"This guy is a shakedown artist who hates cops, who hates whites, who hates Jews, who has stoked his rent-a-mob to murder Yankel Rosenbaum..."
DOMBOSHAWA, Zimbabwe — For Nyaradzai Majuru, the choice of how to cast her ballot was simple. Before she and her husband received a two-acre plot of land that had been seized from a white farmer several years ago, they were penniless subsistence farmers on a scrap of communal land. Now, they grow green beans, sweet potatoes, tomatoes and cabbages that they sell in the market.Continue reading.
“Our life is better now because of President Mugabe,” said Ms. Majuru, 27, her youngest child tied to her back with a blanket, referring to Robert Mugabe, 89, who has led this country since it shook off white rule in 1980. “I support him all the way.”
But for 40-year-old Elizabeth, a janitor at an agricultural college in this small farming town 20 miles north of the capital, life has only gotten worse under Mr. Mugabe’s rule. Hyperinflation wiped out her savings. Hunger gnawed at her family. A lucky few got land, but the country’s economy was destroyed, she said, declining to give her last name out of fear of reprisals by the government.
“We need change in this country,” Elizabeth said. “We are tired of this old man.”
They were among the millions of Zimbabweans who went to the polls on Wednesday in what many here are calling the most pivotal election since the nation voted out white rule. Despite frigid predawn temperatures, people lined up before the polling stations opened, eager to decide whether to end or extend the three-decade tenure of Mr. Mugabe, a liberation war hero who still holds a tight grip on the country.
In Harare, the capital, there was none of the violence and intimidation that characterized the disastrous 2008 presidential election season, when 200 people died in a state-sponsored crackdown on the opposition and others seen as supporting it.
“This is a huge change, the fact that people can stand around and talk openly about their views,” said Namo Mariga, an agribusiness entrepreneur, after casting his ballot in the upscale suburb of Borrowdale. “The atmosphere is much freer.”
The election pits Mr. Mugabe against the former union organizer Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change. Mr. Tsvangirai won the most votes in the first round of the election in 2008 but refused to participate in a runoff because of the attacks on his supporters. A deal brokered by regional powers put the two rivals into an uneasy power-sharing agreement, and both are now seeking an outright victory to govern alone.
“It is quite an emotional moment sometimes when you see all these people after all the conflict, the stalemate, the suspicion, the hostility,” Mr. Tsvangirai said after casting his ballot. “I think there is a sense of calmness that finally Zimbabwe will be able to move on again.”
Sporadic problems were reported in a number of regions. Lines were long in urban areas, raising concerns that not everyone would be able to vote Wednesday. The challengers said the Zimbabwe Election Commission had deliberately reduced the number of polling stations in their strongholds to discourage voters, but the commission denied it. Some voters who registered recently found that their names were not on the rolls, but they were able to cast ballots using the registration receipt.
“We’ve already made clear this election is illegal, illegitimate, unfree and unfair,” said Tendai Biti, the secretary general of the Movement for Democratic Change, at a news conference on Wednesday afternoon. “We are participating with a heavy heart.”
The planning for the election has been chaotic and rushed because Mr. Mugabe unilaterally set a much earlier election date than other political parties had anticipated.
But early reports from election officials and some monitors said that the voting had gone well. Olusegun Obasanjo, the former president of Nigeria who is leading the African Union observer delegation, said that based on initial reports the voting had been peaceful and orderly, and appeared to be free and fair.
Near the end of Reza Aslan's strange, 10-minute television exchange with Fox News, the author of "Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth," gives voice to a thought that’s entered the mind of many an author while being interviewed: “I’m afraid it seems like you haven’t read my book.”I thought he was petulant and overly defensive.
The interview, now circulating widely on social media sites, has helped propel the book to No. 1 on the Amazon bestseller list Monday.
Aslan is a Muslim scholar of religion and a one-time Christian convert who’s just published a popular book about the life of Jesus. This earned him the wrath of those who wage a daily crusade against the “liberal media”— Fox News. Fox News religion correspondent Lauren Green tried to give Aslan the proverbial third degree Friday on the show "Spirited Debate," only to see Aslan patiently and deftly parry her attempts to corner him as an angry Muslim.
“Is This The Most Embarrassing Interview Fox News Has Ever Done?” BuzzFeed asks in the headline above its posted video of said interview.
In the interview, Green says, “You are a Muslim. Why did you write about Jesus?”
Aslan answers this, and many other of Green’s questions, in a deliberately slow tone, as if he were being interviewed by the not-very-well-informed editor of a high school newspaper. “I am a professor of religions,” he says. “It’s what I do for a living.”
It came totally out of the blue when it was revealed on Wednesday that Simon Cowell had fathered a baby with a New York socialite.Check the links for the photos.
But pictures show the 53-year-old music mogul putting on a tactile display with Lauren Silverman, 36, as they enjoyed a cosy Caribbean holiday in January 2012 alongside her husband.
Whilst real estate mogul Andrew Silverman was just a mere matter of feet away, the striking brunette was seen tenderly running her hands through the hair of the X Factor boss.
Enjoying a new year break in St Barths, the trio seemed to be in high spirits as they sat on-board Cowell's luxury yacht soaking up the sun as the sipped on glasses of orange juice.
And while the group appeared to be chatting away amiably, the pictures show the pop mogul certainly only had eyes for one of the Silvermans, with him seeming utterly unable to distract himself from the alluring Lauren.
With Andrew looking on, Cowell leaned in closely to the stunning socialite, with a smirk spreading across his face as he indulged in a close conversation with the beauty.
But it wasn't long until the property entrepreneur got some quality time with his wife, as he tenderly cupped Lauren's bottom as Cowell looked on.
The star appeared utterly amused by the entire debacle, and grinned away as he stared at the couple.
After the two men enjoyed a brief chat, Lauren and Cowell made their way over to a sun lounger, where they kicked off a rather friendly display.
As to Barbara Morgan's apology, of course I accept it.
— Olivia Nuzzi (@Olivianuzzi) July 31, 2013
Leathers met with Steven Hirsch, co-chairman of Vivid Entertainment, who offered Weiner's former paramour an opportunity to make an X-rated parody of the sexting affair. When shock jock Howard Stern asked Leathers if she would have sex on camera, the 23-year-old replied, 'We'll see what happens.' Weiner has vowed to move beyond the scandal: 'Quit isn’t the way we roll in New York City.'
With affirmative action under attack and economic mobility feared to be stagnating, top colleges profess a growing commitment to recruiting poor students. But a comparison of low-income enrollment shows wide disparities among the most competitive private colleges. A student at Vassar, for example, is three times as likely to receive a need-based Pell Grant as one at Washington University in St. Louis.And maybe regressive leftists might work on enlarging the pool of highly qualified minority students. But really, I doubt they care about that, because, you know, some "victims of discrimination" might have to work a little bit harder in life.
“It’s a question of how serious you are about it,” said Catharine Bond Hill, the president of Vassar. She said of colleges with multibillion-dollar endowments and numerous tax exemptions that recruit few poor students, “Shame on you.”
At Vassar, Amherst College and Emory University, 22 percent of undergraduates in 2010-11 received federal Pell Grants, which go mostly to students whose families earn less than $30,000 a year. The same year, the most recent in the federal Department of Education database, only 7 percent of undergraduates at Washington University were Pell recipients, and 8 percent at Washington and Lee University were, according to research by The New York Times.
Researchers at Georgetown University have found that at the most competitive colleges, only 14 percent of students come from the lower 50 percent of families by income. That figure has not increased over more than two decades, an indication that a generation of pledges to diversify has not amounted to much. Top colleges differ markedly in how aggressively they hunt for qualified teenagers from poorer families, how they assess applicants who need aid, and how they distribute the available aid dollars.
Some institutions argue that they do not have the resources to be as generous as the top colleges, and for most colleges, with meager endowments, that is no doubt true. But among the elites, nearly all of them with large endowments, there is little correlation between a university’s wealth and the number of students who receive Pell Grants, which did not exceed $5,550 per student last year.
Washington University has an endowment similar in size, per student, to those of Emory and Vassar — between $300,000 and $400,000 as of mid-2012, wealthier than all but a few dozen colleges in the country, and Washington and Lee’s endowment is significantly larger, the Times research shows. At Harvard and Yale, with the largest endowments in the country, Pell enrollment was near the 15 percent average for the 50 most competitive colleges; at Princeton, with the largest per-capita endowment, it was lower, 12 percent, though its officials say the rate is higher for the freshman class starting this fall.
John Berg, the vice chancellor for admissions at Washington University, said one reason its numbers are so low is that the disadvantaged students it admits usually have offers from other top colleges with better name recognition.
Bob Strong, a professor of politics at Washington and Lee who oversaw admissions there for two years as interim provost, conceded that his institution historically did a poor job of recruiting low-income students, but said that it has improved and “we’re still working on it.”
Before Andre Ethier touched home plate, his teammates were leaping out of the dugout. The fans at Dodger Stadium were leaping out of their seats.More from Bill Plaschke, "Plenty of star power in stands, but real show is on field for Dodgers."
October came early to Los Angeles and everyone wearing blue wanted to celebrate.
The latest magical moment in the Dodgers' remarkable midseason run came Tuesday, when Mark Ellis drove in Ethier with a ninth-inning bloop single to deliver a 3-2, walk-off victory over the New York Yankees.
BOX SCORE: Dodgers 3, Yankees 2
"These kind of games, we just feel like we're going to win right now," Manager Don Mattingly said.
The Dodgers have won 27 of their last 33 games. They have claimed five World Series titles in Los Angeles, but had never won as many games in any previous 33-game stretch since their move from Brooklyn in 1958.
The walk-off win the was the second in a row for the Dodgers, who beat the Cincinnati Reds two days earlier on an 11th-inning home run by Yasiel Puig. They increased their lead over the second-place Arizona Diamondbacks in the National League West to 31/2 games.
"We're just finding a way to get a big hit, something we weren't doing earlier in the season," Ellis said.
He neglected to mention steals. Ethier stole one base in the first three months of the season. But with two out in the ninth inning and Ellis at the plate, he stole second base.
That set up Ellis' hit off Shawn Kelley, which floated over the head of leaping shortstop Derek Jeter.
"We're not even blowing teams out, just not making mistakes and never giving up as a team," starting pitcher Zack Greinke said.
SAN BERNARDINO -- A month after California began issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples once again, gay couples can get married, get divorced and even get cold feet.Right.
A planned mass "Rainbow Wedding" ceremony at a gay community center in San Bernardino ended Saturday with the officiant being stood up at the altar when no one showed up more than an hour after the ceremony was scheduled to be held.
"It's a statement about equality," said P.J. Seleska, who runs Inland Empire Pride's Center on Waterman Avenue. "We had a big celebration" the night the Supreme Court struck down Proposition 8 and the Defense of Marriage Act "and kicked around ideas."
The center serves an impoverished region of thecity, and includes a food pantry and other services to help its largely poor clientele.
"It's so expensive to get married out there, are you kidding me?" Seleska said.
Marriage licenses alone cost $88 in San Bernardino County.
"Now I understand why people run out to Vegas," Seleska said.
As this farcical episode illustrates, homosexual marriage was only an issue because the cultural Marxists who run the government and the media made it into one as a weapon to use against the traditional values that are the foundation of American civilization. The damage having been done to the institutions of marriage and Christianity, homosexuals are already returning to their bath houses. They tend to have hundreds of sex partners in the course of their often disease-shortened lives; blasphemous “marriages” are not likely to replace this lifestyle.Word.
The conviction of Army private Bradley Manning on espionage charges Tuesday makes it increasingly likely that the United States will prosecute WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange as a co-conspirator, according to his attorney and civil liberties groups.
Judge Denise Lind, an Army colonel, found Manning guilty of several violations of the Espionage Act, and he could face life in prison. Press freedom advocates said the verdict adds to their alarm that the Obama administration’s aggressive pursuit of leakers will discourage whistleblowers from providing critical information on military and intelligence matters.
Well, today will certainly be interesting. pic.twitter.com/OvwU0bNjDL
— Olivia Nuzzi (@Olivianuzzi) July 30, 2013
Like a lightning flash in a stormy sky, the Trayvon Martin case has illuminated the depth of the impasse between white and nonwhite America. But a similar dynamic looms less visibly behind Washington's standoff between a Democratic coalition that relies on overwhelming support from minorities and a Republican coalition still almost entirely dependent on the votes of whites, especially older ones.Yes, and the left owns that polarization, lock, stock and depraved smoking barrel.
Both developments tell the same challenging story: Even as America experiences its most profound demographic change in more than a century, our society is increasingly fracturing along overlapping racial, generational, and partisan lines. The diversity remaking America could be a source of rejuvenation and innovation, but today it is reinforcing our ferocious partisan polarization. The Martin case and the Washington stalemate both capture the escalating collision of perspectives and priorities between a growing, mostly younger minority community and our aging white population—what I've called the brown and the gray.
Few comparisons have been as odious as the one offered by the president linking one of the great mass murderers of history to one of America's Founding Fathers and authors of our liberty.And really, is that so hard to understand? Is it that hard to understand that it serves American foreign policy no good purpose to stroke the vanity of Vietnamese Communists?
Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan were mortal and inhumane enemies who joined civilization after their hideous barbarism was defeated.
They renounced their former brutality, acknowledged their guilt and shame, and became our strongest allies as they genuinely embraced liberty and democracy. They did not forget their past. They repudiated it.
Vietnam has never repudiated its past while celebrating a faux victory over an American enemy that was never defeated on the battlefield but only in the halls of a Congress that abandoned an ally and snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.
President Obama met with his Vietnamese counterpart, President Truong Tan Sang, last Thursday in the same Oval office where LBJ picked bombing targets in a war he micromanaged into futility. The 44th president conveniently forgot Vietnamese history and slandered ours by linking a founder of our democracy, Thomas Jefferson, to the mass murderer Ho Chi Minh.
Sang had brought Obama a copy of a letter sent to President Truman from Ho in which the communist dictator spoke hopefully of cooperation with America.
Obama, stopping short of yet another apology, mused about what might have been, and noted "we discussed the fact that Ho Chi Minh was actually inspired by the U.S. Declaration of Independence and Constitution, and the words of Thomas Jefferson."
That's technically true and historically accurate. Ho Chi Minh did frame the earliest portions of the 1945 Vietnam Declaration of Independence on the actual Declaration of Independence written by Jefferson in 1776. But while the future third president spoke of inalienable rights granted by his and our Creator, he meant it. Ho Chi Minh was only serious about the glory of the state.
Come to think of it, Obama is too, often leaving the word "Creator" out of any mention of our inalienable rights as mentioned in the declaration while he routinely ignores the Constitution and its restriction on his and federal powers.
To be charitable, one could claim Obama was just trying to humor a guest, as Trent Lott once did to Strom Thurmond.
But was it necessary to praise a man who killed approximately half a million people in an effort to consolidate his power, or to suggest ideological similarities between the architect of mass carnage and an author of liberty?
In consolidating his dictatorial power in North Vietnam, Ho went after landowners, intellectuals, school teachers, businessmen, civic leaders, anyone who might pose future opposition to his thuggish rule. Those who would not publicly confess their crimes against the state and the people were often brutally executed.
By early November 1956, when residents of An Giang province, which included Ho's birthplace village of Nam Dan, refused to pay what they considered oppressive taxes, Ho sent troops to collect, then sent in an army division, shooting. About 6,000 unarmed villagers were killed in a massacre obscured by the Soviet Union's suppression of Hungary.
After Ho's death in 1969, his successors did not miss a beat. Congressional Democrats and their allies in the media, such as the venerable Walter Cronkite, who had already proclaimed the war lost, helped ensure South Vietnam's defeat and ushered in an era of mass carnage, boat people and re-education camps that resulted in more death after the war than during it.
After Saigon's "liberation," the summary executions of tens of thousands of South Vietnamese began. Hundreds of thousands more were forced into re-education camps as 1 million boat people fled on anything that would float, with countless thousands perishing in the South China Sea. And let us not forget the killing fields of Cambodia, where 3 million were slaughtered.
This is the legacy of the man Obama said was inspired by Thomas Jefferson.
ROME — When Pope Francis said he wouldn't judge gay priests, he opened the door to a new era of reconciliation within the Roman Catholic Church, which has struggled for decades to confront the presence of homosexuality in its ministry.Continue reading.
The pontiff was traveling aboard a turbulent overnight flight to Rome from his first overseas trip—a journey marked by his plain-spoken appeals to Catholics to reground the church in grass-roots ministry—when he broached the delicate issue of how the Catholic hierarchy should respond to clerics who are gay, though not sexually active. In doing so, he departed from the posture that has long shaped papal thinking on gay priests.
"Who am I to judge a gay person of goodwill who seeks the Lord?" the pontiff told a news conference in response to a question. "You can't marginalize these people."
Pope Francis reaffirmed church teaching by referring to homosexual acts as a sin. But he wielded his formidable bully pulpit to shift the tone of how the church regards homosexual orientation at its highest ranks.
The pope returned to the Vatican from a weeklong visit to Brazil, where he was given a rock-star reception as an estimated three million people flocked to a Sunday Mass on Rio de Janeiro's Copacabana beach.
Analysts said that show of support is likely to strengthen his hand as he confronts myriad challenges, including alleged corruption at the Vatican bank and the sexual-abuse crisis.
The pontiff said women couldn't be ordained as priests, because the issue had been definitively settled by Pope John Paul II. However, he said he wanted to develop a "theology of the woman," in order to expand and deepen their involvement in the life of the church.
Arte Moreno basked in the spotlight of his own making at Angel Stadium in December 2011. Moreno, the owner of the Los Angeles Angels, was there to announce the signing of Albert Pujols to a 10-year, $240 million contract. Moreno explained that he was motivated partly by a desire to keep up with the Yankees, who had beaten the Angels in the 2009 playoffs.More at that top link.
“We could play Boston, then the Yankees, and we weren’t prepared to play with them,” Moreno said that day. “You look at what you can develop in the organization, what can you do in the market, what are the Band-Aids you can apply. We just didn’t feel like we had the depth to compete at the level we wanted to compete at.”
By trying to imitate the Yankees, Moreno’s team has become them: worse, actually.
The Yankees, of course, are feverishly hoping to escape the remaining four-plus years on their bloated 10-year, $275 million contract with Alex Rodriguez. One way out would be a lifetime ban from Major League Baseball for Rodriguez’s involvement in the Biogenesis scandal, but that seems unlikely.
In any case, for all of Rodriguez’s baggage, he did lead the Yankees to a championship in 2009, the second year of his contract. For the Angels, the second year of the Pujols deal has become another washout.
While the creaky Yankees remain in the pennant race, gamely grabbing Alfonso Soriano and others to stay in it, the Angels effectively dropped out on Monday. They traded their most effective reliever, the left-hander Scott Downs, to the Atlanta Braves for the minor league reliever Cory Rasmus.
It was not a major move, but the timing was a clear acknowledgment of the Angels’ plight: the deal came two days before the non-waiver deadline, and one day after the news that Pujols was likely to miss the rest of the season with a partial tear of the plantar fascia in his left foot.
“I saw him earlier this season, and it hurt me to watch him run,” said one major league scout, who was granted anonymity so he could candidly discuss another team’s player. “It reminded me of when Mark McGwire had that problem, although he was in his late 20s. It might take Pujols a little bit longer.”
Monica was hot by comparison. Seriously? http://t.co/J9iWkbXepF Really, seriously?
— ConservativeLA (@ConservativeLA) July 30, 2013
If the crux of your argument that congress is “childish” for doing its job of providing checks and balances to a runaway Democrat train of spending, you’re doing it wrong.Skeezy Democrat skank, this Setzer lady:
Yasiel Puig's phenomenal rookie season reached a new pinnacle Sunday when he turned a historic display of futility into a footnote washed away by more Dodgers glory.More at that top link. Hopefully they don't get cocky.
Puig, after flailing through three of the team's 20 strikeouts against the Cincinnati Reds, hammered an 11th-inning home run into Dodger Stadium's left-field pavilion, delivering his team a 1-0 victory.
The strikeout total broke the record for the most by a Dodgers team in the modern era (since 1900), according to the Elias Sports Bureau.
"You put your at-bats behind you every single time — what's in the past is in the past," said Puig, who thrust both arms upward in the instant after his bat charged through a changeup delivered by Reds reliever Curtis Partch (0-1).
"Even though three of those 20 strikeouts were mine, I kept giving it everything I had," Puig, speaking in Spanish, said through a translator. "We adjusted inning by inning, and the result was the result. My team won."
The victory, their 26th in 32 games, made the first-place Dodgers 9-1 since the All-Star break and 56-48 overall, and increased their lead over Arizona to 2 1/2 games in the National League West.
This post was taken down because I was momentarily misguided about who I am and what I stand for. To clarify, I make no apologies for the following re-post. It's funny, satirical and will likely offend some of the more conservative folks. But it isn't fake and its a genuine look into my slightly twisted psyche.
Here's the thing, I've vowed to always fight for the right of free expression. It's allowed, no matter what the profession. I pride myself in having earned the respect of many because I make no apologies for the truth and hold nothing back. I don't fight for things because they serve me, I fight for them because they are right. Sources trust me because I am an unadulterated version of the truth. I won't ever bend just because its popular to do so and I'm not bending now.
This is my voice. Hope it makes you laugh.
1. I've gone bra-less during a live broadcast and no one was the wiser.
2. My best sources are the ones who secretly have a crush on me.
3. I am better live when I have no script and no idea what I'm talking about.
4. I've mastered the ability to contort my body into a position that makes me appear much skinner in front of the camera than I actually am.
5. I hate the right side of my face.
6. I'm frightened of old people and I refuse to do stories involving them or the places they reside.
7. Happy, fluffy, rainbow stories about good things make me depressed.
8. I've taken naps in the news car.
9. If you ramble and I deem you unnecessary for my story, I'll stop recording but let you think otherwise.
10. I've stolen mail and then put it back. (maybe)
...it is not unusual for an early-career historian to spend five or six years revising a dissertation and preparing the manuscript for submission to a press for consideration. During that period, the scholar typically builds on the raw material presented in the dissertation, refines the argument, and improves the presentation itself. Thus, although there is so close a relationship between the dissertation and the book that presses often consider them competitors, the book is the measure of scholarly competence used by tenure committees.All true, of course. But when I finished my dissertation I just wanted to breathe a long sigh of relief. The thought of revising the whole thing for publication was very unappealing. I'd started teaching as an adjunct professor at Fresno State in 2000, so I had some expectation for publishing, but then I took my job at Long Beach Community College and there wasn't going to be any "publish or perish" pressures, which I didn't mind. (Or, I was actually kind of torn about it, at least at first.)
ROCKVILLE, MARYLANDContinue reading.
Last night I told readers I was going on a road trip to cover a big story — but I didn’t tell you how big it was going to be:
Brett Kimberlin, the convicted bomber-turned progressive activist, had sex with his wife when she was only 15, according to charges filed Monday in Maryland. A native of Ukraine who is now estranged from her husband and seeking a divorce, 32-year-old Tetyana Kimberlin says she had sex with Kimberlin multiple times during her 1996 visit to the United States, before she turned 16, the legal age of consent in Maryland. . . . At the time of the alleged offense, Kimberlin was on parole from federal prison for a 1978 bombing spree that terrorized the Indianapolis suburb of Speedway. . . .
In accusing Kimberlin of a third-degree sex offense, Tetyana says she met him when she was 14 and living in Ukraine, where Kimberlin traveled on business after his 1993 parole. In charges filed Monday with the Montgomery County District Court, Tetyana says she was 15 when she arrived in Maryland in September 1996 and that Kimberlin, who was 42 at the time, had sexual intercourse with her repeatedly before her 16th birthday in November of that year. . . .
[A]ccording to the charges filed Monday, Kimberlin “enticed me to come to Maryland so I could be his sex partner and bride,” Tetyana Kimberlin wrote. “Brett Kimberlin had sex with me every single day between the day I arrived and the day I turned sixteen, on Nov. 16, 1996.” Tetyana wrote that her cousin, who was 12 at the time, “also met Brett Kimberlin in Ukraine and coae to live with him … shortly before I did. On at least one occasion, I saw him attempt to seduce her.” . . .
FRONT 184 is in stores today! Here's why you need it in your life http://t.co/CH4W8ZEqtj pic.twitter.com/vPLMPYxNVF
— FRONT Magazine (@frontmag) July 18, 2013
GALESBURG, Ill. — In a week when he tried to focus attention on the struggles of the middle class, President Obama said in an interview that he was worried that years of widening income inequality and the lingering effects of the financial crisis had frayed the country’s social fabric and undermined Americans’ belief in opportunity.Only a fool (or an idiot leftist) would take serious anything this man has to say. He's had almost five years to try to reduce inequality, and he's not done jack but push for failed big government boondoggles and idiotic "green" energy scams. There's more at that top link, and the full interview is at Mememorandum.
Upward mobility, Mr. Obama said in a 40-minute interview with The New York Times, “was part and parcel of who we were as Americans.”
“And that’s what’s been eroding over the last 20, 30 years, well before the financial crisis,” he added. “If we don’t do anything, then growth will be slower than it should
. Unemployment will not go down as fast as it should. Income inequality will continue to rise,” he said. “That’s not a future that we should accept.”
Brunda later told The Post she had refused to shake lecherous Weiner’s hand because his behavior “skeeves me.”Yeah, disgusting Democrats are "skeevy" like that.
I find that really insulting to the people of Detroit. I think there is a serious discussion about the future of cities in a time of deindustrialization. But in many ways, Detroit has been a victim of market forces, and I think that what Steve said is so critical, that retirees and workers should not bear this. And this story should not be hijacked as one of about greedy, fiscal, public unions.Hilarious!
I’m bone weary of the “We are above such petty things as national identity” faux-sophistication. I don’t know what Shulan finds all that complicated about a group of Islamists hijacking planes and trying to kill as many infidel Americans as possible.Background at the New York Post "Iconic Ground Zero photo was nearly excluded from museum for being too ‘rah-rah’ American." (Via Memeorandum.)
He probably has the same nuanced and complexity-is-what-is-meaningful view of Nidal Hasan, regardless of Hasan’s professed motivation.
I’m not ashamed to be an American no matter how much Obama and the Left want to denigrate the brand.
Ortiz's violent meltdown didn't really fall under the entertainment category. It was actually very dangerous and a little scary as shrapnel from the bat and phone flew all over the dugout. In fact, some of the shrapnel nearly took a chunk out of teammate Dustin Pedroia.
Once a muscle-car icon and a symbol of U.S. automotive dominance, the Chevrolet Impala has more recently seen its image suffer. Bloated and generic, the critics said. More suited for the rental car fleets that account for most of its sales.Continue reading.
Consumer Reports three years ago panned its sloppy handling and second-rate fit and finish.
So it marked a stunning turnaround Thursday when the Impala secured the influential magazine's top overall rating among sedans — a distinction held by Japanese and European models for at least two decades. Posting the third-highest score ever, the Impala ranked behind only such distinguished company as the Tesla Model S and BMW 135i.
The critical acclaim is emblematic of a resurgence by U.S. automakers in sales, profits and consumer perceptions of quality and imaginative design. General Motors Co. and Ford Motor Co. each posted second-quarter profits of $1.2 billion this week, numbers not seen since before the Great Recession and GM's bankruptcy and bailout.
Recently redesigned models such as Ford's Fusion sedan and Chrysler's Ram pickup truck are proving a hit with critics and consumers, said Jake Fisher, director of automotive testing for Consumer Reports.
"There are no more excuses," he said. "They can make world-class cars."
LAKEPORT, Calif. — When authorities raided the marijuana growing operation, they found greenhouses filled with plants over 6 feet tall, neatly lined with individual irrigation systems. But the rest of the property, one federal agent recalled, looked like a horror scene.More at the link.
They found dilapidated trailers where farmers appeared to live, caches of weapons and a bloody towel.
"To me, it smacked of a scene from 'Deliverance,'" said David Prince, assistant special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations in Northern California. "If I was a plant, that's where I'd want to live. If I was a human, that's not where I'd want to live."
It was here, in a remote area east of Clear Lake in Northern California, that authorities allege a kidnapped teenage girl from Los Angeles County was sexually abused and occasionally held captive in a metal box. The box — about 4-by-2-by-2 feet — sat outside one of the trailers, with holes drilled through the lid and a blanket inside.
The box "had been altered to imprison a human," a federal criminal complaint read.
In charges unsealed in San Francisco, federal officials allege that two men had abused the girl and forced her to help with their marijuana production. The girl eventually called authorities from a West Sacramento hotel, where she was rescued, officials said.
The suspects — Ryan Alan Balletto, 30, and Patrick Steven Pearmain, 25 — face numerous felony charges. The Los Angeles Police Department arrested a third man, Eric Edgar, on suspicion of sexual assault.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents had been investigating the 680-acre property owned by Balletto since December 2011, court documents showed.
The girl was reported missing April 2 from a San Fernando Valley home, according to the LAPD. Cmdr. Andy Smith said detectives believe she was living on the streets of Hollywood when she came in contact with Balletto.
On today's front page: Confidence in the future of the monarchy is at an all-time high http://t.co/ZaXwAqBbwt pic.twitter.com/HdM7ljgmrO
— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) July 28, 2013
More at the link.
Sipping a Coke while seated on a patio overlooking a pool and tennis court, the 21-year-old singer-actress exuded a sense of deep calm (or perhaps deep boredom) as she discussed her new album.
Yet behind her studied half-smile, Gomez seemed aware that the tabloid frenzy — and the fixation on her love life — is one sign that things are going right.
"This is a lot different than any of the records I've put out before," she said. "This transition that I'm going through has been really awkward and cool, and I've learned a lot about myself."
Released on Tuesday (when it shot straight to No. 1 on iTunes), "Stars Dance" is the fourth studio disc from Gomez, who after a stint on "Barney & Friends" found fame with her role on the Disney series "Wizards of Waverly Place."
More importantly, though, the album comes in the wake of her appearance earlier this year in "Spring Breakers," the violent, sex-drenched crime drama from director Harmony Korine in which Gomez played one of four girls on a wild rampage through South Florida's neon-colored landscape.
That new adult vibe carries over to the suggestive lyrics and the harsh electronic textures of "Stars Dance," which Gomez said had been influenced by dubstep superstar Skrillex's work on the "Spring Breakers" score. "I just loved his beats," she said. "When you watch 'Spring Breakers' you can physically feel the music in the party scenes."
The march of the penguin chicks at the @SFZoo today. Photo: Ian C. Bates, The Chronicle Story: http://t.co/hr4oMk6kPE pic.twitter.com/F4OtXI7uNk
— SFGate.com (@SFGate) July 28, 2013
10/21/01 ALCS Gm4: Alfonso Soriano's walk-off home run gives the Yankees a 3-1 win and 3-1 series lead in the ALCS.
Anthony Weiner’s cyber mistress says he fakes it — with his wife.
“It almost feels to me like it’s more of an arrangement, or a business relationship, than a marriage,” Sydney Leathers said of the perv pol and his humiliated spouse, Huma Abedin.
Leathers offered a half-hearted apology to Abedin “for the pain she probably feels” — though she told “Inside Edition” she believes the Hillary Clinton aide loves being in the political limelight.
“I do think that is probably part of it,” Leathers said, when asked if she thought Abedin stays in her marriage “for the power, for the fame, for the stature.”
Escena is believed to be the first single-family tract house development in Southern California built in a modern architectural style since the actual “Mad Men” era, when builders such as Joseph Eichler and the Alexander Construction Co. brought Midcentury Modern to the masses. The bet driving this development: that a new generation raised with smartphones, Ikea stores and hybrid cars understands that modern design is built into every object of their lives.Pretty nice, if you're into Ikea. Lots of photos at the article, in any case.
When it comes to home, the prevailing, post-recession sensibility is simple but cool. It’s smart and efficient. It’s comfort without excess. Escena houses, Poon says, are designed for the modern person who thinks, “I don’t want to be the guy driving the Hummer.”
So here on the north side of Palm Springs, where Gene Autry Trail meets Vista Chino, you will see no faux Italian villas striving for “Under a Tuscan Sun” romantic rusticity. No Spanish tile, no Moroccan arches, no board-and-batten ranch-house siding with a Western accent. These houses speak in the architectural language of flat roofs, open floor plans and maximum connection to the outdoors. Imagine floor tile that emulates the look of polished concrete. Or sleek, high-gloss kitchen cabinets imported from Italy and unencumbered by hardware. Or biofuel fireplaces that deliver ambience without pollution.
“There is a lot of beautiful, modern design in mixed-use projects, condos and apartments, but not in single-family housing,” says Poon, principal at Poon Design, a Beverly Hills firm whose portfolio includes Chaya, Saffron and Mendocino Farms restaurants. Any developer can crank out “Taco Bell” houses and make money, the architect says, “but I think it’s time — time to start offering high design to a mainstream marketplace."
“With an endless parade of distractions, political posturing and phony scandals, Washington has taken its eye off the ball.” — President Obama, WednesdayContinue reading.
Question: How many Americans have to be murdered in an al-Qaeda attack on a U.S. consulate before it stops being a “phony” scandal?
Answer: If Barack Obama is president, more than four.
Writers across the spectrum — from the liberal New York Times to the conservative Wall Street Journal — have beaten up on President Obama’s latest “dreadful, cliche-ridden” (James Taranto, wsj.com) speech on economic policy, the second-longest speech of his presidency.
How can a man talk for more than an hour on a single topic, as Obama did on Wednesday, and say absolutely nothing new? As columnist Charles Krauthammer of the Washington Post explained, “It’s because the president has nothing to say about the economy.”
Liberals complain that all conservatives ever say is “Cut taxes and cut spending!” Perhaps they’re right, but that’s two more ideas than Barack Obama has offered during his entire presidency.
Which is why the only line from this Teleprompter novella that’s gotten any traction is his “phony scandals” feint.
“Phony”? What’s phony about the fact that the IRS targeted citizens based on their ideology? That the discussion of this targeting went all the way up to the president’s hand-picked IRS chief counsel William Wilkins? That Wilkins met with Obama in April 2012 just two days before “new guidance” on how to handle Tea Party applications was sent from Washington to IRS operatives?
Imagine cub reporter Barack “WoodStein” Obama being told by his Washington Post editors in 1972 that the Nixon administration using the IRS to target its enemies was a “phony scandal.” Would he have agreed?
“Phony”? What’s phony about the family members of a Fox News reporter being spied on by the Department of Justice? About Attorney General Eric Holder lying about his knowledge of “potential prosecution” of the media by his department?
And then there’s Ben-ghazi. Almost a year later, we still don’t know where the president was when the terrorist attack started, whether the military was ordered to leave Glen Doherty to die, or why the White House continued to push the phony story of a video weeks after it knew it was a terror attack and not a movie protest.
Four dead Americans at a consulate the Obama administration knew was being targeted but left unprotected. On 9/11. With an ambassador in it. If that’s a “phony scandal,” how many dead Americans does it take to make a real one?
Just imagine the uproar had, say, Rick Santorum said ,“Fighting for gay marriage generally involves lying about what [they] are going to do with marriage when [they] get there—because [they] lie that the institution of marriage is not going to change, and that is a lie.” But, of course, you don’t have to take it from Rick Santorum or other defenders of marriage as a conjugal union. Masha Gessen will tell you the same thing.And be sure to read the comment thread.
Although Gessen’s willingness to put the matter in terms of “lying” is startlingly frank, it is no longer uncommon for advocates of redefining marriage to acknowledge that the effect—for them an entirely desirable effect—of redefinition will be the radical transformation of the institution. The objective is not merely to expand the pool of people eligible to participate in it, as was long claimed. In conceding (and celebrating the fact) that redefining marriage will fundamentally alter the institution, transform its social role and meaning, and undermine its structuring norms of monogamy, exclusivity, etc., Gessen is far from out of step with other leading figures in the movement. She joins influential NYU sociologist Judith Stacey, Arizona State University professor Elizabeth Brake, “It Gets Better” founder Dan Savage, writer Victoria Brownworth, journalist E. J. Graff, activist Michelangelo Signorile, and countless other important scholars and activists.
Moreover, there seem to be very few prominent scholars and activists in the movement to redefine marriage who are criticizing Masha Gessen, Judith Stacey, Elizabeth Brake, and the others, and speaking out for the norms of monogamy and fidelity and other traditional marital and familial ideals. Many are quiet, but few actually deny that the abandonment of the conjugal understanding of marriage will have the transformative institutional and social effects that Gessen, Stacey, Brake and the others (approvingly) say it will have.
CONCORD -- Earlier this year, Contra Costa County won the right to run a health care call center, where workers will answer questions to help implement the president's Affordable Care Act. Area politicians called the 200-plus jobs it would bring to the region an economic coup.Everyday brings another story illustrating the epic disasters of ObamaCare.
Now, with two months to go before the Concord operation opens to serve the public, information has surfaced that about half the jobs are part-time, with no health benefits -- a stinging disappointment to workers and local politicians who believed the positions would be full-time.
The Contra Costa County supervisor whose district includes the call center called the whole hiring process -- which attracted about 7,000 applicants -- a "comedy of errors."
"The battle for the call center was over jobs with good working wages and benefits; I never dreamed they would be part-time," said Karen Mitchoff, who has heard from complaining constituents and expressed her "extreme displeasure with how it was handled" to call center supervisors.
One recent hire, who last week learned the job would be part-time, said the new "intermittent" employees feel like they've been used as a political tool, and many now regret applying for the positions.
"What's really ironic is working for a call center and trying to help people get health care, but we can't afford it ourselves," said the worker, who asked for anonymity out of fear of losing the job. The county says it had been telling the public and supervisors all along that some positions would be full-time and some part-time. However, portions of staff reports list all 204 jobs as full-time, and a job posting said the same.
It's the latest controversy involving the call center, one of three created statewide to help citizens enroll in various new health care options under President Obama's Affordable Care Act when it goes live at the start of next year.
Contra Costa was selected early on by the state to run the call center, but the deal mandated the county run the operation itself, with state funding, or lose it to another county. Once Contra Costa secured the call center, Concord and Richmond battled for the right to host it. Unions nearly derailed the project before some last-minute wrangling to ensure workers weren't transferred needlessly and would receive appropriate benefits.
The state budget allows for 180 customer service agents, half of them part-time, when the call center opens Oct. 1, said Contra Costa Deputy County Administrator Theresa Speiker. The full-time employees, she said, will handle the core 40-hour work week, while the part-timers will handle the extended hours. For the first three months, the call center at 2500 Bates Ave., off Highway 4 and Port Chicago Highway, will be open 72 hours a week. After that, it drops to 59 hours a week.
"In open session and in (staff reports) we've been pretty clear that not all will be full-time jobs," Speiker said.
Speiker said the 7,000 applications were "totally outside what we anticipated with the demand for these jobs. We were blown away."
The new hires, many of whom left other full-time jobs for the call center positions, were told they were the "cream of the crop," the recent hire said.
