required statutory authority, Congress may pass appropriate legislation....

SCOTUS, here we come.

In this instance, I will cheerlead for Cdl. Tim!!

Maunder II?

Hmmmm.

So.  Shall we return to spraying Freon willy-nilly into the atmosphere?

How about a few hundred more Eastern-coal generators??

Say What, RoJo?

In RoJo's 'cave note' on the Ryan proposal, we find the following:

"This is a limited agreement that prevents government shutdowns through fiscal year 2015 that would hurt economic growth and new job creation.  --quoted at Sykes

So "government shutdowns" hurt economic growth and new job creation"?

That's news.  Maybe RoJo can point to statistics that prove his point.  More likely he can't.

RoJo Lost His Mojo

It appears that Sen. Ron Johnson--who recently gave a limited endorsement to ObozoCare--has decided that the Ryan budget deal is acceptable.

Curious, indeed.

IIRC, RoJo was elected as a fiscal conservative who would do anything possible to repeal ObozoCare.

Well, that's inoperative.

Definition of the Ruling Class

Just a couple of sentences out of a larger story:

...The DHS inspector general has been probing a slimy visas-for-sale scheme tied to the Obama bundler for the past 15 months. (One reason for the delay: the IG’s office itself is under investigation for unethical behavior and favoritism.)...

Just one slimebucket after another in endless succession, kinda like the Bar Scene in Star Wars.

This, folks, is 'the Ruling Class' you pay for and labor under.  Or--if you like--this is the Ruling Class' posse.

Happy?

G K Chesterton's Foretelling of Our Situation

I was reminded of these two characters by Protein Wisdom's remark:

...we don’t have a representative two party system any longer, but rather only the mirage of one....

Enter Hudge and Gudge.

...Chesterton introduced these two in his 1910 book, What’s Wrong with the World. Both Hudge and Gudge were gentlemen of the governing class. Gudge was described as a plutocrat, a Tory, an individualist, and perhaps a slumlord. Hudge was described as a socialist, an idealist, a progressive, and perhaps a vegetarian....

Think "Rovians" and "Any Democrat Pol."

And as the precis reminds us, there is us!

...The key to Chesterton’s politics is that he refused to take part in the debate between Hudge and Gudge, but rather judged them both by the test of Jones. What, he asked had Gudge, the industrial-capitalist, done to strengthen the family of Jones? What had Hudge, the socialist-idealist, done to strengthen the family of Jones?...

Good questions, and in the current instance we know the answers.

Turns out that GKC had the very same answers.  That's why he wrote this:

...Keep the politicians near enough to kick them. The villagers who met under the village tree could also hang their politicians to the tree. It’s terrible to contemplate how few politicians are hanged today."

Prophet he was!!

Encouraging! Kapenga Likes Article V

Mentioned on the 'net:

...Saturday’s meeting was organized by Senator David Long of Indiana, and Representative Chris Kapenga of Wisconsin helped distribute information about establishing rules for such a convention....

Thanks, Rep. Kapenga!!  Keep going.

HT:  Belvedere 

"We Encourage Your Assistance. Have You Met the IRS?"

The IRS may have a lot of insurance-company audits coming soon.

The December 23rd enrollment deadline? Time to move that to next month. The deadline to pay your first month of premiums? Let’s go ahead and move that back too. Emergency treatment needed from an out-of-network provider? It’d be swell if that was covered the same way in-network treatments are. And what if your coverage is temporarily screwed up in January when you desperately need your prescriptions refilled? HHS “strongly encourages” insurers to pick up the slack.

IOW, the Trainwreck is so bad that the Obozoites are "encouraging" insurers to fuggedabout non-payment of premiums, horribly late filings, and all those silly details.

And--as others have found out--saying "no" is not good for business, except that of the IRS.

Obozo Egging On the Revolution

Seems like NancyBoy Obozo doesn't like troublemakers.

He makes certain that the IRS takes care of them.  And their friends.

The best way to get a revolution is to ask for it.

Boehner Yaps About "Credibility"?

Should we talk about the "72 hour rule," Tanned One?

Sykes Is Right, but Wrong

Charlie observes that due to Ryan's Compromise, the budget is off the table in '14, leaving The Trainwreck front and center.  That's probably a good thing.

But by 2015, Gummint debt will be ~130% of GDP.  Does Sykes think his children and grandchildren will be magically protected from paying that off?  Does Sykes think that future Congresses, IF (R)-held, will actually pay down the debt?  Does Charlie think that there will be a recovery from the Obozo/Bush Recession?  (Hint:  auto sales are tanking; it's reported that new-car inventory is now 96 days (more for Ford ex-pickups.)

Talk about Unicorn Sparkles.....

By the way, Charlie, let's not forget that 'losing the Senate' required loser candidates.  Shall we talk about the Establishment pick in Wisconsin?

BMO Harris Bradley Center: Pathetic Budgeting

This entire story is a story of pathetic--actually, apathetic--budgeting.

1)  Get free building.
2)  Don't establish a maintenance/reserve account worth spit.
3)  Cry a river to the newspaper
4)  Get a NEW free building by skinning the taxpayer.

Question:  how does Milwaukee's City Hall remain standing after ~100 years while the Bradley Center is apparently falling down after only 25 years?

"Enrollments Are Up!" So What?

The line from the ObozoCare shills is taken directly from Deception 101 (sorta like the Ryan line below).

It ain't "enrollments," folks.  It's non-Medicaid AND "paid premium" that counts.

The budget deal would spend $63 billion more over the next two years-but take 10 years to make up for this splurge. This is a common Washington gimmick. To the conferees' credit, the deal suggests one-third in additional deficit reduction-the details of which remain to be evaluated.
The budget conferees failed to make substantive reforms to the real drivers of spending and debt: the entitlement programs. Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) forged a deal that would increase spending immediately, while delaying deficit reduction till later and trading spending cuts for more revenue.
- See more at: http://www.cnsnews.com/commentary/romina-boccia/3-things-you-need-know-about-congressional-budget-deal#sthash.iNRN7bMA.dpuf

Ryan's Lyin' Excuse

It all has to do with manipulating the numbers.  So if you think "manipulating the numbers" is lying, then Ryan is a lying mick.

...Here's how they can spend more in the next year and then claim their compromise actually saves more money over ten years:

They spend more in the years they care about, 2014 and 2015. For these years, they increase spending by a total of $63 billion.

But currently, the sequester-capped spending levels would expire in 2021 (it was set to run from 2011 to 2021). So what Ryan says is "Now we'll also impose sequester-caps on the out years of 2022 and 2023, so that's two more years under the sequester, so we actually wind up cutting more spending!"

...and of course, if you believe that Congress will live with the 10-year-out "savings," you also believe that ObozoCare will enhance medical care for everyone in the entire galaxy, that unicorns fart gold coins, and that New York City is just like Omaha.

Big Gummint Gets Bigger!! The Cave, Explained

What a deal! 

First and most important, this is another CR.  That is, there will be no debate or discussion of each section of the budget; it's a lump:  take it all or leave it all.  (And you will take it all, right up your excremental orifice).  IOW, Ryan gave up the biggest weapon House Republicans have:  the ability to control specific spending requests--such as for ObozoCare (noted below.)

In addition:

...Under this agreement Congress would reinstate more than half the sequester for the next two years.  Budget caps would be set at $1.012 trillion in 2014 and $1.014 trillion in 2015; current law is $967 billion & $995 billion respectively.  It’s interesting how establishment Republicans argue that we can’t use the budget process to repeal Obamacare, but we evidently can use it to repeal the sequester....

...The most important outcome of this bill is the long-term effect on fighting Obamacare.  Rather than work out a one-year deal, Ryan essentially killed our leverage for the next two years.  So even if Obamacare becomes more catastrophic and the public rises up against it, we will not have any leverage to fight it in the budget process for next year.

RoJo signaled the cave on ObozoCare with a somewhat incoherent statement to the effect that the Republicans could 'live with' the  State exchanges.  He told National Review that his approach involves acknowledging the reality of the new structures established under Obamacare and offering a positive alternative. He said his plan might be summarized as “repeal, dismantle and transition to something better.”

Huh?  One wonders what threat McConnell used to force RoJo into saying that.

Summary:  no guts, no glory.  Thanks, Paul.

Interesting: Will Harry Reid Shut Down Gummint?

Kevin raises an interesting question:  will Reid shut it down again?

We've seen that the Stupid Party is willing and able to cave. 

Harry has history on his side.

Paul Ryan: Big Spender!!

Wunnerful to know that Ryan's working hard for the children and grandchildren by putting them further into debt.

And we'll hear the Ryan Whine:  "...only 1/2 of 1/3 of the Gummint...." 

Yah, Paul:  the BUDGET half.  We know that part already.  Why don't you?

Surprise in Connecticut

A few interesting statistics.

As of mid-November, the state had received about 4,100 applications for assault weapon certificates and about 2,900 declarations of large-capacity magazines.

Michael Lawlor, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s criminal justice advisor, said that so far fewer people than expected have registered weapons under the new law....quoting Reason

...State officials could have taken a moment to glance across the state line to New York City, where a few tens of thousands of firearms are owned legally, and an estimated two million are held illegally, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

Imagine that!!

Well, then, how "compliant" have the sheeple ever been?

...The high water mark of American compliance with gun control laws may have come with Illinois’s handgun registration law in the 1970s. About 25 percent of handgun owners actually complied,

They have an excuse:  they're F.I.B.'s

But certainly in New Jersey, where people are........Easterners??

...In New Jersey, reported The New York Times in 1991, after the legislature passed a law banning “assault weapons,” 947 people registered their rifles as sporting guns for target shooting, 888 rendered them inoperable, and four surrendered them to the police. That’s out of an estimated 100,000 to 300,000 firearms affected by the law....

If I were an LEO, I'd be very damn careful of whom I aggressed upon.

Real World Economics

So you want more money?

...Atlantic Express Transportation Corp. and its unionized drivers were unable to reach a new contract agreement on Wednesday, and as a result, the more than 40-year-old bus operator on Staten Island said it will be shut down.

The Port Richmond-based Atlantic Express Transportation Corp. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Nov. 5. The company, which has operations in New York, as well as various other states, sent letters to its 5,500 employees last month stating that there will be a “complete shutdown of its operations,” come Dec 31...--SILive.com quoted at RedState.

Transit workers' union won that one, eh?

Sounds Good to Me

Found at AmThinker:

As my friend DoT notes: "Once the employer mandate kicks in they'll be hunting Democrats with dogs in this country."

I'll put on the chili and coffee.

BATF: Redefining "Rogue" Cops

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, to its credit, has done more investigating of this fine Federal Agency.

Looking for Obozo's Sturmtruppen?  You found 'em.

Like Your Doc? Keep Him--at a Cost

ObozoCare continues to look like Soviet-ization (surprise!!)

Here, a rather snotty Emanuel--the ballerina's brother--doesn't give a yes/no answer.

And.$4Bn For My Little Friends...

Well, well.

We all knew that the criminally corrupt ACORN "disbanded" and was replaced by strikingly-similar outfits.

They need money to shake down the banks again.  And JPMorgan will be giving it to them!!

...On Page 5 of “Annex 2″ of the recently released consent order, you’ll find this little gem: The Justice Department mandates that JPMorgan fork over any unclaimed or unpaid consumer damages to a nonprofit group that finances Acorn clones and other shakedown groups.

They stand to reap millions. The “consumer relief” portion of the deal by itself totals $4 billion.
If the government “determines that a shortfall in that obligation remains as of Dec. 31, 2017,” the agreement states, “JPMorgan shall make a compensatory payment in cash in an amount equal to the shortfall to NeighborWorks America to provide housing counseling, neighborhood stabilization, foreclosure prevention or similar programs.”--WND quoted at HotAir

No matter that the taxpayers will be eating the original crap sandwich here.  Let them eat more of the same; Obozo/Holder will see to that.

Humor Break

Well, not exactly "humor."  But it's presented with a jolly old elf, hey!

See? 

HT:  PowerLine

Want "Income Equality"? EARN It!

Interesting data from the Census Bureau here.

...one of the main factors in explaining differences in income among U.S. households is the number of earners per household. Also, the unadjusted ratio of average income for the highest to lowest quintile of 15.8 times ($181,905 to $11.490), falls to a ratio of only 3.5 times when comparing “income per earner” of the two quintiles: $89,169 for the top fifth to $25,533 for the bottom fifth....

IOW, the prattle of Obozo is almost meaningless.

As usual.

The Sad Case: Milwaukee Archdiocesan Schools

Although it's been 50 years since the Milwaukee Archdiocesan schools have been rigorously Catholic, they have managed to be relatively superior in (secular) education.

Based on the decision of some bureaucrat, however, that's about to change, too.

Sad that the Archbishop not only backs up this apparatchik, but then determines that name-calling the opponents is in order.

Does Sensenbrenner MEAN It?

Jim Sensenbrenner has called for a criminal prosecution of James Clapper, Liar-in-Command of NSA.

Of course, Sensenbrenner knows that Obozo/Holder will do no such thing.

Let's see if Sensenbrenner actually means what he said.  Should a Republican take the White House in '16, let's hear Sensenbrenner call--loudly, again--for prosecuting Clapper when he's dismissed.

Then we'll know that it's not merely the Hot Air Machine blowing into our ears.

Left-ish Turley Warns Congress

Prof. Turley is not now, nor ever has been, a Conservative.

So when he says:

....Obama has “become the very danger the Constitution was designed to avoid.”...

...following by only one day the remark that the Obozo Regime may well trigger a revolution....

It's time to

BUY.  MORE.  AMMO.

Mencken the Prophet

HT to Vanderboegh

“As democracy is perfected, the office of the President represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be occupied by a downright fool and complete narcissistic moron.” — H.L. Mencken, The Baltimore Evening Sun, 26 July 1920.

How to Keep Some Cash During ObozoCare

So.  You've signed up for ObozoCare.  You'll pay more in premiums, and pay a LOT more in co-pays and deductibles.

Congratulations!!  You'll know the suffering of the lower class by the end of 2014!

Then it will get worse!!

...Blumenauer’s bill, H.R. 3638, would set up a Road Usage Fee Pilot Program, which he said would study mileage-based fee systems. He cast his bill as a long-term solution for funding highway programs, and proposed it along with a shorter-term plan to nearly double the gas tax, from 18.4 cents to 33.4 cents per gallon....

(For you low-info folks, Blumenauer is a Democrat.)

Here's your solution:  go to work for the RoadBuilders, who will back Blumenauer's bill with all their might and main.  Keep your regular job, too; that way you might be able to afford ObozoCare AND a car!!

The Cops Murdered Her. Who Cares?

Y'all recall the incident.  A black mom was shot to death by DC cops after "ramming a gate" near the White House.

Yes, they shot her to death.  But the rest of the story......not true.

“She didn’t ram the gate. She didn’t run anybody over. The affidavit doesn’t say she ran anyone over. It doesn’t say she tried to ram a gate....."

Yah.  But she got in the way of the Ruling Class' heavily-armed praetorian guard.

Too bad for her, and for her 2-year-old daughter who watched her die.

Some Animals Are More Equal, You See

Harry Reid.

(That says it all.)

IRS: Lying Liars

When you come right down to it, why should anyone believe anything mouthed by this Administration?

...Acting IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel said, “The IRS has a strong, effective system in place for administering the Premium Tax Credit. We have a proven track record of safely and securely transmitting federal tax information...."--quoted at HumanEvents (AP source)

This particular liar was referring to the non-existent ObozoCare security and tax-credit system.

But that liar wants us to believe that IRS hasn't already dispensed BILLIONS in fraudulent refunds and credits.

Uh-huh.

That particular liar wants us to forget the millions of fake SocSec numbers ginned up by an Illinois employer.

And that particular liar wants us to forget about another pernicious and contumacious liar, Lois (I'll take the 5th, please) Lerner.

F*&^ these people.

I'm No "Cheerleader", Cardinal Tim

Perhaps Cdl. Tim Dolan would like to be a cheerleader for the Communist-in-Chief's plots, usurpations, and redistributionist economic schemes.

That's up to him.  But he can speak for himself, thankyouverymuch.

Let's put it this way:  when the Cardinal can cite a Catholic doctrine or dogma which mandates Government to take property from citizens for the benefit of others, I'll fall into line.  But he'll have a problem:  there IS no such doctrine or dogma.

The Cardinal, like a lot of other left-inclined folk, confuses the Christian (Catholic, really) mandate of personal charity with Gummint "good works."   It's his privilege to be confused.  But it's not his privilege (nor munus) to make Catholics into "cheerleaders" for what is, essentially, a Socialist (or Communist) protocol.

No thanks, Your Eminence. 

Yup: Follow the Money

Told ya' so!!

...To reduce this risk, the administration said it could provide financial assistance to certain insurers through a program under which the government will share in their losses and profits for the next three years.

Any such assistance would come on top of federal subsidies that the government plans to pay insurers to make coverage more affordable for low- and middle-income people under the new law. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that those subsidy payments will exceed $1 trillion over the next 10 years.--NYTimes

The "risk" is the losses expected now that Obozo did his 180 on cancelling existing plans.

Back on 11/16 (see first link) I told you that Obozo offered a payoff to the insurers.  That was an easy call for Obozo:  it's not his money, of course.

It's your grandchildren's.

 

Obozo, the Compulsive Liar

In the end, he'll be remembered not for 'unifying the country,' but for being a compulsive liar.

...Meanwhile, Obama puts a happy face on ObamaCare by claiming it is already slowing health spending. "Thanks in part to the Affordable Care Act, health care costs are growing at the slowest rate in 50 years," he said recently. "Employer-based health care costs are growing at about one-third the rate of a decade ago."
This, too, is false. Yes, the rate of growth in national health spending has slowed in recent years. It was just 3.9% in 2009, 2010 and 2011. And employer premium growth had been on the downtrend.

But these have nothing to do with ObamaCare. The latest report from the chief actuary of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services — the official scorekeeper of health spending — says the spending growth slowdown is "unrelated to the (Affordable Care Act)."

And indeed, it gets even worse:

It also reports that ObamaCare will add to national spending over the next decade. Other reports have pinned much of the slowdown on the recession and Obama's lousy recovery that followed it. Plus, ObamaCare is now pushing premiums up.

And the website started today by being down for 11 hours.

A Different Take on Francis' Exhortation

Fifth Column has a much different and quite persuasive take on Francis' 'capitalism' essay.

...It is not the inequality of wealth that concerns him, it is the inequality of dignity.

The Fathers and Doctors of the Church all agreed that physical poverty wasn't the biggest problem, rather, it was spiritual poverty, the poverty of not knowing the Gospel. Insofar as someone doesn't know the Gospel, they don't know their own worth or their own dignity. They don't know how deeply central they are in the eyes of God.

So, when Francis speaks of the lack of employment being the biggest problem, he isn't thinking that a job at McDonald's for every teenager is the solution. Rather, he sees the solution as being a society which recognizes the dignity of the McDonald's worker to be equal to the dignity of the CEO. When the dignity of work is recognized, then inequality will have been conquered. This is not just recognized by paycheck, but by giving honor to everyone employed in work, especially vocational work.


He also comments on the "Islam" section, making it clear that Francis was not rolling over for the Muslims at all.

Pure Ugly "Recovery"

The Recession remains present.

Text explanation for Statist/Lefty/Democrats at this link.

ObozoCare's Next SNAFU!!

You knew there'd be another one, right? 

Parts of the Obamacare enrollment system used to pay insurers are being pushed back from January in the latest technology delay for the president’s U.S. health-care overhaul. 

The administration is setting up a temporary process to send companies the federal subsidies used to help millions of Americans buy coverage because the online system won’t be ready as planned...

Huh?

...The government’s original plans called for the federal system to automatically determine consumer subsidies and issue payments to insurers. Instead, the companies will submit estimates that will be “trued up” by the government at a later date, according to a CMS memo provided to Bloomberg News. The work-around for insurers will be in place until the automatic payment system is ready, though CMS has no specific date for the fix, Albright said. 

The estimated billings are expected to be close to the actual payments to insurers...

So now the insurance companies have Obozo telling them that 'the check is in the mail' like he told everyone else that 'you can keep your plan.'

Right!

Sequester Need Here!!

Too bad that the Republicans are going to go supine on budget matters (again) because I think the FTC needs a 10% budget haircut.

...Every month, it seems, brings a new story of this presidency leveling the intimidating powers of the federal government against some law-abiding citizen. Now comes a terrifying tale of how the Federal Trade Commission, a governmental Goliath, crushes an average David—because it can.

The victim-du-jour?  A toothless 501(c)(3) trade association for piano teachers.  Yup.  You read it right. Bet you never thought those piano teachers were really a bunch of colluding price-fixing thugs, eh?

They're not.  But it cost them, anyway.

"Science"

As if Hockey-Stick Warming wasn't enough, now we have another fraud.

“A now-retracted British study that linked autism to childhood vaccines was an “elaborate fraud” that has done long-lasting damage to public health, a leading medical publication reported Wednesday.

“An investigation published by the British medical journal BMJ concludes the study’s author, Dr. Andrew Wakefield, misrepresented or altered the medical histories of all 12 of the patients whose cases formed the basis of the 1998 study — and that there was “no doubt” Wakefield was responsible.--Milloy quoting CNN

Climate change fraud costs trillions of taxpayer dollars.  Vaccination fraud?  That costs lives.

But I think the death penalty is appropriate for both crimes.

Pope Francis' Troops

There's been a bit of pushback after Pope Francis' remarks on capitalism.

But he's not exactly the Lone Ranger.  The TEA Party, for example, is not all that hot on typical American "capitalism", either.

Powerful business interests want to turn the tide against Tea Party-like upstarts within the Republican Party and return the GOP back to its traditional roots: 

Doling out special favors to powerful business interests....

...This is surely a dystopian future these radical fiscal conservatives paint, one in which lucrative transportation bills for which we have no money receive additional scrutiny. One in which private businesses have to finance their own imports and exports at market rates without the benefit of your money. One in which Congress refuses to surrender United States sovereignty to unnamed foreign courts.  And one in which businesses are denied immediate access to abundant sources of dirt-cheap labor....

Rush is not always right, ya'know.

Then there's Pethokoukis:

 “Conservatives — whether churchgoers or not — are not utopians,” writes AEI’s Jim Pethokoukis. “They understand market economies will never turn the world temporal into Paradise (while at the same time realizing that command-and-control economies have frequently produced a kind of hell on earth). Conservatives value the ‘safety net’ to help those whom the pope calls the ‘excluded.’ But conservatives also want to reform the safety net so more resources are devoted to raising the living standards of the truly needy rather than subsidizing the rich, moving the jobless toward work and self sufficiency, and increasing social mobility and equality of opportunity.”

So yes, there is always room for thinking about capitalism's dark side.  It would be nice if some folks actually thought, rather than simply opened their traps on national radio.

It Is NOT True....

...that these are the Packers' cheerleaders.

You may speculate as to what their positions on the team actually are, however.

HT:  AOSHQ

Is Capers' Time Up?

Perhaps Mr. Capers' schemes are a bit shopworn, eh?

Turkeys Ain't That Dumb

HT:  Zippers

Here's a Hint for Tom Barrett

Since Tom Barrett's city seems to have crime problems AND a cash-drain caused by union hacks writing "disability" rules, "disability" policies, and health-insurance coverage mandates, here's a heartwarming story which may provide Tom with a clue.

Last year, the city of Camden decided to can its unionized police force in favor  of ununionized county cops who hit the streets this April. The decision came about because the police union would not budge on the highly lucrative contract they had, even by police standards.

... The reorganization increased the amount of police on the streets and incorporated cutting edge technology such as ShotSpotter rooftop monitors. The initiative has already gotten results, according to city leaders.

Over the summer months this year, the murder rate fell by 22 percent and crime overall was down 15 percent, according to data provided by Camden County officials.  --quoting Fox News

Of course, there's always the Detroit Option, right?.

Fed Bozo-Think to Crucify Depositors

Currently, the Fed pays banks 1/4 of 1% interest on money deposited with the Fed.  Those moneys are called "excess reserves."

That's money that the Fed has printed up and jammed into the banks under the disguise of "Quantitative Easing", or "QE."

The Fed, now completely lost in its own jungle of QE 1-XX,XXX and "securitized" bundles of crap mortgages, and still unable to "create demand" for loans, plans to reduce the interest paid to banks. 

(Note the Fallacy of Fed-Think:  Bernanke seems to 'think' that creating money from thin air will also create demand for that money.  He's an academic; what did you expect?)

The banks, who like their free lunch, are threatening to "fix" the Fed by charging fees for money on deposit with them.  IOW, they'll snatch $1.00 for every $1,000.00 you have deposited.

Fit to Serve? Really??

Something that the MSM didn't report.

One of only two political appointees at the IRS, a generous Democrat donor, at the IRS is relying on purported memory failure to evade testifying on embarrassing and potentially incriminating activities related to the targeting of Tea Party groups.

... IRS chief counsel William Wilkins. Wilkins is one of just two political appointees at the IRS, a generous donor to Democratic candidates and causes, and once represented Jeremiah Wright's Trinity United Church of Christ....

..."In your testimony, you stated 'I don't recall' a staggering 80 times in full or partial response to the Committee's questions," committee chairman Darrell Issa and Ohio representative Jim Jordan wrote....

 Think a guy with full-blown Alzheimer's problems should be Chief Counsel at IRS?

Or is he just another DemoSlime lawyer?

Scary Headline

Bloomberg runs this headline today:

Former Fed Chief Greenspan Sees No Bubble in Dow 16,000

Given his track record, it's time to sell, sell, sell.

Some (Unions) Are More Equal Than You

pResident Girlypants was frightened by the AFL-CIO's President.  He ought to be; Trumka is pretty good at offing people who get in his way.

So.

...Union-managed multi-employer health insurance plans are getting a special exemption from an Affordable Care Act — also known as Obamacare — tax. To make up for the lost revenue, taxes are going up on other plans....

That will cost everyone else another $2.00/year/plan.

Eat s*&^ and die if you don't like that.

Red China Stirrings, Girly-Man Obozo the Cause

People who pay attention are aware that Red China has been flexing its muscles recently.  They've declared that some geographically critical areas in the South China Sea are "theirs."  Internally, the Reds have allowed anti-Japanese sentiment to boil over in a few cases, too.  By no co-incidence, the countries affected by these moves are US allies.

But that isn't the end of PRChina's cat-steps aggression.

....while the Fed was gaining much attention by saying nothing, the Chinese made a blockbuster statement that was summarily ignored. Last week, a deputy governor of the People's Bank of China said that buying foreign exchange reserves was now no longer in China's national interest. The implication that China may no longer be accumulating U.S. government debt would amount to the "mother of all tapers" and could create a clear and present danger to the American economy....

So writes Peter Schiff, who pays attention to such things.  Why is this significant?

...Over the past decade or so, the People's Bank of China has been one of the largest buyers of U.S. Treasuries (after various U.S. government entities that are essentially nationalizing U.S. debt). China currently sits on $1 trillion or more in U.S. bond obligations.

So, just as many expect that the #1 buyer of Treasuries (the Fed) will soon begin paring back its purchases, the top foreign holder may cease buying, thereby opening a second front in the taper campaign. This should cause any level-headed observer to conclude that the market for such bonds will fall dramatically, causing severe upward pressure on interest rates....

It's not hard to figure out why the ChiComs are pulling the tail of the US.  We have a girly-man President who has appointed a girly-man as SecState, and who has systematically removed Real Men from command positions in the Armed Forces.  Obozo has worked to demolish both the US economy and our alliances overseas (see Israel, Britain, Germany, and Japan.)

The next couple of years will be very rough, indeed.

Managing Election Results

OK.  You can have your Voter ID.  The Dictatorship will simply change some mandates.

The Obama administration plans to push back by a month the second-year start of enrollment in its health program to give insurers more time to adjust to growing pains in the U.S. law, a move that may stave off higher premiums before the 2014 congressional elections. 

The enrollment period, previously scheduled to begin Oct. 15, 2014, will now start Nov. 15...

Not to worry.  Paul Ryan will continue to fund all this stuff.

Tammy's Fine Progressive Vote

Yup.  As a good little girl/Progressive, Tammy voted to stifle debates.

Validates the appellation "Madistan."

Get Ready to Weep, Travesty Ahead!!

This is a really awful situation.

In a shock to the system, the older staff in my office (folks over 59) have now found out their personal health insurance costs (even with the government contribution) have gone up 3-4 times what they were paying before,” Minh Ta, chief of staff to Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wis.), wrote to fellow Democratic chiefs of staff in an email message obtained by POLITICO. “Simply unacceptable.” 

In the email, Ta noted that older congressional staffs may leave their jobs because of the change to their health insurance.--quoted at AOSHQ

Life'a bitch.

And then you die.

Blue States Reject Obozo

Well, well.  Seems as though the true-blue Collectivist States think ObozoCare is just fine as written.

New York joins Washington, Rhode Island, Vermont, Massachusetts, Minnesota and Indiana in rejecting the President’s proposal.  Zippers quoting CNN

That's OK!  States are supposed to be 'laboratories.'  Some will, some won't.  If nothing else, it can be said that those States understand the Constitution as written.

The Milwaukee Archdiocesan Math "Core"

We know that the Archdiocese of Milwaukee has signed on to this .....thing.

Why?

...While Common Core promoters assert their standards are “internationally benchmarked,” independent members of the expert panel in charge of validating the standards refute the claim. Panel member Dr. Sandra Stotsky of the University of Arkansas reported, “No material was ever provided to the Validation Committee or to the public on the specific college readiness expectations of other leading nations in mathematics” or other subjects. 

In fact, Stanford University professor James Milgram, the only mathematician on the validation panel, concluded that the Common Core math scheme would place American students two years behind their peers in other high-achieving countries. In protest, Milgram refused to sign off on the standards. He’s not alone.
Professor Jonathan Goodman of New York University found that the Common Core math standards imposed “significantly lower expectations with respect to algebra and geometry than the published standards of other countries.”

Under Common Core, as the American Principles Project and Pioneer Institute point out, algebra I instruction is pushed to 9th grade, instead of 8th grade, as commonly taught. Division is postponed from 5th to 6th grade. Prime factorization, common denominators, conversions of fractions and decimals, and algebraic manipulation are de-emphasized or eschewed. Traditional Euclidean geometry is replaced with an experimental approach that had not been previously pilot-tested in the U.S.

Ze’ev Wurman, a prominent software architect, electrical engineer and longtime math advisory expert in California and Washington, D.C., points out that Common Core delays proficiency with addition and subtraction until 4th grade and proficiency with basic multiplication until 5th grade, and skimps on logarithms, mathematical induction, parametric equations and trigonometry at the high school level.  --AOSHQ quoting Malkin

Perhaps the Archdiocesan Education-types would like to return to the 'Catholic ghetto' days?

Paul Ryan: ObozoCare Here to Stay

Think that the Pubbies want to repeal ObozoCare?

Think again.

...To avoid another shutdown, Ryan said either he and Senate Budget Chairwoman Patty Murray (D-Wash.) would strike a budget deal or Congress would pass a stopgap keeping existing spending levels.

 

“Either of those two scenarios will prevail and we will not have a government shutdown,” he said at the Wall Street Journal annual CEO Council. “We will keep the government funding at the current level if need be.”

 

Ryan said that he does not believe there will be any brinkmanship over the debt ceiling in February either.  He said Republicans now understand that a shutdown won’t stop ObamaCare because it is a mandatory program, not a discretionary agency budget line item. ...

The cave-in by Party Bigwigs was signalled by Tommy Thompson (a failed RINO) who has staked out the Left-most end of the (R) brand with his "it can be fixed" prattle.  Ryan is saying what Boehner and Cantor want him to say, of course.

You'll like ObozoCare.

Or you'll lump it.

"Common Core" v. Catholic Scholarship in Milwaukee

It's curious, indeed, that the Milwaukee Archdiocese has adopted "Common Core" yappaflappa, and is perfectly happy with stifling opposition speech.

Even more curious when you consider this from a Colorado charter school:

...WHEREAS, Ridgeview Classical Schools have successfully pursued and proven the value of rigorous academic standards in a program that combines academic and character education, as well as an appreciation of the Good, the True, and the Beautiful that is possible only through a classical, liberal arts curriculum that treats the individual student as an end in himself and as the inheritor and future steward of a rich legacy dominated by the ideas and values of our Western heritage;

WHEREAS, the Common Core State Standards, while potentially exceeding previous state standards in certain respects, do not accurately assess the rich curriculum that has been conveyed to Ridgeview’s students, nor does it value any of the intangibles that make up much of a liberal arts curriculum;...

Hmmmm. 

Are the Archdiocesan schools tossing 'the true, good, and beautiful' elements down the crapper?  Or are their students going to "fail" PARCC?

Just curious, ya'know.

PRC or USA?

Who cares about what Sanford Bernstein thinks?

...“If credit allocation in China improves, the ultimate credit cycle and economy downturn will be mitigated,” Werner wrote in an Oct. 21 note to investors. “However, if China continues to rely on debt to fund its economic growth, the country’s ultimate credit cycle will be more severe.”...--AOSHQ quoting Bloomberg

Of course, 'continuing to rely on debt to fund economic growth' is only a problem in PRChina, right?

Noplace else, like (say) the US of A. 

Nope.

Mighty Krugman tells us otherwise, you see.

Did I Mention They Were Paid Off?

Gee.  A couple of days ago some bozo Anony thought I was wrong.

*cough*

TThompson RINOs Again!!

Evidently TThompson doesn't remember what happens to old RINOs--because he certainly likes being one.

Former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson, appearing Tuesday morning on CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” said Obamacare is fundamentally flawed but he believes it can be fixed and may need “a huge infusion of federal tax dollars.”

Well.  If MONEY is all that it takes, ask TT about bonding until Hell freezes over.  He's good at that.  I'm sure his grandchildren won't mind paying the piper.  Right, Tommy??

“If you don’t have the healthy young people involved, this Obamacare cannot function,” Thompson said. “It’s going to require a huge infusion of federal tax dollars or huge cuts.”

When one of the “Squawk Box” hosts asked whether that would require scrapping the law, Thompson said he didn’t think so. Thompson compared the rollout of Obamacare to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

Didn't know he was around when SocSec got rolled out.

Tommy traded his Gummint creds for a very, very large fistful of dollars.  When he sends them all to the Gummint, he'll have credibility.

Meantime, he's just another fossil and failed pol.

...Thompson said addressing problems with the law ultimately would hold down health care costs and drive down the curve of rising costs....

Despite ALL the evidence to the contrary, eh?

Looks Like DPI/WI Needs a Budget Cut

Offhand, I think that a 40% cut to the DPI budget makes a lot of sense.

An EAGnews/WILL report published last month – "DPI’s War on Wisconsin’s School Choice Program" – hit home for the Racine parent, who requested anonymity out of fear of retaliation against his child’s school by state Department of Public Instruction officials.

 

"We almost lost our voucher after school already started because we finally got married, and my wife’s last name on our taxes and on our application didn’t match," the father of two said. "They said the name didn’t match the taxes, and they were basically trying to cancel the voucher.

 

"It was the Department of (Public Instruction) that brought it to the school, and they had to come back to us to straighten it out."

 

A lot less DPI means a lot less of their mean-girl games, no?