Archive for the ‘Waste and Fraud’ Category
Saturday, February 22nd, 2014
First word came that Yanukovich had left Ukraine for various rumored destinations from Russia to Dubai. Then came word that Yanukovich was denied exit from the country.
But the delight of the day was ordinary Ukrainians touring the abandoned Presidential vacation palace, which such amenities as:
A classic car collection
A private zoo
A gold toilet
An actual galleon (helpfully named GALLEON; this pretty much confirms what we suspected of the vast range of Mr. Yanukovich’s imagination…) floating on an artificial lake.
Some Tweets on the theme:
Also, Russia has a sad.
Tags:Communism, Crime, EuroMaidan, Foreign Policy, fraud, Ukraine, Viktor Yushchenko
Posted in Communism, Foreign Policy, Waste and Fraud | No Comments »
Tuesday, February 11th, 2014
Meant to put this up at lunch, but Stuff. And Things.
How California overprotects public employee union contracts. If the paper from Volokh the Younger is too heavy-sledding for non-lawyers, here’s a nice summary.
CalPERS is demographically doomed.
The people of San Bernardino vote all the bums out. “After Tuesday night, six of seven council members are now on record as saying they want to explore reducing San Bernardino’s pensions, along with [Carey] Davis, the new mayor, and a new city attorney, Gary Saenz.”
Another California city, Placentia, drifts toward bakruptcy. “Placentia has been papering over a structural $1.5 million deficit in its $30 million budget for at least five years, plugging the hole with lucky money (more soberly called ‘one-time revenues’).”
Stockton: Hey, we’re in bankruptcy! I guess that means we can just kill our shelter animals willy nilly. Federal judge: Not so fast.
Los Angeles firefighter compensation averages $218,000 an employee. (Hat tip: Pension Tsunami.).
Are even California’s Democratic legislators waking up to the problem?
California university workers plan a strike. See, no matter how broke you are, unions still want wage hikes…
Unions want to ensure that Bob Filner’s closest ally is elected Mayor of San Diego to keep their gravy train coming…
Union membership in California is down to 16.4% of the workforce.
Jerry Brown: Hey, Supreme Court, reverse that high speed rail decision! High Speed Rail Contractor: Thanks, Jer! Here’s $27,000.
Websense is relocating from San Diego to Austin. Dropbox is also moving additional jobs to Austin.
Charles Schuab is relocating jobs from San Francisco to Texas.
California industrial brush company relocates to Utah.
The Texas labor force keeps growing.
Tags:Austin, Bob Filner, California, fraud, Jerry Brown, Los Angeles, Placentia, San Bernardino, San Diego, Stockton, Texas, unions, waste, Welfare State
Posted in Austin, Regulation, Texas, unions, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | No Comments »
Monday, February 10th, 2014
These LinkSwarms tend to get pushed back to days when there’s not a big story jumping up and requiring my attention. It seems like the Olympics have created a bit of a news lull
Democratic congressmen abandoning ObamaCare in droves.
Obama’s fake recovery sucks in comparison to Reagan’s real recovery. Why? ObamaCare.
People who overestimate their income, thus getting a subsidy rather than thrown into Medicaid, might be in for a nasty surprise come tax time.
Today’s Democratic representative retiring after getting caught with his hand in the till comes to you from Rep. Ron Andrews of New Jersey.
Today’s example of a Democratic member of Mayors Against Illegal Guns being convicted of a felony (in this case bribery) also comes to you from New Jersey, in the form of Trenton Mayor Tony Mack. But as you observe all this Democratic malfeasance in New Jersey, never lose sight of the truly important thing: Chris Christie might have closed a bridge!
Here’s a fascinating piece from Ace of Spades HQ on class identification among the gentry left.
And this piece on “Love in the Time of Obama” is well worth reading on its own.
Massachusetts state Democrat Rep. Carlos Henriquez’s schedule: 1. Smack my bitch up, 2. Mark my bills up. Yes, assaulting a woman is evidently no reason to keep him from working as a legislator…
More black Chicago residents question what the Democratic Party has done for the black community.
Heartening, but I can’t help but notice that some of the same people appear in this video as the one from that town hall meeting in December. Makes it hard to gauge just how widespread black America’s dissatisfaction with Obama is…
The Turncoat Diaries: “The conversions of Charlie Crist, from Republican to independent to Democrat, make up one of the least inspiring tales in modern politics. To take it seriously is to admit you’re the sort of person who takes Scientology stress tests and supplies credit card info to anyone who claims to need help from Nigeria.”
People move from high tax, high regulation states bleeding jobs to low-tax, low-regulation states gaining jobs. Gee, who knew?
How Russia is trying to keep control of Ukraine.
NBC calls the end of the Soviet Union “bittersweet”. Much like Hitler’s suicide…
Tweets from Sochi: Missing floors, open manholes, yellow tap water, and “cakes in ass.”
More: “Three of the nine mountain hotels have not been completed.”
Title company executive dead in nailgun “suicide.” Patrick Bateman wanted for questioning.
Inside the Red Light Camera Bribe Machine. Redflex has done business with several cities, including “Austin, El Paso, Plano, Corpus Christi, Grand Prairie, North Richland Hills, Hurst, Port Lavaca, League City, Carrollton, Killeen, Mesquite, and Longview.” (Hat tip: Dwight.)
Even Howard YEAGGGGHHH Dean thinks the Iran deal sucks.
When principled lefty Alan Derschowitz says the Dinesh D’Souza case is “selective prosecution,” perhaps we should listen.
New York City schools Harrison Bergeron a gifted students course because of their unacceptable albedo index. (Hat tip: Indapundit.)
Michael Totten visits some of the least-crappy parts of Cuba.
When I think “high tech giants,” certainly the first name that comes to mind is Chelsea Clinton. Nepotism much, SXSW? (Hat tip: Jim Geraghty in NRO.
Slashdot users in open revolt over a redesign. Take one look at the Beta site and you know why: It is indeed a big, festering mound of suck.
Adobe to release new DRM scheme that’s annoying, useless, and screws older customers.
Ten scenes from Blazing Saddles too politically incorrect to be made today.
Did Bill Clinton add Elizabeth Hurley to his list of in-White House conquests?
Round Rock ISD committee chairman tries to bypass laws to make changes to sex ed.
On tour with the Sex Pistols in Texas.
Tags:Alan Dershowitz, Austin, Crime, Cuba, Democrats, Dinesh D'Souza, fraud, Guns, Holly Hansen, Howard Dean, LinkSwarm, Massachusetts, Mayors Against Illegal Guns, Media Watch, Michael Totten, New Jersey, ObamaCare, Ron Andrews, Round Rock ISD, Russia, Sochi Olympics, Ukraine, video
Posted in Austin, Communism, Crime, Democrats, Foreign Policy, Guns, Media Watch, ObamaCare, Texas, video, Waste and Fraud | No Comments »
Monday, February 3rd, 2014
The Kronies has already been blogged by half the rightospehre, but it’s so well done that I wanted to post it here on the off-chance you haven’t watched it yet:
Tags:Budget, Democrats, Economics, fraud, video, waste
Posted in Budget, Democrats, Economics, unions, video, Waste and Fraud | No Comments »
Wednesday, January 29th, 2014
Lots of news from around the world, where the global economy is handing like a Kia that’s just started losing traction on an icy hill:
Bundesbank: Don’t look at us, broke PIIGS, you’re going to have to screw your own people.
Does a big default loom in China?
Russian bank halts all cash withdrawals?
Meanwhile, reports that Chinese banks have stopped allowing withdrawals turns out to be a false alarm.
European earnings outlook: Zero.
Problem: Greek economy still sucking wind. Solution: change how GDP is calculated.
Japan hits record trade deficit. Remember when they were supposed to take over the world?
The ruble flirts with record lows.
Obama and the Democratic Party’s numbers are worse than they were in 2010.
Planned Parenthood wonders what’s the big deal with a little statutory rape among friends?
Florida heroin kingpin is an illegal alien on food stamps.
Another Democrat convicted of that vote fraud that doesn’t exist. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
Democrats actually polling worse than they were in 2010. And that’s from Dem pollster/booster John B. Judis.
Target’s part-time workers get ObamaCared.
We have a winner for troll of the year:
Every time I hear someone say that feminism is about validating every choice a woman makes I have to fight back vomit.
Do people really think that a stay at home mom is really on equal footing with a woman who works and takes care of herself? There’s no way those two things are the same. It’s hard for me to believe it’s not just verbally placating these people so they don’t get in trouble with the mommy bloggers.
Having kids and getting married are considered life milestones. We have baby showers and wedding parties as if it’s a huge accomplishment and cause for celebration to be able to get knocked up or find someone to walk down the aisle with. These aren’t accomplishments, they are actually super easy tasks, literally anyone can do them. They are the most common thing, ever, in the history of the world. They are, by definition, average.
Amy Glass, come down and collect your coveted Trolly! (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
“Woman Takes Short Half-Hour Break From Being Feminist To Enjoy TV Show”
In case you didn’t notice, Iran’s mullahs are still lying, violent scumbags.
Strangely enough, Israeli’s trust Netanyahu more than Obama. Funny how a mere 40+ years Palestinians breaking every agreement they’ve signed will sour people on the peace process…
Michael Totten wanders around Cuba some more, where he let’s us know that Cubans can be arrested for unauthorized shrimp.
California Court determines that disgraced serial journalistic liar Stephen Glass is too dishonest to be a lawyer.
In other news, Eugene Volokh stuns Washington Post readers with non-liberal thoughts on guns and other topics.
Have you ever considered the possibility that Woody Allen isn’t a child molester?
Drive a Fit, a Prius, a Yaris, or a Fiat 500? Hope you’ve made out a will.
Anthony Weiner forced to downsize to an apartment whose rent is a mere 6 times my mortgage.
Tags:2014 Election, abortion, Amy Glass, Anthony Weiner, Benjamin Netanyahu, Border Controls, California, cars, China, Communism, Crime, Cuba, Democrats, Elections, Eugene Volokh, feminism, Florida, fraud, Germany, Greece, Iran, Israel, Japan, Jihad, John B. Judis, Media Watch, Michael Totten, ObamaCare, PIIGS, Planned Parenthood, Russia, Stephen Glass, Welfare State, Woody Allen
Posted in Border Control, Communism, Crime, Democrats, Economics, Elections, Foreign Policy, Jihad, Media Watch, ObamaCare, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | No Comments »
Wednesday, January 8th, 2014
Time for another look at the respective fortunes of the nation’s two biggest states:
Between 1992 and 2010, California lost $45.27 billion in income while Texas gained $24.94B. (Hat tip: Moe Lane.)
That’s one of the many reasons Texas has a $2.6 billion budget surplus.
California’s Attorney General imposes some strange language choices on a proposed pension reform initiative.
California Governor Jerry Brown to shift money from a green “cap and trade” fund to the high speed rail boondoggle. “Brown, et al., apparently believe that diverting cap-and-trade fees into the bullet train may buy enough time to move some dirt and lay some track, with the hope that once construction begins, it will create a moral/political commitment to complete the project. But the proposed diversion is more likely to be dumping more money into a bottomless rathole.”
Remember: Spending money on green boondoggles means less is available for paying for luxuries like heating classrooms in winter.
Desert Hot Springs inches closer to bankruptcy. They’ve already eliminated their fire department, owe $4 million from last year, and are expected to run out of money in April.
How the California city of Pacific Grove broke the law and ignored voter wishes to accumulate massive pension debts. “Pacific Grove now has a new unfunded pension deficit of about $45 million, in addition to the $20 million in pension bonds. The deficit grows at 7.5% per year (about $3.2 million compounding).” A neat trick for a city whose entire budget is around $12 million a year. The first in what promises to be a 7 part series.
Orange County employees enjoy a whole bunch of plush benefits.
There’s a movement afoot in California to replace seniority with performance for determining teacher layoffs. Another group wants to make it easier to fire sex offenders. Naturally teacher’s unions are opposing both. (Hat tip: TPPF.)
California declares war on hot sauce maker Sriracha.
Is California’s 10 day gun waiting period unconstitutional? (Hat tip: Shall Not Be Questioned.)
Restaurant chain Mimi’s Cafe relocates their headquarters from California to Texas.
There’s a lot of talk (not yet confirmed) that Vista Equity Partners is planning to move Active Network, Websense, and Omnitracs to Texas.
Evidently Los Angeles can no longer support a WNBA team. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
Allied Van Lines confirmed that Texas remained the number one destination for relocation in 2013.
14 things non-Texans don’t understand.
Tags:Budget, California, Democrats, Desert Hot Springs, Jerry Brown, Pacific Grove, Texas, unions, waste, Welfare State
Posted in Budget, Democrats, Texas, unions, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | 1 Comment »
Monday, December 23rd, 2013
Saw this over on Ace of Spades, and thought it worthy of much wider distribution. Essentially, black voters in Chicago are tired of a political machine (including black aldermen and preachers ) that does nothing but screw them over.
Caveat: These are obviously excerpts, so we don’t know what the rest of the meeting was like.
But certainly black Americans in most American cities have real complaints about a welfare state that’s left them behind and made their lives worse rather than better, and those in Chicago, with one of the heaviest Democratic machines and the highest murder count in the country, have more cause for complaint than most. And it’s absolutely true that the Democratic Party takes them for granted, and will continue to do so as long as they blindly vote 9-1 straight ticket Democrat in every election. Why shouldn’t Democrats take them for granted if they continue to reap lockstep votes without having to exert any effort. (And whenever it waivers, they seem to feel they need only shout “Trayvon!” or some other race card distraction to continue their grip.) And the Great Obama Recession has consistently been worse for black America than white America.
(It also needs to be noted that at the state level, many Illinois Republicans are just guilty of ignoring voter needs as part of the corrupt bipartisan Combine that runs the state.)
But at least Chicago’s black community has made the first step of speaking out about how the Democratic machine has been harvesting their votes and handing out welfare, but otherwise neglecting them and taking them for granted. There’s no guarantee they’ll take the next step, be it actually talking to Republicans, consider abandoning the failed liberal welfare state model that’s destroyed their community, or even form a new political party (maybe The Urban Party) rather than demanding a bigger share of the corruption (as so many black politicians have). But at least the recognize there’s a problem.
Finally, I still think Al Sharpton is among the lowest of race-hustling poverty pimps, but let’s give him one cheer here for setting this up and actually letting people speak.
Tags:Al Sharpton, black, Chicago, Democrats, Illinois, illinois Combine, Rahm Emanuel, video
Posted in Democrats, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | No Comments »
Friday, December 13th, 2013
A lot of ObamaCare, a little on guns, and a pinch of everything else, from Ace, Instapndit, and elsewhere:
Man with critically ill son gives up on ObamaCare after 50 tries to buy insurance.
Complain about your insurance being cancelled due to ObamaCare? That’s an audit. For you, your advocate, and your insurance salesman.
Finally, after furiously covering for Obama when it counted, Liberal media tool Politifact is forced to admit that “If you like your health care plan, you can keep it” is the lie of the year.
Oregon spent $300 million on its ObamaCare exchanges only to sign up a grand total of 44 people.
Here’s a chance to vote for the ObamaCare launch as top Fail of 2013.
After 2 hours of open heart surgery, Gateway Pundit’s Jim Hoft is losing his insurance thanks to ObamaCare.
ObamaCare is already pushing low-wage workers out of jobs.
Charles Krauthammer: The ObamaCare enrollment figures are bunk.
Kathleen Sebelius is really getting tired of answering questions on why she sucks.
Obama earns a 62% disapproval rating among independents: Quick! He better give a speech!
Every time you think the ATF has sunk as low as they possibly can, they dig further.
After months of propaganda from the Democratic Party’s media wing and millions of Nurse Bloomberg’s dollars spent, the American public is now now more opposed to gun control than when the year began.
How the EU and Obama are blowing it in Ukraine.
Time magazine thinks Pope Francis is important because of his “rejection of church dogma.” In other news, the people running Time magazine just aren’t very bright.
Georgia Tea Party opposes tax giveaways for sports franchise billionaires. As well they should.
Problem: UT regent Wallace Hall investigates corruption and inluence peddling at the university. Solution: Impeach him.
Ted Cruz makes it into a question on Jeopardy.
Update on Wiliamson County race filings. John Carter, Tony Dale and Larry Gonzalez are all running unopposed.
Reminder: Dogs are awesome.
Tags:Charles Krauthammer, Fail, John Carter, Kathleen Sebelius, Larry Gonzales, ObamaCare, Pope, Pope Francis, Time, Tony Dale, video, Wallace Hall, Welfare State
Posted in Austin, ObamaCare, video, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | No Comments »
Wednesday, December 11th, 2013
Time for another roundup of Texas, Red State Champion, versus Blue State California:
Texas is the tenth best run state in the union, while California is the worst.
The vast gap between California’s haves and Have Nots.
The federal court Detroit bankruptcy ruling has made CalPERS nervous. As well it should.
Ditto public employee unions. “Government agencies should have the right to reduce future accruals, just as private-sector employers can — and they shouldn’t have to wait until they’re insolvent to do so…In California, prospective benefits are sacrosanct because of a series of poorly reasoned legal rulings…The system must be fixed before more municipalities reach bankruptcy. For state and local governments to climb out of their deep holes of pension debt, they must first stop digging.”
A succinct statement of the problem “California local governments cannot thrive if escalating retirement costs crowd out money for public service.” Plus: “Bargaining effectively occurs between unions and those elected largely because of money from unions.”
Today’s California city teetering on the edge of bankruptcy: Fresno. (“Fresno? No one goes to Fresno anymore!”)
18 LA County Sheriffs department deputies indicted for “beating jail inmates and visitors, trying to intimidate an FBI agent and other crimes.” (Hat tip: Dwight, who notes “They tried to intimidate an FBI agent? Does LACSD make it a practice to hire and promote deputies who are dumber than a bag of hair?”)
Speaking of police behaving badly, 28 Santa Monica cops took home more than $200,000 last year. For comparison, Austin’s chief of police earns $198,819 a year.
Even California isn’t wild about Obama anymore.
California lobbyist organizes a second junket to Cuba.
Charting the Texas oil bool.
Cognizant moves operations center from New Jersey to College Station.
Tags:bankruptcy, Budget, California, College Station, pension crisis, Texas, unions, waste, Welfare State
Posted in Budget, Texas, unions, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | No Comments »
Wednesday, December 4th, 2013
Even though this happened in my neck of the woods, I missed this call from a welfare recipient bragging about how much money she got from the government, and have no intention of working:
This is what the welfare state has wrought on the American underclass.
This is what the Democratic Party stands for.
Tags:fraud, welfare, Welfare State
Posted in Austin, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | No Comments »