What’s news today?
Here’s a few, and then you folks tell us what’s of interest to you.
We’ll see if the unions carry thru with their threats of violence. And lawsuits.
From TheWashingtonPost
“At a news conference at the George W. Romney Building steps away from the state Capitol, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) announced that he’d signed the contentious right-to-work measures that have sparked protests in the state.
Before dozens of reporters assembled inside a conference room on the building’s second floor, Snyder defended his move as one that would lead to ”more jobs coming to Michigan.”
The two bills bar unions from making contracts that require employees to pay labor dues. One bill dealt with public sector unions, exempting firefighters and police officers. The other covered the private sector.”
_____________________________________
File this under “Of course it will”.
From the WeeklyStandard
“Seventy-five percent of the new revenue pulled in by President Barack Obama’s “fiscal cliff” plan would go toward new spending, not toward deficit reduction, the Republican side of the Senate Budget Committee contends.”
“According to the minority side of the Senate Budget Committee, $1.2 trillion of the proposed $1.6 trillion in tax hikes would go toward new spending, while only $400 billion would go toward deficit reduction.”
“”Spending under that plan would increase $1 trillion above the levels agreed to in the Budget Control Act, as signed into law. We agreed to the Budget Control Act 16 months ago, in August 2011, and we raised the debt ceiling and agreed to reduce spending. We raised the debt ceiling $2.1 trillion and agreed to reduce spending $2.1 trillion. The President’s plan would take out over $1.1 trillion of those spending limitations that are in current law. I repeat, spending will increase more than $1 trillion above the already projected growth in spending,” Sessions added.”
_____________________________________
This one is another fine example of that smart diplomacy in action. Or something…
From the NYTimes
“As the United States attempts to rally international support for the Syrian rebellion, trying to herd the opposition into a shadow government that it can recognize and assist, in Syria it faces an entirely different problem: Much of the rebellion is hostile toward America.”
“Frustration mounted for months as the United States sat on the sidelines, and peaked this week when it blacklisted the Nusra Front, one of the uprising’s most effective fighting forces, calling it a terrorist organization. The move was aimed at isolating the group, which according to Iraqi and American officials has operational ties to Al Qaeda’s franchise in Iraq.
But interviews with a wide range of Syrian rebels and activists show that for now, the blacklisting has appeared to produce the opposite. It has united a broad spectrum of the opposition — from Islamist fighters to liberal and nonviolent activists who fervently oppose them — in anger and exasperation with the United States. The dissatisfaction is over more than just the blacklisting, and raises the possibility that now, just as the United States is stepping up efforts to steer the outcome in Syria, it may already be too late.”
____________________________________
One more.
Sure, why not? Vote fraud is non-existent after all. Dems said so.
From Bloomberg
“The U.S. should consider automatically registering eligible voters and extending voting hours to counter the November election’s long lines and administrative hurdles, Attorney General Eric Holder said.
Holder, speaking today at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston, proposed expanding access for voters and overhauling a registration system he called “antiquated.”
“It is important for national leaders, academic experts, and members of the public to engage in a frank, thorough and inclusive discussion about how our election systems can be made stronger and more accessible,” Holder said in prepared remarks.”
And I’m sure Mr. Holder and his staff will aggressively pursue prosecutions of violators as well.
🙄
What do you folks have?
Wandering Views 
This from Drudge:
If you’re a member of the mainstream media, you’re “surprised” by this in the same way that every bad jobs report is “unexpected.”
Among the regulations being rushed out the door by the Department of Health and Human Services 32 months after Obamacare passed is a requirement that every plan in America be subject to a $63 fee. That $63 is part of a fund to subsidize people with pre-existing conditions, who are more expensive to cover but whose costs must be transferred to healthier individuals in the new system.
Reporting suggests the costs could hit 190 million health care plans held by individuals or provided by employers. The AP:
The charge, buried in a recent regulation, works out to tens of millions of dollars for the largest companies, employers say. Most of that is likely to be passed on to workers.
Do tell. Who could have predicted this? More on the fund we’re creating:
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/12/11/obamacare-just-raised-your-health-care-premium-by-63/
LikeLike
This is scary.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-12-12/how-handful-unsupervised-mit-economists-run-world
“Ever get the feeling that the entire global economy is one big experiment conducted by several former Keynesian economists from MIT with a bent for central planning, who sit down in conspiratorial dark rooms in tiny Swiss cities and bet it all on green until they double down so much nobody even pays attention to the game? No? You should. Jon Hilsenrath, of all people, explains why.”
“The punchline: a handful of people from MIT, deeply steeped in economic theory (not practice), the same people whose actions incidentally were responsible for the first great financial crisis, and who yield more power than any potenate in the history of the world – people who, as the ECB showed in the case of Berlusconi, can take down presidents and PMs with the flick of a switch, meet in private. No transcripts or buttlers are allowed.
In other words, they are accountable to absolutely nobody.
Which is to be expected: after all they are conducting the greatest experiment in monetary, geopolitical and social history. If they fail… when they fail, everyone loses.”
LikeLike
This is shocking, even for a dirtbag like Menendez. Also note how this was shielded from the public for soley political purposes, his re-election. Not so surprising though, given the Senators history of raunchy behavior in 3rd world countries, also ignored by the press and voters. Good job Jersey voters. You got what you deserved.
😦
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_SENATE_INTERN_ARRESTED?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2012-12-12-14-18-16
“U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez employed as an unpaid intern in his Senate office an illegal immigrant who was a registered sex offender, now under arrest by immigration authorities, The Associated Press has learned. The Homeland Security Department instructed federal agents not to arrest him until after Election Day, a U.S. official involved in the case told the AP”
“Menendez, D-N.J., who advocates aggressively for pro-immigration policies, was re-elected in November with 58 percent of the vote. Congressional staffers who work for Menendez were notified about Sanchez’s case shortly after the arrest. Sanchez told ICE agents that he worked on immigration issues for the senator. A spokesman for Menendez said she was looking into the matter.”
“The prosecutor’s office in Hudson County, N.J., said Sanchez was found to have violated the law in 2010 and subsequently required to register as a sex offender. The exact charge was unclear because Sanchez was prosecuted as a juvenile and those court records are not publicly accessible. The prosecutor’s office confirmed to AP that Sanchez registered as a sex offender, although his name does not appear on the public registry.”
That last part is pretty suspect as well. Just more of the coverup?
LikeLike
According to the Clarionledger.com, Jacob Tyler Roberts stole the AR15 he used in the Mall shooting in Oregon.
LikeLike
AJ, if the Mendenez thing had come out, he would only have received 51% of the vote. Remember, sexual exposures are career enhacement for Democrats.
LikeLike
The attack on the FoxNews man in Michigan may seem an unusual and random occurrence.
Wait until changes are made in any entitlements.
That is the reason it won’t happen until the dollar becomes worthless.
Then the revolts we see in Greece will become routine here.
And George Bush will be blamed.
LikeLike
Charles, we need to be careful regarding the temptation to be negative since the Obama reelection. Personally, after practically writing off America after this recent election, I still think we are a great nation perfectly capable of recovering after our temporary slide into perfidy.
LikeLike
I’m sure hoping things will get better. Or that at least they won’t get worse.
But the mood overall in the country is (still) decidedly gloomy, according to this story:
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/12/11/177090/what-election-day-bounce-voters.html
LikeLike
AJ, Allow me to suggest that it would be better for you to post two or three separate thread topics each day, so that we could get into depth on individual issues. As it is, you post a variety of topics on one thread and invite us to introduce other topics on that thread. It is hard then to get seriously focused on any one thread.
LikeLike
What? Unions threatening violence if they don’t get their way? Who do they think they are, Islamic extremists?
LikeLike
On the 2012 elections / what do you think?
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2012/12/why-economic-conservatives-should-be-more-modest.php
From the post:
“… (The election was about the economy, according to) conventional wisdom and the exit polls. Mitt Romney took mostly conservative positions on the economy; President Obama took mostly liberal ones (although not the unabashedly left-wing positions he actually believes in). Obama won.
“In fact, the only Republican to win a presidential election since 1988 embraced ‘compassionate conservatism,’ not straight forward economic conservatism. And his reelection occurred in a year when the national defense was a far bigger concern than normal.
“None of this means that conservatives should chop off the economically conservative leg of their stool. Nor does it necessarily mean even that they should modify it. It does mean, I think, that we economic conservatives should be less inclined to triumphalism (see, e.g., 2010), and less inclined to shift political blame to social and/or foreign policy conservatives.”
LikeLike