Stay out of our classrooms, you damn tax protester.
Not even in a liberal community? Fie!
Fannie & Freddie, we wish we never knew ye
Fannie & Freddie, alleged progressivism that left the rails and would take us all with them.
On Monday, Standard & Poor’s placed the U.S. AAA-rating on negative outlook. It cited the potential cost of the U.S. government’s conservatorship of the mortgage-finance giants in tilting the scales in its decision. Here’s what S&P said:
We estimate that it could cost the U.S. government as much as 3.5% of GDP to appropriately capitalize and relaunch Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two financial institutions now under federal control, in addition to the 1% of GDP already invested.
That’s Wall St. Journal as linked by News Alert, which demonstrates one of the best noses for news around.
The President’s open hostility to [Paul Ryan’s] adult plan [in his speech last week] while offering no substantive plan of his own was the straw that broke the camel’s back. And because Mr. Obama still cannot deal with the issue as an adult, we will keep heading down this treacherous road.
Bill Daley’s really making a difference, isn’t he?
As James Pethokoukis noted, Obama’s muddled plan to solve the crisis was “fastened together by the chewing gum and sticky tape of rosy economic assumptions and fiscal opacity.” But more so, it was Barack Obama’s angry words and denunciation of Paul Ryan’s own plan that drove S&P to its conclusion.
Who said Daley would be a moderating, business-friendly influence? Where’s the evidence of that?
Another like this union man around?
Albert Shanker was a teachers union president (American Fed of Teachers) with a head on his shoulders and an analytical mind.
“It is time to admit that public education operates like a planned
economy. It’s a bureaucratic system where everybody’s role is spelled
out in advance, and there are few incentives for innovation and
productivity. It’s not a surprise when a school system doesn’t improve.
It more resembles a Communist economy than our own market economy.”
He said that in Wall St. Journal in 1989.
Shut up, they said
Oh my, archdiocese of Chicago lawyers at work here, with $15G to spare if this accuser just stops blogging. Long account, full of details of buffoons and shyster-like behavior.
Accuser an ex-scriptwriter, names two of the lawyers “Jowls” and “Beady,” gives them starring roles.
They be church lawyers with an offer she refused. Phew.
Update: Something’s going on. As of 2:17 pm, 4/20:
This post has been temporarily removed, it will return soon
Wonders not ceasing yet
Detroit unions under the gun. Did you say Detroit?
DETROIT—A new state law has emboldened the Detroit mayor and schools chief to take a more aggressive stance toward public unions as the city leaders try to mop up hundreds of millions of dollars in red ink.
Associated Press
Detroit Mayor Dave Bing, right, presented his budget to City Council last week.
Robert Bobb, the head of the Detroit Public Schools, late last week sent layoff notices to the district’s 5,466 salaried employees, including all of its teachers, a preliminary step in seeking broad work-force cuts to deal with lower enrollment.
Earlier last week, Detroit Mayor Dave Bing presented a $3.1 billion annual budget to City Council in which he proposed higher casino taxes and substantial cuts in city workers’ health care and pensions to close an estimated $200 million budget gap.
Yes, I said Detroit.
Be reasonable and lose, Republicans
Red State’s Erick Erickson on why Trump is doing so well in the polling:
At a time when Republican leaders are trying to look “grown up” and “reasonable” in the eyes of the Washington Press Corps, Michele Bachmann is fighting the left.
Michele Bachmann is willing to pick a fight to replace Obamacare when John Boehner and Eric Cantor are willing to roll over. Bachmann is willing to pick a fight on the debt ceiling when the leadership is, even now, negotiating an increase in the debt ceiling while yet again selling out conservatives.
No time for Mr. Nice Guy in this scenario, he’s saying. Time to say forget-you to the mainstream media, who love a Republican loser.
Obviously, the primary reason that this has occurred is that we have become such a bizarrely celebrity-obsessed culture (and therefore our ratings-driven media is totally celebrity-driven) that if one is well known enough, then literally nothing is off the table. It is almost as if we have created an unofficial class of royalty whose members are automatically taken seriously in almost any endeavor simply because they are one of the “chosen people.”
What makes this development particularly offensive is that there isn’t any distinction between fame and infamy anymore. Being well known is just about all that matters, regardless of how or why it happened.
So when Trump approached CPAC with the proposal to speak (for what would become an episode of his Golf Channel reality show), he already had at least half of the credentials needed to qualify for a spot on the podium: He was famous enough to “trump” his extremely questionable “conservatism.” While obviously I can’t prove it, based on what I know about how things are done at CPAC (as a former co-sponsor), I would be surprised if some sort of “donation” from Trump didn’t smooth over any lingering doubts that they may have had about handing over the conference to such an obvious fraud.
Jefferson on another wall
T. Jefferson quoted in other context than the old favorite in a letter about “wall of separation,” here warning about “domiciliary vexation” (!):
“At home, fellow citizens, you best know whether we have done well or ill. The suppression of unnecessary offices, of useless establishments and expenses, enabled us to discontinue our internal taxes. These covering our land with officers, and opening our doors to their intrusions, had already begun that process of domiciliary vexation which, once entered, is scarcely to be restrained from reaching successively every article of produce and property.”
Unnecessary offices, eh? Useless establishments and expenses, eh? Covering our land with officers . . . opening our doors to their intrusions, eh?
That, fellow citizens, is domiciliary vexation. We must guard against it, eh?
This Catholic did not watch his back
Chancery blokes are credibly accused of axing a pro-life program manager who ran athwart the politically correct and politically connected in the archdiocese of Chicago. His friends aim to help.
Sent: Sunday, April 17, 2011 9:53 AM
Subject: Benefit Dinner for Rey Flores and Family with a talk by Joe ScheidlerDear Friends,Rey Flores lost his job as Chicago Director of the Catholic Campaign for Human Development as a result of the reforms he was making to insure that funds were going to organizations that conform to the teaching of the Church. He has not been able to find employment since that time and he has a family of five young children to support. This benefit dinner has been planned to assist the family through a difficult time.Please feel free to forward this notice to your own e-mail list. Note the options for attending the dinner or donating at the bottom of the invitation.Mary Anne Hackett
Present
Benefit Dinner for Rey Flores and Family
Pro-Life Action League founder
Joe Scheidler
will speak on
“Peace in the Pro-Life Movement:
Focusing on the Goal of Defending Life”Thursday, May 19
7:00pm – 10:00pm
Blue Star Wine Bar
1209 N. Noble St, Chicago, ILThis benefit helps to alleviate the hardship Rey Flores’s family is experiencing during a difficult time of unemployment. More info:
www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/nov/10111201.html
www.lifesitenews.com/news/archive/ldn/2010/aug/10080609
www.lifesitenews.com/news/archive/ldn/2009/nov/09111612
To purchase a ticket or donate visit:
reyfloresfamilybenefit.eventbrite.com
to donate or pay by check, call Nick at 312-952-4855
Rey Flores is an experienced consultant who has worked in promotion, marketing, and advertising both inside and outside the Catholic Church. He is bilingual and can do marketing in English and Spanish. He is currently job searching and available for work. Rey lives in the Chicago south suburbs with his wife and five children. Join us for an enjoyable evening on
Thursday, May 19 · 7:00pm – 10:00pm
at the Blue Star Wine Bar
Trouble ahead for school teachers
Will technology do for schools (teachers) what it did for newspapers (news people)?
“In the final analysis, what technology requires is a substitution of technology for human labor. Computers will do a lot of what teachers do now.” Jumping forward in his chair, he lights up: “Technology is cheap. Labor is really expensive. Education has always been very labor intensive, so if our education system can substitute technology for labor and still provide kids with high quality education, then great!”
It does this everywhere. I got a computer etc. in the ’80s because it was that or hire a typist because I needed clean copy for clients and editors. (My newspaper had closed down, I no longer had a copy desk to clean things up, etc.) Was huge initial outlay I couldn’t afford. But necessary.
My newspaper, an evening sheet, was done in partly (largely?) by TV, in the ’70s. What’s to come, therefore, for teachers, many of whom will be priced out of the market, like bicycle-factory workers when that boom went bust early in the 20th century?
Trade deficit be damned, full speed to free trade
You probably think we’re bad off when we import more than we export. Of course I do, you say. It’s better to sell more than you buy, right? Money in the pocket and all that, including more jobs for more Americans. You are wrong, says this guy from Cato Institute, via Carpe Diem blog, w/hat tip to Newsalert:
“The time to reform the prevailing doctrine of the trade balance is long overdue. The goal of U.S. trade policy should not be to maximize exports and minimize imports in a misbegotten quest for “balanced trade.” The goal should be to maximize the freedom of Americans to buy and sell in global markets for mutual gain, whatever the mix of goods, services, and assets we freely choose to trade.”
How so?
“What the past 30 years show is that the U.S. economy exhibits no sign of suffering during periods when the trade deficit is expanding. To the contrary, the U.S. economy grew more than three times faster during periods when the trade deficit was expanding as a share of GDP compared to those in which it was shrinking (see chart above, click to enlarge):
The chart above? Here ’tis, below:
The more the deficit, the better. Who’d a-thunk it?
