Posts Tagged ‘Detroit’

LinkSwarm for July 19, 2013

Friday, July 19th, 2013

Detroit went bankrupt. One stranger was acquitted for shooting another stranger. Which do you think the media spent more time covering?

  • “Progressive politicians, wonks, and activists can only blame big corporations and other liberal bogeymen for so long. The truth is that corrupt machine politics in a one-party system devoted to the blue social model wrecked an entire city and thousands of lives beyond repair. The sooner blues come to terms with this reality, the greater chance other cities will have of avoiding Detroit’s fate.”
  • The IRS scandal now leads to the chief counsel, one of only two Obama appointees at the agency.
  • The Democratic Party is a machine for inciting grievances in order to consolidate its power.”
  • The Wall Street Journal makes the case for dismantling ObamaCare piece by piece.
  • Republican Insiders are very, very upset that Jim DeMint is exposing them for the RINOs they are.
  • My precious snowflake is extremely gifted. He’s also 29 and unemployed because so many jobs are unworthy of his Promethean talents. Matt Walsh: SMACKDOWN.
  • The Democratic Party is a machine for inciting grievances in order to consolidate its power.”
  • Charles Barkley on the Zimmerman trial: “Just looking at the evidence I agreed with the verdict.”
  • A few facts about Marissa Alexander that may not be apparent from a two panel picture comparison with George Zimmerman.
  • “Reason for termination: Disabled veteran.”
  • “Negative perceptions of young black men are rooted in hard data on who commits crimes.”
  • Near empty New York hospital losing $3 million a week. Naturally, unions are demanding it stay open. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • Charles Murray on American exceptionalism.
  • Marco Rubio was riding high. Then he became a shill for amnesty, and now his life is all sad trombones. I haven’t seen a serious national political aspirant fall so far since Gary Hart went boating.
  • Today’s serial Democratic Party groper who felt-up at least six women and who the state party forced their members to cover up for comes to you from California.
  • Detroit Celebrates 50 Years of Uninterrupted Democratic Rule By Declaring Bankruptcy

    Thursday, July 18th, 2013

    Stockton, California can now breath a small sigh of relief. It’s no longer the largest American city to declare bankruptcy. Detroit has filed for Chapter 9 bankruptcy.

    Bonus: The city has more than 100,000 creditors.

    This is the endpoint of the cradle-to-grave welfare state. Certainly Detroit got there faster than most will, thanks to endemic corruption, horrific mismanagement, and an overwhelmingly unionized (and thus expensive and inflexible) manufacturing base workforce. But the problem of overspending, bloated government, overregulation, declining population and cronyism are endemic to blue states and members of the European Union. Greece’s future is Detroit (with possibly fewer race riots), California’s future is Greece, and deficit spending continues, eventually the United States’ future is that of California.

    LinkSwarm for July 12, 2013

    Friday, July 12th, 2013

    Last night was the night when we, as Americans, set aside our political differences and came together to watch Sharknado. But time hurries on! Time for another Friday LinkSwarm:

  • 50+ years of Democratic rule turn Detroit into a failed city.
  • David Stockman says the recovery is bunk.
  • Ted Cruz would make a formidable Presidential candidate.
  • Thomas Sowell: The Left refuse to grapple with the issue of Evil. “Disarmament means making decent, law-abiding people more vulnerable to evil people.”
  • ObamaCare mandate delayed. “It has become a trope among defenders of the law that its flaws are the fault of Republicans because they don’t want to fix them. They must have seen their own peculiar version of Schoolhouse Rock!: The first step in making a law is jamming a massive bill down the opposition’s throat. The second is whining that the opposition won’t fix problems inherent in the bill jammed down their throats.”
  • The FEC is another IRS scandal waiting to happen.
  • Speaking of the IRS, they’ve been told to audit Americans, but to give out fraudulent refunds to illegal aliens.
  • A week after he’s deposed, the Obama Administration suddenly realizes that Morsi is an undemocratic asshat.
  • Vladamir Putin’s thugs put on a showtrial for a guy three years in the grave.
  • Big Jolly notes that Texans overwhelmingly support Attorney General Greg Abbott on Voter ID.
  • Salt is no longer bad for you. Now, when do we get an apology from Nurse Bloomberg?
  • LinkSwarm for June 21, 2013

    Friday, June 21st, 2013

    And now the traditional Friday LinkSwarm on Friday!

  • “Detroit is expecting its creditors to take less than 10 cents on the dollar for having been foolish enough to lend money to the collection of misfits, miscreants, and criminals who govern that poor city….The problem is that the same political leadership that brought Detroit to this sorry pass remains in power…Detroit cannot be trusted with its own money, it cannot be trusted with its creditors’ money, and it certainly cannot be trusted with federal taxpayers’ money.”
  • “The federal government has been spying and lying. The only comfort is that, apparently, it’s been largely incompetent at both.”
  • Daily Kos founder joins the chorus of liberal concern trolls saying Republicans had darn well better embrace amnesty or be doomed. It’s like Microsoft telling Goggle what it’s investment strategy should be.
  • And no, Republicans are not doomed if they don’t vote for amnesty.
  • In the amnesty proposal, it takes three DUIs before they consider kicking an illegal alien out of the country.
  • Spengler: Egypt and Syria have already failed.
  • Father shoots thug attacking daughter. But the father is the one liberals want to disarm.
  • Gender studies professor and FBI most wanted sex offender Walter Lee Williams captured in Mexico. Not to be confused with awesome economics professor Walter E. WIlliams of George Mason University.
  • USS Enterprise (CVN-65), America’s first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, takes its final voyage.
  • Out on my ass? I guarantee it! (Also, I think The Men’s Warehouse’s problems are less “unable to connect with Gen Y” and more “nobody wants to wear a suit unless they have to and fewer and fewer men have to.” Go casual or go extinct.)
  • Texas vs. California Update for 6/17/13

    Monday, June 17th, 2013

    Time for another Texas vs. California roundup!

  • California’s mullet budget: conservative in the front, but with a long greasy, tangled mane of liberal spending and debt in the back.
  • “Public pension costs are increasing simply because liabilities are growing faster than assets….To meet the rate at which pension liabilities were growing in 1999, Calpers needed the Dow to reach 30,000 by now.”
  • “California still has a mammoth long-term pension gap. If it used the same pension accounting standards as private companies must, its total debts would be a terrifying $1 trillion.”
  • What does the future look like in California? Well, take a look at Detroit, another one-party liberal Democrat fiefdom, where decades of chronic overspending and mismanagement are leading to a bankruptcy filing which will screw bond-holders and pensioners alike.
  • Speaking of bankrupt cities that can’t pay their bills, Stockton is paying out $5.1 million in settlements for retirees who are losing their health benefits due to the bankruptcy.
  • Some inside baseball news on maneuverings in the Stockton and San Bernardino bankruptcies.
  • Due the huge looming deficits, California’s public employee unions have had to accept wage cuts. Ha, just kidding! They’re getting raises.
  • California’s highest court rules that privacy rights don’t apply to you if public employee unions want your money.
  • Despite high electric rates, California is shuttering one of its nuclear power plants.
  • Thanks to California’s implementation of ObamaCare, Aetna is exiting the individual insurance market there.
  • Rick Perry travels to Connecticut to woo gun manufacturers to relocate to Texas.
  • Why NBA All-Star Dwight Howard might join the Houston Rockets: Texas’ lack of a state income tax.
  • LinkSwarm for May 10, 2013

    Friday, May 10th, 2013

    For a shocking change of pace, the Friday LinkSwarm will be on Friday:

  • “How can we ‘gun people’ honestly be expected to come to the table with anti-gunners when anti-gunners are willfully stupid about guns, and openly hate, despise and ridicule those of us who own them?” Read the whole thing.
  • Sheila Jackson Lee wants a National Gun Registry.
  • The lovely qualities of Jihadi Facebook pages: “The further I crawled down the extremist rabbit hole and the more caved-in skulls and headless corpses I saw.”
  • Union politics helped create the Baltimore Booty House.
  • “The Euro cannot be destroyed by any craft that we here possess. It was made in the fires of Frankfurt. Only there can it be unmade.” What does it say when Sauron wants the ring, er, Euro destroyed as well? Though once again: Austerity hasn’t failed in Europe, it hasn’t been tried.
  • “It was one thing to do amnesty during the white hot Reagan economy of the mid to late 80s. It’s quite another to do it in the midst of the Obama depression.”
  • Harry Reid unwilling to bargain in raising the debt ceiling? I say fine and dandy. Just cut government spending across the board until the budget is balanced.
  • “Detroit in worse shape than previously thought.” I don’t see how that statement can be true for any story that doesn’t include the word “cannibalism.”
  • London mayor Boris Johnson thinks it would be a good thing for democracy if the UK were to just walk away from the EU.
  • Travis County Democratic District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg is out of the clink after serving half a 45 day sentence for DWI. A jury will evidently determine “whether her drunken driving was habitual or whether the recent arrest was the result of a one-time event.” Because lots of people without alcohol problems suddenly decide “Hey, I’m going to go cruising around town with an open bottle of vodka and a blood alcohol level of .239! That sounds like a great idea!” I might believe that…if Lehmberg was 21.
  • Ted Cruz 1, Obama 0:
  • LinkSwarm for March 14, 2013

    Thursday, March 14th, 2013

    This week we’ll do it Thursday rather than Friday:

  • Obama is trying to work the same magic on America’s economy that a half century of Democratic rule has worked in Detroit. More details here.
  • And Detroit’s former mayor Kwame Kilpatrick is going to prison.
  • Since 2002, total federal spending has increased 89% while median household income has dropped 5%.
  • In Iran, 5 of top 10 porn search terms are for gay porn (no nudity, but NSFW-ish terms, and the usual warning that it’s (ick) Gawker).
  • Thanks to ObamaCare, your veterinarian bills are going up as well as your medical bills.
  • Thomas Friedman hates the Keystone pipeline because the oil is dirty, but loves China, where industry is a thousand time dirtier than here in the U.S. And where will that oil go if the pipeline isn’t built? China. Maybe Friedman just wants all the jobs to be in China. That, or actual checks from the Chinese government or their business subsidiaries, would explain an awful lot of Friedman’s writing over the last few years…
  • “Most developed nations are fundamentally broke.”

    The degrees of broke-ness varies: from completely and utterly broke, like Greece or Italy; to wobbly, like the U.K., France, the U.S., or Japan; to getting poorer like Germany. But all of them are going to have to raise the percentage of gross domestic product they collect in tax — and many of them very significantly.

    The U.S. deficit is more than 7% of GDP. The U.K.’s deficit is just as high. There is very little sign that spending cuts to close gaps of that magnitude are on the cards, nor is there any sign that growth will be sufficiently strong to make up the difference — certainly not in countries like the U.K. or Japan.

    Huge sums of additional revenue will have to be raised.

    Willie Sutton once famously remarked that he robbed banks because “that’s where the money is.”

    In the same way, governments will look to raise more tax from companies because that’s where the money is.

    Or they could, you know, actually cut spending…

  • I’ve not been following the Prenda Law case closely. Fortunately, Ken over at Popehat has. Exceptionally brief background: Scumbag copyright troll lawyers operate shakedown operation, filing dubious (at best) copyright infringement lawsuits. Then they compounded the problem by suing bloggers and lawyers in an attempt to silence them. As you might expect, that strategy isn’t working out very well for them… (Hat tip: Dwight)
  • Florida Democrats want mandatory anger management classes for people buying ammo.
  • From Popcap Games, the makers of Plants vs. Zombies, comes Trees vs. Rockets. Wait, did I say Popcap Games? I meant the Israeli Defense Forces.
  • White House journalists as Ring-Wraiths.
  • Third round of Climategate documents released?
  • Michael Totten says that Lebanon is ready to explode from the spillover effect of the Syrian Civil War.
  • News of the horrific 5-year old terrorist who brandished her fearsome Hello Kitty assault bubble gun (link fixed).