Avik Roy on Why the Fiscal Cliff is a Good Thing

Why Milton Friedman is Not a Hollywood Liberal

Life in "Progress" City - Chicago edition

aka "life in a gun free zone"

Gave Bates smiled through tears as she swiped her hand across her phone, flipping through pictures of her cousin playing around and striking goofy poses.

"He was a lot of fun, very good at imitating people," Bates said of Nathaniel T. Jackson, 40. "He just had so much fun all the time. And we all grew up together in the same house."

Jackson was standing outside a store in the Austin neighborhood around 9 p.m. Thursday when someone walked up and shot him in the head, police said. His death was apparently the 500th homicide in Chicago this year, marking a grim milestone. The city last reached that toll in 2008.

500 murders in a year? Does anyone in the media notice that's a Sandy Hook elementary every 2 1/2 weeks?



more.....

Life in "Progress" City - New York edition

New York City police say a man has been shoved in front of a subway train and has been killed.

Investigators are searching for the woman believed to have pushed him Thursday night in Queens.

It's the second time a man was shoved to his death on subway tracks this month. Ki-Suck Han was pushed in front of a train in Times Square on Dec. 3. A photograph of him moments before the train hit him was published on the cover of the New York Post and caused an uproar.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/12/27/man-pushed-to-death-in-front-nyc-subway-train-second-time-this-month/#ixzz2GM4PHJkR

Makes sense to me

Democrats in Maryland, NJ, NY and Massachusetts Charged or Found Guilty

All dogs are democrats

On my drive back from Charlotte today I passed a woman who had a bumper sticker that said "Even my dog is a democrat".

Clue phone to this woman. All dogs are democrats.

Think about it. They don't work. They sponge off of people who work all day while they lay around licking their balls.

Hell, if they had opposable digits on those paws, they'd raid your refrigerator and eat everything out of it while you were slaving away at your job.

In Philadelphia and Cleveland they probably vote.

And almost all dogs have Obamaphones. 

Why would any vote for a republican?

What is it about the second amendment?

The guy who taught my concealed carry class, regularly sends out an email whenever he gets a new supply of guns into his shop.

Last Friday, literally minutes before the New Town shootings, I received one noting several different Bushmasters he just got in.

I had called my brother in law (who's a police office and gun aficionado), to see which of those he thought was the best deal.

Before my brother in law could get back to me, the dealer called to tell me he only had one left. So I bought it.

Of course, as of today, the gun is just a really expensive club since .223 ammunition is next to impossible to find and I won't pay price gougers who have hoarded the stuff.

When I brought the gun in the house and told my wife it was one of her Christmas presents, she just about had a cow.

As I told her, you're better off having a gun you don't need than needing a gun you don't have.

What's been somewhat predictable in this whole gun discussion is how many potential solutions have been presented and how, not one of them, would have prevented the massacre in Connecticut.

And then you have the Hollywood elite who throw out such quotes like Wayne Lapierre should be shot in the nuts.

Did it ever occur to any of these idiots that there's a reason no one has ever spree killed in a police station, any NRA office, a gun store or target shooting facility?

Conversely, there's a reason these nut bags head to schools and other non armed facilities?

I've offered that one of the reasons these idiots do these shootings is for the glory. There's probably no better quote to address this than this one.............

The results of the Gun Free School Zone act’s passage have been devastating. The first mass shooting in a school since before 1900 occurred in 1997. As prominent researcher John Lott has noted, mass shooters are attracted to defenseless victim zones. While zones that ban armed citizens are a tiny percentage of the nation’s area, according to Lott, only one of the “successful” (four or more victims) mass shootings in the past thirty years occurred outside of a defenseless victim zone (gun free zone).

Why do mass shooters chose defenseless victim zones? Because they want the fame that goes with the media attention that a mass killer gets, and to get the attention, they have to kill a lot of people. If they are stopped by an armed citizen, they lose their chance to make the “record books”, and there is no point in mass killing.

So before we go and assault the 2nd amendment, let's propose these additional laws


1)  Let's ban all violent video games........ It appears that the CT killer played these games endlessly.

2)  Let's ban the media from reporting the names of any spree killer of more than four people....... I've noted on this blog that the prevalence of streakers and other drunken idiots running on playing fields at sporting events ceased right after the media quit showing them.

3)  Let's make it easier to lock up and treat mentally ill people who have made violent threats and/or shown the capacity to be violent. This really awesome piece illustrates the issue for a parent who has recognized the violent tendencies of her son but is essentially neutered to do anything about it.

Of course, you'll hear the Hollywood types hide behind the 1st amendment to continue producing their violent games.

The news media types will hide behind the first amendment saying it's in the public interest to know everything about the shooter, even as they report inaccurate information to the public.

And finally, the mental health community will protect the criminally insane, sighting the 4th amendment right to privacy.

But you won't hear any of these solutions come out of the Joe Biden committee now will you?

Be careful what you wish for

Have you ever heard some dumbass defending marijuana legalization make the comment "When's the last time you heard of a driving accident with someone who's high?"

Actually it was this morning...........

the Vancouver Police Department arrested a man for Driving Under the Influence of Marijuana in connection with a deadly crash in Vancouver.

Investigators said the driver hit and killed a pedestrian around 5:50 p.m. on East Mill Plain Boulevard and Andresen Road.

Police say the victim, a male in his 50's, was believed to be walking back from Safeway and stepped out into the middle of traffic.

The driver, Scotty Rowles, was driving westbound on East Mill Plain Boulevard and could not stop his car in time, according to police.  

Detectives says Rowles cooperated with the investigation, but after interviewing him they determined there was enough evidence to arrest him on suspicion of driving under the influence of marijuana.

Police believe this is the first traffic fatality involving the drug, since it became legal in the state of Washington.

Police say the victim was close to two different lit and controlled intersections, but chose to step out into the middle of traffic, which would clearly put him at fault.

However, because Rowles was believed to be under the influence of marijuana, Washington State law says he is technically at fault, according to police.

While it may now be legal to smoke marijuana in the state of Washington, police say it is never legal to smoke it and then get behind the wheel.

Article here.............

If there's a reason, I'm not seeing it right now

This weekend, I did something I haven't done in quite some time, I worked a weekend of drunken sloth.

It started Friday with the news reports of the Connecticut shootings. But that didn't seem to hit me as hard as this local news story.................

A couple is behind bars after an 18-month-old girl was reportedly left in an overheated room in Adams County.

Police say Jesika Case and Jeremy Cox were taken into custody late Wednesday morning after their 18-month-old daughter, Jailynn Cox, was found unresponsive.
Authorities believe the baby was left in an overheated room, in a house located at 517 E. 5th Street in Manchester, Ohio.
According to investigators, the child was sleeping in a small room on the second floor with no duct work. As a result, the room was chilly and a space heater was put on a nearby nightstand to keep the baby warm.
Police say Jailynn was put to bed around 11 p.m., with the space heater about 3 to 5 feet from her crib and the door closed.
Reportedly, she wasn't checked on until 11 a.m. the next morning, and was unresponsive.

So this Einstein doesn't check on an 18 month old for an entire 12 hour period of time?

Notice also that it's a week day and neither of these two dolts apparently had any sense of urgency to get to anything resembling a job or, god forbid, an interview.

So this weekend I've been spending my time wondering, why am I busting my ass to pay for the welfare so these derelicts can breed another victim in this country?


Why don't we all just lay around and smoke pot all day?

Couple this with a tragedy in our family involving a child and I have to say that God isn't real freakin' high on my list right now as it pertains to children.

 

When will we learn?

I've been listening to the details on the Connecticut shootings and, to date, all I know is that this was the work of a 24 year old punk.

Let me fill in the rest of this profile and let's see how much of this rings true.

1) This kid was probably never spanked
2) He probably played in soccer games where they didn't keep score
3) He probably grew up in a family with no church attendance
4) He was probably a product of a society where everyone was all about his self esteem but he never learned how to deal with any of life's failures.
5) Finally, he probably ran into a stressor in life (a break up, a job loss, a foreclosure, or some other life failure) where he was so ill prepared to deal with any set back that this one probably felt apocalyptic.

And, of course, the media will eventually glorify this punk by endlessly repeating his name so that he'll die in some sort of screwed up infamy.

Why Is Higher Education So Expensive?

Why our Country is Going Down The Drain

WCU vs App State- Worst free throw ever

I didn't know Mark Mallory played college ball

Life in "Progress" City - Detroit edition

Who did they vote for? #919

Meet Mr. Deadbeat and Ms. Derelict.

Watch this video and tell me who these two wizards voted for in the last election?

Obama? or Romney?

Greed

Cooper: WH Acting Cockier, Not Willing To Negotiate

Life in "Progress" City - Columbus edition

Question of the day

I wonder if Bob Costas will portray his continued ignorance by proclaiming that there's too much alcohol and too many cars in America during his next rant about a dead NFL player?

A product of the welfare state

The law of unintended consequences at its worst..........

THIS is what poverty sometimes looks like in America: parents here in Appalachian hill country pulling their children out of literacy classes. Moms and dads fear that if kids learn to read, they are less likely to qualify for a monthly check for having an intellectual disability.

Many people in hillside mobile homes here are poor and desperate, and a $698 monthly check per child from the Supplemental Security Income program goes a long way — and those checks continue until the child turns 18.

“The kids get taken out of the program because the parents are going to lose the check,” said Billie Oaks, who runs a literacy program here in Breathitt County, a poor part of Kentucky. “It’s heartbreaking.”

This is painful for a liberal to admit, but conservatives have a point when they suggest that America’s safety net can sometimes entangle people in a soul-crushing dependency. Our poverty programs do rescue many people, but other times they backfire.

Some young people here don’t join the military (a traditional escape route for poor, rural Americans) because it’s easier to rely on food stamps and disability payments.

Antipoverty programs also discourage marriage: In a means-tested program like S.S.I., a woman raising a child may receive a bigger check if she refrains from marrying that hard-working guy she likes. Yet marriage is one of the best forces to blunt poverty. In married couple households only one child in 10 grows up in poverty, while almost half do in single-mother households.

More..............

Tax the Rich: An animated fairy tale

Life in "Progress" City - San Bernardino edition

From the city of San Bernardino, where Interpol couldn't find a republican in city government..............

San Bernardino is so bankrupt that the city’s attorney is advising residents to “lock your doors and load your guns,” in the face of budgetary cuts that have downsized the police force by 80 officers.

City Attorney Jim Penman made his comments to about 150 residents at a council meeting assembled to address the uptick in crime, including the recent murder of an elderly woman.  Since 2011, the California city has seen a 50 percent increase in murders.

“Let’s be honest, we don’t have enough police officers. We have too many criminals living in this city,” Penman told KCBS-TV. “We have had 45 murders this year. That’s far too high for a city of this size.”

For the record, Obama took San Bernardino county 52-45

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/12/02/bankrupt-california-city-attorney-warns-of-public-safety-cuts-lock-your-doors-and-load-your-guns/#ixzz2Dw2uS2f5

Life "Progress" Country - Portugal edition

Obamacare here we come.................

High

Armando Costa, 73, is waiting for an outpatient’s appointment in one of the seemingly endless corridors of Hospital Santa Maria, a huge 1950s building on the edge of Lisbon, teeming with medical staff, orderlies, the sick and their families.

The retired business manager could afford private care, but prefers crowded, noisy Santa Maria because of the quality of treatment on the national health service. As well as social security contributions, patients typically pay a small amount. “I’ll be charged a few euros today, but I’d be happy to pay more,” he said.

How much the Portuguese are prepared to pay for public health, education and welfare services has become the focus of national debate after warnings from Pedro Passos Coelho, the prime minister, that the country’s economic future depends on root-and-branch reform of what the state provides.

But redefining the state’s responsibilities is highly contentious for many Portuguese, who see universal health care and education, free or subsidised at the point of delivery, as fundamental achievements of the 1974 revolution that overthrew 48 years of dictatorship. The government’s opponents fear it wants to destroy the welfare state.

The country has to choose between higher taxes or fewer state services, Vítor Gaspar, finance minister, said. “There appears to be an enormous divergence between what the Portuguese believe the state should deliver and the amount of taxes they are prepared to pay,” he told parliament recently. 

More.........

The Dependency Agenda

Life in "Progress" City - San Bernadino edition

Saying it had little choice, the San Bernardino City Council voted to cut $26 million in spending in an effort to keep the bankrupt city from dissolving and being governed by the county.

The city is already in bankruptcy proceedings and facing a $45.8-million budget shortfall. The $26 million in cuts will help the troubled city stay afloat.

The austerity plan is a required step in the federal bankruptcy process. It freezes vacancies in the Police Department even as the city deals with an increase in violent crime. The Fire Department’s overtime budget also was slashed by 35%.

The city already had stopped making payments to CalPERS, the state's public employee pension fund, since filing for Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection Aug. 1, a move city officials estimate will save San Bernardino more than $12 million.

“This is a document that I’m holding my nose and voting yes on,’’ said Councilwoman Wendy McCammack.

The council voted 5-2 in favor of the plan, which both Mayor Patrick Morris and City Atty. James Penman said was a mandatory step in the city’s effort to restructure its debts and repair its finances under federal bankruptcy protection.

"Austerity"? What European county is San Bernadino in anyway?


So how many republicans were involved in this?

More.....

John Galt leaves France

You know a European country is in trouble when its business leaders complain about government spending and taxes. You know it’s seriously in trouble when it happens in France, whose business elites are more left-wing than the left.

Nearly 100 French CEOs, among them the heads of Accor, the hotel chain, Air France, Carrefour, L´Oréal, Peugot, Siemens, SociétéGénerale and Veolia, the giant waste and water utility, are urging socialist President Francois Hollande to reduce government spending by 60 billion euros (about $76 billion) over the next five years, and reduce payroll taxes by 30 billion euros over the next two years. The cost of government, they say, has reached “the limits of what is bearable.”

They also are asking Hollande to undo the suffocating regulations that have made research and development too costly, that unrealistically limit carbon emissions, and have curtailed development of shale gas in France.

 
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/11/17/france-rebellion-ceos/#ixzz2DTlmcJhZ

Why I'm a conservative

Let's play a four letter word game.

You say corn, I say food...... a liberal calls it fuel.............

President Barack Obama’s administration rejected a request from the governors of eight U.S. states to waive requirements for blending corn-based ethanol into gasoline, said a person familiar with the decision.

Market conditions don’t justify such a move, said the person, who declined to be identified because he isn’t authorized to speak for the Environmental Protection Agency. Gasoline refiners will be required to blend 13.2 billion gallons of the biofuel this year, the EPA said in rejecting petitions from the governors of Arkansas, North Carolina, Maryland, Delaware, Georgia, Virginia, New Mexico and Texas as well as members of Congress.

This year’s U.S. corn harvest is forecast at 10.725 billion bushels, the smallest in six years because of the drought. About 4.5 billion bushels will be used to make ethanol in the year starting Sept. 1, or about 42 percent of the 2012 crop, the USDA estimated on Nov. 9.

Are you freakin' kidding me? We're going to use all that food to fill our gas tanks when a couple of wells in Youngstown will do the job just fine.

Let me ask this question, what happens to the price of food when we take 42% of a corn crop and just waste it? Hint........ beef and chicken won't be getting cheaper anytime soon.

Now let's ask the important question. who pays the price for this travesty ?

a) Warren Buffett
b) A retired homemaker living on Social Security
c) Brett Favre
d) An auto mechanic

Life in "Progress" Country - Greek edition

Here's my question for any liberal/"progressive"/democrat.

When you watch this video, do you not think the US is heading on this collision course?

Public Health

So a company fires 150 employees for failing to get their flu shots.

One of Cincinnati’s largest employers fired approximately 150 employees Wednesday for failing to get a required flu shot.

Read more: http://www.wlwt.com/news/local-news/cincinnati/TriHealth-fires-150-employees-for-not-getting-flu-shots/-/13549970/17523386/-/3khe3s/-/index.html#ixzz2DM1TcT19

One hundred and fifty employees at Tri-Health received termination letters after not getting a mandatory flu shot.

According to a company official, employees were asked to get a flu shot which was offered on-site at the workplace and was free of charge. Employees that didn't get the required flu shot got termination letters this week.

Those employees who were terminated can go through an appeals process and get re-instated, but that process begins with verification of getting the flu shot.

For the record, my wife works for Tri Health. She told me that many of the people who have not received these shots are third shift employees who can't make it into employee health due to scheduling problems; it's not a rejection of the shots themselves.

None the less. This issue has been a big bone of contention for a number of the employees for the past couple of years. 

In order to avoid the shots, some employees have gone to the extreme getting doctor's notes saying that they are allergic to egg products. Some were willing to work with a mask to avoid the shots.

Which begs the question. These are people in the health care industry. When given to their own device, most would reject getting the flu shots. Why?

It says something about the trust level people have with our public health system when even people closest to the system reject their recommendations.

One of Cincinnati’s largest employers fired approximately 150 employees Wednesday for failing to get a required flu shot.

Read more: http://www.wlwt.com/news/local-news/cincinnati/TriHealth-fires-150-employees-for-not-getting-flu-shots/-/13549970/17523386/-/3khe3s/-/index.html#ixzz2DM1TcT19

Read more: http://www.wlwt.com/news/local-news/cincinnati/TriHealth-fires-150-employees-for-not-getting-flu-shots/-/13549970/17523386/-/3khe3s/-/index.html#ixzz2DM1TcT19

TriHealth offered all of its 10,800 employees free flu shots. Employees had a month to get the flu shot. The deadline was Nov. 16. Employees who did not get the shot were terminated Wednesday, a company spokesperson said.
Employees who were terminated can appeal to be reinstated after receiving the shot.


Read more: http://www.wlwt.com/news/local-news/cincinnati/TriHealth-fires-150-employees-for-not-getting-flu-shots/-/13549970/17523386/-/3khe3s/-/index.html#ixzz2DM1Yod00

One of Cincinnati’s largest employers fired approximately 150 employees Wednesday for failing to get a required flu shot.

Read more: http://www.wlwt.com/news/local-news/cincinnati/TriHealth-fires-150-employees-for-not-getting-flu-shots/-/13549970/17523386/-/3khe3s/-/index.html#ixzz2DM2DtJRO

TriHealth offered all of its 10,800 employees free flu shots. Employees had a month to get the flu shot. The deadline was Nov. 16. Employees who did not get the shot were terminated Wednesday, a company spokesperson said.
Employees who were terminated can appeal to be reinstated after receiving the shot.


Read more: http://www.wlwt.com/news/local-news/cincinnati/TriHealth-fires-150-employees-for-not-getting-flu-shots/-/13549970/17523386/-/3khe3s/-/index.html#ixzz2DM2rzW94

One hundred and fifty employees at Tri-Health received termination letters after not getting a mandatory flu shot.

Thomas Sowell -- Basic Economics

Prager University: The Power of Profit

Prager University: Free Market Morality

Life in "Progress" State - California edition

Remember the good old days when Californian's made fun of Applachia (run by democrats at the time)?

Now that those hicks have seen the light and California has degraded into a Eurotopia, who's laughing now............

The Golden State has reached a poverty rate that is now twice as bad as West Virginia’s and substantially worse than the rates of poverty in Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas and Texas, according to a new measure of poverty developed by the federal Census Bureau.

Democrat-run California earned its last-place rank under the federal government’s new measure of poverty, which incorporates more detailed analyses of welfare payments and the local costs of food, gasoline and housing. (View the new census data report)

The state’s costs are boosted by its environmental and workplace regulations, and by 38 million residents’ competition for housing close to the sea.

The new measure, however, also incorporates a controversial calculation of relative equality that demotes states, including California, that have wide gaps between wealthy people and people with less than one-third of state residents’ average income.


Whoa Whoa Whoa............ I thought high taxes and more social programs brought income equality.


Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/11/16/golden-state-turns-to-lead-now-leads-poverty-rankings/#ixzz2CQBA4NnJ

The Golden State has reached a poverty rate that is now twice as bad as West Virginia’s and substantially worse than the rates of poverty in Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas and Texas, according to a new measure of poverty developed by the federal Census Bureau.
Democrat-run California earned its last-place rank under the federal government’s new measure of poverty, which incorporates more detailed analyses of welfare payments and the local costs of food, gasoline and housing.


Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/11/16/golden-state-turns-to-lead-now-leads-poverty-rankings/#ixzz2CQAqPYPm

The Golden State has reached a poverty rate that is now twice as bad as West Virginia’s and substantially worse than the rates of poverty in Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas and Texas, according to a new measure of poverty developed by the federal Census Bureau.
Democrat-run California earned its last-place rank under the federal government’s new measure of poverty, which incorporates more detailed analyses of welfare payments and the local costs of food, gasoline and housing.


Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/11/16/golden-state-turns-to-lead-now-leads-poverty-rankings/#ixzz2CQAqPYPm

How government works

During my time in continuing education, we had a big time discussion about tax preparer compliance audits.


To catch you up to speed. In recent years, the tax preparation business has become populated with various criminals and now the IRS is trying to clamp down.You may ask yourself, why?

Like any question in life, if you answer money, you'll be right about 90% of the time.

Over the years, every time the rich got some tax break the poor had to get something as well. Never mind that they paid no income tax to begin with.

So to throw the poor a bone, Congress expanded the Earned Income Credit.

Now you have poor people getting refunds of up to $7,500 and unscrupulous preparers more than willing to help these people scam the government.

If you were a normal thinking person, you might say. Wow there's a lot of fraud in here! Maybe this program shouldn't be so lucrative as to encourage fraud. And with that kind of thinking you'd never make above a GS 14 payscale.

How you move up the government totem pole is to suggest that the government sets up a whole new bureaucracy to regulate tax preparers.Never mind the people getting the dough.

And you wonder how the feds can't seem to cut a trillion or two.

Quit making education more affordable

For the past couple of days, I've been catching up on my continuing education requirements to keep my accounting license.

As we went through some of the tax provisions related to education, I noticed this chart with the various tax credits and/or deductions that are all centered around education. 

Now outside of the the exclusionary provisions in the chart, all of these items have been implemented with the past 15 years. All in the vain of making education more affordable.

Now ask yourself this question. Is education more affordable or less affordable than it was 15 years ago?

Who gets hurt more from the escalating costs of education Warren Buffett or a middle class working stiff trying to make it work for their kid?

Life in "Progress" Country - Greece edition

Don't look now but here is our future............

Greece is fast running out of cash while it awaits the next tranche of its 130-billion euro ($165.16 billion) international bailout that is keeping it afloat, a deputy finance minister said on Friday. 

"The situation with the state's cash reserves is borderline," Deputy Finance Minister Christos Staikouras told a conference. 

"This fact creates a condition of asphyxiation in the economy." Athens is considering rolling over 5 billion euros in treasury bills when they mature next week due to a likely delay in receiving the 31.5 billion euro tranche, finance ministry officials told Reuters earlier on Friday.

Who bails out the bailoutor............

More.......

Life in Obamaworld

What do you think the vote count was for the attendees to this job fair?

Conservatism..... an attempt to save liberals from themselves

How's the job market looking right now?

Consider this............

• Energizer, which is restructuring its company, and as a result, announced it expects to lose about 1,500 jobs.
• Boeing, who expects to shrink their executive staff by roughly 30% at the Boeing Defense, Space & Security unit.
• US Cellular, who is moving manufacturing plants out of Chicago, and as a result will cut roughly 640 jobs in the area. Overall, the company estimates it will cut 980 jobs, about 12% of its workforce.
• Power tool giant Husqvarna, who is cutting around 600 jobs, a move that they expect will save them roughly $33 million per year.
• Darden Restaurants, which owns popular chains like the Olive Garden, Red Lobster and Longhorn Steakhouse. They are expected to cut back the hours their employees work to 28 hours per week. The Obamacare law defines full time employees as working 30 hours a week. The law requires full time employees to have employe-provided healthcare, or the company must pay a fine.
• Murray energy corp will layoff more than 120 employees to avoid expenses due to Obama regulations and taxes
• Welch Allen will layoff 275 employees (10% of their workforce) as a “pro-active response” to taxes in Obamacare
• Dana Holding Group – auto parts manufacturer will make numerous cuts in response to $24 million in costs due to Obamacare
• Stryker will be eliminating 5% of its workforce (1,170 jobs) due to additional taxes in Obamacare
• Boston Scientific will be dropping between 1,200 and 1,400 jobs and shifting operations to China to avoid Obamacare taxes
• Smith & Nephew will drop 770 jobs
• U.S. Cellular will eliminate 980 jobs
• UtahAmerican Energy will cut a huge number of jobs as “204 American coal-fired plants” are shut down by 2014 – basically maiming the coal-mining industry
• Lockheed Martin is expected to notify 123,000 employees of coming layoffs
• Consol Energy to layoff 145 employees
• much, much more coming…

Read the rest...........

Local Businessman Blames Obama Administration for Coal Layoffs

Life in "Progress" State - California edition

They called it Paradise.
The place to be
They watched the hazy sun
Sinking in the sea

Democrats gained a two-thirds majority in the California Senate following Tuesday’s election, bringing them close to the ability to pass tax increases without the need for Republican votes.

However, Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown quickly cautioned that he already has pledged to take any further tax hikes to voters, as he did with the temporary tax increases that voters approved on Tuesday. And Democrat leaders in both the Senate and Assembly downplayed the idea that they would seek to further ratchet up tax rates.

It is the first time since 1965 that Democrats controlled a Senate supermajority, and the only time since California voters passed Proposition 13 in 1978, raising the legislative vote threshold to pass tax increases to two-thirds.

Another wager? How about what the unemployment rate in California will be duiring the next presidential election.

I'll take higher.

Wager

Anyone want to make a bet on the unemployment rate the day of the presidential election.

I'm willing to bet $100 the rate will be higher than it is today.

Who wants to take the other side?

The United States of Greece

Today will be all the post mortems on how Romney lost this race.

Frankly, I don't believe that there was ever anything that Romney could have done.

If anything, when he made his 47% comment, he was wrong. We have now reached the critical mass of 50% of this country who are in the wagon while the rest pull.

Consider........

How do you persuade a perfectly healthy, educated woman who believes that it's OK for others..... no..... it's her right for others to pay for her birth control?

That there are populations of people who believe that their cell phones are simply manna from Obama without cost to anyone and "that he's going to do more".

How do you get through to a population of people when media outlets won't even cover the planned assassination of a US ambassador and subsequent cover up by the administration?

How do you convince working collar types that excessive regulation hurts middle class job opportunities?

I was kind of surprised with my own emotions when I saw Ohio go down last night. Frankly, I was indifferent. I'm 50 years old. The Gekko's have no children. We've got plenty of savings and job opportunities. I'm old enough that I'll probably be able to get a social security check or two. We're going to do fine.

When gas prices spike, we'll just fill up as we always do. Just like we'll absorb tax increases and utility cost spikes. When groceries spike, we'll just grin and bear it. The Obamunists will never hurt me.

But when we want new carpeting or funiture in our home, we'll squeeze out another year or two on what we already have. We'll hold off another car purchase until our existing cars start following apart. Our vacations will be less luxurious. And who gets hurt when all those John Galts start tigthening their belt? Hint....... it's not rich people.

But as I've said repeatedly from the time I started this blog, I'm not a conservative for me. I'm a conservative for those who don't have the opportunities I have. In many respects, I'm a conservative because I'm trying to save liberals from themselves. Kind of like trying to protect your kids from their own stupid decisions.

Finally, I'm also a conservative because I don't want our country to look like Greece. We already have Greece. The world doesn't need another.

Unfortunately, our country has reached the point where too many people get too much free stuff to turn it around now. Now we can all just watch the clock for the coming implosion.

Romney...........the smart choice

Last week, I drove through my old neighborhood of Madisonville.

If you are not familiar with Cincinnati geography, Madisonville is a fairly shitty area of town. It was not unusual for me to go to my local convenient store and see a sign that would read "Closed, due to neighborhood unrest".

Needless to say, that area was peppered with Obama/Biden signs.

On my drive back to my palatial office in Loveland, I drove through Indian Hill. Now Indian Hill is probably the wealthiest area of Cincinnati. In this neighborhood, 90 percent of the signs were pro Romney.

Now it's easy to entertain the idea that rich people vote republican to protect their wealth from taxes. But consider that, because they've made the right decisions in life, they're rich and voting republican is just one of those good decisions.

Think about it.

How many rich people do you know with tattoos up their neck?
How many rich people didn't finish high school, college, etc.?
How many rich people have children out of wedlock?
How much money do rich people devote to booze, drugs, lottery tickets, cigarettes?
How many rich people, when they make a mistake, repeat that same mistake 2,3,4 or 5 times?

I went through the roster of the Gekko family. The Lovely Mrs. Gekko is one of 10 kids. I am one of five.

Along with spouses and significant others we have 25 workers.

During all this economic turn down, we have had three people hit the unemployment line. None for a prolonged period of time. Two of them were from reorganizations. One was employed during the Nevada real estate crash.

What makes this group special.

Nothing.

We all just did what we were told to do in life. We went to school. We didn't commit crime. We didn't knock up a bunch of honeys we couldn't afford. Only one has more than one tattoo (she's a democrat as well). I don't think we have a drug addict and/or alcoholic in the bunch.

In other words, we make good decisions.

And Romney will probably take this group of 25 by a 20-5 rout.

Keep in mind, that none of these people are rich. Lord knows that I'm not. We weren't born into wealth either. But what most of us realize is what works and what doesn't. And it's clear that democratic policies don't work and this group won't be supporting them.

Rarely in a group do I consider myself the smartest person in the room. But I make up for that by watching what smart people do and emulating it.

So if you want your country to look like Madisonville, feel free to vote for the candidate of dumb asses. If you want something different, you'll do what I did, move away from the dumb asses and vote for the smart choice.

west chester

Last night the Gekko's headed to the Romney rally in West Chester.

The crowd was incredible.

This was the line just to get through the security detail. Imagine a turnstyle type line the length of a football field winding back and forth at least 15 times.

You couldn't get that kind of democratic turnout without free phones at the end.

The best T-shirt witnessed last night.

If Romnesia means that I can forget the last four years.......

Please give it me

President Obama- Vote for Revenge!

Biden: "There's Never Been A Day In The Last Four Years I've Been Proud ...

remember he always means what he says

Ouch

When's the last time you read this in a newspaper endorsement

When Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney promptly criticized the security failures in Benghazi, the White House and its lapdog media jumped all over him for another "gaffe," for speaking out too promptly and too strongly. Prompt and strong action from the White House on Sept. 11 might have saved American lives, as well as America's reputation as a nation not to be messed with. Weakness and dithering and flying to Las Vegas the next day for celebrity fund-raising parties are somehow better?

This administration is an embarrassment on foreign policy and incompetent at best on the economy - though a more careful analysis shows what can only be a perverse and willful attempt to destroy our prosperity. Back in January 2008, Barack Obama told the editorial board of the San Francisco Chronicle that under his cap-and-trade plan, "If somebody wants to build a coal-fired power plant, they can. It's just that it will bankrupt them." He added, "Under my plan ... electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket." It was also in 2008 that Mr. Obama's future Energy Secretary, Steven Chu, famously said it would be necessary to "figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe" - $9 a gallon.

Yet the president now claims he's in favor of oil development and pipelines, taking credit for increased oil production on private lands where he's powerless to block it, after he halted the Keystone XL Pipeline and oversaw a 50 percent reduction in oil leases on public lands.

These behaviors go far beyond "spin." They amount to a pack of lies. To return to office a narcissistic amateur who seeks to ride this nation's economy and international esteem to oblivion, like Slim Pickens riding the nuclear bomb to its target at the end of the movie "Dr. Strangelove," would be disastrous.

 More............

Obama In WI: "Some Of The Businesses We Encourage Will Fail"

Yep

Who will you choose?

As you consider who you will vote for next Tuesday, consider for a moment the people who you will be aligning with when you vote.

Below is a breakdown between people and who they will be supporting next Tuesday. Go ahead and ask yourself which of these groups will be filling in the dots for Romney or Obama.

Then ask yourself, are these the people who I want educating children? Invite to a party? have as my neighbor? and finally...... run the country?

Let's face it. the values incorporated in each of these groups are ultimately the values incorporated in the people they support.

War Protesters v. Active Military

20 year olds v. 60 year olds

Larry Flynt v. Pat Robertson

Criminals v. Cops

Union Heads v. Corporate executives

Drug Dealers v. Convenience store owners

Alec Baldwin v. Kelsey Grammar

Welfare Queens v. Working women

Michael Stipe v. Ted Nugent

Planned Parenthood v. Right to Life

Sharon Stone v. Bo Derek

ACORN workers v. NASCAR Fans

Joy Behar v. Elisabeth Hasselbeck

Atheists v. Born again Christians

Madonna v. Martina McBride

Vegans v. Hunters

Non repentant terrorists v. FBI agents

Homeless v. Homeowners

College professors v. Small business owners

Urbanites v. Suburbanites

Any network news anchor v. John Stossel

Occupiers v. Tea Partiers

People who sign their checks on the back v People who sign their checks on the front

     

So choose your neighbor....... but choose wisely......

Polling question

To say I've been obsessed with information related to Ohio polling would be an understatement.

Mrs. Gekko is ready to have Gallup tattooed on my forehead.

None the less, I believe there may be some significant party ID issues with any Ohio poll.

Let's take the time machine back to 2008. Remember that in the primary, McCain had already won the GOP nomination which left Ohio republicans with only the democratic primary to vote in.

Many republicans changed their party affiliation to democrat to vote in the primary; some as part of Rush's Operation Chaos and some, like me, who just wanted to vote against Obama.

How many of those registered democrats changed back to republican in the past four years? After all, the GOP nomination was locked up again this year. So unless, you had some compelling reason to vote a GOP ballot in previous elections you're probably still a registered democrat.

The reason I wonder is today I got a call from Sherrod Brown's office asking me where my absentee ballot was.

They called because I've never changed my party affiliation back so they're thinking that I'm a sure democratic vote.

How many guys like me are in the voter pool? How skewed are the party ID figures if there are people who never changed their party affiliation back from 2008?

So when I read this at NRO I'm wondering what factoring has been done for this phenomenon.

As mentioned above, in current Ohio polls, Democrats have a party-ID sample advantage of 6.3 points. In 2008, Democrats had a 5-point turnout advantage in Ohio. That means that while national polls have the turnout advantage down 2.6 points, in Ohio it has actually increased 1.3 points. It is almost impossible to conclude that while the nationwide party-ID advantage of Democrats has dropped since the wave election of 2008, Ohio has actually increased over the last four years.

If that’s not enough, the Ohio polls have actually become more Democratic since the post-DNC polls that gave Obama the significant bounce that led many pundits to declare Romney’s chances in Ohio DOA. Of all Ohio polls from September 7 to September 19, Obama held an average lead of 4.2 points, with a Democratic party-ID advantage of 5.7 points. Today Obama leads by 2.1 points, with a party-ID advantage of 6.3 points. In the last month, while Romney has had surges in polls all over the country, the polling in Ohio has actually found more Democrats even while Obama’s lead was cut in half.

The biggest explanation for this discrepancy appears to be the prevalence of early voting. Many Ohio polls state that more voters claim to have voted early than the county records show; this inflates the likely-voter pools, with Obama voters pushing the Democrats’ advantage up as a result. It is a big problem for pollsters — many respondents want to say the socially popular thing, which is that they have already voted. When voters say they have voted (unlike when respondents say they plan on voting), pollsters ask no follow-up questions to determine how likely it is that they are telling the truth. Respondents who say they have voted go straight into the likely-voter pool, even though it’s clear that the number of respondents who claim to have voted is much larger than the actual early-voter turnout, based on the county records. From this, it’s reasonable to conclude that Democrats’ party advantage may prove to be lower, which would ultimately cut 
Obama’s lead in Ohio dramatically.

For the record, I told that Brown volunteer to Go Romney.

Chicago......... republicans fault?

Life in "Progress" City - Chicago edition

Probably a bunch of tea partiers with their concealed carry permits............

Chicago surpassed last year’s total of 435 homicides Monday when a man died after being shot, authorities said.

The victim was one of two people wounded in separate shootings that occurred just four blocks and half an hour apart Monday morning in the South Chicago neighborhood.

More................

Who did they vote for? #415

So there's no voter fraud in Ohio.

Then maybe someone can explain this.............

Three Franklin County residents face felony charges of voter fraud after the Board of Elections reported that they had voted more than once in a past election.

Each was indicted yesterday by a Franklin County grand jury on one count of illegal voting. They are accused of voting twice by casting absentee ballots under slightly different names.

Those indicted are:

• Dominique Atkins, 38, of 1532 Barnes Drive E. on the Northeast Side, who is accused of casting a second ballot on Oct. 25, 2010, under the name Dominque Atkins.

• Debbie L. Tingler, 50, of 533 Hunt Valley Dr., Reynoldsburg, who is accused of casting a second ballot on Feb. 27, 2008, under the name Deborah L. Tingler.

• Marian Wilson, 47, of 1922 Kendall Place, Grove City, who is accused of casting a second ballot on Sept. 29, 2010, under the name Marian Toles.

So in this year's election will these babes vote for Obama or Romney.

More.......

Life in "Progress" State - Illinois edition

Maybe one of them really smart liberal types can tell me how conservatives created this mess.............

On Thursday, the Teachers’ Retirement System announced its annual investment returns for fiscal year 2012. You may recall that it was predicting 8.5 percent returns.
So what kind of returns did it actually get? A meager 0.76 percent. For comparison, the S&P 500 grew 7.39 percent during fiscal year 2012, while the Dow Jones Industrial average grew 7.92 percent.

Of course, this isn’t the first time TRS investments have come in below expectations. Even before this year, the 5-year average rate of return was only 4.1 percent, and the 10-year average was just 6 percent. Even its long-term averages are below its projections.
And when investment returns come in under projections, it falls on taxpayers to make up the shortfall.

Ultimately, there are only two numbers that matter: the amount of money the pension fund will pay out for earned benefits, and the amount of money it has on hand. Between now and 2045, TRS will pay $376.5 billion to retired teachers. It has just $36.3 billion on hand. In order for these assets to cover future payouts, TRS would need to see average investment returns of more than 18.5 percent per year.

The simple fact is that TRS is broke. Under new accounting rules, TRS has less than 23 percent of the money it should have in the bank today in order to make its pension payments. The system doesn’t even have enough money on hand to pay out benefits to the people who have already retired. Pension experts and TRS’s own actuaries agree: the fund could soon be insolvent.

 More...............

The Future Children Project

An Urgent Message for America

LENA DUNHAM: YOUR FIRST TIME PARODY! #MoreFreeCrap

Lena Dunham: Your First Time

How bad is your ad when the opponents are putting it on their blogs?


For the record, if I had a choice to "do it" with this girl or go home, I'd warm up my cable.

Liberalism = Insanity

A couple of weeks ago, I offered my absentee ballot to the first liberal/progressive/democrat who could tell me why (if liberal policies are so wonderful) is it that every city, state and country they run is swirling down the drain.

It doesn't matter if we're talking about Detroit, California, or Greece. Show me a government entity in financial distress and I'll show an entity run by a pack of "progressives".

On this blog, no one took me up on the challenge. On my facebook page, one liberal decided to call me a name instead of actually answering the question; which is how they usually operate.

So let me throw this out today. Can anyone name one problem that a liberal/progressive/democratic program actually solved?

Let's take poverty. After all the trillions of dollars spent on poverty programs since the 1960's what is the current state of poverty in this country?

Or let's take homelessness. I think we can all agree that homelessness is a bad thing. The city of San Francisco spends a half a BILLION dollars a year in homeless programs (just city money, not federal, state or private charities). My community of Maineville OH spends zero, zip, nada. Which city has the homeless problem?

Or let's take the grand poobah of liberalism...... secondary education. As a society, we've expanded Pell grants and student loan programs and tax credits all over the place. Is education more affordable today than it was 10 years ago? How about twenty?

What about primary education? Sure, your kid can tell you all about global warming, just don't ask them to make change for a twenty.

What the hell does it say about your thought patterns when the overwhelming evidence says liberalism doesn't solve any problems and turns totally functioning communities into shit holes and yet you still support such programs and policies?

They say that the ultimate definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

So wouldn't it be logical that if you're liberal, you must be insane as well?