Sunday - July 17, 2011

Dirty Play At DOJ

Letter from Darrell Issa (R-CA) to Eric Holder, excerpts:
We have recently learned that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (BATF) has afforded potential witnesses for the Committees’ investigation into Operation Fast and Furious access to a shared drive on its computer system replete with pertinent investigative documents, including official ATF emails.
...
As we understand it, the shared drive contains the documents that have been produced to the Committees through the course of our investigation, those made available for in camera review and possibly documents that the Department of Justice (DOJ) has not yet provided to the Committee. These witnesses had not previously seen many of these documents.
...
Allowing witnesses access to such documents could taint their testimony by allowing them to tailor their responses to what they think the Committees already know. Additionally, witnesses who gain access to documents they have not previously seen could alter their recollection of events. This practice harms not only our investigation, but also the independent investigation that you instructed the Inspector General to conduct.

In other words: the DOJ was either trying to make sure witness stories are consistent with DOJ talking points, or they were going through the back door to make sure everyone who was testifying was on the same page. Either would likely get the average citizen slapped with an obstruction or witness tampering charge in a state or federal court.

The hypocrisy here is egregious.
...
DOJ did exactly what they asked Issa’s committee not to do.

Posted by Drew458     on 07/17/2011 at 10:43 AM   
Filed Under: • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists • Government • Corruption and Greed • Guns and Gun Control •  
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   Thursday - July 14, 2011

Still Fast, Still Furious

I think for once I may have been a bit ahead of the curve with this Project/Operation GunWalker/GunRunner/Fast and Furious/Castaway thing. I see a lot more blogs catching on, and I’m hearing more and more about it on the news. Good. Keep the story out there. This thing is 1000 times worse than Watergate. It’s a 1000 times worse than a white stain on a blue dress and a bit of human humidor for your cigar. It’s “high crimes”, without the “misdemeanors”. Accessory to murder, acts of war against a sovereign nation, and a deliberate scheme to subvert the 2nd Amendment. Lying under oath and interfering with a Congressional investigation are small potatoes compared to those charges.

Funny thing is, I thought I was way behind the curve getting the story out. I’d heard about this nearly two years ago. When the far left was screaming that “90% of the guns coming into Mexico were from American gun shops”, I read on several gun forums that FFL dealers were having their arms twisted by the feds to make bulk sales to unlikely buyers. But it was all just rumor until somebody official huffed and puffed on the old Acme Thunderer. And now the story is out. Good. Keep it out. Demand action. Real action. Not another cover-up, not another whitewash. Close down the ATF. Fire Holder and prosecute him. And then let’s talk about the “I word”. Impeachment.

Two of many blogs, small and large, running part or all of this sordid tale:
http://ironicsurrealism.com/2011/07/10/proof-that-obama-ordered-and-holder-had-full-knowledge-of-operation-fast-and-furious/
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/%E2%80%98gunwalker%E2%80%99-deepens-agent-zapata-killed-by-gun-from-%E2%80%A6-texas/

Allen West calls for a special prosecutor. Me! Me! Me! Oooh oooh Mr. West, I want the job!!!! From HotAir:

Via our Townhall cousin Katie Pavlich, who makes an important distinction that’s occasionally been overlooked in all the Gunrunner/Fast and Furious coverage. Namely, they’re not the same program. Gunrunner is the ATF’s umbrella operation for selling guns to straw purchasers and then immediately busting them; F&F is the op that let those purchasers walk them across the border, where they ended up in the possession of cartels. It is true that Holder acknowledged the existence of Gunrunner in a 2009 speech in Mexico, but as Mike Riggs of Reason points out, there’s no evidence — yet — that Holder authorized or even knew about Fast and Furious.

From Pavlich’s post at Townhall, the money quote from Allen West, with video:

Congressman Allen West is calling for the removal of Attorney General Eric Holder by President Obama if a House Oversight investigation shows Holder was involved in the ordering of the deadly “Operation Fast and Furious.”

“Eric Holder has to be brought before an investigative committee and if those charges are warranted he needs to be held accountable but at least the President needs to realize that Eric Holder needs to be removed from the Department of Justice or else I believe President Obama is complicit and in approval of the actions of his Attorney General.”

Rock on, Congressman West (R-FL). And he’s black too!

And of course the far left digs into their bag of bumper sticker slogans and came out with their old chestnut “No Evidence!!”. How original.

http://reason.com/blog/2011/07/11/theres-still-no-evidence-that">Contrary to the smoking gun being waved around in the right blogosphere, there’s still no evidence that Attorney General Eric Holder knew about the Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms program “Fast and Furious,” in which ATF agents stood idly by as guns that were illegally purchased in the United States were trafficked to Mexico, where cartels used them to kill U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry and God only knows how many Mexicans.

Meanwhile, a town in New Mexico has fired it’s entire police force for their involvement in firearms and narcotics smuggling. Gosh, and every damn one of them is of “Spanish” heritage. Right.

New Mexico town dissolves police dept after gun smuggling scandal

The scandal-plagued, tiny New Mexico border town of Columbus is dissolving its police department and asking the county sheriff to protect its citizens.

An employee at Columbus City Hall confirmed to The Lookout that the police force has been dissolved. The Luna County Sheriff’s Office will now take over patrolling the town.

The town has been upended since federal authorities arrested Police Chief Angelo Vega, Mayor Eddie Espinoza, Village Trustee Blas Gutierrez and nine other residents for conspiring to smuggle hundreds of guns to drug cartels over the border in March. All of the accused have pleaded not guilty, and their trial is expected in October, according to the Las Cruces Sun News.

Posted by Drew458     on 07/14/2011 at 09:57 AM   
Filed Under: • Government • Corruption and Greed • Guns and Gun Control •  
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   Thursday - July 07, 2011

School Cheating, Part 2

I couldn’t say it better myself: take 3 minutes and go and read

America’s public education system has been a sham since those very first look-the-other-way decisions were made by social-engineering elites. The biggest lie of all is that liberals will say to their dying day they did it for the children.

Never has such a shameful pile of self-serving poppycock passed for “love.”

I still remember from the ’70s a very prominent ad for charitable giving.  The United Negro College Fund solicited donations to support the system of historically black colleges with this haunting statement:  A mind is a terrible thing to waste. It was so true then.  It is still just as true.

And sadly, the vast majority of those Atlanta school children cheated out of their educations were black. Self-serving, self-advancing, self-deceiving teachers and administrators have succeeded in wasting more genuine human potential than one mind can possibly even conceive — all of it sacrificed on the phony altar of liberals’ vainglorious pretense. If this isn’t a crime against humanity I truly cannot imagine what would be.

If those administrators and most of the teachers had been white, this cheating scandal would be now denounced by liberals as nothing short of “racist terrorism.” But since the highly acclaimed superintendent is black and originally from Jamaica to boot, this whole scandal will be whitewashed in liberal double-speak and individualized in the extreme.  Atlanta’s black mayor can get away with calling the release of the scandalous GBI report “a dark day for the city.” A white mayor would have been rhetorically tarred and feathered for such a blatantly “racist” statement.

I need a font with bold flashing arrows and a built in air raid siren. Bold just doesn’t cut it.

Appearances matter more than content. Period. Video really did kill the radio star. 

Hey, wait, she said “tarbrush”? That’s raaaaaacist!!!

Posted by Drew458     on 07/07/2011 at 08:16 PM   
Filed Under: • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists • Education • Corruption and Greed •  
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   Monday - June 27, 2011

Awesome, Chicago Style

CHICAGO—A jury convicted former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich on Monday of nearly all the corruption charges against him, including that he tried to sell or trade President Obama’s old Senate seat.

Blagojevich had faced 20 charges, including the Senate seat allegation and that he schemed to shake down executives for campaign donations. He was convicted on all charges regarding the Senate seat.

Jurors delivered their verdicts Monday after deliberating nine days.

Blagojevich had testified for seven days, denying wrongdoing. Prosecutors said he lied and the proof was on FBI wiretaps. Those included a widely parodied clip in which Blagojevich calls the Senate opportunity “f------ golden.”

Jurors in his first trial deadlocked on all but one charge, convicting Blagojevich of lying to the FBI. Blagojevich already faces up to five years for the lying conviction.

Blagojevich was arrested in December 2008, after the FBI had wiretapped hundreds of his telephone calls at work and home. The Illinois Legislature impeached him a month later.

Both trials hinged on whether the former governor’s bold ramblings to aides and others on the telephone was just talk, as he insisted, or part of “a political crime spree,” in the words of U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald.

Before a national audience, the Blagojevich saga exacerbated Illinois’ reputation for graft. The convictions mean Blagojevich is the second Illinois governor in a row facing a prison sentence for corruption. His predecessor, former Gov. George Ryan, is serving a 6 1/2 year sentence.

Can we get a bunch of Republicans to sing outside the courthouse? “na na naa na, na na naa na, hey hey hey, goodbye!” WTF, that’s what the scumbag left did for Bush at the inauguration. It would only be fair, and much more fitting, to give this felon a bit of a serenade.

Lock him up for 20 years, and that’s after he turn’s State’s Evidence to reduce his jail time by ratting out his cronies. 20 years is a gift: he could go in a maximum of 345.

The 11 women and one man reached the verdicts on their 10th day of deliberation in the trial, which began April 20. As the verdicts were read, Blagojevich turned to look back at his wife, Patti, who dropped into her seat. None of the jurors would look at the defendant as the verdicts were being read.

He was found guilty of all 10 counts involving wire fraud—each of which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. The other 10 involved extortion and bribery. Most of the counts have a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.

The jury acquitted Blagojevich on one count of bribery and was unable to reach verdicts on two counts of attempted extortion.

Posted by Drew458     on 06/27/2011 at 04:22 PM   
Filed Under: • Government • Corruption and Greed • Miscellaneous •  
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   Saturday - June 25, 2011

Worrisome

I’ve discovered Ann Barnhardt’s blog. I read the entire thing, every post, as far back as early May, and there wasn’t one part that I found myself disagreeing with.

I don’t want to be the Boy Who Cried Wolf, and I don’t want to be fitted for a tinfoil hat, but in an era where delusional conspiracy theories like Operation Gunwalker actually turn out to be true, how can you know where to draw the line? The line between crazy and real gets more blurred every day; it takes a tremendous amount of research and analysis to get the facts straight on any single issue, and we have hundreds of issues to deal with. Who has that kind of time, given that it takes a good understanding of dozens of issues to form a proper “big picture”.

So ... here we go:

Double Red Alert
Posted by Ann Barnhardt - June 24, AD 2011 9:01 AM MST
Two HUGE intel leads in my email box this morning from way-back contacts that I’ve had for years, that are actually somewhat connected concepts.

1. File this one under “Now It All Makes Sense”. A Missouri farming and ranching contact just got off a conference call wherein he was informed that the federal government is sending out letters to all of the flooded out farmers in the Missouri River flood plain and bottoms notifying them that the Army Corps of Engineers will offer to BUY THEIR LAND.

Intentionally flood massive acreage of highly productive farmground. Destroy people’s communities and homes. Catch them while they are desperate and afraid and then swoop in and buy the ground cheap. Those evil sons of bitches.

2. Speaking of evil sons of bitches, George Soros appears to be “investing” in farmground through the same puppet company that he used to get into the grain elevator and fertilizer business. The company is called Ospraie Capital Management and is buying up farmground in a joint venture with Teays River Investments as a partner.

Bottom line: Soros, through Ospraie, is buying up farmground. Please also note that the hotlink citation above is dated June 26, 2009. My contact says this has been going on for two years - and also remember what I told you about farmground prices inflating wildly, especially in Illinois. I have personally confirmed farmground in Illinois selling for $13,000 per acre within the last month, whereas that same kind of ground in Illinois was going for $5500 per acre the day Obama was inaugurated.

Ms. Barnhardt runs a capital management business and is deeply involved with the buying and selling of agrarian products. According to her, cows (excuse me, cattle - this is not my area of expertise! Yet!) are a losing proposition right now. To me that means that there will eventually be less of them for sale. Which means less food.

I did a few hours worth of looking things up and reading the other day before I posted that story about the environmentalists subverting the goals of the Army Corps of Engineers, and how the flooding in the heartland is difficult to accept as being accidental.  As far as I can tell that story is true. And now we have this.

There will not be much of a wheat harvest this year from the hundreds of thousands of acres that have been flooded. If the farmers who work that land go out of business and the land goes fallow there won’t be any harvest at all for next year. You don’t need to watch Glen Beck to realize that the price of food is about to skyrocket, even though the price of food is nearly double what it was just 4 or 5 years ago. Other than vegetables, EVERYTHING runs on grain. Government has mangled agribusiness. It started with farm subsidies generations ago (under our first commie president FDR), grew with government price fixing for things like milk, protectionist legislation for things like sugar etc., but it really ramped up with the ethanol subsidy on corn. That tipped the heavily laden scales, and the thumb (ethanol subsidy) is still pushing down. That’s all a mere drop in the bucket compared to how bad it’s going to become if the dark intent implicit behind the Big Picture behind Barnhardt’s post is correct. Remember the food riots around the Turd World a couple years back when they found they could no longer afford corn meal and flour? Wait till they start in your own neighborhood. You ain’t seen nuthin’ yet.

When (not if) the economy collapses, and physical or digital money becomes worthless, the only asset of real worth will be land. If Marxists (either in government or government approved private hands) control that land and the food grown on it, we lose. As I have said before, genocide via starvation is the easiest solution to get rid of the opposition. And it’s an old old formula for the far left. Ask an Armenian. If you can find one. The greenie wet dream is to have about 3/4 billion people on the entire planet. Their people of course. And some slaves to do the work - our children and grandchildren.

On the other hand, come the collapse, it will be VERY easy to pin the blame on the evil capitalist farmers, even though it was purposeful long running government action that lead them astray. So once they’ve all been put up against the re-education wall and shot, the rest of us proles will all have to do our mandated civic duty and ride the government run trains out to the fields to plant, and then later to harvest, the crops by hand. Without the aide of Gaia-hating machines. Just like the “free” citizens of the USSR used to have to do, or be shot. Or starved. Hey, it’s “for our own good”.

Sharpen you sickles comrades. A totalitarian agrarian economy is only one step above barbarism, and barbarism says that the only thing that is yours is what you can hold onto by force. None of it works if the proles and the peasants “demand” reform and have the strength to get it. As revered Chairman Mao used to say, political power grows from the barrel of a gun. Eventually the Eloi will rise up. Or go down fighting.

Posted by Drew458     on 06/25/2011 at 11:18 AM   
Filed Under: • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists • Economics • Corruption and Greed • Scary Stuff •  
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   Tuesday - June 21, 2011

Explicit admission

NJ Assembly panel advances health benefits bill

TRENTON, N.J. – The move to stabilize New Jersey’s underfunded pension and health care systems by requiring public workers to pay sharply more for the benefits while suspending bargaining over health care was fast-tracked through the Legislature Monday, after Democrats joined with Republicans to buck the powerful public employee unions.

The Senate passed the bill 24-15 as a gallery full of raucous union members looked on; eight Democrats aligned with all 15 Republicans to pass the bill. An Assembly budget panel advanced the measure hours later, also without the majority party’s support.

A vote by the full Assembly is set for Thursday. Gov. Chris Christie has already indicated his support.

“The time for political calculations is over,” said Senate President Stephen Sweeney, a Democrat and member of the ironworkers’ union, who sponsored the bill. “The time for passing the buck to someone else is over.”

The Assembly Budget Committee approved the bill 7-5 after an eight-hour hearing that began with an impassioned plea from Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver. Three Democrats paired with four Republicans; five Democrats voted ‘no.’

“This is the correct legislation for this moment,” Oliver said. “This bill will ensure a strong future for our state.”

The Republican governor, a driving force behind the landmark legislation, praised the Senate for its action.

“This is a watershed moment for New Jersey, proving that the stakes are too high and the consequences all too real to stand by and do nothing,” he said in a written statement. “As a result of Democrats and Republicans coming together to confront the tough issues, we are providing a sustainable future for our pension and health benefit system, saving New Jersey taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars and securing a fiscally responsible future for our state.”

NAACP: Making NJ public workers pay more for health care is racist!!

National NAACP head Ben Jealous weighed in against the pension and health benefit bill moving through the Legislature today, saying black New Jerseyans would be disproportionately hurt by the changes.

“We see this same pattern in many states and cities across the nation. Public sector jobs are critical in communities of color and attacks on bargaining rights and health care disproportionately affect our communities,” said Jealous in a prepared statement.

The statement was accompanied by a new report by Rutgers labor relations professor Jeffrey Keefe that argues public sector employment is a “a special bulwark for the Black middle class” because it “provides stable full-time employment with middle income earnings and employer provided health insurance, among other benefits.”

“New Jersey’s public sector has provided stable full-time employment with middle income earnings and employer-provided health insurance for more than 15 percent of black workers, all of which is now under attack as New Jersey leaders threaten to sharply reduce public workers’ pay and benefits,” wrote Keefe. “Because of the particular importance of public sector employment to the black community, black workers will suffer disproportionately if the attacks on public worker benefits prevail.”

Oh how I would love to see the real raw numbers. Because 25 and 40 percent are also “more than 15 percent”. Mr. Jealous has come right out and spoken the one truth that must never be mentioned: government employment is a jobs program for black people. I’m fairly certain he’s aiming quite low. If you were to combine local, state and federal numbers, my guess is that the real percentage of the black community working for the government - any kind or level of government - is considerably higher than 15 percent. Like 25 percent. Perhaps more. 15 percent is probably only the part that works for the state government.

I would not like to then be able to look up the actual size of the working age black population, and I certainly would not want to add in the number of black people who are in prison or receiving multiple forms of government assistance (welfare & food stamps) etc. Because the total number you’d get would show you just how large a slice of their population is being supported either fully or majorly (>50%) by government. And people would get upset if that number was something like 80%. They’d come to the wrong conclusions and start getting terrible ideas about demographic sponging. And that would be racist!

Posted by Drew458     on 06/21/2011 at 02:17 PM   
Filed Under: • Government • Corruption and Greed • Racism and race relations • Unions-Labor •  
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   Wednesday - February 23, 2011

Wisconsin - an excellent analysis

James Taranto hits the nail on the head in The Means of Coercion over at the WSJ. Read it!

To make sense of what’s going on in Wisconsin, it helps to understand that the left in America lives in an ideological fantasy world. The dispute between the state government and the unions representing its employees is “about power,” Paul Krugman of the New York Times observes accurately, before going off the rails:

What [Gov. Scott] Walker and his backers are trying to do is to make Wisconsin--and eventually, America--less of a functioning democracy and more of a third-world-style oligarchy. And that’s why anyone who believes that we need some counterweight to the political power of big money should be on the demonstrators’ side.

In any case, it seems to have escaped Krugman’s and Drum’s notice that the Wisconsin dispute has nothing to do with corporations. The unions’ antagonist is the state government. “Industrial unions are organized against the might and greed of ownership,” writes Time’s Joe Klein, a liberal who understands the crucial distinction. “Public employees unions are organized against the might and greed . . . of the public?”

The “labor movement” in America has increasingly come to consist of people who work for government, not private companies. As the BLS notes, the union-participation rate for public-sector workers in 2010 was 36.2%, vs. just 6.9% for private-sector workers.

There is a fundamental difference between private- and public-sector workers. A private-sector labor dispute is a clear clash of competing interests, with management representing shareholders and unions representing workers. In the public sector, as George Will notes, taxpayers--whose position is analogous to that of shareholders--are usually denied a seat at the table
...
Collective bargaining in the public sector thus is less a negotiation than a conspiracy to steal money from taxpayers. The notion that this is “in the economic interests of the middle class” for government employees in Wisconsin and elsewhere to get above-market wages and extremely lavish benefits is just laughable.

There is lots more at the link, but that bolded line is the real gist of it.

It’s quite striking the way almost every lie the left ever told about the Tea Party has turned out to be true of the government unionists in Wisconsin and their supporters

UPDATE: ... and if you think that’s messed up, give this one a read: Republicans in the Wisconsin legislature are crying that they can’t get bills passed because they don’t have a quorum because the Democrats are hiding out in Illinois ( they’re probably at the party for Rahmn Emanuel’s unexpected victory in the Chicago Mayor’s race ) BUT those same Dems are listening in on conference calls and voting on stuff by fax and telephone! And phone voting has been OK in that state for years! So, “quorum” doesn’t have much meaning does it? Too bad these folks didn’t update their definitions when they allowed this slack-ass approach to governing.

Can I venture an opinion on that one? Just say NO to phone voting. Being in the statehouse is your job. Do it. Maybe you have to lodge your vote in advance if you’ll be out of town, but that’s it. Hey, I’m all for balance: for regular citizens, unless you’re in the military, a nursing home, or a hospital, I’m not in favor of absentee ballots either. Get your ass to the polls and vote. Not that I have anything against secure polls being open for 3 weeks prior to Election Day Vote Counting Day. The population is simply too big these days to pack everyone in to the polling stations in one day without appointments. And the cost of creating tens of thousands of new polling stations would be prohibitive. So let people vote for extended times, but make them make the effort to do so physically. It’s their quorum, and it’s their civic duty to attend.

Posted by Drew458     on 02/23/2011 at 08:56 AM   
Filed Under: • Government • Corruption and Greed • Unions-Labor •  
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   Saturday - January 01, 2011

Bust ‘em

Michelle Malkin essays on the snowmageddon fiasco in New York City. 

Posted by Drew458     on 01/01/2011 at 01:29 PM   
Filed Under: • Crime • Corruption and Greed •  
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   Thursday - December 23, 2010

One Line Posts, Part II

Was there ever any doubt? Laws only apply to Republicans in the 100% corrupt Chicago Democrat Machine.

Posted by Drew458     on 12/23/2010 at 02:22 PM   
Filed Under: • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists • Corruption and Greed •  
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   Tuesday - November 16, 2010

Now Make Him Pay The Price

A House ethics panel has found Democratic Rep. Charles Rangel of New York guilty on 11 counts of breaking House rules.

The full ethics committee will next conduct a hearing on the appropriate punishment for the former chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. The committee will then make a recommendation to the House.

Possible punishments include a House vote deploring Rangel’s conduct, a fine and denial of privileges.

The eight-member ethics panel had sat as a jury to judge Rangel’s conduct. The 80-year-old congressman from Harlem was charged with 13 counts of financial and fundraising wrongdoing.

What was wrong with the other 2 counts?

And punishment? Hey, this is a clear and unmistakable pattern of deliberate abuse. 11 counts. Not just 1 or 2. Fire him. Impeach him. Strip him of all committee memberships. Then turn the case over to a criminal prosecutor. And the IRS. Old Charlie is not above the law.

Posted by Drew458     on 11/16/2010 at 01:19 PM   
Filed Under: • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists • Corruption and Greed •  
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   Friday - October 29, 2010

Find The Real Boobs

Buffalo teachers left taxpayers on the hook for nearly $9 million worth of cosmetic surgery last year, according to the state-appointed authority overseeing public school finances.

The Buffalo Fiscal Stability Authority found that last year’s costs for elective procedures such as chemical peels and other skin treatments were up $8 million over 2004’s $1 million tab for cosmetic surgery.

The procedures, provided under the teachers’ union contract, accounted for 9 percent of the district’s total spending on health benefits for employees and retirees, The Buffalo News reported Thursday.

About 10,000 school employees are eligible for the benefit. District officials said teachers or their dependents accounted for 90 percent of the approximately 500 people who received cosmetic surgery last year.

Barbara J. Smith, the district’s chief financial officer, said those 500 people represent less than 2 percent of those covered by health insurance through the district—a figure she estimated works out to an average of nearly $18,000 in elective procedures last year per employee who used the benefit.

The president of the Buffalo Teachers Federation said the union has agreed to give up the benefit in the next contract and said teachers may be simply rushing to use the benefit while they can.

Somebody tell me why elective cosmetic surgery was EVER in their health plan to being with. Talk about your “Cadillac care plans”! Horry clap. And this bennie was extended to all family members and retirees.

Sheesh. Your kid can’t read, but his teacher sure has a nice perky rack!

Throw them out. To hell with renegotiating a contract. Fire them all and start over. Union free. No unions for teachers, cops, firefighters, postal workers, or anyone else who works for the government.

Posted by Drew458     on 10/29/2010 at 12:00 PM   
Filed Under: • Education • Corruption and Greed • Unions-Labor •  
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   Saturday - October 16, 2010

Too Big To Fail, Or To Fine

Countrywide Financial Corp. co-founder Angelo Mozilo has agreed to a $67.5 million settlement to avoid trial on civil fraud and insider trading charges that alleged he profited from doling out risky mortgages while misleading investors about the risks.

Two other former Countrywide executives also settled before trial next week on charges filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission. But employment agreements that protect the men from lawsuits involving the failed lender mean Bank of America Corp., which bought Countrywide in July 2008, will pick up most of the tab.

The agreement requires Mozilo to repay $45 million in ill-gotten profits and $22.5 million in civil penalties. Former Countrywide President David Sambol owes $5 million in profits and $520,000 in civil penalties, and former Chief Financial Officer Eric P. Sieracki will pay $130,000 in civil penalties.

It’s “the fitting outcome for a corporate executive who deliberately disregarded his duty to investors by hiding what he saw in the executive suite,” SEC Enforcement Director Robert Khuzami said in a conference call with reporters.

But $25 million of Mozilo’s restitution will come from an escrow fund the company set up to cover shareholder litigation and Mozilo has no obligation to pay the remaining amount, according to the settlement agreement.

Sambol’s agreement stipulates that his entire $5 million forfeiture will come from the escrow fund.
...
The SEC accused the men of misleading shareholders about the quality of the loans on Countrywide’s books. The civil complaint also accused Mozilo of acting on his inside knowledge of the company’s precarious state when he sold shares between November 2006 and October 2007 ahead of its collapse, reaping more than $139 million.

Under the settlement, the three men did not admit wrongdoing.
...
Under the settlement, Mozilo agreed to never again serve as an officer or director of a publicly traded company. Sambol agreed not to do so for three years.

Posted by Drew458     on 10/16/2010 at 08:44 AM   
Filed Under: • Big Business • Corruption and Greed • Miscellaneous •  
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   Wednesday - October 13, 2010

the great global warming fraud ……..

This issue is something else that won’t go away anytime soon.  The zealots on the left of course will do all they can to silence the debate.  There are btw, some schools here that already are teaching youngsters one side of the argument and “green things” have become a religion.  Kiddies are lecturing parents about it, which tells you how far the tree huggers are in the argument.  I can not imagine a public school here teaching another viewpoint without either losing funding or finding themselves at the center of a storm they will not weather well.

This is a heck of a story, I’m doubtful any of you have seen it.  I’d encourage you to read all the letter at the link below. You may want to use it if you have your own blog site. Or simply share it any other way you see fit.  Take a look.

US physics professor: ‘Global warming is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life’

By James Delingpole
Harold Lewis is Emeritus Professor of Physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Here is his letter of resignation to Curtis G. Callan Jr, Princeton University, President of the American Physical Society.
This is an important moment in science history. I would describe it as a letter on the scale of Martin Luther, nailing his 95 theses to the Wittenburg church door. It is worthy of repeating this letter in entirety on every blog that discusses science.

Dear Curt:
When I first joined the American Physical Society sixty-seven years ago it was much smaller, much gentler, and as yet uncorrupted by the money flood (a threat against which Dwight Eisenhower warned a half-century ago). How different it is now. The giants no longer walk the earth, and the money flood has become the raison d’être of much physics research, the vital sustenance of much more, and it provides the support for untold numbers of professional jobs. For reasons that will soon become clear my former pride at being an APS Fellow all these years has been turned into shame, and I am forced, with no pleasure at all, to offer you my resignation from the Society.

It is of course, the global warming scam, with the (literally) trillions of dollars driving it, that has corrupted so many scientists, and has carried APS before it like a rogue wave. It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist. Anyone who has the faintest doubt that this is so should force himself to read the ClimateGate documents, which lay it bare. (Montford’s book organizes the facts very well.) I don’t believe that any real physicist, nay scientist, can read that stuff without revulsion. I would almost make that revulsion a definition of the word scientist.
So what has the APS, as an organization, done in the face of this challenge? It has accepted the corruption as the norm, and gone along with it. For example:

READ IT ALL HERE

Posted by peiper     on 10/13/2010 at 08:48 AM   
Filed Under: • Environment • Corruption and Greed •  
• Comments (1) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

   Friday - October 01, 2010

It Must Be Racism

IRS to Al Sharpton: You owe us $538,000, and that’s just for last year only.

Gee whix, can’t a brother catch a break? LINK.

So, who is going to pay the bill? Maybe not his political organization, the National Action Network; they’ve got tax troubles of their own. 

Posted by Drew458     on 10/01/2010 at 07:57 AM   
Filed Under: • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists • Corruption and Greed •  
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