Archive for September, 2011

Publius

Economists: Obama’s Jobs Plan Won’t Add Many New Jobs

by Publius

From the Associated Press:

First, do no harm. Economists say the most important part of the jobs plan President Barack Obama will unveil Thursday night is the renewal of two measures already in place—a cut in Social Security taxes and emergency aid for the unemployed.

His new proposals, like spending more for transportation projects and cutting taxes for companies that hire the unemployed, probably wouldn’t add many jobs, they say. Not soon, anyway.

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Wayne Allyn   Root

The Economic Cost of Obama’s Union Label

by Wayne Allyn Root

I’ve made some uncannily accurate predictions in the past 3 years.

Back in 2008, as I ran for Vice President of the United States on the Libertarian Presidential ticket, I made a prediction I’m very proud of today. I said, “Voting for McCain is voting for four more years of Bush. But voting for Obama is voting for four years of Karl Marx.” How’s that working for you?

I also predicted that Obama’s entire Presidency would be devoted to saving the union- the teachers union, government employees union, and auto union. Sure enough, the White House now comes adorned with a union label. If you look closely at Obama’s forehead, you’ll find it’s stamped SEIU. Obama’s signature initiative Obamacare affects every American citizen, except union members. Real life under Obama is more shocking than fiction.

A year ago, while economists and Obama administration lackeys talked of a recovery, I publicly stated we’d never left the last recession and the worst was yet to come. I predicted that “Obama’s Axis of Evil” policies of taxation, regulation, government strangulation, unionization, litigation and illegal immigration would turn a serious economic crisis into The Greatest Depression Ever. It’s all unfolding before our very eyes on a daily basis.

As conditions got progressively worse during 2010, I predicted the Tea Parties would pull off one of the great landslide victories in U.S. political history that November.

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Kyle Olson

Unpatriotic Teamsters Hoarding Mounds of Cash

by Kyle Olson

The Left’s working motto consistently turns out to be “do as I say, not as I do.”  How else could they possibly make bold pronouncements to the media but live the exact opposite?

The day before his declaration of war on the Tea Party movement, Teamsters President James Hoffa appeared on CNN and deemed American companies as “unpatriotic,” according to the Political Ticker.

“I think the president should challenge the patriotism of these American corporations that are sitting on the sidelines,” Hoffa said. “The problem in America isn’t that we don’t have enough money. We’ve got more money than any other country in the world. The problem is American businesses not spending it and not getting it in the game.”

Is Hoffa willing to have his own patriotism challenged?  Because some inconvenient truths emerge from the financial report his Teamsters union filed with the federal government.

According to an LM-2 report filed earlier this year, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, which represents truck drivers and some school employees, ended 2010 with $108,608,477 in the bank.  That’s a whopping 24.9% increase in net assets over 2009, when the union reported $86,942,076 in assets.

In contrast, the Teamsters reported $88,371,439 in liabilities.  So if the union could afford to go without any new revenue and still meet its obligations for well over 12 months.

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Publius

Gov Officials Turning Away Trained Firefighters in Texas

by Publius

From The Gonzales Cannon:

Firefighting-trained volunteers from around the state converged on Bastrop and Smithville Tuesday to lend a hand to the beleaguered local firefighters battling the Bastrop County Complex Fire — only to be sent away as federal officials arrived at the scene and took command, apparently because local officials never made a formal request for volunteers.

“We were at the station getting set up into strike teams, and this guy came up and said that the U.S. Forest Service had ‘assumed control of the situation, and that ‘If you don’t have a vehicle that squirts water, go home,’” said Gordon Greer of Kirbyville, who drove all night Monday to arrive in the town beset by the worst wildfire in Texas history. “You’ve got guys who had driven all night long from Corpus Christi and Brownsville on their own dime, and they turned them away. He was really a (bleep) about it.

“There was a whole line of beige cars that came in this morning, tinted windows and such,” Greer said.

Read the whole thing here. Texas has a very large base of highly-trained volunteer firefighters. Just the sort of thing that would be really helpful if, say, there were over 100,000 acres ablaze. Also, though, just the sort of thing that makes lots of state and federal employees redundant.

Christopher C. Horner

Cantor Tees Up Energy, Jobs and ‘Green’ Fight with Obama

by Christopher C. Horner

A lead story in Wednesday’s trade press publication E&E Daily was “Energy, fighting EPA at the core of GOP jobs agenda”. This is true, but also reveals what may be the greatest gap between Obamanomics and an approach to governance that most Republicans claim to support:

  • Obama treats the energy sector like a centrally planned jobs program, putting the boot on the neck of the stuff that works while ‘creating’ politically desired but economically unsustainable positions making politically desired but economically undesirable products. Republicans argue that if wind- and solar-powered electricity, pioneered in the 1890s, work then they will work but in the meantime creating jobs in the energy sector means getting your boot off the neck of the stuff that works.
  • Obama and his team have long argued that their costly regulations will actually create jobs. Of course, every program, regulation and even hurricane “creates jobs”, just not on net. The administration either doesn’t get ‘net’, or thinks you will be persuaded by ‘the seen’ and imagine there is no unseen.

EPA administrator Lisa Jackson embarked upon a campaign to advance these absurd arguments in February, arguing that, e.g., if she adopts a rule requiring you to do something costly or even prematurely destroy capital, why, you’ll have to hire someone to do it!

The WSJ accurately characterized this philosophy: “In other words, the government should harm an industry and force it to ruin working assets so maybe other people can clean up the mess.”

Obama administration “green jobs” emissary Jackson also said these will require many more new environmental regulators. Yes, she said that, risible dogma that was repeated by administration apologists as recently as this week on NPR’s Diane Rehm Show. So they aren’t giving up on it.

Except… On the Friday before this past long holiday weekend, President Obama somewhat buried a rational decision if a decision, like Thursday’s speech announcing Son of Stimulus, rooted entirely in his own political needs.

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Mike Flynn

Texas Tea Parties Mobilize to Assist Firefighters, Victims of Wildfires

by Mike Flynn

Well, the ‘barbarians’ and ’sons of bitches’ are at it again. As wildfires spread across Texas, covering over 100,000 acres so far, tea partiers are once again organizing and mobilizing, this time to help their fellow citizens.

The group Citizen Patriot Response is coordinating efforts. From its website:

Citizen Patriot Response is preparing to begin delivering cold bottles of water to firefighters in the Bastrop area in an effort to do our part. Many other organizations and individuals in Texas are doing the same. We need support, we need more efforts initiated across the state, and we need communication and collaboration between group leaders to ensure that men and women fighting the Texas wildfires have full support.

The group will also provide a shelter for those families whose homes are threatened by the fires.

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Charles Gasparino

Obamanomics: The Markets Are Losing Hope

by Charles Gasparino

In today’s New York Post:

There was once a time when trouble in foreign markets, whether in Asia or as now in Europe, would be good for US stocks.

Sure, our markets can get hammered when news like the 1997 Asian currency crisis hits. But we often make a comeback as investors digest the news and come to the conclusion that the best place to bet for future growth is on the companies at the heart of the US economy.

No longer.

And it’s not just the zero-percent job growth and 9.1 percent unemployment we’ve got now.

The mainstream business media will tell you that the problem lies in the “dysfunction of Washington.” In other words, the economic slump and all the market turbulence, including yesterday’s 100-point drop in the Dow, stem from a bipartisan cause — lawmakers and President Obama can’t manage to craft a sensible plan to grow the economy.

But talk to enough investors, and they’ll tell you this isn’t really a bipartisan problem. Rather, it largely remains at the top, meaning with Obama and his economic advisers — who, when they aren’t threatening to raise the taxes of “millionaires and billionaires” who make just $200,000 a year, are offering up the leftovers of previously failed economic policies, such as this “infrastructure bank” gimmick that the president plans to unveil in what’s being billed as a major economic speech later in the week.

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William Kelly

Illinois ‘Hate Crimes’ Investigator Caught Sending Tea Party Hate Mail

by William J. Kelly

Question: When is hate not hateful? Answer: When it is committed by a leftwing investigator for the Illinois Department of Human Rights.

Last week, the Illinois Executive Ethics Commission tried to sneak in a pre-holiday disclosure: Alvin Forbes, Sr., an Illinois Department of Human Rights employee, was caught using his state-owned computer to send anti-Tea Party emails last November and given a verbal reprimand. A reprimand? Not a termination of employment for violating state ethics laws against political activity?

So what was the point of this phony wrist slap? Was it a coincidence that the Commission chose to post this news on its website a week prior to Labor Day – the kick-off to the all-important 2011-2012 political season – hoping few would notice? Strategically, they were correct; with the exception of a few news outlets, this story has gone unreported.

In November 2010, Forbes emailed a propaganda-filled diatribe targeting Glenn Beck and Gov. Sarah Palin, carping about a dastardly plan to “take down President Obama and the government.” Excuse me, Mr. Forbes, but the freedom to oppose a political philosophy you disagree with – that’s called democracy.  Maybe you’ve heard of it?

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Kyle Olson

AFT’s Anti-Michelle Rhee Website Illustrates Unions Are Buckling Under Reform Pressure

by Kyle Olson

When news broke that the American Federation of Teachers is targeting Michelle Rhee’s education reform group, StudentsFirst, through an online website, it was less than surprising.

It wasn’t that long ago that Education Action Group found its own cyber stalker site, a union-organized publication with the ironic title EAG Truth. Virtually every sentence on the website is filled with inaccuracies, distortions or misinformation aimed at discrediting our successful non-profit.

Weingarten's AFT: Purveyor of 'Anonymous' Internet Attacks

In the education reform world, it’s like a badge of honor if the teachers unions hate what you have to say and devote resources to counter your message online. It usually means that the ‘students first, union concerns second’ message is resonating with the public. That’s bad for union business.

The fact that Politico tracked the address of the AFT’s anti-Rhee website back to the union isn’t surprising. Neither is the personal attacks and doctored photos posted on the site. We’ve seen them before, and they aren’t pretty.

When StudentsFirst revealed that the site originated at AFT headquarters, the union barked back in typical fashion, questioning the funding of StudentsFirst. It’s the same response we’ve seen from other unions when we questioned their motives.

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Publius

The Wednesday Cheat Sheet

by Publius

The U.S. has fallen to fifth in global competitiveness. Heck of a job, Barry, heck of a job. Too bad you still have one at this point. Your job creation numbers have all but disappeared. Now, the White House wants to kick start job creation by spending another $300 billion we don’t have … because it worked so well the first time? Well, obviously that can’t be it.

Didn’t Obama spend like weeks trying to come up with his new jobs’ plan? After all that he’s just recycling his term paper from 2009?

Obama is also expected to tout a Georgia Job Training program in his speech tomorrow night. It has gotten a lot of good press in the lefty side of the internet, but don’t be fooled by what you hear or read. Check out some uncomfortable facts about the program.

Yesterday Hoffa, Jr. called for the Left to take out the Tea Party, today brings a new development, one perhaps even worse. Someone should check if the zombies in this video game have jobs, at least Obama could claim to have created a few when it comes to his dismal performance on the economy.

The game is called “Tea Party Zombies Must Die” and, apart from abysmal game play, features several different levels where your only objective is to mercilessly slaughter everyone around you whether they are a Fox News stars or simply Americans For Prosperity employees.

ABC’s Jake Tapper grilled Jay Carney on whether Obama should be responsible for Hoffa’s ‘SOB’ remarks.

Meanwhile, some ’sons of bitches’ from Breitbart-opolis asked Media Matters for their tax filing yesterday.

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Publius

Obama Jobs Plan: Dems Fear It’s too Late

by Publius

From The Hill:

President Obama’s new effort to revive the ailing economy may be too little, too late, according to Democrats and liberal policy experts.

They contend that Obama missed his chance to turn the economy around by November 2012, but still want him to call on Congress to move an aggressive new jobs plan — even if it has little chance of passing.

Obama should swing for the fences during his speech on Thursday, they say, claiming there is no need to be politically pragmatic with the House in GOP hands.

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Publius

Obama’s Jobs Big Idea? Spend Another $300 Billion

by Publius

From the Associated Press:

:

The economy weak and the public seething, President Barack Obama is expected to propose $300 billion in tax cuts and federal spending Thursday night to get Americans working again. Republicans offered Tuesday to compromise with him on jobs—but also assailed his plans in advance of his prime-time speech.

In effect, Obama will be hitting cleanup on a shortened holiday week, with Republican White House contender Mitt Romney releasing his jobs proposals on Tuesday and front-running Texas Gov. Rick Perry hoping to join his presidential rivals Wednesday evening on a nationally televised debate stage for the first time.

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The New Ledger

How to Avoid Collegiate Indoctrination

by The New Ledger

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On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Pejman Yousefzadeh and Kevin Holtsberry are joined by Lee Doren’s new book, Please Enroll Responsibly: Avoiding Indoctrination at College, concerning how best to avoid ideological indoctrination at institutions of higher learning, and how to get a rigorous and valuable education that will prepare students for the job market.

We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

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AWR Hawkins

Gov. Rick Perry: Gun Control Means Using Both Hands

by AWR Hawkins

As 2012 approaches, answers that would-be candidates on both sides of the aisle give to even the most random questions matter. And that’s because those answers – especially to random, unpredictable questions – don’t spring from briefings with staff as much as from raw conviction.

We were reminded of this on Monday as Gov. Rick Perry sat in front of group of South Carolina citizens and was asked: “Are you for gun control?”

The audience howled with laughter that the question was even asked, but Perry answered dutifully: “I am actually for gun control.” (At this point you could hear the laughter nervously diminish.) Then Perry added, “Use both hands.”

Ah, the howling of laughter and thunderous applause returned.

While it was obvious that Gov. Perry enjoyed the opportunity to demonstrate again his absolute love of the 2nd Amendment, something we should all be noticing by now is that Perry loves freedom – period. His love of freedom is not an extension of his love for guns rather, his love for guns an extension of his love for freedom.

I’m not trying to over-parse things here. I just can’t help but notice how Gov. Perry’s unmistakable defense of the 10th Amendment over the last few years has already given him the reputation of a defender of something bigger than the 2nd Amendment alone. In other words, he’s literally been a defender of freedom itself.

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Dan Mitchell

Obama’s Failure on Jobs: Four Damning Charts

by Dan Mitchell

President Obama may have a buddy-buddy relationship with big labor, but he’s no friend to ordinary workers. Here are four damning pieces of evidence.

1. The unemployment rate remains above 9 percent according to the Labor Department data released on Friday.

This is about 2-1/2 percentage points higher than Obama promised if would be at this stage if we adopted the failed stimulus.

This is a spectacular failure.

2. Black unemployment has jumped to 16.7 percent.

I’ve already commented on how Obama has produced bad results for the African-American community, and the joblessness numbers are rather conclusive.

What makes that figure especially remarkable is that the black unemployment rate during the Obama years is more than 50 percent higher than it was during the Bush years.

3. More than 40 percent of the unemployed have been out of work for more than six months.

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Publius

Wednesday Open Thread: Fail Edition

by Publius

Its probably about time for another Obama vacation. His polls suck. The economy sucks more. And with friends like Jimmy Hoffa Jr…Of course, it is always possible another SPEECH turns things around.

John Nolte

Video Game Allows Players to Slaughter Sons of Bitches ‘Tea Party Zombies’ Palin, O’Reilly

by John Nolte

We all know who fantasizes and encourages violence. If it’s not just a guy in Obama’s neighborhood it’s a guy introducing Obama or unions or disturbing stuff like this:

It’s the Left.

Liars in the world of entertainment will tell you that what happens on screen has no real-world effect. Which is why corporations spend billions every year using visual mediums to get people to change their behavior.

You know, because it has no effect.

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Ken Blackwell and  Ken Klukowski

Growing Proof of Obama’s Imperial Presidency

by Ken Blackwell and Ken Klukowski

President Barack Obama’s National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is on a job-killing rampage. It’s claiming unprecedented powers far beyond what federal law allows. Taken with Obama’s other agencies, these executive actions paint a picture of what has become an imperial presidency.

A federal appeal is certain once NLRB’s shocking attack on Boeing Co. goes through the administrative process. In a free-market society, government bureaucrats cannot dictate to a private company where they can and cannot open factories or create jobs. Boeing—whose general counsel was formerly one of the most brilliant federal judges in America, Michael Luttig—should win this court battle.

NLRB’s power grab is not limited to Boeing. It’s also claiming jurisdiction over St. Xavier University, saying that the school doesn’t qualify for the religious exemption to NLRB’s authority because St. Xavier is not Catholic enough. NLRB cites to a 1979 Supreme Court case as giving it this authority, when that case instead makes clear that this government agency would be running afoul of the First Amendment by presuming to rate the religiosity of bone fide church organizations.

Just recently NLRB came down with three other far-left decisions. One was repealing an earlier NLRB ruling, stripping workers of the right to promptly contest the results of a vote to form a union. Another was ruling that employers everywhere must post signs on forming a union, giving the appearance that unionizing was encouraged both by the government and even the employer.

The third and most damaging ruling was to rule that even where unions do not exist, employees can form micro-unions in part of a company. This would make a mess of labor laws by creating countless possible entities with which business owners and management must constantly negotiate, seriously complicating efforts to have company policies that are stable, predictable, and profitable.

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Chriss W. Street

Nature Journal of Science Discredits Man-made Global Warming

by Chriss W. Street

Updated – Editor’s Note: Earlier today, Mother Jones, then Media Matters for America, then the New York Times accused Andrew Breitbart of a “global warming blunder” because the piece below cited Jykri Kauppinen as an author of a Nature study on cosmic rays. The author of the piece, Chriss W. Street, has indicated that Kauppinen is the author of a separate submission to Nature in 2010 that also contests the UN Climate Panel’s “consensus” view on the degree to which human activity contributes to global climate change. Street stands by his argument, regardless of the minor citation error that Breitbart’s habitual critics on the left have attempted to magnify. – Joel Pollak

***

Nature Journal of Science, ranked as the world’s most cited scientific periodical, has just published the definitive study on Global Warming that proves the dominant controller of temperatures in the Earth’s atmosphere is due to galactic cosmic rays and the sun, rather than by man. One of the report’s authors, Professor Jyrki Kauppinen, summed up his conclusions regarding the potential for man-made Global Warming: “I think it is such a blatant falsification.” [See above - ed.]

The research was conducted by CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, which invented the World Wide Web, built the multi-billion dollar Large Hadron Collider, and now has constructed a pristinely clean stainless steel chamber that precisely recreates the Earth’s atmosphere. The climate study involved scientists representing 17 of Europe’s and America’s premiere research institutes. The results demonstrate that cosmic rays promote the formation of molecules that can grow and seed clouds in the Earth’s atmosphere; the temperatures then fall as the density of the clouds increase. Because the sun’s magnetic field controls how many cosmic rays reach Earth’s atmosphere; the sun determines the temperature on Earth.

Nature Journal has been the holy-grail of scientific research publication since it was established in England in 1869. Its original editors gave the title to their new scientific journal in celebration of a line by British poet William Wordsworth: “To the solid ground of nature trusts the Mind that builds for aye”. Because research scientists are the primary audience this most prestigious of journals, the magazine strives to retain its stamp of approval as the pinnacle of scientific credibility for original research. Nature first introduced its readers to X-rays, DNA double helix, wave nature of particles, pulsars, and more recently mapping of the human genome.

But Nature’s reputation suffered a huge black eye on November 21, 2009 when a hacker broke into the computers at the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (CRU) and released 1079 emails and 72 documents exposing willful fraud in several scientific papers published in Nature that supported Al Gore’s theory Anthropogenic Global Warming. CRU houses the most world’s most extensive data base on atmospheric temperatures and the e-mails exposed blatant exaggerations of the warming data, possible illegal destruction of evidence, and conspiracy to manipulate or suppress data not supporting of the man-made Global Warming theory.

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Pamela Geller

9/11 Is a Day of Mourning, Not Service

by Pamela Geller

Last week, Barack Obama declared that September 11 is a day of service, and encouraged everyone to get in on it: “There are so many ways to get involved,” he said, “and every American can do something.” He added: “Even the smallest act of service, the simplest act of kindness, is a way to honor those we lost; a way to reclaim that spirit of unity that followed 9/11.”

True to his authoritarian leanings, Obama isn’t just hoping Americans get involved in this, either. Now schoolchildren are being indoctrinated, too.

Organizers of the 9/11 Day of Service and Remembrance and the educational organization Scholastic announced Monday that they were partnering in a new educational program that they said was “designed to help America’s children learn about 9/11 in a constructive, nonthreatening way and inspire them to participate in the 9/11 Day Observance through good deeds and charitable service.”

In a press release, the 9/11 Day of Service and Remembrance and Scholastic stated that “MyGoodDeed, a leading 9/11 nonprofit organization, and HandsOn Network, the volunteer activation division of Points of Light Institute, are co-leading the national effort to organize the single largest day of charitable service in U.S. history in observance of the 10-year anniversary of 9/11 in tribute to the victims and survivors, and the many who heroically rose in service in response to the tragedy.”

The calls for service on September 11 are inappropriate and sacrilegious. September 11 is a national day of mourning. It should not be a day of service, but of remembrance for those who died in a surprise military strike against the United States of America conducted by the military wing of the global jihad, resulting in the largest loss of life from domestic terrorism in American history.

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