Life in "Progress" City - Detroit edition

Authorities are investigating after a woman’s body was found inside her vehicle in metro Detroit, and neighbors are saying she might have been there for several years.

The reportedly mummified body of a woman in her 40s was found in the back of a Jeep Liberty, parked in the garage of her home on Savanna Drive, near Walton Boulevard and Silver Lake Road in Pontiac.

A contractor made the discovery Wednesday while working at the home, which is going through foreclosure.

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Planned Parenthood President: When Life Begins Not 'Really Relevant' to ...

alex sink says immigration reform is for landscapers and hotel maids

Obama violated his own rules with Yemen drone strike

Life in "Progress" City - Austin edition

When hitting up jaywalkers is your most important crime.

The truth about minimum wage

So the Obamunists want to increase the minimum  wage to $10.10 an hour.

My question is what makes $10.10 the magic number? Why not 10.08? or 10.14? or $28.00/hr? or 60.00?

If raising the minimum wage doesn't increase unemployment, let's raise it to where everyone is rich.


Regardless, let's assume that you are a single mom slinging hash at a local diner for minimum wage (for the record most states minimums are higher than the 7.25/hr).

Let's do the wage calculation.

If she works 2000 hours a year earning 7.25/hr. That puts her at 15,000 a year. Hardly enough to feed a family. None the less, outside of FICA and medicare, that income is tax free.

As a result of her earnings and family size, when Jane Doe files her tax return, she'll get a refund of $7,184. None of which she paid into, and it's all tax free.

This is a result of the Earned Income Credit and refundable child credit

Divide that earned income credit and refundable child credit income by her 2000 hours of work and her hourly wage now becomes $10.84/an hour. Again, mostly tax free.

Now add to that number, subsidized housing, free school breakfasts and lunches, Medicaid, free Obama phones, food stamps, etc. and a truly working person can essentially net $20/hour after tax. All of which she would qualify for because of her diminished earnings.

Who wants to move up the food chain when you would essentially take a pay cut?

We don't need a minimum wage increase, we need to educate the public on the money people already get.

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How to not "manage" the homeless

Believe it or not San Francisco has a homeless problem.......

Last week Supervisor Mark Farrell held a hearing to evaluate the city's 10-year plan to end chronic homelessness in San Francisco. I wasn't able to attend, but I watched the hearing on the SFGov TV channel. (And I'd like my two hours and 47 minutes back, thank you.)

The idea was to see if the plan is working. Spoiler alert - it isn't.

It's not from lack of effort. The city has spent hundreds of millions of dollars over the past 10 years - this year the Department of Human Services budget alone is $102 million for homelessness. San Francisco has created 2,700 supportive housing units, with 340 more on the way in the next two years. And, since 2004, homeless outreach workers have placed over 9,600 homeless single adults in housing. Obviously, not all of them stay housed, but that's the 10-year total.

The result? In 2005 a city-sponsored count found that there were 6,248 homeless individuals in the city. This year the census found 6,436.

You know how my village in Redville manages our homeless problem? They don't.

Isn't it kind of weird that we don't seem to have one?

But I can guarantee that if our village officials announced a 10 year plan to deal with the homeless, we'd have a homeless problem the very next day.

The cold hard fact is that for many of the homeless, rock bottom isn't too much a bottom when planning enablers prevent them from hitting it. It's more like the fifth floor than the basement.

Maybe we San Francisco needs to ship in our municipal representatives to their city to show them how it's done.... er.... not done.

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

Meet an idiot

Police Shoot, Kill 80-Year-Old Man In His Own Bed, Don't Find the Drugs ...

How about we don't give a crap

Some writer in The Nation is wondering why conservatives are not weighing in on Michael Sam's announcement that he's gay.

Here's a thought. How about we don't give a shit.

Somewhere along the line liberals have held this belief that because your anti gay marriage, you're somehow anti gay.

The truth of the matter most conservatives don't give a shit what happens in your bedroom anymore than you care about what happens in mine. Does Dave Zirin, the writer of this piece, want to hear about how I'm attracted to short, Asian girls with giant fake boobs, partial to the reverse cowgirl position, maybe a golden shower here or there, or even an occasional Cincinnati steamer? (For the record....maybe none or all of these really apply)

My guess.......... he isn't.

I couldn't care less who Michael Sams has sex with.

Just to satisfy Mr. Zirin curiosity, here's partial list of people who I don't care to know about their sex lives.

Billy Joel
Mitch McConnell
Bristol Palin
Hillary Clinton
Joan Jett
Buzz Aldren
Apollo Ono (actually, you can add the whole Subway endorsement crew)
Dan Marino
Richie Sambora
Bruce Dern
Laura Dern
Dave Zirin


The list goes on and on.................

Just because I'm against gay marriage doesn't mean I have some infatuation with whom people are doing the dirty with. I DON'T CARE.

But for some reason, Michael Sams and Dave Zirin feel that it's real important to push it my face and demand that I approve. Again, the dirty little secret I'll let Dave in on is that most people are indifferent. They don't care because it's not in their personal version of Housewives of Redville.

THEY DON'T CARE.

Since gay marriage seems to be the issue that brings this up. Let me ask a couple of questions.

Exactly, what value does the state actually add to the marital contract that can't be handled between two adults? I've been writing about this for over three years and no one can give me a coherent answer yet.

When the lovely Mrs. Gekko and I got married. We waited in a Warren County bullpen along with every other juvenile delinquent and criminal waiting for someone to call our number so we could record our marriage license.

The whole time we sat there, I couldn't help but wonder why we needed to do that. What freakin' business is it of anyone but ourselves how we want to handle our marital contract?

Oh, it's now a public document which means we get shit loads of junk mail looking to target a couple of newlyweds. That's pretty important.

Now my stalker ex-wife can track me down via those same public records to find out where I live. That's freakin' real important.
 
Or when/if we decide to divorce in a no fault divorce state I guess we need something of record to dissolve something that had no value to the state in the first place (hence why make it dissolving it no fault). That's pretty important.

If you are going to allow gays to marry, what justification do you not allow polygamists to marry?

Why shouldn't cousins be able to marry? Siblings for that matter?

How do you tell a 14 year old girl she can't marry her 40 year old Spanish teacher? After all, nature says she's ready to bear children so shouldn't she be allowed to marry.

If any of those scenarios creep you out, aren't you every bit as guilty of prejudice that you accuse gay marriage opponents of?

Once again, I want to be a proponent of "Don't ask, Don't tell".  I won't ask Phyliss Schlafly who she's into, and I'm pretty sure she won't ask me. Michael Sams has the same status.

Dr. Jonathan Turley

Out of curiosity, let's assume the next president is a republican who hates Obamacare. Do you think democrats are going to have a shit fit when that president unilaterally suspends Obamacare forever?

Who are the racists?

The conventional wisdom is that those conservative, southern, republican, hillbillies are racist.

Maybe you should take the words of a black man to tell you different.........

“The worst things that have been done to me, the worst things that have been said about me, [were] by northern liberal elites, not by the people of Savannah, Georgia,”

The words of one Clarence Thomas.

Growing up, I vividly remember watching the evening news to witness the violence in one U.S. city when forced busing was thrust upon the community.

Guess what? That city wasn't Birmingham. It wasn't Atlanta. It wasn't Memphis. It was Boston, where the population is about 90% democratic and about a gazillion miles north of the Mason Dixon line.

Watch this video and you tell me how open minded your average liberal is.

DOE's Julio Friedmann on cost of CCS technologies

I Am a Factory - 60 sec

The Battle to Raise the Minimum Wage Explained by Obama

The 80-20 principle - Crime edition

Most cops will tell you that the spend 80 percent of their time dealing with 20 percent of criminals.

We could lighten their burden if we kept most of these clowns behind bars in the first place.....
 

One week before police say he took part in a deadly carjacking at the Short Hills mall, Hanif Thompson was spotted breaking into property in Newark, getting into an Audi and trying to drive away, Essex County prosecutors say.

Newark police caught Thompson near the Weequahic Avenue property on Dec. 7 and charged him with burglary and resisting arrest, prosecutors say.

He remained locked up at the Essex County Jail through Dec. 11 when, prosecutors say, the ex-con was released after a Newark Municipal Court judge reduced his bail from $50,000 to $20,000 with the option of paying $2,000 or 10 percent of the total, court records show.

Four days later, Hoboken lawyer Dustin Friedland was dead, the victim of an attack Essex County prosecutors say was carried out by Thompson and three other Newark men with lengthy criminal records — Kevin Roberts, 35; Basim Henry, 32; and Karif Ford, 31.

It was not the first time Thompson, 29, found himself back in trouble after being locked up.

Prosecutors say Thompson has tallied seven felony convictions as an adult and twice jumped bail by missing court appearances. He’s served two multi-year stints in state prisons over the past decade, the first a four-year hitch for drugs, the second a three-year term for stealing a Subaru Impreza from a Livingston home in 2009, court records show. And he was sent back to prison for eight months in 2010 after he violated his parole, records show.

SEVEN FREAKIN FELONIES BEFORE THE AGE OF 29! Not even counting his latest resume enhancer.

Now ask yourself the question. Is it the repressive policies of the republicans that kept these derelicts on the streets?

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How government programs increase income disparity

Because it allows businesses to overcharge where it wouldn't a truly free market system. And who owns businesses. Hint... It ain't poor guys....................

But don't take my word for it. Read the headline.....

Wal-Mart Stores warned Friday that cuts to the nation's food stamps program late last year will hurt its bottom line.

The cut in food stamps went into effect Nov. 1. Food stamps had been increased during the height of the recession, but that expansion expired without Congressional action.

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