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.
Welcome to another installment of No Obama Bundler Left Behind. This chapter stars an elite Hollywood fundraiser who scored a plum diplomatic appointment, slacked off on the job and left her public office in disgrace, and then rebounded from failure as a new Obamacare promoter. Nice crony “work” if you can get it.Culture of corruption.
This failed celebr-ambassador is Nicole Avant. Her father, Clarence Avant, is a prominent Democratic activist and music executive. Her husband, Ted Sarandos, is the chief content officer at Netflix. Her godfather is music legend Quincy Jones. On Monday, Avant turned up at an Obama administration confab with pop stars (Jennifer Hudson, Jason Derulo), comedy stars (Amy Poehler, Kal Penn, Aisha Tyler) and other assorted Beautiful People (public relations teams for Oprah Winfrey and Alicia Keys). The liberal glam squad members all have agreed to spread Obamacare propaganda to the masses.
Avant, billed as an “Obama administration veteran” by The Hollywood Reporter, represented “industry” at the Ministry of Health Care Misinformation meeting this week. The Wrap, another Hollywood gossip outlet, describes Avant as having been “tasked with helping boost Obama’s relationship with Hollywood.”
But what exactly has this “veteran” accomplished? What are her qualifications? How has she used taxpayer dollars, and what exactly is her “industry”?
By all appearances, the industry of Nicole Avant is Nicole Avant...
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration has concluded it is not legally required to determine whether the Egyptian military engineered a coup d’état in ousting President Mohamed Morsi, a senior administration official said Thursday, a finding that will allow it to continue to funnel $1.5 billion in American aid to Egypt each year.The most corrupt administration in history, completely lawless.
The legal opinion, submitted to the White House by lawyers from the State Department and other agencies, amounts to an escape hatch for President Obama and his advisers, who had concluded that cutting off financial assistance could destabilize Egypt at an already fragile moment and would pose a threat to neighbors like Israel.
The senior official did not describe the legal reasoning behind the finding, saying only, “The law does not require us to make a formal determination as to whether a coup took place, and it is not in our national interest to make such a determination.”
“We will not say it was a coup, we will not say it was not a coup, we will just not say,” the official said.
"... it was a loving gesture; it wasn’t about shocking people or turning people on."Following the link takes us to an interview with Annie Sprinkle, Ph.D., an "ecosexual" post-porn modernist, prostitute, and performance artist.
Silda Spitzer is privately telling friends she plans to divorce her hooker-loving husband, Eliot Spitzer, Page Six can exclusively reveal.Still more at that top link.
Multiple sources tell us long-suffering Silda — who, he last night admitted, will not be joining him on the campaign trail — “has had enough” and plans to start divorce proceedings after his run for New York City comptroller is over.
One source tells us, “Silda is telling her female friends that she is done with him. She will file for divorce after the [Nov. 5] election.”
A second source told The Post’s Sally Goldenberg, “Silda is saying she is going to wait until this is all over. She has been telling friends, ‘This is too hard. This is too rough.’ ”
Page Six exclusively revealed in May that the Spitzers were living apart, with Eliot staying at 800 Fifth Ave. — less than 20 blocks from the home he shared with Silda at 985 Fifth.
WASHINGTON — President Obama’s choice of a replacement for the Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, is coming down to a battle between the California girls and the Rubin boys.Continue reading.
Janet L. Yellen, the Fed’s vice chairwoman, is one of three female friends, all former or current professors at the University of California, Berkeley, who have broken into the male-dominated business of advising presidents on economic policy. Her career has been intertwined with those of Christina D. Romer, who led Mr. Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers at the beginning of his first term, and Laura D’Andrea Tyson, who held the same job under President Clinton and later served as the director of the White House economic policy committee. But no woman has climbed to the very top of the hierarchy to serve as Fed chairwoman or Treasury secretary.
Ms. Yellen’s chief rival for Mr. Bernanke’s job, Lawrence H. Summers, is a member of a close-knit group of men, protégés of the former Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin, who have dominated economic policy-making in both the Clinton and the Obama administrations. Those men, including the former Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner and Gene B. Sperling, the president’s chief economic policy adviser, are said to be quietly pressing Mr. Obama to nominate Mr. Summers.
The choice of a Fed chair is perhaps the single most important economic policy decision that Mr. Obama will make in his second term. Mr. Bernanke’s successor must lead the Fed’s fractious policy-making committee in deciding how much longer and how much harder it should push to stimulate growth and seek to drive down the unemployment rate.
Ms. Yellen’s selection would be a vote for continuity: she is an architect of the Fed’s stimulus campaign and shares with Mr. Bernanke a low-key, collaborative style. Mr. Summers, by contrast, has said that he doubts the effectiveness of some of the Fed’s efforts, and his self-assured leadership style has more in common with past chairmen like Alan Greenspan and Paul A. Volcker.
But the choice also is roiling Washington because it is reviving longstanding and sensitive questions about the insularity of the Obama White House and the dearth of women in its top economic policy positions. Even as three different women have served as secretary of state under various presidents and growing numbers have taken other high-ranking government jobs, there has been little diversity among Mr. Obama’s top economic advisers.
“Are we moving forward? It’s hard to see it,” said Ms. Romer, herself a late addition to Mr. Obama’s original economic team, chosen partly because the president wanted a woman.
On Tuesday [Ezra] Klein wrote a new column, this time saying that, to his utter disbelief, Larry Summers is the frontrunner for the Fed chair. And I've been told that the Summers camp is using the whisper campaign against Yellen to bolster their man's chances with Obama. Yes, the same Larry Summers who condescendingly told a roomful of people who had lived their adult lives as female scientists that women lack the innate abilities to do science. Yes, the same Larry Summers who, unlike Yellen, played an instrumental role in the economic collapse in the first place by consistently backing deregulation schemes that led to the housing bubble and its collapse. If this is the male candidate Obama needs to exhaust before he deigns to consider a female one, well, he should consider Summers exhausted.The best minds have spoken!
What is going on now to sabotage Obamacare is not treasonous—just sharply beneath any reasonable standards of elected officials with the fiduciary responsibility of governing. A good example is the letter Senate Republican Leaders Mitch McConnell and Cornyn sent to the NFL, demanding that it not cooperate with the Obama administration in a public-education campaign to tell their fans about what benefits would be available to them and how the plan would work—a letter that clearly implied deleterious consequences if the league went ahead anyhow. McConnell and Cornyn got their desired result. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell quickly capitulated. (When I came to Washington in 1969-70, one of my great pleasures was meeting and getting to know Charles Goodell, the courageous Republican senator from New York who took on his own president on Vietnam and was quietly courageous on many other controversial issues. Roger Goodell is his son—although you would not know it from this craven action.)Ornstein's been in the punditry business a long time, and he should know by now that no one really buys the old-line establishment schtick anymore. Folks should read the whole thing. Ornstein compares ObamaCare to G.W. Bush's Medicare expansion of 2003, and the purported Democrat grumbling about the then-biggest expansion of social welfare since the 1960s. Are you kidding me? The Democrats love to expand government. Of course you're not going to see serious efforts to block something like that, because Bush was just going all Democrat-RINO by that point. Now, though, we've had the most polarizing president if office for 5 years and the Republicans are doing exactly what you would expect according to public opinion on the ACA. ObamaCare's the socialist clusterf-k for the ages. Repeal that POS.
When a law is enacted, representatives who opposed it have some choices (which are not mutually exclusive). They can try to repeal it, which is perfectly acceptable—unless it becomes an effort at grandstanding so overdone that it detracts from other basic responsibilities of governing. They can try to amend it to make it work better—not just perfectly acceptable but desirable, if the goal is to improve a cumbersome law to work better for the betterment of the society and its people. They can strive to make sure that the law does the most for Americans it is intended to serve, including their own constituents, while doing the least damage to the society and the economy. Or they can step aside and leave the burden of implementation to those who supported the law and got it enacted in the first place.
But to do everything possible to undercut and destroy its implementation—which in this case means finding ways to deny coverage to many who lack any health insurance; to keep millions who might be able to get better and cheaper coverage in the dark about their new options; to create disruption for the health providers who are trying to implement the law, including insurers, hospitals, and physicians; to threaten the even greater disruption via a government shutdown or breach of the debt limit in order to blackmail the president into abandoning the law; and to hope to benefit politically from all the resulting turmoil—is simply unacceptable, even contemptible. One might expect this kind of behavior from a few grenade-throwing firebrands. That the effort is spearheaded by the Republican leaders of the House and Senate—even if Speaker John Boehner is motivated by fear of his caucus, and McConnell and Cornyn by fear of Kentucky and Texas Republican activists—takes one's breath away.
Jackman has in fact played Wolverine six times on film since his debut as the character in 2000, with a seventh outing in the works, and this latest venture reminds us how fortunate we are to have a capable, committed actor who exudes masculinity in the title role.And it's still expected to take in $75 million this weekend alone, so take that Turan!
Unfortunately, not even Jackman can completely rescue his character's latest outing. As directed by the usually reliable James Mangold, "The Wolverine" is an erratic affair, more lumbering than compelling, an ambitious film with its share of effective moments that stubbornly refuses to catch fire.
It is a surprising announcement from Boeing, which has 1,200 commercial engineers in Long Beach, Seal Beach and Huntington Beach. The company's commercial work in Southern California has dwindled over the years.
The Long Beach plant was built by Douglas Aircraft Co. and still has a large "Fly DC Jets" sign in front. It thrived for decades, employing thousands and producing some of the world's most popular airliners, including the DC-3, DC-8 and MD-80.
Boeing stopped producing commercial aircraft there in 2006, when the last 717 rolled off the line. It was a plane that Boeing inherited when it acquired McDonnell Douglas Corp. in 1997, but the 717, originally called the MD-95, never caught on with major airlines.
With Thursday's announcement, Long Beach will be home of engineering support for many of its airplanes and for modifying its older planes to freighter aircraft.
In the past, Waters has insisted that his displays as well as well as his opinions are not anti-Jewish but just a criticism of Israeli policies. But the use of a Star of David interchangeably with recognizable symbols of tyrannies can’t be reasonably interpreted as anything but an attempt to portray Israel as the moral equivalent of the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany. To associate it with symbols of greed is to play on traditional anti-Semitic stereotypes that were freely used by the Soviets and the Nazis and undermines any idea that Waters is doing is in support of human rights. To display a Jewish symbol on the side of a large pig balloon adds insult to injury.Also at Elder of Ziyon, "Roger Waters flies a pig balloon with a Star of David in Belgium concert."
Even if we were to leave aside the obvious evidence of anti-Semitism in Waters’ use of these symbols, his basic argument that Israel’s security fence is a violation of human rights is itself not merely wrong but a demonstration of his lack of interest in the survival of Jews. The fence was built, after all, not to fence in the Palestinians but to keep terrorist suicide bombers who were sent into Israel to indiscriminately slaughter men, women and children out. To demand the fence be torn down is an implicit call for Jewish blood to begin to flow again.
This latest evidence of Waters’ anti-Semitic behavior ought to disillusion those of his fans who still cling to the notion that his art is a cry for liberty. But it also ought to chasten those liberals and Jewish institutions that have continued to make common cause with him. In the last year, Waters was scheduled to appear at New York City’s venerable 92nd Street Y but canceled at the last minute due, he said, to a schedule conflict. Fortunately, the Y never re-scheduled Waters but subsequently did host the equally anti-Semitic Alice Walker. Let’s hope this latest incident ensures that Waters never again is welcomed into any Jewish community or any place where people of good will have any say.
President Obama made his fourth or fifth, or maybe it's the seventh or eighth, pivot to the economy on Wednesday, and a revealing speech it was. We counted four mentions of "growth" but "inequality" got five. This goes a long way to explaining why Mr. Obama is still bemoaning the state of the economy five years into his Presidency.What a bloody disaster.
The President summed up his economic priorities close to the top of his hour-long address. "This growing inequality isn't just morally wrong; it's bad economics," he told his Galesburg, Illinois audience. "When middle-class families have less to spend, businesses have fewer customers. When wealth concentrates at the very top, it can inflate unstable bubbles that threaten the economy. When the rungs on the ladder of opportunity grow farther apart, it undermines the very essence of this country."
Then the heart of the matter: "That's why reversing these trends must be Washington's highest priority. It's certainly my highest priority."
Which is the problem. For four and a half years, Mr. Obama has focused his policies on reducing inequality rather than increasing growth. The predictable result has been more inequality and less growth. As even Mr. Obama conceded in his speech, the rich have done well in the last few years thanks to a rising stock market, but the middle class and poor have not. The President called his speech "A Better Bargain for the Middle Class," but no President has done worse by the middle class in modern times.
WASHINGTON — The American impulse to make a contribution to the community is strong, but the feeling that politics can be an avenue to do that seems to be souring.Yeah, an advocate for bankrupting future generations, just what you'd expect from the ideological blinkered Democrat freaks.
A new USA TODAY/Bipartisan Policy Center poll finds that Americans by more than 2-1 say the best way to make positive changes in society is through volunteer organizations and charities, not by being active in government. Those younger than 30 are particularly put off by politics. They are significantly less likely than their parents to say participating in politics is an important value in their lives.
Consider Cole Ledford.
The Ohio State University sophomore was thrilled last year to get an internship working at the Ohio Legislature, but he didn't learn the lesson he expected. The experience convinced him he didn't want a career in government or politics.
"I thought I wanted to be one of them," the 19-year-old from Lebanon, Ohio, says. "But it was more that politics was a game they wanted to play, and it wasn't about the constituents." He's switched his major from political science to non-profit management, and he hopes to "give back and influence the world" by working for a charitable group, perhaps one that helps people with special needs.
"There's a skepticism of government," says Rep. Aaron Schock, R-Ill., who at age 32 is the second-youngest current member of Congress. "Young people say, if I want to feed the hungry or make a difference for cancer patients, it's easier to do that through a non-profit and see the tangible results up close than, say, trying to push for federal funding to do the same."
Analysts warn of a dangerous downward cycle: Perceptions of government as dysfunctional and politics as corrupt keep getting worse. That convinces some of the nation's ablest people, especially those just starting out, that they don't want to run for office or work for the government at any level. As a result, government and politics are likely to work even less well — presumably prompting perceptions to fall further.
It's hard to imagine assessments of Washington getting much worse. Only one in five of those surveyed say they trust the federal government to do what is right most of the time. There is a close split, 42%-38%, on whether they see the government as an advocate or an adversary for them and their families. (The partisan divide: Republicans and independents view the federal government as an adversary while Democrats see it as an advocate.)
