And the battle is joined. I support the move, and hope it’s the right course of action, knowing that it might not succeed. Then again, I would also be willing to see no spending limit raise at all, and force the federal government to live within its (which is to say our) means.
Now the ball is in the court of Senate Republicans, where Ted Cruz says he’ll filibuster any ObamaCare funding if necessary. Now would be a great time for senators like John McCain, Marco Rubio and Lindsey Graham to look at their political ID cards, realize they’re Republicans, and back him. Whether than will actually happen or not is another question.
Don’t speak too soon, for the wheel’s still in spin…
The U.S. government has $70 trillion in unfunded liabilities. I don’t happen to agree with everything in that assessment (a situation in which the FDIC would actually have to make good on all $7 trillion in deposit guarantees would pretty much be tantamount to the complete collapse of civilization), but the rest is scary enough.
“Coming this fall on Cinemax: Leathers and Slutbag! They both got nailed by the same slimeball, and now they’re out for justice! Democratic politician not paying you your promised hush money? Call Leathers & Slutbag!”
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.
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.
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.
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 hot days of summer are here. Texas is now into its usual 100° summer days. However, if it’s any consolation, Death Valley hit a record 129° in June.
Texas’ business climate is a lot like our summers: hot, hot, hot! California’s business climate is a lot like Death Valley: Still and oppressive.
You know all that talk of California having a small budget surplus? That doesn’t count the $10.3 billion California owes the federal government for unemployment compensation, an amount that is not expected to be paid off until 2020.
Between 2007/8 and 2013/14, “the officially reported unfunded pension liability for state workers through the California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS) grew from $31.7 billion to $57.2 billion, an 80.1% increase.”
He, remember that short-lived BART strike? How horribly were the employees “underpaid?” “BART employees — including management and nonunion workers — earn an average of about $83,000 annually in gross pay, contribute nothing toward their retirement and $92 monthly to health insurance. Their pay and total compensation are both the highest in the Bay Area among transit agencies.”
California, bluest of blue states, forcibly sterilized female prisoners. Well, liberal’s love of eugenics goes back at least as far as Margaret Sanger…
Time for another update of just how hard Texas is kicking California’s ass:
Chuck DeVore has the skinny on California’s recent “growth:”
The BEA revised California’s real GDP growth downward from 2009 to 2011 in each of three years by a cumulative 2.6 percent, the third-largest negative revision in the nation.
In other words, California’s economy shrank an additional 2.6 percent before it grew 3.5 percent.
So, in the past five years California’s real GDP contracted 0.3 percent, one of ten states where economic activity was less in 2012 than it was in 2008.
By contrast, the BEA revised Texas’ growth upward by 0.5 percent from 2009 to 2011.
Texas’ newly revised real GDP growth from 2009 to 2012 was 13 percent.
From 2009 to 2012, California’s share of the U.S. economy shrank from 13.1 percent to 12.9 percent while Texas’ portion of the American economy increased from 8.2 percent to 9 percent.
What should be the Federer vs. Nadal of state-level competition has become a lopsided trouncing: Texas has humiliated its opponent in straight sets. The federal Bureau of Economic Analysis is out with its state-by-state economic growth numbers for 2012, and Texas is dancing the two-step all over California’s “recovery.”
“Texas and California provide real-world results from the so-called laboratory of democracy — the states. The results aren’t even close. Texas wins and has been winning for years. California, champion of the big government blue state model, is in a death spiral. Texas, champion of the small government red state model, continues to grow and lead the way.”
California’s legislature has the highest salary in the country. (By contrast, Texas legislators make $600 per month, plus a per diem that’s currently $139 for every day the Legislature is in session.)
The Nanny State wants to regulate nannies. “Yo dawg, I heard you liked nanny states, so I put the nanny state in charge of your nannies so the nanny state nannies can nanny nannies.”
Billionaire Texas Democrat seeks to reform California pensions. Might want to pop some popcorn for this one. (Arnold does indeed give primarily to Democrats, but recently he’s also made contributions to Ted Cruz ($2400 in 2011), Tom Coburn and the RNC, plus a relatively paltry $200 donation to John McCain in 2010.)
Remember: If you’re going to kill somebody, it’s far better to do it in California than Texas. “At the pace the state has executed inmates over the last 35 years – roughly one execution every three years – it would take the state about 2,000 years to clear its backlog.” Why is why rail-traveling serial killer Angel Maturino Resendiz was executed after 7 years in a Texas prison, but “Night Stalker” Richard Ramirez spent 23 years living at the expense of California taxpayers before dying of natural causes.
California city of Atwater avoids bankruptcy by the skin of its teeth. Naturally, public employee unions are saying that now is the time to get raises…
Now would be a good time to call and email you Senator (and your Representative) to let them know you oppose the “Gang of 8” illegal alien amnesty proposal currently being debated in the Senate, especially since it does less than nothing to secure the border, and makes hiring illegals more attractive than hiring Americans, since employers need not pay for their ObamaCare.
Now would also be a great time to contact anyone you know at the national Republican Party and inform them that you will not donate a dime to any national GOP committee if illegal alien amnesty passes.
Here’s Ted Cruz speaking against the amnesty proposal on the Senate floor:
It’s hard to find time to do an ordinary LinkSwarm with so much Obama scandal news breaking. It’s like ScandalPalooza. And there are some scandal tidbits here as well.
Obama’s arguments for vast NSA powers amounts to “Terrorism is on the run. That’s why we have to tap all your phones and read all your email.”
You know what the great weasel word in common for tech giant non-denial denials on the NSA PRISM scandal? “Direct access.” Or “we give them boatloads of indirect access.”
The IRS scandal is like Enron: criminality by underlings empowered by a toxic culture at the top by people who think the rules don’t apply to them because they’re smarter than everyone else. “Any good CEO will tell you that ethical meltdowns like the IRS political-targeting scandal are rarely the work of a few rogue employees. Such messes are the result of a toxic culture that has been allowed to fester.”
The season has switched from not Summer to Summer here in Texas, so here’s a hot, humid LinkSwarm:
In Europe, youth unemployment is climbing to scary, stratospheric heights. So scary I’m going to swipe their chart:
Notice how countries that have kept their deficit spending relatively low (Germany and even the UK, where deficits has at least decreased under Cameron) are doing much better than the PIIGS. Again, Austerity hasn’t failed in Europe, it’s been declared difficult and left untried.
Harry Reid calls his close personal friend and business associate Harvey Whittemore (and his wife) “wonderful people.” Oh, and Whittemore is now also a convicted felon.
Eric Holder: Obama’s sin eater. “The attorney general has done little in his tenure to protect civil liberties or the free press. Rather, Holder has supervised a comprehensive erosion of privacy rights, press freedom and due process. This ignoble legacy was made possible by Democrats who would look at their shoes whenever the Obama administration was accused of constitutional abuses.”
