A friend just emailed this SFGatearticle about the human-poop-on-the-street rate in the city of Nancy Pelosi, San Francisco. According to SFGate, Buzzfeed editor John Paczkowski posted the following chart on Twitter:
In addition to a longitudinal tracking of incidents, which seems to mirror the Fed-induced economic recovery, a cross sectional study of cities will likely reveal a consistent Democratic Party advantage: Burgs with more Democrats will be more brown.
Perhaps instead of red and blue, the party colors should be red and brown. This idea seems to have already gone to the Democrats' heads.
First, it's a measure of their suppressive ideology. Second, the Democrats are demonstrable "geniuses." Third, chalk it up to reverse gender discrimination. H/t Porcupine Rim and Gateway Pundit.
Legendary blogger Doug Ross wrote a blog on January 31 (h/t Larwyn) about Nancy Pelosi's children using military jets to travel illegally. Ross writes:
>"Is it a legitimate use of military jets to transport the Speaker of the House and her favored Congressional coterie for routine travel? Even if you believe it is -- and, personally, I do not -- any rational taxpayer would admit that it is monumental waste of money. Military flights cost between $5,000 and $20,000 per hour to operate. The Speaker and her passengers routinely reimburse the Air Force $120 to $400 for each flight.
"Since Nancy Pelosi took over as Speaker in 2006, she's rung up millions in military travel expenses to commute between San Francisco and Washington.
"Worse still, she also appears to have liberally requisitioned entire flights for the personal use of her used these flights to shuttle her children and grandchildren back and forth to DC. That is, unaccompanied by any member of Congress, her kids, in-laws and grandchildren are utilizing entire using military passenger jets for their route." Ross provides extensive documentation. Quoting Ross's conclusion:
"Pelosi must resign. Or she should be forcibly removed out of office. These activities, if not outright criminal, smell to high heaven."
I just received this message from Jim Crum. I have nothing to add. Of course, I have not watched the Democratic Party's press corps. The health plan is one more nail in the coffin of freedom. Happily, I have no children.
"So this is How Liberty Dies -With Thunderous Applause" -Doug Mataconis (Below the Beltway) re:a line in Star Wars.
Jim writes:
Folks, I am still sickened by recent events. A press corps so emasculated by PC, that they cannot call another act of terrorism by a Muslim exactly what it is and why it was done. A President with terrific oratorical skill blowing a "gimme" presser as he is unable to distinguish when it is appropriate to be jovial and when it is not. The recent events on the CAP-N-Trade bill- sure to hit most households with a minimum $2000 in taxes. Last night's vote on this monstrosity of a health care bill. The WSJ is now saying that people in the upper middle class can expect to pay 20% of their gross income on this wickedness. Others will be forced to show on their 1040 that they are "paying up" the Pelosi street tax, or be fined and go to jail- except illegal aliens, of course. They don't pay. I feel like a nervous observer outside of a delivery room. Hearing nothing but screaming, I can tell things are not going well. So it is with our nation. What deformed creature has congress given birth to, and just what exactly, am I supposed to do?
Sleep is not coming easy to me lately. Time for a bourbon before bed; I need it. Stay sharp, events will begin to move quickly.
I'm going to commit a hate crime. And I'm going to feel darn good about it.
It is time to BOYCOTT FRISCO! That's right, Frisco. And I hope they really hate it when I call it "Frisco"!
Friscans are imbeciles who have condemned America to death by left wing moron. Friscans are the boobs who are going to re-elect her. Friscans are the clowns who are forcing the rest of the country to have to listen to her.
Is it a city of owls and cuckoos, asses apes and dogs? Insane people? Flaming idiots? I really don't care. I am never again to set foot in the People's Republic By the Bay.
Phil Orenstein, a seminal blogger and activist who introduced the Academic Bill of Rights to New York State and is active in the Queens (NYC) Republican Party, has written an important blog on the recent "tea parties". I am gratified that hundreds of thousands of Americans have begun to stand up to the collectivism of the Bush-Obama years and have started to reject the failed two-party system. Contrary to multi-millionaire Nancy Pelosi's self-serving claim that the tea party participants are wealthy people, I know better and you know better. These are hard working Americans for whom government does not work. It does not work because it oppresses the public; imposes excessive, tyrannical taxes; regulates business to death; creates economic instability via the advice of quack, university-based economists like Paul Krugman; and imposes secular humanist values on those who do not share such views.
Millionairess Pelosi's reaction to the tea parties is indicative. Like any tyrant, Pelosi blames the victims of her tyranny. Imagine if 100,000 people demonstrated against a private firm, say Toyota or Hewlett Packard. Would the managements of those firms say: "Oh these are all millionaires who were put up to it by the competition. Their views do not count." No, only in government, where tyrannical bigots enjoy power without responsibility and do not need to concern themselves with the effects of their decisions are such opinions possible.
Phil notes that hundreds of thousands gathered on April 15 to protest excessive government, taxes and subsidies to incompetent big businesses of which Ms. Pelosi and Mr. Krugman have long been affiliated. These big businesses on the Democratic and Republican Gravy Train do not create value but rather loot the public with the full support of Barack Obama, Republicans and Democrats.
Obama, probably the most divisive president in American history, has achieved the support of Congressional Republicans, who no longer represent their constituents. Obama is a president who has "signed a pork laden stimulus package of $787 billion". Calling this legislation "stimulus" is a joke along the lines of calling the medieval ideology of today's mercantilists "progressive". The Bush-Obama legislation does not help the economy. It transfers wealth from poor to rich. It is the most divisive legislation in American history, signed by the investment bankers' water boy, Barack Obama and his assistant, Millionairess Pelosi.
Orenstein observes that "Days before the Tea Parties, Janet Napolitano released an alarming Department of Homeland Security (DHS) report on 'Rightwing Extremism' targeting War Veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan and ordinary Americans holding conservative viewpoints as potential terrorist suspects." Thus, the divisive Obama administration takes its cues from the early days of Mussolini. It is rather pathetic that Obama's followers think that the nation can unite behind this totalitarian thug and his half witted appointees, tax cheat Timothy Geithner and Black Shirt Wannabe Janet Napolitano.
Phil attacks the opinions of investment banker shill Paul Krugman, who has spent his journalism career saying how he dislikes income inequality but fights as hard as he can to create as much income inequality as possible, specifically through transfers to his former students and Princeton donors on Wall Street. It is Krugman who has worked tirelessly for Ken Lay at Enron and the Ochs Sulzbergers, and who aggressively argues for ever greater subsidies to Goldman Sachs's clients. Then, he suggests that taxes be increased on working people who work two or three jobs and take home $100K.
The Democratic Party has been a cancer on American working people since 1896. The fact that so many are bamboozled by apologists for the super-rich like Krugman and Pelosi is a testimony to the weakness of democracy: You can fool all of the people some of the time.
Phil notes:
"The Tea Party participants utterly reject the Republican Party and its pathetic leadership, in their eyes. Not only do they believe Republicans are part of the problem for the past eight years of big government spending, but also that the McCain campaign purposely threw away the 2008 election...They are even more disgusted with the performance of the GOP today..."
I think this movement will amount to something only if (a) it creates an insurgency within the current Republican Party and throws out all past leadership, from Gingrich on down or (b) it starts a third party. Any association with the past 20 years of Republican leadership is poison. The current Republicans are equal to the Democrats. That is the worst insult I can think of. As Phil points out, the New York Republicans are the worst of all.
Phil's post is excellent and should be read in full here.
Jim Crum just forwarded a link to about a Human Events article concerning Speaker Pelosi's rules changes in the House. The article reads:
>House Speaker Nancy Pelosi plans to re-write House rules today to ensure that the Republican minority is unable to have any influence on legislation. Pelosi’s proposals are so draconian, and will so polarize the Capitol, that any thought President-elect Obama has of bipartisan cooperation will be rendered impossible before he even takes office.
>Pelosi’s rule changes -- which may be voted on today -- will reverse the fairness rules that were written around Newt Gingrich’s “Contract with America.”
>In reaction, the House Republican leadership is sending a letter today to Pelosi...
Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the house, has announced that she has proposed a bill that will change the the name of the late-November American holiday from Thanksgiving to Resentment Day. "The Thanksgiving Day Parade needs to be changed into a protest march," Congressman Rahm Emanuel added. Noting that Thanksgiving's history is male-dominated, Speaker Pelosi said that she "realized in over 200 years of our history, these meetings have taken place and a woman has never ever sat at (the head of) that table." Democrats predict a healthy, across-the-board increase in resentment of all kinds. "I'm very excited about the prospects for Resentment Day," Senator Kennedy said.
Heartily supporting the change, President-elect Obama's former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, adds (see below) that "Thanksgiving has been a holiday that has been controlled by rich, white men. It is a European holiday. My skin is the wrong color for Thanksgiving. I am sick of Negroes who just do not get it."
Speaker Pelosi, Senator Kennedy and President-elect Obama aim to change the Thanksgiving Day dinner ritual, which Senator Kennedy describes as "racist". On Resentment Day all Americans will share with others around the table the reasons why and how they have been wronged, what they are most resentful about and why taxes should be raised to subsidize them.
Especially excited was the head of the Ku Klux Klan. He noted: "White males have been wronged for too long. It is time we got to express our resentment, just like everyone else."
First Lady-elect, Michelle Obama, seemed pleased with prospective name change. She said, "And let me tell you something -- for the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country. And not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change." She emphasized that people are hungry for "change", not "turkey", which she considers to be a racist construct. She added that now she will not feel alone in her frustration. All Americans, especially those whose family incomes reach $1.6 million in a single year, will be "unified" in their expression of resentment toward the United States and freedom.
The animal rights movement is also exuberant about the name change. Writing from the Democratic Party's left wing, Change.org asks "Why do only white turkeys get pardons?" Moreover, Change.org has provided vegetarian Resentment Day recipes. They have proposed that anyone eating Turkey on Thanksgiving Day be sent to one of the re-education camps that Congressman Emanuel has proposed. "Americans must be taught to think in unison. Turkeys have rights, too."
Animal rights activist Stephanie Ernst of Change.org adds:
"A lot of you, I imagine, will be doing your grocery shopping this weekend, so in advance of that, I'm going to share with you a roundup of resources full of animal-free recipes."
While expressing resentment around the table, animal rights activists say, don't forget America's centuries of abuse of turkeys. "We need to resent the turkeys' agonized gobbles and the treatment of their remains as mere 'leftovers'."
Senator Kennedy also voiced support for the change. "People earning the minimum wage should be resentful that they are not earning more. Working families deserve a raise. Everyone deserves a raise. Everyone should be resentful." As well, he added, "automobile drivers who murder their passengers have been unfairly treated. I resent that."
Congressman Emmanuel proposed that anyone celebrating traditional Thanksgiving should be imprisoned. The editors of the New York Times said that Emanuel's proposal is "moderate" and ought to be taken seriously. "This is change we can believe in." The Times said that it resented that its reporting could not be even more overtly biased in President-elect Obama's favor, and suggested across the board tax increases to begin to satisfy Americans' resentments and perhaps create new ones. "We have resentments, too," the Times's editors said.
The esteemed Jim Crum responds:
Don’t laugh too hard… I can see the day where someone will try to do this. For what it is worth, you’ll notice that all of the people quoted have one thing in common: They don’t have real jobs, they really don’t work, they simply do not produce. So value added? None.
It is difficult to consider a more ill advised policy than propping up managements of large, poorly managed firms. Yet, Henry Paulson, Ben Bernanke and George Bush have decided to provide a massive subsidy to inept Wall Street executives. Few politicians in history have concocted dumber policies, but, believe it or not, the Democrats have come up with an even dumber idea: bail out Detroit as well as Wall Street.
"Democratic leaders in Congress said Tuesday they will push legislation next week to use the $700 billion Wall Street rescue fund to bail out Detroit auto makers, and President-elect Barack Obama ordered his transition team to look at ways to aid the car industry even before his inauguration."
De Lorean's descriptions of massive incompetence and waste at General Motors in the early 1970s, 35 years ago, makes the reader laugh out loud. After four or five decades of GM's utter incompetence, the Democrats are eager to raise your and my taxes to force us to subsidize GM. If they made cars we wanted they wouldn't need the subsidy.
Isn't GM the company whose selfishness Michael Moore contemned two decades ago for moving half its plants to Mexico, stiffing American workers and thumbing its nose at Flint, Michigan in the name of "private property" and the prerogatives of private corporations? And now the Democrats are shelling out tens of billions of dollars to these self-indulgent incompetents?
Excuse me for my snit, but this is getting out of hand.
Gather.com carries this tuna tidbit (h/t Bob Robbins):
>Del Monte: Pelosi's Tuna
>Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi's home district includes San Francisco. Star-Kist Tuna's headquarters, are located in San Francisco, Nancy Pelosi's home district. Star-Kist is owned by Del Monte Foods and is a major contributor to Pelosi's political fund. Star-Kist is also the major employer in American Samoa, actually employing 75% of the Samoan workforce.
>Paul Pelosi, Nancy's husband, owns $17 million dollars of Del Monte stock. In January, 2007 when the minimum wage was increased from $5.15 to $7.25, Pelosi had American Samoa exempted from the increase so Del Monte would not have to pay the higher wage. This would make Del Monte products less expensive than their competition's.
>Last week when the huge bailout bill was passed, Pelosi added an earmark to the final bill adding $33 million dollars for an "economic development credit in American Samoa".
Nancy Pelosi has called the Bush Administration "corrupt"...? Well she would know.....!
Borrowing once again from Certs: America has two, two, two corrupt parties in one!
A friend of mine suggested that if the unemployment rate continues to rise a good plan might be public works projects to employ the unemployed. Herbert Hoover did this during 1930-1932. He put through the Hoover Dam in '32 but lost the election, so it was implemented during Roosevelt's administration. In short, Hoover's public works programs did nothing to stop the Great Depression. Roosevelt continued this policy with the Works Projects Administration but again, this was not an effective strategy.
Part of the problem with public construction is excessive waste and regulation, which leads to cost overruns and mismanagement. This is especially true in New York State, which happened to be the leading recipient of the WPA money. I suspect that a public works project would lead to considerable thievery, especially in places like New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, where it is most needed. I have lived in rural places like Potsdam, New York, and there are plenty of crooked construction people there too.
However, the training of inner city unemployed to become plumbers, masons, carpenters and electricians would be potentially productive. These newly trained individuals might be employed by experienced firms. Hence, road and bridge repair work could be done by newly trained people who have previously been excluded from construction trades because of discriminatory union policies and closed shops.
Barring the training of new construction help, I suspect any works projects money would be stolen.
Many people may have lost their jobs due to excessively stimulative Federal Reserve policy that has led to the real estate bubble and the recent collapse. Easy money leads to inept corporate behavior, and the banks' problems are no exception. It is outrageous that not only is the government bailing them out, but now the Democrats want to use bailout money to subsidize the auto industry.
"House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid sent to send a letter to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson urging him to assist the Big Three auto makers by considering broadening the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program to help the troubled industry."
I think they have the wrong idea. I need the subsidy, not auto executives. I can run automobile companies as badly as they do. Moreover, I can run investment banks as badly as the guys at Bear Stearns. Most of all, I can run commercial banks almost as badly as the guys at Citigroup. I should get the bailout, and run the banks, the investment banks and the automobile companies. After all, I too want a new car and a trip to Italy. Why should I suffer? I deserve the bailout money. Ms. Pelosi, please send me the subsidy, not the auto industry. I'm deprived. And I want public works subsidies. And banking subsidies. I want it all, baby. Life is short.
Seriously, though, unemployment insurance for those in serious need is a good plan. I don't mind paying 2% of my income to help the unemployed. That would be conditional upon abolishing the departments of education and energy, and cutting waste, that is, government spending by 40%.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi may have a problem with property she may have bought from Seagram's (h/t ReunionPI). According to Web of Deception:
>"Our research into the land ownership of Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her husband revealed that the Speaker and her husband bought two pieces of property from Joseph E. Seagrams and Sons, the liquor company on March 25, 1999. Current records from the District of Columbia show that one of the properties is now back in Seagram's name but the address Seagram's is using is the address of the Paul and Nancy Pelosi Charitable Foundation."
>"A Pelosi spokeperson stated that the tax collector has been in error for 9 years as to who owns the property. For this to be correct, then the accountants and tax preparers for Pelosi or Seagrams (a contributor 5 months before the property sale) did not notice there was an error for nine years. The Pelosi's received a statement that showed another owner of their property for nine years. Conversely Seagram's did not receive statements from D.C."
Raquel Okyay points out that close to 70% of voters agree with Senator McCain:
"that the ban on offshore drilling should be lifted to ease the price of oil. Leading Democrats are still trying to prevent oil companies from offshore drilling, even with the high poll numbers against them."
Okyay points out:
"We want drilling because it makes sense to exploit our own resources instead of paying for oil elsewhere. There is a way to accomplish this goal without losing sight that renewable energy is the way of the future. Pelosi apparently has other things on her mind when determining whether offshore..."
The oil debate is an example of how America's commitment to socialism has crippled it economically. There ought not to be public debate concerning how to best obtain energy. The reason that we do not use alternative energy is that state and federal policy has inhibited the building of wind mills and has made risky investments difficult to make through regulation, inflation, taxes and other penalties to inventors. America becomes increasingly poorer as our Congressional Neros fiddle in Washington, dabbling in oil investing and exploration, subjects about which they know little. It is time to de-regulate the energy markets and stop penalizing inventors by taxing and harassing them when they succeed.
I saw an interview of Nancy Pelosi last night. Ms. Pelosi was discussing the Iraqi War. She stated that the Bush administration should not defend the elected Iraqi government and instead limit the military to fighting terrorism. It is difficult for me to understand Ms. Pelosi's point. There is a fine line between fighting terrorism and supporting the Iraqi government. While Ms. Pelosi claims that her position is a major departure from President Bush's, the difference seems vacuous.
Is there a difference between Democrats and Republicans? In the late 18th and 19th centuries there was a debate between federalists and anti-federalists. The federalists, led by Hamilton, were elitist. They believed in central banking, supported the interests of the wealthy and believed in limiting democracy. In contrast, the anti-federalists, led by Jefferson, opposed a central bank (what today is the Federal Reserve Bank), believed in maximizing democracy and believed in supporting the common man, who was a farmer. The Jeffersonian anti-federalists were often more racist than the federalists. Ultimately, the Jeffersonians were allied with early labor unions (and the Workingmen's Parties) but also with the southern "slave power".
Through their successors, the Whigs and then the Republicans, the federalists allied business and northern religious interests, northern farmers and abolitionists. The anti-federalists, through the Democrats, allied labor interests, the white working class of big northern cities like New York, southern interests and the "slave power".
Today, it would seem that the federalists have won a complete victory for two reasons. First of all, central banking is no longer debated, although it ought to be. The public has accepted the Keynesian monetary project.
Second, the New Deal reinvigorated the federalist concept that an elite was necessary for the US economy to work. In the progressives' view, the elite is comprised of university-trained experts. But the knowledge that enables such experts to make decisions has never been specified. The reason is that it does not exist. Business schools have multiplied in number, but competence to manage the New York City subways, for example, has eluded both Democrats and Republicans for seven decades.
What struck me about Ms. Pelosi was that she evinced no indication of the slightest grasp of military strategy or anything else relevant to the War in Iraq, but she is entirely convinced that she is expert concerning it. Is Ms. Pelosi's arrogance peculiar to the Democrats, or do both the Republicans and the Democrats implicitly favor Pelosian elitism? Are both parties alternative versions of neo-federalism?
Both favor inflationary Federal Reserve policies. More than $10 trillion have gone gone into circulation around the globe, with less than $2 trillion in circulation here in the US. We are sitting on an inflationary time bomb. With demand for stocks inelastic because of loose credit, companies have followed easy, low-risk cost strategies of moving jobs overseas to to nudge up stock prices, inflating executive compensation but leaving average Americans feeling alienated. Jefferson would turn in his grave.
Both parties favor regulation. The Democrats say they do, the Republicans say they don't, but after three Republican presidents and a decade and a half of a Republican Congress there is as much regulation now as there was under Jimmy Carter. Since 1980, government has markedly expanded in cost and scope.
The difference is that the Democrats would have unemployed American workers dependent on them for welfare, while the Republicans would have underemployed American workers working for Wendy's. Both are willing to support policies that encourage home buyers to borrow five times their annual incomes to purchase homes; both oppose policies that would permit Americans to keep their paychecks to pay cash for their homes.
I have researched and written about employee benefit issues and in my previous life was a corporate benefits administrator. I am currently associate professor of business at Brooklyn College. I hold a Ph.D. from the Columbia University Graduate School of Business, an MBA from UCLA and an AB from Sarah Lawrence College. I am working on a project involving public policy. I blog on academic and political topics.
