The Video is here, and boy does it ever show the damage.
The Story:
A state worker is recovering after a bloody brawl at a union hall. He says members of the local SEIU 1000 beat him up and sent him to the hospital all because he wanted to expose allegedl corruption within the union.
Ken Hamidi is a state worker at the California Franchise Tax Board. Last night he walked into a union hall in Sacramento for an SEIU local 1000 meeting.
“We had every right to be here, very simple; it wasn’t anything private or anything exclusive,” said Hamidi.
But Hamidi says the union members did not want him there.
“Three, four people jumped at me, wrestled with me, then did all that,” said Hamidi. “I was covered in blood and then over to the emergency room.”
Barack Obama was out jogging one morning along the parkway when he tripped, fell over the bridge railing and landed in the creek below.
Before the Secret Service guys could get to him, 3 kids who were fishing pulled him out of the water. He was so grateful he offered the kids whatever they wanted.
The first kid said, “I want to go to Disneyland.” Barack said, “No problem, I’ll take you there on my special airplane.”
The second kid said, “I want a new pair of Nike Air Jordan shoes.”
Barack said, “I’ll get them for you and even have Michael Jordan sign them!”
The third kid said, “I want a motorized wheelchair with a built in TV and stereo headset!”
Barack was a little perplexed by this and said, “But you don’t look like you’re handicapped.”
The kid said, “I will be after my dad finds out I saved your ass from drowning!”
President Obama didn’t wait long after Tuesday’s devastating elections to give critics another reason to question his leadership, but this time the subject matter was more grim than a pair of governorships.
After news broke out of the shooting at the Fort Hood Army post in Texas, the nation watched in horror as the toll of dead and injured climbed. The White House was notified immediately and by late afternoon, word went out that the president would speak about the incident prior to a previously scheduled appearance. At about 5 p.m., cable stations went to the president. The situation called for not only his trademark eloquence, but also grace and perspective.
But instead of a somber chief executive offering reassuring words and expressions of sympathy and compassion, viewers saw a wildly disconnected and inappropriately light president making introductory remarks. At the event, a Tribal Nations Conference hosted by the Department of Interior’s Bureau of Indian affairs, the president thanked various staffers and offered a “shout-out” to “Dr. Joe Medicine Crow — that Congressional Medal of Honor winner.” Three minutes in, the president spoke about the shooting, in measured and appropriate terms. Who is advising him?
Anyone at home aware of the major news story of the previous hours had to have been stunned. An incident like this requires a scrapping of the early light banter. The president should apologize for the tone of his remarks, explain what has happened, express sympathy for those slain and appeal for calm and patience until all the facts are in. That’s the least that should occur.
Countdown to Robert A. George ending up like Vince Foster in 5….4…3..2…
Countdown to White House Playing the race card in 8…7….6….5….4…3…
Yes, I saw the comments and I thought the shout out, before making the sober announcement showed a lack of class on the President’s part and his cabinet. Of course, the stupid ass liberal bloggers are trying to draw a rather silly moral equivalent; trying to say that Bush did the same thing on 9/11. Which is wrong. Bush sat there and listened to those kids, so he would not SCARE THEM. But, of course, you cannot explain that to a idiotic liberal, because they’re terminally stupid.
The United States economy shed 190,000 jobs in October, and the unemployment rate reached a 26-year high of 10.2 percent, up from 9.8 percent in September, the Department of Labor said Friday in its monthly economic appraisal.
While the pace of job losses has slowed significantly since the peak of the recession last winter, the unemployment rate, which measures the number of people actively seeking work, continues to climb, and economists do not foresee relief until well into next year.
“There’s no doubt that the slashing and burning of jobs has abated quite a lot,” said Allen L. Sinai, the founder of Decision Economics, a research firm. “The economy is recovering, but it is a very soft recovery.”
The biggest losses came in the construction, manufacturing and retailing sectors. Health care companies added 29,000 jobs to their payrolls, and the number of temporary workers increased by 34,000 — a significant gain that could indicate employers are beginning to expand their businesses again.
The Labor Department also revised September’s losses to 219,000 from 263,000.
Dean Baker, a director for the Center for Economic and Policy Research, said he did not expect declining unemployment rates until next spring. “We may be looking at very high levels,” Mr. Baker said, “barring a policy response, for several years into the future.”
Um, Why should there be any policy response? I believe that we are already tapping our resources to the limit now.
On Thursday, in anticipation of the unemployment report, Congress overwhelmingly voted to extend benefits for jobless workers for up to 20 weeks. That will soothe the short-term financial pain of many families, but demands for a new wave of government relief may intensify if companies continue to cut back.
Yes, let’s encourage people NOT to look for a job and continue to spend ourselves into a hole; by being a nanny state.
So far, the federal stimulus package has injected billions into local economies, giving states money, for instance, to finance construction projects or retain teachers. The housing and auto sectors have been propped up with government credits meant to encourage spending. But weak consumer demand and hefty labor costs are still forcing many employers to cut positions and reduce hours to survive.
So much for Hope and change!
The article goes on trying to defend President Obama, which is so typical for the New York Times, but it is quite obvious, this President has failed on all fronts, the stimulus, the bailouts —- everything. He is, in fact, a black Jimmy Carter.
This is now Obama’s economy. He owns the double-digit unemployment level, having bought it with the $787 billion stimulus plan that he promised would keep unemployment no higher than 8%.
I agree with that. Obama simply continued the bailouts that President Bush started, which was a huge mistake.
The AP Reports:
But the loss of jobs last month exceeded economists’ estimates. It’s the 22nd straight month the U.S. economy has shed jobs, the longest on records dating back 70 years.
Counting those who have settled for part-time jobs or stopped looking for work, the unemployment rate would be 17.5 percent, the highest on records dating from 1994.
Now, if I were a partisan Blogger, I would simply sit here and blame Obama for it all. However, I am a bit more smarter than this. This all goes to Carter and then to Clinton. This video from the Wayne County Republicans will explain:
These unemployment numbers are just a ripple effect of all of this. Bush had a hand in it, as well as Obama. This is what happens when you elect faux Conservatives as Republicans and it is what happens when you elect Socialists.
Now Honestly, does Bill O. really believe that the Obama Administration would take him up on the offer? I doubt it. But it does make for some lighthearted commentary…. and considering what we have had to report as of late; a little humor is okay.
Of course, the Liberals will not get this at all. They never do.
The graphs that I posted earlier gave the indication of how bad things are going to be. This confirms it:
Speaker Nancy Pelosi has reportedly told fellow Democrats that she’s prepared to lose seats in 2010 if that’s what it takes to pass ObamaCare, and little wonder. The health bill she unwrapped last Thursday, which President Obama hailed as a “critical milestone,” may well be the worst piece of post-New Deal legislation ever introduced.
In a rational political world, this 1,990-page runaway train would have been derailed months ago. With spending and debt already at record peacetime levels, the bill creates a new and probably unrepealable middle-class entitlement that is designed to expand over time. Taxes will need to rise precipitously, even as ObamaCare so dramatically expands government control of health care that eventually all medicine will be rationed via politics.
Yet at this point, Democrats have dumped any pretense of genuine bipartisan “reform” and moved into the realm of pure power politics as they race against the unpopularity of their own agenda. The goal is to ram through whatever income-redistribution scheme they can claim to be “universal coverage.” The result will be destructive on every level—for the health-care system, for the country’s fiscal condition, and ultimately for American freedom and prosperity.
As much as I hate repeating myself. Elections have consequences; as do running moderate Republican Candidates. This is one of them. Statism. Welcome to it.
Employer Mandate Excise Tax (Page 275): If an employer does not pay 72.5 percent of a single employee’s health premium (65 percent of a family employee), the employer must pay an excise tax equal to 8 percent of average wages. Small employers (measured by payroll size) have smaller payroll tax rates of 0 percent (<$500,000), 2 percent ($500,000-$585,000), 4 percent ($585,000-$670,000), and 6 percent ($670,000-$750,000).
Individual Mandate Surtax (Page 296): If an individual fails to obtain qualifying coverage, he must pay an income surtax equal to the lesser of 2.5 percent of modified adjusted gross income (MAGI) or the average premium. MAGI adds back in the foreign earned income exclusion and municipal bond interest.
Medicine Cabinet Tax (Page 324): Non-prescription medications would no longer be able to be purchased from health savings accounts (HSAs), flexible spending accounts (FSAs), or health reimbursement arrangements (HRAs). Insulin excepted.
Cap on FSAs (Page 325): FSAs would face an annual cap of $2500 (currently uncapped).
Increased Additional Tax on Non-Qualified HSA Distributions (Page 326): Non-qualified distributions from HSAs would face an additional tax of 20 percent (current law is 10 percent). This disadvantages HSAs relative to other tax-free accounts (e.g. IRAs, 401(k)s, 529 plans, etc.)
Denial of Tax Deduction for Employer Health Plans Coordinating with Medicare Part D (Page 327): This would further erode private sector participation in delivery of Medicare services.
Surtax on Individuals and Small Businesses (Page 336): Imposes an income surtax of 5.4 percent on MAGI over $500,000 ($1 million married filing jointly). MAGI adds back in the itemized deduction for margin loan interest. This would raise the top marginal tax rate in 2011 from 39.6 percent under current law to 45 percent—a new effective top rate.
Excise Tax on Medical Devices (Page 339): Imposes a new excise tax on medical device manufacturers equal to 2.5 percent of the wholesale price. It excludes retail sales and unspecified medical devices sold to the general public.
Corporate 1099-MISC Information Reporting (Page 344): Requires that 1099-MISC forms be issued to corporations as well as persons for trade or business payments. Current law limits to just persons for small business compliance complexity reasons. Also expands reporting to exchanges of property.
Delay in Worldwide Allocation of Interest (Page 345): Delays for nine years the worldwide allocation of interest, a corporate tax relief provision from the American Jobs Creation Act
Limitation on Tax Treaty Benefits for Certain Payments (Page 346): Increases taxes on U.S. employers with overseas operations looking to avoid double taxation of earnings.
Codification of the “Economic Substance Doctrine” (Page 349): Empowers the IRS to disallow a perfectly legal tax deduction or other tax relief merely because the IRS deems that the motive of the taxpayer was not primarily business-related.
Application of “More Likely Than Not” Rule (Page 357): Publicly-traded partnerships and corporations with annual gross receipts in excess of $100 million have raised standards on penalties. If there is a tax underpayment by these taxpayers, they must be able to prove that the estimated tax paid would have more likely than not been sufficient to cover final tax liability.
You see, this is why I am against a Government-run public healthcare system…..and I have no health insurance, at all. Why? Because as Ed Morrissey puts it:
“Has the middle class discovered the biggest lie of the Obama campaign yet? When statist policies get imposed, everyone pays. Everyone.”
What I am trying to say here is this; I have no health insurance at all. But the last thing I want, is my healthcare coming out of the pocket of anyone else; especially the middle class, like my parents, or more specifically my Dad. Who worked his ass off for 31 years at General Motors and earned his nice Healthcare insurance plan that he has. Why could I want to steal it or see him double and triple taxed; just so I can have insurance too. It just is not fair to him.
Some may think that I am silly to think this way. But to me, it would UnChrist-like to steal for anyone, just so I can say. Yes, I have insurance. It is nothing more than Class warfare and generational theft. Case Closed.
Update: Thanks to Karl Lembke for pointing my rather silly grammar error. 😛
Normally I take what I read over at WorldNetDaily with a grain of salt; but once and a while, they stumble over something big.
I believe they have done it again:
Already under increased scrutiny after revelations in a new book, the Council on American-Islamic Relations now is defending itself against documented links to a federal case that drew national attention this week when an indicted Detroit imam was killed in an FBI raid.
Internal documents from an undercover investigation by the authors of “Muslim Mafia” show CAIR helped finance the legal appeal of Muslim cop-killer Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, who is named in the Detroit criminal complaint as the spiritual leader of a radical group that calls for violent action to establish a sovereign Islamic state within the U.S.
The federal complaint also states one of the 11 indicted followers of the imam who was killed in an exchange of gunfire with the FBI Wednesday, Luqman Ameen Abdullah, attended a mosque “affiliated with CAIR” in Windsor, Ontario, just across the Canadian border from Detroit.
I highly suggest that you go read the rest of this as it is quite interesting. Looks like CAIR is involved as well. This is big and could have lasting impact.
Like I wrote before; the idea of “Fight them there, so we don’t have to fight them here” is a bit lame now; because quite frankly, they are already here and this proves that!
I guess the White House website is running Drupal (ugh!) and Chris Wilson over at Slate does not think that it is such a swell idea.
Chris Writes:
Drupal knows best. It’s not that Drupal thinks you’re evil. It just thinks you’re ignorant. In a basic setup, the software is suspicious of everything you try to do. Should you, say, go completely rogue and try to add some Javascript in the body of a page—a 14-year-old technology that controls interactive components like buttons—the platform will have none of it. The message: “That’s dangerous stuff, and you probably don’t know what you’re doing.” Better to outlaw something altogether, Drupal figures, than simply ask you if you really want to use it. If Drupal ran the Food and Drug Administration, it would ban high-fructose corn syrup. This is just the sort of straitjacketed paternalism that half the country is convinced the Democrats are hell-bent on imposing on us all.
Drupal is impenetrable. Even the software’s defenders admit that it is hostile to newcomers—or at least indifferent to their plight, as a University of Baltimore study found. The apologists will tell you that, once you scale the learning curve, it gets much easier. This is probably true, but a lot of ordinary, code-fearing people who just want a simple Web site are getting left behind. If Drupal were an employee of the federal government, it would be the person who answers the phone at Immigration and Customs Enforcement who is unable to help you and unable to tell you who can. If you suspect government is the problem, not the solution, this sort of bureaucratic sprawl is your worst enemy.
Drupal hates change. Want to modernize Drupal by upgrading to a newer version? Ask theseguys how that worked out for them. If Drupal were a piece of legislation, it would be the farm bill: desperately in need of an overhaul but unlikely ever to get one because entrenched interests keep the forces of reform at bay.
Drupal is disorganized. Instead of displaying your pages in folders that you can browse, like you do on your personal computer, Drupal provides a nightmarish content list. To find what you’re looking for, you have to search for it. And unlike most content management systems, Drupal doesn’t have a convenient way to prevent two people from accidentally editing the same page at the same time. This is exactly the kind of rudderless confusion that small-government types have always said defines the federal government.
Drupal is righteous. The open-source movement has done wonderful things for the Web. But at its core, it remains a religion. If you went to DrupalCon in Paris last month, then you would have almost certainly come across proselytizers of one the movement’s fundamental tenets: Drupal doesn’t break Web sites. People with Drupal break Web sites. Most problems with Drupal stem from people who “don’t get it” or aren’t using it correctly. This is probably true, but it’s not much consolation when you spend 45 minutes trying to upload a photo. Drupal’s defenders are eerily reminiscent of those movement Democrats who were constantly knocking at your front door in the summer of 2008. Granted, they did get Obama elected, but it’s a miracle they didn’t cost him the election in the process.
Allow me to share with you all my little experience. Back before I wrote here on Political Byline. I used to be a “Left of Center” blogger. One day I got this wild hair up my butt about running a news site on Drupal; with my WordPress Blog in a sub-directory. How did it work out? To be blunt:
EPIC FAIL!
The pesky Russian hackers that had been sniffing around my blog, found their opening and they got it. To be very blunt; they farking hacked my crap to hell and back. A years worth of blogging, GONE in an instant. Nothing like a SQL Database injection hack to bring things in to perspective. I just about cried; and it was two days before Christmas no less.
Anyhow, after that; I said, no more Drupal and WordPress.
In fairness to the Drupal people, I did have some lousy hosting and I am not referring to the guy that was giving to me for free; it was the fault of the company that this guy buying from. (Hosting Scene) In techie terms; their MODSECURITY was much out of date. I know, OUCH! What I said, when it happened. I was not a happy camper. 😡
I am much pleased to report that I am, “Over the Moon” as they say with my current hosting provider. Which is EWF Media; who gets his reselling hosting from a neat company named Site 5. Site 5 basically does co-location with The Planet hosting; which is about the best darned hosting company on, well, The Planet! I highly recommend them, they are the best. If you are looking for excellent reseller hosting, go with EWF Media, he is so affordable. If you are looking to get a reseller account, go with Site 5, they are the best. (Now, watch my server go down after talking these guys up… HA!)
Anyhow, if the White House sees this, go with WordPress, you will be glad you did. It is truly, the bomb diggity.
Update: After I posted this last night and came back this morning, I realized that I forgot to mention why WordPress itself is so wonderful… So, without further ado; I present that reason. First here are some video as to why WordPress is so wonderful:
I do not always agree with Jack Hunter; however I do on this video here. Especially on his views of the Main Stream Media in the lead up to the Iraq War. Whether it is his anti-Military bias or an honest disgust with the Bush Administration; that Jack can only answer. But he is right, and very sadly so. The media was laying down on the job during that time period.
Having said all that, let me be absolutely clear; while I am quite happy that Bush’s surge worked and that Iraq, outside of the occasional car bomb, is much more stable than it was in 2006. But that does not take away from the fact that Bush’s invasion of Iraq and occupation of it was not justified. I believe that this will be a black mark on America for a long time to come.
Enjoy the Video:
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