Archive for the ‘Waste and Fraud’ Category
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 »
Friday, November 15th, 2013
James O’Keefe is exposing the “ObamaCare Navigators” the same way he exposed ACORN. Indeed, I strongly suspect they;’re the same people.
And both those videos were filmed in Texas.
Once again, both the Obama Administration and the Democratic Party seem remarkably comfortable aiding and abetting the willful defrauding of the American taxpayer. Just as they were for the Pigford scandal:
It’s obvious that more than just ObamaCare needs to be repealed…
Tags:fraud, James O'Keefe, ObamaCare, Pigford, video, Welfare State
Posted in Crime, Obama Scandals, ObamaCare, video, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | No Comments »
Monday, November 11th, 2013
Time for another roundup of Texas vs. California:
California’s high tax, high regulation government, and its resultant high cost of living, has given the state the nation’s worst poverty rate. How’s that blue State model working out for you?
Fresno is completely broke. “Now the city doesn’t even have a day’s worth of cash in its general fund.”
Given the tough economy, CalPERS cuts back on staff bonuses. Ha, just kidding! They doubled them.
Desert Hot Springs is the next California city eyeing bankruptcy.
Stockton’s Lavish pensions contributed to it’s bankruptcy. But guess who doesn’t have to take a haircut?
The message Stockton’s bankruptcy has for other California cities is obvious: Just screw taxpayers.
Bankrupt San Bernardino throws the bums out. And the new team looks like they’re willing to take on CalPERS. A case of mixed messages.
Covered California, California’s ObamaCare agency, is hair plugs and fat camp.
There’s a magazine called Time that says that Texas is the nation’s future. (There’s a longter story, but I don’t feel compelled to obtain a login to read it.) I’m sure Texas has a much brighter future than Time…
Your tears, Lakers fans! Let me taste them! (Missing from that piece: Dwight Howard will no longer give 10.3% of his income to the state of California, and Texas has no state income tax.)
Tags:bankruptcy, basketball, Bell, California, Desert Hot Springs, fraud, Fresno, San Bernardino, Stockton, Texas, unions, waste, Welfare State
Posted in Budget, Crime, Texas, unions, Waste and Fraud | No Comments »
Friday, November 8th, 2013
Time for another LinkSwarm, still top-heavy with ObamaCare failure news:
Have insurance through your employer? Don’t worry, ObamaCare will screw you as well.
“Can the Obama-loving media really bring itself to report that their Beloved is simply lying about every single aspect of his signature program?” Beyond a few iconoclasts like Sheryl Atkinson or Chris Wallace, I think we all know the answer to that one.
ObamaCare was bad enough to start out, but the Obama White House intentionally made it worse.
Short and no doubt woefully incomplete list of businesses that have already cut back hours and hiring due to ObamaCare.
ObamaCare demonstrates “timeless demonstration of the failure of central planning, government regulations, and the entitlement state. It is a failure so total, so comprehensive, and so multifaceted that it will be studied by schoolchildren 50 years from now when their teachers explain to them why the giant welfare and regulatory state built up in the second half of the 20th century collapsed in the first half of the 21st.”
Krauthammer on ObamaCare’s continued unpopularity: “And unless they stop the avalanche here, the Democrats are going to get buried in this.”
And now the ObamaCare website is dishing out gibberish?
A quarter million Coloradans have their health insurance ObamaCared.
I’m shocked, SHOCKED to find Chicago’s Democratic machine abusing bonds to paper over deficits.
Having Dana Milbank say that Obaama lives in a reality bubble is like the guy who just mugged you saying “Man, this is really a high crime neighborhood! You should watch out!”
Philadelphia man adds two more to the dead goblin count.
If you’re the son of the most famous Fascist* in British history, maybe it’s best not to participate in Nazi-themed S&M sex orgies.
Voters in Amarillo and Houston rejected spending money for sports complexes.
Another hammer drops on Prenda Law.
Things to make you furious: Cops killing puppies.
And speaking of dogs, I missed this from a week ago: Giant George, RIP.
Heh.
*Real Fascist, not just in the liberal name-calling sense.
Tags:Charles Krauthammer, Chicago, Colorado, Country Music Awards, Crime, Dana Milbank, dogs, fraud, Max Mosley, Media Watch, ObamaCare, Prenda Law, self-defense, video, Welfare State
Posted in Budget, Crime, Media Watch, ObamaCare, video, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | No Comments »