Friday - February 01, 2013

A Ray Of Hope, A Bit Of Change?

The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed above 14,000 for the first time since the Great Recession.

The index rose as high as 14,000.97 in early trading. The index last traded above 14,000 in October 2007.

The Dow has gained 6.7 percent since the start of the year.

A budget deal, struck at the start of the year in Washington, that allowed the U.S. to avoid the “fiscal cliff” was the catalyst for a January rally. Investors then pushed stocks higher amid optimism that the housing market is maintaining its recovery and that the jobs market is slowly healing.

The index has more than doubled since falling to close at low of 6,547.05 March, 3, 2009 after the Great Recession.

Well that’s nice. Good for everyone who has any investments left at this point. I’m not going to get excited about it, because I’m very aware of the disconnect between the real economy and the fairytale land of Wall Street. Still, it’s a little bit of nice news.

The highest the DJI has ever closed at was 14,164.53 on October 9, 2007. Two days later on October 11, 2007, it hit it’s all time record intra-day trading point of 14,198.10. Under Booosh. Then the housing bubble broke, with that whole junk mortgage fiasco, bank crisis, and so on.

Posted by Drew458     on 02/01/2013 at 10:29 AM   
Filed Under: • Economics •  
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Vilmar Lead Me There

RGF? I didn’t even realize. Ok, I’m in:

Posted by Drew458     on 02/01/2013 at 10:17 AM   
Filed Under: • Eye-Candy •  
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Aww Ed

Former Mayor Ed Koch, the combative, acid-tongued politician who rescued the city from near-financial ruin during a three-term City Hall run in which he embodied New York chutzpah for the rest of the world, died Friday. He was 88.

Koch died at 2 a.m., spokesman George Arzt said. The funeral will be Monday at Temple Emanu-El in Manhattan.

After leaving City Hall in January 1990, Koch battled assorted health problems and heart disease.

The larger-than-life Koch, who breezed through the streets of New York flashing his signature thumbs-up sign, won a national reputation with his feisty style. “How’m I doing?” was his trademark question to constituents, although the answer mattered little to Koch. The mayor always thought he was doing wonderfully.

Bald and bombastic, paunchy and pretentious, the city’s 105th mayor was quick with a friendly quip and equally fast with a cutting remark for his political enemies.

The mayor dismissed his critics as “wackos,” waged verbal war with developer Donald Trump ("piggy") and mayoral successor Rudolph Giuliani ("nasty man"), lambasted the Rev. Jesse Jackson, and once reduced the head of the City Council to tears.

“I’m not the type to get ulcers,” he wrote in “Mayor,” his autobiography. “I give them.”

When President George W. Bush ran for re-election in 2004, Koch, a Democrat, crossed party lines to support him and spoke at the GOP convention. He also endorsed Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s re-election efforts at a time when Bloomberg was a Republican. Koch described himself as “a liberal with sanity.”

He was also an outspoken supporter of Israel, willing to criticize anyone, including President Barack Obama, over decisions Koch thought could indicate any wavering of support for that nation.

...

Under his watch from 1978-89, the city climbed out of near-financial ruin thanks to Koch’s tough fiscal policies and razor-sharp budget cuts, and subway service improved enormously. But homelessness and AIDS soared through the 1980s, and critics charged that City Hall’s responses were too little, too late.

Ed Koch was a real old school Democrat, a proper American Liberal. As far as I could ever tell, he was NOT a Marxist/Statist hiding being the false label of “Progressive”.  I’m sad to see him go, but he was very sick there towards the end, and he is no longer suffering. Be with god, Ed. Shalom.

And I think I won the Weasel’s Dead Pool.

Posted by Drew458     on 02/01/2013 at 08:31 AM   
Filed Under: • Celebrities • Daily Life •  
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The Democrats never change their ideas; they change the voters.

This is from an Ann Coulter column which I have edited somewhat.
The full article is at the link as always.

I guess this caught my eye cos it is so darn personal to us.  I won’t go into the whole boring story again, except to say my wife falls into that category of foreigners waiting in line. Although she went through that once many years ago, when it was even harder to get in and there were quotas.  So it’s personal.  And she hasn’t even gotten to the stage where she even joins a line.  She isn’t too sure she wants to anymore either. Age and health have taken their toll, travel is difficult and that’s putting it mildly.  She’s content I think, to visit when and if we are able and come in as a visitor.  Now that may appear lazy to some but please trust me.  You have no idea unless you’ve been through the grinder, how difficult our immigration can be, and how many hurdles are put in place.  But that’s only for the law abiding person and not just white ones I want you to know.  Although it’s damn well apparent there are some who seem to have an automatic green light. 

Coulter is right and we all know it with regard to the voters.  I heard a very interesting conversation on the radio on just this subject.  That is, the new American voter with growing power.  And they are NOT white.  They are Hispanic, and they tend to vote for Democrats.
Well of course they would. They’re voting their own interests, which people do.  But they seem happy to be citizens while also remaining aliens.  That doesn’t apply to all by any means.  It certainly wasn’t true of my former wife some 46 or more years ago. But the times and the thinking among many were far different, then what they are today.

from TownHall.com

Rubio’s Amnesty: A Path to Oblivion for the GOP

By Ann Coulter

IT’S NOT AMNESTY! Rubio’s proponents cry. They seem to think they can bully Republicans the way the Democrats do, by controlling the language.
Rubio’s bill is nothing but amnesty. It isn’t even “amnesty thinly disguised as border enforcement.” This is a wolf in wolf’s clothing.
Despite all the blather about how Rubio demands “Enforcement First!” the very first thing his proposal does is make illegal aliens legal. (Don’t call them “illegal aliens”!)

The only thing the newly legalized illegal immigrants won’t get immediately is citizenship. Rubio claims that under his plan, they won’t be able to vote or go on welfare. But in practice, they’ll have to wait only until the ACLU finds a judge to say otherwise.

Even under Rubio’s scheme, all the children born to the 11 million newly legalized illegals will be instant citizens, able to collect welfare for their whole families and vote as soon as they are old enough.

Which won’t be long: The vast majority of illegal aliens are Hispanic, and Hispanics have a higher teen birthrate than any other ethnic group. In California, a majority of all Hispanic births are illegitimate. That’s a lot of Democratic voters coming.

And look how great that’s turned out! With Hispanics on track to become the largest ethnic group in California this year, the state that gave us Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan is incapable of electing any Republican statewide anymore. Taxes keep going up, and there’s no one left to pay the bill.

That will be our entire country if Republicans fall for Rubio’s phony “Enforcement First!” plan. Perplexingly, some Republicans seem determined to turn the whole nation into California, in the foolish hope of winning one last election.

No border can be secure when the pot of gold on the other side is an American green card. (Again playing games with language, Rubio doesn’t call the right to legally live and work here a “green card,” but in practical effect, that’s what it is.)
So when exactly does the enforcement part of Rubio’s “Enforcement First!” plan kick in? Answer: Never.

Or rather, enforcement becomes both impossible—because nothing will stop them if legalization is the lure—and irrelevant—because there’s no penalty for leaving the border wide open.

Even if enforcement “fails,” are the 11 million illegals already legalized by Rubio going to be asked to leave? Of course not.

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz is a Republican who—as a Princeton and Harvard Law graduate—does not yearn for “strange new respect” from the elites. This week, he said of Rubio’s amnesty plan: “To allow those who came here illegally to be placed on such a path is both inconsistent with rule of law and profoundly unfair to the millions of legal immigrants who waited years, if not decades, to come to America legally.”
If only other Republicans didn’t ride the tea party to victory before realizing they really just want to be John McCain.

COULTER AT TOWN HALL

Posted by peiper     on 02/01/2013 at 06:00 AM   
Filed Under: • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists • Illegal-Aliens and Immigration • USA •  
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