Saturday, January 22, 2011
Weekend Newsbites: Sat. & Sun., Jan. 22 & 23, 2011
My two elder nephews - Sean and Dom - are on a northeast "acoustic duo" tour. Last night Mary and I went to see them perform in Beacon, N.Y.
As usual... they were awesome.
On Sunday they'll be playing in Boston.
Next month they go on tour with the Indigo Girls.
If you folks have never checked out my nephews' band, A Fragile Tomorrow, you should!
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http://www.judicialwatch.org/news/2011/jan/jw-files-taxpayer-lawsuit-against-maryland-community-college-unlawfully-giving-illegal
Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced today that on Thursday, January 20, it filed a taxpayer lawsuit against the Board of Trustees of Maryland’s Montgomery College for unlawfully charging discounted “in county” tuition rates to students who graduate from Montgomery County public high schools, regardless of their place of residency or immigration status.
(*CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*)
The new lawsuit alleges Montgomery College’s tuition policy violates both Maryland and federal law and places a substantial financial burden on Montgomery County taxpayers who subsidize the cost of students attending the community college.
Judicial Watch filed the lawsuit on behalf of Montgomery County taxpayers
(*CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*)
[American citizens and legal residents] who reside outside the State of Maryland are charged an out-of-state rate.
(*SMIRK*)
Montgomery College has a long-standing policy of providing graduates of Montgomery County public high schools, including illegal aliens who unlawfully reside in the United States, the lowest “in county” tuition rate regardless of their place of residence. Montgomery College described this policy in financial statements for Fiscal Years 2007, 2008 and 2009: "[T]he Montgomery College policy is applicable to all persons, equally, and includes all citizens as well as undocumented aliens…" The tuition policy was formally adopted by Montgomery College’s Board of Trustees on November 15, 2010.
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
* ONE MORE TIME, FOLKS...
[American citizens and legal residents] who reside outside the State of Maryland are charged an out-of-state rate.
Between 2006 and 2009, Montgomery College failed to collect $5,870,852 in tuition fees due to its policy of unlawfully allowing a discounted “in county” tuition rate to illegal aliens and other “out of state” students.
“Montgomery College’s funneling of tax dollars to tuition benefits for illegal aliens is against the law. The policy is especially egregious in this age of government budget crises,” stated Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “Our taxpayer clients hope the court will put a stop to Montgomery College’s policy of providing illegal perks at taxpayer expense.”
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/01/21/obama-teams-ge-iran-palaver-peters-arrives-white-house/
When Democrats said President Obama was “pro-business,” we didn’t know they meant one business in particular.
(*RUEFUL CHUCKLE*)
There are a few companies on the Obama corporate A List - Democratic patrons Google and Goldman Sachs both turn up again and again at White House functions and for special recognition - but no company seems to get the VIP treatment that General Electric receives.
(*SMIRK*) (*NOD*)
[President] Obama [announced yesterday that] General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt will lead his new Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. The panel replaces the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board led by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volker.
* WHO WAS BASICALLY IGNORED AND THEN FORCED OUT...
Volker, who helped President Ronald Reagan whip inflation and launch two decades of growth, will be replaced by Immelt, who has often spoken of his desire to put G.E. on the inside track for government subsidies and incentives in the Obama era.
(*SNORT*) THE AGE OF OBAMA, BABY... THE AGE OF OBAMA...
It is unclear how the administration plans to deal with the ethics challenges created by having a CEO whose income is determined by stock performance leading a panel designed to recommend government policies. G.E. (2009 revenue: $157 billion) is a huge government contractor and is always in the market for new subsidies and incentives.
* I'M GUESSING THEY'LL SIMPLY IGNORE THEM! (*RUEFUL CHUCKLE*)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703791904576076223177494308.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_AboveLEFTTop
We're so accustomed to misnamed legislation like the Employee Free Choice Act (card check) that it's hard to believe that a welcome proposal called the Public Employee Pension Transparency Act describes what it actually purports to do. To wit, prohibit public pension bailouts by the federal government and expose the $3.5 trillion of unfunded public pension liabilities that local and state governments have obscured.
(*CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*)
Most state and local governments currently use their own estimated rate of return on their investments to discount their liabilities. By projecting unrealistically high rates of return, states minimize their unfunded liabilities, at least on paper. Lower unfunded liabilities in turn allow them to reduce how much they and public employees must contribute to their pension funds. Inflated investment assumptions are one reason that public pension funds are unfunded to the tune of $3.5 trillion.
(*SMIRK*)
In the 1950s and 1960s, many private employers obscured their liabilities the way governments are doing today, though they didn't have a public backstop. Many funds went broke. In 1974 Congress established minimum funding requirements and penalized companies that underfunded pensions. The law also required companies to report and discount their liabilities using a more conservative rate of return.
* WOULDN'T IT BE NICE IF STATE GOVERNMENTS HAD TO LIVE BY THE SAME RULES...
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
Enter the Public Employee Pension Transparency Act, which is sponsored by House Republicans Devin Nunes and Darrell Issa of California and Wisconsin's Paul Ryan. Their bill would encourage governments to switch to defined-contribution plans by revealing the true magnitude of their unfunded liabilities. States and municipalities would have to report their liabilities to the U.S. Treasury using their own rosy investment forecasts as well as a more realistic Treasury bond rate (to be determined by a formula).
(*CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*)
This data would make clear how much taxpayers potentially owe and increase pressure on lawmakers to fix their plans. For instance, Illinois estimated in 2009 that it had a roughly $85 billion unfunded liability. Using a Treasury discount rate, that unfunded liability balloons to $167 billion.
The bill may not persuade states like Illinois and California to revamp their pensions, but it will reveal how broken they are - and that's a start.
(*NOD*)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704754304576096153914191870.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_AboveLEFTTop
The U.S. subsidizes solar power to the tune of $24.34 a megawatt hour...
Taxpayers subsidize wind power to the tune of $23.37 per megawatt hour...
...$1.59 for nuclear power...
...44 cents for coal...
...25 cents for natural gas...
WHY...?!?!
* Except for nuclear power, which is by its very nature a government concern - a national security issue - I can't see why we need even the "small" subsidies for coal and natural gas - let alone subsidies for solar and wind power.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703396604576088010481315914.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_AboveLEFTTop
[F]ood inflation.
The United Nations benchmark index hit a record high last month, raising fears of shortages and higher prices that will hit poor countries hardest.
So why is the United States, one of the world's biggest agricultural exporters, devoting more and more of its corn crop to . . . ethanol?
* TWO WORDS: CRONY CAPITALISM.
* TWO MORE WORDS: 1) DEMPUBLICANS; 2) REPUBLICRATS
In 2001, only 7% of U.S. corn went for ethanol, or about 707 million bushels. By 2010, the ethanol share was 39.4%, or nearly five billion bushels out of total U.S. production of 12.45 billion bushels. Four of every 10 rows of corn now go to produce fuel for American cars or trucks, not food or feed.
* AND THANKS TO ETHANOL "WINTER FUEL BLENDS" INSTEAD OF GETTING 400 MILES OR MORE ON A TANK OF GAS I'M GETTING MAYBE 340. AT $3/GAL. AND ASSUMING 20 MPG THAT WORKS OUT TO AN EXTRA $9 AT EVERY FILL-UP.
This trend is the deliberate result of policies designed to subsidize ethanol.
This carve out of nearly half of the U.S. corn corp to fuel is increasing even as global food supply is struggling to meet rising demand.
* FOLKS... THIS IS INSANE!
[R]educed corn food supply undoubtedly matters. About 40% of U.S. corn production is used to produce feed for animals. As corn prices rise, beef, poultry and other prices rise, too. The price squeeze has already contributed to the bankruptcy of companies like Texas-based Pilgrim's Pride Corp. and Delaware-based poultry maker Townsends Inc. over the past few years.
* AGAIN, FOLKS... INSANE...!!!
This damage coincides with a growing consensus that ethanol achieves none of its alleged policy goals. Ethanol supporters claim the biofuel reduces U.S. dependence on foreign oil and provides a cleaner source of energy. But Cornell University scientist David Pimentel calculates that if the entire U.S. corn crop were devoted to ethanol production, it would satisfy only 4% of U.S. oil consumption.
The Environmental Protection Agency has found that ethanol production has a minimal to negative impact on the environment. Even Al Gore, once an ethanol evangelist, now says his support had more to do with Presidential politics in Iowa and admits the fuel provides little or no environmental gain.
(*SIGH*)
Not that this has changed the politics of ethanol.
* NO... OF COURSE NOT...
When consumers didn't buy enough gas last year to meet previous ethanol mandates, the Obama Administration lifted the cap on how much ethanol may be mixed into gasoline to 15% from 10%. Presto! More ethanol "demand."
* THAT FU-KING SON OF A BI-CH OBAMA...!!!
On Friday the EPA greatly expanded the number of cars approved to use the 15% blend. Last month, Congressmen whose constituents benefit from this largesse tucked into the tax bill an extension of the $5 billion tax credit for blending ethanol into gasoline.
At a time when the world will need more corn and grains, it makes no sense to devote scarce farmland to make a fuel that exists only because of taxpayer subsidies and mandates. If food supplies tighten and prices keep rising, such a policy will soon become immoral.
* IT'S IMMORAL NOW...!!!
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704881304576094221050061598.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop
Today, more than 70% of black children are born to single women. "The welfare state has done to black Americans what slavery couldn't do, what Jim Crow couldn't do, what the harshest racism couldn't do," Mr. Williams says. "And that is to destroy the black family."
* JAMES RILEY HAS A CONVERSATION WITH DR. WALTER WILLIAMS. WELL WORTH READING!
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704115404576096301759391950.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTWhatsNewsCollection
The Obama administration is likely to miss a deadline for issuing a long-awaited report about the future of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and what might replace them.
The Dodd-Frank law enacted last year to overhaul financial-industry regulations didn't address how to reshape the troubled mortgage concerns, which have cost taxpayers a combined $134 billion since they were taken over by the government in 2008. But the law did require the Treasury Department to report recommendations for Fannie and Freddie by Jan. 31.
The administration now plans to release the report by mid-February.
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
* HEY, FOLKS... TRY MAILING IN YOUR TAXES PAST THE APRIL 15 DUE DATE AND SEE WHAT HAPPENS!
(*SMIRK*)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704754304576096171216582908.html?mod=WSJ_hp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsSecond
President Barack Obama will call for new government spending on infrastructure, education and research in his State of the Union address Tuesday...
(*HEADACHE*)
In the House, Republicans are pushing to cut $100 billion from the annual budget as soon as this year. A coalition of House Republicans proposed Thursday cutting $2.5 trillion in spending over a decade, pushing nondefense discretionary spending down to 2006 levels for 10 years.
"Today's the day we finally stop kicking the can down the road," Rep. Jeff Flake (R., Ariz.) said as the proposal was introduced Thursday.
(*CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*)
White House officials have said that spending cuts of the magnitude proposed by Republicans could stall the economic recovery.
(*BOO*)
http://antonovich.co.la.ca.us/Pages/Press%20Releases/11/January/Illegal%20Immigration%20011911.html
[Los Angeles County California] Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich released figures from the Department of Public Social Services showing that in November 2010, $53 million in welfare benefits ($22 million CalWORKs + $31 million in Food Stamps) were issued to parents who reside in the United States illegally and collect benefits for their native-born children in Los Angeles County - representing an increase of nearly 3 million from November 2009.
This amounts to approximately 22% of all CalWORKs and Food Stamp issuances in the County.
In 2009, CalWORKs and Food Stamp issuances to illegals totaled nearly $570 million. Based on the monthly figures in 2010, the total cost for the year will exceed $600 million.
“When you add this to $550 million for public safety and nearly $500 million for healthcare, the total cost for illegal immigrants to County taxpayers exceeds $1.6 billion dollars a year – not including the hundreds of millions of dollars for education,” said Antonovich.
http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/editorials/2011/01/obamas-sleight-hand-regulation
President George W. Bush's entire eight-year presidency added a net $70 billion to the existing $1.1 trillion burden placed on businesses by the 150,000-plus-page Code of Federal Regulations. At Obama's current pace, he would add $212 billion in eight years.
In Obama's first two years in office, he showed no signs of concern about the number of costly regulations being issued by federal regulators. He set new records for both the number of major regulations issued (43) and their added annual net burden on the economy (conservatively estimated by the regulators themselves at $26.5 billion).
Earlier this week, President Obama announced a new push to eliminate wasteful, unnecessary and outdated federal regulations. Writing in the Wall Street Journal, he gave as his chief example a low-hanging piece of fruit: Saccharin, which millions consume daily in their coffee, has long been categorized as a dangerous chemical by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. This costly EPA rule has now been amended.
As wonderful as that sounds, we suspect it is motivated less by a desire to ease regulation than by the need of a stridently anti-business administration to mollify corporate interests and business donors in a difficult election cycle.
Let's not forget that in 2009 Obama's Food and Drug Administration very nearly killed off the Gulf oyster industry by banning the serving of raw oysters harvested from the Gulf of Mexico from April to October. The FDA's justification for ruining the enjoyment of millions of oyster lovers? Fifteen people with serious medical conditions die each year, nearly always because they ignore warning labels and doctors' orders and eat raw oysters anyway. That regulation was only prevented because a bipartisan group in Congress threatened to slash the FDA's funding if the proposed rule was implemented.
[Thus... based upon Obama's past deeds rather than his present words,] there are ample grounds to doubt Obama's conversion.
There are many actions he could quickly take that would demonstrate a seriousness about regulatory relief, such as declaring a freeze on all new regulatory activity mandated by Obamacare, pending the outcome of the current debate in Congress on repealing and replacing the program. Doing that would be far more convincing than public relations stunts like his op-ed earlier this week in The Wall Street Journal
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/560621/201101211919/Editorial-Why-Does-The-US-Still-Give-China-Aid-.aspx
According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, foreign aid to China totals $2.6 billion a year.
(*RUBBING MY EYES*)
The biggest donor is Japan, followed by Germany, France and Britain, then the U.S. All of these countries, meanwhile, are in debt to China and running massive deficits.
U.S. aid, at $65 million a year, is relatively small thanks to sanctions imposed following Beijing's 1989 military crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators at Tiananmen Square. Still, why are we sending China any succor at all?
(*MIGRAINE HEADACHE*)
China's also one of the biggest World Bank borrowers, taking out more than $1.5 billion a year in loans.
* GUESS WHO THE MAJOR FUNDER OF THE WORLD BANK IS...
(*GRITTING MY TEETH*)
* UMM... NAN...??? CONGRESSWOMAN HAYWORTH...??? COULD YOU LOOK INTO THIS PLEASE...?
http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/49822/
At the White House State dinner on Jan. 19, about six minutes into his set, Lang Lang began tapping out a famous anti-American propaganda melody from the Korean War: the theme song to the movie “Battle on Shangganling Mountain.”
* THE OFFICIAL TITLE OF THE SONG IS "MY MOTHERLAND"
The film depicts a group of “People’s Volunteer Army” soldiers who are first hemmed in at Shanganling (or Triangle Hill) and then, when reinforcements arrive, take up their rifles and counterattack the U.S. military “jackals.”
The movie and the tune are widely known among Chinese, and the song has been a leading piece of anti-American propaganda by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for decades.
Lang Lang the pianist says he chose it. Chairman Hu Jintao recognized it as soon as he heard it.
“In the eyes of all Chinese, this will not be seen as anything other than a big insult to the U.S.,” says Yang Jingduan, a Chinese psychiatrist now living in Philadelphia who had in China been a doctor in the Chinese military. “It’s like insulting you in your face and you don’t know it, it’s humiliating.” “My Motherland” having been played at the White House will be seen as a propaganda triumph in China.
* FOLKS, I JUST EMAILED FACTCHECK WITH THIS ONE. IT'LL BE INTERESTING TO SEE IF THE MSM PICKS UP THE STORY. IF THIS IS TRUE, IT'S YET ANOTHER BLACK EYE FOR HILLARY CLINTON'S RECORD HEADING UP THE STATE DEPARTMENT.
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/museum_bigs_cash_in_KF1koFDHNn0XyKakSzYPzN
Schoolchildren thought their penny jars and bake-sale proceeds would go toward building a 9/11 memorial at Ground Zero - not the six-figure salaries of "nonprofit" execs.
But 11 staffers at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum each pulled down more than $170,000 in total compensation in 2009, according to the most recent filings.
Four execs took home more than $320,000.
* NICE. REAL FRIGG'N NICE.
Foundation President Joseph Daniels, 38, pocketed $371,307 after receiving hefty raises three years in a row - 28% in 2006, when he was promoted from acting president, followed by 12% and 6%.
Museum director Alice Greenwald made $351,000...
[C]apital planning Vice President Joan Gerner soaked up $337,143 before leaving last spring.
Development director Cathy Blaney raked in $322,292.
(The full-time foundation employee also worked last year as a fund-raiser for Gov. Cuomo's election campaign.)
(*SARCASTIC CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*)
Mayor Bloomberg, board chairman of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, said, "They're paid only a fraction of what they're worth, but at a level similar to people at comparable nonprofits."
* ONLY... A... FRACTION...???
Sandra Miniutti, a spokeswoman for the nonprofit watchdog Charity Navigator, said the salaries were "on the high side for a comparable-sized organization."
(*SNORT*)
The average base salary for a CEO of a mid-size foundation like the memorial is about $160,000, and second-tier managers usually make much less, she said.
* LET'S SEE... IF WE DOUBLE $160,000 WE STILL GET... YEP... LESS THAN HALF OF WHAT DANIELS, GREENWALD, GERNER, AND BLANEY MADE.
* OH... HERE WE GO... THE POST ADDS TO THE LIST:
David Langford, CFO: $224,113
Luis Mendes, VP Design and Construction: $221,429
Lynn Rasic, Senior VP, Public Affairs: $214,270
Noelle Lillien, General Counsel: $193,316
Suany Chough, Senior Adviser, Design Construction and Planning: $190,831
Allison Bailey, Chief of Staff to President: $171,417
* NICE... REAL NICE...
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